this study utilizes hierarchical regression techniques to examine the effect of extracurricular participation on social capital and academic achievement. extracurricular participation in specific activities is revealed to operate as a means for obtaining membership in academically oriented peer groups. the adoption of pro-academic norms as a result of socialization within these groups is presented as one mechanism through which participation can positively affect achievement. membership in an academically oriented peer group is revealed to act as a significant mediator of participation effects and demonstrates a positive effect on mathematics achievement among male students. consequently, the academic disposition of peers and friends in these groups constitutes a form of social capital as defined by coleman and underscores the necessity of examining homophilial, as well as heterophilial relationships as potential sources of social capital. homotopy continuation techniques may be used to approximate all isolated solutions of a polynomial system. more recent methods which form the crux of the young field known as numerical algebraic geometry may be used to produce a description of the complete solution set of a polynomial system, including the positive-dimensional solution components. there are four main topics in the present thesis: three novel numerical methods and one new software package. the first algorithm is a way to increase precision as needed during homotopy continuation path tracking in order to decrease the computational cost of using high precision. the second technique is a new way to compute the scheme structure (including the multiplicity and a bound on the castelnuovo-mumford regularity) of an ideal supported at a single point. the third method is a new way to approximate all solutions of a certain class of two-point boundary value problems based on homotopy continuation. finally, the software package, bertini, may be used for many calculations in numerical algebraic geometry, including the three new algorithms described above. narratives of power: royal history and the language of legitimacy in medieval castile offers an interdisciplinary analysis – utilizing the skills of both literary criticism and historical inquiry – of the evolution of royal history and historians in medieval castile between the reign of alfonso x and that of the catholic monarchs. to address such a large topic, it focuses on the works of three historians – alfonso x, pero lópez de ayala, and fernando del pulgar – who wrote on behalf of the castilian crown following periods of immense political and social upheaval in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. i argue that legitimizing political power became an increasingly critical part of historical narratives in late medieval castile, which determined the evolution of these texts while forming a lasting connection between history and legitimacy. i also assert that royal histories evolved into a prominent literary genre as well as a space for literary innovation, helped to develop the concept of castilian kingship, and were crucial to the construction of national identity. in addition, i illuminate the progression of the role of royal historians from anonymous scribes to prominent literary figures, and i claim that the increased importance and sophistication of royal histories led to the professionalization of writing history in medieval castile. through this project, i offer a diachronic investigation of the evolution of royal history and historians over the course of more than two centuries, and i provide an in-depth analysis of the work of three of the most prominent historians of medieval castile whose histories would not only impact contemporary ideas and values, but would also become models for historians, poets, and playwrights for centuries.. this dissertation examines douglass's constitutional thought and his role in constitutional abolitionism during the antebellum period and early reconstruction. douglass's constitutional thought uniquely answered the question: what was the constitution's posture toward slavery? while some abolitionists simply accepted slavery as an indelible blemish on the constitution, douglass sought to redeem the constitution from the evil of slavery. indeed, douglass helped constitutional abolitionists popularize a natural rights theory of interpretation that excised slavery from the constitution. but douglass employed a broader natural rights construction of the constitution than the one favored by more reserved abolitionists who sought to preserve federalism. douglass, through his natural rights theory, sought to put all persons on equal footing before the law. i shall argue in this dissertation that douglass's approach contributed to burgeoning constitutional thought in the antebellum period. to understand that contribution, we must carefully consider douglass's approach and how it differed from other constitutional abolitionists. i then examine how these constitutional theories played out in reconstruction, focusing on douglass's actions during that time. i shall argue that reconstruction reveals douglass's prudence, which led him to prioritize the politically necessary over pursuing ends that were theoretically pure but politically impossible. william of ockham's theory of mental language is among the most studied aspects of his thought; yet, surprisingly, there is little scholarly consensus on just what it is supposed to be a theory of. the most widely held view today is that ockham's mental language is intended to be an account of human cognitive operations, akin to the language of thought hypothesis held by some contemporary cognitive scientists. in this dissertation, i first raise a series of objections to this interpretation, both philosophical and textual: ockham refrains from endorsing the key doctrines this interpretation attributes to him, and his actual discussions of mental language seem disconnected from the theory of cognition he does indeed hold.i then proceed to sketch an alternative interpretation, which takes as its starting point the sole argument that ockham provides for positing mental language. on this interpretation, ockham posits mental language in order to provide a collection of entities which are both compatible with his nominalist ontology and sufficient to fulfill the strictures of the aristotelian account of scientific practice that he endorses. the classical aristotelian tension between "good person" and "good citizen" is no less salient in the present day than in aristotle's time: in any imperfect political order, commitment to the laws and the regime's aims will conflict with commitment to a more comprehensive ethical order. the tension persists in liberal democracy in part because the regime's abstention from claims about the human good creates a problem of justification; liberalism has difficulty motivating the adherence of citizens on grounds apart from conventionalism. this dissertation seeks resources for justifying civic loyalties and resolving ethical-political conflicts, and it finds a valuable alternative to contemporary approaches in the ethico-political thought of thomas aquinas.chapter 1 explores the contemporary landscape and develops the problem of justification. chapters 2 and 3 examine aquinas' comprehensive vision of the human good and the aims of political life, in order to highlight the tension between his perfectionist ethics and non-ideal regimes. chapter 4 argues that aquinas nonetheless offers unique resources for resolving ethical-political conflicts because his justification for politics is anchored in the same anthropological principles as his ethics: justice itself, a virtue constitutive of the human good, requires commitment to one's political community. the task of integrating civic loyalties into a unified life falls to citizens and their exercise of political prudence on a case-by-case basis. by shifting the referent for citizenship from the ruling regime to the political community as a whole, aquinas depicts political prudence as a virtue that remains regime-relative even as it presses the regime in the direction of more complete justice. chapter 5 argues that the dependence of political prudence on the moral virtues requires a civic education that points beyond the regime even while supporting the partial goods it embodies.aquinas' virtue of political prudence offers a valuable model for defending commitment to existing regimes while correcting for their inevitable deficiencies. yet the fact that his justification for good citizenship flows from the same philosophical anthropology as his broader ethical thought also presses political theorists to reflect on the implicit anthropological underpinnings of their own theories of civic virtue and education. cdse nanowires are one-dimensional semiconductor nanostructures with unique properties. the wires studied in this work possess diameters on the nanometer scale while diameters are on the order of tens of microns. for cdse structures this has the consequence that size quantization effects are at play along the radial dimension while longitudinal dimensions are outside the confinement regime. physical and electrical properties are therefore expected to be diameter dependent, but not very sensitive to variations in length. another important aspect to consider is that the diameters studied span a range from small (i.e. d~3-5 nm) where wires show discrete transitions akin to quantum dots all the way up to large (i.e. d~25 nm). at the largest size studied, the material does not show size quantization effects and its properties are similar to bulk cdse. one of the key questions i would like to answer is what characterizes the transition from a regime controlled by quantum effects (i.e. small diameter nanowires) to bulk-like semiconductors (i.e. large diameter wires). the tools used to carry out the characterization include a number of steady-state and time-resolved spectroscopic techniques that are used to probe semiconductor nanowires both on the ensemble and single nanowire level. for single wire level measurements, the tool of choice is optical microscopy. using microscopy, individual nanowires can be identified and studied using various excitation and emission wavelengths to characterize their properties. using emission and absorption spectroscopies, the electronic structure of the nanowire as well as how charges interact is revealed. it, in turn, allows identifying signatures that belong to photogenerated charges that exist as coulombically bound electron-hole pairs (excitons) and distinguish them from free charges. historically, hydrology was born out of the necessity to inform engineering (e.g., river engineering, water supply and urban drainage). it developed further as people noticed that water is at the intersection of many systems on the planet. proper attribution of hydrologic change requires sufficient data, understanding of landscape processes, and often the construction of models at a range of scales. the world is rapidly changing due to climate and anthropogenic drivers that present new issues that need to be addressed. in that context, modern hydrology faces a range of fundamental and well-established challenges, three of which are addressed in this dissertation: (i) data scarcity, with only a few hydrological systems having in situ data globally, (ii) heterogeneity of hydrologic processes and variables and the need to provide high-resolution hydrologic information and data at local scales, while also generating consistent information and data at landscape scale, and (iii) feedback within water resource systems and determining cause and effect in observational data (e.g. feedback loops between human and natural systems). recently, there have been promising opportunities to address these challenges through combining hydrology with complimentary (similarity in the approaches and methods) disciplines and is the focus of this dissertation.each chapter of this dissertation illustrates the promise of interdisciplinary approaches combining hydrology with other fields of study to address important challenges in the hydrologic sciences. general insight can be drawn from each study in this dissertation to address one or more of the three fundamental challenges. in the first study, i address the challenges of clouds and missing images in the determining of water extent in remote sensing. i found that the approach was robust to major deviations from most of its underlying assumptions. in the second study, i address the challenge of modelling wetlandscape processes, both hydrological and ecological, without full landscape in situ data. i investigate the potential to use water extent information from satellite imagery to calibrate landscape-scale process-based hydrological models. compared to in situ observation of instrumented wetlands, satellite imagery encounters challenges in detecting water but it is not subject to the sampling errors associated with modelling arbitrary subsets of a heterogeneous landscape. in the third study, i address the challenge of modeling the common pool depletion of shared aquifers. i couple human decisions (game theory) with hydrogeological models of groundwater to exhibit user incentives to overpump in shared aquifers. the coupled model is analytically tractable, which allows it to be suitably non-dimensionalized. this, in turn, allowed it to be leveraged to draw generalized insights on how economic differences between aquifer users interact with their spatial configuration to determine incentives to over-pump. in this thesis we present an integrated theoretical and practical approach towards the development of complex robotic agents. we describe apoc, an architecture framework intended for the analysis and implementation of complex agent architectures. we then show how apoc can be used to implement agent architectures in various architectural design paradigms and how these designs can be analyzed in apoc. next, we show how apoc can be used to introduce new elements into architecture design, by creating architectures which modify as the agent interacts with its environment. the practical side of the research is presented next, with a description of the apoc development environment, ade. we show how ade functionality is based on the properties of the apoc framework and present in detail the features ade presents to the agent designer and architecture developer. examples of these features are shown for illustration. in the last part of the thesis we focus on work done using apoc and ade towards the development of a robotic waiter. here we discuss the main problems which need to be solved in the development of a complex agent and present ade solutions to these problems. we next introduce the overall structure of the robowaiter architecture and show in detail some of the main sub-systems of this architecture. results of experiments which form the building blocks for the robowaiter architecture are then presented. the thesis concludes with a brief discussion of future work using ade, including the upcoming implementation of the robowaiter. in this work, we seek to understand the effects that a farm of marine hydrokinetic (mhk) devices would have on the flow in the chacao channel, chile. we adopted a multi-scale approach to study the flow at the turbine scales and propose a parameterization for representing a group of turbines in the mesoscale. in chapter ii , we used the hybrid turbulence model des coupled with the actuator disk approach to simulate staggered turbine configurations with different separations between devices and channel depths on an idealized domain. using the time-averaged results, we obtained an expression for a new thrust coefficient representative of an entire farm of turbines, ctfarm, which only depends on the lateral and longitudinal separation of the devices and the number of rows of turbines. in chapter iii, we incorporated ctfarm into the ocean circulation model fvcom, representing a specific finite farm of turbines in the chacao channel. firstly, we simulated a base case without devices to choose three suitable locations for installing a farm of turbines according to a commercial device's specifications. then, we characterized the local bathymetry of the chosen locations to design an appropriate computational grid that considers the dominant bedforms. after simulating turbines, we observe variations in the velocity, turbulent kinetic energy (tke), and shear bottom since these factors could affect the local ecosystem. the results showed that in flatter bathymetries, the magnitude of the percentage change in tke and bottom shear is higher than in complex bathymetries since the presence of turbines represents a more significant alteration of the initial conditions. on the other hand, the absolute changes show that the initial conditions in velocity and tke dominate the momentum extraction despite the bedforms because they have more power available. in this research, we were able to take the thrust force of a specific farm of turbines using high-resolution simulations and bring it to a larger scale model with realistic tides and bathymetries, which provides more insights to predict and mitigate the possible negative impacts of an mhk farm installation. mesophase pitch is a precursor material for both high quality carbon spun fibers, as well as the matrix in high temperature carbon composites. in both cases, to prevent foaming and local expulsion of the pitch during the high temperature carbonization and graphitization steps of the manufacturing process, the pitch must be stabilized (thermoset) by crosslinking with oxygen. this is accomplished by exposing the solid mesophase pitch fiber or composites to oxygen at a fixed temperature.stabilization is one of the most time consuming steps in the production of carbon-carbon composites. the oxidative stabilization reaction of pitch solid matrix for those composite materials is believed to be oxygen diffusion limited. the main problem however is the very small value of oxygen permeability into the matrix which makes it extremely difficult to measure directly with conventional analytical methods. although many works on carbon-carbon composites have been done in the past 30 years, the transport and kinetics of the oxidative stabilization are complex and still not completely understood.resin transfer molding (rtm) composites are obtained from a high pressure melted liquid pitch impregnation process and is used for high matrix densities in carbon composite brakes. our goal is to study experimentally and theoretically the transport phenomena and kinetics of the oxygen stabilization of a synthetic mesophase pitch matrix in a carbon-carbon composite sample obtained by resin transfer molding (rtm). oxygen concentration profiles in unreacted and reacted rtm samples are obtained from auger spectroscopy. information about the chemistry and products, such as carbon loss and the rate of the total gaseous oxygen reacted to the oxygen uptake by the solid pitch, are established through chemical elemental analysis and gas chromatography product analysis performed in parallel on synthetic mitsubishi ar mesophase pitch powder of different particle sizes.the data obtained from auger spectroscopy, elemental analysis and gas chromatography for constant temperature stabilization reaction, are used to estimate the permeability of rtm, 4.09 x 10-14 cm2/sec and 1.33 x 10-14 cm2/sec at 170 ìøåàå_c and 195 ìøåàå_c respectively.experimental permeability values are used to develop a semi-empirical mathematical model analyzing the diffusion and kinetics process of isothermal oxidative stabilization of solid mesophase pitch carbon composite matrices. a comparison between the experimental data and oxygen profiles predicted by the model is performed to check the validity of the model and agreement is obtained. raman spectroscopy has carved a niche in the biological and biomedical sciences as a powerful analytical platform in disease diagnostics and in the study of biochemical phenomena. the ability to rapidly and non-invasively generate detailed molecular maps of the sample under analysis makes raman imaging efficacious for studying communities of the bacteria pseudomonas aeruginosa. biofilm communities of p. aeruginosa are associated with severe and persistent infections in patients afflicted with maladies such as cystic fibrosis (cf) and severe burn wounds. furthermore, p. aeruginosa exhibits a high tolerance to antibiotics partly due to its ability to form stable and refractory biofilms.the research presented here describes the development of a multimodal imaging approach combining confocal raman microscopy (crm) and mass spectrometry imaging (msi) and its application to the study of mechanisms involved in the formation and growth of biofilms of p. aeruginosa, principally through the characterization of alkyl quinoline (aq) signaling molecules and secondary metabolities. results indicate that there is a predominance of the n-oxide aqs during the early stages of biofilm growth followed by secretion of the 2-alkyl-3-hydroxy-4-quinolone family of aqs as the biofilm matures. furthermore, surface enhanced raman scattering (sers) imaging is used to explore the strain and nutrient dependent secretion of the virulence factor pyocyanin in biofilms of p. aeruginosa laboratory and cf isolate strains cultured in media supplemented with either glucose or glutamate as the source of carbon.the multimodal imaging approach is also employed to explore bacterial swarming and twitching surface motility and the effects of antibiotics on swarm colonies of p. aeruginosa by characterizing the spatiotemporal distributions of phenazines, rhamnolipids and aqs. dramatic changes are observed in the distributions of aqs in swarm colonies on exposure to tobramycin and carbenicillin antibiotics, which are specific to the quantity and the identity of the antibiotic.finally, this work discusses the possibility of employing crm/msi multimodal imaging approach to explore the bacterial secretome in engineered systems like fluidic devices and in multi-strain and multi-species bacterial communities in order to further the understanding of bacterial virulence, antibiotic resistance and host-pathogen interactions. optical molecular probes can be used as targeted beacons to visualize a specific site in a cell or living subject. optical probes in this thesis are colorimetric or fluorescent and usually they have a targeting group attached to the reporter group. chapter 1 of this thesis provides an overview of optical molecular probes and the dyes used for encapsulation. chapter 2 describes the synthesis of an extended squaraine dye that exhibits a red shift in fluorescence, with a narrow and distinct signal. chapter 3 describes the application of squaraine dyes in pre-assembly as fluorescent molecular probes for biological targeting. chapter 4 describes the application of croconaine dyes as photothermal agents for use in targeted cell heating. finally, chapter 5 explores the visual optimization of colorimetric assays with resorufin probes. for long-haul fiber-optic communication systems, the development of efficient high-speed photodiodes and transistors compatible with each other is essential for monolithic integration. this dissertation details the design, fabrication, and characterization of inp-based photodiodes and hemts suitable for operating in the low-loss low-dispersion window of the optical fibers used in telecommunication systems. high-speed photodiodes with bandwidths as high 60 ghz and a responsivity of 0.3 a/w have been achieved using a dual-depletion design. to achieve better bandwidth-efficiency products, a novel drift-enhanced dual-absorption design was developed and demonstrated. diodes fabricated with this design achieved bandwidths of 30 ghz with a responsivity of 0.82 a/w. numerical and analytical analyses have been performed to understand the bandwidth limitations of these photodiodes to optimize their performance. ultrafast hemts with cutoff frequencies over 200 ghz have been demonstrated using a 0.1 ?m t-gate process. non-linear models suitable for use in circuit simulators were developed to accurately describe the performance of both the photodiodes and the hemts. using these models, a single-ended four-stage transimpedance amplifier has been designed exhibiting a gain of 4.5 k? with a 50 ghz bandwidth. a novel differential transimpedance amplifier utilizing the unique design of dual-absorption photodiodes was proposed and demonstrated. this design is shown to achieve improved responsivity-bandwidth product compared to conventional designs. proteins are known to be dynamic molecules, whose motions are closely related to their biological activity. computer simulations have proven to be an indispensable tool in characterizing these motions. however, molecular dynamics simulations are limited by the computational costs of adequately sampling the longer timescales (ì_å_s-s) necessary for characterizing the slower motions (ì_å_s-ms) of biomolecules. a current method for combating this issue is the application of coarse grain network models, such as the gaussian network model (gnm), to describe portions of the dynamics of proteins. gnm has proven to be, thus far, a fruitful analytical method for characterizing the amplitude of fluctuations about the native states of proteins. in an effort to understand the evolutionary pressures governing the specific functional dynamics conserved in proteins, perturbations are introduced in the form of single to multiple residue mutations. the mutants are then characterized experimentally in order to realize the relationship between specific residues and their functional role in the protein. proposed herein is a novel application and validation of gnm as a technique to assess the differences in flexibility of a functional loop when single and multiple residue mutations are introduced. this application constitutes new method for predicting the effects of mutations on protein dynamics. research covered: ìøåàå_ experimentally characterize the flexibility of the ww loop 1 in: 1. wild type ww domain (rssg ) 2. wws19 mutant: single residue deletion (rsg ) 3. kskk ww domain mutant: entire loop 1 mutation to alter binding specificity ( kskk ) ìøåàå_ apply gnm to characterize loop 1 through slowest mode k-shapes in order to view the effects of mutations mentioned previously on loop dynamics this collection of poetry and hybrid forms of writing explores the mythologized space(s) of the american south. in particular, this work juxtaposes notions of the southern gothic and the grotesque with the glittering edifices of the new south. interstates sprawl and inner states ball up into metastisizing knots of tumor. this is the maw maw. this phd thesis highlights recent advances in super-resolution, mid-infrared imaging and spectroscopy. it provides an overview of the different near field microscopy techniques developed to address the problem of chemically imaging specimens in the mid-infrared "fingerprint" region of the spectrum with high spatial resolution. it then focuses on a recently developed far-field all-optical technique, called infrared photothermal heterodyne imaging (ir-phi), and discusses the technique in great detail. a significant part of the thesis devoted towards understanding the technique's signal generation mechanism through the means of analytical modeling. its practical implementation in terms of the best practices, equipment used, optical geometries employed are also described. the thesis further summarizes the milestones where ir-phi allowed to achieve notable advances in materials science. it describes the greater understanding of local photophysical and photochemical properties of mixed-cation hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites. importantly, it also studies dynamics of different organic cation within the perovskite layers during the operational conditions. this has led to better understanding of fundamental physical and chemical ions-related phenomena inside the working perovskite solar cells. finally, the thesis shows a potential future application of ir-phi in environmental science, where it can solve a long-standing problem of simultaneous chemical identification and concentration estimation of plastic microand nanoparticulates inside environmentally-relevant matrices. past studies consistently show that approximately two-thirds of divorces are initiated by women. in the literature of divorce, however, many studies examining determinants of divorce have ignored differences between risk factors that elevate wives' and husbands' decision to leave marriages. using longitudinal data and multinomial logistic regression, this study revisits three well-known perspectives of divorce: the economic independence perspective, the financial strain perspective, and the gendered institution perspective. findings suggest that women are more likely to take the initiative to divorce, and there are some social determinants have stronger effects on "her left" than on "his left." the author discusses that studies of divorce require a gender lens to analyze the asymmetric gender change in recent years. searches for large extra spatial dimensions (led) and extra neutral gauge bosons (p) in the dimuon channel are presented. both of these searches are performed on $170pm11$ ipb of data collected at fermilab's upgraded do detector which studies ppbar interactions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 tev. although no led or p signals are seen, 95\% confidence level limits are found in both cases. in the search for led agreement between standard model backgrounds and data is shown in the dimuon mass versus ct spectrums. for the led analysis a lower 95\% confidence level limit of $m{s} >$ 1.0 tev (grw) is obtained. in the search for p the measured high pt dimuon mass distribution agrees with the the predictions from the standard model. this p analysis finds and sets a lower 95\% confidence level mass limit of $m{z'} >$ 690 gev (ssm). data stream summaries capture the essential characteristics of thestream in a managable amount of space.in this thesis, we evaluatethree data stream summarization methods for applications in machinelearning. one summary is based on equal width binning and is verysimple to implement. the other two are based on approximate quantiles,one of which allows us to make information entropy computations within specified errorbounds with high probability. using popular techniques frommachine learning---information gain, gain ratio, andnaive-bayes classification---we evaluate thesesummaries for accuracy and memory utilization against offlinecomputations that assume all data is available for repeatedaccess. our results indicate that while summarization based on equalwidth binning performs very well on data streams with a stationarydistribution,performance degrades on certain non-stationary distributions. in constrast,summarizations based on approximate quantiles are consistently close to the offline values for a variety of stationary and non-stationarydistributions. the field of crashworthiness design is gaining more interest and attention from automakers around the world due to increasing competition and tighter safety norms. in the last two decades, topology and topometry optimization methods from structural optimization have been widely explored to improve existing designs or conceive new designs with better crashworthiness. although many gradient-based and heuristic methods for topologyand topometry-based crashworthiness design are available these days, most of them result in stiff structures that are suitable only for a set of vehicle components in which maximizing the energy absorption or minimizing the intrusion is the main concern. however, there are some other components in a vehicle structure that should have characteristics of both stiffness and flexibility. moreover, the load paths within the structure and potential buckle modes also play an important role in efficient functioning of such components. for example, the front bumper, side frame rails, steering column, and occupant protection devices like the knee bolster should all exhibit controlled deformation and collapse behavior. the primary objective of this research is to develop new methodologies to design crashworthy structures with controlled behavior. the well established hybrid cellular automaton (hca) method is used as the basic framework for the new methodologies, and compliant mechanism-type (sub)structures are the highlight of this research. the ability of compliant mechanisms to efficiently transfer force and/or motion from points of application of input loads to desired points within the structure is used to design solid and tubular components that exhibit controlled deformation and collapse behavior under crash loads. in addition, a new methodology for controlling the behavior of a structure under multiple crash load scenarios by adaptively changing the contributions from individual load cases is developed. applied to practical design problems, the results demonstrate that the methodologies provide a practical tool to aid the design engineer in generating design concepts for crashworthy structures with controlled behavior. although developed in the hca framework, the basic ideas behind these methods are generic and can be easily implemented with other available topologyand topometry-based optimization methods. this thesis explores using a hybrid processing approach for doing application specific memory intensive processing. the hybrid system uses a general purpose processor (gpp) in conjunction with an fpga-based image processor (fimp) to improve performance for image processing applications. the hybrid architecture is designed to implement an image registration algorithm that partitions the algorithm into separate functions executing either on the gpp or the fimp system. this thesis explores the trade-offs of different configurations for fimp architecture, utilizing the flexibility of reconfigurable hardware to achieve maximum performance. the fimp system was designed in verilog hdl and implemented on the xtremedata xd1000 system, which uses an opteron main processor and an altera stratix ii fpga co-processor. multi-core systems of up to 32 nodes were implemented, using three network topologies: a bus, a ring and a fully connected mesh. benchmark results for the fimp system are compared to software execution. for an image registration algorithm using 256x256 gray scale images use of a 16 node fully connected fimp system as a co-processor produced a 1.65 times speedup over the gpp alone. lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis, two vector-borne macroparasitic diseases, together place over 1 billion people at risk for debilitating infections and represent significant causes of global morbidity, social stigmatization, and lost productivity. large-scale control programs have resulted in impressive gains in human health after decades of targeted intervention efforts, but evidence is emerging that suggests that the prescribed standardized protocols may not be sufficiently flexible to achieve elimination everywhere. it is thus becoming clear that in order to design effective parasite management programs, there is a critical need to improve current understanding of how the complex and nonlinear characteristics of these biological systems influence transmission and elimination. however, due to the dynamic and complex nature of these diseases, empirical data alone may not be sufficient for answering these outstanding questions.in this dissertation, i aim to leverage advances in computational science and data-driven mathematical modelling approaches to discover new knowledge about transmission heterogeneities and the dynamics of disease control to ultimately guide lf and onchocerciasis elimination programs. first, a data-driven computational framework for discovering local transmission models and fill missing data gaps is developed and applied to investigate the extent and implications of ecological uncertainty and heterogeneity as it pertains to transmission and elimination. this framework is then used for modelling new and standard interventions to improve understanding of control dynamics and support policy design and decision-making. a multi-model ensemble is also developed for also addressing uncertainties in model structure and implementation. throughout this work, key scientific and operational questions are addressed, aiming to facilitate the development of evidence-based programs to eliminate lf and onchocerciasis. a major theme underlying this work is the use of computational tools for scientific knowledge discovery, a topic which is explored in the final discussion of the dissertation. in 1735 a new disease seized british north america. while the mysterious throat distempers never achieved the notoriety of other diseases in the colonial era, no single epidemic of the period proved more deadly to european settlers. by 1739 the death toll in new england exceeded 5,000 from a population of 200,000. ninety-eight percent were children. in spite of the distempers' extreme and skewed mortality rate, no modern in-depth study has ever investigated this event. if we assume that events of high lethality should have discernible impacts on the afflicted culture and society, then it is remarkable we find little trace of it in the extensive secondary literature concerning this period and locale. using the new england throat distemper epidemic as a case study, this dissertation argues that high mortality in combination with survivors' withdrawals from social networks together reduce direct reference to the epidemic in the historical record. through a combination of traditional research methodologies and digital humanities technology, this study links tens of thousands of parish, probate, and burials records in a single database. from such a point of view a range of the epidemic's consequences become visible, from parents relocating to new communities or parishes where their surviving families could make new beginnings, or to those for whom this isolation—consciously initiated or not—may have contributed to an early demise. the scarcity of documents has apparently led historians to assume that epidemics like the throat distempers were not as important as those for which greater documentary evidence exists. this dissertation corrects that assumption and provides a method for examining epidemics similar to post-colonial techniques of recovering "lost voices." however, in contrast to subaltern studies, the only oppressor is the epidemic and the silence is voluntary—silence in the face of unspeakable loss. increasing shortages of human red blood cells (hrbc) donations is making the supply for transfusions scarce and expensive. investigations are ongoing to find acceptable oxygen therapeutics from hemoglobin modifications, but they have many side affects and are not able to replace red blood cell transfusions. methoxypolyethylene glycol (mpeg) covalently bound to the surface of hrbcs has been shown to decrease immunological recognition of hrbc surface antigens. the goal of this study is to similarly pegylate the surface of bovine rbcs (brbcs) to reduce the demand on human blood donations needed for blood transfusions. this study investigates the feasibility of conjugating the 20 kda succinimidyl ester of mpeg propionic acid (spa-mpeg) to the brbc's surface for use as an oxygen therapeutic. it was found that spa-mpeg reacts with brbcs in a dose dependent manner. the overall oxygen binding affinity of pegylated brbcs was moderately increased with greater initial spa-mpeg concentrations when reacted with brbcs. control brbcs exhibited a p50 of ~28 mmhg, while brbcs reacted at 6 mm spa-mpeg exhibited a reduced p50 ~21 mmhg. oxygen transport simulations modeling the o2 distribution within the capillary and tissue space were conducted to insure that pegylated brbcs were capable of delivering o2 to tissues. these simulations showed that spa-mpeg conjugated cells could still transport vital o2 to pancreatic islet tissues and maintain the tissue's o2 tension above hypoxic levels even under extreme conditions. pegylated brbcs reconstituted to a physiological hematocrit of 40% exhibited viscosities on the order of ~ 3 cp, similar to hrbcs. finally, pegylated brbcs exhibited similar glass capillary flow characteristics indicating pegylated brbcs retain most of their deformability. altogether, this shows that mpeg-brbcs are physically capable as an oxygen therapeutic. unfortunately, pegylation was not able to attenuate the human immune system response. flow cytometry experiments demonstrated that igg and igm in human serum and gs-ib4 were still able to recognize exposed xenoantigens and aggregate the mpeg-brbcs. therefore, this method of pegylation is not recommended to create an oxygen therapeutic. future studies to knock out this primary xenoantigen expression with sirnas are recommended to create a universal oxygen therapeutic from brbcs. facing increasing societal and economic pressure, many countries have established strategies to develop renewable energy portfolios, whose penetration in the market can alleviate the dependence on fossil fuels. in the case of wind, there is a fundamental question related to the resilience, and hence profitability, of future wind farms to a changing climate, given that current wind turbines have lifespans of up to thirty years. in this work we develop a new non-gaussian method to adjust assimilated observational data to simulations and to estimate future wind, predicated on a trans-gaussian transformation and a cluster-wise minimization of the kullback–leibler divergence. future winds abundance will be determined for saudi arabia, a country with a recently established plan to develop a portfolio of up to 16 gw of wind energy. further, we estimate the change in profits over future decades using additional high-resolution simulations, an improved method for vertical wind extrapolation and power curves from a collection of popular wind turbines. we find an overall increase in daily profit of $272,000 for the wind energy market for the optimal locations for wind farming in the country.the transition from non-renewable to renewable energies represents a global societal challenge, and developing a sustainable energy portfolio is an especially daunting task for developing countries where little to no information is available regarding the abundance of renewable resources such as wind. weather model simulations are key to obtain such information when observational data are scarce and sparse over a country as large and geographically diverse as saudi arabia. however, output from such models is uncertain, as it depends on inputs such as the parametrization of the physical processes and the spatial resolution of the simulated domain. in such situations, a sensitivity analysis must be performed and the input may have a spatially heterogeneous influence of wind. in this work, we propose a latent gaussian functional analysis of variance (anova) model that relies on a nonstationary gaussian markov random field approximation of a continuous latent process. the proposed approach is able to capture the local sensitivity of gaussian and non-gaussian wind characteristics such as speed and threshold exceedances over a large simulation domain, and a continuous underlying process also allows us to assess the effect of different spatial resolutions. our results indicate that (1) the non-local planetary boundary layer scheme and high spatial resolution are both instrumental in capturing wind speed and energy (especially over complex mountainous terrain), and (2) the impact of planetary boundary layer scheme and resolution on saudi arabia's planned wind farms is small (at most 1.4%). thus, our results lend support for the construction of these wind farms in the next decade.with undeniable evidence of the undergoing changing climate, obtaining high-resolution maps of precipitation data can provide key insights to stakeholders to assess sustainable access to water resources at the urban scale. mapping a nonstationary, sparse process such as precipitation at very high spatial resolution requires the interpolation of global datasets at the location where ground stations are available with statistical models able to capture complex non-gaussian global space-time dependence structures. in this work, we propose a new approach based on capturing the spatial dependence of a latent gaussian process via a locally deformed stochastic partial differential equation (spde) with a buffer allowing for a different spatial structure across land and sea. the finite volume approximation of the spde, coupled with integrated nested laplace approximation ensures feasible bayesian inference for tens of millions of observations. the simulation studies showcase the improved predictability of the proposed approach against stationary and no-buffer alternatives. the proposed approach is then used to yield high-resolution simulations of daily precipitation across the united states. this dissertation presents novel results on the scalable control of cyber-physical systems (cps) that comprise of many dynamically coupled subsystems interconnected to form a large-scale system. modern-day infrastructure systems such as smart transportation, power grid and renewable energy, a fleet of industrial robots, and smart cities, are some examples of cps, where the network of dynamical systems is capable of expansion, contraction, and reconfiguration. it is therefore essential to develop computationally efficient design tools to guarantee control performances of a dynamically growing network, without having to re-design the existing subsystems.towards this goal, we begin by developing dissipativity based control designs for hybrid systems which act as basic building blocks for modeling cps. since dissipativity is closely related to stability, and, under mild conditions, invariant over specific interconnection structures, dissipativity based control designs offer the possibility of a framework scalable to large-scale networks. however, if there is a communication delay between the systems, then the feedback system may not be dissipative. we propose a linear transformation of the information exchanged between the hybrid systems to guarantee specific dissipativity properties of the feedback interconnection in the presence of unknown communication delays. if the hybrid systems are not already dissipative, we propose new techniques to design state and output feedback controllers guaranteeing the dissipativity of the closed loop system. we use these methods to establish the dissipativity of a network of dynamically coupled subsystems, and further reduce the communication overhead by designing distributed controllers. these distributed controllers use only the local information available from the subsystems and their neighbors to compute the control actions. the dissipativity based design methods discussed so far facilitate the compositionality of networks with feedback and parallel interconnection topologies where new subsystems with locally designed controllers can be connected to a dissipative networked system without disturbing the dissipativity of the network. in the concluding chapters of this dissertation, we propose a solution to the open problem of making the synthesis of distributed subsystem-level controllers compositional for networked systems with no restrictions on interconnection topology.throughout this dissertation, we use the example of power networks modeled as cps to demonstrate the applicability of our results. we show that the proposed control design approaches can guarantee the stability, robustness, and reliability of microgrids and their networks in presence of disturbances in power requirement, measurement loss, and changes in the scale and topology of the network. the girdles is a satirical b-horror verse-play about american fatphobia and sizeism. for late-victorian authors, representations of bonds between women offer an important way to redefine women's relationship to economics. such efforts to link gender and economics were made increasingly difficult following the 1870s 'marginal revolution' and its revelation of competing economic models. this revolution marked a paradigm shift in economic thought from classical political economyì¢ ââ' that saw market exchange as grounded in labor and productionì¢ ââ' to a new theory of neoclassical economicsì¢ ââ' that understood market exchanges as motivated primarily by the consumer's pleasures and desires. fin-de-si cle representations of bonds between women not only interrogate the terms of gender difference, but they also find a way to mediate between these competing economic models and to rewrite the female body as both a pleasured and a productive entity. my first and second chapters look at representations of female bonds in new woman fiction, a genre that most critics align with political economy and productive bodies. working against this criticism, my first chapter considers olive schreiner's representation of a kind of female union wherein women take pleasure in and lobby for a communal economy of affective labor. my second chapter examines grant allen's efforts to teach new women the pleasures of the reproductive maternal bond. my third chapter shifts the discussion from fiction to michael field's collection of poetic translations, sight and song. in these poems, field explores non-possessive consumption between women (a lesbian marriage) as the means to a new economy of unalienated aesthetic production. throughout, i argue that all three late-victorian authors blend together economies of production and consumption in a way that anticipates the kind of microeconomic strategies described by modernist writer virginia woolf. consequently, my fourth chapter considers woolf's representation of women's ethical consumption and cultural production. by thinking about gender and women's relationships with one another, all four fin-de-si cle authors overcome the split between classical political economy and new theories of neoclassical economics and consumption. more importantly, however, these authors demonstrate how women might, through the collective bond, redefine the terms and structure of the gendered marketplace. this paper argues for the importance of historical and contemporary examples of what has come to be called 'critical practice' in graphic design. a critical practice is similar to, but distinct from, both traditional fine art and graphic design &#8212; especially when graphic design is defined narrowly, as limited to a service industry for organizational and business interests. having made a historical argument, and provided contemporary examples, this paper proceeds to describe our own attempt to develop a critical design practice in the form of are not books & publications, an instance of what has been called 'micro-publishing.' the publishing taken up by this critical, small-scale venture is entirely controlled by the designer, along with a small group of collaborators. writing, editing, design, production, and distribution roles are restricted so as to be minimally influenced by outside concerns. as a result, the form and content of the books and pamphlets published by are not books & publications can be critically and self-reflexively about the practice of design and publishing. accurate control of wind-tunnel test conditions can be dramatically enhanced using feedforward control architectures which allow operating conditions to be maintained at a desired setpoint through the use of mathematical models as the primary source of prediction. however, as the desired accuracy of the feedforward prediction increases, the model complexity also increases, so that an ever increasing computational load is incurred. this drawback can be avoided by employing a neural network that is trained offline using the output of a high fidelity wind-tunnel mathematical model, so that the neural network can rapidly reproduce the predictions of the model with a greatly reduced computational overhead. a novel neural network database generation method, developed through the use of fractional factorial arrays, was employed such that a neural network can accurately predict wind-tunnel parameters across a wide range of operating conditions whilst trained upon a highly efficient database. the subsequent network was incorporated into a neural network model predictive control (nnmpc) framework to allow an optimised output schedule capable of providing accurate control of the wind-tunnel operating parameters. facilitation of an optimised path through the solution space is achieved through the use of a chaos optimisation algorithm such that a more globally optimum solution is likely to be found with less computational expense than the gradient descent method. the parameters associated with the nnmpc such as the control horizon are determined through the use of a taguchi methodology enabling the minimum number of experiments to be carried out to determine the optimal combination. the resultant nnmpc scheme was employed upon the hessert low speed wind tunnel at the university of notre dame to control the test-section temperature such that it follows a pre-determined reference trajectory during changes in the test-section velocity. experimental testing revealed that the derived nnmpc controller provided an excellent level of control over the test-section temperature in adherence to a reference trajectory even when faced with unforeseen disturbances such as rapid changes in the operating environment. this dissertation describes an experimental, analytical, and design investigation on the nonlinear behavior of precast concrete coupling beams, where coupling of reinforced concrete shear walls is achieved by post-tensioning the beams and the walls together at the floor and roof levels. the new coupling system offers important advantages over conventional systems with monolithic cast-in-place beams, such as simpler detailing, reduced damage to the structure, and reduced residual lateral displacements. steel top and seat angles are used at the beam-to-wall joints to yield and provide energy dissipation. the results from eight half-scale experiments of unbonded post-tensioned precast coupling beams under reversed-cyclic lateral loading are presented. each test specimen includes a coupling beam and the adjacent wall pier regions at a floor level. the test parameters include the post-tensioning tendon area and initial stress, initial beam concrete axial stress, angle strength, and beam depth. the results demonstrate excellent stiffness, strength, and ductility of the specimens under cyclic loading, with considerable energy dissipation concentrated in the angles. compliance of the beams to established acceptance criteria is demonstrated, validating the use of these structures in seismic regions. the critical components of the structure that can limit the desired performance include the post-tensioning anchors as well as the top and seat angles and their connections. the experimental results are also used to validate the analysis and design of the new coupling system. two different analytical models, one using fiber elements and the other using finite elements, are investigated. in addition, an idealized coupling beam end moment versus chord rotation relationship is developed as a design tool following basic principles of equilibrium, compatibility, and constitutive relationships. the comparisons demonstrate that the analytical and design models are able to capture the nonlinear behavior of the structure, including global parameters such as the beam lateral force versus chord rotation behavior as well as local parameters such as the neutral axis depth at the beam ends. using these models, the effects of several structural properties (such as beam length) on the behavior of unbonded post-tensioned precast coupling beams is analytically investigated to expand the results from the experiments. nanomagnet logic (nml) is a low power, nonvolatile, and radiation-hard technology that could supplement or possibly replace cmos logic technologies. to further the study of nml technology, a reliable on-chip clocking scheme is required. in this thesis, we explore the fabrication steps required to build clock lines for nml. this damascene process utilizes chemical mechanical polishing (cmp) of copper. the process has proven to be reproducible and result in a high yield of reliable clock line chips. we also examine clock line analysis techniques, including characterization and simulation studies. the surface roughness analysis demonstrates that these clock lines are suitable for further nml processing. the simulations demonstrate that not only can the isolated clock lines can be used to clock nml circuits, but that we can build adjacent clock lines for data pipelining. future research projects, which utilize cmp in nml, include building these adjacent clock line structures, and fabricating nml circuits using a nanodamascene process. this dissertation consists of three independent but related essays that explore political contention in yemen. each essay applies regression analysis techniques on a robust data set of yemeni citizens collected in the months following a wave of large-scale political contention in the country. in the first essay, i increase empirical understanding of the relationship between traditional institutions and perceptions of state legitimacy in yemen. to do this i explore the relationship between tribal and religious indicators and perceptions of legitimacy in yemen. i show that both tribal and religious indicators significantly impact perceptions of confidence in government institutions and perceptions of the justness of these institutions and that these relationships are directly connected to inequalities in government inputs and outputs that are manifest along religious and tribal lines. in the second essay, i explore the micro-level mechanisms that relate to both attitudes regarding the validity of protest as a tactic of contention and participation in protest in yemen. i focus on differences across gender in order to determine how the cultural context in which protestors operate affects these mechanisms. i show that cultural and religious gender norms significantly impact the mobilization process for men and women in yemen, however, they do so in different ways. specifically, my results show that for women in yemen, religious networks are an important "free space" that predicts both attitudes about the validity of protest as a tactic of contention and the likelihood of engaging in this tactic. the spanwise correlation length scale of lateral velocity and the gust response function are the quantities of interest in predicting the sound production from an airfoil. typically, these quantities are taken to be a correlation length scale model based on isotropic turbulence and sears' gust response function, respectively. the present study is an experimental investigation of the accuracy of these selections. detailed velocity measurements were obtained for a single stream shear layer, a flow known to be anisotropic at large turbulence length scales. the measured spanwise correlation length scale was found to have excellent agreement with the model correlation length scale down to frequencies where the flow was weakly anisotropic. acoustic measurements were acquired for three airfoil geometries placed in the shear layer. it was observed that sound predictions using either the model correlation length scale or the measured correlation length scale did not match the measured acoustics unless the attenuation of sound due to airfoil thickness was accounted for by applying an appropriate correction to sears' gust response function. it was also found that a gust response function correction for flat, elliptic leading edge airfoils can be used for a thick, non-elliptic leading edge airfoil if the thickness parameter in the correction is taken to be an effective airfoil thickness. this paper serves as a practical guide to mediation design and analysis by evaluating mediation models' ability to detect a significant mediation effect using limited data. the cross-sectional mediation model, which has been shown to be biased when the mediation is happening over time (maxwell &amp; cole, 2007; maxwell, cole, &amp; mitchell, 2011) is compared to longitudinal models: sequential, dynamic, and cross-lagged panel. these longitudinal mediation models take this time effect into account but bring many problems of their own, such as choosing measurement intervals and number of measurement occasions. furthermore, researchers with limited resources often cannot collect enough data to fit an appropriate longitudinal mediation model. these issues were addressed using simulations comparing these four mediation models each using the same amount of data but with differing numbers of people and time points, against data with varying characteristics that may be incorrectly specified in the model. models were evaluated using power and type i error rates in detecting a significant indirect path, from which cross-sectional and sequential mediation analysis were found to have the best performance. finally, each of these models were demonstrated in an empirical analysis. fairy poetry has been central to the development of british poetics since the sixteenth century, and its offshoot, fairy tale poetry, has proliferated throughout the twentieth century. however, twentieth-century literary critics have largely failed to recognize fairy and fairy tale poetry as pervasive sub-genres, and tend to code such poems as marginal in spite of their near ubiquity. my dissertation addresses this scholarly oversight in four ways. first, it offers an alternative historicization of british poetics that identifies a centuries-long lineage of fairy and fairy tale poems in the work of nearly two hundred canonical and non-canonical poets. second, it argues that the development of nineteenthand twentieth-century literary theory is heavily indebted to theorizations of fairy tales and that recognizing the politicized use of fairy tales in theory can both contextualize and illuminate the political implications of apparently innocuous and apolitical fairy tale poems. third, it grapples with the question of how such a central, prolific aspect of british poetry could be overlooked by critics by identifying blind spots in the structures of folklore, poetry, and children's literature scholarship that have contributed to the occlusion of fairy and fairy tale poetry. finally, by transcending traditional chronological and movement-based categorizations of british poetry, it facilitates fresh engagements with twentieth-century british poetry, inviting scholars to robustly reevaluate critically neglected fairy tale poems in the oeuvres of canonical poets (wilfred owen, denise levertov), substantiate the recovery of long-neglected fairy tale poets (charlotte mew, anna wickham), draw new attention to constantly reprinted but rarely analyzed fairy tale poets (a.a. milne, alfred noyes), interpret the nationalist and colonial implications of fairy tale poems written in response to canonical british fairy tales (jackie kay, john agard), and reinterpret key terms like &quot;fairy tale&quot; and &quot;myth&quot; in parallel poetic movements like mythopoesis (t.s. eliot, ezra pound). in sum, this dissertation resynthesizes british poetry to challenge long-standing assumptions about fairy tales and, in doing so, to foster a self-conscious reevaluation of methodological biases in contemporary criticism. when renny ramakers, a dutch design historian, saw the work by young dutch designers who were using cheap industrial materials or found objects, like old dresser drawers and driftwood to create furniture, she felt it as a sign of the time and decided to bring some of these products together and present them as a common mentality. remakers organized an exhibition in the netherlands and belgium in early 1992 in order to show to the world what she thought was a 'clear break from the past', a genuinely new approach to design. she sold so little she barely covered the costs. a year later, remakers found out that gijs bakker, the product designer and professor at the design academy in eindhoven, was planning to exhibit the work of his present and past students at the 1993 milan furniture fair, she suggested that they collaborate on a joint show. they called the collection droog design after the dutch word 'droog', which translates into english as 'dry' as in dry wit, unadorned informality, and ascetic irony. 'dry' as that essentially dutch inclination to 'do normal' and at the same time critically investigate what you are doing and the way you do it. today droog makes exhibitions, gives lectures, initiates experimental projects, carries out commissions for companies, produces and distributes projects, supervises the im masters course at the design academy eindhoven, and runs a shop/gallery in amsterdam and new york. due to its innovative contributions to the field, droog is constantly featured in surveys of twentieth-century design. another type of publication where droog is prominent is in books of dutch design. the netherlands is one of today's most important centers of innovation and experimentation in architecture, urban planning, industrial design, and graphic design, and both the government and the private sector have done an important job of promoting 'dutch design' both as a label and as a platform for emerging professionals. examples of this are false flat: why dutch design is so good, dutch design: a history and the premsela foundation which is a design institute that produces lectures, debates, exhibitions and publishes morf, the netherlands' largest design magazine. droog's designs and designers are featured in the discussion about the blur between art and design. these two disciplines are traditionally separated by just one word: function. regarding 'design art' what should be put in a home and what in a design museum? is it intended as a sculpture or a piece of furniture? gareth williams, the senior tutor of design products at the royal college of art and the former curator of twentieth-century and contemporary furniture at the v&a museum, in one of the key discussants of the integration of the practices of art, craft and design in contemporary design. glenn adamson's thinking through craft and steven holt's manufractured: the conspicuous transformation of everyday objects are important publications about the role of craft in today's design and manufacturing environment. droog is a prominent participant in all of these discussions. writing and discussion play an essential role in droog's overall design project. for this reason, the design group has traveling exhibitions, publishes books and videos, and maintains a website featuring their products, projects, and experiments, in other words, their overall mentality. these publications have a heavy visual component but they are accompanied by text so that there is a story tied to the products presented. the head of all these writing projects is renny ramakers, a prominent art historian and founder of droog. the fact that droog's most complete writings come from an insider adds an emotional, biased, and almost maternal quality to these texts. this is comparable to barbara radice's role in memphis. as ettore sottsass' life-long companion, radice, a journalist, was the principal voice of the design group. seeing design through the lens of someone in love gives a very particular perspective on both the designer and the designs. i do not see this emotional component as an obstacle but as an interesting vehicle through which i can explore the value of the object for both the designer and the user. most of droog's designers do not stay in the group for long, but move on to continue with their own design projects. droog functions as a platform and marketing tool for young designers to gain a name at the beginning of their career. on the other hand, prominent designers who already have a name of their own are sometimes recruited by droog for specific projects, but these designers have an agenda of their own that includes but also goes beyond droog design. examples of this are marti guixe, marcel wanders, hella jongerious, and jurgen bey. moreover, these designers have also seen an important potential in writing for the promotion of their designs. for that reason, the writings by these designers on the role of design are a crucial source to understand droog. in this thesis i will compare and contrast droog design with the career of ettore sottsass and the memphis design group of which sottsass was a founder. like the experiences and designs of droog, the life and work of sottsass in his memphis years is now treated as paradigmatic of postmodernism in design by historians and critics. a careful examination of the contrast in the role of the designer, the relationship between objects and people, and the purpose of design evident in the story of droog and sottsass will help identify and clarify both what is common to postmodernism and what is distinctive about droog. the first chapter presents ettore sottsass and the design group memphis as the paradigm of postmodernism. this designer's journey transformed the design profession thereafter. when droog came into being, they had sottsass' fifty years of thought and reflection on the purpose of design. sottsass journey begins as a designer for industry, trying to express the new democracy in material form. his design for the valentine typewriter took office equipment outside, inspiring young men and women to write poems among nature. he then had the need to get away and reflect on the purpose of constructing. he studies the relationship between objects and people, and in an exhibition at moma he argues that possessions weigh as down, a theme that continues to be explored by the designers that followed him. memphis strives to make objects that are instruments of communication; their emphasis is on the present, and storytelling and the liveliness of objects are essential characteristics. ultimately, memphis embraces consumption and tries to design objects that are true to their time so that there is a realization of one's existence through the senses. challenging conventions, storytelling, and designing a sensorial relationship between objects and users are sottsass' most important lessons to the design profession. the second chapter introduces droog and a series of definitions of creativity in the postmodern world based on designs by this group. creativity is no longer a matter of making, but a reorganization of what already exists. the six different definitions of creativity are ironic reproduction, reusing and reworking, reflections of the everyday world, recording, redemption and receptivity. in the modern era, the way designers envisioned their role and their place in the cycle of production and consumption shaped their understanding of creativity. the modern designer would strive to distill an object to its purest form, so that industry would produce it and it would last forever. inspiration is abstract and there is never a specific user in mind. creativity is an issue in this essay because of the way it changed with postmodernism. disappointed with industrial design at the end of his career, ettore sottsass proposed 'deep simplicity' as a key aesthetic principle of objects and droog became one of the followers of this mentality. in connection with this, i will explore the value of the normal and how, when one is conscious of it, the everyday becomes extraordinary. renny ramakers says she saw a 'clear break from the past' when she saw the work by young dutch designers, bringing her to the creation of droog. this chapter, however, explores how droog is also a continuation of ettore sottsass' reflections on design. the third chapter argues that craft in the postmodern world is a way to work with modernity as opposed to resisting it. unlike the arts & crafts movement, droog believes there can be a complimentary relationship between craft, industry, and technology. problem solving and problem finding go together in the experimentation with materials, since designers not only discover new possibilities but also open new questions as they submerge themselves in a material. it is a process where intuition leads the way. this opens up the possibility of criteria for evaluating design that goes beyond the formal and the functional. like handling materials, the experience of the final product is not entirely rational. a designer can trust his/her intuition to decide what is the most natural, comfortable and familiar way to engage with a product. this chapter also presents two views on decoration's comeback during postmodernism. on the one hand, decoration can be understood as shallow and external and as a space where any style or combination of styles can coexist. on the other hand, decoration can be the most vulnerable representation of the essence of an object. the fact that both of these definitions are 'postmodernist' shows the ambiguity and multiplicity of this movement. the fourth chapter explores the potential of designing less. taking into account what is already there and its inherent qualities can lead to the most enjoyable designs. the role of the designer is to show an unusual point of view in order to highlight the everyday and the mundane. the designer creates relationships and experiences, as opposed to objects, so that his/her creations become a second nature to the place. it is a discovery of the potential latent in things. finally, on the theme of decoration and its existence exclusively on the surface or beyond, i present a design by joris laarman where the decoration truly comes to life. this essay is an attempt to understand two particular labels: postmodernism and droog. the role of the designer, the meaning of decoration, the definition of creativity, and the importance of objects in our lives, are the themes that will lead to this understanding. a search for the standard model higgs boson produced in association with a top quark pair is presented. the search is performed using data collected by the compact muon solenoid experiment at the large hadron collider during 2012. the data represents proton-proton collisions at a center of mass energy &#8730;s = 8 tev, and corresponds to a total integrated luminosity of 19.5 fb&#8722;1. this search considers the final state in which h decays to a bottom quark pair and the top pair decays fully leptonically. selected events are divided into different categories based on the number of jets and the number of b-tagged jets. a multivariate technique is used to extract the amount of signal in the data. all the relevant systematic uncertainties are taken into account. no excess is observed above the background expectations and upper limits on the cross section times branching ratio are set. autotransporter (at) proteins are the largest family of virulence proteins secreted from gram-negative bacterial pathogens. they are synthesized with an n-terminal signal sequence, a central passenger domain (the mature protein), and a c-terminal outer membrane (om) translocator domain. the translocator domain is required for om secretion of the central passenger domain. transport of the passenger domain across the om does not require atp nor a proton gradient, and therefore the driving force for efficient secretion remains unknown. previous studies indicate that the at passenger domain is secreted from cto n-terminus across the om, and that, once outside of the cell, vectorial folding of the passenger could drive om secretion. this mechanism implies that the at passenger domain must remain in an unfolded, secretion-competent conformation in the periplasm, and that disrupting the vectorial folding process across the om would hinder secretion. to test this model, i developed a combination of biochemical and biophysical approaches, using the model at pertactin from b. pertussis. using a novel in vivo antibiotic-resistance based assay, i was able to demonstrate that pertactin adopts a non-native, protease susceptible conformation in the periplasm, confirming that this requirement for vectorial secretion through its own translocator domain is met. to gain a better understanding of the om secretion process, i developed an in vitro vesicle-based secretion system. the purified passenger+translocator construct was successfully refolded in a lipid environment, followed by autocatalytic cleavage of the translocator from its passenger domain. ats are unique folding model proteins, because it was proposed that they fold in a vectorial manner upon om secretion. this is an intriguing hypothesis, but it was previously impossible to test this hypothesis directly. therefore, i developed the foundations of a single molecule system to measure vectorial folding of ats in a controlled in vitro system directly. this novel setup includes nanopore translocation and subsequent detection of protein folding using a single molecule fluorescence based assay. here, both parts of this system were implemented separately as proof of principle tests of feasibility. taken together, these studies provide a unique perspective to get insights in a complex protein folding process. a research program designed to provide understanding of the fluid dynamic mechanisms that lead to rotating stall in the notre dame stage 01 high-speed axial compressor is described. the stalling behavior of this compressor was studied with unsteady casing pressure measurements from a circumferentially spaced array of sensors. in addition, over rotor casing surface streak measurements were performed to investigate the time-averaged end-wall flow near the rotor at operating points near stall. several investigative tools were applied to the analysis and interpretation of the unsteady casing pressure data. traditional methods such as visual inspection, spatial fourier decomposition, traveling wave energy and wavelet analysis were shown to be insufficient to characterize the pre-stall and stall inception behavior of the compressor. a new technique based on a windowed two-point correlation between adjacent sensors was developed and demonstrated to provide spatial and temporal resolution of both pre-stall and stall inception behavior. the spatial correlation technique was then applied to the analysis of stall inception data from experiments with asymmetric tip clearance. the non-uniform tip clearance was produced using the magnetic bearings which levitate the rotor shaft of the notre dame transonic axial compressor facility. both steady rotor centerline offset and rotor whirl were investigated. the results of these experiments, along with the surface streak measurements, provide evidence in support of recent computational observations (found in the literature) that predict that short length scale stall inception is related to specific features of the rotor tip clearance flow. in the dissertation, i explore a notion of practical deliberation that sits at the mean between two extremes: (a) reality does not favor any way of acting, and (b) reality requires us to adopt specific projects and values. to be specific, i motivate the following two theses from lord (2018): possessed reasons: what we ought to do is determined by our possessed reasons possession: what it is for agent a to possess reason r to φ provided by fact f is for a to be in a position to manifest knowledge about how to use r to φ. i then defend the following thesis:management: an agent is rationally permitted, in some instances, to control which reasons she possesses by controlling whether she satisfies the conditions for their possession.these three theses, taken together, constitute the reasons management framework (rmf).in the dissertation, i motivate and develop the implications of rmf. i make the case that rmf allows us to adopt a broadly realist view of normativity that is familiar to us: it (a) acknowledges the existence of objective reasons and values, but also (b) gives agents flexibility in deciding which objective reasons and values will play a role in determining what they ought to do.the dissertation is organized into four chapters. first, i prepare the way for rmf by defending normative realism against a recent anti-realist objection. second, i motivate rmf and consider its implications. third, i consider the objection that rmf allows for moral rationalization and reflect on the rational justification for reasons management broadly speaking. finally, i apply rmf to the context of romantic love and the trading up problem. this dissertation is a literary history of quaker jeremiad, a genre of agrarian writing that developed throughout the atlantic world from the english civil wars to the aftermath of the american revolution. while the agrarianism of writers from the early american republic such as j. hector st. john de crèvecoeur and thomas jefferson has been well-studied, the tradition of quaker jeremiad found in pamphlets, promotional writing, journals, diaries, natural history, and novels, is little known. i recover quaker jeremiad and show how its theological character helped it to formulate an incisive critique of agrarian capitalism. after an introduction that gives an overview of the argument and the medieval and early modern roots of quaker jeremiad, chapter 1 analyzes quaker advocacy for agrarian justice in seventeenth-century england, and the theology of creation that informed it. chapter 2 demonstrates how quaker rhetoric shifted to promoting agrarian capitalism as the movement spread to the caribbean and mainland north america, especially in the work of william penn. chapter 3 shows how quaker reformers in the eighteenth century such as elizabeth ashbridge and john woolman reanimated quaker jeremiad to focus attention to the suffering of indentured servants, enslaved africans, and indigenous peoples. chapter 4 examines how anthony benezet and hannah callender sansom combined quaker jeremiad with the culture of sensibility, extending the genre while also weakening its distinctiveness. chapter 5 turns to two writers who grew up as quakers, william bartram and charles brockden brown, and shows how they were influenced by quaker jeremiad even as they distanced themselves from quakerism as adults. the conclusion briefly surveys the legacy of quaker jeremiad in nineteenthand twentieth-century american literature. this dissertation reframes our understanding of early american agrarianism and demonstrates how theology aided writers in recognizing the exploitation caused by agrarian capitalism. langland scholars have long divided piers' complex manuscript tradition into four distinct versions: the a, b, c, and z texts. yet, despite the continued value of these four "versions" for discussing an immensely complex poem, the rise of reception and manuscript studies in recent decades highlights the actual diversity within each version's individual manuscript copies. in particular, studies of single manuscripts and their scribal versions reveal individual audiences and responses as the scribes of each copy tailor their editions and revisions to specific audiences, whether or not their copies end up with the same intended and actual readers. these scribes, acting similar to kathryn kerby-fulton's "professional readers," repurpose langland's work by editing, correcting, revising, annotating, compiling, and designing their manuscripts conscientiously. this project examines a selection of these professional readers' individual versions and their audiences for the manuscript and historical evidence they each provide about langland's late medieval and early modern reception. these professional readers, i argue, compose a series of responses to langland that push beyond simple textual reproduction into the murkier realm of scribal argumentation. the four case studies presented here emphasize these manuscripts' exploration of england's political and ecclesiastical administration. each manuscript witness reshapes langland's historical and geographical perspectives in order to highlight or tone down particular criticisms of the corruption present in religious and bureaucratic circles, and they do so in ways contingent upon the scribes' and readers' own geographical and social contexts. thus, these scribes adapt their copies of piers to the local, global, or even cosmological scope they adopt as they adjust their compilations to the demands of individual reading communities situated in urban, intellectual, and religious centers throughout england. quantum-dot cellular automata (qca) provides a new paradigm for computation and for the design of electronic devices [1]. the past 40 years have seen great technological advancement brought about by the densification of transistor-based circuitry. as transistors are reduced in size problems such as device density, device interconnection and power dissipation become increasingly hard to overcome and short-channel effects degrade device performance. in light of these problems, a new architecture is needed to enable the shrinking of electronic devices down to molecular sizes. qca provides this new architecture by encoding binary information in the bistable charge configuration of quantum-dot cells and by using the coulomb interaction to couple neighboring cells. qca functionality has been demonstrated in metal-dot systems at cryogenic temperatures [2], but a molecular sized qca cell would operate at room temperature. the two principle requirements for molecules used in a qca cell are bistability and ability to couple to neighboring cells [3]. electric field-driven bistability has been demonstrated using a capacitive measurement of a large number of silicon surface bound, vertically oriented molecules over a large area using a dinuclear complex [4]. these molecules can be bound to the surface of a chlorinated, <111> oriented, highly-doped p-type silicon substrate and oxidized to become stable, biased mixed-valence complexes. we present a system to test the bistability of individual molecules for application in a qca cell. the system presented consists of two polysilicon gate electrodes which sit adjacent to two highly-doped windows of silicon to which the molecules can be bound. to enable the detection of switching activity the two highly doped regions are electrically connected to the island of a single-electron transistor (set) which serves as an electrometer. the molecules, bound to one of the two windows, are capacitively coupled to the island of the set. this design facilitates a differential measurement approach where a single molecular switching event should be seen in the conductance of the set. the system to effect this test, broadly serving the role of electrometer, is presented herein. this dissertation reads representations of the haitian revolution with and against the popular historical understanding of the events as the result of the influence of enlightenment philosophy or the declaration of the rights of man on toussaint l'ouverture; or what i have called a "literacy narrative." this understanding is most visible in texts such as c.l.r. james's the black jacobins (1938) and reproduces the idea that toussaint read raynal's histoire des deux indes (1772) and thus became aware that slavery was contrary to nature and was inspired to lead the revolt. instead, i show how eighteenthand nineteenth-century understandings of the revolution were most often mediated through the discourse of scientific debates about racial miscegenation" an eighteenthand nineteenth-century obsession with what happens when white people produce children with black people" making the revolution the result of the desire for vengeance on the part of miscegenated figures, whose fathers refused to recognize or defend them, rather than a desire for the ideals of liberty and equality; or what i have called the "mulatto vengeance narrative." chapter one examines the figure of the "tropical temptress" in the anonymously published epistolary romance la mulì¢tre comme il y a beaucoup de blanches (1803). chapter two takes a look at "evil/degenerate mulattoes" in herman melville's "benito cereno" (1855) and victor hugo's bug-jargal (1826). in chapter three i analyze the trope of the "tragic mulatto/a" in french abolitionist alphonse de lamartine's verse drama toussaint l'ouverture (1850); the louisiana born victor s jour's short story, "the mulatto" (1837); and haitian author em ric bergeaud's stella (1859). chapters four and five look at the image of the "inspired mulatto" in french novelist alexandre dumas's adventure novel, georges (1843); black american writer william wells brown's abolitionist speech turned pamphlet, "st. domingo; its revolutions and its patriots" (1854); and the haitian poet and dramatist pierre faubert's play, og ; ou le pr jug de couleur (1841; 1856). by insisting on a discourse of science as a way to understand these representations, i show how these texts contributed to the pervasive after-life of the haitian revolution in the nineteenth-century atlantic world, on the one hand, but also created an entire vocabulary of desire with respect to miscegenation, revolution, and slavery, on the other. in this dissertation, i explore how the social actors which are part of the field of anti-human trafficking organize and operate together as a collective. around the end of the twentieth century global interest began to grow in ending the phenomenon of human trafficking. in the united states this interest has gained particular momentum since the federal statute, the trafficking victims protection act, became law in 2000. over the past twenty years a growing number of municipalities, politicians, nonprofits, religious entities and celebrities have been organizing around "fighting" and/or "ending" human trafficking. i study this collection of entities not merely as a group of organizations aimed at a particular purpose, but as a social field oriented around a perceived social and moral problem. this research contributes to our understandings of social fields, and moral problems.in my first chapter, i build from theoretical work which explores how problems rise and fall in the public's consciousness. using a unique dataset, i test several hypotheses about what factors cause society and governments to notice a social problem and respond through institutional means. i explore what factors contribute to the start and growth of human trafficking task force formation across the fifty states and conclude that a "domino effect" pattern best describes how environment, media and politics has affected task force formation. in my second chapter, i draw on interviews and participant observation to describe how organizations in the movement operate together as a social field. in asking "how is the movement held together as a social field?" i bring an emphasis on synergy back to the forefront of field theory research. i describe a particular type of organization, a scaffolding organization, which explains how the loose, diverse, and disperse field of anti-human trafficking operates. i describe the distinctive characteristics which these scaffolding organizations possess, and how this theoretical concept can be applied in other field-based research.finally, in my last chapter i build on past interdisciplinary work which has studied the anti-human trafficking movement as an odd and somewhat baffling partnership of organizations which should not, on paper, be able to work together: conservative religious groups, radical feminists, government entities, etc. building from elizabeth bernstein's concept of "carceral feminism" i describe how the collective of organizations in the u.s. who are fighting human trafficking shift adjust, and/or hide their political and philosophical commitments in response to internal and external challenges. i discuss what my findings tell us about gender-based social movements and the dynamics that govern the odd assortment of social actors which coalesce around them. the characterization of complex physical phenomena, often modeled as nonlinear dynamical systems, is a problem of frequent interest in science and engineering. the topology of a nonlinear system may qualitatively change (bifurcate with changes in model parameters. location of equilibrium states and bifurcations requires the solution of a nonlinear algebraic system, but standard methods used to solve such systems are inherently fallible and may fail to find all solutions. complete knowledge of the location and nature of all solutions to a set of nonlinear equations is necessary to reliably analyze model systems. in this work, a new method for bifurcation analysis was developed based upon interval mathematics, specifically an interval-newton approach combined with generalized bisection. this new bifurcation analysis technique is completely reliable, providing a mathematical and computational guarantee that all equilibrium states and bifurcations within parameter intervals of interest will be located. modeling food chains and food webs is the application of particular interest here because ecosystem models aid the proactive assessment and management of environmental risks. a new class of compounds known as room temperature ionic liquids (rtils) motivates this interest since rtils show great potential in several industrial applications. rtils are nonvolatile; therefore, their use may be a ìøåàå_greenìøåàå_ alternative to volatile organic compounds, a major source of air pollution. the environmental risks of rtils to aqueous ecosystems should beassessed proactively, prior to industrial scale use; ecosystem modeling is a key tool needed to accomplish this. bifurcation analysis of food chain and food web models aids in determining ecologically relevant parameters from a risk management perspective. using mathematical models to study species interdependence and contaminant effects in ecosystems may elucidate what steps can be taken to mitigate the environmental consequences of pollution.the new bifurcation analysis method was tested by application to a tritrophic rosenzweig-macarthur model and two variations thereof, a tritrophic system in a chemostat (canaleìøåàå_s model), and an experimentally verified algae-rotifer food chain model. the technique was also applied to a seven species and a twelve species food web model, neither having been previously solved. bifurcation analysis of a modification of canaleìøåàå_s model was used to study contamination effects under different scenarios of lethality to species in the food chain.the new analysis technique was also used to study a continuously stirred tank reactor (cstr) model. such models are known to produce isolated solution branches (isola), which standard methods may fail to locate. locating isola is critical to the full characterization of reactor behavior. the interval-based technique succeeded in locating all solutions, including those on isola. streams in the midwestern united states are managed to rapidly convey runoff downstream, carrying with it nutrients and sediment. my thesis quantifies the effect of the two-stage ditch, which constructs 'mini-floodplains' adjacent to channelized streams to 1) retain nutrients and sediment, and 2) enhance ecosystem function. the two-stage ditch increased water clarity during floodplain inundation; however, total suspended solids were not reduced in any of the study streams. nutrients that are 'sticky' (total phosphorus, soluble phosphorus, and ammonium) were decreased in 2 of the 4 two-stage reaches, whereas nitrate, a 'leaky' nutrient, was not reduced in any of the streams. floodplains increased gross primary production during warm seasons at baseflow, and consistently increased ecosystem respiration at all stages in all seasons. constructed floodplains can improve water quality in agricultural streams, but is most likely to be successful when 'stacked' with other best management practices within a watershed. the thesis discusses five mythological lieder by franz schubert with texts by johann mayrhofer. it is becoming increasingly important to accurately detect a user's presence at certain locations during certain times of the day, e.g., to study the user's patterns with respect to mobility, behavior, or social interactions and to enable the delivery of targeted services. however, instead of geographic locations, it is often more important to determine a locale that is relevant to the user, e.g., the place of work, home, homes of family and friends, social gathering places, etc. these significant personal places can be determined through analysis, e.g., via segmentation of location traces into a discrete sequence of places. however, segmentation of traces with many gaps (e.g., due to loss of network connectivity or gps signal) results in a large number of small segments, where many of these segments actually belong together. this work proposes a novel segmentation approach that opportunistically fills gaps in a user's location trace by either borrowing location data from other co-located users utilizing the power of mobile crowd sensing and computing (mcsc) paradigm or by utilizing a user's personal data obtained from multiple sensor sources and devices such as the battery recharge behavior (measured on smartphones), step counts, and sleep patterns (measured by wearables). through our analysis of four separate large-scale crowd sensing study datasets, we show that our approach able to generate fewer, but more complete segments than the state-of-the-art, where each segment accurately represents the presence of a user at a significant personal place.this work further presents a user validation mechanism based on combinations of three types of coarse-grained minute-level biometrics: behavioral (step counts), physiological (heart rate), and hybrid (calorie burn and metabolic equivalent of task) collected from wearables. this continuous user validation can help the researchers to build a reliable subject compliance and incentive mechanisms, which is missing in existing mechanism that relies on either data volume or quality. this can further be extended to build a continuous and implicit wearable device user authentication mechanism which will overcome the limitations of existing explicit authentication approaches (i.e., pins or pattern locks) and thereby, can provide various types of secure services including health and fitness tracking, financial transactions, and unlocking smart locks and vehicles. in many minority families, relying on extended kin for child care support is embedded within cultural values of familism. using garcía coll's (1996) integrative model of minority children's development, we investigate how child care support from parents and other kin, maternal partner support, and maternal perceived parenting competence impacts child socioemotional development of african american and latino/hispanic families. data collected from a sample of preschool-aged children and families (n = 79) were used in the analyses. results indicated that parents' and other family members' child care frequency, maternal parenting efficacy, and partner support were not significantly associated with child problem behaviors. another analysis was conducted to determine whether race moderated effects on child internalizing or externalizing behaviors. results showed that there was a significant difference in externalizing symptoms by race. furthermore, there was a trending interaction effect of partner support and race on child internalizing symptoms. specifically, when levels of partner support were lower, african american children were reported by their mothers to have higher levels of internalizing symptoms compared to their latinx counterparts. hope is an important theme in serious illness and is associated with increased psycho-spiritual well-being and quality of life. objective: to assess the effectiveness of interventions in palliative care that measure hope/hopelessness as an outcome. selection criteria: the studies chosen were rcts, quasi-experimental studies, and single pre-post studies that included interventions delivered to palliative care patients that measured hope/hopelessness as an outcome. main results: thirty studies (12 rcts, 4 quasi-experimental, 6 single group, pre-post; 3,227 patients) were included. compared with usual care, interventions significantly increased hope levels at a medium effect size (smd =0.575, 95% ci [0.20 to 094]), but did not significantly reduce hopelessness (smd= -0.0859 (95% ci [-0.19 to 0.02]). conclusions: the evidence suggested that interventions can be effective in increasing hope in palliative care patients. future research should focus on designing and delivering high-quality interventions to increase hope. both molecular beam epitaxy (mbe) and metal organic chemical vapor deposition (mocvd) have been used to explore the growth of inas on si. despite 11.6% lattice mismatch, planar inas structures have been observed by scanning electron microscopy (sem) when nucleating using mbe on patterned submicron si-on-insulator (soi) islands. planar structures of size as large as 500 ìä' 500 nm2 and lines of width 200 nm and length a few microns have been observed. mocvd growth of inas also generates single grain structures on si islands when the size is reduced to 100 ìä' 100 nm2. by choosing soi as the growth template, selective growth is enabled by mocvd. post-growth pattern-then-anneal process, in which mocvd inas is deposited onto unpatterned soi followed with patterning and annealing of inas-on-si structure, is found to change the relative lattice parameters of encapsulated 17/5 nm inas/si island. observed from transmission electron diffraction (ted) patterns, the lattice mismatch of 17/5 nm inas/si island reduces from 11.2 to 4.2% after being annealed at 800 ìâå¡c for 30 minutes. high-k al2o3 dielectrics have been deposited by both electron-beam-enabled physical vapor deposition (pvd) and atomic layer deposition (ald). films from both techniques show leakage currents on the order of 10-9a/cm2, at ~1 mv/cm electric field, breakdown field > ~6 mv/cm, and dielectric constant > 6, comparable to those of reported ald prior arts by groner. the first mosfets with extreme lattice mismatch inas-on-soi channels using pvd al2o3 as the gate dielectric are characterized. channel recess was used to improve the gate control of the drain current. mother-child reminiscing, the process by which mothers and their children discuss past events, has been robustly linked with child outcomes including autobiographical memory specificity, the ability to generate and retrieve specific memories from one's past. recent work has argued for the need to consider structural and emotional elements of reminiscing in relation to child variables. moreover, maternal attachment has been associated with mother-child interactions and child memory, suggesting that maternal attachment is relevant to consider in relation to maternal reminiscing and child memory specificity. the current study evaluated (1) emotional and structural elements of reminiscing, and their interaction, in relation to child specificity, and (2) the role of maternal attachment in relation to reminiscing and child memory specificity. participants consisted of 96 preschool-aged children and their mothers. the sample was predominantly low-income and of minority race/ethnicity. dyads completed a reminiscing task which was coded for emotional and structural elaboration. mothers completed the ecr-r to assess attachment-related avoidance and anxiety, and children completed the amt-pv to assess memory specificity. results indicated a significant interaction between structural and emotional elaboration predicting child memory specificity, wherein emotional elaboration predicted less specific memory at low levels of structural support. moreover, maternal attachment moderated associations between elaboration and child memory, such that emotional elaboration, primarily for stressful event discussions, negatively predicted child specificity at high levels of attachment avoidance and anxiety, a profile associated with fearful avoidance or disorganized attachment. future directions and implications are discussed. using data from the national educational longitudinal study, this project examines racial differences in how students interpret letter grades. based on statistical analyses, i find that african american students are, on average, significantly more likely to positively appraise lower letter grades as 'good.' my research then explores potential linkages between students' performance standards, effort, and academic performance. future research can explore potential causes of variation in students' interpretations of seemingly objective measures. in order to further the understanding of turbine tip leakage and passage flow mechanisms for undesirable entropy production, an experiment was conducted in a linear cascade at the hessert laboratory. blade surface and tip endwall static pressure, total pressure loss, and wake vorticity measurements were taken to document the effects of upstream axial reynolds number, 100000 < re2 < 500000, and tip gap height, 0.015 < g/cx < 0.05 for flat and partial, suction-side squealer tip geometries. interaction of tip leakage and passage vortices proved critical, and an inverse relationship was observed between the two structures in terms of streamwise vorticity, core total pressure loss, and the vortex size denoted by the -ì_åè2 criterion. highlighting a considerable limitation of the passive control strategy, the squealer tip more effectively reduced total pressure loss under a 'thick' blade model, defined by a blade thickness to gap height ratio, t/g = 3.5, than at a slightly larger clearance. on one hand, the mediational sequence from body dissatisfaction through dieting to bulimia — often referred to as the "restraint pathway" — has been empirically validated across numerous methodologies and samples of adolescent girls; on the other hand, the prevalence rate of bulimic pathology in adolescent girls pales in comparison to rates of body dissatisfaction and dieting. this discrepancy indicates that the restraint pathway may only be applicable to individuals possessing certain characteristics or experiencing certain circumstances, and represents the crux of the current study. given that higher levels of thin-ideal internalization and interoceptive deficits have distinguished symptomatic from asymptomatic youth in other research (e.g., lowe et al., 1996; mintz &amp; betz, 1988), it is reasonable to examine their moderating potential in the context of the restraint pathway. also, because eating disorder risk increases with age throughout adolescence (e.g., jones, bennett, olmsted, lawson, &amp; rodin, 2001), it is worth exploring whether the obtained pattern of relations differs in strength for early-, mid-, and late-adolescent girls. using self-report data from a nonclinical, cross-sectional sample of 353 middle-school (n = 115; mage = 12.77), high-school (n = 112; mage = 15.95), and college girls (n = 126; mage = 19.39) and a moderated mediation approach (see hayes, 2013, pp. 393-397), we found that: (1) thin-ideal internalization moderated the relation between body dissatisfaction and dieting, such that body-dissatisfied adolescent girls who reported a high, versus low, endorsement of sociocultural thinness norms engaged in greater dietary restraint; (2) interoceptive deficits and age multiplicatively moderated the relation between dieting and bulimia, such that only dieters who reported difficulty perceiving internal body cues and were of college age expressed bulimic tendencies; and (3) the indirect effect of body dissatisfaction on bulimic symptoms through dieting pertained only to college girls who reported high interoceptive deficits, but this effect was significantly stronger for those who reported high, versus low, thin-ideal internalization. our results simultaneously contribute to (i.e., for late-adolescent girls) and undermine (i.e., for earlyand mid-adolescent girls) the specificity of the restraint pathway— a paradox around which theoretical, empirical, and practical implications are discussed. as a response to the rising emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria, president barack h. obama administered a national action plan in 2015 as incentive to raise awareness and re-invest in antibiotic development and alternative methods to fight bacterial infections. this $1.2 billion action plan set into motion five main objectives which involved extensive collaboration between u.s. and foreign governments. these objectives included: 1) slowing the spread of resistant bacteria, 2) strengthening national one-health surveillance efforts, 3) advancing development and rapid use of innovative diagnostic tests for characterization and identification of resistance bacteria, 4) accelerating applied and basic research and development (r&amp;d) for novel vaccines, antibiotics, and other therapeutics, and 5) improving international collaboration on prevention, surveillance, control, and r&amp;d efforts involved with antibiotic resistance. the work in this document describes multiple projects that focus on using antibiotic adjuvants to sensitize gram-negative pathogens to gram-positive selective antibiotics. in depth discussions detail the initial hits and structure-activity relationship (sar) studies that led us to finding lead adjuvants for potentiating macrolide antibiotics against clinically relevant gram-negative pathogens, pseudomonas aeruginosa and acinetobacter baumannii. gram-negative bacteria are more robust than gram-positive bacteria, since they have an outer membrane that provides extra protection against antibiotic permeability. we identified a class of adjuvants that dramatically enhance sensitivity of p. aeruginosa to the macrolide antibiotic azithromycin, with reductions in the minimal inhibitory concentrations (mic) as high as 1024-fold and activity observed across a variety of clinical isolates from cystic fibrosis patients. furthermore, an in vivo model using the wax worm galleria mellonella demonstrated the ability to combat p. aeruginosa when administered a combination of azithromycin (50 mg/kg) and adjuvant (50 mg/kg). another project identified several potent adjuvants with diverse chemical scaffolds that potentiated macrolide antibiotics, specifically clarithromycin, against a. baumannii with reductions in mics between 128and 1024-fold, and activity observed across a variety of clinical isolates. lastly, this document describes collaborative efforts towards synthesizing lead adjuvants that potentiate colistin, the last-resort antibiotic prescribed for multi-drug resistant gram-negative infections. lead adjuvants were able to sensitize chromosomally colistin resistant strains of a. baumannii substantially at low concentrations. linear mixed modeling (lmm) is widely used to deal with repeated measures, clustered subjects, or both in practice. in lmm, inference of variance components provides evidence of heterogeneity between individuals or clusters. when only nonnegative variances are allowed (constrained estimation), there is a boundary (i.e., 0) in the variances' parameter space. with the boundary issue, regular statistical procedures for inferring such a parameter could be problematic. this dissertation aims to introduce a practically feasible permutation method to make inferences about variance components while considering the boundary issue in linear mixed modeling. the permutation tests with different settings (i.e., constrained estimation vs. unconstrained estimation, specific test vs. generalized test, different ways of calculating p -values, and different ways of permutation) were examined with both normal data and nonnormal data. in addition, the permutation tests were compared with the likelihood ratio test with mixtures of chi-squared distributions as reference distributions. in testing a subset of the variance components and testing all the variance component, the permutation tests and the likelihood ratio tests have their specific strengths and limitation respectively in different scenarios in terms of type i error rates, statistical power, and availability of the methods. an example about the development of verbal iq and performance iq for 204 children based on the wechesler intelligence scale for children is used to illustrate the application of the permutation tests. this dissertation offers an alternative to the common but misleading criticism that lutheranism is unable to provide a sustained account of ethical formation. the dialectic of law and gospel has suggested to some that forgiveness and the advocacy of ethical norms are in contention with each other. however, by grounding them in the single righteousness of christ, this dissertation argues that forgiveness and ethics complement rather than oppose each other. stanley hauerwas suggested that the dichotomy between freedom in divine grace and ethical rigor is overcome through a community narrative integrating forgiveness with holy living. joel biermann adapts hauerwas' model with luther's concept of the two kinds of righteousness to suggest a framework of ethical formation centered on instruction and a creedal narrative. yet biermann's model does not adequately treat the conceptual roots of the question: that christian righteousness is both imputed and imparted, and that a christian receives and works with righteousness through christian worship. justification as forgiveness includes conversion, by which god grants a believer a new character. traditional lutheran anthropology says that this regeneration is god granting to a believer a new nature in mystical union with jesus christ. by critically exploring the work of the finnish luther school led by tuomo mannermaa, this dissertation explains how union with christ imparts righteousness and the corresponding new character to the believer. justification and the call to works of love are not dialectical opposites, but they are both rooted in christ's righteousness. furthermore, as the means of grace are held in the reformation heritage to bestow grace to the believer, the word and sacraments are the means of establishing union with christ and of nurturing the new character. considering louis-marie chauvet's "symbolic order" and bernd wannenwetsch's understanding of worship as christianity's unique "form of life," this dissertation argues that worship practices are the foundational and determinative context in which grace is offered and in which the distinctively christian ethos develops virtues consistent with christian character. this understanding is also compared with hauerwas' narrative ethics and the traditional lutheran practice of ethical instruction by the ten commandments. rho gtpases and their regulators, which are aberrantly expressed in breast cancer, have been implicated as important mediators of extracellular signaling between the epithelial and stromal compartments. here we sought to elucidate the role of rho gtpase signaling in epithelial-stromal interactions in the developing mammary gland using two mouse models of mammary gland development that conditionally overexpress different components of rho gtpase signaling, a rho gtpase regulator p190b rho gap and the rho gtpase cdc42, in the mammary epithelium. previous studies with these mouse models identified stromal alterations reminiscent of tumor associated stroma in conjunction with increased ductal branching and aberrant terminal end bud (teb) formation in the overexpressing mammary glands. interestingly, our investigation into the mechanisms of stromal activation in response altered rho signaling in the epithelium yielded distinct mechanisms for each model. stromal activation characterized by increased extracellular matrix (ecm) deposition and remodeling in the p190b overexpressing mammary glands appears to be due in part to altered mechanical signaling between the epithelial and stromal compartments and increased paracrine tgf&#946; singaling from the p190b overexpressing mammary epithelial cells (mecs). while the cdc42 overexpressing mammary glands also demonstrated increased levels of ecm proteins and remodeling enzymes, the stroma was additionally characterized by differential activation of the macrophage population. interestingly, cdc42 overexpressing mammary glands were found to contain more senescent mecs and an altered secretory profile that appears to be contributing to the pro-inflammatory activation of the adjacent stroma. collectively, our studies demonstrate that altered rho gtpase signaling in the epithelium dramatically alters the adjacent environment through multiple mechanisms involving aberrant epithelial-stromal interactions. furthermore, our work highlights the need for future studies investigating the involvement of aberrant rho gtpase signaling in creating a microenvironment permissive to breast cancer development and progression. this dissertation examines the role that german protestant missionaries from the rhenish mission society played in the conquest of the herero and the development of german colonialism in late nineteenthand early twentieth-century south-west africa. furthermore, it explores how missionaries' interaction with colonialism influenced their articulation of the missionary project. as the objects of missionary evangelization and the subjects of colonial policy, the herero were integral to debates between missionaries and colonial officials about the nature of colonialism. missionaries and colonial officials attempted to instrumentalize each other in order to achieve their own aims as they negotiated the place of the herero in the colonial order, resulting in a reciprocal process in which the missionary and colonial projects influenced each other. this study focuses on a tumultuous period in which germany conquered the herero and assimilated them into south-west africa as a subject people. it begins with a biological catastrophe that decimated herero herds, impoverishing the herero and forcing them to sell land to settlers, which threatened the basis for herero economic and political autonomy. it continues with the herero war of 1904 to 1907, in which germany nearly annihilated the herero. it ends with the close of the war and the drafting of regulations that attempted to order african life according to the imperatives of settler colonialism. missionaries to the herero were present at every stage of the conquest of the herero and the consolidation of colonialism in the territory. at times contesting, at other times cooperating with the colonial regime, the missionaries attempted first to regulate herero contact with colonialism, and then, in aftermath of war, to integrate them into the colonial order. through negotiation with the colonial government, the missionaries reimagined the nature of mission work and shaped the practice of colonialism in south-west africa. in recent years, state-of-the-art molecular diagnostic technologies make it possible to accurately detect certain diseases with molecule biomarkers, replacing the traditional culturing-based gold standard. however, most molecular diagnostic techniques are disease/biomarker specific and cannot be used for point-of-care (poc) pan-disease screening of a multitude of molecular biomarkers. they also rely on extensive and expensive experiments in the lab. to solve this problem, we urgently need microfluidic tools to rapidly detect and quantify multiple molecular biomarkers within a minimum amount of clinical sample --and do so at high throughput so many samples can be processed. in particular, an integrated liquid biopsy chip is desired to profile the irregular expression of a large panel of microrna (mirna) biomarkers for early pan-cancer screening. fluidic-based ionic circuits, as potential tools to integrate such a liquid biopsy chip, have drawn much attention, for they can precisely concentrate, separate and detect molecular biomarkers in a low-cost microfluidic chip. one problem with the current ionic circuit devices is their low throughput and high energy consumption, which makes it impossible for them to sustain enough ion and molecular fluxes and to enable a large-scale integration of multiplex sensors and a rapid detection process.to overcome aforementioned limitations, i demonstrate three novel ionic circuit devices for high-throughput and multiplex integration of the liquid biopsy chip. in chapter 1, i review current mirna technologies and specify the needed ionic circuit technologies. in chapter 2, by using non-linear electrokinetics in a microfluidic-ion exchange membrane hybrid chip, i develop a versatile, high-flux ionic circuit component that acts as either an ionic diode or an ionic transistor. the proposed device is aimed to rapidly transport molecule biomarkers among different functional modules in the integrated chip so as to eliminate external sample transfer. in chapter 3, by studying the stable but inhomogeneous ion concentration polarization induced by my ionic transistor, i design an on-chip sample pretreatment module to purify nucleic acid targets from a heterogeneous solution. this pretreatment device is ideal for the integrated liquid biopsy chip to process clinical samples. in chapter 4, based on a reversible redox reaction on a silicon microelectrode, i invent an ionic memristor to realize an ionic latch that can digitize and memorize ionic current signals transmitted in physiological buffers. such an ionic latch can integrate multiplex ion current biosensors, laying the foundation of rapid and parallel operation for the integrated liquid biopsy chip. in the last chapter, i discuss the application of the integrated liquid biopsy chip to multiplex mirna profiling and protein detection, and i also suggest future integration of high-flux ionic circuits to implantable or wearable theranostic platforms. the computational community has long promised predictive methods to accelerate experimental screening methods. predicting stereochemical outcomes is of high importance due to the different biological and chemical properties of stereoisomers. the quantum-guided molecular mechanics (q2mm) method allows the development of transition state force field (tsff) parameters which can be used to realize this goal of predicting stereoisomer ratios. these tsffs combine chemical accuracy with fast conformational sampling to describe diastereomeric ts ensembles. this thesis describes a new virtual screening procedure that brings predictive power closer to experimentalists. this virtual screening procedure is tested with two tsffs that have been developed. the tsff for the asymmetric redox-relay heck reaction is shown to predict stereoselectivities of arylations of unbiased alkenes. additionally, this tsff also quantitatively shows advantages and limitations of the tsff approach in asymmetric predictions. the second tsff describes the asymmetric transfer hydrogenation of ketones using half-sandwich metal complexes. a theoretical comparative dft study of ru, rh, and ir complexes suggest a tsff can be developed describing reactions of all three metals. validation of a previously developed ff describing the ferrocene scaffold is presented here. two mechanistic dft studies are also described, where the first investigates the observed stereoretention of a cyclopropyl ketene rearrangment. the second study sheds light on the role of the catalyst and reactivity of key intermediates of a rh-catalyzed asymmetric β-c-h functionalization of acceptor-substituted ketones. lastly, kinetic studies were performed to elucidate the effects of different buffers on the reactivity of hmgcoa reductase. sulfated zirconia (sz) is an attractive alternative for use in industrial processes because of its good alkane activation potential as well as being a non-toxic replacement for liquid acid catalysts currently in use. over the past 10 years, numerous studies have attempted to synthesize non-deactivating sz-based catalysts by adding modifiers and/or promoters. in this work, a synthesis method is presented that is used to prepare a pt-modified sz catalyst, which shows exceptionally high and stable activity for n-pentane isomerization at atmospheric pressure. a 3-step method consisting of calcining a sulfated zirconium hydroxide at high temperature prior to adding platinum, reduction of platinum followed by additional pretreatments is presented. the activity of such an sz catalyst remains stable for up to 4 hours with conversion of n-pentane exceeding 70%. exafs studies showed that the active catalyst contains relatively large crystallites of platinum. presence of pt-s in the inactive catalyst gives evidence for the cause of deactivation of the samples prepared in the conventional manner. xanes analysis of the data also shows that the state of platinum in the active catalyst is that of a metallic platinum (pt0). using xps data, it is shown that the surface undergoes rearrangements during the preparation. use of operando drifts showed the sulfur-oxygen groups on the surface to be more complex than previously reported as species different than just sulfates, were present. during the reaction, a particular species of oh group disappear. this species is replenished by the atomic hydrogen provided by the metallic platinum. the experimental results give evidence of the changes in the catalyst surface during the preparation, pretreatment and the reaction itself. based on the findings, a site-juxtaposition hypothesis is presented. this hypothesis is based on the hydrogen spillover occuring on the metallic crystallites, and the capability of this atomic hydrogen to hydrogenate coke species, thus arresting deactivation. the deactivation suppression is brought about by juxtaposition of the metal sites and the acid sites during the oxidation-reduction pretreatments. a simple math model is included that attempts to corroborates this phenomenon. miniaturized chemical analysis systems have the potential to become ubiquitous in everyday life, accelerating our access to chemical information in much the same way that integrated electronic circuits have improved our ability to communicate. however, a significant divide exists between the design of single-use structures for academic purposes vs. scalable, integrative components analogous to those found within electronic circuits. the research presented here demonstrates that nanoporous metallic films can help bridge that gap, by performing two or more of the vital on-chip manipulation tasks simultaneously. these tasks include fluid transport, molecular detection, and electrochemical reactivity. in this work, several types of microanofluidic structures are fabricated, and a diverse set of experimental tests are performed which quantify the ways in which nanoporous metal films can enhance the performance of the device in many unique ways. for example, a new sensing strategy is developed based on nanoporous au films. this strategy, called wavevector resolved spectral imaging, shows excellent promise for miniaturization by meeting or exceeding the performance metrics of existing technology: sensitivity, limits of detection, and resolution. a closely related structure, the au-coated nanocapillary array membrane, is highly effective at controlling fluid within 3-dimensional micro-nanofluidic devices. in addition to plasmonic sensing and electrokinetic transport, electrochemistry can be performed at high efficiency within the nanofluidic volume. this is demonstrated by constructing embedded nanoband electrodes within the membrane. tightly coupled electrokinetic transport with electrochemical production is demonstrated, greatly improving both the conversion efficiency and the ease with which the product is delivered downstream. the embedded electrode device is shown to increase electrochemical throughput 35-fold over existing nanoelectrode technologies. finally, a nanoporous au film was used to study a variety of electrochemical reactions using the plasmonic sensing technique developed in this work. ultimately the opportunities for combinatorial microfluidic processing are strong, especially when facilitated by the intelligent integration of metallic components for decentralized chemical analysis. radiative heat transfer is important during high-temperature process because radiation emitted or absorbed by a porous solid or surface will determine temperature, which hence has great impact on both thermal and mechanical properties of high-temperature materials. a multiple-scattering theory is developed that provides complementary upper and lower bounds of the effective emissivity for semi-infinite fiber beds and fiber-matrix composites. the semi-infinite fiber beds are made up of randomly placed, freely overlapping cylinders for two possible bed edges" fibers all perpendicular or all parallel to the bed edge. in the fiber-matrix composites, matrix is parallel to the composite outside edge. the randomly placed, free overlapped fibers are either protruding from, or parallel to the matrix surface. single scattering results for the fiber beds include analytical estimates of the effective emissivity with rigorous error bounds for different porosities, and local fiber surface emissivities. for the fiber-matrix composites, effect from the matrix is also considered. rigorous variational upper bounds of the effective emissivity are presented for the fiber beds, and offer improved the effective emissivity estimates along with single scattering lower bounds. the fiber beds' results compared favorably with an experimental correlation and monte carlo simulations. parametric studies show the effective emissivity enhancement above the local fiber/matrix surface emissivities for all surface emissivity values and porosities. the structures with all fibers perpendicular to the edge offers better the effective emissivity enhancement than the parallel ones. knudsen diffusion occurs under low pressures, high temperatures, or in microporous film at normal pressures and temperatures. single scattering lower bounds and variational upper bounds of the knudsen diffusion transmission probability are obtained for a fibrous film with fibers all perpendicular or all parallel to the edge surface. estimates and rigorous error bounds are generated for various film thicknesses. insights into collision paths useful for thin film vapor deposition, etc., are obtained. characterization of a honeywell carbon brake is performed by optical microscopy (om) and scanning electron microscopy (sem). the fibers' radius, orientation, and the porosity of the brake are obtained. the brake surfaces' emissivities are measured under different temperatures in air. the results indicate that the effective emissivity follows our analytical predictions. this study uncovers the liturgical and pastoral ministries performed by benedictine women religious in england from 900 to 1200. three ministries are examined in detail -the proclamation of the gospel, the practice of penance, and the administration of the eucharist -but they are prefaced by portraits of the very monastic officers that most often performed them -cantors, sacristans, prioresses, and abbesses. the research presented in this study challenges past scholarly accounts of these ministries that either locate them exclusively in the so-called "golden age" of double monasteries headed by abbesses in the seventh and eighth centuries, or read the monastic and ecclesiastical reforms of the tenth through twelfth centuries as effectively relegating women religious to complete dependency on the sacramental care of ordained men. this study shows that far from becoming wholly dependent on such care, many women religious in central medieval england continued to exercise prominent liturgical and pastoral roles in their communities, much like those assumed by their earlier anglo-saxon foremothers and by their contemporary benedictine brothers. to uncover these liturgical and pastoral ministries, this study investigates a variety of textual sources and material evidence -monastic rules, customaries, penitentials, ecclesiastical decrees, canon law collections, theological treatises, chronicles, saints lives, miracle collections, letters, charters, cartularies, wills, mortuary rolls, manuscript illuminations, seals, sculptures, and grave goods. but most innovative and central to this study are the close paleographical and codicological analyses of the surviving liturgical manuscripts that were produced by and for houses of benedictine women religious in central medieval england. when identified and then studied as a whole -which they have not been until this point -these books provide a treasure-trove of unexamined evidence for understanding the lives of women religious. the manuscripts analyzed include psalters, prayerbooks, gospel books, lectionaries, homiliaries, calendars, pontificals, and ordinals. these books serve as the foundational documents of practice for this study, for they offer witnesses not only to the liturgical and pastoral ministries that women religious performed, but also to the productions of female scribes as copyists, correctors, and even creators of liturgical texts. the statistical and physical nature of the circumgalactic gas giving rise to lyman limit systems (llss) has been studied with mulit-wavelength observations of absorption line spectroscopy and imaging.the statistical nature of the gas giving rise to llss over the last &#8764; 10 gyr was investigated using 249 qso spectra observed with fos and stis on the hubble space telescope (hst). care was taken to reduce observational bias by removing observations specifically targeted due to the presence, or absence, of strong h i absorption. this survey of llss at z < 2.6 is the most complete sample of observations to probe the low redshift regime for strong h i absorption. the results of the survey are combined with ongoing high redshift (z > 2.6) studies to understand the nature and evolution of the gas giving rise to llss over the majority of cosmic time.extending the analysis of the gas giving rise to lls absorption, the galaxyabsorber connection was examined for llss found in the spectra of 31 qsos observed with the galaxy evolution explorer in the cosmic evolution survey deep imaging galaxy field. galactic environments within a projected 200 kpc from the qso line of sight were examined to understand the covering factor of strong h i absorption and the impact galaxy morphology has on these absorbers. lastly, the connection between the gas giving rise to a lls and the nearby galactic environments was examined in depth for one absorber. the gas detected at z &#8764; 0.274 in the line of sight of qso pg1630+377 was examined with observations from cos onboard hst and hires on the keck i telescope. additional galaxy field imaging and spectroscopy was obtained from the lbc on the large binocular telescope and lris on the keck ii telescope, respectively. the absorption features in the qso spectra were measured directly from the flux values and these measurements were used to constrain ionization models. the origin of the gas was determined from metallicity measurements of the gas and potential nearby host galaxies. the main results include: (1) the gaseous environments giving rise to llss underwent a significant change from z &#8764; 5 to 2 and have remained relatively stable since. in addition, the observed distribution of llss cannot be accounted for in only l > l&#8727; galaxies, rather the circumgalactic gas of low mass, low luminosity galaxies (l &#8764; 0.1l&#8727;) must contribute significantly to the lls population. (2) for z < 2.6, the h i frequency distribution cannot be fit by a single power-law over the range 14 < logn(hi) < 21 and this work suggests two inflection points in the distribution are needed to agree with observations. (3) the covering factor of strong h i absorbers is &#8764; 60% out to 25 kpc and falls off to &#8764; 5% out to 200 kpc from the galaxies in our sample. for the 12 llss considered, we find all strong h i absorbers can be associated with nearby star forming galaxies. (4) the gas seen at z &#8764; 0.274 is a low metallicity absorber within 37 kpc of a near solar metallicity, 0.3l&#8727; galaxy. the physical properties of the gas are fully consistent with the predictions of cold accretion stream models, suggesting we have detected a cold accretion stream. (5) if the properties of this lls are representative of the cold stream population, we expect intermediate ions such as c iii and si iii to be the best tracers of these systems. in the first part of the thesis we solve a fundamental problem that researchers face when modeling networked systems based on limited data, in particular degree-based data. applications include all problem areas where network topology generators are needed, for e.g., the construction and enumeration of structural isomers of alkenes in chemistry, the construction and sampling of unbiased contact graphs for modeling the spread of diseases in human interaction networks, peer-to-peer communication networks and construction and enumeration of small functional building blocks of biological interaction networks. in the second part of this thesis we provide a mechanism for the emergence of functional modules in neuronal networks, which could provide part of the explanation for why the primate cortex is segregated into functional areas and lobes (vision, sound, motor functions, etc.). research is limited on the analysis of constructs such as coping, quality of life, and adjustment for african americans. in psychosocial-oncology, adequate measures of these constructs are essential in order to establish comprehensive models of health and disparities. in this project, an item response theory (irt) approach to examining differential item functioning (dif) was conducted on the cancer behavior inventory (cbi), a 33-item measure of self-efficacy for coping with cancer. dif was tested across groups of african americans (n = 245) and whites (n = 407) with cancer. dif was flagged for three items; however, these differences have low influence on the measure at the scale level. this project provides a modern methodological approach to validating health related constructs and allows for the interpretation of differences between the two groups as, not an artifact of dif, but true difference. understanding the relationship between a sensory stimulus and the spiking activity of cortical populations is a central problem in neuroscience. dense recurrent connectivity in local cortical circuits can lead to counterintuitive response properties, raising the question of whether there are simple arithmetical rules for relating circuits' connectivity structure to their response properties. one such arithmetic is provided by the mean field theory of balanced networks, which is derived in a limit where excitatory and inhibitory synaptic currents precisely balance on average. however, balanced network theory is not applicable to some biologically relevant connectivity structures. we show that cortical circuits with such structure are susceptible to an amplification mechanism arising when excitatory-inhibitory balance is broken at the level of local subpopulations, but maintained at a global level. this amplification, which can be quantified by a linear correction to the classical mean field theory of balanced networks, explains several response properties observed in cortical recordings and provides fundamental insights into the relationship between connectivity structure and neural responses in cortical circuits. as an increasing number of tall buildings are built each year, the need to validate and improve their design process becomes increasingly urgent. this thesis contributes to this effort, first by proposing an automated modular framework for assessing building behavior in full-scale. this includes an automated system identification technique with quality assurance checks as well as novel response parameterization modules. these tools are applied to burj khalifa to demonstrate long-term behavioral patterns, validate design philosophies, and explore atypical wind and seismic events in depth. this evaluation demonstrated a significant overestimation of predicted damping and a non-negligible contribution from higher modes, in contrast with typical design assumptions. in addition, a robust performance-based habitability design method is proposed that enables engineers and owners to define performance objectives specific to the project, with an accompanying assessment framework to support design validation and automated performance feedback through continuous monitoring. in this dissertation, i argue that a phenomenological and material account of embodiment maintains a vital role in the experience (and work) of poetry, both in the compositional process and in its reception. far from closing down poetry's expressive communicability into a contrived solipsism, the embodied processes at work in poetics opens up a reconceived system of relations in which a poem inhabits. the three essential elements in this system include (1) the embodied state of poets and audience, (2) the technological means and media used by the embodied individuals to either compose or encounter the work, and, lastly, (3) the poetic work itself—material and mediated. the basic premise of making do supposes that this interrelated network of aesthetic experience operates roughly in the following way: as poets seek to incorporate new writing technologies and technological concepts into their poetics, they encounter the inescapable influence of their own embodiment as they make use of (and at times struggled with) these technologies that grow increasingly multi-mediated and thus enable new conceptions of poetic materiality and representation but, in doing so, highlight the limitations present in diverse embodied experiences. the diverse materialities of the poetic works sharpens the attention of poets toward their own states of being material, situated, and embodied. stated otherwise, writers of the last seventy years have broadened their use of poetic media and, in so doing, ran up against the primary medium of—and the state of being materially situated within, and thus limited through—their own bodies. this research investigated unsteady events such as stall inception, stall-cell development, and surge. stall is characterized by a decrease in overall pressure rise and non-axisymmetric through-flow. compressor stall can lead to surge which is characterized by quasi-axisymmetric fluctuations in mass flow and pressure. an expanded greitzer model is presented to predict the stall and surge characteristics of a two-volume, two-throttle compression system. the current work provides a method to experimentally determine the time for a stall cell to fully develop after stall inception. this value is required for the model. experimental stall and surge characteristics are compared to the predicted characteristics. individual values of the upstream and downstream b parameter had the largest impact on the system dynamics for the compression system studied. the ending post-stall throttling point was found to influence the system dynamics in cases where the upstream and downstream value of b where close to the critical values. unsteady measurements of the flow field around the compressor rotor are examined. during the stall inception process, initial disturbances were found within the rotor passage near the tip region. as the stall cell develops, blade lift and pressure ratio decrease within the stall cell and increase ahead of the stall cell. the stall inception event and stall-cell development for stable rotating stall and surge were found to be nearly identical. a stalled compressor rotor can be considered to contain three main regions: stalled passages, recovering passages, and over-pressured passages. over-pressured passages exhibit turning and pressure rise greater than pre-stall values. due to fast growing technology developments, large amounts of experimental data for complex biological systems have been increasingly available. for example, microarray technology enabled biologists to monitor the expression profiles of thousands of genes simultaneously, generating large volumes of gene expression data; next generation sequencing technology is leading to a dna sequence data deluge. life science researchers are accumulating massive data and the assumption is that something in the data will stimulate important questions and insights. this provides opportunities and challenges on how to efficiently and effectively leverage these data for novel discovery. data mining, which is the process of analyzing data from different perspectives and summarizing them into useful information and patterns, is of immense importance in bioinformatics and biomedical science more generally. in particular, supervised data mining has been used to great effect in numerous bioinformatics prediction problems. with more and different sources of data accumulating every day, it requires sophisticated computational analyses and data mining. one major bottleneck so far is how to analyze the huge noisy and heterogeneous data sets quickly and precisely. my phd research focuses on applying data mining algorithms and tools to tackle these challenging and interesting computational problems in bioinformatics. we first present a two-stage data mining approach for pathway analysis. during the first stage, informative genes that can represent a pathway are selected using feature selection methods. in the second stage, pathways are ranked based on their representative genes using classification methods.then, we demonstrate a machine learning framework for trait based microbial ecology using whole genome sequence data. we use this framework to quantitatively link genotypes with functional traits. finally, we extend the previous framework to handle continuous function traits. specifically, we use random forest regression to predict continuous functional traits based solely on whole genome sequences and identify a small set of biomarkers that are relevant to functional traits. we also incorporate network analysis by providing correlated information to further narrow down results. there is a problem in the way the study of american political development (apd) is currently bifurcated between the 'cultural' approach and the 'institutional' approach. the cultural approach tries to explain change in terms of historical forces such as race, economics, liberalism, the founding, and so on. the institutional approach, on the other hand, tries to explain change logically, in terms of the history of the operational procedures of institutions such as political parties. the trouble is that these two approaches cannot integrate each other's findings, and they maintain -internally -differing and opposing schools of thought about what exactly drives the evolution of america's politics. my way of making sense out of this chaos is very straightforward: i argue that at the root of all of america's political development is a radical philosophical movement called the enlightenment. in chapters one and two i show how there are four specific types of early enlightenment thinking at work in america's founding. i argue that these 'types' are exemplified by the ideas of francis bacon, charles montesquieu, thomas hobbes, and jean-jacque rousseau. i go on to show how three of america's founding thinkers adapted these streams of thought and ended up forming the core principles of america's political culture. i demonstrate that these philosophers were thomas jefferson, alexander hamilton, and james madison. i show how this theory addresses some of the basic problems within the cultural apd literature. these problems include the way in which cultural scholars think that american politics is most essentially about the conflict between egalitarian and libertarian values. what i do is give a richer and more accurate picture of the deep complexity of american liberalism: i demonstrate how america's three most influential philosophers intermingled four very different visions of liberalism, thereby setting america on a multifaceted, tortured, and convoluted developmental path. in chapters three and four i show how such philosophic differences and tensions play themselves out institutionally. i argue that the evolution of america's presidential regimes is formed and guided by these tensions. in particular i show how institutional change is generated not merely by the conflict that is set in place when new systemic paradigms try to overcome old ones, as is commonly believed, but also that -first and foremost -these conflicts are the result of the melding of the incongruous elements of jefferson's, hamilton's, and madison's very different versions of liberalism. as components shrink in size and cost, analysis and synthesis of distributed coordination and control algorithms for networked control systems with communication constraints has become an active area of control theory research. from quantization systems for networked control systems (ncs) to fundamental limitations of control systems under information constraints, and from consensus problems to formation control and sensing and coverage problems, researchers have been interested in distributed control algorithms that achieve global objectives with minimum communication requirements. the main objective of this dissertation is to report novel results and techniques for controlling interconnected systems under communication constraints. we study the dynamics and classical control approaches (such as lqr, hì¢è  _) in complex interconnected systems under various communication and interconnection constraints. of particular interest are theoretical questions regarding the influence of a complex system's structure and limited communication on its stability and robustness, and the design of distributed algorithms and protocols to access and modify the global behavior of the system. the first problem considered deals in this dissertation with the classical linear systems with bit-rate constraints in the feedback channel. based on the bit-rate constraints, an optimization problem is formulated to maximize the convergence rate of quantization error for these systems. the quantization error goes to zero if and only if the bit-rate is above some threshold determined by the unstable modes of the plants. this known result is shown here via an alternative proof which leads to the minimum bit-rate required to stabilize linear systems. we further show that a dynamic quantization algorithm will approach the analytic results of our optimization problem. furthermore, we consider the performance of standard lqr problems under bit-rate constraint. our results show that the performance of standard lqr problems under bit-rate constrain consists of two parts: the perfect information part and the cost introduced by stepwise quantization error. in this way, we can quantify the penalty of limited communication on lqr problems. in the remainder of this dissertation, several novel results toward a distributed control theory for spatially invariant and distributed systems are introduced. for the spatially invariant systems, a multidimensional kyp-like lemma exists, such that, the hì¢è  _ performance can be characterized by a set of lmis. these results are later utilized in distributed controller synthesis. for distributed systems, a distributed stability condition to guarantee global quadratic performance under various communication constraints is presented. the idea is based on a theory of separation of graphs from an operator's point of view, where the plant and the interconnections as modelled as two interconnected operators in proper signal space. the essential tools we are using here are two versions of s-procedures which are similar to lagrange relaxation techniques, initially developed by researchers in the former soviet union. it is later shown that these distributed stability conditions can be utilized in distributed controller synthesis in a manner similar to those gain-scheduling controllers in linear parameter varying (lpv) systems. the synthesis is based on the elimination lemma, and convex conditions are derived for the existence of distributed controllers. comparisons of distributed controllers, centralized and decentralized controllers are also briefly discussed in the introduction and summary. alabanzas sopechosas: máscaras imperiales y posturas novohispanas en la corte de gaspar de la cerda examines the relationship between the "imperial mask" of gaspar de la cerda and the "novohispanic posture" of the writers who benefited from de la cerda's protection. this dissertation studies the discursive strategies used in the corpus galveano by paying special attention to the archetypes of the optimus princeps, optimus civis, pessimus princeps, pessimus civis and hostis. the texts of the corpus include a captivity account, a treatise on piracy, encomiastic accounts, panegyrical poetry, sermons, a pseudo-scientific report, and an epistle-account of events. in this dissertation i allude to the work of several authors, among which we find the well-known carlos de sigüenza y góngora and sor juana inés de la cruz and the less studied francisco de ayerra, alonso ramírez de vargas, antonio de peralta, francisco acevedo, gaspar de guevara, antonio morales pastrana, juan millán de poblete, and thomás de escalante, among others.i identify how this corpus may be perceived as an example of colonial spanish cultural production written during the last decade of the seventeenth century. this epoch was marked by the instability of carlos ii's reign; the warmongering of the nine years' war; the french presence in the gulf of mexico; the ideological crisis that contested the pair sacerdotium-imperium; several riots in the capital of the viceroyalty of new spain, attempted rebellions against the spanish empire in the almost inaccessible territories; the menace of smuggling and piracy in its most remote territories; the economic crisis produced by the definitive victory of british – dutch mercantilism; colbert's economic policy measures; various climate catastrophes; epidemic diseases and the birth of a sentiment of regional pride in the spanish territories.this dissertation is based on the hypothesis that studying the texts produced by gaspar de la cerda's protégés allows us to restore the importance that viceroyal patronage had in the baroque of the indies. accordingly, i systematically analyze literary motifs in the works published under gaspar de la cerda's patronage and their role in the novohispanic baroque. one of the central points in this research is the fact that, through interaction among the european-patron and the novohispanic-writers, power relationships have left their mark in latin american processes of identity formation, which are closely related to the coexistence between the utility of those individuals who contribute to the reinforcing of hegemonic structures and the feeling of belonging to a place of birth. this dissertation offers an interpretation of maximus the confessor's (ca. 580-662 ad) two early ascetic works focused on love, ascetic dialogue and chapters on love. in order to do so, i argue that the proper context for understanding these works is the evagrian monastic tradition that maximus inherited as an early seventh century monk, rather than the fully-worked-out vision of his later corpus, as has commonly been done in scholarship. consequently, the bulk of this dissertation is dedicated to an interpretation and analysis of evagrius ponticus (354-399 ad) and three intermediary texts/figures who helped to pass evagrian thought on to maximus: the chapters of the disciples of evagrius, diadochos of phōtikē, and dorotheos of gaza.in chapters two and three, i argue that love is a more significant and, indeed, all-pervasive concern for evagrius than has been recognized. love enables and constitutes apatheia, it acts in gnostic teaching, it is the condition of contemplation, it is what the material universe is known as via the logoi of providence and judgment, and it governs relations between images of god, even creating new modes of interpersonal encounter. finally, it is the mode of relationship to god in prayer and, i argue, the ultimate meaning of evagrius's controversial phrase for god, "essential knowledge."in chapter four, i carry this theology of love forward by analyzing its permutations during the fifth and sixth centuries under the pressure of doctrinal controversies in the three intermediary figures mentioned. i show that all three abandon evagrian cosmology, place renewed focus on love in the initial stages of ascetic life, and find new accounts of divine intimacy. finally, in chapter five, i argue that, contrary to scholarly assessment, maximus's ascetic dialogue is a text that fits well into the preceding evagrian tradition, especially that of palestine, while the chapters on love signal an innovative attempt in the tradition to recover evagrian cosmology and separate it from origenist implications, thus beginning the work that culminated in his more famous revision of origenism in his ambigua ad johannem. a hair-like structure is introduced as a biomimetic drag reduction coating. the hair-like structure consists of an array of micro-fibers that is introduced as a passive drag-reduction device. with the use of a hair-like structure, two methods for bluff-body flow control are hypothesized to reduce drag: (1) the hair-like structure feeds disturbance into a laminar boundary layer to induce boundary layer transition if it is applied before the separation point. (2) the hair-like structure suppresses reverse flow if it is applied after the separation point. three research topics are studied to investigate the proposed hypotheses: development of the fabrication method of the hair-like structure herein named the micro-fiber coating, the effect of the micro-fiber coating on flow over a bluff body when it is applied before the separation point, and the effect of the micro-fiber coating when it is applied after the separation point.the fabrication method of the micro-fiber coating consists of electrostatic flocking, which allows for control of the length and the area of the micro-fiber coating. aerodynamic testing is performed using a circular cylinder as a bluff body within a subcritical flow regime. to address the proposed hypotheses, the micro-fiber coating is applied separately before and after the cylinder's separation point. it is found that the micro-fiber coating induces boundary layer transition when the micro-fiber coating is applied before the separation point. the separation point of the cylinder with added micro-fiber coating is delayed compared to that of the baseline. it is shown that both the angular position and length of the micro-fiber coating determines whether there is an increase or decrease in drag. it is also found that the flow features downstream of the cylinder are impacted by the coating's angular position. the dominant wake-frequency and the strouhal number of the cylinder with added micro-fiber coating is higher than that of the baseline. the location of the dominant wake-frequency moves further downstream when the micro-fiber coating is applied.it is found that the micro-fiber coating suppresses reverse flow when it is applied after the separation point. the velocity magnitude corresponding to the region of reverse flow is reduced and the recirculation length is elongated relative to the baseline. the vorticity distribution corresponding to the separated shear layer is also elongated. it is shown that both the angular position and the length of the micro-fiber coating play an important role in drag performance. it is also found that the flow features in the wake region are impacted by the coating's angular position. the dominant wake-frequency and the strouhal number of the cylinder with added micro-fiber coating is higher than that of the baseline. the location of the dominant wake-frequency moves further downstream when the micro-fiber coating is applied. given a finite lattice l that can be embedded in the recursively enumerable (r.e.) turing degrees (rt, ≤t), we do not in general know how to characterize the degrees d ε rt below which l can be bounded. the important characterizations known are of the l7 and m3 lattices, where the lattices are bounded below d if and only if d contains sets of "fickleness" &gt;ω and ≥ωω respectively. we work towards finding a lattice that characterizes the levels above ω2 , the first non-trivial level after ω. we introduced a lattice-theoretic property called "3-directness" to describe lattices that are no "wider" or "taller" than l7 and m3 . we exhaust the 3-direct lattices l, but they turn out to also characterize the &gt;ω or ≥ωω levels, if l is not already embeddable below all non-zero r.e. degrees. we also considered upper semilattices (usls) by removing the bottom meet(s) of some 3-direct lattices, but the removals did not change the levels characterized. this leads us to conjecture that a usl characterizes the same r.e. degrees as the lattice on which the usl is based. we discovered three 3-direct lattices besides m3 that also characterize the ≥ωω -levels. our search for a &gt;ω2-candidate therefore involves the lattice-theoretic problem of finding lattices that do not contain any of the four ≥ωω-lattices as sublattices. this paper examines the effects of three variables that represent a general model of deterrence (legal sanctions, shame, and embarrassment), and self-control on an individual's intention for an individual to commit a dui in the future. building on the work of grasmic and bursik (1990) who propose an extended general model of deterrence, and the work of gottfredson and hirschi (1990) who propose that self-control is of central importance when considering the causes of crime, i combine these factors to develop a more comprehensive model to predict projected drunk driving. i find that shame, embarrassment, and high self-control all work to lessen an individual's intention of committing a dui in the future. for those with no previous dui experience, self-control is the sole significant predictor of their future intention. for those who have engaged in dui behavior, their assessment of t he shame t hey are likely to experience if they are caught has an important impact on intention to commit the offense in the future. this holds regardless of whether the individual was caught for their dui behavior in the past. a universal analytical tfet spice (simulation program with integrated circuit emphasis) model has been developed to gain more insights into the benefits of tfets in low power circuit applications and make performance projections. the model is valid in all four operating quadrants of tfets. based on the kane-sze formula for tunneling, this model captures the distinctive features of tfets such as steep slope, superlinear onset, ambipolar conduction, and negative differential resistance. the tfet model has been validated on various tfet structures including a planar inas double-gate tfet, an algasb/inas in-line tfet, and side-gate gan/inn/gan tfet, and good agreement is observed between the model and published simulations. to improve the accuracy of circuit simulation, more components have been added, in particular, a gate current model, a charge-based capacitance model, and a noise model. the model has been implemented in spice simulators using verilog-a and implemented into native aim-spice, available on mac, windows, android, and ios.besides steep slope transistor models a further focus of this dissertation has been the exploration of new memory concepts. in particular a flash memory based on graphene and solid polymer electrolytes has been explored with the aim to provide nonvolatility, sub-volt access/program voltage, and low power consumption, but more importantly could provide nanosecond program/erase speed. processes were developed for deposition of a 2d solid polymer electrolyte, 15-crown-5-ether-substituted cobalt(ii) phthalocyanine (cocrpc), the key enabling technology in the graphene flash memory. the 2d electrolyte was deposited by drop casting a cocrpc-containing solution onto highly ordered pyrolytic graphite (hopg) followed by ar annealing. atomic force microscopy (afm) confirms that monolayer cocrpc formation is achieved with a thickness of ~0.5 nm. to understand the basic physics of ionelectron double layers across an ion conductor with nanometer thickness, a simplified memory structure was proposed and subsequently fabricated and tested. program tests demonstrate that the memory cell can be programmed and erased by applying positive and negative back gate biases. besides memory, the 2d electrolyte can also serve as a reconfigurable ion gate for 2d semiconductors or a doping technique in 2d fets and tfets. this thesis considered the design of receivers for systems employing ldpc codes for fading channels. three receiver design strategies are investigated: the iterative receiver, the successive receiver and the hybrid receiver. the iterative receiver iteratively estimates the channel and decodes the ldpc code. this receiver can be derived from the joint factor graph as a sum-product algorithm. the performance of the iterative receiver with ldpc codes is evaluated via the density evolution technique and the ldpc codes are optimized. the iterative receiver is simple to implement and robust to delay constraints. however, it is suboptimal and ldpc code design process is complex. a decision feedback based successive decoding receiver is then introduced and it is shown that this successive receiver is asymptotically optimal. it decomposes the fading channel into a band of memoryless sub-channels with a deep block interleaver. ldpc codes are applied on each sub-channel. the receiver successively decodes the ldpc codes and feeds the decoded bits back to the channel estimator. this procedure is repeated successively. coding with such a receiver provides universal performance with respect to mutual information, and it greatly simplifies the code design procedure. our code simulation shows performance within 1db of from the channel capacity. however, the successive receiver requires a long delay. it suffers from error propagation when a delay constraint is imposed. finally, a hybrid receiver is introduced which takes advantage of the best characteristics of the iterative receiver and the successive receiver. simulation results show that combining the design philosophy of the two receivers gives good performance with practical delay. this project explores the construction of gender ideology at two evangelical seminaries. asbury theological seminary from the wesleyan tradition and southern baptist theological seminary represent two of the most influential religious groups in the united states. they also exemplify sharply divergent perspectives on gender. drawing from oral interviews and ethnographic fieldwork, this project explores how cultural processes form students' gender ideologies and practices. this dissertation finds that narrative, material culture, and physical embodiment powerfully shape seminary students. in fact, formation processes at these two seminaries are most effective when they appeal to students' supra-rational natures. these students are compelled less by rigorous logical arguments and tightly woven systematic theologies than by storytelling and relational, embodied experiences. moreover, student formation is most effective when processes of discourse and physical embodiment are tightly coupled. this tight coupling is particularly effective at southern baptist seminary. here students construct beliefs about gender polarization and male headship around convergent stories narrating biblical history and the legacy of the seminary itself. they also follow gendered scripts which allow them to articulate these beliefs through vocational choices, consumption habits, and styles of dress. students become enthusiastic practitioners of their institution's gendered ideologies despite the disempowering effects these ideologies have on men and women for whom they are unnatural fits. in contrast to southern's tight narrative of male headship, asbury practices a loosely coupled ideology. the seminary affirms both gender equality and gender difference using new testament hermeneutics, embodied models of female leaders on campus, and celebrations of the nuclear family. that asbury's narratives of equality and difference are largely separate, however, limits their efficacy. asbury's women describe their seminary experience as empowering, but also experience personal struggles that their male colleagues do not. understandings of evangelical gender ideologies cannot be limited to their function as symbolic boundaries. they also facilitate subcultural identity formation and profoundly shape the lives of both women and men. the ability of cancer cells to detach from their tumor of origin and ?invade? into surrounding tissue marks a turning point in cancer progression. invadopodia and microvesicles are cytoskeleton-rich membrane structures via which cells can proteolyze the extracellular environment to facilitate invasion, and their regulation is a focus of this dissertation. robust motility is also integral for tumor cell invasion, and we describe how signaling of the small gtpase arf6 coordinates these activities. this dissertation describes how alterations in extracellular matrix compliance guide the formation of microvesicles and invadopodia to facilitate matrix proteolysis. the data presented here indicates that formation of these structures is mutually exclusive, regulated by antagonistic signaling between the small gtpases rac1 and rhoa. in addition, we have described how rho signaling regulates myosin light chain phosphatase during myosin contractility, required for release of microvesicles from the tumor cell surface. critical to arf6-mediated regulation of tumor cell invasion are the activities of the gtpase activating proteins (gaps) and exchange factors (gefs) that control its nucleotide status. activation of arf6 downstream of wnt5a stimulates invasive ability via the wnt/&#946;-catenin canonical pathway, and is opposed by signaling through slit2-robo1, which stimulates arf6 gaps. during epithelial cell migration, the actin-binding protein cd2ap is capable of downregulating arf6 activity by recruiting and stabilizing the gaps arfgap3 and asap at the cell surface. to further delineate the contribution of arf6 to cell invasion, we developed new reagents that target its downregulation, including a lentiviral vector for arf6 silencing. this vector has demonstrated very effective knockdown of arf6 levels, however, additional work will be necessary to address off-target effects of the virus before it can be utilized for studies of tumor cell invasion. we also tested the hypothesis that src-mediated phosphorylation of the arf6 gap acap2 will result in increased arf6-gtp levels during tumor cell invasion, and have created plasmids for the expression of acap2 phosphorylation mutants for these studies. finally, we describe the use of a tumor cell spheroid assay for assessing invasive behavior, which sheds light on the negative impact that constitutive arf6 activation has on the development of metastatic lesions. america is a nation of schools. in a country famous for its early establishment of free schooling, american schools have historically provided foundational shared experiences for children, socializing them into american cultures and economies while also preparing them for intellectual adulthood. yet in the 1950s, a small number of american parents began to reject normative schooling in favor of teaching their children themselves, an approach that had been out of favor for decades. to most americans, the idea of a home school seemed oxymoronic, but twenty years later more than ten thousand american children were enrolled in such schools, and by 1999 the number had reached 850,000. by 2010, that number had once again doubled; in that year, roughly 1 out of every 25 american students was a homeschooler. in other words, thanks to homeschooling, on average every american school classroom is missing one student. such astonishing growth inspires questions relevant to the larger history of american society. given that the idea that defines homeschooling -that schooling belongs at home instead of in an institution -stands in clear opposition to most modern schooling, how and why did contemporary homeschooling begin and then, eventually, thrive? why are two million american children now going to 'school' out of the sight and (largely) the control of the american public? this dissertation seeks to answer these questions through an in-depth analysis of the history of homeschooling between 1950 and 2010, focusing on a case study of los angeles county. drawing on both archival sources and oral history, i argue that the history of homeschooling highlights an increasing loss of public confidence in institutions, a loss that occurred as parents lost most of their ability to influence the local schools upon which both the public good and the private good of families and children relied. homeschooling came to thrive not just because homeschoolers avoided schools but because they addressed the tension between family rights and the public good by creating ways to provide a responsible education -one that the public would eventually partially accept -under parental, rather than institutional, control. the sixteenth-century spanish empire encompassed a wide array of ethnic peoples, with differing legal identities that provided them distinct avenues to political enfranchisement. did any recognizable set of standards govern who was eligible to become a vecino (urban citizen) in spanish cities, or who was able to present him or herself in front of a court of law as an "old christian"? how were "indios," "moriscos," and their descendants accommodated within spanish society? through a detailed study of legal, municipal, and ecclesiastical sources, this dissertation challenges existing arguments that highlight the importance of limpieza de sangre ("purity of blood") in determining the boundaries of inclusiveness. instead, it argues that the reforms of the council of trent (1545-1563) provided the central tenets for the monarchy's citizenship discourse.in 1565, the spanish crown adopted legislation from the council of trent as royal law. a generation later, the rhetoric employed in religious reform councils andcatechetical manuals found its way into the legal depositions of the empire's multi-ethnic subjects. after the 1560s, membership in castilian society's institutions became contingent upon the demonstration of policía cristiana (christian citizenship).this manuscript illustrates how christianity and policía became central to the common identity of members of the spanish kingdoms, while re-examining questions of race, ethnicity, and belonging in spain and latin america. it does so by analyzing the political transformation from the viewpoints of royal agents, colonial settlers, and indigenous inhabitants of the crown's peripheral territories. while royal decrees and ecclesiastical memoranda illuminate the motives and concerns of the elite, legal trials expose the mentalités of more humble sections of society, as well as the cultural practice of the law. additionally, an analysis of two popular religious devotions demonstrates how subalterns were able to amend the christian citizenship discourse by altering local definitions of christianity through symbolic imagery. in the end, this study reveals conflict that arose between two recognizable political factions within the empire: those who envisioned a multi-ethnic polity united by a common christian identity and "old christian" nativists who sought to protect the traditional ethnic, cultural, and legal divisions of religiously-plural medieval spain. no abstract: creative thesis due to congenital or acquired conditions, approximately 20 million people in the united states exhibit chronic kidney disease (ckd) (cdc, 2014). there are limited treatments available to those with renal disease or failure and most of them are only short-term solutions. kidneys serve an essential purpose by filtering out metabolic waste and performing waste removal. these functions protect the body form metabolite and waste buildup, which has been linked to developmental defects, cancer, and renal failure (deberardinis et al., 2012; blaine et al., 2015). a factor that can contribute to kidney malformation is an aberration in retinoic acid (ra) signaling. ra plays a significant role in ontogeny of the embryonic kidney. while some developmental effects of ra are known, others such as how mutations in ra regulation impact kidney segmentation are not. filling in this knowledge gap, using zebrafish (danio rerio), will provide vital information on nephrogenesis pathways. freshwater ecosystems in the midwestern united states are adversely impacted by historical deforestation and by modern incursions of invasive species. while restoration of streams by the addition of large wood is a common management technique designed to increase populations of native fishes, the functions of the current, relatively low volumes of large wood on habitat use by brook trout, stream invertebrate drift, and brook trout diet remain understudied in midwestern streams. similarly, the effectiveness of federal legislation at protecting freshwater ecosystems from perturbation by invasions of nonindigenous species is also poorly understood. my thesis begins by investigating the role of current volumes of large wood in determining the location and diet of brook trout, and the content of stream drift. i found that although higher volumes of large wood positively affected the biomass of drifting aquatic invertebrates, brook trout abundance did not differ between higher and lower-wood reaches. however, unlike most other studies of brook trout foraging, brook trout in this study did not consistently select for terrestrial invertebrate prey over aquatic invertebrate prey, suggesting that the provision of aquatic prey by large wood benefits foraging brook trout. abundant, nonindigenous weevils (curculionidae: phyllobius oblongus) represented a short-term prey subsidy to brook trout in two of the five study streams, but the overall effect of these nonindigenous weevils on the stream and riparian area remains unknown. before new nonindigenous species, such as this weevil, are established, opportunities exist to prevent their introduction through legislation. however, the effectiveness of federal legislation at protecting these ecosystems from new invasive species is low. i analyzed the historical effectiveness of the lacey act, which has given the u.s. department of the interior the power to prevent the importation and interstate transport of invasive species since 1900, but with little impact on actual u.s. invasions. in this dissertation i seek to answer the question, 'what are the virtues of the excellent citizen in a liberal democracy?' this question is important on three levels. first, if civic virtue is as important to the perpetuation of liberal democratic community as neo-liberal and communitarian thinkers have argued, then curiosity alone should motivate us. second, if projects to foster the virtues are critical, then we must understand the virtues in order to foster them effectively and appropriately. third, those who wish to attain greater excellence in citizenship need to know what the virtues are so that they may pursue them. in chapters one and two, i argue that current accounts of civic virtue are deficient because they fail to explore its basis, nature, and constituents. to better understand civic virtue, we must explore specific citizen virtues. to fulfill this aim, we require a citizen virtue catalog structured by an explanatory framework that is anchored in the role-based nature of citizen virtue. such a framework provides the rationale for determining which virtues should be included in the catalog and which should not as well as a basis for comparing competing catalogs. as the role of citizen is to assist his state, the citizen virtues are those qualities that enable the citizen to assist the state in achieving its aims' in protecting, promoting, and realizing the liberal democratic ideals (namely, freedom, equality, self-government, collective cooperation, and stability). in the remaining chapters, i survey neo-liberal accounts of citizen virtue proposed by richard dagger, william galston, david jones, mark kingwell, stephen macedo, and thomas spragens, jr. i apply the chapter two framework to assess the virtue candidates they propose. these chapters share a common format but differ in focus. chapter three takes up the citizen virtues that treat political community: cooperation, participation, vigilance, deliberative excellence, and obedience to law. chapter four, the liberal citizen virtues: allegiance to liberal democratic community, tolerance, and respect for rights. and chapter five, the citizen virtues relating to self-governance: autonomy, responsibility, and restraint. chapter six concludes. for most insects, olfaction plays a central role in the performance of behaviors necessary for their own particular mode of survival and reproduction. as insects adapt to different environments and specialize on novel hosts, typified by unique chemical landscapes, their olfactory structures and molecular correlates diverge and adapt enabling them to locate suitable hosts, habitats, oviposition sites, and conspecifics. the study of olfaction in drosophilids, particularly the model organism drosophila melanogaster, has greatly advanced our understanding of insect olfaction. yet, little of what has been discovered of drosophila olfaction has been directly translated to applied entomological problems, since drosophila have rarely been considered direct pests of economic importance. however, the recent introduction of an east asian vinegar fly, drosophila suzukii (matsumura) (diptera: drosophilidae), into continental north america and europe, has changed this perspective. in contrast to d. melanogaster and the vast majority of saprophytic drosophilids which feed and oviposit on rotten fruits, d. suzukii lays eggs in ripening fruits, causing significant damage to invaded fruit-crops. drosophila suzukii's preference and utilization of ripening fruits represents a niche expansion that demands a variety of adaptations. this presents an opportunity to investigate olfactory signals and reception associated with d. suzukii's novel niche exploitation in relation to other drosophilids. the research in this dissertation assesses olfactory guided behavior, investigates chemical landscape and conspecific cues, and identifies functional olfactory correlates for d. suzukii in parallel with related flies, especially d. melanogaster. through behavioral assays and electrophysiological work on both antennae and maxillary palps, evidence is provided for a species difference in sensitivity to odorants as well as differential odor resolution between d. suzukii and d. melanogaster. furthermore, a full investigation of cuticular hydrocarbon profiles, compounds critical in conspecific communication, from four closely related drosophilids demonstrates species variations, likely affecting conspecific signaling. this research has the potential to aid in the development of agricultural tools for d. suzukii's management in addition to contributing to our understanding of the role olfaction plays in novel niche utilization. this dissertation studies three major macroeconomic development policies: (1) reducing internal and international barriers to trade, (2) the sustainability of cost-recovery in microfinance programs, and (3) the impact of foreign aid assistance. i divide my dissertation into three chapters. the first chapter quantifies the size of intra-country versus inter-country trade barriers and assesses the impact on patterns of trade and welfare. i develop a quantitative multi-sector international trade model featuring non-homothetic preferences in which states trade both within country and internationally. i discipline the model using rich micro data on foreign and domestic trade flows at the indian state level and price dispersion both within and across states. i find that: (1) state-wise price data predict internal trade flows well; (2) internal trade barriers make up 30% of the total trade cost on average, but vary substantially by state depending on the distance to the closest port; and (3) the welfare impacts of domestic integration are substantial; reducing trade costs across states to the u.s. level increases welfare by 15% compared to a welfare gain of 7% when fully eliminating international import barriers. the second chapter studies the scalability and financial sustainability of microfinance programs. it provides a theoretical and experimental evaluation of a cost-reducing innovation in the delivery of 'self-help group' microfinance services, in which privatized agents providing services earn payment through membership fees. under the status quo, agents are paid by an outside donor and offer members free services. theoretically, we show that membership fees can improve performance without sacrificing membership by mitigating adverse selection. in our randomized control, the innovation provides similar levels of services over time, but cost the donor less. moreover the innovation provides greater benefits (borrowing, saving, and investing in business) by catering to more business-oriented households. the third chapter assesses the impact of untied versus tied aid on the governance and gdp per capita of developing countries. i develop a principal-agent model with a conflict of interest between the donor and the recipient. the donor provides foreign aid for development purposes whereas the recipient prefers to retain some foreign aid for unproductive private benefits. to overcome this conflict of interest, aid can be tied to public capital investment, although this is costly. due to its irreversibility, tied aid can lead to lower corruption levels and higher per capita consumption in developing countries. i find that tied aid is especially effective for corrupt governments. in terms of optimal aid delivery, tying aid is more cost-effective for corrupt countries while untied is more cost-effective for benevolent countries. the structural chemistry and the resultant properties can be exquisitely controlled in the f-block elements because in both the 4f and 5f series the decrease in ionic radii is extraordinarily systematic. the 4f and 5f ions can be coordinated with six to twelve oxygen atoms yielding a vast range of coordination geometries. structure-property correlations of lanthanide-containing materials are being heavily investigated owing in part to their potentially useful applications in magnetism, ion exchange, fluorescence, and optical properties. for actinides, the electronic configurations and magnetic properties are difficult to ascertain particularly because of orbital hybridization, relativistic effects, and narrow bandwidths. exploration of this field is filled with multiple opportunities but also challenges. furthermore, owing to the similarities in ionic radii and coordination environments between lanthanides and actinides, it is interesting to compare the chemistry of the f-block elements using solid-state chemistry techniques. in this present work, we probe the structural chemistry of f-block elements using tellurite as the ligand to address the aforementioned questions. the reason tellurite was chosen as the ligand in this study is due to the presence of stereochemically active lone-pair electrons on the teiv centers and the large variability in the coordination environments that the tellurite anions play in the crystalline architecture of this family of compounds. tellurite anions can be further interconnected to form dimers, trimers, and polymeric structures, which enable a variety of unusual structures to form. hydrothermal reactions were conducted in the synthesis of f element-containing tellurite compounds. single crystal x-ray diffraction and powder x-ray diffraction studies were performed to elucidate the structure of the novel products. a superconducting quantum interference device (squid) magnetometer was used for the magnetic behaviour studies. energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (eds) techniques were utilized for the elemental analysis. spectroscopic techniques like uv-vis-nir were also applied to identify the oxidation states and electronic transitions for f elements. this dissertation is focused on crystal chemistry, structure-property relationships, and possible applications of the f-block element containing materials. more than 120 new lanthanide or actinide containing compounds were synthesized in this study. lanthanide and actinide tellurites show remarkable structural diversity from a crystallographic point of view and atypical physical properties of these compounds were discovered. materials with special physical properties, for example magnetic behavior (chapter 2, 4) and electronic properties (chapter 3, 5), are discussed. cationic frameworks materials (chapter 6, 7) with potential anion exchange abilities are also presented. besides the physicochemical property studies, structural comparison between 4f-block compounds (chapter 8), as well as between 4f and 5f compounds (chapter 9, 10), are included in this dissertation. in the treatment of cancer, the goal is to destroy a tumor with minimal impact on normal tissues in the patient. radiosurgery is a technique used to deliver a lethal dose of radiation to a tumor and spare surrounding critical structures (such as the optic nerve or spinal cord). multiple beams of radiation are selected such that these beams intersect at the tumor. the treatment planning problem in radiosurgery is the selection of a number of beams and the orientations of those beams, such that at their intersection they deliver a lethal dose to the tumor without exceeding the tolerance of any critical structure in their path. because tumor geometry is often irregular, it is useful to shape the beams to match the geometry of the tumor. a multi-leaf collimator (mlc) mounted at the beam portal of the radiation source can be used to shape a beam. the mlc is a series of aligned pairs of leaves. the mlc may be rotated around the center of the beam portal. this work investigates the impact of mlc rotation (imlcr) in treatment planning for radiosurgery. mlc rotation was studied using a scoring function which models the maximum safely deliverable dose. the variation observed in the scoring function indicates that collimator rotation can raise the maximum deliverable dose. when the tumor is large and/or has nearby critical structures (tolerance <=50% of the tumor's prescription), collimator rotation has the greatest impact and is worth considering. collimator angle selection could play an important role in improving the quality of treatment plans for radiosurgery. the potential of organo-zintl chemistry has been known for several decades and the aim of this work is to expand on this groundwork. contained in this dissertation are reaction pathways of the nine-atom germanium cluster with (i) a series of homoand hetero-substituted alkynes, (ii) simple organic groups by suspension, and (iii) common nucleophilic reagents in the presence of partially oxidized cluster. in this dissertation we look at some problems on renormalized volume and area. we develop a chern-gauss-bonnet formula for the renormalized area of a hypersurface within a 5-dimensional poincaré-einstein manifold. this is followed by an investigation into renormalized area in the singular yamabe setting. lastly, we look at the renormalized volume of a minimally bounded region within a 4-dimensional poincaré-einstein manifold. this study conducts an analysis of the temporal and geographic distribution of violence linked to the 2010 communal elections in burundi, including its forms, actors and targets to test alternative explanations for this violence. first, a brief review of the literature on contentious politics is used to draw out a series of hypotheses about how, where and when violence will be organized. then, a brief historical overview of violence in burundi provides context for recent events. both qualitative and statistical analyses are performed to explore which factors may have caused the violence. the results suggest that election results are not alone sufficient to explain the violence, thus pointing to the need to consider the role of ongoing cycles of repression and dissent. this suggests the international community ought to modify the way it approaches promoting democracy in states emerging from war. this thesis details the synthetic progress towards the preparation of myriaporone-tedanolide analogues through novel precursor-directed biosynthesis as well as general organic synthesis. with the recent completion of the total synthesis of the cytotoxic natural products myriaporones 1, 3 and 4 in our group, our focus has switched to prepare analogues of myriaporones, including more structurally complex myriaporone-tedanolide hybrids. by generating these analogues that are biased toward specific conformations, we hope to maximize biological activity and learn more about the relationship between the myriaporones and tedanolides. here, we are exploring an alternative synthesis of these compounds through the use of modular polyketide synthase.an efficient synthetic sequence toward the diketide biosynthesis precursor in 7 linear steps is discussed in this thesis. the enzymes, module 2 and module 3 plus thioesterase of 6-deoxyerythronolide b synthase, are successfully expressed in escherichia coli bap1 and purified. another synthetic sequence towards the preparation of the biosynthesis product was close to be finished to help identify it. this work documents the development of non-intrusive optical diagnostic methods towards a qualitative study of ethylene flame dynamics in a laboratory scale model scramjet engine. planar laser rayleigh scattering (plrs) and oh based planar laser induced fluorescence (plif) have been successfully developed and applied. prior to understanding the turbulent flame dynamics due to ethylene combustion in the model scramjet, it is necessary to reveal the role played by turbulent structures in a combustion free environment. also, shock/ turbulent boundary layers are known to significantly impact unstart dynamics. hence, plrs has been chosen to be employed considering its relevancy to the present experimental subject. visualizing flow structures in a transient combustion system is a key to establish stable operational regimes. imaging ground state oh is a proven, simple and cost effective method amongst the lif based techniques. in addition, these laser based techniques are instantaneous in nature with temporal resolution as high as 10ns. flow physics in the scramjet model is complicated due to the interaction of turbulence and flame structures. high intensities of turbulence are expected at such high reynolds number flows involving combustion. the high strain rates imposed by turbulent structures might, in fact, contribute to flame extinguishment. in view of turbulence being a 3-dimensional phenomena, there exists a need to visualize the flow profile in a 3-dimensional domain. however, a truly 3-dimensional study is beyond the scope of current research methods. a closer and more accessible alternative would be to apply 2-dimensional flow imaging techniques spanning over multiple planes, provided that the flow shows a quasi-stable behavior. although optical investigations in the combustor regions have been reported [18], this study, to the best of the author's knowledge, is the first one to cater to the flow field investigation over a significant region beyond the combustor/cavity. furthermore, the study encompasses multiple planes to achieve a holistic reconstruction of the flow physics. a unique optical arrangement to aid such a visualization has been developed. the results obtained provide supportive evidence underlining the applicability of these laser based techniques to the present combustion system. an ongoing human tragedy of massive displacement continues to unfold across the globe due to dramatically and rapidly changing global political and economic conditions that have compelled many people to migrate and embark on dangerous journeys in search of safety outside their country of origin. once they leave their homeland, fleeing individuals face numerous constraints that significantly impede unauthorized movements across international borders. their precarious and clandestine journeys are often paved by ongoing stress, risks, and recurrent trauma. those who manage to cross multi-national borders routinely end up contained within the walls of temporary settlements, such as asylum centers. within these liminal spaces, life is often characterized by enforced dependency on relief aid, persistent precarity, and imposed restrictions on movement. despite prescribed idleness, the indignities of life in limbo and substantial recurrent uncertainty, refugees actively strive to defy structural constraints, challenge images depicting them as passive victims, and transform into active agents contemplating ways to meet their needs beyond the relief packages. in this dissertation, i rekindle bourdieu's (1977, 1990) concepts of habitus, doxa, and bodily hexis, and build on contemporary practice theories, using an integrative, biocultural approach. in doing so, i propose and operationalize the idea of routinized social practices (rsps) that serve as means of regularity as much as mitigators of psychosocial stress and drivers of health across and within refugee spaces. drawing on both ethnographic data and physiological biomarkers, i show that the social, material, and personal dimensions of rsps impart routine, promote normalcy, and afford continuity, while simultaneously alleviating an expected negative impact of unfavorable conditions of encampment. by engaging in and valuing rsps, the refugee' agency and practices remain in a recursive relationship with the formal structures that shape not only what they do and think, but also construct sociocultural conditions conducive to challenging these static arrangements through daily practices and survival strategies. refugee narratives reveal that rsps help them maintain livable lives and negotiate their vulnerability following their migratory journeys and temporary residence in novel communities. agentive participation in local informal economies, social consumption of food and drink, and profound social interactions render their everyday life structured, normalized, and regulated, while creating a particular niche of coping and resilience within liminal, confined spaces. in terms of mental health and stress physiology, rsps serve to mitigate some of the adverse psychological and physical effects of the journey-related trauma and life on hold, thereby affording better health outcomes. the integrative anthropological framework shows the complexities underlying rsps and their biological effects on the realm of the ordinary that is never quite the same but is instead ever-changing. the biological membrane is made up of primarily polar lipids and integral membrane proteins. polar lipids are a broad class of amphiphilic biomolecules that serve diverse biological roles encompassing energy storage, cell compartmentalization, and cell signaling. the first part of the dissertation is an introduction to the structures of polar lipids and their self-assembly properties followed by a summary of biological strategies for polar lipid recognition. the final section of the first chapter is an introduction to synthetic receptors for polar lipids. the next two chapters focus on research towards new probes for anionic phospholipids such as phosphatidylserine (ps) using synthetic zinc(ii)-bis(dipicolylamine) (zn2bdpa) coordination complexes. ps targeting is relevant to cell death since ps is exposed on the surface of dead and dying cells. zn2bdpa coordination complexes are known to selectively recognize ps-rich membranes and act as cell death molecular imaging agents. however, there is a need to improve in vivo imaging performance by selectively increasing target affinity and decreasing off-target accumulation. the first study (chapter 2) focuses on the synthesis and screening of a small library of modified zn2bdpa complexes constructed through the oxime ligation to better understand the structural requirements for membrane ps recognition. the second study (chapter 3) compares the cell death targeting ability of two new phenoxide-bridged zn2bdpa deep-red fluorescent probes in cells and two animal models of cell death. an [111]in-labelled radiotracer version of the monovalent probe also exhibited selective cell death targeting with the most favorable in vivo biodistribution profile yet reported for a zn2bdpa complex. thus, the monovalent phenoxide-bridged zn2bdpa scaffold is a promising candidate for further development as a cell death imaging agent in living subjects. in chapters 4 and 5, the focus moves from developing affinity ligands for anionic lipid recognition to developing molecular design principles for liposomal ph nanosensors (chapter 5) and new analytical strategies for anion detection using indicator displacement assays (chapter 6). in this dissertation, i argue that the city of god provides a helpful framework for concerned citizens to understand the dynamics that destroy political community. i explore augustine's claim that rome's self-understanding (romanitas) has been shaped into a self-justifying, self-aggrandizing narrative by self-interested citizens. augustine shows how and why this is the case through his polemic against idolatry, which he describes as the source of injustice. thus, i carefully explore augustine's psychology of idolatry and its three modes: idolatry of the self, which he calls pride, idolatry of earthly goods, which he calls lust, and idolatry of powers, or idolatry per se. together, he shows, these constitute the dynamic of the earthly city that undermines genuine political community. finally, because i read augustine's city of god as a recasting of romanitas, re-contextualizing political life so that a new kind of citizenship can arise, i examine this new citizenship, characterizing it as prudent humanitas &#8212; a restorative force in politics &#8212; one that reconstitutes and heals the political community. i read this prudent humanitas as a development and a fulfillment of themes of classical, particularly ciceronian political thought, but one that overcomes the tensions that the classical tradition could, at best, identify: the tension between virtue and happiness, between the public good and the private good, and between love of glory and love of truth. in short, in the city of god, i find a timeless critique of political corruption that serves as the foundation for a prudent yet deeply humane citizenship. this dissertation analyzes the use of augustine's life and thought, especially as recorded in his confessions, in the herald of divine love. it argues that gertrud collaborated with her sisters at helfta to produce a book adopting, advancing, and inviting readers into augustine's conversational model of theology. the first chapter introduces gertrud and helfta, reviewing the literature and suggesting some modifications to the standard accounts. the second chapter analyzes the work's composition history, described in its prologue with the feminine and collaborative metaphor of childbirth. the combination of her autobiography with the convent's hagiography expresses god's choice of gertrud through and for the holiness of others. the third chapter discusses gertrud's spiritual autobiography in book ii, written in the prayerful style of confessions. she uses augustine's image of the pierced heart as a 'book' in which to read god's merciful love, created through conversational narratives connecting personal and communal salvation history. the fourth chapter analyzes gertrud's 'life and revelations' in the compiled portions of legatus, especially books i and v. in book i her sisters advocate a model of female holiness as converted scholarship, comparing gertrud to augustine as an inspired theological teacher formed by a holy community. in book v they conclude the work with divine promises of the book's wonderworking power as gertrud's relic. along with gertrud, the helfta women offer the legatus in praise of god and to enable readers' holiness by assisting them to discover and respond to grace in their personal salvation history. we consider a general multiphase immiscible mixture whose individual components are separated by infinitesimally thin interfaces. general average balance equations for the different phases as well as for the overall mixture are derived by using a systematic spatial averaging procedure. to account for local micromotions and micro-deformations, we model the mixture using micromorphic theory. a minimal determinate theory is obtained by taking an appropriate number of moments of the microelement balance equations for mass, momenta, angular momentum, energy, and entropy. the resulting average balance equations include equations for microinertia and microspin tensors. this model, with the phase and mixture quantities specified in a systematic manner, is shown to satisfy the 2nd law of thermodynamics and enable the modeling of immiscible multiphase materials where internal parameters, such as the volume fraction of different phases, are important. we also compare our approach with various other theories of mixtures. we subsequently derive the balance equations of micromorphic mixtures of grade one where only first order microdeformations are considered. with the first order assumption, the number of unknown phase and mixture quantities is reduced. specific forms of definitions for each microelement, for each phase, and for the mixture as a whole, are obtained. by applying these relations to the general balance equations of micromorphic continuum, the balance laws of micromorphic continuum of grade one are obtained. to demonstrate the generality of the results, we apply our theory to a two-phase model of micromorphic bubbly mixtures. the rayleigh-plesset equation is revisited and a generalized rayleigh-plesset equation is derived which include the influence of bubble inertia. the balance equations of mass, linear momentum, generalized angular momentum and energy are given. we show that the equations for microspin and microinertia, combine to yield a more general form than the rayleigh-plesset equation. such an equation, in addition to accounting for the local average bubble dilatation, can also account for the local average bubble microdeformation or microstructure. moreover, higher-order microstructural statistics which this minimal theory contains can be modeled by constitutive approximations. iris biometrics is used in a number of different applications, such as frequent flyer programs, identification of prisoners, and border control in the united arab emirates. however, governments interested in using iris biometrics have still found difficulties using it on large populations. further improvements in iris recognition are required in order to enable this technology to be used in more settings. in this dissertation, we describe three methods of reducing error rates for iris biometrics. we define and employ a metric called the fragile bit distance which uses the locations of less stable bits in an iris template to improve performance. we also investigate signal fusion of multiple frames in an iris video to achieve better recognition performance than is possible using single still images. third, we present a study of what features are useful for identification in the periocular region. periocular biometrics is still an emerging field of research, but we anticipate that fusing periocular information with iris information will result in a more robust biometric system. a final contribution of this work is a study of how iris biometrics performs on twins. our experiments confirm prior claims that iris biometrics is capable of differentiating between twins. however, we additionally show that there is texture information in the iris that is not encoded by traditional iris biometrics systems. our experiments suggest that human examination of pairs of iris images for forensic purposes may be feasible. our results also suggest that development of different approaches to automated iris image analysis may be useful. friction performance parameters of two types of carbon-carbon (cc) composites were tested using a sub-scale dynamometer for 100 stops. worn surface profiles of each sample were measured using a taylor hobson surtronic 3+ profilometer. roughness and waviness parameters collected from the profilometry testing were compared to weight loss, thickness loss, effectiveness, stop time, and torque of each carbon-carbon composite type. the comparison shows for an increase in torque and effectiveness, and a decrease in stop time, with a 90% confidence there is a 29% decrease in skewness (rsk), 150% decrease in high spot count (rhsc), an 18% increase in maximum valley depth (rv), a 38% increase in mean spacing of local peaks (rs), and a 20% increase in mean arithmetic wavelength (rla) with an increase in torque when roughness is analyzed. for waviness profiles, the comparison shows for an increase in torque and effectiveness, and a decrease in stop time, with a 90% confidence there is a 55% decrease in skewness (rsk), 29% increase in high spot count (rhsc), a 31% increase in maximum valley depth (rv), a 26% increase in mean spacing of local peak (rs), and a 4% increase in mean arithmetic wavelength (rla). furthermore, there are differences in both friction performance and surface topography between the cc composite types which can be attributed to the differences in fiber orientation and microstructure at the wear faces. by assuming that insurgencies come 'from below' — i.e. are launched by exploited and deprived social groups —, existing theories are not suited for explaining insurgencies 'from above' — i.e. led by political, social, and economic elites. when most insurgencies come 'from above', why do insurgency levels vary across countries? in nineteenth-century latin america insurgencies of this kind were very common. therefore, i compare two countries with high insurgency (colombia and uruguay) and two with low insurgency (chile and costa rica) during the century after independence (ca. 1820-1920). three factors help explaining variations in insurgency levels. the first one is the strength of the ties between peasants and landowners. strong ties allow landowners to use selective incentives for mobilizing their subordinates into rebel armies. conversely, weak vertical ties reduce selective incentives and obstruct mobilization. this complements theories about insurgencies 'from below', which assume that weak vertical ties increase insurgency. the second factor is the timing of consolidation of the central state. early state consolidation increases the costs of insurgency and leads government opponents to engage in other strategies (elections, informal agreements, and/or military coups). conversely, late consolidation encourages an early resort to insurgency, which becomes self-reinforcing and persists even after the state consolidates. by emphasizing the timing of state consolidation i complement political opportunity and state breakdown theories, which overlook how past events shape outcomes across time. the third factor is the type of party system. two-party systems simplify the process of blame attribution, allow the party in power to exclude its opponent, and encourage leaders to emphasize extreme positions for capturing the support of small and highly militant electorates. this increases polarization and boosts insurgency. conversely, because in multi-party systems parties are unable to govern alone, they are encouraged to engage in flexible electoral and congressional alliances that decrease polarization and therefore insurgency. consistent with this argument, in colombia and uruguay vertical ties were strong, central states consolidated late, and two-party systems polarized, leading to high insurgency. in chile and costa rica vertical ties were weak, states consolidated early, and multi-party systems did not polarize, leading to low insurgency. the work presented in this dissertation describes the following studies: (1) the role of ninag in visual pigment chromophore biogenesis. the drosophila ninag oxidoreductase mutant flies are characterized by low levels of rh1 rhodopsin but have normal levels of minor opsins, rh4 and rh6. ninag mutants ectopically expressing rh4 as the major rhodopsin accumulate an anomalous retinoid, identified as 3-hydroxyretinol by hplc-uv/vis-ms analysis. further, ninag mutants fed on retinal as the sole chromophore precursor are able to synthesize 3-hydroxyretinoids. thus, ninag oxidoreductase acts subsequent to the hydroxylation step in the biogenesis of rhodopsin chromophore, (3s)-3-hydroxyretinal. (2) heterologous expression of bovine rhodopsin in drosophila photoreceptor cells. vertebrate and invertebrate rhodopsins are similar in amino acid sequence, structural organization, spectral properties, and mode of action, but bind different chromophores and trigger phototransduction through distinct pathways. transgenic drosophila expressing bovine rhodopsin were created to compare and contrast properties of bovine and drosophila rhodopsin with respect to maturation (glycosylation, chromophore binding, and folding), trafficking, physiology (light response), and photoreceptor cell morphology. this analysis establishes drosophila photoreceptor cells as a valuable model to study vertebrate and invertebrate visual pigments in a common cell type. (3) rh1 cytoplasmic tail and non-cytoplasmic interface domains play a structural role in development and integrity of rhabdomeres. rh1 expression is essential for the structural development of rhabdomeres in photoreceptor cells. flies expressing bovine rhodopsin (rho) show severe disintegration of rhabdomeres 7-10 days post-eclosion. a series of rh1-rho chimera were expressed to show that both rh1 cytoplasmic-tail and non-cytoplasmic-interface domains are essential for the structural development and maintenance of rhabdomeres. (4) genome-wide transcript analysis during norpa retinal degeneration. drosophila norpa mutants show rapid light-dependent retinal degeneration. among 13,000 genes present on the genome chip, 300 genes showed significant changes in transcript levels during the degeneration process. one of the downregulated genes was sun, that when mutated cause light-dependent retinal degeneration due to accumulation of activated rhodopsin. norpa; sun double-mutants showed faster retinal degeneration rate than single-mutants, suggesting that downregulation of sun transcript in norpa mutants contributes towards the attainment of retinal degeneration. large-scale changes in transcript levels of known apoptotic genes were not observed thereby suggesting that apoptotic genes are not transcriptionally regulated during norpa retinal degeneration. the native oxide of inalp has been investigated for its electrical properties and usefulness in high-performance electronic devices. inalp native oxide/gaas mos capacitors have been fabricated for use as diagnostic devices, and the electrical properties of inalp native oxide/gaas mos structures have been determined from electrical measurements of these devices. leakage current measurements suggest that the inalp oxide has good insulating properties for oxide layers as thin as 11 nm. capacitance-voltage measurements and impedance spectroscopy indicate that the inalp oxide/gaas mos structure has a relatively low interface state density of 8*10^11cm^-2. this density of interface states is sufficiently low to suggest field-effect transistors using inalp native oxide as the gate insulator should be possible. field-effect transistors using inalp native oxide/gaas structures have also been explored, resulting in the first demonstration of gaas mosfets using inalp oxide as the gate dielectric. two different fabrication procedures for gaas-based mosfets have been developed. one uses the mesa isolation technique, and the other uses oxygen ion implantation and regional oxidation techniques. both the dc and rf characteristics of fabricated mosfets have been evaluated. for mesa-isolated mosfets, a 2 um gate length device showed a 63.8 ms/mm peak intrinsic transconductance, and for implant isolated mosfets, a 1 um gate length device showed a 105 ms/mm peak intrinsic transconductance and 2.53 ghz cut-off frequency. the measured mosfet performance has been compared to theoretical expectations based on simplified, idealized device models. the measured dc characteristics of fabricated inalp oxide/gaas mosfets fall below the theoretical predictions in terms of drain current and transconductance, while the measured rf results show that the devices have lower cut-off frequencies than expected from simple theoretical models. van der pauw measurements have been performed on the heterostructures, and measurement results suggest the oxidation conditions, including time and temperature, cause degradation of the gaas channel material properties. in particular, the channel mobility and carrier concentration are observed to decrease following oxidation of the inalp layer in the mosfet heterostructure. this degradation appears to be related to material growth and oxidation conditions, and may be improved by optimizing the heterostructure growth and processing conditions. this study examines the philosophical and political principles informing radical environmental activism in the united states. the major groups that comprise this movement – earth first!, the earth and animal liberation fronts, and the sea shepherd conservation society – are united by a particularly militant breed of ecocentrism: a commitment to defend the integrity of wild nature by any means necessary, including illegal and potentially violent tactics. this study is the first to depict militant ecology as an intellectual as well as political movement, one with its own theorists and philosophical antecedents, which expresses a coherent and compelling alternative to the philosophical and political outlook of modernity. the first part focuses on the scientific, metaphysical, religious, and anthropological principles informing militant ecology activism. comparisons with other schools of contemporary green political thought show that, despite its unsystematic nature, militant ecology offers the most consistent articulation of an ecocentric political theory. however, the movement is not monolithic in its interpretation of these principles. for some activists, ecocentrism entails a commitment to uphold the natural order and defend wilderness against human greed and hubris, while others understand it as a call to end oppression and fight for justice for all life on earth – humans included. for the purposes of this study, these two camps are described, respectively, as ecowarriors and total liberationists. the second half examines the "future primitive" political program of militant ecology. in the end, it is apparent that despite many valid critiques of the contemporary political system, certain aspects of the militant ecology program are incompatible with the movement's commitment to effective action in defense of wild nature. particular attention is devoted to the differences among total liberationists and ecowarriors and determining which camp is more consistent in its commitment to the principles of militant ecocentrism. though ecowarriors have been most frequently criticized for their indifference to social justice, this study concludes that it is in fact the total liberationist wing, with its more anthropocentric focus and higher likelihood of co-optation by the political left, that poses a greater threat to the radical core of militant ecology. multithreaded and multi/manycore processors have already become an important new research direction. these processors have demonstrated great performance and efficiency advantages. this dissertation presents mcpat, an integrated power, area, and timing modeling framework that supports comprehensive design space exploration for multicore and manycore processor configurations ranging from 90nm to 22nm and beyond. mcpat includes models for the components of a complete chip multiprocessor, including in-order and out-of-order processor cores, networks-on-chip, shared caches, and integrated memory controllers. mcpat models timing, area, and dynamic, short-circuit, and leakage power for each of the device types forecast in the itrs roadmap including bulk cmos, soi, and double-gate transistors. mcpat has a flexible xml interface to facilitate use with many performance simulators. combined with a performance simulator, mcpat enables architects to consistently quantify the cost of new ideas and assess tradeoffs of different architectures using new metrics like energy-delay-area2 product (eda2p) and energy-delay-area product (edap). this dissertation examines several new architecture ideas. we study the scaling trends of a multithreaded chip multiprocessor across technology generations from 90nm to 22nm. we also explore the interconnect options of future manycore processors by varying the degree of clustering over generations of process technologies. clustering will bring interesting tradeoffs between area and performance because the interconnects needed to group cores into clusters incur area overhead, but many applications can make good use of them due to synergies of cache sharing. combining power, area, and timing results of mcpat with performance simulation of parsec benchmarks at the 22nm technology node for both common in-order and out-of-order manycore designs shows that when die cost is not taken into account clustering 8 cores together gives the best energy delay product, whereas when cost is taken into account configuring clusters with 4 cores gives the best eda2p and edap. this dissertation also proposes a lightweight chip multi-threaded (lcmt) architecture targeting parallel irregular and dynamic applications. the lcmt is implemented a by extending techniques previously used in supercomputing framework to mainstream general purpose processors. the lcmt architecture is implemented atop a mainstream architecture with minimum extra hardware and leverage existing legacy software environments. we evaluate the proposed lcmt architecture using mcpat and a performance simulator. comparisons between the proposed lcmt architecture with a niagara-like baseline architecture show that lcmt achieves up to 1.74x better performance per watt when running irregular and dynamic benchmarks antibiotic resistance in the past 50 years has increasingly challenged treatment of bacterial infections. a compelling example is staphylococcus aureus, which exhibited resistance to penicillin as early as the 1940s. this resistance was initially addressed in 1959, with the introduction of methicillin and other semi-synthetic second-generation penicillins. only two years later, in 1961, a new variant of resistant s. aureus appeared, which became known as methicillin-resistant s. aureus (mrsa). mrsa strains today are essentially resistant to the entire class of β-lactam antibiotics. only vancomycin, linezolid, ceftaroline, and daptomycin are left against s. aureus infections and resistant strains against these antibiotics have already been reported. clostridium difficile, a gram-positive spore-forming and toxin-producing bacteria, is another example of a bacterial pathogen facing the same destiny.i describe herein the discovery of two classes of antibiotic potentiators, the cinnamamide and cinnamonitrile families, and one antibacterial, the picolinamide family, to address this issue. the first two potentiate the activity of oxacillin (a penicillin member of the β-lactam class) such that susceptibility of s. aureus to oxacillin is restored. a total of 50 analogues of the cinnamamide family were prepared and screened. seven of these compounds showed a dramatic potentiation of the antibacterial activity, lowering the minimum-inhibitory concentrations (mics) for the antibiotic by as much as 64to 128-fold. of the 84 examples of the cinnamonitrile family, five compounds showed broad potentiation against six important strains of mrsa, one vancomycin-intermediate s. aureus (visa) strain, and one linezolid-resistant s. aureus strain. one especially meritorious compound exhibited potentiation of &gt;4,000-fold (reduction of mic from 256 to 0.06 mg l–1) against a linezolid-resistant mrsa strain at 8 µm. the antibacterial class represented by the picolinamide family was evaluated against s. aureus and c. difficile. out of the 111 derivatives prepared, one emerged for its positive pharmacological attributes, such as activity (mic against c. difficile of 0.12 mg l–1), solubility, and low toxicity levels. this compound was tested on an in vivoc. difficile recurrent infection mouse models, showing better efficacy (survival) than vancomycin. recent studies have shown that diverse groups of bacteria adsorb metals to similar extents and uptake can be modeled using a universal adsorption model. in this study, xafs has been used to resolve whether binding sites determined for single species systems are responsible for adsorption in more complex natural bacterial assemblages. results obtained from a series of xafs experiments on pure gram positive and gram negative bacterial strains and consortia of bacteria as a function of ph and cd loading suggests that every bacterial strain has a complex physiology and they are all slightly different from each other. nevertheless from the metal adsorption chemistry point of view, the main difference between them lies in the site ratio of three fundamental sites only carboxyl, phosphoryl and sulfide. two completely different consortia of bacteria (obtained from natural river water, and soil system with severe organic contamination) were successfully modeled in the ph range 3.4 7.8 using the exafs models developed for single species systems. results thus obtained can potentially have very high impact on the modeling of the complex bacterial systems in realistic geological settings, leading to further refinement and development of robust remediation strategies for metal contamination at macroscopic level. in another study, solution speciation of pb and cd with dfo-b has been examined using a combination of techniques (icp, toc, thermodynamic modeling and xafs). results indicate that pb does not complex with dfo-b at all until about ph 3.5, but forms a totally caged structure at ph 7.5. at intermediate ph conditions, mixture of species (one and two hydroxamate groups complexed) is formed. cd on the other hand, does not complex until ph 5, forms intermediate complexes at ph 8 and is totally chelated at ph 9. further studies were conducted for pb sorption to mineral surface kaolinite with and without dfo-b. in the absence of dfo-b, results suggest outer sphere and inner sphere sorption of pb on kaolinite surface at acidic and circumneutral ph conditions respectively. in the presence of dfo-b, bulk sorption studies indicated that pb sorption is enhanced in the presence of dfo-b around ph 6 and inhibited above ph 6.5. this was confirmed by x-ray fluorescence measurements. extended xafs study clearly indicated unwrapping of dfo-b molecule at the surface. our study has unambiguously recognized it as a 'type a' ternary complex ('type a' complex means surface-metal-ligand type of interaction). taken together, bulk adsorption measurements and xafs experiments represent a powerful approach for determining and modeling metal speciation and adsorption. this dissertation charts the intersection of exegesis, rhetoric, and performance in ephrem's hymns on faith, arguing for a two-pronged interpretation of these poetics: first, ephrem presents scripture as a collection of metaphors which god has arranged for the sake of a particular audience; second, his hymns rearrange and rewrite these metaphors, in the context of liturgical performance, for his own particular, fourth-century audience. this argument is pursued in chapters two through five. chapter two analyzes ephrem's understanding of scripture's poetics (how scripture itself works, and how it has come to be) and then chapters three through five trace three metaphors which ephrem uses scripture to refashion: metaphors of the self (chapter three), of others (chapter four), and of christ (chapter five). through the course of these chapters, i argue for a process of mimesis between scripture and ephrem's hymns: his hymns rewrite scripture's parables and metaphors, but in an imitation of the process by which scripture came into being. the hymns on faith, probably written between the 350s and late 370s ce, represent ephrem's longest hymn cycle, containing materials that ephrem (and, potentially, anonymous hymnists following soon after him) composed in response to the fourth-century controversies that followed in the wake of arius and nicaea. the dissertation thus begins with a discussion of the compositional make-up of the hymns on faith, and establishes its place within these fourth-century controversies (chapter one). decades of literary criticism assessing twentieth-century plantation literature would no doubt see this treatment of irish and american big houses under the aegis of modernist experimentation as a rank contradiction in terms. the authors considered in this project have long been represented across conceptual forms as conservative, regionally-distinctive agrarian elites, deemed "backward" by the asymmetrically-developing states of the interwar era. dislocated modernities assembles a transatlantic archive concerning the anachronistic plantation complex to pursue two primary and interlocking aims: first, to dissect the critical feminization of big house literature, and then to foreground comparison of these traditions to unlock questions of disciplinary periodization and of postlapsarian modernism. elizabeth bowen, eudora welty, and molly keane have seldom been considered as writers invested in transforming planter fiction from within and on their own terms; each author struggled with vitriolic reviews and discouragement from publication when her handling of big house culture did not accord with rhetoric defining a masculinist literary renaissance. in part, this study begins with the early 1930s to recapture the volatility of irish and american critical reception around plantation fiction. the novels and short stories i discuss have been understood to extend what joe cleary describes as an inherently romanticized, conservative ideology perpetuating a "rueful emphasis on the grace of a lost civilization." this project resists the truism that plantation fiction wields social power only through narrating its own demise. instead, i analyze the ways such texts afford a nexus wherein the mostly-unexamined nationalisms of anglo-irish and southern writers are mapped onto their stories about modernity and belonging from the vantage of modernism's ostensible end. in this study we adopted a cross-habitat, comparative genomic approach to identify genetic markers of habitat adaptation in bacterial populations from human gut, marine and soil environments. although humans depend heavily on microbial activity in these ecosystems, these environments are very different from a microorganism?s perspective. we hypothesized that genetic markers characteristic of one of these three environments would be indicative of the strongest drivers of selection in these environments. many of the discriminating genetic markers for a given environment mapped well onto environmental characteristics of that environment. for example, bacteria isolated from the human gut environment tended to have the least functional diversity and lacked pathways for amino acid biosynthesis and dna repair. in contrast, soil and marine bacterial genomes had relatively high functional diversity and possessed abundant pathways for energy production, stress response, and response to a variable environment. relationships between benthic organic matter (bom) and macroinvertebrates have been well studied in streams with coarse substrates, but such relationships have been little studied in sand habitats, despite the abundance of sand in many streams. these relationships were investigated in sand habitats of 15 streams in three watersheds of the ottawa national forest, michigan. bom size composition and macroinvertebrate biomass in sand habitats differed among the three watersheds. however, at this broad spatial scale, bom quantity and quality had little effect on invertebrate community metrics in sand habitats. sand-dwelling invertebrates were dominated by gatheringcollectors, primarily chironomidae, in all streams. a 32-day colonization experiment demonstrated that at a local scale bom content of sand significantly affected macroinvertebrate abundance, biomass, and functional feeding group composition. bom content of sand habitats likely represents one factor, among many components of this dynamic habitat, which shapes overall macroinvertebrate communities. by the middle of the twentieth century, scholars in the life sciences had completed a 'modern synthesis' of darwinian evolution and genetics. as the self-styled 'architects' of the synthesis saw it, nothing in biology made sense unless it was contextualized by their version of neo-darwinian evolution. by the middle of the 1970s, a new field called 'sociobiology' emerged to bring even the social sciences into the synthesis. recently, however, historians, philosophers, and life scientists have begun to question the sufficiency of the modern synthesis and the sociobiological 'new synthesis.' some scholars speculate that neo-darwinism is too closely tied to a reductionistic notion of heredity that privileges the behavior of dna over that of higher levels like organisms and groups. this dissertation explores the work of two scholars, gregory bateson (1904ì¢ ââ'1980) and conrad hal waddington (1905ì¢ ââ'1975), who promoted an explicitly 'organismic' theory of evolution as a refinement of neo-darwinism decades before the sociobiological synthesis. trained at cambridge in the 1920s, bateson spent the majority of his career working in the social sciences in the united states. waddington initially studied paleontology at cambridge, but bateson encouraged him to study embryology and genetics. both were trained when a fascination with 'organicism' motivated work in british life sciences. bateson and waddington remained friends throughout their lives, despite living on different continents. much of their communication passed through anthropologist margaret mead, bateson's former spouse and partner in ethnographic fieldwork, and also a frequent host to waddington in his travels to the united states. through their relationship, bateson and waddington found personal and intellectual support for continued work on their organismic evolutionary theory in the life and social sciences. this dissertation is the first to examine their mutual influence in detail. a study of this kind is important not only because it addresses a historical lacuna, but because their holistic evolutionary theory was not the version of evolution that came to dominate the life and, eventually, social sciences in the mid-1970sì¢ ââ' though there is growing support for organicism today. the experiences of bateson and waddington reveal the extent to which the formation of neo-darwinism and the proposed sociobiological synthesis were complex and negotiated, rather than linear and discovered, meta-theoretical processes. the organicism of bateson and waddington continues to serve as an alternative to the genetic reductionism at the base of contemporary neo-darwinism and sociobiology. with the recent availability of large-scale social data sets, social networks have become open to quantitative analysis via the methods of statistical physics. we examine the statistical properties of a real large-scale social network, generated from cellular phone call-trace logs. we find this network, like many other social networks to be assortative (r=0.31) and clustered (i.e., strongly transitive, c=0.21). we measure fluctuation scaling to identify the presence of internal structure in the network and find that structural inhomogeneity effectively disappears at the scale of a few hundred nodes, though there is no sharp cutoff. we introduce an agent-based model of social behavior, designed to model the formation and dissolution of social ties. the model is a modified metropolis algorithm containing agents operating under the basic sociological constraints of reciprocity, communication need and transitivity. the model introduces the concept of a social temperature. we go on to show that this simple model reproduces the global statistical network features (incl. assortativity, connected fraction, mean degree, clustering, and mean shortest path length) of the real network data and undergoes two phase transitions, one being from a "gas" to a "liquid" state and the second from a liquid to a glassy state as function of this social temperature. service oriented architecture (soa) is a new paradigm that originated in industry for future distributed computing. it is recognized as a promising architecture for application integration inside and across organizations. since their introduction, semantic web and web services technologies are increasingly gaining interest in the implementation of e-science infrastructures. in this dissertation, we survey current research trends and challenges for adopting soa in general. we present a practical experiment of building a service-oriented system for data integration and analysis using current web services technologies and bioinformatics middleware. the system is enhanced with an ontological model for semantics annotation of services and data. it demonstrates that adopting soa in the e-science field can accelerate the scientific research process. a new methodology and an enhanced system design is proposed to facilitate the reuse of workflows and verified knowledge. this study aimed to develop a remote microphone probe to measure unsteady surface pressure in order to localize and identify force-induced sound and/or vibration sources. the probe achieved a center-to-center tap distance of 0.81mm and a frequency response up to 15khz, thereby facilitating discrete point surface measurements with high-spatial resolution and high-frequency response. the probe consisted of 3-tubes: a rigid tube connected the surface tap to a gradual inside diameter expansion, a rigid tube from the expansion to the sensing region and a non-rigid tube to act as an anechoic termination. analytical and experimental transfer function methods in the frequency domain are provided to correct for tubing distortions resulting from viscous attenuation and acoustic impedance changes. various lengths of tubing were tested to show the design's impact on transfer function. measurement results from a zero-pressure-gradient turbulent boundary layer validate the method, and measurements along the trailing cylinder of a circulation control airfoil demonstrate its ability to yield measurements along complex geometries. the remote microphone probe technique can be used in many applications and optimized for specific experiments by changing the lengths and radii of the tubing. the analytical method allows for probe details to be determined in the design phase, and the experimental method allows for correction of any real world discrepancies that may be encountered. this dissertation addresses a trend in modern scholarship to portray the political theology of st. robert bellarmine as an attempt to maintain and even strengthen papal domination of political affairs. against the contention that bellarmine's conception of the pope's indirect power over temporal affairs (potestas indirecta) is merely an attempt to retain the medieval papacy's direct control under new, more palatable terms, this dissertation argues that bellarmine was fully committed to the natural autonomy of the political order and did not intend his theory of indirect power to be invoked apart from quite exceptional circumstances, which he did not judge to exist at the time of his writing. bellarmine's interest in writing on the indirect power was, accordingly, to defend the truth of the doctrine but not to see it enacted.the dissertation is divided into five chapters. after one chapter introducing bellarmine and his modern interpreters, chapters 2 and 3 make use of bellarmine's controversies to establish his teaching regarding the temporal power of political rulers and the spiritual power of ecclesiastical rulers, respectively. chapter 4 then examines how that teaching was brought to bear in print controversies with the theologians of venice (most notably paolo sarpi), king james i of england, and william barclay. chapter 5 draws upon bellarmine's de officio principis christiani; admonitio ad episcopum theanensem; and de officio primario summi pontificis, together with assorted shorter works, to demonstrate the consistency of bellarmine's thought through time and his emphasis upon spiritual, rather than political, concerns. this study examined the moderating role of daily support transactions in the relationship between stress and negative affect. of particular interest was the role of visible support, defined as recipients and providers reports of enacted support, and invisible support, expressed as the skillful provision of beneficial support happening outside of the support receiver's awareness, in moderating stress-negative affect linkages in individuals within a married couple. sixty-four cohabitating, married dyads were recruited from the notre dame study of health &amp; well-being. wives and husbands were asked to individually complete nightly questionnaires each evening for 35 days. actor partner independence models (apim) were used to examine the stress-negative affect relationship within individuals, within the married dyad, and across the sample of married dyads. visible and invisible spousal support was then incorporated into the model to examine its moderating role in within and between couple stress-negative affect relationships. the results suggested that visible support (i.e., partner provided and perceived received support) significantly moderated the within, but not between couple stress-negative affect relationship. the visible support relationships, however, appeared to differ for wives and husbands. invisible support was not a significant moderator of either the within or between couple stress-negative affect relationships. the results of the present study suggest that visible support transactions are an integral component in the regulation of emotional responses to daily stress within married couples, and that wives and husbands may draw on different aspects of visible support to modulate their negative emotional responses to daily stressors. this dissertation investigates niccolò machiavelli's account of civil conflict across his corpus to develop a theory of conflictual republicanism. i argue that his theory offers a uniquely valuable set of tools for thinking about conflict in democratic political life. specifically, his distinction between productive public conflicts and destructive private partisan conflicts alongside his account of the causes and consequences of both can help us think through our own preoccupations with questions of difference, disagreement, and partisanship in democratic political life. each of the dissertation's five substantive chapters investigates a different aspect of this theory of conflictual politics and considers them in the context of contemporary debates in political theory and american politics. respectively, the chapters cover his theory of class politics, religion, equality, imperialism, and political parties. the dissertation then concludes with an examination of the critical leverage machiavelli's treatment of these themes provides for contemporary democratic projects. molecular-scale recognition motifs in drug delivery applications have emerged in recent decades to facilitate in situ recognition and complex formation under physiological conditions. herein, a design utilizing host-guest supramolecular interactions from cucurbit[7]uril (cb[7]) to drive model prodrugs to the surface of nih-3t3 cells is discussed. a combination of confocal imaging and flow cytometry presents results indicating clear cell membrane incorporation and retention of a single cholesterol moiety conjugated to a fully cb[7]-functionalized pamam dendrimer that can bind and capture administered fc-n-cy5 at cell surfaces over the course of 3 days in vitro. dendrimer-modified cells administered with fc-n-cy5 showed nearly a two-order of magnitude increase in fluorescence intensity after 24 hours compared to unmodified cells washed with fc-n-cy5 under the same protocol. the results presented in this thesis offer exciting potential for improved drug delivery applications, in which the multivalency of the design could serve to increase the effective binding affinity of circulating prodrugs by enabling avidity and enhancing recognition specificity. there are more than 380 million tons of plastic produced globally each year, an amount that is expected to triple by 2040. contrary to most people's expectation, less than 10% of this material is currently recycled. most of it ends up in landfills and the rest either incinerated or leaked back into the environment to infiltrate our food, drinking water, and endocrine systems. a combination of factors has fed the proliferation of plastics, hidden the consequences of their use, and stifled competition and systemic change. switching more of our products and packaging to biodegradable alternatives gives us a chance to clean our bodies, streams, beaches, and wildlife habitats. this project proposes a low-impact model of production and uses renewable, locally sourced bio-composites. many of our modern building materials and furnishings are designed to be made in high volume and as cheaply as possible. this has led to an endless flow of petroleum-derived plastics, epoxy-soaked timber, and toxic adhesives that are impossible to reuse or recycle. the popularity of home renovations and imported fast-furniture in our consumerist culture ensures this direct-to-landfill trend will endure. this project seeks to disrupt this cycle by re-localizing manufacturing and bringing a renewed interest in place, purpose, and materiality to a new line of products.bioplastics blended with agricultural waste fibers (native grasses, wheat straw, natural dyes) yield materials with unique aesthetics while augmenting properties and improving their sustainability. in this project, i design and fabricate a chair that has an ultra-low carbon footprint and is free from petroleum and dangerous airborne chemicals, formaldehyde, chlorine, and phthalates. modern digital fabrication technologies are leveraged to create customizable mold inserts and precision sheets, profiles, and patterns. through the versatility, strength, and beauty of these materials, the chair will demonstrate the rich possibilities of low-carbon production. this dissertation examines the various forms and roles self-knowledge assumes in bernard of clairvaux's overarching vision of the spiritual life. previous scholarship on bernard's doctrine of self-knowledge has correctly emphasized the significance he attaches to humbling self-knowledge, or the soul's honest self-recognition as a disfigured image of god, in the soul's first conversion and the initial stages of its return to god. a certain scholarly preoccupation with this aspect of the abbot's thought has, however, somewhat obscured the full breadth of bernard's teaching on self-knowledge and the diverse forms and roles it assumes across the various phases of the soul's spiritual life, including those which both proceed and follow its first conversion. prior to its first conversion, bernard believes, the soul suffers not only from self-ignorance, but also from a self-deception, a false self-knowledge born of pride, by which it imagines itself superior to others and therefore not in need of conversion or healing. it is precisely because he recognizes the seductive power of this self-deception that bernard so frequently insists upon the soul's humbling recognition of its own sad disfigurement as the prerequisite for its return to god. yet, the soul's humbling self-awareness as a defaced image of god is far from bernard's final word on the subject of the soul's self-knowledge. for as the soul undertakes the way of its restoration in the lost divine likeness by its gradual conformity to the humility and charity of christ, it comes to know itself anew, as one gradually assuming the figure of christ's own bride, radiant with her bridegroom's own beauty. proceeding in four chapters, this dissertation begins with an overture to bernard's comprehensive doctrine of self-knowledge through a study of his sermones super cantica canticorum. chapters 2 and 3 trace respectively his parallel accounts of the soul's descent into self-deception by way of pride and self-will and its ascent to self-knowledge by way of humility and love. finally, chapter 4 shows how, for bernard, christ the incarnate word both models and effects the soul's ascent to self-awareness as his bride by his own journey of self-knowledge in his incarnation. the publication of the "pre-standard for the for load &amp; resistance factor design (lrfd) of pultruded fiber reinforced polymer (frp) structures", hereafter referred to as the "pre-standard", established the standardization of the design of structures in pultruded frp composite. furthermore, a standard developed through a voluntary consensus process (namely, asce/sei 74) was recently submitted for public review and is completing the publication process. while the pre-standard and asce/sei 74 established pultruded frp composites among the standard design materials for construction in the united states, the two documents are not exhaustive, and additional research is needed for several design issues. at this crucial time for the standardization of pultruded frp composites in construction, this thesis presents a collection of experimental, analytical, and statistical studies with the aim of further incentivizing the advancements of the structural design of pultruded frp composites. the primary research goals can be summarized as follows: the derivation of strength reduction factors and reliability of the lrfd equations for connection design; the measurement of the tensile behavior of pultruded frp composites and derivation of an equation for the tensile strength and elastic modulus at varying angles of loading relative to the pultrusion; the measurement of the flexural modulus of pultruded frp profiles and the contribution of shear deformation to flexural rigidity; the development and testing of a novel lapped, adhered semi-rigid connection to promote the implementation of more versatile structural framing solutions; and the proposal and reliability analysis of novel predictive models for the design of lapped, adhered semi-rigid connections within the boundaries of the lrfd methodology. the findings of the research, provisional proposals for future editions of asce/sei 74, and examples of applications in real-world projects designed by the author are also detailed herein. v2vi3 materials bi2se3 and bi2te3 with tetradymite rhombohedral layered structures consisting of repeating layers of se(te)-bi-se(te)-bi-se(te) are in a class of electronic materials called topological insulators (tis) exhibiting a bulk band gap and band-crossing surface states supported by the non-trivial band topology of the ti. the topologically protected surface states are characterized by the electron spin locked perpendicular to the momentum (in the plane of the sample) leading to time reversal invariance that protects these conducting states against backscattering. strong spin-orbit coupling in these materials leads to band inversion that results in a transition to the topological state. this research is part of the significant effort in perfecting techniques for producing high quality ti materials and studying the structural, electronic, and other characteristics of these novel quantum materials. bi2se3 and bi2te3 thin films were studied experimentally using electrical transport techniques, with emphasis on resistivity, weak antilocalization, and differentiating bulk and surface carriers. investigations were extended to the study of related systems ternary alloy bi2texse3-x along the range of x from 0 to 3 and bi-chalcogenide materials doped with mn to promote the system to host a magnetization. all systems were grown by molecular beam epitaxy (mbe). samples were grown at a range of thicknesses from 20nm to 200nm. measurements of resistivity in bi-chalcogenide materials, alloys, and heterostructures serve to establish the transport behavior of these materials with the aim of differentiating between bulk and surface conductance. additional structural and magnetic measurements including x-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy, x-ray absorption fine structure measurements, and superconducting quantum interference device magnetometry give further insight into the systems under study that allow for a complete description of electron transport through these materials. this dissertation engages the figure of slovenian cultural theorist and leftist provocateur slavoj žižek, who represents perhaps the most radical theoretical constellation of any such contemporary thinker with his trademark configuration of german idealist romantic philosophy, theoretical psychoanalysis, and ardent revolutionary marxism. while such a triangulation is maximally provocative in its own right, what sets žižek apart is his deep engagement with and constructive use of christian theology. more specifically, the dissertation will focus on žižek's theory of the death of god, as well as the ways in which he negotiates and surpasses the various philosophical strains of the death of god he inherits—hegel, nietzsche, heidegger, and so on—together with the theoretical fields in which he operates—psychoanalysis, cultural and emancipatory political theory, and so on.for žižek, such ideological commitments (or the atheism they seem to imply) are neither necessary nor sufficient to discount the importance of the theological, and moreover, should not disqualify even the most militant of "fighting atheists"[1] from self-identifying as christians, whatever the requisite caveats. in fact, žižek argues that such commitments best provide both the grounds and the impetus for christian identity, while also regulating christianity as such with respect to its ontological and gnoseological claims. thus, the agenda of the dissertation is set by the dynamism of this interplay between christian theological identity (or identification) and content, on the one hand, and ideological regulation, on the other, and seeks ultimately to present an account of slavoj žižek, not only as a constitutively theological thinker, but also as representing a certain kind of religious type in and through reconstructing his version of the death of god. thus, the dissertation proceeds along conceptual (theoretical, philosophical, theological) and typological (classificatory, characteristic) lines. with respect to the former, a conceptual analysis, though incredibly broad and complex, is relatively straightforward, at least procedurally insofar as žižek's ideas and influences are presented, catalogued, and assessed. the typological approach, however, is perhaps less procedurally straightforward insofar as it attempts to contour žižek as a particular type of religiosity, one constitutively theological while remaining atheistic, demonstrating the possibility of being religious in the quagmire of post-secularism. to approach the status quaestionis of žižek's theological orientation and religious typology, considerable preliminary work must be done to situate žižek within milieux of the broad ideological movements in which he operates, namely, marxism, german romantic idealist philosophy, and lacanian psychoanalytic theory. that is, the antecedent character of each school of thought before žižek's involvement with and contribution to them must be considered in their own right.such preamble is especially critical with respect to žižek, who exercises incredibly transformative effects on the discourses he utilizes, and not without a fair amount of controversy in doing so. christian theology, on the other hand, functions differently in žižek, not as an ideological position in the same way that hegel, marx, and lacan do, but rather as a common thread between these discourses, in fact very often providing both the means to integrate and ambiguate them, as well as a putative horizon against which such discourses are directed and tested. in other words, the fundamental problematic of the dissertation concerns the intersection between žižek's attitudes toward and conceptualization of religion, christianity in particular, and his use of it within the framework of his otherwise ideological commitments. the former constitutes the conceptual approach of the dissertation; the latter roughly denotes the typological. [1] doug henwood, "i'm a fighting atheist. interview with slavoj žižek," bad subjects 59 (2002), available at http://bad.eserver.org/issues/2002/59/zizek.html. the main objective of this study was to examine daily associations between sleep and mood within a midlife adult population as this period of life has received very little attention. much of the existing literature covers characteristics of sleep in both young adults and during old age, or tests associations between sleep and psychological disorders and physical illness. although sleep quality begins to decline in early adulthood, sleep characteristics become more stable by old age, and the greatest changes are observed when comparing sleep between young and old adults. little is understood about sleep in midlife adulthood, particularly as it affects daily functioning in a community-based population. as middle-aged adults are busy and involved in multiple roles, many in this age group fail to obtain optimal sleep. a poor night's sleep can disrupt one's ability to manage their daily responsibilities efficiently by inhibiting optimal regulation of daily mood. in addition, increases in daily stress can exacerbate the effect of poor sleep quality on daily mood, and in turn may affect next day's mood. using a middle-aged community sample, this study utilizes daily diary data including self-reported sleep, mood, and stress measures that were concurrently collected over 56 consecutive days. a global measure of sleep quality was also included in the measures collected. multilevel modeling was used to assess the sleep-mood relationship at both the between-person and within-person levels with findings supporting the hypothesis that sleep plays a role in daily emotion regulation. neither variation from one's average total night's sleep time nor the average amount of nightly sleep one received across the 56 days was found to significantly predict daily negative mood. positive mood, on the other hand, was predicted by a quadratic trend in nightly sleep time variation, in which greater sleep time was associated with better daily positive mood. in separate analyses, however, variability in one's sleep time predicting negative and positive mood was predicated on an individual's level of global sleep quality, in which poorer global sleep quality was related to increased daily negative mood, and decreased daily positive mood. when considering the relationship between concurrently measured daily stress and daily mood, the quality of nightly sleep significantly predicted the degree to which perceptions of daily stress influenced that same day's negative mood regulation, although the effect was small. both increased stress and poor sleep quality significantly reduced daily positive mood, but no interaction between stress and sleep was found in this relationship. a third analysis found that an intervening night's sleep quality mediated the relationship between one day's perceptions of stress and the next day's positive mood. the relationship between stress and the next day's negative mood, however, was not mediated by the quality of an intervening night's sleep, but may play role in suppressing the true relationship between a day's stress and an intervening night's sleep.. the cumulative results of this study suggest that, not only do individuals who have the best global sleep quality have the best daily mood, but the further an individual deviates from his or her normal sleep quality predicts variation in daily negative and positive mood (emotional reactivity). interestingly, both day-to-day sleep quality and nightly amount of sleep were related to positive and negative mood in different ways. conformational constraints were placed on derivatives of neamine, a subclass of aminoglycosides, via an n3-n6' linkage in order to investigate the relevance of conformational states in binding the bacterial ribosome. additionally, an understanding of how this new class of compounds behaves in the presence of aminoglycoside modifying enzymes was sought. plasmodium vivax is responsible for 70-80 million cases of malaria annually and has the widest geographical distribution of the human malaria parasites. although not as deadly as the human malaria parasite, plasmodium falciparum, its widespread distribution and the lack of sustained naturally acquired immunity cause it to be a very heavy public health and economic burden worldwide. development of an effective vaccine against this parasite is a public health imperative. clinical symptoms of malaria are caused by the blood stage of the disease in which the parasites invade red blood cells, replicate inside them and then are released into the circulation to invade new red blood cells. this process results in the destruction of large numbers of red blood cells causing fever and chills and severe anemia among other symptoms. the invasion process is reliant upon specific interactions between parasite ligands and host cell receptors. in the p. vivax, the interaction between the parasite duffy binding protein (pvdbp) and the host duffy antigen/receptor for chemokines (darc) is absolutely required for invasion. individuals who lack darc are completely protected from blood stage infection and therefore, clinical disease. pvdbp is, therefore, a very attractive vaccine candidate. pvdbp is a highly polymorphic protein, complicating vaccine development. understanding of the role of these polymorphisms in determining strain-specific immune responses and determination of residues that form conserved epitopes will be vital for successful development of a strain-transcending vaccine. we examined the basis for a limited polymorphisms n417k and found that a number of amino acid substitutions are excluded from natural isolates because of their poor binding phenotypes and that the naturally occurring residues n and k are the most antigenically distinct. we also created a panel of pvdbp variants representative of global genetic diversity and examined their responses to immune inhibition, demonstrating that they show strain-specific responses. furthermore, we compared pvdbp to a dbp from plasmodium knowlesi, pkì_å_, to determine the molecular basis for their host-specific invasion phenotypes. we also validated a primate model for use in vaccine testing, demonstrating that invasion of aotus nancymai erythrocytes by pvdbp is duffy antigen dependent. host-guest chemistry has diversified considerably over the past sixty years since the first report of macrocyclic crown ethers. this dissertation focuses on a class of rigid tetralactam host molecules with parallel aromatic sidewalls that can be threaded by deep-red and near-infrared squaraine and croconaine dyes with very high affinity. the term synthavidin (synthetic avidin) technology has been coined to describe this practically useful host-guest pair. within synthavidin, two distinct applications have arisen resulting from the structural control of the thermodynamics and kinetics for dye threading: preassembly, which relies upon a slow rate of complex dissociation to produce long-lived fluorescent probes for biological imaging experiments, and in situ capture, which exploits high affinity and fast association kinetics for the development of diagnostic assays. the first chapter of this dissertation summarizes the thermodynamic and kinetic forces driving squaraine and croconaine threading by tetralactam macrocycles in organic and aqueous solvent, as well as previous examples of synthavidin preassembly and in situ capture. the research presented in this dissertation focuses on optimization of new synthavidin host-guest pairs for capture applications.the second chapter of this dissertation describes the development of a new class of tetralactam macrocycles with parallel aromatic sidewalls and evaluation of their squaraine binding capabilities. a new tetralactam with 2,3,5,6-tetramethylphenylene sidewalls is found to thread squaraine dyes in chloroform with micromolar affinity, producing a substantial increase in deep-red fluorescence intensity. another structurally similar tetralactam with 2,3,5,6-tetramethoxyphenylene sidewalls is found to have no squaraine affinity, as it is not suitably preorganized for threading of a squaraine guest. this preorganization is restored by restricting the conformational flexibility of these tetramethoxy groups into benzodioxole sidewalls, producing a tetralactam host with moderate affinity for squaraines, while quenching their deep-red fluorescence.the third chapter introduces a water-soluble analogue of this 2,3,5,6tetramethylphenylene-sidewalled tetralactam and quantifies its thermodynamic and kinetic properties for encapsulation of a variety of squaraine and croconaine dyes. this new tetralactam is found to thread squaraines and croconaines with micromolar affinity and is employed in synthavidin preassembly alongside a targeted analogue for fluorescence imaging of cancer in vitro and in vivo. for in situ capture applications, squaraine affinity for this new macrocycle is increased to nanomolar through the supramolecular paradigm of guest back-folding.the fourth chapter of this dissertation broadens the scope of both tetralactam hosts and fluorescent guests used in synthavidin technology. the improved solubility of tetralactam macrocycles with 2,3,5,6-tetramethylphenylene sidewalls allows for systematic evaluation of squaraine threading by macrocycles with a variety of cationic and anionic bridgeheads. the use of a cationic tetralactam with an anionic squaraine provides a new host-guest pair with nanomolar affinity in water, leading to an additional method of modulating threading affinity. semisquaraines and amidosquaraines are also introduced as new polar guests for tetralactam macrocycles, where their rapid threading and large increase in fluorescence upon complexation may prove very useful for the development of future capture assays.finally, the fifth chapter begins by describing the photophysical properties and singlet oxygen generation capability of a novel halogenated phenoxazine dye, which is found to generate a similar amount of reactive oxygen species as the commercial photosensitizer rose bengal and induces cell death in a clinically relevant cancer cell line. this dye is then evaluated for threading of a variety of 2,3,5,6-tetramethylphenylene tetralactam scaffolds and is found to form a complex with a tetralactam with 4-aminopiperidinium-appended bridgeheads, resulting in a characteristic color change and quenching of dye fluorescence. this fluorescence quenching is then exploited in the development of a screening assay for other possible guests for this tetralactam host, where binding of a suitable guest releases the encapsulated dye, producing a large increase in fluorescence intensity. this thesis compares one-hop routing and two-hop routing in simple networks consisting of two mobile nodes and a single destination (base) node. the networks under consideration use time division multiple access (wherein the nodes co-operate only in that they do not try to access the channel simultaneously) for multi-hop transmission to mitigate interference and include a linear network (with unequal spacing) and a simple two-dimensional network. we first use capacity arguments to demonstrate the advantage of one-hop routing in the high snr (high spectral efficiency) regime; we then simulate practical coding schemes whose performance support the capacity arguments. finally, we examine how the cross-over rate (the rate at which the optimal number of hops changes) varies in the presence of an end-to-end delay using the sphere packing bound. the success of open source software (oss) has attracted increased interest in many research areas. unlike proprietary closed software, oss projects are developed in a distributed and decentralized way. the oss community is largely composed of part-time developers. these developers have developed a substantial number of outstanding technical achievements. a research study on how oss developers interact with each other and how projects are developed will help researchers understand the success and failure of oss projects. oss developers can also benefit from this research, by being able to make more informed decisions for participating on oss projects. in this dissertation, we address the challenge of efficiently mining data from oss web repositories and building models to study oss community features. data collection for oss study is nontrivial since most oss projects are developed by distributed developers using web tools. most previous studies focus on manually creating a web crawler to collect data from oss web sites. this method is usually implemented by creating a web crawler based on specific research goals. we design a mining process which combines web mining and database mining together to identify, extract, filter and analyze data. we address and analyze the difficulty of mining oss data. our work provides a general solution for researchers to implement advanced techniques, such as web mining, data mining, statistics, and algorithms to collect and analyze web repository data. based on our mining results, we model the oss community as a social network, one which can be further modeled as a project network and a developer network, and study properties of these networks. our goal is to find intrinsic mechanisms that lie in oss networks to explain some oss specific features such as roles of developers, communication, and reliability of the oss community. we construct four social networks for the oss development community at sourceforge cite{sourceforge}. each social network is created by expanding the number of people with different roles in the network, moving from the core project leaders, to the core developers, to the co-developers, and finally out to active users. social network properties such as degree distribution, diameter, cluster size, and clustering coefficient are calculated and compared for each of the expanding social networks. we elaborate on how the changing topological characteristics of the social networks may signify important capabilities for the diffusion of information, the ability to find collaborations, and the overall robustness of the oss development community. we further find that all the social networks have scale-free properties, and the inclusion of the co-developers and active users triggers the emergence of the small-world phenomenon for the social network. we examine how these topological network properties may potentially explain the success and efficiency of oss development practices. to study the organization and backbones of the oss community, we conduct the identification of the community structure on the sourceforge project network. we find that groups exist in the sourceforge project network. furthermore, we explore possible reasons for the formation of those groups by examining assortative mixing coefficients for projects categories. among them, we find projects with same programming languages, operating systems and topics are more likely to be grouped together. our research provides useful information to study the interaction between projects and the communication and information flow in oss virtual organizations. we simulate the oss community based on four social network models: random graphs, preferential attachment, preferential attachment with constant fitness, and preferential attachment with dynamic fitness, using two tools -repast and swarm. our simulation models are fit to data from year two in the history of sourceforge. to prove the correctness of our simulations, docking experiments are performed on the repast simulation and the java/swarm simulation. our models simulate developers' actions and the growth of the oss community. we compare properties of social networks such as degree distribution, diameter and clustering coefficient to dock repast and swarm simulations of four social network models. our practice demonstrates the importance of verifications in scientific simulations. the simulation models we build can be used to forecast future development of oss community. this dissertation focuses on the development of a unique microfluidic approach, using hydrodynamic focusing, to enable both surface enhanced raman scattering (sers) and electrochemical characterization of analytes at nanomolar concentration in flow. the approach utilizes a versatile polystyrene chip that contains an encapsulated microelectrode and fluidic tubing with a polydimethylsiloxane (pdms) microchannel positioned over both to generate a sheath-flow that confines and increase the interaction between the analyte and the surface to improve detection. the microfluidic device was characterized using finite element simulations, amperometry, and raman experiments. an examination of riboflavin (vitamin b12) and catechol demonstrated a sers and amperometric detection limit near 1 and 25 nm, respectively. this combination of sers and amperometry in a single device provides an improved method to identify and quantify electroactive analytes over either technique independently. the platform has also been used to investigate the role of surface adsorption in the sers and electrochemical detection of neurotransmitters, as well as examine reversible changes in spectral features of riboflavin based on applied potential. multiple modality biometric approaches are proposed integrating two-dimensional face appearance with ear appearance, three-dimensional face shape, and the pattern of heat emission on face. a single source biometric recognition method, such as face, has been shown to improve its identification rate by incorporating other biometric sources. the investigation of multi-modal biometrics involves a variety of sensors. for the recognition task, each sensor captures different aspects of human facial features; for example, appearance representing the levels of brightness on surface reflectance by a light source, shape data representing depth values defined at points on an object, and the pattern of heat emitted from an object. the results of our multiple biometric approach shown in this investigation appear to support the conclusion that the path to higher accuracy and robustness in biometrics involves the use of multiple biometrics rather than the best possible sensor and algorithm for a single biometric. a new evaluation scheme is designed to assess the improvement gained by multiple biometrics. because multi-modal recognition employs multiple samples of facial data, it is also possible that the improvement achieved over considering multiple samples from all modalities for recognition. therefore, this evaluation scheme will determine the recognition accuracy gained by multiple modality approach and multiple sample approach. also, a new algorithm for 3d face recognition is proposed for handling expression variation. it uses a surface registration-based technique for 3d face recognition. we evaluate and compare the performance of approaches to 3d face recognition based on pca-based and on iterative closest point algorithms. the proposed 3d face recognition method is fully automatic to use to initialize the 3d matching. the evaluation results show that the proposed algorithm substantially improves performance in the case of varying facial expression. this is the first study to compare the pca and icp approaches to 3d face recognition, and the first to propose a multiple-region approach to coping with expression variation in 3d face recognition. the proposed method outperforms 3d eigenfaces when 3d face scans were acquired in different times without expression changes and also with expression changes. in the wake of complex, contested disasters, narratives of suffering often emerge as integral features of attempts to rebuild cosmologies, particularly when such catastrophes are perpetrated by other humans. due to the social negotiations and fluidity inherent in these processes, influential stakeholders can play an outsized role in using these discursive political tools for nation-building and solidarity. genocidal narratives of suffering exist as a special and morally untouchable case due to their emotional salience and scope. despite our knowledge that such narratives of suffering can impact sociopolitical processes, how these processes unfold, particularly as they are driven by influential stakeholders, is under-theorized. this project examines the interactions of four groups of social actors who frequently interact with holodomor genocide narratives—lawyers, academics, politicians, and activists—in the context of modern ukraine. the 1932-1933 ukrainian holodomor ("killing by hunger") refers to an artificially induced famine in joseph stalin's soviet ukraine that killed an estimated 4.5 million people and changed ukrainian society forever.since ukraine's 1991 independence, narratives regarding the holodomor have grown from a diffuse set of suppressed memories into an officially-sanctioned charter story for ukrainian national identity as nuances decreased and stakeholder narratives converged during a series of escalating national crises.to substantiate this argument, two overarching, interlinking themes are explored: 1) the extreme cosmological destruction (i.e., the intentional, concurrent targeting a group's biological existence and social world) caused by the holodomor itself, and how this devastation contributed to 2) modern national identity ambiguities that paved the way for the pronounced role that influential stakeholders played in steering conversations of who ukrainians were, are, and should be.using more than 1,000 pages of qualitative data gathered by intensive interviewing with 100 national-level stakeholders across politics, law, academia, and activism, i illustrate how the holodomor today is laden with representational meanings signifying ukraine's contemporary reality as a borderland caught between its eastern past and western aspirational future.contextualizing this argument through 2.5 years of ethnographic fieldwork and participant-observation in ukraine, i explore holodomor narrative functions—including reclamation, resistance, absolution, and camouflage—and demonstrate the salience of this event and its legacy in understanding contemporary ukraine. breast cancer is the most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer related deaths among women. early detection is considered the best option for reducing morbidity and mammography is the current gold standard for early detection of breast cancer. microcalcifications are the most common abnormality observed on a mammogram and are early markers for breast cancer. however, the detection of breast microcalcifications and correct diagnosis of breast cancer are limited by the sensitivity and specificity of mammography, especially in women with radiographically dense breasts. mammography could potentially be improved by the administration of a contrast agent for contrast-enhanced x-ray imaging. therefore, the objective of this research was to investigate the potential of bisphosphonate-functionalized gold nanoparticles (bp-au nps) as an x-ray contrast agent for targeted labeling and contrast-enhanced radiographic imaging of breast microcalcifications. the hypothesis was that bp-au nps would target and enhance the x-ray contrast of microcalcifications enabling improved sensitivity and specificity for x-ray detection of microcalcifications. in vitro, ex vivo and two in vivo models of microcalcifications were developed and used to investigate bp-au nps. bp-au nps provided enhanced-contrast for the detection of microcalcifications in each model, including a model of radiographically dense mammary tissues. bp-au nps targeted microcalcifications in vivo after intramammary delivery to enhance x-ray contrast with surrounding mammary tissue, which resulted in improved sensitivity and specificity. in summary, the utility of using bp-au nps as a targeted x-ray contrast agent was demonstrated, suggesting that bp-au nps could provide a more sensitive and specific diagnostic tool for the detection of microcalcifications during mammographic screening for breast cancer. this dissertation consists of three essays on moral development among young americans during the transition to adulthood. its goal is to illuminate the social mechanisms by which young people's moral views develop, solidify or change, and shape their religious and political views. all three essays are based on analyses of longitudinal interviews, field notes, and nationally representative surveys from the national study of youth and religion (nsyr), a 10-year study with 4 waves of data collected from 2002 to 2012. the first essay proposes a new approach for studying religious engagement, which involves considering the moral orders that shape people's religious understandings. it finds that respondents' religious understandings are strongly influenced by an intuitive moral framework consisting of two spectrums: "following the way" versus "making the way" and "helping self" versus "helping others." based on different orientations to this framework, it theorizes four ideal types of religious practitioners that help explain complex patterns of religious engagement and change in america. the second essay examines the development of christian nationalist views during the transition to adulthood. it conceptualizes "affective conditioning" as an enculturation process by which emotions shape ideological views and cultural attitudes. its analysis identifies distinct traumatic upbringing experiences among respondents, which condition heightened threat-sensitive emotions, giving christian nationalists an enduring sense that their way of life is "under attack" and motivating reactionary sociological attitudes. it also distinguishes two dominant types of christian nationalist ideology rooted in different emotion systems. the third essay analyzes the development of liberal and conservative political orientations, considering the moderating role of perception in respondents' moral and political views. it finds that respondents' views fundamentally concern a perceived gestalt of society as needing or not needing progressive reform, which emerges from the combined influences of their political upbringing, compliance with the established order, and prosociality. it then explains how different combinations of these factors lead to different political orientations. by conceptualizing and illustrating the roles of moral intuitions, emotions, and perceptions, each of these chapters offers new insights about how morality shapes and is shaped by social life. this study examines the sometimes explicit but also inchoate, coded, or anonymous complex of relations between the work and method of hans urs von balthasar and modern russian religious thought, specifically the work of vladimir soloviev, nicholas berdyaev, and sergei bulgakov. thematic, theological, and methodological affinities between balthasar and the russians include a shared broad-mindedness toward navigating between the ancient christian tradition and modern philosophical developments, a variously critical reception of german idealism and romanticism, and in focused treatment of the relation of god and world, immanence and transcendence, freedom and necessity, as well as kenoticism, eschatology, trinity, history, pneumatology, cosmology, and aesthetics. it is the burden of this study to demonstrate, as evidenced by his critical excavation of the russians, that balthasar's own theological method can' contravening the opinion of some of his critics' be characterized as quintessentially non-nostalgic, structurally hospitable to non-theological categories, non-canonic sources, and modes of speculative thinking which probe, but do not exceed the elastic boundaries of tradition. this thesis shall be tested systematically through an analysis and assessment of the principles according to which balthasar allows, repeats, or excludes elements in the functional test-cases of the russians along the following sites of inquiry: (1) art and aesthetics, (2) the problems of myth, freedom, and evil, (3) 'anthropocentric' eschatology, including death, judgment, and the postmortem state, and (4) 'theocentric' eschatology, including figurations of the antichrist and paschal trinitarianism. because soloviev, berdyaev, and bulgakov critically appropriate german idealism and romanticism to varying degrees in their religious philosophies, f.w.j. schelling serves throughout as a tertiary conversation partner and a primary catalyst for productively analyzing balthasar's process of adjudicating the value and reliability of philosophical and theological sources. through constructing a dialogical space which keeps balthasar, schelling, and the russians in conversation, this dissertation suggests that balthasarian theological method operates fundamentally in a pneumatic register, grounded in orthodox commitments and structurally open to developments in theology. unthought known is a multimedia photographic series that investigates the psychological and physiological lived experience of traumatic memory. within the framework of affect theory, memory, and psychoanalytical approaches to trauma, i focus on the ways in which the encounter with the traces of trauma create a dissociated and disembodied experience of the self, time and space. i construct spaces and non-narratives through illusion and figuration in order to reflect trauma's resistance to representation and acknowledgement. wind tunnel experiments were performed in a high pressure environment simulating the bend of a centrifugal compressor.active flow control techniques in the forms of dielectric barrier discharge (dbd) plasma actuators, as well as passive flow control techniques in the form of counter rotating vortex generators were employed as a means of reattaching separated flow.additional modifications were made to the geometry of the geometry of the flow's turning radius and subsequent recurves to both improve flow characteristics and isolate significant factors of flow separation in the closed channel environment. experiments were conducted over a range of pressures and mach numbers to determine applicability of flow control techniques.subsequent experiments were conducted in a turbulent 2-d channel flow at atmospheric pressure leading to a range of curved bends that result in an inner-radius flow separation. the ratio of the bend centerline radius to channel height was 1.125. the bend angle was adjustable and ranged from 0 to 150 degrees. the approaching channel flow to the bends was approximately fully developed, and did not vary with the bend angle. the flow conditions were adjusted to maintain a constant centerline velocity to account for the different pressure losses associated with the different bend angles. the flow field within the bend was documented using smoke wire flow visualization, a traversable pitot probe, and particle image velocimetry over a range of channel reynolds numbers. the objective was to identify characteristics of flow separation and reattachment, as well as approaches to flow separation control. flow separation control by both passive and active means are investigated. active control involves a diaphragm-driven unsteady tangential wall jet, and a pulsed-dc plasma actuator. an optimum frequency was found in each case to minimize the reattachment length. the scaling of the optimum frequency to the separated flow characteristics is presented. tuberculosis, and its causative agent mycobacterium tuberculosis (m. tb), pose a significant health burden, killing over 1.5 million people every year. m. tb is successful as a pathogen due to its ability to overcome host immune cells by permeabilizing phagosomal membranes. pathogenic mycobacteria permeabilize phagosomal membranes using the esx-1 protein secretion system, a complex bacterial weapons system. the esx-1 secretory apparatus secretes protein substrates across the mycobacterial cytoplasmic membrane. we discovered a role for the esx-1 system in regulating gene expression. we discovered a mechanism allowing mycobacteria to tune the levels of esx-1 substrates. we demonstrated that esx-1 modulates the levels of esx-1 substrates through a negative feedback loop that represses expression of the whib6 transcription factor in the absence of the secretory apparatus. characterization of this feedback loop led to the identification of the novel transcription factor, espm. we demonstrated that espm represses whib6 expression in the absence of the esx-1 system by specifically binding to the whib6 promoter. based on structural predictions, we defined the function of several domains of espm. we demonstrated that espm binds dna through its c-terminal domain. we identified that espm multimerizes, and that both the nand c-terminal domains can multimerize. we demonstrated that espm's multimeric capacity plays a role in repression. finally, we identified several specific residues necessary for espm multimerization and espm function. taken together, this work significantly pushes forward our understanding of mycobacterial pathogenesis. our work not only elucidates mechanisms of regulation by the key mediator of mycobacterial virulence, but also provides drug targets for future therapeutics. this dissertation comprises three major components that sequentially describe the development of three methodologies for the formation of novel methyl substituted polyketide structural units and their application in complex molecule synthesis. this research dissertation commences with a literature review pertinent to the development of an ether transfer protocol, enabling a novel access to the formation of 1,3-syn-diol monoor diethers through electrophilic activation of homoallylic alkoxymethyl ethers. starting from 1,1-disubstituted alkenes, this transformation enabled us to stereoselectively access tertiary ethers. the use of iodine monochloride proved critical for a selective process, but other reagents such as idsi and bdsb have shown to be as efficient. additional advancements have led to the discovery of 2-naphthylmethyl ether which proceeded smoothly through ether transfer and was easily cleaved by ddq oxidation. this new method to access structural units containing tertiary ethers was applied in the synthesis of the c9-c19 fragment of lyngbyaloside b and c. in several cases, we observed the failure of the ether transfer methodology to provide the desired reactivity. this was particularly true when sp2-hybridized substituents were adjacent to the reacting alkoxymethyl ether, resulting in the formation of dihalogenated byproducts upon activation with iodine monochloride. we therefore developed a second generation of activating conditions, using n-iodosuccinimide in wet nitromethane, to resolve this lack of selectivity. this new, stereoselective route to access 1,3-syn-diol monoor diethers was successfully applied to the syntheses of diospongins a and b. the final section describes a method that enabled sp3 c-h bond functionalization by means of a hydride shift. we discovered that protonation of an alkene with a strong br?nsted acid initiated a 1,5-hydride shift through reduction of a tertiary carbocation by an appropriately positioned benzyl ether. modifications to the starting material or to the activating conditions allowed the formation of a variety of synthetically useful motifs that could be potentially employed in the synthesis of complex natural products. in the last couple of decades, cold atmospheric pressure plasmas have demonstrated the capabilities to be a promising tool for clinical medicine such as wound healing, sterilization, blood coagulation, dentistry, and cancer treatment. although the preliminary results for the potential use of these sources in clinical medicine are highly encouraging, a detailed understanding of the potential clinical applications has yet to be achieved. the primary goal of this research is to understand the physical and biochemical mechanisms underlying the plasma-biological molecules interactions in a well-controlled system.this dissertation starts with a study of the correlation between the plasma parameters (e.g., flow rate, voltage) and dna damage level induced due to plasma irradiation. the dna damage level is attributable to the amount of reactive species in an appj. a significant increase in dna damage level was observed for the closer treatment distance, longer irradiation time and higher flow rate of the feed gas. the investigation of the interactions between plasma components and air components (e.g., oxygen, water vapor) showed that the plasma power remained the same or decreased when the mixture of gases was used as the plasma jet environment or the feed gas, respectively, but in both cases, dna damage is increased. there is also a need for techniques to detect, identify, and quantify the intermediate, short-lived plasma species, which can trigger a cascade of biochemical reactions. to measure the total yield of reactive species formed during plasma irradiation, an acidified ferrous sulfate solution was employed. the yield of fe3+ ions from fe2+ is attributable to the amount of reactive species formed in the sample due to plasma irradiation. the results indicated that the number of reactive species formed was related to frequency and voltage increases. these results reveal the mechanism of plasma propagation in an ambient atmosphere along with plasma species interactions with surrounding air components, liquid samples, and biomolecules. this information could be a gateway to understand the mechanism of change in physical properties of plasma itself as well as its chemical and biological effects in various applications under atmospheric conditions. this thesis consists of two main topics, and several parts contained within the topics. the first topic we consider, are heat (or diffusion) evolution equations. we define any evolution equation as a heat type equation if it can be written in the form $p_t u p_x^2 u =n(u)$, where $n(u)$ is some nonlinear term. the solutions of these equations are locally in time characterized by the diffusion, and their analysis should take this term into account. therefore, the techniques we employ to study these equations are fundamentally different from techniques we use to study other evolution partial differential equations (pde's). there are many interesting phenomenon which can be modeled by nonlinear diffusion equations. most notably, we consider two applications in this thesis, the generalized burgers equation and the nonlinear financial diffusion equation. the first aforementioned equation is a mathematical generalization of burgers equation, which we consider to illustrate some of the techniques used in the study of this type of equations. the second equation has been derived to model an investment strategy for a retirement portfolio. the second main topic we consider are camassa--holm type equations. these equations are of the form $p_t u + u ^k p_x u +f(u) = 0$, where $f(cdot)$ is a nonlocal, nonlinear operator. equations of this form exhibit some interesting mathematical properties, including non-smooth solutions. this is in sharp contrast to diffusive equations, whose solutions are often characterized by a gaussian-like shape. to study properties of these equations, we must use very different tools from the area of analysis, as the techniques which we employ for the heat--type equations do not apply. when studying differential equations, it is often advantageous to use numerical techniques to give us insight into the properties of the solutions. solving an equation numerically may indicate that the solution exists for a long period of time, or it may allow us to test for some types of initial data which lead to blow-up of the solution. for example as in the case of burgers equation, we may find that particular profiles lead to blow-up. these insights may tell us how we should frame the mathematical questions we are interested in answering. it also is frequently the case that exact solutions cannot be written down for interesting initial data. therefore, numerical methods allow us to calculate solutions within machine precision, and make the same conclusions we would have made had we had a formulaic solution. we illustrate some of these numerical methods by examining an equation derived in financial mathematics. this thesis begins with a introduction to heat equations, by studying the historical advances leading up to fourier and several advances and applications of his ideas. it is important to understand how fourier developed his work, and why it was so important at the time. we then explore some of the classical results related to the heat equation before moving on to the most famous nonlinear heat--type equation, the navier--stokes equation, and explore several particular solutions. the second section of the document presents the generalized burgers equation, and contains our main results contained within this thesis. the third section presents our results related to a camassa--holm type equation, and we conclude the thesis by presenting some numerical methods for a nonlinear heat equation derived from financial mathematics. natural language processing (nlp) utilizes computers to process human language for various purposes. nlp applications affect people on a daily basis, from digital assistants to automated customer service to automatic translation. these systems traditionally take input primarily in the form of speech or text. when using these systems, however, we often may find that the systems are sensitive to the way we express our thoughts. for example, when using a search engine such as google or bing, if the results we get are not what we are looking for we may rephrase our search and get potentially very different results. google recognizes the need for incorporating nlp advances into their search algorithms and has recently improved their search algorithm by using bert \cite{devlin-etal-2019-bert}, a large pre-trained neural network. adding bert is meant to provide some additional language knowledge and reduce reliance on exact wording. ultimately, a system which can accurately encode the meaning of a search is likely to produce higher quality results.semantic graphs for nlp seek to encode the meaning of their input sentences. by working from the semantics of a sentence when performing machine translation, for example, we may better preserve the meaning of the sentence. in this work we look specifically at abstract meaning representation (amr) as our semantic graph formalism. amr allows many sentences to map to the same graph. this reflects the fact that we are able to formulate the same thought in many different ways. the tasks of converting between an amr graph and a string of text are non-trivial.throughout this dissertation we build up the theory underlying some potential methods for tackling the problem of producing a sentence from an amr graph. it is worth noting that while we use amr as our motivation and testing formalism, our methods generalize to other semantic representations as well. these methods build upon existing work, utilizing in particular multiset automata and directed acyclic graph (dag) processing algorithms. automata have been successful when applied in many other areas, but most existing work on multiset and dag automata are prohibitively costly to implement. our contributions include theoretical improvements to the time and space complexity of existing algorithms, novel training methods for learning from data, implementation of these systems, and combining them into a system which can produce a sentence from an input amr graph. specifically, we: define a new translation from weighted multiset regular expressions to weighted multiset automata more direct and compact than previous work as well as a new composable representation of partial runs of multiset automata more efficient than previous work show that the transformer's sinusoidal positional encodings can be viewed as a multiset automaton prove that complex-weighted multiset automata with only self-loops can approximate real-weighted multiset automata and extend deepsets to compute the forward weights of complex-weighted multiset automata enabling it to handle a new task modify and implement an extended dag recognition algorithm to use complex diagonalized multiset automata in place of positional encodings in a transformer network for amr-to-text generation demonstrate that these improvements now allow such a system to train on a gpu, opening new opportunities for future systems based on dag and multiset automata immigrants in the united states have often faced intolerance and negative stereotypes. we know that historical and political realities affect attitudes toward immigrants but are there underlying factors that shape attitudes toward immigrants at the individual level? several hypotheses have been put forth in order to answer this question including the labor market, the ideological, and the cultural affinity hypotheses. this study uses data from the general social survey to determine whether religious affiliation or attendance affect attitudes about immigrants and immigration policy. ordered logistic regression of data at the national level shows that jews and the non-religious are the most likely to hold tolerant attitudes toward immigrants followed by catholics even after controlling for a variety of socio-demographic controls. attendance has a positive impact on openness to immigration. no significant differences exist among different protestant groups. iranians are one of the most understudied immigrant groups in the united states (ghaffarian, 1998). much of the literature on iranians focuses on acculturation (bozorgmehr, 1998), with little research being conducted on psychopathology and other related variables. of the few published studies on iranians, references made to recruitment difficulties and participant distrust of researchers is prevalent (chaichian, 1997). given the small body of iranian mental health literature, an examination of issues related to lack of participation in mental health studies is needed. in this study, i propose a mediational model that attempts to explain this lack of participation. it was hypothesized that loss of face mediates the relationship between acculturation and both trust in mental health researchers and attitudes toward seeking mental health services. data was collected from 166 iranians sampled nationwide using a randomized online survey. results did not support this model. implications and future directions are discussed. this dissertation argues that the female-authored, old occitan hagiography for douceline of digne presented this holy woman in ecstasy as a liturgical gloss and model for the community, las donnas de robaut. when douceline's ecstasies are read alongside contemporary liturgical and devotional texts, practices, and art, her hagiography provides rare evidence of beguine liturgical formation. while not a customary in the strict sense of genre, the hagiography of douceline promoted communal liturgical customs and encouraged particular understandings of the liturgical and sacramental life of the church like a liturgical commentary. moreover, this dissertation argues that the hagiographic narratives of ecstasy are some of the richest and most essential portions of the text to discovering the promoted liturgical customs. the community's hagiography about their founder wove douceline's raptures into the community's liturgical and sacramental life by interpreting her ecstatic body as performing liturgical commentary and as promoting liturgical ideals.the dissertation builds the above argument in five chapters. chapter one seeks to introduce and situate the vida. chapters two, three, and four support the general argument by detailed analyses of different case studies for liturgical feasts and sacramental and devotional practices. chapter two examines the narrative of ecstasy on the ascension and argues that the ascension ecstasy's primary function was the dedication of the newly constructed dormitory in marseille. chapter three shows the centrality of the passion of christ to the liturgical vision of the hagiography by analyzing the various accounts of raptures including those inspired by the eucharist, good friday, and the stigmata of st. francis. chapter four examines the importance of the marian feast of the assumption in the liturgical imaginary of the vida, including through the narration of douceline's death. chapter five concludes the dissertation with its summary findings and the import and relevance of this work to the fields of liturgical studies and medieval and church history. the rational design of more versatile, selective, and durable catalysts relies on the ability to both understand the chemistry of existing catalysts and predict the behavior of new materials. quantum-based computational methods play an important role in this discovery by allowing accelerated screening of new materials and providing a deeper, molecular-level understanding of how chemistry happens at catalyst surfaces. however, due to the complexity and heterogeneity of real heterogeneous catalysts, purely computational methods have difficulties predicting quantitatively accurate metrics of catalyst performance. a fundamental inconsistency exists between the kinetic models typically used to understand experimental results and the nature of first-principles data intended to parameterize such models. to overcome this 'model gap,' new kinetic models must be developed to incorporate surface heterogeneity directly into the rate expressions. in this work, we combine dft calculations with cluster expansion and monte carlo techniques to model reactivity at catalyst surfaces completely from first principles. oxygen adsorption to transition metal surfaces, particularly platinum, is a critical step in many catalytic oxidation reactions and presents interesting modeling challenges due to the existence of strong lateral interactions between adsorbates. we first characterize the coverage-dependent adsorption thermodynamics of oxygen on the low-symmetry pt(321) surface, identifying ground state structures and examining their relative stability when exposed to various gas-phase environments. we then explore the coverage-dependent kinetics of o2 dissociation on this surface in the context of pt-catalyzed no oxidation: no(g) + 1/2 o2(g) <--> no2(g) and temperature programmed desorption of o2 from pt: 2 o* --> o2(g) + * in doing so, we introduce a non-mean-field, first-principles 'reaction site' kinetic model and develop a novel combination of computational tools needed for practical application of this model. we report the first molecularly detailed, quantitatively accurate model of no oxidation on pt and examine how the structure insensitivity observed experimentally is tied to the coverage-induced heterogeneity in this system. we also predict oxygen tpd in agreement with experiment and provide insight into the role of adsorbate-adsorbate interactions in determining the shape and position of desorption peaks. this dissertation considers current theological discussions about kenotic aspects of humanity and goes beyond them, imagining a theological anthropology in which kenosis is humanity's defining characteristic. yet "kenosis" has been a widely used, little defined concept in theology, from its origins in christology to its more recent anthropological usage. the dissertation, thus, seeks to define kenosis in a way that makes it applicable to more than an act, but to a whole existential orientation. the dissertation makes "vulnerability" a central aspect of kenosis; it is the condition of kenosis. a person truly lives kenotically when she embraces this vulnerability and uses it as a source of strength. in making this argument, the dissertation engages concerns about kenosis' usefulness. i address the fears that kenosis may be harmful for those who are abused. indeed, the dissertation shows how kenotic responses not only to abuse, but to any kind of suffering, can help a person heal from trauma. an interesting feature observed during the first scientific cruise of the air sea interactions in the northern indian ocean (asiri) research initiative of the office of naval research (2013-2017) was intermittently distributed low salinity cold water pools (lscwp) at the ocean surface. these observations were made in the bay of bengal (bob), on board the research vessel roger revelle, operating out of colombo, sri lanka. the first cruise leg of asiri was november 10 27, 2013, followed by two other cruise legs in december 2013 and two in july 2014. in lscwp, the salinity was in the range (31.8-32.4) psu and the temperature, (27.25-27.5) degrees celsius, and they appear to be a mixture of river-influenced the bob water from the north and the arabian sea water entering bob from the south. lateral stirring of two water types may have been the origin of these pools, but precipitation could also have some influence. analysis of two lscwp, on which detailed observations were made, had intriguing dynamic characteristics one belonging to submesoscale and the other to mesoscale eddies ? inferred by the rossby deformation radius calculations. the mesoscale lscwp appeared to be in geostrophic equilibrium, bowl-shaped, partially-mixed and non-collapsing, whereas the submesoscale pool was dynamic, gravitationally collapsing and spreading, with spreading rate roughly the same as that of a gravity current front intruding into a stratified fluid. the lscwp appear to have repercussions on air-sea interactions in the bob, in that lscwp dynamics may regulate the penetration of momentum and turbulent kinetic energy downward. remarkably, the wind speeds on the mesoscale pool was almost twice that of the submesoscale pool, but the thermocline in the former was less active compared to the latter, as evident from gradient richardson number and pycnocline displacement calculations. we hypothesize that robust, stable mesoscale lscwp shield the penetration of air-sea fluxes downward due to the development of stratification within as well as by the presence of a very stable (high gradient richardson number) interface at the bottom. at least over parts of the cruise, the thermocline in the bob was replete with internal waves, shear instabilities, and entrainment events of different scales, and the extent to which lscwp control overall mixing in the bob is yet to be delineated. the uranyl ion is the predominant uranium species in environmental chemistry. in solution in natural waters, the uranyl ion encounters a variety of ligands, including organic ligands, especially carboxylates. the behavior of the uranyl ion is governed by the complexes it forms in solution. the most precise information available concerning uranyl complexation chemistry comes from solved and refined crystal structures. hundreds of crystal structures of uranyl complexes with organic ligands have been published. therefore, a system of structure symbols to classify uranyl-organic complexes is devised. the method was applied to describe 592 published structures of uranyl-organic complexes, then used to catalog the complex chemistry of uranyl carboxylates. a mild hydrothermal synthesis method produced crystals of novel uranyl oxalates. these compounds all display hydroxyl bridging between uranyl ions, leading to highly polymeric complexes. syntheses attempting to create other uranyl carboxylates resulted in uranyl oxalates. these compounds were described using the structure symbol method. data on dissolved uranyl-organic complexes was examined, and the complexes described were assigned structure symbols and compared with crystalline complexes. an attack on the question of a possible relationship between uranyl ion bond lengths or $u_3$ vibrational frequencies and the uranyl ion's equatorial coordination was explored, again using the structure symbol. several conclusions may be drawn from this work. first, the uranyl ion may readily catalyze the oxidation of other carboxylic acids to oxalate at elevated temperatures, resulting in uranyl oxalate complexes in a variety of organic-rich environments. second, the novel uranyl oxalates discovered are polymeric and probably less water-soluble than previously known uranyl oxalates. third, the method of structure symbols has much potential to make the crystal chemistry of uranyl-organic complexes more organized and useful to chemists in a variety of fields. the randomized pretest posttest (rpp) study is a common experimental design in psychology. however, missing data at posttest is a ubiquitous occurrence with this type of design. although missing data handling has seen advances over the past several decades, effective and practical solutions for handling missing data in rpp designs are lacking. this dissertation aims to fill this gap in the literature by comparing a variety of analysis models for estimating the average treatment effect (ate) and its standardized counterpart, the standardized mean difference (smd), under two different missing data handling techniques, listwise deletion (ld) and multiple imputation (mi). the analysis models of interest were studied under three specific patterns of missing at random (mar) data, to model plausible scenarios by which data may be missing. moreover, data were generated from a growth–curve perspective, under the assumption that change is a within–person phenomenon, regardless of the type of design used to measure the construct of interest. although data were generated from growth–curve models, model assumptions (e.g., linearity and homogeneity of regression) that may have more deleterious consequences when violated under missing data are specified with respect to the pretest posttest relationship at the between–person level. thus, it was first assessed whether the aforementioned assumptions were violated at the between–person level under various random effect specifications. results indicated that ld provided unbiased and efficient estimates of the ate across all sample sizes and effect sizes, as long as the analysis model was appropriately specified to handle the violated linearity or homogeneity of regression assumption. for example, although standard analysis of covariance provides an unbiased ate estimate with complete data under heterogeneity of regression, including the pretest by group interaction in the analysis model and centering pretest with respect to the mean of all participants were necessary when estimating the ate using ld under these conditions in most missingness patterns. moreover, the type of missingness pattern within mar had implications for which analysis models were effective. when the goal was the estimate the smd, patterns of results indicated that mi was more effective than ld in some conditions, although results were more mixed. the objective of this study was to investigate the reconstruction of tendon attachment to metallic implant. in order to mimic the structure, normal enthesis was first studied. a transition zone of multiple tissues including calcified and uncalcified fibrocartilage presents at most tendon entheses. ingrowth of fibrous tissue into porous scaffold was studied using parametric finite element models as a potential method of attaching a tendon to a metal implant. the strongest attachment predicted by the model yielded a strength only 20% of the strength intact tendon attachment. to achieve attachment strength comparable to natural tendon attachment, a stronger transition zone simulating the normal tendon enthesis must be encouraged to form. the formation of different tissues from an initial population of stem cells after injury is referred to as tissue differentiation. similar to adaptive tissue remodeling, the process is also regulated by mechanical stimuli. the quantitative biphasic mechano-regulatory tissue differentiation algorithm developed by lacroix et al. [1] was studied in detail, and applied in three different situations. these studies discovered several aspects of the algorithms that could be improved. addressing these issues, three major modifications of the tissue differentiation algorithm were proposed. first, tissue differentiation pathways observed in vivo were enforced. second, a bone remodeling pathway based on the calculated strain energy density of the element was incorporated. third, a dense fibrous tissue remodeling pathway based on the calculated tensile stress and hydrostatic pressure of the element was incorporated. the modified algorithm was applied to three situations and produced more accurate predictions compared with that made by the original algorithm. for example, the algorithm predicted full restoration of the bone morphology in the bone fracture healing simulation, and as micromotion at the bone-implant interface decreased, the algorithm predicted decrease of fibrous tissue formation and increase of bone ingrowth into the porous scaffold, which is consistent with previous experimental findings [2]. taken together, the results of this research showed that mechano-regulatory models is capable of predicting tissue ingrowth into porous scaffold and can be useful for designing implant or ingrowth scaffold to stimulate ingrowth of different tissue, bone, dense fibrous tissue or fibrocartilage. to further a sustainable energy future, hydrogen to be used in fuel cell applications is required as an alternative to non-renewable resources. in this thesis, catalysts for hydrogen production from ethanol were designed and characterized to draw correlations between the chemistry and structure of said catalysts and their activity, selectivity, and lifetime during ethanol dehydrogenation. specifically, impregnated support combustion synthesis (iscs) is used as a technique to prepare ni supported catalysts for hydrogen production. the formation of unsupported metallic ni catalysts by scs is studied (chapter 3). it was determined that the mechanism of metal formation in the combustion front is due to reduction by gases released during the combustion reaction when producing bulk ni catalysts. in chapter 4, iscs is used to prepare ni supported on alumina pellets to enhance the properties of the catalyst, increasing activity for ethanol decomposition at lower temperatures as compared to the bulk unsupported ni catalysts. ni catalysts prepared by iscs are also supported on ceria and silica powders (chapter 5) to determine the effect of supports on the activity and selectivity of the catalysts. in-situ techniques are employed to correlate the chemistry and structure of the catalysts near reaction conditions to their performance during reaction. lastly, the stability towards deactivation of these ni supported catalysts, as well as newly designed catalysts, is described (chapter 6). uhv-xps and tem images before and after reaction are used to determine the causes of deactivation during ethanol decomposition. it was found that carbon formation heavily affected the catalysts? activity during extended periods of reaction, and to prevent deactivation, a partial encapsulation of the active metal by the support was necessary. for clement of alexandria, the goal of the christian life is to advance in the comprehension of god and to be initiated into the divine mysteries. clement devotes significant attention to diet in the paedagogus because he believes that the body and soul coexist in a symbiotic relationship. clement posits that wisdom and virtue can be achieved by cultivating a soul that is transparent, dry, and luminous, a state that is fostered by careful attention to dietary regimens.much twentieth century scholarship on clement has focused narrowly on the relationship between clement's thought and greco-roman philosophy. for this reason, patristic scholars have concentrated primarily on clement's more philosophical treatises; the paedagogus, by comparison, has been largely ignored—its focus on everyday ascetic discipline deemed trivial compared to clement's philosophical commitments. clement's belief in the interdependence of body and soul demonstrates that the paedagogus, in its attention to bodily behaviors, is no less grounded in philosophical commitments than clement's more obviously philosophical treatises. clement's attention to diet is neither petty nor arbitrary; rather, his prescribed dietary regimen is designed to assist the christian in cultivating the ideal state of the soul.galen explains the connection between body and soul by portraying the soul in almost corporeal terms, postulating a link between the soul and humoural mixtures within the body. given the influence of food on bodily mixtures, galen concludes that diet plays a central role in cultivating a dry and luminous soul. these theories undergird clement's advice regarding diet in the paedagogus. because moisture accumulates in the body primarily from excessive nutritional intake, clement advocates that the christian consume only enough nutriment to maintain bodily health. clement specifically warns against meat and wine, which moisten, darken, and weigh down the soul, and advocates the use of foods that are low in nutritional value and facilitate bodily health. the link between soul and body lies at the core of clement's attention to diet and demonstrates how medical theory is crucial for understanding his dietary prescriptions. this dissertation explores the existence and extent of political equality by race, gender, and education within democratic deliberation. though deliberation has rapidly grown to prominence in academic political science and practical politics over the last few decades, critics have charged that members of traditionally disempowered groups are likely to be marginalized within deliberation. yet, little empirical analysis has tackled the important task of judging this critique. i argue that providing a fuller empirical evaluation of political equality on demographic dimensions is a crucial step in developing our understanding of democratic deliberation. i evaluate political equality within deliberation by analyzing participants' attitudes about the process of the deliberation itself and their opinion change over the course of the deliberation in two deliberative poll datasets from 2004. in particular, i test whether women, african americans, and the less educated find the deliberative process more useful, feel less respected and efficacious, and are more likely to be influenced by the presence and opinion of others. i find that members of these groups are more likely to find deliberation useful in helping them clarify issue attitudes, and that african americans are more likely than other racial groups to feel efficacious within small groups. there is some evidence that women feel less efficacious and non-college graduates less respected, but these attitudes do not appear to affect participantsì¢ ââ ü judgments of the usefulness of deliberation. contrary to expectations drawn from a body of research on small group settings, there is little evidence of an effect of group composition on attitude change during the deliberation. these results provide one of the first extensive empirical evaluations of political equality along demographic dimensions within deliberation. they reveal that ì¢ ââ' within the deliberative polls ì¢ ââ' criticsì¢ ââ ü fears about marginalization do not appear to be borne out. i argue that these results should guide further empirical analysis of political equality within deliberation, can advise practitioners in constructing deliberative bodies, and suggest that traditionally disempowered groups can be successfully integrated into democratic deliberation without the aid of 'enclaves.' collection of short stories and novel excerpts worked on between fall 2008 and spring 2010. the black-white achievement gap is an enduring social problem in the united states. i examined the emergence and persistence of the black-white achievement gap using opportunities to learn as a mechanism for creating racial inequality in learning outcomes placed within a cumulative disadvantage framework (how early disadvantage leads to continued disadvantage). i argue that black-white disparities in access to situations that foster learning create racial inequality in achievement. unequal learning opportunities early in life will be compounded throughout a student's educational career leading to an accumulation of disadvantaged learning outcomes and persisting inequality. using three nationally representative, longitudinal data sets, i examined the black-white achievement gap from early childhood through senior year of high school. i found that the black-white achievement gap emerges as early as nine months of age and, grows as students move through the k-12 system. the financial capital, human capital, and people within the household explain a large portion of the emergence of the black-white achievement gap. when children enter kindergarten, black students receive biased estimates of ability from teachers at the beginning of the year, but this is reduced as teachers have more time to observe student ability. however, extreme underestimates of student ability at the beginning of the school year negatively affects student learning throughout the year. finally, i examined black-white differences in high school course taking. the ability level needed to enter advanced courses is lower as the school minority composition increases. however, black students benefit less from advanced math course taking and leave high school with a lower level of math skills despite advanced course taking compared to white students. overall, i found evidence that suggests black children are at a cumulative disadvantage throughout their schooling career. the black-white achievement gap emerges early and persists due to multiple inequalities in learning opportunities and across multiple time points. in the production of aromatic compounds, it is necessary to separate aromatic products from aliphatic compounds. this separation is achieved via liquid-liquid extraction. due to several drawbacks from the current industrial processes for this separation, ionic liquids (ils) have drawn interest as potential solvents for this separation.in this work, four ionic liquids consisting of the bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide anion paired with a phosphonium, pyridinium, imidazolium, and thiolanium cation were investigated as potential solvents to separate aromatic and aliphatic compounds in a liquid-liquid extraction process. equilibrium data of n-heptane + aromatic + il was measured at 298.15 k. the nonrandom two-liquid model was fit to the systems, and collaborators applied the perturbed chain statistical association fluid theory, cosmo-rs, and cosmo-sac models, which are compared, each showing different strengths. experimental results surprisingly show that the thiolanium cation achieves separation factors similar to the imidazolium cation, despite being more aliphatic than aromatic in structure. solvent regeneration is also an important part of a liquid-liquid extraction process. while regeneration by methods such as stripping can be very effective, they can also be energy intensive. the gas antisolvent process is a method where dissolving a gas such as co2 in an il/solvent mixture induces a vapor+liquid to vapor+liquid+liquid phase transition as a means of separating the il and solvent. here, the feasibility of using a gas anti-solvent to separate aromatics from ils is studied by measuring co2 solubility in aromatics, [bthiol][tf2n] and mixtures. these systems exhibited vlàvll transitions, and at lower pressure and co2 composition than required for the other ils in this study.the results given in this thesis show that ionic liquids are promising solvents for the separation of aromatics from aliphatics, which can be regenerated using co2 as a gas antisolvent. furthermore, understanding the underlying thermodynamics can aid in optimizing this process. this dissertation explores how the british post office and the british naturalist novel handle the circulation of personal objects—letters and characters—in impersonal ways, with the postal system functioning as a useful analogy for understanding the narrative habits of british naturalism. with the adoption of uniform postage, the increased use of envelopes, the reversal of payment remittance from recipient to sender, the introduction of letter boxes and pillar boxes, and the subsumption of britain into one postal zone, postal reforms predicated the postal system's efficacy on methods of handling that minimized human contact, thereby naturalizing an impersonal way of handling human subjectivity in circulation in writing. i argue that british naturalism makes this way of thinking part of its narrative conventions in order to bring it into formal conversations about the victorian novel and scholarship on american and french literary naturalism, but also to untether it from realism and complicate critical impulses to genrefy with a formal approach.drawing on what megan ward has recently theorized as "technological formalism," i treat the post office not as a context but as a technology whose structure helps us interpret the naturalist novel's place in british literary history. naturalist novels of the 1870s–90s foster rhetorical distance between narrator, characters, and readers that contrasts the correspondence we see among them in novels of the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, modeling how to understand systems by taking a step back from the particular in order to comprehend wholes. the naturalist novel's impersonal orientation toward its content is a formalism it shares with the reformed post office's modes of handling personal content, and i examine three specific types of postal forms—enveloped subjectivity, postal postures, and juxtaposition—not to define or prop up british naturalism, but to observe habits among three naturalist writers. exploring character in thomas hardy, narrator in george gissing, and narrative pathways in george moore, i describe the forms that naturalism takes in its efforts to reject particularization as the only way to care in a system overwhelmed by the personal. the 40ca(ì_å±,&gamma;)44ti reaction is thought to be the main production method for the short-lived radionuclide, 44ti (t1/2 = 58.9 ìâå± 0.3 yr). production in the ì_å±-rich freeze-out zone of a core-collapse supernova makes 44ti an important nuclide in the understanding of nucleosynthesis in explosive stellar environments. a new measurement of the 40ca(ì_å±,&gamma;)44ti reaction has been performed through two different experimental approaches. during this work, a new accelerator mass spectrometry (ams) facility was developed and commissioned at the university of notre dame, primarily for the measurement of reaction cross-sections of astrophysical interest. using this facility, a series of 44ti activation measurements were performed with a 40ca beam incident on a 4he gas target. the four discrete energy ranges over which the activations occurred all lie within the temperature range relevant for ì_å±-rich freeze-out. further to this, an excitation curve was measured over the energy range eì_å± = 4600 3000 kev, using ì_å±-particles incident on a 40ca target. the good agreement between these two results resulted in the successful commissioning of the ams facility. the new reaction rates derived in this work results in an increased expected yield of 44ti in proposed supernova environments (for example cassiopeia a) by ~ 40 %, when compared to 1d supernova models using reaction rates based on previous prompt &gamma;-ray studies . in this thesis, we relate geometric field theories with classical, homotopical invariants of algebraic objects. we begin by defining an abstract setting in which to model the local observables of field theories depending on a riemannian structure. we then introduce a family of examples whose input is implicit in quantum mechanical systems. following standard higher categorical procedures, we produce an extension of these local constructions to general riemannian manifolds.using abstract homotopy theory, factorization algebras, and factorization homology, we relate the observables of a field theory on a circle (of fixed size) to hochschild homology with coefficients in a module. the action maps of this module depend explicitly on the geometry on which the field theory habitates. we end with a general discussion of how these techniques may be used in more general contexts. my thesis examines the public policy debates of the late 1960s to today involving arms control, dìäå©tente and the war in iraq in an effort to explain the essential strategic, political, and moral ingredients of a neoconservative foreign policy. in examining these policy debates, the objective of my thesis is not that of an historian but rather that of a political philosopher. i argue that there are two distinct lines of thought running through neoconservatism, the one strategic and the other political and moral. the two lines are married by irving kristol, norman podhoretz and others into a unified approach to foreign policy. taken together with a philosophical and epistemological foundation at variance with the orthodoxy of its academic counterparts, neoconservatism is rightly understood to belong alongside modern realism, neorealism and neoliberalism as a distinct tradition in the study of international relations. on matters ranging from the importance of morality in foreign policy to the relevance of common sense as the standard for judging the effectiveness of public policy, the gulf between neoconservatism and the more mainstream traditions is very wide. neoconservatives are just as comfortable advocating the use of military strength in pursuit of the strategic aims of the united states as they are in writing and speaking in universal terms of right and wrong. they are, as a whole, unashamed of associating moral rightness with the cause of the united states and the west, in either its cold war ideological battles with communism or, more recently, in its confrontation with radical islam. they take as their starting point a broad understanding of human behavior and state action and, consequently, they reject the importance that modern realists place on the material interest of states and the structure of the international system as determinants of the behavior of states and statesmen. neoconservatives find these concepts to be poorly defined and otherwise lacking in appreciation for history or for the every-day passions and motivations of individuals and states. they also find the emphasis that some of the more academic traditions like neorealism place on methodology and a stringent form of propositional logic ill prepared to capture the political and moral issues involved in crafting an effective foreign policy. as a result of these differences, neoconservatives and modern realists find themselves frequently in disagreement about matters of war and peace. the tension between these traditions goes beyond policy and highlights an obvious discomfort within neoconservatism for the more abstract and counterintuitive arguments employed by modern realists in favor of a more intuitive or common sense approach. it also exposes sharp differences in conceptual logic including a disagreement over the very meaning of knowledge and the relevance of common sense to theory making in the social sciences. in bolstering these claims, my thesis draws heavily upon the influence of a small cadre of thinkers on the development of neoconservatism, like the strategic theorist albert wohlstetter and the political philosopher leo strauss: wohlstetter was instrumental in helping establish the strategic foundation for neoconservative thinking on us nuclear strategy and dìäå©tente whereas strauss provided a philosophical supplement to what was otherwise an intuitive reaction by neoconservatives to what they perceived as the pervasive relativism of kissinger's realpolitik, liberal intellectuals, and the larger foreign policy establishment. at the start of the italian renaissance in the early 1400s, a new type of history known as humanistic historiography developed. these represented a significant departure from medieval chronicles and became the dominant form of historiography in the italian peninsula. in 1494, however, the renaissance world was shattered by the start of the italian wars. these lasted until 1559 and brought profound and often violent change to the italian peninsula that impacted the politics, society, and culture. many scholars have viewed them as the end of the renaissance and of humanistic historiography. histories written in the early parts of the 1500s are seen as non-humanistic in one way or another, either late representations of medieval historiography, lazy narratives by non-historians, or early manifestations of modern historiography.my argument is that humanistic historiography did not die out in the italian wars, nor was it superseded by a return to the medieval past or a swift jump to modern historical methods. authors of war-era histories were forced to confront new events, circumstances that had no recent or classical precedent and adapted the humanistic history to their new context by inserting themselves and their personal views into their histories. using historiographical works by pietro bembo, paolo giovio, and francesco guicciardini, i argue that the humanistic history survived the italian wars by becoming more intensely personal. these authors used their own experience in and knowledge of the wars to modify the traditional form of humanistic history to something that could narrate and explain the traumatic events between 1494 and 1559. interweaving all three authors across four chapters, i analyze the formal characteristics that make these war-era histories humanistic, the increasingly personal judgments each offers on the states and rulers engaged in the italian wars, the presence and effects of those wars on the authors, and their own personal experience in the italian wars that is reflected in their histories. in my final chapter, i look at the post-war work of angelo di costanzo to demonstrate that these personalization techniques were also put to use by post-war historians to write humanistic histories of their own. zampanolide, a 20-membered marine polyketide, exhibits low nanomolar cytotoxicity (0.25 &#8211; 3 ng/ml) against multiple human cancer cell lines and induces apoptosis through microtubule bundle formation. interestingly, riccio and co-workers isolated a structurally related natural product, (+)-dactylolide, off the coast of the vanuatu islands and reported dactylolide displays moderate cytotoxicity in the low &#956;m range. due to zampanolide's remarkable biological profile and limited supply, we embarked on a synthetic preparation of this complex polyketide to fully characterize its bioactive conformation and molecular interaction with tubulin. our synthesis of zampanolide required 26 steps in the longest linear sequence from commercially available (r)-aspartic acid. the scalable route employed a highly diastereoselective sharpless epoxidation, a one pot cross-metathesis/horner-wadsworth emmons olefination, and our recently developed electrophile-induced ether transfer methodology. interestingly, the successful ether transfer depended upon the use of a p-bromobenzyl ether to minimize competitive bartlett cyclization of a primary benzyl ether. notably, our synthesis provided approximately 40 mg of dactylolide, the highest amount of material produced by any synthetic group to date. with significant amounts of material in hand, we employed high-field nmr and molecular modeling experiments with dactylolide to help elucidate zampanolide and dactylolide's overall solution structure and specific conformational preferences. our results indicated that both macrolide's interconvert between three conformational families in dmso-d6, one of which strongly resembles zampanolide's bioactive conformation. a detailed knowledge of zampanolide and dactylolide's solution conformational preferences not only helped identify its bioactive conformation but also significantly aided in the development of simplified analogues. probing the biosynthesis of zampanolide and dactylolide revealed three beta branching sites: the c5me, the c13 exocyclic alkene, and the c17me. molecular modeling suggested that the removal of the c17me only minimally affects zampanolide and dactylolide's overall macrolide conformation. fortunately, removing the c17me significantly simplified the synthesis requiring only 15 steps in the longest linear sequence for construction of a 17-desmethyl-13-desmethylene analogue. the convergent strategy was highlighted by a tsuji-trost cyclization and an e-selective cross-metathesis reaction for installation of the c16-20 fragment. a successful mitosis and cytokinesis requires the formation of a strictly bipolar mitotic spindle to ensures equal segregation of sister chromatids to the daughter cells and proper formation of the cleavage furrow between segregating chromatids. spindle assembly requires a coordinated effort within the cell to completely rearrange the microtubule network from an organized interphase array to the bipolar mitotic spindle. spindle assembly factors as well as microtubule dynamics are crucial to this process. drugs, such as taxol and vinblastine, have been used to disrupt microtubule dynamics. taxol specifically stabilizes plus end dynamics resulting in multipolar spindles, suggesting that the formation of stable microtubules results in spindle assembly failure. however when added to cells during anaphase, the bipolar spindle remains bipolar. this suggests that multipolar spindles formed in taxol cells are not solely due to microtubule stabilization but result from morphological changes to the microtubule cytoskeleton that occur during the g2/m transition. here, we show that, upon treatment with taxol, microtubules redistribute to the cell cortex, where asters form. these asters eventually converge to form a multipolar spindle. disruption of dynein does not interfere with the process, however, spindle assembly factors such as numa and hset are involved in organizing the microtubule asters. another microtubule stabilizing drug, vinblastine was also analyzed. we show that stabilization by vinblastine creates multipolar spindles by a different mechanism than taxol. instead of a dramatic rearrangement of the microtubule network, we see multiple microtubule asters form around the chromatin. we find that the centrosomes continue to organize a subset of the microtubule population; however the remaining microtubules form asters independently. there appears to be both centrosome mediated and chromatin mediated spindle assembly occurring. while it is traditionally thought that the centrosomes organize the bipolar mitotic spindle, recent work has suggested that this is not always the case. venous egg extracts and laser ablation of centrosomes have demonstrated that bipolar spindles can form in the absence of centrosomes. the model for this is a chromatin mediated pathway that organizes randomly oriented microtubules. however, somatic animal cells do not normally enter mitosis with their microtubule network unorganized. here, we have addressed these inconsistencies in a mammalian cell system, african green monkey kidney cells or bsc-1 cells. when centrosomes are surgically removed from the cell, we find that while bipolar spindles can form in the absence of centrosomes, mistakes happen a significant amount of times. this suggests that centrosomes are indeed required to provide a strong bipolar cue to ensure that bipolar spindle assembly occurs without errors. this dissertation shows how carolingian writers, as they reflected on the sacraments, and particularly on baptism, were led to distinctive understandings of politics, government, society, and culture. it helps to recenter scholarly understanding of a key development in the course of western civilization: the establishment of christendom, or as they termed it, the imperium christianum. carolingian leaders conceived of their world and the people in it through a conceptual framework derived from the sacrament of baptism. whatever christendom has come to mean in popular understanding, it was for the carolingians the society of the baptized. i study the religious metaphors and theological concepts which underlie the political and social ideas common to a variety of early medieval texts including law codes, theological treatises, land charters, ethical instruction, ritual commentaries, chronicles and other narrative sources. careful study of early medieval books, especially how early medieval writers juxtaposed different genres of literature structured to privilege the implications of baptism, strengthen my argument and ground my study in the material culture of the early middle ages. scholars have long described the carolingians as militant christians and religious reformers. my study will be the first to identify the aims of the carolingian reform program by unlocking the religious discourse common to a wide array of sources produced in diverse centers over more than a century. my dissertation evaluated the prevalence and distribution of legacy and emerging contaminants in food webs of the laurentian great lakes. although lake michigan and its basin were the primary focus of my research, my dissertation is broadly applicable to the great lakes watershed and aquatic ecosystems that face similar legacy and emerging contaminant threats. my dissertation demonstrated that contaminant accumulation and distribution within fish is influenced by a variety of ecological factors, including life history strategies, diet, habitat utilization, and size. by combining novel measurement techniques and modeling approaches, i identify important processes controlling the bioaccumulation and biomagnification of mercury, microplastics, and perand polyfluoroalkyl substances (pfas) in lake michigan fish. first, i demonstrate that mercury bioaccumulates and biomagnifies in six lake michigan prey fish and show that differences are due to ontogeny, trophic position, and habitat. next, i determine that microplastic concentrations and types present in indiana waterways are influenced by atmospheric deposition rather than land-use. then, i provide the first evidence of maternal transfer of pfas to embryos in fish. i then evaluate the differences in pfas concentration across all major fish tissue types to provide recommendations for tissue types that will enhance cross-study comparisons. i also determine that an iteroparous species (steelhead trout) had higher total body burdens of pfas compared to semelparous species (chinook and coho salmon), suggesting that repeat spawners have more opportunities for pfas exposure and acquisition. finally, i adapt and optimize a rapid method for measuring total fluorine as a proxy for pfas using particle-induced gamma-ray emission (pige) spectroscopy, which will increase sample through-put and reduce cost for processing pfas samples when compared to liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectroscopy (lc-ms/ms). overall, my dissertation demonstrates that contaminants display complex interactions with the aquatic environment and within the bodies of organisms. further, the ecological diversity of fish in reproduction, diet, and habitat utilization influences contaminant exposure, acquisition, and release. a better understanding of how contaminants behave within aquatic ecosystems may help to prevent introduction or with isolating and mitigating contaminants that already exist within the environment. this dissertation examines the phenomenon of the "unionists": medieval greek christians who were united to the roman church and urged their countrymen to do likewise through the lens provided by the life and writings of the still poorly-known cretan polymath and priest john plousiadenos (c. 1426-1500), a theologian, pastor, and defender of the union between the greek and latin churches proclaimed at the council of florence (1439).because of his unionist convictions, john was reviled by his own countrymen as a λατινόφρων ("latin-minded"). a slur generally deployed against the unionists in byzantine polemical literature and implying that the unfortunate whom it labels is a crypto-westerner and does not, therefore, belong to the "authentic" byzantine christian tradition. it is with this medieval slur—or equivalent formulae—that unionists have been labeled in conventional scholarly narratives on byzantine history and theology.this dissertation strives to understand the unionist perspective on its own terms—rather than those of its contemporary or modern critics—through the investigation of the pastoral and polemical theology of john plousiadenos: one of the final, and most outstanding, representatives of the byzantine tradition of unionism. after an overview of plousiadenos' life and works, this dissertation investigates unionism in its concrete temporal and geographical contexts and in its practical aspects: what did united greek christianity look like "on the ground" in the late medieval venetian transmarine empire, specifically crete, according to the ideals of plousiadenos as unionist pastor? here we find evidence of greek unionism as an eclectic introduction of latin theology, spirituality, and pious practice into a recognizably greek milieu. at the same time, this dissertation considers plousiadenos' polemical theology and self-understanding as unionist. placed within the context of the greater unionist tradition, this study finds that plousiadenos strove to formulate a concept of christian identity transcending the logic of ethno-religious schism between latins and greeks, a concept of christian tradition that was truly universal, or "catholic." based on the evidence provided by plousiadenos' writings, this dissertation rejects the assessment that john plousiadenos (and by extension other unionists) was a "latinophrone," without denying the reality of latin influence on his thought or praxis. with some qualification, it suggests positioning john plousiadenos and the tradition he represents as forerunners to the later phenomenon of "eastern catholicism." this work addresses research questions important to the dynamic, datadriven application systems (dddas) community: specifically how to create, update and validate simulations instantiated from streaming sensor data. the use of agent-based modeling simulations in an online context presents several challenges: simulations must demonstrate good runtime characteristics, yet in order to fit in our validation framework, the simulations must be modular and allow for alternative models of human behavior. we present a simulation of pedestrian movement we have developed according to our revised simulation design criteria, built using techniques from design patterns and pattern oriented modeling. we present a thorough evaluation of the simulation in terms of model validation, simulation design and runtime characteristics. we present and evaluate methods for online validation of agent-based models (abm). we introduce an aggregate method for online creation and updating of abm simulations and evaluate the approach against alternatives. we have developed answers to these questions through the design and implementation of a dddas application, the wiper system. the wireless integrated phone-based emergency response system is designed to provide emergency responders with timely information on the status of a city or region, as well as the capability to detect, follow and possibly predict crisis events. wiper uses the dddas approach to process streaming information from a cellular phone service provider to detect and predict crisis events. we demonstrate that real time simulation of pedestrian crowds is possible with our agent-based modeling simulation and present upper bounds on the population size that can be simulated in real time. we show that for certain validation measures, our validation approach yields 100% accuracy at selecting model type based on simulation output. the results of our updating approach demonstrates that aggregate updating is competitive with one-to-one agent-to-referent reparameterization under certain conditions. the need to provide reliable information in healthy food recommendations to consumers has become more imperative as misinformation continues to spread and obesity rates continue to rise. when consumers search for recipes, they are often interested in the nutritional information. the problem is much of this nutritional information can be difficult to interpret if the user is not a nutritionist or some form of food expert. for example, if a recipe lists 12g of sugar per serving, how will a normal consumer with no nutritional background have insight into what this means for their health. is 12g of sugar per serving healthy or not and if it is healthy, are there underlying conditions such as diabetes that would suggest the recipe is unhealthy for that specific condition? having a platform that can distill this information and provide recipe healthiness to a user and also recommend to them healthy meals based on their food and individual preferences could have major use cases. for starters, consumers would be able to better interpret which recipes are healthy and which are not. the consumer would receive healthier recommendations for their meals which could lead to an improved lifestyle and also lower risks of dietary diseases. while there are methods to estimate the healthiness of online recipes in the presence of nutritional informational, there may be occasions when nutritional information is not available. also if the nutritional information is provided, the user may still not comprehend the meaning behind the values. utilizing relationships between recipe ingredient information would enable us to solve this problem and allow us to accurately recommend healthy and preferable meals to consumers. by considering only healthy recipes to be recommended to users, a recommendation system can take a graph of users and their preferences/demographic information and train a factorization model based on this graph of users to be utilized for providing incoming users with healthy and desirable meal recommendations. matrix metalloproteinases (mmps) are zinc-dependent endopeptidases that regulate the tissue microenvironment. mmp3 regulates both breast development and cancer progression and localizes to both mammary epithelial and stromal cells in normal and tumor mouse mammary tissues. epithelial mmp3 overexpression promotes mammary tumor development. however, the functions of stromal and epithelial mmp3 have not been distinguished. i investigated the requirements for stromal mmp3 during breast cancer. we transplanted pymt cancer cells, which express mmp3, into mammary glands of mice expressing (mmp3 wt or het) or not expressing (mmp3 ko) mmp3. in initial experiments, tumor burden increased in mmp3 ko mice, suggesting an inhibitory role for stromal mmp3. i next analyzed proliferation, apoptosis, and immune cell infiltration by immunohistochemistry to identify stromal mmp3's contribution to tumor progression. tumors from ko recipient tumors had decreased cell proliferation marker phospho-histone h3 and neutrophil recruitment but increased cd4+ and cd8+ t cell infiltration compared to tumors expressing mmp3. apoptosis was not significantly different. subsequent bone marrow transplantation experiments confirmed an inhibitory role for a stromal mmp3. however, neither mmp3-deficient bone marrow cells, cd11b+ cells, nor carcinoma-associated fibroblasts (cafs) were sufficient to increase tumor burden. in fact, co-injection of mmp3 ko cafs with cancer cells significantly decreased the primary tumor growth in both het and ko mouse backgrounds, suggesting that mmp3 produced by cafs significantly promotes tumorigenicity. in addition, after backcrossing the mice for several years, the mmp3 ko mice did not have increased tumor burden, which suggests that a passenger mutation of another gene might be required for any inhibitory role of mmp3.mmp3 exists as inactive (pro-mmp3 or inhibited by timps (tissue inhibitors of metalloproteases) and catalytically active mmp3. to test whether mmp3 activity is contributing to the observed phenotypes, mmp3 substrates in pymt tumors were explored through tandem mass tag-terminal amine isotopic labelling of substrates (tmt-tails) degradomics. the consolidated list of in vivo candidate substrates included: heat shock protein-90β (hsp-90β), pyruvate carboxylase, cathepsin b, myeloperoxidase, α-2-macroglobulin, and superoxide dismutase. in vitro cleavage assays and maldi-tof analysis confirmed cleavage of cathepsin b, and myeloperoxidase and of α-2-macroglobulin and superoxide dismutase by western analysis.i next investigated stromal mmp3's role during lung metastasis. in contrast to the inhibitory role for stromal mmp3 in the primary tumors, stromal mmp3 was required for lung metastasis by orthotopic transplantation of breast cancer cells. in contrast, stromal mmp3 inhibited lung metastasis by tail vein injections of breast cancer cells, suggesting that mmp3 impacts metastasis by effects at the primary tumor site. together, this study suggests that stromal mmp3 has both protective and tumor promoting roles during breast cancer and highlights the context-specific functions of mmp3 during breast cancer. one of the open questions of nuclear structure is the nature of excited 0+ states. probing the 0+ states in nuclei requires spectroscopy of the 0+ states with respect to other states. one such probe is conversion electrons. the transitions between two 0+ states can only be seen via e0 transitions, which are forbidden via γ-rays. further, e0 components of jπ → jπ transitions can give similar probes of relationships between bands. information on e0 components are challenging to measure and sparse in nuclear databases. the rare-earth region provides a rich landscape to probe pure and mixed e0 transitions. the deformed nature of nuclei in the area leads to a large number of nuclear structure phenomena. in 154gd, 16 0+ states have been seen in previous studies, the nature of many are unknown. the first excited 0+ state is of great interest, due to its large e0 strength to the ground state. there is a question of the nature of this state and its potential role as an example of β-vibration, or an indication of shape coexistence. 156gd is one of the most well-studied nuclei in the rare-earth region. it has a large number of known levels, lifetimes and mixing ratios, allowing for the study of mixed e0 transitions. this work reports on results for transitions in 154,156gd following the 152,154sm(α,2n) reaction using the internal conversion electron ball (iceball) array in coincidence with γ-rays at the university of notre dame nuclear science laboratory (nsl). iceball was re-implemented at the nsl 8 years ago and the γ-rays were detected by georgina, a hpge array at the nsl, and clovershare, segmented hpge detectors purchased by the yale nuclear structure laboratory that are shared by a consortium of universities and laboratories for experimental campaigns. new jπ → jπ transitions where measured for both 154,156gd, allowing for the interpretation of excited band structures in the nuclei. in the modern world, myocardial infarction is one of the most common cardiovascular diseases, which are responsible for around 18 million deaths every year or almost 32% of all deaths. although there has been some progress in regenerative therapies available for myocardial infarction treatment, translating pre-clinical findings to the clinic remains a major challenge. one reason for this is the lack of reliable and human representative healthy and fibrotic cardiac tissue models that can be used to understand the fundamentals of ischemic/reperfusion injury caused by myocardial infarction and to test new drugs and therapeutic strategies.with the inability to use human hearts at a rate required for experimental research, the majority of our current knowledge on how the constituents of the cardiovascular system (cvs) function has been obtained through the use of animal models. during the past couple decades, emerging tissue engineering methods allowed researchers to create biomimetic tissue models in vitro, eliminating the need for the interspecies translation of the results, as well as concerns for the ethical controversy in using the animal models. current in vitro tissue models utilize various methods to combine biological scaffolds, hydrogels, or decellularized matrices with cardiac cells, to provide them with a 3d microenvironment that mimics the native cardiac tissue. three dimensional (3d) bioprinting is a layer-by-layer additive manufacturing technology allowing accurate spatial deposition of the biological materials and active cells in a pre-designed pattern and is thus considered a promising technique for fabricating biomimetic cardiac tissue models in vitro.the scope of this dissertation is to develop novel bioinks and methodologies for extrusion-based 3d bioprinting to engineer more biomimetic post-mi tissue models as well as promising regenerative therapies that can be used to treat cardiac fibrosis replacing the healthy myocardium post-mi. towards this goal, first i develop a novel two-step crosslinking method to crosslink gelatin methacryloyl (gelma) hydrogels, which can be used to imitate the relative stiffening of the fibrotic tissue compared to the healthy heart tissue. i investigated the effect of this crosslinking method on mechanical and rheological properties of gelma hydrogels as well as the pattern fidelity of the 3d bioprinted constructs. then, i develop novel bioinks by combining decellularized human myocardium extracellular matrix (dhecm) with either gelma hydrogels or gelma and methacrylated hyaluronic acid (meha) hydrogels to create the softer healthy cardiac tissue or the scar tissue having an order of magnitude higher stiffness compared to the healthy tissue. i then characterize the mechanical, rheological and physical properties of these bioinks as well as their cytotoxicity and printability. as a proof of concept, i combined human induced pluripotent stem cell (hipsc) derived cardiomyocytes (icms) with gelma-dhecm to represent the healthy tissue and human cardiac fibroblasts(hcfs) with gelma-meha-dhecm to represent the stiffer scar tissue. then i improve the complexity of the post-mi tissue model by introducing the boundary region between the healthy and the scar regions together with including aged collagen in order to take into consideration the aged microenvironment. moreover, i increase the cell diversity by using icms, hipsc derived cardiac fibroblasts (icfs), hipsc derived endothelial cells (iecs) and hipsc derived cardiac myofibroblasts (icmfs). the method i introduce here will allow researchers to create patient-specific, age-specific, benchtop, post-mi tissue models that can be used as a platform to evaluate the efficacy of novel regenerative therapies before animal studies or clinical trials. finally, we utilize aerosol jet printing to create conductive cardiac patches allowing cell-level resolution enabling the alignment of the icms on the hydrogel similar to the native heart tissue. overall, in this dissertation i develop new bioinks and methods to utilize 3d bioprinting in various cardiac tissue engineering applications, such as post-mi tissue models and cardiac patches, which can be used as a guide for developing new models and treatment strategies. today's computing devices are mostly based on cmos technology, built on boolean logic, and almost exclusively represent signals electrically. the steady exponential growth of cmos made it dominant in the past few decades, however the scale down now approaches hard limits and it encounters more and more difficulties to keep up with moore's law. though many believe that transistor technologies will be able to overcome these issues -as they did so far -it is worth to consider other technologies, even ones that were earlier outcompeted by cmos.we investigated the usage of spin waves for computing purposes. our approach is to directly use spin waves for wave-computing algorithms as opposed to designing novel logic gates using spin-wave signals -which has been the more typical approach recently. we borrowed ideas from the already well established optical computing theory, but instead of using optical waves, we redesigned these concepts for spin waves. we proposed spin-wave phase shifters and lenses, and investigated different types of sources for spin-wave generation. based on these components a spin-wave fourier transformation and filtering device were designed, and we believe that these designs can be further expanded to holographic pattern matching devices, or other special-purpose signal-processing hardware accelerators. we verified our proof-of-principle designs using micromagnetic simulations and we are currently working on experimental demonstrations of the feasibility of our concepts. during text comprehension, readers maintain a mental representation of the described events in a situation model. when new information is encountered, this model must be updated or a new model created. the additional processing that this requires is usually reflected in increased reading times for sentences that convey a shift along one of several situation model dimensions. however, these increases have not been consistently found for all variables. this thesis addresses these inconsistencies by examining the role of causal connections in the creation of event boundaries. that is, to what degree do the processing differences observed with event boundaries reflect model updating and to what degree do they reflect an unexpected causal break in the flow of narrative action? in three experiments, participants read stories in which an event shift was foreshadowed or not. the results of experiment 1 revealed that readers do not expect event shifts, but providing prior knowledge of a shift eliminates the difference in expectedness. experiment 2 showed that providing foreshadow information does not affect the realization that a shift has taken place. finally, experiment 3 found that reading times were slower when a shift was not foreshadowed but were not different in the other conditions. overall, the results support the idea that causal connections play a role in the amount of online processing required to mentally process an event shift. advancement in science and technology has brought rapid development in manufacturing, transportation, communication, health, and entertainment. these developments have increased the global energy demand. this increasing energy demand has forced policy makers and the scientific community to search for alternative energy sources and optimize the conventional sources of energy. for a long time, people have been trying to find more efficient ways to convert other forms of energies such as solar, wind, and geothermal energy to electrical energy. to improve the efficiency of energy conversion, new materials have been studied constantly. in the last few decades, iii-v semiconductors, halide perovskites, and metal oxides are being studied as promising energy converting materials in devices like solar and fuel cells. however, lack of molecular-level understanding of these semiconductor surfaces and their interfacial interactions with different gases in the ambient working environment has hindered the practical application of those materials on a commercial scale. one of the promising materials currently being studied is solar absorbing materials like ag-bi-i based nanoparticles and gaas and co oxidizing catalysts like ceo2. the research on this dissertation is focused on the molecular level study of surface states and interfacial interactions with molecular gases of gaas, ag-bi-i based nanoparticles, and ceo2 as promising and potential replacement for pt and other expensive novel metals in solar and fuel cells. globally, urban environments are rapidly developing and high-rise structures are becoming more prominent. the design of these structures is often governed by wind-induced motions where habitability concerns, rather than strength, govern. as such, their responses are inherently sensitive to the dynamic properties of the system, particularly damping. despite the many advances in finite element modeling, these parameters, and especially damping, are still not known exactly until after completion of the building, at times yielding structures that fail to meet habitability limit states. in efforts to provide a more reliable design-stage damping estimate, researchers began assembling databases of full-scale damping observations in hopes of developing predictive tools or at minimum guidelines to better inform designers. in addition, while finite element models help to provide a reasonable basis for natural frequency estimates in the design stage, various modeling assumptions do bear significantly on this process and would also benefit from in-situ validation. to conduct these validations, full-scale observations need to be collected from a wide range of structures with varying lateral systems. this thesis contributes to that effort by extracting dynamic properties from a 67-building korean full-scale database. while this database encompasses a number of structural systems and materials, the buildings were only instrumented for short periods of time under ambient vibration levels, making the extraction of parameters like damping quite difficult. this thesis explores the performance of popular system identification tools like half power bandwidth estimates from power spectra and analytic signal components from random decrement signatures on these short duration records. to particularly address the competing demands of bias and variance minimization in power spectra, the thesis also introduces a maximum likelihood estimator with more intuitive frequency limits. armed with this suite of analysis tools, dynamic properties are extracted from the 67 buildings in the korean database, comparing performance across the methods and with previous system identification efforts on this same collection of buildings. this endeavor particularly underscored the challenges of analyzing short duration records and shortcomings of point estimates of damping from high variance spectra and random decrement signatures. once the reliability of the extracted dynamic properties was established, this thesis explored the influence of characteristics such as height, aspect ratio and structural system on the dynamic properties, demonstrating how damping and frequency characteristics for structural systems dominated by cantilever effects are more appropriately parameterized by variables such as height or slenderness, while those from systems dominated by frame action are more reliant on floor plate aspect ratio. as more high quality full-scale observations become available, the analysis framework presented in this thesis and the new insights into parameterization of extracted dynamic properties can be applied to ultimately develop more reliable predictive models for use in design. large-scale disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, and other windstorms reveal how vulnerabilities in the built environment manifest as severe economic, environmental, and societal impacts, which threaten the lives and livelihoods of communities worldwide. the effective reduction of these disaster-related losses requires the development of targeted mitigation strategies and policies informed by faithful regional loss assessments under realistic hazard scenarios. such capabilities are now being advanced by investments in a new generation of open-source loss modeling workflows that evaluate hazard impacts on actual communities. while these open-source workflows do provide the parcel-level granularity stakeholders now require, hurricane-related losses in these workflows are still projected using non-specific characterizations of each building in the inventory. however, the realization of site-specific, building-specific, and component-level hurricane regional loss assessments requires the ability to support evaluations for the diversity of geometries and material assemblies found in today's building stock; this presents a significant data challenge. fortunately, today's open data landscape creates new opportunities to gather the data necessary to enable more granular, high-fidelity descriptions of hurricane impacts on actual constructed buildings.in response, this dissertation capitalizes on this newfound, open-data landscape to formalize methodologies that (1) deepen the capacity for high fidelity loss assessments of actual constructed buildings under multiple hazards through an integrated life-cycle assessment (ilca) framework, (2) establish computationally-efficient, data-driven frameworks for hurricane regional loss assessments that (i) harness the modern open building data landscape, (ii) support the myriad of geometries and material assemblies found in today's building stock, and (iii) facilitate seamless scale up from parcel to regional scale, and then (3) implement these frameworks using actual constructed buildings/building inventories to demonstrate how open data can be leveraged to advance various modules of existing end-to-end open-source hurricane regional loss assessment workflows. the dissertation's integrated life-cycle assessment framework deepens the capacity for high-fidelity loss assessment of actual constructed buildings under multiple hazards. the resulting end-to-end workflow's ability to realize site-specific, building-specific, and component-level hurricane regional loss assessments is then facilitated by the dissertation's development of a series of computationally-efficient, data-driven frameworks bolstering specific modules in the workflow. a new building data model supports automated regional loss assessments and capitalizes on publicly available data. this model serves as the scaffold for a data-driven framework enabling the automated simulation of the site-specific effects of wind and wbd hazards on actual constructed buildings and a bayesian data integration framework to develop component-level fragilities using damage observations from post-disaster datasets. these capabilities are exercised on individual buildings and then scaled up through the replication and extension of existing open-source workflows for hurricane regional loss assessment. this is made possible by using the dissertation's methodology for generating building inventory information using open data and heuristic rulesets to capture parcel-specific, time-varying attributes and enable an immediate expansion of the capabilities available in today's open-source loss modeling workflows. all of these data-driven advancements are implemented using real-world building inventories, prioritizing considerations of commercial building typologies located in florida's bay county, the landfall site of hurricane michael. the selection of this region enables validation of the dissertation's findings against observations in recent hurricanes, while also grounding data-driven advancements within the current availability of tax assessor data and other publicly available datasets. albeit nontrivial, the long withstanding challenge of developing new chemical space for natural products of biological importance depends heavily on the development of new synthetic methods. with the increase in drug-resistance today, the expansion of chemical knowledge within the realm of natural products continues to play a vital role in biomedical research. to this end, strategies that develop five-membered carboor heterocyclic compounds are of interest to the synthetic community because of their prominence in natural products and pharmaceuticals.in contrast to common [n+2]-annulation strategies, in generating three, and five-membered motifs, we demonstrate the use of carbenoid strategies, via an [n+1] strategy, provide an alternative to accessing structural motifs of biological importance. we highlight the successful implementation of our strategy, in developing fully substituted carbon centers, with a focus on two classes of heterocycles: the c3-spirofused oxindole, and the 2,3-dihydrobenzfuran. in this dissertation, i describe the results of investigations into the influence of translation on protein folding in living cells. the environment in the cell differs greatly from that found in traditional experimental conditions for measuring protein folding in vitro. in the cell, protein folding is coupled to synthesis of the protein by the ribosome. the nascent polypeptide chain begins to fold as it emerges from the exit tunnel of the ribosome. this co-translational folding represents an important restriction on the conformational ensemble populated by nascent proteins in vivo. in this thesis three sets of investigations into the relationship between translation and protein folding are described. the first investigation reveals that a protein populates different conformations after folding co-translationally than it does in a variety of in vitro refolding conditions. the next investigation shows that small, genetically encoded changes in translation rate can predictably alter the folded state of a protein. this thesis shows for the first time that the co-translational molecular chaperone trigger factor can promote the formation of native folded structure by nascent polypeptides still associated with the ribosome. investigations into the role of genetic elements that modulate translation on bacterial physiology are also described. the results presented in this thesis show that the coupling of protein folding to the process of translation is critical part of how nascent proteins reach their native structures in vivo. addressing the question of what is at stake in the narrative representation of slavery, i analyze the depiction of interracial interaction in three contemporary historical novels: sherley anne williams's dessa rose (1986), caryl phillips's crossing the river (1993), and edward p. jones's the known world (2003). i contend that both in narrative strategy and content, these works advocate an approach to slavery's historicization that underscores dynamic cross-cultural engagement. depicting an intersubjective experience of slavery through the foregrounding of mutually constitutive relationships, these novels critique the way contemporary social, cultural and political debates are invested in one-dimensional models of racial interaction. analyzing their narratives in relation to toni morrison's assertion that slavery necessitated the dehumanization of both blacks and whites, i assert that williams, phillips, and jones challenge articulations of slavery's legacy that employ the divisive rhetoric of blame, but also resist the liberal humanist impulse to relegate slavery's significance to the past. furthermore, each author blurs the line separating fact and fiction by grounding their creative fictions in the historical documentation of slavery. their literary representations of slavery undermine strict expectations of accuracy and instead emphasize the narrative truth that resides in the co-mingling of fact and fiction. rather than reinforce strict racial divisions or, conversely, suggest that the nation is somehow 'beyond' race, i contend that williams, phillips, and jones advocate 'working through' slavery at the level of a shared narrative history. treponema pallidum is the causative agent of syphilis and is exquisitely sensitiveto penicillins and other §-lactam antibiotics. the tp47, the novel 47 kda membrane-boundlipoprotein is abundant penicillin-binding protein (pbp) in t. pallidum.interestingly its x-ray structure reveals that it is distinct from any known pbps or §-lactamases. our studies further revealed that tp47 hydrolyzes the §-lactam bonds ofpenicillins. the reaction is unique and represents a bona fide novel mechanistic strategyin turnover of these antibiotics. the activity of tp47 as a §-lactamase is held back by asignificant inhibition of the activity by the products of turnover, accounting for thesensitivity of t. pallidum to penicillins. the penicillin-binding protein activity and the §-lactamase reaction take place at different active sites in this protein, with the latterreaction proceeding at a rate of over 2000-fold faster than that of the former.staphylococci have evolved to produce both §-lactamases and pbp 2a asresistance mechanism. the expression of these two proteins to have resistant phenotypeis regulated by blar1 and mecr1. blar1 is the sensor-transducer protein that binds with§-lactam antibiotics on the cell surface (c-terminus) and transduces the signal into thecytoplasm. the c-terminal domain of blar1 (blars) is related to class d §-lactamases. the carboxylation on active site lysine is important for the activation of serine as anucleophile. blars has slow deacylation step, which exhibits the characteristic of pbps.blars differs from class d §-lactamases by exhibiting barrierless n§-decarboxylation inthe event of acylation, which traps acyl-enzyme complex. the recarboxylation isprevented by interaction between the side chain of decarboxylated, free lysine andasparagine. the significant conformational changes of blars are observed by circulardichroism and ft-ir upon interaction with §-lactams, which may indicate criticalinvolvement in signal transduction. the c-terminal surface domain of mecr1 (mecrs)has also been extensively studied. this protein also possesses n§-carboxylated lysine inthe active site. unlike its homolog blars, the kinetics of acylation of mecrs issubstantially defective, which may explain the reason why mec regulating system isdiminishing from clinical strains that exhibit high resistance level against drugs. the book of jubilees uses the genre 'apocalypse' to express a worldview that differs significantly from the cluster of ideas typically expressed by contemporary apocalypses. jubilees has often been viewed as a borderline or ambiguous case among apocalypses. when viewed with the proper distinctions and definitions, jubilees is indeed atypical but not ambiguous. jubilees does use the genre 'apocalypse,' but uses it ironically. typically, the revelatory framework of apocalypses authorizes new esoteric wisdom. transcendence on the spatial axis typically emphasizes the influence of cosmic powers and limits human agency. transcendence on the temporal axis typically conveys a view of history in exponential decline culminating in 'final woes' and a future restoration. although the apocalypses express great variety in worldview, they form a cluster of compatible views around these issues inherent in the use of the genre. the genre creates a reader expectation that the typical worldview will be conveyed. jubilees, however, uses the genre to address the definitive issues of the apocalyptic worldview, and consistently presents views radically different from the typical cluster of views. thus, the revelation in jubilees is a re-revelation of the single eternal revelation already familiar and accessible to all of israel. humans are primarily responsible for sin, suffering, and the eschatological turning point. the eschatological turning point is natural, gradual, and most importantly, realized. the inversion of reader expectations can be called irony on purely literary grounds. the intent of the author is more speculative, but the quantity and quality of the subversions of the apocalyptic worldview by means of the literary genre suggest deliberate use of irony. an important challenge for ecologists is to understand how variation in climatological factors caused by global warming will affect biotic communities. climatological factors such as temperature may have important impacts on species interactions and community processes, including the occurrence of trophic cascades. this study investigated the effects of temperature on species interactions in a model plant--grasshopper--spider food chain. three main questions were addressed: 1) how do grasshoppers behaviorally respond to temperature and predation risk? 2) how do grasshopper performance traits (survival, fecundity, body mass) respond to variation in temperature, and can grasshopper density modify these responses? 3) how does temperature and grasshopper density affect the occurrence of trophic cascades in this system? manipulative field experiments were conducted in an old field at the university of notre dame environmental research center (east) in northern wisconsin from 2002 2005. food chain length, grasshopper density, and temperature were manipulated in field enclosures. temperature was varied using shade cloth or plastic greenhouses placed over enclosures. grasshopper behavior and performance traits were measured, as well as plant biomass. spider presence caused grasshoppers to shift feeding to warmer parts of the day, and to increase overall time spent feeding. this is surprising because most studies find that grasshoppers decrease activity in response to predator presence. it is hypothesized that increased feeding in response to spider presence may be a mechanism to compensate for increased metabolic costs of foraging in warmer parts of the day. both temperature and grasshopper density were found to be important factors affecting predator-prey dynamics. furthermore, spiders modified grasshopper response to temperature. for example, grasshopper survival varied with temperature when spiders were not present. this was best explained by the effects of temperature on net resource intake. in contrast, when spiders were present, climate treatment had no effect on grasshopper survival. this indicates that spiders can buffer grasshopper survival from the effects of temperature change. furthermore, the occurrence of trophic cascades varied with both temperature and grasshopper density. this research indicates that global climate change may have profound impacts on biotic communities, affecting species performance and species interactions. this dissertation studies the role of slave pain in shaping moral evaluations of slavery. in the early eighteenth century, few people doubted slaves had unhappy lives, but misery seemed inevitable, and heaven adequate compensation. attitudes toward pain gradually shifted from acceptance to repugnance. criticisms of slaveholding cruelty emerged from two distinct sources, both concerned more with white morality than black pain: quakers exalting martyrdom, and other protestants and moral philosophers stressing sympathy and benevolence in moral formation. pain soon grounded antislavery rhetoric. antislavery pamphlets and books dwelt, in excruciating detail, on the physical torments of slaves. but the revulsion against pain influenced slavery's defenders, who argued that cruelty was not essential to the system and that, without it, slavery was not only just, but humane. the colonization movement nurtured both proand antislavery rhetoric. it claimed that slavery was cruel, but so was american freedom, offering only starvation, suffering, and prejudice. as colonization splintered, it pitted proand antislavery polemicists against each other, both claiming true sympathy for blacks. antislavery attacks inspired proslavery polemicists to counter that slavery humanely provided food, clothing, shelter, and security. proslavery claims, in turn, pushed abolitionists to prove slavery's gruesome cruelties, while they simultaneously feared that focusing on individual cases of cruelty obscured the more systematic evil of slavery. the "humanitarian" argument vexed abolitionists, raising questions about the relative importance of physical versus mental pain, the prudence of highlighting cruelty, and the moral role of emotions, imagination, and conscience. proand antislavery ideologies were not self-contained, but took shape in a fierce debate over slavery and the meaning of humanitarianism; exigencies of the debate helped push people with similar moral commitments to widely divergent conclusions. despite recognizing the revolution in views of pain, historians have paid little analytical attention to pain in the slavery debate, leaving an unfortunate impression that concern with pain flowed directly into what we think of as humanitarianism. assuming pain naturally served antislavery obscures the complexity of moral claims about pain. recognizing this contestation and pain's ability to serve contradictory purposes illuminates our understanding of its role in morality. in this dissertation, i examine the debate between hermann weyl and albert einstein over weyl's 1918 unified field theory, both for its own merit and for the epistemological implications it holds for the ultimate goal of physics: a theory of everything. i provide a detailed explication of weyl's response to einstein's objection, including a careful exegesis of weyl's somewhat enigmatic distinction between the determination of physical quantities through persistence versus adjustment. i show that einstein's concerns were ultimately more methodological in nature than has been previously argued in the literature, thereby providing a novel explanation for the apparent inconsistency he evinces in the well-known 1921 lecture, 'geometry and experience.' seen in this light, the differences between einstein and weyl in this period appear rather small, especially regarding one of the central themes of the dispute: how to make a physical theory testable. they both argue that, in a fully-developed theory, the behavior of measuring devices should not be taken as given but rather derived from first principles; i.e., as composite objects able to determine the properties of more basic entities, rigid rulers and regular clocks should arise as particular solutions of the fundamental equations. i argue that this requirement, though important for explaining how theories can make claims about the world that are capable of test through observation, leaves the task half-finished. equally important is the task of showing why those measuring devices should be considered observable in the first place. i conclude that if we demand that this also be done without arbitrary stipulation, then we will need a detailed, scientific account of the sense-organs we use to make observations, constructed on the basis of the first principles of the theory we wish to test. empirical work has documented positive relationships between attachment security and greater family cohesion, less family conflict, and fewer child adjustment problems, among other positive outcomes. compromised attachment security is linked with negative outcomes. using longitudinal data from 999 mother-adolescents dyads surveyed in belfast, northern ireland, the present study examines links among emotional security in the family, mothers' and adolescents' outgroup attitudes, and adolescent engagement in sectarian antisocial behavior. hypotheses state that emotional security mediates the relationship between mother and adolescent outgroup attitudes, and adolescent outgroup attitude impacts adolescent engagement in sectarian antisocial behavior. results indicate mother and adolescent outgroup attitudes are correlated at all time points and that emotional security does not mediate the relationship between mother and adolescent outgroup attitude. adolescent outgroup attitude at times 2 and 4 had a statistically significant effect on adolescent participation in sectarian antisocial behavior at time 6. implications and future directions are discussed. this thesis looks at the history of the italian community in bedford and how it has been documented in two films currently held in the university of east anglia film archive. the first, england may be home, is a dramatised documentary directed by amateur filmmakers richard and margaret hodkins. england may be home, has a didactic approach as it presents the italians' arrival in bedford from the immigrants' perspective. the second, focus on: bedford, filmed ten years after england may be home, in 1966, is a documentary directed by harry aldous and created for anglia television that follows the life of the conte family, an italian family in bedford, and investigates what it calls the 'self-contained' italian community. the present thesis looks specifically at how the films address issues regarding integration and argues that italian integration in britain has not been as successful or as straightforward as the scholarship suggests. mass shootings and other forms of gun violence continue to affect the united states in ways that do not compare to other countries. the highly emotional nature of the gun control debate in the u.s. presents a unique opportunity to explore the effects of emotions on collective action that has previously been undertheorized in the field. this study uses data from an original experimental survey to analyze three issues: the variation in emotional reactions to different forms of gun violence, the variation in a willingness to mobilize for gun-related issues, and the effects of racial identity on these potential patterns of variation. i find evidence that any form of gun violence will evoke strong emotional reactions but there is no significant difference across treatment groups; the willingness to mobilize is largely unaffected by the type of gun violence; and that there are suggestive differences in how white people compared to black people react to gun violence that warrant further investigation. lastly, i explain these results as effects of a pervasive and unique gun culture in the united states. as globalization progresses, immigrants and children of immigrants begin to make up a larger portion of the population in western countries, such as norway. given the vast ethnic backgrounds and cultural differences expected in the immigration population, it is important to understand how psychological acculturation influences mental health outcomes in immigrant communities to identify specific challenges facing a particular community. previous studies have found that acculturation affects different immigrant groups differentially, such that gender, context of emigration, and family conflicts are hypothesized to moderate the relation between psychological acculturation and adjustment outcomes. using data from the dynamics of family conflict study (familieforsk in norwegian), a longitudinal project involving 2044 families in various regions of norway, i will examine the effect of acculturation on adjustment outcomes as mediated by the frequency and severity of family conflicts and moderated by gender and context of emigration. in particular, i propose an empirically derived hypothesis for the disparity in acculturation between men and women, such that the experiences of acculturating women are mediated by financial situations, family dynamics of the heritage culture, and social support within the new community. chemical, biological, source reduction and novel methods involving transgenic refractory mosquitoes have all been used or proposed to reduce vectorborne disease transmission. however, a thorough understanding of mosquito vector dynamics is needed to increase the success of these interventions which is applied to interrupt pathogen transmission. my first aim (aim 1a) was to examine how the population structure of aedes aegypti mosquitoes varies around individual human domiciles, in addition to dengue (denv-2) susceptibility. ae. aegypti is generally regarded as a weak flier and tends to remain active within a small geographic area throughout its lifetime. this behavior can have profound effects dengue virus transmission. the results indicated that population structure determined from microsatellites can vary significantly from house to house within a small geographic area. furthermore, denv-2 susceptibility was highest during the wet season. related to this (aim 1b) i examined anthropogenic urban landscapes can potentially influence ae. aegypti dispersal. here we assessed whether there was evidence of adult mosquitoes crossing a major urban highway in trinidad using a combination of microsatellite and mitochondrial dna sequencing. my second aim was to examine whether quantitative trait loci (qtl) influencing denv-2 susceptibility in ae. aegypti that have been identified in laboratory studies could be recovered using mosquitoes collected from the field. two qtl influencing denv-2 dissemination were recovered on chromosomes 1 and 3. both of which have been previously reported as influencing denv infection in ae. aegypti. my third aim examined how abiotic factors (ammonium, nitrate, soluble reactive phosphorus, and water temperature influence the presence or absence of ae. aegypti larvae in 50 gallon water storage drums. there was no indication that the micronutrients assayed influenced the presence of mosquito larvae. however, there was a difference in water drum infestation when maximum water temperatures climbed over 32ìâå¡ celsius. mycobacterium tuberculosis is the etiological agent of human tuberculosis (tb), a disease responsible for more than one million deaths in 2013. a major mechanism by which this bacterial pathogen mediates infection is through the export of virulence factors from the esat-6 system-1 (esx-1). to better understand mycobacterial pathogenicity, we studied the basic genetic and molecular requirements of esx-1 secretion and virulence in pathogenic mycobacteria. using mycobacterium marinum as a model species, we screened a near-saturating transposon-insertion library for mutant strains exhibiting morphology defects. we report here the identification and characterization of two mutant m. marinum strains that are deficient for esx-1 function and attenuated in infection models. from these analyses we expanded the genetic requirements for esx-1 secretion in m. marinum to include mmar_4414 and the mmar_1663-mmar_1668 locus. we also determined that esx-1-dependent virulence is mediated through the proteins substrates associated with the bacterial surface, contrary to the assumption that true exo-proteins facilitate virulence. finally, we determined that the protein product of mmar_4414 directly interacts with ecca, an established component of the esx-1 system. in summary, these studies identified two major genetic loci required for esx-1 function and provide novel insights into the working model of esx-1 secretion in pathogenic mycobacteria. the continued study of these, and other yet still undiscovered esx-1 components, may contribute to the future control and prevention of m. tuberculosis infection. this dissertation examines the place of the soldier in political life. through close readings of homer, thucydides, tocqueville, and hemingway, i analyze the political existence of the soldier in different types of political community. the main movement i trace is one in which the original homeric image of the soldierly ideal is inverted in the modern world. drawing upon tocqueville and hemingway, i argue that the american soldier is a figure not honored by american society. the american disposition toward the soldier tends to be characterized by patriotic feeling and sympathetic sentiment. the unity of soldierly practices and meanings encountered in homer—around honor and glory, and wounding and healing—collapses, i suggest, for the soldier in modern society. the reciprocity established between soldier and city in the classical polis—a reciprocity i find in thucydides—does not obtain for the soldier in the modern world. i argue that the american soldier suffers as a consequence of not being honored. drawing upon homer and hemingway, i suggest that the withholding of honor from the soldier obstructs the soldier's ability to heal from the wounds of war. while renaissance dramatists like middleton have long stood in the shadow of shakespeare's modern editorial presence, new critical spotlights have focused on the dearth of editions and neglected editorial consideration for shakespeare's contemporaries, spurred by projects like the recently released oxford thomas middleton. in this thesis, i examine current editorial trends and interpretations informing critical editions of shakespeare and his contemporaries, acknowledging the continued impact of shakespearean editing on the larger field of textual criticism. this examination also extends to the new realm for editions of renaissance drama -electronic editions and hypertext. ultimately, i argue that, while electronic editions offer new, exciting methods for editorial representation unavailable in codex form, editors must carefully consider the implications of readers as "critical performers" of these new editions, as well as effective usage of digital media to enhance and promote better understanding of performance-friendly, accessible texts highlighting collaboration between shakespeare and his contemporaries. for a compact riemannian manifold $(m, g_2)$ of dimension $ngeq 6$ with constant $q$-curvature satisfying a nondegeneracy condition, we show that one can construct many other examples of constant $q$-curvature manifolds by a gluing construction. in this dissertation, we provide a general procedure of gluing together $(m,g_2)$ with any compact manifold $(n, g_1)$ satisfying a natural geometric assumption. in particular, we prove the existence of solutions of a fourth-order partial differential equation, which implies the existence of a smooth metric with constant $q$-curvature on the connected sum $n#m$. spectrum sensing is a critical function for enabling dynamic spectrum access (dsa) in a cognitive radio system. in dsa networks, unlicensed secondary users can gain access to a licensed spectrum band as long as they do not cause harmful interfere to the primary users. although existing research has demonstrated the utility of a markov chain for modeling the spectrum access pattern of primary users over time, little effort has been directed toward spectrum sensing based upon such models. in this thesis, we develop several sequence detection algorithms for spectrum sensing in dsa networks. we assign different costs for missed detections and false alarms and show that a suitably modified forward-backward sequence detection algorithm is optimal in minimizing the detection risk. two advanced sequence detection algorithms, the complete forward algorithm and the complete forward partial backward algorithm are introduced. along the way, we observe new fundamental limitations that we call the risk floor and the window length limitation of traditional physical layer detection schemes that arise from their mismatch with the primary user's channel access pattern. we also report results from preliminary experiments in which we implement and compare different detectors using a software-defined radio platform. nanomagnet logic (nml) has received attention in recent years as it has the potential to replace or supplement the current cmos technology. benefits of nml include low power operation, non-volatility and radiation-hardness. prior to this work, key components of nml architecture have been demonstrated experimentally with an on-chip clocking scheme, where the inputs were set with hard-coded horizontal or slanted nanomagnets. however, the clocking scheme needs further optimization. also, an electronic control of the input magnets is essential to realize an interface between nml and cmos systems.in this work, the previously demonstrated on-chip clock line geometry was studied through simulation to obtain an optimum design in terms of efficient field generation. the generated field magnitudes estimated from magnetostatic simulations were related to the switching fields of nanomagnets using relevant experiments. we also report the experimental demonstration of a field-coupled input scheme that can serve as an interface with an electronic system, and offers benefits such as low power operation and ease of fabrication with the existing on-chip clocking scheme. the programmability of such inputs allows us to test the same nml device for all possible input combinations. this concept was demonstrated for a slant-based or gate and an nml wire. this electronic, field-coupled input integrated with the on-chip clocking is necessary for the realization of an integrated nml system. in recent years, a number of high profile tragedies, such as school shootings and natural disasters have both traumatized americans and had profound political effects. yet, the politics of trauma remains under-theorized and under-examined by scholars. in particular, mass exposure to traumatic events through expanded access to and supply of media in various mediums have made traumatic events more political in that americans expect a governmental response. further, in an era of partisan polarization, government responses to trauma have taken on increasingly partisan significance, the consequences of which we have yet to analyze.my dissertation develops an original theory of individual and mass responses to different types of traumatic events (black church arson attacks, mass shootings, and natural disasters) by constructing a theory of traumatic politics. the project then examines the effect of these events on turnout and incumbency support as well as the role of trust in conditioning such effects. then, the study examines public expectations of government in response to traumatic events and identities the effect party activist and executive framings of traumatic events have on the mass electorate and its implications for affective and ideological partisan polarization. using original survey experimental data, aggregate disaster response data, local-level panel data, and time-series cross-sectional data, the dissertation measures three major aspects of the politics of trauma: the effects of individual traumatic experiences on political behavior, public opinion regarding party response, and the polarizing impact of party elite response. large-scale investigations of structural models of psychopathology have identified several overarching factors that account for comorbidity among psychiatric syndromes: internalizing, externalizing, and oddity/psychoticism. obsessive-compulsive disorder (ocd) is often excluded from these investigations. when it has been included, its placement in structural models of psychopathology is ambiguous; in some cases it has been a marker of internalizing, the internalizing subfactor fear, and oddity/psychoticism. in dsm-5, ocd is newly classified in the obsessive-compulsive and related disorders (ocrds) chapter, along with body dysmorphic disorder, hoarding disorder, hair pulling disorder, and skin picking disorder. because these disorders have not been included in previous structural models, ocd's relative relation to the ocrds, psychoticism/oddity symptoms, and anxiety disorder symptoms is unknown. the goals of the present analysis were to (a) examine the integrity of the ocrd category in structural models of psychopathology, (b) assess ocd's fit as an internalizing, oddity, and ocrd disorder, and (c) examine psychopathology structure at the symptom dimension level to examine the effects of specific symptoms on ocd's relations to other syndromes. structural analysis identified five overarching factors: distress, fear, externalizing, oddity/ocrd, and eating disorder. the results provided partial support for an ocrd category, however were suggestive of an overlap between ocrd and oddity syndromes. furthermore, several ocrds did not fit optimally within the ocrd factor; rather, bdd loaded with distress and illness anxiety with fear. comparison of ocd's fit among these factors suggested that ocd's relation to other psychopathology is complex and multifaceted: ocd loaded with both oddity/ocrd and fear. symptom-level analyses shed light on these results, indicating that ocd cleaning symptoms are related to specific phobias, whereas checking/ordering, obsessing, and neutralizing were more strongly related to oddity/ocrd diagnoses. these results have important clinical and theoretical implications. first, this analysis informs future revisions of the dsm and suggests that the overlap between oddity and ocrd should be reflected. second, assessment of symptom dimensions will aid clinicians and researchers in understanding differential underlying mechanisms of mental illness. finally, results call into question the theoretical underpinnings of the ocrd category and suggest the need to identify broader underlying mechanisms for observed comorbidity. this dissertation examines the bureaucracy created to administer one of the largest institutional structures in nineteenth-century ireland, the system of district asylums for the lunatic poor. i argue that although the irish lunacy inspectorate is usually portrayed as one of many functionaries of the irish executive, it quickly developed its own rationale and sphere of influence largely independent of government. such development had significant ramifications for the psychiatric profession, patients' experiences of the asylum, and the governance of a society fractured along religious, political, and class lines. unlike their british counterparts, the irish lunacy inspectorate grew to monopolize the asylum system. as a consequence, irish psychiatry professionalized differently because the inspectorate molded the position of resident medical superintendent (the immediate ancestor of irish psychiatrists) as they saw fit. in spite of their protests and efforts to the contrary, and because of the nature of the population they served, these physicians ultimately functioned more as managers of medical poor relief than independent practitioners of medicine. local and national funding was less ideologically problematic for lunatic poor than "healthy" poor, and thus more consistently generous. by demonstrating that the effects of the great famine of the 1840s and 1850s are deeper and longer-lasting than has previously been acknowledged, i argue that the district lunatic asylum system was one of the most successful poor relief ventures in nineteenth-century ireland. this thesis presents basic attenuation relationships for the maximum incremental velocity,miv, of earthquake ground motion records. multiple regression analyses are conducted to determine relationships between the miv and the relevant earthquake parameters, such as magnitude, distance, soil conditions, and fault type. the peer-nga (2009) strong ground motion database is expanded for the purposes of the study, to include the 'orientation-independent' geometric mean miv of the two orthogonal horizontal components of a given record. the proposed attenuation relationship can be used to estimate the miv at a given site, similar to currently available models for other ground motion intensity parameters such as the peak ground acceleration (pga) and velocity (pgv), as well as spectral acceleration (sa) and velocity (sv). this interdisciplinary dissertation joins global anglophone literature with critical theory of several stripes in order to incrementally build, chapter by chapter, an interpretive scheme called "castration desire." where the orthodox psychoanalytic account understands castration negatively—to lose the phallus is to lose everything—this dissertation argues for the capacity of "castration" to serve a less-is-more ethos. a longstanding but hitherto unremarked-upon trend in global anglophone literature reflects precisely this project of pursuing less egoistic modes of thinking and acting, so as to gesture toward a more other-oriented relationality. in place of masculine egoism, anglophone writers such as sri lankan-canadian michael ondaatje, south african-australian j.m. coetzee, japanese-british kazuo ishiguro, chinese-american david henry hwang, and irish-canadian emma donoghue offer prototypes in their characters for generating the less-is-more ethos of castration desire.the normative masculine proclivity for pitting an "i" over and against a world of others speeds an inequitable system of servitude to the phallic few who enjoy privileged place atop a global hierarchy. but, as i explain in later chapters, this system meets its breaking point in the era of human-induced climate change, hence the need for a novel thought-model that could lead to a fundamental reassessment of any number of norming social contracts derived from normative masculine individualism, including those underpinning fossil-fuel-extraction. in addition to providing a novel optic through which to read a diversity of text-types, "castration desire" provides analytical tools for responding to the current apocalyptic track over which the globalized logic of normative masculine individualism otherwise operates. surface science experiments and techniques have assisted in invaluable ways to improve our understanding of heterogenous catalysis. many applications investigate catalytic materials far from reaction conditions with model systems. within this dissertation, i discuss the application of surface experiments and techniques at or near experimental conditions to further the understanding of two important catalytic systems: (1) pd-based dense h2 separation membranes and (2) pyridine organocatalysis of the cycloaddition of co2 into an epoxide. for the thin metallic membranes i investigate common catalytic poisons, c3h6 and co, on the activity of pd during h2 separation at relevant permeation conditions. i identify the existence of key surface and bulk species deposited on the membranes, outlining poisoning reaction conditions and providing baseline performance and surface poison comparisons of pd to the most common alloy membrane pd77ag23. for the pyridine catalysis of co2, i utilize in situ spectroscopic analysis to improve understanding of the mechanism of co2 cycloaddition into epichlorohydrin. i show that pyridine isomers behave differently during reaction and identify the in situ quaternization reaction of poly-4-vinylpyridine. the experimental design and tools used in this dissertation can be improved and applied to further catalytic applications, some of which i discuss in the concluding remarks. source code summarization is the task of writing a short natural language summary for a section of source code. the most common targets for summarization are a program's subroutines. for example, a java method with its accompanying javadoc string. summaries help programmers more quickly understand code. the backbone of current code summarization techniques is the attentional encoder-decoder neural architecture, such as a seq2seq-like model. the research frontier is in improving these models through more comprehensive representations of source code in the encoder. in this dissertation, i cover my work in developing new techniques and insights for source code summarization. specifically, i look at how we can achieve the best results with only information provided by the method itself. for my first project, i look at how code can be categorized into topics using pre-trained word embeddings and neural networks. we found that the inclusion of natural language in the pre-training of word embeddings improves the models ability to correctly categorize methods for the project category. we also found that general english language word embeddings such as those trained on wikipedia do not perform as well as embeddings trained on source code. for my second project, we built upon this work to begin generating full summaries of source code using sequence-to-sequence models. we found that including the ast as a separate input allows the model to learn structural information about the code, improving summary quality. for my third project, i look at how we can better represent the ast to a neural model. we developed a graph neural network based approach to encode the ast as a graph instead of a sequence. we found that this encoding created better representations of the source code and improved overall summary generation. lastly, i study how combining models trained on different sets of information from source code would perform. in these studies i explore two common model ensembling techniques and analyzed how each models internal representations of source code differed, and how that might be affecting the summary output. [2]rotaxanes are molecular compounds that contain a macrocycle surrounding a dumbbell-shaped thread. this thesis focuses on squaraine rotaxanes that contain a tetralactam macrocycle encapsulating a fluorescent squaraine dye. these rotaxanes exhibit excellent chemical stability, high photochemical stability, and favorable photophysical properties. in fact, squaraine rotaxanes are now commercially available for use in imaging applications. this thesis begins with the synthesis of a novel, organic soluble, anthracene-containing tetralactam macrocycle that serves as a common rotaxane building block. the anthracene containing macrocycle can undergo chemical reactions with various dienophiles and can associate non-covalently with various guests including squaraine dyes. a synthetic capping methodology converts these complexes into squaraine rotaxanes in high yields. in addition to synthesis, a major part of this thesis describes the response of these squaraine rotaxanes to various chemical environments. a cycloaddition reaction with singlet oxygen produces an endoperoxide that can undergo a cycloreverison. the rate of the cycloreversion and oxygen release can be altered through rationale design. in fact, steric strain in the [2]rotaxane scaffold provides a rate acceleration of ~3,000-fold. not only does the cycloreversion process release singlet oxygen, it also emits near-infrared light. this novel form of chemiluminescence can be utilized for deep tissue in vivo molecular imaging. various structural and environmental factors are examined for their effect on the emission wavelength and emission intensity, and the work builds a mechanistic picture of the chemiluminescence process. this thesis also describes the effect of metal cations on the cycloreversion rates of squaraine rotaxane endoperoxides that have been designed with metal binding pockets. the presence of some metal cations can alter rates by small amounts, whereas the presence of fe(ii) leads to fenton chemistry and macrocycle cleavage. lastly, the photophysical response of squaraine rotaxanes to acid is discussed. large changes in the emission spectrum intensity are observed in rotaxanes that are easily protonated on the surrounding macrocycle. the results in this thesis suggest that squaraine rotaxanes and their corresponding endoperoxides have potential utility in a wide-array of scientific areas; from molecular machines to molecular imaging probes. the interaction of peripheral proteins with cellular lipids is essential to cellular function and homeostasis. several conserved protein families dock at cellular membranes in order to target catalytic domains to membrane-localized substrates, to metabolize lipids, and to spatially re-organize or deform membranes. this thesis is an investigation of the biophysical and biochemical mechanisms of phosphoinositide-binding proteins at cellular membranes. beginning with an investigation of the pi(4)p-binding protein fapp1 and its role in golgi vesicle formation and trafficking, it then progresses to an investigation of a family of lipid-binding c2 domains present in mammalian ubiquitin ligases, and of the ebola virus lipid-binding protein vp40. the c2 domains, present in the nedd4 family of ubiquitin ligases, are shown to have novel properties as both phosphoinositide-binding and charge sensing domains. as these nedd4 ubiquitin ligases have been shown to regulate important cellular processes such as membrane receptor endocytosis, growth factor signaling, epithelial to mesenchymal transition in cancer cells, and viral egress, this work provides a platform on which to understand how these proteins regulate cellular substrates via their localization to membranes. the study of ebola vp40 provides greater detail on the anionic lipid-targeting mechanism of the ebola virus protein via phospholipids, revealing it to have specific affinity for phosphoinosities at the plasma membrane in live cells. in addition, a novel elisa-based assay to assess virus-like particle egress from vp40-transfected cells is detailed. this data provides a better understanding of how the ebola matrix protein targets membranes in virus replication. overall, this work provides the lipid research community with a greater understanding of specific protein-lipid interactions and also with new insights on the diversity of lipid-binding mechanisms in the c2 domain family. the calculation of phase equilibrium is a fundamental and reoccurring problem in modeling of chemical engineering phenomena. a key step in the computation of multiphase equilibrium is phase stability analysis. a reliable technique for phase stability analysis will assure both that the correct number of phases is found, and that the phase split computed corresponds to a global minimum in the total gibbs energy. that is, phase stability analysis serves as a global optimality test in solving the global optimization problem that determines phase equilibrium at constant temperature and pressure. however, phase stability analysis is itself a global optimization problem that can be very difficult to solve reliably. stochastic global optimization methods (e.g., simulated annealing, genetic algorithms, etc.) have been frequently proposed in this context. however, none of these techniques is actually guaranteed to produce the correct results. thus, there has been significant interest in the development of deterministic techniques that guarantee the correct solution of the phase stability problem. these efforts have been focused primarily on the case of symmetric models (same thermodynamic model used for all phases). work on deterministic stability analysis for the asymmetric case (different models used for different phases) has been limited to cases involving either an ideal gas vapor phase or a pure solid phase. in this thesis, a deterministic method for the more general asymmetric case will be presented, focusing on the common situation in modeling vapor-liquid equilibrium in which nonidealities are represented in the vapor phase by an equation of state and in the liquid phase by an excess gibbs energy model. in comparison to the symmetric model case, the use of multiple thermodynamic models in the asymmetric case adds an additional layer of complexity to the phase stability problem. to deal with this additional complexity the phase stability problem is formulated in terms of a new type of tangent plane distance function, which uses a binary variable to account for the presence of different liquidand vapor-phase models. to then solve the problem deterministically, an interval-newton approach is used. the new methodology is tested using several examples with nrtl as the liquid-phase model and a cubic equation of state as the vapor-phase model. in three cases, published phase equilibrium computations were found to be incorrect (not stable). procedures for deterministic phase stability analysis, such as described here, can be used in connection with any algorithm or software package for computing phase equilibrium, to validate the computed results and to provide corrective feedback if needed. mesocarbon microbeads are an excellent precursor for high performance carbon materials because of their ability to self-sinter. the sintered product has many attractive properties such as high density, good thermal conductivity and high bending strength. however, the fracture properties need improvement for use in brake applications. to enhance the fracture properties, firstly, the carbonization behavior was systematically investigated and the processing conditions were optimized. secondly, reinforcements, such as carbides and borides were introduced and the effect of heat treatment temperature on composite properties was studied. thermogravimetry-mass spectroscopy analysis proved that the chemical processes associated with hydrogen release are responsible for the major shrinkage event. cracks formed during heat treatment when microbead pellets were compacted above 100mpa. the oxidation pretreatment increased plasticity of the pellets and effectively eliminated crack formation. however, x-ray diffraction and microstructure analysis indicated that the liquid phase sintering (<800k) that is critical to the development of 'bridges' between microbeads, is prohibited, and the fracture properties decreased.eutectic liquid formed when a tib2/c composite was heat treated at 2800k or above, as evidenced by observation of a layered structure in the polished cross-section. at low tib2 loading, liquid phase sintering leads to a homogeneous distribution of tib2 particles in the carbon matrix of much smaller size and increased fracture properties. at higher loading, a complete transformation of mesophase carbon to graphite was observed and fracture toughness decreased. diffusion of boron to the carbon matrix was proved by laser ablation icp-ms. however, a control experiment indicates that it is not the main cause for the observed change in materials properties. resistance to oxidation increased by more than two orders of magnitude due to tib2 additions. fracture properties of the tib2/c composites increased further when finer tib2 powders were used, and eventually a composite with fracture toughness as high as 1.92mpa.m0.5 was obtained. average pore size decreased by one order of magnitude for the best composite. similar results were also obtained for tic/c and zrb2/c composites but not for ni/c composites, where the catalytic graphitization by nickel only leads to the formation of graphitic carbon. further improvement maybe achieved by techniques such as hot-pressing to decrease the porosity level. my dissertation evaluated factors that influence contaminant the transfer and uptake of pacific salmon (oncorhynchus spp.) derived contaminants to stream-resident fish in tributaries of the upper laurentian great lakes. this research has broad relevance to fisheries of the great lakes because pacific salmon are considered an important sport fish while the lakes are replete with contaminants, especially persistent organic pollutants (pops) such as polychlorinated biphenyls (pcbs), and heavy metals such as mercury (hg). my dissertation demonstrated that pacific salmon transport contaminants to tributaries of the great lakes and influence the contaminant burden of stream-resident fish. using a combination of observational, experimental, and modeling approaches, i identified the key factors related to how contaminants transported by salmon are transferred and accumulated by stream-resident fish. my research provides strong evidence for contaminant biotransport and transfer of pops, but not hg, by salmon. therefore, not all contaminants are equivalent, and the trophic pathway to contamination is a primary driver of the impact of salmon-mediated contaminants on stream-resident fish. in chapters 2 and 3, i show how environmental context influences the transfer of pcbs biotransported by pacific salmon. specifically, the lake-basin of origin for the salmon spawner, the flux of pcbs supplied by salmon, and the species identity of the resident fish strongly influenced the magnitude of contaminant biotransport. differences among resident fishes are likely driven by differences in diet composition, consumption rate, and physiology. in contrast, the lack of a hg effect suggests that salmon are not a significant source of hg to resident fish. moreover, because salmon eggs are enriched in pops, but depleted in hg, widespread consumption of eggs may be the primary pathway for biouptake of salmon-derived contaminants by resident fish. the experimental approaches described in chapters 4 and 5 provide strong inference that egg consumption results in elevated pop concentrations, consumption of salmon tissue leads to increased hg concentrations, and that consumption of salmon eggs but not salmon tissue enhances the growth of resident fish. the contrast in hg response between my mesocosm (chapter 4) and salmon addition experiments (chapter 5) was likely driven by the consumption of salmon tissue in the mesocosm experiment, suggesting that resident fish in streams receiving salmon runs rarely consume carcass material, especially if eggs are available. i integrate my inferences from chapters 2-5 in chapter 6 using a bioenergetics-bioaccumulation model that provides a mechanistic explanation of salmon-mediated contaminant biotransport. the model suggests that variation in the trophic pathway, individual diet and consumption rate, and location in which salmon accumulate their contaminant burden interact to regulate the transfer and uptake of salmon-derived contaminants by stream-resident fish. overall, my dissertation demonstrates that environmental context, reflecting the contaminant type, species identity, and trophic pathway to contamination, determines the magnitude of salmon-mediated contaminant biotransport and uptake. consequently, consideration of the recipient food web and route of exposure is critical to understanding the fate of biotransported contaminants in stream ecosystems. adhesive joints/interfaces are increasingly used in assembly of structural components. most modern adhesives are reinforced at the micron or nm scales to achieve desired mechanical or secondary properties. unfortunately, adhesive joints are often the weak link in the load bearing capacity of bonded structures. thus, predicting how the morphology of reinforced adhesives affects the failure response of the bonded structure is critical for design and safety assessment. direct numerical modeling (dnm), which captures all relevant length scales in a single simulation, is one method for accurately predicting the failure response of heterogeneous interfaces at multiple scales. however, dnm is often too computationally expensive, even for modern and next-generation supercomputers. this dissertation presents a high performance numerical framework that uses computational homogenization (ch) to model the multi-scale failure response of heterogeneous interfaces in the 3d finite strain setting. the ch formulation assumes a separation of scales, and locally attaches a representative unit cell (ruc) to each point on the macroscopic interface. the different scales are linked through the variational energy equivalence (hill's lemma) for interfaces, and the macroscopic interface traction-separation response is computationally derived from the micro-scale ruc. in this fashion, the overall macroscopic response is computed with similar accuracy to dnm, but at reduced computational cost. fully coupled multi-scale simulations that are capable of capturing both the macroscopic response and micro-scale failure processes of bonded structures are important to the "virtual materials testing" paradigm. this dissertation implements the ch formulation in a hierarchically parallel solver that enables simulation of bonded structures that are o(10) mm at the macro-scale, with numerical resolution down to o(10) nm (o(10^6) length scales) within the micro-scale rucs. predictive fully coupled simulations containing up to ~54 billion finite elements and over 28 billion nonlinear degrees of freedom are efficiently computed using up to ~400 thousand computing cores. moreover, large simulations containing up to 1.1 billion finite elements remain possible using the ch solver on only ~1500 computing cores. the excellent scalability of the ch solver, demonstrated using up to 262,144 computing cores, makes it attractive for effectively utilizing next-generation supercomputers as well.critical to the ch formulation is development of a ruc that accurately describes material morphology and physical response. this dissertation presents an image-based reconstruction procedure for heterogeneous layers that preserves the higher-order statistical description of a material sample. micro-scale simulations show that reconstructed rucs that resolve the material statistics optimally balance accuracy of the physical response and size of the computational domain.quantitatively describing the micro-scale failure process is important to developing better understanding of how microstructure effects the macro-scale behavior of bonded systems. two metrics are proposed that describe the extent and character of micro-scale failure and its evolution. the metrics are able to help explain complex trends, such as a non-monotonic particle size dependence of the macro-scale fracture toughness. furthermore, they can illuminate aspects of the complex coupling between macro-scale phenomena and micro-scale failure. an exploration of the complex nature of inhabitation through bringing into question the boundaries between interior and exterior, material and ephemeral, and rational and emotional. drawing on concepts from cognitive science and phenomenology, this paper takes an integrative look at the mutually creative relationship between inhabitant and environment, and the on-going effort necessary for establishing a sense of belonging. temperate populations of _aedes_ _albopictus_ overwinter as eggs in a photoperiodically-induced facultative diapause. tropical populations are not photoperiodic and do not diapause. eggs of temperate strains are more cold hardy than those of tropical strains. cold acclimation and diapause enhance cold hardiness of only temperate strains. cold hardiness induced in the laboratory is comparable to that induced in the field in northern indiana. the usual reading of don giovanni (dg), aside from political critique of aristocracy, sees it as an opera moralizing on the punishment of sin. the resulting interpretation descends from a literary tradition originating in counter-reformation texts, starting with de molina's el burlador and continuing with such acclaimed comedies as the commedia-dell'arte l'ateista fulminato, to goldoni's and moliere's dons. charles russell presents mozart's and da ponte's dg as "a culmination of a 150-year-old tradition … of all don juans who had come before" (don juan legend, xxx). this linear reading informs the widely shared interpretation that over the whole opera, from overture to finale, looms the sinner's refusal to repent and inevitable condemnation to eternal punishment. i propose a different method that takes into account widely divergent but interlocking contemporary texts. i define this approach as polyphonic and contrapuntal: expanding the network of literary and non-literary texts from mozart's kyrie in c minor to da ponte's memoirs. my interpretation is that, from the overture onward, mozart evokes the final call to repentance rather than damnation. don giovanni dramatizes the offer of forgiveness, not its refusal. this dissertation is a consideration of the re-ritualization of christian formation during the sixteenth century. it examines the reformers' alterations to ritual aspects of christian formation in the areas of catechesis, liturgical participation, and private prayer in the traditions of the lutheran churches, the church of england, and the roman catholic church.it utilizes the lord's prayer, the ritual key to the church's formation of laypeople for participation in the worship life of the church, as a lens by which the sixteenth-century reforms of the medieval ritual system can be outlined and examined. in this dissertation, i integrate microsociology, cultural cognition, and material culture to theorize and analyze meaning-making and social interaction. empirically, i draw on in-depth ethnographic research collected with activists and primarily focus on explaining the processes and mechanisms generating unintended and surprising interpretive and interactional outcomes. this dissertation is a collection of three essays. in chapter one, i introduce the field of cognitive social science to sociologists interested in collective behavior, and i argue that a cognitive framework enables sociologists to reclaim classical collective behavior theories, bolster contemporary frameworks, and provide new directions for analyses. in chapter two, i integrate the dual process framework and microsociological theories of interaction to develop a heuristic of signal transmission in interaction. in chapter three, i draw on material culture and the dual process framework to explain the microsociological foundations of shock. this dissertation offers computational and theoretical advances for optimization under uncertainty problems that utilize a probabilistic framework for addressing such uncertainties, and adopt a probabilistic performance as objective function. emphasis is placed on applications that involve potentially complex numerical and probability models. a generalized approach is adopted, treating the system model as a 'black-box' and relying on stochastic simulation for evaluating the probabilistic performance. this approach can impose, though, an elevated computational cost, and two of the advances offered in this dissertation aim at decreasing the computational burden associated with stochastic simulation when integrated with optimization applications. the first one develops an adaptive implementation of importance sampling (a popular variance reduction technique) by sharing information across the iterations of the numerical optimization algorithm. the system model evaluations from the current iteration are utilized to formulate importance sampling densities for subsequent iterations with only a small additional computational effort. the characteristics of these densities as well as the specific model parameters these densities span are explicitly optimized. the second advancement focuses on adaptive tuning of a kriging metamodel to replace the computationally intensive system model. a novel implementation is considered, establishing a metamodel with respect to both the uncertain model parameters as well as the design variables, offering significant computational savings. additionally, the adaptive selection of certain characteristics of the metamodel, such as support points or order of basis functions, is considered by utilizing readily available information from the previous iteration of the optimization algorithm. the third advancement extends to a different application and considers the assessment of the appropriateness of different candidate robust designs. a novel robustness measure is introduced, the probability of dominance, defined as the likelihood that a given design will outperform its competing designs. this new measure ultimately provides a rational approach to quantify the preference towards each candidate design. the existence of a model prediction error is also addressed within the definition of this measure. conventional lithium ion batteries use organic liquid electrolyte which is flammable and brings safety issues. solid-state lithium ion batteries employ inorganic lithium ion conductive solid electrolytes which offer improved safety, reliability and leakage-free properties. developing rechargeable solid-state batteries was the main goal of this research. the obstacles to the development of solid-state batteries are the lack of highly conductive solid electrolyte materials and electrode/electrolyte interface issues (e.g. large interface resistance and interface integrity problem). at the beginning of this work, thin film solid-state batteries were developed, because a thin film configuration can very effectively reduce the cell resistance from a solid electrolyte. however, the thin film batteries encountered short circuit issues caused by film defects (e.g. pin holes, particles) from the deposition process. subsequently, bulk solid-state batteries were developed to overcome the short circuit problem. to build a bulk solid-state battery, highly conductive garnet-type li7la3zr2o12 (llzo) solid electrolyte was synthesized first. a polymerized complex sol-gel method (pechini method) was developed for synthesis, and al-doping influence was investigated. finally, the synthesis process was greatly simplified, and the optimal level of al-doping was also determined. bulk solid-state batteries with al-llzo solid electrolyte, cu0.1v2o5 cathode, and li anode were prepared and tested. the batteries exhibited high initial discharge capacities, but they encountered dramatic capacity decay problems when tested at rt. it was found that the rt capacity decay problem was caused by water vapor in air. by preventing exposure to humid air, the cell life time at rt increased. in the final chapter, a 3-dimensional (3d) solid electrolyte with a porous cathode side and a dense anode side was created. the intent was for the porous structure to greatly increase the contact area between solid electrolyte and electrode. thus, the battery energy and powder density will increase. however, results suggest that the synthesis process need to be improved in order to get a more uniform porous structure. during the process of state formation, states must contend with the symbolic and institutional power of religious organizations and traditions. similarly, religious institutions compete with modernist movements and other symbolically powerful institutions over what a modern state should be. out of this process, a variety of approaches toward religion's role in public life can take shape based on the extent to which religion's symbolic and ideological resources are both adopted by new states and able to penetrate the revolutionary process. revolutionary and reformist movements are shaped by a variety of factors that also determine the degree of religious symbolic incorporation. among these factors, educational systems and networks of political and intellectual activists play crucial roles. both the timing of educational reform – whether educational westernization shapes the new state or is shaped by it – and the location of revolutionary foment – in schools drawing on euro-american intellectual traditions or domestic ones – plays a significant role in the subsequent influence of religious ideological resources. additionally, whether revolutionary activist networks draw on traditional legitimating discourses and the affinity those have with emerging modernizing frameworks determines whether religion remains politically potent. these factors help account for why china developed a secular-nationalist state under the nationalist government (1911-1937) and why a sacerdotal state took shape in meiji japan (1868-1912). based on these factors, secularization is only one possible cultural program out of many differing religious modernities. this study explores the neglected social and cultural dimensions of the irish civil war (1922åð23), a brief, bitter conflict waged between rival nationalists on the eve of irish independence. it argues that though the thorny political dilemma provoked by the controversial anglo-irish treaty was the initial cause of the disastrous rupture in the sinn fì©in movement, the political differences between the proand anti-treaty camps reflected, drew upon, and became increasingly entwined with their divergent social outlooks, mentalities and material interests. indeed, it is only when these latter issues and areas of friction are taken into consideration that the civil war's long and bitter legacy for irish society can begin to be understood. drawing on a wide range of primary sources, a chapter demonstrates that proand anti-treaty discourses åð particularly in terms of how the two sides perceived each other åð were freighted with powerful class and social status resonances. these fraught "politics of respectability" were shaped both by long term social cleavages and by the country's awkward transition from revolutionary upheaval to post-revolutionary ìäå¢ì¢åâåâìüåïnormality.' that latter process is further explored in several chapters on the civil war's aftermath (roughly mid-1923 to the late 1920s), a period when the anti-treaty losers of the conflict faced political persecution and economic victimization by the free state government and its supporters. many thousands of republican activists left the country in this period, generally as self-described political "exiles." in the first in depth analysis of this mass exodus, a chapter on the forgotten "wild geese" of the irish civil war concludes that those who left ultimately did so because of the revolution's failure to bring about significant social change. considered together, the themes and issues explored in this dissertation reveal that the causes, course, and outcomes of the "conflict that formed the [irish] state" were conditioned as much by social and cultural forces as by political ones. kidney disease is the 9th leading cause of death in the united states alone and can arise at any stage in life (american kidney fund, 2017). during development, congenital anomalies of the kidney and urinary tract (cakut) includes a broad spectrum of malformations that can be as severe as agenesis, which is when one or both kidneys fail to develop. significantly, 20-30% of all prenatally identified anomalies can be categorized as cakut, and in extreme cases, this type of condition can lead to renal failure or the premature death of the fetus. alternately, once the kidney is fully formed, it can undergo insults resulting in acute kidney injury (aki). while it has been documented that a limited degree of regeneration can occur after aki, continued damage to the kidney will lead to end stage renal disease (esrd), ultimately requiring a lifetime of dialysis or a kidney transplant for survival. even so, regardless of the developmental or post-natal origins of kidney disease, the commonality of these debilitating states is dysfunction of the nephrons, which are the functional units of the kidney (mccampbell and wingert, 2012). each nephron is characterized by a blood filter connected to an epithelial tubule consisting of a series of proximal and distal segments that are responsible for the essential tasks of the kidney, including nutrient reabsorption and ph regulation. consequently, our overarching goal is to delineate the genetic and molecular mechanisms that regulate the specification of these renal epithelial cells as a means to better understand how these pathways can go awry and result in kidney disease. here, we reveal novel roles for the conserved sim1a and irx2a/3b transcription factors during nephrogenesis using the zebrafish as a vertebrate model of development. in general, we discovered that sim1a and irx2a control the formation of the proximal straight tubule (pst) lineage, while irx2a/3b participate in the modulation of multiciliated cell (mcc) fates. these findings not only enhance our current knowledge of the transcriptional cascade that directs renal ontogeny, but also provide broader implications for cakut and the development of cell therapies through reprogramming. this dissertation focuses on catholic sisters in modern germany, with a particular emphasis on nazi germany. in the 1930s, nearly one hundred thousand nuns lived in germany; this figure compares to about 22,000 priests. i present a representative case study of the poor school sisters of notre dame. with about 4,000 members, the institute of the poor school sisters of notre dame was one of the largest teaching congregations in germany in the 1930s. my work destabilizes common historical narratives that associate women's progress in the modern era only with secularization. catholic religious vocations in fact offered countless women an alternative to marriage, a higher education, and the chance to enter a profession at a time when opportunities for women contracted in the secular realm. but longstanding saccharine and mocking portrayals of nuns in popular culture, such as in films like the sound of music and sister act, have contributed to the dismissal of nuns in the modern era as serious historical actors. clichés of nuns are in fact linked to the women's contested status in patriarchal western society that expressed common anxieties about women foregoing marriage and childbearing in favor of a life of public service in all-female communities. these age-old tensions between the social and sexual demands placed on women and women's continued insistence on religious vocations reached a zenith in nazi germany. the history of catholic sisters illuminates the contested position of the catholic church in hitler's germany between privilege and oppression. the women worked to integrate into the nazi state and through their labor in schools, the poor school sisters both legitimized and subverted the regime. although the sisters tried to assimilate, they remained on the fringes of hitler's 'people's community.' when the nazis attempted to remove nuns from the public sphere, the women learned that they could not rely on the clergy to come to their aid and they formulated an independent response to national socialism. the poor school sisters relied in part on popular support to preserve their privileged position in society, and my work therefore adds new insights to key debates on nazi germany as a dictatorship of consent. the history of nuns exposes the extent to which hitler depended on ordinary germans to participate in the persecution of outsiders. for instance, in 1935 the nazis orchestrated a series of sensational criminal legal proceedings against nuns in order to persuade germans to turn against the women and the church. although the nazis used many of the same measures against nuns as against jews, most people refused to shun the women because in their case, crucial pre-conditions for persecution, in particular latent prejudices and opportunities for self-advancement, were absent. i reject ubiquitous depictions of nuns in the scholarship as victims of nazism. i argue instead that despite catholic sisters' dismissal from schools, their sphere of influence in germany actually increased in the latter 1930s, as they took up positions as social workers and pastoral assistants across the country. nuns also occupied key positions during world war ii, and their lives frequently intersected with nazi criminal and ideological measures. my research adds fresh perspectives to central discussions on women and the church in war and the holocaust. catholic sisters' participation in the war effort was extensive. i challenge common portrayals of women as mere helpmates to men, which contributed to postwar narratives of women as apolitical and powerless victims of war and nazism. women did not merely perform subservient work for absent men. the history of catholic sisters shows that the women contributed their sophisticated organizational networks and real estate and their and skilled 'feminine' labor to the german war effort. my research also highlights young catholic women's increased active political involvement in the national socialist cause in the latter 1930s and 1940s. in particular during war, the nazis successfully persuaded many young candidates for sisterhood to forego religious life in favor of working for the nazi movement. the drastic decline in religious vocations in the 1940s was in part due to the unprecedented expansion of young, single women's public roles in hitler's germany and occupied europe. the poor school sisters of notre dame emerged from the third reich with their communities intact, but they also lost a generation of sisters to national socialism, and thus diminished, they struggled to meet the great demands placed on them in postwar west germany. neutron-capture reactions are believed to be the most effective way of creating elements beyond iron. the s-process, or the slow neutron capture process given its slow neutron capture rate compared to the β-decay lifetime, is one of the main processes that produce elements along the β-stability valley. among α-capture reactions on light nuclei which provide potential neutrons for the s-process in massive stars, the reaction 22ne(α,n)25mg is of particular importance for the neutron production in massive red giant stars during core helium burning and agb stars during helium shell burning. the cross-section of this reaction at stellar energies as well as of the competing capture reaction 22ne(α,γ)26mg are dominated by the contribution of low energy natural parity resonances. there are a number of low energy resonances in the 22ne + α system that have not yet been well measured by the direct measurements because of the extremely small cross-sections. this lack of information brings considerable uncertainties into the reaction rates and may have a significant influence on the nucleosynthesis in massive stars. since the 22ne + α system proceeds through excited states in the compound nucleus 26mg, the indirect measurement of the states of interests in 26mg could give detailed information about 22ne+α.in order to improve the study of 22ne+α reaction rates, in this work the levels of 26mg in the astrophysical relevant energy range have been populated indirectly by 25mg(d,p)26mg reaction at research center for nuclear physics (rcnp), osaka, japan using the grand raiden spectrometer to achieve the high resolution. 102 states in the high-lying excitation energy region were populated and investigated in measurements in the scattering angle range from θlab = 0.5◦ to 45◦ with the resolution of ~23 kev at 0.5◦ measurements.recently, level assignments above the neutron-threshold have been made by (α, α′), (p, p′) and (d, d′), and (n, γ) reactions since the exploration of states above the α-threshold like the (6li,d) reaction by talwar et al.. the weighted average from above high-resolution measurements were adopted in this work, thus resulted in smaller errors compared to the work of talwar et al.. two additional resonances were adopted and only used in calculating the upper limits of the (α, γ) reaction rates because they were not observed in the previous α-transfer reaction by talwar et al.. the improvement of the error in the energy levels from 8-21 kev to 1-2 kev reduces the uncertainties of the reaction rates by factors of ~2-3. in terms of the astrophysical importance of the 22ne + α system as a neutron source in the astrophysical region of interest, the reaction rates of the 22ne(α,n)25mg and 22ne(α,γ)26mg reactions, as well as their ratio were calculated in a different approach compared to the previous work of talwar et al.. the results of the present work confirm the results of talwar et al.. further experiments are needed to reduce the uncertainty originating from the low-lying resonances above the α-threshold. the studies of statistics and biology are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. breakthroughs in biology lead to the demand for novel statistical tools, and innovative data analysis methods contribute to new findings in biology. in this thesis, my efforts join the exploration of this actively studied area and result in two new data mining methods that address problems arising from biological data. their applications are not limited to biological data but also to data from other fields. the first method relates to the task of assigning samples to pre-defined groups. a simple and straightforward approach for this task would be to train a classifier on a reference dataset with known group labels and then use this classifier to classify the target dataset at hand. however, the disadvantage of this approach is obvious. a reference dataset is not always available especially for newly studied problems, and even it is, the transferability of the classifier from reference dataset to target dataset may be questionable when there are differences in experimental procedures used to generate these datasets. in this thesis, a novel semi-supervised method is introduced to conduct sample group assignment, not based on a reference dataset but based on known information about which input features are important. note that this information about input features is ``qualitative'' instead of ``quantitative''. compared to previous methods, this method pays special attention to the excessive zeros observed on group-specific features, which is a quite common phenomenon in real-world data such as single-cell rna sequencing datasets. these zeros could be true zeros due to the internal mechanism of the object under study or missing values introduced by the imperfect data collecting techniques. by designing a mechanism that allows samples to have low value on the group-specific features and borrows information from other highly variable features from the dataset, this method successfully copes with the observed excessive zeros and improves group assignment results compared to three other methods on this topic, which is demonstrated on both simulated and real datasets. the second method deals with the challenge of a classification problem when the dimension of input varies. off-the-shelf classifiers typically require a fixed dimension of input, that is, the numbers of input features are the same for all observations. in this thesis, a situation when the input dimension is different from observation to observation is considered. as an efficient way to capture network structures, graphlets, some small connected subgraphs of a large network, are used to classify protein structures into pre-defined groups by extracting and summarising structural features from protein structure network built from protein 3d information. the challenge arises from the variable-size feature of the graphlet-based measure, which is a matrix with the number of rows relates to the number of amino acids in the corresponding protein chain. new approaches are needed to use graphlet-based measures for classification as normal classification methods cannot directly accept such variable-size matrices as input. in this thesis, a deep neural network-based classifier composed of both convolutional and recurrent layers is developed to tackle this challenge. the graphlet-based measure is also enhanced by a new way to apply graphlets on weighted protein structure network with a new weight definition also proposed in this study. put together, this approach shows dramatic improvements in performance over existing graphlet-based approaches on 36 real datasets. even comparing with the state-of-the-art approach, it almost halves the classification error. in addition to protein structure networks, this weighted-graphlet measure and dnn classifier can potentially be applied to classification of other weighted networks in computational biology as well as in other fields. malaria is a devastating infectious disease that has caused death and debilitation for centuries. it remains a globally significant disease despite relentless efforts to control it over the last century. infections resulting from the malaria parasite, plasmodium falciparum, cause approximately 300500 million clinical cases and nearly a million deaths each year. disease control has been confounded by the emergence of multidrug resistant (mdr) parasites. the success of the parasite in defeating eradication and control is largely attributable to its genetic variability, which allows the parasite to overcome human host immunity, and drug treatment regimens. recombination is a fundamental mechanism by which genetic variation is introduced from the parent to subsequent generations by reshuffling parent genome material and breaks up linkage between loci, allowing for independent evolution of sites. knowledge of the extent and distribution of genetic variation, as well as the mechanisms that generate variation is fundamental to understanding the evolution of parasite phenotypes, including drug resistance, prevalence and severity of the disease in humans. this dissertation focused on revealing the role of recombination on the genetic variability of the malaria parasite. we used an experimental system based on a well-known genetic cross, hb3ìä' dd2, to directly observe the products of recombination. in the context of the genetic cross, we carried out linkage analysis, detected the fine structure of recombinant products, and revealed the dynamics and mechanisms of copy number variation (cnv) inheritance in the parasite. this approach allowed for a unique and previously unappreciated glimpse in to the repertoire of genetic variability that is generated within a life cycle of the parasite via recombination. we demonstrated that combining linkage maps from different mapping populations of p. falciparum strains with genome sequence information can refine existing maps, increase map accuracy, inform genome assemblies, and highlight key aspects of the biology of recombination in the parasite. these observations propelled subsequent work to evaluate the genome-wide distribution of recombination at an even higher marker density. we built on the information on linkage analysis and used two sibling parasite clones from the hb3 ìä' dd2 that had a high number of crossovers (cos) to describe a method to detect genomewide distribution of cos, non-crossovers(ncos) and gene conversions (gcs). this study was the first to sequence progeny clones to capture high resolution information on cos, ncos and genetic variation in malaria parasites. the work emphasized the importance of nco/gcs in the linkage and haplotype analysis of malaria parasites and the need for the description of a genome-wide rate of gcs for the species to advance ongoing efforts in haplotype analysis and to improve the accuracy of genome-wide association studies (gwas). we also argued that it is essential to combine linkage analysis and genome-wide distributions of cnvs to determine cnv behavior, distributions and frequencies across genomes to understand the origins of cnv in both evolutionary and generational time frames. we revealed that cnvs are a significant source of segregating and de novo genome variation. the study highlighted that the rate of de novo cnv may be higher than expected in p. falciparum and that both by-products of recombination, cos and nco/gcs, can not only produce de novo cnvs, but also lead to loss or gain of copies at an already existing cnv locus. in conclusion, this doctoral thesis emphasized the significance of recombination as a central mechanism generating several distinct classes of genetic variants in p. falciparum, ranging from reshuffling of parent genomes to gcs to genome structural variants. these studies are fundamental contributions to establishing a framework for ongoing studies of recombination and the mechanisms of genome structural variation in malaria parasites. aero-optical disturbances produced from turbulent compressible flow-fields can seriously degrade the performance of an optical signal. at compressible flight speeds these disturbances stem from the density variations present in turbulent boundary-layers and free-shear layers; however helicopters typically operate at incompressible speeds which nearly eliminates the aberrating effect of these flows. for helicopter platforms the sources of aberration originate from the high subsonic flow-field near the rotor blade tips in the form of rotor-tip vortices and from the high temperatures of the engine effluence. during hover the shed rotor-tip vortices and engine effluence convect with the rotor wake encircling the airframe and subsequently a helicopter mounted optical system. the aero‑optical effects of the wake beneath a hovering helicopter were analyzed using a combination of unsteady rans (urans) and large-eddy simulations (les). the spatial and temporal characteristics of the numerical optical wavefronts were compared to full-scale aero-optic experimental measurements. the results indicate that the turbulence of the rotor-tip vortices contributes to the higher order aberrations measured experimentally and that the thermal exhaust plumes effectively limit the optical field-of-regard to forwardand side-looking beam directions. this information along with the computed optical aberrations of the wake can be used to guide the development of adaptive-optic systems or other beam-control approaches. this dissertation examines changes in work values during the 1990's in the united states. the 1990's represented a critical time period for american workers, where widespread changes in the labor market profoundly affected the way work was organized and the way individual workers felt about their work. previous research has argued that as traditional job rewards became less available, workers adopted a more individualized strategy for pursuing other, more attainable job rewards. this project utilizes the first and second waves of the international social survey program work orientation module to examine changes in work values between 1989 and 1997. respondents were grouped into four occupational categories: professionals, managers, other white collar workers, and service/blue collar workers. data from 1,538 respondents were analyzed, and logistic regression was used to examine eight job values. six job values included in this study varied between 1989 and 1997, including the desire for job security, promotional opportunities, interesting work, independent work, helping others, and helping society. the value placed on high income and having a flexible schedule showed no change between the years of study. these findings do suggest a general shift from traditional job values to more individualistic job values over the course of the 1990's. however, this change was not uniform across the entire workforce, and instead varied significantly between occupational groups. overall, the non-uniformity of work value change suggests a divergent experience of the 1990's labor market depending on occupation. the timing of economic insecurity, along with varying levels of labor market power with which workers were equipped to handle this insecurity, lead to the development of differential strategies between occupational groups for adjusting expectations and value systems to the conditions of the new economy. this study contributes to existing discourse on labor market changes by using workers' value systems as a key barometer of large-scale economic trends. this study expands the scope of research related to job values by including a consideration of the numerous factors that ultimately determine how economic changes are translated into attitudinal shifts and value changes for different groups of workers. proteins regulate many cellular functions, and analyzing the presence and abundance of proteins in biological samples are central focuses in proteomics. the discovery and validation of proteins as biomarkers, pathways, and drug targets for various diseases can be accomplished using mass spectrometry-based proteomics. the mass spectrometer is a primary player in many proteomic experiments; however, the results obtained from the mass spectrometer in proteomic experiments are limited by the quality and quantity of the sample.regardless of the analysis approach used, a high-quality sample is critical for a successful experiment. proteomic analyses depend on the sample containing proteins to analyze. there are several challenges in proteomic sample preparation and mass spectrometry analysis. protein must be made readily accessible via lysis and extraction from the tissue or cells. removal of natural contaminants and introduced detergents is necessary. contaminants such as lipids, sds or other detergents, and salts will interfere with enzymatic digestion, separations and mass spectrometry, sometimes damaging instruments and irreversibly ruining columns. sample preparation approaches that are excessively time-consuming, incur massive sample losses, or fail to prevent irreversible damage require modification or replacement.this document demonstrates my focus on sample preparation strategies for bottom-up mass spectrometry-based proteomics. the samples presented here provide unique analysis challenges. much of the work described here focuses on samples that are easily lost, require specialized techniques, or contain high levels of natural contaminants that interfere with the proteomic workflow. developing and applying methods for the use of such intractable samples provides opportunities for advancement of scientific discoveries in proteomics. the results of my method development efforts include the first proteomic analysis of individual tumor mimics, a novel drug evaluation technique, and a low-cost, widely available method for the analysis of protein from adipose tissue depots. this dissertation explores the sources that the author of the apocalypse used to create his description of the heavenly liturgy. many previous treatments of this subject have overstated the conclusions that can be drawn from our evidence for christian liturgical practice in the late-first century ce. in order to determine which of the elements found in rev 4-5 might have been taken from an early christian service of worship, the available liturgical evidence is examined to ascertain what we can say that we know about christian worship at the end of the first century ce, and to correct some mistaken conclusions that have appeared in earlier scholarship. this examination includes the first-century evidence for the use of the sanctus, hymns, doxologies, the use of incense, the amen, and the alleluia. the results of this survey are disappointing, as the pieces that we need to be able to reconstruct the ways in which christians worshipped in the first century are largely lacking, and many of these prayers and practices remain beyond our reach. turning to the texts of rev 4-5 themselves, the dissertation tries to identify the sources of the author's imagery for his picture of what the heavenly worship of god looked like, focusing on what may have been derived from a service of christian worship. contemporary jewish and christian liturgical practices were likely to have been one source of this imagery, along with the ot and jewish apocalyptic literature, elements of ancient near eastern throne room scenes, roman imperial court ceremonial, and his own imagination. another concern of the dissertation asks whether the apocalypse was read at a liturgy, focusing on the introductory and concluding passages of the text (rev 1:4-8 and 22:6-21), which some have argued take the form of a liturgical dialogue between the lector and assembly. this theory helps to explain some parts of these passages better then others, but most problematic is the fact that our evidence for worship practices in the first centuries remains incomplete, and we cannot be sure that liturgical dialogues were a part of christian liturgy at this early date. this thesis examines the historiographical treatment of interstate relations in thucydides' history of the peloponnesian war and seeks to apply this treatment of diplomatic rhetoric to a historical understanding of fifth-century greek perceptions of their inter-poleis condition. i analyze three sets of speeches from the first, third, and sixth books of thucydides' history of the peloponnesian war: the speeches of the corcyraeans and the corinthians at athens, the plataean debate, and the speeches of nicias and alcibiades to the athenian assembly on the proposed sicilian expedition. after investigating a passage from the preface, in order to demonstrate how thucydides views his speeches as both crucial and unclear when attempting to understand the war's αἴτιαι (1.23.6), i examine the speeches in light of how thucydidean rhetorical strategies highlight athenian and spartan rejection of moral aspects of negotiation of interstate relations, namely the values of justice and reciprocity, balancing power, and restraint. by subverting assumptions about how such older, established methods of diplomacy between poleis have historically functioned successfully, thucydides is able to drive forward his narrative about the death of interstate relations during the war. finally, i attempt to show how the speeches are designed to influence the ideologies of thucydides' readers, his fellow greek contemporaries, about warfare in a negative way—regarding the inefficacy of pursuing positive interstate relations and the general futility of striving for peace. the objective of this dissertation is to study the interplay between large-scale electric vehicle (ev) charging and the power system. in particular, we address three important issues pertaining to ev charging and integration into the power system: (1) charging station placement, (2) pricing policy and energy management strategy, and (3) electricity trading market and distribution network design to facilitate integrating ev and renewable energy source (res) into the power system.regarding the charging station placement problem, we propose a multi-stage consumer behavior based placement strategy with incremental ev penetration rates and model the ev charging industry as an oligopoly where the entire market is dominated by a few charging service providers (oligopolists). a nested logit model is employed to characterize the charging preference of the ev owners. the optimal placement policy for each service provider is obtained by solving a bayesian game. we also developed a simulation toolkit called \the ev virtual city" based on repast. we observe that service providers prefer clustering instead of separation in the ev charging market. as for the problem of pricing and energy management of ev charging stations, we provide guidelines for charging service providers to determine charging price and manage electricity reserve to balance the competing objectives of improving profitability, enhancing customer satisfaction, and reducing impact on the power system. in the presence of renewable energy integration and energy storage system, ev charging service providers must deal with a number of uncertainties, e.g., charging demand volatility, inherent intermittency of renewable energy generation, and wholesale electricity price fluctuation. we propose a new metric to assess the impact on power system without needing to solve complete power flow equations. two algorithms — stochastic dynamic programming (sdp) algorithm and greedy algorithm (benchmark algorithm) are applied to derive the pricing and electricity procurement strategy. we find that the charging service provider is able to reshape spatial-temporal charging demands to reduce the impact on power grid via pricing signals.the last technical contribution of this dissertation is on the design of a novel electricity trading market and distribution network, which provides a platform to support seamless res integration, grid to vehicle (g2v), vehicle to grid (v2g), vehicle to vehicle (v2v), and distributed generation (dg) and storage. we apply a sharing economy model to the electricity sector to stimulate different entities to exchange and monetize their underutilized electricity. we propose an online advertisement-based peer-to-peer (p2p) electricity trading mechanism. a fitness-score (fs)-based supply-demand matching algorithm is developed by considering consumer surplus, electricity network congestion, and economic dispatch. we compare the fs matching algorithm with the first-come-first-serve (fcfs) algorithm. the simulation results show that the fs matching algorithm outperforms the fcfs algorithm in terms of network congestion management, electricity delivery delay probability, energy efficiency, and consumer surplus. this study strives to answer the question of how retirement affects health. assessing how retirement affects health leads to better estimates of health care costs and a better understanding of the retirement decision. the study develops a model of health investment where individuals maximize lifetime utility derived from consumption goods, leisure and healthy time and produce health using leisure and medical goods. solving the model generates an equilibrium condition for health investment. assuming that healthy time is a normal good, the model predicts that retirement will increase health investment and thus health for retirees in the next period relative to workers. the empirical test uses a sample of older adults from the longitudinal health and retirement study. to account for the endogeneity of the retirement decision the study employs an instrumental variable model exploiting exogenous variation in social security and private pension benefits. the study also improves on previous work by estimating a model where health change in one period is regressed on previous period retirement status allowing the health stock time to adjust to changes in investment behavior. using subjective health measures, the study finds that retirement decreases the probability of a good health change for men by over 8%, but increases the probability for women by 15%. the difference between sexes persists using a sample of women who worked a significant number of years in their lifetime, and is not due to the particular set of instruments used. retirement also preserves health for both sexes, reducing the probability of a health decline by 2.5% for men and 3.5% for women. comparing the subjective results to objective measures reduces concerns about reporting bias for the negative effects for men although the results cannot rule out role bias in the positive results for women. the results recommend leaving the social security early entitlement age untouched, or extending medicare and disability coverage to those in poor health who are forced to work by entitlement age increases, potentially allowing individuals to enter retirement in better health, reducing health care costs. this dissertation describes three classes of synthetic anion transporters which facilitate chloride transport across vesicle and cell membranes. fluorescent and potentiometric transport assays uncovered the important structural features that produce high transport rates, and the effect of the transporters on cell functions was also evaluated. the first class of transporters is the cholates, which use a mobile carrier mechanism to transport chloride across membranes via an anion exchange process. as a general trend, the better anion binder is the better transporter and that the combination of a lipophilic backbone with a preorganized binding pocket produces excellent chloride transporters with high anion binding affinity and high transport at low cholate concentration. the second class of transporters is the prodigiosin mimics, consisting of synthetic pyrrole and pyridine transporters. both sets of transporters use a mobile carrier mechanism to promote two transport processes, anion exchange and hcl co-transport, attributed to the ph sensitive imidazole substituent. subtle structural changes greatly impact the transporter conformation and lipophilicity, which directly alters transport rates. the third class of transporters employs a synthetic phospholipid that is functionalized with an anion binding affinity group. mechanistic studies indicate that transport occurs via a novel anion relay mechanism, combining the anion selectivity of a mobile carrier with the membrane spanning ability of channels. the kinetically active aggregate complex is composed of two or four monomer units, depending on bilayer thickness, and transport stops upon reaching a threshold bilayer thickness. finally, investigations of transporter function in cells reveals that the transporters act on mitochondria and late endosomes/lysosomes, depending on their chloride and hcl transport ability, respectively. this research has improved the mechanistic understanding of three different transporter designs and identified their effects on cellular function, suggesting that they have potential applications in cell biology research. mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tb, is an intracellular pathogen that primarily infects macrophages. the major focus of our laboratory is to understand how this intracellular pathogen interacts with the host immune system. in this context, we are interested in the role exosomes, bioactive vesicles of 30-150nm in size, play in modulating the host immune response. while much of our published work has characterized host cell responses to antigen-loaded exosomes, we know little about the mechanism by which exosomes are generated. this dissertation aims to characterize the pathway through which phagosome-sequestered mycobacterial proteins are targeted to exosomes during biogenesis in macrophages. furthermore, this dissertation aims to identify the role of exosomes in eliciting an acquired immune response in the context of an in vivo mycobacterial infection. improved low temperature fuel cell catalyst compositions were pursued by constructing and screening thin film combinatorial libraries. the discrete composition combinatorial libraries were fabricated by plasma sputtering through shadow masks and then annealed in a vacuum furnace. multichannel cyclic voltammetry was used to examine these libraries for short term catalytic activity. the oxidation of methanol and the reduction of oxygen were the reactions of interest. for the methanol oxidation reaction, compositions were ranked based on the potential defined at the onset of the reaction and the current density at the peak of the reaction. for the oxygen reduction reaction, compositions were ranked based on the onset potential of the oxygen reduction reaction. results from the pt-ru, pt-ru-w, pt-ru-wc, pt-ru-(wc-ta), pt-ta-wc, pt-ru-c, pt-ru-cr, pt-ru-ni, pt-ni-cr, pt-ru-co, pt-ti-co, pt-co-cr, pd-cr-co, pt-co-cu, co-cr-cu, pt-ru-cu, pt-ru-mg4ti, pt-fe-ru, pt-fe-c and pt-fe-cr systems are discussed. it was found that the optimum composition changed from initial to final tests. cycling the potential at 60 å¡c conditioned the libraries and altered the performance of most compositions. usually the compositions that were initially active., were also unstable and would corrode away with the conditioning process. systems that did not contain pt (pd-cr-co and co-cr-cu) showed no activity for either methanol oxidation or oxygen reduction. methanol oxidation testing revealed that the pt-ru-w, pt-ru-c, pt-ru-ni and pt-ru-co systems had compositions that could outperform the best pt-ru compositions. overall the best methanol oxidation composition was pt12ru44co44 with double the peak current density and an onset potential 142 mv lower than the average pt response. the activity of this composition diminished in the presence of oxygen; the best composition to reduce methanol in saturated oxygen was pt44ru12w44. strong oxygen reduction responses were observed from compositions in the pt-ni-cr, pt-ti-co, pt-co-cr and pt-fe-cr systems. the best oxygen reducing composition was pt27co36cr37 with an onset potential of 0.673 v-sce, 107 mv better than the standard, pure pt. another pt-co-cr composition (pt30co40cr30) was the best oxygen reducing catalyst in the presence of methanol. powder forms of these compositions may replace the current anode and cathode catalysts of all types of pemfc in the near future. cell migration and adhesion initiates by traction generation through reciprocal actomyosin tension and focal adhesion reinforcement, but continued motility requires adaptive cytoskeletal remodeling and adhesion release. here, we asked whether de novo gene expression contributes to this cytoskeletal feedback. we found that global inhibition of transcription or translation does not impair initial spreading, polarization, or migration initiation, but causes eventual migratory arrest through excessive cytoskeletal tension and over-maturation of focal adhesions, tethering cells to their matrix. persistent transcription limits global actin polymerization, but instantaneous transcription inhibition does not affect lamellipodia dynamics during attachment. transcription limits adhesion formation on compliant substrates at short time-scales (&lt; 4 hours), but is required for long-term (&gt; 4 – 24 hours) adhesion remodeling on rigid substrates. we identified the transcriptional coactivators yap and taz as mediators of cytoskeletal-transcriptional feedback. yap and taz modulate cell mechanics by limiting cytoskeletal and focal adhesion maturation to enable persistent cell motility. yap/taz depletion increases adhesion maturation and actin polymerization, without affecting lamellipodial dynamics during cell attachment, consistent with global transcription inhibition. yap and taz promote adhesion formation on compliant hydrogels at short time scales. however, long-term (&gt; 4hrs) focal adhesion remodeling on rigid substrates requires yap/taz-dependent gene expression.yap/taz-dependent target genes were found to regulate cytoskeletal remodeling through a rho-rock-myosin ii signaling axis. motile arrest as a consequence of cytoskeletal maturation, after yap/taz ablation, is partially rescued by depletion of the yap/taz-dependent myosin phosphatase regulator, nuak2, or by inhibition of rho-rock-myosin ii. this feedback loop was shown to be required for endothelial tube formation, sprouting angiogenesis, and vasculogenesis. together, these data establish a transcriptional feedback axis necessary to maintain a responsive cytoskeletal equilibrium to enable persistent endothelial migration and function. human transport of live organisms presents a policy challenge for globalization:activities that move organisms benefit society, but some nonindigenous species become invasive and cause harm. although ecological predictions of future impacts from invasive species are rarely used in management, they have great potential to guide risk reduction efforts. here, i construct risk assessments for predicting the identity and location of future invaders. additionally, i calculate the benefits from implementing risk reduction programs based on ecological predictions. i begin by assessing the risk posed by introductions of freshwater species and earthworms for the pet, nursery, bait, biological supplies and live food trades in the laurentian great lakes (lgl) region. my results show that these trades present large risks of both introducing new invasive species and of spreading established invaders. to address the risk of new invasions, i have constructed a risk assessment model that relates mollusc natural history to risk of becoming invasive in either the lgl or the continental u.s. this model accurately predicts the likely harm from molluscs that may be introduced in the future. ecological predictions can also guide efforts to reduce the risks from established invaders, and i have used historical data from the rusty crayfish (orconectes rusticus) invasion of northern wisconsin (usa) to produce a model for predicting the lakes most at risk from invasion. testing this model on an independent dataset demonstrated that it has high accuracy. although ecological predictions of the risk from invasive species are becoming more accurate, these predictions are rarely used in management, partly because prevention efforts are expensive and many believe that their costs will outweigh their benefits. i have explicitly tested the bioeconomic outcomes from applying ecological predictions of future invasions, and show that currently available risk assessments are sufficiently accurate that the economic value gained from fewer invasions is greater than the cost of prevention efforts. this is true for both preventing new invaders, and for preventing the spread of established invasive species. thus, there is strong environmental and economic justification for ecology to play a greater role in efforts to reduce future impacts from invasive species. icb therapy is based on reactivating exhausted t-cells (pd-1) and increasing t-cell activation (ctla-4), one major mechanism of resistance is mediated through downregulation of the major histocompatibility complex i (mhc-i) on cancer cells, as the mhc complex is responsible for presenting antigen to t-cells, and thereby crucial for facilitating t-cell mediated killing. another major significant avenue for icb therapy resistance is the establishment of an immunosuppressive tumor immune microenvironment. here we show evidence that by altering epigenetic regulation using a histone deacetylase inhibitor we can simultaneously increase mhc-i expression on tumor cells and change the differentiation of infiltrating immune cells from immunosuppressive macrophages towards immunostimulatory antigen presenting cells (apcs). next, we present evidence that a small molecule inhibitor selective for the β-isoform of the molecular chaperone hsp90 also synergizes with icb therapy, by inducing a type-i interferon response in cancer cells. lastly, we provide strategies to target immunosuppressive neutrophils in cancer, which can be used to augment icb therapies in a clinical setting. our findings elucidate potential novel approaches towards improving the efficacy of immunotherapy in the treatment of cancers. in response to the need for change in teaching practices, educators have bolstered efforts to provide professional development for teachers. however, research suggests that traditional models of professional development for educators are largely ineffective. decades of research has also demonstrated that in order to bring about teacher change, teachers must have opportunities to engage in serious conversation with each other about practice, evidence, and alternatives. teacher learning communities (tlc) are professional communities where teachers work collaboratively to reflect on their practice, examine evidence about the relationship between practice and student outcomes, and make changes that improve teaching and learning for their students. the current study focused on the role of 'teacher leader' in two of these professional learning communities over a one year period. the context for this study was a 3-year intervention designed to help teachers develop instructional strategies that support student motivation. this study examined how leaders facilitate reflective dialogue and collaboration, and how they respond to the obstacles posed by school culture. in addition this study examined how effective leadership facilitated understanding of student motivation. tlc meeting transcripts were analyzed using an open coding scheme to develop classifications for the dominant topics of discussion and modes of interaction in the group. affiliation network analysis was also used to examine patterns of central group members, modes of interaction, and topics of discussion. the results suggest that teacher leaders can facilitate learning and collaboration in a group of their colleagues. however, in order for teacher leadership to be effective, teacher leaders must establish a norm of reflective dialogue as well as collaboration, and leaders must press and challenge their colleagues in order to establish this norm. without it, teacher interaction and practice may not change. results also suggest that the role of teacher leader may be a difficult one to take on as it requires a teacher to assume a position of leadership over colleagues. conclusions have implications for aspects of teacher leadership that facilitate the formation of successful tlcs. high field-of-regard, aircraft-mounted laser systems typically include parts of the operating envelope in which the laser must pass through highly-turbulent flow regions such as a turbulent boundary layer or a shear layer associated with a separated flow region. at subsonic and higher flight speeds, these turbulent flow regions become optically active such that a transiting laser beam will be distorted due to index-of-refraction variations within the flow thereby degrading its on-target irradiance distribution. the study of the optical aberrations produced by compressible nearfield turbulent flows is called 'aero-optics.' the phase characteristics of the initial light beam can be restored using an adaptive-optic (ao) system that places the conjugate waveform of the aberration onto the optical wavefront of the beam prior to its transmission through the aberrating flowfield. in this case, the conjugate waveform must be determined from measurements of the aero-optic aberrations, which requires some kind of light source such as the reflected glint from the target or a natural or man-made guide star. even for feed-forward ao correction schemes, in which flow-control techniques are used to improve the frequency bandwidth of the aberrating flow, it is anticipated that low-order optical measurements will still be used to synchronize the ao scheme with the controlled flow aberrations. this thesis deals with the measurement of aero-optic aberrations using the return light from a laser-induced air-breakdown spark. the spark is created by focusing a high-energy pulsed laser at a point outside the aircraft, thereby creating an air-breakdown spark with sufficient brightness for aero-optic measurements. the operational advantages offered by this kind of man-made guide star are significant since it can be placed at any point in space outside the aircraft. topics addressed in the thesis include compensation of anisoplanatic differences between the spark beam and the outgoing laser beam, characterization of the optical behavior of the spark, and investigation of flow effects on the spark. engaging in retrieval practice enhances memory relative to restudying (i.e., the testing effect) and a night of sleep after learning enhances memory relative to a day of wake. while both retrieval practice and sleep benefit memory, individually, their interactive effects are more nuanced. sleep has been shown to moderate the testing effect when no feedback is given during retrieval practice, benefiting only restudied items. however, when feedback was provided during retrieval practice, sleep benefited both retrieval practiced and restudied material. the current study replicated past work in this area using educationally relevant materials (i.e., non-fiction passages) and examined whether memory strength could account for the preferential benefits of sleep for restudied and retrieval practiced material with feedback. in an initial learning session, participants read nine passages and then completed three, six-minute study phases. in the retrieval study phases, participants answered multiple choice items with (retrieval practice plus feedback phase) or without (retrieval practice phase) corrective feedback, while in the re-read study phase, participants read-read passages. after a 12-hour delay spanning nocturnal sleep or daytime wakefulness, participants completed a final memory test. retrieval practice led to greater recall on a final memory test than restudying, and this difference was largest when feedback was provided. there was no measurable benefit of sleep for final test performance in any of the study conditions; however, sleep resulted in less forgetting between retrieval practice testing and the final memory test when feedback was provided during retrieval practice testing. this seeming conflict in results can be explained by the unexpected time-of-day effects present in our study. these time-of-day effects were driven by the prolific participants in our sample, and highlight the importance of including short-delay control groups and non-college student participants in studies of sleep and memory. ionic liquids are solvents successfully tested for the separation of aliphatic/aromatic mixtures obtaining, in some cases, better distribution ratios and selectivities for the aromatic than common organic solvents such as sulfolane. since ionic liquids present a wide thermal stability, several authors propose the recovery of the solvent from the extract with simple distillation or stripping, but binary mixtures of aromatic + ionic liquid are barely studied in order to determine an optimal separation procedure.the liquid-liquid equilibrium of binary systems of toluene + ionic liquids are investigated, obtaining a solubility range from 0.75 to 0.87 mole fraction of toluene as follows: [bthiol][tf2n] &lt; [hmim][tf2n] ≈ [hmpy][tf2n] &lt; [p2228][tf2n]. [p66614][tf2n] is completely miscible with toluene at room temperature. also, [hmim][tf2n], [hmpy][tf2n] and [p2228][tf2n] were investigated for the liquid-liquid separation of heptane + toluene, obtaining lower selectivities compared with sulfolane. then, the excess volume and excess enthalpy were determined for toluene + ionic liquid mixtures, obtaining negative values.solubility of co2 is measured in binary systems with toluene, [hmim][tf2n], [hmpy][tf2n], [p2228][tf2n], [p66614][tf2n] and [bthiol][tf2n], where the lowest solubility is observed in [bthiol][tf2n] and the highest in [p66614][tf2n]. then, solubility of co2 in the homogeneous phase of toluene + ionic liquid is determined until a phase split is observed or the highest pressure allowed by the experimental apparatus is reached, i.e. about 8 mpa. the lowest phase split is observed using [bthiol][tf2n] at 3.282 mpa and the highest with [p66614][tf2n] at 5.732 mpa, when temperature is 298.15 k and initial composition of ionic liquid is 0.3 mole fraction. there is a small volume expansion difference when using ionic liquid in binary and ternary mixtures. for solubility measurements including [bthiol][tf2n], a modified phase equilibrium apparatus was used, eliminating the mercury of all the lines and replacing a manual pump from the old apparatus with a digital syringe pump.the measurements performed in this work give the starting phase equilibrium measurements for simulating a liquid-liquid extraction (or extractive distillation) with a regeneration of the ionic liquid using co2 at moderate pressures. using the technique small angle neutron scattering (sans), i studied the vortex lattice (vl) in mgb2 for a number of field-temperature histories mapping out the ground state vl phase diagram and fully exploring the second order rotation transition behavior of the lattice which differed from theoretical predictions. additionally, long lived metastable vl phases were discovered, the existence of which was unexpected in such a clean sample. to explore the origin of the metastability in mgb2, i performed a detailed study of the metastable vl in mgb2 as it was gradually driven to the ground state by small decreases in the applied magnetic field using sans. our measurements showed that metastable vl domains persist in the presence of substantial vortex motion and thus provide definitive evidence that the metastability cannot be attributed to the pinning of vortices to defects in the crystal. using sans in combination with a small ac magnet, i studied the vl in mgb2 as it was driven from a metastable to the ground state by application of a few mt ac magnetic field oriented either parallel or perpendicular to the vortices in the sample. the transition to the ground state showed two distinct power-law behaviors which indicates a novel kind of vortex motion. my dissertation offers a revaluation of the intellectual and historical origins that inform the works of literary modernism. drawing on the work many of the authors of the modernist period and on recent modernist scholarship, it argues for the necessity of understanding modernism as a philosophical and artistic formation that represents and resists the variety of perceived crises and historical ruptures that constitute modernity. within this framework of 'modernism against modernity,' it suggests that catholic intellectual and political developments played a significant role in providing modernist figures a model for resistance to modernity. the dissertation focuses on three irish modernist poets &ndash; brian coffey, denis devlin, and thomas macgreevy. all three were well situated within the milieus of anglophone modernism, french surrealism, the thomistic-revival, and irish nationalism. their poetry and criticism provide case studies for the way in which irish writers attempted to work through their postcolonial legacy in terms of church/state relations. resistant to irish protestant liberalism and nationalist ruralism alike, they embraced continental philosophy, avant-garde experimentation and, above all, international modernist aesthetics as means of moving irish writing beyond provincial sectarianism and stifling romantic images of the nation. in contrast to most writers of the period, they saw catholicism not as a sign of irish provincialism but, as the universal church, the natural tradition and theological framework in which to work out the troubles of irishness and the modern condition in general. each of the writers developed the innovations of poetic modernism in order to bring out its incipiently catholic elements. the results were a variety of critical and poetic works simultaneously representative of modernist practices in general (particularly in the development of denaturalized, deracinated literary language and forms that absorbed but spoke above locale dialects), and yet shaped by catholic cultural traditions and, more than that, the developments of catholic theological modernism and neo-thomist philosophy and theology. each writer found ways to harness the ironic, ontological and mystical languages of literary modernism for explicitly catholic ends, but the novelty of their efforts emerges most clearly in their success at making modernism itself appear as an adjunct of catholicism. organist, pedagogue, and composer david n. johnson created an extensive body of organ and church music and influenced twentieth-century organ pedagogy through his teaching and writing. formed by his early training at the curtis institute of music, trinity university, and syracuse university, johnson went on to teaching positions at alfred university, st. olaf college, syracuse university, and arizona state university. as an organist, he excelled at improvisation, inspiring audiences with his varied and engaging programming. as a composer, he focused on creating music for musicians of limited skill and provided organists of all abilities with music of craft and aesthetic worth. his numerous trumpet tunes and hymn settings remain a staple of many church organist's repertoires. working during an era of significant change and artistic experimentation, johnson also sought to bring various experimental compositional practices to church music. the motivation for his life's work came from a spiritual imperative to bring music to ordinary people. by elevating their spiritual and musical experiences, he sought to open them to even higher artistic possibilities.this study explores his life and the numerous forces that shaped him into a complex and dynamic musician. an examination of four representative organ works shows his distinctive compositional voice and how his engaging music contributes to the broader narrative of twentieth-century church music. a comprehensive catalog of his published organ works concludes this dissertation. this dissertation is a study of nicholas of methone's refutation (&#7944;&#957;&#940;&#960;&#965;&#958;&#953;&#962;) of the neoplatonist proclus' elements of theology. despite being one of three full-length medieval commentaries on this work, nicholas' refutation has hitherto received relatively little attention. this dissertation aims to bring his work to a wider audience by providing an english translation of the work and a systematic study of its major themes. chapter 1 briefly outlines the significance of the issues dealt with in nicholas' work. chapter 2 then sets the stage for nicholas' refutation by tracing the christian reception of proclus from dionysius the areopagite until nicholas' time. chapter 3 reviews the history of scholarship on nicholas and the refutation in particular, giving extended attention to the claim that his refutation is plagiarized from an earlier work by procopius of gaza. chapter 4, which is the heart of the dissertation, is an extended consideration of the major themes of nicholas' work, and of how they relate to each other. i show that nicholas' fundamental concern is to distinguish the christian doctrines of creation and trinity from the emanationist and unitarian metaphysics of proclus' elements, and that apophatic theology plays a prominent role in nicholas' defense of christian teaching. in this chapter i also explore the tensions and ironies involved in nicholas' attempt to read dionysius against proclus. in chapter 5 i briefly survey aspects of nicholas' work that await further attention, and i trace the reception of the refutation in the greek and latin contexts. appendix a, a complete english translation of nicholas' refutation, is this dissertation's most substantial contribution to scholarship, and is the foundation for my study of the nicholas' thought in chapter 4. appendix b takes note of two manuscript "discoveries," and the table in appendix c allows for an easy comparison between nicholas' chapter 122 and proclus' proposition 122 which it paraphrases. mammalian gut microbiomes are highly individualized, dynamic microbial communities. they serve essential functions for their hosts by breaking down complex carbohydrates, producing vitamins, training the immune system, and resisting pathogens. these communities also change substantially throughout life in response to host environment, diet, and sociality. age and early life experiences have also been shown to influence the composition of the gut microbiome in cross-sectional studies. these changes are proposed to be important markers of individual development and senescence. however, to date, scientific understanding of host-microbe dynamics is hampered by the fact that most microbiome research is cross-sectional. without fine-grained longitudinal data on microbiome composition across the host's life, we do not know how gut microbiomes change in individuals over time, what factors drive variation in gut microbiome development and aging, or whether these changes serve as markers of maturational milestones or mortality risk.to address this gap, my phd research leverages long-term, longitudinal data from a wild population of baboons (papio cynocephalus) monitored by the amboseli baboon research project (abrp) in kenya. my dissertation objective was to characterize how the gut microbiome changes in response to early life experiences and age across the lifespan, understand what host and environmental factors predict these changes, and determine whether microbial changes are linked to host maturation and survival. to accomplish this objective, i combine the abrp's 50 years of demographic, environmental, social, and genetic data with a corresponding gut microbiome data set consisting of over 17,000 16s gut microbial profiles collected from 601 known individually-known, wild baboons over a 14-year period. using a subset of these data, i have shown that the gut microbiome changes predictably with age and found that individuals who were socially low-ranked exhibit faster rates of microbial aging relative to high-ranked peers. next, i found that individuals who aged faster attain certain maturational milestones earlier. last, i discovered that specific types of early life adversity are correlated with changes in microbial composition or decreased stability late in life. together, my research improves our understanding of how the gut microbiome adapts to and influences its mammalian host's life course. the internet evolution together with the popularity of real-time on-line applications has resulted in quality of service (qos) being an important research topic. over the last decade, the concept of qos has evolved dramatically. starting from the unsuccessful origins in the type of service byte (tos) in the initial ipv4 specification, the networking research community has explored a wide variety of techniques ranging from per-flow qos in integrated services (intserv) to aggregate or per-class qos in the differentiated services (diffserv) model. this dissertation studies several schemes in the diffserv environment to provide predictable qos for scalable networks/systems. while techniques to aggregate state information for scalability have been proposed in the literature such as with differentiated services, the per-stream effects of such aggregation are poorly understood. this dissertation first explores the effects of aggregated state information and proposes a scheme, called granularity aware $(m,k)$ queue management (gaqm), that improves control over the trade-off between scalability and per-stream qos performance. as the correct admission of flows in the diffserv environment is critical to provide stable and predictable qos to end users, this dissertation then proposes an approach, edge-centric resource management (erm), for admission control that exploits the unique architectural aspects of diffserv. through the use of periodic heartbeats emanating from edge routers to probe the network state on available egress paths, edge routers are able to quickly conduct admission control with a tunable degree of precision. in addition to erm, this dissertation presents two other admission control schemes as well, fast admission for short flows (fasf) and end-wise delegation for end-to-end admission control (e3ac). by enabling accelerated admission control at the edge rather than via centralized or in-path mechanisms, fasf not only reduces the burden on admission control, but also improves flow completion time and hence network goodput. e3ac, an approach to make significant strides in practical end-to-end qos, provides a framework for catalyzing qos amongst end isps while dramatically reducing the setup latency for qos negotiations. this dissertation examines the persistent cult of anglo-saxon saints after the norman conquest of 1066 in the medieval region of northumbria; it investigates why the saints from the distant past and from a conquered people were so compelling in this contested border region. using a thorough examination of a wide variety of sources, it argues that local concerns drove veneration. the saints who were most explicitly linked with specific places in the region, who were connected with other saints, and who had a local tradition for holiness were most likely to be venerated. chapter one sets out the parameters of the discussion and evaluates the wealth of surviving source material for the study of saints' cults in the region. chapter two considers the region of northumbria, setting out the particular geographical, political, and religious realities that defined the area. political upheaval and dramatic religious change formed the context for the veneration of the saints. three case studies of cults follow: the cult of &aelig;bbe at coldingham in chapter three, the cult of a group of bishops at hexham in chapter four, and the cult of oswald at durham in chapter five. the cult of &aelig;bbe reveals how an ancient figure with no particular reputation for holiness was celebrated as a saint long after her death. the cult of the hexham bishops gives us a glimpse of the way local laity, augustinian canons, and cistercian monks all celebrated the local past. the cult of oswald at durham demonstrates how a widespread cult could be adapted for a particular local context. there is a wide variety of evidence that reveals diversity of belief and practice in the veneration of saints. chapter six returns to the relationship between place and cult and suggests that the concern with place, the connections among saints, and an on-going local tradition of sanctity are the reasons why the cults of these anglo-saxon saints were celebrated in the long twelfth century. previous studies involving pre-school and school-aged children found that marital conflict negatively impacts children's socio-emotional development both directly and indirectly though parenting. additionally, studies have found that parenting predicts numerous infant and child outcomes such as affect. although research supports that marital functioning affects parent-child relationships during early childhood through adolescence, studies assessing how marital functioning and parenting influence socio-emotional development during infancy is scant. this longitudinal study examined associations between marital functioning, parenting, and infant affect over time for infant-mother and infant-father dyads during the still-face paradigm (tronick, als, adamson, wise, & brazelton, 1978). structural equation modeling results indicated that for fathers, marital functioning related both directly and indirectly to changes in infant affect during the still-face; parenting also mediated relations between marital quality and infant affect. for mothers, sensitive parenting predicted changes in affect but marital functioning did not play a role in the dynamic in infant-mother dyads. anchor selection procedure is a crucial step that should be conducted before dif analysis can be employed effectively. a dif analysis that uses a contaminated anchor set suffers from high false alarm rate and low power, making the analysis fails to identify dif items and incorrectly detects dif-free items as having dif. therefore many methods of anchor selection procedure have been proposed, many of which utilizes null hypothesis test (nht) to select anchor items. in such methods, one includes an item into an anchor set if the dif analysis provides a non-significant test. such procedures are flawed due to two problems. first of all, claiming an item as dif-free item when the test fails to reject the null hypothesis are based on an incorrect understanding of a non-significant result. failure to reject the null hypothesis cannot be treated as a piece of evidence in support of the null hypothesis. the second problem is the dependency of anchor selection procedure using nht on sample size: with sufficiently small sample size, items with large magnitudes of dif can be identified as dif-free items, while with sufficiently large sample size, items with negligible dif magnitudes can be excluded from the anchor set. the current study proposed two anchor selection procedures based on equivalence testing, which is more in line with the goal of identifying dif-free items as anchor and does not suffer from the two problems mentioned before. the two anchor selection procedures were based on mantel-haenszel procedure of detecting dif items. they were anchor selection procedure employing mantel-haenszel chi square-based equivalence testing and mantel-haenszel delta-based equivalence testing. a simulation study was conducted to evaluate the performance of the two procedures. the results showed that the anchor selection procedure employing mh chi square-based equivalence testing was superior compared to the procedures employing mh delta-based equivalence testing and nht. the anchor selection procedure employing mh chi square-based equivalence testing provided lower risk of obtaining less than four dif-free items, lower risk of contamination and lower degree of contamination when anchor contamination did in fact happen. discussion on the results and limitation of the current study were provided. wake is a series of paintings that explores how we imagine and respond to the contemporary landscape. working with romantic elements such as the infinite and sublime, i situate the viewer within a fragmented panorama where the landscape is on the edge of collapse and upheaval. the icy landscape lacks human markings or other indicators of scale, as a result, we are doubtful we belong in these places and the potentiality of landscape is diminished by our exclusion. as we struggle to position ourselves in this collapsing space we face a disappointing realizationthere is no conclusive image, no grand answer in the landscape. in the end, i ask viewers to question the potential of landscape, their navigation of landscape images and to confront the sense of loss that results from encountering this unstable, fractured scene. this research examined the formation and consumption of nitrous oxide (n2o) by denitrifying bacteria during wastewater treatment processes. the reduction kinetics of n2o were determined for both a mixed culture of denitrifying bacteria and a pure culture of paracoccus pantotrophus. the formation of n2o was studied in a denitrifying biofilm. additionally, a mathematical model was developed to describe the formation and consumption of n2o in suspended-growth and biofilm systems. the batch kinetic studies showed that some denitrifying bacteria grow well on n2o as a sole electron acceptor. for the mixed culture, the maximum rates of substrate utilization were significantly higher than the rates for nitrate (no3-) or nitrite (no2-) reduction. also, n2o was found to select for a less diverse community than no3-or no2-. enzyme expression studies on p. pantotrophus revealed that the presence of n2o induced the n2o reductase (nosz), but it did not induce the no3reductase (narg) or no2reductase (nirs)the denitrifying biofilm study revealed that n2o is produced for range of bulk liquid dissolved oxygen concentrations. however, the highest n2o accumulation occurred at the base of the biofilm, and the n2o flux from the biofilm was low. the modeling work predicted n2o formation due autotrophic nitrifying bacteria and heterotrophic denitrification bacteria under varying oxygen concentrations. processes were examined separately and then combined together. when all the processes were combined in the biofilm model, a complex trend emerged revealing the interplay between oxygen concentration and microbial community composition. this work addresses the problem of multimodal image registration. registration is a building block in many computer vision systems and its accuracy has a great effect on the performance of subsequent applications. the goal is to determine the transformation accounting for the misalignment between two images. in general, aligning two images amounts to searching for the transformation in the search space that yields the maximum similarity. in most cases, an exhaustive search is intractable and thus optimization techiniques are often applied. however, any optimization algorithm may fail to converge to the global extrema due to the lack of knowledge on the properties of a similarity metric as a function of transformation parameters. a multimodal image registration framework is proposed in which an iterative process is conducted to search the correspondences for mapping primitives by employing global information. this dissertation mainly considers two mapping primitives, keypoints and line segments. line segments is first explored, and an approach that is robust to line detection errors is proposed. triplets (quaternions) of line segment mappings are tentatively formed by applying distance and orientation constraints. a triplet (quaternion) of line segment mappings determine an affine transformation, and it is evaluated with the similarity metric between the reference image and the transformed test image by the determined transformation. the iterative process is conducted on triplets (quaternions) of line segments, ending with the ``best' matched reference correspondence for every test line segment. those triplets (quaternions) of lines resulting in higher similarity metrics are preserved, and their intersections are refined by an iterative process or ransac. the iterative framework is also applied to keypoint mappings. it consists of three basic elements, putatively mapping primitives, an iterative process, and a similarity metric. keypoints including scale invariant feature transform (sift) and partial intensity invariant feature descriptor (piifd) are detected from both the reference and test images. for each test keypoint, a certain number of reference keypoints are chosen as mapping candidates according to the keypoint descriptor distance. triplets of keypoint mappings are then formed with the geometrical and spatial constraint. a triplet of keypoint mappings determine an affine transformation, and then it is evaluated with the similarity metric between the reference image and the transformed test image by the determined transformation. the iterative process is conducted on triplets of keypoint mappings, and for every test keypoint updates and stores its best matched reference keypoint. the similarity metric is defined to be the number of overlapped edge pixels over entire images, allowing for global information to be incorporated in the evaluation of triplets of mappings. the output of the framework is the 'best' matched reference keypoint for every test keypoint in the sense that this matching yields the maximum similarity. in addition, this work explores combining the advantages of sift and piifd to extract keypoints more suitable for multimodal images. the presented framework is open in that both the similarity metric and mapping primitives can be substituted for any existing techniques. it is tested on indoor and outdoor eo/ir image pairs, and the experimental results show that the proposed registration method can robustly align eo/ir images, providing more accurate registration results on multimodal images than utilizing local information alone. in the last decades, the intertextual dimension of primo levi's work has received more and more scholarly attention. the aim of this dissertation is to shed light on the presence and meaning of anglophone authors in primo levi's works through an intertextual itinerary that collects and organizes different anglophone writers in three metaphorical temporal dimensions: the past, the future, and the present of levi's writing. the main sections of the dissertation analyze how levi re-elaborates, interprets, and inserts other authors' words in his writing.without claiming exclusivity in the organization and interpretation of the authors included, this dissertation intends otherwise to state the crucial importance of anglophone literature and culture in the understanding of primo levi's works and ideas. changes in behavior are often the impetus for speciation. olfactory discrimination has played a key role in the ecologically differentiating apple and hawthorn infesting host races of the apple maggot fly, rhagoletis pomonella (walsh). because rhagoletis flies mate only on or near the fruit of their host plants, differences in fruit odor preference directly translate into mate choice and pre-zygotic reproductive isolation (ri), thus potentiating rapid divergence. however, little is known little about the neurological and genetic basis of host choice generating ri.the objective of chapter 2 of my dissertation was to determine how the neurosensory systems of apple and hawthorn flies differ to potentially affect fruit odor discrimination. peripheral electrophysiology revealed that in both races there are two specific, colocalized olfactory sensory neurons (osns) sensitive to two critical behaviorally active volatiles emitted by ripe hawthorn (3-methyl-1-butanol) and apple (butyl hexanoate) fruit.in chapter 3, optical imaging, immunohistochemical, morphological, and electrophysiological techniques performed on apple and hawthorn flies implied that a reversal in the neurological processing of 3-methyl-1-butanol and butyl hexanoate occurs between the host races at the first synapse of the olfactory system, the antennal lobe.in chapter 4, i attempted to resolve the genetic architecture of host fruit odor discrimination based on a genome wide association (gwa) study. apple and hawthorn flies phenotyped for their odor preference in a flight tunnel were then genotyped by restriction site associated dna sequencing for 17, 567 single nucleotide polymorphisms (snps). no snp displayed a significant association with behavior after correcting for multiple comparisons. i discuss whether host fruit odor discrimination is polygenic or due to large effect loci not detected in the gwa due to issues in phenotyping or marker coverage.in conclusion, my research advanced the study of speciation in r. pomonella by revealing a potentially key aspect of the neurophysiology contributing to differential host choice. while questions remain concerning the genetics of host fruit odor discrimination in this system, studies synthesizing results from neurobiology, genetics, and ecology with evolutionary biology will continue to reinforce the central role that behavior plays in the origins of new species. elemental sulfur (so) can serve as an electron donor for denitrification of water and wastewater, and there is an increasing interest in its use in biological treatment processes. however, so-based denitrification is not well characterized, and most past research has neglected its behavior as a biofilm process. in this study, the kinetic behavior of so-based denitrifcation was assessed, kinetic and stoichiometric parameters for so-based denitrification intermediate steps were determined, and the use of so for denitrifying filters was investigated. so packed-bed reactors were used in kinetic behavior study for so-based denitrification biofilm process. results suggest that so-based denitrification can achieve fluxes comparable to heterotrophic processes if the biofilm develops sufficiently, but fluxes may decrease with excessive biofilm development. it was found that biofilm development affects the relationship between denitrification fluxes and bulk nitrogen species (no3-, no2-) concentrations. no2accumulation was found related to electron limitation and different affinity of nitrogen species. batch studies were used in order to estimate kinetic parameters for denitrification intermediate steps. this study found that the maximum specific rate of reduction, , for n2o was larger than for no3and no2-. the for no2was lower than that for no3-, providing a potential explanation for why no2tends to accumulate in so-based denitrification. so packed denitrification filters were used to investigate the feasibility of using so in a plug flow system. results suggest that so granular denitrifying filter was a more promising option, where backwashing did not have detrimental effects on the denitrification performance. supply of secondary effluent could improve the recovery of no3removal after backwashing. extended periods of no2accumulation were not observed when secondary effluent was supplied. the rapid progresses in industrialization and urbanization of human society have always been accompanied with a wealth of environmental issues. environmental pollution is essentially one of the most enormous challenges that people have ever encountered because it is closely related to the well beings of the entire ecosystems and humans on the planet. in recent years, the increasing production and usage of newly designed synthetic chemical compounds lead to their release and presence in various engineered and natural environmental components as emerging contaminants (ecs) which would potentially pose considerable health and ecological risks. biocatalysis is regarded as a green chemistry technique for environmental remediation because of its low consumption of energy input and costly chemical reagent use as well as minimal generation of unknown byproducts. however, it is not appropriate to use free enzymes in practical scenarios due to their short lifetimes, non-reusability, and laborious enzyme purification processes. meanwhile, although traditional protein immobilization methods, like entrapment, encapsulation, and cross-linking, could improve the catalytic performance of enzymes, they still suffer from numbers of weaknesses, including the loss of enzyme activity during the immobilization processes, multiple and complicated immobilization steps, and mass transfer limitations. therefore, implementation of new enzyme immobilization strategies to develop robust and efficient biocatalysts for contaminant treatment purposes is particularly needed. in order to address the aforementioned challenges, the primary focus of my ph.d. study is to engineer yeast and bacterial microbial systems using advanced molecular biology and synthetic biology techniques to develop innovative enzyme biocatalysts for treatment of emerging environmental contaminants. generally, parabens, bisphenols, and polyethylene terephthalate (pet) plastics were used as representative ecs, and a variety of innovative biocatalysts engineered with respective cutinase, tyrosinase, and petase enzyme were constructed accordingly for biocatalytic degradation of these ecs. part philosophical treatise, part bildungsroman, and part girl's diary. the two essays included in this dissertation investigate issues related to the crowd-out of private health insurance resulting from medicaid expansions among the working age disabled. the first essay estimates the take-up and crowd-out rates that resulted from medicaid expansions that began in the late 1990s among working age individuals with disabilities. disabled individuals under 65 years old account for 15% of medicaid recipients but half of all medicaid spending. despite their large cost, few studies have investigated the effects of medicaid expansions for disabled individuals on insurance coverage and crowd-out of private insurance. using an eligibility expansion that allowed states to provide medicaid to disabled individuals with incomes less than 100% of the federal poverty level, i address these issues. crowd-out estimates range from 49% using an ordinary least squares procedure to 100% using two-stage least-squares analysis. the second essay evaluates how hospitals set their prices in response to a potential revenue reduction that results from the crowd-out measured in essay 1. medicaid reimburses health care providers for medical services at a lower rate than any other type of insurance coverage. to make up for the burden of treating medicaid patients, providers claim that they must raise the rates of individuals covered by private insurance &mdash; a phenomenon referred to as cost-shifting. the current literature attempting to identify and measure the degree of cost shifting in the us health care market has produced mixed results. in essay 2, i examine cost-shifting with a new identification strategy where i exploit the medicaid expansion for the disabled from essay 1 where for every new medicaid enrollee another individual dropped private coverage, creating an opportunity for significant cost-shifting. using the healthcare cost and utilization project's nationwide inpatient sample, i first replicate previous findings from the march current population survey and the survey of income and program participation and demonstrate that there is 100 percent crowd-out from these particular medicaid expansions. next, i find that hospitals reduce the charge rates of the privately insured, a result that suggests that hospitals are not employing cost-shifting strategies as they claim. siderophores are fe(iii)-specific organic ligands biosynthesized by microbes in fe-deficient environments. they also complex other metals, such as pb and cd, influencing metal mobility. this study compared the effects of siderophores desferrioxamine-b (dfo-b), desferrioxamine-d (dfo-d1), desferrioxamine-e (dfo-e), as well as siderophore-like ligand acetohydroxamic acid (aha) on pb and cd (except for dfo-e) adsorption to kaolinite (kga-1b) at ph 4.5 to 9, in 0.1 m naclo4, at 22oc, in the dark. at ph > 6, all of the ligands inhibited pb adsorption with inhibition increasing in the order aha < dfo-d1 < dfo-b < dfo-e. at lower ph, the presence of dfo-b slightly enhanced pb adsorption. these ligands also inhibited cd adsorption at ph > 8, but had no effect at low ph. modeling the systems with phreeqc suggested that the siderophores in solution out-competed the kaolinite surface for the metal cations, thus causing decreased adsorption at high ph. the current experimental effort to detect neutrinoless double beta decay (0&#957;&#946;&#946;) has encouraged significant interest in understanding the nuclei that are candidates for the observation of this process. the goal of this thesis is to contribute to the current body of work on the germanium isotopes near 76ge, a candidate nucleus currently being used by several large-scale searches for 0&#957;&#946;&#946;. single-nucleon transfer experiments have been very successful in determining the occupancies of the valence shells in the parent and daughter nuclei 76ge and 76se. however, understanding the ground-state pairing of neutrons in 76ge and protons in 76se is also crucial because 0&#957;&#946;&#946; converts correlated neutron pairs to correlated proton pairs. neutron pairing in 76ge has been found to be concentrated almost exclusively in the ground state, but studies on the tellurium isotopes have indicated that a fully neutron-paired ground state does not constrain the distribution of proton-pairing strength. this work uses the (3he,n) transfer reaction with a 74ge target to investigate the proton-pairing strength distribution in 76se. it is found that proton pairs transfer predominantly to the ground state of 76se. proton-pair transfer to excited 0+ states in 76se is determined to be less than 4-8% of the ground-state pair-transfer strength. phosphate-accumulating organisms (paos) are commonly used in enhanced biological phosphorus removal (ebpr) to remove phosphorus from wastewater. selection for paos in a wastewater treatment plant (wwtp) is typically obtained by providing strict cyclic anaerobic/aerobic conditions in order to give paos a metabolic advantage over ordinary heterotrophic organisms (ohos). this thesis explores the question "can large flocs enhance selection for paos under non-ideal conditions, both in conventional activated sludge (cas) and ebpr systems?" "non-ideal conditions" refer to the lack of a strictly anaerobic zone.the hypothesis was selection for paos occurs in cas and ebpr systems as long as flocs have an interior zone alternating between anaerobic/anoxic and aerobic.it was expected that larger flocs will more readily supply the required anaerobic/anoxic conditions and this was explored through computer numerical simulations. in our simulations, floc size had little significant influence on selection for paos, but bulk substrate concentrations did. system identification (si) is a critical component of structural health monitoring (shm) practice, as it closely relates to the structural performance evaluation, damage detection and helps to gain insights to future design practice. most of the existing si techniques are based on the assumption of stationarity of data; however, full-scale data measured during strong winds (e.g. typhoon, downburst, and thunder storm etc.), traffic loadings and earthquakes usually exhibit nonstationarity. this feature introduces several challenges in the use of existing si techniques, as most of the nonstationary data is transient. accordingly, due to a lack of long segments of stationary data needed for a reliable spectral estimate, classical frequency-domain si methods (e.g. half-power band width, frequency domain decomposition, etc.) are not applicable. furthermore, nonstationary colored excitation could cause spectral overlapping between different modes, rendering most of the existing modal identification methods based on the assumption of stationary white noise excitation (e.g. second order blind identification) problematic. additionally, the high amplitude nonstationary response of large-scale structures under strong earthquakes or windstorms usually exhibit nonlinear behavior, indicated by time-varying frequencies and damping ratios. the traditional si methods based on the averaged information in the entire time duration (e.g. random decrement technique, etc.), are not able to capture these time-varying system properties. these challenges have underscored the strong need for developing nonstationary si techniques. in light of this critical need, this research is dedicated to addressing the challenges posted by nonstationarity. three new nonstationary si techniques are developed to enable reliable si from nonstationary response under both in-service and extreme conditions. these techniques are based on the continuous morlet wavelet transform, transformed singular value decomposition and laplace wavelet filtering (wt-tsvd-laplace), time-frequency blind source separation, and time-varying spectra derived from time-frequency representations, respectively. in addition, a web-enabled real-time hybrid si framework is proposed, in order to track changes in structural characteristics to provide quick decision-making support regarding post-event rescue and structural retrofitting. this web-enabled framework based on wt-tsvd-laplace and a traditional stationary structure identification scheme, covariance-driven stochastic subspace identification, can account for the dynamic response under both normal conditions (e.g., synoptic winds and/or ambient excitations) and transient loadings (e.g. earthquakes, windstorms, traffic loadings). to demonstrate the effectiveness of the scheme, it has been implemented in the "smartsync" system of the world's tallest building-burj khalifa. the si techniques developed in this research add significantly to the applicability of shm systems towards assessing the structural performance under nonstationary/transient loadings and can ultimately support quick decision-making regarding structural operation. hybrid monte carlo (hmc) is a rigorous sampling method that uses molecular dynamics (md) as a global monte carlo move to search the phase space of molecules. however, the acceptance rate of hmc, and thus the efficiency of the method, decays exponentially with increased system size or timestep. the shadow hybrid monte carlo (shmc) method was previously introduced to overcome this performance degradation by sampling from the shadow hamiltonian in lieu of the actual hamiltonian. a numerical integrator for a hamiltonian system of ordinary differential equations exactly solves a shadow hamiltonian if and only if the integrator is symplectic. high order approximations to the shadow hamiltonian are efficiently computed, thus, allowing significant acceptance of the md step in shmc. in order to remove the bias of sampling from the shadow hamiltonian, a reweighting step is performed on the collected data. the increase in efficiency of shmc comes at the expense of the variance of reweighted observables. in this dissertation, i discuss the development of an analytical framework for the analysis of shadow hybrid monte carlo methods. from this analysis, i show that the performance of shmc is limited by the need to generate momenta for the md step from a non-separable shadow hamiltonian. in addition, i present a method for determining the optimal parameterization of shmc. this includes the ability to ascertain the timestep which will allow for maximum efficiency of the method. the reweighting step usually causes an increase in the variance of observed data, but it is now possible to ascertain the magnitude of the variance beforehand. finally, i introduce a new algorithm, separable shadow hybrid monte carlo (s2hmc), which is based on a separable formulation of the shadow hamiltonian. s2hmc is able to quickly generate momenta from the correct distribution, thereby overcoming a limitation of shmc. s2hmc has the added advantage that no additional parameters are required. through analysis and numerical experiments i show that s2hmc is at least twice more efficient than hmc for all systems larger than a few thousand atoms. adolescents in high schools today are a vulnerable population prone to personal and school-related obstacles that can impede their success. high school counselors are in a position to help students succeed because of their training in social/emotional, academic, and postsecondary counseling. unfortunately, there is much evidence to suggest that school counselors are not living up to their potential. between an extraordinarily imbalanced student-to-counselor ratio of 470-to-1 and an extensive breadth of both counseling and non-counseling duties, counselors are often cited as failing to serve students adequately due to being overworked. yet what the focus on the overworked nature of school counselors fails to consider is how deeply embedded the conflict between their counseling and non-counseling roles is within the structure of the profession and the schools as the organizations in which they work. to understand the school counseling profession and its impact on students, what is needed is a theoretical research approach that incorporates the institutional and organizational influences and constraints on the school counseling profession, and the agency through which counselors choose to work. this will help reveal how high school counselors work, and by extension, how their work impacts the students they serve. in this dissertation, i explored how school and counseling organizations and institutional frames of counselor work structure the profession of school counseling and the counselors themselves. i conducted a comprehensive, multiple-method study of high school counselors in two public, urban high schools. i incorporated interviews with counselors and school administrators with extensive observations of counselors and counselor-student interactions. this in-school data was supplemented with interviews from local and national counseling graduate faculty and counselors, and observations of school counselor conferences. together, these multiple data sources combine to create an uncommon and systematic look into how the work of school counselors is structured, and how this might impact student outcomes. in chapter 2, i discern the rules, guidelines, and practices that oversee school counselors within public high schools to determine which logics frame their utilization, attention, and behavior. evidence from this study suggests that there are two main logics that govern the work of high school counselors which compete for the time and attention of counselors – a student-centered logic and a school-centered logic. in chapter 3, i connect these rules and guidelines of the profession with how high school counselors, as street-level bureaucrats, are actually utilized and how their value to the school is communicated through the allocation of resources. i find that high school counselors must contend with high caseloads and task allocation that preferences school-centered tasks at the price of student-centered attention, provoking burnout and alienation. in chapter 4, i find that the structure of schools and the loose coupling between the graduate programs that train counselors and the high schools that employ them leave counselors vulnerable to role ambiguity and role conflict through misaligned expectations of the position, misaligned goals of the counselors and the schools, and poor evaluative and reward structures. without an accurate and consistent definition of their work across schools – and thus without an appropriate evaluative framework – the high school counselors in this study suffered from poor boundaries, inconsistency in tasks, underutilization, and reduction of their role to class schedulers. in chapter 5, i observe how high school counselors navigate the constrained resources, conflicting logics, and role ambiguity when deciding how to spend their time and how they interact with students. i find that the high school counselors developed both student-centered and school-centered techniques to manage their work, but engaged in school-centered strategies more often, leaving less time for students. this dissertation investigates the way jewish charity discourse is developed in luke's gospel. in contrast to previous scholarship, neither the coherence of lukan "wealth ethics" nor its contemporary actualization defines the study. instead, the sacramental significance of almsgiving during the second temple period, recently brought to light in the work of gary anderson, becomes the starting point for a more theologically oriented exegesis. the end result recognizes luke's "christological mutation" of the inherited tradition. the study is organized around three large exegetical probes, each handling parabolic material overlooked or unsatisfactorily treated by earlier scholars (i.e. luke 7:36-50; 10:25-37; 16:1-31). to expose the jewish character of luke's charity theology, each probe centers upon a key old testament text and line of second temple reception linked to luke (i.e. isa 61:1-2 and 11q13; lev 19:18 and cd 6:20; and prov 10:2 and tobit). this plotting of luke within a wirkungsgeschichte also includes attention to later rabbinic and patristic traditions; while the approach to luke's parables investigates christological allegory as a narrative device (metalepsis).the first probe demonstrates luke's engagement with the pervasive second temple "sin as debt" metaphor. this entails a new reading of luke 11:4 and overturns a problematic scholarly assumption. here a distinct lukan motif, described as "creditor christology," is identified, and luke's transmission of "devil's ransom" theology from judaism to the early church is shown. a fresh interpretation of the parable of the good samaritan is next proposed. the interpretation of lev 19:18 as almsgiving is first uncovered in cd 6:20, then used to reorient luke 10:25-37 around charity. this perspective integrates the diverse motifs interpreters have found within the lukan text, including the traditional christological reading.the final probe pursues a contextualized reading of the parable of the "unjust steward." this exposes a "debt/sin release" motif and several complex lukan reconfigurations of wisdom and apocalyptic traditions, concering the intersection of resurrection and wealth rhetoric. the deep grammar of luke's charity soteriology is here explored. the dissertation concludes with a consideration of the ultimate theological significance of charity in luke's narration of "the things fulfilled among us. experimental results and analysis of an airfoil oscillated in pitch are presented at mach numbers from 0.2 to 0.6 and reynolds numbers up to 3.5$ imes 10^6$. the design of a novel pitch-mechanism and dynamic stall rig is discussed. high-speed surface pressures and the airfoil's instantaneous incidence angle are simultaneously sampled and used to characterize the temporal pressure field, static and dynamic loading, and cycle and time-resolved aerodynamic stability under harmonic prescribed incidences. this work focuses on three distinct problems in regard to dynamic stall and the influence of mach number, as follows:the stall vortex convection properties: the low pressure signature of the stall vortex's travel aft over the chord is tracked through deep dynamic stall conditions and moderate to high reduced frequencies. the gestation or growth period of the dynamic stall vortex and its ultimate convection rate are quantified. increased mach number decreased the gestation period of the stall vortex and the duration the stall vortex resided over the airfoil chord. the surface pressures and surface pressure gradients found at low-speed as the stall vortex migrates over the chord are shown to be substantially altered following shock-induced dynamic stall. shock induced dynamic stall and surface flow features: a focused schlieren system is designed and constructed to glean information regarding the temporal evolution of shock structures on the airfoil's upper surface. the flow visualization is used to interpret the corresponding surface pressures measured through the on-board pressure instrumentation. a $lambda$-shock is shown to develop near the leading-edge. the foot of the developing shock remains near the leading-edge whereas the shock front travels aft over the chord. at a critical incidence, the flow separates, and an off-surface shock structure propagates upstream toward the leading-edge. the effect of two-dimensional trips on the shock's formation is examined.compressibility effects on aerodynamic damping: the ensemble averaged pitch-moment is used to determine the net cycle damping. the transient damping, discussed here for the first time, is shown to be calculable through a hilbert transform of the pitch-moment. this time-based damping analysis offers new incite into the mechanism of stall flutter in helicopter rotor operations. the test includes a comprehensive investigation of forcing parameters (mean angle of attack, amplitude, and reduced frequency), including the effect of free (un-tripped) and forced (tripped) laminar to turbulent transition. it is demonstrated that the emph{cycle-integrated} aerodynamic damping coefficient masks much of the physics underlying the destabilizing effect of the dynamic stall process. in particular, conditions that exhibit positive cycle-integrated aerodynamic damping, often include time intervals of large negative aerodynamic damping during the pitching cycle. these negatively-damped portions of the pitch cycle could account for high-frequency stall flutter divergence from the rotor control input in helicopter applications. the bacterium pseudomonas aeruginosa is ubiquitous in the environment and is also an opportunistic human pathogen. a hallmark characteristic of p. aeruginosa is its ability to readily develop attached-growth biofilms on many surfaces under various growth conditions. during colonization of a surface, initial biofilm development for p. aeruginosa is aided by surface motility mediated by both type iv pili (tfp) and flagella. understanding the environmental cues that influence motility could provide insight into biofilm formation. this thesis examines how cations act as environmental signals to affect p. aeruginosa bacterial tfp motility in a concentration dependent manner. low levels of calcium, magnesium, iron, potassium, or sodium stimulated an increase in p. aeruginosa tfp surface motility at the single cell level. more specifically, there was an increase in the tfp motility mode called crawling, mean square displacement, and mean velocity. this tfp-specific behavior is further exaggerated in the &#916;flim mutant, as this flagellar mutant is strictly tfp-dependent. calcium starvation was found to affect the resultant biofilm phenotype as homogeneous flat biofilms formed under calcium starvation as compared to the structured architecture of biofilms that formed under ample calcium conditions. the influence of these cations upon tfp motility at the community level as determined using standard twitch and chemotactic twitch assays was unclear, suggesting that the effect of cations on tfp motility are complicated and dependent upon multiple factors. the affect of calcium starvation on tfp was further characterized since calcium has direct links to virulence and tfp. several types of experimental approaches were utilized in an effort to pinpoint a specific gene and/or regulatory mechanism that would link calcium response with tfp action. there is a clear population effect under calcium-starved conditions as less tfp-dependent motility is observed at high cell density. swarming motility, which is a flagellar motility influenced by tfp, is reduced under calcium-starved conditions. this calcium effect was determined not to be related to acyl homoserine lactone quorum sensing, rhamnolipid production, or the tfp retraction gene pilu. in separate experiments, methods were developed to allow chemical analysis of p. aeruginosa biofilms. these methods allowed for a combination of confocal raman microspectroscopy (crm) and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry (maldi ms) to analyze biofilms. a method was developed to enable visualization of individual twitching cells with confocal fluorescence microscopy using a plate complex that has been used to observe tfp-dependent social motility patterns of myxococcus xanthus. this new approach enables researchers to better characterize twitching and its role in biofilm formation. gender assumptions and stereotypes explored through ceramic art and imagery. it is a central theme in polymer science to control the topology and architecture of polymers for the preparation of polymeric materials with new properties. however, the application of self-accelerating copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition (cuaac) reaction to construct polymers was just emerged for several years.in this thesis, i developed the polymerization method by utilizing the self-accelerating cuaac reaction with easy experimental setup, fast reaction rate, tunable external ligands addition. the cuaac reaction was applied to construct branched polymers with different topologies including molecular brushes, star polymers and hyperbranched polymers in this body of research. more interestingly, the obtained hyperbranched polymers exhibited good performance in the catalysis of heck reaction. interval analysis and related verified solution methods provide mathematically and computationally guaranteed solution enclosures that bound all the possible solutions of dynamic systems with uncertainties. this provides a foundation for rigorous deterministic global optimization and continuous satisfaction of path constraints. based on this methodology, we present here new algorithms for two types of problem: dynamic global optimization (dgo) subject to inequality path constraints (ipc) and robust design and global optimization with uncertain parameters. the dgo method is based on techniques developed for the verified solution of parametric systems of ordinary differential equations. these techniques provide rigorous interval bounds on the state variables, and thus on the constraints and objective function in the dgo problem. these techniques also provide explicit analytic representations (taylor models) of these bounds in terms of the decision variables. this facilitates the use of constraint propagation techniques that can greatly reduce the domain to be searched for the global optimum. since ipcs are often related to safety concerns, we adopt a conservative approach to constraint satisfaction. through this approach, the search for the global optimum is restricted to a space in which continuous satisfaction of the ipcs is rigorously guaranteed, and an &#949; -global optimum within this space is determined. we then extend the dgo method and adopt a bi-level branch and reduce structure to address robust design and global optimization with uncertain parameters. within the framework, we implement a heuristic subregion management procedure to achieve more efficient decisions. this approach provides guaranteed-feasible decision variable regions for robust design problems and locates an &#949; -global optimum over a confirmed feasible region for robust optimization problems. solving dynamic optimization problems with a rigorous approach can be computationally challenging. therefore, another major goal here is to discuss how to tackle this challenge with parallel programming techniques. a general dynamic load balancing framework is designed, implemented using message passing interface (mpi) and posix multi-threads, and tested on a multi-core server. the effects of virtual networks and communication schemes are discussed. examples and comparative results for several problems are presented to demonstrate the potential of the methods presented and their computational performance. coastal communities are vulnerable to damage from hurricane or tsunami-generated water level rises, current velocities, and wave forces. engineers must employ methods to mitigate damage caused by these events. a critical first step in damage prevention is the ability to relate environmental conditions at a location to the expected damage to or load on a structure. this thesis combines case studies of damage from previous hurricanes and large scale experiments of tsunami propagation through idealized urban arrays to better understand the relationship between waves and structural vulnerability.after hurricane ike affected the bolivar peninsula, texas in 2008, a post-storm survey characterized 1922 homes as "surviving," "destroyed," or "wave damaged." the combined adcirc+swan wave circulation model simulated the storm-generated environmental conditions at each house's location. results were used to derive second order fragility functions that predicted a home's likelihood of collapse based on a combination of environmental conditions and structural attributes. freeboard and significant wave height were identified as critical variables influencing survival.a similar reconnaissance survey of 380 new jersey residences affected by hurricane sandy in 2012 resulted in the development of a standardized damage scale that can be used to objectively classify damage into seven categories. results were used to derive vulnerability models that extended the model developed after hurricane ike to predict the probability of a house experiencing a specific damage state as defined by the standardized scale. this model identified water velocity and a home's relative shielding as important in effecting a specific damage state and indicated that numerical models must include wave-structure interaction in storm simulations. to better understand the effects of urban elements on wave propagation, large scale experiments were conducted in a hybrid tsunami flume to measure water surface elevation, water velocity, and pressure on and around idealized structural elements and arrays of structures. wave conditions in which waves broke on or just before a specimen caused maximum impulsive pressures. when arrays of obstacles were added to simulate urban macro-roughness, shielded structures exposed to breaking waves experienced pressure reductions of 40-70% compared with unobstructed measurements. a verse novel. troubleshooting distributed systems is difficult due to the inherent complexities of runtime environments in computing resources utilized by the system. this is exacerbated in open distributed systems where membership of resources within the system is transient, placement of computations to resources is not known before runtime, and resources can be shared across multiple administrative jurisdictions (i.e. multiple independent clusters, clouds, or grids). it is infeasible to expect a user to know about these complexities. to make troubleshooting open distributed systems approachable by a user, the debug output of each individual component of the system (i.e. individual processes and services) must be discoverable and made queryable. however, contemporary approaches cannot provide these capabilities. instead, they are provided using a novel architecture called tlq (troubleshooting via log query) which facilitates log discovery and custody for the user and allows them to directly query their system's debug output. in addition, it links components together when possible, inspired by the architecture of the world wide web. through the lens of tlq, this work presents a data model for debug output, a comparison of multiple querying approaches, a distributed querying architecture for open distributed systems troubleshooting, and considerations for more effective debug log design. this dissertation creates automatic structures with complex recursion-theoretic properties. a structure is said to be automatic if its universe and relations can be recognized by a deterministic finite automaton. although arbitrary computable structures isomorphic to an automatic structure can be surprisingly complicated, automatic copies require only a few extra conditions to be computably isomorphic to each other. the first section provides definitions and theorems necessary for creating the structures and proving their properties. the second section presents a family of automatic linear orderings, then defines a corresponding family of automatic relations on these structures which appear at arbitrarily high finite levels of the arithmetical hierarchy. the third section creates an automatic equivalence structure, and proves that the set of isomorphic equivalence structures is as complicated as any set of isomorphic equivalence structures can be. the fourth section defines a generalization of equivalence structures, called nested equivalence structures. it goes on to produce an automatic nested equivalence structure for which the set of isomorphic structures is more complicated than any set of isomorphic equivalence structures. the fifth provides brief descriptions of other projects the author assisted during his time at notre dame, as well as suggestions for future work on related problems. this dissertation provides a fuller picture of montesquieu's thinking about republics by focusing on his discussions of how sparta, athens, and rome dealt with the problems of inequality and class conflict. it discusses what montesquieu and his sources reveal about the class structure of each regime and what laws and institutions each had in place to either eradicate inequality or manage/minimize the tensions it generated. it also considers the strengths, defects, and viability of those institutional structures. this dissertation concludes by showing why and how montesquieu thought that the english government represented a far more durable design for a mixed regime, and it argues that montesquieu understood the english system to be a republic, despite the fact that a (hereditary) king and nobility were essential features of it. a measeurement of the top quark mass in proton-antiproton collisions at $sqrt{s} = 1.96 tev$ using $1040 fb^{-1}$ of data collected in d0 detector at fermilab is presented. this analysis focuses on the all-hadronic decay mode of the top quark and therefore only events with six or more calorimeter jets in the final state are considered. the measured top masses in the six jets and seven or more jets events are:$m^{6j}{top} = 187.3 ^{+6.4}{-5.7} mbox{(stat.)} ^{+3.2}{-4.0}mbox{(syst.)} gev/c2$$m^{7+j}{top} = 173.8 ^{+9.4}{-7.6} mbox{(stat.)} ^{+3.1}{-7.4}mbox{(syst.)} gev/c2$ the results from both cases can be combined to give:$m{top} = 183.6 ^{+5.3}{-4.8} mbox{(stat.)} ^{+3.2}_{-4.6} mbox{(syst.)}gev/c2$ paul's corinthian correspondence is both one of the richest resources for early christianity and a set of texts still rife with historical and literary problems. in 1 corinthians, paul speaks as an authoritative figure, legislating on a host of social and ethical issues for a divided community. in 2 corinthians, however, the situation has imploded: that same community has turned against paul and preferred apostolic rivals who take pay for their work and boast in their jewish status as children of abraham. since the 1950s, with few—though notable—exceptions, it has been assumed that it was, in large part, the arrival of these so-called "interlopers," at some point after the writing and reception of 1 corinthians, that provoked the larger conflict. but the role of the "interlopers," as well as their motivations for clashing with paul, have remained a puzzle for pauline scholarship.this dissertation will propose a new solution to the problem of the "interlopers" and, in so doing, also propose a new explanation for the dramatic deterioration of the situation at corinth. first, it will argue that the hypothesis of an "incursion" of apostolic rivals "between" the letters rests on shaky logic and scant textual evidence, and that an older model—where these other apostles were present at corinth when paul wrote 1 corinthians too—has at least as much to recommend it as the incursion hypothesis, if not more. second, it will examine how the rival apostles' antagonism toward paul could have been sparked not out of an effort to subvert paul's authority or vaunt their own, nor as part of some fundamental theological conflict, but simply as a reaction to paul's own claims, especially in 1 corinthians. in short, apostles who valued judaism and relied on community support would have ample reason, simply from 1 corinthians, to react against paul: against his claims of unique authority and spiritual exemplarity; against his promotion of financial abstention over christ's command that preachers of the gospel receive support for their work; and against his brief but dismissive statements about jewish ethics and jewish identity. according to social-ecological theory, the macrosystem refers to the overarching forces that project meaning and information to society (bronfenbrenner, 1977). assessing individual development in contexts of political violence requires a systematic macro-level measurement. prior research on post-accord northern ireland measured the macrosystem by coding news reports about peace and conflict from 2006-2011 (n = 6,082) and assessing trends in intergroup relations over time. the current study selected a sample of articles from this dataset (n = 144) and used a thematic analysis to identify the major themes comprising these trends. reports that were coded as politically tense discussed policing and justice, memory, intractability, disruptions to family and community, othering, and violent imagery. reports coded as positive discussed cooperation, leadership, systemic transformation, reflection, and optimism. by identifying the most salient features of political violence in the macrosystem, this study may inform future research on the processes through which macro-level factors influence individual development. while the relationship between religion and marriage and family is widely documented in sociological literature, limited research examines how a person's religiousness is related to the age at which she or he marries. the studies that look at this topic document a relationship between identifying as an adherent to certain religious traditions and marrying earlier than those who are not religious. however, these studies only state that a relationship exists and do not attempt to explain this correlation. using data from the national study of youth and religion (nsyr), various religious and demographic factors are used to examine how religious emerging adults differ from their non-religious peers on the measure of ideal age of marriage. i find that young emerging adults' ideal age of marriage is correlated with identifying as religious, although this relationship can mostly be explained statistically by attitudinal and demographic variables. stating that faith is important to one's daily life, being female, supporting the male breadwinner model in marriage, and remaining sexually abstinent before marriage also help explain some of the relationship between religious tradition and ideal age of marriage. however, identifying as mainline protestant or mormon are significantly related to a younger ideal age of marriage, even after controlling for multiple other factors. this dissertation argues that the political campaign to extend civil rights to catholics (often known as the 'catholic question' or catholic emancipation) generated a protracted, contentious debate about britain's national and religious identity that precipitated conflicts in romantic era literary politics, troubled the sense of history among romantic writers, and haunted the period's construction of its own progressive 'spirit of the age.' emerging with particular force in literary narratives of the nation's past, the fundamental cultural contradictions presented by the catholic question resulted in the formal fracturing of romantic texts and prompted attempts to articulate a stabilizing via media or middle way between revolutionary 'enthusiasm' and catholic 'superstition.' while catholic emancipation's advocates hoped to quell irish catholic unrest, advance the cause of parliamentary reform, or break the establishment alliance of church and state, both opponents (like southey) and proponents (like shelley and byron) were anxious about the prospective 'return' of a catholic other, often denigrated as primitive or superstitious, into a nation that imagined itself as protestant, modern, and free. this analysis thus complements studies of the role of romantic era anti-catholicism in constructing 'britishness,' a sense of national identity that united britain's domestic regions and its foreign empire. while critics have examined struggles over internal colonialism and this emerging national ethos among writers from scotland and ireland, figures ranging from edmund burke to samuel taylor coleridge also labeled the catholic religious minority a dangerous 'nation within the nation.' the broad investigation of this complex religious, literary, and political context also focuses on how genre, poetic form, and narrative structure register and redirect political and cultural transformations in readings of walter scott's historical novel ivanhoe, elizabeth inchbald's english catholic proto-national tale a simple story, and william wordsworth's the excursion, essays on epitaphs, and ecclesiastical sketches. drawing on insights from postcolonial historians, this dissertation argues that even though a form of legal religious tolerance emerged in the 1829 catholic emancipation act, romantic literature's narration of history helped to establish unofficial cultural limits of civil society and exerted powerful pressure on religious minorities to conform to modern 'britishness.' this dissertation focuses on the utilization of multiplex coherent anti-stokes raman scattering (cars) for correlation spectroscopy and chemical imaging.multiplex cars imaging via supercontinuum excitation has the spectral and spatial resolution to probe changes in biomolecules on the cell surface with chemical treatment. by ascertaining the nonresonant and resonant contributions of the nonlinear cars intensity, the peak ratio of methylene to methyl functional groups can distinguish between molecular markers, such as lipids and proteins. our results indicate that ovca429 and skov3ip epithelial ovarian cancer cells undergo similar morphological and chemical responses to treatment with lysophosphatidic acid (lpa). the microvilli in multicellular aggregates are removed by treatment of lpa. the cars analysis shows a distinct decrease in protein and increase in lipid composition on the surface of lpa-treated cells. importantly, the cars signals from cellular sheddings from ovca429 and skov3ip cells with lpa treatment are consistent with cleavage of microvilli and proteins originally present.multiplex cars correlation spectroscopy is shown as a chemically specific approach for monitoring the molecular mobility of particles on the millisecond time scale. the cars signal provides a quantitative measurement for the number of particles in the focal volume, whereas the autocorrelation of spectral data elucidates dynamic events, such as diffusion. the measured diffusion coefficients for polymer beads ranging from 100 nm to 1.1 µm in diameter are in good agreement with predicted stokes-einstein values. multivariate curve resolution analysis of distinct spectral features in multiplex cars measurement distinguishes different composition lipid vesicles in a mixture diffusing through the focal volume. the observed diffusion is consistent with results obtained from single particle tracking experiments. single particle tracking (spt) measurements are used to monitor the interactions between ligand functionalized nanoparticles and membrane receptors in real-time. dark-field spt detects scattering from peptide-conjugated gold nanoparticles interacting with integrin receptors immobilized on glass surfaces and in intact cells to characterize ligand-receptor binding. our results indicate crgd and cisodgrc peptide sequences are recognized differently by the αvβ3 receptor. we observed a preferential binding and higher binding affinity for crgd-receptor complexes compared to cisodgrc-receptor complexes on integrin-immobilized glass and in live colon cancer cells. consumer organisms are frequently considered passive components of tropical forests with negligible effects on ecosystem processes. however, non-tropical consumers play known important roles by changing resources available to detrital food webs. in rainforests, plants sequester most nutrients, and microbes facilitate important nutrient transformations. consequently, only plants and microbes are assumed to affect how rainforests function. if tropical consumers alter detrital resources like their non-tropical counterparts, they may also have important effects on rainforest functioning, particularly in light gaps, where increased resources due to rapid plant growth and litterfall lead to higher consumption rates. this dissertation examines how common herbivores (walking sticks, lamponius portoricensis) and detritivores (snails, megalomastoma croceum) affect a puerto rican rainforest under two different canopy covers. i hypothesized that herbivores prefer faster decomposing plants would shift plants to a slower decomposing plant community. this shift would reduce resource quality for decomposers, consequently reducing decomposition, nutrient availability and plant production. i predicted that detritivores would accelerate decomposition by fragmenting litter, consequently increasing nutrient availability and primary production. lastly, i expected consumer effects to be greatest in light gaps because of higher feeding rates. to test these hypotheses, i conducted enclosure experiments manipulating canopy, herbivore and detritivore presence. i measured consumer effects on plant growth, nutrient cycling, and decomposition. these data were used to parameterize a trophic interaction model, which examined the role of trophic interactions on nutrient cycling in this rainforest. the experiments and models show that consumers significantly affect this rainforest, but almost exclusively in light gaps. herbivores increased plant growth and nutrient availability, but decreased litter decomposition rates by driving a shift to a slower decomposing plant community. this shift supplied poorer quality resources to microbial decomposers, leading to less abundant and rich litter bacteria. detritivores reduced plant growth and nutrient availability, but did not affect decomposition rates. these detritivores may selectively feed on microbial groups crucial to n-cycling, thus reducing nutrient availability. these results challenge the common assumption that consumers are unimportant to rainforest functioning by providing evidence that consumers alter rainforest processes, particularly after disturbances. multiphoton microscopy (mpm) has provided the biomedical imaging field a methodology to perform high resolution, 3d, fluorescent imaging deeper and with less photodamage than other technologies, such as confocal microscopy. these features have proven mpm as an excellent tool for \ extit{in vivo} studies. however, most mpm studies use external probes or genetically modified animals thereby adding complexity and potentially interfering with the function of the system in question. further, though mpm is capable of some of the highest resolution imaging at depth, it is bound by diffraction and scattering which limit resolution to sub-cellular levels and penetration depth to mm scales. this work attempts to circumvent the current limitations of mpm in two ways. first, to expand the utility of label free mpm by characterizing intrinsic signals which could be leveraged for meaningful studies of the rare and neglected disease, sickle cell disease (scd). secondly, a method is proposed to drive the resolving power and imaging depth of mpm further. towards these goals, studies of true \ extit{in situ} samples were used without external labels to perform clinically relevant investigations of scd which could later be useful for \ extit{in vivo} monitoring in mouse models and therapy testing. additionally, this work describes a nonlinear microscopy technique which leverages saturation effects for the development of a fluorescence microscopy technology capable of super-resolution imaging in thick, scattering tissue. imaging of intrinsic two photon excited fluorescence (tpef) is performed on humanized scd mouse model splenic tissue. distinct morphological and spectral features associated with scd are identified and discussed in terms of diagnostic relevance. specifically, spectrally unique splenic iron-complex deposits are identified by mpm; this finding is supported by tpef spectroscopy and object size to standard histopathological methods. further, iron deposits are found at higher concentrations by all imaging methods employed here including mpm in diseased tissue than in healthy tissue and therefore may provide a useful optical biomarker related to the disease state. these newly characterized biomarkers allow for further investigations of scd in live animals as a means to gain insight into the mechanisms impacting immune dysregulation and organ malfunction in scd, which are currently not well understood. additionally, the photophysical properties of human scd hemoglobin (hb) is characterized by multi-photon microscopy (mpm). the intrinsic tpef signal associated with extracted hemoglobin was investigated and the solidified scd variant (hbs) was found to demonstrate broad emission peaking around 510 nm when excited at 800 nm. mpm is used to dynamically induce and image hbs gelling by photolysis of deoxygenated hbs. for comparison, photolysis conditions were applied to a healthy variant of human hemoglobin (hba) and found to remain in solution not forming fibers. the use of this signal to study the mechanism of and possible interventions for the hbs polymerization associated with the sickling of scd red blood cells is discussed. finally, presented here is a super resolved multiphoton microscopy technique resulting from modulated and saturated mpm excitation. the modulated excitation generates harmonics inside a diffraction limited (dl) point spread function (psf) only where saturation has been reached. these harmonic signals can be used to reconstruct psf with greater spatial frequency content than the df case and therefore leveraged to perform super resolved imaging. saturation excitation (sax) mpm is calculated from a two-level model and experimentally demonstrated. preliminary analysis indicates sax mpm presents a promising technique super-resolved imaging in thick scattering tissue. in this thesis, the development of high surface quality, broad bandwidth, low cost antireflection coatings using the low optical index gaas native oxide processed by a new oxygen-enhanced wet thermal oxidation method is demonstrated. the thicknesses and optical constants of the gaas native oxide and the gaas substrate used in the ar coating design have been determined by variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometry measurements within the visible light wavelength range at room temperature. the antireflection coatings have a simulated reflectance of <10% over bandwidths as large as 300 nm and a minimum reflectance of 2.3% for a design wavelength range of 400 to 800 nm. good agreement between the simulated and measured reflectance data supports the validity of the modeling and indicates that a smooth interface is achieved between the semiconductor and the thermally grown native oxide. both academics and activists alike have shown concern about the representative nature of democracy in the united states. this concern has been amplified in recent years as the youngest generation has entered the electorate with apathy toward and disinterest in politics. young people (ages 18-29) historically vote at lower rates than older individuals. often, the scant rate of young people's participation is explained as a life-cycle effect, suggesting that as they age and go through milestones in their lives where political ramifications are greater, that young people's interest and participation in politics will increase accordingly. yet, there is concern that perhaps this cohort of young people is distinct from other generations of young people, and that their participation will not follow the natural increase, leading to an even less representative democratic system. this thesis will demonstrate through examining rates of young people's political participation in 1964, 1976, 1988, and 2000 that the current generation of young people is no less apt to vote than their ancestors and are actually more likely to participate in atypical forms of participation than individuals in their age range in previous decades. these implications suggest that perhaps a new form of citizenship is evolving amongst today's young people that may yield a positive change for the future of the united states. the work described in this thesis involves a simple model system --atomic hydrogen and alkanethiol self assembled monolayers (sams) --to probe the most basic interactions of gas-surface reactions. presented below are the results of experiments that investigate the roles of molecular structure and surface defect structure in the degradation of these monolayers. a large body of previous alkanethiolate sam studies has probed the mechanisms of monolayer formation and desorption. chain length dependence on reaction time and reaction pathway was found, with longer chain thiols reacting more slowly through a series of reactions, compared to the quick hydrogenation reaction for shorter chain thiols. previous work from this lab showed that defect sites are significantly more reactive than close-packed areas of the monolayer, and that the reaction rate accelerates due to increased defect site coverage over the course of a reaction at room temperature. another recent room temperature study proposed a kinetic model describing the mechanism of erosion happening in two parts, a fast step and a slow step, dependent on the surface phases and on chain length. the studies for this thesis work however, were performed slightly above room temperature, at 27◦c. this slight change in temperature allowed for an additional phase, not seen at 22◦c, to exist on the surface. this new liquid phase revealed new insight into the reaction pathway of the alkanethiolate sam, and a kinetic model was developed to describe monolayer erosion upon exposure to atomic hydrogen that is dependent on the phase transitions and the build up of vacancies on the surface throughout the reaction. though it is likely that surface defect structure does cause acceleration of these reactions, the results presented here make a case for the larger role that surface phase transitions play in the mechanisms for alkanethiolate monolayer degradation.these higher temperature experiments with both 1-octanethiol and 8-mercapto-1-octanol surfaces also revealed the sudden appearance of gold islands concomitant with the appearance of a striped phase. these results inform us that gold adatoms are freed up upon the emergence of the striped phase during monolayer erosion, and is evidence of the reconstruction of the underlying au(111) substrate for the close packed and liquid phases, while the striped phase does not require the incorporation of gold adatoms into the monolayer. scanning tunneling microscopy (stm) is the main technique used for these experiments. its 3d real space, high resolution direct imaging capabilities make it an ideal characterization tool for studies that examine the structural changes occurring over the course of a surface reaction. the experiments described in this thesis work were performed on a home-built instrument with a design focused around accessibility, and customizability. incorporating commercially available parts into the design lowers the cost and allows the instrument setup to be easily replicated, while the use of 3d printed parts allows for small, intricate pieces that simplify the control and handling of the instrument. both eliminate the need for access to a machining shop, but later versions of the instrument design do require machined parts. the freedom of customizability is another advantage to the design of the chamber parts with. the current set up is customized to include direct access to the sample surface for hydrogen cracking experiments, a low-degree-of-freedom vacuum transfer system, and cryogenic cooling capabilities for future low temperature experiments. stress-generation theory posits that depressed individuals behave in ways that cause stress in their relationships, reducing the quality of social support available to them and thereby maintaining their symptoms. the present study proposes an extension to the existing stress-generation framework to include emotion dysregulation as a precursor to interpersonal stress. in a sample of 135 pairs of same-sex friends, i conducted an experimental test of two predictions: first, that individuals induced to ruminate will be rated poorer in interpersonal functioning during a discussion with a friend than individuals induced to distract themselves; and second, that friends will ruminate more during discussions with individuals induced to ruminate versus distract themselves. these predictions could not be tested adequately due to failure of the emotion-regulation manipulation to produce differential levels of negative mood. exploratory analyses revealed that higher state rumination predicted lower subsequent state rumination in friends. ibd is comprised of ulcerative colitis (uc) and crohn's disease (cd) and is characterized by excessive chronic inflammation in the intestinal lining. although the exact mechanisms underlying ibd are not fully known, the consensus stipulates it is driven by the interplay of genetic mutations, the immune system, and the microbial community within an organism. tnfaip3 is an essential modulator of pro-inflammatory signaling and is implicated in many autoimmune diseases (ad), including inflammatory bowel disease (ibd). the overall objective of this research proposal is to define the role of tnfaip3 expression in iec and innate immunity in ibd.tnfaip3 is an anti-inflammatory enzyme inhibiting nf-κb through a negative feedback loop. in intestinal epithelium cells (iec) it prevents iec apoptosis and increases barrier function, thus tnfaip3 in iec is implicated as a key player in colitis. to assess the role of tnfaip3 on innate immune system driven colitis, we crossed rag-1-/mice, immunocompromised mice lacking t and b cells, and villin-tnfaip3 transgenic mice, which overexpress tnfaip3 in iec, these mice hereafter are referred to as trag mice. neither rag-1-/nor v-tnfaip3 mice spontaneously develop colitis, but all v-tnfaip3 x rag-1-/mice exhibited early onset spontaneous colitis around 6-8 weeks of age. trag mice display upregulation of proinflammatory cytokines, inflammatory monocytes, neutrophils, and innate lymphoid cells (ilcs). we found the inhibition of ilcs ameliorated colitis, both prophylactically and therapeutically. furthermore, targeting jak pathways essential for inducing and secreting ilcs cytokines also showed ameliorating effects on colitis, however, targeting inflammatory cytokines has no effect. thus, ilcs are the main drivers of inflammation in our model. these mice also presented altered anti-microbial factor expression and displayed an inner mucus (im) layer infiltrated with microbes. 16s sequencing analysis reveled the trag mice have an upregulation of pathogenic bacteria and a downregulation of commensal bacteria in the inner mucus layer compared to the rag mice. thus, we believe that early onset spontaneous colitis in this model is attributed to both the immunocompromised state and microbes invading the im. the microbial invasion caused the alteration of antimicrobial factors by the over expression of tnfaip3 allows opportunistic bacteria to infiltrate the im layer and come into contact with the intestinal epithelium. this triggers inflammatory cytokine production by antigen presenting cells, and the upregulation of ilcs. the ilcs further propagate the inflammation with secreting on inflammatory cytokines and increasing inflammatory cells, thus, leading to the spontaneous chronic inflammation displayed by our model. clinical and preclinical x-ray computed tomography (ct) provides three-dimensional anatomic imaging at high spatial and temporal resolution. however, quantitative molecular imaging is not possible in conventional ct due to similarity in the overall x-ray attenuation across the polychromatic x‑ray photon energy spectrum and the use of energy integrating detectors. however, recent developments in photon-counting detectors have led to the development of prototype photon-counting spectral ct systems that can acquire images at multiple energy levels which, when used in conjunction with material decomposition algorithms, can identify and quantify contrast agent and tissue compositions. thus, photon-counting spectral ct can provide simultaneous anatomic and quantitative molecular imaging. however, the development of these capabilities and their application remains nascent due to a limited availability of imaging systems. therefore, the overall objective of this dissertation was to investigate quantitative material decomposition of multiple, discrete or spatially coincident, contrast agent and tissue compositions using a prototype preclinical photon-counting spectral ct system. methods were developed for material decomposition using constrained maximum likelihood estimation (mle) in the imaging domain and calibrated using multiple linear regression models of known material concentrations. the median root mean squared error (rmse) for material decomposition of a single gadolinium contrast agent was as low as ~1.5 mm (~0.24 mg/ml gadolinium), similar in magnitude to that measured by optical spectroscopy. material decomposition of multiple discrete contrast agent and tissue compositions was subsequently demonstrated in several models. multiple discrete contrast agent compositions were able to be simultaneously evaluated with quantitative accuracy (rmse) that was comparable to results for a single contrast agent and were able to be identified even against highly attenuating bone tissue. image-based material decomposition was also able to identify contrast agents within murine models at an image acquisition time suitable for in vivo preclinical imaging. multiple mixed, or spatially coincident, contrast agent (gadolinium and iodine) and tissue (calcium and water) compositions were identified and quantified with high accuracy (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (auc) &gt; 0.8, rmse &lt; 12%). finally, the methods used for mixed component material decomposition were further developed to allow elemental decomposition of ca, p and o, which enabled discrimination of pathologically-relevant microcalcifications (hydroxyapatite versus calcium oxalate, auc &gt; 0.8) at a clinically-relevant size (maximum dimension &lt; 1 mm). thus, photon-counting spectral ct enabled quantitative molecular imaging of multiple, spatially coincident contrast agent and tissue compositions, which is not possible with current clinical molecular imaging modalities sleep enhances the emotional memory trade-off effect, whereby emotional components of a scene are enhanced in memory while the corresponding neutral components are reduced. however, while previous investigations have only investigated negative scenes, the current study examined this effect for positive scenes. participants viewed scenes composed of positive or neutral objects placed on neutral backgrounds in preparation for a surprise remember/know memory test 12 hours later. those in the wake group remained awake during this delay while those in the sleep group remained in the lab overnight while their sleep was recorded. results revealed that the sleep group had better memory than the wake group, especially for positive components of scenes. further, there was a negative correlation between rem latency and familiarity for the positive objects, indicating a role for sleep in processing positive information. this thesis develops a mechanistic model of glucose metabolism in the human body, representing transport and oxidization of glucose to maintain energy balance. the model is a set of differential equations. the forms of these equations are primarily based on qualitative understanding of the relevant physiological process and the related chemical reactions and experimental data. the parameters in these differential equations represent physiological characteristics and therefore have physical meanings. the first part of this thesis develops a model of glucose metabolism, which includes the brain, the liver, skeletal muscle and the pancreas. the model is mechanistic because it includes, among other things, detailed representations of glucose transporters and the metabolic pathways. the transporters have different properties in different organs. the parameters in the model come from chemical balances, ranges of normal values published in the literature, curve fitting of experimental data and tuning. in simulation protocols of meals and various exercise intensities, the results demonstrate a qualitative agreement with the dynamics of glucose metabolism in healthy subjects. the next part of this thesis develops a sub-model of the pancreas which includes more differential equations representing additional physiological processes. the parameters of this pancreas model are obtained by a global optimization method. parallel computing is implemented to handle the large computational cost of the optimization method. the simulation results demonstrate that this pancreas model can capture the transient response in intravenous glucose tolerance tests (ivgtt), which is an important characteristic of a healthy pancreas. the values of the parameters can categorize subjects such as normal ones, as well as mild, moderate and treated type 2 diabetics. unlike much of the literature, the model is validated by comparison to experimental results that are not used in the parameters identification process. the sub-model of glucose transport in skeletal muscle is also refined to incorporate more physiological information. its parameters are also obtained by the optimization method. the simulation results demonstrate varied rates of glucose transport into muscle under different exercise intensities. ionic liquids are appropriate for the application of electrospray thruster propulsion due to their physical properties such as low volatility and high electrical conductivity. the behavior of ionic liquid droplets and resulting ion and cluster emission in the presence of an electric field impacts the efficiency and thrust of the electrospray thruster. the technique of molecular simulation allows for the study of ionic liquid nanodroplets in atomic detail which is a limitation in mass spectrometric experiments. this thesis discusses the investigation of nanodroplets of the ionic liquid 1-ethyl-3-methylimidaziolium bis(triuoromethylsulfonyl)imide ([emim+][tf2n-]) in the presence of an electric field using molecular dynamics simulations. the ratio of the single ions to large clusters emitted from the droplet are observed and compared with experiment. the critical field strength required for ion emission from the droplet agrees with experiment. the critical field strength is also computed as a function of droplet size. the thermal stabilities, structural and dynamical properties are analyzed for the ([emim+][tf2n-]) nanodroplets. this dissertation utilizes an historical-institutionalist framework to expose deep historical continuities and critical junctures in the development of the ukrainian state through the lens of fiscal policy. the study first considers the origins of stateness in ukraine during the country's pre-communist period to show that new attempts to build a modern fiscal system would not only have to contend with the communist past, but also the pre-modern legacies of foreign intervention, relatively weak development of autonomous political institutions, and regional resistance to central control and the deep skepticism about the degree to which national authorities can attain autonomy from other great powers that went with it. second, the dissertation investigates the historical role fiscal politics played in the violent imposition of communist rule on ukrainian society and details the development of key structural (e.g. capital formation) and institutional (e.g. budgeting system and tax structure) features that later shaped the fiscal policy positions of ukrainian state builders in the post-soviet period. third, the analysis explains the relative stability of ukraine's fiscal system during the transitional period spanning between 1991 and 1994 as a consequence of the lack of turnover from the communist period among ukraine's bureaucratic and parliamentary elite; the arguments of economic nationalism that united the highly divided ukrainian society in support of state independence did not equate economic autonomy with economic liberalization. lastly, the dissertation explains the development of ukraine's post-soviet fiscal system during the 10-year tenure of president leonid kuchma, which spanned the years 1994 to 2004. the analysis shows that the multiple veto gates generated by ukraine's electoral system and constitutional system of separation and balance of powers--thereby leading to the emergence of numerous smaller political parties unable to form stable parliamentary majorities, weak party discipline in the policy-making process, and the strong pull of special interests and narrow geographic constituencies--restricted the state executive's ability to centralize fiscal policy making in ways that promote more coherent fiscal policy. the dissertation's findings help refine our theoretical understanding of how key structural legacies and institutional continuities carried over from former regimes can dampen the effect of critical junctures (e.g. constitution-building process) or external pressures (e.g. conditionality) on state-building processes. the dissertation's conclusions are supported by field research conducted in ukraine uninterrupted between august 2002 and october 2004, during which time i conducted 30 interviews with ukrainian governmental officials, members of foreign governmental agencies and multilateral institutions, and specialists with non-governmental organizations working on matters related to democratization and economic reform in ukraine. much african theology, including reflection on christ in africa — that is, christology — has long reflected traditional african cultural values. today, however, theologians operate in settings where traditional african cultural values, epitomized in ancestral veneration, no longer operate. the rise of new practices and behaviors that affect the totality of the thinking and decision-making process, which include religious/faith behaviors and their rationalization, are a result of new social organizations of cultural differences. african cultures have been transformed under the pressure of immense social change affecting the continent. political unrest, technological advances, and population movements have contributed to changed cultural realities in which african theology proceeds. new cultural realities in turn reshape african communities and worldviews, so that religious beliefs also undergo transformation.in this dissertation, i will present an argument that christology in contemporary africa needs to change to reflect these new social and cultural circumstances in africa. i will show by way of historical evaluation that christology has always been a conversation within the church among theologians, church authorities, and the living contexts of christian believers. every generation of christians has been given the responsibility to bring their most current context into this conversation, to contribute their contemporary reflections on the mystery of christ. fieldwork among contemporary african catholic communities generates the insights of african believers about christ and his role in their lives, thus updating the christological conversation in africa. i will conclude by presenting these new christological insights of contemporary christians and consider how their thoughts shape african christology today. exposure to enteric pathogens in polluted recreational water causes millions of illnesses that cost society billions of dollars to treat annually [1]. most currently established monitoring efforts of environmental waters utilize culturable bacterial fecal indicators, which require long turnaround times, are limited in their ability to represent viral pathogens, and fail to correlate with undesirable health outcomes. molecular human viral fecal indicators have great potential to reduce the burden of gastrointestinal disease in the united states and worldwide. efforts to improve water quality indicators can reduce the burden of disease by increasing the ability to detect the presence of human pathogens at lower concentrations. relating measurements of human viral fecal indicators to health outcomes can be conducted with quantitative microbial risk assessments (qmra). in this dissertation work, the proposed indicator crassphage was quantified in international wastewater and assessed for its ability to predict risk associated with swimming in polluted recreational water. qpcr and pcr methods were used to measure the concentration of crassphage alongside viral pathogens in legacy italian wastewater samples collected from 2014-2018. crassphage performed well and was consistently detected across italy at high concentrations and correlated with pathogenic viruses. additionally, a major limitation of molecular indicators was discovered: different dna concentration methods significantly impacted results. following these results, and to connect molecular viral fecal indicators to health outcomes, a stochastic model was developed representing a recreational water body polluted with human wastewater. this model was used to estimate the risk of infection and illness due to a pollution event using crassphage and pepper mild mottle virus as molecular indicators. this model was also converted into a web application to communicate the method of relating indicator measurements to pathogen concentrations and health outcomes using a ratio approach, which assumes that the ratio of indicators to pathogens remains constant in sewage and in environmental waters. lastly, the core assumption of the ratio approach was tested in a qmra model. decay rates were collected for pathogens and the time at which the assumption causes a significant overestimation of risk was determined. the results of this model showed that the ratio method quickly overestimates risk in a recreational water setting, suggesting that future qmras should carefully characterize the pollution event that the health risks are predicted to arise from to avoid misrepresenting the hazard. in this thesis i present an updated and improved equation of state (which we call the ndl eos) for use in neutron-star structure and supernova simulations. this eos is based upon a framework originally developed by bowers & wilson, but there are numerous changes. among them are: a reformulation in the context of density functional theory; the possibility of the formation of material with a net proton excess (ye > 0.5); an improved treatment of the nuclear statistical equilibrium and the transition to heavy nuclei as the density approaches nuclear matter density; an improved treatment of the effects of pions in the regime above nuclear matter density; the effects of 3-body nuclear forces at high densities; and a first order or crossover transition to a qcd chiral symmetry restoration and deconfinement phase at densities above nuclear matter density. this thesis details the physics of, and constraints on, this new eos and describes its implementation in numerical simulations. i show comparisons of this eos with other equations of state commonly used in supernova collapse and neutron star simulations. i also show the effect the ndl eos has on the thermodynamic quantities and nuclear abundances in the collapse simulation of mayle & wilson. i analyzed both homomorphic encryption (he) and trusted execution environments (tees) in an effort to develop a quantitative and qualitative framework to assist computer science researchers and software engineers with determining whether they should integrate a tee into their system design. the results of this investigation indicate that under normal conditions, tees offer performance that can be an order of magnitude faster than he for general computational tasks. this suggests that tees are much more viable for performance intensive applications than was previously thought. however, when utilizing a library os to simplify application development for tee platforms, tee performance degrades, and he techniques can outperform tees in unexpected scenarios. this suggests that developing frameworks for choosing whether tees or he is more suitable for privacy-preserving computation is more difficult than previously thought. this dissertation provides qualitative suggestions, based on the current state-of-the-art functionalities of leading tees and the security/privacy expectations of developers. this dissertation examines the christology of jon sobrino by using martyrdom as a lens. sobrino deliberately expands the concept of martyrdom beyond the traditional definition. this dissertation shows how sobrino expands the concept of martyrdom. martyrdom arises within sobrino's christology and marks it in a unique way, especially as sobrino has refined his theological voice over the last decade. an expanded definition of martyrdom changes his christology. this is evidenced by the differences between his work christology at the crossroads, the later works jesus the liberator and christ the liberator, and his writings on martyrdom since the early 1990's. there is a dialectical relationship within sobrino's christology. the idea of the jesuanic martyr influences sobrino's christology, and his christology marks his idea of what constitutes a martyr, pushing both the concept of martyrdom and his own christological questions in new and interesting directions. the initial chapter outlines three main areas: 1) the traditional notion of martyrdom 2) a 20th century understanding of martyrdom and 3) an initial placement of sobrino's understanding of martyrdom in the current debate. the second chapter gives a brief history of martyrdom in latin america in the 20th century, eventually focusing on the history of el salvador during the 1980's in relation to sobrino's life. this illuminates the context from which his christology emerges. four examples of martyrs are developed: rutilio grande, s.j., archbishop romero, the u.s. churchwomen, and the uca jesuit community. the third chapter outlines the key elements present in sobrino's christology before the death of his companions in 1989. basic elements from christology at the crossroads serve as a bridge to analyze his later work. the final chapter examines sobrino's christology after the death of his companions in 1989. key elements identified in his earlier work show substantial development in jesus the liberator and then christ the liberator. this fourth chapter shows how the reality of martyrdom serves as an optimal lens for viewing sobrino's christology. we report on the results of the observation and study of carbon-enhanced metal-poor (cemp) stars. using high resolution (r ~ 40,000) spectroscopic observations taken at the southern african large telescope (salt) of over 100 metal-poor stars we measured elemental abundances and then used these measurements to assign stars to a variety of chemically peculiar stellar classifications. of particular interest were cemp stars and classifications based on n-capture abundances. we found 17 cemp stars, 11 were newly discovered, 38 r-i stars, 31 were newly discovered, and 11 r-ii stars, 8 newly discovered. we then complied a sample of cemp stars, classified as such by medium and high resolution (r &gt;= 4,350) spectroscopy. we then used 6d position and velocity information from gaia and the spectroscopic observation to derive orbital parameters using the agama program. we then performed a density based clustering over the orbital energy and actions (e, j_{r}, j_{phi}, j_{z}) using hdbscan. we then separated our sample of cemp stars with orbital parameters by cemp morphological groups and performed a statistical analysis of the similarities between the elemental abundances within the different clusters of stars. we demonstrate that the carbon abundance of group ii cemp stars can't be explained by local events, unlike group i cemp stars. away from the traditionally understood flashpoints and well-known actors within the civil rights struggle, south louisiana and its most significant social and religious institution offer an essential case for examining the complex interplay of religion and racial consciousness in the twentieth century south. tracing the religious sources of progressive activism and conservative reaction in the region, i argue that catholicism, as both an institution and an ideology, decisively shaped how louisianans, both african american and white, understood and acted upon the mid-century struggle for human rights. from unionization and voter registration efforts among black catholic communities in the 1940s to the integration of catholic institutions and the white backlash that followed, the catholic experience in louisiana encapsulated a variety of social and political conflicts. into these confrontations, louisiana catholics wove intense religious struggles over the nature of religious authority, spiritual fulfillment, and social liberation. a close study of their experience reveals in important ways both the complexity and the intensity of the larger struggle over the meaning of race in twentieth century america. in response to light-induced photoreceptor apoptosis, the zebrafish retina undergoes a robust regenerative response that results in recovery of lost or damaged rod and cone photoreceptors. this response initiates with a cell reprogramming event, in which of a subset of m&uuml;ller glia divide asymmetrically to produce a transiently amplifying neuronal progenitor cell (npc) population. npcs continue to proliferate and migrate from the inner nuclear layer to the outer nuclear layer, where they differentiate into new rod and cone photoreceptors. m&uuml;ller glia reprogramming is an essential, rate limiting step in the regeneration program, but the molecular mechanisms that control this process are just starting to be elucidated. induction of several pluripotency factors necessary for reprogramming of ips cells, including lin28, sox2, klf4, myc, oct4 and nanog (ramachandran et al., 2010), has been observed during the early stages of retina regeneration, but of these, only lin28 function has been studied. sox2 is a well established neuronal stem cell-associated transcription factor that regulates neural development and adult neurogenesis in vertebrates. we found that sox2 expression is maintained in the m&uuml;ller glia and a subset of amacrine cells in the undamaged adult zebrafish retina, recapitulating that of other well-studied vertebrates. expression of sox2 transcript increased significantly in retinas following 31 hours of light treatment, when m&uuml;ller glia begin proliferating. this correlated with increased sox2 protein expression in proliferating m&uuml;ller glia. knockdown of sox2 expression decreased the number of proliferating m&uuml;ller glia, demonstrating that sox2 is required for m&uuml;ller glia reprogramming and proliferation. in contrast, induced overexpression of sox2 stimulated proliferation of m&uuml;ller glia in the absence of retinal damage. we investigated the role of wnt/&#946;-catenin signaling, which is required for m&uuml;ller glia reprogramming and is a known regulator of sox2 expression during vertebrate retinal development. contrary to previous reports, we observed differential expression and non-redundant roles of the two zebrafish &#946;-catenin paralogs. while &#946;-catenin 2, but not &#946;-catenin 1, was required for m&uuml;ller glia proliferation, neither &#946;-catenin paralog was required for sox2 expression following retinal damage. we also determined that sox2 regulates expression of ascl1a and lin28a, but not stat3 expression following retinal damage. additionally, sox2 expression was not dependent upon ascl1a, suggesting sox2 lies exclusively upstream of ascl1a. finally, we observed differential expression of sox2 during later stages of regeneration. specifically, all early npcs express sox2 at 51 hours, but later stage progenitors express sox2 heterogenously. this study is the first to identify a functional role for sox2 during m&uuml;ller glial-based regeneration of the vertebrate retina. polymers are ubiquitous in real-world applications, due to possessing many superior properties. with the increasing demand for functional polymers from different fields, designing polymers that can serve different purposes is of great significance. traditionally, designing polymers intensively depends on those time-consuming approaches, like experimental measurements and computational simulations, which cannot meet the increasing demands anymore. however, as more and more polymer data (both experimental and computational) are accumulated, data-driven approaches become a promising route to accelerate the polymer design, which is known as polymer informatics.currently, the core of polymer informatics research is to quantify structure-property relationships via data-driven approaches, where representing polymers is the first and foremost thing to do, as those data-driven approaches require numerical inputs. i study two general polymer representations here, including morgan fingerprint and molecular embedding. after conducting a series of machine learning experiments on diverse datasets, i find molecular embedding outperforms morgan fingerprint as the polymer representation. such superiority of molecular embedding can be attributed to the accurately estimated substructure similarity in it, which has been intensively studied in this dissertation. another important aspect of polymer informatics research is benchmark database, on which algorithms can be developed, tested, and compared. besides, the polymers in it can also be synthesized for practical use. to achieve this, i build a benchmark database called pi1m, which contains ~1 million polymer structures for polymer informatics. 12,777 polymers are collected by hand from the well-known online polymer database polyinfo, which is not accessible to researchers on large scale. a generative model is then trained on those collected polymers, after which around 1 million polymers are sampled from this generative model to form pi1m. the performance of pi1m is compared against polyinfo as well as other popular organic databases, like zinc, from different aspects, the results of which prove that pi1m can serve as a good benchmark database for polymer informatics. while pi1m is powerful as a benchmark database for polymer informatics, it does not contain polymer properties, i.e., labels, about which researchers care most. to produce polymer labels that could meet the requirements of polymer informatics, i.e., on large scale, i implement high-throughput molecular dynamics simulation for polymer labeling, where everything is automated. taking advantage of the molecular embedding, pi1m, and high-throughput molecular dynamics simulation, while additionally assisted by machine learning, i successfully create the state-of-the-art approach for a previously underexplored task: finding amorphous polymers with high thermal conductivity. however, the polymer candidates screened from existing database cannot always meet the design goal. to mitigate this problem, we develop an inverse polymer design algorithm that can generate new polymer structures to meet the design goal. the synthesizability of the generated polymer structures is also investigated, to maximize their utility in real-world scenarios. we study curves that are invariant under a birational map f:x->x of a complex projective surface x. we show that if x is a minimal rational surface and f is an algebraically stable (as) map with first dynamical degree larger than one, then any invariant curve for f has arithmetic genus at most 1. in particular, invariant curves for as birational maps of the projective plane must have degree 3 or less. next we find formulas for all of the as quadratic birational maps of the projective plan whose indeterminacy is constrained to lie on an invariant curve q; however, we exclude the cases when q is an irreducible curve of genus 1. finally we study the dynamics of some of these quadratic maps. by studying the induced real maps of the real projective plane we find a class of maps exhibiting maximal entropy in its real dynamics. also we present an example in which our strategy fails to find such a map. ultraviolet irradiation of dna induces formation of two principal photoproducts, the more prevalent, less mutagenic cyclobutane pyrimidine dimer (cpd) and the less prevalent, more mutagenic (6-4) photoproduct, (pp). these covalent dimers block cell replication and transcription, corrupting genetic information and leading to cell death and skin cancer. in bacteria and archaea kingdoms, cpd and pp are repaired via cpd photolyase and (6-4) photolyase. sparse experimental results support a repair mechanism involving a light-induced electron-transfer. in absence of an x-ray structure of (6-4) photolyase and due to the instability of the proposed oxetane intermediate the previously proposed oxetane mechanism cannot be confirmed experimentally. mapping of the potential energy surface indicates a barrierless reaction from the oxetane radical anion to two thymine monmers. formation of the oxetane intermediate from two thymines is shown to be energetically unfavorable. reduction of the oxetane is also shown to be more energetically unfavorable that direct reduction of pp. ab inito gas phase and solution calculations using theozyme models were used to systematically reduce alternative mechanistic possibilities to two competing pathways: the oxetane and the carbinolamine mechanisms. repair of pp via the carbinolamine mechanism was found to be the energetically preferred mechanism. additionally, repair of the minor dewar photoproduct, by (6-4) photolyase is explained by merging the dewar repair mechanism with that of the carbinolamine mechanism. docking and molecular dynamics of pp or the oxetane intermediate in a refined homology model of (6-4) photolyase provided structural models of the enzyme-substrate complexes and were found to be consistent with a carbinolamine mechanism. more comprehensive simulations included a short ddna fragment containing pp bound in the active site of (6-4) photolyase. molecular dynamics results described key residue interactions involved in mechanistic and binding interactions between (6-4) photolyase, fadh and pp. the experimental component of this work involved design of a reductive, biomimetic, artificial photolyase capable of selective noncovalent binding and repair of cpd in water. after successfully demonstrating the function of the ar tificial photolyase in the repair of cpd models under physiological conditions, the reductive artificial photolyase was shown to successfully repair cpd with a phosphate backbone under physiological conditions. the development of an assay capable of separating and quantitatively measuring the photo-reaction kinetics cpd repair in ddna was completed. co2 utilization and co2 emission reduction are important for low-carbon economy. as one of the thermal approaches for co2 utilization, co2 hydrogenation to methanol has attracted a lot of attention in recent years. however, the feasibility of this process is limited by the low product selectivity and low catalyst stability when using the state-of-the-art catalyst. therefore, studies on new materials and catalyst designs are necessary to overcome these difficulties.this dissertation developed new catalysts that aid this purpose. the new catalysts include ru-mo bimetallic phosphide, in-ru-mo trimetallic phosphide and in-ru bimetallic catalyst. each unique design resolves a critical drawback of the previous catalyst and our final design, in-ru bimetallic catalyst, is capable of catalyzing co2 hydrogenation to methanol with methanol selectivity of 85% while the state-of-the-art catalyst can only reach 35% at the same condition. the promotional effect of in-ru bimetallic compounds was investigated further through in-situ techniques which aids in-depth understanding on the reaction mechanism. the second part of this dissertation focuses on reducing co2 emission from distributed hydrogen production to fuel the future low-carbon economy. the main approach is to develop steam methane reforming (smr) at low temperature where thermal catalytic approaches are limited by low thermal equilibrium conversion. dielectric barrier discharge (dbd) plasma was utilized to promote methane conversion and hydrogen production at low temperature and high steam/methane ratio, where thermal catalytic approach cannot. with the assistance of 15w plasma, smr can take place at 300-440 oc with up to 80% methane conversion. further experiments were performed to identify the key parameters that favors high methane conversion and high co2/co ratio in flue gas. in addition, a cascade reactor design was also made to effectively control the co concentration in flue gas. collaborative, virtual environments (cves) leverage desktop virtual reality technologies to enable multiple, simultaneous participants to interact and work together. as immersive, multimedia-oriented systems, cves typically represent participants as avatars and operate in a variety of areas including, but not limited to: entertainment, commerce, education, and research. success of endeavors within these areas requires privacy and integrity for both participant activities and the objects upon which participants act. security mechanisms, however, are often limited in scope and functionality, or lacking entirely. in response, this dissertation investigates and develops controls to protect the privacy and integrity of activities and objects within cves. we begin with a survey of 16 technologies that may be used to build a cve. we then examine two of these technologies further, croquet and pro ject wonderland, giving consideration to their respective architectures, strengths, and weaknesses. continuing with wonderland, we design and implement a full discretionary access control solution called wonderdac. finally, we carry out a realistic demonstration of wonderland/wonderdac with a small number of human participants. cornexistin and hydroxycornexistin are natural products derived from the fungus paecilomyces variotti. both cornexistin and hydroxycornexistin are highly potent herbicides that have the unique quality of being harmless to corn plants. because of this quality, both molecules have attracted research interest from agrochemical companies. their interesting nine-membered ring structure contains a maleic anhydride and a key exocyclic ethylidene; this structure also indicates membership in the nonadride family. we targeted this interesting structure for total synthesis for both its fascinating biological activity and its highly functionalized structure. cornexistin was found to be susceptible to retro-aldol opening and reclosure of its nine-membered ring by workers at dow agrosciences. we targeted a retro-aldol precursor through a series of aldol reactions. utilizing a johnson-claisen rearrangement and an enantioselective evans-type aldol to generate the starting fragments, a series of reactions was performed to find the appropriate conditions for a key bond-forming ester enolate aldol. oxidation of the product yielded a beta-ketoester that contained the complete carbon skeleton of cornexistin. previous progress towards cornexistin included the use of a diels-alder reaction to generate a [6.5] bicyclic system that was oxidatively cleaved to deliver a cyclononene diketone. during the course of analyzing the relative stereochemistry of the diels-alder reaction, analog synthesis and x-ray crystallography was used to unambiguously determine the structure of the cycloadduct. through ozonolysis, regioselective titanium-mediated olefination and further functional group manipulation, highly complex nine-membered ring structures were generated. finally, ring-closing metathesis and tamaofleming oxidation produced the key ethylidene moiety of both cornexistin and hydroxycornexistin. a titanocene catalyst system is described herein for the synthesis of tertiary carbon centers. using catalytic titanocene, phosphine, and zinc dust, zinc acetylides can be generated from the corresponding iodoalkynes to affect sequential nucleophilic additions to aromatic aldehydes. the intermediate propargylic alkoxides are trapped in situ with acetic anhydride, which are susceptible to a second nucleophilic displacement upon treatment with a variety of electron rich species, including acetylides and electron-rich aromatics. the use of two acetylide units as the nucleophilic components provides symmetrical and unsymmetrical 1,4-diynes. this adaptable methodology also includes electron-rich arenes as the third nucleophilic component, to provide substituted butenolides and diarylethynyl methanes in good yields. additional investigation into the catalytic metalation capability of titanocene provides novel entries to chalcones from &#945;-halo ketones and aldehydes, and homopropargyl alcohols from propargylic acetates and aldehydes. finally, an alternative approach to diarylethynyl methanes from terminal alkynes and br&oslash;nsted acid is described using indium catalysis. there are over 7000 known rare diseases, many of which have a genetic etiology. while each individual disease is rare, approximately 1 in 10 people suffer from a rare disease. the majority of these diseases are under-researched because the potential impact of research on each individual disease is considered small, but there is an extremely high unmet need for research that will yield treatments as only approximately 400 of the 7000 rare disease have an fda approved treatment.monogenic defects that alter metabolism may cause complex pathological states including neurological diseases that show a wide range of symptoms such as, seizures, epilepsy, neuropathy, cerebral defects and movement disorders. while these defects occur in only one gene, often large number of mutations are observed in the patient population leading to a broad range of phenotypes which complicate the study of such defects. for example, all 30 of the known disorders of amino acid metabolism have dozens of known causative mutations. thus, these diseases are in acute need of new tools for rapid genotype-phenotype assessment to aid model development to and treatment testing. but the study of these defects also affords a unique opportunity to understand the relationship between genotype and phenotype in a monogenic system. one such defect occurs in glycine decarboxylase (gldc), which cleaves glycine in the first step of the mitochondrial glycine cleavage system (gcs). glycine cleavage yields the formation of 5,10-methylene thf, a key intermediate in folate biosynthesis and one-carbon metabolism which is utilized to synthesize nucleotides and proteins and thus broadly impacts cellular homeostasis. known perturbations of glycine cleavage are associated with cancers, pluripotency, and host susceptibility to viral infection. they are also involved in neural tube defects (ntds) and the rare disorder non-ketotic hyperglycinemia (nkh) . the hundreds of mutations in gldc that give rise to nkh disease, present a unique system to investigate how these mutations underlie nkh, as well as provide models for a broader understanding of functional annotation of mutations in hundreds of monogenic disorders at cellular and organismal levels. a bac clone already known to map to the vicinity of the proximal breakpoints the 2rj+ (standard) was used as a starting material to identify the 2rj (inverted) breakpoints in bamako chromosomal form. the 2rj distal and proximal breakpoints have been identified, cloned and sequenced. the structure of the breakpoints showed that it is more that a simple cut and flip. a 14.6 kb insertion at each breakpoint but opposite orientation has been identified. this fragment is made of two almost perfect 5.3kb inverted repeats separated by a 4 kb section and is structurally very similar to type 3 fold back transposable elements. sequence analysis of the flanking regions of the breakpoints revealed the presence of four genes. however we found no evidence of interrupted transcripts by the inversion breaks. a simple pcr assay was designed to diagnose the 2rj inversion. this dissertation asks and discusses answers to the question: how can we refer to abstract objects? the question is interesting because, like the question of how we know about abstract objects, the radically different nature of abstract objects seems to defy our ordinary theories of reference. in the first chapter i argue that if abstract objects are abundant and non-causal, we cannot refer to them. the non-causality entails that in order to establish reference, we must single them out by definite description, and the abundance prevents those descriptions from being definite. i further argue that this problem is not solved by reference magnetism. the remainder of the dissertation examines how one could solve this problem by denying either abundance or non-causality. in chapter 2 i examine solutions which attempt to only deny abundance and argue that most are either ad hoc, too abundant (and so still have the reference problem), or too sparse (and so have the problems of nominalism), though there is one sparse solution which could work, but comes with serious costs. in chapter 3 i argue that once we distinguish truth or instantiation in a world or time from truth or instantiation at a world or time, we can see that there is nothing absurd about abstract objects being contingent or temporal (since we will still be able to say all the same true things about other worlds and times). the purpose of this discussion is to pave the way for a causal theory of properties. chapter 4 offers a causal theory of properties, namely the view that all abstract objects are created by human mental activities. i argue that this is not only a good solution to the reference problem, but an attractive ontology in general. we study complete noncompact calabi-yau manifolds with maximal volume growth. these manifolds arise as desingularizations of affine calabi-yau varieties, and as bubbles in the singularity formation of compact kähler-einstein manifolds. the rather explicit metric behavior of these manifolds enables us to understand the metric behavior of the seemingly impenetrable compact case. it is therefore of great importance to study the uniqueness/deformation problem of these manifolds and metrics. our first result is that subquadratic harmonic functions on such manifolds must be pluriharmonic. this should be seen as the linear version of the uniqueness/deformation problem. next, we show that if a ddbar-exact calabi-yau manifold with maximal volume growth has tangent cone at infinity which splits an euclidean factor, then the metric is unique under subquadratic perturbation of the kähler potential. geometrically, this means that the calabi-yau metric is rigid under deformations that fix the tangent cone at infinity. it is therefore interesting to know if a quadratic perturbation of the kähler potential, which should correspond to an automorphism of the tangent cone at infinity, really changes the metric. as a first step toward understanding this picture, we construct new calabi-yau metrics on c^3 with tangent cone at infinity given by c x a_2, and we show that these metrics are inequivalent in the sense that they are not related by isometries and scalings. this existence result provides the first example of families of calabi-yau metrics with the same tangent cone at infinity while the underlying complex structure is fixed. this dissertation systematically evaluates the causes and consequences of teacher political activism in the postwar united states. it begins by investigating a puzzle that has had important and enduring implications for both american k-12 education and u.s. electoral politics more generally: the transformation of rank-and-file teachers into an active and powerful political constituency organized by influential teachers union interest groups. i first demonstrate that the wave of public sector collective bargaining laws enacted by states during the 1960s and 1970s helped catalyze teacher political activism by decreasing the costs for teachers unions to mobilize rank-and-file teachers to participate more in politics. exploiting variation in the timing of these law adoptions across the american states, i find that the political activity of all teachers, not simply union members, significantly increased in elections held directly after the introduction of collective bargaining. substantively, i estimate the effect of a teacher working under a mandatory bargaining law environment as greater than the effect of a teacher's household income, education level, and union membership status on her likelihood of participating in politics. in the second half of the dissertation, i address a separate empirical puzzle that has perplexed scholars for quite some time. namely, if teachers and their unions are as dominant a force in education politics as the conventional wisdom portends they are, why is the quantitative research literature on teacher unions effects so inconclusive at establishing those effects? in contrast to existing scholarship, i demonstrate that previous efforts to measure whether and how teachers unions influence education outcomes (e.g. policymaking, student achievement) are constrained by the narrow way in which scholars conceptualize and measure union power. specifically, i show that teachers unions primarily influence contemporary education policy-making and, by extension, student achievement through their clout in electoral politics, not through collective bargaining. although bargaining laid the initial groundwork to more easily organize and mobilize teachers in politics during the 1960s and 1970s, over time, i find that the participatory returns provided by unionization diminished as teachers unions in non-mandatory bargaining states identified alternative ways to gain influence in the public policy-making process. studies have consistently revealed adolescent disclosure as the strongest predictor of parental knowledge about adolescents' companions, whereabouts, and behaviors. in turn, parental knowledge is linked to various positive adolescent outcomes. it therefore becomes important to understand what promotes adolescent disclosure to parents. although intrapersonal predictors such as dispositional self-concealment have been identified as important predictors of disclosure in adult dyads, little is known about how personality dimensions affect youth disclosure to parents. the current study tested two main hypotheses: 1) that adolescent self-concealment would account for variation in self-disclosure to mothers, over and above the contribution of previously examined predictors of youth disclosure (i.e., maternal warmth and adolescent rule-breaking behavior) and 2) that parental trust would serve as an influencing variable between our independent variables (i.e., adolescent self-concealment, maternal warmth, and adolescent rule-breaking behavior) and adolescent self-disclosure. each hypothesis was tested using adolescent and mother reports respectively.using a sample of 82 mother-adolescent dyads, two 2-step hierarchical regressions confirmed the first hypothesis. self-concealment explained additional variance in adolescent self-disclosure above and beyond what had been accounted for by the variables entered at step 1 (maternal warmth and adolescent rule-breaking behavior) according to adolescent reports and also mother reports. for our second hypothesis, structural equation modeling was used to test a model in which parental trust mediated the relationship between the aforementioned independent variables and adolescent self-disclosure. neither final model (for adolescent or mother reports) revealed an indirect pathway between self-concealment and self-disclosure. for adolescent reports, the best-fitting approach to the model fit the data adequately, but only when direct paths were also included. for mother reports, the model fit the data relatively well with significant indirect links between maternal warmth, adolescent rule-breaking and adolescent self-disclosure (all mediated by maternal trust), and a direct significant relation between adolescent self-concealment and adolescent self-disclosure. other models resulted in weaker fit, but informed our understanding of the potential role of trust as an influencing variable in adolescent self-disclosure and are thus discussed in further detail. measurement systems for identifying steady and unsteady phenomena in hypersonic shock-wave/boundary-layer interactions (swbli) have been developed and tested on a 7 degree half-angle circular cone/flare model in mach-6 flow. the measurement techniques consist of infrared thermography and anodized-aluminum pressure-sensitive paint (aa-psp). global heat-flux data are calculated from the time-resolved temperature measurements carried out with the use of an infrared camera. mean and fluctuating surface pressure measurements are obtained with the use of a temperature-corrected, high-frequency-response aa-psp.the steady aspect of the study was conducted in the air force research laboratory's mach-6 ludwieg tube using infrared thermography. measurements were performed at zero angle of attack on a total of 16 different nose bluntness/flare angle geometries at three different freestream unit reynolds numbers. the boundary layer entering the interaction region was turbulent for the two sharper nosetips and laminar for the two blunter nosetips. stanton-number contours and profiles were used to investigate the effect of nose bluntness, flare angle, and freestream unit reynolds number on the length of boundary-layer separation, peak heating achieved upon reattachment, and thermal striations on the flare. the classical scaling analyses of souverein et al. and hung &amp; barnett for separation length and peak heating, respectively, have been extended for the use of axisymmetric cone/flare shock-wave/boundary-layer interactions. scaling the peak heating with the density ratio across the separation shock wave, instead of the pressure ratio, significantly improves/simplifies the analysis.the unsteady aspect of the work took place in notre dame's act-1 wind tunnel using aa-psp. this aa-psp was made in-house to provide the high frequency response required for this work. these proof-of-concept experiments were conducted to illustrate the aa-psp's usefulness and effectiveness at measuring the unsteady structures inherent to many swbli. measurements were performed at zero angle of attack on a single cone/flare geometry. one test was for a laminar boundary layer entering the interaction region, while the other was for a tripped turbulent boundary layer. the mean and fluctuating components of the surface pressure were used to provide multiple mean and instantaneous metrics of the locations of boundary-layer separation and reattachment shock feet. in general, all of these metrics were found to be in good agreement. significant azimuthal structures were observed in the reattachment region due to the presence of streamwise counter-rotating vortices. spectral analysis identified a smooth, low-frequency bandwidth characteristic of the shock-foot oscillations. laminar coherence calculations indicated that the intermittent regions of separation, reattachment, and the recirculating separation bubble near the cone/flare junction are all relatively well correlated, and that the system exhibits a low-frequency breathing motion mostly driven by the reattachment fluctuations. provocation is associated with increased aggression across a variety of situations. however, emotion regulation decreases aggressive behavior after provocation. the current study tested the effect of manipulating emotion regulation strategies on aggressive behavior after being provoked, which has rarely been done in laboratory studies. college students were tested in five conditions: reappraisal, distraction, self-reflection, read-emotion-regulation-article, and read-movie-article. provocation was induced using negative feedback on an essay and aggressive behavior was measured by the negative feedback participants provided. although provocation produced feelings of anger in all conditions, emotion regulation strategies were not related to differences in aggressive behavior among conditions. however, the results suggest potential differences in the effectiveness of emotion regulation strategies for females. the purpose of this thesis is to assess the potential for conflict and cooperation over water resources in central asia and the world. the aral sea basin is the focal point of the work. using the examples of the jordan river basin, the ganges-brahmaputra river basin and the tigris-euphrates river basin, the author illustrates the circumstances under which cooperation and military conflict are likely to develop in different contexts. the rising global water scarcity engendered by the increase in the population, consumption, living standards and deteriorating environmental conditions across the world will increase the probability of conflicts in the future. water scarcity will amplify the competition and create severe pressures under which it will be hard for states that are part of transboundary river basins to conduct strictly sovereign water policies and avoid a conflict with other states. toward advancing the understanding of day-to-day family dynamics, this study examined the transmission between marital and parent-child relationship qualities for both fathers and mothers with a daily diary method. the cross-person association (i.e., one parents' marital relationship and his/her spouse's relationship with the child) was tested in addition to the within-person association. moreover, this study tested whether these daily links were different for families with a child of different ages and would change over three years. participants included 237 families, in which both fathers and mothers completed daily diaries for 15 consecutive days each year for three years. at the end of each reporting day, parents independently rated their emotional quality with the spouse and the child on that day. positive associations were consistently found for the within-person transmission of both mothers and fathers, supporting the spillover hypothesis. when the cross-person association was examined, evidence was found supporting the compensatory hypothesis for mothers: poorer average marital relationship quality of fathers was related to increased level of mothers' daily relationship quality with the child. furthermore, weaker within-day spillover effect was found for families with older child, suggesting an age-related change of the relationship quality transmission. the longitudinal model corroborated the above finding by showing a decrease in mothers' daily relationship quality transmission over three years. the findings illustrated the interdependent, changing, and dynamic patterns of family relationships and underscored the importance of differentiating the father-child and mother-child relationship. understanding the processes maintaining species richness and abundance is a central focus in ecology. this is particularly relevant for highly diverse communities such as tropical forests. several hypotheses have been proposed to explain the maintenance of many species and forest functionality in a continuum between neutraland niche-based frameworks. integrating functional traits into community ecology has improved and refined our interpretability of the main processes assembling plant communities. in particular, niche differentiation by a few key functional groups has been suggested to play an essential role in capturing the emergent patterns observed in tropical forests. however, the integration of functional groups into forest dynamics has not been well explored. in this dissertation, i integrate both neutral and niche frameworks with functional traits, habitat differentiation, conspecific negative density dependence, intraspecific trait variation, and ontogeny to understand the role of these frameworks in promoting diversity in highly diverse tropical forests. in the first chapter, i introduce the overall big picture of this dissertation. in the second chapter, i evaluate the functional group version of the neutral theory of forest dynamics. i show that deterministic processes likely govern forest dynamics at the functional group level where species relative abundances change or drift within groups. in the third chapter, i run process-based simulations to understand the relative role of neutrality, functional groups, and conspecific negative density dependence in predicting forest dynamics. i show that a functional group structure with negative density dependence is necessary to produce realistic species and functional diversity levels. in the last chapter, i investigate the trait variation within and between species in functional groups to assess the role of this variation in driving niche differentiation throughout ontogeny. while the functional group delimitation captures realistic functional patterns, the integration of species differences is critical to understanding their effects on species coexistence. together, these findings expand our understanding of the consequences of integrating functional groups into community ecology and how these groups govern ecological interactions in tropical forests. all of the everything, a novel, explores one night in the life of tynan jagger, a twenty-five year-old musician in the fictitious new england city of port harbor. the action surrounds and proliferates out from tynan?s boyfriend?s band?s most important show to date, taking place at a local bar named tinder box. the tale takes place in the contemporary context of 2013, with all of its various technologies of communication, the avatar, and opportunities for self-rendering as well as fandom. jagger?s deep, spiraling, and synesthetic consciousness creates porcelain plate curios out of the men in her life, turns guttering street lamps into photon death rattles, renders music a sensory phantasmagoria able to prime the body and consciousness for any number of possible outcomes, probabilities, or actions. jagger, or ?jag,? imagines an overflowing bathtub as the whole earthly ocean, imagines her mouth and throat a cathedral, holy with the incense of cigarette smoke as she attempts to determine her artistic, sexual, and social alignments in the incestuous music scene of which she is a key and celebrated part. her sense of confidence and selfness, as a woman, girlfriend, lover, and most importantly, musician and artist ? an agent of meaningful genesis will be challenged as jag pushes into the night and the night pushes back, the forces which bind and divide the social groups to which she belongs strain, stretch, and evolve, and contradictory desires erupt before her like the thick, square tonal paving stones of a bass line sliding under her feet as both song and story approach their climax. my thesis explores the use of 'piacere' in the commedia, and argues that there are the crescendo of 'piacere', the imitatio amoris, and the increase of the nuptial imagery which reflect the development of italian lyric poetry and the importance of the song of songs to the commedia. microscale gaseous discharges under extremely small scale (< 10 &mu;m) are quite different from their macro scale counterparts in many aspects. as recent research reveals, this difference is caused by ion-enhanced field emission, which refers to field emission that is activated by the uniquely high electric fields at the microscale and enhanced by ions generated from the discharge. by investigating several interesting examples of how microscale discharges behaves differently from large scale discharges, this dissertation reveals how field emission and microscale discharge interact with each other in detail. the microscale breakdown phenomenon is studied by using pic/mcc simulations. the study reveals the roles of ions and field emission (and their mutual relationship) and the extent to which ions enhance field emission and how this leads to breakdown. these simulations reveal that the net positive space charge that accumulates in the electrode gap enhances the electric field, subsequently enhancing field emission from the cathode. it is revealed that this coupling between field emission and the discharge is necessary in order for breakdown to occur. quantum simulations are also carried out to investigate how ions generated from the discharge enhance the field emission in detail. the modified paschen's curve is introduced to correctly predict microscale breakdown. the pic/mcc simulations also provide important information about the electron energy distribution of microscale discharges. a non-continuous distribution with discrete peaks corresponding to specific inelastic collisions is observed. the relative magnitude of these peaks and shape of the energy distribution can be directly controlled by the parameter pressure times distance (pd) and the applied potential across the gap. these parameters dictate the number of inelastic collisions experienced by electrons and as both increase, the distribution smoothes into a maxwellian-like distribution. the microscale glow discharge is selected as a post-breakdown example of how field emission interacts with microdischarge. a current-driven pic/mcc mode is introduced to simulate microscale glow discharges, and the effect of field emission on the discharge is discussed. this dissertation puts augustine and modernity in conversation on the topic of desire. it does so to identify the source of the modern oblivion of the desire for the transcendent. three implications of that oblivion are addressed: 1) the advent of the modern philosophical reductionistic account of christian faith, 2) the modern cultural disappearance of the christian conception of wisdom as a life of hierarchically ordered desires, and 3) the modern critique of the analogical metaphysics of participation that is central to catholic christianity. the modern oblivion of desire and its implications are ultimately shown to be derivative of a more fundamental oblivion of the nature of augustinian interiority. because postmodern philosophy presupposes the modern oblivion of desire, augustinian interiority reverses the excesses of both. it is argued that theology ought to found itself in augustinian interiority if it is to successfully understand and communicate christian faith in modern and postmodern culture.the first part explicates augustine's understanding of the relation between faith and reason. augustine believes that faith and reason are mutually dependent because knowing and loving co-inhere. for augustine, then, objectivity is not the result of a dispassionate view from nowhere, but of ordinate desire. as that which allows the mind to grow into ordinate desire, faith is therefore a condition of the development of the mind toward wisdom. that wisdom involves an order of desire that parallels the order of being. the desire of the mind is thus the ground of the formulation of christian metaphysics. augustine avoids both modern foundationalism and postmodern anti-foundationalism. this being the case, this part argues that charles taylor and philip cary are wrong to believe that augustine anticipates modern philosophy and that john milbank and jason david beduhn are wrong to believe that augustine anticipates postmodern philosophy.the second part focuses on heidegger's misinterpretation of augustinian interiority. because heidegger appropriates the presuppositions of modernity, he is unable to understand augustine's search for god in memory. if for heidegger that search is a matter of a vorgriff of what it means to be god, augustine, on the contrary, considers that search to be an expression of the desire of the mind for that which would bring it rest. by contending that the mind exists within a horizon that is ineluctably determined by the desire for the truth, augustine overcomes heidegger's overcoming of metaphysics that gave birth to postmodernity.the third part identifies bernard lonergan as the principal modern inheritor of augustinian interiority. lonergan follows augustine by locating the foundation of knowledge in human consciousness rather than self-evident first principles. resultantly, lonergan's understanding of human knowing both properly identifies the place of faith and accounts for the historicity of consciousness without capitulating to relativism. crowd behavior analysis, a subdomain of human activity recognition, is a broad topic in computer vision that includes crowd management, public space design, virtual environments, visual surveillance, and intelligent environments. recent areas of high interest include interactions between small groups of people and large crowds of people at gatherings such as a sporting venue, concert, or religious pilgrimage. tragic incidents, such as the stampeding that occurred at the 2010 loveparade concert and the multiple incidents that have occurred at the jamarat bridge necessitate a need for crowd analysis. since 1994, over 1500 people have been killed or injured in stampedes and related incidents during the hajj. advances in crowd analysis research have improved and insured the safety of individuals of future events. our research is aimed at preventing such incidents from occurring through real-time detection of abnormal crowd behavior.in this dissertation, we present two methods for abnormal behavior detection in an effort to reduce the number of tragic incidents occurring in large crowds. the first method is based upon deviations in primary or dominant motion paths within the scene. we implement a method for dominant motion extraction based upon optical flow clustering and develop a matching algorithm to compare dominant motion paths at various points in the video. our second method, using a particle advection model for local motion, predicts the location of a particle based upon its previous motion. by measuring the distance between the predicted trajectory and the observed trajectory, we are able to determine the presence of abnormal behavior. this method addresses several deficiencies in our first. lastly, we present a method for video clustering of crowd motion based upon optical flow. our methodology uses histograms of optical flow to train a support vector machine to classify types of dominant motion. using these classes, we cluster similar videos using hierarchical methods. experiments use hundreds of videos from several public video motion data sets. while a long literary tradition exists that depicts the city as an infernal space, this dissertation contends that the reformation's secularization of purgatory ultimately sees the city become a purgatorial site. i primarily ground my understanding of purgatory in dante, next employing the work of jacques le goff, stephen greenblatt, and richard fenn. in terms of basing my argument in the urban world, i use lewis mumford and richard sennett. from these readings on purgatory and the city, i address contemporary paris, london, and dublin as purgatorial spaces. contemporary literature and films from these cities embody a more purgatorial understanding of the city; for, even if the city sometimes appears as a place of stasis and despair, it is primarily a place of process, transformation, and transition. using contemporary monuments in paris (the phare), london (the eye), and dublin (the spire), i argue that this purgatorial process is visible in the built environment of these cities as well.my main contention throughout the dissertation is that each city has a chronic fault that it is trying to excise. it is only when it accepts that fault that it is purgatorial. with paris, i observe that french republicanism exiles mystery and the hidden. however, when the hidden becomes sayable the city becomes purgatorial. i examine the early effects of the revolution in parisian literature, turn to balzac, hugo, and zola, and then end with contemporary works by andrei makine, michel tournier, and alix girod de l'ain. next, i demonstrate that london attempts to excise the plagues it creates internally and abroad. yet, in its acceptance of the disease of the other, it is a purgatorial city. i trace this motif first in defoe and blake and later in dickens and conrad. i finish with zadie smith, gautam malkani, and ian mcewan. lastly, i maintain that dublin's difficulty comes in recognizing its parentage, be it england or the church. the city's acknowledgment of its antecedents can lead it to a more purgatorial vision of itself. i follow joyce's treatment of religion and paternity, move on to mid-20th century accounts of the city with flann o'brien and donleavy, and end with novels by keith ridgway and barry mccrea. while my dissertation focuses on western cities with christian underpinnings, i ultimately posit that even in a secular or non-christian world, the idea of the purgatorial, of a restorative union to a more complete version of the city, exists in all cities. hydroxyapatite (ha) whiskers have been used to reinforce ha ceramics, polyethylene and polyetheretherketone for new orthopaedic biomaterials. while the mechanical advantages of ha whiskers are promising, the effects of the whisker morphology on cellular behavior has not been investigated. therefore, the overall objective of this study was to investigate the initial attachment, proliferation and differentiation of mc3t3-e1 osteoblast-like cells plated on ha powder and whisker substrates. mc3t3-e1 osteoblast-like cells were cultured in vitro on powder compacts prepared from ha powder or whiskers. the substrates were characterized chemically and physically to ensure that the only difference between them was the native powder morphology. a combination of biochemical assays and microscopy showed that cells cultured on ha whisker substrates exhibited greater initial attachment and spreading compared to the ha powder. additionally, cells cultured on both ha powder and whisker substrates reached confluence within 14 days, nearing or exceeding levels of activity seen with a control substrate consisting of tissue culture plastic. no difference was observed in the proliferation rate of cells on ha whisker vs. powder substrates. therefore, ha whiskers were concluded to be at least as biocompatible as a more conventional equiaxed powder. some mathematicians described geometric representations as a means of making data intuitive and, therefore, their investigation easier. i elucidate one sense in which information is made intuitive: geometric representations evoke an integrated body of knowledge. i show this sense of intuitiveness of geometric representation to play a significant role in mathematical investigations. i find models of reasoning such as analogical reasoning and visual thinking incapable of accounting for this use of geometric representations. i offer an alternative model based on the following cognitive processes: evocation, refinement, and transfer of competence. i link favorable views concerning the use of geometric representations in mathematics to historically important epistemic values like investigational efficiency and allocation of intellectual resources. i consider hans hahn's objections against geometric intuition and, more briefly, other objections concerning contrasts within intuition itself. i defend the value of intuition for mathematical investigations vis-à-vis these objections. keywords: geometric representation, problem-solving, intuition, creativity, mathematical investigation, analogy, competence transfer, epistemic efficiency, aleksandr d. aleksandrov, jean dieudonné, otto stolz, giuseppe veronese, hans hahn. peatland soils currently store 455 x 1015 g carbon, approximately 75-times the amount of carbon released annually from fossil fuel burning. in response to future global change, this stored carbon could be released to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (co2) and/or methane (ch4) as a result of enhanced microbial decomposition, augmenting anthropogenic emissions of these important greenhouse gases. thus, understanding the controls of microbial carbon cycling in peatlands has important implications in the context of global climate change. this dissertation focuses on the controls of anaerobic carbon mineralization and aerobic ch4 oxidation in peatland ecosystems. i used an experimental mesocosm system to examine the effects of 6-year manipulations of infrared loading (warming) and water-table level on potential carbon mineralization in bog and fen peat. peat was incubated under uniform anaerobic conditions in the laboratory, and observed differences in co2 and ch4 production were attributed to indirect effects of climate through changes in soil quality; however, these changes did not lead to shifts in the dominant pathway of ch4 production. i also used a combination of short-term nutrient amendments and long-term ecosystem fertilizations to demonstrate that nitrogen and phosphorus are important controls of microbial carbon cycling in peatlands; however, the role of these nutrients is strongly mediated by peatland type. for example, in peatlands from northern michigan, anaerobic carbon mineralization in bog peat was consistently inhibited by increased phosphorus availability, but similar phosphorus additions had few effects in peat from an intermediate fen and stimulated ch4 production in rich fen peat. finally, i constructed budgets of anaerobic carbon mineralization in a bog, an intermediate fen, and a rich fen from northern michigan. ch4 production was responsible for between 3 and 70% of anaerobic carbon mineralization and sulfate reduction explained between 2 and 31%. a large proportion of anaerobic carbon mineralization (from 27 to 85%) was unexplained and is likely due to fermentation processes or the use of humic acids as electron acceptors. this dissertation demonstrates that understanding the pathways of microbial carbon cycling is essential to predict the response of peatland ecosystems to global change. an unmet clinical need exists for synthetic bone graft substitutes which can perform comparably to autograft in the repair of bone defects.therefore, the overall objective of this dissertation was to investigate the design of hydroxyapatite (ha)-collagen scaffolds to provide chemotactic and mechanical signals which direct angiogenesis and osteogenesis during bone regeneration.novel methods were developed for the preparation ha-collagen scaffolds with improved architecture and mechanical properties compared to conventional freeze-dried scaffolds.the effect of the ha volume fraction on in vivo angiogenesis and osteogenesis was investigated after subcutaneous ectopic implantation in mice.ha promoted angiogenesis and osteogenesis in collagen scaffolds that did not otherwise exhibit angiogenesis and osteogenesis, and the effect was dose dependent.in a subsequent study using an orthotopic critical-size femoral defect model in rats, collagen scaffolds did not exhibit bone formation, while ha-collagen scaffolds exhibited bone formation but did not result in mechanically competent union, confirming the need to augment scaffolds with exogenous growth factors for functional bone regeneration.therefore, scaffolds were modified for on-demand (cell-mediated) delivery of an angiogenic (vegf) and osteogenic (bmp-2) growth factor with tunable, independent control over the dosing and release kinetics of both.growth factors immobilized to collagen fibrils via the association of biotin and streptavidin exhibited enzymatically regulated release and growth factors simultaneously encapsulated within a collagen hydrogel filling pore spaces exhibited sustained released.the effects of the growth factor delivery mechanism on in vivo angiogenesis and osteogenesis were investigated after subcutaneous ectopic implantation of ha-collagen scaffolds in mice.immobilized vegf promoted increased angiogenesis compared to all other experimental groups while immobilized bmp-2 promoted osteoid deposition. it has long been known that stress can influence well-being outcomes and social support can buffer one's reaction to stress. using 56 days of daily diary data from 296 participants, this study explores how daily social support contributes to greater daily stress resistance on those days when more perceived stress is reported. using hierarchical linear modeling (hlm), this study considers how the type of global social support buffers the impact of daily stress on daily negative affect. the level-1 within-person analyses include the buffering role of daily social support perceived as cooperative (nondirective) support and that perceived as intrusive (directive) on the stress-negative affect relationship. the level 2 between-person analyses test whether the buffering role of daily support is moderated by any of four selected global measures of support ì¢ ââ" an individual's perception of support received from family, support from friends, a measure of one's perception of control over access to his or her support group, and social coping strategies (emotion-focused or problem-focused). level-1 results suggest that nondirective support is more effective at reducing negative affect on days of increased stress when compared to directive support. level-2 findings include the moderation of daily directive support-stress relationship for those endorsing more global social control; however, receiving greater daily directive support accentuates the stress-negative affect slope. in contrast, for those participants endorsing greater social coping strategies, daily negative affect increased, and those reporting greater daily directive support had steeper stress-negative affect slopes. findings suggest that directive support may be detrimental to daily well-being and global resources used on days of increased stress may vary in buffering efficacy. this dissertation addresses the utility of using rapid functionalization processes for the tailored design of modified nanofiltration membranes. the key need for introducing additional functionalities is to overcome the permeability / selectivity tradeoff seen in size-selective membranes. many techniques have demonstrated the positive impact of introducing additional interactions between membranes and solutes, such as charged moieties, which can increase the rejection of salt ions.beyond singularly functionalized membranes, novel transport properties emerge when multiple functionalities are integrated within a membrane system. this can be due to domains interacting with each other at their interfacial junctions, as well as when isolated domains work independently but in a coordinated manner during operating conditions. this dissertation takes the approach of post-fabrication functionalization as a viable method to develop multi-functional membranes, by investigating the copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition (cuaac) reaction. first, the desired membrane structure is readily formed by tailoring the polymer chemistry and casting conditions, resulting in membranes with azide moieties lining the pore wall. second, the addition of a desired functionality is achieved through coupling reactions with reactive solutions of functional alkynes with the azide lined pore walls.the ability to isolate functional domains using this reaction process was confirmed through fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy analysis, which developed protocols for synthesizing reactive solutions that achieve high reactive rates compared to the diffusive rate of the solution as it transports through the membrane. multi-functional membranes with surface anti-fouling chemistry and underlying charged chemistry were made which exhibited equivalent ion rejection performance compared to fully charged membranes, but with a much lower propensity for fouling.the cuaac reaction was also used to form surface patterned multi-functional membranes, in which asymmetric coverage of positive and negative charge resulted in unique transport phenomena of asymmetric salts, such as magnesium chloride (mgcl2) and potassium sulfate (k2so4). the utility of the thiol-yne coupling reaction for surface patterning of multi-functional membranes was also investigated by introducing specific domains for the targeted adsorption of heavy metals.these results demonstrate the unique abilities and transport properties that multi-functional membranes can achieve. the knowledge for creating multi-functional membranes can improve many separation processes. porous media are used in a wide variety of separation processes, notably including differential adsorption of gases and ion exchange into crystalline materials containing a negatively-charged framework with accessible charge-balancing cations in the pore spaces. molecular simulations are a particularly useful tool for studying the behavior of these systems due to their allowance for study of molecular-level interactions, and they are also attractive for the study of systems involving materials that are hazardous or difficult to synthesize. in the first phase of this study, monte carlo simulation techniques are applied to the study of adsorption and cation siting in keggin ion type materials. these materials had been characterized experimentally as candidates for application toradioactive waste remediation. new force fields had been developed to model their behavior, and this study applied grand canonical and replica exchange monte carlo simulations to verify the performance of the new force fields and to obtainadditional insight into the behavior of the systems. the adsorption isotherms and cation sites are shown to be in good agreement with experiment, confirming that the force fields and methods used to obtain them may be applied to future study of similar systems. in the second phase of this study, fractional component monte carlo simulation techniques are applied to the study of single-component and ternary adsorption of nitrogen, oxygen, and water into sodium faujasite type x zeolites. type xzeolites are used in commercial air separation processes, where a pre-treatment step is required to remove most of the water from the feed gas. due to difficulty of modeling the ternary system, it has not been extensively studied. this studyapplies the fractional component monte carlo method to obtain single-component and ternary adsorption isotherms. although nitrogen dsorption is found to be in good agreement with previous experimental results, significant deficiencies arefound in water adsorption at lower partial pressures. these issues are further characterized and recommendations are presented for future study to improve modeling of low-pressure water adsorption. in the final phase of this study, a new statistical mechanical ensemble is developed,denoted the ion exchange ensemble, and the corresponding move acceptance probabilities for monte carlo simulation in this ensemble. the exchange of cesium for sodium in titanosilicate (ts) and niobium-substituted titanosilicate (nb-ts) are studied using the monte carlo simulation in the ion exchange ensemble. thispair of materials is of particular interest for the treatment of radioactive tank wastes at the department of energy savannah river site. the ion exchange simulations are found to exchange cesium for sodium, but significant issues areobserved with the performance and results of the simulations. the results from the simulations are analyzed to obtain insight into the behavior of the materials and an understanding of how ion exchange simulations may be conducted moreeffectively in the future. limited information is available on the scattering dynamics of heavy projectiles from a surface composed of light atoms, especially in the hyperthermal energy regime, in spite of increased importance from both theoretical and practical perspectives. the scattering of hyperthermal br+ ions on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (hopg) serves as a desired model system to investigate detailed energy and charge transfer processes during a violent collision. the angle-resolved velocity distributions of the scattered ions are measured under a wide set of incident conditions. the variation of the distributions with initial kinetic energy reveals unexpected and complicated scattering dynamics which can not be properly described by simple models such as parallel momentum conservation or binary collision models. instead, it is attributed to successive many-body collisions between the projectile and a dynamically corrugated surface induced by the energetic impact. br+ ions are efficiently converted to neutral atoms or br&ndash; upon collision with hopg. the anion yield calculated by integrating the probability density of scattered ions over all exit angles and velocities exhibits a strong resonance at ~30-ev incident energy. for incident energies less than 30 ev, the anion yield is positively correlated to the final exit velocity, in agreement with conventional charge transfer theories applied to light projectiles scattering on a static surface. the steep drop of the anion yield at high incident energy is attributed to surface penetration and trapping of the incident projectile. the scattering of cl+ on hopg as well as ni(111) supported monolayer graphite surface under analogous incident conditions provides a unique opportunity to examine the effect of mass and physical properties of the surface on the scattering dynamics. the results indicate that for the heavy projectile/light surface atom combination the interaction between surface atoms plays a key role in the energy transfer process. despite the growing interest in seismic ground strains and rotations within the seismological and engineering communities, the scarce number of direct measurements or indirect estimations of these motions in the near-fault region of strong earthquakes has hindered their thorough investigation. this dissertation focuses on (a) utilizing physics-based simulation techniques to enhance the characterization, modeling, and simulation of near-fault ground strains and rotations, and (b) investigating the torsional response of buildings arising from wave passage effects in the near-fault region.a comparison between observed and synthetic near-fault dynamic ground strains and rotations is presented for the 2004 parkfield, california, earthquake, indicating that numerical simulations based on kinematic source models can be an effective tool for characterizing and predicting these motions. the sensitivity of near-fault ground strains and rotations to variations in seismic source parameters (e.g., fault type, magnitude, rupture velocity, slip velocity, hypocenter location, burial depth) is then assessed by performing finite-fault simulations of hypothetical strike-slip and dip-slip earthquakes. furthermore, the characteristics of near-fault ground strains and rotations from actual earthquakes are investigated for six well-documented seismic events, including three strike-slip (2004 parkfield, 1979 imperial valley, and 1999 izmit) and three dip-slip (1994 northridge, 1989 loma prieta, and 1985 michoacan) earthquakes. in addition, the effects of fault rupture characteristics (e.g., slip, rupture velocity, state of stress) on near-fault ground strains and rotations are investigated using the concept of s-wave isochrones. finally, the contribution of synthetic low-frequency rocking components of ground motion to the seismic response of single-degree-of-freedom systems is investigated by generating coupled rocking and translational response spectra.the effects of wave passage on the torsional response of symmetric, elastic buildings in the near-fault region are investigated. a parametric analysis of the maximum relative twist of the superstructure as a function of the input parameters of the seismic excitation and soil-foundation-structure system is performed to identify the parameters that control the torsional response of buildings due to wave passage in the near-fault region. the increase in building displacements due to the torsional response is further evaluated by comparing the accidental eccentricity, estimated from the translational and torsional components of the building response, with code-prescribed values. for symmetric buildings with values of uncoupled torsional-to-translational fundamental frequency ratio commonly used in design practice, the normalized accidental eccentricity due to wave passage effects arising from near-fault pulse-like ground motions is generally less than the typical code-prescribed value of 5%, except for buildings with a very large foundation radius. a collection of poems the ontology of non-concreta (objects that are non-concrete but possibly concrete) has traditionally been employed to make sense of necessitism—the thesis that necessarily everything necessarily exists. in this dissertation i present other uses for non-concreta (or things that are very similar to them). they can be used to develop new views of possible worlds, material objects, the nature of the past, and god's creation of the world that help us avoid some problems concerning these issues. one forceful objection to the existence of non-concreta is that their modal properties aren't grounded in their non-modal properties. in light of this objection, i also give different ways of 'thickening' non-concreta in order to provide a grounds for their modal properties. a new method for bridge structural health monitoring using a wireless sensor network is introduced. this method uses heterogeneous sensors connected in a wireless sensor network and aims to detect damage in the structure at early stages while reducing the dependence of the method on exact knowledge of the excitation of the structure. the wireless network adds many constraints in the algorithm used, and this work focuses on low energy consumption, low computational power and wireless sensors which may have unsynchronized clocks. the network architecture has two layers: the micro layer for local damage detection and the macro layer for data fusion. at each node, two related measurements, acceleration and strain, are compared using appropriate models of the healthy bridge and residuals. if the measurements are different than expected, the structure may be damaged. at the higher level, all responses from the nodes are combined to detect whether the structure is healthy or not. novel contribution of this work include the problem formulation using heterogeneous sensors and a two-tiered network architecture, the detection scheme at each node using weighted thresholds and the data fusion at the higher level, and the associated simulations based on a finite element model of a cantilever beam. the goal has been to combine ideas from many fields in order to set the foundation for an approach in damage-detection using wireless sensors networks. this thesis aims to investigate the implications of the italian dubbing of the films miracle at st. anna (2008) by spike lee and fargo (1996) by the coen brothers. both films present themselves as two useful case studies to understand what happens in the language transfer of a product that, in its original version, is very structured from a linguistic point of view. in the field of audiovisual translation, doubts and questions about the reliability of dubbing as a means of language transfer have increased, resulting in a split in public opinion between those who still appreciate dubbed film products and those who claim that this type of translation intervention inevitably changes the original product with often negative results. my thesis poses and responds to a question that normative accounts do not contemplate; that is, whether dubbing is capable of delivering the same cultural, social and linguistic product that a film constitutes in its original language to a targeted foreign-language audience. the analysis investigates the impact of the translation choices of dialogists and translators and their effects on the rendering of the final product in italian. the first part of this thesis aims to provide a detailed overview of the technical aspects of dubbing. in the next part, through the analysis of selected scenes from both films, i show how in a multilingual film such as miracle at st. anna the dubbing did not consider this a fundamental aspect of the film and did not limit itself to language transfer but rewrote entire scenes depriving the target audience of the essence of the film product. fargo, on the other hand, with its pronounced use of the minnesota accent, loses its linguistic distinctiveness in the transition to italian while still managing to maintain the characterization of the characters through the acting skills of the italian voice actors. therefore, the analysis shows how the stronger a film is characterized linguistically and culturally, the more dubbing practices struggle to deliver the same product to the target audience, ending up distributing a film that substantially and irretrievably departs from the original product. it is said that happiness can be infectious, but is everyone similarly likely to "spread" or "catch" different emotions? i investigate whether and how status is an organizing structure for emotional contagion. sociological social psychologists find that individuals who occupy higher status positions speak more often, are more likely to have their ideas validated and have more influence in group tasks than lower status alters (berger and webster 2018). yet we do not know whether one's status position also affects the likelihood their emotions spread to others. are the emotions of those who are higher status more contagious? more specifically, do emotions travel in patterns that are consistent with influence in status hierarchies?my dissertation builds testable predictions from two theories of interaction— expectation states theory and communication accommodation theory—to better understand emotional contagion, specifically how emotions travel based on the composition of the group and the specific emotion being emitted. using a 3x4 factorial design, i vary status position relative to an alter (high/equal/low) and the types of emotions those alters express (happiness/sadness/anger/no emotion) to examine how status affects emotional contagion across a range of status relationships and emotions. i find that the emotions of high status people are more contagious than those of low status people, and that anger is especially contagious.my experimental design affords me the opportunity to make a second important contribution. i also investigate whether an expressed emotion makes people who are either high or low status more or less influential. i find that, while low status people generally have little influence, they have significantly less influence when they express anger than when they express no emotion at all.understanding the conditions under which emotions travel is important for the development of interventions for unhealthy and ineffective environments. awareness of these processes can help promote healthy work environments and safeguard against poor emotional cycles among co-workers. in addition, understanding how emotions and status together impact patterns of influence in groups can inform policies that promote equity in the workplace. for too long, humans have been in the battle for combating malaria, and today it is still a massive public health burden. efforts in the past have rendered some success but now seem under threat with evidence of stagnation. more troublesome, to this day, 93% of all malaria deaths happen in sub-saharan africa, which holds the highest malaria burden in the world. numerous aspects (epidemiological, social, ecological and economical) need to come together as a front in order to finally eradicate malaria. malaria is transmitted through the bite of an anopheles female mosquito, and two species complexes are largely responsible for the intense malaria transmission in the continent of africa: anopheles gambiae and anopheles funestus. these complexes are characterized by the presence of inversion polymorphisms, a phenomenon where a chromosomal segment breaks and reattaches in reverse orientation. inversion polymorphisms can suppress recombination between alternative arrangements in heterokaryotpes, making it possible to maintain groups of alleles within breakpoints. they are thought to confer beneficial traits to the mosquitoes, allowing their carriers to distribute widely across a plethora of environments. here, we focus on two sister species of the anopheles gambiae complex: anopheles gambiae s.s. and anopheles coluzzii. the two are among the most widely spread and efficient vectors. a lot of what we know about inversions today was possible due to intensive cytogenetic karyotyping, a method widely accepted but limiting in the sense that it is life stage and sex specific. evidence suggests that inversions are related to epidemiological relevant traits (plasmodium infection rate, indoor/outdoor resting and biting behavior). understanding the presence of inversion polymorphism in the complex will not only facilitate characterization of these species but will advance the understanding of malaria transmission. we can no longer rely on inversion blind vector control approaches. recognizing that malaria is not only a health burden but an economic one, we present here cost-effective assays to molecularly karyotype inversion polymorphisms for two inversions in the right arm of chromosome 2. by using a group of recently identified single nucleotide polymorphisms (snps) that correlate with inversion status, we have created polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphisms (pcr-rflp) assays. the assays augment the limited but accepted cytogenetic karyotyping method, therefore advancing the study of the role of inversions. this dissertation focuses on hometown associations (htas) from the state of michoacan with strong transnational links in the chicago metropolitan area. the study explains the impacts of collective remittance projects financed by migrant-led htas at the sociopolitical level and addresses the practices of civic binationality that hometown associations have displayed in the last decade. using archival research, in depth interviews with key players, and participant observation, this work demonstrates that new patterns of binational civic participation in sending and receiving societies have made a modest contribution to more democratic and accountable socio-political environments in high expulsion regions in rural mexico. hta's most significant democratizing practices include pressures by migrant leaders on local governments for greater accountability and stronger voice and representation for outlying villages in municipal decision-making. in terms of organizational capacity, the evidence suggests that michoacano migrant organizations in the united states are transplanted adaptations of rural village organizing systems, and not necessarily the result of an increased exposure to american democratic and philanthropic values during the adaptation process to the host society. the dissertation also describes the evolution of chicago-based michoacano htas during the past decade and reveals that these organizations have been an increasingly more powerful force for social support as well as human, labor, and immigrant rights advocacy for their members in the united states. htas burgeoning organizational capacity has led to a greater involvement in the social and political issues affecting their communities in the host society. this work examines the inner dynamics, organizational challenges, and expanding roles of these groups. the emergence and consolidation of mexican htas is an important outcome produced by expanded flows of family remittances in the north american corridor. until recent years, htas, the most prevalent form of voluntary-sector activity among first-generation mexican migrants in the u.s, were solely portrayed as an important mechanism for the promotion of local development through their collective remittances and philanthropic work in mexico. this new system of binational organizing needs to be interpreted as a potentially democratizing element, one involving the expansion of substantive citizenship practices and identities in transnational contexts. to support resilience in contexts of migration, a deeper understanding of the experiences of both receiving communities and migrants is required. limited research has investigated migration and the perceived impact of migration on communities in contexts with high numbers of community members who have migrated within their country of origin (here, internal migration). the present study uses qualitative and quantitative data drawn from a sample of pregnant women (n=251), 87 of whom reported being internal migrants and 164 of whom reported being from the locale of the study (i.e., canto grande district in lima, perú). the study had three goals. first, the study aimed to better understand women's internal migration experiences and non-migrant and internal migrant women's views of the impact of migration on their community using two qualitative analytic methods (i.e., thematic analysis and a natural language processing (nlp) tool, linguistic inquiry and word count [liwc] software). second, the study explored differences between the migrant and non-migrant groups in mental health, intimate partner violence, adverse childhood experiences, and sentiments toward migration. third, associations between migration attitudes, adversity (i.e., adverse childhood experiences and intimate partner violence), and mental health (i.e., depression and ptsd) were evaluated. both qualitative analyses of community data highlighted that there is a more positive perception of internal than of international migration in this context. the thematic analysis of migration experiences revealed trends in challenges, motivations, and adjustments for women who migrated to lima, some of which (crime, nature differences, enjoyment, and being forced to migrate) significantly predicted mental health outcomes. adversity and migration history were important predictors of both depression and ptsd severity. overall, we found that women who migrated had better mental health (i.e. significantly lower levels of depression and ptsd symptoms) compared to non-migrants, although there were no significant differences in experiences of adversity. these findings indicate that there may be protective factors associated with internal migration, which could inform future mental health interventions and research.keywords: emigration, pregnancy, intimate partner violence, adverse childhood experiences, community, thematic analysis, mixed methods semiconductor based deep ultraviolet (&lt;280 nm) optoelectronics has versatile applications in current state of art industrial/research facility. but as shorter wavelengths are approached, a number of fundamental challenges are encountered which hinder the realization of energy efficient deep-uv optical emission. though optical devices in the entire uv spectral window have been demonstrated by using iii-n semiconductors and their alloys, the overall efficiency of such deep uv emitters is still well below 10%. in this work, we investigate novel heterostructure designs to overcome these basic challenges. instead of the conventional ternary algan alloy quantum wells in the active region of the devices, we explore the use of ultra-thin binary gan quantum structures. with binary gan we investigate the effect of the quantum structures on deep-uv emission properties related to compositional fluctuations in ternary alloy wells with a goal to obtain reproducible emission wavelengths in the deep-uv window. remarkably, extreme quantum confinement with 1-2 monolayer thick gan quantum wells and quantum dots results deep-uv emission down to 219 nm (5.66 ev), which is more than 2.0 ev above the bulk bandgap of gan. these wavelengths are the shortest reported till date in such semiconductor heterostructures. the internal quantum efficiencies of the dots and wells are compared in the deep uv regime and dots are found to be 2x more efficient than wells for ~220 nm emission. in an attempt to reduce threading dislocations through the light emitting heterostructure to improve the radiative efficiency, epitaxial growth on high quality bulk substrates has been explored. necessary conditions for defect free crystal growth by mbe has been identified and 150% efficiency enhancement was achieved with bulk substrates for 280 nm emission. the experimental results were also compared with theoretical calculations showing decent agreement. to improve the injection efficiency, polarization-induced doping and tunnel-injection assisted deep-uv leds were then fabricated from the molecular beam epitaxy grown heterostructures. deep-uv emission down to 232 nm was successfully demonstrated. a low turn-on voltage and temperature-independent behavior was achieved as a proof of concept for the effectiveness of polarization-induced doping. negative-differential-resistance (ndr) phenomena was observed consistently for active regions with these ultrathin gan quantum structures, signifying esaki-type superlattice tunneling in the active region. a 250 nm deep uv led has been demonstrated on the bulk substrates by mbe showing improved rectification properties. future work will comprise of exploring low leakage deep-uv led designs on bulk substrates including tunnel junctions to improve metal contacts. also deep-uv lasers will be designed and fabricated. between 1984 and 2010, the 'english-only' movement successfully lobbied for legislation to make english the official language of 24 states and to restrict bilingual public education in three others. using county-level data on voting outcomes in states that voted on anti-bilingual-education laws, i evaluate both classand status-based explanations for movement support. i find support for the status-based power devaluation perspective &#8212; an alternative to the dominant theories of symbolic politics &#8212; and for a 'new nativism' grounded in fiscal conservatism. ironically, support for english-only legislation tends to be highest where immigrants are making the most gains in terms of language acquisition. this is a an analysis of the political, cultural, and art historical precedents set by the thebans in their construction of a permanent victory trophy after their victory over the spartans at leuktra in 371 b.c. although social movement scholars have clarified how gender moderates activist recruitment and participation, research has yet to examine how gender moderates the effect of demonstration participation on individual political empowerment. research on social movement consequences, furthermore, has focused on macro-level movement outcomes and has relatively underemphasized the personal consequences of demonstration participation. to develop these areas, i use european social survey (ess) data to examine how gender moderates the effects of demonstration participation on individuals' feelings of political empowerment, as measured through self-reported internal and external political efficacy. results indicate that participation boosts the political empowerment of men. women protesters, however, exhibit mixed results, with boosts in empowerment on the measure of internal political efficacy, but not external political efficacy. this suggests that institutional barriers to political participation and the relatively high risk-potential of protest—even when legal and routine—continue to affect women and men differently. in making this argument, i contribute to the literature on how gender moderates protest participation and experience, and thereby, i also reinforce the need to focus on the effects of participation in discrete protest events. this dissertation outlines two experiments aimed at investigating how adults learn words in a second language (l2) that do not have one exact equivalent in the first language (l1). in experiment 1 participants learned a set of vocabulary words in an artificial l1, followed by a new set of vocabulary in an artificial l2. results revealed that participants had greater difficulty with differentiation &#0151 learning two specific words in the l2 that corresponds to a single, more general equivalent in the l1 (e.g., a native english speaker learning the two forms of to know in spanish &#0151 saber and conocer), than they did with unitization &#0151 learning a single, general word in the l2 that corresponds to two, more specific l1 words (e.g., a native spanish speaker leaning the single form of to know in english). in experiment 2 participants performed a similar task, except when differentiating, the two l2 words had an asymmetrical relationship in terms of how general their meanings were (e.g., saber, which refers to knowing things factually or how to do things, is more general than conocer, which refers to knowing people or places personally). frequency of these words was manipulated, so that for half of the participants, the more general word occurred more frequently, as is often the case in natural language. for the other half of participants, frequency of these items was held constant. it was predicted, and confirmed that those in the different frequency group would have greater difficulty learning the specific words that were differentiated in the l2, as opposed to the general words. results from both experiments 1 and 2 confirm predictions of the competition model (2008) concerning the relative difficulty of differentiation versus unitization, and the effects of word frequency on l2 learning. a spatial description often includes a target object that is being searched for, a reference object that serves as the starting point for the search, and spatial terms that describe the spatial relation between the two objects. it has been frequently assumed that speakers select reference objects that are salient relative to the available contrast set. of interest to the current research is determining which salience dimensions speakers attend to during the process of reference object selection. in two experiments, participants were asked to provide spatial descriptions for given targets in displays that included two reference object candidates. these candidates were manipulated along conceptual, perceptual, and spatial dimensions to determine which are computed by speakers during reference object selection, and the relative importance of each type. results suggest that while perceptual salience was considered most important by participants, all three forms of salience were computed during reference object selection. social movements literature views repression as a barrier to movement mobilization and success. while it is acknowledged that repression can energize activism short-term, we still don't quite know how mobilization be sustained by unsuccessful movements over decades. in this paper, data assembled from participant observation and interviews with key informants from a social movement organization in northern ireland demonstrate how repression affects the everyday lives of activists. findings indicate that activist identities are made salient both by acts of repression and a consistently looming threat of repression. repression invigorates identity but drains scarce movement resources. to make up for resource loss, movements enact protests and ceremonies to recoup. this paper contributes a process of identity, repression, and resources that sustains activist identity and movement participation in the long-term without movement success, hinting that movements can be reliant upon state repression. this research examines the use of passive and active blade-mounted flow control to reduce the unwanted losses associated with the blade tip clearance flow in a stationary, open-return, rectilinear turbine cascade at one atmosphere.traditional flow control techniques have focused on passive methods to improve the aerodynamics in the tip region. however passive methods can create increased heat transfer coefficients on the blade tip and clearance endwall, leading to blade degradation. to improve on these methods, various active flow control methods were designed and tested. the active control was designed to improve the clearance flow aerodynamics without introducing negative heat transfer effects. the flow control methods implemented were single dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuators of various designs and a passive partial suction-side squealer design. the passive squealer was used to benchmark the active designs against a known favorable device.the tip clearance flow was investigated over reynolds numbers ranging from 53,000 to 104,000 at clearance heights between one and four percent of axial blade chord. the tip clearance flow was documented using flow visualization and pressure measurements on the blade and endwall surfaces, inlet endwall boundary layer surveys, and wake pressure measurements downstream of the blade. these were carried out in order to understand the receptivity of the tip clearance flow to various types of flow control and the applicable range over which the flow control was effective.the plasma actuator designs caused a reduction in the downstream total pressure loss coefficient ranging between 2% to 12%, depending on reynolds number, while the passive squealer showed a change of approximately 40%. the results show that the plasma actuator was able to favorably mitigate the adverse effects of the tip clearance flow in a similar manner as the squealer tip, without the drawbacks of the passive method. plasma actuation was demonstrated as a suitable as a means of reducing the tip clearance flow loss. in this dissertation, i focus on two broad questions. first, what are the interconnections and the underlying driving forces of stock return and bond yields? understanding the cross-assets dynamics and their economic determinants is important to both policymakers' and investors' decision-making, since the interest rates and stock return reflect the macroeconomic expectations for the future state of the economy. this leads to my second question: what are the implications of the empirical behavior of asset returns for the optimal decisions made by investors? along these lines, in the first chapter of the dissertation, i provide an introduction to the development of the asset pricing models and the portfolio allocation models. in the second chapter, i build on the arbitrage-free asset pricing model to simultaneously price u.s. aggregate stock and the cross-section of treasury bonds, and account for the time-varying equity risk premium and bond risk premium in a unified framework. the model imposes restrictions on the cross-assets dynamics to preclude arbitrage opportunities at any point in time. with the risk factors constructed from the asset return data and macroeconomic data, the model is able to generate considerably small pricing errors for aggregate stock return and treasury yields. also, the model-implied equity and bond risk premiums show marked countercyclical patterns. since a rational utility maximizing investor requires higher compensation for the exposure to risk during recessions, the estimated countercyclical patterns of the risk premiums are consistent with the theoretical models. in the third chapter, i explore whether the horizon based asset allocation strategy, that is popular among investment professionals, is optimal for investors. to do so, i develop a dynamic portfolio choice model that incorporates two sources of risks that investors face: the time-varying equity risk premium and the uncertainty in labor income. the optimal portfolio weight on stock depends on the relative magnitude of the correlation between aggregate stock return and equity risk premium, and the correlation between aggregate stock return and labor income. nanomagnet logic (nml) is an emerging device technology that exploits the magnetic state of nanoscale magnets to encode logic values. nml is being considered as a potential replacement for current charge-based technologies (namely, cmos transistors) in order to achieve increased performance in terms of energy, delay, and/or area. the potential advantages of nml are: devices are non-volatile and radiation hard, device switching events consume little power, devices are scalable to the superparamagnetic limit, and there is a clear path to implementation that leverages current cmos fabrication techniques. the goal of this work is to advance the state of the art for nml in order to realize these potential advantages at the application and architecture levels. in order to evaluate the ultimate performance of nml, methods are needed to bridge the gaps between the device and circuit levels, and between the circuit and architecture and application levels. this dissertation thus considers methods to analyze nml device-to-device interactions that allow for the design of complex circuits. next, this work considers the interaction between nml circuits and the clock required to re-evaluate the circuits. specifically considered is how to model a proposed clock structure to determine its effects on nml circuit logical correctness, power, and energy requirements. furthermore, this dissertation shows how uni-directional dataflow can be accomplished in the context of these realistic clock structures. this study of nml clocking allows for three studies at the architecture and application levels. first, this work shows how even with the energy consumed in the proposed clock, nml could outperform cmos in terms of the energy delay product for a ripple carry adder benchmark. second, this dissertation demonstrates how to realize non-volatility in nml in order to enable non-volatile nml shift registers with low energy operation. finally, this work demonstrates how nml could fit into a stochastic computing architecture to provide performance improvements over conventional and stochastic cmos equivalents. this dissertation takes a probabilistic approach to analyze cellular networks, with an emphasis on the spatial aspect. this approach is substantiated by the increasingly dense and irregular deployment of base stations as well as the need for tractability for advanced network analysis. for instance, in recent developments, the ultra-reliable and low-latency communications (urllc) is introduced as a keystone to support mission-critical applications; there is also a shift of emphasis from the average/peak performance to a seamless user experience. these developments require guaranteed performance at the link level under varied propagation conditions, interference, and so on. to model these variations, the framework of stochastic geometry is developed, with the primary goal of refining the network analysis to the link level.previously, network metrics are often analyzed in ways that obscure the effects of multiple sources of spatial and temporal randomness. an important example is the success probability, defined through the distribution of the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (sinr). the sinr is subject to randomness both temporally and spatially, including the small-scale fading and the large-scale propagation loss. distinguishing their effects is a crucial step towards the analysis of next-generation networks. the dissertation consists of three parts. in the first part, we study the sinr meta distribution, which defines the individual link reliability by first conditioning on the spatial locations of base stations. exploiting the independence between the small-scale fading and large-scale path loss, we derive the separability of the meta distributions for arbitrary fading. in the second part, we quantify the performance gap between the typical user and the cell edge users; then we investigate cooperative transmissions to improve the performance of the latter. the last part focuses on the correlation between the irregular base station deployment and the large-scale propagation conditions. we show that properly accounting for this correlation reveals a critical deployment gain over models that ignore the dependence. type ia supernovae have become fundamental tools for cosmology, but their progenitors, explosion mechanism, and dependence on environment remain key problems to be solved to improve their reliability as cosmological distance estimators. this thesis presents research into the nature of sn ia explosions and their environments, and discusses ongoing efforts to understand systematic errors in sn ia distance measurements. using sdss-ii sne, the 2-stretch fitting method was developed for sn ia light curves. the 2-stretch method allows the rise and decline portions of the light curve to be fit separately, and as a result, i have discovered that sn ia light curves with a normal decline rate show a large variation in rise times. this departure from the single stretch model also results in an average rise time of about 17.5 days, 2 days shorter than previously accepted results. while accurate measurements of the rise time do not significantly improve cosmological results, they do improve the estimate of 56-ni yield, which is an important constraint in theoretical modeling of sn ia explosions. using the 2-stretch fitter, a search was conducted for shock interactions between the exploding white dwarf and a potential companion star in the single degenerate progenitor channel. no evidence was found for shocks in an sdss-ii sample of about 100 sne, and simulations indicated that shocks above about 9% of peak sn flux are confidently ruled out. comparing to theoretical models of single degenerate progenitors, this implies a lack of red giant companions and main sequence stars above 6 solar masses as common companions to sne ia. a statistical study of sn ia hubble residuals has focused on the effect of the sn environment, as multiple studies have shown a correlation between host galaxy mass and sn distances. the source of this mass correlation is unknown, but both metallicity and progenitor age are candidate explanations for the observed correlation. i have developed a method of testing the host galaxy correlation with sn ia standardization that utilizes the host galaxy mass and star-formation rate to estimate the metallicity of the environment, and i have shown that the sn distances are strongly correlated with this metallicity estimate. this implies that the sn ia correlation with host galaxy mass is tracing a correlation with the metallicity. squaraine dyes are a unique class of near-infrared fluorophores that have fascinated researchers because of their interesting donor-acceptor structure and their electron deficient aromatic core. while these moieties make them interesting to study, they produce an inherent weakness: the electron deficient core is readily attacked by nucleophiles. this deficiency should preclude them from use as in vivo fluorescent probes, an area where they could be very effective. this topic was addressed in 2005 by a publication from our group which placed the squaraine dye inside a phenylene tetralactam macrocyclic receptor in a low yielding five component assembly process. while steric protection of the dye enabled it to survive for prolonged periods of time in serum and solutions of cysteine, the synthetic clipping process resulted in a loss of 70% of the starting dye. to overcome this limitation, a second generation anthracene based tetralactam macrocyle was designed which posessed greater solubility, allowing a ``two component slipping process' to be the key synthetic step. in this disertaiton, data is presented which shows the remarkable supramolecular complementarity of this dye-macrocycle system, which allows for self assembly in highly cometitive environemnts, including the interior of a living cell. also presented are synthetic methods for functionalizing the rotaxane with different ``stopper group' in quantitive coupling reactions. the macrocycle shows interesting supramolecular directing effects, producing diels-alder products at the 1,4 carbons with n-ethylmaleimide. as a rotaxanated structure, the dyes encapsulated by the anthracene macrocycle show interesting strain mediated reactivity with singlet molecular oxygen and an interesting fluorescent molecular shuttle that uses an aniline derived tetralactam macrocycle which responds to chloride is presented. this dissertation is composed of three essays exploring the macroeconomic consequences of shifts in beliefs about the housing market and changing national security risks. in chapter one, i examine the causal effect of house price expectations on individuals' spending decisions using a survey-based experiment. in the survey, respondents were randomly divided into two groups to receive different professional forecasts of future house prices. exploiting this information treatment as an exogenous source of variation in house price expectations, i show that a one percentage point increase in nationwide house price expectations over the next 12 months leads to about a 0.4 percentage point increase in intended total household spending growth over the same period. this effect is likely driven by an expected increase in housing wealth. i provide evidence that individuals consider the increase in housing wealth as relaxing their borrowing constraints. in chapter two, i investigate the relationship between individuals' house price expectations and their spending intentions using microdata from the new york fed survey of consumer expectations and the michigan survey of consumers. the results suggest that people who expect house prices to rise express greater readiness to increase their household spending and their spending on durable goods. this paper also shows that a positive innovation in house price expectations is followed by an increase in aggregate consumption using a structural var model. in the final chapter, i examine the impact of national security threats on a nation's economic growth and fiscal policy based on a case study of the korean peninsula. the results show that the overall impact of north korean provocations on south korea's short-run economic growth is negligible, but provocations had a significant impact on south korea's economic growth during 1960-1970 and 1992-1997 when inter-korean tensions were high. this paper provides some evidence that south korea's military spending and precautionary saving motive are key channels through which provocations generate these effects. what is the role of the church in a radically secular and pluralistic world in which science and technology set its course, while the prevalence of suffering constantly undermines its progress? this dissertation addresses the issue of the church and world relationship by an analysis of the development of edward schillebeeckx's thought on the issue. it makes two points: firstly, that the shifts in his theology express his consistent effort to see the church as sacrament always in relation to what it symbolizes, that is, god's salvation for humanity revealed in jesus christ; secondly, that schillebeeckx found the church's unique role precisely in the relevance, communicability and credibility of its constructive and critical praxis in the world. to highlight continuity, this dissertation examines his multiple shifts, roughly divided into three periods: the period of his first major work, that of vatican ii, and that of his engagement with hermeneutics and critical theory. the linchpin of his continuity in discontinuity is sacramentality. from his early existential-phenomenological retrieval of thomas aquinas' theology of the sacraments to his unfinished work on the sacraments as 'metaphorical celebrations,' he pursued a dialectical synthesis of the church and the world. as his theology matured, it became less church-centered, more oriented toward the world, and critical of both the church and the world. the critical impulse came both from the 'foreign prophecy' of the world and from the gospel on which he based the church's praxis of remembrance, actualization and eschatological hope. his developed view on the church and the world found expression in the dialectic of mysticism and politics. in the final chapter, this dissertation offers a case study of an ecclesial response to a controversial environmental project of the korean government, to examine the implications of schillebeeckx's theology for the church's role in the contemporary world. in conclusion, the value of the evolution of schillebeeckx's view is assessed, and the strength of his developed thought reaffirmed, while some ambiguity and the need for further development are exposed in terms of the precise shape of the church's indirect but concrete involvement in the world of politics. in this thesis, various studies of magneto-transport and magneto-optical effects in iii-v and ii-v magnetic semiconductors are presented. the magneo-transport study involved the investigation of the anomalous hall effect (ahe) in (ga,mn)as epilayers with low mn concentration, grown in ultra-high vacuum molecular beam epitaxy (uhv mbe) chamber. experiments were carried out in national high magnetic field laboratory (nhmfl) on a series of samples with same mn concentrations (x = 1.4%) but with various be co-doping levels. we observed a sublinear relationship between the transverse resistivity ì xy and the longitudinal resistivity ì xx with a scaling factor n = 0.5, which has not been predicted theoretically. we also investigated the magneto-optical and magnetic properties of two quaternary diluted magnetic semiconductor (dms) alloys, cd1-x-ymnxcryte and cd1-x-ymnxcoyte grown by the vertical bridgman method, with a fixed mn concentration x ~ 0.37 and, respectively, with concentrations of cr in the range 0 < y < 0.07 and co in the range 0 < y < 0.009. the introduction of cr and co leads to very different behaviors, including the occurrence of ferromagnetic order in the case of cd1-x-ymnxcryte and several interesting optical transitions for cd1-x-ymnxcoyte. we discuss the possible origins of these observed behaviors. last, we focused on dms based nano-structures. magnetic circular dichroism (mcd) studies have been carried out on a series of 1.4 nm thick cdse:mn nano-ribbons synthesized via colloidal chemical route. mcd spectra have been used for investigating the zeeman splitting in these one-dimensional (1d) quantum confined diluted magnetic semiconductor nanostructures. in all samples, a strong mcd signal was found at about 2.9 ev due to a large zeeman splitting of the exciton confined in the nano-ribbon. the zeeman splitting is a result of strong sp-d exchange interaction between the electronic holes of the nano-ribbons and localized magnetic moment of mn2+ ions. our results suggest that the sign of the s-d exchange parameter ìøåá in these nanoribbons is inverted with respect to cdmnse bulk value due to the admixture of the valence band wave functions to the conduction band ones. there are an estimated 216 million cases of malaria worldwide resulting in 655,000 deaths. plasmodium falciparum is the intracellular parasite responsible for the 91% of the world's malaria morbidity and mortality burden in humans. efforts to control and eradicate malaria have been hampered by the accelerated evolution of drug resistance in the parasite. to date, the parasite has developed resistance to all major antimalarial drugs, raising concerns about the spread of drug-resistant parasites and the ability to effectively treat malaria. understanding the genetics and genomics of p. falciparum allows for greater biological insights into drug resistance and virulence of the parasite, allowing for more informed control decisions. the development of molecular tools to assay genomic variation in p. falciparum is crucial. a novel microarray (the cnv-snp array) with an optimized probe design for copy number variation and snp genotyping in the p. falciparum genome is presented that demonstrates variable length and isothermal probes are superior to static length probes. sample preparation and hybridization conditions were optimized to mitigate the effects of host dna contamination in field samples and can identify copy number variants (cnvs) and snps with 95% accuracy in a single hybridization. the advent of in vitro culturing of p. falciparum revolutionized malaria research by allowing for controlled parasite propagation, preservation, and experimentation, but the effect of culture adaptation on the parasite genome has not been comprehensively or experimentally assessed. using comparative genomic hybridization (cgh), copy number fluctuation of parasite isolates adapted to in vitro culture was assessed and show little copy number fluctuation during the course of adaptation. the few copy number changes seen during culture adaptation, do not lessen the power of using culture-adapted parasites in the study of p. falciparum, but advocate caution when using culture-adapted parasites to make inferences on population diversity. the role of dna rearrangements has been largely ignored in malaria biology despite large variation in the plasmodium karyotype, known rearrangements in laboratory lines, and the known influence of copy number variation on drug resistance. the extent and functionality of genome rearrangements in p. falciparum, as well as their origins and evolutionary dynamics, were assessed in 148 parasite samples from southeast asia, (cambodia, laos, and thailand) and africa (malawi and the gambia) using the cnv-snp array. cnv size, gene content, and frequency within and between parasite populations were determined and the roles of drift and selection (positive and purifying) in shaping the cnv distributions evaluated. geographical variation in cnvs were determined and used to better understand the evolution of genome rearrangements in p. falciparum. understanding the genomic components responsible for parasite phenotypes like drug resistance, while vital, is only one aspect of malaria control. economic, social, and political components also play key roles in combating malaria. the difficulties facing national malaria control programs in uganda was assessed in a rural region of uganda and the presence of substandard antimalarials in the private drug market confirmed. there are many aspects to consider in the fight against malaria and requires a broad and comprehensive view to solve. a few tools and findings are outlined in this dissertation with the hopes that it may be of some value in the fight against this deadly scourge. what researchers think they know shapes what more they can learn. this reality has determined academic understandings of myriad topics, including motherhood. in this dissertation, i use quantitative and qualitative data to bring academic understandings of motherhood and non-motherhood into alignment with women's lived experiences, correcting implicit assumptions researchers make, especially in conceptualization and operationalization of "motherhood." in the first chapter, i examine a case where commonly used research methods instantiate an incorrect assumption about motherhood, leading to the creation of false knowledge. while most researchers theorize that having a child would increase a woman's likelihood of voting, statistical studies of motherhood's impact on political behavior have found a null or negative association. i demonstrate that this finding comes not from a surprising reality but rather from an artifact of methodology – specifically, of a methodological approach that treats motherhood as if it were an ascribed characteristic or randomly-assigned treatment. when, instead of the commonly used cross-sectional models, we use models that account for the non-randomness of motherhood, we see a positive impact of motherhood on political behavior. in the second chapter, i argue for codified standards in the emergence of a fairly uncommon research method, visual productive methods, specifically, drawings. using data from questions about motherhood and the relationship between a united states woman and her government, i present a set of codes researchers can use to analyze participant drawings in studies of relationships. these build upon seminal existing work on isolated codes, and bring in other aspects of visual data, to concretize best practices for coding participant-created drawings. in the third chapter, i theorize a category of motherhood that exists beyond current understandings of women as "mother" and "non-mother:" anticipatory mother. building on the sociological literature conceptualizing anticipatory motherhood as a social category, i argue for its existence and impact as many women's shared and lived reality as well. further, i demonstrate that anticipatory motherhood carried with it an aspect of precarity regarding an individual's ability to claim the social identity of motherhood. these chapters individually utilize a range of rigorous methods and draw upon a wide variety of theory; in concert, they push sociological thought toward more relational epistemology of women's experiences. this dissertation examines the evidence for a dependent literary relationship between isaiah 40-55, commonly called 2 isaiah, and the book of job. scholars have long recognized certain similarities between these two works. both emphasize ideas such as the transcendence of god, the lowliness and ignorance of human beings, and the power of god in relation to the creation. the authors of both works show at times a similarity in style of writing. further, 2 isaiah and job share a number of words, phrases, and word strings that are unique within the hebrew bible. finally, both works treat the idea of innocent suffering. some scholars have judged that these similarities are more than coincidental and that one work is dependent on the other, although not all agree on which is the dependent work. one of the primary factors behind the difference of opinion is the uncertainty about the date of job. while 2 isaiah can be reliably dated based on internal evidence, the book of job is very elusive in this regard, and scholars have posited historical contexts for job that span hundreds of years. my project is to take a fresh look at the thematic, stylistic, and verbal similarities between 2 isaiah and job, aided by recent research into the phenomenon of intertextuality, with the goal of ascertaining the probability of a dependent relationship between them, describing the nature of their relationship if such exists, and exploring its implications for interpretation. chapter 1 introduces 2 isaiah and job, particularly theories about the date and nature of their composition and the scope of the texts to be analyzed. chapter 2 summarizes previous research on the relationship between 2 isaiah and job, including problems related to method. i also describe several recent studies on allusion and quotation in literary and biblical studies, including some relating to 2 isaiah and job. i then outline my own procedure for analyzing the similarities between 2 isaiah and job. chapter 3 lists as systematically and comprehensively as possible the specific similarities between 2 isaiah and job in categories of thematic, stylistic, and verbal parallels, and similarities related to the idea of an innocent suffering servant. chapter 4 analyzes the nature and distribution of these similarities in their contexts to determine what conclusions can be reached about the nature of the similarities and the relative chronology of the two works. i conclude that previous research has overstated the evidence for a special relationship between 2 isaiah and job, and that the claim that one work was inspired by or developed straightforwardly from the other does not hold in light of the evidence. nevertheless, i suggest two cases in which it appears as if the author of job is alluding to the text of 2 isaiah. these allusions can be characterized as parody, and are similar to other cases in which the author of job is believed to have parodied forms or specific texts known from elsewhere in the hebrew bible. chapter 5 explores the implications for interpretation of the divine speeches in the book of job when they are read in part as a response to the criticisms leveled by job in these instances of parody. this paper explores three important issues facing various developing countries from an empirical perspective. chapter 1 investigates the effect of workers' remittances on real per capita output growth in developing countries. by addressing important shortcomings, and utilizing static and dynamic panel data techniques, it provides a broader and more conclusive empirical treatment of the remittance-growth relationship than the current literature. two main results are contributed. first, remittances cause significant positive growth in developing countries. second, controlling for weather is necessary to uncover this positive relationship. apart from challenging the currently held view, these results suggest policymakers should actively encourage remittance inflows. chapter 2 asks: 'are caribbean countries feasible candidates for a monetary union?' using a dynamic factor model to determine the share of output growth attributable to global, regional and country-specific factors, symmetry of business cycles among caribbean countries is assessed. this chapter also applies the same analysis to the eu and other proposed ocas (asean+3, gcc and unasur) and compares results across these regions. one main insight provided is that business cycle symmetry among csme members is similar to that among the eu countries prior to forming the eu, suggesting discussions on forming a monetary union in the caribbean are not baseless. this result contrasts with the views of similar recent papers. chapter 3 notes that output growth in emerging markets has responded very differently to shocks originating in developed countries over the 2007 financial crisis, as compared to the 1981, 1990 and 2001 us recessions. it documents this difference in behavior between these two groups and then investigates which is a more significant explanation of the change: size of the shock or structural change? additionally, if it is propagation, what factors are associated with the underlying structural change? three main results are reported. first, structural change within emerging markets played a bigger role than the size of the us shocks. second, the structural change was oriented particularly towards the us. third, the structural change was associated with trade factors and not financial factors. these findings are important to policymakers seeking to diversify investment risks through particular country groups. advancing our understanding of biological phenomena can be carried out through two complementary approaches: modeling and simulation of biological processes and bioinformatic analysis of genomic data. modeling and simulation serves to provide tests of the plausibility and robustness of proposed biological mechanisms, and they can suggest previously unknown but experimentally testable hypotheses from known biological interactions. bioinformatic analysis strives to discover meaningful patterns from genomic and other data that serve as hypotheses about the structure and function of genome features and their relationship among organisms. this dissertation addresses the challenge of both approaches through modeling and simulation of limb chondrogenesis and novel algorithms and computational tools for multiple organism comparative genomics. the backlog of untested sexual assault kits (saks) has become a major crisis, resulting in hundreds of thousands of unresolved cases across the united states. the processing of saks relies on the genetic analysis of material extracted from gynecological swabs collected from the assault victim. a vital step in producing an identifiable dna profile of the perpetrator, is the effective separation of perpetrator (male) and victim (female) dna from the collected evidence. in this work, a capillary zone electrophoresis system was developed for the separation of intact sperm from whole and lysed epithelial cells in saks. the separated components were deposited into individual wells of a microtiter plate using a computer-controlled fraction collector, and quantitative pcr was used to verify the collection of sperm cells by targeted amplification of male dna. the technology was verified with simulated sexual assault samples that were aged for up to 18 months, as well as vaginal swabs from authentic forensic kits, demonstrating a clean separation and collection of sperm cells for downstream analysis. ionic liquids (ils) are organic salts with low melting points (below 100°c). they are attractive for many applications because their properties can be tailored by adjusting both the cation and anion. thermal stability is an important factor in many potential applications of ils, such as heat transfer fluids, electrolytes in batteries, and high-temperature lubricants. in addition, energetic ils have been developed for propulsion applications. the basic thermophysical properties, like decomposition temperature, melting point and glass transition temperature, are important for design and evaluation for these applications. in this work, these properties were measured using thermal analysis tools thermogravimetric analysis (tga) and differential scanning calorimetry (dsc).ils are often described as thermally stable based on their relatively high decomposition onset temperatures from tga with open sample crucibles. however, thermal runaway reactions have been observed for some ils with accelerated rate calorimetry (arc) with a closed sample bomb. this information is crucial from a safety standpoint, because the condition in an arc system is similar to the real world thermal environment for many potential application of ils. however, this information is not yet available for most ils due to the fact that relatively large amounts of sample are required for an arc test and the cost of arc itself. in this work, custom-made dsc high-pressure crucibles have been constructed in-house using a micro-welding system containing a jewelry spot welder and a microscope. they were constructed from different metals and alloys, including 304 stainless steel, 316 stainless steel, titanium, tantalum, gold-plated stainless steel 304, and brass. testing ils in different crucibles made from different metal/alloys simulates different real-world storage, transportation, and process operations in the chemical industry. the cost for each pair of crucibles is less than two u.s. dollars. kinetic parameters can be extracted from only a few dsc runs with few milligrams of samples with these crucibles. potential thermal hazard and incompatibilities with commonly used metals/alloys were assessed for selected ils to provide guidance for ils' potential high temperature applications. breast cancer is the most diagnosed cancer in women, affecting one in eight women in the united states, and is the leading cause of cancer related deaths, second only to lung cancer. metastatic breast cancer tumors, rather than the primary tumors themselves, contribute to the patient's death. the most common tissue for breast cancer to metastasize is bone. a major challenge in the study of breast cancer metastasis to bone is the lack of experimental models that target the last steps of the metastatic cascade in the context of the bone microenvironment. in this thesis, i developed a novel methodology to study breast cancer metastasis to the bone ex vivo. after validation of this model as a useful tool for cancer research, i used it to study the effects of paracrine signals sent by the bone, marrow, and cancer cells to promote bone colonization. with our system, i identified multiple cytokines and chemokines as potential players in the progression of breast cancer metastasis to the bone including cxcl5, cxcl2, cxcl10, tnfa, and vegf. proteins associated with cancer initiation, growth, emt, and metastasis. i studied the effects of cxcl5 in our co-culture system of bone and cancer cells. cxcl5 is part of the elr+ subfamily of chemokines and interacts with cxcr2, which is cxcl5's only known functional receptor. i discovered that bone co-cultures of cancer cells with cancer-primed bone induce cancer colonization and secrete higher levels of cxcl5 into the culture media when compared to co-cultures using healthy bones. moreover, addition of exogenous cxcl5 to co-cultures is sufficient to promote cancer cell proliferation and bone colonization in co-culture. furthermore, blocking cxcr2 also reduces cancer cell proliferation and inhibits metastatic colonization of the bone.this study provides a new experimental platform that will allow us to better understand what drives cancer to metastasize to bone and, thus, to develop better treatment options for patients with bone metastasis. this dissertation examines dante's relationship to saint francis and the franciscans. in particular, it takes under examination paradiso 11 along with several other passages where dante mentions either the saint or the friars.paradiso 11 is one of the most important and finest canti of the commedia. dante's poetry reaches one of its peaks as he describes francis's love story with lady poverty. yet, despite the undoubted admiration and respect for francis, dante's attitude towards the franciscan friars seems to go on the opposite direction. indeed, in several passages of his oeuvre dante despises the franciscans for their hypocritical behavior, as they praise poverty while living in luxury and commodities.in this dissertation, i argue that paradiso 11's lady poverty is a personification of true renunciation, and that explains why and how francis is so central to the commedia. the key notion in what poverty means for dante is detachment, or renunciation, which is the opposite of greed, the most terrible sin in dante's view. as francis is the true standard-bearer of renunciation, dante represents him as the rightful heir of christ, a prophet sent by god to redeem christianity. on the contrary, most franciscans of dante's time are not the rightful heirs of francis, as they either are hypocrites who do not really care about renunciation, or they believe that poverty is an end in itself without understanding the spiritual principle of perfect renunciation which lies behind poverty. this dissertation examines american literary travel writing published from 1835-1862, a period during which changing environmental and social conditions began to reshape traditional narrative forms. while the modern tourism industry began to emerge, ushering in a proliferation of travel writing in books, periodicals, and guidebooks, some authors considered the more disturbing or unsettling elements of travel, experimenting with digressions, fragmentation, shifts in genre, and surprising breaks in readers' expectations in order to depict and to enact a disturbance to one's more established sense of the world. in doing so, they confronted the disconnect between established ways of writing and thinking about travel and the realities of indian removal, environmental degradation, and american expansion. henry david thoreau and others came to call these experiments excursions, a newly reimagined narrative form which came to shape both literary writing and actual experience. examining works by thoreau as well as washington irving, margaret fuller, george william curtis, and george copway, among others, i identify in the excursion form a distinctive pattern in which the traveler departs from home, encounters some unexpected and surprising situation, and then returns with a new sense of the wider world, and often with a new sense of home, too. by considering such texts today, readers and scholars can begin to understand how literary practices might come to reshape our present understanding of the world, including the dramatic social and environmental changes attributable to climate change, human migration, and globalism. to that end, this dissertation concludes by examining twenty-first century writing by barry lopez, in which the excursion form offers a vital starting point for considering nonfiction literatures of the anthropocene. the number of proteins with known function is greatly dwarfed by the number of known proteins. wet-lab experiments to determine protein function are costly in both time and resources. thus, there is a need to computationally determine protein functions. as protein function is closely related to protein structure, in this thesis we describe two novel, network-based approaches for capturing, describing, and understanding protein structure. the first deals with the problem of protein structural classification. recently, approaches that model protein 3d structures as networks have been positioned as a state-of-the-art solution for solving this problem. however, all existing network-based approaches approaches used a static network to capture the final, native structure of a protein for classification. instead, our new approach uses a dynamic network to capture information about the emerging (sub)structure of a protein for classification. we find that our dynamic network-based approach greatly improves on the previous, static network-based approaches. this opens up future possibilities to explore protein folding-related research questions using dynamic, rather than static, psns. the second approach, also modeling protein 3d structures as networks, takes beginning steps to understand the relatively unknown role of synonymous codons in the protein folding process. most amino acids are encoded for by more than one codon. the codons that encode a particular amino acid are called synonymous codons. using synonymous codons, two different codon sequences can produce identical amino acid sequences. we are interested in studying whether which synonymous codon is used impacts the resulting protein 3d structure or fold. we study this by leveraging network-based centrality measures to determine trends describing the relative positions of synonymous codons in a protein. in the long run the work discussed in this thesis may contribute to understanding of how protein structure is folded. poetry and an experimental screenplay written during 2008-2010. recent advances in plasma technology have realized the formation of controllable plasmas under ambient conditions, including atmospheric pressure plasma jets (appjs). due to vast production of reactive species at room temperatures, appjs reveal promising capabilities in treating heat-sensitive biological surfaces, particularly serve as a potential tool for cancer therapy. since the interactions of appjs with living systems involve physio-chemical processes in the gas and liquid phases which initiate biological processes in cells, lack of comprehensive knowledge of these processes impede the further development of appjs for clinical usages. therefore, my research is focused on the understanding of the mechanisms underlying these interactions tackled by physical, chemical, and biological approaches.in the first stage of my experimental work i characterize gas phase species in appjs using optical emission spectroscopy. varieties of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species are observed, which can propagate towards aqueous targets for further interactions. liquid-phase reactive species formed after plasma treatment are quantified mainly by a chemical dosimetry method. the plasma-induced chemistry is found to occur at the liquid surface and depends on the liquid surface area, suggesting the plasma treatment is superficial. the first biological sample applied in my study is isolated dna in an aqueous solution, which is a relatively simple system for investigating the plasma's effects on genetic biomolecules comparing to the complex cellular system. by using gel electrophoresis, a significant level of dna strand breaks are detected after appj treatment with longer exposures at closer locations to the jet. next, a layer of cells in an aqueous solution is applied for probing the effective area, effectiveness, and selectivity of plasma treatment. the effective area is found enlarged with longer plasma exposures with high dna damage levels for cancer cells but not for normal cells. severely damaged cancer cells undergo cell death after long post-treatment times. the damage of cancer cells is further identified to be prominently induced during dna synthesis phase of the cell cycle.these results reveal crucial information of physical, chemical, and biological changes during multiphase plasma-cell interactions, and thus contribute to the further development of appjs as an effective and safe therapeutic tool for cancer treatment. uranyl peroxide cage clusters include a large family of more than 50 published clusters of a variety of sizes, which can incorporate various ligands including pyrophosphate and oxalate. previous studies have reported that uranyl clusters can be used as a method to separate uranium from a solid matrix, with potential applications in reprocessing of irradiated nuclear fuel. because of the potential applications of these novel structures in an advanced nuclear fuel cycle and their likely presence in areas of contamination, it is important to understand their behavior in both solid state and aqueous systems, including complex environments where other ions are present. in this thesis, i examine the aqueous behavior of u24pp12, as well as aqueous cluster systems with added mono-, di-, and trivalent cations. the resulting solutions were analyzed using dynamic light scattering and ultra-small angle x-ray scattering to evaluate the species in solution. precipitates of these systems were analyzed using powder x-ray diffraction, x-ray fluorescence spectrometry, and raman spectroscopy. the results of these analyses demonstrate the importance of cation size, charge, and concentration of added cations on the aqueous behavior of uranium macroions. specifically, aggregates of various sizes and shapes form rapidly upon addition of cations, and in some cases these aggregates appear to precipitate into an x-ray amorphous material that still contains u24pp12 clusters. in addition, i probe aggregation of u24pp12 and u60, another uranyl peroxide cage cluster, in mixed solvent water-alcohol systems. the aggregation of uranyl clusters in water-alcohol systems is a result of hydrogen bonding with polar organic molecules and the reduction of the dielectric constant of the system. studies of aggregation of uranyl clusters also allow for comparison between the newer uranyl polyoxometalate family and century-old transition metal polyoxometalates. to complement the solution studies of uranyl cage clusters, solid state analyses of u24pp12 are presented, including single crystal x-ray diffraction and preliminary single crystal neutron diffraction. solid state analyses are used to probe the complicated bonding environments between u24pp12 and crystallized counterions, giving further insight into the importance of cluster protonation and counterions in uranyl cluster systems. the combination of solid state and solution techniques provides information about the complicated nature of uranyl peroxide nanoclusters, and insight towards future applications of clusters in the advanced nuclear fuel cycle and the environment. development in deep learning algorithms significantly boosts the performance of digital forensics applications, such as media phylogeny, optical character recognition(ocr), face recognition, and scene text spotting. as the neural networks achieved advanced results, the depth, and width of the architecture inevitably increase. neural networks are data-driven which indicates that the more complex a neural network is, the more data it requires to train to converge. therefore it is of great importance to generate and provide enough training data with good quality to models.in this work, i studied various approaches to collect, augment and generate training data to help to solve forensics tasks using deep learning algorithms. i firstly explored traditional and state-of-the-art natural language processing algorithms and applied them to forensics tasks in real-world settings. then i integrated a language model into a handwritten text recognition task to correct texts recognized by ocr algorithms. the training process is benefited from generating synthetic texts with spelling errors. moving from language-related forensics tasks to forensics in the computer vision area, i attempted to propose methods to generate data that can help the training process of various deep learning algorithms. i developed a 3d engine-powered virtual city generator for synthetic data collection. this virtual city generator can create an unlimited amount of synthetic data for various city scene-related computer vision tasks. i then applied it to a forensics study relates to the human perception of synthetic faces. finally, i proposed a method to solve the arbitrarily shaped scene text detection problem. scene texts provide important forensics information and how to extract them accurately has been an active research area for years. i proposed a modified loss function that can help the regression of polygon shapes which significantly simplifies the model architecture and expedite the training process. therefore we can achieve arbitrarily shaped scene text detection with a comparable performance of state-of-the-art algorithms at a real-time speed. the training process is supported by a new synthetic data generation approach that focused on curved and irregular-shaped text instances. in the end, i created a new large-scale synthetic scene texts dataset that contributes to the research community. the start to a novel, legends of robert alvarez, and a collection of short fiction. the results of the analysis of the higgs boson decaying into two photons with the 2016 cms dataset are described. the analysis isperformed using the dataset recorded by the cms experiment at the lhc from pp collisions at center-of-mass energies of 13 tevcorresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9/fb. events were classified to maximize signal efficiency and to study gluon fusion,vector boson fusion, vector boson associated production, and top fusion higgs boson production modes. the observed significance at mh= 125.09 gev is 1.16+-0.15 times the standard model expectation. signal strengths for the different higgs boson production modes, coupling modifiers to bosons and fermions, and effective couplings to photons and gluons are also presented. in this dissertation we focus on three topics in wireless communication: 1) design of spatially coupled low-density parity-check (sc-ldpc) codes over gf(q) for windowed decoding (wd), 2) cooperative communication in the context of bandwidth-efficient modulation, and 3) the use of rate-compatible sc-ldpc codes in binary coded cooperation. as for the first topic, we consider the generalization of binary sc-ldpc codes to finite fields gf(q), q>=2, and discuss design rules for q-ary sc-ldpc code ensembles based on their iterative belief propagation (bp) decoding thresholds, with particular emphasis on low-latency wd. we consider transmission over both the binary erasure channel (bec) and the binary-input additive white gaussian noise channel (biawgnc), and present results for a variety of (j,k)-regular sc-ldpc code ensembles constructed over gf(q) using protographs. thresholds are calculated using protograph versions of q-ary density evolution (for the bec) and q-ary extrinsic information transfer analysis (for the biawgnc). we show that wd of q-ary sc-ldpc codes provides significant threshold gains compared to corresponding (uncoupled) q-ary ldpc block code (ldpc-bc) ensembles when the window size w is large enough; we also show that these gains increase as the finite field size q=2^m increases. moreover, we demonstrate that our design rules provide wd thresholds that are close to capacity, even when both m and w are relatively small (thereby reducing complexity and latency). analysis shows that, compared to standard flooding-schedule decoding, wd of q-ary sc-ldpc code ensembles results in significant reductions in both decoding complexity and decoding latency, and that these reductions increase as m increases. for applications with a near-threshold performance requirement and a constraint on decoding latency, we show that using q-ary sc-ldpc code ensembles, with moderate q>2 instead of their binary counterparts results in reduced decoding complexity. regarding the second topic, we consider a communication scenario in which a pair of cooperating partners (i.e., two source nodes) convey their data to a common destination. to mitigate fading, each partner transmits its own local data and acts as a relay for the other partner. specifically, relaying is incorporated into the channel coding function: local data (originating at the transmitting node) and relayed data (originating at the partner of the transmitting node) are encoded separately, and the resulting bitstreams are then multiplexed together prior to bandwidth-efficient modulation (e.g., 8-psk, 16-qam, etc.) in such a way that the relayed coded bits partition the signal constellation into sparse subsets, as in ungerboeck's set partitioning approach to coded modulation. the partner, having knowledge of the relayed bits, is able to demodulate each block-faded and noise-corrupted symbol using the appropriate sparse sub-constellation, improving the partner-to-partner link. the destination benefits in two ways: indirectly from the increased diversity made possible by the enhanced partner-to-partner link, and directly by exploiting the set-partition labeling. outage results and frame error rate simulations using low-density parity-check codes demonstrate substantial performance gain, fundamentally and practically, over the conventional 'time-sharing' approach to cooperation. finally, for the third topic, we investigate the use of rate-compatible sc-ldpc codes for binary coded cooperation. in the same 'two sources, one destination' model as described above, one source node relays additional parity-check bits for its partner's latest transmission to provide cooperative diversity at the destination. different families of sc-ldpc code ensembles are generated by applying the edge spreading technique to several good rate-compatible protograph-based ldpc-bc ensembles from the literature. simulation of the outage behavior shows that, using sc-ldpc code ensembles, system performance approaches the theoretical limit, regardless of whether the original uncoupled ldpc-bc ensembles were designed specifically for coded cooperation or not. the same result holds when wd is used to reduce decoding latency. protest participation speaks to group and individual civic engagement patterns, and collective identity mechanisms. using the 2011 national survey of protest events (nspe), this paper investigates the question: how does u.s. flag use in protests vary by the racial composition of the protest? a critical analysis of the racist, colonialist, and exclusionary creation of the u.s. flag, theories on insider and outsider dynamics, as well as the racial formation process, demonstrate how the u.s. flag has been largely coopted by majority white protest groups, and majority non-white protest groups are less likely to use the flag in their claims making efforts. this project contributes to our understanding of the relationship between race, social movements, and collective identity. frequent negative imagery and impoverished positive imagery mark depression, and the presence of intense and intrusive negative imagery predicts suicidality. given visual imagery's greater impact on a person's emotion relative to verbal statements, it is important to understand mechanisms and processes underlying positive and negative mental visual imagery in depression. i examined whether imagery generation, maintenance, vividness, and emotionality were associated with imagery valence and severity of depressive symptoms and whether working memory underlay the relation between imagery and severity of depressive symptoms. to this end, a total of 140 participants completed the modified version of the computerized image duration task and the affective reading span task. positive imagery was more vivid and longer maintained than negative imagery, reflecting the presence of an adaptive bias in the healthy population. inconsistent with the hypotheses, however, image generation, maintenance, and vividness did not differ either by the valence or the level of depressive symptoms. further, maintenance of positive and negative imagery was not associated with inhibition of negative information. partially consistent with the hypotheses, however, with higher levels of depressive symptoms, positive imagery generated with a concurrent task was significantly less emotionally intense than positive imagery generated alone. generating less intense positive imagery when also engaged in another task may impede with mood repair techniques and thus help maintain depressed mood. this dissertation investigates the ways that anglo-saxon poets used the poetry of prayer to imagine and fashion a world for their early medieval audiences. utilizing a phenomenological perspective and insights from the discipline of anthropology, the project is intended to develop and add greater weight to the cultural and historical context of our early literary records. i present the divine economy &mdash; the comprehensive christian view of the world in which god intervenes for humanity's salvation &mdash; as the central mythopoetic story that shaped and ordered the anglo-saxons' world. in this light, the prayer poems i read become sites for the individual's participation in and appropriation of the imaginal order of the divine economy, thus transforming the "story" into a "drama." for greater contextual depth, each chapter's analysis is structured around a broader discussion of a fundamental aspect of the early medieval christian worldview. by weaving together focused analyses of aspects of the anglo-saxon christian world and detailed readings of how a wide variety of old english poems imagine this world, i provide a more fully articulated picture of how anglo-saxon christians understood themselves, the world around them, and their role within it. my introductory chapter establishes the historical background and the conceptual framework for reading the poetry of prayer used throughout the entire dissertation. chapter two elaborates upon the nature of prayer's performance in anglo-saxon england through analysis of the small group of texts known as the old english "metrical charms." my third chapter shifts focus to a primary element in any culture's worldview, the understanding of time. chapter four complements chapter three by analyzing the christian anglo-saxon understanding of space. chapter five focuses on the ecclesial community that lives together in this early medieval christian world, complementing my attention to the individual subject in chapter two. with this turn toward community within and beyond time, i bring together the various imaginal elements used to fashion the divine economy in old english prayer poetry and assess how they work together to reveal a coherent vision of the anglo-saxon christian world. it has become more evident that many proteins experience activity regulation via binding of small molecules or other proteins to sites that are distal from the active site. this phenomenon, commonly referred to as allostery, plays an important role as a mechanism for signal transduction within and between proteins to make up the complex cellular information networks. proteins of modular design represent a unique class of proteins that construct such information systems whereby a docking module and a loosely connected module of catalytic function operate in concert to achieve optimal activity for the viability of the cell. in this case, inter-domain signal transduction is carried out by the process known as modular allostery. unlike the classic intra-domain allosteric mechanism, modular allostery is also associated with large inter-domain structural transitions to regulate activity. for instance, ligand binding at one domain may control access of substrate to the active site of another domain by directly blocking the active site or indirectly via a distal allosteric site. pin1 is a model system of an allosteric protein of modular design which consists of the binding ww domain that is flexibly tethered to a peptidyl-prolyl cis-trans isomerase (ppiase) domain. pin1 recognizes and catalyses the cis-trans conversion of the peptidyl pser/pthr-pro bond of many targets. variations in the substrate 'input' sequence induces differential processing by pin1, thereby modulating the resultant 'output' activities for binding and/or catalysis. the isolated domains only hold part of the full activity that is observed when they are linked. although the ww domain has no catalytic activity, its absence has deleterious consequences on the catalytic activity of pin1. in addition, ligand interaction results in inter-domain coupling. therefore, a mode of information transformation exists that qualifies the ww as an allosteric modulator of the activity of pin1-ppiase. the underlying molecular processes for site to site communication in proteins are thought to involve conformational transitions that are propagated between the active site and the allosteric site. the time scales for such motions can be in the order of slow (ì_å_s-ms) displacements to fast (ps-ns) fluctuating motions. nuclear magnetic resonance (nmr) is a versatile non-invasive technique that probes such molecular dynamics in solution and at multiple sites. this dissertation reports the research on the discovery of a novel internal dynamic conduit of modular allosteric communication between the catalytic site of pin1-ppiase and the allosteric ww interaction site located about 12 angstroms away. in particular, deuterium (2d) nmr relaxation experiments were used to probe the internal flexibility of methyl side chains of pin1-ppiase upon ligand interaction. ligands of different chemical compositions, configurations and flexibilities induced varying rigidification magnitudes of pin1's internal fast (ps-ns) fluctuating motions. the greatest flexibility loss was observed for ligands with high binding affinities. because the locked-cis ground state analog of substrate showed a greater response than the trans counterpart, the dynamic conduit observed with peptide substrate must coordinate the interaction of cis-like substrate conformers. although the cis-locked isostere does not bind pin1-ww, it caused a much weaker response in the internal conduit for the isolated ppiase domain and bound weakly than pin1-ppiase. this suggests that the dynamic conduit links ligand binding activity at the ppiase active site and the interaction of the ww domain at the domain interface on pin1-ppiase. in addition to probing the dynamics-function relationships of pin1, natural abundance carbon (13cì_å±) nmr relaxation dispersion experiments were used to probe the dynamics of the backbone dihedrals of a pin1 ligand system comprised of a peptide substrate and its representative ground state cis and trans locked analogues. from this, newer findings on the site-specific kinetics and thermodynamics of the ppiase rotomerization mechanism are hereby reported. in particular, the cis conformer is more conformationally restricted and primed for docking ppiase than the trans counterpart which experiences pre-organization at the terminal ends upon binding ppiase. substrate isomerization proceeds with anchoring of residues located at the n-terminal of the peptidyl-prolyl bond and rotation at the c-terminal end with activation free energies for cis-trans conversion of ì_' gì¢ ââåêct 13.3 kcal/mol and ì_' gì¢ ââåêtc 15.4 kcal/mol. the main focus in our work is the integration of atomic layer deposited oxide for metallic single electron transistors (set's). currently, the choice of set material is limited to metals that can be thermally oxidized, which has its limitations in terms of thickness control for ultra-thin tunnel barrier oxides. ald oxides, on the other hand, can be deposited on a variety of metals and have been successfully integrated into current cmos processes. our goal is to establish a fabrication process that uses alumina as tunnel barriers sandwiched between two platinum electrodes. because set's are very sensitive to background charge, it is an ideal candidate for an on-chip characterization tool to control and monitor the quality of high-k dielectrics currently used in cmos processing. my work wanders between different constructs of nature as inherently good, inherently evil, and all the delicious messy gray areas in between. these ideas manifest in work that draws on references to folklore, sacred objects, and various codes of iconography as a lens to express narratives from personal experiences as a queer person. i am mainly focused on rereading the enchanted forest as a queer space outside of the confining structures of society where the strange, secret and magical occurs.i engage with theoretical concepts relating to affect, queer theory, and merging theoretical positions on medieval concepts with material feminist ideas of object agency as conceptual underpinnings behind my work. essential to the dynamics of semi-dilute and dense suspensions, the pair-wise hydrodynamic interactions between swimming microorganisms has been analyzed in several studies in the recent past. however, most studies have focused on the viscous regime, in the absence of inertia. we examine the effects of inertia on the interaction of a pair of model microorganisms in the small to intermediate reynolds number regime, by means of direct numerical simulations. the results show that the increasing strength of inertia increases the wake momentum and leads to vortex shedding. the hydrodynamic interaction between microorganisms, coupled with their interaction with the disturbed fluid surrounding them, has a marked impact on the trajectories of the interacting swimmers. this causes a significant change in the contact time and dispersion dynamics of microswimmers, with potential important consequences on the collective behavior of microorganisms, as well as on decisive biophysical interactions such as same-species and predator-prey interactions. although interacting with objects appears to compress spatial memory, the full extent of this effect is unknown. to address this issue, i examined whether action-based compression could extend to surrounding objects or environments. participants examined objects in two nested regions and recalled object-pair distances for each region. in one region, participants inspected objects manually or visually. in the other region, they only inspected objects visually. by having participants interact with a subset of objects, i assessed whether interaction compresses memory for other objects. by marking the boundary between regions, i also assessed whether interaction compresses memory for other environments. when the boundary was unmarked, manual interaction led participants to recall shorter distances throughout the environment. however, marking the boundary led participants to recall shorter distances overall. while these findings suggest that manual interaction can compress spatial memory throughout an environment, the effects of interaction across environments remain inconclusive. this dissertation is about wisdom and texts about wisdom. it studies four old english lexemes for 'wise,' snotor, gleaw, frod, and wis, respectively, as a way to define wisdom and wisdom literature in old english. on the levels of characterization, narrative, and theme, wisdom performs often essential functions in a variety of old english texts, most intensely in poetry and frequently in texts outside the approved canon of old english wisdom literature. wisdom literature has long been a recognized genre, but its definition and canon remain disputed because of a lack of attention to fundamental questions of what wisdom is, where it resides, and what it does. wisdom literature in old english, i suggest, should be defined generically according to how its texts explicitly invoke wisdom. moreover, not all wisdom is the same. old english poetry, differently from prose, presents wisdom as a psychological ability defined by intellectual processes and expressed verbally in social situations. in poetry, words for wisdom collocate characteristically with mental vocabulary to establish wisdom as a conceptual entity located in the mind and to explain how this wisdom is activated by thoughtfulness and fulfilled through speech events. data have been collected comprehensively from throughout the old english corpus and emphasis is on primary texts. this dissertation challenges conventional wisdom by means of a lexical approach that clarifies the definition of wisdom in old english, gives us a way to access an anglo-saxon understanding of literature about wisdom, and accordingly alters and revitalizes the canon of old english wisdom literature. a revised canon of wisdom literature in old english includes, for example, long narrative poems such as elene and daniel which have been ignored as wisdom poems because their formal structure does not fit preconceived ideas about the forms wisdom can take in old english. uranyl peroxide clusters are mostly cage clusters that consist of u(vi) in the form of the uranyl ion bridged through peroxo or hydroxyl groups. in this thesis, uranyl peroxide clusters are studied in the form of organic-inorganic hybrid complexes. the organic ligand, benzene-1,2-diphosphonate, has been incorporated into uranyl peroxide clusters, resulting in five new structures built from 19-24 uranyl ions. the obtained structures exhibit unique properties in terms of coordination chemistry of the uranyl ion, solid state packing and solution behavior. dissolution of uranyl peroxides, such as studtite, leads to the formaton of uranyl peroxide clusters with generally high solubility in water. however, the organic ligand functionalized cluster exhibits a relative low solubility. the incorporation of organic ligands into the cluster impacts the solubility of uranyl peroxide clusters and enables the cluster to dissolve in the organic solvent dimethyl sulfoxide (dmso). the functionalized cluster is more stable in dmso than in water where its conversion into other cluster-like species has been identified.uranyl peroxide clusters have typically been obtained by one-pot synthesis upon mixing uranyl ions, hydrogen peroxide, and alkali cations under ambient conditions. given that functionalized-clusters can be converted into other cluster species in water, uranyl peroxide clusters have been used as precursors to obtain other cluster species through their transformations in water. a new cluster has been obtained through the disassembly and reassembly of a functionalized cluster upon heating. disassembly and reassembly of the functionalized cluster has produced the cluster without functional groups. attempts have to made to achieve the reverse reaction which produces the functionalized cluster from the unfunctionalized cluster precursor. metals can be present in a number of forms within environmental systems, such as aqueous ions, complexes, nanoparticles, colloids, minerals and coatings on minerals. a range of processes affects the distribution and bioavailability of metals in these systems, including aqueous complexation of metals, dissolution of minerals, aggregation of colloids, and adsorption of aqueous ions or complexes onto mineral surfaces or biological surfaces. the research presented in this dissertation focuses on several of these processes in order to improve our ability to model heavy metal and radionuclide behavior in the environment and to predict heavy metal bioavailability in complex geologic systems. chapter 2 focuses on the creation of an advanced biotic ligand model that uses a surface complexation modeling approach to predict metal bioavailability. chapter 3 focuses on the aqueous behavior of the isolated u60 uranyl peroxide nanocluster. chapter 4 examines the aqueous behavior of a second isolated uranyl peroxide nanocluster, u24py, to determine the effect of nanocluster size, composition and morphology on nanocluster aqueous behavior. the results of this dissertation research provide insight into the toxicity of heavy metals and the nature of the aqueous behavior of uranyl peroxide nanoclusters. chapter 1 shows that advanced biotic ligand models (ablm) that incorporate surface complexation modeling yield flexible and accurate bioavailability models. ablm can dramatically improve our understanding and ability to predict toxicity and other reactions linked to metal bioavailability in complex geologic systems. the results presented in chapters 3 and 4 indicate that aqueous behavior of both the u24py and the u60 uranyl peroxide nanoclusters is best described as that of aqueous complexes. these findings provide a better understanding of the thermodynamic stability and behavior of uranyl peroxide nanoclusters in aqueous systems, which can be used to estimate the dissociation behavior of nanoclusters under a range of aqueous conditions. semiconductor quantum dots are of significant interest as a versatile light harvesting material in solar cells. the research contained in this thesis investigates two aspects of quantum dot utilization for photovoltaics, incorporation of energy transfer processes and quantum dot annealing. in photovoltaics, energy transfer can be used as a complementary mechanism for charge separation. energy transfer was investigated in quantum dot systems in two projects. first, energy transfer was studied between a squaraine dye used as a linker molecule in liquid junction solar cells and cdse quantum dots as a function of quantum dot size. the mechanism of energy transfer changed from resonance energy transfer to dexter energy transfer as quantum dot size decreased, representing a different strategy to incorporate energy transfer into liquid junction photovoltaics. second, the impact of surface chemistry on resonance energy transfer was investigated in quantum dot films. energy transfer efficiency varied drastically with quantum dot surface passivation. solid state ligand exchange, a process used to make thick quantum dot films,was found to extinguish resonance energy transfer, highlighting the importance of quantum dot surface chemistry for effective resonance energy transfer. lead halide perovskites are an exciting class of emerging materials for photovoltaics. using cesium in place of organics in the perovskite structure improves material stability, but increases the difficulty of direct solution deposition. in this work, bulk cspbbr3 perovskite films were formed through quantum dot annealing, a process used to make close packed quantum dot films. the mechanism of the annealing procedure was studied, and the photovoltaic performance of the resulting devices was investigated. cspbi3 was formed from annealed cspbbr3 quantum dot films through halide exchange. halide exchange was also used to form mixed halide cspbbrxi3-x films that featured a gradient composition as a function of film depth. the structure exhibited ultrafast hole transfer to the iodide rich film regions, showing a potential way to enhance charge separation in mixed halide perovskites. this study focuses on one five-mile stretch of muddy ground connecting the des plaines and chicago rivers, in order to explore the continued importance of environmental factors and local geographies within the wider history of indigenous-european relations on the north american continent. paying particular attention to how waterways and waterborne mobility influenced power dynamics between native peoples and incoming europeans, my research grounds imperial and indigenous histories of north america's borderlands in the local environmental context of encounter.historians have long wrestled with explanations for indigenous-european relations, and eventual u.s. hegemony in the borderlands of north america. in recent years, interpretations for both cross-cultural collaboration and conflict have tended towards examining cultural misunderstandings and discrepancies in political power at the expense of exploring the environmental and geographic particulars which influenced interactions. this study seeks to amend that, demonstrating how contests over geography and local environments shaped the terms of encounter from early contact through the era of u.s. colonization of the american interior. by examining the chicago portage—a key geographic link between the waterways of the great lakes and mississippi drainage—the project illuminates the navigable waterborne world of the north american interior. both native peoples and europeans traveled and labored on portage paths, connecting waterways to maintain geographic linkages between the great lakes frontier and the wider atlantic world from the seventeenth century forward. when the maritime empires of france, and eventually britain, entered the region, they too came to value portages as the geographic keys to navigating the north american interior. they adopted indigenous techniques of canoeing and relied on native knowledge of local portage environments to extend maritime networks deep within the continent. but as united states officials arrived in the region in the 1790s, chicago became a renewed site of contest. as u.s. officials grappled to extend their influence at chicago through the 1830s, they faced a number of imperial and local challenges stemming from divergent interpretations of chicago's geography. u.s. officials would only succeed in their conquest of chicago by overhauling the landscape and its people in a two-pronged settler colonial subjugation of both the local environment and the native peoples of the region. one of the defining features of a virtue-theoretic approach to ethics, it is often thought, is that it is particularistic rather than universalistic. recent defenses of particularism, however, should make a virtue theorist wary of being too closely identified with it. according to jonathan dancy, and other radical particularists, not only can we not codify any natural features of a situation that will always count in favor of an action being the right or wrong thing to do, the fact that someone acts out of a virtuous disposition also need provide no reason in favor of thinking that they thereby act rightly. these claims are not only in tension with traditional defenses of virtue ethics, but seem to many implausible on their own grounds. and yet, virtue theorists rightly insist that their take on morality is not merely a pale imitation of an ethic of rules. sustaining this position, neither radically particularistic nor reductively rule-based, is the aim of this dissertation. i begin by distinguishing the more radical ontological version of particularism defended by dancy from an epistemic version, arguing that the virtue theorist's emphasis on the primacy of virtues over rules requires only the former. what is more, there are positive reasons for rejecting the latter; neither a satisfactory account of the role of generalities in moral discourse nor of moral motivation can be given if it is true. turning to the constructive task of giving a virtue-theoretic account of moral rules, i propose a novel analysis of non-trivial absolute moral prohibitions which articulates their importance without reducing the virtuous agent's moral deliberations to a mechanical application of rules. particularists are right, however, that most of the moral generalities to which the virtuous agent appeals are defeasible generalizations. but such generalities, if they are to be justified, must be grounded in reflection on the place they play in a complete human life, lived within a concrete community. ethical reflection in general, and about the role of moral rules in particular, not only begins, but also ends, with the aim of making sense of my life as whole. the human body is a complex biological machine composed of various parts. each part or organ within the organism has a specific function that serves to efficiently keep the body alive and when these organ functions are hampered, either through injury or through a developmental defect in the organ, the organism's health is placed at risk. your kidneys are an intricate biological system compose of two bean-shaped organs, approximately the size of your clenched fist, that is mainly responsible for blood filtration, waste metabolite removal, and homeostasis maintenance. they are made up of small, functional nephrons units characterized by the presence of a blood-filtering glomerulus connected to an epithelial tubule made up of distinct proximal and distal segments, each one responsible for various important tasks such as nutrient reabsorption or ph regulation. due to our body's limited regenerative capacity, anything that disturbs this intricate blood filtering array composed of nephrons can potentially lead to kidney conditions that severely hamper your body's ability to filter blood. in fact, chronic kidney disease is the 9th leading cause of the death in the u.s., and current treatments only serve as a stop-gap measure, as they cannot ameliorate damage, only manage symptoms. our overarching goal is to further our understanding of renal ontogeny by elucidating the molecular and genetic mechanisms of nephron tubule segment formation. here we use the zebrafish, a versatile animal model, to study kidney development, develop new tissue manipulation techniques for researcher to study localized signaling molecule function, and reveal novel roles for the conserved emx1 and emx2 transcription factors in during nephrogenesis. in general, we observed that emx1 controls distal segment cell fate by promoting the distal late segment while inhibiting formation of the distal early. additionally, preliminary studies on emx2 function reveal that the transcription factor may have a role in controlling formation of the proximal straight tubule. understanding how nephrons are formed will lead to further insights into kidney disease onset and progression, which will ultimately lead to the development of better therapies for kidney disease patients. in this dissertation, a new method of applying the adm formalism of general relativity to model the gravitational radiation emitted from the realistic inspiral of a neutron star binary is described. a description of the conformally flat condition (cfc) is summarized, and the adm equations are solved by use of the cfc approach for a neutron star binary. the advantages and limitations of this approach are discussed, and the need for a more accurate improvement to this approach is described. to address this need, a linearized perturbation of the cfc spatial three metric is then introduced. the general relativistic hydrodynamic equations are then allowed to evolve against this basis under the assumption that the first-order corrections to the hydrodynamic variables are negligible compared to their cfc values. as a first approximation, the linear corrections to the conformal factor, lapse function, and shift vector are also assumed to be small compared to the extrinsic curvature and the three metric. a boundary matching method is then introduced as a way of computing the gravitational radiation of this relativistic system without use of the multipole expansion as employed by earlier applications of the cfc approach. it is assumed that at a location far from the source, the three metric is accurately described by a linear correction to minkowski spacetime. the two polarizations of gravitational radiation can then be computed at that point in terms of the linearized correction to the metric. the evolution equations obtained from the linearized perturbative correction to the cfc approach and the method for recovery of the gravity wave signal are then tested by use of a three-dimensional numerical simulation. this code is used to compute the gravity wave signal emitted a pair of equal mass neutron stars in quasi-stable circular orbits at a point early in their inspiral phase. from this simple numerical analysis, the correct general trend of gravitational radiation is recovered. comparisons with (5/2) post-newtonian solutions show a similar gravitational waveform, although inaccuracies are still found to exist from this computation. finally, several areas for improvement and potential future applications of this technique are discussed. people with depression show a negative bias in how they interpret, attend to, and remember unfamiliar peoples' facial expressions (e.g., bourke, douglas, &amp; porter, 2010), and this has been associated with more prolonged courses of depression and with depression relapse (bouhuys, geerts, &amp; gordijn, 1999). negative biases seen in depressed people have generally been thought to be specific to certain expressions, particularly happiness and sadness (e.g., gilboa-schechtman, erhard-weiss, &amp; jeczemien, 2002). however, depressed people have also been shown to have general deficits or biases with other emotions, although these have been less thoroughly studied (for a review see bistricky, ingram, &amp; atchley, 2011). whether depressed peoples' biases are the same with strangers and significant others has never been tested, and studies with other populations have shown that people process the faces of familiar and unfamiliar people differently (e.g., natu &amp; o'toole, 2011).this investigation examined facial expression identification in 60 subjects (30 never-depressed, 30 depressed either currently or in the past), utilizing images of 5 emotions varying in intensity, displayed both by posers unfamiliar to subjects and a subject's significant other (e.g., spouse, domestic partner). as hypothesized, expressions by unfamiliar posers were processed similarly to expressions by significant others, though there were some differences. compared to never-depressed controls, depressed subjects evidenced a clearer discrepancy between their identification of facial expressions of anger by their partners than by unfamiliar posers. compared to never-depressed controls, depressed subjects were also more sensitive to expressions of sadness, though this was more evident when portrayed by strangers than when portrayed by significant others. previous findings of depression being associated with a bias away from happiness and towards sadness were not replicated in the current investigation; instead, depression was associated with a bias toward identifying expressions as neutral during emotion-neutral comparison trials, and towards anger during emotion-emotion comparison trials. this investigation provides additional support for gilboa-schechtman et al.,'s (2002) cognitive conceptualization of emotion processing in depression, which involves many emotions. emotion identification abnormalities in depression are present not just with strangers but also with significant others. implications for how processing biases affect relationships are discussed. mosquitoes in the culex pipiens complex are major vectors for a number of important human pathogens. due to the paucity of vaccines against many mosquito-borne diseases, control of vector populations remains an important means for disease prevention. members of this species complex are among the most geographically widespread mosquitoes, worldwide. there are two major species in the cx. pipiens complex: cx. quinquefasciatus (say), the southern house mosquito, which occupies tropical to warm temperate regions; and cx. pipiens (l), the northern house mosquito, which occupies temperate regions. cx. pipiens females, in response to environmental cues, enter diapause to endure the adverse conditions associated with winter in temperate regions. the rationale for this research is the elucidation of the genetic mechanisms driving diapause induction could provide novel targets for genetic control measures as well as provide additional insights into the forces influencing their geographic distribution. my first aim was to develop tools to enhance genomic studies in cx. pipiens complex mosquitoes. we used data generated by the cx. quinquefasciatus (say) genome project for in silico development of over 75 microsatellite markers. cross-species utility of these markers was tested in populations from trinidad and the usa. in addition, we used 6 f1 intercross mapping populations to map the location of these microsatellites, which subsequently allowed us to assign 10.4% of the genome assembly and 13.5% of the protein coding genes to chromosome position. we constructed a bac library (ndj) with approximately 10.1 fold coverage of the cx. quinquefasciatus genome. we used 29 microsatellites and five gene markers to help estimate genome coverage. my second aim was to identify candidate mechanisms driving diapause induction in cx. pipiens mosquitoes. we used custom microarray probe sets representing the cx. quinquefasciatus transcriptome to measure gene expression following exposure to standard and diapause-inducing conditions during the early pupal stage, a photosensitive stage for diapause induction. we identified 1,130 genes that were differentially expressed, and we used the expression of these genes across three time points to construct a gene co-expression network comprising five modules. go term and pathway enrichment analysis of the network modules revealed potential mechanisms driving diapause induction in cx. pipiens mosquitoes, including tgf-&beta; signaling and the chromatin modification complexes sin3 and nurd. both the philosopher and the lawgiver, in their attempt to cure the soul and promote its health, are frequently compared to the physician in the platonic dialogues. by appealing to the reader's own experience of health and disease, the medical images help to engage the reader in the more abstract subject matter of the dialogue. this dissertation collects and analyzes the medical imagery in plato's laws. it explains that, in the laws, medical imagery works to show how the souls of the people in the city are subdued, habituated, persuaded, and cured. this occurs in a way that is distinct from the curing practice of philosophy. whereas the philosopher aims to purge the soul of false opinions in order to create space for reflection, the lawgiver aims to train the emotions and instill correct opinions which would benefit life in the city. the lawgiver proposes the use of wine as a drug that trains the pleasures, music as a charm that seduces the soul, preambles that persuade the soul, and punishment that re-balance the soul. moreover, the lawgiver suggests that the city itself is healthy when there is a balanced distribution of power. the molecular mechanisms underlying nephron patterning establishment are intriguing. the zebrafish embryonic pronephros serves as a simplified and conserved genetic model to study this nephrogenesis process. the zebrafish pronephros arises from renal progenitors that are segmented into distinct epithelial regions including proximal and distal tubule domains, which consist of transporting epithelial cells and intercalated multiciliated cells (mccs). using whole mount in situ hybridization, my project uncovered essential roles of the transcription factors mecom and tbx2a/b in patterning of the renal progenitors during zebrafish nephrogenesis. apart from their functions in segment formation, mecom coordinates with notch signaling to regulate mcc differentiation, while tbx2b acts downstream of notch signaling to mediate development of an associated endocrine organ, the corpuscle of stannius. meanwhile, i have also discovered notch signaling as a conserved factor in both zebrafish and mammalian nephron patterning that promotes proximal fates and restricts distal domains. taken together, my work has identified crucial renal progenitor patterning factors, and has revealed novel molecular mechanisms guiding pronephros development in the zebrafish. abstractbypedro sztybelspatial symbols can direct attention to a specific location in space only when they are capable of specifying both direction and distance. interestingly, the spatial symbols used in most previous spatial cueing studies only convey information about direction. in a recent study, we presented observers with symbolic cues that conveyed information about both the direction and the distance of an upcoming target within the context of the spatial cueing paradigm. results showed that observers have greater expertise using direction symbols than distance symbols to guide attention. however, these findings were limited to voluntary shifts of attention. the present study sought further evidence in favor of direction expertise by examining the extent to which symbolic information about direction and distance are characterized by automatic attentional processing. as expected, results showed that direction symbols produced a larger automatic response than distance symbols. these results are important because they provide support for the direction expertise hypothesis and extend current semantic-based theories of symbolic control. the focus of this study is to employ active and passive control devices into an axisymmetric jet in order to enhance mixing and eventually control noise. the active control device used in this study is plasma actuators, while the passive control device is a set of delta tabs. several investigations have discussed ways of controlling the flow in order to enhance mixing by using tabs and other similar devices. an overview of the theory of plasma generation will be discussed, along with the plasma actuator construction for this project. the goal is to implement these flow control devices to perturb the flow structure dynamics, which is believed to be the source of noise production. a description of the flow facility will be provided with the required specifications it renders for this project. information available for the base case with the nozzle extension in this facility will be presented before the use of implementing a flow control device. the second objective is to create a data base that can be used for future work in this field. this project studies the contributions made by rev. michael a. mathis, c.s.c., to the liturgical movement in the united states during the twentieth century. after first introducing the details of mathis' education and early work in the field of missions, the dissertation details mathis' contributions to the liturgical movement in three major sections. first, it treats mathis' work with liturgical education, examining the origins and development of the graduate program in liturgy at the university of notre dame and considering related projects before comparing mathis' work with similar liturgical education programs. next, it considers mathis' work with the divine office, particularly in the form of his vigil service publications, and compares his work with other writings promoting the divine office and modified breviaries produced to facilitate the use of the divine office from his time. finally, it examines mathis' contributions to the liturgical conference and the translation of the collectio rituum, as well as his work preparing american catholics for the new rites of holy week in 1956 and organizing the american delegation for the first international congress of pastoral liturgy in 1956. excessive juice is a collection of poetry that interrogates the simultaneously absurd and harrowing reality of hate in the united states of americahate that has existed since its imperialist inception but has been recently galvanized by the statements and policies of its 45th president and his supporters. wading through racism and sexism, the speaker's foreign, korean body acts as a canvas for tattooing dialogue between different selves, imaginary and processed but no less real. the raging self, the hurt self, the presidential self, the korean self all mingle and multiply, often under the deception and deceit of the binary or ternary text alignments where voices talk at and through each other. food and digestion serves not as comfort or nourishment, but as a primary method for (mis)communication and contamination in exchanges that weigh the speaker against what the president represents or compare the realities of queerphobia and misogyny between the us and korea, raising a question towards american exceptionalism and korean nationalism. popular culture and internet memes come and go throughout the poems, the currencies that americans negotiate with to protest, support, or forget the damage being caused by the administration towards non-white, non-cis males. the first part introduces the speaker slowly being displaced as hate fills up their being and starts a chemical reaction with their previous understanding of the world. the second part addresses the sickness dwelling in the speaker's body sloshing about and spilling when the looming figure of the president overstays his welcome and causes it to overflow. the damage of hate on a depressed body, whether direct or indirect, leads to a regurgitation that threatens to be indecent and uncivil. image processing techniques can be applied to solve problems in many fields, including biomedicine, robotics, security, computer vision, etc. in order for the solutions to achieve good performance in terms of effectiveness and efficiency, the problems need to be modeled properly and solved in an efficient manner. in this dissertation, we present new algorithms for several problems in biomedical image processing and computer vision. the problems we study are either not studied by other people before, or the existing solutions are not satisfactory enough, due to improper models chosen, or non-optimal solutions adopted. for the biomedical image processing problems, unlike traditional image processing approaches that are based on signal processing techniques, we design algorithms based on the geometric features of target objects (e.g., blood clots, bones, vessels, etc.), and apply graph algorithms, as well as other algorithms in computational geometry to solve the problems. we also study the image completion problem, which is a common problem in computer vision. we design algorithms based on existing algorithm frameworks, but adopt new models and seek optimal solutions to solve many key sub-problems, while most existing algorithms rely heavily on heuristics, and cannot handle many complicated cases sufficiently well. in our new approaches, we extensively apply graph algorithms, optimization techniques and other algorithms in computational geometry, and achieve better performance than traditional methods. the algorithms we apply, extend or design to solve the problems include clustering, plane sweeping, graph search, maximum-weight independent set on circle graphs, etc. we also perform quantitative analyses on the image data based on the image processing results. the analysis results we produce help physicians and biologists explore unknown mechanisms of the human body, and develop therapeutic strategies to better treat patients. this dissertation examined how mexicans who migrated to gary, indiana from 1919 to 1965 forged their own path to integration. us steel company town gary epitomized american industrial might at the turn of the twentieth century. gary's immigration and economic ties expanded its importance far beyond the city's physical boundaries: steel production and heavy recruitment of a diverse immigrant labor force transformed the city into greater gary, a place of national and international significance. the city existed at the epicenter of broad change for both twentieth-century industrial america, and for the emerging national ethnic mexican community in the united states. gary played an important part in moving the mexican population in the us eastward, and the city had a transnational significance in drawing migration from mexico.this dissertation argued that mexican immigrants in gary competed with settlement house workers and religious leaders to manifest their own vision of recognition and acceptance in public life. mexicans, settlement houses, and church leaders created relationships over time that hinged on converting private aspects of everyday life into matters of public importance. settlement house workers and church leaders wanted to convert aspects of the private lives of immigrants into public displays of religious and ethnic traditions. for settlement houses, the path to mexicans' acceptance in public life was performing ethnic traditions and religious worship. public acceptance of mexicans meant being visible in a physical sense: in the streets, engaging in folk dances or festivals, and collective religious worship. mexicans had their own concepts of what constituted public importance. from the 1930s, mexicans opened social work records with settlement houses to acquire a more permanent and visible status as naturalized citizens and permanent residents. for them, the path to public recognition was attaining legal status and representation on paper for themselves and their families. morphogenesis and differentiation of internal epithelial organs is dependent on various processes including cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions, cell polarity and the interplay of cell survival and cell death pathways. epithelial cancer progression is often accompanied by the disruption of epithelial gland architecture, although little is understood about the signaling pathways and cellular processes involved. however, various oncogenes have been shown to affect internal epithelial organ development and polarization by deregulating one or more of the aforementioned cellular processes described above. this study describes a novel role for the arf6 gtpase in the regulation of epithelial architecture and gland development. arf6 functions downstream of src, the activation of which leads to the targeting of the cell-cell adhesion molecule, e-cadherin, to the lysosome. by use of three dimensional cell-culture, the role of arf6 in the development of tubules and cysts, the building blocks of epithelial glands has also been investigated. tubules form in response to cues derived from morphogens such as hepatocyte growth factor. arf6 is transiently activated during tubulogenesis and perturbing the arf6 gtp/gdp cycle by inducible expression of arf6 mutants defective in gtp binding or hydrolysis inhibits the development of mature tubules. further, we show that activation of arf6 is necessary and sufficient to initiate tubule extension. arf6 regulates the subcellular distribution of the gtpase, rac1, to tubule extensions. furthermore, arf6-induced erk activation regulates rac1 activation during tubule initiation through the expression of the receptor for urokinase plasminogen activator. sustained activation of arf6 also inhibits the normal progression of cyst development. cysts expressing an arf6-gtp mutant exhibit a significant pool of internalized e-cadherin thereby disrupting cyst architecture. in addition, the levels of bcl-2 are higher in arf6-gtp cysts relative to normal cysts thereby affecting lumen clearance by apoptosis. this latter step is dependent on arf6 regulated erk activation, which in turn is dependent on pld. arf6-dependent pld activation promotes receptor endocytosis that ultimately permits erk signaling from intracellular endosomes. thus, the studies described in this research dissertation have identified a signaling apparatus downstream of arf6 activation that regulates epithelial morphogenesis and could potentially contribute to epithelial cancer initiation and progression. many existing distributed algorithms for network optimization problems often rely on the fact that, if the communications between subsystems are frequent enough, then the state of the network will converge to its optimum asymptotically. this approach will generally incur large communication cost. this work investigates the use of event-triggered communication schemes in distributed network optimization algorithms. under event triggering, each subsystem broadcasts to its neighbors when a local ``error' signal exceeds a state dependent threshold. we use the network utility maximization (num) problem as an example to demonstrate our idea.we first present an event-triggered distributed barrier algorithm and prove its convergence. the algorithm shows significant reduction in the communication cost of the network. however, the algorithm suffers from several issues which limit its usefulness. we then propose two different event-triggered distributed num algorithms, the primal, and the primal-dual algorithm. both algorithms are based on the augmented lagrangian methods. we establish state-dependent event-triggering thresholds under which the proposed algorithms converge to the solutionof num. for the primal-dual algorithm, we consider scenarios when the network has data dropouts or transmission delay, and give an upper bound on the largest number of successive data dropouts and the maximum allowable transmission delay, while ensuring the asymptotic convergence of the algorithm. a state-dependent lower bound on the broadcast period is also given. simulations show that all proposed algorithms reduce the number of message exchanges by up to two orders of magnitude when compared to existing dual decomposition algorithms, and are scale-free with respect to two measures of network size.we then use the optimal power flow (opf) problem in microgrids as a nontrivial real-life example to demonstrate the effectiveness of event-triggered optimization algorithms. we develop an event-triggered distributed algorithm for the opf problem and prove its convergence. we use the certs microgrid model as an example power system to show the effectiveness of our algorithm. the simulation is done in matlab/simpower and shows that our algorithm solves the opf problem in a distributed way, and the communication between neighboring subsystems is very infrequent. this dissertation explores thomas aquinas' complex teaching on jesus christ as priest through close readings of the primary texts, attentiveness to the numerous ways he structures this teaching, and persistent investigation into its development over the course of his career. chapter 1 provides an overview of christ as both priest and mediator in thomas' summa theologiae and dispels confusion between these roles through recourse to thomas' scriptural commentaries. chapter 2 proceeds from the perplexing separation of those questions on christ as priest and christ as mediator to argue that thomas structured the entire first section of questions on christ in the summa theologiae around the concept of mediation. chapter 3 then charts the development of thomas' teaching on sacrifice within the summa theologiae. undoubtedly influenced by augustine's city of god, thomasmoves from distinguishing martyrdom and other virtuous acts from proper sacrifices to accepting them and, especially, christ's own martyrdom as sacrifices in the fullest sense. chapter 4 returns to issues of structure and uses the conclusions of chapter 2 to discern a priestly inspiration in the second section of questions on christ in the summa theologiae. chapter 5 then considers participation in christ's priesthood and sacrifice through the sacraments. it contends that the sacramental character of confirmation bestows on the faithful an office of self-offering in the celebration of the eucharist, in which emphasis is placed on the spiritual priesthood and sacrifices of the faithful, the ordained priest standing "in the person of the church," and christ's perpetual self-offering leading the faithful to their own perfect access to god. finally, chapter 6 argues that a profound development on this topic is discernible from some of thomas' earliest works (commentary on the sentences; de veritate), through the middle of his career (summa contra gentiles; compendium theologiae; commentary on hebrews), to his more mature work (de perfectione; summa theologiae). through a new exegesis of heb. 5:1, thomas secures his mature teaching on christ as the priest and mediator who offers himself as sacrifice to his father and as gift to human beings. increasingly, older americans are postponing retirement or re-entering the workforce after retirement. this research examines the effect of pension structure changes and the different ways older workers partially retire by transitioning from full-time work to part-time work, by changing jobs, or by returning to work from full retirement. defined contribution pension growth makes retirement wealth increasingly tied to financial markets, implying that older workers need to postpone retirement in recessions, precisely when jobs are scarce. using data from the health and retirement study, a difference-in-differences analysis comparing older workers with defined benefit and defined contribution pensions before and after the stock market crash in 2000 reveals that the probability of retirement for people aged 63-64 with only defined contribution pensions fell by over 34 percentage points from 1998 to 2002. as men and women work longer, partial retirement has become an important option for older workers. studies suggest that workers in the private sector cannot work fewer hours as they age on their career job because defined benefit pensions restrict in-service distributions prior to the plan's normal retirement age. using an instrumental variables regression, i find little evidence erisa regulated defined benefit pensions cause partial retirees to change employers prior to attaining the normal retirement age. however, many older workers not affected by erisa also change jobs in partial retirement, which suggests the presence of constraints not identified in the model or that changing employers is in itself desirable as people age. although partial retirement usually refers to workers voluntarily transitioning from full-time work to complete retirement, health or financial problems may be causing these changes. i find partial retirees are less healthy than similar full-time workers and report their health constrains work ability. in addition, over 26% of partial retirees return to work after retirement and hourly wages of partial retirees (previously retired) fall substantially more than hourly wages of partial retirees who transitioned directly from full-time work. regression analysis indicates retirees with defined benefit pensions rarely return to work. women, though return to work if their spouse's health deteriorates, while men re-enter the workforce if their spouse works. this work presents the study of the single-dielectric barrier discharge aerodynamic plasma actuator. the physics of the plasma discharge was studied through the time-resolved light intensity measurements of the plasma illumination. plasma characteristics were obtained and analyzed for a range of applied voltage amplitudes and a.c. frequencies.based on this data, electro-static and lumped-element circuit models were developed. the time-dependent charge distribution was used to provide boundary conditions to the electric eld equation that was used to calculate the actuator body force vector. numerical ow simulations were performed to study the eectof the plasma body force on the neutral uid. the results agreed well with the experiments.an application of the plasma actuators to the leading-edge separation control on the naca 0021 airfoil was studied numerically. the results were obtained for a range of angles of attack for uncontrolled ow, steady and unsteady plasma actuation. the aerodynamic stall of the airfoil was studied. improvement in the airfoil characteristics was observed in numerical simulations at high angles of attack in cases with plasma actuation. the computational results corresponded very well with experimental observations. even at low levels, lead exposure hinders children's development, and is of particular concern for children from low-income families who are already at risk for developmental difficulties. the current intervention aimed to decrease blood lead levels (bll) for children from low-income families identified as having subthreshold levels of exposure (i.e., below 10 ì_å_g/dl) through a factorial design using educational brochures, cleaning kits, and home risk assessments as intervention components. the project was one of the first preventative interventions to approach the issue of subthreshold lead exposure. participation in the study resulted in decreased blls in the children, better knowledge of lead risk by parents, and improved cleaning habits for all groups. descriptive within-group reports provided further evidence of the intervention's effectiveness and practicality for each of the treatment components utilized in the program. findings are discussed in terms of their practical significance and policy and programming implications. cranial dura mater is a dense interwoven vascular connective tissue that protects the brain and helps regulate neurocranial remodeling during head development. in vivo investigations indicate that the tissue mediates cranial suture fusion by responding to strains from the growing brain. ex vivo experimentation has attempted to characterize the mechanical properties that make the dura an effective mechanoreceptor and mechanotransmitter; however, they fail to capture key characteristics of the dura in vivo, such as the impact of tissue pre-stretch. residual strain, or pre-stretch, is an important quality of many biological tissues, and when not accurately captured by ex vivo experiments, generally leads to underestimation of mechanical stiffness. considering the importance and lacking characterization of dural pre-stretch, this study aimed to create a robust in silico model for determination of in vivo pre-stretch in neonatal and adult murine cranial dura mater. transverse and longitudinal incisions were performed ex vivo in the parietal dura of newborn (day ∼4) and mature (day 60+) mice. in silico models of incised neonatal and adult dura experiencing isotropic stretching in the plane transverse to the model's surface normal were simulated in abaqus/standard. the ex vivo and in silico incision opening ratios (opening width over length) were compared, allowing the in vivo in-plane pre-stretch to be determined. images of cut openings and estimations of pre-stretch indicate the dural pre-stretch is direction-dependent. differences in neonatal and adult pre-stretch provided further insight into the age-dependency of murine cranial dura mater pre-stretch. the elegy is a poetic genre situated between personal and public spheres. the critical literature of the genre often privileges one sphere over the other, whether it be the personal work of mourning undertaken by the elegist in writing the poem, or the public and cultural work of memorialization that is fundamental to the genre. my project examines the work of five poets – geoffrey hill, seamus heaney, paul muldoon, medbh mcguckian, and denise riley – whose elegies require a distinct critical apparatus, one that considers the personal and the public jointly because these poets' elegies trouble the very distinction between the two. in the ethical concerns voiced by the poets – which range from the aestheticization of death and violence to the potential profit motives (artistic, commercial) of writing elegy – as well as in the formal techniques that can either mitigate these ethical concerns or, in some cases, generate them, these elegies betray the inextricability of private and cultural modes of grief. in order to bring disparate parts together – the personal and the private, the ethical and the aesthetic – i implement a critical methodology that uses as its central tool the notion of "linguistic affect," which i define (slightly modifying riley's own definition) as "the force of language on the body," a force made possible through language's historically rich materiality. the scholarly turn to affect has begun to collapse distinctions between cultural networks of affect and the human bodies they influence; my analysis focuses on the lyric as one particular linguistic site in which to discern this intersection of the cultural and the somatic, attending specifically to what mutlu konuk blasing refers to as the "affective materials of language": its affectively charged sounds and rhythms, and the poetic techniques that harness these affective charges through prosody, form, and poetic convention. the ethical dilemmas conveyed in the work of these five elegists are thus symptomatic of the challenge of articulating a private grief that always speaks beyond itself. german-speaking lands in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were home to the largest jewish communities north of the alps and pyrenees and thus constituted key locations for christian-jewish interaction. this dissertation examines the monasteries of germany' the primary centers of intellectual and cultural production in the high medieval empire' as loci for that interaction. it explores both the social/economic and the cultural aspect of contact between monks and jews. in the process, it challenges traditional interpretations of christian-jewish relations and helps to fill in the picture of the lives and activities of monks in this period. the study proceeds in three parts. part one, comprising the first three chapters, examines the political context wherein jews and monks interacted before investigating evidence of contact between jews and monks in the social and economic spheres. this evidence demonstrates that jewish communities and monasteries occupied similar political positions in this society' due to their mutual reliance on the institution of privilege' and that they engaged frequently in business dealings with each other. part two (chapters 4-6) turns its attention to the intellectual and cultural realm, examining ideas about jews that circulated in the monasteries. while monks obtained many of these ideas from patristic works and other earlier sources, they actively developed and modified these ideas in ways that spoke to contemporary concerns. the last part, consisting of the final chapter, examines the issue of jewish conversion to christianity. this issue, perhaps better than any other, forced monks to deal with both real jews and cultural constructions of jews. this dissertation contends that the definitive attribute of monastic-jewish interaction in this period was ambivalence. real interactions were quite normal, even friendly, yet the ideas about jews that monks developed were largely, though with some important exceptions, hostile. such a characterization calls into question prevalent explanations of jewish-christian interaction, which tend to emphasize escalating hostility and uniformity ideas across regions and institutions. the field of study in evolving complex networks has more and more researchers working using various methods. we designed and developed a computational discovery methodology to study these evolving complex networks. this methodology is a cyclic procedure involving four different processes: data mining, network analysis, computer simulation and collaboration. the data mining process is responsible for discovering potential associations and patterns. the network analysis process is responsible for assessing the discovery found in the data mining process and analyzing the network measures in the network. the computer simulation process is responsible for generating a validated model to simulate the evolution of the complex network based on the discoveries and measures used in the previous processes. finally, the collaboration process is responsible for designing and maintaining a research collaboratory to host our research and support any possible similar research. to demonstrate the methodology, we applied this methodology in the study of open source software movement, in particular, a study of the sourceforge.net development community. through applying the methodology, we generated a distribution-based predictor to predict the 'popularity' of a project, had more insights about the structure and evolution of the sourceforge.net community network, generated a validated model to simulate the evolution of the community, and finally implemented and maintained a research collaboratory for the open source software related research. in late thirteenth-century italy, literacy had become accessible to a significant portion of the lay population. it thus became a crucial means to the middle class's cultural and political empowerment, and to the secularization of learning. this project investigates how minor latin authors that were read in thirteenth-century schools shaped dante's hermeneutic posture toward classical, pagan literature. as this study shows, these school authors offered a particular type of classical reception that provided a christianizing access to the ancient authors and had a major impact on dante's poetics. the study analyzes six latin school texts—the ilias latina, the latin aesop, the disticha catonis, the ecloga theoduli, statius's achilleid, and claudian's de raptu proserpinae—and integrates an analysis of selected medieval school books, their commentaries, and glosses to reconstruct these texts' medieval readership. while political opportunity structures are seen as important for movement emergence and success, it is still unclear how opportunities equate with specific actions and how movement actors become aware of opportunities. this paper argues that as movements engage with institutions and state actors that vague structural opportunity contexts are concretized as specific opportunities for framing and acting. i draw on four nimby movements in urban china linked by their similar claim making structure, tactics, and rhetorical emphasis as well as being nested within the same broad environmental movement. each occurred in a complex movement environment which saw increasing opportunities for environmental movements, low opportunity for overt protest, and generally decreasing opportunities for contentious politics of any kind. yet these movements, in interaction with both local and national state actors, were able to test out the extent to which movement opportunities existed and turn generalized opportunities into movement specific ones. noninvasive monitoring of tissue remodeling or disease progression is critical for predicting early outcomes and providing opportunity for intervention. in tissue engineering, scaffold degradation kinetics are critical to tissue regeneration and/or drug release, but characterization is limited by destructive test methods or two-dimensional imaging. in breast cancer, microcalcifications are important biomarkers but radiographic detection is often masked by dense breast tissue. x-ray imaging modalities, such as computed tomography and mammography, are widely available and offer noninvasive, three-dimensional diagnostic imaging at high spatiotemporal resolution, but imaging contrast in soft tissues is poor. gold nanoparticles (au nps) have been investigated as biocompatible x-ray contrast agents. therefore, the overall objective of this dissertation was to investigate the use of au nps as an x-ray contrast agent for noninvasive monitoring of scaffold degradation and detection of breast microcalcifications.au nps were covalently linked to collagen scaffold fibrils such that au np release was only possible upon enzymatic degradation of collagen. scaffolds containing ≥ 60 mm exhibited sufficient contrast to measure scaffold degradation. collagen scaffold degradation kinetics were measured during in vitro enzymatic degradation and validated by concurrent measurements with gravimetric analysis and optical spectroscopy. thus, au nps enabled nondestructive, longitudinal, and volumetric measurement of collagen scaffold degradation by contrast-enhanced computed tomography. bisphosphonate (bp)-functionalized au nps were investigated for targeting and providing contrast-enhanced mammographic detection of hydroxyapatite (ha) breast microcalcifications. mammographic phantoms were designed to exhibit variable breast tissue density with embedded model ha microcalcifications and were shown to recapitulate the clinical problem of dense tissue masking the detection of microcalcifications. bp-au nps enabled contrast-enhanced mammographic detection of microcalcifications that were otherwise indistinguishable from the background tissue density.bp-au nps were subsequently investigated for therapeutic potential to inhibit ha-mediated cellular mitogenesis and migration. bp-au nps were targeted to ha crystals of varying shape and size in vitro. bp-au nps inhibited ha-mediated mitogenesis and cellular migration in hs578t cells exposed to plate-like ha crystals, as measured by brdu immunolabeling and scratch assays, respectively. however, bp-au nps did not exhibit an inhibitory effect for ha whiskers, ha nanoparticles, and nanoporous ha.therefore, further research is required to confirm a relationship between ha microcalcifications and mitogenesis, and possible inhibition by bp-au nps. scholars have recently argued that new netherland should be studied as an integral part of the atlantic world. one important aspect that has been largely neglected in this wider geographical approach is that of dutch interactions with native peoples. this dissertation addresses this issue by comparing dutch-indian relations in new netherland and dutch brazil. i use intercultural mediators as a tool to analyze dutch-native relations in the two dutch american colonies. because mediators frequently crossed cultural boundaries as interpreters, diplomats, and negotiators, they are fascinating characters for scholars studying interactions between indians and colonists. in comparing mediators in new netherland with those in dutch brazil, this dissertation demonstrates that local contexts played an important role in shaping cross-cultural interactions in each colony. in brazil, the dutch struggle against portuguese colonists primarily determined dutch-indian relations. both the dutch west india company and the various tupi and tarairiu peoples of northeastern brazil needed each other as allies against the portuguese. in new netherland the situation was different because there was less fear of a european enemy until the rise of english aggression in the 1650s. in contrast to brazil, indians and colonists in new netherland were brought in close and frequent contact by an informal frontier exchange economy. despite their different responses to the dutch, the native peoples in brazil and new netherland shared the goal of maintaining independence from their dutch allies and trading partners. my comparative analysis also complicates commonly held views of dutch attitudes toward native americans. contrary to traditional assertions that depict the dutch as solely driven by material exchange, this dissertation shows that dutch-native interactions in the atlantic world were also shaped by religious and imperial motives. finally, this study of mediators in two different colonies demonstrates that the go-betweens did not bring the indians and dutch colonists closer together. although dutch and indian negotiators often crossed cultural boundaries to maintain alliances or to prevent bloodshed, they did not create a middle ground of shared symbols and practices. by taking a comparative perspective this dissertation reveals the complexities of dutch-indian relations in the atlantic world. this dissertation provides new results for energy-based analysis of systems modeled by switched or hybrid system models. this work is motivated by applications in cyber physical systems where systems evolve according to a combination of physical dynamics and cyber, event-driven dynamics. having a combination of physical and logical dynamics, cyber physical systems are best modeled using switched or hybrid models. the original energy-based results presented here are based on the notions of passivity and dissipativity from classical nonlinear control theory. existing theory provides valuable results for analyzing stability for interconnected systems. these methods are well established for nonlinear dynamical systems but do not directly apply to more general system models. a main goal of this dissertation is to provide generalizations of these concepts for hybrid systems. this includes an original definition of passivity indices for switched systems in chapter 4 and notions of supervisory control using passivity indices in chapter 6. it also includes original definitions of dissipativity for discrete-event systems and hybrid systems in chapters 7 and 8. while these properties are useful in practice, they are often difficult to show. chapter 10 covers computational methods of demonstrating passivity for switched systems. often cyber physical systems are built up by connecting components over existing wired or wireless networks. the use of existing networks has advantages since they typically are lower cost and more easily reconfigured. while using existing networks has advantages, data communicated over a network may be delayed or lost entirely. some original results, presented in chapter 5, focuses on compensating for delays, lost data, and quantization error in networked systems. the problem of reducing communication rates by using a model based network control scheme to connect dissipative systems is studied in chapter 9. overall, this dissertation provides new methods of analyzing switched and hybrid systems with regard to energy storage and dissipation. these properties provide powerful stability results for single systems and interconnections of systems. relevant examples are provided when needed to motivate the theory or demonstrate how it can be applied in practice. this dissertation presents several design techniques for resource-constrained, dependable embedded real-time systems, which can be found everywhere from cellular phones to automotive electronic systems to medical devices. specifically, three important challenges in embedded real-time system design are identified and addressed: temporal overloads, energy concerns, and temperature problem. due to cost constraints, as well as our inability to foresee worst-case operating scenarios, many systems are designed based on average-case scenarios and must provide graceful performance degradation during occasional system overloads. in this dissertation, we focus on two types of overloads: processor overloads and network overloads. processor overload occurs because of user's inputs or external conditions. we present robust algorithms that allow the system to quickly handle different operating scenarios without requiring advanced knowledge of the situations based on optimization theory. as a result, fewer resources are needed to deliver expected performance. as for network overloads, which can often occur especially now that most electronic devices have wireless capability, we discuss an energy-aware integrated framework that allows for the processor and network card to work together to transmit the most important information first. this framework is robust against rapid changes in network conditions, guarantees the transmission of the most important set of information, and allows the system to save energy. finally, as device sizes continue to shrink, physical constraints such as system temperature have become a main concern. high temperature can severely reduce both performance and system lifetime. we first present an optimal voltage selection policy to maximize computation without exceeding the temperature threshold. we then present a method to minimize the peak temperature of a hard real-time system running on multi-core architectures that help to avoid deadline misses at run time. in the area of education technology, there are two categories in which instructional software can be placed: teaching environments and intelligent tutoring systems. teaching environments, such aswebct, allow instructors to create presentations, lecture notes, and quizzes, but lack certain abilities including instructional styles, lectures tailored to the needs of the students, or automatic assessment of the students. intelligent tutoring systems allow students to progress at their own pace through a single subject matter while receiving individually tailored content for their knowledge level but are either specific to a subject matter or limited to a small number of courses. the main goal of iteams is to integrate the important aspects of teaching environments and intelligent tutoring systems to create a unique educational environment that enhances the student's learning experience while not being restricted to a select group of courses. iteams incorporates key features such as (1) the infrastructure to organize lecture materials, (2) the ablity to track and assess a student's performance, (3) the abilty to dynamically select lecture materials based on the student's inferred knowledge level, (4) the automatic grading of quizzes and assignments, and (5) an interface to external applications through a unique 'plugin' system. the transnational youth gangs of central america promote a hyper-machismo that idealizes violent, risk-prone codes of conduct and lifelong affiliation. meanwhile, central american evangelicals promote a "domesticated" machismo that prohibits drinking, promotes marriage, and eschews interpersonal violence. yet several studies involving interviews with current and former members of central american gangs report that conversion to evangelical christianity and/or joining an evangelical-pentecostal congregation may be a common pathway out of the gang. using semi-structured interviews with more than sixty former members of transnational gangs in guatemala, honduras, and el salvador as well as field notes and interviews with gang exit promoters, this dissertation examines why many ex-gang members consider joining an evangelical-pentecostal church a safe and effective means of leaving the gang despite the gangs' claim of lifetime membership. i conclude that conversion to evangelical-pentecostal religion provides former gang members with new access to social and symbolic resources crucial for keeping safe, building trust, and finding work after leaving the gang. but more than strategic use of cultural "tools" is involved in the conversion process. in some cases, emotional conversion experiences actually helped to bring about gang exit by occasioning embodied, emotional experiences that transgressed the macho feeling rules of the gang, spoiling the gang member's identity as a "homie." in addition, highly public emotional conversion experiences provided some exiting gang members with opportunities for the discharge of chronic shame, a key emotion underlying male violence (scheff 2004; gilligan 1996). my findings challenge traditional assumptions of religious conversion as either the product of a rational-pragmatic choice on the one hand or of an ideological concession to the convert's changing social networks on the other. finally, i argue that an important factor in the ongoing popularity of evangelical-pentecostal religion in central america is its promotion of ritual contexts for the discharge of shame. while progressive catholicism seeks to attack the structural sources of shame, evangelical-pentecostalism offers powerful interaction rituals for dealing with the emotion itself at the individual level. turbo codes and multiple parallel concatenated codes perform very close to the shannon limit with suboptimum iterative decoding, but the corresponding code ensembles are asymptotically bad in the sense that the minimum hamming distance does not grow linearly with block length. as a result, their minimum distance may not be sufficient to yield very low error rates at moderate-to-high signal to noise ratios, and an error floor can occur. on the other hand, multiple serially concatenated code ensembles with three or more component encoders can be asymptotically good. we present a method to obtain an implicit description of the spectral shape and the asymptotic minimum distance growth rate of repeat multiple accumulate and randomly punctured repeat multiple accumulate code ensembles. employing suboptimal iterative decoding, the performance of the decoder in the moderate-to-high signal-to-noise region is greatly influenced but not solely determined by the minimum hamming distance of the code, pseudo-codewords and trapping sets also play a role. we present a closed form finite length ensemble trapping set enumerator for repeat-multiple accumulate codes by creating a trellis representation of trapping sets. we also present a closed form enumerator for absorbing sets, a subset of trapping sets that are fixed points for bit flipping decoders. multiple-serially concatenated codes in general exhibit large minimum distance growth rates, but they have the drawback of converging at a signal-to-noise ratio further from capacity than parallel concatenated codes. we introduce the concept of tuned turbo codes, a family of asymptotically good hybrid concatenated code ensembles, where asymptotic minimum distance growth rates, convergence thresholds, and code rates can be traded-off using two tuning parameters, lambda and mu. by decreasing lambda, the asymptotic minimum distance growth rate is reduced in exchange for improved iterative decoding convergence behavior while increasing lambda raises the asymptotic minimum distance growth rate at the expense of worse convergence behavior. by decreasing mu, a similar tuning behavior can be achieved for higher rate code ensembles, thereby allowing a system designer to trade off between code rate, iterative decoding convergence behavior, and error floor performance without changing the encoder structure. we then investigate the joint design of channel coding and random linear network coding (rlnc) for star networks. channel coding alone is not sufficient to reliably transmit a message of inite length from a source to one or more destinations as in, e.g., file transfer. to ensure no data is lost, channel coding must be paired with a rateless erasure correcting scheme, such as rlnc or a time division multiple access (tdma) system paired with automatic repeat request (arq). given messages of a finite length, which can be subdivided into blocks of smaller size prior to channel coding, and rlnc over a finite galois field we obtain the number of blocks and the channel coding rate that maximizes the expected throughput of both rlnc and tdma. we then compare the throughput of rlnc to the throughput of tdma and show that for small total message lengths and rlnc over small galois fields, tdma is more throughput efficient while rlnc is more efficient when the message size gets large. in the fourth book of his de doctrina christiana, augustine delves into his theory of preaching and enters into dialogue with the three rhetorical styles of cicero. he explains that christian preaching also ought to utilize different styles, but the christian preacher's three styles are not the same as the classical orator's three styles. after describing his theory, augustine presents examples of the christian styles from other christian preachers. this paper considers consistency between augustine's theory and practice. since augustine was a prolific preacher, the question arises: when augustine preached, did he follow his own theory of preaching as outlined in de doctrina christiana? furthermore, how does the amount and type of consistency between augustine's theory and practice contribute to an understanding of the development of his theory? did this treatise flow from his experience over years of preaching, or did he have his theory of preaching in mind at the outset and only later write it down? the question of whether and in what ways augustine follows his own guidelines for preaching in the three styles can be illuminated by a close reading of enarrationes in psalmos 69, a transcript of a sermon preached by augustine. chapter one of this paper explores augustine's description of each style and examines excerpts from en. ps. 69 that adhere to his descriptions, asking whether the three styles are, in fact, able to be distinguished from one another. chapter two considers one specific aspect of style, prose rhythm, to determine how augustine uses it as he preaches, and whether it helps him achieve his goals in preaching. chapter three examines the overarching structure of the sermon, showing that he views his task primarily as an exultation of the martyrs rather than simply an exegesis of psalm 69. each of these inquiries sheds light on the question of how well augustine's practice of preaching adheres to his ideas as outlined in de doctrina christiana. marcel duchamp, gertrude stein, and the modernist loss of autonomy proposes a new understanding of modernist autonomy and the ways in which it conditioned the features of modernist texts and works of art. rather than positing it as a strictly textual phenomenon, a hallmark of both canonical and revisionary modernist criticism, i locate modernist autonomy within the affective experience of duchamp and stein as they navigated the modernist cultural field. with duchamp, i examine the way he competed with other artists for cultural capital and his embattled relation to exhibiting his work; with stein, i look at her tense engagement with the act of lecturing and the consequences of her attempt to win general acclaim through an accessible work of autobiography. in all of these experiences, duchamp and stein forfeited or were stripped of a particular form of autonomy – what i am calling impersonal autonomy – that was central not only to their affective experience but also to their works. they sought to remain unidentifiable, to avoid the publicization of their personal selves, an aim that conflicted with their commitment to forging successful modernist careers. the loss of autonomy that emerged, again and again, out of this contradictory position resulted in works of art and literature in which the qualities commonly associated with the aesthetics of modernist autonomy are embattled and transformed. these works are marked by the following four features: the reassertion of autonomy; the presence of the authorial/artistic self; the manifestation of an array of "ugly feelings"; and a hostile relation to the reader/viewer. in exploring these features, i show the way that modernist autonomy – when considered at the level of affective experience – becomes a generative force in the wake of its loss. carbohydrates have always been known to play key roles in energy metabolism and biological structure, but in recent decades they have been shown to play major roles in drug discovery, cell signaling, and biomolecular recognition. these important biological functions of saccharides are largely attributed to molecular flexibility and a diverse set of structural components. experimental and theoretical techniques for modeling saccharide conformation and structure need continued development to aid in the understanding of biological functions of glycans.the serianni laboratory has been developing ma'at analysis to model saccharide conformation in solution. the method relies on redundant nmr j-values and density functional theory (dft) calculations to probability distributions of molecular torsion angles in aqueous environments and circular standard deviations (csds) to evaluate librational motions about these torsion angles. chapter 2 describes the use of ma'at analysis to model n-acetyl side-chains of common saccharides. chapter 5 describes the use of ma'at analysis on the glc3man tetrasaccharide and its representative disaccharides in isolation, which are fragments of the parent n-glycan glc3man9glcnac2. the results from chapter 5 are to determine the context effects that the glc3man tetrasaccharide has on its individual o-glycosidic linkages, to determine the ability of ma'at analysis to detect the presence of two major conformers, and increase the robustness of the ma'at method. chapter 6 describes the synthesis of a man3 trisaccharide and man3glcnac2 pentasaccharide for future plans of conducting ma'at analysis of large complex-type n-glycans.chapters 3 and 4 deal with determining whether direct spin-spin couplings can be used as experimental variables in ma'at analysis. chapter 3 describes the modeling of conformationally-constrained saccharides in aqueous solution to observe the difference between experimental j-couplings and those calculated via density functional theory (dft). chapter 4 describes the modeling of monosaccharides in the solid-state to observe the difference between experimental solid-state j-couplings and those calculated from dft. both chapters are connected in reaffirming each other's findings that while dft quantitatively predicts j-values within reasonable error, dft functionals and basis sets need further development to properly capitulate 1j values for use in ma'at analysis. dissolved natural organic matter (nom) and heavy metals are ubiquitous in aqueous and terrestrial systems. adsorption processes involving mineral surfaces largely control the fate, transport, and environmental impacts of nom and heavy metals. an understanding of nom and metal sorptive behaviors is therefore helpful in the development of predictive models. to better understand the interactions between nom, heavy metals, and mineral surfaces, this research (1) evaluated a bulk property approach to study nom and potential aqueous complexation between nom and heavy metals, (2) studied the mutual effects of nom and cadmium on their sorption to goethite, and (3) began to develop a web-based computer simulator to model nom adsorption at the mineral-water interface. in the first project, the effects of cadmium and lead on nom properties and the potential effects of metals and counterions on analytical methods were investigated using a bulk property approach. this study showed that cd2+ and cldid not influence the absorbance, molecular weight distribution (mwd) and apparent molecular weight (mw) of nom. it also showed that pb2+ and no3produced analytical artifacts that can interfere with the system under investigation when they are present in the samples analyzed using molecular absorbance spectrometry (mas) and high pressure size exclusion chromatography (hpsec). the second and third projects examined the sorption trends of cadmium and nom to goethite, with results similar to those found in the literature. the results showed that the presence of cadmium increased nom adsorption and that the presence of nom increased cadmium adsorption. this study also demonstrated that sorptive fractionation of nom was influenced by ph. at low ph, the presence of cadmium had little effect on the adsorptive fractionation of nom; whereas, at high ph, the presence of cadmium enhanced it. in the final project, a stochastic agent-based simulator, nomadsim, was developed to model nom adsorption based on mw transformations under batch (no-flow) and column (flow) conditions. in addition to refining specific parameters, nomadsim can be further developed to accommodate changes in ionic strength, ph, and sorbent affinities. eventually, the model's applicability could be expanded for metal and microbial interactions as well as other processes. this dissertation explores the question of amorite relations to traditions of early israel preserved in the hebrew bible. concomitantly, the study investigates the degree to which second millennium bce sources from the ancient near east help us evaluate the biblical traditions that describe the world of early israel. i focus specifically on the category of leadership in pre-monarchic israel called šōpēṭ, traditionally translated as "judge," and its relationship to šāpiṭum leadership in syro-mesopotamia, especially in the documents from mari. the study reveals that the šōpēṭ of israel stands in cultural continuity with the šāpiṭum, which reaches as far back as the 19th century bce. thus, israelite traditions in the hebrew bible may preserve genuine memories of šōpeṭîm in pre-monarchic israel.after orienting the discussion of the šāpiṭum around current research and understanding of mari, i begin with an examination of the verb šapāṭum at mari and the various functions of the šāpiṭum leaders. while these leaders were involved in various administrative activities, their overarching responsibility was to ensure the well-being (akkadian šalimtum) of their population and territory through protection and provision. the following chapter traces the survival of šāpiṭum leadership after mari's destruction (mid-18th c. bce) until the late-13th c. bce. the šāpiṭum category of territorial leadership never disappeared; rather, it assimilated into the socio-political categories of foreign powers who gained political control over the middle euphrates and lower habur regions.the final two chapters turn to the hebrew bible. first, i offer a systematic comparison of the biblical šōpēṭ and the šāpiṭum of syro-mesopotamia. the findings suggest that, while the two may be superficially different at times, they are fundamentally similar. the differences arise from the difference in social context and nature of the documentation. second, i investigate the composition history of judges 2:11–19 and allusions to šōpeṭîm in the prophetic traditions, especially hosea and isaiah. the investigation invites the reader to consider the possibility that the biblical traditions preserve genuine memories of a bygone amorite age.in the concluding chapter, i summarize the findings of my study and consider their implications for the field of hebrew bible scholarship. i address the ways in which my study can be further sharpened. lastly, i note the dangling threads that have not been fully woven together and propose avenues for future research. calvinism has long been of interest to social scientists as a strict, early modern theological system that eventually led to the rise of modern capitalism, radical politics, and state power. this project turns the lens on calvinism more directly, investigating and explaining the increasing prominence of calvinism in american evangelicalism today, especially among millennials. this "new calvinist" or "neo-reformed" movement has garnered nationwide attention in recent years as a significant and influential christian trend that runs counter to advanced-modern sensibilities of self-determination, relativistic tolerance, and egalitarianism. this work explains how pastors, seminary professors, and other calvinistic leaders use and engage with elements of today's culture to position themselves strategically in relation to the rest of american evangelicalism, and how this serves to advance their distinctive early modern ideology and power over the field.working at the intersection of the sociology of culture, religion, organizations, and movements—and highlighting issues related to power, conflict, ideologies, strategy, gender, and more—this project develops a new, field-theoretic model of institutional religious strength. the findings indicate that religious vitality in the west today is less at the mercy of cultural happenstance, numerical growth, or the external forces of modernity than it is an outworking of religious leaders' strategic and conflictual efforts. but with strength comes weakness. ironically, as conservative calvinistic thought experiences increased prominence and power in its field, american evangelicalism has now turned in on itself such that the strength of one evangelical pocket ultimately comes at the cost of the increasing weakness, fragmentation, and incoherence of the evangelical field as a whole. this field-theoretic model of religious strength thus also implies a new vision of secularization as cultural entropy, in which religious meanings and coherence fall apart. data are from participant observation at three leading calvinist mega-churches across the united states; interviews with 75 pastors, seminary professors, and other evangelical leaders; and content analysis of evangelical books, sermons, and websites. what drives the propensity for the social network dynamics? social influence is believed to drive both off-line and on-line human behavior, however it has not been considered as a driver of social network evolution. to answer this question, we integrate microscopic and macroscopic analysis that describe the connection between social influence and network dynamics and validate our proposition through several important applications. at microscopic level, we test whether or not the dynamics of individuals embedded in social networks can be attributed to the effects of social influence. influence based methods are demonstrated to be able to accurately predict future node degree centrality and novel links. at macroscopic level, we also examine whether several promulgated macroscopic properties of social networks are the consequences of social influence spreading. we develop a novel model of network evolution where the dynamics of network follow the mechanism of influence propagation, which are not captured by the existing network evolution models. our experiments confirm the predictions of our model and demonstrate the important role that social influence can play in the process of network evolution. these findings and methods are essential to both our understanding of the mechanisms that drive network evolution and our knowledge of the role of social influence in shaping the network structure. in the cases of the two remarkable late-medieval women who are the primary subjects of this dissertation, julian of norwich and marguerite porete, i have sought to understand more comprehensively both where the bible appears in their texts, whether by direct citation or less overt allusion, and what larger impact biblical texts may have on the larger organization and structural features of their texts. through detailed examination of the roles which biblical language plays in julian's revelation of love and marguerite's mirror of simple souls, i argue that the culturally-assumed limitations of medieval women's capacities to understand the bible were not only erroneous but also gave way to original and insightful interpretations of various scriptural passages that serve strategically well the broader theological and rhetorical aims of both writers. biblical citations or allusions do not appear in a revelation or in the mirror simply as external defenses of doctrinal claims (i.e. a proof-texts); instead, they function organically in the bodies of the texts, offering conceptual 'seeds' that, when nurtured by divine insight (as transmitted through julian's vision and marguerite's mystical experience) and personal reflection, germinate into identifiable structures of thought. both women thus cleverly mold scriptural and scripture-like narratives to fit the contours of their respective speculative theologies. these rhetorical acts of self-authorization, by reference to or engagement with the supreme authority of the church, illuminate the adroitness of both to navigate the seemingly un-navigable paradoxes of their respective claims, as women, to visionary or mystical authority. such textual and conceptual comparisons between julian's revelation and marguerite's mirror are instructive because they travel together (the mirror in middle english translation) in one surviving fifteenth-century manuscript, an historical curiosity that suggests that at least one carthusian compiler read or heard thematic relationships between the two textual traveling companions. such a rare opportunity for comparative investigation of two very sophisticated texts ultimately renders various insights into how two clever, female interpreters of scripture in the later middle ages elaborated on and challenged popular orthodoxies currently circulating among both the laity and the clergy of the late-medieval church. transition-metal carbenes have long been known to exhibit unique reactivity and utilized in a wide variety of applications including synthetic methods for the production of natural products, materials (polymerizations), and are invoked as intermediates in many important chemical industrial processes. our efforts are to isolate various elusive carbene complexes, similar to those thought to be involved in important palladium catalytic processes, and to broaden the horizons of reactivity invoked by transition-metal carbenes. the reactivity studies focused on inert small molecule activations essential for more sustainable and renewable energy sources, continued improvements to chemical feedstock production methods and employment of feedstocks in the synthesis of higher value chemicals. with this intention, the synthesis and characterization of various ligand scaffolds (pcpipr, pcptbu, pcph, pcph, pcn, pco) was accomplished by our group and metalated on palladium centers. the previously synthesized pcp palladium carbenes were reacted with a variety of small molecules, in this work: ammonia, nitrobenzene, and nitrosobenzene will be discussed in detail. with the emergence of interesting late-transition metal bimetallic chemistry, synthetic methods for the production of bimetallic group 10 metals was of interest to us as well. our focus was to explore reactivity of the carbene complexes and attempt to synthesize related palladium carbene complexes to expand the scope of reactivity with a special focus on the effects of metal ligand cooperativity. automobile catalytic converters (ccs) use platinum-group elements (pges) to reduce the emission of harmful gasses; however, these devices concurrently emit particles containing pt, pd, and rh. the fate of these metals in the environment and their toxicological effects are not well understood. this research focused on the effect of a siderophore, desferrioxamine-b (dfo-b), on the dissolution of catalytic converter metals. batch experiments with pure metallic and oxide forms of the pges showed that pdand pt-dfo-b aqueous complexes formed with estimated minimum stability constants on the order of 1020-24 and 1017-18, respectively. additional batch experiments with powdered cc materials confirmed the relatively higher stability constant for pd(ii)-dfo-b versus that for pt(ii)or rh(iii)-dfo-b and provided evidence to support a pd(ii)-dfo-b stability constant that is higher than the estimated 1020-24. therefore pd emitted from ccs has potential to be readily mobilized by dfo-b-like siderophores. the first study of p-type doping in gaassb lattice-matched to inp from zn spin-on glass sources is reported. shallow diffusion profiles suitable for aggressively-scaled heterojunction devices and good electronic transport properties in the doped films have been observed. potential applications for spin-on doping of p-type gaassb include the optimization of the extrinsic base resistance and the contact resistance to the base in gaassb/inp hbts for ultra-high-speed applications, without the use of regrowth or other complex processing. diffusions were carried out in a rapid thermal processor (rtp) using epitaxial heterostructures consisting of 2000 ìé of p-type gaas 0.51sb0.49 grown on semi-insulating inp by mocvd. the diffusions were performed at temperatures ranging from 350-625 å¡c and diffusion times of up to 30 minutes. sims depth profiling indicates that zn starts to diffuse into gaassb layer at temperatures as low as 350 å¡c, forming very shallow diffusion profiles. for higher temperatures deep diffusion profiles extending up to 2500 ìé were obtained. the zn appears to remain largely electrically inactive for diffusions at temperatures below 500 å¡c, as indicated by hall-effect measurements. the threshold temperature at which zn starts to become electrically active is found to be in the range of 500-550 å¡c. hall-effect measurements indicate that the average hole concentration increased by almost three orders of magnitude for the lowest-doped (2.05e16 /cmå_) test structure, rising from 2.05e16 /cmå_ to 1.67e19 /cmå_ for a 30 minute, 600 å¡c diffusion. the measured sheet resistance decreased from 280 k&#937;/sq. to 910 &#937;/sq., while the hole mobility was reduced from 59 cmå_/vs as-grown to 26 cmå_/vs due to increased impurity scattering. with increase in as-grown background doping concentration, the diffusion rate was found to increase. zn distribution profiles measured by sims were modeled and a mechanism for zn diffusion in undoped gaas 0.51sb0.49 is proposed. zn diffuses by an interstitial-substitutional mechanism in the region close to the surface but as it moves away from the surface and zn concentration falls down, it diffuses by substitutional mechanism. surface diffusivity of 1e13 cmå_/s at 600 å¡c for zn interstitials is extracted from the diffusion profiles. zn diffusivity away from the surface is found to be 1.2e14 cmå_/s at 600 å¡c. there is insuffcient evidence to tell whether this diffusivity is that of substitutional zn or of a complex that zn atoms form with the surrounding defects. scientific applications often harness the concurrency in their workloads to partition and operate them as independent tasks and achieve reasonable performance. to improve performance at scale, the partitions are operated in parallel on large pools of resources in distributed computing systems, such as clouds, clusters, and grids. however, the exclusive and on-demand deployment of applications on these platforms presents challenges. the target hardware is unknown until runtime and variable between deployments when applications are deployed on these platforms. so operating parameters such as the number of partitions and the instances to provision for execution must be determined at runtime for efficient operation. in this work, i build and demonstrate elastic applications to provide the desired characteristics for operation on distributed computing systems. i present case-studies of elastic applications from different scientific domains and draw broad observations on their design and the challenges to their efficient operation. i develop and evaluate techniques at the middleware and the application layer to achieve efficient operation. in effect, the presented techniques create self-operating elastic applications that dynamically determine the partitions of their workloads and the scale of resources to utilize. i conclude by showing that self-operating applications achieve high timeand cost-efficiency in their deployed environments in distributed computing systems. supersymmetry with r parity provides a stable dark matter candidate. however, over much of the parameter space, the dark matter candidate does not freeze out to the observed relic abundance. one method to achieve the observed relic abundance relies on the co-annihilation of multiple, nearly-degenerate electroweakino states. this so-called well tempering evades traditional collider searches because the compressed spectrum leaves soft decay products. i outline new strategies that takes advantage of this compressed spectrum and estimate its usefulness at the lhc and a future 100 tev collider.the first strategy is based on final states with missing transverse energy, a photon, and a dilepton pair, $\slashed{e}_t + \gamma + \ell^+\ell^-$. this search method performs best when the mass splitting between the heavier neutralinos and the lightest neutralino is less than the $z$ mass, which is when traditional search strategies break down. using this new method, i find the lhc could discover a mixed bino-higgsino with $m_{\ ilde{\chi}_{2,3}^0}\lesssim 190 ~\gev$ and $m_{\ ilde{\chi}_{2,3}^0} m_{\ ilde{\chi}_1^0} \simeq 30~\gev$ with 600 fb$^{-1}$ of 14 tev data. while the signature of this signal is quite distinct from the backgrounds, triggering is the biggest set-back.requiring an additional hard jet from initial (or final) state radiation can provide a trigger at the cost of signal rate. i explore the effects of boosting the electroweakinos off a hard jet at a $100~\ ev$ collider; the background leptons and photons recoil proportional to the momentum of the jet, while the signal leptons and photons have momentum proportional to the mass splitting. a $100~\ ev$ collider would provide a unique search strategy where one uses the most energetic machine to look for low energy events.in addition, i also examine an extension to the minimal supersymmetric standard model. this addition adds three $su(2)_l$ triplet chiral superfields with $y=0,\pm1$ and the superpotential respects a global $su(2)_l \otimes su(2)_r$ broken only by the yukawa interactions. the $f$ terms from these extra fields help raise the mass of the higgs to the observed value. meanwhile, if the vacuum mantains the global $su(2)_l \otimes su(2)_r$, up to the ratio of the doublet vacuum expectation values, the $\ ho$ parameter is protected at tree level. this allows for the triplet scalars to be light which opens the possibility of resonant s-channel funnels to set the observed relic abundance of dark matter. i show over a wide range of parameters that the triplets can help to set the dark matter abundance either through the s-channel funnels or well tempering with the bino. this dissertation reads and interprets beowulf in the historical and intellectual context of latin learning and elementary education and argues for possible riddling rhetorical strategies and psychomachic allegory in the old english poem. this project suggests the learned study of beowulf to function as a complement to studies of medieval apocrypha, legendary materials, traditional diction and formulaic language in the poem. the texts considered include both old english and anglo-latin literature, in addition to late classical works that seem to feature prominently in early anglo-saxon curricula. attention is given to the old english poems guðlac and juliana from the exeter book, the old english texts from the nowell codex (passion of saint christopher, wonders of the east, letter of alexander to aristotle and judith), as well as the anonymous blickling homilies. anglo-latin texts that receive thorough treatment include aldhelm's carmen de uirginitate, de uirginitate and enigmata, as well as enigmata by tatwine, eusebius and boniface, alcuin's disputatio pippini cum albino and the anonymous liber monstrorum. this project considers especially the old english riddles located in the exeter book and suggests that rhetorical strategies featured in anglo-saxon riddles (and enigmata) may operate also in beowulf and constitute an enigmatic design in the poem. after reflecting on an association between riddles and monsters in the anglo-saxon riddle tradition, this dissertation reviews the literary influence of the prudentius' late classical christian epic, the psychomachia, in the development psychomachic allegory in anglo-saxon literature. this project then analyzes the parallel representations of monstrous vice in both the psychomachia and beowulf, and it proposes that prudentius' allegorical poem may have acted as a model for characterizations of heroism and monstrosity in beowulf. the dissertation concludes that the psychomachia may be regarded as an analogue to beowulf, and that both poems share concerns about warrior ethics within the context of christian morality. data-intensive applications do not fully utilize the compute capabilities of von neumann architectures because of the memory bandwidth bottleneck. these memory-bandwidth limited applications can be accelerated by minimizing the data movement between the memory and the compute units through in-memory computing (imc). using imc, this work accelerated four different types of applications and algorithms.the first part focuses on accelerating the attention mechanism of few-shot learning algorithms such as memory augmented neural networks and prototypical networks by utilizing different distance metrics and in-memory computing circuits. \linf\ distance is implemented using content-addressable memories (cams) via range encoding. \linf\ + \lone\ distance is implemented using a combination of cams and general-purpose computing-in-memory. cams are also used to implement locality-sensitive hashing. multi-bit cams, with their corresponding distance metric, are also utilized. transformer networks have outperformed other deep neural networks (dnn) in various sequential tasks. however, memory and compute bottlenecks prevent transformer networks from scaling to long sequences due to their high execution time and energy consumption. we propose an in-memory transformer network accelerator (imtransformer) that uses a combination of crossbars and cams to accelerate transformer networks.deep random forests (drf) have comparable classification accuracy, easier interpretability, and lower memory and computational requirements than dnn. however, the development of efficient hardware to accelerate drf is lagging behind its dnn counterparts. the key to hardware acceleration of drf lies in efficiently realizing the branch-split operation at decision nodes when traversing a decision tree. we propose implementing drf through simple associative searches using ferroelectric analog cams (acams). genome analysis is becoming more important in forensic science, medicine, and history. sequencing technologies such as high throughput sequencing and third generation sequencing have greatly accelerated genome sequencing. however, genome read mapping remains significantly slower than sequencing. this research presents a genome read mapping accelerator that uses tcams to execute the fast seed and vote algorithm that can map both short and long reads. this research demonstrates a hardware-software co-design of data-intensive algorithms and applications, particularly few-shot learning, transformer networks, deep random forests, and dna read mapping. each accelerator is evaluated in terms of accuracy, latency, and energy improvements. lead halide perovskite [apbx3; a=ch3nh3+, ch(nh2)2+, cs+; x=cl-, br-, i-] thin films and colloidal nanocrystals (ncs) have taken a dominant position in the pursuit for next-generation photovoltaic and light-emitting devices. improved knowledge of their fundamental properties and photostability are still required to realize large-scale commercialization. in particular, the origin of universally observed size-dependent stokes shifts in perovskite ncs and the precise crystal structure assumed by cspbbr3 ncs remain of fundamental interest. in terms of photostability, uniformly mixed halide perovskites [e.g., apb(i1-xbrx)3] thin films and ncs suffer dramatic changes to their underlying optical and structural properties during continuous visible or ultraviolet illumination. elucidating the role played by defects (e.g. halide vacancies) as well as other photochemical processes (e.g. photoinduced i2 sublimation) provides critical mechanistic insight into this phenomenon. only by developing a truly comprehensive understanding of their fundamental properties and photostability can lead halide perovskites be successfully implemented into working devices. the ultimate goal of this study was to create a comprehensive and psychometrically sound measure of dissociation and, in the process, to elucidate the boundaries of the nomological net of dissociation. an item pool of 593 items organized into 39 homogeneous item composites (hics) was created based on a comprehensive review of the literature, with the goal of thoroughly sampling all constructs labeled as dissociation across research and clinical areas. after expert review and discussion, several hics were collapsed due to high content overlap, resulting in an item pool of 195 items organized into 14 hics before data collection. the study consisted of three phases. the first phase was a pilot study with a student sample that resulted in discarding 12 items due to iter-item correlations of .80 and above. the second phase used a large sample containing subsamples of patients (n = 392) and community members (n = 407), who were recruited from amazon mechanical turk. this phase established robust, factor analytically derived scales and facets that replicated across subsamples, resulting in the creation of the measure of dissociative experiences (mode), which contains 105 items that constitute three scales with a total of nine facets. the three scales are reality detachment (with facets psychotic dissociation and neurological dissociation), numbing detachment (with facets dissociative stress reaction, depersonalization, emotional numbing, and weak sense of self), and absorption (with facets flashbacks, fantasy proneness, and hyperfocus). this phase also established preliminary convergent and discriminant validity. the third phase used a high-risk community sample and a student re-test sample to attempt to replicate and extend the findings of phase two, by examining convergent and discriminant validity. overall, the mode showed good structural validity as evidenced by a robust and stable structure, good content validity as evidenced by the item pool comprehensively including all potential constructs of dissociation, and good convergent and discriminant validity. zebrafish (danio rerio) have the natural capacity to regenerate all neuronal cell types of the retina that are lost following injury through the reprogramming and proliferation of the müller glia. the mechanism regulating the retinal regeneration is still elusive. recently, the hippo pathway effector yap has been identified play roles in regulating the proliferation müller glia in mice. our previous data also showed the yap1 is required for reprogramming and proliferation of the müller glia. however, previous publications focused on the expression of the hippo pathway effectors yap1 and taz, largely ignoring the other hippo pathway genes. in this study, i dissected the functions of several core hippo pathway genes during retinal damage and regeneration, which included the genes encoding three kinases stk3, lats1, lats2, two transcriptional co-activators yap1 and taz, four transcription factors tead1a, tead1b, tead3a, tead3b.in this research, i first identified another two hippo pathway components tead1a and tead3a are required for müller glia reprogramming via regulating sox2 expression. and i first identified the two kinases lats1 and lats2, and four tead transcriptional factors played distinct roles in regulating the proliferation of müller glia and neuronal progenitor cells. interestingly, i identified the mechanism of lats2 and stk3 maintaining the quiescent exit of müller glia via repressing the notch3 inner cellular domain (n3icd) expression. combining with rescue experiments, the exciting results indicate the notch3 icd is a node at the crosstalk of the hippo pathway and the notch pathway in regulating müller glia quiescent exit. i further analyzed the single-cell data sets and identified the hippo-adam10-notch-notch3 icd axis in regulating müller glia proliferation. the novel results indicate in müller glia during retinal regeneration: the hippo pathway and the notch pathway can interact via a protease cleavage mechanism, but not through the ligands/receptors mechanism, which is a regular hippo-notch crosstalk mechanism. parents play an integral role in the success of interventions for children with autism spectrum disorder (asd). previous research has repeatedly demonstrated the value of involving parents in the therapeutic process to enhance child therapeutic gains. parent outcome expectancy, or a parent's belief that improvements in their child will be achieved through the use of a specific treatment, is one mechanism that has been suggested to influence parental involvement in treatment. previous work has demonstrated that greater parent outcome expectancies lead to improved treatment attendance and adherence, which in turn subsequently leads to greater therapeutic improvements for the child; however, this relationship has yet to be examined in interventions for children with asd.participants were 19 children with asd and their parents, who were part of a larger project evaluating the utility of a modified applied behavioral analysis type intervention. the first objective of this study was to examine the influence of parent outcome expectancies on in-lab treatment outcomes, in-home treatment outcomes, and overall social functioning of their child. the second objective was to investigate the relationship between parent outcome expectancies and child characteristics; specifically, age, asd symptom severity, and adaptive behavior functioning. when controlling for child characteristics, parents who reported high outcome expectancies before the start of the intervention reported greater overall social functioning throughout the intervention. in comparison, parents who reported low outcome expectancies at before the start of the intervention reported lower overall social functioning of their child at all timepoints. parents who reported medium outcome expectancies at pretest reported no significant improvement or decline in social functioning of their child during the intervention. parents of children who are older or who have more adaptive behavior functioning skills will report greater overall social functioning throughout the intervention. results highlight the importance for professionals working with individuals with asd to be cognizant of the significant impact parents have on treatment as well as how child characteristics influence how parents perceive therapies in order to maximize the benefits of treatment. studies suggest that five-year-old children can add and compare large numerical quantities through approximate representations of number. recently, it was shown that preschool children have an advantage for canonical problems (i.e., arithmetic operations presented on the left-hand side of space). the present study will examine whether older children have this same advantage. children (m age = 7.93 years) viewed events that required them to add and compare large symbolic numbers, which disappeared quickly in order to get children to estimate. these events were shown either in the canonical or the non-canonical format. the dependent variable was the number of problems solved correctly (out of 8). it was found that, in contrast to preschool children, older children performed better on the non-canonical problems than on the canonical problems. it is posited that second-grade children associate the canonical format with adding exactly, which makes it more difficult for them to draw on their approximate number system. antigen specificity is a hallmark of t cell immunity. this specificity is dictated by the t cell receptor (tcr), which recognizes peptide antigens bound and presented by major histocompatibility complex (mhc) proteins using six complementarity determining region (cdr) loops. to understand the molecular basis of specificity, i studied parental and engineered tcrs whose specificity had been switched via molecular evolution along with a clinically relevant tcr that recognizes a non-cognate mhc. i, in conjunction with our collaborators at university of illinois and loyola university, combined structural and functional analysis with deep mutational scanning to gain insight into the encoding of tcr specificity. our findings showed that for tcrs with engineered antigen specificity, the amino acid substitutions controlled the tcr binding mode and thus the interactions throughout the interface. overall, our results show that the positions on the cdr loops associated with antigen specificity are broadly distributed among the germline and hypervariable loops, and include interactions with both the peptide and mhc protein, with significant implication for engineering tcrs with novel binding properties. image reconstruction from multi-slice axial and helical x-ray computed tomography (ct) offers many challenges to resolve in order to benefit from its multiple advantages for medical diagnostic imaging. direct techniques, such as filtered back-projection (fbp) often fail in producing artifact-free images from three-dimensional helical scan data, and are faced with the traditional trade-off between image resolution and noise distribution. thus far, no conventional, analytical method has demonstrated capability for accurate reconstruction under high pitch or low-dose conditions. iterative algebraic methods originate from a substantially different description of the image recovery problem, with little inherent dependence on the scanning geometry. these techniques are applicable to a far broader class of problems than conventional convolution back-projection, and offer significant opportunities for image quality improvement, although at the cost of greater computational load. this work focuses on the use of iterative methods for reconstruction of three-dimensional ct data for application to patient imaging in a real clinical environment. the final objective of this research is to improve the imaging capabilities of ct scanners with advanced reconstruction methods, and ultimately re-define acceptable diagnostic image quality in clinical x-ray ct. iris biometric sensors and systems have advanced in complexity and performance as more detailed models of iris appearance are explored by the research community. current research in iris biometrics works to enhance iris sensors, improve matching algorithms, and accommodate more characteristics of the human iris. however, many intrinsic human and sensor based factors and extrinsic environmental factors affect the advancement of iris biometrics. in this thesis, we examine several types of intrinsic (human and sensor based) and extrinsic (environmental) factors and their effects on iris recognitions. in particular, we study the illumination scheme of the lg irisaccess 4000 and propose a diffuse illumination system in order to reduce the effects of specular highlights, an intrinsic sensor based factor. we also look at a human based intrinsic factor, eye dominance, as well as an extrinsic factor in the usages of the lg td 100. our experiments suggests that eye dominance does affect iris recognition performance, whereas variations in the use of the lg td 100 does not. none available oxidants are substances with the ability to oxidize (remove electrons from) other substances. oxidants are usually chemical substances with elements at high oxidation number (e.g., h2o2) or highly electronegative atoms that can gain one or two extra electrons by oxidizing a substance (e.g. o, f, and cl). detecting oxidants is important because oxidants have been implicated in the pathogenesis of many major diseases such as heart disease, alzheimer's, immune deficiency, etc. their detection is also helpful because these species play important regulatory roles as signaling units and in the everyday function of tissues and cells. the specific objectives of this research were to develop and characterize a chemiluminescence reaction system encapsulated in an aqueous-cored, calcium phosphate based nanoshell to detect oxidants. chemiluminescence, the emission of light as a result of a chemical reaction, has been used for decades to detect oxidative chemical processes involving trace metals and organic contaminants with high sensitivity, wide linear range and simple instrumentation. great sensitivity also means that most of these reactions require carefully controlled conditions in solution. nanoencapsulation can expand the usefulness of chemiluminescence detection of oxidants because it 1) makes them as sensitive or more sensitive to oxidants than the corresponding system in dilute solution, 2) is not affected by other molecules outside the capsule, and 3) has reasonable reaction kinetics (of the order of several minutes or less and reproducible). nanoencapsulation can create a protective environment for chemical events, allowing quantitative analysis and detection of a system irrespective of the presence of interfering substances. this technology would also be useful in a wide variety of applications such as biosensors and online sensing, drug delivery, and medical diagnostics. the scientific and engineering challenges in this area involve synthesis as well as understanding the basic chemical processes inside nanocapsules. luminol-hematin-h2o2 chemiluminescence was chosen for nanoshell encapsulation because 1) mechanisms for luminol chemiluminescence are well known, and 2) oxidation by h2o2 in aqueous alkaline solution leads to strong chemiluminescence when catalyzed by hematin, a biofriendly catalyst (chapter 2). the effects of viscous additives and fluorophore sensitizers on luminol reactions in solution and inside nanoshells will be examined in chapter 3. the basic aspects of chemiluminescent nanoshell material synthesis will be characterized in chapter 4 and its performance with and without additives evaluated in chapter 5. recent advances have allowed coupling of the adcirc hydrodynamic model and the swan wave model for improved predictions of surge and waves during hurricane conditions. in hindcasts of recent major storms, including gustav and ike of the 2008 hurricane season, the sl16 mesh in generally capable of predicting peak surge values to within one-half meter. the first body of work in this thesis focuses on improving model accuracy through adjustment of spatially variable roughness coefficients. we examine many land coverage datasets, which are used to assign nodal bottom friction and bathymetric values, and develop a best possible coverage for modeling the 2008 hurricane season. a new land coverage dataset for coastal louisiana is developed by merging the noaa c-cap post-katrina 2006 land coverage, and a 2007 vegetation type survey from usgs. this new merged land coverage is applied to the sl16 adcirc+swan mesh, developing an updated version of the mesh with different bathymetric and bottom friction parameters based on the new land coverage. hindcast using the new version of sl16 are compared to the original. very little difference in overall model validation is observed. a peripheral focus of this thesis is to improve the efficiency of modeling storm surge by incorporating a nested mesh approach. with this approach, the user extracts a small mesh from a large scale mesh for a particular area of interest, and then applies boundary conditions from a large scale simulation. this set-up allows the nested mesh to reproduce nearly equivalent results as the large scale simulation, for the particular area of interest. the nested mesh approach improves efficiency, allowing more simulations to be evaluated with limited computational resources. in this paper, we demonstrate the use of the nested mesh for a real design project. using the nested mesh approach, we also explore the possibility of parameter optimization for a particular area of interest.the second body of work focuses on surge and wave attenuation over wetlands in southern louisiana, with a sensitivity study of timing of wind-forcing, canopy coefficients, and bottom friction coefficients. we focus on hindcasts of hurricanes gustav and ike to illustrate the processes which govern surge and wave attenuation over wetlands. we are particularly interested in the timing and duration of wind stress, and whether or not surge levels reach steady state conditions, where surface wind stress forcing is in balance with the surge levels, and bottom stress has limited influence on the governing equations. finally, a sensitivity analysis is provided to determine the impact on surge levels with increased canopy coverage in the marshes, which effectively removes windstress from the governing equations. a second sensitivity evaluates the influence of bottom friction on peak surge levels for various storm forward speeds. increased bottom friction, which can be associated with wetland restoration, plays a very minor roll in the slower moving storms, where surge reaches stready state conditions. canopy, which removes windstress in the model, is found to drastically reduce surge for all storm forward speeds. to illustrate these processes, we have selected the caernarvon marsh as a study area. against claims that concern for character has no place in liberalism, i contend that the liberal tradition does and always has recognized the importance of citizens' character and, further, recognizes that there is a problem of character in liberalism. this problem is that liberal institutions, just like any regime, require a particular character in citizens to properly function, however, these institutions do not spontaneously encourage this character. recent scholarship has increasingly recognized the importance of character to the liberal tradition from its inception, however, i argue that the problem of character in liberalism has drastically changed since this inception and this change has been neglected. this change is due, in particular, to a fundamental societal transformation: democratization, specifically the increasing demands for equality that became prevalent after the french revolution. i turn to john stuart mill, friedrich nietzsche, and alexis de tocqueville, three thinkers who recognized the momentousness of democratization, to show the distinctive nature of the problem of character in a democratic age and to present solutions that show what would be required to address this problem. one central change that democratization has prompted is, to modify a phrase from tocqueville, the intellectualization of freedom. the greatest threat to freedom in a democratic age is not anarchy or government, but society and the subtle and pervasive pressure it places on thought. that is, the greatest threat to freedom is the citizens themselves and their own habits of sentiment and intellect. this change elevates the importance of character formation because it is this character itself that causes concern. i present mill and tocqueville's solutions to this problem and, though it is unclear that they can resolve the problem today, argue that they demonstrate the extent of the problem and so point to what future solutions must face. we study interactions between the geometry and topology of riemannian manifolds that satisfy curvature positivity conditions closely related to positive sectional curvature (sec>0). first, we discuss two notions of weakly positive curvature, defined in terms of averages of pairs of sectional curvatures. the manifold s^2 x s^2 is proved to satisfy these curvature positivity conditions, implying it satisfies a property intermediate between sec>0 and positive ricci curvature, and between sec>0 and nonnegative sectional curvature. combined with surgery techniques, this construction allows to classify (up to homeomorphism) the closed simply-connected 4-manifolds that admit a riemannian metric for which averages of pairs of sectional curvatures of orthogonal planes are positive. second, we study the notion of strongly positive curvature, which is intermediate between sec>0 and positive-definiteness of the curvature operator. we elaborate on joint work with mendes, which yields the classification of simply-connected homogeneous spaces that admit an invariant metric with strongly positive curvature. these methods are then used to study the moduli space of homogeneous metrics with strongly positive curvature on the wallach flag manifolds and on berger spheres. cityplace isn't a location but a propositional logic, a constructive property, an organizing principle in perpetual confrontation with the unintelligible real where the mysteries lurk—the active periphery that destabilizes the status quo. a paranoid situation where the full explanation remains out of reach, cityplace waits between two apocalypses, an ideology that only understands social contract in the language of social conspiracy, the production of truth as capital, and mediation—image, body and sound—as a transformational (disfiguring) process. cityplace is the enduring tension between identity and self, history and the end of the world—presentness as impasse between past and future, positioned in the ontological space between the mirror and the source where reflection crosses back over itself. cityplace is the logic of complicity when the awareness of one's own complicity is the beginning of the process and not the end. cityplace is people in direct contact. cityplace is now. new methods for the phosphorus-mediated activation of c&ndash;o, n&ndash;o, c=o, and c&ndash;x bonds are reported herein. the first of which is a staudinger ligation method, which allows for ready access to a diverse assortment of amides through the direct functionalization of carboxylic acids and azides using a chlorophosphite as a dual activating agent. this procedure complements current amide-bond forming technology by virtue of the highly chemoselective intramolecular acyl migration event, and simplified product isolation due to the aqueous solubility of byproducts generated. however, we desired to further minimize the phosphorus waste generated from the phosphorus ligation reagent. therefore, we employed the use of triphenylphosphine, a variety of azides, and a mild, silane reducing agent to afford the corresponding amides. this amidation method retains the chemoselectivity characteristics as displayed in the chlorophosphite staudinger ligation method, while minimizing phosphine oxide production by employing phenylsilane to regenerate triphenylphosphine. our phosphorus-mediated was also applicable to n&ndash;o bond activation as shown by our phosphite-mediated approach toward n-toluenesulfonyl amidine construction. this method avoids the direct use of amines, harsh reaction conditions, and the need for a metal catalyst. the ligation is mechanistically related to the beckmann rearrangement in that oxime geometry dictates migratory aptitude and proceeds with retention of absolute configuration. carbonyl c=o bond activation can also be achieved using p(nme2)3 toward the synthesis of the 3,3'-spirocyclopropane oxindole core via a kukhtin-ramirez reaction with a broad range of aryl and alkyl alkylidene oxindoles. overall, high yields were obtained of the spirocyclopropanes starting from a variety of readily available alkylidene oxindoles. moderate diastereoselectivities are observed in sterically encumbered alkylidenes, in which double-bond isomerization is minimized. we were also successful in our efforts to synthesis a 1,1-diester spirocyclopropane, which we envision will be a suitable substrate for ring expansion to the spiropyrrolidinyl series utilizing lewis-acid activation and an imine nucleophile. in addition, c&ndash;x activation using phosphine additives under ambient conditions was also achieved. the isolation of an unprecedented phosphine-dinuclear zinc bisacetylide complex sheds light on the nature of this enhanced reactivity and provides the impetus for further development of alternative zinc ligand designs. this reliable procedure complements existing alkynylation technology, and lays the foundation for future applications of phosphine-mediated organozinc additions to carbonyl compounds. additionally, our study illustrates the first example of a chiral phosphine-accelerated enantioselective alkynylzinc addition to aldehydes. overall, we have exhibited numerous methods showcasing the power of phosphorus to mediate or enhance reactivity for the synthesis of highly important functional groups such as amides, amidines, spirocyclopropane oxindoles, and propargyl alcohols. it is our hope that these methods are useful to the scientific community for the synthesis of pharmaceutically relevant compounds and biologically active molecules. why do nativist parties employ religious rhetoric when religious attendance and affiliation is declining? what explains variation in nativist religious rhetoric? is nativist religious rhetoric simply copying christian democratic rhetoric? finally, does religious rhetoric actually work, can it influence voter behavior? this dissertation employed a mixed-methods approach to explore these questions in the context of central european nativist parties through three types of evidence: interviews with german nativist afd officials, an original dataset of religious references from austrian, croatian, czech, german, hungarian, polish, slovakian, slovenian, and swiss party manifestos between 1990 and 2021, and a survey experiment. this project generated four main takeaways: first, interviews with german afd officials revealed that for nativist parties seeking to promote ethno-nationalist agendas, religious rhetoric allows them to sidestep the historical baggage of nazism and fascism. second, i find that distribution by type of rhetoric can be explained by the politicization of religious identities over history; politics, not religion, is the primary driver of whether and how nativist parties choose to employ religious rhetoric. third, i demonstrate that while both christian democratic parties and nativist parties employ religious rhetoric, nativist parties maintain an anti-institutional, anti-elite stance through primarily negative references to islam and vaguer affirmations in support of christianity. fourth, the use of a religious reference by a nativist candidate decreases support, except among nativist true-believers, suggesting that nativist parties are either targeting the party faithful or that it is an unsuccessful strategy to appeal to mainstream voters. counterintuitively, despite framing themselves as defenders of the ``people," nativist parties use religious rhetoric to define who the "people" are not, rather than who the "people" are. an outline of the major issues in my visual thesis project, "with god on their side". the project is attempt at deconstructing the visual structure utilized by monotheistic fundamentalist groups to mythologize and promote their faith, while also seeking to understand the seduction of ideology on the individual, mainly the female. this dissertation explains why security sector reform (or ssr), a widely adopted measure in post-conflict contexts, sometimes leads to very high levels of criminal violence. in contrast to prevailing explanations that emphasize the role of ssr in creating the conditions for peace, i focus on the police--the state institution usually in charge of enforcing the law domestically--and argue that conditional on the type of reform adopted, ssr can create conditions for increased violence. in the aftermath of armed conflict, the international community intervenes to reform the security apparatus with specific prescriptions. such prescriptions usually focus on two key areas: accountability--the generation of information and imposition of costs on behavior that departs from certain rules, based on the assumption that legal consequences will deter police from excessive violence--and militarization--understood as changes in weaponry and training that will deter others from engaging in violence.\indent these prescriptions lose sight of two fundamental features of post-conflict settings: 1) the presence of pre--existing values regarding the use of violence; 2) the logic of the strategic interactions between the police and violent actors. i theorize that reforms that do not reduce militarization tend to produce police forces that are more prone to use violence. i theorize further that accountability mechanisms reduce police propensity for violence only under conditions of low militarization. i conceptualize demilitarization as a change in the logic of the use of violence (from the elimination of an enemy combatant, to the protection of a citizen with rights). accountability refers to the imposition of constraints (disciplinary actions and oversight) on the use of violence by the police and other violations of its code of ethics such as corruption.\indent reforms operate to increase or decrease police propensity to use force; this behavioral change has an effect on criminal violence. prior to the end of conflict, police and criminals interact frequently. these repeated interactions lead criminals to form expectations about police behavior towards them. reforms affect such expectations. as police propensity for violence increases, it affects criminal groups' ability to anticipate police behavior, creating uncertainty. this is because police's propensity for violence is manifested selectively. criminal groups cannot anticipate whether there will be violence towards them, or to what extent. under conditions of uncertainty, the rational strategy is to respond with a combative behavior. in anticipation of the possibility of police violence, criminal groups will tend to arm up and recruit more members. the condition of uncertainty generates spirals of violence.\indent i rely on a mixed-methods strategy to test this argument. i built an original dataset containing detailed information on police reforms implemented in all countries that transitioned out of a conflict between the end of the cold war and 2015. i conceptualize reforms as concrete changes to the structure and functions of the police, regardless of the intended outcomes of the reform process. to construct this dataset, i operationalized the dimensions of militarization and accountability in a series of sub-dimensions based on the theoretical argument. the dataset triangulates multiple sources of information--case studies by non-governmental organizations, police encyclopedias, police websites or national documents, us state department and amnesty international human rights country reports--and it improves upon others by disaggregating reforms into separate components, which allows for additional variation in the spectrum of reforms. i use this database to conduct a cross-national analysis of the effect of reforms on police and criminal violence. i then explore the causal mechanisms underpinning my argument through within--case comparative analysis of the south african experience following extensive reforms implemented in 1994. \indent results from quantitative analyses show that countries that implement reforms that increase militarization tend to experience greater increases in violence post--conflict than those that do not. the analyses also suggest that accountability mechanisms, although relevant to reduce police propensity for violence, have a more limited effect, at lower levels of militarization. at high levels of militarization in particular, accountability has no effect on police violence, suggesting that it operates to reinforce militarization. i also show that structural factors such as inequality, poverty, and weak institutions are not sufficient to explain why violence is reduced in some post-conflict contexts but not others. \indent to delve deeper into how these processes occur, i conducted extensive fieldwork in south africa. i interviewed government officials, members of the police, academics, and members of think-tanks and non-governmental organizations. i also undertook a review of twenty years of parliamentary debates on police reform and the construction of a database of newspaper articles to understand the patterns of confrontation between police and criminal groups between 1989 and 2015. the case study provides rich evidence of the mechanisms driving these changes. through a reconstruction of the processes following the reforms, i show that reductions in militarization happened by implementing changes in composition and organization of the police service under the mandela administration. the case also shows that the accountability structures implemented increased the cost of violations and police use of violence decreased when militarization was low. conversely, as militarization increased in the 2000s, additional organizational changes led to an increase in police violence, even in the presence of accountability, which escalated criminal violence. \indent my research shows that security reforms, particularly of the police, are a key element in efforts to reduce post--conflict criminal violence because they can exacerbate the conditions that sustain it. more importantly, i show that violence is not a transitory problem some states face on their way to democratization; rather, it can become a permanent feature of daily social interactions. the creation of an effective rule of law depends in part on its enforcement, which falls within the purview of the police. the abuse of force as a mechanism to implement the rule of law selectively, by treating individuals or groups as enemies, creates conditions for increased violence, which is detrimental to security, peace, and ultimately human development. post--conflict criminal violence is not a phenomenon of the post-transition period, rather, its ebbs and flows result from the legacies of complex dynamics between violent actors, the state, and ordinary citizens that developed during conflict. importantly, many of the lessons from my project extend beyond post--conflict cases, and can apply to democratic contexts where militarization of the police is taking place. the primary thesis of this dissertation is that in order to shape an adequate and inclusive response to disability, the church must listen to the voices and experiences of those with disabilities — especially people with intellectual disabilities. i make my argument through the use of ethnographic field research in a local sheltered workshop that serves adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (idd); the questions about inclusion and participation raised at this field site illuminates the ethical challenges that church practices face concerning inclusion of people with idd. the first chapter of the dissertation addresses the history of my fieldwork site within the larger context of the disability rights movement that took place in the last half of the twentieth century. within this historical perspective, i draw forward the places where the institutional church either helped or hindered the efforts at inclusion of people with idd in society and improvements for their quality of life. the second chapter is methodologically oriented, justifying my use of ethnography with an appeal to the epistemic privilege of the poor in latin american liberation theology. ethnography serves as a tool for accessing — albeit imperfectly, and mediated through myself as the researcher — the standpoint of people with intellectual disabilities (the epistemic privilege of the poor). finally, the third and fourth chapters detail my findings over the course of my fieldwork about how the people with idd in the workshop navigate through relationships and structures and develop their own sense of inclusion. the third chapter is organized around the theme of experiences of grace and liberation; the fourth and final chapter is organized around the theme of sin and resistance to sin. according to the family stress model (conger, 1994; conger et al., 1990), experiencing material hardship such as food insecurity or housing instability may negatively affect adolescents directly and indirectly by undermining parents' psychological resources. the current study examined whether there was an indirect effect of material hardship on adolescent internalizing and externalizing behaviors through maternal parenting stress. further, the study examined whether the indirect effect of food insecurity and housing instability varied as a function of two forms of paternal social support, coparenting support and father engagement. the sample included 2,609 mothers, fathers, and their children (51.2% boys) from the future of families and child wellbeing study (ffcws). mediation and moderated mediation analyses were used in this study and were executed using the process macro (hayes, 2018). the results showed that maternal parenting stress fully mediated the relationship between (1) food insecurity and adolescent internalizing (i.e., anxiety and depression) (2) food insecurity and adolescent externalizing and (3) housing instability and adolescent depression. there was evidence that maternal parenting stress partially mediated the relationship between (1) housing instability and adolescent anxiety and (2) housing instability and adolescent externalizing. furthermore, moderated mediation analyses revealed that neither father coparenting support nor father engagement moderated the indirect effect of material hardship on adolescent outcomes through maternal parenting stress. overall, the findings provide evidence to suggest the long-term, longitudinal impact of material hardship on adolescent psychosocial and behavioral outcomes through maternal parenting stress. philosophers and historians of science have only recently begun to think about issues involving the use of computer simulations in scientific practice. this dissertation is meant to help develop a more broadly construed philosophy and history of computer simulation than has previously been presented by considering terminological, epistemological, and ontological questions as they bear on the question of scientific methodology in regard to computer simulation from a historical perspective. one common argument that has emerged in the literature is that computer simulations cannot count as experiments because (1) empirical theory testing cannot be performed with a computer simulation since it must assume the very theory that is supposedly being tested and (2) empirical theory testing is the only form of theory guided experimentation. while there is lively discussion about the veracity of (1), the extant literature in both the philosophy and history of computer simulation and experimentation tacitly assumes (2). this dissertation undermines (2) by introducing a new experimental genre &ndash; the "kuhnian" experiment. kuhnian experiments do not test theory, but rather assume the adequacy of some scientific theory in order to solve empirical puzzles in scientific fields where the theory is already well articulated and fully accepted. such puzzles arise as a result of the theoretical equations describing the physical phenomenon in question being analytically intractable. one way scientists solve these puzzles is through computer simulation. historical case studies are presented as examples of this sort of experimental puzzle solving for two types of computing technology: analog computers (the network analyzer) and digital computers (particle diffusion using the monte carlo method). this is underexplored territory in the history of science, and thus this dissertation serves to augment the historical understanding of computational science. this dissertation aims to explain how negative dialectics can be understood as a form of dialectics. one of the defining features of dialectical reflection is that it is not reducible to a list of propositions, but rather progresses from one position of thought to another, and it is the movement through the various positions that defines reflection. this movement is achieved by developing 'contradictions'? within every position under consideration, where the 'contradiction'? always gives rise to the following position. however, for this movement to be possible, the 'contradiction'? must be determinate: it must have a logical form and content that gives rise to a new position of thought, which in turn does not merely deny the initial position but rather encompasses it and corrects its insufficiencies. if the contradiction is not determinate but merely 'abstract,'? then it cannot give rise to dialectical motion. the question guiding this dissertation is how the 'contradictions'? in negative dialectics can be understood as determinate. insofar as adorno discusses the determinacy of his account of contradiction, he claims to take over the hegelian conception of determinate negation. however, the hegelian account cannot be the same account at work in negative dialectics because hegel's account presupposes the complete hegelian system, whereas adorno rejects the closure of the system. an account of how 'contradiction' is determinate in negative dialectics must thus go beyond hegel. on the basis of adorno's statement that there are two forms of contradiction in negative dialectics (the 'contradiction in the object,'? and the 'contradiction in the concept'), this dissertation proceeds by a detailed investigation of the two forms of contradiction and the relation between them. the upshot is that, while both forms of contradiction involve hegelian insights, their overall structure is intelligible only in terms of adorno's appropriation of the freudian notion of 'paranoid projection.' this dissertation argues that it is ultimately the logic of paranoid projection that makes contradiction determinate in negative dialectics, and that makes dialectical development possible. the conclusion reflects on the extent to which freudian theory is presupposed by the structure and integrity of negative dialectics as a whole. building on the fundamental sociological principle that individuals are embedded in social contexts and that varying contexts are probably related to varying individual behavior, this paper seeks to elaborate on characteristics of communities that explain decisions to participate in voluntary associations. using a multilevel framework, it is argued that individuals' sense of attachment to their local community facilitates voluntary association participation, and that contextual factors which facilitate or impede community cohesionì¢ ââ' namely the combination of heterogeneity and segregationì¢ ââ' will also impact individual levels of participation. in addition, it is proposed that the effects of heterogeneity and segregation will differ depending on whether individuals are members of the majority or members of the minority. findings generally support the hypotheses, underlining the need to take seriously segregation's interactive nature, group differences in the effects of segregation and heterogeneity, and more generally, the effect of context on voluntary association participation and community cohesion. this thesis presents the implementation of a four-dimensional triangulation package. computation of both basic triangulations of point sets and regular triangulations of weighted point sets using an incremental insertion algorithm is presented. the regular triangulation is the dual of the power diagram, which is the voronoi diagram of weighted points under the power distance. the implementation follows the computational geometry algorithms library (cgal), and will be contributed. a key part of the package lies with the data structure, which allows the user to easily traverse the constructed triangulations using circulators, enumerators, and iterators. additionally, the geometric predicates are generalized from their lower-dimensional counterparts. arithmetic filtering is used to keep the predicates exact, yet efficient. the result is a triangulation package that is easy to use, efficient, and robust. the iii-nitrides are direct band gap semiconductors that span a large range of band gaps from ~0.6 ev (inn) to 6.2 ev (aln). in recent years high electron mobility transistors (hemts) based on iii-nitride semiconductors have proved capable of high power, high voltage and high frequency operation. integration of ald oxides with gan will enable lower gate leakage currents, high breakdown voltages, and surface passivation of hemts. in this work we present a comprehensive characterization of aln/gan mos-hemt (grown by pambe) gate stacks with ald al2o3 of various thicknesses. through capacitance-voltage and hall-effect measurements, we find the presence and propose an origin of benign donor-type interface charge qit~ 6x1013 cm-2 at the aln/al2o3 junction, and relate its presence to the polarization charges in aln. the role of ald oxygen layers as possible modulation dopants can offer opportunities for various innovative designs in iii-nitride electronic devices. most importantly by controlling the effective qit (for example by compensation doping, or by varying the polarization through the composition), pinch-off voltage vp can be made to increase, remain independent, or decrease with dielectric thickness tox.there is a strong recent interest in studying the effect of magnetic interaction of various ferromagnetic structures leading the pathway for nanomagnet logic operation (nml). however, there is a very little effort so far to identify the potential effect of high current density of iii-nitride heterostructure on microanomagnetic structures high-current drive nitride devices can potentially eliminate the need for auxiliary arrangements of switching and may enable the integration of logic and memory in the same device. the successful integration of microano magnets (supermalloy made) with iii-nitride heterostructure and the ability of imaging the single/multi-domain featured nano/micromagnets on iii-nitrides presented in this work opens the possibility of active device driven switching of nanomagnets in mqca logic operation. although simulation result has shown that the field requirement in nanomagnet switching is higher compared to the h field obtained (~1mt) using the drain current (1.4amps/mm) of a normal hemt, it is possible to use other nitride structures (n-gan) to deliver current density more than 10amps/mm as shown in this work. such a high current density produces a magnetic field in excess of 8mt. this field can be used affectively to move the domains of the micromagnetic structures, and possibly nanomagnets switching too. squaraine dyes are a class of fluorescent compounds well-suited for biological applications due to their favorable photophysical properties. squaraines exhibit moderate fluorescence quantum yields in aqueous conditions with sharp and intense peaks in the near-infrared (nir) region, 650-900 nm, that is critical for high-performance biological imaging. chapter 1 of this thesis provides an overview of the photophysical and supramolecular chemistry of squaraine dyes. chapter 2 describes squaraine rotaxanes, mechanically interlocked molecules comprised of a dumbbell-shaped 3,3-dimethylindoline squaraine dye inside a tetralactam macrocycle with anthracene sidewalls. the rotaxanes were prepared by a templated clipping reaction, and an x-ray crystal structure shows that the squaraine gem-dimethyl groups force a relatively wide separation between the macrocycle anthracene sidewalls. solution-state studies show that the gem-dimethyl groups in 3,3-dimethylindoline squaraine dyes are large enough to prevent macrocycle threading or rotaxane unthreading. chapter 3 describes two related fluorescent probes that are molecular conjugates of one or two zinc dipicolylamine (zndpa) coordination complexes with an appended solvatochromic benzothiazolium squaraine dye. the probes were designed to target the anionic phospholipid, phosphatidylserine (ps), that is exposed on the surface of dead and dying cells. a series of spectrometric and microscopy studies using liposomes and red blood cell ghosts as models showed that the probe with two zndpa targeting units produced higher affinity, stronger fluorescence "turn-on" effect, and better image contrast than the probe with one zndpa. both fluorescent probes enabled "no-wash" time-lapse microscopic imaging of mammalian cell death within a culture. the probe with two zndpa units was used for non-invasive time-lapse imaging of cell death during the development of xenopus laevis(frog) embryos. in vivofluorescence micrographs revealed probe accumulation within the embryo tail, head and spine regions that were undergoing regression and apoptosis during growth and maturation.chapter 4 describes four new first-generation solvatochromic squaraine dyes with unsymmetric structures. macrocycle threading of the dyes in chloroform produces a relatively small 20 nm red-shift in absorption wavelength. in contrast, macrocycle threading in water produces ~80 nm red-shift in absorption wavelength, indicating a large change in polarity surrounding the solvatochromic squaraine as it transfers from bulk water solution to the relatively non-polar macrocycle interior and a very large 70-fold enhancement of squaraine fluorescence. kinetic studies of macrocycle threading by a squaraine with an n-methyl substituent at the end of the structure was 5 million times faster than threading by a squaraine with an n-propyl substituent. this sensitive substituent effect permits structural fine-tuning of macrocycle/squaraine threading kinetics, which is a very useful way to pre-assemble fluorescent probes for biological imaging. finally, chapters 5 and 6 explore second-generation unsymmetrical dyes and the results show a pathway that improves the association constants for macrocycle threading in water from micromolar to nanomolar affinities. these dye threading systems are likely to be useful for in situ capture applications. tunnel field-effect transistors (tfets) are under intense investigation for low-power applications because of their potential for low subthreshold swing (ss) and low off-state leakage (ioff). to achieve high on current (ion) and steep ss in tfets, tfets based on iii-v semiconductors with small effective mass and favorable band alignment have been investigated by several groups. the focus of this dissertation is on the design, fabrication and characterization of such tfets. the interface between ingaas and high k dielectrics by atomic layer deposition (ald) was first studied, which is critical for tfets. a novel tfet geometry with tunneling direction normal to the gate was then designed; and the early generations of tfets were fabricated on an ingaas/inp heterojunction and an inas/algasb heterojunction, showing promising results: ion/ioff ~ 106, ion > 30 &#956;a/&#956;m at vds = vgs = 1 v and ssmin = 93 mv/dec. to further improve tfets device performance, another novel gate-recess process was successfully developed featuring a completely self-aligned device topology and excellent ohmic contacts (150 &#937;'¢&#956;m). another generation of the tfets was demonstrated using an inas/(al)gasb tunnel junction with a (near) broken band alignment. the inas/gasb tfets with the favorable broken gap alignment fabricated using the gate-recess process have shown a record high ion of 180 &#956;a/&#956;m at vds = vgs = 0.5 v with an ion/ioff ratio of 6x103. the effects of effective oxide thickness (eot) scaling, ald oxide and plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (pecvd) sinx passivation, forming gas annealing (fga) and temperature dependence on the tfet performance were also investigated. finally, various mechanisms limiting the tfets performance such as on-current, off-current and ss have been examined. iii-nitride electronic devices have made significant progress in high frequency and high power applications in the past decade. in this work, nitride heterostructures with >70 % al composition algan ternary alloy barriers have been grown by molecular beam epitaxy (mbe). with quasi-growth interruption technology the mobility of the two-dimensional electron gas (2deg) channel has been improved by one order of magnitude and reached ~1400 cm2/vs. threshold voltage control by work function engineering has been demonstrated in high al composition hemts, enabling integration of enhancement (e) and depletion (d) mode hemts. to further boost the radio frequency (rf) and power performance of nitride-based electronics, scaling to deep submicron regime is required. ultra-thin body (utb) devices offer ways for tight electrostatic and quantum confinement of charge carriers to nanoscale dimensions. with its large polarization charge, wide bandgap and large band offsets, aln induces the maximal carrier densities while providing the best confinement for nitride channels of all compositions. several mbe growth technologies have been employed in this work to realize, for the first time, nitride heterostructures consisting of an ultra-thin strained gan channel sandwiched in relaxed aln barriers. the density of the 2deg could be varied by changing the gan quantum well thickness while fixing the top barrier thickness in the heterostructure. the resulting aln/gan/aln n-channel field effect transistors (nfets) have been demonstrated on single crystal bulk aln substrates with regrown ohmic contacts. a maximum drain current drive of ~2.8 a/mm has been achieved. a current cut-off frequency ft of 120 ghz has been measured on 65-nm-long gate devices. nitride devices on aln platform stand also to benefit from the symmetry of electronic polarization: high density hole gases can be generated in much the same way as the high density 2deg in gan hemts, thus enabling p-channel fets (pfets) on the same material platform as nfets in a logical manner. polarization-induced p-type doping is realized in a utb strained gan channel on aln template grown by mbe, with a hole gas density close to the interface polarization charge (~5 x 1013 /cm2). high density of 2d hole gases are resistant to freeze out at cryogenic temperature in temperature-dependent hall-effect measurements. both e/d-mode operations are achieved based on gan/aln heterostructures. driven by the high hole density, a long channel d-mode pfet shows a drain current of ~150 ma/mm at 300 k which increases to ~270 ma/mm at 77 k. the utb gan nfets and pfets on aln present a compelling case for iii-nitride complementary logic and high power applications. various channels (ingan, algan etc.) could be explored in the future to improve carrier mobility, induce higher carrier density or enhance breakdown characteristics. technologies for monolithic integration of nitride channel nfets and pfets on aln have been proposed. the world we live in is constantly changing; human ingenuity has mustered solutions to countless threats over the centuries, and soon after each triumph yet another challenge rears its head. today the world is likely changing faster, too, than it ever was, owing to the accelerating breadth of human impact on the world around us as we continue to expand and grow. numerous examples come to mind, but consider in particular human health: an increasingly aged global population is encountering age-related diseases, like cancer and neurological disorders, at an elevated rate. as our food supplies plateau relative to populations, first-world diets are becoming prevalent across the world, along with associated risks of society-wide obesity and diabetes, compounded by an increased access to sedentary lifestyles working seated at a desk and relaxing seated at home. as we've grown increasingly accustomed to the use of antibiotics in medicine, husbandry, and agriculture, this coincides with the emergence of resistant superbug bacterial strains. the list goes on, but again we can reflect on the long list of accomplishments humanity has made over threats in the past. such accomplishments were not usually mere accidents, but owed to a lineage of scientific discovery and thought that has changed how we see the world and how we can shape it and adapt to it. this brought us germ theory, the invention of vaccines, the first isolations of therapeutic proteins, and a host of other boons we take for granted now. looking back at the sample list of global health threats, there is a growing need for discovery and innovation in medicine. in recent decades, humanity has reached new horizons in materials technology, advancing toward mastering matter at the molecular level. it is becoming evident that many diseases, disorders and threats that have origins at a molecular level might have appropriate resolutions there too, and the need to find them is becoming ever more apparent.the following body of work can be summarized as an effort to create and understand materials at this level, most often taking a bioinspired form, and most often ending with additional questions as well as answers. the need for fundamental knowledge on the processes underlying molecular systems grows at the same rapid pace as their accelerating application toward real problems. herein lies and examination and careful study of observable phenomena in molecular material systems, and the extraction and purposing of that knowledge toward the generation of novel, useful platforms. chapter 1 provides a broad introduction to key concepts that underlie the material systems described in subsequent chapters, such as supramolecular chemistry, self-assembly, hydrogels and generalized applications of these concepts in medicine. it also implicitly asks the questions "can we understand these concepts at a foundational level?", "can we use our understanding to design new materials with specific features or functions?", and finally "do our designed materials, when applied to a problem, accomplish a solution?". the work presented in chapters 2 and 3 primarily focuses on the first two questions, putting forward designed molecular systems with projected properties/uses, and evaluating what the material actually demonstrates, what we learn from it, and how it can be used to improve our capacity to design. chapters 4 and 5 provide tests of the third question, where material design principles established by the likes of earlier chapters are paired against a difficult challenge in healthcare. in these cases, the goal being controllable, glucose-responsive insulin delivery for the dynamic and biomimetic treatment of diabetes. scanning tunneling microscopy studies preformed at room temperature have provided insight as to how local structure of monolayers and gas-radicals react with one another. previous experiments with hydrogen atoms show that surface morphology plays a large roll in how the reaction proceeds. we examined the reaction with chlorine–gas radicals and observed that, while surface morphology plays a role, the reaction mechanism differs in that the closed-packed regions of the monolayer are most reactive. however, thermal impacts on the surface do not allow for the direct observation of reactions as they proceed. to remedy this, a low-temperature, ultrahigh vacuum scanning probe instrument designed to preform the same reaction studies has been built utilizing 3d-printed components. prior to 3d-printed metals being used in the lt-uhv instrument, they were used in a ambient-condition design that was vibrationally stable without the use of external isolation or dampening, and the 3d-printed metals were determined to be compatible with uhv. this dissertation is a history of the omani empire focused primarily on the first half of the nineteenth century. i use the reign of oman's longest serving ruler, saʿid bin sultan (1804/6-1856), as a lens for highlighting the formative role the omani empire played in uniting the atlantic and indian oceans into a shared oceanic marketplace, a crucial step in the emergence of modern global capitalism. it is based on archival research and published primary sources from throughout oman, zanzibar, india, france, the united kingdom, and the united states. this work reveals the omani empire as a new, mostly overlooked space for seeing how entrepreneurs and statesmen combined imperial agendas, slave labor, and the singular pursuit of profit in uniting disparate markets into global circuits of exchange. across six chapters, i unravel the process by which zanzibar, the empire's capital, became a monied metropolis bursting with entrepreneurs from throughout the world, trading in the most coveted consumer goods of the time. by using an oceanic framework, i bring into focus an entire history of empire and capitalism that has been largely overlooked by many middle east and islamic world historians because of a conventional adherence to terrestrial units of analysis. most broadly, i aim to show how the makings of the modern world lie as much in places like east africa and the arabian peninsula as in places like england or new england. accordingly, i use the omani empire as a platform for arguing that the formation of global capitalism resulted from relatively new maritime markets throughout the atlantic ocean being incorporated into the longer standing indian ocean world. since the discovery in the 1950's of the barcelona papyrus, the anaphora contained within it has remained the most understudied classical anaphora. however, a close analysis of this anaphora can reshape liturgical historians' understanding of a number of classical anaphoras, and thus their approach to anaphoral development more broadly. this anaphora requires scholars to rethink questions concerning the construction, geographical provenance, and structural patterns of early anaphoras and their units. it is a witness to a very early form of eucharistic praying, and points to various ways in which older less developed eucharistic prayers may have developed into the anaphoral patterns common in the fourth century. as such, an analysis of this anaphora is of historical and methodological interest. this anaphora is also an early witness to egyptian eucharistic praying. it stems from the same anaphoral tradition as the anaphora of st. mark, but on the whole it is a better witness to the earlier form of that tradition. the anaphora in the barcelona papyrus also bears a number of structural and textual similarities to the anaphora described in the mystagogical catecheses, which is often attributed to cyril of jerusalem. as such, it sheds further light on the relationship between egypt and jerusalem and provides further evidence in support of geoffrey cuming's theory that a "common ancestor" lies behind the anaphoras from egypt and jerusalem. finally, the anaphora in the barcelona papyrus, as one of our earliest extant eucharistic prayers, provides us with evidence for how the earliest anaphoras were structured. in the earliest layers of the anaphora, a structure of thanksgiving-supplication can be clearly discerned. most of the classical anaphoras appear to have been constructed around these two modes of prayer. as eucharistic prayers came to be written down, this thanksgiving-supplication pattern would be expanded and embellished. over time, this pattern would become disguised in many of the classical anaphoras. this structure can, however, still be clearly seen in the anaphora in the barcelona papyrus. the tremendous increase in available data in bioinformatics necessitates computational approaches which leverage a wide variety of computing resources. these systems must be easy for the user and add minimal overhead for developers. developers must also take advantage of these systems and build tools and applications which are highly portable and have low overheads while being capable of running on a large variety of resources. to this end, we present multiple applications and modifications with lessons learned and guidelines for development. additionally these applications provide useful modifications to the community. finally we provide a use case which leverages distributed computing and without which, would be computationally infeasible. this is a grounded theory study attempting to answer the question of why high school sports are appealing to individuals without direct personal connections to contesting teams, incorporating observations from 16 high school basketball games that took place at 7 different gyms in indiana over the course of the 2018-19 season. engagement in high school basketball creates emotional energy as enumerated by randall collins, which is then invested into symbols akin to durkheim's totems. high school athletics attains a lasting appeal insofar as it associates itself with other community symbols in the context of a high-fusion identity (a la jeffrey alexander), thus creating many minor opportunities for engagement with symbols and reinvestment of emotional energy both within and outside the sporting context. the necessary frequency of these opportunities varies inversely to the emotional intensity of the major ritual investment event, such as a basketball game. the frequency of emotional investment and its relationship to fused identity could shed light on various forms of collective identity and shared ritual participation. scanning kelvin probe microscopy was applied for the surface potential (sp) measurements across lateral ni-(al)gan schottky junctions. the bare surface barrier heights of unintentionally doped al0.22ga0.78n and n-gan in air were estimated by comparing the sp of (al)gan and ni. under the 364.5 nm illumination, the surface barriers were observed to decrease and the surface photovoltage (spv) was measured. minority carrier diffusion length in n-gan was extracted by modeling the spv profile near the schottky junction (ni-gan) for the first time. heterogeneous integration of gaas/gan was obtained by wafer fusion. the p(n)-gaas-gan diodes and algaas/gaas/gan heterojunction bipolar transistors (hbts) were fabricated. despite the poor performance of the fused hbt, the p-gaas-gan diodes prove the possibility of fabricating much improved fused hbts after optimizing fusion and fabrication processes. for comparison, as-grown algaas/gaas/gaas hbts were fabricated, showing the current gain of 68 at ib= 20 å_ìîa and vce= 2 v. advancements in sequencing technology have made it possible to acquire large amounts of genomic data in a relatively cost-effective fashion. however, accurate and reliable genome assembly remains a challenge. the work presented here aims to facilitate both the validation and the correction of assemblies. the validation method was developed to locate putative assembly errors by gathering detailed quantitative information about each section of the assembly, and isolating the suspected misassemblies through the use of unsupervised learning algorithms. the data gathered during validation is then exploited in a second application designed for assembly correction. it is used to guide the process of meta-assembly, wherein two different assemblies are merged to produce a final sequence of greater quality. supplementing the meta-assembly with detailed quality information allows for a more informed combination of sequences from each constituent assembly, resulting in a more accurate final product. together, these applications aim to highlight the importance of incorporating sequence quality into assembly. the detailed detection of anomalous sequences, when combined with the capacity to also improve the assemblies, can enable the construction of more robust and correct assemblies. a computational study is carried out to investigate the noise generated by a ten-bladed rotor ingesting low-mach-number turbulent flow. two types of turbulent inflows are considered: homogeneous and isotropic turbulence mimicking gridgenerated turbulence in a previous experiment and a turbulent cylinder wake. a hybrid computational approach combining les with lighthill's aeroacoustic theory is employed to predict the aeroacoustic response of the rotor. les based on incompressible flow equations provides the unsteady loading on the rotor blades, and the ffowcs williams-hawkings extension to the lighthill theory is used to calculate the radiated acoustic field.the rotor acoustic response to grid-generated turbulence is calculated at two advance ratios and validated against the experimental data of wojno et al. (aiaa j., 40(1), 2002) the noise spectra are broadband with small peaks at the blade passing frequency and its harmonics. the turbulence ingestion noise is much stronger than the rotor self noise. it is found that decreasing the rotor advance ratio at fixed freestream velocity increases the sound pressure level. turbulence distortions by the rotor are insignificant, and blade-to-blade correlations of the acoustic dipole sources are weak.the noise of rotor ingesting a turbulent cylinder wake is studied at several advance ratios and wake striking positions. the computed sound pressure spectra agree very well with the experimental measurements at virginia tech (alexander et al., aiaa paper 2016-2994) over a wide frequency range. the broadband acoustic spectra exhibit a strong tonal peak at the cylinder vortex-shedding frequency and minor peaks at the rotor blade passing frequency and trailing-edge vortex-shedding frequency. a closer examination of flow and acoustic fields reveals that the strength of the blade acoustic source increases significantly with the radial distance to the hub, and the trailing-edge self noise is generated in the outer region of the blade near the tip. it is shown that the spectral level of the ingestion noise increases with increasing rotation speed (decreasing advance ratio). the centerline and 75% off-center wake striking position cases produce similar sound pressure levels, which are slightly higher than those of the 100% off-center case. wake turbulence distortions induced by the rotor are more significant compared to the grid-generated turbulence ingestion case, and the sears theory is shown to provide a reasonable prediction of the rotor turbulence ingestion noise at most frequencies. in this study we have examined a subset of airborne lidar bathymetry for a 200 km section of gulf of mexico shoreline (baldwin county, alabama to walton county, florida). we concentrated upon the evolution of large scaled bar morphology during the high energy hurricane conditions at this area when these features can be rearranged in a matter of hours. we performed the analysis at four conditions: before the hurricane ivan landfall (april-may, 2004), after hurricane ivan (november-december, 2004), after hurricane dennis (july, 2005) and finally after hurricane katrina (november-december, 2005). before hurricane ivan at our study area we observed large scaled well developed rhythmic bar formations. they were progressively and partially or completely destroyed by hurricane ivan, dennis and katrina. quasi linear bars formed in place and bars moved offshore. we computed different bar characteristics (wavelength, extent, crest and trough elevations and cross-shore distances) to study the changes in formation patterns and length scales of the bar morphology at pre ivan and post hurricane conditions. we analyzed the wave height data for normal and extreme climatic condition and concluded that large hurricane wave heights yields high energy and hence play a significant role in the evolution of bar morphology during extreme climatic (hurricane) conditions. this dissertation examines the preaching activities and sermons of benedictine monks in england in the roughly two centuries before the reformation. though the medieval pulpit is commonly envisioned by historians primarily as the domain of the friars, in fourteenthand fifteenth-century england the black monks regularly made it their own, preaching salvation, chastising negligent priests, and denouncing heresy. in this study i set out to examine benedictine preaching, especially through their sermons to or about the laity, and what it reveals about their place in the religious landscape of late medieval england. preaching took on a new importance for the benedictines in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. competing with other religious orders and foundations for influence and devotion among the laity, popular preaching became a way for the monks to maintain their presence and pastoral leadership in the english church. though seemingly incongruous with their vocation, benedictine writers and preachers defended their popular preaching as an integral part of their way of life, supported by historical precedent and their own interpretation of the rule. university learning was pressed into the service of training benedictine brothers as preachers and monastic superiors encouraged monasteries to offer sermons for the laity. as a result the benedictine black habit became a familiar sight on england's pulpits, right up to the dissolution when no one wore habits anymore. through their preaching, the black monks offered an important pastoral service to the church and secured their place among the friars and others as elite preachers of the day. but their preaching also illustrates the relevance and influence of the benedictines in english religious life in the lead up to the reformation. through their preaching, the benedictines maintained regular contact and interaction with the laity and played an important part in their search for salvation. this study challenges us to rethink old narratives of late medieval monasticism as insular and irrelevant to wider society. this thesis analyzes the effect of training on the mutual information between the input and output of a system with unknown parameters. the work consists of two parts including a theory in the computation of mutual information with training, and its applications in wireless communication, signal processing, and machine learning which can be modeled by quantized large-scale systems and employ training as part of their operation.in the first part, we develop a theory in computing the mutual information between the input and output conditioned on training for large-scale systems that do not necessarily have gaussianity or linearity in the model, without considering any particular parameter estimate, and without resorting to linearization or any worst-case noise analysis. such mutual information can be computed as the difference between two derivatives of a single function. in the second part, we show that a quantized large-scale system with unknown parameters and training signals can be analyzed by examining an equivalent system with known parameters by modifying the signal power and noise variance in a prescribed manner. applications to training in wireless communications, signal processing, and machine learning are shown. in wireless communications, we show that the number of training signals can be significantly smaller than the number of transmitting elements. similar conclusions can be drawn when considering the symbol error rate in signal processing applications, as long as the number of receiving elements is large enough. in machine learning, where a linear classifier is considered, we show that the misclassification rate is not sensitive to the number of classes when the number of training examples is large, and is approximately inversely proportional to the size of the training set. we show that a linear analysis of this nonlinear training problem can be accurate when the additive thermal noise power is high. the wavelet adaptive multiresolution representation (wamr) method provides a robust method for controlling spatial grid adaption --fine grid spacing in regions of a solution requiring high resolution (i.e. near steep gradients, singularities, or near-singularities) and using much coarser grid spacing where the solution is slowly varying. the sparse grids produced using the wamr method exhibit very high compression ratios compared to uniform grids of equivalent resolution. subsequently, a wide range of spatial scales often occuring in continuum physics models can be efficiently captured. furthermore, the wavelet transform provides a direct measure of local error at each grid point, effectively producing automatically verified solutions. in this work, the wamr algorithm is parallelized using an mpi-based domain decomposition approach suitable for a wide range of distributed-memory parallel architectures. the method is applied to the solution of the unsteady, compressible, reactive navier-stokes equations and includes detailed diffusive transport and chemical kinetics models. performance of the method is examined on several test problems in 1-, 2-, and 3-dimensions. the wamr method shows an impressive compression of the solution, reducing the number of collocation points used by factors of up to $o(10,000)$. excellent parallel performance is also seen, with near-linear scaling for up to 512 processor cores tested. the wamr method is then applied to three high-speed compressible flow problems. the first is the shock and reshock of a thin, dense, gas layer in air, and the subsequent richtmyer-meshkov instability which develops. the second problem is a cellular detonation in a hydrogen-oxygen-argon mixture. lastly, the ignition and combustion of a hydrogen bubble by a shockwave in air is simulated. in all cases, results agree favourably with experimental and previous computational results. the use of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (uavs) or drones for emergency response scenarios, such as fire surveillance and search and rescue, offers great potential for societal benefits. uav onboard sensors such as gps, lidar, thermal cameras, and ai algorithms for planning and sensing enable them to make decisions and act autonomously in the environment without requiring explicit human control. however, human planning and strategic guidance can enhance the mission outcome. therefore, designing a real-world solution in which humans and multiple autonomous uavs work as a team in a time-critical environment demands bidirectional communications and collaborations. our design of a uav-driven emergency response system focuses on humans-to-uavs, uavs-to-humans, uavs-to-uavs, and humans-to-humans interactions.we first followed a participatory design process in which we engaged domain experts in identifying and analyzing design tensions, and then designed a high-fidelity ui to support effective human situational awareness in a uav-driven emergency response system. the design produced by this process reflected the domain knowledge and vision of the firefighters, as well as ideas for human-uav partnerships in collaborative mission-centric environments. we have built upon this initial design to explore uav-to-human interaction patterns, and have specifically highlighted the problem of information overload that occurs when explaining the autonomous behavior of multiple uavs simultaneously. we conducted multiple user studies with domain experts and crowd workers to assess the impact of autonomy explanations on human awareness. our analysis provided initial guidelines for designing explainable uis for multi-uav applications.second, we examined human-to-uav interactions in five different emergency response situations, which included river search-and-rescue, defibrillator delivery, traffic accident surveillance, water sampling for hazardous chemicals, and man overboard to identify patterns of human interventions in the uav autonomy. we leveraged the identified human intervention patterns for two purposes. first, we presented a human multi-uav intervention model that formalizes human intervention in the autonomy of the uav. second, we developed a process based on a set of probing questions for eliciting and specifying human intervention requirements for multi-uav use cases.finally, we developed a novel collaboration framework called rescue-ar to support human-to-human and uav-to-uav collaborations during an emergency response. for humans, rescue-ar addresses challenges associated with information sharing over the radio, such as lack of visualization and the transitory nature of the information. for uavs, rescue-ar leverages a shared ar world space to establish collaboration between multiple uavs. we utilized the paradigm of location-based augmented reality (ar) to geo-spatially tag scene information on aerial video streams in real-time. rescue-ar builds upon the previous design in the literature to provide a pragmatic solution for alleviating the social and organizational challenges of communication and collaboration during a uav-driven emergency response.in essence, this dissertation explores human-centered design solutions for achieving meaningful human-uav partnerships. mycobacterium tuberculosis is a professional human pathogen and causative agent of tuberculosis (tb), one of the leading causes of death worldwide. there is currently an incomplete understanding of how m. tb subverts the host immune system and persists within the human body. to bridge these gaps in knowledge, tb researchers are returning to basic research for new perspectives in drug design, vaccine development, and anticipation of drug resistance. n-terminal acetylation (nta) is an abundant modification found on 70-90% of eukaryotic proteins. this modification has been shown to be biologically relevant in eukaryotic systems, playing roles in protein interactions, stability, localization, and folding. the first virulence factor known to be n-terminally acetylated was the mycobacterial protein, esxa. esxa is secreted by the esat-6 system-1 (esx-1) secretion system, which is required for virulence in pathogenic mycobacteria and some gram-positive pathogens. importantly, esx-1 is necessary for virulence in m. tb. esx-1 is conserved in mycobacterium marinum, an accepted model for studying certain aspects of virulence in m. tb. acetylation of esxa, as well as other esx-1 substrates, also occurs in m. marinum, suggesting that the mechanism of nta may be conserved in mycobacteria. however, the biological mechanisms for targeting of nta on mycobacterial proteins are not known. the work presented here aims to expand the current knowledge of mycobacterial biology and provide insight into the role of nta in mycobacterial virulence. we employed genetic and proteomic techniques to profile the n-terminal acetylome of m. tb and m. marinum. we show that the mycobacterial genome can be engineered to improve the proteome, allowing mass spectrometry analysis of otherwise intractable regions of a protein (i.e. n-terminus). next, we developed a novel workflow for the enrichment of mycobacterial protein n-termini. our approach utilizes a filter assisted sample preparation method compatible with mass spectrometry analysis of mycobacterial protein digests enriched for protein n-termini. we demonstrate that nta of the mycobacterial proteome is abundant and diverse, which could inform our understanding of how n-terminal acetylation affects mycobacterial metabolism, gene expression and virulence. using our established n-terminal enrichment approach, we then analyze nta under conditions that mimic the host environment. future work in this area will allow us to determine if nta is a dynamic process and how different carbon sources may alter it. collectively, this work provides insight into the role of nta in mycobacteria and advances our understanding of nta in mycobacterial pathobiology. this dissertation is, primarily, a contribution to a body of literature in philosophy of science that is often called the science and values debate. in brief, this debate concerns the legitimate influence that ethical and political values may have on scientific inquiry. in the terminology that i introduce, isolationists believe that this influence is only legitimate in certain aspects of scientific inquiry, such as the choice of research problems; however, these values may not legitimately influence the standards for knowledge itself, which must, on this view, remain 'value-free.' by contrast, transactionists believe that this influence is, at least in principle, legitimate with respect to all aspects of scientific inquiry, including the standards for knowledge. this debate is normally, and inadequately, construed as an epistemological controversy: what role should values play in normative epistemology? i argue that it is in fact better construed in terms of the social relations between several kinds of concrete, goal-oriented, social or collaborative activities -between different human practices. in the first few chapters, i develop a general conception of such practices, developing the work of alasdair macintyre and drawing on john dewey and work in philosophy of science of the past thirty years. i then develop two distinct conceptions of science as a practice, and use them to recast the science and values debate 'from the perspective of practice.' the question, on this construal, is (for example) how should the practice of scientific inquiry be related to such activities as feminist activism and corporate profit-seeking? in the words of the title, the debate concerns the relationship between scientific practices and their social context. key to this reconstrual are a pair of claims that i call the connection hypotheses. these hypotheses claim that the two basic positions in the science and values debate depend on the two distinct conceptions of science. one, a 'narrowly' epistemic conception, leads to isolationism; the second, a 'broader,' more pragmatic conception, leads to transactionism. in other words, the epistemological construal conceals rival assumptions concerning the goals and social organization of scientific inquiry. in the long final chapter (roughly the final 25% of the dissertation), i attempt to support the intuition that certain kinds of influence on scientific inquiry -such as excessive commodification or manipulation for the sake of partisan political gain -are forms of injustice, but others -such as feminist critique of androcentric assumptions -are not. to do so, i show how the conception of practice can be embedded within and inform a conception of justice from liberal political philosophy. this leads me to consider whether the conception of practice -which emphasizes collaboration and social interdependence, and which is the product of a deeply anti-individualist intellectual tradition -is really compatible with liberal individualism. broadly speaking the objective of this dissertation is the investigation of carbohydrate structure through an integrated theoretical and experimental approach. in addition to being the most evolutionary ancient class of biopolymer, carbohydrates have the highest potential for structural diversity. this structural diversity is manifest both in terms of primary sequence, and in a very high potential for conformational flexibility due to the high concentration of geometrically mobile dihedrals present in saccharides. the structural biology of saccharides is further complicated by a dearth of robust experimental and theoretical techniques. a large component of this work involved developing experimental and theoretical tools for the conformational analysis of carbohydrates, specifically parameterizing the conformational dependence of nmr spin-spin couplings for the interpretation of experimental couplings in structural terms. on the experimental side measurement of 13c-based spin-spin couplings necessitated the development of technologies for strategic isotopic enrichment. the couplings measured in these compounds are interpreted using theoretically derived relationships between molecular conformation and coupling magnitude. these karplus relationships are based upon quantum mechanical density functional theory (dft) calculations of spin-spin couplings on energetically optimized model compounds in which a particular geometric feature such as a dihedral is varied. the structural interpretations of these couplings takes the form of populational distributions about the relevant molecular dihedrals. this is applied in a modular fashion to various molecular fragments of biologically significant monosaccharides. the natural bonding orbital (nbo) method is used to dissect spin-spin coupling mechanisms based upon discreet through space and through bond orbital interactions. lastly, an x-ray crystal structure of methyl-allolactoside is presented with a complete structural analysis including a discussion of ring-puckering behaviour. the battery of experimental and theoretical techniques presented in this dissertation set the ground work for application to a broad spectrum of biological investigations involving carbohydrate structure and function. perturbations of software provided circular segmentations are used to generatemultiple probe templates from a single image. the multiple probes are matchedagainst a gallery in order to improve the verification rate of the original algorithm.using too many of the generated probes will result in greatly increased runningtimes. as a result, various methods of finding and selecting perturbations to beused are empirically examined. using roc analysis of the true accept rate (tar)at a given false accept rate of 0.001, many methods are discovered that performmuch better than the original algorithm, approximate the performance of usingevery perturbation to less than 0.2%, and require between 500 to 1000 times lesstime to verify a single image. this dissertation examines and defends american federal law's special protections for religion and conscience by engaging prominent, particular challenges to that legal regime. first, the dissertation analyzes the effect of the united states supreme court's landmark decision in bostock v. clayton county, arguing that its interpretation of employment discrimination law does not eliminate protections for employers' religious and conscientious action. second, it argues that special legal protections for religion, including when they exceed special legal protections for conscience, are defensible as promoting an intrinsic aspect of human flourishing that is cognizable to human reason and human government. third, the dissertation defines and defends conscience as a sound ground for special legal protection, particularly in the medical profession. in all, this project seeks to show unsoundness in categorical objections to protections for religion and conscience, suggesting that debate on such protections is best undertaken on a case-by-case basis, weighing empirical effects of such protections against the presumptive reasonableness of promoting these basic human goods. a primary focus of social network analysis (sna) is to understand actor attributes from social structures in a network. it is an interdisciplinary research topic of statistics, sociology, graph theories, and computer sciences. despite its popularity in other fields, sna is under-utilized in psychological and educational research. this is largely due to the lack of easy-to-use models and user-friendly software. to fill the gap, this dissertation proposes three models for sna under an extended structural equation modeling (sem) framework. the first model is a latent space model with a factor structure. in this model, a social network is the outcome variable and the model intends to identify covariates predicting a network. as a generalization of the first model, the second model focuses on social networks with ordinal relations among actors. a probit regression model is used to study the association of an ordinal social network and covariates. both models are estimated using a two-stage maximum likelihood (ml) method. the performance of the two-stage ml method is assessed through monte carlo simulation studies. simulation results show that the two-stage ml method can recover both model parameters and standard errors. the third model is a mediation model with a social network as a mediator. in this model, a latent space model is used to extract underlying factors of a social network, which directly participate in the causal process between two variables. to estimate the model, a bayesian estimation method is used and its performance is evaluated through a simulation study. the usefulness of three models is demonstrated in analyzing a friendship network data set. we investigate computability theoretic properties of algebraic structures. first we consider computable free groups. we give a characterization of the elements in a free group that satisfy the same universal sentences as the elements that are part of a basis. we then prove that the index set for the class of all free groups is m-complete ì_åê04. we also consider bases for fì¢è  _, the countably generated free group. we show that every computable copy of fì¢è  _ has a ì_åê02 basis, and that there exists a computable copy with no ì_å£02 basis. next we study the sets that can be coded into a computable abelian p-group. we show that for any non-computable ì¢è 'ê02 degree, there is an abelian p-group with a copy in that degree and no computable copy. we also show that there is an abelian p-group with no computable copy, but that can be computed by any degree in a set of degrees of measure 1. finally, we study presentations of partial orders. podzorov showed that any local lattice that has a ì¢è 'ê02 presentation also has a c.e. presentation. we show that his result does not extend to the class of all partial orders by coding a particular set into a partial order. physiological limitations on the visual system require gaze to move from location to location to extract the most relevant information within a scene at the highest visual resolution. therefore, gaze provides a real-time index of the information-processing priorities of the visual system. the current work investigates gaze control associated with mind wandering (mw), a state where cognitive priorities shift from processing taskrelevant external stimuli to task-irrelevant internal thoughts. in both a main study and a replication, global gaze parameters of mw are identified: fewer, longer, and more dispersed fixations relative to periods of attentive scene viewing. these findings demonstrate that gaze parameters typically considered to reflect greater engagement with scene processing (e.g., longer fixations) can also indicate mw. local aspects of gaze control—visual salience and semantic informativeness—were also explored, but no consistent, temporally precise relationship between these parameters and mw emerged. together, the current research indicates which gaze parameters are reliable, real-time indicators of mw in a scene viewing task and offers insight into the complex—less understood—relationship between mw and the spatial aspects of gaze control. some scholars have maintained that martin luther (1483-1546) began the disagreements over the christian's justification by faith or works among commentators on the epistle to the galatians. although acknowledging luther's pivotal role in this struggle, i argue that by the time of the council of trent (1547), the positions of roman catholic and protestant commentators on galatians were greatly shaped by the disagreements they had received from the commentaries on galatians of early christian and medieval authors. luther and other protestants used the minority view interpretations from late antiquity and the middle ages and recast them into a more coherent framework in order to critique the majority view on this epistle, namely that in paul's rejection of justification by works of the law, he was merely speaking about jewish ceremonial rites and not the moral law. using the arguments of the late antique and medieval minority view, luther argued that paul was speaking of the observance of the moral precepts of the law of moses and, especially, the ten commandments. most roman catholic commentators after luther, however, used the arguments of the majority view from the same eras to provide theological qualification to paul's aforementioned denial of justification by the works of the law. i document these disagreements among western commentators from late antiquity and the sixteenth century from passages containing paul's affirmations of justification by faith (2:16, 3:10-13) and paul's statements about the moral law and eternal life (gal 5:6, 5:21 6:8). this simultaneously broad and in-depth study demonstrates that by turning the previously debatable question of justification by faith or works of the law into a line distinguishing orthodoxy from heresy, sixteenth-century protestant and roman catholic commentators received these earlier commentarial debates and, unlike their medieval predecessors, formulated polarizing interpretations. martin luther made public a centuries-old debate that had been carried out silently at the desks of western commentators on galatians. this dissertation argues that the reformation debates over the meaning of this epistle's key statements about faith, works and justification had much deeper hitherto unexamined roots in the early and medieval christian traditions. this dissertation presents techniques for design and analysis of multi-agent distributed systems with control oriented objectives. we study two problems: one related to networked estimation in networked control systems and the other related to privacy in cyber-physical systems.in the first problem, we focus on congestion control in a communication network that is supporting remote estimation of multiple processes. a stochastic rate control protocol is developed using the network utility maximization framework. this decentralized protocol avoids congestion by regulating the transmission probabilities of the sources. the presence of estimation costs poses new challenges; however, for low congestion levels, the form of rate controller resembles that of the standard tcp rate controller. stability of the protocol is analyzed in the presence of fixed network delays.in the second problem, we address the issue of privacy of agents in a multi-agent lti system which is monitored by a control center via the measurements sent to it by the agents. we show that such architecture is prone to privacy breaches in which an intruder can gain access to agents' sensitive parameters that govern their dynamics. to prevent this, we employ the differential privacy framework and develop a noise adding privacy mechanism in which the agents add synthetic noise while sending their measurements to the control center. we design the privacy noise by characterizing the sensitivity of the system. we substantiate our framework by studying two concrete examples of second-order consensus and lqr control. our numerical results show that in an asymptotic regime of low privacy and high snr, the privacy noise results in marginal performance degradation at the control center, when compared to the error suffered by the intruder in identifying the sensitive parameters. we study another related privacy problem for a scenario where multiple agents cooperatively solve a quadratic optimization problem. to maintain privacy of their states over time, agents implement a noise-adding mechanism according to the classic differential privacy framework. we characterize how the noise due to the privacy mechanism degrades the performance of the multi-agent system. interestingly, we show that depending on the desired level of privacy (and thus noise), the system performance is optimized by reducing the level of cooperation among the agents. the notion of cooperation level models the trust of an agent towards the information received from neighboring agents. for the prototypical examples of consensus and centroidal voronoi tessellations, we are able to characterize the optimum cooperation level that maximizes the system performance while ensuring a desired privacy level. our results suggest that for the class of problems we study, and in fact for a broad class of multi-agent systems, it is always beneficial for the agents to reduce their cooperation level when the privacy level increases. in this dissertation, i argue for three related theses: (1) that radical ethical transformation cannot be self-enacted, (2) that søren kierkegaard — against popular interpretations — agrees, and (3) that our inability to radically self-transform has implications for the way we relate to our received values. the first part of the dissertation considers the question of "radical transformation" in historically neutral terms. the second part of the dissertation visits questions of interpretation in kierkegaard. the third part of the dissertation attempts to stake out a positive position by offering a creative reading of kierkegaard's *fear and trembling*. this dissertation explores thomas aquinas's understanding of the concept of obligation, and its relationship to law and the morality of human acts, in order to sketch aquinas's account of "moral obligation." this investigation proceeds through exegesis of central texts in aquinas's corpus that illuminate his understanding of obligation and its relationship to law and morality of human acts as well as its contrast with the understanding of that same relationship provided by his contemporaries, later interpreters, and future moral philosophers and theologians. the central conclusion reached by this study is that the morality of human acts, principally and primarily, consists in their conformity or contrariety with the command or prohibition of a divine lawgiver and that the binding power proper to law cannot be fully grasped without understanding law (and the act of intellect in the lawgiver by which it is produced) as an evaluative standard of the morality of human acts.although there are countless studies devoted to aquinas's account of the natural law, and its relationship to his theory of moral value, few give sustained attention to the distinctive legal character and binding power of the natural law. in part, this neglect stems from an assumption that, because aquinas insists that reason is the ultimate evaluative standard of the morality of human acts, the goodness or badness of human acts cannot consist, principally and primarily, in conformity or contrariety to a command or prohibition of a divine lawgiver. this dissertation challenges that assumption, clearing the ground for a rapprochement between aquinas and adherents to divine command theory. along the way, attention is given to aquinas's account of the liberum arbitrium of god vis-à-vis the morality of the created order, law's relation to the intellect and will of ruler and ruled, the binding power proper to conscience and its relationship to the law of god, the unique manner in which the natural law binds and is promulgated, the necessity proper to obligation and other kinds of necessity to which human persons might be subject, and the relationship between the law of god, beatitude, and the motivation to be "moral." intimate partner violence (ipv) represents a global human rights and public health concern associated with a wide range of adverse outcomes, including posttraumatic stress symptoms (ptss). pregnancy is a time of increased risk for ipv exposure for some women, and yet there is a dearth of prospective research examining the relationship between recent ipv exposure and ptss in the perinatal period. further, relationships among different types of ipv exposure and perinatal ptss remain understudied. lastly, research on ipv and ptss tends to lack a guiding theoretical perspective in which to understand their relationship, underscoring the need for research that might inform new theoretical models. latent class and transition analysis were used to examine classes of ptss in pregnancy and postpartum, the longitudinal patterns of transitions across these classes, and the role of ipv types, childhood adversity, and depression in ptss presentation. participants (n=238) were drawn from two longitudinal studies of high-risk perinatal women, interviewed in pregnancy and at 3-4 months postpartum. four latent classes of ptss emerged: high ptss class, flight response class, fight response class, and low ptss class. childhood adversity, prenatal depression, and psychological ipv were associated with membership in higher severity ptss classes. women with low levels of ptss at baseline continued to have low levels at postpartum, and women in higher severity classes at baseline tended to transition into statuses with adjacent, and often lower, levels of symptom severity. among women with high levels of ptss at baseline, prenatal depression negatively predicted transitions into the low severity ptss class. findings highlight the importance of individualized approaches to assessing, monitoring, and treating ptss in the perinatal period. this paper represents the first effort to systematically analyze the patterns of religious referencing in presidential inaugural and state of the union addresses over the nation's entire history. the evidence suggests that religious references have not changed much in quantity but have shifted significantly in purpose. this paper finds three important shifts in religious references. the first is a move away from references using religion to emphasize the special nature of the nation. the second is a move towards a use of religion to justify individual rights. the third shift is an increased use of religious references to instruct individual citizens in how they should serve their country and comport themselves. the speeches reveal no support for versions of the secularization thesis which assert that religion will become privatized and separate from the public sphere over time. this dissertation examines gregory of nyssa's conception of the human body as the medium of interpersonal connections, which we might call the corporate nature of the human body. previous scholarship on gregory's teaching of the body has correctly pointed out that gregory often views the body in the post-fallen state as sinful &#8212; its impulses often need to be restrained by the soul in a human person's ascent toward union with god. an overemphasis on this aspect of gregory's teaching has, however, somewhat obscured the fact that the bishop of nyssa genuinely appreciates the value of embodiment'in particular, he emphasizes that the body constitutes an indispensable medium through which an individual person is connected to other human beings, including christ, the god incarnate.the corporate nature of the human body is a prevalent theme in the corpus of gregory of nyssa, notably in his theological anthropology, soteriology, and ecclesiology. chapter 1 examines gregory's teaching on sexual organs as the medium through which humanity reaches its divinely ordained number (pleroma) in the course of the post-fallen human history. chapter 2 traces gregory's account of the human body as the medium of interpersonal communications. gregory observes that the construction of the human body renders speech possible, which manifests the thoughts in the mind. in a broader sense, gregory notes that our bodily actions and manners are effective expressions of our inner virtues and vices. chapter 3 demonstrates that the body of christ constitutes the crucial medium through which the salvation of christ is transmitted to other human beings. gregory maintains that the logos, by becoming incarnate, has become the perfect embodiment of virtues for others to imitate. besides, the salvific grace of christ is conveyed to other human beings through a bodily encounter in the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist. chapter 4 examines gregory's conception of the church as the mystical body of christ. just like different members of a physical body minister to the need of the soul with different functions, the various members of the church are unified in the service of christ with the roles they play. it is shown that the data-to-solution map for the hyperelastic rod equation is not uniformly continuous on bounded sets of sobolev spaces with exponent greater than 3/2 in the periodic case and non-periodic cases. the proof is based on the method of approximate solutions and well-posedness estimates for the solution and its lifespan. building upon this work, we also prove that the data-to-solution map for the hyperelastic rod equation is h'older continuous from bounded sets of sobolev spaces with exponent s > 3/2 measured in a weaker sobolev norm with exponent r < s in both the periodic and non-periodic cases. the proof is based on energy estimates coupled with a delicate commutator estimate and multiplier estimate. laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (libs) is used to simultaneously measure hydrocarbon fuel concentration and temperature in high temperature, high speed, compressible, and reacting flows, a regime in which libs has not been done previously. emission spectra from the plasma produced from a focused laser pulse is correlated in the combustion region of a model scramjet operating in supersonic wind tunnel. a 532 nm nd:yag laser operating at 10 hz is used to induce breakdown. the emissions are captured during a 10 ns gate time approximately 75 ns after the first arrival of photons at the measurement location in order to minimize the measurement uncertainty in the turbulent, compressible, high-speed, and reacting environment. three methods of emission detection are used and a new backward scattering direction method is developed that is beneficial in reducing the amount of optical access needed to perform libs measurements. measurements are taken in the model supersonic combustion and the ignition process is shown to be highly dependent on fuel concentration and gas density as well as combustion surface temperature, concentration gradient, and flow field. direct spectrum matching method is developed and used for quantitative measurements. in addition, a comprehensive database of spectra covering the fuel concentrations and gas densities found in the wind tunnel of research cell 19 at wright patterson air force base is created which can be used for further work. imagination is considering something differently from how it is currently. between the covid-19 pandemic and the resurgence in the movement for black lives, 2020 has created a space to examine our institutions to see how well they serve us. through leveraging in-depth interviews and productive methods (where participants produce drawings, poetry, etc.), i am asking young black people in chicago high schools to reimagine educational contexts. this project is interested in how schools are implicated in anti-blackness, and how young black people are affected by and reproduce/transform/interact with anti-blackness in narrating their experiences and imagining learning communities otherwise. articulating the disruptive power of black imagination connects the dissonance between what schools give black students and the realities of their anti-black experiences (ross 2020) to conversations of school abolition and educational freedom. in this article, i consider how ideas and interpretive frames generated by one movement may spill over its boundaries to inspire individual members of the society to take their own action. i apply this idea to examine the role of labor unions in boosting legal mobilization among nonunion workers in the us. to do so, i constructed a new dataset of the legal cases filed by workers under the fair labor standards act (flsa) in all 50 states in the us over a period of 25 years from 1989 to 2016. exploiting variation in state union density during the same period, i find that an increased union density positively affects the number of cases filed by nonunion workers. this finding informs our understanding of the broader spillover effect of movements, and in turn, effect of unions outside of unionized workplaces. the finding is of particular importance as hostility towards unions grows and as labor movement seeks its revitalization through creative forms of union activism. this paper focuses on the role and effectiveness of comprehensible input (ci), which was proposed by krashen (1985) in order to teach a foreign or second language. in today's world, the majority of the people are learning english as a foreign or second language because english is becoming a global language, which is predominantly used for academic, business, and job purposes. in order to fulfill this language demand, native as well as non-native english speaking countries are constantly innovating techniques and strategies to enhance their english language instruction which will better help english language learners (ells) learn the language and thus, propel them into a global market. while focusing on the ci as one key piece in foreign and second language development, this paper will explore and explain the common techniques and strategies of creating ci as well as try to find new ways of creating ci in teaching english, especially outside the classroom. programmers rely on documentation in order to understand source code. however, documentation is often incomplete or out-of-date and is time-consuming to write. automatic documentation solutions are desirable, as it can help offset the cost and difficulty of writing documentation manually. in my this document, i summarize my research into improving software documentation. first, i perform a user study of software documentation to how software should is documented by experienced authors as compared to new readers of the system. this study found that authors often document java methods using language from outside of the source code. second, i present a novel approach to automatically generate documentation from java source code method context. this approach both demonstrates that contextual information can be automatically documented. this approach also outperformed author-written documentation with respect to helping the users understand the context of a given method. finally, i perform a preliminary study to investigate if software documentation effort can be prioritized. pathologists rely on histology information for disease diagnosis and patients treatment. however, the process of disease characterization by visual examination of histology tissue images is often labor intensive and requires expert knowledge. in this dissertation, we present algorithms for automatic identification of various biological structures at different scales, for example, tissue regions, immune cells, and subcellular structures. these biological structures of interest are closely related to the diseases, and are needed to be identified first, so that properties of these biological structures can be extracted to analyze the diseases. however, in histology tissue images, these biological structures usually have large variations with respect to, for example, shape, size, and color, both across different images, or within the same image. also, the biological structures are embedded in a very complex tissue background, which is quite noisy and possibly has considerable artifacts. therefore, it is very challenging to identify these biological structures. the proposed algorithms are based on combinations of computer vision and machine learning (including deep learning) techniques, to resolve or alleviate the challenges. as a result, the proposed algorithms not only provide useful tools for automatic identification of biological structures (which greatly releases the burden of visual examination of histology tissue images from pathologists), but also introduce an opportunity for quantitative analysis of the diseases (which substantially reduces the degree of subjectiveness of disease analysis, and provides novel insights into the diseases). this dissertation provides a comprehensive analysis of riccoldo da monte croce's (d. 1320) nascent theology of islam. riccoldo's firsthand knowledge of muslims and his frequent and explicit reference to it in his writings make him a unique figure in medieval interreligious relations. an examination of his theology of islam as found in his four major works will contribute to the study of historical theologies of religions by investigating a neglected part of that history, the medieval period. it will also enable a comparison between medieval and contemporary theologies of religions. no study in any language has analyzed riccoldo's theology of islam as such, nor placed him into conversation with the current theology of religions debate. the dissertation is divided into five chapters. chapter one discusses the desirability of linking medieval and contemporary christian views of other religions and defines three key terms: interreligious experience, theological authority, and theology of religions. chapter two describes relevant aspects of riccoldo's historical milieu. chapter three outlines those elements of riccoldo's theology of islam which are consonant with the mainstream medieval view. chapter four focuses on riccoldo's four major writings, all of different genres, and highlights the unique aspects of his theology of islam, most notably his use of 'interreligious experience.' chapter five compares riccoldo's nascent theology of islam to more recent christian theologies of islam. it suggests that riccoldo's views of islam, while largely consonant with those of his medieval confreres, remain significant, not because he consciously drew upon interreligious experience as a theological authority, but because his honest descriptions of his encounters with muslims illuminate the nature of interreligious experience as such. by allowing his theology of islam to retain some of the tension and ambivalence which resulted from his experience of muslims, riccoldo demonstrates that medieval christian views of other religions were far more complex and ambiguous than is often assumed today. the following dissertation investigates the salvation oracles in the book of micah. it analyzes all of the salvation oracles, including 2:12-13 and 7:11-13, but focuses especially on chapters 4-5, studying the message of these chapters, the historical and social background of these chapters, and the function of chs. 4-5 in the book as a whole. it also addresses the question of whether the book of micah was edited to make it fit thematically the twelve minor prophets. this study argues for two major hypotheses concerning the origins of micah 4-5:1) it is plausible that these oracles are nearly all from the 8th century b.c.e. prophet, with just a few verses added later in exilic and postexilic times; and 2) sennacherib's campaign in 701 b.c.e. is a plausible setting for the pre-exilic oracles. many claim that these chapters present a conflict in understanding the book in terms of a situation current in 8th century b.c.e. jerusalem. it is true that the message of chs. 4-5 is very different from the rest of the book. unlike most of chs. 1-3 and 6-7, these oracles focus primarily on salvation rather than judgment and emphasize judah's relationship to the nations rather than the internal social situation. however, shifting to oracles of salvation in ch. 4 does not inevitably contradict the earlier oracles of judgment in chs. 1-3; the juxtaposition may instead show that judgment is preparation for salvation. similarly, the absence of specifics about the social situation does not necessarily mean that the unit was written in a later period. rather it could mean that the prophet had already established what the situation was in chs. 1-3 and there was no need to mention it again in chs. 4-5. in support of a pre-exilic date for these chapters, the political situation of the 8th century makes better sense than the political situation of the 6th century for how zion is related to the nations. in the 8th century, she is threatened with the loss of land and temple in a way that is not true in the 6th century. using a panel data set of 180 countries spanning from 1971 to 2000, i find evidence that exchange rate policy affects economic growth not directly but through its effect on macroeconomic volatility. i consider two measures of economic performance: i) per capita gdp growth and ii) the volatility of per capita gdp growth and investigate the nature of their dependence on two alternative characterizations of exchange rate policy. my first measure of policy is a de facto classification of a country's exchange rate regime as either fixed or floating. my second characterization of exchange rate policy measures whether a country's de facto policy is consistent with its publicly stated exchange rate policy or its de jure exchange rate regime. employing de facto classification i find the significant statistical relationship between exchange rate policy and growth which is not robust to the inclusion of conventional growth control variables. a coarse division of policy into fixed versus floating exchange rates using the de jure metrics is not significant but de facto classification identifies the dichotomy between countries in terms of gdp growth volatility. moreover, a more nuanced characterization shows that countries that exhibit 'fear of floating,' which arises when countries de jure float but de facto fix have the most stable gdp growth when compared to other reference groups. these countries as well have lower volatility of gdp growth during the periods when they exhibited 'fear of floating' compared to their own experience when they followed other exchange rate policies. finally, i demonstrate that the 'fear of floating' type of behavior of the exchange rate is related to the inflation targeting (it) policy by the central bank. i find that in an emerging small open economy environment the combination of the publicly announced flexible foreign exchange rate regime with the pursuit of the inflation targeting lite (itl) strategy induces the central bank to actively employ the domestic interest rate as an instrument to offset the foreign inflationary shocks. this policy results in the ex post stability of the nominal exchange rate which i identify as a 'fear of floating' behavior, a reduction of the inflation volatility, and a significant reduction of the volatility of real gdp growth. this evidence allows me to argue that the 'fear of floating' policy is the most advantageous open economy policy which reduces overall macroeconomic volatility. i identify two possible channels why this result is in place. first, the 'fear floaters' enjoy the lower volatility of the real interest rate which suggests that they are exposed to less real shocks. second, they have lower real fdi volatility which stabilizes the gross capital formation and the real gdp. the experimental studies of the wake response downstream of an oscillating hemispherical turret at subsonic speeds are presented. the oscillating turret consisted of a turret shell, mounted on an aluminum rectangular plate. the turret assembly was designed for the turret to oscillate in the spanwise direction at a single frequency, coinciding with the main frequency of the dominant wake mode. the resonant-based aero-elastic response from the flow resulted in the turret to be forced to oscillate primarily in the spanwise direction. multiple accelerometers mounted at different points inside of the turret assembly were used to measure local displacements. it was demonstrated that the turret oscillates at a fixed frequency over a range of subsonic freestream mach numbers between 0.3 and 0.55, with the oscillation amplitude of approximately one millimeter.pressure sensitive paint (psp), along with several unsteady pressure sensors, placed on the turret and tunnel wall downstream of the turret, were used to investigate the wake response to the oscillating turret. psp was painted on the turret and wake region in order to compare the globally reconstructed pressure fields between the oscillating and stationary cases. it was found that pressure fluctuations were less energetic for the oscillating turret and the wake was more organized in the spanwise direction, compared to the stationary turret wake. the pressure field downstream of the oscillating turret was found to be asymmetrically distributed compared to the pressure field of the stationary turret configuration. pod and dmd analysis of the reconstructed pressure fields from psp revealed the wake is characterized by global shifting and breathing motion and confirmed that the wake dynamics were suppressed when the flow forced the turret to oscillate at a predominantly single frequency. the suppressive effects of the turret oscillations on the wake dynamics were found to become more robust at higher freestream mach numbers, and the normalized wake response frequency was found to be higher than the normalized resonant frequency of turret oscillations. program comprehension is the task of understanding software projects. one effective way to help programmers comprehend code is documentation. however, manual documentation costs a significant amount of time and effort. therefore, software documents are often incomplete and out of date. automatic documentation generation is to address the problem of lack of documentation and to improve the quality of documentation.in this dissertation, i summarize my work on improving program comprehension using neural machine translation to generate documents. first, i conduct two user studies about programmers' behavior when they comprehend code before and after they make changes. specifically, i study how programmers do change impact analysis, which is the task of finding source code that is affected by a change. the studies show that programmers do more change impact analysis before they make changes than after the changes. when programmers need to understand a change in a software repository, a summary of the change is an important component of the comprehension process. my first project of generating documents is to generate short summaries of software changes using neural machine translation. neural machine translation (nmt) is a type of neural network for translating natural languages. this project demonstrates that nmt can also be used in translating from diff (results of text differencing techniques) to english text. my second project focuses on topic labeling to generate descriptions of key functionalities in software projects. topic labeling is the task of labeling hidden topics in topic models, which are often used in program comprehension tools and research to find key functionalities. in these tools and research, key functionalities in software projects are assumed to be the hidden topics in topic models. however, the topics are represented by lists of words with probabilities, which are difficult to interpret. labeling topics is often a manual task. my project uses nmt to translate topics represented by lists of words to english text. the results show that nmt-generated descriptions are more helpful for programmers to understand software projects than the lists of words. since the 1960s more attention has been paid to how movements secure rights than to how the powerful lose control. within the literature on social movements this lacuna manifests itself in an overemphasis on challengers, with less attention paid to those targeted by movements, or on tactical interactions between movements and their adversaries. interviews with current and former perpetrators of bonded labor in india capture human rights violators as they are in the process of losing the control they had previously enjoyed thanks to their caste status and ownership of land. their sudden loss of authority comes as a surprise and an offense. rich qualitative data and surprisingly frank assessments from contemporary slaveholders in rural india illuminate the extent to which paternalism has pervaded social relations, leading perpetrators to believe that debt bondage was a mutually beneficial socio-economic relationship. when movement efforts combine with macro-economic forces to challenge this exploitative status quo, human rights violators must scramble to find new ideational and practical responses. this study finds general support for prior scholarship emphasizing the ways external resources, political contexts, and cognitive liberation concatenate in the movement process. turning the lens onto the movement target?s experience unpacks a critical phase in which eroding authority is met sometimes by resignation, sometimes by resistance. why do some militaries thrive while others falter when faced with technological change? studies of militaries and technology have tended to treat innovation as a binary concept: either the military innovates and adapts, or it does not. this research, however, indicates that this dualistic view of innovation is mistaken, that in fact militaries respond to change in a number of ways, one of which can have long-lasting effects at the geopolitical level. by examining the development of air power between world war i and the end of world war ii, this work seeks to answer the following questions: under what conditions can technological change contribute to a disruption in military affairs, and how and why do militaries fall short of achieving them? i contend that the answers to these questions lie in characteristics of the militaries themselves, specifically aspects of their nature as large bureaucracies and their relationships with the technology they wish to exploit. analysts often treat militaries either as homogenous social institutions, responding to domestic or international conditions in similar ways, or as idiosyncratic projections of the leaders at their helm. i argue, by contrast, that militaries vary systematically in how they process change and how they perceive and interact with technology, and that these variations help explain how and why some militaries are able to exploit technological discontinuities while others struggle.the mechanisms for these responses can be complex, but broadly stem from the need to overcome two sets of challenges. the first involves the nature of large bureaucracies and their tendency to stifle innovation through organizational inertia, bounded vision, and complex interdependencies. the second derives from the nature of technology itself: its propensity to induce uncertainty and the dual-natured and interpretively flexible relationship it holds with the organization that utilizes it. as this research demonstrates, a military's ability to maximize the potential offered by a technological discontinuity is largely dependent upon its ability to mitigate these challenges, thereby allowing it to adapt vertically, at all levels of leadership and warfighting, and integrate new capabilities horizontally, across a range of elements of warfare. the study of the dialogue between literature and science has been a subject of increasing interest in recent years. my work addresses this conjunction by exploring italo calvino's two collections of short stories, 'le cosmicomiche' and 'ti con zero.' these two works represent calvino's first explicit attempt to contribute to the discourse on the negotiation between literature and science. within this context, this study focuses on the calvinian representation of the self, conceived as a mental search for any possible concretion of reality. after analyzing in the first chapter the relationship between the world and the self, in the other two chapters i address two ways in which calvino articulates the preponderance of the subject in the two collections. in this regard, i identify these articulations with calvino's representation of love, and the discourse on language that emerges from the different accounts. for the past few decades, theoretical simulation was proved to be an important tool for understanding the underlying mechanisms, predicting the molecular properties/reactivities and designing new materials. despite its huge success and development, atomistic force-field based methods and ab-initio methods remain to be the two workhorses in theoretical simulation. each suers from its own limitation: the low accuracy of force-field based methods and the high cost of ab-initio methods.with the ability to perform highly nonlinear transformation and model complicated system, neural network is becoming a promising tool to develop model chemistries for performing simulations. neural network o↵ers a new way to calculate the molecular properties with near ab-initio accuracy at low cost.several dierent approaches of applying neural networks have been tried in this thesis, such as constructing neural network based kinetic energy functional, combining neural networks with the many-body expansion, defining bond energies and developing a neural network based molecular simulation package tensormol. each approach has addressed certain aspects of the problem of building neural network model chemistries. more investigations are needed to develop a widely accepted neural network model chemistry for general purpose simulations. the asian population is heterogeneous, yet many researchers continue to treat asian american students as if they were a homogeneous ethnic category and overlook the differences within asian ethnic category. this study explores whether there are between-group differences between chinese americans and non-chinese asian americans in linking parental involvement with student academic achievement.results of this study indicate that although chinese students are more academically successful in math, it is not clear whether their academic success can be attributed to certain parental practices. differences in parenting styles fail to account for the observed ethnic differences between chinese and non-chinese asian students in math achievement. the dynamics of a rational surface map φ: x ⇢ x are easier to analyse when φ is 'algebraically stable'. in this thesis, we discuss algebraic stability and develop tools from non−archimedean dynamics in order to understand the algebraic stability of skew product maps. there are three main outcomes, separated into four chapters. first, we investigate when and how algebraically stability can be achieved by conjugating φ with a birational change of coordinate. such a conjugacy is called an '*algebraic stabilisation*'. we show that if this can be done with a birational morphism, then there is a minimal such stabilisation. for birational φ; we also show that repeatedly lifting φ to its graph gives an algebraic stabilisation. we provide an example in which φ can be birationally conjugated to a stable map, but the conjugacy cannot be achieved solely by blowing up. second, we develop a dynamical theory for what we call a 'skew product' on the berkovich projective line, φ\_\*: ℙ¹(k) ⇢ ℙ¹(k). skew products strictly generalise the notion of a '*rational map*' on ℙ¹(k). we describe the analytical, algebraic, and dynamical properties of skew products, including a study of periodic points, and a fatou/julia dichotomy. the chapter ends with the classification of the connected components of the fatou set. third we consider algebraic stabilisation for a skew product on a ruled surface φ: x ⇢ x classically this is a mapping of the form φ(x,y) = (φ1(x), φ2(x,y)). the main result is that when φ1 has no superattracting cycles, then we can always find an algebraic stabilisation. we provide an example of a skew product φ where φ1 has a superattracting fixed point and φ is not algebraically stable in any model. any product φ: x ⇢ x of this kind induces one φ\_\*: ℙ¹(𝕂) ⇢ ℙ¹(𝕂) on the berkovich projective line over the field 𝕂 of puiseux series; this φ\_\* describes φ on the completion of a fibre of xb. the fatou/julia theory for φ\_\* is instrumental to understand algebraic stabilisation for φ. one chapter is devoted to specialising these non−archimedean tools to the case where k = 𝕂 and describing the transfer of geometric information from one world and skew product to another. we include a description of free and satellite blowups in the dual graph of divisors on xb. this is a memoir about serving as a peace corps volunteer in lesotho. i worked as a secondary school teacher for year, where i faced the horrors of hiv, embezzlement, warped gender relations and extreme isolation, while forging lifelong friendships. as the cost of dna sequencing falls, the relative cost of finishing steps (e.g., error correction and gap-closing) is increasing. as a result, many completed genome projects are only completed to draft stages and may not provide full information about the location of sequences on the chromosome. further, they may contain gaps and assembly errors. whether draft or finished, the output of a genome sequence project serves as the input to a host of analysis tools such as gene finding or variation analysis. many of these tools have been designed for and tested on high-quality, finished genomes such as human or the fruit fly drosophila melanogaster. in this thesis we discuss specific challenges in working with draft genomes and show how methods can be adapted to be more effective in draft genomes. first, we examine computational methods for finding errors in draft assemblies. next, we modify a technique for finding dna inversions between two genomes to account for gaps in the genomes. finally, we develop a pipeline to construct chromosomes out of draft scaffolds using a closely related reference genome. we use examples from three different species of importance to global health: the body louse (pediculus humanus), a malaria mosquito (anopheles gambiae), and the human malaria parasite (plasmodium falciparum). sampling the configuration space of complex biological molecules is an important and formidable problem. one major difficulty is the high dimensionality of this space, roughly $3n$, with the number of atoms $n$ typically in the thousands. this thesis introduces shadow hybrid monte carlo (shmc), a propagator through phase space that enhances the scaling of sampling with space dimensionality. shmc is a biased variation on the hybrid monte carlo algorithm (hmc) that uses an approximation to the modified hamiltonian to sample more efficiently through phase space. the overhead introduced is modest in terms of time, involving only dot products of the history of positions and momenta generated by the integrator. we present the derivation of shmc, along with: proof that it preserves microscopic reversibility; analysis of the asymptotic speedup of shmc over hmc, which is shown to be $o(n^{1/4})$ when using verlet integrators; and results evaluating correctness and efficiency. situation model theory is a framework for understanding the representations of deep comprehension of information derived from a text (see zwaan & radvansky, 1998). several components of a situation model (including space, time, causality, entities, and information and protagonists) are updated into the situation model. the inter-relation of the time and goal dimensions was investigated in two experiments. although goal and time information are typically related to one another in a narrative (given that goals take time to complete), no work has investigated how changes along these dimensions interact within the situation model. three plausible relations among the dimensions (no relation, augmenting, and weakening) were investigated by manipulating discontinuities in goal and/or time information within a narrative. the results supported a weakening relation of the dimensions, meaning that a discontinuity along one dimension reduced the observed effect of a discontinuity along the other. potential reasons for a weakening relation are discussed. inverse problem involves estimating parameters or data from inadequate observations. bayesian estimation introduces regularization to provide mild assumptions on the solution and prevent overfitting for ill-posed inverse problems. the forward model describes the explicit relationship between observations and the parameters or data that we want to estimate. therefore, the forward projection operator is a key modeling choice in inverse problems. in this proposal, we introduce some new choices of forward models in bayesian image estimation to improve the image quality. we present the adaptive blob basis function that can describe the forward process in x-ray ct more accurately by including models of the source, voxel and detector. our preliminary experimental results show potential liability of such low-frequency operators as the blob when high frequency boosting is desired. we also propose a new type of detector model which is aimed at reducing aliasing artifacts in ct images as well as saving computation time compared with sinogram interpolation methods. markov random fields (mrfs) are a broadly useful and relatively economical stochastic model for imagery in bayesian estimation. the simplicity of their most common examples allows local computation in iterative optimization. this simplicity may be a liability, however, when the inherent bias of minimum mean-squared error or maximum a posteriori probability (map) estimators attenuate all but the lowest spatial frequencies. for applications where more flexibility in spectral response is desired, potential benefit exists in models which accord higher a priori probabilities to content in higher frequencies. we explore the potential of larger neighborhoods in mrfs considered from the point of view of probabilistic modeling of spatial frequency content. we consider particularly the preservation of detail in bone structure in ct images. our experimental results show emphasis of the typical inner bone frequencies similar to that of bone-enhanced conventional x-ray ct reconstruction. meta-analysis is an essential technique in psychiatric genomics. heterogeneity of the effect sizes included in a meta-analysis can reduce its statistical power. meta-regression provides a way to identify study-level covariates that are associated with heterogeneity. however, in psychiatric genomics, and other new fields, there is little theory to guide the choice of study-level covariates to be included in a meta-regression. we propose the use of shrinkage regression methods, such as the lasso and the scad, as means to select study-level covariates automatically. we used simulated data to compare these methods to simple regression, a current standard approach. the criterion used in the comparison was the precision of the method in selecting covariates. we found that precision was highly dependent on the number of study level covariates included, the number of studies included, and the relative sizes of the included studies. when many studies were included, a bootstrapped version of the lasso was able to select covariates with adequate precision. in moderate-sized meta-analyses, a bootstrapped version of simple regression performed best. the comparison of methods presented in this work is applicable to the design of new consortia of studies in psychiatric genomics, as well as to the evaluation and comparison of existing consortia. this is a dissertation about the epistemology of disagreement. the main questions addressed here are, can one rationally retain a belief in the face of disagreement with one's acknowledged epistemic peer? and if so, how? i argue that such questions are best addressed when transformed into puzzles (clusters of individually plausible, but jointly inconsistent claims). in chapter 1, i provide important background relevant to the setup of epistemological puzzles about peer disagreement. i begin by canvassing extant notions of disagreement, epistemic peers, and positive epistemic status. i then identify the main ingredients for an epistemological puzzle about disagreement. one recipe for such puzzles minimally includes: • a claim describing the epistemic situations of the relevant subjects vis-à-vis the target proposition (e.g., that the subjects are epistemic peers with respect to this proposition). • an epistemic principle stating that if the relevant subjects' epistemic situations are as described in the first claim, then their attitudes toward the target proposition do not have such-and-such an epistemic status (e.g., these attitudes are not rational, or do not amount to knowledge). • a claim to the effect that the relevant subjects' attitudes do have such-and-such an epistemic status. a central puzzle addressed here employs an epistemic principle claiming that in all cases of acknowledged peer disagreement, disputing parties are rationally required to move from belief (disbelief) to withholding. coupled with the claim that peer disagreement is common, this principle appears to lead to a variety of skepticism that threatens many of our most cherished beliefs. any complete defense of these beliefs, then, must face the problem of peer disagreement. in chapter 2, i argue that acknowledged peer disagreement is rare, at least in cases of more than modest complexity. the conditions for acknowledged peerhood (a) sameness of evidence, (b) equal reliability, and (c) good reason to think (a) and (b) obtain are not easily met. when one of these conditions fails to obtain, acknowledged peerhood fails to obtain. inasmuch as acknowledged peer disagreement is rare, any case for wide-ranging, peer-disagreement-based skepticism fails. but suppose that acknowledged peer disagreement were common. would we then be faced with widespread skepticism about all our disputed, but cherished beliefs? in chapters 3 and 4, i argue that we would not. in chapter 3 i consider the prospects for defeating skepticism by appealing to factors (e.g., background beliefs and "private" evidence) that may make it rational for both parties to a dispute to retain belief in the face of peer disagreement. i argue that such appeals have limited application, but are not wholly without merit. in chapter 4 i consider an anti-skeptical strategy according to which one (but not both) parties to a peer disagreement may rationally retain belief. this strategy appeals to the character of the first-order evidence that is shared in cases of peer disagreement. i argue that if this evidence strongly supports the attitude of one peer over that of the other, then the former peer may be rational in retaining her belief (albeit with reduced confidence) in the face of peer disagreement. in arguing for this claim, i utilize insights from extant theories of epistemic defeat. in chapter 5, the discussion turns from the topic of rational belief to the topic of disagreement and knowledge in particular, moral knowledge. there i consider four disagreement-based arguments for skepticism about moral knowledge. applying insights gleaned from previous chapters, i conclude that three of these arguments fail. i close the chapter, and the dissertation, by offering what i regard as a more promising though not decisive skeptical argument. the introduction and establishment of species beyond the boundaries of their native ranges is an environmental issue of increasing scope and seriousness. this dissertation examines the consequences of the establishment of aquatic nonindigenous species (nis) in the laurentian great lakes (gl) region and also investigates alternatives for reducing anthropogenic spread of nuisance aquatic nis. i first investigate the pathways by which aquatic nis are introduced to the gl to learn if introduction pathway is related to where species originate and how likely they are to have spread beyond the gl basin. my analysis shows that ballast water release is highly likely to introduce new aquatic nis to north america, whereas unauthorized release of organisms in trade tends to introduce to the gl aquatic nis already established in north america. moreover, it appears that it is primarily a matter of time before novel nis that become established in the gl appear in other north american waterways. i also consider the relationship between introduction pathway and species impacts, finding that there is an apparent relationship, but that further study of species-specific impacts is needed to verify this finding. given the importance of ballast water release in bringing novel species to the gl, i use a novel technique to estimate the economic impacts in the region of ecological changes caused by populations of aquatic nis introduced by this pathway. this study concludes that the economic impacts of ballast water species are large, but are also uncertain. nevertheless, policies that aim to reduce the likelihood of additional invasions via this pathway appear to be economically justifiable. as nuisance aquatic nis in the gl region spread to other waterways, they bring with them ecological and economic impacts. the detrimental nature of these impacts motivates efforts to reduce the rate of spread. to inform such efforts, i test the efficacy of multiple methods for removing aquatic nis from recreational boats and trailers. i found that visual inspection and hand removal is highly effective in removing the nuisance macrophyte myriophyllum spicatum, but that high-pressure washing is needed to effectively remove small-bodied organisms, including the exotic predatory zooplankter bythotrephes longimanus. beyond the tactics of how to clean boats, i evaluate efforts to strategically place boat cleaning stations on the landscape. my results show that a common predictive model is limited in its ability to predict which uninvaded lakes cleaning stations should protect. instead, it appears that placing cleaning stations at invaded lakes to block the transport of invasive propagules is generally more likely to reduce landscape-level spread than protecting uninvaded lakes. aquatic nis are only one of many environmental and cultural factors that affect ecosystems and societal interactions with the natural environment. to put the importance of aquatic nis in context with other potential drivers of change in gl fisheries over the next two decades, i interviewed experts on gl fisheries, asking them to predict changes and to identify the most likely drivers of the changes they predicted. this study revealed that changing cultural interests are the main reason for expected declines in gl fisheries, but that nis are the predominant environmental driver of change. the ecological and social issues surrounding nis are complex and multi-faceted. as human populations grow, causing global environmental changes and taxing the supply of natural resources, the line separating ecological concerns from social ones is increasingly blurred. in this dissertation, i have included humans as a key component of the ecosystems of the gl region and considered the ecological effects of human actions with respect to their introduction of and intervention against aquatic nis. in so doing, this dissertation presents several case studies of aquatic nis in the gl with the aim of providing insights regarding opportunities and pitfalls for efforts to improve nis policy and management. the primary focus of this dissertation is the development of the chemistry of organo-zintl clusters. the goal of the project was to put into place the necessary building blocks so as to bring germanium deltahedral clusters inline with mainstream organic chemistry. in order to accomplish this, it was necessary to achieve a number of phases of progression, namely: (a) develop techniques for synthesizing organo-zintl clusters, (b) carry out subsequent mechanistic investigations, (c) modify the solubility properties of the clusters, (d) increase the clusters's compatibility with reaction conditions for organic transformations, and (e) carry out broad investigations into their reactivity. each of these segments have been dealt with in turn. after introducing the foundations of zintl chemistry (chapter 1), the first method for synthesizing organo-zintl clusters is discussed, namely the 'halide' route (chapter 2). this technique allows organo-zintl clusters to be synthesized by reacting naked ge94clusters with r-x substrates to form [ge9-r]3-, [r-ge9-r]2-, and [r-ge9-ge9-r]4-. investigations show this route to be general, and applicable to primary, secondary, and tertiary carbon centers. moreover, it is independent of steric bulk, as evidenced by the characterization of [ge9-c10h15]3from reactions with the bulky, tertiary bromoadamantane. the second method for synthesizing organo-zintl clusters, the 'alkyne' route, is discussed in chapter 3. reactions between ge94and both terminal and internal alkynes (r-cì¢'¡åác-h and r-cì¢'¡åác-r') result in the addition to the clusters and hydrogenation of the parent alkyne to form alkenylated clusters, [ge9-cr'=ch-r]3and [ge9-(cr'=ch-r)2]2(where r' = h or any r group). the organo-zintl and organometallic-organo-zintl species, [ge9-ch=ch-ph-ome]3and [ge9-(ch=ch-fc)2]2(fc = ferrocenyl) respectively, where structurally characterized by x-ray diffraction, along with reactions with a variety of internal and terminal alkynes by mass spectrometry. zintl clusters in general are only soluble in a limited number of non-traditional solvents such as ethylenediamine and liquid ammonia, and occasionally dimethylformamide. the results presented in chapter 4 demonstrate that the alkali metal cation (normally k+) of organo-zintl clusters can be exchanged for quaternary ammonium cations, r4n+. three cation exchanged organo-zintl salts were structurally characterized by x-ray diffraction: [me4n]2[ge9-(ch=ch2)2]ì¢ ââå¢0.5en, [et4n]2[ge9-(ch=ch2)2], and [pr4n]2[ge9-(ch=ch2)2], where [ge9-(ch=ch2)2]2is synthesized by the reaction of ge94with tms-cì¢'¡åác-tms. the vinyl disubstituted cluster is also structurally characterized with [k-18-crown-6]+ in [k-18-crown-6]2[ge9-(ch=ch2)2] ì¢ ââå¢en. by exchanging the alkali metal cation for tetraoctylammonium cations, [oc4n]+, the organo-zintl clusters can be solubilized in a variety of conventional organic solvents such as thf, dioxane, dmso, acetonitrile, and diethyl ether, and even solvents as non-polar as benzene and toluene. the 'alkyne' route was further developed by showing that it is compatible with a large range of alkyne substrates with various secondary functional groups. chapter 5 presents the results of a systematic investigation of the reactions of nine-atom deltahedral clusters of germanium (zintl ions, ge9n-) with alkynes and alkyl halides. the reaction pathways were probed in depth using various, appropriately substituted alkynes and organic halides, including some typical mechanistic probes and radical clocks. the regioselectivity and stereoselectivity of the reaction with alkynes was examined by systematically varying the steric and electronic nature of the substituents. the studies showed that the zintl clusters act as strong, anionic nucleophiles towards the alkynes and primary and secondary alkyl halides but, most likely, as electron donors in reactions with tertiary alkyl halides and halogenated olefins. the pentenyl and methylcyclopropyl functionalized clusters, [ge9-(c5h9)]3and [ge9-(ch2ch(ch2)2)2)]2-, respectively, were also crystallographically characterized in compounds with [k-crypt]+ countercations. chapter 6 further develops the nucleophilic reactivity of zintl clusters. specifically, their reactivity towards substrates with two different electrophilic centers is probed, namely: (a) organostannyl center + alkyne, (b) halide carbon center + alkyne, and (c) halide carbon center plus carbonyl group. these reactions show the preference of the clusters for organostannyl centers over alkynes, and halide carbon center over either of the other two. additionally, initial investigations into functionalizing zintl clusters with an sp carbon are discussed, completing the sequence of primary, secondary, and tertiary sp3 carbons from alkyl halides, and sp2 carbons from alkenyl halides or alkynes. organo-zintl clusters are also unreactive towards tertiary alkyl halides, ketones, and aldehydes. chapter 7 discusses the stability towards h2o that organo-zintl clusters exhibit. this compatibility with h2o is coupled with their non-reactivity towards aldehydes to demonstrate that subsequent organic transformations are possible with organo-zintl clusters. proof of concept comes from the aldehyde condensation reaction between [ge9-(ch=ch-ch2nh2)2]2and ferrocene carboxaldehyde. the former anion is structurally characterized by x-ray diffraction in [k-(2,2,2-crypt)]2[ge9-(ch=ch-chnh2)2] from a reaction between ge94and propargylamine (h-cì¢'¡åác-ch2nh2). in addition to water, organo-zintl clusters are stable towards dicationic transition metal complexes, as evidenced by isolation of [fe(en)3][ge9-(ch=ch-fc)2]ì¢ ââå¢3en. chapter 8 involves a break from germanium-based clusters, and discusses the results of some investigations into the reactivity of bismuth-based zintl anions towards ni(co)2(pph3)2. two heterometallic species were isolated and crystallographically characterized; namely, the open cluster [bi3ni6(co)9]3-, and the intermetalloid and hypoelectronic closo-[ni@{bi6ni6(co)8}]3-. the species are also characterized in the gas phase by electrospray mass spectrometry, and their full structural and electronic descriptions are discussed. the dissertation closes with a discussion of prospects for future work, primarily in the area of organo-zintl clusters. a method for distributed information processing in rectangular grid based wireless sensor networks is presented, employing the givone-roesser and the fornasini-marchesini state space models for m-d systems. it can be used for distributed implementation of any general linear system on a grid sensor network. the method is highly scalable and requires only communication between immediate neighbors. usage of finite precision schemes for the representation of numbers and computations introduce nonlinearities to the otherwise linear m-d system models. nonlinearities caused by fixed point and floating point number representation schemes used for in node computations and inter-node communication are modeled. stability of the system is analyzed with special consideration given to the influence of inter-node communication on system dynamics. necessary and sufficient conditions for the global asymptotic stability under both fixed point and floating point arithmetic is derived. it has been shown that the global asymptotic stability of the sensor networks is equivalent to that of a 1-d system for both the cases of fixed point and floating number representation. issues posed by communication time delay, in real-time implementation of the proposed method, are discussed. it is shown that, in order to implement a real-time sensor network, system matrices of the state space models have to satisfy certain conditions. a necessary and sufficient condition for a transfer function to be realizable in the constrained state space models is established. realization algorithms to derive state space models of the desired form given an admissible transfer function are also presented. node and link failure introduce complications not encountered in centralized implementation of m-d systems. givone-roesser and the fornasini-marchesini state space models are extended to include node and link failure. necessary and sufficient conditions for mean square stability are then derived with the help of these two state space models. input output stability of the distributed systems under node and link failure is also discussed. the utility of the proposed method is demonstrated by examples. in particular a distributed kalman filter is proposed for grid sensor networks. implementation of the proposed kalman filter on grid sensor networks is discussed in some detail. a method for contaminant detection and its implementation using the proposed method is also presented. the apcmin/+ mouse, a genetic model of human familial adenomatous polyposis (fap), was used in this study to determine effects of chemical treatments and genetic alterations on colon cancer. non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (nsaids) have shown potential as chemo-preventive agents against cancer formation, especially colorectal cancers. however, the mechanisms by which these drugs act are not fully understood. in this study, apcmin/+ mice were treated with sulindac, a nsaid that functions as a cyclooxygenase (cox) inhibitor. these mice demonstrated a tumor reduction of over 80%, consistent with previous reports. gene microarray analyses of rna from adenoma-derived dysplastic epithelial cells revealed that collagen genes, viz., col1a2, col5a2, col6a2, and col6a3, were upregulated, and matrilysin/metalloproteinase 7 (mmp7) was downregulated, in sulindac-treated mice. validation of the gene expression profile of the col6a2 subunit of collagen vi and of mmp7 was confirmed by rt-pcr. confocal microscopy and immunofluorescence measurements showed that collagen vi was present in low amounts within the tumors of nontreated mice, but was enhanced within the tumors of sulindac-treated mice. collagens i and v demonstrated similar patterns, but were not as prominent as collagen vi. mmp7 was found in 'hot spot' areas within the tumors of apcmin/+ mice treated with the vehicle, but was greatly diminished in those treated with sulindac. studies with apcmin/+/mmp7-/double-deficient mice demonstrated a reciprocal relationship of mmp7 expression and the levels of these three collagens in vivo. gene expression analysis of the human colon cancer cell line, ht-29, demonstrated that mmp7 and hmgb1 were downregulated after sulindac treatment, resembling similar gene alterations observed in mice. enzymatic assays demonstrated that sulindac treatment altered gelatinase activity. activity-based protein profiling (abpp) targeted to serine hydrolases and metallohydrolases revealed a sulindac effect on many members of these proteases. fas, a member of the tumor necrosis family, is responsible for initiating the apoptotic pathway when bound to its ligand, fas-l. defects in the fas-mediated apoptotic pathway have been reported in colorectal cancer. in the present study, a variant of the apcmin/+ mouse was generated with an additional deficiency of fas (apcmin/+/faslpr) by multiple cross-breedings of apcmin/+ mice with fas deficient (faslpr) mice. one of the main limitations of the apcmin/+ mouse model is that it only develops benign polyps. however, apcmin/+/faslpr mice presented with dramatic increases in tumor burden relative to apcmin/+ mice, with invasive lesions at advanced ages. proliferation and apoptosis markers revealed an increase in cellular proliferation, but negligible changes in apoptosis, while p53 was enhanced at early ages. fas-l was lower in apcmin/+/faslpr mice relative to apcmin/+ cohorts. the results of this study demonstrated that sulindac is effective in increasing the expression of different collagens and decreasing the expression of mmp7 and hmgb1. these effects are also seen in the human colon cancer cell line ht-29 and may contribute to altered tumor burden in cancer patients undergoing nsaids treatments. it was also demonstrated that imposition of a fas deletion in an apcmin/+ background resulted in a more aggressive phenotype of the apcmin/+ mouse model characterized by more rapid development of invasive intestinal tumors and a decrease in fas-l levels. using case studies from climate science, this dissertation provides an analysis of the value of agreement across models, also known as "robustness." i argue for four main theses. first, that the use of multiple models is essential to the epistemology of climate science; agreement across such models is an interesting special case, but not the whole story. second, that agreement across models and agreement across experiments should be given the same analysis. both are fallible means of raising the probability of a hypothesis. third, that we can understand robustness in terms of agreement across sources of evidence that vary with regards to the conditions under which they are reliable--and that, in general, such agreement will tend to confirm the agreed-on result. fourth, and finally, that in cases where there isn't agreement across models, climate scientists can be understood as using statistical methods to determine what conclusions are justified. such methods deserve more attention, given that--as i demonstrate--they have hidden or unappreciated presuppositions. the overarching picture is one in which models are a kind of epistemic tool, and our epistemic evaluation of them must take account of the role or purpose to which they are put. the holodomor was a genocide perpetrated by the soviet union in the 1930s that took the lives of millions of ukrainians. despite the magnitude of the tragedy, the holodomor is largely unknown in the united states. moreover, there is a general lack of knowledge about genocide among broad audiences in the u.s., leading many americans to believe that genocides are uncommon in the modern world. therefore, it is necessary to stimulate awareness, discussion, and empathy around the theme of genocide.in this paper, i offer an analysis of the potential challenges of communicating about genocide to a broad audience. i propose a design intervention framework that advocates visual communication as a powerful tool to encourage discussions around the theme of genocide by developing a deep connection between the audience and the victims. this has the potential to inspire the audience to make conscious decisions that contribute to social justice. the international baccalaureate diploma program (ibdp) is an advancedcourse program for students in high school. the program is offered throughout the world, but has seen particular growth in the united states, where it expanded rapidly over the last 15 years, from nearly 300 to about 900 schools, a more than 200 percent increase. despite its rapid u.s. expansion, little is known about the role of program in the u.s. educational system, and its growth, as a whole. this was due, in part, to previous data limitations; one outcome of this project is a longitudinal dataset of ibdps in the u.s. (described in chapter 2). as the program continues to grow and expand as an advanced educational option in much of the country, my dissertation fills a gap in the current literature by describing where the program fits in the u.s. educational landscape and why its recent growth is consequential – both in shaping educational opportunity, the landscape of advanced course taking more broadly, and in effectively maintaining inequality. i apply allocation and stratification theories of the sociology of education, which have largely focused on individual outcomes and achievement, to examine the growth and expansion of ibdp – noting broad-level trends in where the program is located, how quickly the program expanded in the u.s. (chapter 3), and the access different groups have to the program (chapters 4 and 5). previous work in this area has largely taken place at the student level, focusing on student achievement and the sorting of students as a function of prior test scores, teacher evaluations, and sociodemographics. while still attending to issues of access and stratification, i extend this literature to examine these issues at the school, school district, and national levels.drawing on neo-institutional theories, i contextualize the program's growth as co-occurring with standards-based accountability policies and calls to democratize advanced courses. i then analyze the extent to which the program contributes to racialized tracking with second-generation segregation in the u.s., finding that schools in districts under desegregation orders have a higher predicted probability of racially tracking students in ibdp, hyper-segregating white students in, and black students from, the program. finally, motivated by the literature on educational expansion and effectively maintained inequality, i examine the characteristics of school districts offering and implementing ibdp. natural organic matter (nom) is ubiquitous in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, is an important source of carbon and other nutrients for microorganisms, and plays a role in many biogeochemical reactions. despite its abundance and importance, much about nom remains unknown. the research presented in this dissertation examines bacterial utilization of nom and how it affects nom physicochemical properties. in one study, physicochemical properties of a group of raw filtered water samples are compared with the properties of a group of nom isolates. though previous studies have shown a strong and predictive correlation between nom molecular weight and molar absorptivity in isolates, this study shows that a strong correlation does not exist for rfw samples, thus emphasizing that any comparison of isolates and rfw samples must take into account their inherent differences. the second and third studies combine field and laboratory work to: 1) examine how nom bioavailability varies with microbial community structure, quantity, and chemical characteristics of nom, and, 2) to determine how adsorption may affect nom physicochemical properties. natural bacterial consortia were isolated from field sites and were used to inoculate nom. one study showed changes in bacterial productivity and nom over the course of the experiment that suggest the relative importance of nom quantity and chemical characteristics to bioavailability is dependent on microbial community composition. a similar study utilized high-pressure size exclusion chromatography (hpsec) to measure changes in molecular weight distributions of nom after inoculation. the data show that weight average molecular weight (mw) of nom initially decreases, as high molecular weight components are lost from solution, likely due to preferential adsorption of these components. as biodegradation increases, low molecular weight components are lost from solution and mw of the remaining nom increases. the final study determines whether bacteria are able to utilize fe from nom complexes by quantifying p. mendocina growth under fe-limited conditions as a function of fe source: as supplied in the form of natural fe-containing various nom isolates, as a dissolved form (feedta), and with a no-fe-added control. this work also compares bacterial growth with total initial fe in a variety of nom samples. little is known of the structure and function of conantokins from the species conus parius. their surprising deviation from what was previously considered to be the conantokins consensus sequence allowed in this study for the exploration of how posttranslational modifications of the toxin region affect the characteristic helical structure and, subsequently, the requisite inhibitory effect upon the n-methyl-d-aspartate (nmda) receptor. synthesized variants of the wild-type conantokin conus parius 2 were tested by isothermal titration calorimetry, circular dichroism, and electrophysiology experiments to explore the variation's effect on structure and function. variations included mutated gamma-carboxyglutamate residues (gla) in position 4, 7, and 11, 4-trans-hydroxyproline in position 3, and an amidation at the n-terminus, a modification found in all non-conus parius conantokins. it was found that gla in positions 4 and 7, and hydroxyproline were most critical for the retention of helicity and inhibition potential towards the nmda receptor. this dissertation argues that robert creeley, a poet of the american counter-culture and the black mountain college, develops in his poetics linguistic resources that may be of use to disciplines further afield, and problems normally expressed in more philosophically sophisticated registers. each chapter offers a close reading of a particular figure developed in creeley's work, and asks how this figure both updates a paradigmatically modernist poetics and avoids the poststructuralist poetics soon to be developed in language writing. the reading pays particular attention to the non-discursive, extra-textual features in creeley's poetry, and argues that creeley's poetics emerge from experiencing thought and materials as constituent of each other. finally, the dissertation rescues creeley from the predominantly heideggerian phenomenological frame with which he has been received. it suggests, instead, that maurice merleau-ponty's physiologically informed phenomenology proves a more apt frame with which to theorize creeley's language. given the revisionist reading, i offer creeley as an example of a poet whose work, although both under-theorized and underappreciated, might prove serviceable to conceptual problems arising in disciplines as apparently distinct as theology. senior military leaders wield immense power and influence around the world. armies march and bombs fly on the orders of people placed in extraordinary circumstances and positions of authority. given their influence on society, many would reasonably expect that these individuals maintain not only high levels of military expertise, but also high levels of general education. yet despite this seemingly reasonable assumption, most military leaders simply do not attend civilian educational programs with the same frequency as other professions. unlike physicians, lawyers, and the clergy, military leaders do not depend on civilian education for their professional development or prospects for success. despite the assumed benefits of higher education, does graduate education support or subvert the career prospects of military leaders? i argue that civilian education limits the career prospects of military leaders. these leaders do not succeed because of their advanced degrees; they succeed in spite of them. by earning a civilian degree, a military leader assumes a more subtle though still hierarchical rank in the academy. this "hidden rank" competes with the traditionally explicit military hierarchy and burdens an otherwise capable leader. rather than improve an individual's career prospects, civilian education (1) imposes severe opportunity costs; (2) limits expansion of professional networks; (3) increases professional career uncertainty; and (4) encourages dissent in a world the privileges conformity. my argument stands in stark contrast to conventional wisdom that assumes more education universally leads to positive outcomes. moreover, the argument challenges those who contend that the system of professional military education or parochial study programs and personal development point the way to success.in this dissertation, i test my central argument against an original collection of personal experiences and observable career outcomes of an elite cohort of american officers. the four star dataset gathers pertinent biographic and career data that remains publicly available and widely accessible for the 755 individuals that earned the rank of four star admiral or general during their service in the army, marine corps, navy, air force, coast guard, or space force of the united states. using a mixed-method approach, i conduct cross-case analyses of all officers to test hypotheses related to both my central claim and to evaluate competing arguments. next, i unpack the impact of the four causal mechanisms under review by using a structured comparison of two exceptional military officers. i find compelling evidence that suggests civilian education remains a career burden for military leaders. these findings contradict the rival possibility that education improves a military career. they also contribute to a growing body of work that updates our understanding of leaders and the traits that lead to success. companies are increasingly compensating employees with 401(k)s. other forms of compensation, including defined benefit (db) pensions, are thought to affect employee behavior and improve workforce productivity. ippolito (1997) suggests that if individual discount rates and productivity are related then 401(k)s affect productivity. however, empirical results are limited to public sector employees and are inconclusive. results presented in this paper from a new data set of a representative sample of private sector firms indicate that discount rates and productivity are negatively correlated. this allows 401(k)s, through the employer match, to align pay with productivity. furthermore, additional tests show that 401(k)s increase workforce productivity by inducing less productive workers to leave their jobs in order to access 401(k) lump sum distributions. these results have implications for how 401(k)s affect workers, how firms should design their retirement plans, and for federal regulation and public pension plans such as social security. this thesis examines two topics, energy loss mechanisms for surface plasmon modes in metal nanostripes, and heat diffusion in photothermal experiments on gold particles and how it affects microscopy images. electron motions which occur at the surfaces of conducting materials that have a definitive momentum are known as propagating surface plasmon polaritons (pspps).for a metal structure supported on a dielectric substrate, there exists two types of pspp modes: the bound mode at the interface between the metal and dielectric and the leaky mode at the glass-air interface. the leaky mode for photolithographically made gold nanostripes were examined by a combination of leakage radiation microscopy (lrm) and back focal plane (bfp) imaging. the results were compared to finite element simulations performed in comsol multiphysics. the experimentally determined wavevector, kspp, and propagation length, lspp, for the leaky mode was found to be in excellent agreement with simulations. plotting the frequency versus kspp, the group velocity, vg, is obtained from the slope of the line. the vg was found to be about 90% of the speed of light. the lifetimes for the leaky mode, obtained via t1 = lspp/vg, were found to be an order of magnitude longer than typical lifetimes for the localized surface plasmon resonance (lspr) modes of gold nanorods.leakage radiation microscopy has been used to examine chemical interface damping (cid) for the (pspp) modes of au nanostripes, nanofabricated structures with heights of 40 or 50 nm, widths between 2 and 4 µm, and 100 µm lengths. the difference in t1 times between bare and thiol coated nanostripes was used to determine the dephasing rate due to cid, γcid for the adsorbed thiol molecules. a variety of different thiol molecules were examined, as well as nanostripes with different dimensions. the values of γcid are similar for the different systems and are an order-of-magnitude smaller than the typical values observed for lsprs of au nanoparticles. scaling the measured γcid values by the effective path length for electron-surface scattering shows that the cid effect for the pspp modes of the nanostripes is similar to that for the lspr modes of nanoparticles. this is somewhat surprising given that pspps and lsprs have different properties: pspps have a well-defined momentum, whereas lsprs do not. the magnitude of γcid for the nanostripes could be increased by reducing their dimensions, principally the height of the nanostructures. however, decreasing dimensions for the leaky pspp mode increases radiation damping, which would make it challenging to accurately measure γcid.the effect of heat diffusion in photothermal experiments on gold nanoparticles was also examined. in photothermal heterodyne imaging (phi) experiments a time-modulated pump beam heats the sample, creating a thermal lens that is detected by a non-resonant probe. this technique is very sensitive, and has been used to study a variety of systems. the extent of heat diffusion in the system depends on the timescale for the experiment, which is determined by the pump beam modulation frequency. in this paper the way the spatial resolution in phi microscopy depends on frequency was studied through experiments and heat transfer simulations on gold nanoparticles. the experiments were performed with both focused and widefield pump beams. for a focused pump beam, changing modulation frequency had no effect on the spatial resolution. a small frequency effect was observed for a widefield pump, but the magnitude was much less than that expected from the thermal diffusion lengths in the system. the simulations also showed a small frequency dependence for the spatial extent of heating, consistent with the measurements. this arises because the system rapidly reaches a steady-state condition in these experiments, where the rate of optically heating the particle matches the rate of heat dissipation. in this limit the temperature profile around the particle simply decays inversely with distance, and is independent of the thermal diffusion length.traditionally, microscopy techniques are performed on nanoscale structures. this is due to the fact that when structures become larger than the point-spread-function (psf) of the beam, extra scattering effects are observed. with the onset of infrared phi, there has been an expansion of materials studied to include biological tissues as well as large polymer beads. these structures are now larger than a typical psf for a visible/near-infrared probe beam. the effect of large objects on the phi signal is examined using 3 and 6 µm dye-doped polymer beads. a widefield 532nm pump beam is used to excite over the whole particle, and a focused 636nm probe beam is used to detect the phi signal. it's been observed that the phi signal evolves as the probe beam focus is stepped through the polymer beads and shows a very distinct "newton's rings" structure. understanding this effect is important for implementing phi in complex systems. this ethnographic study traces the historical and political processes that shape how grassroots actors build peace in montes de maría, colombia. drawing on twenty-two months of ethnographic research, 103 interviews, and twelve focus group sessions with grassroots peace activists, youth, (i)ngo workers, state bureaucrats, private sector actors, and members of the revolutionary armed forces of colombia (farc), i analyze peacebuilding as a site of contestation where universalized notions of 'peace' are negotiated, reworked, and recast within a particular locale. in particular, i outline how grassroots leaders explicitly contest and refuse "the times (los tiempos)" of the state and the international community as implementation of the colombian peace accords unfolds in montes de maría.i draw on the distinct social, environmental, and temporal dimensions of everyday peacebuilding in montes de maría to develop a grounded theory of "slow peace." i argue that social leaders theorize "the times" beyond speed, pace, and duration. instead, they invoke "the times" to draw attention to radical, alternative ways of experiencing, relating to, and inhabiting the world. the defense of territory and life is found through an immersion into the cotidianidad (everyday), where ancestral memories of collective resistance, practices of care for the entorno (life world), and relations of love and solidaridad (solidarity) are held and nurtured. i offer an anthropological account of peacebuilding that understands peace as a historical, cultural, and political process – emergent, dynamic, plural, and unfolding in everyday life. campesinos in montes de maría understand peace as embedded within their daily practices of care for their land and territory through multispecies relations that allow abundant life to flourish even in the midst of the ongoing violence(s) of armed conflict, forced displacement, and extractivism. the practices of slow peace emerge from the tenacious and collective struggle for dignified life found through an immersion into the cotidianidad (everyday) where relationships are deepened, ancestral memories reclaimed, and ecologies regenerated. slow peace recasts peacebuilding as a multigenerational, multispecies, and continuous struggle to build a decolonial peace otherwise. low-density parity-check (ldpc) block codes invented by gallager in 1962 achieve exceptional error performance on a wide variety of communication channels. ldpc convolutional codes are the convolutional counterparts of ldpc block codes. this dissertation describes techniques for the design of ldpc convolutional codes, and analyzes their distance properties and iterative decoding convergence thresholds. the construction of time invariant ldpc convolutional codes by unwrapping the tanner graph of algebraically constructed quasi-cyclic ldpc codes is described. the convolutional codes outperform the quasi-cyclic codes from which they are derived. the design of parity-check matrices for time invariant ldpc convolutional codes by the polynomial extension of a base matrix is proposed. an upper bound on free distance, proving that time invariant ldpc codes are not asymptotically good, is obtained. the tanner graph is used to describe a pipelined message passing based iterative decoder for ldpc convolutional codes that outputs decoding results continuously. the performance of ldpc block and convolutional codes are compared for fixed decoding parameters like computational complexity, processor complexity, and decoding delay. in each case, the ldpc convolutional code performance is at least as good as that of ldpc block codes. an analog circuit to implement pipelined decoding of ldpc convolutional codes is proposed. the distance properties of a permutation matrix based (time varying) ensemble of (j,k) regular ldpc convolutional codes is investigated. it is proved that these codes (for j > 2) have free distance increasing linearly with constraint length, i.e., they are asymptotically good. further, the asymptotic free distance to constraint length ratio for the convolutional codes is several times larger than the minimum distance to block length ratio for corresponding ldpc block codes. iterative decoding of terminated ldpc convolutional codes, based on the ensemble mentioned above, is analyzed, assuming transmission over a binary erasure channel. the structured irregularity of the codes leads to significantly better convergence thresholds compared to corresponding ldpc block codes. at the calculated thresholds, both the bit and block error probability can be made arbitrarily small. the results obtained suggest that the thresholds approach capacity with increasing j. contemporary researchers have suggested that our propensity to engage in off-task thoughts and to suffer performance failures (i.e., to experience lapses) is strongly related to our ability to engage attentional control (ac). as a construct, ac has been defined as the ability to maintain attention on task goals and to sustain attention in the face of internal and external distractions. however, the construct validity of ac remains untested, with earlier research suggesting it is comprised of variance from both goal maintenance and alertness tasks. furthermore, recent evidence has suggested that tonic and phasic alertness, as measured by baseline and task-evoked pupil diameters, are predictive of lapses. the current study was thus motivated by the need to further understand the attentional mechanisms underlying lapses. further, because ac partially explains the relationships between working memory (wm) and fluid reasoning (gf), it was important to explore how the attentional mechanisms underlying lapses related to wm and gf.three measures (or manifest variables) for each of the six main cognitive constructs: tonic alertness, phasic alertness, goal maintenance, lapses, wm, and gf were collected in a heterogeneous community sample of adolescents, aged 13 to 18 years. exploratory factor analyses were used to determine the construct validity of tonic alertness, phasic alertness, and lapse constructs. confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation modeling were used asses the relationship between all six cognitive constructs. results indicated that retrospective questionnaires, thought probes, and performance-based measures of lapses converged onto six distinct factors. however, only performance-based lapses were significantly related phasic pupil-based alertness, ac, wm, and gf constructs. pupiland performance-based measures of alertness did not converge, indicating that these alertness measures may not measure the same construct. additionally, tonic and phasic alertness emerged as separate constructs. the construct validity of ac was verified as a combination of tonic alertness and goal maintenance abilities. structural equation modeling revealed that phasic alertness (i.e., mean task evoked pupil diameters) predicted lapses (i.e., reaction time variability and errors) during attention demanding tasks. replicating prior research, lapses predicted ac, ac predicted wm, and wm predicted gf. theoretical implications of these results will be discussed. on the global level, spiritual experiences have been shown to buffer against the negative effects of stress on well-being, but this global analysis does not necessarily capture the daily processes at work. the present project examines the daily associations between perceived stress (pss), daily spiritual experiences (dse), and mood (positive and negative affect; paa), as well as how these associations are impacted by global levels of religious practices, religious belief, and daily spiritual experiences. participants were 244 older adults (aged 55-92) who filled out yearly questionnaires and daily assessments. multilevel modeling tested both within-person daily effects (level 1) and between-person global effects (level 2). results partially support the hypothesis that dse moderates the negative effects of pss on same-day affect: there was a significant buffering effect for na but only a direct effect for pa. global religiousness and spirituality did not affect the daily parameters. in this thesis, we examine the cross streamline migration of dilute suspensions of non colloidal particles undergoing simple shear flow via theory and experiments. such migration behavior has a profound impact not only on the bulk rheological properties of the suspension (for example, total stress, viscosity etc.) but also on mixing. the major focus of our work is to experimentally understand the motion of rigid particles and deformable blood cells in the shear flow of a parallel plate device. the anisotropy of the interaction between the particle/cell with the plane results in a migration velocity towards the centerline. historically, the migration behavior of particles and cells in plane poiseuille flow is fairly well understood and there is very good agreement between the theory and experiments. migration in simple shear flow, in contrast, is a bit of an enigma with multiple migration theories and almost no experimental data available in literature. in chapter 2, we investigate the migration of rigid polystyrene particles via a balance between buoyancy and inertia in an attempt to resolve the discrepancy between the various available models. in chapter 3, the migration of red blood cells is examined using the same approach and compared to various drop, vesicle and actual blood cell models. it is demonstrated that even though the blood cell is not really a drop, its migration behavior can be reasonably approximated by the rather simple drop model of chan & leal (1979) with a single adjustable parameter. in chapter 4, we examine migration in a counter rotating parallel plate geometry. the presence of inertial secondary currents due to the higher gap widths and rotation rates employed for these experiments gives rise to a range of intriguing dynamics depending on the degree of counter-rotation. in particular, particles can be driven to discrete equilibrium positions in the gap in both the radial and vertical directions. we further demonstrate that this geometry can be used to effect a size based separation, segregating differently sized particles to different radial positions in the device. in the final chapter, we describe a rather curious mechanism for fluid dispersion resulting from a tight confinement of rigid particles in a simple shear flow. it is demonstrated that the mixing produced by such tightly confined spheres, rather than being chaotic over the system, is limited to about central two-thirds of the gap. humans use a variety of perceptual and conceptual symbols to orient visuospatial attention around the visual field. much of the research investigating the orienting of attention, however, has focused on the form of attentional control these symbols elicit. in so doing, the interaction between cue processing and attentional orienting has largely been overlooked. the present study attempted to address this gap in knowledge by first developing three computational models of voluntary attentional control. each model was based on a competing theory about how previously observed differences in performance on the well known spatial cuing task arise as a function of cue processing. differentiating the theories using the computational models was inconclusive, with some effects being predicted better by one model or another. however, all models revealed a consistent difference in mechanism efficiency as a function of cue type. bone tissue exhibits a unique multiscale hierarchical composite structure. the material, or extracellular matrix, constituent phases of water, collagen, and apatite bone mineral are organized and preferentially oriented over several length scales to optimally bear and distribute mechanical loads in the skeleton. at larger length scales, the architecture of bone is continually remodeled through the creation of pore space and deposition of new tissue. however, aging and metabolic bone diseases such as osteoporosis can compromise the mechanical integrity of bone by altering the material and/or architectural properties of bone. therefore, decoupling these structure-function relationships in bone provides mechanistic insights and elucidates which are most important when developing pharmacological treatments for metabolic bone disease.this dissertation investigated the relative contributions of material and architectural properties on the mechanical behavior of bone tissue using combined numerical and experimental techniques. a micromechanical model and finite element analyses were used to decouple the relative influences of apatite crystal orientations and intracortical porosity (ct.po) on the elastic anisotropy of human cortical bone. the dominant and less variable transverse isotropy was governed primarily by material-level apatite crystal orientations, while the more subtle and variable orthotropy was governed primarily by ct.po. micro-computed tomography (micro-ct) based finite element models of human trabecular bone specimens were used to investigate the effect of constitutive models on apparent and tissue-level yielding. yield strains and yielding modalities exhibited minimal dependence on material constitutive model in comparison to architecture. novel experimental methods for sequential micro-ct imaging and mechanical loading were used to investigate the relative influence of ct.po and mineralization on damage accumulation and fracture susceptibility in human cortical bone. fractures were shown to initiate at fatigue microdamage that was spatially adjacent to elevated ct.po, but not elevated mineralization. finite element models were subsequently used to examine the relative contributions of ct.po, mineralization, and fatigue microdamage on the stress concentrations at fracture initiation sites. elevated stresses at the fracture initiation sites were governed by the coupled effects of ct.po and fatigue microdamage, but not mineralization. finally, in vivo rabbit ulnar loading was developed and validated as a new model for preclinical investigations of bone mechanobiology which includes intracortical remodeling similar to human bone biology. lamellar bone formation in rabbit ulnae exhibited a tightly controlled dose-dependent response to strains induced by mechanical loading. this dissertation studies the nature and meaning of friendship (philia) in the platonic dialogues and argues for its central and pervasive importance to his political and philosophical thought, and traces how philia emerges as a political and philosophical problem. on the one hand, philia is grounded in and grounds the city. as an essential component of justice, the common good, and civic concord, philia inspires and demands political virtue. on the other hand, plato describes another aspect of philia: friendship encompasses the intense, private benefits one human being can provide another in the common pursuit of wisdom. thus philosophical friendship necessarily situates itself in a tense relation to political friendship. as this dissertation contends, however, socratic friendship both manifests and attempts to mitigate this tension. after first tracing the emergence of these questions within the lysisì¢ ââ" plato's only dialogue specifically devoted to the question of philiaì¢ ââ" the dissertations treat the theme of philia through an account of socrates' relationship with alcibiades, crito and callicles. the dissertation offers three arguments about socratic friendship in the platonic dialogues: a) socratic friendship solicits, enables, and sustains philosophic dialogue and rewards the search for wisdom; b) socratic friendship moderates the eros of the potential tyrant by offering a good both noble and pleasurable; and c) socratic friendship sets the conditions for inverting the ethical matrix of the friend/enemy dichotomy dominant in ancient greek political life. the three essays analyze the effects of uncontrolled domestic and external financial liberalization on country risk, private investment and political instability in argentina, mexico and turkey. the first essay explores the dynamic relationship among country risk, short and long term international capital flows, domestic investment and growth by suggesting that the relationship between external capital flows and country risk is not a linear one where one exogenously determines the other. the empirical results by employing a simultaneous-equation approach using annual and quarterly data provide support for self-fulfilling prophecy arguments by uncovering an endogenous relationship between country risk and short-term capital inflows such that they generate a self-reinforcing equilibria depending on the direction of change in either of them. the results also provide some support for the firesale fdi argument. the second essay, by employing micro level company panel data, analyzes the impacts of domestic and external financial liberalization on real investment behavior of private sector firms under capital market imperfections, volatile macro-prices and changing country risk levels. the empirical results confirm that under increasing risk and uncertainty combined with credit bottlenecks and/or profitability squeeze the real sector firms choose to invest not on fixed assets but on financial assets. availability of higher rates of return in the financial markets further encourages this type of investment behavior. in addition, availability of internal funds is found to be a necessary but not sufficient condition for financing real investment projects even in the presence of capital market imperfections. depending on the opportunity cost of fixed investments, profits from financial assets may as well be used for financing new financial investments. the third essay examines the effects of short-term capital inflows by exploring the relationship between their volatility and socio-political instability. the empirical analysis by employing a simultaneous-equation approach and granger causality tests uncovers the presence of a dynamic and contemporaneous relationship between the volatility of short-term capital inflows and socio-political risk. in this thesis, i will investigate the qualities of euripides' early portrayals of tragic mothers. euripides' early extant plays present their modern readers with two remarkable, yet apparently starkly contrasting, wives and mothers. alcestis portrays an ideal wife and mother, revered by her slaves, children, in-laws, and husband, who dies for that husband in order to ensure his life and the security of her children. in contrast, medea contains the now infamous infanticidal mother, who kills her children to wreak revenge upon her husband. and yet, these two plays share a number of themes and allusions. in these early plays, euripides writes about the demands of motherhood on women who also fulfill many elements and traits of the greek hero &mdash; alcestis and medea. alcestis and medea, dominated by the actions of women, embrace the prominence of their eponymous central characters by allowing those women the status of hero. infrared (ir) spectroscopy has been an invaluable tool for structural and biophysical analysis of proteins due to its ability to capture structural changes and quantify the amount of secondary structural components within a protein in in vitro conditions. advances in nonlinear ir spectroscopic has further solidified its role in protein biophysical analysis. topics in this dissertation include discussion and development of various ir spectroscopic techniques useful for studying protein structure within large, supramolecular protein structures, and application of these techniques to systems such as phase separating proteins and a novel fibril structure. methods of collecting spectral information through microscopy such as hyperspectral microscopy are hindered at ir wavelengths because protein macromolecular structures are typically at or smaller than the mid-ir light used to characterize protein structure. here we examine the use of dielectric microspheres to provide resolution enhancement beyond the resolution limit using ir light. furthermore, we demonstrate the ability to collect hyperspectral images of samples through the microspheres. next, we use ir spectroscopy to investigate droplet phase separation, a phenomenon where a solution spontaneously separates into two distinct liquids, which is involved in some biological processes and has been implicated in several neurodegenerative diseases, namely as a method for nucleation in amyloid formation. we use both fourier transform ir (ftir) spectroscopy and two-dimensional ir (2dir) spectroscopy to show that protein folding related secondary structural is associated with liquid phase separation. in the final sections, we use 2dir to study a new cross α-fibril structure formed by amyloid forming proteins involved in staphylococcus aureus toxicity and pathogenicity. 2dir spectroscopy was used to confirm the existence of the new fibril structure in vitro and showed evidence of polymorphisms within the fibers. furthermore, we employ spectroscopic simulations to report on new peak patterns in the 2dir spectrum which distinguish the fiber structures from the monomeric form. finally, we evaluate our model and show that coupling between α-helices in the extended fibril structure leads to new excitonic states. these states contribute unique signals to the 2idr spectrum which may allow future detection and identification of these fibers in new samples. natural products display a vast array of chemical groups and atoms in different spatial arrangements providing novel chemical space, and they remain one of the best sources of potential drug candidates and leads. we concentrated on two classes of natural products, calyxins and 3,3'-pyrrolidinyl-spirooxindole natural products, that have intriguing architecture scaffolds and promising biological activity. containing all-carbon tertiary centers, calyxins are a subclass of diarylheptanoid natural products. inspired by the capability and advantages of titanocene chemistry to construct carbon−carbon bonds, we sought to develop a titanocene-catalyzed method to access calyxin diarylheptanoids. we developed a catalytic protocol for the synthesis of all-carbon tertiary centers that allows for the mild generation of a propargyl organometallic that proceeds with a high degree of regioselectivity in the carbonyl addition event. our protocol utilizes a combination of catalytic titanocene and stoichiometric zn dust to facilitate the metallation of readily prepared propargylic acetates. containing all-carbon quaternary spirocenters, 3,3'-pyrrolidinyl-spirooxindole cores are found in many spirooxindole products and exhibits a range of biological activity. our approach focuses on assembling the quaternary carbon spirocenter in a single, convergent approach through two sequential bond formations. we envisioned this occurring through a [4+1]-cycloaddition pathway. sequential bond formations for the constructing quaternary carbon center from the kukhtin-ramirez redox condensation of 1,2-dicarbonyls and trivalent phosphorus were examined. this method was applied in the synthesis of bis-spirocyclopropyl oxindoles, which show promising cytotoxicity towards human breast and brain cancer cell lines. we also evaluated various nitrogen containing 1,3-heterodiene components for the construction of 3,3'-pyrrolidinyl-spirooxindole cores, and aryl imines in the presence of bf3oet2 facilitated addition of the phosphonium enolates followed by n-alkylation to give the corresponding aziridines in modest yields. we demonstrated the use of diazooxindoles in a rh(ii)-catalyzed, formal [4+1]-cycloaddition toward the construction of spirooxindole pyrrolones employing vinyl isocyanates as 1,3-heterodiene surrogates. the method exhibits good tolerance to a diverse array of functional groups and substitution patterns across each component, and unsaturated spiro-γ-lactams are amenable to further synthetic manipulations pertinent to target directed synthesis. the intermediacy of a cyclopropyl isocyanate enables ring expansion to the corresponding 5-membered n-heterocycle to occur under comparably milder conditions than previously established photochemical and thermal rearrangements of cyclopropylimines. through the use of a chiral rhodium(ii)-catalyst, enantioselective cyclopropanation of diazooxindole and vinyl isocyanate was achieved, and through further functionalization by hydrogenation and hydrosilylation reduction protocols the chiral spirooxindole pyrrolone was accessed. preliminary investigation into palladium-catalyzed [4+1]-cycloaddition to provide 3,3'-pyrrolidinyl-spirooxindole cores is also reported herein. in this dissertation i present work on the modeling of hydrodynamic friction at the surface of ice. in the hydrodynamic regime, a slider traversing an ice surface is fully supported by a quasi-liquid layer (qll), and the resulting friction is composed of three parts; solid-liquid friction between the ice crystal and the qll, viscous shearing of the surface premelt, and the drag force due to capillary bridges forming between the qll and the slider. using non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations, the basal {0001}, prismatic {10 ̄10}, 14◦ pyramidal {20 ̄21}, and secondary prismatic {11 ̄20} facets of ice-ih were drawn through liquid water with a momentum flux between the solid and liquid phases. the spatial transition between the ice and the liquid was quantified using structural and dynamic order parameters. estimates of the interfacial width using structural measures gave widths of ∼ 6-10 ̊a. dynamic interfacial widths were quantified and predicted a slightly broader interface, ∼ 10-15 ̊a wide. in addition, spatial decomposition of molecular orientational correlation functions indicated that the shortand longer-time decay components behave differently closer to the interface. in all cases the interface was observed to be stable under the presence of a shear. water sliding over the surface of ice is observed to be in the no-slip limit. a friction coefficient appropriate for negative slip boundary conditions is presented, and crystal facet dependent friction is observed. the computed friction of these interfaces is found to be invariant to the shear rate and direction of shear relative to the surface features. this trend is observed for two water potentials, and is shown to correlate strongly with the surface hydrogen-bond density. a momentum transmission model is proposed, which relates the observed friction with the density of solid to liquid hydrogen bonds, the shear viscosity of the liquid, and the width of the interface. data collected from both water models agrees well with the proposed transmission model.an investigation of the temperature dependence of the surface premelt at the basal and prismatic facets of an ice-ih crystal is presented. spatially resolved diffusion constants are computed normal to the ice surface, and estimates of the shear viscosity for the qlls are obtained. a facet dependence is observed in the shear viscosity which agrees with the trend observed in the computed solid-liquid friction coefficients. structural and dynamic properties of the qlls are compared with simulations of supercooled liquid water. it is observed that the qlls have characteristics distinctly different than the supercooled bulk liquid, attributed to the presence of the vapor interface. in this dissertation, i contend that the growing disenchantment with public institutions in western democracies and the popular desire for leaders perceived to be of good moral character both justifies and calls for an investigation of the western tradition of political philosophy to determine which, if any, models of virtuous statesmanship in that tradition may serve as a useful model of virtuous leadership for our own time. i evaluate four models of magnanimous statesmanship as presented by four of the most influential political philosophers in our tradition: aristotle, cicero, thomas aquinas, and machiavelli. i examine the relationship between these thinkers' conceptions of magnanimous statesmanship as well as each of their conceptions of this virtue on its own terms. i conclude that cicero had a far greater influence on both aquinas's and machiavelli's understandings of this virtue and, more broadly, on statesmanship than generally thought, and i further conclude that ciceronian magnanimity offers liberal democracies a useful model of magnanimous statesmanship apart from any commitment to virtue ethics or teleology. petrarch, a poet who pioneered a lyric subjectivity that would heavily influence subsequent european literature and a scholar who sought to bridge the gap between the ancients and his own generation, has often been called the "first modern man." in the early 20th century, a group of american and british poets including t.s. eliot and ezra pound began writing what would later be called "modernist" literature. what serves to link these poets, so distant in time, place, and aesthetics? i argue that a central aspect of their shared modernity lies in a poetics of fragmentation. relying on close readings of their works, principally the lyric poems of petrarch's rerum vulgarium fragmenta or canzoniere, eliot's "the love song of j. alfred prufrock" and the waste land, and pound's hugh selwyn mauberley and the cantos, i describe and analyze a fascination with the literary fragment, which includes their heavy reliance on allusion, their emphasis on repetition and the passage of time, their fascination with personae and masks, and their frequent images of internal rupture and dissolution. the cell-mediated immune response is the branch of the adaptive immune system responsible for recognizing and destroying infected cells. t lymphocytes express the surface protein t cell receptor (tcr) which interacts with a major histocompatibility complex (mhc) presenting a peptide on the surface of antigen presenting cells. while tcrs display a level of cross reactivity to ensure adequate coverage of peptide/mhc (pmhc), they are also restricted to recognizing epitopes within the context of an mhc. this so-called mhc bias has been studied for decades, with many theories emerging as to why tcrs might display such blatant favoritism. while structures of tcr-pmhc complexes have failed to identify any conserved interactions between tcr and mhc [1], the existence of coreceptor-independent tcr-pmhc interactions muddles their role in imparting mhc bias for proper signaling [2]. what has become clear is that the original "rules of engagement" for tcr-pmhc interactions are evolving as new biophysical, structural, and immunological data becomes available. to this end, we have taken some of the core ideas about tcr-pmhc interactions and studied them further. up until recently, all evidence pointing towards conserved tcr-mhc interactions was based on structural study. we decided to look from a different perspective by studying the sequence information for cdr loops of t cell receptors. this yielded tremendous insight and confirmed that tcr interfaces are largely unique yet contain enrichment for specific charged residues that may facilitate binding to particular hla alleles. we have also explored the roles that a single conserved tcr residue might have for pmhc recognition. while being important for proper recognition of pmhc, both structural and fluorescence anisotropy data suggests this residue may be exerting its influence by maintaining the cdr loop conformations or flexibility necessary for recognition. other areas, such as immunological or genetic roles might also explain its conservation. these results paint a more complex picture of tcr-pmhc interactions than was originally hypothesized to exist. still, most of the findings make sense in biochemical and biophysical terms, highlighting a need for more experimentation in these fields to truly understand the functioning of the adaptive immune system.1. marrack, p., et al., evolutionarily conserved amino acids in tcr v regions and mhc control their interaction. annual review of immunology, 2008. 26: p. 1712. kerry, s.e., et al., interplay between tcr affinity and necessity of coreceptor ligation: high-affinity peptide-mhc/tcr interaction overcomes lack of cd8 engagement. the journal of immunology, 2003. 171(9): p. 4493-4503 ocean contains dissolved inorganic and organic materials, particulate matters, organisms and dissolved atmospheric gases. they are carbon carriers. their mixing and transport processes significantly affect the oceanic carbon cycle. in order to understand corresponding mixing and transport phenomena, this study employs both analytical and numerical approaches, aided by experiments, to perceive the fundamental physics of transport of marine organisms, marine snow particles, and gas bubbles. to this end, two types of processes are discussed in the dissertation: biological and physical transports.biological transport corresponds to motion of organisms, prey-predator interactions and other behavioral traits. for small organisms such as planktonic organisms, their propulsion is derived from contractile elements (cilia and flagella) or appendages. for swimming organisms, the unsteadiness arises from unsteady propulsion mechanisms (e.g. unsteady beating of flagella or cilia), turbulent velocity fluctuations of the ambient fluid and velocity disturbances generated by a prey or predator. the fundamental equation of motion is derived for unsteady swimming of small organisms in a non-uniform background flow. unsteady forces such as history and added mass forces are important as the organism's stokes number rises above unity. large organisms with sizes of $o(1 mm-20 mm)$ swim in a range of parameters where the inertial effects significantly affect organisms' locomotion and induced mixing in an aquatic environment. the associated inertial forces influence swimming speed, energy expenditure, and flow signature. the sea surface microlayer contains a large population of microorganisms. the reduced swimming velocity near a free surface is quantified to explain the observed aggregation of microorganisms near a liquid interface. below the surface mixed layer, there exists abundant zooplankton. their vertical migration could potentially contribute to the density overturn, enhancing nutrient exchange between nutrient-depleted and nutrient-rich layers.rising/settling dynamics of particles (e.g. marine snow sediments, streaming gas bubbles) are also considered. most marine snow particles are irregular shaped aggregates. for the first time, we investigate the settling dynamics of a circular disk in a linearly stratified fluid. for specific ranges of the froude and reynolds numbers, there is a change of stability for the disk orientation, from broadside-on to edgewise settling. for bubble streaming in the ocean, there are frequent collisions between bubbles and air-seawater interfaces. we study the effect of surfactant on a bubble colliding with an air-water interface. the extent of collision is determined by the ratio of adsorption and desorption rate of surfactant at the bubble's surface as well as the air-water interface. from the standpoint of carbon sequestration, rising motion of bubbles containing carbon dioxide or methane gases acts as a carbon source from the ocean to the atmosphere while settling marine snow particles acts as a carbon sink, affecting global carbon cycle. the standard model (sm) has been extremely well tested on a large number of fronts. there remains only one particle left to discover, the higgs boson, and the newest collider, the large hadron collider (lhc), is being built expressly for that purpose. once the lhc is running, physicists will have access to new levels of energy (and hence distance scales) never before attained.however, there are problems with the sm, both experimental and theoretical, that leave many convinced it is not the final theory.the lhc is not the only experiment capable of probing such high energy scales. a consequence of many models of new physics is that quantum loop corrections generated by new states can generate sizeable effects in the quark flavor sector. with more precise measurements and predictions of the flavor sector, one may be able to tease out signs of new physics indirectly.individually, these two methods of searching for new physics (direct and indirect) have their own strengths and weaknesses, it is by combining the two that will give the clearest picture. in this thesis, i give a few examples of this interplay.first, i derive a set of sum rules that relate flavor-changing supersymmetric (susy) amplitudes to physical susy masses. susy is the theory of extending the sm by introducing a symmetry between bosons and fermions. there are several reasons to believe that susy appears near the tev scale and therefore might be tested at the lhc. these sum rules are derived in minimally flavor-violating models of susy. i then show how these sum rules can help disentangle the various susy contributions to $b o sgamma$.second, i determine the true lower mass bound on the susy charged higgs. by applying several electroweak and flavor constraints, including those from $b o sgamma$, $b_s omumu$, $b o auu$ and $b o d auu$, i find that the charged higgs boson can be as light as $140$~gev. this is with a focus on two conventional susy scenarios, the max-mixing" and no-mixing" scenarios. a charged higgs below $150$~gev is allowed in both these scenarios, though for different ranges of $ aneta$.finally, i will examine how quark flavor physics affects the lepton sector, particularly its effect on neutrinoless double beta decay experiments. though these experiments are run in order to test the majorana nature of the neutrino, they are also a test of new lepton number-violating operators. for generic coupling constants, current experiments probe scales far above that of the lhc. i will show, however, if one imposes minimal flavor violation on the quark sector,these experiments see their sensitivity reduced to an energy scale similar to that of the lhc's. after taking account that these operators themselves can induce neutrino masses, i find that there are only four neutrinoless double beta operators exist which both pass neutrino mass bounds and can be probed by both the lhc and current neutrinoless double beta decay experiments. semiconductor and metal nanoparticles display unique size dependent photophysical, electrochemical, photocatalytic and optical properties. the presence of metal facilitates electron transfer from photoexcited semiconductor to the surroundings and decreases recombination rate between the electrons-holes in the semiconductor. the focus of this work has been the synthesis and characterization of novel semiconductor &ndash; metal composites in films and solutions. four areas of importance in these nanocomposites have been addressed: photoelectrochemical properties of composite films, fermi-level equilibration between semiconductor-metal, dynamic nature of semiconductor-metal interface and role of metal in promoting photocatalytic activity of the semiconductor. photoelectrochemical performance deposition of metals on semiconductor films leads to increased light to energy conversion efficiency and demonstrates beneficial photoelectrochemical properties such as higher photocurrent and photovoltage compared to plain semiconductor. a tio2 &ndash; au film shows ~25% energy efficiency compared to <5 % for the semiconductor alone. the photocurrent using a tio2-au film is 3-5 times higher than a plain tio2 film. fermi level equilibration photoexcited semiconductor in contact with the metal undergoes charge equilibration with metal which alters the energetics of the composite by shifting the fermi level to more negative potentials. furthermore, a size dependent negative shift in the fermi level is also observed in a tio2 &ndash; au composite. greater negative shifts in fermi level occurs with smaller size au nanoparticles. dynamic nature of interfacial process the semiconductor-metal interface is dynamic in nature and demonstrates photomediated chemical transformations. for example, metal nanoparticles undergo change in oxidation state when a tio2-au composite is photoexcited in the presence of oxygen. such transformations diminish the beneficial photoelectrochemical properties of a tio2-metal film following prolonged photoillumination. photocatalytic properties colloidal suspension of tio2-au nanocomposites demonstrates greater photocatalytic activity than tio2 alone. presence of a metalmetal ion mixture enhances the catalytic activity of the composite semiconductor. phototoillumination of tio2 containing an optimal ratio of au(0)/au(iii) lead to a ~ 40 % enhancement in the photocatalytic oxidation efficiency of thiocyanate &ndash; a probe specie &ndash; compared to tio2 alone. similarly, the reduction of fullerene is catalyzed in the presence of au nanoparticles of different sizes. for most old world cercopithecine species, both the ultimate and proximate reasons for dispersal are debated. to explore primate dispersal dynamics, and investigate whether aggression and peripherilization are important predictors of dispersal, i conducted a behavioral and demographic study of two long-tailed macaque (m. fascicularis) groups was in singapore for two groups, one located at the macritchie reservoir which experiences much more pedestrian traffic than the other group located in an area of the upper seletar nature reserve predominantly visited by motorists. demographic data, especially group size, sex ratios, and age-sex class counts were determined through scan and ad libitum sampling. four subadult males, two in each group, were followed for focal animal sampling. results showed that the subadult males experience varied degrees of peripheralization, with individual relationships appearing to be a critical component while aggression did not. this study does not find any conclusive evidence for either male competition or inbreeding avoidance. interestingly, my results may be due to the significant anthropogenic influence on singapore's primate population. the costs of high density, intense resource competition and stress, may be outweighed by anthropogenic benefits of increased food sources to supplement forest resources. results of this study contribute to an understanding of how demography, behavior, and environment predict dispersal, providing a framework for future studies and implications for management and conservation. activity of electrocatalyst/support systems were analyzed in regards to proton exchange membrane fuel cells. properties of a fuel cell membrane, nafion, were investigated via spectroscopic and electrochemical measurements. using the knowledge gained via the electrocatalyst/support and membrane studies, a photolytic reactor was created for the production of hydrogen. the pem based catalysts systems discussed in this thesis provide new ways to efficiently disperse catalysts while allowing electrons, protons, liquids, and gases all access to the active sites. single walled carbon nanotubes were employed as a support for the reduction of platinum nanoparticles via sonolytic deposition and borohydride reduction. it was shown that borohydride reduction is a more efficient method than the sonolytic deposition method for platinum reduction in terms of fuel cell activity. sheets of graphene oxide were also employed as a scaffold for borohydride reduced platinum nanoparticles. it was determined that hydrazine treatment of the graphene oxide increased the active catalytic surface area of the platinum nanoparticles, but may have a negative impact on the ability of the nafion ionomer to efficiently transfer protons. to broaden the methods in which graphene oxide could be reduced, photochemical and electrochemical reduction methods were investigated. it was discovered that graphene oxide could be photoreduced in the presence of tio2 and methyl viologen. it was also found that the material could be reduced electrochemically. the ability for graphene to store electrons and then discharge the electrons was also investigated. sio2 was used as platinum supports for fuel cells. it was shown that varying the platinum to silica ratio was important in optimizing the electrochemically active surface area as well as the kinetics for the oxygen reduction reaction. methylene blue was incorporated into a nafion membrane in which it binds irreversibly to the polymeric backbone of the perfluorinated polymer. membrane properties could be monitored via changes in the spectral response due to different protonation states of the methylene blue. the effective concentration of acid in the membrane was measured. sodium ions were used to replace protons in the membrane and both transient as well as equilibrium effects within the membrane were studied. spectral absorbance changes were also monitored with respect to changes in humidity. using an anodic tio2 photocatalyst and a cathodic platinum electrode, a photolytic hydrogen reactor was built using the fuel cell concepts. a nafion membrane transported protons while the external circuit enabled the transfer of electrons to travel from the photocatalyst anode to the cathode. at the cathode the protons and electrons recombined on the platinum anode to form hydrogen gas. the knowledge gained throughout the previous studies was essential in optimizing the efficiency of this device. this thesis describes studies of rotaxanes which are interlocked molecules with a dumbbell shaped thread component surrounded by a macrocycle. the macrocycle pirouetting motion in xanthone rotaxanes was studied using variable temperature nmr. the surrounding tetralactam macrocycle contained either 2,6-pyridine dicarboxamide or isophthalamide bridging units. rotaxanes with macrocycle containing 2,6-pyridine dicarboxamide bridges exhibited higher rotational barriers due to a cavity contraction effect which disfavors macrocycle breathing. chapter two discusses the influence of metal cation binding to a squaraine rotaxane endoperoxide with a 2,2'dipicolylamine stopper group. metal cations bind strongly and decrease the rate of singlet oxygen release due to cycloreversion by about a factor of two. binding of feå_&#8314; induced fenton-type reaction with endoperoxide, causing the macrocycle cleavage and desctruction of the rotaxane molecule. chapter three describes experiments that help elucidate the mechanisms for the chemiluminescence, and highlight the key role of singlet oxygen as a mediator of energy transfer to the encapsulated squaraine dye. one of the most intriguing aspects of bone is its ability to grow, repair damage, adapt to mechanical loads, and maintain mineral homeostasis. it is generally accepted that bone adaptation occurs in response to the mechanical demands of our daily activities; moreover, strain and microdamage have been implicated as potential stimuli that regulate this sophisticated process. while researchers have made significant advances in our understanding of the bone adaptation process, there are many aspects that remain unknown. for instance, it is not fully understood how the mechanical stimulation experienced by bones influences the biochemical signaling that drives the cellular activity of remodeling. due to the fact that evidence for bone metabolic diseases points toward the disruption of the cellular mechanisms of remodeling, such a relationship is crucial to understanding the key factors that result in pathological remodeling activity. over the past several decades, various theoretical and computational models have been developed to study the bone adaptation process. these computational models have primarily focused on predicting net changes in organ and tissue level bone architecture. while these simulations are able to capture phenomena such as net increases or decreases in bone volume or reorientation of tissue level structures, they do not capture cellular level details. in an attempt to ameliorate this deficiency of previous models, more recent studies have focused on simulating the remodeling response at a single site in bone. however, few models attempt to combine models of cellular activity with the classical phenomenological remodeling paradigms. the primary focus of this dissertation is to present a new computational framework that mechanistically models the cellular behavior involved in the bone remodeling process. this framework uniquely combines established phenomenological remodeling paradigms with cellular mechanisms to predict remodeling activity for a damaged site in bone. biological rules were implemented to control the recruitment, differentiation, and activation of osteoclasts and osteoblasts, based on observations from histological studies. the results of this work are the first of their kind to demonstrate spatially and temporally accurate remodeling behavior at the cellular level. furthermore, these results provide unique insights regarding key parameters that influence cellular level remodeling activity. deep level defects in zinc diffused inp pin diodes are characterized using deep level transient spectroscopy (dlts) and low frequency noise (lfn) measurement. by using the dlts technique, two deep traps are revealed. the first is located 0.11 ev above the valence band edge, and is localized near the edge of the depletion region in the p+ region. the second trap is found to be 0.3 ev below the conduction band, and is distributed spatially throughout the depletion region. both of these traps have been reported previously; they are related with zinc diffusion. by measuring the low frequency noise spectrum under forward bias, four generation-recombination centers are revealed during a temperature scan from 100 k to 400 k. the activation energy of the observed traps were found to be 0.20 ev, 0.25 ev, 0.31 ev, and 0.54 ev. although the types of these deep centers (i.e., electron or hole trap) cannot be unambiguously determined using this method, the trap at 0.31 ev is most likely the same 0.3 ev electron trap found in dlts, since they represent the similar time constants in the same temperature range; likewise, the deep center with activation energy of 0.54 ev has also been observed as an electron trap before, and is believed due to antisite defects such as indium vacancies or phosphorus interstitials. the other two centers at 0.20 ev and 0.25 ev have also been previously reported as electron traps, but the origins are as yet unclear. the demonstration of the ability to detect known states by both dlts and lfn enables exploration of defects in other material systems in the future. my research examines how one portion of the chinese population—the growing professional middle class—is engaging with religious practices and asks how they are using these practices to make sense of their success and their place in both their country and global society. how can we explain the fact that a rapidly modernizing society that so recently underwent forced secularization is now awash with religious activity even in the face of continued governmental control of religion? what does this growth of religion actually look like in people's everyday lives, and how do they use these religious practices, beliefs, and identities to make meaning and build community? this project uses ethnography and in-depth interviews to answer these questions by examining the religious practices in which educated buddhists, protestants, and non-religious professionals engage. drawing on critiques of the standard sociological theories and ways of conceptualizing and measuring of religion, this project uses the lens of religious practice, based on the theoretical work of martin riesebrodt (2010) and adam yuet chau (2011a), to demonstrate how educated professionals' social position orients them towards religion in a distinctly rationalized and individualistic way that transcends established religious lines. i find that they engage with religion in similar ways regardless of their religious tradition: religion is, in short, something to be studied, and this study is perceived as necessary to avoid being a surface or "superstitious" practitioner, against whom they build strong symbolic boundaries. with an emphasis on rationality and science, these educated practitioners delegitimize and distance themselves from the types of emotional, "uncultured," and superstitious practices that constitute a central component of popular chinese religion and popular forms of religious traditions such as christianity. in doing so, they are exerting their moral authority as educated and cultured persons of high quality to delimit appropriate religiousness, a process that serves to draw and reinforce class boundaries as well as religious ones. these efforts also inadvertently support the state's rhetoric on the appropriate forms and location of religion as well as what it means to be a rational and modern person of high quality. the zebrafish lens opaque (lop) mutant was identified in a mutagenesis screen for eye morphological phenotypes, and exhibits lens opacity at 7 days post fertilization due to unregulated lens epithelial cell proliferation and fiber cell degeneration. the lop mutation was shown to be a missense mutation (a331t) in the cdipt (cdp-diacylglycerol--inositol 3-phosphatidyltransferase; phosphatidylinositol (pi) synthase) gene, resulting in an s111c substitution in the encoded protein. a second allele, cdipthi559, was previously described as possessing a viral insertion in the first intron and failed to complement cdiptlop. morpholino-mediated knockdown of pi synthase and cdipt mrna micro-injection rescue confirmed the gene identity. to examine the initial cellular defects associated with the cdipt mutant, pcr-based genotyping to identified homozygous cdipthi559/hi559 mutants prior to lens opacification. the cdipthi559/hi559 mutant exhibited photoreceptor disruption and cell death at 3 and 4 dpf, respectively, followed by lens dismorphogenesis by 5 dpf. anti-zebrafish pi synthase polyclonal antiserum localized the protein throughout the developing wild-type eye, including the photoreceptor layer and lens cortical secondary fiber cells, but the protein was reduced in both the cdiptlop/lop and cdipthi559/hi559 mutants. moreover, tetrad analysis of a heterozygous pis1diploid yeast strain transformed with either wild-type or cdiptlop zebrafish cdnas demonstrated that both proteins possessed pi synthase activity. to identify signaling pathways that may be disrupted in the cdipt mutant eye, global gene expression changes were analyzed by comparative microarray hybridization using rna extracted from cdiptlop/lop mutant and wild-type eyes. in a complimentary approach, protein was isolated from cdiptlop/lop mutant and wild-type eyes and analyzed by fluorescent 2d difference gel electrophoresis, followed by mass spectrometry of differentially expressed proteins. the resulting proteomic data complemented the transcriptome analysis, with both approaches identifying components in the pi 3-kinase signaling pathway. additionally, differentially regulated genes were identified that correlated with genes previously identified with human anterior subcapsular cataracts. through phenotypic, transcriptomic and proteomic analyses, the zebrafish cdipt alleles represent an excellent in vivo model to investigate the contribution of phosphoinositide-associated signaling pathways in maintaining lens clarity and photoreceptor cell integrity. as the minimum feature sizes in transistor technology are reached,circuit performance may also saturate. for this reason, it isimportant to consider new and extraordinary ways to extend theperformance of circuits. integrated tunnel diodes enable a varietyof design alternatives for signal processing, analog-to-digitalconversion, communications, and memory. it is the goal of thiswork to analyze and explore the potential of tunneldiode/transistor (tdt) technology for increasing speed andreducing power dissipation beyond what can be achieved withtransistors alone.circuit design requires accurate device models. in this work, aphysics-based small-signal equivalent circuit model for theresonant tunneling diode (rtd) has been developed, which unifiesprevious models by brown et al. for quantum inductance andby lake and yang for quantum capacitance, and provides analyticexpressions for both the quantum inductance and quantumcapacitance. further, two new tdt circuits: a tdt differentialcomparator and a tdt frequency translator have been invented.the tdt differential comparator is of special interest for use indirect digital synthesis applications. circuit simulation shows apower dissipation of 3.5 mw/latch at 100-ghz clock frequency with60-dbc spur-free dynamic range (sfdr) can be obtained in the tdtcomparator. in comparison with the conventional transistorapproach, power is reduced by approximately 1.6x at the same speedand sfdr.the tdt frequency translator is of special interest for use incommunication systems for upconverting digital signals. thecircuit consists of a transistor, a tunnel diode, and an inductor.the transistor provides input-output isolation and power gainrelative to prior art at the expense of the immunity to the inputvoltage variation.a scalable self-aligned contact process for fabrication of the tdtcircuits has been developed using inp-based rtd and doubleheterojunction bipolar transistor (dhbt). this novel approach usessilicon nitride sidewalls and a benzocyclobutene (bcb) etchback toform self-aligned emitter-base contacts. inp/ingaas dhbts havebeen fabricated and the test results demonstrate the feasibilityof this sidewall and etchback process. alas/ingaas/inas rtds werealso fabricated and demonstrated a peak current density of 1.8ma/um^2 and a peak-to-valley current ratio of 1.8. this dissertation examines heidegger's account of being (sein) in being and time. it defends the straightforward but controversial thesis that heidegger understands the being of entities as one of their properties. since many analytic philosophers are suspicious of being-talk but perfectly comfortable with property-talk, this position provides a new opportunity for dialogue between analytic philosophers and heideggerians. once analytic philosophers are clear on which properties heidegger is talking about, there can be constructive engagement between them and heideggerians over whether or not entities--especially human beings--really have these properties.heidegger divides the being of entities into two fundamental kinds: our kind of being, which he calls 'care' (sorge), and the kinds of being possessed by every other kind of entity. i argue that the property heidegger identifies with the being of entities other than us is their meaningfulness, i.e., the conjunction of their involvement, their intelligibility, and their significance. (roughly, a thing's involvement is the way it is used or otherwise involved in some human activity; a thing's intelligibility is the way it makes sense to us; and a thing's significance is the way it matters to or has value for us.) our kind of being, care, is just the flipside of this: care is the conjunction of engaging in human activities, finding things intelligible, and finding things significant. at the end of the dissertation i consider by what right heidegger identifies these particular properties (i.e., meaningfulness and care) with the 'being' of entities. i distinguish between two concepts of being, a 'thin' concept and a 'thick' concept, and argue that heidegger's account is an account of being in virtue of its connection to the latter, thick concept. this distinction explains why heidegger scholars and analytic philosophers have not found each other's work on being more useful, for the former are concerned primarily with the thick concept of being, the latter with the thin concept. nevertheless, since both concepts are legitimate, neither group has the right to dismiss the other on the grounds that it fundamentally misunderstands the nature of being. as global climate change alters patterns of selective environmental pressures, ecotypically structured variation in functional traits can be beneficial at the population level by allowing species sufficient variability to accommodate local conditions. however, it is unclear what factors drive this trait variation or how trait variation might scale up to the ecosystem level with consequences for vital ecosystem processes such as carbon sequestration. whether heritable local trait variation is driven by adaptation or genetic drift, it is heavily influenced by gene flow. reproductive isolation due to flowering phenology could be a functional mechanism that enforces population genetic structure and heritable trait variation by altering rates of gene flow. coastal marsh ecosystems provide a valuable system to explore the role of heritable trait variation on higher level processes by studying the variation in functional traits of coastal plants that contribute to marsh sediment accretion, a process that enables coastal marshes to keep pace with sea level rise and relates to carbon sequestration. in a common garden study, we explored the extent of morphological and reproductive trait variation in a foundational coastal sedge, schoenoplectus americanus, from four marsh sites and determined whether reproductive isolation could be enforcing genetic structure. we did not find strong effect sizes on any of the ecosystem traits measured, however, there were strong effects for flowering synchrony which could suggest a mechanism for local genetic differentiation. overall, trait variation between marshes do not seem to be producing phenotypic differences that have a strong impact on ecosystem function. further investigation should be done with more samples and include environmental covariates to clearly determine what drives heritable trait variation in coastal marsh ecosystems. the current project tested two competing views &#8212; with particular emphasis on the extent to which these competing accounts could explain an interesting and robust pattern of findings concerning the classic 'trolley problem'. specifically, this project tested aspects of greene's dual-process model (greene, sommerville, nystrom, darley, & cohen, 2001) and mikhail's (2000) theory of universal moral grammar. we also extended the research of pellizzoni, siegal, and surian (2010), who utilized a sample of young children in an attempt to test greene's theory that moral judgments are driven by differences in the directness of harm. the current study found little evidence suggesting that children between the ages of 3 and 5 consistently aligned their moral judgments with the contact principle. furthermore, there was also little evidence that children in this age group conformed their judgments to the doctrine of double effect, which would have supported mikhail's account. finally, we also investigated candidate predictors of the tendency to conform to these heuristic principles. this revealed that inhibitory control negatively predicted the tendency to align one's judgments with the contact principle. this seems to support greene's theoretical view. in addition, we found that participant age was a negative predictor of the tendency to align one's judgments with the doctrine of double effect &#8212; an unexpected result. this project adopted a bayesian approach because of its overall flexibility and the ease with which missing data can be handled. we consider the downlink of a wireless cellular network where the base stations are equipped with multiple antennas and operate in the same frequency band. due to temporal multi-user scheduling, the spatial transmit signal processing changes with each time slot and base stations require non-causal information about future scheduling and precoding decisions of neighboring base stations in order to encode their data accurately. this can, in theory, be accomplished by a high-capacity backhaul network through which the base stations can exchange channel state information (csi) and other control signaling. in reality, the temporal granularity of the scheduler does not allow for timely distribution of csi among base stations. we propose a two-phase scheduler which optimizes the precoding in the first phase and allows the users to feed back their instantaneous interference power in the second phase. if the scheduling is synchronized among base stations, additional infrastructure is not required and base stations operate independently. for single-user transmissions we propose a proportional-fair two-phase scheduler and compare its performance to multi-user two-phase scheduling with dirty paper coding and to algorithms that share csi among base stations. simulation results unveil that two-phase scheduling is a viable and technically feasible solution to deal with non-stationary intercell interference. we propose a precoding scheme that explicitly makes use of two-phase scheduling by maximizing the signal-to-leakage-plus-noise ratio in the first phase. it can be implemented for both instantaneous and average csi and works with and without coordination among base stations. lastly, we analyze the impact of non-stationary intercell interference on heterogeneous cellular architectures where traditional networks are overlaid with additional low-power base stations. we show that open-access picocells can be deployed as is whereas closed-access femtocells require coordination between the legacy macro-layer and the novel femto-layer. we propose a probabilistic power control algorithm that computes the femto-layer transmit power for a given cell at the corresponding macro base station which distributes it to the femto base stations. the algorithm is solely based on measurements readily available and no additional information exchange from the femto-layer to the macro-layer is required. this dissertation focuses on developing advanced diagnostic systems, efficient antibody purification techniques, and novel antibody-drug conjugation methods while aiming to improve availability of antibody-based technologies to end-users. antibodies have become widely used agents for clinical treatment of cancers and autoimmune diseases due to their high level of specificity and selectivity toward known target molecules (antigens) found to be overexpressed on cancerous cells. despite the many techniques that utilize antibodies necessitate that they are modified in some way by conjugating functional ligands to them – endowing them with specific functionalities unique for each intended application – they are still in need of improvement. this dissertation addresses the particular technical challenges related with site-specific labeling of antibodies in order to enhance diagnostic and therapeutic platforms. specifically, there are two main directions of this dissertation – (i) oriented immobilization of antibodies and their fab fragments to small scaled diagnostic surfaces, such as microfluidic devices and nanoparticles, while preserving their antigen binding activity and structure stability, and (ii) designing a novel affinity chromatography technique for purification of antibodies from complex protein environment that is an easy, efficient and cost effective way. an underutilized, highly conserved binding domain located on the antibody variable fragment, known as the nucleotide binding site (nbs) was implemented for site-specific functionalization of antibodies and antibody fab fragments, as well as developing antibody purification systems. through in silico screening of small molecules, ring structured aromatic molecules such as indole-3-butyric acid (iba), tryptamine, fluorine-4-carboxylic acid (fca) were identified as moderate binding nucleotide analog with kd = 1–10 µm to selectively target the nbs. a unique small molecule antibody purification was developed by targeting the antibody nbs with surface immobilized nbs analog, and a stable covalent bond between the antibody nbs and the nbs analog was formed through a photo-chemical reaction utilizing uv energy to homogenous site-specific conjugation of target molecules to the light chains of antibodies and antibody fab fragments. this nbs-based purification method will potentially contribute to an increasing quality of antibody production as well as lowering the overall cost that is associated with it. site-specific functionalization and oriented immobilization of antibodies and their fab fragments for developing enhanced diagnostic applications resulted in designing inexpensive, sensitive, and easy to use detection systems that can be used in underdeveloped countries. in the wake of revival and revolution, 1915-2005 examines how politically and aesthetically radical modernisms are generated out of geohistorically specific modernities that are characterized by energies of cultural revival and socio-political revolution. by tracing the aftereffects of cultural, social, and political movements within postcolonial modernity as they intersect with theatre and performance practices in ireland, australia, and new zealand, i offer an account of how postcolonial modernist theatre and performance becomes a simultaneously funereal and celebratory vigil over the vicissitudes of modern life in newly reconfigured postcolonial nation-states.this comparative study of plays by irish playwrights william butler yeats, denis johnston, lennox robinson, and mary manning; australian playwrights wesley enoch, deborah mailman, josephine wilson, erin hefferon, john romeril, and andrew bovell; and new zealand playwrights briar grace-smith, apirana taylor, jacob rajan, justin lewis, and michelanne forster, spans the twentieth century and reaches into the first decade of the twenty-first. i include irish plays written from 1915-1935, and australian and new zealand plays from 1990-2005, demonstrating that playwrights and theatre practitioners respond acutely and in aesthetic ways to their respective modernities. i identify formal patterns of melancholic temporal impasses, surrealism, orientalism, and modes of futurity, demonstrating how postcolonial modernists engender artistic, political, and cultural utopias and affects of hope within the nation-state. they do this by sampling both the utopic and dystopic affective, social, cultural, and political energies of everyday life, containing and exploding them within the apparatus of the theatre. the postcolonial modernisms i explore emerge in anticipation of and develop alongside the postcolonial modernities of newly reconfigured nation-states; as such, they are neither derivative nor belated instances of british or american modernism. my analysis of theatre, performance, drama, and modernity intervenes in recent debates in modernist studies by offering a new account of the commensurabilities between these three instances of modernism/modernity. by comparing the lived experiences of subjects within these postcolonial modernities as well as the dramatic forms which such a milieu produces in ireland, australia, and new zealand, my work shows that while the narrative content of these modernisms differ, the various forms of aesthetic responses to these instances of postcolonial modernity have strong affinities which go beyond the particularities of each country's geohistorical context. the understanding of uranium chemistry is of increasing importance in the search for clean, renewable energy. nuclear power can produce energy with no greenhouse gas emissions and far fewer raw materials. one ton of uranium produces power equivalent to 16,000 tons of coal or 80,000 barrels of oil (nuclear energy institute, 2009). however, controversy surrounds nuclear power due to the disposal of spent nuclear fuel. there is currently no long-term storage facility in the united states. yucca mountain, nevada has been proposed as a geological repository, but more information on the chemistry of spent fuel components, such as uranium and technetium is needed to ensure safety and secure a license for operation. this research expands the knowledge of uranium crystal chemistry and the ability of uranyl phases to incorporate components of spent nuclear fuel.a novel new uranyl sulfate and three new uranyl oxalate compounds are presented, along with a study of the incorporation of perrhenate (reo4-), as a analog for pertechnetate (tco4 ), into uranyl phases. the uranyl sulfate k2[(uo2)(so4)2h2o]h2o crystallized in the cmca space group and is composed of uranyl pentagonal bipyramids linked into infinite chains with sulfate tetrahedra. the uranyl oxalate cs2(uo2)2(c2o4)3 crystallized in the p21 space group and is composed of infinite sheets of uranyl pentagonal bipyramids connected via oxalate ions. the uranyl oxalate hydroxide cs(uo2)2(c2o4)(oh)3 crystallized in the p21/m space group and is composed of infinite sheets of uranyl pentagonal bipyramids connected via oxalate ions and edge sharing polyhedra. the uranyl oxalate k6(uo2)2(c2o4)4o2 crystallized in the space group p21/c. it is composed of isolated clusters of two uranyl hexagonal bipyramids connected via edge sharing and contains a total of four coordinated oxalate ions. all crystals were analyzed with single crystal x-ray diffraction. the structures were solved with shell xl software.technetium-99 is an important dose contributor in a geological repository (burns et al., 1997a; chen et al., 2000). it is a potentially mobile component of spent nuclear fuel with a relatively long half-life. the uranyl mineral analogues, uranophane, ca[(uo2)(sio3oh)]2ì¢ ââå¢5h2o, sodium boltwoodite, na(uo2)(sio3oh)ì¢ ââå¢1.5h2o, and soddyite, (uo2)2(sio4)ì¢ ââå¢2h2o, are known to form from spent nuclear fuel and are expected to form in a geologic repository (finch and ewing, 1992; wronkiewicz et al., 1996). the extent to which tc7+, found as pertechnetate (tco4-), is incorporated into these uranyl phases will impact its mobility in the repository (burns et al., 1997a; chen et al., 2000).in this research, the above uranyl phases were hydrothermally synthesized in the presence of perrhenate (reo4-), as a crystal chemical analog for pertechnetate (tco4 ). the identity of the uranyl phases were verified with powder x-ray diffraction. the presence of rhenium was analyzed using inductively coupled plasma ì¢ ââ' optical emission spectroscopy (icp-oes). no rhenium was found in the hydrothermally synthesized samples, indicating that perrhenate was not incorporated. due to the similarities in size, tetrahedral shape, and bond valence arguments, we postulate that pertechnetate will not incorporate into uranyl mineral analogues found in spent nuclear fuel. blood clotting is a remarkably complex process that includes a number of different aspects, including chemical reactions, cellular morphological changes, and the binding and aggregation of a variety of molecules. because of this complexity, this process is difficult to study in laboratory settings, and similarly difficult to model mathematically and computationally. many efforts have been taken to model the different aspects of blood clotting. however, many aspects occur at different length and time scales, making one all-encompassing model nearly impossible to develop. to try and compensate for this, a multiscale approach is used that combines several submodels, each focused on different aspects of the clotting process. as is normally the case with applied mathematics, a compromise is made between fidelity and the complexity of the model. once a model is developed, the work continues with improvements to the model in order to make it more realistically accurate, or improve its computational efficiency. in this thesis, i will present several advancements to the multiscale approach of the model. i will discuss improvements to the fibrin submodel that attempt to better capture the biological realities of this aspect of blood clotting. additionally, i will discuss parallelization of the model, allowing for increased computation speed as further additions to the model are made. lastly, i will present an entirely new method of representing the cellular submodel. these results show promise for the current and future state of multiscale modeling of blood clotting. this dissertation argues that hannah arendt's first study of augustine in her 1929 dissertation, der liebesbegriff bei augustin, had an enduring and significant influence on the development of her political theory. it was in her dissertation that she first became interested in — the relevance of the other, — or what she would later call the human condition of plurality. arendt's concern for human plurality guided her inquiry into the origins of totalitarianism, namely anti-semitism and imperialism, as well as her analysis of totalitarianism in power. her first study of augustine also provided key theoretical resources that she later reappropriated to develop her more mature political theory in the human condition. there she drew upon augustinian resources to develop her concept of the man-made world, labor and work, plurality and natality. she also critiqued what she views as augustine's worldlessness and the anti-political character of christian charity. ultimately, what is most interesting about arendt's persistent reliance on augustinian resources, is that she used these resources to develop a political theory that is decidedly in opposition to augustine's own. her political theory admonishes us to create meaning in the here and now and in being with others in the world, while augustine countenances us to look not to this world, but to eternity as the source of meaning for human existence. finally, this dissertation agrees with arendt that augustine's thought does not provide adequate resources for understanding the significance of human plurality, but also argues that arendt discounts the great value an ethic of love can provide as a guide for political action. venas de oro is the culmination of the past two years of study spent circulating, drawing close then flinching from, the ever elusive concept of "origin" and its relation to the self as well as belonging. this work considers the very real existence of having to piece one's origin together, having to compile the self in order to gain any semblance of grounding. with documents accepted by the general public (a birth certificate, a change of address card, a taxonomic journal entry reminiscent of darwin's "on the origin of species"), this work attempts to validate existence through a compiling of traces of the self. what this work gleefully enjoys complicating, however, is the conception of a "self." drawing on my own experience being born and growing up on the mexican-u.s. border, i've chosen to explore the ways in which a self can be simultaneously multiple, intimately singular, and nosotras-like in the sense of an external communal and transcendent ancestral "we." compiled along with "official" documents lie: arias of two of many personas in the work, a recipe, haunted handwriting. what seeps out between the stacks of validity in paper form is up for interpretation, but i think it clear upon reading the work in its entirety that the self (that of not just inhabitation, but of origination) is made to shapeshift for survival, for assimilation, for acceptance, for fulfillment, for likening. in this sense i am them am us am we and all at once nothing. through this, memory and, therefore, connections exist always and are to be kept sacred within the body, the self understood as origin. origin understood as a living breathing thing that exists within and that is created and deconstructed and that exists in the world through the transitory. ever fluctuating, ever violently borderline yet deliciously malleable. myself i present to you in this work, an accumulation of the possibility of me. adenomatous polyposis coli (apc) is lost in several epithelial cancers and regulates a variety of normal biological functions including cell migration and apical-basal polarity. loss of apical-basal polarity disrupts several cellular processes including epithelial structure and intracellular signaling, and is an early marker for tumorigenesis. we previously demonstrated that apc knockdown (apckd) in madin-darby canine kidney (mdck) cells altered cyst size and inverted polarity in 3d culture. through microarray analysis we made the novel observation that apc loss increased epithelial membrane protein 2 (emp2) expression. here we discovered that emp2 knockdown in apckd cells decreased cyst size and restored apical polarity. these studies are the first to identify emp2 as a regulator of apical-basal polarity though the mechanisms downstream of apc and emp2 and the regulation of emp2 by apc are not yet fully understood. with these studies we determined that apc and emp2 do not control β1 integrin/fak/src, cav1/erk/jnk, and scrib/hippo signaling suggesting a novel downstream mechanism by which apc and emp2 regulate cyst size and polarity. we identified filamin a or plectin isoform x2, histone h3.3, histone h2a type 1-e-like, and 3-hydroxyacyl-coa dehydrogenase type-2 as possible candidates of apc/emp2-mediated polarity. additionally, we investigated transcriptional regulation of emp2 by apc. in parallel studies we identified transcription factors that are predicted to bind the emp2 promoter and transcription factors that are regulated by apc. together these data suggested stat-1 and stat-3 as potential apc-mediated transcriptional regulators of emp2. overall, these studies identified a novel role for emp2 in controlling apical-basal polarity and have begun to elucidate the molecular mechanisms by which emp2 influences apc-mutant tumorigenesis. gaining a better understanding of how apc and emp2 interact to regulate normal cellular functions will elucidate the mechanisms by which apc and emp2 contribute to tumorigenesis and identify novel therapies for apc-mutant cancers. the formation of the milky way stellar halo is explored through the application of large-scale astronomical sky surveys. multiple techniques are developed to identify and characterize metal-poor stars. implications of the chemical abundance, spatial, and age distributions determined for a number of stellar populations in the stellar halo are discussed, along with the utility of such determinations for currentand next-generation simulations of milky way structure formation and chemical evolution. my work depicts the subtle tension that exists within domestic spaces when destructive familial conflict and inherited gender roles are buried beneath familiarity. i draw on conceptualizations of the domestic sphere, memory, and feminist understandings of the uncanny to visualize the psychological unease that exists within the home. my paintings utilize personal family photography as an entry point to discuss broader issues of gender and inheritance, and i engage with autotheory to move in-between my personal experience and a larger conceptualization of the domestic sphere. the product form plays an important role in a person's judgment of a product, in part because the product's appearance often provides the first impression. this work presents methods for the integration of the product form preference into the engineering design process. in the first experiment, linear models to predict the subject preference of the form of automotive wheel rims were built with physical dimensions, gestalt principles, semantic space, and kansei words as predictors. subject ratings of preference and other perceptual dimensions yielded linear models that were appropriate for product form preference prediction, with the gestalt model most suitable for design purposes. inspired by this results, quantifications of each gestalt principle were developed and validated by applying them to images already recognized in the gestalt literature as having specific gestalts. then, in a second experiment the relationship between gestalt principles and aesthetic was investigated via subject preference ratings of sets of wheel rim designs with low and high gestalt. with the complexity of the designs held constant, the data showed a positive correlation between gestalt and subject preference(aesthetics) and that designs with similar gestalt level but different physical dimensions maintained similar preference. lastly, a complexity metric was developed to quantify the complexity of two-dimensional product representations. the metric was validated in the third experiment in which one pool of subjects reported their perceptions of the complexity of images of house facades. a second subject pool reported their preferences for the house facades. analysis demonstrated that the aesthetic measurement equation of order divided by complexity, with order measured by gestalt and complexity by the validated metric, is a valid representation of subject preference within designs of the same style. the two quantifications developed in this work, both independently and joined by the aesthetic measurement equation, provide ways to quantify the product form preference that can be integrated into the engineering design of a product. this can enable groups of designers to develop products design for form and function. natural organic matter (nom) is ubiquitous in aquatic environments. it plays an important role in many biogeochemical processes, including metal binding. this study investigated the effects of fe binding by nom on the molecular weight, fluorescence, and absorbance of nom. various forms of fe were added to xad-8 nom isolate. it was found that addition of fe caused an increase in visible absorbance, a decrease in fluorescence, and a shift from intermediate molecular weight components to higher molecular weight components. changes occurred within the first 2 hours, and fe(iii) affected nom more than fe(ii). reaction of the xad-8 isolate with the siderophore desferrioxamine-b (dfo-b), caused an increase in one of the fluorescence peaks, due to fe removal and a decrease in a second peak, perhaps due to al removal. comparison of xad-8 and xad-4 isolates showed similar changes in absorbance and fluorescence, but the xad-4 showed little change in molecular weight distribution. these results have important implications for the concept of 'molecular weight' as applied to nom, and for nom reactivity including bioavailability, adsorption to minerals, and other processes. by detailing characteristics of groundwater in benin through elemental signatures, the previous phase of this research sought to better understand the hydrogeology and spatial distribution of groundwater quality in benin. those data indicated elevated uranium concentrations in two wells in eastern benin. in the current research effort it was hypothesized that the uranium present in groundwater is of natural geologic (and not anthropogenic) origin. it was further hypothesized, based on conversation with dr. m boukari of the university d'abomey-calavi, that the cotton agricultural industry has had some identifiable impact on groundwater quality. in order to provide data to assess both hypotheses, samples of groundwater, the associated filters, and various precipitation samples were collected in july 2002, and preserved for analysis. quantitative elemental concentrations (elemental signatures) for the samples were acquired using inductively coupled plasma (icp) spectrometry and specific ion probe techniques. these elemental parameters, in addition to latitude, longitude, temperature, ph, conductivity, and distance to cotton fields for each sample were compiled into a working matrix. parameterbenjamin patrick roope parameter plots were evaluated using an exploratory data analysis (eda) technique. principle component analysis (pca), indicator variable analysis (iva) and cluster analysis (ca) were also applied to the data. conclusions were drawn about the characteristics of groundwater samples based on a full statistical perspective gained for each of the data sets. the results from the application of the eda, iva, and pca methods support the stated hypothesis that the source of uranium in groundwater samples is geology-related. records indicative of elevated concentrations of uranium in surface water in the eastern part of the country that predate allegations of human dumping also support the case. however, the same applied methods and similar literature searches provided little support of the assertion that groundwater is being contaminated by cotton farming (made by the second hypothesis). although the major elements ca and na were noted at elevated concentrations near cotton fields, they were not definitively linked to agricultural practices or the use of pesticides. future work will help identify the specific geologic formation(s) responsible for elevated uranium concentrations, and to subsequently conceive a remediation plan. future work will also concentrate on conclusively determining the source of the elevated ca and na around cotton fields through soil sampling and testing. how do countries' institutional and political features define the mobilization strategies parties adopt? how do politicians target voters during elections? are certain individuals more likely to be targeted by political parties?my work aims to contribute to the literature of comparative politics including the importance of social context in explain mobilization strategies. it focuses on three levels of analysis: the country-level, the partisan level, and the individual level. particularly, i claim that the way in which politician contact individuals in different countries are the result of mediating conditions: features of the political system (regulatory environment), the party system characteristics, and nature of the electorate.campaigns are extremely important for representation and for democracy. they are thought to be not only a key mechanism for mobilizing voters but also a crucial point of interaction between politicians and voters. by investigating how the socio-political context influences the behavior of political elites, my research sheds light on an important phenomenon of campaigns and democracy a collection of poetry that takes the quotidian and makes it weird by excavating the inherent violence in domestic spaces. sample size planning is often one of the first steps when planning a psychological study. researchers generally need to know how many participants they will need to have 0.80 power. recently, methodologists have taken another view on sample size planning, mainly planning a study to have an accurate and precise estimate (aipe). this work focuses on the latter view on sample size planning for mediation studies (how large must a sample be to have an accurate estimate of the indirect effect). this work looks at four methods to assess mediation in two different models: a cross-sectional and longitudinal model. single sample tests require the more participants than the resampling approaches in both models. coverage rates vary between methods in the models but it appears that the percentile bootstrap has the best coverage rates. we also provide r and mplus codes for researchers to examine parameter values we did not examine in this study so they can plan studies with adequate precision. because of its importance as a solvent and its many unique properties, water is a widely studied substance. computational modeling can bring insight to detailed mechanisms of the interactions of water with itself or other chemicals. the accuracy of simulations of aqueous systems are limited by the accuracy of the water model used. a wide range of empirical models which accurately reproduce bulk water have been developed, but are limited to nonreactive systems. ab initio models can accurately reproduce water properties, including reactions, but are limited to small systems. semiempirical models can access larger systems and include reactions, but the transferability of the models is limited by the parameterization. the self-consistent charge density functional tight binding (scc-dftb) model was developed in the 1990s to have greater transferability and reliance on fewer parameters. the dftb+ implementation of scc-dftb allows for secondand third-order expansions of the density fluctuations in the energy. for each of these models the structural, dynamic, and spectroscopic properties of bulk scc-dftb water are compared to an empirical model, spc/e, and experimental properties. although all of the scc-dftb models exhibit some failures characteristic of the parent density functional theory, the third-order models are the best models. the experimental-density third-order model best reproduces the liquid structure and rotational dynamics, while the ambient-density third-order model best reproduces the diffusion and infrared line shape. people frequently supplement or have replaced their consumption of news from traditional print, radio, or television news sources with social news consumption from online social media platforms such as facebook, twitter, or reddit. reliance on social media sites as primary sources of news and information continues to grow and shows little sign of decreasing in the future. tasked with curating an ever-increasing amount of content, providers leverage user interaction feedback to make decisions about which content to display, highlight, and hide. the sheer volume of new information being produced and consumed only increases the reliance that individuals place on anonymous others to curate and sort the massive amounts of information. here, i describe several analyses and predictive models of user-behavior in social news platforms such as: user-interactions that rely on or influence the aggregate, anonymous crowd-ratings used to identify news-worthy content and user-interactions with news sources of varied credibility in particular. the central focus of this work is to understand not only how individuals consume social news, but also how they contribute to the spread and reception of credible news and misinformation. experimental results and predictive models demonstrate the influence of algorithmic biases on social news consumption patterns and the distinctions in the consumption of, response to, and propagation of information from news sources of varied credibility. the use of molten boric acid as a reactive flux in the synthesis of trivalent actinide borates has been explored and developed over the past several years. throughout these investigations, several unexpected structures and results were obtained. it has been determined that the chemistries of trivalent plutonium, americium, curium, and californium within a borate matrix are completely different. this has lead to the first family of compounds containing the later actinides where the structures are neither isotypic to the lanthanides nor each other. there are two main objectives of this work. the first is to further examine the basic chemistry and periodic trends between the lanthanide and the actinide elements. this has been achieved by functionalizing the f-element centers within these borates and by fine tuning the experimental conditions, which has led to two distinct families of the f-element borates. the second objective is to better understand the differences in bonding that exist between the two f-element series. this was achieved by density functional theory (dft) studies that have provided a more detailed examination of the f-elements which, to this point, has been shown to be the same in regards to structure and bonding analyses have often been contradictory. the dft results also reveal real differences in bonding in the actinide elements. an understanding of these two objectives will aid in the development of structure-property relationships for advanced waste forms for the actinides present in nuclear waste, the environmental impacts of actinide borates, and an improved understanding of bonding in the f-elements to be exploited for chemical separations. this dissertation is focused on the borate crystal chemistry of plutonium (chapters 3, 5-7), americium (chapters 3, 5, 7), curium (chapters 4, 5, 7), californium (chapter 11), and the lanthanides (chapters 5 -10). while there are several advancements of more applied applications gained from this work, the most important academic and fundamental insight is that the chemistries of the later actinides and lanthanides can be vastly different and care must be taken when making assumptions about these highly underexplored actinides based on the chemistry of either the lanthanides or other actinides. glycopeptidolipids (gpls) are a class of glycolipids produced by several non-tuberculosis-causing members of the mycobacterium genus. gpls are surface-exposed and expressed in different structural forms, with production of highly antigenic, typeable serovar-specific gpls in members of the mycobacterium avium complex (mac). m. avium and m. intracellulare, which comprise this complex, are slow-growing mycobacteria noted for producing disseminated infections in persons with an advanced stage of aids, and pulmonary infections in non-aids patients. studies from our laboratory, and from others, have implicated that gpls function as virulence factors. however, little is known about how gpls specifically interact with host cell macrophages, and thereby modulate the immune response. we have found that certain gpls can stimulate the nf-kappab pathway, as well as mapk p38 activation and tnf-alpha secretion upon exposure to murine bone marrow-derived macrophages. this stimulation was dependent on tlr2 and myd88, but not tlr4. interestingly, the serovar 1 and 2 gpls activated macrophages in a myd88and tlr2-dependent manner, while non-specific gpls (nsgpls) and the serovar 4 gpl were non-stimulatory. using mass spectrometry and nmr analyses, we next characterized the molecular requirements of the gpl-tlr2 interaction. we determined that the extent of the respective acetylation and methylation of the 6-deoxytalose and rhamnose contained within the core gpl structure dictated whether the gpl signaled through tlr2. lastly, we showed that phagosomes containing silica beads coated with nsgpls limited the acidification and delayed recruitment of late endosomal/lysosomal markers compared to phagosomes containing phosphatidylcholine-coated beads. the carbohydrate component of the gpl was required, as beads coated with only the de-glycosylated lipopeptide core of the gpl failed to delay phagosome-lysosome fusion. moreover, the ability of gpls to delay phagosome maturation was dependent on the expression of the macrophage mannose receptor. together, these data support that gpls are able to modulate the macrophage response, and that they are capable of inducing distinct cellular processes based on whether or not they engage specific receptors. the results also support a strong structure-function correlation, and suggest that m. avium may alter the structure or composition of its gpls to avoid detection by the host immune system. a popular longitudinal mediation model is the latent growth curve mediation model (lgcmm). with the lgcmm, researchers can examine how treatment longitudinally influences the level (i.e., intercept) and change (i.e., slope) of the outcome through influencing the level and change of the mediator. despite the popularity, causal mediation analysis with the lgcmm has been understudied. to reduce the research gap, in this dissertation, i studied causal mediation analysis with the bivariate lgcmm where the treatment is time-invariant whereas the mediator and outcome are both time-varying. to handle the post-treatment confounding issue posed by the dependence between mediator intercept and slope, i extended the interventional effect definition for causal interpretation of the indirect effects via the mediator intercept (or slope) alone. furthermore, i defined and identified an interventional indirect effect not attributable to either the mediator intercept or slope alone but due to their mutual dependence. for effect estimation, i proposed the interaction lgcmm, which incorporates interactions among treatment, mediator intercept, and mediator slope and allows the residual covariance of mediator intercept and slope to differ between treatment vs. control groups. a bayesian approach was proposed to estimate the model. simulation results showed that the bayesian approach yielded satisfactory estimates and inferences of the interventional direct and indirect effects in the interaction lgcmm with n ≥ 400 when t ≥ 6 or with n ≥ 200 when t ≥ 12. the results also demonstrated that when there are true interaction effects between the mediator intercept and slope, the traditional lgcmm ignoring such interactions can produce biased estimates and inaccurate inferences of the interventional direct and indirect effects. the developed method was applied to data from a real-life longitudinal study for illustration. the current study provides insights on the causal mediation effects in lgcmms and adds to researchers' toolbox of investigating longitudinal pathways. the most important error-generating events in network control systems are known to be: time-variant communication delays, packet drops, bandwidth limitations, and synchronization errors. synchronization errors constitute an important and often overlooked network induced non-ideal behavior. little is known about their effects on system stability and performance robustness. therefore studying and understanding synchronization errors is the primary objective of this thesis. most literature either assumes that all subsystems are working synchronously or use a continuous-time model, to circumvent the difficulties of the desynchronized discrete-time approach. only a few papers proposed a desynchronized discrete time model, using certain idealized assumptions. in this thesis we present two new models that efficiently capture the salient effects of synchronization errors in interconnected discrete-time systems: a state-space based model, and a system description based on infinite dimensional toeplitz like operators. we first model and perform stability analysis for systems with identical clock frequencies that are operating asynchronously. this class of systems finds applications in high-speed circuitry. the introduced stability analysis utilizes spectral methods, and a proposed fault detection algorithm identifies desynchronized sub-systems. for the case of a two system control loop, it is shown that the nature of the period ratio $frac{t_1}{t_2}$ profoundly affects system behavior. the case of commensurate rates $frac{t_1}{t_2}$ is tackled using both, the state-space approach and the infinite-dimensional operator approach. from the state-space description it follows that the system is equivalent to a periodic, time-variant, discrete-time system. stability analysis is then performed using the classical spectral techniques. the toeplitz based approach reveals an underlying periodic matrix block pattern in the infinite-dimensional matrix representation. this periodicity property is utilized to derive equivalent stability conditions. finally, we investigate the case of irrational ratios $frac{t_1}{t_2}$, using the two above-mentioned approaches. it is shown that the infinite-dimensional matrix representation always admits a sparse factorization. this amazing property will enable the formulation of future stability conditions and computationally efficient algorithms. based on the state-space model, a sufficient stability condition is derived, that can be made arbitrarily close to being necessary at the expense of increased computations. the case of period ratio uncertainties is also addressed. it is shown that the data-to-solution map for the generalized reduced ostrovsky (gro) equation is not uniformly continuous on bounded sets in sobolev spaces on the circle with exponent s > 3/2. considering that for this range of exponents the gro equation is well-posed with continuous dependence on initial data, this result makes the continuity of the solution map an optimal property. however, if a weaker hrtopology is used then it is shown that the solution map becomes h&#246;lder continuous in hs. the present study investigates the representation of urban space in the italian cinema of the economic miracle. italian cinema negatively depicted the physical and social transformations that took place in the 1950s. italian films critiqued the urban politics of the christian democrats by offering a counternarrative to the positive image presented on television and in other media. this study examines three major films – pier paolo pasolini's mamma roma (1962), michelangelo antonioni's la notte (1961), and francesco rosi's le mani sulla città (1963) – in which issues related to cities are addressed, and in which cities are not merely used as settings but directly shape the narrative and the films' ideology. this discussion takes into consideration the significance of locations and how cinematic space interacts with the characters. the three films offer criticism, that may also be found in a broad range of italian films, of the dominant center-right culture of the christian democrats, and hence may be considered exemplary of a trend in contemporary italian cinema. particular attention is paid to the class-based conflict at the basis of the three films, which is depicted through a contrast between different built environments. the three films denounce the physical transformations brought about by the government and private interests, which were detrimental to lower-class citizens. the multidisciplinary character of the dissertation offers new insights into both the italian cinema and the politics of urban planning of the economic miracle, a pivotal period in both their histories. structural revision, stereochemical assignment and total synthesis of gephyronic acidabstractbylionel nicolasgephyronic acid is natural product exhibiting potent anti-cancer and antibiotic activities. this linear polyketide was isolated in 1995 by sasse, hìäå¦fle and reichenbach from the myxobacteria archangium gephyra found in a soil sample collected on the island of mallorca. gephyronic acid exists as separable mixture of open keto-alcohol and closed hemiketal, but only its gross structure was reported. gephyronic acid inhibits growth of yeast and molds (mic 1ì¢ ââ'25 ìâåµg/ml) and has a cytostatic effect on several mammalian cell cultures (ic50 10ì¢ ââ'60 ng/ml). in vitro translation assay on rabbit reticulocytes and wheat germ extracts demonstrates that it specifically inhibits eukaryotic protein synthesis; ic50 values of 66ì¢ ââ'80 ng/ml respectively.the lack of knowledge on the absolute stereochemistry severely limits an understanding of its conformational properties, the synthetic preparation of bulk quantities for detailed biological analysis, and the design of analogues for sar studies. spectroscopic analysis, confirmed by fragment synthesis, showed that the original structure of gephyronic acid was misassigned. indeed, the diol moiety present at position c12-c13 is a trisubstituted epoxide. the newly proposed structure of gephyronic acid provides further insights on the structural relation between these related inhibitors of eukaryotic protein synthesis. structural similarities were found between the c8-c17 region of tedanolide, the c5-c15 region of myriaporone 3/4, and the c13-c23 region of gephyronic acid. additionally, the closed form of gephyronic acid shows similarities with the pyran region of the pederin class of polyketides. thus, gephyronic acid represents a potential pharmacophoric link between structurally distinct classes of biological active polyketides with related modes of action.a synthetic effort has also been designed to prepare gephyronic acid. two equally complex fragments corresponding to the c1-c8 and c9-c17 regions were synthesized. an unprecedented anti-mukaiyama aldol reaction coupled the two synthetic fragments and deoxygenation provided us with the synthetic product. matching spectroscopic data with the natural product show that we successfully establish the first total synthesis of gephyronic acid. a strategy for global optimization based upon local approximate optimization has been developed in this research. the global design space is divided into local regions. accurate kriging approximations are constructed in the local regions to provide an inexpensive formulation of the system behavior. each kriging approximation is validated by using a cross-validation scheme. gradient based local optimizers are used to identify local optima in each of the regions. a reduced trust region around the local optimum is further analyzed to provide the global optimum solutions. this approach possesses the capability of identifying global optimum solutions within reduced time frames as compared to existing methods. a second investigation focused on the formulation and development of a nonlinear post-optimality analysis. the non-linear response of the system is captured through local approximations. a cumulative approximation is constructed from the local response surface approximations via a blending function. the post-optimal solution is obtained by performing optimization over the cumulative approximation of the objective function and the constraints. amine functional groups in polymeric facilitated transport membranes (ftms) selectively and reversibly facilitate the transport of co2 over other gases, which results in rapid and selective co2 separation from mixed gas streams, such as co2/n2. however, the mechanisms of co2 transport by amine functional groups across membranes are not well understood. water vapor is known to enhance co2 permeation rates through amine-functionalized polymeric membranes; however, it is unclear how exactly water influences the co2 transport. to address the fundamental issues of co2 facilitated transport, we have developed a novel operando transmission ftir spectroscopic permeation tool to directly observe the formation of co2 transport intermediates through amine-based ftms under realistic operating conditions, including dry and humid co2 gas mixtures, and simultaneously correlate the formation of these intermediate species with the co2 permeation rates through the same sample. this work describes the development of this novel operando transmission ftir spectroscopic tool, and first demonstrates its utility by probing the mechanism of water-enhanced co2 transport through polyvinylamine (pvam), a model primary amine that it a typical ftm used for co2 separations. we show that water enhances co2 permeation across pvam by facilitating the conversion of co2 to a reactive intermediate, which is most consistent with an ammonium carbamate species based on the infrared band positions. to further probe the fundamental issues of co2 permeation, we will study the effect of water-enhanced co2 permeation on poly(n-methyl-n-vinylamine) (pmvam), poly(n,n-dimethyl-n-vinylamine) (pdvam), polyvinylpyridine, and quaternized polyvinylpyridine materials to investigate the effect of amine structure on co2 transport through membranes. next, we will further investigate how the presence or absence of water influences co2 transport through these same materials through exposure to dry co2/n2 and humid n2. these investigations allow us to clarify the effect of amine structure and the role of water for co2 transport through amine-functionalized membranes, which ultimately allows us to propose new co2 transport mechanisms based on the direct observation of intermediate species. this work establishes a novel operando spectroscopy tool that can be used to further study a wide range of membrane systems to probe transport mechanisms, fouling mechanisms, and correlate any changes in membrane structure to its performance over time. an interchip interconnection approach based on a new 2-d system-in-package (sip) method?quilt packaging (qp), invented at the university of notre dame, is discussed. the principal idea of qp is to assemble a planar mosaic, or ?quilt,? of dies interconnected by conductive nodules that protrude from vertical faces of ics. qp offers reduced delay, ultrawide bandwidth, low electrical noise, decreased system size and weight, and the opportunity for heterogeneous integration. in this dissertation, modifications to previous qp fabrication processes are introduced. a new joining method for qp interconnection is presented, using solder paste applied with the pin transfer method, which greatly improves mechanical and thermal reliability, and manufacturability. chip-to-chip alignment offsets smaller than 1 ?m are demonstrated. simulations and measurements indicate that the microwave performance of qp interconnects provides ultrawide bandwidth. moreover, the use of solder paste does not significantly degrade the microwave performance of qp. in particular, the return loss associated with the chip-to-chip qp nodules is better than 12.5 db, and the insertion loss is better than 0.8 db, at frequencies up to 110 ghz. mechanical and thermal reliability testing were performed on qp, including pull and thermal shock tests. a novel mechanical testing system that combines a force gauge and a micropull tester was designed and constructed. pull tests were used to investigate the mechanical strength of qp, and it is found that individual nodules are about as strong as individual wirebonds, but acting together require several pounds of force to separate the chips. investigations were conducted to learn the effects of thermal shock on all components of the nodule system, including the inter-nodule solder, the copper nodule itself, and the nodule-to-substrate interface layers. pull tests were performed after thermal shock testing, and it was found that during the first 200 thermal shock cycles, the pull force at failure drops significantly, but has little effect on the tensile strength of copper. the adhesion between copper and oxide is more vulnerable to thermal shock testing, and cracks were observed in the sidewall sio2 isolation layer after thermal shock testing. this dissertation analyzes a variety of features of the subjective character of conscious visual experiences and considers their metaphysical consequences. it consists of three essays. the first, "visual transparency and its consequences", deals with the idea that our visual experience is "transparent" to introspection. i defend an interpretation of this idea according to which, roughly, what it is like to introspect a visual experience as of a given object or property is the same as what it would be like, in the same circumstances, to attend to the relevant object or property. i then argue that the thesis of transparency, so understood, supports the idea that undergoing a visual experience is a matter of instantiating some sort of relational property (though the thesis is compatible with a range of specifications of the relevant property).the second essay, "naïve realism: a simple approach", considers how certain experiential differences consequent upon differences in what might be thought of as a subject's "perspective" on what she sees bear on the ideology of naïve realism. for example, the spatial orientation of an object relative to the subject who sees it can make a difference to her experience, and some naïve realists have argued that this is grounds for construing visual experience not as a two-place relation between a subject and an object, but as a three-place relation between a subject, an object, and the subject's "standpoint" on the object. i argue that the former conception of visual experience can account for all of the facts that allegedly militate in favor of the latter conception.finally, the third essay, "hallucination as awareness of tropes" analyzes the sense in which it can subjectively seem to a visually hallucinating subject that she is encountering something "particular" and argues that this can be explained by construing visual hallucination as an awareness of one or more tropes of a certain kind. the account developed has consequences for metaphysical theorizing about tropes more broadly, several of which are discussed. a contrast is also drawn with mark johnston's account of hallucination as an awareness of a certain sort of uninstantiated universal. emission standards for diesel particulates (soot) and nox from diesel engine exhaust have been introduced worldwide and are becoming more stringent due to their adverse effects on human health and the environment. with respect to the removal of diesel particulates, the application of diesel particulate filters (dpfs) could provide more than a 90% reduction in mass emissions. however, these filters are required to be regenerated because the trapped soot can lead to elevated exhaust line pressure, leading to decreased engine efficiency. among the regeneration strategies, catalytic regeneration of pdfs by low temperature soot oxidation catalysts is the most promising. this dissertation deals with catalysis as a means to decrease particulate emissions from diesel exhaust gases. in view of economical and environmental concerns, platinum-free soot oxidation catalysts have been gaining more attention. in particular, this thesis will focus on the application of k containing catalysts for soot oxidation at low temperatures. however, most of the studied k containing catalysts are subjected to deactivation after a short period of reaction due to the loss of potassium during soot oxidation. the problem can be resolved by either stabilizing k moderately in the lattice or replenishing the loss of k from a k source. based on the initial work on k2o-2sio2 disilicate catalysts, the concept of an amorphous silicate catalyst will be developed to achieve high k stability catalyst. in particular, the impacts of ca and al substitutions on the k stability in potassium disilicate glass network are discussed. after optimizing the composition of k stability silicate based catalysts, a detailed stability study on an optimized k-ca-si-o composition is investigated and discussed. the mechanism for this kind of compound on soot oxidation is also proposed, which is thought based on the combination of oxygen transfer mechanism and spillover mechanism. in the scope of the synthesis of silicate catalyst, a sol-gel process is developed to make a multi-component silicate compound. this aqueous based sol-gel process is very suitable to coat the dpfs due to the complex shapes and porous nature of the filters. then the equivalent optimized k-ca-si-o silicate catalyst is applied on both ceramic dpfs and metallic dpfs via sol-gel process. the stability study and kinetics study are sequentially carried out to investigate the catalytic reactions. the feasibility of these mentioned catalytic options is discussed as well. in addition, the nature of soot and contact condition between soot and catalysts play important roles in catalytic soot oxidation. the characterization and kinetic analysis of a model soot produced from flame deposit is also studied and discussed. the purpose is to establish a reliable and suitable laboratory approach for catalytic soot oxidation study by simulating the realistic contact condition. in this dissertation i address the topic of a newly discovered virulence factor in a select strain of methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (mrsa) jkd6159. s. aureus has been able to acquire resistance to a wide variety of antibiotics including methicillin and vancomycin. while this antibiotic resistance is a growing concern, s. aureus also encodes an assortment of virulence factors. in this dissertation, we examine the emergence of a streptolysin s like gene cluster (sag) gene cluster that has appeared in a select strain of mrsa. the sag (streptolysin s-associated gene) cluster is a major virulence factor in streptococcus pyogenes, as it is responsible for the biosynthesis of the historical hemolysin toxin known as streptolysin s. using bioinformatic analysis, we have identified the presence of the sag gene cluster in the mrsa strain jkd6159, a recent mrsa isolate from australia. to examine the function of the sag-associated gene cluster in the mrsa jkd6159 isolate, we took several experimental approaches to gain a deeper understanding of the mechanistic role of this gene cluster in the jkd6159 isolate. we generated an isogenic mutant in which one of the genes responsible for the biosynthesis of the putative sls-like toxin was inactivated (jkd::δsagb) in order to more precisely determine the role of the presence of this gene cluster in the mrsa jkd6159 strain. disruption of the sag gene cluster in jkd6159 did not result in significant differences in hemolysis. bacterial growth and biofilm formation was also not found to be affected between wt and the δsagb mutant. conditioned media from the wt and δsagb strain do not result in any growth inhibition of s. pyogenes, e. coli, or s. epidermidis. during co-culture experiments with jdk6159 and e. coli, differential morphology of the e. coli can be observed between the wt jkd6159 and the δsagb strain. eukaryotic cell infections with wt and δsagb jkd6159 did not result in differential cytotoxicity or differential cytokine expression. in vivo mice infections revealed no significant difference in either lesion size or recovered cfus between the wt, δsagb or δsagb+sagb strains. analysis of in vitro generated toxin revealed no evidence of the hypothesized post translational modifications. 2d proteomic studies were also undertaken to examine if the sag cluster played a role in the regulation of expressed proteins in jkd6159. metabolic protein differences were observed between the wt and δsagb strains including an increase in carbamate kinase and threonine synthase expression and a decrease in the catabolite control protein a and mraw in wt vs. sagb mutants. although we have obtained evidence 1. that e. coli during co-culture exhibits differential morphology between wt and δsagb 2. that the sag-like gene associates with the production of different s. aureus proteins during in vitro growth, the exact role of the sag-like gene cluster in the mrsa strain jkd6159 remains to be determined. scholars frequently discuss the impact of religion and skepticism on victorian literature. but scholarship on the matrix of beliefs, texts, practices and communities that comprise "religion" frequently ignores the central figure of the christian faith: jesus. despite a few studies of jesus in historical fiction regarding his role as a canvas onto which victorian culture projected its own ideals, fears, and expectations, no one has seriously considered jesus—and victorian characters depicted in terms of jesus' life— within successful realist novels by respected novelists. furthermore, no one has accounted for his rise in popularity during the nineteenth-century, his sudden appearance in novels just before mid-century, or the ways in which he serves to highlight the social and psychological functions—and limitations— of the realist novel.this dissertation examines the theologically-embedded narratives that shift the nineteenth-century british public's attention to the life of the historical jesus, leading to portrayals of jesus, and jesus-imitators, in the novel. it then examines some experimental structures novelists use to foster literary relationships between jesus, other characters, and readers that contribute to altering jesus' characterization, while demonstrating thatthe victorian jesus can only be understood by looking at characters who sometimes bear a different name. charles dickens turns to idealization in the life of our lord to foster a love of jesus in his children. charles kingsley uses narrative annexes to restructure identity around jesus in alton locke. george eliot unleashes a jesus-consciousness into rural england through adam bede. mary augusta ward and eliza lynn linton test the possibility of imitating jesus in the real world through robert elsmere and joshua davidson. each of these novelistic representations of jesus emphasize the socially connective work of realism but challenge the practices of mimesis; in each imitation does not create knowledge of jesus but other novelistic habits and forms, like sympathy and marriage, do. as such, the aesthetic limits of mimesis clash with the widespread progressive insistence that imitating christ is the essence of a sustainable christianity, a clash that ultimately calls into question jesus' viability in the late-victorian world. the choice between a fixed and flexible exchange rate regime has emerged as one of the central aspects within the larger debate concerning global financial architecture. my dissertation explores the often neglected aspect of exchange rate misalignment in such a context. the dissertation consists of two chapters. the first chapter ascertains whether a country's exchange rate regime has an impact on the degree of misalignment. this may be especially important for emerging economies that receive substantial capital flows. since there is no standard definition of 'emerging' in the literature, a cluster analysis is used to define such countries in this study based on four parameters. using a panel (102 countries, 30 years) cointegration vector estimator, i define the equilibrium exchange rate as implied by the estimator. i also classify the de facto exchange rate regime taking into account a country's effective exchange rate characteristics, which has not been previously used. the results suggest that for developing countries, an intermediate exchange rate regime (a regime between a pure oat and a hard peg) is most effective at limiting misalignment. fixed rates perform second-best, while oats perform the worst. also, there is no significant difference among regimes in limiting misalignment for developed countries. using the same sample and improved measure of misalignment from the first chapter, the second chapter employs standard growth regressions to determine how exchange rate misalignment affects economic growth. i find that it does affect growth, but asymmetrically. specifically, overvaluation significantly hurts growth while undervaluation has the opposite effect (although it is not statistically significant). developed and developing countries are affected by misalignment to different degrees, with a greater impact for developing countries. also, the persistence of misalignment matters in that continuing overvaluation or undervaluation are harmful. the results suggest it is not a viable strategy to intentionally undervalue a currency to improve the competitiveness of the export sector. since the choice of regime matters for misalignment, and this can seriously affect the growth prospects of a developing country, this work suggests that properly administered intermediate regimes can help limit exchange rate misalignment that can be detrimental to growth. mycobacteria tuberculosis (m.tb), the causative agent of tb, although largely a curable disease, still remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, resulting in approximately 1.5 million deaths per year. a better understanding of the host response to m.tb is needed to develop the next generation of therapeutics and vaccines. the objective of this project centers around two major aims: 1) characterizing the role of arf6 in host signaling and phagosome-lysosome fusion in macrophages upon m.tb infection and 2) characterizing both composition and function of microvesicles after infection. previous studies have shown that m.tb interferes with trafficking by preventing phagosome-lysosome fusion. arf6, a small gdp binding protein, is involved in regulating various host-signaling pathways as well as functioning in promoting actin cytoskeleton rearrangements and membrane trafficking. therefore, this project focuses on the biological processes, such as secretion, phagocytosis, and cytokinesis, previously shown in the literature, to be regulated by arf6 and also necessary for a successful m.tb infection. in our present studies we have determined that arf6 is activated in macrophages following an infection with complement opsonized m.tb and that there is an accumulation of arf6 with the mycobacteria containing phagosomes. interestingly, we showed a diminished activation of erk in m.tb infected macrophages when cells expressed an arf6 mutant defective in gtp hydrolysis (q67l). however, this diminished activation of erk did not result in measurable differences in nf-ƙb nuclear localization or production of various cytokines including tnf-α. our data suggest that arf6 is not playing a significant role in driving the pro-inflammatory responses induced in macrophages upon an m.tb infection. previous work in the laboratory has shown that there are mycobacterial specific proteins present in exosomes released from m.tb-infected cells and that these exosomes have a multi-functional immunological role. further, it has been shown across several infection models (i.e. tissue culture infections, mouse infections, and human m.tb patient) that several of these proteins are conserved, suggesting they could serve as biomarkers for disease. exosomes have been well characterized in the context of mycobacterial infection; however, macrophages also release microvesicles, which are derived from the budding of the plasma membrane, and these vesicles have not been characterized in this manner. our findings suggest that exosomes released from m.tb infected macrophages are more enriched in mycobacterial proteins than observed with microvesicles released from the infected cells. these studies also suggest that this exosome population produces a more robust stimulation of macrophages and pre-sensitized t-cells compared to microvesicles. altogether, our data support a more functional role for exosomes then microvesicles in the pathobiology of an m.tb infection. this dissertation examines the translational goals of lxx ezekiel 40-48 in the light of two major developments in textual criticism in the past half-century: 1) the recognition that biblical corpora existed in variant literary editions in antiquity, associated with eugene ulrich, among others; and 2) the development of a bifurcated approach to septuagint studies, in which one camp focuses on the reception-history of the septuagint while the other focuses on the translator's translation technique. the adoption of a functional theory of translation sketched by reiìä ü and vermeer (skopostheorie) helps to mend this rift by focusing on the translator's goals in rendering his source text for a specific community. ezekiel 40-48 is seen as an operative text intended to persuade its readers of the truth it communicates. i argue that the translator rendered his source text with attention to its linguistic, grammatical and semantical structures, in a way meant to help his readers understand the hebrew work (philological translation). the rhetorical effect of this method of of translation stressed the distance and authority of ezekiel's culminating prophecy. on the other hand, his task of persuasion compelled the translator to accommodate certain cultural aspects of ezekiel's vision to the hellenistic tastes of his target readership, especially concerning architecture and proselytism. despite this accommodation, i find no evidence for the actualizing exegesis sometimes discovered in lxx ezekiel 40-48. study of the translator's method of rendering his source text suggests that pluses are to be attributed to the translator's source text and not his own intervention unless suggested by weighty evidence. based on this principle, analysis of the vorlage of lxx ezekiel 40-48 concludes that it preserves numerous secondary readings that harmonize ezekiel's final vision with his earlier ones and thereby interpret ezekiel in terms of the prophet's unique theology. this interpretation stands in contrast to the canonical interpretation of mt ezekiel described by jake stromberg. on the other hand, a number of modernizing supplements bring the hebrew text of ezekiel 40-48 into conversation with developing palestinian merkabah traditions (lxx ezek 43:2-3) and the architecture of the second temple (lxx ezek 40:38-40). further study will be needed to determine how the generally shorter and earlier vorlage of lxx ezekiel 1-39 is to be related to the fuller and later vorlage of lxx ezekiel 40-48, but the minimum conclusion that can be drawn is that the lxx vorlage of these chapters was the focus of intensive study in the last few centuries b.c.e. this research explores the use of structural tailoring techniques to achieve multiple functionalities, such as, structural damage detection, vibration control, and energy harvesting in thin-walled metallic structures. from a general perspective, structural tailoring techniques provide a viable approach to induce vibration localization, which is an element to enable the above functionalities. in this work, structural tailoring was achieved leveraging the concepts of frequency selective structures (fss) and acoustic black holes (abh). the idea of fss is built around the concept of a periodic structure, that is a structure assembled from a single unit cell that repeats identically in space in order to form the entire (periodic) medium. an interesting property of periodic structures is the occurrence of vibration localization due to disorder or mistuning, that is a local lack of periodicity. mistuning can either be intentional or it can occur naturally as a result of random imperfections at material or structural level. the abh is a taper-like feature embedded in the host structure that allows for a smooth reduction of the phase velocity, while minimizing the reflected energy. although these concepts are general and can be exploited for a variety of applications in mechanical systems, this work explores their use for non-destructive assessment and monitoring of structures, as well as for vibration control, and energy harvesting. more specifically, for application to structural health monitoring, this thesis explores the role of dynamic tailoring in the context of impediographic sensing. impediography is a hybrid tomographic method that exploits the fundamental sensing principle of eit and combines it with localized stress perturbations induced via ultrasonic excitation. this form of hybrid tomography relies on the piezo-resistive coupling between the stress field and the electrostatic response of the host structure. such coupling allows collecting multiple sets of linearly-independent boundary voltage measurements that result in a remarkable enhancement of the sensitivity and resolution of the reconstructed properties. the fss-based impediographic technique was explored numerically and the performances were assessed in terms of damage localization and quantification. overall, results showed that the impediographic approach holds great potential to achieve high damage sensitivity and resolution while concurrently providing a drastic reduction of the size of the sensory network. in the context of vibration control, this research develops abh-based thin-walled structural components capable of broadband vibration attenuation characteristics. the performance of abh structures was numerically and experimentally evaluated under both transient and steady state excitation conditions. both numerical and experimental results suggested that the proposed approach can enable highly efficient and broadband vibration attenuation performance. in the context of vibration based energy harvesting, this work presents the idea of abh-based structural tailoring to enhance vibration-based energy harvesting. fully coupled electro-mechanical models of an abh tapered structure with surface mounted piezo-transducers were developed in order to numerically and experimentally explore the response of the system to both steady state and transient excitations. results showed that the dynamically tailored structural design enables a drastic increase in the harvested energy over a broadband frequency ranges as compared to traditional non-tailored structures. in the eleven years that joyce spent in trieste he matured as a man and as a writer too. he set up house and had family, he started struggling and publishing his first novels. it is in the cosmopolitan and irredentist ambient of trieste, his second hometown, that he conceived the plot of "ulysses" and composed "giacomo joyce". the latter is a prose poem, a "visualogue", made of fifty fragments, written with joyce's best calligraphy in english, italian, triestine dialect and german. set in trieste it opens with an enigmatic question "who?". the aim of this thesis is to investigate the mystery of the identity of the young girl of the text through the help of a psychoanalytic reading, a science that was developing in trieste during joyce's stay. the irish writer was attracted by the method of psychoanalysis and, because of his daughter's sickness, met fromm in person. he was extremely curious to explore the mechanism of the psyche and experiment it in his works. in this thesis a method to fabricate cmos circuits with locos isolation scheme is implemented. the basic idea is to selectively grow oxide over the field oxide regions of the devices. this is done by covering the active regions of the substrate with a thin layer of silicon nitride. silicon nitride acts as a diffusion barrier to the oxidizing species. the processing procedure is broken down into key steps namely, nitride deposition, dry etching of the nitride and nitride removal. each step is individually studied and characterized. suprem3 software has been used to simulate the fabrication process and find the optimal parameters for different fabrication steps. the mosfet devices with designed threshold voltages of 1.25 v, 1.5 v and 1.75 v have been fabricated. these fabricated devices have been tested. the quantities measured and analyzed are contact resistance,threshold voltage, transconductance and subthreshold current characteristics. tlm measurements showed the specific contact resistances for the polysilicon and p-contact to be in the order of 0.001 ohms square cm, which is very high (3 orders of magnitude higher). the nmos devices with designed threshold voltages of 1.5 volts, were found to actually have threshold voltages around 1 volt. all the devices suffered from gate leakage. laminated steel, as studied in this work, is a sheet metal product that consists of two steel sheets with a relatively thin polymer layer between them. it has been developed for applications requiring sound and vibration damping. the objective of the study concerns bending operations, in particular how tooling and sheet geometry, material properties, and process parameters affect the shape and integrity of formed parts. two cases are being considered: wipe bending and draw bending. investigation of each case has experimental and numerical components, the latter using the finite element method.because of the particular construction of laminated steel, bending can involve some issues that are not of concern when bending solid steel sheet. in wipe bending an undesirable, permanent curl is present upon completion of the operation, while in draw bending the shape of the part and the state of the polymer layer are of concern. therefore, it was important to establish how the geometry and material state after bending depend on the process parameters. experimentally, it was necessary to design and build a set-up for each type of bending that had the required flexibility to change tooling parameters. numerically, the problem is highly nonlinear because it involves large deformations in the steel sheets and the polymer layer as well as nonlinear material models for both. in addition, for draw bending the loading is complicated by factors such as localized deformations under the draw beads and the sliding motion of the sheet with respect to the tooling, which introduce loading/unloading cycles. modeling of the mechanical response of the polymer layer was particularly challenging, but appropriate models have been implemented that give reasonable comparisons between experimental measurements and numerical results. in addition, parametric studies have shown how the curl and state of the polymer layer depend on various parameters that are not easily varied in the experiments.this work presents and explains the mechanics of bending laminated steel. it is anticipated that the results can be used to improve processing of this material during bending operations. since the early 1970's research in airborne laser systems has been the subject of continued interest. airborne laser applications depend on being able to propagate a near diffraction-limited laser beam from an airborne platform. turbulent air flowing over the aircraft produces density fluctuations through which the beam must propagate. because the index of refraction of the air is directly related to the density, the turbulent flow imposes aberrations on the beam passing through it. this problem is referred to as aero-optics. aero-optics is recognized as a major technical issue that needs to be solved before airborne optical systems can become routinely fielded. this dissertation research specifically addresses an approach to mitigating the deleterious effects imposed on an airborne optical system by aero-optics.a promising technology is adaptive optics: a feedback control method that measures optical aberrations and imprints the conjugate aberrations onto an outgoing beam. the challenge is that it is a computationally-difficult problem, since aero-optic disturbances are on the order of kilohertz for practical applications. high control loop frequencies and high disturbance frequencies mean that adaptive-optic systems are sensitive to latency in sensors, mirrors, amplifiers, and computation. these latencies build up to result in a dramatic reduction in the system's effective bandwidth.this work presents two variations of an algorithm that uses model reduction and data-driven predictors to estimate the evolution of measured wavefronts over a short temporal horizon and thus compensate for feedback latency. the efficacy of the two methods are compared in this research, and evaluated against similar algorithms that have been previously developed. the best version achieved over 75% disturbance rejection in simulation in the most optically active flow region in the wake of a turret, considerably outperforming conventional approaches. the algorithm is shown to be insensitive to changes in flow condition, and stable in the presence of small latency uncertainty. consideration is given to practical implementation of the algorithms as well as computational requirement scaling the development of the high-throughput rna-sequencing (rna-seq) technique at the single-cell level enables the measurement of gene expression in a large number of individual cells simultaneously. computational methods previously developed for the regular (bulk-based) rna-seq data analysis often have insufficient power on single-cell data, due to the high sparsity nature and the large variance of single-cell data. in this dissertation, we present three methods focusing on two central problems of single-cell rna-seq (scrna-seq) data analysis: classification of samples and differential expression (de) analysis of genes.the first method is a ``scale-invariant'' classifier used to classify cells/samples into different groups based on their gene expression. scaling by sequencing depth is usually the first step for any analysis of rna-seq data, but estimating sequencing depth accurately can be difficult, especially for single-cell data, which may influence the validity of downstream analysis. we eliminate the need of scaling completely and enable analyzing using the original count data directly by developing a scale-invariant classifier, which gives the same result under different (arbitrary) estimates of sequencing depth. meanwhile, this deep-neural-network-based classifier is able to achieve higher classification accuracy compared to previous classifiers that require scaling.the second method is proposed for de analysis of scrna-seq data. de analysis identifies genes of which the expression level is different from biological groups to biological groups. most of existing approaches detect the mean difference in expression levels in different groups, our approach, named fastde, instead detects changes in distributions. further, fastde is capable of handling data from multiple nominal or ordinal biological conditions, and it provides an intuitive visualization to facilitate the interpretation of de results.the third method we present is for post-clustering de analysis of scrna-seq data. different from de analysis of the bulk-based rna-seq data, where the grouping of samples is known beforehand, the grouping of samples (i.e., cells) is computationally inferred using a clustering algorithm on the same data. this "double-use" of data brings a data snooping problem, bringing a high risk of overwhelming false positives. to lower this risk, we propose a post-clustering de test called "depoc", which takes into account the uncertainty of clustering. depoc is implemented as a modification of the popular edger software for de analysis, which maximizes its ease of use. we study the theoretical properties of depoc and show that depoc typically gives more conservative p-values than edger. the recent innovation of atmospheric pressure plasma jets (appjs) has shown great potential in a variety of medical applications, especially as a therapeutic tool for cancer treatment. due to the complex physical interactions of plasma in the atmosphere and in contact with liquid, a rich chemical environment of reactive species is produced. such an environment can provoke a number of biological effects, including impairment of cell substructures and even cell death. since the application of a plasma jet on a cell target is an areal treatment, the spatial distribution of the species in the plasma jet, the species delivered into the liquid, and the biological responses can provide critical insights in understanding the spatial dependent interactions between plasma and cellular systems.the spatial investigation of cellular effects induced by plasma treatment can also reveal essential information, such as the size of the treated area, and the effectiveness in the treated area. this is a rarely reported aspect of plasma treatment due to the lack of techniques and analysis methods that are able to reveal spatial information over a large cell growing region (order of cm2) while also provide detailed cellular feature information. therefore, as the first parts of my dissertation, i introduced a systematic large-scale image processing with machine learning for data analysis. i introduced the usage of fluorescence slide readers for acquiring images covering the entire cell region, and developed several novel computational methods, such as salr clustering to accurately localize the cell centers, and cell-cycle classification using only a single dna marker with fluorescence microscopy. i then applied these methods to reveal the spatial distribution of plasma induced dna damage.to overcome the sensitivity of plasma jets due to the variation of surrounding environment, i designed and constructed a plasma device with shielding gases to control and tune the distribution of the plasma species. spatial scans of the optical emission spectra from the plasma jet and a gel based reactive species detector were applied to investigate the spatial distribution of reactive species in the gas phase and the liquid phase, respectively. significantly, a larger effective area with higher damage, especially in s-phase cancer cells, were observed with a n2 shielding gas, when compared to any other shielding gas, suggesting nitrogen species plays a critical role in inducing dna damage. this dissertation explores how englishness was imagined and used by an international community including the english, the scots, the peoples of scandinavia, and those of the arabic-islamic world during the late middle ages. i contend that in order to understand medieval england as a global entity, we must accept that a sense of england and englishness arises from a transnational social imaginary among diverse national communities, and that englishness is not only controlled by those who dwell in england but is constructed by those who perceive it simultaneously. this means, i suggest, that english national identity emerges, in different forms, out of the interplay between different ethno-national identities as they are literarily imagined. i argue that late medieval england did have a global presence, a dynamic transnational identity that finds expression in the literature of its cultural others. but this identity was not necessarily determined by blood relationship, habit of unity, and/or shared language, as theorists of nationalism would have it. instead, the sense of englishness in these medieval texts is determined by the use that each culture makes of it. this dissertation, then, engages with the postcolonial theories of homi bhabha and edward said, with the borderland theories of gloria anzaldúa, as well as with theories of the nation as espoused by benedict anderson, anthony d. smith, and azar gat in order to explore the uses of englishness as it is imagined along several different cultural axes. drawing on cultural anthropological and new historicist approaches as well, this dissertation implicitly argues for the continued import of cultural poetics to literary study.throughout this study, i demonstrate that the axes of anglo-scottish, anglo-scandinavian, and anglo-arab identities are recurrently filtered through the idealism of the genre or mode of romance, which is imaginatively and fantastically deployed to resolve the tensions between assimilation and differentiation of different ethno-national identities. taking inspiration from medievalists such as geraldine heng, kathy lavezzo, and patricia clare ingham, i explore first how the english deploy this romance mode to envision imperial ambitions: i discover the cartographically-depicted imperial advances being made on scots in the maps of matthew paris and john hardyng; i point to the memorializing of a north sea empire between danes and english in the romances of king horn and havelok the dane; and i describe the imagining of a porousness between english and muslim identities that lends itself to the ideal of reclaiming schismatic muslims for christianity in piers plowman, the canterbury tales, mandeville's travels, and romances such as the king of tars and the sowdone of babylone . i assert that the scots, meanwhile, attempt to navigate troubling borderland hybridity in border romances like gologras and sir gawane and the carle of carlisle and in nationalist epics like barbour's brus and blind hary's wallace. the scandinavian peoples too, i suggest, nostalgically crystalize a sense of a shared anglo-scandinavian past in texts ranging from saxo grammaticus's gesta danorum to egils saga to lesser studied icelandic romances (riddarasögur) like ála flekks saga. the arabs, i discover, exoticize the english in their geographies in ways reflecting the orientalizing activities of medieval europeans, and in the late-medieval folk epic sīrat al-ẓāhir baibars, arabic-islamic authors negotiate englishness as a way of recovering from and confronting the threat of the crusades.in these readings, it becomes apparent that medieval writers were interested in using englishness to navigate questions of identity through a deployment of imaginative geographies and fantasies of intercultural porousness. the plurality of these visions of english national identity, however, does not and cannot present us with a unified whole picture of a global medieval england, but it does open to us the variety of transnational experiences attached to a more widely conceived notion of national identity. how to accurately model and predict the observed abundances of the 35 stable p-nuclei remains an open question in the field of nuclear astrophysics. the γ-process, an explosive astrophysical scenario, is thought to be the primary mechanism in creating the p-nuclei. however, current γ-process models remain insufficient in describing the observed p-nuclei abundances, with disagreements in some cases by two orders of magnitude. there are still several significant sources of uncertainty when modeling the γprocess. one of these is the uncertainty of the nuclear reactions rates relevant to the γ-process. this is especially the case when the (γ,n) and (γ,p) reaction rates for an isotope are comparable in magnitude at temperatures relevant to the γ-process. these are known as branching points, and knowing at which temperature the (γ,n) and (γ,p) reaction rates become equal for an isotope is crucial for accurately modeling the reaction flow of the γ-process. in a recent sensitivity study, 111in has been identified as a potential (γ,p)/(γ,n) branching point within the γ-process. in order to identify if 111in is a branching point, the 102pd(p,γ)103ag,108cd(p,γ)109in, and 110cd(p,γ)111in cross sections were measured at the university of notre dame nuclear science laboratory. the measurements were performed with the high efficiency total absorption spectrometer (hector), using the γ-summing technique. as hector was a fairly new detector at the time of this writing, the development and optimization of the detector is discussed, to include the development of a statistical method used to estimate the summing efficiency of the detector. in order to validate the analytical techniques presented in this thesis, a commissioning experiment was performed at the compact accelerator system for performing astrophysical research (caspar) laboratory through the measurement of several resonance strengths in the 27al(p,γ)28si reaction. after the (p,γ) cross sections at the nsl were performed, the cross-section data was used to constrain parameters within the hauser-feshbach formalism that could then deduce the inverse (γ,p) and (γ,n) reaction rates of interest. the results of this research support the conclusion that 111in is indeed a (γ,p)/(γ,n) branching-point, with a branch-point temperature at 2.71 ±0.05 gk, well within the temperature window of the γ-process. this may have an impact on the predicted abundances of the p-nuclei and warrants further investigation. for future works, cross-section measurements to identify other potential γ-process branching points such as 85rb and 129cs points are desirable. continuing to constrain the nuclear input in this manner will provide further insight into the astrophysical conditions necessary to produce the p-nuclei. this thesis investigated the application of stochastic ground motion models for characterization of seismic hazard within the context of life-cycle cost assessment for earthquake engineering applications. a versatile, simulation-based, framework was adopted for assessment of the life-cycle repair cost and for the identifications of the importance of the risk factors related to the seismic hazard description. two different stochastic ground motion models were considered a source-based one [gm1] (atkinson and silva 2000) and a record-based one [gm2] (rezaeian and der kiureghian 2010). these models are formulated by modulating a high-dimensional stochastic sequence through functions that address spectral and temporal characteristics of the excitation. the parameters of these models are connected to the regional seismicity characteristics through predictive relationships. description of the uncertainty for these characteristics and for the predictive relationships, by appropriate probability models, leads then to a complete description of seismic hazard, expressed in terms of ground-motion time-history. an assembly-based vulnerability approach was adopted in this setting to quantify earthquake losses based on the nonlinear time-history structural response. life-cycle repair cost was quantified by its expected value over the space of the uncertain parameters for (each) excitation model considered and estimation of this expected value through stochastic simulation was adopted. an efficient probabilistic sensitivity analysis was also discussed, based on advanced stochastic sampling concepts. this analysis aims to identify the importance of the various uncertain parameters within the seismic hazard description (i.e., risk factors) in the overall performance of the structural system as well as potential correlations between them. this methodology is based on the definition of an auxiliary density function, proportional to the integrand of the expected cost integral, and on the comparison of this density to the initial probability models through their relative information entropy. the framework was illustrated through application to a four-storey concrete building. results were presented with respect to the total cost as well as with respect to the cost of different damageable assemblies. the influence of the installation of viscous dampers to the structure on the life-cycle repair cost was also considered. developing a novel biosensor with high sensitivity and specificity, fast assay time, large target number and low cost is an important goal of the biosensing community [19]. it may fundamentally transform healthcare and catalyze a new high-tech industry. my thesis goal is to develop new low-cost label-free nanotechnologies that can render such sensitive optical sensors practical for poc applications. i studied various types of nanostructures, including nanocones, nanowedges, nanogaps and nanospheres, and use the singular optical field [10-14] near them to enhance the optical signals from the probes, thus eliminating the need for expensive detectors. all the sensors do not require nanofabrication techniques and can be integrated to a handheld portable platform that is low-cost and easy to use. the specific molecules quantified in my biosensors are micrornas, whose irregular expression has been linked to several cancer and chronic diseases. to eliminate target labeling, i have integrated a new hairpin oligo probe with switchable fluorescent reporters to these nanostructures. to reduce assay time, i use dielectrophoresis (dep) force and electrophoretic force to trap molecules, which drastically speeds up detection process. i have demonstrated detection of a hundred molecules within fifteen minutes by driving molecules into detection region using electrophoretic force. in addition, i integrated a molecule concentrator [6] with cone array sensor and reduced assay time from more than ten hours to less than one hour. i also employ singular electric field at geometric singularities to generate nanodrops for a future massively large (billions) molecular screening platform. i conclude in the final chapter with a discussion on possible improvements and integration issues to realize integrated platforms. this dissertation utilizes x-ray absorption spectroscopy (xas) to investigate the binding mechanisms of cd sorbed to iron-oxide mineral hematite (α-fe2o3) nanoparticles and cr bound to redox active 3, 5-di-tert-butyl-1, 2-quinone-1-(2-oxy-3, 5-di-tert-butylphenyl)imine or "ono" ligand (cr(ono)2).recent studies have shown that iron-oxide mineral structure, stability and reactivity with respect to environmental processes such as sorption (loss of cd from solution through either adsorption or precipitation) and dissolution may be different when the size of particles is in the nano-sized range. this study investigates the effects of hematite (α-fe2o3) nanoparticle (np) size (8 nm versus 40 nm) on cadmium (cd) sorption mechanism(s) using batch sorption experiments coupled with xas. the extent of sorption (as percent sorbed or surface coverage to nps) as well as sorption mechanism(s) indicate that as 8 nm and 40 nm nps have substantially different specific surface areas, the results depend on whether the experiments are run normalized to np surface area (surface area normalized-san) or normalized to np mass (mass normalized-mn) within reaction vessels. cd sorption has increased to ~100% at ph 9.5 but the sorption edge has shifted to the right for larger nps. xas results indicate that at ph 7.5, cd has adsorbed to 8 nm and 40 nm san nps while more precipitation has been observed on 40 nm mn nps. at ph 9, adsorption and minor precipitation in 8 nm nps, a more balanced mixture of adsorption and precipitation on 40 nm san nps and more precipitation on 40 nm mn nps have been observed. in another study, differences between solid state and solution state cr(ono)2 have been investigated using xas. this investigation is part of a broad study of bonding and structure down group vi complexes of the "ono" ligand. when metal complexes contain redox-active ligands, they are capable of adopting multiple stable oxidation states making it hard to define the oxidation of the central atom. x-ray absorption near edge structure (xanes) data indicate that cr is more oxidized in cr(ono)2 in the solid state than in solution but does not suggest any integer oxidation state. extended x-ray absorption fine structure (exafs) results indicate that cr(ono)2 adopts shorter metal-ligand bond lengths in the solid in agreement with d2 symmetric structure. however, in solution state, it possesses longer metal-ligand bond lengths similar to a d2 symmetric structure with 0.022(±0.004) å longer cr-o and 0.066(±0.012) å longer cr-n distances than in the solid or a c2 symmetric structure with one ligand at very similar distances as in the solid and the other with average bond elongations of 0.064 (0.008) å. this result is in complete disagreement with similarities found in solid state and solution state complexes of molybdenum (mo) and tungsten (w) with the "ono" ligand. guided by the developmental psychopathology framework, the present study sought to clarify the nature of the relationships between marital conflict and adolescent adjustment at each step in the causal chain. the characteristics of destructive marital conflict were examined to probe the nature of destructive conflict between couples; of particular interest in this regard was the concept of active and passive types of conflict. several intervening variables in the broader context of emotional security were then examined in both mediation and moderated mediation models to clarify their role in the link between types of destructive conflict and adolescent adjustment. in addition, the present study moved beyond the traditional focus on internalizing and externalizing behavior problems to also examine the impact of exposure to destructive marital conflict on adolescents? social adjustment. results indicated that active and passive conflict types were associated with different outcomes through different processes, contributing to attempts called for in the broader literature for increased precision in understanding the heterogeneity of destructive conflict and lending support to conceptualizations about interindividual differences in the expression of emotional insecurity. the present study addresses a gap in the literature by focusing its inquiries into the nature of these processes as they unfold overtime on the period of adolescence, and has important implications for translational research efforts. other implications of the current study and future directions are also discussed. this paper seeks to expand sociologists' approach to inequalities in educational outcomes by considering the total inequality in student learning as a relevant educational outcome. by analyzing the variability in achievement directly, this paper goes beyond the existing literature on inequalities in educational opportunities by analyzing total achievement inequality directly. it identifies school and institutional practices related to achievement inequality in the form of variations of opportunities to learn and the intensity of schooling. particularly, it shows that decreasing the variability in opportunities to learn within the school system might reduce achievement inequality. this means that reductions in the variation of the quality of teachers across schools and the absence of tracking are associated with lower achievement inequality. more intense schooling is also related to lower achievement inequality to the extent that this intensity is homogeneously distributed within the school system, particularly in the form of higher teacher quality across the board. future research should contribute to understanding the mechanisms behind these relationships as well as identifying the short and long term implications of more egalitarian education. low-temperature ultra-high-vacuum scanning tunneling microscopy (stm) is used to study diand trinuclear iron-based organometallic molecules. chemical oxidation of these molecules leads to mixed-valence species with interesting intramolecular charge-transfer properties. stm images of neutral molecules show symmetrical distribution of electron density across the metal centers because the metal centers are present in the same oxidation state. stm images of mixed-valence molecules show an asymmetric distribution of the electron density, indicating that the metal centers are present in di&#64256;erent oxidation states. i have found that the intramolecular charge-transfer rates depend on the geometry of the organic linker between the metal centers, and that these mixed-valence compounds retain their electronic properties when placed on a metal surface in the absence of bulk solvent. comparison with theoretical stm images derived from constrained-density-functional theory (cdft) calculations leads to the conclusion that the observed features in the stm images are electronic in nature. investigation of mixed-valence dinuclear organometallic molecules with asymmetric electron state density may open up the possibility for their use in molecularly based electronic devices. this dissertation shows how the thought of karl rahner presents the ethos of catholic christianity, which, since the dawn of modernity, one might call the catholic sublime, and its late modern instantiation, called sublime apprehension. as a constructive effort, the dissertation re-places rahner into an idiom proximate, though unequal to his ownì¢ ââ' the heideggerian critique of modern subjectivity. the majority of the dissertation's work consists in uncoupling rahner's difficult term, vorgriff, from the metaphorical associations of grasping (greifen) latent within it. this uncoupling occurs in various phases, passing through rahner's appropriations of thomas aquinas and ignatius of loyola and his teachings on grace, mystery, and eschatology, martin heidegger's readings of friedrich nietzsche, friedrich hìäå¦lderlin, and rainer maria rilke, and the sublime-aesthetics of jean-franìäå¤ois lyotard, jean-luc nancy and jean-luc marion. the dissertation aims to retrieve a truly rahnerian rahner, and to show his, and catholicism's, versatility for the future. the properties of actinide materials have been explored by discriminate ligand selection based on hyperpolarizability and control of oxidation state. this has led to a number of interesting compounds that further the chemistry of the underexplored 5f series. this includes the synthesis and isolation of the surpisingly air stable u(iii) and np(iii) sulfates along with the synthesis of pu(iii) molybdate and pu(iii) tungstate, which feature a metal to metal charge transfer. there are two goals of this work. the first is to explore the bonding in trivalent 5f complexes with oxoanions. oxoanion bonding to the 5f elements can range from completely ionic to partially covalent. however, there is little indication of which ligands will express covalent interactions and which will express ionic interactions. this work shows that the hyperpolarizability can be used as an indication of anion polarizability which heavily influences the type of bonding observed. anions with low polarizability, such as phosphite, will participate in ionic bonding, and there will be little difference between the lanthanide and actinide compounds. anions with high polarizability, such as molybdate or tungstate, will have partially covalent bonds to the actinide leading to unusual properties and distinct difference to the lanthanide analogues. the second goal of this work is to access and stabilize unusually low oxidation states using hydrothermal techniques. as the electronic properties of actinides are dependent on oxidation state, the ability to access and stabilize different oxidation states is of utmost importance. oxoanion complexes of u(iii) and np(iii) are exceedingly rare, leaving many of their properties underexplored. it is shown that u(iii) and np(iii) can be obtained hydrothermally from higher valent starting materials. these products are isolated using znhg amalgam hydrothermally, with no regards to o2 exclusion. this work also shows that this chemistry is useful outside of the actinides with the production of eu(ii), v(ii), and cr(ii) compounds in a similar manner. this dissertation is focused on synthesis and characterization on a number of lanthanide, actinide, and transition metal complexes. chapters 3 &8211; 6 focus on the bonding of ligands with low versus high hyperpolarizability when complexed with lanthanides and actinides. chapters 7 &8211; 11 focus on the use of znhg as an in situ reductant. this work has implications for actinide chemistry through a method of ligand discrimination to affect actinide properties. this work also has general implications through the metal-to-metal charge transfer of f-elements which could impact the development of materials as well as the isolation of v(ii) and cr(ii) through hydrothermal synthesis. giant resonances are archetypal forms of collective nuclear motion which provide a unique laboratory setting to probe the bulk properties of the nuclear force. one of the isoscalar compressional modes -namely, the isoscalar giant monopole resonance (isgmr) -has been studied extensively with the goal of constraining the density dependence of the equation of state (eos) for infinite nuclear matter. for example, the nuclear incompressibility is a fundamental quantity in the eos and is directly correlated with the energies of the isgmr in finite nuclei.previous work has shown that interactions with values of the incompressibility which reproduce the centroid energies of the isgmr in 208pb and 90zr well, overestimate the isgmr response of the tin and cadmium nuclei. to further elucidate this question as also to examine when this "softness" appears in moving away from the doubly-closed nucleus 90zr, and how this effect develops, the first portion of this thesis consists of measurements and analyses of the isgmr within the molybdenum isotopes. the experiments were performed for 94mo, 96mo, 97mo, 98mo, and 100mo, using inelastic scattering of 100 mev/u alpha-particles at the research center for nuclear physics at osaka university. the strength distributions for the giant resonances were extracted using multipole decomposition analyses within a markov-chain monte carlo framework to quantify the uncertainties in the strength distributions and the isgmr energies. comparison of the measured isgmr strengths with random phase approximation calculations demonstrates that the molybdenum nuclei have isgmr energies which are overestimated to a similar degree as seen in the tin and cadmium nuclei, while the strength of 208pb is precisely reproduced. this suggests clearly that the molybdenum nuclei exhibit the same open-shell softness which has been documented previously.studies of the isgmr in isotopic chains encompassing a broad range of proton-neutron asymmetries allow for extraction of the dependence of the finite nuclear incompressibility on the isospin asymmetry, as quantified by the asymmetry term of the nuclear incompressibility. recent data on the isgmr in 40ca, 44ca, and 48ca have contradicted prior results for the asymmetry term. to reconcile the otherwise highly concerning conclusion that its value is +582 mev, the second portion of this thesis is focused upon independently studying this claim. a simultaneous measurement of the isgmr in 40ca, 42ca, 44ca, and 48ca was completed and has resulted in a high-confidence exclusion of the possibility of a positive value for the asymmetry term, and indeed has found consistency with previous data, placing its value at -510 +/115 mev. computational modeling of heterogeneous catalysis relies on our ability to efficiently model the free energies of adsorption. these free energies depend on a number of factors, including the nature of adsorbate/surface composition, system temperature, gas phase reactant and product partial pressures, and adsorbate coverage. under a given set of conditions, the system attempts to minimize its free energy. the minimization of free energy is driven by two competing factors: energetic driving force for creating adsorbate-surface bonds and the entropic cost of reducing the degrees of freedom of an adsorbate as it moves from a fluid phase to the surface. standard density functional theory (dft) approaches begin with the optimization of the location of an adsorbate on a surface and computation of the associated binding energy, followed by approximation of internal, translational, and configurational contributions to the free energy. in this work, we explored both the aspects of free energy, the contribution from creation of adsorbate-surface bonds and the estimation of entropic contribution to the free energy. larvae of the beetle dendroides canadensis produce a family of antifreeze proteins (dafps), four of which (dafp-1, -2, -4, and -6) are in the hemolymph. antifreeze proteins (afps) lower the non-colligative freezing point of water (in the presence of ice) below the melting point, producing a difference between the freezing and melting points termed thermal hysteresis activity (tha). this tha is dependent upon afp specific activity, concentration, and the presence of enhancers. enhancers may be low molecular mass enhancers such as glycerol, or other proteins. the protein enhancers complex with the dafps, thereby blocking a larger surface area of the potential seed ice crystal and/or making the complex harder for ice to overgrow, and consequently lowering the freezing point. a yeast two-hybrid screen was performed using certain hemolymph dafps as'bait' to identify endogenous protein enhancers. among the positive proteins identified as with the bait dafps, and confirmed by co-immunoprecipitation, were other dafps as well as a thuamatin-like protein. when different dafps were combined, those identified by the yeast two-hybrid screen as positives exhibited a synergistic enhancement of tha. in contrast, those dafps which the screen indicated did not interact, failed to enhance one anothers. dafps -1 and -2 interact and enhance one another. point mutations of dafp-2 indicated that both of the two amino acid residues that differ between dafps -1 and -2 were required for interaction. the thaumatin-like protein also significantly enhanced the tha of dafps-1 and -2. glycerol enhanced the tha of the dafps only when proteins known to interact were present in the test solution. addition of glycerol to a test solution containing only one dafp did not produce enhancement. therefore, glycerol enhances activity by stimulating interactions between dafps and between dafps and enhancer proteins, such as the thaumatin-like protein. native dafp-6 lacks tha, however, mutation of any of the four residues that differ between dafp-6 and dafp-4 (which is active) produced mutated dafp-6 with low tha. rnai technology was shown to be useful to knock-down dafp transcripts with injection of dsrna of dafp-1. 'smart' sensors with embedded microprocessors and wireless communication links have the potential to change fundamentally the way civil infrastructure systems are monitored, controlled, and maintained. a 2002 national research council report noted that the use of networked systems of embedded computers and sensors throughout society could well dwarf all previous milestones in the information revolution. structural health monitoring and control systems (shm/c) represent one of the primary applications for new sensor technologies. this dissertation explores the use of the smart sensor technology for the shm/c of civil infrastructure. following a brief introduction to smart sensor technology, a literature review of the devices developed to date is presented. the research herein concentrates on the mote platform developed at the university of california at berkeley. this platform offers for the first time an open software/hardware environment for a broad range of smart sensing research. the suitability of the accelerometer on the existing berkeley-platform for civil engineering applications is then investigated. a new sensor board (called tadeo) is developed that has a high sensitivity accelerometer, a microphone, a thermistor, and photo resistor. the accelerometer employed overcomes many of the deficiencies of the sensor on the available boards. however, a number of the challenges still remaining are identified. an agent-based paradigm is proposed that supports implementation of shm/c algorithms on networks of smart sensors. because traditional algorithms for shm/c assume that data is centrally processed, they cannot be implemented directly in the distributed computing environment employed by smart sensors. to demonstrate the efficacy of this approach, a reference implementation of the agent-based framework is provided for a shm system employing the ar-arx algorithm. numerical examples indicate that the framework is effective. this initial research demonstrates the feasibility of using smart sensors for shm of civil infrastructure. a new sensor board is developed and shown to meet the needs of the application. an agent-based framework for smart sensing is proposed and shown to perform well. this research begins to lay the foundation from which the many opportunities offered by smart sensing technology can be pursued. in this dissertation, we describe the cores of several classes of monomial ideals. we also find bounds on the reduction numbers of these ideals. the first class of ideals which we consider is one coming from graph theory, the strongly stable ideals of degree two. we prove that a strongly stable ideal i of degree two in k[x_1,...,x_d] has the g_d property if and only if x_{g-1}x_d is in i, where g is the height of i. we also prove that any strongly stable ideal of degree two in k[x_1,...,x_d] which has the g_d property satisfies the artin-nagata property an_{d-1}. we then show that the core of such an ideal i is given by core(i)=i m^{g-1}, where g is the height of i, and m is the homogeneous maximal ideal (x_1,...,x_d). we also show that the reduction number r(i) is at most g-1. specifically, we prove that an ideal j=j_i whose elements correspond to diagonals in the tableau associated to i is a minimal reduction of i, and that r_j(i) < g. the other classes of ideals which we consider are zero-dimensional monomial ideals in the polynomial ring r=k[x_1,...,x_d]. we show that, if such an ideal i is an almost complete intersection, then the core of i satisfies a (d+1)-fold symmetry property coming from the generators of i, and hence that the shape of core(i) is closely related to the shape of i. using this symmetry property, we completely describe the shape of core(i) in the case where i has a monomial minimal reduction. then, in the two-dimensional case, we give an algorithm for computing the core of i which allows us to prove that the minimal number of generators of core(i) is 2r+2, where r is the reduction number of i. we prove that this result holds even for ideals which do not have a minimal reduction which is monomial. we also describe the core of an ideal i in k[x,y] having more generators, in the case where i has a monomial minimal reduction. finally, we consider a strongly stable ideal i in k[x,y] having a monomial minimal reduction j. we prove that r_j(i) leq mu(i)-2, and we give an algorithm for obtaining the core of i via its first coefficient ideal. augustine has been neglected in contemporary moral philosophy, despite the rise to prominence of virtue-based approaches in ethics. this 'virtue revival' has sparked extensive examination of ancient and medieval ethics, to the relative neglect of augustine, who is an important figure in that tradition. this dissertation seeks to develop the outline of an augustinian approach to ethics by bringing augustine into contact with contemporary reflections on practical reason. in particular, it engages thinkers who seek to gain traction on issues of moral philosophy by examining the contours, requirements and presuppositions of successful human agency. the dissertation articulates an augustinian understanding of practical reason by discussing ways that these debates can benefit from augustine's insight that all exercises of practical reason which fail to recognize that the human heart is restless until it rests in god are self-defeating. the dissertation explores the usefulness of this augustinian idea by examining the phenomenon of the defeasible goodness of the goods agents pursue in action. it suggests that the best way for agents to make sense of the defeasible goodness of good things is by rendering these goods commensurable in terms of the place they can play within a certain kind of 'pilgrim' life described in the third chapter. however, the commensurability of goods must be understood as a result of practical deliberation, not a precondition of it. this approach requires taking seriously the possibility that practical reason comes along too late to be of any use. that is, agents typically possess the resources for successful deliberation only after making the relevant decisions. chapter five discusses this problem, critiques an influential approach to it, and suggests an augustinian approach to the problem. although studies of early christian martyrs have blossomed in recent decades, surprisingly there exists no comprehensive study of bishop martyrs, despite the large number of martyrs who occupied positions of leadership within the church. this dissertation fills that gap in scholarship by providing a study of the earliest bishop martyrs, ignatius of antioch, polycarp of smyrna, and pothinus of lyons, who all died in the second century ce. since bishops and martyrs were both viewed as possessors of considerable authority, this dissertation probes the intersection of suffering and authority in memorializations of second-century bishop martyrs.part i of the dissertation (chapters 2–4) provides an overview of memorializations of leaders' deaths within ancient greek, roman, jewish, and christian literature, in which the leaders' deaths were remembered as providing special benefits to others. these "effective deaths" include, among others, the roman devotio ritual, the greek φαρμακός ritual and myth, the jewish martyrs of 2 and 4 maccabees, jesus's death, and paul's suffering and anticipated death. these chapters provide concepts and themes that influence subsequent christian memorializations of the bishop martyrs. part ii (chapters 5–7) analyzes ignatius, polycarp, and pothinus in light of the material studied in part i. the analysis centers on several themes: (1) what kind of authority is given to the bishop martyr in the writings connected with his death? (2) what benefits does the bishop's martyrdom bring to others? (3) how is the bishop's martyrdom portrayed as imitation of christ? (4) what benefits does the bishop's martyrdom bring to himself? (5) what happens to the bishop martyr's authority after death?this dissertation finds commonalities among the memorializations of ignatius, polycarp, and pothinus. all three are remembered for effective deaths in the mold of those studied in part i: dying to unite, protect, and strengthen the catholic church, opposing false teaching and apostasy, and solidifying the teaching role of the episcopal office. finally, as a foundation from which irenaeus argues for apostolic succession of the episcopacy, their memory is used to form a lasting contribution to the growth of episcopal power. this thesis shows how the use of visual perception adumbrates spiritual realities in dante's commedia and george herbert's the temple. it explores both poets' presentation of "la battaglia de' debili cigli"— the battle of the weak eyelashes, in which human vision is strengthened in order to perceive divine revelation and love (paradiso 23, 78). it suggests, first, that dante's sensory responses to the church triumphant and the christic sun imitate the church militant's participation in the eucharistic feast. it then addresses herbert's emphasis on how god "mends" human eyes ("the h. scriptures" (i), 9). it suggests that "the windows" upends aristotelian hierarchies of color and light to help us see preaching in a new way. it then traces vision-centered metaphors in "the glimpse" and "the glance" and counters a critical perception that the abstraction of sensory images in the temple constitutes a mock physicality. drawing on 15 in-depth interviews with military chaplain women, i offer an exploration of what intersecting individual, interactional, and institutional gender structure constraints exist within u.s. military chaplaincy. military chaplaincy lies at the intersection of two masculinist institutions, which results in additive layers of gendered constraints for the women within it. after identifying the gendered constraints present within military chaplaincy, i then assess how military chaplain women navigate them, and why they engage in the type of agentic action they do. this study extends past research for women within military contexts, as it shows that women military chaplains respond differently than women within the broader military context because of the religious influence present. this work emphasizes the importance of agency for religious actors to be conceptualized to where autonomy exists alongside a prior act of personal surrender to a divine authority (mack 2003:156). this research also provides a new angle for how women act as agents within structural and cultural limitations that are outside of their own religious belief systems. this extends past understanding of the constraints and agentic action for women within religion. analysis shows how the women's personal understandings of religious absolute truth is not the only determining factor impacting agentic action, but that the intersecting constraints of the gender structure and their career path prior to entering military chaplaincy also impacts agentic action. with the everchanging landscape that is the world energy demand as it trends with increasing world population, an equally versatile approach capable of changing with this landscape is vital. traditional energy conversion methods currently in use are unsustainable and compound global environmental issues as they rely on limited natural resources such as fossil fuels and natural gas; however, developing clean, renewable systems capable of generating this energy can begin to address these issues. therefore, the discovery and development of materials and devices capable of not only promoting the clean energy agenda, but also serving as multifunctional systems to address additional issues has been the focus of my work thus far. two major tasks focused on very distinct applications of reduced graphene oxide (rgo)-based multifunctional mats have been explored; the development of smart materials capable of sensing and degrading target compounds as well as designing graphene-supported catalysts towards the development of heterogeneous chemical fuel generation systems. the overall focus of this work is geared towards understanding the photophysical, electrochemical, and photoelectrochemical properties and performance of each catalyst for the proposed systems separately to later couple together with graphene.first, the optical, photophysical and catalytic properties of cdse/cds heternanostructures were explored for application in chemical sensing and degradation. first, i will discuss the systematic evaluation of the light-matter interaction of cdse/cds qrs and the effects of cds shell length on its photophysical properties as it was performed.1 the qualification of electron transfer rates as well as application as a photocatalytic material was also explored. in direct continuation of this study, the cdse/cds qrs were then evaluated as biofunctionalized chemical sensors for the trace detection of chemical warfare agent simulants. the unparalleled high qys and simple surface modification of the cdse/cds qr proved to provide as an excellent probe for organophsphonate detection via fluorescence quenching mechanism. in the second portion of this dissertation, the electronic properties of rgo catalyst mats will be presented. specifically, the fundamental analysis of the electron capture, storage, and discharge properties of rgo via two physiosorbed redox active species will be discussed. the quantification and extent of electronic communication between these two redox species was qualified and established. upon demonstration of rgo as an electrocatalytic support, the same approach was used in collaboration with another group towards heterogenous co2 electrocatalytic reduction. we were able to demonstrate an unmatched transition from homogeneous to heterogenous catalysis without the loss of catalytic efficiency or rate, turnover frequency, or turnover rates. of the three main festivals in the hebrew bible, only the festival of weeks, or pentecost, is not explicitly associated with an historical event. however, by the rabbinic period, the rabbis commonly associate the festival of weeks with the giving of the law at mt. sinai. this study attempts to trace the development of the association between the events at sinai and the festival of weeks. the festival of weeks was originally a harvest festival that eventually acquired a religious significance. in the hebrew bible, the precise date of the festival of weeks is indeterminable, but it did occur sometime during the third month. there are already indications that the festival of weeks was associated with covenant renewal (2 chr 15:10), but this association is at best muted. it is only with the book of jubilees that there is an explicit connection between the festival of weeks and covenant renewal. in this book, the festival of weeks is dated to the fifteenth day of the third month. the most notable feature of jubilees' covenant theology is that the abrahamic and mosaic covenants are depicted as renewals of the original covenant with noah. with the publication of virtually the entire qumran corpus, it is now clear that the qumran covenanters, for whom the book of jubilees was highly revered, also celebrated the festival of weeks as the day of covenant renewal on the fifteenth day of the third month. finally, the account of pentecost in acts 2 shows numerous allusions to moses and the israelites at the foot of mt. sinai. moreover, this fits in with luke's portrait of jesus as the prophet like moses and the isaianic new exodus theme that permeates the two volume work. by means of these allusions, luke depicts jesus' giving of the spirit to his followers as the inauguration of a new community, marked not by the law, but by the spirit. this dissertation is about why spain matters to british romanticism and the political importance romantic era writers as diverse as robert southey, felicia hemans, and lord byron deduced from spain and spanish affairs during the early part of the nineteenth century. focusing on the implications of literary representations of spain in the development of british political thought, this project more specifically considers the complex ways in which romantic imaginings of spain attempted to reconcile the ideological conflicts that tended to polarize british culture and society in the aftermath of the french revolution. through its ability to be endlessly appropriated by wide-ranging groups across a diverse political spectrum' from radicals, republicans, and whig reformers to reactionaries, royalists, and tory establishmentarians' the spanish imaginary provided a unique space for imagining the national reconciliation of what was increasingly seen as the antagonism between tradition and modernity. as a nation that promised to hold on to its traditions as it modernized and reformed itself, spain after 1808, by virtue of its liberal developments during its war of independence (1808-1814), presented the most compelling model of the modern liberal state, a specific mode of government designed to secure individual civil liberties while remaining true to its national character and past. while discussion of the particulars of the formation of the modern liberal state, an originally spanish construction, remains beyond the scope of this study, the ideological reconciliation between tradition and modernity on which i am arguing it is based proved immensely important in bringing about a conceptual change in the way britain viewed itself as a nation, and the world around it. decarbonization efforts across north america, europe, and beyond have prompted a rise in variable renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, and investigations in alternative fuels to aid in the transition, such as hydrogen. these changes have prompted a need for more flexibility in the electric grid, as renewables are responsible for high variability in energy availability. integrated energy systems (iess) are well suited to provide this flexibility, but conventional technoeconomic modeling paradigms neglect the time-varying dynamic nature of the grid and thus undervalue resource flexibility. in this work, we develop a computational optimization framework for dynamic market-based technoeconomic comparison of iess that co-produce low carbon electricity and hydrogen (e.g., solid oxide fuel cells, solid oxide electrolysis) against technologies that only produce electricity (e.g., natural gas combined cycle with carbon capture) or hydrogen. our framework starts with rigorous physics-based process models, built in the idaes-pse open-source modeling platform, for six energy system concepts. using data from these models, we train algebraic surrogate models, which enable tractable multi-period optimization of electricity and hydrogen coproduction based on energy prices. we repeat this analysis for all six concepts, 61 energy price scenarios, and five possible hydrogen selling prices and find solid oxide fuel cell-based coproduction systems achieve positive profits for 84%-86% of our tested market scenarios. from these market optimization results, we use multivariate linear regression to fit algebraic equations which predict optimized annual profit based on market features with r-squared values up to 0.99. the developed framework provides a powerful tool for direct comparison of flexible, multi-product energy system concepts to help discern optimal technology and integration options. throughout his long career, gaston litaize contributed significantly to the cultural and religious life of the french nation as a concert organist, teacher, and church musician. he is remembered in particular for his long tenure as director of religious programming for french national radio, organiste titulaire at the church of saint-françois-xavier in paris, and professor of organ at the institut national des jeunes aveugles and the conservatoire à rayonnement régional de saint-maur des fossés. even though respect for his memory and music lives on in france, especially through his many students, litaize's compositions remain relatively unknown and unperformed in the united states. no significant scholarship has explored his organ music in regard to its relationship to other prominent works of the twentieth-century french organ school or its contribution to the various musical genres in which he composed. in order to contribute to a wider appreciation of litaize's musical influence and legacy, this project focuses on his liturgical music for organ in three of his organ masses: the grande messe pour tous les temps, 1948; the messe basse pour tous les temps, 1949; and the messe de la toussaint, 1964. these three works represent the culmination of the organ mass genre before its demise during the liturgical revisions in the roman catholic church prompted by the second vatican council (1962-1965). detailed analysis of these three organ masses will reveal litaize's compositional language to be a synthesis of the symphonic techniques of louis vierne, the virtuosity of marcel dupré, and the gregorian chant-based spiritual mysticism of charles tournemire. litaize's effortless facility with complex compositional devices, especially fugue and canon, also marks him as the heir to the contrapuntal tradition of organ music in france. no other french organist-composer of his generation displays an equivalent mastery of counterpoint, either in composition or in improvisation. in these three organ masses litaize produced works of great craftsmanship and beauty that represent the culmination of a now extinct twentieth-century french musical and liturgical genre. in addition, this music proves that litaize himself was the greatest proponent of historically-informed, yet innovative, contrapuntal organ music in the twentieth-century french organ school. an elegy written primarily in linked haiku and cultural surrealism based primarily on the author's experiences in japan. the introduction of β-lactam antibiotics to our healthcare repertoire is one of the greatest innovations of the 20th century. 1 these molecules are largely responsible for the increase in expected lifespan as they render once life-threatening bacterial infections easily curable. they elicit their effect through inhibiting penicillin binding proteins (pbps) as mimics of the d-ala-d-ala substrate the pbps are responsible for cross-linking in peptidoglycan synthesis of the bacterial cell wall. antibiotic resistance to β-lactams occurs via many different mechanisms. this dissertation focuses on β-lactamases and a protein associated with signaling for the production of β-lactamases by antibiotic resistance bacteria. much of our knowledge about β-lactamase resistance proteins has come from x-ray crystallography studies. 2-7 two proteins in which crystal structures are available are the extracellular sensor domain of the signaling protein blar1 (blars) 6from gram-positive staphylococcus aureus and the class d β-lactamase oxa-242 from the gram-negative acinetobacter baumannii. while these studies have provided us with a solid understanding of how these proteins work, these structures largely ignore information about the mobility and dynamics of the protein. this gap in knowledge begs for further exploration into characterizing the dynamics of regions implicated in both binding and hydrolysis of β-lactams. nuclear magnetic resonance (nmr) is the premier method to determine the site-specific dynamics of proteins. this work focuses on the characterization of the backbone dynamics of blars, oxa-24/40, and oxa-160 using primarily reduced spectral density mapping. the structure equals function paradigm has dominated biochemical thinking since the advent of structural biology. however, this ideology has largely assumed one/the structure equals function. this thesis highlights how protein dynamics, or the structural ensemble of a protein, ultimately shapes a proteins function. developing solutions for the construction of biologically active compounds lies at the heart of the field of synthetic organic chemistry. in particular, methods that allow for the efficient assembly of multiple c–c bonds in a single process greatly increase synthetic efficiency. the calyxins, a family of curcumin-derived, diarylheptanoid natural products containing all-carbon tertiary centers have not been examined as anti-cancer agents due to their limited bioavailability. a method that allows for the efficacious synthesis of curcumin and calyxin analogs will permit their evaluation as potential chemotherapeutics.this dissertation describes the development of a multicomponent coupling that uses catalytic titanocene to generate all-carbon tertiary centers from readily accessible aromatic aldehyde starting materials. iodoalkynes and silyl enol ethers are harnessed as nucleophiles to construct symmetrical 1,4-diynes, unsymmetrical 1,4-diynes, and b-alkynyl carbonyls in a single operation. this seminal work has laid the foundation for further work in our group by gianino and lepore to construct diarylethynyl methanes and 1,5-enynes, respectively. intriguing, strain-driven ring openings and expansions are observed with cyclopropane and cyclobutane carboxaldehyde starting materials. in these cases, iodide incorporation leads to the formation of 1,3-iodoenynes instead of the expected three component coupling products.our titanocene-catalyzed multicomponent coupling protocol has been applied as a key step in work towards the synthesis of the trimethoxy analog of calyxin l. modification of each coupling partner also allows for the strategic design and examination of a diverse array of curcumin-derived arylheptanoid analogs. c1 and c3 aryl-substituted analogs of curcumin have been constructed with two of the c3-arylated analogs showing mm activity against a series of glioblastoma and neuroblastoma cell lines. in vitro toxicity to hematopoietic cells was not observed, providing a foundation for the synthesis of diarylheptanoid analogs that are cytotoxic to brain and peripheral nervous system cancers. a thesis examining the ambiguity of epirote cultural identity, and the use of ethnic identity for political purposes by pyrrhus. a work of creative nonfiction that seeks to navigate the various labyrinths of the human body, starting with the inner ear and ending with the heart. ----note: permanent private status; do not release file or record; do not catalog. the status of this file was changed to permanent withholding, per agreement between the author, the program, and the graduate school. contact the graduate school dissertation editor with questions. 2/14/2011 shari hill this article tests conflicting theories of schools as institutions by studying how the relationship between teacher credentials and student learning is moderated by school sector. i use large-scale institutional data on primary school students from the indiana department of education and a multilevel model of student test score growth in mathematics. the model utilizes fixed effects at the studentand school-level, with the aim of identifying the causal effect of teachers and schools by leveraging students who move across school sectors.consistent with previous research (clotfelter, ladd, and vigdor 2007), i find no effect for teacher degree level or certification status, and this does not vary by sector. however, a teacher's years of experience is strongly related to growth and varies depending upon school sector. while charter school teachers tend to see lower test score growth in their students, this effect is lessened when comparing teachers in the initial stage of their career and in high-poverty schools, both of which are more common in indiana's charter schools. on the other hand, i find that students placed with catholic school teachers who are in the first six years of their career are expected to experience substantially less growth than students placed with traditional public school teachers within the first six years of their career. however, more experienced catholic and traditional public school teachers are indistinguishable. these findings contradict current institutional models of schooling, and suggest that school sectors should be considered as distinct institutions with different isomorphic tendencies. i conclude by speculating about the classroom-level structural obstacles that teachers face, and suggest future opportunities for research into the mechanisms that mediate these findings. while scholars recognize that the polemical debates between post-reformation protestants and catholics sparked a re-consideration of how england's recent catholic past fit into a changing understanding of english national and religious history, the ways in which literary genres, like the romance, shaped and were shaped by such debates are less well studied. to bring the romance genre into these conversations, this dissertation argues that for the producers and readers of the medieval romance, the genre and the books that preserved it were a means by which readers could both travel to the past and meditate on their connections with that past. combining bibliographical analysis, reception history, and theories of cultural memory and historiography, this project demonstrates that polytemporal material objects allowed readers to experience both present and past in directions that unsettle the period divisions foundational to much modern scholarship.after chapter one grounds my research theoretically, methodologically, and historically, the dissertation's remaining chapters examine four sites of material romance memory: the library, the manuscript, the monument, and the museum. in chapter two, i study the act of building a collection or library as a means by which readers could materially fashion their own versions of literary history. chapter three takes up two romance manuscripts that were created by a catholic scribe in 1564, complicating narratives that trace progress from medieval to early-modern, catholic to protestant, or manuscript to print. chapter four analyzes thomas berthelette's 1532 folio edition of john gower's confessio amantis alongside william shakespeare's reimagining of gower in his late romance pericles. i argue that while berthelette separates the medieval author from his work, shakespeare's play both recognizes gower's alterity and simultaneously insists on his presence in living cultural memory. finally, chapter five compares two collections of artifacts said to be associated with the romance of guy of warwick, arguing that medieval and early-modern romance texts provided the narrative framing needed to make such objects legible. medieval literary narratives and historical records show that medieval women navigated various spiritual and material postmortem concerns in their families and communities. they arranged for prayers to speed their loved ones' souls through purgatory and made similar provisions for themselves, overseeing the administration of their loved ones' estates and coordinating the correct execution of their own property. this dissertation takes the unusual approach of considering women's differing approaches to these overlapping concerns. chapter one argues that vision narratives in bede's historia ecclesiastica encourage readers to understand their responsibilities to pray for souls in the afterlife as they do penance for their sins. it then turns to extant anglo-saxon wills to discuss how the responsibilities of noble and aristocratic women are represented. chapter two presents a new reading of the "wife of bath's prologue" that emphasizes her unique approach to her fourth husband's death as she balances her postmortem responsibilities to him with her immediate remarriage. alison compares the tomb she provides her fourth husband unfavorably with the one built by alexander for his enemy darius, but reveals that she acts with concern, while also tending to her own wishes.the third chapter examines a network of wills of women from aldermanic families in late thirteenth-century london, particularly focusing on isabella bukerel, one of the wealthiest women in london during this period. as they prepared for their deaths, thirteenth-century london women capably prioritized not only their own legal, material, and spiritual interests, but also those of their family members. additionally, bukerel's will and her sister's acknowledge an important relationship between bukerel and her clerk. chapter four argues that in the middle english romance ywain and gawain, a network of grieving women grapple with competing personal and public responsibilities after the death of an important male member of the community. alundyne's responsibilities to her court must outweigh her desire to mourn her husband, while the daughter of a lord ignores her private and public responsibilities and disinherits her sister to keep the estate for herself. the conclusion closes the dissertation with a discussion of another fourteenth-century romance, the awntyrs off arthure, in which guinevere must fulfill her own responsibilities to her dead mother after a visit. this narrative crystallizes the important private and civic responsibilities that women in this dissertation must meet and the resources they utilize to balance their concerns. gephyronic acid is a secondary metabolite exhibiting potent anti-cancer and antibiotic activities. this polyketide natural product was first isolated at the hzi (helmholtz-zentrum fì_r infektionsforschung) by sasse, h fle, and reichenbach from the myxobacterium archangium gephyra in 1995. it was reported to exist as a separable mixture of open keto-alcohol and closed hemiketal forms, but only the gross structure was identified. gephyronic acid has been shown to inhibit the growth of yeast and mold in the micromolar range (mic 1-25 &#956;g/ml); it also exhibits a cytostatic effect on mammalian cell cultures (human cervix, human leukemia, human breast) in the nanomolar range (ic50 10-60 ng/ml). an in vitro translation assay demonstrated that gephyronic acid is a specific inhibitor of eukaryotic protein synthesis (ic50 66-80 ng/ml). our recent total synthesis and structural reassignment of gephyronic acid incorporates a synthetic route that provides a means by which to prepare gephyronic acid efficiently and selectively and has provided significant quantities, thus facilitating further biological evaluation towards identifying gephyronic acids specific mode of action in cancer cells. the newly proposed structure for gephyronic acid also provides further insight in to the structural relationship between related eukaryotic protein synthesis inhibitors tedanolide, myriaporone, and pederin. thus, gephyronic acid may represent a potential pharmacophoric link between structurally distinct classes of biologically active polyketides with related modes of action. moreover, we sought to identify and characterize the polyketide synthase (pks) gene cluster responsible for gephyronic acid production in the producing organism. our proposed biosynthetic pathway, has been validated via genetic analysis through complementary use of whole-genome sequencing and the use of a cosmid library derived from the myxobacteria strain cystobacter violaceus strain cb vi76, another known producer of gephyronic acid. the gene cluster identified spans 52 kb and encodes 5 type i polyketide synthases (gphfghij) and post-pks modifying enzymes including an o-methyltransferase (gpha) and cytochrome p450 (gphk). the gephyronic acid assembly line also includes several unique features, such as methyl branch incorporation from s-adenosyl-l-methionine (sam) by the action of sam-dependent methyltransferases and the presence of a unique loading domain. targeted gene inactivation of key genes resulted in deactivation of the biosynthetic pathway, providing direct evidence for its isolation and characterization. identification of the gephyronic acid gene cluster is the key step in a heterologous expression system, which will provide an alternative source of the natural product and a fermentation system for precursor directed biosynthesis of gephyronic acid analogues. human activities have increased the global pool of nitrogen (n) and changing land use may increase n reaching small streams. we examined anthropogenic impacts on n cycling in midwestern streams draining subwatersheds dominated by forested, agricultural, or urban land use and focused on factors controlling sediment denitrification using the chloramphenicol-amended acetylene inhibition technique. land use affected denitrification activity primarily via its effect on no3concentrations and sediment organic content. forested streams had the lowest denitrification rates and the lowest no3and dissolved organic carbon concentrations, compared to agricultural and urban streams. at the landscape scale, forested streams removed a greater proportion of their no3load via denitrification compared to agricultural and urban streams. factors controlling denitrification included sediment depth, substrata type, water source, and nutrient limitation. we should consider those factors when comparing denitrification rates across habitats, different methods, and when scaling denitrification rates for use in ecosystem modeling. the results presented in this thesis describe multi-scale grid generated turbulence in an internal flow setting. multi-scale grids offer benefits found in both passive and active grids -they can be used to generate high turbulence intensities, but do not require active control. various grid geometries found in literature as well as new geometries were created. experiments were performed at the hessert aerospace lab. the test set-up consisted of flow between two flat plates separated by a distance of 8.73 cm. singleand dual-wire hotwire probes were used to acquire time series of velocity downstream of the grids. multi-scale grid geometries commonly found in literature were tested in the internal flow regime to determine which geometries generated high turbulence intensities that were also spatially homogeneous. new geometries were created based on these results, and finally turbulence created using two of the grids was studied extensively using a dual-wire hotwire probe. this study ventures an account of the dawn of critical reading of the life of jesus in origen of alexandria's gospel commentaries. in addition to offering the first comprehensive study of the earliest extant commentaries on the gospels (written c. 230 – 250 ce), this project tests david f. strauss's astonishing claim that no prior understanding of the gospels more nearly approached the modern mythical view—of which he was the founder—than origen's (the life of jesus critically examined, 1835). a number of more recent new testament scholars have echoed the sentiment that origen anticipated modern criticism of the gospels, but such judgments have not yet undertaken a thoroughgoing inquiry into origen's own account of the historical and literary challenges occasioned by the narratives of jesus's life.i have set out to show that origen's approach to the gospels arises from rather straightforward historicaland literary-critical judgments: namely, the gospel narratives interweave things that happened with things that didn't or even couldn't have happened (at least not exactly as narrated). they do so, origen argues, for the sake of depicting events in jesus's life not as matters of historical facticity alone, but figuratively. in short: origen doesn't just read the gospels figuratively; he believes the evangelists were themselves figurative readers of the life of jesus. since origen, in turn, did not sense any contradiction between facing the critical challenges of the christian gospels and discerning the mystery of the christian gospel, this study will account for both as a single unified vision. this dissertation describes two high-precision measurements concerning isospin symmetry breaking in nuclei. the arousal and experience of pleasure is enjoyable, desired and actively pursued. but what about pleasure sought or realized through an encounter with the unexpected, the disgusting, or the grotesque? my work is fueled by this question and the many others which arise from it. the lists of what generates pleasure and why are as numerous and vast (albeit unique) as those who seek it. one traditional elicitor of pleasure is beauty, but this notion is problematic because there are innumerable definitions as to what exactly it means; simply put, what is considered beautiful varies greatly between historical periods and different cultures. through my research i have found that beauty is often identified as a causation of sensuality, appeal, even comfort; but as beauty is indeed always firmly rooted in the eye of the beholder, i rely on those symptoms of beauty which pan across cultural and historical eras. to examine the appeal of beauty alone through my work would be to alienate and demean it-to isolate it from the very notions which define it, and so i examine its opposite, disgust, in tandem as to provide an all encompassing investigation of the dichotomous, symbiotic relationship they maintain. the female body is the ultimate host: of taboos, sensuality, revulsion; it has the astounding ability to conjure repulsion and desire simultaneously. disgust and desire maintain a provocative relationship with regards to the female body; the numerous dichotomies which fester within this relationship drive my artistic output. most relevant to my work is the examination of the male and female reproductive system and psychoanalytical work pertaining to the mental health and state of the female as they pertain to feminist theory and art. i rely on feminist theory and discourse, the work of other female artists wrestling with the complexities of feminism, as well as research on historical and current modes of biology and psychology. much of the visual language i develop in my work derives from a synthesis of this research. i don't intend for the undulating vessels i create to elicit pure repulsion, but rather to provide the housing. they represent an origin for all that oozes, gushes and seeps. the breaking down of boundaries is explicit in the rendering of these objects. the vessels have been ruptured, torn open in places to reveal their interiority. each opening is itself an orifice, the interface between inside and outside, and resemble mutated vaginal forms. the exposure of what appears to be mucous membrane, tissue walls and globules tethered to sinew-like sacks deconstruct the skin, or screen, which is charged with keeping them in place, at bay from the outside world, our world. this type of visual language begs the questions of what is subject and what is object, what defines us from other? and where precisely the walls of segregation are erected, eroded or in some cases, absent. the summation of my quest is eloquently stated by carolyn korsmeyer: "the complexity of aversive emotions bound up with artistic beauty creates a zone where horrid, beautiful, sublime and sublate can be difficult to distinguish. but that is why some beauty is truly terrible." (korsmeyer p. 177) siderophores are extremely versatile molecules synthesized by a variety of organisms with the objective of gathering iron, an essential element for most of living forms. these molecules have been isolated, characterized and studied providing valuable information about their nature and role in metabolism. in the case of pathogenic bacteria, the importance of iron-acquisition has resulted in the ability to recognize and utilize exogenous siderophores, which in turn has been met with the generation of drug-conjugates to combat siderophore-mediated iron-thievery. the identification of these molecules has sparked the interest of many laboratories to use siderophores as carriers to deliver antibiotics and other molecules of interest, inside bacteria because in many cases, siderophores are exclusively recognized and acquired by a specific microorganism, the possibility of designing bacteria-specific antibiotics makes the study and synthesis of these molecules an exciting area of research. in this work we explored the synthesis of a modified aryl-oxazoline component (4-nh2 substituted) present in mycobactin t, the siderophore secreted by mycobacterium tuberculosis (mtb), and explored the incorporation of a linker for derivatization. we then synthesized a series of mycobactin t analogs while pursuing a versatile maleimide-containing platform for the synthesis of novel drug-conjugates (sideromycins). satisfactorily the synthetic mycobactins were found to be potent and selective inhibitors of mtb h37rv. we also developed a route for the functionalization of antibiotics in order to obtain thiol-containing precursors and synthesized sideromycins using maleimide-containing desferrioxamine b as the corresponding ga3+-complex (gallioxamine b), our conjugates displayed selective and potent growth inhibition of gram-positive bacteria. the application of this methodology allowed the synthesis of a mycobactin sideromycin and our preliminary findings are also described in this work. entropy generation in a highly-loaded, axial turbine stage was investigated at on and off-design conditions. deviation angle, total pressure, total temperature, and specific entropy change were measured experimentally and used as validation for a rans simulation. a rans entropy transport model was proposed in order to decompose entropy transport into reversible and irreversible components. experimental measurements determined that the simulation over-predicted entropy in regions where the fluid was under-turned. investigation of the numerical simulation identified localized regions within the blade passage that were associated with significant entropy generation. furthermore, the interaction of reversible entropy transport and entropy generation was identified in these regions. entropy generation was most significant in the suction-surface boundary layer and the passage vortex. reversible entropy transport transferred the entropy generated in these regions to adjacent areas. entropy generation at on and off-design conditions was investigated. it was discovered that the viscous component of entropy generation was the most significant component at all operating points investigated. is taste a part of moral and political judgment? by extension, is taste a relevant component of an egalitarian civic education? proponents of the "politics of taste," such as david hume and edmund burke, suggested fostering existing standards of taste as a palliative to the modern democratic ills they diagnosed. mary wollstonecraft however, proposes dramatic revision of the extant model of taste driven by the spread of rational education. in this way she attempts to rescue "true taste" from its gendered and class-based contexts and include it in her educational ideal. in order to deepen and evidence wollstonecraft's abstract argument i then bring her texts together with jane austen's exploration of the moral psychology of ladies and gentlemen of taste. this argument has implications for contemporary debates about the value of a liberal arts education, the politics of food, and about what constitutes civil discourse. code: equinox is a work of experimental prose poetry that combines lyrical text with the formal structure of graphic novels / comics in order to probe the intersections of the anthropocene &amp; digital ontology in media.just as the anthropocene lives at both molecular &amp; planetary scales (co2 &amp; the climate), our myopic digital activities are inextricably related to global human devastation. this thesis ploughs the fields of cyberpunk nostalgia to dredge up what might have happened to the aesthetic that promised so much (&amp; yet disappointed so many) under the demands of the anthropocene. graphic novels such as transmetropolitan &amp; the invisibles, as well as anime series such as serial experiments lain &amp; neon genesis evangelion, serve as models of quasi-spiritual relationships to technology, &amp; points from which to consider how to mediate our present. a common assumption is that a violent environment produces violent youth; this project interrogated this assertion in two ways examining if exposure to intergroup antisocial behavior increases youth aggression, and in turn, if changes in general youth aggression are related to participation in intergroup conflict. improving on past work, the current study utilized four waves of a prospective, longitudinal dataset of mother/child dyads (n=820; 51% female; ages 10 to 20 years old) in northern ireland. hierarchical linear modeling (hlm) addressed new questions about inter-individual differences in intra-individual change in a setting of protracted political conflict. although boys were higher than girls in initial aggression, there were no significant gender differences in the average trajectory or linear change in aggression from 10 to 20 years old. as a risk factor, experience with sectarian antisocial behavior predicted greater aggression problems; however, that effect weakened with age and was buffered by a cohesive family environment. regarding the continuation of intergroup conflict, being female and having a more cohesive family negatively predicted youth participation in sectarian acts, whereas the trajectory of general aggression (i.e., intercepts and linear slopes) predicted significantly more youth engagement in out-group antisocial behavior. on an individual level, the findings identify ways the family environment serves to protect youth from greater aggression and from engaging in out-group hostility; at a societal level, the project suggests multiple ways to decrease the potential for youth mobilization in protracted conflict. this dissertation is ultimately a story about men trying to tell stories about themselves. the central character driving the narrative is a relatively obscure officer, george w. cole, who gained modest fame in central new york for leading a regiment of black soldiers under the controversial general benjamin butler, and, later, for killing his attorney after returning home from the war. by weaving cole into overlapping micro-narratives about violence between white officers and black troops, hidden war injuries, the personal struggles of fellow officers, the unbounded ambition of his highest commander, benjamin butler, and the melancholy life of his wife mary barto cole, this dissertation fleshes out the essence of the emergent myth of self-made manhood and its relationship to the war era. it also provides connective tissue between the top-down war histories of generals and epic battles and the many social histories about the 'common soldier' that have been written consciously to push the historiography away from military brass and lincoln's administration. throughout this dissertation, mediating figures like cole and those who surrounded him' all of lesser ranks like major, colonel, sergeant, or captain' hem together what has previously seemed like the disconnected experiences of the union military leaders, and lowly privates in the field, especially african american troops. the wages of sin is death: the death of the soul in greek, second temple jewish and early christian authors. abstract by john t. conroy, jr. paul writes, ". . . the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of god is eternal life in christ jesus our lord" (rom 6:23). as a skilled rhetorician, paul would not set as opposites physical death and eternal life, since they are not opposites. hence, he must have meant some kind of death other than physical death. where else in first century literature is a different kind of death found? philo of alexandria has a well developed theory of death of the soul, defined as that state where a person exists in an ontological state of separation from that which identifies a person as essentially human, namely a life of virtue, producing an intimacy with god. but where did this idea come from? chapter 1 is an introduction which locates philo's development of the death of the soul in the work of heraclitus. this chapter also outlines a division of each subsequent chapter into at least four parts, first isolating the anthropology of each thinker; second, focusing on the meaning of the fullness of life; and subsequently, of its opposite, which is death of the soul. the final focus concentrates on whether such a state of death is irrevocable. chapter 2 examines a number of the fragments of heraclitus. while he does not specifically use the phrase "the death of the soul," our main inquiry is whether someone who read his fragments could understand them as suggesting such an idea. further, it is asked if one could understand the fragments as additionally permitting a reversal of such death. the conclusion is that such a reading is possible. chapter 3 focuses on the works of philo of alexandria, and establishes both how he uses the phrase "death of the soul" and what it means. does philo use "death" metaphorically or ontologically? is the very humanity of a person affected whose soul has died? the evidence indicates that philo believed that an irrational person became something less than human. additionally, it was discovered that for philo, a person who departed from the life of virtue to the extent that he or she had become less than human was not irrevocably condemned to that state, but could recover true human life through repentance. chapter 4 concentrates on paul's epistle to the romans and how each occurrence of the word "death" or its equivalents could be understood. while paul does not use the phrase "death of the soul," it was discovered that the notion of "spiritual death" fits many expressions of death in that letter. this notion is shown to be parallel to that of philo, despite the difference in expression. it is also proposed that rom 7:14-25 can be understood as the recognition of a moral crisis and a cry for help, the first stage of repentance. chapter 5 examines the work of clement of alexandria, and shows that he included the expression "the death of the soul" in his work, and what it meant. it was discovered that his usage is coherent with philo's usage, and that he interprets rom 6:23 as expressing the death of the soul, and not physical death. it was also proposed that clement visualized death of the soul as something that can be overcome by repentance. chapter 6 demonstrates that origen also included the "death of the soul" in his theological discussions. indeed, it appears in a good number of cases, and is used in the same manner as clement and philo. further, we find that origen augmented a theory of repentance by which one could overcome the state of death resulting from vice. in addition to methods of achieving forgiveness based on new testament texts, he included the expression of repentance to a presbyter, and reception of absolution from him. chapter 7 summarizes what has been discovered and expresses the long trajectory of the idea from its incipient use in heraclitus' aphorisms to its development in origen. a primary goal of analytical chemistry is to provide robust, sensitive, selective, and efficient tools and techniques for the analysis and understanding of vast range of analytes. for analytes relevant to both human health and the environment, a critical need is to analyze an increasingly large number of compounds with decreasing detection limits, including ultra-trace (parts-per-trillion and lower) concentrations of analytes. additionally, a major consideration for all analytical techniques is the number of complex and varied matrices in which analytes must be measured. for these samples there is a strong need to develop sample preparation techniques that increase analyte recovery and allow for improved instrumental analysis. developments and applications of analytical chemistry are then driven by the advances in and needs of other scientific fields, including those in environmental and human health applications.my thesis work focuses on the development of preparation and instrumental analysis methods for analytes relevant to the human health and the environment across a variety of sample types and matrices. of particular interest is the application of liquid chromatography, tandem mass-spectrometry (lc-ms/ms) measurements for highly selective and sensitive analysis of two classes of analytes, each its own project. the first project involves perand polyfluoroalkyl substances (pfas), a class of more than 12,000 compounds which are defined by a characteristic perfluorinated carbon moiety which confers waterand oil-repellent properties. this class of compounds has found widespread use in both industrial and commercial applications since the 1950s, though, research increasingly shows hazards posed to both humans and the environment from these persistent compounds. my thesis work seeks to identify new or poorly described applications of pfas in consumer goods and to define the concentrations and types of pfas used through a combination of analytical techniques. my developed analytical methods, described in chapter 3, are applied to the measurement of pfas in various consumer goods as described in chapter 2 with a focus on cosmetics, and chapters 4 and 5 with focus on plastic products.in chapter 2, the occurrences of pfas in north american cosmetics is shown through the measurement of elevated total fluorine concentrations in more than 50% of 231 cosmetic products analyzed. targeted analysis results for select pfas in 29 cosmetic products showed that all products contained detectable amounts of pfas, at parts-per-billion and higher concentrations. results from this work also highlight the lack of disclosure or labeling of pfas presence in these cosmetic products and describes the regulatory landscape of cosmetic labeling in the united states and canada. in chapter 4, the use of fluorinated polymer processing aids in the manufacturing of thin-film and molded plastics is examined through the measurement of 39 plastic products. results from this work illustrate the presence of both polymeric and non-polymeric forms of pfas present in the plastic samples through total fluorine and targeted analysis measurements. in chapter 5, the occurrences of perfluorocarboxylic acids (pfcas) in directly fluorinated containers is explored. this work examines the amounts of pfcas present in directly fluorinated plastics and focuses on the rates and routes of migration of these pfcas into the goods that are stored in directly fluorinated containers. parts-per-billion concentrations of pfcas were shown to migrate into water, methanol, acetone, various foods, and into two indoor household products in as little as one week, demonstrating significant direct and indirect routes of exposure from directly fluorinated plastics.the second project centers on illicit substances found in street drug samples and is concentrated on those that contribute to both nonfatal and fatal overdoses in the ongoing opioid and synthetic opioid epidemic. this work seeks to demonstrate the applicability of lc-ms/ms analysis and workflows as a useful tool for independent, community and academic-based drug checking and harm reduction services to offer information on drug composition and concentrations in illicit street drug samples. chapters 6 and 7 focus on the development of two targeted analysis methods for the analysis of illicit drugs. the first of these methods, described in chapter 6, includes analysis of a total of 22 illicit drugs including opioids and stimulants. results from the analysis of 124 street drug samples collected in chicago, il showed high occurrences of opioids, namely the synthetic opioid fentanyl, across samples. in chapter 7, the same samples collected from chicago, il were screened against an lc-ms/ms method developed for 53 benzodiazepines. results from this work highlight the occurrence of various benzodiazepines, especially designer benzodiazepines, in 86% of samples screened. the factor structure the post conflict explanations (pce) scale, a compilation of behaviors commonly seen in parent-child post-conflict communications, was explored and resulted in a four-factor model: constructive, emotional dysfunction, blaming, and dismissive. longitudinal mediation analyses were conducted for these subscales' effect on adolescent internalizing and externalizing outcomes and indirect effect as mediated by emotional security. the blaming subscale, in particular, was found to be a significant predictor for internalizing (β = 0.27, se = 0.11, p = .02) and externalizing (β = 0.42, se = 0.12, p &lt; .001) problems in adolescents. the data, however, did not suggest that pce subscales would predict adolescent outcomes above and beyond the effect of overt interparental conflict (p &gt; .05). the identification of these post-conflict explanations represents a step forward in detecting destructive communication behaviors in hope of incorporating novel interventions in projects designed to improve communication and security within the family. this dissertation investigates the role of the rhetorical sub-genre of invective or vituperatio in the speeches and writings of four major latin authors: apuleius, tertullian, lactantius, and jerome. building on the work of severin koster, ilona opelt, anthony corbeill, and others, it situates invective in the latin oratorical tradition described in the ancient rhetorical handbooks, particularly quintilian's institutio oratoria.following a discussion of the definition of oratorical invective, the dissertation uses speech act theory to identify five main purposes that invective could serve in ancient oratory: social distancing, redirection of hostility or blame, polarization of a conflict, creation of plausibility, and the explanation of an event or situation. each of these five functions is illustrated initially through a brief examination of one ciceronian speech. the dissertation then proceeds to trace the history of latin invective chronologically, examining first the evidence for the survival of invective in the early imperial period, and then turning to the apologia of apuleius, several anti-heretical and moral treatises by tertullian, and the de mortibus persecutorum and divinae institutiones of lactantius. the dissertation concludes with an exploration of jerome's use of invective against his theological opponents in the context of his theological and literary project.the dissertation demonstrates the substantial continuity of the use of invective in the latin rhetorical tradition over five centuries. the five main functions of invective are identified and discussed in a wide variety of texts, and are offered as a hermeneutic tool for a greater understanding of latin texts, both imperial and patristic, in which artful insulting speech is used. an interesting question on nuclear astrophysics is the fate of x-ray burst ashes as they descend under gravity to the deep layers of an accreting neutron star crust. as the ashes sink, they are subject to a range of nuclear reactions which transmute the nuclei. the primary of these reaction mechanisms are electron capture reactions, which are activated for different isotopes depending on the electron fermi energy. at sufficiently high mass densities (&rho; = 2.1 x 109 g cm-3 for 12c + 12c and &rho; = 3.2 x 1012 g cm-3 for 40mg + 40mg), density induced fusion reactions, known as pycnonuclear reactions, begin to occur. by combining existing electron capture formalism and a phenomenological expression for pycnonuclear reactions (specifically developed for a multi component plasma environment) with a network solver, the fate of the x-ray burst ashes has been addressed. in this context it has been found that with increasing mass density, the rigid coulomb lattice of the neutron star crust dissolves into the isotopes 40mg and 46si, with an integrates energy release of between ~ 1.8 mev/u and ~ 2.4 mev/u, depending on lattice models. this result is fairly insensitive to the initial abundance distribution. the production of 46si is determined to be the result of a cyclical pycnonuclear fusion, electron capture process. structural health monitoring (shm) is becoming increasingly important due to the large network of aging infrastructure in the united states. monitoring of such structures is traditionally accomplished using accelerometers or strain gages, which are unable to resolve the global displacements of the structure, including static, quasi-static and dynamic components. given the need to observe these various response components, global positioning systems (gps) have become a viable alternative for shm. while gps has been successfully applied in full-scale deployments, several practical considerations must be assessed, including: nonstationarity of the gps reference site, the use of multi-reference processing, potential accuracy loss in real time kinematic (rtk) mode and the effects of multipath errors. the final issue is of most concern, as it poses the largest untreatable error source for gps monitoring in dense urban zones. full-scale data taken from a current gps deployment in chicago is provided to show the promise of gps, while illustrating the distortions induced by multipath. thus, a calibration program is developed in this study to address the aforementioned practical considerations. a comprehensive assessment of the performance of a gps sensor versus two traditional sensors' an accelerometer and a terrestrial positioning system (tps)' is provided. finally, the multipath effects are quantified and removed from the post-processed gps measurements through a controlled testing program and the use of time-series detrending to generate a gps distortion signature to eliminate both multipath effects and other long-period distortions from changing satellite orientations. the end result is a better understanding of gps technology and practical tools that will enable its effective use for shm, even for deployments in dense urban areas. social robots are a category of robots that can have social interaction with humans. the presence of these robots is growing in different fields such as healthcare, entertainment, assisted living, rehabilitation, and education. within these domains, human robot interaction (hri) researchers have worked on enabling social robots to interact more naturally with people using different verbal and nonverbal channels. considering that most of human-human interactions are non-verbal, it is worth considering how to enable robots to both recognize and synthesize non-verbal behavior.my research focuses on synthesizing facial expressions, a type of nonverbal behavior, on social robots. during my research, i developed several new algorithms for synthesizing facial expressions on robots and avatars, and experimentally explored how these expressions were perceived. i also developed a new control system for operators which automates synthesizing expressions on a robotic head. additionally, i worked on building a new robotic head, capable of expressing a wide range of expressions, which will serve as a next generation of patient simulators.my work explores the application of facially expressive robots in patient simulation. robotic patient simulators (rps) systems are the most frequent application of humanoid robots. they are human-sized robots that can breathe, bleed, react to medication, and convey hundreds of different biosignals. rpss enable clinical learners to safely practice clinical skills without harming real patients, and can include: patient communication, patient condition assessment, and procedural practice.although commonly used in clinical education, one capability of rpss is in need of attention: enabling face-to-face interactions between rpss and learners. despite the importance of patients' facial expressions in making diagnostic decisions, commercially available rps systems are not currently equipped with expressive faces. they have static faces that cannot express any visual pathological signs or distress. therefore, clinicians can fall into the poor habit of not paying attention to a patient's face, which can result in them going down an incorrect diagnostic path. one motivation behind my research is to make rpss more realistic by enabling them to convey realistic, clinically-relevant, patient-driven facial expressions to clinical trainees. we have designed a new type of rps with a wider range of expressivity, including the ability to express pain, neurological impairment, and other pathologies in its face. by developing expressive rpss, our work serves as a next generation educational tool for clinical learners to practice face-to-face communication, diagnosis, and treatment with patients in simulation. as the application of robots in healthcare continues to grow, expressive robots are another tool that can aid the clinical workforce by considerably improving the realism and fidelity of patient simulation.during the course of my research, i completed four main projects and designed several new algorithms to synthesize different expressions and pathologies on rpss. first, i designed a framework for generalizing synthesis of facial expressions on robots and avatars with different degrees of freedom. then, i implemented this framework as an ros-based module and used it for performing facial expression synthesis on different robots and virtual avatars. currently, researchers cannot transfer the facial expression synthesis software developed for a particular robot to another robot, due to having different hardware. using ros, i developed a general solution that is one of the first attempts to address this problem.second, i used this framework to synthesize patient-driven facial expressions of pain on virtual avatars, and studied the effect of an avatar's gender on pain perception. we found that participants were able to distinguish pain from commonly conflated expressions (anger and disgust), and showed that patient-driven pain synthesis can be a valuable alternative to laborious key-frame animation techniques,this was one of the first attempts to perform automatic synthesis of patient driven expressions on avatars without the need of an animation expert. automatic patient driven facial expression synthesis will reduce the time and cost needed for operators of rps systems.third, i synthesized patient-driven facial expressions of pain on a humanoid robot and its virtual model, with the objective of exploring how having a clinical education can affect pain detection accuracy. we found that clinicians have lower overall accuracy in detecting synthesized pain in comparison with lay participants. this supported other findings in the literature, showing that there is a need to improve clinical learners' skills in decoding expressions in patients. furthermore, we explored the effect of embodiment (robot, avatar) on pain perception by both clinicians and lay participants. we found that all participants are overall less accurate in detecting pain from a humanoid robot in comparison to a comparable virtual avatar. considering these effects are important when using expressive robots and avatars as an educational tool for clinical learners.fourth, i developed a computational (mask) model of atypical facial expressions such as stroke and bell's palsy. we used our developed computational model to perform masked synthesis on a virtual avatar and ran an experiment to evaluate the similarity of the synthesized expressions to real patients. additionally, we used our developed mask model to design a shared control system for controlling an expressive robotic face.my work has multiple contributions for both the hri and healthcare communities. first, i explored a novel application of facially expressive robots, patient simulation, which is a relatively unexplored area in the hri literature. second, i designed a generalized framework for synthesizing facial expressions on robots and avatars. my third contribution was to design new methods for synthesizing naturalistic patient-driven expressions and pathologies on rpss. experiments validating my approach showed that the embodiment or gender of the rps can affect perception of their expressions. fourth, i developed a computational model of atypical expressions and used this model to synthesize bell's palsy on a virtual avatar. this model can be used as part of an educational tool to help clinicians improve their diagnosis of conditions like bell's palsy, stroke, and parkinson's disease. finally, i used this mask model to develop a shared control system for controlling a robotic face. this control model automates the job of controlling an rps's expressions for simulation operators. my work enables the hri community to explore new applications of social robots and expand their presence in our daily lives. moreover, my work will inform the design and development of the next generation of prss that are able to express visual signs of diseases, distress, and pathologies. by providing better technology, we can improve how clinicians are being trained and this will eventually improve patient outcomes. this dissertation focuses on exploring the fundamental chemistry of solid-state uranyl and neptunyl coordination complexes to better understand actinyl crystal chemistry and probe the nature of structure directing factors leading to their formation. the goal of this research is to design and synthesize coordination complexes that demonstrate rich chemical and structural diversity of the 5f-elements at a nexus with ionic liquids, protonated amines, and a variety of n-, oand h2-(n-o) donor ligands. the principle theme explores the use of functionalized ionic liquids as unconventional solvents that may act as a ligand, charge balance specie, or as an aqueous-less reaction medium. several classes of ionic liquids were employed to develop coordination compounds and hybrid materials that expand on the topological diversity of solid-state uranyl structures and systematically investigate, through judicious selection of incorporated moieties, the importance and role of various structure directing factors (i.e. steric affects, hydrogen bonding, ph, temperature, etc.)a second area of research investigates transuranic cyanometallates, and demonstrates marked differences between pentavalent neptunium and hexavalent uranium chemistry. notably, the work demonstrates important differences relating to redox chemistry and so-called cation-cation interactions prevalent in np(v) coordination chemistry. furthermore, the work also demonstrates a novel system for exploring mixed-valent tetracyanoplatinate complexes, with the potential for chemical fine tuning of their magnetic and electronic properties.a third area of research explores the importance of structural unit charge density matching and hydrogen bonding between an interlayer complex and anionic structural unit in the formation of two-dimensional uranyl sulfate compounds. here, a literature review and analysis of structural data is used to elucidate aspects of structure directing properties to better inform on and provide clarity in their descriptions within the literature. this work provides a qualitative framework for understanding orientational geometric isomerism, interlayer stacking interactions and interlayer distance dependence for two-dimensional uranyl sulfate compounds incorporating protonated cyclic and alkylamines via templating effects. pacific salmon (oncorhynchus spp.) provide resource subsidies to stream and riparian ecosystems throughout much of the northern pacific rim. the dynamics of salmon runs and environmental conditions of streams in which they spawn can vary in space and time, potentially creating or reinforcing heterogeneity in these recipient ecosystems. enrichment of stream biota by salmon-derived nutrients and energy may be offset by spawner-mediated physical disturbance of sediments during migration and nest construction. these two contrasting roles of salmon are normally studied at reach scales but may vary at larger scales for enrichment and at smaller scales for salmon-induced physical disturbance. i studied the response of benthic biofilm (i.e., the complex of autotrophic and heterotrophic organisms growing on submerged surfaces) to the presence of salmon spawners in seven southeast alaska streams. autotrophs and heterotrophs were nutrient-limited by n or p (or both) in all study streams before the salmon run. during the salmon run, biofilm nutrient limitation was partially alleviated, but biofilm responses to salmon varied from net biomass accrual to net loss among streams and years. when data from multiple streams and years were considered, the 95% confidence interval of relative salmon enrichment was positive only for chlorophyll a (16-411% increase). the wide range of biofilm responses reflected, in part, variability among streams and years in environmental conditions, such as in temperature and nutrient concentrations. however, those environmental variables explained only a small amount of the overall biofilm variability, even if partitioned among spatial scales (e.g., stream, reach, riffle). the only consistent predictor across scales was sediment size, especially during the run, demonstrating the importance of salmon disturbance. high-frequency sampling revealed that effects attributed to salmon spawners may reflect other environmental variables that change during the salmon run, such as increased discharge later in the run. salmon tissue decomposition and macroinvertebrate assemblages differed between terrestrial and aquatic habitats likely due to necrophagous guilds in terrestrial ecosystems. integration of different spatial and temporal scales indicates that the ecological effects of salmon on recipient ecosystems are complex, and constrained by multiple environmental factors potentially operating at scales different from those of biotic responses. composers throughout history have transcribed the works of earlier masters as a method of instruction in composition. in 1788 wolfgang amadeus mozart was contracted by baron gottfried van swieten, prefect of the imperial library in vienna, and distinguished patron of composers, to oversee a series of concerts of sacred works, especially those of handel and bach. mozart undertook an arrangement of handel's messiah hv 56, in 1789, at the request of and under the supervision of the baron. the resulting arrangement, der messias kv. 572, shows that significant changes were made to the original, especially in regard to the orchestral and vocal forces, but also in the addition of musical material, and the recasting of the solos, alongside the textual translation into german. after itemizing these changes, this thesis discusses two important issues that would have an impact on the interpretation of the work. the first issue concerns potential changes of affect and meaning as a result of the rhetorical implications of the aforementioned musical changes. the second issue relates to the performance practice of the work and its footing in both the baroque and classical styles. the thesis concludes with a reconsideration of transcribed works within a conductor's repertoire, programming options and educational strategies. following atiyah, segal, kontsevich and others, a $d$-dimensional riemannian functorial quantum field theory $e$ assigns to a closed $d-1$ dimensional oriented riemannian manifold a hilbert space $e(y)$ and to a bordism $sigma$ from $y_1$ to $y_2$(which is a compact oriented riemannian manifold with $partialsigma=y_2sqcup overline{y_1}$) a hilbert-schmidt operator $e(sigma):e(y_1) o e(y_2)$ so that gluing bordisms corresponds to composing the associated operators. if we forget the riemannian structure on the $y$'s and the bordisms, then there are many examples which are known has topological quantum field theories. in 2007, douglas pickrell constructed a family of examples of $2$-dimensional theory. in this dissertation, we construct examples of $d$-dimensional theory when $d$ is even. today's skyscrapers are reaching greater heights which, increases their sensitivity to wind effects and its potential impact on serviceability and occupant comfort. therefore, designers are faced with the challenge to accurately predict building response and to ensure that survivability, serviceability, and habitability criteria are satisfied. this places an emphasis on prediction, and the implied need for predictive tools. empirical models, finite element computer models, and other analysis tools have been combined with scaled model wind tunnel testing to predict wind loads on structures and associated response. this study focuses on benchmarking these predictive tools and procedures against the actual full-scale response of completed buildings, which is one of a continuing series of studies in this overall research program. while the major focus of the study is on the behavior of structural systems, the performance of building cladding is also examined in light of its vulnerability to extreme winds. orthopedic implants have brought great benefit to human life; however the implants have a limited life time, with the main failure mode being wear. the purpose of this study was to reduce wear by improving the lubrication condition for the implants. this study developed a surface engineering approach for texturing orthopedic implants, with primary emphasis on the hip. the textured surface was prepared by applying a pattern of micro-dimples to the surface. combined with human walking biomechanics, the textured surfaces had the benefits of encouraging lubricant entrainment under high load and restricting lubricant escape from the surfaces under low load. laser surface texturing (lst) was used to produce the dimples. a mathematical model was developed to relate laser operation parameters to the dimple geometric features. precise dimple profiles could be achieved using such a model. the finite element method (fem) was used to describe the deformation of the textured surfaces. design of experiments (doe) was used to analyze the fem results and to evaluate the lubricant generating ability of the textured surfaces. the results were analyzed for implants of different materials. the textured surfaces were the most effective for alumina-cup implants, with an over 300% increase of lubricant film thickness. the implant and the dimple geometric features were optimized in order to maximize the lubricant film thickness. within the range of this study, large diametral clearance and small ball diameter of the implants as well as large diameter and depth of the dimple were in favor of increasing film thickness of the lubricant. this dissertation explores the image of moses in luke-acts. it argues that in his two volumes, luke not only uses the figure of moses to demonstrate that jesus and his followers stand in continuity with israel and the scriptures, but he also shapes moses into a source of division and means of drawing new boundaries around israel. a survey of pagan and jewish authors up through the early second century ce develops an interpretive context for luke-acts. the jewish authors who develop moses' roles and life show great diversity. most extol moses in terms of his scriptural roles of prophet and mediator of the law. many use moses as a means of competing for jewish prestige among egyptians, greeks, or romans; in this context, moses is sometimes shaped into a lawgiver or military hero. the jewish texts illuminate the examination of luke-acts by their treatments of specific episodes in moses' life and by their construction of moses' larger roles, especially as prophet, ancient witness, lawgiver, and marker of jewish identity. the examination of the portrayal and function of moses in luke-acts begins with acts, in which moses' portrait is more complete and more complex. moses' dual role as guarantor of the way's continuity with israel and source of division within israel is seen in acts 3 and 7. moses is presented as the pattern for jesus, the prophet like moses, to whom he commands israel to listen. those jews who do not obey moses in this manner are cut out of israel, and luke revises moses' life so that israelite rejection of moses is built into the narrative and serves as a pattern for jewish rejection of jesus and his followers. elsewhere in luke-acts, moses serves primarily to affirm that jesus and his followers are the natural continuation of israel. they are piously observant of the law, though acts 13 and 15 claim that salvation comes not through the law but through jesus. the law is claimed to be prophetic, foretelling the ministry of jesus. additionally, the identification of jesus as the prophet like moses is suggested at the transfiguration. as the earth's population continues to grow exponentially and become more technologically advanced, fossil fuel prices rise concurrently, a reflection of the diminishing resources available at a reasonable price and with reasonable effort. a significant part of the solution to this energy problem is to utilize renewable energy resources' wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, and solar, among others. the amount of solar energy reaching the surface of the earth each day is orders of magnitude more than the energy needs of all the people of the world combined. an important question, however, immediately arises: how can excess energy be stored to power homes when the sun goes down? hydrogen is an excellent candidate as a storage medium. it can be used in current internal combustion engines, and it can be stored in pressurized tanks or metal hydrides for ease of access and transportation. currently, the vast majority (approximately 95%) of hydrogen is produced at a net energy loss from steam-methane reforming. to be useful as an energy carrier, hydrogen must be produced using a 'free' energy input like sunlight. following fujishima and honda's demonstration of photolysis of water on tio2 using simulated sunlight in 1972, the field of water photolysis and hydrogen generation has grown quickly. in this dissertation, improvement of photoelectrochemical performance by intercalation of li+ to passivate ti4+ trap states have been demonstrated. this passivation increases both the photovoltage and photocurrent generated by increasing the rate of collection of photogenerated electrons. pulsed laser deposition was used to synthesize metal oxide heterostructures while retaining an excellent electron conducting substrate has also been demonstrated, and this srtio3-tio2 heterostructure was observed to enhance photoelectrochemical performance due to an increase in charge separation. iro2, a widely studied water oxidation catalyst that has the lowest overpotential for the oxygen evolution reaction, was shown to catalyze an undesirable side reaction on tio2. the scavenging of trapped holes by reduced oxygen radicals was enabled only in the presence of iro2, and this scavenging occurred on a timescale approximately 1000 times faster than that of water oxidation, which means that it represents a serious obstacle to developing a water photolysis system that does not rely on external power input. continuous hydrogen generation in a reverse fuel cell has been demonstrated using cds on tio2, and the quantum efficiency of the reaction has been determined using chemical actinometry, demonstrating that calculation of efficiency based on current-voltage characteristics is insufficient. based on the research presented in this dissertation, future directions to pursue are also discussed. we consider peterzil-steinhorn groups defined in o-minimal expansions of the reals. these are one-dimensional torsion-free subgroups of arbitrary definable and not definably compact groups. we show that each peterzil-steinhorn group is isomorphic to either the additive or the multiplicative group of the reals and we provide a simple criterion that can be used to classify each such group into one of those two categories. additionally, we find the tangent space of any arbitrary peterzil-steinhorn group at its identity. finally, for the case of polynomially bounded o-minimal expansions of the reals, we give a complete description of all peterzil-steinhorn groups. poetry the fact that modern processors can utilize data faster than modern memory systems can supply it results in the 'processor-memory gap.' this disparity in supply and demand has been addressed with several approaches, primarily architectural. this research suggests that alternative packaging methods can improve system performance. this study designed, fabricated, and simulated performance to quantify quilt packaging (qp), a high speed chip-to-chip interconnect technology, within the context of 'embedded' system performance for comparison with several other approaches used or proposed in the high-performance computing (hpc) and embedded computing space. initial exploration suggests that qp implementations of conventionally-packaged hpc nodes can result in improved performance through decreased latency and increased data throughput. this thesis discusses synthetic efforts made toward the total synthesis of the iejimalides (1 and 2a-d). the iejimalides exhibit potent cytotoxicity, however, they are only present in the biosphere in very low concentrations. synthetic efforts are necessary to provide sufficient material for biological investigation. two major subunits of the iejimalides have been synthesized: the r c1-c5 subunit and the n-formyl serine subunit. efforts have also been made toward the synthesis of the revised c12-c20 subunit. these three key subunits are necessary to complete the total synthesis of the originally proposed and the revised structures of iejimalides b. one subunit, the n-formyl serine subunit, is also necessary for labeling studies of the iejimalides to determine the biological mode of activation. microscopic properties of semiconducting nanostructures are very sensitive to perturbations at the semiconductor/environment surface. charge transport properties in semiconducting nanostructures can dramatically change by the interaction mediated by the dielectric environment surrounding them. in this work, the effect of the dielectric mismatch between a semiconductor and its dielectric environment on charge transport in 1d quantum wires and 2d nanoscale membranes is investigated. it is shown that the image charges formed at the semiconductor/environment interfaces alter the coulomb potential and the electron-electron interaction inside the low dimensional structures. it is predicted that by coating nanostructures with high-ì_å¼ dielectrics, carrier mobility in quasi-1d nanowires and quasi-2d nanomembranes can be enhanced by an order of magnitude if the charge transport is impurity-limited. for perfect 2d crystals such as graphene, this mobility enhancement is only possible at low temperatures, whereas at room temperature polar phonon vibrations originating from the dielectric environment wash out the advantages of using high-ì_å¼ dielectrics. the work presented here will help to identify the optimum gate dielectric for designing high-mobility, high-speed nanoscale transistors. this thesis suggests that fanfiction so often considered to be the realm only of the obsessed or juvenile has shaken off the label of 'derivative' and emerged as an independent artistic medium. this emergence calls for a rethinking of fanfiction theory, as fan studies has relied heavily upon henry jenkins' *textual poachers* for the last sixteen years, despite the fact that it was written well before the internet stepped in to completely revolutionize the field. after establishing that 1) fanfiction can be accepted as a new artistic medium, and 2) it is in need of fresher theory, this thesis will then offer performativity as another way into the fan-written text. it will use a genre called 'all human' from the *twilight *fandom as an example of how fan writers are breaking with the traditional conventions of fanfiction and revitalizing tabooed figures in order to access the performative potential of their medium. this dissertation examines interactions between new englanders and the french from the beginning of the french and indian war to the beginning of the french revolution to better understand how these exchanges informed new englanders' conceptions of their roles first as provincials in the british empire and then as citizens of a new republic. investigating sermons, journals, newspapers, and correspondence, this study argues that an atmosphere of fear developed in new england in response to french threats, an emotional community which defined life in new england and provided frameworks for action. this dissertation argues that the specter of france informed face-to-face interactions between soldiers, politicians, merchants, travelers, and ordinary colonists, prompting fear to merge with other concerns or influencing the development of new emotions in the face of new experiences. fear of france shaped understandings of all other concerns and sensibilities for new england colonists during a tumultuous era, serving as the defining emotion which created a mindset that framed the decisions and dictated the actions of new englanders as they engaged in a revolution and built a nation. we prove the existence of congruences between ordinary symplectic galois representations in two different settings. first, we calculate lower bounds on the degree of the weight space map for hida families given assumptions on the p-adic l-invariant (or the adjoint l-invariant) of a weight (3,3) automorphic representation on the hida family when such an l-invariant is defined using theorems of giovanni rosso. second, we set up a galois deformation problem for a fixed absolutely irreducible galois representation which is odd, ordinary and indecomposable at p, and unramified everywhere else. under a mild local hypothesis, we prove the existence of at least two characteristic zero lifts of our fixed galois representation. in works parodying my struggles as a navel-gazing self-portrait artist, i find humor in the follies of anthropocentrism, sorrow in species loneliness, pain and absurdity in embodiment, and shame in complicity with a cultural inheritance that has privileged some through the exclusion of others. pulling from various art historical and philosophical sources ranging from classicism, romanticism, and the enlightenment, to surrealism, psychoanalytic theory, and post-structuralism, i place disparate aesthetics and their corresponding historical contexts into tense dialogue. within these scenes, grotesque bodies emulate cultural roles, producing situations that are alternately humorous and serious, disturbing and tender, realistic and idealized. these juxtapositions foreground the tensions inherent to the performance of "self," and enable exploration of those forms of cultural inscription which drive identity formation. this complicates, rather than essentializes the relationship between "self" and "other" and brings into focus the role that our contradictory histories play in constituting our present "selves." this project explores the relationship between literature directed toward children and literature not specific to children, and traces similarities, differences, and intersections. i believe that children's literature has a unique ability to topically anticipate trends in adult literature, and this project will prove that hypothesis in three ways. first, i will provide a limited history of children's and adult literature, paying specific attention to the decades between 1860 and 1940. second, i will perform a close reading of three texts—alice's adventures in wonderland and through the looking-glass and what alice found there by lewis carroll and in parenthesis by david jones—illustrating specific examples of three very different stories with incredibly similar core elements. finally, i will support my claims with an analysis of topic models assembled via mallet and derived from a unique corpus of 125 texts of both adult and children's literature published from 1859 to 1937. as environments change, evolution may modify plant growth, and thus influence ecosystem processes. tidal salt marshes are productive ecosystems dominated by only a few plant species, including the c3 sedge, schoenoplectus americanus. although s. americanus marshes have been studied extensively, we know little about how evolutionary processes might affect marsh dynamics. we examined the effects of co2, salinity, and competition on the growth of s. americanus. growth characteristics were significantly influenced by co2, salinity levels, and the initial planting mass of each vegetatively cloned individual. competition had no effect on growth. stem height, stem density and tissue carbon:nitrogen were significantly different between populations. differences in growth among populations and genotypes resulted in differences in soil organic matter loss when examined in a heuristic model. evolutionary variation could affect ecosystem processes like decomposition and marsh soil accretion as genotypes shift in abundance and distribution. this should be examined in other ecosystems. newly synthesized proteins must form their native structure in the crowded environment of the cell, while avoiding non-native conformations that can lead to aggregation. p22 tailspike is a homotrimer prone to aggregation via misfolding of its central beta-helix domain in vitro. to assess whether co-translational folding enables newly synthesized tailspike chains to avoid aggregation-prone conformations in vivo, a novel method was first developed to produce stalled ribosome nascent chain complexes. this new method was used to measure anti-tailspike monoclonal antibody binding to and partial protease digestion of four different tailspike nascent chain lengths. these experiments reveal ribosome-bound nascent tailspike chains populate ordered conformations with some native-state structural features, but these conformations are distinct from the predominant conformations of tailspike in vitro refolding intermediates and refolded, unstalled tailspike truncations. these results suggest the aggregation-prone beta-helix domain pre-organizes co-translationally, prior to chain release, and that this conformation is distinct from the global energy minimum for the truncated free chain in solution. autonomous detection of desired events from large databases using time series classification is becoming increasingly important in civil engineering as a result of continued long-term health monitoring of a large number of engineering structures encompassing buildings, bridges, towers, and offshore platforms. in this context, this study proposes the application of a relatively new time series representation named "shapelet transform", which is based on local similarity in the shape of the time series subsequences. in consideration of the individual attributes distinctive to time series signals in earthquake, wind and ocean engineering, the application of this transform yields a new shape-based feature representation. combining this shape-based representation with a standard machine learning algorithm, a truly "white-box" machine learning model is proposed with understandable features and a transparent algorithm. this model automates event detection without the intervention of domain practitioners, yielding a practical event detection procedure. the efficacy of this proposed shapelet transform-based autonomous detection procedure is demonstrated by examples, to identify known and unknown earthquake events from continuously recorded ground-motion measurements, to detect pulses in the velocity time history of ground motions to distinguish between near-field and far-field ground motions, to identify thunderstorms from continuous wind speed measurements, to detect large-amplitude wind-induced vibrations from the bridge monitoring data, and to identify plunging breaking waves that have a significant impact on offshore structures. the prince, the bailiff, and the mir: power, politics, and agency on a russian serf estate, 1810-1858 argues that russian serfs practiced economic agency even before the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. this agency was possible, despite serfs' legal status as the property of others and place in the soslovie, social estate, hierarchy, because of local social dynamics. although landlords had authority over their serfs, large magnates such as prince sergei mikhailovich golitsyn did not live on their provincial estates. consequently, they relied on local institutions – namely the mir, or peasant commune, and estate bailiff – to fulfil their directives and inform them of estate affairs. the unique intermediary position between serf and landlord empowered the mir and bailiff, giving them their own authority on the estate. these groups did not necessarily share the interests of the landlord, being part and parcel of the peasant community themselves. and yet, within the larger social system of serfdom, they needed each other to operate. the landlord, bailiff, and mir, therefore, negotiated their interests.within this arena of competing interests, serfs found the space to pursue their own interests. they used the administrative apparatus created by the landlord and local institutions to secure their private transactions, including extending credit, renting, and buying property. moreover, they used one or another interest group to advance their goals and minimize risks. when they wanted to build counter to prince sergei's estate designs, they turned to the bailiff or mir for permission. when they opposed the actions of the bailiff, they appeared before the mir or petitioned prince sergei himself. when the mir conscripted their sons, they appealed once more to prince sergei. the case studies presented in this project demonstrate the importance of social dynamics in the functioning of institutions on the ground. moreover, they help us understand how unfree people could exhibit economic agency. this project begins by investigating prince sergei's designs on an estate in iaroslavl' province, rostov district, showing that planning did not succeed without local cooperation. intermediaries are added to the dynamic in the following chapters. case studies examining foresting and army conscription delineate the extent and limits of the bailiff and mir's authority while also illustrating how the landlord, bailiff, and mir interrelated. the final two chapters consider peasant economic agency within this social system, examining how serfs interacted with estate authorities to secure their own private transactions as well as household divisions. the economic agency of russian peasants under serfdom closes by acknowledging the importance of local processes when evaluating macro social structures such as the russian soslovie system and serfdom. despite their considerable global importance, the structural chemistry of actinides remains understudied. thorium and uranium fuel cycles are used in commercial nuclear reactors in india (thorium) and around the world including the united states of america. neptunium, the first man-made element, is also present in used nuclear fuel because it forms in the reactor via neutron-capture reactions. thorium cations are usually coordinated by eight to twelve oxygen atoms, whereas uranium (vi) structures contain the uranyl ion and an additional four to six oxygen atoms. neptunium (v) and (vi) also form actinyl ions and bond to four to six additional oxygen atoms. phases composed of early actinide elements are important for long term storage of commercial spent nuclear fuel in a geological repository and the potential release of radionuclides into the environment. the crystallography of the early actinides (thorium, uranium, and neptunium) remains largely unexplored. the research reported herein concerns the crystal chemistry of the early actinide elements as well as uranium mesoporous materials. room temperature and hydrothermal synthesis techniques were used to produce single crystals of thorium, uranium, and neptunium. these crystals were then analyzed using single crystal x-ray diffraction and infrared spectroscopy. thorium nitrate and thorium chromate compounds were also investigated. systems explored include the uranyl peroxides, neptunyl oxyhydrates, and neptunyl phosphates. this work reports initial experiments intended to produce uranium-based mesoporous materials. mesoporous materials form framework structures supported by large surfactant molecules and when the organic material is removed a porous framework remains. uranium mesoporous materials may provide a waste form or nuclear fuel material that may selectively store other radionuclides. toxoplasma gondii is an economically important zoonotic parasite. prevalence of toxoplasma has been seen worldwide. in general infection of this parasite is common in humans and may result in fatal disease, especially in immunocompromised individuals. the infectivity of this parasite mainly depends upon its coordinated protein secretion from specialized apical organelles (micronemes, dense granules and rhoptries) and maintaining the protein homeostasis is very important for parasite survival. very few studies have been done to characterize retrograde transport between the golgi and the er in toxoplasma. the study of this thesis discusses on molecular characterization of endoplasmic reticulum deficient mutant-2 (erd2) in toxoplasma gondii. erd2 receptors help in maintaining protein homeostasis by retrieving mistargeted er luminal proteins from the post er compartment (mainly the golgi) to the er. studies were conducted to characterize classical and novel erd2 receptors by utilizing bioinformatics analysis, drug treatments, microscopic studies, co-transfectional studies, mutational analysis, functional complementation assays and knock out strategies. for the characterization of classical erd2, we have done pilot study where we reported the initial characterization on residues important for tgerd2 function. we observed mutation of residues predicted to be neutral in mammalian erd2, are important in t. gondii for both location and function. in addition, we also noticed mutation of carboxyl-terminal aspartate (d) essential for retrograde transport of mammalian erd2 cannot be successfully expressed in t. gondii phenotypes compared to homologous mutations in mammalian erd2, suggesting a fundamental difference in folding of the protein or function of the residue. for the characterization of novel erd2, we have shown that tgperl-51 (tgp51) possesses the unique bipartite sequence characteristic of some apicoplast-targeted proteins and tgp51-gfp/mcherry localization overlaps with the apicoplast region. bioinformatics analysis also reveals a novel anchor domain in tgp51, a domain that until recently has only been associated with plastid-targeted proteins in euglena and dinoflagellates. we demonstrated that unlike tgerd2, tg51 does not complement the yeast knockout. tgp51 localizes in bfa sensitive manner. we also show that knockout of tgp51 gene in ku80cells is lethal in a 'delayed death' phenotype and knock out parasites display abnormal apicoplast morphology in comparison to controls. lastly, we propose a model for probable role of perl in retrieval mechanism. in t. gondii, the perls are structurally similar to tgerd2, which functions in retrograde transport of proteins from the golgi back to the er. yet, the perls do not appear to bind classical erd-ligands with the same efficacy. we hypothesized that the perls recognize a related but slightly different motif that occurs in proteins bound for the apicoplast. thus far our hypothesis has been supported by both a phylogenetic analysis of three chaperone protein families and the use of profile hidden markov models. we have identified c-terminal motifs common across apicomplexa and rare among metazoa using these tools. we believe that the two positions upstream of the x may play a role in binding and may differentiate perl and erd binding proteins. scholars and performers of seventeenth--century music have long been aware of sebastian knüpfer (1633-76) and his place in the history of the city of leipzig and its famous thomaskirche. knüpfer served as the cantor of the thomasschule and city music director from 1657 to his death in 1676, which places him in a storied lineage that includes such eminent composers as johann hermann schein (1586-1630) and johann sebastian bach (1685-1750). yet, even though his place in the history of the city and one of the city's two principal churches is well-established, his music remains virtually unknown, particularly in the united states. to date, only a handful of knüpfer's one-hundred twenty known works are available in modern performing editions, and only a handful of recordings of his works have been produced worldwide. moreover, analytical models for his music are extremely underdeveloped. the general lack of attention to knüpfer's work has obscured his rightful place in history as a master of the sacred vocal concerto, the dominant genre of sacred music in the seventeenth century.to begin to remedy this dearth of study on the music of knüpfer, i examine a small portion of his oeuvre, the latin psalm concertos, in the broad context of his entire output, in order to draw out the salient stylistic features of his musical language. from among this collection of works, i closely examine one latin psalm concerto, super flumina babylonis, from the perspective of musical language and theological content. close analysis of this work demonstrates knüpfer's exertion of formal control in the sacred vocal concerto as a means of managing dramatic narrative while at the same time suggesting his own theological perspective. my analytical approach further demonstrates the necessity for more focused attention on knüpfer's individual compositions and groups of works in the same genre, and for studies that compare his works to the sacred vocal concertos of other prominent composers of the period. finally, i provide a modern performing edition of knüpfer's super flumina with a critical commentary. it is essential to develop cost-effective and efficient approaches to convert solar energy into other energy forms for our daily use in the near future. solar cell technology is a crucial tool to effectively tackle this challenging task due to its low cost and flexibility in device design. recently, hybrid inorganic-organic perovskites were identified as promising light absorbers for solar cell technology owing to their superb power conversion efficiency. following the remarkable success of applications of ch3nh3pbi3 perovskites in photovoltaics, a great focus has been placed on their stability for establishing foundations for the long lifetimes for perovskite solar cells. in this dissertation, i have investigated the effects of different environmental conditions on physical and chemical properties of hybrid inorganic-organic perovskites.to achieve outdoor applications, the influence of operating conditions (ambient conditions, heat and light) on the stability of such perovskites should be comprehensively studied. thus, the transformation of ch3nh3pbi3 perovskite films were explored under ambient conditions and at elevated temperatures. it was found that the decomposition of ch3nh3pbi3 into other lead compounds occurred under these conditions. the chemical changes in the decomposed films were found to cause a significant decrease in the photovoltaic efficiency of ch3nh3pbi3. it is also important to study the influence of light illumination on the stability of hybrid perovskite. under light illumination, halide ion segregation occurring in mixed halide lead perovskites (e.g., ch3nh3pbbrxi3–x) gives rise to the concerns regarding the long-term applications. herein, the impact of light on mixed halide hybrid perovskite films was investigated by exposing such films to continuous laser irradiation. it turns out that under illumination the generated iodide-rich perovskite species further decompose into metallic lead (pb0). the chemical changes in decomposed films were found to cause an irreversible shift of absorption band edge and a significant change in film morphology.in addition, the structural transformations of hybrid perovskites are facilitated by interactions with polar molecules (h2o and nh3). exposure to nh3 gas can significantly change the optical and electronic properties of ch3nh3pbi3 perovskites, which can be explored for gas-sensing applications. however, limited understanding of the processes by which perovskites interact with nh3 further hinders the improvement and full use of the unique properties of these materials. thus, the effects of ammonia on ch3nh3pbi3 were investigated by exposing perovskite films to an nh3 atmosphere. spectroscopic analyses indicated that ammonium cations (nh4+) replaced the methylammonium cations (ch3nh3+) in the perovskite crystal, thereby resulting in the formation of nh4pbi3. nonetheless, the introduction of ch3nh2gas to the formed nh4pbi3 converted it back to ch3nh3pbi3, proving the reversibility of these cation exchange reactions. lastly, this reversible cation-exchange method was employed to tune the optical and structural properties of colloidal perovskite nanocrystals (ncs). the photoluminescence of the 3d ch3nh3pbbr3 ncs changes from green to violet by adding phenethylammonium cation (pea+). in contrast, the photoluminescence of the 2d oca2pbbr4 perovskite ncs turns from violet to green upon introducing methylammonium cation (ch3nh3+). these optical changes are attributed to the reversible structural transformation of perovskite ncs between three-dimensional (3d) and two-dimensional (2d) layered crystalline forms through cation exchange. the reversible cation exchange process opens up new possibilities of using post-synthetic cation interaction to flexibly and rationally tune the optical and structural properties of perovskite materials, bringing greater tailored functionalities to these materials. in novae and x-ray bursts, the 15o(alpha,gamma)19ne reaction is a potential breakout path from the hot-cno cycle and into the rp-process. the dominance of this reaction depends on the decay properties of the levels in 19ne above the alpha threshold. the 4.033 mev state in $^{19}$ne, with its low spin (3/2+), is thought to be the main contributor to the reaction rate. the astrophysical rate of the 15o(alpha,gamma)19ne reaction can be calculated using the branching ratios and radiative widths or level lifetimes of states in 19ne. three experiments were done at the university of notre dame's nuclear structure laboratory from 1999--2002 using the doppler shift attention method (dsam) to measure the lifetime of the 4.03 mev state in 19ne via the 3he(17o,n)19ne and 19f(3he,t)19ne reactions. two independent measurements of the lifetime were made placing a limit of 14 fs < t < 24 fs on the lifetime and therefore a limit on the gamma width of 27 mev < gamma < 47 mev. these values agree with currently accepted values for the lifetime and support the belief that the 15o(alpha,gamma)19ne reaction is not a probable breakout path from the hcno cycle into the rp-process in novae, but may have an impact on breakout in x-ray bursts. the narcissistic personality inventory (npi; raskin & hall, 1979; 1981) is clearly the most commonly used self-report narcissism measure. nevertheless, the inventory has several drawbacks that complicate score interpretation, including the existence of multiple versions, an unstable factor structure, and a psychometrically problematic format. the current study aimed to clarify the npi's strengths and weaknesses by comparing the original forced-choice format to a new likert-scale version. a sample of 337 undergraduate students completed a battery of 18 narcissism and other personality scales. the npi likert-scale version was factor analyzed and correlated with these measures to determine the degree of structural similarity to that of the original format and to clarify the meaning of low-end npi scores. the two formats were found to yield very similar but not identical results, and low-end npi scores represented modesty, low self-confidence, and an appreciation of others. implications and future directions are discussed. with the emanation of big data, there is an ever-increasing need for advanced quantitative, computational, and statistical approaches to comprehensively study biology. from dynamical models, data processing, high-throughput screening, to high-dimensional data analysis, computational tools and pipelines are revolutionizing the landscape of biological research and medicine. however, there are still many challenges associated with harnessing the data revolution in computational biology. more specifically, efforts to develop computational, simulation-based models of multicellular development and high-throughput preclinical therapeutic screening assays are broadly needed to provide insight into novel treatment approaches in modern medicine. the work herein describes the development of experimental platforms, modeling tools, and statistical approaches to expand upon and drive novel discoveries in multicellular models of organ formation and preclinical therapeutic development. this dissertation builds upon the existing resources available to study crosstalk in developmental biology, identify therapeutic targets of interest, and evaluate efficacy of novel small molecule therapeutics. in this dissertation, drosophila melanogaster is used as a model organism to develop computational and high-throughput screening platforms to advance the state-of-the-art in each field previous research contends that the spatial cueing effect (sce) is influenced exclusively by top-down sources of information (theeuwes, 2018); however, others purport that the sce can be affected by experience, either indirectly (via the updating of top-down information) or directly (anderson et al., 2021). the present study used a novel two-choice, spatial cueing paradigm in order to investigate the influence of experience on the sce. in each of 4 different conditions, participants were presented with the choice between two visual search tasks of different validities. conditions varied by competing context cue validity and distinctiveness; context choice and performance measures (response time and error rates) were used to measure the alignment of an individual's top-down goals and implicit performance.findings revealed that while an individual's top-down goals remained consistent with an increasing preference for the higher spatial validity context within a condition, the sce associated with each context was significantly affected by the competing context with which it was paired. further, the sce associated with each context varied as a function of experience, supporting that spatial cueing effects reflect the direct influence of experience and not the top-down updating of goals. interband tunnel transistors have been attracting increasing attention because of their potential to achieve subthreshold swings below the 60 mv/decade thermionic limit, and realize high performance and low power dissipation simultaneously. this work explores the design and modeling of semiconducting and graphene nanoribbon-based tunnel transistors, to understand the performance measures and guide the experimental development. experiments in the formation of ge interband junctions are also described. analytic expressions for zener tunneling in one-, two-, and three-dimensional semiconductors are derived to establish the guidelines for tunnel transistor design. an analytic expression is derived, showing that the subthreshold swing of interband tunnel transistors is a function of the gate-to-source voltage and can be less than the thermionic limit of 60 mv/decade in mosfet. based on this expression, a new fully-depleted interband tunnel transistor structure is proposed and designed. the low subthreshold swing is verified by synopsys tcad simulation. germanium interband tunnel transistors are shown by simulation to exhibit improved on-state performance vs. si, because of the smaller bandgap and effective mass. to realize the proposed ge interband tunnel transistor, a rapid melt growth process was developed to form submicron p+n+ ge tunnel junctions. transmission electron microscopy (tem) reveals the regrown film and a contact microstructure consistent with the al-ge phase diagram. negative differential resistances are observed which indicate the junction was abrupt heavily-doped. a graphene nanoribbon (gnr) tunnel transistor is first proposed and modeled analytically by quasi-1d poisson equation. an improved numerical model is developed that treates energy-dependent transmission coefficients, direct source-to-drain tunneling, and self-consistent channel electrostatics. graphene nanoribbons have a width-tunable bandgap and ultra-thin body layer, which is especially favorable for tunnel transistor applications. it is shown by simulation that the gnr tunnel transistors at the long channel limit can operate at 0.1 v with an ultra-low subthreshold swing of 2.8 mv/decade, but the subthreshold swing and off-state current are degraded at short channel length due to direct source-to-drain tunneling. smaller ribbon widths (down to a certain limit) can significantly improve the off-state behavior without considerably affecting the on-state current density and speed. for 20 nm channel length, gnr tunnel transistors with ribbon width of 2 and 3 nm can achieve high performance and low operating power simultaneously, meeting 2012 itrs targets. percolation theory was initiated some 50 years ago as a mathematical framework for the study of random physical processes such as the flow of a fluid through a disordered porous medium. it has been proved to be a remarkably rich theory, with applications from thermodynamic phase transitions to complex networks. in this dissertation percolation theory is used to study the diffusion process of mobile phone viruses. some methodologies widely used in statistical physics are also applied to uncover the underlying statistical laws of human behavior and simulate the spread of mobile phone viruses in a large population. i find that while bluetooth viruses can reach all susceptible handsets with time, they spread slowly due to human mobility, offering ample opportunities to deploy antiviral software. in contrast, viruses utilizing multimedia messaging services (mms) could infect all users in hours, but currently a phase transition on the underlying call graph limits them to only a small fraction of the susceptible users. these results explain the lack of a major mobile virus breakout so far and predict that once a mobile operating system's market share reaches the phase transition point, viruses will pose a serious threat to mobile communications. these studies show how the large datasets and tools of statistical physics can be used to study some specific and important problems, such as the spread of mobile phone viruses. this thesis is a collection of short stories. this thesis will discuss three key examples of using the map in my art projects with a focus on the visual representation of utopia and dystopia. these works have all focused on various aspects and usages of maps and of the historical definitions of utopia to varying degrees of success, employing different art formats. i will discuss the characteristics of each project and how it contributes to the practicality of mapping within an art format. the discussed body of artwork focuses on three major schemes: the representation of history in an urban landscape, allegorical representation of utopia, and the metaphor of space. i explore this through built installation, with a particular focus on topography and cartography. the horizons of utopia reflects humanities desire for a better world; the dreamers in all of history fantasize about beautiful places and the ideal island was always a location for their fantasies. i will briefly discuss more's text, where the utopian island is in the center of hope and desire. the horizons of utopia follows island logic in an attempt to visualize utopia and its counterpart dystopia through contemplations on the utopian landscape. i will also discuss historical examples of artistic illustrations of dystopia based on literary texts such as dante alighieri's divine comedy and contemporary representations of utopian space in the works of land artists robert smithson and michael heizer. gex1a, alternatively known as herboxidiene, is a polyketide natural product isolated from streptomyces chromofuscus that is known to target the spliceosome. besides its reported anticancer and herbicidal activity, our group has discovered that gex1a is able to reverse the cellular phenotype associated with niemann-pick type c, or npc, disease. npc is a rare lysosomal storage disorder, caused by mutations to the npc1 or npc2 genes. we have shown that gex1a is able to disperse the characteristic intracellular cholesterol blockade in npc1 mutant cells similar to other therapeutic agents under investigation for this disease, at notably low doses. we developed a platform for the sustainable production of gex1a from s. chromofuscus, by optimizing the media composition and growth conditions for this microorganism. we also determined that fermentation of s. chromofuscus in the presence of small molecules that trigger the native autoregulatory system of streptomyces has a positive impact on the production of gex1a. we sought to inhibit specific stages of biosynthesis catalyzed by polyketide tailoring enzymes, by incubating s. chromofuscus with an exogenous inhibitor of cytochrome p450 monooxygenases. treatment with one specific inhibitor effectively resulted in the production of two putative deoxygenated gex1a analogues by s. chromofuscus. we also attempted to manipulate gex1a biosynthesis in s. chromofuscus through genetic manipulation, by inactivating one or more of the genes involved in tailoring the gex1a scaffold.we finally examined the effects of gex1a on in vitro models of npc disease at the cellular and molecular levels. we determined that several semisynthetic analogues of gex1a could have a comparable impact on the npc phenotype as the natural product and highlighted the effects of gex1a on the levels and isoforms of the npc1 protein produced in response to treatment. lastly we performed rna sequencing to study the influence of gex1a on the npc transcriptome. a complete analysis of this expression data, which includes isoform-specific information relevant to gex1a's role in splicing modulation, is underway, and will be a valuable contribution to understanding how this natural product, and potentially other structurally related scaffolds, has a beneficial therapeutic effect in the context of npc disease. new spectroscopic technologies and techniques are needed to detect and characterize terrestrial planets located in the habitable zones around nearby stars. existing radial velocity (rv) instruments are limited to 1 m/s single measurement precision at visible wavelengths, and several meters-per-second in the infrared. in order to determine key physical quantities of rocky worlds (mass, density, orbital elements, spin-orbit alignment, etc.), a rv precision one order of magnitude better than the current state-of-the-art is necessary. such advances would permit the study of planets potentially capable of supporting life.doppler spectrographs that leverage telescope adaptive optics (ao) capabilities show promise to address many of the systematic effects that prevent current instruments from otherwise achieving more precise measurements. ilocater is a near-infrared (nir) rv spectrograph being developed for the large binocular telescope (lbt) in arizona. unlike seeing-limited designs, ilocater uses ao to inject starlight directly into single-mode fibers (smf), enabling high spectral resolution while simultaneously mitigating a number of systematic effects. the primary objective of this thesis is to derisk the design of ilocater and facilitate the project's transition from initial development stages to efficient on-sky operations. an end-to-end data reduction pipeline and analysis architecture has been developed to simulate instrument performance (chapters 2-3). investigations into detector noise find that persistent charge remaining from previous exposures could introduce unwanted rv uncertainty without careful calibration. mitigation strategies for persistence and other detector effects are explored (chapter 4). earth's barycentric motion creates multi-pixel lateral doppler shifts across the detector that cannot be tracked using conventional wavelength calibration; simulations of the spectrograph optical components are used to quantify this effect, along with the impact of spatially varying aberrations, on rv precision when operating near the diffraction-limit (chapter 5). simulations of expected on-sky performance were essential in supporting ilocater's successful instrument design reviews at the lbt. it is predicted that the instrument can reach approximately 0.4 m/s single measurement precision on quiescent, bright guide stars provided that telluric absorption is properly calibrated in the yj-bands. ilocater's first fiber injection system was commissioned in july 2019. the spectrograph and wavelength calibration system are being constructed and assembled at notre dame. the thesis concludes with example scientific applications that involve ao and rv measurements, including: high-contrast imaging of stars that exhibit long-term rv trends; and the discovery that two transiting planets that reside in hierarchical triple star systems (chapter 6). rational choice theory and its religious market model dominate sociological literature on megachurches. common portrayals describe how these large congregations use corporate marketing techniques to sell religious consumers myriad products, including mega-sized worship and small groups. recent developments at willow creek community church (south barrington, il)--america's flagship megachurch--reveal the emergence of a new product: the 'neo-parish,' which is both market-driven and steeped in principle. by transitioning from a 'church of small groups' to a 'church of communities,' willow creek seeks to find a middle ground between mega-worship and small groups. this new paradigm for group life prioritizes proximity over affinity--asking congregants 'where are you' before 'who are you.' through an empirical case study involving 32 interviews, participant observation, and content analysis of organizational documents and sermons, i demonstrate how willow creek seeks to balance theological principle and market impulses in its quest to recapture the neighborhood emphasis of the parish system. measuring customer demand and being 'seeker sensitive' are no doubt integral to the 'neo-parish' paradigm, which is consistent with rational choice theory and instrumental rationality. however, by using measures of customer demand in order to change customer preferences--challenging congregants to grow spiritually--willow creek operates in a substantively rational manner running counter to rational choice theory. this dissertation assesses a thesis concerning the relationship between believing that something is the case and having confidence or sureness that something is the case. the thesis in question is the 'threshold view': to believe that p (for any proposition p) is to have a high degree of confidence that p. if we accept the threshold view and maintain that it is rational to be highly confident that p whenever one's total evidence very strongly favors p over not-p, then we must reject several currently prominent epistemological claims. one is that belief rationally ought to be withheld, even when one's evidence is very strong, if the cost of being wrong is sufficiently high. another is that purely statistical evidence can never make belief rational. and a third is that whenever one holds inconsistent beliefs, not all of them can be rational. it has become common to reject the threshold view to preserve these epistemological claims. this dissertation challenges that way of resolving the conflict. part i of the dissertation develops accounts of belief, doubt, and confidence to be used in assessing the threshold view. the account of belief (chapter 1) is compatible with most but not all of the main approaches to belief in the existing philosophy of mind literature (it is incompatible with realizer functionalism, but compatible with role functionalism, representationalism, dispositionalism, and interpretationism). it is an account on which believing a proposition is a matter of having enough of the relevant dispositions, or having a representation that plays enough of the relevant functional role, etc. belief is therefore vague: there are clear cases of belief, clear cases of non-belief, and borderline cases. a related account of doubt is developed in chapter 2, and this account is extended in chapter 3 to yield an account of confidence. part ii uses the accounts of belief, doubt, and confidence from part i to assess the threshold view. all of the major objections to the threshold view are answered in chapters 4 and 5. chapter 4 replies to two non-epistemological objections to the threshold view. chapter 5 undermines the main arguments for the epistemological claims that conflict with the threshold view. however, in chapter 6 the accounts of belief and confidence are used to show that the threshold view is probably false. but it emerges that a close cousin of the threshold view--the 'moderate threshold account'--is probably true. as the moderate threshold account arguably has much the same epistemological consequences as the threshold view, there is a case to be made for rejecting one or more of the epistemological claims that drive the epistemological arguments against the threshold view. in this study, piezoflexure-enabled nanofabrication (pen), a new technique for forming nanometer-scale features based on the combination of dynamic stencil lithography and lift-off processing is analyzed, investigated, and demonstrated. in the pen approach, a deposition substrate is translated under a stencil mask in an electron-beam evaporator between depositions of dissimilar materials. the piezoelectric translation defines the interembedded features that are later differentially etched to reveal the desired patterns. this technique is inherently clean, without resists, organics, and bakes. the masks are reconfigurable, since a single rectangular aperture mask can be used to batch fabricate a wide array of device structures in a single pump-down cycle of the evaporator. as a first part of this project, the pen system was designed and constructed. a stencil mask fabrication technique based on anisotropic etching of silicon was developed and square apertures as small as 1 micron on a side with edge uniformity on the order of 10 nanometers were demonstrated. several process attributes such as geometrical edge taper, mask clogging, thermal expansion due to radiative heat, and lateral material diffusion during deposition have been identified and characterized. the lateral spread of materials has been investigated in a series of experimental matrices enabled by the ability of the pen system to perform multiple independent evaporations in the same run. the lateral diffusions were characterized by atomic force and scanning electron microscopy to show that material displacement under the stencil mask can range from approximately 0.1 to 2 µm even near room temperature (45 °c) with strong dependence on the deposited material and the vacuum conditions. it was shown that evaporation in n2 or o2 background pressure suppresses the spreading of al, cr, pt, and ti by slightly more than a factor of two. in order to explore and develop the capability of this novel technique several structures have been fabricated. nanometer-scale wires with minimum feature dimension of approximately 30 nm and nanowire pairs with nanometer-scale spacings have been created. arrays of al/alxoy/ge metal-oxide-semiconductor (mos) structures deposited with varying evaporation conditions have been formed for rapid material characterization. finally, a poly-ge channel thin film transistor structure was fabricated. in recent years multi-user networks have experienced a tremendousgrowth both in terms of the number of units deployed and in termsof their throughput requirements. there has been a lot of effort ondesigning transmission schemes for such networks, most of whichexploit spatial diversity to achieve improved throughputs. however,the schemes are often either too ad-hoc to be optimal or tooabstract to be implementable. this thesis derives practicable,near-optimal transmission schemes for multi-user networks, layingparticular emphasis on their ease of implementation.the first part of this thesis models the uplink of a genericmulti-user network and evaluates upper bounds on the capacity ofsuch a network. the thesis then refers to a practicabletransmission scheme that uses successive channel estimation andinterference cancelation to achieve throughputs close to the networkcapacity. since such a scheme results in unequal user capacities,the thesis develops a rate-splitting algorithm to equalize the usercapacities. the thesis also analyzes the asymptotic behavior of thenetwork and proves that, even under the most optimistic conditions,expanding networks cannot sustain a constant per-user capacity.the second part of this thesis considers the downlink of multi-usernetworks and presents practicable techniques for channel statefeedback and user selection. all effective broadcasting schemesrequire channel state information at the transmitter, but most ofthe common channel feedback schemes have an exponentiallyincreasing complexity with an increasing feedback rate. the thesispresents a low-complexity rotate-and-quantize algorithm based on extended scalar quantization that has a tremendouslyreduced complexity when compared to traditional feedback schemeswhile achieving comparable throughputs. in networks where the numberof users far exceeds the number of transmitting antennas at thebasestation, the effectiveness of the broadcasting scheme is furtherimproved by identifying users with almost-orthogonal channelrealizations. the thesis presents practicable user selectionschemes for such networks based on a grassmannian packings thatserve as good quantizers and allow the basestation to identifyorthogonal, and/or almost orthogonal receivers. hemispherical turrets are frequently employed on airborne aircraft for laser communication and targeting. however, the unsteady compressible turbulent flow around such a turret causes aberrations in the optical wavefront which degrades the performance of the system. to overcome this limitation it is necessary to have a deep understanding of the flow and optical environments around the turret, which are very challenging to study both experimentally and numerically. this thesis describes numerical study of this problem using advanced numerical techniques and high performance computers of the present days. two hemisphere-on-cylinder turrets, with base-height/diameter ratios h/d = 0.375 and 0.3125, respectively, in a mach 0.4 incoming fow are studied. the simulated flow fields conrm the findings from previous experimental studies, such as the existence of a necklace vortex around the base of the turret and flow separation in the central plane at an angle between 110 degree and 115 degree. furthermore, it is found that the necklace vortex is well below the optical aperture on the turret and thus has no direct impact on the aero-optical distortions, density fluctuations, which are directly related to optical aberrations, are strongest within the separated shear layer and wake region, and the recirculation bubble behind the turret experiences very little density fluctuations. optical computations also confirm the experimental results measured using 2-d wavefront sensor. besides, the effects of elevation angle and azimuthal angle on optical aberrations are studied in a systematic way. it is found that the optical aberration grows almost linearly with elevation angle when the elevation angle is above 110 degree, but it has a more complicated relationship with the azimuthal angle. at small elevation angles it decreases with increasing azimuthal angle and the change is nonlinear; however, when the elevation angle is large, the aberration does not decrease much, and even increases with azimuthal angle at small azimuthal angles but keeps decreasing at large azimuthal angles. in three essays, this dissertation explores the short-run and long-run effects of education policy reforms in sub-saharan african countries. the first chapter examines the impacts of mother tongue education on schooling and child labor outcomes by exploiting a language policy reform in ethiopia that took place in the early 1990s. the reform mandated the use of students' mother tongue languages as a medium of instruction in primary school instead of the country's national language, amharic. using cross-language and cross-cohort variations in exposure to the policy, i employ a difference-in-differences identification strategy to evaluate the effects of the reform. my results suggest that among non-amharic language speakers in rural areas of the country, there was a 6 percentage points decline in enrollment and about 0.4 years of reduction in years of schooling as a result of full exposure to the reform. i also find that the reform caused a statistically significant increase in the probability of children as young as 5 years old engaging in some form of work. boys were 2.3 percentage points more likely to participate in paid work in response to the reform, while girls were 4.1 percentage points more likely to participate in unpaid family work. qualitative evidence suggests that poor implementation of the policy without proper training of teachers who are proficient in non-amahric languages and inadequate supply of pedagogical materials may partly explain the unintended effects of the policy during this transition period. in most developing countries, especially in sub-saharan africa, majority of workers do not partake in the formal labor market, but instead are engaged in self-employment, unpaid family work or agricultural work. however, most studies that investigate the returns to education in these countries mainly focus on formal labor market outcomes. the second essay attempts to fill this gap by examining the relationship between increased schooling by household heads on households' consumption in malawi. in order to obtain consistent estimates, i employ a two stages least squares (2sls) strategy, which exploits the early 1990s free primary education (fpe) program of malawi as an exogenous source of variation in schooling. the first stage result shows that full exposure (i.e. eight years exposure) to the fpe program led to about 2 years increase in schooling. the 2sls estimates suggest that the value of households' weekly food consumption increased by about 13 percent due to an additional year of schooling by the household head. i also find increases in the consumption of non-food items as well as ownership of durable goods. in a third essay, i investigate the impact that higher women's educational attainment has on fertility and child mortality, using nationally representative data sets from malawi. in order to find consistent estimates, i use an instrumental variables (iv) strategy based on the fpe policy of malawi. my first stage results show that full exposure to the fpe policy in high-intensity district leads to about 1 year of additional schooling. furthermore, my iv estimates show that increased schooling due to the reform led to the postponement of first birth as well as to significant reductions in total fertility. total fertility by age 25, for example, was reduced by almost a third of a child due to an additional year of schooling. i also find evidence that shows that delayed sexual activity, increased use of modern contraceptions and changes in spousal characteristics may help explain these negative effects of schooling on fertility. moreover, i find significant reduction in the fraction of children who died, due to increased schooling by the mother. i attempt to provide evidence for several potential channels through which schooling might affect child mortality. for example, i show that an additional year of schooling led to 1.3 and 7 percentage points increases in the probability of having more than 12 months and 24 months gap between the first two births respectively. there is also evidence that suggests that maternal education has a positive and statistically significant effect on early childhood vaccination. this thesis explains the overarching concepts that lie behind and within all the objects and installations i produce. it also examines my role as object maker and installation artist.my sculpture and installations draw primarily from two schools of thought: as a formal referent, i use the characteristics of the anthropological fetish and ideas from phenomenological philosophy as conceptual grounding. this paper will examine the relationship between contemporary thought relating to the anthropological fetish and the formal characteristics of the objects i create. my sculptural practice is not material specific. my current body of work includes: steel, resin, wood, glass, and numerous found objects. while there is some variety, the visual character of my sculpture typically focuses on a found object as the dominant visual subject matter. i use my smaller sculptures as components in sculptural environments/installations. my installations use these components to illustrate how objects have an extrinsic value in their capability to act as catalysts for memory. through the examination of one of my prior installations, i will examine the methodologies used and the ideas amplified by the aggregate nature of that installation. this paper will conclude with an elucidation of the goals in the generation of my thesis exhibition. here, i will directly link the tactics employed in prior exhibitions of my work with the overarching strategies and goals i have as a sculptor. this section will relate the objects and environments that i have created to date as components of my thesis exhibition to the conceptual/formal framework explained in the first portion of this paper with attention, where applicable, to how the method of creation and/or materials used further emphasize these notions. a statement from the artist: my interest focuses on industrial and economic collapse. the frail rusted shells of abandoned factories and buildings litter most urbanized landscapes. landscapes that are always in a state of flux. in many ways, this change is physical and comes from long exposure to the elements, yet i am most interested in the change set into motion by the abandonment of old technologies for more cost efficient ones. deserted factories still stand as monuments of past industrial wonder and a past prosperous time. however, they tower as an abjection on the landscape and a reminder of the enormous economic change we are currently experiencing. when confronted with abandoned derelict places, i find myself consumed with curiosity, disbelief, and trepidation. it is in these moments of conflicting emotions that a relationship is built between the urban industrial landscapes and myself. i use the illusion of an oxidized i-beam, an industrial structural material, for my sculptural installations, with rust representing the slow deterioration of our built environments. in the article, anxious landscapes: from the ruin to rust, antoine picon describes rust as a prison. rust consumes us and our environment; creating a prison and separating humans from the natural environment, acting as a reminder of our active role as the builders of these landscapes.* the i-beam is the basic framework of industrial construction. the i-beams are presented in a state of collapse and deterioration, their inherent supporting strength is in question, much like the jeopardized framework of the economy. because the i-beams are constructed out of paper, the recognition of the frail and false economy we live within is made apparent. the installations bring into question every cityscape. how we view them and how we view ourselves is developed out of what they represent. industrial landscapes have become graveyards with abandoned buildings towering like massive tombstones, a representation of progress and decline sealed in the confines of an oxidizing surface. * t edensor, 'waste matter the debris of industrial ruins and the disordering of the material world,' journal 10.3 (2005), http://mcu.sagepub.com/content/10/3/311 (accessed aug. 2012). the primary mode of production of w+ bosons in a proton-antiproton collider is u + anti-d -> w+. the u quark generally carries more momentum than the anti-d and the resultant w+ tends to be boosted in the proton direction. similarly, wbosons are boosted in the anti-proton direction. this is observed as an asymmetry in the rapidity distributions of positive and negative w bosons. measurement of this asymmetry serves as a probe of the momentum distribution of partons within the proton. these distributions are required as input to the calculation of every proton-antiproton production cross section. this thesis presents the first measurement at dzero of the charge asymmetry of the w boson production cross section as measured in w -> electron + neutrino decays in 0.3 fb^-1 of proton-antiproton collisions collected with the dzero detector. theoretical predictions made using the cteq6.1m and mrst(2004) parton distribution functions are compared with the measurement. heterogeneous platforms which employ a mix of cpus and gpus have been widely used in many different areas such as embedded computing and high performance computing. such heterogeneous platforms have the potential to offer higher performance at lower energy cost than homogeneous platforms. however, it is rather challenging to actually achieve the high performance and energy efficiency promised by many heterogeneous platforms. one reason is that a straightforward division of the workload of an application among the processors usually cannot efficiently utilize the distinct processors of heterogeneous platforms. another reason is that a heterogeneous platform presents a large design space for workload partitioning among different processors.to help application developers explore workload partitions (wps) on heterogeneous platforms for exploiting performance and energy potential, we make four contributions in this dissertation. first, as a case study, we conduct an in-depth investigation of different strategies of partitioning the workload for the data assembly (da) stage in finite element method applications. by running different wps of da on a broad range of heterogeneous hardware platforms, we examine the performance and energy impacts of workload partitioning on heterogeneous platforms. second, we develop a performance model, perdome, to estimate the performance potential of different wps on heterogeneous platforms. third, we build a framework, peapaw, to assist application developers to find a wp that has high potential leading to high performance or energy efficiency before actual implementation. the peapaw framework includes both analytical performance/energy models and two sets of workload partitioning guidelines. based on the design goal (i.e., performance or energy), application developers can obtain a workload partitioning guideline and use peapaw to estimate the performance or energy of designed wps on a given heterogeneous platform. last, we enhance the capability of peapaw in handling more complicated application memory behaviors and integrated heterogeneous platforms. our results show that papaw+ can provide higher accuracy of wp performance estimation and more effective workload partitioning guidelines on both discrete and integrated heterogeneous platforms than peapaw. with these contributions, this dissertation not only advances the understanding of interplay between workload partition and performance/energy of heterogeneous platforms but also provides practical techniques to guide efficient workload partitioning on heterogeneous platforms. deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, and abdominal aortic aneurysms are blood-related diseases that represent a major public health problem. these diseases are characterized by the formation of a thrombus (i.e., blood clot) that either blocks a major artery or causes an aortic rupture. identifying the mechanical properties of thrombi can help determine when these incidents will occur. in this investigation, a murine thrombus, formed from platelet-rich plasma, calcium, and thrombin, was nanoindented and the elastic modulus was determined via elastic contact theory. this information was used as input to an inverse finite element simulation, which synthesized optimal values for the elastic modulus and viscosity of the thrombus using a viscoelastic material model. a sensitivity analysis was also performed to determine which material parameters have the greatest affect on the simulation. results from this investigation demonstrate the feasibility of the mechanical characterization of a murine thrombus using nanoindentation. this thesis describes the efforts toward developing new molecular probes which can target and report on biological membranes. these probes employ sophisticated fluorescence or photothermal reporting group, and one or more high affinity ligands for receptors of biological importance. specifically, four studies were conducted: covalently conjugated far-red fluorescent probes employing one or two crgdfk targeting ligands were shown to internalize into ovcar-4 cells and tumors. additional targeting and uptake studies into cancer cells were conducted with non-covalently preassembled fluorescent molecular probes created using synthavidin (synthetic avidin) technology. synthavidin technology was also used to functionalize the surface of liposomes, endowing them both with far-red fluorescence and affinity for either cationic or anionic biological membranes. finally, photothermal croconaine dyes were incorporated into nanoparticles to create stable nanoparticles capable of far-red laser triggered payload release. li-ion batteries based on organic liquid electrolytes have been commercialized for decades. however, the flammability of the liquid electrolyte and propensity for reaction with metallic lithium anodes warrants the study of alternative electrolyte materials to satisfy modern demands such as higher safety and energy density. polymer electrolytes are non-flammable, processable, and more inert towards lithium metal and electrochemical side reactions. but ionic conductivity in common polymer electrolytes, such as poly(ethylene oxide)-based polymer electrolytes, is limited by the segmental relaxation of the polymer matrix that is solvating the lithium cation. recently, metal-ion containing polymers with regulated, repeating chain architecture have drawn attention as ion conductors due to their ionic domain segregation. in this dissertation, a new type of single-ion polymer electrolytes without solvating functions have been developed. they can form various ionic phase morphology like hexagonal and layered. their ionic conductivity of the material bulk transport is coupled with α relaxation while in-cluster transport is decoupled with α relaxation or ionic cluster rearrangements. the in-cluster transport rate is much faster than the bulk transport rate because of the difference in transfer mechanisms. the in-cluster transport is supported by lowered potential barrier as a result of coulombic interactions and disordered defects. a new design rule of polymer electrolyte has been elucidated for achieving highly conductive and mechanical stiff properties. my dissertation tracks early developments in the concept of responsibility in the thirty years following the word's first dictionary appearance two years before the outbreak of the french revolution. in this goal, my research situates itself within a history of ideas. i trace "responsibility" from its original association with politics into the private and personal sphere as a result of the revolution, through the lens of french and british fiction published between 1789 and 1814. my project examines three works from this traditionally understudied corpus of early revolutionary fiction to determine the early "missing links" in the conceptualization of responsibility and its migration from the political to the personal. by examining the theme of revolutionary madness and restoration, fictional representations and repercussions of the trial of louis xvi, and the relationship of women to a modern ethic of responsibility, my dissertation offers a clearer insight into the way responsibility was envisioned by writers during the french revolutionary period in a way that continues to influence our thinking today. the aim of this thesis is to explore a previously unstudied type of prospective memory (pm), namely, location-based pm. people often have to remember to do things when in a particular location, such as buying tissues the next time they go to the supermarket. the event cognition literature supports the idea that location-based cues will be effective, while leaving open the question of whether multiple events will improve or impair performance. in the primary experiment, people delivered messages from store to store in a virtual shopping mall as an ongoing task, with two pm tasks per trial. those tasks were received, and then were done, in either one or two locations. experiment 1 provided preliminary evidence that the virtual environment and location cues were effective, while experiment 2 indicated that people improved performance when they received instructions from two locations and performed both tasks in one. severe wind storm events, categorized as events which inflict a significant amount of damage as a result of wind, are difficult to both simulate and quantify with an acceptable degree of confidence. this experimental work focuses on the development of multiple simulation frameworks to simulate salient features of severe wind events and to assess their load effects on prismatic scale models. thunderstorm generated gust fronts, and associated downbursts, constitute various extreme wind events which cause significant damage to life and property. particularly vulnerable are low to high-rise buildings, transmission lines, industrial structures, wind turbines and possibly long span bridges. similarly, larger scale severe wind events (i.e. hurricanes) have a more pronounced direct impact on urban environments as well, producing damaging flow environments in special cases as a result of various situational factors. understanding the interaction between the built environment and these extreme events is critical to the design of structures, ensuring their resilience to these hazards for post-event functionality and the safety of occupants. in order to assess the impact these severe events have on structures, novel experimental approaches are developed to simulate the various features of these severe events. downburst outflows and gust fronts are simulated using three techniques: (i) a flat plate which can be oriented to a high incidence to the oncoming flow in a wind tunnel, (ii) a computational model of a rotating flat plate within a numerical wind tunnel and (iii) a novel facility that uses multiple small fans to tailor the oncoming flow within a wind tunnel (through a collaborative effort with miyazaki university and the center of excellence on wind effects in urban areas at tokyo polytechnic university). a severe wind flow environment within an urban setting is developed utilizing a computational domain, with both flow visualization and wind tunnel modeling, to assess attendant damage patterns caused by the flow field on the built environment, particularly to cladding and facades. prismatic models are subjected to the simulated flow fields, capturing the resulting surface pressures. these pressure results are then analyzed and compared with characteristics developed in response to synoptic boundary layer flow fields. the data is examined using a host of time, frequency and time-frequency based analysis techniques, delineating salient features in the transient flow fields that may depart from those observed in the typical synoptic boundary layer winds. the results presented herein demonstrate that simple, prismatic structures experience significant changes in the resulting surface pressures when impacted by a gust front-like flow. surface pressures show a marked increase/decrease in coefficient values, beyond those developed in boundary layer flow fields. the spectral description of the local pressure fluctuations and integral loads demonstrate differing behaviors based on the length of the storm event. time-frequency wavelet scalograms highlight temporal variations in the frequency content in response to the oncoming flow field. the computational model of an urban environment subjected to a severe wind event reveals various features within the developed flow field, resulting from multiple factors, that enhance surface pressures and facilitate debris impacts which yield detrimental effects on the building facade and exterior glass. the results of these investigations serve to examine and delineate whether the effects of gust front outflows and other severe wind events are indeed captured by the simulation techniques provided herein, to assess the impacts of severe events on structures based on the experimental results in this study, and to fundamentally contribute to the general body of transient aerodynamics knowledge base. lightweight processing addresses the memory wall problem with a different approach. it tolerates memory latency by providing fast access to multiple lightweight threads of execution. besides this, it associates a wide range of extended memory states (ems) with each memory word for fast produce consumer synchronization. in this work, we develop a cycle accurate version of an existing behavioral simulator and model novel aspects of the lwp architecture. using this simulation tool, we present a bottom up approach for the evaluation of the architecture on a set of micro-benchmarks. in particular, we measure the impact of memory latency and degree of banking, outstanding memory references per thread and the network on-chip (noc) topology on the execution time of microbenchmarks. this dissertation demonstrates the development of optimized targeted liposomal nanoparticle formulation for cancer and inhibitors for allergies. the first part (chapter 2-4) describes the approach to rationally engineered target-specific liposomal nanoparticles for various types of cancers, including breast cancer and b-cell malignancies. liposomal nanoparticles have been recognized and utilized as drug delivery platforms for decades. nevertheless, many attempts to translate targeted liposomal formulations as novel treatments to the clinic have failed. in fact, fda hasn't approved any targeted nanoparticle (liposomal or other materials) treatments as of this time of writing. among many reasons for failure, one of the main ones regards issues surrounding consistent reproducibility of targeted nanomaterials during manufacturing. to address this limitation, our lab has developed a patented technology for the synthesis of peptide-targeted liposomes with highly consistent batch-to-batch production that reproducibly achieves reliable outcomes in vivo experiments. furthermore, by taking advantage of multivalency in our design and using weak-to-moderate monovalent affinity ligand peptides as the targeting elements, we are able to achieve selectivity by designing avidity for cancer cells while avoiding healthy cells/tissue. this is accomplished by evaluating the liposomal formulation first in vitro, and then further optimizing it in vivo by adjusting the individual design parameters, such as peptide density, linker length, peptide hydrophilicity, and particle size, to achieve maximal cellular uptake while preserving the selectivity for specific target cancer cells. in each chapter, we show optimized targeted liposomal nanoparticles that achieved enhanced therapeutic efficacy to significantly inhibit tumor growth with reduced toxicity.the second part (chapter 5 and 6) describes the development of allergen-specific inhibitors. allergic reactions can vary from mild (rash, itchiness, runny nose, etc.) to a life-threatening anaphylaxis. currently, there are no prophylactic treatments available that prevents the allergic reaction prior to its initiation. to address this problem, we developed a two-step process where we first identify immunodominant epitopes/haptens, and then develop specific inhibitors for these epitopes/haptens. we start by using our patented liposome-based synthetic allergen platform, named nanoallergens, to identify immunogenic epitopes that are responsible for triggering the degranulation response. then, using the identified immunogenic epitopes, we develop inhibitors, named chbis, that bind to allergen-specific iges and inhibit their interaction with the allergen and thereby inhibit the allergic response. in the chapter 5, we demonstrated in vivo efficacy of chbis that effectively and persistently inhibit ara h 2-induced anaphylaxis in the humanized mice. furthermore, in the chapter 6, we identified immunogenic epitopes of shrimp protein, pen a 1, and developed a cocktail of chbis that showed more than 90% inhibition in the in vitro cellular degranulation response. the term 'intabulation' refers to an arrangement of a polyphonic vocal piece for keyboard or plucked string instruments. though the practice of intabulation was widely cultivated in earlier times, in modern times scholars have shown little interest in this genre and counted it simply as arrangement rather than original instrumental music. in some ways, intabulation serves as the early music equivalent of modern piano arrangements of orchestral scores. however, almost invariably, intabulations are enriched by extensive embellishment. therefore, intabulations of early music often provide valuable evidence for the historical keyboard ornamentation of earlier styles of vocal music.in the 1950s, a significant portion of scheidemann's music, including his intabulations, was discovered in clausthal-zellerfeld in germany. the intabulations were first published in the 1990s and have since that time received a certain amount of attention. in my studies, i will investigate scheidemann's art as presented in his motet intabulations with a view of testifying to his artistic maturity as shown in these works. my thesis is intended to study the influence of his teacher, jan pieterszoon sweelinck, as well as the historical background, why such motet intabulations for organ were created in seventeenth-century hamburg, and how scheidemann arranged vocal motets into keyboard music by employing diverse colors of figuration patterns, which he called "colorations (kolorierungen)."the thesis will consist of five chapters. in chapter one, i will give an introduction looking at the history of vocal intabulation from its beginning in the fourteenth century. i will examine several manuscripts, including the arrangements of motets in the robertsbridge codex of the fourteenth century, intabulations in the buxheimer orgelbuch, from fifteenth-century germany, and ammerbach's orgel oder instrument tabulaturbuch, a collection of keyboard intabulations published in the sixteenth century. in chapter two, i will examine three important influences on scheidemann's highly developed intabulation technique. the main focus of the third and fourth chapters is the figurations treated in sweelinck's and scheidemann's works, and how they are similar or different. in each chapter, i will look at the figurations displayed in sweelinck's sacred variations and scheidemann's intabulations. i will also consider scheidemann's approach to figuration with reference to the original vocal models. in the fifth and final chapter, i will look at the position of scheidemann's motet intabulations as the culmination of the genre in the mid seventeenth century. this thesis will demonstrate that scheidemann's motet intabulations are the equal in every respect of his other organ works and deserve a place among the very finest and the very last of the genre. machine learning models struggle to generalize when the number of class instances is numerically imbalanced. data augmentation (da) is a leading approach to improve generalization for under-represented classes. despite its wide-spread use, the mechanisms by which da works are not clearly understood.in this dissertation, we take a step toward understanding how da works with imbalanced data. we begin by building three novel algorithms, which incorporate data augmentation, to improve generalization for under-represented classes. based on insights gleaned from this process, we focus on the latent features learned by machine learning (ml) models as potential culprits in generalization. we design a suite of tools, with latent features, that can be used to understand data complexity and class overlap.we also find that certain da methods and parametric ml classifiers (cnn, logistic regression, svm) incorporate hidden linearity at the front-end of training and during inference that may affect generalization, when learning with imbalanced data. further, we demonstrate that parametric ml models rely heavily on the magnitude of a limited number of latent features. during inference, they predict classes based on a combination of latent feature magnitudes that sum to a requisite threshold. can democratic regimes in unequal societies redistribute in favor of the poor without partisan strings attached? under what conditions are politicians willing and able to tie their own hands in favor of rules-based implementation of social programs? this dissertation manuscript presents the analysis of the policy trajectories of conditional cash transfers in two prototypical clientelistic polities: mexico and brazil (1997-2006). i develop an original theoretical model of choice for program implementation in two dimensions (rules vs. discretion and centralization vs. decentralization), and posit that the choice for the implementation model of direct transfers for the poor &ndash;as a choice between clientelism and rules-based implementationresults from the electoral calculus of the federal government, which is a function of the relative brokerage capacity (partisan territorial presence) of the governing party in the regions where the poor are overrepresented. i combine process-tracing methods with the statistical analysis of program allocations at the municipality level and find no evidence of political influence in the selection of beneficiaries in both cases. my findings suggest that the mexican federal government invested in credible non-partisan targeting of the progresa-oportunidades and a highly centralized model of implementation as a way of tying the hands of local pri brokers, who could otherwise be disproportionately favored through the extraction of clientelistic rents from the political manipulation of the program. in the case of brazil, i find a similar trajectory towards program depoliticisation that warrants, however, a different explanation: the relative brokerage capacity of the federal government in deprived regions also provided for incentives for depoliticisation (with a decentralized implementation model), but not directly as a function pts territorial presence, but the territorial implications of the governing coalition of lulaå«s first administration. by 2006, bolsa fam lia and oportunidades stood as emblematic examples of the ability of the state to channel resources for the poor without partisan strings attached, and remarkable poverty alleviation programs. this research projects provides for a politically-informed understanding of these choices. increasing energy demands and global warming stimulate research in alternative energy for subsequent generations. utilizing solar energy can be ultimate goal to satisfy energy demands in the future. organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite is currently one strong candidate for next generation solar cells. to apply the perovskite compounds to solar cell devices, it is undebatable that one must study the fundamental photophysical properties and basic chemistry of these perovskite. varying the halide ratio (e,g., br-:i-) is a convenient approach to tune the bandgap of organic lead halide perovskites. the complexation between pb2+ and halide ions is the primary step in dictating the overall composition, and optical properties of the annealed perovskite structure. preferable complexation between pb2+ and brdominates the overall absorption/emission properties of the mixed halide perovskite. in the presence of both bromide and iodide anions in the perovskite film, a reversible photoinduced segregation process occurred generating bromide-rich and iodide-rich domains. this intriguing aspect of halide ion migration can be monitored by both emission and transient absorption spectroscopic characterizations. both the emission and transient absorption spectroscopy elucidates photophysical evidence of the two segregated domains and ultrafast charge transfer from the bromide-rich to iodide-rich domains. also, tracking formation and recovery processes through absorption/transient absorption studies, we found that phase separation occurs with a rate constant of 0.1-0.3 s-1. the recovery occurs over a time period of several minutes-hour. furthermore, at higher halide concentrations (more than stoichiometric composition), the segregation effects become less prominent as evident from the faster recovery kinetics in the preferred ch3nh3pbbr3 film formation. this finding suggests that the exclusive binding of brto pb2+ plays a role in minimizing the photoinduced segregation process. also, the slower formation and recovery rates observed with halide deficient films indicate the involvement of defect sites in influencing the segregation process. the findings from this study further reflects the importance of halide treatment (e.g., ch3nh3pbi3) of perovskite films to improve the performance of solar cells. social behavior in anurans is a complex system integrating internal physiological processes and external stimuli, and ultimately has crucial impacts on mating success. this research aimed to uncover both internal and external factors that have a potential impact on anuran social behavior using a combination of lab, field, and computational approaches. my first goal was to investigate an internal factor, the hormone leptin, as a possible regulator of calling behavior in anurans, due to its role in energy regulation and mating behavior in other taxa. using immunohistochemistry in the brain of the african clawed frog, xenopus laevis, i found leptin-like immunoreactivity in the pallium, striatum, and amygdala of the telencephalon, the preoptic area of the diencephalon, and in the thalamus and hypothalamus. i also administered leptin to calling gray tree frogs, hyla versicolor, in the field, and observed a significant effect on call effort. these demonstrated that leptin could have a role in regulating vocalization. my second goal was to investigate external social factors that could affect spatial arrangement of male anurans and the quality of their calls in the field, using the recorded calls and spatial positions of hyla versicolor from individual nightly choruses. in active choruses where males are clustered, males near the center of clusters displayed call characteristics preferred by females significantly more often than the other members of their clusters, suggesting that males use the social cues of other males and their positions in the chorus to make behavioral decisions. my third goal was to investigate potential rules of anuran behavior involving two factors hypothesized to drive social interactions: the amplitude of a call, and the number of pulses present in the call. i created a model in which male decision making and interactions were based primarily on amplitude-based rules of calling, movement, and position choice. simulations from this model showed that male agents who began to call due to an amplitude-based rule produced clustered distributions compared to other rules, and that different neighbor preferences impacted the spacing within these clusters. i then used the design and findings from this to create another model, in which male position decisions and interactions, particularly competition and aggression, were primarily driven by pulse number. from these simulations, i found that while different neighbor preferences did not greatly impact the level of clustering, the behaviors within clusters were impacted, such that an intermediate number of aggressive interactions occurred when agents targeted neighbors based on pulse-number. our world is replete with instances of innocent suffering. typically, people are expected to empathize with innocent victims, yet many resort to victim-blaming and derogation. according to just world theory, a belief in a just world drives the blaming and derogation of innocent victims. however, several lines of evidence point to an important role played by emotion avoidance. in this paper, i argue that emotion avoidance drives victim-blaming/derogation and the belief in a just world.in chapter 1, i present a review of the research on just world theory. next, and since emotive processes are essential to my inquiry, i present in chapter 2 a review of the psychological literature on emotion and emotion avoidance. in chapter 3, i explore evidence supporting a role for emotion avoidance and present my thesis in more detail. finally, in chapter 4, i examine the syrian nonviolent movement of 2011 as a case study and present some implications of my hypothesis for sociopolitical movements. this work presents a novel method of measuring the unsteady thrust of a hovering flapping wing vehicle and the development of phenomenological models to simulate it. the measurements were taken using a balance beam with the flapping wings mounted at one end and a counterweight plus an accelerometer mounted at the other. the trust axis of the flapping wings was mounted vertically, and the counterweight was adjusted to balance the weight and average thrust of the flapping wings. an accelerometer mounted above the counterweight measured the unsteady thrust. this method decoupled the force sensing element from the mass of the flapping wings, as opposed to standard force sensors that use a linear spring. this study showed that the spectral content of the flapping wings extended to 15 times the flapping frequency, well above the resonant frequency of the mass-spring-damper system formed by a load cell and flapping mechanism. high speed video of the wings was used to determine the motion of the flexible structure. this motion was used to develop phenomenological linear models of flapping wing thrust generation. the results show that this approach to linear modeling produces a system of equations that can be used for flight dynamics simulation and controller design. this thesis is split into two sections, the first describes the synthesis and characterization of group 1 &#945;, &#945;&#8242;-stabilized carbanions and geminal dianions derived from organosulfonyacetonitriles, rso2ch2cn (r = me, t-bu, or ph), and bis(phenyl-sulfonyl)methane, (phso2)2ch2). metallation of these ligands with one molar equivalent of meli, buna or bnk results in the formation of the corresponding mono anions, [rso2chcn)m] and [{(phso2)2ch}m] (m = li, na, or k). similar reactions with two molar equivalents of the same bases leads to the generation of dianionic complexes, [(rso2ccn)m2] (r = t-bu, or ph) and [{(phso2)2c}m2] (m = li, na, or k). multinuclear nmr spectroscopic studies of these compounds in d6-dmso confirm the successive deprotonation of the methylene units. furthermore, electrospray mass spectroscopy and mei quenching studies found that the geminal dianionic complexes react with dmso to regenerate mono anions. crystallographic analysis of the monoanions revealed polymeric structural patterns that contrast with the molecular species known for the mono-stabilized analogues. the head-to-toe linking of organic anions by metal cations is a recurring theme in the organosulfonylacetonitrile polymers. crucially all of these structures can be derived from the rearrangement of dimers composed of two anions linked head-to-toe. the lithium and sodium bis(phenylsulfonyl)methanides form linear 1d chain structures comprised of interlinked six-membered (åáåáåáoscsomåáåáåá) ring chelates. section two describes the self assembly of coordination polymers from molecular lithium or sodium aryloxides through lewis acid/base interactions. two approaches were investigated for network assembly, incorporation of a methoxy or cyano linker group into the aryloxide backbone, and ligation with the divergent lewis base 1,4-dioxane. modification of the aryloxide backbone led to the recovery of molecular compounds in unanticipated aggregation states, which could be attributed to the electronic effects of the cyano and methoxy groups. ligation of lioar and naoar complexes with dioxane led to the inclusion of the molecular species in polymeric assemblies. in this light, tetrameric lioar cubanes were employed as tetrahedral nodes in the assembly of cubic diamondoid and related networks. the different ligation modes adopted by dioxane (terminal or bridging) leads to the formation of three related polymers, 1d zigzag chains, 2d (6,3) nets, and the targeted 3d cubic diamondoid array. the type of network formed is rationalized by consideration of entropic and space filling factors. the generality of this approach to network assembly was also demonstrated by the incorporation of dimeric lioar species into 1d, 2d and 3d polymers. similarly, hexameric naoar clusters were employed as octahedral nodes in the generation of 3d cubic and related polymers. balancing between protecting the privacy of individuals who contribute to data sets and releasing data sets of good utility is of extreme importance. even with data sets anonymized, there is a still a possibility that an intruder may identify a subject in a released data set. many of the existing methods for data privacy and confidentiality do not quantify the amount of privacy that the data set may leak. differential privacy provides a conceptual approach to bring strong mathematical guarantee for privacy protection and quantifies the amount of privacy the data set leaks when it is released for public use. my dissertation explores the recently developed differentially private data synthesis (dips) methods for incorporating differential privacy when generating synthetic data to be publicly released. i first developed a dips algorithm called cipher to construct differentially privacy microdata from low dimensional histograms by solving linear equations with tikhonov regularization. cipher decomposes joint probabilities via basic probability rules to construct the equation set and subsequently solves linear equations. simulations and qualitative banking data case study was conducted to compare cipher to existing methods called mwem (multiplicative weighting via exponential mechanism) and the full-dimensional histogram (fdh) sanitization. next my dissertation focuses on a exponential random graph model that incorporates differential privacy for social network data. an additional level of complexity is present in social network data as the possibly many relationships between nodes and edges must be considered. the algorithm developed in my work was applied to several real-life data sets to understand how well the differential private synthetic social network data released by our algorithm compares to that of the original network. lastly, my dissertation focuses on multiplicative weights and the single observation influence measure. this focused on exploring more in depth the multiplicative weighting via exponential mechanism and incorporating a single observation influence measure to allow the algorithm to be applied to any type of data, as long as the model and sufficient statistics are known. this dissertation develops a contemporary account of civic virtue that is rooted in the moral, political, and theological work of st. thomas aquinas, and, more specifically, as it can be developed from the concept of legal or general justice that aquinas adopts from aristotle. as we define and develop the concept, civic virtue refers to a firm and stable orientation of the will directing all acts of the virtues toward the common good of one's society. even as the core of civic virtue derives from aquinas' conception of legal justice ' hence we are calling it a thomistic account of civic virtue ' we also note the ways in which our account goes beyond and further develops ideas that can be traced back to aquinas' work; for example, in considering the role that the passions play in civic virtue. the dissertation begins by tracing the historical development of modern catholic social thought, noting how historical, political, and intellectual trends in the west contributed to considerably less attention being paid to aquinas' concept of legal justice in contemporary catholic moral and political thought. we also place our account of civic virtue into dialogue with contemporary discussions in political philosophy and natural law. these first two steps provide a contemporary context within which we place our exegetical and constructive account of civic virtue as a resource for catholic moral theology today. the historical and exegetical section focuses on an interpretation of aquinas' discussion of legal justice within the context of his wider theological and ethical aims, as well as the context of thirteenth century medieval european society. finally, the dissertation concludes with a constructive account of thomistic civic virtue for contemporary moral theology by combining our historical and exegetical insights and research with the dialogue partners of catholic social thought, political philosophy, and natural law. in doing so, we seek to demonstrate that such an account of civic virtue has much to contribute to contemporary christian theological discussions, on both a theoretical and practical level. various applications, such as battlefield surveillance, industrial process monitoring and control, civil infrastructure monitoring, etc. are enabled by multihop wireless networking technology. many wireless multihop networks carry streams of data with time-critical information (e.g., video streams in surveillance networks, sensor streams in monitoring and actuating applications, or command and control streams in factory automation applications). such data must reach their destinations in a predictable and timely manner. providing real-time communications in such a multihop wireless network is critical to their success. however, providing timeliness support is challenging, mainly due to (i) the inherently unreliable nature of the wireless medium, (ii) the distributed nature of multihop wireless networks, and (iii) the resource-constrained (mainly bandwidth and energy) environments. as a result, the design of an effective and efficient medium access control layer is especially important since it lays the foundation to provide actual timeliness support for all upper layers. however, existing solutions are either over-coordinated (fixed-schedule-based schemes) or under-coordinated (prioritized contention-based schemes), failing to address this problem efficiently. this thesis introduces drama, a new distributed, progressive, dynamic slot reservation mechanism, aiming to provide timeliness support at the medium access control layer. in drama, each node progressively and dynamically makes short-term slot reservations according to the timeliness and bandwidth requirements of its outgoing traffic, thereby quickly adapting to traffic and link dynamics. potentially interfering nodes reserve slots in a serialized and orthogonal manner, which ensures fast, contention-free slot reservations with high bandwidth utilization and low bandwidth overhead. similar to fixed-schedule-based approaches, nodes in drama can enter a low-power sleep mode when they do not transmit or receive data. molecular investigation of aerobic granular sludge formation abstract by belinda sue mcswain the efficiency of biological wastewater treatment depends upon the selection and growth of metabolically capable microorganisms and upon the efficient separation of those organisms from the treated effluent. researchers have developed operational guidelines and microbial selection theories in order to design reactors that form fast-settling flocs and select against filamentous bulking sludge. in recent years, the sequencing batch reactor (sbr) has been used to form even more compact sludge structures, in the form of aerobic granules. granules can be described as a collection of self-immobilized cells into a spherical form. this special case of biofilm growth occurs without the addition of carrier material. granular sludge have a wide range of beneficial properties compared to activated sludge flocs, most notably their strong structure and good settling property. a brief review of both anaerobic and aerobic granulation shows that a variety of microbial species are able to form granules, leading researchers to hypothesize that granulation is not a function of microbiological groups but of reactor operating conditions. to date, the operational factors controlling aerobic granulation are unclear, although granulation is mainly reported in sbrs. in this work, a series of completely aerobic sbrs were operated to form granules, and microbial investigations were conducted to correlate the reactor operation with the sludge structure at the macroand microscale. the results are divided into 3 sections: kinetic selection, physico-chemical selection, and reproducibility and maintenance. first, by manipulating the sbr operation and substrate concentrations, differences in substrate removal are shown to influence microbial selection and the sludge structure. second, settling times influence species selection and the composition of extracellular polymeric substances to aid granule formation, and high shear is important to provide a high dissolved oxygen in the reactor, which is necessary. third, granule formation is reproducible using different inoculum sludges and stable over long times. in the discussion section, results are correlated with the kinetic and metabolic selection theories for bulking sludge and other investigations using anoxic and aerobic granules. finally, an overall hypothesis for granule formation is presented. kinetics, species selection, and short settling times are the determinant factors of aerobic granule formation. the moon is the sole known locality of exposed high-titanium (high-ti) basalts in the solar system, but their occurrence has implications for the early evolution of the terrestrial planets. high-ti basalts derive from partial melts of cumulates in the lunar upper mantle. the ilmenite, clinopyroxene, and olivine cumulates from which these basalts form are late-stage products of crystallization of the lunar magma ocean, a planetary-scale melting event that also likely occurred early on in the evolution of venus, mercury, the earth and mars. fortunately, despite the ancient nature of mare volcanism, pristine high-ti basalts are preserved on the relatively inert lunar surface, and the lunar sample collection contains abundant high-ti basaltic material. crystals are quantifiable components of the basaltic system, and are a record of the compositional and temporal history of magmatic evolution. complementary techniques of textural and in-situ trace element geochemical analyses comprise the crystal stratigraphy method used to investigate this history. i use crystal size distributions and spatial distribution profiles to identify crystal populations and quantitatively evaluate rock textures. i use epma and la-icp-ms analysis of major crystallizing phases to identify processes affecting evolving magmas. i first show that la-icp-ms can determine accurate and precise trace elements for ilmenite, which is a major crystallizing phase in high-ti basalts. the taurus-littrow valley on the moon contains high-ti basalts from multiple distinct magmatic source regions. i propose multiple flow events of some regions were sampled during the apollo missions, and magma partially crystallized for short residence times at shallow depths. textural characterization of a high-ti olivine cumulate shows no other samples experienced crystal accumulation. finally, i investigate two rocklets found in the lunar highlands that were recently classified as basalts. i confirm their basaltic nature, extending the mare csd database to include picritic basalt and luna 24-type basalt. this dissertation marks the first application of the crystal stratigraphy method to the investigation of high-ti basalts. since the rise of the new christian right in the 1970s and 1980s, evangelicals have become closely linked with the republican party and cultural issues like abortion and gay marriage. however, since 2006 a variety of political observers have debated whether or not evangelicals are becoming more liberal. in this dissertation, i study public opinion and political behavior among young evangelicals in order to provide a social scientific answer to this debate. drawing on research from sociology, i argue that evangelicalism is a subculture that is engaged in society but holds certain values that are contrary to society. as part of its subcultural role, the evangelical tradition is at times highly critical of secular cultural norms and it uses various subcultural institutions to communicate alternative, evangelical values in their place. this means that evangelicalism may have the potential to insulate young evangelicals from broader trends in public opinion. this potential is strongest (a) among evangelicals who are more engaged in the subculture and (b) with regard to political identities and issues that have been more central to evangelicalism's political identity. in order to test various aspects of my theory, i rely on a multi-method approach that includes analysis of existing survey data, an original series of 42 interviews with evangelicals at five colleges, and an original panel study of evangelicals at seven colleges. i find that accounts of a new generation of liberal young evangelicals have been overstated: in terms of their partisan identity, ideology, and attitudes on abortion, young evangelicals are as conservative as ever. while young evangelicals have become more liberal on issues like gay marriage and social welfare, the liberalization seems to be concentrated among those who aren't engaged in the subculture. using panel data and evidence from the interviews, i show that immersion in the evangelical subculture leads to increased ideological conservatism and more conservative attitudes on abortion and gay marriage. i conclude that my subcultural theory provides an effective framework for understanding patterns of public opinion among evangelical millennials. ionic liquids (ils) are polar compounds composed of poorly coordinating ions which are liquid below 100 oc and have potential as a clean replacement for common vocs as solvents in chemical processes. ils have many favorable characteristics such as a low vapor pressure, stability over a large liquid working temperature range, and ability to be designed to dissolve compounds of interest. this research addresses innovative solutions using ils for two applications: absorption refrigeration and post combustion carbon capture. ionic liquids (ils) as absorbents in absorption refrigeration systems present the possibility of overcoming some of the safety and environmental concerns of current systems. in general, absorption refrigeration is attractive since electrical energy is replaced with low value heat energy. many ils are completely miscible with water, which leads the focus to investigating ils and water for this application. the coefficient of performance (cop) is the cooling capacity divided by the energy input to the absorption refrigeration cycle and it can be used to gauge the potential success of il and water systems. this research provides the necessary thermodynamic measurements and/or predictive modeling of the mixture properties and phase behavior (such as excess enthalpy, heat capacity, and vapor-liquid equilibria) in order to evaluate the il and water systems for future use in absorption refrigeration. the calculations have shown that the il and water systems have higher cops than the conventional systems. the second application of this research is based upon the fact that ils have shown great potential to replace the current carbon capture technology, which typically utilizes an aqueous amine solution. this research focuses on ils which can chemically complex (or chemically react) to carbon dioxide for separation from flue gas. the heat of absorption of the gas in the il is experimentally investigated by calorimetry, which is key to determine how much energy is required to regenerate the absorbents and the viability of the process. it is shown that the enthalpy can be varied significantly by careful choice of substituents on amine-functionalized ils. darwin hypothesized that speciation creates a continuum of forms, as slight variation between races gradually accumulates by natural selection into distinct differences between species. however, recent theory suggests that the antagonism between divergent selection and gene flow can sometimes reach a tipping point, enabling rapid adaptive divergence and genomic differentiation. this shift from direct selection on individual genes to emergent processes operating at the level of the genome is difficult to examine empirically, because a single speciation event cannot be observed from beginning to end. therefore, i consider a recent and ongoing radiation, the rhagoletis pomonella species group (diptera: tephritidae), which displays a spectrum of divergence and gene flow among member taxa. this dissertation examines genome-wide divergence along this continuum from genic (host race) to genomic (species) phases of differentiation, providing an empirical test for theoretical models of divergence via genome-wide congealing (gwc). by leveraging the long history of ecological experiments in this system, as well as recent association studies for life history traits putatively under divergent selection, i was able to make and test specific gwc predictions. i found that, as expected, the signature of selection on life history traits (specifically eclosion timing) build up over the course of divergence from host race to species, across the early stages of the speciation continuum. among the appleand hawthorn-infesting r. pomonella host races, many loci associated with eclosion timing within the host races also showed elevated differentiation between the host races. however, genome-wide differentiation and linkage disequilibrium (ld) was still relatively low, suggesting that the effects of selection on these loci have not yet coupled genome-wide to dramatically reduce effective gene flow. divergent selection on eclosion timing between r. pomonella and its later eclosing sister taxon, the flowering dogwood fly (fdf), has, it appears, begun to couple across the genome. "selected" loci associated with eclosion timing showed greater differentiation between these two taxa than putatively "neutral" loci and also showed elevated pairwise ld between physically unlinked loci. thus, despite an estimated magnitude of ongoing gene flow similar to that of host races, r. pomonella and the fdf remain genomically distinct both in sympatry and globally, suggesting a rapid transition across the gwc tipping point. beyond this tipping point, it remains to be seen whether differentiation for and ld between loci associated with eclosion in r. pomonella (and putatively under selection during host shifts) are also elevated between r. pomonella and r. mendax, r. zephyria, and/or r. cornivora, and whether substantially reduced gene flow between these taxa has led to similar patterns among putatively "neutral" loci indicative of later stages of gwc. evidence of a non-linear continuum of divergence in the r. pomonella species group could have broader implications for understanding the dynamics of primary divergence in the face of gene flow, maintenance of species boundaries upon secondary contact, and ultimately punctuated patterns of biodiversity in nature and the fossil record. this dissertation examines medieval fable collections from a critical animal studies perspective. discussion is focused on relationships between humans and nonhuman animals, as portrayed in works written and circulated in britain during the middle ages, particularly: avianus's fables; the elegiac romulus; alexander neckam's novus aesopus; odo of cheriton's parabolae; the fables ascribed to "marie de france"; the morall fabillis of robert henryson; and william caxton's aesop. the dissertation offers close textual analyses of selected fables from these collections, some of which do not otherwise exist in modern english translation. chapters are organized according to several themes: cohabitation between wild animals and humans; human domination of "working animals" such as dogs and donkeys; and the exploitation of domesticated animals such as sheep and birds for food and other resources. the concluding chapter analyzes two fables in which the species of characters changes drastically across versions, illustrating that animal characters' affordances shape the stories in which they appear, and that animal voices, in the counterfactual context of fable, may be invoked easily but heeded with difficulty. this dissertation argues that fables are highly heterogeneous and not reduceable to one message. nevertheless, fables, in portraying nonhuman perspectives and voices, offer an alternative and sometimes oppositional discourse, imperfectly recuperated into dominant discourses about nonhuman animals in the middle ages. why do self-interested legislators regulate their own finances, allocate public money to minority parties and candidates, impose disclosure rules on politicians' financial accounts, and establish penalties for violations of financial regulations? the simplest answer is that politicians regulate political funding to enhance their chances of winning elections. form this point of view, campaign and party funding rules would be always aimed at providing financial advantages for majority parties and to hinder financial activities of minority parties. the answer is consistent with the mainstream political science literature, but it misses the point that politicians and political parties need money not only to win the election. they need money to endure between elections and to be able to remain in the electoral race. another response is that legislators regulate their funds if voters demand it. yet, this other approach wrongly assumes that popularly supported reforms necessarily increase transparency and equity. in many cases, politicians manipulate scandal-driven reforms to avoid transparency and equity. an alternative answer is that funding regulations are shaped by political parties' specific needs for funding. party organizations and electoral systems could certainly make some reforms more likely than others, but they are both endogenous to politicians' anticipations of electoral results. finally, socio-economic transformations (such as modernization and variations in the size of the government) can also create conditions for reforming. nonetheless, socio-economic transformations do not provide a specific explanation of the mechanism of policy reform. all the previously mentioned approaches provide useful insights, but their shortcomings suggest the need for a more comprehensive approach to campaign and political party funding regulations. this dissertation offers a model of political decision based on the following premise: politicians not only need money to win the election, but also to protect themselves from future financial drought. if politicians perceive risk of losing the election, they will be willing to enact more unbiased and transparent systems of public funding. in other words, they will "purchase"? an "insurance policy"? to compensate from losing power and, eventually, financial privileges. the weighted essentially non-oscillatory (weno) schemes, especially the fifth order weno schemes, are a popular class of high order accurate numerical methods for solving hyperbolic partial differential equations (pdes). however when the spatial dimensions are high, the number of spatial grid points increases significantly. it leads to large amount of operations and computational costs in the numerical simulations by using nonlinear high order accuracy weno schemes such as a fifth order weno scheme. how to achieve fast simulations by high order weno methods for high spatial dimension hyperbolic pdes is a challenging and important question. in the literature, sparse-grid technique has been developed as a very efficient approximation tool for high dimensional problems. in a recent work [lu, chen and zhang, pure and applied mathematics quarterly, 14 (2018) 57-86], a third order finite difference weno method with sparse-grid combination technique was designed to solve multidimensional hyperbolic equations including both linear advection equations and nonlinear burgers' equations. numerical experiments showed that weno computations on sparse grids achieved comparable third order accuracy in smooth regions of the solutions and nonlinear stability as that for computations on regular single grids. in application problems, higher than third order weno schemes are often preferred in order to efficiently resolve the complex solution structures. in this paper, we extend the approach to higher order weno simulations specifically the fifth order weno scheme. a fifth order weno interpolation is applied in the prolongation part of the sparse-grid combination technique to deal with discontinuous solutions. benchmark problems are first solved to show that significant cpu times are saved while both fifth order accuracy and stability of the weno scheme are preserved for simulations on sparse grids. the fifth order sparse grid weno method is then applied to kinetic problems modeled by high dimensional vlasov based pdes to further demonstrate large savings of computational costs by comparing with simulations on regular single grids. the purpose of this study was to examine the mediating role of parenting support and its effect on the dynamic of parenting quality and religiosity. seventy-three adolescent mothers completed questionnaires for parenting, religiosity, and parenting support. the results indicated that the relation between religiosity and parenting were not mediated by parenting support. implications for future research and practical support are discussed. algorithms from the field of numerical algebraic geometry provide robust means to compute all isolated solutions of arbitrary systems of polynomials and to give a thorough numerical description of positive-dimensional solution components. however, the number of isolated complex solutions tends to grow exponentially with respect to the number $n$ of equations and variables, limiting the size of tractable systems. this is a particular problem for systems arising from discretizations of ordinary differential equations because $n$ is directly related to mesh size, and finer meshes are generally more desirable. on the other hand, the number of interesting solutions is often far smaller than the total count, and much effort is wasted on complex solutions with no physical interpretation.in the first part of this thesis, a general method is given for constructing a homotopy that directly relates solutions on grids of different resolutions. this enables iterative generation of solutions on increasingly fine meshes, and makes it possible to filter out some non-physical solutions to substantially reduce wasted computation time. in the second part, a new algorithm is given to compute the numerical irreducible decomposition of a general polynomial system over a finite algebraic extension of $q$ by projecting the solution set onto a line and deducing the exact defining polynomial of the projection. this dissertation concerns research on atmospheric surface layer within complex-terrain boundary layers, wherein data collected during two field experiments will be analyzed: 1) the u.s. department of energy's (doe) wind forecast improvement project 2 (wfip2) that took place in the columbia river gorge and basin region (or), and 2) the swex-pilot experiment, a field campaign that took place in santa barbara (ca) between april-may 2020. the latter campaign was conducted by this author after the national science foundation (nsf)'s 2020 sundowner wind experiment (swex) in santa barbara (ca) was postponed a few days before its official start (april 1st 2020) because of the presence of the new (at the time) covid-19 virus in ca.the main goal of wfip2 was to improve wind energy forecasts in regions of complex terrain by improving physical parameterizations of numerical weather prediction (nwp) models. in this thesis, the variability of turbulent fluxes at the sub-grid scales of npw models in regions of complex terrain, as well as the applicability of monin-obukhov (mo) theory and the skill of idealized surface-layer (sl) parameterizations that rely on it was studied. the goal of the 2020 swex experiment was to study the spatio-temporal characteristics of sundowner winds – a dangerous weather condition that may intensify wildfires in coastal santa barbara, ca. notwithstanding the limited instrumentation deployed during the 2020 swex – pilot experiment, the collected dataset could be used along with operational data of the national weather service (nws) to identify days with sundowner winds and study small-scale weather phenomena in the santa ynez valley (syv) and in the lee of the santa ynez mountains (sym) in santa barbara county (ca) during sundowners with strong synoptic-to mesoscale forcing. this dissertation explores how religion helped to define the interplay between whiteness, ethnicity and power between 1885 and 1924 in ways that continue to shape the united states. how, i ask, did various european immigrants employ religion to become not merely pale-skinned ethnics, but fully acceptable americans –good white christians? beginning with the encounter of these immigrants with anglo-american elites in chicago, i trace a crisscrossing religious network that is american in its focus, but global in its account of immigrants' and americans' sweeping transnational efforts of activism and world-betterment. this dissertation demonstrates that various european immigrant religious groups harnessed the cultural capital and coercive power of white protestantism by adopting a posture of restless cultural activism and fervent missionary zeal, as well as a view of ethnic boundaries as harmful to proper religion.while scholars of race, immigration, and religion have long tended to treat "white religion" as a byproduct of racial and ethnic binaries, i focus on how religion itself contributed to enduring cultural hierarchies. white protestant "home missionaries" from the u.s. went on recruiting tours to europe, scouting for racially and religiously "desirable" newcomers. in return, swiss-german mennonites rejected spiritualities of quietism and activated their white bodies' privilege through "civilizing missions" to chicago immigrants or "the dark races" of india; and a swedish woman crossed the atlantic in order to contribute to the project of a christian nation by fighting latter-day saints in utah. religion, then, mapped racial spaces, not just the other way around. and "white religion" in america as we know it today is not simply a concomitant of racial binaries, but a fundamentally spiritual construct – never simply anglo-saxon, nor always american-born. this dissertation's implications extend to the present: despite the contributions of their busy, world-bettering activism to the vitality of religious life in america, the immigrant religious groups i am interested in probably lost what could be a considerable gift to a culture still fraught with racial tensions: the instinct of ethnoreligious minorities that declined to exploit the advantages of their skin pigmentation, but opted instead for a "wise provincialism" – a position on the sidelines of dominant culture. we examined the regenerative capacity of the adult zebrafish retina by intravitreal injection of a low ouabain concentration to rapidly damage the ganglion cell layer (gcl) and inner nuclear layer (inl), with minimal photoreceptor cell damage. by 24 hours post-ouabain injection, maximal numbers of tunel-positive cells were detected in the inl and gcl, with low numbers of tunel-positive cells in the outer nuclear layer (onl). immunolabeling revealed nearly 85% of the huc/d-positive amacrine and ganglion cells were lost by 7 dpi (days post-ouabain injection). this ganglion cell loss was consistent with the small, but statistically significant, decrease in the optic nerve diameter. the regeneration response began within 1 dpi with increased pcna expression in both the inl and gcl. by 3 dpi, pcna expression is largely restricted to the mì_ller glia. by 5 dpi, most of the pcna expression was localized to neuronal progenitors expressing the olig2:egfp transgene rather than the mì_ller glia. by 7 dpi, the neuronal progenitors began committing to the ganglion cell fate based on the coexpression of the atoh7:egfp transgene and the zn5 antigen. the regeneration of ganglion and amacrine cells continued until 60 dpi, when they reached 75% of their uninjected control number. this demonstrates that inner retinal damage, without extensive photoreceptor damage, is sufficient to induce a regeneration response that is marked by the mì_ller glial cells re-entering the cell cycle to produce neuronal progenitor cells that regenerate inl and ganglion cells in the zebrafish retina. similar to light-induced retinal regeneration in the adult zebrafish, ouabain-induced damage triggers the regeneration of cell type(s) in a precisely regulated manner which includes, high levels of retinal cell proliferation, progenitor cell migration, and a commitment of the progenitors to differentiate into specific cell types (vihtelic and hyde, 2000; kassen et al., 2007; fimbel et al., 2007). therefore, the characterization of the cellular response to the ouabain-induced damage provides the foundation for examining the global transcriptional changes associated with retinal neurogenesis. to identify gene expression changes during the ouabain-induced regeneration response, a microarray analysis was performed at four time points during the ouabain-induced damage time course, which included a time point during inl cell death (24 hrs), a time point during maximal proliferation of mì_ller glia (55 hrs), a time point during progenitor cell migration (96 hrs), and a 140 hr time point, which corresponds to the initial stages of ganglion cell differentiation. mean expression values for every gene were determined relative to the control (3 h saline injected retina) and statistical analysis by one-way anova identified 2,843 genes exhibiting significant changes in gene expression during the time course. subsequently, genes within this data set were clustered based on their temporal expression patterns and proposed functions. quantitative real-time pcr validated the microarray expression profiles for several selected genes, which provided the basis for comparisons with the purpose of identifying candidate genes that play critical roles during these selected biological events my dissertation explores the relationship between science fiction (sf)/fantasy and moral discourse in contemporary u.s. fiction. i claim that contemporary literature draws on the sf/fantasy tradition to imagine what a moral life or society could be. in a literary culture where earnest moral commitments can consign a novel to middlebrow perdition, the inclusion of sf/fantasy within a novel's discourse allows ambitious writers to engage morality without suffering the negative aesthetic judgments that straightforward didacticism would incur. sf/fantasy was never elevated to a purely aesthetic sphere, as the modernists attempted to elevate highbrow literature; as such, it never had to distance itself from moral commitment. moreover, thought experiments are internal to sf/fantasy forms – if aliens invaded earth, then . . . ? – and conducive to moral cogitation. therefore, when highbrow literature includes sf/fantasy as part of its formal experimentation, moral discourse becomes aesthetically licit for it again. my dissertation analyzes iterations of this dynamic between sf/fantasy and high-literary novels to argue that borrowing from the genre tradition currently serves to enable moral discourse in contemporary u.s. fiction.the dissertation's first chapter analyzes the neo-kantian rhetoric present in cormac mccarthy's novel the road (2006) due to its sf subgenre, post-apocalypticism. the second explores the conflict in junot díaz's the brief wondrous life of oscar wao (2007) between justified revolution and moral responsibility toward unjust individuals. the third argues that jeff vandermeer's southern reach trilogy uses sf's penchant for "world building" – modifying our reality or hypothesizing alternate realities – to embed environmental values in the formal representation of features of his imagined world that are very similar to features of our own. his work thus implies that environmental values apply equally to his science fiction and his readers' reality. the fourth analyzes the moral pitfalls of language in alena graedon's the word exchange (2014). the epothilones are a family of natural products isolated as secondary metabolites from the soil bacteria, sorangium cellulosum. it was discovered that they inhibit tumor cell proliferation via microtubule stabilization, exhibiting the same mode of action as the famous therapeutic paclitaxel, or taxol, but with improved properties. this dissertation describes a precursor directed biosynthesis approach to epothilones using the enzyme machinery that produces these molecules in nature. three precursors to epothilones were synthesized and participated in precursor directed biosynthesis using individually expressed modules of the epothilone-producing enzyme system. the completion of the synthesis of the naturally occurring epothilone d was accomplished by the appropriate enzymes expressed in host bacteria. two analogues containing a c14-me group were also introduced to the recombinant enzyme system. it is known that a c14-me group can bias the conformation of the otherwise flexible polyketide in an active or inactive form based on the stereochemistry at this center. however, when intermediates including the c14-me group were subjected to epothilone producing enzymes, the desired products were not formed in quantities comparable to the natural substrate. studies with the isolated thioesterase domain on synthetic standards suggest this final domain's activity is diminished when a methyl substituent is present at c14, a plausible reason for lack of formation of these analogues. precursor directed biosynthesis is aided by the availability of such synthetic standards. this thesis includes the total synthesis of one analogue, c14-methyl, c16-desmethyl-epothilone d, whose semi biosynthesis was attempted. lyric letters: elizabeth bishop's epistolary poems sets forth the untold story of the letters' rhetorical influence in postwar poetry. it traces bishop's paradigmatic use of the epistolary mode as an extension of psychoanalytic narration, as a means of witnessing to war and the ways of empire, and as a vehicle of queer intimacy in the first decades of the cold war. drawing upon bishop's unpublished poems to her psychoanalyst, ruth foster, the epistolary poems of a cold spring (1955) and questions of travel (1965), and the rich legacy of her correspondence, lyric letters establishes the central role of epistolarity in bishop's oeuvre. while bishop and her middle generation peers (b. 1910-1920) have been acknowledged for restoring 'personalit' to poetics after modernism, this genre study explicates some of the specific narrative techniques and historical conditions that made their biographical aesthetic so appealing. bishop figures prominently in many accounts of american poetry because her oblique lyricism and intimate apostrophe appear to bridge the modernist/postmodernist divide. this project materially legitimates that claim by showing how, in the epistolary poem, bishop manifests a genius for both the reinvention of traditional forms and the assimilation of popular cultural tropes. by the mid-century, bishop had honed her ambidexterity, drawing with two hands on literary inheritance and contemporary inference, gathering 'from the air a live tradition' with discerning acuity. figuratively, bishop's 'lyric letters' accomplish the necessary postal errands of psychic life, addressing the garrulous ghosts of the dead and exploring the potency of dreams and memories. yet bishop also used the epistolary mode to redress amatory and filial contests of desire and individuation; to subvert heteronormative scripts of 'ulysses' and 'penelope' wartime gender roles; and to queer the privacy crisis of the cold war. epistolary poems--and their narrative cousins in the diary, the travelogue, and psychoanalysis--foreground the stylized apostrophe, quotidian detail, and psychological realism that define bishop's aesthetic and structure her engagement with historical and social concerns. thus, lyric letters asserts bishop's enduring legacy and challenge: the integration of generic literature with the media of everyday life in the authorship of lyric verisimilitude. a closed-loop control scheme for dynamic stall over an airfoil section from bell helicopter is presented. the detection scheme relies on the ability to detect the growth of an unsteady disturbance placed in the flow at the leading edge of the airfoil as flow separation occurs. the unsteady pressure signal is then acquired by an on-board pressure transducer at a nondimensional chord location of x/c = 0.0865. analog circuitry then gains the signal, bandpass filters it around the frequency of the disturbance, and computes the rms value of the filtered signal, giving a dc voltage representation of the spectral energy of the signal. based on the rms value of the signal, the circuit decides whether to leave the actuator in its low-powered "sense state" producing a disturbance or to change the actuator to its high-powered "control state", with enough power to reattach the flow over the airfoil. baseline measurements were taken for freestream velocities ranging from u∞ = 10 m/s to u∞ = 50 m/s and stall penetration angles of three, seven, and ten degrees. these results were then compared to open-loop unsteady actuation control as well as various levels of closed-loop actuation control. the performance of the closed-loop scheme was measured by its effect on aerodynamic quantities, namely the change in cycle-integrated lift and cycle-averaged aerodynamic damping. in terms of cycleintegrated lift, closed-loop control produced a relatively constant increase for different stall penetration angles at a specific velocity, while showing a lessening increase in lift as velocity increased. at the lowest velocity, there was approximately a 15% increase in lift which dropped to a 1 − 2% increase in lift at the largest velocity. in terms of cycle-averaged aerodynamic damping, the ten degree stall penetration case showed a relatively constant 50% increase across all freestream velocities, while the three degree stall penetration case showed a decrease from approximately 150% to approximately 5% as freestream flow velocity increased from 10 m/s to 50 m/s. the seven degree stall penetration case showed a blending of these two cases for the cycle-averaged aerodynamic damping. it was also found that for each velocity and stall penetration case, there was an optimum amount of actuator control time that gave the best increase in both cycle-integrated lift and cycle-averaged aerodynamic damping. classification is one of the most fundamental tasks in the machine learning and data mining communities. one of the most common challenges faced when trying to perform classification is the class imbalance problem. the introduction of class imbalance into the classification problem poses serious and interesting challenges which must be met in order to provide knowledge. an orthogonal problem to class imbalance arises due to concept drift in data streams. due to the complexity of each of the issues---much less both in tandem---the combination of class imbalance and concept drift are very understudied.in this dissertation we discuss classification in an imbalanced world from a variety of angles. first, we propose methods to overcome class imbalance in its simplest incarnation. in subsequent chapters, we remove restrictions in order to provide novel solutions and insights. by the end of this dissertation, we will present a wide variety of solutions to the class imbalance problem, including the combination of class imbalance and concept drift.before beginning, however, we present intuitive (and mathematical) definitions of class imbalance and concept drift, as well as an overview of the state of the art methods in each community. this thesis examines the patterns of character agency in lewis theobald's double falsehood and in both the collaborative and individual works of william shakespeare and john fletcher. drawing on jeffery masten's evaluation of collaborative works as a separate authorial category, i argue that, given the assertion that theobald's play is based on the lost history of cardenio by shakespeare and fletcher, double falsehood should thematically resemble the two established collaborative works by shakespeare and fletcher, the two noble kinsmen and king henry viii. the distribution of agency in the shakespeare and fletcher collaborations is markedly different than the distribution of agency in shakespeare's late individual works and fletcher's early individual works. the distribution of agency in double falsehood does more closely resemble the pattern of the collaborative works, both reinforcing masten's argument and offering an explanation for why the play feels shakespearean. the quasi-dc (q-dc) electric discharge is explored for plasma-assisted combustion and plasma-based flow control in scramjet environments. the q-dc electric discharge generates a high power, filamentary plasma and is applied in mach 2 airflows using the supersonic blowdown wind tunnel sbr-50 at the university of notre dame and research cell-19 at the air force research lab. the plasma filaments are coupled to the flow in a two-way relationship: the flow affects the plasma morphology and parameters and the plasma filaments affect the flow structure and thermodynamics. the intense, local heating of the gas immediately surrounding and within the plasma filaments leads to expansion and causes an oblique shock wave to form in a supersonic flow. utilization of this plasma-generated shock wave as an active control technique in a supersonic combustor with a flame holding cavity is explored thoroughly in this work by examining the electrical parameters of the electric discharge, plasma parameters, plasma morphology, the resulting impact on the flow field, efficacy of the design/placement of the electrode array, and finally how the plasma influences combustion stability in a supersonic flame holding cavity. impinging the shock wave onto the shear layer of the cavity increases the static pressure in the cavity flame holder and affects the fuel mixing and entrainment from the core flow. the q-dc electric discharge was demonstrated in this way to increase the fuel-to-air ratio inside the cavity positively affecting the combustion stability. novel configurations of the q-dc electric discharge were also explored to improve its stable and predictable operational in a metallic environment as well as to utilize more resulting effects of the plasma filaments on the flow field than just the oblique shock wave generated by the plasma. an external magnetic field was applied to the q-dc electric discharge to manipulate the length and morphology of the plasma filaments. the q-dc electric discharge was also tested in a configuration on the same wall as and upstream of the flame holding cavity. in this configuration the plasma filaments acted as an ignition source in addition to the flow control authority. overall, the q-dc electric discharge was successfully demonstrated as a flow control technology for a scramjet combustor and as a supersonic combustion-assistance technique. combustion synthesis (cs) or self-propagating high temperature synthesis (shs) is an energy saving, effective technique for production of a variety of advanced micron and nano-scale materials with properties that are superior to those manufactured by conventional methods. recent developments and important breakthroughs within the cs field have shown its high level of diversity. in this work special attention has been paid to the gasless heterogeneous combustion joining (cj) (rapid reactive welding) and topics related to it such as mechanical activation (ma) of reactive systems, kinetics study of high temperature reactions and cs of anti-oxidation (ao) coatings.joining dissimilar materials is of increasing interest for a wide range of military and industrial applications. for example, in combat fields, joining materials has received great attention in recent years due to weight reduction of both vehicle components and structures. in particular, layered ceramic/metal-alloy (i.e., sic/5083 al-alloy) composites show considerable potential for lightweight armor applications. however, ceramics and metal-alloys exhibit very different physical, mechanical and metallurgical properties, which make joining process problematic. to solve this problem a rapid gasless reactive cj technique is developed. a novel scaled-up cj apparatus was designed and built. a reactive powder mixture (ti+c) was used as a joining layer to bond sic to 5083 al-alloy. it showed that bonding of sic to 5083 al-alloy was achieved with formation of a transitional interface that was compatible with those components to be joined. several joining schemes were utilized and both micron-sized (up to 10 &mu;m) and submicron-sized (500 nm) joints were accomplished by cj.a number of gasless heterogeneous powder mixtures were utilized as a joining medium. it is critical to control reactivity and structure of such mixtures. in this work the influence of mechanical activation on the microstructures and ignition characteristics of such systems were investigated. the experimental approach is based on a high energy ball milling (hebm) technique. results show that short-term hebm is an effective tool to tailor the microstructure and ignition characteristics of reactive powder mixtures and the ma-systems can be further utilized for cj of various materials. another technique, known as electro-thermal analysis (eta), which allows one to evaluate the kinetics of high temperature rapid reactions before and after ma processes (ni-al system), was also employed. it is shown that a short-term ma treatment decreased the apparent activation energy for reaction between ni and al from 38 &plusmn; 1 (kcal/mol) to 25 &plusmn; 3 (kcal/mol).a decrease of ignition temperature of reactive mixtures was observed after hebm. this feature allows initiation of joining process at a much lower temperature. combustion joining of refractory materials (carbon/carbon, c/c, composites) was accomplished using mechanically activated systems. an important industrial application is to refurbish c/c composites by bonding a new c/c part to an old c/c core to produce high-performance aircraft brakes to meet special high temperature requirements. joining c/c composites is challenging since carbon does not lend itself to welding, and other approaches (e.g. mechanical or adhesives) would not hold up to the harsh operational conditions. a modified low-temperature cj technique, which used a mixture of titanium and mechanically activated ni/al powders as a reactive medium, was developed. a robust crack and pore-free joint layer (~75&#8722;100 &mu;m in thickness), composed of nialx and ticy(oz) phases, was produced by this technique.a high-temperature treatment of materials during cj in air may result in their oxidation. in this work it was demonstrated that combustion synthesis can be used to produce refractory anti-oxidation (ao) coatings. an improved electrically induced liquid infiltration (eili) method was developed to produce multi-functional ao coatings in one-step on the surface of c/c composites. a significant decrease of c/c weight loss in both thermal and catalytic oxidation tests was observed.to summarize, combustion synthesis of gasless heterogeneous systems can be utilized in the field of materials joining and applied further to associated area of interests such as mechanical activation of reactive powders, kinetics study of high temperature reactions and development of anti-oxidation refractory coatings. co-infections, infections with more than one parasite species at a time, are ubiquitous in nature. co-infecting parasites have the potential to interact with each other and the host and affect disease progression relative to single infections. community ecology theory predicts that the environment, the density of interacting species, the timing of their arrival, and indirect interactions between species mediated by a third species can alter the outcomes of their interactions. if these theories in community ecology are applicable to co-infections in hosts, disease biologists might be able to apply them to more reliably predict the outcome of co-infections. to test this hypothesis, i studied amphibians because they are the most rapidly declining group of vertebrates, many of their declines are due to disease, and they frequently experience co-infections. in this dissertation research, i exposed amphibians to three parasites, a fungus (bactrachochytrium dendrobatidis, bd), a virus (ranavirus), and a macroparasite (either echinostoma trivolvis or aplectana hamatospicula), either alone or in twoor three-way combinations and then tracked disease progression. my four experiments tested how the outcomes of co-infections are affected by i) the environment in which the co-infection occurs (i.e. host species), ii) initial parasite densities, iii) time gaps between co-infecting parasites, and iv) indirect interactions mediated by variation in host immunocompetence across amphibian life stages. in my first chapter, co-infections increased microparasite loads and decreased macroparasite loads, but this only occurred with some parasite pairings in some host species. co-infections decreased host development compared to single infections and host survival was driven by differences in host susceptibility to parasites. in my second chapter, all co-infection pairings were significantly impacted by host density, but the directionality depended on the co-infections. also, the effects of parasite density on co-infections were always strong in one direction and weak in the other. in my third chapter, the timing of parasite co-infections affects co-infection outcomes, in some but not all cases. in my fourth chapter, post-metamorphic frogs had significantly higher immune functioning than tadpole or metamorphic life stages. although co-infecting parasites did not facilitate one another in life stages when immune functioning was high, we did find that changes in immunity and life stage altered host response to parasites. metamorphic frogs were less resistant and tolerant of bd infections than the other life stages. overall, the community ecology theories that i tested can help inform co-infections, but individual host differences in susceptibility, life stage, and the identity of the co-infecting parasites need to be taken into account when predicting how co-infections will affect host health in amphibians and other hosts. ionic liquids (ils) were synthesized and investigated as potential absorbents for co2 capture from postcombustion flue gas. all ils used a phosphonium based cation and either an amino acid based anion (aas) or an aprotic heterocyclic anion (ahas). the co2 absorption was measured using a volumetric method and the results were modeled with two different langmuir-type absorption models. all of the aas had greater than 0.5 moles of co2 per mole of il, while the ahas showed a range from only physical absorption to near 1 mole of co2 per mole of il. the chemical absorption of co2 into aas, except for [p66614][pro], caused a dramatic increase in the viscosity. the ahas and [p66614][pro] had a smaller increase ([p66614][cnpyr] and [p66614][capyr] had no detectable increase) in viscosity when co2 was absorbed. water was investigated as a solvent to further reduce the viscosity. small amounts of water significantly reduce the viscosity of both the neat and co2 saturated il. finally, preliminary experiments with changing the cation size had little impact in the co2 capacity, but more interesting, ils with the [p4444]+ cation were observed to phase change upon the reaction with co2. this project is a comparative study of british, irish, and spanish modernisms, which investigates the childhood and early adult experiences and subsequent literary careers of canonical british and european modernists, namely w. b. yeats, federico garcía lorca, and virginia woolf. i argue that the nurses and domestic servants of these modernists were crucial to their aesthetic development. in turn, i argue that these individual case studies can be scaled and extended to refine the standard narrative of european modernism. servants played, in other words, a critical role in the development and maturation of modernism. my dissertation draws on unpublished and granular archival research to recover and describe the biographical and aesthetic interactions between major european writers and their servants. i use new and emerging computational text analysis methods as well as critical theories borrowed from cultural studies and the philosophy of language to recover, describe, and evaluate the relationships between artists and servants. take, for instance, mary battle, the domestic servant of yeats's uncle, george pollexfen. for all of the fury of the yeats industry, and despite her deep-rooted collaborations with yeats, to my knowledge, there has not been a single article written on battle.by looking at both historical and fictional servants, i sketch new literary and cultural theoretical models of the relationship between artist and servant that have broader implications for questions concerning gender, class, historiography, aesthetic production, and the intellectual history of european modernisms. i argue specifically that in the collaboration among artists and servants, we see a new and unprecedented mode of cultural and artistic transmission between tradition and modernity. for pushkin, yeats, lorca, manuel de falla, proust, dickens, and woolf, to name but a few, british and european modernisms and much of what preceded it developed to a significant degree not in the café but in the kitchen through conversations and aesthetic experiments between artists and servants. these recovered histories not only change how we read the figure of the servant in modernist literature but also the broader narrative of british and european modernisms and aesthetics. aero-optical distortions are detrimental to airborne optical systems. to study distortion mechanisms, compressible large-eddy simulations are performed for a mach 0.5 turbulent boundary layer and a separated shear layer over a cylindrical turret with and without passive control in the upstream boundary layer. optical analysis is carried out using ray tracing based on the computed density field and gladstone-dale relation. in the flat-plate boundary layer, the effects of aperture size, reynolds number, small-scale turbulence, different flow regions and beam elevation angle are examined, and the underlying flow physics is analyzed. three momentum-thickness reynolds numbers, re&#952;=875, 1770 and 3550, are considered. it is found that the level of optical distortions decreases with increasing reynolds number within the reynolds number range considered. the contributions from the viscous sublayer and buffer layer are small, while the wake region plays a dominant role followed by the logarithmic layer. by low-pass filtering the fluctuating density field, it is shown that small-scale turbulence is optically inactive. consistent with previous experimental findings, the distortion magnitude is dependent on the propagation direction due to anisotropy of the boundary-layer vortical structures. density correlations and length scales are analyzed to understand the elevation-angle dependence and its relation to turbulence structures. the applicability of sutton's linking equation to boundary-layer flows is examined, and excellent agreement between linking equation predictions and directly integrated distortions is obtained when the density length scale is appropriately defined. the second case studied involves a separated shear layer over a cylindrical turret with a flat window, with inflow from a flat-plate boundary layer with and without passive control devices. the flow and optical results show reasonable agreement with experimental data for the baseline case without control. aperture size effect, frequency spectra of opd and two-point spatial correlations of opd are investigated. the similarities and differences of distortion characteristics compared to those induced by turbulent boundary layers are discussed. the distortions by a separated shear layer are much larger in magnitude and spatially less homogeneous than those induced by an attached boundary layer. it is found that pressure fluctuations are significant and play a dominant role in inducing density fluctuations and associated optical distortions in a separated shear layer, in contrast to the dominant role of temperature fluctuations in a turbulent boundary layer. when passive control is applied using a row of thin and tall pins in the upstream boundary layer, the numerical results confirm key experimental findings. the flow above the optical window is characterized by two distinct shear layers, whose combined effect leads to a significant reduction of density fluctuation magnitude in the main shear layer and associated optical distortions compared to the uncontrolled flow with a single strong shear layer. two novellas: gods and nagasaki, a chorus of voices in and around nagasaki, and morning sky, the story of a seventh-grade girl who deals with trauma by escaping into the world of sailor moon. owing to the large band gap (eggan=3.4ev) and high electron saturation velocity, gan based high electron mobility transistors (hemts) are attractive for high voltage and high speed switching. in this work, three aspects of such transistors are studied. the role of polarization in leakage currents in gate stacks, and consequences for high-voltage switching is identified. high-performance gan hemts on silicon by rf-plasma mbe growth, with low-resistance mbe-regrown ohmic contacts is demonstrated. the role of isotope and disorder engineering is demonstrated as a fundamentally new method to boost the speed of gan hemts. ultrathin epitaxial barriers (such as aln or inaln) result in substantial leakage currents preventing the capability to block high drain voltages, and dielectrics like ald al2o3 can substantially mitigate this problem. in this work we present a comprehensive electrical characterization/interface study of al2o3/ (in)aln/gan mos-hemts. we find the presence, and propose an origin of benign donor-type interface (ald/iii-nitride) charges that are closely linked to the polarization charges of the underlying metal polar nitride substrate. these findings are expected to accelerate the choice of optimal gate stacks for nitride hemts and further our understanding of ald/iii-nitride interfaces with useful consequences for high-performance devices. we analyze the gate leakage currents in inaln/aln/gan transistors and propose and demonstrate mechanisms to accurately capture the trap-assisted and tunneling dominated current transport in these heterostructures. large-area and low-cost silicon wafers are attractive substrates for gan rf and power electronics. we address the key challenges and find solutions for the rf-mbe growth of gan hemts on si (111). by developing low-leakage buffer layers, and employing raised source/drain regrown ohmic contacts by mbe, high performance hemts are realized. it is expected to motivate further ideas for integration of gan with silicon that go beyond rf and power electronics into the regime of low power digital logic by exploiting the unique polarization properties of gan. along those lines, polarization engineered iii-nitride heterostructures where 2d electron and hole gases coexist are demonstrated. the measured electron saturation velocity in the fastest gan transistors is still far below the expected . a phonon mode density bottleneck was identified as possible root cause. theoretical calculations subsequently predicted that by using a mixture of disordered isotopic alloy ga( 14n0.5 15n0.5), it is possible to modify the density of lo phonon modes and consequently speed up gan hemts. in this work we experimentally demonstrate that by controlling the concentrations of the subatomic particle neutrons in nitrogen atoms by mbe, it is indeed possible to improve the saturation velocity, providing a means to go beyond what is conventionally thought possible in semiconductor physics. small-signal modeling and microwave noise characterization of ingap/gaas hbts will be explored. device physics, analytical extraction and numerical optimization are incorporated to extract small-signal equivalent circuit parameters (ecps), improved by modeling interaction between contact metalizations and hybrid optimization of t and ? circuit topologies. excellent agreement between measured and modeled s-parameters, with limited deviation of optimized ecps from their initial values, is obtained up to 40 ghz for a wide range of bias. combined with nf50 measurement, frequencyand bias-dependent noise parameters (nps) up to 20 ghz are extracted using polynomial approximation of noise parameters for intrinsic device. facilitated by the correction of source mismatch in measurement, great agreement between measured and modeled nf50, as well as acceptably deviated optimized fitting factors, results in a minimum nfmin of 1.64 db at 10 ghz for an ingap/gaas hbt with two 2.3 by 5.6 um2 emitters. study of geometry-dependent performance shows promise of high-speed and low noise ingap/gaas hbts using narrow, long, and at least two-sided base contacts. facial electromyography (emg) is a useful physiological measure for detecting subtle affective changes in real time. it can differentiate valence of emotion, capture transient and covert affective response, and provide an approximate continuous-time measure of emotion change. in this thesis, facial emg data is analyzed using time series analysis methods. by allowing certain parameters to switch between several discrete stages (regimes), regime-switching models can be used to describe heterogeneous transition patterns and capture time-varying association between emg signals and other covariates. the main purpose of this thesis is to construct and propose different regime-switching state-space models suited for representing the time-varying dynamics of facial emg data and its relationship with self-reported affect intensity. the kim filter, which is an extension of the kalman filter, is proposed to estimate latent states and the gaussian maximum likelihood method is used for parameter estimation. indices for diagnostic checks and model fit evaluations will be discussed for model comparison purposes. results based on empirical emg data indicate that regime-switching model with autoregressive regression slope (the rs-ar model) is most appropriate to represent the emg dynamics. monte carlo simulation results also indicate that parameters in the proposed model can be accurately recovered under different conditions. adsorption and adhesion of metals and engineered nanoparticles onto geosorbents can have a significant impact on their fate and transport. interactions with fixed mineral and bacterial surfaces may remove contaminants from solution and decrease their mobility, although removal may be selective. conversely, when the surfaces themselves are mobile as colloids, the transport of contaminants may be enhanced by adsorption and adhesion reactions. natural organic matter (nom), a complex mixture of organic molecules, is widespread in environmental systems and can influence adsorption and adhesion through aqueous and surface complexation reactions. this research focuses on the interactions of nom, cadmium (cd(ii)), and nanoparticles with geosorbents, as well as the potential reactivity of bacterial exudates, under a range of aqueous conditions. three experimental studies will be described: 1) flow-through column experiments to study the effects of nom on cd(ii) mobility and of cd(ii) on nom sorptive fractionation in various types of mineral sands; 2) an investigation of influence of ph, nanoparticle size, and nanoparticle concentration on the adhesion of titanium dioxide nanoparticles to silica and iron-coated silica grains; and 3) the use of potentiometric titrations and chemical equilibrium modeling to evaluate the proton binding of bacterial exudates collected from gram-positive (bacillus subtilis) and gram-negative (shewanella oneidensis) bacterial species. from the results of these laboratory studies, it is possible to better understand contaminant mobility in realistic geologic systems. cmos technology is reaching its physical limits in terms of scaling, and this is leading many researchers to investigate alternative computing technologies. as the industry moves away from cmos and toward other technologies, it will be necessary to explore new ways of transporting data. this thesis explores a novel application of two relatively new technologies, magnetic quantum dot cellular automata and spin-valve technology, with a focus on existing work in magnetic random access memory. to move forward in the real-life implementation of new computing technologies, some new engineering will be necessary to bridge the gap between extant cmos computing technology and this new area of magnetic logic and storage. with a view toward promoting this, the spin-valve-based magneticelectric interface (mei) was developed. topics covered in this thesis include the state of the art of the technology behind mqca as well as the reasons for using it, spin-valve technology such as mram, the reasons for development of, rationale for and design behind the mei, and potential applications of the technology for development of mqca computing systems. we prove some regularity results for singular solutions of $sigma_k$-yamabe problem, where the singular set is a compact hypersurface in a riemannian manifold. this problem is a fully nonlinear version of the singular yamabe problem, which is an equation of semilinear type. apart from their importance in conformal geometry, the blow-up solutions along a hypersurface or the boundary of a manifold have also received much attention in the study of ads/cft correspondence in physics. we study the problem in the case of negative cone. in this case, the main difficulty is the lack of $c^2$ estimate, so we have to rely on the maximum principle and method of suband super-solutions. combining our result with the theory of 'edge differential operators' developed by r. mazzeo we obtain a polyhomogeneous expansion of any singular solutions in terms of the distance to the singular set. in this thesis, we shall examine a strong form of oka's lemma which provides sufficient conditions for compact and subelliptic estimates for the d-bar neumann operator on lipschitz domains. on smooth domains, the condition for subellipticity is equivalent to d'angelo finite-type and the condition for compactness is equivalent to catlin's condition (p). once the basic properties of this condition have been established, we will study the extent to which these estimates can be extended to higher order derivatives on c^k domains, with k greater than or equal to 2. for the lipschitz case, we will look at higher order estimates in the special case when the domain admits a plurisubharmonic defining function. finally, we will use these estimates to construct a compact solution operator for the boundary complex. the purpose of the dissertation is to provide a theoretical explanation to the phenomenon of fluorescence intermittency. this is achieved by proposing a model of multiple recombination centers (mrc), which is shown to successfully reproduce the main features of the phenomenon. virtually all known types of optically active nanoscale objects to date show extremely long correlations in the fluctuations of fluorescence intensity. experimentally collected intensity trajectories from such single fluorophores show fluctuations on the timescales longer than seconds. this phenomenon is generically referred to as fluorescence intermittency or blinking. in colloidal quantum dots blinking often assumes the shape of a random telegraph-like intermittency, a stochastic series of "on" and "off" time intervals. amazingly, the distribution of these on and off times follow a universal power law dependence. spectral characterization of trajectories effectively renders blinking an optical 1/f type noise. by a suitable bayesian estimation method we point out that the conventional method of analysis using intensity histograms is problematic for such trajectories: the qualitative properties of the distributions strongly depend on the threshold value chosen for the separation the on and off states. we propose the phenomenological mrc model for the quantum dot and its environment by modeling the multiple channels of non-radiative relaxation as a collection of a few interacting two-level systems. we show how this model of multiple recombination centers reproduces key experimental features of blinking, including the strong threshold dependence. after a survey of existing models of blinking, we show that the mrc model is the only self-consistent model that can explain the long-range correlations found between blinking times. beyond quantum dots, a carefully performed spectral analysis of intensity fluctuations observed in other fluorophores such as self-assembled quantum dots, nanorods, nanowires, and some organic dyes, reveals the amazing similarity in the optical properties of these nanoscale systems. this similarity allows us to postulate a universal physical mechanism underlying the blinking phenomenon, based on the framework of the mrc model. useful constrains are thus provided in the further efforts searching for the detailed microscopic mechanism of fluorescence intermittency. use of liquid absorbents, such as aqueous amines, for carbon dioxide capture from flue gas has been emerging as a process technology towards reduction of co2 emissions from coal-fired power plants. this study investigates the use of chemically reactive ionic liquids (ils) as co2 absorbing fluids. ils provide superior characteristics over amine solutions due to their negligible vapor pressures and tunability in structural design. novel task-specific ionic-liquids (tsils) were screened according to their reaction characteristics for their potential use in co2 capture. this work proposes alternative green solvents for co2 capture technology and enables the design of processes through reaction kinetic parameters. tsils with a trihexyl(tetradecyl) phosphonium, [p66614] cation and a reactive anion were synthesized based on initial assessment of possible structures through ab-initio simulations carried out by the schneider research group. reaction mechanism of these ils with co2 was studied through the measurements of absorption capacity and the analysis of the spectral changes of the reacting system with an in-situ ir. cation-functionalized imidazolium and pyrrolidinium based ils yielded a 1 mol of co2 : 2 mol of amine reaction stoichiometry with ammonium and carbamate formations, consistent with the previous studies. ils with amino acid anions prolinate [pro] and methioninate [met] were determined to react following a 1 mol co2 : 1 mol of il stoichiometry where the reaction product was a carboxylic acid. cation functionalized and amino acid based ils both suffer from dramatic viscosity increase during co2 reaction. this is the main disadvantage of the use of these ils for the co2 capture process and the reason for scarcity of kinetic studies. on the other hand, ils with aprotic heterocyclic anions (aha-ils) such as 2-cyanopyrrolide [2-cnpyr], and 3-(trifluoromethyl) pyrazolide [3-cf3pyra] provide relatively lower viscosities with no further increase upon reacting with co2. the reaction stoichiometry for aha-ils was determined to be the same as amino acid based ils however the reaction product was a carbamate since they do not have any hydrogen on the amine moiety. second order reaction rate constants, k2, were measured between temperatures of 22 åñ 60 ìâå¡c for the selected ils of [p66614][pro], [2-cnpyr] and [3-cf3pyra]. the absorption rate for [p66614][pro] is the fastest with a k2 of 19500 lì¢åûå¢mol-1ì¢åûå¢s-1 at 22 ìâå¡c whereas it is 8800 and 3200 lì¢åûå¢mol-1ì¢åûå¢s-1 for [p66614][2-cnpyr] and [3-cf3pyra], respectively. the calculated activation energies, ea, are 43, 11 and 18 kj/mol for [p66614][pro], [2-cnpyr] and [3-cf3pyra], respectively. compared to monoethanolamine (k2 @22ìâå¡c = 5400 lì¢åûå¢mol-1ì¢åûå¢s-1 and ea = 41 kj/mol), [p66614][pro] is much faster with similar activation energy. the low energy barriers for the reaction of aha-ils with co2 make them ideal as activators in possible il mixture solvents with high co2 capacities and low viscosities. here it is shown, tuning ability of ils can make these solvents viable for co2 capture. this dissertation explored the influence of representational complexity on the observation of linear retention and forgetting patterns of episodic memory. representational complexity was manipulated through the degree of original learning and the type of processing engaged in at encoding. episodic retention is commonly thought to follow a negatively accelerating pattern, often described by a power function. however, fisher and radvansky (2019) showed that linear forgetting patterns can be reliably observed. considering the results of our own experiments, as well as those from the literature, a number of factors emerge as likely contributors to the observation of linear forgetting. two of these are (a) the degree of original learning at encoding, and (b) the amenability of the materials to representationally complex traces. this dissertation reports four experiments, with two each addressing each of these two potential contributors. the results revealed that original learning that involves either retrieval practice or elaboration can contribute to producing linear retention. honduras has exceptionally high rates of crime and violence, a great deal of which occurs in low-income, urban neighborhoods. despite this, little scholarly attention has been given to how safe (or unsafe) the residents of such neighborhoods feel and how their levels of fear vary based on demographic attributes, perceptions of disorder, social relationships, and participation in local organizations. in this thesis, i leverage survey data collected in eleven low-income neighborhoods from across honduras. using a series of multinomial logistic models, i show that perceptions of social disorder and community cohesion and prior victimization are strong predictors of fear and that these variables provide greater explanatory power than the demographic attributes commonly referred to in studies from the united states and other developed countries. i then turn to the issue of collective efficacy, showing that individuals with higher levels of participation in community organizations are less likely to express feelings of fear, with this effect being the strongest for state-oriented rather than civic or religious organizations. this research serves to extend and deepen scholarly understanding of fear of crime in the unique context of central america. hydrogel based oxygen carriers are introduced as a novel type of hemoglobin based oxygen carrier that addresses the issues and challenges associated with the development of artificial blood substitutes, which are designed to replace loss volumes of blood and restore tissue oxygenation to normal. the research addresses the impending shortage in blood supply and will be useful in emergency medicine and military applications. an innovative formulation of hemoglobin cross-linked to the hydrogel core of nanoscale hydrogel particles via uv-induced free radical polymerization of an environment responsive polymer within liposomal reactors is described. this work is novel due to the chemical cross-linking of hemoglobin to the polymer matrix of non-biodegradable, nanoscale hydrogel particles. the biological activity (i.e. ability to bind and release oxygen) of the oxygen carrier is demonstrated and the physical properties (i.e. size, shape, hemoglobin encapsulation efficiency, methemoglobin level, colloidal osmotic pressure, zeta potential) of the oxygen carrier are characterized. the effect of the reaction ph on the physical properties and biological activity of hydrogel based oxygen carriers synthesized with the ph-responsive polymer, poly(acrylamide), is examined, and the temperature sensitivity of hydrogel based oxygen carriers formulated with the temperature-responsive polymer, poly(n-isopropylacrylamide), is investigated. finally, numerical simulations of oxygen transport to the hamster retractor muscle are used to assess the efficacy of oxygen delivery and tissue oxygenation with hydrogel based oxygen carriers compared to current hemoglobin-based oxygen carriers under development. ultimately, this research has led to a new class of artificial blood substitutes with unique physical properties. the metabolome of an organism at a given time is a snapshot of the phenotypical expression of biomolecules in response to environmental and biological events. recent metabolomics studies identified key pathways and biomarkers for a wide array of human diseases. despite these promising studies we still lack a thorough understanding of the metabolome. enhancing and developing novel techniques enables us to expand metabolome coverage. imaging mass spectrometry allows us to gain the understanding of dynamic changes occurring spatially within specific cellular populations within a tissue which is lost in traditional platforms. electrophoretic separations coupled to mass spectrometry provide us with the ability to identify biologically relevant expression changes with higher mass accuracy and confidence than imaging alone. in this work, i present the development of cze-esi-ms and maldi-tofms methods to investigate the spatial and temporal alterations in metabolism in complex biological samples: breast cancer models and during key stages during early embryonic development. this dissertation focuses on accurate trace link creation for software projects. trace links represent established associations between software requirements, design, code, test cases and other such artifacts. traceability describes the potential to create and maintain trace links during the software development life cycle. in most safety-critical domains, the need for traceability is prescribed by certifying bodies.creating trace links manually is time consuming and error prone. automated solutions use information retrieval and machine learning techniques to generate trace links; however, current techniques fail to understand semantics of the software artifacts or to integrate domain knowledge into the tracing process and therefore tend to deliver imprecise and inaccurate results. therefore, this dissertation proposes a series of traceability solutions with different semantic enhancement strategies that aim at improving the quality of trace link generation between regulations, software requirements and design documents written in natural language. the first approach augments software artifacts with an ontology of domain terms and relations. to further increase the trace link accuracy, an intelligent tracing system docit is proposed that is able to reason over artifact semantics through use of a domain ontology and a set of trace heuristics. finally, a deep learning based tracing method is presented that represents and compares artifact semantics in an implicit but fully automated way. the main contribution of this dissertation is in addressing the lack of semantic knowledge in current traceability solutions by developing techniques which extract semantic knowledge, integrate it into the tracing process, and thereby deliver more accurate and trustworthy traceability solutions. early twentieth-century fiction. this dissertation seeks to develop the beginnings of a christocentric ethic that, as such, can be distinctively christian while also speaking universally to those outside of the christian tradition. in order to do this, the distinctively religious-moral theology of bernard h?ring will be retrieved. h?ring's moral theology is a foundation for constructing a roman catholic ethic that leaves room for both the person of jesus christ and critical engagement with people outside of the christian community. the imitation of jesus christ is central to h?ring's explication of the meaning of christian discipleship. for h?ring, christian moral formation and development requires ongoing conversion to the life of jesus christ. h&#228;ring's focus on response and responsibility, personalism, value theory, and his examination of the virtues emphasize the importance of the distinctively christian religious convictions in the formation of the christian moral life. the call-and-response model serves as the recurring motif throughout h?ring's work that underscores the significance of jesus christ for moral theology, because jesus christ is the invitation of god and, at the same time, the response of humanity to god's offer of grace. in order to retrieve h?ring's christocentric ethic for contemporary moral theology, certain deficiencies in his work must be addressed, particularly the lack of social context throughout his work. the work of noted protestant ethicist stanley hauerwas provides a social location as well as concreteness to the otherwise abstract and sometimes vague moral theology of h?ring. likewise, a contemporary retrieval of h?ring's moral theology will serve as a corrective to elements of hauerwas' christian ethic. this project thus offers a critical analysis, re-appropriation, and development of h?ring's moral theology for contemporary ethics by maintaining his insistence on the centrality of jesus christ in moral theology and on the significance of engagement with those outside of the christian community. this is a dissertation in meta-ontology. in it, i attempt to develop some alternative rules to the standard quinean meta-ontology. the alternative is intended to allow for a minimal ontology, while still maintaining fit with folk discourse. i hope that this dissertation will help to make such alternative rules precise, and understandable to quineans, most of whom consider such talk to be "murky metaphysical waters". the new rules revolve around the relation of grounding. in chapter 1, i discuss my understanding of grounding. the majority of attempts at articulating a theory of grounding have treated 'grounds' as univocal. there has been a recent attempt to argue that 'grounds' does not refer. i argue against both of these options, and defend a third: 'grounds' is univocal, and grounding is a genus. in chapter 2, i turn my attention to one species of grounding -truthmaking. i argue that the measure of ontological commitment is not what a theory says exists, but what a theory requires as truthmakers. a person is ontologically committed to the existence, in the fundamental sense of 'existence', of there being truthmakers for the sentences of her theory. in chapter 3, i turn my attention to the question of what sort of things these truthmakers are. generally, truthmaker theorists have accepted truthmaker necessitarianism, which has led them to reify states of affairs, facts, or tropes. but these things are dubious posits. i want to retain truthmaking, but i give four arguments against truthmaker necessitarianism. this allows us to admit only substances into our ontology. in chapter 4, i discuss the language of the ontology room. the received view was that the language of the ontology room is english: words mean the same thing when doing ontology as they do at the fireworks show. i argue for an alternative: when we're doing ontology, we're not using 'exists' the same way others do, or the same way we do when we're not doing ontology. i also say what 'exists' means inside the ontology room: it's a restriction of the quantifier at the fireworks show. the recent popularity of arguments identifying pressures in theistic philosophy to become spinozistic has ignited a new interest in a question that is also for the author of this dissertation of great (personal) significance: should i be a spinozist or theist? i address this question in the three independent essays that compose this dissertation. these essays are unified by a common theme, namely, to identify pressures in spinozism towards theism and ways of resisting it that abide by certain principles, which spinoza and the spinozists themselves accepted. these engagements with spinozism take three different forms: a kind of constructive/historical engagement (essay 1), a kind of internal consistency examination (essay 2), and a kind of methodological investigation (essay 3) – each making its own case for or against spinozism. but there is also a more general lesson to learn: the centuries long argumentative back and forth between spinozists and theists, i suggest, has obscured a deeper disagreement about the role of god in what spinoza calls the proper order of philosophizing. thus, my answer to the question as to whether we should be spinozists or theists – like any good philosophical answer – is: it depends! it depends on the role that god takes in the order in which we philosophize. since it was confirmed to exist in 2004, graphene has become a popular material for numerous researchers to study. the worldwide enthusiasm for this novel material is as yet expanding currently, as it can be envisaged from the number of patents, publications and a substantial amount of capital. the reason why graphene is so attractive is that it has nearly perfect performance in all aspects, such as mechanic, thermal, optic, and electric. so that it can be applied to solve certain technical problems and provide convenience for human life.this report consists of two parts, respectively introducing the application of graphene in enhancing the mechanical strength of other materials and accelerating the speed of evaporation to improve the global issue of water. in the first part, polyethylene (pe) films reinforced with graphene processed using self-build fabrication platform are shown to have outstanding mechanical properties. the values of specific ultimate tensile strength and young's modulus of pe/graphene films represent the highest reported to date for other composite materials. the experimental characterizations indicate that during the films processing, graphene fillers are exfoliated, which is further confirmed by molecular dynamics simulations. exfoliation increases the specific area of the graphene fillers in contact with pe matrix molecules. molecular dynamics simulations show that the pe-graphene interaction is stronger than pe-pe intermolecular van der waals interaction, which enhances load transfer from pe to graphene and leverages the ultrahigh mechanical properties of graphene. other properties of fabricated film are discussed as well.for the second part, it is demonstrated that the functionalized graphene using hydrophilic groups can greatly enhance the solar steam generation efficiency. the related experiments show that such an improvement is a surface effect mainly attributed to the more hydrophilic feature of functionalized graphene, which influences the water meniscus profile at the vapor-liquid interface due to capillary effect. this strategy of functionalizing graphene to make it more hydrophilic can be potentially integrated with the existing macroscopic heat isolation strategies to further improve the overall solar-to-vapor conversion efficiency. orthopedics research has made significant advances in the areas of biomechanics, bone implants and bone substitute materials. however, to date there is no definitive model to explain the structure-property relationships in bone as a material to enable better implant designs or to develop a true biomechanical analog of bone. the objective of this investigation was to establish a relationship between the elastic anisotropy of cortical bone tissue and its microstructure. ultrasonic wave propagation was used to measure stiffness coefficients for specimens sectioned along the length of a human femur. the elastic constants were orthotropic and varied with anatomical location. stiffness coefficients were generally largest at the midshaft and stiffness anisotropy ratios were largest at the distal and proximal ends. stiffness coefficients were shown to be correlated as a power law relation to apparent density, but anisotropy ratios were not. these tests were run on four additional human femurs to assess the influence of phenotypes as an exploratory investigation. for the current sample size, it was found that in fact these differences do exist, but the causes are and will remain unknown. certainly, a much larger sample size is needed in order to state definitive conclusions about the phenotypic variation. texture analysis was performed on selected samples to measure the orientation distribution of the bone mineral crystals. inverse pole figures showed that bone mineral crystals had a preferred crystallographic orientation, coincident with the long axis of the femur, which is its principal loading direction. the degree of preferred orientation was represented in multiples of a random distribution (mrd), and correlated to the anisotropy ratios. variation in elastic anisotropy was shown to be primarily due to the bone mineral orientation. the results found in this work can be used to incorporate anisotropy into structural analysis for bone as a material. through discernment practices, christian congregations act corporately to recognize god's presence and address. from participant observation in three mennonite congregations in the midwestern united states, this dissertation offers thick description of such practices. in these practices, the participants in each congregation collectively listen and respond to scriptures and one another in regular gatherings for worship and in the forms of governance by which they author and enact the shape of their common life. these collective practices are both materially and theologically formative of the individual practices of discernment participants engage in, both in acts parallel to and in acts "contributory" to congregational discernment. the interdependency of the practices of individual participants and their congregation in these particular congregations as well as the high levels of engagement reveal the fittingness of a participatory hermeneutic to christian life when that life is believed to include a mandate to both a just distribution of formative care and the just (re)distribution of other shared relational goods of life together.preliminary to the discussion of this qualitative research, the first two chapters situate this project, a kind of practical moral ecclesiology, within the field of christian ethics. in these chapters, this project is aligned with existing constructive, social-science engaged, qualitative studies in order to avoid the limitations of existing works in christian ethics which articulate the formative role of quotidian practices from excessively speculative heights or engage in strengthening the unity and coherence of tradition-ed communities through sententious reproach or pristinating reproductions of ideal practices. returning to advocating for the value of deep cross-congregational studies to christian ethics in the concluding chapter, this thesis argues that exposing emergent norms in an ethnographic theology of discernment, even with such a narrow sample size, is proper to the role of the theologian. in this activity, the theologian acts as a witness to how christians are concerned with the formation of a common life, a concrete common good, in movements that draw from the specific to supply internalized generic concepts in a constructive "dialogue" of words and acts and reflection which often never hits the page.finally, this project concludes with re-articulating the purpose of every church as developing a new humanity. it suggests that each congregation manifests its perception of the distribution of god's concern through the forms of discernment the congregation uses. as a part of corporate accountability to god, practices of discernment can prioritize religious specialists, tradition, or full participation. a participatory hermeneutic embodies in form the work of the congregation to become more attuned to one another and to cultivate a life-together with all god's creation. by creatively riffing on the life and teachings of jesus, the shared life of the congregation is replete with recognition of god's presence as the actual condition of one's life— where the presence of the holy spirt is visible bridging the spaces between us. it is the visibility of this presence which makes possible a life together with others in which differences are celebrated, visible, and embodied concretely in the sharing of relational goods. mathematical modeling and computational simulations can be used to predict the average behavior of many cell-cell interactions. in this thesis, results on modeling the predatory bacteria myxococcus xanthus and the slug forming amoeba dictyostelium discoideum are presented as well as results on random placement of non-overlapping cells in an individual based model, and continuous limits of discrete stochastic systems. periodic reversals in systems of self-propelled rod shaped bacteria can lead to ordering of cells, thus enabling them to effectively resolve traffic jams formed during swarming and maximize their swarming rate. a connection is described between a one dimensional cell-based stochastic model of reversing non-overlapping bacteria and a non-linear diffusion equation. boltzmannmatano analysis is used to determine the nonlinear diffusion equation corresponding to the specific reversal frequency. it is shown that cell populations with high reversal frequencies are able to spread out effectively at high densities. if the cells rarely reverse then they are able to spread out at lower densities but are not able to spread out at higher densities. the amoeba dictyostelium is able to sense the location of other members of its species and aggregate, using chemotaxis. during aggregation, the amoeba creates and follows the gradient of a diffusive chemical. through local behavioral chemotactic rules, the cells are able to cluster together and create slugs. pde equations describing this behavior have been derived in (lushnikov, 2008). existence, uniqueness and boundedness of solutions of this equation are proven in (alber, 2009) and this thesis. the 1d steady state solutions and their stability are also analyzed. it is predicted that stable solutions correspond to biologically realizable aggregates, and conditions for determining whether or not certain amoeba aggregation patterns will occur in nature are presented. anton heiller (1923-1979) was a viennese composer, organist, and conductor who was perhaps best known as a teacher and interpreter of bach. he had a great love for church music and was deeply interested in the composition of worthy contemporary music for the church. for the first four decades of his life, heiller worked in an environment in which tra le sollecitudini, pope pius x's declaration on sacred music, was the gold standard for composers of modern sacred music for the catholic church. in this document, pius x referred to gregorian chant as the "supreme model" of sacred music and encouraged composers to imitate the "movement, inspiration, and savor" of the gregorian form. heiller not only used gregorian chant as a basis for some of his choral works, but he also used gregorian chant as the basis for a number of his organ works as well.this dissertation examines the six gregorian chant-based organ works of anton heiller in light of his musical influences, his philosophy of sacred music, and his ownsentiments as a catholic believer. i propose that in order to understand the methods at work in heiller's chant-based organ compositions, it is essential to understand three dimensions of heiller's musical character: one must understand heiller as a liturgical organist, heiller as a bach interpreter, and heiller as a catholic. this threefold perspective illuminates the musical, liturgical, and theological characteristics of heiller's chant-based organ works, and it also shows heiller to be a composer who was capable of treating gregorian melodies with an array of musical languages from the sacred music tradition while incorporating them into a modern idiom that was entirely his own. 15o nuclei, an important component of the solar neutrino flux, are produced via the 14n(p, γ)15o reaction in the cno cycle in stellar cores. recent measurements of cno neutrinos from the decay of 15o at the borexino detector provided the first direct measurement of cno neutrinos, indicating a higher rate than previously expected. these findings provided new, independent information about the metalicity of the solar core.there are still uncertainties in the rate of the 14n(p, γ)15o reaction at solar temperature conditions coming from nuclear sources which could provide independent verification of the borexino results. namely, the low-energy cross-section data for the transitions to the ground state and 6.79 mev excited state and the lifetime of the subthreshold excited state in 15o at 6.79 mev. in this work, we address these main sources of uncertainty in the nuclear physics inputs. the result of a low energy 14n(p, γ)15o cross-section measurement taken at the caspar underground accelerator facility is presented. the measurement detailed here bridges gaps in existing data sets, aiming to find a resolution to existing discrepancies in the data sets and moving towards a better understanding of the low-energy behavior of the 14n(p, γ)15o cross-section.this work also addresses the uncertainty coming from the lifetime of the excited state at ex = 6.79 mev, as previous measurements of this state's lifetime are significantly discrepant. this work details a measurement of this state's lifetime, as well as the lifetimes of the excited states in 15o at ex = 5.18 mev and ex = 6.17 mev.the lifetimes have been determined by the doppler-shift attenuation method (dsam) with three separate, nitrogen-implanted targets of mo, ta, and w backing. the lifetimes were obtained from the weighted average of the three individual measurements, allowing us to account for systematic differences between the backing materials. for the 6.79 mev state, we obtained a t = 0.6 +/0.4 fs. to provide cross-validation of our method, the lifetimes of the states at 5.18 mev and 6.17 mev to be t = 7.5 +/3.0 and t = 0.7 +/0.5 fs, respectively, in good agreement with previous measurements. ultimately, a multichannel r-matrix analysis was performed on all of the present data and was used to extrapolate the astrophysical s factors of the ground state and the 6.79 mev transitions to low energies. the present extrapolated zero-energy s factors are s-6.79 (0) = 1.24 +/0.09 kev b, s-6.17 (0) = 0.12 +/0.05 kev b, and s-g.s. (0) = 0.33(+0.16/-0.08) kev b. the value for the s-6.79 (0) overlaps well with recently reported measurements. overall, this indicates that this transition's extrapolation is quite robust to the addition of new data. for the ground state zero-energy extrapolation, s-g.s. (0), is slightly elevated but in overall agreement with previous literature.the approach taken here for the study of the 14n(p, γ)15o reaction has succeeded in combining both the efforts of an improved lifetime measurement and new cross-section data in underground accelerator experiments. the combination of these two complementary measurements allows us to suggest an enhancement to the zero-energy s-factor of the 14n(p, γ)15o reaction, ultimately supporting the higher rate observed in the recent borexino neutrino measurements. however, following the r-matrix analysis, consistent discrepancies between measured data and fits, both past and present, are identified and recommendations for future study are made. the work in hometown fantasy girl seeks to explore the intersection of class, race, and gender through the lens of 'white trash,' which can be best understood as a complex set of social representations. the exhibition features drawings and paintings that are informed both by research and personal experience, culminating in portraits of young women that discuss the intricately woven relationship between one's class, race, and gender in america. accuracy and efficiency of the karhunen-lo&#232;ve (kl) method is compared to a pseudospectral method employing global lagrange interpolating polynomials for a two-dimensional linear heat conduction problem and for the supersonic flow of an inviscid, calorically perfect ideal gas about an axisymmetric blunt body. for the heat conduction problem, efficiency and accuracy of a kl galerkin model, pseudospectral approximation, and a second order finite difference approximation are compared for two sets of boundary conditions: one with an infinite number of modes and a second with a finite number of modes. for both the infinite and finite mode boundary conditions, the kl galerkin model achieves an accuracy consistent with the underlying pseudospectral solver in as few as five modes. not including the cost of sampling the design space and building the kl model, the kl galerkin model is an order of magnitude faster than the pseudospectral method for the finite mode boundary condition, two orders of magnitude faster than the pseudospectral method for the infinite mode boundary condition, and five orders of magnitude faster than the finite difference for both types of boundary conditions at an accuracy level of 10^{-4} as measured against a separation of variables solution. in the supersonic blunt body problem, the bow shock is fitted, and the euler equations are solved in generalized coordinates using both a kl least-squares model and a pseudospectral method. not including the cost of sampling the design space and building the kl model, the kl least-squares method requires almost half the cpu time as the pseudospectral method to achieve the same level of accuracy. single variable design problems are solved for both the heat conduction problem and the supersonic blunt body problem using the pseudospectral solver and the kl model; in both problems, the kl model optimal design predictions are within the expected level of accuracy of the kl models. for both problems, a response surface which is a quadratic polynomial fit of the design problem objective function versus the geometric design variable is built from a design space sampling of three pseudospectral solutions. for the heat conduction problem, the kl model is significantly more accurate than the response surface over most of the design space, while for the blunt body design problem, the kl model is slightly less accurate than the response surface. since the kl model requires more cpu time, the single variable blunt body design problem posed here offers no advantage over a response surface in terms of cpu time. nevertheless, the accuracy of the response surface is strongly dependent on the problem, whereas the kl method achieves a consistently low level of error for both the heat conduction and supersonic blunt body problems considered. in this paper, i use cultural and feminist theory to examine the discourse of two evangelical christian organizations whose missions are to promote different gender ideologies. i focus specifically on how intimate partner violence (ipv), or 'abuse,' as both of them call it, functions symbolically for each. i find that a similar underlying cultural code that reflects evangelical subcultural identity (smith 1998) explains how both organizations substantiate their claims. however, even though they rely on the same cultural code, they perform substantively different gender ideologies, giving rise to different views on abuse. the council on biblical manhood and womanhood (cbmw), the conservative group, articulates a gender ideology of male 'headship' and wifely submission. cbmw's discussion of abuse draws a strong boundary against the gender ideology promoted by the rival evangelical feminist organization and reasserts the rightness of the headship doctrine, in the context of a stated concern with moral decay in american society, evidenced by changes in gender roles. christians for biblical equality (cbe), the evangelical feminist group, articulates a gender ideology of mutual submission in marriage. cbe's discussion of abuse draws a boundary against perceived abusive authority in marital relationships, in the context of a stated concern with gender justice. for cbmw, a defense of the headship ideology is paramount, while for cbe, an articulated concern with the practical is paramount. i argue that such different performances of gender ideology stem from the same underlying cultural code, partly because of the socio-religious characteristics of evangelical subcultural identity (smith 1998). but, more importantly, this creative use of a cultural code is explained by interactional dynamics that exist within the discourse of the two organizations. by applying the theoretical contributions of the culture-in-interaction perspective (eliasoph & lichterman 2003) to the study of discourse, as well as integrating insights from judith butler's (1990/1999, 1993) discussion of the performativity of gender, we can better understand the meaning made of abuse by these organizations. john milbank and the creation of truth:dialectical readingsabstract byrobert wayne lawrence john milbank argues that the collapse of the modern philosophical project and the emergence of the postmodern moment has opened an opportunity for theology, and in particular chrsitianity, to reinsert itself into the political and social debates of its time without feeling that it must appeal to universal standards as a precondition for being understood. instead, all social theories and philosophies are, to an extent, theologies, and thus have no claim to a surer foundation that christianity's own proposals. nonetheless, milbank likewise criticizes postmodernity for its despair over the lack of foundations and its abandonment of the pursuit of truth, which has deep political and social implications. this dissertation explores milbank's attempt to walk the fine line between the postmodern turn to language and his commitment to a belief in god as the ultimate horizon of meaning and human practice. thus, it investigates milbank's account of the creation of meaning through human practice, a practice which in turn participates in the creative life of god. creation is the making of truth, or, something is true only to the extent that it is made. milbank refers to this principle variously as poesis, or, with reference to milbank's deep roots in vico, verum-factum. it will be argued that milbank's ontological analysis is a useful advance within the larger neoplatonic tradition and that milbank is able to account for the experience of transcendence more fully than others. yet, milbank's attempt to excise negativity, or difference as conflict or contradiction, leaves him unable to overcome irrationalities that mar the socio-political landscape. therefore in part two of the dissertation, milbank is placed in conversation with three thinkers that systematically avail themselves of the 'power of the negative' &ndash; derrida, marx and hegel &ndash; in an effort to broaden milbank's account of practice. ultimately it is argued that milbank's poesis needs a dialectical inflection so that it does not rest content with grounding truth in positivity, but can push forward to a truly universal account of truth, even if the accomplishment of such a truth is unforeseeable in the current moment. brain metastases are secondary tumors in the brain commonly derived from breast, lung, and melanoma cells that detach from their respective primary tumors and seed the brain parenchyma. the brain parenchyma represents a unique niche within which metastatic cells grow, and different constituents of the brain metastatic niche have been demonstrated to have contrasting effects on metastatic outgrowth. here, leveraging recently developed techniques, we sought to (1) characterize spatial and pseudo-temporal aspects of key components of the metastatic niche, (2) compositionally and transcriptionally profile the myeloid immune component of the brain metastatic niche, and (3) elucidate the functional role of myeloid cells during brain metastasis and the molecular mechanism by which they regulate metastatic outgrowth. to characterize the spatial distribution of brain metastatic niche components, we pioneered a three-dimensional (3d) imaging and image analysis pipeline, which most notably permitted us to quantify morphometric features of brain metastasis-associated myeloid cells (br.mam), a family of innate immune cells positioned at the hub of the immune web. myeloid cells displayed dramatic morphological changes in the presence of brain metastases that became increasingly pronounced nearing the metastatic lesion. using a high dimensional canonical immune cell profiling technique, we demonstrated br.mam were compositionally diverse, inclusive to brain-resident microglia and subsets of bone marrow derived myeloid (bmdm) cells. applying a multi-modal sequencing method that couples epitope profiling with transcriptome profiling in single cells, we showed microglia and bmdm undergo enormous transcriptional changes from the naive state to become highly inflammatory in response to brain metastasis. intriguingly, depleting microglia during brain metastasis outgrowth reduced metastasis number, while inhibiting the infiltration of bmdm to metastatic lesions did not change metastasis number, implicating microglia as the main myeloid effector during brain metastasis. to elucidate a mechanism by which microglia regulate brain metastasis, we knocked out cx3cr1, a highly downregulated gene in microglia during brain metastasis, to show the loss of this gene promotes brain metastasis. cx3cr1 loss led to cxcl10 upregulation, ultimately leading to an increased intra-metastatic accumulation of cd86+ microglia that displayed negative immune checkpoint genes, including vsir (vista) and cd274 (pd-l1). targeting vista and pd-l1 by antibody blockade resulted in reduced brain metastasis number. cumulatively, our work sheds light on spatial aspects of the metastatic niche and reveals an important role for microglia in promoting brain metastasis through promoting immune suppression in the metastatic niche. response times (rts) on test items are a valuable source of information concerning examinees and the items themselves. as such, they have the potential to improve a wide variety of measurement activities. however, researchers have found that empirical rt distributions can exhibit a variety of shapes among the items within a single test. though a number of semiparametric and 'flexible' parametric models are available, no single model can accommodate all plausible shapes of empirical rt distributions. thus the goal of this research was to study a few of the potential consequences of rt model misspecification in educational measurement. in particular, two promising applications of rt models were of interest: examinee ability estimation and item selection in computerized adaptive testing (cat). first, by jointly modeling rts and item responses, rts can be used as collateral information in the estimation of examinee ability. this can be accomplished by embedding separate models for rts and item responses in level 1 of a hierarchical model and allowing their parameters to correlate in level 2. if the rt model is misspecified, a potential drawback of this hierarchical structure is that any negative impact on estimates of the rt model parameters may, in turn, negatively impact ability estimates. however, a simulation study found that estimates of the rt model parameters were robust to misspecification of the rt model. in turn, ability estimates were also robust. second, by considering the time intensity of items during item selection in cat, test completion times can be reduced without sacrificing the precision of ability estimates. this can be done by choosing items that maximize the ratio of item information to the examinee's predicted rt. however, an rt model is needed to make the prediction; if the rt model is misspecified, this method may not perform as intended. a simulation study found that whether or not the correct rt model was used to make the prediction had no bearing on test completion times. additionally, using a simple, average rt as the prediction was just as effective as model-based prediction in reducing test completion times. the concept of desire, with its blurred contours, is rather overburdened. given the many facets of desire, some philosophers have been inclined to give somewhat stipulative analyses of desire, which inevitably omit many of the natural uses of the word, as well as many of the intuitive aspects of the concept. this push for simplicity and manageability results in a sort of ersatz clarity, where we have a seemingly straightforward account of desire, but such an account does not actually do justice to the complexity of the concept, and more significantly, leads to a flattened and sterile view of ethics and human living. in this dissertation, i attempt to return a more appropriate level of complexity to discussion surrounding desire, and i ultimately suggest that philosophers might do better to construct their theories in ways that lean less on the claim that they are working from the "true" account of desire. in this thesis, i investigate the relationship between wallenda (wnd) map kinase kinase kinase signaling and the induction of autophagy within drosophila photoreceptor cell bodies. wallenda has been identified as a regulator of the wnd-jnk signaling pathway that regulates a neuron's response to injury. using the gal4-uas system, i expressed wnd and other genes of interest using the promoters for opsin proteins. the opsin promoters become active at ~75% pupal development which ensures expression within the adult, rather than during development. overexpression of wnd in drosophila photoreceptor cells induces degeneration of the rhabdomeres, the microvillar membrane of photoreceptor cells that houses the phototransduction machinery. overexpression of wnd signaling also leads to an induction of autophagy, as evident through transmission electron microscopy and fluorescent microscopy analysis. the autophagy response within the cell body is not related to a previously observed phenotype of axonal sprouting at the photoreceptor cell synapses due to wnd overexpression. i also investigated the role of wnd under wildtype conditions in drosophila photoreceptor cells using two loss of function mutants, wnd¹ and wndkd (collins et al 2006). wnd function is not required under wildtype conditions in photoreceptor cells. loss of wnd function has some effect at eclosion on the maintenance of rhodopsin levels; however, the levels recover to nearly wildtype levels by three days of age. loss of wnd function does not negatively impact the levels of three other key phototransduction proteins, transient receptor potential (trp), ninac, or retinophilin (rtp). despite the effect on rhodopsin levels at eclosion, no histological defects are observed within the photoreceptor cell bodies or their synapses based on light level fluorescent microscopy analysis. a role of wnd in regulating norpa induced photoreceptor cell degeneration has also been identified. the loss of function mutant wnd¹ suppresses norpa degeneration up to 9 days under constant light conditions. in summary, overexpression of wnd induces rhabdomere degeneration and autophagy within drosophila photoreceptor cells. the autophagic cell body response does not regulate the synaptic sprouting phenotype also observed due to wnd overexpression. wnd function is not required for photoreceptor cell maintenance under wildtype conditions. i have also identified a novel role of wnd in regulating the degeneration of the phototransduction mutant, norpa. appeals to human dignity are often met with disdain and outright rejection. this leaves those who find the concept to be a valuable resource on the defensive. though difficult to solve, the problem of human dignity is relatively easy to articulate: what is dignity and why should we take it seriously? the concept plays a prominent role in political agreement, moral theorizing, and social policy. despite this prominence, there is stark disagreement over whether dignity can successfully play this role. critics argue that dignity is eliminable from our moral and political discourse without serious consequences. this situation calls for careful philosophical work to be done to help articulate the nature and importance of human dignity. an adequate response to the problem of dignity must be twofold. first, it must show that dignity has intuitive appeal. examining the kinds of situations in which dignity is commonly appealed to and responding to its critics can show this. a look at the debate over dignity illustrates that many critics are guilty of a lack of care in analyzing the concept and in assessing different accounts of dignity, and of, what is more egregious, failing to notice a central tension within the concept between its meritorious and egalitarian elements. second, a coherent and satisfying account of dignity must be put forth. by drawing on lessons from those situations in which dignity is appealed to and from the mistakes of critics of dignity, and by focusing on the tension that is at the heart of dignity, a coherent account of dignity can be put forth. before sketching what this account will look like, i examine gilbert meilaender's and jeremy waldron's accounts of dignity. the twofold response to the problem of dignity is sufficient to reject the claim that dignity is eliminable from our moral and political discourse without serious consequences. this is because it offers the resources to deny the strongest argument for this claim, which is that it is impossible to arrive at a coherent account of dignity that does justice to the elements of dignity that appear to be in tension. bacterial adsorption of metals can have a great impact on environmental metal cycling. a comprehensive understanding of the extent of metal adsorption onto bacteria in aqueous systems is imperative in order to predict the fate of metals in natural and engineered geologic systems. this dissertation presents three studies that provide insight into metal-bacterial adsorption reactions. chapter 2 describes the effects of metabolically inactive bacterial cells and bacterial exudates on hgo(solid) precipitation as a function of solution saturation state. the experimental results reveal that hg removal due to the presence of bacteria can be explained through adsorption alone in systems that are undersaturated with respect to hgo(solid). the results also show that bacterial exudates can cause significant inhibition of hgo(solid) precipitation due to the formation of hg-exudate aqueous complexes. chapter 3 characterizes the adsorption behavior of divalent metal cations onto the sheathless variant of iron-oxidizing bacterium, leptothrix cholodnii, and compares the adsorption behavior to that of the well-characterized gram-positive bacterium, bacillis subtilis. the results demonstrate that l. cholodnii and b. subtilis exhibit similar binding affinities for a range of metals and that any iron oxides produced during l. cholodnii growth are low in abundance and show no effect on the adsorption behavior. these findings were used to estimate the extent of divalent cation competition that occurs between an iron-oxidizing bacteria (feob) and the iron oxide byproducts of their metabolism, which are closely associated with the bacterial cell surface. the calculations demonstrate that precipitation of these iron oxides by feob leads to significant competition of nutrients with bacterial cells, but that the cells still can adsorb inorganic nutrients even with high concentrations of iron oxides present. finally, chapter 4 evaluates bacterial removal of zn, ni, co, mn, pb, and sr as a function of both ph and metal:bacteria ratio in order to derive metal-bacterial sulfhydryl binding constants. the results show no enhanced removal of both pb and sr by bacterial-sulfhydryl sites. in contrast, zn, ni, co, and mn exhibited high binding affinities to bacterial sulfhydryl sites relative to binding to the other bacterial reactive functional groups. using these results, we derive a relationship to estimate metal-bacterial sulfhydryl binding constants that have not yet been measured, and apply our findings to calculate the importance of both bacterial adsorption in general and sulfhydryl binding in particular in two representative complex contaminated environmental systems. these calculations suggest that bacterial sulfhydryl sites dominate metal binding and speciation in environments when metal:bacteria ratios are low, and that these low loading conditions are likely to be the norm in even fairly highly contaminated systems. this dissertation offers a constructive account of the catholicity of the church considered from a theoretical, practical, and phenomenological lens, whose sources and positions are primarily inspired by st. augustine and the augustinian tradition.in chapter one, i offer a brief overview of roman catholic accounts of catholicity by focusing on four thinkers whom i argue embody four "strands" of thought in 20th century ecclesiology: henri de lubac (catholicity as qualitative fullness), j. b. metz (global catholicity), j.m.r. tillard (local catholicity), and avery dulles (catholicity as discipled mediation). drawing primarily from these four thinkers, as well as other theologians and ecclesiologists throughout, this chapter weaves together the varying insights of the contributors to develop a synthetic account of the church's catholicity. i close by noting that, while the contributions of these thinkers are massive and significant, it is not clear how the catholicity of the church is correlated to other christian positions (the trinity, christology, creation, etc.). moreover, the foregoing thinkers lacked an adequate philosophical framework that could give an explanatory account of their positions' aporiae.chapter two recovers the thought of erich przywara as a corrective to these lacunae. i provide an exposition of przywara's vision of the analogia entis to anchor his theological (and augustinian) synthesis in a metaphysical framework. then, i demonstrate how, for przywara, the catholicity of the church is conditioned and grounded by a christian notion of god, the trinity, christology, the incarnation, and the economy of salvation. i conclude that the catholicity of the church is entailed by god's complete and total self-gift in the generation of the son from the father, a total gift than transposed into a finite and temporal key in the salvific economy through a catholic church, whose totality is suitable to mirror god's infinite gift of love in the logos, made flesh in jesus christ.chapters three and four form a unity and examine catholicity in its material and practical qualities. chapter three tells the story of north african christianity by looking at the work of tertullian, cyprian of carthage, and donatist martyrologies. this narrative both provides essential historical context to augustine's anti-donatist corpus (chapter four) and discloses the sort of narrative in which the question of catholicity is raised and threatened. i conclude that the catholicity of the church is called into question primarily when the other marks of the church—unity, holiness, and apostolicity—are simultaneously questioned. chapter four then recovers augustine's anti-donatist corpus to argue for the specific habits and virtues which are conducive to maintaining catholicity in the face of egregious sin and disunity. the three habits i recover from augustine's corpus—and in conversation with three modern figures to establish augustine's contemporary relevance—are lament, patience, and hope.in chapter five, i provide a phenomenological analysis of ecclesial catholicity through the work of edith stein. it demonstrates the kinds of subjective and intersubjective experience in which the church's catholicity becomes concretely manifest. i conclude by noting the eschatological implications of stein's phenomenology and argue that catholicity is eschatologically oriented, such that the individual epectasy (or "perpetual progress") of individual souls in eternity unfolds in tandem with an ecclesial epectasy, whereby the church becomes ever more perfectly that which it essentially is in the wisdom of god. this dissertation studies how heterogeneity across interacting parties affects their strategic behavior and their equilibrium implications. i divide my dissertation into three chapters. the first chapter studies how an initial asymmetry in the production costs between two firms affects aggregate r&d investment and equilibrium welfare under non-cooperative r&d and under a research joint venture. under both regimes, increasing the initial cost asymmetry reduces welfare. if there exists a spillover value for which welfare under the two regimes is the same, then increasing the initial cost asymmetry has an ambiguous effect on this critical spillover value. the second chapter studies how private information affects the stability of a network of heterogeneous agents in the coauthor model. i introduce private information in the node linkformation decisions and endow each node with complete information in their link-severing decisions. a node's incentive to form a link increases with its type if, and only if, the increase of the magnitude of the negative externality induced by a new link is small relative to the benefit of a new interaction. a node's incentive to form a new link decreases with each of the neighbors' types. adding information can maintain or undermine the stability of a network. therefore a stable star network under incomplete information can be unstable under complete information. the third chapter analyzes a communication game with two types of players: loyals and traitors. conditional on his type after privately observing a noisy signal about the state of the world, each player sends a message to an uninformed decision maker. necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of equilibria where every player sends the same message regardless of his signal, equilibria where each loyal truthfully reveals his signal and equilibria where each loyal lies with some probability for some signal are provided. the conditions that provide the incentives to the loyals to truthfully reveal their signals in equilibrium may contradict the conditions under which a byzantine agreement can exist. moreover, having each loyal revealing their signals in equilibrium does not guarantee the decision maker's maximum welfare ex-ante. mathematical explanation has become a topic central to the philosophy of mathematics and category theory is an area of mathematics that has become increasingly applicable across mathematics. this dissertation bridges these two topics by arguing that category theory has explanatory value. category theory has proven to be useful in many distinct areas of mathematics and the usefulness of this applicability is often a result of the fact that the category theoretic approach produces explanation. first, i demonstrate that existing accounts of mathematical explanation fall short and that these accounts can be improved by more closely considering features of mathematical practice. second, i characterize the kind of structure inherent in category theory and illustrate that this structure often gives rise to explanatory generalizations and analogies. i then expand upon this point by considering a specific case study: the van kampen theorem. this theorem serves as an illuminating example because it can formulated both category theoretically and non-category theoretically. the comparison of these two approaches highlights the explanatoriness of category theory. in total, these three chapters clarify some important features of mathematical explanation and shed philosophical light on the success of category theory within mathematics. emerging adults show declining participation in organized religion and increasing spirituality, a finding that has occupied researchers for decades. this paper suggests that the source of this puzzling trend is the religious identity development emerging adults pursue. in order to consolidate an adult identity, emerging adults need to complete the work of individuation. this requires the emerging adult to renegotiate relationships with parents in pursuit of a balance between autonomy and connectedness, and in the process to evaluate his or her religious heritage and decide on ultimate values. these developmental tasks can result in spiritual growth even while religious participation declines, as the emerging adult shifts from a religious identity assigned in childhood by parental socialization to one chosen as an individuated adult. one indication that this process is taking place is the ubiquity of religious and spiritual struggles in emerging adults. although they can be distressing, the experience of religious and spiritual struggle may result in growth as the emerging adult seeks meaningful spiritual experiences and forms a personal belief system, tools that allow them to consolidate a religious identity and develop spirituality. a longitudinal survey of emerging adults (n=788) at a religious university examined evidence for this theory via longitudinal structural equation models. measures of dysfunctional individuation, religious and spiritual struggle, college adjustment, spirituality, religious engagement, and social support were administered at four time points during an academic year. although latent growth curve models indicated that incomplete or dysfunctional individuation predicts religious and spiritual struggle, bivariate latent change score models found that this relationship was not directional. path models linking dysfunctional individuation, religious and spiritual struggle, spirituality and religious identity indicate that individuation may still be an important component of religious identity development. examining the contribution of early adversity and current life stress to recurrent depression. consistent with the kindling hypothesis (post, 1992), stressful life events were found to be more important for first lifetime episodes of depression than for recurrent episodes. results also indicate a stress sensitization model in which individuals who have experienced early adversity display a greater personal history of depression than individuals who have not experienced early adversity. in this dissertation, i draw insight about what constitutes a good theory of moral judgment from aristotle and, in particular, from john mcdowell's appropriation of him in 'virtue and reason.' articulating a set of desiderata for a theory of moral judgment, i consider whether kant has the resources from which we could construct a similar theory of moral judgment while also retaining what i take to be advantageous aspects of his moral theory more generally. i turn to an examination of recent work in kant's theory of theoretical judgment--in particular, the work of beatrice longuenesse in kant and the capacity to judge--in order to find out what, for kant, guides and makes possible theoretical judgment. finding that theoretical judgment has at its core a teleological impulse to judge, i then show how this insight both can and cannot be applied to the case of moral judgment. this thesis examines the privatization of development and the changing interests, pressures, and demands that have brought ngos and corporations into collaborative partnerships (ngo-bps). i propose a new business purpose classification for ngo-bps and examine partnership risk analysis and the building of trust through a case study of an ambitious development project in sub-saharan africa undertaken by catholic relief services and supported through partnership with the intel corporation. in the final chapter, i highlight key findings and return to the privatization of development with the benefit of concrete examples. in a shrinking and globalizing world, with many conflicts stemming from religious or ideological differences, how are we to regard monotheism's potential for inspiring violent absolutism? discussions of monotheism's political consequences often emphasize either its "intolerance" of other gods and religions as a source of bigotry and conflict, on the one hand, or emphasize monotheism as a source of pacific, universalistic, transcendent tolerance on the other. but both approaches fail to give monotheism's "intolerance" its due. i argue that monotheism's intolerance opens up historic potentials that are both enlightening and dangerous: it dissolved the ancient link between god and the political sphere, helped us see past the distortions of divinized politics, and deepened concern for the victims of politics—while it nonetheless makes possible a uniquely absolutist, violence. by comparison, polytheistic "tolerance" does not necessarily make for a liberating vision of inclusion and diversity. to argue this, i construct an account of monotheism's intolerance—as a "refusal to divinize victims" and a prohibition of representing the absolute—and its relevance to pluralistic coexistence today. this includes critically weaving together the mimetic theory of rené girard, the monotheistic scholarship of jan assmann et al, and the social theory of chantal mouffe, treating their ideas as mutually illuminating. the conventional story of american catholics and religious freedom on the eve of the second vatican council (1962-1965) is fairly straightforward. before vatican ii, us catholics were largely embarrassed by rome's principled opposition to religious and other liberal freedoms. they rallied behind their foremost theologian, john courtney murray (1904-1967), to push for change in roman catholic church-state doctrine. after silencing murray for nearly a decade, vatican authorities, at last, recognized the value of disestablishment, and the council finally reconciled catholicism to american democratic liberties. through qualitative research in nine different archives in both the united states and rome—including newly available vatican documents from the time of pius xii's pontificate—the present dissertation complicates this narrative by foregrounding the position of the american catholic hierarchy, eager to remain in good standing with rome even while operating within a religious freedom regime. to do so, they imported arguments rooted in the roman anti-liberal tradition to the broader americanconversation on the place of religion in democracy—a debate that was intensifying between the late 1930s and the early 1960s. the bishops argued that the us regime of religious freedom in fact made america not a "secular," but a "covenant nation"—a confessionally ecumenical covenant for sure, but a covenant, nonetheless, which welcomed the church onto the public square. the bishops supported the "nation under god" campaigns of the 1940s and 1950s and joined non-catholics who shared their aversion to the "naked public square" to defend their church-state vision in the courts. meanwhile, rome learned to appreciate disestablishment, if not for its intrinsic virtues (the john courtney murray argument), at least because it did not necessarily preclude the possibility of close church-state cooperation in an increasingly secular world. in the short run, this vision ultimately clashed against the warren court's embrace of stricter church-state separation standards, while rome finally let murray help reframe catholic doctrine on religious freedom at vatican ii. but even now, the nation under god project preserves its appeal to new cohorts of liberalism's discontents. with development of new airborne optical systems, there is a significant amount of effort being put into maximizing the farfield performance of these optical systems. to meet this goal, the root mean square of the optical path difference, opdrms , over the aperture, a measure of the nearfield optical distortions, is being reduced as much as possible. part of this development process involves testing models of these systems with various configurations in wind tunnels. in these tests, the optical disturbances due to the testing environment are becoming a large percentage of the measured optical disturbances. it is now a necessity to be able to identify, measure, and remove the various noise sources that appear in aero-optical measurements that take place in wind tunnels.one of the primary sources of signal noise in these measurements, is acoustics. both the wind-tunnel fan and the flow through out the tunnel generate large amounts of acoustic noise that travel throughout the tunnel as acoustic duct modes. the fan generates strong narrow-band signals at the blade-passing frequency and its harmonics. there are also significant broad-band acoustic duct mode signals along with vibration related signals and strong mostly-steady optical lensing signals that add to the overall measurement.a significant portion of this dissertation is dedicated to analyzing wind-tunnel optical wavefront data in multidimensional spectral space. the signal identification and filtering mostly take place in the multidimensional spectrum, where the optical wavefront is not only split into its temporal frequency components but also its spatial frequency components. a combination of three filters is able to remove most of the noise signals while retaining most of the aero-optical signal. a velocity filter, which retains a narrow band of signal that is traveling within a small velocity range, is able to remove most of the broad-band signal noise, especially at higher temporal-frequencies. a backward filter, which retains only the portion of a signal that is traveling in the direction of the flow, removes signal that the velocity filter is not able to, at lower temporal-frequencies. finally a baseline filter identifies the baseline spectrum and removes narrow-band peaks. this dissertation explains how presidents achieved market-oriented reforms in a contentious political environment. the study focuses on ecuador as a case study, where entrenched regional and ethnic divisions combined with lenient electoral institutions contributed to severe legislative fragmentation and pervasive executive-legislative conflict. despite the adverse institutional context, presidents were able to assemble significant policy changes in congress without exclusively relying on constitutional decree authority. patterns of policy change are explained by focusing on strategic actions adopted by political actors operating in a restrictive institutional framework. the dissertation develops a dynamic choice model to explain how coalition formateurs enhanced cooperation incentives by expanding the value of coalition benefits channeled through party leaders, and by lowering their partners' liability for making government coalitions. when presidents increased their cooperation incentives, party leaders acting as political brokers played a crucial role in producing disciplined majorities by allocating and rewarding party members with policy concessions, pork, and patronage. elevated party unity scores and low defection rates suggest that individual vote buying was a strategy less preferred by presidents than commonly thought. lowering the liability of coalition parties was crucial because public opinion ratings and the proximity of new elections reduced the incentives to cooperate with the executive. crafting clandestine or 'ghost' coalitions compensated for high cooperation costs while allowing opposition parties to maintain a public image of political independence. abundant quantitative and qualitative evidence, much of which is reported for the first time, provides empirical tests of model predictions. these data include legislative productivity rates, roll call votes, cabinet composition, legislative career paths, public opinion surveys, as well as insights from congressional hearings, media archives, and dozens of interviews with policy makers in ecuador. reliable prediction of optical wavefront distortions induced by compressible turbulent flow surrounding an aperture is crucial to the development of airborne laser systems. large-eddy simulation (les) with a wall model provides a promising high-fidelity simulation method for high-reynolds-number aero-optical flows by avoiding the severe near-wall resolution requirement. in this study, wall-modeled les is employed to predict and analyze aero-optical distortions of subsonic and supersonic turbulent boundary layers and subsonic and transonic flows over cylindrical turrets at high reynolds numbers. the results are compared to experimental measurements and previous results from wall-resolved les at reduced reynolds numbers.for turbulent boundary layers at mach numbers from 0.5 to 4.3 and reynolds numbers up to reᶿ = 6.9 x 104 , reasonable agreement is obtained between numerical predictions and experimental data in terms of the magnitude and structures of optical distortions. the optical statistics are dominated by large-scale flow structures in the outer layer. the density correlations and pre-multiplied power spectra capture the features of large-scale motions whose length scales are comparable to the boundary layer thickness.subsonic and transonic flows over a cylindrical turret are simulated under experimental conditions. the subsonic flow aero-optical results show agreement with the experimental data of gordeyev et al. (aiaa paper 2005-4657) and previous wall-resolved les results. for the transonic flow, the simulation accurately predicts the fundamental frequency of the shock-induced pressure fluctuations and harmonics (vorobiev et al., aiaa paper 2014-2357). it is found that the piston and tilt components of the optical distortions are highly correlated with the shock-induced pressure oscillations, and the shock motion is clearly identified in the unsteady wavefront, which gives valuable input for the design of adaptive-optics systems synchronized with surface-pressure sensors. the les data is also employed to provide a better understanding of the underlying physics of the shock-separation interaction. apoptotic effects of potential anti-cancer agents (gsl-glycosphingolipid biosynthesis inhibitor l-ppmp, dna biosynthsis inhibitor cis-platin, disialosylgangliosides gd3 and gd1b, etc.) in human breast cancer cell lines were evaluated in this study. different techniques including trypan staining, phase contrast microscopy, dna laddering, pss-380/pi staining with phosphatidylserine, and aks-0 staining with cell membranes system were used to characterize the apoptosis. the cell-killing action by these anticancer agents were detected to be dose-dependent with ed50 identification and time-dependent with monitoring pss-380 between 6 to 24 hours of drug incubation. the pss-380 and aks-0 fluorescence dyes were found to be good molecular probes to characterize the changes during apoptosis. activation of both extrinsic and intrinsic apoptotic pathways by cis-platin was observed in human breast cancer cells (mcf-7, mda-468, and skbr-3) with western blot using caspase-3, caspase-8, and caspase-9 antibodies. however, only activation of intrinsic mitochondrial apoptotic pathway was found in l-ppmp-treated cells using caspase-3 and caspase-9 antibodies. all the tested anti-cancer agents and disialosylgangliosides were able to activate the effector caspase-3 to its processed forms, which suggests their apoptotic abilities. changes in other signal transduction pathways of mapks and nf-&#954;b cascades were also detected with l-ppmp and cis-platin treatments. the activation profile was presented in a cell-type-dependent and drug-specific manner. various regulations of signal transduction pathways may be caused by the presence of different cell surface receptors and proteins in these mcf-7, mda-468, and skbr-3 cells.using radioactive serine and sugar incorporation assay, the elevation of endogenous ceramide biosynthesis was detected in different cell lines in the presence of various apoptotic agents except for cis-platin. this implies the mechanism of ceramide-involved mitochondrial outer membrane permeability changes during apoptosis. with radioactive sugar incorporation assay, the down-regulation of gsl glycosphingolipid biosynthesis in the human breast cancer cells by l-ppmp were also suggested.fresh pork liver was successfully used as a source of fucokinase and pyrophosphorylase to synthesize gdp-[3h]-l-fucose which was used for complete biosynthesis study of regulation of fucosyltransfereases activities during apoptosis. an optimal condition and a simple procedure for in vitro biosynthesis (preparative) was worked out so that the radioactive gdp-[3h]-l-fucose (commercially unavailable) could be prepared in large scale quantity for people who are working in the area of fucosyltransfereases. our newly prepared radioactive gdp-[3h]-l-fucose was used for present study.regulation of gsl glycosyltransferases (galt-4, galt-5, sat-2, sat-4, sat-4', and fuct-3) was studied with the human breast cancer cells treated with l-ppmp and cis-platin. under most conditions, the anti-cancer agents were found to be able to inhibit gsl glycosyltransferase activities with some exceptions of enhancement of enzyme activities. this reveals the drug-, cell type-, and time-dependent manner of regulation of gsl glycosyltransferases during apoptosis.in addition, dna-microarray techniques were used with human glyco-related gene chips to study the regulation of gsl glycosyltransferase gene expressions during the apoptosis induced by l-ppmp in both the early stage (2 hours of treatment) and the late stage (24 hours of treatment). several genes encoding the enzymes involved in the sphingolipid glycosylation were detected significantly changed (up-regulated or down-regulated), which indicating the complicated response of all three breast cancer cell lines to the apoptosis signal induced by l-ppmp. this dissertation discusses the development of new polymeric membranes for use in gas separation applications. polymer membranes offer a more energy-efficient method for separations compared to many typical industrial techniques, such as distillation. however, membrane performance is typically limited by a natural tradeoff between the gas permeability, a measure of the gas throughput across the membrane, and the selectivity, the sieving capability of the material. therefore, highly permeable membranes generally suffer from low selectivities and vice versa. this challenge can be combatted at the macromolecular level by strategically designing the polymer backbone to have bulky moieties and/or rigid, tortuous elements to disrupt polymer chain packing and increase the fractional free volume of the material. the unique molecule, triptycene, is a rigid, three-dimensional, pinwheel-shaped molecule that fits these design criteria and is investigated at length in this dissertation through a series of triptycene-based polyimides. composed of three bulky benzene "blades", triptycene is found to be effective at disrupting polymer chain packing, which increases free volume and provides more possible pathways for diffusion, thereby increasing permeability. additionally, small internal free volume cavities, similar in size to many common gas penetrants, are trapped in the clefts of the benzene blades. these small voids, which are intrinsic to the triptycene molecule, create configuration-based free volume that boosts the membrane's selectivity. this bimodal free volume size distribution proved to be favorable architecture for gas transport, as evidenced by simultaneously enhanced gas permeabilities and selectivities compared to those of conventional glassy polymers. additionally, fundamental structure/property relationships of the triptycene-polyimides were studied through minute variations to the polymer backbone design. it was determined that the performance could be improved further through the introduction of trifluoromethyl groups neighboring the triptycene moiety and by incorporating very rigid polymer backbone elements. furthermore, the promising gas transport properties of the materials studied in this work provide motivation for continued research in the field of triptycene-based polymers for gas separation membranes. magnetic quantum-dot cellular automata (mqca) systems are networks of closely-spaced, dipole-coupled, single-domain nanomagnets designed for digital computation. mqca offers very low power dissipation with high integration density of functional devices, as qca implementations do in general. in addition, mqca can operate over a wide temperature range from sub-kelvin to the curie temperature. information propagation and inversion have previously been demonstrated in mqca. in this thesis, we perform a shape study of asymmetric magnets for mqca gate design, and we demonstrate for the first time room temperature operation of a programmable mqca majority-logic gate, i.e. the basic majority gate, with different length of the driver magnet. the samples were fabricated on silicon wafers by using high-resolution electron-beam lithography for patterning of electron beam evaporated ferromagnetic metals. the nanomagnet circuits were imaged by magnetic force microscopy (mfm), with which individual magnetization states were distinguished and mapped. magnetic switching behavior was investigated in arrays of magnets with different aspect ratios. switching fields were determined experimentally by mfm images taken after several independent demagnetizations. by increasing a magnet's length along its easy axis, its coercivity increases in that direction. this basic phenomenon was used for the design and fabrication of a programmable majority gate. the majority gate was demonstrated by employing nife polycrystalline nanomagnets with 60 nm x 90 nm lateral sizes. drivers were provided by additional nanomagnets fabricated together with the gate, and the operation was tested by mfm. the work presented here is an experimental proof of the mqca concept. the triaxiality of even-even nuclei has been well studied, but the triaxiality of odd-mass nuclei is less well understood. the triaxiality of odd-mass nuclei is addressed in this thesis, by coupling a quasiparticle to an even-even core through the core quasiparticle coupling model. we consider both a triaxial "soft core" and "rigid core." the "soft core" is described by the collective model with rotation-vibrational motion, while the "rigid core" is described by the triaxial rotor model, which is a limiting case of the collective model with only rotational motion. to investigate the triaxiality of odd-mass nuclei through the two different approaches, experimental information is needed on high spin states. the present work involves comparisons of two theoretical calculations to experiment in the pd, ru, and rh isotopic chains, with mass numbers around 100. also, in collaboration with experimental groups at notre dame, the two other explorations have been carried out, of triaxiality and transverse wobbling in pr, a=135, and of triaxiality at low spin in pd, with a=109. these comparisons with available experimental data demonstrate that the odd-mass nuclei are better described by coupling to the rigid triaxial rotor than by coupling to the soft collective core. plasmodium falciparum malaria remains one of the world's most serious infectious diseases, but the use of artemisinin (art) in combination with other antimalarials has been important in reducing deaths and disease. however, the recent rise in resistance in the greater mekong subregion of southeast asia threatens the efficacy of art and raises the concern that malaria cases will rise and resistance will spread. the spread of resistant strains to sub-saharan africa would be devastating in an area with the highest malaria mortality rates in the world. to combat the spread of art resistance, there is a critical need to understand what drives its emergence and spread.the rate of emergence and spread of resistance is closely related to the fitness of resistant parasites. the fitness cost of resistance mutations and the compensatory mutations that accompany resistance mutations play a role in determining whether resistance will spread in a population. knowledge of the molecular basis of the cost of resistance is important for understanding how resistance mutations arise and stabilize in populations.the costs of resistance can be studied in vitro by using fitness assays, including individual growth assays, competitive growth assays, and bulk segregant analysis. individual growth assays, such as parasite growth rate, determine which parasites have high fitness. competitive growth assays measure the relative fitness between co-infecting parasites and reveal fitness disparities between the parasites. bulk segregant analysis measures the change in allele frequencies due to parasite growth over time to determine loci related to fitness. these assays highlight the phenotypes necessary to have a "fit" parasite and as quantitative measures of fitness, they can be used for quantitative trait locus (qtl) mapping to identify genetic loci that correlate with that fitness phenotype. by phenotyping parasites isolated from patients in southeast asia and africa and using these parasites as parents in genetic crosses, we can study a variety of drug resistance and fitness phenotypes. improved understanding of the in vitro fitness costs of different parasites and the role different resistance and compensatory mutations play will contribute to an understanding of the potential for specific mutations to spread in populations. in this dissertation, i present a marxian analysis of class qua surplus in the informal manufacturing sector in india. i develop a framework to account for processes of production, appropriation, and distribution of surplus labor in informal enterprises, and apply this framework to analyze the disaggregated, unit-level data from national sample survey (62nd round, 2005-06). i show that the informal manufacturing sector is a site of heterogeneous class processes, encompassing capitalist, feudal, and ancient appropriative class processes. i further show that, under the given market wage rates and the corresponding living standards for informal sector workers, the enterprises (both capitalist and noncapitalist) are capable of producing, appropriating and realizing surplus. i calculate the magnitude and rate of surplus value for enterprises with different appropriative class processes. the average amount of surplus produced and the rate of exploitation in the informal capitalist enterprises are substantially higher than in the noncapitalist enterprises. the noncapitalist--primarily "ancient"--enterprises, however, cannot retain any significant amount of net surplus for expanded reproduction and growth. thus, the capitalist and noncapitalist spaces within informal manufacturing sector can be clearly delineated in terms of their capacity for realization and accumulation of surplus. the noncapitalist informal enterprises provide livelihood to much of the surplus population in india who are not absorbed into the formal capitalist sector. i show that the owners/workers of these enterprises have to subsist, on average, much below the customary standard of living for wage-workers in india. this difference between the notional (based on minimum wages) and the actual standard of living demonstrates high incidence of relative poverty among the surplus population. the unity of the direct producers with their means of labor ensures the basic survival of the informal household enterprises. i show that even if these households retain the net surplus or net profit to augment their consumption funds, and not for accumulation, they still will not be able to attend the customary standard of living, and will continue to be in relative poverty. my interdisciplinary study uses the medieval sacramental theology of double signification to integrate two contemporary conversations in dante scholarship: the question of how to understand dante's poetics, and the problems surrounding the presence of medieval liturgy in the comedy. using a close-reading methodology, i examine how three key passages from the comedy--the encounters with adam in paradiso xxvi, ulysses and guido da montefeltro in inferno xxvi and xxvii, and bonagiunta da lucca in purgatorio xxiv--reveal the human person as both a sign of god and (potentially) god by participation in christ's divine nature. this revelation allows dante-poet to present himself as not only imitating god's writing, but as participating in god's writing. the result is a new hermeneutical framework for an integrated reading of all three cantiche. macroeconomics was born as a result of one of the worst financial collapses in human history: the 1930's great depression. since then, a rich and comprehensive literature on the causes and economic consequences of financial crises has arisen. however, despite our ever-growing understanding of extreme financial events, the evolutionary nature of the world economy implies that crises continue to occur in both, known and unknown shapes and forms. as shown by the 2008's great recession, economists and policymakers often find themselves voiceless when confronted with the unexpected outcomes of modern-day financial collapses. this dissertation studies financial crises in emerging and developing countries. we focus on these countries because seventy-five percent of all the registered events of financial distress that occurred between 1970 and 2010, happened in these economies (reihart and rogoff, 2011). the chapters presented in this document, investigate the three main subjects associated with financial crises: origins, prevention, and management. economists have been very successful in understanding the causes and consequences of financial crises over, among others, income, trade, employment, and poverty. however, when determining policy mechanisms that allow for effective prevention and efficient management policies, results have been mixed. this dissertation contributes to the literature by proposing an innovative perspective on the prevention and management of financial crises.chapters 1 and 2 focus on the roots of financial crises and the formulation of optimal macroprudential policy. specifically, we look at different scenarios in which imperfect credit markets lead to an increase in the frequency and the severity of financial collapses. we study the characteristics of the optimal policy that minimizes the occurrence of crises and restores efficiency in the market. chapter \ ef{chap:ch1} analyzes the relationship between information frictions and financial constraints. in particular, we relax the perfect information assumption in a small open economy with collateral constraints. under such a condition, households observe income growth but do not perceive whether the underlying shocks are permanent or transitory. we find that the likelihood and severity of financial crises increase due to the interaction between the information friction and a pecuniary externality that emerges when households use an asset valued at market prices as collateral. our results also show that the optimal tax to restore constrained efficiency is six times larger than under perfect information. chapter 2 provides a quantitative link between the macroeconomic relevance of overborrowing and the significance of permanent shocks to the economy. we propose an innovative approach to estimate the unobservable permanent and transitory components of income and show that as the transitory-to-permanent volatility ratio decreases, the degree of overborrowing in a decentralized economy converges to zero. moreover, as the permanent shocks to income become more relevant to the economy, the number of crises occurring because of overborrowing falls.in chapter 3, we turn our attention to the case of economies with highly indebted governments that are forced to reduce their debt-to-gdp ratio in order to bring the budget under control. the chapter proposes a quantitative framework that sheds light on the optimal path that authorities can follow to achieve fiscal consolidation. we argue that the optimal design of a consolidation plan must consider the transition dynamics of the economy and maximize either welfare or another measure of prosperity. our quantitative model explores the case of small open economies under different monetary policy regimes. we conclude that currency devaluation is a critical factor in stabilizing output during a fiscal contraction. the aortic valve is located between the left ventricle and the aorta and ensures unidirectional blood flow between the left ventricle and the aorta by opening during systole (ventricle contraction) and closing during diastole (ventricle relaxation). the normal valve, known as the tricuspid aortic valve (tav) consists of three leaflets. the bicuspid aortic valve (bav) is the most common congenital valvular defect, in which two of the three leaflets fuse during the development. the most prevalent type-i morphology features two cusps of unequal size (resulting from the fusion of two of the three leaflets) and a fibrous raphe at the location of congenital fusion. while 71% of type-i bavs result from the fusion between the rightand left-coronary leaflets (lr subtype), 15% feature rightand non-coronary cusp fusion (rn subtype) and 3% present with nonand left-coronary cusp fusion (nl subtype). while the bav morphology may not intrinsically hamper valvular function, it is associated with a spectrum of secondary valvulopathy and aortopathy such as calcific aortic valve disease (cavd) and aortic dilation. in addition, the particular leaflet fusion type affects the expression of dilation and thinning of the ascending aorta (aa) downstream of a bav. while the lr cusp fusion is primarily associated with dilation of the aortic root and the aa convexity, dilation patterns downstream of rn-bavs localize to the tubular aa and sometimes extend to the transverse aortic arch. while these bav complications have been historically linked to the same genetic defect responsible for the bav morphogenesis, recent in vivo, in vitro and computational studies have revealed the existence of abnormal hemodynamics in the bav, which may contribute to the early and rapid development of cavd and aortic dilation in bav patients. however, the native fluid wall shear stress (wss) environment in the bav and bav aa remain largely unknown, which hinders the assessment of this hemodynamic theory. therefore, the objective of this dissertation was to computationally quantify the native mechanical environment on bav leaflets and bav aortas using fluid-structure interaction (fsi) modeling.in specific aim 1, arbitrary lagrangian eulerian (ale) fsi models were designed to simulate the flow and leaflet dynamics in idealized tav, type-0 and type-i bav geometries subjected to physiologic transvalvular pressure. the regional leaflet mechanics was quantified in terms of temporal shear magnitude (tsm), oscillatory shear index (osi), temporal shear gradient (tsg) and stretch. the simulations identified regions of wss overloads and increased wss oscillations in bav leaflets relative to tav leaflets. bav leaflets also experienced larger radial deformations than tav leaflets. type-i bav leaflets exhibited contrasted wss environments marked by wss overloads on the non-coronary leaflet and sub-physiologic wss levels on the fused leaflet. this study demonstrated the existence of abnormal wss on bav leaflets, which may further our understanding of the role played by hemodynamic forces in bav disease. in specific aim 2, an fsi model of the tav with coronary arteries was developed to quantify the effect of coronary flow on leaflet wss and assess the assumption of neglecting coronary arteries in specific aim 1. the study demonstrated that coronary flow increased wss magnitude and decreased wss oscillations on the tip and belly regions of the leaflet while the presence of coronary arteries had limited effect on the base of the leaflet fibrosa (i.e. region most prone to calcification). this study provided important insight into the effect of coronary flow on leaflet wss and justified the assumption of neglecting coronary arteries in specific aim1 to predict wss on leaflet regions most prone to calcification.in specific aim 3, 3d fsi models of unified valve-aorta geometries were designed to quantify hemodynamics and regional wss in a non-dilated aa subjected to tav and three type-i bav morphotypes (lr, rn and nl) flows. this study revealed that bavs generated eccentric and helical flow in the aa while flow was essentially axisymmetric in the tav aa. bavs also generated morphotype-dependent wss abnormalities in terms of magnitude and directionality on the ascending aortic wall. the lr-bav and nl-bav generated wss overloads on the proximal aa while the proximal segment of the rn-bav aa was subjected to similar wss to the tav aa. in addition, all bav models generated abnormal unidirectional wss on the proximal segments as compared to the tav. while the middle aas of the tav and the lr-bav were subjected to bidirectional wss, wss on the rn-bav and the nl-bav aas remained unidirectional on the middle segments. the results reported in this study indicated the existence of strong hemodynamic abnormalities in type-i bav aas, their dependence on bav morphotype and their colocalization with sites vulnerable to dilation.in conclusion, this dissertation aimed at characterizing the key mechanical differences between tav and bav leaflets and aortas. the models demonstrated the existence of abnormal mechanical environment in bavs and downstream aas relative to the tav. the results provided important insights into the mechanical characteristics of bav leaflets and aas, which may further our understanding of the role played by hemodynamic forces in bav disease. this thesis focuses on the modeling and analysis of wireless multihop networks, employing a combination of ideas from a well-known tool in stochastic geometry, namely the poisson shot noise theory and an unfamiliar concept in statistical mechanics, namely the totally asymmetric simple exclusion process (tasep). we begin our study by considering the simplest wireless multihop network topology the line network, where the source, destination and all the relays are located in a collinear fashion. first, we propose a simple buffering and transmission scheme for wireless line networks which not only guarantees packet delivery but also helps keep packet delays small whilst regulating the flow of packets in a completely decentralized fashion. second, we characterize the end-to-end delay distribution and achievable throughput of the wireless multihop line network for two different channel access schemes, randomized-tdma and aloha. additionally, we use our results to provide some useful design insights in long line networks. next, we consider a more intricate network topology comprising an infinite number of source-destination flows and analyze design-level issues such as determining the optimum density of transmitters or the optimal number of hops along a flow that maximizes the throughput performance of the network. we also consider several other complex topologies comprising intersecting flows and propose the partial mean-field approximation (pmfa), an elegant technique that helps tightly approximate the throughput (and end-to-end delay) of such systems. we then demonstrate via a simple toy example that the pmfa procedure is quite general in that it may be used to accurately evaluate the performance of multihop networks with arbitrary topologies. finally, we identify that when reliable delivery of packets is not very critical, a viable solution towards balancing end-to-end delay and reliability in multihop networks is to have the nodes forcibly drop a small fraction of packets. based on this principle, we present an analytical framework that helps quantify the throughput-delay-reliability performances of the aloha multihop network. we find that while in the noise-limited regime, dropping a small fraction of packets in the network leads to a smaller end-to-end delay at the cost of reduced throughput, in the interference-limited scenario, dropping a few packets in the network can sometimes help mitigate the interference in the network leading to an increased throughput. we intend to promote taseps as a powerful tool to analyze the performance of multihop networks and hope that this introductory work instigates interest in solving other relevant wireless networking problems employing ideas from statistical mechanics. as a result of human activities, changes in global climatic patterns are predicted to dramatically alter contemporary geographic patterns of biological and genetic diversity. however, due to the complexity of biological communities, accurate predictions of species responses will depend on our understanding of the factors influencing these responses. evolution (adaptation) and species interactions are both factors that have the capacity to mitigate and exacerbate organism's responses to climate change. unfortunately our understanding of these factors is still poorly understood. here, i take advantage of a historically sampled and ecologically well studied butterfly hybrid zone to explore how historical changes in climate have influenced the genetic composition of this hybrid zone across space and through time. specifically, by combining molecular (genetics and genomics) and simulation modeling approaches i explore how spatio-temporal changes in climate have influenced the geographic and genomic landscape of divergence between these hybridizing species. first, i characterized the extent of divergence across the hybridizing genomes of p. glaucus and p. canadensis and explored how this divergence varied geographically and with climatic and ecological factors. i found evidence of climate maintaining genome-wide patterns of divergence, particularly on the z chromosome where divergence was greatest. next, i determined that the hybrid zone, based on a genome-wide set of genetic and a morphological trait, has shifted northward, coinciding with a lengthening growing season from 1980-2012. using simulation modelling i discovered that spatio-temporal changes in climate during this period of warming has led to differential phenological responses that were dependent on genetic background. further, i found that climate-mediated changes in voltinism may be leading to different reproductive phenological pathways that can have a dramatic influence on geneflow across the hybrid zone. last as part of a working group i researched the capacity of citizen science to inform natural resource management and policy. in short, we found that citizen science has already affected natural resource management and policy in positive and measureable ways and that there is enormous potential for public participation to continue to improve the efficacy of scientific research. most readers and critics of twentieth-century literature tag the years between 1930 and 1945 as the long twilight of high modernist formal innovation. for many literary historians, the definitive political disasters between these years hampered, even reversed, the astonishing revolutions in literary and visual culture that began at the turn of the century. a literary and cultural history that runs parallel with the great depression and the second world war, distressed histories argues that these world-historical events reformulate the question of everyday life and, by extension, spur a new wave of aesthetic response. neither the heideggerian scene of ontological privation nor the grey, oppressive la quotidienne of the marxists, the everyday emerges in late modernism as a symptom of this period's political conflicts and, consequently, as one of its foremost preoccupations. part of what makes late modernism's confrontation with the everyday so compelling, and indeed so perplexing, is its unlikely combination of modernist formal techniquesì¢ ââ' montage, fragmentation, defamiliarizationì¢ ââ' with a scrupulous attention to the details of daily life. i argue that this volatile realignment of realist epistemology and modernist aesthetics converges with the influence of new documentary technologiesì¢ ââ' hand-held cameras, newsreels, broadcast radioì¢ ââ' to beget a 'documentary modernism.' the dissertation focuses on key texts by a group of writersì¢ ââ' virginia woolf, mass-observation, george orwell, w.h. auden, christopher isherwood, elizabeth bowenì¢ ââ' who were integral to the changing priorities of modernist writing in the 1930s and 1940s. ranging over the multiple genres these writers deploy and disfigure to capture the everydayì¢ ââ' the family chronicle, the autoethnography, the travel book, the short storyì¢ ââ' i show how the everyday emerges as a register of historical experience, bearing the traces of past events, internalizing the conflicts and contradictions of the present, and, perhaps, serving as a mute indication of possible futures. this study attempts to establish the public relevance of cartesian philosophy. an older lineage of french theorists, including d'alembert, guizot, and tocqueville, considered the philosophy of rené descartes to have had an explosive impact upon the intellectual, political, and social climates of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. most descartes scholarship in the intervening centuries has not pursued this line of thought. in agreement with the aforementioned theorists that descartes is a politically relevant philosopher despite having no political philosophy, this study nevertheless departs from their accounts on key grounds. whereas the french theorists were primarily interested in the social effects of cartesian philosophy, that is, the reduction of the authority of aristotle and the catholic church, this study takes as its starting point the question of descartes's own intentions in publishing his philosophy in the forms he chose. in the last part of his first publication, the discourse on method (1637), descartes draws attention to the fact that he need not have published anything at all, since publication would likely disrupt his own life and activities as a philosopher. descartes's decision to publish his philosophical principles is therefore an important indication of the intended public relevance of his philosophy.this study consists of an inquiry into the deficiencies of the philosophical tradition according to descartes and a presentation of the cartesian resolution of these deficiencies through the method. many contemporary scholars, especially in the anglosphere, have argued against the significance of descartes's method on grounds that it was not historically useful for spurring specific discoveries in natural philosophy or science. against these scholars, i posit that descartes intended his method to correct for the main deficiency of ancient and scholastic philosophy, which he identifies as the inclusion of probable conjectures (specifically sense perceptions) in the formation of judgments and the consequent inability of traditional philosophy to discover certain knowledge and propagate it to the public. furthermore, i argue that descartes intended the practice of his method to habituate the mind to new habits of thinking. on this point, i attempt to establish the significance of descartes having publicly introduced his method for the first time through a comparison to the act of legislating. altogether, i argue, the method is intended to enable the discovery of certain knowledge on the level of the individual and to make known the worth of philosophy to the public. the understanding of vortex matter in high temperature superconductors is important since vortex behavior determines the entire electromagnetic response of high tc superconductors and hence holds the key to a variety of technical applications. on the other hand, vortex matter can be considered as a new form of matter with solid, liquid and gas phases analogous to solid state materials, except that the building blocks in this case are vortices or magnetic flux quanta rather than atoms. in clean high tc superconductors, in the presence of a finite magnetic field, a triangular abrikosov lattice is formed from a collection of vortices. this abrikosov lattice can melt at higher temperatures, giving way to a vortex liquid state where long range translational and orientational order of the vortices are lost, similar in the way ice transitions to a liquid at the melting temperature. remarkably, unlike in solid materials, the main parameters which control the vortex lattice melting transition such as thermal energy, vortex interaction energy and defect density are surprisingly easily controlled in vortex matter. for example, the number of vortices can be precisely tuned with a magnetic field, the temperature can be controlled in a cryostat and in particular, the number of defects can be carefully controlled by introducing them via particle irradiation. hence the vortex matter system is ideally suited for the study of phase transitions in general. in this thesis, i present a systematic thermodynamic study of the effect of columnar defects induced by heavy ion irradiation on the first order melting transition in an optimally doped ybco high temperature superconducting vortex system. the thermodynamic properties are characterized with a home-built ac-micro-calorimeter capable of measuring very small crystals (< 200 nanograms). i explore the entropy change at the first order vortex melting transition as a function of defect dose and also the effect of anisotropy pinning by columnar defects. the main gist of the thesis is to empirically explore how a first order transition transforms into higher order in a three dimensional melting system. we find that a threshold of defects can trigger an abrupt loss of a first order transition, contrary to conventional wisdom which suggests a gradual transformation from first to higher order melting with increasing defects as proposed by imry and wortis. since there is currently no microscopic theory of 3d melting, our results provide an empirical starting point using vortex matter as a new paradigm for the development of such a theory. the photographs comprising luminous visions document ordinary and overlooked moments of natural light in interior spaces. the use of lenticular technology in the photographs engage visual perception to encourage a mindful state of observation as opposed to a logical state of interpretation. immersion into the present moment through mindful observation burns away the mental fog of our day-to-day thoughts and emotions to reveal an ineffable realm of clarity. these undisclosed photographs of light displace the mental impulse for creating meaning in order to draw us into the boundless unfolding of presence.the ontological bond between photography and daily life invites us to recognize the simple presence of natural light appearing in our own everyday environments. although these are everyday images, the undisclosed quality of these photographs allows them to stand as original visual experiences in their own right. being simultaneously referential and original, luminous visions suggests an expansion of roland barthes' photographic theory of the referent and the beginnings of a new future for photography. by entwining art and life, the work not only offers a new way to engage with photographs but also with life itself. how do we find hope in tragedy? how can a form so important to the western notion of identity be used to challenge the supposed authority of colonialism? this dissertation looks at the legacy of tragedy in the postcolonies to ask questions about the interaction of form and politics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. while making room for formal variances, this study concludes that there is a tradition of tragedy that exists in formerly colonized cultures that is linked through a thematic emphasis on sacrifice, failure, and hope. engaging with and pushing back against the model of tragedy prescribed by aristotle, these postcolonial tragedies open up new ways of thinking about hope and resiliency in the catharsis of staged tragedy.postcolonial tragedy: sacrifice, failure, and the resiliency of hope identifies these themes in representative works from four different regions and three different time periods. the study begins with the build-up to the irish independence movement in the last days of the nineteenth century before moving on to the celebrations of decolonization in west africa and the caribbean in the mid-twentieth century. the study concludes with a comparison of the theatres of resistance in south africa and northern ireland towards the end of the twentieth century. using the shared form of tragedy, this study creates a space for emphasizing both the converges between these disparate decolonial movements as well as the critical, aesthetic, and political divergences. in this collection of poems, i explore themes of lineage, ethnicity, and gender, and engage with the intersections between science and lyric language as played out in the stories of fourteen different historical women whose lives were deeply intertwined with science. this dissertation adopts an epistemological approach to the nature of representational content, connects the notion of representational content with that of non-inferential epistemic justification, and develops a revisionary conception of representational content which, it is argued, permits a defense of a family of rationalist-oriented epistemological doctrines. it is intended both to breathe new life into these rationalist-oriented doctrines and to open up new frontiers for thinking about the nature of representational content.i put forward two revisionary conceptions of representational content, both of which can be used to defend rationalist views. on the conception i opt for, the representational content of experiences is an incredibly complicated proposition no human could ever entertain. this conception of content requires a view on which a cognizer's representing a proposition is utterly distinct from an experience's having representational content. and so i argue that having an experience with representational content is not sufficient for representation to occur and that experiences do not represent their content. once these positions are accepted, significant ground is cleared which permits us to consider revisionary conceptions of representational content.i put the revisionary conception of representational content i develop to work. i rely on it to defend or improve upon intentionalist, content internalist, and intuitionist positions. the theoretical work the conception can be made to do is, at least for those sympathetic to the rationalist-oriented positions i defend, itself a reason to adopt it. in an historical aside, i demonstrate how one of the revisionary conceptions of content i put forward could have been endorsed by a prominent historical figure, namely locke. finally, i conclude by arguing that those committed to the existence of representational content (in short, most of us) must allow for something very close to a priori justification---what i term `reflective justification'--for believing contingent propositions which concern the mind-independent world. the naturalness problems of the standard model, like the higgs hierarchy problem, have been some of the most prominent motivations for theoretical particle physics over the last few decades. in the meantime, with technological advances and ingenious search strategies, the experimental measurements, both at colliders and in cosmology, have become much more precise. in this thesis, we discuss innovative ways of using these measurements to study various naturalness-motivated models of new physics. this thesis covers three major research topics. in the first part, we show that the differential cross-sections of drell-yan (dy) processes measured at the large hadron collider (lhc) can be used to derive some of the most stringent limits on the parameter space of r-parity violating supersymmetry. we further demonstrate that these analyses are future-oriented, as the indirect limits from dy processes will continue to improve as the lhc accumulates more luminosity, even without any additional energy. in the second part, we derive the most accurate cosmological constraints to date on the mirror twin higgs (mth) model, a model that contains a near-mirror copy of the sm and is a potential solution to the higgs hierarchy problem. in addition, we find regions of the model parameter space in which cosmological anomalies in the measurements of the hubble constant and the matter power spectrum can be explained. finally, in the third part of the thesis, we explore minimal flavor violating (mfv) scalar leptoquarks as the potential source of the anomaly in the measurement of r_d. mfv is a framework that can lead to a natural flavor structure for new physics models. we show that a mfv scalar leptoquark explanation of the anomaly is in tension with the measurements of precision electroweak observables at lep/slc. over the past few decades, global changes have resulted in the re-emergence of vector-borne diseases (vbds), including but not limited to, malaria, dengue fever, and zika in many parts of the world, inflicting high morbidity and mortality at a disproportionate level, especially in the developing world. furthermore, the incidence of vbds is increasing. dengue fever, for example, has increased 30-fold over the past 50 years, and its human and economic costs are staggering. vbds alone amount to a loss of approximately 83.5 million disability-adjusted life-years (dalys) in 1990 and increasing to approximately 94.5 million dalys in 2010, severely slowing economic growth in endemic regions.indonesia's malaria control program, decreed by the ministry of health in 2009, declared a national commitment to eliminate malaria by 2030. from the centralized, national level, the ministry of health produces a general framework in the form of recommendations, standards, and goals based on generalized who recommendations for elimination efforts. however, the decree also established a commitment to the principles of decentralization, making indonesia one of four countries in the southeast asian region with a subnational elimination strategy alongside india, myanmar, and thailand. therefore, outside of recommendations and strategies provided at the centralized level, control and surveillance efforts are delegated to the provinces and ultimately to districts and local stakeholders. not surprisingly, this results in widely variable strategy efficacy throughout the nation. to some extent, this is wise, as indonesia is a highly biodiverse archipelago with complex species dynamics, bionomics, and human behaviors that may confound efforts to over-centralize such efforts. however, due to the lack of reporting mechanisms, comprehensively summarizing and evaluating efforts to reduce the disease burden in indonesia a difficult task, as data regarding control method administration and effectiveness are not always tracked and reported by local stakeholders with little to no centralized incentive to follow through in that manner. furthermore, there are no goals or recommendations set by the ministry of health in regard to mosquito surveillance for species compositions and bionomic information.vector control strategies require detailed knowledge of the identity, distribution, and bionomics of the primary disease vectors within the target region. due to indonesia's current practices in mosquito surveillance, species identification, and bionomics determination, little is known about disease circulating mosquito vectors present in indonesia. this dissertation attempts to fill this knowledge gap by providing much needed information regarding indonesia's mosquito disease vectors' identity, distribution, and bionomics, as well as to propose a new strategy to improve vector control program efficacy in the country. the indonesian ministry of health's current recommendations to provincial governments currently lacks any goal or requirement towards determine this information. therefore, as a null hypothesis, this research will consider that: standard practices for mosquito surveillance, identification, and bionomics determination effectively inform vector-borne disease intervention strategies in biodiversity hotspots: indonesia.this dissertation addressed subcomponents, or objectives, to reject or accept the null hypothesis. the specific objectives of this dissertation were to (i) evaluate standard practices for mosquito surveillance in their ability to comprehensively survey local mosquito species compositions in biodiversity hotspots, (ii) evaluate trapping methodologies for mosquito surveillance in their ability to characterize mosquito bionomics in biodiversity hotspots, and (iii) evaluate the accuracy of morphological mosquito identification in biodiversity hotspots. each chapter investigates its own specific aims within a local or regional setting and addresses one to three objectives underlying the primary null hypothesis. for objective one, to evaluate standard practices for mosquito surveillance in their ability to comprehensively survey local mosquito species compositions in biodiversity hotspots, this dissertation found that indoor hlcs and larval surveys are insufficient sampling regimens. furthermore, net traps were demonstrated to have distinct advantages toward characterizing mosquito compositions due to their ability to passively sample free-flying mosquitoes regardless of host preferences. meanwhile, the host decoy trap is a valuable and ethical free measure of host-preferential behaviors, especially for culex mosquitoes, that doesn't put collectors at risk of arboviral transmission. further studies involving the manipulation of hdt stimuli could improve its use for other genera in the region. for objective two, to evaluate trapping methodologies for mosquito surveillance in their ability to characterize mosquito bionomics in biodiversity hotspots, this dissertation demonstrated that indoor hlcs and larval survey are insufficient for informing intervention strategies, especially because bionomics may be targeted by interventions to reduce disease transmission. the variety of methods utilized in this study, including the kelambu trap, barrier screen with eaves, barrier screen, host decoy trap, and indoor and outdoor hlcs, all demonstrated different biases for targeting and evaluating bionomic characteristics of mosquitoes. behavioral implications of preferential biting locations, mosquito focal points, flight direction, and host preferences, which are not properly evaluated by indoor hlcs and larval surveys alone, can all be targeted downstream by intervention strategies, many of which were suggested within each chapter.for objective three, to evaluate the accuracy of morphological mosquito identification in biodiversity hotspots, this dissertation demonstrated that morphological mosquito identification in biodiversity hotspots is often inaccurate, especially for secondary vectors. accurately identifying mosquitoes is crucial for providing clarity during downstream analysis. therefore, the null hypothesis, that standard practices for mosquito surveillance, identification, and bionomics determination effectively inform vector-borne disease intervention strategies in biodiversity hotspots: indonesia, is rejected. as demonstrated in this research, ethical and accurate characterization of species compositions and bionomics requires the use of trapping methodologies that take advantage of a variety of behavioral traits and molecular identification. based on the research in this dissertation, performing local baseline collections utilizing different trapping methodologies that target a variety of mosquito behaviors is recommended. net traps can be utilized to target free-flying mosquitoes and hdts when the collection of culicines is desired. molecular identification should be performed on all specimens to create a baseline species and genetic database within the country. figure 7.1 shows provides an example of a molecular system. it is recommended that an initial survey of mosquito species in a region to have both morphological and molecular identification done to create baseline data for species-specific identification accuracy. after this initial survey, future identifications in the region could use the baseline data to determine which species would be necessary to identify molecularly. for example, if species a was correctly identified 98% of the time with morphological identification, it would likely be unnecessary to use valuable time and resources verifying all samples molecularly. however, if species b was never identified correctly, then it would be recommended that the misidentified species type be molecularly identified, since it's likely species b. future researchers will have to use prudent judgement while determining which subset of mosquitoes to molecularly identify based on the baseline data regarding morphological accuracy. furthermore, determining which specimens are being incorrectly identified with morphology can inform researchers on which field technicians may need more morphological training to improve accuracy. additionally, if baseline molecular identification is performed, it can inform on which species are possible members of cryptic species complexes, sibling species, and possible new or novel species. if cryptic species are found than all future specimens would require molecular identification. after local baseline data is collected and molecularly identified, continued monitoring in local regions to identify changes in vector populations, determine intervention efficacy, and identify where residual transmission is causing gaps in protections will be necessary. with this system, local interventions can be implemented to target local vector population bionomics. since monitoring would be ongoing, interventions could be adapted appropriately in response to changes in vector populations.establishing baseline data and monitoring changes in local mosquito species compositions and their associated bionomics is essential for successful vector borne disease control. in areas of biodiversity, morphological mosquito identification needs to be evaluated with molecular identification to determine correct species compositions. in order to implement effective vector-borne disease control, standard practices need to accurately identify local vector compositions and characterize their associated bionomics. the present study examined the between and within-person effects of father-child contact on mother satisfaction with father caregiving in a sample of 682 first-time high-risk and low-risk mothers. the moderating effects of mother sociodemographic factors, consistency in father-child contact, and paternal and maternal grandparent involvement were tested in a series of multilevel models. the between and within-person effects of father-child contact on mother satisfaction with father caregiving were significant throughout all models. the final model revealed that the between-person effects were moderated by marital status, age, and paternal grandparent involvement. the within-person effects were moderated by age and variability in father-child contact. implications are discussed. primo levi's short stories collections storie naturali and vizio di forma, and the topics of 'creation' and 'invention'. this dissertation examines conservative protestant efforts to preserve the social and religious mission of the evangelical protestant family between the ratification of the nineteenth amendment in 1920 and the rise of the new christian right in the 1980s. it focuses on how members of five conservative protestant groups the fundamentalist movement, the lutheran church missouri synod, the southern baptist convention, the assemblies of god, and the neo-evangelical movement responded to sweeping changes in american family life and social thought during the middle decades of the twentieth century. confronted with changes in women's roles, rising divorce rates, changing romantic and sexual expectations within marriage, social chaos in the form of crime and international threats, and secularization, they replied with a growing pool of advice books, periodical literature, sermons, and denominational and parachurch campaigns that aimed to define and revive christian marriage and parenthood. conservative protestant writing about the family reveals that commentators sought to make the religious ideals of personal salvation and holiness cohere with middle-class american faith in progress and self-improvement. during the interwar years writers articulated a conservative religious version of the middle-class ideal of the family as an emotionally intimate and spiritually potent institution able to build the nation by forming the minds, characters, and bodies of individual citizens. following world war ii, they increasingly presented christian belief and practice as a means of achieving a companionable marriage, sought to ensure harmonious and sexually warm relationships between couples, and instructed parents to balance the rigors of christian training and discipline with an appreciation for the child's feelings and developmental needs. greater acceptance of popular and counseling psychology encouraged conservative protestants to embrace the expectation that personal and marital happiness could be obtained through self-understanding, self-improvement, and a salvific relationship with god. in the 1970s dr. james dobson and tim and beverley lahaye, all leaders in the emerging new christian right, established themselves as psychologists, counselors, and teachers invested in improving family life. in these roles, they called upon conservative protestants to defend their conception of the family and moral order, along with the cherished hopes they had attached to each. more than one billion people in the southeast asia rely on indian monsoon rainfalls for their livelihood. although monsoons in the northern indian ocean are a vital socio-economic variable for coastal communities, they may also be very harmful as torrential rains often cause natural disasters, resulting in in thousands of deaths, economic losses and destruction of crops. considering that monsoons are a strongly coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon, a better understanding of the upper ocean dynamics and air-sea interactions is needed for improving monsoons forecasting skills. the research described in this thesis investigates the behavior of ocean currents and planetary waves during the summer monsoon season in the bay of bengal (bob). the results suggest that variability and dynamics of ocean currents may have implication on the atmosphere, which in turn affect monsoon variability over the bob. to this end, in-situ data collected during the asiri and miso-bob field campaigns by research vessels in 2015 and 2018, respectively, are used along with satellite products, laboratory experiments, model outputs and theoretical arguments rechargeable batteries are used in a number of applications including portable electronic devices and electric vehicles. batteries are often viewed as the largest and heaviest component of these devices, therefore research often focuses on increasing the energy density of the battery. this will ultimately decrease the size and/or mass of the battery when employed in a device, vehicle, or other application. one approach to increased energy storage density is to increase the capacity of the electrode materials by using metallic anodes. replacing an intercalation electrode, which is the type of electrode used in commercial lithium-ion batteries, with a metallic anode will remove inactive material from the battery. in addition to the increased energy density, it is necessary for battery materials to be abundant and safe in order to be employed at a wide scale. moving away from lithium based materials will enable the widespread application of batteries.magnesium metal is an anode material with widespread abundance in both the earth's crust and brines, and the magnesium resource is considered by the us geological society to be "virtually unlimited." furthermore, magnesium metal has a large theoretical capacity that will enable a high energy density battery (3800 mah/cm3 versus 2100 mah/cm3 for lithium). despite the attractive qualities of magnesium, a magnesiated form of an electrolyte used in lithium or lithium ion batteries cannot be used directly in a magnesium battery. many common salt and solvent materials decompose on the surface of the magnesium metal and form a passivating layer opposed to an ion-conducting solid electrolyte interphase (sei). common electrolytes that enable highly reversible magnesium electrodeposition (charge, deposition; discharge, dissolution) use highly flammable compounds such as tetrahydrofuran (thf) and grignard reagents. research efforts have focused on developing electrolytes with increased thermal stability and decreased corrosiveness in order to lead to the eventual application of magnesium batteries.in this work, the solution equilibrium of magnesium bis(hexamethyldisilazide) (mg(hmds)2) based electrolytes and the effect of equilibrium on the electrodeposition/dissolution of magnesium is discussed. it was found that raman spectra and 27al nmr have signatures that can indicate the performance of the electrolyte. furthermore it was found that solutions containing higher proportions of mgcl+ cations, instead of mg2cl3+ cations, had decreased electrodeposition efficiencies. the mg(hmds)2 based electrolytes were then studied with the addition of high boiling point sulfones to increase the thermal stability of the material. the thermal stability of the electrolyte was increased to 80 °c in a 50/50 (v/v) mixture of butyl sulfone and thf, and reversible electrodeposition was maintained for electrolytes with the addition of butyl sulfone. other sulfones, such as sulfolane and ethyl methyl sulfone, exhibited poor electrodeposition performance. in particular, it was found that the addition of sulfolane resulted in very low deposition underpotentials, hypothesized to be related to the stabilization of mgcl+. extended cycling with the sulfone containing electrolytes resulted in soft short circuiting. this is attributed to the formation of high surface area deposits which are caused by large interfacial impedances likely related to the presence of a boundary layer. finally, the use of single ion conducting polymers and their application in magnesium batteries is discussed. these materials have intrinsically low ionic conductivities due to the strong magnesium ion coordination with both the polar polymer matrix and with the covalently bound anion. the polymers under investigation were swelled in different solvents ranging in donor number and dielectric constant. despite achieving conductivities up to 10-4 s/cm, it is found that electrodeposition of magnesium requires more than simply moving magnesium cations to the anode. small electrodeposits are present after the application of a potential, but galvanostatic electrodeposition could not be achieved. it is suggested that the presence of a large charge transfer resistance limits the electrodeposition of magnesium from single ion conducting gel polymer electrolytes. in this thesis i lay out the hypothesis that the concept of science is a cultural object whose 'meaning' transitioned since the 1970's in depictions by conservative cultural elites. i focus exclusively on the 'the national review' periodical, looking for certain markers in language surrounding words and phrases like 'science.' i document how conservative elites' depictions of science changes as milestones occur in united states history, while also documenting the way in which the discourse grows increasingly nuanced to the concepts of science: how 'science' and 'academia' occasionally intertwine, how depictions of science collide with conservative opinions on journalism and mass media, and how the 'scientific community' becomes estranged from the cultural object of science itself. ultimately, the qualitative narratives shows how conservative elites maintain the value of the science cultural object while simultaneously condemning the community of science by working in tandem with historical processes, which illuminates further dimensions to the sociological concept of the cultural object, and also provides a theoretical answer to the question of how conservatism has interacted with science generally in the last several decades. this dissertation evaluates nanoparticle and small molecule strategies for molecular imaging applications. squaraine rotaxane endoperoxide (srep) dyes formulated into polystyrene nanoparticles produce unique chemiluminescent-fluorescent imaging agents. encapsulating these self-illuminating sreps within microparticle systems, permitted planar optical imaging at relatively deep tissue depths in living rats. another fluorescent nanoparticle system bearing cationic zinc(ii) dipicolylamine (zndpa) ligands was a liposome that binds anionic phospholipids and related phosphate containing structures in the cell wall of bacteria and cell death. fluorescence cell microscopy studies demonstrated that the multivalent liposomes selectively target bacteria in the presence of healthy mammalian cells and caused bacterial cell agglutination. a micellar nanoparticle containing the commercially available deep-red fluorescent probe, srfluor680 enabled non-invasive optical imaging of interscapular brown adipose tissue (bat). whole-body fluorescence imaging of living mice showed extensive accumulation of the fluorescent probe in the interscapular bat and ex vivo analysis showed 3.5-fold selectivity for interscapular bat over interscapular white adipose tissue (wat). multimodal pet/ct and planar fluorescence/x-ray imaging of the same living animal showed co-localization of bat mass signal reported by the fluorescent probe and bat metabolism signal reported by the pet agent, 18f-fdg. three small molecule zndpa tracers containing 111in labels were examined for spect/ct imaging of bacterial infection in living mice. all three [111in]-zndpa tracers selectively targeted the site of a clinically relevant mouse infection model that could not be discerned by visual external inspection of the living animal. the highest target selectivity, observed with a divalent tracer equipped with two zndpa targeting units, compared quite favorably with the imaging selectivities previously reported for other nuclear tracers that target bacterial cell surfaces. finally, two related optical probes that are conjugates of a zndpa targeting unit and a bodipy chromophore were examined as a bacterial theranostic strategy. one probe is a microbial targeted fluorescent imaging agent, mseek, and the other is an oxygen photosensitizing analogue, mdestroy. the fluorescent probe, mseek, effectively labeled all tested bacteria and enabled detection at concentrations of ~100 cfu/ml for b. thuringiensis spores, ~1000 cfu/ml for s. aureus and ~10,000 cfu/ml for e. coli. the photosensitizer analogue, mdestroy, inactivated 99-99.99% of bacterial samples containing 10^6 cfu/ml. aberrant responses, which are caused by examinees' unusual behaviors (e.g., carelessness, speededness, item pre-knowledge, warm-up, copying answers from neighbors), are frequently seen in various testing programs. having aberrant responses may bias item parameter estimates and threaten test validity. thus proper modeling and detection of aberrant responses is crucial both theoretically and practically in educational and psychological measurement. previous work has primarily approached the aberrant responses research in terms of developing person fit statistics and proposing models to capture the aberrant behaviors. this dissertation attempts to incorporate change-point analysis (cpa) to investigate two types of aberrant responses: speededness and warm-up effect; both of which can be viewed as having an abrupt change point. this is an extension work of shao, li, and cheng (in press) which first introduced the cpa method to detect test speededness with known item parameters. following this line of research, three studies are carried out.the first study investigates whether cpa can help improve item calibration in the presence of speededness. in this study, the cpa method is used to first detect speeded responses with unknown item parameters. after the detection of speeded examinees as well as their corresponding speeding point (the point at which an examinee starts to speed), a cleansing procedure based upon the detected speeding point is proposed to help improve item parameter estimation. the performance of speededness detection as well as the item parameter recovery before/after utilizing the cleansing procedure are evaluated. the second study applies the cpa method to warm-up effect detection. this study first compares the impact of warm-up effect on ability estimation and examinees' classification accuracy on two types of tests: computerized adaptive testing and paper and pencil (linear) testing. in the second step, the cpa based detection of warm-up effect is carried out. two methods of obtaining the critical values are utilized in the study. different from the first two studies which both conduct cpa using item response information, the third study applies cpa to response time data in speededness detection. a gradual change log-normal model is proposed to better model the real-life change of response time affected by speededness. two test statistics are introduced to test for a change point using response time. moreover, this study explores the possibility of using a fixed critical value across conditions at each nominal level so that practitioners do not have to obtain a critical value through simulation every time they run speededness detection. the dissertation thesis concludes with the final chapter including a discussion of the results, limitations, practical implications, and future directions. a robust method for rational reduction of chemically reacting models is developed using a rigorous scale analysis. all the physical scales, spatial and temporal, inherent in reacting systems are accurately identified via eigenvalue analysis. the required temporal scales to assure accuracy in modeling reactive systems and the required spatial discretization to formally capture all detailed continuum physics in the reaction zone are calculated. the interplay between chemistry and transport is addressed via conducting a spectral analysis of reactive flow structure, and the relation between closed reactive systems' dynamics and notions from equilibriumon-equilibrium thermodynamics is investigated. it revealed that reacting systems' physical scales are coupled, and their dynamics cannot be deduced from classical thermodynamics. the slow invariant manifolds of dynamical systems arising from modeling closed reacting mixtures are constructed. these manifolds describe accurately the reactive systems' slow dynamics. the hydrogen-air reactive mixture described by detailed mass-action kinetics is employed as a paradigm in this work. despite over half a century of dedicated work, the explosion mechanism of core-collapse supernovae remains one of the most prominent unexplained phenomena in astrophysics. as models include more detailed nuclear and neutrino physics and higher dimensionality, it has continued to be difficult to generate successful explosions, and the key to the explosion mechanism has remained unresolved. although it remains unclear what the supernova explosion mechanism is, it is becoming evident that there are likely many contributing factors. multidimensional hydrodynamic effects, neutrino phenomena, and details of the nuclear equation of state will all contribute to the evolution of the system and thus have a direct impact on the success or failure of core-collapse supernovae. the goal of this thesis is to contribute to the understanding of the nuclear and neutrino physics that is relevant to the collapse of massive stars and the success or failure of the supernova mechanism. oscillations between a right-handed sterile neutrino species and active neutrinos provide an additional energy transport mechanism in the protoneutron star. considering a range of mixing angles and sterile neutrino masses, including those consistent with sterile neutrinos as a dark matter candidate, i have examined whether such oscillations can impact the core bounce and shock reheating in supernovae. the optimum ranges of mixing angles and masses are identified that can dramatically enhance the supernova explosion. these oscillations efficiently transport energy from electron antineutrinos from the core to behind the shock, where they provide additional heating leading to much larger explosion kinetic energies. this effect can cause stars to explode that otherwise would have collapsed. i have also found that an interesting periodicity in the neutrino luminosity develops due to a cycle of depletion of the neutrino density by conversion to sterile neutrinos that shuts off the conversion, followed by a replenished neutrino density as neutrinos transport through the core.the notre dame-livermore equation of state, aspects of which were developed and implemented as part of this thesis, is a general purpose equation of state for use in neutron star and core-collapse supernova simulations. this equation of state is built upon the framework of the bowers &amp; wilson eos, but with many updates, including a reformulation to a density functional theory approach, the incorporation of 3-body forces at high densities, an improved treatment of the transition to heavy nuclei at high densities, and the possibility of a first-order or crossover transition to a deconfined quark phase at densities above nuclear matter density. i have helped to develop and numerically implement several aspect of this code, including the "pasta" phases of heavy nuclei and the phase transition to quark gluon plasma. additionally, i have explored in this thesis the impact of the equation of state on the supernova explosion energies and neutrino luminosities.finally, this thesis will address relativistic hydrodynamic simulations of black hole formation via rapid accretion onto a neutron star. the associated x-ray emission is analyzed as a means to identify such events. it has been proposed that such collapse may contribute to the precursor x-ray emission from long gamma-ray bursts. in this paradigm, the black hole forms after bondi-hoyle accretion onto a neutron star as it is engulfed by the expanding supernova envelope. i have found that the accretion process itself does not does not provide sufficient x-ray luminosity to explain the observed gamma ray burst x-ray precursor. deporting the red menace: russian immigrants, progressive reformers, and the first red scare in chicago, 1917-1920abstractbysuzanne elizabeth orrthrough a case study of chicago, this dissertation examines the role of humanitarianism in arguments against the government's plan to deport foreign-born radicals during the first red scare of 1919-1920. russian immigrants and progressive reformers framed their discussions about deportation and the protection of aliens in terms of preserving the integrity of the family and protecting men's roles as providers.progressive reformers had a long-standing interest in helping chicago's russian-speaking immigrants adjust to american life. government agents, however, began investigating the activities of russian immigrants at the same moment as members of the russian community engaged in fierce internal debates about u.s. involvement in the first world war and the meaning of the russian revolution. after federal and local government officials decided to raid radical organizations to combat sedition, immigrants and progressive reformers both protested the raids on humanitarian as well as legal grounds. while government agents insisted that the raids helped defend american democracy and institutions like the family, reformers and immigrants emphasized how arrest and deportation damaged immigrant families and communities. progressive reformers succeeded in forcing federal officials to mitigate their harsh stance toward aliens arrested in the raids. their humanitarian arguments ultimately explain why assistant secretary of labor louis freeland post, a former chicago progressive, cancelled over a thousand immigrants' deportation warrants in the spring of 1920.including immigrants and reformers in the story of the first red scare reestablishes the connection between opposition to the red scare and progressive-era reform. immigrants who felt terrorized by the government and had their lives disrupted by the antiradicals' deportation campaign often expressed their concerns in practical ways. reformers listened because of their vested interest in protecting families and helping immigrants make a home in america. seriously considering reformers' arguments about mitigating hardship and protecting dependent women and children shows the significant effect of humanitarianism on the implementation of u.s. deportation policy. the vitality of reformers' humanitarian ideas during the red scare suggest a potential alternative to the harsh and legalistic system of deportation law that emerged over the course of the twentieth century. philosophical literature hitherto on the ontology of artifacts—that is, broadly speaking, essentially functional objects that depend on humans for their existencesor functions—has by and large accepted, at the outset, two closely-related axioms as given: first, ordinary, "garden-variety" artifacts are ontologically distinct from social and institutional kinds in substantive ways. second, artifacts' dependence on humans is dependence on the intentions or interventions of their authors and their authors alone. this dissertation critically challenges both claims. i reject the presumed division between social and institutional artifacts versus ordinary non-social-intentional artifacts, contending that there is in fact a continuum between them. i argue that seemingly ordinary artifacts often play institutional-functional roles in social institutions by contributing to the self-reproduction of those institutions. furthermore, i argue that an explanatorily adequate ontology of artifacts that accounts for their existences, functions, and our behavioral phenomenology around them must appeal to intentional sources beyond the minds of their authors. in particular, i argue that artifacts, even ordinary ones, ontologically depend on social intentionality. in support of my claim, i offer a focused analysis of the dependence relationship through a special case of artifacts, works of art. at last, i defend function essentialism about artifacts against recent challenges and argue that it remains the most viable approach among our currently available alternatives. the motor protein cytoplasmic dynein has been implicated in mitotic functions that require dynein localization to specific cellular locations. recent studies in our lab have focused on the hypothesis that phosphorylation events determine the targeting of dynein to kinetochores and spindle poles. we previously identified a novel phosphorylation site at threonine 89 (t89) of the dynein intermediate chain that targets dynein to the kinetochore during mitosis (whyte et al., 2008). in this study, we analyzed a second novel dynein phosphorylation site at tyrosine 130 (y130) that results in dynein localization to spindle poles. we also examined the contributions of the spindle assembly checkpoint (sac) protein spindly to regulation of dynein kinetochore transitions. preliminary experiments defined py130-dynein as separate from the kinetochore dynein that functions as part of the spindle assembly checkpoint. to define the requirements for py130-dynein targeting to spindle poles, we disrupted candidate dynein binding proteins and assessed localization of py130-dynein. dominant negative fak, frnk, asap, nudel and cenpf constructs induced multipolar and fragmented spindle poles, but py130-dynein targeting to spindle poles was unaffected. these results suggest a model in which specific proteins at spindle poles are necessary for dynein function, whereas other spindle pole proteins are required for dynein recruitment. mass spectrometry analysis of isolated centrosomes confirmed the presence of py130-dynein at centrosomes and suggests that py130-dynein associates with the inner centrosome. altogether, these results provide insight into the potential interactions of py130-dynein at spindle poles. spindly is a novel spindle assembly checkpoint protein and that has been recently implicated recruitment of dynein to kinetochores; however, the specific contributions of spindly to dynein regulation and silencing of the spindle assembly checkpoint (sac) are unclear. in this study, the effects of spindly depletion on different populations of kinetochore dynein, and dynein poleward motility were measured. together with previous studies demonstrating the ability of dynein to translocate to spindle poles in the absence of dynactin, these results of this work implicate spindly in a novel dynactin-independent hand-off mechanism at kinetochores in which spindly is required for dynein poleward motility. overall, these findings provide a more thorough understanding of the role of phosphorylation in dynein differential targeting and function during mitosis. a collection of poetry. the focus of this dissertation is to explore how classical molecular dynamics (cmd) simulations and ab initio calculations can be used to further the current understanding of aha il systems. the dissertation starts with a review of the development of co2-reactive ils and the role that simulations played in advancing their design. cmd simulations are used to examine the liquid structure and dynamics of both pure ils and il-water mixtures. the water solubility and the observed changes in dynamics from the addition of water are explained through structural analysis of hydrogen bonds formed between water and the anions. the liquid structure is examined through comparison of measured and computed structure functions for a series of ils with different combinations of cations and anions. the fact that the liquid structure functions do not change appreciably upon reaction with co2 is used to explain why viscosities of aha ils do not change much upon reaction with co2. a method is presented for calculating co2 solubilities in aha ils using the gibbs free energy of reaction. the method is able to predict isotherms with the characteristic shapes of experimental isotherms, but the predicted isotherms are highly sensitive to the calculated model parameters. the methods used in this dissertation provide a means to compare different ils within the same family, and to select ils with promising properties prior to synthesis. as robotic technology advances, robots continue to work in ever closer proximity to humans. from vacuuming robots to wearable robots, today's autonomous systems must be able to reason about nearby humans that may seek to interact or collaborate. it is especially critical for robots that interact with humans physically to be able to ensure the safety and efficacy of the collaboration. perhaps the closest physical human/robot interaction (hri) is for rehabilitative exoskeletons used in the physical therapy clinic, such as those used to re-train walking for people who have had a spinal cord injury. to create fluid normative gait patterns, the exoskeleton must be able to estimate the user's intended movements and then assist them in achieving those movements. several practical challenges prevent current exoskeleton devices from achieving this ideal of human/robot interaction. this dissertation seeks to provide fundamental advances in support of physical hri by addressing how to model exoskeleton-assisted gait mechanics, and to characterize, estimate, and realize human gait intentions. existing strategies of modeling unassisted human gait have been useful for informing the control of bipedal robots in the past, but it is unclear how well these models characterize the salient features of exoskeleton-assisted gait. furthermore, it is not well documented how measured or derived signals respond when the exoskeleton user changes their gait intentions. a more thorough understanding of these intent-related signals can inform the process by which intentions are estimated in real time. once the user's intentions are estimated, it remains an open challenge to determine how the robot should respond to these intentions in a safe and effective manner. the work in this dissertation first relates existing data-driven and physics-based models of unassisted human walking to steady-state exoskeleton-assisted gait before investigating the nature of intent-related signals when the user makes an intent change. a human subject experiment with a commercial exoskeleton shows that intent-related information can be inferred via sensors integrated with the rigid structure of the exoskeleton. the utility of these signals is demonstrated by the development of an algorithm that identifies intentions to speed up or slow down with a maximum accuracy of 87%. finally, preliminary work shows that trajectory optimization is one method by which the exoskeleton can plan for safe optimal actions that incorporate information about the physical human/robot interaction. while this dissertation seeks to enable intent-informed control for the exoskeleton, the main contribution of this work is in expanding the fundamental understanding of physical hri, including how to model hri systems, how to analyze intent-related signals, and how to identify human intentions in real time. group living confers many fitness advantages, but can result in within-group competition for access to resources. when some individuals are better able to monopolize resources than others, this can lead to the formation of dominance hierarchies. whether high rank confers more benefits or costs than low rank remains an open question. in some studies, low-status individuals exhibit worse health than high-status individuals, while in other studies; high-status individuals exhibit worse health than low-status individuals. these differences are puzzling, and similar ambiguities are evident when researchers have attempted to discern rank-related differences in parasitism and fitness. to address this puzzle, i conducted meta-analyses of vertebrates and longitudinal observational research of a wild population of male savanna baboons (papio cynocephalus) in the well-studied amboseli population in kenya. multivariate meta-analyses revealed that, across vertebrates, high-ranking animals face higher parasite risk than low-ranking animals. the overall pattern – higher parasitism in high-status individuals – was most evident in male mammals, in linear hierarchies, in mating systems where rank predicts mating effort, and for contactand environmentally-transmitted parasites. my research revealed that high parasite risk may be an unappreciated cost of high rank while reduced parasite risk might be a benefit of social subordination.longitudinal analyses of male baboons revealed that contrary to the meta-analyses, male dominance rank was not a predictor of parasitism once i controlled for variation in male age; instead, age was a strong predictor of parasitism. further, males had higher risk of parasitism during periods of drought, in more competitive environments, and if they had strong social bonds with females. research on the highest ranking males revealed that among the "best of the best", males with longer tenures at high rank sire more offspring than males with shorter tenures at high rank; dominant males in less competitive social groups are more successful than dominant males in more competitive groups; and social connectedness to females is associated with reproductive success. collectively, these finding are important for advancing our understanding of the costs and benefits of social dominance, the evolution of male mating strategies, and the forces that influence male fitness. this thesis presents a performance analysis of an accelerated 2-d rigid image registration implementation that employs the compute unified device architecture (cuda) programming environment to take advantage of the parallelprocessing capabilities of nvidia's tesla c870 gpu. we explain the underlying structure of the gpu implementation and compare its performance and accuracy against a fast cpu-based implementation. our experimental results demonstrate that our gpu version is capable of up to 90ìä" speedup with bilinear interpolation and 30ìä" speedup with bicubic interpolation while maintaining a high level of accuracy. this compares favorably to recent image registration studies, but it also indicates that our implementation only reaches about 70% of theoretical peak performance. to analyze our results, we utilize profiling data to identify some of the underlying limitations of cuda that prohibit peak performance. at the end, we emphasize the need to manage memory resources carefully to fully utilize thegpu and obtain maximum speedup. many virulence factors secreted from pathogenic gram-negative bacteria are autotransporter proteins. the final step of autotransporter secretion is passage across the outer membrane (om), mediated by a cotranslated c-terminal porin domain. the native structure is formed only after this final secretion step, which requires neither atp nor a proton gradient. sequence analysis reveals that, despite size, sequence, and functional diversity among autotransporter passenger domains, >97% are predicted to form parallel ì_å_-helices, indicating this structural topology may be important for secretion. we report the folding behavior of pertactin, an autotransporter passenger domain from bordetella pertussis. the pertactin ì_å_-helix folds reversibly in isolation, but folding is much slower than expected based on size and native-state topology. surprisingly, pertactin is not prone to aggregation during folding, even though folding is extremely slow. interestingly, equilibrium denaturation results in the formation of a partially folded structure, a stable core comprising the c-terminal half of the protein. examination of the pertactin crystal structure does not reveal any obvious reason for the enhanced stability of the c-terminus. crystallographic data of the partially folded state implies a native like structure for the c-terminus. interestingly, the c-terminus forms a dimer with a non-native interface. this interface has a relatively low kd ~ 0.3 ìâåµm. in vivo, slow folding would prevent premature folding of the passenger domain in the periplasm, before om secretion. moreover, the extra stability of the c-terminal rungs of the ì_å_-helix might serve as a template for the formation of native protein during om secretion; hence, vectorial folding of the ì_å_-helix could contribute to the energy-independent translocation mechanism. we show here that the c-terminus is the first part of the pertactin passenger domain reaching the om, and that the c-terminus can adopt a stable structure outside the cell, prior to the completion of om secretion. coupled with the sequence analysis, these results suggest a general mechanism for autotransporter secretion. the combination of this data, including the lack of pertactin aggregation, could lead to new insights into the formation and prevention of protein aggregation in vivo. the work explores the wavelength dependence of the photoresponse of an underdoped yba2cu3o7-? thin film with a sharp resistive transition. the nature of the photoresponse is studied at a time scale of ~ 1 s, varying the excitation wavelength while holding sample temperature constant within the superconducting-normal transition. the bolometric portion of the photoresponse is then accounted for, and the residual non-bolometric response is compared to that found in other doping regimes and time scales. the observed wavelength dependence of the excess conductance is most likely caused by excitations into the conduction band from the filled copper bands in the cuo2 plane layer of the crystal. with the wider availability of sensor technology through easily affordable sensor devices, many structural health monitoring (shm) programs and wind field monitoring networks have been established to better understand the different meteorological phenomena and their effects on structures. a deluge of high-dimensional, heterogeneous data is continuously generated by these monitoring networks. efficient data processing from massive volumes of possibly uncertain data has become a daunting task. this dissertation demonstrates the value added by combining machine learning techniques and sensor data that will help in solving many of the complex problems which otherwise cannot be resolved by conventional analysis techniques. various machine learning frameworks have been developed in this study to better understand extreme wind characteristics and the performance of civil infrastructure under winds.three types of long-term monitoring networks are considered in this study and three machine learning frameworks are developed and applied to each of these networks. smartsync, a structural health monitoring system installed on burj khalifa, the world's tallest building, is used to obtain data about the structure's dynamic behavior. a generalized framework for cluster analysis is then developed to effectively identify and extract vortex-induced vibration of the pinnacle of burj khalifa and to estimate the crosswind fatigue damage of the pinnacle. wind and ports (wp) and wind, ports, and sea (wps) projects, that consist of a network of anemometers situated in various locations in ports of italy and france are considered in this study. a relatively new time series representation named "shapelet transform" is introduced in combination with machine learning algorithms to autonomously identify thunderstorms from the data obtained through this wind monitoring network. finally, an shm system on the sutong yangtze river bridge, a long-span cable-stayed bridge in china is also considered in this study. the shapelet-based machine learning framework is used to classify six different anomalous patterns in the wind-induced vibration data obtained from the shm system. the contributions of this work have established a framework for applying machine learning techniques to big data from long-term monitoring networks. each of these will facilitate automation while mining massive databases and yield a practical event detection procedure that requires minimal domain expertise. electrochemical biosensors are sensing devices that selectively detect biomolecular analytes to generate quantitative signals using electroanalytical techniques. in general, electrochemical biosensing architectures consist of biorecognition elements (e.g., antibodies, enzymes, nuclei acids, receptors, etc.) that facilitate analyte detection due to their intrinsic biological selectivity. these biorecognition elements are immobilized on electrode transducers, and detection events can trigger electrochemical reactions/processes or changes to electrode properties such as conductance, resistance, capacitance, etc.. the transducer then translates these as electrical signals which can then be converted to a particular readout method. due to the advantageous properties of electrochemical biosensors, i.e., rapid response times, high sensitivity and selectivity, portability, and ease of operation, they have attracted intense interest as promising tools for point-of-care (poc) applications over other biosensing devices. poc diagnostic testing refers to clinical analyses performed at the time and place of patient care and is a rapidly developing area of biomedical technology. the proliferation of poc technologies is highly desirable due to their potential to improve patient survival and health outcomes through early disease diagnosis and clinical intervention. ideally, poc diagnostic devices should follow the assured criteria: affordable, sensitive, specific, user-friendly, rapid/robust, equipment-free and deliverable. further, it is critical for these devices to detect bioanalytes directly in whole physiological media (e.g., blood/serum, urine, saliva, sweat, etc.) to minimize sample preparation steps and reduce testing length and complexity. these requirements are challenging to meet in practice and thus require careful design, construction, and testing for the development of effective poc electrochemical sensors.the work described in this thesis summarizes the development of electrochemical biosensors poc applications. specifically, we investigate multiple strategies to enable effective poc testing in whole human fluid samples. for instance, electrochemical biosensors are developed as affinity-based or biocatalytic sensing platforms based on their biorecognition element. we implemented approaches related to electrode surface chemistries that are robust against non-specific protein adsorption in a variety of complex fluids, e.g., whole blood, serum, cerebrospinal fluid (csf). in addition, the role of electrode geometries and configurations, particularly those that enable signal amplification via redox cycling for enhanced sensing performance, is described. both small and large bioanalytes, such as cytokines, and biometabolites, including cholesterol, glucose, lactate, are used as clinical biomarkers. finally, the implementation of smartphone technology in sensor readout as well as comparison with commercial, fda-approved poc devices is explored as an avenue to field deployment.a label-free electrochemical immunosensor for the detection of interleukin-6 (il-6) in human cerebrospinal fluid (csf) and serum was developed for diagnostic and therapeutic monitoring. the il-6 immunosensor was fabricated from gold interdigitated electrode arrays (ideas) modified with il-6 antibodies for direct antigen recognition and capture. a rigorous surface analysis of the sensor architecture was conducted to ensure high structural fidelity and performance. electrochemical characterization was conducted using cyclic voltammetry (cv) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (eis), and sensing was performed using differential pulse voltammetry (dpv). the dpv peak current was used to quantify il-6 in buffer, csf, and serum. the linear range of the sensor response as a function of the analyte concentration was obtained in each medium and detection limits, as low as 1.6 pg ml-1 in buffer, were also determined. the il-6 immunosensor was evaluated for selectivity over other common cytokines, including il-10 and tnf-a, showing selectivities in the range 10x-100x against these potential interferents. eis measurements showed that the resistance to charge transfer, rct, decreases upon il-6 binding, an observation attributed to a structural change upon ab-ag binding that opens up the architecture so that the redox probe can more easily access the electrode surface. a closed bipolar electrode (cbe)-based metabolite sensing platform was constructed for the detection of diagnostic metabolites in undiluted human blood. an electrode chemistry based on blood-compatible phosphorylcholine (ppc) and phenylbutyric acid (pba) mixed layers, electroactive ferrocene (fc) moieties, redox-active enzymes, and a diffusing mediating species was developed as a means of overcoming nonspecific-protein adsorption and amplifying sensing currents in human whole fluid, i.e., unprocessed, samples. multiple electron mediation routes were identified as contributing to the overall sensing scheme, and results suggested that both surface-bound and diffusible mediating species complement each other in producing an enhanced electrochemical response. the sensing scheme was incorporated in the cbe blood metabolite sensor, where cholesterol, glucose, lactate levels in real blood samples were determined from a coupled redox-mediated color change captured by a smartphone camera and subsequent rgb analysis. important sensor parameters such as the limits of detection, linear response range, selectivity, were evaluated for all blood metabolites. the cbe blood metabolite sensor was compared with commercial fda-approved meters for the three blood metabolites, and the cbe device gave results in excellent agreement with the commercial devices, thereby validating the platform as a potential poc diagnostic device.the work described in this thesis illustrates the importance of synergistically combining electrochemistry, device design, surface chemistry, and biology in biosensor development. doing so has yielded practical and effective electrochemical biosensors to address poc determinations of health-critical biomarkers in human-derived whole fluids. some communities are collaborating with local leaders to improve relationships between authority figures and the communities they serve. this strategy builds on empirical successes as well as a theoretical tradition extolling the role of intermediary actors in bridging disconnected groups. in this paper, i problematize the expectation that individuals can fully span boundaries in situations of cultural difference and inequality. i draw from semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 14 community leaders from a variety of backgrounds, whom i call boundary-spanning actors (bsas), to show that bsas are rarely positioned to engage effectively with both authority figures and at-risk individuals, but instead position themselves at the boundary of one group. i distinguish between two ideal types of bsas, the professional-advocate and the mentor, and show how a bsa's personal experiences, individual skills, and existing relationships lead to distinct credibility claims, and persuasive and practical strategies. semiconductors have undergone a continual miniaturization process, and heat dissipation has become one of its most challenging problems with respect to applications. heat is generated when electrons within the device transfer energy to phonons through scattering by the lattice. since scattering inside the device is not uniform, this process can generate localized hot spots. this work presents experimental and numerical approaches to the understanding of the thermal behavior of gallium-nitride (gan) high-electron-mobility transistors (hemts) under bias conditions. an experimental technique for electron and lattice temperature extraction was developed from photoluminescence measurements. using the peak energy value and the form of the high-energy tail of a single photoluminescence spectrum, electron and lattice temperatures can be simultaneously extracted for a given point inside the device. by a two-dimensional sweep of the entire device, it was possible to create spatially resolved maps for electron and lattice temperatures and to observe localization of the hot regions. numerical simulations were performed using a hydrodynamic model to analyze heat generation in semiconductor devices. the governing equations were solved using a commercial code tcad sentaurus. two-dimensional electron and lattice temperature fields were calculated for a hemt, and the formation of a hot spot observed. it was shown that the locations and values of peak temperatures in the hot regions change on varying the rate of heat that is extracted. under some circumstances the hot spot was seen to split up into two. the experimental and numerical results showed qualitative order of magnitude agreement between them in terms of electron and lattice temperatures. the hot regions were experimentally observed in areas where they were expected. simultaneous electron and lattice temperature maps, which have not been reported until now, provide a valuable tool for the study of hot spot formation within devices. if hot spots can be moved by changing operating conditions, it would be possible to decrease temperature peaks in regions where electrical performance is crucial. the ambruticins are a class of polyketide natural products that were isolated in 1977 which have been shown to be completely non-toxic with low oral and intravenous ld50 values. in addition to their biological activity, they displayed a very novel architectural framework embodying a 1,2,3-trisubstituted divinyl cyclopropane and two highly oxygenated pyran rings. the different strategies implemented towards the total synthesis of these classes of polyketide natural products are described in this thesis. the key aspect of this program was the application of the cyclopropane ring formation methodologies via a homoallylic cation rearrangement that have been developed in the taylor group in recent years. the key 1,2,3-trisubstituted cyclopropane unit was efficiently synthesized in large scale either via activation of homoallylsilane allylic alcohol, or cyclopropanation of homoaldol precursors. methyl ketone fragment a was constructed in six steps from readily available starting materials and relied on a pivotal tandem three component silyl-modified sakurai/ring closing metathesis reactions. a prins reaction followed by a series of oxidation and reduction sequence successfully afforded highly oxygenated hydropyran fragment a. the subsequent coupling via julia or modified-julia olefination failed possibly due to the acidity of the methyl ketone coupling partner. this thesis also highlights the progress towards the synthesis of ambruticin j, a putative biosynthetic intermediate recently proposed by reeves following the characterization of the pks gene cluster responsible for the biosynthesis of ambruticin. in light of the limited amount of ambruticin j available biosynthetically, its large scale preparation via organic synthesis was implemented in order to investigate the role of the epoxidase, ambj during the post-pks modifications leading to the production of ambruticins and their analogues.the strategy relied on pivotal hwe and metathesis couplings which efficiently provided the advanced divinylcyclopropane intermediates that were suitable for further epoxidation and cyclization studies. this dissertation is split into two parts: surface-enhanced raman scattering (sers) as an analytical tool for small molecule detection and surface-enhanced hyper-raman scattering (sehrs) for elucidating photophysical properties and its use as a bioimaging technique. specifically, four studies will be presented and their contributions will be discussed. the first study utilizes a capture agent for sers detection of phenylalanine (phe) and phe-terminated peptides. here, a macrocycle, cucurbit[7]uril (cb[7]), binds to phe, increasing the local concentration of phe surface of agnps. this host-guest interaction increases the sensitivity of phe sers detection. this scheme is then tested on phe-terminal peptides, including insulin, to show its versatility for sensing larger biomolecules. given the extensive binding chemistry of cb[7], this scheme provides a framework for increasing sensitivity of phe detection and the detection of phe-terminated biomolecules in sers.part 2 then starts with a study of the lower-wavenumber sehrs vibrational modes of rhodamine 6g (r6g). single-molecule sehrs detection uses r6g and its isotopologue because of its high sehrs cross-section. r6g's isotopologue displays a different sehrs response only in the lower-wavenumber vibrational modes, below 1000 cm-1. the character of these vibrational modes have dependencies on the resonance conditions and molecular surface orientation, making them challenging to understand. accurately characterizing the complex sehrs profile of r6g and its isotopologue in the lower-wavenumber region is important for understanding the design of efficient two-photon chromophores.the next study analyzes the resonant sehrs response of chalcogen-substituted rhodamine-analogs. the relationship of structure to sehrs response is elucidated through experiment resonant sehrs scans and computations to analyze the effect of chromophore symmetry. symmetry is shown to greatly influence the sehrs response across multiple analogs. experimental on-resonance sehrs in conjunction with time-dependent density functional calculations provides a powerful basis for elucidating the complex vibronic landscape of rationally-designed two-photon chromophores.the final study uses short-wave ir (swir) sehrs to image a nanoparticle-loaded mouse spleen. in a proof-of-principle study, we spatially map the sehrs response from dye-functionalized nanoparticles in a mouse spleen under efficient collection conditions. we observe sehrs to have a higher signal variation than sers, showing its advantages as an imaging method. introducing sehrs as a two-photon imaging method presents a means of spatially mapping tissue with a molecular fingerprint. in this work, i coupled liquid-phase separations to mass spectrometry to analyze peptides, oligosaccharides, and intact antibodies. i first investigate the proteome of wing imaginal discs of drosophila melanogaster larvae incubated in adult drosophila melanogaster extract. nanoflow reverse-phase separations were coupled to mass spectrometry for identification of both the wing disc proteome and the incubation matrix proteome. i next coupled capillary electrophoresis to mass spectrometry for the analysis of standard oligosaccharide solutions and glycosylation modifications cleaved from human igg. i then developed a novel glycan labeling technique utilizing rhodamine 6g. finally, capillary isoelectric focusing coupled to esi-tof-ms is used for the online focusing, separation, and identification of monoclonal antibody charge state variants. this thesis addresses three research projects involving forest tree genetics and genomics. the first (chapter 2) examined mechanisms for the mixed genetic ancestry in many of the 48 populations included in a range-wide genetic study of green ash (fraxinus pennsylvanica marshall), a species under acute threat from the invasive phloem feeding insect, the emerald ash borer (agrilius planipennis fairmaire). emerald ash borer (eab) threatens all 16 of the ash species in north america but the threat is most acute for green ash, the most preferred host and one of the most widely distributed trees in this region (cappaert et al. 2005; macfarlane and patterson meyer 2005). i hypothesized that because green ash was extensively used for shelter belts in rural areas, restoration of riparian zones, and landscaping trees in urban areas, the admixture detected could be signs of human-assisted migration and introgression from planted cultivars. to test this hypothesis, i genotyped green ash cultivars to look for evidence of cultivar introgression into natural populations. my work demonstrated that gene flow can occur from mass-distributed tree cultivars into naturally regenerated forests.for the second project (chapter 3), i conducted a bait-capture target enrichment using species of ash (fraxinus, oleaceae), oak (quercus, fagaceae), and chestnut (castanea, fagaceae). for this experiment we targeted est-ssr microsatellites-containing sequences from the fagaceae, the family containing oak and chestnut, and the oleaceae, the family containing ash. this project demonstrated how one can reduce time-consuming marker development with a massive screening of markers and demonstrated the feasibility of using this technology in forest trees effectively and efficiently.for the final project (chapter 4), i used previously sequenced ddradseq data to generate a high-density linkage map in black walnut (juglans nigra l.). this map was constructed with a full-sib mapping population (i.e. a group of progeny from the same two parents) and includes 473 ddradseq markers (snp polymorphisms) with an average distance between markers of ~4.33 cm. all juglans species have 16 haploid chromosomes (n=16) and our map has the expected 16 linkage groups. this map will be further refined using est-ssr markers from the transcriptomes of black walnut and persian walnut (j. regia l.). these markers will be tested for mapping informative polymorphisms and the mapping population genotyped using the same target-capture technologies utilized for the second project (chapter 3). this linkage map will be used to examine synteny and collinearity in juglans species, for qtl mapping in black walnut, and for enhancing the genome assembly of juglans species sequenced to date (stevens et al. 2018).my projects reveal how, even when working with challenging non-model species with long juvenile periods and complicated genomes, it is possible to answer important basic genetics and genomics questions while generating data that is immediately useful for conservation and protection of threatened forest tree species. we show how wise experimental design and creative use of recent technologies can accomplish this dual purpose even with a comparatively small amount of funding. ionic liquid crystals are a unique, not yet widely understood, class of materials that exist at the intersection of ionic liquids and liquid crystals. these materials are comprised of oppositely charged molecules with typically bulky ionic groups that self-assemble into ordered structures. here, we focus on the application of ionic liquid crystals as electrolytic materials, for battery applications or in dye-sensitized solar cells. tuning the balance between the ordered nature of the system as a whole and ion conductivity can be a delicate equilibrium for these specific applications. many investigations into these materials have not been able to yield information at the atomic level, with the focus being on bulk materials properties. molecular simulations can act as an atomic microscope to view basic forces at work and how they relate to the real-world understanding of a material. in this dissertation, we leverage multiple force fields to simulate a homologous series of 1-alkyl-3-imidazolium nitrate ionic liquid crystals to analyze their phase transition behavior, as well as the clustering behavior of six colloidal particles. development of scientific software is essential towards advancing the field of molecular simulations, and is demonstrated in the development of our package, ssages, as well as my contributions to other community-led packages. among epistemologists and philosophers of science, one often hears that someone with understanding is able to 'see' or 'grasp' how the elements of a subject 'cohere' or 'fit together' ' but just what is involved in the seeing or the grasping is usually left to the imagination. i argue that the most productive way to make progress on this issue is by first identifying the kind of explanation-seeking why-questions that drive the search for understanding in the first place. in particular, i suggest that if we can get a good grip on why a situation stands in need of explanation for us in the first place, then we will in turn be in a good position to determine how we might satisfy that need. in this respect, i argue that a situation stands in need of explanation for us, and therefore inspires our why-questions, in virtue of our sense that there are various ways that we think the situation might have been. if a situation stands in need of explanation for this reason, moreover, then in order to satisfy the need for explanation our objective will be to identify what the difference between these alternatives depends on. to say only this much still leaves a great deal underdetermined, however, for we might 'identify' what the difference depends on in a number of different ways: for example, by having a true belief about what the difference depends on, by knowing this on the basis of testimony, and so on. what is distinctive about the state of understanding, i suggest, is the particular way in which we identify what the difference depends on: namely, by grasping what the difference depends on. i explore at length what exactly this grasping amounts to. nanoelectronic devices such as single-electron transistors (sets) and quantum-dot cellular automata (qca) are superior to conventional electronic devices by cmos technology in many aspects. implementation of sets in logic circuits is believed to increase packing density and might decrease power dissipation, and quantum-dot cellular automata takes advantage of quantum effects for its operation and offers low power dissipation and high density. the purpose of this dissertation is to evaluate single-electron devices using resistive microstrips, and to investigate their applicability for qca device fabrication. in this dissertation, we present our work on the fabrication and characterization of sets with resistive microstrip barriers. different fabrication technologies, pattern designs, and materials were used in the fabrication of sets with crox microstrips to investigate the electron transport mechanism of crox resistors and origin of the coulomb blockade oscillations in the devices. hypotheses of the junction formation are given as the explanation for the experimental results. based on our experimental results, we conclude that resistive microstrip itself can not provide sufficient barriers to observe coulomb blockade oscillations, and the formation of tunneling barriers capable of fulfilling the two requirements of coulomb blockade remains crucial for the observation of coulomb blockade phenomenon. to investigate the applicability of resistive microstrips to qca devices, a qca latch with crox microstrips was fabricated by two steps of e-beam lithography and shadow evaporation. the low temperature measurement showed that the crox microstrips can be used instead of multiple tunnel junctions (mtj) in the clocked qca devices, to suppress the cotunneling which severely impairs the ability of qca cells to store information. by using crox microstrips instead of mtjs, the problem of junction random background charge compensation in extra dots of mtjs is eliminated and the design of qca cells is greatly simplified. reduced graphene oxide provides an alternative route to the use of single-layer graphene in functional devices as a result of its ability to be synthesized and functionalized via solution-based processing in large quantities. graphene oxide serves as a versatile precursor to reduced graphene oxide by offering unique opportunities to anchor nanostructured materials onto its surface and serve as a 2-d conductive support. the high surface area and excellent conductivity of reduced graphene oxide provide a suitable foundation for shuttling charges to redox-active materials such as those used in lithium ion batteries while maximizing the interfacial contact between the conductor (reduced graphene oxide) and redox-active nanomaterial. this dissertation first describes the progress in elucidating the fundamental characteristics that drive the enhancements offered to electrode designs incorporating reduced graphene oxide so that more rational designs are possible. the use of reduced graphene oxide as conductive support for active cathode material in lithium ion batteries led to significantly improved electrode kinetics, faster li+ diffusion to the electrode surface, and increased double layer charging. further, the strong electrostatic interactions between the electronegative oxygen functional groups inherent to graphene oxide and the transition metal precursors influenced dopant concentration in the active material. pivoting from the finding that reduced graphene oxide improves the diffusion of electroactive species, a new graphene morphology, holey graphene, was synthesized that offers potentially further improvement of transport characteristics in energy storage electrodes. through a catalytic oxidation process, gold nanoparticles and hydroxyl radicals work in tandem to etch holes into reduced graphene oxide sheets in solution. this new approach provides secondary, solution-based control over the reduced graphene oxide morphology, providing a range of opportunities to tune electrode transport characteristics. based on the new insights obtained regarding the fundamental role of reduced graphene oxide in improving electrode characteristics in lithium ion batteries, the work described in this dissertation serves as a basis for further exploration of graphene-based nanoassemblies. finally, the development of a solution-based process for tuning the morphology and degree of oxidation of reduced graphene oxide potentially opens the door to its use in other energy or optoelectronic applications. athletic competitions have an undeniable position of priority in our lives. an entire nation, state, region or demographic can fall in love with a player and team. most previous research has failed to identify sport specific motivations of female collegiate basketball fans. primarily, the purpose of this study is to present the results regarding what specifically motivates division i women's basketball sport fans. secondly, what game enhancers increase their levels of entertainment once fans enter the arena. participants were two hundred people attending a top-tier division i women's basketball regular season game. four hundred and thirty-eight subjects completed a multi-section questionnaire containing demographic information, the sport fan motivation scale (sfms; wann, 1995), game enhancer scale, season ticket status, attendance habits, and the sport fandom scale (wann, 2002). the questionnaires from 100 male and 100 female participants were randomly selected from the group. although some consistent themes emerged, results from this study varied from past research on sport fan motivation. unlike previous research in this area, male participants were more likely to be motivated by spending time with family whereas, female participants scored higher on the economic subscale (sfms, wann, 1995). women's collegiate basketball programs, the programs with the most potential for fan growth, can use the results to create research-based marketing plans. the research presented in this dissertation describes an experimental investigation of an externally forced, high-mach-number, high-reynolds-number boundary layer. the experimental study was motivated by the results of a previous experiment using wavefront data obtained by passing a laser through a high-mach-number, regularized shear layer. while the results clearly showed that the wavefronts due to the shear layer were regularly repeated, there appeared to be synchronized turbulent "bursts" in the high-speed turbulent boundary layer on the wall of the shear-layer facility. the amplified turbulence appeared to be synchronized with the systematic large-scale disturbance created in the shear layer. the modulation of small scales by larger scales in the turbulent boundary layer has been observed and reported in literature. study of this phenomenon shows that a phase relationship between large and small scales exists in wall turbulence, and various statistical methods to quantify this relationship have been developed. more recently, experimental studies at caltech have shown that the phase-organizing effect of large scales on small scales can be regularized by introducing a "synthetic" large scale using a spanwise oscillating rib internal to the boundary layer.using the same compressible shear layer facility at hessert aerospace laboratory at notre dame where the wavefront "bursting" was first noted, the regularized shear layer was recreated. the response of the high-speed turbulent boundary layer on the upper wall to the unsteady pressure field was studied using hotwire anemometry. the effect of the shear layer was shown to impose an artificially created large scale in the boundary layer, but now due to external forcing. the relationship of this synthetic large turbulence scale to the small-scale turbulence was then studied. through statistical analysis, it was determined that the amplitude modulation phenomenon reported in the literature is also present in the perturbed boundary layer. analyzing the externally forced boundary layer using the same methods as the internally forced boundary layer reported in literature revealed that the synthetic large scale imposed by the regularized shear layer organizes the small scales of turbulence similarly in both cases, and leads to the amplified turbulence which was previously seen using the wavefronts. the research presented in the dissertation adds to a growing database of flow conditions in which the modulation of small scales has been observed. it is the first experimental study of its kind conducted at mach 0.6, and has implications for the favorable manipulation of boundary layer structures. philosophy is something that we do: it is a way of dealing with the questions and concerns that arise as we live our lives. because of this, philosophy inevitably reflects our perspectives; these perspectives make philosophy possible—even as they constrain what philosophy can say. this is the tension at the heart of philosophy; the point of this dissertation is less to resolve this tension than to explore it—specifically, by recovering insights from plato, immanuel kant, ludwig wittgenstein, and alasdair macintyre. first, this dissertation explores the insight that our perspectives constrain what philosophy can say. for we are situated within the world that our philosophical theories describe—and so those theories must describe a world in which we arrive at justified theories. our theories must presuppose this regardless of how the world is—lest our practice of philosophy undermine itself. contemporary philosophers often forget to reflect on their own practice in this way—and so forget that philosophy is a practice; because of this, they fall into performative contradiction. second, this dissertation explores the insight that our perspectives make philosophy possible. for philosophy is a practice—and, because practices are irreducibly normative, no practice occurs outside of some linguistic perspective or other. now, these linguistic perspectives sometimes contradict one another—but, because our linguistic perspectives inevitably constrain our conclusions, there is no neutral way to decide among them. nonetheless, the decision of one rather than another is sometimes justified. third, this dissertation refutes an objection to its foundation. many contemporary philosophers hold that philosophy should not reflect any perspective at all—and certainly should not address the questions and concerns that arise as we live our lives. however, it is because contemporary philosophy does not address these questions and concerns that it so often seems irrelevant to our students. attention to rhythmic stimuli can be conceptualized as involving periods of variable attention such that the distribution of attention is entrained to the rhythm of the stimulus. this entrainment process has crossmodal consequences, such that both auditory and visual attention is entrained by an auditory rhythm and vice versa, resulting in improved responses to auditory or visual targets when their onsets match the temporal structure of a preceding rhythm. the current study examines the role of multimodal entrainment on the allocation of auditory and visual attention. specifically, we were interested in situations in which concurrently presented auditory, visual rhythms correspond temporally, and situations in which concurrently presented auditory and visual rhythms conflict temporally. in experiment 1, participants were entrained by three different rhythm types: audiovisual, auditory-only, and visual-only. they responded to auditory and visual targets occurring at the end of rhythm that either matched or mismatched the entrainment rhythm. response time was fastest when targets matched the entrainment rhythm, verifying that entrainment occurred, and did not differ across rhythm type or target modality (auditory vs. visual), indicating that audiovisual entrainment was no more effective than auditory-only or visual-only entrainment. in experiments 2 and 3, participants were presented with temporally conflicting auditory and visual rhythms. participants responded to auditory and visual targets that matched the temporal structure of either the auditory or the visual rhythm. response times were fastest when target onsets matched the temporal structure of the visual rhythm compared to the auditory rhythm and did not differ by target modality. overall, this work suggests that entrainment is a general attentional mechanism that is applied across sensory modalities. furthermore, it suggests that when auditory and visual rhythms do not share the same temporal structure the attentional system favors the timing parameters of the visual rhythm. to support large shared memory applications, mnuma (migrational nonuniform memory access) architectures combine scalable system design with hardware supported multithreading and thread migration, which replace or augment traditional coherence schemes while providing fine grained resource sharing to tolerate long memory access latencies. this research provides architectural improvements to memory mechanics used by existing lightweight multithreaded architecture designs. this work also presents the mobile subjective (mos) programming model, which was designed alongside mnuma and provides a novel low-level abstraction for partitioned global address space (pgas) multithreaded applications. using the mos programming model, this research provides a unique approach to parallel graph algorithms specifically tailored to the mnuma execution model. active edge graph communication primitives provide building blocks to compose graph algorithms that avoid data hotspots found in other theoretical graph algorithm designs. in combination, these program and system design techniques are used to show efficient performance scaling of concurrent graph algorithms to over 64000 processing cores running over 1 million threads in simulation. this dissertation exegetes and develops the apocalyptic theology of the swiss catholic theologian hans urs von balthasar. it argues that the central subject of the book of revelation in the image of the lamb slain before the foundation of the world provides a theological scaffolding in which balthasar is able to coordinate his theological aesthetics, theo-drama, and theo-logic. balthasar's deployment of the book of revelation throughout his theological corpus has implications for his treatment of a variety of theological topics, such as metaphysics, history, ecclesiology, and, most notably, political theology. central features of balthasar's apocalyptic theology are identified in this dissertation in order to open up the resources of those features for political theology. the first chapter identifies the features of eucharistic gratitude, temporal ambiguity, and solidarity and explores how the apocalypse of christ "echoes" throughout metaphysics, history, and human freedom, respectively; bringing these topics within the larger frame of trinitarian love. the second chapter relies on the work of god identified in the first chapter to identify the three features of response to the apocalypse of christ in rejection (antagonism) or acceptance (rapture, institution). this chapter identifies how the apocalypse of trinitarian love in christ precipitates an ever-growing hatred from the world from those who reject it even as those who accept it are offered participation via scripture and sacrament. the third chapter initiates the turn to political theology proper by placing balthasar in conversation with saint augustine, the figure of architectonic significance for christian political theology. it argues that balthasar rediscovers augustine as an apocalyptic, ecclesial theologian and therefore merits greater augustinian ascription than his contemporaries. the fourth and final chapter places the resources gained from the prior three in conversation with the contemporary augustinian political theologians of oliver o'donovan, john milbank, and william t. cavanaugh. the assessment of these figures is largely positive but argues for the superior resources offered by balthasar. the dissertation attempts to show that balthasar's prioritization of the work of god secures the theological before application to the political and thereby forms a more coherent and faithful approach for political theology. a fictional explanation of what happens in a twisted and distorted world. because of the technological shift that our modern medical era has brought to the treatment and care of imperiled newborns, many persons have been saved who otherwise would have died. though concerns about the quality of life for many of these newborns have come to the fore as a result, the importance of social factors in a broad understanding of what quality of life means is an oft-neglected topic and can be seen clearly within a context of catholic social teaching. if one takes seriously the intrinsically social nature of persons, a preferential option for the poor, the universal destination of goods, and other like principles, the central thesis of the dissertation becomes clear: though all newly born human infants are full moral persons, what kind of treatments are beneficial or burdensome cannot be seen apart from complex social questions with regard to distribution of resources. though more research is needed on treatment outcomes and their long-term costs before most specific reforms could be prudently enacted, the dissertation argues that certain neonatal treatments are disproportionate with the common good and ought to be foregone. the author discusses two groups of work completed during her second year as an mfa candidate at the university of notre dame. these two distinctive bodies of work represent two explorations of self-portraiture based on distorted photographic images of the artist. these pieces, which feature images of the artist's face, are constructed with found fabric and other cloth that has been silkscreened with the facial distortions as a major element. works by robert rauschenberg and tracey emin, two artists who have been major influences and research interests of the author during her time at notre dame, provide a contextual reference for the use of personal autobiographical materials. concrete has a good reputation for fire resistance because it has a low thermal conductivity and is non-combustible. however, concrete loses strength when exposed to elevated temperatures as a result of damage to the pore structure and chemical degradation. strength and durability of concrete are lost when exposed to temperatures as low as 100 å¢å»c, even if it appears to be in-tact. invasive repair techniques are often necessary to improve the durability and strength of the concrete due to limited information regarding high strength concrete under current guidelines. rehydration is a promising alternative repair method, which can improve the microstructure of the concrete by hydrating previously unhydrated clinker in the fire damaged concrete. in addition, rehydration can save time and money, as well as minimize space lost, making it a financially attractive repair option. however, few studies have investigated the effectiveness of rehydration for the repair of high strength concrete, and relationships between the repair and damage mechanisms in high strength concrete are sparse. this work is intended to further the understanding of the behavior of concrete exposed to elevated temperatures, and the ability to repair that concrete, through the implementation of a comprehensive study. using a multi-scale approach, the mechanisms by which concrete is damaged when exposed to elevated temperatures, and repaired using recuring, were established. typical mix design variables were investigated to determine their influence on the extent of heat induced damage and viability of repair of the concrete. based on this study, correlations were developed to estimate engineering properties of damaged and recured concrete, which can be used in the evaluation of the structure after a fire. furthermore, recommendations regarding mix designs for future construction were provided to minimize the damage that would occur in concrete structures exposed to elevated temperatures. the ising model has been very successful in simulating ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic materials. it is, in fact, the pedagogical explanation for the behavior of magnetic materials. researchers have adapted the ising model to simulate materials as disparate as foams, cell aggregates and metallic crystals. in this research, i used different modifications of metropolis algorithms to simulate phase separation and brownian motion in the ising model. one of the algorithms (algorithm three in the text) is a choice popular with many researchers. my goal is to illuminate the differences in the dynamical and equilibrium properties of various algorithms and model parameters. i found that the most popular choice is not always the right choice. it produces a non-boltzmann equilibrium and its simulated droplets diffuse much slower than other near-boltzmann algorithms. in fact, the non-boltzmann algorithm does not have a critical point, while the others do. in my phase separation simulations, i investigated a number of thermodynamical properties of the two-dimensional ising model, including the surface energy, surface tension, partition function, free energy and entropy as a function of model parameters and algorithms. to obtain a functional form for analyzing phase-separation, i developed a second-nearest neighbor solid-on-solid (sos) model. i found that the sos model agrees well with the ising model up to about one-half the critical temperature. i also used heuristic arguments to create a modified sos model and compared it to simulation results for up to fourth-nearest-neighbor interactions. i discovered unexpected behavior when i used the model to simulate brownian motion. for all the algorithms, droplets diffuse slower than predicted at low temperatures, which i explain by assuming that the underlying lattice is sticky. one could devise more tests to further distinguish and delineate the limitations of the algorithms, like simulating stoke's flow. when one modifies or add more terms to the ising hamiltonian to simulate different phenomena, one needs to modify the algorithm's acceptance probabilities accordingly in order to preserve detailed balance and boltzmann equilibrium. i have presented a clear method to create algorithms that obey detailed balance and produce near-boltzmann equilibria. ab initio nuclear theory attempts to predict the properties of atomic nuclei, starting from protons and neutrons and their interactions, by solving the quantum many-body problem. modern internucleon interactions, derived from chiral effective field theory (χeft), provide a systematic expansion of the nuclear force and all related currents. for full consistency, one should derive the nuclear interaction together with all desired observables, straightforwardly including phenomena such as meson-exchange corrections. recent results have demonstrated the importance of such χeft corrections for correctly predicting magnetic dipole and gamow-teller strengths in nuclei; however, these studies have not consistently applied the same treatment to these operators as is applied to the interaction. we implement and evaluate χeft operators in light nuclei (a ≤ 17) using the low energy nuclear physics international collaboration (lenpic) formalism, with special attention paid to consistency of regulators, power counting, and low-energy constants (lecs). we solve the quantum many-body problem using the no-core configuration interaction (ncci) approach, using two-body internucleon interactions. we find that the inclusion of χeft corrections to the magnetic dipole and gamow-teller operators generally brings the calculated results closer to agreement with experiment. however, we also demonstrate that the convergence of the solution to the many-body problem still poses substantial difficulties for completely understanding the properties of the χeft expansion. we confirm that the inclusion of χeft corrections is necessary to obtain the correct physics for light nuclei. we also argue that higher-order corrections are likely necessary in order to obtain good agreement with experimental data. the practical syllogism, classically considered to be the dominant model of practical reasoning, has fallen out of favor in contemporary academic moral philosophy. not only is it rarely mentioned, but the practical syllogism typically considered in the contemporary literature is very different from the classical conception of the practical reasoning. in particular, whereas classical constructions of the practical syllogism as rooted in the aristotelian tradition insist that action is the conclusion to the practical syllogism, contemporary constructions hold that the conclusion must be a proposition. i argue that this shift in conceptions about the conclusion to the practical syllogism is due to a broader shift in dominant theories of practical reasoning. the action-as-conclusion thesis is at home in the classical, aristotelian-thomistic picture of practical reasoning. however, this thesis is denied plausibility in contemporary academic moral philosophy that is dominated by a humean instrumentalist theory of practical reasoning. in this dissertation, i write about these two competing theories of practical reasoning to show how the aristotelian-thomistic theory of practical reasoning provides the proper background for the action-as-conclusion thesis and why the humean instrumentalist theory makes the action-as-conclusion thesis seem ridiculous. at the heart of this dissertation, then, is an in-depth study of st. thomas aquinas's theory of practical reasoning, which shows how the faculties of will and intellect co-operate in the act of practical reasoning and are both causes of action (will as efficient cause, intellect as formal cause). the premises of the practical syllogism should then be construed as expressing the role of the intellect in reasoning toward action. as the act of the intellect formally causes human action, the premises of the practical syllogism thereby 'conclude' in an action. this dissertation concludes by showing how the picture of thomistic practical reasoning as advanced in this dissertation is similar to and different from the projects of other contemporary thomists. in particular, i locate this picture of practical reasoning with reference to candace vogler's reasonably vicious, philippa foot's natural goodness, and elizabeth anscombe's 'corrupt minds' thesis in modern moral philosophy. the gelatinases (mmp-2 and mmp-9) are members of the matrix metalloproteinase (mmp) family, a class of enzymes that are responsible for the restructuring of the extracellular matrix. upregulation of expression of gelatinases has been implicated in the pathology of cancer metastasis, neurological diseases and in making diabetic wounds refractory to healing. sb-3ct, a potent and selective gelatinase inhibitor, is effective in mouse models of cancer metastasis, stroke and traumatic brain injury. however, it is limited by extensive metabolism and poor aqueous solubility. sb-3ct is rapidly metabolized due to hydroxylation at the para-position of the terminal phenyl to a more potent gelatinase inhibitor, and oxidation at the alpha-position to the sulfonyl moiety to generate the inactive sulfinic acid. alpha-methyl analogs of sb-3ct were conceptualized to block metabolism at the alpha-position to the sulfonyl group. enzyme kinetics and metabolism of the alpha-methyl variants showed a 10-fold decrease in potency against the gelatinases, but with a significant improvement in metabolic stability. pharmacokinetics and brain distribution of gelatinase inhibitors were explored to correlate with the in vivo efficacy of sb-3ct in animals models of neurological diseases. a sensitive bioanalytical method based on ultraperformance liquid chromatography with multiple-reaction monitoring detection was developed to measure levels of gelatinase inhibitors in plasma and brain. the compounds were rapidly absorbed and distributed at therapeutic concentrations in the brain. amino acid prodrugs were developed to increase >5,000-fold the water solubility of sb-3ct. in vivo, prodrug nd-478 is hydrolyzed to nd-322, which is further n-acetylated to nd-364. n-hydroxylation of the aromatic amine was not observed and both nd-478 and nd-322 were non-mutagenic in the ames ii mutagenicity assay. nd-364 was shown to be highly brain-penetrant and distributed five times higher in brain than in plasma, following intravenous (iv) infusion of prodrug nd-478. the high water solubility, metabolic stability, lack of toxicity, and favorable pk properties make the thiirane class of selective gelatinase inhibitors suitable for iv administration in treatment of acute gelatinase-dependent neurological diseases. nd-322 was evaluated in a diabetic mouse model of wound healing. using an mmp inhibitor-tethered resin, which binds all active mmps, elevated levels of active mmp-9 in diabetic wounds were documented by quantitative mrm-ms. treatment with the selective gelatinase inhibitor nd-322 accelerated wound healing by re-epithelialization in the first demonstration of a potential therapy for this disease. finally, second-generation lipophilic mmp-9 inhibitors, amenable for formulation as ointments, were synthesized and evaluated for stability in in vitro systems of wound fluids. evaluation of mmp inhibition unexpectedly led to highly selective mmp-2 inhibitors, which may render useful in studies where mmp-2 selectivity is desired. no abstract given a complex, semisimple lie biaglebra, we consider the coisotropic subalgebras--the lie subalgebras of whose annihilator in the dual space is a lie subalgebra of the dual space. m. zambon gives a construction for certain coisotropic sugalgebras, he explains his construction explicitly for the classical simple lie algebras. in this dissertation, we explicitly compute zambon's coisotroic subalgebras for a general complex semisimple lie algebra and show that these coisotropic subalgebaras are a special case of a more general construction. furthermore, we view coisotropic subalgebras of inside the variety of lagrangian subalgebras of the double. under what conditions does a social movement have an impact on state policy and gets their main demands addressed? this dissertation explores these questions through a structured and focused comparison of two social movements in three latin american countries: argentina, chile and uruguay. the cases analyzed in this project are the human rights movement and their demand for justice for the past abuses of the military dictatorship, and the women's movement demand for the decriminalization of abortion from the time of each country's democratic transition until 2007. this dissertation argues that for non bread and butter issues to be addressed by the government a social movement organized around them must be present. the movement has to be strong in terms of its power to attract supporters, since it is mainly responsible for placing the issue on the political agenda. non-bread-and-butter issues such as those espoused by the social movements studied here are not considered a priority by public opinion in developing countries, and thus have a hard time reaching the political agenda if no movement mobilizes behind them. in addition, the social movement needs political allies in power for the issues to move forward: for bills, once introduced, to be debated and passed in congress, for government programs to be implemented, and for institutions to be created that address the movements' demands. finally, not all those politicians ideologically close to the movement will respond to its demands in the same way. political and strategic considerations play a role here. the weaker the president is when assuming power and in particular the greater the need for support from leftist constituencies, the more the government will try to advance the main demands of these social movements. whether implicit or explicit, the extant literature tends to conceptualize college-educated individuals as those who have graduated with a college degree. i argue that this is an assumption that undervalues the political significance of undergraduate college experiences. thus, in my dissertation i ask: what is the effect of undergraduate college experiences on civic engagement? more often than not, respondents are asked to specify the highest degree that they have obtained and grouped into broad categories as a result. i show that using "years of schooling" as the measure of educational attainment in statistical analyses yields more accurate information about the effect of education than measures that are based on degree receipt. furthermore, information about why higher education undermines political apathy and bolsters adherence to communal norms is a black box. through classroom observations and interviews with college students and college dropouts, i systematically analyze what it is about the collegiate learning process that increases the likelihood of civic engagement. my empirical results support the contention that exposure to a post-secondary educational environment increases the likelihood of engaging in several civic and political activities. however, they also reveal that socioeconomic mitigating factors undermine the positive effect of the college environment in various ways. i conclude that conceptualizing education as the "highest degree obtained" is not an adequate measure of an individual's educational experience and the impact that it can have over time. by shifting out focus from degree receipt to educational experience, we can capture the effect that the college environment has on civic engagement with greater precision. perchlorate (clo4-) is a harmful oxidant found in drinking water sources throughout the us. recently, several strains of perchlorate-reducing bacteria (pcrb) that accumulate large amounts of chlorate during perchlorate reduction have been isolated and studied. in this study, it was estimated that these novel perchlorate reducers have similar qmax values to conventional pcrb (8.3mgclo3-/mgx-day and 11.5mgclo4-/mgx-day) and much higher k values (58.3mg/l for chlorate and 192.6mg/l for perchlorate). based on these kinetic parameters, these novel perchlorate reducers are unlikely to play a significant role in perchlorate reduction at concentrations below 200 mg/l, but may contribute to faster degradation at high concentrations. analysis of the nucleotide and amino acid sequences of the catalytic subunit of the (per)chlorate reductase enzyme (pcra) of three high chlorate accumulating isolates were highly similar and distinct from conventional pcrb, suggesting that structural differences in the pcra enzyme could account for differences in microbial activity. simulation-based design optimization is playing an increasingly prominent role in the design of everything from spacecraft to consumer products. applying nonlinear optimization techniques to simulation-based design becomes prohibitively expensive as computer models become more complex and increase in fidelity. a common engineering practice is to drive the preliminary design process using lower fidelity models as surrogates of expensive high fidelity simulations. higher fidelity models are then used in the final design stages to refine the design. however, using automated optimization methods at this stage may still require enormous computational resources. recently, variable fidelity schemes have been developed to address this problem by incorporating both models into one optimization framework. in these methods the low fidelity models are scaled to approximate the high fidelity simulations. this scaling allows the optimization to be performed using mainly low fidelity function calls, reducing the overall computational cost, while requiring only a few high fidelity evaluations to update the scaling function. currently, two main scaling varieties are used: first order multiplicative and first order additive. in the multiplicative approach the low fidelity model is multiplied by a scaling function to approximate the high fidelity model; similarly, in the additive approach a scaling function is added to the low fidelity model. the focus of this dissertation is on improving the efficiency and applicability of variable fidelity optimization algorithms. highlights of original contributions made in this research include: (1) an adaptive hybrid scaling method that relieves designers from having to choose emph{a priori} which scaling method, multiplicative or additive, is most suitable to their problem with limited information. (2) second order scaling methods which use approximate hessian information, resulting in super-linear convergence rates. (3) a kriging-based global scaling method, which uses past design information to improve the global accuracy of the scaling model and was shown to reduce the computational cost of optimization by over 60% compared to single fidelity methods. (4) a metamodel update management strategy to reduce the cost of using kriging metamodels sequentially in large design problems. (5) extension of the variable fidelity framework to solve reliability based design problems, which significantly lowers the computational cost, compared to traditional methods. this dissertation evaluated how individuals' biology and behavior acclimatize to energetically-demanding environment over 3-month long expeditions through the american rockies as a part of the national outdoor leadership school (nols). specifically, this project assessed how body composition, hormones, and energetic physiology (n = 71) changed over the 3-month period as well as the relationship between changes in hormones and how people spent energy. additionally, this project assessed how processes related to social dynamics, such as perceptions of stress and resilience, relate to individual physiology, particularly hormone and energetic systems. i examined how processes related to social and interpersonal dynamics influence individual hormonal and energetic physiology under challenging ecological conditions. these are theoretically important processes that are germane to contemporary human experience, including everyday functioning in an extreme environment, and that are potentially relevant to periodic demands placed on past human populations. in addition, this project brings innovative and integrative perspectives measuring different and interrelated physiological and behavioral systems repeatedly over time, which can inform our understanding of the timescale over which these complex changes occur as humans accommodate the pertinent environmental and social stressors. our findings demonstrated that body weight and lean muscle decline when first beginning an expedition but are able to rebound by the end of the three-month period. in addition, i found that cortisol response attenuated by the middle of the course but is elevated at the beginning and the end of the course. i also found that in a highly demanding yet tightly controlled setting like the nols course, individual perceptions of lower stress and greater resilience during the expeditions predicted lower cortisol production, which may have had downstream impacts on health and performance. further, we found that greater resilience predicted greater energy expenditure, on average, suggesting that resilient individuals worked harder and spent more energy. these findings have important implications for positive-perception building in small teams engaged in challenging environments can provide critical insights into how individuals successfully cope with the high-energy demands of new and difficult environments. ovarian cancer is the most fatal gynecological cancer and often goes undetected until metastatic stages of the disease. ovarian cancer is understood to follow a distinct form of metastasis, spreading throughout the peritoneal cavity and forming metastatic sites on the peritoneum. there are a number of host factors which modulate ovarian cancer risk, including obesity, parity and aging. however, how host factors impact metastasis is very understudied. additionally, there is a paucity of data on the effect of these host factors on healthy tissues in the peritoneal cavity. in this work, we use syngeneic allograft murine models of intraperitoneal metastasis to investigate the impact of two host factors, parity and aging, on ovarian caner metastasis. parous women have a reduced risk for developing ovarian cancer, with additional births providing greater protection. in this work, we demonstrate that multiparous mice are less susceptible to ovarian cancer metastasis than their nulliparous or primiparous age-matched counterparts. this multiparity-related effect is lost with age. aging is known to increase a woman's risk of developing ovarian cancer and elderly patients have a poorer prognosis than younger patients. however, there are no published reports on how age impacts metastasis in vivo. furthermore, there is a dearth of information available on the aged peritoneum. in the work described here, we designed studies to test the hypotheses that aging leads to alterations in peritoneal tissues and impacts the metastatic success of ovarian cancer. using two different murine models of aging and metastasis, we demonstrated for the first time that aged animals are more susceptible to intraperitoneal ovarian cancer metastasis than young animals. this is accompanied by immunological changes in aged peritoneal adipose tissue. this work suggests that the immunology of aging ought to be considered when designing anticancer immunotherapies for aged ovarian cancer patients. an experiment was conducted which was aimed at documenting the linear and nonlinear development of pairs of oblique waves over a 7-degree half-angle cone in the mach 3.5 'quiet' tunnel at nasa langley research center. the first element of this work was the calibration of a constant-current hot-wire anemometer to obtain quantitative mean and time-resolved measurements in the supersonic boundary layer at frequencies up to 100 khz. secondly an actuator hub was designed to introduce controlled disturbances into the flow at up to 70 khz. an azimuthal array of glow discharge actuators was positioned near branch i of the ts instability and excited the oblique waves with a prescribed initial amplitude, frequency and azimuthal wave number. spectra of the hot-wire voltage fluctuations without excitation, revealed an amplified band offrequencies which were consistent with the most amplified based on linear theory. with excitation, we observed discrete modes at the excitation frequency at the upstream locations. as this developed downstream, a subharmonic was also found to emerge. azimuthal measurements showed these two modes to have azimuthal amplitude variations which were consistent with helicalmode pairs. the amplitude of the subharmonic was also found to vary exponentially with the initial amplitude of the fundamental mode. measurementsat angle-of-attack were also considered to investigate the development of a cross-flow instability. we construct a geometric analogue to the sphere with tubes model where there is one incoming and one outgoing tube in yi-zhi huang's notion of a geometric vertex operator algebra (gvoa) in a generalized setting that resolves the multivaluedness resulting from a generalization of the grading axiom in a gvoa such that it is no longer semisimple; we call the objects in our geometric structure the unfurled worldsheets. we establish a partial semi-group structure on the unfurled worldsheets, and show that a certain associated tangent space forms an algebra that is not leibniz. then, we introduce a new piece of data to our notion of unfurled worldsheet, which results in a new collection of objects, called the unfurled worldsheets with dilation. we find that the unfurled worldsheets with dilation are not closed under our analogue of sewing. however, we can close the sewing by creating an extension of the virasoro algebra. this extension scaffolds our formal identification of the moduli space of the unfurled worldsheets with dilation. this thesis presents a set of experiments dedicated to finding a reliable gold cmp process with satisfactory and reproducible results. this manuscript is a collection of poems based on the brothers grimm fairy tale the six swans. it is primarily concerned with the perversion of language and narrative form, and utilizes visually arresting text as art. for decades, cycloaddition reactions have been a staple in the organic chemist's toolbox, providing access to a variety of biologically interesting heterocyclic compounds. in particular, [4+n]-cycloadditions have been utilized extensively to access, five, six, and seven-membered rings with a range of substitution patterns. our interest lied in the [4+1]-construction of potentially bioactive five-membered heterocycles, which are commonly constructed via a [3+2]-cycloaddition reaction between a 1,3-dipole and a dipolarophile. while this is an elegant approach, it is limited by the high level of reactivity of the starting materials.with this is mind, we anticipated that the [4+1] retrosynthetic disconnect would be an efficiacious approach providing ready access to the desired heterocycles without the chemoselectivity and regioselectivity challenges that can arise with [3+2] cycloadditions. additionally, the variety of four atom components available would allow access to multiple heterocyclic motifs. towards that end, we successfully employed aza ortho-quinone methides, aroyl isocyanates, vinyl ketenes, and vinyl allenes as four atom components in conjunction with metal-stabilized carbenes or phosphorus-based carbenoids as c1-synthons to generate dihydroindoles, oxazolones, and spirooxindole cyclopentenones. nowadays, over 80% of energy supply relies on the nonrenewable and environmental unfriendly fossil fuels. meanwhile, occurrence of pharmaceuticals and chemicals originated from our daily life and industrial activities but associated with potential environmental risks in the aquatic environment evokes increasing public concern about reclaimed water. this research stays at the interface of environmental engineering and metabolic engineering, with the goal of manipulating and engineering yeast to enhance renewable energy biofuel production from lignocellulosic residues and to treat contaminants of emerging concerns for water reuse/reclamation.the development of robust microbial systems to utilize renewable feedstock effectively is important for high-titer biofuels production. lignocellulosic biomass has been identified as a promising source to produce renewable biofuels but the pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass generates lignocellulosic hydrolysate that contains fermentation inhibitors. the fermentation inhibitors will adversely affect the growth of industrial microorganisms such as saccharomyces cerevisiae and prevent economic production of lignocellulosic biofuels. therefore, it is critical to engineer microbial cell systems with enhanced resistance to fermentation inhibitors. this study employed a genomic library based inverse metabolic engineering approach to successfully identify a novel gene target whi2 which elicited improved acetic acid resistance in s. cerevisiae. based on this study, we developed an engineered yeast strain yc1 with superior resistance to acetic acid, furfural and their mixture. the transcriptional changes in yc1 versus the wild-type strain s-c1 under three different inhibitor conditions, including acetic acid alone, furfural alone and mixture of acetic acid and furfural were determined through rna sequencing. the establishment of green and cost-effective biotechnology to treat emerging contaminants is also important for advancing water reuse/reclamation. we developed a new type of biocatalyst by immobilizing fungal laccase on the surface of yeast cells using synthetic biology techniques. followed by sdl study, we fabricated biocatalytic membranes (bcms) by immobilizing sdl on microporous membranes via inkjet printing and chemical crosslinking. both sdl and bcms could effectively treat emerging contaminants. the research offers a practice to develop robust strains for enhanced lignocellulosic biofuel production and a novel category of enzyme biocatalysts for treating emerging contaminants for water reuse. our data demonstrated the effectiveness of engineered cell systems in advancing renewable energy production and water treatment. these and similar cell systems could have a critical role in addressing other challenges towards environmental sustainability. in recent years, several experimental studies have shown that field transport processes in non-homogeneous media can occur according to anomalous and hybrid mechanisms that are not accounted for in traditional methods of analysis. these unconventional transport mechanisms have been observed in many diverse physical systems, ranging from porous and heterogeneous materials to biological tissues and granular materials. current modeling techniques, based on integer order differential models, cannot effectively capture this hybrid behavior, while direct numerical simulations represent often an impractical route, due to both the size of the computational problem and the coexistence of multiple spatial and temporal scales. on the other hand, fractional order differ-integral models have shown the capability to predict accurately the complex nature of these transport processes. in part, this capability is a direct consequence of the many intrinsic properties of these operators such as memory, non-locality, and multiscale behavior that all combined allow describing hybrid transport processes within a unified mathematical formulation. the main objective of this thesis is twofold and consists in investigating the leading causes of the occurrence of anomalous diffusion of acoustic wave fields propagating through inhomogeneous and highly scattering media and in developing computational tools capable of modeling accurately its effects. acoustic wave fields provide the foundation of many disciplines of practical interest ranging from imaging to remote sensing and non-destructive evaluation. the ability to accurately model the acoustic field transport in complex media is paramount to enhance the quality of the reconstructed images and to reduce the occurrence of artifacts. while these are important driving factors for the development of new imaging technologies and very challenging issues in any inverse problem, addressing them in the context of complex scattering media still poses substantial and unsolved technical problems. the most direct effect of these limitations is the lack of reliable methodologies for the acoustic based sensing of complex media. in order to provide a comprehensive description of acoustic transport mechanisms in complex scattering media, we develop a generalized fractional-order acoustic theory capable of describing the propagation of wave fields in periodic and disordered media. particular attention is devoted to the analysis and characterization of anomalous acoustic transport and to uncovering the link between both geometric and material parameters and the fractional order of the governing continuum model. the unique properties of fractional-order models and their ability to capture and simulate complex physical acoustic processes suggest they offer great potential for applications to inverse acoustic problems, and beyond. in an effort to illustrate these unique capabilities and the many opportunities provided by these models, we also propose and numerically test a novel acoustic tomographic technique that builds on both the physics of hybrid propagation and on the characteristics of fractional order models to obtain a promising imaging technique capable, at least on the basis of available numerical results, to distinctly over perform more traditional acoustic imaging methods. deep neural networks are famous for their high prediction accuracy, but they are also known for their black-box nature and poor interpretability. we consider the problem of variable selection, that is, selecting the input variables that have significant predictive power on the output, in deep neural networks. most existing variable selection methods for neural networks are only applicable to shallow networks or are computationally infeasible on large datasets; moreover, they lack a control on the quality of selected variables. here we propose a backward elimination procedure called survnet, which is based on a new measure of variable importance that applies to a wide variety of networks. more importantly, survnet is able to estimate and control the false discovery rate of selected variables empirically. further, survnet adaptively determines how many variables to eliminate at each step in order to maximize the selection efficiency. the validity and efficiency of survnet are shown on various simulated and real datasets, and its performance is compared with other methods. especially, a systematic comparison with knockoff-based methods shows that although they have more rigorous false discovery rate control on data with strong variable correlation, survnet usually has higher power.autoencoders are a type of deep neural network that are usually applied in unsupervised learning for dimensionality reduction. based on network structures with multiple layers, autoencoders are also poorly interpretable, that is, the low-dimensional representations generated from input variables are difficult to interpret. hence, we propose survencoder, an unsupervised variable selection method for autoencoders. it defines an easily computable and widely applicable variable importance measure based on the encodings of autoencoders. by adopting the selection procedure of survnet and modifying it for unsupervised settings, survencoder is equipped with fdr control as well. on various unlabeled datasets, survencoder has effectively selected the variables that significantly contribute to dimension reduction and help reveal data structure. the advent of single-cell multimodal sequencing technologies enables measurements of multiple modalities in individual cells and opens new avenues to characterize cell types and states. it also necessitates the development of novel analytical and computational methods for integration of multiple measurements, which is challenging due to the heterogeneity of different data types. we propose an unsupervised method to integrate multimodal omics data called vimmo. it defines an integrative cell-cell distance measure and quantifies the utility of each modality for distance integration. compared with wnn, a popular benchmark integrative method that assigns cell-specific modality weights, vimmo is able to provide particular modality weights for each pair of cells. furthermore, it offers greater flexibility as it supports user-defined modality weights for integration. on several real and simulated single-cell omics datasets, the performance of vimmo is studied and compared to that of wnn, and it is found that vimmo performed better than wnn in various scenarios. this dissertation is focused on a general idea that cation exchange can serve as one handy method to synthesize two-dimensional (2d) nanomaterials which cannot be easily produced directly. the synthesized 2d materials have potential application values in several areas, such as nanocatalysis, and solar energy conversion field.first, we elucidate the synthesis of thickness-controlled cu2–xse nanosheets (nss) starting from cdse nss via cation exchange. ultrathin cu2-xse nss, which cannot be synthesized directly, have been made. during the cation exchange reaction, the morphology and crystal structure of cdse nss was reserved. moreover, these cu2-xse nss are the thinnest nss synthesized by cation exchange. our demonstration indicates that cation exchange is a simple and powerful method for 2d nanomaterials synthesis.then, we elucidate the use of cation exchange to modify layered 2d sns2 nss to non-layered cu2sns3 nss. the resulted cu2sns3 nss maintain the general morphology and crystallinity of starting materials, few-layer sns2. in specific, these cu2sns3 nss have micrometer-sized lateral dimensions and controlled thicknesses by choosing the layer number of initial sns2. our demonstration presents that layered materials can serve as templates for synthesizing non-layered 2d systems via cation exchange. our work provides a bridge between systems of layered and non-layered materials.last, we demonstrate the synthesis of micrometer-sized cdse nss starting from micrometer-sized cuse nss via cation exchange. resulting cdse nss remain the general 2d morphology of the staring materials. having established the synthesis of micrometer-sized cdse nss, we have conducted measurements of local h2 bubble generation on individual ns sample and determined local h2 bubble generation rate on individual photocatalyst. our work provides potential values for fundamental microscopic insights for photocatalysts in h2 generation field. mind wandering is a ubiquitous phenomenon that occurs when attention shifts from external stimuli toward internal, self-generated thoughts. in the context of reading, it has been estimated to occur approximately 20-40% of the time (feng, d'mello, &amp; graesser, 2013; mills, d'mello, &amp; kopp, 2015). mind wandering can have a cascading detrimental effect on reading comprehension, starting with breakdowns at the perceptual level and ending with an overall impaired conceptual understanding of a text (smallwood, 2011). however, little is known about whether interventions can help prevent these cascading negative effects. my dissertation project developed and tested a real-time intervention for mind wandering using self-explanation practices to target deep-level comprehension processes. the goal of this dissertation was to cause a breakdown in the cascading negative effects of mind wandering during reading by detecting its occurrence in real-time and intervening by strengthening an individual's understanding of the text. an eye-gaze based mind wandering detector was used to establish whether a person is mind wandering during reading. when this was the case, the person was asked to self-explain and potentially re-read parts of the text in order to improve their conceptual understanding of what they just read. the experimental condition was compared against two yoked-control conditions: (1) a self-explanation control condition that received the exact same reading conditions and interventions regardless of their mind wandering and (2) a content-break control that received breaks from the reading that were yoked location-wise to the interventions in the experimental condition (but did not receive the self-explanations). results indicate that mind wandering-sensitive interventions indeed promoted better long-term conceptual comprehension compared to the self-explanation yoked control, particularly for parts of the texts where there was no intervention. however, contrary to predictions, the experimental condition did not exhibit higher comprehension scores compared to the content-break condition. the question of christ's wills arises naturally from jesus' prayer in the garden of gethsemane (matthew 26:39). the question gained urgency during the seventhcentury monothelite controversy and was settled by the determination of the third council of constantinople (680-681) that christ had two natural, non-contrary wills, divine and human. thirteenth-century debates, unlike those of the seventh-century, did not involve disagreement about christ's possession of a human will. the dominant concern of thirteenth-century theologians was to affirm the fullness of christ's humanity while denying contrariety of wills in christ. the thirteenth century witnessed developments in the affirmation of christ's full humanity and in strategies for denying contrariety of wills in christ. the foundation for thirteenth-century discussions was peter lombard's sentences. the lombard distinguished christ's will of reason and will of sensuality, arguing that christ willed the passion through reason but shunned it through sensuality. this implies no struggle, because christ's sensuality did not extend beyond its natural limits. rather, this testifies to the truth of christ's humanity. william of auxerre's summa aurea developed a new strategy for noncontrariety, arguing that contrary wills must be in the same genus or part of the soul. the summa fratris alexandri added a division of christ's will of reason, based upon john damascene's distinction between thelesis and boulesis. albert the great and bonaventure rejected william's strategy for non-contrariety and focused instead on the conformity of christ's wills. thomas aquinas' mature presentation of christ's two wills in the summa theologiae benefited from knowledge of patristic and conciliar sources. thomas stressed christ's possession of a perfect human will and perfect free choice (liberum arbitrium). thomas places remarkable stress on the work of christ's human nature as instrument of the divinity causing salvation through efficient instrumental causality. christ's free human will to suffer in the passion causes salvation. god's use of a human instrument to cause salvation fittingly reflects the dignity of human nature in thomas' theology. the past two decades have witnessed the rapid development of droplet microfluidics technologies boosted by the invention and commercialization of single molecule analysis, single cell analysis, and material synthesis in droplets. however, those recently commercialized technologies are expensive for general usage at the point of need/use/care. to make advanced droplet microfluidics technologies more accessible, this systematic work is designed and developed. in chapter 2, a new method is invented and validated for the convenient generation of uniform microdroplets. the effective method takes advantage of the common pipette liquid handling process and simply by replacing the commercial round-orifice pipette tips with elliptical-orifice tips, uniform droplets could be generated via pipetting aqueous liquid into the oil phase. elliptical-orifice tips are prepared by mechanical pressing of the head part of the commercial round-orifice tips to deform the original round orifices into elliptical ones. the higher the deformation degree, the smaller and more uniform the generated droplets. the reason why elliptical orifices help uniform droplet generation is that the rebalance of young-laplace pressure of the pipette-tip-wall-constrained dispersed phase right out of the orifice favors the easy and quick pinch-off of droplets and the process is mainly governed by the surface tension between the dispersed phase and the continuous phase, which means the process is insensitive to moderate flow rate changes and manual pipetting is possible for uniform microdroplet generation. in chapter 3, supporting technologies are developed for stabilizing, assembling, and imaging of microdroplets so that the microdroplets could be more useful at the point of need. to meet the thermal stability requirement of polymerase chain reaction (pcr) in droplets, hybrid surfactant systems are developed to further stabilize droplets for high temperatures. once the droplets are sufficiently stable for applications, robust handling and assembly of droplets are highly welcome. herein, readily available tape-based chips with shallow centers are designed and easily fabricated to immobilize and assemble loaded droplets/oil into monolayers for subsequent handling and imaging. an advantage of the pipetting generated uniform droplets is that the diameters of the droplets are usually larger than 150 um which allows imaging of droplets by smartphone cameras. for fluorescence imaging of the droplets, a common transilluminator with proper filtering could be used together with the smartphone to reveal the positive droplets with amplified fluorescence. in addition, a thousand-dollar handheld miniature fluorescence microscope also works perfectly for point-of-need droplet imaging. in chapter 4, on the basis of the highly accessible droplet generation/stabilization/assembly/imaging techniques, representative droplet microfluidics applications are conducted to confirm the successful usage of pipette droplets as microreactors, microcompartments, and micro-molds/templates at the point of need. the well-known droplet digital polymerase chain reaction (ddpcr) is demonstrated with droplets as microreactors for accurate sras-cov-2 detection and quantification at low viral concentrations. counting-based quantification with smartphone images works well in the dynamic range of 4 – 100 copies (per 20 µl reaction mixture) and the calculated limit-of-detection is ~3.8 copies (per 20 µl reaction mixture) which is comparable to that of commercial ddpcr. besides ddpcr, spirulina microorganisms/cells are encapsulated and cultured in the droplets (proliferation rate: 96.9% ± 1.8%) to show the potential of using pipetting generated droplets as microcompartments for single microorganism/cell analysis. what's more, janus microgels are synthesized in droplets to prove the utilization of droplets as micro-molds/templates for controlled materials synthesis. the three representative examples indicate that pipetting uniform droplets and related techniques are perfect for droplet microfluidics applications at the point of need. in chapter 5, further efforts are made to upgrade the pipette droplet microfluidics. though simple manual pipetting works for uniform droplet generation, automated pipetting is more ergonomic-friendly and suitable for high throughput parallel droplet generation. an open-source stepper-motor-based device is assembled and programmed to automatically pipette liquids into uniform droplets via the elliptical-orifice pipette tips. in addition to the upgrade of droplet generation, droplets are used in duplex/multiplex modes to be more powerful. duplex ddpcr is conducted for accurate dna methylation analysis and multiplex ddpcr is validated for zika/dengue/chikungunya multi-virus rnas test. moreover, dual-droplet systems of two types of droplet sizes are used for the investigation of controlled reactions in droplets. therefore, comprehensive technologies are invented, engineered, optimized, and upgraded for conducting droplet microfluidics applications at the point of need/use/care. traditionally, historians of science have only been interested in islamic science because of its relationship to greek science, and in the ways in which it was instrumental in transporting aristotle, ptolemy and galen to the west. moreover, the successes and failures of islamic science have been judged according to the metric of the scientific revolution. as such, the actual context of the works of islamic scientists and physicians has been overlooked, thereby producing a skewed picture of science in islamic societies. this dissertation seeks to correct this picture by placing islamic medicine firmly within its context. in the process, it provides a new framework with which to understand the relationship between reason and revelation in islamic societies, and suggests new ways to revisit the entire problem of the decline of islamic science. the dissertation specifically examines the corpus of writings of an egyptian physician-jurist, ibn al-naf&#299;s (d. 1288), best known to western historians of science as the discoverer of the pulmonary circulation of blood. although his discovery has been known for a century, there has been no study that situates ibn al-naf&#299;s's discovery within the context of his time. this dissertation seeks to fill that lacuna. focusing on his views on the soul (nafs) and spirit (r&#363;h)--two concepts central to theological discussions about the afterlife and medical physiology, this dissertation positions ibn al-nafis's philosophical and physiological discussions against the background of earlier and contemporary philosophical, medical and theological works. through this contextualization, this study reveals that ibn al-naf&#299;s's new theory of the pulmonary transit of blood is the offspring of his new psychology and physiology. it also reveals that on the basis of his new physiology, ibn al-naf&#299;s rejected the galenic theory of pulsation and posited a new theory in its stead" an important point that has hitherto been missed by historians. moreover, this work reveals that ibn al-naf&#299;s's new physiological and psychological theories are themselves the direct result of his solution to the thirteenth century debates over reason and revelation. consequently, the dissertation problematizes existing historical accounts, and seeks to replace historical models that posit an antagonistic and destructive relationship between reason and revelation during this period. how do we explain great power behavior towards emerging great powers? great powers can either try to stop the emergence of new great powers or they can try to help their rise, either passively by doing nothing to stop them or by actively helping them gain power. which approach does a great power choose in any given situation and why does it do so? surprisingly, no theory has directly addressed this question. the goal of this dissertation is to refine existing theories to answer this question, both by providing explanations of past great power behavior as well as making predictions of how the united states will react in different situations in the future when it faces emerging great powers. i approach this puzzle using a framework that focuses on threat and means. i argue that it is only when both the threat and means are high that a great power will try to stop an emerging great power. when the threat is low, the existing great powers will usually help the rise of the emerging great power in an attempt to accomplish other goals. when the threat is high but the means are low, the great power is forced to appease the emerging great power until it can change its means from low to high. different theoretical approaches to international relations argue that threats and means are measured by different variables. in this dissertation i develop how realism and ideological approaches predict states will measure threats and means. i show that my version of realism is a powerful explanation of great power behavior, and ideology has less explanatory power, by using congruence testing, process tracing, and cross-case comparison on three sets of historical cases: (1) the great powers' reaction to prussia during the wars of german unification; (2) the reaction of the soviet union and the united states to china during the cold war; and (3) the reaction of the united states to a growing china in the post-cold war era. darwinian principles do not develop in isolation from the people who use them. the earliest references to darwin in china appeared in the 1870s through the writings of western missionaries who provided the chinese with the earliest information on evolutionary doctrines. meanwhile, chinese ambassadors, literati, and overseas students contributed to the dissemination of evolutionary ideas with modest effect. the "evolutionary sensation" in china was, instead, generated by yan fu's (1854-1921) tianyan lun, a paraphrased translation of huxley's 1893 romanes lecture "evolution and ethics" and the "prolegomena," with extensive commentaries.from this source "darwin" became famous in china—albeit it was darwin's name, rather than his theory, that reached chinese literati's households. the origin of species began to receive attention only at the turn of the twentieth century. the translation process was haphazard between 1902 and 1920, with the full text of the sixth edition of the origin published only in september 1920. the translator, ma junwu (1881-1940), originally had incorporated non-darwinian doctrines, particularly lamarckian, spencerian and huxleian principles, into his early translation of a portion of the origin (before 1906). in part his work reflected the importance of the pre-existing chinese intellectual background, particularly the progressive evolutionary paradigm presented in tianyan lun. i will elucidate ma junwu's culturally-conditioned reinterpretation of darwin's origin (before 1906), and situate his transformation of darwin's principal concepts within china's broad historical context of the beginning of the twentieth century.the first two decades of the twentieth century were not a golden age for the reception of darwinism. historians developed the descriptor— the "eclipse of darwinism"— to explain the state of affairs prior to the "modern evolutionary synthesis." however, the "eclipse," if it did happen, never delayed the pace of the development of biology in china. this explores the development of science, particularly biology, by describing the establishment of the science society of china in june 1914, and its official publication, kexue (science), which remained the major, if not the only, intellectual site for chinese biologists to debate darwinism in the 1910s. this study illuminates the dissemination of evolutionary ideas through the creative discussions in kexue in the 1910s to test the hypothesis of an "eclipse" in a chinese context and seek a possible answer to the question of why chinese biologists had little interest in the translation of the origin in the 1910s.however, ma junwu, who was a chemist rather than a biologist, resumed his translation in the late 1910s, eventually publishing it in 1920. the differences between ma's first period of translation (before 1906) and that of the second period (1918-1920) are notable. in 1920, ma judiciously resisted the progressive transformism in tianyan lun, and conveyed, relatively precisely, the original darwinian principles in his new translation. ma's complete origin fulfilled one of the most substantial criteria of translation, that is, fidelity to the original text. however, it did not generate an evolution sensation like that tianyan lun had aroused. the chinese origin was published at a moment when the "eclipse" was still dominant, which partially explains why the western-trained chinese biologists did not respond enthusiastically to this publication. nonetheless, this disinterest in orthodox darwinism did not deter the institutionalization of biology in china. a majority of chinese universities established their biology departments in the 1920s, most of which were staffed or led by western-trained biologists; meanwhile, china's first biological research institution was established in 1922. that institutionalization of biology in china opened a new page for the reception of darwinism in china. the "eclipse of darwinism" gradually faded away in the 1930s. chinese biologists continued to be trained in the west, and a new age of biology, in china, was on its way. this dissertation develops a natural law account of social justice and economic rights. in doing so it presents a more compelling and coherent account of the issues than those of the leading right-leaning and left-leaning scholarly positions. but the dissertation focuses primarily on theories from the right that tend to deny, downplay, or reduce the scope of social justice. after an introduction that discusses recent work (on the right) by john tomasi and (on the left) by martha nussbaum, i examine in three chapters the thought of robert nozick, f.a. hayek, and michael zuckert &#8212; contemporary kantians, utilitarians, and lockeans who are the strongest advocates of their respective positions, positions that map on to contemporary partisan positions, and thus are neither strawmen nor irrelevant. in these chapters i decipher what is true in the accounts of social justice and economic rights that they offer &#8212; as well as highlight what a natural law account could offer by way of correction. the dissertation continues with a chapter that develops a theory of natural law, applies that theory to property and economic relations, and discusses the role of the state. here i explain how the rightly appealing aspects of the libertarian state can be accounted for &#8212; without the parallel weaknesses &#8212; and how the natural law approach can add additional strengths usually associated with the left, but without their characteristic weaknesses. the dissertation concludes by presenting six institutions of social justice and applying this theory to three test cases: heath, education and welfare. the result is an account of property rights and duties. the dissertation has three main goals: first, to show what is true about prominent conceptions of social justice and economic rights on the right, and also what is false. second, to develop a natural law account of social justice and economic rights. while much attention from contemporary natural law thinkers has been given to jurisprudence, bioethics, marriage, and the ethics of war, relatively little attention has been given to economic issues, a lacuna that needs to be filled. third, to contribute to contemporary discourse a better framework for thinking about, and a better language for talking about, social justice and economic rights. despite its commitment to the reduction and transformation of various types of violence, the field of peacebuilding largely relies upon westernized forms of knowledge that exclude indigenous and other non-westernized epistemologies. this privileging of certain forms of knowledge and modes of knowledge production risks implicating the field, as presently constituted, in patterns of epistemic violence traceable to the enduring legacies of colonization. decolonial theory challenges westernized scholars and practitioners of peacebuilding to fight this exclusion through the cultivation of a future in which many non-westernized ways of knowing and being in the world can co-exist without fear of erasure—a condition described as pluriversality.drawing insights from decolonial theory, western political theory, and the theory and practice of peacebuilding, this project examines the possibility of developing approaches to peacebuilding dedicated to the pursuit of pluriversality by exploring decolonial claims that certain shared concepts—potentially including peace itself— can function as a "connectors" through which to pursue pluriversal dialogue between westernized and non-westernized ways of knowing and being in the world. however, recurrent failures within the field of peacebuilding to engage in sufficiently equitable dialogue with non-westernized understandings of peace indicate an urgent need for new theoretical and practical resources to enable westernized scholars and practitioners to participate in genuinely pluriversal dialogue. to aid in this process, this project develops a simultaneously deconstructive and dialogical approach to pluriversal dialogue from a westernized positionality that dramatically expands upon existing investigations into the decolonial applications of the work of austrian-british philosopher ludwig wittgenstein. the project then tests the resources toward pluriversal dialogue gleaned from wittgenstein against the "connector" treated at the greatest length in the decolonial literature: democracy. focusing on the work of two western democratic theorists—chantal mouffe and james tully—who draw on similar wittgensteinian resources to engage with non-westernized forms of democratic theory and practice, the project indicates the potential risks and rewards of using these resources as a method of approaching pluriversal dialogue around specific "connectors" from a westernized positionality.the project concludes by returning to the question of whether peace (like democracy) possesses a similar potential to function as a "connector" around which to engage in pluriversal dialogue. given the presence of non-westernized accounts of peace that reflect the decolonial values of pluriversality, the project concludes that pluriversal peacebuilding is possible, but will require a fundamental shift in the epistemic politics of the field of peacebuilding. the activation of inert bonds is often of significance in synthetic chemistry and allows for the facile formation of chemically valuable synthons. reaction conditions are often quite harsh, and transition metal catalysts need additional stability to avoid decomposition. sterically bulky polydentate ligands have been employed to aid in the stabilization of reactive catalytic centers. however, the size of these species can sometimes interfere with catalytic efficiencies by overcrowding reactive sites at the metal center. one approach that synthetic organometallic chemists are employing to resolve this issue is designing ligand scaffolds that play a role in the catalytic cycle. some ligand frameworks merely provide weak secondary interactions that are reversible in order to accommodate incoming substrates. other ligands have been designed to actively participate in the activation of small molecules by undergoing structural changes. we have taken a well studied pnp pincer ligand and created a series of frameworks in which an ancillary aryl substituent has been added to the central nitrogen atom. by doing so, we hoped to take advantage of the reactivity observed previously with pnp chelates in addition to secondary interactions from the pendant aryl substituent. ligands of the formula h(pnarp) (ar = naphthyl, tolyl, anisyl, and phenyl) were synthesized and fully characterized. upon metalation, we observed selectivity in the intramolecular activation of c(sp3)-h, c(sp2)-h, and calkyl-o bonds of the ancillary aryl substituents. via multiple routes, a series of iridium(iii)-dihydride complexes was synthesized: (pnnaphp)ir(h)2, (o-methyl-pntolp)ir(h)2, (o-aryl-pntolp)ir(h)2, (pnphenoxp)ir(h)2, [(pnphenolp)ir(h)2][barf], (o-aryl-pntolp)ir(h)2co and (pnanisp)ir(h)2co. thermal stability and reactivity studies demonstrated that some of the backbones underwent decomposition to new anionic pincer ligands, some of which demonstrated metal-ligand cooperativity in the activation of h2 and iso-propanol. complexes containing an oxygen in the ancillary substituent participated in interesting transformations, such as the romp of nobornene. the multi-agent system of interest is a planar formation control problem, where each agent references a pre-specified number of agents. since the formation control law does not specify the location and orientation of the formation in planar space, continuous symmetries arise. through a previously established methodology, it is possible to calculate the continuous symmetries for a system of second order differential equations. the symmetries were found for a specific neighbor graph and were extended to the general case. the symmetries associated with planar motion were used to define coordinate transformations that reduced the system of interest to one in which the origin is the set of all possible formations. it is now possible to perform stability analysis of the formation by studying the stability properties of the origin of the reduced system. this will be beneficial for showing extended stability properties, like boundedness. the highly dynamic and unpredictable character of mobile ad-hoc networks poses significant challenges for group management. node mobility often changes the multicast tree, and therefore, frequent flooding of updates from group members are required to refresh the multicast tree at the source node. however, the communication overheads resulting from such membership updates are undesirable in ad-hoc networks due to bandwidth constraints. flooding also contributes to congestion and collisions; thereby degrading the performance of group communication. therefore, performing membership updates while minimizing flooding is critical in the bandwidth efficiency of group communication in mobile ad-hoc networks. furthermore, the performance of data distribution can be enhanced by adapting the multicast tree construction scheme to the mobility patterns of the roaming group members. this work proposes a novel strategy to support group communication (multicast) in mobile ad-hoc networks, with a focus on low overheads and resource requirements. a framework, called courier, is proposed thatincludes a number of algorithms and techniques to maintain multicast memberships and to disseminate packets to multiple receivers in networks where all nodes can be mobile. we study two properties of the data-to-solution map associated to the incompressible euler equations of fluid motion. first, we show that the maximum norm of the vorticity controls the breakdown of the solution in the eulerian coordinates for the "little" hölder space. as a consequence we obtain an extension result for local solutions to the incompressible euler equations. second, we prove the non-uniform continuity of the data-to-solution map from bounded subsets of the besov space into the space of continuous curves landing in the besov space. in the periodic case two sequences of bounded solutions are shown to converge at time zero and to remain apart at later times. in the non-periodic case we use the initial values of two sequences of bounded approximate solutions (which converge at time zero and remain apart at later times) to construct two sequences of exact solutions to the incompressible euler equations. using standard energy estimates for solutions to the incompressible euler equations and estimates for a solution to a linear transport equation we show that the distance between the exact and approximate solutions is negligible in the besov norm. finally, we show that the exact solutions initially converge and remain separated at later times. this dissertation argues that fourteenth-century debates about the metaphysics of cognitio were debates about the metaphysics of conscious experience. these medieval debates about conscious experience have been overlooked in the rich secondary literature on medieval philosophy of mind. i call the shift by which conscious experience came to be at the heart of medieval debates about the metaphysics of cognition the "subjective turn." the dissertation traces the subjective turn by examining the thought of several influential scholastics within their contemporary context, focusing especially on peter auriol, adam wodeham, william crathorn, nicholas of autrecourt, and john of ripa. i argue that two deep problems about the nature of conscious experience were central to the subjective turn. one is a problem about intentionality: how does the intentionality of experience, of the way things appear to a subject, relate to the intentionality of what medieval philosophers called similitudines, mental likenesses that represent objects in the world? the other is a problem about consciousness: how does the phenomenon of objects appearing to subjects relate to the phenomenon of subjects being aware of or experiencing their own experiences? the dissertation examines the responses to these problems that emerged during the subjective turn. improving children's "number sense" has been a core component of recent mathematics curricular and instructional reforms (ccss, 2010; nctm, 2000, 2014) in the united states. in support of this goal, mathematics educators have developed a variety of instructional practices designed to improve students' "number sense." one increasingly popular instructional routine is "number talks." developed originally by kathy richardson and ruth parker and popularized by sherry parrish and jo boaler, number talks are 10-15 minute daily exercises where students practice solving problems without pen or paper. by flexibly solving problems and learning from other students' strategies, number talks are claimed to increase students' "number sense" (boaler, 2015; boaler et al., 2018; sun et al., 2018). however, researchers and educators have not measured this hypothesized growth in student "number sense" in any systematic way. therefore, the goal of this project was to develop a measure of student number sense with valid and reliable scores that can be used to assess the impact on student number sense of instructional practices such as number talks. the measure development process and validation results from a sample of 992 5th-12th grade students are presented here. cytoplasmic dynein is a microtubule-based motor protein required for intracellular transport, cell polarization, directed cell movement, and mitosis. during mitosis dynein function is critical at the cell cortex, spindle poles, and kinetochores. kinetochore dynein has been proposed to play a role in microtubule (mt) attachment, chromosome congression, anaphase chromosome movement, and regulation of the spindle assembly checkpoint (sac). several proteins have been implicated in targeting or retaining dynein at kintechores during these activities; however, mechanisms which coordinate kinetochore dynein targeting and function remain unclear. previous work identified a novel mitotic-specific phosphorylation site in the dynein intermediate chains (ics) at threonine 89 (t89). immunofluorescence microscopy (ifm) studies utilizing an antibody against phosphorylated dynein intermediate chain (pt89) has revealed dynein localizes to kinetochores at prometaphase and is progressively dephosphorylated in response to mt attachment, tension, and the kinetochore phosphatase pp1ìäå_ìâå_. in contrast to existing models, initial dynein loading onto kinetochores does not require dynactin but rather a novel phosphorylation-specific interaction with zw10. dephosphorylation switches binding to dynactin which is coupled to transport. this is consistent with dynein's proposed role in stripping checkpoint proteins from metaphase kinetochores. in addition to identifying pp1ìäå_ìâå_ as the dynein phosphatase, aurora b and plk1 have emerged as candidate dynein kinases. inhibitor studies revealed a requirement for both aurora b and plk1 in dynein kinetochore recruitment. furthermore, in vitro kinase (ivk) assays suggest a role for plk1 and not aurora b in generation of the pt89 epitope. spindly is a novel component of the dynein pathway during mitosis and is implicated in linking dynein to kinetochores. however, the specific contributions of spindly to dynein function are not understood. shrna-based depletion of spindly revealed a novel role in anchoring dynactin and the dynactin-dependent population of dynein at kinetochores. in summary, dynein is initially recruited to unattached kinetochores as a phosphoprotein but undergoes dephosphorylation in response to chromosome alignment and this transition induces dynein's poleward motility which functions to silence the sac. overall, these findings provide a better understanding of how kinetochore dynein targeting and function is regulated by phosphorylation. this study quantifies cd adsorption onto the algal species pseudokirchneriella subcapitata's cell wall by applying an equilibrium thermodynamics approach to model the observed adsorption behavior. potentiometric titrations are used to determine deprotonation constants and site concentrations for the functional groups on the algal cell wall. adsorption experiments conducted as a function of ph and total cd concentration yielded the stoichiometry and site-specific stability constants for the important cd-algal surface complexes. the acid/base properties of the cell wall are modeled best by invoking four discrete surface functional group types. application of this surface complexation modeling approach enables quantitative assessment of algal adsorption effects on aqueous metal mobilities. the results suggest that the stabilities of the cd-surface complexes are high enough for algal adsorption to affect the fate and transport of cd, but that on a per gram basis, bacteria exhibit higher buffering capacities and stabilities of the cd-cell wall surface complexes. (al)gan materials have established themselves in high speed and high power ap-plications, owing to their large band gap energies and high anticipated electron saturation velocities. unlike the rapid development of algan/gan high electron mobility transistors (hemts), that of algan/gan heterojunction bipolar transistors (hbts) has been greatly impeded by the highly resistive p-gan material. a proposed solution is to utilize algaas/gaas heterostructures as the emitter-base and keep gan as the collector. com-bining the unity emitter injection efficiency and the large base transport factor of al-gaas/gaas, and the high breakdown field of gan, an algaas/gaas/gan npn hbt is expected to operate at high speed and high power densities. unfortunately, the large lat-tice mismatch between gaas and gan makes it very difficult to epitaxially grow high quality gaas on gan. instead, direct wafer fusion has been used to heterogeneously in-tegrate algaas/gaas and gan for hbt fabrication. encouraging device performance has been achieved in wafer-fused algaas/gaas/gan hbts, demonstrating the feasibili-ty of forming active device regions by direct wafer fusion. by optimizing the wafer fusion and substrate removal process, smooth and conti-nuous (al)gaas films have been obtained on gan. the fused p+-gaas-gan hetero-junctions have been characterized by electrical measurements. a large number of interface states and an electron energy barrier may exist at the fused gaas/gan interface resulting in adverse electron blocking effects at the base-collector junction. a broad range of fusion conditions have been explored and current gain as high as 20 has been achieved in an algaas/gaas/gan hbt fused at 450 ìâå¼c for 2 h. the fused hbts were found to exhibit larger breakdown voltages than the as-grown algaas/gaas/gaas hbts. the first wafer-fused rf hbt has been fabricated and characterized as well. current gain cutoff frequency (ft) of 2.6 ghz and maximum oscillation frequency (fmax) of 1.0 ghz have been obtained in a self-aligned algaas/gaas/gan hbt with an emitter area of 5 ìä' 7 ì_å_m2. finally, various mechanisms limiting the fused hbt performance have been ex-amined and the fused gaas/gan interface is believed to be the dominant factor govern-ing the fused device characteristics. harry g. frankfurt's work on agency and reflexivity represents one of the most important attempts in the current philosophical literature to elaborate the structure of agency. frankfurt wishes to provide an account of what i call the 'deep structures' of agency--those features of agency, such as care and love, in virtue of which the surface features, such as desire, are to be explained and understood. these deep structures are important because of their power to explain unified diachronic patterns in our lives rather than just individual actions. in doing so, frankfurt seeks to be a humean in aristotelian clothing: he desires the richness of a broadly aristotelian moral psychology--specifically, an augustinian variant of this--built out of the resources of a humean human nature in which the 'passions,' or here, those objects we care about, are fundamental. thus frankfurt develops concepts such as second-order desire, identification and dissociation, wholeheartedness, and love without incurring significant metaphysical costs. through these concepts frankfurt provides an account with extraordinary richness. however, i argue that frankfurt's minimalism conflicts with his attempts to provide so rich an account of our moral lives. in particular, his attempt to make caring foundational for practical reason undermines his conception of identification and dissociation. frankfurt's humeanism commits him to a tragic moral universe in which the dissociation of desire is little more than an exercise in self-deception rather than a means of guaranteeing psychic unity. i then argue that a superior account of moral life and the moral self can be constructed through greater reliance upon augustinian ideas concerning the nature of love that is rooted in two concepts: affinity and peace. the concept of affinity provides a basis for evaluating what is worth loving and the concept of peace, central to augustine's moral psychology, is used to analyze the structure of love itself in its many manifestations. this account is less minimalist than frankfurt's but is more faithful to our moral experience and provides a more powerful and nuanced analysis of moral life and the self. this thesis describes an experimental search for the higgs boson. the search has been carried out at the compact muon solenoid experiment using protonproton collisions produced by the large hadron collider. the dataset analyzed corresponds to the 4.6 fb-1 of data taken at &#8730;s = 7 tev during the 2011 running period. this analysis attempts to identify events in which a higgs decays to two tau leptons and one tau decays electronically and the other decays hadronically. a search is performed for a higgs as predicted by the standard model of particle physics, and additionally a search is conducted for a higgs in the context of the minimally supersymmetric standard model. the results are consistent with the background expectations and so upper limits are placed on the higgs production cross-section times the branching ratio to tau leptons. in the standard model higgs search, this analysis is able to exclude a higgs at roughly 5x the standard model prediction. this project examines realism in fiction, film, and television after 1965. questioning the analytic power of terms like "metafiction" and reconsidering the varied legacy of new journalism, i argue that the media-intensive strategies common to newer strains of realism reinvigorate a literary program dating to the nineteenth-century social novel. a commitment to mimetic social reportage obtains in and after postmodernism, with realistic historical fiction emerging in recent years as the dominant mode of narrative art in american consensus culture. the texts i assess index a fascination with crafting a broad-strokes, "non-fiction" political history through a media-intensive, verité style contouring the familiar designs of popular genre fiction. more than identifying continuities between older and newer realisms, the project proposes that realism as a cultural commonplace must be understood as a formal response to a crisis of knowledge, one that is inextricable from the fact of mediation and technology's unrepresentable impact on forms of seeing, knowing, and thinking. the analysis methodologically foregrounds the epistemic connection between technics and technique as this interplay guides representational practices and drives realism's narratological interest in mediation. the dissertation establishes a new critical idiom for describing how different texts theorize the intelligibility of the social through its communication in technological media. focusing on a range of artists including jenji kohan, don delillo, kathryn bigelow, thomas pynchon, terrence malick, and rachel kushner, and assessing texts such as gravity's rainbow and libra alongside zero dark thirty, the wire, and orange is the new black, the project proposes a techno-epistemological account of new realism and shows how media-intensive strategies in docudrama work to theorize, and even justify, the perceived cultural work of narrative art. the conflict in jos, plateau state, nigeria is regarded as a religious conflict pitting muslims and christians. however, other factors such as ethnicity, politics and contests for the use of wetlands in and around jos play a major role in the conflict. because of the bias towards religious causation, peacebuilding efforts by religious actors such as the justice, development and peace commission of the catholic archdiocese of jos, are understudied. in this paper, i argue that although religion is used as a motivating factor in the conflict, it is not the only cause of the conflict, but is interwoven with other socio-political factors. i also argue that the catholic church and its partners in jos address these underlying causes of the conflict through religious, social and agricultural programs. notwithstanding its present efforts which are commendable, i recommend applying the principles of catholic social teaching and strategic peacebuilding as a way of enhancing the church's peacebuilding efforts. this dissertation surveys a range of community visions from the early stages of british colonization of north america. while the political and social aspects of the settlements have been studied extensively, the softer matters of interpersonal ties of mutual care have only been partially addressed through affect studies. engaging with various seventeenth-century colonial texts, i bring out diverse attempts to bind the settlers in each location into a coherent whole. after an introduction that establishes the basic terms of the discussion through john winthrop's "a modell of christian charity," i begin with ralph hamor, a minor figure from early jamestown who articulates a unique vision of a joint anglo-native community. john smith, read through a communal lens, shows a deep split between an ideal communal aspiration and an opposing tendency toward authoritarian violence. william bradford's separatism shows in his persistent concern with community boundaries, which, properly attended to, reconciles the traditional declension reading with newer economic history approaches. roger williams takes a step further and completely dissociates spiritual communion from practical questions of earthly cohabitation, countering his frequent misapprehension as a multiculturalist liberal before his time. anne bradstreet, commonly recognized for her personal lyrics, uses the family and gender structures as a fundamental underpinning of political community throughout the broad reaches of her writing. the conclusion briefly revisits the case studies in formulating a counter to nationalist appropriations of early colonial community visions. understanding the hydraulic response during high energy events such as hurricanes and tsunamis is a problem of significant importance to coastal communities, as well as industries which have infrastructure along coastal waters. due to the large range of temporal and spatial scales present during these events it isn't possible to fully study them in a laboratory setting and thus computational models are the standard approach to simulating hurricanes and tsunamis. the current suite of ocean circulation models used in the coastal hydraulics community solve the hydrostatic depth--averaged shallow water equations (swe) which are adept at representing the hydraulic response to the hurricane wind and pressure forces and the ensuing storm surge runup along the coast but are unable to capture the higher frequency gravity and infragravity waves that are generated nearshore. through the use of boussinesq scaling a model is developed for resolving non--hydrostatic pressure profiles in nonlinear wave systems over varying bathymetry. in contrast to standard boussinesq--type models, the model developed here focuses on solutions to the well known pressure--poisson problem, with the advantage that the pressure--poisson equations are a stand alone set of equations which do not exhibit mixed space/time derivatives. the result is a boussinesq--type pressure--poisson model (ppbouss) that can be solved in a separate module and then coupled back into the swe model. this allows for the straightforward modification of established swe solvers to turn them into fully resolved nearshore models with very little structural change to the underlying swe model and without the need to solve mixed space/time derivatives. use of a green--naghdi type polynomial expansion for the pressure profile in the vertical axis reduces the dimensionality of the pressure--poisson problem to only two dimensions, significantly reducing computational cost. the resulting model shows rapid convergence properties with increasing order of polynomial expansion which can be greatly improved through the application of asymptotic rearrangement. an optimum choice of basis functions in the green--naghdi expansion provides significant improvements in the dispersion, shoaling and nonlinear properties of the model, for example achieving fourth order dispersive accuracy in a formally second order model, and eighth order dispersive accuracy in a formally fourth order model. various numerical approaches to solving and coupling the ppbouss model are discussed including application of finite difference and finite element methods. demonstration of the improvement in nearshore accuracy through application of the ppbouss model is shown through coupling with the unstructured mesh discontinuous galerkin shallow water equation model (dgswem). a straightforward numerics based wave breaking algorithm is employed in the nearshore and wave runup is captured using a globally mass conservative wetting/drying algorithm specifically designed for discontinuous galerkin finite element models. the model is verified and validated using analytical and experimental results for both the fully nonlinear $o(mu^2)$ and weakly nonlinear $o(mu^4)$ implementations. myxobacteria are a group of gram-negative bacteria that act in a 'social' manner. this is most noticeable in the production of the fruiting bodies while cells are under starvation. the social aspect is also evident during swarming, or coordinated expansion of a colony with sufficient nutrient. in this thesis, both fruiting body formation and swarming of myxobacteria are modeled. it is demonstrated that a modified lattice gas cellular automata model of cells with reversals is capable of aggregation and mounding in fruiting body formation. in the model, the amount of spores produced reaches a maximum at a reversal frequency similar to that found in experiments. swarming of cells with a and s motility is also modeled as a modified lattice gas cellular automata, and s-motility in an off-lattice manner. a wealth of developmental research has focused solely on identifying factors and linking them to resilient or psychopathological outcomes. risk and protective factors, however, are not static, and the experience of a stressor is not necessarily universal. the purpose of this longitudinal study was to elucidate the nature of one protective factor, social support, following conjugal loss in older adulthood. drawing from data collected as part of the notre dame adjustment to widowhood study, this study investigated social support following bereavement using mixed (quantitative and qualitative) methods. first, the trajectories of social support were examined using quantitative indicators of satisfaction with social support following the death of a husband through 98 days of daily assessment. second, the core themes of social support in the lives of older widows were examined using qualitative methods. third, the findings from quantitative and qualitative analyses were examined together to inform each other and better understand the role of social support in resilience process. to meet the energy needs of tomorrow, next generation rechargeable batteries that have high energy density and consist of sustainable materials are in dire need of development. of the many so called "beyond-li-ion" chemistries being explored, the metal-sulfur battery chemistry is especially attractive due to its material sustainability and high theoretical energy density. this thesis presents work to fill critical gaps regarding control of ion transport in next-generation batteries, both for more general concerns such as increasing cationic conductivity, and for concerns specific to sulfur-based batteries like the polysulfide shuttle. specifically, this work raises the following questions: what are the structure-chemistry-property relationships for crosslinked gel-polymer electrolytes, and can those relationships be used to intelligently engineer ion-regulating functional polymers for better performing batteries? to answer those questions, the use of structural, electrostatic, and dielectric means to control ion transport in crosslinked gel-polymer electrolytes are investigated. regarding cationic transport, it is demonstrated here that by changing the crosslinker chemistry in polymer electrolytes designed for li, na, k, and ca systems that cation transport can be enhanced. specifically, reducing the oxygen density in the polymer network for gel electrolytes was found to enhance cation mobility by discouraging cation coordination with the polymer network. this approach led to an order of magnitude increase in cationic conductivity for select cases.now consider the polysulfide shuttle effect, wherein active material intermediates known as polysulfides escape the battery cathode, leading to fast capacity fading. demonstrated here is that cross-linked polymer gels with the right balance of segmental dynamic inhibiting ionic aggregates, highly dissociable tethered anions, and low polarity crosslinking monomers can repel polysulfides, helping to immobilize them in the cathode of magnesium-sulfur batteries. for li-s batteries, a similar relationship between capacity improvement and lower polymer dielectric constant is observed. further, it is shown that unless the cross-linked polymer is porous or sufficiently tough, li-s batteries using polymer gel electrolytes will suffer quick and catastrophic dendritic failure. to contextualize the mg-s results and provide deeper insight, liquid electrolytes from the literature were investigated and a largely undescribed phenomenon of mg-s self-discharge was observed and explored. understanding the mechanism and kinetics of this self-discharge reaction helps to interpret both future and past results of polysulfide shuttle inhibiting polymers. with the knowledge of serious self-discharge in mg-s batteries, a siloxane-based gel polymer electrolyte was designed and found to improve performance owing to the low polysulfide solubility in the polymer gel. the low solubility leads to minor improvements in terms of self-discharge and a boost in cell efficiency. taken in totality, the work presented here lays the foundation for directed engineering of gel polymer electrolytes that meet the specific ion transport needs of next-generation rechargeable batteries. this thesis describes potential flow models as first-order design tools for the application of plasma actuation as plasma flaps on airfoils and wings. the premise for this work is born from research indicating that a constant increment of lift enhancement can be achieved through the use of plasma actuation on the surface of airfoils. through comparisons to real actuation, a doublet was selected as the potential flow device used to mimic a plasma actuator in the presence of a freestream flow. an objective relationship was developed to scale the doublet strength based on the local velocity at the point of the desired actuation. using this relationship and a modified smith-hess panel code, the initial lift enhancement results were reproduced. using the methods developed, predictive investigations were performed using the doublet model to explore trends that have not yet been measured experimentally. additionally, using the plasma flap results, roll moments were considered. by comparing to a general aviation aircraft, the usefulness of the flaps was examined. complex systems often result in intractable mathematical models when classical methodological reduction methods are used in modeling. as a result, reduction methods more holistic in nature are normally used to avoid modeling on a component scale. in this dissertation, several new reduction methods are proposed with the intent of extending the application of classical methodological reduction methods to complex systems. as a motivating example, a large scale self-similar potential-driven tree network is used as a model complex system. in the linear case, the self-similarity present in the physical system is translated to a self-similarity in the mathematical model. this is in turn used to analytically reduce an otherwise intractable dae system to a much simpler ode. it is also shown that for very large systems, it can sometimes be advantageous to approximate the system as infinite in scale. in the non-linear case, two numerical algorithms are presented to simplify dynamic analysis of piping networks. these methods are based on chorin's multi-step projection method for solving the navier-stokes equations. in addition to the self-similar tree network, other self-similar network structures are considered. in particular, grid-like networks are considered, and potential reduction methods are proposed. finally, in the course of studying the self-similar potential-driven tree network the appearance of fractional-order derivatives is noted several times. based on this observation, fractional-order system identification is proposed as an extension of typical black-box reduction methods and experimental data acquired from a shell-and-tube heat exchanger is used to demonstrate its usefulness. while the analysis presented is in terms of potential-driven transport networks, it should be noted that the specific examples used were chosen for their simplicity. but the methods used should be more generally applied to the reduction of self-similar complex systems, and even more generally, to large equation sets and dae systems. futhermore, the repeated appearance of fractional-order operators, and as a special case, fractional-order derivatives and integrals, suggest a very rich relationship between self-similar complex systems and fractional calculus. a growing body of scholars has noticed the crucial importance of the concept of the soul (usually conceived as rational, immaterial, and immortal) to literature by englishwomen writing during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. but a survey has yet to be undertaken of how this important concept functioned in literature written in the eventful period between 1660 and 1800. the entrance of englishwomen into the sphere of professional publication at this time coincided with england's rise to prominence as a stable, protestant world power. the dissertation will examine the avenues of agency that the concept of the soul gave writers during a period of historic change-in the public representations of women, of the english nation as an 'imagined community,' and of the novel as a literary form. the relationship of the english people to temporal authority (church, state, and king) shifted radically in the seventeenth century. the shift gave women opportunities to use the concept of the soul to negotiate their unique relationship to temporal authority. england had premised its rejection of catholicism and absolutism on the basis of its allegiance to liberty and freedom of conscience. women were able to use the nation's protestant identity to question the legitimacy of their legal subordination in england. new relationships to literature also developed. literacy rose, print publication replaced manuscript coterie writing, and the vernacular became increasingly favored over latin as the language in which to disseminate ideas. these developments encouraged women to participate in literary discourse. many writers used the concept of the immortal soul to assert that personal identity was based on individual connection to the divine. because the term 'soul' was associated with individual spiritual identity and public religious identity, it enabled women to engage in debates about national concerns while claiming that their duties were not limited to obeying temporal authority. they were able to represent themselves as being part of the nation, without being compelled to accept their current status within it. the concept of the soul enabled women to articulate new visions of women's place in society through the use of a culturally-legible discourse. natural language processing (nlp) models the different techniques computers use to understand and interpret human languages. nlp covers a wide range of sub-topics such as syntax (analyzing if words in an utterance are well arranged), semantics (understanding the meaning of combined words), and discourse. most state-of-the-art nlp systems feed large amounts of natural language text into different models for training and testing. one problem with natural language corpora is the unbalanced frequency of rare terms against commonly used words. the word-level frequency in natural language creates irregular sparsity patterns, and these patterns generate sparse data structures that do not perform well on parallel architectures. asynchronous methods work best on specific sparse distributions. ideally, the entire computation time should be spent on dense values only, and computation time on sparse elements should be minimized.graphics processing units (gpu) are widely used to process a large quantity of operations in parallel. a problem with the use of these accelerators is that not all computation problems can be parallelized, and some parallel adaptations run slower than a serial cpu counterpart. using gpus to process sparse structures of different sizes poses additional problems. a large part of the computation time will be spent on sparse regions if the parallel implementations do not take advantage of the partially dense properties of the input.significant speedups are achieved when a parallel implementation is tailored to the sparsity pattern of the problem being solved and the targeted architecture. our work adapts methods used in nlp to run efficiently on a parallel architecture using high performance computing concepts. all contributions focus mainly on the gpu device designed to carry out a large amount of computations faster than several off-the-shelf cpu architectures. this dissertation covers different adaptations of sparse nlp algorithms to the gpu architecture. we carry out experiments using different gpu architectures and compare the performance on different datasets. our results demonstrate that gpu adaptations can significantly reduce the execution time of different sparse nlp algorithms: 6000x speedup on the viterbi task, 4.5x speedup on the composition task, 7x speedup on a batched forward-backward method, and 50x improvement on batched operations seen in deep learning. the united states public yearns for statesmen who can transcend the limited scope of the average politician, but does have a precise model for great statesmanship. this dissertation draws a theory of statesmanship from the political thought and actions of alexander hamilton in three parts. first, the statesman requires a type of knowledge of the political origins of the body politic and the ability to explain to a given people a more perfect understanding of the nature of their regime and their relationship to it. hamilton centered his early statesmanship on this task as he interpreted the revolutionary statements and actions of the continental congress. he began with the public consensus that the american body politic was connected with free government and elucidated its natural rights source and the principle foundations of the english constitution and colonial charters which put it into practice. second, the statesman requires knowledge about how to fit a form of government and political institutions to a particular regime. this component of a statesman's political science politics is important for founders as well as those who follow, for even these must have a form toward which they strive in order to recognize the difference between improvement and decay. in the apex of hamilton's political career he distinguished two regimes&mdash;free and absolute&mdash;and offered a multi-tiered proposal on forms of government suited for the perpetuation of the free regime, accounting for the habits, mores, and present opinions of its citizens. finally, the statesman requires a theory of civil society that looks to the future health of the body politic by considering the relationship of other relevant spheres of social interaction and their effect on the attachment between a people and their government. hamilton's nascent theory of civil society emerges from his ideas on the place of religion, education, and civil associations in america. i conclude that hamilton need not have been a model statesman to have provided us with a viable theory of statesmanship&mdash;one capable of meeting the long held public demand in the united states for more complete political leadership. the objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of various mechanical loading scenarios on osseointegration of an additively manufactured surface coating for orthopedic implants. in order to mimic the implant's geometry and structure, a specific three-dimensional finite element model with a volumetric porosity of 80% was established. the mechano-regulatory tissue differentiation algorithm developed by prendergast et al. as modified by liu et al., as well as the modified bone pathway algorithm, were implemented. with the applied compressive and shear displacements, the simulation can predict tissue differentiation in the interface between host bone and a porous scaffold coating. the results were compared for the different algorithms and levels of applied micromotion with four major conclusions. first, the model without any loading resulted in resorption of the entire interface. second, the application of the smoothing procedure ensured the outcomes provide a continuous process of gradually evolved tissue differentiation. third, most of the differences between the two different computational algorithms were seen in the early iterations, while the overall tissue distributions were similar at the completion of the simulation. fourth, low levels of shear micromotion stimulated successful bone ingrowth in the model, while 20 µm or higher shear micromotion caused the interface's failure, which is similar to the clinical outcome for similar ingrowth surfaces. a chemical vapor deposition/infiltration reactor used to manufacture carbon aircraft brakes has been simulated numerically. this simulation accounts for a homogeneous gas reaction mechanism as well as a heterogeneous surface reaction mechanism. non-boussinesq equations are used to predict fluid flow, heat transfer, and species concentrations inside the reactor and porous brakes. a time-splitting algorithm is used to overcome stiffness associated with the reactions. a commercial code is used to solve for the convection/diffusion step while an implicit time-integration algorithm is used to solve for the reaction step. results showing the flow, temperature and concentration fields, as well as the deposition rate of carbon, are presented. the direct solution of large scale coupled nonlinear differential algebraic equations (dae) is extremely difficult if not impossible to obtain. moreover, such solution is beyond the capability of present computers for unsteady and multidimensional problems that include, multi-species, gas phase as well as surface chemical reactions, and surface to surface radiation. therefore, we propose an integration procedure that employs the projection (fractional-step) method for the solution of the momentum equation. this method is based on operator decomposition where the pressure is obtained by solving a poisson equation followed by a projection or correction step for the velocity field so that it satisfies the conservation of mass equation. in addition we use a symmetric strang operator-splitting algorithm to overcome stiffness that arises from chemical reactions. arrian presents two conflicting summaries of alexander the great's character in his anabasis. this thesis explains how this conflict can be resolved through analysis of arrian's identity as a roman greek, his reliance on the classical literary tradition, and the social and political background of the second century a.d. this project presents a principled and systematic approach to how to understand natural modality taking powers as an ontological (and modal) primitive. the project is divided in two main parts.in the first part of the dissertation, i identify the aspects of scientific practice that bear on our understanding of natural possibility and necessity. then, i argue that attention to scientific practice suggests that laws of nature are not the only relevant source of information about what scientific theories tell us about natural modality. rather, i argue that, in order to do justice to the variety and complexity of practices involving modal reasoning in science, we should take into account many other modal concepts such as those of dispositions and mechanisms.in the second part of the dissertation, i develop a scientifically informed conceptual framework that systematically accounts for the information about what is naturally possible encoded in a wide variety of modal concepts including laws of nature, but also dispositions and mechanisms. this conceptual framework takes dispositional properties (also known as `powers') as modally and explanatorily primitive in order to provide a systematic account of the modal features of dispositions, mechanisms, and laws of nature. the resulting conceptual framework allows us to (i) accommodate a wide range of natural necessities, including natural necessities with different scopes, degrees of generality and strictness, as well as natural necessities with different degrees of modal force; (ii) systematically account for the variety of natural possibilities we find in scientific practice; and (iii) provide truth conditions for counterfactual conditionals regarding natural modality. as the scope of accelerator mass spectrometry (ams) expands, there is an increased need to research isobaric separation in the medium-heavy mass region. existing ams facilities are limited in their ability to separate medium to heavy radioactive nuclei of interest from their neighboring stable isobars, as such measurements require higher energies than available in most facilities. the argonne tandem linac accelerator system (atlas) at argonne national laboratory (anl) can accelerate isotopes to the energies required for the separation of high mass isobars, and the argonne gas-filled analyzer (agfa) setup at atlas, specifically designed to study heavy, rare isotopes, has the necessary magnetic rigidity to facilitate their measurement. a feasibility test to see if agfa could be used to conduct ams measurements occurred in november, 2019, and succeeded in separating the stable isobars 92zr and 92mo. a new multi-anode ionization chamber, monica, was then built to enhance the ion identification for medium to heavy mass isotopes using agfa and to aid in noble gas ams (nogams) measurements. monica underwent four commissioning runs at the nuclear science laboratory at the university of notre dame utilizing si, fe, zr, and mn beams. upon returning to atlas, monica was placed in the enge split-pole spectrograph for the study of the 40ar(n, 2n)39ar(t1/2=268 y) and the novel, ultra-low level detection of 42ar (33 y) using ams, as part of a collaboration with the national ignition facility (nif). monica was then successfully commissioned to be used with agfa for ams measurements through a study of 92nb utilizing a newly-developed set-up. due to the exceptional transmission property of optical fiber and the development of high-performance optoelectronic components, microwave photonic links have been used in many applications, including radio-over-fiber systems, optical beam forming and optical signal processing. to reduce insertion loss and enhance dynamic range in the microwave photonic links, it is crucial to implement high-power and high-linearity photodiodes. a promising candidate for this application is the uni-travelling-carrier photodiode (utc-pd), which mitigates the space charge effect by using electrons as the only active carrier, thereby increasing the saturation current. in this work, an ingaas/inp modified utc-pd (mutc-pd) is simulated, fabricated and characterized. the mutc-pd electrostatics are first calculated using synopsys sentaurus tcad, which provides insight and illustrates the device saturation mechanism (i.e. space charge effect). it is also found that a "cliff layer" (e.g. lightly-doped inp layer inserted between the absorption and collection layer) helps suppress the space charge effect under high-illumination conditions and improves the device high power handling capability. an ingaas/inp mutc-pd epitaxial structure grown by mocvd has also been processed into a frontside-illuminated photodiode by using optical lithography, wet and dry etch processes, dielectric planarization and metallization. the performance of these fabricated photodiodes were evaluated by measuring dark current, responsivity and bandwidth. finally, the device's thermal behavior has been explored by way of matlab simulation. since thermal heating limits the photodiode ultimate high-power performance, different thermal management strategies, like wafer transfer and heat sink, have been simulated and are compared. faced with unsustainable costs and enormous amounts of under-utilized data, health care needs more efficient practices, research, and tools to harness the benefits of data. these methods create a feedback loop where computational tools guide and facilitate research, leading to improved biological knowledge and clinical standards, which will in turn generate better data. in order to facilitate the necessary changes, better tools are needed for assessing risk and optimizing treatments, which further require better understanding of disease interdependencies, genetic influence, and translation into a patient's future. this dissertation explores network-centric data mining approaches for benefit in multiple stages of this feedback loop: from better understanding of disease mechanisms to development of novel clinical tools for personalized and prospective medicine. applications include predicting personalized patient disease risk based on medical history, optimizing nicu nursing schedules to reduce negative effects, and predicting novel disease-gene interactions. high data rate and high mobility are two major challenging requirements for future wireless communication systems. to meet such demanding requirements, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (ofdm) has been considered a viable technique. high spectral efficiency, effective multipath and noise immunity, flexible resource allocation and being easy to integrate with other techniques are some of the major advantages of ofdm modulations. nevertheless, ofdm also has its drawbacks that include high-peak-to-average power ratio and sensitivity to synchronization errors. this dissertation addresses one of the critical issues in the development and implementation of ofdm systems, namely, synchronization. focusing on continuous ofdm transmission, we utilize the acquired (i.e., either known or estimated) channel statistics to improve the synchronization performance and to simplify the process. for timing synchronization, we consider fine timing and propose a maximum likelihood (ml) timing estimation scheme. this proposed scheme is further developed for integer and real-valued precision implementations. our analysis and simulation results showed that, compared to conventional methods, the proposed algorithm provides significantly improved performance, measured by timing error variance. the improved timing error variance will in turn benefit the ofdm system performance. for carrier synchronization, we have investigated the existing schemes for channel estimation and fine carrier estimation, and proposed a carrier frequency offset (cfo) estimation scheme based on time-domain channel estimates. the proposed method is, in essence, an ml estimate utilizing cfo information embedded in the phase rotation of the estimated channel multipaths. the ml cfo estimate is extended to the time-variant fading case to further explore the performance gain under fading channels. the proposed scheme yields excellent performance with reduced complexity. it also has the advantage of less restriction on pilot patterns. in recent years, multiple-input multiple-output (mimo) wireless communication systems have received a lot of attention. in particular, mimo-ofdm appears to be one of the most promising techniques for future 4g systems. we extended our proposed ofdm timing and carrier synchronization schemes to mimo cases. specially, we developed cfo estimation schemes for mimo-ofdm. it is shown that the cfo estimation can benefit from receiver diversity gain under the setting of mimo systems. a comb-pilot based mimo-ofdm system is studied in detail to illustrate the idea of estimating the cfo based on channel estimates. again, the resulting cfo estimate has the attractive feature of not requiring specific pilot design. a search for lepton flavour violation higgs decay in the *h → µτh* and*h → eτh* in which tau leptons decay hadronically is presented. the search of tau lepton hadronic decay channels and the searches that are combined with tau lepton leptonic decays are presented. the h-&gt;e tau_h search utilizes the 2012 proton-proton collision dataset at lhc with an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb^(-1) at a center-of-mass energy of 8 tev collected by cms experiment. no significant excess was observed. the upper limits on branching fraction is b &lt; 0.69 and the corresponding yukawa coupling is set as y_etau &lt; 2.4x10^(-3) at 95% cl. for the h-&gt;mu tau_h search, the full 2016 proton-proton collision dataset with an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb^(-1) at a center-of-mass energy of 13 tev was used. no significant excess was observed. the upper limits on branching fraction h-&gt;mu tau is b &lt; 0.25% and the corresponding yukawa coupling is set as y_mutau &lt; 1.43x10^(-3) at 95% cl. cancer progression can be described as a continuum ranging from normal, healthy tissue to advanced metastatic disease. in epithelial tissues, glandular disruption and loss of epithelial integrity are salient features of early tumorigenesis. continued advancement results in cells penetrating the basement membrane, invading neighboring tissue and finally forming distant metastases. this study examines the role of the arf6 gtpase during tumor progression and describes cellular events that promote the loss of glandular architecture and the regulation of cell invasion. we begin by quantifying the impact of unregulated arf6 signaling on epithelial glandular morphology. constitutive activation of arf6 in renal epithelial cells (mdck), or chronic csf-1r stimulation in mammary epithelial cells (mcf-10a), grown in 3-dimensional reconstituted basement membrane cultures leads to the disruption of normal glandular architectures. these changes are dependent on arf6-regulated endocytosis and accompanied by internalization of surface receptors and activation of the map kinase pathway. inhibiting endocytosis or erk signaling results in the reversion of abnormal epithelial cysts/acini to normal glandular morphologies. we go on to demonstrate that the multilumen phenotype in arf6-gtp epithelial cysts results from a spindle orientation defect. this defect is caused by the formation of signaling endosomes, containing the receptor tyrosine kinase c-met, which are formed as a result of elevated levels of arf6-gtp. in addition to glandular disruption, arf6 activation has profound effects on cell invasion, in particular the shedding of invasive microvesicles. this dissertation outlines a mechanism through which the protease mt1-mmp is trafficked into nascent microvesicles via association with the snare protein vamp3. vamp3 knockdown results in the release of microvesicles lacking endogenous mt1-mmp that are incapable of matrix degradation. additionally, vamp3 depletion diminishes the ability of melanoma cells to invade through layers of extracellular matrix in an amoeboid manner by disrupting a cd9/bap31/vamp3/mt1-mmp trafficking complex. finally, upon release, arf6, mt1-mmp and vamp3 positive microvesicles can be isolated from ascites and serum of ovarian cancer patients. along with markers being investigated for use in ovarian cancer diagnostics, we?ve confirmed the inclusion of nucleic acids among the repertoire of microvesicle cargo. together these studies identify the impact of membrane traffic and its regulation on tumor formation via glandular disruption and cell invasion. the performance of a compressor stator airfoil was studied experimentally and computationally. in gas-turbine engines, stators are located directly downstream of rotor blades and contribute to the static pressure rise in the compressor. the experimental setup utilized a high-speed, subsonic linear cascade. the independent variables studied were airfoil incidence angle and mass flow rate of end-wall injection upstream of the stator. the end-wall injection was intended to simulate upstream "leakage" through hardware gaps in the end-walls of gas-turbine engines. the exit of the cascade was interrogated by a five-hole-probe and a total pressure kiel probe to provide total pressure measurements, which were used to calculate total pressure loss coefficients at the exit of the test section. computational studies were completed to examine the end-wall flow physics and entropy generating mechanisms through the stator section. the experimental results showed a distinct decrease in the downstream total pressure field with end-wall injection flow, and the impact of the upstream injection on the stator loss coefficient was not a function of the incidence angle. the computational investigation found that the majority of the end-wall injection's effect on the downstream total pressure field was observed as an increase in the size of the secondary flows on the suction-side of the stator near the upper end-wall. in the past decades, the demand for high-performance computing systems has arisen quickly due to the exponentially growing amount of data that needs to be processed daily. however, the performance improvement of computing systems is now facing two main challenges: 1) moore's law has slowed down as the tech node enters the single-digit era, and 2) the gap between the performance of processor and memory is growing by 30% every year, which leads to "the memory wall" problem.monolithic 3d integration is a promising approach to overcoming these two challenges. in the monolithic 3d integrated circuits (m3d-ics), each layer of devices is directly built on top of the previous layers, and different layers are connected through the monolithic-interlayer-vias (mivs). this approach can provide higher transistor density without scaling the transistor size and higher bandwidth due to its high-density mivs.this approach's main challenge is forming a high-quality active layer on top of the isolation layer within the beol-compatible thermal budget (&lt; 400 °c). the performance of most traditional semiconductor materials formed within this thermal budget is highly degraded due to their low crystallinity. unlike conventional materials, amorphous oxide semiconductor (aos) is a class of semiconductor materials that can maintain high mobility at the amorphous state because of their special band structure. this unique property makes it a strong candidate as the active layer material in m3d-ics.this dissertation mainly evaluated the capability of indium tungsten oxide (iwo), a high-mobility aos material, to be used as the channel material for high-performance beol-compatible transistors. it explored its potential applications in monolithic 3d integrated memory. to begin with, a beol-compatible back-gate and dual-gate process of iwo transistor with the high-k gate dielectric was developed. it demonstrated an ultra-scaled dual-gate iwo transistor with well-targeted vth, excellent electrostatic control, and the highest drive current among all other enhancement-mode aos transistors. in addition, an iwo-transistor-based 2t-capacitorless dram with a long retention time is proposed and experimentally demonstrated for the first time. moreover, an il-free iwo ferroelectric transistor, based on our first proposed w-sacrificial-layer process, was also demonstrated, which showed the highest memory window, endurance, and read/write speed, as compared to other aos ferroelectric transistors. the present study examined body-image components of the gender-additive model of depression and tested whether these mediational processes were significant for boys as well as girls. early adolescents (73 boys, 91 girls) completed well-developed self-report measures of depressive symptoms, body dissatisfaction, thin-ideal internalization, self-esteem, and pubertal development. their height and weight were also measured. the structural equation modeling approach to path analysis was used to test the mediation models. the results indicated that for girls, self-esteem mediated the relation between thin ideal and depressive symptoms, and for boys, both self-esteem and body dissatisfaction mediated the relation between thin-ideal internalization and depressive symptoms. body dissatisfaction did not completely mediate the relation between body mass and depressive symptoms for boys or girls. these models were also examined with self-esteem as a proxy-dependent variable for depressive symptoms. our findings indicated that there were gender similarities in the mediational processes proposed by the gender-additive model. adaptive transmission systems improve the throughput of wireless communication systems by utilizing some knowledge of the channel state to adapt or allocate transmitter resources. this dissertation investigates the acquisition of channel state information for adaptive transmission systems. departing from the common assumption that the feedback channel is error free, we model the feedback channel as a practical wireless channel with fading and additive noise attributes. we show that feedback errors could significantly reduce the gains promised by adaptive transmission. subsequently, we propose feedback receivers that exploit some knowledge of the channel statistics to mitigate the performance degradation caused by the feedback channel. this work is extended to multiuser systems, where new problems are investigated, namely, quantization errors coupled with feedback errors, and multi-access interference. system. finally, we consider csi acquisition for transmit antenna selection and discuss the tradeoffs between capacity gain and training. a reduced complexity suboptimal search algorithm is also developed using the channel's temporal correlation. throughout the history of modern medicine the observation of patient characteristics, health, and treatment has been driven by a desire to advance knowledge around human health and in turn better inform the practice and administration of healthcare. captured through both practice and research such observations have provided the foundation on which evidence-based medicine was built. however, the advent of digitized health and wellness data has resulted in a volume of information so large it can no longer be reasonably expected that an individual can consume it. in response healthcare has turned to analytical approaches, combining statistics, machine learning, and computer science methodologies, to foster the growth of a field known as health informatics. drawing on data collected from entities around the globe, health informatics has successfully delivered the capability to identify and extract "best practices" amid the breadth of data available. yet these practices alone have often been insufficient in advancing healthcare knowledge, as the utilization of data to apply practices to new individuals and scenarios fulfills only one objective of learning as famously defined by benjamin bloom. this dissertation will present the notion that informatics techniques now provide an opportunity to advance health knowledge by providing evidence in a manner that realizes a broader set of bloom learning objectives from understanding to synthesis. accordingly, the work presented in this document is broken into three distinct sections, each examining informatics' role in addressing a grouping of bloom's learning objectives. it will first highlight the ability of informatics to provide a deeper understanding of health data and models employed in practice and research. it next focuses on the ability of informatics to analyze and apply data, presenting novel models and metrics to augment existing workflows rather than replace them. finally, it explores how informatics can evaluate current processes and formulate data to not only explain what is observed, but to advance and inform new knowledge around health practices and even the data itself. americans have long been prone to conflict over moral values and their appropriate role in society. as a result, moral issues frequently play a critical and divisive role in u.s. politics. however, the process by which individuals apply their moral judgments to politics is still poorly understood. moral judgments and legal positions are distinct, as evidenced by an overlooked but consistent gap in opinion over time on the morality and legality of various moral issues. i contend that one's perceived level of moral knowledge, which i call moral confidence, accounts for this variation in respondents' willingness to translate their moral beliefs into legal positions. to test this theory, i leverage preexisting and original survey data to demonstrate the persistence of a morality-legality gap in opinion across the issues of abortion, homosexuality, capital punishment, and physician-assisted suicide. furthermore, i demonstrate that moral confidence explains this gap; those with lower moral confidence are more likely to hold incongruous moral and legal opinions. moreover, many respondents overestimate their moral knowledge, which leads them to take more extreme political positions on moral issues. indeed, experimental evidence suggests that respondents moderate their positions on moral issues when prompted to actually explain their moral beliefs. thus, how much we know—or think we know—about right and wrong determines how forcefully we apply our moral beliefs to politics. visualization has long been integral to this era of data proliferation. researchers and practitioners have focused on designing innovative visual displays, implementing sophisticated visualization tools, and developing interaction techniques to support data exploration and analysis. recently, a growing community of visualization researchers has also emphasized the storytelling and communication potential of visualizations. the concept of visual storytelling is not new. news organizations and scientific platforms often use narrative content and visualizations to tell data-rich stories. however, a deeper understanding of the coupling of text and visualization in storytelling remains underexplored. this thesis examines the combination of text and visualization in visual storytelling for data communication. specifically, we investigated the coupling of text and visualization in four distinct phases. first, we conducted a crowdsourced study to understand different forms of the integration of text and visualization in current visual stories. second, we developed gameviews, an interactive visualization system to support sportswriters and fans in forming their narratives for storytelling. third, we presented gamerecapper to facilitate the creation of visual stories with automatically generated text and visual insights. finally, we designed gamechat to explore how to communicate data-driven facts with text and visualizations in conversational agents. these interactive systems and our study findings aim to go beyond current visual storytelling authoring approaches to facilitate the creation and understandings of visual storytelling in different domains for designers, journalists, analysts, and other researchers. doped perovskites are a material of interest due to their ability to conduct protons in a temperature range desirable for intermediate temperature fuel cell applications. despite much research aimed at improving the performance of these materials, the contributions of various material parameters to the conductivity are not well understood. in the case of y-doped bazro3, published reports often disagree about its conductivity and structure. by employing combinatorial methods, the effect of compositional or process variations can be studied in a more rapid manner in order to identify potential candidate compositions, and possibly gain a better understanding of the material. in this work, a high-throughput impedance test cell was designed and built in order to test thin film samples by electrical impedance spectroscopy. blanket thin film samples deposited by pulsed laser deposition (pld) were created and tested, and a masking scheme was developed for fabrication of combinatorial libraries. testing with the high-throughput cell revealed challenges to ensure the quality of acquired data, and the importance of the quality of electrical contact being made with the library wafers. for samples where high film quality was combined with reliable contacts, calculated properties for conductivity and activation energies were in agreement with literature values. testing on bazr0.9y0.1o2.95 (byz10), a candidate electrolyte for intermediate temperature fuel cell applications was inconclusive due to experimental difficulties in obtaining high quality data. it is recommended that the for improved cell performance, refinement of the contact design is needed in order to facilitate more robust electrical contact between the cell and the wafer. in recent decades, citizens in young and established democracies alike have increasingly turned to courts seeking to solve political disputes and to enforce rights. in latin america, the transformation of courts into key scenarios for the discussion of public policy, the protection of rights, and the struggle for political change has been one of the most significant political trends following the third wave of democratization. scholarly research has focused largely on exploring the determinants of judicial assertiveness, inter-branch conflict, and the turn to legal mobilization for political means. less attention has been given to the on-the-ground consequences of growing judicial intervention. under what conditions can courts in developing democracies produce political and social change? more specifically, why do some rulings have greater impact than others? these questions are crucial to understanding the process whereby courts can become effective enforcers of rights, a central aspect of democratization.this dissertation examines the actual results of new court-ordered policies and the novel oversight mechanisms that some high courts have recently deployed to monitor compliance with some of their most important rulings. i argue that judicial impact in cases that deeply affect public policy in a particular area depends on the ways in which organized constituencies in civil society interact with innovative court-promoted oversight mechanisms such as follow-up committees, public hearings, and information requests. i develop my argument through comparative case studies of eight selected landmark rulings on socioeconomic rights handed down by the highest courts in colombia and argentina. greater impact hinges on the presence of a dense legal constituency that engages with the institutional spaces that the court creates—spaces in which multiple actors converge in a larger and lengthy process.the dissertation first introduces a framework to conceptualize and measure judicial impact, as a necessary building block to develop a theory of how court-promoted monitoring and organized legal constituencies in civil society influence impact. the empirical chapters present in-depth case studies of eight highly important rulings nested in paired comparisons depending on whether both oversight and a dense legal constituency are present, only one of them is, or neither. an advanced prototype computer controlled power wheelchair or cpwns has been developed to provide autonomy for highly disabled users, whose mix of disabilities makes it difficult or impossible to control their own power chairs in their homes. the working paradigm is 'teach and repeat' a mode of control for typical industrial holonomic robots. the industrial robot-control system stores internal joint poses that have been selected by a human operator and recalls them in sequence to execute each recurring task. sequential pose replication for the 'nonholonomic' wheelchair, while entailing additional, computationally intensive, considerations of estimation, computer-vision observations, collision-avoidance, and control, can be equally effective. path segments that connect wheelchair positions/orientations of interest within the home or office are first taught by pushing the chair through the path that is to be recalled later. the teaching event occurs with the estimator 'turned on'. ultrasound sensors, which during subsequent autonomous tracking will be used to avoid obstacles, also are active during teaching. based upon post-processed data collected during this teaching event, elaborate trajectories -which may involve multiple direction changes, pivoting and so on, depending upon the requirements of the typically restricted spaces within which the chair must operate -will later be called upon by the disabled rider. the postprocessor also assigns an ultrasound profile to the sequence of poses. use of this profile during tracking obviates most of the inherent problems of using ultrasound to avoid obstacles while retaining the ability to near solid objects where required by the environment and trajectory objectives. likewise, use of the same wall-mounted visual cues for reference/estimation during both the teaching and tracking events eliminates the need for globally accurate prior mapping of the cue locations. the vehicle has been tested extensively and successfully with disabled veterans at the edward j. hines, jr. va hospital in hines il. our ever-expanding information eco-system demands energy efficient hardware platforms for computing and data storage. while in the past, these demands have been fulfilled through cmos scaling, this approach alone will not suffice in the future. the goal of this thesis is to explore some of the device and circuit opportunities for computing and data storage hardware that can be enabled by harnessing novel insulator-metal transition (imt) phenomena. this work will highlight design and engineering strategies using imt materials that can not only enhance the performance of current devices but also to create new hardware primitives. this work will discuss a hybrid transistor design – phase-fet where imt oxidesthat exhibit orders of magnitude change in resistivityare integrated with a conventional transistor to surpass its fundamental performance limits. on the other hand, the same materials and their properties can be leveraged to create new functionalities such as phase transition based synchronized oscillator devices which provide an alternate, and potentially, a more energy-efficient non-boolean approach to certain problems such higher order distance computation and graph coloring which are difficult to compute in the conventional cmos based framework. finally, future directions for this work including the opportunities and challenges will be discussed. this dissertation addresses two related questions: what does attention to philanthropy reveal about christianity in the postwar united states, and how does consideration of religion reorient stories about modern, organized giving? to do so, it analyzes the most concentrated and sustained external source of financial provision for postwar christian communities, lilly endowment, inc. over fifty years, lilly endowment's engagements with american christians—and the reactions of its critics—illuminated the assumptions underlying much contemporary philanthropic practice. leaders at the endowment preferred local projects, often embracing relationships over rationalism and stability rather than rupture. most importantly, they believed the nation's wealthy had a responsibility to bankroll its faithful. these features set the foundation apart from many of its more famous counterparts. that distinctiveness revealed a great deal. because most u.s. foundations rejected religious projects, the decisions of figures at lilly endowment could exert outsized influence over midcentury christianity. this dissertation thus joins perennial debates regarding the role of private money in american public life. to varying degrees, the movements that appear in the following pages—christian college reform efforts, grassroots lay renewal initiatives, alternative seminary models, international humanitarian ventures, and elite research teams—all strove for independence. yet over and over, experience curbed their idealism, and they were forced to negotiate questions of power and interdependence as they cultivated external donors: the story of postwar american religion is, to some degree, a story of which religion managed to win funding. by the 1980s, however, the waning of the endowment's uniqueness proved the power of prevailing philanthropic models—the foundation's greatest public success occurred at the moment that it most replicated the techniques and practices of its philanthropic peers. the dissertation concludes with a reflection on the future of religious philanthropy in a moment of growing fortunes and diminishing religious observance. this dissertation examines a group of innovative historical texts produced at the turn of the thirteenth century that incorporated information about the material world, namely descriptions of animals, plants, stones, and geographical features, into their narratives of human history. the historians who wrote these texts saw history as a literary genre that described the individual elements of creation in its entirety, and they understood studying and chronicling all of creation to be an ethical act. the first two introductory chapters chart the ethics of history writing and the study of natural particulars during the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. the texts studied in this dissertation were particularly striking manifestations of developments that were shaping the study of the human past and the study of the created world more generally. the first chapter outlines historians' reflections on the ethical implications of history writing. understanding how historians saw their intellectual work as a moral good, and increasingly championed history writing as an ethically beneficial activity because it could serve as a source of pleasure for historians and readers, provides a key to understanding why historians turned their attention to creation in its entirety. the second chapter charts changes in the theory and practice of the study of natural particulars. during this period, there was an increase in discourse on the ethical implications of viewing creation as a pleasurable source of beauty and wonder. the next three chapters explore individual historians and their works. the third looks at gerald of wales, who treated the history and nature of ireland and wales to establish his own authority as an author and to argue for the ethical benefits of taking pleasure in history, creation, and literature more broadly. the fourth explores the otia imperialia of gerald's contemporary, gervase of tilbury, who wrote a hybrid universal history and catalogue of marvels to make a bold claim for the benefits of history and literature as sources of pleasure that inspire the praise of god. the final chapter analyzes jacques of vitry's historia hierosolymitana. in many ways the most traditional of the historical texts studied in this dissertation, jacques's history presents a catalogue of eastern marvels that is designed to emphasize the unity of creation, both to encourage and to facilitate the conversion of christians as a means of hastening the recovery of the holy land and the eradication of heretics throughout the world. this dissertation argues that at the turn of the thirteenth century, historians understood the literary/ethical and scientific/practical functions of their work to be intertwined and mutually reinforcing. they saw both functions as derived from a literal reading of historical events and natural particulars, a way of reading that produced pleasure and wonder that had ethical consequences in this world and in the next. lean burn (excess o2) automobile engines are more energy efficient than their stoichiometric or rich (o2 starved) burn counterparts, but technologies do not exist to effectively remediate harmful nox (x = 1,2) compounds from lean exhaust. current removal strategies rely in part on the catalytic oxidation of no to no2 no + 1/2o2 ? no2. pt is the most active metal, but there is a strong drive to use less expensive materials. understanding how pt functions is a key step in catalyst design. prior experiments and theory indicate the catalysis is promoted at high o coverage (ì_åüo = nopt ), but too much o is inhibitive: pt is prone to oxidative deactivation. the rate is promoted by high o2 pressures and inhibited by product no2 . the latter is true even after correcting for approach to equilibrium, suggesting no2 hinders the reaction kinetics. in this work, we attempt to understand these phenomena with molecular simulation. we use density functional theory, first principles thermodynamics, and mean field microkinetic modeling to elucidate the catalysis under actual reaction conditions. we find the reaction occurs at 0.25ì¢ ââ'0.50 monolayer o. at these ì_åüo, the kinetics of o2 dissociation (o2 + 2* ? 2o*) are strongly inhibited due to repulsive interactions on the surface, but the oì¢ ââ'no bond formation (no* + o* ì¢'á' no2 + 2*) kinetics are facile. in contrast to prior reports, we show o2 dissociation is rate limiting, and oì¢ ââ'no bond formation is equilibrated. the rate is strongly dependent on po2 , and the o coverage is governed by pno2/pno, leading to the observed rate inhibition by no2 . these observations are in excellent agreement with experiment. we apply our models to other transition metals and transition metal alloys to facilitate new catalyst design. analysis indicates such materials should exhibit nearly identical behavior to pt, offering no improvements in rate or propensity to oxidize. screening the catalytic properties of au nanoparticles and the o buffering properties of co3o4/metal oxide supports is recommended for future work. power dissipation is one of the most challenging factors for continued semiconductor transistor scaling in the evolution of integrated circuits. the heat generation due to large power dissipation density restricts the device scaling in integrated circuits (ics). to circumvent this power crisis in ics, it requires exploring new device structures and operating principles. the goal is to design transistor switch in a way that the device dissipates less power during logic operation than conventional fets, bjts. to meet this requirement, it has been suggested to reduce the subthreshold slope of a transistor below the room temperature boltzmann limit of 60 mv/decade. here, we propose and analyze two methods for the reduction of energy dissipation in logic applications. the first is a steep subthreshold slope (< 60 mv/decade) transistor using a piezoelectric gate barrier for low-power switching. the second is a reduction of energy dissipation based on energy-conserving resonant switching in conventional circuits/systems. in particular, we propose a novel method for realizing a steep transistor switch using the negative differential capacitance (ndc) of a compliant piezoelectric gate barrier. this effect exploits electric field induced electrostriction when nanoscale piezoelectrics are used as the active gate barriers of transistors. electrostriction leads to a modulation of layer thickness under the application of voltage across the piezoelectric layer. piezoelectricity and electrostriction in a piezoelectric barrier combine to provide negative differential capacitance (ndc) with internal charge amplification. the effect of the ndc in the gate capacitor of a fet is to boost the on-current, and to provide an opportunity for switching steeper than the 60 mv/decade boltzmann limit. to show this effect, we first physically analyze and quantitatively develop the electromechanical piezoelectric capacitor using the gauss' law electrostatics. owing to this physical mechanism, we show that there are regimes in the charge-vs.-voltage characteristics of piezoelectric capacitor where the capacitance becomes negative. by porting the negative capacitance of a piezoelectric barrier in the gate capacitor of a transistor, the total gate capacitance is expected to be enhanced as a result of piezoelectric charge amplification. this enhanced gate capacitance leads to a boost in the on-current of the transistor. also by exploiting the negative capacitance of a highly compliant piezoelectric barrier in the subthreshold regime of a transistor, the sub-threshold slope (ss) could possibly be reduced below 60 mv/decade of the transistor. to design the transistor switch, we quantitatively analyze carrier transport properties based on different scattering mechanisms in various semiconductor channel materials such as iii-v semiconductors, and heterostructures. we also developed compact models for iii-nitride hemts incorporating polarization charge to calculate transistor characteristics, and device parameters. using the transistor switches, we investigate and analyze energy dissipation in conventional cmos circuits/systems. finally, we propose a mechanism for the reduction of energy dissipation based on energy-recovery resonant switching by conserving energy in the circuit/system. in this approach, the dissipated energy to heat at each switching event is recovered through the controlled resonant switching and stored in an energy-recovery storage capacitor for later use in logic computation. this proposed mechanism in circuits is useful for developing energy-efficient systems such as low-power clocking, driving in large-area displays, and interfacing circuitry etc. the work presented here would help to design low-voltage/low-power transistor switches, and also to design the energy-efficient computing circuits/systems. though the links between marital conflict, child involvement in interparental disagreements, and child psychopathology are well-established, previous research has not viewed child psychopathology as a process by which child involvement in marital conflict may be influenced. children (235 at 6-years, 220 at 7-years, and 217 at 8-years) completed the macarthur story stem battery as a measure of child involvement and mother, father, and teacher reports of study variables were collected. symptoms of psychopathology were examined as a mediator between marital conflict and child involvement using various sem techniques to determine whether strategies change over time depending on type of psychopathology present and whether marital conflict increases their likelihood longitudinally. results failed to show a longitudinal relationship between marital conflict and child symptoms of psychopathology, as well as a significant relationship between child symptoms of psychopathology and child involvement in marital disputes, indicating a need for future research into these processes. directed forgetting occurs when people show poorer recall for information associated with a forget instruction than information associated with a remember instruction. in a recent extension directed forgetting, called selective directed forgetting, the instruction is to forget only a subset of what is presented. research on selective directed forgetting has yielded mixed results. the aim of this dissertation is to clarify these results by examining the effectiveness of a selective forget instruction when the to-be-forgotten information is contained in an event model. an event model is a mental representation that contains elements of an episode such as when and where it took place. in the experiments, participants read a series of sentences and were instructed to forget some of them. the to-be-forgotten sentences could or could not be integrated into event models. the results suggest that selective forgetting is possible but only when the to-be-forgotten information does not have a common structure (i.e., is not related by theme or event). this suggests that people do have some amount of control over the contents of their memories. this dissertation discusses mainly transmission of coherent state qubits, generation of cat states, and entanglement purification of any stabilizer state. a quantum computer is any device for computation that makes direct use of distinctively quantum mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, to perform operations on data. the elementary carriers in quantum computation and information are the quantum bits, or qubits. in contrast to classical bits, qubits can be in every superposition of the states |0> and |1>. this means that a vector describing a qubit may be any vector in a two dimensional hilbert space. in this dissertation, we review a method for constructing a linear optical quantum computer using coherent states of light as the qubits, developed by ralph, gilchrist, milburn, munro, and glancy. we show how an universal set of logic operations can be performed using coherent states, beam splitters, photon counters, and a source of superpositions of coherent state, called 'cat states'. we also discuss the principal source of errors for this scheme and then present this author's analysis of the behavior of teleportation or $z$ gate when a non-maximally entangled bell state is used. we describe several different schemes to generate cat states and make an analysis of these schemes in a realistic experimental environment subject to problems such as photon loss, detector inefficiency, and limited strength of nonlinear interactions. next, we consider that photon loss is the principal decoherence mechanism that affects a coherent-state based qubit transmission though a long optical fiber, and show how the errors introduced during transmission can be corrected in two different ways to encode the qubit. lastly, we present a method for multipartite entanglement purification of any stabilizer state shared by several parties. in this protocol, each party measures the stabilizer operators of an error correction code on his or her qubits, exchange their syndrome results, correct errors, and decode to obtain the desired purified state. this dissertation uncovers the importance of religion in shaping the united states' international development programs, with a particular focus on development in latin america. it locates the origins of u.s. development efforts in the work of early twentieth-century christian missionaries who launched agricultural improvement projects in rural regions of the world. in their endeavor to raise rural standards of living, these agricultural missionaries transformed local agricultural economies and natural environments through the introduction of new crops and breeds of livestock. they also built close relationships with governments in both their host countries and the united states through the sharing of scientific, political, and cultural expertise. when the u.s. government began to embrace development as a foreign policy objective during the cold war, state actors turned to agricultural missionaries for advice and used their projects as models for their own development programs. missionaries consistently worked to advocate on behalf of a small-scale, agriculture-focused, community development approach. when government-run programs increasingly took an approach that favored large-scale modernization and top-down economic aid, agricultural missionaries distanced themselves from the state and its model of development, which they criticized for exacerbating political instability, socioeconomic inequality, and environmental problems. in short, agricultural missionaries played central roles in creating, carrying out, and contesting the u.s. international development project. the theories of vitalism, exemplified by the doctrine of the entelechy put forth by hans driesch, were once popular in the history of science. however, current scholars reject vitalism as a metaphysical heresy because it violates the metaphysics of materialism or physicalism. geometric and topological data analysis have recently attained much interests from the statistics community for their capabilities to perform inferential tasks on types of data that traditional statistical disciplines had not been able to handle and for their utility that enables to capture certain aspects of the data that had not been observed. my dissertation develops several methods that focus on various aspects across the two disciplines. in the geometric realm, i developed efficient numerical routines for maximum likelihood estimation of the spherical normal distribution that was recently proposed to replace standard euclidean discrepancy in the celebrated von mises-fisher distribution with the geodesic distance that better reflects intrinsic geometry of the unit hypersphere. on the topological domain, i first proposed a systematic approach to compare multiple latent space embeddings for networks of potentially varying size and invariant under label permutation in light of deriving inferential insights on how shapes of networks differ via clustering and hypothesis testing procedures. lastly, i developed a topology-based linear dimensionality reduction algorithm that minimizes the discrepancy of topological properties between the data and its projection. i also proposed theoretical concepts for two measures that quantify topological equivalence of the data and its embedding induced by any linear maps. maltreated children are particularly susceptible to adverse self-regulation strategies, but the mechanisms whereby this risk is conferred is understudied, as is their influence on trajectories of change in self-regulatory abilities over time. in this study, three mediators (positive parenting, positive family expressiveness, and maternal reminiscing quality) were examined as processes through which maltreatment influences three dimensions of child self-regulation (emotion regulation, lability/negativity, and inhibitory control) across three time points (baseline, 2 months, and 6 months later) using longitudinal mediation analysis with latent growth modeling. participants included 154 maltreating, and 82 demographically matched, nonmaltreating mothers and their 3to 6-year-old children (n = 236). maternal reminiscing quality mediated relations between maltreatment and lability/negativity at 6 months, and change across time in emotion regulation and inhibitory control. these findings highlight maternal reminiscing quality as a mechanism by which maltreatment influences multiple dimensions of child self-regulation, and their developmental trajectories. this dissertation challenges the notion of metaphysical naturalness, roughly the idea that certain concepts, predicates, and logical vocabulary (such as quantifiers) carve reality closer to the joints than others. the notion of metaphysical naturalness is ubiquitous, playing a central role in accounts of laws of nature, intrinsicality, similarity, linguistic and mental content, and the substantivity of ontological disputes. in the first part of the dissertation i argue that metaphysics is methodologically well-founded, and that there is no need to appeal to irreducible metaphysical naturalness of quantifiers in order to resist arguments to the effect that ontological disputes (such as whether there are composite material objects, i.e., things with parts) aren't substantive. my strategy involves offering a new proposal for securing the substantivity of ontological disputes that appeals only to theoretical virtues such as parsimony and explanatory power. the metaontological position i develop has a number of advantages over rivals, including providing a means to reconcile our commonsense beliefs about ordinary objects with the sometimes-wild claims made by ontologists (e.g., that there are no composite objects). in the second part of the dissertation i argue that one can secure determinacy of linguistic content without invoking metaphysically natural properties as "reference magnets." donald davidson, david lewis, and others have defended the view that linguistic content is determined by whatever interpretation assigns the correct semantic values to the sentences of a linguistic community. these simple interpretationist accounts of linguistic content face a problem with determinacy of reference: they imply that too many different interpretations of our language count as correct. the standard strategy to avoid the problem is to maintain that natural properties are more eligible to be the meanings of our terms (i.e. reference magnets). i argue that this solution is inadequate and defend a new version of interpretationism that appeals to facts about rationality and value to secure determinacy of reference. although the invocation of these normative facts makes my strategy less naturalistic, i show that proponents of the standard strategy must presuppose the relevant normative facts anyway—the standard view is no more naturalistic in the end. the dissertation is an inquiry into the ontology and epistemology of numbers. as regards the former, the fregean conception of numbers as objects and the russellian conception of numbers as higher-level entities are both critically examined. a conception of numbers as modes of existence, that is, ways or manners in which things exist, is introduced and defended instead. as regards the latter, the basic concepts of arithmetic are explicated in terms of pure logic alone, and all the truths of arithmetic are shown to follow from those explications solely by logical means. a new version of logicism in the philosophy of arithmetic is thereby established. the work proposed in this document explores a wide variety of energy-saving transportation concepts that exploit special characteristics of electric drives. the confluence of three emerging concepts in transportation, namely electric drivetrains, autonomous driving, and networked vehicles, enables the optimization of transportation efficiency in a way that will drastically change modern transportation, especially for passenger and commercial road vehicles. after introducing suitable energy, optimization, and efficiency models, several optimization problems of practical importance are formulated. if the only term in the cost function is transportation energy, and all other conditions are formulated as constraints (maximum acceleration, average speed, etc.), substantial energy cost reductions are possible. in particular, the concept of energy-optimal speed trajectories is highlighted. it is shown that assuming complete traffic situational awareness, i.e., knowledge about infrastructure and traffic flow information, for urban driving, energy-optimal speed profiles can achieve energy savings above 50%, with 30-50% being typical values. in order to make energy-optimal speed trajectories useful in real-world situations, some modifications to the concept may become necessary, especially in dense traffic situations. several approaches that aim to change the optimal trajectory with minimal efficiency losses are explored. these include inserting delays, filtering trajectories, and modifying trajectory components. another approach is the use of energy-optimal speed trajectories for heterogeneous electric vehicle platoons in urban driving conditions. it is demonstrated that ``urban platooning'' is an attractive and viable implementation option for energy-optimal speed trajectories. optimal speed trajectories are generated for individual vehicles and entire platoons, assuming that they can be executed without errors, as would be the case for self-driving vehicles. the introduced approach only requires the lead vehicle to run the optimization software, while the remaining vehicles are only required to have adaptive cruise control capability. the achieved energy savings are typically between 30% and 50% for stop-to-stop segments in cities. the prime motivation of urban platooning comes from the fact that urban platoons efficiently utilize the available road space, at least partially alleviating the problem of ``mixed traffic'' where some vehicles optimize transportation energy and others do not. an initial glimpse at the role of uncertainties and the incorrect situational awareness information on attainable energy savings is provided, followed by a more extensive analysis of the impact of the length of time horizon on the efficiency gains achieved by energy-optimal speed profiles. the minimization of transportation energy in cities is important for many reasons, i.e., for environmental, power grid, and range considerations. the overall impact of this proposed work includes the reduction of energy cost, grid power demand, power plant emissions, global warming, as well as an increase in the range of electric vehicles. furthermore, urban platooning can more efficiently utilize limited space in urban environments. in this thesis, i explore historical shifts in body imaging and effects on our sense of self and interconnection. the body exists has become a mediating 'object' to read and interpret, but interpretations are affected by representations from media produced by and about bodies. a feedback loop exists between body images, especially medical images for this discussion, and the information coded into our understanding of others. in the digital age, this feedback loop has become diffuse, fractured, and disembodied. image culture has become omnipresent and powerful, and we must be aware of its effect on us in order to relieve existential angst and unhealthy body relationships. my video installation, lament of the cyclops, evokes this anxiety we feel from our current mode of body understanding. this thesis cannot address every aspect of this complicated subject, but i include a number of theoretical backgrounds and examples to explore certain pertinent issues. this dissertation study investigates the current state of institutional inequality in the field of higher education, and how those dynamics relate to the construction of status and mission orientations in various universities and colleges. through the qualitative examination of community engagement programming at 12 universities in the midwest and northeast regions of the united states, this study investigates the perspectives of four key stakeholder groups involved in community engaged educational programming: university administrators, program directors and staff, students, and community partner organization leaders. this study finds that there is a deep tension in the field of higher education between maintaining institutional status and becoming an "engaged university". at the highest levels of institutional status, missions and status orientations are tightly aligned towards status maintenance, while lower status universities and colleges are more likely to adopt alternative status markers and are more willing to incorporate engagement across their institutions. these dynamics lead to more positive evaluations of administration, institutional status and mission for students and community partners as institutional status decreases. partialand full-thickness cartilage lesions of the knee caused by trauma, disease or joint instability are a common disorder affecting people of all ages. implanted cartilage replacements (icr) have the potential to overcome the limitations of conventional treatment methods and are a promising approach to restore functionality of the joint. in spite of some success in engineering cartilaginous tissue, inferior biomechanical and biochemical properties of icr compared to native articular cartilage (ac) and inadequate quality of fixation and integrative repair of tissues remain significant clinical challenges. an axisymmetric biphasic swelling finite element (fe) study was conducted to elucidate the effects of a lower modulus, lower proteoglycan content and a lack of integration at the interface on the mechanical environment of a transplanted icr in the knee joint. in comparison to intact joint, load partitioning between different phases of cartilage was affected by inferior properties of the icr. analysis of the relative sliding at the icrative ac interface suggested that when subjected to axial loading, an implant with inferior properties does not disrupt the integrative repair process anymore than an ideal implant. in this first study, the process of delamination at the interface could not be explored because the model was limited to the cases of full integration or no integration at the interface. thus in the next study, a three-dimensional fe analysis was conducted to investigate damage in fibrin adhesive under conditions that included sliding loads. damage and failure of fibrin at the interface was represented by a cohesive zone model with coefficients based on previously published experimental data. results of this study demonstrated that fibrin glue alone may not be strong enough to withstand physiologic loads in vivo while fibrin glue combined with chondrocytes may effectively prevent damage at the interface. the results also suggested that fibrin fails mainly in shear during off-axis loading. finally a third fe study was performed to evaluate the effect of several important implant material and geometric properties on the failure of the adhesive bond between the icr and native tissue. results of this study demonstrated that icr size and material properties have a significant effect on the failure of the fibrin that adheres the implant to the native tissue. in the future, results of these studies may be used to improve implant design and surgical techniques and eventually help researchers develop more efficient and successful long-term biological articular joint repair. the recent emergence of graphene, along with its unique and impressive set of properties, has resulted in a concerted effort to incorporate the material into electronic devices and composite materials. graphene oxide, a chemically modified form of graphene which can be produced economically and in large scale, is one of the most common starting materials for making graphene composite materials with improved conductivity, photovoltaic performance, and photocatalytic activity, to name a few examples. this dissertation describes progress made in understanding and quantifying the electronic properties of graphene oxide as they relate to electron storage and shuttling in composite materials. a more complete understanding of the nature of electronic interactions in graphene composites was achieved through two processes: 1) a dual electron-titration showing storage and shuttling of electrons in reduced graphene oxide. 2) a method developed to isolate the energy and electron transfer pathways involved in the deactivation of excited cdse quantum dots by rgo. the results obtained from these two processes provide insight into the electronic interactions between graphene, semiconductors, and metals. additionally, composite films were constructed to demonstrate the electron transfer properties of reduced graphene oxide. tio2-reduced graphene oxide films were made via a simple drop-cast technique. the films show enhanced photovoltaic and photocatalytic characteristics when compared to tio2-only films. a stacked architecture incorporating single-layer reduced graphene oxide on thin tio2 nanoparticle films was developed as a method for illumination-controlled deposition of metal nanoparticles. films of metal nanoparticles made using this technique were employed as surface enhanced resonance raman (serrs) sensors and show nano-molar sensitivity. finally, quantum dot-reduced graphene oxide composites were made via an electrophoretic deposition process. the resulting films were used as photoanodes in photoelectrochemical cells and show improvements in photocurrent generation of up to ~150% over cdse-only photoanodes. on account of the advantageous electronic properties and improved device performance, the work described in this dissertation provides a basis for further exploration in the field of reduced graphene composite materials. the versatility of the material along with the methods designed for customizable film construction makes it an ideal material for next-generation sensors and catalyst materials. this manuscript is a work of fiction. mukaiyama aldol reactions are an efficient way to construct carbon-carbon bonds and form products with multiple stereocenters in one step. however, mechanistic explanations for stereoselectivity thus far have only been qualitative. this thesis includes the first computational study of stereoselectivity in mukaiyama aldol reactions;computational modeling is presented that builds upon previous models and allows for a more quantitative description of mukaiyama aldol diastereoselectivity. a model for diastereoselectivity in the lewis acid-catalyzed mukaiyama aldol reaction is presented based on computational scans of the mukaiyama aldol reaction potential energy surface and optimized transition structures. the modeling study indicates the importance of the lewis acid to be near the silyl enol ether &#945;-hydrogen to relieve steric repulsion in the stereodetermining transition state. in contrast to previous reports, not all transition states for this reaction have a staggered geometry. furthermore, evidence is provided suggesting that pro-syn pathways disfavor an antiperiplanar transition state configuration. the modeling work is successfully validated by comparison to several experimental examples from the literature and expanded to more complex reactants. these results lead to a more quantitative understanding of causes of diastereoselectivity in mukaiyama aldol reactions.an enantioselective lewis acid-catalyzed mukaiyama aldol reaction is investigated. a combination of quantum mechanical calculations and force field development describes the chiral (acylox)borane-catalyzed mukaiyama aldol reaction's transition state. force fields are developed using the quantum-guided molecular mechanics (q2mm) method to create a classical force field based on quantum mechanical data. this study highlights the ability of q2mm to be used to allow for a transition state conformational search. starting with essentially no available information about the reasons for enantioselectivity in these borane-catalyzed reactions, a detailed model of the reaction?s transition state is provided. by combining insights about the transition state regarding preferred torsion angles, the preferred configuration of the stereocenter at the boron atom, and the preferred coordination geometry of the catalyst relative to the aldehyde, transition state conformational analysis is simplified.squaraine rotaxane endoperoxides are modeled to support experimental results from another group regarding their stereochemistry. the results of the calculations support a stereochemical revision of these structures in which the endoperoxide initially forms as an unstable external stereoisomer. this stereochemistry leads to a mechanistic hypothesis in which squaraine rotaxane endoperoxides can isomerize to the more stable internal stereoisomer or release molecular oxygen to relieve steric strain.a homology model for the c-subunit ring of v-atpase is developed. the model is built using the crystal structure of a comparable ring of v-type na+-atpase from enterococcus hirae as a template. the model is compared to mutagenesis studies in the literature to suggest the general location and structure of a binding site for known inhibitors, such as iejimalide. the suggested binding site location is in agreement with mutagenesis data in the literature. mean curvature flow describes the process by which a submanifold is deformed in the direction of its mean curvature vector. a polar action is noteworthy in this context because it admits complete submanifolds called sections that intersect each orbit orthogonally. the mean curvature vector of a polar orbit is tangent to this section, so the problem of solving for the flow of these orbits reduces to solving a system of ordinary dierential equations over a section. for this reason the symmetry properties of a section may be used to construct the possible flow lines and predict which points are invariant under the flow. the corresponding orbits are minimal submanifolds. as asian immigrant families adapt to a new culture, the formation of an acculturation gap between parents and their children is a common stressor and is generally associated with poor mental health outcomes in children. the current study tested a moderation model in which culturally-relevant coping strategies (i.e., primary/secondary control and interpersonal/intrapersonal implicit social support) were hypothesized to attenuate the relation between acculturative family distancing (afd; hwang, 2006) and depressive symptoms, somatization, and alcohol use. it was also hypothesized that participants would engage in more secondary (vs. primary) control coping. data were collected from 150 asian american college students using an online survey. results indicated that afd was significantly associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms but not with somatization and alcohol use. no significant differences in levels of primary versus secondary control coping were found. finally, the coping strategies did not buffer the relation between afd and distress; however, post-hoc analyses revealed that interpersonal implicit social support exacerbated the relation between afd and depressive symptoms. the present study offers important replication data for afd, a relatively new theoretical model of the acculturation gap that highlights more proximal sources of risk in terms of how parent-child dynamics in immigrant families can be associated with psychological distress. the association between afd and depressive symptoms underscores the importance of attending to linguistic and cultural value discrepancies in parent-child relationships when working with asian american college students in clinical settings. arboviruses, chikungunya (chikv) and dengue are transmitted by the same major vectors i.e. aedes aegypti and aedes albopictus. in this study we first tested a set of seven antiviral hammerhead ribozymes (hrzs) targeting chikv structural proteins as potential antivirals. suppression of chikv infectivity was confirmed by challenging hygromycin selected vero cells transfected with plasmids expressing each of the ribozymes, demonstrating ribozyme #9 and #14 were most effective in inhibiting replication of chikv by 2 and 5 orders of magnitude respectively at an moi of 0.0001. to achieve higher levels of suppression clonals cell populations were generated for each ribozyme enabling complete suppression at 0.0001. effective clones were selected based on lack of cytopathic effect (cpe). similar approaches were attempted using maxizyme constructed from hrz#9 and #14. tcid50 analysis confirmed complete suppression of chikv replication at an moi of 0.0001 and 0.001 confirming the advantage of maxizyme over hrzs. the benefits of maxizymes were further confirmed by comparing the suppression potential of clonals expressing dengue specific maxizymes, connected maxizymes, and hrzs in vero cells. tcid50 analysis demonstrated complete suppression of dengue at an moi of 0.01, compared to only 2 log of suppression with dengue specific hrzs clonals. all results were further complemented by caspase-3 assays and quantitative real time pcr assays. this study also showed the usefulness of connected maxizyme over maxizyme, clearly evident based on both tcid50 and quantitative real time pcr analysis. hrzs #9 and #14 exhibiting the best chikv suppression were used to generate transgenic mosquitoe line. both hrzs #9 and #14 promoted by the aedes aegypti t-rnaval pol iii promoter were been mobilized into the mosquito genome using the piggybac transposon vector system. splinkerrtte pcr confirmed the establishment of nine lines with different integration sites in aedes genome, seven expressing hrz #9 and two expressing hrz #14. rt-pcr was performed to confirm expression of the hrz transgene in each line.the transgenic mosquitoes expressing either hrz #9 or #14, and control higgs white eye (hwe) mosquitoes were blood fed over an artificial blood meal containing the attenuated strain of chikv 181/25 virus. tcid50 analysis 7 dpi on engorged mosquitoes demonstrated no or minimal viral replication in transgenic mosquitoes compared to control hwe displaying the viral titer of 2x104-105. all of the nine transgenic lines were confirmed as at most partially homozygous using direct pcr analysis. engineered transgenic mosquitoes having high resistance to chikv replication can be potentially utilized in population replacement strategies to achieve elimination of endemic chikv. poetry thesis insecurity is experienced as a constant of daily life in the great lakes region of africa, especially in the borderland area between the democratic republic of congo and rwanda. congolese and rwandan women face many risks through a complex intermeshing of economic hardship, crime, and gendered violence, while at the same time maneuvering and resisting structures of power. in a region disrupted by decades of conflict and the subsequent decline of economic opportunities, cross-border trade conducted by women is instrumental in securing the lives and livelihoods of women and their families. using multi-sited, mixed methods research on the congo-rwanda border, i examine the daily strategies, mobility patterns, and social networks of women cross-border traders. my research finds that through this trade, women have become primary earners and taken up new responsibilities previously reserved for men, shifting culturally salient gender roles.the importance of cross-border trade in supporting job creation, food security, and women's empowerment is widely recognized by scholars and policymakers alike. however, studies on cross-border trade have neglected a critical area of contribution by women traders. women's cross-border trade facilitates the supply and delivery of goods and services across sub-saharan africa. importantly, women traders have cultivated important social safety nets in the absence of social protection mechanisms and institutional support systems. emerging crises like the covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated the importance of strengthening social safety nets that safeguard inclusive access to basic goods and services, especially in areas underserved by government systems. through a mobile ethnography, my dissertation demonstrates how women traders have been at the forefront of food and service provision providing for the needs and welfare of their families and communities and developed important social safety nets to prevent and mitigate risks. this dissertation highlights the essential role women play in service provision, risk-mitigation, and socioeconomic development in situations affected by conflict and insecurity. drawing on the political economy of everyday life in insecurity, i contribute to a new direction in anthropological research—one that gives critical import to issues of power, inequality, and violence by critically analyzing the social and economic processes of everyday praxis in the midst of social change. this study opens a discussion of a particular differentiation of theological aesthetics in catholic thought that arises in the twentieth century in the work of hans urs von balthasar and erich przywara. i argue that their accounts do not present a singular vision, but rather include a distinct aesthetics belonging to the christocentric dimensions and trajectories carved out by jesus' death on the cross. while much scholarly work has been done on both thinkers' projects, little attention has been paid to what i call the "dark beauty" of the cross. this project traces the way balthasar and przywara see christ's death as a transfigured moment for the classical rendition of beauty as form and splendor. the study spends time developing balthasar and przywara as theologians rooted in scripture and the richness of the christian tradition, but it also considers the ways that their use of the johannine writings, the book of revelation, and developments in augustine, pseudo-dionysius, bonaventure, and the carmelites reveal a distinct and permanent cruciform aesthetic calibration. this dissertation offers a full consideration of dark beauty's own scope, proposing that the distinct contributions of balthasar and przywara provide the two foundational poles of its expression.the dissertation also deeply considers the applications of dark beauty for catholic thought. an overarching concern of the work is the argument that dark beauty acts as a critical part of theology's response to the philosophical sublime. the project details the particular challenges of three versions of the sublime in postmodern discourse– the historical, the historicist, and the messianic – for theological aesthetics. it then shows how balthasar's and przywara's dark beauty refuses the sublime's aesthetic erasure, while at the same time providing an account of beauty able to accommodate many of the negatively-inflected contours of its rivals without losing the heart of christian revelation. what we gain from this study is a richer account of christianity's own tradition in the dark aesthetics of the cross and a nuanced resource able to face the confrontations of the sublime. modern western biomedicine is in need of new drugs, and ethnopharmacologists are turning to premodern medical texts, such as the anglo-saxon leechbooks, for remedies. to determine which premodern remedies to test in laboratory settings, historians must be more than translators; they must also determine which remedies are likely to be efficacious. in previous studies, historians have associated persistence of remedies in materia medica throughout the centuries with biomedical efficacy, but this association is problematic for two reasons. first, it is not clear that people, without the aid of controlled trials and statistical tests, can determine the effectiveness of drugs. second, biomedical efficacy may not be the reason for a remedy's persistence since theory or tradition can also be influential. historians, therefore, should use different criteria to determine efficacy. historians can instead identify remedies that would have immediate effects or remedies for chronic or non-self-limiting diseases. this dissertation examines the early eighteenth-century english horticultural author richard bradley's prolific writing on plant physiology and the reform of gardening practices in the context of changes in botany and landscape design. the period during which bradley worked immediately preceded the introduction and dramatic rise of linnaean classification and has often been represented as a stagnant moment in the development of the natural sciences. however, closer observation also reveals important discoveries in plant physiology, and intense methodological debate. landscape design was likewise poised for an equally dramatic transformation as the english natural style, with its emphasis on irregularity and the native contours of the land, came to replace formal geometric layouts borrowed from france. bradley's publications were characterized by an eclectic approach, combining theoretical study and practical solutions with new examination of historical sources, and were presented in formats intended to appeal both to popular and scholarly audiences. of particular interest are his efforts to develop technological solutions to aesthetic problems in design of the garden, such as his proposal for the construction of scale models of gardens that allowed designers to visualize the effects of different prospects by mapping the lines of sight at different views. conclusions will argue for an understanding of the way in which horticulture might be seen to act as an intermediary for changes in eighteenth-century arts and sciences. a method utilizing catalytic titanocene dichloride for the conjugate reduction of &#945;,&#946;-unsaturated carbonyls was developed and described herein. the chemoselective procedure employs an amine hydrochloride as the proton source during the catalytic modification as opposed to the difficult to handle and potentially explosive h2 atmosphere. the scope of conjugated compounds includes cyclic and acyclic variations of ketones, esters, aldehydes, amides, as well as ynones, which contain an extra degree of unsaturation. attempts to exploit the utility of titanocene-bound enolates led to the discovery of a cp2ticl2 accelerated organometallic formation. after a detailed investigation by fleury, catalytic loadings of titanium as low as 1 mol% were demonstrated to be effective at catalyzing organozinc and organomagnesium reagents derived from allyl, alkyl, aryl, and vinyl species. subsequently, a novel phosphorus redox process was constructed en route to synthesizing amides directly from carboxylic acids. the dual role of phosphorus includes activation of the carboxylic acid for electrophilic attack while decomposing an azide to reveal a hidden nucleophilic nitrogen source. the resultant array of amides from this process includes alkyl, aryl, and &#945;,&#946;-unsaturated amides as well as lactams and dipeptides. as an application of the highly chemoselective amidation procedure, a synthesis of ly573636 was completed in 3 steps from commercially available starting materials. this unique aspect of a reagent performing two separate crucial roles was further advanced by the creation of the first staudinger ligation catalytic in phosphine. a diverse assortment of amides and imides can be produced in moderate to excellent yields when using 10 mol% ph3p and a stoichiometric reductant. these catalytic strategies involving redox chemistry of both transition metals and phosphorus enable a fast and resourceful approach towards the construction of valuable synthetic intermediates of saturated carbonyls, homoallylic alcohols, and substituted amides from the readily accessible starting materials. it is widely (although not universally) agreed that dsm personality disorder (pd) diagnosis should change from a categorical to a personality trait-based dimensional system, but extreme levels of pathological traits alone are thought to be insufficient to warrant a pd diagnosis (e.g., livesley, 2003). arguments for assessing functional difficulties in addition to maladaptive traits have contributed to the pd diagnostic model in dsm-5 section iii, which features two main diagnostic criteria: impaired personality functioning and pathological personality traits (american psychiatric association, 2013). impaired personality functioning refers to fundamental disturbances in thinking about and experiencing oneself and others, as well as in the capacity for forming productive relationships with others and appropriate social roles. personality functioning describes functional difficulties that are considered a fundamental component of pd pathology. however, the definition of personality functioning does not explicitly include the external consequences of psychopathology, such as poor job performance or multiple divorces, which usually fall into the category of functional difficulties. as an emerging model of psychopathology, section iii needs further research. to determine empirically what type of functional difficulties are associated with pd, comprehensive assessment of the domain of psychosocial functioning is necessary. furthermore, pd diagnosis can be improved when we better understand the empirical overlap of personality traits, personality functioning, and their consequences. in a sample of 402 community adults and psychiatric outpatients, i examine relations among these three domains using a variety of self-report instruments and a semi-structured interview of functioning in various life domains. although the constructs of traits, personality functioning, and functional consequences are conceptually distinct, results indicate the difficulty in making empirical distinctions in many cases, especially through self-report. moderate to strong correlations found among these domains using self-report demonstrate the need for considering the empirical structure of the components of personality pathology rather than the rational separation of constructs. the use of a functioning interview provides a richer and more specific picture of daily life functioning than self-report, but it is not practical for assessing global functioning and may be better used clinically. as the republican party strengthens its reliance on xenophobic rhetoric and racial dog-whistles, latinx republicans are seen as paradoxes. at the same time, research shows that latinxs' lives are structured in diverging ways – thus representing a divergence of intragroup interests. to understand how latinx republicans explain the connection between their ethnoracial and partisan identifications, i draw on original semi-structured interviews with latinx republicans from throughout the country. i find latinx republicans interpret their identities relationally based on experiences of discrimination, socioeconomic mobility, ethnoracial boundary crossing with white americans, and drawing boundaries between themselves and poor, urban, and undocumented immigrant latinx and black people. when challenged as "sellouts," latinx republicans reinterpret the meanings of the group and the political party system by adopting ethnoracial frames that align latinx identity with the republican party. this study reconsiders assimilation theory and its implications for intra-categorical racialization and political behavior. this dissertation uses participant ethnography data to examine organizational change and sensemaking processes at a locally elite independent high school in the midwest. drawing from sensemaking theory (coburn 2001; weick 1995), this dissertation analyzes how social forces shape the ways that actors notice, ignore, and make shared meanings in the organizational environment. the locally elite independent school is defined as an ideal type, and its legitimating idea and organizational form create the conditions for the appropriation of resources by organizational actors and also for overlapping identities that blur the boundaries between work and personal roles, especially in the boarding school setting. comparing the predictions of market and institutional theories for reform initiatives, this dissertation finds that a school leader crafts a legitimacy project using both selective isomorphism and market elements, but also that actors in the institutional environment add legitimacy to new reforms while demand-side forces from organizational stakeholders constrain innovation. finally, among the collective sensemaking processes of teachers under a new leadership regime, this dissertation finds evidence for dynamic coupling processes as meanings are contested, identifying the characteristics that lead some teachers to a collapse in meaning and an experience of "turmoil" resulting from inadequate frames for enacting a sensible work environment. a novella. sociologists have studied pain as an individual experience, mostly through the lens of medical sociology, leaving the social aspect understudied. this article addresses the gap in our understanding of the cultural constructs around pain and the ways in which these constructs shape our relationship with suffering around and within us. through a series of semi-structured interviews, i examine the ways in which people talk about the pain of others as well as their own, and i apply the grounded theory method to uncover the patterns that structure the ways in which culture informs our concepts of pain severity. this study reveals the profound ways in which culture and society shape what was traditionally considered a subjective experience. neural machine translation (nmt), which exploits the power of continuous representation and neural networks, has become the de facto standard choice in both academic research and industry. while the early non-attentional, recurrent neural network-based nmt already showed impressive performance, with the invention of the attention mechanism, it has been pushed further and achieved state-of-the-art performance. however, like other neural networks, these nmt systems are often data-hungry and require millions of training examples to achieve competitive results.unfortunately, only a few language pairs have this privilege. most fall into the low-resource domain and often have only around 100k training sentence pairs or less. some examples could be the lorelei or iwslt datasets. this lack of data is particularly critical for the early recurrent neural network-based nmt systems, which are often outperformed by the traditional phrase-based machine translation (pbmt) ones in low-resource scenarios. it also means more advanced techniques are required to effectively train a good nmt system for low-resource languages.in this dissertation, i will show that with better use of training data, better normalization or improved model architecture, we can in fact build a competitive nmt system with only limited data at hand. on data, i propose two simple methods to improve nmt performance by better exploiting training resources. the first approach makes use of the relationship between languages for better transfer learning from one language pair to the other. the second one is a simple data augmentation via concatenation which can yield on average +1 bleu on several language pairs. on normalization, i show how simple l2-based normalization at word embedding and hidden state levels can significantly improve translation for low-resource languages, with a particular focus on rare words. finally, on model architecture, i investigate three simple yet effective changes. first, i propose a simple lexical module which can alleviate the mistranslation issue for rare words. second, i study the transformer model and show how a simple rearrangement of its components can improve both training and performance for low-resource languages. lastly, i explore the untied positional attention in transformer and demonstrate how it can improve both performance and interpretability. this dissertation explores the importance of hebraic righteousness in re-forming narrative and informing character development in milton's major poems. where earlier scholarship has focused on righteousness from a soteriological perspective, i argue that milton turned instead to the narratives, and the language, of the hebrew bible. the place currently afforded to the hebrew bible in milton's poetics is mostly typological, and this approach tends to obscure events in the hebrew bible that do not cohere with moments in the gospel and ignores their presence in, and influence on, the poetry. to investigate the depth and shape of milton's engagement with the hebrew bible, i analyze the ways in which narratives and characters in the hebrew scriptures inform milton's late masterpieces. milton's reliance on the hebrew bible to shape his poems extends to the change that characters undergo in the poems and their subsequent development. i call this far-reaching engagement with the hebrew bible in milton hebraic poetics. the centrality of righteousness as understood in the hebrew bible for milton's poems lies in that it connects god and people and people to each other through ethical relations of reciprocity. the relational aspect accorded to righteousness in the hebrew bible largely stems from the etymological connectedness of "righteousness" and "justice," which are derived from the same root in hebrew. in each of the major poems, hebraic righteousness serves as a model for the main characters' actions: in paradise lost, the son reminds the father that divine justice is also divine righteousness by calling upon abraham's conversation with god regarding the destruction of sodom, and adam and eve exercise their righteousness through discourse and hosting the angel raphael; in paradise regained, the son employs his understanding of job's perfect righteousness and of moses' mistake to sustain his rebuttals to satan; and in samson agonistes, samson's development is modeled after psalmic repentance that requires a belief that a retrieval of personal righteousness is always available through appeal to divine righteousness. cartilage disease is a significant health issue that affects millions of patients of all ages, yet there are few interventions to prevent or slow the disease. as mechanical wear is an important component of cartilage disease, the primary objective of this project was to investigate the wear characteristics of articular cartilage and factors that may improve the tissue's wear resistance. in developing test parameters for cartilage wear, two different cartilage surface geometries were compared: smaller flat specimen and larger curved specimens that made contact in the center but not at the edge. the cartilage wear of the two geometries was compared using three different techniques. a modified wear factor was considered to be the most accurate assessment of cartilage wear, but surface damage measurement with india ink was an effective, inexpensive and quick technique to evaluate potential implant materials. finite element models showed that flat specimens showed excessive wear at the edges due to a non-physiologic stress concentration, while the larger specimens wore more uniformly across the surface. to identify mechanical changes due to cartilage treatments, a semi-automated indentation protocol for repeatable material characterization of the tissue was developed. the technique incorporated a small preload to detect the tissue surface, followed by a stress relaxation test at a defined indentation depth. the effect of artificially crosslinking collagen with genipin, a naturally occurring crosslinking agent, on the modulus, coefficient of friction and wear factor of cartilage was quantified. it was found that the concentration and the duration of exposure to genipin could both be varied to alter the cartilage modulus. artificially crosslinking bovine cartilage in genipin solutions decreased the wear factor in a dose dependent manner. crosslinking in 2 and 10 mm genipin for 15 minutes increased the stiffness by 16 and 62% and decreased the wear factor by 43 and 71%, respectively. finally, it was found that a single traumatic impact decreased the elastic modulus of cartilage by 23%. immunohistochemistry demonstrated that this may be due to damage in the collagen matrix. crosslinking the impacted cartilage reversed the loss of the modulus and left the tissue 37% stiffer than initially. the catalytic hydrogel membrane reactor (chmr) is a promising reactor design for contaminants in water using heterogeneous hydrogenation catalysis. it allows for control of reaction conditions and byproduct selectivity. the chmr has previously been investigated using palladium (pd) catalysts for treating nitrite. the primary goal of this thesis was to expand the chmr technology to successfully treat nitrate (no3-) in water by using bimetallic catalysts. the research objectives were to (1) develop and calibrate a computational model of the chmr to predict the effects of reactor conditions on catalytic activity, (2) develop an ex-situ method to incorporate nanoparticles into the hydrogel without impacting stability, and (3) demonstrate the efficacy of a bimetallic catalyst in the chmr to treat no3in water. results from the model indicate that hydrogel thickness plays a large role in reaction flux with thick hydrogels being limited by diffusion. the model also shows that too thin of hydrogels reduce the activity due to a limited amount of available pd active sites and result in wasted h2 into the bulk solution. the effect of hydrogel thickness was verified experimentally. the pd mass-normalized rate constant decreased from 0.030 to 0.007 l mol pd-1 s-1 when the hydrogel thickness increased from 150 to 450 μm using a palladium-indium (pd-in) catalyst. nanoparticles were synthesized outside of the hydrogel (ex-situ) and then stabilized with alginate to prevent aggregation. ex-situ catalysts incorporated into the hydrogel were shown to be more active than in-situ synthesized catalysts (99.6% vs 78.7% nitrite (no2-) removal). alginate stabilization also benefited catalyst protection from oxidation. after aging 30 days, stabilized nanoparticles had a higher reaction rate (1.27 x 10-4 s-1) for no2reduction than non-stabilized nanoparticles (5.88 x 10-5 s-1). pd-in bimetallic nanoparticles successfully reduced no3-, though had a poor n2 selectivity, in the chmr. in a six-hour reaction in the chmr, 43% no3removal and 14% n2 selectivity were observed. the type of bimetallic and synthesis procedure affected no3removal and selectivity. these results are promising and suggest the chmr is capable of efficient no3hydrogenation with an improved catalyst. like most organisms, plasmodium falciparum phenotypes are driven by the regulation of transcription. study of differential gene expression identify genes and the mechanisms behind phenotypes of interest, such as drug resistance. however, the analysis of transcriptional data in p. falciparum is heavily confounded by unusual cyclical patterns of expression observed in the apicomplexan parasites. this body of work describes a complete, detailed approach to transcriptional analysis of a newly derived p. falciparum genetic cross, and the tools used to perform these analyses. this approach includes a detailed analysis of the parental transcriptional time courses, a novel application of a correctional method for the cyclic nature of transcription, and a detailed solution for the difficulties of data curation and analysis of expression quantitative trait locus analysis in p. falciparum. since the turn of the century, the performance of cmos processors has been constrained more by the thermal budget than device limitations because air cooling limits dissipated power density to about 100 w/cm2, and performance trade-offs must be made to meet cooling requirements. dissipation constraints have limited cpu speeds to 3-4 ghz for most systems, and scaling supply voltage, the traditional method of keeping power dissipation within limits, has stalled because the necessary commensurate down scaling of the threshold voltage causes an exponential increase in leakage current due to the inherent subthreshold swing of 60 mv/dec of current in mosfets.much research has been devoted to steep devices to circumvent the passive power term and enable a lower vdd, but an alternative approach is quasi-adiabatic reversible computing, which uses adiabatic transitions and reversible logic designs to minimize the amount of heat dissipated, and break the direct link between the bit energy and dissipation. if a linear ramp is used to charge and discharge bits instead of abruptly connecting them to vdd or ground, then as long as the ramp time is longer than the rc time constant, the active power dissipation can be significantly lower than for conventional cmos. it should be noted that cooling constraints already require speeds well below the rc cutoff.this work describes quantitative measurement of the heat dissipation in an adiabatic reversible shift register and investigation of piezoelectric microelectromechanical (mems) resonators as possible clock sources for reversible logic. using on-chip nano-thermocouples, the heat dissipation in the adiabatic reversible shift register is measured and analyzed for reversible and irreversible operating modes. it is observed that the reversible mode dissipates up to 82% less heat than the irreversible mode and that this value matches well with theory, suggesting that even greater improvements are possible. in pursuit of designing a complete and integrated adiabatic reversible processor, mems resonators as potential clock sources were also investigated and fabricated. the energy storage and linearity limitations of several resonator designs were analyzed and contour-mode aln resonators were fabricated and characterized. in 1996, when he signed the personal responsibility and work opportunity reconciliation act into law, president bill clinton made a promise to americans to "end welfare as we know it." however, with the devolution of welfare authority from the national government to the states, the type of welfare system that americans would come to know under tanf would not only look different compared to the national afdc programs of the past but would vary significantly from one state to the next. a number of explanations have been offered to account for this variation, but few have focused on the impact of the state itself and the institutions and individuals that govern state action. in an attempt to fill this scholarly void, this project seeks to examine the relationship between measures of gubernatorial power and welfare policy outcomes across the fifty states from 1996-1999. using a variety of measures of gubernatorial power, results of quantitative tests relating to a number of key policy choices, and the ability of states to achieve identified goals relating to these policy options, indicate that the state executive power does play a significant role in determining policy formulation and implementation in the states. finally, the project concludes with recommendations for future institutional research into state-level public policy studies. during the decade between the collapse of the nazi empire and the end of allied occupation of west germany, a wide variety of individuals and groups in all four occupation zones began processes of reconciliation between germans and their wartime enemies and victims. this dissertation studies those early steps toward reconciliation and compares and contrasts developments in the western zones of occupation, eventually the federal republic of germany, and the eastern zone/german democratic republic. in many ways, interactions between the allies and germans in the first year of occupation supported reconciliatory efforts. however, allied-german relations proceeded with a mandated distance between the two groups and through legal impositions on the german people. a different approach was needed in order to achieve the peaceful integration of germany into international affairs. non-governmental organizations (ngos) -international and german -provided such an alternative. rather than addressing exclusively the statist concerns that drove allied policies, ngos prioritized attempts at reconciliation between individuals and communities, provided a crucial link between germans and the outside world, and fostered dialogue in ways that governments and military personnel did not. after the collapse of the third reich, most germans were unwilling to engage critically with the recent past. still, the conditions of allied occupation and demands of the international community led germans to acknowledge, however reluctantly, the crimes of the nazi era. in all parts of occupied germany, ngos -aided by a disparate array of individuals -played a key role in shaping public memory of the past. in western germany, germans engaged in discussions and negotiations that acknowledged nazi crimes and recognized victims of nazism. discourses created in eastern germany also acknowledged nazi crimes but did not admit that germans in the soviet zone/german democratic republic bore any responsibility for them. in general, the motives of people involved in initiating dialogue between former enemies and between perpetrators and their victims mattered less than actions and their repercussions. as the increasing divergence after 1947 between the situation in western and eastern germany indicates, however, allied support was necessary, if not sufficient, for any productive efforts at reconciliation. the analyses presented in this work all fall under the umbrella term "galactic archaeology", the sub-field of astronomy dedicated to reconstructing the assembly and chemical-evolution history of the galaxy. the following chapters chart a journey through the milky way, from the disk system to the stellar halo and the outskirts of the galaxy, identifying stellar chemo-dynamical patterns that may shed light on the complex mechanisms involved in forming these components. in particular, i use metal-poor stars, and their close associates, carbon-enhanced metal-poor (cemp) stars, throughout my analyses as tracer populations (or stellar "fossils") to map features of interest. in the thick-disk, i identify two unusual cemp populations, and describe their potential implications for the history of the disk system, potentially supporting a separable metal-weak thick-disk (mwtd) component. in the halo, i compare two cemp-based methods for verifying the innerand outer-halo separation, and cover the recent changes to our understanding of the halo following the release of high-precision astrometry from the gaia satellite. at the outskirts of the halo, i present evidence of an asymmetric metallicity gradient within this region, and discuss its implications for the complex accretion history of the outer-halo component. software documentation largely consists of short, natural language summaries of the subroutines in the software. these summaries help programmers quickly understand what a subroutine does without having to read the source code themselves. the task of writing these descriptions is called ``source code summarization." the state-of-the-art in source code summarization is an encoder-decoder neural network with attention. current research in this area focuses on improving these models on the encoder-side by providing better representation of source code. in this dissertation, we present a collection of methods that continue this trend by incorporating context around the source code as well as providing better generalization for these models. first, we incorporate neighboring functions in a file to better predict unique words that do not appear in the function but do appear in the file. next, we establish action word prediction as a novel sub-problem of source code summarization. henceforth, we demonstrate that semantic similarity based evaluation metrics are better correlated to human judgement than n-gram matching metrics. finally, we study the effect of label smoothing as a regularization technique to allow these models to generalize better. a new means of powering dielectric barrier discharge (dbd) plasma actuators that utilizes a pulsed-dc waveform is proposed for preventing or delaying stall inception in axial compressors and fans. the plasma actuator arrangement, like most ac dbd designs, has two staggered electrodes that are separated by an insulating dielectric layer. however, instead of an ac voltage input to drive the actuator, the pulsed-dc dbd utilizes a dc voltage source. the dc source is supplied to both electrodes and remains constant in time for the exposed electrode, while a resistor limits the current to the covered electrode. a fast-acting solid-state switch periodically grounds the covered electrode for very short instants and then allows its voltage to rise to the source dc level. this process results in a larger peak induced velocity than that from a purely ac waveform such as a sine or sawtooth wave. experiments to examine the relevant characteristics for optimizing the pulsed-dc plasma actuator, including frequency, voltage, dielectric material, and static pressure, are presented. a predictive model of stall margin extension (sme) in the notre dame transonic axial compressor (nd-tac) facility is also developed; a plasma-actuator-generated thrust of 300 mn/m is found to result in a 3.4% sme at design conditions. to validate the actuators' ability to interact with and modify the formation of stall cells, a facility has been designed and constructed around a nonconductive fan rotor. the actuators are installed in the fan casing near the blade tips. the instrumentation allows for the measurement of rotating pressure disturbances (traveling stall cells) in this tip gap region as well as fan performance characteristics including pressure rise and flow rate. the casing plasma actuation successfully reduces the correlation of the rotating stall cells, thereby extending the stall margin of the fan. various azimuthal arrangements and input voltage levels for the plasma actuator casing treatment are explored to determine optimum conditions. as computer networks have grown, so have expectations on the size and type of data being transferred. in the past, the internet was mostly used for simple transfers on the order of a few kilobytes. today, however, the type of data being transferred has grown to include multimedia and other objects that can hundreds of megabytes to full gigabytes. this has lead to strain on the network as users expectations are beginning to outpace the capability of the network. this dissertation investigates various aspects of network efficiency, in both the wired and wireless forms. typically, quality of service (qos) is considered to be one of the most important aspects in designing networks and data transfer protocols. the reluctance to risk harming a flow's individual qos, has lead to the exclusion of research on techniques that trade an individual flow's qos for an overall improvement in network efficiency (and hence, qos). specifically, this work presents two techniques and related research with an aim in improving overall network efficiency by trading a small amount of delay for individual flows. additionally, in order to better determine future methods for improving efficiency, wired and wireless network analysis is performed. friction stir extrusion (fse) is a relatively new manufacturing process that allows for reduced cost production of metallic piping with a fine, equiaxed grain structure. while some research has been conducted into computational modeling of varying fse techniques, little has been done in terms of creating models to predict process parameter requirements, such as extrusion force or mandrel torque. to that end, models of a sample fse process for the extrusion of 6061 aluminum were created in the commercial finite element analysis software deform. the models were validated by two means. first, simple die geometries were analyzed using upper and lower bound methods. the same geometry was simulated in deform and the results compared. second, the sample fse process was modeled and compared to physical trials. once the computational model was validated, various process variants were modeled to optimize the technique subject to machine constraints. a new framework named evidence filtering for processing multi-modality sensor data, and a novel distributed method to implement spatio-temporal filtering applications in grid sensor networks is presented. the concept of evidence filtering is based on conditional belief notions in dempster-shafer (ds) evidence theory and enables one to directly process temporally and spatially distributed sensor data and infer on the 'frequency' characteristics of various events of interest. this method can accommodate partial and incomplete information from multiple sensor modalities during the process. certain restrictions on the coefficients impose several challenges in the design of evidence filters. a design procedure and a frequency domain analysis of non-recursive and recursive evidence filters are presented. a threat assessment scenario using an evidence filter is simulated to illustrate the applications of evidence filtering. the proposed distributed method can be used to implement any general linear, spatio-temporal filter in a grid sensor network, and is based on the fornasini-marchesini (fm) local state space model. this approach yields significant advantages in distributed processing of information in grid sensor networks, and supports local actuation in response to local events. system stability is analyzed for the case where a fixed point data representation is used for both computation and communication. simulation results are also presented to support the theoretical findings. a combination of these two powerful tools together provide a highly effective toolset for one to implement spatio-temporal filtering applications in a multi-modality grid sensor network. a tropical cyclone is an intense circular storm that originates over the ocean, progresses toward a coastline and is characterized by intense winds and low atmospheric pressure in the center. as a result of tremendous surface winds around the storm and relatively low surface pressure, seawater rises above mean tidal levels, which is called a storm surge. the most destructive component of a tropical cyclone is the storm surge. a single storm can cause billions of dollars in property damage. in 2005, hurricane katrina's storm surge caused catastrophic damage to the new orleans area and its residents, amounting to nearly 125 billion worth of damage. thus, accurate and efficient storm surge predictions are essential to prevent destruction of life and property along coastlines. two categories of storm surge models exist: (i) low resolution and (ii) high resolution, and these models are distinguished by run times and accuracy. low resolution models are much faster but generally have lower accuracy and vice versa for high-resolution models. using these models is the trade-off between computational cost and accuracy. a promising intermediate path to reach models with both accuracy and low computational cost is through the use of subgrid models. subgrid models use information from smaller scales to correct the flow variables averaged over the grid-scale. in this dissertation, upscaled forms of the shallow water equations for storm surge modeling are presented which include the subgrid corrections. results show that, for coarse grids in complex geometries, subgrid corrections significantly improve model accuracy when compared to standard solutions. however, excessively coarse grids can lead to artificial cross flows between hydrologically disconnected areas separated by barriers smaller than the grid size. an approach based on introducing cell and edge clones, consisting of connected groups of pixels in each cell, is able to remove such artificial cross flows. finally, the subgrid corrections are implemented in a widely used storm surge model. this work highlights how subgrid corrections can improve the accuracy of storm surge models with minimum additional computational cost. the successes of the federal communications commission (fcc) auctions for electromagnetic spectrum licenses have been trumpeted far and wide as a case study in the successful application of game theory to public policy. finding the evidence for such assertions lacking, this dissertation instead seeks to approach the spectrum auctions as a case study in the economics of science. chapter 1 peruses existing accounts of the fcc spectrum auctions, finds a lack of consensus both on the role of game theory and on the performance of the fcc auctions, and establishes the central task of the dissertation as evaluating the role of academic mechanism designers in acting as 'consulting engineers for the market economy.' chapter 2 reviews the evolution of the communications industry up to the period immediately preceding the fcc auctions, for the purpose of understanding the policy approaches mechanism design would replace, who supported the new approach, and why. chapter 3 reviews the field of mechanism design, and finds three discrete and to some extent incompatible versions distinguished by modeling strategy and, importantly, by intended user of the expertise. chapter 4 studies both the published accounts of the fcc mechanism design process as well as the unpublished materials in the fcc archives, and finds that the strategic imperatives of a handful of large telecommunications companies displaced the scientific imperatives of mechanism design. chapter 5 reviews the empirical evidence for the performance of the spectrum auctions, and finds that policy imperatives, too, fell by the wayside. chapter 6 concludes. ephrem the syrian (306–307 ce) is widely celebrated as one of the greatest christian poets. previous scholarship has shown that symbolic language is for him a matter of theological necessity. symbols and metaphors are the idiom of revelation—they must also be the idiom of theology, of human language about god. if this is true, the study of ephrem's use of metaphors should cast into relief theological patterns embedded in his poetry, patterns so subtle and unthematized that they can easily remain undetected (chap. 1).this dissertation examines one specific set of metaphors in the hymns (madrashe) and sermons (memre) of ephrem: the images of warfare and athletic competition. agonistic language, it appears, serves ephrem primarily to describe the ascetic dimension of human existence. the struggle (aguna) into which all humans are cast is the birthright of human freedom, situated between good and evil. a fascinating pattern emerges from ephrem's construal of ascetic practices: even as he highlights human agency, he forestalls any potential lapse into voluntarism. spiritual warfare and ascetic efforts, to ephrem's mind, are not a matter of the strong and the elite, but the domain of the weak (chap. 2).bringing "aguna" as hermeneutical key to biblical stories, often in dialogue with rabbinic traditions, ephrem highlights such aspects of the patriarchs' struggles as are applicable to all christians, showing the extraordinary nature of the seemingly inconspicuous (chaps. 3 and 4). the "memra on jonah and the repentance of nineveh," read against the backdrop of ancient epic literature, reveals that ephrem seeks to create a christian ideal in which repentance, construed as a battle, is the epitome of heroism (chap. 5).these findings force us to reexamine our understanding of ephrem as an ascetic author. he has been wrongly characterized as largely uninterested in the concerns of lay life. with his constant emphasis on the heroic nature of ordinary struggles and his insistence on the prominent place of the weak in christ's army, ephrem should instead be seen as an early proponent of an ascetic spirituality for the lay. cyber-physical systems (cps) are the systems integrating physical processes with computation and communication. embedded computers and networks are used to monitor and control these physical processes. a great challenge in implementing such systems is the timing issue. our work addresses this issue using event-triggering schemes. we first study event/self-triggering in embedded control systems. both event-triggering and self-triggering schemes are proposed to enforce specified stability concepts of the resulting sampled-data systems. these results provide a solid analytical basis for the development of aperiodic sampled-data control systems. based on these results, distributed event-triggering is considered in networked control systems with packet loss and transmission delays. a distributed event-triggering scheme is proposed, where a subsystem broadcasts its state information to its neighbors only when the subsystem's local state error exceeds a specified threshold. in this scheme, a subsystem is able to make broadcast decisions using its locally sampled data. it can also locally predict the maximal allowable number of successive dropouts (mansd) and the state-based deadlines for transmission delays. moreover, the designer's selection of the local event for a subsystem only requires information on that individual subsystem. with the assumption that the number of each subsystem's successive data dropouts is less than its mansd, we show that if the transmission delays are zero, the resulting system is finite-gain lp stable. if the delays are bounded by given deadlines, the system is asymptotically stable. we also show that those state-based deadlines for transmission delays are always greater than a positive constant. in this dissertation, i address theories in cognitive science which have recently challenged traditional understandings of our perceptual and cognitive systems. in my first chapter, i address cognitive penetration, which challenges traditional understandings of perception. it holds that mental states (such as beliefs, goals or concepts) may sometimes penetrate, and directly influence perceptions, often affecting their phenomenal features. in my second chapter, i address embodied cognition, which challenges traditional understandings of cognition. it maintains that bodily states and processes (like those involved in perceptions, motor feedback, and simulations of these experiences), sometimes directly, or constitutively participate in carrying out various cognitive functions (such as reasoning, decision-making, and concept construction and application). in my third chapter, i address predictive processing, which challenges traditional understandings of our overall cognitive-perceptual architecture according to which our perceptual and cognitive systems operate largely independently and sequentially, and give us a largely passive, receptive, and reconstructive relationship to the world. in contrast, predictive processing holds that our perceptual and cognitive systems are much more integrated, often operate simultaneously, and give us a primarily predictive, active, and generative relationship to the world. in my fourth chapter, i sketch a system which locates cognitive penetration and embodied cognition mechanisms within the 'framework' provided by predictive processing. we can better understand all three component theories by viewing them as a part of this system, and gain a more unified picture of our perceptual and cognitive systems, and how they affect our engagement with the world.all four of these theories (the three component theories, and the overall theory) propose promising expansions to widely-assumed, traditional accounts of perception and cognition. they preserve important insights from these accounts, while supplementing and reorienting them. in each chapter, i sketch a specific version of the theories listed above and the traditional view(s) it challenges, present empirical support for the theory, and address key objections against it. in addressing objections i also highlight unacknowledged assumptions based on traditional understandings of perception and cognition which limit our ability to objectively evaluate these theories. colloids are ubiquitously present in nature and inspire studies of material design. one reason for this is that the colloidal particles are available to observe under a microscope and can be highly customized on the component, shape, size and surface chemistry. the assembly process is a crucial bridge connecting these microscopic properties with macroscopic functions and applications. colloidal clusters as an intermediate state between single particles and bulk systems are widely observed during the assembly behaviors, and the conformations of which hint frustration and disorder in the interested material synthesis. to further understand how clusters would influence material formation, we explore the thermodynamics and kinetics of small clusters during this early stage of colloidal assembly.one significant limitation in material design is the existence of competing free energy minima. free energy calculation is a powerful tool to probe into the assembly process. however, application of such methods is often hindered by high energy barriers, complicated pathways and slow convergence of algorithms. alongside fundamental work exploring cluster assembly, we additionally attempt to validate a parallel bias strategy to simplify the high-dimensional calculation problem with multiple parallel 1-dimensional simulations, which is beneficial when exploring complex systems in material science and biology. this method is likely to have a significant impact when collaborating with recently developed machine learning free energy methods. there are many problems that cannot be solved with today's digital computers. one of the most studied such problems is boolean satisfiability (k-sat), which asks to find the truth-values for a set of boolean variables in a way to satisfy a given number of constraints. this problem appears in many real-world applications, and it has a key role in the theory of computational complexity and in particular np-completeness: if one would find an efficient (polynomial-time) algorithm to solve k-sat (for k&gt;2), then we would be able to generate solutions efficiently to all problems from the np class (cook-levin theorem), i.e., to a very large number of hard problems.the thesis focuses on the k-sat problem and presents a novel approach to it, using a deterministic continuous-time dynamical system. this dynamical system solves the problem efficiently (in polynomial continuous-time) at the expense of exponential fluctuations in its energy function, while it also shows that problem hardness is translated into a transiently chaotic behavior of the analog trajectories by this system. we use the escape rate, an invariant measure of transient chaos, to show that hardness appears through a second-order phase transition in the random 3-sat and 4-sat ensemble. since the solver (i.e., the dynamical system expressed as ordinary differential equations), involves only polynomial functions of low order, is well suited for implementation by specialized analog circuits. as the dynamical system is not unique, we introduce several slightly modified versions of it, with the goal of making its implementation even more feasible. we briefly present a proposal for a modular and programmable design for an analog hardware sat-solver, which solves hard problems more than 10,000 times faster than state-of-the-art algorithms (minisat) run on digital computers. finally, we use our system to solve max-sat instances. max-sat is an optimization problem, which asks to find the assignment of the boolean variables such as to minimize the number of constraints that cannot be satisfied. we present a heuristic analog algorithm based on our dynamical system and show that it, indeed, solves many max-sat problems efficiently. this dissertation examines the lives and work of cistercian lay brothers throughout a roughly a two-century period in the high middle ages. it investigates the unique contributions they made to cistercian life during the main period of their existence. unlike previous studies, which have concerned themselves predominantly with the origins of lay brothers as a way into their status, this project begins with the question of whether those from the countryside could be part of the religious life. it then aims to show how the lay brothers themselves created their own version of the religious life. cistercian monks brought in lay brothers as helpers in the goal of restoring manual labor to an important place in monasticism. thus, the dissertation opens by studying the grange, the space of agricultural labor within the cistercian economy. through an analysis of two french monasteries, the study argues that lay brothers were on the frontlines of cistercian labor, bringing their own unique know-how to resolving conflicts commensurate with the way monks were specialists in the divine office. then, the dissertation surveys the customaries that guided monks and lay brothers both at work and during communal liturgical celebrations to illuminate how these practices reinforced the subordinate status of lay brothers. finally, it probes several exempla to uncover how lay brothers became part of a larger cistercian narrative, which in turn served to influence ways that monks thought about lay brothers and expected them ideally to conduct themselves. eventually authors outside of the cistercian world adopted these exempla and promulgated a largely unchanged image of lay brothers to diverse audiences. in the end, the lay brothers were more than simply auxiliaries to the monks, despite the rhetoric of the monks themselves. these men, largely from the countryside and never intending to embrace monasticism the way choir monks did, and eventually not allowed to, forged a different version of the religious life adapted to peasant ways of life. as applications become highly data-centric, there are major challenges associated with (i) the limitations of cmos technology for the design of on-chip (fast access, dense) memories, (ii) the practicality of transferring high volumes of data between the processor and main memory, and (iii) the security and privacy of client's data stored in external servers, which have become a very popular demand in the last years. in this dissertation, i adopt a bottom-up perspective -i.e., from devices to architectures to look at potential alternatives to address these issues associated with a high volume of data handling and processing.first, despite advancements enabled by cmos scaling, as transistors shrink, quantum effects and current leakage in conventional cmos technology becomes very significant, which results in prohibitively high static power consumption. furthermore, low density and high leakage power associated with 2-d static srams built with cmos make it challenging to satisfy the growing on-chip memory demands from data-centric applications. in this regard, in this dissertation, i explore emerging technologies, with a focus on ferroelectric field-effect transistors (fefets). emerging technologies enable the design of better on-chip memory alternatives which can improve density and/or energy consumption.second, the high volume of data movement may result in a slowdown in the performance of data-intensive programs, and high energy consumption due to the various memory accesses needed by the application. in this work, computing-in-memory architectures (cim) are proposed as solutions for overcoming the latency and energy problems associated with data transfer, as they enable a subset of logic, arithmetic, and memory operations associated with a given task are performed in memory (without transfers from/to a processor).finally, like speed and energy consumption, the security and privacy of computer systems have become a critical research topic. on one hand, hardware security primitives based on cmos and emerging technologies ensure that intellectual property (ip) is protected as more specialized computing kernels have emerged to meet the performance demands of a given application. on the other hand, the rise of "big data" and computing in the cloud have led to growing concerns regarding the security and privacy of clients' information that is stored/processed in third-party servers. my research on secure computing described in this dissertation seeks to (i) protect intellectual property through the design of hardware security primitives based on emerging technologies, and (ii) enable secure and private computation in the cloud with specialized imc-based accelerators for homomorphic encryption (he) as well as for block ciphers such as the advanced encryption standard (aes). materials with nanoscale dimensions allow for the exploitation of a set of unique and often extraordinary properties originating from finite size effects. the devices that are built using these nanomaterials are, therefore, capable of deriving new or enhanced functionalities based on the remarkable optical, chemical, thermal, magnetic, and transport properties accessible. nanomaterial fabrication involves various methods and strategies for synthesizing, manufacturing, and assembling nanostructured surfaces and nanostructures. over the last two decades there has been tremendous progress in the development of a variety of nanofabrication techniques able to meet the demands of nanotechnology and fundamental research. these nanofabrication techniques have already found their applications in numerous electronic, sensing, medicine, renewable energy, photovoltaics, construction, automotive, chemical, and catalysis applications. there, however, often remains a considerable gap between the demonstration of nanostructure synthesis and nanofabrication methods and their commercial implementation.this dissertation serves to address these challenges by demonstrating the possibility to exploit several novel nanofabrication techniques such as the: (i) formation of stable metal nanoparticles using just a reducing agent, (ii) thermal dewetting, and (iii) fabrication of nanogaps using a single-step bending deformation. these nanofabrication techniques were applied to the catalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol, hydrogen gas sensing, and thermal management in electronics. a novel approach for synthesizing and stabilizing colloidal nanoparticles using only sodium borohydride (a common reducing agent) was used to investigate the role of dissolved oxygen in determining the induction time during the catalytic reduction of the anthropogenic water pollutant 4-nitrophenol. the same approach was then utilized to fabricate highly catalytic nanostructures using a single-step procedure that led to extraordinary catalytic activity with turnover frequencies as high as 65000 h−1 when reducing 4-nitrophenol.thermal dewetting is one of a number of unconventional methods for fabricating substrate-based nanomaterials and it was used to study the leaching of metal nanostructures through oxidative etching and its influence on the catalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol. a modified thermal dewetting nanofabrication technique, devised and patented by the neretina group, utilizes a sacrificial layer of sb to exert control over the dewetting process. it was exploited to address the challenges of thermal management in electronic devices. demonstrated are significant thermal conductance enhancements across metal-semiconductor interfaces using engineered nanostructures derived from this modified dewetting process.a completely new strategy for fabricating nanogaps using a new approach reliant on a single step bending deformation was invented and it was further implemented into the fabrication of a hydrogen gas sensor with characteristics which include room temperature detection, a high sensitivity and selectivity towards h2, low-cost lithography-free fabrication, and recyclability. this dissertation draws on a total of twenty-seven months of longitudinal ethnographic research conducted over a six-year period investigating the impacts of a proximity policing initiative known as "pacification." implemented in rio de janeiro beginning in 2008, this initiative aimed to regain the state monopoly of violence in favelas dominated by armed drug dealers while also reducing police violence. in early years, groups such as the world bank viewed pacification as a successful policing program worthy of emulation in criminal-dominated urban peripheries throughout the global south. however, by 2016 it was clear that it had failed, as even the most successful "model communities" experienced an unparalleled spike in violence. what explains this outbreak of violence, especially in the favelas where the program was initially well-received and appeared to be working? what went wrong?due to limited and problematic police data, biased media coverage, and a rapidly changing empirical reality, it is very difficult to know what is actually going on in these communities from the outside. in 2012, i began ethnographic research in two neighboring "model communities" to try to understand what was working there that set them apart from other "pacified" favelas. as i returned in the summers of 2013, 2014, and 2015, i observed the rapidly shifting community relations as residents, police, and drug dealers alike prepared for what they perceived as the approaching expiration date of pacification, set by the 2016 summer olympic games. by the time i arrived for a full year of fieldwork in 2016, residents were saying that pacification is not going to end, it has already ended. rather than the single violent post-olympic invasion that residents had imagined, 2016 was characterized by a series of invasions, attempted invasions, targeted assassinations, and killings by police as drug dealers from both factions called on a seemingly endless supply of outside reinforcements from allied favelas. i elaborate a theory of intersecting temporalities to make sense of these community-level changes framed by what i call mega-event time. while state time is largely cyclical, mega-event time consists of a build-up period to a single major event. increased investment, accelerated urban restructuring, and heightened international media attention characterize this period. the event itself is marked by all-out international performativity. after the event has passed, the performance ends – unless there is another event immediately on the horizon. during the period of my research, rio hosted a series of back-to-back events, forming a continuous build-up to the final and biggest event in the series – the 2016 summer olympic games. i argue that the spike in violence in 2016 and after was the direct result of a public security initiative implemented on mega-event time that had, as residents say, a prazo de validade [expiration date]. my research deepens interdisciplinary discussions of uneven development and state presence/absence in marginalized communities. it suggests that rather than talking about state absence in these areas, we need to examine (and empirically specify) convoluted forms of state presence that are deeply intertwined with the functioning of criminal groups. my dissertation also places public security reform in global context. it contributes to the growing concern about the effects of mega-events on host cities, especially in the global south. temporary public security interventions can have disastrous consequences for marginalized communities even when carried out under the guise of promoting human rights. cyclopropanes have played a prominent role in the organic community. they are present in numerous natural products and have been used extensively as a reactive intermediate for the formation of complex structures. they have also been used as probes for determining structure activity and conformation activity relationships, in addition to providing synthetic analogs with improved biological profiles. this dissertation will describe a novel cationic approach for the formation of these interesting three-membered rings. the methodology requires control of homoallylic cation rearrangements though strategic introduction of cation-stabilizing groups to trap the cyclopropane intermediate and ultimately allow its isolation. initially, stabilization via a b-silicon was used for this purpose, however complications during iteration prompted exploration of alternative stabilizing groups. a heteroatom-stabilized route affords a two-step aldehyde homologation to provide cyclopropyl aldehydes and is readily amenable to iteration for the formation of contiguous cyclopropane structures. an initial homoaldol reaction provides an o-enecarbamate and activation of the alcohol with triflic anhydride in the presence of 2,6-lutidine affords a cyclopropyl aldehyde. initial efforts focused on developing a racemic protocol; however the methodology was developed and applied to the formation of chiral, nonracemic 1,2,3-trisubstituted cyclopropyl aldehydes. o-enecarbamates are formed with high diastereoselectivity and enantioselectivity by the method of hoppe. since (-)-sparteine was the source of chirality, and (+)-sparteine is not readily available, an alternative approach was necessary to access the other enantiomer of our desired 1,2,3-trisubstituted aldehydes. enantiocomplementary n-enecarbamates were accessed through the method of beak. in essence, using the same source of chirality but varying the chiral auxiliary used, both enantiomers of our desired 1,2,3-trisubstituted cyclopropyl aldehydes were formed. application of this methodology to a complex peptide mimic, discovered by stephen martin, has been investigated. furthermore, application of helmchen's chiral auxiliary method resulted in chiral 1,2-disubstituted cyclopropyl aldehydes. finally, since the methodology proceeds through reactive iminium or oxonium ion intermediates, we were incited to investigate their tendency toward trapping with nucleophiles for the formation of structurally diverse cyclopropane products. introduction of allyltributyltin to our reaction conditions furnished interesting cyclopropane architectures. image blur is a common artifact that significantly degrades image quality and has negative impacts on the subsequent applications. even in a properly focused imaging system, image blur can occur due to relative motion between a camera and the captured scene during the exposure time or because of the diffraction limit of the system. image deblurring aims to recover a sharp image from a blurred observation. this is an ill-posed inverse problem when neither the latent sharp image nor the blur kernel that causes blur is known. to make this problem well-posed, auxiliary information is necessary. conventionally, the auxiliary information is incorporated into image deblurring approaches through an optimization scheme which iteratively estimates the latent sharp image and the blur kernel. however, these optimization based methods are usually time-consuming. recent progress in deep learning has inspired a variety of image deblurring networks. these networks have performed better on single image deblurring with much less processing time compared to the conventional approaches. however, for challenging cases such as spatially varying blur, these networks have not performed well. this work explores the possibility of using auxiliary information in image deblurring networks to improve deblurring performance. the major contributions of this work includes methods for integrating different types of auxiliary information into deep learning networks.having access to multiple images captured with different exposure settings is one type of the auxiliary information. in addition to a blurry image captured with a longer exposure time, an image captured with a short exposure time can be captured before the blurry one. this short exposed image is typically unacceptable noisy, but does provide us additional information. since the noisy/blurry image pair is captured in quick succession, the scene being captured can be quite similar. though degraded by noise, the noisy image preserves large-scale structures of the captured scene. hence, this noisy frame can be a critical support for an image deblurring network to recover a sharp image. as the first contribution, two network structures are proposed to process a noisy and a blurry image in a sequential manner and a parallel manner, respectively. the complementary information in the image pair is extracted and processed using network structures like the auto-encoder and long short time memory (lstm). by fusing the information of the differently exposed images, the proposed network is more able to address local blur caused by objective motion. the image quality and quantitative score are also marginally improved. camera built-in inertial sensor data is another type of the auxiliary data that can be useful. the inertial sensor records the camera motion during the exposure time. the camera motion can be characterized by a homography computed from the inertial sensor data. to integrate the inertial sensor data, an image deblurring network is proposed to incorporate the homographies with the input blurry image by a per-pixel concatenation on high level feature maps. this structure can be regarded as a network version of image warping using the homography, where the camera motion data is tightly fused with the image data. through this unique structure, the proposed network can effectively tackle spatially varying blur without sacrificing the processing time. the third contribution of this work is an image restoration network that jointly achieves image deblurring and superresolution for a newly proposed microscopy imaging method. in this proposed network, the point spread function of the imaging method is estimated and treated as the auxiliary information. the network is trained to be an inverse operation of a convolution process where the estimated psf is regarded as the blur kernel. the result shows that with the assistance of the estimated psf, the deblurring performance as well as the spatial resolution of the microscopy imaging method are both improved. this work improves deblurring performance by incorporating the auxiliary information. all the proposed networks are evaluated on both synthetic data and real data. comprehensive comparisons with the state-of-the-art image deblurring networks are also conducted to demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed work. in dialogo di tristano e di un amico, the final dialogue of giacomo leopardi's second edition of the operette morali (1834), the main character, tristano, comments on how human beings in modernity value more the spirit over the body. tristano's declaration formulates an important distinction found throughout leopardi's works: human beings of antiquity were more concerned with the care of the physical body and human beings of modernity were more concerned with the care of the immaterial spirit. leopardi uses the term "spiritualization" to describe human beings' increasing internalization, leading them to become physically weaker and spiritually stronger. consequently, for leopardi, spiritualization is one of the principal reasons for modern humanity's unhappiness. the process of spiritualization becomes the transitional factor from the age of antiquity to the age of modernity. to pinpoint the origin of spiritualization, leopardi turns to literature, and establishes that homer was the last poet of antiquity and all other poets after homer were a part of modernity. literature becomes leopardi's medium through which he juxtaposes antiquity and modernity, as he contrasts the epic heroes of modernity and antiquity. he states that the heroes' virtues mirror their era's virtues. hence, tristano becomes the crowning example of the modern epic hero since his melancholic disposition mirrors the virtues and characteristics of the modern era. this thesis explores leopardi's philosophical analysis on the body and the spirit to gain a better understanding of the concept of spiritualization, the origin of this concept, and its impact on human history. in addition, i analyze the dialogo di tristano e di un amico through the lens of spiritualization to reveal to readers the reasons for the poet's melancholic perspectives regarding human progress, the body and the spirit, and literary works and epic heroes in the modern age. this thesis is an exploration of the relationships between light, space, and perception. influenced by phenomenology, the study of how first person experience structures consciousness, this work examines how the body navigates, and is impacted by, everyday interactions of light and space. in one sense, the debate over the constitution of 1787 amounted to a battle to determine the true heirs to the new science of politics as expounded by montesquieu. scholars frequently note the relationship of montesquieu to the american framers, usually emphasizing such topics as small republics or the separation of powers. this dissertation takes a different approach by comparing the ways that they considered the relationship between institutional design, the character of a people, and social, cultural, and other factors, to be relevant to institutional design and statesmanship.chapters 2-5 then explicate how montesquieu indicates that the concept of spirit informs political practice, both generally and particularly in the cases of the english model, monarchies, and republics. the federalist, publius takes account of the circumstances and the character of the american people. publius also, in effect, adapts montesquieu's english, monarchic, and republican models in order to render them fit for the american people. in contrast, the anti-federalists part ways with the federalists, in part, because of their own emphases and applications of montesquieuan themes. first, the anti-federalists stress the limits of politics and the dangerous uncertainties of innovation. second, they desire to conserve both the american spirit and diversity among the states. finally, they exhibit an awareness of the social dynamics of the separation of powers. in this study, i examined the biogeographical distribution of chloroplast and nuclear genetic diversity of northern red oak (quercus rubra l.) at 26 sites in the northwestern part of the species range. chloroplast diversity is low and declines to only two lineages in the north. loss of chloroplast diversity could be the result of repeated founder effects as glaciers advanced and retreated across north america during the last 800,000 years. in contrast, the metapopulation appears to be nearly panmictic, based on fixation indices for nuclear microsatellite polymorphisms. private alleles were few, but most occurred in the north, suggesting that the northern and southern populations may have somewhat different disturbance histories. i detected fine-scale substructure at the northern edge of the range and found that an island population had higher allelic richness than three shoreline populations and had three private alleles not found in any of the other 25 sites suggesting that the island population has retained diversity lost elsewhere. this dissertation presents several machine learning frameworks that can solve challenging forward and inverse problems of physical spatiotemporal systems. to achieve this, modern deep learning models for complex systems were developed by integrating machine learning, numerical methods, and probabilistic modeling. in particular, the thesis focuses on physics-informed machine learning, data-driven modeling, which involve convolutional neural network (cnn), graph neural network (gnn), transformer, and deep probabilistic model. taken together, the frameworks presented in this thesis offer useful insight into the impact of modern deep learning models on solving challenging spatiotemporal systems in physics. machine learning and deep learning methodologies make it possible to achieve high-throughput and high-quality analyses of large volume medical and biological data. data-driven biomedical image analysis has drawn increasing attention and interest in recent years. image analysis often starts with object detection and segmentation problems. achieving good accuracy is probably the most important goal when solving detection and segmentation problems. more labeled data often helps train a better model. however, manual annotation is time-consuming and expensive to obtain, and annotation of biomedical images is commonly done most effectively by biomedical experts. thus, it is often not realistic to expect large amounts of well-labeled data available for every deep learning based biomedical image analysis application. utilizing unlabeled data together with labeled data has the potential to train a better model, but unlabeled data often requires certain assumptions and careful designs to be effectively utilized. the main goal of using machine/deep learning for solving detection and segmentation problems in biomedical image analysis can be summarized as obtaining good accuracy on model-unseen testing images without the needs of large amounts of labeled training data.for achieving the above-mentioned goal, there are several main focuses in the current research field: (a) better model architectures, (b) better model training methods, (c) regularization techniques, (d) ways of utilizing unlabeled data, and (e) ways of utilizing prior knowledge. in this dissertation, we present new methods and algorithms that are related to these research focuses. more specifically, we present two new methods for utilizing unlabeled data for model training: (1) deep adversarial networks for biomedical image segmentation utilizing unannotated images, and (2) a new deep learning method using algorithm-generated pseudo-annotations. furthermore, we present two new methods on utilizing prior knowledge for segmentation problems: (1) a new decompose-and-integrate learning method, and (2) a segmentation proposal generation method for h\&amp;e stained histology images. a new data augmentation technique based on super-pixels is then presented as a new regularization technique for training biomedical image segmentation networks. finally, on model architectures and training methods development, a coarse-to-fine fully convolutional network is presented for learning segmentation knowledge in a coarse-to-fine and simple-to-complex manner. in addition, we further present some algorithms we developed for ants tracking (building ants trajectories) and ants trajectory analysis. two decades ago, the united states issued the first patent claiming the idea of an automated iris biometrics system. today, multiple companies offer commercial biometrics products. however, there are still many unanswered questions about the workings of the iris biometrics algorithms. before iris recognition systems are more widely employed, we must ask, ``when do these algorithms fail?' previous research has assumed that all parts of an iris code are equally valuable. alternatively, some researchers claim that parts of the iris are more valuable, but they still use the same portions of the iris for all subjects. no previous researcher has attempted to experimentally determine how different parts of a particular subject's iris code may be more or less valuable. i obtained multiple images of 24 subjects' eyes to study the reliability of individual bits in the iris codes. i develop a theoretical explanation of the sources of inconsistencies, based on the coarse quantization of complex coefficients in creating the iris code. another source of inconsistency in the iris code is dilation of the iris. the majority of iris research ignores the degree of dilation in processing iris images for biometric purposes. i experimentally quantify how much the hamming distance is affected by iris dilation. the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 5th edition (dsm-5; american psychiatric association, 2013) places clinical syndromes and personality disorder (pd) in the same conceptual space (section ii, diagnostic codes and criteria; pd-ii). concurrently, an alternative pd model in section iii (emerging measures and models; pd-iii) includes two main criteria: (a) impairment in personality functioning, and (b) pathological personality trait(s). these two constructs, however, are difficult to distinguish conceptually and empirically, and both relate to extrinsic disability (clark &amp; ro, 2013). distinguishing impairment intrinsic to mental disorders from associated extrinsic disability has implications for their conceptualization. thus, this study's purpose is to examine relations among pd, clinical syndromes, and functional impairment/disability. results indicated two main pd-iii criteria overlapped substantially and together consistently predicted more extrinsic disability variance than did the pd-ii model. personality and clinical symptoms also overlapped considerably and accounted for similar variance in extrinsic disability outcomes. studies suggest that mimicking specific gestures prior to math instruction facilitates learning. however, benefits could be due to the eye movements that accompany gesture, rather than to gesture per se. children (m age = 8 yrs, 9 mos) who solved pretest equations incorrectly were taught a correct strategy for solving equations. they were randomly assigned to mimic gestures instantiating the strategy, the eye movements that accompany those gestures, or speech only prior to and during instruction. children completed an immediate posttest and a 4-week follow-up test. we hypothesized that children in the eye movement and gesture conditions would retain more from instruction when compared to children in the speech only condition. posttest performance was similar across conditions. contrary to hypotheses, children in the gesture condition retained less from instruction when compared to children in the other conditions. results suggest that there may not always be benefits of gesture during instruction. the acoustic vibrations for single gold nanowires and gold plates were studied using time-resolved ultrafast transient absorption. the objective of this work was to remove the contribution of the supporting substrate from the damping of the acoustic vibrations of the metal nano-objects. this was achieved by suspending the nano-objects across trenches created by photolithography and reactive ion etching. transient absorption measurements for single suspended gold nanowires were initially completed in air and water environments. the acoustic vibrations for gold nanowires over the trench in air last typically for several nanoseconds, whereas gold nanowires in water are damped more quickly. continuum mechanics models suggest that the acoustic impedance mismatch between air and water dominates the damping rate. later transient absorption studies on single suspended gold nanowires were completed in glycerol and ethylene glycol environments. however, our continuum mechanical model suggests nearly complete damping in glycerol due to its high viscosity, but similar damping rates are seen between the two liquids. the continuum mechanics model thus incorrectly addresses high viscosity effects on the lifetimes of the acoustic vibrations, and more complicated viscoelastic interactions occur for the higher viscosity liquids. nearly all of the suspended gold nanowires in the transient absorption experiments exhibited several acoustic vibrations. this was attributed to the pentagonal cross-section of the nanowires. two dimensional finite element simulations for gold pentagons show that similar frequencies exist for the vibrations of the apexes and the edges of the nanowires. good agreement was found between the measured acoustic vibrations using transient absorption and the finite element calculations. the suspension technique was extended to large single crystalline gold plates. transient absorption measurements on suspended gold plates exhibit thickness vibrations, which can be modeled using a simple second order differential equation. the acoustic vibrations for suspended gold plates last for over 3 nanoseconds. gold plates also exhibit surface plasmon polaritions when hit by light at the edge of the structure. due to their two-dimensional structure, gold plates can be milled into specific shapes with a focused ion beam, offering many opportunities for plasmonics applications. writing reality engages the work of harriet beecher stowe and henry david thoreau as a window through which to reconsider the ontological stakes of the deliberative deadlock that led to the civil war. by 1850, just over sixty years after the signing of the united states constitution, the fresh and fertile ground turned up by the american revolution had bloomed into a bog. the passing of the fugitive slave law recharged the crisis of the constitutional convention, spectacularly revealing the nation's precarious footing that a tradition of practical politics had consistently shrouded. while some politicians attempted to continue the nation's founding protocol of compromising around the principle of unity, others decided that the only way out of the bog was locating a solid foundation—"a higher law than the constitution" that could provide a transcendent standard from which to regulate national policy. the challenge remained persuading the nation to agree on such an authority.comparing stowe's attempt to convince the nation to prioritize the "master chord of christianity" with thoreau's push towards "wider views of the universe," writing reality illustrates the range of appeals to a higher law and recasts the antebellum crisis as a conflict over the nature of reality itself. as it maps stowe and thoreau's shared trajectory from committed proponents of nonviolent deliberation to outspoken supporters of john brown's raid on harper's ferry, the dissertation tracks the way ontological commitments ultimately transcended loyalty to the democratic process that sustained the early republic. in narrating stowe and thoreau's struggle to define america's highest priority, this project illuminates the contingencies and violence involved in forging the nation's modern values, while interrogating the limits of deliberative democracy and the possibility of peaceful coexistence. when doing metaphysics, it is frequently convenient and sometimes essential to rely upon various concepts of fundamentality when articulating the problems, positions, and arguments at issue. but what it is, exactly, that these concepts are supposed to track remains obscure. the goal of this dissertation is to develop and defend a theory about the metaphysics of fundamentality. by doing so, i clarify and vindicate the roles that concepts of fundamentality play in metaphysics. at the theory's core are two other concepts frequently relied upon in metaphysical inquiry: of something's being 'derived from or 'ultimately in virtue of' something else (the concept of grounding), and of something's 'reducing to' or 'really just consisting in' something else (the concept of reductive analysis). i begin by arguing that concepts of grounding ought to serve as a foundation for understanding the metaphysics of fundamentality more generally (chapter 2, 'grounding the metaphysics of fundamentality'), and then propose an account of reductive analysis that retains the traditional insight that a reductive analysis purports to describe the constituents of a property or fact and depict how they are structured together (chapter 3, 'on what consists in what'). i then argue that even though grounding neither entails nor is entailed by reduction, facts about grounding can be understood wholly and without circularity in terms of facts about reductive analysis (chapter 4, 'getting grounded'). finally, i conclude by challenging the widespread assumption in literature on the metaphysics of fundamentality, and in first-order disputes about what grounds what, that a fact is metaphysically necessitated by the facts that ground it (chapter 5, 'against grounding necessitarianism'). this study traces an important part of a major theoretical development (if not the theoretical development) in contemporary critical theory by offering a brief discussion of those theorists and one exemplary poet who have inaugurated our ongoing curiosity about modernist allegory. critics such as robert hullot-kentor, susan buck-morss, and jerome mcgann have already demonstrated at length the impact of modernist concepts of allegory on our reception of contemporary theory and poetics. my purpose here is not to repeat their arguments about the meaning of walter benjamin and t.w. adorno's definitions of allegory, nor to make the case that ezra pound knowingly developed his own poetic according to their program. rather, i wish to offer a discussion and presentation of the theory of allegory which demonstrates its origins in the profound interest in natural history that held modernism in its nascent grip. meanwhile, even here, the relationship between allegory and modernism cannot be exhausted through discovering its origins in this formative philosophical climate. this is due to the fact that natural history was an absorptive and expansive term that allowed for refinement without reduction as it came to signal entire processes of cultural, linguistic, and aesthetic practice. at their centre, though, are a set of concerns that obsessively interested benjamin, pound and adorno &ndash; the relationships that obtain between names, titles, fate, and taboo. allegory is benjamin's name for the sum of the processes that produce natural history. when fate allegorically critiques titles it demonstrates that history is not a linear triumphal process, but the realization that nature, too, expresses itself as history. likewise, when names allegorically critique taboo, they demonstrate that history is constructed by nature. adorno retains these concerns and offers a different understanding of natural history, leaving allegory's dialectical process intact, but pointed towards a new construal of the relationships that obtain between its terms. allegory, hence, became the open-ended theory through which modernist art works are still being construed. this is to say that benjamin, adorno, and pound are symptoms of those pervasive anxieties that were produced from the loss of what once were teleological understandings about the demarcation between nature and history. hidden here is the loss of transcendental concepts that once made thinking about nature and history moot, secure in their teleological separation. transcendental explanations had the capacity, through taboo, allegory, and language, to make their distinction explicable and manifest. modernity asks us to lose that which teleological explanations have always been willing to lose, as if it were obviousness itself, the guaranteed distinction between nature and history. this study applies the field theory of pierre bourdieu to show how the irresolvable conflict between free speech and privacy is managed by u.s. courts, newspaper editors, and web publishers. how do the courts and media actors justify invasive storytelling about private people who are drawn involuntarily into the news? power relations of the state, media, and public are examined in the context of the social construction of newsworthiness. the related meanings of newsworthiness, public sphere, and public figure are traced as they are negotiated over time and across fields of power. through analysis of the story of an involuntary public figure who accidentally influenced a baseball game, it is shown that the decline in journalism standards in the internet era is not entirely attributable to market and technological forces. the decline is also explained by non-legal or cultural uses of the public figure doctrine in popular jurisprudence. we present a measurement of the isolated direct photon cross section using 36.1 pb&#8722;1 of pp collision data at &#8730;s = 7 tev collected with the compact muon solenoid (cms) experiment during the 2010 physics run of the cern large hadron collider (lhc). the measurement is performed on events where the photon candidate converts into an e+e&#8722; pair in the material of the inner tracking system. the transverse momentum of the conversion track pair is compared with the transverse energy measured in the cms electromagnetic calorimeter (ecal), and is then used to subtract the background due to e.g. &#960;0 &#8594; &#947;&#947; decays. we measure the photon cross section over a range of photon transverse momentum and pseudorapidity and find that it agrees with the predictions of perturbative quantum chromodynamics (qcd) calculations. in his nicomachean ethics, aristotle argues that most deaths are contemptible and offer no opportunity for the exercise of virtue. thomas aquinas, on the other hand, considers the publicly shameful death of the martyr to be not only the highest exemplification of the virtue of courage, but also the greatest proof of moral perfection more generally. what accounts for this substantial divergence from aristotle on the possibilities of virtuous action in death? this dissertation inquires into this question by examining and contrasting the noble death tradition of classical antiquity with thomas aquinas' account of courage and its exemplary act of martyrdom. it investigates the theologically informed metaphysical and anthropological framework within which aquinas situates his claims, and then explores the implications of these claims for his broader ethical appropriation of aristotelian virtue theory. this project ultimately intends to show the extent to which aquinas' conception of virtue depends upon a theological, and specifically christological, understanding of the relation between death and human perfection. at the intersection of the foundations of statistics and the foundations of quantum theory, one comes across a hotly-debated question: what are the probabilities in quantum theories? do they all reflect the subjective opinions of various agents, or do some of them reflect objective features of the world? one answer—lewisian dualism, a view that takes some quantum probabilities to be subjective and others to be objective—has gained near-consensus among philosophers of science. however, our most sophisticated defense of this view (due to deutsch, wallace, saunders, myrvold, greaves, and others) has two significant problems. first, it requires a very particular approach to the measurement problem (namely, the everett interpretation). second, it relies on the pragmatic goals of scientists (e.g., their aim to avoid losses in bets) rather than their epistemic goals (e.g., their aim to accurately describe the world). i give a new defense of dualism that rectifies both of these problems. i generalize the deutsch-wallace argument to defend the objective probabilities in a host of realist approaches to measurement, and i modify the accuracy-dominance argument for probabilism to defend the subjective probabilities in these approaches. i also critically examine several previous attempts to interpret all quantum probabilities subjectively. with a background including horticulture, landscape design, multimedia design and ceramics, my work has paved a concept around a system of lifecycles. this concept is universal and through the use of scale, abstraction, movement and sound, i have achieved not only new visuals for clay as material but for the nature of our own existence. radiation dose calculation is an important step in the treatment of patients requiring radiation therapy. it ensures that the physician prescribed dose agrees with the dose delivered to the patient. current methods use software implementing either three-dimensional (3-d) convolution/superposition algorithms or monte carlo analysis. these software methods create a bottleneck in the radiation therapy process. the required computation time limits both the accuracy of the calculation and the number of patients who can be treated. in this thesis, two different methods of radiation dose calculation have been implemented in hardware. one is a direct convolution approach and the other is a 3-d convolution/superposition collapse cone algorithm. both have been implemented on an fpga (field programmable gate array) to achieve performance above that obtainable using a traditional cpu. these algorithms are implemented as an sopc (system on a programmable chip) utilizing double buffering, pipelining, and elements of array processing. this project focuses on antenna-coupled metal-oxide-medal diodes, which are capable of detecting long-wave infrared radiation (lwir). these devices operate at room temperature without the need for cooling. the fabrication methods of these devices are cmos compatible, and hence they can be integrated with cmos circuits. antennas are able to detect infrared waves by scaling the antenna to a suitable length. radiation is coupled from an electromagnetic wave to a nonlinear rectifying junction by the antenna. long-wave infrared detectors which are able to work at room temperature without cooling are of special interest. humans emit radiation in this frequency range, and the atmospheric attenuation is very low. the detector response time can also be very fast depending on the diode type. possible applications are tracking, target detection, and navigation in automatic vehicles. thin-film metal-oxide-metal diodes were fabricated in this research, where high quality uniform aluminum oxide was deposited by atomic layer deposition. plasma jet sintering is a low temperature material processing method that employs non-thermal plasma species to treat surfaces. it primarily aims to activate printed inks on a substrate so that conductive patterns can be utilized in circuits. due to its non-thermal, low temperature nature, it offers a solution to the technological challenge of high temperature activation of inks in producing embedded electronics on temperature-sensitive surfaces. instead of heat flux, the energetic plasma molecules and ions that propagate as ionization waves provide energy to initiate sintering. the development and characterization of plasma jets for effective sintering is the focus of the present work.this dissertation first investigates the sintering of a silver nanoink on glass, paper, fruits, and flexible silicon at atmospheric pressure and at temperatures less than 50◦c. the electrical, thermal, and optical characterizations of the plasma jet and the microscope imaging and chemical analysis of sintered silver thin films demonstrate that plasma jet sintering is mainly a non-thermal process that does not rely on elevated temperatures. experiments conducted in a controlled environment also show that plasma jet sintering can provide comparable electrical conductivity values at milder conditions to high-temperature sintering. following this initial study, the rate of sintering is investigated with varying plasma parameters (power and flow rate) that define specific energy input (sei). results show that the relation between conductivity and sei follows an arrhenius-like trend, which provides a way to tune plasma parameters as needed for higher conductivity. lastly, plasma jet sintering is studied in situ to determine the required time to achieve fully sintered films. the detailed examination of current traces and optical signals of the plasma jet illustrates that the changing surface properties (being non-conductive to conductive) may not be captured by observing plasma. this dissertation is a study in the nature of human persons. it explores and defends materialism, the thesis that we are wholly material beings. materialism is widely held, but its status as orthodoxy is not well-founded. materialists rarely argue for their position, sometimes contenting themselves with mockery of rival views; and they often don't take seriously the increasingly sophisticated objections of anti-materialists. the essays comprising this dissertation remedy this unfortunate situation. in them, i develop a novel case for materialism and answer some influential objections to the view. i begin by distinguishing three questions about the metaphysics of human nature and show how their answers fit into the broader project of ontological inquiry. then, i advance two novel arguments for my preferred version of materialism---animalism, according to which we are animals or organisms. one argument exploits crowding problems that plague non-animalist views. another shows that animalism best accommodates the moral data. i further argue for a priority principle according to which each of us thinks our thoughts in the primary and non-derivative sense and show that a number of non-animalist views are inconsistent with this principle. these considerations constitute a cumulative prima facie case both for materialism about human persons, and for a species of that doctrine, animalism. there are powerful objections to materialism. i spend the remainder of the essays developing and answering a few of these challenges. i first examine a class of objections to materialism that stem from reflection on some peculiar cases. i show that proponents of these objections have made a mistake in ignoring questions about composition (questions about when some things make up another). finally, i argue that cases of supervenience failure do not tell against materialism. i articulate a version of materialism that is both thoroughly materialist and compatible with such cases. i show that this position is both tenable and stable. emergence of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (mrsa) has created challenges in treatment of nosocomial infections. the recent emergence of vancomycin-resistant mrsa (vrsa) is a disconcerting chapter in the evolution of these strains. s. aureus normally produces four pbps, which are susceptible to modification by &#946;-lactam antibiotics, an event that leads to bacterial death. the gene product of meca from mrsa is a penicillin-binding protein (pbp) designated pbp 2a. pbp 2a is refractory to inhibition by all commercially available &#946;-lactam antibiotics. furthermore, pbp 2a is capable of taking over the functions of the other pbps of s. aureus in the face of the challenge by &#946;-lactam antibiotics. pbp 2a was cloned and purified to homogeneity and the kinetic parameters for interactions with several &#946;-lactam antibiotics evaluated. the enzyme manifests resistance to &#946;-lactams through unfavorable changes in the microscopic rate constants for acylation (k2) and elevated dissociation constants (kd). both factors are believed to work in concert to prevent enzyme acylation by antibiotics in vivo. we demonstrated that synthetic fragments of the bacterial cell wall bind to pbp 2a in a saturable manner, causing a conformational change that makes the protein's active site more accessible to bind &#946;-lactam antibiotics. these observations and measurements point to a novel strategy by nature to keep the active site of pbp 2a sheltered from the inhibitory activity of the antibiotics, yet it becomes available to the polymeric cell wall by a requisite conformational change for the critical cell wall cross-linking reaction. our incremental understanding of the interactions of pbp 2a with &#946;-lactams and cell wall was used to elucidate the mechanism of action for three cephaloporins active against mrsa and vrsa. we also applied our understanding of pbp 2a to study the meca gene of s. sciuri, a gene believed to be the origin of meca of mrsa based on epidemiological and genetic evidence. the biochemical properties of the meca proteins from both s. aureus and s. sciuri are uncannily similar in regard to biochemical behavior in inhibition by &#946;-lactam antibiotics and the existence of the allosteric site for binding of peptidoglycan. wireless data consumption has been growing at phenomenal rates over the past few years, resulting in tremendous pressure for service providers to accommodate what appears to be an insatiable data need from mobile subscribers. unlike wired networks, the spectrum for wireless communication is finite and capacity expansion often requires massive cost for bandwidth acquisition and infrastructure setup. hence, how to preserve on-going infrastructure investments without simply falling back to acquiring more spectrum has emerged as a significant challenge for the wireless industry. solutions have been proposed along two primary tracks, namely instrumenting smaller areas with small cells for more capacity and / or mollifying the effect of data tsunami through better content management. although efforts towards small cells have demonstrated reasonable promise, a variety of technical challenges exist with regards to complexity, managements, and even economic viability. while approaches across the content management space offer opportunities to reduce the impact of burgeoning wireless traffic, nearly all of the techniques still operate on the primary wireless channel which limits their efficacy. we believe a critical opportunity for mobile devices has been overlooked from existing works and is ripe for exploration, namely the fact that modern devices have reasonably adequate free storage space which can be potentially utilized by the content provider for the purpose of content pre-staging. to that end, my research efforts are focused on how to leverage the latent storage space (provider accessible storage service, i.e., pass) on mobile devices to enable content pre-staging for reducing peak network traffic. the notion of pass is to allow low-power, reasonable bandwidth transmission of data through secondary links to either directly share contents others have found popular or to signal content popularity for efficient pushing from upstream via broadcast, therefore bringing new methods to flatten or mollify the demand curve. this dissertation presents my research on investigating the potential for the said mechanism and discusses in detail how the proposed method has been implemented to show new opportunities for efficient content delivery. the parchment pages of matthew parris's 13th century maps are rudimentary -'crooked line drawings and imprecisely inked passageways.' 'such maps require us to distance ourselves,' writes the cartography scholar michael gaudio, 'from modern mapping practices with their 'transparent' schematizations of objective space, so that we can recognize this cartography for what it is -'not a primitive version of our own but a positive form of organizing space in a world in which signs are not tied to their referents and meanings are never final.' pointing to these places of fluidity, the sites of permeable meaning making, is the function of this collection of essays. weaving personal memory, travel writing and mesmeric histories, these cartographically-themed braided narratives point to the transections between public and private, past and present, personal and global. in short, these essays, i think, encapsulate revelatory moments enjambed in everyday life, singular experiences that imbue all else. in the experiments proposed here, i tested the hypothesis that automatic racial prejudice, as evidenced in racial profiling behaviors, is subject to elements of common social influence. across all 3 experiments, participants engaged in a racial profiling video game in the presence of a male experimenter to demonstrate the extent to which they shift their social beliefs (i.e., engage in social tuning) to align more closely with him. experiment 2 used actual interracial (european american and african american) contact to examine the extent to which tacit social influence modifies the expression of automatic prejudice in the racial profiling video game. experiment 3, extended experiment 2 by adding a condition of both european american and african american experimenter's expressed racial attitude. results were consistent with the tenets of shared reality theory, which postulates that social regulation is central to social cognition and that social bonds are established and maintained to the degree that social beliefs are perceived to be shared by individuals. in this thesis, i will give an introduction of the development of microneedle. several fabrication methods from other groups will be briefly presented, such as anisotropic wet etching method, buried microchannel method, double deep x-ray lithography method, and so on. some basic concepts of microfluidics is introduced as a theory foundation.the microneedle fabricated in university of notre dame is based on triple anisotropic bosch etching. to satisfy the further experiment requirement, there are four microchannels on one chip which have different penetration depth. the microchannel has a rectangular cross section shape, 2.8 ìøå_m in width, about 10 cm in length, and its depth can be determined by the etching time.through the testing with water and air, the design and fabrication process are proved to be feasible. from the comparison of measured air flow rate and the simulated data in comsol, the experimental and simulated results match well within experimental error. the simulated water flow rate is less than 30 picoliters/s at small pressures. epithelial tissues function to maintain physical barriers and protect organs against pathogens, microbes, and toxins. tissue-wide coordination of mechanical stiffness requires second messengers such as calcium ions (ca2+). dysregulation of calcium signaling is associated with a broad range of epithelial diseases ranging from poor wound healing to carcinogenesis and metastasis. however, there remain significant knowledge gaps regarding the connections between calcium signaling dynamics and cell mechanics. in particular, how the coordination of calcium signaling across cell populations leads to robustness in tissue morphogenesis and homeostasis remains largely a mystery. discerning how the spatiotemporal dynamics of calcium signaling encode the regulation of cell mechanics requires innovative research tools that enable defined chemical and mechanical perturbations and 3d live-imaging.in this dissertation, drosophila is used as a model organism to study calcium-driven dynamic mechanics of epithelial growth. chapter 1 introduces the complexities of epithelial tissues and discusses the tools available for studying fragile epithelial tissues. in particular, precise microenvironment control is required to study endogenous cell signaling in epithelial tissues. in chapter 2, we developed a novel microfluidic platform to chemically and mechanically perturb cells and micro-organs. this platform was used to create a pneumatic micro-mechanical device to quantify the mechanical properties of a wing imaginal disc, a prototypical micro-organ. using the aforementioned device, we identified that tissue strain under the same applied force increased with age for our model micro-organ. this method was further developed and cataloged as a general microfluidic technique to demonstrate how to fabricate both educational and live-culture microfluidic devices (appendix a).the next chapter focuses on the cytoskeletal components responsible for tissue bending during development to further research the biomechanics of changing mechanical properties with age (chapter 3). we took a combined experimental and computational approach to study the formation and maintenance of the stereotypical dome-shaped pouch of a drosophila wing disc. studies of drosophila disc development are crucial to understanding the complex developmental processes in humans. interestingly, we found separable contributions from ecm prestrain and actomyosin tension during epithelial organogenesis and homeostasis. actomyosin has an active role in bending the disc to shape. once bent, the tissue was then held in place by the ecm. the ecm had a minimal force-generating role during the active process.as a key component that converts mechanical stretching into calcium signals, we addressed the homeostatic role of the mechanosensitive ion channel, piezo, in organ size control (chapter 4). piezo has multiple roles in promoting both proliferation and cell extrusion in epithelial tissues. we identified upregulation of both integrin and phosphorylated myosin when piezo was overexpressed. we confirmed that short-term pharmacological activation of piezo stimulates mitosis in wing discs. it also acts as a homeostatic regulator by promoting cell death in overcrowded tissues. these results provide support for the hypothesis that piezo functions through a homeostatic size-control feedback loop: overcrowding from proliferating cells leads to increased cell death to maintaining tissue size. in the absence of this piezo-mediated feedback loop, the robustness of organ size control is significantly impacted, resulting in bilateral asymmetry in limb development.next, a preliminary study addresses the dynamic regulation of actomyosin-driven contraction (chapter 5). first, an assay was developed to study the distinct configurations and resultant force profiles of actomyosin during wound healing. second, we identified a potential function of the endoplasmic reticulum calcium pump, serca, for regulating actomyosin-driven contractility. pharmacological inhibition of serca led to increased contraction as measured through tissue morphology and cell bond tension. overall, these biomechanical studies introduce hypotheses for the relationship between cellular calcium and tissue-wide forces.future directions are proposed to expand the use of microfluidics in traditional and remote teaching environments (chapter 6). recent advances in biomicrofluidics have the potential to revolutionize lab-style courses within the biomolecular engineering curriculum. microfluidic devices show great promise in fulfilling the need for remote educational experiences because they are small, transportable, cheap, and commercially safe volumes of reagents to complete experiments.in sum, this work establishes key features of calcium signaling–actomyosin axis of cell mechanic regulation during drosophila wing disc development and homeostasis. microfluidic devices and accompanying fabrication methods were developed for culture and imaging of cultured micro-organs. the future of microfluidics includes uses for researching other dynamic biomechanical systems and for advancing stem education. this dissertation focuses on the problem of improving wavefront measurements that use the light from a laser-induced breakdown (lib) spark as the light source. the contextual motivation involves the development of instruments for in-flight measurement aero-optical flow that is self-contained and non-intrusive. previous studies have shown that wavefronts measured with the light from an lib spark have dominant low-order zernike components, specifically defocus, vertical astigmatism, and horizontal coma, that are not characteristic of aberrations on wavefronts passing through flows of interest such as a boundary layer. this research explores different models of lib sparks to determine if the amplitudes of these zernike aberrations can be predicted based on variations in spark attributes such as length and position that arise in spark to spark ignitions. principal component analysis of experimentally obtained spark wavefronts revealed that the first principal component consists primarily of defocus and that next several principal components are combinations astigmatism, coma, and trefoil, all of which are predicted to arise from displacements of simple point source models. investigation into more complicated models revealed that the light captured from wavefront sensors predominantly come from the surface of the spark. as state-of-the-art transistor features continue to shrink and the incorporation of high-k, low-k isolation dielectric materials and strained and sige layers on silicon becomes common, chip density and performance are improved. however, system performance has not kept up with the pace especially at multi-ghz clock rates. the bottleneck is packaging. conventional packaging techniques require high driving current and large in-die area for bonding pads, and provide limited bandwidth. as a result, several technologies, such as system-on-chip, system-in-packaging and system-on-packaging, have been actively pursed to meet the demands of low power, high i/o counts and fast chip-to-chip communication. here, we present a novel packaging technique, quilt packaging (qp), for system-in-package. qp uses microelectromechanical systems (mems) inspired fabrication techniques to form contacts along the vertical edge facets of the integrated circuits (ics) during the back-end-of-line process, enabling the ics to be interconnected by butting them against each other. a shorter path between chips is established compared with other system-in-packaging techniques pursued by industry, which leads to shorter delay, less power consumption and better signal integrity. the contacts are formed by copper nodules embedded inside the silicon substrate. nodules are made of trenches into the silicon substrate by deep reactive ion etch (drie), which are filled by electrolytic copper plating followed by chemical-mechanical polishing (cmp). different qp structures are fabricated with nodule depth of 20 åµm and widths from 10 åµm to 100 åµm. to further improve the transmission performance, tapered nodules, which provide better impedance matching to on-chip interconnects, are designed and fabricated. qp is a novel packaging technique for ultra-fast and low-power chip-to-chip communications. the fabrication process of qp can be easily integrated into standard ic process with an extra two masks, one for the nodules and the other for the separation of the chips. the system performance by implementing qp can be dramatically improved along with the improvement of the ics trends composite nanomaterials allow for attractive properties of multiple functional components to be combined. fundamental understanding of the interaction between different nanomaterials, their surroundings, and nearby molecular species is pertinent for implementation into devices. metal nanoparticles have been used for their optical properties in many applications including stained glass, cancer therapy, solar steam generation, surface enhanced raman spectroscopy (sers), and catalysis. carbon-based nanomaterials such as graphene and carbon nanotubes show potential for a wide variety of applications including solar energy harvesting, chemical sensors, and electronics. combining useful and in some cases new properties of composite nanomaterials offers exciting opportunities in fundamental science and device development. in this dissertation, i aim to address understanding photoinduced interaction between porphyrin and silver nanoparticles, inter-sheet interaction between stacked graphene oxide (go) sheets in thin films, complexation of reduced go with raman active target molecule in sers applications, and efficacy of graphene-metal nanoparticle composites for sensing applications. molecule-metal nanoparticle composite material made up of photoactive porphyrin and silver nanoparticles was studied using various spectroscopic tools. uv-visible absorption and surface enhanced raman spectroscopic results suggest formation of a charge-transfer complex for porphyrin-silver nanoparticle composite. ultrafast transient absorption and fluorescence upconversion spectroscopies further corroborate electronic interaction by providing evidence for excited state electron transfer between porphyrin and silver nanoparticles. understanding electronic interaction between adsorbed photoactive molecules and metal nanoparticles may be of use for applications in photocatalysis or light-energy harvesting. graphene oxide (go) thin films have been prepared and studied using transient absorption microscopy (tam). transient absorption microscopy correlated with atomic force microscope allows for the morphological properties of go thin film to be related to optical properties, namely dynamics of photoexcited carriers in go. results suggest short-timescale (ps &#8211; ~1 ns) dynamics of charge carriers in go are affected very little by interaction with the glass substrate on which go is placed. also, the stack thickness or number of stacked go sheets does not play a large role in the short-timescale dynamics of go charge carriers. go or reduced go (rgo)-silver nanoparticles composites were produced using different methods: (1) chemical reduction of silver ion precursor and (2) photocatalytic reduction of go and silver ion using tio2 nanoparticles. optical and morphological properties of composites were studied using spectroscopy and electron microscopy revealing a degree of control in metal nanoparticle growth and loading on the surface of rgo. nanocomposites were shown to be capable of complexing with or adsorbing target molecular species. complexation and adsorption are corroborated with demonstration that the composite nanomaterials act as effective serrs sensors taking advantage of localized surface plasmon resonance of metal nanoparticles and the ability of rgo to interact with molecular and ionic species. a collection of poems and poems in translation this dissertation contains three essays on the economics of education. in chapter 1, i investigate teacher performance under performance pay incentives. over the last decade many districts have implemented performance pay incentives to reward teachers for improving student test scores. economic theory suggests that these programs could alter teacher work effort, cooperation, and retention. because teachers can choose to work in a performance pay district that has characteristics correlated with teacher behavior, i use the distance between a teacher's undergraduate institution and the nearest performance pay district as an instrumental variable. using data from the 2003 and 2007 waves of the schools and staffing survey (sass), i find that teachers respond to performance pay incentives by working fewer hours per week at school. performance pay also decreases participation in unpaid cooperative school activities, while there is suggestive evidence that teacher turnover decreases. the treatment effects are heterogeneous; male teachers respond more positively to performance pay than female teachers. in florida, which restricts state performance pay funding to individual teachers or teams, i find that work effort and teacher turnover increase. in chapter 2, i use a restricted use version of the 2007 schools and staffing survey (sass) to estimate the effect of tenure on teacher behavior and time allocation at school and outside of school. in most states, k-12 teachers receive tenure after serving a probationary period of several years. teachers with tenure, or a continuing contract, are guaranteed due process before they can be dismissed from their job. estimates of teacher behavior are obtained by exploiting the cross-state variation in the probationary period length of novice teachers within a difference-in-difference framework. i find that in the year that teachers are evaluated for tenure, they spend significantly more of their own money on classroom materials. relative to the tenure evaluation year, once teachers receive tenure, they communicate less with students and parents outside of class and participate less in school and district committees. in those districts where at least one probationary teacher is fired, i find that teachers reallocate their teaching time. immediately after receiving tenure, they spend less time teaching math and more time teaching english. in chapter 3 (with richard jensen), we empirically examine commercialization of university faculty inventions through startup firms from 1994 through 2008. using data from the association of university technology managers and the 2010 nrc doctoral rankings, our research reveals several findings. we find that university entrepreneurship is more common in bad economic times and that engineering department quality and biological sciences department size are more important after the nasdaq stock market crash in 2000. we also find that the quality of a biological sciences department is positively associated with startup company activity. conditional on creating one startup, each additional tto employee significantly increases university startups. nature is ever changing and indeterminate. as certain as a tornado's devastating effect on the land, change has an undeniable effect on our identity. caroline walker bynum has written extensively about identity and change. she states, 'change and identity induce anxiety, a need to know what is different and threatening, as well as what is home, what is self.' i understand the animal, land, and weather as stand-ins for our human emotions and experiences. i explore nature as a metaphor for change and regrowth, as embodiments of emotion, struggle, and a place in which we are confronted with, and cannot turn away from our identity. light nuclei represent some of the simplest systems for study in nuclear physics. despite this, there are structures in light nuclei, such as halo nuclei and cluster structures, that are difficult to predict with current nuclear models. one of the most promising theories making progress to explain these structures in light nuclei are ab initio calculations. these calculations require values to benchmark their results and test their predictive power. two measurements were made to support this end, the b(e2; 3/2⁻ →1/2⁻) transition strength of ⁷be and the b(e2; 2⁺ → 1⁺) transition strength of ⁸li. these results were compared to a variety of ab initio calculations, as were the ratios of the ⁷be and ⁷li b(e2) transition strength and the ratio of the li b(e2) transition strength and the square of the li ground-state electric-quadrupole moment. the ratios were a new approach that did not suffer from convergence problems seen when calculating individual b(e2) values. the ab initio b(e2) ratio calculations in the a=7 nuclei were consistent with each other within 20% for a variety of interactions and ab initio approaches and all agreed with the ratio of the measured transition strengths. the ab initio calculated ratios in ⁸li differ for different interactions in contrast to ⁷be, and are all an order of magnitude smaller the experimental measurement. this discrepancy with experiment cannot currently be explained and highlights a need for the structure of this nucleus to be more thoroughly explored. the discrepancy among the different ab initio calculations seems related to the particular sensitivity of the 1⁺ → 2⁺ transition to the details of the orbital angular momentum and spin angular momentum of the excited state. these studies helped to determine which nuclei are good candidates for the b(e2) comparisons in this region and have helped expand our knowledge of the structure of the a=7 and a=8 nuclei. despite many debates concerning teaching certification, little empirical research exists that examines the effects of certification on student achievement. this study uses the nationally representative early childhood longitudinal study--kindergarten cohort from the national center for education statistics to test for the effect of alternative certification on achievement. net of all factors, alternative teacher certification is not shown to significantly affect student achievement. this study adds important empirical knowledge to the existing body of research on teacher effects, achievement, and school sector. the myriaporones and the tedanolides are two distinct classes of polyketide natural products that exhibit strong structural similarities as well as interesting antitumor activities. although the latter was isolated in 1984, the complexity of its architecture proved to be a great challenge; the first synthesis was only reported in 2006. conversely, the myriaporones represent a much simpler target. isolated from a different source in 1995 by rinehart et al., the first total synthesis was achieved simultaneously by our group and cuevas et al. in 2004. our highly efficient synthesis allowed us to prepare enough material to investigate the mode of action, which is herein disclosed. additionally, it placed us in excellent position for undertaking a structure-activity relationship study of these compounds. the efforts to identify the pharmacophore of the myriaporones also are presented in this thesis. the most potent compounds in the myriaporone family, namely myriaporone 3 and myriaporone 4, exist in a dynamic equilibrium due to the lability of myriaporone 3's hemiketal moiety. it is possible that only one of the components of myriaporone 3/4 equilibrium is active. if so, the other component may diminish the activity and destabilize the binding of the biological target. several analogues were designed to lock either of the two conformations in an attempt to find the biological active one; however, all of them exhibited a significant decrease in biological activity. myriaporone 3/4 and the southern hemisphere (c10-c23 portion) of tedanolide are structurally closely related. we hypothesized that myriaporone 3/4 is a naturally occurring analogue of tedanolide, and, thus, shared an identical pharmacophore. considering the complexity and the difficulties associated with tedanolide, the study of myriaporone's analogues would then provide useful information on both families, thereby, ultimately providing better drug candidates. simple modifications of the myriaporone 3/4 synthesis allowed access to the southern hemisphere of tedanolide. 13-deoxytedanolide is a natural product possessing the same activity as tedanolide and differing from the latter only by one hydroxyl group at the 13 position. some analogues of myriaporone were designed without the corresponding hydroxyl group to determine if the myriaporones and the tedanolides followed similar trends. additionally, analogues of myriaporone possessing a simpler structure were generated. again, all of the analogues synthesized exhibited a significant decrease in biological activity. a fortiori, based on biosynthetic considerations, we propose that the unique macrolactone linkage of tedanolide arise from a skeleton rearrangement. the synthesis of the potential biosynthetic precursor, isotedanolide, was undertaken in order to study the proposed rearrangement and to validate our hypothesis. progress toward the synthesis of isotedanolide is also presented. recent observations of the abundance distribution of heavy elements in metal-poor old stars suggest an existence of more than one r-process site, proposing a different site for the synthesis of light r-process nuclei. one model is the r-process nucleosynthesis in the supernova shock traveling through the he-rich shell of the pre-supernova star. in this scenario, the 14n from preceding cno burning is converted to 18f, via the reaction 14n(ì_å±,&gamma;)18f and subsequent ì_å_+-decay forms 18o, which then produces neutrons via 18o(ì_å±,n) or 18o(ì_å±,&gamma;)22ne(ì_å±,n) reactions. the statistical model predicted that the 18f(ì_å±,p)21ne reaction can compete with the ì_å_+-decay at high helium density and temperatures. since 21ne(ì_å±,n) has a positive q-value, it has been identified as a stronger neutron source than 22ne(ì_å±,n). because no published data on the 18f(ì_å±,p)21ne reaction are available, we have measured the total cross sections of the 18f(ì_å±,p)21ne reaction in inverse kinematics and the time-reverse reaction, 21ne(p,ì_å±)18f. the results were compared with hauser-feshbach statistical model calculations. the astrophysical implications of the new experimental reaction rate are discussed. the general topic of this dissertation is the relation between concept formation and the demand that scientific theories should provide an objective and intelligible account of natural phenomena, that is, an account that justifies their mind-independent reality and, at the same time, renders them understandable. more particularly, we consider the view of the mathematician and theoretical physicist hermann weyl, that this twofold demand cannot be satisfied, for it pulls science in opposite methodological directions, one driven by husserl's pure phenomenology, the other by hilbert's axiomatic formalism. according to weyl, scientific understanding requires wholly contentual reasoning and the phenomenological method of concept formation, that is, that concepts be introduced by abstraction from experience. scientific objectivity requires partly non-contentual or purely symbolic reasoning and the method of formal axiomatics, that is, that concepts be freely created or introduced as mere symbols by stipulating, under certain constraints, fundamental theoretical principles. this view, which we call weylean skepticism, is important not only because it was propagated by one of the most influential scientists of the twentieth century, but also because it indicates how the tension that weyl saw between objectivity and intelligibility can be dissolved. we criticize, first, the attempt at dissolving this tension by adopting husserl's pure phenomenological approach to scientific objectivity, which recently re-emerged in the literature. on this approach, contentual reasoning is indispensable for objectivity, which entails, as weyl emphasized, that scientific concepts without contentual significance must be eliminated. we argue that weyl realized that the phenomenological approach fails to account for objectivity, since it also entails the elimination of hypothetical elements, and so collapses into phenomenalism, which can support only intersubjectivity. secondly, we analyze weyl's formal axiomatic approach to objectivity, and examine the requirement of categoricity, i.e., that a scientific theory, as a system of symbols, may provide objective knowledge only if its contentual interpretation is univocal up to isomorphism. but we argue, on the one hand, that this requirement fails to be satisfied in quantum physics, and that recent attempts at addressing this failure render theories unable to account for natural phenomena that they were designed to account for. on the other hand, we suggest that objectivity without categoricity commits one to a modal dappling of the world, that is, to the view that the structure of the real world spans many physically possible worlds. finally, we argue that the alleged tension between objectivity and intelligibility can be dissolved through a formal axiomatic approach to understanding. against weylean skepticism, we submit that the conditions under which purely symbolic reasoning may render natural phenomena understandable are expressed by the notions of simplicity and control. while the former can be conceived of as syntactic elegance, the latter obtains if one shows, by contentual reasoning, that the deviation from actual observations of results based on purely symbolic reasoning is smaller than experimental error. emergence is the metaphysical buzzword of the last decade. this dissertation investigates ontological emergence (oe), a concept prevalent in contemporary philosophy of mind and science. an ontologically emergent property (hereafter, emergent property) is causally efficacious, irreducible to microphysical properties, and yet still dependent upon microphysical properties. though this basic idea is clear, there is considerable disagreement in the literature as to the exact nature of emergent properties, and this motivates this dissertation. chapter one introduces some metaphysical assumptions and concepts regarding properties and causation. particular attention is given to the frequently invoked yet under-analyzed notion of causal power contribution. an analysis distinct from shoemaker's and armstrong's is suggested. chapter two situates oe among solutions to the problem of the special sciences, the problem of identifying the referents of special science predicates. it is suggested that recent formulations of oe invoke too many necessary conditions upon an emergent property. it is contended that a more modest formulation of oe is sufficient to distinguish oe from its main rivals' epiphenomenalism, micro-determinism, and standard nonreductive physicalism. chapter three reviews two kimian arguments against british emergentism, one of which is shown to be unsound and the other not injurious to the more modest formulation of oe suggested in chapter two. the fourth chapter houses a taxonomy of theories of oe. such theories can be classified along two dimensions, the first being the type of dependence relation holding between emergent properties and microphysical properties and the second being the way in which an emergent property is causally efficacious. mere supervenience, causal dependence, and two distinct types or realization are the examined dependence relations (with original analyses of mere supervenience and realization proffered). novel causal contribution and synchronic non-causal determination are the competing understandings of causal efficacy. this suggests eight distinct, logically possible theories of oe. the prospects for each are briefly discussed. the dissertation concludes with a review of theories proffered by derk pereboom and carl gillett. it is argued that both suffer from internal problems that preclude judging them to be true. nonetheless, much is to be learned by noting where they go wrong. in this thesis, i explore several constraints and assumptions in ecological niche modeling. first, i examine the effects of intraspecific variation within species on predictions of species' range shifts under changing climate. most niche models assume that species are well-mixed within their range so that all occupancy points are informative of the species' overall climatic tolerances. a partial way to address this short-coming is to build models for isolated populations within a species range. this method can capture within-species differences in environmental tolerances or preferences across space, thereby allowing populations within a species to respond differentially to climate change. our results suggest that population-based models perform better in predicting the current and future distribution of species under climate change than whole species models. this first chapter provides guidance for assessing the implications of population differentiation in predictions of climate change impacts. in chapter two, i investigate geographic fragmentation induced from laws and regulations regarding species management, regulations that may affect the survival of species that might cross diverse land ownership and state lines due to range change under climate change. we call this potential phenomenon, "regulatory fragmentation". in the western united states, much of the landscape is fragmented into diverse land ownerships that give species different conservation statuses and thus implement different management practices for those species. ignoring the impacts of regulatory fragmentation on species movement under climate change can lead to over-estimation of the potential for geographic range change by species as the climate changes. here, for the first time, using ecological niche modeling and habitat connectivity analysis, i show that regulatory fragmentation can affect the survival of species when they move to newly-suitable habitat when compared to movement across a landscapes independent of regulation. the effect of regulatory fragmentation depends on whether or not the land ownership favors the movement of a particular species. habitat connectivity analysis reveals that the best movement pathways that maximize survival given bioclimatic factors pass through a diverse and highly fragmented regulatory landscape. we recommend that managers recognize the potential important of regulatory fragmentation, alongside of other kinds of fragmentation. to account for this fragmentation, agencies must collaborate toward the conservation of engendered, threatened and rare species in a fast-changing world. behavioral finance studies reinforce the idea of market inefficiency, suggesting that it is possible for informed investors to produce above-average returns on their investments. for "know-something" investors, portfolio diversification reduces risk at the expense of maximizing return, defeating the main purpose of investing in stocks. in psychological measurement terms, this practice resembles increasing a scale's reliability at the expense of its validity. to illustrate this concept, 20 stockbrokers each created a portfolio of up to 20 stocks, separating their "top picks" from others in their portfolio. results showed that portfolios of brokers' "top picks" outperformed their diversified portfolios after a one-year period. while not statistically significant, results likely have great practical significance, and thus speak to the value of future studies on this topic. the literature of don delillo is illuminated in conversation with political, literary and film theory and philosophy. from edward said's *on late style*, the idea of 'late style' reveals a period of delillo's literature that proves to be as f.o. matthiessen wrote in the american renaissance 'literature for democracy.' beginning with pragmatic criticism on delillo the contemporary authorship, the essay examines the possibility of his late style from the essays ('the power of history,' 'in the ruins of the future,' 'woman in the distance, and 'counterpoint') and short stories ('baader-meinhof') to his novels (cosmopolis and falling man) as a transformative literary aesthetic. specifically of interest is the concept of literary experience as drawn from the hermeneutics of paul ricoeur and hans-georg gadamer which, when examined in the context of radical and transformational democracy engaging the writings of a diverse selection of thinkers from hannah arendt, pierre rosanvallon, jaques rancière, amy gutman, marian iris young and alexis de tocqueville to the new york intellectuals, d.h. lawrence and members of the frankfurt school reveals the possibility through an innovative and conceptual form of, borrowing again from said, a 'democratic and meta-humanistic literature.' indeed, placed in dialogue with its antecedents ralph waldo emerson, walt whitman and ralph ellison delillo's unconventional late work offers its reader an opportunity for access to the self, advancing agency, facilitating autonomous engagement and autopoesis. literature, then, might be 'democratic' not merely for its overt content or in its educating citizens for 'meaningful' participation, but also as a result of the democratic character or qualities of its aesthetic, its engendering in its reception active engagement, and the transformative potential of this process, in addition to the translation of these democratic qualities i.e., aesthetic dissent into social or political practice i.e., political, social dissent and liberation of self and society from the imperial and hegemonic fixity of despotic and fatal narrative. since the field's inception in the 1990s, ecocriticism has characterized eighteenth-century thinkers as imperialist and utilitarian. treating romanticism as the dawn of an environmentalist re-enchantment of the world, ecocritics claimed that eighteenth-century writers saw nature as inert matter upon which to assert human mastery. their critiques had some basis; many &#8212; perhaps most &#8212; eighteenth-century writers saw the use of nature for human benefit as both a necessity and a divine right. yet as eighteenth-century scholars like christopher hitt, david fairer and sylvia bowerbank have pointed out, eighteenth-century writers and texts expressed care and concern for the non-human world as often as they asserted mastery over it. in fact, simultaneously advocating anthropocentric utilitarianism and ecocentric care of nature is, as hitt argues, characteristic of eighteenth-century writers. the challenge now is to recover the ecocentric aspects of eighteenth-century thought that were left out of early ecocritical accounts without glossing over the period's utilitarianism. my dissertation examines the ways eighteenth-century writers attempted to reconcile human beings' right to profit from nature with their responsibility to protect it. because eighteenth-century thinkers saw use and care as complementary rather than contradictory goals, i argue that their attitude to nature is best described by the concept of 'usufruct.' a legal term for the 'right of temporary possession, use, or enjoyment of the advantages of property belonging to another, so far as may be had without causing damage or prejudice' (oed), usufruct explicitly combines the right to use nature for human benefit with the responsibility to steward it for future generations. eighteenth-century writers, i show, were acutely aware of the interdependence of human and non-human beings, and believed that human beings had a responsibility to use nature in a way that would guarantee the ongoing stability of non-human and human life. tracing the concept of usufruct in eighteenth-century literature reveals that the period's writers grappled more profoundly and consistently with the need to reconcile the often-contradictory ethical imperatives to improve human life and steward non-human life than has previously been appreciated by either ecocritics or eighteenth-century scholars. focusing on afterpieces staged at the patent theaters, this dissertation examines the rise and influence of popular ('illegitimate') drama in georgian london. drawing on plays, travel literature, natural history, legal writings, music, and caricature, this work explores how questions and debates usually associated with the more exotic modes of pacific exploration and colonization fundamentally shaped the way britons began imagining their role amid a changing empire. representing these debates on stage afterpieces radically challenged previous assumptions about national affiliation and identification. as this work discusses, british theater became an emblem of the universality of british civility and british commerce even as its more popular form, the afterpiece, created a series of uncomfortable anxieties about the character and integrity of the empire. anglo-irish dramatists such as john o'keeffe drew heavily upon models of exoticism as a means of highlighting their parallels to the britain's treatment of irish catholics. future united irish leader, barrister, and playwright leonard macnally combined the robin hood trope with earlier eighteenth century constructions and the subsequent eradication of piracy by the royal navy as a means of advocating for a more peaceful resolution that could include britain's 'exotic' citizens rather than its usual approach of preemptive exclusion and extermination. james cobb, future secretary of the east india company show how afterpieces could be used as a means of harnessing popular support for the military actions of the east india company even as he fundamentally questions its motivations and its claims of the right to rule in india. by examining an often neglected genre of the afterpiece this dissertation complicates how patent theaters in london assumed a highly critical approach to britain's formation of its 'second empire'. devices built from quantum-dot cellular automata (qca) use cells with bistable charge configurations to represent binary information. coulomb interactions between cells allow the state of one cell to affect that of another, and can be used to construct more advanced qca devices, such as binary wires, inverters, and logic gates. molecular qca cells, with their sizes at the nanometer scale, are predicted to be able to function at room temperature. a dinuclear organometallic molecule, trans-[cl(dppe)2ru(cìäå¢ì¢åûå¡ìâåác)6ru(dppe)2cl] (ru2), is a candidate for use in molecular qca devices when it is singly oxidized to the mixed-valence ru2+[pf6]-. these molecules were studied by ultra-high-vacuum scanning tunneling microscopy (uhv-stm) at room and low temperatures. ru2 was pulse deposited onto the au(111) surface under vacuum. isolated ru2 molecules were successfully imaged by stm on au(111) at room temperature. however, stm images were degraded by mobile toluene solvent molecules that remain on the surface after the deposition. cooling the sample to 77 k allows solvent molecules to be observed directly using stm, and under these conditions, toluene forms organized striped domains. although pulse deposition is an effective way to deposit molecules on surfaces, the presence of solvent on the surface after pulse deposition is unavoidable without thermal annealing, and this annealing causes undesired chemical changes in the adsorbates under study. submolecular structure of ru2 was clearly discernible in stm images at room temperature, with a bright feature corresponding to each of the two ru-centered end groups within each ru2 molecule. the adsorption of ru2 was found to have some degree of orientation preference on au(111) at room temperature. rotation and translation of ru2 molecules were induced by the stm tip under some tunneling conditions. at 77 k, ru2 and ru2+[pf6]both form close-packed islands with organized striped patterns on au(111). for neutral ru2, all end groups show uniform contrast and the two end groups within each ru2 molecule are almost indistinguishable. the two end groups of each ru2+[pf6]molecule, show clearly discernible contrast differences in stm images. we believe the contrast difference results from the different valence state of the ru metal atoms in the end groups: one of them is ru(iii), while the other is ru(ii). near each ru(iii)-centered end group, a small feature was found in stm images and assigned as the counterion [pf6]-. increasing the sample bias from -1.0 v to 1.0 v attenuates the stm contrast of the charged end groups of ru2+. this contrast changes result from the different molecular orbitals responsible for the tunneling current under various tip-sample bias voltages. similar striped monolayers of ru2+[pf6]on au(111) are also observed at liquid helium temperature. in conventional international relations (ir) theories, economic sanctions are considered as peaceful alternatives to military confrontation and war. through my research, i aim to challenge the categorization of economic sanctions as peaceful and shed light on the coloniality of the unilateral us economic sanctions policies against iran – also known as the maximum pressure campaign. by shifting the locus of enunciation from the rogue iranian state to that of human suffering and re-reading the pivotal historical moments of the imposition of economic sanctions against iran, i argue that violent sanctions policies against one country are, in fact, the continuation of colonial projects. investigating the official narrative of the maximum pressure campaign and statements from the us secretary of state, michael pompeo, from march 2018 to january 2021, i assert that unilateral economic sanctions are imposed by the us as the strategy of hegemonic imperial power and are targeted toward people who are living at the bottom of the global racial, religious, and gendered hierarchies. herein, decolonial theories create the space to reject the devastating economic sanctions as peace strategies and think beyond the boundaries of the nation-state order. none in this dissertation,we developed microstructure-based elastic models for two important cytoskeletal proteins, microtubule and spectrin,which are the essential components for erythrocyte and cytoskeleton in cells.the modelings of microtubule and spectrin are closely associated with study of the biological function of cellular flow sensing and erythrocyte membrane modeling that can capture red blood cell nonlinear behaviors underneath large deformation. microtubules are characterized as the nonlinear anisotropic protein dominated by energy, which is closely associated with primary cilium.mechanical properties of primary cilium incompletely characterized as a fluid flow sensor.we applied analytical modeling to derive the mean-squared displacement of the trapped tip of a cilium and compared the results with experimental measurements. we provide, for the first time, evidence that the effective flexural rigidity of a ciliary axoneme is length-dependent, and longer cilia are stiffer than shorter cilia. we then provide a rational explanation for both effects. we demonstrate that the apparent length-dependent flexural rigidity can be understood by a combination of modeling axonemal microtubules orthotropic elastic shells and including (actin-driven) active stochastic basal body motion. it is hoped that our improved characterization of cilia will result in deeper understanding of the biological function of cellular flow sensing by this organelle. our model could be profitably applied to motile cilia and our results also demonstrate the possibility of using easily observable ciliary dynamics to probe interior cytoskeletal dynamics. spectrin is characterized as the entropy dominated nonlinear elastic protein chain, which is the most important component of inner layer of red blood cell membrane.in this work,we present an analytical hyperelastic constitutive model of the red blood cell (erythrocyte) membrane based on recently improved characterizations of density and microscopic structure of its spectrin network from proteomics and cryo-electron tomography. the model includes distributions of both orientations and natural lengths of spectrin and updated copy numbers of proteins. by applying finite deformation to the spectrin network, we obtain the total free energy and stresses in terms of invariants of shear and area deformation. we generalize an expression of the initial shear modulus, which is independent of the number of molecular orientations within the network and also derive a simplified version of the model. we apply the model and its simplified version to analyze micropipette aspiration computationally and analytically, and explore the effect of local cytoskeletal density change. we also explore the discrepancies among shear modulus values measured using different experimental techniques reported in the literature. we find that the model exhibits hardening behavior and can explain many of these discrepancies. moreover, we find that the distribution of natural lengths plays a crucial role in the hardening behavior when the correct copy numbers of proteins are used. the initial shear modulus values we obtain using our current model (5.9∼15.6 pn/μm) are close to the early estimates (6-9 pn/μm). this new constitutive model establishes a direct connection between the molecular structure of spectrin networks and constitutive laws, and also defines a new picture of a much denser spectrin network than assumed in prior studies. the purpose of this dissertation is to establish the current state of the art in acoustic liner drag research, describe recently designed and built facilities at the university of notre dame for conducting such research, discuss the coupling of aerodynamic drag and acoustic excitation with liners, and offer conclusions and recommendations for future work in the area.conventional acoustic liners for ducted turbofan engine nacelles have been proven to reliably reduce engine noise in commercial aircraft for a narrow frequency range. traditional acoustic liners consist of a porous facesheet, honeycomb core, and solid backing. these liners are placed in the fore and aft bypass ducts of commercial jet engine nacelles. as technology has developed, new liner designs, including variable-depth cores, show promise of reducing noise in a broad frequency range. additionally, the next generation of aircraft design may allow for more aircraft surface area to be covered by acoustic liners, further reducing aircraft noise perceived on the ground. before these advanced acoustic technologies can make their way onto commercial aircraft fleets, the aerodynamic drag caused by the liners must be understood. using the mach 0.6 wind tunnel at the university of notre dame, a direct drag measurement system has been developed utilizing a linear force balance. in combination with indirect drag measurements taken at the curved duct test rig at the nasa langley research center, measurement confidence has been established.using hotwire anemometry, mean velocity profiles were measured as well as the turbulence intensity, burst phenomena, and spectra for several liner types. the results suggest a strong correlation between the aerodynamic drag measured and the presence of burst events in the boundary layer. lastly the coupling of acoustic excitation and liner drag will be explored as measured drag increases when in the presence of high levels of tonal noise.this dissertation aims to provide a comprehensive report on a new method for evaluating liner drag, analyze a database of velocity profile measurements, and describe a proposal for a reduced drag concept utilizing known capabilities for smooth walls. this thesis presents a search for new physics impacting top quarks within the context of an effective field theory (eft). parameterizing potential new physics effects in terms of 26 dimension-six eft operators, six associated top production processes are studied. the analysis targets the leptonic signatures of these processes, requiring the selected events to contain two leptons of the same charge or three or more leptons. in order to gain sensitivity to eft effects by differentiating the admixture of processes and effects in each category, the events are subcategorized and binned in terms of kinematical distributions. the predicted distribution in each category is compared to the experimentally observed distribution, using 138 fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collision data collected by the cms experiment from 2016 to 2018. a likelihood fit of the 26 eft parameters to the observed data is performed to extract the one and two standard deviation confidence intervals for the eft parameters. while the results are consistent with the standard model prediction, the extracted limits can help to constrain theoretical models of new physics; interpreted in terms of the energy scale probed by the experiment, the results can also provide information about the energy frontier beyond which new physics discoveries may yet lie. automatic face recognition performance has improved remarkably in the last decade. much of this success can be attributed to the development of deep learning techniques like convolutional neural networks (cnns). but the training process of cnns requires a large amount of clean and correctly labelled data. in the first part of this work, we try to find the ideal orientation (facial pose, shape, context) of this data for training and testing such cnns. if a cnn is intended to work with non-frontal face images, should this training data be diverse in terms of facial poses, or should face images be frontalized as a pre-processing step? to answer these questions we evaluate a set of popular facial landmarking and pose frontalization algorithms to understand their effect on facial recognition performance. we also introduce a new landmarking and frontalization scheme that operates over a single image without the need for a subject-specific 3d model, and perform a comparative analysis between the new scheme and other methods in the literature.secondly, we analyze the usefulness of synthetic images in improving the face recognition pipeline while taking into account its practicality from a computation stand-point. in this regard, we propose a novel face synthesis method for augmentation of existing face image datasets. an augmented dataset reduces overfitting, which in turn, can enhance the face representation capability of a cnn. our method, starting off with actual face images from an existing dataset, can generate a large number of synthetic images of real and synthetic identities, without the identity-labeling and privacy complications that come from downloading images from the web. additionally, we develop a multi-scale generative adversarial network (gan) model to hallucinate realistic context (forehead, hair, neck, clothes) and background pixels automatically from a single input face mask, without any user supervision. our model is composed of a cascaded network of gan blocks, each tasked with hallucination of missing pixels at a particular resolution while guiding the synthesis process of the next gan block. multiple experiments are performed to assess the realism of our synthetic face images and validate their effectiveness as supplemental data for training cnns, and as distractors to test the robustness of trained model snapshots. this thesis deals with two control-communication problems. the rst problem deals with control of a system over a constrained channel, while the other problem deals with using control techniques to analyze channels with state. the rst problem considers an lqr control when the sensor, controller, and actuator all have their own clocks that may drift apart from each other. an ane clock and a quadratic clock model are considered. for aquadratic cost function, an analysis of the loss of performance incurred as a function of how asynchronous the clocks are is performed. this also allows us to obtain guidelines on how often to utilize the communication resources to synchronize the clocks. the second problem dealt in this thesis concerns capacity of an awgn channel corrupted by i.i.d. erasures.transmitter and receiver do not know about the occurrence of erasures. a novel control oriented feedback coding scheme is presented and capacity of this channel is analyzed. it is also shown that schalkwijk-kailath coding scheme and its variants fail to achieve any rate above (1-e)½ log(1+p), where e is the deletion probability of the deletion-corrupted channel. metabolomics is the study of small molecules (&lt;1000 da) present in a particular biological system. since the metabolome is furthest downstream from the genome, it reflects activities at the functional level. therefore it is of vital importance to develop robust and reliable analytical tools to study small molecules. here, i describe the development of a metabolomics workflow using a home-built, electrokinetically driven, nano-spray sheath-flow interface to couple capillary zone electrophoresis (cze) with electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (esi-ms). first, i will describe my work to develop rapid cze-ms analyses of standard amino acids and a bsa digest. then, i will detail my cze-ms metabolomics workflow optimizations and applications with the c57bl6j mouse and xenopus laevis model systems. finally, i will describe the expansion of our cze-ms capabilities by my work that allows operation of the cze-ms interface with negative ion mode ms. future work includes completion of an in-house metabolite library, system automation using a cze auto-sampler, and incorporating metabolite quantitation into the workflow. machine-to-machine (m2m) communication with different requirements than human based applications has gained interest in the past few years. due to battery limitations of devices in most m2m applications, energy efficiency, defined as the number of information bits transmitted per unit energy, is utilized as a utility function instead of a sum-throughput, a traditional utility function for network utility maximization problems. it is well-known that for a bandlimited communication system, the price for achieving high energy efficiency is delay, i.e. spreading the total energy over a long time interval. in this thesis, we study the problem of joint scheduling and power allocation in an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (ofdm) system with n users. our goal is to design algorithms that maintain the stability of users' queues and maximize the energy efficiency of the system. our technique is to decompose the problem into n subproblems and a master problem and solve each of them separately. we study this problem in flat fading and frequency-selective fading channel models and propose various algorithms to optimize the energy efficiency of the system. finally, by approximating the utility function for both high and low traffic loads, we show that maximization of the energy efficiency leads to a maximization of the sum-throughput of the system. this dissertation seeks to answer the question: why do democratic and republican identifiers differ in their voting behavior, activism, and contributions? republican identifiers are more likely than democratic identifiers to turn out to vote and to vote for their chosen party rather than defect. republicans are more likely to become activists on behalf of their party. republicans also are more likely than democrats to make financial contributions to their party. these partisan differences in political behavior and party loyalty persist even after controlling for the most obvious explanation: that demographic and socioeconomic differences in the type of people who identify with each party explain these observed behavioral differences. we lack theoretical explanations for why republican mass identifiers and activists are more likely to engage in these behaviors than their democratic counterparts. miller and shanks (1996, 165) argue that an 'explanation for democratic variability and republican constancy should rank high on electoral researchers' agenda for future research.' i argue that these partisan differences in political behavior are a product of differences in how democratic and republican identifiers understand and relate to their political identities. democratic identifiers are less likely than republican identifiers to engage in partisan political behavior because they either are more likely than republicans to experience an internal conflict between their political identities or because they react differently than republicans to internal conflict. specifically, if democratic identifiers respond more negatively to internal conflict, this also would lead them to be less likely than republicans to engage in these key behaviors. contrary to the conventional wisdom, i find that republicans are not inherently more loyal than democrats because they consistently choose to blindly follow their party. democrats turn out less, defect more, and support their party as activists and donors less than republicans because they are more likely to experience an internal conflict between their partisan and other group identities. republicans appear more loyal by engaging in partisan political behavior because, quite frankly, they do not have to make the choice of group over party as often as democrats. large-eddy simulation of a turbulent shear layer interacting with a thin airfoil is performed to investigate the sound generation. the turbulent shear layer is generated using a separate temporal simulation and fed into airfoil simulations as an inflow boundary condition to closely match the setup of a previous experiment. three different airfoil locations are considered, one at the center of the shear layer and two in the outer regions of the layer on both the highand low-speed sides.simulation results show that the impact of the airfoil on the shear layer flow statistics is largest at the center position and nearly negligible at the two outer positions. the airfoil unsteady lift shows strong influence of the shear-layer roller structures at all positions in addition to localized small-scale fluctuations. the far-field sound is calculated using a boundary-element solution to the lighthill equation. contributions from sources in the airfoil leading and trailing edge regions are evaluated and compared. results show good agreement with experimental spectra of leading edge noise over a wide frequency range. the high and middle airfoils produce comparable sound pressure levels, while the low airfoil produces the weakest sound. leading-edge interaction with the shear layer is shown to be the dominant noise source at most frequencies, and self noise due to trailing-edge vortex shedding is significant only for middle and high airfoil positions at high frequenciespressure fluctuations on the airfoil surface are also examined to elucidate the scattered-noise production. at all airfoil positions, the spectral levels of the spanwise-averaged surface pressure are largest at low frequencies near the leading edge. near the trailing edge of both the center and high airfoils an increase in high-frequency spectral levels is observed, confirming important trailing-edge contribution to the high-frequency radiated sound. background: increasingly, bacterial rnas are recognized as potent inducers of type i interferons. in m. tuberculosis, high levels of ifn-β are associated with active forms of the disease and promote host pathology and bacterial pathogenesis. while mycobacterial rnas have been shown to be released from bacteria in a seca2-dependent manner and gain access to the host cytosol in an esx-i dependent manner, little is known about the mechanisms regulating this pathogenesis mechanisms or whether it is conserved across other pathogenic mycobacteria.methods: to identify genes/proteins integral to seca2-dependent release of m. tuberculosis rna, we developed a primary transposon library screen for low ifn-β inducing mutants in a closely related mycobacterial species, m. marinum (chapter 2). as seca2-dependent activation of rig-i/mavs has not been characterized in m. marinum, we examined the conservation of this critical virulence mechanism by generating δseca2 knockout and complementation strains. these strains were tested for their ability to induce ifn-β from host cells following infection (chapter 3). finally, we applied existing computational tools to characterize six previously identified rnas secreted by m. tuberculosis and trialled an rna labeling and pulldown approach to identify rna binding proteins (chapter 4). results: our results indicate the proposed primary screening technique can identify low ifn-β inducing transposon mutants. however, our m. marinum δseca2 strain showed intracellular growth rates and secreted levels of ifn-β equal to or higher than wild type. comparative analysis of m. tuberculosis secreted rnas identified shared motifs and heterogenous rna secondary structures. dot blots and biotin-rna pulldown trials showed the incorporation of biotin in synthesized mce1b but non-specificity between labelled and unlabelled rna following pull down.conclusions: together, our results show that while the proposed ifn-β screen can identify low ifn-β inducing mutants, m. marinum is not an appropriate model under the conditions tested. this screen could potentially be applied to an m. tuberculosis transposon library following validation. in silico analysis of secreted m. tuberculosis rnas in addition to rna synthesis and pulldown experiments suggests these tools could provide valuable information on shared structural attributes and rna binding proteins involved in the seca2-dependent activation of host rig-i/mavs signaling. minimization of positive emotions in response to positive experiences (i.e., positive attenuation) may contribute to the onset and maintenance of depression. when in a sad mood, individuals with higher levels of depressive symptoms benefit initially from recalling positive autobiographical memory. however, this effect may dissipate more quickly in such individuals due to the way they regulate their positive emotions. i examined whether the benefit of recalling positive autobiographical memories declined more over time in individuals with higher levels of depressive symptoms and whether different emotion-regulation strategies underlie this difference. to this end, i recruited a sample of 107 participants with high (i.e., high dysphoric group; n = 47) and low levels (i.e., low dysphoric group; n = 60) of depressive symptoms. to examine the mechanism underlying unsuccessful mood repair in individuals with higher levels of depressive symptoms, participants were instructed to recall positive autobiographical memories after a sad-mood induction and were assigned randomly to dampen or to ruminate positively on their positive emotions. the participants' positive emotions were repeatedly assessed to elucidate whether the benefit of recalling positive autobiographical memory on positive emotions decays with time differentially in the high versus low dysphoric group. consistent with the hypotheses, recalling positive autobiographical memories after a sad-mood induction elevated positive emotions for all participants. further, the level of positive emotions increased following positive rumination and decreased following dampening in all participants. however, unlike the low dysphoric group that exhibited an increase in their positive emotions immediately, positive emotions increased only after engaging in positive rumination 1 minute longer than in the high dysphoric group. inconsistent with the hypothesis, dampening did not decrease the level of positive emotions more in the high (vs. low) dysphoric group. in general, engaging in positive rumination on the recalled positive autobiographical memories may be helpful in mood repair even in individuals with higher levels of depressive symptoms. heterogeneity, multiple on-chip processing elements, multithreading, intelligent caching mechanisms, and compiler-assisted thread-level speculation are a few of the features of emerging architectures for meeting the increasing performance demands and power constraints of future processors and workloads. in the design of future processors, two primary challenges facing computer architects are the overcoming of the memory wall and energy consumption reduction. to address these challenges, this work employs an iterative design methodology in the optimization of an innovative processor architecture that leverages the above features in the implementation of an advanced, powerful execution model called traveling threads for exploiting parallelism and data locality in tandem at multiple levels of granularity. the design of this passive/active multicore (pam) architecture and the development of mechanisms for locality-cognizant extraction of traveling threads offer insights into the benefits of utilizing computational migration at a granularity of parallelism between the conventional instruction and thread levels. through these insights, we conclude that pam and traveling threads are particularly well-suited for the joint exploitation of parallelism and data locality. quantitative results support this conclusion, illustrating the architecture's significant potential improvements over those currently in use in terms of both execution time and energy consumption for standard benchmarks and scientific workloads. this research documents passive and active flow control techniques for reducing losses associated with the tip leakage vortex of a low pressure turbine blade cascade. experiments were conducted in a linear cascade of pratt and whitney pack-b turbine blades for an inlet mach number of 0.2 and an exit mach number of 0.3. the flow was documented using blade-tip and end wall static pressure measurements and downstream total pressure loss coefficients. additionally, surface flow visualization was performed on the end wall and blade tip for a greater understanding of the flow behavior.blade mounted passive flow control investigated two gap-to-chord ratios for which four tip thickness-to-gap ratios were simulated using pressure-side winglets. the performance of a partial suction-side squealer tip was determined to depend on both gap-to-chord and thickness-to-gap ratios. active flow control utilized a sdbdplasma actuator situated on the blade tip, with plasma initiated at an unsteady frequency to amplify unsteady characteristics inherent in the flow. this resulted in modest reductions in the downstream total pressure loss associated with the tip leakage vortex.vortex generators on the end wall were designed to produce vorticity of opposite sign of the tip leakage vortex. two vortex generator heights and two placements were investigated at two gap-to-chord ratios. for both gap-to-chord ratios, a vortex generator roughly the height of the gap placed upstream of the trailing edge produced the best results. active plasma vortex generators in similar locations were also investigated, and a plasma actuator across from the trailing edge was found to be roughly one third as effective as the passive vortex generators at reducing the losses associated with the tip leakage vortex.wall roughness was also investigated as a means of diffusing the tip leakage vortex. 3-dimensional roughness almost completely eliminated the tip leakage vortex as observed downstream while modestly increasing the blade tip loading. 2-dimensional roughness decreased total pressure losses associated with the tip leakage vortex downstream by 40% with little change to the blade loading. simulated roughnessusing plasma actuators had essentially no effect on the tip gap flow. the hormone oxytocin (ot) has been associated with stress-reduction and social affiliation, and influences cognition and memory. intranasal ot is used to manipulate ot in the brain to study the hormone's effects. however, extant literature associating ot with cognition is inconsistent, few studies have examined ot and cognition in women, and it is unclear whether ot exerts global or targeted cognitive effects. in a double-blind design, forty-two women received 24 i.u. intranasal ot or saline before completing an n-back working memory task and viewing stimuli from an emotional memory task. forty-eight hours later, participants completed the n-back again and were tested on memory of the emotional pictures. saliva samples were also provided to examine ot's effects on other hormones. ot inhibited working memory and did not affect emotional memory. hormone analyses revealed ot increased cortisol and progesterone, and decreased testosterone. despite the exponential progress over the past fifty years the increase of performance of microprocessors has recently come to a rather abrupt end. modern microprocessors are limited by heat dissipation. speeds have been capped around 4 ghz since 2004 to limit heat generation. such speeds are well below the rc time constant limit of the circuits, sacrificing speed to prevent the chips from melting. reversible computing is a viable alternative to traditional circuit implementations since it reduces heat generation by avoiding unnecessary dissipation. traditional cmos circuits dissipate power on every switching in the form of heat. adiabatic reversible computing uses reversible logic and quasi-adiabatic transitions to reduce heat generation by introducing a trade-off between speed and power. by using reversible logic and switching the circuits slowly, relative to their rc time constants, power can be dramatically reduced. in this thesis, i will present the design of a 16-bit adiabatic microprocessor that operates at 0.5 ghz dissipating an energy one order of magnitude lower than its cmos counterpart. the adiabatic microprocessor is a multicycle risc processor with a 16-bit datapath and it follows the mips architecture. only a subset of instructions is implemented but they are sufficient for universal computation. adiabatic reversible logic is achieved using split-rail charge recovery logic (scrl) with bennett clocking, which consists of clocks that only ramp up once the previous stage has a valid steady state. an adiabatic scrl implementation allows a circuit to operate both in adiabatic and in standard cmos mode. the adiabatic microprocessor design includes on-chip temperature sensors that directly measure heat dissipation and provide a direct comparison of the power between the two modes of operation. the 16-bit adiabatic microprocessor is successfully implemented in 90 nm technology with an operating frequency of 0.5 ghz, which demonstrates the design of a real-life circuit using adiabatic reversible logic and shows a promising future for energy-efficient computing. reference frames are ubiquitous in spatial cognition, and they have been essential in the visual attention literature. although most studies involving reference frames have been typically designed to examine how a spatial location can be defined in different ways depending on the reference point that is used, they often come to the unsupported conclusion that these constructs have a specific compositional format, the cartesian coordinate system. the present study designed a modified version of the spatial cueing paradigm to examine the extent to which attention can be guided by encoding locations within compositional (coordinate) spatial representations. experiment 1 used 75%-valid, compositional word cues that conveyed separate information about the likely direction and distance of the target. the main results showed that these cues elicited a compositional gradient arising from the combined activation of their separate spatial dimensions and were consistent with the use of a cartesian coordinate reference system. experiment 2 used non-compositional number cues to rule out an alternative account. experiment 3 examined the dynamic nature of these compositional gradients over time. and experiment 4 examined a boundary condition that could potentially limit the emergence of these compositional gradients. these findings were interpreted within a theory of conceptual control that distinguish sitional and can be used to guide attention from one object to another. but conceptual representations depend on non-compositional, perceptual representations to bind the activations arising from their separate spatial dimensions, much like non-spatial feature dimensions do. siderophores are an important class of natural products that have received wide attention for many years due to their unique properties as microbial iron chelators and potential use in drug delivery, imaging, and most recently in diagnostics. significant advances have been made in the past decade, but additional studies and applications show promise for extended utility. in chapter 2, design and practical synthesis of a triscatecholate siderophore as an artificial enterobactin mimic for delivery of aminopenicillin are described. the aminopenicillin conjugates exhibited sgnificantly enhanced in vitro antibacterial activities against gram-negative species compared to the parent drugs, especially against pseudomonas aeruginosa. using the triscatecolate siderophore for delivery of other antibacterial agents that have different cellular targets and modes of action is also presented. further attention in development of controlled drug release processes from siderophore-drug conjugates will expand the drug profiles and types of intracellular targets that can be considered. design, syntheses and antibacterial activity of siderophore-drug conjugates with potential drug release linkers triggered by different microbial actions are described in chapter 3 and 4. conjugates with a reduction triggered linker displayed better antibacterial activity compared to the respective non-releasable conjugate, indicating that the expected drug release process occurs. broad biological evaluations of synthetic intermediates were also performed and led to the discovery of several potent n-acylated ciprofloxacin derevatives which may act through a novel dual-action mechanism. besides drug delivery, siderophore metal complexes and conjugates have considerable potential for use as new pathogen detection devices. development of such a device on a microfluidic chip using both natural and artificial siderohpore was explored and presented in chapter 5. once completed, this could provide a new generation of strain-selective pathogen detection device. in addition, palladium-catalyzed cyclopropanations of various nitroso diels-alder (nda) cycloadducts are described in chapter 6. the methodology reported led to quick access of a conformationally restricted carbocyclic nucleoside which represents a family of biologically useful molecules. religion and globalization affect each other in a myriad of ways. olivier roy theorizes – from a macro perspective – that in the face of globalization and secularization, religion attempts to become autonomous in a global space and separates from local culture and politics. one of the most tangible and conspicuous instances of globalization is religious pilgrimage, assisted by a bourgeoning tourism industry. pilgrims traverse sacred spaces within limited timeframes and return to their local contexts. how does pilgrimage change the understanding of local religion and culture for these pilgrims? using ten semi-structured interviews of pakistani shia pilgrims to iraq for the occasion of arba'een, i argue that in this case, local understandings of religion and culture do not change substantially because of three factors: one, the nature of religious practice is steeped in a local idiom of affective expression and can be difficult to separate local culture from religious practice; two, the structure of pilgrimage participation is made possible by local institutions (family, congregations) and structure the practice in global space; three, pilgrims orient their meaning-making processes towards their localities, and thus local space mediates any changes brought about by the pilgrimage itself. ionic liquids (ils) have been studied recently as potential 'green'? solvents due to their negligible vapor pressure. modeling and measuring their phase behavior with water and organic solvents is vital for evaluating their many potential uses. as a first step towards modeling the phase behavior of il solutions, we will show how the electrolyte nonrandom two-liquid model can be applied to model activity coefficients of quaternary ammonium salts (potentially interesting ils) in water. results indicate that this model is able to capture the nonideal phase behavior of these salts in aqueous solutions up to relatively high concentrations. a particularly important quantity needed for assessment of environmental impact is the octanol/water partition coefficient, kow. the measurement of this constant for imidazolium based ils show they do not bioaccumulate. finally, we will mention some future work to model the kow using the nrtl model studied in the first part of the project. the structures of many revolutionary technologies, such as aircraft wings, antennas, wind turbine blades, and dies for polymer extrusion, have remained largely unchanged for decades. in the 21st century, researchers have started to investigate using planar morphing mechanisms to increase the flexibility and real time performance of such systems. a synthesis approach for rigid-body 1-degree-of-freedom morphing mechanisms has previously been developed. this approach is rather limited, though, in that only one actuator may be used, only particular topologies are allowed, and the target profiles must have the same arc length. this work extends this approach by overcoming all of these limitations. a genetic algorithm framework is presented that allows for 1or multi-degree-of-freedom mechanisms to be generated and for different actuator coordination strategies to be implemented. these methods are further expanded to allow for the simultaneous optimization of both topology and dimension of morphing mechanisms with any number of degrees of freedom. the consideration of all possible topologies assists in the mechanization of morphing chains that match target profiles with varying arc lengths, since the previous methods cannot always be used in such cases. this work shows that considering all possible topologies and allowing for multi-degree-of-freedom solutions allows for more, higher performing options to be found, ultimately enabling better consideration of engineering tradeoffs. work in using these morphing mechanisms as morphing dies in polymer extrusion is then presented. parts made via polymer extrusion are currently limited to a constant cross section. additionally, the process is very difficult to control, often leading to the final part dimensions being controlled in a manual trial-and-error manner. this work seeks to increase the capability of polymer extrusion by using iterative learning control to control the final width of a rectangular part whose width can change via a simple morphing die. both simulations and the first known experimental results show that parts with gross shape change can be made via polymer extrusion and have their final dimension controlled autonomously. problem solving deficits are well-highlighted in anxiety. however, less is known about the relations between anxiety and creative problem solving, which is defined as the ability to generate unique solutions to problems. this might be due, in part, to the lack of clarity surrounding the mechanisms underlying incubation, a period of offline rest that benefits creative problem solving. tangential lines of research suggest that rumination, an important transdiagnostic factor of mood disorders, may detriment memory consolidation during incubation, which might subsequently lower creative problem-solving success. however, no studies to date have elucidated the relations between these three factors: rumination, memory consolidation during incubation, and creative problem solving. thus, this dissertation investigated 1) the association between trait tendencies to ruminate, memory consolidation, and problem solving using a pre-existing dataset and 2) the effect of active rumination during incubation on subsequent memory and problem-solving success through a novel experimental study. although no causal effects of rumination on memory consolidation and problem-solving success can be definitively confirmed in this project, a preliminary exploration into these relations and an in-depth discussion of possible limitations and future directions are provided. elle journeys through a strange world looking for her brother, who may or may not exist. an elegant solution to the mystery of electroweak symmetry breaking and the origin of mass was proposed in the 1960s, yet it has taken several generations of particle accelerators and detectors to discover the first strong candidate for the so-called higgs boson, which is implied by the theory. a positive identification would complete the standard model (sm), the most successful description of elementary particles and interactions to date. searches for the sm higgs boson production in association with top-quark pairs will provide additional information on the likely sm higgs boson detection by the atlas and cms experiments at the lhc in 2012, as well as the only means of directly measuring its coupling to top quarks. the first cms search for the sm higgs boson decaying into hadronic tau pairs in association with top-quark pairs is presented in this dissertation: with 19.4 /fb of &radic;s=8tev pp collision data collected by the cms experiment, the expected and observed upper limits on the product of the cross section and branching ratio for the tth&rarr;&tau;h&tau;h process are roughly 13 times the sm background expectation. solid experimental observations have exposed several limitations of the sm: it fails to provide a description of neutrino-flavor mixing, cold dark matter candidates, gravitation, and the matter-antimatter asymmetry, for example. numerous models in beyond-the-standard-model theories (e.g., grand unification, extra dimensions) suggest the existence of new neutral gauge (z') bosons, some of which would appear with enhanced couplings to tau leptons. a search for sequential sm and &psi;-model z' bosons decaying into tau pairs with 4.94&plusmn;0.11 /fb of &radic;s=7tev pp collision data collected by the cms experiment is also presented, the results of which show an incompatibility with such z' bosons with masses below 1.4 tev/c&sup2; and 1.1 tev/c&sup2; respectively at 95% c.l. kreep basalts are an oddity. their trace element signature is evolved, possessing an abundance of incompatible trace elements (kreep: k, rare earth elements and phosphorus), and yet they are primitive with regards to their major element composition. a great deal of effort has been spent on understanding how these basalts formed, whether they were impact melts mixing a kreep-rich lithology with a mg-rich one. or as endogenous melts of the lunar interior, owing there kreepy ree's to their source, or perhaps to contamination as they travelled to the lunar surface passing through a kreepy lithology. based on a combination of crystal size distributions (a quantitative petrographic method), in situ major and trace element analysis, and element mapping, the kreep basalts were studied. in chapters 2 and 3, i develop and refine methods on two kreep basalts, one endogenous and one impact. chapter 4 records the csd's that were produced to determine their origin. chapter 5 combines the data from chapters 2 and 3 and synthesizing these with the major and trace element compositions and calculated equilibrium liquids of pyroxene and plagioclase from additional kreep basalts. in recent years, the topic of religious financial giving has garnered increased scholarly attention within the sociology of religion (e.g. chaves and miller 1999, hoge et al. 1996; smith et al. 2008; wuthnow 1997). religious financial gifts are crucial to the survival of religious institutions; parishioners collectively supply upwards of 90% of the annual revenue at three-quarters of american congregations (chaves 2004). though some progress has been made in ascertaining how family structure impacts giving, the extant literature offers limited insight into how decisions about religious financial giving are made at the household level.relying on participant observation, in-depth interviews, and congregation-reported financial giving amounts gathered at 'good shepherd presbyterian (usa),' a mainline protestant congregation and 'bridgeway community church,' an evangelical protestant congregation in collaboration with the northern indiana congregational study (nics), i ask how family structure and marital relationships affect giving patterns. in 2018, secular, or nonreligious individuals, became the largest "religious" group in america surpassing evangelical christians. their rise has been meteoric. beginning in the early 1990s, seculars now make up nearly 25 percent of the population. this trend is also political as seculars tend to identify with the democratic party and take liberal positions on cultural issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion. seculars in american politics may be especially impactful as previous research has shown that politics, and the connection between religion and politics, drives individuals away from religion. but despite attention to the political causes of rising secularism in the united states, much less is known about the political consequences. if a rejection of the religious right in the republican party drives individuals away from religion, then secularism may also push individuals toward the democratic party. the tendency of seculars to be democratic coupled with their rise as a proportion of the population may point to a long-term electoral advantage for the democratic party. currently, however, the democratic party has been hesitant to run secular candidates for public office and speak openly about secularism and nonreligion. despite the strong presence of seculars in the democratic party, most democrats are religious and many, including black protestants and hispanic catholics, are highly religious. how then might seculars have political influence? and can the democratic party benefit from the involvement of seculars in the party? despite their reputation as "nones" or disaffected atheists, "active" and "committed" seculars strongly identify with the democratic party and have the potential to exercise influence through participation and activism. political activism, especially through political parties, is an important mechanism for the political incorporation of new groups. activists are also critical for political parties as activists contribute money, work on campaigns, and volunteer for the party organization. it is the purpose of this dissertation to investigate the process of secular incorporation into the party system by focusing on secular activism. i will show that secular grassroots activists are already prominent in the democratic party, but also that secular activists are less involved in party politics than their nonsecular counterparts. secular activists are also ideologically extreme, which suggests secular activists may push the democratic to take more liberal policy positions. i also use experimental evidence to show that secular activists desire representation, and that appeals to secular activists would lead seculars to be more likely to vote for a secular candidate. these findings suggest that secular may form a new, important group in the democratic party and may reshape the candidates and policy positions the party supports. the use of molten boric acid as a reactive flux for synthesizing actinide borates has been developed in the past three years providing access to a remarkable array of exotic materials with both unusual structures and unprecedented properties. [thb5o6(oh)6][bo(oh)2]'¢2.5h2o (ndtb-1) possesses a cationic supertetrahedral structure and displays remarkable anion exchange properties with high selectivity for tco4&#8722;. in addition, ndtb-1 was determined to show real utilities to solve the 'technetium problem' . uranyl borates form noncentrosymmetric structures with extraordinarily rich topological relationships. neptunium borates are often mixed-valent and yield rare examples of compounds with one metal in three different oxidation states. plutonium borates display new coordination chemistry for trivalent actinides. finally, americium and curium borates show dramatic departures from plutonium borates, and form the first trivalent actinide compounds that do not have lanthanide analogues. there are scant examples of families of actinides compounds that extend past plutonium to examine the bonding of later actinides. there are several grand challenges that this work addresses. the foremost of these challenges is the development of structure-property relationships in transuranium materials. a deep understanding of the materials chemistry of actinides will likely lead to the development of advanced waste forms for radionuclides present in nuclear waste that prevent their transport in the environment. this work may have also uncovered the solubility-limiting phases of actinides in some repositories such as the waste isolation pilot plant (wipp), and allows for measurements on the stability of these materials. the core of the this dissertation is focused on the crystal chemistry and the structure-property relationship of actinide borates that derived from the molten boric acid flux reactions including thorium borate (chapter 3), uranium borates (chapter 4-7,12,14), neptunium borates (chapter 9-14), plutonium borates (chapter 9,12,16,17), americium borate (chapter 17), and curium borate (chapter 18). during the course of these studies, several important side results were also serendipitously discovered. these includes the anion exchange studies of ndtb-1 (chapter 3), studies of iodine incorporation into uranyl borates (chapter 8), the discovery of new cation-cation interaction bonding mode for np(v) (chapter 15), and investigations of novel interstitial incorporation of actinides into natural materials (chapter 19). the sun, while normally not a source for high energy cosmic rays, does still at times produce energetic events such as solar flares or coronal mass ejections. these events, as has been shown by ground level based detectors, have the capability to accelerate protons to energies on the order of 1~gev. ground level muon detector stations are capable of detecting secondary muons from energies greater than 20~gev. however such detections are extremely rare. project grand, an array of ground level secondary muon stations, with an angular resolution of 0.26 degrees on a projected plane and a counting rate of 1800 muons/s, is an excellent tool for detecting ground level events associated with solar phenomena. the ground level muon counting rate for two solar x-ray flares (april 15, 2001 and january 20, 2005) are examined in detail for evidence of an enhancement immediately following the x-ray flares. the ground level counting rate during the october 29, 2003 forbush decrease is examined and a simple model for the propagation of ejecta from a coronal mass ejections is presented. synonymous codons (i.e., codons that code for the same amino acid) are not used uniformly within a species' genome, resulting in measurable codon usage bias (cub) for each species. despite not affecting the resulting amino acid sequence, alterations to synonymous codon usage in a gene have been shown to affect the expression, folding, and function of the resulting protein. one prominent hypothesis about why this occurs is that a codon's translation rate is directly related to how "preferred" the codon is in a given species, and that altered translation rates can potentially affect co-translational protein folding. however, there is debate about how best to define cub so that it most accurately depicts codon translation rates. a better understanding of codon translation rates is imperative to understanding the processes of co-translational protein folding and heterologous gene expression. the debate about how best to define cub has resulted in the development of numerous codon usage models, all of which define preferred codons in a distinct way. however, a rigorous comparison of these codon usage models has not yet been completed. to that end, this work discusses a novel, rigorous comparison of these codon usage models relative to two different types of experimental data, as well as the development of two hybrid codon usage models that address a weakness of one of the most popular cub models. additionally, a novel "codon harmonization" algorithm is developed, whose aim is to replicate the cub of a native gene sequence in a synonymous mutant (for heterologous gene expression). this algorithm has the ability to incorporate a number of codon usage models, and therefore allows each model's biological efficacy to be tested in vivo. finally, a novel framework for evaluating the effects of cub on three-dimensional protein structures is discussed. this framework aims to illuminate of the effects of hypothesized co-translational folding on resulting protein structures. the notre dame arc-heated hypersonic wind tunnel, act-1, has been in use for four years and its flow has only been cursorily characterized. the flow of act-1 is characterized in greater depth in this work by its mach-number variation both axially and azimuthally. the testing is performed at two stagnation pressures and with both the mach-4.5 and mach-6 nozzles. a two-phase flow problem is encountered in these tests and corrected for by a factor based on the fraction of carbon dioxide condensate. in addition to mach-number variation, power spectra are examined. a second undertaking of the thesis is an analytical model of a shock tube which is used to benchmark against a numerical simulation. the treatment of interactions between flow structures is discussed, e.g. shock-shock and shock-contact surface interactions. the results are displayed as comparisons of flow properties at the farthest downstream position in the tube (i.e. a notional inlet to a ludwieg tube's nozzle) and overall mass fluctuation throughout the time of simulation. this study examines the communion of saints as the symbol of christian belief in the communication between persons across the divide of death. a fundamental claim of this work is that what makes the saints holy also binds them together in communion and that, conversely, communion is the condition and fruit of sanctity. as a constructive effort, this dissertation first critically evaluates the modern approaches to death from socio-historical, literary, and philosophical perspectives in order to clear a space in which christian revelation establishes the true meaning of death as the creature's contradictory opposition to the communication of god's word as the basis of all life. furthermore, this dissertation shows how the denial of the seriousness of death correlatively diminishes the apprehension of god's absolute gift of creatio ex nihilo and the separate though corresponding gift of new life in the resurrection of the dead. christian hope is provided by and takes on the dimensions of jesus christ, who stretches the communication of the word of life to the limits of creaturely existence and indeed to the extreme distance of creaturely non-existence in sin. this work aims to present the communio sanctorum as an article of faith that is properly christological in that it concerns the complete action of the incarnation, pneumatological in that it pertains to the spirit's work of forming community in the bonds of charity, and ultimately trinitarian in that it fundamentally entails the graced participation in the divine life of persons-in-communion. as appropriate to a theological inquiry, this treatment of the communio sanctorum begins with its incorporation as an article of faith in the apostles' creed, proceeds to elucidate the meaning of what this article expresses with eschatological studies in theological anthropology and ecclesiology, and at last arrives at a more substantive understanding of the sacramental and liturgical practice of the catholic faith. my dissertation focuses on dynamic firm competition and academic entrepreneurship. the first essay studies the dynamics and equilibrium outcomes of a duopoly in which firms make decisions about both capacity expansion and cost reduction. the second essay is an extension of the framework used in the first essay to study the strategic roles of exogenous spillovers and absorptive capacity. the third essay examines the effects of the bayh-dole act (1980) and the pasteur's quadrant effects on a faculty's research efforts over a career life cycle, taking into account research preferences and productivities, spillovers among different types of research knowledge, and monetary payoffs. the last essay further looks at a professor's transition between academia and entrepreneurship. the computing world is constantly changing and requires the use of new technologies to solve emerging world problems. this thesis specifically looks at how to apply two new technologies, mobile computing and infrastructure as code, to address the issue of crumbling structures in haiti and the provisioning of virtual machines for collaborative team work.an android mobile application was created and will be tested during the summer of 2013 by a small group of engineering students in ecuador, uganda, and costa rica. the application will eventually be used in haiti to guide a haitian citizen through an assessment to obtain data that civil engineering experts will later use to construct a structural model and identify areas at risk of collapse. devops is a general movement from a traditional development approach to an agile approach. within this movement, exists a methodology known as infrastructure as code that focuses on how the infrastructure is created, automatically provisioned and maintained. a provisioning language, puppet, is used to provision a virtual or physical machine with specified configuration settings. a benefit of this approach is the developers, testers, and system administrators all work on identical computing environments. this dissertation carefully reviews the historical sources for christian initiation in spain before 711. during this period, spanish baptismal rites underwent dynamic change, a process that is followed in light of several main features of initiation rites. it is argued that it is best to avoid attempting to synthesize the historical material from this period with the baptismal rites in the later mozarabic liturgical books, so as to critically and accurately consider this period on its own terms. revisiting the data in this way opens up questions that seem not to have been considered. it is generally assumed that the post-baptismal chrismation in spanish baptismal rites is equivalent to "confirmation," a distinctly roman practice at the time. this inaccuracy leads to historical approaches that then attempt to interpret the spanish tradition in terms of an anachronistic perspective. similarly, the universal consensus about the "origin" of the distinctly spanish practice of single immersion is based on an uncritical reading of the historical sources that present that very explanation. when analyzed carefully, however, it does not seem to be quite so certain, and it is argued here that a presumed pre-sixth-century practice of triple immersion in spain is not necessarily warranted. not only the rites, but also the interpretation of baptism in this period is surveyed. spanish authors' rich range of interpretive motifs include a combination of regeneration language (both as rebirth and as recreation) with a paschal context, and a seeming preference for johannine language, all in a way that presents paschal baptism as having a much wider range of meaning than romans 6. xenopus laevis has proven itself as a powerful and indispensable model organism in the field of developmental biology. however, it has begun to spread into other fields of research, one of which being analytical chemistry and quantitative proteomics. beginning with the largest developmental proteome dataset of any organism at that time, xenopus laevis has since been utilized in countless analytical experiments, ranging from single cell proteomics and metabolomics, protein extraction optimization, and phosphoproteomics. in this work, i continued integrating numerous analytical techniques while investigating various developmental aspects of xenopus embryology. this has resulted in furthering single cell proteomic sensitivity, whole embryo metabolite imaging, n-­glycoproteome quantitation, conduction system analysis of the developing heart, and the integration of proteomics and transcriptomics investigating neural cell lineage commitment. a novel dye for use in dye-sensitized solar cells (dssc) is described. chromophore functionalized gold nanoparitcles (aunp) have been useful as light harvesting dyes in dsscs, however one persistent problem is charge recombination which adversely affects the final electrical output of these systems. limiting this phenomenon would lead to increased incident photon to current efficiency (ipce) and thus greater power output. using am1 calculations of the relative energies of the excited state of the light harvesting portion of the dye and the conduction band of colloidal aunp in solution, a multi-component dye where electrons would be more likely to flow through this conductive linker than to follow other undesired deactivation pathways was designed. in order to decrease this charge recombination, an attempt was made to insert 1,4-diaminoanthraquinone (1,4-daaq) between pyrene and the aunp to serve as a conductive linker. this dissertation demonstrates the application of optimized functional nanomedicine in treating a variety of cancer at preclinical stage. our studies focus on peptide-targeted formulations by going after extracellular biomarkers, designing and optimizing ligands accordingly by tuning multivalency and avidity, as well as adjusting selectivity towards target cells by biophysical and chemical modifications of nanoparticles. chapter 2 and 3 describes the significance of designing rational prodrugs to achieve controlled and selective treatment in multiple myeloma and lung carcinoma, respectively. importantly, the combined strategy of optimized targeting ligand and prodrugs containing chemical linkers susceptible to hydrolytic enzymes at endosome of cancer cells, has proven to be most efficacious for inhibiting tumor progression and limiting toxicity in the studies described within these chapters. in chapters 4 through 6, a systematic approach to achieve endosomal escape and target immune cell are explored. endosomal escape of gene-modulating proteins has been a bottleneck in the last three decades that presents substantial challenges in achieving therapeutic outcomes for treating genetic disorders and abnormalities. here, histidine-rich ionizable lipids were designed for peptide-targeted lipid-based nanoparticle formulations and were evaluated in multiple myeloma and breast cancer using biochemical and cell-based assays to achieve endosomal escape in vitro. in chapter 5, the importance of targeting tumor associated macrophages has been described and peptide-targeted liposomal nanoparticle formulations were developed to specifically reprogram pro-tumorigenic macrophages. moreover, sirna loaded targeted nanoparticle formulations demonstrated significantly reduced tumor burden in an aggressive lung tumor model. my research has the potential to significantly enhance clinical prognosis by delivering therapeutics selectively and safely and improving the quality of patients' lives. furthermore, the approaches described in this thesis have the possibility to overcome existing challenges of poor clinical outcomes in cancer treatments, such as less effective treatment, shorter life expectancy, poorer prognosis, and greater risk of cancer relapse in already suffering patients. the majority of nanomedicine used in cancer treatment, vaccination, diagnostics, fungal treatment, or analgesics, are fda-approved lipid-based nanoparticles, that have not been targeted yet. since the first approval of doxil in 1995, nanomedicine has garnered attention and more startups and top-notch biotech-based companies are fiercely pursuing lipid-based therapeutics in clinical investigations. since now we have information about the human genome and advanced tools to adjust therapeutics according to tumor heterogeneity and molecularly defined populations, there are exciting opportunities and potentials to bring more innovative nanomedicine therapies for effective treatment in the future. there has been much recent debate within the field of working memory (wm) on the storage mechanism (persistent delay-period activity vs. activity-silent) and storage location (frontal vs. sensory cortex) of latent wm items. this thesis addresses these debates using a novel combination of transcranial magnetic stimulation (tms) and electroencephalography (eeg) with in a double retrocue working memory experiment. we found that participants had higher memory performance for unattended items when those items received tms during a delay period as opposed to when those items were not directly targeted by tms. this increase in behavioral performance was mirrored by a recovery of decoding ability for the item's feature (i.e., orientation) as measured with the application of inverted encoding models to the eeg data. specifically, unattended items that received tms to contralateral, retinotopic visual cortex showed significant reconstruction of orientation whereas those items that received tms to ipsilateral visual cortex did not. while concerns about data quality and tms protocol (particularly for experiment 2) limit the conclusions that can be drawn at present, the results from this thesis converge with other recent studies to provide support for the sensorimotor recruitment hypothesis and "activity-silent" retention mechanisms in wm. ionic liquids (ils) are an exciting class of compounds with unique properties that makes them attractive for industrial applications. among their valuable features, an immesurably low vapor pressure and a liquid state at or near ambient conditions are found at the top of the list. in this research dissertation, thermophysical and transport properties of ionic liquids are theoretically investigated by means of molecular simulation techniques. quantum calculations are used as a supportive tool to force field development work. this research task is not done in the darkness but rather is guided and supported by colateral experimental studies. cations studied include imidazolium-, pyridiniumand triazolium-based structures with different inorganic anions such as hexafluorophosphate, bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide, nitrate and perchlorate. static properties computed include gravimetric densities, volumetric expansivities, isothermal compressibilities, heat capacities, cohesive energy densities as well as the liquid structure. analysis of the dynamic properties of ionic liquid systems is also carried out yielding information on the rotational dynamics and transport properties such as self-diffusivity. this work forms part of a national quest for an insight into the structure-property relationship of energetic ionic liquids (eils) headed by the us air force. eils with a high nitrogen content offer several advantages over current technologies such as hydrazine. applications may be found in armed conflict as well as in many other energetical needs provided that eils are found to be hypergolic. due to the fact that hypergolic fuels carry their own oxidizer, they are ideal for space applications. triazolium-based ionic liquids are the starting class of energetic ionic liquids and are investigated as part of this dissertation. not much experimental data is available for this class of compounds. this is partially due to the inherent danger of the experimental measurements. therefore, a safe computer simulation can provide a great deal of insight into the property-structure relationship and the liquid structure of the system. validation experience obtained with imidazoliumand pyridinium-based ionic liquids gives confidence in the static and dynamic property prediction of triazolium-based ionic liquids. in addition, a molecular modeling study of ethane-based hydrofluorocabons for vapor-liquid equilibria is presented. there exists industrial interest in applications of mixtures of these refrigerants with ionic liquids and thus, molecular modeling can help elucidating design problems. a force field for 1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane (r-134a) is proposed and validated against experimental liquid and gas densities, vapor pressures and heat of vaporizations using gibbs ensemble monte carlo simulations. this dissertation carefully reviews the historical sources for christian initiation in spain before 711. during this period, spanish baptismal rites underwent dynamic change, a process that is followed in light of several main features of initiation rites. it is argued that it is best to avoid attempting to synthesize the historical material from this period with the baptismal rites in the later mozarabic liturgical books, so as to critically and accurately consider this period on its own terms. revisiting the data in this way opens up questions that seem not to have been considered. it is generally assumed that the post-baptismal chrismation in spanish baptismal rites is equivalent to "confirmation," a distinctly roman practice at the time. this inaccuracy leads to historical approaches that then attempt to interpret the spanish tradition in terms of an anachronistic perspective. similarly, the universal consensus about the "origin" of the distinctly spanish practice of single immersion is based on an uncritical reading of the historical sources that present that very explanation. when analyzed carefully, however, it does not seem to be quite so certain, and it is argued here that a presumed pre-sixth-century practice of triple immersion in spain is not necessarily warranted.not only the rites, but also the interpretation of baptism in this period is surveyed. spanish authors' rich range of interpretive motifs include a combination of regeneration language (both as rebirth and as recreation) with a paschal context, and a seeming preference for johannine language, all in a way that presents paschal baptism as having a much wider range of meaning than romans 6. it is commonly held that as human beings we are more interested in ourselves than anything else. i remember rejecting this at first because i've always thought it was the other way around: that human beings are adventurous, creative and curious explorers of what is outside of us. it is ironic that both statements are true, because the best way to understand ourselves is to do it by understanding the world around us. this dualistic way of thought is how i've learned to understand and make art. art to me is a conduit that connects the inner world with the outside, and i understand it through the language of dualism. my work is the result of my curiosity of the world around me; specifically what i have discovered in the world within myself. currently my work has evolved into a series of ceramic sculptures. encased within are steel rod skeletons with a textile support structure. working with steel and yarn gives me the strong yet flexible structure to form and apply the clay onto. putting the work into the kiln to go through the ceramic process transforms the work. the clay is now stronger than steel, yet the steel is softer and continues to provide support. i am fascinated with this process and what it does to the relationship between the clay and steel materials. i see the dualistic elements in the materials and process; they contribute conceptually to both the way i work and think.this thesis will analyze the theme of dualism with my work in three parts. the first part is about the idea and inspirations behind the work. the second part is about the transition from the idea of dualism into examples of my work. the third part will be about the development of the process, materials and methods. the fine-structure constant or electromagnetic coupling constant, &#945;e, is a dimensionless ratio which unites many physics subfields. although known precisely via experiments in each subfield, there is disagreement within and between subfields. in particular, precise values obtained via electron ge 2 experiments which depend heavily on qed calculations have not always been in agreement with those obtained via muon g&#956; 2 experiments. also, solid state measurements (quantum hall effect and ac josephson effect) often disagree with neutronic h/mn measurements. &#945;e is often said to vary with energy but the question remains as to whether or not its low energy value is stable now or has been stable over the history of the universe. improved precision helps resolve these issues as they relate to physics, possibly beyond the standard model. the optical frequency measurements group in the time and frequency division at the national institute of science and technology (nist, boulder, co) developed and maintains a femtosecond laser frequency comb which is calibrated with respect to the cesium fountain clock implementation of the second. a single frequency component of the femtosecond laser comb is used together with a solid state diode laser and cesium thermal beam to precisely measure the cesium d1 f&#8712;{3,4} transition frequencies. the value of fd1centroid=335 116 048 748.1(2.4) khz obtained for the transition centroid is over fifteen times more precise than the most recent previous measurement. a precise value for the cesium d1 hyperfine splitting fhfe=1 167 723.6(4.7) khz is reported as well. this value is also over fifteen times more precise than the most recent previous measurement. these new neutral 133cs 6s2så_&#8594;6p2på_ transition (d1) frequencies, when combined with the 2002 codata values of the rydberg, proton/electron mass ratio, cesium atomic mass, and cesium recoil frequency, provide an almost qed-free value of alpha: &#945;e=1/137.036 0000(11) or 7.7 ppb. this value for &#945;e is comparable in precision with these other measurements. when this value is combined with the other measurements used to calculate the 2002 codata recommended value, an improved value of &#945;e=1/137.035 999 08(46) is obtained. enolates are highly useful synthetic tools for generating new carbon-carbon bonds. many decades of work have been devoted to their formation and application in organic reactions. this dissertation focuses on the use of s-block metal amides in enolization reactions. the first section includes the synthesis and structural characterization of two new s-block metal complexes. the first is a mixed lithium-magnesium amidoenolate hexameric cage. this structure was isolated as a result of the enolization of propiophenone by a mixed lithium-magnesium amide base. the second structure is a lithium 2-aza-allyl complex in which the metal cation is completely separated from the anion by two crown ether molecules. this structure was the surprising result of attempts to induce charge separation through addition of lithium-sequestering 12-crown-4 to a mixed lithium-magnesium amide. these two complexes are examples of the diverse range of structures that can be obtained from mixed metal systems.the second section is dedicated to the use of one magnesium bisamide base, mg(hmds)2, and its performance in regioand stereoselective enolizations. the results outlined illustrate the high levels of selectivity that are achievable for this base. the product ratios for stereoselective enolizations are shown to be dependent on the choice of solvent for the deprotonation reaction. enolization carried out in thf demonstrates excellent levels of (z)-selectivity, while those in toluene favor the (e)-isomer. the utility of the generated enolates is presented through their application in aldol addition reactions. these reactions are able to reach high conversion, and show some moderate diastereomer selectivity.the third section explores the mechanism of enolization mediated by mg(hmds)2 in thf. previous work in our group determined the mechanism in toluene, and this work aims to illuminate mechanistic differences in thf that may lead to the observed reversal in stereoselectivity. the most significant change found in the mechanism is thf solvation of magnesium. this results in a four-coordinate metal center in the transition state, as opposed to three-coordinate in the case of toluene. this section also includes a detailed study of the magnesium amidoenolate species in solution. several nmr techniques were utilized to identify each species. observation of the magnesium amidoenolate species over time revealed the presence of an equilibrium between monomeric and dimeric aggregates. in addition, an unequal distribution of the stereoisomers across the aggregation states results in an e/z ratio that is concentration, temperature and time dependent. this study undertakes a comparative analysis of political participation by ruling women in two tenth-century realms: anglo-saxon england and the ottonian empire. it focuses particularly on the ways in which the early medieval discourse of political virtus shaped the actions and decisions of queens and empresses in this period. inherited from greco-roman traditions, and adapted by christian authors, the discourse of political virtus required rulers to exhibit wisdom, courage, justice, and other virtuous traits publicly in order to legitimate their governance. like kings and emperors, queens and empresses pursued each of these virtues, earning acclaim when they succeeded, and opprobrium when they fell short.in order to understand the elements of virtus and to see how it shaped early medieval political structures, it is necessary to investigate the language embedded in the widest range of available sources. to uncover the widespread discourse of political virtus and the integral position of ruling women within this debate, this study analyzes a wide range of textual and material sources, including diplomas, private charters, royal missae, law codes, chronicles, annals, hagiographic vitae, poems, embroideries, gem-encrusted book-bindings, and coins. furthermore, it pays particular attention to the transmission of virtus in classical, late antique, and carolingian texts, as well as in the wide disseminations of tenth-century manuscripts. while scholars of the early middle ages have called attention to the lack of sources for merovingian and carolingian queens, the tenth century offers historians a wealth of evidence, spanning several genres and covering both the continent and anglo-saxon england. the materials assembled and analyzed here clearly demonstrate the critical importance of queenly virtue in the major political arenas of the tenth century. superconducting vortices and magnetic skyrmions are two types of mesoscale magnetic vortices that arrange themselves into periodic lattices in condensed matter systems. one method to study these structures is small angle neutron scattering (sans), which is uniquely capable of resolving magnetic order throughout the bulk of a crystal in reciprocal space. through careful modelling, the information that sans provides can be used to extract more than just the magnetic structure, including the fundamental energetics and symmetries which are at play. this dissertation discusses three projects of this nature.skyrmions are of direct interest for future spintronic memory applications due to their intrinsic topological protection. measurements of the energy barrier associated with this protection have often relied on generating metastable configurations of skyrmions which decay away over an observable period of time. we have developed a method of measuring the energy barrier in equilibrium (not metastable) skyrmion lattices (skls) by exploiting a hysteresis in the sans signal of the prototypical skyrmion material mnsi. by modelling this hysteresis with a simple preisach free energy and comparing it with atomistic spin simulations, the activation barrier is found to be several ev/ skyrmion. additionally, it is confirmed that the skl forms progressively in domains several hundred skyrmions in size.the most promising applications of skyrmions involve using them as bits in a racetrack memory device. such devices will likely drive the skyrmions into motion by using electric currents, and while the current density required to move skyrmions is substantially less than what is required to move domain walls, it still results in significant power consumption. we have sought to develop a new skyrmion device architecture to more efficiently produce sans-visible skl motion. by exploiting the magnus force that current exerts on the skl, we believe our new device will drive the skl into a rotation at lower current densities than previously reported. since rotations are visible in reciprocal space, this motion will be observable with sans. additionally, by measuring the rotation as a function of current density, we will be able to directly map the skl-crystal lattice interaction potential and measure elastic properties of the skl.superconducting vortex lattices (vls) are highly sensitive to anisotropies in the underlying superconductivity. in the two-band superconductor mgb_2, orientation of the triangular vl is dictated by competing 6 and 12 fold anisotropies in the ab crystal plane. when these two contributions are comparable in energy, the vl fragments into counter rotated domains in the so called l phase. we have observed that when the vl is rotated out of the ab plane, the l phase rapidly shrinks in size. above a critical rotation angle omega_0, the phase disappears entirely, which can be explained by the 12 fold term in the superconducting anisotropy reversing sign. we used the upgraded do detector at the tevatron at sqrt{s} = 1.96 tev to collect data in a search for a compositeness signature of quarks and leptons. this analysis uses an integrated luminosity of 400 pb-1. the high-mass dimuon mass spectrum is compared with that predicted by drell-yan (dy) scattering, modified by a contact interaction. this interaction is parameterized by a compositeness energy scale factor lambda. preliminary limits on lambda are set at the 95% confidence level for constructive and destructive interference between the dy amplitude and the contact interaction for various quark and lepton chiralities. academic work on the "motherhood shift" has defined two categories of women: mother and non-mother. quantitative work on motherhood's effect on sociopolitical variables, such as voting, instantiates this problematic reductive by coding women into these two categories. this operationalization misconstrues the reality of motherhood, failing to take it as an transition which some women select or are selected into. nearly all previous research on the motherhood shift in voting conflates women who will and will not become mothers by using cross-sectional data and/or random effects models, ignoring the effect of selection. in this article, i find that reconsidering the motherhood shift as a selected phenomenon and modeling it through fixed effects regression reverses our understanding motherhood's effect on voting. this article clarifies our conceptualization of the motherhood shift in voting and calls into question all cross-sectional and/or random effects work on the motherhood shift, which suffers from selection bias. monolayer graphene has a conical energy dispersion relation and a high fermi velocity (10^8cm/s). its perfect two-dimensional (2d) structure allows the possibility of planar lithography and lateral band engineering. because of these properties graphene holds a great potential in electronic devices. the electronic and transport properties of graphene and graphene nanoribbons (gnr) have ignited a lot of interests since its experimental realization in 2004 by novoselov et al. in this work, we calculated the band structures of graphene and graphene nanoribbons using the tight binding technique. for graphene nanoribbons with complicated structures, the band structures were evaluated numerically. we also calculated the carrier distribution in graphene and nanoribbons as a function of temperature and fermi level. quantum capacitance was derived and discussed due to its importance in nanoelectronics. last, we applied non-equilibrium green's function (negf) formalism to evaluate transport degradation due to the edge roughness in short nanoribbons. the cabrini-green housing project on the near north side of chicago was the site of a redevelopment struggle from 1989 to 2004. the city of chicago, the chicago housing authority, and the u.s. department of housing and urban development advanced plans to tear down the cabrini high-rises and build mixed-income neighborhoods in their place. cabrini-green residents opposed the proposals through protests and court injunctions. in this paper, we utilize theories of poverty concentration to explain the protracted conflict at cabrini-green, illustrate why proposed policies have been met with opposition, and provide insights for future action that might ease the skirmish. these theories also uncover three major issues underlying the cabrini-green narrative: the problems of moving public housing residents to new mixed-income neighborhoods, the issue of affordable housing in the chicago metropolitan area, and the efforts of the public housing residents to shape their own future through collective action. in normal tissue homeostasis, bidirectional communication between different cell types can shape numerous, biological outcomes. within the microenvironment, there exist many cell types including epithelial cells, tumor cells, immune cells, and stromal cells. one cell type that is prevalent in tissues surrounding tumors are fibroblasts, which often undergo senescence, transition in myofibroblasts, or carcinoma associated fibroblasts (cafs) and greatly influence shaping the composition of the microenvironment. fibroblasts have been shown to be prone to undergo senescence, exemplified by an irreversible cell cycle arrest in response to a variety of stimuli such as bleomycin (bis) or oncogene induced senescence (ois). senescent cells exhibit alterations in gene expression and are characterized by substantial changes in their secretome; termed the senescence associated secretory phenotype (sasp). while the role of fibroblast derived sasp factors on cancer cells has been well studied, the impact of these factors on normal epithelial cells remains poorly understood. the cell type and senescence inducer specific effects can greatly influence the composition of the sasp, often comprised of pro-inflammatory factors. the nature of the secreted factors from senescent cells can dictate whether senescence will function in a tumor suppressive or tumor promoting fashion. our studies have found that treatment of normal mammary epithelial cells with conditioned media from senescent fibroblasts (sasp cm) results in a robust caspase 1 dependent, pyroptotic cell death in three normal mammary epithelial cell lines. the capacity of sasp cm to cause cell death is maintained across multiple senescence-inducing stimuli, including bis and ois. moreover, the addition of hras (g12v) or erbb2 into normal mammary epithelial cells mitigates the ability of sasp cm to induce cell death. furthermore, mda-mb-231 and mdamb-436 breast cancer cells also attenuated the ability of sasp cm to induce celldeath. while the role of senescent fibroblasts in cancer has been well characterized, further studies are needed to elucidate the impact of senescent fibroblasts and their sasp factors on the surrounding cell non-cancerous cell types including endothelial cells, other fibroblasts, or immune cells. greater characterization of the context, cell type and senescence inducer specific effects of sasp from senescent cells will be important in informing the use of therapeutic avenues such as senolytics, which selectively eliminate senescent cells. an analysis of us catholic bishops' responses to ongoing developments in the sexual abuse crisis from 2002-2007 reveals a narrow institutional definition of the problem as a violation of determinate laws governing priestly celibacy. perceiving sexual abuse as a breach of the sixth commandment codified as canon law overlooks other salient moral concerns such as culpably-cooperating church leaders, uncritical cultures of clericalism, governance structures closed to accountability, and abuses of human rights. however, reappropriating the sixth commandment by means of a thomistic interpretation of the natural law addresses the crisis from within the christian moral tradition, because it enables meaningful and legitimate analogical application from the foundational principle into broad areas of human interrelationships in the church (including governing relationships between clergy and the community). with this moral method, the sixth shows greater theoretical cast and practical application in the sexual abuse crisis because its scope is not restricted to vow-violation. the crisis can be redefined as the failure of the entire catholic community to observe the wisdom of this fundamental moral concept. the sixth commandment demands well-functioning communal sexual boundaries, which in turn require protection of the community's members, a key task of church governing authority. in performing this task, church governance must pass the test of plausibility in practical application and of consistency with catholic moral principles and doctrinal commitment in order to be effective and authentic. as a community of human disciples, the church like all societies requires preemptive authority in governance in order to protect its members; as a relationship with the governed, church authority relies upon their assent and consent contributing in real (if limited) ways to ongoing communal discernment of the direction of governance in the church, including just demands for accountability. claims of human rights by the victim-survivors themselves hold their own unique moral and juridical authority to block status quo practices of governance (such as secrecy and material cooperation), and place duties upon 'pastors and the other faithful' to find restoration in justice and peaceful and fruitful interaction for the sake of mission. when a stably stratified flow passes an obstacle, under certain conditions a part of the flow goes over the topography while the rest moves around it. the demarcation between the two types of flow is signified by the dividing streamline, and its height h_s from the ground is related to the froude number fr=u_&#8734;/(n_&#8734; h) , where u_&#8734;, n_&#8734; and h are the characteristic velocity and buoyancy frequency of the upstream flow and the topographic height respectively. a dividing streamline usually exists when fr&#8804;o(1), and its height is represented by the sheppard?s formula which is based on energetics. a new analytical solution for sheppard?s formula is presented and compared with iterative solutions based on numerical computations, and the simple h_s/h=(1-fr) formula based on the restrictive assumption of homogeneity of flow. the new solution was found to yield excellent results. several important dimensionless parameters determining the dividing streamline height are delineated. a field experiment was designed to observe the dividing streamline height, which capitalized on a suite of instrumentation used in the mountain terrain atmospheric modeling and observations (materhorn) program. multiple releases of smoke were made over several days in the materhorn-spring experiment, and the observed dividing streamline height was in good agreement with the theoretical prediction. no dividing streamline was present for fr>1, and the observed flow separation and vortex shedding were all indicative of inertially dominant flow. the design and fabrication of a tunable fabry-perot interferometer (fpi) åáv photodiode (pd) spectral image sensor using a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (cmos) compatible process on silicon is reported in the present work. the system is designed to be integrated on a cellular neuralonlinear network (cnn) visual microprocessor chip which operates at 20,000 frames per second and serve as the image sensor in the visible and near ir wavelength range. a planar interdigitated pin silicon photodiode was fabricated. the dc photoresponse, frequency response, and spectral response of the photodiode have been characterized. the pd demonstrated sufficient bandwidth (tens of mhz) for the application of this project and appreciable quantum efficiency (>50%) from 400 nm to 900 nm. an fpi with al mirrors was fabricated using surface micromachining techniques on a silicon substrate. the tuning of the fpi at different bias voltages was demonstrated by measuring the reflectance spectrum of the fpi. the result showed that for an fpi with 2.94 µ m original effective cavity length, 10 v of applied bias voltage can tune the fpi over a 0.4 µ m change in effective cavity length. the quantum efficiency of an fpi/pd device was predicted to be 22% at the wavelength of 450 nm based on the pd and fpi performance. the concept of making an fpi/diffraction grating/pd array microspectrometer was evaluated. such a microspectrometer is able to provide a better tuning range than the fpi alone and better resolution than the diffraction grating alone. a design example, simulation, and fabrication process flow were also discussed. fundamental and applied research on supercritical fluid (scf) technology is of importance in successfully developing applications in many industrial arenas. the success of this technology is reflected in the several applications developed to date in the food, pharmaceutical, textile, waste treatment, precision and garment dry cleaning, and petroleum industries. to identify several more potential applications, experimental and computational studies provide well-founded tools that allow a deeper understanding of the nature of fluids in the supercritical state. among all the wide variety of interesting studies that can emerge from this technology, we focused on three main concerns to obtain a better insight into scf's: (1) the computational study of high-pressure chemical and multiphase equilibrium and the importance of mathematical validation of the number of phases and composition after reaction, (2) the experimental and modeling of solubilities of solutes in scf's, and (3) the design and optimization of supercritical extraction processes (sfe). first we present v-chaseos, a validated computational tool that correctly estimates the number of phases and compositions of reacting and non-reacting systems in equilibrium. our methodology takes good advantage of the wealth of techniques that combined with the interval methodology validates correct results, identifies incorrect results, and provides a corrective feedback until a correct answer is found. five sample cases are presented to highlight the benefits of this methodology. for the second part, the solubility of three compounds of pharmaceutical and biochemical importance (caffeine, uracil and erythromycin) in supercritical co2 were studied. solid-fluid equilibrium curves are modeled according to the peng-robinson equation of state (pr eos) and compared to the experimental results. different parameter estimation techniques are also studied. finally, a computational method for the optimization of sfe processes is studied. we implement a process synthesis technique called generalized modular framework (gmf) that systematically allows, without prepostulation of unit operations, the determination of optimum process schemes based on multifunctional mass/heat transfer-based process modules. as a sample case, optimization of the recovery of solutes from a substrate containing anthracene, phenanthrene and benzoic acid using supercritical co2 is presented. upon the spring of 2021 my life would be altered forever, this spring would bring the sudden passing of my grandmother and mother. the life i once knew crumbled right in front of my eyes. my mind entered a place of expanding materiality by transferring my feelings through the events that had transpired in my life. this led to a more in-depth examination of exactly how i was feeling during the moment: broken, lost, and weak. my goal was to harness and embody these feelings into this work. how can theology portray moral perfection as the work of god's grace while also upholding the genuinely human character of the transformation it involves? and how are we to view ordinary processes of formation, such as those we experience as children, in the context of a broader commitment to understanding sanctification as a gift? prompted by such questions, this dissertation explores how natural processes of moral formation relate to divinely enabled moral change by placing a reformed protestant understanding of sanctification in conversation with recent social scientific research on early childhood development. in chapter 1, i explore john calvin's discussion of sanctification in the institutes of the christian religion and the assumptions regarding sanctification which are at work in his pastoral practice. for calvin our knowledge of god as our loving father establishes a relational context in which our moral agency is transformed. unresolved tensions in calvin's thought, however, leave open the possibility that subsequent accounts of sanctification will either completely divorce it from natural human formation or collapse the work of the spirit into our understanding of natural formation. chapter 2 on the puritan theologian john owen illustrates the former trajectory and chapter 3 on the 19th century american theologian horace bushnell illustrates the latter. in chapter 4, i introduce recent studies of child development, first presenting recent research on the cognitive, affective, and social capacities of infants and then looking at how moral agency emerges from these capacities in the context of a mutually responsive parent-child relationship. here too, the relationship of love and commitment between parent and child provides the developmental context that enables genuine moral agency. in chapter 5, i draw on the analogy of the parent-child relationship and the anthropological insight afforded by consideration of children to address the ongoing problems in the tradition and to argue that the process of sanctification is consistent with who we are as human beings while still dependent on our relationship to christ in the spirit. the focus for this dissertation involved the development of new synthetic applications of nitroso diels-alder (nda) reactions and nitroso ene reactions. three projects have evolved from this main research theme. in chapter 3, the stabilized iminonitroso diels-alder reaction, particularly the pyridinylnitroso diels-alder reaction, is demonstrated to be a remarkably efficient method for derivatization and functionalization of diene-containing natural products. three structurally and biologically unique diene-containing natural products, including ergosterol, leucomycin a7, and colchicine were found to react with pyridinylnitroso agents in a highly efficient, and regioand stereo-selective fashion. further chemical derivatizations of the nitroso cycloadducts were investigated. broad biological evaluations of novel analogs were also performed, suggesting that the nitroso heterocycles changed the biological activity profile of the parent natural products. the syntheses of streptazolin analogs as lipophilic antibiotics, were also attempted. in chapter 4, lewis acid-mediated ring-opening reactions of nitroso cycloadducts are described. indium triflate was demonstrated to be an efficient lewis acid in promoting ring-opening reactions of various nitroso cycloadducts. hydroxylamine containing cycloalkenes were selectively generated through the c-o bond cleavage when iminonitroso or acylnitroso cycloadducts were treated with indium triflate in the presence of alcohols. in direct contrast, indium triflate-mediated ring-opening reactions of nitrosobenzene-derived cycloadducts gave exclusive aromatic alkoxylated syn-1,4 aminocycloalkenol products through a nucleophilic aromatic substitution pathway. in chapter 5, an unprecedented ene reaction using iminonitroso agents is presented. the allyl hydroxylamine ene products were obtained in various yields and with high regioselectivity. a solid phase supported iminonitroso ene reaction as well as asymmetric nitroso ene reactions were also investigated. three amino acid-derived hydroxamic acids were synthesized, and their use in diastereoselective acylnitroso ene reactions was also investigated. in chapter 6, 2-(n-hydroxy amino)-pyridine containing compounds, obtained from nucleophilic ring-opening reactions of nitroso cycloadducts as well as iminonitroso ene reactions, are shown to be a novel chemical scaffold, selectively active against gram-positive micrococcus luteus. preliminary structure-activity relationship studies were also conducted. several lead compounds with low micromolar levels of activity were identified. this dissertation examines two works of robert grosseteste (c. 1169&ndash;1253), his astronomical textbook, the de spera, and his computistical work, the compotus correctorius. through the use of a technique labelled exposition, the texts are presented to the reader through a means that combines elements both of translation and of extended commentary, thereby introducing these works in detail in english for the first time. the texts are also analyzed in terms of their medieval context, specifically the goals grosseteste wished to accomplish in constructing them and their place in higher education. the first portion of the dissertation provides an intellectual and institutional context for grosseteste's work, outlining the translation movement and the rise of the universities, especially oxford, as they pertain to the questions of this dissertation. grosseteste's biography is also considered, though certain facets of it are unsettled. by the end of the dissertation, it is suggested that grosseteste's time spent in hereford was formative for his later work in astronomy and compotus, and that his work in these areas was important for the development of natural philosophy at oxford. it is argued that the de spera was a basic introduction to astronomy, incorporating the newly recovered science of the greeks and arabs. the astronomy presented in this text does not achieve a high degree of sophistication, but rather is directed at presenting various features of the created world. in relation to the astronomical work, other texts by grosseteste are examined in order to delineate his interest in astrology. the compotus correctorius, it is argued, was also composed as a textbook, though it contains information that probably was not taught to all students. the technical sophistication of the astronomy revealed in this text demonstrates the value of the newly translated greek and arabic science to christian goals, namely, correcting the calendar. the fundamentally theological orientation of the work in maintaining the christian calendar is also considered. the clinical need for more advanced disease detection and therapy has propelled the biomedical field towards creating highly sophisticated multifunctional probes, which exhibit high specificity for a disease and avoid limitations that accompany traditional methods. many of these probes unite the capabilities of therapy and diagnostics, which has given rise to the term "theranostics". this thesis explores theranostic probes for cancer. it begins by providing a detailed review of supramolecular probes for medical imaging. these probes have three core structural components: a targeting unit, a linker, and a reporter group, which work together to target a biomolecule and report functional information used to better-understand a disease. the following two chapters describe molecular imaging probes based on squaraine dyes linked to zinc(ii) dipicolylamine (zndpa) for fluorescence imaging of anionic lipids on membranes of cancer cells and pathogens. the first probe was prepared using synthavidin self-assembly technology, where zndpa targeting units were appended to a macrocycle that threaded with high affinity onto a fluorescent squaraine dye. studies compared two constructs having different numbers of targeting units to reveal that a hexavalent probe is preferred for mammalian cell imaging while a dodecavalent probe is favored for microbial imaging. the second probe was based on an unsymmetrical squaraine dye conjugated to one or two zndpa targeting ligands. this probe exhibited solvatochromic properties that were useful for no-wash fluorescence imaging of anionic membranes of cells undergoing programmed cell death in xenopus laevis embryonic development.the last two chapters focus on theranostic nanoparticle probes for photothermal therapy (ptt) using novel croconaine dyes. ptt is a treatment strategy that employs a photoabsorbing agent that is activated using laser light to create localized temperature that results in selective destruction of cancer cells. first, lipid-based nanoparticles were used to encapsulate the croconaine dyes and their efficacy was demonstrated in cell culture and animal models. furthermore, the theranostic applications of croconaine dyes were explored as contrast agents for photoacoustic imaging. lastly, theranostic gold-silica core-shell nps were used for 1) covalent loading of croconaine dyes within the silica shell for ptt and 2) targeting cancer cells using arg-gly-asp attached to the silica surface. leishmania species infect approximately 2 million people each year and 350 million people live in areas where they are at risk for infection. this vector-transmitted disease causes significant morbidity and mortality in tropical and subtropical regions of the world and its impact on global health has increased substantially in light of the rise of hiv infection. more recently, military incursions into leishmania-endemic regions have highlighted the importance of this parasitic infection. leishmania parasites are transmitted by the bites of infected female sand flies of the genre lutzomyia in the western hemisphere and phlebotomus in asia, africa and southern europe. infections present as self-limiting cutaneous lesions, mucocutaneous infection, or disseminated visceral disease responsible for the vast majority of fatalities. while extensive work has been done to characterize these infections, an appropriate treatment or vaccine is still not available. in this light, there is a pressing need to continue immunological research on this important parasite. leishmania is the prototypical model of the t helper 1/t helper 2 (th1/th2) dichotomy of the immune response. these two extremes in response to infection have been best characterized in mouse models and lead to the control and elimination of pathology in case of th1 and in uncontrolled infection and tissue damage in the case of th2. because leishmania has been shown to utilize complement receptor 3 (cr3) to enter host cells and cr3 has been reported to downregulate th1 responses, the role of cr3 in in vivo infection was characterized in chapter 2. our studies reveal that cr3 deficiency leads to heightened, albeit not complete, resistance to leishmania major on a susceptible balb/c background. a growing body of evidence indicates that leishmania and other intracellular pathogens do not passively infect their hosts. rather, many pathogens manipulate their hosts in such a way as to make them more hospitable to infection. in chapter 3, we examine how cr3 affects host cell responses to l. major and how infection may act to modulate macrophage cell signaling events that would lead to appropriate activation and parasite killing. this includes looking at the activation of mitogen activated protein kinases (mapk), the translocation of transcription factors into cell nuclei, and the production of effector molecules like nitric oxide (no). chapter 4 presents our investigation of cr3 and leishmania infection in resistant c57bl/6 mice. this chapter will outline our results examining parasite phagocytosis, production of th1-driving interleukin-12 (il-12), and mitogen-activated protein kinases (mapk) and interferon-gamma (ifn-&#947;)-mediated cell signaling. chapter 5 draws on our research and the extensive body of literature that dissects leishmania-host immune interactions to attempt to build a framework wherein we can begin to unravel the often contradictory mechanisms involved in leishmania infection. in addition, we will consider future directions for research in this area. intuitive decision making relies on a quick and subconscious associative process. research has suggested that intuitive decision making can be impacted by anxiety, which in turn can be modulated by emotion regulation. additionally, individuals with high trait anxiety are likely to be biased in their intuitive decision making, especially for negative stimuli, due to their negative biases. the present study investigated the relation between trait anxiety and intuitive decision making for negative and neutral stimuli and the effects of different emotion regulation strategies on the relation. a total of 196 undergraduate participants were randomly assigned to a cognitive reappraisal, rumination, or distraction condition following an anxiety induction task. after the emotion regulation manipulation, they completed a semantic coherence task to assess their intuitive decision making via accurate coherence detections in word triads. i hypothesized that the participants in the cognitive reappraisal condition would have better intuitive decision making compared to the participants in the rumination condition. i also hypothesized that the individuals with high levels of trait anxiety in the rumination condition would have better intuitive decision making for negative stimuli. contrary to my expectations, neither trait anxiety levels nor emotion regulation strategies had an effect on intuitive decision making, which likely resulted from a failed emotion regulation manipulation. unexpectedly, the participants performed better for negative stimuli compared to neutral stimuli in general, which might be due to the increased negative affect from the anxiety induction. limitations and suggestions for future directions are provided in the discussion. if strong social identities, which create clear boundaries between in-groups and out-groups, are more effective in retaining and recruiting members and increasing the salience of in-group identities, why, and under what circumstances, do groups persist in formulating weak, and ambiguous group identities and group boundaries? what is to be gained by boundary resistance? drawing on ethnographic fieldwork at a liberal congregation, i demonstrate that "weak" boundaries, rather than representing merely the absence of strong boundaries, represent an achieved identity, requiring effort and intention on the part of both parishioners and church leaders to sustain. if we are to analyze group means for boundary maintenance, i argue that we must also analyze group processes and motivations for boundary disruption and decay. my dissertation evaluated the function and structure of large lake coastal ecosystems, which consist of coastal wetlands, shallow pelagic habitats, and tributaries, with a focus on evaluating ecological functioning and services in light of human-caused environmental change. although much of this research took place in lake michigan, my dissertation has broad relevance to the laurentian great lakes and large lakes globally because coastal ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to anthropogenic stressors due to their transitional location on the landscape. my dissertation demonstrated that coastal ecosystem function and structure is influenced by a variety of intrinsic (e.g., geomorphology) and extrinsic factors (e.g., terrestrial and lake disturbances). by combining observational and modeling approaches, i identified important processes underpinning energy flow through coastal ecosystem food webs that support valuable ecosystem services such as nearshore fisheries production. first, i demonstrate that resource use by yellow perch (perca flavescens) across a complex mosaic of coastal habitats in lake michigan contributes to energy fluxes supporting nearshore fisheries production, a process i describe as "lakescape connectivity." i then compare coastal wetland food web structure using stable isotope metrics to show that properties such as fish predator trophic position and community trophic redundancy are influenced by regional and site-level variation in intrinsic characteristics such as extent of connectivity with the adjacent lake and extrinsic characteristics including level of disturbance. i then investigate differences in heavy metal accumulation between two sportfish species that use coastal ecosystems (chinook salmon, oncorhynchus tshawytscha, and walleye, sander vitreus) and assess if otolith (ear stone) microchemistry can complement traditional contaminant monitoring approaches (i.e., using muscle tissue). i then broaden the scope of my dissertation by applying information from risk management of nonindigenous species introductions in the laurentian great lakes to create an accurate risk assessment tool for the large lakes of the east african rift valley. finally, i use social media to develop an online model for effectively communicating with diverse audiences about complex ecological challenges facing large lakes, such as the loss of freshwater fish biodiversity. overall, my dissertation provides strong evidence in support of management approaches that integrate linkages connecting the complex mosaic of coastal habitats, i.e., managing to maintain "lakescape connectivity." effective management of large lake coastal ecosystems in the anthropocene will require interdisciplinary approaches that bring together diverse disciplines (e.g., biology, chemistry, economics, sociology) and stakeholder groups to preserve ecosystem functioning and services in light of environmental change. the dominant political narrative within the united states often portrays the current immigration crisis along the us-mexico border as one rooted in economic opportunism and criminal activity. in recent years, however, there has been a growing recognition, both domestically and internationally, of the significant levels of violence contributing to this mass human displacement. while a large number of migrants coming from this context have considerable protection needs, they generally do not qualify for protection under the traditional definition of a refugee. instead, they undergo additional levels of trauma as they are criminalized, detained, and ultimately deported.in light of the complex challenges posed by global migration and its impact on the human person, this dissertation brings peace studies, latin american liberation theology, us hispanic and latinx theology, and migration theology into conversation, seeking to develop a constructive theology of liberation from the context of us immigrant detention and deportation. while it endeavors to develop a theology of liberation for the victims, it also examines the need for liberation for the perpetrators—for us society and for many in the us church. arguing for an expansion of the theological category of 'the poor' in light of the realities of displacement, detention, and deportation, i argue for correlating levels of liberation. my thesis is that although liberation in this context must necessarily be understood on structural, political, cultural, and ideological levels, it must also be centrally understood as the reclaiming and 'unlocking' of human dignity that has been 'dimmed and defiled' through the multi-layered violence found within the us immigration system. both natural and anthropogenic metal contamination of soil and natural waters result in environmental problems and serious health risks globally. some metals such as arsenic or tungsten often form negatively charged ions that hydroxyapatite, or fish bone, does not immobilize efficiently. the effectiveness of surface-functionalization, or modification, using iron-amendments on a super cleaned (boiled, bubbled (density separation), bleached (h2o2), and baked) commercial biogenic fishbone product (apatite iiì¢"_å¢) and raw catfish head were examined. bench-scale experiments demonstrated the ability of surface-functionalization using ferrous and ferric iron chloride amendments to modify apatite iiì¢"_å¢ and catfish bone, which resulted in significant improvement in arsenate and arsenite removal efficiency in a simulated groundwater. significant improvement in tungstate removal efficiency was limited to surface-functionalization by the ferric chloride amendment. in empire remade: refining empire in the american revolution, 1774-1795, i analyze the political thought of the american elite during the collapse of british rule in north america and the formation of the united states, to better understand the centrality of empire to the american revolution. i argue that american state-building was shaped by specific political debates of the period, fought within the intellectual constraints of empire, and forced to reconcile empire with republican government. the compromises that resulted from these debates, though unexpected, ended up making the american empire stronger. i argue that american leaders laid the groundwork to the united states' subsequent rise to world power at the very beginning of the country's independent existence, carrying over imperial dreams and ambitions from its colonial past.empire remade begins with the imperial crisis of the 1770's, as colonial elites attempted to reshape the british empire from within through a range of policies, from petitions through to military resistance, culminating in the invasion of the neighboring province of quebec to leverage imperial redress. only when this failed did americans embrace independence. the second, central part of the project explores how the debates surrounding the ratification of the constitution gave a forum for a union-wide interrogation of the nature of the us' nascent republican empire. shifting concepts of empire allowed american leaders to combine power and liberty in a way that allowed imperial expansion alongside free government.out of these debates, americans forged a popular empire, which they then sought to manifest on the north american continent. yet empire on the ground presented a new set of challenges, complicated by the empire's very republican nature. us military and civil leaders debated how to balance the interests and power of the settler societies and native communities of the trans-appalachian west. from another unhappy compromise between these groups' demands came a form of imperial management, ensuring settler assimilation while temporarily accepting native difference, that allowed for the united states' unprecedented expansion through the nineteenth century. this dissertation analyzes chaucer's narrative endings as the recurrent key battlegrounds in the poet's long reception history, whether in the early english manuscript tradition, in the imitative chaucerian writing of sixteenth-century scotland, or in modernity's institutional scholarship and continuing tradition of creative response to the poet's works. combining narratological and historicist perspectives, it first situates chaucer's endings within what we can reconstruct of medieval narrative theory, and then examines how and why so many later authors rewrite or otherwise intervene in chaucer's endings, always interrogating the ideological stakes of the literary ending and its place in interpretation. the project contributes to the ongoing recovery of a medieval literary theory by identifying narratological conceptions of the function and purpose of ending in the ars poetica tradition, particularly as expressed by disciples of horace such as geoffrey of vinsauf, matthew of vend&#244;me, and john of garland. rhetorical handbooks emphasize formal closural devices like prayers, blessings, curses, proverbs, morals, and so on, the same formulas that signal the ends of the majority of chaucer's narratives but that have received little attention in themselves. i argue that these endings demonstrate chaucer's adherence to a horatian rather than aristotelian paradigm of ending, which privileges the harmonious congruence of parts over teleology and necessity. by contrast, the reception history of chaucer's endings witnesses a resurgence of neo-aristotelian reading strategies that center the ending as the culmination and fulfillment of a work.the reception history of chaucer's retraction provides the clearest example of the way in which often unarticulated theories of ending have driven response to chaucer's works. by studying the diversity of methods by which chaucer's first scribes rubricate and represent the retraction, we can find evidence for an early understanding of chaucer's most controversial ending in horatian terms, as for example in the probable allusion to john of garland's concept of authorial license present in london, british library ms lansdowne 851. as the retraction enters, exits, and reenters the print tradition, readers employ different theories of ending to render the document more or less central to chaucer's works, or even to decenter or delegitimate it entirely: chaucer's endings must always be contextualized within theories of ending both medieval and modern. by attending to the complexity of both medieval literary theory and medieval narrative itself, overall this project builds a case for a more historically responsible narratology of medieval texts, as well as a more expansive one that would consider the implications of the reception history of these texts and the multiple forms that they take. for instance, the intricate structure of the narrative discourse in chaucer's dream visions becomes further complicated by the existence of multiple versions of these texts in the mouvance or 'hypertextuality' of manuscript and early print culture. the medieval ending is a fundamentally multiplex phenomenon that only grows more so over its reception history.finally, we must keep in mind that chaucerian endings were not always written by chaucer. william caxton infamously attaches his own conclusion to the unfinished house of fame, but nowhere is the desire to conclude chaucer with an ending of one's own so pronounced as in late medieval scotland, where i argue that an aesthetics -and politics -of the 'supplementum' dominates. i do not exclusively consider the works of the so-called 'scottish chaucerians,' but also examine more obscure attempts to close chaucer in scotland, including the unique ending to the parliament of fowls that appears in bodleian library ms arch. selden. b. 24. the result in this manuscript, as in many scottish poems of the period, is a 'scotticization' of the chaucer tradition effected through rewritings of the poet's endings. the supplementum claims the works of another author for oneself and one's own tradition: through the mediation of his endings, chaucer becomes the property of the scots, just as, in a more diffuse way, some of chaucer's endings go on to become the common property of much later literary traditions. thus, the project concludes with an exercise in applying the fusion of information and evolutionary science known as 'memetics' to familiar problems of imitation and influence in literary history: we cannot dismiss the repetition of formulaic endings encouraged by a horatian poetics of ending -such as the 'go, litel bok' topos -as simply a primitive feature of medieval literature. this project's thorough examination of chaucer's endings and their legacies, medieval to postmodern, will also shed light on the proliferations of formulae and theories of ending that continue in the present. i engage questions about how historical actors envisioned the best way to approach "the local" as outsiders as they grappled with the collateral damage of processes of urban-industrial modernization. i use multi-archival research in the united states, england, israel, and the west bank to track how american private voluntary organizations and british colonial authorities deployed a shared strain of rural development among palestinian arabs amidst the israeli-palestinian conflict. advocates of rural development were ambivalent about modernization and sought ways of nation-building that enabled local societies to retain their integrity and some measure of control over socioeconomic change. towards this end, advocates promoted a rural development that was practical: immediately relevant for daily life and therefore very dependent on local contexts and the experiences and abilities of the students themselves. in this way, i encourage peacebuilding scholars to take seriously the "everyday" of colonial praxis and push historians of u.s. development towards the "everyday" of specific projects. and i argue that rural development was the predecessor to community development and that, rather than asia, it is to the middle east that u.s. community development primarily owes its emergence. in this dissertation i develop an account of diachronic agency that involves narrative understanding. this mode of practical reasoning emerges from the complex interaction between emotional cadences, relevant social contexts and the motivational scripts of agents who lay claims upon us. narrative understanding is (a) essentially retrospective, (b) couched implicitly in the cadences of our emotional life, and (c) dependent on occupying stances of different dramatic personae. narrative understanding generates distinctive reasons for action and is irreducible to practical rationalities that aim to integrate agency synchronically or diachronically. intellectualist forms of practical reason, namely those involving universalizing, inductive generalizing or the creation of increasingly coherent desiderative profiles, do not explain how historical self-understanding engenders reasons for action, and presuppose its proper functioning. volition-based accounts of practical reason involve processes that structure agency diachronically. some argue that the heart of agency is constituted by stable planning attitudes and related self-governing policies. but central cases of personal transformation over time do not sit well with this picture. rather than the center of agency, plans and policies should be understood as mere expressions of deeper commitments to persons. these commitments and the temporal transformation they entail are explained by narrative understanding in ways they could not be by reference to the policies that codify them. other volition theorists hold that our deepest commitments are traced by our diachronic loves. i point out two main limitations for an influential view of volitional love. i suggest that paradigmatic features of narrative understanding are essential for overcoming these limitations. narrative understanding opens up the fruitful possibility of conceptualizing agency as a chorus of dramatic personae. while each persona can be conceived as a stable character that expresses an enduring emotional cadence, the agent must sometimes simultaneously occupy different and even jarring narrative stances. practical deliberation then implies inhabiting different dramatic personae in mutual dialogue. furthermore, essentially retrospective phenomena such as personal forgiveness (and atonement) not only accommodate, but they seem to require a model of dramatic-narrative agency. spoken labels facilitate visual categorization for 3-month old infants while sine-wave tones do not. the early presence of facilitatory effects for labels on categorization has been suggested to reflect an evolutionarily pre-determined link between speech-sounds and concepts. yet, parents provide coordinated, intersensory structure to 3-month old infants when labeling objects that may play a role in the development of this early speech-concept link. in particular, parents present labels in synchrony with object motion, which has been suggested to influence infants' attention to relevant information during these multimodal labeling events. previously we demonstrated that experience with audio-visual synchrony can lead a non-speech signal sine-wave tones – to facilitate categorization, suggesting that parents' use of multimodal synchrony plays a role in the link between speech and concepts. alternatively, multimodal synchrony may underlie the development of a link between signals other than speech (e.g., sign language) and concepts, but not speech-concept links per se. to test whether multimodal synchrony plays a role in the link between speech and concepts, we ran an experiment in which infants were presented with labels in synchrony with object motion prior to a categorization task. if synchronous pre-training boosts the effect words have on categorization, this would support the hypothesis that parents' use of synchrony plays a role in the development of speech-concept links. my work in this thesis is conducted in areas of developing mathematical models to study the swarming phenomenon of bacteria pseudomonas aeruginosa and myxococcus xanthus. i have developed mathematical models coupling continuum pdes and stochastic models and used high-order accurate numerical methods for direct numerical simulations involving hydrodynamic flow. many bacteria including pseudomonas aeruginosa use motility described as swarming to colonize surfaces and form biofilm. in experiments, we observed the development and propagation of cell waves (bright ring pattern) and formation of branched tendril patterns controlled by bacterial population and self-production of rhamnolipid. biologically justified cell-based multiscale model simulations suggest a mechanism of wave propagation as well as a branched tendril formation at the edge of the population that depends upon competition between the changing viscosity of the bacterial liquid suspension and the liquid film boundary expansion caused by marangoni forces. therefore, cells uses surfactant rhamnolipid for controlling physical forces needed by swarm to efficiently expand over surfaces as a thin liquid film. additionally, simulation results generated a hypothesis regarding how the cell wave forms. we hypothesize that the cell wave formation is due to increased cell division rate and rhamnolipid production rate and cell alignment. the model predictions of wave speed and swarm expansion rate as well as cell alignment in tendrils were confirmed experimentally. myxococcus xanthus undergoes multicellular aggregation and differentiation under starvation. sporulation within the nascent fruiting body requires signaling between moving cells, in order that the rod-shaped cells differentiate at the appropriate time. the discrete stochastic off-lattice model is used to simulate the cell movement and cell-cell signaling pathway based on biological rules of myxobacteria. the movement algorithms are justified by the biology of myxobacteria which uses two motility engines known as adventurous and social motility as well as directional reversals. we also model c-signaling and sporulation by giving each cell a counter for c-signal and a state of being either a motile or non-motile spore. simulations suggest that the fruiting bodies have a heterogeneous structure consisting of interconnected pockets of relative high and low density regions, which is in agreement with the pockets of spore clusters observed experimentally. gan and related materials have excellent electrical, optical and chemical properties for a wide range of applications including high power, high temperature electronics, leds and lasers, sensors, and mems in harsh environments. due to its high chemical stability, gan is resistive to common etchants, and poses a challenge for fabrication. micromachining techniques for gan and related materials based on photoelectrochemical (pec) etching, which overcomes the chemical stability of gan by photogenerating electron-hole pairs in gan during etching, is developed and demonstrated. although many excellent results have been obtained with dry etching techniques, a viable photoelectrochemical etching (pec) approach is still attractive since pec etching is expected to result in less damage as well as offering unique characteristics such as dopant-selective and bandgap-selective etching. in this study, pec etching of gan and related materials is demonstrated, the mechanism of pec etching of gan is investigated, and a two-step etching model for pec etching of gan is developed. in addition, the relationships between etch rate, etched surface morphology and the incident light intensity and electrolyte concentration have been studied. control of the etched surface morphology, which is critical for many device applications, has been investigated and demonstrated. prior reports of pec etching have shown that rough surfaces, related to the high density of dislocations in the material, are typically attained. through study of the effect of electrolyte concentration, light intensity, and applied voltage bias, conditions that produce a very smooth surface with root-mean-square surface roughness of approximately 0.5 nm have been identified. lateral pec etching of gan by several approaches, including through-wafer (backside) illumination and bias assisted etching, has been investigated for the fabrication of deeply undercut structures. use of an applied voltage bias was found to enhance the lateral pec etching of gan in front-side illuminated pec etching, allowing the fabrication of suspended ti cantilevers. fabrication of sio2 and algan (dielectric and semiconductor) membranes has also been demonstrated. these processes are promising for fabrication of novel sensors and mems devices. enabled by the etching techniques demonstrated in this research work, an inline transmissive microwave power sensor has been designed and simulated. it offers several advantages over conventional power sensors by allowing it to be easily integrated with low-loss coplanar transmission lines and gan-based transistors. thermal and electromagnetic designs and simulations of the sensor have been performed, and the relationships between its structure and performance, including the responsivity, response time (thermal time constant) and noise equivalent power have been established. this dissertation examines how protestant theologians in germany and the united states navigated the transition to historicism, the unprecedented awareness of qualitative historical change that marked western historical consciousness in the nineteenth century. it examines what i call the 'mediating historicism' of mediating theologians (the german vermittlungstheologen and their american students) that attempted to harmonize newer conceptions of dynamic historical development with traditional christian theology. the metaphysically idealist character of german historicist thought in the early part of the century enabled such mediations, and thus the historiography of historicism as a necessarily secularizing form of thought requires revision. however, the mediating theologians' emphasis on justifying christianity through contemporary historical scholarship, paired with their reliance on particular assumptions of early historicist thought to resolve problems related to the historicity of christianity, left their mediations intellectually vulnerable to changes in historical scholarship that came at the end of the century. i examine two prominent theology professors in prussia and the united states: friedrich august gottreu tholuck (1799-1877) at the university of halle and his american student henry boynton smith (1815-77) at union seminary in new york. tholuck developed forms of mediating historicism as part of a larger effort to make theology a 'believing wissenschaft' that reconciled faith with academic knowledge in a post-enlightenment culture that he and other mediating theologians perceived as estranged from traditional christianity. tholuck and other mediating theologians became important contacts in the growing american engagement with german theology after 1815, due to common forms of protestant piety and a shared opposition to perceived threats to protestant orthodoxy. henry boynton smith demonstrates how mediating theology functioned as an early site for the reception and reconfiguration of german historicist ideas in the united states. while smith struggled to apply mediating historicism consistently to both the study of church history and the bible, his student charles briggs found in mediating historicism the key for reconciling much of recent historical criticism of the bible with his evangelical protestantism, even as the assumptions that sustained this reconciliation became marginal ones in both germany and the united states. improving children's "number sense" has been a core component of recent mathematics curricular and instructional reforms (ccss, 2010; nctm, 2000, 2014) in the united states. students with mature number sense make sense of numbers and operations, use reasoning to notice patterns, and flexibly select the most effective and efficient problem-solving strategies (mcintosh et al., 1997; reys et al., 1999; yang, 2005). despite being highlighted in national standards and policy documents, there is no systematic evidence on the state of us students' mature number sense. moreover, there is little evidence demonstrating that mature number sense is even a measurably distinct characteristic of mathematical cognition or that it is important for students' grade-level mathematics achievement. one reason for slow progress is that the field currently lacks a rigorously validated measure of mature number sense that is both widely accepted and practical to use in classroom settings.in this project, we aimed to address this issue and advance fundamental knowledge of mature number sense as a construct. building off of initial work (kirkland et al., 2020) to rigorously develop a practical measure of mature number sense with valid and reliable scores (aera, apa, ncme, 2014), we first gathered additional convergent evidence of validity for our measure with students in grades 6-8. we compared middle school students' (n = 40) scores on our measure with an established, though time-intensive, measure (yang, 2019) and their strategy use during an in-depth interview of student thinking. we found scores on all three measures of mature number sense to be strongly related (r &gt; 0.7). then, using our developed measure, we analyzed 129 middle school students' scores on our brief assessment of mature number sense and measures of several related constructs, including grade-level mathematics achievement and rational number knowledge. through a series of analyses, we found evidence that mature number sense is measurably distinct from students' rational number knowledge and is uniquely associated with their grade-level mathematics achievement. this dissertation studied the interaction of nonuniform flows with propeller blades in a submerged elastic duct. the acoustic radiation from the duct is calculated and correlated to the flow nonuniformities and the propeller and duct characteristics. first, a benchmark problem is studied wherein the sound radiation from an infinite plate with or without ribs is examined for different excitations sources: normal single force, monopole, dipole, and vortex excitations. the investigation of the sound radiation from a plate gives us a fundamental understanding of flexure waves. second, the case of a cylindrical duct with or without ribs is considered and the dispersion relation of the rib-stiffened duct modes is compared with that of a un-stiffened duct. the dispersion relation of the stiffened duct has a periodic structure similar to that of connected oscillators with large number of independent modes. because of our interest in the acoustic radiation from such a system, we focus our attention on the flexure modes. the sound radiation is first tested with simple internal forces such as monopoles and dipoles. the results for un-stiffened ducts show strong directivity as the dipole radial location moves closer to the duct wall. for stiffened ducts, the magnitude of the acoustic response as well as the directivity vary strongly and show large peaks near the stiffened duct free modes. third, the scattering phenomena in a rigid duct and an elastic duct is investigated. the effect of the impedance on the acoustic sources is also examined. the results show that the impedance begin to have the significant effect on the unsteady lift when the magnitude of the non dimensional impedance is the order of one. the main effect of the elastic wall comes from the location of the blade and the upstream of the blade. finally, a model for flow-propeller interactions in a submerged elastic duct is developed. this model examines and quantifies the mechanism of flow-propeller interaction in a flexible duct. the model couples the fluid motion with the elastic duct vibration and yields the duct flexural displacement. this leads to the evaluation of the radiated sound. the coupling between the elastic duct and the flow-propeller system is studied by changing the euler code which accounts for the rotor/stator interaction problem. the results suggests that for different combination of rotor/stator blade counts, it is possible to have low circumferential mode number, which is an efficient radiator of acoustic energy. the objective of this study was to determine the effects of particle size in the nanometer range on the physicochemical and reactive properties of hematite. this research investigated changes in the surface structure and composition as a function of size using three hematite nanoparticle samples with average diameters of 3.6, 8.6, and 40nm. the hypothesis was that as size decreased in the nanoscale, inherent structural changes would induce changes in hematite chemical reactivity with respect to the processes of adsorption and dissolution. characterization of the hematite samples indicated increased surface hydroxylation as particle size decreased and a shift to lower ph for the point of zero net proton charge (phpznpc) of the nanohematite surface. this resulted in distorted surface binding environments including non-ideal coordination of flanking atoms. these reduced symmetry and under-coordinated binding environments can have important implications for the chemical reactivity of hematite. adsorption experiments were completed using the toxic metal, pb(ii) and the common soil siderophore, desferrioxamine b (dfob). data illustrated changes in the adsorption of pb(ii) over the ph range 3-9 with a shift in the adsorption edge attributed to the differences in surface structure. dfob adsorption remained minimal despite changes in particle size and ph. kinetic dissolution experiments indicated that the presence of dfob enhanced dissolution approximately 6 fold. in addition, it was observed that smaller particles (< 10nm) released more fe and dissolved an order of magnitude faster than the 40nm particles in surface area normalized, dfob-mediated dissolution experiments. this study indicates that not only does specific surface area increase as particle size decreases, but also surface compositional changes occur that have important effects on the adsorption and dissolution behavior of hematite nanoparticles. this research and others like it, suggest the importance of accounting for structural changes of nanoparticles in models used to predict the fate and transport of metals, organic ligands, radionuclides and other contaminant compounds. moreover, dissolution results show increased fe release from smaller (3.6 and 8.6nm) particles, which could result in more bioavailable fe from nanohematite versus bulk. further experimentation is necessary to understand the complexities of changes experienced in the nano range that can impact partitioning and speciation of many environmental compounds. this dissertation is an interpretative study of saint augustine's city of god. i argue that we need to examine three communities in city of god in order to better appreciate augustine's insight on politics, and in particular his assessment of the relationship between the city and the philosophers, and between politics and reason. specifically, this dissertation is based on the observation that three communities stand out in augustine's discussion of civitas terrena: rome, the first human communion of adam and eve, and babylon; each of them points to one unique feature of earthly politics, and all three together form a whole picture of augustine's understanding of politics: augustine's critique of rome comprises a critique of the triple lust (libido); while babylon for him is a city of confusion (civitas confusionis); both lust and confusion find their origin in the corruption of the natural communion of adam and eve. moreover, in discussing each of them, augustine has a particular interest in engaging with philosophers' opinions and the role of reason in each of the communities. the city of god as a whole therefore could be read not only as augustine's response to those who accused christianity for the sack of rome, but also as augustine's evaluation of politics in general, and in particular of the question regarding the potentiality and limits of politics in terms of bringing the soul into the right order. time series analysis is essential for a wide range of fields, ranging from business intelligence to healthcare. among various time series data, two representative types of time series are temporally-ordered wearable sensory data (e.g., heart rate) and human behavioral data (e.g., purchase behavior). the key challenge in time series data is to comprehensively capture the underlying temporal pattern from sequential historical observations. to achieve this goal, this dissertation aims to develop novel deep learning frameworks, which explore the dynamic temporal patterns for different applications. works in this dissertation explore a variety of applications in analyzing different types of time series data. in particular, we first develop novel deep learning models for representation learning on wearable sensory time series data, by automatically mapping any variable-length series into the low-dimensional latent space which effectively preserves the most informative temporal contextual signals and relevant inherent properties. beyond the general time series representation learning task, we also investigate the time series imputation problem with the exploration of cross-series dependencies. additionally, investigating human behavioral data is another key dimension which is in pressing need for time series analysis. to address this challenge, we propose three new learning architectures which capture temporal dynamics from different perspectives, including predefined resolution-aware forecasting, automated resolution-aware forecasting and customized forecasting. this dissertation explores how religion shaped united states foreign policy on central america during the second half of the twentieth century. historians have convincingly shown how ideological considerations acquired a primacy over practical matters in the making of united states policy on central america during the cold war. however, discussions about ideology have overlooked how the religious commitments and affiliations of policy elites informed their positions on central america. the dissertation argues that the catholic missionary enterprise, in particular, shaped the discourse on united states relations with guatemala. from the 1940s until the late 1960s, the united states catholic church and the united states government shared an anticommunist mission in central america and collaborated on development projects. beginning in the late 1960s and continuing through the 1980s, a subset of catholic missionaries and their advocacy networks in washington, d.c. took a more critical stance on united states military interventions and development programs. some former missionaries led mass protests of united states policy that they saw as antithetical to catholic teaching. others engaged in traditional political advocacy and proposed alternative development strategies. both groups lobbied politicians and were crucial players in the grassroots movement that opposed president ronald reagan's central american policy. at the same time prominent catholic conservatives challenged missionaries who opposed united states foreign policy. thus, the dissertation explains the increasing politicization of the united states catholic church after world war ii in regard to development in central america and the role of the catholic church in the conservative shift in united states politics during the same period. nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (nrtis) have been used for the last 20 years to fight the progression of the human immune deficiency virus, the virus that causes aids. however nrti antiviral treatments are associated with tissue toxicities that target the mitochondria, decreasing mitochondrial dna replication. toxicities associated with nrtis display significant tissue variability with each nrti preferentially affecting certain tissues. the mechanisms accounting for this tissue specificity of toxicity is unknown. in previous studies from this laboratory, the effects of nrtis have been investigated on liver and heart mitochondria, tissues that are associated with known nrti toxicities. the goal of the project presented here is to expand these studies to brain mitochondria, a tissue relatively resistant to nrti toxicity. this project has investigated the ability of brain mitochondria to phosphorylate deoxynucleosides and their analogs, and to determine if any of the nrtis have adverse effects on the phosphorylation of naturally occurring deoxynucleosides. high quality mitochondria were isolated from harlan sprague dawley rat brains and were incubated in media with labeled deoxynucleoside or labeled nrti to determine the rate and extent of phosphorylation of the deoxynucleoside or analog. in addition, the effects of various nrtis on rates of phosphorylation of their corresponding deoxynucleosides were investigated. all results were analyzed by hplc and an in-line scintillation counter. results demonstrate that the mitochondrial deoxynucleoside salvage pathways are more active in brain mitochondria than in heart or liver mitochondria. present data show a dramatic increase in the rate of phosphorylation of thymidine (140 pmol/mg) and azt (140 pmol/mg) individually in brain mitochondria compared to mitochondria from heart (20 pmols/mg and 6 pmol/mg) and liver (40 pmol/mg and 9 pmol/mg) after 90 minute incubations. phosphorylation of deoxycytidine is also very active with 210 pmol/mg phosphorylated after 180 minutes. deoxyuridine is phosphorylated to the monophosphate form in brain mitochondria which has also been shown in heart mitochondria, but not in perfused heart. data demonstrate that azt is a potent inhibitor of thymidine phosphorylation in brain mitochondria with an ic50 of 5.5 toleration has long been hailed by critics of the enlightenment as emblematic of the liberalizing progress of whig history. as a legal and religious doctrine, however, toleration confronted eighteenth century writers with a difficult social irony. a tolerant society ought to be at ease with the richness of its own plurality. yet toleration, as defined in the 1689 act of toleration, functioned primarily to exclude any religious group seen as a threat to social stability, thereby maintaining religious belief as a legal standard for exclusion throughout the eighteenth century. focusing on novels published in the aftermath of the 1715 and 1745 jacobite rebellions, my dissertation argues that the novelistic preoccupation with character and community gave voice to both the continuing struggle for religious equality and the fear of some writers, such as henry fielding and robert paltock, that religious difference would ultimately lead to the downfall of the nation. moreover, i maintain that reading persecution through the lens of toleration offers new insights into the development of enlightenment thought and literature. after the inscription of toleration into english law, persecution changed from outright acts of torture and murder, like those detailed in foxe's book of martyrs (1563), to less grotesque, if equally insidious, acts of legal and social oppression. in response to this social change, the nature of the dissenting character gained ever increasing complexity. through her mere existence as a political and religious outsider, for instance, jane barker's galesia disrupts whig social norms. no longer defined exclusively by religious enthusiasm, these characters' willingness to take ethical stands against the accepted views of their fellow citizens, friends, and even families, preserved britain's bloody history of civil war and rebellion, setting the groundwork for cosmopolitanism. for authors like samuel richardson sympathy comes to embody a radically inclusive alternative to toleration that avoids the trappings of identity politics, opening the door for recognition of the shared humanity of all peoples. this dissertation seeks to understand hindu nationalist perceptions regarding indian christianity, their approaches towards the same, and the prescriptions made to contain christianity in india. this is done by examining the speeches and writings of three hindu nationalist ideologues: v. d. savarkar (1883-1966), sita ram goel (1921-2003), and arun shourie (1941-). the dissertation argues that hindu nationalist ideologues tend to homogenize the theology and history of christianity in general and indian christianity in particular. further, christian missions and conversions to christianity are also essentialized. such monolithic views caricature the nature and character of the religion, its history, and its socio-religious activities in the present. this essentialization and caricaturization is not accidental, rather it is done with the express purpose of demonizing the religion and its activities. in doing so, hindu nationalist perceptions and approaches towards christianity in india is not dissimilar from its views and approaches towards indian muslims and islam in india. thus, christian missions is considered an anti-national activity which threatens and seeks to overwhelm hindu society and religion. hence there are methods suggested and efforts taken to curb christian activities in india.these arguments are developed in two parts. part a, chapters two to four, provides an overview of the life and thought of the three hindu nationalist ideologues under consideration. part b, chapters five to eight, examines their views on christianity in general, and the history and present activities of indian christianity in particular. part a serves as a backdrop against which part b can be better understood. chapter five examines their reflections on the concepts of god, christ, bible, and the history of christianity. chapter six investigates their understandings of the history of indian christianity. chapter seven explores their perceptions and approaches towards christian missions – evangelism and religious conversions, educational and medical activities, and other social uplift programs – along with missiological-theological developments in the post-colonial period. chapter eight looks at the many methods prescribed to restrain the threat of christian missions. this dissertation thus makes a significant contribution to the study of hindu nationalism in general and the study of hindu nationalist perceptions, approaches, and recommendations towards containment of indian christianity in particular. symbionts—consisting of parasites, commensals, and mutualists that live in or on another organism—represent a large fraction of the total life on earth. the discipline of ecology has, in despite this reality, tended to focus on macroscopic free-living systems, and the ecological processes that govern symbiont communities remain poorly elucidated in comparison. uncovering these processes may, however, be important to a range of theoretical and applied biological issues, particularly as advances in next-generation sequencing technologies continue to reveal complex host-associated communities with important roles in health and disease. while research on these host-associated communities has largely focused on prokaryotic microbiomes, conserved functional roles across microbial and macroscopic eukaryotes may make them excellent candidates for evaluating the applicability of general ecological theories to symbiont communities. as ubiquitous non-human primates known to harbor diverse eukaryotic communities with proposed relevance to emerging zoonotic disease risk, long-tailed macaques (macaca fascicularis) represent excellent hosts for the study of such symbiont. in this dissertation, i test the applicability of general ecological principles to eukaryotic symbionts, with a focus on symbionts of long-tailed macaques living in singapore and bali, indonesia. i use a range of techniques that include classical microscopy-based parasite diagnostics, 18s small subunit ribosomal rna gene metabarcoding, and bayesian phylogenetic inference. i find that long-tailed macaques harbor diverse communities of eukaryotic symbionts with taxonomic richness comparable and functional diversity that is comparable to many free-living systems. i also find evidence for important interactions between constituents of these communities that include internal bottom-up resource-mediated and top-down predation mediated regulation by constituents of these communities, and a role for coinfecting helminthes in modulating host immune pressures on microparasites.i also find evidence for host specific niche space and propagule pressure as drivers of host switching in a ubiquitous group of parasites, the blastocystis species-complex. finally, i demonstrate the utility of the ecological approaches that i develop in this dissertation, by applying them to better understand structuring of host usage within plasmodium knowlesi, a zoonotic malarial agent. taken together, my findings suggest that free-living and symbiont eukaryotes are governed by similar ecological processes. when sharing data among collaborators or releasing data publicly, one of the crucial concerns is the extreme risk of exposing personal information of individuals who contribute to the data. many statistical methods of data privacy and confidentiality have little to no means in measuring an altered data set's privacy guarantee. differential privacy, a condition on data releasing algorithms, quantifies disclosure risk, but is traditionally used in a query based privacy method instead of in a synthetic dataset release. my dissertation develops and explores various methods of incorporating differential privacy in synthetic data generation using predicted values within a bayesian framework. i call these methods, differentially private data synthesis (dips) techniques. in my dissertation, i first conducted a comparative study of several dips approaches on various data types as well as a case study on male fertility data. next, i created a method (called specks) to compare dips data to real-life data, and another method to improve the statistical inferences of non-parametric dips approaches. these methods were tested on voter registration data. finally, i developed a dips technique for social network data called noisy edges and traits (net) and applied it to two real-life data sets. a new facility has been designed and constructed at the university of notre dame to investigate dynamic stall and compressible dynamic stall on a 2-d pitching airfoil at high subsonic mach numbers. the design of the compressible dynamic stall test facility was focused on achieving test conditions that have not been studied previously. the facility is able to pitch an airfoil at non harmonic frequencies at flight reynolds numbers. the data acquisition system is capable of simultaneously acquiring the pressure data from 31 flush mounted absolute pressure sensors and the position data from an angle encoder. benchmark data was taken and discussed. it was found that the transition from dynamic stall to compressible dynamic stall had interesting characteristics. this dissertation introduces a modeling framework, suitable for analysis, for systems that can be characterized either directly by the first and second laws of thermodynamics or indirectly by relating the fundamental equations characterizing a system or process to the first and second laws of thermodynamics. models built in this framework coupled with a financial objective function produces a bilinear optimization problem. we compute the optimal solution by variable substitution into this bilinear problem, linearizing and relaxing the resulting bilinear constraint, and applying a branch and bound methodology. we illustrate the solution technique of the bilinear optimization problem applied to several energy systems. using reported data characterizing several california power plants, we demonstrate how to determine an appropriate model utilizing the introduced modeling framework and fit the parameters required in the framework to the model. we consider problems with various sources of flexibility and uncertainty and apply our framework and methodology. using standard programming techniques, we characterize common financial measures and strategies, such as optimal hedging and risk management and valuation of flexibility. in this dissertation, the design, fabrication and characterization of advanced terahertz (thz) quasi-optical detectors and focal-plane arrays (fpas) based on monolithically integrated heterostructure backward diodes (hbds) are presented for thz sensing and imaging applications. in order to develop highly sensitive room temperature thz detectors and fpas, zero bias sb-hbds are attractive to be employed owing to their relatively high curvature coefficient (γ), high sensitivity, low noise equivalent power (nep), high cut-off frequency, and room temperature operation. to develop high performance detectors and fpas, hbds with submicron-scale device areas are preferred for their high detector bandwidth. since submicron scale hbds have high device impedances at terahertz frequencies, lens-coupled planar folded dipole antennas (fdas) which have a wide range impedance tuning capacity at thz frequencies are adopted in the detector design to achieve conjugate impedance matching for maximum detector sensitivities without additional matching networks. for a prototype demonstration, hbds with 0.16 μm2 and 0.1 μm2 active areas have been employed for the detector design at 200 and 585 ghz respectively. simulation results show that maximum detector sensitivities of 21,000 v/w at 200 ghz and 9,500 v/w at 585 ghz could be achieved. the corresponding minimum neps (nepsmin) of these detectors are estimated to be 0.42 pw/√hz and 1.3 pw/√hz respectively. in this work, hbds are integrated with fdas using submicron-scale airbridges and anode-to-mesa spacing to minimize parasitic capacitance and frequency dependent spreading resistance respectively. on the basis of modeling results, a novel, scalable, and robust fabrication process has been developed using mix-and-match electron beam and optical lithography. a record high zero bias curvature co-efficient of -58v-1 has been obtained for hbds developed using this process. the measurements of the lens-coupled hbd detector with a 0.7× 0.7 μm2 device area show that a peak detector sensitivity of approximately 2400 v/w and a nepmin of 2.14 pw/√hz have been obtained at 170 ghz without applying anti-reflection coating on the silicon lens.if an antireflection coating was used, a sensitivity of approximately 3500 v/w and a nepmin of 1.48 pw/√hz are projected. the radiation patterns of the quasi-optical detector in both the eand h-planes have been measured and good agreement has been achieved between simulation and measurement. finally, for imaging applications, the single element design has been expanded into full 2d thz fpas and the off-axis radiation patterns, angular resolution, and mutual coupling have been studied. the reported approach using monolithically integrated heterostructure backward tunneling diodes is promising for developing high performance and compact detectors and fpas for millimeter-wave and thz sensing and imaging applications. nature provides exceptional examples of the mobility and dexterity capabilities of animals. from cheetahs running at top speeds of 130 kph to giant squids with over five-meter tentacles hunting at extreme ocean depths, evolution and time have enabled animals to navigate their habitats through an almost effortless interplay with the surrounding environment. it is that, for animals, the ability to move through the world is intrinsic to the design of their bodies and brains, which have evolved in unison to achieve energy efficiency and robustness to unexpected events. the role of the passive dynamics of the body in biological locomotion is envisioned as a form of embodied intelligence triggered by physical interaction with the world. this dissertation aims to contribute toward the design of legged robots embodied with mechanical intelligence via the concurrent design (co-design) of their mechanical and control systems. the challenge for the design of legged robots is on achieving a synergy between body (hardware) and brain (control) as observed in animals. this challenge is accentuated by the lack of computational co-design tools, and the complexity of jointly modelling dynamics, hardware, and control systems. traditionally, tasks of mechanical and control design are executed separately, with the controller primarily responsible for forcing behaviors through non compliant morphologies. moreover, often to alleviate the computational complexity, the consideration of isolated scenarios (i.e., tasks and environments) at design time ignores the uncertainty that legged robots need to face to operate in the real world. this dissertation proposes a co-design framework rooted in trajectory optimization (to) that produces robots while considering uncertainty at design time.the contributions of this dissertation are reflected along three main axes, increasing versatility, improving energy efficiency, and adding robustness reasoning to a design, all made possible via algorithms that address computational scalability. to ensure versatility, the presented framework models scenarios that a robot could face using probability measures for the description of potential tasks and environments. these probability measures are accounted for in the design formulation through the use of stochastic programming (sp) constructs. combining sp with to ensures that a design excels in a range of scenarios, with the controller enabling adaptability and the morphology promoting energy efficiency. in that sense, mechanical intelligence arises from the morphology relieving the control effort when the natural dynamics of the robot contribute productively to accomplishing a task. the benefits of co-design are shown on monopod and quadruped robots that exhibit fast and robust performance completing a locomotion task (e.g., jumping), while reducing the energy use from their actuators. robustness is assessed from the perspective of a robot withstanding disturbances while still showcasing fast performance and energy efficiency. to achieve robustness, this dissertation is aligned with efforts in the robotics community developing feedback controllers for motion planning. the proposed co-design framework is the first to consider the co-optimization of the morphology, a nominal trajectory, and a feedback control policy for disturbance rejection. the co-optimization of the morphology, the nominal trajectory, and the feedback control policy achieved improved results in terms of tracking performance, robustness, and energy efficiency compared to state-of-the-art single-scenario co-design implementations. the price to pay, even with open-loop control strategies, is a challenge to computational scalability, particularly with respect to the number of scenarios. to address this challenge, this dissertation proposes parallelizable algorithms for large-scale co-design problems (i.e., including 30 scenarios) using the alternating direction method of multipliers (admm). the scalability gained through the admm supported the engineering of mechanical intelligence in a quadruped robot equipped with pneumatic cylinders as parallel elastic actuators (peas). compared to the case without peas, the design with added compliance reduced its cost of transport (cot) by 61% and required less time to cover larger jump distances. to support the optimization findings, experimental results with the mit mini cheetah validated the co-design principles in this dissertation, demonstrating the engineering of mechanical intelligence via the reduction of the cot (up to 19%) with the robot executing trotting gaits and using a standard controller not co-optimized for exploiting passive dynamics. sb-heterostructure backward diodes have demonstrated their potential as high sensitivity, low-noise, high cutoff frequency and broadband millimeter-wave detectors. this work presents further improvements in detector performance as a result of optimized heterostructure and device design. structures with ultra-thin 7 angstrom alsb barriers have been investigated; these designs resulted in greatly reduced junction resistance and its associated johnson noise, as well as the potential for doubling of the impedance-matched bandwidth obtainable in imaging applications. compared to previously demonstrated designs with thicker tunnel barriers, these ultra-thin barrier structures also greatly facilitate design of efficient low-loss matching networks so that this improved bandwidth can be realized in practice. to enhance detector sensitivity, structures with a p-type sheet doping plane in the cathode and an increased anode al mole fraction of 12% have been studied and resulted in record high curvature, high sensitivity and low noise. in order to understand the underlying physics leading to this excellent detector performance, a theoretical model based on the transfer matrix method and kane's multi-band formalism has been developed. this model accurately reproduces the measured tunneling current-voltage characteristics for inas/alsb/gasb single barrier interband tunnel structures, and therefore can be a very useful tool for future heterostructure optimization. based on the experimentally demonstrated performance of the sb-heterostructure tunnel diode detectors reported here and this model's predictions, the potential performance of a passive unamplified direct detection module appears promising. in particular, the potential system performance of a broadband millimeter-wave radiometer with a planar antenna-coupled sb-heterostructure detector is evaluated theoretically. a complete fabrication process for realizing discrete detectors as well as planar antenna-coupled detector modules has been developed and used to realize the prototype devices. with the improvement in system design and device performance, the performance of a focal-plane-array style passive millimeter-wave imagers can be greatly improved. in this thesis, we calculate the cooperations algebra for the second truncated brown-peterson spectrum at the prime 2. we accomplish this through the adams spectral sequence. we begin by introducing a filtration and a splitting of the mod 2 homology for the second brown-peterson spectrum. from this splitting we derive a splitting on the second page of the adams spectral sequence. this is a splitting into torsion concentrated in adams filtration 0 and a torsion free component. we then show that this algebraic splitting lifts the stable homotopy category. after establishing our general structural results, we turn to developing an inductive procedure for determining a basis for the ext groups after inverting the element detecting 2. from this we determine a basis for the second page of the adams spectral sequence modulo torsion. understanding the origin of the heaviest elements in the universe is one of thegreat outstanding problems in physics. more than half of these elements are thoughtto have been created by a process called the rapid neutron capture, or r process.this process involves many nuclei that are very far from the line of stability. becausethese nuclei have such short beta decay half-lives, they are very difficult to produceand study. the vast majority of r-process nuclei have not been observed at all.this work details the measurement of several r-process nuclei that have neverbeen produced before. these nuclei lie in the r-process path near the z = 40,n = 60 region. this region of the chart of the nuclides is also interesting because arapid change in the shape of nuclei is seen. with the addition or removal of just afew nucleons, nuclei go from a spherical shape to a strongly deformed shape.for both r-process abundance calculations and nuclear deformation calculations,the beta decay half life and beta-delayed neutron emission ratio pn values are importantparameters. this experiment determined these values for the r-process nucleiin the germanium-bromine region. the experimental work was carried out at thenational superconducting cyclotron laboratory at michigan state university.twenty-two halflives were determined in our measurments. three nuclei, 90se,88as, and 89as, were measured for the first time. in addition, we have confirmedpreviously measured half-lives for y, sr, rb, kr, br, se, and as isotopes. the newmeasurements were used to calculate the pn values for 92ì¢è '90br and 96,94rb.an r-process simulation was performed with the results from this measurement.because of the possible change in shape of the se nuclei in particular, the uncertaintyof r-process production abundances in the a = 90 ì¢è ' 130 region are as large as afactor of two. this work determined the shape of the se isotopes in this region tobe deformed, which removed this large uncertainty in the r-process calculations. the initial-boundary value problem (ibvp) for the m-th order korteweg-de vries (kdvm) equation on the half-line is studied by extending a novel approach recently developed for the well-posedness of the kdv on the half-line, which is based on the solution formula produced via fokas' unified transform method for the associated forced linear ibvp. replacing in this formula the forcing by the nonlinearity and using data in sobolev spaces suggested by the space-time regularity of the cauchy problem of the linear kdvm, gives an iteration map for the ibvp which is shown to be a contraction in an appropriately chosen solution space.the proof relies on key linear estimates and a bilinear estimate similar to the one used for the kdv cauchy problem by kenig, ponce and vega. the piggybac mobile element is quickly gaining popularity as a tool for the transgenesis of many eukaryotic organisms. by studying the transposase (tpase) which catalyzes the movement of piggybac, modification of this vector system may be possible in order to make it a more effective transgenesis tool. in a previous publication (sarkar et al., 2003) proposed the presence of the widespread 'dde/ddd' motif for piggybac at amino acid positions d268, d346, and d447. a psortii analysis of the tpase amino acid sequence predicts several nuclear localization signals (nls) near the c-terminus, just upstream of a putative zinc finger (znf). this study utilizes directed mutagenesis and plasmid-based mobility assays to assess the importance of conserved aspartate residues as the catalytic core of the piggybac tpase. individual point-mutations have been functionally analyzed with respect to charge and physical size in all three proposed residues of the 'ddd' motif, as well as another nearby, highly conserved aspartate at d450. results indicate that all four aspartates are necessary, to one degree or another, for excision to occur in a cellular environment, but d450 seems to have a tolerance for a glutamate substitution. the piggybac tpase was fused upstream and in-frame with the enhanced yellow fluorescent protein (eyfp) in the drosophila melanogaster inducible metallothionein (mt) promoter and the fluorescence tracked by confocal microscopy. through n and c-terminal truncations, targeted internal deletions, and specific amino acid mutations of the piggybac tpase open reading frame (orf), the region containing the psortii predicted nlss was determined to be required for the tpase to enter the nucleus of s2 cells; other additional negatively charged amino acids a short length upstream of this region were also required for proper function of the nls. control of the spread of dengue virus (denv) has become a more important concern, with the growth of worldwide travel and development of rural areas. recent outbreaks in the third world have taken a heavy economic toll on developing countries in terms of morbidity. an effective vaccine against all four serotypes of the virus has remained elusive due to antibody dependent enhancement of a viral infection. one alternative to vaccines currently being explored is the creation of mosquitoes unable to spread the virus from person to person. the establishment and spread of a so called refractory strain would effectively halt the denv life cycle in its tracks. obviously, a key element of this population replacement approach is an effective transgene conferring resistance to viral transmission. the ability to precisely target the transgene to invariant elements of the virus would make it more effective against a wider variety of serotypes and strains. the ability of the tetrahymena thermophila group i intron to catalyze the trans-splicing of subgenomic sequences highly conserved in the dengue genome across all serotypes was tested. by specifically targeting these regions, trans-splicing products were detected both in vitro with t7 rna transcripts and in situ from traditional rna polymerase ii (rnap ii) promoted transcripts. a number of different introns, which splice with varying efficiencies as measured by real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (pcr) (qrt-pcr) and dual luciferase assay, have been designed and tested. the trans-splicing of the group i intron can be directed to splice a novel 3' exon to the upstream fragment of the splicing product, allowing for de novo gene expression upon detection of the target. when linked to a pro-apoptotic gene as a 3' exon and expressed constitutively in a cell, the group i intron may trigger ordered cell death upon infection, denying the virus the ability to reproduce. one such pro-apoptotic gene, the truncated bcl-2-associated protein x (tbax), was tested for its ability to induce apoptosis in insect cells and found to be an effective pro-apoptotic gene. research interests in unmanned aerial vehicles (uavs) has grown over the past couple decades. historically, uavs were designed to maximize endurance and range, but demands in uav designs have changed in recent years. in addition to the traditional demands for endurance and range, today customer demands include maneuverability. therefore, uavs are being designed to morph, to change their geometrical shape during flight, for enhanced maneuvering capability. in this investigation the morphing uav concept under study is referred to as the buckle wing. the design of the buckle-wing airfoil geometries is posed as a multilevel, multiobjective optimization problem. this design problem includes two competing objectives of maneuverability and range/endurance. multiobjective problems have many optimal solutions each depicting a different compromise scenario. each optimal solution is a pareto point, and the set of all these points represents the pareto curve. this is a powerful means of showing the global picture of the solution field. the goal of this paper is to explore and compare the pareto curves of the buckle-wing uav to that of a conventional non-morphing uav. in order to make this performance comparison, compromise programming is used as the optimizing method, and the vortex panel method is used to calculate the aerodynamics. the buckle-wing uav's enhanced capabilities are demonstrated both quantitatively and graphically. mitosis is a series of intricate and complex events that take place during each cell cycle. regulation of mitosis is especially important at the kinetochore, the protein-rich area between the chromosome arms. kinetochores are required for several aspects of mitosis, including initial interactions between chromosomes and microtubules (mts), chromosome movement, and activities associated with the spindle assembly checkpoint (sac). cytoplasmic dynein plays a role in one or more of these kinetochore functions; however, the specific contributions of dynein remain under investigation. recent work has suggested a linked between cytoplasmic dynein regulation and kinetochore kinases aurora b and mps-1. aurora b is an essential mitotic kinase that regulates several aspects of the spindle assembly checkpoint (sac). because of this known function, we investigated the role aurora b activity plays in recruitment of dynein to the kinetochore. our study determined that aurora b activity works upstream of the fibrous corona and is required for the proper recruitment of dynein to the kinetochore through regulation of dynein-binding platform assembly. specifically, aurora b activity regulates the interaction between zwint-1 and zw10 through direct phosphorylation of zwint-1. further work revealed that phosphorylation and dephosphorylation of zwint-1are necessary for accurate significantly impact mitotic progression. zwint-1 phosphorylation is required during prometaphase for proper assembly of the kinetochore and coordinated zwint-1 dephoshorylation is required for entrance into anaphase and sac silencing. previous work has determined that aurora b and mps-1 have overlapping regulatory roles in kinetochore-based mechanisms that may be due to evolutionary redundancy. it was determined that aurora b and mps-1 inhibition give similar assembly defects in the dynein-binding platform; however these defects arise from different mechanisms. this study demonstrated that mps-1 and aurora b do not have substrate redundancy and that mps-1 directly phosphorylates zwilch in the rzz complex, whereas aurora b directly phosphorylates zwint-1. overall, these findings provide a better understanding of proper kinetochore assembly and regulation of the sac by phosphorylation. machine learning (ml) has seen renewed interest with the advent of modern computational accelerators such as gpus and the availability of larger scale datasets. ml potential energy models are promising the accuracy of quantum methods at significantly reduced cost. high accuracy potential methods which scale well for long simulations are desirable for many research areas. this dissertation describes methods for collecting datasets of nonequilibrium geometries for training ml potential energy models and shows that enhanced sampling methods or methods which do not follow boltzmann statistics are necessary for diversely sampling geometries. several potential models are described. the first is a combination of an ml model with the many-body expansion for condensed phase systems. the result is a highly efficient and accurate method for running large simulations of liquid phase systems. the method is implemented for methanol, but extension to other systems or mixed non-covalent fragments is trivial. the next two chapters describe the development of tensormol, and improvements made to the model to accommodate more elements. tensormol is a general nn potential for small organic molecules which includes explicit long-range interactions. the coulomb and van der waals energies included with tensormol are crucial for running accurate simulations with correct long-range behavior. the follow-up work improves upon tensormol by reframing the parameterization such that it is constant with the number of unique elements in the training data. the result is a model which is able to treat a vast expansion of organic molecules by including eleven unique elements in the training data. this dissertation also covers the early stages and future directions of a project using graph neural network models to predict reactions products, yields, and stereoselectivities. finally, a collaborative project to model the stokes shift observed in photoluminescence experiments of lead-halide perovskites describes the electronic structure of these materials to elucidate the cause of the stokes shift. a low-lying gap state is observed which follows the trends of size-dependence in experimental results. electronic structure calculations verify this low-gap state is responsible for the size-dependence of the stokes shift. my dissertation explores how carolingian scholars interpreted one particularly difficult book of the bible, the song of songs, using its vivid erotic poetry as an allegory to understand their own place and function within society. the song of songs is a dialogue between two main characters, implicitly identified as the bride and bridegroom, who celebrate their love using an intensely passionate sequence of botanical and agricultural metaphors. drawing on the work of bede and an earlier, fragmentary commentary of gregory the great, carolingian writers produced an unprecedented number of commentaries on the song of songs, as well as other works inspired by its imagery. these include some of the most prominent and prolific intellectuals of the carolingian world: alcuin, theodulf, haimo of auxerre, angelomus of luxeuil, paschasius radbertus, agobard of lyons, and hincmar of rheims. for these scholars, the beauty of the bride represented the beauty of their church, both outside of time and in their own day. taking advantage of the ambiguities of the biblical text, carolingian exegetes transmuted the erotic imagery of the song of songs into a series of metaphors by which they understood their own place in the church, how they ought to act, and the kinds of pastoral activities in which they should participate. my work demonstrates how carolingian monks and clergy used the song of songs to articulate the goals and ideals of an increasingly self-conscious and ambitious clerical class. on the one hand, they understood images from the song, such as the bride working in her vineyard or pasturing her flocks, to authorize their own activities in evangelization, pastoral care, and policy making; on the other, to understand the allegorical interpretation of this difficult biblical text was itself a class marker of an intellectual elite. in using the language of the song of songs to describe themselves and to form a common identity within the church, carolingian elites also used that language to label and characterize the behavior of those they perceived to be tearing the church apart from within. imagery from the song of songs would go on to play an important role in the history of heresy in the high and later middle ages; my dissertation explores the roots of such language in the carolingian era, as the doctors sought to portray themselves as the ultimate arbiters of orthodoxy. and finally, i examine how the song of songs formed one very important aspect of of an ongoing conversation between church and crown, providing carolingian monks and clergy with a plethora of models to advise, to inspire, and occasionally to rebuke their sovereigns. prior to follicle selection, granulosa cells are actively maintained in an undifferentiated state by epidermal growth factor ligands (egfl) that signal via the mitogen activated protein kinase (mapk)/extracellular regulated kinase (erk) pathway inhibiting follicle stimulating hormone receptor (fshr). at the time of follicle selection, there is a release from inhibitory mapk/erk signaling initiating granulosa cell differentiation, causing an increase in fshr in one selected follicle. the present study was conducted in cultured granulosa cells from prehierarchal follicles, and it was found that the effects of bone morphogenetic protein 2 (bmp2) on granulosa cells promote egfl expression while inhibiting fshr expression, by either promoting or inhibiting indvidual id isoform expression. the inhibitory actions of bmp2 on fshr expression were neutralized by treatment of granulosa cells with the bmp antagonist, noggin. in conclusion, prior to follicle selection, bmp2 and egfl act cooperatively to prevent the premature differentiation of hen granulosa cells. this dissertation looks at several psalms which exhibit a shift in focus from individual to communal concerns (e.g. pss 3, 25, 51, 102, 130). sometimes this change in focus seems to be the result of a textual intervention by a later scribe who was seeking to give an older psalm a new context in light of the community's experience. part of this shift may also be rooted in the vow to praise, which the psalmist fulfills among the congregation. this reinterpretation of the psalms of the individual allowed for 'i' of the psalms to take on a variety of meanings, from david, the traditional author of many of the psalms, to other biblical characters, to christ in the new testament, and ultimately to any liturgical participant. because many psalms of the individual later become collective in their focus, many times the community itself makes the 'i' of the psalms its own (exod 15; ps 129). after a close reading of many psalms in chapter 2, chapter 3 considers the significance of psalms set within narratives in the old testament. most important here are the prayers of tobit and hezekiah (tobit 3 and 13; isa 38:9-20). their prayers are not merely for or about themselves but reflect the concerns of the people to such an extent that their fates are intertwined. the final chapter considers the way psalms functioned in late second temple judaism, particularly at qumran. psalms and other prayers inspired by them were important in shaping the self-understanding of the communities that prayed them. in this thesis the optical properties of colloidal cdse nanowires (nws) are elucidated at the singe wire level. using single molecule fluorescence microscopy we have established that dielectric contrast controls their optical response to polarized light. specifically, single cdse wire excitation polarization anisotropies (ì exc) were studied as a function of nw radius, excitation wavelength, and dielectric environment. experiments reveal that the strongest dependence of ì exc-values is on a nw's surroundings in agreement with a classical dielectric contrast model. these results, however, only hold true for wires with radii less then the wavelength of light. in the limit of optically thick wires a transition from strong dielectric contrast influences to the onset of bulk-like behavior occurs. namely, ì exc-values decrease concurrently with the emergence of a sizable wavelength dependence when nw radii become comparable to the wavelength of light. as a consequence, pronounced ì exc rolloffs are observed at short wavelengths in the visible. we quantitatively explain the wavelength sensitivities by modeling the nw as an absorbing dielectric cylinder under plane wave excitation. a comparison of predicted ì exc-values to experimental numbers shows good agreement and confirms the existence of wavelength-dependent ì exc-values in optically thick wires. in addition, absorption cross section values (ì ®õabs) of single cdse nanowires have been measured by photothermal heterodyne imaging (phi). specifically, phi signals from isolated gold nanoparticles (nps) with known absorption cross sections were compared to those of individual cdse nws excited at 532 nm. based on our analysis an average cdse nw absorption cross section value of ì ®õabs = (3.17 ìâå± 0.44) x 10-11 cm2/ì_å_m was determined. this agrees well with the theoretical value obtained using a classical poynting vector field analysis (ì ®õabs = 5.00 x 10-11 cm2/ì_å_m) and also with earlier ensemble estimates. the sizable absorption cross section extracted from our phi measurements ultimately suggested that direct single nw absorption studies were possible. as a result, we conducted spatial modulation spectroscopy on single cdse nws to directly measure their extinction throughout the visible. our data reveal up to four resolvable transitions, a significant single nw stokes shift, and transitions that saturate with increasing excitation intensity. the ability to resolve single wire resonances has allowed us to quantitatively study their excited state size progression. we have done so within the context of a six band effective mass model that includes the enhanced exciton binding energies and dielectric confinement associated with one dimensional nanostructures. the observed experimental resonances agree well with the excitonic transitions predicted by the model. this project seeks to understand how discomfort with stigma influences lgbt-poc (people of color) identity selection, especially in today's social climate where many people assume we have progressed past prejudicial disadvantages. thus the main research question is: for lgbt-poc, are feelings of discomfort from interactions with members of one of these identity groups associated with prioritization of one identity over the other? using a data set titled the social justice sexuality project reported identity importance is measured. i am testing for evidence that individuals prioritize one stigmatized identity over the other. i found that discomfort in one's lgbt community because of respondent's racial/ethnic identity and discomfort in one's racial/ethnic community because of respondent's sexual identity both result in a reduced likelihood of prioritizing that identity. this quantitative analysis should be seen as a precursory exercise as well as a step towards demonstrating the need for nationally representative surveys of lgbt-poc. discourse is thought to be represented in memory at three levels: surface form, textbase, and event model. the current study tested the relation of the three levels in memory by manipulating the strength of each level using retrieval practice. final recognition memory showed a testing effect for the surface form and event model levels, but not the textbase. in addition, surface form practice improved textbase memory and textbase practice improved event model memory. however, event model practice impaired textbase memory. thus, there is a mix of facilitative and competitive relations among the three levels. a cognitive efficiency theory is proposed to account for the findings, reasoning that people access the level of memory that is the strongest (i.e., the event model level). future work is recommended to test this theory and examine the dynamic relations of these levels under different circumstances and retention intervals. understanding the relation of these levels is essential for experimental studies of memory involving narratives as well as applied settings including education and eyewitness testimony. moreover, this approach has implications for event cognition beyond just narratives because this general approach could be extended to our understanding of other events, including those experienced in film and autobiographically. this thesis describes the efforts toward developing new antibacterial agents for treatment of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (mrsa), a gram-positive organism that is a leading cause of hospital-acquired infections. this pathogen is resistant to the β-lactam antibiotics which inhibit the penicillin-binding proteins (pbps), which are involved in the final stages of bacterial cell-wall (peptidoglycan) biosynthesis. mrsa is able to evade action of these antibiotics by expressing an additional pbp with a low affinity for the β-lactams, which is termed pbp2a. this enzyme has a characteristically closed active-site conformation that is regulated allosterically by a site 60 å away. we set out to develop new inhibitors of pbp2a by performing docking and scoring at the active site and testing top compounds for antibacterial activity. a quinazolinone with good activity against s. aureus was identified from this screening. medicinal chemistry optimization of this hit compound was performed to optimize the in vitro antibacterial activity, solubility, stability, pharmacokinetics, and ultimately in vivo efficacy. the mechanism of action for the quinazolinones was investigated through use of a macromolecular synthesis assays, pbp enzyme activity assays, and mrna antisense susceptibility testing. additionally, the quinazolinones were tested for synergy with several classes of antibiotics including β-lactams. two lead quinazolinones were identified that demonstrated good pharmacokinetic properties and thus achieved efficacy in mouse models of infections. additionally, these quinazolinones were demonstrated to inhibit pbp1 and pbp2a of s. aureus. in the case of pbp2a, the quinazolinones bind to both the allosteric site and the active site in order to accomplish inhibition. their ability of inhibit pbp2a also allowed for the quinazolinones to achieve synergism with several β-lactam antibiotics, most notably piperacillin and imipenem. although the effects of pacific salmon spawners have been well-studied in the pacific northwest, their influence remains relatively unexplored across portions of their range including the north pacific rim and along the alaska peninsula. in my first data chapter, i examined whether the influence of salmon on streams and lakes at izembek national wildlife refuge (inwr) was similar to previously studied salmon-bearing ecosystems. at inwr, the impact of salmon was smaller than elsewhere, likely due to small run sizes and regional environmental characteristics including very low background molar nitrogen to phosphorous ratios. nevertheless, i found that upstream and downstream reaches within a single watershed can respond differently to salmon migration, suggesting that salmon differentially influence freshwater ecosystems depending on landscape position. in my second data chapter, i examined whether marine-derived nutrient subsidies from salmon and waterbirds differ in their effects on lake ecosystems. in general, lakes receiving subsidies had higher nutrient concentrations than lakes with no significant subsidies, and water column chl-a was positively correlated to nutrient availability. however, biofilm nutrient limitation differed between lakes receiving salmon versus waterbird subsidies. in summary, both source and environmental context strongly influences the effect of marine-derived nutrient subsidies in streams and lakes at inwr. iii-mn-v dilute magnetic semiconductors have emerged as promising candidatematerials for future spintronic devices that could use the spin property of the carriers(in addition to their electrical charge) to manipulate information. during the pastdecade the most extensively studied semiconductor in this family is gamnas.it is widely accepted that the long-range ferromagnetic ordering of mn moments inthis material is induced by holes contributed by the mn ions. these acceptors caneither be neutral or in the form of compensated negatively charged centers. theprecise role which these two centers play in determining the magnetic propertiesof gamnas is still not fully understood. moreover, the role of mn acceptors indetermining the zeeman splitting of band edges of gamnas needs to be investigatedin depth. magnetic circular dichroism (mcd) is a powerful tool for investigatingmagneto-optical properties in thin magnetic layers, and in this study we apply thismethod to address the problem of mn acceptor compensation in gamnas and itsimplication in determining the zeeman splitting of band edges of gamnas, with theaim of shedding additional light on the co-relation of hole concentration and curietemperature of these samples with zeeman splitting of band edges.the focus of this thesis is the analysis of magnetic circular dichroism data takenon thin gamnas films with low mn concentration. our measurements revealed thatexchange-induced spin splitting of the band edges occurs only in samples that showferromagnetic order, and is not observed in paramagnetic samples. these resultslead to the conclusion that mn ions in the a0 configuration (d5 + hole) providethe only mechanism for exchange interaction between mn spins and band carriers.we also show that there is a linear relation between the observed exchange-inducedsplitting of the band edges and the curie temperature, pointing to a common originof the band edge splitting and ferromagnetism in gamnas. 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin d3 (1,25d) and its cognate nuclear receptor, the vitamin d receptor (vdr), regulate calcium homeostasis via transcriptional activation of target genes. 1,25d is also known to mediate growth arrest and apoptosis in a variety of cancer cell lines and tumors, however, the role of the vdr and the role of transcriptional activation in this process remain unclear. to investigate the role of the vdr in mediating the anti-cancer properties of 1,25d, two murine mammary tumor cell lines with differential vdr expression were characterized.wt145 cells, which express transcriptionally functional vdr protein, were growth inhibited and rendered apoptotic by 1,25d and synthetic vitamin d analogs. in contrast, ko240 cells, which express no detectable vdr protein or mrna, were neither growth inhibited nor rendered apoptotic by 1,25d, at doses as high as 1µ m. collectively, these data indicate that functional vdr protein is required for the anti-cancer effects of 1,25d and structurally related vitamin d based therapeutics in vitro.to determine whether the anti-cancer actions of vitamin d are mediated via the vdr in vivo, nude mice bearing tumors derived from wt145 or ko240 cells were treated with eb1089, a synthetic analog of 1,25d, or placebo for six weeks. an untreated subset of tumor-bearing mice was exposed to ultraviolet (uv) light, to activate endogenous 1,25d production. both eb1089 and uv light exposure decreased volume of wt145 tumors through decreased tumor cell proliferation and increased tumor cell apoptosis. no effects of either eb1089 or uv treatments were observed in ko240 tumors, indicating that the vitamin d pathway mediates its anti-tumor effects in vivo via tumor-cell vdr.ko240 cells stably expressing wild-type vdr and vdr point mutants from hereditary rickets patients were created and characterized, to further examine the mechanism of vdr in growth regulation. ko cells stably expressing vdr were growth inhibited by 1,25d and its structural analogs, indicating that the vitamin d growth regulatory pathway could be reconstituted in vdr null cells. cells expressing mutant vdrs were differentially affected by 1,25d and analogs; vdr that lack dna binding ability were growth inhibited by physiological doses of 1,25d while ligand binding domain mutants were not. this suggests that the anti-cancer effects of 1,25d, while vdr mediated, are in part mediated via novel, dna-independent mechanisms. flow exiting the combustor a gas turbine engine is highly turbulent and contains significant spatial gradients of pressure and temperature. the high pressure turbine vanes operating in this environment redistribute these spatial gradients and impact the inflow characteristics of the turbine rotor blades. the efficacy of the turbine design is predicated on the knowledge of this redistribution process.this work seeks to understand the physical mechanisms that transport total enthalpy normal to a line of constant span in a turbine nozzle vane. this goal is accomplished through a combination of experiment and computational work. detailed experimental surveys of total temperature and total pressure were obtained upstream and downstream of an annular turbine nozzle vane cascade. the facility used was capable of replicating engine relevant conditions including high inflow turbulence intensity, inflow non-uniformities in total pressure and total temperature, and vane exit mach numbers. three sets of inlet boundary conditions were studied. the first set had a nominally uniform distribution of total temperature. the second and third set had variation of total temperature in the spanwise direction. all three sets of inlet boundary conditions had nominally the same inlet total pressure profile and inlet mach number.numerical simulations were performed using the commercial software ansys fluent. the experimental data obtained upstream of the vane was used to define the numerical inlet boundary conditions. the static pressure distribution on the surface of the vane was matched by setting the downstream static pressure. closure was obtained by using the k-\omega sst turbulence model. transition was modeled using a single equation involving the intermittency. the simulation was validated using the experimental data obtained downstream of the vane. the data obtained from the simulation was used to study the mechanisms which transport the total enthalpy normal to a line of constant span. two mechanisms were identified that accounted for the majority of the redistribution of total enthalpy. the first was the turbulent heat flux normal to a line of constant span and the second was the mean convective transport of total enthalpy normal to the line of constant span. over the course of the 20th century, irish playwrights penned scores of adaptations of greek tragedy and irish epic, and this theatrical phenomenon continues to flourish in the 21st century. my dissertation examines the performance history of such adaptations at dublin's two flagship theatres: the abbey, founded in 1904 by w.b. yeats and lady gregory, and the gate, established in 1928 by miche&#225l mac liamm&#243;ir and hilton edwards. i argue that the potent rivalry between these two theatres is most acutely manifest in their production of these plays, and that in fact these adaptations of ancient literature constitute a &#34;disputed territory&#34; upon which each theatre stakes a claim of artistic and aesthetic preeminence. partially because of its long-standing claim to the title of ireland's &#34;national theatre,&#34; the abbey has been the subject of the preponderance of scholarly criticism about the history of irish theatre, while the gate has received comparatively scarce academic attention. i contend, however, that the history of the abbey--and of modern irish theatre as a whole--cannot be properly understood except in relation to the strikingly different aesthetics practiced at the gate. unlike yeats and gregory, macliamm&#243;ir and edwards brought extensive professional expertise to their theatre, in which a panoply of color, gesture, music, lighting, artistic and technical design worked in tandem with the spoken word to create the performance's meaning. their range of technical and artistic genius allowed them to stage ancient literature with lyric passion and cutting-edge visual effects'&#34;memorable barbarities,&#34; in macliamm&#243;ir's words. the gate's achievements radically reinvented dublin theatregoers' understanding and expectations of theatrical performance, thereby recharting the entire trajectory of modern irish drama. this study examines productions of ancient greek and irish adaptations at the abbey and the gate from the beginning of the 20th century through 2006. utilizing a dual theoretical framework of performance studies and adaptation theory, my study complements close textual analysis with detailed examination of both theatres' archival materials, including playbills, publicity, critical reviews, and visual images of the performances in photographs and video recordings. a three step high throughput catalytic screening process was used to evaluate the activity and selectivity of copper and zinc based methanol partial oxidation catalysts. the most active catalyst preparations contained both palladium and zirconium promoters. the high activity and selectivity obtained from the doubly promoted 7cu/3zn/1zr-1pd composition suggested a synergy between palladium and zirconium promoters. characterization studies showed that the zirconia promoter significantly enhanced characteristics such as surface area, dispersion, crystallite size, and deactivation resistance, leading to lowered reduction temperature. however the zirconia promoter alone only slightly lowered the reaction light off temperature. unlike zirconia, the palladium promoter did not significantly alter microstructural characteristics of the catalyst. palladium was shown to significantly lower the reduction temperature regardless of initial cuo crystallite size, which suggests that palladium enhances the catalytic activity by increasing copper reducibility. copper k edge x-ray absorption spectroscopy confirmed palladium promoted catalysts are more easily reduced to cu0 under reaction conditions. palladium x-ray absorption spectroscopy was used to determine that formation of pd-cu alloys is preferred over pd-zn alloys. using a four step model reaction pathway it was found that the combination of palladium and zirconia promoters significantly lowers the activation energy of the methanol combustion and steam reforming reactions. however, promoter materials do not influence the methanol decomposition and water gas shift activation energies because of the similarity of catalyst state at high reaction temperatures regardless of promoter materials. in reformer simulations it was found that approximately 5 grams of catalyst is needed to power a notebook computer. combustion synthesized catalysts were shown to have activity similar to bulk prepared catalysts, despite lower copper area, suggesting higher turn over rate. it was found that changing the palladium loading to the surface from the bulk did not significantly affect catalytic activity, most likely due to encapsulation of pd by alloying with copper. an exploration of preparing structured catalysts by hydrothermal synthesis methods showed that intimate contact of copper with certain oxide phases is required for high activity. in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, medicine in the mediterranean was characterized by intellectual ferment and rapid change, characteristics quickened by substantial cross-cultural influences. in the latin west, for example, translations produced in the long twelfth century (from the late eleventh to the early thirteenth centuries) marked a major shift in medicine's development into a learned profession and also reshaped understandings of the human body. this dissertation explores both the cross-cultural circulation of medicine in the medieval mediterranean and its place in byzantium and the latin west. first, it examines medicine in eleventhand twelfth-century byzantium, both because of its considerable vitality and because byzantium's broad influence and prestige make it an essential context for the latin west. rather than characterized by newly ascendant medical practitioners, as has been suggested, a divide appears to have existed between the enthusiasm for medicine among learned readers and the humbler, often empirical world of byzantine medical practitioners. second, the translations of constantine the african are examined, including both the contexts of their production and their connections to the other worlds of mediterranean medicine. in particular, a detailed examination of constantine's viaticum is undertaken, a translation of the zād al-musāfir of ibn al-jazzār, with particular attention to its translation methods and terminology. the viaticum reveals the complexity of constantine's circumstances, where constantine balanced his personal inclinations against the sensibilities and ideological aims of the monastery at monte cassino that financed his efforts. further, the viaticum's terminology is examined and systematically compared with both ancient and contemporary arabic, latin, and greek sources and analogues. in contrast to earlier interpretations, the latin character of this terminology appears particularly pronounced; this suggests influence from contemporary salernitan medicine is present, but perhaps also some distance. finally, the reception of constantine's works is explored in william of st.-thierry. although often seen as highly conservative, william's work on the nature of the body reveals an effort to fuse medical and theological accounts of cognition, with suprising results. in sum, this dissertation reveals much about developments in mediterranean medicine in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and its broad cultural impact. many scientific and engineering simulations are large programs which despite careful debugging and testing will probably contain errors when deployed to the web for use. based on the assumption that such scientific and engineering simulations do contain errors and that the underlying computing systems do fail due to hardware or software errors, we present a framework called autonomic web-based simulation (aws), a supporting data warehouse, and their implementations to develop and deploy reliable web-based simulations. aws strives to achieve the following features presented in the vision of autonomic computing: self-configuring, self-optimizing, self-healing and self-protecting. we discuss mathematical models to simulate the execution of scientific simulations and formulate objective functions for the purpose of determining optimal checkpoint intervals. checkpointing is a basic requirement for self-healing of aws and determining optimal checkpoint interval helps achieve self-optimizing of aws. a novel three step data cleansing algorithm is designed through approximate string joins. a self-manageable system is implemented for the nom simulation project which allows scientists and other end users run nom simulations anytime from anywhere. the synthesis of titanium(iv) complexes with tetradentate nitrogenand oxygen-rich ligands and the subsequent testing of their ability to mediate chemical reactions is described. the novel ti(nme2)(n(ch2ch2nts)3) complex, incorporating an electron-poor trisulfonamido ligand, has an unusual distorted six-coordinate structure in which one of the sulfonamide oxygens coordinates to titanium. its high reactivity with water and alcohols prompted the synthesis of more acidic tris(amido)amine molecules. the prepared acyl sulfonamides n(ch2conhso2r)3 gave complex mixtures of products with ti(otbu)4 and ti(nme2)4, and the tris(trifluoromethanesulfonamide) n(ch2ch2nhso2cf3)3 was inert towards ti(otbu)4, and formed multiple products with ti(nme2)4. titanium(iv) complexes stable to hydrolysis were obtained using a tris(aryloxo)amine supporting ligand. a series of monomeric complexes lti(x) was prepared, where l = n(ch2c6h2tbu2o)3 and x = otbu, och3, ooccf3, cl, oh, otil. the lti(oh) compound could not be obtained by direct hydrolysis of an alkoxide precursor and undergoes unexpectedly facile alcoholysis. it is an active catalyst for sulfide oxidation, but it did not activate peroxides for alkene's epoxidation or catalyze the retro aldol reaction of diacetone alcohol. an explanation for the complex's catalytic inactivity based on the inequivalence of its binding sites trans to a potential substrate is suggested. exploring the above assumption, a ligand possessing a beta-diketonate moiety and two phenoxide arms, 1,3-bis(2'-(3',5'-di-tert-butyl-2'-hydroxystyryl)phenyl)propane-1,3-dione, was prepared, but its metalation with titanium did not lead to well defined products. the observed preference for coordination of two beta-diketonate fragments, before the chelation of a second phenoxide arm to a given metal center, suggested a new ligand bearing two beta-diketonate functional groups. among the prepared ligands with interconnected bis(beta-diketonate) fragments, the 2,2'-bis(methylene)biphenyl-linked 2,2'-bis(4-r-2,4-dioxobutyl)biphenyl, r2bobh2, (r = tbu or p-tol) showed excellent selectivity upon coordination with titanium. it forms only monomeric complexes with the (r)-lambda/(s)-delta cis-alfa stereochemistry. the (r2bob)ti-framework proved to be a poor catalyst for epoxidation, but very stable, which allowed the preparation of neutral and cationic derivatives. three cationic titanium complexes were isolated and structurally characterized. the ionic [(tol2bob)ti(oc (ch3)2ch2coch3)]barf can undergo a slow exchange process with (cd3)2co, as a result of retro-aldol reaction. places we might find her body is a book about memory, nature, addiction, place, transition, personhood, and, most of all, home. whether that place is real, imagined, or no longer accessible, the speaker within these poems experiences "home" as both a yearning as well as a site of trauma. they make and unmake themselves, their environment, and those around them in an attempt to understand and reconcile the events that led to their mother's addiction—and subsequent disappearance—simultaneously as they navigate their own traumas and attempts at reclamation in a queered body. lab tests in low resource settings are often not readily accessible, however, problems that require lab tests to elucidate, such as, falsified drugs and health metrics are most needed in these areas. low cost rapid testing devices can fill the need for lab tests in low resource areas, especially in low and middle income countries. i have developed paper analytical devices to address two separate testing needs. the first is the chemotherapy paper analytical device (chemopad) which can detect the active ingredient in four commonly used chemotherapy drugs. the chemopad has been used to find substandard medications in ethiopia. the second device is the urinary iodine paper analytical device (uipad). the uipad can be used to visually distinguish between three biologically important ranges of iodide values in urine. these devices are both low cost and fairly simple to operate and interpret. while these pads are not a replacement for precise laboratory testing methods, pads can be used to give semi-quantitative results in areas where resources are limited. humanitarian crises often garner attention in national and international media. after a crisis, the work of long-term development takes over. international non-government organizations play a crucial role in the long-term development projects that provide aid and services around the world. one sub-set of these organizations includes the primarily volunteer-based organizations that sponsor groups to travel on short-term medical trips. during these trips, groups from the united states travel to a foreign country and usually work on construction projects, provide orphan care, deliver medical services, or implement environmental improvement initiatives. these groups affect how organizations engage with their beneficiaries in overseas locations. my dissertation explains how group styles affect engagement with beneficiaries. a group styles approach explains how the group customs shape their engagement with beneficiaries and with each other. as many of these groups are faith-based, this dissertation also considers how group styles affect the influence of religion in humanitarian development. at another critical juncture, group styles mediate the relationship between humanitarian discourses and groups' engagement in cross-cultural settings. a focus on the group and scene styles of humanitarian aid shows how customs matter, incorporates contextual specificity, and allows for comparative analysis across multiple contexts. advancements in wearable computing have minimized the level of invasion necessary for digital sensors to passively collect aspects of one's daily life. the fine grained physiological and behavioral measurements these devices provide serve as invaluable tools for the fields of health and wellness. furthermore, these devices provide a novel and personal manner for individuals to interact with their health data. with the field of wearable technology still largely in its infancy, this relationship is limited to these devices serving only as digital mirrors of one's behaviors: providing daily step counts and sleep duration, yet leaving the user to determine what these numbers mean for their health. it is here that this dissertation aims to advance this relationship by utilizing the data streams generated by these devices to infer users health through their health behaviors. this is accomplished by transforming these streams to extend the range of behaviors they capture, measuring changes in behaviors and physiology overtime, and addressing the challenges of use and abandonment of these devices. by successfully informing users of their health through their health behaviors, wearable devices will serve as a pervasive and convenient platform for engaging with personal health. the dissertation is a study of the concept of "mystery' in second temple judaism, especially as this concept is expressed by the hebrew and aramaic word raz. it characterizes the raz-concept as one that arises out of israel's prophetic and sapiential traditions, is an important feature of jewish apocalyptic literature of the mid-late second temple period and becomes a central theological and cosmological reference point for the yahad associated with the manuscript discoveries of khirbet qumran. the dissertation provides a comprehensive analysis of the semantic range of the term raz in the qumran literature, and demonstrates that its verbal associations suggest a dynamic that includes the revelation, knowledge, and concealment of "mysteries' among the sect and its opponents. especially in the qumran sectarian literature, the raz-concept is employed in a fashion that draws upon prophetic, sapiential and priestly discourses as a way of authorizing the yahad's claims to special, esoteric knowledge. as seen in compositions such as the community rule, pesher habakkuk, the hodayot, the war rule, the mysteries texts, the songs of the sabbath sacrifice and related works, the content of such knowledge included aspects of both the cosmological structure of the created order and the unfolding of historical (eschatological) time, and such knowledge was evidently guarded by the yahad as necessary for guiding its communal rationale, structure and praxis. the ability to perform single entity experiments on complex nanostructures is of significant research interest, as complete characterizations of individual nanoparticles can provide valuable insight that cannot be provided by ensemble measurements. however, the isolation of single entities can be difficult with current methods, such as ultramicroelectrodes (umes) or nanopipettes that to not truly guarantee isolation of a single nanoparticle. nanopore electrode arrays (neas) previously developed by bohn and coworkers allow for single nanoparticle electrochemical collision experiments with 40 nm diameter silver nanoparticles (agnp). the goal of this research was to fabricate these previously developed neas using previously established techniques, and then to electrochemically detect oxidation events from collisions with a single, extremely small (&lt; 5 nm diameter) gold nanoparticle (aunp) as a model for more complex nanostructures, such as gold monolayer protected clusters (au-mpcs), and more complex processes, such as single entity electrocatalysis. the nea devices were cleaned with both organic solutions and electrochemically via cyclic potential sweeps, and then chronoamperometry experiments were performed. a patch clamp amplifier and digitizer system was chosen to apply potential and detect faradaic current, and it was found that high noise levels and capacitive current make detection of ultrasmall nanostructures significantly difficult, however, through significant statistical testing and diligence in noise reduction, capacitive current compensation, and background measurements, an oxidation event can be detected and confirmed for these small structures under ideal conditions. molecular quantum cellular automata (qca) is a computing paradigm that solves many of the problems plaguing current microprocessors. molecules suitable for qca are generally mixed-valent and organometallic in nature. the aim of this thesis is to describe the synthesis and characterization of a variety of molecules. the majority of the molecules were targeted with the aim of studying their utility for molecular qca. this thesis is a portion of a larger collaborative work that includes work from the labs of lent, snider, kandel, and corcelli at the university of notre dame.the introduction builds context for the majority of the work done in this dissertation. this includes a brief introduction to qca and electron transfer in molecular systems. chapter 2 focuses on the synthesis and characterization of a variety of substituted 1,2-diferrocenylacetylenes. the synthesis of substituted 1,2-diferrocenylacetylenes supports two goals: to study substituent effects on electron transfer and redox chemistry in the 1,2-diferrocenylacetylene system, and to synthesize precursors for the preparation of more complex molecules found in later chapters.chapter 3 focuses on the synthetic extension of substituted 1,2-diferrocenylacetylene compounds from chapter 2 to square planar tetraferrocenyl compounds. this supports two goals: incorporating functionality that allows for the exploration of supramolecular interactions on surfaces with our scanning tunneling microscopy (stm) collaborators, and incorporating functionality to prevent thermal motion during stm imaging.chapter 4 focuses on the synthesis, oxidation, and characterization of a series of ferrocene substituted carboranes. emphasis is placed on the characterization of electron transfer within 7-fc-8-fc+-7,8-nido-[c2b9h10­­­](4.3), which is found to be bridge mediated.chapter 5 focuses on the synthesis and structural characterization of 1,2-fc-1,2-closo-c2b10h10 (5.1). the compound is also explored computationally. possible synthetic routes are discussed in the future work section with the intent of creating alternate metal analogues of this interesting compound.chapter 6 is from an earlier, unrelated project. the focus of chapter 6 is the synthesis of imidazolium-containing metal organic frameworks with the end goal of utilizing these materials for gas separation, specifically, co2 from n2. the work outlined in this chapter is incomplete due to a change in project focus. one of the primary goals of information visualization research, a sister field of human-computer interaction (hci), is to generate design guidelines to promote good design. existing guidelines that are commonly referred to in visualization design, such as, shneiderman's overview first, zoom and filter, details on demand, are predominantly informed by the state of knowledge and empirical research in visualization. however, these guidelines are deliberately very general to make them broadly applicable and their applicability to specific domain problems is not straightforward. while these guidelines can be a good starting point for designing visualization tools for specific domain problems, they can be insufficient and we need to study the needs of users in these domains more carefully to design tools for their use. there are a variety of empirical research methodologies in visualization that enable us to gather user requirements and evaluate tools. these methodologies each seek to maximize one or at most two of three desirable criteria, namely, generalizability, precision, and realism. broadly speaking, quantitative empirical studies favor precision and generalizability while qualitative approaches lend themselves to more realistic studies capturing the actual contexts of use. this dissertation focuses on the use of various contextual and qualitative methods for informing visualization design guidelines in four specific application domains.first, we characterized the holistic review process in undergraduate college admissions in the united states through contextual interviews and observations. we identified possible leverage points for applying visualization decision-support tools within the holistic review process including the use of approaches to mitigate potential cognitive biases of the reviewers identified in the study. second, we conducted evaluation studies in the domain of personal visualizations, that is, visualizations of personal data of participants, using (i) a think-aloud method to identify the personal insights gained by participants and usability issues with the interface and (ii) a contextual interaction log analysis study to characterize exploratory behaviors of participants. third, we conducted a case study of a visualization system designed for monitoring participant compliance in a large-scale, longitudinal study in order to evaluate the system in context with real users, data, and tasks and to make improvements. finally, we conducted interviews with teams of information workers working from home during the covid-19 pandemic to present design implications for visualizations of work rhythms of team members to increase awareness and coordination in remotely-working teams.in addition to contributing visualization design guidelines to each of the four domain-specific problems, we reflect on the application of these methods for visualization design and how they differ from their traditional counterparts used in disciplines such as hci and the social sciences. these methods not only enable a realistic and/or richer understanding of the domain situations, but they are also customized to be less open-ended and more goal-directed when applied in the field of visualization. further, it is essential for researchers to possess a visualization background in order to elicit requirements relevant to and in the language of visualization. managing energy transfer in a system through arrangement of different material media is an essential component of the engineering design process. for example, in protective structures designed for impact mitigation, energy can be dissipated by arranging the underlying material to experience inelastic behavior. additionally, energy transfer in materials can be engineered by purposefully designing sub-scale features, resulting in the development of novel engineered materials with unprecedented stiffness to weight ratios, remarkable vibration and sound control, and unparalleled coupling of electromagnetic and mechanical effects. increasing computational capabilities have led to widespread use of numerical simulations to better predict energy transfer mechanisms within detailed arrangements of material media at different scales. these simulations also provide the basis through which the inverse problem of achieving superior control over energy transfer through optimized material arrangements can be approached. the proliferation of increasingly sophisticated simulations also coincides with the rapid digitization of fabrication processes driven by additive manufacturing methods which approach ever smaller scales and finer geometrical details. to take advantage of these advances, computational design frameworks rooted in advanced simulation and optimization methods are needed. the focus of this dissertation is on development of numerical methods for the analysis and design of materials and structures which can be used to better manage different energy transfer mechanisms. this development concerns two areas: (a) a rational design framework for energy dissipating structures based on topology optimization and accounting for the complex interplay between physical phenomena such as inelastic mechanisms, material rate effects, large deformations, and inertia effects. (b) multiscale simulation approaches for nonlinear, transient, and multiphysics phenomena involved in energy transfer, and the application of these simulation techniques to the design optimization of engineered materials. it is envisioned that that the developed numerical methods will help lay the groundwork for seamless integration of computational simulation, design, and fabrication frameworks to realize the next generation of functionally optimal structures and materials for energy management. historically, overt discriminatory practices in the housing market worked against neighborhood racial integration. theoretically, changes in home mortgage lending, which offer more lending opportunities to previously underserved populations and areas should reduce levels of residential segregation. differential access to lending continues to exist in that certain forms of lending disproportionately contribute to increased black homeownership. this study evaluates the link between homeownership among blacks and changes in residential segregation during the 1990s. using home mortgage disclosure act data from 1992 through 1999 and the 1990 and 2000 census data, ols models test for the effects of lending, ecological, economic, and population characteristics on changing segregation patterns in some msas during the 1990s. findings suggest that changes in lending to black homebuyers facilitated declines in segregation experienced during the 1990s. the increased share of mortgage loans received by blacks contributed to black homeownership and decreased segregation levels in msas with significant black populations. however, segregation seems to persist, in part, because of continuing disparities in lending. important gaps remain in our understanding of the alteration of uranium deposits and nuclear materials, and we can gain insight into those processes by examining the structure and stability of u minerals. natural processes leading to formation of novel uranyl structures motivate my work, and supplement our observations of the crystal-chemistry of uranium. this dissertation contains descriptions of five new uranium minerals from localities around the world. i address their relationship to the broader family of uranyl structures, and explore crystal-chemical drivers for their formation. leószilárdite and leesite are found in the red and white canyon regions of southern utah, usa. leószilardite is the first sodium and magnesium uranyl carbonate known, and is rare owing to its high solubility. leesite is a k-bearing member of the schoepite family – some of the first phases to form during alteration of uo2. its description has implications for the nuclear fuel cycle, particularly the uptake and incorporation of 137cs into its structure. i describe two pb-bearing uranyl oxide hydroxyl hydrate (uoh) phases, gauthierite and shinkolobweite, from the shinkolobwe mine in africa, which help decipher the complex paragenesis of uoh minerals. gauthierite contains a novel sheet of uranium atoms, revealing crystal-chemical influences for the formation of specific sheets, and shinkolobweite is an exceptionally rare uv and uvi phase with a modulated structure. little is known about the formation of mixed valent u minerals, but paragenetic relationships are revealed using the charge deficiency per anion (cda) measure. the new mineral descriptions presented within culminate with the uranyl carbonate mineral ewingite. using single-crystal synchrotron x-ray data i show that its structure contains a ~2.3 nm cluster, and is the largest and most structurally complex known on earth. ewingite challenges geochemical models for uranium transport and understanding the role of complexity in minerals.lastly, single crystal neutron diffraction of the uranyl peroxide nanocluster u60 resolves the positions of h atoms and li+ cations in its structure, and their dynamics are probed by magic angle spinning nmr spectroscopy experiments. our results indicate hexagonal pores in the u60 cage rapidly shuttle li and h2o molecules from inside and out, even in the solid state. although trait narcissism has been studied empirically since 1980, there is still much debate and uncertainty about its conceptualization and assessment. notably, there are currently two theorized forms or presentations of narcissism, "grandiose" and "vulnerable," whose definitions and labels vary across the literature, and whose scales are often psychometrically problematic. as such, observed correlations between measures of the two purported forms/ presentations range from near-zero to large, and the two forms have distinct nomological nets. it is, therefore, unclear whether the two forms represent two distinct constructs or two expressions of a common, underlying narcissism factor. this issue is complicated by debates among researchers over whether "pathological" narcissism is an extreme form of "normal" narcissism, or the two are entirely separate traits. the current study examined the relation between "grandiose" and "vulnerable" narcissism, and between "normal" and "pathological" narcissism in order to resolve these debates by clarifying narcissism's underlying structure. three samples were combined for this study, resulting in a total included sample of 866 psychiatric outpatients, high-risk community members, and undergraduate students who completed batteries of multiple self-report scales assessing personality traits, functioning, and psychopathology. correlations and regressions were used to examine the relations between several narcissism scales and scales assessing other constructs. additionally, several exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to further clarify the relation between the various "types" of narcissism and identify/interpret the common variance connecting them. results indicate that "normal" and "pathological" narcissism share a "core" of antagonism-related variance that varies with respect to the presence of general personality pathology. furthermore, "vulnerable" narcissism measures assess general personality pathology without any narcissism-specific variance, indicating that "grandiose" and "vulnerable" narcissism are distinct traits but for their shared relations with pathology and dysfunction. therefore, the current study concludes that trait narcissism itself is an antagonism-based construct, and that its noted manifestations and "forms" vary based on the amount of general personality pathology present. it is hoped that the current study will help narcissism research continue with more clarity, as well as contribute to the overall quality of personality research. implications, recommendations, and future directions are discussed. military occupation has been part of interstate relations the system existed. conquest paid, and controlling territory meant reaping its benefits. however, after world war ii norms of state sovereignty and territorial integrity were codified in the united nations charter. at the same time, maintaining colonization became untenable and politically harmful, and western states began to relinquish their colonies overseas, either by force or choice. despite these emerging norms and the process of decolonization, military occupation continues to be an important international issue. there have been forty-two occupations that have begun since the end of world war ii; of these, thirteen remain ongoing, and twenty-nine have ended. this project asks: why do some of these occupations endure, while others end? specifically, why and how do states end military occupation? i theorize that the interaction between conditions at the international, dyadic, and domestic levels of analysis significantly shift the cost-benefit analysis of occupying states.there has been very little comparative work on the processes of military occupation – the studies are limited to a handful of books and articles that do not directly address the question at hand, or have a coherent and logical definition of military occupation from which to build. to fill this gap, i created an original dataset identifying forty-two military occupations, 1945-2014 and collecting data on 32 variables. using this data, i build my theory and develop hypotheses using diverse literatures, including territorial disputes, interand intrastate wars, failing states and falling empires, the demise of colonialism, and case studies of the individual cases of military occupation. by examining these varying branches of literature, i rule out potential competing explanations, as well as make some cautious generalizations about the nature of the end and outcome of military occupation.i then test my theory by analyzing two cases of military occupation that share several important similarities: indonesia's occupation of east timor (1975-1999) and morocco's occupation of western sahara (1975-present). through comparative process-tracing, i ascertain how conditions at the three levels of analysis interact to result in these divergent outcomes. ionic liquids (ils) are promising co2 absorbents to attenuate large amounts of co2 emissions from coal-fired power plants, as they have attractive properties such as negligible vapor pressure, high thermal stability, and tunability. phenolate based ionic liquids have been synthesized with phosphonium cations to investigate the potential of the basic oxygen atom of the phenolate anion as a co2 capture site. furthermore, the phenolate anions were tuned to adjust the basicity of the oxygen atom by substituting the para position of the phenolate anions with functional groups, such as a nitro group [no2] and a methoxy group [meo]. the substitution effects on both the chemical property (co2 capture capacity) and the physical properties (viscosity, density, and conductivity) were investigated. the results show that the basic oxygen sites of phenolate ils are able to react with co2, but there are two reaction channels – a cation intermediated reaction pathway and an anion reaction pathway. the products of the two reaction pathways are characterized by using infrared spectroscopy (ir) and phosphonium (31p) nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (nmr). in addition to the work with phenolate ils, aprotic heterocyclic anions (ahas) paired with different alkyl chain lengths of phosphonium cations were synthesized to study structural information with and without co2, as structure studies are necessary to aid in the design of even better co2 capture ils. ahas were previously developed for co2 capture application in which a reactive amine site is incorporated into five membered ring anions and reacted with co2 in one to one stoichiometry. in this work, synchrotron small angle x-ray scattering (saxs) is utilized to extract the structure factors that include structure-ordering information of aha ils. the experimentally generated structure factors give structural information, such as pre-peaks, charge alternation peaks, and adjacency peaks. furthermore, structure factors determined computationally by our collaborators are validated by comparing them with the experimentally generated structure factors here. the computational structure factors are then deconvoluted into partial structure factors to give more specific structure information. the different anions, 2-cyanopyrrolide [2cnpyr]and 1,2,4-triazolide [4triaz]do not show any significant differences in the structure factors, but in the three-dimensional structure information, they show different solvation systems. also, changing the alky chain lengths on the cation results in different degrees of cation-cation aggregation. the study of moral cognition has been dominated by kohlberg's stage theory, which emphasizes conscious deliberation as the source of moral judgments. more recently, researchers have proposed that moral judgments may be the product of certain implicit principles. the present study investigated whether 9thand 12th-grade students would conform their judgments to three principles of harm, and the degree to which these principles would be available to conscious reflection. the present study also investigated the possibility of age-related differences with respect to the application and justification of these principles of harm. results indicated that participants across age groups conformed their judgments to the principles of harm under investigation. however, participants had difficulty providing justifications for their judgments. this suggests these principles of harm operate outside of conscious control. results also revealed age differences in the ability to provide justifications for one's judgments " with older participants providing more sufficient justifications. the growth of the internet and wireless networks boosts digital video applications in a wide range. network video, such as digital video broadcasting, streaming, or surveillance, involve various networks and diverse clients. the networks may have varying bandwidths, loss rates, and best-effort or quality of service (qos) capabilities. video transmission over heterogeneous networks suffers from delay, congestion, losses, and errors. video clients also tend to have various system resources and display resolutions. often, these conditions are unknown in advance. in such an environment, the challenge of reliably delivery of video over error-prone networks requires better error resilience and flexible rate control. the usual codec design tradeoff between bit rate and quality is complicated by these requirements. the design of robust and scalable video codecs is desirable and the key to the success of these applications. robust video coding plays an important role in limiting the error propagation and improving visual quality in case of errors. it addresses the issue of error concealment by designing proper structures and maintaining acceptable redundancy while minimizing the complexity. scalable video coding is to encode a video sequences in a way that multiple levels of quality can be obtained based on what parts of the video bit stream are available. it has the potential for high flexibility and error resilience capabilities due to their separable bit stream structures. conventional layered video coding enables nested scalabilities among different parts of the coded bit streams. fixed decoding order is necessary in layered coding to improve quality. the emerging multiple description coding provides parallel scalabilities that enable decoding using all available information. in-depth research has revealed that multiple description coding has great potentials in best effort networks, while layered coding performances better with qos. in scenarios when tight delay constraints are imposed, which is true in most real time applications such as video conference and video streaming, multiple description become the best choice. additional complexities of coders and redundancies in the information content are part of the price for the convenience and depend on actual algorithms. the works in this dissertation aimed to develop new approaches for robust and scalable video coding that meet the requirements of reliably delivery of video to diverse clients over heterogeneous networks. in study of robust video coding technologies, we proposed an error resilience video coding algorithm using reference diversity. in the effort to increase robustness of multiple description video streams, a modified multiple state video coding scheme is introduced for better error concealment results. significant quality improvement is observed by using the enhanced algorithm, and the complexity of error concealment is also reduced which can benefit power constrained clients. a hybrid scalable video coding algorithm with both layered and parallel scalabilities has been proposed based on the multiple state video coding. quality scalability is achieved by layered coding, while temporal scalability is implemented using multiple description principle. experimental evidence indicates that it has better error concealment in networks with high error rates. she speaks is a collection of poetry that explores the depths of reader interaction, randomization, and fate. the title poem in which the collection is named, "she speaks", is crafted with tarot card erasures, utilizing multiple three card spreads. each card in each spread had a compilation of definitions from the cards that were then erased, and translated, multiple times. the "today, aries (xxxx)" are selections from the "today, aries (xxxx)" generator that i built, and now host, on my website. the generator creates a three card tarot spread erasure poem on the click of a button. nanomaterials with their unique properties allow for attractive applications in devices. composite assemblage of nanomaterials offers great prospects of multiple functional components to be combined. hence one of the major directions of research in the area of materials science is the fundamental understanding of the interaction between different nanomaterials and their nearby molecular species. carbon-based materials exist in all dimensions, zero (fullerenes), one (carbon nanotubes), two (graphene) and three (graphite) dimensions and are very well-known for their versatility in various studies. of all the carbonbased materials, graphene stands on the top of the list to provide various multifunctional materials. as a result, they are employed in various applications in nanoelectronics, polymer composites, hydrogen production and storage, intercalation materials, drug delivery, sensing, catalysis, photovoltaics etc. graphene possesses several interesting properties such as remarkably high surface area, electrical conductivity and mechanical strength, interesting electrochemical behavior and importantly is also naturally abundant. in particular chemical methods for the synthesis of graphene-like material called graphitic oxide or graphene oxide (go), offer economical and easy routes. all these advantageous properties allow for the use of graphene-based mats in designing tailored composite materials. go-semiconductor or go-metal nanoparticle composites have the potential to function as efficient, multifunctional materials for solar energy conversion and storage, selective detection and destruction of trace environmental contaminants or achieve single-substrate, multistep heterogeneous catalysis. in this dissertation, i aim to understand the various electron transfer reactions between methyl viologen molecules, semiconductor and metal nanoparticles with go. in the first chapter, the electron transfer from photochemically generated methyl viologen radicals with graphene oxide (go) is studied. this charge transfer interaction results in the reduction of go to reduced graphene oxide (rgo) as well as storage of electrons in the carbon network. the stored electrons can be utilized to reduce ag+ ions and thus anchor silver nanoparticles onto the rgo platform. the spectroscopic experiments allow the elucidation of quantitative electron transfer into go and the growth mechanism of silver nanoparticle growth as well as the estimation of apparent fermi level of go. transmission electron microscopy highlights the rgo-ag structure and the potential of designing metal-rgo assemblies. in the following chapters the electron transfer from photoirradiated semiconductors (zno and tio2) nanoparticles to go sheets suspended in ethanol is studied. photoexcited zno and tio2 particles are capable of transferring electrons to go readily. the semiconductor-rgo composites are further decorated with ag nanoparticles by reducing ag+ ions quantitatively with excess electrons stored in rgo. further the galvanic exchange process is employed to transform photocatalytically deposited ag on rgo sheet into au nanoparticles. then the chargedischarge phenomenon on the go sheet was further probed by methyl viologen. improved charge separation and selectivity in the reduction process was achieved in these graphene based photocatalytic assemblies. we have developed a photocatalyst assembly by anchoring semiconductor and metal nanoparticles on rgo mat. excited state interactions of visible light active cdse quantum dots (qds) of different sizes with go have been studied. electron transfer rates from photoexcited cdse qds to go were found to be dependent on qd particle size. smallest qds with more negative conduction band potentials show around three times faster electron transfer rates than the largest qds used. furthermore emission quenching of colloidal cdse qds was found to be dependent upon the extent of go reduction. electrophoretic deposition (epd) was used to deposit cdse and cdse-go composites in a controlled way. also ?rainbow? cdse films were assembled for optimal absorption of visible light. photoelectrochemical results highlight the ability to alter the photoresponse via size control of cdse qds and enhancement in photoconversion efficiency by incorporating go which suppresses charge recombination. microtubules, built from tubulin subunits, are biological polymers intimately involved in numerous key cellular processes. though microtubules have been studied for decades and implicated in many diseases, there are still many unanswered questions about their function. one key behavior of microtubules that is still poorly understood is dynamic instability: microtubules cycle through periods of length growth and shrinkage seemingly at random. microtubules require the energy of gtp hydrolysis to function, making them steady state, not equilibrium, enzymatic polymers. enzymes are typically studied at steady state, but the fact that tubulin serves as both an enzyme and a substrate make using standard enzyme approximations for tubulin difficult. the dynamic instability of microtubules is commonly studied in isolation experimentally or via simulations, but due to practical constraints, most of what we know about their dynamics comes from wild type protein isoforms. these reasons and more have made it difficult to connect the behavior of tubulin subunits to those of microtubule polymers and generate generalizable principles that govern the behavior of dynamically unstable polymers.in this dissertation, i use three types of simulations of dynamic instability that mimic the behavior of microtubules to answer questions about dynamically instable polymers to answer a series of questions about microtubule behavior. using simulations allows for the exploration of parameter spaces that are difficult to achieve in an experiment. simulations are effective because the allow the observer to look at multiple perspectives of a system simultaneously. for example, the lack of clarity in the definition of microtubule characteristics like "steady state" leads to contradictory experimental results, where these different definitions can lead to confusion. experimentalists commonly refer to "the" singular steady state, but can actually be referring to different steady state behaviors. to clarify the definition of microtubule steady state, i have identified and named four different steady states a system of microtubules can achieve and demonstrated both how microtubules behave in these steady states and how to set up an experiment to ensure that it reaches each of these steady state. a second problem with how microtubules are studied is that there are unavoidable thresholds that must be applied to quantify their behavior. some of the effects of these thresholds have been studied before, but to establish the effects of these thresholds more comprehensively, i have used a model of dynamic instability where all di events are known before analysis has begun to test the efficacy of different ways of analyzing microtubule behavior. this model has shown that the application of any measurement-based thresholds can have a significant impact on measured catastrophe and rescue frequencies. next, i have developed a method to correct for the thresholds applied to experimental data and extrapolate a threshold independent catastrophe frequency that is more accurate than what would be measured using standard methods. lastly, experiments and simulations have shown that dynamic instability transitions are not random as was initially hypothesized, and that the rate of transition to shrinkage increases the longer the microtubule exists (that is, the microtubule "ages"). in this thesis i have reported that the aging behavior seen in microtubule dynamic instability experiments can be explained at least in part by measurement thresholds that can be removed in simulations but cannot be avoided experimentally. as part of this work, i have demonstrated how methods to measure di are influenced by the thresholds mentioned in our earlier analysis. taken together, these results provide new methodologies to study microtubule dynamic instability and ways to remove experimental and user constraints on the analysis and reporting of di results. this dissertation examines the interrelated treatment of gender, sexuality, and christianity in considering matthew shepard. this work comes out of a context in which there are long-held opposing views over sociopolitical issues in twentieth-century american society, particularly within the christian church. these fractions hinge upon issues of gender and sexuality, with the conservative christian viewpoint on one side, and the american liberal christian viewpoint on the other. while the former features traditional gender and sexual archetypes, the latter reconciles these polarizing areas of gender, sexuality, and religion. these and other related social themes are demonstrated in considering matthew shepard, a modern oratorio influenced by the passion form. in this dissertation, i will show how this work both demonstrates conservative christian themes, but also offers an alternative, more inclusive vision for america. if considering matthew shepard highlights the tension between viewpoints surrounding these difficult topics, its overwhelming conclusion is one of love, acceptance, unity, and the humanity in all of us. not applicable. cartilage disease and injury are major public health problems that affect millions of individuals of all ages. however, there are few current treatments to prevent or slow the progression of disease. while not the only factors, mechanical wear and biochemical degradation of the cartilage surface are major contributors to the progression of joint disease. the primary objectives of this dissertation were to investigate wear characteristics and biochemical degradation of both healthy and impact damaged cartilage and to determine if genipin and photochemical crosslinking improves these characteristics.previous studies have shown that genipin crosslinking of healthy, intact cartilage resulted in increases in unloading stiffness measured via indentation and wear resistance with increasing concentration. the indentation stress relaxation tests were further analyzed by fitting the relaxation portion with a finite element model and a standard linear solid model, which produced similar results. the instantaneous stiffness increased with crosslinking in a similar fashion to the unloading stiffness, the equilibrium stiffness did not significantly change between concentrations, and the relaxation time constant decreased with increasing genipin concentration. furthermore, genipin crosslinking decreased the amount of collagenase digestion at the articular surface but did not alter cartilage friction. it was determined that a 2 mm concentration had nominal toxicity, but a 10 mm concentration resulted in abundant cell death.cartilage was damaged via a single, blunt impact which resulted in a higher friction coefficient and wear compared to an undamaged control. however, there was no difference between impact damaged cartilage and undamaged cartilage in terms of the amount of collagenase digestion at the articular surface. genipin crosslinking after impact did not alter the friction characteristics, but improved cartilage wear and decreased collagenase digestion at the articular surface.photochemical crosslinking of healthy, intact cartilage improved wear resistance of thawed osteochondral specimens with no change in friction using a nontoxic protocol, similar to genipin crosslinking. it was determined that crosslinking before impact does not change the topographical amount of fissure formation. finally, a four week culture study resulted in greater wear in the photochemical crosslinked group but no cytotoxicity differences between the crosslinked and control groups. linear friction welding (lfw) is a robust joining process with many potential applications, the most successful being the attachment of turbine blades to disks. given the large scale of such operations, and the large amount of energy that must be stored, the equipment is prohibitively expensive for most industries. heating the workpieces prior to lfw may reduce energy requirements and therefore allow for cost savings on the equipment, but the ancillary effect on weld quality is unknown. a design of experiments (doe) approach is used to study the effect of four process parameters (average rubbing velocity, weld pressure, upset distance, and preheat temperature) on three response variables (weld strength, heat affected zone (haz) width/peak hardness, and energy usage) for the induction heating (ih) and linear friction welding (lfw) of aisi 1020 steel. numerical models for both ih and lfw were developed in deform to replace the need for costly lfw experimentation with less expensive modeling. weld strength and haz were insensitive to all four of the process parameters. energy usage was most significantly affected by pressure, followed by velocity and upset. pressure had an inverse effect on energy used, whereas velocity and upset had linear effects. preheating the workpieces prior to lfw showed no adverse effects on weld quality, and therefore represents a viable strategy to reduce the cost of lfw equipment in the future. a novel method for approximating the ih process with an ih coil in two dimensions (2d) generated close approximations of temperature growth with time. the results from the ih numerical model were passed to the lfw numerical model, which incorporated a novel user subroutine for calculating friction factors that account for asperity flattening and real contact area growth. contact loss issues in deform while modeling the initial phase of lfw thermo-mechanically led to the conclusion that the initial phase of lfw must be modeled purely thermally, before the latter phases are modeled thermo-mechanically. parametric statistical models tend to over-fit training data hence fail to generalize to new data, when redundant features are included or the signal-noise ratio is low in data. one of the effective and handy approach to mitigate over-fitting issue is using regularization, which has been extensively studied in parametric models. however, regularization methods are largely dedicated to parameter shrinkage, which on the one hand, incur bias in parameter estimation, and on the other hand hardly take on additional generalization-promoting effects. to address the drawbacks regarding regularization methods, i proposed and implemented the noise injection (ni) and noise augmentation (na) methods in a variety of models, and theoretically studied their properties. my dissertation includes whiteout in neural networks, which adaptively inject noise into nodes to achieve regularization effects and promote robustness; fast converging and robust optimal path selection (crops) in continuous-time markov-switching generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (coms-garch) process, crops is a bernoulli ni enhanced markov chain expectation maximization (mc-em) algorithm that improves accuracy in both hidden path identification and volatility estimation and achieve ensemble learning and robustness effects; adaptive noise augmentation (panda) in generalized linear models (glms), panda realizes a wide range of existing regularization effects and also exact l0 regularization with little computational burden through the orthogonal regularization i proposed, panda also provides tighter confidence intervals with higher coverage probability for both zero and non-zero estimated parameters under variable selection regularization; panda in undirected graphical models (ugms), panda realized both likelihood based graphical l0, i proposed for gaussian graphical models (ggms) and existing neighborhood selection methods in ugms; adaptive noise augmentation for differentially private (nap) empirical risk minimization (erm), nap-erm mitigates over regularization issue in existing works, hence improves utility, it also simultaneously achieves regularization and differential privacy (dp) through noise augmentation. i further introduced the idea of retrieving wasted privacy budget through nap-erm. as part of the future work, i extended panda l0 regularization into support vector machine (svm), i generalized the concept of orthogonal regularization to realize rank regularization in both multiple response glms and tensor regressions, i expect the combination of rank regularization and nap-erm show high utility while guaranteeing dp, i also expect there to be a more rigorous proof for graphical l0 by using duality. most scholars of civil-military relations argue that the presence of domestic security threats increases the role of the military in politics. however, domestic security threats do not always increase the political involvement of the armed forces. and when they do, the effects vary across time and space. why do comparable experiences with internal security threats have divergent effects on the nature of civil-military relations? this is an important theoretical question with great policy relevance. for centuries, civilian leaders have struggled with the problem of subordinating militaries to their authority. the lack of civilian control over the armed forces has become a major factor that blocked the consolidation of democracies in numerous countries of europe, africa, asia, and latin america. in those countries where the military is a key actor in policy making, the presence of domestic security threats and internal enemies has been a common justification for this political involvement. therefore, it is important to understand the actual connection between national security threats and civil-military relations and to discover the conditions under which the former is likely to lead to an increase in the political involvement of the armed forces. in order to provide an answer to this research question, this dissertation presents a comparative case study of counterinsurgency policy making in turkey and peru, which have fought against kurdistan workers' party and shining path terrorists, respectively, from the 1980s onwards. this study shows that structural variables, such as the presence or degree of threat, are not sufficient to explain the military's role in politics. instead, it develops a theory of dynamic civil-military interaction, which shows that it is the interaction of strategic choices made by civilian leaders and military organizations in domestic threat environments that lead to different outcomes in civil-military relations. sometimes this interaction is limited to the government's preference of a particular policy option and the military's expression of criticism or agreement with it. sometimes it involves intense discussion and even bargaining among civilian and military actors. both political leaders and military organizations are goal-oriented actors. that is why, they develop their policy preferences based on their assessment of costs and benefits of a particular move. because civilian and military assessments about the costs and benefits of different policy options vary according to specific conditions, the resulting policy could reflect a different balance of power between the government and the armed forces each time. this dissertation's main argument is that these specific conditions, whose presence makes civilian control over the armed forces more likely in internal threat settings are first, the strength of the head of government, second, the civilian leadership's legitimacy in the eyes of the military, and third, the extensive and systematic international pressure for democratization. sem is often preferred over multiple regression due to the many statistical and conceptual advantages. one of these is its ability to account for measurement error and obtain unbiased estimates of the relationships between latent variables. this decrease in bias does not come without cost as sem suffers from decreased precision of parameter estimates as compared to multiple regression. reduced precision is a consequence of increased model complexity as well as the increased effect of collinearity due to the dissattenuation of the correlation between latent predictors. this paper examines the bias, precision, accuracy, and confidence interval coverage of parameter estimates in sem and multiple regression. results show that with small sample sizes multiple regression can often produce parameter estimates that are more accurate than sem even though the estimates are biased. multiple factors that affect the accuracy of estimates are explored and some suggestions are provided for researchers. this dissertation is a defense of a logical criterion of ontological commitment, an argument for neutral commitment pluralism, a defense of a useful paraphrase relation, and an examination of nihilism.roughly, a criterion of ontological commitment tells us what must exist for a theory to be true. chapter one defends a logical, rather than modal, criterion of ontological commitment and argues for neutral commitment pluralism. roughly, neutral commitment pluralism is the thesis that a good criterion of commitment does not choose any particular logic for determining commitments, but instead uses different ones, and so yields a variety of verdicts on the commitments of a given theory.it seems as though we can sometimes "paraphrase away" ontological commitments. consider 'i got caught in traffic'. it initially seems committed to a thing, traffic, with catching powers. how else could that sentence be true? well, if we paraphrase it using a different sentence that makes no mention of traffic (perhaps 'my car moved slowly because the road was crowded') our paraphrase may (somehow!) show that the initial sentence was never committed to traffic in the first place. chapter two explains a paraphrase relation that is useful for avoiding commitment. nihilism, the theory that there is nothing, is particularly salient in this context. one might think that nihilism has no commitments at all (its truth does not require that anything at all exist). but it turns out that nihilism and some principles concerning truth and predication jointly imply that something exists (i.e., imply that nihilism is not true). as a result, that argument against nihilism can be used to answer why there is something rather than nothing, and a modal version of it can be used to answer why there must be something rather than nothing. chapter three deals with those arguments in depth and defends a distinction between existence in vs. at a world. chapter four addresses some implications of the existence in/at distinction for metaontology generally and ontological commitment in particular. the sourceforge research data archive (srda) is a collection of open source software (oss) data and resources. over 200 researchers worldwide use the archive for research in many fields. sourceforge provides us with monthly data dumps mirroring their back-end database, but their versioning metadata is not provided. oss projects have used versioning programs such as concurrent versioning system (cvs) for many decades. publicly available versioning logs offer a development trail ripe for individual and comparative studies. we describe the downloading and warehousing of such data from sourceforge, berlios, and gnu savannah and the interface and resources we offer for browsing and studying the data. we also present some preliminary data analysis and outline some interesting possibilities for future research that this data provides. this thesis focuses on oss versioning metadata as well as the recent developments of srda. none proper heart development in vertebrates is of vital importance to the life of the organism. the analogous structure in drosophila, the dorsal vessel, is frequently used as a model for the early development of the vertebrate heart as it maintains a similar structure and both are specified through conserved pathways. i have performed a sensitized screen of the second chromosome in drosophila using a mutant allele of the tinman gene, tin305, a homeobox-containing transcription factor required for early dorsal vessel development, and second chromosome deficiency regions obtained from bloomington stock center. the purpose of this screen is to isolate regions of the second chromosome that contain genes that enhance the effect of tin305 in dorsal vessel development and therefore interact with tin in dorsal vessel development. additionally, regions showing an increase in mutant dorsal vessel phenotypes have been further screened in an effort to isolate genes within the region that play a novel role in dorsal vessel development. a second screen for transcription factors expressed in the dorsal vessel has also been conducted. in this screen, enhancer-gal4 fly lines are crossed with a uas-dsred reporter, using the methodology of brand and perrimon (1993), which reveals the expression pattern of each enhancer. five genes showing interesting expression patterns have been isolated using this methodology. one gene in particular, cap-n-collar (cnc), was found to be expressed in the cardioblasts during late embryonic and first instar developmental time points. phenotypic analysis of cnc indicates that it may play a role in organization of the cardioblasts during development. this dissertation draws on the archives of the french rural catholic action association for young men, the jeunesse agricole catholique (jac), and its sister organization for young women, the jeunesse agricole catholique fìäå©minine (jacf), to study how young men and women responded to, participated in, and influenced the social and economic change that accompanied the modernization of french agriculture in the twentieth century. i argue that the jeunesse agricole provided rural youth with a path to the modern worldì¢åûåóthat of france's ì¢åûåïthirty glorious years,ì¢åûå marked by a burgeoning consumer economy and industrial growth, including industrial agriculture. the jeunesse agricole articulated a new peasant identity that was no longer bound to local customs and centered on the sacramental life of the parish. instead the movement's new peasant was a professional farmer and his wife a homemaker and consumer. with these new social identities, rural catholic action associations facilitated processes of social and economic change that emptied the countryside, consolidated industrial agriculture, and reinforced and legitimized an interventionist state. the jeunesse agricole catholique was created in response to a perceived social and moral crisis of the french countryside in the 1920s and 1930s. the association was both a continuation of catholic reform movements and a significant departure in terms of tone and pedagogy. during the second world war the associations benefited from the vichy government's rhetoric of catholic morality and peasant virtue; they cooperated with the regime in a bid to expand their influence on rural youth. after liberation the movement began to take greater interest in social and professional issues. the jac became a training ground for a generation of agricultural leaders whose program of reform and modernization was inspired by catholic personalism. the jacf struggled to articulate a role for women in agriculture that satisfied the ideal of feminine domesticity, the reality of farm life, and the aspirations of young women. this dissertation also studies the jeunesse agricole in the context of french imperialism and decolonization, examining the real and imagined links between the association in the metropole and french north africa. the overall objective of this study was to investigate the mechanical and biological properties of ha whisker reinforced polyaryletherketone (paek) composites and scaffolds which are key to clinical translation for orthopedic and spinal implants. the fatigue behavior of polyetherketoneketone (pekk) reinforced with 0, 20, and 40 vol% hydroxyapatite (ha) was investigated in four-point bending fatigue. the fatigue life decreased with increasing ha reinforcement. however, pekk reinforced with 40 vol% ha whiskers exhibited a fatigue life greater than 2&#8901;106 cycles at 40 mpa. moreover, ha whisker reinforcement resulted in decreased creep deformation and minimal modulus degradation. the effects of the mold temperature and polyetheretherketone (peek) powder were investigated on the mechanical properties and crystallinity of ha whisker reinforced peek scaffolds prepared using compression molding and porogen leaching. the mechanical properties of the scaffolds increased while the peek crystallinity decreased, with increasing mold temperature and suggested an optimal mold temperature of 370-375å¡c for peek scaffolds comprising of 75% porosity and 20 vol% ha whisker reinforcement, regardless of the peek powder size. the effects of the porogen morphology on the architecture, mechanical properties, and permeability of ha whisker reinforced peek scaffolds were investigated in 75 &ndash; 90% porous scaffolds. ha whisker reinforced peek scaffolds prepared with an ellipsoidal porogen exhibited a greater permeability than scaffolds prepared with a cubic porogen. the compressive modulus, yield strength, and yield strain were not affected by the porogen morphology. the effects of ha reinforcement morphology and content was investigated on the behavior of primary osteoblasts on dense ha reinforced peek substrates in vitro. at day 7, the number of osteoblasts attached to peek substrate surfaces increased with increasing ha content and for ha whiskers compared to equiaxed ha powder reinforcement. this suggests that the ha reinforcement content morphology can promote cellular attachment and proliferation at early time points. a search for the production of neutral higgs bosons in association with bottom quarks in pp¯ collisions at √s = 1.96 tev is presented. the cross section for this process is enhanced in many extensions of the standard model (sm), such as in its minimal supersymmetric extension (mssm) at large tanß. the search is performed using the decay of the higgs boson into two tau-leptons. the data, corresponding to a recorded integrated luminosity of 400 pb−1, were collected with the dø detector at the fermilab tevatron collider. the results provide an upper limit for the production cross section of neutral higgs bosons in the mass range of 90 to 150 gev,and are interpreted in the mssm. this cross section limit is comparable with the one obtained previously using the decay of the higgs into two b-quarks, despite the 1:9 branching ratio of the tau-tau to bb decay modes. in this dissertation, i discuss how an individual's long-term attributes and short-term surroundings collide in order to produce the variety of gendered attitudes and behaviors observed in everyday life. this work is broken into three distinct studies; the first two studies quantitatively measure the combined effect of men's characteristics and surroundings on various displays of masculinity, while the third study qualitatively describes the gender-based consequences of embodying masculinity in male dominated contexts.the first study addresses previous works on homosociality, inclusive masculinity, and bromance, which have generally relied on small, non-representative samples or qualitative studies to describe masculine behaviors that appear to violate heterosexual boundaries. much of this research has theorized that heterosexual men, specifically white men, are able to violate physical boundaries with other men due to the social acceptability of the same-sex touching within masculine contexts. this study finds that for white men, more frequent participation in team sports leads to a greater likelihood of being touched in the genitals by other men. this relationship was not significant for men of color.the second study seeks to add nuance to the scholarly notion that sport participation is both statistically and ideologically linked to hegemonic masculinity within male populations. i question how class background mitigates or exacerbates the effect of sport participation on hegemonic masculine beliefs. i find the positive association between sports and hegemonic beliefs is greatest for men with working-class parent backgrounds and is insignificant for men coming from high education households.the last study provides an answer to why women and sexual minority men encounter extraordinary and persistent barriers when entering masculine occupations, even as the gendered relations have grown more egalitarian over time. i utilize interview data gathered from the men working at a rural wildland firefighting department to explore the social interactions and cognitive schemas which fuel the implicit barriers that women and sexual minority men face. i conclude that violating heterosexual sexual boundaries is an essential way for heterosexual men create and reinforce social bonds. thus, these quintessential social interactions are largely inaccessible to women and sexual minority men within the field. with item response data, systematic variation within nested groups of generated items may negatively impact the estimation of item and person parameters. this paper studies a model that can capture the multilevel structure of the data and explain within-template systematic variability. the goal of this model is twofold. first, explaining and removing non-random error may improve ability and item parameter estimates. and second, finding systematic variation can bring insights into the educational process. simulation results are discussed at length. this dissertation is concerned with keisler measures and their approximations. we investigate tame families of keisler measures in varying contexts. we first restrict ourselves to the local nip setting. there, we partially generalize a theorem of hrushvoski, pillay, and simon and show that in this context, a measure is definable and finitely satisfiable (dfs) if and only if it is finitely approximated. we then consider generically stable measures outside of the nip setting. we show that generically stable types correspond to {0,1}-valued frequency interpretation measures, and we give examples of finitely approximated measures which are not frequency interpretation measures and local dfs measures which are not locally finitely approximated (joint with gabriel conant). we then introduce and describe ``sequential approximations". we show that measures which are finitely satisifable in a countable model of an nip theory admit this kind of approximation. we also prove that generically stable types admit a similar (and stronger) approximation. in the final chapter, we restrict ourselves to the group setting and introduce a convolution operation on keisler measures. we classify all idempotent measures over stable groups and also show that a particular convolution algebra over an nip group is isomorphic to a natural ellis semigroup (joint with artem chernikov). fictionalizing adam and eve charts a moment in nineteenth-century britain when theology and science enter into an epistemic tussle over the authority to interpret the referential status of adam and eve. it argues that theology loses its stronghold on interpreting adam and eve as the divinely created ancestors of the human race whose disobedience of god plunged all of their progeny into sin and necessitated their redemption through christ's sacrifice. in its place, scientific empiricism offers an alternative interpretation, one which holds any referent, including adam and eve, can either be literally real and therefore incapable of conferring such grand cosmological meaning or else purely mythical and therefore only valuable within the closed system of its text. this dissertation argues that fiction enters into this contested territory to provide a third way of conceiving of the relationship between the reality of a referent and its ability to impart meaning. drawing on the work of cognitive linguists concerning reality status modality, this project contends that fiction turns away from adjudicating what is or what is not in favor of speculating on what could, would, should, might, may (have) be(en). against theological orthodoxy and scientific consensus, fiction of this period offers a more measured but no less urgent argument for the affordances of adam and eve. by annexing adam and eve into fictional texts, nineteenth-century writers suggest that referentiality need not be conceptualized as an either/or scheme, but rather allows for more complicated configuration in which any given referent can be nonliteral and still deeply meaningful. the coupling of scanning microscopy and contact potential difference (cpd) measurements has enabled a wide range of surface characterization capabilities, such as the identification of dopants in a material, mapping of the charge distribution of a sample, and the imaging of the band bending of semiconductors. the two most common scanning cpd methods to date are electrostatic force microscopy (efm) and kelvin force probe microscopy (kfpm). these two methods, however, require relatively large potentials between the tip and the sample (1-3 v for kfpm). such large potentials can distort the charge distribution of the surface to be measured. the method proposed in this dissertation work will be to implement a scanning microscope using single-electron boxes (sebs) as the primary charge/potential sensor, as opposed to tip-sample interactions used in efm and kfpm. sebs operate at very small biases (typically &lt; 1 mv) and are very sensitive to charge and voltage fluctuations. for these reasons, implementing a scanning seb (s-seb) probe can work around the high bias conditions required by efm and kfpm. in this dissertation work, a high-resolution, high-sensitivity s-seb has been designed and fabricated by implementing parallel sebs with large charging energy (~ 10 mev), measured using radio-frequency reflectometry, and using a silicon nitride membrane tip. the pi chamber is an aerosol-cloud chamber at michigan technological university which has the capability to generate steady-state cloud formation through moist turbulent rayleigh-benard flow between saturated, temperature controlled top and bottom plates. this capability allows for study of various interconnecting processes such as clouds, aerosols, water vapor, trace gases, thermodynamics, and turbulence. these capabilities make it a powerful tool for study of cloud microphysics. despite great experimental capabilities, there are limitations in the capture of data that can be helpful for understanding of cloud microphysics. to assist the pi chamber, a direct numerical simulation was developed with the focus on providing lagrangian droplet statistics and three-dimensional, time-resolved data on fluid flow over the entire domain. in a previous study, the model matched the salient features of the pi chamber experiments and proved to be a valuable tool in understanding cloud microphysics in this context. however, the numerical model did not match the rayleigh number of the pi chamber experiments because of computational limits. the previous study conducted simulations with ra = 7.9 ∗ 10^6 while that of the experiments is generally ≥ 10^9. because coupling of turbulence and cloud microphysics is a primary motivation in the development of the pi chamber, it is important to determine what effect the rayleigh number has on cloud microphysics in the simulation. in this study, the rayleigh number in the simulation is scaled up to match that of the pi chamber experiments. the goal is simply to examine how the flow and cloud microphysics change as rayleigh number increases. from these observations, comments on the coupling of turbulence and cloud microphysics in this context can be made and the simulation's ability to be paired with the pi chamber experiments for further understanding can be evaluated. pablo neruda is one of the most studied authors in the spanish american canon and certain long-standing theories about his poetic development predominate, which limit the scope of interpretation. my dissertation challenges one in particular: the assertion that neruda experienced a political and poetic conversion during the spanish civil war. literary critics have traditionally established his experience in spain as a line of demarcation that separates his early works from later, supposedly marxist-influenced writings. i challenge this interpretation by analyzing the intersection of autobiographical and political discourse in neruda' poetry both before and after the spanish civil war. although this war was significant in neruda's development, it did not constitute a life-changing experience akin to saint augustine or paul the apostle, two foundational narratives that serve as models for autobiographic analysis. through a detailed analysis of neruda's early, unpublished works, i establish a model of continuous development and argue that his political orientation is rooted in notions of social justice that predate his exposure to formal marxist thought. i support this reading by demonstrating how his family and educational environments provided an intellectual milieu propitious for the development of a social consciousness in his formative years. furthermore, i situate neruda's early writings within the context of chile's unique political history. from a sociological perspective, i briefly track the formation of the chilean communist party from the labor movements of the early twentieth century and underscore their link to the student movements in which neruda was a central figure. in doing so, i demonstrate that his personal philosophy of social justice is consistent with a chilean communist party dedicated to working within a democratic framework. my two major contentions are that 1) misconceptions about the party's democratic orientation made it, and neruda's writings within this context, fundamentally misunderstood, and 2) that neruda's social orientation facilitated his integration into the party without imposing any significant change in his poetic or political vision. these democratic ideals form the underpinnings of neruda's political convictions and explain the continued relevance of his poetry in a more nuanced manner than traditional marxist interpretations. regarding neruda's post-spanish civil war poetry, i examine his major work, canto general. many critics interpret it as a history of the americas according to the principles of historical materialism. however, this analysis becomes problematic given my reinterpretation of neruda's ideological development. instead, i link the themes in canto general to his concern for social justice as formulated in his early writings. therefore, i establish continuity between these periods in accordance with the autobiographical model of continuous development. participatory budgeting (pb) has diffused from porto alegre, a city in southern brazil, to many countries across the globe over the past three decades. while both scholars and practitioners are interested in studying its potential to improve democratic quality and living standard, the question of how pb has diffused within brazil has not been well understood. this dissertation focuses on how pb – a program that is heavily associated with the workers' party (pt) and the leftist values it embraces – managed to spread across brazil, adopted by politicians from both the left and the right.this study relies on a multi-method approach that brings together quantitative and qualitative data from brazilian municipalities. i constitute a theory of diffusion that takes into account the various pathways in which diffusion can occur with the brazilian experience of pb. i depart from the policy diffusion literature that predominately focuses on individual-driven motivations to explain diffusion. instead, i emphasize the role of institutional settings, in particular party organizations, in conditioning the type and scope of policy diffusion.characterized by a hierarchical structure, institutionalized channels that connect members both horizontally and vertically, a clear and consistent platform, high level of internal cohesion and discipline, strong party organizations have the prerogative over their members' behavior and decision-making power. the upper echelons of the party leadership are the arbiters that decide the strategy and direction of the party. this shapes the range of policy options available to politicians, and limits their decision-making autonomy. i posit that diffusion under these settings tends to be party-driven. first, parties function as an information filter and a yardstick to screen out policies that are incongruent with their platform and image. second, once a policy is identified and embraced by the leadership, the interconnected organizational channels allow the directives from the top to reach down to the units at sub-national levels. the diffusion of pb under the workers' party (pt) over the past three decades illustrates how the party organization can enhance and also slow down the diffusion process.on the other hand, weak party organizations are characterized by a decentralized structure and a lack of formal communication channels that link members from different levels. party platform and brand are inconsistent, as politicians do not rely heavily on them to secure votes. lastly, internal cohesion and discipline are weak. as a result, weak parties do not exert heavy control over their members, and politicians enjoy a high degree of decision-making autonomy. the diffusion mechanisms are more individual-driven, relying more on the politician's own attributes and self-regarding goals. thus, the absence of party being the gatekeeper of information creates a favorable condition for heterophilous diffusion – the diffusion of ideas to dissimilar social groups or networks. however, this agency comes with a catch: politicians are constrained by their cognitive capacity and resources to learn and decided about the policy innovation in a short time horizon. rather than assuming the perfect information and pure rationality, i use the bounded rationality framework to explain the adoption of pb by non-leftist politicians. my dissertation is a history of the latest overseas territorial acquisition of the united states. it is also a history about the rise and fall of an unlikely offshore manufacturing enterprise in the pacific. this multifaceted story is set in the northern marianas, a chain of islands in micronesia that remains little known to outsiders but serves as a microcosm for understanding the intersection of territorial status and capital accumulation in the age of decolonization. my dissertation explicates why and what followed after the northern marianas, a dependent territory under the un trusteeship, renounced sovereignty at the height of anticolonial movements around the globe and joined the u.s. political union in 1976.to answer these questions, my dissertation traces the long lineage of the marianas garment industry, one of the most controversial byproducts of the marianas' membership in the u.s. political union. the newly attained u.s. territorial status and the attendant shipping advantages transformed the northern marianas' capital of saipan into a garment metropolis in the pacific, inviting garment manufacturers and laborers from neighboring asian and micronesian regions to produce for popular american brands such as polo, levi's, and gap. through the revenues it generated for the local government, the garment industry substantially contributed to the marianas' economy in the decades following the u.s.-marianas affiliation. the garment industry, however, entailed irreversible repercussions when the controversies over "made-in-the-usa" apparel from the marianas prompted federal interventions that ultimately circumscribed the local autonomy.situating the marianas garment industry at the intersection of american empire and transnational capital, my dissertation underscores the ways that u.s. territoriality has channeled global circulation of money, people, and goods in the age of decolonization. in this story, i bring together multiple actors ranging from american officials, indigenous leaders, transnational entrepreneurs, and migrant workers, all of whom hoped to take advantage of the geopolitical and economic values they found in the marianas. their varying perceptions of and negotiations with the u.s. jurisdiction of the marianas illuminate the ways imperialism and capitalism overlapped in the late twentieth century. furthermore, their multilayered interactions in the marianas suggest that histories of u.s. territories are not reduced to the metropole-colony binary but unfold in larger regional and global contexts that give distinct meanings to places like the marianas. atmospheric air plasmas are driven through large electric fields (&gt;3 kv/mm) generated between one or more electrodes. the input voltage required to produce this electric field and to sustain a plasma in atmospheric air is often prohibitive for a number of different applications due to size, safety and cost constraints of the required power supply. to reduce the required input voltage, this works investigates inherent characteristics of certain polar non-centrosymmetric crystals to determine if they can be beneficial for discharge formation. the non-centrosymmetric arrangement of atoms within the material's crystal structure allows for mechanical, thermal, or electrical forces to alter the crystal structure to change the magnitude of the polarization of the material. this change in polarization can lead to rapid changes in surface potential and be used to generate a discharge. effectively, these crystals can be used to amplify applied voltages through piezoelectric, pyroelectric, and ferroelectric effects. in this work, discharges are generated in atmospheric air using non-centrosymmetric materials as natural amplifiers. by thermally-cycling a pyroelectric crystal, an atmospheric pressure gas discharge was generated through the input of heat. by applying a small electric field to a crystal, the polarization of the crystal altered, creating a sufficiently large electric field to generate a sustainable discharge. using the electromechanical coupling of piezoelectric crystals, a small input voltage can be amplified sufficiently to generate breakdown in air. each of these discharges are examined in depth to better understand their underlying physics. in addition, the induced ionic wind that forms from the piezoelectric-driven discharge is evaluated to determine its viability as a method to cool portable electronics devices. in two letters written ca. 599, gregory the great chastised a french bishop for destroying images in the cathedral church of marseilles; the pope claimed that such visual works benefit the illiterate and literate alike in the now-famous, yet slightly inaccurate paraphrase, "pictures are books for the illiterate." centuries later, as a theology student at the university of paris in the early 1250s, the franciscan friar st. bonaventure composed a three-part statement on the purposes of images in christian churches that expanded upon the older gregorian dictum. in the absence of extant latin treatises on the arts, the gregorian dictum and bonaventure's three-fold justification (triplex causa) constitute valuable textual witnesses to medieval theories of the image. while both authors and statements are well known in the field of medieval art history, no study has systematically addressed the diachronic reception and changing art historical and material emphases of the gregorian tradition according to a close examination of its textual sources. furthermore, no study has contextualized the triplex causa within bonaventure's thought on images more broadly or even within the theological treatise in which it appears: a commentary on one of the most influential expositions of christian doctrine in the middle ages, peter lombard's four books of sentences. my dissertation examines the development of the textual tradition of the gregorian dictum from the sixth century to the scholastic thirteenth and asks what that textual history reveals about changing emphases in medieval image theory in the latin west. in particular, this project focuses on the thirteenth-century reception of the dictum and franciscan scholastic image theory. i provide a philological analysis of the content, sources, and terminology of bonaventure's triplex causa along with the first english translation of the entire scholastic quaestio in which it appears. i also provide the first english translations and analyses of one of the earliest and most extensive scholastic discussions on images, the summa fratris alexandri; this work was composed under the direction of bonaventure's master at the university of paris, alexander of hales, and had an undeniable influence on bonaventure's own image theory. my analysis reveals that bonaventure's theory synthesizes several strands of thought on the christian image found in the latin fathers, in byzantine icon theory, as well as in medieval parisian theology. through a close reading of the expansive medieval term for artwork (imago), i also show that the initial gregorian emphasis on two-dimensional artwork eventually gave way to the franciscan inclusion of and, at times, preoccupation with, three-dimensional works. this research project on the gregorian tradition and medieval franciscan image theory furnishes further textual resources and evidence relevant to the longstanding historiographical interest in the relationship between scholasticism and french gothic art from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. experimental and computational studies were conducted to study the role of the tip leakage flow in axial compressor stall and the relationship between the tip clearance flow field and surge margin extension from circumferential groove casing treatment. the cfd results were used to identify the existence of an interface between the approach flow and the tip leakage flow. the experiments used a surface streaking visualization method to identify the time-averaged location of this interface as a line of zero axial shear stress at the casing. the axial position of this line moved upstream with decreasing flow coefficient in both the experiments and computations. the line was consistently located at the rotor leading edge plane at the stalling flow coefficient, regardless of inflow boundary condition. these results were successfully modeled using a control volume approach that balanced the reverse axial momentum flux of the tip leakage flow with the momentum flux of the approach fluid. non-uniform tip clearance measurements demonstrated that movement of the interface upstream of the rotor leading edge plane leads to the generation of short length scale rotating disturbances. therefore, stall was interpreted as a critical point in the momentum flux balance of the approach flow and the reverse axial momentum flux of the tip leakage flow. experimental measurements of surge margin extension from seven cgct configurations with a fixed groove geometry demonstrated that the contribution of individual grooves in a multi-groove casing to surge margin extension is an (a) additive and (b) linear function of the smooth wall tip clearance axial momentum flux at the location of a each groove. extending the axial momentum model to include the influence of a cgct showed that circumferential grooves reduce the tip leakage flow axial momentum through radial transport. the equivalent force due to a circumferential groove was demonstrated to be related to the smooth wall tip clearance axial momentum flux through a coefficient of drag that had a log-linear dependence on groove aspect ratio. it is widely acknowledged that a hierarchical framework is the most appropriate way to organize a taxonomy of psychopathology and that dimensional nosological research must move beyond diagnostic comorbidity analyses in order to (a) avoid the methodological artifacts associated with diagnoses and (b) model more finely grained (and homogeneous) psychopathology dimensions. however, there has been little comprehensive work that brings these two important approaches together. this project integrates results from multiple exploratory hierarchical methods in order to facilitate the validation and interpretation of symptom-level metastructural models. models were based on relatively comprehensive symptom-level epidemiological data from the 2000 british office for national statistics survey of psychiatric morbidity (n = 8,405). study 1 focuses on exploratory bifactor models of symptom-level data and the replicability of these models in a confirmatory framework. study 2 integrates results from study 1 with those from a bass-ackwards model. study 3 compares results from study 1 and study 2 with those from corresponding models using diagnosisand symptom count-level data. this research investigated the turbulent transport of heat and momentum in an accelerated and highly turbulent flow with large density gradients. both experimental and numerical data were acquired to study this phenomenon. experimental measurements were obtained at the inlet and exit of an annular nozzle with two different inlet total temperature distributions. the two cases included a nominally uniform total temperature distribution and a non-uniform total temperature distribution where the total temperature at the walls was lower than the center of the span by approximately 10%. in order to evaluate various turbulence models and quantify the turbulent prandtl number, numerical solutions were obtained in a computational domain similar to the experimental geometry. a theoretical model for turbulent prandtl number was developed based on the intermediate mixing length concept. this model correctly predicted the turbulent prandtl number required for the computational solution to closely match the experimental data for the nozzle flow rig. this model was then also validated against independent experimental measurements of turbulent prandtl number in jet flow, flat plate boundary layer, and turbulent pipe flow. this dissertation analyzes the multifaceted representations of the battlefield by british romantic poets in their responses to the french revolutionary and napoleonic wars, covering roughly the years 1793-1815. in the process, i articulate the way these poets engaged with the landscape of the battlefield as a means of accessing and representing scenes of distant conflict about which they did not themselves have experiential knowledge. by exploring the ways these authors invoked the generic and thematic structures of both the georgic mode and the romantic fragment, this project emphasizes the ways in which poetic responses to the era's conflict present the battlefield as a kind of text to be interpreted—a specific type of landscape materially marked by violence. these material markers express the meaning of the battle and the losses that occurred in these spaces. this equivocation between landscape and text facilitates the authors attempts to find a role for themselves in determining and expressing the meaning of the conflicts dominating their era, despite their inability to experience them directly, by foregrounding their interpretive abilities. i argue that through their invocation of the thematic qualities of the romantic fragment many of the writers in this study reach towards an understanding of the ways in which violence fragments and distorts meaning—moving away from a traditional understanding of the romantic fragment and gesturing towards a modernist sensibility. while a majority of scholarly attention in the field has focused on romantic era representations of war as a mediated form of deferral that sublimates war's damages, i argue that by focusing on poetic representations of the battlefield we can better understand how writers of this era open up a space in which they can consider the fragmenting and discordant effect violence has on the process of meaning-making and can represent what they themselves have not experienced. this collection grapples with the stickiness of being caught in layered webs of meaning. infestations: a tetraptych uses four linked stories to follow the life of its main character from girlhood to early-adulthood, detailing her experiences with infestations of different kinds, from the insect-related, to the psychological, to the physical. the characters in the following three standalone stories, though not part of the same fictional worlds, find themselves to be similarly infested. throughout the collection, pests often take the form of memories, fears, and grief, among other things, usually in connection with intimate relationships, be they familial, romantic, or friend-based. characters do their best to cope with this onslaught, alternately embracing and fending it off with such coping mechanisms as befriending cockroaches, projecting whale sounds through a rainwater pipe, archiving scenes from a failed relationship, and metaphorically detonating earrings shaped like grenades—in short, these characters craft personal ideologies even as they are influenced, as all people are, by larger, societal ones.infestations are closely tied to obsessions, which involve repetition; just as these stories prowl the same thematic territory in different ways, their individual narratives contain echoes, reiterations, copies good and bad. and running through all of these stories, weaving them ever closer together, is a current of surrealism, emerging in elements of the magically strange and the strangeness of the everyday. by approaching the concept of infestations from multiple angles, and blurring the line between the real and the speculative, infestations: a tetraptych &amp; other stories explores the way people negotiate the lines between independence and dependence in a world of interlocking complexities. solution analysis through the use of inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy and ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy was coupled with solids analysis by x-ray diffraction (xrd) and fourier transform infrared (ftir) spectroscopy to investigate the sorption characteristics of pb(ii) and desferrioxamine b (dfob) on montmorillonite. attenuated total reflectance ì¢ ââ' ftir (atr-ftir) and speciation modeling of the system were also conducted. between ph 4 and 8, pb(ii) and dfob were found to enhance one another's sorption to montmorillonite. maximum sorption of pb(ii) in the presence of dfob was ~118 ì_å_mol/g; maximum sorption of dfob in the presence of pb(ii) was ~140ì_å_mol/g. sorption density of pb(ii) on montmorillonite in the presence of dfob increased from ~15% of initial pb(ii) at ph 3 to ~ 90% at ph 7.5. modeling and ftir showed that the presence of dfob also decreased the formation of pb-bearing precipitates. xrd showed the potential for coabsorption of a pb+dfob complex(es) in the interlayer of montmorillonite at ph 5.5 and 7.5 due to changes in the interlayer spacings. the presence of a pb+dfob complex(es) was further implicated by the emergence of a new ftir peak in the presence of both pb(ii) and dfob on self-supporting clay films at 1577 cm-1; this peak was also present under aqueous conditions in the atr-ftir study at 1570 cm-1. in both cases, this peak was attributed to the shift of the hydroxamate c=o stretch located at1607 cm-1 in aqueous dfo-b. shifts of the alfe3+oh and almgoh bends under ftir and atr-ftir in the presence of dfob and pb+dfob also point to interlayer absorption. throughout this study, ftir and atr-ftir have proven to be useful techniques for studying metal-siderophore interactions on clays. for the pb+dfob complex, coabsorption in the interlayer is likely the most common sorption mechanism at ph 5.5 and 7.5 under air-dried and aqueous conditions, although its precise structure cannot be determined from the methods used. gradient-index (grin) lens antennas leverage spatially varying refractive structures to generate high directivity beams. the lens antennas have the advantages of low loss, low power consumption and wide bandwidth over other kinds of high-directivity antennas, among which the low-profile flat grin lens antenna is compelling in millimeter-wave (mmw) 5g and satellite communication applications. the proposed 40 ghz grin metamaterial in this thesis is based on printed circuit board (pcb) technology, with relatively low cost compared with other fabrication methods such as layered dielectrics and perforated dielectrics. besides, the proposed unit-cell design also has low-dispersion characteristics, allowing the wideband operation of the grin lens. we address the unit-cell characterization and homogenization by the nicolson-ross-weir (nrw) method, and the measurement results exhibit good agreement with the simulation. finally, a test grin lens is designed, simulated and measured in ka-band. this thesis examines the formation of multicomponent self-assembled monolayers (sams) on the au(111) surface using scanning tunneling microscopy. two methods, sequential adsorption and coadsorption, are used to create these mixed sams. in the sequential adsorption experiments, a clean au(111)-on-mica substrate is exposed to the first molecular species and then this adsorbate-covered sample is exposed to the second molecular species. alternately, in the coadsorption experiments, a gold surface is exposed to both adsorbates simultaneously. exposing a coroneneor dithiocarbamate-covered surface to excess thiol in the vapor phase results in a drastic restructuring of the initial surface. this is primarily driven by the kinetics of the octanethiol monolayer formation process, but the extent to which this happens is dependent on the molecule-molecule and molecule-surface interactions of the adsorbate due to the initial coverage and order of the monolayer. an octanethiolate monolayer is also substantially modified when immersed in a solution containing dithiocarbamate (dtc). defects in the octanethiol monolayer are prime sites for molecular exchange. a surplus of dtc in the solution drives substitution that can lead to the complete removal of thiol from the surface. when a au(111) surface is exposed to solutions containing both octanethiol and dithiocarbamate (dtc), both molecular species compete for available adsorption sites. at equal octanethiol-to-dtc ratios, molecular exchange hinders octanethiol monolayer formation. higher octanethiol concentration in solution results in the incorporation of thiol into the resulting monolayer, with a strong dependence on the chain length of the dtc molecules. this dissertation explores the ways that old and early middle english texts use compound words within their linguistic and social contexts, combining a detailed study of linguistic and rhetorical phenomena with an informed approach to culture and language based on mikhail bakhtin's dialogic theories of language. a wide array of texts comprises the source base for this investigation, including cynewulf's juliana and elene, the old english boethius translations, the old english homilies of archbishop wulfstan, and the two versions of laì_'amon's brut. these texts are chosen in order to explore the characteristics of compound words in texts of different time periods as well as in different discourses. ultimately, this dissertation shows that, in all the texts examined, compound words are important linguistic sites that texts manipulate in order to achieve their goals; each text has different goals, but in each case compounds feature as prominent tools. moreover, this dissertation shows that linguistic, social, and historical contexts play major roles in understanding how texts use compounds, and all language, to create meaning. only when viewed in light of the generic affiliations of the text, the social position of the author, or the political situation at the time of the text's composition do the implications of the compounds in a text become fully clear. hydrogen sulfide (h2s) and other reactive sulfide species (rss) were thought of as purely toxic chemicals 20 years ago, but since have been implicated in many important cellular signaling pathways with numerous physiological functions. in this thesis, these functions are examined in depth, including reaction with and mismeasurement of reactive oxygen species (ros) for rss and whether rss are acting as, or at least implicated in, endogenous oxygen sensing. rss and ros measurement via amperometric sensors are first shown to have great cross-sensitivity, particularly ros sensors for rss in solution, which is shown to be up to 100-fold greater response for rss than ros. next, newly introduced fluorescent molecules designed to be specific to particular reactive oxygen species and reactive sulfide species were analyzed, showing unequivocally that ros-specific fluorophores are as sensitive or many times more sensitive to rss than to their target molecules. given this cross-sensitivity, we next investigated the possible chemical reactions of rss and the ways they may be produced in cells. garlic proved to be a potent releaser of h2s given that small, reduced thiols were present, and also releases polysulfides naturally. next, we looked into ros enzymes, as their original function may have instead dealt with rss. catalase was found to generate h2s from certain rss, showing that catalase can act as a sulfur oxidase or sulfur reductase. additionally, our experiments will show that superoxide dismutase (sod) can also catalyze a reaction using h2s and o2 to form persulfides, which can then combine in various ways to form polysulfides and sulfur-oxides. being able to delineate ros from rss and understanding the many potential routes for rss production, the final goal of this research was to show rss production in vitro, particularly in hypoxia. our results suggest that h2s production is greatly increased in hypoxia in two primary cell lines. this is further supported by mrna levels of h2s degradation enzymes decreasing in hypoxia and the relative protein abundance of h2s producing enzymes increasing, providing support for h2s and rss' involvement in oxygen sensing. the topic of geometric object approximation focuses on computing structurally or geometrically simpler objects to approximate an input complex object. this is a fundamental and important research topic in computational geometry and has many applications. in this dissertation, we study a number of geometric approximation problems. specifically, we study the problems of approximating a set of points in the plane by a functional curve as well as other variants which include the weighted points, in the presence of outliers, and the 3-d extensions. further, we develop a new type of outlier-handling algorithms, which not only detect the outliers but also accommodate their impact. in addition, we study the problems of approximating a piecewise linear nonnegative functional curve in the plane by a set of 'simpler' nonnegative curves, which can be a nonincreasing curve and a nondecreasing curve, or a set of unimodal curves, or a piecewise linear curve with fewer peaks. finally, we study the obnoxious line problem, which can be viewed as a dual version of the geometric approximation problem. given a set of polygons in the plane, the goal of the obnoxious line problem is to compute a line which maximizes its minimum distance to all polygons and the line is required to intersect the convex hull of all polygons. all these problems are motivated by real applications. we develop efficient exact algorithms for most of the problems. some of our algorithms are first-known while others improve the previous work in terms of the running time and space. our algorithms are based on combinations of interesting algorithmic techniques, geometric observations, problem modeling and careful analysis. in addition, for solving these problems, we develop a number of new data structures, e.g., vertical hull width query, 2-d sublist query, 3-d sublist query, q-range-minimia, simplicial thickness query, etc., which are interesting in their own rights and can easily find other applications. this thesis explores an ofdm communication system in the presence of a unsophisticated frequency-hopping interferer. information theory is used to explore the fundamental limits of system performance with varying degrees of knowledge about the state of the interferer. in particular, the shannon channel capacity of the system is derived for two different cases of channel state information at the receiver (csir), namely perfect csir and partial csir. an approximation of the shannon channel capacity via monte carlo techniques is also made for the case of no csir for comparison. the gains in signal-to-noise ratio (snr) obtained by partial and perfect csir for various interference powers are considered. the results show a trade-off between computational complexity and the gains in snr.next, practical implementations of the system that approach the channel capacity are explored. the bit error rate (ber) of these systems is simulated as a function of snr with various interference powers. finally, an analysis is performed to compare the ber of the practical systems against the theoretic channel capacities found earlier. the results indicate that a practical system can obtain gains similar to those found from information theory. this dissertation argues that the political thought of martin heidegger and hannah arendt is best understood in terms of two fundamental components: namely, a social ontology of the lebenswelt (or life-world) as well as a normative conception of the individual person. the argument is primarily oriented around the texts of heidegger and arendt yet engages significantly with their intellectual milieu in order to resolve interpretive dilemmas.i therefore argue that the work of these two authors can be best understood when seen in the light of philosophical movements such as lebensphilosophie, phenomenology, and german existenzphilosophie as well as alongside authors such as wilhelm dilthey, george simmel, edmund husserl, max scheler, and karl jaspers. through this historical-contextual approach, one can see the systematicity of both arendt and heidegger's political thought with greater clarity: both see politics as the practice of properly integrating an authentic individual into a common world of shared social meanings (defined similarly by both).moreover, once the internal logic of their argument is clarified, i propose that the difference in heideggerian and arendtian political thought is primarily due to their different understandings of what constitutes an individual's 'selfhood' or 'personhood'. ocean spray could possibly influence hurricane intensity through latent and sensible heat exchanges yet these physics are not resolved by large scale hurricane simulations. the researchers use direct numerical simulations to better resolve the small scale droplet physics. the simulations do not simulate the entire hurricane boundary layer but they do explain in detail the energy coupling between air and spray to provide physical insight. three cases are simulated with and without droplets. the authors find the droplets act as a bridge between sensible and latent heat and they can influence the total energy flux as well as change the distribution between latent and sensible heat transfer under certain conditions. the sea spray does not have an additive increase to sensible heat and latent heat because some of the sensible energy is taken from the air and transferred into energy carried by the vapor through the droplet evaporative mechanisms. in the vast literature of developmental psychology, there is a great deal of conceptual debate surrounding definitions of resilience, change, and process. it is argued that at the interface of theory and method lies a unique opportunity to develop our notions of resilience-as-process, test these using newer analytical techniques such as dynamical systems analysis (dsa), and, therein arrive at better elaborated theoretical depictions of development that may, in turn, beg for ever more sophisticated methods for capturing and analyzing change. in the present study, resilience is defined as the human capability to resist, cope with, recover from, and succeed in the face of adverse circumstances (masten & powell, 2003), with adversity defined as the myriad stressors individuals encounter as they age. as individuals develop, age-related stressors abound, and the ability to manage one's emotions has been suggested as a fundamental component of maintaining well-being in the face of this stress. the present study examined the lived experience of elders, and investigating first the daily dynamic experience of negative affect (na), and its relationship to a person's general proclivity toward negative emotionality (i.e., a stable negative emotional equilibrium). after this relationship was described, the focus shifted toward understanding the predictors or correlates of daily fluctuations in na from a resilience perspective. finally, within the stress-and-coping framework, resilience is understood as a process whereby resilience resources intervene in the relationship between the experience of stress and feelings of well-being. therefore, the relationship between daily perceived stress and daily na was examined. after understanding the extent to which these experiences tend to be tied together (in terms of strength and nature of coupling), second order models were used to explore the extent to which resilience resources predicted the parameters of association between changes in na and in stress. classicism is a language of architecture that comprehends human intuition of the built environment. it also reflects the cumulative history of place and culture. classicism expresses itself by means of the orders, proportion, and ornament. classical architecture tells a history of itself, tying together the past with the present and speaking of the future.the intention of this thesis is to demonstrate the relevance of classical architecture to a modern institutional program in an urban setting. additionally, this thesis defines humanism and what is to be a humanist. humanism is the intellectual framework within which a classical design can achieve validity and meaning within a contemporary context. according to david mayernik, 'to be humanist is to acknowledge our capacity for the good and the beautiful, and to intervene positively in the world, while at the same time recognizing our need for self-imposed limits.' this project synthesizes the interrelationship of humanism and the classical. this dissertation explains particularistic spending in the provision of local public goods by subnational governments in mexico and argentina. the main argument is that particularistic spending is driven by the strength and extension of territorial control by governors' political allies and rivals in local governments. governors provide regions with particularistic benefits in local public goods that differ in targetability depending on whether they are governed by allied or rival mayors because targetable and non-targetable local public goods are not equally susceptible to successful credit claiming attempts by local politicians. first, credit for local public goods that benefit clearly geographically circumscribed communities can be claimed by local mayors, while credit for local public goods that benefit more than a single municipality cannot be credibly claimed by local authorities. second, depending on their party affiliation, mayors are governors' political allies or rivals; and third, according to the size of the population they govern, mayors may mobilize strong or weak party organizations at election time. this study challenges models of particularistic spending centered on voters' characteristics and shows that governors provide particularistic benefits in targetable services to strong allies and that they predominantly favor weak allies and rivals when delivering non-targetable services. this dissertation bridges levels of analysis by exploring the effects of province-wide political competition on particularistic spending across regions. it shows that stronger territorial control by opposition mayors intensifies particularistic strategies. as a governors' rivals gain ground, her stronger allies obtain more particularistic benefits in targetable goods, and her weaker allies and rivals benefit more in non-targetable local public goods. competition has a curvilinear effect on particularistic spending on targetable services, and a positive linear effect on non-targetable services. this work relies on three main sources of data: an original dataset on spending on seven areas of local public goods between the early 1990s and 2005 in four states in mexico and four provinces in argentina; an original survey of subnational legislators; and 150 in-depth interviews with subnational politicians. the study tests hypotheses through statistical analyses and provides qualitative evidence of particularistic spending on local public goods by specific administrations. computational and analytical models for the mechanical behavior of human cortical bone are used to investigate the design of orthopaedic implants and the effects of metabolic bone diseases on bone fracture susceptibility. however, the underlying structure-property relationships governing the anisotropic mechanical behavior of human cortical bone are not clear. the overall objective of this project was to investigate the hierarchical structural features governing the anisotropic elastic constants of human cortical bone tissue. x-ray diffraction was used to study the apatite crystals, micro-computed tomography was used to study the intracortical porosity, and ultrasonic wave propagation was used to measure tissue elastic constants. apatite crystal preferred orientation was the most influential structural parameter affecting elastic anisotropy and accounted for transversely isotropic elastic symmetry in the bone extracellular matrix, exclusive of porosity. intracortical porosity was also identified as an important structural feature affecting tissue elastic anisotropy. the volume fraction, morphology, orientation, and spatial distribution of intracortical porosity accounted for orthotropic elastic symmetry at the tissue-level due to anisotropy in the transverse plane. through imaging and spectroscopy we analyze the structure and the origins of the thick disk interstellar medium (ism) in edge-on, spiral galaxies. using broadband and narrowband imaging we analyze the dense, dusty material, seen in absorption, and the ionized gas, seen by h&#945; emission, within the thick disk of ngc 4013 and ngc 4302. comparing the morphologies of the dust and the ionized gas, we show the thick disk to be an environment with a multi-phase ism, having a phase structure consistent with that found in the disk. by studying the thick disk ism with narrowband h&#945; imagery we identify candidate h ii regions in the thick disk. with spectroscopic data on a candidate h ii region located in the thick disk of ngc 4013, we confirm an h ii region resulting from in situ star formation in the thick disk. the discovery of this thick disk star formation implies that the thick disk ism has, like the disk, the necessary physical structure for star formation. these studies analyze the thick disk ism in different ways but both reveal the thick disk to be a dynamic environment, capable of supporting a multi-phase ism, with the physical condition necessary for star formation. the purpose of this dissertation is to chronicle the history of the revision of the ordo catechumenatus per gradus dispositus (ocgd) by coetus xxii, as mandated at the second vatican council. the method of research is largely archival, and treats the various schemae prepared for the consilium ad exsequendam contitutionem de sacra liturgia (consilium) as well as documents pertaining to their composition: drafts, minutes of meetings, correspondence, and reports of experimentation. chapter one establishes the understanding of adult initiation prior to the second vatican council, thus putting the revisions into historical context. chapter two examines the process by which a basic ritual structure for the ocgd began to be formed, and chapter three describes the clarification of that structure as well as its presentation to the consilium. chapter four investigates the process by which the approved structure became a rite through the selection and addition of ritual texts. chapter five presents the completion of the coetusìøåàå_ original work and the emergence of a rite suitable for experimentation. chapter six details the investigation of the experimental rite to the consilium and to the congregation for the rites, and the emendation of the ocgd prior to its presentation to paul vi and his approval for experimentation. chapter seven surveys the responses from experimentation and the resulting revisions to the ocgd. chapter eight chronicles the final corrections and alterations to the rite and its promulgation. finally, chapter nine offers an interpretation of the shape of the coetusìøåàå_ work, relating it to the prevailing understanding of sacramental theology, typified by edward schillibeeckx. the history of the revision of the ocgd clarifies that the rite is properly celebrated when it becomes localized, for this was the clear intent of the coetus and of the consilium. the residential construction industry in developing nations is often plagued by numerous constraining systems, including underdeveloped financial markets, ineffective governing bodies, and unregulated material and labor markets, which restrict safe and disaster-resilient housing to the wealthy minority. the majority are left in non-engineered, informally constructed homes, which, in countries with high exposure to hydro-meteorological and/or seismic hazards, can prove deadly. the thesis presented herein utilizes an integrated approach to increase the resilience of the informal residential construction industry in high-risk developing nations.through collaborative research and proposed intervention in multiple stages of the housing delivery process, this thesis will develop practical, evidence-based designs, frameworks, processes, tools, and recommendations that seek to advance the resilience of urban residential construction by providing a pathway to formalizing housing design and delivery in the developing world. the advantages and disadvantages of a variety of relevant housing typologies are discussed, and a comparative material cost analysis is used to establish the masonry-infilled special moment frame as the most cost-effective seismically-detailed typology. an exhaustive parametric analysis and evaluation framework is then utilized to select structural designs best-fit for the haitian case study scenario. the methodology and results of a nonlinear static analysis, which assessed the performance of the selected designs when exposed to the seismic hazards characteristic of the case study scenario, is also presented. lastly, this thesis proposes an integrated implementation framework to increase the market-driven uptake of the selected designs. it is the intention of the author that the housing design and delivery process presented in this thesis be applied, evaluated, and iterated by any organization seeking to create a lasting, positive impact on the sustainable development of housing in developing nations with significant exposure to natural hazards. human cortical bone, like many engineering materials, exhibits damage and fracture, due to cyclic loading and overloading, such as that experienced by the load-bearing long bones. unlike engineering materials, bone possesses a unique ability to repair damage and reduce fracture risk. however, in cases such as athletes and military recruits, the rate and extent of damage formation can exceed the rate of repair, resulting in increased fracture risk until the damage is diagnosed and rest prescribed. in the elderly, and especially those afflicted with metabolic bone diseases such as osteoporosis, the rate of bone resorption exceeds the rate of formation of new bone, resulting in reduced cortical thickness, increased intracortical porosity and, thus, increased fracture risk. the overall objective of this project was to nondestructively investigate the spatial distribution of fatigue microdamage accumulation in cortical bone and factors that, upon interaction with microdamage, influence fracture susceptibility. contrast-enhanced micro-ct detected increased microdamage in whole rat femora loaded in cyclic three-point bending relative to non-loaded controls, as well as the volumetric spatial distribution of microdamage relative to the whole bone morphology and non-uniform strain distribution resulting from bending. spatial correlations between intracortical porosity, elevated mineralization, and fatigue microdamage were investigated by combining, for the first time, sequential, nondestructive, three-dimensional micro-ct measurements of each in cortical bone specimens subjected to cyclic loading followed by an overload to fracture. microdamage at the fracture initiation site was found to be spatially correlated with intracortical porosity, but not highly mineralized tissue. the new spatial correlation methods were subsequently utilized to investigate the effects of age and loading mode on the fracture susceptibility of human cortical bone specimens. interestingly, the influence of porosity on the initiation and propagation of microdamage was decreased in elderly (i.e., greater than 80 y/o) versus postmenopausal women donors. the observed spatial correlation between intracortical porosity and microdamage motivated future work exploring statistical predictions of fracture susceptibility based on spatial measurements of intracortical porosity, for example pore area, which predicted fracture susceptibility in a preliminary specimen cohort. the overarching objective of this dissertation was to develop and apply computationally efficient techniques for integrated surface water (sw) and groundwater (gw) modeling to address various changes of hydrologic components under future climate projections. the dissertation research contains two main studies, one focusing on inland lakes in the northern highland lakes district (nhld) (chapters 2, 3, and 4), and the other on wetlands in the kankakee river watershed (krw) (chapter 5). both studies address the responses of these inland waterbodies to changes in projected future climate over the midwest for the late 21st century. relating to inland lakes, chapter 2 first describes the methodology for the development of an integrated sw/gw modeling framework that is used to generate inputs for a spatially explicit, hydrology-driven lake water budget model, simulating thousands of individual lakes across the nhld. we demonstrate with these tools that a simplified approach to spatially explicit modeling can produce results comparable with those of more sophisticated and highly calibrated modeling approaches. chapter 3 then investigates the response of the nhld under scenarios of future climate change and highlights the variability not only in the projected future climate, but also in the responses across different lake types. the hydrology results from chapter 3 are then used in chapter 4 in order to investigate the biogeochemical implications that the changes in lake hydrology may have on lake carbon processing and primary productivity. chapter 5 introduces a new regional and local-scale gw model designed to simulate the response of riparian and upland wetlands under the same climate projections investigated in chapters 3 and 4. we found wetlands in the krw to be robust under all projected future climate scenarios analyzed, with increases in annual average flooding observed across both wetland types at both regional and local scales. two physical properties of ionic liquids were studied for this thesis, namely diffusion coefficients and octanol-water partition coefficients (kow). diffusion coefficients of co2 into various ionic liquids (il) were measured at atmospheric pressure because they are needed for properly designing processes. values of the diffusion coefficients ranged between 1.8 x 10-6 cm2/s for an il with viscosity of 603 cp and 1.2 x 10-5 cm2/s for an il with viscosity of 14 cp. diffusion coefficients increased in a linear fashion with the inverse of the il's viscosity. kows of imidazolium-based ils were measured to help characterize ils' potential environmental impact prior to widespread industrial use. the effect of chemical structure on the kow was measured. the kows were extremely low, ranging between 0.001 and 11.1, indicating that the ils have extremely low bioconcentration and soil adsorption potential. morphogenesis is a complex process that involves the integration of individual behaviors of thousands of cells throughout time and space. to elucidate the process is to understanding communications between the cells. the mechanisms of communication include receptors that transduce information from extracellular to intracellular environment and second messengers that carry the information via their dynamics to inform cell decision-making. however, the complexity of the system poses a major challenge in efficient dissecting the mechanisms of cellular and tissue communication. therefore, an integrative approach is needed for the investigating and the analysis of the communication in multicellular systems. in this dissertation, i used drosophila melanogaster—a classic model organism—to investigate cellular and tissue communication based on calcium (ca2+) and g protein-coupled receptors (gpcrs), in the context of wound healing and tissue development. i reviewed the most up-to-date advances of technology that is used to reverse-engineer multicellular systems (chapter 1). with these tools, i conducted detailed analysis of ca2+ dynamics in wounded and developing tissues (chapter 2 and 3). the analysis revealed that mechanical anisotropy within the tissue impact the ca2+ flash propagation after wounding (chapter 2). it also demonstrated that ca2+ dynamics reversely correlate with progression of tissue development, potentially serving as a signal to coordinate collective behaviors of cells within a developing tissue (chapter 3). the implicate of ca2+ in tissue development led to the investigation of the roles of gpcrs, a group of upstream regulators of ca2+ dynamics, during epithelial development (chapter 4). we demonstrated the power of neural networks in handling bio-images and the efficiency of statistical models in analyzing complex structures of data. interestingly, many neuropeptide and neurotransmitter receptors, which previously were not known to have functions in morphogenesis, were shown to regulate drosophila wing development. the finding demonstrated the connection between nervous-system-related gpcrs and epithelial development. in addition, drosophila brain was used as a drug-discovery platform for down syndrome (chapter 5). the drosophila platform was tightly integrated with drug synthesis process that accelerates the iteration of drug development and the advancement of drugs onto next-stage mouse models. finally, future trends in how the advance in analytical tools will propel the study of cell communication and morphogenesis are discussed in the concluding chapter (chapter 6). in classical christian theological anthropology, it is customary to condemn the human temptation to sinful, self-aggrandizing pride. for this reason, reflection on self-love is underdeveloped and even considered invalid by some in the christian theological community. however, this project is fundamentally an apologia for non-prideful self-love and its place within christian reflections on the human person. specifically, this project centers around the experience of the self-hating person and contains a description of proper self-love in response to such a person. to offer this account of good self-love, i first explore recent psychological literature on self-hatred and formulate a description of the figure i designate as "the impoverished person": the person who experiences herself as worthless and empty. with such a person in mind, i then return to the christian figure who ostensibly deployed the definitive critique of self-love and pride: augustine of hippo. this examination reveals augustine's astounding complexity on the topic of self-love, including his firm distinction between harmful pride and positive self-love. augustine thus has surprisingly compelling resources for speaking about the importance of self-love and recognizing one's own self-worth. furthermore, in order to explore questions about "the self" of self-love, i examine augustine on "the self" and on his celebration of human interiority. not only does augustine's understanding of interiority avoid individualism, it also allows him to speak about the boundaries and the dignity of the individual in a manner that protects against various toxic forces that would impugn this dignity. his positive reflections on interiority thus make his work especially relevant for the impoverished person. however, this project also identifies certain inconsistencies in augustine's articulation of human dignity. for this reason, this project explores sixteenth-century mystic teresa of ávila, who inherits the discourse of augustinian interiority but also accents more strongly—through her spiritual metaphor of the soul as an interior castle—the abiding god-given dignity of the individual as the "dwelling place" of god. by way of conclusion, i engage with contemporary feminist theologian sarah coakley to show how the promotion of proper self-love—and the theological anthropology that makes this promotion intelligible—is deeply compatible with contemporary feminist theological recommendations of vulnerability. in sum, this project offers an augustinian-teresian account of proper self-love that is grounded in god's promise of loving, intimate friendship so as to dismantle self-hatred while enabling openness to god and others. 1,10-phenanthroline derivatives are important for a variety of synthetic applications and serve as effective ligands in a wide selection of reactions. while a variety of syntheses have been put forward for building a range of these ligands, the previous routes are quite lengthy and involve a number of low yielding steps. therefore, only a limited number of chiral 1,10-phenanthroline derivatives have been synthesized and used in asymmetric reactions. this thesis outlines work done towards the development of a new method for synthesizing chiral phenanthroline-based ligands through a samarium diiodide-mediated coupling. the addition of stabilized anions to ì_å±,ì_å_-unsaturated 2-piperidinones has been underdeveloped in organic chemistry. therefore, we have sought to make a contribution in this area by developing mukiayama-michael reaction conditions using bis(oxazoline) ligands in the asymmetric addition of ketene thioacetals to ì_å±,ì_å_-unsaturated ì_å«-lactams. through the use of bis(oxazoline) ligands we have been successful in setting benchmarks for enantioand diastereoselectivity in developing this new chemistry. this methodology is ready to be extended to the use of the phenanthroline ligands developed in the helquist lab. in tandem with developing this method, we have also pursued the synthesis of an analogue of pg-883347. the key step of the synthesis employs an asymmetric addition of a ketene thioacetal to an ì_å±,ì_å_-unsaturated 2-pyrrolidone to install a stereocenter on c2 of the thioester fragment of the compound. finally, the helquist lab has been pursuing a gram-scale synthesis of the naturally occurring compound, trichostatin a. while previous members of our group have made significant contributions to this synthesis, additional work is required to improve the synthesis, particularly the separation of the e and z isomers of trichostatic acid. the final chapter of this thesis will detail the efforts made towards finishing this synthetic route. protein-protein interactions play important roles at all levels of cellular organization and thus are therapeutically relevant targets for the treatment of a wide array of diseases. modulators of protein-protein interactions are therefore highly valuable molecules sought after in many drug discovery endeavors. peptides that emulate protein domains at protein-protein interfaces represent a promising strategy for drug development. as the functions and binding affinities of proteins are directly related to their three-dimensional structure, peptidomimetic approaches seek to recreate folded elements of proteins with high-fidelity, independent of the larger folded context from which they are derived. this can be achieved by using macrocyclization to constrain peptides into their unique and bioactive conformations. macrocyclic-based designs of biologically relevant peptides may be informed by the patterns of hydrogen bonding observed in x-ray crystal structures. covalent surrogates of hydrogen bonds reduce entropy by destabilizing unfolded states and support the natural tendency of the encoded polymer chain to fold into complex structures.as unmodified peptides tend to be disordered in solution, macrocyclization is routinely employed to constrain native peptide epitopes in their bioactive conformation. macrocyclization involving internal backbone amides is an underexplored mode of connectivity and the methodology to functionalize these amides with reactive handles for cross-linking has mostly been limited to n-alkylation. herein, we demonstrate a late-stage bis-alkylation reaction of n-amino peptides with haloaldehydes to afford ethylene bridged n-amino peptide macrocycles (naprocycles). our approach is based on the utilization of backbone n-amino groups as reactive handles in bioorthogonal reactions to synthesize macrocyclic peptides. using this approach, we prepare a series of macrocycles with varying ring size from crude, unprotected linear substrates under aqueous conditions. we further incorporate our covalent constraint into a model loop-helix motif derived from the viral matrix protein vp40. we demonstrate that naprocycle constraint of specific residues involved in a sidechain-to-backbone hydrogen-bond observed in the x-ray crystal structure of dimeric vp40 significantly enhances helicity.to complement our naprocycle constraint methodology, we present an informatics analysis of sidechain-to-backbone hydrogen bonds observed in x-ray crystal structures. we detail the compilation of databases of proteins containing sidechain-to-backbone hydrogen bonds that may serve as test cases for our covalent surrogate approach. our work offers insight into the nature and extent of interresidue sidechain-to-backbone hydrogen bonding in proteins and suggests that several of these interactions may play an important role in protein folding as they are evolutionarily conserved. we also describe a structure-based workflow for the identification of sidechain-to-backbone hydrogen bonds that reside at protein-protein interfaces. this work lays the foundation for future synthetic endeavors to study the impact naprocycle constraint has on tertiary folding in miniproteins and to construct minimized binding domains that target biologically relevant protein-protein interactions.in continuation of our efforts toward conformationally defined and proteolytically stable peptidomimetics, we explore the effect n-amination has on the structure and activity of a β-sheet model system. we demonstrate an efficient protocol for the synthesis of the antimicrobial gramicidin s and n-aminated analogues thereof. we describe the parallel synthesis of n-aminated analogues of gramicidin s via the incorporation of n-amino dipeptide units on solid support. compared to gramicidin s, the n-aminated analogues show reduced toxicity to human red blood cells and many exhibit similar or enhanced activity against a panel of eskape pathogens. our work suggests that relative to gramicidin s, the improved therapeutic profile of n-aminated analogues may be due to the enhanced stability of the β-sheet like character afforded by the conformational constraints imposed by n-amination. parents are an integral component of treatment for individuals with autism spectrum disorders (asd) as they provide continuity, maintenance, and generalization of learned skills. it is crucial that parents adhere to prescribed recommendations to optimize treatment effectiveness. however, it remains unclear how individual or familial contextual factors influence parental adherence. two hundred and two caregivers of individuals with asd completed online questionnaires. questionnaires screened for accuracy of diagnosis, measured current asd symptoms, adaptive functioning, and parental adherence to treatment recommendations. these data showed adaptive functioning was predictive of parent adherence to medical treatment recommendations over and above what was accounted for by parent-reported diagnoses. contrary to our predictions, we did not find a relationship between asd symptom severity or our predicted familial and contextual factors and adherence. when prescribing treatment recommendations, professionals need to be cognizant of how individual and familial contextual factors influence parental adherence. recoil corrections, contributions to the energies of atoms and ions that are inversely proportional to the mass of the nucleus, are treated using a three-dimensional form of the bethe-salpeter equation for hydrogenic ions. all states with principal quantum numbers n=1, 2 and 3 are treated. the importance of these calculations for the interpretation of a number of high accuracy experiments on highly charged ions is shown, and directions for future research involving mass-polarization, a many-electron recoil correction, are discussed. infants who hear more child-directed speech (cds) tend to have better language learning trajectories (huttenlocher, haight, bryk, seltzer, &amp; lyons, 1991; pan, rowe, singer, &amp; snow, 2005). for 2-year-olds the amount of cds from all individuals in their environment, but not the amount of overheard speech is related to their later vocabulary development (shneidman, arroyo, levine, &amp; goldin-meadow, 2013). however, it is unknown if younger infants similarly benefit from cds from all individuals in their environment, or if the input from their primary caregiver is most relevant early in language learning. the features in the language input that are important for vocabulary development change over time (rowe, 2012). thus, it is likely that the features important for infants differ from those that are important for two-year-olds. both cds and overheard speech may be beneficial for younger infants' language development. we tested the relationship between speech, both overheard and cds, produced by infants' primary caregiver and the other individuals in infants' environment, and infants' expressive vocabulary growth between 12to 18-months of age. we also examined how the language input that infants receive at 12-months relates to their ability to learn novel word-object mappings in a laboratory-based word learning task at 18-months.we collected recordings of language input in 12-month-olds' (n = 50, males = 26) environment and coded how much cds they heard from their primary caregiver and from other individuals and the amount of overheard speech. at 12-, 15-, and 18-months we collected parent-report measures of productive vocabulary. at 18-month infants completed a laboratory-based novel word learning task. infants who heard more cds tokens from all individuals had larger vocabularies. the number of cds tokens produced by infants' primary caregivers was related to their novel word learning ability; such that hearing more cds tokens from the primary caregiver was related to higher levels of accuracy. the results suggest that by 12-months child-directed language input, but not overheard speech, is key for infants' language development. the focus of this dissertation is human-produced hazardous pollution that harms human health, which i call environmental violence (ev). i define ev as direct and indirect harm experienced by humans due to toxic and non-toxic pollutants put into a local—and concurrently the global—ecosystem through human activities and processes. i develop this novel concept of ev as both an analytical tool, namely a framework that can be applied across broad contexts and by socioenvironmental researchers, practitioners, and managers alike, and as a thing-in-itself, something that can be seen, felt, taken into the human body to deleterious effect, and that can be measured. pollution production is a fact of the human story but much more is being produced than is needed to maximize the capacity for human flourishing such that literally millions of people are directly harmed and many more indirectly. today, ev is pervasive in the earth system and the human niche and is the single largest human-produced source of mortality, causing more than 8 million deaths annually. in this dissertation, i draw attention to three critical underlying realities regarding ev by utilizing a combination of primary empirical social and environmental data, as well as additional data and literature from the fields of peace studies, public health, earth science, and anthropology. the first critical reality is inequality: specifically, different populations unequally produce or contribute to ev; the risk and vulnerability associated with ev are unequally distributed; and, correspondingly, the harm and power differentials experienced are unequal. the second critical reality underlying ev, paradoxically, is that despite the inequalities associated with ev, ultimately all people are affected by it and stand to face severe risk to their niche as the destabilization of the earth system continues. in the near-term, ev is a hazard for some people more than others, but ultimately it threatens everyone—the entire human niche and the earth system. the third and final critical reality underlying ev is that human-produced pollution begets a process of violence and is itself violent. while these issues are substantial, i demonstrate how the ev framework can be applied to elucidate key junctures of them that, if actioned ethically and equitably, can lead to substantial reductions in ev and result in a more sustainable future for the earth system and the human niche. this thesis examines the wall paintings in the rock-cut churches of sant'angelo, santa margherita, and san nicola in the medieval village of casalrotto in puglia, italy. this analysis seeks to understand these churches through their local particularities and idiosyncrasies in order to gain an understanding of their function and reveal elements of the religious identity in casalrotto from the mid-twelfth to thirteenth-century. by employing a localizing methodology, this thesis discusses funerary and baptismal narratives within the iconographic programs of the three churches. this research challenges conventional wisdom in comparative political behavior in two important ways. it finds that partisanship in latin america is not as weak as prior comparative studies have suggested. in fact, this research finds that the proportion of partisans was underestimated by major comparative surveys. additionally, this dissertation finds that partisans are not as vulnerable to campaign information as previously considered. even in new democracies, partisans reinforce their prior beliefs while rejecting information that is inconsistent with their partisan predispositions. in these contexts, campaigns play a major role in "enlightening" voters by providing them with information to support the candidate most in line with their pre-campaign political predispositions. this dissertation addresses the formative power of myth from the standpoint of political philosophy. although a work in political theory, its approach is empirically oriented. taking up three distinct kinds of myth arising in three different socio-historical contexts, the dissertation examines the role played by each in shaping both speculative thought and practical and ritual activities in its corresponding context. the myths and societies examined are enuma elish in the context of ancient mesopotamia, genesis 1 &ndash; 2:4a in that of ancient israel, and two modern myths &ndash; thomas mann's roman der seele and the national socialist myth of volk, reich, and fì_hrer &ndash; in the context of modern germany. such examination yields a comparative basis upon which to explore critical questions surrounding the relationship of myth to human thought and life. modeled after work by roland barthes, maggie nelson, and marguerite duras, among others, storied women pushes against the limits of auto-fiction, combining critical and theoretical writing with fictional narrative. the story follows willow in the wake of a break-up as she processes her grief by reading books written on a to-read list her ex-girlfriend left behind. these books, coincidentally, include works like a lover's discourse by roland barthes, the lover by marguerite duras, and written on the body by jeanette winterson, inviting her to begin troubling the subject-object dialectic as it relates to romantic relationships and representations of love in literature. at the heart of the novella is a desire and failure to write new philosophies of love—new poetry—free from unnecessary gendered binaries and their patriarchal cultural contexts. this dissertation studies the u.s. business cycle as well as its housing market. while there has been a vast literature that has tried to explain and account for the short-run fluctuations in aggregate economic activity, several features of business cycles in the united states business are not well understood yet. in addition, the 2008 financial crisis showed the extent to which the housing market can affect macroeconomic aggregates. the three essays that compose this dissertation address these issues. the 2008 financial crisis has highlighted the need for a better understanding of the extent to which financial frictions can affect macroeconomic aggregates. with the hypothesis that financial frictions that manifest themselves as borrowing constraints can play an important role in the capacity of firms to create new jobs, the first essay studies the effects of imperfections in the financial sector on the cyclical properties of unemployment and job creation. the second chapter is joint work with michael pries and eric sims. in the study, we document some important changes at business cycle frequencies that have occurred in the us since the mid-eighties. while some of those changes have been already documented, we are the first to argue that these changes are related to each other and as such, they should be explained within the same theoretical framework. we do so by providing a model of labor reallocation and we demonstrate that a decline in the importance of aggregate shocks relative to reallocative shocks can simultaneously account for the documented facts. motivated by the high mortgage default rates observed during 2007-2008, particularly in nonrecourse states, the last chapter examines how the existence of nonrecourse debt in the mortgage market influences the default and the decision of homeowners to rent or own. by developing a life-cycle model in which those decisions are endogenously determined, i provide a framework that can account for recent empirical evidence that suggests that the degree of recourse has an important impact on default rates. i find that the presence of mortgage recourse reduces the incentives of ownership increasing, considerably, the proportion of liquid wealth in agent's portfolios. this dissertation explains why sylvester graham, a popularizer of physiology in the antebellum united states, believed that he announced a new gospel of health, and why many hundreds of his contemporaries came to see vegetarianism, teetotalism, and all-around hygiene as the necessary foundation of their faith. these explanations require a broader inquiry into the ways early nineteenth-century americans understood their bodies, their souls, and connections between the two in a world upturned by new sciences, changing theologies, and expanding markets. combining the moral agency of arminian theology with the rising confidence of physiological science, health reformers offered americans an optimistic program for self-improvement through self-discipline. bodily and spiritual reinvigoration achieved through proper regimen, reformers promised, would empower people to enjoy the promise of the antebellum marketplace revolution while avoiding its perils. although the promise often went unrealized, this heady concoction of commitments nevertheless helped forge the individualist ideology that defines american healthcare to this day. thus, while this dissertation charts the convergence of religion and health in a movement that never captured all americans' attention, it simultaneously traces an origin story of a far more powerful and ubiquitous ideology: the belief that, in health and in economic affairs, just as in religion, individuals are responsible for their own fate. as technology continues to advance, there is a clear drive toward smaller, faster devices with more functionality. when it comes to lightwave technologies, this has created the need for photonic integrated circuit (pics) which integrate a large number of optical components into continually decreasing spaces. this has brought about the need for high index contrast (hic) devices which allow for greater optical confinement and bending radii several orders of magnitude smaller than conventional technology. traditionally, the drawback of such hic devices is their greater susceptibility to scattering losses from etch-induced sidewall roughness (s) and the greater index step (dn), losses which scale with at least s2 and dn2. to combat these higher losses, a novel non-selective o2-enhanced oxidation smoothing technique has been used to significantly reduce the loss of passive algaas ridge waveguide (rwg) structures. using the fabry-perot loss measurement technique, this work shows that this non-selective oxidation smoothing technique can reduce the propagation loss of a 1 cm hic rwg by almost 3 orders or magnitude when compared to waveguides clad by a sio2 dielectric deposited via pevcd. through optimized processing to reduce the initial sidewall roughness before oxidation, further loss reductions should be achievable for hic structures, as well as possible loss reduction in more conventional low-index-contrast structures commonly used in many photonic devices this book-length poem takes on the form of a day's drive through the saskatchewan prairie, while the author accompanies her father, a christian preacher and missionary, as he visits the indigenous community in which he serves. "the same field by different light" is both ekphrasis and prayer--a visual and spiritual response to growing up as a part of the legacy of settler colonialism through mission work in canada, a legacy which is deeply troubled by violence and oppression, but a rejection of which cannot fully account for the human relationships that make up the author's personal history, or her father's acts of service and witness within the indigenous community. this collection contemplates issues of faith and doubt, race and witness, and meditates on the necessity of continuing to return to and interrogate the landscapes that both shape and exceed us. aristotle's doctrine of the mean is one of a handful of ancient philosophical theories that is widely known among philosophers generally. by contrast, plato's discussions of measure are hardly known even among ancient philosophy specialists. it is unsurprising, then, that the influence of those discussions on aristotle's doctrine has hardly been acknowledged, let alone examined in detail. the project of this dissertation is to fill this gap in our understanding; it is to examine the relationship between plato's measure and aristotle's mean. in order to undertake this examination, accurate accounts of plato's measure and of aristotle's mean are needed. with regard to plato, i pay particular attention to the statesman and the philebus. out of the entire platonic corpus, the passage on the art of measurement from the statesman (283c-285c) is the clearest source of inspiration for aristotle's doctrine. the standard interpretation of this difficult passage, however, is fundamentally mistaken, and so an alternative interpretation is needed. the discussions of measure in the philebus supplement and illuminate this passage from the statesman by elucidating the philosophical roles played by measure: measure both gives particular things their identities and serves as the relevant norm compliance with which renders those things good. turning to aristotle, i develop a novel account of the doctrine of the mean. the need for such an account is especially pressing inasmuch as aristotle's doctrine is often interpreted in a way that renders the doctrine philosophically implausible but that also has very little textual support. the novel account offered in this thesis is shown to handle readily the most common objections to aristotle's doctrine.with accurate accounts of measure and the mean, i then turn to comparing them along four points: normativity, ethical knowledge, what compliance with measure or the mean consists in, and absolutism (as opposed to relativism). the differences between aristotle and plato with regard to these four points reveal, i conclude, a fundamental difference in approach to ethical philosophy. for plato, ethical theorizing is to be undertaken for the sake of gaining greater theoretical understanding; for aristotle, its benefit is primarily practical. the near-infrared window of fluorescent heptamethine cyanine dyes greatly facilitates biological imaging because there is deep penetration of the light and negligible background fluorescence. however, dye solubility, aggregation, poor pharmacokinetics and biodistribution, quenching in water, and instability are current drawbacks that limit performance and the scope of possible applications as summarized in chapter 1. this thesis describes a series of chemical efforts to solve these heptamethine cyanine problems.chapters 2, 3, and 4 report molecular design strategies that produce new families of sterically shielded heptamethine dyes which overcome the limitations mentioned above. the key design feature is a meso-oaryl or a meso-aryl group that simultaneously projects two shielding arms directly over each face of a linear heptamethine polyene. fluorescence imaging experiments in cells and animals compared the shielded heptamethine dyes (and several peptide and antibody bioconjugates) to benchmark heptamethine dyes in chapter 5, and found that the shielded systems possess an unsurpassed combination of photophysical, physiochemical and biodistribution properties that greatly enhance bioimaging performance.the study in chapter 6 overcomes the instability problem of fda-approved heptamethine dye, indocyanine green (icg) by making a suitable designed deuterated derivative. the deuterated dyes bear deuterium atoms on the polymethine chain, and the spectral, physiochemical, and photostability properties were quantified. a notable mechanistic finding is that self-aggregation of icg in water strongly favors dye degradation by a photochemical oxidative dimerization reaction that gives a non-fluorescent product. storage stability studies showed that replacement of c-h with c-d slowed the dimerization rate constant by a factor of 3.1, and it is likely that many medical and pre-clinical procedures will benefit from the longer shelf-lives of these two deuterated icg dyes. the study in chapter 7 shows how supramolecular encapsulation of a newly designed series of cyanine dyes by cucurbit[7]uril (cb7) can alter the π-electron distribution within the cyanine chromophore alter fluorescent properties. for two sets of dyes, the most stable co-conformation for the supramolecular complex locates cb7 around the center of the dye chromophore, and the results are nonpolar, symmetric π-electron, ground states that produce sharpened absorption bands with enhanced fluorescence brightness. from the perspective of enhanced near-infrared bioimaging and sensing in water, the results show how the principles of host/guest chemistry can be employed to solve the "cyanine limit" problem. in the past few years, several functional site prediction methods have been introduced that aim to predict the biologically relevant amino acids in proteins based purely off of a multiple sequence alignment. these methods utilize a variety of approaches including conservation, divergence, and perturbation to identify the functionally important amino acid positions (primary sequence or 3d structure) within the protein sequence. yet, the question remains if these methods accurately predict the functionally important residues within a protein found experimentally. this dissertation investigates the capability of the bioinformatic functional site prediction methods. residues known to participate in conformational dynamics associated with substrate binding, as observed experimentally by nuclear magnetic resonance (nmr) spectroscopy, are compared to those residues highlighted by the prediction methods. the comparison of results given above will provide insight into the protein evolution-dynamics-function relationship. a test of how well the current prediction methods perform at selecting the functionally relevant residues is presented herein. specifically, because dynamics are encoded in the protein sequence and are required for function, then a mutation of a functionally important position will alter both the internal dynamics and its activity. the time scales for such motions can be on the order of slow (&#956;s-ms) to fast (ps-ns) motions. nuclear magnetic resonance (nmr) is a non-invasive technique which probes such dynamics relevant for function. overlap exists between the bioinformatic prediction methods and the experimental data for many of the residues used in the model system, human pin1. many of the residues identified experimentally by nmr to have conformational dynamics due to substrate binding are the same residues predicted to be functionally relevant from the functional site prediction methods. for a select few amino acid positions, the agreement between the two approaches is not perfect. what follows in this thesis is a discussion on two mutations of pin1. for the one mutation, m130a, agreement exists between the functional site prediction methods and experimental intrinsic dynamics. in the other, i28a, the agreement between the two methods fails. it is proved that the data-to-solution map for the hunter-saxton (hs) is continuous but not uniformly continuous on bounded subsets. to demonstrate this sharpness of continuity, two sequences of bounded solutions to the hs equation are constructed whose distance at the initial time converges to zero and whose distance at any later time is bounded from below by a positive constant. to achieve this result, approximate solutions that satisfy this property are chosen, after which actual solutions are found by solving the hs cauchy problem with initial data taken to be the value of approximate solutions at time zero. then, using well-posedness estimates, it is shown that the difference between solutions and approximate solutions is negligible. it is known that noiseless feedback does not increase the capacity of memoryless point-to-point channels. however, such feedback can considerably increase the reliability or reduce the coding complexity of schemes that approach capacity. this thesis first develops a new class of coding schemes for additive white noise channels with feedback corrupted by additive noise, focusing much of the results and discussions on additive white gaussian noise channels. these schemes are variants of the well-known schalkwijk-kailath coding scheme and are based upon techniques from stochastic approximation. the resulting schemes enable a tradeoff between transmission rate and mean-square error performance in the presence of noisy feedback. by contrast, straightforward application of the classic schalkwijk-kailath schemes offer enhanced rate or reliability in the presence of noisy feedback, but do not provide a trade-off between the two. this thesis also develops cooperative communication strategies based upon distributed stochastic approximation algorithms for the gaussian relay channel with several configurations of perfect and noisy feedback. in addition to being simple, the strategies can be shown to provide doubly exponential error decay in the case of noiseless feedback and appealing tradeoffs between effective transmission rate and reliability in the case of noisy feedback. diesel engines have the highest efficiency of all combustion engines and release significantly less co2 emissions than gasoline engines, but emit large quantities of particulate matter, or soot. to address the environmental and health dangers of soot, emissions standards for diesel engines have been implemented, and are becoming more stringent, worldwide. the use of diesel particulate filters (dpfs) has become a standard in diesel systems, since they can eliminate up to 99% of soot from diesel exhaust. to release the soot that becomes trapped in the filter, elevated temperatures are needed to convert the soot into co2. these elevated temperatures require energy from the engine that reduces the overall efficiency and leads to an increase in fuel consumption. with the use of a glass catalyst, the temperature required for regeneration can be lowered and increase the efficiency of the diesel engine.to date, there have been no studies done on a glass catalyst, or any similar material, in a diesel environment. diesel environments are unique due to their elevated temperatures, gas composition, and humidity level. it is unknown how this environment would affect the behavior of the glass catalyst.this thesis describes development of a reactor for testing reduced-sized dpfs to examine the behavior of the glass catalyst in a simulated diesel environment. factors of a diesel exhaust environment such as high temperatures and humidity will affect the degradation of the glass catalyst, which will in turn affect the catalytic activity. the reactor will be capable to simulating a 100,000 miles of engine use lifetime for the catalyst to characterize how this alters the catalyst. the reactor includes a three-zone furnace, a humidification loop, a soot generator, mass flow controllers for the gas flow, and a labview program to interface all of these components. controlling the nanoparticle surface environment is integral for precise drug-delivery systems, selective molecular-capture methods, and analytical techniques relying on plasmon resonance amplification, such as surface-enhanced raman scattering (sers). despite the scientific community's widespread interest in nanotechnology, few commercial products employ nanomaterials in disease diagnostics and therapeutics. one reason for this is the lack of shelf-stable and robust ligands that will remain adhered to the nanoparticle in complex, physiological environments. thiol ligands are the current standard for functionalizing metal nanoparticle surfaces, particularly silver and gold. a rich chemistry toolkit has been developed for attaching biomolecules to nanoparticles via thiols. thiol ligands, however, are prone to degradation via oxidation in ambient conditions and biologically relevant conditions. the first section of this dissertation introduces an alternative ligand for nanoparticle systems: n-heterocyclic carbenes (nhcs). in this section, we demonstrate the robustness of nhc ligands on a variety of gold surfaces with thorough characterization of the nhc-gold interaction using sers, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (xps), and thermogravimetric analysis (tga). in addition, we develop a benchtop method for appending nhcs to aqueous nanoparticles without the need for air-sensitive techniques or external reductants. for the first time, we employ amide coupling on a nanoparticle surface using an nhc ligand and track the reaction sequence at each step with sers, supplemented by theoretical calculations. last, we perform foundational stability studies of the nhc-au interaction in five commonly used biological media and demonstrate that an imidazolinium nhc motif may provide enhanced stability in extreme acidic environments.handling large data sets with sers presents many challenges given the complicated nature of the spectra and the common need to focus the laser on nanoparticle aggregates for optimized signal. the second section of this dissertation focuses on the construction of a metabolite spectral database for metabolomics studies using sers. we present sers spectra for 63 metabolites from a commercially available set of standards. in addition, we introduce a targeted analysis approach which could be employed in the future to handle large data sets for sers studies. the last section briefly discusses a citizen science project, u-watch, aimed at engaging middle school students with an authentic scientific investigation. in this case, we were interested in studying trace heavy metal contamination in drinking water from many geographical regions in the continental united states. in addition, u-watch was the first citizen science project to employ a teacher residency program to develop an audience-appropriate curriculum package. this thesis wades into the recent debates over the composition and redaction of some of the latter zion oracles in the book of isaiah. more specifically, it probes the reception of isaiah 60 and is 54:11-15 in the hymn of tobit, and in light of that early relecture calls into question some of the more extravagant claims for redactional layering that are put forward under the rubric of the fortschreibung or gradual supplementation of the prophetic word across a series of chronologically successive contexts, taking the mature work of jacques vermeylen as the standard-bearer for this tradition. these strata are held to be recoverable primarily via attention to the contradictions within the final form, though stylistic features like the use of numeruswechsel also play a role. i argue for a more parsimonious approach to these redactional and historical questions that is grounded in a broader critical perspective in dialogue with early reception history, linguistic dating, and the ane background to these oracles.to that end, after a brief introduction in my second chapter i trace the imprint of isaiah on the hymn in tobit 13, which serves as the vehicle of the prophetic tradition that depicts zion in metahistorical terms and thus relativizes the current building in jerusalem. tobit makes this latter point explicitly in his final testament, and so in my third chapter i take his reflections as the point of departure for a broader survey of restoration eschatology within second temple literature. despite their theological differences, this array of texts perceives that the dramatic imagery in the prophetic corpus compels them to anticipate a fuller restoration. the fourth chapter offers a brief genealogy of modern scholarship on isaiah 40-66 from the fortschreibung angle before critically engaging the redactional theories and ideological metanarrative of vermeylen in light of the reception of these oracles in tobit, though i also bring to bear the philological and comparative ane evidence. i conclude with some reflections on the hermeneutical implications of this study. a manuscript of original poetry to meet the requirements of a master of fine arts in creative writing. this collection is defined by uniform formal elements adapted from tradition iranian poetry met with queer eroticism &amp; politics. this thesis is the first study of donald lawrence, a highly influential composer, conductor, and impresario in the area of black gospel. the goal is to bring greater appreciation and understanding of his music, especially to gospel singers and conductors, with the hope of encouraging further performance and study. in this work, i present an overview of those aspects of the history of black music that have been most influential to donald lawrence, and i outline those strains of scholarship that have been most useful in my own studies of his music. i have conducted a series of interviews with lawrence and with his associates in various realms, and these provide primary source materials of great value and provide the evidence for my study of his life to date. the final chapters of the thesis study three works chosen from various periods in his evolution as a composer. i demonstrate the malleability of the tripartite gospel form in his capable hands, and show how music and lyrics join in his profoundly dramatic understanding of black gospel. the study in chapter 5, the concluding chapter, points to new directions in the work of this still living major composer. according to the molinist, god's knowledge of the counterfactuals of creaturely freedom (e.g., if my sister had voted in the 2004 presidential election, she would have freely voted for john kerry) enables him to have the sort of providence over his creation that christians have traditionally attributed to him. the grounding objector to molinism argues that counterfactuals of creaturely freedom cannot possibly be true. roughly, the objector reasons that there is nothing available to make counterfactuals of this sort true. in this dissertation, i attempt to advance the discussion of the grounding objection to molinism by identifying distinct versions of the objection and stating these versions more carefully than they have been stated before. i suggest that there are broadly two kinds of grounding objections: truthmaker-style grounding objections and causal-style grounding objections. the truthmaker-style grounding objections employ grounding principles akin to the claim that 'all truths require truthmakers.' the causal-style grounding objections employ much more specific grounding principles that apply only to propositions that describe an agent's free actions. i suggest that the causal-style grounding objections that employ these more specific principles present the most significant problem for the molinist. however, with respect to both kinds of grounding objections, i argue that the molinist can satisfactorily reply. in the final chapter of this dissertation, i explore the possibility of a truthmaker-style grounding objection to a competing account of divine providence, open theism. i argue that the open theist's most plausible response to this objection opens the door for a parallel escape from a truthmaker-style grounding objection to molinism. the accumulation of microdamage has been linked to clinical bone fragility and increased fracture susceptibility. damage is normally repaired by a cellular remodeling process. however, a fracture may occur if damage accumulates faster than it can be repaired. current methods for imaging microdamage are inherently invasive, destructive and two-dimensional. the development of a targeted, deliverable x-ray contrast agent would allow for specific and three-dimensional imaging of microdamage in vitro and potentially in vivo. therefore, the objective of this research was to investigate the use of surface functionalized gold nanoparticles as damage-specific x-ray contrast agents. gold nanoparticles were synthesized and functionalized with carboxylate, phosphonate, or bisphosphonate molecules for targeting calcium. functionalized gold nanoparticles were characterized and compared based on their colloidal stability and binding affinity to both a synthetic bone mineral analog and damaged bone tissue. bisphosphonate functionalized au nps exhibited the most rapid binding kinetics and highest binding affinity. bisphosphonate functionalized au nps of varying particle diameter were also prepared to investigate nanoparticle size effects on x-ray attenuation and deliverability. damaged bone tissue labeled by bisphosphonate functionalized au nps was able to be detected using absorption edge subtraction in x-ray tomography. other novel x-ray imaging methods were also investigated to potentially improve the detection of nanoscale contrast agents. in summary, the ability to utilize functionalized gold nanoparticles as targeted x-ray contrast agents for microdamage in bone tissue was found be to feasible with improved x-ray imaging techniques. modern aero-optics research relies upon the ability to accurately measure and predict density changes in flows of interest. to model such flows, computational fluid dynamics (cfd) is often used to save time and money compared to the cost of full-scale experiments. discrepancies have been discovered in the results of a computational simulation of a weakly compressible shear layer (wcsl) that casts doubt on the current models being used in commercial solvers. the objectives of this research are to explore the validity of solutions from commercial solvers with respect to wcsl physics and to continue investigation into the weakly compressible model (wcm), which was developed and used at the university of notre dame to model the behavior of such weakly compressible flows. finally, a novel method of temperature-calibrated mie scattering is presented in which cfd-predicted temperatures are used as a proof-of-concept calibration for humidity-based mie scattering. nucleosynthesis by rapid neutron capture---the r-process---accounts for the production of roughly half of the heavy elements in the solar system. not only are these heavy elements found locally, but they are also found in very old, chemically simple stars, providing evidence that this process must occur astrophysically. yet the exact environment that made the heavy elements is unknown. through the combination of r-process network calculations and observational signatures of r-process events, i utilize actinide production by the r-process to investigate questions regarding the source of heavy-element abundance variations in metal-poor stars, the effect of fission cycling on the r-process abundance pattern, limits on r-process ejecta by candidate sites, and constraints on primordial neutron star binary systems. i find that neutron star mergers have the potential to synthesize all observed levels of actinide abundances measured in metal-poor stars if astrophysical variations on the composition of the ejecta are allowed within the merger site. using this principle, i then determine that if neutron star mergers produced the majority of r-process elements in the galaxy, then the first mergers were primarily mass-asymmetric. this thesis demonstrates a unique and adaptable route by which the elemental signatures of metal-poor stars can disentangle the complex chemical-enrichment history of the universe. there is a malaise at large in our modern liberal democracies arising from the failure of our public life to be grounded in, and in turn inspire, our deepest moral questions and our ceaseless quest for ethical integrity or wholeness. many current ideals of citizenship expressly or implicitly require citizens to subordinate their most cherished ethical commitments to the norms of liberal citizenship. critics have pointed out that this amounts to a deeply problematic bifurcation of the moral life. however, they have failed to develop an alternative vision of citizenship that both accommodates integrity and addresses the challenges of a modern pluralistic polity, such as toleration, respect, and political stability. this is the principal task i set myself here, drawing on the strengths of aristotle's account of the virtues but also embracing values and practices central to the liberal tradition such as representative democracy, personal liberty, rule of law, and a free market economy. chapter 1 is a broad introduction to and overview of the project. chapter 2 outlines john rawls's 'political liberal' ideal of citizenship, while chapter 3 shows that the rawlsian ideal of citizenship is not viable, since it both fails its own test of legitimacy and egregiously undermines the integrity of citizens. in chapter 4 i develop a positive account of the virtue of integrity and address some typical liberal objections against this virtue. chapter 5 offers a deeper and broader diagnosis of the inadequacy of political liberalism by tracing this inadequacy to the assumptions of twentieth century contractualist moral theory. finally, in chapter 6 i sketch part of an aretaic or virtue-ethical account of citizenship that merges insights from virtue ethics with insights from the liberal tradition. the aretaic account claims to be both more accommodating of integrity than contractualist models, and better equipped to understand and address traditional problems confronting a liberal regime, such as respect and political stability. exchanges of momentum, heat, and moisture between layers of atmosphere and upper ocean govern the variability of global climate down to local environments. vertical exchange mechanisms include the largescale mean flow, planetary to small-scale waves, and ubiquitous turbulent eddies, the latter being particularly prominent in the atmospheric boundary layer (abl). in this thesis, observational datasets covering a wide range of spatiotemporal scales are analyzed and interpreted to unravel multi-scale vertical exchange processes underpinning the atmospheric variability.the major component of this work was a study of intraseasonal disturbances in the indian ocean (io) during late boreal winter of 2015, dubbed asiri-rawi. these disturbances drive tropical weather and travel as (theoretically predictable) planetary waves. upper-air soundings from multiple io sites as well as model reanalysis were utilized to educe wave activity. equatorial baroclinic kelvin waves (kws) within the stratified lower stratosphere and upper troposphere were identified as dominant patterns repeating biweekly. the eastwardand downward-propagating kws initiated shear instabilities in the tropical tropopause layer (~17 km). later when phase propagation brought westerly winds and high barometric pressure to ~12-14 km altitude, kws coupled with lower-tropospheric disturbances and initiated strong vertical motions within 'chimney'-like columns of 'convection' ~300-500 km wide. high-resolution measurements from remote-sensing instruments and a flux tower at the seychelles site captured the impacts of these events on the surface layer of abl as westerly wind bursts (wwbs). the quasi-periodic wwbs were also studied using one-dimensional ocean mixed layer model to estimate response of upper ocean. these finding suggest new mechanisms for upper troposphere interacting with surface layers and should have implications in equatorial air-sea exchange parameterizations of coupled atmosphere-ocean global circulation models.a case study on turbulence mixing parameters is also conducted based on fine-scale measurements from a specialized hot-film probe deployed in stably stratified shear flow of abl. direct measurements of mixing coefficient γ – used widely in modeling atmospheric and oceanic flows – demonstrated its dependence on multiple parameters, thus underscoring the challenge of parameterizing turbulent mixing in environmental flows. however, during certain intervals the measurements behaved consistently with past laboratory/numerical experiments, which could be explained using physical arguments. this dissertation studies dissipativity analysis and resilient design for cyber physical systems (cps) when physical entities are interconnected and controlled over communication networks. cps incorporate heterogeneous systems in dynamic environment and provide distributed coordination intelligently. the goal of this work is to develop a compositional control infrastructure that can govern the sub-units' interactions and provide expected control performances for users. in this work, the central concept in the design of cps is the energy based concept of passivity. using passivity and its generalization of dissipativity, we are able to address compositionality and resilience in cps, where resilience refers to the capability for a system to tolerances errors and takes actions when facing model uncertainties, physical disturbances, random faults, communication interference or malicious attacks. this dissertation focus on the following problems: (1) how to quantitatively estimate and analyze the passivity of a plant from its approximate system representation considering model discrepancies; (2) how to design a joint disturbance observer and robust controller facing exogenous uncertainties and adversarial attacks; (3) how to preserve the passive and stable performances of interconnected systems over communication networks; (4) how to analyze dissipativity under a digital control framework for two-dimensional systems. this dissertation addresses complex but common problems in networked cyber physical systems, the solutions of which can benefit practical applications by designing more resilient, efficient and intelligent systems. this thesis deals with the modeling of interference in a uniformly random wireless network with fading. the channel access mechanism considered is slotted aloha, and to obtain a fairly general set of results, the channel fading amplitude is taken to be nakagami-m distributed. under these settings, we obtain a closed-form expression for the moment generating function (mgf) of the interference power. the mgf is used to compute the interference moments, which accurately depict the asymptotic behavior of the network interference as the number of nodes increases. an important application of the interference characterization is the evaluation of the system outage performance.as another application, we study the problem of path loss exponent (ple) estimation in large wireless networks, which is relevant to several important topics in communications such as localization, energy-efficient transmission and handoff initiation in cellular networks. we formulate three different algorithms for ple estimation, each based on a specific network characteristic. we also provide simulation results to demonstrate the performance of the algorithms and quantify the estimation errors. understanding how a polypeptide chain achieves its native fold and the complex interplay between folding and aggregation remains, even after over 40 years, an area of active research. particularly, understanding how large, topologically complex proteins fold and avoid aggregation is crucial for the advancement of the field. this thesis specifically investigates the relationship between folding and aggregation of large, &#946;-sheet rich proteins with complex folding mechanisms with an emphasis on &#946;-helical proteins such as pertactin. while &#946;-sheet rich proteins tend to have slower folding kinetics and increased population of aggregation prone intermediates (1, 2), &#946;-sheet rich proteins can avoid aggregation and robustly fold (3). specifically, &#946;-helical proteins possess structural caps that prevent aggregation that can be identified by our structure-based prediction program, helixcap (4). additionally, aggregation is often viewed as an irreversible fate for folding polypeptides, yet as demonstrated by this work, it can be a dynamic process. during refolding, pertactin forms loose, unstructured transient insoluble aggregates (tia) that disassemble without the aid of molecular chaperones to productively fold to the native state. understanding how proteins assemble into aggregate structures, such as the unstructured tia or the large rope-like fibril aggregates (5) described in this thesis, can lead to controlled assembly for biomaterials applications and/or prevention of unwanted aggregation. reactions during stellar helium burning are of primary importance for understanding nucleosynthesis. a detailed understanding of the critical reaction chain 4he(2&#945;, &#947;)12c(&#945;, &#947;)16o(&#945;, &#947;)20ne is necessary both because it is the primary energy source and because it determines the ratio of 12c to 16o produced, which in turn significantly effects subsequent nucleosynthesis. also during helium burning, the reactions 22ne(&#945;, n)25mg and 22ne(&#945;, &#947;)26mg are crucial in determining the amount of neutrons available for the astrophysical s-process. this thesis presents new experimental results concerning the 16o(&#945;, &#947;)20ne, 22ne(&#945;, n)25mg, and 22ne(&#945;, &#947;)26mg reaction rates. these results are then applied to the calculation of the associated stellar reaction rates in order to achieve better accuracy. in the analysis of the experimental studies reported in this thesis, three light nuclei were investigated via resonance elastic scattering using the thick target inverse kinematics technique (ttik). all of those results were published or submitted to scientific journals. the structure of the unbound proton-rich isotope 19na was studied in resonance elastic scattering of a radioactive 18ne beam on a proton target. the experiment covered the excitation energy range from 0.5 to 2.7 mev in the center-of-mass system. only one state of 19na (the second excited state) was observed. a combined r-matrix and potential model analysis was performed. the spin and parity assignment of this second excited state was confirmed to be 1/2+. it was shown that the position of the 1/2+ state significantly affects the reaction rate through that state, but the total reaction rate remains unchanged since the 18ne(2p,gamma) proceeds mostly via the ground and first excited states in 19na at stellar temperatures. an excitation function of 12n+p was measured in the center of mass energy range of 0.8 2.7 mev. the data were analyzed in the framework of the r-matrix formalism. a spin-parity assignment is given for the first excited state of 13o. an indication of the presence of a new level in 13o at an excitation energy of 3.29 mev, with tentative spin-parity assignment (1/2-, 3/2-), was obtained. the impact of this measurement on the 12n(p,gamma)13o reaction rate is discussed. an excitation function has been measured for 12b+p elastic scattering in the excitation-energy region from 18.5 to 21.0 mev in 13c. five new states were found, and evidence is presented for a t = 3/2 assignment to all of them. no anomalies related to the possible manifestation of t = 1/2 states in the region were observed. the properties of the new states are in reasonably good agreement with shell-model predictions. a comparison with the 13b level scheme shows that even more t = 3/2 states should be present in the region under investigation. the mechanisms of chemically-induced nitritation in biofilm systems were explored using a 1-d model with hydroxylamine (nh2oh) as a case study. replacing conventional nitrification in wastewater treatment processes with nitritation and anammox would reduce both o2 demand and the need for carbon addition. implementing nitritation in a biofilm system would have further benefits due to the high cell density, high solids retention time, and the presence of microenvironments that foster a wider variety of transformations. this research used modeling to explore the potential of nh2oh-induced nitritation in coand counter-diffusional biofilms under mainstream conditions with nh2oh supplied either from the bulk liquid or the base of the biofilm. the results suggested that achieving full nitritation was possible in both coand counter-diffusional biofilms. for co-diffusional biofilms, both supply methods (bulk liquid or the base of the biofilm) were effective at inducing nitritation with low concentrations of nh2oh. however, the retention of a small amount of nob even at high nh2oh concentrations suggests that nitritation could be more easily compromised. for counter-diffusional biofilms, nh2oh supplied from the bulk was unable to induce nitritation, but when supplied from the base it was able to induce nitritation and fully eliminate nob, even at low nh2oh concentrations. hemostasis is maintained by a well-coordinated series of vascular and chemical reactions that regulate the balance between coagulation and fibrinolysis. under certain pathological conditions an exaggerated or insufficiently haemostatic response may lead to a situation in which coagulation/fibrinolysis contribute to disease. in the first part of this work, we undertook a study of the function of fibrinogen (fg) in a murine model of acute inflammation, viz., lipopolysaccharide (lps)-induced lethal endotoxemia. this study demonstrated that mice with a total deficiency of fibrinogen (fg-/-) presented with reduced mortality, coagulation, and inflammatory responses when compared to their wild-type (wt) counterpart. the attenuated inflammatory responses in fg-/mice correlated with a lack of fibrin deposition in organs. inflammatory cells appeared early in the tissues of challenged wt mice, but occurred at later times in fg-/mice. this delayed response in fg-/mice was confirmed by studies that showed a strong dependence on fg for binding of neutrophils to endothelial cells in the presence of lps. inflammatory cytokines were elevated in both genotypes, however their levels were generally lower at early times in fg-/-. therefore, a fg deficiency enhances survival from lethal endotoxemia through attenuation of inflammatory responses that result from reduced leukocyte infiltration to the inflammatory foci, and, from downregulation of chemokine/cytokine expression. our results suggest that fibrin(ogen) plays an important role as an early mediator in the cross-talk between coagulation and inflammation. in the second part of this dissertation, we utilized a biochemical approach to study the role of plasminogen (pg) in the pathogenic mechanisms of group a streptreptococcus (gas). gas is the etiologic agent responsible for a number of human diseases that range from common pharyngitis to severe infections. streptokinase (sk) is a 414 amino acid protein secreted by several streptococcal species, and an efficient activator of pg. interestingly, sk is not an enzyme; it activates pg indirectly by the formation of a 1:1 complex with pg. furthermore, pg activation by sk is highly species specific with activity towards human pg (hpg), but exhibiting no activity against mouse plasminogen (mpg). in an attempt to define which amino acid regions within pg may account for the species specificity of sk, several mutants, and chimeric mouse-human pg constructs were generated. the hpg light chain (hl) was identified as the region responsible for sk sensitivity, specifically the amino acid sequences encoded by exons 16 and 18. in addition, surface plasmon resonance (spr) experiments demonstrated high affinity binding between all pg variants and sk, including mpg, indicating that sk has the ability to form 'catalytic complexes' in a non-species specific manner. however, no active site is formed within the moiety of the activator complex. in summary, we identified the loci within hpg that productively interacts with sk. the data generated herein presents novel insights for the understanding of the activation mechanism of hpg by sk. let g be a connected linear algebraic group acting on a smooth complex variety x with finitely many orbits. in this case, the category of g-equivariant d-modules is equivalent to the category of finite dimensional representations of a quiver with relations, and one may take advantage of this structure to study the local cohomology modules with support in the g-stable subvarieties of x.this thesis is dedicated to investigating categories of g-equivariant d-modules and local cohomology on vinberg representations, i.e. when x is an irreducible representation of g, thought of as an affine space, and g is reductive. such representations have been classified, and correspond to a choice of dynkin diagram and vertex.when x is the space of 2x2x2 hypermatrices endowed with the natural action of g= gl_2 x gl_2 x gl_2, or when x is the space of alternating senary 3-tensors endowed with the natural action of g=gl_6, our analysis entails: classifying and explicitly realizing the simple equivariant d-modules, and determining the corresponding quiver with relations. the latter case is joint work with andrás c. lőrincz. as an application, we calculate local cohomology with support in the orbit closures, and obtain the lyubeznik numbers.in another direction, we determine the d-module structure of local cohomology with support in pfaffian varieties, in which case the simple composition factors were known by past work of raicu-weyman. this information, combined with careful use of graded local duality allows us to calculate the lyubeznik numbers for pfaffian varieties. a major step in this work is our computations of ext^j_s(s/i,s), where s is the coordinate ring of the space of skew-symmetric matrices and i is a g-invariant ideal. as another application of these ext results, we determine the castelnuovo-mumford regularity of powers and symbolic powers of ideals of pfaffians. a low temperature, high magnetic field, ultra high vacuum scanning tunneling microscope has been constructed. such an environment places many constraints upon the design of the instrument, but also allows the study of many exotic phenomena, in particular superconductivity. the low temperatures permit high energy resolution, and the high field allows access to novel material phases. we have leveraged the rare ability to optically access the tunnel junction in order to study materials that are only available in very small sizes. such samples would be difficult to study in many other low temperature systems. we have recorded the first superconducting spectroscopy in cecoin5 in the <100> direction. cecoin5 shows a rich interplay of magnetism and superconductivity. the nodal direction has been confirmed, and evidence for multiband superconductivity is presented. we have also tunneled into the meissner rim of mgb2 and observed the effect of a transverse current on the spectroscopy. the new stm has demonstrated its ability to measure novel materials in difficult configurations at low temperature. bacterial surfaces are capable of adsorbing large quantities of metals, and are thought to partly control the distribution, fate, and bioavialability of metals in near-surface geologic systems. geochemical models have been employed that are capable of predicting the extents of metal adsorption onto specific bacterial species under laboratory conditions. however, our ability to extrapolate these models to predict the distribution and fate of metals in realistic geologic systems is limited. this dissertation presents the work of a number of closely linked, but individual studies that attempt to quantitatively describe the adsorption reactions on bacterial surfaces so that we can predict the extent and importance of these reactions in geologic systems. this dissertation is the synthesis of more than 300 individual experiments (batch adsorption experiments, potentiometric titrations, chemotaxis experiments, etc.) and corresponding surface complexation models and modeling parameters that test the following questions: (ch. 2) are modeling parameters developed from laboratory experiments conducted using bacteria treated with acid similar to those for bacteria in natural (non-acid treated) systems? (ch. 3 & 4) do consortia of bacteria from natural and contaminated systems exhibit universal adsorption behavior? (ch. 5) how will salt concentration affect the adsorption behavior of bacteria over the ionic strength ranges found in natural systems? (ch. 6) can adsorption models be used to predict bacterial chemotaxis in complex multicomponent systems? the results from these studies demonstrate that (ch. 2) acidic solutions can damage the bacterial surface by displacing structurally bound mg and ca, (ch. 3 & 4) consortia of bacteria from uncontaminated environments exhibit similar extents of cd adsorption, while consortia of bacteria from contaminated environments adsorb cd to much greater extents, (ch. 5) ionic strength has a negligible impact on the adsorption of protons, cd, and pb onto bacterial surfaces, and (ch. 6) adsorption reactions can control bacterial chemotactic responses and chemical equilibrium models can be used to predict these responses in multicomponent systems. these studies are successful in bringing us closer than ever before to predicting the true extent of bacterial surface adsorption reactions in real systems. voltage scaling is an important factor in device miniaturization that leads to reduction in power consumption. tunnel field-effect transistors (tfets) are attractive candidates to overcome this fundamental limitation of the mosfet. atomically-thin two-dimensional semiconductors present new opportunities for minimizing transistor channel thickness and improving gate efficiency. the epitaxy of two-dimensional materials has been advanced in the past 5 years to enable device research to move from exfoliated to grown channels, from customized electron beam patterning to stepper lithography, from back gates to deposited top gate dielectrics, and from single device processes to full batch processes. the aim of this research has been to utilize synthesized wse2, a transition metal dichalcogenide (tmd), as a fet channel material and to develop a tfet fabrication process. a stepper-based process has been demonstrated for fabricating wse2-on-sapphire fets with 3-4 monolayer channel thicknesses. the wse2 was grown by collaborators from penn state university by metal organic chemical vapor deposition (mocvd). the development of a device process based on these materials has allowed wafer scale batch fabrication of 2d transistors for the first time and characterization of transport across centimeter scale sapphire substrates. this research has found solutions across a wide range of technical challenges. methods for gate stack nucleation were developed to deposit gate dielectrics on wse2 channels. the gate dielectric was nucleated using low temperature atomic layer deposition (ald) of al2o3 at 110° c to initiate layer formation, followed by al2o3 at 200° c to complete the dielectric. the fet gate stacks were pinhole free yielding leakage current density of less than 0.1 fa/μm2 at 1 v and an equivalent oxide thickness (eot) of 4.8 nm (physical thickness of 11 nm). in contrast to conventional semiconductor processing, contact adhesion is an important consideration. contacts must generally be anchored to the substrate and the contacts themselves must not have inherent strain as this can then delaminate the 2d material. methods for forming junctions and doping are also required. for this, electric double layer (edl) doping of wse2 channels has been utilized using polyethylene oxide: cesium perchlorate (peo:csclo4) and side gates. use of these doping schemes required development of measurement protocols to establish measurement repeatability and enable the exploration of n-fets, p-fets and tfets. in the past decade democracies across the world have eroded. democratically elected presidents have used their popularity to introduce constitutional amendments that over time destroy the system of checks and balances and hinder free and fair elections. some of these presidents have eroded democracy. despite similarities, others, however, have not been able to do the same. why some presidents are able to erode democracy while others are not? in order to answer that question, i conceptualize the erosion of democracy in two stages. the first focuses on the likelihood of electing presidents with hegemonic aspirations. the second focuses on the circumstances that allow or prevent these presidents from eroding democracy. using a dataset with information on constitutional amendments introduced by democratically elected latin american presidents, i show that economic crises, inchoate party systems, and weak states increase the likelihood of electing hegemonic leaders, but cannot predict whether they succeed or fail in their attempts to erode democracy. in order to assess that, the outcome of the second stage, i focus on the opposition. because democratic erosion happens gradually, the opposition has many opportunities to respond. its strategies and goals, i argue, are critical to understand why some presidents successfully undermine democracy, while others fail. using comparative historical analysis focusing on the cases of alvaro uribe (colombia) and hugo chávez (venezuela), i show that when the opposition uses extra-institutional strategies with radical goals, it provides the president with "legitimate" reasons to remove opposition leaders from office, prosecute, and jail them, allowing him to push for more aggressive reforms that –without presence congress or the courts—the opposition cannot stop. conversely, when the opposition uses institutional strategies or extra-institutional strategies with moderate goals, it keeps a presence in the legislature and slows down the government's cooptation of courts and oversight agencies, thus reducing the likelihood that the president will have the institutional control needed to pass more aggressive reforms. the canonical wnt/ìäå_ìâå_-catenin signaling is involved in the remodeling of epithelial tissue during early embryonic development. an essential component of the canonical wnt pathway is ìäå_ìâå_-catenin, whose dual role in the cell allows it to function either as a bridge between cadherins and the actin cytoskeleton at the adherens junctions, or as a transcriptional transactivator of wnt target genes when bound to lymphoid enhancer factor (lef)/ t-cell factor (tcf) family of transcription factors. the dual function ìäå_ìâå_-catenin in cell adhesion and transcription is tightly regulated in vertebrates in order to maintain a balanced level of canonical wnt signaling. deregulation of this conserved developmental pathway is frequently associated with disease, especially in pre-malignant lesions and metastatic disease. in this research dissertation, a novel role for the arf6 gtpase in the regulation of wnt/ìäå_ìâå_-catenin signaling via its effect on the turnover of adhesion molecules in madin-darby canine kidney (mdck) epithelial cells, is demonstrated. activation of arf6 during canonical wnt signaling led to intracellular accumulation of pools of active ìäå_ìâå_-catenin by promoting e-cadherin endocytosis and triggering an intracellular erk-ck2 signaling cascade that results in the dissociation of ìäå_ìâå_-catenin from ìäå_ìâå±-catenin complexes. the contribution of membrane bound ìäå_ìâå_-catenin to transcription initiation was based on the presence of n-terminally dephosphorylated ìäå_ìâå_-catenin, which has been shown to mediate ìäå_ìâå_-catenin transactivation. furthermore, erk phosphorylates lrp6 to amplify the wnt transduction pathway. wnt/ìäå_ìâå_-catenin signaling also initiated a proliferation response that correlated with the luminal filling of epithelial glandular structures. sustained proliferation of cells may be facilitated by arf6-dependent endocytosis of the lrp6 receptor and erk kinase. furthermore, we showed that the erk-ck2 signaling cascade mediates the proliferation response that sustains luminal filling in cysts and acinar structures. finally, the identification of consensus sites for interaction with transcription factors regulated by wnt in the arf6 promoter is indicative of potential transcriptional control by signaling pathways that contribute to epithelial-mesenchymal transitions. in summary, this study identifies arf6 as a new target of wnt/ìäå_ìâå_-catenin activation with a therapeutic potential in pre-invasive lesions of glandular epithelial tissue. humans have altered the environment such that pristine, non-impacted ecosystems arguably no longer exist. to prevent further environmental degradation, human actions need to be assessed proactively, and those which pose too great a risk to human or environmental health altered. the importance of proactive science is especially true with the development of new chemical technologies. 'green' chemicals are those that minimize waste, maximize efficiency, and/or reduce toxicity; an emerging group of such green chemicals are room-temperature ionic liquids (ils), which are under development to replace traditional volatile organic solvents. ils clearly improve upon volatile solvents in many industrial processes, however their potential for negative effects if released into aquatic environments remains largely unknown. my overall research objective was to evaluate the hazards posed by ils to freshwater planktonic communities, and to explore how proactive evaluation of these hazards could generate environmentally safer chemicals. in laboratory experiments, i tested the effects of 1-butyl-, 1-hexyl-, and 1-octyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide on freshwater phytoplankton growth demonstrated that increasing alkyl-chain length on an il increases its toxicity, and that the presence of replete nutrients can mitigate the toxic effects of ils to phytoplankton, specifically chlamydomonas reinhardtii. further, the feeding rates of the zooplanktor daphnia magna on the phytoplanktor c. reinhardtii were found to increase in the presence of two different ils under relatively constant exposures, while a short, 24-h pulse exposure had minimal long-term effects on feeding. these results were combined with those of other studies to develop a mathematical model demonstrating the effects of both chemical (ils) and biological (invasive species) stressors on a simple aquatic community. interval analysis and monte carlo techniques were used to examine the effects of data variability on model projections, and showed that variation in c. reinhardtii growth rates had larger effects on model outcomes than that of d. magna feeding rates. overall, my research has demonstrated the importance of environmental conditions, species interactions, and exposure types on il impacts, and highlights the need to explicitly include ecology in the toxicological evaluations of chemicals. this research can help guide the development of ils towards effective, efficient, and most importantly, greener alternatives. this thesis focuses on the inability of the united nations security council to address an issue of international peace and security in the presence of a veto cast by a permanent member. in particular, we identify the conditions under which the un security council becomes "paralyzed" because of the veto power and analyze how draft resolutions develop after being vetoed. we identify the total of four post-veto scenarios that allow to trace the development of these vetoed draft resolutions, fully investigating the first post-veto scenario: a previously vetoed draft resolution becomes adopted by the un security council, but its text does not contain any points that would provoke a negative reaction of a vetoer. however, we also note that there are agreements, and thus we are interested in how they have come about. in the next section, the concept of post-veto scenarios is discussed in details. the thesis proceeds as follows. chapter 1 analyzes all the twelve draft resolutions vetoed by russia and china regarding the crisis in syria, along with relevant security council meeting records. in chapter 2 we cover all the documents the un security council agreed on with the purpose of addressing the syrian crisis. chapter 3 examines the first post-veto scenario involving the adoption of a "weaker" resolution instead of a vetoed one in the un security council. lastly, we conclude with final remarks. this dissertation describes the development of a new type of friction damper for unbonded post-tensioned precast concrete building moment frame structures in seismic regions. previous research has shown that these structures have desirable seismic characteristics such as a self-centering capability and an ability to undergo large nonlinear lateral displacements without significant damage; however, the displacements during an earthquake may be larger than acceptable as a result of small energy dissipation. to reduce the seismic displacement demands, the proposed friction dampers are placed at selected beam ends of a frame, and dissipate energy through the displacements that occur as a result of gap opening between the beam and column members. large scale beam-column subassemblies are tested under pseudo-static cyclic lateral loading with the following varied parameters: damper normal force, type of friction interface, area and initial stress of beam post-tensioning steel, and beam depth. in addition, dynamic loading experiments are conducted on isolated dampers to investigate the effects of displacement rate and slip amplitude on damper behavior. the experiments show that the dampers can provide a significant amount of supplemental energy dissipation at the beam ends, while the self-centering capability of the structure is preserved. the results from the experimental program are used to validate analytical models for the dampers as well as for beam-column subassemblies without and with dampers. then, the subassembly models are extended to the modeling of multi-story moment frames.a seismic design procedure is developed to determine the damper forces and post-tensioning steel areas needed to satisfy prescribed lateral strength, energy dissipation, and lateral drift requirements for a frame under earthquake loading. the proposed design procedure is critically evaluated based on nonlinear static lateral load analyses and dynamic time-history analyses of prototype friction-damped precast concrete frame structures. comparisons of the prototype structures with structures that use only mild steel reinforcement crossing the beam-column joints as well as structures that use only post-tensioning steel and structures that use combinations of mild steel and post-tensioning steel are also provided. the results demonstrate that friction-damped unbonded post-tensioned precast concrete frame structures constitute a viable and competitive system for seismic regions. the notion of 'anomaly' has persisted for over 2,000 years, but its precise meaning and significance remains unclear. this dissertation analyzes the importance of scientific anomaly both for the philosophy of science and for ethical decision-making that draws on scientific information. in the philosophy of science, it develops a novel account of anomaly. it first provides a conceptual framework for describing anomalies and critically evaluates previous descriptions by karl popper, thomas kuhn, imre lakatos, larry laudan, and lindley darden. using the anomalous contemporary biological phenomenon known as 'chemical hormesis' (i.e., beneficial effects from low doses of toxins) as a case study, the dissertation argues for a novel account that emphasizes three features of anomaly. namely, researchers 'characterize' anomalies in multiple ways, scientists use multiple strategies to 'confirm' them, and anomalies interact with novel hypotheses in an ongoing, dialectical fashion. the dissertation argues that this account is significant because it facilitates increased understanding of scientific discovery and of the role that value judgments play in science. the ethical component of the dissertation analyzes the ethical ramifications both of the hormesis case in particular and of policy-relevant anomalies in general. concerning the hormesis case, it argues that current evidence for the anomaly does not provide adequate reason to alter regulatory policy. in the process, the dissertation contributes to metaethics by developing a novel formulation of the naturalistic fallacy and by clarifying its relation to the is/ought distinction. regarding scientific anomaly in general, the dissertation argues that researchers and policymakers have an ethical responsibility to take reasonable steps to identify, reveal, and provide representative information about all major, plausible characterizations of scientific anomalies to the public or its representatives. this study suggests three rules of thumb (namely, analysis of anomalies via analytic-deliberative processes, elimination and disclosure of conflicts of interest, and research-ethics education on scientists' social responsibilities) to help researchers meet their ethical responsibilities with respect to anomalies. the dissertation as a whole illustrates how the philosophy of science can contribute not only to greater understanding of scientific reasoning but also to ethical insights for using scientific knowledge. the availability and effectiveness of rapidly deployable bridging systems are critical for the survival of military personnel and those affected by natural disasters. in response to the increasing demand for improved systems, the engineer research and development center has designed the lightweight modular causeway system, which possesses great improvements over current systems. however, an existing challenge is the weight and complexity of steel hinges between the aluminum modules. to eliminate these, this design has been re-conceptualized so that a desired superstructure flexibility is achieved. multi-objective optimization for a minimum self-weight and moment of inertia was implemented to design an efficient cross section that conforms to the desired curvature and other structural and geometric specifications using simulated annealing. this thesis will review existing deployable bridge and causeway systems, present this re-conceptualization, discuss the implementation of optimization to achieve this new design, and finally discuss conclusions and future work. new data collection methods like smartphone applications afford researchers the opportunity to study intra-individual differences with finer details. data from these types of studies are intensive longitudinal data or time series data. analyzing such data is more challenging than analyzing the usual data collected from different individuals because data are dependent at adjacent time points. in addition, some routinely collected intensive longitudinal data are non-normal. p-technique factor analysis is a factor analysis model with time series data. the current methods for testing p-technique factor analysis are inappropriate because they ignore the dependence at adjacent time points. we propose using a bootstrapping procedure to account for the dependency of adjacent time points. in addition, the method is robust against non-normal distributions. the method is an adaptation of the asymptotic distribution-free test proposed in [browne 1984]. we illustrate the test with an empirical study and explore its statistical properties with simulated data. advances in nanofabrication techniques have enabled construction of sophisticated nanoscale architectures, which allows electrochemical measurements in low dimensional nanostructures that have the capability to illuminate electrochemical phenomena in a unique way, especially compared to conventional macroscopic electrochemistry which relies on bulk diffusion. in particular, nanopore electrode arrays (neas), which are composed of a set of ring/disk nanoelectrodes in cylindrical or conical nanopores, is a useful architecture to investigate a number of interesting nanoelectrochemical characteristics in confined volumes, typ. 10-18 l, such as ion/molecular transport behavior and electrochemical kinetics. also, this small confined volume makes it possible to explore the dynamics of chemical reactions involving a single or a few molecules. the work in this dissertation addresses three main topics: the development of massively parallel neas for selective ion/molecular transport control, sensitive electrochemical detection, and spectroelectrochemical single enzyme molecule studies in nanoconfined geometries.the first topic focuses on the demonstration of biomimetic ion gating in block copolymer (bcp)-coated neas in response to external stimuli, such as ph and ionic charge state. the structures consist of a ph-responsive, charge-selective dual-gating bcp membrane, capable of self-organizing into highly ordered nanocylindrical domains. introducing the bcp membrane onto neas allows the bcp to serve as a ph-gate, controlling ion transfer into the nanopores, because it exhibits ph-dependent structural transitions, i.e., being positively-charged, hydrophilic, and swollen at ph values below pka of the bcp, but charge-neutral, hydrophobic, and collapsed structures at ph &gt; pka. these structural properties support on-off transport switching at ph values near the pka with excellent anion permselectivity membrane at ph &lt; pka. redox species are charge-selectively transported through the bcp membrane into neas where they can then be sensitively detected by electrochemical signal amplification by redox cycling at 100 nm gap dual-ring nanoelectrodes.extending this concept, the second topic addresses the active control of mass transport based on electrowetting in the bcp membrane when formed at an nea surface. potential-induced wetting and dewetting behavior is characterized in ph-responsive bcp membranes fabricated in hierarchically-organized structures on neas. in these structures the bcp blocks mass transport across the hydrophobic bcp at ph &gt; pka, while it acts as an anion exchange membrane at ph &lt; pka. interestingly, however, mass transport across the hydrophobic bcp nanochannels at ph &gt; pka, is switched on by sufficiently negative potentials applied across the bcp membrane, resulting in the electrolyte solution being introduced into, and then isolated in, the nanopores. the potential-induced wetting and dewetting transitions and their effect on voltammetric response in the bcp and nea structures are characterized as a function of potential, ph, and ionic strength. in addition, chronoamperometry and redox cycling are used to further characterize the potential response.in the third topic, neas are used in a bifunctional zero mode waveguide (zmw) configuration that combines electrochemistry with spectroscopy for single enzyme molecule studies. the potential-dependent fluorescence dynamics of single glutathione reductase (gr) molecules are investigated in an electrochemical zmw, where a single au ring electrode embedded in each nanopore simultaneously serves to control electrochemical potential and to confine electromagnetic radiation in a zeptoliter-scale observation volume within the nanopores. the redox state of gr and its response to the enzyme substrate is monitored at single molecule level by correlating electrochemical and spectroscopic signals under external potential control in the presence of a redox mediator. this dissertation focuses on the overlooked, yet central, role of scientific innovation in and the adoption of aristotelian philosophy in the reading and devotional practices of multilingual and multicultural of late medieval england. challenging both the triumphalist narrative of the rise of the english language and characterizations of medieval women as isolated from contemporary intellectual debates, this dissertation argues that readers, writers, and artists exploited multilingual literary traditions and the visual arts to expand the role of readers as powerfully autonomous agents in the production of self-identity. each chapter of this project uses a manuscript of a popular vernacular text—ancrene wisse, robert grosseteste's chasteau d'amour, the miroir de seinte egylse, and the enfaunces de jesu crist—as a site for which to approach the ways in which optics and the image were used as a means for exploring the creation of the self and its relationship to various communities, arguing that visual epistemologies were at the heart of vernacular literate experience. this research thus builds upon recent work on medieval theories of cognition and optics, as well as object studies and analyses of power structures and visual / textual discourse and practice. taking up questions of knowledge and technology through an investigation of the visual epistemologies produced by the dialogic relationship between text, image, production and reception. this dissertation contributes to current work exploring the interactions of language and culture in the thirteenth century, text and image in medieval culture, the history of the book, and cognitive studies. in bringing together material culture, religious practice, and the history of science, the project revisions intellectual, social, and aesthetic networks, and traces a complex network of readers, artists, and objects who have largely been overlooked by contemporary scholarship. the result is an expansion of our understanding of the sophisticated and varied interests of the thirteenth century, and thus a clearer picture of the epistemological practices upon which later medieval english literature was built. this dissertation examines the role that religious ritual played in basic christian instruction during the early middle ages. it studies how rituals of instruction transformed in the latin west between late antiquity and the early medieval world, and how these rituals contributed to the larger christianization of society. the dissertation makes two main arguments. first, that as the patristic catechumenate declined, the festivals of rogationtide and lent altered in order to provide a new space for christian formation. early medieval christianity inculcated and transmitted its doctrines and practices in a radically different social and political world than christianity's mediterranean homeland. the medieval clergy, thus, had to adapt the ritual framework of instruction to respond pastorally to the new social context of their age. secondly, that these changes in the context of instruction led to new emphases in the content of instruction itself. in particular, communal, sacramental, and moral norms gradually replaced doctrine and individual spirituality as the focuses of instruction. rituals of basic instruction, like rogationtide and lent, helped to form the local communities of the latin west. contesting the interpretation of these festivals allowed people in the middle ages to provide competing visions of how the community should be structured. the recitation of the lord's prayer, in particular, became the unifying ritual act of christendom, invoked as a text of ritual power by all ranks in society. yet, even as christian instruction transformed between antiquity and the middle ages, deep continuities remained. this dissertation devotes particular attention to preaching and teaching on the lord's prayer and creed during the early middle ages and to evidence for the usage of these two texts in popular practices. the lord's prayer and creed, however, serve only as two useful lenses through which christianization and instruction can be evaluated. christian formation always involved much more than just the teaching of these two texts. medieval law, theological treatises, narrative sources, sermons, and liturgy are all essential sources testifying to developments in the social and religious position of basic instruction across the early medieval latin west. the gulf of mexico experiences a range of energetic flows throughout its complex bathymetry and topography. tides in the gulf of mexico are modestly energetic processes whereas hurricane surge and wave environments are enormously energetic. high river discharges in the mississippi river pose flooding risks to regions in both the mississippi and atchafalaya river basins. hurricanes in southeastern louisiana develop significant surges along the lower mississippi river levees. storms with strong sustained easterly winds push water into shallow breton sound, overtop the river's east bank south of pointe a la hache, penetrate into the river, and are confined by levees on the west bank. this dissertation applies the high-resolution, unstructured-mesh, wave-current swan+adcirc model to examine river flows and water levels in the mississippi and atchafalaya rivers. model development extends to surge characteristics during hurricane events within the mississippi river. a river velocity regime-based variation in bottom friction and a temporally-varying riverine flux-driven radiation boundary condition are applied. the coupled modeling system is validated for riverine stages and flow distributions, tides and historical hurricanes katrina (2005), gustav (2008) and ike (2008). this dissertation investigates the effects of topographical details and bottom friction formulations on tidal and hurricane surge processes at the basin, shelf, wetland, and coastal channel scales within the gulf of mexico. the unstructured coupled wind-wave and circulation modeling system, swan+adcirc, is implemented to generate modeled tidal harmonic constituents, and hurricane wave and surge characteristics for a hurricane ike wind forcing. low-lying near-shore coastal features are shown to impact tidal flows in the gulf region, while use of a lower limit on bottom friction is shown to directly impact hurricane surge water levels and currents. this paper investigated the impact of maternal attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (adhd) symptoms (i.e., inattention, hyperactivity), comorbid oppositional defiant (od) behaviors, and depressive symptoms on several dimensions of parenting. 107 mothers at-risk for adhd completed self-report questionnaires assessing their current adhd, od behaviors, and depressive symptoms and parenting behaviors. hierarchical regression analyses were conducted with established predictors of parenting on step 1 (maternal depression and adhd; child aggressive behavior) and maternal od behaviors on step 2. analyses revealed that od behaviors and adhd symptoms predicted several domains of parenting. od behaviors accounted for significant variance in parenting even after controlling for maternal depression and relevant child factors. our findings suggest that maternal od behaviors should be considered in future studies of parental adhd, indicate od behaviors may affect functioning for some adults, and have implications for the foci of future interventions for parents with adhd. the main theme of research on development and economic growth is to explain why some countries are richer than others, and potentially determine the possible ways to bring living standards in poor countries closer to those in the wealthier ones. one stylized fact in development economics is that a large share of the labor force in developing countries is concentrated in agriculture even though their agricultural productivity is much lower than their non-agricultural productivity. thus, increasing agricultural productivity and shifting labor out of agriculture into a more productive sector are crucial for economic development. the three chapters of this dissertation explore the conditions and policies that facilitate these two strategies. the first chapter examines the impact of land rights on the adoption of agricultural technology. adopting improved seed varieties has substantially ensured food security and helped farmers transition out of poverty. however, the level of adoption is still quite low in many developing countries. therefore, it is important to understand how well-defined land rights can help encourage farmers to adopt this technology. the second chapter investigates the effect of land titling on employment migration and education migration of rural households as land market frictions can hinder labor mobility in developing countries. it also explores the heterogeneous effects across wealth distribution, types of migration, age, and gender, and sheds light on the channels through which improved land rights can affect household migration decisions. the last chapter studies the role of international trade on labor reallocation to explain industrialization patterns in recently developed and developing countries. my hypothesis is that it is easier for the late developers to trade, thus countries that do not have comparative advantage in manufacturing tend to be less focused on growing the manufacturing sector and lean more towards importing the manufacturing goods they need. this doctoral dissertation focuses on the declining optimism regarding the emancipatory potential of politics within the tradition of cultural critique. in order to examine this transformation, i investigate the relationship between subjectivity, or the modern conception of the person, and internalization, whereby people discipline themselves given modern practices and beliefs, in the work of rousseau, nietzsche, max horkheimer and theodor adorno of the frankfurt school, and foucault. widely read as critics of the culture of their time, each one of these thinkers articulates in different ways that the mechanism or underlying logic whereby civilization comes to fruition is also the same logic that leads to its demise. in each of these accounts, the emergence of subjectivity is co-extensive with the internalization of some ultimately self-denying custom or belief, be it vain social standards (rousseau, christianity (nietzsche), late capitalist ideology (adorno and horkheimer), or disciplinary norms (foucault). within these four critiques, however, i look to the changing role of politics and its relationship to salvation from the ills of society. what results is a complete reversal in the emancipatory capacity of politics: for rousseau, politics in the social contract is meant to mitigate and ameliorate the ills of society. in nietzsche, however, the promise of politics becomes much more ambiguous, given the experimental nature of his 'philosophers of the future.' the frankfurt school offers an apolitical hope for emancipation from the ills of society: namely, retreating into abstract art as the last refuge of political resistance. finally, foucault articulates how power operates through language, knowledge and social practices and on these grounds outlines a specifically anti-political protest within these power structures themselves. given these four thinkers' critiques of culture, three intertwined historical themes arise which occur simultaneously. first, from rousseau to foucault there is a decline in optimism with respect to the possibility of politics being a vehicle of liberation. second, there is a diminishing perceived possibility for originality or authenticity on the part of the individual vis-à-vis society from rousseau to foucault. third, there is a deepening articulation of the mechanism by which people are dominated, also beginning in rousseau and culminating in foucault's bio-politics. by bringing out how each author articulates these themes in terms of how we lose sight of what we internalize, this dissertation does not only to connect these thinkers in a way that other interlocutors have not before, but also to reestablish the centrality of this concept in modern political theorizing. water quality is critical for developing urban areas, industry, and agriculture worldwide. despite recent advances in water quality monitoring and management, inadequate water quality in many contexts remains a global challenge. for example, it is estimated that consuming wastewater contaminated water leads to 9.1% of the global burden of disease and 6.3% of all deaths per year globally. in addition, inadequate water supply has increased the focus on water quality due to greater reliance on impacted water sources, demonstrating the need for tools to accurately assess pathogen removal and wastewater treatment efficacy. developing monitoring tools for disease-causing microbes in water is critical to addressing these global challenges.an initial effort in this work was made to monitor water quality by evaluating the performance of viral fecal pollution indicators during wastewater treatment. fecal indicator bacteria, e. coli and enterococci, and fecal indicator virus, somatic coliphage, were quantified via culture to evaluate their removal through an activated sludge wastewater treatment plant. at the same time, microbial source tracking (mst) methods were used to quantify fecal indicator viruses, namely the recently discovered human gut bacteriophage crassphage (cross-assembly phage), and common human viral pathogens human adenovirus (hadv), and human polyomavirus (hpyv) and the bacterial assay hf183/bacr287 in the same wastewater treatment process. additional follow-on efforts were made to investigate the fate of bacterial 16s rrna genes, mobile integron (intl1) and antibiotic resistance genes (args; sul1, sul2, teto, tetw, and ermf) through the wastewater treatment processes. in addition to this work, the fate of all these indicators were evaluated during anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge resulting from the treatment process. crassphage has the potential to serve as a surrogate as human-specific pathogens removal through wastewater treatment process including anaerobic digestion.traditional pathogen identification has relied on culture-based methods that can only identify a limited subset of possible pathogens. metagenomic dna/rna sequencing has the potential to identify many microorganisms present in a sample with a single measurement, providing more comprehensive water quality assessment; however, significant challenges remain to make metagenomic methods quantitative and actionable. one of these challenges with metagenomics analysis is the connection between observed sequences and detection assays dependent on pcr amplification. a bioinformatics tool has been developed to predict polymerase chain reaction (pcr) products directly using metagenomics constructed contigs and targeting primers as input. finally, while targets can be detected by both metagenomic and pcr methods, pcr methods identify targets as concentration of gene copy per volume (absolute abundance), which is necessary for public health applications. conversely for metagenomics methods, targets are presented as percentage of targeted sequences counts in total sequences counts (relative abundance). it is essential to bridge relative abundance metagenomic virus identifications to quantitative (i.e., per volume) virus identifications. subsequently, i developed a tool to convert between these disparate measurements.ultimately, my dissertation work advances water quality monitoring by demonstrating novel indicator performance through wastewater treatment processes, and methodologies to enable quantitative metagenomic water quality monitoring. wage discrimination reduces the wages of groups subject to discrimination. its effect on the wages of groups not subject to discrimination is less obvious. a powerful effect on one group in a work relationship could likely affect the other members of the relationship. this study explores the effect of wage discrimination on the wages of managers and coworkers not targeted for discrimination. existing theories of discrimination predict disparate effects on the wages of the managers and coworkers of workers targeted for discrimination. this study develops models in which managers' tastes cause discrimination. the models predict that as managers' taste for discrimination rises, the wage gap rises, and managers' pay falls. discrimination hurts profits, but managers are willing to pay for it, making up for the losses in order to be allowed to hire fewer workers from groups they dislike. i test this theory against other theories using data about sex and race discrimination. using 2000 census data to measure the wage discrimination against female non-managerial workers by oaxaca decomposition, i find that for every one percent discriminatory decrease in the wages of female non-managerial workers, the wages of managers fall by 0.531%. this is consistent with the model of manager discrimination. i also find that a one percent discriminatory decrease in female wages leads to a 0.227% decrease in the wages of their male coworkers in the same geographic area. this is not consistent with the basic model, although it could be explained by extensions to the model. in the context of the race wage gap, i find the opposite effect for managers: when the unexplained wage gap increases by 1%, manager wages rise by 0.196% (significant at the 99% confidence level). these results, taken together, suggest that while a model of manager taste discrimination may explain some of wage discrimination based on sex, race wage discrimination needs another explanation, perhaps statistical discrimination. the findings on race wage discrimination are inconsistent with a model that rogue managers produce the wage gap by gratifying their own tastes in opposition to corporate interests. this dissertation offers an account of religious actors in situations of duress. the thesis is that the kinds of actions performed by war-torn communities in colombia, south america, indicate a kind of agency that is undertheorized in peace studies but that can be illuminated by theology in a way that contributes to peace studies. it argues that messianic theology is the best theoretical framework for illuminating peacebuilding agents under duress, like the featured communities. after all, their practices are subaltern, vulnerable, and transformative. moreover, moral judgment is key for neutralizing and counteracting crisis.the communities live in a world at war and experience time in ways that enable and mandate their agency of witness in situations of overt violence—independent of state power. they therefore seem to vindicate john howard yoder's theopolitical messianic vision, which now appears ambivalent. this dissertation engages yoder in a critical manner.gustavo gutierrez suggests that a messianic orientation conditions participation in linear (state-oriented) processes and contributes "to the nations" accordingly. this is because, for gutierrez, there is much still to come in the messianic breaks. they set gradual eschatological processes in motion. in contrast with the messianic ruptures, movement toward wholeness requires engaging institutions and epistemic "others" in gradual time.the interplay of the two eschatologies—messianic and gradual—grounds a flexible framework for peacebuilding that allows for change and variance in context. a key contribution is the framework's flexible account of the state, attuned to debates about the emergence of the "religion" and "the state." this dissertation testifies to multiple forms of power, freedom, and agency contributing to peace, and the moral worlds embedded therein. foregrounding the entanglements of both theological and political worlds has the potential to make peacebuilding more strategic. with the proliferation of vehicle-to-everything (v2x) technologies, a number of novel use cases for enhanced road safety are emerging. a typical application utilizing this technology is the protection of vulnerable road participants such as pedestrians or cyclists. in this dissertation, a real-time notification system is presented to enhance and improve the safety and user experience of vulnerable road participants. the proposed technology utilizes hybrid communications capabilities (among road participants and between road participants and edge computers), advanced machine learning based movement prediction, and edge computing principles to deliver a cross-platform solution with real-time efficiency. to achieve this goal, this research work focuses on solving three major challenges: first, utilize multiple wireless communication technologies in a hybrid network environment to allow data sharing among different hardware platforms and user groups; second, effectively identify and predict high-risk traffic events using advanced machine learning techniques based on historical data and user profiles; finally, leverage state-of-the-art edge computing framework to efficiently distribute the computing workload and minimize latencies. the performance of the proposed system is evaluated using simulation methods as well as case studies on the real-world testbed. electric vehicles (evs) are gaining in popularity due to their many advantages over conventional drive trains. however, it has been shown that the driving range of evs is notoriously sensitive to environmental conditions, especially wind conditions and street surface properties. in this thesis, we present a novel approach to assessing these critical environmental conditions without relying on physical sensors. the proposed approach employs distributed estimation in networked vehicles to estimate parameters that characterize the ev's environmental conditions which impact the range of the ev. the parameters to be estimated are the highly uncertain quantities such as wind speed and rolling resistance. in essence, our approach employs the ev's as sensors. key to this approach is the set-membership filtering (smf) method, which is quite different from the traditional adaptive filtering methods. the smf aims to meet a specification on the magnitude of the filtering errors, instead of minimizing the time average or ensemble average of the squared filtering errors. moreover, the smf algorithms feature a data-dependent selective update of parameter estimates, which proves to be more effective in estimating the environmental parameters of networked vehicles. the estimation schemes developed here use a vehicle longitudinal model and commonly available vehicle sensor signals. simulations are performed to demonstrate the advantages of the proposed algorithms in terms of computational complexity, residual parameter uncertainties, and steady-state mean-squared errors in comparison to existing algorithms.in the second part of the thesis, we use the estimated parameters to propose energy-optimal speed trajectories in typical urban driving situations, i.e., from stop-to-stop that minimize energy usage in ev's. it has been shown that, energy savings up to 80% are achievable if the information about traffic flow and vehicle parameter set is known. in the proposed optimization algorithm, transportation energy is the only term in the cost function and all other conditions such as acceleration and average speed only appear as constraints. mainly, the effect of the powertrain efficiency map on energy optimal speed trajectories is investigated. a variety of different efficiency maps are explored and the energy optimization process is carried out. in addition, the impact that vehicle and segment parameters as well as average speeds have on the savings are explored. it is shown that while the efficiency maps can have a significant impact on the overall transportation energy, they have little impact on the shape of the optimal speed profiles. this shows the robustness of the proposed optimization algorithm with respect to the powertrain efficiency. the most significant benefits of the proposed algorithm can be summarized as follows: increasing the electric vehicles range of operation, reduction in air pollution, emissions and usage of fossil fuels. one of the most vibrant debates of our time is around the cultural consequences of global capitalism. overlooked in these debates by proponents and critics alike is the role of religion, which is often assumed to be rendered passive or irrelevant by economic development. in this dissertation i challenge such prevailing assumptions by drawing on data from 12 months of participant observation and 200 interviews in two nonwestern cities, and seek to contribute in three ways to a more adequate sociological understanding of the relationship between religion and global capitalism. first, building on the notion of differentiation as the central valid core of secularization theory, i advance an alternative phenomenological approach to studying secularization through the cultural processes of living in differentiated 'experiential realms' of secularity. specifically, i examine the relationship between 'mercenary professionalism' in the transnational corporate workplace, 'neoliberal consumerism' in the lifestyles of transnational professionals, and the 'devoted' christianity of religiously committed professionals. by examining the conditions for and processes of overlap and separation of these realms, i demonstrate that differentiation does not necessitate privatization or decline, but can generate complex combinations of relationships between religious and secular realms. this provides a new, empirically informed picture of what it means to live in a 'secular age' in particular rapidly globalizing nonwestern contexts. second, focusing on particular empirical cases of transnational capitalism and roman catholicism in bangalore and dubai, i argue that the overall relationship between religion and capitalism here is one of 'muted symbiosis': they predominantly enable one another, often inadvertently, despite providing mutual constraints. by demonstrating multiple mechanisms of support and constraint in both directions, i contest the idea that there is any universal relationship between religion and capitalism. third, i resolve important challenges to the 'multiple modernities' approach to the study of religion and globalization, by empirically examining forms of convergence generated by global capitalism. i demonstrate that culturally and structurally isomorphic forms are instantiated as hybrids--of global and local as well as of religious and secular. i thus provide a novel approach to studying the religion-capitalism relationship by examining hybrid configurations and interrelationships between experiential realms. proteins are important biomolecules of life. hence, understanding proteins' functions is important. despite many biotechnological advancements, many proteins remain functionally unannotated. this dissertation aims to help advance the current understanding of proteins' functions by developing network-based computational approaches to study individual protein structures as well as physical interactions between proteins. specifically, we use network representations of proteins at two different scales, as follows.first, we study biomolecular interactions within a protein using a protein structure network (psn). in a psn, nodes are amino acids of a protein, and edges capture amino acids' spatial proximities in the protein's 3-dimensional (3d) structure. we develop computational approaches for mining interesting psn patterns, which we then use to quantify 3d protein structural similarities. additionally, we use psns to study a specific protein folding-related phenomenon, i.e., to understand relationships between protein 3d structures and synonymous codon usage. second, we study biomolecular interactions between proteins using a protein-protein interaction (ppi) network, where nodes are proteins and edges capture physical interactions between proteins. the current ppi network data of a given species is static. however, biological processes, including how cellular functioning changes with e.g., aging, disease progression, etc., are dynamic. hence, dynamic ppi network data can potentially help improve our understanding of proteins' functions. we develop computational approaches for the inference and analysis of dynamic ppi networks and use them to study human aging. my thesis analyzes the reception of four films that contributed to french national discussion on the algerian war of independence and colonization of algeria. two films, *the battle of algiers* (gillo pontecorvo, 1966) and *outside the law* (rachid bouchareb, 2010) directly represent the war of independence. *days of glory* (bouchareb, 2006) portrays algerians fighting for france during world war ii, and *of gods and men* (xavier beauvois, 2010) depicts french monks who are killed during the algerian civil war. i examine topics that reappear in reviews of the films, especially the portrayal of french and algerian national identity through factors such as the relative depth of algerian and french characters and the treatment of ethnic stereotypes. my thesis also discusses the films' historical influence, such as their reflection of the algerian war's status in french national memory and their ability to shape discussion related to the war. a hybrid memoir about conversion therapy. this project examines the electoral and policy impacts of public financing on representation in american state legislatures. i argue that potential candidates are more likely to undertake a run for office with the help of public funding; particularly, i believe candidates from historically underrepresented groups who face additional barriers to running a campaign are the greatest beneficiaries. without a reliance on big donors and only constituent votes to answer to, i anticipate an ideological shift among publicly funded legislatures as well. to analyze these relationships, i use legislature and candidate data spanning from 1976 to 2020, as well as interviews with legislators in arizona, connecticut, and hawaii. results show that, not only does public financing increase electoral competition, but candidates and officeholders from historically underrepresented groups are uplifted in particular, and publicly financed legislatures experience a leftward ideological shift. when taking into account the differences in quality of public financing offered across states, i find that stronger programs see an even greater increase in electoral competition. together, these results imply that campaign finance presents a key piece in the representational puzzle at the state level. the shoulder girdle plays an important role in the large pointing workspace that humans enjoy. the goal of this work was to characterize the human shoulder girdle motion in relation to the arm and recreate it with a humanoid shoulder girdle mechanism so as to ultimately improve the human-like motion of humanoids. the overall motion of the human shoulder girdle was characterized based on motion studies completed on test subjects during voluntary (natural/unforced) motion. the collected data from the experiments were used to develop surface fit equations that represent the position and orientation of the glenohumeral joint for a given humeral pointing direction. these equations completely quantify gross human shoulder motion relative to the humerus. the equations are presented along with goodness-of-fit results that indicate the equations well approximate the motion of the human glenohumeral joint. this is the first time the motion has been quantified for the entire workspace, and the equations provide a reference against which to compare the motion of candidate humanoid shoulder girdle mechanisms. a novel 2-degree-of-freedom parallel mechanism composed of two platforms, one leg with two revolute joints and two legs with spherical-prismatic-spherical joint combinations (1-rr, 2-sps), is introduced and analyzed. the results from the data collection were used to find the optimal configuration for this mechanism to mimic human shoulder girdle motion. the results indicate that the optimized mechanism well approximates the motion of the human shoulder girdle, making it the first mechanism that replicates human shoulder girdle motion with minimal actuation. the methodology for incorporating the shoulder girdle mechanism into the shoulder-elbow complex is presented. the kinematic equations of motion for the complex were derived, and a qualitative analysis was completed that indicates the motion of the full system is similar to that of the human shoulder-elbow complex. the work presented here lays the groundwork for replicating complex human shoulder girdle motion with a relatively simple robotic system. with the advances of the contemporary computer technology, the complexity grows significantly in both hardware architecture and software application. in order to meet the performance requirement of target applications, more and more emphasis is put on the compiler techniques to exploit both hardware and software parallelism. scheduler, an important compiler component to allocate operations to hardware resources, is crucial to the success of a computing system. in this thesis, several novel scheduling optimization techniques are presented to address the challenge faced by existing computing architectures and applications. the first targeted architecture is a system with memory hierarchy and processor comprising multiple processing and memory units. loop partition scheduling technique is proposed to take advantage of the memory hierarchy and effectively hide the memory access latency for the loop-intensive applications. the concept of balanced partition schedule is presented to achieve the best memory access latency toleration and hardware resource utilization. various extensions of the base problem are studied in depth. the solution are presented for the system model with multiple-level memory hierarchy, memory size constraint and loop model with initial data and multiple nested loops. multiple cluster architecture becomes more and more popular due to its superiority over centralized architecture. inter-cluster communication, achieved by explicit register-to-register move, is compiler-controlled and invisible to the programmer. the thesis proposes an efficient scheduling algorithm which take into account ilp, register file size and inter-cluster communication constraints. furthermore, the solution is completed by deliberate the effect of distributed caches. the consideration of data spilling, cache conflicts and cache communications are integrated into the algorithm. another target architecture is multi-bank memory architecture, which brings the scheduling complexity and difficulty of variable partitioning. the approach in the thesis not only improves the existing techniques when exploiting the parallelism, but also considers the serialism to take advantage of multiple operating modes of the memory banks. by identifying the best tradeoff between parallelism and serialism, both goals of performance and energy saving can be achieved. a novel memory access graph model, which captures both information of parallelism and serialism, forms the basis for this scheduling approach. pseudomonas aeruginosa is a ubiquitous, gram-negative bacterium that utilizes several different modes of motility to colonize surfaces, including swarming, which is the coordinated movement of cells over surfaces in groups. swarming facilitates surface colonization and biofilm development for p. aeruginosa, and it is known that swarming behavior is influenced by changes in surface moisture and nutrient composition. variations in assay preparation factors, such as nutrient-agar medium volume, curing time, incubation humidity, agar variety and carbon source, can greatly influence swarming behavior once cells are added to these assays. a range of environmental and preparation factors were investigated to determine their effect(s) on p. aeruginosa swarm motility, and a set of general guidelines for increasing swarm assay reproducibility were developed. while swarming requires a functional flagellum, the involvement of type iv pili (tfp) appendages in pseudomonas aeruginosa swarming is unclear. the influence of tfp on swarming motility was investigated using a combination of iterative laboratory experiments and in silico computer simulations. it was determined that tfp preferentially interact with other tfp during p. aeruginosa swarming, and that these interactions promote cell-cell associations that allow for moderation of swarm motility when needed, such as in the presence of a toxic antibiotic. while previous studies have shown surface-attached bacterial biofilms to be highly resistant to heavy metal toxicity, little is known about the influence of heavy metals upon surface motile bacteria and developing biofilms. a variety of laboratory assays were utilized to examine differences in bacterial behavior in response to two metals, cadmium and nickel. metal resistance was shown to vary with motility mode (swimming vs. swarming), but did not correlate with rhamnolipid production, as was originally hypothesized; while cell products such as rhamnolipid were shown to bind heavy metals (as expected) and should limit metal bioavailability, the results suggest at least one additional mechanism (as yet undetermined) that promotes cell survival during swarming in the presence of these heavy metals. human behavior is highly complex and dependent on the interplay of various intrinsic and extrinsic variables making its study extremely challenging. in the era of big data, exponential growth of data across multiple domains has provided a unique opportunity for us to study human behavior, actions and relationships at scale by combining data from diverse sources.this dissertation is guided by the following principles: 1) leveraging rich situational and interaction context 2) fusing information from heterogeneous data sources using efficient and effective computational models and 3) studying human behavior across multiple application domains to draw actionable insights to address real world challenges. to that end, the goal of this dissertation is to design data driven, context aware and user centered computational models that help us to understand, analyze, model and infer a range of individual and collective human behavior aspects from preference to engagement; from personality traits to political behaviors; from public opinion to relationship formation. we primarily study three aspect of human behavior: 1) preference, engagement and recommendation 2) personal traits, sentiment and opinions and 3) opinion and network evolution. in particular, we ask the following questions: how do personal factors such as age, gender and location impact content preference, engagement and consumption? how personal attributes, physical and social context guide individuals to navigate information, select friends, and grow their social networks? how do individuals express themselves? how do opinions evolve over time? how are friendships formed? by answering such questions, this dissertation aims to move one step closer to understanding human behavior. mass spectrometry-based proteomics have become critical for our understanding of biological systems. this technique allows for quantitative measurements of biomolecules that are altered between different sample states and types. the studies in this thesis describe comparisons between normal and cancerous tissues, normal and disease blood samples, and genetically manipulated cell lines. further studies analyze various sample preparation and separation techniques to increase the information garnered from biological samples. transcript data was collected using quantitative real-time pcr (qrt-pcr), while protein level data was collected by bottom-up proteomic strategies using ultra-performance liquid chromatography or capillary zone electrophoresis coupled to an esi-orbitrap mass spectrometer. targeted multiple reaction monitoring (mrm) experiments were performed on an esi-triple quadrupole mass spectrometer. data analysis was performed using a number of mass spectrometry software platforms, including proteome discoverer 1.4, maxquant statistical software, perseus, r, and proteosign, an online statistical analysis platform. this work investigates various physical problems under the general category of particles being driven over an ordered or disordered substrate. the general problem has clear applications to frictional phenomena, ranging from stick-slip motion to earthquakes; here we consider more novel scenarios taken from the fields of superconductivity and biophysics.the 'conformal crystal' structure is investigated in the context of superconducting vortex pinning. this 2d structure is generated mathematically by a conformal transformation of a regular hexagonal lattice, and possesses local hexagonal ordering,but globally features a density gradient in one dimension and an arching structure in the other dimension. a vortex pinning array based on this structure is shown to have superior magnetization and transport properties as compared to other previously considered pinning arrays, and is used to construct a highly effective ratchet for vortices.an archimedean pinning structure, with two characteristic length scales, is also considered, as an intermediate case between periodic pinning with a single length scale, and conformal pinning with a continuum of scales due to the density gradient. magnetization studies reveal a variety of novel vortex states at integer and fractional matching fields, which are not present in either periodic or conformal pinning.finally, an nanoassembly experiment is simulated where the particles affect the substrate, as opposed to the more common reverse scenario which underlies the other topics in this work. the energy of run-and-tumble active matter particles (such as e. coli bacteria undergoing chemotactic motion) is harnessed to push together two movable walls arranged in a casimir geometry. a measurement of top quark pairs produced in association with a w or z boson is presented, using 19.5 fb-1 of proton-proton collisions with a center-of-mass energy of 8 tev, collected by the cms experiment at the lhc. novel event reconstruction techniques are used to identify ttw and ttz events with a high degree of confidence. the ttw cross section is measured to be 382+117−102 fb, yielding evidence for ttw production with a significance of 4.8 standard deviations from the background-only hypothesis. the ttz process is observed for the first time, with a significance of 6.4 σ, and a measured cross section of 242+65−55 fb. the ttz measurement is consistent with the standard model prediction, while the measured ttw cross section is higher than expected, but compatible with the standard model. distributed control of multi-agent systems is known to be a difficult problem. in this dissertation, we study two challenges that make the problem difficult: (i) stabilizing the multi-agent system with limited information sharing among the agents and (ii) incentivizing the actions of the agents to align with the desired team objective. in the first set of problems, we consider a large scale system in which various components such as sensors, controllers and actuators are interconnected by communication networks. it is known that the stabilization of such a distributed system is affected by the limits imposed by the communication channels such as data erasures, limited data rate and delays, etc. we begin by considering the data erasure effect of the communication network. by combining tools from control theory, network theory and information theory, we provide a systematic study of both explicit and implicit information flow networks in the system and provide necessary and sufficient stabilizability conditions. then, we model the communication network as a gaussian multi-user channel and obtain the rate regions of stabilizability for two systems controlled over gaussian multiple access channels (mac). in the second half of the dissertation, we study the design of markets for various agents in a multi-agent system to incentivize their actions to be aligned with the social planner's objective. for concreteness, we focus on the design of markets for plug-in electric vehicle charging infrastructure. first, we set up the problem of locations and price optimization for commercial charging stations. we model the problem as a static price competition between competing charging stations with the customers deciding among the stations based on their own utility function. a two-level hierarchical game is formulated to study the selfish routing of the customers as a lower-level congestion game and the pricing games between stations as the upper-level game. we characterize the existence and properties of the static equilibrium solution. the second problem addresses the pricing of electric vehicle charging trajectories by the charging station owner when some electric vehicles can offer the added flexibility of temporary discharge. we obtain the competitive equilibrium solution of the charging rate profiles and service price profile. this equilibrium in the dynamic setting is later extended to consider a scenario closer to stackelberg game. social welfare of each equilibrium is also evaluated. t cells expressing t cell receptors (tcrs) can identify and eliminate foreign pathogens by recognizing peptides presented by major histocompatibility complex (mhc) proteins. the association between peptide binding affinity and immunogenicity has led to the engineering of modified peptides with improved mhc binding, with the hope that these peptides would be useful for eliciting cross-reactive immune responses directed toward their weak binding, unmodified counterparts. however, increasing evidence indicates that tcrs can perceive such anchor-modified peptides differently than wild-type (wt) peptides.here, i characterized how different tcrs recognize the wt and anchor-modified variants of the well-known gp100209 melanoma tumor antigen. i show here that, unexpectedly, mutational modifications at the first primary anchor position can lead to substantially stronger or weaker tcr binding. surprisingly, the effect of anchor modification can be sensed by a tcr at regions far from the site of modification, indicating a through-protein mechanism in which the anchor residue serves as an allosteric modulator of tcr binding.of the panel of tcrs, the silv44 receptor has been proposed as a clinical candidate for immunotherapy of melanoma. finding that gp100209-specific tcrs are sensitive to peptide anchor modifications, i show that, in contrast to previously published work, the enhanced tumor control properties of the silv44 tcr are a result of strong tcr binding affinity to the wt peptide antigen. overall, my studies highlight how subtle changes at a primary peptide anchor position can have dramatic and tcr-dependent consequences and should help guide the development of tcr and t cell-based therapeutics. in this dissertation we construct an omega-spectrum from spaces of certain supersymmetric one-dimensional euclidean field theories of degree n, which is a new model for connective ko-theory. the spaces of this spectrum form connective covers of the spaces of euclidean field theories constructed by s. stolz and p. teichner in their expository paper 'what is an elliptic object?'. we provide a direct proof of the loop spectrum properties and the connectivity using a quasi-fibration with contractible total space. this is at the same time a proof of bott periodicity for the field theory model of k-theory and gives a description of the bott element. we give an interpretation of one-dimensional euclidean field theories as configurations and make use of the convenient properties of configuration spaces to show the quasi-fibration properties. this connects our model of connective ko-theory to an older description due to g. segal. based on our result in the one-dimensional case, we give a conjecture for a connective version of spaces of two-dimensional conformal field theories. the ideas developed in this work might also help to prove the spectrum properties for the original spaces of conformal field theories of s. stolz and p. teichner, which is still an open problem. we study expansions near the boundary of solutions to the dirichlet problem for minimal graphs in the hyperbolic space and characterize remainders of the expansions by multiple integrals. with such a characterization, we establish optimal asymptotic expansions of solutions with boundary values of finite regularity and demonstrate a slight loss of regularity for nonlocal coefficients. a method for gram-scale production of isotopically labeled hydrogen peroxide was developed. although successful use of the product was limited by its purity, concentration, and label incorporation, labeling experiments were successfully performed on two uranyl peroxide materials, studtite and li@u28. these experiments confirmed peak assignments of studtite and challenged those of the upc, indicating errors and unrecognized complexity in the traditional assignments. based on these examples, the potential benefit of future labeling work is strongly indicated. this dissertation argues for an irish modernism engaged with dublin's urban technological infrastructure, most potently exemplified by the city's electric lights. this challenges the view that early-twentieth century irish literature was predominantly romantic and pastoral, and it provides an irish literary context for james joyce's urban modernism. it also revises how the city and technology have been understood within modernist criticism, which traditionally places literary experimentation within highly technologized capitals such as paris. by demonstrating how impoverished, underdeveloped dublin could cultivate modernism, i argue for need to attend to the social meanings of urban technologies within specific cultures as a prerequisite for pursuing a truly global modernist studies. i place ireland's experience of technology within the context of its colonial history, a history that undermines the electric light's traditional association with urban modernity. this history could be read into the fact that dublin's electrified spectacles existed alongside ireland's slow electrification and its capital's vast slums, as such contiguity of development and underdevelopment betrayed the logic of colonial modernity. i use ian baucom's writing on modernism within the global urban periphery to demonstrate how such border zones of development and underdevelopment could generate modernism, and i discuss works by james joyce and kenneth sarr that derive formal innovation from dublin's paratactic landscape of poverty and plenty. i then offer close readings of three understudied irish artists who grapple with the urban technological realities of dublin. both the modernist alienation and experimentation with narrative voice that mark james stephens's early urban fiction emerge in response to dublin's contradictory landscape of electrified thoroughfares and dark slums; he also recasts modernist theories of urban technological shock for colonial realities. eimar o'duffy's fiction attempts to imagine through technology a solution to ireland's urban underdevelopment, highlighting in the process a broader revival interest in engineering culture. the difficulty of imagining such an alternative technological modernity spurs his later modernism. finally, seumas o'sullivan resets the logic of the celtic twilight within dublin's divided landscape in order to create an irish modernist fl nerie that embraces gaslight as an alternative to electrified modernity. underactuated mechanical systems (ums) are mechanical systems with fewer controls than the number of configuration states. the systems have broad applications in robotics, aerospace and marine vehicles and many more areas. the application examples include bipedal robots, quadruped robots, flexible-link robots, underactuated manipulators, snake robots, acrobatic robots, robots on a mobile platform, spacecraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, surface vessels and underwater vehicles. the systems generally have highly nonlinear dynamics, and less control authority due to the underactuation; furthermore, some systems, such as bipedal robots, include a mixture of continuous and discrete dynamics and multiple switching events among different phases. because of these properties, control of ums has been an important and challenging problem for years.the dynamics of almost all mechanical systems can be structured into a form with a distribution of vector fields, and control of the systems can be treated as controlled flows on configuration and velocity manifolds. a major contribution of this dissertation is thus to exploit geometric approaches for control of a class of ums, which produces general fundamental results. first, in contrast with previous work on controllability of underactuated serial robots, which mostly focused only on a specific number of links, this thesis studies nonlinear controllability for a general n-link serial robot with one unactuated joint. second, the time reversal symmetry, which is inherent in many mechanical systems, is exploited to develop a general control framework for a class of ums, and the almost global controllability of the method is proved by following the same line with lyapunov's method.this dissertation also addresses robustness issues for underactuated bipedal robots, which can be regarded as some balance between fully actuated and passive walking robots. thus, the underactuated biped makes a promising solution to balance the competing issues of energy consumption and robustness. for the biped, the coupling between velocities along the actuated and unactuated vector fields has been exploited to define a nonlinear coupling metric, which can be used to quantitatively measure the robustness of gaits. considering that bipeds will eventually walk in unstructured natural environments, this thesis further examines the problem of bipedal walking on slippery surfaces, and presents some results that illustrate relationships among gait features and the robustness for walking on slippery surfaces. a primary contribution in this aspect is providing a nonlinear mechanical coupling metric and some design insights, such as changing actuation methods, adjusting the center of mass location, speeds and stride lengths, which can be used to improve the robustness of bipedal robots. anxiety, a debilitating sense of fear, involves an interconnected brain network that includes the medial prefrontal cortex (mpfc), amygdala, and periaqueductal grey (pag). however, the specific organization and cellular physiology of distinct pathways within this network are undefined but critical for understanding anxiety disorders. this thesis elucidated the circuitry, pharmacology, and intrinsic physiology of defined pathways within the mpfc-amygdala-pag circuit. comparison of mpfc neurons projecting to the pag versus amygdala revealed significant differences in intrinsic properties, local circuitry, and neuromodulation by stress peptides. in the central amygdala (cea), neurons projecting to the pag (cea-pag neurons) expressed different levels of hyperpolarization-activated current. cea-pag neurons were altered by anxiogenic peptide corticotropin-releasing factor (crf) but not anxiolytic neuropeptide-y (npy). optogenetic activation of axons originating in the pag or il drove both excitation and inhibition in cea-pag neurons. together, this thesis has uncovered critical characteristics of a neural network implicated in anxiety. according to the conjecture given by gekhtman-shapiro-vainshtein, each class in the belavin-drinfeld classification of poisson-lie structures on a semisimple complex group g corresponds to a cluster structure in o(g). this dissertation continues the study of cluster structures in the rings of regular functions on the affine space of rectangular matrices that are compatible with poisson structures. in particular, we construct a generalized cluster structure on mat5×7 compatible with the restriction of the cremmer-gervais poisson bracket on gl7. we also provide a detailed description of a conjectural generalized cluster structure on matm×n compatible with the restriction of the cremmer-gervais poisson bracket on gln. barth grounds the goodness of creation not in its own independent reality, but in the goodness of jesus christ, who, as barth works out in cd ii.2, is the concrete form of the command of god and fulfillment of the covenant between god and humanity. by grounding the goodness of creation in jesus christ, barth makes both the ontological goodness of creation itself and the noetic basis of that goodness dependent on this christological determination. as a result, scholars have suggested that barth's theology really has no proper doctrine of creation at all, i.e. that barth's doctrine of creation is simply christology in disguise. this dissertation argues that while barth's christological determination of creation is central to barth's work, it is not the case that barth absorbs creation into christology, i.e. nature into grace, leaving creation without any meaningful ontology of its own. rather, this dissertation demonstrates that barth's ontology of creation is covenantal in structure, but not equivalent to christology. furthermore, this dissertation shows that this covenantal structure of creation is specifically ordered so that the creature may realize her goal as god's covenant partner. in chapter one the dissertation shows why barth rejects any attempt to ground the moral order of creation apart from covenant and why he believes that such an independent grounding yields a created order apart from grace, a separation of law from gospel, which leads to idolatry and an ethics of self-justification. the chapter concludes by showing how barth's doctrine of election establishes the inextricable connection between covenant and creation, gospel and law, in the person of jesus christ. chapter two shows how creation does not exist for its own sake, but is a work of god's love and freedom, thereby having a specific order and structure, boundaries and limits, which are good, and as such serve as the presupposition and external condition for god's covenant history to unfold. chapter three shows how the covenant is the material basis of creation and how barth's doctrine of election provides the basis for his interpretation of the role of the two trees in the garden of eden, which serve as the basis for understanding the nature of creaturely freedom and obedience. the chapter also points out how the creature's existence as imago dei means that she is created for covenant relations and as such is not solitary, neutral or self-grounding. chapter four explains how barth's christology is the key to understanding the relationship between creation and covenant. this chapter demonstrates how barth's rendering of ontology [sein] as history [geschichte], i.e. "being-in-encounter," allows him to ground anthropology in christology without equating the two. in this chapter we see that to be human is to be a creature who can transcend her nature and limits in an encounter with the "other," yet such an encounter with the transcendent other allows the creature to exist more fully and properly as a covenant partner with god in creation and not outside of it. life after death is a photographic body of work that chronicles the daily existence of an elderly widower. the documentation of emotional and physical situations after the absence of a spouse provides insight into the experience of death, bereavement, and memory. these conditions are also investigated through analytical and formalistic observations, offering both data-driven research and theoretical inspection. the results of these investigations reveal gender-specific issues with grieving, acceptance, and identity. furthermore, an examination of the social attitudes towards aging in western society affirms a systematic marginalization of this demographic. this becomes a critical issue as our population lives longer, especially if their needs are not foregrounded in the context of today's culture. the freshwater crisis is becoming a problem that restricts the development of human society and people's health. purification of polluted water and seawater desalination are the effective ways to produce freshwater and solve this problem. directional solvent extraction, a non-membrane methodology using specific solvents to extract freshwater from polluted or salty water, is becoming an emerging technique in the last decade. the directional solvent extraction process can utilize low-quality and low-temperature waste heat generated by thermal power plants and solar energy.this dissertation provides the research results about directional solvent extraction in different cases. firstly, the study shows the feasibility of using fatty acids as working substances in treating water containing arsenic. secondly, the study demonstrates that a specific ionic liquid can have a greatly enhanced performance in water yield and energy cost of seawater desalination. in this work, the experiment and computing simulation are combined. the studies both show the experiment result and the mechanism from the molecular level. the increasing diversity of data sources has propelled machine learning into an equally diverse set of application domains. across these applications, a key task is that of classification. while contemporary approaches manage to achieve impressive predictive performance on pre-structured datasets, surprisingly little work has been done to address how raw data is being structured to best address the underlying domain problem. the state of the art in domain-driven data mining, actionable knowledge discovery, merely acts as a wrapper to transform domain data to feature matrices and class labels. to address these gaps in existing frameworks, we propose the operationalized data science paradigm (odsp). through this paradigm, we now have a formalized framework for structuring data and pipelines, time-censoring, net present value considerations, interpretability and regulation compliance --all using domain driven insights. we demonstrate the role of domain-driven problem and pipeline design across the diverse domains of cost-sensitive classification, online video content, massive open online courses (moocs) and auto insurance in the form of deployed solutions. for each of these use-cases, we provide a comparative ablation analysis to highlight the role of odsp in ensuring their operational viability. as result, we show how the domain influences which questions we ask of the data and how we should interpret them. low-temperature, atmospheric pressure plasmas provide a convenient means for delivering a variety of reactive chemical species to aqueous solutions.researchers have thoroughly studied many of the neutral radicals commonly produced by air plasmas, such as atomic oxygen (o), atomic hydrogen (h), hydroxyl radicals (oh), hydroperoxyl radicals (ho2), atomic nitrogen (n), and nitrous oxides (nox).by and large, these neutral radicals ultimately yield the stable products hydrogen peroxide (h2o2), nitrous acid (hno2), and nitric acid (hno3) in the bulk liquid.recently, more attention has been given to the free electrons in the plasma, and it has been hypothesized that these electrons are responsible a number of electrolytic reduction reactions in aqueous solution, such as the reduction of heavy metal ions to form metallic nanoparticles.if these reduction reactions are indeed driven by free electrons from the plasma, the electrons likely become solvated into solution before initiating any reduction reaction.in this work, it is experimentally shown that free electrons from the plasma become solvated before initiating electrolytic reactions just beneath the plasma-liquid interface.solvated electrons are known to absorb red light, therefore the experimental method uses optical absorption spectroscopy in a novel reflection geometry to directly probe the interface.the solvated electrons have a lifetime ~ 1 μs, making them difficult to detect, so a lock-in amplification technique is used to attain a sensitivity of 1 part per 106.the experimental results indicate that the solvated electrons penetrate 2.5 nm into solution before reacting away.bulk measurements of oh-(aq) and h2(g) indicate that the electrons primarily react away via 2nd order recombination, 2e–(aq) + 2h2o → 2oh–(aq) + h2(g)­.introducing known electron scavengers, such as h2o2, acid (h+), nitrite (no2-), and nitrate (no3-), into the solution quenches the signal in a manner consistent with reaction kinetics previously measured in radiolysis experiments.additionally, it is found that introducing o2 gas into the plasma phase rapidly quenches the signal due to electron attachment, e– + o2(g) → o2–.furthermore, operating the plasma in air is found to produce no2-(aq) and no3-(aq) via the dissolution of nox gas into the solution, adding an additional source of electron scavengers in the solution phase.the optical absorption spectrum of solvated electrons at the plasma-liquid interface was also measured using a series of individual laser diodes.interestingly, the interfacial spectrum is significantly blue-shifted from the well-known bulk spectrum.furthermore, the blue tail of the bulk spectrum is not observed in the interfacial spectrum.these differences may be due to the intense electric field at the interface, which results in a stark shift, or the relatively high concentration of na+ ions, which is also known to blue-shift the spectrum. through vehicle-to-vehicle communication (v2v), vehicles can exchange information required for safety alerting other vehicles in their vicinity. due to the mission-critical nature of safety applications, high reliability is a key requirement of v2v systems. reliability is the probability that a v2v link can sustain a certain target data rate. it depends on the locations of transmitting and receiving vehicles and interferers, street geometry, and wireless medium. the reliability results obtained by conducting a large number of trials in the real world fail to provide crisp insights into the effects of network design parameters on reliability despite their high costs. we aim to complement/reduce these large-scale experiments by applying mathematical tools from stochastic geometry to (i) model vehicular networks, and (ii) analyze the reliability of v2v communication. in particular, we introduce the notion of model equivalence, which shows that the number of models can be drastically reduced to only a few classes. also, we prove that many existing models can be substantially simplified to the proposed transdimensional models with virtually no loss in accuracy. furthermore, we investigate the meta distribution (md) of the signal-to-interference ratio (sir), which is a much sharper performance metric than the sir distribution that is usually studied. the sir md answers questions such as 'what fraction of the v2v links are 99% reliable if the target data rate is 10 mbps?' this metric is the key towards designing v2v networks with guaranteed reliability. with respect to the broadcast communication, we formulate the binned meta distribution of the sir, which answers questions like 'what fraction of the v2v links that are in the distance range of 100-200 m are 99% reliable if the target data rate is 10 mbps?' the binned variant of the md provides insights into the effective range for reliable broadcast communication. having the binned sir md as the performance metric, we compare different stochastic geometry models to system-level simulations. the poisson point process-based vehicular networks rank the highest in terms of analytical tractability with loose approximations to system-level simulations; the matérn hard-core process-based models provide tight approximations but are highly intractable; the determinantal point process-based models rank the highest in terms of accuracy with good tractability. family conflict is a risk factor for a variety of outcomes, (e.g., suicidal ideation, wright, 1985), including adolescents' emotional security. emotional security describes adolescents' feelings of vulnerability within their families, and is also a strong predictor of adjustment (davies &amp; cummings, 1998). limited research, however, has investigated the process through which family conflict affects adolescents' emotional insecurity. using a sample of 213 families, including mothers, fathers, and adolescents (mage = 13.10 years), six moderated mediation models tested whether family conflict affects adolescents' emotional insecurity two years later, due to conflicts' effects on parent-adolescent relationship quality, and whether adolescents' cortisol reactivity moderates this indirect effect. the six models reflected the use of six different measures of parent-adolescent relationship quality. results did not support the hypothesis that moderated mediation occurred. subsequent analyses, however, suggested that parent-adolescent relationship quality mediates the effect of family conflict on adolescents' emotional insecurity may have occurred. implications and suggested future work are discussed. recent and ongoing advances in ocean sensor technology have led to an increased interest in autonomous data gathering. autonomous ocean sensing presents numerous challenges for researchers, especially given the ocean's great size and environmentally unforgiving nature. such challenges include modeling of ambient noise spectra, adaptive whitening of background noise, and sensor location estimation.many natural phenomena, including ambient ocean noise, can be most accurately approximated by filters with fractional-order rolloff. existing analog design techniques have realized and improved upon such approximations. to date, digital design techniques have been largely restricted to discretizations of existing analog solutions. a novel approach is presented for designing digital lowpass filters with fractional-order rolloff directly in the discrete domain through pole-zero placement. filters designed using the proposed iterative technique are stable, have precisely-definable cutoff frequencies, and do not suffer from the variations that can arise from transforming an existing analog design. the proposed technique is shown to outperform existing analog and digital design methods, both subjectively and by objective measures.passive underwater listening devices are often deployed to listen for narrowband signals of interest in time-varying background ocean noise. quantization of sensor data adds white noise which can overwhelm weak narrowband signals if the background noise is sufficiently colored. whitening the background noise prior to quantization can reduce the detrimental effects, but the whitening process must preserve any tonals in the signal for maximum effectiveness. existing adaptive whitening techniques make no effort to avoid suppressing tonals in the whitening process, while existing spectral separation methods fail to whiten background noise. two novel methods are proposed for performing adaptive whitening of background ambient noise while preserving narrowband tones at their original signal-to-noise ratios. the proposed methods are shown to outperform combinations of existing partial solutions both subjectively and by evaluating the objective criteria introduced.air-deployable, autonomous ocean sensors can be equipped with gps receivers to make their position known to a ship, a base station, or an aircraft overhead. exact knowledge of the point at which such sensors enter the water can be an important consideration, but current methods of estimating this water-entry point are insufficient for some applications. to improve upon their performance, the novel application of multivariate fractional polynomial regression is proposed. the proposed method is shown to outperform existing approaches in a variety of scenarios when mean, median, and 95th percentile of error are used as objective metrics of comparison. parameter sensitivity analysis suggests that this advantage is maintained across a wide range of simulation parameters for a combination of linear and nonlinear sensor drift profiles. characterization of a novel microtubule binding protein clipr76 abstract by gergana t. ugrinova eukaryotic cells are highly compartmentalized and spatially organized. in order to maintain the appropriate distribution of organelles, cells use various mechanisms for transport. trafficking of vesicles and/or organelles to specific locations throughout the cell is a complex process involving a number of molecules. this transport is primarily driven by molecular motors tracking along microtubules and microfilaments. motor proteins recognize the inherent microtubule polarity and move preferentially to either minus or plus end. although significant progress has been made in characterizing molecular motor machinery, exactly how cells control motor activities to achieve synchronized movement and proper targeting of the cargoes is yet unclear. in recent years, extensive research to identify molecules that interact with membrane organelles and microtubules has led to the discovery of an array of non-motor microtubule associated proteins, which serve to connect motors with their cognate cargoes. these proteins are called cytoplasmic linker proteins (clips). a family of clips with founding member clip-170 shares the ability to bind microtubules via conserved capgly domains. some members of the clip-170 related (ì¢åûåïcliprì¢åûå ) family interact specifically with distinct membranous organelles. thus, characterization of new clipr gergana t. ugrinova proteins would expand our knowledge of the proteins that mediate and regulate membrane-microtubule interactions. a combination of cell biological, molecular biological and biochemical analyses was used to study a novel member of clipr family, clipr76. sequence analysis and experimental evidence show that the clipr76 gene is alternatively spliced and produces multiple isoforms in different organisms. western blot and real time pcr investigations show that the clipr76 gene is ubiquitously expressed with highest levels in testis and striated muscle. some isoforms appear to be tissue specific. immunofluorescence microscopy of the gfp tagged or untagged clipr76 proteins demonstrate that the different isoforms have different cellular localization and imply that they have different protein activities. some clipr76 isoforms localize to the endoplasmic reticulum and their overexpression affect the morphology of er and ergic membrane compartments, while others localize to microtubules or subsets of microtubules and cause alterations in microtubule organization when expressed at higher levels. these results imply a role for clipr76 proteins in membrane transport and er microtubules interactions. technological insularity is defined as a psychological construct associated with technology-mediated communication in which the communicator is more isolated from and less mindful of the recipients or intended audience when engaged in computer-mediated communications than when engaged in face-to-face conversations. the development and administration of a scale, the 'technological insularity scale,' or 'tis,' which measures the construct 'technological insularity,' is explained here. the psychometric quality of the tis is supported by results of a factor analysis, and relationships found between the scale and social desirability, empathy, and social isolation scales. this study contributes the understanding of technology's implications for personal and societal behavior. implications for theory and research are discussed. the purpose of this paper is to reformulate and generalize the recent work of s. smale [13, 15, 16] on the use of "handles" in the study of differentiable manifolds. this study explores how the entrance of women into american higher education in the nineteenth century affected the concurrent religious liberalization and ultimate secularization of the american academy. the advent of women's higher education helped shape a new understanding of student moral formation for a more secular age.evangelical goals motivated the creation in the 1830s of mount holyoke female seminary and oberlin collegiate institute, the models for the leading women's colleges and coeducational universities that arose in the second half of the century. these two institutions extended higher education to women in order to maximize the number of people well equipped to spread the gospel. however, the subsequent large-scale entrance of women into higher education provided a means for other institutions to liberalize or shed their religious identities. after mid-century, top colleges desiring to attract donors and students had to argue for their broad appeal and national significance. the advent of competing men's, women's, and coeducational institutions provided a new type of identity marker that could replace a school's evangelical or denominational one: institutions instead emphasized the sex(es) they served. doing so enabled colleges to articulate a specific moral purpose for education not grounded in a doctrinal tradition now perceived to be narrow or backward. schools no longer used doctrinal instruction to shape students' moral imaginations. instead, institutions transmitted moral visions whose particulars were grounded in a conception of the sex-specific types of future service students could render their communities. colleges and universities that educated boys often claimed to equip them for types of service reserved for powerful men: wisely directing the nation from prominent positions of influence in government, business, and the professions. likewise, those that educated girls argued that college best prepared them for types of service considered feminine; for most, these were teaching, homemaking, and, increasingly, social service.the traditional secularization narrative is therefore incomplete. colleges and universities did not merely reframe their evangelical protestant heritage into a broader liberal protestantism considered more intellectually viable and socially respectable; they also re-envisioned the moral purpose of higher education in sex-specific terms. mobilizing individuals to fight together for justice is both an interpersonal and a cultural act. yet the most widely used explanations of collective action overlook the cultural work that precedes the core components of micro-mobilization—communicating opportunities, transferring resources, and creating resonant meanings or frames. i examine this cultural work using ethnographic research on the fight over mountaintop removal coal mining in central appalachia. i discovered the presence of cultural matching and mismatching in recruitment and enrollment: social movement organizations tended to recruit participants who already fit culturally with the existing group's mobilizing style—a set of understandings, tactics, and modes of interacting that cohered around a group's theory of social change; local residents tended to join and support an organization on the congeniality of its mobilizing style. mobilizing styles had semiotic import, most noticeably by placing social movement organizations on a relationally-defined scale of insider–outsider. i also observed cultural adaptation. groups based on the style of community organizing changed to become more like local residents, while groups based on the style of activism did not. reciprocally, i observed cultural breaks in which organization members or local residents abandoned the other. as a response to this social movement, the coal industry actively attempted to produce a culture into which it already fit, but elites also accented and adapted to local culture as a way to gain legitimacy, create togetherness, and convince local residents that the industry was an "insider," unlike "outsider" challengers. overall, cultural matches and matching created connection, promoted trust, and nourished mobilization. cultural mismatches and mismatching created disconnection, interfered with frame alignment, exacerbated community tension, and hindered further collective-action efforts. this study provides a more robust account of culture in mobilization and sheds light on a key micro-social process that helps to account for why social movements sometimes fail, or never even begin. gan-based high electron mobility transistors (hemts) are promising for high speed and high power electronics applications. aln and in0.17al0.83n enable maximum possible vertical scaling of barriers in ga-polar gan-based hemts for high speed performance. high quality epitaxial growth of these barriers is a pre-requisite for superior device performance. in this work, plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (mbe) was used to study the epitaxial growth of aln/gan and inaln/gan heterostructures. for a single aln/gan heterojunction (with sheet electron density of ~ 1.73x1013 cm-2) we measured hall-effect mobility of ~ 1834/11460 cm2v-1s-1 (at room temperature/10 k). this is among the highest values reported in literature for single aln/gan heterojunctions and indicates the superior quality of these mbe grown films. for double aln/gan heterojunctions, we measured (under single channel approximation) very high mobility ~ 1890/14430 cm2v-1s-1 (at room temperature/10 k) and sheet electron density of ~ 1.87x1013 cm-2 at room temperature. this is the highest mobility reported to date for multiple aln/gan heterojunctions. employing these films we demonstrated double-channel metal-oxide-semiconductor hemts (dc-moshemt). this is the first report of aln/gan heterojunction based dc-moshemt in literature to the best of our knowledge. by implementing top barrier recess and regrown contacts in future, these double barrier heterostructures may be employed to reduce dc rf dispersion in iii-nitride hemts. to explore another novel approach of solving this problem, we investigated low temperature (lt-) mbe growth of aln for in-situ surface passivation of hemt structures. we found a window below 250 &#176;c to grow partially amorphous lt-aln. for a lt-aln capped aln/gan hemt, we report a low dc-rf dispersion with gate lag and drain lag below 2%. additionally, we investigated crystalline aln growth at a low temperature of ~ 480 &#176;c. this was motivated by novel mbe grown aln barrier hemt structures with high mobility ingan channels for terahertz applications. to fully exploit the potential of mbe grown high quality hemt structures, low resistance (< 0.1 &#937;.mm) regrown source/drain ohmic contacts are essential. from a systematic study using mbe grown bulk n+ gan films, effect of si doping concentration on contact resistance was analyzed. it is commonly taken to be the case that heidegger is a bad reader of plato. calling his reading of plato impatient, violent and coercive, critics argue that heidegger's caricature of plato is driven by his life-long desire to deconstruct the tradition of western philosophy from plato onward. i argue that this assessment of heidegger's unsympathetic plato is itself a caricature. in an effort to mitigate this critique of heidegger's reading of plato, i argue that heidegger engages with two different platosì¢ ââ' one with whom he shares deep sympathies even as he is harshly critical of the other. i call the plato who frequently evokes heidegger's ire the 'logocentric' plato; this is the plato who, in spite of his promising efforts, could never overcome logos or move beyond dialectic, and therefore sets the stage for the tradition's overreliance on logos as syllogistic logic and propositional truth. but in his better moments as a reader of plato, heidegger shines a light on a very different plato. i will call this plato the 'muthocentric' plato because this is the plato who makes his points with myths, images, allegories and stories. this plato erodes the preeminence of logos to make space for alternative discourse and becomes heidegger's ally in his effort to re-describe hermeneutic phenomenology as a descriptive method that allows beings to show themselves not merely by means of the theoretical discourse of logos, but also by means of non-theoretical, alternative discourse including myth and poetry. in advancing this claim, i focus on heidegger's lectures on plato which appear from the 1920's to the early 1940's, including his lectures on plato's sophist, the cave allegory of the republic, and the theaetetus. in each of these lecture courses, i show that the traditional reading of heidegger's plato has obscured his sympathy to the plato of myth and allegory. these close readings lay the groundwork to view heidegger's later move towards non-theoretical discourse as a continuation of his early attention to muthos discourse in plato, rather than as an abrupt transition. financial deepening has long been hailed as an elixir for poverty reduction and economic growth in the developing world. yet, owing to a range of individual-level constraints and market inefficiencies, the full potential of available financial instruments to safeguard wealth and insure against economic shocks for most individuals in these geographies has not materialized. my thesis will consider the problem of low financial market participation in kenya, where a paltry 5% of residents transact in the country's bourse. after reviewing literature that broadly establishes four factors (low levels of financial literacy, capital constraints, risk averseness, and the lengthy process of setting up a central depository system (cds) account) as exhaustive culprits for low financial market participation in the country, this thesis will quantitatively analyze responses to online survey instruments administered to carefully curated pools of nairobi securities exchange (nse) participants and non-participants to determine the relative weighting of these factors within the target demographic for the proposed intervention. insights from face-to-face interviews with 25 survey respondents were used to garner additional qualitative insights on barriers to nse participation and the extent to which mobile technology and trading policy changes could make the nse more accessible to kenyans. the exercise revealed that, for the target demographic, mitigating the lengthy process of opening a cds account and offering exposure to low-risk, inexpensive instruments are promising channels to improve financial market participation – more so than improving general familiarity with listed securities at the nse. this dissertation takes a novel approach to the development and defense of analytic virtue ethics by bringing it into contact with the thought of martin heidegger and hans-georg gadamer. a consideration of the ethical implications of their thought helps us answer, i argue, a deep and persistent challenge to the notion that practical knowledge proceeds from virtuous dispositions. according to standard virtue theories, the acquisition of the virtues, the conception of the good life of which they are constitutive, and their practical deliverances all depend upon contingent, historically conditioned, and inescapable frameworks of understanding. this seems to put at risk certain ideals of a philosophical ethics, including the possibility of self-critique, the universal scope and objectivity of our judgments, and realism. most virtue theories seek to maintain these ideals, at least to some extent; yet, the claim that virtuous practical knowledge depends upon conditioned frameworks seems to many critics hopelessly incompatible with the ideals, committing virtue ethics instead to a form of relativism or elitism. the hermeneutical account of virtue and practical reasoning that i articulate takes its bearings from the heideggerian notion of authenticity. this account, i argue, contributes a much-needed response to the aforementioned problem for virtue ethics, while also demonstrating heidegger's relevance to ethics, particularly for the analytic tradition in which he has been little considered. after setting out the problem in chapter 1, i proceed to elucidate and defend heidegger's account of the ontological structure of human life. this account, i argue, entails a conception of the authentic life that parallels and clarifies aristotelian eudaimonia, and deepens our understanding of virtue ethical notions like practical wisdom and affective responsiveness. the next few chapters consider the significance of a gadamerian account of understanding, particularly how elements of our frameworks of understanding can be foregrounded and revised in ways that correct false presuppositions and issue in greater practical wisdom. central to the process is a conception of dialogue that implies neither an escape from frameworks altogether nor the perpetuation of false ideologies. finally, i develop a theory of virtue that emerges from the foregoing discussion by extending and critically assessing the hermeneutical ethics of charles taylor. this theory distinguishes between (in my terms) 'transcendental' and 'immanent' virtues, a distinction that answers the initial worries by reconciling the thesis about the dependency of practical reason on conditioned frameworks with the philosophical ideals of critique, universality, and realism with respect to practical knowledge. global climate change and human land-use are two main threats affecting species and ecosystems, driving species extinction and biodiversity loss around the world. a critical issue at the forefront of these accelerating environmental changes is their impacts on long-term persistence and survival of species. addressing this issue requires an understanding of how species, populations and communities have responded to different degrees of environmental perturbations in the past. lessons from the past provide important evidence needed for a better characterization of the long-term consequences of these large-scale 20th century environmental changes and beyond. my dissertation examines how environmental changes throughout the quaternary (last 2.6 million years) impact patterns of genetic diversity through time. i examined two historical processes that have had the greatest impact in shaping genetic diversity among species and populations: past climatic oscillations since the last glacial period and the extensive regional forest clearance in the last 500 years. first, i assessed the coherence of the impacts of climate-driven range expansions on range-wide patterns of plant genetic diversity between europe and eastern north america. i showed that range-wide patterns of genetic diversity in plant taxa arising from these climate-driven range expansions markedly differed between europe and ena as a likely consequence of idiosyncratic features of each continent, for instance, biogeography e.g., presence of barrier to migration and climatic histories e.g. severity of climatic oscillations. second, patterns of colonization can impact establishment and maintenance of genetic diversity in populations. i examined how presence and spread from small populations from farther north can influence maintenance of genetic diversity in a temperate tree species. i potentially provided the first empirical evidence of existence of ancient small populations farther north than commonly assumed and the early establishment of genetic diversity in these ancient populations. finally, i showed that the extent of genetic impacts of the large-scale demographic declines due to extensive regional deforestations in the last 500 years varied between different habitats and between ecologically-similar forest tree species. by explicitly examining these past processes at different temporal and spatial scale, my work provides a better and more complete picture of the long-term genetic consequences of past large-scale environmental changes on tree species. these insights are important and greatly needed in a better formulation of conservation and management strategies under accelerating environmental changes in the 21st century and beyond. twin and family studies show that many common traits and disorders are highly heritable, but genome-wide association studies (gwas) have been largely unable to identify specific single nucleotide polymorphisms (snps) explaining this heritability at the genetic level. recent work suggests statistical learning methods like gradient boosting (gbm) may be a viable alternative to conventional methods, especially after adjustments for the structure of snp data. the current research evaluates a two-stage research design for gwas. gbm is used as a first stage variable selection screen to substantially reduce the dimensionality of snp data while maintaining sensitivity to additive, nonlinear, and interaction effects, allowing hypothesis testing with a reduced multiple testing burden in the second stage analysis. thorough simulations shows the proposed two-stage design can substantially improve power to detect effect snps in a wide range of conditions. the limitations and potential improvements to this design are explored. my central claim in this work is that vanity plays a fundamental role in hume's account of moral motivation, a role that is almost entirely overlooked by contemporary scholars. hume's moral psychology is typically viewed as a straightforward internalism, where motivation is built directly into the acceptance of a moral evaluation. other scholars, reacting against this reading, insist that for hume moral evaluations motivate only indirectly. i reject both of these accounts of hume's view of moral motivation as inadequate, and replace them with an explanation that gives vanity its due place. i start by defining the concept of vanity and by showing its relevance to hume and his contemporaries. i then argue that vanity serves for hume both as a supporting motive to virtuous action and as an initiating motive for a moral education. given the contribution vanity can make towards becoming a virtuous person, it is sensible that hume would regard vanity as itself a virtue, though he does this only in a cautious or subtle way. finally, i contend that moral motivation by vanity does not, on hume's view, take away from the virtue or moral worth of the action. biofilms are ubiquitous in natural and engineered systems. they are characterized by a complex ecological and structural heterogeneity, where structural heterogeneity refers to morphological and mechanical properties. this dissertation explored the effects of structural heterogeneity on biofilm behavior in treatment systems, where the heterogeneity arose from biofilm growth, mechanical deformation, and detachment. in this study, three novel topics were addressed regarding biofilm heterogeneity: effects of morphological heterogeneity on counter-diffusional biofilms, the development of a biofilm model capable of predicting deformation and detachment, and the determination of spatial distribution of biofilm mechanical properties. counter-diffusional biofilms are relevant to novel treatment processes, such as the membrane biofilm reactor (mbfr). this research used mathematical modeling and experiments to evaluate the effect of morphological heterogeneity and fluid dynamics in mbfr biofilms. results showed that, unlike co-diffusional biofilms, conversion rates increased with morphological heterogeneity and were higher than for co-diffusional biofilms under similar conditions. a novel biofilm model was developed using an energetic variational approach and phase-field method to simulate biofilm mechanical response to fluid flow. the model simulated the viscoelastic behavior of biofilms and the heterogeneous distribution of biofilm components, allowing for the input of the mechanical properties of individual biofilm components. using phase-field coupling and energy conservation, the model simulates biofilm deformation based on continuum mechanics, and also simulates detachment due to cohesive failure. the model predicted that higher extracellular polymeric substance (eps) viscosity provided greater resistance to biofilm deformation. higher eps elasticity resulted in the formation of streamers with structures more prone to detachment. a novel energy-stable numerical scheme was developed to solve the model system efficiently. applications of the model include streamer formation and the effect of biofilm disrupting agents on biofilm mechanical response. a noninvasive approach to map biofilm mechanics at the microscale was developed and applied. the distribution of mechanical properties and the effect of environmental conditions on biofilm mechanics were evaluated. experiments revealed greater mechanical heterogeneity in biofilms grown under low flow shear, and more rigid properties when grown under higher flow shear or in presence of cross-linking agents. we assess the daily relationships between three functional coping strategies and positive and negative affect while accounting for the individual?s cognitive appraisal of their encountered stressor, assessed by measuring the severity and controllability of the encountered stressor. we collected 56 days of daily-data from a later-life cohort (n = 230; age 61 ? 87; m = 72.7; sd = 5.0) assessing affect, the most bothersome event experienced that day, and which coping strategies they used to cope with that event. multi-level modeling allowed us to explore and compare the betweenand within-person effects. daily altering the situation related to lower negative affect and higher positive affect. this coping strategy buffered the impact of stress severity on negative affect. high use of this coping strategy mitigated negative affect less in response to highly controllable stressors compared to low use of this strategy. daily altering the meaning related to higher negative and higher positive affect. the mean effect of dispelling the negative effects of stress related to higher negative affect. findings illustrate that certain coping strategies target affective levels differently. the effectiveness of altering the situation partly depends on aspects of the encountered stressor. this study explores ways in which the anthropological model of rite of passage is useful for interpreting the portrayal of jesus' baptism and wilderness experience in luke 3:1&ndash;4:15, and for considering the place of this account in the narrative of luke-acts. such a ritual approach to the passage is demonstrated to be particularly promising based on the prominent role that ritual is shown to play in the literary structure of luke-acts, where luke 3:1&ndash;4:15 holds a pivotal place among a series of ritual accounts. after considering recent interpretations of the place of the passage in the work of luke-acts, a review of the last one hundred years of rite of passage studies and their application to biblical text provides the groundwork for establishing the approach of the study. the chosen methodology takes as its starting point victor turner's still-insightful process for rite of passage analysis, modifying it in conversation with more recent critiques and developments. this process is applied first to three other ritual accounts from contemporary greco-roman narrative in order to provide a context for the study of the lukan passage. these are: (1) lucius' initiation into the mystery cult of isis in apuleius' metamorphoses; (2) josephus' ritualized passage to adulthood in the vita; and (3) saul's transformation from persecutor to witness in chapter 9 of luke-acts itself. luke 3:1&ndash;4:15 is treated in two chapters, reflecting the two interlocked rituals there depicted. these two rituals, the baptism of the many in 3:1&ndash;21a and jesus' singular anointing and wilderness testing in 3:21b&ndash;4:15, are connected by the shared baptism of jesus and the people in 3:21. it is shown that these baptisms function as important beginnings in the narrative of luke-acts, and are used as a foundation for the portrayal of the course of jesus' ministry and the subsequent ministry of the church. spatial modulation spectroscopy (sms) has been used to image single organic nanoparticles doped with non-fluorescent, near-ir croconaine dyes. based on the measured extinction cross-section of the nanoparticles, the number of dye molecules per particle has been determined. sms images were recorded for particles within emt-6 breast cancer cells which allowed mapping of the nanoparticle location and the amount of dye in a single cell. this demonstrates how sms can facilitate efforts to optimize dye-doped nanoparticles for effective photothermal treatment of cancer. sms imaging has been extended to particles with sizes comparable to or larger than the laser spot, where the shape of the particle matters. the mechanical resonances of metal nanostructures are strongly affected by their environment. ultrafast pump-probe microscopy experiments has been used to study damping of the breathing mode vibrations of single gold nanowires by liquids with different viscosities. the measured quality factors for liquid damping are in good agreement with continuum mechanics calculations for an inviscid fluid showing that liquid damping is controlled by radiation of sound waves into the medium.transient absorption microscopy (tam) measurements have been used to study the optical properties of surface plasmon polariton (spp) modes in gold nanoplates on a glass. the tam images show an oscillation in the signal across the nanoplate due to interference between the bound and leaky spp modes. back focal plane (bfp) imaging was used to measure the wavevector of the leaky mode. by combining the results from two techniques, the wavevector of the bound mode has been determined. these experiments represent the first far-field optical measurement of the wavevector for the bound mode in metal nanostructures.femtosecond laser excitation of strongly absorbing thin films generates picosecond acoustic waves in the surrounding medium. in time-domain transient absorption experiments these waves can give rise to brillouin oscillations. the attenuation of the oscillations has been investigated for different excitation and detection conditions. the results show that the measured attenuation constants strongly depend on the numerical aperture of the microscope objective used. these results are important for understanding the spectral resolution limits in imaging applications of the brillouin scattering effect. since the use of penicillin during world war ii, the cell wall biosynthesis pathway has been a target for antibiotic treatment. although hundreds of ìä ü-lactam antibiotics have been developed and studied at great length, bacterial resistance continually threatens the efficacy with which bacterial infections may be treated. this work investigates small molecule scaffolds as potential inhibitors of the cell wall biosynthesis pathway. the molecules are based on a dipeptide core or were discovered via computational screening of a small molecule library against the active site of a penicillin-binding protein. the small molecules were analyzed for in vivo antibacterial activity utilizing minimum inhibitory concentration determination. in vitro activity was evaluated using established nitrocefin and bocillin-fl competition assays for dd-transpeptidases. additionally, an amplex red coupled assay was employed to probe dd-carboxypeptidase activity. the design, synthesis, and evaluation of these small molecules are discussed herein. cloud computing enables on-demand access to computing and storage resources that can be configured to meet unique constraints of the users with minimal management overhead. the recent rapid growth in the availability of cloud services makes them economically sensible for users with limited computing or storage resources who are unwilling or unable to procure and maintain their own computing infrastructure.however, the top impediment that lies on the way of harnessing all of the benefits of cloud computing is security and privacy considerations that prevent users from placing their data or computations on the cloud. while in general sensitive data can be protected by the means of encryption, computation using the data encrypted via traditional means becomes impossible. moreover, as the users no longer have direct control over the outsourced data and computation, the cloud provider can be incentivized to delete rarely accessed data or skip some of the computation to conserve resources (for financial or other reasons), which is especially true for volunteer-based computational clouds. unintentional data or computation corruption might also take place for a variety of reasons including malware, security break-ins, etc. therefore, it is essential to protect the privacy of sensitive data used in outsourced computation, and verify the integrity of computational results and data storage outsourced to the cloud.toward this goal, we first devise an efficient storage verification mechanism that allows a user to verify integrity of his storage outsourced to untrusted servers, that might need to be modified through user update requests. then, we propose computation verification mechanisms that allow a user to verify integrity of computational tasks including large-scale biometric and matrix computations, that have been outsourced to untrusted servers. lastly, we design a system for translating a generalpurpose program written in an extension of c into its secure implementation and executing the program in a distributed environment. the c extension preserves all current features of the programming language (e.g., pointers) and allows variables to be marked as private and be used in general-purpose computation. historians of science regard john herschel (1792 1871) as one of the most influential british natural philosophers of the nineteenth century. he made important contributions in chemistry, optics, and the philosophy of science, but he was most widely regarded for his astronomical work. his investigations and publications on double stars, nebulae, variable stars, and constellation reform extended throughout his career and form an important chapter in sidereal astronomy prior to the advent of astrophysics. this dissertation is the first extensive survey of herschel's stellar astronomy, drawing upon his correspondence and unpublished diaries and manuscripts in addition to his scientific papers and texts. after a survey of historical ideas regarding the physical nature of the stars, the study examines herschel's relationship with nineteenth-century positional astronomy and argues that herschel viewed star catalogues as a means of obtaining information on the physical nature of stars. by exploring herschel's contributions in double star and variable star research, this study illustrates how herschel brought these fields of inquiry from the astronomical periphery, making them subjects of physico-mathematical research endeavors pursued by multiple observers. the work next contextualizes herschel's prismatic analysis, situating herschel's spectral investigations within his optical and photographical researches and offering an explanation of his ultimate response to spectroscopy. finally, it concludes with a survey of herschel's influence on science writers throughout the nineteenth century to illustrate how his stellar conceptions were accepted and disseminated more broadly. this treatment of herschel's stellar astronomy addresses broader questions in the history of nineteenth-century science. firstly, it shows the evolution of conceptions regarding the stars in the decades leading up to spectroscopy. drawing on assumptions common since the time of copernicus, herschel was instrumental in establishing and communicating many newly measured stellar properties. secondly, this investigation complicates the division between amateur and professional astronomers during this period as herschel attempted to recruit members of both observing communities for his projects. herschel's work marks the transition of sidereal astronomy from being the sole property of those with large telescopes as he advocated for programs in which even naked eye observers could make important contributions to understanding the stars. the current study proposes (1) to examine the effect of ipv exposure on pregnancy and labor morbidity; (2) to assess prenatal mental health as a mediator of the direct pathway, and (3) to examine the moderating role of social support on the direct and indirect pathways. participants (n=76) were interviewed at the wic office during pregnancy and 6 weeks post-delivery. hayes' (2013) process macro for moderated mediation was used with mental health as mediator and social support as moderator. no direct effect of ipv exposure on either pregnancy or labor morbidity was found. there was an indirect effect of ipv on labor morbidity via mental health but no moderation. posthoc analyses found parallel indirect effects of ipv on labor morbidity via mental health and social support. clinical interventions targeting prenatal mental health and social support may help to improve labor outcomes for ipv-exposed mothers. the adaptive use of resources by plants is an important topic in ecology, and is generally expressed as a resource-use efficiency. nitrogen-use efficiency (nue), in particular, has been the subject of several studies, as nitrogen (n) is the primary growth-limiting factors in many terrestrial systems. in chapter three, we examined how anthropogenic increases in n and phosphorus (p) availability may affect plant nue response at multiple ecological scales due to carbon and n allocation within the entire plant (the leaf, woody tissue, aboveand belowground, and whole-plant) and changes in species composition within the community. we examined plant nutrient efficiency indices in fertilization experiments (6 g n m-2 yr-1, 2 g p m-2 yr-1, or a combination of n and p) in nutrient-limited peatland ecosystems in the upper peninsula of michigan. we further examined the evolutionary tradeoff of parameters such as n-productivity and the mean residence time (mrt) of n in biomass, and subsequent effects on nue. lastly, we examined the plant community response to environmental nutrient availability and n-uptake efficiency (plant n uptake/soil n availability). we found that n and p fertilization generally increased aboveground net primary productivity (anpp) and tissue n concentration, although nue response to nutrient addition was not straightforward. nue differed by plant species, and across the ombrotrophic-minerotrophic gradient, and was often affected by the evolutionary tradeoff between n-productivity and mrt, where plants and communities were phenotypically and genetically adapted to maximize either n-productivity or mrt, but not both concurrently. however, n and p fertilization ubiquitously affected plant community n-uptake efficiency, and ultimately n-response efficiency, though the response to each nutrient was dependent on the plant species and community examined. thus, plant community response to soil n availability may exert more important ecosystem controls than nue, as significant changes in n-uptake efficiency at various ecological scales may affect ecosystem carbon and nutrient cycling processes. the project reexamines the origins of lent in light of recent critiques of the generally accepted theories. these are: (1) lent emerged as the result of a gradual prolongation of the primitive oneor two-day pre-paschal fasts; (2) lent was modeled on jewish passover preparation; (3) lent arose around a third-century hagiopolite lectionary cycle; (4) lent emerged as the result of the transposition of an ancient egyptian post-epiphany fast. by fusing the methodologies of comparative and early liturgy, the project seeks to argue for a nuanced version of the fourth theory by highlighting the importance of dogmatic and liturgical controversies and the council of nicea in the rapid dissemination of the fast. recent advances in biomedical imaging technology have made possible the visualization of various objects ranging from internal organs to microorganisms. quantitative analysis of these image data provide essential information for clinical and biological research. in this dissertation, we present algorithms for the identification, segmentation and analysis of biomedical objects in several problems, most of which pose difficulties because of their high dimension, high quantity and high complexity. the problems we studied include objects with complicated branching and networking structure such as the double walls of human airway trees and fibrin networks in blood clots, as well as small objects with massive quantities or temporal behaviors such as the cells in lymph node tissue sections and moving bacteria. the proposed algorithms are based on combinations of a variety of techniques including optimal graph search, medial axis analysis, graph matching, shape feature extraction and machine learning. our approaches either provide tools for automatic and reliable analysis, or significantly reduce the human effort involved in interactive analysis. as a result, we also perform some quantitative analysis based on the output of our algorithms, which generate biologically or diagnostically meaningful findings. this dissertation investigates the use of digital image correlation (dic) – a non-destructive photographic technique that measures three-dimensional full-field strains and displacements based on photogrammetric triangulation and pattern recognition – to monitor the behavior of bridges. dic can provide unparalleled data on bridge behavior, strength, and overall condition. a major challenge in using this technique for monitoring bridges is applying an appropriate pattern as conventional strategies (e.g., spray paint) are time-intensive and weather-dependent. to address this challenge, this dissertation qualifies a new patterning approach using pressure-activated adhesive tape. dic is also validated for bridge monitoring by comparing dic and strain gauge measurements directly for field monitoring, which has never been done in published literature. with an effective strategy developed for field monitoring of bridges using dic, this dissertation uses dic to understand the behavior of bridges from erection through in-service condition, and ultimately under repair. to understand the behavior of bridges during erection, dic was used to measure the strain induced in the two edge girders, the end floor beam, and the supplemental longitudinal truss of the governor mario m. cuomo bridge due to cable anchoring and tie-down forces. to investigate in-service behavior, dic was used to measure the behavior of steel girder bridges subjected to vehicular collision. findings indicated that bridge rail participates in carrying live load, leading to a secondary study which used strain gauges to measure the behavior of undamaged steel and prestressed concrete girder bridges. the data was used to develop a validated finite element numerical modeling approach and perform parametric investigations, culminating in recommendations for bridge inspectors. to monitor the behavior of bridges under repair, dic was used to investigate the repair of the fractured chord of the delaware river bridge, confirming that each step of the repair strategy was working as expected. the results of these different implementations clearly demonstrate that dic can provide unprecedented data on the behavior of bridges in their different life stages: erection, in-service, and repair, as well as the great potential of dic for engineering applications. this dissertation culminates in recommendations for effectively implementing dic to monitoring bridges. distinct transport mechanisms emerge when nanostructured substrates are patterned with multiple chemistries. for example, charge-patterned mosaic membranes possess surfaces functionalized with discrete domains of both positive and negative charge. these oppositely-charged domains provide pathways for both the cation and anion from a dissolved salt to permeate through the membrane without violating the macroscopic constraint of electroneutrality. here, by systematically varying the geometry and size of the charge pattern, we elucidate the molecular interactions that promote the transport of salts under the action of pressure-driven flow. for patterns that consist of equivalent areal coverages of positively-charged and negatively-charged domains, the effects of the geometric parameters were encapsulated in a single variable, the interfacial packing density, that quantified the fraction of the membrane surface covered by junctions between oppositely-charged domains. experimentally, the transport of symmetric electrolytes (i.e., kcl and mgso4) increased with the value of the interfacial packing density, while the interfacial packing density did not significantly affect the transport of asymmetric electrolytes (i.e., k2so4 and mgcl2). simulations of the electrical potential near the membrane surface demonstrate that for symmetric electrolytes, the structural charge heterogeneity reduces the barrier to ion partitioning thereby promoting salt transport through the membranes. for asymmetric electrolytes, the charge heterogeneity skews the local availability of ions from the stoichiometric ratio of the salt thus hindering salt transport. these findings demonstrate the promise of accessing transport mechanisms which could find utility in a diverse range of chemical separations and sensing applications through chemical-patterning of membranes. if young people are born 'peaceful'—without prejudiced or militaristic attitudes—why must they also be meticulously taught it through 'peace education' programs? combining historical archival research from five u.s. governmental, university, and other english-language libraries along with critical discourse analysis, this dissertation makes interventions in three fields: peace studies, critical youth studies, and the historical sub-field of the "u.s. in the world." this dissertation surveys how american social scientists, especially social psychologists, produced knowledge about the nature of 'child development' as well as 'intergroup contact' from the interwar period through the early cold war years. it also considers how these theories influenced the design of the most popular private and governmental 'people-to-people' peace education programs. finally, this dissertation examines why u.s. government officials and policymakers came to believe that these programs were useful to the expansion of u.s. power in the world during and after the second world war and into the early cold war period.this dissertation demonstrates that these various people-to-people programs of the past rarely produced the desired results. policymakers found that people-to-people exchanges did not automatically influence foreign audiences to want to follow the, purported, american way of 'democratic living' or to accept u.s. foreign policy objectives. however, they did help solidify a dominant theory of change undergirding the design of mainstream american people-to-people programs. these liberal programs tended to favor a combination of education about select 'other' groups of people and, increasingly, mediated interpersonal contact with these 'other' groups. consequently, changing individual attitudes, via interpersonal contact, was emphasized over other possible structural changes, such as addressing discriminatory practices and institutions. over time, these programs also came to target 'youth' as a distinct category of persons assumed to be most suitable for these programs. in being named the ideal 'ambassadors of peace' and the best participants for various people-to-people programs, a category of persons named 'youth' was, in effect, transformed into the recipients most in need of an education for 'peace'. the continued exponential growth of storage capacity has catalyzed the broad acquisition of scientific data which must be processed. while today's large data analysis systems are highly effective at establishing data locality and eliminating inter-dependencies, they are not so easily incorporated into scientific workflows that are often complex and irregular graphs of sequential programs with multiple dependencies. to address the needs of scientific computing, i propose the design of an active storage cluster file system which allows for execution of regular unmodified applications with full data locality.this dissertation analyzes the potential benefits of exploiting the structural information already available in scientific workflows -the explicit dependencies -to achieve a scalable and stable system. i begin with an outline of the design of the confuga active storage cluster file system and its applicability to scientific computing. the remainder of the dissertation examines the techniques used to achieve a scalable and stable system. first, file system access by jobs is scoped to explicitly defined dependencies resolved at job dispatch. second, workflow's structural information is harnessed to direct and control necessary file transfers to enforce cluster stability and maintain performance. third, control of transfers is selectively relaxed to improve performance by limiting any negative effects of centralized transfer management.this work benefits users by providing a complete batch execution platform joined with a cluster file system. the user does not need to redesign their workflow or provide additional consideration to the management of data dependencies. system stability and performance is managed by the cluster file system while providing jobs with complete data locality. heterogeneous catalysis, being the focus of attention in the realm of catalysis, plays a vital role in modern chemical and energy industries. a prototype of heterogeneous catalyst consists of metal nanoparticles dispersed and supported on a substrate. transition metal oxide is one of the key components of heterogeneous catalyst and is frequently used as catalyst support for noble metal nanoparticle catalysts due to low cost. as a result of the high cost of noble metal elements, it is particularly favorable to design and develop transition metal oxide-based nanocatalysts mainly made of earth-abundant elements with no or less noble metal with comparable or better catalytic performance than noble metal-based nanocatalysts in a catalytic reaction.in some cases, surface chemistry and structure of nanocatalysts are not invariable during catalysis. they evolve in terms of surface restructuring or phase change, which contributes to the complexity of catalyst surface under different catalytic conditions. transition metal oxides, especially reducible transition metal oxides, have multiple cationic valence states and crystallographic structures. new catalytic active phases or sites could be formed upon surface restructuring under certain catalytic conditions while they may not be preserved if exposed to ambient conditions. thus, it is essential to characterize catalyst surface under reaction conditions so that chemistry and structure of catalyst surface could be correlated with the corresponding catalytic performance. it also suggests a new route to design nanocatalysts through restructuring catalyst precursor under certain catalytic conditions tracked with in-situ analytical techniques.catalysis occurs on catalyst surface. for noble metal nanoparticle catalysts, only atoms exposed on surface participate in catalytic processes, while atoms in bulk do not. in order to make full use of noble metal atoms, it is crucial to maximize the dispersion. a configuration of noble metal atoms singly dispersed on oxide support offers a way to fully use each and every noble metal atom in a catalytic reaction and reach cost-effective utilization. more importantly, restructuring such catalysts with atomic dispersion under certain conditions gives rise to the formation of singly dispersed bimetallic sites by virtue of bonding between singly anchored metal atoms and the metal atoms of the catalyst support. compared with bimetallic nanoparticle catalysts, singly dispersed bimetallic sites are typically positively charged and exhibit a different chemisorption to a reactant and/or an intermediate, thus facilitating its dissociation. in addition, the isolation of bimetallic sites minimizes the choices of potential binding configurations of a reactant molecule in contrast to the potential multiple choices on surface of a bimetallic nanoparticle with continuously packed bimetallic sites. thus, a catalyst of singly dispersed bimetallic sites could exhibit high catalytic selectivity for an ideal product. following the strategies of catalyst design, cobalt oxide catalysts and singly dispersed bimetallic sites supported on cobalt oxide catalysts were developed and studied in both energy transformation (water-gas shift) and environmental remediation (reduction of nitric oxide to nitrogen). in-situ techniques such as ambient-pressure photoelectron spectroscopy (ap-xps) and extended x-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy (exafs) were used to track the evolution of catalyst surface chemistry and structure under reaction conditions. a correlation between catalyst surface chemistries and structures and the corresponding catalytic performances was established. combined with theoretical calculations, a mechanistic understanding at a molecular level was achieved. these studies have provided deep insights for further design and development of nanocatalysts. t cells are a critical component of the immune system that recognize pathogen-associated peptides presented on cell surfaces by major histocompatibility complex (mhc) proteins. t cells can also recognize tumor-associated or tumor-specific peptide/mhcs on cancer cells. the ability of t cells to recognize cancer establishes the basis for immunotherapies, which are approaches in which living immune cells infiltrate the tumor and kill tumor cells. though immunotherapy has led to promising clinical results, there remains much room for improvement.the binding event between a t cell receptor (tcr) protein and a peptide/mhc is the primary signal for initiating a t cell mediated immune response. therefore, the ability to accurately predict tcr–peptide/mhc interactions is critical for improving existing immunotherapies by identifying target peptide/mhcs on tumor cells and avoiding off-target peptides on healthy cells. herein, we aim to demonstrate the utility of structural and biophysical considerations in assessing tcr–peptide/mhc interactions relevant to cancer to support structure-based predictions of immunotherapy. this dissertation explores how and why four latin american democracies -argentina, brazil, chile, and mexico -have regulated commercial banks since the late 1970s. the objective is to explain variation across countries and time in the regulatory regimes of the commercial bank sector, meaning governments' decisions about the levels of restrictions imposed on both the structure and the risk-management behavior of banks. i find that traditional approaches to regulation -based on interests, ideology, and institutions -are insufficient to elucidate the political economy of banking regulation in latin america. in offering a new typological -the embedded-agency -theory of regulation, i argue that variation in bank regulatory regimes depends on the nature of the principal-agent (p-a) relationship among regulation-makers and its interaction with what i call 'conjunctural' determinants (i.e., systemic banking crises, international pressures, and technological advances). while the nature of the p-a relationship among regulators offers insights into who the relevant actors in bank regulation are and how a consensus among them can be achieved, the conjunctural determinants allow us to identify which regulatory objective is assigned priority. the interaction between these two sets of variables indicate the circumstances under which each regulatory scheme -the cost-padding, the laissez-faire, the prudential, or the over-protective -is more likely to occur. given that the regulation of commercial banks affects the level of performance of countries' financial systems, and the performance of financial systems in turn affects economic development, the consequences of deficient bank regulation and supervision are too grave to be disregarded. this dissertation examines the writings of augustine of hippo which pertain to the angels. although patristic angelology has received little scholarly attention, the presence of mediating spirits was assumed in antiquity, and they frequently appear in both augustine's theological writings and in his homilies. according to augustine, the angels are holy and wholly aligned to the will of god, and so in the life of the angels, we can glimpse augustine's view of the perfection of creation. in this dissertation, i pursue four main topics of discussion in order to illuminate the theological and pastoral implications of augustine's understanding of angels: angels and creation (chapter one), angelic community (chapter two), angels and salvation history (chapter three) and spiritual warfare (chapter four). in pursuing these four subjects, i demonstrate that augustine does not treat the angels in abstraction, but as creatures of god. their existence confirms the goodness of creation and in their life we see the perfection of created goodness, that is, the perfection of bodies, of sacraments, of worship and of cooperation in the plan of salvation. i argue that the chief theological import of augustine's view of the angels is that they demonstrate his commitment to the idea of the goodness of created communion. the city of god, whose first members are the angels, are not just created good or created in communion with one another, but created good as communion from the very beginning. it is this community which human beings long to join in the future, and yet are now already a part. one important barrier to the use of current iris recognition techniques in law enforcement areas such as forensics is that the iris features used by these techniques are not interpretable to human eyes. this dissertation proposes a novel iris recognition technique that determines a human's identity based on the crypt, a visible feature on the iris. the major motivation is to aid the law enforcement applications that require human judgment in the process. the crypt is a visible feature whose formation is related to both color pigmentation and iris surface structures. thus they are stable and easier for human eyes to rely on for iris recognition tasks. to verify the human-in-the-loop system design, we conducte two human-subject experiments to evaluate human perception of crypt features in both consistency and robustness. the results support the applicability of using crypt features for semi-automatic iris recognition. an automatic feature detector and matcher are implemented to reduce the human workload to a manageable level for large datasets and assist humans to make more informative decisions. our feature detector deploys a multi-scale pyramid framework in order to detect crypts of various sizes. an optimization step is then performed to improve boundary accuracies and to reveal more shape detail of the crypts. two crypt matchers are introduced and evaluated in this dissertation. the first matcher uses a two-stage design that approximates the overall speed of of a simple global matcher while still being able to locate common crypts between potentially matching iris image pairs. the second matcher uses local binary compatibility to evaluate crypt similarities. it is designed to be more robust to shape variations and partial detection errors. the performance of the crypt detector and matcher is evaluated in both identification and verification scenarios. the testing dataset is composed of 3505 images from 701 irises. it is by far the largest dataset that has been used in performance evaluation for visible feature based iris recognition techniques.a final contribution of this work is the preliminary study of a semi-automatic identity verification system. this system combines the automatic crypt detector/matcher with human judgment. image pairs with automatically annotated crypt features and local similarity scores are presented to a group of anonymous online human participants to classify each iris pair as match or non-match. the results suggest that the semi-automatic identity verification framework is feasible when the conclusion is retrieved through a voting strategy among several humans. we also expect the accuracy to be considerably higher for experienced forensic examiners. this study examines racial/ethnic and gender inequalities in alternative education program (aep) placements. using longitudinal data on students and program placements, i analyze the relationship between race, race-gender, and students' odds of being placed into aeps for academic remediation (remedialization) or behavior (criminalization). i find that black students and emphatically black girls have higher odds of behavioral placement than white schoolmates, but latinx students do not. both black and latinx students have lower odds of placement for academic remediation. these findings locate inequalities in the deployment of rehabilitation and punishment earlier in the life course, prior to these disparities emerging within the criminal-legal system; i discuss the implications of this disparity for the production of educational and social inequality. abnormalities of biological processes in cells often lead to complex diseases. thus, understanding biological processes is critical. with the proliferation of biotechnologies, large amounts of -omics data capturing different slices of cellular functioning are generated. analyzing these large-scale -omics data via fast and scalable computational approaches has gained significant attention. a prominent direction for such computational analyses is to use biological networks, where nodes are biological entities and edges are interactions between these entities. this is because it is the complex interactions between the biological entities that carry out cellular functioning. however, first, not all -omics data are explicitly provided as networks. instead, networks can be inferred from such -omics data, which is beneficial to at least implicitly capture the valuable interactions between biological entities. second, even those -omics data that are explicitly provided as networks (e.g., protein-protein interactions) are not specific to a biological context of interest, such as disease, tissue, patient, or age. however, a context-specific network can be inferred by combining context-unspecific protein-protein interactions with other, context-specific non-network -omics data. the above two limitations emphasize the need for an important task in network biology -that of network inference. furthermore, given an (explicit or implicitly inferred) network, another important task in network biology is that of network analysis -recognizing interesting network patterns that are relevant for a biological process of interest. this dissertation proposes novel computational approaches for both tasks -network inference and network analysis -in the context of studying two important biological processes -human aging and malaria. first, regarding network biology research of human aging, we infer different types of (dynamic or static, weighted or unweighted) aging-specific networks. then, we develop a supervised computational framework to systematically evaluate which network type performs the best in uncovering existing aging-related knowledge. our hypothesis is that an aging-specific network that is both dynamic and weighted should be the most powerful and thus outperform all other (static or unweighted) network types. by relying on the best inferred aging-specific network(s), we can expand current knowledge about molecular mechanisms of the aging process, and hence better treat aging-related diseases. second, regarding network biology research of malaria, we apply prominent network inference methods to infer gene co-expression networks. then, we develop an unsupervised computational framework to systematically evaluate which network performs the best in uncovering existing functional annotations of genes in the malaria parasite, plasmodium (p.) falciparum. by relying on the best inferred gene co-expression network(s), we can expand current functional knowledge about p. falciparum genes, and hence advance understanding of drug resistance in this species, which hinders the elimination of malaria. this thesis examines the role of youth in transforming conflicts through a multi-layered study of grassroots youth movements adopting conflict transformational approaches in conflict zones across the world. thus, it highlights certain attributes unique to youth that enhance their capacity and legitimacy in transforming conflict. the highlighted attributes include a lesser impact by entrenched hate, an inherent potential for long-term engagement, and a desire for purpose and a cause to make a difference. these characteristics of youth will be evaluated in relation to transforming conflict through an exploration of grassroots youth movements worldwide. these movements have generated increased legitimacy through positively impacting their communities by using these unique characteristics of youth, which enable strategic and crucial engagement in transforming conflict. the research strategy used in this thesis consists of an analysis of scholarly work exploring the role of youth in peace building, a quantitative analysis of the growing youth demographic and their plight in conflict zones, and a qualitative analysis of five strategies used by youth movements in specific conflict zones, highlighting the pivotal role youth play. data is collected from interviews, newspapers, and published reports. i will also glean from my own experience as the founder and president of sri lanka unites, a youth movement in post-war sri lanka. this thesis challenges the arguments that youth movements are inconsequential and the role youth play in transforming conflict is ceremonial at best and destructive at worst. some view governments, international organizations, and political and economic elites as the only stakeholders yielding the capacity to drive national change and create durable solutions to conflict. however, these higher echelons of society, though able to deal with the symptoms of conflict, typically have neither the reach, capacity, nor longevity in approach to identify or address a conflict's root causes. grassroots youth movements that have adopted conflict transformational approaches have enhanced their relevance and capacity by using innovative methods to expose, challenge, and transform a the root causes of conflict. therefore, they increase the possibility of durable solutions for and reconciliation of communities and nations devastated by conflict. in this thesis i intend to redefine the role of lombard dominican filippo da strada (1450-1505) in the debate on printing in italy in the late fifteenth century. i argue that filippo's critique was the first negative reaction ever by a member of the church, during a period when its major exponents were initially glad of the new invention. his critique is also the most statutory one ever made (i.e. on printing per se), and deals with economic, humanistic, and pedagogical issues: not only does he criticize typographers, proponents of the printed texts, but also criticizes the same printed characters ('le litre de stampa caliginose'), the reading of which would harm the education of pupils. in the first part, i reconstruct the first reception of printing in italy in the second half of the fifteenth century, by focusing on the reactions of humanists, minor friars, and copyists. in the second part, i focus on the figure of filippo based on all the documents that have been written about him so far. in the third part, i analyze ms lat. d. 5 of the hesburgh library (university of notre dame), in which i found three unknown autograph texts by filippo himself: here he stresses the higher pedagogical value of manuscript texts over printed ones, and highlights his fear of finding serious mistakes, especially in sacred printed texts: the same fear expressed by humanists. finally, i reassess the value of his critique, making a connection also to 16th century reactions against print culture: despite several historical differences, filippo's fear &mdash; that, for instance, thanks to print everybody could profess themselves 'doctor' &mdash; does not look that different from the ones expressed by some well-known critics in the sixteenth century, such as ludovico domenichi and giuliano de' ricci. fundamentally, filippo's unique critique is based on three main concerns: an economic one, i.e. the economic loss for copyists (because of the great economic success of printed books); a humanistic reason, i.e. the praise of the accuracy in copying texts and the subsequent attention to not making errors that, in copying sacred texts, can distort god's word; and a pedagogical reason, i.e. the pedagogical value of the action of copying itself: only by copying, indeed, can students absorb and learn the text. microscale additive manufacturing (µ-am) processes are a class of manufacturing processes used to fabricate micron-sized structures in a sequence of direct additions of materials as instructed by a digital file, as opposed to the lithographic patterning and subtractive etching used in traditional microscale manufacturing. despite being sophisticated, numerically controlled tools, material addition is an open-loop process which requires continual user intervention to heuristically tune process parameters. in addition, the layer-to-layer dynamics in µ-am are not well understood. this dissertation investigates layer-to-layer dynamics from a system identification perspective. this work defines a class of input signals, system identification algorithm for µ-am modeled as a discrete repetitive system, and the experimental protocol to empirically the plant model and validate the model for a different input signal. a case study applied to the µ-am process electrohydrodynamic jet printing demonstrates that the identified model from a training set is extensible to a validation data set, with less than 4% error between the system identification of the training and validation data sets. models describing the dynamics of the µ-am enable the design of model-based controls. this dissertation details the first experimental demonstration of a run-to-run feedback algorithm termed spatial iterative learning control (silc), a framework enable robust, auto-regulation of sensitive µ-am processes. this work demonstrates that silc enables us to autonomously fabricate complex topography structures with as small as 5µm x-and y-axis resolution and ∼113nm feature height accuracy, without any heuristic tuning by a user. lastly, silc can be designed to be robust to system faults, as demonstrated by the ability to recover from both an actuator and sensor error in two iterations. a common denominator across different cultures and societies is that people are on a continuous quest to move forward in life -each in their own personal way. though success can be achieved by many routes, it is also a well-known fact that a person's level of education can be a strong indicator of their achievements, professional or otherwise. yet, persevering through the educational ladder can still be a major challenge for some students, regardless of the benefits it confers. as the first step in providing each student with the attention and support they need, a perennial challenge for educators has been to identify those students who may ultimately struggle. unfortunately, the current systems used to identify struggling students are often inadequate, precipitating dropout rates that that are a focal concern for both secondary and post-secondary institutions alike. to stem the tide of student attrition, these institutions continue to invest increasing amounts of resources to foster the early identification of students who may drop out. in this work, we explore the application of various machine learning techniques to the problem of predicting which students may be at \ extit{at risk} of some adverse outcome. we compare the performance of such methods to that of more traditional approaches, discuss what specific student-level data features can be used to measure student risk, and delineate strategies that can be followed by academic institutions that wish to deploy and evaluate these predictive models. this thesis addresses ghada amer's sculptures and installations through the concept of translation, investigating the moments of contradiction, fragmentation and miscommunication that result from the process of converting one sign system into another. it will also interrogate what is lost and what is gained in the process of translating information across cultural and gender divides. amer, most well-known for embroidering images and text onto sculptural forms and canvasses, works with a number of languages, most commonly arabic, french and english, and while she sometimes works with texts that have been previously translated by someone else, she most often assumes the role of translator herself. moreover, in this role, she works not only with the written word, but also with visual language in the sense that she manipulates medium and form. for instance, amer converts written text from the page into embroidered text on cloth, from ink to thread, and from book to fabric structure. this intermedial shifting changes both the original character of the letterforms and the context. in both visual and textual terms, amer's work thus addresses language's instability, while her method of layering various sign systems on top of one another creates a multi-vocality that speaks to issues of cultural hybridity and the unpredictable processes of assimilation and acculturation. through her use of translation and shifting across mediums and languages, ghada amer forces an integration, or interaction, between marginalized elements of text and culture, and the society by which they are surrounded. this dissertation develops a perspective for studying overhead in communication systems that contrasts the traditional viewpoint that overhead is the "non-data" portion of transmissions. by viewing overhead as the cost of constraints imposed on a system, information-theoretic techniques can be used to obtain fundamental limits on system performance. in principle, protocol overhead in practical implementations can then be benchmarked against these fundamental limits in order to identify opportunities for improvement. we examine three sources of overhead that have been studied in both information theory and networking using different models and metrics. for multi-access communication systems, we compute constrained capacity regions for two binary additive channels with feedback and develop inner and outer bounds on the capacity region of the packet collision channel with feedback that appear to be tight numerically. we develop bounds on the protocol overhead required to meet an average delay constraint and then use these bounds to characterize rate-delay tradeoffs for communicating a bursty source over a noisy channel. finally, we study information-theoretic security in timing channels and show that non-zero secrecy rates can be achieved over the wiretap timing channel using a deterministic encoder. steve reich's tehillim (1981) represents a turning point in the composer's compositional life. it was the first time a score by reich needed a conductor to maintain the ensemble in performance. it represented also a transition from shorter melodic phrases found in such works as music for 18 musicians, into longer melodic lines and patterns. in tehillim, reich set these longer melodic lines to verses from the hebrew psalms and created a four-movement work that still highlights the composer's well-known techniques of repetition and phasing. tehillim is an exceptionally challenging work for the conductor and ensemble performers alike, because of the rapidly changing time signatures, the phasing patterns found in virtually every ensemble section, the need for performers to constantly count repeated rehearsal sections in each part, and the effort represented in singing with non-vibrato technique for an extended period of time. given the rise in the appreciation of tehillim as a landmark american work for a vocal-instrumental ensemble, it continues to gain interest among young conductors. this doctoral dissertation aims to provide a useful guide for conductors in academia working with gifted young performers who wish to perform tehillim. it provides a synopsis of the rehearsal process for the different musical sections, discusses the mindset and methodology that the conductor should have while practicing the work, suggests ideal staging setups, and analyzes the advantages of different tempos taken by various performing groups, including my own performance at the university of notre dame in november of 2019. i also assert that the rehearsal process will require non-traditional and innovative approaches because of the musical influences affecting the composition of the work. therefore, i start with a review of the musical influences, both western and non-western, that reich says helped him conjure the specific compositional style for tehillim. these include ghanaian drumming, balinese gamelan, hebrew cantillation, and bach's easter cantata, bwv 4 christ lag in todesbanden, which reich considers significant in the reformulation of his style for tehillim. a brief analytical overview of each of the four movements (labeled parts i through iv) is also provided. the appendices of this dissertation also provide an ipa transliteration of the hebrew text, additional notes on the background of christ lag in todesbanden, my program notes from the november 2019 performance, and a transcript of an interview reich gave with the miller theatre at columbia university in 2014. this interview was part of the inspiration for both my performance of tehillim and this dissertation. with the increasing strength of computational resources, computational drug design methodologies have been used as tools in the identification of lead molecules for drug targets. in my thesis, i have utilized structure-based drug design methodology to elucidate information targeting the mammalian transcription factor family of notch. as a crystal structure solely exists for the mammalian notch1 transactivation factor complex (pdb: 2f8x, resolution: 3.25ìä'_), i initially created homology models for the notch2-notch4 transcription factor complexes based on the three-dimensional coordinates for each atom of the crystal structure of notch1. of interest to our collaborators at the dana-farber cancer institute, a mutant of the notch3 complex was tested to address a clinical phenotype seen. also, weak protein-protein interactions in the notch1 interface were found to allow for the dissociation of ank and csl once maml1 is removed from the complex. stapled sahm peptide analogs were designed to disrupt the protein-protein interactions of the notch1-notch4 transactivation complexes, the loss-of-function or gain-of-function mutations of which are related to numerous diseased states, including cancers. stapled sahm mutants disrupting analogous regions of interface homologs resulted in quick molecular dynamics convergence. stapled sahm mutants were designed by natural amino acid point mutations to allow for higher binding affinity to non-analogous ank/csl interfaces. novel sahm1 peptide antagonists were developed through varying the location of the staple and docking to the notch1 interface; one stapled peptide shows quick md convergence, analogous to that of sahm1. the notch2-notch4 ank/csl interfaces were also targeted at two hot-spot regions by small molecule ligands, which will be subsequently tested computationally by mm/pbsa rescoring and validated by experimental measures by our collaborators. the quick and cost-efficient computational techniques that help elucidate the mechanisms associated with binding and have been applied include: homology modeling, equilibration and molecular dynamics simulations, and mm/pbsa binding free energy calculations and rescoring. a search for the standard model higgs boson produced in association with a top quark pair is presented, using the full pp collision dataset corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb&lt;sup&gt;-1&lt;/sup&gt; collected by the cms experiment at a center of mass energy of &amp;radic;s = 13 tev. mva-based event reconstruction techniques are used to identify final states where the higgs boson decays to either a w, z or tau pair by selecting events with two isolated same-sign leptons, and b-jets. the observed best-fit \ th signal strength is 1.7&lt;sup&gt;+0.6&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;sub&gt;-0.5&lt;/sub&gt; times the standard model prediction, corresponding to a significance of 3.3 standard deviations above the background-only hypothesis. the observed 95% cl upper limit on the signal strength is 2.9 times the standard model prediction, compared to the expected upper limit of 1.0&lt;sup&gt;+0.5&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;sub&gt;-0.3&lt;/sub&gt; this dissertation examines how medieval heroic literature exploits the interpretive ambiguity of emotions to interrogate ethical mores. reading heroic texts from english, irish, and scandinavian literary traditions as figurations of a historical imaginary, this dissertation focuses on "negative" affects like anger and fear to examine how feelings illuminate a dialectic between nostalgia for a constructed past and concern about a dreaded future. i assert that, across the medieval north atlantic, heroic poetry reveals a critically-unacknowledged concern with the ways affective connections create social cohesion, yet lead to almost inevitable destruction. emotions elucidate a liminal space between the embodied and the psychological—they are felt in both senses of the word. they also maintain tension between past events and potential futures, and indeed, between the heroic past of a text and the diminished present occupied by its reader. this project reassesses modern assumptions about medieval feelings and posits a new medieval-heroic theory of affect. these feelings, i argue, create an atemporal hermeneutic, a way of "thinking about feeling," through which i reassess how literature can display concerns about the ethical choices available in past, present, and future. this project offers a new and trans-historical way to read ethics through emotion—moreover, it demonstrates how medieval literature speaks urgently about ethics to non-medieval audiences, from early modern authors to contemporary readers.the dissertation is divided into four main chapters. in the first chapter, i demonstrate how laments transmute solitary grief into a future-oriented community affect while allowing mourners to question the political causes of grief. in the second chapter, i argue that while anger breaks relationships through violence and feud, as is often discussed in the context of old english literature, it also creates relationships that are bound to fail. the third chapter takes account of how shame operates at two conflicting but mutually constitutive levels: that shame is used to critique the power structures that inculcate it while at the same time seeking to control "non-heroic" activity. the fourth and final chapter examines how the spatiality of fear functions alongside processes of thinking and knowing, bringing the mind in proximity with possible futures; by linking the emotional to the embodied, readers engage affectively with the often-fantastical traumas experienced in heroic literature. no abstract needed for mfa thesis. tunneling field effect transistors (tfets) have recently attracted considerable interest because of their potential use in low power logic applications. the major advantage of tunnel transistors is the possibility to achieve less than 60 mv/decade sub-threshold swing, which is the thermionic limit in conventional mosfets. in this work, simulation of iii-v semiconductor based tunnel transistors has been explored using both commercially available simulator (synopsys tcad) and novel analytical compact models. synopsys tcad was used to simulate inas homo-junction tfet. for the purpose of obtaining higher device performance, the use of algasb/inas heterostructures was then explored. contrary to expectations, it was observed that the simulation predicts dramatic changes in device performance as a function of algasb composition. in order to gain more physical insight, also to reduce computer simulation time, a compact model was built to simulate the tunnel transistors. analytical expressions for the electrical potential in single-gate (sg), double-gate (dg) and gate-all-around (gaa) tunnel transistors have been derived. the model predicts that the gaa geometry is not always the best geometry when quantum confinement is included in the model. this dissertation focuses on the relation between art and notions of individual and collective identity, or subjectivity, in the philosophy of g.w.f. hegel (1770 1831). specifically, it addresses the disputed significance of the subject in relation to the purpose, value, and meaning of artworks central to hegel's philosophy of art. numerous critics have readily dismissed hegel's aesthetic theory as a crude attempt to understand art by way of an arcane metaphysics that undervalues individual agency. meanwhile, modern hegelians, such as theodor adorno and arthur danto, view the so-called 'end of art' thesis in hegel as a welcome shift in emphasis toward the content or meaning of artworks, but have done little to quell the concern that hegel's aesthetics marginalizes the role of the subject. by contrast, this dissertation re-examines hegel's philosophy of art through an in-depth analysis of what we might call 'aesthetic subjectivity' the status of the individual subject in the context of aesthetic theory that is overlooked by opponents and proponents of hegel alike. focusing primarily on hegel's oft-neglected lectures on aesthetics, this dissertation identifies three distinct aspects of aesthetic subjectivity: aesthetic experience, aesthetic freedom, and aesthetic imagination (both creative and interpretive). a closer look at the development of these categories in the aesthetics challenges the standard profile of hegel's philosophy in three ways. first, it reveals a more constitutive role of subjectivity within the broader canon of hegel's thought, and does so with a level of clarity and concreteness absent in many of the earlier, better-known works. second, it blurs the standard dichotomy between 'subjectivist' and 'objectivist' aesthetic theories: hegel's philosophy of art begins as an internal, dialectical development of core aesthetic doctrines in kant, such as purposiveness, disinterestedness, imagination, and artistic genius. this continuity thesis in turn provides a more nuanced historical analysis of hegel's relation to 19th century german romanticism, including goethe, schiller, and friedrich schlegel. finally, a new theory of aesthetic subjectivity in hegel offers a timely and much-needed alternative to the postmodern emphasis on the 'negativity' of art, focusing instead on art's potential to offer a positive form of social and political dialogue. social opposition is the face-to-face unwillingness or incapacity to compromise. deficits in social cooperation can undermine both individual and societal wellbeing, adversely affecting both low and high-income countries (global peace index, 2021).empirical and theoretical research from developmental psychology and developmental psychobiology suggest that compulsive social oppositionalism may be influenced by physiological regulation capacities which are shaped by early life experiences. the goal of this study was to investigate a possible long-term effect of early life experience on child oppositionalism, specifically physiological regulation as measured by cardiac vagal functioning. observed quality of maternal parenting was assessed at 12 months of age (n=138 mother-child dyads) through the keys to interactive parenting scale (kips; comfort &amp; gordon, 2006) and child cardiac vagal regulation (rsa; respiratory sinus arrhythmia) and social oppositionalism were assessed five years later. structural equation modeling that included a latent basis coefficient model of cardiac vagal regulation was examined, providing the investigation of both tonic and flexible cardiac vagal regulation.quality of maternal parenting consistently related to child flexible cardiac vagal regulation across both relaxing and stress conditions. higher scores on quality of parenting at 12 months of age related to increased cardiac vagal flexibility years later, allowing children greater physiological adaptability. child flexible cardiac vagal regulation as assessed by recovery from stress also related to decreased child social oppositionalism. in addition, higher child tonic cardiac vagal tone was related to lower child social oppositionalism suggesting that, regardless of condition, greater physiological regulation influenced lower child social oppositionalism. lastly, the direct effect of parenting quality in early life on child social oppositionalism years later was not evident, providing evidence for the importance of child physiological regulation.efforts to increase quality of maternal parenting for children in early life may carry long-term effects on both child physiological development and social outcomes. in addition, because cardiac vagal regulation is a major neurobiological building block of wellbeing and resilience, supporting caregivers in their efforts to care for children in the first year of life may impact physical and social capacities across the lifespan. this may help build individuals who not only have physiological regulatory capacities needed for health and resilience but social engagement skills that facilitate wellbeing for all members of society. this thesis is a detailed presentation of a precision measurement of the mass of the $w$ boson. it has been obtained by analyzing $w o e u$ decays. the data used for this analysis was collected from 2002 to 2006 with the dzero~detector, during run iia of the fermilab tevatron collider. it corresponds to a total integrated luminosity of 1 fb$^{-1}$. with a sample of 499,830 $w o e u$ candidate events, we obtain a mass measurement of $m_w$=80.401 $pm$ 0.043 gev. this is the most precise measurement from a single experiment to date. in this thesis, i investigate the relationship between cultural capital and school engagement. cultural capital has been investigated in its relation to academic achievement and attainment, with the ultimate finding that it has little direct causal effect on student success. a lack of school engagement has been determined to be a significant contributor to high school dropout. while cultural capital researchers have found differences in classroom behaviors related to levels of cultural capital and socioeconomic background, few have examined these differences in relation to attachment or engagement with schooling. in addition, while some researchers have begun to examine engagement as an educational outcome, none have examined whether culture may influence engagement. to this end, i investigate the relationship between cultural capital and school engagement, as well as the associations among cultural capital, engagement, and high school dropout. i find that, as predicted, cultural capital is significantly associated with school engagement. i also find that cultural capital is significantly associated with high school completion, with and without controlling for engagement. consistent with previous work, lower engagement is significantly associated with high school dropout. i also run several analyses to investigate these relationships, with findings pointing toward the importance of cultural capital during early development, reading, and student excitement in school as key predictors of continued schooling success (or failure). i conclude with a discussion of limitations of the current study and promising avenues for further investigation. chemoresistance is a leading cause of breast cancer related deaths. therefore, understanding the molecular basis for chemoresistance is essential for novel therapeutic advancement and improving patient outcome. the adenomatous polyposis coli (apc) tumor suppressor is lost in up to 70% of sporadic breast cancer; however, little is known about how apc loss contributes to chemoresistance. using mammary tumor cells isolated from the apcmin/+ mouse crossed to the polyoma middle t antigen (pymt) transgenic model, we made the novel observation that apc loss decreased doxorubicin (dox)-induced apoptosis. we hypothesized that apc loss prevents dox-mediated apoptosis through: 1) reduced intracellular dox and 2) alterations in dna damage and repair with the goal to discover new combination therapies for apc-deficient cancer.to investigate the intracellular dox accumulation, we measured the amount of dox intracellular fluorescence and found decreased intracellular dox retention with apc loss. the atp-binding cassette (abc) transporters, multidrug resistance 1 (mdr1) and multidrug resistance protein 1 (mrp1), are well established to contribute to drug resistance through drug efflux and are overexpressed in tumor initiating cells (tics). we showed that mmtv-pymt;apcmin/+ cells have an increased tic population. to investigate this decreased intracellular dox accumulation, we found increased expression of mdr1 and mrp1. mdr1 inhibition and mrp1 silencing restored dox intracellular retention, decreased the tic population, and increased dox-induced cleaved caspase 3 expression in apc-deficient cells. dual mdr1/mrp1 inhibition did not have an additive effect. increased mdr1 activity was specific to apc loss, which was shown to be mediated through signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (stat3). to investigate the effect of apc loss on dna damage repair pathways, we measured the amount of dox-induced dna damage in apc-deficient cells. there was decreased dox-induced dna damage and damage signaling mediated through ataxia-telangiectasia mutated (atm) activation with apc loss. inhibiting atm or dna-pk increased dox-induced apoptosis. in addition, we found that apc loss affects topo iiα activity decreasing topo iiα/dna complexes. taken together, apc loss decreased intracellular dox accumulation through increased efflux and decreased dox-induced dna damage. mdr1 and atm inhibition restore dox sensitivity specifically with apc loss demonstrating the potential use of combination therapy to overcome chemoresistance. a collection of short stories exploring grief, sex and natural disaster. two problems that are generally considered to be difficult in face recognition are variations in expression and distinguishing between the faces of identical twins. this work consists of a study on the performance of 3d face recognition algorithms on a relatively large set of identical twins: the 3d twins expression challenge (``3d tec') dataset. the 3d tec dataset is a challenging dataset that consists of 3d scans of 107 pairs of twins that were acquired in a single session, with each subject having a scan of a neutral expression and a smiling expression. the combination of factors related to the facial similarity of identical twins and the variation in facial expression makes this a challenging dataset. in this paper, we demonstrate the performance of modern face recognition algorithms on this dataset. the results indicate that 3d face recognition of identical twins in the presence of varying facial expressions is far from a solved problem. an approach based on dimensionality reduction of the geodesic distance matrix is also attempted against the dataset. it was found that the use of geodesic distances did not improve performance for a certain class of algorithms due to the reduction in resolution needed for calculating the geodesic distance matrix. creative thesis: poetry the discovery of antibiotics was one of the greatest medical discoveries of the 20th century. infectious diseases were rampant prior to the discovery of antibiotics, which resulted in high morbidity and mortality rates. in fact, prior to the antibiotic revolution, the average life expectancy at birth in the united states was a mere 47 years. in comparison, today the average life expectancy at birth is 78 years, and the leading causes of death are no longer infectious diseases, but rather are due to non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. antibiotics have been tremendously successful in increasing the quality and duration of human life, but we are currently in the midst of a health crisis threatening to take us back to the pre-antibiotic days. the rapid rise of antibiotic resistance coupled with the lack of novel antibiotics is therefore an immediate health concern. β-lactams are a class of antibiotics often referred to as broad-spectrum drugs because of their effectiveness in treating infections from multiple pathogens. the mechanism of action of these drugs is to inhibit penicillin binding proteins (pbps), which are necessary for bacterial cell wall synthesis. antibiotic resistance towards β-lactams is often promoted via the production of β-lactamases that have the capability to hydrolyze the β-lactams, rendering them ineffective against their drug targets. the focus of the research in this thesis is to further our understanding of how β-lactamases are evolving to provide resistance to β-lactams, with a specific focus on resistance towards carbapenems or "drugs of last resort".x-ray crystallography studies have been of utmost importance in unraveling how β-lactamases hydrolyze β-lactam substrates. the work in this thesis compliments the static view of β-lactamases given by x-ray crystallography with a dynamic perspective of β-lactamase activity given by the nuclear magnetic resonance (nmr) studies presented here. nmr is well-suited for the study of β-lactamase activity because it is a non-invasive technique, reveals site-specific structural and dynamics information, and it can be utilized to study both the enzyme and substrate. by understanding the conformational dynamics of β-lactamases, we can potentially design novel, potent inhibitors to combat antibiotic resistance. computing electrostatic interactions is usually the most expensive portion of a molecular dynamics simulation. generally, traditional and modified ewald methods are used for calculating electrostatic interactions in molecular dynamics (md) communities. but these methods are computationally very expensive for large systems. there is a growing interest in developing real-space methods, which scale roughly linearly with the system size. the real-space method for charge-charge interaction was originally developed by wolf and extended by gezelter et al. in this dissertation, i present three new real-space methods: shifted potential (sp), gradient-shifted force (gsf), and taylor-shifted force (tsf), for computing electrostatic interactions between charges, dipoles, and quadrupoles. i also discuss the various static and dynamic properties evaluated using the newly developed real-space methods. additionally, i use three methods: fluctuation, perturbation, and potentials of mean force (pmf), for computing dielectric properties for multipolar fluids. the sp method is the multipolar version of wolf's electrostatic method. similarly, the gsf and tsf method are natural extensions of the original damped shifted force (dsf) method developed. the energies evaluated using the sp method shows quantitative agreement with the ewald sum, therefore it is a good choice for monte carlo (mc) simulations. the energies, forces, and torques calculated from the gsf method agree with the ewald's result and produce excellent conservation of energy in md simulations. both sp and gsf method with a suitable damping parameter perform remarkably well in predicting static and dynamic properties of liquid systems. for the both dipolar and quadrupolar fluids, the dielectric properties predicted using the perturbation method agree with those from the fluctuation formula. real-space methods need a correction factor to obtain dielectric constants and susceptibilities from the directly measurable polarizabilities extracted from the simulation. i tabulate the correction factors for both dipolar and quadrupolar fluid for all real-space methods as well as the ewald sum. finally, the dielectric screening from the perturbation and fluctuation method are compared with the directly measured screening factors using the pmf method. william van roo's declaration thirty years ago that "there is no full synthetic account of [augustine's] thought" on sacramentum still rings true to this day. already in 1953, charles couturier had conducted the most extensive study. but couturier identified his own work as more of a sketch than a synthesis. his was more of a word study than an account of the concept of sacramentum as it fits into augustine's thought. this lacuna in augustinian studies is most unfortunate. but it is also understandable. there are at least two major reasons it is difficult to provide a composite account. first, augustine's sacramentum comes in the midst of a vast tradition of "sacramental theology." what precedes augustine is already dynamic and differentiated but less well known. what follows bears augustine's own imprint; it is a tradition modern readers are powerless to bracket entirely. but upon closer examination, augustine's use of sacramentum is more integral to, and indicative of, the development of augustine's theology than his forebears and it is more capacious and fluid than the sacraments known even to medieval doctors of the church. second, the concept of sacramentum and its broader significance stands on a fault line in augustinian studies. scholars agree that augustine's sacramentum suggests some kind of relationship between visible signs and the interior realities they signify. but this suggestion elicits two rather different responses. readers convinced augustine never escapes the dualism of platonism or manichaeism doubt his ability to affirm this union. in contrast, many who take augustine to move beyond his dualistic influences see in the centrality of signification to his theology a fundamental "sacramentality," "sacramental principle," or "sacramental worldview." the first response ascribes to augustine a contradiction of which i will argue he is not guilty; the second i follow in spirit, but seek to qualify with a more concrete analysis of sacramentum that overcomes the tendency towards abstraction among scholars of this persuasion.this dissertation provides a synthetic account of sacramentum that surpasses the constraints of a mere word study to ascertain its meaning and significance to the developments and eventual structure of augustine's theology. my principal aim is to show how at the heart of augustine's theology, underlying his definition and defense of christianity as the true religion, lies an account of god's economy of salvation for which "sacraments" are constitutive. i analyze the backgrounds and anticipations, the establishment, development, and stabilization of what i call the "sacramental" economy of salvation in augustine's theology. by "sacramental economy" i mean god's purposeful arrangement of visible sacraments in creation, scripture, and the church for the sake of human salvation. although the sacraments of baptism and the lord's supper are crucial, the sacramental economy includes the full range of what augustine means by the term sacramentum (and its synonyms). for augustine, the "economy" is the order, arrangement, and historical enactment of god's eternal plan for human salvation. as augustine's own theology developed, there was a shift in the power he found in the concept of sacramentum for describing god's temporal disclosure and fulfillment of his eternal plan of salvation, especially as encapsulated in christ's person, work, and union with the church.implicit in my argument is the contention that augustine's theological development is largely the story of his reckoning with the mystery or sacrament of christ. the creative word of god becoming flesh (jn. 1:14) and humbling himself to the point of death on the cross (phil. 2:8) is, for augustine, the sacrament par excellence. by the time he becomes the bishop of hippo (395/6), augustine interprets the christ event to be the paradigm for how god has arranged the sacraments of creation, scripture, and the church into an economy constructed for the sake of human salvation. in the years leading up to this point, augustine gradually internalizes this sacramental economy as a deep structure of his catholic faith, a proper sense of created reality as given and made known by god. augustine's conception of the sacramental economy reaches stability around the time of his appointment as bishop of hippo and remains steady at least until his encounter with the pelagians (411/2), the terminus ad quem of this study. at the beginning of this period, augustine formulates a more unified account of divine grace and human willing on the one hand and of the relationship between divinely given signs (i.e., sacraments) and what they signify on the other. his elaboration of paul's magnum sacramentum in terms of the totus christus clarifies the normative significance of christ's mediation in the sacrament of cross, but it also explains the pattern of sacraments as unifying what can appear to be related by suggestion or signification alone. in the end, i argue, augustine's mature theology of the sacramental economy evinces an order of sacraments that descends from (1) the crucified christ through (2) the great sacrament of christ's union with the church to (3) the sacraments of worship that incorporate believers into christ's death and this union, and ends with (4) the sacraments of the word in scripture and in creation as understood in the light of scripture. the goal of this dissertation is to measure the ability of graphene oxide (go) to adsorb protons and metals, and to assess its mobility in saturated porous media. in chapter 2 and chapter 3, we illustrate that multi-layered go (mlgo) exhibits a striking capacity to buffer aqueous solutions and sorb metals, with the sorption behaviors being influenced in varying degrees by ph and ionic strength. we use surface complexation modeling to calculate equilibrium constants for the surface sorption reactions between mlgo and protons, cd, pb, and u(vi), and we account for ionic strength effects as a competition between the target adsorbate and na from the background electrolyte. in chapter 4, we use deposition rate coefficient measurements to establish that ph, ionic strength, and sand surface coatings all play critical roles in determining the transport of single-layered go (slgo) through laboratory columns. collectively, the sorption and mobility measurements in this dissertation are tailored to better inform remediation strategies that employ go as a sorbent in natural and engineered systems. cyber-weapons offer smaller countries significant strategic and tactical advantages across the international relations arena, yet not all smaller actors choose to prioritize cybersecurity and the development of offensive cyber-capabilities. this research project develops and tests a provisional theory about when and under what conditions smaller countries pursue offensive cyber-capabilities, arguing that smaller countries are more likely to develop offensive cyber-capabilities when threatened by a more powerful, cyber-armed rival, and when they demonstrate high-levels of military spending, a reliance on a high-tech military, or advanced national cyber-infrastructure.in order to test my provisional theory, i created a cyber capabilities dataset and analyzed the security-resource theory variables in order to identify possible trends and correlations between proposed variables and each state's level of cyber power. based on the results of my analysis, i next ordered countries in a simple 2x2 matrix to identify the universe of cases. finally, i examined variables inside the context of two in-depth case studies, iran and lithuania, and then across a series of five mini-cases. together, the case study findings support my security-resource theory. gravitational microlensing is a popular technique used for detecting cold, gas giant exoplanets. when a background star is being lensed by a foreground star, it shows a single lens microlensing light curve. the background star being known as the source and the foreground star as the lens. if the lens star also has a planet orbiting it, the source is lensed due to the planet as well, causing a perturbation in the single lens light curve. the light curve modeling of these perturbations yield the discovery of the exoplanets. this dissertation work is divided into two parts: a. detection and the light curve modeling of the microlensing exoplanets using ground based data b. detection and the confirmation of the microlensing exoplanet from the high resolution follow-up images. with microlensing survey data from moa (microlensing observations in astrophysics) and ogle (optical gravitational lensing experiment) and follow up ground based data of robonet telescopes, a planetary anomaly was noticed in microlensing event ogle-2014-blg-1760. light curve analysis of the event led to the discovery of a gas giant planet around ogle-2014-blg-1760. we also analyzed the follow up high resolution hst (hubble space telescope) and keck images of events ogle-2005-blg-169, moa-2008-blg-310 and moa-2008-blg-379. the study of ogle-2005-blg-169 hst images led to the first confirmation of a microlensing planetary signal. it yielded a direct detection of the lens system and mass measurement of a uranus mass exoplanet. these hst studies were done folloeing a modified version of dr. jay anderson's astrometry codes. studies on moa-2008-blg-310 and moa-2008-blg-379 involved modification of the astrometry code to include mcmc (monte carlo markov chain) algorithm and also taking account of the crowded field photometry. moa-2008-blg-379 exoplanet is also confirmed using both hst and keck. for moa-2008-blg-310 event, an upper limit on the lens mass was derived. the technique developed in this project will serve as the primary method for wfirst microlensing exoplanet mass measurement. the method developed in this dissertation can be used to build the wfirst pipeline for microlensing exoplanet detection and mass measurement. in wfirst era, it will help to measure the properties of the cold giant planets toward the galactic center with planet mass down to mars mass. we will be able to build the statistics of exoplanets with different mass and different host stars. with the demographics of exoplanets, we will be able to verify the existing planet formation theories. this will help us to understand the planet formation and their evolution with the progress of time better. in 2012 35.3 million people worldwide were infected with human immunodeficiency virus type-1 (hiv-1). although no vaccine exists, highly active anti-retroviral therapy (haart) has enabled patients to maintain hiv plasma concentrations at undetectable levels. regrettably, harrt has been unsuccessful in eliminating latent reservoirs resulting in a persistent infection that could potentially generate escape mutations. we have been investigating the suitability of trans-splicing group i introns (giis) as anti-viral agents. giis are catalytic rna molecules that can splice an rna sequence of choice (3&prime;-exon) to a target such as hiv derived rnas. splice-product is a hybrid molecule of 5&prime;-target sequence and 3&prime;-exon sequence. our anti-hiv-1 giis target two highly conserved regions of the hiv-1 genome, the primer activation signal (pas) and the primer binding site (pbs). all viral associated rna species generated within an hiv-1 infected cell contain the pas/pbs sequences. we have designed five anti-hiv giis designated: pas126, pas126l, pas128, pas128l and pbs182. four giis exhibited splicing as revealed by rt-pcr and sequencing analysis. by fusing the gaussia luciferase coding sequence to target rnas we demonstrate that giis can mediate a ~70% reduction in observed luminescence. we also demonstrate that a 3&prime;-exon encoding the pro-apoptotic protein, &#916;n-bax, can induce apoptosis and augments viral suppression. transient transfection of each gii into hek 293t cells, followed by infection with pseudovsv-g-hivnl4-3 revealed ~50% viral suppression as measured by p24 elisa. transformed hek 293t cells, expressing pas128l (with and without &#916;n-bax), were infected and assayed for the presence of splice-product. canonical splice-product and a cryptic splice-variant were detected. sequence analysis of the cryptic splice-variant revealed that targeting remained highly specific to the pas/pbs sequences. these transformed cell lines, a heterogeneous population, exhibited ~2 logs viral suppression. clonal cell lines were infected and assayed for caspase-3 activity, and confirmed that expression of &#916;n-bax induced apoptosis upon challenge with hiv. no hiv was detected by p24 elisa analysis, demonstrating that a homogenous population of gii expressing cells are capable of 100% viral suppression. in this dissertation i investigate the role of chilean author gabriela mistral, argentine victoria ocampo, and brazilian cecília meireles in order to open a space for women in the latin american intelligentsia of their time, a territory that was predominantly masculine. i propose that these three feminist writers and public intellectuals deployed strategies of self-representation to avoid being discriminated against because of their gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or social class. for instance, mistral apparently desexualizes herself and creates a new maternal image; ocampo represents herself as a cultural bridge between argentina, europe, and the united states; and meireles sublimates androgyny in order to subvert gender binaries and boundaries. the intellectual friendships that developed among these women, the tensions that emerged between them and their governments, their struggles against political impositions and masculine dominance, and the establishment of intellectual networks at the international level, are the main topics of this study. thus, i examine the tensions between the private and public realms, especially in regard to the themes of sexuality and desire conflicting with the public persona that they embodied. i investigate, moreover, how, through their journeys, these writers were not only creating or establishing intellectual networks, but also, searching for a perspective from which to speak beyond a subaltern position. i dedicate a chapter to the poetics and politics of education. among other aspects, i analyze the role that mistral and meireles played in the educational reforms of mexico and brazil, respectively, as well as the repercussions of ocampo's intervention in the cultural politics of argentina. i discuss topics related to the body and biopolitics, national borders and cosmopolitanism, as well as nomadism and feminism, thereby articulating the creation of the female public intellectual in the southern cone, at a time in which women did not even have the right to vote. there are currently many searches looking for beyond the standard model physics including unitarity tests of the cabbibo-kobayashi-masakawa matrix. this matrix has been considered consistent with unitarity for decades via determinations of the elements which comprise the top row. this evaluation is the result of many years of experimental and theoretical effort to determine ft-values for superallowed pure fermi beta decays to extract a precise result for the vud matrix element as well as studying kaon decay to determine vus. the reliability of the unitarity test for the top row largely depends on the precision and accuracy of its largest element, vud. recent theoretical correction results in the last couple years have, however, led to a disagreement with unitarity at the 2.4σ confidence level. as the unitarity test now suggests inconsistencies with the standard model, it is important to test the accuracy of all results at the current precision. this can be accomplished by extracting vud from the ensemble of superallowed mixed beta decays to an improved precision. experimentally, this involves a two pronged effort; there must be an increase in precision for the values used to calculate ft-values, and there must be a measurement of the fermi to gamow-teller mixing ratio for these superallowed mixed decays. the work included here aligns with both of these routes.the first aspect of this work includes two precise half-life measurements, of 20f and 15o, with the beta counter at the university of notre dame's nuclear science laboratory. the 20f measurement provided the grounds for an in-depth study of the impact of contamination on a half-life measurement with the system resulting in a measured value of 11.016 ± 0.016 seconds. the work resolved a decades long discrepancy in the half-life of 20f, determining the world average to be 11.0062 ± 0.0080 seconds. before our measurement, the half-life of 15o was the dominant source of uncertainty in the ft-value of that isotope. therefore, this half-life was also measured, and determined to be 122.308 ± 0.049 seconds; the most precise measurement of this quantity to date. as a consequence of this measurement, the world average was updated from 122.24 ± 0.23 seconds to 122.27 ± 0.06 seconds, with a reduction of the uncertainty by a factor of 4, and the uncertainty on the ft-value is now dominated by the precision of the q-value measurement.the second aspect of this thesis includes the development of an experimental apparatus to measure the fermi to gamow-teller mixing ratio of superallowed mixed decays, as this quantity is required to determine vud with this ensemble of nuclei. the instrument, named the st. benedict ion trapping system, will be comprised of multiple beam guide components; a large-volume gas catcher, a radiofrequency carpet, a radiofrequency quadrupole, a radiofrequency quadrupole cooler-buncher, and a measurement paul trap. an outline of each component is provided along with the commissioning of the radiofrequency quadrupole cooler-buncher which was determined to prepare ion bunches with a full-width-half-maximum of less than 80 nanoseconds, exceeding the requirements necessary for st. benedict. we produce a large class of generalized cluster structures on the drinfeld doubles of gln and sln compatible with a large class of poisson brackets given by belavin-drinfeld classification. this work is a part of the grand research project led by misha gekhtman, misha shapiro and alek vainshtein, who aim at proving the following conjecture: for any given simple poisson-lie group endowed with a poisson bracket from the belavin-drinfeld classification, there exists a compatible generalized cluster structure. the program naturally extends to poisson duals and drinfeld doubles of simple poisson-lie groups. high-resolution bioanalysis has become increasingly important in recent years as the field of bioengineering advances to cellular and molecular level. many new diagnostics technologies that can achieve highly sensitive and accurate biomolecular detection have been invented, such as digital polymerase chain reaction (dpcr), rapid sequencing and single molecule spectroscopy. all are supported by microfluidic technologies that can partition and transport the molecules or their vehicles like vesicles and cells.these technologies, however, are still not widely adopted in the medical industry, due to their functionality and high-cost. for example, the commercial digital pcr system by bio-rad has a prohibitively high sample and equipment cost, because of its microfluidic chip design and its precise micropump for droplet generation. such cost issues render it noncompetitive to the existing real-time pcr system despite its superior quantification accuracy and sensitivity. nanopore has been predominantly used for sequencing applications (oxford nanopore products) but its unique features also offer possibilities for precise identification of very few molecules using heat based phenomena such as thermophoresis and molecule hybridization. so far, these applications have not materialized due to a lack of control and understanding of a nanoscale hotspot inside a nanopore, although startups like nanotemp technologies have put larger-scale products on the market. over 100 companies are developing carbon nanotube molecular sensor technologies but none has been commercially successful for the same cost issues in reagent, chip and equipment manufacturing. the fledgling cellular 3-d printing, immunotherapy drug selection and tissue engineering industries will require bulk quantities of these molecular sensors, thus further elevating the need for low-cost but highly sensitive molecular diagnostics technologies. as an alternative approach to the conventional flow-based microfluidic methods, electrokinetics offers new possibilities to tackle the current issues in high resolution bioanalysis. when focused at a microor nanoscale by a point, cone or wedge, the local electric field increases its magnitude by orders of magnitude without additional instrumentation. in contrast, enhancing the shear rate of a flow field by the same factor would require a bulky mechanical micropump with high pressure and high precision. electrokinetic designs hence allows very compact device suitable for commercial use but also provides high-resolution bioanalysis. methods using electric field also have the advantage of straightforward integration with the electronic control system without the use of micro-pumps and other actuators. these unique features of a focused electric field are exploited in this dissertation to invent several new technologies. chapter two is devoted to generating nanoscale hotspot using ohmic heating in a conic nanopore. matched asymptotic expansion of the heat conduction equation is used to predict the temperature and conductance increase of the nanopore which shows good agreement with both simulation and experiments. in chapter three, a new method for monodispersed water-in-oil emulsion generation based on immersed alternating current electrospray (iace) is introduced. tuning droplet size is achieved in iace by adjusting the applied potential and pressure. a self-similar relationship is developed for the electric field at the tip of a semi-infinite structure that can predict the size of the droplet generated by iace in the dripping mode. in chapter four, iace is applied to digital loop-mediated amplification for dna target detection with the detection limit reaches 300 am. the use of electrospray for emulsion generation is further expanded in chapter five for single-cell encapsulation with the aim of applying to regenerative therapy and 3-d tissue printing. a great deal of scholarly attention has been focused on the role of the catholic church in leading the fight against authoritarianism in latin america and elsewhere. however, there has been relatively less attention paid to how confrontational church strategies have changed over time. focusing on the contemporary case of the cuban catholic church, i use evidence gathered from extensive fieldwork in cuba to create a new set of definitions that distinguishes between strategies of direct and indirect confrontation, and in so doing offer a new framework for comparative theory about religion and contentious politics. i build a new paradigm for comparing confrontational church strategies by articulating new definitions and offering a theory about what conditions and factors lead to the adoption of certain confrontational strategies. placing the cuban church in comparative analysis with the national churches of brazil, chile, nicaragua, poland, and venezuela, i argue that a combination of regime type, institutional church reforms, and the world-historical time period during which the church began its contentious activities have a direct influence on the church's choice of confrontational strategy. this dissertation constitutes a comprehensive examination of the cuban catholic church based on original research conducted in cuba, a case for which few political scientists have devoted rigorous academic attention, especially for comparative study. the arguments and evidence presented here demonstrate not only the importance of the institutional independence of the cuban catholic church and its innovative confrontational strategy for the development of dissident movements in cuba, but how vital the church and its laity will be in the building of democratic institutions and a democratic political culture should cuba transition toward democracy in the near future. international graduate students are immersed in a new cultural environment and encounter influences that lead to changes in attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. the immersion experience in the united states is best understood from the perspective of acculturation theory (e.g., berry, 2003). acculturation theory, to date, has largely emphasized description of the acculturation process but has focused much less on the mechanisms that underlie that process. padilla and perez (2003) proposed a theory to explain the variability in acculturation patterns by considering social cognitions, but the theory provided little guidance on examining those social cognitions in research settings. this study actualizes the consideration of social cognitions in the acculturation process through qualitative methodology and analytical techniques that are based on grounded theory. twelve international graduate students completed open-ended survey questions and follow-up interviews that addressed their experiences in the united states. the emergent model is composed of a central category &ndash; cultural and social assessment &ndash; and four key categories &ndash; language acquisition and proficiency, social support, cultural learning, and individual growth. the model suggested that upon making an assessment of the new cultural environment, international graduate students exhibited changes in psychological and social dimensions. evidence also suggested that these changes may have been motivated by the presence of cognitive and cultural dissonance. implications for future research, practice, and training are discussed. a microcontroller-based, miniature data acquisition system was developed for use in a sophomore-level introduction to measurement course. this board demonstrates that principles of proper data acquisition are applicable not only in the laboratory, but also in 'real-world' applications where traditional data-acquisition systems are not easily implemented. two experiments made use of the board's capability -one to determine the altitude achieved by a model rocket and one to measure the surface temperature distribution of a lake. a custom-made rocket carried the required electronics, including an accelerometer to measure the rocket's acceleration and a pressure transducer to measure the rockets velocity. a custom-made electric-powered boat carried a thermocouple to measure the water temperature and a global positioning system (gps) to determine the boat's location. the details of the electronic board, rocket, and boat design, along with the results of the experiments carried out by the students, will be presented. recent advances in machine learning and data analytics combined with the availability of high-performance computational resources have a transformative impact on data-driven modeling. in civil engineering, applications of data-enabled modeling, analysis, and control of complex structural systems can be found across multiple areas such as design optimization, reliability analysis, structural health monitoring, and multi-hazard modeling and prediction.this dissertation focuses on two directions of developing and deploying efficient algorithms for data-driven modeling, identification, and discovery of features embedded in complex engineering systems. the first direction involves leveraging recent developments in deep learning to construct surrogate models to alleviate the computational burden of problems that require repetitive simulations, such as uncertainty quantification and propagation. the emphasis is on addressing two challenges of surrogate modeling: the curse of dimensionality, and model uncertainty. the second direction is focused on extracting interpretable and generalizable patterns of dynamic systems from big spatio-temporal data. this direction is guided by fusing elements from operator-theoretic approaches using recently developed decomposition schemes. optical refrigeration of semiconductors is a unique mechanism to remove thermal energy from a semiconductor during emissions of anti-stokes photoluminescence (pl).such process is different from a regular stokes pl when the energy of the exciting photons is higher than the band gap of a semiconductor.during anti-stokes pl, the energy of the incoming laser photons is lower than the band gap energy, and necessary energy deficiency is supplied by thermal energy. net cooling is observed if the overall energy removed from the system with the emitted photons is higher than the energy released during non-radiative recombination of electron-hole excitation. the practical realization of such mechanism may potentially lead to a number of exciting applications, such as sub 10 k optically pumped cryocoolers.despite the simplicity of the underlying principle, actual realization requires remarkably high external pl quantum efficiency (near unity).this entails very high internal pl quantum efficiency and pl extraction efficiency.low defect bulk semiconductors such as gaas historically received a lot of attention in attempts to achieve net laser cooling; however, no cooling was observed to date. a major obstacle with such experiments was generally low extraction efficiency from bulk semiconductor due to high refractive index.another attractive system that may become a core of future optical semiconductor based cryocooler is perovskite nanocrystals. in cspbbr3 nanocrystals, recent advances in synthesis have led to the achievement of near unity quantum efficiency. this advance, together with absent light trapping inside of a nanocrystal, may lead to the eventual realization of laser cooling in semiconductors. octopamine receptors (oars) perform key operations in the biological pathways of invertebrates only, making this class of g-protein coupled receptors (gpcrs) a potentially good target for insecticides. however, the lack of structural and experimental data for this insect-essential gpcr class has promoted the development of homology models that are good representations of their biological equivalents and will thus be useful in the development of an insecticide. i report here the functional characterization of two anopheles gambiae oars and the discovery of new oar agonists and antagonists based on virtual screening and molecular dynamics (md) simulations. experimental validation of the results shows the accuracy of the model. supporting prior gpcr studies, asp100 in the tm3 region, and ser206 and ser210 in the tm5 region were found to be important to the activation of the protein. the current combined computational and experimental approach seems appropriate for creating and refining homology models of the octopamine receptor and in turn aid in the discovery of new and effective insecticides.improvements can be made to the virtual screening procedure by allowing the protein to fully assume its active and inactive states. however, gpcrs are large proteins, are suspended in a lipid bilayer, and are activated on the millisecond timescale, all of which make conventional molecular dynamics (md) simulations infeasible, even if run on large supercomputers. however, accelerated molecular dynamics (amd) simulations can reduce this timescale to even hundreds of nanoseconds, while running the simulations on graphics processing units (gpus) would enable even small clusters of gpus to have processing power equivalent to hundreds of cpus. my results show that amd simulations run on gpus can successfully obtain the active and inactive state conformations of a gpcr on this reduced timescale. furthermore, i discovered a potential alternate active-state agonist-binding position in the octopamine receptor which has yet to be observed and may be a novel gpcr agonist-binding position. these results demonstrate that a complex biological system with an activation process on the millisecond timescale can be successfully simulated on the nanosecond timescale using a simple computing system consisting of a small number of gpus. research has revealed the presence of affective bias in self-reports and self-assessments of global health, resulting in a discrepancy between individuals? reports of their own health and those of more objective health assessments. this bias, which occurs with both negative and positive affect (na/pa) on both trait and state levels, can be problematic in the contexts of medical treatment and academic research. the present study investigated the presence of affectively-biased health perceptions on both global and daily levels, and also explored cross-level affective bias effects. participants were 152 older adults who completed: scales measuring global affect and perceived health; daily questionnaires for 56 days on affect, health events, and health satisfaction; and an in-person health assessment including a health interview, a physical, a blood assay, and the collection of medical records. on the global level, structural equation modeling was used to evaluate the presence of affective health bias, so that the relationship between an objective health factor and a perceived health factor is moderated by global na and pa. on the daily level, multilevel modeling was used to test the extent to which the impact of a given day?s health events on that day?s health satisfaction is moderated by that day?s na and pa. additional models also tested the degree to which health bias is primarily a trait process (dependent on global affect) or a state process (dependent on day-level affect). results revealed evidence for na bias on the global level; pa did not significantly moderate the association between the objective and perceived health factors, but results did suggest that pa serves to counteract na bias to an extent. on the daily level, both na and pa biased day-level health perceptions individually, but only na maintained its moderating effect when both affective biases were tested simultaneously. none of the cross-level effects in the dayvs. global-level affect bias models were significant, indicating that health bias processes are largely confined within level of measurement/analysis. these results inform future procedures of medical professionals and academic researchers who rely on subjective health data for appropriate treatment decisions and accurate empirical conclusions. combinatorial optimization problems have immense real-world application including financial portfolio optimization, bio-informatics, drug discovery, cryptography, operations research, resource allocation, satellite-based target tracking, trajectory and route planning. however, many of these problems are classified as non-deterministic polynomial time (np)-hard or np-complete, implying that the resources needed to solve the problem grow exponentially as the problem size grows. many of these issues can be translated into another physics problem: determining the ground state of an ising model. for a realistic problem size of a few hundred spins, exact algorithms like branch-and-bound can take an inordinate amount of time to reach a guaranteed ground state of the ising model. building ising hamiltonian solvers utilizing physical systems called ising machines is an interesting new area of research that promises to provide results considerably faster than an iterative algorithm operating on a digital computer. various proposals for building such special purpose ising machines have recently been made, including superconducting qubits and trapped ions-based quantum computing and quantum annealing digital and mixed-signal complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (cmos) annealers and coherent networks of degenerate optical parametric oscillators. the important concept is to depict the ising hamiltonian as the system's "energy," allowing it to naturally progress towards the ising ground state. in this vein of developing special-purpose solvers or accelerators for solving computationally difficult problems, one promising path is to apply the concept of dynamical systems theory, specifically continuous-time dynamical systems (ctds).. because of the inherent distributed nature and parallel processing capability, dynamical systems can find the ground state or near-optimum solution with immense speed-up compared to a sequentially working digital computer. in this work, we describe and demonstrate an electronic phase transition nano-oscillator (ptno) based ctds that acts as an ising hamiltonian solver using a network of injection-locked coupled oscillators. the novel hardware implementation of the oscillator network using ultra-low power and compact one-transistor and one-resistor (1t-1r) ptnos allows us to harness the intrinsic stochasticity in the phase-transition device vo2, hence traversing complex energy landscapes and escaping local minima to reach an optimum solution. using commercially available final element software, this research project investigates the cyclic behavior of clay and the current state of constitutive models in capturing the cyclic degradation of clay. progress to rectify current state shortcomings is presented. this dissertation argues that commitments by certain dissenting protestants to the right of private judgment in matters of biblical interpretation, an outgrowth of the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, helped promote religious liberty and religious disestablishment in the early modern west. this movement climaxed in the disestablishment of religion in the early american colonies and nation. the dissertation describes a continuous strand of this religious thought — as well as the thinkers who spread it — from the protestant reformation, across europe, through the english reformation, civil war, and restoration, into the american colonies and early republic. we will examine seven key thinkers, as well as a number of other figures, who played a major role in the development of this religious trajectory as it came to fruition in american political and legal history. the seven main figures are william penn, john locke, elisha williams, isaac backus, william livingston, john witherspoon, and james madison. the connections of ideas and beliefs between these figures are traced, either directly or through other background figures who provided these connections. the dissertation aims to show that religion played more than a pragmatic role in contributing to religious disestablishment in america. it argues that religion, specifically one main theme of dissenting protestant tradition, contributed a major component to the ideology behind disestablishment among both american common people as well as among the educated elite. the purpose of our work is to generalize a result of evens and lu cite{rfevenslu2} from the complex case to the real one. in cite{rfevenslu2}, evens and lu considered the variety $l$ of complex lagrangian subalgebras of $g mg,$ where $g$ is a complex semisimple lie algebra. they described irreducible components, and showed that all irreducible components are smooth. in particular, some irreducible components are de concini-procesi compactifications of the adjoint group $g$ associated to $g,$ and its geometry at infinity plays a role in understanding $l$ and in applications in lie theory cite{rfevenslupoisson}, cite{rfevensluthom}. in this work we consider an analogous problem, where $ g$ is a real semisimple lie algebra. we describe the irreducible components of $ l,$ the real algebraic variety of lagrangian subalgebras of $ g m g$. let $g$ be the complexification of $ g.$ denote by $sigma$ the complex conjugation on $g$ with respect to $ g.$ let $g$ be the adjoint group of $g.$ then $sigma$ can be lifted to an antiholomorphic involutive automorphism $sigma: g ightarrow g,$ which we denote by $sigma$ too. the set of $sigma$-fixed points $g^{sigma}={gin g : sigma(g) =g}$ is a real algebraic group with lie algebra $ g.$ we study $g^{sigma}$ using a result of steinberg cite{steinberg} and the atlas project software cite{atlas}. our results also give a description of a compactification of $g^{sigma}.$ although our methods are similar to the methods of cite{rfevenslu2}, the real structure introduces some additional difficulties. the work presented here demonstrates a method of using acceleration or dynamic capability analysis to generate walking gaits on dynamically simulated legged robotic systems. an illustrative example, using a six degree-of-freedom robotic manipulator simulation, demonstrates themajor contributions of the method and allows some insight into the extension of the aforementioned method into motion generation of legged systems. legged motion is accomplished by determiningpostures which aid in the system's ability to resist impacts more effectively. these positions are chosen at different times, dependingon the situation at hand. a simplified control approach is proposed which generates walking motions and rudimentary agility, and a more advanced control method is proposed which allows higher speeds and greater agility but is more difficult to stabilize entirely. also, asimplified dynamic interaction model is presented which allows for more realistic dynamic simulations without additional computationalcost. seen through a foreign language and a fever, an avant-garde production of richard wagner's legendary opera lohengrin becomes the nightmare landscape for a classic horror story: after accepting an ominous vocal invitation, a pair of talented young opera singers find themselves trapped within a playhouse whose patrons and producer are sincere in their desire to 'consume the arts.'concerned first and foremost with what it means to 'become your character,' leviathan carries performance theory to its logical extremes, illustrating all the dangerous and subversive power of theatre and spectacle. the majority of earth's land surface has been modified by human land use. the effects of changing land use on carbon budgets are relatively well known, but the effects on the energy budget are less well-explored. vegetation affects the energy budget mainly through its control of albedo and transpiration. usually, these effects are studied in terms of deforestation, where forested lands are replaced by crop or urban cover. however, long term forest development has led to forest regrowth and species composition shifts in much of the temperate northern hemisphere. in this dissertation, i use remote sensing data, sap flux data, and model output to investigate the effects of long-term, post-land-use-change forests development on the energy balance of the upper midwest. i show first that forest regrowth and composition shift occurred in more than half of the historically deforested land in the upper midwest, and that composition shift affected albedo and surface temperature differently than deforestation. investigating vegetation control over transpiration with composition shift, i found that neither species nor stem size explained transpiration differences between historical and modern forests; instead, within-species differences in hydraulic conductance were most important. finally, exploring the ecological and biophysical mechanisms of composition shifts in two ecosystem models, i find disagreement in leaf phenology and vegetation albedo relations that point to a need for more explicit treatment of composition shift in predictive models. combined, i show that composition shifts have novel effects on energy balance that will be important to quantify in the future as forest regrowth and composition shift proceed. drawing on 20 in-depth interviews with nonbinary young adults, i offer an exploration of how individuals who fall outside of binary gender identities construct an unfixed internal sense of gender that adapts to many social contexts. this article outlines how both the construction internal senses of self, and the interactions with a gendered social world are influenced by ambiguity, a key element of identities that facilitates identity (re)construction. analysis reveals that nonbinary young adults incorporate ambiguity in ways that allow them to embrace creative self exploration in the present while working towards an ideal ungendered future self. second, i examine how ambiguity impacts interactions with a binary world and with supportive communities, finding that ambiguity helps individuals navigate the divide between differently gendered settings. i argue that current understandings of nonbinary identities do not adequately theorize the influence that an ambiguous internal sense of gender has on navigating a complex gendered arena. i end by highlighting implications for the interrelatedness of ungendered interactions and ungendered selves. due to their potential as biomarkers for cancer diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutics, there is a great demand for accurate quantification and profiling of nucleic acids both for fundamental and clinical research. multiple cutting-edge technologies (such as real-time reverse transcription pcr, microarray hybridization, and next generation sequencing) have been proposed to carry these tasks; however, all of these techniques face multiple challenges which restrain their use for clinical applications. among these techniques, nanopore sensors promise the most radical reduction in sequencing time and cost of all current technologies. counting individual biomolecules through the detection of changes in electrical current produced by charged molecules transiting through them, nanopore devices promise precise, high-throughput sensing with little to no need for pretreatment. however, the involvement of high electric fields and complex ion dynamics presents many drawbacks on both the sensing and profiling fronts.this thesis will focus on the study of several translocation signatures in solid-state nanopores through the use of analytical, continuum, and molecular dynamics modeling. the fundamentals of nucleic acid reactions will be introduced, and new electrokinetic and electrostatic phenomena will be revealed and explored with the over-arching aim of understanding solid-state nanopore translocation dynamics so high-throughput and yet sensitive solid-state nanopore biosensors and sequencing technologies can be realized. a theory for the resistive signal of dna molecules translocating through a charged nanopore is developed, which is extensively tested against finite element method simulations. this theory allows the prediction of biphasic signals in nanopore devices and provides the needed insight to design nanopores that allow to discriminate between single and double stranded dna molecules as well as between molecules with different sizes and charge properties. in consistency with molecular dynamics simulations, it also shows that dna molecules can adsorb into the pore walls, leading to higher current drops (and slower translocation times) than when translocating through the bulk. a theory for the effects of ac and dc electric fields is also proposed, which shows that dna can undergo significant conformational changes when under the influence of high amplitude – high frequency electric fields. if a double stranded dna molecule is bound to the pore entrance through the use of field leakage or high surface charges, the applied voltage can denature the dna molecule (with proper tuning of the pore properties), allowing for different resistive currents depending on the affinity of the dna to the surface. molecular tags can be incorporated into this technology, which can lead to precise, easy, low-cost, and high-throughput sensing and profiling of mirna molecules. the increasing complexity of electronic devices and components challenges conventional cooling techniques. for continued development in the electronics field, innovative cooling techniques are required. this thesis examines heat transfer enhancement of a heated plate experiencing low-velocity forced convection. a wire-to-rod corona discharge electrode configuration was used to generate a counter-flow ionic wind so as to direct the bulk gas flow in such a manner as to induce hot spot cooling. particle image velocimetry (piv) studies were conducted to profile the interaction between the bulk flow and counter-flow ionic wind and show how the hydrodynamic interactions result in a downward flow towards the heated surface and characteristic recirculation zones. this impingement-like effect enhanced the convection cooling of the heated plate, reducing the temperature by as much as 5 k. convection coefficient was enhanced by up to 36% in the heat transfer experiments. in the piv experiments, seeding particles were used to obtain the fluid flow profile. as corona discharge creates a charged environment, seeding particles may get charged, and this may result in deviation from fluid flow due to coulombic forces on the particles. to ensure the fidelity of the piv results in these experiments, a simplified particle tracking analysis was conducted, solving the modified basset-boussinesq-oseen (bbo) equation for particle motion and including charging and electric field effects to simulate the effects of corona discharge. the results obtained from these simulations were used to affirm the validity of the piv results. the development of non-invasive methods to probe human tissue is an ongoing challenge in biomedical optics. in vivo measurements by conventional methods are limited by the mean free path (mfp) of a photon, which is governed by the spatial distribution of chromophores and the absorption and scattering properties of the tissue. as one of the strongest chromophores in human tissues, hemoglobin concentrations in human tissue greatly affect the mfp of photons in visible wavelengths (i.e. bruising). changes in the concentration of hemoglobin and other chromophores within the tissue (minor trauma causing a contusion, increased bilirubin due to jaundice, etc.) will affect the mfp, leading to a visibly different appearance (color) of the tissue. as color perception is a complex physiological process, these changes are difficult to quantify by human observation alone. the transport of hemoglobin and its breakdown products in tissue is related to a number of medical conditions that could benefit from a non-invasive method to determine the hemoglobin levels. chapter 1 identifies efforts to quantify the interaction of light with tissue in an effort to discern meaningful information about the tissue structure and chromophore concentrations therein. colorimetry, hyperspectral imaging, and single-point diffuse reflectance spectroscopy are explored. identifying a need for a mathematical model to gain a better understanding of the interaction of light within the tissue, a novel monte carlo technique for 3d photon tracking is presented. chapter 2 explores the application of this model to the conjunctiva. anemia affects almost 3.5 million americans, with millions more being undiagnosed, making it the most common blood disorder in the u.s. anemia is characterized by abnormally low hemoglobin levels and is generally identified by a complete blood count test. the monte carlo model is employed to simulate reflectance spectra of the conjunctiva for a non-invasive tool to determine hemoglobin levels. simulated results are compared to experimentally obtained data. chapter 3 explores the application of the model to contused skin. medical expertise is frequently elicited to aid in determining the age and the cause of the trauma or injury. child protection and law enforcement frequently rely on the physical assessment of the trauma which involves delineating intentional from unintentional types of trauma. by combining reflectance spectroscopy measurements with the monte carlo model, it is possible to determine the concentrations of hemoglobin and its breakdown products in the tissue, which may lead to the development of a non-invasive medical device to determine the age of a bruise. simulated results of normal and contused skins are compared to experimentally obtained data. chapter 4 explores the application of the model to a previously uninvestigated (for optical properties) tissue system, the placenta. twin-twin transfusion syndrome is a rare condition wherein identical twin fetuses develop connected blood vessels with the tissue (~4,000 cases in the u.s. annually). severe cases result in an unbalanced flow from one fetus to the other and will have a 90% mortality rate if left untreated. treatment requires endoscopic surgery where the surgeon visually inspects that surface of the placenta to identify connected vessels which are then laser ablated (via fiber optic probe). researchers at brown university investigated the use of reflectance spectrometry to determine hemoglobin levels to aid in identifying connected vessels. the model is employed to determine hemoglobin levels and to explore the unknown optical properties of the tissue with results compared to the clinical data. chapter 5 focuses on the use of liquid crystals in spectrometry. a review of current research on liquid crystals highlights the use of liquid crystals as tunable reflective/transmission filters. a prototype liquid crystal tunable filter for use within a hand-held spectrometer is presented. the appendix offers a brief report on the use of liquid crystal (lc) waveguides that do not require an electric field to change the transmission properties. instead, two films are used and the arrangement of one film with respect to the other will alter transmission. just as having two linear polarizers together and rotating one of them will vary the transmission properties, the linear displacement of one patterned lc film with respect to the other will result in the same performance. the objective of my first project was to investigate the interaction of a class d beta-lactamase with different beta-lactams to explore if this family of enzymes is diffusion-limited or not. this project required isolation and purification of the oxa-10 beta-lactamase overexpressed in e. coli bl21 and the determination of kcat, km, and vmax parameters for different beta-lactam antibiotics at different viscosities of the reaction buffer. the other project that i worked on required the cloning of blai gene into an expression vector, overexpression of blai in e. coli bl21, purification of this protein. this protein is a gene repressor, believed to be involved in inducible expression of beta-lactamases in s. aureus. drosophila rhodopsin (rh1) is the visual pigment of the photoreceptor cells. it is synthesized in the er after which it undergoes post-translational modifications before being transported to the rhabdomere where it functions in phototransduction. in this study, i describe the identification of the drosophila ninag gene that affects rhodopsin content in the photoreceptors. using deficiencies and p-element induced deletions, the ninag gene was mapped to 86e4-86e6 cytological region on the third chromosome. sequencing analysis of all fifteen genes within this region identified a stop codon in cg6728 gene in ninagp330 mutant. to confirm this identification, i rescued the ninag phenotype with a genomic fragment containing cg6728 orf. cg6728 belongs to the glucose-methanol-choline (gmc) oxidoreductase family. ninag protein is required in the eye for the transport of rh1 from the er to the rhabdomeres. my results show a specific and post-transcriptional role for ninag in the biogenesis of drosophila rhodopsin. this dissertation is a study of the role of protestant faith in six american boarding schools: phillips andover and phillips exeter (congregationalist), lawrenceville (presbyterian), st. paul's (new hampshire) and groton (episcopalian) and mount hermon (nondenominational). each of these schools began as a denominational institution with an explicit protestant mission and purpose. however, competing missions were also present from their beginnings, particularly the imperatives of college preparation and of preparing good citizens for the republic. as these competing missions grew in importance, the protestant mission and purpose also changed. intellectual and religious currents in the wider culture also forced a recasting of the role and scope of protestant faith in their educational mission. in the early nineteenth century, phillips andover and phillips exeter each responded to the rise of unitarianism in significantly different ways, exeter by embracing it and andover by reacting against it. lawrenceville was powerfully affected by the revival of 1857. the gilded age and progressive era proved particularly significant as the schools made an accommodation with modernity which downplayed the traditional protestant piety in favor of a more generic christian faith emphasizing moral behavior. though elements of this accommodation first appeared at st. paul's, it was fully implemented at groton school after 1884, with the other schools adopting variations of it. (mount hermon proved to be an exception, maintaining a more evangelical faith.) uneasy with the implications of a wholesale abandonment of traditional protestantism, the schools adopted a blended faith, featuring a mix of traditional protestant piety, nonsectarianism, and a generic morality of rectitude. this gilded age accommodation with modernity lasted until after the first world war, when the cultural crisis of the 1920s brought the arrangement into question. the headmasters of that era ended their careers on the eve of world war ii harboring significant doubts as to the role that protestant faith should, or could, play in the schools. research for this dissertation was conducted in school archives accompanied by a wide reading in the secondary literature of the history of american protestantism and the history of boarding schools. this dissertation considers a 2x2 wireless communication system employing coherent dual-polarized (dp) antennas. the dp signaling is shown to outperform co-polarized signaling through ergodic capacity analysis under rician channel with large rician k factor and signal-to-noise ratio (snr). fundamental properties and applications of dp signaling that involves modulating polarization state are addressed emphasizing constellation design, coded modulation implementation, peak-to-average power ratio (papr) reduction phase code construction, and dp testbed validation.firstly, polarization shift keying (polsk) constellations are analyzed in awgn and rayleigh channels. maximum likelihood (ml) detectors are proposed to exploit non-gaussian statistics of noise on the poincar\'e sphere given channel information at receiver. furthermore, coherent dp antennas enable a four dimensional (4d) signal space. 4d hybrid constellations are designed as a product of amplitude/phase states and polarization states. with constant symbol power, phase shift keying (psk) is combined with polsk to yield psk+polsk that achieves larger minimum euclidean distance and higher capacity against psk+psk. relaxing power constraint, quadrature amplitude modulation (qam) and amplitude phase shift keying (apsk) are adopted with polsk to obtain qam+polsk and apsk+polsk. the capacity superiority against qam+qam and apsk+apsk is displayed at practical rates. for non-coherent detection, differential psk (dpsk) is combined with polsk to produce dpsk+polsk. it not only avoids phase alignment at receiver but also outperforms dpsk+dpsk with/without carrier frequency offset and symbol time offset effects.secondly, bit-interleaved coded modulation with iterative demapping and decoding is implemented to exploit capacity advantage of 4d hybrid constellations, e.g., 8psk+8polsk-cube and 16qam+16polsk. both recursive systematic convolutional (rsc) code and low-density parity-check (ldpc) code are considered. given code structure and channel snr, bit mapping solely determines bit-wise mutual information (bwmi) evolution between soft demapper and soft decoder and thus the coded bit error rate. the evolution of bwmi is tracked by extrinsic information transfer (exit) chart. utilizing binary switch algorithm with bwmi under perfect a priori as the cost function, quasi anti-gray mappings for rsc coded and quasi gray mappings for ldpc coded 4d hybrid signaling are both obtained with exit analysis. thirdly, papr reduction phase codes, transparent to receiver processing, are proposed for polsk/dpsk+polsk modulated ofdm signals based on selective mapping. min-max absolute phase code and min-max reference phase code are constructed respectively for polsk and dpsk+polsk modulated ofdm signals to reduce paprs on both dp branches. papr reduction capability, symbol error rate, minimum total degradation, and optimal input power back-off are analyzed to validate code's effectiveness with simulated solid-state high-power amplifiers (hpas). last but not least, an over-the-air dp testbed based on universal software radio peripherals (usrps) is established to effect coherent 4d hybrid signaling. both quasi awgn and multipath fading scenarios are considered. over-the-air experiments are conducted to validate the principles and performance trends of proposed ml detectors, 4d hybrid constellations (both coherent and non-coherent), and papr reduction phase codes with external hpas under an ofdm framework. pore-based structures occur widely in living organisms. ion channels embedded in cell membranes, for example, provide pathways, where electron and proton transfer are coupled to exchange vital molecules. electrochemical reactions at the nanoscale possess unique characteristics that are not accessible to conventional electrochemistry. nanopore electrochemistry represents a nexus for molecular control of electron transfer reactions within confined volumes. in this thesis, these exciting advances will be highlighted by addressing three main topics.the first topic is focuses on the the fabrication and application of nanopore electrode arrays (neas), which are a combination of nanopore sensing technology and nanoelectrochemistry. high areal density (109 cm-2) over large scale (3-inch wafer) neas with zeptoliter characteristic volumes are designed and fabricated to perform electrochemical measurements. the unique design of neas allows individually addressable electrodes to support high sensitivity measurement of redox reactions of analyte species. the neas exhibit current amplification factors, afrc, as large as 55-fold, indicative of capture efficiencies at the top and bottom electrodes exceeding 99%. furthermore, any anlaytes confined in neas can undergo electron-transfer reactions, which shows a linear current response over five orders of magnitude and exhibits remarkably small capacitive currents, at fast scan rates (~ 100v/s). second topic addresses nanopore enabled enhancements to standard electrochemical measurements, such as coupling redox cycling with electrical double layer effects within neas. we achieve remarkably enhanced ion selectivity because of ion migration and accumulation inside the confined space. exploiting this principle, a ~3000-fold selective determination of dopamine in the presence of electrochemical interferences, e.g. ascorbic acid, is achieved by redox cycling-enabled ion accumulation.in the third topic, neas are used to achieve nanoscale electronic functions, including particle transistor action and electrochemical rectification. the movement of nanoparticles into nanopores is controlled electrically in transistor-like fashion, i.e. a voltage threshold is observed at the top electrode of the neas above which nanoparticles are able to access the bottom electrode of the neas. this work proves to be an efficient route to in situ monitoring of the nanoparticle transport and redox reactions at the single particle level. finally, this gating behavior is further extended to a wide range of redox molecules in hierarchically organized nanostructures, such that the magnitude and direction of current flow could be controlled by the electrochemical reaction, thus achieving electrochemical diode function. cecoin5 is a heavy-fermion superconductor (hfs)with a plethora of interesting phenomenon such as the highest critical temperatures for a hfs and the presence of a quantum critical point(qcp) brought on by changing an applied magnetic field or pressure to the sample. along with cecoin5, tmni2b2c was investigated which is interesting because it orders antiferromagnetically at temperatures below t_n =1.5 k and a superconducting critical temperature, t_c = 11 k. it also possess a strong paramagnetic phase that extends into the superconducting state from the normal. normally, superconductivity and magnetism are considered to be mutual exclusive but in tmni2b2c, they are both present which makes this a unique compound. using small angle neutron scattering (sans) as a probe of the vortex lattice (vl), both samples were investigated. the focuses of the studies were: the vl structure in cecoin5 and the vl form factor in tmni2b2c and cecoin5. the vl symmetry in cecoin5 transitions from a low field hexagonal symmetry to a distorted rhombic and to a square. as the field is increased, the vl transitions back to the distorted rhombic symmetry and at fields close to h_c2, it transitions back to hexagonal. the low field transitions are believed to be due to one of two types of anisotrophies (i) fermi surface anisotropyon-local electrodynamics and (ii) $d-wave nature of the pairing symmetry. for the higher field symmetry transition it is believed to be due to a weakening in the fourfold anisotropies. this is caused by the fact that the field at the center of the vortex must display cylindrical symmetry as it does at low fields. this effect is most likely amplified by the pauli limiting process that becomes more important as one approaches h_c2. the form factor, which is the fourier transform of the magnetic field in the vortex core, usually falls off monotonically as a function of field. tmni2b2c's form factor remains constant until 0.6h_c2 where it begins decrease. ichoika and mashida used a simple model to describe the h and t dependencies, the model was able to capture the qualitative and quantitative behavior of the form factor, emphasizing that paramagnetic effects are important to understanding the vortex state in tmni2b2c. the model is based the conduction electron paramagnetic moments induced by the exchange interaction with the $4f$ tm moments accumulate exclusively around the vortex cores, creating nanotubes of tm magnetization and maintains the field distribution contrast in vl. in contrast, cecoin5's form factor remains constant at low fields but rapidly starts to increase as the field is increased. this can partially be attributed to the paramagnetic effect but since cecoin5 is pauli-limited therefore is expected that the parallel spin alignment of the quasi-particles in the core is greater thus giving an increase in the form factor. another possible explanation for this increase is due to the presence of a qcp when one approaches h_c2. there is also an abrupt drop off in the form factor. this drop occurs in the same region of the phase diagram that the proposed fulde-farrel-larkin-ovchinnikov (fflo) state inhabits. in this dissertation, i accomplish four main tasks. first, i construct a canonical model for constant domain basic first-order logic (bqlcd), the logic obtained model-theoretically by dropping the requirement on the kripke models for constant domain intuitionistic first-order logic that the accessibility relation is reflexive. second, i prove completeness for bqlcdr, the extension of bqlcd obtained by only allowing reflexive worlds to serve as counterexamples to logical consequence. third, i show that the naive theory of truth, the theory obtained by adding the tarski biconditionals to the peano axioms, is ω-consistent in bqlcdr by building a standard model. fourth, i defend a normative analysis of logical consequence and use the normative analysis to argue that the propositional fragment of bqlcdr is the correct propositional logic. given two graphs g and h, a homomorphism from g to h is a map from the vertices of g to the vertices of h that preserves adjacency. many graph notions can be described using graph homomorphisms, including independent sets, matchings, and graph colorings. in this dissertation, we consider questions in each of these areas. wang and zhu [49] demonstrated the log-concavity of the independence polynomial for a number of infinite recursively-defined graph classes. for the first question that we consider, we extend their method to demonstrate the log-concavity of the independence polynomial for a wider range of such classes, showing, for example, that the (n,2)-centipede and (n,2,k)-star-centipede have log-concave independence polynomials for even n and all k, and we describe a technique that can be applied in the pursuit of results for other similarly-structured graphs. the graphs in question give rise to k-periodic recurrence relations. we present a system for reducing these periodic recurrence relations to ordinary second-order recurrence relations that is more applicable than existing work in the field. there has been much discussion (for example, [52], [26], and [22]), on the following question: for each fixed h, n and d, what is the maximum, over all n-vertex, d-regular g, of hom(g,h), the number of homomorphisms from g to h? while the question has been largely settled for bipartite g, it is still quite open for non-bipartite g. offering further progress on this question, we next establish conditions on h, in terms of certain linear programming problems, under which we can obtain an upper bound on hom(g;h), valid for all regular g, that is very close to best possible. we then establish a number of infinite families of graphs that satisfy these conditions. finally, we present a q-weighted enumeration of matchings of complete bipartite graphs, an enumeration which was key to proving the validity of a new combinatorial interpretation of the q-analog of a generalization of the stirling numbers of the second kind in work with engbers and galvin [20]. this dissertation describes the design and optimization of several multivalent nanomedicines for use in allergies and cancer. targeted nanomedicines can improve diagnostics and therapeutics for many diseases. yet, despite decades of research, most nanomedicines fail in clinical trials. the addition of targeting to nanomedicines may improve their efficacy, yet each component and characteristic must be tuned to make precision medicines. this requires understanding of complex parameters such as selectivity over avidity and navigating immune system involvement.first, two allergy systems are studied here, exploring improvements to diagnostics and therapeutics via multivalent nanomedicines. chapter two covers cephalosporin antibiotic (i.e., small molecule drug) allergies, while chapter 3 studies house dust mite (hdm) protein allergies. multivalent liposomal nanoallergens are used to determine the immunogenic structures of the drug and protein allergens. these immunogenic structures inform the design of improved allergy diagnostics and therapeutics. in chapter four, multivalent inhibitor designs are evaluated in vitro for two protein allergy systems: peanut and hdm. several covalent heterobivalent inhibitors, containing various peanut and hdm immunogenic epitopes, are evaluated for inhibition of cellular allergic response and compared to a covalent monovalent inhibitor.second, this work studies multivalent nanomedicines in the design and optimization of targeted nanoparticle systems for delivering chemotherapeutics to cancer. chapter five evaluates two targeted nanoparticle systems (cd38 versus cd138) for delivery of a doxorubicin-prodrug to multiple myeloma. in vitro and in vivo optimization of the targeted nanoparticles show opposite trends, due to the poor selectivity of the cd138-targeted nanoparticles in vivo. chapter six explores the complexity of targeting metastatic ovarian cancer, with a combination of nontargeted (np) and grp78-targeted (tnpgrp78pep) nanoparticles displaying optimal drug delivery of a novel dm1-prodrug in vivo. further, the prodrug-loaded nanoparticles enhance immune cell involvement. we propose two mechanisms of action for the np and tnpgrp78pep components to function synergistically, which are largely dependent on their multivalent targeting or lack thereof. these chapters demonstrate the complexity of optimizing multivalent nanomedicines in vivo. collectively, this dissertation emphasizes the necessity of a detailed understanding of the diseases of interest and of systematically optimizing multivalent nanomedicine designs to fit the disease. organic methodology allows us to target important bond disconnects and design reactions to improve overall synthetic efficiency. reaction design may stem from a need to access fragments not easily obtained through current methods or overcome limitations present in existing methodology. this dissertation describes the development of new bond-forming reactions utilizing the redox properties of titanium and phosphorus. commercially available titanocene dichloride was employed to facilitate catalytic c&#8211;x activation of alkyl halides for the stoichiometric generation of reactive organometallics. this method allows for the in situ generation of organometallics with the versatile reactivity reticent of grignard and barbier processes, without the need for pre-generation of the reactive species. we initially evaluated our method through the addition of allylzinc reagents to carbonyl derivatives. catalyst loadings as low as 1 mol% were achieved while the scope of the addition reaction includes aldehydes, ketones and esters. exclusive 1,2-addition to &#945;,&#946;&#8211;unsaturated carbonyls and se2&#8217; additions of &#947;-substituted allyl bromides were observed. an interesting phosphine additive effect was also developed that has proven especially influential in subsequent work by wilson, campos, and gianino. the study of the calyxin family of natural products led to the design of a selective ortho-deprotection of phenolic protecting groups through the use of a mild lewis acid. this method proved suitable for the removal of silyl, benzyl, acyl and ethereal protecting groups. in conjunction with these efforts, investigations of new phosphorus-mediated redox reactions were explored. this dissertation highlights efforts toward new c&#8211;n and c&#8211;c bond forming strategies. synthesis of amidines through a novel phosphorus protocol involving a proposed beckmann-type rearrangement are described, as are initial results for c&#8211;n bond formation through phosphorus assisted 1,3 migrations of enol phosphites. the synthetic strategies presented exploit the redox potential of both titanium and phosphorus for c&#8211;c and c&#8211;n bond-forming reactions. they compliment existing methods for the generation of synthetically useful intermediates via catalytic activation of alkyl halides and phosphorus-mediated migrations. these new approaches will enable unconventional bond disconnects for further application in organic synthesis. this dissertation presents experimental results regarding the phenomenon of trailing edge noise. the objective of the present research was to experimentally measure flow field and acoustic variables in order to develop an understanding of the mechanisms that generate trailing edge noise in incompressible, high reynolds number flows. this includes the measurement of the local velocity field, the unsteady surface pressure, and the radiated sound. these data have supplied a unique database of both the turbulence and the radiated far field pressure. in addition, two-component velocity measurements were acquired using particle image velocimetry (piv) in order to spatially resolve the local velocity field. the data show velocity field realizations that were typical of wake flow containing an asymmetric periodic vortex shedding. beamforming methods were utilized in conjunction with a pair of 40 microphone arrays to isolate trailing edge noise from unwanted tunnel noise. the measured acoustic sources show good agreement with numerical results obtained through les. the inability to distinguish between skin color and culture, nationality and race, and the personal and the political, often makes finding whiteness in art difficult and furthers society's inability to examine whiteness. many non-white artists who examine whiteness through art are marginalized. however, many white artists also confront the issues of race, and their work is often not analyzed in a racial context. this allows whiteness to remain invisible. by examining matthew barney's cremaster 3, sally mann's deep south, and paul mccarthy's class fool, in terms of the artists' white identity, one is able to see how these artists' cultural representations align with society's definitions of whiteness. in this essay, the purpose of identifying whiteness in art is not to determine "correct" meanings but instead to determine what meanings can be legitimately read in three artists' work. structural equation modeling (sem) is a useful technique in the behavioral sciences, where latent variables and measurement errors are hypothesized to exist. to investigate a certain phenomenon of interest, different researchers may carry out different sem studies and report (seemingly or not) different results. it is meaningful to synthesize their findings, so as to explain how and why a set of relationships differs in different situations and better understand the phenomenon of interest. the method to synthesize sem studies is commonly referred to as meta-analytic sem (masem). currently, methods to perform masem are all limited to the fixed-effects context, where the assumption is made that all the sem studies included in a meta-analysis have exactly the same population covariance matrix. however, this is an unrealistic assumption because different studies usually have their own characteristics and a set of relationships usually behave differently in different situations. a more reasonable method is one that acknowledges and models the heterogeneity among the sem studies. in this dissertation, i propose an masem method that allows the meta-analyst to include categorical study-level moderators in the meta-analysis, so as to account for the systematic heterogeneity among the sem studies. this dissertation provides an analysis via narrative criticism of the greek long recension of the book of tobit, primarily witnessed by the text of the codex sinaiticus. the first chapter is an introduction to the text of tobit regarding origin, transmission history, and scholarly approaches to the text. the second chapter offers an examination of allusions to the prophecy of amos in the plot and narrative of tobit. it is contended that tobit is globally formed as a narrative by reference to amos, and the book of tobit as a whole affirms prophesy as an interpretive guide for diaspora life. the third chapter studies economic language in tobit; it argues that the major characters are individually distinctive regarding economic conceptualizations of god's providence and recompense. the fourth chapter re-evaluates characterization in tobit, with specific focus on the figures of tobit and hannah. a 'hieronymian paradigm' is traced from jerome's vulgate additions to the book of tobit; this paradigm likening tobit to job remains to date the majority view on tobit as character. it is argued that such a position under-represents the contributions of other characters, particularly women, as well as literary allusions and plot incidents that present tobit in an unflattering light. the fifth chapter considers the narrative structure of interruption and its use to promote particular acts of worship: alms, burial of the dead, prayer, and endogamous marriage. by this repeated narrative technique such acts are performed in relation to other civil and religious obligations and their priority is demonstrated. tobit offers a creative synthesis of jewish worship, endorsing these acts with a liturgical theology formed of temple, monarchical, and patriarchal traditions. the exile of tobit's community and the journey of tobias and sarah is thus an account of religion in migration, narrating how religious traditions develop with respect to foreign lands and experiences, written so as to guide jewish life abroad. this thesis focuses on developing effective r-adaptive moving mesh methods for the numerical solution of partial differential equations (pdes). recent develops in moving mesh methods have shown wide applicability of the methods for resolving fine scale features such as shocks and singularities in nonlinear partial differential equations. unlike other adaptive meshing methods, the moving mesh meshing methods resolve fine scale solution behavior while keeping a fixed number of mesh points and fixed connectivity. while these methods have been successfully used to resolve features in second order pdes, they have not been extended to higher order systems. this thesis provides the first extension of moving mesh methods to higher order operators.the high order system modeling a capacitor structure is represented by a fourth order, semi-linear pde and has two kinds of solution behavior: finite time singularity and sharp interface dynamics. for the singularity regime, we utilize two moving mesh techniques, an approach that satisfies the monge-ampére equation and an approach using a moving mesh partial differential equation (mmpde). both methods are used to validate and contribute to asymptotic theory that predicts the location and multiplicities of singularities in the capacitor. for interface resolution, the monge-ampére equation is used to generate an adaptive mesh based on the arc-length or curvature of the solution to the pde. the methodology is capable of handling a stiff, fourth order moving interface problem with multiple fine scale solution features. beyond the contribution of r-adaptive moving mesh methods based on the monge-ampére equation for fourth order pdes posed on rectangular domains, this thesis gives a finite difference approximation of the monge-ampere equation for mesh generation and adaptation for solving pdes on curved domains. we provide a boundary mapping between a fixed, uniform rectangular domain to an adaptive, curved physical domain that is applicable to convex and select non-convex domains. we present an approach for robustly applying boundary conditions for the pde in computational space. the effectiveness of the method is shown a variety of linear and nonlinear pdes, including moving boundary problems, interface dynamics, and singularities. the purpose of this research was to control crossflow-induced boundary-layer transition on a cone at angle of attack in hypersonic quiet flow. a 7° half-angle cone model with interchangeable nosetips was designed and fabricated from stainless steel, polyether ether ketone (peek), and macor. transition was characterized using infrared thermography and kulite pressure transducers in the boeing/afosr mach-6 quiet tunnel at purdue university. a plasma-based active flow-control system was used to control the transition location of the stationary crossflow waves, which manifested themselves as hot streaks on the cone. the transition location was accelerated by critical forcing (where the actuator wavenumber equals the wavenumber of naturally largest amplitude waves) and delayed by subcritical forcing (where the actuator wavenumber is larger than the natural waves). the disturbance wavenumber input of the plasma actuators was observed downstream on the model for many of the plasma-on runs, demonstrating that the plasma actuators introduced discrete forcing into the flow. the precise locations of the hot streaks varied for different nosetips, presumably due to differences in their microscale roughness.the experimental data were used to inform an improved stability analysis. stationary crossflow vortex n-factors were calculated over the surface of a yawed circular cone using computationally predicted and experimentally observed wavenumber distributions. a wavelet analysis was conducted on the experimental surface heat-flux data to construct a spatial mapping of the local largest amplitude wavenumbers of the stationary crossflow waves, which were between 40 and 80 per circumference. significant spatial variation was observed. the results from the wavelet analysis informed the stability analysis. the computed integration marching directions demonstrated good agreement with the experimentally observed paths. n-factors were calculated by integrating the local amplification rate corresponding to the most amplified experimental wavenumbers. the calculations were repeated based on non-dimensional computationally varying wavenumber ratios, which were dimensionalized by the experimental data. the computed n-factors showed good agreement between the two techniques. n-factors were also computed using the computationally predicted most unstable wavenumbers. the results showed decreased agreement with the other two cases, suggesting that this assumption does not properly model the crossflow transition process. analytical instrumentation is critical for regulating medicine and environmental quality, yet in many lowand middle-income countries (lmics) a lack of technological infrastructure prevents regulatory agencies from responding effectively to problems that affect the health of their populations. the goal of my thesis work was to determine if screening technologies could be used to help lmic regulatory agencies bridge this gap. during my thesis research, i created novel screening tools based on paper analytical devices (pads), performed field tests to show that these screening devices are sensitive, specific, and usable by lmic regulators. i also managed a program that coordinated quality determination of pharmaceutical samples from lmics, and helped model the regulatory and economic impact of screening medicine quality in kenya.i collaborated with medicine regulatory agencies in bangladesh and tanzania to conduct specificity and sensitivity studies of paper analytical devices used for rapid screening of pharmaceuticals. through these projects, i trained 55 drug inspectors on using the pad and ten on how to fabricate the pad locally in bangladesh. the previously published pad could not detect solid dosage forms that were degraded or substandard, but i showed that pad analysis of liquid dosage forms coupled with principal component analysis could differentiate adulterated, degraded, and falsified ceftriaxone which allows for a more effective regulatory response to those products. to increase access to confirmatory analysis, i coordinated the distributed pharmaceutical analysis laboratory (dpal), a network of twenty-nine academic institutions. during my time as coordinator, the program tripled in size, over one thousand samples were analyzed, and over one hundred substandard products were reported to medicine regulatory agencies. i helped a group at unc-chapel hill to model market turnover rates, prevalence of substandard and falsified products, and detection efficiency based on our sample metadata. the model shows that using the pads as a rapid screening discovered poor quality amoxicillin ten months sooner than compendial testing alone and allowed for removal of those products more frequently. the pads used along with confirmatory testing averted 586 child deaths annually compared to confirmatory testing only.stepping away from pharmaceuticals, i also developed a test card for monitoring carbon monoxides levels, temperature, and humidity for use in low resources settings. the device can quantitatively respond within the permissible exposure level and the immediately dangerous to life and health level for carbon monoxide. blank is character-based, language driven, cinematically aspiring novel that explores double lives, graffiti, the parameters of public/private art, personal voids, asian-american biculturalism, racism, parkour, the question of gender and the institution of hip-hop in post 9/11 new york city. we identify two basic families of isotopes in the mass range 12 <= a <= 122 produced during freeze-out expansions near the mass-cut of core-collapse supernovae. the majority of isotopes are classified in the first family, where their mass fraction profile depends on the characteristic phase transition of the freeze-out. the isotopes of the second family include the magic nuclei and their locality, which become nuclear flow hubs and do not sustain any phase transition. we use exponential and power-law adiabatic profiles, and introduce additional non-monotonic profiles to mimic explosion asymmetries and reverse shock nucleosynthesis. we perform reaction rate sensitivity studies to identify nucleosynthesis trends of radioactive trace elements. non-monotonic profiles involve longer non-equilibrium nucleosynthesis intervals compared to the exponential and power-law profiles, resulting in mass fraction trends and yield distributions which may not be achieved by the monotonic profiles. in addition, we compare the yields of ti44 and ni56 produced from post-processing the thermodynamic trajectories from three different core-collapse models -a cassiopeia a progenitor, a double shock hypernova progenitor, and a rotating 2d explosion -with the yields from the exponential and power-law profiles. our analysis suggests that radioactive trace elements may be produced by multiple types of freeze-out expansions in core-collapse events, and that reaction rates in combination with timescale effects for the expansion profile may account for the paucity of ti44 observed in supernovae remnants and mn53 in presolar grains. the welfare policies politicians make in parliaments are implemented by bureaucrats in understaffed and crowded local offices. because the social reality is much more complex than what written policies can cover, bureaucratic discretion is a fundamental component of policy implementation. scholars have argued that accountability is crucial for preventing the arbitrary use of bureaucratic discretion and maintaining a responsive public service environment. however, in the absence of democratic institutions, what leads bureaucrats to provide accountable and responsive public service? by drawing from interviews conducted with municipal and ministry officials that implement large-scale urban transformation projects that target informal settlement neighborhoods in two cities of turkey (istanbul and bursa), this thesis shows that, in the absence of accountability, occupational ideology becomes crucial in shaping how bureaucrats approach implementation and how they treat citizens. vehicle crashworthiness design is one of the most difficult problems being addressed in design optimization. this is due to themodeling of the complex interactions involved in the crash process, such as material and geometric nonlinearities, contact between elements,strain rate effects, among other phenomena. the goal of crashworthiness design is to improve passenger safety subject to manufacturingcost constraints. many current approaches utilize a parameterized optimization approach that requires response surface approximations of the design space. this is due to the expensive nature of numerical crash simulations and the high nonlinearity and noisiness in the design space due to the aforementioned phenomena. thesemethodologies usually require a significant design effort to determine an initial design. this is where topology optimization is of great benefit.the primary goal of this dissertation is the development of a topology optimization approach for application to vehicle crashworthiness design that utilizes high fidelity crash simulations. topology optimization is an iterative process that determines the best arrangement of material so as to obtain an optimal performance of the concept design. these design problems involve thousands of variables and thus can lead to large computational efforts for gradient-based optimizers. the complexities in deriving analytical sensitivities for a dynamic analysis and expensive computational time associated with numerical calculation of the sensitivities for this analysis have hindered research in crashworthiness design optimization. the methodology developed in this research is a non-gradient approach that utilizes the cellular automata paradigm and follows the principles of fully stressed design to generate the concept designs.the secondary goal of the research is the development of constraints on cost and performance. cost is considered through constraints on available material and constraint on material distribution so that the final topology is amenable to the simple extrusion manufacturing process. the methodologies developed in this research are applied to practical design problems. the results demonstrate that the inclusion of multiple load cases requires some careful consideration. the results demonstrate that the methodologies provide a practical technique and tool to aid the design engineer in the generation of design concept of crashworthy structures. in this work, i present a generalization of the next-to-minimal supersymmetric standard model (nmssm), with an explicit mu-term and a supersymmetric mass for the singlet superfield, as a route to alleviating the little hierarchy problem of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (mssm). i analyze two limiting cases of the model, characterized by the size of the supersymmetric mass for the singlet superfield. the small and large limits of this mass parameter are studied, and i find that i can generate masses for the lightest neutral higgs boson up to 140 gev with top squarks below the tev scale, all couplings perturbative up to the gauge unification scale, and with no need to fine tune parameters in the scalar potential. this model, which i call the s-mssm is also embedded in a gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking scheme. i find that even with a minimal embedding of the s-mssm into a gauge mediated scheme, the mass for the lightest higgs boson can easily be above 114 gev, while keeping the top squarks below the tev scale. furthermore, i also study the forward-backward asymmetry in the ttbar system within the framework of the s-mssm. for this purpose, non-renormalizable couplings between the first and third generation of quarks to scalars are introduced. the two limiting cases of the s-mssm, characterized by the size of the supersymmetric mass for the singlet superfield is analyzed, and i find that in the region of small singlet supersymmetric mass a large asymmetry can be obtained while being consistent with constraints arising from flavor physics, quark masses and top quark decays. this work introduces a new approach to reduce the computational cost of solving partial differential equations (pdes) with convection-dominated solutions containing discontinuities (shocks): efficient hyperreduction via model reduction implicit feature tracking with an accelerated greedy approach. traditional model reduction techniques use an affine subspace to reduce the dimensionality of the solution manifold and, as a result, yield limited reduction and require extensive training due to the slowly decaying kolmogorov $n$-width of convection-dominated problems. the proposed approach circumvents the slowly decaying $n$-width limitation by using a nonlinear approximation manifold systematically defined by composing a low-dimensional affine space with a space of bijections of the underlying domain. central to the proposed approach is the reduced order model implicit feature tracking (rom-ift) procedure, which is a residual minimization problem over the reduced nonlinear manifold that simultaneously determines the reduced coordinates in the affine space and the domain mapping that minimize the residual of the unreduced pde discretization. this is analogous to standard minimum-residual reduced-order models. instead of only minimizing the residual over the affine subspace of pde states, the method enriches the optimization space also to include admissible domain mappings. the nonlinear trial manifold is constructed using the proposed residual minimization formulation to determine domain mappings that cause parameterized features to align in a reference domain for training parameters. because the feature is stationary in the reference domain, i.e., the convective nature of the solution is removed, the snapshots are effectively compressed to define an affine subspace. the space of domain mappings, originally constructed using high-order finite elements, is also compressed to ensure the boundaries of the original domain are maintained. the presented method uses the empirical quadrature procedure (eqp) \cite{yano2019discontinuous} to reduce the cost of the rom-ift method for convection-dominated problems containing shocks. eqp is used to select an optimal subset of the mesh and the method utilizes either the galerkin or petrov-galerkin projections-based reduced model over the deformed mesh to achieve significant cost reduction.moreover, to have an optimal selection of the parameters to make a basis, we conjugate an accelerated greedy search with the hyperreduction method to have a fast computation.the eqp weight vector is computed over the hyperreduced solution and the deformed mesh, allowing the mesh to be dependent on the parameters and not fixed. the greedy search is also applied to the hyperreduced solutions, further reducing computational costs and speeding up the process. the minimum residual is applied to a small, optimal subset of mesh elements to align the new configuration and reduce the cost. the method's effectiveness is demonstrated through numerical experiments for various convection-dominated problems, including advection-reaction, inviscid burgers' equation, and transonic flow over a naca0012 airfoil. the results show that the method can produce accurate approximations with a small size basis. the cost of rom-ift with and without the hyperreduction procedure is compared, revealing significant computational cost savings without sacrificing accuracy. polyketide natural products have classically captured the attention of the organic and medicinal chemical community owing to their intricate structural architecture and their powerful biological properties. polyketides are biosynthetically constructed on an enzymatic assembly line through sequential claisen condensations with malonyl-coa and methylmalonyl-coa to build the carbon scaffold. accessory domains and oxidative tailoring events in the enzymatic machinery install the intricate oxidative and stereochemical elements that are often associated with a compound's potent biological activities. the intrinsic stereochemical elements decorating the polyketide backbone force the molecule to preferentially adopt specific conformational preferences, in which hoffmann aptly described as "flexible molecules with a defined shape."this thesis aims to describe the relationship between the conformational preferences and biological properties of the polyketide natural products, zampanolide, dactylolide and gex1a. to do so, our laboratory has employed a combination of chemical and biological synthesis, computational, 1d and 2d solutional nmr studies and biological assays to describe this relationship. the characterization of these relationships represents an innovative approach to rational design to identify novel active analogues of natural products that may be further studied for their therapeutic potential.the first two chapters of this thesis provide the background and report our studies involving the covalent microtubule stabilizing agents, zampanolide and dactylolide. the compounds represent viable therapeutics for the treatment of multi-drug resistant cancer. previously, our lab completed a total synthesis of both of the macrolides and described their low energy conformational preferences of the macrolactone ring. with this analysis, our lab identified a degree of rigidity about the southwestern region of the macrolide. this rigidity is associated with the allylic strain about the trisubstituted olefin. to probe the role the c17-methyl plays in determination the conformational preferences and the biological properties of zampanolide and dactylolide, our lab has completed a synthesis of a 13-desmethylene-17-methyl-analogue series of zampanolide and dactylolide. additionally, the removal of the alkyl groups in the analogues abbreviates the synthesis compared to that of the natural product. upon completion of the analogue series, our lab performed our conformational analysis and evaluated the cytotoxic effects to discern the relationship between the macrolides' conformational preferences and antiproliferative effects of the natural products.this thesis also addresses our efforts to study the relationship between the biological activity and conformational preferences of type-i polyketide gex1a. gex1a proves to be an interesting lead for a therapeutic in our acute myeloid leukemia and niemann-pick type c disease studies and requires further evaluation of the compound's potential as a drug candidate. two chapters in this thesis address the background and our investigation in the characterization of gex1a's conformation-activation activity relationship using computational and solutional nmr studies. these studies confirm previously predicted conformational preferences of the polyketide and identifies two previously undiscovered bond rotations that promote the identification of four potential conformational families. this thesis further proposes to complete a synthesis towards a methyl-shifted analogue that is predicted to force the analogue into a specific conformational family about one of the rotatable bond dihedrals.together, these projects highlight our lab's over-arching program to investigate natural products' therapeutic potential for treatment of disease. this thesis places specific interest in characterizing the conformational preferences of the natural products and relate the derived conformational families to the biological properties of the compounds. le foglie sparse del mito di dafne nel canzoniere di petrarca this paper focuses on student enrollment in college, particularly focusing on the transition from high school to college. student participation in college preparation programs and meetings with counselors are examined as a way to understand if there is an impact on college enrollment three years after anticipated high school graduation. in networked control systems, multiple components (e.g. plants, sensors and controllers) exchange information and cooperate to achieve a joint goal. unlike traditional control problems, a networked control system does not assume perfect transmission of information among components. it has been noted that the quality of communication can affect the performance of a given controller or even the achievable performance for any controller. for instance, if no information can be transmitted from an unstable plant to the controller, then there exists no controller that can stabilize the plant. on the other hand, controllers designed while ignoring the communication constraint cannot provide good performance or even stability. thus, the interaction between control and communication needs to be understood. the purpose of this thesis is to study the performance limitation posed by the communication constraint. in particular, some traditional control problems are revisited in the networked control framework and new results are obtained. first, by using a time-domain approach, a bode-like integral formula is obtained for discrete-time linear periodic systems, which can be used to model medium access-constrained systems with periodic communication scheme and asynchronous systems. it is shown that the log integral of sensitivity (which characterizes the disturbance rejection performance) depends only on the open-loop dynamics and the communication scheme but not on the controller, which makes it a fundamental limitation. then, the networked cooperative platoon of vehicles is studied where a string of vehicles aim to proceed along a given trajectory while keeping a constant distance between adjacent vehicles. it is assumed that each vehicle can control its position based on the spacing error with respect to the preceding vehicle in the string, as well as on coded information transmitted by the lead vehicle. by using an information-theoretic approach, a lower bound to the integral of the sensitivity function of spacing errors with respect to a stochastic disturbance acting on the lead vehicle is established. the derived bound depends on the open-loop poles and zeros of the vehicles' dynamics as well as on the quality of communication. the lower bound is shown to be tight for a specific communication scheme and controllers. next, feedback stabilization for bernoulli jump nonlinear systems is investigated. bernoulli jump systems have gained importance in the modeling of networked control systems where the communication channel is assumed to be memoryless. by using a mode dependent scattering transformation, the controller design is applicable to the case when the plant and the controller are interconnected through a communication network that introduces constant time delays. finally, we look into the problem of designing a controller that feedback passivates a discrete-time linear time-invariant system, when the state information is transmitted to the controller across a communication channel. a design method of static feedback passivating controllers is presented for an appropriate notion of stochastic passivity. the main result is a certainty equivalence principle: any state feedback controller that ensures closed-loop passivity using the exact state of the plant will also ensure closed-loop stochastic passivity using an estimate of the state provided by the decoder, under the assumption the estimation error is bounded in the second moment and a certain matrix is nonsingular. the result is extended to a class of nonlinear systems that is linear in the control input. the evolution and function of the mammalian skull and feeding apparatus is intimately related to the mechanical demands imposed by food items. the effect of dietary properties on craniofacial form has long been the focus of numerous functional, developmental, and paleontological studies, with increasing work dedicated to the importance of phenotypic plasticity. as bone is a dynamic tissue capable of sensing and responding to mechanical loads, morphological variation related to differential loading is well established for many masticatory elements. while more mechanically challenging diets have been shown to result in greater jaw proportions, it remains poorly understand how long-term dietary variability affects the adaptive osteogenic response of multiple cranial sites at multiple levels of bony organization. this is a significant oversight given the diverse functional requirements of a hierarchically organized, morphologically complex structure like the skull.this experimental research evaluated the effects of long-term differential loading on the macro-, micro-, and nanoscale responses of bone at a series of cranial sites. sites were chosen to represent regions involved in mastication (i.e., jaws) as well as those less directly involved (i.e., neurocranium). it was hypothesized that masticatory regions would exhibit a more pronounced response to elevated loading and that cortical bone quantity and quality would be positively related to diet-induced loading levels in masticatory elements.results indicate that diet-induced differences in loading influences plasticity in masticatory elements without corresponding changes in the neurocranium, suggesting regional variation in response to mechanical forces. more specifically, the presence and magnitude of bone adaptation varied according to the level of analysis. this is critically important as it suggests that physiological adaptation, and corresponding variation in skeletal performance, may reside differentially at one level of bony architecture, thus potentially affecting accurate behavioral reconstructions. it also emphasizes the limitations of external metrics while underscoring the significance of considering finer levels of bone architecture with the goal of improving the accuracy of adaptive interpretations as it relates to the evolution of craniofacial form. more broadly, findings highlight functional and developmental variation in determinants of morphological integration in the skull, information of utility for ecomorphological, paleobiological, and evolutionary research. this dissertation intervenes in a long-standing paradigm that women were largely passive subjects in early medieval society. this passivity has been especially attributed to the strict limitations on women's intellectual and religious authority, and to the resultant silence of anglo-saxon and carolingian women in the extant sources. numerous scholars such as valerie garver, cristina la rocca, r&#233;gine le jan, rosamond mckitterick, janet nelson, and julia smith have undertaken dynamic studies to probe this assumption about early medieval women's imposed silence and passivity, finding innovative ways to reveal women's unique contributions to early medieval society and spirituality which had been previously overlooked or misjudged. it is within this groundbreaking tradition of scholarship that this dissertation is situated. this dissertation investigates the heretofore neglected corpus of early medieval women's latin letters, focusing on two primary features. first, by examining the extant letters written by both men and women, it reveals that elite carolingian and anglo-saxon women were utilizing written correspondence on a scale which has been underestimated by modern scholars. it therefore draws attention to and describes elite women's pervasive and even mundane engagement with epistolary communication, thereby offering a valuable counterpoint to the normative sources from the period which appear to limit women's agency. secondly, it offers reveals the letters to and from women as decisive evidence of elite women's agency and involvement in politics, culture, economy, and spiritual life in the eighth and ninth centuries. following an introduction which describes the extant letter collections, and a second chapter in which i contextualize women's letters and letter-writing within the larger corpus of male epistolary activity, i focus on three prominent themes which occur in letters to and from women: petition, gift-exchange, and land and spiritual administration. by unfolding the epistemological significance of these topics and examining individual letters in light of contemporary social, political, economic, and religious conditions of anglo-saxon england and carolingian europe, i highlight how women were not only engaging with their world, but how these engagements are actually documented through the ephemera of letters. the first major claim of this dissertation is that love of home is the preeminent environmental virtue. for the most part, environmental virtue ethicists have not talked much about love. in the first chapter, this oversight is addressed by way of an argument that love of home can be understood, at least from within the aristotelian philosophical tradition, as the environmental virtue par excellence. the second main contention of the dissertation is that there is an internal connection between the virtue of love and a particular sort of knowledge of the object of that love. for that reason, when it comes to homes, those people who make their dwelling in such places are best situated to take responsibility for them. the third and final major thesis of the dissertation is that political authority over any home—understood as a place of a certain kind—should be vested in the sustainably-settled inhabitants of that place. support for this claim derives from a discussion of aristotle's politics that takes into account aristotle's discussions of the self-sufficiency of the polity and of the vice of acquisitiveness. the conclusion of the dissertation gestures toward a political form of localism grounded in the activity of sustainably-settled inhabitants of locales. breast cancer is the most common form of cancer among women globally and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women in the united states. microcalcifications (µcals) are the most commonly detected abnormality in the diagnosis of breast cancer. however, the detection of µcals and other breast lesions can be obscured by radiographically dense breast tissue. the radiographic density of breast tissue varies between women depending on the relative amounts of low-density adipose tissue and high-density fibroglandular tissue. therefore, the overall objective of this study was to develop an anatomic breast phantom with tunable levels of radiographic tissue density for investigating contrast-enhanced detection of µcals. a phantom with tunable levels of fatty acid and albumin-agarose hydrogels was developed to mimic low-attenuating and high-attenuating fibroglandular tissues in the breast. pegylated bisphosphonate-functionalized gold nanoparticles (bp-peg-au nps) enabled contrast-enhanced detection of µcals as small as 0.5 mm in hydrogels mimicking dense breast tissue using laboratory and preclinical micro-computed tomography. importantly bp-peg-au nps also enabled contrast-enhanced detection of µcals as small as 0.1 mm in anatomic phantoms mimicking dense breast tissue using clinical mammography. contrast enhancement decreased with increasing breast density and decreasing µcal size. the anatomic breast phantom developed in the study is expected to fill a gap in the translation of new imaging probes and methods from the laboratory to the clinic. en esta disertación exploro las relaciones entre el extractivismo (como concepto que implica la producción de materias primas, el mercado global o transnacional y los efectos negativos de la economía capitalista en el medio ambiente) y diferentes tipos de textos de la región andina. mi objetivo es utilizar la dialéctica materialista clásica entre base y superestructura para entender cómo las actividades y prácticas económicas extractivas intervienen en la definición de género, sexo, clase y raza. estudio una serie de obras, como las fotografías de robert gerstmann y martin chambi; las novelas íntimas, de adela zamudio, y doña bárbara, de rómulo gallegos; y el poema "alturas de macchu picchu", de pablo neruda. estos análisis me llevan a concluir que existe un discurso extractivista que crece a principios de siglo en la región andina, producto de los avances tecnológicos, pero también con la progresiva segregación de los individuos. los textos que estudio promueven, celebran y subvierten los discursos dominantes del extractivismo. in this dissertation i explore the relations between extractivism (as concept that entails the production of raw materials, the global or transnational market and the negative effects of capitalist economy in the environment) and different types of texts from the andean region. my focus is to use the classical materialist dialectic of base and superstructure to understand how extractive economic activities and practices intervene in the definition of gender, sex, class and race. i study a range of works, such as the photographs of robert gerstmann and martin chambi; the novels íntimas, by adela zamudio, and doña bárbara, by rómulo gallegos; and the long poem "alturas de macchu picchu", by pablo neruda. these analyses lead me to conclude that there is an extractive discourse that grows at the beginning of the century in the andean region, a result of technological advancements, but also with the progressive segregation of individuals. the texts i study promote, celebrate, and subvert the dominant discourses of extractivism. in southeastern africa (chapter 2), the distribution of isoprenoidal glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (gdgts) and the hydrogen isotopic composition of plant waxes (δdwax) from international ocean discovery project site u1478 are used to document indian ocean sea surface temperatures and rainfall during the plio-pleistocene. as this period (~4–2 ma) encompasses the switch in indonesian throughflow source waters, the mid-pliocene warm period, and the onset of intensified northern hemisphere glaciation during early hominid evolution in africa, these data add to our understanding of global and regional climate dynamics and archaeology. ultimately, chapter 2 addresses a critical spatiotemporal gap in geologic records of african climate and helps establish regional rainfall controls related to the indian ocean and high-latitude glaciation that may inform forecasts of future climate.in northeastern greece (chapter 3), high-resolution δdwax data are produced to establish seasonal atmospheric patterns associated with glacial-interglacial (marine isotope stages (mis) 1–5) environmental change in the northern mediterranean over the last ~140 kyr. the δdwax record provides clear evidence for enhanced precipitation seasonality associated with an improved winter storm track during the interglacials of mis 1 and 5. although glacial conditions and overall reductions in rainfall are apparent for mis 2–4, δdwax and molecular distributions indicate more humid summers that may have supported the migration of early humans across europe. the δdwax record produced for chapter 3 represents the only one of its kind for the region, resolving seasonal rainfall dynamics and providing continuous, sub-millennial hydroclimatic context for early human dispersal out of africa.in western greece at etoliko lagoon (chapter 4), a suite of biomarkers is used to evaluate aquatic productivity and community composition over the last ~200 years. algal-derived molecules illustrate aquatic ecosystem change associated with the little ice age, north atlantic oscillation (nao), and human activities that altered lagoon hydrography and nutrient inputs. as environmental monitoring of the etoliko ecosystem has only recently begun, chapter 4 provides valuable insight into the natural variability of the lagoon and allows for a refined interpretation of climatic vs. human impacts on aquatic ecosystem structure in a unique and locally important setting. this thesis offers an intratextual reading of ovid's heroides 5 and 16-17, in which he reimagines the mythological love triangle between oenone, paris, and helen in epistolary form. the three letters portray paris's attempt to seduce helen and convince her to elope with him, helen's impassioned counterargument despite her physical attraction to paris, and oenone's efforts to win paris back after watching him return to troy with helen. the heroides, as a collection of elegiac letters, respond to generic features of roman love elegy. this thesis focuses on one such elegiac convention— the use of exempla, references to mythological or historical figures who provide a model or precedent for specific behaviors. it argues that the letters of oenone, paris, and helen participate in a debate about the use of exempla in elegiac rhetoric and even question exemplarity, the conventional elegiac strategy of reliance on exempla. chapter 1 demonstrates that paris (her. 16) follows elegiac convention in using exempla to support his argument, but fails to address the additional patterns of his exempla that weaken his argument. chapter 2 shows that oenone (her. 5), although struggling to insert herself into paris and helen's discourse, still engages with exempla more critically in her attempt to correct paris's poorly chosen exempla. chapter 3 examines helen's rhetorically impressive response to paris (her. 17). unconvinced by his argument and his exempla, helen rejects exemplarity itself as a rhetorical strategy. i conclude that the intratextual discourse between these three letters critiques elegy's reliance on exempla and even questions the efficacy of rhetoric itself. one of the major quantities of interest for airborne laser systems is the unsteady variation in pointing direction of the beam, or jitter. in airborne laser systems, the beam jitter is usually thought of as sourced from two components. the component of the jitter caused by mechanical vibration of the optical table, optical elements, etc. is called mechanical jitter. the component of jitter caused by flow structures on the order of the aperture size is called the aero-optical jitter. in typical experiments, information pertaining to the aero-optical component of the jitter is almost always corrupted by mechanical disturbances and is typically removed from the data. in this work an algorithm was developed that takes advantage of the advective nature of aberrations to compensate for the tip, tilt, and piston removal in experiment. the algorithm is able to recover the aero-optical component of the jitter and to provide time series of global tilt free of mechanical disturbances. this algorithm is called the stitching method. the stitching method was extensively modeled using a sine wave with added noise as a surrogate wavefront. experiments were conducted in notre dame's tri-sonic wind tunnel (twt) facility. optical wavefront measurements were conducted on a mach 0.6/0.1 shear layer and mach 0.2 boundary layer. in the mach 0.6/0.1 shear layer experiment voice coil actuators were placed on the splitter plate to regularize the shear layer. optical data for both forced and unforced shear layers were collected. the stitching method was used to recover the aero-optical component of the jitter for the experiments described. the predicted results for the rms of the aero-optical jitter from the stitching method matched well with modeled results. since the stitching method produces full time series of global tilt, energy spectra were also computed and presented. this information can be used by systems designers to benchmark fast steering mirrors for use in airborne directed energy systems. finally, additional data collected by other researchers in flight aboard the airborne aero-optics laboratory (aaol) were analyzed. both the rms of the global tilt and the global tilt energy spectra were computed. the results were found to agree well with the results from other shear layer flows. this dissertation focuses on characterizing the distribution and flow of energy in plasmonic nanomaterials with high spatial and spectral resolution. the unique electronic and magnetic excitations of these systems are highly dependent on their local chemical and physical properties, giving rise to novel functionality for next generation nanoelectronic and nanophotonic devices. in particular, our work centers on resolving the detailed interactions between infrared active nanostructures and their surrounding resonant environments with the ultimate goal of directing and concentrating infrared energy. we interrogate these interactions with nanometer-scale precision using scanning transmission electron microscopy (stem) coupled with electron energy loss spectroscopy (eels). stem-eels has the ability to simultaneously correlate spatial and spectral measurements of individual infrared active nanostructures using an electron probe that operates on the same length and energy scales as the relevant physical processes under investigation.our investigations begin with doped semiconductor nanocrystals that host spectrally narrow plasmons in the infrared. using stem-eels we analyze the response of single particle plasmons of individual tin-doped indium oxide nanocrystals, showing how the surface and bulk responses of a single particle can be tuned by controlling the free carrier concentration via the dopant. doping from 1-10 atomic percent tin will shift the plasmon from lower to higher energies across the near-infrared region, respectively. in combination with theoretical modeling we also demonstrate a unique approach for retrieving the fundamental dielectric parameters of individual nanocrystals. this method, devoid from ensemble averaging, illustrates the potential for electron-beam ellipsometry measurements on materials that cannot be prepared in bulk form or as thin films. we then combine stem-eels and theoretical modeling to investigate the capability of colloidal indium tin oxide (ito) nc pairs to form hybridized plasmon modes, providing an additional route to influence the ir plasmon spectrum. these results demonstrate that ito ncs may have greater coupling strength than expected, emphasizing their potential for near-field enhancement and resonant energy transfer in the ir.we follow this work with research into traditional metal plasmonic materials, using specific geometries of gold nanomaterials to develop nanoparticles that host infrared responses. through a combination of stem-eels and theoretical modeling, we delve into identifying the strong-to-weak coupling limits of paired gold nanostructures. these investigations culminate in the characterization of an all plasmonic fano resonance, a subspace of the weak coupling regime between quasi-discrete and quasi-continuum localized surface plasmon resonances. this work illustrates how stem instrumentation can experimentally observe nanoscale plasmonic responses that were previously the domain only of higher resolution infrared spectroscopies. we expand our understanding of infrared coupling by precisely nanofabricating, characterizing, and modeling the infrared optical responses of plasmonic nanorhombus assemblies. ranging from a monomer to a pentamer ensemble, experimental and simulated point spectra, spectrum images, and near-field maps agree well with the results of an analytical coupled normal mode model. the nanorhombus assembly is then expanded into an aperiodic penrose array, where we identify the effects of long-range lattice structure on near-field particle hybridization. these results show that hybridization across the array is minimally affected by the overall lattice structure, except when probing the center of the array. clay is an access point to conversations of recombinance, which just means we live and die, borrowing the cells and energy inside us and sharing responsibilities of caring for each other, human and nonhuman.each time the earth cycles, it is infused with the energy of the living, transferred through touch. this microbial merging influences material agency so that each time we, matter, are consumed, the collection of our bodies, and consciousness shifts. the process of failing, learning, and relearning is an intimate one which we each contribute to, knowingly and not. in this thesis i will describe various impacts of touch as they influence a culturally and intimately tenuous world. we live and die with responsibilities to those we borrow from and art-making acts as an access point to learning about how we move the earth around us. in my role as an art-science-activist, i aim to facilitate access to the arts and actionable change through learning spaces built around shared ideas. i gladly surrender some of my artistic agency through interactive works where responsibility moves into the hands of participants. giving people tools to shift the world around us is a recognition of how our future lives with collaborative action. my "pollinator pods" become art for non-humans and my practice leaves the gallery. when artists talk about the anthropocene, it is critical to consider the post-gallery life of work. similarly, my background in teaching pottery acts as a familiar access point to the world of design and mindful movement. i will unpack how the intimacy of pottery teaches lessons of community, resilience and tending to. many philosophers presume that an adequate moral theory can in principle determine what is morally right and wrong given all the relevant empirical facts. many such philosophers believe that modern moral theories, such as kantian and consequentialist theories, can meet this determinacy criterion while aristotelian moral theory cannot. this charge of indeterminacy has become a standard objection to aristotelian moral theory. in this dissertation, however, i argue that meeting this determinacy criterion is not necessary for a moral theory to be adequate. i argue that kantian and consequentialist moral theories are more indeterminate than philosophers often presume. i also argue that aristotelian moral theory is not as indeterminate as many philosophers believe. this dissertation is a call to modesty in response to philosophers inflating the power of modern moral theory to determine right and wrong. indeterminacy, i also argue, is also not necessarily a bad feature for kantian, consequentialist, or aristotelian moral theory. all three types of moral theory are what i call "teleological ideal theories" that require phronesis (good practical and normative judgment) for an agent (or philosopher) to determine right — be it in terms of kantian respect for persons, consequentialist maximizing, or aristotelian virtue. this paper seeks to examine the deconstruction of a traditional greek v. other dichotomy that takes place in the lemnian episode of the argonautica. this deconstruction has implications for apollonius' ptolemaic context since it exalts cultural nuance and diplomacy rather than the perpetuation of the greek/other binary which demands that greekness be preferred. this reading of the lemnian episode makes it a relevant political statement for the ptolemaic world, in which cultural interactions between greeks and indigenous populations require a greater degree of mutuality and understanding than the eras of apollonius' primary literary ancestors, homer and herodotus.past scholarship has thoroughly treated the episode's implications for jason's heroism (beye 2003, clauss 1993), the significance of rhetoric in the exchanges on lemnos (clare 2002), and the meaning of the episode within apollonius' ptolemaic political context (mori 2008, stephens 2003). this paper combines elements of these previous works and add the lens of scholarship on 'the other' in greek thought (hall 1989, hartog 1988) to analyze this episode's implications for greek identity in the hellenistic age. section 1 examines how a traditional, odyssean binary between greekness and otherness is constructed in book 1 prior to the lemnian episode. building on the work of thalmann (2011) and clauss (1993), i argue that the catalogue of heroes (1.23-233) construes the argonauts as quintessentially greek figures who represent hellenistic cultural identity to foreign peoples. the ritual sacrifices in the departure scenes at iolchos (1.410-423) and orpheus' song (1.496-511) tie the argonauts closely to greek custom and cosmology, further cementing their cultural identity. this section also mentions previous literary accounts of the lemnian women that would have made them 'other' in the mind of a greek reader in the hellenistic age. thus, before the lemnian episode, expectation is built for a simplistic greek/other encounter between the argonauts and lemnians.the second section analyzes how the lemnian episode deconstructs the cultural dichotomy that book 1 has created thus far by depicting the lemnian women with strongly greek cultural markers: they conduct a political assembly in a passage crammed with homeric intertexts (finkmann 2016, mori 2008) and they reverence traditional greek xenia by welcoming the argonauts with guest-gifts. additionally, the action of the narrator throughout the episode is unexpectedly sympathetic to the lemnian women rather than the greek 'protagonists,' even directly flipping the greek/other binary at one point (1.636-637) by allowing the reader to see the argonauts as barbaric invaders through the women's eyes. through its complex characterizations of both peoples, the episode rejects a simplistic dichotomy in favor of cultural nuance and the mixing of categories.the third section expounds on the implications of this deconstruction of a binary for apollonius' political and cultural context. utilizing the work of mori (2008), who proves the new importance of diplomacy in the hellenistic age, i argue that apollonius diminishes the otherness of the lemnian women for the purpose of emphasizing their xenia, the prerequisite for functional diplomatic relationships in the hellenistic world. additionally, the reduction of gendered 'otherness' through hypsipyle and jason's mutually beneficial relationship promotes the importance of women in the political sphere, a new hellenistic reality in the form of powerful ptolemaic queens. the work of stephens, mori, and hunter is essential for exploring how this deconstructed binary holds implications for greek identity in the hellenistic age. a search for the standard model higgs boson decaying to two photons will be presented. the analysis will cover 5.1 fb-1 and 19.6 fb-1 of lhc proton-proton collisions collected at a center of mass energy of 7 and 8 tev, respectively, with the cms detector. the search reveals an excess of events near 125 gev that is consistent with the standard model higgs boson. the significance of the excess is 3.2&#963; at 125 gev, where 4.1&#963; is expected. the best-fit cross-section is 0.78+0.28-0.26 times the standard model, and the best-fit mass is 125.4?0.5(stat.)?0.6(syst.) gev. the excess is also present in a cut-based cross-check analysis with a significance of 3.9&#963;, where 3.5&#963; is expected, which corresponds to a best-fit cross-section of 1.11+0.32-0.30 at 124.5 gev. both the measured cross-section and couplings are consistent with a standard model higgs boson. successful metastasis requires cancer cells to overcome both anoikis caspase-dependent cell death triggered by extracellular matrix (ecm) detachment and ecm-detachment-induced metabolic defects (namely loss of glucose uptake and atp generation) that compromise cell survival. however, the precise signaling pathways utilized by cancer cells to overcome anoikis and promote atp generation remain poorly understood. one way cancer cells can overcome anoikis and promote productive metabolism is through activating oncogenes, such as ras. we discovered that oncogenic ras uses divergent downstream effectors to overcome anoikis (through phlpp1/p38 signaling) and promote glucose-mediated atp generation (via pi(3)k/sgk-1) to facilitate survival during ecm-detachment. given the novelty of discovery of sgk-1-mediated atp generation (through promoting glucose uptake) specifically during detachment, as well as the ever-increasing evidence for the importance of sgk-1 in promoting tumorigenesis, we have expanded these studies and found that sgk-1 signaling is required in a variety of cell types and oncogenic backgrounds for atp generation and survival during detachment. when examining the mechanism by which sgk-1 promotes atp generation, we surprisingly found that treatment with the mitochondrial uncoupler cccp did not impact the ability of sgk-1 to promote atp generation suggesting that the tca cycle is not required for sgk-1-mediated atp generation. intriguingly, atp generation instead requires flux through the pentose phosphate pathway (ppp) and consequent production of glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate (g3p). ppp-derived g3p is then shuttled back to glycolysis where atp production can robustly occur. this metabolic pathway appears to be critical for the anchorage-independent growth of cancer cells as genetic or pharmacological disruption of glucose flux through the ppp significantly abrogates colony formation in a variety of distinct cancer cell lines. overall, our data suggest that oncogenic insults like ras can utilize multiple downstream effectors to overcome anoikis activation, stimulate atp generation, and promote survival during ecm-detachment. further, our data suggest that sgk-1 may act as a master regulator of glucose metabolism and energy production during ecm-detachment that may be amenable to novel targeted therapies aimed at eliminating ecm-detached cancer cells through disruption of metabolism. this dissertation evaluates the course of the united presbyterian church, one of america's most historically significant religious institutions, through the mid-twentieth century by tracking a landmark expression of the denomination's internal life. crucial to this evaluation is explaining how that landmark, its confession of 1967, sought to renew the church with fresh approaches to significant problems in american culture. with access to previously unprocessed materials and by following key denominational leaders like john mackay, edward dowey, and eugene carson blake, this study connects developments in the creation and reception of the confession of 1967 with particular historic events. in doing so, it not only reveals how a denomination's defining document could be influenced by the dominant culture, but also sheds light on a much broader issue: the loss in postwar america of a national consensus. "present witness" explains how a denomination, which once stood at the center of that consensus, sought to unite diverse parties in a shared mission.presbyterians, who viewed themselves as custodians of american culture, enjoyed considerable leverage in elite society. their decision to redefine themselves with the motif of "reconciliation" represented a desire to regain social prominence with a theology that was relevant, authentic, and engaged. in pursuing its ministry of reconciliation, however, the church chose to focus on divisive social issues rather than on the more traditional evangelical emphasis on need for reconciliation with god. in so doing, denominational leaders risked splitting their church along lines that divided americans more generally, rather than uniting it around a shared belief and common purpose.the dissertation concludes that attitudes toward race and the church's involvement in the civil rights movement realigned presbyterians in ways previous studies have neglected. in particular, studying the confession of 1967 shows why the denomination's response to james forman's black manifesto and its support of angela davis's legal defense fund crystallized divisions within and between presbyterian denominations. the diminished role of mainline presbyterians in america's current public life owes much to the ways in which the church became polarized and paralyzed in the late 1960s and early 1970s. the indentation technique has become a standard method to extract the mechanical properties of various materials. in recent years, mechanical behaviors of bone at the level of osteons or even lamellae have been assessed via nanoindentation of bone. different procedures during the indentation test can be used for different testing purposes. a conventional test provides the hardness of materials by measuring the size of the residual indentation impression. the load and indentation depth can also be recorded to form an indentation curve, which reveals information regarding mechanical properties. there are many material models for bone, reflecting its anisotropic structure. on large scales and small strain levels, bone can be modeled as viscoelastic or viscoelastic-plastic. on micron scales, cortical bone consists of osteons surrounded by interstitial bone, while trabecular bone consists of structures similar to rods or plates. continuum models on the micron scale represent the overall behavior during indentation, regardless of the different structures and the interactions between structures. however, on the nano scale, indentation becomes more localized, and the hierarchical structure of bone as well as the behaviors of collagen and mineral phases needs to be taken into consideration. the objective of this research is to advance the state of knowledge in simulation of the nanoindentation behavior of bone. the goal is to provide greater insight into bone mechanics on a nano-scale, which has a clinical significance. the ability to localize testing to very small regions is also important given that drug therapies often localize their effects to distinct tissue regions at microand/or nano-scales. thus, determination of localized effects of drug therapies, in so far as they affect mechanical properties, is another benefit of nanomechanical testing and modeling. to achieve this, various material models are developed and applied in simulations using the finite element methods, and in some cases, analytical analysis. this is a collection of original poetry and translations exploring the mutability of human identity, language and conceptions of the divine. the study of flow-induced structural vibration involves detailed understanding of the unsteady surface pressure. the present study examines the effects of a compliant wall on the unsteady pressure in a turbulent boundary layer. the objective was to observe how the pressure spectra change due to a section of wall that is vibrating. membranes with varied tension were fabricated and flush mounted to a rigid wall and placed in an anechoic wind tunnel. the flow over the membrane and pressure sensors was a canonical, zero-pressure-gradient turbulent boundary layer. the pressure was measured at locations downstream of the compliant wall. the results indicated that even very small amplitude of membrane vibration was sufficient to alter both the mean velocity field and the pressure spectra. increases in unsteady pressure magnitude up to 7 db were observed with passive wall motion. increases of 30 db were observed with relatively large amplitude external forcing applied to the membrane. buying a home is the most significant purchase most people ever make, but the cultural processes influencing this purchase are often invisible. the broad goal of this dissertation is to reveal how cultural processes shape the actions of housing professionals. using a combination of content analysis, interviews, and observations, i investigate the discourse and practices of home stagers, homebuilders, and real estate agents, and uncover their implicit narratives of livability. narratives of livability are actionable configurations of cultural meanings drawn from the complex semiotic space that defines "the home." these narratives answer the questions: what do we desire? what do we value? how do we live? by targeting these narratives, i am able to clarify how housing professionals shape the home buying process in the united states as they instantiate meanings of home in their material practices and discourse.these housing professionals are cultural intermediaries who deploy cultural meanings differently based on their field positions. home stagers face uncertainty in their professional status, and their decisions are inflected with a concern for legitimacy. they use their assumptions about livability to construct experiences of belonging for potential buyers. homebuilders participating in the new american home show home program are concerned with increasing their status among industry peers, and their decisions reflect a desire for distinction. they draw on different meanings of home to justify dramatically different material structures. real estate agents contend with an unruly market and clientele, so they focus on maintaining control of the home buying process by establishing expertise. agents use popular property television shows as cultural resources, alternately embracing and rejecting the meanings these shows exhibit as they guide clients' expectations and assert their expertise. in each case, cultural meanings of home are central to housing professionals' decisions and interactions with consumers. this research bridges the gap between structural analyses of home buying and cultural analyses of domestic consumption by locating cultural meaning in the housing exchange. in so doing, i argue that the cultural work of housing professional is essential for understanding housing in the us. algorithmic randomness in cantor space has recently become the subject of intense study. originally defined in terms of the fair coin measure, algorithmic randomness has since been extended, for example by reimann and slaman, to more general measures. others have meanwhile developed definitions of algorithmic randomness for different spaces, for example the space of continuous functions on the unit interval (fouche), more general topological spaces (hertling and weihrauch), and the closed subsets of cantor space (barmpalias et al., kjos-hanssen and diamondstone). our work has also been to develop a definition of algorithmically random closed subsets. we take a very different approach, however, from that taken by barmpalias et al. and kjos-hanssen and diamondstone. one of the central definitions of algorithmic randomness in cantor space is martin-lof randomness. we use the probability theory of random closed sets (racs) to prove that martin-lof randomness can be defined in the space of closed subsets of any locally compact, hausdorff, second countable space. we then explore the martin-lof random closed subsets of the natural numbers, cantor space, and the real numbers under different measures. in the case of the natural numbers we prove that the martin-lof random subsets are exactly those with martin-lof random characteristic functions. in the case of cantor space we prove that the definitions of barmpalias et al. and kjos-hanssen and diamondstone are compatible with our approach. in the case of the real numbers we investigate the martin-lof random closed sets under generalized poisson processes. this leads to a characterization of the martin-lof random reals as exactly those reals contained in some martin-lof random closed subset. the canzone alla sua donna is one of the most overlooked achievements in giacomo leopardi's poetry. composed in september 1823 &#8212; an "opera di sei giorni," as leopardi himself calls it in the autograph &#8212; the poem is a turning point in leopardi's artistic, philosophical, and existential itinerary. it immediately precedes the project leopardi began in 1824: the operette morali, a series of short prose narratives in which he starts to develop that negative philosophy that critics would label as "cosmic pessimism." with the single exception of al conte carlo pepoli, written in 1826, alla sua donna is the last poem that leopardi wrote before a long period of "poetic silence," interrupted in 1828 with the canti pisano-recanatesi. the prominent positions of the poem in both the 1824 and 1835 editions of the canti further suggest that alla sua donna played a crucial role in the development of leopardi's poetics. the second vatican council linked mariology and ecclesiology in its promulgation of lumen gentium, the dogmatic constitution on the church. while it was clear from the time of the council that mariology would be tied to ecclesiology, the reverse is less obvious and has not been examined systematically. this dissertation asserts that there is a mariological element to some contemporary catholic ecclesiologies, an element that has been poorly understood. through an analysis of the work of hans urs von balthasar, elizabeth johnson, and u. s. latino/a theologians, this study examines the mariological and ecclesiological contributions of these thinkers, whether these contributions dovetail with the goals of the second vatican council, and what they say about the struggle for identification in the catholic church today. after examining the debate surrounding the mariological schema at vatican ii, this dissertation analyzes the aesthetic mariological ecclesiology of hans urs von balthasar. by making mary the cornerstone of his reflection on the church, specifically the church's 'marian character,' balthasar ties his mariological ecclesiology to his theological anthropology. this is among the first significant attempts to link mariology and ecclesiology in the wake of vatican ii. however, balthasar's problematic anthropological assumptions call for critique, and do not fully engage the ecclesiological vision of the second vatican council. the next approach studied is the critical feminist approach of elizabeth johnson. her desire to return mary to her proper place within the communion of saints, a symbol johnson uses to describe the church, forges a new direction in the link between mariology and ecclesiology. johnson's vision of a historical communion of equal disciples living out holiness in ordinary ways both broadens the idea of holiness in the church and returns mary to a human status ignored in the excesses of marian maximalism. the last approach is that of u. s. latino/a theologians, in particular their reflections on mexican-american devotion to guadalupe. while this study does not confront the questions of historicity surrounding this apparition, it contends that the reflections on guadalupan devotion constitute an incipient ecclesiology, one that holds promise for the self-identification of the american church. lipid bilayers are one of the most fundamental part of a human cell. these bilayers control the passage in and out of ions and molecules such as proteins or drugs. one method to study these lipid bilayers is by making supported lipid bilayers on a solid substrate. these supported lipid bilayers can be readily modified for the research of interest, and their substrates can be materials like quartz or gold that can be used as part of the optical or electrical characterization method used to study the bilayer structure properties. the majority of studies on supported lipid bilayers is done with the lipid bilayer immersed in an aqueous phase. characterization is commonly done using fluorescence mircroscopy in a flow cell, or liquid cell afm. although air stable bilayers would be useful in biosensors and other bioelectronic devices, there are only a few supported lipid bilayers in the literature that are air stable enough to permit structural characterization, and they often show heights that are not really consistent with bilayer structure. this dissertation describes the self-assembly of air-stable cationic lipid bilayers that are stable to rinsing and for at least a month of storage in air. the original goal of the project was to make patterned octadecyltrichlorosilane (ots) that could act as a support to anchor a cationic lipid monolayer; the function of this anchored monolayer would be to attract anionic dna origami to the monolayer and allow them to bind but still retain mobility on the fluid lipid surface. our group had previously developed a "molecular lift-off" process to make patterned cationic siloxane monolayers, but these depositions are done in water, which is incompatible with ots. in order to modify the molecular lift-off process to make patterned ots, i used hexane, which does not dissolve or swell the pmma resist, to deposit films of ots on silicon oxide. this deposition process gave monolayers of comparible quality to those made by a tedious dry-box deposition using solvents that swelled or dissolved the pmma. i then tested several cationic lipids to see which would be able to form films on ots, and picked 1,2-dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-ethylphosphocholine (ethyl pc) to carry out the rest of the study. i looked at the interaction of this lipid with mica, silicon, and silicon/ots using traditional liquid cell afm, air afm, and contact angle measurements. although the original patterning goal did not prove feasible, ethyl pc did form air stable bilayers on mica and silicon. the bilayers showed very high coverage (>90%) but numerous attempts to anneal the multiple small domains and to bind dna origami to them failed. in the final chapter the need for scientific outreach in the k-6 community is addressed. i spent 2 years helping teachers become more confident with advanced scientific topics. this confidence was transferred into the classroom where students in grades k-6 were exposed to the theory and concepts of scanning electron microscopy. students in grade 6 were given hands-on training on the use of a portable scanning electron microscope (sem) and then independently used the microscope in their middle school classroom. the effect of the cation and anion on the liquid-liquid equilibrium of aprotic heterocyclic anion (aha) ionic liquids (ils) and water was studied by volumetric karl fischer titration. it was found that the cation size and the anion nature impact the hydrophobicity of the ionic liquid.in the context of post combustion co2 capture, small tetraalkylphosphonium cations and different aha anions were probed for co2 capture. the aha ils studied showed high affinity for co2 binding; however, some of them showed low chemical stability and high viscosity even when paired with smaller alkyl chain cations. as well, a proton nmr spectroscopy method was developed, in order to obtain a full understanding of the reaction mechanism, kinetics and equilibrium values of the il-co2-h2o reaction. the results indicate that the aha anions undergo reprotonation, although the reaction appears to be reversible. the rate, equilibrium values, and co2 solubility vary significantly with the nature of the anion. in the southern hemisphere, changes in the hydrodynamics and biogeochemistry in the upper water column play an essential role in global ocean circulation and climate. expansions or contractions of the southern ocean and changes in the meridional variability of the subtropical front (stf) can influence global ocean circulation by moderating the magnitude of water exchange at the indian-atlantic ocean gateway, so-called agulhas leakage. here we present new biomarker records of upper water column temperature (u_37^k' and tex86), primary productivity (chlorins and alkenones), and sea surface salinity (δdalkenone) from marine sediments at iodp site u1475 on the agulhas plateau, near the stf and within the agulhas retroflection pathway. we use these multiproxy time-series records from 3.6 to 1.9 and 1.4 to 0.3 ma to examine implied changes in the upper oceanographic conditions during the plio-pleistocene and early to middle pleistocene transitions. our reconstructions suggest that during the plio-pleistocene (3.6 – 1.9 ma), the stf reached its most northward position during marine isotope stage (mis) m2. this northward migration not only affected the upper water column hydrology and biogeochemistry at the agulhas plateau but significantly reduced agulhas leakage during the period between 3.3 3.15 ma. combined with prior evidence, upper water temperatures, sea surface salinity (sss), and changes in primary productivity at the agulhas plateau suggest the agulhas leakage was reestablished after 2.7 ma.our multiproxy approach across the mid-pleistocene transition (mpt, ca. 1.2–0.8 ma) suggests that in the southwestern indian ocean, the stf was further south from the agulhas plateau during the mid-pleistocene interim state (mpis, 0.9 0.47 ma) and reached its northernmost position during mis 34-24 and mis 10. we also present evidence that only the most extreme northward migrations of the stf are associated with reduced agulhas leakage. we suggest shifting westerly winds may exert a stronger influence over agulhas leakage variability than latitudinal migrations of the stf. paper analytic devices (pads) are a cheap and effective way to detect a variety of analytes, such as antibiotics, illicit drugs, and contaminants in water. pads consist of a number of "micro-reactor" regions. these regions are separated by hydrophobic wax barriers, which are deposited onto the card using wax printers or crayons. liquid reagents are dropped into each region and then dried onto the cards. solid samples are swiped across the regions (or dropped onto the card for liquid samples), and the card is placed in water to re-wet the reagents via capillary action. samples react in each region to produce detailed color changes, which mark the concentration of various analytes. each pad costs around $1 to manufacture and does not require any laboratory equipment to run. this makes pads particularly useful in low-resource areas. for example, many countries in the developing world do not have the technological infrastructure or regulatory resources to keep low quality and counterfeit medicines off market shelves. pads can quickly determine whether a drug tablet contains the correct medicines, and they can quickly be deployed at scale anywhere a problem with pharmaceutical quality is suspected.my research focused on inventing novel, enzyme-based pads to detect targets that have proven difficult to analyze with traditional chemical reagents. i designed a colorimetric enzyme-on-paper test to detect lactose in illicit drug samples. lactose is commonly used as a cutting agent in illicit drugs in order to increase the sellable product volume. lactose is difficult to detect in drug samples without expensive methods such as lc-ms or hplc. my pad utilized a 3-enzyme system and was able to detect lactose in concentrations as low as 5% by mass in drug samples. i used principal component analysis and color analysis to validate that this test was semi-quantitative for lactose concentration based on the intensity of blue-green color formation. the lactose test was then incorporated into a 12-lane paper test card (idpad) that can detect various illicit drugs and cutting agents. i am currently working on extending this work into more enzyme-on-paper tests for other common cutting agents in illicit drug samples, such as mannitol.i created a stand-alone card, sugarpad, based on my work with lactose. the sugarpad can detect 4 different sugars (lactose, galactose, glucose, fructose) via 4 enzyme-based spot tests at concentrations as low as 5% by mass. this card was designed for at-home instruction of undergraduate biochemistry courses during the covid-19 pandemic. the sugarpad does not contain any hazardous or highly reactive compounds. i wrote a take-home experiment on enzyme kinetics and administered it to undergraduate students. the experiment used the sugarpad to evaluate the efficacy of a consumer enzyme supplement, which claimed to convert fructose into glucose.i am working towards creating a new enzyme-based color test to detect oxytocin. oxytocin is commonly used to prevent postpartum hemorrhaging. it is difficult to detect on paper due to its extremely low therapeutic dosage. i developed a hplc assay that detects the cleavage product formed by exposing oxytocin to a serine protease enzyme. i also developed a preliminary color test that detects the cleavage product on paper. i am currently working on the formulation for leveraging these results in a pad.the tests that i invented have a real-world impact in low-resource and field settings, as well as in educational curriculum development. the pads are inexpensive to produce, fieldand user-friendly, and require no electricity or specialized instrumentation. novice users with little to no background training can easily use these devices. the tests allow for accurate analyses in areas where it would normally not be possible, such as roadside drug testing, low-resource healthcare settings, and at home experiments for remote learning during a global pandemic. proteins are often engineered for greater affinity and/or specificity to achieve therapeutic benefit. for example, as antibodies and t cell receptors (tcrs) have emerged as a new class of therapeutics, phage and yeast display libraries have been used to affinity mature these molecules for specific targets. although effective, these techniques offer limited structural control of the engineered sites under given selection pressures, and are often termed "irrational design." in contrast, in silico methods use structure-based physical models to estimate interaction energies, allowing for "rational" design and more targeted interactions. the role of the tcr in identifying immunological targets and signaling appropriate responses has resulted in exciting translational opportunities. yet tcrs mediate one of the most complex protein-protein interactions in biology, with intricate biochemical/biomolecular mechanisms intersecting structure, affinity, and specificity. here, we address these hallmarks of tcr recognition, emphasizing the use of computational models and structure guided design to examine the fine details of tcr interfaces. with broad implications to t cell based immunotherapies, we highlight how the 'imperfect' interfaces of tcrs bound to their ligands influences aspects of tcr design, t cell specificity, and epitope recognition of the immune system. there are two parts of my thesis. the first part is about muilti-step krylov iif-weno methods. when we are dealing with time-dependent partial differential equations (pdes) with linear high order terms and stiff lower order nonlinear terms, implicit integration factor (iif) methods are often a good choice as a class of efficient 'exactly linear part' time discretization method. in complex systems (e.g. advection-diffusion-reaction (adr) systems), the highest order derivative term can be nonlinear, and nonlinear non-stiff terms and nonlinear stiff terms are often mixed together. to discretize the hyperbolic part in adr systems, high order weighted essentially non-oscillatory (weno) methods are often used. there are two open problems related to iif methods for solving adr systems: (1) how to obtain higher than the second order global time discretization accuracy; (2) how to design iif methods for solving fully nonlinear pdes, i.e., the highest order terms are nonlinear. we solve these two problems by developing new muilti-step krylov iif-weno methods to deal with both semilinear and fully nonlinear advection-diffusion-reaction equations. the methods can be designed for arbitrary order of accuracy. the stiffness of the system is resolved well and the methods are stable by using time step sizes which are just determined by the non-stiff hyperbolic part of the system. large time step size computations are obtained. the second part is about single-step krylov iif-weno methods. so far, the iif methods developed in the literature are multi-step methods. hence, we develop single-step krylov iif-weno methods for solving stiff advection-diffusion-reaction equations. the methods are designed carefully to avoid generating positive exponentials in the matrix exponentials, which is necessary for the stability of the schemes. we analyze the stability and truncation errors of both the single-step and multi-step schemes. numerical examples of both scalar equations and systems are shown to demonstrate the accuracy, efficiency and robustness of these two schemes. bacterial pathogens are constantly evolving resistance to the most common treatments, thus there is a critical public health need for more rapid methods, such as biosensors, to accurately detect and identify infections. microorganisms including pseudomonas aeruginosa secret microbial iron chelators (siderophores) to gather the vital nutrient iron. the research presented herein employed the exquisite selectivity of microbetoiron chelator interactions on gold detector surfaces to direct capture, identification, and characterization of bacteria. dielectrophoresis used in conjunction with siderophore functionalized surfaces improved bacteria surface coverage by a factor of 30 for pseudomonas aeruginosa strain pa01, and showed an 8 fold improvement compared to pa6. detection of the capture bacteria was further quantified through surface plasmon resonance phase imaging, which demonstrated a signal response 5 times greater than the minimum measurable signal. future work target additional optimization of the sensing platform to resolve bacteria signal below 20 minutes. bacteria interact and co-exist with other microbes and with higher organisms like plants and humans, playing a major role in their health and well being. these ubiquitous single celled organisms are so successful, because they can form organized communities, called biofilms, that protect them from environmental stressors and enable communication and cooperation among members of the community. the work described in this thesis develops a toolkit of analytical techniques centered around raman microspectroscopy and imaging representing a powerful approach to non-invasively investigate bacterial communities, yielding molecular information at the sub-micrometer length scale.bacterial cellular components of non-pigmented and pigmented rhizosphere strains are characterized, and regiospecific sers is used for cases where resonantly enhanced background signals obscure the spectra. silver nanoparticle colloids were synthesized in situ, in the presence of the cells to form a proximal coating and principal component analysis (pca) revealed features attributed to flavins. sers enabled in situ acquisition of raman specra and chemical images in highly autofluorescent p.aeruginosa biofilms. in combination with pca, this allowed for non-invasive spatial mapping of bacterial communities and revealed differences between strains and nutrients in the secretion of virulence factor pyocyanin. the rich potential of using raman microspectroscopy to study plant-microbe interactions is demonstrated. effect of exposure to oxidative stress, on both the wild type pantoea sp. yr343 and carotenoid mutant δcrtb, was assessed by following the intensity of the 1520 cm-1 and 1126 cm-1 raman bands, respectively, after treatment with various concentrations of h2o2. significant changes were observed in these marker bands even at concentrations (1 mm) below the point at which the traditional plate-based viability assay shows an effect (5-10 mm), thus establishing the value of raman microspectroscopy as a tool for high sensitivity studies of bacterial environmental stressors. the use of pca in raman imaging can also discriminate between spectral contributions from plant and bacterial cells. finally, spectroscopy compatible microfluidic corral platforms are fabricated and a simple microfluidic technique is demonstrated for capturing bacterial cells. this opens up the possibility of studying bacterial communication in settings where it is possible to control population size and microenvironment. this project investigates the potential of the african-american home to be political by challenging notions of collective identity and hybridity. through the context of prior political movements in the united states and the work of african-american artists and writers, this paper serves to locate contemporary artistic endeavors as they relate to identity construction. the green movement ushers in a new chapter in the history of the iranian democracy movement which began with the constitutional revolution of (1905-1911). for the first time the movement is also concerned about gender equality and women's rights in the country. it would be interesting to analyze the green movement from different perspectives. looking at this movement through a gender perspective might shed light on an important dimension of the movement. a gender perspective is not only a matter of women's rights but it is broader and includes power relations in different levels. i explain in this thesis the topic through a gender perspective focusing on two areas: the power relations and women rights. women had an incredible participation in the movement such that even some western media called it "women's revolution" in iran. women also were main actors in the movement trying to keep the green movement nonviolent. to learn more about the causes of the green movement after the election in iran through gender perspective, it might be better first to explain the ideological gaps which shape the power structure that has constituted an obstacle for women's rights in iran. the most effective ideological groups in iran are conservative religious and moderate religious groups. all the other causes of the power structure are generated from this problem and the clash among these two groups. their different views on governing and the source of law are the main sources of the clash after the presidential elections of 2009. the conservatives have a very patriarchal perspective on the power structure and women's status, while the moderates are trying to modify islam according to human rights and democracy. apart from this ideological gap in iranian society, the women's movement had an important impact on the democracy movement of iran. the women's movement began along with democracy movement with both emerging out of the constitutional revolution. it is still going on and strengthening over time. women movements' activities such as the one million signatures campaign and their big gatherings in june 2006 and 2009 could be considered as the grounds for the green movement of iran. the women's movement was also an integral component of the green movement and it is still strengthening the green movement of iran through requesting equality and fundamental rights for half of the iranian population and introducing nonviolent tactics and strategies into iranian democracy movement, the green movement. looking through a gender perspective, the authoritarian power structure of government is the outcome of a patriarchal and traditional society in which the father or husband exercises excessive authority over the family and has almost absolute power. therefore to change this structure, we need to change the family structures first. this study is on the green movement and its gender dimensions. the recent presidential election in 2009 was highly controversial. right after the announcement of the result, mehdi karoubi and mir hossein mousavi's supporters took to the streets to challenge the accuracy of the results. the protests were broad, as they managed to attract various segments of the iranian society. the islamic regime of iran responded to the protests violently. i decided to work on this topic for two reasons: 1. the movement is perceived as a new phenomenon and a remarkable development in the political history of iran with a set of unique features in comparison to previous movements and revolutions; 2. aside from some articles, little has been written on the movement from a gender perspective. although, there are a considerable number of articles on the green movement and some on its gender dimensions, i only found two books published on the movement so far. one is iran: the green movement and the usa by hamid dabashi and the other is iran: green movement written by slater bakhavar. these books also look at the movement in general, not from a gender perspective. researchers in the social and behavioral sciences frequently depend on linear models when designingand analyzing longitudinal studies. however, when attempting to precisely understand the underlyinggrowth process, nonlinear growth models are typically more useful. the present work focuses on a relatively simple nonlinear growth model, the negative exponential growth model. in particular, a new parameterization of this growth model is proposed to facilitate meaningful interpretation of its parameters. further, one of the primary goals of the present work is to develop a method that allows researchers to design longitudinal studies according to the population reliabilities of the nonlinear least square estimators of the negative exponential growth parameters. the method that is recommended makes use of monte carlo simulation to approximate the population reliabilities in arelatively accurate manner. an illustration of this method is presented and discussed to promotethe design of efficient longitudinal studies of nonlinear growth in the behavioral sciences. the particle and fluid interactions that occur in dilute suspensions of non-colloidal particles in shear flow are examined in this thesis. in the theoretical and experimental studies described here, a range of intriguing mechanisms that give rise to particle and fluid diffusion in these suspensions are elucidated. while shear-induced migration of particles in suspensions has been studied for several decades, most studies in the past have focused on concentrated suspensions. the mechanisms that lead to particle and fluid migration in concentrated suspensions vanish in the dilute limit. however, many other mechanisms play a significant role only at low particle concentrations. the confining walls of a sheared dilute suspension give rise to particle and fluid diffusion even at large separations from the walls. here, the diffusivities arising due to the this mechanism are predicted for smooth and rough spheres. this mechanism is also experimentally studied by observing the motion of particles and fluid in sheared suspensions. the experimental study of particle flux due to gradients in concentration is used to determine the diffusivity arising from the interaction of the roughness elements on the surface of particles.an intriguing and previously unknown mechanism of fluid dispersion arising due to the translation of spheres in shear flow is also described in this thesis. analogous to this case, a mechanism of fluid dispersion due to forced translation of spheres that are located in the close proximity to a wall is also described. it is shown that this mechanism can give rise to fluid mixing many particle radii away from the wall when non-neutrally buoyant particles are allowed to settle along the walls in the presence of shear flow. the work in re:collections draws from personal family history, thoughts on the photograph and the family album as mnemonic devices, and research on traditional and counter memorials to explore the dichotomy of remembering and forgetting. the installation is comprised of several individual pieces that when shown together reveal themselves as distinctive steps of an ongoing process which becomes a physical manifestation of the constant struggle between the desire to forget and the human propensity to remember. much of the research examining interpersonal functioning in individuals with psychoticism traits has focused on the social impact of negative psychotic-spectrum symptoms. additionally, a significant research literature examines speech features associated with psychoticism traits, but much of this research investigates underlying cognitive mechanisms. although yet other research indicates that language use is associated with interpersonal functioning and that interpersonal dysfunction is central to the expression of pathological-range traits, there is scarce research dedicated to the questions of whether and how language use affects interpersonal functioning in individuals with psychotic-spectrum traits and symptoms. the current study begins to fill that gap by exploring relations among (1) selfand interviewer-rated psychotic-spectrum traits and symptoms, (2) selfand interviewer-rated interpersonal functioning, and (3) percentage of words in various categories obtained from transcripts of an audio-recorded interview. preliminary analyses examine the correlations between schizotypy and category percentages in written responses to open-ended prompts. results of these analyses partially directed the main analyses, which examined the hypothesis that the percentage of words used in several categories, such as verbs, pronouns, and positive and negative emotion words, are correlated with psychotic-spectrum pathology and interpersonal functioning. detailed hypotheses are presented in the main text. i also conducted regression analyses predicting interpersonal functioning from psychotic-spectrum pathology and category percentages to determine the predictive power of each and whether word use may be a mechanism of interpersonal dysfunction in individuals with psychotic-spectrum pathology. oaks (quercus spp.) are ecologically significant components of hardwood forests in the northern hemisphere and are the most species-rich genus within the fagaceae (oaks, chestnuts, and beeches). quercus rubra is the most wide-ranging species in quercus section lobatae, the oak section native only in the americas. despite the huge ecological and economic importance of q. rubra, a dominant species in the oak forests of eastern north america, genetic studies were quite limited until recently. using parentage analysis, we have identified 1048 full-sib progeny from a single seed and a single pollen parent. for framework map construction, 509 progeny were genotyped with 37 gssr and 36 est-ssr derived from q. rubra, 40 est-ssr previously mapped in european pedunculate oak q. robur l. (quercus section quercus) and one est-ssr marker from castanea mollissima blume. a subset of the full-sib family (217) was also genotyped with ddradseq markers. our current consensus map includes 108 gssr and est-ssr framework markers and 849 ddradseq markers with an average distance between markers of ~1.06 cm. we have the expected number of linkage groups (12), each of which is tagged to the q. robur linkage map using the 38 est-ssr markers mapped in both species. our map reveals a high degree of marker colinearity between northern red oak and pedunculate oak, suggesting that these two species share quite similar genome architecture. this map will serve as a basic foundation for the comparative study of the genetic architecture of adaptive traits and genome evolution in the genus quercus.finally we located genomic regions associated with spring bud burst in q. rubra using an interval mapping and random forest approach. we hypothesized that the genome architecture of bud burst qtl would be similar to that of q. robur. our results indicate the presence of major bud burst qtl on linkage group 2, in agreement with the lg2 region found in q. robur. additionally, we compared the nucleotide and amino acid sequence similarity of the markers identified as associated with bud bust on lg2 to identify potential candidate genes for this trait in q. rubra. in this thesis, we addressed this material design problem by developing simultaneous process and material optimization frameworks for post-combustion and pre-combustion carbon capture processes to identify the optimal properties of ahas for achieving the best process performance. we also developed rate-based process models for techno-economic evaluation of the optimized ahas. the results will provide a system level insight for material scientists at the early stage of solvent design. the purpose of this dissertation is to investigate loss generation in a linear cascade with cross-sectional area expansion. the cascade inlet mach number ranged from 0.4 to 0.6, and the vane chord reynolds number ranged from 0.9 to 1.5 million. three cascade designs with varying amounts of area expansion, providing different degrees of adverse pressure gradient, are examined. the initial surface flow visualization experiments and optical flow analysis revealed a hub separation region on the suction side of the vanes. previously published research and preliminary cfd simulations agree with these initial flow findings. passive and active forms of flow control are employed to mitigate losses in the system. plasma actuators are placed on the suction sides of the vanes, just upstream from the flow separation location as an active form of separation control. a 5-hole pitot probe is used for quantitative data measurements. the effects of plasma actuation on the pressure loss coefficient and flow turning angle is measured. the result is that the plasma actuator's separation control increases the dynamic pressure in the passage between the vanes, resulted in a more spanwise-uniform flow turning angle, and effectively lowering the loss coefficient compared to the baseline. a passive approach to loss mitigation through the use of fences is employed to mitigate secondary flows from contributing to the generation of vortices in the hub-corner region. plasma actuators are utilized to further improve flow quality and separation for the fenced cases. the addition of the fence to the vane suction surface creates a blockage increasing losses in its wake. surface flow visualization, optical flow analysis, and wake pressure measurements are taken for the concurrent fence and plasma actuation case. the result of this study is that the fence successfully mitigates the secondary flow from the hub and produces a 2-d separation location on the vane suction surface. the plasma dbd actuation successfully reattaches this 2-d separated flow. however the concurrent use of the fence and plasma dbd actuation adds to the overall losses in the system. thus, the unfenced vane under the effects of plasma actuation separation control most effectively decreases losses through the cascade. the localization of optical fields is a powerful method to reduce spectroscopic background signals and enable studies of single fluorescent molecules. zero-mode waveguides (zmws) strongly confine optical fields to zeptoliter volumes and are coupled with fluorescence microscopy to study the dynamics of single enzyme molecules, due to their excellent optical confinement, precise positioning, and massive parallelism. the work presented exploits arrays of au-based nanopores derivatized with single copies of the redox enzyme, monomeric sarcosine oxidase (msox). msox contains a covalently bound flavin adenine dinucleotide (fad) cofactor which is highly fluorescent in the oxidized state and dark in the reduced state, thus producing a characteristic on-off fluorescence signal synchronous with transitions between oxidation states. although al is the common choice for metallic overlayer in zmw construction, au is used here to access its unique surface-binding chemistry. in particular, the signal-to-noise ratio is improved for au-based zmws by selective au passivation. for msox reactions involving both the nominal substrate (sarcosine) and an analogous substrate (proline), statistical analyses of single-molecule temporal trajectories reveal the static heterogeneity of single enzyme reaction rates. in addition, the single molecule data confirm the independence of reductive and oxidative reactions. these structures open the way for systematic studies of the effect of molecular crowding on enzyme dynamics. the features of zmws are extended to single molecule electrocatalysis. in contrast to its behavior in flavoenzymes, where the transitions are coupled to chemical redox events, the research presented here studies single fad molecules that are chemically immobilized to the au region of a zmw array through a pyrroloquinoline quinone (pqq) linker. in this structure, the au functions both to confine the optical field in the zmw and as the working electrode in a potentiostatically controlled 3-elecrode system, thus allowing potential-dependent blinking to be studied in single fad molecules. the subset of zmw nanopores housing a single molecule are identified statistically, and these are subjected to detailed study. using equilibrium potential, eeq, values determined from macroscopic planar au electrodes, single molecule blinking behavior is characterized at potentials e < eeq, e ~ eeq, and e > eeq. the probability of observing a reduced (oxidized) state is observed to increase (decrease) as the potential is scanned cathodic of eeq. this is understood to reflect the potential-dependent probability of electron transfer for single fad molecules. furthermore, the observed transition rate reaches a maximum near eeq and decreases to either anodic or cathodic values, as expected, since the rate is dependent on having significant probabilities for both redox states, a condition that obtains only near eeq. the main purpose of this thesis is to generalize many of the results of dyer, [18]. dyer introduces a large family of finite state automata that are demonstrated to recognize many natural subsets of coxeter groups. in the current work, we consider generalized length functions in coxeter systems and show that these length functions lead to a larger family of finite state automata, which in turn recognize a larger class of natural subsets of coxeter groups. by a well-known result, these subsets (called regular subsets) will then have a rational multivariate poincarìäå© series. dominance order on the set of reflections (or positive roots) of a coxeter system plays a major role in the study of regular subsets. we draw the connection between dominance in root systems and a notion of closure in root systems. we describe some conjectures, due to dyer, [17], and introduce a conjectural normal form for coxeter group elements related to closure and dominance. in [14], dyer introduced the notion of the imaginary cone to characterize dominance. we investigate the imaginary cone in the special case of hyperbolic coxeter systems. we show that any infinite, irreducible, non-affne coxeter system has universal reflection subgroups of arbitrarily large rank. this allows us to deduce some consequences about the growth type of coxeter systems. the current studies examined whether actor prototypes can motivate one to act in a moral fashion. studies 1 and 2 examined whether people form different prototype representations for actors who engage in presumptively moral behaviors (volunteer, coach, donor, environmentalist, and political activist). results from these studies indeed suggest that participants viewed these as 'moral' actors, and that participants' representations of these actors demonstrate prototype structure. furthermore, while these moral actor prototypes are quite similar, participants did list distinctive traits and attributes for the different prototypes. study 3 then examined whether people are motivated to volunteer as a result of their volunteer prototype representations. support was found for this link in two ways. first, participants primed with traits indicative of volunteers were more likely to volunteer for an additional study than unprimed participants, although this effect was subject to environmental influences. second, participants' perceptions of volunteer prototypes positively predicted their reported volunteer hours per week. participants who viewed volunteers as favorable and as similar to themselves reported greater weekly volunteerism. these results thus support claims that implicit moral actor prototypes do motivate moral action, and future research directions are discussed. this thesis studies the reactions and structural changes in alkanethiol self-assembled monolayers (sams) on au(111) resulting from exposure to gas-phase atomic hydrogen. hydrogen atoms remove the alkanethiol molecules and we investigate how the local surface environment influences monolayer erosion. a scanning tunneling microscope (stm), attached to a molecular beam chamber, allows us to monitor in situ the exact same area of a surface before, during and after exposure. initially extensive damage to the monolayer is observed in the form of both dark and bright features in stm images. molecules positioned along surface defects (domain boundaries, gold-terrace step edges) are preferentially removed before molecules located in close-packed areas. while the overall net reaction is to remove the octanethiol sam, molecules remaining on the gold surface undergo significant rearrangement: domain boundaries anneal into close-packed areas, film defects diffuse to monolayer edges, and molecules located along the edge of close-packed features reorganize and change the shape of the remaining monolayer. this annealing and restructuring likely results from increased mobility of surface-bound alkanethiolates in the vicinity of monolayer defects, or from diffusion and readsorption of transiently formed alkanethiol molecules. increasing exposure also results in an accelerated rate of observed surface changes, indicating that the reactivity of the surface increases as a result of gas-surface reactions. we compare our results with kinetic monte carlo simulations to determine that the edge of defect sites are upwards to 100 times more reactive than close-packed monolayer areas. monolayer erosion also revealed the formation of bright gold islands. recent theoretical and experimental studies have suggested gold adatoms are incorporated into the alkanethiol--gold interface. the gold adatoms remain on the surface after alkanethiol monolayer removal and form features that we can observe using stm: formation of single-atom thick gold islands, decreasing size of surface vacancy pits, and faceting of terrace step edges. compared to the alkanethiol-terminated surface, these features indicate a net increase in the amount of gold present on the surface, compared to the alkanethiol-terminated bulk structure. varying the length of the alkane chain does not affect the total adatom coverage, as adatom coverage for ethanethiol (0.172 &177; 0.039), octanethiol (0.143 &177; 0.033), and dodecanethiol (0.154 &177; 0.024) sams are within experimental error of one another. this corresponds to one gold adatom for every six atoms in the bulk-terminated surface, and thus one gold adatom for every two alkanethiol molecules. group a streptococcus (gas) is a bacterial pathogen that causes a multitude of human diseases from impetigo and pharyngitis to severe infections such as toxic shock syndrome, rheumatic fever, and necrotizing fasciitis. one of the primary virulence factors produced by gas is the peptide toxin streptolysin s (sls). in addition to its well-recognized role as a cytolysin, recent evidence has indicated that sls influences host cell signaling pathways at sub-lytic concentrations during infection. to expand upon these findings, we employed an antibody array-based approach to comprehensively identify global changes in host keratinocyte signaling in response to the sls toxin. through this study and subsequent biochemical analyses, we uncovered an sls-dependent mechanism of host cytotoxicity in gas-infected keratinocytes involving the inactivation of the cytoprotective factor akt and subsequent activation of the p38 mitogen activated protein kinase (mapk) cascade. activation of this pathway promotes inflammatory signaling via nuclear factor kappa b (nfκb) activation and drives sls-dependent programmed necrosis in keratinocytes.to further elucidate the effects of sls-mediated inflammatory signaling in epithelial keratinocytes, we performed cytokine array studies to identify inflammatory cytokines that are produced by keratinocytes in response to gas infection. these and subsequent analyses allowed for the identification of a robust, sls-dependent increase in interleukin 1-beta (il-1β) production downstream of the p38 mapk/nfκb signaling cascade. to address the physiological impact of increased il-1β production, we performed in vitro studies in human keratinocytes as well as in vivo assessments in a humanized mouse model of gas subcutaneous infection. these studies revealed that the sls-mediated increase in il-1β production leads to increased cytotoxicity in vitro as well as accelerated wound formation in vivo. in light of these findings, we propose that the production of sls by gas during skin infection promotes invasive outcomes by triggering programmed necrosis and inflammatory cascades in host cells to breach the keratinocyte barrier for dissemination into deeper tissues. furthermore, our studies provide evidence that therapeutic targeting of this inflammatory signaling cascade may be a useful strategy to reduce sls-mediated cell death and tissue destruction during the early stages of invasive gas skin infection. with the ever-growing amount of data we are capable of collecting nowadays, the need for methods to analyze and generate insight into the big data emerges. data visualization offers a powerful tool to allow humans to better understand the data. however, the large-scale data generated through simulation or collected from real-world scenarios leads to an insurmountable amount to sift through for humans, even when the data are visualized in a concise format. to combat this, it is necessary to simplify the data using summarization techniques. while summarization allows an overview that is easier to digest for humans, it comes with the drawback of omitting parts of the data. to overcome this drawback, data reconstruction techniques allow for a level-of-detail analysis of the underlying data. they further make it possible to synthesize missing data. for both data summarization and reconstruction, it is important to tackle different kinds of data in their respective ways. in this dissertation, i describe several ways to summarize and reconstruct time-varying multivariate, vector field data, and graph data.time-varying multivariate volumetric data typically stem from scientific simulations that describe physical or chemical processes, usually in either two or three spatial dimensions, a temporal dimension, and contain multiple variables. volume visualization techniques are usually used to visualize and analyze them. in this dissertation, i focus on data analysis using isosurface rendering, a commonly used volume visualization technique.while isosurface rendering allows detailed insight into time-varying multivariate data sets, the sheer complexity of them makes it often impossible to analyze and visualize all the data at once. a major challenge is the selection of interesting or important parts to bring to the attention of the analyst. previous works have presented algorithms to select salient values, however, these algorithms do not scale well enough for big data analysis. in this dissertation, i present an acceleration and analysis framework to efficiently analyze and visualize complete large-scale time-varying multivariate data sets using isosurfaces. a different type of data produced by scientific simulation is vector field data. at the core of describing fluid dynamics, these data sets are composed of vector fields revealing the underlying development of the flow. when it comes to the simulation of unsteady flow, scientists often face the challenge of only being able to generate output at a coarse temporal granularity. this leads to the problem of reconstructing the data at missing time steps with high quality for postprocessing and analysis. in this dissertation, i study three different deep-learning approaches to reconstruct missing vector fields from a small set of stored ones.another way to navigate through data is by using a graph representation. graph representations are commonly used to show the relationship among entities. a typical way to depict graph is a node-link diagram with entities being the nodes and their connections the links. similar to isosurface rendering, graph visualization suffers from the data overloading issue. further, computing a pleasing and information revealing layout for large graphs can take a long time. to combat these problems, i present a framework to efficiently summarize a graph into sparse levels, compute a layout, and then reconstruct this information for denser levels of the graph. oneand twodimensional detonation problems are solved using a conservative shock-fitting numerical method which is formally fifth order accurate. the shock-fitting technique for a general conservation law is rigorously developed, and a fully transformed time-dependent shock-fitted conservation form is found. a new fifth order weighted essential non-oscillatory scheme is developed. the conservative nature of this scheme robustly captures unanticipated shocks away from the lead detonation wave. the one-dimensional zel'dovich-von neumann-doering pulsating detonation problem is solved at a high order of accuracy, and the results compare favorably with those of linear stability theory. the bifurcation behavior of the system as a function of activation energy is revealed and seen to be reminiscent of that of the logistic map. two-dimensional detonation solutions are found and agree well with results from linear stability theory. solutions consisting of a two-dimensional detonation wave propagating in a high explosive material which experiences confinement on two sides are given which converge at high order. abolishing the draft and moving to an all-volunteer force appears to some scholars including levy (2014) to be a relinquishment of state power to the labor market for mobilizing recruits. this dissertation argues that state officials did not relinquish power over military recruitment after conscription ended. transitioning from conscription to the all-volunteer force created a collective action problem for state officials: free-riding would be more rational than enlisting, since non-enlistees would receive the same national security benefits as enlistees without having to fight for them. state officials needed to leverage new, non-coercive forms of power to overcome this collective action problem and mobilize an all-volunteer force. these new mechanisms of power included offering a set of unparalleled selective incentives for enlistment, using expansive and highly targeted advertising campaigns to align recruitment messages with vulnerable groups, and strategically placing military recruiters in neighborhoods that were disproportionately structurally vulnerable. state officials also capitalized on welfare state retrenchment. in light of the decreasing provision of welfare benefits, incentives offered for military participation were considerable, especially for those most in need. this dissertation theorizes a relationship between mechanisms of state power and more vulnerable groups enlisting for military service. to test components of this relationship, this dissertation draws on data from nationally representative data sets (e.g., psid, nlsy, yats, acs, and cps) and self-collected data (recruitment office locations and military advertisements), and analyzes the results with mixed methods. notable findings include significant, positive relationships between increased structural vulnerability and military recruitment office locations, and increased biographical vulnerability and enlistments. a concluding study of intergenerational mobility for veterans and non-veterans finds improved income mobility for veterans over non-veterans working 40 hours per week or less, and for those in the lowest income quintile. by offering increased life chances to those who were most vulnerable, the military performed a social welfare function. in so doing, state officials continued to put those who were most vulnerable in the position of defending the nation. the emerald ash borer (agrilus planipennis, eab) invasion in north america threatens most north american fraxinus species, including green ash (f. pennsylvanica), the mostly widely distributed species. a small number of green ash (0.1-1%) both survive for years after all surrounding green ash have been killed by eab and kill more eab larvae when challenged in greenhouse studies. we combined untargeted metabolomics and associative transcriptomics with intensive phenotyping of structured populations of progeny from susceptible or lingering ash parents to detect chemotypes and differentially expressed genes associated with defensive responses to eab. the work in this dissertation utilizes the phenotypic distribution (0-100% of larval killed) of progeny from lingering-by-lingering crosses and susceptible controls to provide novel insights into effective and ineffective responses deployed by green ash against eab as well as to provide resources for future research. this investigation has identified select secoiridoids indicative of a metabolite-based response that appears to be ineffective at killing larvae, alkaloids that may have a role in an effective defense response, and a collection of differentially expressed features in the transcriptome association with response to infestation and high larval kill, providing future avenues to explore the effective defense deployed by select green ash against emerald ash borer. this work integrates intensive phenotyping of structured populations with metabolomics and transcriptomics to explore plant insect interactions with a multiyear analysis of metabolome reproducibility. from this work, we propose a two-part model for the north american fraxinus response to eab wherein every individual has the capacity to respond to eab, but only certain trees mount an effective induced defense response that kills enough eab larvae to prevent lethal damage to the vascular system. deep neural networks (dnns) have achieved state-of-the-art performance in many areas and are integrated into commercial products successfully. one of the foremost challenges in adopting dnns to real-world mission-critical applications is the lack of competency-awareness. even cutting-edge models fail in edge cases because of the complicated nature of the real-world problem and the long tail of the real-world cases. more importantly, failure happens silently. this is in sharp contrast to humans' capability on competency-awareness. in order for dnns to gain humans' trust in making decisions reliably, uncertainty estimation is investigated as a promising way to competency-aware neural networks.in this dissertation, we focus on the uncertainty estimation that provides quantified scores representing the confidence of the model's prediction. first, we analyze uncertainty estimation as a general function approximation problem and provide the approximation error bound in quantized scenarios. second, we identify some problematic evaluation methods in the recent literature on uncertainty estimation and propose new evaluation metrics. we further use these metrics to explore the relationship between uncertainty estimation and hardware resource constraints. third, motivated by the discrepancy between the model training objective and the objective in practice, we develop uncertainty-aware training for selective medical image segmentation. fourth, with a correction effort prediction model enhanced by uncertainty maps, we propose an ultrasound scanning framework that optimizes the data acquisition for improved automated segmentation by dnns. the ferromagnetic semiconductor gamnas thin films are studied experimentally using the ferromagnetic resonance (fmr) technique, with emphasis on magnetic anisotropy, spin waves and fmr line width. there are four series of gamnas thin films with different mn concentrations x, different layer thicknesses and different film plane indices, e.g., (110) and (311), studied in this thesis. some of the samples were grown by low temperature molecular beam epitaxy (lt-mbe), and others were prepared by ion implantation followed by pulsed-laser melting (ii-plm). in this thesis, fmr is used to determine all the fundamental magnetic properties of gamnas, including magnetic anisotropy, total magnetic moment, the curie temperature, magneto-elastic coupling coefficients, and magnetization relaxation parameters. in some of the samples, a multi-mode spectrum, i.e., spin wave resonance (swr) spectrum is observed. we will focus on the detailed description of such swr and also show the relation of spin-wave modes to the thickness and to mn concentration x in these ferromagnetic semiconductors. this method has allowed us to determine the exchange stiffness constant and the characteristics of surface spin pinning in the gamnas spin system. in our study of magnetic anisotropy of gamnas we find that the magnetic anisotropy fields of samples grown on high-index gaas can be resolved into a cubic magnetic anisotropy field oriented along the crystallographic <001> axes and effective uniaxial magnetic anisotropy fields along higher-index directions (e.g., [110] or [311]). this is also observed in high-index samples grown by ii-plm. the data were fitted in detail to obtain the value of magnetic anisotropy parameters and to contrast the properties of ii-plm gamnas to the more widely studied behavior of gamnas grown by mbe. our results show that the magnetic anisotropy in ii-plm gamnas is fundamentally similar to gamnas samples grown by mbe, which indicates that two completely different growth mechanisms can lead to materials with very similar magnetic properties. tau is a microtubule (mt) binding protein expressed in neurons that is directly linked to alzheimer's disease (ad). tau has been widely studied both in its normal interactions with mts and in its formation of tau filaments that lead to hallmark disease-related aggregation. though there are many functions for which tau binds to mts, the mechanisms are poorly understood and reports are controversial. for example, the reported tau&ndash;mt binding affinity values vary over an order of magnitude, and tau has been reported to bind mt protofilaments either longitudinally or laterally. through various experiments including mt-binding assays, fluorescence spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy (tem), we have gained a better understanding for tau&ndash;mt binding behavior. firstly, we tested the hypothesis of a secondary tubulin binding site for tau on mts. tau is known to polymerize tubulin into mts and is believed to incorporate itself into the inner mt wall. using dolastatin-10 tubulin rings, we reveal through tem and cosedimentation analysis that tau does bind to the molecular surface of the inner mt wall with a higher affinity than its exterior mt-binding site. this also provides supporting evidence that tau binds mts longitudinally (versus laterally) to stabilize the mt structure. secondly, given that tau polymerizes tubulin in vitro, we questioned its potential binding activity with tubulin at the growing mt end and involvement with the protein network (called +tips) that regulates mt growth. we measured a moderate binding affinity of tau for gtp-like tubulin polymer, which models the mt end, and a strong affinity for gdp-tubulin polymer, which models the mt body. additionally, since mt growth is regulated by eb1 protein, we ran competition assays with eb1 and tau to test for synergistic or competitive mt-binding. for binding to gdp-tubulin polymer, we saw that tau competes eb1 off of mts and eb1 activity decreases. the sum of these results indicate that tau actively avoids the mt end and the network of +tips. using fluorescence microscopy with labeled chimeric mts, we then confirmed that tau preferentially binds to gdp-tubulin versus gtp-tubulin, the first mt-associated protein discovered to do so. thirdly, we sought out the possibility that mts could induce tau&ndash;tau interactions and even tau filament formation. recent studies have shown support for the formation of tau oligomers on the mt surface, which would explain why traditional techniques have produced inconsistent reports on the tau&ndash;mt binding affinity. therefore, we hypothesized that using different experimental techniques would produce different apparent results. we tested this by measuring the tau&ndash;mt kd using different experimental procedures and corresponding analysis calculations as well as varied protein concentrations. however, the results were still inconsistent, indicating that yet another interaction was occurring in addition to the expected tau&ndash;mt and tau oligomerization interactions. through fluorescence microscopy, we reveal the novel presence of tau filaments forming within the context of mts during a cosedimentation assay. this explains the inconsistencies of tau&ndash;mt binding behavior in previously reported binding studies and may contribute to the current understanding of the initial formation of tau filaments found in ad. our tem analyses show the tau filaments are similar to heparin-induced tau filaments, which are commonly used to model ad filaments. a high level of clustering distinguishes social networks from other types of networks. homophily, or the tendency for similar individuals to befriend each other, is commonly purported to generate this phenomenon. while much extant research on homophily emphasizes factors that structurally induce similarity among individuals, less work has investigated how cultural tastes result in individuals preferentially selecting homogeneous alters and how best to approach this methodologically. using novel data, this study employs statistical network analyses to infer how music tastes produce different structures within an emerging social network by influencing the number and similarity of friends that a person has. i find music tastes vary in the extent to which they produce homophily but that, in order to uncover these dynamics, one must account for the number of people with whom an individual interacts. i conclude with a theoretical discussion of the findings and suggest future research directions. despite extensive experimental and theoretical investigations reported over the last three decades, the microscopic mechanism of fluorescence intermittency in nanoscale emitters remains elusive. most fluorescent nanosystems are zeroand one-dimensional. however, recent experiments show, surprisingly, that despite its two-dimensional structure, graphene oxide also exhibits highly localized emission intensity fluctuations during its photoreduction process. in this thesis, we provide an extensive phenomenological analysis of the spatially resolved fluorescence trajectories in reduced graphene oxide (rgo). we show, for the first time, that the emergence of fluorescence intermittency in this two-dimensional system is accompanied by the appearance of 1/f-like behavior in the local power spectral density of the experimentally measured intensity trajectories. furthermore, we use the phenomenological multiple recombination center model to show how the spectral evolution of the local trajectories can be related to the change in the number of optically active recombination centers affecting the behavior of a nanoscale region in rgo. we argue that the number density of recombination centers can be linked to the microscopic number of optically active graphene quantum dots generated during the various photoreduction stages of graphene oxide. finally, we also studied the effect of dimension on the fluorescence in nanostructures via the absorption spectrum 1d-to-0d evolution in cdse nanowire and nanorods. this master thesis is concerned with the finite sample properties of four standard error (se) estimators for dynamic factor analysis using the kalman filter algorithm with both normal and nonnormal data. the estimators considered are the observed information based se estimator, harvey's se estimator, and the two sandwich type se estimators. statistical properties of these estimators are assessed using a simulation study. results indicate that the sandwich type se estimator proposed by papanastassiou (2006) generally outperforms other se estimators. however, the observed information se estimator is still valuable in that the advantage of the sandwich type se estimator proposed by papanastassiou (2006) over the observed information se estimator for non-covariance component parameters is limited. in the united states, according to the american cancer society, 608,570 cancer deaths are projected to occur among men and women in 2021. astonishingly, toward the end of the 20th century, the cancer death rate began continuously falling from its height in 1991 through 2018, for a total decline of 31%. this steady decline in cancer death is indubitably reflective of a multi-faceted effort in understanding the basic biology of cancer and developing effective therapeutic strategies. therefore, to persist down the path of decreasing cancer death rates, investigations into one of the most prominent causes of cancer-related deaths must continue. by and large, metastasis, which is the spread of cancer cells from their original organ site, entrance into circulation, and re-establishment in distant, secondary organs, is responsible for 90% of fatalities caused by cancer. when considering obstacles to cancer cell viability, detaching from their extracellular matrix (ecm) and evading cell the associated death mechanisms are critical objectives cancer cells must achieve to successfully metastasis. detachment from the ecm is known to induce a caspase-dependent cell death program, termed anoikis, that cancer cells can circumvent by multiple means. nonetheless, overcoming caspase-dependent cell death alone is not sufficient to promote survival during metastasis, but our laboratory's work has discovered that cancer cells must also address metabolic deficiencies that can lead to caspase-independent cell death programs. throughout my graduate studies, i have had the honor of investigating two, separate projects for my thesis work that entails the following: 1) a survival mechanism to address detachment-induced metabolic challenges and 2) a caspase-independent cell death pathway driven by oxidative stress in ecm-detached cancer cells. to begin, our laboratory's research has demonstrated that a reduction of glucose uptake, accumulation of reactive oxygen species, and a subsequent decline in atp production are each metabolic defects that occur upon ecm-detachment. intriguingly, when ecm-detached cells were engineered to express the erbb2 oncogene, a rectification of each metabolic deficiency was observed. additionally, our previous work discovered that the serine/threonine serum and glucocorticoid kinase 1 (sgk1) is sufficient and required to promote atp production in ecm-detached cancer cells and to facilitate anchorage-independent growth downstream of the ras oncogene. however, what hadn't been determined yet was the molecular mechanism that sgk1 utilizes to promote these functions and if disparate oncogenic insults relied on this mechanism. therefore, utilizing four cancer cell lines with dissimilar oncogenes, we performed luciferase-based assays and soft agar experiments and found that sgk1 is not only sufficient and required to promote atp generation in detachment and support anchorage-independent growth, but also that sgk1 preforms these functions with greater outcomes than akt in detachment. furthermore, through qrt-pcr and glucose uptake assays, we found that in ecm-detachment sgk1 upregulates the transcription of the glucose transporter glut1 and facilitates increased glucose flux into detached cells. once glucose in inside the cells, we surprisingly found that sgk1 was not promoting atp production through oxidative phosphorylation. using glucose flux analysis, we discovered that sgk1 promotes atp production and anchorage-independent growth via glucose metabolism in both glycolytic and pentose phosphate pathways (ppp). sgk1-mediated atp production was found to be dependent upon the non-oxidate arm of the ppp due to the flux of glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate (g3p) into glycolysis. taken together, our data published in cell reports reveals a novel molecular mechanism that serves as nexus between oncogenic signaling and metabolic reprograming in ecm-detached cells for their survival in an anchorage-independent conditions. with further studies, sgk1 could possibly present as a therapeutic target in various cancer types that have detached from their ecm. lastly, within the second project, our recent studies using in vitro and in vivo models have identified receptor interacting protein kinase 1 (ripk1) as a critical mediator of ecm-detachment induced caspase-independent cell death via its capacity to promote mitophagy, which is defined as the degradation of mitochondria, and subsequent accumulation of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ros) in cancer cells. thus, our finding led us to the prominent question for my current project: how does ripk1-mediated mitophagy lead to caspase-independent cell death in ecm-detached cancer cells. during mitophagy, mitochondria are encapsulated into vesicles known as autophagosomes, and these vesicles fuse with lysosomes to form autolysosomes that execute the degradation of mitochondria. given that mitochondria contain iron-rich complexes and that lysosomes contain hydrogen peroxide, we posit that mitochondrial ros is a result of the fenton reaction (fe2++h2o2 = fe3+ + h2o +oh) occurring in autolysosomes during mitophagy in ecm-detachment. additionally, because of its accumulation, mitochondrial ros can lead to the loss of lysosomal membrane integrity, a process known as lysosomal membrane permeabilization (lmp), and cause the release of active cathepsins that have been observed to execute caspase-independent cell death once in the cytosol. to date, using a combination of subcellular fractionation, immunoblotting, immunofluorescence, and enzymatic activity assays, we have discovered that ecm-detachment induces lmp and that this lmp is dependent upon ripk1-mediated mitophagy. likewise, during detachment, not only have we observed the release of cathepsin b into the cytosol (a marker for lmp), but our data also show that detachment regulates the activity of cathepsin b in a ripk1 and mitochondrial ros-dependent fashion. with this discovery in addition to previous studies depicting its role in caspase-independent cell death, it is possible that cathepsin b is playing a prominent role in facilitating cell death that occurs as a result of ripk1-mediated mitophagy. therefore, our current focus entails investigating the requirement and mechanism of cathepsin b to promote caspase-independent cell death downstream of ripk1 activity in ecm-detachment. in brief, elucidating a novel cell death pathway that could potentially reveal therapeutic targets for treatments, particularly in cancers that have acquired resistance to caspase-dependent cell death, truly highlights the significance of this project. this dissertation explores the particular mechanisms by which political parties attempt to win people's votes by embarking on specific electoral campaign strategies. it also develops a more comprehensive theory and a novel way to systematically measure the centrality to campaigns of clientelistic, programmatic, personalistic and incumbent's performance voter mobilization strategy types. this dissertation produces an argument in which the campaign strategies political parties use are influenced by, not only district factors such as socioeconomic development and electoral competitiveness, but also by party factors such as candidate nomination compromises and the dispersion of power within parties. this is a comparative case study in which causation is viewed as a combination of conditions where the causal factors are seen in interaction with one another in a context. the comparative method, based on in-depth study of cases and qualitative data analyses, allows a comprehensive view of campaign strategies' processes. the study of cases also permits a justification of the importance of the local political party apparatus to mobilize voters in campaigns in a way which complements, and in many aspects transcends, the mass media campaign. the dissertation, for example, reveals that particular mechanisms in the clientelistic relationship and the relative autonomy of the broker have unique consequences to governance and accountability in the respective communities. this mostly qualitative study of five argentine provinces is primarily based on original data from eighty six interviews of local, provincial and national elected officials, with the goal of tracing meaning and causal relationships in specific contexts. the dissertation also counts with supporting evidence from content analysis of newspapers and public opinion surveys. the dissertation provides measurable factors and indicators, which improve the available comparative tools used in the study of clientelism, personalism, programmatic and incumbents' performance as strategy types. malaria still kills over one million people a year, mostly children in sub-saharan africa. anopheles gambiae is the main malaria vector in sub-saharan africa. the publication of the an. gambiae genome in 2002 opened up a vast array of information that potentially can be used in controlling this deadly mosquito. however, this vast assortment of genomic data also opened up the challenge of being able to parse through this data to identify useful information, to help organize this data into manageable quantities this thesis focuses on three main genomic structures in an. gambiae: 1) microsatellites, 2) syntenic relationships between the genome of an. gambiae and d. melanogaster, and 3)tc1-mariner superfamily transposable element distribution an experimental investigation of the physical cause of optical aberrations in a compressible, subsonic, turbulent boundary layer was conducted. x-wire, surface pressure, and optical data were collected to document the coherence lengths of coherent flow structures in all three coordinate directions in a turbulent boundary layer. these coherence lengths were measured to be on the order of the boundary layer displacement thickness, and together with the high convective speed of the coherent structures indicated that optically aberrating structures were located in the outer portion of the boundary layer. conditionally averaging the velocity and surface pressure data based on minima in the opd yielded a large-scale, coherent, vortical flow structure. this result provides a direct link between optical aberrations and large-scale, coherent, vortical structures (and their concomitant pressure wells) in the outer portion of a turbulent boundary layer. immigrants and seniors are two groups of individuals who may experience substantial economic difficulties due to their limitations in the labor market. this dissertation consists of three essays which evaluate how immigrants and seniors may utilize their skills, sources of support, and public programs to improve their economic and health outcomes.in the first chapter, i examine how language skills affect immigrants' occupational status. i show that an increase in english ability from not speaking english very well to speaking english very well lead to an immigrant working in an occupation that requires 11 more points in english skills, which is approximately a one standard deviation change. in addition, i show that occupation is a channel for people with better english ability to earn higher wages. the second chapter provides an analysis of how seniors' labor supply responds to health shocks experienced by their spouses. my findings generally suggest that women increase their labor supply when their spouses experience health shocks, whereas men tend to reduce their labor supply. furthermore, both the response of men and women varies by wealth and severity of the shocks.in the last chapter, i evaluate the effect of medicare part d on the utilization of preventive services by seniors. many studies have assessed the direct impact of part d on prescription drug utilization, medical spending, and the treated medical conditions, but none has evaluated the effects of part d on the utilization of seemingly-unrelated services such as preventive health measures. i find that the increase in prescription drug coverage as a result of part d corresponds to a 31 percent increase in the probability of getting a flu shot and a 14.5 percent increase in the probability of getting a test for cholesterol level. i verify that doctor visits and improved financial conditions form the mechanisms by which part d affects the use of preventive services. the negative effects of conflict within the home on child and adolescent adjustment have been well established. employing a holistic, multi-method, process-oriented approach of the relationships within the family, this thesis first attempted to identify the relation between family and marital conflict and adolescent adjustment, and by what means this process occurs. family conflict was directly related to both internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and indirectly related to internalizing symptoms through the adolescent's insecurity about the family and marital relationships. the second aim of this project was to test the effectiveness of a communication-focused intervention, assessing whether or not the addition of the adolescent in treatment components led to more positive outcomes in families. the intervention was effective at increasing constructive conflict behaviors, decreasing destructive conflict behaviors, and increasing the degree of resolution families reached in an in-lab problem-solving task; however, no differences were found between treatment conditions. subthreshold neglect is defined as the absence of positive parenting behaviors that eventually results in delayed child development. the present study tested several competing models of maternal support and infant development in a sample of 508 mothers at high and low risk for child neglect based on their age and educational levels. infants demonstrated significantly delayed development at both 12 and 24 months of age in social-emotional competence, the absence of social-emotional problems, cognitive development, and language development. problems in these areas were then related to maternal social-emotional, cognitive-language, and responsive supports in a model comparison approach. results revealed that a restricted model of subthreshold neglect fit the data best. the absence of responsive support at 8 months predicted social-emotional problems and the absence of cognitive-language support predicted language delays at 12 months. the absence of responsive support at 8 months also predicted deficiencies in social-emotional competence at 24 months. conversely, responsive support predicted language delays at 12 months. social-emotional, cognitive, and language development at 12 months predicted corresponding development at 24 months. the findings suggested that the effects of early subthreshold neglect were immediate, but that early-appearing problems resulting from subthreshold neglect may lead to trajectories of adverse child development over time. we present far ultraviolet spectroscopic explorer (fuse) and space telescope imaging spectrograph (stis e140m) observations of the post-asymptotic giant branch star zng 1 in the globular cluster messier 5 (l = 3.9, b = +47.7; d = 7.5 kpc, z=+5.3 kpc). high velocity absorption is seen in c iv, si iv, o vi, and lower ionization species at lsr velocities of -140 and -110 km/s. we conclude that this gas is not circumstellar on the basis of photoionization models and path length arguments. thus, the high velocity gas along the zng 1 sight line is the first evidence that highly-ionized hvcs can be found near the galactic disk. we measure the metallicity of these hvcs to be [o/h] = +0.22 +/0.10, the highest of any known hvc. given the clouds' metallicity and distance constraints, we conclude that these hvcs have a galactic origin. this sight line probes gas toward the inner galaxy, and we discuss the possibility that these hvcs may be related to a galactic nuclear wind or galactic fountain circulation in the inner regions of the milky way.absorption from high ions (si iv, c iv, and n v) is used to probe hot gas from the milky way to high-redshift primordial galaxies. however, only in our own galaxy have they been observed with high enough spectral resolution to fully resolve the line profiles. we present an homogeneous study of the high-resolution stis e140h (1.5-2.7 km/s resolution) spectra of the interstellar si iv, c iv, and n v absorption along 50 galactic sight lines. these data are complemented by fuse o vi for all but 5 stars. we are able to resolve narrow components in si iv (<6.5$ km/s) and c iv (<10$ km/s) undetectable at lower resolution. we find that these narrow components are ubiquitous throughout the galaxy and constitute a large part of the total number of components and almost half of the total column density. these narrow components imply temperatures where little c iv is expected, yet considerable amounts of c iv (and si iv) is observed. we find that photoionization from ob stars can account for very few of the narrow components. the majority of the narrow components must have been photoionized by radiation from hot cooling gas, or the remains of a hot gas that has radiatively cooled. novel and potentially 'universal' cephalosporins were designed as multifunctional &#946;-lactam antibiotics which would be useful against both sensitive and resistant microorganisms. the three key structural variables that comprised this studies were the r group, the leaving group (lg), and r§ group. different r§ and leaving groups were introduced based on their relative migratory aptitude or on their different leaving abilities, respectively. it was initially believed that some new ìøåàå_8ìøåàå_5-lactamase inhibitors could arise from this series of cephalosporins. enzymatic processing of the ìøåàå_8ìøåàå_5-lactam may release a potent acylating agent called an isocyanate which can deactivate ìøåàå_8ìøåàå_5-lactamases irreversibly. generation of this isocyanate can arise from appropriately substituted hydroxamates located at the c-3§ position of the cephalosporin through an intramolecular lossen rearrangement after hydrolysis of the ìøåàå_8ìøåàå_5-lactam ring.,p>several new c-3§-hydroxamate substituted cephalosporins were synthesized including cyclic forms 32-36, and 38 with improved lipophility and evaluated for antibacterial/anti-tb activity. the test results showed that the ring opened free carboxylic acid hydroxamates 27-31, and 37 are superior in activity compared to the corresponding cyclic hydroxamate esters 32-36, and 38 against some specific strains such as micrococcus luteus atcc 10240, bacillus subtilis 6633 and s. aureus sg 511. the preliminary results showed electron donating groups gave better anti-tb activity (33 with an mic of 2.81 ìøåàå_0ìøåàå_8m against gast nrp-tb). this preliminary study provides exciting leads to the possible generation of compounds that are selective antimicrobial agents based on variation of peripheral substituents. to further test this concept, the synthesis of an extended library will be needed.in addition, the direct amine-linked quinolone-cephem 74 and carbamate-linked quinolone-cephem 77, and their corresponding esters 73 and 76 were synthesized and evaluated for anti-bacterial activity. all conjugates and their esters showed good activity against various strains of bacteria. conjugate 74, the amine-linked quinolone-cephalosporin, was more active against some gram-negative bacteria, while the carbamate-linked conjugate 77 had superior antimycobacterial/anti-tb activity with an mic of 0.94 ìøåàå_0ìøåàå_8m. medium access control (mac) protocols deal with the problem of effectively utilizing wireless communication channels. therefore, efficient mac schemes are of great importance to achieving good performance of wireless networks. in this thesis, two types of techniques that can be utilized to improve the performance of the mac schemes and potentially significantly improve the throughput of the wireless network are studied: power control and full-duplex communication.for any wireless communication system, it is critical to have an energy efficient mac scheme given the limited power resource. this raises the question of how power control algorithm can help with the design of the mac scheme. to answer this question, the classic foschini-miljanic power control algorithm is analyzed from a geometric perspective. a novel tool, the meobius transform, is utilized for the first time to study the convergence condition of the power control algorithm. based on the analysis, we propose an energy efficient mac scheme that greatly improves the spatial reuse of the wireless networks. moreover, the effects of the power constraints and fading on the convergence of the power control algorithms are also considered in the context of random networks.while focusing on the quest for a good mac scheme that works for current wireless systems, an alternative way is to think outside the box and design a wireless system that is fundamentally different from the current communication system model. half duplex operation, which means that a node cannot transmit and receive simultaneously over the same frequency band due to overwhelming self-interference, makes the mac design in wireless medium more challenging than in wireline networks. this thesis challenges the paradigm by proposing a comprehensive investigation of the physical and mac layers of virtual full-duplex networks based on rapid on-off-division duplex (rodd). the key to rodd is to allow all nodes to transmit and receive simultaneously by letting each node transmit through the on-slots of its on-off mask and receive over the off-slots. in case of a point-to-point connection of two nodes, both nodes can simultaneously transmit a message and receive a message, achieving full duplex at the frame level. part of this thesis is on the design and prototype implementation of such virtual full-duplex wireless networks using software-defined radios and evaluating its performance. novel channel coding, synchronization and estimation algorithms are designed for the rodd scheme to correctly recover the received on-off signal.another type of full-duplex is achieved by canceling the self-interference caused by one's own transmitter. this thesis also investigates the throughput for wireless networks with full-duplex radios using stochastic geometry. full-duplex (fd) radios can exchange data simultaneously with each other. on the other hand, the downside of fd transmission is that it inevitably causes extra interference to the network compared to half-duplex (hd) transmission. moreover, the residual self-interference has negative effects on the network throughput. in this thesis, we focus on a wireless network of nodes with both hd and fd capabilities and derive and optimize the throughput in such a network. our analytical result shows that if an aloha protocol is used, the maximal throughput is achieved by scheduling all concurrently transmitting nodes to work in either fd mode or hd mode depending on one simple condition. moreover, the effects of imperfect self-interference cancellation on the signal-to-interference ratio (sir) and throughput are also analyzed based on our mathematical model. we rigorously quantify the impact of imperfect self-interference cancellation on the throughput gain, transmission range, and other metrics, and we establish the minimum amount of self-interference suppression needed for fd to be beneficial. this thesis discusses practices, interfaces, implications, and factors affecting islamic peacebuilding initiatives in ambon, maluku-indonesia. the thesis asks questions, such as who are the muslim peacebuilders in ambon? how does the idea of islamic peacebuilding be carried on the ground? and what are the factors that determine the success or failure of islamic peacebuilding initiatives? islamic peacebuilding work has a crucial role in restoring peace and stability in ambon after an interreligious conflict between muslim and christian communities that claimed more than 10,000 lives in 1999-2002. ever since the conflict officially ended with the malino ii peace accord in february 2002, the roles of christian and muslim peace activists cannot be separated from the post-conflict social healing process in ambon. islamic peacebuilding is chosen as a unit of analysis because of two reasons. first, there is a lack of discussion on islamic peacebuilding practices, particularly those from non-arab regions of the world, such as southeast asia. second, in the context of interreligious conflict in ambon, a plenty of attentions have been given to the causes and dynamics of the conflict, while only few analyses directed to the peace process in post-conflict setting. emic approach from the ethnographic methodology is employed to provide a thick description of islamic peacebuilding practices from the perspectives of muslim peace activists. in-depth interviews were conducted as a means to elicit personal accounts on islamic peacebuilding practice. the concept of interreligious conflict provided by christopher duncan's violence and vengeance: religious conflict and its aftermath in eastern indonesia (2013) will serve as the main theoretical framework in this thesis, accompanied with stanley cohen's concept of implicatory denial (2001), and john paul lederach's concept of critical yeast (2005). duncan?s theory will set the ground for classifying the conflict in ambon as an interreligious one. cohen's will frame the community's denial as a reaction to sustain their narrative about what it means to be ambonese. while lederach's concept of critical yeast is important to analyze the role of individuals who become important nodes of peace activism among the muslim community. the thesis centers around three major findings that i gathered during a two-month fieldwork in ambon. first, hesitation among muslim and christian communities to relate to each other on the basis of religions which prompted muslim peace activists to use traditional culture as a medium to introduce peaceful messages derived from islamic teachings. the practice of islamic peacebuilding through cultural medium is the second finding of the fieldwork. the third finding is concerned with the development of interreligious discourse among muslim community in ambon that is limited to some elite circles, such as scholars and peace activists. my argument is that, to achieve a deeper level of interreligious dialogue between muslim and christian communities in ambon, the discourse of interreligious dialogue in muslim community must be expanded to include the grass-root level of participation. this is important because the sustainability of peace depends on the totality of participation that the community can provide to alleviate violence. previous cross-sectional research shows that not all latino immigrant youth are becoming american. some immigration scholars, in fact, partly attribute latino heterogeneity in american identity to disparate perceptions of discrimination. however, little is known about the variable relationship between perceived discrimination and american identity as youth transition from early to late adolescence and into adulthood. to fill this void, this analysis employs data from the children of immigrants longitudinal study (cils) to examine the extent to which unequal perceptions of discrimination explain latino variation in american identity as well as the changing effects of perceived discrimination over the life course. results from random-effects logistic regression models indicate that although disparities in perceived discrimination do not explain subgroup differences in becoming american, it has a significantly negative effect on the likelihood of identifying with an american label, even when controlling for family background and traditional acculturation measures. moreover, this study finds that the effect of perceived discrimination is only significant during early adolescence relative to late adolescence and adulthood. implications of these results for immigrant adaptation and suggestions for future research are discussed. vaccinations are among the most important advancements in modern medical history, yet a growing proportion of parents are choosing to opt out of routine immunizations for their children. this dissertation addresses three important puzzles related to vaccine refusal: how can we explain the sharp increase in vaccine refusals over the past 15 years? why has the issue of compulsory vaccinations become politicized? and why are vaccine exemptions overwhelmingly clustered in particular places? the analysis focuses on the state of california from 2000 to 2015. i give particular attention to the role of party politics and political orientation. i conclude that the combination of increased residential segregation by political orientation, higher rates of pbes in republican contexts, and electoral pressures on republican lawmakers to relax compulsory vaccination laws could lead to dangerously low vaccination rates in communities where most residents share neoliberal conservative values. i also develop and test a theory about how non-politicized issues become linked to political ideology and party agendas. specifically, i find that conservatives living in "hostile" territory—i.e., where their neighbors tend to be more liberal—are especially likely to politicize the issue of compulsory vaccinations. finally, this research sheds light on the most troubling aspect of this issue, namely, that vaccine exemptions are overwhelmingly concentrated in particular schools and communities. i argue that "pockets of homogeneity" in the midst of more socioeconomically integrated communities attract parents that think in terms of "opt-out individualism." these pockets then reinforce the tendency to opt out of vaccines by reducing the social stigma associated with vaccine refusal and by giving parents a false sense of protection from disease. in psychological research, populations are commonly assumed to be homogeneous; however, populations can contain qualitative or quantitative subtypes. mixture models can be used to capture unobserved population heterogeneity. after obtaining class membership, a researcher may be interested in seeing how classes of people differ on a background variable or covariate. in this study, three types of covariates are investigated: continuous, binary and ordered categorical. factor mixture modeling is a statistical procedure, where class membership is probabilistic and frequently imperfectly inferred. the first aim of the study was to understand the extent to which incorrect class assignment decreases the power of detecting a significant post hoc effect. second, a series of different models that a researcher could choose from are compared with respect to the proportion of correct assignment. the final and most significant focus of the study was to investigate whether a post hoc mean comparison has more power when the class probabilities are used to weight the covariate by the posterior probability or when it is not weighted. 3d face shape biometrics, with greater pose and lighting condition data invariancethan 2d (photometric), has the potential to yield superior performance to 2d data forsome applications. however, many of the capture limitations of 3d scanners are the sameas those of 2d biometric capture devices with respect to lighting, environmental, andsubject configurations. many of the claimed advantages of 3d over 2d do not exist undercurrent capture configurations. in addition, 3d scanners themselves are more expensivethan 2d cameras, and 3d biometric data are unavailable on many of the subjects wewould like to identify. further, the significant computational cost of 3d face recognitionhas made large scale deployment of 3d face recognition impractical. the focus of thisthesis is to address these issues to improve the feasability of 3d face recognition so that itis more applicable outside of a research environment. in particular, the focus is onimproving the methods and hardware needed to produce a 3d model of a face, improvingbiometric recognition and verification performance, and decreasing the computationalcost to allow for larger scale applications. in this thesis, i propose a new structure frommotion approach, a new fast 3d face biometric, and examine the impact of movement onexisting structure from light devices. orography presents significant modifications to the flow, and terrain complexities that include slopes, valleys, canyons, escarpments, gorges and bluffs span different space-time scales, contributing to a host of phenomena that stymie the predictability of mountain weather. the advanced research version of the weather research and forecasting (wrf) system was used to investigate the ability of a leading edge mesoscale atmospheric model to predict key atmospheric phenomena observed during the mountain terrain atmospheric modeling and observations (materhorn) field campaigns. the wrf simulations were run with a 0.5 km horizontal grid resolution for selected intense observations periods (iops). the research described in this thesis is focused on periods of synoptically driven stably stratified atmospheric boundary layers. this work aims to evaluate the performance of the wrf model to simulate real atmospheric conditions and investigate flow passing over a non-symmetrical rugged obstacle. the known theories for stably stratified flow features were found to be too restrictive for complex terrain in point, and a numerical approach was applied. a challenge is that vector fields describing the flow are fully 3d and thus streamlines are not restricted to a single fixed 2d plane, causing presentational difficulties. to this end, a special system of visualization programs was developed, capable of tracking the energy budget and pressure anomalies or analyzing 3d wrf variables along a streamline. such tools provided an exceptional opportunity to investigate different phenomena related to real complex terrain, which includes the dividing streamline height and flow separation, trapped lee waves, and vortex formation. a selected set of phenomena were investigated, focusing on flow patterns and underlying physics and dynamics. squaraine dyes are bright deep-red fluorescent molecules that have a donor-acceptor-donor structure resulting in an electron deficient aromatic core that is susceptible to nucleophilic attack. encapsulation of the dye inside a tetralactam macrocycle forms a squaraine rotaxane which protects the core from nucleophiles and also prevents fluorescence quenching by self-aggregation. this dissertation focuses on the development, syntheses, and application of water-soluble squaraine rotaxanes. the chemical and photochemical stability of water-soluble squaraine rotaxanes with four large stopper groups attached to the dye core was found to be vastly superior to that of squaraine rotaxanes with three and two large stopper groups. squaraine rotaxanes were functionalized with ionic groups and utilized as non-targeted tracers for in vivo imaging studies, including monitoring disruption of the blood-brain-barrier. a variety of squaraine rotaxanes with potential targeting ability were prepared and tested for application in cell death imaging, cationic cell entry, and bio-conjugation. bone targeted squaraine rotaxanes with non-bisphosphonate groups were found to be excellent in vivo imaging agents and their bone targeting ability was comparable to that of traditional bisphosphonate probes. the st. george recoil mass separator at the university of notre dame has been used to study the 20ne (α, γ)24mg reaction. the reaction rate of 20ne (α, γ)24mg is important in advanced burning stages in massive stars such as carbon, neon and silicon burning. three known resonance strengths have been measured as part of the commissioning experiments of st. george and the characterization of its focal plane detector. st. george rejects the un-reacted 20ne beam and sends the 24mg recoils into a particle identification detection system using the time-of-flight versus residual energy approach. the measured resonance strengths are in good agreement with the literature values. a path to study 20ne (α, γ)24mg at lower energy is discussed. many fundamental processes in nature and technology, from the electronic energy transfer in biological photosynthetic complexes to the charge mobility in solid-state photovoltaic devices, involve the dynamics of electrons in complex molecular systems and nanostructures. therefore, understanding the dynamical characteristics of electronic states is crucial for rational designs of functional materials. to make progresses toward this goal, we have developed time-dependent open-system self-consistent field at second order (oscf2), a real-time time-dependent functional theory method incorporated with open quantum systems theory. this dissertation focuses on the derivation and implementation of oscf2, and explores its applicability in realistic, chemically relevant molecular systems. the contribution of the present work is three-fold. first, we derive a new dissipative theory for electrons in energetic contact with the environment that causes the electronic populations to naturally relax to a fermi-dirac thermal equilibrium statistics limit. second, we present a complete implementation of oscf2 for real-time simulations of chemical systems including the treatment of energy dissipation. the cubic scaling achieved through highly efficient algorithms means oscf2 is computationally inexpensive compared to existing real-time dynamics codes. we critically assess the validity in numerous simulation studies and demonstrate that oscf2 consistently produces absorption spectra and non-radiative relaxation rates which are in good agreement with experimental results. finally, we present the first ab initio simulations of transient absorption spectra spectroscopy. in particular, the transient spectrum and relaxation dynamics of methylammonium lead triiodide perovskite is investigated, substantiating the assignment of induced bleach and absorption signals. the cell cytoplasm consists of a diverse, complex, self-organized system of objects spanning a broad range of both size and number density. cells must arrange these active components into a spatially and functionally efficient system, making the comprehensive study of intracellular organization an intriguing and challenging topic. a description of the physical and organizational properties of the cytoplasm can be realized from measurements of the particle size distribution (psd), or the number density (n) of objects as a function of particle size (d). however, extracted cell contents (lysates) prove to be a distinct measurement challenge owing to the breadth in both size and number density of the subcellular structures and the presence of very small particles. this dissertation presents the development and use of a unique methodology for this task: light transmission spectroscopy (lts). lts measures wavelength-dependent light transmittance through an aqueous sample, providing the size and absolute number density of particles in suspension. significant development of this technique is presented, including the expansion to quantitative lts (qlts) where protein and nucleic acid concentrations can be quantified directly from light extinction spectra. with these developments and the use of sample fractionation, lts was able to provide a psd for both human (oral, both normal and cancer) and plant (spinach) cells across a broad size range: ~5 nm to ~5 μm. this constitutes the first comprehensive psd survey of cellular interiors spanning nearly three orders of magnitude in particle size. power law behavior, where , was observed in the psd of both cell types, with average power law exponents of 3.04 ± 0.06 for normal human oral cells, 2.84 ± 0.06 for cancer human oral cells, and 2.96 ± 0.08 for spinach cells. this implies that cells exhibit fractal self-similarity. comparison to common sphere packing models also suggests that cells approach constant-volume packing behavior in their organization. distinct differences were found between normal and cancer cells including smaller values for the power law exponent, the total volume fraction of particles, and the rna content in the cancer cells. this dissertation explores how british writers struggled to represent the plantation complex in the eighteenth-century atlantic world. beginning in the early seventeenth century with the tobacco farms of virginia and the sugar estates of barbados, the plantation complex quickly emerged as the primary engine of britain's colonial economy in the western hemisphere and transformed the social, political, and economic spheres of the west indies and southern american colonies. as staple crops like sugar, tobacco, rice, and indigo became dominant exports of the colonies, and as the plantation system expanded throughout the caribbean and carolina lowcountry, the plantation became both the pride and the embarrassment of the first british empire. it was a source of enormous wealth, but it was also maintained by a reprehensible system of racist exploitation and coerced labor. the plantation's particular combination of slave labor, intensive agriculture, and financial capital transformed britain's imperial project and upended ideals britons held about their nation. writers on both sides of the slavery question negotiated the economic potential and moral problems of the plantation through literary representations that sought to describe the plantation not as it was but how they imagined it should or could be. from this negotiation emerges a literary perspective that i call "the plantation aesthetic," which is an articulation of the plantation system's logic through a tension between two dominant literary modes of the eighteenth century: the georgic and the tragic. the georgic mode celebrates industry, civil harmony, and cultivation; adapting this poetic form, writers such as daniel defoe and james grainger sought to redeem the plantation and its natural environment by rewriting its exploitative practices as productive husbandry. tragedy, conversely, serves as a vehicle of ethical critique for writers like thomas southerne and edward rushton, who directed the genre's affective response towards the impossible position of the suffering slave. this project provides an early literary history of the plantation, one of the most significant settings of nineteenthand twentieth-century american literature, and illuminates the dynamic relationship between colonialism and genre through the seventeenthand eighteenth-centuries. petroporphyrins contribute to many of the challenges encountered when producing, transporting, and refining heavy crude oil and bitumen. they are the source of heavy metals which poison catalysts and which may facilitate the aggregation, deposition, and emulsion formation exhibited by asphaltenes. here they are extracted and enriched to ultra-high purities from several sources: an athabasca bitumen, a canadian northern tier crude, and a north american heavy crude. petroporphyrins are characterized by uv-visible (uvvis) spectroscopy, x-ray fluorescence (xrf) spectroscopy, and mass spectrometry. the majority of the petroporphyrins are simple etio (407 nm soret band) or dpep (410 nm soret band) types, but some are more functionalized compounds with highly broadened and shifted soret bands.small-angle neutron scattering (sans) is used to characterize the aggregation of pure vanadyl petroporphyrins (vopps) as well as of asphaltenes mixed with either vopps or synthetic porphyrins. simple vopps generally form small nanoaggregates, likely dimers and trimers, and have low solubility in toluene and form precipitates. more complex vopps can form large, asphaltene-like nanoaggregates in toluene. less functionalized porphyrins are shown to inhibit asphaltene aggregation while ore functionalized porphyrins, potentially having one or more intermolecular interaction sites outside of the central macrocycle, tend to promote aggregation.vanadyl petroporphyrins purified from a north american crude oil vacuum residue are used in experiments probing the interfacial phenomena of the petroporphyrins as well as asphaltenes-petroporphyrin mixtures. water-oil emulsion stability as a proxy for film strength is measured using the centrifugal method. interfacial tension and elasticity of asphaltene and petroporphyrins films are recorded over tens of hours using an interfacial dilational rheometer. film thicknesses of asphaltene films with and without petroporphyirns are estimated by fitting multiple models to small-angle neutron scattering curves. uv-visible spectrophotometry is used to compare petroporphyrin content in the interfacial and bulk material of emulsions. petroporphyrins are shown to be highly surface active and have significant effects on asphaltene film development. highly-surface-active petroporphyrins form monolayers at the interface with very low tension high dilatational elasticity. however, this high elasticity does not translate to film strength. there is a problem of aggregation and recency bias when it comes to discussing the political implications of the rapidly growing us latinx population. discussions are often saturated by immigration, criminal, and/or economic frames. but rarely have discussions centered on the lengthy history that latinx subgroups have had in the us, nor have they centered on their positive contributions to american democracy. in my dissertation, i take a historically informed approach to analyze how mexican-americans managed to overcome 19th and 20th century authoritarian institutions in texas, and in effect, initiated a transition to democracy in south texas.i frame the political transformation of texas as a form of localized regime change spearheaded by mexican-americans seeking the guarantee of democratic protections and political inclusion. i develop this argument by analyzing the distinct settlement patterns between anglo and mexican-american populations in north and south texas. i identify historical processes that structured anglo-mexican relations along a top-down racial hierarchy as contact and southern anglo migration increased throughout the state. i tracethe unique geopolitical history of texas, first as a newly independent republic and later as a us state, to demonstrate how few democratic protections were afforded to mexican-americans and other latinx subgroups throughout the state.my dissertation demonstrates how, despite the presence of various authoritarian institutions, mexican-americans managed to organize their limited resources to capitalize on key internal and external political opportunities. the implications of my dissertation are far reaching. first, it provides a cautionary tale to political parties, pundits, and observers on the limits of demographic determinism. a large and/or rapidly growing latinx population is not a guaranteed formula for political change. second, it provides a transferable rubric for latinx communities throughout the nation seeking to transform their local and state political systems. finally, it demonstrates how investing in communities and local level politics may be the solution to safeguard american democracy from state and national level democratic backsliding. barchan dunes are three-dimensional, crescent-shaped bedforms which, as they migrate in the direction of the overlying wind or water flow, interact with their neighboring bedforms. smaller, faster migrating barchans will overtake and collide with larger, slower moving ones, resulting in complex morphological changes, enhanced sediment erosion, modified flow dynamics. the primary aim of this study is to elucidate the associated turbulent flow structure which is hypothesized to drive the morphodynamics of such barchan--barchan interactions.flow measurements were made using particle-image velocimetry (piv) over configurations of solid barchan models mimicking stages of a laterally offset collision process, in addition to a baseline, isolated case. to obtain full optical access, experiments were conducted in refractive index matching (rim) flow facilities.first, low frame-rate piv data was collected in streamwise--wall-normal and streamwise--spanwise measurement planes in order to identify the mean flow structure, spatial distributions of single-point turbulence statistics, and flow coherence through two-point correlations. analysis of this dataset revealed a significant modulation of the flow over the downstream barchan by the upstream barchan in terms of enhanced near-bed turbulent stresses and modified flow separation. distinct flow regimes are shown in the wake of the isolated barchan, which are modified in the interdune region for collision scenarios. the associated flow lengthscales and near-bed turbulence statistics aid in explaining sediment erosion potential and collision morphodynamics.a combination of low and high frame-rate cross-plane stereo-piv measurements were then made in a large-scale rim flow facility to further elucidate the dynamics and three-dimensionality of characteristic flow structures induced in the wake of the barchan. these measurements showed an organization of secondary flows linked to the unique morphology of the barchan dune. analysis of the turbulent stresses, vortex identification, and spectral analysis further suggest that distinct flow regimes in the wake regions are linked to a combination of horseshoe and hairpin-like structures that induce these secondary flows.the results and discussion herein provide a framework for interpreting observed morphologies of interacting barchan dunes, and build a foundation for further study of potentially important field-scale dynamics, as well as extensions to other three-dimensional bedforms. proteins are in constant motion and these motions impact their function. this thesis attempts to use simple perturbative techniques to track the changes in dynamics upon disrupting the native state of a protein. the protein studied within this thesis is the peptidyl-prolyl cis-trans isomerase nima-interacting 1 (pin1). pin1's function has been extensively studied (lu 1996) (ranganathan 1997) (zhou 1999) (verdecia 2000) (wintjens 2001) (bayer 2003) (jacobs 2003) (mueller 2011), yet a single, all-encompassing mechanistic explanation has not been provided. the dynamics of pin1 has been shown to be closely related to catalysis and function (namanja 2007) (t. peng 2007) (namanja 2011). thus, pin1 is an ideal candidate for both a toy system for studying different aspects of the relation between protein dynamics and function as well as a worthwhile protein for studying its specific, practically important functional mechanism. this thesis utilizes a wide variety of experimental and computer based techniques to study the dynamics of pin1 over timescales ranging from ps to ms. first a novel study of ligand dynamics during catalysis is presented. these nmr experiments are completed at natural isotopic abundance and monitor the μs-ms dynamics of an enzyme-substrate pair. this work represents the first ever study of ligand relaxation dispersion measurements at natural isotopic abundance (zintsmaster 2008).next, a brief look at the application of a gaussian network model (gnm) (bahar 1997) to monitor changes in dynamics upon mutation/deletion is presented. gnm flexibility profiles provide a quick, qualitative means for looking at changes in flexibility upon changes in 3-dimensional structure. experimental data is compared to the gnm profiles and a good agreement between experiment and gnm is seen. this section will focus on the study of the ww domain of pin1. chapter 6 addresses the issue of domain-domain coupling. pin1 is a two domain protein connected by a flexible 10 residue linker. first nmr order parameters from experiment and md simulations are compared in an effort to scrutinize the results of both simulation and experiment. next, the conditions with the greatest degree of agreement are used to simulate the dynamics of full length pin1 vs. the two isolated domains, the ww domain and the ppiase domain. it is hypothesized that the difference in dynamics of these two simulations can shed light on the weak interactions contributing to domain-domain coupling in full length pin1. analysis of these differences dynamic changes at sites that coincide with those undergoing changes upon substrate binding. the last chapter, chapter 7, deals with md simulations of three pin1 single residue mutants. the first two mutants, c113a (winkler 2000) and t152a (mueller 2011), have been previously shown to inactivate enzymatic activity in pin1. furthermore, winkler et al. have shown that in crystal structures of par14, a close relative of human pin1, an extended hydrogen bonding network can be seen stretching from t152 to c113. mutations of these two, distant residues cause similar changes in flexibility throughout pin1. the third mutant, i28a, has been recognized as playing a role in the domain-domain interaction in ch.6 and has been chosen to further identify key dynamics related to domain coupling. the results from the i28a mutant provide new views of the domain-domain interaction surface and furthers the understanding of which residues are involved in domain-domain communication. this dissertation describes the development of polymer ligation for inorganic nanoparticle surface modification and stabilization. in chapter 1, synthetic strategies for inorganic nanoparticle-polymer interface construction are summarized, with an introduction of physicochemical effects from the incorporated polymers. the following chapters give the detailed in-depth discovery of the polymer-inorganic hybrid nanoparticles. in chapter 2, surface-initiated polymerization was used for stabilizing and passivating the perovskite nanocrystals in harsh conditions. the produced perovskite-polymer nanocomplex demonstrated composition-dependent structural stability and colloidal dispersity. meanwhile, the polymer ligands on perovskite nanocrystals provided possibilities to regulate the halide exchange reactions, and the details were discussed in chapter 3. chapter 4 explored the application of perovskite-polymer nanocomplex in photocatalytic organic transformations, during which the polymers stabilized the perovskite surface and enabled the easy separation of perovskite-polymer nanocomplex from the reaction media for repeated use. chapter 5 presents the synthesis of a polymer-modified magnetic nanoplatform for selective protein immobilization, which was prepared from surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization. the surface-tethered polymers provided abundant sites for the target protein immobilization while enabling the excellent colloidal stability of the magnetic nanoparticles in the meantime. the applications of prepared magnetic nanoparticles in protein separation and water treatment were described in detail in the following chapter 6. this dissertation pioneers the macroscopic characterization of uranyl peroxide nanocluster interactions with different mineral surfaces. batch sorption experiments were conducted in order to determine the effects of time, ph, ionic strength, sorbate concentration, and sorbent concentration on the sorption of [(uo2)(o2)(oh)]6060(u60) and [(uo2)24(o2)24(p2o7)12]48(u24pp12) to hematite (α-fe2o3), goethite (α-feooh), montmorillonite, quartz (sio2), and anorthite.this work reveals that u60 persists in the presence of fe(iii) minerals, montmorillonite, and common alkali ions for months. the sorption behavior of u60 in the presence of fe(iii) minerals mimics that of a discrete anionic species whose contacts at the mineral-water interface are driven by the formation of electrostatic, outer-sphere surface complexes. u60 also survives the sorption-desorption process. in clay mineral suspensions, the counter-cations associated with the cluster undergo cation exchange reactions with exchangeable cations associated with the clay. the type of cation (i.e., monovalent or divalent) that is exchanged and the amount present in the system largely dictates the removal of u60 from solution via surface precipitation to form large agglomerates of clusters. the sorption of u60 to minerals that have a low point of zero charge, (i.e., quartz and anorthite) is not favorable under alkaline conditions due to repulsion of the negatively-charged mineral surface and the negatively-charged uranyl peroxide cage. the incorporation of the pyrophosphate ligand (p2o74-) into the framework of uranyl peroxide nanoclusters leads to the formation of functionalized uranyl peroxide nanoclusters. the pyrophosphate-functionalized nanocluster u24pp12 may form specific interactions with hematite and goethite surfaces through the terminal oxygen atoms of the pyrophosphate unit. the removal of u60 and u24pp12 are not due to surface-mediated reduction of u(vi) to u(iv) by interactions with minor reducing components in goethite, hematite and montmorillonite. the governing rate laws describing u60 and u24pp12 interactions with goethite and hematite were determined through the use of a kinetic analysis derived as a part of this work. the rate of uptake and the amount of u24pp12 removed in systems containing goethite was greater than compared to u60. these results demonstrate that the rate of uptake of particular uranium nanoclusters may be largely dependent on the charge density of the clusters as well as the functionality of the linkages connecting uranyl peroxide polyhedral units. this dissertation is a defense of an infallibilist theory of knowledge. according to this theory, we know all and only those propositions that are certain for us. in chapters 1-2, i clarify this thesis and its implications. in chapters 3-4, i argue that infallibilism is the best explanation of a wide variety of intuitions about the nature and roles of knowledge. this is because infallibilism entails or makes plausible various intuitive claims about knowledge, such as that knowledge is evidence and that knowledge can be extended by deduction, whereas fallibilism is either inconsistent with these claims or has a much harder time explaining why they are true. in chapters 5-6, i respond to the charge that infallibilism is an unacceptably skeptical theory of what we know. i argue that infallibilists need not be skeptical of all claims to knowledge – some propositions really are certain for us – and they can give plausible error theories for why we often take ourselves to know propositions that are not really certain for us. in chapter 7, i weigh the overall evidence for and against infallibilism. i argue that, even if some skeptical consequences of infallibilism remain counterintuitive, these costs are more than outweighed by the cumulative benefits of the theory presented in chapters 3-4. note: permanent private status; do not release file or record; do not catalog. author used real names in the dissertation, and subjects were alive at the time of submission. contact the graduate school dissertation editor with questions. 7/19/13 shari hill in my dissertation, i offer the first comprehensive portrait of the late soviet scientific intelligentsia, one of the most important professional groups in post-stalinist russia. i argue that, after stalin's death, the soviet government was sometimes willing to allow and even encouraged autonomous thinking and actions among certain privileged groups of soviet society — scientists above all — in order to infuse new life into the soviet project. this was especially true under khrushchev, whose communist idealism, elitism, and absolute faith in the modernizing power of science and technology provided soviet scientists with opportunities which were otherwise unthinkable in a rigidly centralized state. to support my argument, i examine the case study of chernogolovka, a formerly closed scientific town, located thirty-five miles northeast of moscow. i focus on the first generation of chernogolovkian scientists, and tell their story against the background of the khrushchev and brezhnev eras. making use of oral and archival sources, i examine scientists' participation in the construction of the town and their everyday experiences in the 1960s and the 1970s, their formation in the 1930s and coming of age during late stalinism and the thaw. i look at their travels to the west and how these affected their worldviews. i investigate scientists? attitudes toward dissent and dissidents, and their relationship with the communist party and ideology. i argue that soviet leaders saw the scientific intelligentsia as one of the pillars of the post-stalinist regime, and that scientists, in return, were deeply invested in the construction of communism in the soviet union. abstract not required. mid-infrared (mir) spectroscopic imaging platforms have been an integral part in the development of stand-off based methods for detecting substances, especially organics. this is due to the unique and strong absorption characteristics of many materials in this region. however, mir stand-off systems have remained bulky, expensive, power-hungry, and often require liquid nitrogen cooling to operate; this has made them unable to be used in many applications for instance explosives detection at the checkpoint (e.g. airports). i will show in this presentation that the detectors in these systems, often liquid nitrogen cooled mercury-cadmium-telluride (mct) arrays (&gt;$5,000) detectors, can be replaced with extremely inexpensive, commercially available vox microbolometers arrays ($250) as long as one does not require real-time imaging. while restricting the scope of applications, the integration time is still sub-second and lends itself well to many process control and detection environments. however, due to the extremely low-cost of these detectors brand new applications become economically feasible and i will touch upon using these detectors for distributed imaging and optimal sensor selection paradigms.the second part of this presentation will outline the development of thermal time-harmonic (phasor) imaging. the "laser-flash method" is one method commonly used for measuring thermal properties of materials. this method works by utilizing a laser to excite a material's surface and detecting the propagated thermal signal on the back of the material. from this thermal signal one can deduce the diffusivity and conductivity. this method, however, is limited to extremely thin samples (1-4mm) and does not lend itself to imaging applications as one has to excite the front-side of the target and view the back. in my analysis, i investigate exciting the sample from the front with a time-harmonic laser signal and viewing the heat signal from the front side showing that, under certain conditions, that thermal properties can also be extracted. the idea of this method setting the foundation for thermal-based diffuse tomography similar to diffuse optical tomography, a well developed field, is then explored. type ia supernovae (sn~ia) have proven to be incredibly useful as distance indicators and in nuclear astrophysics, but there remain many unanswered questions as to their nature. we examine three particular sn~ia at length in an attempt to provide constraints on both their theory and their application to cosmology. we first present sn~2007qd, one of the lowest-luminosity sn~ia ever discovered. it appears to belong to the sn~2002cx-like subclass of peculiar sn~ia. we observe and analyze the photospheric-phase spectra and photometry for this event and determine that, despite its extreme nature, it still appears to be a thermonuclear event rather than a core-collapse sn~ic. we also discover a possible relation between the luminosity and the low expansion velocities (2000$sim$7000 km/s) of similar events, and determine that they constitute a well-defined group of sn~ia. from the explosion kinematics and the content of the spectra, we argue that sn~2007qd was likely caused by a pure deflagration of a carbon and oxygen white dwarf. we then consider sn~2008q, a sn~ia that exploded in the same early-type host galaxy as the peculiar sn~2000cx. this provided a chance for a direct comparison of two sn~ia at the same distance, extinction and host environment. we combine photometry from the ultraviolet through to the mid-infrared (mir) and create a picture of how this sn evolved bolometrically over a span of two years. we discover that sn~2008q was relatively bright in the ultraviolet, and characterize the possible existence of a class of sn~ia with similar uv excesses. we identify intrinsic differences between sn~2008q and sn~2000cx, and discuss what this means for the variation in explosion and nebular physics in sn~ia events. we present next the mid-infrared and optical decay of sn~2011fe. this sn~ia exploded in the nearby galaxy m101, allowing observations of high signal-to-noise during the later phases. we examine this sn with spitzer/irac mir photometry and discover that the decay rates in each of these channels behave similarly to certain optical channels. we use spectra taken with the large binocular telescope to identify which atomic transitions are responsible for the decay in optical passbands, and generalize their contributions to the mir photometric filters. from these observations, we find a correlation between the difference in the mir filters and the early light curve width. lastly, we summarize these findings and discuss them in the framework of building a model for sn~ia explosions, identifying new routes for further research. rapid development of wireless communication systems, including the deployment of 5g networks, calls for robust electronic components that can efficiently support the transmission of increasingly high data rates with wider bandwidths and at higher frequencies. iii-nitride based high electron mobility transistors are ideal candidates for such systems due to their wide/ultra-wide bandgaps, high carrier concentrations, as well as high carrier velocities. this work explores and evaluates two separate approaches to advance beyond the performance of the conventional gan hemt technology. fabricated algan channel hemts intended for rf power applications have been measured in dc and rf from 25 °c to 150 °c. mobility, effective velocity, and ft have been extracted at all measured temperatures. the temperature sensitivities of mobility and velocity are modest compared to devices composed of si, gaas and gan channel. ferroelectric gated gan hemts are explored as potential candidates for rf/mm-wave switch applications. hf0.5zr0.5o2 is implemented in the gate stack on a standard algan/gan hemt structure to utilize ferroelectric polarization in addition to the spontaneous and piezoelectric polarization provided by algan/gan. counter-clockwise hysteresis has been demonstrated in dc measurements. switch figure of merit of 1-2.1 thz has been achieved from 10 mhz to 67 ghz, which is among the highest in single channel three-terminal devices to the best of our knowledge. regrown n+ gan has also been explored experimentally as a replacement for the alloyed source/drain ohmic contacts to improve on-resistance. simulation based effort is presented to demonstrate a multichannel design for further on-resistance improvement. intelligent robots have emerged as a hot research topic in the interdisciplinary study of control theory, robotics, and computer science as it demonstrates huge potential in fundamentally benefiting our society. the development of intelligent robots with the ability to independently solve a new task is an important yet challenging research problem. this work devotes to proposing an integrated system for such intelligent robots through three major objectives.first, we propose a new spatial temporal logic with a sound and complete deduction system for knowledge representation and reasoning in intelligent robots. the proposed logic achieves a balance between expressiveness and tractability for intelligent robots since the satisfiability of the proposed logic is decidable. we propose two specification mining algorithms to generate spatial temporal logic formulas from video and unstructured text data. the obtained formulas are used to construct a domain theory storing necessary knowledge for task planning. second, we develop automatic task planning with an interactive proposer and verifier for intelligent robots based on the domain theory in spatial temporal logic. the proposer is used to generate ordered actions through forward graph expansion and backward solution extraction, and the verifier is used to verify the results from the proposer and generate executable task plans. we further study the scenario where the domain theory for task planning is incomplete by integrating the task planning algorithm with machine learning systems. the proposed framework gives intelligent robots the ability to actively seeking knowledge online based on missing information.third, we study a motion planning problem for intelligent robots under formal specifications of the proposed spatial temporal logic. we develop a control synthesis algorithm for the formal specifications by proposing a two-layer mpc framework. the high-layer transfers the global formal specifications into a sequence of sub-formulas and the low-layer solves a distributed mpc using an milp solver. we show that the proposed framework is sound and recursively feasible. in this work, chemically modified dna tiles and self-assembled dna raft are prepared and studied. the ultimate goal of this work is a chemical derivatization of pyrene and tamra-dt tagged deoxyuridine and development of fluorescent labeled oligonucleotides, dna tile, and 4-tile dna raft. understanding characteristics and structure of fluorescent labeled dna raft will accelerate a study of dna raft modification. dna tile consists of 4 oligonucleotides and each of 3 oligonucleotides contains 1 fluorescent labeled deoxyuridines respectively. each 4 dna tiles are designed to contain 2 sticky ends, which make it possible to connect each other constructing 4-tile dna raft. the size of modified dna raft is 8ìä' 37ìä' 2nm and it is verified by tapping mode afm imaging on mica. comparing with bare mica, the fluorescence of modified dna raft was highly intensed enough to be checked by the fluorescent microscope. before annealing the dna raft, purities of oligonucleotides and the dna tile were checked by agarose and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis respectively. to prepare fluorescent labeled deoxyuridines, pyrene moiety is coupled to 5-iodo-2ì¢ ââå_-deoxyuridine using sonogashira reactions and click chemistry. after an attachment of dmt (dimethoxytrityl) protecting group on 5' hydroxyl position of deoxyuridine, phosphoramidite group is attached to 3' hydroxyl group. tamra-dt labeled oligonucleotides were purchased from midland certified reagent company inc. to compare the properties of tamra-dt modified dna raft with pyrene attached dna raft. this comparative study is useful to understand two fluorophores, which have different ranges of excitation wavelength. pyrene has 330nm and tamra-dt has 580nm of emission wavelength. 0.001mm of dna tile is prepared from 4 oligonucleotides by thermal controller, which was programmed to increase the temperature to 90ìâå¡c rapidly and to drop 1ìâå¡c every 6 minutes until it reaches to 20ìâå¡c. after annealing dna tile and raft, dna structure possibly denatured at a certain temperature, which is melting point. therefore, dna melting point experiment is required to keep the desirable structure for the dna tile and raft from high temperature. melting point experiment and a fret (fluorescence resonance energy transfer) study was also conducted for better understanding of fluorescent tagged dna raft. pincer ligands have become a reliable class of ligands in organometallic chemistry due to their ability to bind a metal center at three coordination sites, providing structural and electronic support to the metal complex. this dissertation describes the synthesis of late transition metal complexes containing a new pnp ligand comprised of a central pyrrole unit and di-iso-propylphosphine donors, bis[(dimethylamino)methyl]pyrrole, ((pnpyrp)h), 1.with this ligand, multiple transmetallation reagents including [(pnpyrp)li]2 (7), (pnpyrp)tl (8), and [(pnpyrp)ag]2 (12) were synthesized in order to afford group 10 metal complexes of the form (pnpyrp)mcl (m = ni (2), pd (3), pt (4)) as well as (pnpyrp)ir(cod) (6) and (pnpyrp)ru(pph3)cl (12). compounds 2, 6, and 12 were the platform from which a library of transition metal (pnpyrp) complexes were generated and studied in stoichiometric and catalytic h-h and c-h bond activation reactions. the ability for the (pnpyrp) framework on late transition metals to engage in metal-ligand cooperation was assessed. we determined that nickel, iridium, and ruthenium complexes containing this ligand exhibit reversible structural changes of the backbone depending on the reaction environment (i.e. acid/base, atmosphere). upon addition of hcl or brookhart's acid ([h-(et2o)2][bar4f]), protonation of the ß-pyrrole position induces formation of an imine in the pnp backbone and a change in coordination mode of the n-donor from anionic to dative. an analogous rearrangement is observed upon addition of a hydride abstracting reagent ([ph3c][pf6]) to 2 or 12 in which electrophilic aromatic addition to the ß-pyrrole position of the (pnpyrp) backbone occurs. further, complex 12 was found to activate h2 at room temperature to afford (pnpyrp)hru(pph3)(h)cl (44), a ru(ii) hydride compound containing the protonated pyrrole backbone. overall, the ability of late transition metal complexes containing the (pnpyrp) ligand to undergo reversible structural changes was investigated as a means to leverage metal-ligand cooperation for the activation of small molecules and typically inert bonds. mycobacterium tuberculosis causes tuberculosis (tb), the leading cause of death globally from a single infectious disease. tb eradication will require improved control strategies necessitating new insights into the basic biology of mycobacteria. mycobacterium marinum, a related environmental pathogen that uses many of the same conserved virulence mechanisms as m. tb. serves as a mycobacterial disease model. using m. marinum we studied the modification, regulation and transport of mycobacterial virulence factors through biochemical, molecular and genetic approaches. n-terminal acetylation is a protein modification that remains poorly understood in bacteria. many proteins involved in mycobacterial disease are nt-acetylated and mycobacteria have numerous potential n-acetyltransferase (nat) enzymes. the identities of which nat enzymes nt-acetylate which proteins remain largely unknown. we developed a technique to screen nat enzymes for nt-acetylation activity. we identified nat enzymes that nt-acetylated the virulence factor esxa and demonstrated that the loss of one of these enzymes alters virulence. in a complementary approach, we generated a collection of m. marinum strains with deletions of conserved nat genes. through this approach, we identified a previously unknown genetic interaction between two nat genes and built tools for its further characterization. virulence in m. marinum and m. tb. requires the secretion of virulence factors by the esx-1 (esat-6-system-1) protein export system. expression of the secreted virulence factors is a regulated process dependent upon an intact esx-1 system. we investigated the mechanisms of this regulation and identified the transcriptional repressor espm which is required for repressing virulence factor expression in the absence of a functional esx-1 system. it was thought that virulence factors (substrates) secreted by the esx-1 were interdependent for secretion with loss of one substrate abolishing the secretion of others. we built a series of substrate deletion strains and characterized their esx-1 secretion. we determined that substrates are not strictly interdependent for secretion, consistent with our previous work. together our work illustrates multiple dynamic processes involved in mycobacterial virulence. by utilizing m. marinum as a model we have gained new insights into protein homeostasis, virulence regulation and virulence factor secretion, which will inform future studies in m. tuberculosis. the use of iris biometrics is increasing for both governmental and private applications. as its use becomes more ubiquitous, it is imperative to determine and mitigate the factors that diminish its performance. it has been assumed that iris biometrics is a stable biometric modality. however, current research continues to demonstrate that it is susceptible to changes due to aging and dilation. both of these factors have been shown to affect the authentic comparisons, and by consequence the overall recognition accuracy. in this dissertation, we examine and expand methods that incorporate knowledge of pupil dilation. we show that by including pupil dilation information into the enrollment phase there is an overall improvement in iris biometric performance. in the second part of this dissertation we focus on the analysis of template aging by examining the models and data used in nist's irex vi report. the two research areas are bridged with our analysis of aging and dilation difference where we found that both factors contribute to the behavior of match scores. the research in each of these two areas improves our understanding of iris biometrics with respect to pupil dilation and template aging. let m = be a linear o-minimal expansion of an ordered group, and g an n-dimensional group definable in m. we show that if g is definably connected with respect to the t-topology, then it is definably isomorphic to a definable quotient group u/l, for some convex v-definable subgroup u of and a lattice l of rank equal to the dimension of the 'compact part' of g. this is suggested as a structure theorem analogous to the classical theorem that every connected abelian lie group is lie isomorphic to a direct sum of copies of the additive group of the reals and the circle topological group s^1. we then apply our analysis and prove pillay's conjecture and the compact domination conjecture for a saturated m as above. en route, we show that the o-minimal fundamental group of g is isomorphic to l. finally, we state some restrictions on l. multiple regression techniques were used to examine whether indices of addictive substance familiarity, recreational usage, and exposure are related to reading times of sentences involving different types of drug schema-relevant information. in a self-paced task, undergraduates at a private, midwestern university read narratives involving the use of different addictive substances. additionally, participants completed two surveys to assess addictive substance familiarity, recreational exposure, and usage. for all participants, slower reading times were associated with auxiliary predictor variables (i.e., serial position, mean word frequency, and number of syllables). prior knowledge about addictive substances predicted faster reading times for sentences involving the negative consequences of drug use. participants with higher levels of prior knowledge were also more likely to fail to recall narratives involving the addictive substance with which they were familiar. the role of prior knowledge as measured by sentence reading time and narrative recall is discussed. every 40 seconds someone in the united states experiences an acute myocardial infarction, or related disease. cardiac disease models superior to current human and animal models are necessary to advance our understanding of cardiac diseases and biomarkers. this thesis offers a "proof of concept" disease model using induced cardiomyocytes differentiated from human induced pluripotent stem cells to mimic the ischemia and reperfusion stresses the human heart endures during an ami. the cells were stressed both chemically and physically, and the cells were tested for the release of the cardiac stress microrna biomarker, mirna-499-5p using reverse transcription quantitative pcr. after 48 hours of hypoxia the released mirna increased 40-fold and the increase was more than 80-fold after 3 hours. the levels peaked at 6 hours and remained high for 24 hours. with optimization, this disease model can be used to study the release pattern of mirna biomarkers in various cardiac conditions. living organisms are driven by molecular machines called proteins. to understand the molecular mechanisms of the cell, it is not enough to understand individual properties and functions of proteins but rather uncover the interactions between these molecules. this work presents a multiscale approach to study protein networks. the top scale introduces an algorithm for protein and domain physical interaction estimation. this algorithm is validated in the model organism s. cerevisiae and applied to the soil bacterium m. xanthus. interactions are predicted in the reversal mechanism of this bacterium, proposing an extended model for reversal control and motility engine activation/deactivation. at a second scale, this work investigates the problem of specificity residue identification in a bacterial signaling pathway called two component system. using a method of subgraph identification and learning, specificity residues or 'graphlets' are proposed to estimate factors contributing to domain-domain specificity in histidine kinases and response regulators. this network based approach reproduced experimental studies in e. coli and produced a series of hypotheses of domain specificity that could extend our knowledge of interaction interfaces in two-component systems. at a finer scale of individual atomic protein structures, this work introduces a methodology to identify metastable clusters of atomic conformations obtained by combining and correlating nuclear magnetic resonance (nmr) experimental data with molecular dynamics simulation. this methodology provides a way to find a network of metastable states (nodes) and their most visited transitions (links). this represents a mechanistic view of conformation change in a given protein. this analysis is applied to the ww domain of human protein pin1. in addition to high correlation with nmr exchange rates, the network of kinetic macrostates identified here proposes that pin1-ww domain in unbound state visits its bound configuration through a state that corresponds to a minor population of relaxation dispersion experiments. this computational approach provides a detailed structural view of conformational change that nrm experiments are not able to identify. this dissertation introduces novel methodologies that were validated using experimental data and can be generally applied to different organisms. these methodologies propose testable hypotheses that could improve our knowledge of biological problems and systems. can we predict the structure, dynamics, and function of a protein merely from its polypeptide sequence? theoretically yes, but it has been proven challenging in practice. although we can't solve the big question as a whole yet, we can break it down into smaller puzzles. we endeavor to understand the atomic basis of the thermostability and long-range communication of a two-domain protein, human pin1. we found that a peripheral mutation (q33e) unexpectedly destabilized the ww domain of pin1, an all β-sheet domain, despite the existing experimental and computational evidence suggesting it is a benign mutation. nmr studies attributed the thermostability loss to reorganizations of electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions, resulting in propagated conformational perturbations. microsecond md simulations suggested the wild type fold relied on couplings between a surface electrostatic network and a highly conserved hydrophobic core; q33e directly perturbed the former, thereby disrupting the latter. the cooperative conformational changes of pin1 ww in response to q33e coincided with its allosteric role. previous studies suggest pin1 ww regulates the activity of the catalytic domain by strengthening or weakening the interdomain contact upon various substrate binding. however, the atomic basis of such interdomain communication remains unclear. we used nmr to map out the broad interdomain surface and used md simulations to identify atomic passages in correlation with four sets of interdomain distances. we then dissected the sub-conformations in the ww domain that correlated with the interdomain distances and used that as the reference to rationalize the interdomain conformation of s16e-pin1, a mimic of the only phosphorylation modification at the substrate binding site. finally, we speculated that the broad interdomain surface and the ability of pin1 to adopt versatile interdomain conformations allowed pin1 to accommodate various substrates and post-translational modifications. body satisfaction is an important part of overall well-being. the effect that being religious has on the body satisfaction of young adults in the united states has not been studied in depth. the purpose of this thesis is to provide a look at various religious mechanisms and to describe the effect they have on body satisfaction. i find religion to increase body satisfaction through increased interaction with the divine, providing opportunities for affirming relationships with others, reorganizing priorities through increased importance of faith, through religious beliefs and practices about the body, and through network support and coherence. the effects of being religious vary by gender, with stronger positive coefficients for young women than for young men. this is suggested to be due to both an increased importance in body satisfaction for young women and increased religious salience for young women. the dsm nosological system has been criticized for problems related to disorder comorbidity, disorder heterogeneity, and artificial dichotomization. these problems lead to diagnostic instability, loss of information, and reduced communicability among clinicians, with implications for case conceptualization and the selection of treatment protocols. the hierarchical taxonomy of psychopathology (hitop) nosological model, created in response to the dsm system, proposed that all psychopathology is subsumed within six spectra (kotov et al., 2017). however, there are several issues regarding the validity of one of these spectra, detachment, including (1) the detachment spectrum is primarily characterized by personality disorders, possibly reflecting a method effect; (2) detachment and internalizing are both characterized by low extraversion and are distinguished by the additional presence of high neuroticism for internalizing, indicating that detachment and internalizing may be more similar than currently characterized in the hitop model; and (3) the personality profile of avoidant personality pathology (high neuroticism, low extraversion), currently classified in hitop as a detachment disorder, is actually more similar to internalizing psychopathology. these issues are consistent with past arguments that several (categorical) internalizing and detachment disorders actually represent the same syndrome with different severities. therefore, the current study investigates the joint hierarchical structure of detachmentand internalizing-related content using data from an online community sample (n = 625) and a student sample (n = 450). participants completed 532 hitop phase 2 items related to internalizing and detachment, as well as the faceted inventory for the five factor model (fi-ffm; watson, nus, &amp; wu, 2019). results indicate that detachment-related content can be split into two unipolar constructs with (1) high detachment forming a separate, but highly interrelated factor with internalizing and (2) maladaptive extraversion forming a separate factor having mania-related content (labeled reward seeking). internalizing was characterized by high neuroticism and low conscientiousness; in contrast, (high) detachment was characterized by low extraversion, and reward seeking was characterized by high extraversion and low agreeableness. on the basis of these results, i recommend that detachment be reclassified as an internalizing subfactor, rather than a standalone spectrum in the hitop model. face detection is the first step in an automated system that identifies individuals based on their face's appearance. detection is not trivial because the face is a non-rigid object that varies in position, rotation and size. the face's appearance can be altered by variations in expression, skin tone and lighting. this thesis evaluates popular detectors on imagery with known conditions. it shows that the bayesian classifier is preferred under structured lighting conditions and the cascade classifier is preferred under unstructured lighting conditions. finally, the lessons learned from detecting in unstructured light are applied to detect drivers as they pass a security checkpoint. a drive-by detection system in unique because the driver's side window and outdoor conditions pose possible problems. a multi-biometric detector that uses ears and profile faces to detect drivers is shown to work better than a simple, single-site detector. in response to the challenges of instrumental determinations carried out in the lab setting, attention has been increasingly focused on field-deployable electrochemical sensors which can be used on-site rather than in a centralized laboratory. the aim of this research is to investigate specific point-of-use electrochemical sensors based on interdigitated electrode arrays (idea) after modifying the electrode surface for on-site measurements of illicit chemicals and biomarkers of disease. two device geometries and applications are described in this thesis: the first device realizes portable sensing of illicit compounds using closed bipolar electrochemistry (cbe) that marries amplified electrical signals from ideas and converts it to more easily understandable optical signals. the second device explores continuous portable sensing of biomarkers in human fluid matrices, such as sweat and saliva, that can be tuned to allow selective and specific detection at concentration ranges that are relevant to human physiology. the current study investigates the cascading effects of infant sleep patterns on parent stress and subsequent parenting behaviors during wakefulness. the study utilizes data from a multisite, longitudinal study, parenting for the first time project (pft; borkowski, et al., 2013). the study includes a demographically diverse sample with low ses, less educated teenand adult-mothers as well as higher educated adult-mothers. the sample included 682 first time mothers and their infant who participated in a 3-year longitudinal study to examine precursors of neglectful parenting. mothers reported on demographic and sleep variables. mothers and infants participated in four home visits at 4-, 8-, 18-, and 30-months to assess parenting behaviors, infant behaviors, and parent-child interaction quality. to assess the effect of infant sleep patterns on parent stress and maternal sensitivity over time, the current study conducted cross-lagged panel models (clpms; cole &amp; maxwell, 2003). it is hypothesized that infant sleep quality increases parental stress and therefore negatively impact sensitivity over time. early infant sleep and parent stress both predicted decreases in maternal sensitivity. additional pathways were examined but were nonsignificant. also, models explored the same pathways but allowed for differences based on maternal risk status; results were nonsignificant. the findings demonstrate how the transition to parenthood and resulting sleep patterns and greater stress affect a mother's ability to engage with their infants sensitively. this dissertation examines 2 cor 4:16–5:10 in light of ancient hellenistic jewish and philosophical traditions. in 2 cor 4:16–18, the apostle paul appealed to the renewal of his "inner human being" in defense of his ministry. the phrase "inner human being" has fascinated scholars, and many have suggested plato's terminology and image of the soul in resp. 588–591 as a background for understanding the apostle. scholars have traditionally suggested that paul used the language of his opponents or fellow corinthians only to subvert and reinterpret it through his biblical, hebraic anthropology. this study questions the traditional focus on terminology and places paul in greater dialogue with other images of the soul.we find in a diverse range of ancient philosophical sources, from plato to the rise of middle platonism and neoplatonism, a variety of ways in which the soul was construed in anthropomorphic terms. plato created several images of the soul that reflected his evolving views of the relationship between the body and the soul and the inner workings of the soul. the stoics and later philosophers in the platonic tradition also created their own unique images of the soul in order to explain, teach, and instill moral values. hellenistic jews, such as philo of alexandria, adapted these traditions in their interpretation of scripture.paul participates in philosophical and hellenistic jewish traditions that reinterpreted plato's images of the soul. the apostle questions the significance of the present evil age and longs for its transformation. paul blends hellenistic motifs and apocalyptic expectations in his exposition of his ministry and example of suffering and transformation. after decades of increased interest from applicants, the most elite universities in the united states are more selective than ever before. using interviews with admissions officers at internationally renowned universities that accept fewer than 12% of applicants, this project presents elite university admission as a two-stage process of screening. gatekeepers first narrow the applicant pool using quantitative measures, then use qualitative components to identify the highest achieving students and those who match the culture of the university.as competition for coveted positions in the entering classes at elite universities has transitioned to a national marketplace, the selection process has transitioned from the "chartering and bartering" observed in the late 20th century to a larger system of professional networks. teachers and counselors at privileged schools leverage these networks to develop skills that enable them to advocate for their students in a more informed way than peers at less privileged high schools. using a corpus of 17,000 letters of recommendation written on behalf of high school applicants to an elite university, this research shows that letters of recommendation from private (non-religious) high schools are longer, in some circumstances more positive, and contain more of the information that admissions officers look for in letters of recommendation. the "shared language" between teachers and counselors at privileged high schools and admission officers at elite universities has implications for the inter-generational transmission of advantage through the process of effectively maintained inequality. children derive a sense of security from multiple dimensions of family functioning, including parent-child and marital relations. their sense of security is based on their confidence in parents' abilities to meet children's needs and provide a stable environment, and is undermined by poor parenting skills and marital conflict. because parental depressive symptoms are associated with parenting and marital problems, this study hypothesized that parental depressive symptoms would predict children's emotional insecurity about parent-child relations (attachment insecurity) and insecurity about marital relations, leading to greater emotional and behavioral problems. data were drawn from three waves of a larger community study of families, and included mother and father report of depressive symptoms, parenting practices, marital conflict, children's emotional security, and children's emotional and behavioral problems. results of structural equation models indicated that mothers' and fathers' depressive symptoms predicted decreased parental warmth and greater marital conflict one year later. furthermore, children's attachment insecurity served as a mediator of relations between fathers' depressive symptoms and children's adjustment problems, while children's insecurity about marital relations served as a mediator of relations between mothers' and fathers' depressive symptoms and children's adjustment problems. when considered together, a similar pattern of results was obtained. these results indicate that (1) children's emotional security about multiple family relationships may serve as important explanatory processes for the link between parental depressive symptoms and children's maladjustment; (2) the marital relationship was somewhat more sensitive to parental depressive symptoms, undermining children's sense of security about the marital relationship; and (3) fathers' depressive symptoms were more disruptive to children's emotional security than mothers' symptoms. quantum-dot cellular automata (qca) is a new computation paradigm which encodes binary information by charge configuration within a cell instead of the conventional current switches. no current flows within the cells. the columbic interaction is sufficient for computation. this revolutionary paradigm provides a possible solution for transistor-less computation at the nanoscale. qca logic devices such as binary wires, majority gates, shift registers and fan-outs made of metal islands and small capacitors have been successfully fabricated. experimental and theoretical research on the switching of molecular qca cells has been underway. this thesis will focus on robustness and power dissipation in qca circuits. the robustness of both metallic and molecular qca circuits are studied. the power dissipation and power flow in clocked molecular qca circuits are explored. our results show that qca approach is inherently robust and ultra low power dissipation is possible in qca. developmental biology and analytical mass spectrometry have historically been approached separately and not integrated, minimizing the impact of each discipline. being able to interpret and describe the biological relevance of analytically collected samples is often difficult because of poor bioinformatics and scientific communication relating the two disciplines. xenopus laevis (african clawed frog) is a popular model organism used in developmental and molecular biology. i exploited the benefits and long history of xenopus laevis to develop sensitive shot-gun proteomic mass spectrometry techniques for the analysis and monitoring of the proteome during development. in this work, i assimilate known developmental biology and the capabilities of mass spectrometry to develop a pipeline to study the developmental proteomic changes occurring in xenopus laevis beginning with oocyte development and tracing development through the basis of early neural formation, and into single cell analysis. as technology continues to evolve, authors, critics, and readers are forced to renegotiate their relationship as they navigate an increasingly digital reading experience on the internet and in print. j. k. rowling's prominent online presence reveals her fear that she will be forgotten as the harry potter phenomenon continues to grow. she has recently released enhanced digital editions of harry potter, another cormoran strike novel, a redesigned pottermore website, and new information about the fantastic beasts movie and the cursed child play. because of rowling's extratextual revelations and annotations, readers must be aware of rowling's authorial presence, and cognizant of her impact on their reading experience. whether rowling's extratext is truly canonical is up for debate, but it is up to the reader to decide what her texts say after examining the texts themselves and rowling's commentary, in light of what appears in the original potter texts. electrification of transportation has been in progress with a global effort to reduce carbon emissions. rechargeable batteries play a key role in electric vehicles, where high energy density is required for a long operation distance with a single charge. metal anodes for rechargeable batteries have gained major attention as promising alternatives to commercial graphite anodes due to their high theoretical capacity. one of the main obstacles for metal anodes is a safety issue due to the short circuit during cycling. polymer electrolytes are beneficial in terms of mechanical stability and safety, which can reduce electrolyte leakage and possible ignition upon a short circuit. however, polymer electrolytes have low ionic conductivity and high interfacial resistance resulting from poor contact on an electrode compared to liquid electrolytes. this thesis focuses on polymer electrolytes for li and mg metal anodes. the goal is to design polymer electrolytes compatible with li or mg metal anodes and understand ion conduction and deposition.for li metal anodes, deposition/stripping performances and li+ flux were investigated on two types of porous li metal anode hosts (conductive and non-conductive) with a viscous polymer electrolyte. the non-conductive host demonstrated successful cycling upon deep deposition/stripping cycling, while the conductive host led a quick short circuit within a cycle. the li deposition was found to be confined to the upper layer of the conductive host rather than uniform. unlike li metal anodes, mg metal anode chemistry for mg-conducting solid electrolyte interphase (sei) layer is not found and reported reversible mg deposition/stripping with polymer electrolytes is limited. therefore, a quantitative study on mg2+ ion conduction using conventional transference number measurement is less likely to be successful. mg2+conduction and deposition were confirmed with an ionic conductivity test and constant potential deposition test. in this work, two types of mg2+ ion-conducting polymer electrolytes (poly(ionic liquid)s with tethered anion and poly(caprolactone-carbonate)-based polymer electrolytes with a dual salt) are discussed.in mg2+ ion-conducting poly(ionic liquid)s, different amounts of bulky cations were added to weaken overall cation-anion interaction, which will enhance polymer segmental motion and ion conduction. changes in thermal and structural properties with bulky cation were investigated. the ionic conductivity increased with the bulky cation. mg ion conduction and deposition were observed.for dual salt electrolytes, two different polymer hosts, poly(ε-caprolactone-trimethylene carbonate) (pcl-ptmc) and polyethylene oxide (peo), are compared in terms of thermal behavior, coordination, and ion conduction and deposition. while quantitative mg2+ conduction is unclear, ion coordination was found to be different in the two polymer types. it was found that the anions in peo are mostly free anions due to the strong eo-mg2+ coordination. on the other hand, a significant amount of the anions in pcl-ptmc were coordinating with mg2+ cation due to the weaker coordination of the polymer host. the mgxtfsiy aggregates were observed on the working electrode after deposition, which implies the conduction and deposition of aggregates.finally, mg3bi2 alloy anodes are discussed as a possible system for quantitative measurement of mg2+ conduction (e.g. transference number). the alloy anodes were reported to have lower interfacial resistance buildup with non-corrosive electrolytes compared to mg metal anodes. despite the puzzles of interpretation it engenders, john duns scotus's theory of common natures is widely cited as an example of scholastic "realism." common natures serve a variety of functions in scotus's system, providing the "real unity" which serves as the subject for aristotelian science. the "proper passions" of substances – characteristics which serve to identify substances by type, but do not formally belong to the essence of a subject – are ontologically dependent on common natures according to kind. and scotus operates on the assumption that it is the description of created subjects according to their common natures which is the most fundamental description of them.thus, for scotus, common natures and their relations determine what we might call the "structure" of reality. but not every "subject of a science" is a common nature. according to scotus, "being," the subject of "metaphysics," does not have the same real unity as the natural groupings under the ten categories of aristotle. as a consequence of this, the "transcendental passions of being" include predicates which do not possess the "real unity" of a common nature, because they are too abstract or generic to do so. i will undertake three primary tasks in this dissertation. first, i will provide a description of the role of common natures in scotus's system. then, i will discuss the rule or criterion by which scotus posits common natures to account for certain cases of univocal predication – as opposed to cases of univocal predication for which he doesn't posit common natures. ultimately, i will discuss the difference between two types of "structure" in scotus's system: the case of distinct "quidditative components" in the essence of a subject, and the case of a subject and its passion. in both cases, the relata are "formally distinct." in the former case but not the latter, they are related by "act-potency composition." ultimately, common natures explain the structure in the created world, but not every relatum in a structural relation is a common nature. the clone saga omnibus, volume 1 presents a distorted literary adaptation of the oft-derided marvel comics spider-man storyline of the same name that explores the empty paranoia of identity, the portability of content across genres and platforms, and the limits of fan fiction. using ethnographic methods, i explore the issue of cultural identity maintenance among college students who are members of cultural minorities. the students in my study seek to maintain cultural identity in order to aid them in their transition to the college context. in their home communities, the cultures with which these students identify were well-represented. however, in the college context, these cultures are underrepresented. students use cultural student clubs to aid them in maintaining cultural identity and utilize different strategies for balancing club responsibilities with academic responsibilities. the findings are related to research in identity theory, including the constraint of time in the analysis. the time and effort students spend in participating in club activities would seem to detract from their academic endeavors. however, my research finds that participating in these clubs provides certain benefits that help students in their academic endeavors. nuclear power is a carbon-free source of electricity generation and represents one solution to increasing energy demands and the potential for reduced co2 emissions. the actinide elements are the fuel of the nuclear cycle, but despite their importance, questions remain unanswered regarding the fundamental chemistry and geochemistry of this group of elements. experimental work with actinide elements provides the basis for filling this gap in knowledge. the information obtained through experimental work will be essential for safe disposal of radioactive materials, the design of a cleaner fuel cycle, and control of the fate of these elements in the environment. in this work two major topics related to actinide chemistry are explored. the first is the crystal chemistry of uranyl tungstates, and how they relate to known uranyl compounds. synthetic materials were characterized by single crystal x-ray diffraction. a series of isotypical uranyl tungstates with cation-cation interactions, an uncommon structural feature is described. the second topic addresses the interaction between actinide elements and minerals, and is divided into two themes. the first analyzes factors that affect the structural incorporation of neptunium(v) and uranium(vi) in synthetic carbonate and sulfate mineral. synthetic materials were characterized by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and luminescence spectroscopy. structural incorporation of actinide elements in minerals may affect their migration in the subsurface. this study highlights the structural and chemical constraints that affect incorporation of the neptunyl and uranyl units into seven distinct minerals, and demonstrates different incorporation behaviors for np(v) and u(vi). the second theme probes how the formation of uranyl peroxide nanocage clusters affects the aqueous solubility of u(iv) and u(vi) minerals. this work was conducted by reacting mineral powder with relative dilute peroxide bearing aqueous solutions with neutral to basic ph. a combination of chemical, spectrometric, and x-ray techniques was used to characterized solutions and reacted powders. results indicate that the formation of uranyl peroxide nanoclusters can enhance the solubility of u(iv) and u(vi) solids by as much as orders of magnitude. this process may enhance the release of uranium and other radionuclides in the environment from spent fuel or secondary u(vi) minerals. the restoration of democratic regimes in the philippines and brazil in the 1980s provided an opportunity to redefine the relationship between the state and social movements. as movements carried their advocacies into the new democratic regimes, activism became about how movements could shape nascent democratic institutions to expand and regularize movement access, while simultaneously preparing the movement itself to take part in institutional decision-making. these new opportunities and institutions thus necessitated new repertoires of contention. this dissertation seeks to add to our understanding about these processes by answering two questions: how have social movements navigated the new democratic space? and, what determines the kinds of repertoires social movement actors adopted?through the in-depth process tracing of four social movement campaigns, which included my personal attendance at meetings, fora, and strategy sessions, as well as over eighty interviews, i make two arguments to explain how social movement actors in the philippines and brazil chose their repertoires. first, social movement organizations working on a given issue carve out specialized niches for themselves in terms of skills, target sector, areas of influence, and political ideology. thus, when social movement organizations work together on a particular issue or campaign, a division of labor develops that can allow the movement to approach the issue on a variety of strategic fronts. second, social movement organizations in democratic philippines and brazil emphasized framing their strategies and tactics in terms of sectoral ownership and decision via collective processes. sectoral ownership, or framing a campaign or advocacy as being the demand of the affected sector itself, is important for social movement organizations to compete with both the state as well as other organizations as the "legitimate" representative of the people. relatedly, collective decision-making processes are emphasized in order to provide a quasi-formal veneer to this claim of legitimate representation, as well as to act as a parallel to the democratic processes that movements urge the state to follow. thus, the hope is that internal processes both put pressure on the state to adopt democratic policy-making processes, while simultaneously preparing social movement members to eventually participate in such state processes. in this thesis, we investigate through theory and experiment the influence of the flow geometry on various shear-induced migration phenomena such as particle demixing, viscous resuspension and meniscus accumulation for a suspension of rigid, non-colloidal particles. the major focus of this thesis is the elucidation of a particle flux mechanism that has been ignored in the literature in the theoretical calculation of the concentration distribution in shear-induced migration phenomena. this mechanism is the convective flux due to the secondary currents arising from the non-newtonian rheology of suspensions. historically, suspensions have been modeled as newtonian fluids with concentration dependent viscosities when calculating velocity distributions due to the tremendous simplification of the governing equations. the results presented in this thesis, however, demonstrate that it is critical to consider the complete rheology of a concentrated suspension when modeling flows in complex geometries. while the magnitude of the secondary currents is small, in many cases they are the dominant mechanism governing the resulting particle concentration distribution. in chapters 2 through 4, we investigate the impact of these secondary currents on the concentration profiles developed in suspension flow through conduits of arbitrary geometry, and in resuspension flow through a tube. in chapter 5, we examine the radial segregation of particles in the squeeze flow of concentrated suspensions. this flow is identical to that produced in loading suspensions on to a parallel plate viscometer and thus the concentration inhomogeneities generated during the loading phenomenon may play a role in the well known scatter of torque measurements in this system. we develop a criterion in terms of the experimental parameters in a parallel plate experiment for the onset of radial inhomogeneities. in the final investigation reported in this thesis, we develop a theoretical model for describing the droplet distribution in the poiseuille flow of an emulsion through a tube. we show that the mathematical problem that results from this model is amenable to self-similar analysis via the trial function approach. the self-similar solution so obtained is used to evaluate oscillatory flows as a possible technique for separation of the dispersed phase from suspending fluid. breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in women and is responsible for the largest number of cancer related deaths in women across the globe. basic research into the roles of cancer-related genes in normal development is crucial to understanding their roles in cancer and will aid in developing new targeted therapies. altered expression of the rho gtpases and their regulators is associated with breast cancer. the focus of my project was to investigate the role of the rho gtpase cdc42 during normal mammary gland (mg) development to define the key cellular processes regulated by cdc42, as deregulation of these processes may occur when the expression and activity of cdc42 is elevated during the development and progression of breast cancer. using novel conditional knockout (ko) and overexpression (oe) mouse mg models, my studies revealed for the first time critical roles for cdc42 in mammary epithelial proliferation, migration, adhesion, stromal interactions, and morphogenesis and support a working hypothesis for how cdc42 is functioning during mg development. in the context of normal levels of cdc42 expression, cdc42 participates in the par/pkc zeta polarity complex to form tight junctions, establish epithelial polarity, and promote normal proliferation and morphogenesis of the mammary ductal tree. in the absence of cdc42, the complete polarity complex cannot form, thus tight junctions and polarity cannot be established. without these important initial steps the mammary epithelial cells (mecs) cannot properly organize and ultimately their ability to survive and/or contribute to mg morphogenesis is compromised, resulting in small dysmorphic mammary acini in vitro. in vivo, the ko mecs are rapidly outcompeted by wildtype (wt) mecs. conversely, when cdc42 is overexpressed, the polarity complex can form but the signaling downstream of this complex may become unbalanced. the tight, spatial and temporal control that is important for normal development may be tipped, causing increased contractility and aberrant migration, resulting in a dysmorphic hyperbranched mg. evidence from our cdc42 ko and cdc42 oe mouse mg development models, together with published studies, suggest that cdc42 plays an important role in breast cancer. our work provides strong motivation for future studies investigating the role of cdc42 in mouse mammary tumor models. a collection on poetry. on july 16, 1945, the united states successfully detonated the world's first nuclear weapon in the white sands missile range, n.m. the 'trinity test,' was a pu-implosion device and upon detonation, produced a large and extremely hot fireball; this caused the bomb components and natural material to melt and mix within ~300 meters radius from ground zero. subsequent the explosion and cooling, a green, glassy material covered the detonation site and was given the name 'trinitite.' it is an ideal post-detonation material to study and develop methods for nuclear forensics as the device's composition is well documented and declassified. this thesis reports a detailed investigation of trinitite's chemical and isotopic composition as well as development of methodologies towards improving nuclear forensic investigations. using analytical techniques such as gamma spectroscopy, electron microprobe, and solution modeand laser ablation-(multicollector) inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (icp-ms), a large sample set (n= 68) of trinitite was fully characterized for its major and trace element abundances and isotopic (o, pb, u, pu) compositions. this dissertation also includes development and application of novel techniques for the purposes of nuclear forensics; e.g., a methodology using a fluorinating thermal treatment to separate natural and anthropogenic components, and 3d imagery techniques (e.g., fib-focused ion beam) to find bomb components at the nanoscale within trinitite. overall, the results reported in this doctoral research clearly indicate that a multi-analytical approach can effectively provide accurate and reliable chemical and isotopic signatures of trinitite in a timely fashion (within hours to days), and these can be employed for source attribution in future investigations of nuclear post-detonation samples. through an examination of tacitus' narrative in the neronian annals, particularly those passages describing portents, the current study aims to demonstrate that tacitus' depiction of neronian omens are meant to paint a picture of nero's reign as a harbinger of civil war. in the process, this study also aims to show that tacitus alludes to a number of poets, including vergil and especially lucan, to make his portent passages poetic. furthermore, by using his portent passages to such effect, tacitus manipulates the familiar annalistic structure of historiography in order to draw attention to his major narrative themes.first, i will argue that tacitus adapted the use of prodigies from the roman annalistic tradition, transforming them from a record of strange events to a narrative device. then, i will discuss how tacitus' portrayal of nero resembles an epic character, building on lucan's caesar for inspiration rather than vergil's aeneas. fianlly, i will use a close reading of the prodigy catalogues to demonstrate how tacitus uses the portents in service to his narrative program. my thesis focuses on the optical investigation of materials, specifically in the near to mid-infrared regime. whether using a synchrotron or an optical parametric oscillator as the source of electromagnetic radiation, the goals of my studies remain syncopated: to gain a better understanding of how nanomaterials and molecules of interest interact with light.this thesis begins with the work i performed at the advanced light source in berkeley, california. as part of lawrence berkeley national laboratory, the advanced light source is host to a synchrotron with over 40 beamlines. over my graduate career at notre dame, our beamline proposals have granted us with time on beamlines 2.4 and 5.4 over 8 visits. these specific beamlines are catered to experiments at mid-infrared energies (750 5000 cm^{-1}). specifically, we performed synchrotron infrared nanospectroscopy (sins) to primarily explore plasmonic/phononic systems. our results indicate strong coupling between the plasmonic resonances of gold rods with the phononic response of a polar dielectric substrate. secondary experiments were performed on thin molecular films and monolayers. results from a limit of detection study suggest that more than a single layer of molecules is needed for adequate detection in sins.after, this work switches focus to the conceptualization, construction, and characterization of a home-built spatial modulation spectroscopy (sms) system. this technique utilizes oscillations of a nanoparticle in and out of the focal plane of a tightly focused laser to measure a signal that is directly proportional to the particles' optical extinction cross section. as nanoparticles decrease in size, the primary component of their extinction becomes increasingly dominated by absorption. knowledge of the laser's focal parameters (such as its position and beam waist) are crucial to extracting extinction parameters. to measure the beam position and beam waist of our system, a characterization experiment, called the knife edge, was performed. in the knife edge, a double-edged razor blade is placed in the focal plane of the laser to variably obstruct the beam based on its position in the plane. transmitted laser intensity is measured versus blade position resulting in a sigmoidal response whose fit parameters yield the beam position and beam waist. results from an initial characterization or our system suggest we are able to focus a helium neon laser close to its theoretical limitation given our currently installed optics. when switching to our optical parametric oscillator source, knife edge results suggest that further work is needed to tighten up the focal spot.last, a cumulative look at the overarching outcomes of my projects and my time as a whole at notre dame will be explored. my work at the advanced light source shows that sins has clear utility in the field of plasmonics and phononics, whereas it has a more limited ability to measure thin molecular films. our limit of detection study further demonstrates that the sensitivity of sins is highly dependent on the molecule, its functional groups, and its orientation. in an effort to further understand the optical properties of individual nanoparticles, i constructed a sms system that has undergone numerous characterization experiments. as a whole, these projects all explore light-matter interactions at the nanoscale. ending a territorial conflict and bringing the warring parties to the negotiating table is a challenge. keeping the negotiation on track is also a challenge. the indonesian government and gam (gerakan aceh merdeka, free aceh movement) needed five years to address the conflict in aceh before finally reaching a peace deal in august 2005. during the five-year period of negotiation, the peace process was full of suspicion, accusation, and military assaults, but both sides were able to pick up the process from breaks. such continuing process did not happen in south thailand. the thai government and bersatu (united front for the independence of pattani) met and negotiated since 2004, but both parties were unable to pick up the peace talks from which they left off. to explain why negotiations were maintained in aceh but not in south thailand, this thesis looks at the influence of reconciliatory moves by each party in both regions and leadership change on the indonesian and thai government side in the peace process. after a not-particularly gentle break-up in the winter of 2011/12, ethan, a graduate student, ruminates on war, friendship, desire, his many books, and the contemporary moment. emma is a novel. a coastal ocean hydrodynamics modelling system has been created, with potential for future improvement. the system consists of a wave generation-absorbing system which initiates the exact desired hydrodynamic condition for computation; boussinesq-geen-naghdi wave-current models at different approximation levels; a surf zone wave breaking and energy dissipating model; and a moving multi-shoreline algorithm. different boundary conditions may be applied such as no normal flow and free tangential slip; periodic boundary; moving shoreline boundary; changing water surface atmosphere pressure; air-water stress; bottom frictional stress. fundamentally rotational nonlinear phase resolving wave-current models are developed at different approximation levels for coastal ocean dynamics such as highly dispersive nonlinear waves, near-shore currents, and depth-varying velocity field, from deep water through the surf zone to the coast. without imposing constraints on rotationality, we take the benefit of both boussinesq scaling for water wave transformation and the green-naghdi weighted residual. the system uses polynomial basis functions to reconstruct velocity vertical profiles which are carried through the basic equations of motion keeping terms up to the desired boussinesq scaling order, and solved in a weighted residual form. the models show rapid convergence to exact solutions for the linear dispersion relation, shoaling gradient, and orbital velocities; however, properties may be substantially improved for a given order of approximation using asymptotic rearrangements as is commonly used in other boussinesq systems. this improvement is achieved using large numbers of degrees of freedom inherent in the expression of the polynomial basis functions to either match up to certain terms in a taylor series, or minimize errors over a depth-wave length ratio, kh, range. explicit coefficients are given at o(mu^2) and o(mu^4), while more generalized basis functions are given at higher order. the computational cost, after using gaussian elimination to reduce the number of coupled equations, is similar to that of normal boussinesq theories, even though there are more unknown variables to solve than in normal boussinesq models. the number of coupled equations can be reduced by multiplying proper coefficients and subtracting from each other. therefore, the size of the matrix to be solved is in similar to that of normal boussinesq models. wave breaking and moving multi-shoreline theories are developed to extend the present model to the surf zone dynamics. because the model is fundamentally rotational, it uses fewer ad-hoc assumptions than are found in many boussinesq breaking wave systems. eddy viscosity is used to describe both breaking dissipation and bottom stress effects with extra specified bottom frictional dissipation. the one-equation k-l turbulent kinetic energy equation coupled with rotational wave models are adopted to describe the eddy viscosity. this method results in a greatly improved velocity profile under breaking and comparable computational efficiency when compared to most other boussinesq-type models. still, more complete and accurate eddy viscosity model may be desired in future. for the simulation, the accurate generation and absorption of water waves in the phase-resolving model are important issues in describing nearshore processes. in order to introduce the target wave signals into the computation, a source function method for combined wave generation and absorption within modified sponge layers is presented here. this approach could be easily adapted to wide variety of systems, and does not required the solution of complex green's functions but rather the simpler knowledge of solutions for free waves. these solutions may be linear or nonlinear, regular or irregular. further, generated waves can be made arbitrarily accurate through the selection of various sponge layer coefficients. one-dimensional and two-dimensional testing cases are demonstrated; these cases show either good agreement with experiments or satisfactory prediction of real-world simulation. the wave transformation over varying depth, wave breaking, wave runup, undertow, rotational velocity field, nearshore currents, inundation, and other desired features are validated. because the depth-varying velocity field is reconstructed by the definition of velocity expansion, the 1d and 2d simulations are actually quasi-2d and quasi-3d modelling. the rotational modelling ability has been fully demonstrated through a variety of test cases. the moving shoreline scheme works well, while a more accurate wet-dry algorithm may be an alternate in further development. several wave and surge simulations were also performed; these simulations may be seen at http://www.youtube.com/userzhangyaond/videos . future work should be extended to applications of the model to geophysical and engineering problems. this dissertation is a study of the unity of scripture's senses in origen's exegesis. scripture's revelation is the hiddenness of its spirit; the spiritual sense thus creates the possibility of the letter and its signification. particularly in peri archôn 4, origen proposes a method of interpretation which will allow the exegete to perceive scripture's composition as an irreducible mystery.chapter 1 establishes that the letter both reveals and constitutes the fullness of scripture's meaning; the union of letter and spirit is perceived as the text's self-effacement. chapter 2 then considers origen's polemics against jewish, heretical, and simplistic christian literalisms as three kinds of reading which isolate the scriptural letter. chapter 3 studies origen's spiritual exegesis as a hermeneutic of the incarnation through a contextualized analysis of peri archôn 4.1 and 4.2. scripture is powerful and efficacious because its form is the demonstration of its spirit. origen further specifies the precise nature of this demonstration in the analogy origen creates between scripture and providence, in which both text and matter are the revelation of self-emptying love. finally, by identifying the unspeakable mystery of the word's incarnation with the unspeakable character of wisdom revealed in the scriptural letter, we perceive the intrinsic hiddenness of scripture's meaning. chapter 4 gathers origen's major discussions of transfiguration, drawing implications both for the scriptural text and for the conformation to christ necessary for the exegete to perceive the letter transfigured.origen's spiritual exegesis resists the reduction of scripture to a dichotomy of senses. such a dichotomy is unable to account for the mystery of god's self-revelation. scripture's letter, for origen, is neither the representation of the spiritual sense nor accidental to it, but the form and image of an unspeakable mystery. though many common bioinformatics problems are amenable to parallelization and large datasets are becoming the norm for biological inquiry, biologists do not generally have the skillset to effectively automate, parallelize, and scale their workflows. this document describes contributions to bioinformatics ranging from collaborative frameworks to the automation of common workflows to the development of novel algorithms. we begin by describing biocompute, a web portal that overcomes challenges in user interface design and resource sharing to facilitate collaborations between systems programmers, bioinformatics software developers, and biologists. next, we highlight several parallel workflow implementations developed to serve the needs of the university of notre dame's biologists. these leverage insights from both biology and distributed systems to achieve their goals. in implementing them we encountered and solved several practical challenges on the path to scaling up. we close with the introduction of a bioinformatics algorithm to detect loci-specific selective pressure favoring codon rarity in ortholog groups that span archaea, prokaryota, and eukaryota. kidney disease affects 300 million people worldwide, representing the 12th leading cause of death. understanding how nephrons, the simplest functional unit of the kidney, develop will lend insight into the processes that go awry during disease. the zebrafish pronephros provides an excellent in vivo system for studying the mechanisms of vertebrate nephrogenesis. when and how renal progenitors undergo tubulogenesis to form nephrons is poorly understood but is theorized to involve a mesenchymal-to-epithelial transition (met). we determined the precise timing of these events in pronephros tubulogenesis, including the temporal and spatial expression of tight junction genes. as the ternary polarity complex is an essential regulator of epithelial cell polarity across tissues, we performed knockdown studies to assess the roles of the related factors atypical protein kinase c iota and zeta (prkc&#953;, prkc&#950;). we found that prkc&#953; and prkc&#950;&#61472;serve partially redundant functions to establish polarity in the nephron tubule. surprisingly, tubule cells in prkc&#953;/&#950; morphants displayed ectopic expression of the transcription factor pax2a and the podocyte-associated genes wt1a, wt1b, and podxl, suggesting that prkc&#953;/&#950; are needed to maintain renal epithelial identity. we identified cell polarity as serving a specific role in maintaining epithelial integrity and not a pleiotropic effect caused by loss of cardiac contractility and/or fluid flow. pax2a knockdown was sufficient to rescue ectopic tubule gene expression in prkc&#953;/&#950; morphants. these data suggest a model whereby the redundant activities of prkc&#953; and prkc&#950; are essential to maintain proper epithelial cell type identity through inhibition of pax2a expression. pronephros segment patterning was initially intact in prkc&#953;/&#950; morphant embryos suggesting that the processes of epithelialization and nephron patterning occur independent of one another. to better understand the conserved patterning of the nephron a forward genetic screen was performed. mutants with disrupted pronephros patterning were identified by whole mount in situ hybridization (wish) analysis. one mutant exhibited an aberrant distal early tubule segment. dysfunction of the analogous human nephron segment, termed the thick ascending limb (tal), is associated with gitelman and bartter?s syndrome, kidney stone accumulation, and hypertension. these studies provide a foundation for further analysis of met during nephrogenesis and have implications for understanding nephron epithelial cells during kidney disease and regeneration. wireless multihop networking (wmn) has emerged as a key and promising next-generation wireless technology. the ad hoc network formation andmultihop communications incur more challenges than conventional wireless networks. this dissertation investigates channel access, medium access control (mac), packet scheduling, and their interactionswith the physical layer in wmns. existing wireless mac and packet scheduling algorithms are briefly reviewed. their analysis often does not consider the specific properties of wmns, in particular in terms of the wireless channels, the traffic characteristics, and their interaction.in this thesis, we apply queueing theory to analyze typical mac and scheduling schemes in wmns, including delay-balancing priorityscheduling, tdma and slotted aloha. packet dropping strategies are employed to guarantee delay constraints and reduce unnecessary energyconsumption. the quality of service (qos) parameters under study include delay, packet loss rate, throughput, and capacity.our analysis quantitatively explains why tdma outperforms slotted aloha not only in terms of throughput, but also of delay. an importantfeature caused by multihop communications is the correlations, which exist between the wireless channels themselves, between the channels and traffic flows, between the traffic flows themselves, and between the delays of each node. due to such correlations, the wireless channel performance is better than when all traffic flows are independent. besides, the traffic correlation helps to form a natural spacing between simultaneously transmitting nodes, achieve efficient spacial reuse, and more importantly, avoid the overhead of establishing and maintaining the spacing. furthermore, the correlationbetween the delays of each node substantially improve the end-to-end (e2e) delay variance. therefore, taking advantage of these correlationcould be helpful in the cross-layer design of efficient, distributed and cooperative protocols in wmns. this dissertation offers a critical analysis of walter benjamin's philosophy of language, compares it to ludwig wittgenstein's thought on language, and traces the historical foundation of both accounts of meaning to 18th and 19th century german philosophy.benjamin's theory of language, espoused in early essays and in the origin of german tragic drama, is notoriously dense and obscure. in elucidating it, i emphasize benjamin's attempt to reorient the kantian project around language – the medium in which knowledge is expressed – and his concern with the logical understanding of language gaining credence in the work of russell and frege in the early 20th century. the result is a radical model of the relationship between language, experience, and world that sees "absolutely everything" as linguistic in a broadened sense and which sees the logical or designative capacities of language as grounded in an aesthetic foundation. the famous "epistemo-critical preface" to his book on german tragic drama is an extension of the theory of language into a metaphilosophy. benjamin develops full-fledged theory of concept-use and a view of philosophy as criticism. these ideas have various sources, but their foundation is in the expressivist philosophy of hamann, herder, and schlegel, the main subject of benjamin's dissertation the concept of art criticism in german romanticism.this expressivist tradition is influential in the 19th century in the works of, among others, nietzsche and fritz mauthner, whose import for the late wittgenstein has been recognized. i read the turn in wittgenstein's thought as a turn back to this tradition. the philosophical investigations radicalizes certain strains in mauthner's thought, ridding it of some of its empiricist biases and drawing expressivism closer to its roots in hamann's work. the work of the late wittgenstein's shares much of its impetus and some of its substance with benjamin's theory. the two are read as complementary to one another, sharing, among other things, comparable critiques of empiricism and comparable accounts of concept use, linguistic understanding, and the relation between experience and language. ultimately, the comparison breaks down over wittgenstein's account of the "experience of meaning," which is subordinated to his account of meaning as use. i argue that benjamin's theory of language can productively address some unresolved issues in wittgenstein's understanding of meaning. my thesis employs a stochastic, population-based seir model to determine attack rates and mortality resulting from the deliberate release of a bioterrorist agent such as avian influenza from several strategic i-95 corridor populations. while a lower basic reproductive number (r0) and protracted generation time (tg) produced the fewest fatalities, multiple attack loci accelerated peak of infection by as much as several months, complicating potential interventions. contrastingly, a high r0 coupled with a brief generation time, irrespective of the number of populations attacked, yielded fatalities approaching one million individuals in as little as one month without containment. comprehensive vaccination could avert as many as 460,000 fatalities, with a value of statistical life of $3.96t. extensive antiviral treatment was projected to save as many as 575,000 lives, at a value greater than $4.95t, while a one-quarter reduction in travel yielded as many as 200,000 fewer fatalities, at a value beyond $1.72t. in this thesis i present the specific heat measurements on a series of bafe2(as1-xpx )2 single crystals with phosphorous doping ranging from near optimum doped x = 0.3 to strongly overdoped x = 0.55. these samples can be made with very high purity, the concentration of phosphorous was determined by x-ray energy dispersive spectra (eds). a systematic study of the superconducting specific heat transitions reveal that bafe2(as(1-x)p(x))2 follows the scaling ??c/tc ?? tc2 remarkably well. it is the first member of the iron-based layered superconductors that follows this particular trend called the bnc (bud??ko, ni, and canfield) scaling of the specific heat transition. the clean-limit nature of this material imposes additional restraints on theories aimed at explaining the bcn scaling since models based on specific electron scattering mechanisms appear to be inconsistent with our results. furthermore, we find the superconducting anisotropy is ?? ?? 2.6, independent of doping, indicative of the dominating role of the electron fermi surface sheets in forming the superconducting state. millimeter wave (mmw) gradient index (grin) lens antennas leverage spatially varying refractive structures to generate high directivity beams. grin lenses also demonstrate high aperture efficiency over beam-scan and can be made relatively low-profile by using high permittivity, low-loss dielectric materials. most importantly, grin lenses have uniquely high instantaneous bandwidth and low power consumption compared to incumbent beam-scanning antenna technologies. these characteristics overall make grin lens antennas compelling for applications like mmw 5g and low earth orbit (leo) satellite communications that require low-power, high performance beam-scanning antenna systems. unfortunately, the features that grin lens antennas demonstrate in aggregate are difficult to synthesize in a single system. the goal of this thesis is to provide a framework for designing flat grin lens systems that simultaneously demonstrate high instantaneous bandwidth, high aperture efficiency, and high beam-scanning capability in a practical form-factor.first, a flat grin lens morphology is proposed. while spherical systems like the luneburg lens demonstrate near-perfect beam-scanning performance with high aperture efficiency, the curved focal surface and overall bulk of these systems makes them impractical. we identify two primary research tasks: 1) designing flat lens systems with high aperture efficiency over a wide bandwidth and 2) designing flat lens systems with wide-angle beam-scanning. we address research objective #1 by first noting that the bandwidth of flat lens systems is constrained by the impedance matching layers at the lens boundary. we then demonstrate a x-band to ka-band flat grin lens using intrinsically wideband matched unit-cells. the measured aperture efficiency ranges from 31% to 71% over a 2.9:1 bandwidth; at the time of writing this is the highest aperture efficiency demonstrated across such a wide bandwidth.we address research objective #2 by characterizing the scan loss in flat focal surface systems and determining that wide-angle scan loss is dominated by spillover and taper losses associated with far-offset feed positions. we then propose the use of additional grin structures near the focal surface to reduce scan loss and demonstrate two systems with improved scan loss. the second of these — a full compound grin lens — demonstrates a measured scan loss exponent of ns = 1.5 over a ±48degree field of view at 40 ghz while requiring only 37.3% of the total material that would be required for a comparably sized luneburg lens. rather than a "mysticism of everyday life," karl rahner advances an understanding of mysticism rooted in the ongoing historical interactions of human freedom with the life of the god of jesus christ. this dissertation reconsiders rahner's approach from three perspectives. in chapter one, i position rahner within catholic debates regarding mysticism at the beginning of the twentieth century. anti-rationalist and psychological uses framed mysticism as a unique knowledge generated by extraordinary phenomena. building upon neo-scholastic conceptions of faith, reason, and intuition, theologians debated about the universal call to mysticism and the essence of "infused contemplation." these debates form an essential background for rahner, who extends the approach of auguste saudreau and maurice de la taille while firmly opposing that of augustin poulain and joseph maréchal.in chapter two, i survey rahner's treatments of mysticism throughout his career. though he emphasizes non-beatifying immediacy to god in the 1930s, rahner undergoes a major shift when he begins treating mysticism in terms of "mediated immediacy." from 1944-1970, he connects and distinguishes features of the relationship between extraordinary mystical and ordinary faith experiences. from 1970-1984, rahner describes mysticism as the theologically significant union of a human's radically free openness to god and concrete enactments of this acceptance of grace.third, i highlight affinities between rahner and three mystical theologians. in chapter three, i compare rahner's approach to mysticism with his interpretation of ignatius loyola's spiritual exercises, which reveals the often overlooked ecclesial and apostolic aspects of his understanding of mysticism. in chapter four, i highlight similarities between rahner's account of loving knowledge before the incomprehensible god and bonaventure's understanding of the ecstatic shape and goal of human knowing. i also examine how jan van ruusbroec can illuminate the trinitarian features of rahner's understanding of mysticism. in chapter five, i offer a synthetic account of rahner's approach to mysticism and situate it in relation to his theological system, with special attention to the relation of human freedom and knowledge, salvation and revelation history, as well as christology and ecclesiology. circadian rhythms are 24 hour temporal patterns of biochemistry, physiology and behavior that are an integral component of eukaryotic life. the molecular circadian clock is a cell autonomous system composed of three conceptual components: a self-sustainable pacemaker that generates 24 hr rhythmicity; an input pathway which allows the clock to be reset and entrained by temporal cues in the environment; and mechanisms of output which regulate molecular and biochemical pathways and ultimately translate to rhythms in physiology and behavior. the master circadian pacemaker resides in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (scn) of the hypothalamus. it appears the most critical property of circadian clocks is the ability to anticipate environmental changes which can enable organisms to adapt and organize their physiology and behavior such that it occurs at biologically advantageous times of the day. it is now known that there are oscillators scattered throughout the body in almost all the peripheral tissues the peripheral oscillators of the mammalian system, found within the liver, heart lungs retina and kidney to name but a few are the least well understood concept of the circadian system to date. since the master clock is situated in the scn and this is the only clock that can be entrained by light, this suggests a hierarchical model of pacemakers within the mammalian system the ìäå¢ì¢åâåâìüåïinhibitor of dna binding' (id) proteins are a family of helix-loop-helix (hlh) factors that have been previously implicated in cell cycle, apoptosis and development. they are defined as dominant negative regulators of transcription since they do not contain a basic domain adjacent to the hlh motif, therefore they cannot bind to dna. data recently published by our laboratory revealed that id2-/mice exhibit a more rapid re-entrainment to a large change in their photoschedule along with greater phase shifts compared to their wild-type counterparts. this data suggests that id2 is involved in entrainment within the mammalian clock. at the molecular level, id1, id2 and id3 exhibit a marked dose dependent suppression of clock-bmal1 induced activation of the clock gene mper1 and ccg arginine vasopression (avp). this suggests a role for the id proteins as transcriptional repressors within the mammalian clock. chapter 2 provides evidence for a role for id2 at the level of the core oscillator demonstrating interaction, specifically direct interaction between id2 (and id1 and id3) with both of the canonical clock proteins clock and bmal1. a discussion of the input pathway and a molecular model for resetting is also provided. chapter 3 illustrates that id2 has a role within the liver tissue as a regulator of clock output. chapter 4 demonstrates a similar role for id2 within the heart tissue, suggesting that id2 is a clock output regulator throughout in multiple tissues/organ systems. in conclusion, the findings of this work outlined within this dissertation indicate a function role within the core oscillator and a physiological role for id2 within the circadian rhythms of clock gene expression within the mammalian system. during the 1980s and 1990s, 16 latin american countries passed some sort of amnesty law to bar prosecutions against former state officers responsible for perpetrating human rights violations during dictatorships and armed conflicts. today the situation is very different. since the early 2000s, judiciaries across the region have become a beacon of progress in the area of transitional justice by fully embracing a set of juridical arguments and doctrines derived from international human rights law that enabled them to take bold jurisprudential steps against impunity. why did judicial corporations evolve from unresponsive bureaucracies into suitable arenas for the advancement of rights claims? under what conditions do judicial branches acquire the technical capabilities and the political will to become powerful players in salient political struggles such as those surrounding transitional justice? i argue that the aforementioned sea changes in jurisprudence are not circumstantial adaptations to changes in the political environment, but instead result from internal revolutions within judicial corporations. this transformation involves the deinstitutionalization of formalist and positivist legal cultures, historically protective of conservative interests in latin america, and the entrenchment of a juridical vision committed to the defense of human rights. activists and their lawyers succeed in sending criminals to jail when they modify the legal thinking, technical capabilities and political will of judicial corporations. effective activists contest control over the allegiances of judicial actors by mounting informal pedagogical interventions to familiarize judges and prosecutors with complex and unknown juridical doctrines derived from international human rights law. by promoting the acceptance of these novel arguments, activists make the toppling of impunity dispositions legally possible. litigants further the process of institutional change by seeking the replacement of judicial actors who staunchly oppose the progress of the lawsuits. in addition to enhancing judges' technical capabilities, these transformations reshape their understanding of their institutional mission, providing judicial actors with cultural resources that facilitate coordinated resistance against soldiers and politicians seeking to put trials on hold. i explore these processes by comparing the cases of argentina and peru. fieldwork in both countries included research in newspaper archives; content analysis of rulings and transcripts of oral trials; participant observation in various courts; interviews with political leaders, victims, human rights lawyers and especially, judges and prosecutors; and original surveys of judicial actors. using these sources i am able to attribute the success of transitional justice in peru and argentina to the aforementioned informal mechanisms of institutional change activated by human rights organizations this paper concerns a specific rational map of two complex variables whose dynamics are closely related to those of the well known one variable chebyshev map. the goal is to obtain a complete description of the dynamics of the map, something that is rarely possible for such examples and then go on to study dynamics of some nearby perturbations. this dissertation consists of three independent essays that explore different aspects of the relation between aggregate demand and growth. the first chapter revisits the debate on unit roots in macroeconomic time series and discusses the endogeneity of the natural rate of growth. it analyzes how different theories of fluctuations interpret unit roots and offers an alternative interpretation, relating unit roots to the persistence of aggregate demand shocks. finally, it presents two empirical exercises: one tests for unit roots in output for twelve latin american countries using panel data. the results suggest that gdp series are non-stationary and therefore shocks may have persistent effects in the economy. the second exercise tests the hypothesis of an endogenous natural rate of growth, and the estimations suggest that the potential output has been influenced by the actual level of economic activity in latin american economies. the second chapter focuses on the effects of aggregate demand on productivity and growth, as presented in the literature on cumulative causation models of growth in the kaldorian tradition. it discusses the controversies related to the estimation and interpretation of verdoorn's law and provides estimations of the law using panel data for the seven largest economies in latin america (1985-2001). the results confirm the existence of increasing returns in manufacturing, and the possibility of cumulative growth cycles in the region. the third chapter focuses on some economic policy implications of demand-led growth, and discusses the potential long-term growth effects of inflation targeting regimes. the hypotheses of procyclical and asymmetrical monetary policy were tested by using a var model for brazil, chile and mexico (1999-2005). the results suggest that inflation targeting is likely to produce a downward bias in aggregate demand, and generate negative effects on long-run growth rates. the analysis and results provided here support different aspects of demand-led growth, and convey economic policy implications. in particular, it supports the idea that recessions may have long-lasting and irreversible effects on output and employment, and reinforces arguments against the promotion of sharp contractions in response to financial or currency crises in the developing world. my work acknowledges the inherent complexities of childhood and activates our own bittersweet memories of it. not all childhood memories are filled with "lollipops and lullabies,' though they are the ones we would most likely prefer to remember. our memories have an amazing capacity to recall the moments in our lives when we were the most emotionally affected. some of these moments we cherish, while others we would just as soon forget. our memories of both extremes (and everything in between) contribute to shaping who we are, how we see ourselves, and how we view others. childhood is a fragile time. it is a time during which self-discovery is dependent on the presence and affirmation of others.clay as a material is also fragile. raw clay, like children, contains seeds of potential and, yet, both by nature are vulnerable; they cannot hide their imperfections. my work celebrates this fragility of clay and the coiling process by allowing the material and the craft to be seen. by exposing the coils, the history of each piece and the evidence of its maker are revealed. the exterior surface records the impression of a thumb as it glides along the ropes of clay. the layered surface looks knit-together as the coils wrap around each curve and bind every limb. the malleability of the clay is restricted only by the handling of the coils. it is my goal to preserve this hand-crafted method as well as enhance its capabilities.through the process of coiling and in keeping within the ceramics tradition, each child's form is a completed vessel; the form begins with a pair of awkward feet and concludes with a deliberately curious gesture. by specifically crafting an archetype of the child figure to be believable rather than literal, i have pushed the limits of how figurative a vessel can be. my result is the abstract figure. my work conveys the image of childhood, or youthful days, as perceived by the passage of time and the distortion of memory. these ceramic figures exist in a peculiar reality that hovers somewhere between an unconscious daydream and a nostalgic experience. when we ponder our days of youth gone by, our reflections radiate emotions of joy as well as sadness, the tenderness of love as well as the pain of loss. what significance do we place on childhood? how do we grapple with our memories? for graphs g and h , an h -coloring of g, or homomorphism from g to h , is an edge-preserving map from the vertices of g to the vertices of h . h -colorings generalize such graph theory notions as proper colorings and independent sets. in this dissertation, we consider four questions involving h -colorings of graphs. recently, galvin [27] showed that the maximum number of independent sets in an n vertex minimum degree &#948; graph occurs (for sufficiently large n) when g = k&#948;,n&#8722;&#948;. first, we show this result holds for level sets: for all triples (n, &#948;, t) with &#948; &#8804; 3 and t &#8805; 3, no n-vertex graph with minimum degree &#948; admits more independent sets of size t than k&#948;,n&#8722;&#948;, and we obtain the same conclusion for &#948; > 3 and t &#8805; 2&#948; + 1. second, we begin the project of generalizing galvin?s result to arbitrary h . writing hom(g, h ) for the number of h -colorings of g, we show that for &#948; = 1 and &#948; = 2 and fixed h , hom(g, h ) &#8804; max{hom(k&#948;+1, h ) n/&#948;+1 , hom(k&#948;,&#948;, h ) 2&#948; , hom(k&#948;,n&#8722;&#948;, h )} for any n vertex minimum degree &#948; graph g (for sufficiently large n). for &#948; &#8805; 3 (and sufficiently large n), we provide a class of h for which hom(g, h ) &#8804; hom(k&#948;,n&#8722;&#948;, h ) for any g in this family. third, for a given h , k &#8712; v (h ), and regular bipartite g, we consider the proportion of vertices of g that get mapped to k in a uniformly chosen h -coloring of g. we find numbers 0 &#8804; a&#8722;(k) &#8804; a+(k) &#8804; 1 with the property that for all such g, with high probability the proportion is between a&#8722;(k) and a+(k), and we give examples where these extremes are achieved. fourth, we study the set of h -colorings of the even discrete torus zdm. for any h and fixed m, we show that the space of h -colorings of zdm may be partitioned into a subset of negligible size (as d grows) and a collection of subsets indexed by certain pairs (a, b) &#8712; v (h)2, with each h -coloring in the subset indexed by (a, b) having almost all vertices in one partition class mapped to a and almost all vertices in the other partition class mapped to b. ionic liquids (ils) are novel organic salts with a wide liquid range and have enormous potential for industrial use as green replacements for harmful volatile organic solvents. varying the cationic components can alter the properties of ils to suit a variety of industrial applications. however, to complement designer engineering, it is crucial to proactively characterize the biological impacts of new chemicals, in order to fully define them as environmentally friendly. before industrial release of ils into the environment, we performed a comprehensive analysis of the toxicity, mutagenicity and microbial biodegradability of ils in order to provide guidelines for further green chemical synthesis. a broad toxicity analysis was performed on a suite of ils using the microtox acute toxicity test which determines the effects of a potential toxin to the standard test microorganism, vibrio fischeri. using this information, we focused on six imidazolium and pyridinium ils for further toxicity and mutagenicity analyses. the results indicate that increasing the length of a substituted alkyl chain from butyl to hexyl to octyl on the il cation causes an increase in toxicity and microbial growth inhibition. however, none of the ils tested caused frameshift or missense mutations to salmonella typhimurium in the ames test for mutagenicity, and can be classified as non-mutagenic. biodegradability by an activated sludge microbial community of the six imidazolium and pyridinium ils was assessed using the oecd doc die-away test, and complemented by 1h-nmr analysis and rp-hplc-ms analysis. we determined that imidazolium-based ils are highly resistant to biodegradation, but that pyridinium-based ils can be fully metabolized. in addition, biodegradability is enhanced with longer alkyl chain length substitution on the pyridinium ring. one il, 1-octyl-3-methylpyridinium bromide is classified as 'readily biodegradable' by oecd standards. the first experimental examination of an il biodegradation pathway, microorganisms involved in il biodegradation and toxicity of biodegradation products to daphnia magna are presented. this research represents an integrated approach, combining expertise in the fields of microbiology, toxicology and chemical engineering, to address the challenges of green chemistry and pollution prevention. this information will aid in the design of novel green chemicals and provide a guide for future collaborative research. my work is about the fear of the unknown capabilities of biological sciences, specifically genetics. i am not anti-science. i am pro-caution. the leaps of technology we are making in genetics present a frightening parallel to the leaps we made in nuclear sciences that led to the development of nuclear weapons. we created weapons, and now we have a road ahead of us that could lead us down that same path. we are replacing the womb with a test tube, and approaching a very steep precipice that may lead us to disaster. we now have large portions of our food stores that are genetically modified, and we have specifically bred pets for millennia. now is the time to be aware of what we are doing. we must ask the question: should we do this, versus can we do this? we must advocate caution, or we truly face the end of nature. the thesis is about the role that religious leaders can play in peacebuilding but under condition that they remain impartial. efficient 3d scanning technology has led to acquisition of very large datasets for application areas as diverse as terrain and urban modeling, but relatively few techniques exist to automatically extract meaningful regions from this data, and the largest datasets examined in the literature rarely exceed millions of points in size. in this thesis, we present an efficient algorithm for identification of locally planar regions in large-scale gps-registered scan data containing hundreds of millions of points. we define hard, statistical measures of accuracy and examine the performance of our algorithm on two real-world datasets with vastly varying characteristics. we examine the usefulness of a number of extensions to the algorithm, and confirm our assumptions regarding the accuracy of the parallel nature of our approach. simulating a high-performance distributed computing platform, we are able to process scan data of approximately 100 million points in under 20 minutes, and a much larger dataset of over three billion points in under 14 hours. nova explosions occur on the surface of a white dwarf that has accreted mass from a less-evolved companion star. because models don't reproduce observed nova properties, the successful detection of kev−mev energy γ rays would provide further constraints on nova models. annihilation radiation, which is produced via e+-e− annihilation, should be the most intense source of γ rays from the explosion. notably, 18f is thought to be the dominant source of positrons because its long half-life (∼110 min) allows it to survive until the envelope of the explosion becomes transparent to γ rays. a good understanding of the 18f(p,α)15o reaction rate, which destroys 18f before it can decay, is important to determine if these γ rays can be detected. necessary for the calculation of the reaction rate is knowledge of the resonances arising due to energy levels in the compound nucleus, 19ne. a 19f(3he,tγ)19ne reaction measurement was performed at argonne national laboratory to study these important energy levels. states in 19ne were measured by detecting reaction tritons in the oak ridge rutgers university barrel array (orruba) in coincidence with γ rays detected in gammasphere from the de-excitation of the 19ne nuclei. in total, 41 transitions from 21 energy levels were measured in 19ne, with 21 of those transitions being previously unobserved. two 3/2+ states crucial to the reaction rate were found to have energies of 6423 ± 3 and 6441 ± 3 kev. this reduces the uncertainty on the 18f(p,α) reaction rate by factors of 1.5 − 17 in the temperature range of nova nucleosynthesis (0.1 − 0.25 k), compared to rates calculated with the previous best energy constraints for those states. promising panaceas is the first literary study to examine how pervasively panaceas were represented during the seventeenth century, a period of dramatic medical development in england during which panaceas became metaphors for fool's errands even as the pursuit of prolonged life and the cure of all diseases persisted unabated. debates over the modesty and ambition of medical progress prompted early modern english writers to rethink what was reasonable or exaggerated, feasible or impossible, for nature, for science, for humanity, and for god. through case studies of francis bacon's essays civil and morall and margaret cavendish's observations and blazing world, i contend that panaceas in philosophical literature expose in new ways the role of boldness, hyperbole, and nuanced optimism in the healing arts, while in works such as william shakespeare's henry iv, part 2 and john milton's paradise lost, panaceas serve to reimagine the internal conflicts and motives of characters in otherwise familiar narratives about the rise of henry v and the fall of adam and eve. setting canonical works in little-known medical contexts, this dissertation reveals the broad appeal and use of panaceas in literature before they became narrowly associated with dystopia and science fiction. practical systems often encounter nonlinearities which call for techniques for the compensation of nonlinear systems and/or signals. volterra filters, extended kalman filter (ekf), and more recently support vector machines (svm) are among the most nonlinear filtering popular techniques. however, these approaches have drawbacks of increased training complexity or mediocre performance when the underlying system is highly nonlinear. in this thesis, novel approaches to nonlinear filtering and classification are proposed which have less training complexity and the unscented kalman filter is discussed as an alternative to the ekf. set-membership normalized least-mean-squares (sm-nlms) is an adaptive solution for estimating the parameter vector satisfying the bounded error criterion, which is the fundamental idea of set-membership filtering (smf). an attractive feature of all sm algorithms is the data-dependant selective update i.e., the parameter estimates are updated only if the prediction error of the filter exceeds a pre-defined bound. this feature is combined with the emph{kernel trick} to extend the sm-nlms algorithm for nonlinear problems, resulting in a kernel-sm algorithm. ukf is based on the concept of unscented transformation (ut), which is a deterministic sampling method to determine the statistics of a random variable undergoing nonlinear transformation. the greater accuracy of ukf leads to better recursive estimates and robustness with respect to divergence compared to ekf. applications of the kernel-sm algorithms and the ukf to equalization of nonlinear inter-symbol interference (isi) channels and predistortion of nonlinear high power amplifiers (hpa) show very encouraging results. this dissertation studies the concept of dissipativity and passivity, in theory, in practice, and in design of control systems. to this end, the passivity-based approach is applied to the control of various types of challenging problems in control systems such as symmetric systems, switched systems, and the automatic cycle-rider systems. dissipativity/passivity-based control approaches, referred to as energy-based control approaches, play an important role in the analysis and synthesis of dynamical control systems. in these approaches, the manner of energy exchange between different components of the system is analyzed. in addition to the direct connection of the passivity and stability concepts, the passivity and dissipativity-based approaches provide numerous advantages including conserved passivity of interconnected systems and guaranteed stability of closed loop systems. this dissertation contains three major topics all linked to the dissipativity/passivity concept. the stability and dissipativity of multi-agent systems connected in different symmetry configurations are studied from a theoretical point of view. the concept of symmetry is employed as a powerful tool to overcome the complexity of multi-agent systems by reducing the number of multiple interconnections. both, stability conditions and passivity properties of cyclic and star-shaped symmetric systems are explored. in addition, we employ energy-based approaches using an enhanced passivation method in the design of switched controllers to circumvent the challenges of traditional methods. moreover, to guarantee the desirable performance and stability for switched controllers, our approach provides new insights in extending the notion of passivity to hybrid systems.in practical applications, motion cycling system is considered. combination of learnability and passivity concepts are applied to the state-dependent switched cycle-rider system, induced by functional electrical stimulation (fes) of lower muscles with the assistance of an electric motor. the fes cycling exercise has therapeutic applications in the rehabilitation of people who suffer from paraplegia due to the stroke, or spinal cord-injury. in this novel approach, the iterative learning control (ilc) scheme is utilized which benefits from the passivity property of the closed-loop dynamics to reject the nonlinearity and uncertainty of the dynamics and to achieve the desired tracking performance after certain cycling trials. overall, this dissertation considers energy-based control methods to address both theoretical (symmetric and hybrid systems) and practical (functional electrical stimulation) problems and makes important contributions to the stability and performance of nonlinear control systems. nitrous oxide (n2o) is a powerful greenhouse gas that can be emitted during wastewater nitrification and denitrification. while much has been learned about n2o emissions from suspended growth processes, little is known about emissions from biofilms, which are of increasing interest for wastewater treatment. since biofilms exhibit complex substrate gradients and microbial stratification, it very difficult to predict their behavior.this research used mathematical modeling to address the mechanisms of emissions from nitrifying biofilms, denitrifying biofilms, and combined nitrifying and denitrifying (snd) biofilms. for the nitrifying biofilm, the model included n2o formation by ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (aob) via the hydroxylamine (nh2oh) and the nitrifier denitrification pathways. n2o emissions from aob biofilms of different thicknesses were explored as a function of bulk dissolved oxygen (d.o.). the results suggested that n2o emissions from thicker nitrifying biofilms were greater than those from suspended-growth systems. the main cause is the diffusion of nh2oh, an aob nitrification intermediate, from the outer, aerobic regions of biofilm to the inner, anoxic regions. the presence of nob also enhanced n2o emissions. this was due to an increased d.o. gradient in the biofilm.the denitrifying biofilm model included n2o formation by heterotrophs via conventional denitrification pathway. the denitrifying model showed that, in presence of excess of electron donor, denitrifying biofilms have two distinct layers of activity: an outer layer with net production of no2and n2o, and an inner layer with a net consumption. the biofilm thickness affects n2o emissions, and rates are influenced by the electron availability within the biofilm. the presence of d.o. in the bulk led to a spike of n2o formation in the outer biofilm, due to diffusion of no2from the inner biofilm and its high affinity for reduced electron carriers relative to the other nitrogen oxides in the denitrification pathway. the model results were compared to those of an experimental system. also, a model of n2o emissions in a denitrifying filter was developed and used to explore emissions in a biofilm reactor.a snd model was created by combining the nitrifying and denitrifying biofilm models. the snd model showed that denitrifying bacteria can mitigate n2o formed by nitrifying bacteria, but also can increase total n2o emissions. additionally, co-diffusional biofilms were compared with counter-diffusional biofilms. co-diffusional biofilms had higher emissions n2o, due to the proximity of n2o production to the aerobic bulk. in counter-diffusional biofilms, the n2o formation was deeper within the biofilm, surrounded by a denitrifying zone where n2o could be reduced.this research provided insights into the mechanisms of n2o production and consumption in biofilms under a variety of conditions relevant to wastewater treatment. the results suggest that n2o formation in biofilms is complex, and often distinct from suspended growth systems. microorganisms play pivotal functions in the trophic dynamics and biogeochemistry of aquatic ecosystems. their concentrations and activities often peak at localized hotspots, an important example of which are pycnoclines, where water density increases sharply with depth due to gradients in temperature or salinity. at pycnoclines organisms are exposed to different environmental conditions compared to the bulk water column, including reduced turbulence, slow mass transfer, and high particle and predator concentrations. here we show that, at an even more fundamental level, the density stratification itself can affect microbial ecology at pycnoclines, by quenching the flow signature, increasing the energetic expenditure, and stifling the nutrient uptake of motile organisms. we identify the richardson number&#8722;the ratio of buoyancy forces to viscous forces&#8722;as the fundamental parameter that quantifies the effects of stratification. in addition, the results of our direct numerical simulations of the sedimentation of particles show that the presence of vertical density gradients in the water column can substantially affect the settling dynamics of a particle, interaction between pair of particles, and settling rates and microstructure of suspension of particles. moreover, the role of stratification on reorientation of elongated particles at density interfaces is scrutinized. in this work, i present capillary electrophoresis as a complementary separation technique to high-performance liquid chromatography and gas chromatography for the separation of metabolite samples. in particular, i focus on demonstrating the usefulness of capillary electrophoresis for performing rapid separations lasting less than ten minutes. capillary electrophoresis is especially well suited for the analysis of small, polar metabolites because of its high resolution and aqueous running conditions. in addition, i demonstrate and investigate new technologies for coupling capillary electrophoresis to mass spectrometry and ionizing molecules for mass spectrometric analysis and detection. as a final demonstration of the capability of capillary electrophoresis to rapidly analyze the metabolome, i present a study of the metabolism of early xenopus laevis embryos. this dissertation comprises five, self-contained chapters, each focused on an issue at the intersection of ethical theory and the biological sciences. chapter 1 enters into an on-going debate over whether evolutionary explanations for widespread patterns of basic evaluative judgments threaten certain kinds of normative realism. i argue that normative realism can be shown to be compatible with a plausible view of the evolution of human evaluative judgment. chapter 2 brings together several parallel lines of thought in contemporary epistemology, philosophy of biology, and philosophy of mind on the nature of belief in order to build a framework for considering how and why selection might favor certain kinds of representational states in humans. chapter 3 focuses on an evolutionary puzzle about guilt proneness in humans, offering two solutions to the puzzle, one rooted in an individual-level selectionist account, the other in a group-level account. chapter 4 develops an approach to genetic counseling that attends to the manifold ways in which patients are vulnerable to manipulation, coercion, and social pressure during genetic counseling. finally, chapter 5 considers whether aquinas' moral epistemology is threatened by contemporary anti-essentialist views of human nature. traumatic brain injury (tbi)-related hospitalizations, disabilities, and mortalities have continued to rise over the last two decades affecting both military and civilian populations. these injuries can result in shortand long-term consequences and have been linked to increased rates of neurodegenerative disorders. however, humans possess adult neurogenesis, albeit very restricted and limited. nevertheless, humans therefore have the potential for regenerative recovery, although little is known about human progenitor abundance or capacity to produce a diverse neural linage. in contrast, zebrafish possess a robust regenerative capacity shown to respond to trauma across both the peripheral and central nervous systems. this novel study proposes the use of a modified blunt-force tbi in the adult zebrafish to further examine a wide range of injury-induced pathologies, as well to further elucidate the regenerative mechanisms harbored by the zebrafish towards functional recovery. this study extensively characterizes a plethora of tbi-pathologies across mild, moderate, and severe tbi. this study then describes the regenerative response temporally and spatially in response to tbi. finally, this study describes the mechanism by which shh signaling pathway can be leveraged as a prophylactic treatment increasing eaat2a expression and reducing tbi-sequelae by regulating glutamate excitotoxicity. collectively, this study provides a foundation for future studies in blunt-force tbi sequelae progression and in injury-induced neuronal regeneration in the adult zebrafish. deep neural networks (dnn) can perform cognitive tasks such as speech recognition and object detection with high accuracy, but are limited by their large computational cost. for this reason, it has been proposed to use resistive crossbar arrays to minimize data movement and perform matrix-vector multiplications in the analog domain. one of the main challenges of these architectures is the limited resolution and nonlinearity of resistive memories available today. in this thesis, this limitation is addressed in two ways:first, ferroelectrics are studied for multilevel memory devices in resistive crossbar arrays. in their polycrystalline form, these materials are composed of a multitude of grains with independent polarization states, allowing for dense, nonvolatile, multilevel memories compatible with standard semiconductor fabrication processes. however, modeling the dynamics of polycrystalline ferroelectrics is challenging due to the statistical variations in the composition of its grains. for this purpose, a model to extract the statistical properties of a ferroelectric film and a monte carlo simulation that can describe and predict its polarization dynamics and variability were developed. this model provides the tools to characterize and optimize ferroelectric materials, and to design and evaluate devices, circuits and architectures for deep learning and other applications.secondly, architecture improvements to train dnn models in resistive crossbar arrays are presented. an accurate scheme for parallel weight update in resistive crossbar arrays is proposed and evaluated. by using pulse widthand frequency-modulated signals, the value of resistive elements in a crossbar array can be updated in parallel with higher accuracy than that of existing techniques based on stochastic multiplication. finally, the mapping of dnn models to resistive crossbar arrays is analyzed by decomposing a general vector-matrix multiplication into a multiplication with nonnegative weights performed in a crossbar array, followed by a limited set of addition and subtraction operations described by a connection matrix. based on this analysis, an efficient mapping scheme is designed, which mitigates the effect of weight nonlinearity and limited resolution. this dissertation is a comprehensive study of spanish literary works about the english schism (published 1580-1630) that provides a richer understanding of contested views on anglo-spanish rapprochement and collaboration in early modern spain. i discuss the importance of the ecclesiastical histories of pedro de ribadeneyra and fray diego de yepes in popularizing in spain a monstrous view of the tudors and a hagiographical portrayal of english catholics. i then compare these with later representations of the same characters and events across various genres: the letters of luisa de carvajal y mendoza; calderón de la barca's tragedy, la cisma de ingalaterra; lope de vega's comedy, el amor desatinado, and poems, la dragontea, rimas humanas, and la corona trágica; and cervantes' novella, la española inglesa. this study explores the history of provisioning in industrializing chicago. it asks two questions: how did the city's nineteenth-century residents acquire the food, water, clothing, and fuel that they needed to survive? and why, by century's end, did productive practices such as agriculture fade from the urban landscape? i answer these questions by examining the cultural and environmental history of chicago's households. i argue that during the 1830s and 1840s, the city's households shared many of the same patterns of provisioning. both merchants' and workingmen's families obtained some of what they needed through productive labor, whether by growing food, making clothing, or hauling water. as the nineteenth century progressed, however, such practices disappeared from a portion of chicago's households. the city's upper classes sought increasing distance from labor in nature, and they used products, servants, and municipal services to make their homes appear free from toil. they did so to distinguish themselves from the city's working class, who continued to use homes, yards, and the urban landscape to produce some of what they needed. my study of provisioning thus shows that the well-to-do constructed class identities through their most intimate relationships to nature. out of the shared needs of human subsistence, these men and women created social difference. with chapters that move from frontier woodsheds to antebellum kitchen gardens to gilded age dinner parties, my study challenges the assumption that domestic life reflected, rather than shaped, the emerging industrial order. transformations in provisioning were not inevitable consequences of industrialization; rather, these labors changed because of the values and actions of the well-to-do. my study also challenges the prevailing belief that industrialization alienated urban dwellers from the nature that sustained them. not only do i show that the working class continued to know nature through domestic labors such as gardening and scavenging, but i also suggest that alienation was an upper-class project?a homespun effort to obscure the ties that bound them to nature and to their fellow urban dwellers. for better or worse, the modern relationship to nature was forged in chicago's kitchens and parlors as well as its stockyards and factories. in this thesis we study the geometry of the group of symplectic diffeomorphisms of a closed symplectic manifold m, equipped with the l^2 weak riemannian metric. it is known that the group of symplectic diffeomorphisms is geodesically complete with respect to this l^2 metric and admits an exponential mapping which is defined on the whole tangent space. our primary objective is to describe the structure of the set of singularities of associated weak riemannian exponential mapping, which are known as conjugate points. we construct examples of conjugate points on the symplectomorphism group and solve the jacobi equation explicitly along geodesics consisting of isometries of m. using the functional calculus and spectral theory, we show that every such geodesic contains conjugate points, all of which have even multiplicity. a macroscopic view of conjugate points is then given by showing that the exponential mapping of the l^2 metric is a non-linear fredholm map of index zero, from which we deduce that conjugate points constitute a set of first baire category in the symplectic diffeomorphism group. finally, using the fredholm properties of the exponential mapping, we give a new characterization of conjugate points along stationary geodesics in terms of the linearized geodesic equation and coadjoint orbits. orthopedic implants have greatly increased the quality of human life; however, when it comes to friction and wear properties, they have much room for improvement. "percolation" is a mechanism of lubricant entrainment that increases the volume of lubricant in a bearing when a load is applied, theoretically reducing both friction and wear. percolation effects can be divided into surface transport effects and volume transport effects. the former relies on changes in surface geometry to increase lubricant entrainment, while the latter relies on the material properties of the bulk material. this research tests the uses of surface transport to improve the tribological performance of artificial hips, and the uses of volume transport in developing a new biomaterial for cartilage replacement. for the improvement of artificial hips, dimpled surfaces were created using laser surface texturing (lst) and then tested in a reciprocating wear tester. friction and wear were measured and compared to surfaces without dimples for both metal-on-metal and metal-on-plastic contacts. the results showed a positive effect of surface texturing on the friction coefficients and wear rates of the textured surfaces, consistent with increased lubricant entrainment. a numerical model of a lubricated contact was made using a multilevel relaxation approach. the lubrication of smooth, roughened, and dimpled contacts was modeled. numerical studies showed an increase in the theoretical central and minimum film thickness for dimpled surface. numerical studies also show an optimized dimple placement and morphology for future studies. a new biomaterial, consisting of a three-dimensional woven composite of selected polymers was also examined for wear properties in bi-directional wear. results of wear testing were mixed, at first showing increases in life due to specific woven parameters but being difficult to repeat. oxygen is one of the most important molecules for life. it is involved in all stages of life and biological activity. hence the measurement of oxygen plays a crucial role in medical research. for example, quantitative information about oxygen levels in tumors can lead to optimized treatment methods in oncology, whereas oxygen imaging of brain vasculature can lead to a better understanding of brain activity in neurological research. at the intracellular level, oxygen imaging can provide insights into cellular signaling pathways and metabolic activity.optical oxygen sensors offer a minimally invasive and non-consuming approach to measure oxygen via phosphorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (plim). to achieve a sub-micrometer spatial resolution in oxygen measurement, plim is used in conjunction with multiphoton microscopy (mpm) – a laser scanning microscopy technique that yields high-resolution, 3d images in thick samples. however, mpm-flim for biological oxygen imaging requires water-soluble phosphorescent dyes that have high oxygen-sensitivity and a large two-photon cross-section. unfortunately, no molecule exists that possess all of these properties. therefore oxygen-sensitive phosphorescent dyes are usually modified by attaching hydrophilic functional groups to them in order to enhance water-solubility and two-photon cross-section, as in the case of ptp-c343 for example. these probes though perform well, however, require complex chemical synthesis procedures, making them inaccessible to the most of the bioimaging community.this work presents a simple and inexpensive alternative to the well-established, high-performance probes. we describe an easy encapsulation method to use a commercially available hydrophobic ruthenium-complex dye, [ru(dpp)3]2+ . the dye is encapsulated in nanometer sized micelles formed by a poloxamer (a biocompatible surfactant), allowing for uniform dispersion in aqueous media. detailed characterization experiments have been performed to show that the probe possess a near-optimal sensitivity to dissolved oxygen as well as a twophoton cross-section that surpasses that of the well-established and widely used oxygen-sensitive probes. two-photon imaging is also performed on live mice using this probe. the resulting 3d images show excellent detail and contrast, thereby demonstrating the viability of [ru(dpp)3]2+ nanomicelles as easily prepared probes for 3d, high-resolution, oxygen imaging in vivo. for quantitative oxygen imaging in vivo and in vitro biological media, a "protected" version of the [ru(dpp)3]2+ nanomicelle probe is developed by coating the micelle in a silica shell. the silica shell protects the micelle from interacting with proteins and ionic species in biological media resulting in an extremely long stable life (&gt; 80 hours) in mouse blood and enabling quantitative oxygen measurements of blood oxygen in vivo with a high signal-to-noise ratio. while attention has been given to heidegger's reappropriation of aristotle, not much has been given to the systematic philosophical import of this reappropriation and the context in which heidegger carried it out. in this dissertation, i undertake a philosophical reconstruction of heidegger's hermeneutic reappropriation of aristotle's notion of praxis as a mode of the being of life. this reappropriation is hermeneutic insofar as it develops within a context in which the theoretical (objectifying) interpretation of the very nature of philosophy has gained pre-eminence but has also become questionable. this context is the critical philosophies of the nineteenth century, particularly, neo-kantianism (most importantly the work of paul natorp), husserl's phenomenology, and the historical philosophy of wilhelm dilthey known as weltanschauungphilosophie (world-view philosophy). standing in the considerable shadow cast by kant's critical project, these philosophers struggled to articulate a conception of philosophy that was scientifically adequate. critical to this issue is what status lived-experience (erlebnis), i.e., pre-reflective, pre-conceptualized, immediate experience, played in the foundation of michael j. bowler philosophy. furthermore, this conception of philosophy had to find its place within the architectonic of the positive sciences which, in the nineteenth century, found itself divided between the naturwissenschaften and geisteswissenschaften. according to heidegger, this latter requirement leads to two very different conceptions of philosophy, namely, husserl's "scientific philosophy" of phenomenology and the historically oriented philosophy of dilthey's world-view philosophy. heidegger believes that this betrays a crisis in the very nature and task of philosophy itself. it is in this context that he engages in a hermeneutic reappropriation of aristotle's philosophy. heidegger believes that through such a reappropriation the crisis facing philosophy can be overcome. specifically, heidegger turns to aristotle's metaphysics and nicomachean ethics in order to appropriate aristotle's understanding of the nature of scientific thought and the relation of this to its penultimate question, i.e., the question of being &ndash; a question that heidegger believes modern critical philosophy has covered over. correspondingly he must turn to aristotle's physics in order to re-articulate the activity and movement of thought in its questioning of being and, importantly, the relation of this to the praxis of life. john c. h. wu's classical chinese translation of the psalms and new testament has been regarded my many as the most elegant chinese-language translation of the bible ever made. in it, wu borrowed both terms and linguistic styles from the chinese classics, including confucian, daoist, and buddhist texts as well as classical poetry, to translate biblical phrases and concepts in new and surprising ways. this dissertation analyzes many of these theological and linguistic features of the wu version, and offers an evaluation of the suitability of several of wu's more important linguistic choices as analogous terms or phrases for ideas found in both bible and chinese humanistic tradition. it finds that wu's work is striking and innovative in its use of these terms and styles, including such choices as the chinese term "dao" to translate the greek word "logos," the abundant use of chengyu, or four-character set phrases, from classics such as the analects, mencius, the tao teh ching (dao dejing), and the diamond sutra, the poetic styles of tang dynasty poetry, and the imitation of "marked" or "authoritative" language found in many classical texts. in so doing, it is argued that wu created a unique and personal work of sacred art that bears the imprint of his own admitted love and devotion, a landmark achievement comparable to antoni gaudi's basilica of the sagrada família in barcelona, spain. although its use is still somewhat limited today, it continues to attract readers for the aforementioned qualities, and continues to be used in prayers and music by those who desire beauty and an authentic chinese-sounding text that draws from china's ancient traditions. in addition to being suited for liturgical and devotional use, its immersion in the chinese classics also merits further scholarly study. molecular recognition is ubiquitous within nature and controls nearly every aspect of organism structure and function. the ability of biological systems to spontaneously assemble has captured the imaginations of supramolecular chemists and has inspired elegant synthetic mimics that are diverse in both structure and function. the power and versatility offered by molecular recognition and self-assembly is rapidly expanding, and many synthetic receptors have now advanced beyond fundamental studies and are being pursued for practical applications. this thesis begins with an overview of molecular recognition, the underlying principles that control the phenomenon, and how chemists attempt to design host-guest systems based on this understanding. of particular importance is the molecular recognition of organic dyes, as the majority of this thesis will focus on the molecular recognition and encapsulation of squaraine dyes to form stable structures known as squaraine rotaxanes (srs). the thesis will then transition into the development of a new class of chromophores, thiosquaraine rotaxanes, and their evaluation as potential photodynamic therapy agents. the thesis next introduces sr endoperoxides (sreps), storable sr analogues that emit light as they cleanly release singlet oxygen. a major drawback to current srep systems is their very low chemiluminescence yield, and chapter 3 discusses attempts to increase the light output using various chemical additives. the addition of these additives also led to the discovery and investigation of a new mechanism for light generation in sreps. the last two chapters of the thesis focus on the development of a high affinity host-guest system that self-assembles in aqueous media. this system, termed synthavidin (synthetic avidin) technology, provides a new paradigm for molecular probe design. chapter 4 focuses on the discovery of synthavidin technology, and the early stage development that led to a highly fluorescent squaraine-macrocycle system that self-assembles in water. finally, chapter 5 describes the use of a targeted synthavidin probe as a bone imaging agent in small animal models. the synthavidin probes are remarkably stable and demonstrate strong multivalent targeting of skeletal tissue. the thesis concludes with a look toward the future of synthavidin technology and its potential use in biomedical and therapeutic applications. since the time of their discovery in the 1960s, transition metal carbenes have fascinated chemists and been the subject of much research interest. carbenes have traditionally been divided up into two classes, both named after the chemists who initially discovered them. fischer carbenes, which were discovered in 1964 by e.o. fischer, are more associated with mid-to-late transition metals in low-oxidation states. they are considered to be electrophilic and bear stabilizing heteroatoms such as oxygen, nitrogen, or sulfur as substituents. schrock carbenes, which were discovered by richard schrock in 1974, are often associated with early transition metals in high-oxidation states. they are considered to be nucleophilic in nature and usually contain alkyl or hydrogen substituents on the carbene. for this reason, they are often referred to as alkylidenes. however, many examples of transition metal carbenes fall outside of these classical descriptions and chemists have discovered that the electronics and reactivity of the m à c interaction depend on many different factors including choice of metal, substituents at the carbene carbon, oxidation state, coordination number, and the nature of the supporting ligands.the purpose of this work is to expand our knowledge of transition metal carbenes, particularly those of the group 10 triad. to that end, a ligand containing a tethered alkyne moiety was designed with the goal of synthesizing untethered four-coordinate carbenes and a fundamental study of its coordination chemistry toward group 10 metals in different oxidation states was carried out. reactions of a low-valent nickel complex of this ligand toward diazo and organoazide reagents were attempted, however, desired carbene and nitrene species proved elusive. additionally, an untethered electrophilic carbene was targeted and ultimately yielded an η1-n "end-bound" diazo complex of pt(ii). utilizing a different supporting ligand, a series of three-coordinate platinum benzylidene derivatives and a platinum alkylidene were synthesized. these compounds represent the first examples of benzylidenes on a platinum center and the first example of any late transition metal alkylidene. due to the detection of straightforward decomposition pathways, a thorough study of their thermal stability was carried out and their decomposition products were characterized. several reactions were carried out, demonstrating 1,2-addition of e-h bonds (e = cl, o) across the m=c linkage, as well as [2+2] cycloadditions. finally, the reverse reaction of a decomposition pathway involving β-hydrogen containing carbenes was studied and several pieces of evidence consistent with the formation of a carbene intermediate at elevated temperatures from metal-olefin starting materials is presented. on-site surveys were conducted of 72 unreinforced masonry (urm) medieval churches across italy. following a hierarchical approach for the surveys, each component of risk – hazard, vulnerability, exposure, and consequence – was defined throughout by the development of indices resulting in a holistic seismic risk assessment methodology. regarding the risk component of vulnerability specifically, a "macro-block" analysis was applied to all 28 geometric components of each surveyed church that have been identified empirically as common collapse mechanisms in historic earthquakes. to improve the efficacy of subsequent assessments, an aggregation of commonly applied non-destructive testing (ndt) techniques was proposed to address the problematic acquisition of mechanical property of heritage urm buildings sans destructive testing. finally, a case study church selected amongst the most critical churches was both geometrically and structurally modeled by applying photogrammetric techniques based on an unmanned aircraft system (uas) survey, building information modeling (bim) approach, and finite element model (fem) analysis. the following goals of the seismic risk assessment were targeted in this study:developing an appropriate and cost-efficient methodology for seismic risk assessments for large portfolios of churches;quantifying the exposure and consequence components of risk by recording occupancy rates, heritage components, and equivalent replacement value of the churches;developing a risk ranking of churches surveyed in order to assist stakeholders by prioritizing churches for futher detailed assessment and potentially retrofit intervention;contributing to the innovation of engineering investigation techniques by introducing a rapid and reliable assessment methodology both on a regional or national scale, as well as on a higher resolution building scale;recording in a rapid and dependable way the geometry and material properties with respect to complex urm churches when the lack of architectural and structural drawing represents a significant obstacle to assessment; anddeveloping a structural modeling approach for complex urm churches that is accessible by a significant portion of the practicing engineering community, based on the availability of the software utilized and the simplification of the robust analytical methods. this thesis studies linear control systems with limited feedback information. the focus is on two types of limitations on the feedback information, dropout and quantization. by dropout, we mean that the desired feedback measurement is missed. by quantization, we mean the feedback measurement is described by a finite number of bits, which introduces ``measurement error'. this thesis analyzes the effect of dropout and quantization on stability and performance of control systems and develops synthesis methods that improve system performance in the face of such limited information. we consider two dropout models, independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) processes and markov chains. for a control system with i.i.d. dropouts, we provide a necessary and sufficient stability condition and a closed-form expression for the output's power spectral density (psd). based on this psd result, we identify an equivalent linear time-invariant (lti) system which can be used to do synthesis. as an example, we design the optimal dropout compensator. for a control system with dropouts governed by a markov chain, we provide a necessary and sufficient stability condition and a method to compute performance measured by the output's power. based on the performance result, we propose a method to design the optimal dropout policy which minimizes the degradation of system performance under the given dropout rate constraint. we extend the performance results on markovian dropouts to distributed control systems. for a quantized control system, we derive the minimum constant bit rate to guarantee stability. a dynamic bit assignment policy (dbap) is proposed to achieve such minimum bit rate. we also study the performance of quantized systems. for a noise-free quantized system, we prove that dbap is the optimal quantization policy with performance measured by the l-2 norm of the quantization error. for a quantized system with bounded noise, performance is measured by the ultimate upper bound of quantization error. we present both a lower bound and an upper bound on the optimal performance for quantized systems with bounded noise. the upper bound can always be achieved by the proposed dbap. so dbap is at least a sub-optimal quantization policy with the known performance gap. traditional assumptions about the nature of science have historically precluded the empirical study of human agency, but conceptual and methodological advances by howard (1984) and others have made research on agency possible. following howard and conway's (1986) volitional instruction paradigm, the present study examined whether participants could willfully control their cigarette use. data from 43 smokers indicated that participants did indeed smoke significantly less when instructed to 'try not to smoke;' moreover, the proportion of variability explained by this simple instruction was greater than is typically seen in psychological research. self-control was not associated with self-efficacy, nor was self-control enhanced by participants' self-prediction. self-ratings of effort were found to mediate the effects of volitional instructions on smoking behavior, providing further support for an agentic (versus mechanistic) interpretation of volition effects. the results of this study highlight the importance of considering both agentic and non-agentic influences on human behavior. the originality of augustine's conception of the will has been the subject of vigorous debate. by analyzing a wide variety of texts from augustine's corpus ranging across the full chronological breadth of his career, this dissertation contributes a new perspective to the conversation. augustine's thinking on will, it demonstrates, deserves more than just a page in the story of the history of western thought. his evolving view tells a tale unto itself with changes and chapters of its own that are vital to grasping the complexity, and novelty, of augustine's thinking on this topic. augustine's understanding of the will involves two further stories: the story of augustine's development as a thinker and the overarching story of redemption he finds in christian scripture. as he matures, augustine layers page upon page onto his conception of will. ultimately, the bishop of hippo comes to believe that the events of creation, fall, redemption and eschaton all have drastic consequences for how human willing works, and even for what it "is." augustine's most creative contributions to the notion of the human will do not derive from articulating a monolithic, universal definition of the will. rather, augustine innovated by developing differing descriptions of the will appropriate to differing contexts. augustine depicts four different kinds of human will: the created will, which he describes as a hinge (cardo); the fallen will, a link in a chain (ansula catenae) that binds human beings to sin; the redeemed will, which is a root (radix) of love; and the fully free will to be enjoyed in the next life when perfection is made complete. augustine's view of the will is "theologically differentiated" in that the will functions in radically different ways in these diverse theological settings. his contribution is a multi-faceted conception of the will whose differing faces have been cut to fit the shape of his theology and the biblical story it seeks to describe. the studies presented in this dissertation have been focusing on utilizing advanced microscopy (tem), diffraction and spectroscopy techniques (xrd, pdf, icp-oes, and xafs), in tandem with quantitative analysis and modeling to study the interactions between aqueous metals and geological and biological surfaces and interfaces as well as the structure of aluminous goethite microano minerals. we measured the valence state and speciation of the au that was removed from au(iii)-chloride solutions by non-metabolizing gram-positive bacillus subtilis and gram-negative pseudomonas putida cells. xanes and exafs measurements were conducted on au-bacteria samples as a function of ph at two different au loadings. additionally, aub. subtilis exudates samples were also examined by using xanes. xanes spectra of au-bearing solutions that contained b. subtilis exudates suggest that bacterial exudates are capable of reducing au (iii) to au (i) at circumneutral ph (ph 5.8) but not under low ph (ph 3.3) conditions. in addition, the exafs data suggest that au on the b. subtilis and p. putida cell walls is present almost exclusively as au(i) bound to a mixture of amine/carboxyl sites as well as to sulfhydryl functional groups. the relative importance of the sulfhydryl groups increases with increasing ph and with decreasing au loading on the cell walls. the coordination numbers for all of the biomass samples studied here are consistent with bidentate binding of au on the bacterial cell walls, and the bond distances indicate inner-sphere binding of the au. in addition, we investigated the effects of ph, ionic strength, and the siderophore desferrioxamine on cd sorption to montmorillonite using batch experiments, exafs analysis, and xrd measurements. the extent of cd sorption to montmorillonite increased with increasing ph and decreasing ionic strength. the presence of dfob inhibited cd sorption at ph < ~7 and enhanced cd sorption at ph > ~7. sorption densities ranged from 1.1 (11% sorption) to 10.0 (100% sorption) åµmol sorbed/gram of clay. exafs analysis showed that the detailed sorption mechanism varied as a function of ph, ionic strength and dfob concentration (0 or 1.0 mm). in the absence of dfob, at low ph (~5.0 for samples in 0.1m nano3 and ~5.0 and ~7.5 for samples in 0.01m nano3), exafs showed that cd sorbed outer-spherically; at higher ph (~7.5 and ~8.5 for samples in 0.1m nano3 and 8.5 for samples in 0.01m nano3), cd sorbed as a mixture of inner-sphere and outer-sphere complexes. in the presence of dfob, at ph ~5.0, cd sorbed outer-spherically; at ph ~7.5 and 8.5, cd sorbed as a mixture of inner-sphere and outer-sphere cd-dfob complexes. furthermore, the ratio between inner-sphere and outer-sphere sorption increased with both ph and ionic strength. xrd measurements indicate that layer spacing did not vary substantially as a function of cd concentration, ionic strength, or ph. however, in the presence of dfob, the d-spacing expanded by ~ 2ìé, which is consistent dfob absorption. furthermore, aluminous goethite nano/micro particle samples with several mol% al were investigated by fe k edge exafs and x-ray diffuse scattering with pdf analysis. the results indicate that al uniformly incorporated into the goethite crystal structure in all samples, with no separate al (hydr)oxide phase observed. additionally, the lattice parameter decreases with increasing al incorporation, which is consistent with smaller al atoms replacing fe. exafs data demonstrate al incorporation does not change the coordination environment of the three nearest o shells around fe. the more distant fe shells are significantly affected, however, consistent with the change in bond lengths around individual incorporated al atoms. the worldwide use of nuclear energy presents both significant advantages and challenges for society. actinide research seeks to address these challenges and drive advancement in the fields of nuclear science and engineering. here, key aspects of the fuel cycle are examined from both a fundamental and an applications-based perspective. hydrothermal, ionothermal, room-temperature evaporation, and liquid diffusion synthesis techniques and single-crystal x-ray diffraction were used to study the structures of 18 uranyl compounds and six actinyl-doped mineral phases. these compounds represent a diverse group ranging from unique molecular clusters to novel and known extended structures isolated from aqueous and ionic liquid media. ultrafiltration techniques were utilized to separate uranyl peroxide nanoclusters from complex aqueous solutions. inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy and mass spectrometry were used to quantify elemental distributions in the feed and permeate solutions while raman spectroscopy, small-angle x-ray scattering, and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry were used to define the characteristics of the cluster species across a range different solution conditions. programmers are notorious for neglecting to write software documentation, even while demanding high quality documentation for themselves. in an ideal world, programmers would be able to automatically generate documentation. in this dissertation, i discuss my strategy to automatically generate documentation: first, to observe programmers and then mimic their behaviors by writing or modifying algorithms. i will present the use of eye tracking for program comprehension. i discuss my eye tracking research with professional programmers and the areas of source code that are important to read for source code comprehension. this work resolved an open question in software engineering as many papers reported different areas of source code to be the most important for comprehension. i found the method signature to be the most important section of source code for reading comprehension. i will also present the eye movement order of programmers when they read source code. next, i will present work on observing developer-client meetings and mimicking the participants behavior to extract user story information. finally, i will conclude with a discussion of work towards a virtual assistant bot for programmers, including a "wizard of oz" study. this work showed that programmers would use a virtual assistant if they had one and that they would ask the bot system and api type questions. acute kidney injury (aki) is a devastating and often lethal condition in which kidney nephron cells are destroyed by damage from ischemia or toxin exposure. interestingly, there is evidence that suggests nephron epithelial cells can regenerate after some forms of damage, but there is a poor understanding of the cellular and molecular events that mediate nephron regeneration. the zebrafish is an attractive and viable system to study the molecular pathways responsible for nephron regeneration, as its nephrons are simple, yet they maintain the biological complexity inherent to that of higher organisms including mammals. previous studies have demonstrated that gentamicin-based chemical injury in zebrafish mimics human aki, but detailed analysis of the cellular events associated with damage was not reported. we generated a novel toolkit of cellular and molecular protocols to perform this analysis in the zebrafish. we explored the feasibility of aki studies in the zebrafish embryo, and identified basic aspects of the injury process. next, we extensively characterized the cellular changes resulting from gentamicin injury in the adult zebrafish using our platform of histology and immunohistochemistry techniques. this work has established the timing of renal cell death after injury, identified proliferative compartments within the kidney, and led to the assessment of gene expression changes associated with the regenerative response of proliferating cells. taken together, this dissertation project has provided a greater understanding of the full cycle of regenerative events. insights from this work can be applied in future studies toward the design of chemical genetics screens in the adult and/or embryonic zebrafish to identify renal regeneration pathways and provide novel insights into the signals that orchestrate kidney epithelial regeneration. laboratory experiments and numerical simulations were used to investigate air and lnapl entrapment in the partially saturated fringe (psf) at the local scale of a heterogeneous groundwater system. investigations led to the determination of several system properties that have a significant influence on entrapment in this region. laboratory investigations were conducted to gather information and used in the verification of the numerical model tough2/t2voc in reference to air/lnapl entrapment. this model was then used in conjunction with laboratory experiments to further investigations. laboratory and numerical investigations focused on imbibition within simple heterogeneous systems. it was determined that several factors influence the degree of entrapment in the psf. the rate of rise of the water table in the system has a significant influence on the amount of lnapl entrapped in heterogeneities. specifically, as the rate of water table rise increased, the amount of entrapment in heterogeneities decreased. it was also determined that connectivity of heterogeneities has a significant influence on the degree of air/lnapl entrapment in the psf. as the connectivity of coarse sand inclusions increased, the amount of air/lnapl entrapped in these regions, and within the entire system, decreased. specific sediment properties were also determined to have a significant influence on the degree of entrapment in the system. it was determined that in a system with coarse inclusions surrounded by finer sediment, as the sediment characteristics of the lens became more similar to those of the surrounding media, less air/lnapl became entrapped. specifically, the air entry pressure and degree of sorting of the lens were investigated. as the air entry pressure of the lens increased and/or the degree of sorting of the lens decreased, less air/lnapl became entrapped in the system. to our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of entrapment of air or lnapl in the psf through active processes, and thus provides a solid foundation for future investigations into the psf and possible application of remediation technology in this region. financial globalization paired with the evident volatility of capital flows has sparked renewed interest in capital account restrictions on both inflows and outflows. this dissertation, composed of three essays, analyzes the effectiveness of these policy tools. the first chapter studies the effectiveness of capital inflow controls in insulating countries from foreign interest rate shocks. this chapter estimates a standard var augmented to include a capital inflow control index. to examine the systematic effect of capital controls on the economy, counterfactual vars are constructed by 'zeroing out' capital controls and their effects in the var system. target-variable impulse responses are compared between the factual and counterfactual scenarios. the essay finds that capital controls are statistically and economically significant in protecting the domestic tradable sector from foreign interest-rate shocks for countries with a managed exchange rate regime. the second chapter of this thesis presents a small-open-economy dsge model that incorporates a learning-by-doing externality in the tradable sector. in the model, capital controls are the endogenous response of a benevolent government. the impulse responses generated by the theory model qualitatively match those from the empirical section in the first chapter. finally, the third essay, is an empirical analysis of the effects of unanticipated changes in capital outflow-controls in a sample of 31 countries during 1995-2010. using as the yardstick of effectiveness the impact of changes in outflow-controls on net capital flows, this chapter finds that in countries with strong macroeconomic positions, a tightening of outflow-controls did help reduce net outflows, and a relaxation helped reduce net inflows. furthermore, the chapter finds that innovations to capital controls are very important in explaining movements in net inflows. a common cause of aircraft engine failure is the high cycle fatigue of engine blades and stators. one of the primary causes of these failures is due to blade row interactions, which cause an aerodynamic excitation to be resonant with a mechanical natural frequency. traditionally, the primary source of such aerodynamic excitations has been practically limited to viscous wakes from upstream components. however, more advanced designs require that blade rows be very highly loaded and closely spaced. this results in aerodynamic excitation from potential fields of downstream engine components, in addition to the known wake excitations. an experimental investigation of the potential field from the fan of a honeywell f109 turbofan engine has been completed. the investigation included velocity measurements upstream of the fan, addition of an airfoil shaped probe upstream of the fan on which surface pressure measurements were acquired, and measurement of the velocity in the interaction region between the probe and the fan. this investigation sought to characterize the response on the upstream probe due to the fan potential field and the interaction between a viscous wake and the potential field; as such, all test conditions were for subsonic fan speeds. the results from the collected data show that fan-induced potential disturbances propagate upstream at acoustic velocities, to produce vane surface-pressure amplitudes as high as $40$ percent of the inlet, mean total pressure. further, these fan-induced pressure amplitudes display large variations between the two vane surfaces. an argument is made that the structure of the pressure response is consistent with the presence of two distinct sources of unsteady forcing disturbances. the disturbances on the incoming-rotation-facing surface of the igv propagated upstream at a different speed than those on the outgoing-rotation-facing surface, indicating that one originated from a rotating source and the other from a stationary source. an argument is made to suggest that the stationary source is due to the rotor blades cutting through the wake of the igv. the crystal size distributions (csd) and major and trace element compositions of plagioclase crystals in apollo 14 high-alumina basalts were measured in order to constrain the processes that affected the magma during crystallization. results of the textural analysis suggest that high-al volcanism became increasingly voluminous over time. petrogenetic modeling of group a basalts suggest that the magma formed from a parental composition with higher sr and ba abundances than suggested by whole rock analysis, and that plagioclase rim compositions could contain late stage melt inclusions, or could indicate possible open-system afc processes. petrogenetic modeling of group b and group c basalts suggest that the r-values fluctuated during their petrogeneses. furthermore, most group c equilibrium melt compositions fall beyond the fc and afc trajectories, suggesting incorporation of an assimilant with lower ba and higher sr than suggested by whole rock studies. camera motion blur is a common problem in low-light imaging applications. over the year numerous algorithms have been developed to deblur the image and provide a visually pleasing capture of the sensed scene. many of these algorithms require that the blur kernel is known a priori which limits their application in many real-world situations. recently, inertial sensors have been utilized in an attempt to estimate a blur kernel that can then be incorporated into deblurring algorithms to provide improved results. however, the effectiveness of these algorithms has been limited by lack of access to unprocessed raw image data obtained directly from the image sensor. in this thesis, we build an digital imaging system for the acquisition of raw image data in conjunction with 3-axis acceleration data. from the acceleration data camera motion during image capture can be estimated to provide information about blurring of the sensed scene. this blur kernel is used in a maximum a posteriori estimation algorithm to deblur the raw image data. experiments demonstrate that the accelerometer-based deblurring algorithm on raw image data can generate improved results. this dissertation studies the cause of the forward premium anomaly. the anomaly refers to the violation of uncovered interest parity (uip) in the form of a negative estimate of the slope coefficient in the regression of the future percent change in the spot exchange rate measured in units of domestic currency per foreign currency on the interest rate differential between the home and foreign countries. the result is anomalous since uip predicts the coefficient to be one. the deviation from uip is an excess return, which a portion of the literature has viewed as a risk premium. i first reexamine conventional risk factors as explanations of the anomaly that were previously evaluated in the literature. in line with prior findings, i do find evidence that these factors are explanations of the anomaly. i next proceed to a new factor, rare disasters, recently proposed as a solution to the anomaly, but not empirically tested. rare disasters are found to be systematically related to the excess currency return. countries that on average have economic disasters more often have a higher excess currency return. i next present evidence that the risk premium is positively correlated with the lagged domestic-foreign inflation differential between countries, a new finding. to further understand the economic relations as to why either rare disaster or inflation could give rise to the forward premium anomaly, economic models are developed separately for each risk factor. in regards to inflation i study a two country dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model (dsge) with nominal rigidities. i find that the model is capable of providing a resolution to the forward premium anomaly. the rare disasters model has less success in explaining the anomaly. using layer-by-layer adsorption of polyelectrolytes and enzymes in nylon membranes and polymer monoliths, this dissertation develops enzymatic reactors to rapidly and simply digest proteins for their analysis using mass spectrometry (ms). the research first develops modified membranes for electrodigestion of proteins separated in sodium-dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (sds-page) and isoelectric focusing (ief) gels. electrophoresis remains a popular method for protein separation prior to ms analysis. additionally, ief separates protein charge variants for analysis of their post-translational modifications (ptms) such as deamidations or glycosylations, which are important in understanding disease and creating effective protein therapeutics. however, ms analysis of gel-separated proteins requires laborious in-gel digestion procedures to create peptides and remove them from the gels. this dissertation describes direct electroblotting through enzyme-containing membranes to simplify extraction and digestion of proteins separated by sds-page and ief. ms analysis of extracted peptides showed that electrodigestion of an escherichia coli (e. coli) cell lysate separated by sds-page results in only 13% fewer protein identifications than in-gel digestion, and in far less time. both tryptic and peptic electrodigestion of a standard set of ief-separated proteins led to identification of proteins with high % sequence coverages. moreover, identified proteins show their strongest signals in the expected band, demonstrating retention of spatial resolution during electrodigestion. however, electrodigestion after ief has not yet allowed identification of protein ptms. next, this research aimed to separate intact proteins using capillary electrophoresis (ce) and rapidly digest these proteins in a monolith enzyme reactor (1-3 mm long) just prior to ms. layer-by-layer adsorption of polyelectrolyte films and enzymes inside the monolith pores created highly active proteolytic reactors. preliminary results confirm that compared to covalent immobilization in a monolith, adsorbed polyelectrolyte layers increase the enzyme immobilization several fold. an enzyme-modified monolith in an emitter tip for online ce analysis performed well offline and led to lc-ms/ms identification of bovine serum albumin (bsa) peptides with 96% sequence coverage. future work with the monolith-containing emitter tip may yield successful digestion after ce protein separations. this dissertation is structured around three recurring questions about legal interpretation. what is its purpose? is it profitable to bifurcate the interpretive process into one step focused on understanding and another on application? and what is the relationship between interpretation and method? the chapter on legal interpretation's purpose focuses on the work of ronald dworkin and joseph raz. despite their differences, both agree that a judge's approach to interpretation ultimately depends on a view of what makes law valuable in the first place. but these scholars disagree about law's purpose, and their answers help explain the divide between prevailing schools of legal interpretation. for raz, law's value centers around its ability to provide authoritative solutions to community problems. for dworkin, it comes from protecting individual rights. the next chapter addresses the alleged impossibility of separating understanding and application in hermeneutic theory. hans georg gadamer famously argues these cannot be separated, and many american legal scholars have deferred to this view. but another (better) strand of hermeneutic theory disagrees. emilio betti, e.d. hirsch, and, most recently, vittorio hösle present a sophisticated account of understanding in which the initial aim is to reconstruct the author's intended meaning. and this is different than the subsequent significance (or application of) that meaning to some present concern. the final chapter addresses the extent to which originalism is methodological. no theory of interpretation can supply interpreters with a formula, but this is not what originalism purports to do. instead, originalists properly contend that the end of the first, re-creative step of interpretation is to identify the constitution's original communicative content. this suggests certain means that are appropriate to this end, and even what ordered, transparent, and transferable procedures a judge might employ to test his or her conclusions. to the extent originalism attempts to go beyond this by providing methods for the second (applicative) step of interpretation, however, it is vulnerable, because application involves multiple, incommensurable ends. an investigation of si-based passive components in microwave and infrared frequencies has been undertaken. coplanar wavegudies (cpws) with electrodes in direct contact with moderately doped si substrates were characterized at microwave frequencies. a new nonlinear circuit model applicable for cpw lines on both direct metal-semiconductor contacts and sio2/si mos-like substrates has been developed and verified experimentally using bias-dependent s-parameter measurements from 100 mhz to 10 ghz. in contrast to conventional r-l-c-g models, the proposed model replicates dispersive effects due to finite substrate resistivity by including nonlinear frequency-independent junction capacitances and conductances. the modeled junction capacitances and conductances show excellent scalability with line geometry and substrate doping concentration. capacitance-voltage and current-voltage measurements have been performed to investigate the model's substrate doping type dependence (both nand p-type). analysis of the model indicates that a full back-to-back metal-semiconductor junction contact model is required for cpws on n-type substrates, while the higher schottky barrier height of typical metal contacts to p-type si permits a simpler one-sided junction model for cpws on p-type substrates. for infrared detector applications, dipole antennas backed by a dielectric-filled cavity were also explored to increase air-side directive gain for antenna-coupled diode detectors. the proposed antenna schemes are designed to be compatible with conventional ic fabrication processes. a parametric study of antenna design reveals that a 10 db boresight gain can be achieved when the cavity dimensions are properly chosen to excite predominantly te10 mode aperture fields. the dipole resonant frequency is found to decrease with increasing dipole length and its input impedance is sensitive to the dipole position within the cavity. k-band scale models of the antenna were fabricated and measured at 28.3 ghz to conclusively evaluate the performance of the antenna designs. the antennas demonstrated 10 db directivity and &ndash;25 db cross-polarization at boresight. the cross-polarization was limited by the dipole feed and misalignment. measured antenna radiation efficiency was better than 70% throughout the interested frequency range. the power loss was attributed to filling dielectric and metallic sidewall loss. the measured s-parameters and radiation pattern showed good match to 3-dimensional electromagnetic simulations using hfss. this dissertation asks how democratic police reform shapes police legitimacy. it does so by examining three interconnected waves of police reform that occurred in the city of buenos aires, argentina between 2010 and 2018. the first wave (2010-2016) was led by the national security ministry and involved an increase in political oversight of the argentine federal police (pfa). the pfa had been the main police force in buenos aires for more than a century and, at the time reforms were initiated, was widely denounced as violent, corrupt, and inefficient. the second wave of reform (2010-2016) was led by the buenos aires city government and involved the creation of a new, more modern force with a mandate for community policing: the metropolitan police. the pfa and the metropolitan police operated in parallel in buenos aires until they were merged, in 2017. the third wave of reform (2017-2019) was also led by the city government and involved the launch of the city police, comprised of 20,000 ex-pfa officers and 6,000 ex-metropolitan officers. the launch of the city police involved dramatic organizational changes, designed to accommodate the disparate internal structures of the pfa and the metropolitan police, and other measures aimed at modifying police practices to improve efficiency, criminal deterrence, and, ultimately, police legitimacy.these three waves of police reform were democratic in terms of both means and ends. each reform was led by elected political authorities and was guided by citizens' most pressing security grievances. at the same time, reforms aimed to consolidate 'democratic policing' by improving the "operational efficiency and effectiveness" of the police while simultaneously strengthening their "democratic ethos and accountability" (bailey and dammert 2006, p. 2). incrementally and cumulatively, these reforms significantly reduced some of the most egregious historical patterns of police misconduct and contributed to the professionalization of police activity in buenos aires. despite this, the legitimacy of the city police remains highly contested. what explains this outcome? and what does the analysis of democratic police reform in buenos aires reveal about similar processes in other metropolises of the global south marked by memories of state-sponsored violence and high levels of socio-spatial inequality? empirically, i draw on over 100 interviews with differently-positioned actors with intimate knowledge of reforms, including police, public officials, activists, and academic experts. i also draw on data collected through direct observation of dozens of police trainings and local security forums. theoretically, i conceptualize democratic police reform as a radical field upheaval that upsets established power dynamics and catalyzes new material and symbolic struggles which play out at within the "field of fields" of state power (arnholtz &amp; hammerslev, 2013). i argue that, in large capital cities like buenos aires, democratic police reforms prompt material and symbolic struggles within the field of policing and in the space of overlap between the field of policing, the field of politics, the juridical field, and the field of organized crime. through the detailed analysis of each wave of reform, i show how these fields were reconfigured through public deliberations and the "gray zone of politics" (auyero, 2007) that connects police to politicians, judicial operators, and organized criminal groups through selective application of the law. i show how attention to field configurations can help explain not only the characteristics of reforms but also their effects on police practices, particularly violence and corruption. in parallel, i trace how these three waves of police reform were experienced and collectively interpreted by what i refer to as "fragmented urban publics." i argue that in contexts of extreme socio-spatial inequality, like buenos aires, differently-situated actors have fundamentally distinct understandings of what is wrong with the police and, hence, what needs to be reformed. moreover, they may disagree on the 'right role' of the police in regulating urban conflict. by prompting debate on these questions, democratic police reforms can reproduce or exacerbate pre-existing social divisions that cluster around class or political-ideological orientation. i conceptualize police legitimacy as a contingent, relational, and multi-dimensional social construct (bottoms &amp; tankebe, 2012; tankebe, 2013), which varies based on peoples' habitual interactions with the police and their ideologically-mediated understanding of the 'right' role of the police. in light of this conceptualization, i argue that democratic police reforms can simultaneously strengthen police legitimacy among certain publics, while undermining it for others. freshwater lakes are an important component of the global methane cycle and a contributor to atmospheric methane concentrations. from recent estimates, freshwater lakes account for 6-16% of total natural methane emissions and lake methane emissions are estimated to offset an equivalent of 25% of the land carbon sink each year. however, methane production and emission are incredibly variable across lakes, and a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms that contribute to this variation has yet to be achieved. at the ecosystem scale, variation in lake methane dynamics is correlated with temperature, anoxia, and organic matter supply. however, methane is the product of microbial metabolism and variation in how microbes are influenced by environmental conditions and how they utilize organic matter sources may also provide meaningful differences in overall rates of methane production. recent advances in sequencing technologies now allow us to determine differences in microbial community composition across space and time and to explicitly consider the influence of these differences on ecosystem-scale processes. in this dissertation, i use field and laboratory approaches to investigate sources of variation in lake methane dynamics across both microbial and ecosystem scales. my dissertation draws mechanistic links between sediment microbial community composition and lake methane dynamics by investigating how both microbial communities and ecosystem processes are individually influenced by the environment, as well as how microbial communities may mediate ecosystem responses to environmental change. using comparative field data, i first determine landscape level patterns in lake sediment microbial community composition (chapter 2) and quantify the relationships between lake methane dynamics and primary productivity across both time and space (chapter 3). i demonstrate that lake methane responses to changes in primary productivity are variable and i provide evidence for the role of the microbial community in influencing this variation as mediated by cross-lake variation in ph. based on these results, i directly test the effects of ph on microbial community assembly and function using experimental incubations (chapter 4). i find that ph is a driver of community assembly, and that microbial community composition influences sediment function independent of ph. finally, i utilize the confirmed relationship between ph and microbial community composition to experimentally test whether variation in methane responses to organic matter supply is related to microbial community composition (chapter 5). i find that microbial community composition, but not abundance, is significantly related to the response of sediment methane production to experimental additions of organic material. together, these four chapters enhance our understanding of the regulators of lake methane production and provide critical evidence for the role of sediment microbial community composition in mediating ecosystem responses to environmental change. what is indigenous philosophy and how does it relate to the western tradition? this dissertation addresses those two questions. existing scholarship on the intersection of indigenous and western philosophy emphasizes dialogue between indigenous thought and liberal multiculturalism, marxism, and critical theory. while these relations are useful, i argue that they all come at the expense of attention to indigenous thought's positive substance. instead, paying close mind to the substance of indigenous thought in the realm of natural, ethical, and political philosophy reveals that it has more in common with contemporary aristotelian philosophy. both paradigms of thought, i suggest, understand the natural world to be purposive and inherently moral, have an account of habituated moral practices that are not rule or ends-oriented, and suggest that political life is at its best when practiced in relatively small communities oriented around the common good. after chapters on each of these realms of philosophy, i conclude by turning to debates about sovereignty in contemporary politics. though some scholars suggest that the common law tradition in north america has the resources to endorse indigenous sovereignty claims, i argue that they do not. instead, i suggest that the most strident defenses ofindigenous sovereignty in the north american legal tradition are based in some conception of natural law. given that indigenous accounts of sovereignty are also connected to indigenous natural law, i argue that these debates on sovereignty reaffirms my overall argument that indigenous philosophy finds more resonances with western political philosophy rooted in the aristotelian tradition. legged robots are desirable for many applications, especially in man-made environments where having legs is a distinct advantage over having wheels. the legged robots in these applications must be both robust to disturbances and energetically efficient, and achieving these characteristics represents two of the most pressing challenges within the field. this work seeks to experimentally demonstrate that the use of curved feet under hybrid zero dynamics (hzd) -based control offers efficiency benefits and to make hzd-based controllers more robust to velocity disturbances. these aims were investigated using the biped robot ernie, which was transitioned from treadmill walking to continuous overground walking. efficiency improvements of curved feet over point feet were demonstrated by improving a previous model to appropriately account for curved foot impacts. curved foot gaits, in general, had decreased specific resistance, a measure of energy consumption per distance traveled, and smaller joint errors compared to point-foot gaits at similar speeds. robustness improvements were made by developing new controllers to reject velocity disturbances in experiment. an orbit-stabilizing control approach was successful at rejecting impulsive angular velocity disturbances applied to a simplified system in simulation, but control algorithm was too complex to implement in hardware. however, heuristic rules for disturbance rejection in hardware were developed from implementing the dominant control responses to disturbance from the orbit-stabilizing controller. these control actions modify the trajectories of the torso and swing leg in response to a deviation from desired forward hip velocity. the heuristic-based control had increased efficiency (lower specific resistance) compared to the hzd-based control, smoothing the average step velocity around the room by reducing the accelerations and decelerations present with the original controller. additionally, in response to both acceleration and deceleration disturbances, the heuristic-based controller returned to within 10% of the desired average step velocity in at most half the steps as with the hzd-based controller. with the expanse of the internet and the increased reliance on computer networking technology for everyday business, the need to protect electronic data and communication from malicious attack has become increasingly critical. this dissertation addresses the rogue system problem, a significant threat in modern networks. a rogue system is a device installed within a network without the authorization or knowledge of network administrators, which is typically engaged in unauthorized activities. these systems pose a major threat to network data and resources, potentially resulting in the exposure of sensitive information or network performance degradation. this dissertation presents analysis and solutions for rogue system threats within a cooperative distributed network environment and within various types of wireless environments. in addition, a tool is presented which enables high speed network packet logging, for the purpose of rogue system detection, using inexpensive equipment in a scalable distributed storage infrastructure. the major contributions of this dissertation are as follows. the development of a secure communication protocol which protects a distributed network from potential rogue system attacks while enabling the implementation of bandwidth conservation techniques for efficiency. an important enhancement of a standard wireless communication protocol for the purpose of preventing both insider and outsider rogue eavesdropping attacks. a novel packet payload slicing technique for the purpose of detecting rogue wireless access points within a corporate network environment. an analysis of the potential of host-based rogue wireless man-in-the-middle attack detection. the development of a tool for high speed traffic analysis to aid in rogue system detection. rogue system threats will continue to grow as networks become more complex and new attack techniques evolve to better evade detection. the future direction of this work includes applying these techniques to newly identified threats for the purpose of gauging the effectiveness of the proposed methods and to aid in discovering new means of defending against rogue system attacks. in addition, rogue threats in less traditional types of network environments, such as peer-to-peer and personal area networks, will be addressed in order to provide protection from all means of electronic rogue system attacks. this study presents gregory the great as a theologian, in the sense of his having a cohesive body of teaching, even a system, although not systematically expressed. i draw out this system by studying gregory's concept of "sacrifice," a point of convergence that theologically synthesizes his views on god, the created world, the human person, the incarnation, the church, and the christian journey to full participation in the divine life. "sacrifice," as a way into gregory's thought, demonstrates the propriety of calling him a "theologian." in the long-running late antique debate on the nature of christian "perfection," gregory's sacrificial theology of human life with god makes a speculative contribution: a new theory of perfect love that makes possible an aspiration to contemplative perfection even in worldly life. this achievement illuminates the ever-murky questions of gregory's relationships to predecessors and his legacy for the future. his teaching on sacrifice accomplishes a theological re-negotiation of the clashing traditions of augustine and cassian, opening a broad horizon of new cultural possibilities by elaborating a theory of spiritual perfection capacious enough to embrace the secular. a stream-poem exploring memory-as-echo, voice and performance. this dissertation examines the complex interconnections among local church discipline, competitive party politics, and the ordering of public morality in the nineteenth-century upper south, illuminating southern evangelicals' once-ambivalent view of the state and their contested path to supporting moral legislation. historians have long noted an apolitical strain in southern religious life, citing anti-abolitionism as well as a variety of theological tendencies to explain evangelicals' disengagement from public matters. more recent accounts have revised this one-dimensional narrative by drawing attention to a more publicly assertive religious impulse. yet this literature has not addressed how the regional persistence of church discipline shaped fundamental conflicts over the public moral order, including the authority of churches over civil matters, the place of ministers and religious rhetoric in public life, and the role of the state in enforcing morality. this dissertation argues that as regulatory bodies in their own right, churches were both sites of political conflict over what constituted 'sin' and local, voluntary governing institutions that fostered resistance to the political tactics and statist paternalism of moral reformers. the pathway to viewing breaches of public morality as 'crimes' was conflicted; it passed through intense denominational and political strife before the civil war, strategic changes in allegiance during the war, and new political-religious alliances after the conflict. local churches therefore provide crucial context for understanding the anti-abolitionist rhetoric of apolitical christianity and the region?s long struggle between moral paternalism and 'republican' liberty. indeed, only after the decline of church discipline did formerly resistant evangelicals embrace the state as a necessary ally in the fight against sin. research that combines extensive examination of local church records with wide use of published material from church and secular sources explains a great deal about the singular history of religion and politics for a divided region in tortuous times. what are the key factors that determine ombudsman effectiveness in fragile democracies? can a human rights ombudsman be effective at all without sanctioning powers in a context of institutional weakness? this dissertation addresses these fundamental questions. instead of simply assuming the independence of ombudsman head officers based on the autonomy formally accorded to them in their respective constitutions and laws, this study analyzes and measures the actual behavioral independence demonstrated by the individuals that have served as ombudsman chief officers since the creation of the agency in bolivia, ecuador and peru. this dissertation's most important theoretical contribution to the field of comparative politics and to latin american politics is that formal institutional arrangements did not explain the significant degrees of variance in effectiveness and in behavioral independence of ombudsman chief officers. my research shows instead that the ombudsman head officer's political independence with relation to the government is the key to the perception of ombudsman effectiveness. while ombudsman head officers in ecuador have relatively higher legal attributions, they were not willing to use such attributions because of fear of informal sanctions, specially the stagnation, reduction or even termination of public funding and/or removal from office. my findings pointed at the great significance of ombudsman head officers' political independence in relation to the government and the political forces in congress. the human rights ombudsman must be perceived as an impartial agency if it is to be effective. the support of the international donor community is another necessary condition when ombudsman funding is decided by the executive. the additional funding provided by international agencies allowed ombudsman head officers in bolvia and peru to build a relative financial autonomy vis a vis the executive. this study also shows that while having enough funding is obviously important, the source of the funding is more important than the total number allocated, because it is the source of the funding what strengthens the chief officer's independence with relation to the government. in this thesis, i aim to understand the genetic and transcriptomic causes of artemisinin resistance and predict what drugs may prove effective in combination with artemisinin. artemisinin resistance raises alarming concerns for the eradication efforts of malaria: if the resistance were to spread from southeast asia to africa, as has previous anti-malarial resistances, the consequences are predicted to be dire. further exacerbating the situation is the reports of resistance to artemisinin combination therapies, the front-line treatment as recommended by the world health organization, combining artemisinin with a long-lasting partner drug. to combat the spread of artemisinin and artemisinin combination therapy resistances, an understanding of artemisinin's mechanism of action, the resistance mechanisms against artemisinin, and more rationally designed combination therapies are required.in the first section of my thesis, i take a genetic approach understand artemisinin resistance. using a recently generated genetic cross whose parents have diverging artemisinin resistance phenotypes, i aim to determine the genetic loci controlling artemisinin resistance. what makes this approach unique is that the resistant parent harbors no k13 mutations, the genetic marker of resistance in the field. although i find no suggestive or significant peak associated with artemisinin response, i do find two weaker peaks on chromosome 11 and 12, one which corresponds to pfmrp2, a gene involved in multitude of drug responses. i also attempt to develop a high throughput alternative to measure artemisinin response.in the second section of my thesis, i take a transcriptomic approach to understand artemisinin resistance. i collect transcription samples from 55 southeast asian isolates across two timepoints, two perturbations, and in replicate to understand how the biology of artemisinin resistant parasites has changed. using gene co-expression networks and applying systems biology approaches, i find that gene co-expression networks illuminate known biology about artemisinin, including putative functions of k13. additionally, i discover two genes, a putative dna helicase mcm9 and an osmiophilic body protein g377 are two strong candidates whose functions are important for artemisinin response and resistance, with support of previously published data. i show how the functions of these two genes may have changed under differing conditions, highlighting dna damage as a potentially important pathway in understanding artemisinin and its effect on malaria.in the third and final chapter of my dissertation i perturb three southeast asian isolates with thirty drugs/compounds of diverse targets and mechanisms, in addition to dihydroartemisinin, to determine what drugs may work best in combination with artemisinin. transcriptional responses to drugs/compounds have previously proven to be a strong predictor of drug synergy in other models, and here i apply the same logic to malaria. i find that two drugs/compounds, namely epoxomicin and cisplatin seem to show high promise for more synergy than the currently used anti-malarials. epoxomicin and cisplatin also seem to perturb g377 and mcm9 strongly and in the same manner as dihydroartemisinin, further encouraging their targets/mechanisms as potential combination therapy targets for future use. overly positive self-perceptions have been generally associated with psychological health. recent research has suggested, however, that these overly positive perceptions may also be associated with aggressive or violent behavior. the current study examined the relation between aggressive behavior and self-perceptions in an adolescent population (grades 7-12). we examined both cross-sectional and longitudinal relations, and looked at both change in individual differences and individual differences in change. we examined all longitudinal hypotheses bi-directionally. we used multi-dimensional measures of self-concept that are tailored specifically to assess domains relevant to adolescents. aircraft trailing vortex wakes are commonly referred to as `wake turbulence' and may pose a flight safety hazard to other aircraft that may encounter the wake. this hazard is of critical interest during the take-off and landing stages of flight, where aircraft are in the closest proximity to one another. during these flight stages, it is common for transport aircraft to be in a high-lift, or flaps down, configuration. in an effort to study these wakes a generic four-vortex wake is generated experimentally, such that the results are independent of a specific wing loading condition. three principle objectives served to focus the research project that is presented in this dissertation. the first two objectives were to develop an improved understanding of the wake configurations that were conducive to large instability growth rates and to subsequently use quantitative methods to identify the instability modes that dominate the far-field wake dynamic. with a clear understanding of the physics of an unstable aircraft wake, the third objective of the research project was to use this newly attained information to recommend methods for a reliable wake control strategy. a compilation of flow visualization results shows a design space of counter-rotating wake configurations, defined by the circulation and span ratios, where rapidly amplifying instabilities are consistently seen to exist. this design space is also seen to encompass rigidly-translating wake systems. a combination of quantitative flow visualization estimates, hot-wire anemometry and an analytical stability analysis was successful in identifying two forms of bending wave instability, namely the long and short-wavelength modes. having identified two bending instability modes in the experimental wake, it was possible to suggest a strategy by which these modes could be exploited for the control of aircraft wakes. upregulation of the activated factor vii (fviia)/tissue factor (tf) complex, downregulation of natural anticoagulation pathways, and inhibition of fibrinolysis, are major contributors to coagulopathies associated with acute inflammation. provision of fviia, and consequent downstream coagulation-related proteases, also stimulates further inflammatory changes. thus, the potential protective effects in vivo of a genetic-based reduction in fvii levels have been investigated in a murine model of acute inflammation, viz., lipopolysaccharide (lps)-induced lethal endotoxemia. since mice with a total fvii deficiency do not survive the neonatal period, very low-expressing fvii (fviitta/tta) mice, producing sufficient amounts of fvii for survival (ca., 1% of wt fvii), were employed to investigate in vivo pathways involved in the crosstalk between coagulation, inflammation, and survival, consequent to administration of a lethal dose of lps. the fviitta/tta mice presented with reduced mortality, coagulation, and inflammatory responses when compared to similarly-treated wild-type (wt) mice after administration of lps. the attenuated inflammatory responses in fviitta/tta mice were associated with downregulation of egr-1 signaling. administration, in vivo, of specific inhibitors of fxa and thrombin demonstrated that the inflammatory responses were unaltered in wt mice, but further reduced in fviitta/tta mice. therefore, a fvii deficiency enhances survival from lethal endotoxemia both through attenuation of inflammatory responses that result directly from reduced fviia levels, and, indirectly, from downregulation of coagulation proteases downstream of the fvii-dependent cascade. keratinocytes from skin tissue are rich sources of tissue factor and are highly associated with skin wound healing. however, studies of the involvement of extrinsic coagulation factors during skin wound healing are still lacking. here we demonstrated that low fvii mice exhibited impaired skin wound healing. these gene-deficiency mice showed delayed re-epithelialization and reduced inflammatory cell infiltration at wound sites compared with control mice. the reduced inflammatory response in low fvii mice was also demonstrated using a thioglycollate induced inflammatory model. the delayed re-epthelialization in low fvii mice was associated with regulation of egr-1 as demonstrated by the increased expression level of egr-1 by fviia stimulation in keratinocytes. in vitro, egr-1 was shown to be essential for fviia induced keratinocytes migration and inflammation. in vivo, egr-1 deficient mice displayed a significant delay of skin wound healing. my dissertation examines the literary representation of welshness in medieval perceval romances, challenging the assumption that this category of identity is a remnant of the celtic origins of perceval and grail romance. instead i argue that perceval's welshness is a way for these authors to engage their patrons and audiences in questions about what it means to be british in the middle ages. in my study i examine a series of texts which have hitherto been classified as 'grail romances' and argue that they are instead perceval romances: that is, tales preoccupied not with the object of the hero's quest but with his identity development. whether in chrìäå©tien de troyes's conte du graal, the middle english sir percyvell of galles, or the morte darthur of sir thomas malory, perceval's mistakes are as essential to the plots of these romances as his achievements are. one clue to the medieval association of perceval with identity is the recurring epithet li galois or de galles, the welshman, the one from wales. although perceval's welshness is characterized differently in each romance, it always surfaces in relation to questions about his name, ancestry, achievement, education, and fitness to belong to chivalric society. his welshness endures, even when his relationship to the grail does not. ultimately, perceval's struggles with his own identity represent the struggles of individual readers to forge their own identities within communities. this dissertation is a study in the history of the reception of the qurʾān in the early islamic centuries using material from this period, in particular writings by muslim and arabophone christian writers. simply put, my main hypothesis is that regardless of the authors' intentions and the overall agenda of their works, writings from the early islamic centuries that invoke the qurʾān tell us something about the reception of the qurʾān during this early period. to this end, i investigate four key qurʾānic passages—q 112; 4:171; 3:45-51; and 5:116-120—which are among the loci of arabophone christian and muslim debates in the early centuries, and are therefore frequently cited and studied in theological writings early on. in each case study i employ a two-tiered comparative structure: first, comparing early theological muslim and arabophone christian approaches, and then comparing the interpretative approaches and priorities in these theological texts to those presented in select works of early classical tafsīr. the picture we have is one of an exegetical feedback loop, with christians relying on, as well as reacting to, muslim data, and vice versa. contra allegations of instrumentalist usages of the qurʾān in apologetics, i contend that the sacred text left a deep imprint on arabophone christians and their theological enterprise. incorporating arabic christian readings of the qurʾān inevitably enriches our understanding of the reception of the sacred text, and indeed helps us better capture the dynamism characteristic of the interreligious context of qurʾān interpretation in the early islamic centuries. the three objectives of this longitudinal study were to examine temperamental perceptual sensitivity (ibq-r; gartstein &amp; rothbart, 2003) as a predictor of cognitive growth at 20 months, attachment style (strange situation; ainsworth et al., 1978) as a predictor of infant cognitive growth (mental development index scores; bayley, 1993) at 20 months, and the moderating effect of attachment x perceptual sensitivity on cognitive growth at 20 months. two latent basis models with mother-infant attachment security, and father-infant attachment security, respectively, were used to address the research questions. the relationship between attachment security and cognitive outcomes is established but understudied. attachment security is associated with academic achievement, language competence, developed vocabularies in children (i.e. van ijzendoorn et al., 1995; sroufe, 2005; pallini et al., 2014), yet there is very little research on cognitive outcomes in infancy or toddlerhood (i.e. ding, 2014). virtually no research exists on the relationship between perceptual sensitivity and cognitive outcomes. latent basis growth curve models revealed that attachment security with mothers was a significant predictor of mdi scores in infants at age 20 months. temperamental perceptual sensitivity significantly predicted mdi scores in infants at age 20 months in the mother-infant attachment model. the father-infant attachment model revealed non-significant results. an exploratory aim of this study was to discern differences between the results of the mother-infant attachment model, and the father-infant attachment model, which were present. therefore, this study also adds to the literature distinguishing father-infant attachment from mother-infant attachment. acylnitroso cycloadducts have proven to be valuable intermediates in the syntheses of a plethora of biologically active molecules. the utility of relatively simple intermediates arises from the multitude of divergent pathways which can be accessed. for many years the miller lab has been at the forefront in the discovery of methodologies by which the acylnitroso cycloadduct core may be modified. recently, organometallic reagents were shown to open bicyclic acylnitroso cycloadducts and, more interestingly, the prospect of highly regioselective openings was raised. this transformation was employed in the synthesis of a compound with the expectation of inhibitory activity against 5-lipoxygenase, an important mediator of inflammation intimately involved in a number of disease states including asthma and cancer. in fact, the compound proved to be an extremely potent inhibitor (ic50 51 ì_åám). the focus of the research described in this work was to expand upon these chemical and biological discoveries. the first issue addressed was the optimization of the copper-mediated organometallic ring opening reaction. conditions which led to exclusive &gamma;-addition were discovered and employed to produce sufficient material for derivatization of the core structure. interestingly certain aspects of the optimized reaction ran counter to the commonly employed conditions for &gamma;-selective copper-catalyzed allylic addition. in addition, with respect to biological activity, three sites on the lead compound were chosen for derivatization. the three sites, deemed zones 1, 2, and 3, were the iron binding group, the diaryl ether, and the cyclopentene core, respectively. zone 1 was addressed first and synthesis of a number of derivatives with varying affinity for metal binding as well as pendant groups in a range of sizes was accomplished. additionally, a transcarbamoylation reaction was discovered which allowed the t-butyl n-hydroxycarbamates to be converted to methyl n-hydroxycarbamates in one high yielding step. exploration of zone 2 was initially envisioned to proceed through an aryl halide intermediate which, via palladium-catalyzed coupling, would provide the desired substituted diaryl ethers. the problematic synthesis of the aryl halide intermediate coupled with difficulties associated with the palladium-catalyzed reaction ultimately led to abandonment of this route. an alternative route employing copper-mediated coupling of phenols and arylboronic acids was designed, executed effectively, and, after modification of the protecting group strategy, provided a set of analogues suitable for the exploration of zone 2. synthetic work on zone 3 derivatives was limited and although met with some success was not expanded upon. allylic oxidations of the lead structure were attempted with numerous established reagents and conditions and in all cases failed to provide a useful intermediate. hydroboration of the cyclopentene core successfully provided ketones after oxidation. further exploration of this route was limited and, while unsuccessful, opportunity still exists for derivatization via this route. a final route employing the aminocyclopentenol from n-o bond reduction of the acylnitroso cycloadduct was unsuccessfully explored. biological evaluation of the analogues was undertaken first through the implementation of an in-house biochemical assay. the instability of the 5-lipoxygenase enzyme along with potential interference of the inhibitors with the developing reagent necessitated an alternative evaluation procedure. through a collaboration several zone 1 analogues were tested in a whole cell assay and, while specific ic50s were not determined, very interesting results were obtained. the assay revealed a subset of the compounds to be inhibitors of enzyme translocation, a mode of action not previously known and, potentially, extremely important for better understanding of the enzyme and inhibitor development. additionally, the lead compound was tested in vivo in an established colon cancer model and showed very encouraging anti-tumorogenic properties. this study examines the work of italian political theorist giorgio agamben and his complex expropriations and critical reappraisals of the christian intellectual tradition, focusing on his unique mediations of the thematics of the kingdom of god. unlike previous studies of this and other related topics, this project aims to show that agamben's work is not only thoroughly informed by theology, but that it can also be productively interpreted as itself a kind of political theology, as presenting a constructive account of christian theory and praxis in the space of modern politics. this argument will be developed and tested through an exegetical analysis of five interrelated parts of agamben's work: (1) his overarching homo sacer project; (2) his early engagements with christian eschatology, particularly the coming community; (3) his later reflections on pauline theology and the early christian community; (4) his multifaceted discussions of the franciscan tradition and its "rule" (regula fidei); and (5) his "homily" at notre-dame cathedral in paris. the last will serve to ground a more synthetic account of agamben's broader understanding of christian messianism and the politics of the kingdom. we will subsequently compare this account with other operative paradigms of political theology, focusing on the "magisterial" approaches of pope emeritus benedict xvi and german theologian johann baptist metz, the "radical orthodoxy" of anglican theologian john milbank, and the "weak theology" of italian philosopher gianni vattimo and american academic john d. caputo. ultimately, we will suggest that agamben offers a franciscan alternative to augustinian political theology, and in so doing, a new lens for thinking about the church as an actor within the crises of modern sovereignty and biopolitical modernity. the overwintering physiology of aquatic insects has not been well characterized. the stonefly, nemoura arctica, was collected from the headwaters of the chandalar river, where streambed temperatures measured as low as -12.7ìü ác in midwinter. when in contact with ice, n. arctica froze at -1.5ìâå±0.4ìü ác, but individuals survived temperatures down to -15ìü ác, making this the first described species of freeze tolerant stonefly. nemoura arctica produce both glycerol and ice thermal hysteresis factors in response to low temperature. hemolymph glycerol concentrations increased from 3 mm to 930ìâå±114 mm in response to acclimation at -8ìü ác and glycerol concentrations increased even after nymphs were frozen. although, the hemolymph of individual cold acclimated nymphs occasionally exhibited more than a degree of thermal hysteresis, typically the hemolymph exhibited only hexagonal crystal growth and recrystallization inhibition. the freeze tolerant beetle upis ceramboides is the only animal species known to accumulate high concentrations of threitol (250 mm) as a cryoprotectant; however the biosynthetic pathway has not been investigated. in vivo metabolism of 13c-labeled glucose isotopomers was monitored by 13c{1h} nmr spectroscopy, demonstrating that c3-c6 of glucose become c1-c4 of threitol, which is expected for four-carbon saccharides arising from the pentose phosphate pathway (ppp). in vitro experiments show that threitol is synthesized from erythrose 4-phosphate (e4p), a c4 intermediate in the ppp. threitol 4-phosphate appears to be the preferred substrate of the sugar phosphatase(s), promoting threitol synthesis over that of erythritol. in addition, erythritol is catabolized under conditions that promote threitol synthesis, leading to the accumulation of high concentrations of threitol without concomitant accumulation of erythritol. upis ceramboides also produces a novel, highly active antifreeze glycolipid. this glycolipid exhibits 3.7ìâå±0.3ìü ác of thermal hysteresis at 5 mg/ml, whereas fish af(g)ps exhibit only 1.5ìü ác of thermal hysteresis at 20-40 mg/ml. consistent with our structural determinations, thermal hysteresis activity is unaffected by protease, but is rapidly lost upon treatment with endo ì_å_-(1?4) xylanase. this is the first high molecular weight antifreeze to be isolated from a freeze tolerant animal. we have subsequently isolated similar th-active glycolipids from numerous organisms, including other insects, plants, fish and amphibians. radiative decays of b-mesons are ideal laboratories for probing new physics (np). since flavor-changing neutral currents are forbidden at tree-level in the standard model (sm), a loop diagram is necessary to facilitate the b ? xs&gamma; transition, where xs represents any strange hadronic final state. new physics particles can potentially propagate in this loop, and if the np couplings are comparableto those of the sm, deviations from the sm prediction of the b ? xs&gamma; branching fraction could be observed. the current sm prediction for bf(b ? xs&gamma;) has been obtained with good precision, requiring a precise measurement to make any definitive statement on the presence of np.a precision measurement of the b ? xs&gamma; analysis at babar has been performed. to compare directly with the sm prediction, the b ? xs&gamma; branching fraction must be measured inclusively, where all xs final states are taken into account. this is achieved by only reconstructing the high-energy photon from thedecay. consequently, the signal is overwhelmed with backgrounds from continuum processes and non-signal b-meson decays. a series of selection criteria is imposed to suppress continuum background. the remaining continuum background is subtracted with data taken 40 mev below the ì '(4s) resonance. photon backgrounds from bb events primarily originate from ì ââ0(ì_åá) ? &gamma;&gamma decays, as well as radiativedecays of ì '¡ and ì_åá' mesons. energy deposits from electrons and antineutrons alsoimitate photons from b ? xs&gamma; decays. these backgrounds are subtracted using data-corrected monte carlo (mc) simulation of bb events.the signal region of 1.8 < e&gamma;* < 2.8 gev is not looked at until the selection criteria and data-corrected mc backgrounds are fixed. a set of control region checks must be satisfied before the signal region is unblinded, after which the background-subtracted photon spectrum is efficiency-corrected. after a series of corrections related to reference frame differences, photon energy extrapolation, and removal of the b ? xd&gamma; contribution, a total branching fraction is obtained:bf(b ? xs&gamma;)e&gamma;* >1.6gev = (3.28 ìâå± 0.16 ìâå± 0.28 ìâå± 0.10) ìä' 10ì¢è '4 , where the errors are the statistical, systematic, and model-dependent uncertainties, respectively. this result is consistent with the sm and can be used to place stringent constraints on np theories. to successfully guide attention toward a relevant object, the observer must have information about the defining (or essential) features of that object. often, the observer also has information about non-essential features of the target, the distractors, or both; however, such ancillary information is often not manipulated independently of the essential information, and so its role in top-down guidance is unclear. accordingly, the present study was designed to assess whether ancillary information can influence the guidance of attention using a visual search task in which observers searched for one of two target letters within a central array while trying to ignore a peripheral distractor. in this study, the two target letters were distinguished from the non-target letters by their form and they were distinguished from the peripheral distractor by their spatial location, thereby making form and location essential. in addition, the color of the target and non-target letters matched the color of the distractor in one condition, but they mismatched the peripheral distractor in another condition, thereby making color ancillary to the task. this ancillary color information was provided about the distractor in experiment 1 and it was provided about the target in experiments 2, 3, and 4. the ability of ancillary color information to guide attention was measured by the amount of interference that was generated by incompatible distracters relative to neutral distracters. in addition, this guidance was investigated under both low (experiments 1 and 2) and high (experiments 3 and 4) levels of perceptual load. in the low load condition, guidance by ancillary color information was predicted to be reflected by a reduction in distractor interference in the color mismatch condition relative to the color match condition. however, the results of experiment 1 and 2 suggested that such guidance did not occur under conditions of low load, regardless of whether ancillary color information was provided about the distractor or the target. in the high load condition, guidance by ancillary color information was predicted to be reflected by an increase in distractor interference in the color match condition relative to the color mismatch condition. the results were consistent with this prediction, as long as the salience of the distractor was controlled (as in experiment 4). altogether the present findings extend our understanding of the role of top-down information in the guidance of attention, while also establishing initial boundary conditions for these effects. implications for major theories of attention such guided search and perceptual load are discussed. using the stolz-teichner framework of supersymmetric euclidean field theories (efts), we provide geometric interpretations of some aspects of the algebraic topology of orbifolds.we begin with a classification of 0|1-dimensional twists for efts over an orbifold x, and show that the collection of concordance classes of twisted efts over the inertia λx is in natural bijection with the delocalized twisted cohomology of x (which is isomorphic to its complexified k-theory). then, turning to 1|1-dimensional considerations, we construct a (partial) twist functor over x taking as input a class in h³(x; ℤ).next, we define a dimensional reduction procedure relating the 0|1-dimensional euclidean bordism category over λx and its 1|1-dimensional counterpart over x, and explore some applications. as a basic example, we show that dimensional reduction of untwisted efts over a global quotient orbifold x//g recovers the equivariant chern character. finally, we describe the dimensional reduction of the 1|1-twist built earlier, showing that it has the expected relation to twisted k-theory. the stress-generation model of depression (hammen, 1991) posits that people with current or past depression behave in ways that generate more frequent negative stressful life events, and that this, in turn, leads to the maintenance or recurrence of depression. this model has been well-supported, but investigations have primarily focused on associations between global traits and later stress. this study employs sequential analysis of utterance-by-utterance coded marital interactions for evidence of specific behaviors contributing to interpersonal stress generation. results indicated that negative comments about the spouse and positive comments about the self elicit criticism, whereas negative self-comments, positive-spouse comments, and positive-situation comments elicit support. contrary to hypotheses, partners with a history of depression did not engage in more criticism-eliciting behaviors than never-depressed partners; however, they did engage in more support-eliciting behaviors (when controlling for dyadic adjustment) even though their spouses did not provide more support, which supports the excessive-reassurance seeking model. functionalized porous membranes are powerful tools for rapid protein isolation or digestion prior to mass spectrometry (ms) analysis. aiming to increase protein accessibility to affinity binding sites in polyelectrolyte multilayers, layer-by-layer (lbl) adsorption of star-shaped polyelectrolytes in microporous membranes create porous coatings. such coatings yield membranes that bind up to 120 mg of lysozyme per ml of membrane, which is double the capacity of commercial ion-exchange beads. to create membranes that selectively capture tagged proteins, we develop a convenient method to synthesize nitrilotriacetate (nta)-containing polyelectrolytes. subsequent adsorption of these polymers in membrane pores gives porous nylon membranes that capture 46 mg of his-tagged ubiquitin per ml. due to the high affinity of nta for metal ions, ni2+ leaching in binding and rinsing buffers is minimal. adsorption of either star polyelectrolytes or nta-containing polymers in porous membranes could create materials that serve as ion-exchange or metal-ion affinity disposable membranes. analysis of protein sequences and post-translational modifications (ptms) often requires proteolysis followed by ms. conventional in-solution proteolytic digestion employs long incubation time and generates numerous small peptides, which complicates analysis. we recently developed a protease-containing spin-membrane platform to achieve rapid protein digestion. centrifugation of monoclonal antibodies (mabs) through these membranes leads to digestion &lt;1 minute. proteolytic peptides analyzed with ms cover ~100% of the mab sequences with ptms identified. compared to in-solution digestion, spin digestion yields higher sequence coverages due to larger peptides. this method is easy to expand for high-throughput sample preparation and analysis.rapid, convenient methods for mab isolation are critical for determining its concentrations in human serum. conventional techniques such as enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays are costly and time-consuming. we created membranes containing mimotope peptides which could specifically isolate herceptin from human serum with a binding capacity up to 10 mg per ml of membrane. lc-ms demonstrates the high purity of eluted herceptin, and lc-ms/ms identifies nonspecific binding species in small amounts. capture and elution followed by native fluorescence analysis allows determination of herceptin concentrations over the range expected in diluted serum. future studies with spin membranes or membranes in 96-well plates may afford convenient mab analyses in &lt;20 min. in 1535, francisco pizarro founded lima, peru in the middle of a coastal dessert. its residents transformed the landscape to build a colonial capital and in the process, the landscape shaped local understandings of race, gender, social status and power. lima's urban environment created a public health discourse that focused on the relationship between the natural world and human welfare. these discussions emerged in response to the rapid rate of lima's growth and the challenges it faced, including deforestation, food supply challenges, and the concentration of waste, disease, and illness. i argue that lima's cabildo [municipal government], comprised of just a fraction of the population, seized on these adversities to empower themselves over the majority of the population, promote their interests, and negotiate interactions between humans and their environs. using the discourse of colonial bodies, health, and the natural world, town councilmen endeavored to control a racially and socially diverse population that surpassed 25,000 people by 1614. in this dissertation, i explore the connections among gender equity, the macroeconomy, and macroeconomic analysis. although many economists study issues of gender equality in microeconomic analyses, the ways that gender interacts with the macroeconomy have only recently become a subject of interest.in the first chapter, i explore five different schools of economic thought and the various ways that women have been included in economic analysis. the second chapter extends this discussion, focusing on a particular subfield of economics that, traditionally, has not incorporated a gender component--macroeconomic and stabilization policymaking. i discuss how international economic policies have neglected one aspect of global macroeconomic outcomes: its disproportionate and adverse effects on women. i look at the ways in which the structure of many macro-models contributes to this problem.the third chapter examines some of the conclusions from the second chapter in more detail, focusing on unpaid labor and macro-development modeling. though macroeconomic policy shapes the experiences, welfare, and productivity of both paid and unpaid workers, most macroeconomic models today--even those incorporating gender--do not include unpaid labor in their analyses. i contrast the structure and implications of models including the unpaid sphere of social reproduction or household work, to those of one of the newer imf/wb models (the so-called rmsm-x+lp model). this model is progressive because it integrates poverty and labor modules into its monetary and fiscal framework; however, it still neglects the role of unpaid labor. i conclude that such models are not easily integrated with gender, and a more comprehensive revaluation of unpaid work and macro-consistency accounting models is required. the final chapter provides a cursory look at the ways in which gender is integrated into the mission and structure of research divisions at the world bank. i hypothesize that one reason world bank researchers have difficulty integrating gender with macroeconomic and development policy is that the organizational structure at the world bank has a separate division of research for gender. while, on the surface, this makes the importance of gender seem apparent, it also isolates gender research from other divisions such as macroeconomics and growth. this thesis is made up of one half of a novel, titled the yearning sessions, and a long fiction story, titled "lifestory: a memoir." though different in both form and content, these fictions share a number of thematic investigations: explorations of new masculinities in american culture, fabular and fantastical figurations of the midwest region, and the artistic convergence of the theoretical concepts of memory and haunting. though relegated concertedly to the realm of fiction, or fantasy, even, these writings also contain a pointedly autobiographical character, meant to imbue the work with honest, if purposefully baroque, emotional resonance. in recent years, electromagnetic waves in the thz frequency region have attracted increased interest owing to their prospective applications in many important fields such as radio astronomy, chemical and biological sensing, medical imaging, security screening, and communication. the vast development of thz sources and detectors has turned the thz research into a rapidly growing technological field. however, for thz applications such as advanced imaging and adaptive high-speed wireless communication, tunable and reconfigurable thz circuits and components are needed. this kind of devices enables us to implement unique functionalities and superior system performance. such functional thz devices are still scarce but in high demand for sophisticated circuits and systems needed in advanced thz sensing, imaging and communications.in this thesis, a novel approach to realize tunable/reconfigurable thz circuits and systems based on optical thz spatial modulation (otsm) using photo-induced free carriers in semiconductors has been investigated. using this approach, tunable thzmodulators achieving a maximum modulation depth of ~50 db in the wr1.5 frequency band (500-750 ghz) have been demonstrated. furthermore, reconfigurable photo-induced aperture masks have been developed for advanced thz coded-aperture imaging, which may pave the way for realizing high resolution, real-time thz imaging systems. in addition, photo-induced fresnel-zone-plate (fzp) antennas with the capability of dynamic beam steering and forming have been designed and demonstrated at and around 750 ghz. the above quasi-optical tunable/reconfigurable circuits and components have been successfully applied in thz beam mapping, antenna characterization and remote scanning imaging.despite the success in developing and demonstrating the above tunable/reconfigurable devices and components, it has been observed that both the circuit performance and highest achievable operation frequency are limited by the otsm performance using naturally-existing semiconductor materials. to overcome these limitations, a novel approach using mesa-array structures has been proposed for improved otsm with higher modulation depth, spatial resolution and modulation speed. employing the mesa-array structure as a technology platform, thz mesh filters with universal tunability and reconfigurability have been simulated. in addition, photo-induced substrate-integrated waveguides (pi-siws) have been investigated for providing nearly unlimited possibilities to realize more advanced tunable/reconfigurable thz circuits with multiple functionalities. biological invasions of non-indigenous species (nis) are a severe and growing environmental problem that results primarily from introductions by humans. there are few tools for risk analysis of nis introductions, most of which are insufficiently connected to ecological theory. this dissertation develops quantitative methods for forecasting species invasions and identifying intervention strategies. my approach is to develop relevant aspects of theoretical population biology and quantitative biogeography for representative species, while focusing on features that can be generalized. as a model, the spiny water flea bythotrephes longimanus illustrates how understanding the population biology of target species can be crucial for effective management. i explore using stochastic population growth models to quantify the chance of biological invasion as a function of the number of organisms introduced. i find that seasonal fluctuations in environment conditions and the population biology of this species interact to create windows of invasion opportunity during which efforts at reducing introductions should be concentrated. i contribute to two areas of active research: population dynamics in (1) fluctuating environments and (2) open populations. using daphnia magna as a model species i test theoretical predictions with laboratory experiments. i follow these studies with a new model for establishment of parasitized populations. i predict that the chance of establishment is not likely to be greatly affected by parasitism. i use a genetic algorithm to identify the potential distributions of eurasian ruffe and rainbow smelt in north america. i find that much of the midwestern and northeastern usa and canada and some river systems along the pacific coast may be invasible. i identify global hotspots for biological invasions from ballast water using data on global patterns of shipping traffic. i use a spatial interaction model to identify and evaluate possible interventions. i conclude that on-board ballast water treatment technologies will probably more effectively control invasions than ballast water treatment facilities. finally, i consider whether the risk of invasion from ballast water could be managed by controlling the volume discharged. for sexually reproducing species this may be a feasible strategy if discharge occurs in open systems. the role of ecology in speciation is a central issue in evolutionary biology. here, five fundamental questions concerning ecological speciation-with-gene-flow are investigated in the rhagoletis pomonella species complex, a model for sympatric ecological speciation: (1) what constitutes a sympatrically-formed species? (2) is the initiation of ecological speciation in sympatry a common or exceptional phenomenon? (3) what traits are important to host shifts and reproductive isolation for phytophagous insects? (4) what is the source of genetic variation fueling adaptive divergence? (5) what role does genome structure play in speciation-with-gene-flow and how is this reflected in patterns of genomic differentiation as speciation proceeds? i addressed these questions by investigating two components of the r. pomonella species complex: 1) populations of r. pomonella infesting an array of hawthorn species in the southeastern u.s. and (2) the flowering dogwood fly, the sister species to r. pomonella. i found that southern populations of r. pomonella are differentiated both phenotypically and genetically and represent partially-isolated host races. furthermore, these populations may have acted as a reservoir for standing genetic variation, enabling the rapid evolution of the apple race of r. pomonella. comparisons of the flowering dogwood fly to the hawthorn and apple races of r. pomonella revealed that species-level differentiation was accompanied by the formation of range-wide genetic clustering based on allele frequency differences. i observed a striking correlation in the topology of differentiation between the host race and species, consistent with a genome-wide reduction in effective migration. these findings support the following conclusions regarding the five questions: (1) sympatrically-formed species can represent host races writ-large; (2) the initiation of ecological speciation may proceed readily in rhagoletis; (3) both olfactory and diapause traits are important to ecological adaptation and reproductive isolation in rhagoletis, but there are limits to their role in diversification; (4) standing genetic variation, in the form of heterogeneous resource use in allopatric populations and latitudinal clines, has been a major factor in the radiation of the r. pomonella species complex; and (5) the transition from host race to species appears to involve the uplift of genomic 'continents of speciation' driven global reductions in effective migration. the objective of this dissertation was to develop novel classes of mechanically stable lipidand diblock copolymer based drug delivery vehicles. liposome based drug delivery vehicles were created by encapsulating a polymeric actin matrix. the structure of actin-containing liposomes was studied using a combination of static light scattering and atomic force microscopy (afm). it was observed that actin-containing liposomes possessed the ability to adopt non-spherical ellipsoidal shapes in solution. further experiments showed that the aspect ratio of these ellipsoidal-shaped liposomes was controlled by the encapsulated actin concentration. in vivo circulatory studies in rats showed greater than 50% of administered actin-containing liposomes were retained in the circulatory system after 72 hours. actin-containing liposomes were further applied towards the development of a long-circulating artificial blood substitute by encapsulating bovine hemoglobin (hb) inside the aqueous core of actin-containing liposomes (leachb). the potential of leachb dispersions to function as a cellular hemoglobin-based oxygen carrier (hboc) was evaluated by measuring several key physical properties: vesicle size distribution, hb encapsulation efficiency, oxygen binding properties (as indicated by p50 and cooperativity coefficient), encapsulated methemoglobin level, and in vivo circulatory half-life. leachb exhibited satisfactory physical properties and circulatory half-life consistent with the design criteria of a cellular-based artificial blood substitute. in the second half of this dissertation, amphiphilic diblock copolymer poly(butadiene)-b-poly(ethylene oxide) (pb-b-peo) self-assembled colloids, were investigated as novel mechanically stable drug delivery vehicles. afm was employed to probe the morphology and mechanical response of pb-b-peo self-assemblies. it was observed that the structure of these colloids ranged from spherical micelles, worm-like micelles, to polymersomes depending on the diblock composition and method of preparation. afm force imaging of closely packed micelles on glass surfaces showed a sharp downward deflection, which implied the existence of a ìøåàå_transition escapeìøåàå_ most probably due to a conformational change in the peo hydrophilic brush upon afm tip compression. paclitaxel was successfully incorporated into pb-peo polymersomes of various molecular weights. the loading capacity of paclitaxel inside polymersomes ranged from 6.7-13.7% w/w. paclitaxel-polymersome (ob4) formulations were colloidally stable for 4 months, and exhibited slow steady release of paclitaxel over a 5 week period. evaluation of the in vitro cytotoxicity of paclitaxel-polymersome formulations showed that the ability of paclitaxel-loaded polymersomes to inhibit proliferation of mcf-7 human breast cancer cells was less compared to free paclitaxel. by increasing the concentration of paclitaxel in polymersomes to 0.2 ì_å_g/ml, paclitaxel-polymersome formulations showed comparable activity in inhibiting the growth of mcf-7 cells. this study explores how english lyric poets between 1590 and 1641, facing the question of whether and how their poems might escape time's threat to destroy every material thing, brought together classical tropes of poetic immortality with the christian expectation of bodily resurrection. the expectation of resurrection became for these poets an idea crucial to confronting one of the central problems of lyric, that of lastingness or immortality. as heirs of the classical tradition of poetic fame, of its adaptation by petrarch and others, and of the repeated upheavals of the english reformation, they were acutely conscious of threats to the long-term survival of both physical and textual monuments, and they embraced the classical trope of 'devouring time' as an expression of suspicion toward the capacity of material things to endure as vehicles of memory. i examine lyric poems across genres ranging from love sonnet to funeral elegy by poets including donne, shakespeare, jonson, spenser, and milton. i contend that these poets' boasts of the power to grant lasting fame should not be dismissed as merely conventional attempts to impress contemporary readers, whether their works were intended for coterie circulation in unbound manuscript or for monumental print editions. as practices surrounding burial and funeral monuments shifted during england's reformation toward expressing the hope of resurrection, these poets looked to the resurrection of the body as a template of how materiality and immortality might reach some point of tangency in their verses. resurrection would make poetic fame superfluous, but in the mean time, the poem could anticipate resurrection, providing an image or foretaste of eternity. at the same time, the body's decay represented for these poets their anxieties about the many dangers that threaten the prospect of readership in posterity: misattribution, censorship, destruction, fragmentation, and neglect. though literary immortality is also a concern of other genres of poetry, including epic, i focus on secular lyrics, because they tend to locate themselves in a particular moment, a moment that often looks forward to the address with which the dead are called forth at the moment of resurrection. dielectric properties of materials are related to their microstructure, defects and compositional variations. traditional impedance measurement of dielectric properties is an average performed on the length scale of the microwave wavelength, which is not sensitive to local structure and compositional variations. the nondestructive mapping technique of near-field scanning microwave microscopy (smm) has been shown to be an effective technique for investigating the local dielectric properties variation. the development of near-field smm and its application in characterization of dielectric ceramics are presented in this work. the local surface dielectric properties of a variety of bulk specimens were characterized with smm, while their microstructures were characterized with backscattered electron scanning electron microscopy (sem) and polarized optical microscopy. the compositions and phases were identified by energy dispersive spectroscopy (eds) analysis and x-ray powder diffraction (xrd). the local dielectric properties variations causing the contrast in smm images were correlated to the local microstructures and chemical variations, such as defects, nonstoichiometric compositions, solid-solution, phase separations, and so on. smm characterization has been used to detect defects in single crystals, such as twinning structure in a laalo3 single crystal; to present topographic and grain boundary effects in bulk polycrystalline yttria stabilized zirconia (ysz); to differentiate chemical variations, such as oxygen-deficient 'cored' titania crystal, and zn/co varied bzcn312 matrices; to characterize inhomogeneities of dielectric properties in a co-fired cmt30/cmt40 ceramic; to discover a new phase with unknown dielectric properties, such as bzcn816 phase in bzcn312 matrices; to investigate stabilized components, such as la2/3tio3 phase stabilized by laalo3 phase; to study solid solution, such as lt3-lao solid solution and lao-sto solid solution; to study phase separation and development, laalo3-tio2 and catio3-mgtio3 diffusion couples; to observe critical feature size effect, such as in ct-mt eutectic system; and to rank the dielectric constant of dielectric materials in these demonstrated systems. all of theses studies indicate that near-field scanning microwave microscopy is a powerful nondestructive technique to characterize local dielectric properties variations, and relate them to local microstructure and chemical variations. it permits one to easily study the dielectric properties of bulk ceramic materials. in this dissertation, i explore the idea of cosmopolitanism in neo-confucian political philosophy and the chinese historical context where a universal authoritarian empire dominated a non-westphalian order through force and culture. using textual and historical analysis, i examine and reconstruct chinese cosmopolitanism and a theory of world order advocated by wang yangming (1472-1529), a neo-confucian philosopher and general of ming dynasty (1368-1644).wang's role as a philosopher-statesman provides an ideal case to investigate complex relations between confucian ethics of compassionate care and the discourses of sino-centric world order. first, i articulate wang's ideas of "being one body with the myriad creatures" and socio-political imaginary of "the world as one family", and inquire how such "senses of embodied oneness" can be seen as a philosophical and ethical foundation of cosmopolitanism. next, i examine how his view of psychological holism can be understood as a kind of cosmopolitan sensibility. i further explore its ethical and political implications in the context of wang's personal and political career. finally i turn to wang's views on otherness by looking into his memorials on buddhism as an ethical way of life and competing political culture as well as his commentaries on civilizing ethnic groups on the southwestern frontier. such a contextualization allows us to appreciate wang's cosmopolitanism which is based on compassion with distinction and sympathetic understanding. measured unsteady surface pressures, which are a function of both space and time, of a harmonically pitching airfoil are expressed in terms of a parametric proper orthogonal decomposition (ppod) in order to obtain an optimum (in the mean-square sense) modal representation. this decomposition is formulated in such a way that the resulting spatial modes act optimally over the entirety of a parameter space defined by the airfoil pitching motion characteristics, i.e. for attached flow pitching, light stall, and deep stall. this method provides a systematic and quantitative framework by which to elucidate common and disparate features of the light and deep dynamic stall processes and provides a bridge to the development of low-order models for the prediction of unsteady airloads, such as the normal force and quarter-chord pitching moment. this work primarily focuses on the development of two low-order models, distinguished by frame of reference, used for the reconstruction of unsteady aerodynamic loads. the first model decomposes the unsteady pressure field where the steady inviscid pressure field, provided by a smith-hess panel method, is removed. conversely, the second model decomposes the unsteady pressure field with the fully viscous, steady pressure field removed. in each model, the parameter-independent modal shapes are determined from unsteady surface pressures of an arbitrarily chosen reference airfoil geometry operating over a large range of pitching trajectories. it is shown that the aerodynamic loads of the reference geometry are reconstructed with as few as 5 ppod modes. for the first model, the airloads of a candidate airfoil, one where the unsteady surface pressure field is desired for a given pitching trajectory, are shown to be reconstructed using the same 5 reference ppod modes plus an additional spatial mode calculated from the candidate airfoil?s steady pressure field. likewise, the second model is capable of reconstructing the candidate airfoil?s unsteady surface pressure with only the 5 reference ppod modes. a subtle result realized by comparing the two models is that the nature of the dynamic stall process is a general feature acting as a perturbation to the steady behavior of a given airfoil geometry. today's modern mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablets) present great potential for growth of many novel, powerful, but also highly demanding applications. however, most mobile devices/users operate in isolation from one another, i.e., they are not aware of the presence of other devices in their proximity. there are numerous situations where proximity-awareness (i.e., a device is aware of other mobile devices in its neighborhood) could be used to support spontaneous sharing of resources and information, thereby enabling a variety of new application scenarios. this dissertation presents a software architecture called spontaneous information and resource sharing infrastructure (spirit), which allows mobile devices to create, discover, join, leave, and control the sharing of resources and information in an efficient and automatic fashion. built on top of a group communications substrate called courier, spirit allows users or devices to express various heterogeneous service sharing paradigms using a cleanly defined application programming interface and a powerful subscription language. these service sharing specifications are used by a signaling protocol in spirit that allows the service-seeking clients to tell the service provider and intermediate nodes about the specific quality of service (qos) required in the requested service stream. spirit provides additional qos mechanisms like mobility-aware admission control, resource reservation, management and policing, in order to establish and maintain qos along the multi-hop paths between the service provider and the client in mobile environments. while the shared services can include various types of resources (e.g., network connections, cpu) and information (e.g., database entries), this dissertation focuses on sensor information, i.e., the information collected by the various sensors found in modern mobile devices (e.g., gps, acceleration, image, light, pressure, sound, etc.). this research investigated loss mechanisms from tip-clearance flows in a high-pressure turbine. unshrouded tips of turbine blades are subject to a pressure-driven flow phenomenon from the pressure to suction surface. this flow feature, known as the tip-clearance flow, is a major loss contributor in axial-flow turbines. both experimental and computational data were acquired to study entropy generation. the experimental results were used to understand and interpret phase-locked averaged hot-wire measurements. the necessary assumptions to properly interpret phase-resolved data were discussed. the experimental and computational data were then used to understand the turbine stage flow-field. metrics such as corrected mass flow rate, total-to-total pressure and temperature ratios, and various efficiencies were examined. the entropy transport equation was used to identify and quantify the loss-generating mechanisms. loss generation was greatest in the latter half of the turbine rotor. the main loss-generating mechanism was turbulent viscous dissipation by the inner and outer shear layers of the tip-leakage jet. losses by mean viscous dissipation were present near the suction-side blade surface and rotor blade tip. redistribution of entropy generated from the aforementioned regions was mainly by turbulent entropy transport. molecular dynamics simulations are a powerful tool for elucidating stationary and dynamic features of chemical systems with atomistic resolution. this dissertation studies the effects of counterions on structural dynamics utilizing molecular dynamics. in particular, i investigate the following systems: (1) the distribution of counterions surrounding deoxyribonucleic acid (dna) using an empirically charge screened forcefield, (2) the structural dynamics of dna with minor-groove binder hoechst 33258, (3) the dynamics of the electrolyte solutions with fluoroethylene additive, and (4) the aggregation of phosphate anions in the presence of sodium counterions.current experimental and simulated sodium counterion distribution data for dna do not align. to address this difference, an empirical charge screening force field is applied to the sodium counterions around a double-stranded dna oligonucleotide with sequence, d(cgcgaattcgcg)2. when the sodium counterions are systematically scaled, the radial distribution begins to show a first solvation shell minimum at approximately 3.7 å, which has typically not been captured in molecular dynamics simulations with conventional charge methods. the presence of the first solvation shell is driven by the formation of three unique binding sites in the minor groove at the c3-a4, a6-t7, and t9-g10 base pair steps. charge scaling in dna leads to a more accurate counterion atmosphere.understanding the interactions of ligands with dna is important in dna-based nanotechnologies and drug design. structural changes in the dna can be tracked using molecular dynamics and it is shown that hoechst 33258 strongly disturbs the stability of the terminal c:g base pairs. the strong stabilization effect of the hoechst 33258 on dna duplex makes this observation quite striking, and simulations demonstrate an important role of hydration water and counterions in maintaining the separation of terminal base pairs. the hydrogen bonds between hoechst 33258 and the thymine carbonyls are crucial in stabilizing h-dna, but the ligand is only able to form two hydrogen bonds at most with the dna, unlike the traditional interpretation of four hydrogen bonds.additives have been shown to increase the lifetime of rechargeable batteries, however, little is known what causes the change. fluoroethylene carbonate is studied in this thesis by adding 5% by volume to a 1:1:1 mass ratio mixture of dimethyl carbonate, diethyl carbonate, and ethylene carbonate and simulating the mixture with fluoroethylene carbonate, the mixture without fluoroethylene carbonate, and a pure fluoroethylene carbonate solution. fluoroethylene carbonate is shown to experience weaker interactions with dimethyl carbonate, diethyl carbonate, and ethylene carbonate than when interacting with itself. the addition of fluoroethylene carbonate also alters the structural orientation of ethylene carbonate in the mixture, which could cause the change in the overall solution behavior.phosphate plays a major role in energy storage and transfer in biochemical processes and is commonly found partially deprotonated as a dihydrogen phosphate anion. dihydrogen phosphate anions are known to form interanionic hydrogen bonds, which can be characterized by a maximum bond length of 2.5 å and a minimum bond angle of 120°. oligomers of dihydrogen phosphates are formed and are revealed to be concentration dependent. counterion-pairing of the oligomers is also concentration dependent but also has dependency on the oligomer size. to determine the exact role of counterions in oligomer formation, further analysis is needed. scientific computing users often find it difficult to transform serial domain applications into workloads for large non-dedicated heterogeneous campus grids. due to hardware and software bottlenecks, a workload that succeeds on 8 nodes can fail disastrously on 128; or even fail on 8 nodes for a different instance of the same problem. an abstraction is a flexible solution to a pattern of computation that can be used to harness distributed computing resources more easily for non-experts. the users provide the pieces, such as their datasets and serial function, and the workload is constructed and executed for them in an appropriate manner for the environment in order to prevent disastrous configurations and satisfy cost, policy, and performance constraints. this work presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of a 'toolbox' of abstractions: all-pairs, sparse-pairs, and data-split-join. these abstractions are used for several problems in bioinformatics, biometrics, and data mining. the discussion of the abstractions includes modeling of the problem, managing input data, organizing computation on the campus grid, and managing output data. results include the largest known biometrics all-pairs result of its kind, in which over two years' worth of computation was executed in 10 days, and a complete alignment of the human genome using sparse-pairs, which completed in 2.5 hours on over 1000 hosts with 952x speedup. i explore the cultural construction of the american character using examples from history, mythology and popular culture. i present research on how our national identity is created through a tension between nostalgia and progress. i also examine the cowboy hero and his impact on sense of male american identity. in this dissertation i present work on the development and application of molecular dynamics simulation methodologies for non-periodidic and non-equilibrium systems, culminating in the direct simulation of the interfacial thermal conductance of solvated, ligand-capped nanoparticles. non-periodic geometries present problems for traditional affine scaling techniques in constant-pressure constant-temperature simulations. in particular, explicitly non-periodic systems or those containing materials with very different compressibilities are very difficult to simulate using exisiting methods. our new method, the langevin hull, maintains a spherical boundary without the use of perturbative restraining or hard wall potentials. velocity shearing and scaling reverse non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (vss-rnemd) for periodic systems is used to study the effect of ligand chain length and mixtures of chain lengths on the interfacial thermal conductance (g) of au(111) interfaces protected by a monolayer of alkanethiolate ligands and solvated in hexane. there is no dependence on chain length for non-mixed layers, and a non-monotonic dependence of g on the fraction of long ligands included in a mixture of chain lengths. proposed mechanisms for heat transfer rely on two competing effects: mobility of the interfacial solvent and vibrational orientational ordering between ligand and solvent molecules. combination of the langevin hull non-periodic simulation method with existing vss-rnemd methodology yields a new non-periodic, non-equilibrium simulation method. the ability to impose kinetic energy and angular momentum fluxes in non-periodic geometries allows for the direct computation of transport properties in explicitly non-periodic systems. the interfacial thermal conductance and interfacial rotational friction are calculated for gold nanostructures solvated in a droplet of hexane, as well as the thermal conductivity of homogeneous metal and water clusters. finally, the new non-periodic vss-rnemd is utilized to compute the interfacial thermal conductance of alkanethiolate ligand-protected gold nanoparticles solvated in a droplet of hexane. there is no discernible dependence of g on nanoparticle size, but a strong dependence on the length of the ligand alkane chain. the proposed heat transfer mechanisms are based on ligand chain flexibility, solvent penetration of the ligand layer, and ligand-induced restructuring of the nanoparticle surface. this dissertation examines the making of aragon's first law code in the mid-thirteenth century. the kingdom of aragon, situated in northeastern iberia, was part of the composite monarchy known as the crown of aragon, which by the end of james i's reign (1213-1276) included catalonia, parts of southern france, as well as the iberian kingdoms of valencia and mallorca. a version of this thirteenth-century law code is called the vidal mayor. composed around 1247 by the bishop and jurist vidal de canellas, the vidal mayor contains both laws and a rich commentary on contemporary society, touching on myriad aspects of daily life from rainwater management and tree felling to religious conversion and the minutiae of the nobility's military obligations. this dissertation focuses primarily on the fraught relationship between the aragonese crown and the nobility during this period, while also bringing a new approach to our understanding of what the text of the vidal mayor was and is now in its surviving vernacular form.by analyzing both the laws and the commentary found in the vidal mayor, in conjunction with documentary evidence and james i's autobiographical narrative, the llibre dels fets, i argue that law took center stage in conflicts between the two most powerful political forces in the region, namely the crown and the nobility. while the crown aimed at centralizing its power, the nobility struggled to preserve its customary privileges and patrimonial assets against the influx of ideas about unrestricted royal power coming from the universities. in demonstrating that the vidal mayor arose as a product of negotiation between varied political forces, not as an imposition from the crown, this dissertation further deepens our understanding of how law was negotiated at the local level and the fundamental role it played in mediating relations between the crown and the nobility. hemodialysis (hd) is required for patients experiencing end-stage renal disease (esrd). the most common long-term failure mode for a hd vascular access is occlusion of the outflow vein, initiated by intimal hyperplasia (ih). ih has been associated with locations of low oscillatory wall shear stress (wss) in the vein. improvement of vascular access patency could be sought through strategies aimed at preserving normal venous hemodynamics in hd patients. a modular anastomotic valve device (mavd) has been proposed to limit venous access to arteriovenous graft (avg) flow. the objective of this thesis is to use ex vivo and computational techniques to assess the ability of the mavd to reduce wss abnormalities within the venous anastomosis of an avg. the assessment of mavd hemodynamics will serve as a first step toward increasing the quality of life for patients living with esrd. in 1742, the parish of cambuslang located outside of glasgow, scotland experienced a religious revival that brought tens of thousands of men and women to the region in search of god, community, or respite from the routine of daily living. what they found was a movement at the crossroads of scottish practices and anglo-british networks. hence, the revival, occurring thirty-five years after the 1707 act of union, provides an excellent entry point for exploring the tensions arising in the first generations of post-union scots who had to navigate the push and pull of eighteenth-century imperial britain. records from the revival are also ideal for examining lay scots' relationship to the current enlightenment culture of inquiry, which hoped to distance europe from a world of warring confessions and align it with far-flung empires. this enlightenment movement experienced alongside an infant british state strained narratives scots told about themselves, their communities, and the realm of the former scottish kingdom. out of this existential challenge from multiple directions arose a crisis of identity or what this study terms an age of reckoning.this dissertation begins its study of how lay presbyterian scots imagined themselves in the early age of britain and enlightenment by analyzing a collection of one hundred and eight spiritual testimonies gathered by cambuslang's minister in the 1740s. these accounts, when placed alongside sermons, philosophical treatises, session rolls, and westminster legislation, disclosed more than just reactions to current religious awakenings; they revealed social actors engaging with considerable flexibility their relationships on earth and with the divine. the revival, as both a transatlantic british and particular scottish event, an empirical and skeptical phenomenon, an enthusiastic and rational enterprise, a covenant fulfillment and covenant break, manifested the complexity of relationships that contemporaries experienced. it reflected the process of how our subjects became eighteenth-century britons, people who embraced particular scottish frameworks to become imperial members. this dissertation contains three essays concerning business cycles and the appropriate fiscal policy response. chapter one studies the state-dependence of the output and welfare effects of shocks to government purchases in a dsge model with real and nominal frictions and a rich fiscal financing structure. both the output multiplier (the change in output for a one dollar change in government spending) and the welfare multiplier (the consumption equivalent change in welfare for the same change in spending) are found to move significantly across states, but tend to co-move negatively with one another. in an historical simulation, the output multiplier is found to be countercyclical (correlation of -0.4) and strongly negatively correlated with the welfare multiplier (correlation of -0.9). chapter two continues this focus on state dependent fiscal policy by studying the state-dependent effects of consumption, labor, and capital tax cuts. the tax output multiplier is defined as the change in output for a one dollar change in tax revenue caused by a shock to tax rates on consumption, labor income, or capital income. adopting language newly introduced in the first chapter, this chapter defines the tax welfare multiplier as the consumption equivalent change in welfare for the same change in tax revenue. magnitudes of tax multipliers are found to vary across the type of tax and the state of the business cycle. the output multipliers for all three tax cuts tend to be largest in states of the economy in which output is low. output multipliers tend to be positively correlated with welfare multipliers for all three kinds of tax changes. the final chapter considers the primary cause of the recent episode of relatively modest business cycles. decomposing the united states' 1984 aggregate business cycle volatility reduction shows that declines in state-level business cycle co-movements account for approximately 19% of the great moderation while individual state-level volatility declines and changing share weights account for approximately 74% and 6%, respectively. the primary source of the state-level volatility decline is then analyzed using region and state-level moderation experiences. the ability of leading moderation theories to account for these new data facts is considered. the discipline of ecology seeks to understand the abiotic and biotic factors that influence species diversity and distributions. specific factors include interactions with other species and humans, habitat characteristics, and the position of these interactions and habitats within the landscape. my research examines species diversity and distributions in fresh waters. historically, relatively little research has focused on benthic invertebrates in the littoral zone of lakes. however, because of the isolated nature of lakes, the increased impacts of non-native species in aquatic systems, and the diverse habitats of littoral areas, such systems are ideal for studying the drivers of species diversity and distribution. additionally, by combining general ecology and invasion biology principles, i provide new management and conservation recommendations. my research uses crayfishes, focusing on the invasive rusty crayfish (orconectes rusticus), as model organisms to examine the importance of predation, habitat heterogeneity and species spread, on species coexistence and ecological impacts. doing so provides guidance to improve native species conservation and invasive species management within the littoral zone of lakes. using a snapshot survey across multiple lakes, i show that habitat heterogeneity and predation are major drivers of where crayfish occur in the littoral zone. when exposed to multiple predators, crayfish distribute themselves across the three main littoral habitats (unvegetated cobble, unvegetated sand, and vegetated sediments) to minimize their risk of predation.invasive crayfish can alter littoral zone food webs through herbivory and interactions with native crayfish. in one lake, i used a field experiment to demonstrate that invasive crayfish selectively remove aquatic vegetation, which can have cascading effects on the physical, chemical and biological dynamics of lakes. i used long-term data sets and surveys across multiple lakes, combined with field experiments in one lake, to demonstrate that the availability of the three littoral habitats influences whether native virile crayfish (o. virilis) are displaced by or coexist with invasive rusty crayfish. my combination of within-lake and between-lake analyses revealed that habitat availability and niche partitioning permitted long-term coexistence of native and invasive crayfish species. considering cobble habitats (a habitat not affected by crayfish) across multiple lakes, results suggest that managers should target lakes with littoral areas comprised of ì¢'¡å´ 25% cobble habitats for efforts to prevent the introduction of rusty crayfish. such lakes (with abundant cobble), and the native crayfish they contain, stand to suffer the most if invaded by rusty crayfish. finally, i provide a regional assessment of crayfish diversity and distribution at the great lakes scale over the past 100 years and the corresponding policies targeting invasive crayfish. the rate that rusty crayfish, the most wide-spread invasive crayfish in the great lakes, have been found in new locations significantly differs between lakes, reflecting the differences in near shore fish communities and human movement of crayfish. although my baseline data demonstrate rusty crayfish have been in all great lakes for the past 20-30 years (and >100 years in lake erie), policies to prevent introductions of invasive species have been reactive rather than proactive. in addition, the effectiveness of policies that have targeted invasive crayfish in the great lakes region are limited by a lack of consistency across the states/province in the region to address the vectors that are moving non-native crayfish species.overall, by combining small-scale experiments, surveys, and long-term datasets, i examined the underlying mechanisms that influence crayfish diversity and distribution, document crayfish dynamics, and develop management and conservation recommendations at lake, multi-lake landscape, and regional scales. organ development requires precise coordination of extrinsic and intrinsic stimuli at a cellular level. however, the underlying principles of how cell signaling is coordinated within the organ context is poorly understood. many components of the chemical signaling pathways that regulate organ development have been identified through the genetic manipulation of model organisms. however, defining how stimuli are integrated at the scale of multicellular systems has proven challenging due to the difficulties with simultaneous stimulation and visualization of delicate tissues. this thesis describes several milestones that advance the state of the art for analyzing multicellular systems, including insect micro-organs, tissue biopsies, and thromboses (blood clots). these advances include a detailed analysis of how cell geometries impact the propagation of intercellular calcium transients (chapter 2). this study implicated the distribution of mechanical stress in a tissue as an important input to calcium propagation. this prompted the development of a microfluidic device to allow for more detailed exogenous stimulation at the organ scale (chapter 3). the device lead to the discovery that it is the release, and not the application, of mechanical loading that stimulates an intercellular calcium response – a distinction that is inaccessible by previously developed methods. the device is generalizable to many model systems and is a multi-modal tool for analyzing how exogenous stimuli impact cell behavior and organ development. further, this device led to the creation of an automated platform for staining and imaging tissue biopsy samples in 3d (chapter 4). this advance provides an avenue for diagnosticians to more accurately analyze patient biopsy samples. finally, the optical clearing strategies employed in chapter 4 were modified to optically clear human blood clots and enable deep 3d imaging (chapter 5). this revealed a distinct difference in the fibrin structure between contracted and non-contracted clots and will lead to new insights into pathological thrombosis. opportunities for further advancing each discovery are discussed in the concluding chapter (chapter 6). diesel particulate matter (pm) is part of a complex mixture that makes up diesel exhaust, which has raised many health and environmental problems. currently, the most efficient technique to reduce pm emissions is diesel particulate filter (dpf). however, the collected particulates build up overtime and block the micropores of dpf, and subsequently reduce the engine performance. this problem makes the regeneration of dpf necessary. among many possible regeneration techniques, catalytic regeneration is the most applicable. the commercial catalysts used in most catalytic dpf are the costly platinum based systems. the main aim of this dissertation is to develop novel, economical catalysts for dpf applications. within this central theme, my work encompasses two major parts: (1) combinatorial development of multiple-metallic oxides catalyst. hundreds of single, mixed and complex metal oxides were synthesized and studied based on a combinatorial synthesis and characterization route. it was found alkali-doped metal oxides, especially the ones containing potassium, showed higher activity than the other tested compositions. further investigation revealed that 'active' potassium is the active species in these catalysts and sublimation of potassium during the soot combustion process resulted in the fast degradation of the catalysts. these studies indicated the compounds that could timely release 'active' potassium might be promising economical and efficient catalysts for soot combustion. (2) study of glass-based catalysts. to realize this timely release process, several potassium-containing materials were examined. the potassium-glass was found to be particularly promising. potassium-glass catalysts showed better catalytic stability than conventional potassium-catalysts and also possess resistance to common s, p and zn poisoning. activity and stability tests performed in tga and fixed bed flow reactor indicated that the activity and degradation of glass catalysts are related to their composition, particle size, glass/soot mixing method (contact), and ambient gas. moreover, some studies of microwave heating effects on diesel soot combustion were performed. a novel microwave heated thermogravimetric analyzer was designed. measurements in microwave-tga suggested that the apparent reduction in soot combustion temperature with microwave heating might be not due to the enhancement of microwave, but the result of the inability to measure the interior temperature of the soot/catalyst mass. it's a story. exclusive use of the paradigm of mechanistic determination may be inappropriate for the systematic study of human beings in psychology. there have been some studies that have attempted to use a framework which makes teleological explanations possible while maintaining scientific empirical rigor. this type of study could prove especially helpful in the fields where the existence of volitional control for a particular behavior is debated. internet use and abuse is such a field. addiction, or lack of volitional control, is central to the fervor over internet use and mental health. internet use is also a field which has rarely been studied empirically. using a relatively new teleological methodology, internet use is shown to be a volitional behavior for most members of a non-clinical population. participants were assessed according to a battery of internet addiction scales to determine which, if any, of the tests can predict lack of volitional control of internet use. no test was able to reliably predict lack of volitional control. herein, we developed a calorimetric method to obtain new thermodynamic values for polyoxometalates (poms) that helped elucidate their thermodynamic landscape. the studies were primarily conducted on uranyl peroxide nanoclusters (upcs). in the 16 years since the discovery of upcs, over 60 have been reported, but their assembly and solution behavior is still perplexing. thermodynamics can provide a quantitative analysis to predict and study upc stability and solubility, and chemical processes in solution.in total, the energy landscapes for 10 upcs, two mo poms, and one uranyl peroxide monomer (building block of upcs) were analyzed by obtaining values for enthalpy of formation of pom crystals (δhf,(c)), enthalpy of formation of aqueous poms (δhf,(aq)), and enthalpy of dissolution (δhdiss). the results allowed us to predict the conversion of lina-u24pp12 to lina-u24 and li-u28 to lica-u24 and elucidate their transformations; and the enthalpy of conversion from lithium uranyl triperoxide monomer to u24 and u28 was determined to be negative, which is in agreement with literature observations. additionally, our results reveal that δhdiss is highly dependent on the entity of the counter cations and their affinities with the topological features of the upcs, and a complex but linear relationship between δhdiss and the cluster solubility exists. this research examines the u.s. economy in the early twentieth century in an attempt to reconcile the contradictory coincidence of regulated industrial and labor conditions with the systematic destruction of organized labor in the iron and steel industry. a modified version of social structure of accumulation (ssa) analysis is employed to demonstrate how different periods in american history may be construed as being governed predominantly by free market or regulatory mechanisms. this framework draws heavily upon the recent attempts of radical political economists to generalize ssa theory using the notion of an institutional structure. the modified ssa framework is then used to explore the specific institutional structure of the progressive era in american history to reveal its regulated character and provide the historical background for the more detailed case study of the iron and steel industry. the industrial case study provides support for the hypothesis that regulated periods tend to increase the rates of profit, output growth, and capital accumulation relative to free market periods. the enhanced performance of the steel companies was achieved as a result of a price and wage stabilization program initiated by the united states steel corporation. the case study also shows how this part of the steel corporation's regulatory program led to increased fluctuations in employment and longer working hours for the steelworkers. in an effort to combat potential threats from the federal government, the american public, and organized labor to the market stabilization program and mechanization drive, the steel companies introduced a paternalistic welfare program, company unions, and limited hours reform. the ultimate goal of the steel companies in maintaining the progressive era regulatory environment in the iron and steel industry was the indefinite continuation of the period's enhanced profitability. the study thus provides a solution to the contradictory nature of the industry during the progressive era and offers a general model for radical political economists who seek to use ssa analysis to investigate microeconomic questions in addition to the macroeconomic questions for which the framework was originally devised. the following dissertation explores the theological implications of the advocacy and direct works of mercy undertaken by members of the catholic worker movement. focusing on hospitality as the animating principle which guides the formation of members of this movement and directs their apostolic work, this project uses a combination of ethnographic methods, particularly participant observation, and text-based research drawing on both contemporary and historical sources from the founding of the catholic worker in 1933 through the present. the opening chapter of this project examines the catholic worker as a contemporary, collective attempt at the imitation of christ and hospitality as the primary askesis by which this is accomplished. subsequent chapters focus on three primary areas of concern under the broader theme of offering welcome to poor and vulnerable neighbors: 1.) how racial and gender-based hierarchies influence our conception of hospitality and whether true hospitality is possible under conditions of exploitative patriarchy; 2.) how individuals and communities are formed by their practices and environments to embody hospitality as a stable disposition; and 3.) how a commitment to incarnating hospitality guides individuals and communities to assess and undertake risk in the process of welcoming and caring for others. the final chapter looks beyond the catholic worker to examine aspects of hospitality to which the movement has in previous generations been less attentive. in light of the contemporary racial reckoning which began with the founding of black lives matter in 2013, the closing chapter looks to prison abolition and societal decarceration as areas where the catholic worker vocation of offering welcome to those on the margins of society might be employed in service to a creative, black-led vision of broader hospitality. an optimal k-cost-cumulant (kcc) control problem is formulated, in which the objective is minimization of a finite linear combination of the first k cost cumulants of a finite-horizon integral quadratic cost associated with a linear stochastic system, when the controller measures the states. this problem not only defines a very general linear-quadratic gaussian problem class, but also may be seen as an approximation in some sense to the theory of risk sensitive control. the solution is obtained by a more direct dynamic programming approach to the kcc initial-cost problem. moreover, the research continues with a development of cost cumulants per unit time in infinite horizon control for the state-feedback kcc problem. a constant controller is obtained by using a lagrange multiplier technique. the performance and stability properties of kcc controllers are discussed at length. a theory of output feedback for the linear-quadratic kcc problem class is also developed. under linearity and gaussian assumptions, it is reasonable to conclude that kalman-state estimates contain all statistical information. henceforth, the finite-horizon kcc control problem with kalman state-estimate feedback laws is formulated. solutions to the output-feedback kcc control problem having both standard and generalized finite-horizon integral quadratic costs are then obtained by adapting a dynamic programming technique. furthermore, constant controllers measuring kalman state-estimates for the output-feedback kcc problem in infinite horizon control are also derived by a lagrange multiplier theory. some kcc control strategies having perfect state measurements for linear stochastic differential games and the worst-case model scenarios are subsequently proposed. performance sensitivity with respect to system parameter variations of optimal kcc systems over finite horizon is examined as well. the research finally extends the findings to a class of uncertain linear systems and problems of tracking, servo, and model-following. the use of these statistical control paradigms in the american society of civil engineers first, second and third generation benchmarks for response control of buildings and cable-stayed bridges is successfully illustrated. simulation results indicate that kcc controller designs offer both robust performance and stability improvements for structural vibration suppression. zooplankton are important in maintaining the ecosystem services provided by lakes. there is an extensive history assessing how different ecological variables impact zooplankton productivity in lakes; however, there is still uncertainty as to the relative control of resources, predators, and lake physics in regulating zooplankton biomass in natural lakes. my dissertation aims to add to this body of work, by assessing how the interaction of physics and resource quality impact zooplankton productivity and behavior. i found that inputs of terrestrial dissolved organic carbon (doc) can have a significant negative impact on zooplankton productivity mediated by reductions in mixed layer depth. however, results from my dissertation suggest that the relationship between doc and lake productivity may be non-linear, as zooplankton productivity increased in response to experimental additions of doc to a manipulated lake. results from my dissertation also support the potential for a positive relationship between resource quality and doc due to changes in the light-to-nutrient ratio within the lake. taken together, my dissertation highlightsthe potential for doc mediated physics to drive food web productivity in lakes, with the potential for resource quality to modulate this relationship.in addition to regulating zooplankton biomass, resource quality and physics may play an important role in structuring zooplankton distributions and migration behavior. my dissertation uses a physiological growth model to predict optimal migration strategies for zooplankton across a set of north temperate lakes. this model, in combination with empirical measurements of zooplankton migration, point out the relative rarity of traditional migration strategies due to the influence of temperature and dissolved oxygen, but also resource quality and predator density. in large ultra-oligotrophic lakes with very low terrestrial influence and nutrient concentrations like lake ontario, there is likely a small influence of lake physics on zooplankton biomass. however, there is potential for spatial heterogeneity in resource quality due to natural hydrodynamics and phytoplankton physiology. my dissertation suggests resource quality may be more homogeneous than expected, and due to the low nutrient concentration, and therefore poor resource quality throughout the lake, zooplankton are more heavily impacted by changes in resource quantity rather than quality. mosquitoes (diptera: culicidae) offer a unique opportunity to study evolution at multiple levels of divergence. this opportunity is facilitated by extensive research into a few species that contribute to disease transmission, and has uncovered prevalent subpopulation structure in many. anopheles gambiae, one of the important vectors of malaria in sub-saharan africa, is one such species in which subdivision has been recorded, as both the molecular forms m and s and as chromosomal ecotypes. understanding evolutionary relationships within and between species requires understanding both how divergence has proceeded in the past and what are modern forces shaping divergence in the present. to this end, i began by generating a phylogeny of culicidae, incorporating both morphological and molecular markers. strongly supported relationships include the basal location of subfamily anophelinae, along with internal organization of the tribes aedini and sabethini of subfamily culicinae. yet, despite including representatives from 25 of 44 culicid genera, other relationship within culicinae could not be resolved due to the ancient, rapid nature of their diversification. next, we proceeded to examine subpopulation divergence within an. gambiae. first, we explored patterns of genomic divergence between co-localized m and s populations from western and central africa, hybridized to a snp genotyping array. the pattern of m:s divergence is highly conserved across africa. furthermore, regions of high m:s divergence are interspersed with regions that cluster based on geographic origin, indicating gene flow is still occurring. we offer a hypothesis to explain the maintenance of such high divergence regions in the face of gene flow, namely, that occasional relaxation of environmental selective pressures allows temporary periods of introgression between sympatric m and s populations. for my final chapter, focus was switched to the 2la inversion polymorphism in an. gambiae, which is associated with desiccation resistance. we searched for potential phenotypic differences in the cuticle thickness and cuticular hydrocarbon composition between mosquitoes differing in their 2la inversion status, raised in either normal conditions or following aridity acclimation. few significant differences were found in cuticle thickness. we did, however, find significant differences in arid reared mosquitoes relative to normal reared, regardless of inversion status, in the relative proportion of higher chain hydrocarbons. studies in drosophila melanogaster indicate that such differences may be adaptive in nature in terms of heat tolerance, and suggest that further investigations into this area may prove fruitful. this dissertation studies the changing function and cultural meaning of the epistolary form in early american fiction from 1780-1830. epistolary writing was extremely popular during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, but american works differ from their british literary predecessors. american authors recognized the ambiguities inherent in the epistolary form and used letters to complicate and destabilize the teleological narrative of national destiny that characterized political documents and popular rhetoric. at the same time, the expansion of print culture changed the ways in which letters were read and interpreted, paradoxically investing the handwritten form with greater authority and meaning than it signified a century earlier. letters became not only a means of reflecting social, political, and cultural upheaval, but also a powerful form capable of generating disruption and uncertainty. the epistolary novels of the 1780s and '90s, including canonical works such as the coquette and the power of sympathy, demonstrate how women appropriated the letter to form epistolary networks through which to participate in rational critical debate of public issues. however, the epistolary form of these novels also undermines popular belief in the distinctively american right to pursue happiness by guiding both fictional characters and readers through endless cycles anticipation, disruption, and deferral. charles brockden brown's novels, jane talbot and arthur mervyn, and a well-publicized case of forgery interrogate the proper use of letters during the tumultuous 1790s. in contrast to print, the handwritten letter was perceived to embody the moral character of its author, thereby rendering the forgery, theft, and misappropriation of personal correspondence even more dangerous. the debates surrounding the alien and sedition acts and the publication of personal correspondence written by america's founders reveal the extent to which interpretation of the epistolary form was a contested issue. in the epistolary travel texts of the early nineteenth century, the letter becomes a vehicle through which to critique print culture and imagine a transnational culture of gentility. the nationalism of the 1820s is reflected in james fenimore cooper's notions of the americans, which instead uses the epistolary form to reinforce america's strength and separation from europe. the internet today is actively embracing the evolution of mobilization. in 2017, mobile devices consumed 68% of overall internet traffic. this number is expected to grow sevenfold in the next five years. due to the limited resources on wireless spectrum, the relentlessly growing mobile data demand can portend an ominous future for the quality of experience (qoe) on mobile networks (e.g., wifi and cellular). in addition, with the dynamics of the wireless channels, the performance on mobile networks tends to vary significantly often making the wireless link as the bottleneck to decide qoe. network characterization is a tool to understand the performance of mobile networks. unfortunately, existing solutions are either cumbersome or inaccurate. some are effective but the cost is prohibitively expensive (e.g., cost tens of megabyte data and take the order of tens of seconds to finish). other methods are lightweight but yield low accuracy. critically, the different transmission schemes under modern mobile networks make conventional characterization methods fail due to the issues with the lower-layer behaviors. therefore, the key challenge is how to conduct mobile network characterization in an accurate and efficient manner.in this dissertation, i propose a test suite of mobile network characterization using both active and passive approaches on wifi and cellular networks. by carefully studying the data transmission behaviors at the lower layers (e.g., the physical layer), my approach manipulates the observations of traffic patterns on the upper layers (e.g., the transport layer) to enable accurate and efficient characterization methods. specifically, in this dissertation, i design two active available bandwidth estimation tools focusing on wifi and lte networks. by leveraging the aggregation/batching properties on wifi and lte, i design a probe packet train that utilizes the concept of self-induced congestion. i implement the estimation tools in an http-based platform–fmnc (fast mobile network characterization). this system is designed to transmit packet sequence in a sliced, structured, and reordered manner. this feature enables mobile users to run the designed tests without installing a dedicated application on the client side. in addition to the active approaches, i also propose an efficient passive client-side traffic characterization method on wifi networks. by exploiting the frame aggregation feature on wifi, the method can piggyback on a wifi scan operation and achieve accurate traffic characterization with minimal traffic capture (i.e., control traffic only). i conduct two case studies using the passive characterization method: a real-world measurement case and an application case in video streaming. the measurement study reveals interesting observations under different network scenarios. the application case helps improve stall rate of video streaming under wifi. overall, all the proposed methods/applications in this dissertation have been carefully evaluated through extensive in-lab and real-world experiments. as part of the us army corps of engineers (usace) mission, coastal engineers and planners rely on data to make better informed decisions. this dissertation combines three separate studies that measure nearshore bathymetric change using large, regional datasets collected using remotely sensed techniques, namely airborne lidar surveys of sandy shorelines and single-beam and multi-beam hydrographic surveys of coastal navigation channels. the research in this dissertation examines the use of regional, recurring datasets to address the unique challenges in maintaining the united states' complex water resources infrastructure.the depth at which significant bathymetric change can be expected is an important morphological factor for science and engineering on sandy coastlines. although most depth of closure studies have been conducted on a limited number of sites, the great quantity of airborne lidar bathymetry data collected over the past decade allows for a much wider study region. here, we present depth of closure analysis over 600 km of sandy coastline using the joint airborne lidar bathymetry technical center of expertise (jalbtcx) dataset. improved closure predictions resulted when both extreme waves (as represented by the 12 hour exceedance significant wave height over a given time interval), and more typical storm waves (as represented by the 99% significant wave height) were jointly considered. results are presented for four closure criteria: root-mean-square depth changes = [20,30]cm, and relative depth changes = [0.02,0.04].the second study used airborne lidar surveys to support a beach state classification model applied to wave-dominated sandy shorelines. nearshore morphological features (e.g. number of sandbars and sandbar position from shore) were quantified. several regions were studied to provide a detailed and comprehensive distribution of sandbar morphologies over large scales at wave-dominated, sandy shorelines of the united states. the configuration of the nearshore features were analyzed and trends were identified spatially as well as temporally in the analysis of a region with repeat surveys.in the third study, hydrographic surveys are used to develop an improved metric of navigation channel availability that considers channel navigability, instead of by the shallowest observed depth in the channel. a new vessel routing algorithm was developed to provide a more viable alternative to the current method of determining channel availability, an alternative that allows the usace to better quantify dredging needs, and allocate their limited dredging budget more appropriately. the components of the routing algorithm were reviewed in detail for three navigation channels. the case studies illustrated the ability of this automated vessel routing algorithm to contribute to an objective assessment of navigation channel availability that more closely aligns with real-world observations.together, these studies strive to improve upon metrics and methodologies that are used by engineers and planners for coastal project management. disordered eating is one of the most common and problematic psychiatric issues among girls and young women. there are multiple variables related to negative bodyand eating-related attitudes and behaviors in adolescent girls, including maternal weight-related comments, body dissatisfaction, and dieting behaviors. examining a specific type of weight-related talk called "fat talk," this study investigated whether daughters' body dissatisfaction mediated the relation between mother-daughter fat talk and daughters' dieting behaviors. the design of the study was cross-sectional. participants were 89 college-aged women and their mothers who separately completed a set of questionnaires. results indicated that daughters' body dissatisfaction partially mediated the relation between both mother-reported and daughter-reported mother-daughter fat talk and daughters' dieting behaviors. results are discussed in terms of implications for research, theory, and practice. population genomic data are increasingly being used to improve our understanding of malaria epidemiology, for example by assessing connectivity between populations and providing key information on the genetic diversity of plasmodium falciparum and the prevalence of antimalarial drug resistance. parasite genetic data can inform malaria elimination strategies by helping to identify factors that contribute to residual transmission. this dissertation aimed to characterize the population structure of p. falciparum parasites, map antimalarial resistance profiles, and define parasite relatedness to provide new insights that will help inform malaria control policy in two pre-elimination settings in zanzibar and ethiopia.first, to facilitate large-scale epidemiologic studies, i developed a novel high-throughput digital droplet pcr-based amplicon sequencing (ampseq) method targeting highly polymorphic microhaplotypes and drug resistance loci. to sequence low-density samples, i developed a sensitive method for dna extraction from dried blood spots, which are routinely collected for molecular malaria surveys. i then applied my method to two pre-elimination settings, zanzibar and ethiopia.second, in zanzibar, i elucidated fine-scale parasite population structure and inferred relatedness and connectivity of infections, and mapped antimalarial resistance profiles across five districts covering both main islands of zanzibar. using ampseq data from 290 p. falciparum infections, i observed strong fine-scale spatial and temporal structure of local parasite populations, despite high genetic diversity, providing evidence for ongoing local transmission. i found a high proportion of highly related parasites in individuals living closer together, including between clinical index cases and the mostly asymptomatic cases surrounding them. further, i identified a substantial proportion of significantly related infection pairs between zanzibar, and mainland tanzania and kenya, consistent with recent importation. most parasites on the archipelago remained sensitive to the current first-line antimalarials. this study provided a high-resolution view of parasite genetic structure across the zanzibar archipelago and revealed actionable patterns, including isolated parasite populations that may be prioritized for malaria elimination.third, using ampseq data from 187 p. falciparum samples from ethiopia, i characterized the parasite population structure and transmission dynamics in the highlands. i identified a significant proportion of highly related infections with multiple clusters of clonal or near-clonal infections, even across transmission seasons, suggesting persistent local and focal transmission. i found that infections from travelers were frequently observed first in time, suggesting that parasites may have been imported and then transmitted locally. i identified high prevalence of drug-resistant parasites and 'diagnostic-resistant' pfhrp2/3-deleted parasites. overall, these results corroborated local transmission and the importance of intensified control in the ethiopian highlands.fourth, the need for advanced laboratory infrastructure, often unavailable in malaria-endemic sites, prevents the rapid generation and use of genotyping data. to overcome these limitations, i developed and validated two ampseq assays for p. falciparum nanopore sequencing in endemic sites using a mobile laboratory, targeting key antimalarial drug resistance markers and microhaplotypes. i field-tested the feasibility of rapid genotyping in zanzibar in close collaboration with the local malaria elimination program. the assay produced actionable data with a turnaround time of a few days, and i identified current key challenges for implementing nanopore sequencing in endemic countries to accelerate malaria control and elimination.in conclusion, my research contributes to our understanding of residual p. falciparum transmission in two pre-elimination settings in zanzibar and ethiopia using genomic epidemiology tools. my findings can support the development of better malaria control and elimination strategies. supramolecular chemistry, the study of molecular recognition and self-assembly driven by noncovalent interactions, is a relatively young field that has seen extensive growth in recent years. though the field did not receive widespread recognition until the late 1980s when it won its first nobel prize, its organic roots can be traced back to the late 1800s in the study of enzymes and other related biological binding systems. nearly concurrently, inorganic chemistry was exploring the coordination chemistry of metal complexes. continued advancements in these fields have led to the ability to create increasingly sophisticated supramolecular assemblies and materials. additionally, as the field develops, it is becoming increasingly multidisciplinary, encompassing topics from polymer chemistry to nanoscale catalysis.the topics in this thesis will reflect the field's multidisciplinary nature. chapters 2 and 3 focus on the supramolecular recognition of inorganic metal complexes by organic host molecules. chapter 4 describes fluorescent rotaxane probe molecules with potential applications in biological imaging, while chapter 5 describes a novel method of synthesizing hollow silica nanoparticles for imaging and drug delivery. over the past four decades the transistor-based microelectronics industry has developed dramatically. as transistor size approaches nanometer range, many problems such as device interconnection, power dissipation and short-channel effects become increasingly hard to overcome and degrade device performance. a new computation paradigm named quantum-dot cellular automata (qca) provides a possible solution for transistor-less circuitry design and computation at the nanometer scale. in a qca structure, binary information is encoded by the bi-stable charge configuration within quantum-dot cells, and neighboring cells are coupled by the coulomb interaction. no current flows within the cells. functional qca logic devices such as binary wires, majority gates, shift registers and fan-outs have been demonstrated in metal-dot systems at dilution refrigerator temperatures (< 100 mk). however, the switching speed was on the order of seconds. this dissertation is focusing on investigating the time evolution of the binary state in qca logic devices, as well as experimentally verification of the high-speed capabilities of clocked qca devices. in order to detect the switching activity within the qca devices, the qca dots are capacitively coupled to the island of a radio frequency single-electron transistor (rf-set), which provides sub-electron charge sensitivity and radio frequency response. we investigate two kinds of rf-sets, whose islands are featured by single-walled carbon nanotube (swnt) and aluminum dot. the reflectometry measurement setup is explained. the performance and issues are discussed. in this work, experimental demonstration of real-time electron switching is realized in a clocked aluminum-based electronic qca device. the measurement is done in a 3he cryogenic system at elevated (compared to dilution refrigerator) temperatures. the operation speed has been improved up to micro-seconds. with the switching speed becoming faster, decrease in the error rate is demonstrated in the short-term qca memory device. the technique presented here can serve as a prototype to explore an experimental solution for studying the intrinsic switching speed in a qca. ``many interesting applications have arisen whose computational demands for scaling and timeliness stress even our current supercomputers'. these applications arise from a variety of sources including physics, engineering, biology, sociology, and national defense, to name just a few, and many of them have characteristics that make them ill-suited to conventional high performance architectures. as conventional parallel architectures reach the limits of their scalability, revolutionary new architectures are needed to achieve the performance demanded by these increasingly large and complex applications. this dissertation evaluates one such architecture, a lightweight multithreaded architecture, and explores how multithreaded applications can be organized to take advantage of the architecture's key features. the lightweight multithreaded architecture is composed of a network of lightweight processors and memories. the lightweight processors utilize large numbers of lightweight threads of execution to tolerate latencies that conventional architectures cannot avoid. when a given thread of execution is stalled waiting on a long latency event, such as a memory access, the processor can switch to a different thread rather than sitting idle. if there are enough threads available, the processor remains fully utilized, effectively hiding the latency involved in a memory access. direct architectural support for lightweight threads with minimal state and low-overhead, memory-based synchronization enable threads to be started, stopped, suspended, and synchronized in only a few cycles. this enables applications to utilize fine grain parallelism with large numbers of dynamic threads and intense synchronization that would restrict performance on traditional parallel architectures. %utilizes multiple threads of execution to provide parallelism and tolerate latencies that conventional architectures cannot avoid. this dissertation addresses two main questions: 1. how should the architecture be configured to be effective with applications? 2. how should the applications be organized to effectively use the architecture? in order to answer these questions, experiments and analysis focused on understanding how key factors at the architectural and application level interact to affect performance. it uses an organized approach to evaluation that targets the modeling, simulation, and evaluation tools to the issue under investigation, avoiding the need to simulate and build the entire machine. it then integrates these results to propose an architectural configuration and application programming model. this work comprises the first attempt to code and compare real applications using the architecture's unique architectural features. isolated in 1997 from the bacteria, nocardiopsis sp., apoptolidin was discovered to be remarkably selective in killing cells transformed by the adenovirus e1a oncogene while leaving normal cells unharmed. apoptolidin's particularly interesting mode of action has been proposed to involve inhibition of the f1f0-atp synthase found in the inner-membrane of the mitochondria. polyketide derived, apoptolidin, consists of a 20-membered macrolide, highly-substituted pyran, and carbohydrate appendages. because of this structural complexity and cytotoxicity, apoptolidin has garner considerable interest in the scientific community resulting in several total syntheses, sar work, and further isolations of compounds in the apoptolidin family. while working towards the total synthesis of apoptolidinone (apoptolidin's aglycone core), several research groups discovered at physiological ph and temperature, apoptolidin isomerizes to the 21-membered macrolide, isoapoptolidin. isoapoptolidin was found to be considerably less active than apoptolidin calling into question previous assay data. attempts were made to block this acyl-migration, but led to a loss in activity. our efforts have been focused on synthesizing the 20-deoxy analogue of apoptolidinone eliminating the acyl-migration without adversely affecting the structural conformation of 20-deoxyapoptolidinone. because of its complexity, 20-deoxyapoptolidinone was partitioned into three smaller fragments. fragment a was rapidly synthesized through repetitive thionyl chloride rearrangements demonstrating its utility as an alternative to the classic wittig and horner-wadsworth-emmons protocol widely used. fragment b in its various forms was synthesized from commercially available (l)-malic acid utilizing the purchased stereochemistry to influence the addition of several new stereocenters. fragment c consisting of several propionate units was constructed via repetitive oxazolidinonethione based aldol condensations achieving the fragment in an efficient and timely manner. once constructed the three fragments are coupled together through a mukaiyama aldol, stille coupling and yamaguchi macrolactonization yielding the desired 20-deoxyapoptolidinone. upon completion, the synthesis of 20-deoxyapoptolidinone will provide the framework for future 'chimeric' analogues. these 'chimeric' analogues will consist of 20-deoxyapoptolidin's macrolide with the pyran portions of concanamycin and bafilomycin in an effort to achieve cross affinity for f0f1and v-type atpase. computational models are increasingly used for diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease. to provide a quantitative hemodynamic understanding that can be effectively used in the clinic, it is crucial to quantify the variability in the outputs from these models due to multiple sources of uncertainty. to quantify this variability, the analyst invariably needs to generate a large collection of high-fidelity model solutions, typically requiring a substantial computational effort. in this dissertation, we show how an explicit-in-time ensemble cardiovascular solver offers superior performance with respect to the embarrassingly parallel solution with implicit-in-time algorithms, typical of an inner-outer loop paradigm for non-intrusive uncertainty propagation. we discuss in detail the numerics and efficient distributed implementation of a segregated fsi cardiovascular solver on both cpu and gpu systems, and demonstrate its applicability to idealized and patient-specific cardiovascular models, analyzed under steady and pulsatile flow conditions. in 1990, german professor dieter seebach explained in his angewandte editorial the necessity of furthering the field of organic chemistry and the downfalls to accepting this field as a mature sciences stating the following: "we have not witnessed the discovery of a new aldol, beckman, claisen, cope, diels -alder, mannich, michael, or wittig reactions; even the exploitation of strain effects in small rings and the broader application of 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions, dithiane methodology, ortho metallation, the acyloin, the pinacol condesations, photochemical and radical reactions, nucleophilic substitution, and umpolung reactivity took place without the discovery of new modes of reactivity. nevertheless, each of the transformations cited has, in a sense, been raised to a much higher level of sophistication." in our research group, we emphatically pursue this enhancement of sophistication in the fundamental reactivity of reagents. specifically, we are interested in the synthesis of highly substituted carbon centers by both transition metal and phosphorus-mediated pathways, as these are essential to the construction of many molecules of biological activity and medicinal interest. rapid access to these centers can allow for convergent and facile approaches to desired targets. classically, these moieties are synthesized using multistep sequences, and frequently employing expensive transition metals. our group focuses on the one-pot construction of these centers by employing underdeveloped reactivity of phosphorus and inexpensive transition metals. herein, we discuss recent advances towards these ends in regards to the formation of c–c, c–n, c=c, and c–p bonds. in vertebrates, the recognition of pathogens is carried out by two distinct types of immune receptors. the adaptive immune system is characterized by the generation of antibodies and t-cell receptors which have the capacity to recognize an innumerable repertoire of allogenic molecules. on the other hand, innate immunity relies on a restricted number of genotypically encoded molecules such as tlrs, integrins, scavenger receptors etc. (known as pattern recognition receptors, prrs) to recognize and respond to pathogens or their pathogen-associated molecular patterns (pamps). the innate immune receptors can only recognize a limited number of ligands. however, in contrast to t and b cell receptors, the activation of different prrs by their respective ligands may activate distinct intracellular signaling pathways. this may result in specific changes in gene expression and production of cytokines and other immune mediators by leukocytes that will alarm the host about the presence of a particular type of pathogen. the vertebrate immune system has been studied mainly in mammals, and data on the immune response of non-mammalian vertebrates remains relatively scant. therefore, a major goal of this dissertation research was to characterize the response of trout macrophages to pamps by analyzing the changes in the expression of known immune-relevant genes. in addition, a subtractive cloning approach was employed to isolate and identify additional genes that may be regulated upon activation of trout macrophages by lipopolysaccharide. the results indicate that although the pamp-modulated gene expression is similar between mammalian and fish leukocytes, there also appear to be certain differences in the pamps recognition between mammalian and non-mammalian vertebrates. in particular, the activation of trout macrophages required treatments with lps concentrations that were several orders of magnitude higher as compared to mammals. these observations, together with additional data from in vitro and in silico analyses, led to the hypothesis that the mechanisms for endotoxin recognition, that have been described in mammals, may not be present in non-mammalian vertebrates. it is possible that the tlr4-mediated recognition of endotoxin arose in mammals, or in their immediate predecessors, as a result of the integration of initially unrelated bacterial and viral recognition mechanisms. a combination of laboratory experiments and numerical studies were utilized to demonstrate that horizontal flow can be induced and controlled in fine sediment lenses / layers within the vadose zone. specifically this work demonstrates that through the use of suction-cup lysimeters, water can be injected / withdrawn from continuous zones of fine sediments, bordered by coarse sediments, without inducing significant vertical flux through underlying coarser sediments. the efficacy of this method was demonstrated through controlled laboratory experiments in which horizontal flow and tracer transport was induced in a lens of fine sand imbedded in a matrix of coarse sand. it was demonstrated at a scale of 0.25 meters that the fluid within the fine sand will be displaced (through injection / withdrawal from embedded lysimeters) without inducing vertical flux below the fine-sand lens. these experiments also demonstrated that flow in the fine sand, without vertical migration into the underlying coarse sand, can be maintained over an extended time period (the experiments were run for periods of up to 45 days). finally, these lab experiments demonstrated that flow could be established in slanted layers, flow moving with and against gravity, as well as in horizontal layers. a numerical model was used, in combination with published moisture retention and relative permeability parameters for a variety of sediment types, to demonstrate that such horizontal flow can be established within different mixtures of sediments and over substantially greater distances (e.g., 10 meters) for select classes of heterogeneity involving lens or layers of finer grained sediments bounded by coarser grained sediments. passive and ubiquitous sensing has proven to be a valuable way to detect and diagnose mental health conditions, assess health and well-being, and has shown promise in the future of work. in the past decade, the quality and sophistication of sensing devices: wearables, smartphones, beacons, etc. have dramatically improved. the widespread adoption of these devices by the public has given researchers the opportunity to conduct less intrusive research longitudinally on a larger scale outside of the laboratory. however, researchers face a number of challenges when designing effective studies. in this thesis we focus on three: data quality, appropriate sensor selection and deployment, and bridging the gap across disciplines when bringing research developed in the lab into the real world. first, researchers can only draw conclusions from their studies if the data quality is acceptable. but gathering data in the real world can be unpredictable. conditions are less than ideal, and human error is a significant factor. the consequences of poor data quality can have devastating effects on modern health and well-being research. in this thesis, we present a thorough analysis of the problem of data quality in ubiquitous sensing studies and suggest methods to increase participant compliance. second, as the number of sensing modalities increases and researchers find new ways of sensing a number of traits and behaviors, the challenge of carefully selecting the sensors to use and how to use them in a study has grown accordingly. to address this problem, we present a framework for conducting a cost-benefit analysis when selecting sensing modalities for a longitudinal study. this novel framework takes into account the costs to participants, researchers, and it infrastructure of using a set of sensors in a study, and considers the benefits in the form of prediction performance or feature importance in including these sensors, in order to obtain an optimized subset of modalities to include in a study. third, we found that often there are unchecked assumptions about how research that was conducted in the lab can apply broadly in the context of passive sensing in real-life settings. in particular, we find examples of this problem in the context of stress prediction from heart rate variability in real-life settings. in this work, we show why heart rate variability cannot be considered a proxy for stress, as it is often assumed in the field based on assessments under controlled conditions, exemplifying the gap between the engineering side of the ubiquitous computing field and the psychology side of the field. additionally, we show to what extent heart rate variability from wearables can be a predictor of stress in real life settings. conversely, we show that a cross-disciplinary approach can be used in the field in the problem of measuring sleep with wearables. we show an improvement on the accuracy and reliability of the measurement of sleep duration by fusing phone activity and wearable measurements through leveraging the advantages of each sensor with regards to the aspects that each can measure from sleep. group a streptococcus (gas) is one of leading infectious causes of human morbidity and mortality. in particular, pattern d gas isolates express plasminogen-binding group a streptococcal m protein (pam) that utilizes its a-domain to specifically capture the k2 domain in human plasminogen (hpg). the binding to pam facilitates activation of hpg by gas-derived streptokinase on the cell surface. plasmin generated degrades fibrin encapsulating bacterial cells, which is one of the major pathogenesis mechanisms employed by skin-tropic pattern d strains to escape the host immune defense. seven recombinant pams from different gas strains were investigated in this work. each pam dimerizes in solution at 25 °c, wherein the c-domain constitutes the most important region in pam dimerization. nmr solution structures of peptides that contain the aand b-domains demonstrated that both domains are helix-destabilizing, and thus contribute little to dimerization. a structural model was accordingly developed to describe the non-ideal dimerization pattern of pam. it is noteworthy that dimeric pams dissociate into unstructured monomers at 37 °c, to different extents. although all pams tightly bind to hpg in a nm range at 25 °c, the reduction of α-helical content at 37 °c makes class ii pams that only contain the a2-repeat interact with hpg ~1,000 times weaker, but impacts little to hpg-binding of class i/iii pams containing complete a1a2-repeats. it is further corroborated that the a1-repeat protects the α-helix in the a2-repeat, making binding relevant residues in the latter repeat optimally orientate. however, this protection disappears when the a1-repeat is absent in class ii pams. another divergence among these pams is that dimeric class i/iii pams completely dissociate once binding to excessive k2hpg at 25 °c, while monomeric and dimeric species coexist in the case of class ii pams. nmr structures of two complexes, agl55ns88.2-k2hpg and kti55ss1448-k2hpg, in which agl55ns88.2 and kti55ss1448 are truncated from the corresponding class ii pams, elucidate the atom-level mechanisms underlying the differences in hpg-binding between class ii and class i/iii pams. on the basis of complex structures and the phylogeny of pams, the α-helical content in the a-domain is discovered to be a driving force in the pam evolution. the construct of personality dysfunction has received considerable attention in the last two decades as both clinicians and researchers have sought to further our understanding of what constitutes personality pathology beyond maladaptive-range traits. a clear goal of this work has been to determine whether personality dysfunction is an essential component of personality disorder. to achieve this goal, crucial questions must be answered, including (a) what is the structure of personality dysfunction, (b) how can we best explain the overlap between personality dysfunction and traits theoretically, and (c) how can we best ensure that empirical measures of each of these components reflect their theoretically hypothesized overlap. efficient personality dysfunction measures that are both theoretically based and psychometrically robust are needed to help answer such questions. for my first-year project, i developed a short form of the generalized assessment of personality dysfunction (gapd; livesley, 2010), a prominent and influential measure of personality dysfunction. in this master's thesis, i examine the psychometric properties and construct validity of this short form, named the gapd – three brief factor form (gapd-3bff). the gapd-3bff demonstrated (a) improved reflection of theory, (b) strong psychometric properties, (c) partial ability to differentiate among samples with varying levels of psychopathology, (d) good convergent validity but variable discriminant validity, and (e) moderate ability to predict personality pathology, although it had little incremental predictive power over measures of maladaptive-range traits. thus, the gapd-3bff is a psychometrically robust and efficient measure with a clear theoretical basis that can play an important role in the field's effort to further our understanding of personality dysfunction. however, it also shares limitations of existing measures of the construct (e.g., insufficient discriminant validity both among some aspects of personality dysfunction and with personality traits), indicating the need for a new measure that addresses such limitations. tax exemptions for employer-provided health insurance have topped $1 trillion over the past decade, and tax strategies remain a central focus of proposed policies to expand health insurance coverage. in this paper i estimate the impact of the tax-preferred treatment of health insurance on the level of health insurance coverage. i employ a pair of restricted government datasets comprising the agency on health research and quality's medical expenditure panel survey. these data, unique in their content, allow me to address one of the primary challenges in this field. there has been difficulty in identifying the numerous ways in which both firms and households may respond to the tax incentives. these include whether insurance is offered by the employer, whether firms change plan details, and whether households participate in offered benefits. in addition, the data allow for consideration of important variables, such as the distribution of workers within a firm and individuals' health statuses, which are not available in publicly available data. examining changes in tax rates at the start of the decade, i find that some firms have responded to decreases in marginal tax rates by not offering benefits. this response is employed by between 1% and 1.5% of firms and is restricted almost exclusively to small firms. in addition, a small percentage of workers have responded by declining coverage. this behavior occurs primarily among younger and low-income workers and is present in all but the smallest firms. in contrast to these two responses, the level of spending per participant has not responded to changes in tax rates. this does not support the concerns of many that the tax treatment of employer-provided health insurance leads to ì¢åûåïover-consumptionì¢åûå of health insurance. in addition to the responses to changes in tax rates, i find that the earnings distribution of workers within a firm is one of the strongest determinants of whether firms offer health insurance, the number of workers that decline coverage and the level of spending per participant. in total, these findings imply that beneficial tax treatment of benefits does raise health insurance coverage, but the size and composition of the risk pool are far more important characteristics. florence nightingale (1820-1910) is best known as the founder of the nursing profession and for her work on training nurses and improving medical conditions for soldiers fighting in crimea in the 1850s. however, nightingale was more broadly interested and influential in social reform, particularly in india. her expertise became so well-known that nearly every viceroy serving between 1857 and the end of the century consulted her at her home in london on issues of health and sanitation before taking up his post. following the so-called indian rebellion of 1857 and the reorganization of british power, nightingale turned much of her attention toward the indian peasant, or ryot, class. nightingale's suggestions came in the form of a systematic social reform, intertwining liberal politics, land rights, technological innovation, and health care. what nightingale advocated was a civilizing mission, of sorts, in the guise of a hygiene campaign. my dissertation will contribute to the history of social medicine, public health, and nineteenth-century social policy. but by contextualizing nightingale's program within the colonial structure of nineteenth-century india, i also seek to discuss her work in terms of the history of indian policy and political thought. recently societal needs have led to a growing number of tall buildings worldwide. this has led to a concerted effort to develop more sustainable structures, one aspect of which involves saving resources through the development of novel, efficient load-resisting systems. accordingly, topology, or layout, optimization techniques offer a means of achieving this goal. the use of deterministic topology optimization methods for structural design leads to structures with reduced redundancy when inefficient material is removed since the structures are essentially pushed to their limiting capacities. this has significant implications for building design as structures are subject to a number of uncertainties that must be considered during the design process to ensure satisfactory performance. it is particularly important to account for the stochastic loading conditions and resulting structural responses using first excursion probabilities for compatibility with current design methodologies. the possibility of performing topology optimization within this setting has not yet been investigated.to address this need, this thesis presents a series of methods that are a first effort towards the development of a topology optimization framework for structural design that rigorously includes the effect of the uncertain and stochastic nature of the structural design problem using first excursion probabilities. in particular, these methods efficiently consider the design of structures under stationary and non-stationary loading processes, and consider serviceability and habitability constraints written in terms of displacementand acceleration-based response quantities, respectively. the techniques presented in this thesis are categorized as decoupling methods and develop a series of localized approximations of the original optimization problem, each of which is defined through a single reliability analysis while taking on a traditional deterministic form. therefore, the optimization problem may be efficiently solved using established gradient-based algorithms. the probabilistic analysis is evaluated using simulation-based techniques in order to consider the large-scale nature of the reliability problem. a number of examples are provided throughout this thesis in order to illustrate the applicability and efficiency of the approach. this research significantly contributes to the field of reliability-based topology optimization while enhancing the usefulness of topology optimization methods for the preliminary design of buildings. large systems in nature and civilization share some important organizing principles uncovered in the framework of complex network research. here we aim to present a few advances in understanding the generic topological characteristics of these systems. we start with an introduction to basic concepts of network research, continuing with a repertoire of well studied network examples and a brief history of previous modelling efforts. next, we present a detailed investigation of scientific collaboration networks, with special focus on the role of internal links in determining the networks's scaling properties, and on limitations of certain measurements imposed by the database. many real networks in nature and society share two generic properties: they are scale free and they display a high degree of lustering. we show that the scale free nature and high clustering of real networks are the consequence of a hierarchical organization, implying that small groups of nodes form increasingly large groups in a hierarchical manner, while maintaining a scale free topology. in hierarchical networks the clustering coefficient follows a strict scaling law, which can be used to identify the presence of a hierarchical organization in real networks. we find that several real networks, such as the world wide web, actor network, the internet at the domain level and the semantic web obey this scaling law, indicating that hierarchy is a fundamental characteristic of many complex systems. we then focus on the metabolic network of 43 distinct organisms and show that many small, highly connected topological modules combine in a hierarchical manner into larger, less cohesive units, their number and degree of clustering following a power law. within escherichia coli we find that the uncovered hierarchical modularity closely overlaps with known metabolic functions. we show that enzyme essentiality is not randomly distributed in the metabolic network, on the contrary, essential enzymes tend to cluster into a few small, well defined modules of the metabolism. finally, we present an enzyme evolution-based model for metabolic network growth. this model reproduces the observed scale free and hierarchical organization of metabolic networks using local wiring rules. using data from the relate institute, this dissertation explores three aspects of premarital relationship dissolution: 1) the experience of breaking up; 2) the occurrence of positive breakups; and 3) a comparison of the factors that lead some couples to break up and others to stay together or marry. premarital romantic partners completed a relationship evaluation instrument and were contacted eighteen months later to investigate changes in their relationship. if the respondents were no longer dating their time 1 partner, they were asked to complete a breakup instrument. employing quantitative methods including ols and logistic regression, the results indicate that a greater level of commitment between partners, such as cohabiting or engagement, leads to a more difficult breakup experience. one-sided relationships, where one partner is more committed, usually result in one-sided breakups. forming a new relationship helps to overcome negative aspects of a breakup. overall, breakups do not have long-term negative consequences for people, even if they get dumped. most breakups can be considered positive, but most are not friendly. the friendliness of a breakup is influenced most by the relationship quality and the difference in partners' commitment levels near the end, and by the breakup method (e.g., a sudden decision by one partner, a fight, or a discussion with a joint decision). years after a breakup, a person's feelings about the ending of their relationship are influenced by the friendliness of the breakup, the passage of time, the likelihood that they will get back together with their former partner, and their own coping with the breakup. relationship dissolution occurs primarily because of dissatisfaction with the relationship and some individual partner characteristics, especially extraversion, difference in religious affiliation, and difference in substance use. relationship progression to marriage is best predicted by age, financial considerations (income and materialism), and approval of the relationship by parents and friends. cohabitation is important to both processes, as couples who live together are less likely to break up but also less likely to marry. the use of recycled concrete aggregate (rca) in the u.s. has mostly been limited to non-structural applications such as roadway sub-base. to advance this sustainable material as replacement for coarse natural aggregates (e.g., gravel) in structural applications, a fundamental understanding of the behavior of rca concrete is needed while also incorporating the variability in rca properties. to this end, this dissertation investigates the short-term and long-term structural behavior of rca concrete through material and member level experiments, accompanying analytical models, and statistical investigations. three rca concrete mix design methods utilizing up to 100% (i.e., full) direct volume aggregate replacement, direct weight replacement, and equivalent mortar replacement are compared. to represent the variability in material properties, sixteen rca sources from the midwestern u.s are used. the research vision is to use rca with minimal deviation or additional processing from current practice for conventional reinforced concrete structures. the material level tests show that direct volume replacement is the best method to design rca concrete mixes because this simple method results in a consistent volumetric yield and workability as conventional concrete. while there is a decrease in the concrete strength and stiffness as a result of rca, the dissertation proposes design relationships to pre-qualify the rca (using the aggregate water absorption and deleterious material content) to achieve specific concrete strength and stiffness performance criteria. rca has a much greater effect on concrete stiffness than strength; and thus, increased deflections may be a greater limitation. based on creep and shrinkage experiments, the dissertation develops adjustment factors for conventional concrete creep and shrinkage models to predict the deformations of rca concrete. these models are validated using the long-term deflections from eighteen reinforced concrete beam test specimens. the beams are subsequently tested under ultimate loads to experimentally and analytically investigate the flexural, shear, and bond failure in rca concrete. the measured long-term beam deflections are also used to validate a new time-dependent concrete material model for the opensees structural analysis program. this model is then extended to parametric monte carlo investigations to determine the service-load behavior of beams and columns incorporating the variability in rca properties. the method of slow invariant manifolds (sims), as developed to model the reduced kinetics of spatially homogeneous reactive systems, is extended to systems with diffusion. using a galerkin projection, the governing partial differential equations are cast into a finite system of ordinary differential equations to be solved on an approximate inertial manifold. the sim construction technique of identifying equilibria and connecting heteroclinic orbits is extended by identifying steady state solutions to the governing partial differential equations and connecting analogous orbits in the galerkin-projected space. in parametric studies varying the domain length, the time scale spectrum is shifted, and various classes of non-linear dynamics are identified. a critical length scale is identified at which a bifurcation occurs in the equilibria used to construct the one-dimensional sim. above this length scale additional real non-singular steady state solutions are found which lead to a diffusion-modified sim. at these longer lengths, the spectral gap in the time scales indicates that an appropriate manifold for a reduction technique is higher than one-dimensional. this is shown for three examples in closed reaction-diffusion systems: a generic chemical reaction mechanism, an oxygen dissociation reaction mechanism, and the zel'dovich reaction mechanism of no production. the extension of sims to adiabatic reaction systems is also considered, and results are shown for the zel'dovich mechanism. finally, two open chemical systems are considered: the gray-scott reaction mechanism, and a hydrogen-air reaction mechanism. multiple branches of the sim are identified, complicating the implementation of the sim as a reduction technique. limit cycles are studied and a projection to the sim across a basin of attraction is shown to provide erroneous results. low-dimensional galerkin projections are shown to provide correct order of magnitude predictions for length scales in patterns. the examples are evaluated in the spatially homogeneous case (a one-term projection), a two-term projection capturing the coarsest effects of diffusion, and a high order projection that is fully resolved. the results cast into doubt the sim as a robust rational reduction technique for reaction dynamics. in an age of highly refined special effects and manicured filmic experiences, totò's artistic contribution is still cherished within italian culture. as such, his copious movie production with its contagious entertainment value has been consistently able to appeal to trans-generational and trans-cultural audiences. sadly, though treasured by his compatriots, totò has not won the proper exposure and appreciation within the field of italian cinema studies outside of italy and, in particular, in the united states. such a failure is probably owed to the controversial attitude cinema critics have adopted towards totò's artistic production over the past few decades. given such a gap in scholarship, the time is now mature to introduce a profile of the neapolitan artist in order to highlight his contribution to the italian culture. ultimately, the present work aims at sparking the interest of american film scholars and at prompting more in-depth research on totò as an italian filmic and cultural icon. machine translation, the subfield of computer science that focuses on translating between two human languages, has greatly benefited from neural networks. however, these neural machine translation systems have complicated architectures with many hyperparameters that need to be manually chosen. frequently, these are selected either through a grid search over values, or by using values commonplace in the literature. however, these are not theoretically justified and the same values are not optimal for all language pairs and datasets.fortunately, the innate structure of the problem allows for optimization of these hyperparameters during training. traditionally, the hyperparameters of a system are chosen and then a learning algorithm optimizes all of the parameters within the model. in this work, i propose three methods to learn the optimal hyperparameters during the training of the model, allowing for one step instead of two. first, i propose using group regularizers to learn the number, and size of, the hidden neural network layers. second, i demonstrate how to use a perceptron-like tuning method to solve known problems of undertranslation and label bias. finally, i propose an expectation-maximization based method to learn the optimal vocabulary size and granularity. using various techniques from machine learning and numerical optimization, this dissertation covers how to learn hyperparameters of a neural machine translation system while training the model itself. due to advances in cmos fabrication technology, high performance computing capabilities have continually grown. more capable hardware has allowed a range of complex scientific applications to be developed. however, these applications present a bottleneck to future performance. entrenched "legacy" codes "dusty decks" demand that new hardware must remain compatible with existing software. additionally, conventional architectures faces increasing challenges. many of these challenges revolve around the growing disparity between processor and memory speed the "memory wall" and difficulties scaling to large numbers of parallel processors. to a large extent, these limitations are inherent to the traditional computer architecture. as data is consumed more quickly, moving that data to the point of computation becomes more difficult. barring any upward revision in the speed of light, this will continue to be a fundamental limitation on the speed of computation. this work focuses on these solving these problems in the context of light weight processing (lwp). lwp is an innovative technique which combines processing-in-memory, short vector computation, multithreading, and extended memory semantics. it applies these techniques to try and answer the questions "what will a next-generation supercomputer look like?" and "how will we program it?" to that end, this work presents four contributions: an implementation of mpi which uses features of lwp to substantially improve message processing throughput a technique leveraging extended memory semantics to improve message passing by overlapping computation and communication an openmp library modified to allow efficient partitioning of threads between a conventional cpu and lwps greatly improving cost / performance. an algorithm to extract very small ``threadlets' which can overcome the inherent disadvantages of a simple processor pipeline. this study tested a dissemination and implementation protocol for delivering cognitive behavioral therapy (cbt) for depression to therapists within a community mental health center (cmhc). twelve therapists and 116 patients participated, and patients received either treatment as usual (tau, n = 74) or cbt (n = 42). therapist cbt competence was measured using the cognitive therapy rating scale (ctrs), and patients' symptomatology was measured using the beck depression inventory-2 (bdi-ii) and beck anxiety inventory (bai). over the course of the study, therapist ctrs scores increased significantly while patients' bdi-ii and bai scores showed a larger decrease when treated with cbt. this data suggests that the significant increase in therapist cbt competence may explain the significant decreases in patients' reported depression and anxiety symptoms when receiving cbt compared to tau. this study demonstrated that cbt could be successfully disseminated and effectively implemented to improve patient outcomes within a cmhc. an epithelium is a sheet of constantly growing cells that strongly adhere to their neighbors. studying mechanisms that regulate the growth of epithelium is important for both understanding of development in general and finding solutions for diseases. the regulation of cell growth and division is one of the key mechanisms that ensure proper development of living organisms. compromised regulation of proliferation could lead to cancer, which often starts from epithelial cells. despite their importance, the exact mechanisms that control proliferation is still under debate. some believe that mechanical feedback plays the most important role in growth regulation, while others believe that signaling molecules could be responsible for regulation of growth pattern. computational modeling is used in this study to provide new insights into cellular growth regulation. up to date, various approaches have been employed to model the proliferation of epithelial cells. there are topological models that emphasize cellular connectivity, lattice-based models that use fixed lattice to represent cells, and off-lattice models that describe cells by collection of connected points. however, existing models are insufficient to capture mechanical properties of the epithelial sheet, partially because of the artificially imposed geometrical constraints, which often restrict cells to be polygon-shaped. moreover, the mechanical interaction between cells might be over-simplified because of this approximation. a novel cell-based off-lattice computational model for studying epithelial proliferation is developed in this study. the model provides a flexible representation for cellular geometry, without imposing assumption of polygon cell shape. epithelial cells appear as polygon-shaped in model simulations as a result of mechanical interaction. cellular network transitions in model simulations also naturally emerge as a result of cellular interaction, compared with existing models which often include ad hoc assumptions for such transitions. results in the esem simulations match very well with experimental findings, such as overall cell shape polygon class distribution on the epithelial sheet, and the shifting of polygon class during mitosis. it is also worth mentioning that the new model reproduces mitotic rounding behavior in proliferating epithelia, which is commonly observed but never been modeled in other computational models. in addition, this thesis introduces a parallel algorithm that runs on general purpose graphical processing unit for model implementation, overcoming computational challenges brought by the new model. a complete source code package of the parallel algorithm is provided as a supplement of this thesis for future extension and development of the model. this work was supported in part by the national science foundation grant cbet 1403887. due to the size and number of genomes that the bioinformatic resource vectorbase.org maintains, vectorbase relies heavily on automated computational analyses for gene prediction and functional annotation. while these automated procedures provide a standardized, uniform analysis of all genomic data, the algorithms inspecting the data are often conservative and unable to provide a complete picture of a gene's structure and functionality due to our limited understanding of the relationship between a gene's sequence and its phenotypic manifestation. alternatively, researchers working with specific genes of interest in often have a very intimate understanding of a gene's structure and functional role by way of experimental analyses. although these per-gene investigations are numerically limited due to the time and effort entailed, the information ascertained through such experiments can be used as both a benchmark and training material for automated gene-prediction analyses in addition to simply providing trustworthy genomic annotation. herein is presented a set of web-based data collection tools, known as the vectorbase community annotation pipeline, that are designed to facilitate collection and integration of experimentally produced gene models and associated meta-data. the process of gyrification, by which the brain develops the intricate pattern of gyral hills and sulcal valleys, results from biological and mechanical interactions during brain development. yet, despite decades of research, many outstanding questions remain — how is the folding pattern determined? how does it vary between individuals and species? what causes abnormal folding in neurological and neurodegenerative disorders such as autism spectrum disorder, schizophrenia, and epilepsy? in addition to innovative experimental studies to answer these questions, researchers have developed various mathematical models to research aspects of brain development. this dissertation studies the mechanics of a developing brain, focusing on analytical and computational investigations on the instability of multilayered systems under of external boundary conditions. analytical predictions provide preliminary insight into the critical growth ratio for instability and crease formation of the developing brain, followed by computational modeling to offer clues for the brain's post-buckling morphology. this manuscript also presents a new perspective on recent advances in biomechanical models of the brain development process and suggests new opportunities for further investigation and challenges ahead. the natriuretic peptide (np) system is a remarkably efficacious hypotensive, antihypertrophic cardiovascular hormone and receptor family. comparative empirical research of the np system in fish has yielded two prominent theories, the osmoregulatory and cardioprotective hypotheses. the osmoregulatory hypothesis is based largely on physiological actions and stimuli of the np system in the eel, and implies that the np system functions to reduce the salt burden on euryhaline teleosts following transfer from freshwater to saltwater. in contrast, the cardioprotective hypothesis is formulated from empirical evidence from the eel and trout, and contends that the np system in fishes functions primarily to protect the heart from volume-loading cardiodilation. results from the present studies support the cardioprotective hypothesis for the np system in trout. following adaptation to a freshwater high-salt diet (fw-hsd), cardiac np transcription and pro-peptide levels were significantly elevated over levels in freshwater (fw) and saltwater (sw) adapted fish. cardiac np-receptors (nprs) were also significantly elevated in fw-hsd trout as comared to fw and sw trout. following acute volume loading cardiac np mrna levels were significantly elevated over control, while acute volume depletion typically resulted in a reduction of cardiac np mrna. identification of extra-cardiac np production sites in the brain and vasculature further supports a cardioprotective role for the np system in trout. following adaptation to fw-hsd, brain pro-bnp, npr-a and npr-b mrna levels were significantly elevated over fw and sw adapted fish. furthermore, local production of bnp and cnp in the trout vasculature supports a blood volume-sensitive response. npr production in the efferent branchial artery (eba) was not significantly affected by fw-hsd or sw adaptation as compared to fw, though in vitro vascular sensitivity assays for either anp or cnp revealed ebas from fw-hsd trout were significantly less sensitive than either fw or sw ebas. these results show that the production of cardiac nps and nprs is primarily blood volume-responsive. furthermore, np and npr transcription of extra-cardiac sites suggest a volume-responsive role for nps and nprs in the brain and vasculature. overall, these findings in conjunction with numerous previous studies support a cardioprotective role for the np system in trout. this dissertation analyzes data from the early childhood longitudinal study, kindergarten class of 1998-99 to examine schools' provision of opportunities for, facilitation of, and actual level of family participation in formal school activities. in doing so, it places a specific focus on the involvement of language minority (lm) families and synthesizes research on both the individual-level and school-level factors that influence involvement. the analyses, informed by social exchange theory and the concepts of cultural and linguistic capital, test an overall hypothesis that the home-school relationship will be stronger when the costs of being in the relationship for both parents and school personnel are lower. in particular, lm families are expected to be less involved than other families because they lack linguistic capital, or the ability to speak the dominant language and to use it appropriately, given the context in which social interaction takes place (bourdieu 1991). the analyses show that the opportunities schools offer families to be involved vary by school characteristics such as size, resources, and sector. however, while opportunities positively predict families' participation in school activities, variation in opportunities does not explain differences in involvement by various child, family, and household characteristics. the families who are most involved are those with the greatest resources, including linguistic capital. overall, the findings from this research generally support the contention, generated from exchange theory, that parents and school personnel, who stand to benefit from parents' involvement, will form relationships with one another when it is easier for them to do. schools can make participation easier for language minority parents, thereby increasing their levels of involvement. the study concludes with a discussion of several practices schools should consider adopting in order to increase language minority parent participation in formal school activities. chip multiprocessors are one of several emerging architectures that address the growing processor memory performance gap. at the same time, advances in chip manufacturing enable the integration of processing logic and dense dram on the same die. this thesis analyzes the use of such merged dram as a shared cache for a large-scale chip multiprocessor. simulation results reveal that maximizing concurrency in the cache is of paramount importance, greater even than cache hit rate. concurrency is achieved through ports gained from creating a multi-banked cache, and multiple paths to main memory. results demonstrate that maximizing the number of cache banks is the most important design goal, followed by providing adequate associativity to minimize miss rates. furthermore, the optimal cache block size is heavily dependent on the workload. the off-chip memory organization impacts performance to a lesser degree, with providing multiple paths to memory outperforming a wider memory bus. increased urbanization, mass migration towards cities, and climate change have drastically increased the vulnerability of our communities to natural hazards, creating increased urgency for comprehensive hazard/risk assessment strategies that can better inform risk mitigation strategies and real-time emergency responses. to facilitate such a comprehensive assessment, these strategies need to rely on the use of high-fidelity numerical models, creating a significant computational burden that is still considered as insurmountable for many applications. this work investigates the implementation of surrogate modeling techniques to address this challenge. kriging is adopted as the preferred surrogate model, and two different hazard implementations are examined: (i) the estimation of storm surge, and (ii) the approximation of engineering demand parameters (edps) for earthquake applications that use stochastic ground motion models for the description of the seismic hazard. emphasis is placed on the former, that also represents an application with renewed importance due to the widely acknowledged increased vulnerability of coastal communities stemming from future sea level rise and storm intensification projections.using synthetic storm databases developed for coastal studies as the foundation of the surrogate model development, various unexplored topics are investigated in detail for the formulation of surrogate models to predict the peak storm surge. these include topics related to the incorporation of sea level rise explicitly as an input in the surrogate model formulation with additional guidance for the development of such synthetic storm databases, and the efficient risk assessment for extended regions of interest with hundreds of thousands of points for which the hazard curves need to be estimated. other developments investigate, the surrogate model implementation for small size databases, examining in more detail any occurring overfitting challenges, the explicit use of a classifier to accommodate higher accuracy for nodes that have remained dry in some storms, and finally, the detailed exploration of different surrogate modeling approaches that can accommodate time-series surge predictions. for seismic applications, the research in this dissertation advances the estimation of the edp distribution. emphasis is placed on efficiently addressing the aleatoric uncertainty related to the hazard description within a surrogate modeling framework. this is accommodated by leveraging the nugget parameter in the kriging formulation and by introducing a novel stochastic kriging implementation that allows a heteroscedastic description of the nugget variance. implementation greatly reduces the number of structural simulations for the calibration of the metamodel that approximates the edp distribution, promoting significant computational savings in seismic risk assessment application. despite established negative effects of directly experienced potentially traumatic events (ptes), intergenerational effects of parental ptes, and perceived discrimination on mental health, many individuals maintain positive functioning. this study examined the protective capacity of proactive coping (pc), a construct that may bridge multiple social ecological levels of resilience (bronfenbrenner, 1977). it was hypothesized: 1) interpersonal and non-interpersonal ptes, parental ptes, and discrimination would predict lower well-being. 2) pc would predict higher well-being., 3) pc would moderate the effect of these risks on well-being. 4) social support would mediate the relationship between pc and well-being. discrimination and pc significantly predicted well-being. at higher pc scores, the negative interpersonal ptes-well-being relationship was stronger. social support mediated the relationship between pc and well-being. pc may be animportant site for interventions to bolster bridging individual and social resilience systems. however, pc may be limited as a protective factor in the face of risk. fibers can be used to improve the mechanical properties of acrylic bone cement. however, debonding of the fibers from the matrix due to the poor fiber/matrix interface is a major failure mechanism for such reinforcements. optimization of the fiber shape can improve load transfer between the fibers and the matrix, thereby providing improved overall mechanical performance. the goals of this study include: (1) develop an analytical model to evaluate the effects of fiber end geometry on the pullout load and stress distribution; (2) determine the optimal fiber morphology for maximum stress transfer in composites using optimization and finite element modeling; (3) fabricate the fibers with optimal morphology determined by the previous step; (4) manufacture composites reinforced with the optimized fibers and demonstrate improved mechanical properties experimentally. analytical solutions were derived to predict the effects of the enlarged end shape on the pullout load and stress distribution. it is shown that the shape of the enlarged end has a significant influence on the stress distribution of the short fiber. a procedure for structural shape optimization of short fibers was developed. the effects of the interfacial bond and fiber orientation were investigated to obtain the optimal fiber shape. the general optimal fiber shape is a variable diameter fiber (vdf). due to the mechanical interlock, the vdf can both bridge matrix cracks effectively and improve the composite mechanical properties. ceramic vdfs were successfully fabricated. static and fatigue tests were carried out on the vdf reinforced composites. conventional straight fiber (csf) reinforced bone cement was also tested for comparison purposes. results demonstrated that both the stiffness and the fatigue life of vdf reinforced bone cement are significantly improved compared with the unreinforced cement. also, the fatigue life of vdf reinforced bone cement was significantly longer than that of csf reinforced cement. this study shows the feasibility of a novel fiber (vdfs) technology for reinforced polymers. this fiber family significantly improves the fatigue life of bone cement at a very high level of reliability. vdfs could potentially avoid implant loosening due to the mantle fracture of bone cement and delay the need for revision surgery. twenty years ago, historian james white reported a startling lacuna in liturgical studies: nonliturgical evangelicalism åð the most prevalent worship tradition in american protestantism åð lacked any recognized name or representation in liturgical scholarship. as a corrective, white introduced the term "frontier tradition" to liturgical studies and nominated charles finney as the most influential liturgical reformer in american history. finney developed a three-part liturgical order that would eventually come to dominate the format of american protestant worship: preliminary songs that softened up the audience, a fervent sermon, and an altar call for new converts. white's instinct that the explosive popularity of "seeker services" and the "church growth" movement of the 1980s had origins in nineteenth century american revivalism was prescient. however, this dissertation suggests that white's analysis was more concerned with evangelicalism's discontinuities from historic christianity than its ecumenical contributions. in response, i reframe the evangelical-liturgical relationship through three different lenses: historical, theological, and practical. historically, i propose that george whitefield, no less than charles finney, has contributed significantly to north american free church ecclesiology. by preaching the experience of "new birth," whitefield encouraged early evangelicals to identify themselves primarily with a large, interdenominational family, and only secondarily with a specific denomination. positively speaking, whitefield united evangelicals across denominational lines and helped to inaugurate a new ecumenical consciousness after the thirty years war. more problematically, these new evangelical alliances created internal denominational divisions. theologically, i nuance the terms of mainline-evangelical debates by placing the work of evangelical systematic theologians john webster, kevin vanhoozer, and miroslav volf in conversation with the biblical-liturgical scholarship of aidan kavanagh, louis marie chauvet, and gordon lathrop. i suggest that evangelicals make a distinctive ecumenical contribution to the problem of fundamentalism which emphasizes the trinitarian nature of revelation and takes seriously the diversity of biblical genres. finally, on the practical front, this dissertation concludes with case studies of worship practice in two free church congregations. the songs, prayers, sermons, and theologies of these congregations demonstrate that the gulf between free churches and liturgical churches is not as great as james white's original analysis suggests. geometric analysis and control of underactuated mechanical systems is a multidisciplinary field of study that overlaps diverse research areas in engineering and applied mathematics. these areas include differential geometry, geometric mechanics and nonlinear control theory. many challenging applications exist such as robotics, autonomous aerospace and marine vehicles, multi-body systems, constrained systems and legged locomotion. these systems are characterized by the fact that one or more degrees of freedom are unactuated. the unactuated nature gives rise to many interesting control problems which require fundamental nonlinear approaches. this thesis contains contributions to modeling, analysis and algorithm design for underactuated mechanical systems. we provide two novel differential geometric formulations of the nonlinear control models for underactuated mechanical systems. the key feature of each formulation is the partitioning of the equations of motion into those associated with the actuated and unactuated dynamics. both formulations are constructed using control forces and the kinetic energy metric inherent in the classic problem formulation. interestingly, each formulation gives rise to an intrinsic vector-valued symmetric bilinear form that can be associated with an underactuated mechanical control system. the first formulation models an underactuated mechanical system evolving on an affine foliation of the tangent bundle. the affine foliation decomposes the velocity curve of the underactuated system into affine and linear components. we show that the affine component represents the unactuated velocity states and the linear component represents the actuated velocity states. in this framework, the ability to move from leaf to leaf in the affine foliation is characterized by the definiteness of the intrinsic symmetric bilinear form. the second formulation utilizes two linear connections. specifically, we introduce the actuated and unactuated connections which provide a coordinate-invariant representation of the actuated and unactuated dynamics. we show that feedback linearization of the actuated dynamics gives rise to a control-affine system whose drift vector field is the geodesic spray of the unactuated connection. we call this control-affine system the geometric normal form for underactuated mechanical systems. the geometric normal form is the starting point for our reachability analysis and motion algorithms for mechanical systems underactuated by one. our main analytical contribution is a unique characterization of the set of reachable velocities from an arbitrary initial configuration and velocity (possibly nonzero velocity) for mechanical systems underactuated by one control. the characterization is computable and dependent upon the definiteness of the intrinsic symmetric bilinear form. the proof of the existence of a control law that will drive a mechanical system underactuated by one control from velocity to velocity is constructive. therefore, our main result gives rise to a velocity to velocity motion planning algorithm. the algorithm is applied to various examples of nonlinear mechanical systems underactuated by one control. for sobolev exponent s > 5=2, it is shown that the data-to-solution map for the2-component camassa-holm system is continuous from hs x hs􀀀-1 into c([0; t];hs x hs􀀀-1) but not uniformly continuous. the proof of non-uniform dependence on the initial data is based on the method of approximate solutions, delicate commutator and multiplier estimates, and well-posedness results for the solution and its lifespan. also, the solution map is holder continuous if the hs x hs-􀀀1 norm is replaced by an hr x hr􀀀-1 norm for 0 r < s. restore/reclaim navigates the complexities of being raised within "purity culture," healing from sexual trauma, and responding to spiritual and physical abuse within the church. using the conceptual frameworks provided by trauma theorists and feminist artists, i am drawing attention to the abuse of power towards women within the church. simultaneously, through creating the work, i seek healing and reclamation for myself and other women with this lived experience. the entropy of a discrete dynamical system is a rough gauge of its complexity. we wish to find a bound for the entropy of a system. we particularly concern ourselves with the specific family of maps $f:\overline{\r} \ imes \overline{\r} \ ightarrow \overline{\r} \ imes \overline{\r}$ defined by $f(x,y) = \left(y\ rac{x+a}{x-1},x+a-1\ ight)$, where $a \in \r$ is a parameter subject to conditions specified later. this family first appeared in various statistical physics papers and was considered mathematically by bedford and diller. our method is combinatorial, using invariant and critical curves for $f$ to define a partition of $\overline{\r} \ imes \overline{\r}$ that is convenient for coding orbits under $f$. we may expand these codings to hold for points without well-defined orbits. these more general codings allow us to construct a set with easier-to-calculate entropy. this new set's entropy is a lower bound for the entropy of $f$. this thesis focuses upon lucretius' description of the development of society in the fifth book of de rerum natura. i argue that many of lucretius' seemingly un-epicurean statements are actually clarified by his use of archaic poetic devices. through these features, lucretius constructs a logical substructure upon which he builds his narrative and philosophical claims. as evidence for this, i compare these poetic devices to those found in other locations throughout drn, as well as to similar features in latin and oscan curse tablets, ennius' annales, and varro's de lingua latina. afterwards, by reference to the works of epicurus, hermarchus, and demetrius lacon, i demonstrate that these philosophical claims are orthodox epicurean beliefs. i conclude with a brief investigation of the narrative's nachleben in propertius' elegia and ovid's ars amatoria in order to demonstrate that, in antiquity, this portion of drn was understood in a manner congruent with my analysis. in this dissertation, i raise the question as to what sort of ethics might be gotten out of phenomenology, and begin to answer it by examining the ethical theories of jean-paul sartre and emmanuel levinas. i begin the project by circumscribing the sense in which i take it that both sartre and levinas are working within the phenomenological tradition, and by outlining the fundamental assumptions -phenomenological and ontological -about the self and its position in the world upon which sartre's and levinas' ethics are based. i then proceed to discuss these philosophers' accounts of relations with others, and discuss in detail the ethical theory that sartre and levinas develop on the basis of their respective descriptions of self and others. finally, in the last chapter of the dissertation, i conclude that, in the case of sartre and levinas, the sort of ethics that phenomenology offers is: (1) a metaethical account rather than a first-order normative ethics, which proposes (2) that in order to be genuinely free, my choices must be determined through my relations with other persons and (3) that ethics is a matter of self-construction, in the sense that ethical normativity is constituted in relationship with others along with the construction of the free and conscious self (chapter 5) there has been a remarkable growth rate in computing performance for many years, however, the technology roadmap has indicated that current scaling trends cannot continue forever. research in the fields of physics, chemistry, and electronics has demonstrated that quantum-dot cellular automata (qca) is a viable nanotechnology in the area of computing. experimental success has led to the evolution of a research track that looks at qca-based circuit design that may help scaling trends continue. the research contained in this thesis includes an investigation into the physical spacings of qca devices and the harmful effects of defects and faults on basic qca circuit elements. various simulation tools are utilized to explore these issues. a statistical mechanical simulation tool in particular is extended specifically for a molecular implementation of qca. because of the higher defect rates expected at the nanoscale, steps have been taken to design reprogrammable logic from qca devices. specifically, a novel qca-based programmable logic array (pla) structure is considered. throughout his works john chrysostom interprets and renarrates biblical narratives in an effort to console his audience. this dissertation argues that he did so because biblical narrative (historia) is the primary place in which divine providence (pronoia, kēdemonia) is revealed to humanity. providence is a consolatory doctrine because it speaks of god's activity, which is characterized by love for humanity (philanthrōpia) and is ordered to salvation. biblical narratives of the saints therefore provide not only moral exemplars but also demonstrations of god's love and providential care. when chrysostom carefully reads narratives side by side—in clusters—he discerns common narrative structures or patterns that demonstrate god's habits of providentially caring for humanity. these narrative habits of god's salutary, providential work recur throughout all of history and can therefore also be discerned in the lives of chrysostom's audience. the recurrence of god's providential actions throughout biblical history also reveals a larger point: that god's providence is neither episodic nor interventionist, but is continual and consistent throughout all of history; chrysostom is not interested in delineating ages of salvation history, or a history of covenants, but instead in showing his audience how providence operates according to the same love for humanity throughout all time, to the same end of salvation—no matter how at odds events might seem with one another. finally, scripture's narratives of providence, from creation to the incarnation, and now in the life of the church, also put forward figures who have trusted in divine providence. scripture therefore not only contains continual proofs of providence, but also examples of saints who have had success in yielding to providence. these demonstrations of both divine activity and ideal human activity serve as therapies for chrysostom's audience to move forward virtuously. furthermore, in his reading of human and divine action, chrysostom applies narratological interpretations to scriptural narratives, learned in the course of his education, which he readily adapts to his own understanding of biblical poetics and theology. this dissertation is a defense of mereological nihilism, the view that composition never occurs. so, according to nihilism things with proper parts (including dogs, tables, and rocks) don't exist. i give two arguments in favor of nihilism, both of which are from the theoretical simplicity enjoyed by nihilism. the first argument is from nihilism's ideological simplicity, the fact that nihilism allows us to do without mereological primitives like "part." the second argument is from the theoretical unification conferred by nihilism. the remainder of the dissertation is directed toward defending nihilism against objections. two of the objections i consider are deflationary, in the sense that they contend that the debate over the existence of composite objects is merely verbal, or trivially easy to settle via conceptual analysis in conjunction with basic empirical investigation. other objections to nihilism which i address focus on claims which the nihilist endorses to the effect that, while there are no composite objects, there are "simples arranged composite object-wise." these objections contend that the "simples arranged f-wise" locution is objectionable. i go on to consider whether science gives us compelling reasons to believe in composite objects. while scientific theories are frequently framed in terms which make reference to composite objects, i argue that these references to composite objects are eliminable. what's more, specific scientific contexts which have sometimes been thought to contain particularly intractable references to composition (quantum entanglement and natural selection) can all be interpreted in a nihilist friendly manner. finally, i address the objection that nihilists are committed to the implausible view that we (you, me) don't exist. i note that substance dualism gets the nihilist out of the difficulty. while i am aware of no good arguments for substance dualism, i note that every popular argument against substance dualism has a parallel argument against composition. accordingly, you should not reject nihilism because you reject substance dualism. i end with an appendix defending simplicity as a criterion of theory choice in metaphysics. the aim of this study was to examine which aspects related to fathering and the father-child relationship are affected by the family communication project (fcp), and whether changes in destructiveness explain the intervention's effects on father-child attachment and fathering. prior evaluation studies have suggested that fathering and the father-child relationship may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of destructive conflict, and, as such, most amenable to interventions targeted toward reducing destructiveness and toward improving fathering and the father-child relationship. the results of the father model revealed that those in the pa condition had significantly higher attachment to fathers at posttest than the control. with respect to destructiveness, those in the po condition had significantly more changes in destructiveness over time than the control. neither the pa nor po condition had any mediated effect of on fathering or attachment via destructiveness. the results of the mother model did not reveal any significant effects (direct or mediated) of the intervention. thus, the intervention effects were unique to the father model, suggesting support for fathering vulnerability. inertial confinement fusion (icf) is one of the primary methods that is being pursued today as a method for achieving sustained nuclear fusion for the purposes of energy generation. en route to obtaining this capability many experiments have been and will continue to be done in this pursuit; however, these experiments are costly at one million dollars or more for single experiment. simulations thus play a key role in icf research. these simulations are not without their drawbacks. nuclear fusion simulations reach such temperatures and densities that normal radiation transport assumptions no longer hold and enter the regime of physics known as non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (nlte) physics. computations in this regime are notoriously expensive to compute. neural networks have thus been turned to as an alternative for the standard computations of nlte opacities. this work expands upon past work by extending a single neural network to be able to model multiple elements, and demonstrates that a median relative error for the maximum radiative temperature be at least as low as 0.566\%. further extending the capabilities of the neural networks, it is demonstrated that neural networks can be made to predict high-fidelity spectra through the use of transfer learning achieving median relative errors of the maximum radiative temperature can be on the order of 1\%-2\% and can very likely be made better with more training data. further, this was accomplished while achieving a computational speed up of roughly 19x for the level of fidelity used. the objective of this study was to develop an effective and reliable cellular hemoglobin-based blood substitute (hboc). cellular hbocs were created by encapsulating bovine hemoglobin (hb) into the aqueous cores of liposomes, poly(ethylene glycol) (peg) conjugated liposomes and polymersomes. in order to evaluate the potential of the dispersions as cellular hbocs, the following physical properties were measured: vesicle size distribution, hb encapsulation efficiency, oxygen binding property (as indicated by p50 and cooperativity coefficient), and encapsulated methemoglobin level. the oxygen binding properties of unmodified liposomes encapsulated hb (ulehs), pegylated lehs (peg-lehs) and polymersomes encapsulated hb (pehs) were comparable to human rbcs, indicating that these vesicles displayed good potential as cellular hbocs. the physical integrity of uleh dispersions in phosphate buffered saline at physiological ph and temperature was unstable post-production, due to osmosis of water into and out of the liposome core, which implies that ulehs will be osmotically fragile in the blood stream. this potential problem was solved by grafting peg molecules onto the liposome surface, thereby strengthening the liposome bilayers. however, the hb encapsulation efficiency of peg-leh dispersions was low. the intravascular circulation, biocompatibility and colloidal state of peg-leh dispersions were limited due to the limited peg surface coverage and molecular weight that can be stably conjugated onto the liposome surface. in contrast, peh dispersions possessed higher hb encapsulation efficiencies compared to uleh, peg-leh, pegylated actin-containing leh, lipogel particle and nanoscale hydrogel particle dispersions loaded with hb. unlike leh dispersions, encapsulation of hb into polymersomes did not enhance hb oxidation. polymersomes possessed superior peg shielding ability compared to peg-liposomes, due to 100% peg surface coverage with longer peg brushes. since polymersomes can be synthesized with thicker hydrophobic membranes compared to liposomes, polymersomes are mechanically stronger than liposomes. simulation of in-vivo oxygen transport in a capillary and to surrounding tissues, demonstrated that peh dispersions could be engineered for applications from routine surgery to treatment of trauma. we concluded that peh dispersions were readily prepared and exhibited good potential as a cellular hboc, while offering superior physical properties, which may alleviate the limitations encountered with current designs of cellular hbocs. few rivalries in early modern england approach the protracted conflict between the pulpit and the stage. godly ministers and antitheatrical writers declaimed players as handmaids to idolatry while playwrights portrayed their critics as bumbling hypocrites, intoxicated by ale as much as the holy spirit. the squabble transcended the bounds of derision: theater owners increasingly operated outside of london's walls—and the jurisdiction of the puritan city council. and, from 1642-1660, the puritan parliament closed the theaters altogether. this antinomy perhaps explains a gap in early modern studies. despite the "turn to religion," advocated by ken jackson and arthur marotti (2004), few studies acknowledge the links between pulpit and stage as two of the primary spaces of social habituation. sincere performances: the affective scripts of the pulpit and stage in post-reformation england fills that gap by analyzing how these two spaces shared an affective landscape distinctly shaped by english protestant thought. sincere performances argues that the pulpit and stage engaged a series of bodily responses—weeping, trembling, blushing, sighing, and laughing—using a variety of affective scripts by which they could frame and interpret these responses for audiences. through close analysis of sermons and plays, the project illustrates how the pulpit and stage possessed a common vision of "sincere affects," which acted as visceral evidence of spiritual change and emotional legibility. aging is the biggest risk factor for the development of ovarian cancer (ovca), the deadliest cancer of the female reproductive system. despite this, age is understudied in the ovca field. ovca cells preferentially metastasize to the omentum, an organ rich in collagen. while many studies have been done on aged collagen in the skin, the effect of aging on omental collagen has not been investigated. a c57bl/6 mouse model was used to study aging, where young (y) mice ranging from 3-6 months of age correspond to women 20-30 years of age and aged (a) mice ranging from 20-23 months of age correspond to women 60-67 years of age. collagen isolated from y and a mice was shown to have an increase in advanced glycation end products (ages) and reduced degradation by matrix metalloproteinases (mmps). tail tendons incubated with mmp-1 showed differences in degradation as shown by scanning electron microscopy (sem). to further investigate age-related changes in collagen in the metastatic microenvironment, second harmonic generation microscopy (shg) was used to visualize collagen of common metastatic sites from y and a tumor naïve c57bl/6 mice. distinct structural differences were shown in omental collagen in the y vs a cohorts and validated at the ultrastructural level with sem. while in vitro assays showed no significant difference in adhesion or proliferation of ovca cells on y vs a collagen, human cell line ovcar5 showed increased invasion through boyden invasion chambers lined with a collagen compared to y. the relationship between tumors and aged collagen was further investigated by analysis of collagen hybridizing peptide (chp) staining of paraffin-embedded omental tumor sections, which shows an increase of intratumoral collagen remodeling in a tumors despite no significant difference in overall collagen amount as shown by trichrome analysis of serial sections. however, shg and chp fluorescence analysis of early tumor events shows decreased peritumoral collagen remodeling in a mice, showing a difference between intratumoral collagen and microenvironmental collagen. immunohistochemical analysis of paraffin-embedded tumor sections showed similar amounts of advanced glycation end products (ages) and cancer-associated fibroblasts (cafs) in y and a tumors, suggesting intratumoral collagen is newly synthesized by cafs whereas the collagen in the microenvironment is truly aged. additionally, the peritoneal immune landscape was investigated using northern lights flow cytometry immune panels. changes were identified that can be tumor permissive, with decreases in natural killer (nk) cells, t cells, and nk t cells and increases in m2 macrophages; or tumor suppressive, with increases in total lymphocytes and tim4+ macrophages. there were also increases in b cells and total macrophages and decreases in granulocytes, which can have mixed effects on tumors. in conclusion, aging induces many changes in the microenvironment that make the aged omentum a permissive metastatic niche for ovca. west nile virus is a novel pathogen in the united states, the agent of an emerging infectious disease which poses a significant public health threat in its own right and also underscores the need for a more thorough and updated understanding of the ecology and transmission of arboviruses in general. mosquito collections were performed in st. joseph county, indiana in 2003-2006, the four years immediately following the initial epidemic of west nile virus infection in indiana, and the results were combined with historical data to provide an updated summary of the mosquito fauna of the region. an illustrated guide to morphological identification of all reported species from the five-state region surrounding and including indiana was produced, including information of interest to public health professionals and researchers. mosquitoes collected during the four-year survey were tested for infection with west nile virus, and virus was detected in a total of 15 pools of mosquitoes, including nine pools of cx. pipiens, five pools of mixed or undifferentiated cx. pipiens and cx. restuans, and one pool of aedes triseriatus. viral rna was isolated from the brains of dead birds collected in the county during periods of viral transmission, and sequence information from this rna was analyzed to infer relationships among local viral isolates and those made elsewhere in north america over the course of several years. the results of this analysis suggest that the rate of overwinter survival of individual strains of virus in cold-winter areas is very low, while the rate of transportation of novel strains of virus over large geographic distances is relatively high. the data presented are consistent with the long-standing hypothesis of long-distance rapid transportation of west nile virus by migratory birds. material detection has widespread applications across many fields including industrial sensing, medical diagnostics, atmospheric and fundamental studies, and security and defense. many different detection methods have been developed to service these applications, each with its own benefits. optical detection methods are particularly useful because they are nondestructive, non-contact solutions, and can be used for standoff detection.in this work we present our work towards increasing the sensitivity of optical detection methods. we address two approaches: optical absorption spectroscopy and raman spectroscopy. to improve absorption spectroscopy, we aim to increase the attenuation of light by extending the optical path length through an absorbing material using an optical multipass cell, directly increasing the sensitivity. to improve sensitivity in raman spectroscopy, our work focuses on the development of semiconductor lasers operating in the deep-ultraviolet (duv) spectral region. this will allow raman spectroscopy to take advantage of the lambda^-4 dependence of raman scattering intensity to greatly increase the signal to noise ratio in raman spectroscopy.our work on absorption spectroscopy focuses on improving the process for identifying long optical trajectories in rotationally asymmetric multipass cells (racs). we simulate optical trajectories in racs using a matlab script which models the shape and size of a beam propagating in the cell. an optical trajectory with a path length of 18 m is presented which maintains a beam small enough to exit the cell through a 3.8 mm^2 hole after 359 reflections. this trajectory is contained within a 68 cm^3 volume, yielding a path length to volume ratio of 26.6 cm^-2, higher than that of other state-of-the-art multipass cells such as the astigmatic herriott cell (9 cm^-2). we also show that the stability of these cells is comparable to that of other state-of-the-art cells, as the solid angle of acceptance for trajectories of equal number of reflections is twice as large for an rac as for an astigmatic herriott cell.we discuss the development, fabrication, and testing of optically-pumped duv semiconductor laser structures. several waveguide designs are simulated which maximize the optical confinement factor for emission around 270~nm while minimizing optical mode overlap with lossy regions. a waveguide based on a thin gan/aln quantum well active region is presented which has a confinement of 7.45%, and a waveguide using an algan/aln active region is simulated with a confinement factor of 27.3%. some of these designs are grown by molecular beam epitaxy, and the optical gain of these structures is measured by the variable stripe length method. gain measurement results are presented for ten samples with varying structures, and net modal gain values up to 35 cm^-1 are measured, which is sufficient for lasing when combined with high quality facets. we produce high quality facets through a combination of a dry etch process and focused ion beam milling. we discuss gain saturation in iii-nitride laser waveguides and its effect on lasing threshold. finally, we measure and analyze the internal quantum efficiency of thin gan quantum wells and the dependence of this efficiency on quantum barrier width. the pi-0-1 classes have become important structures in computability theory. related to the study of properties of individual classes is the study of the lattice of all pi-0-1 classes, denoted e_pi. we define a substructure of e_pi, g = [n, 2^omega] for n nonprincipal, and a quotient structure of g, denoted g^diamond and thought of as g modulo principal classes disjoint from n. using the setting of computably enumerable ideals, we present basic results for g and g^diamond and show that g^diamond is isomorphic to e*, the lattice of computably enumerable sets modulo finite difference. this isomorphism allows us to transfer invariant classes from e* to e_pi. however, it does not in general allow the transfer of orbits. we give the conditions under which an orbit could transfer and an example of one which does, and conclude with open questions related to degree-theoretic properties. extensive literatures exist on the epistemology of testimony, memory, and perception, but for the most part these literatures do not systematically consider the extent of the analogies between the three epistemic sources. a number of the same problems reappear in all three literatures, however. dealing simultaneously with all three sources and making a careful accounting of the analogies and disanalogies between them should therefore avoid unnecessary duplication of effort. other than limits on the scope of which memoriallyand testimonially-based beliefs should be included in the parity thesis, i argue that most of the disanalogies that different philosophers have proffered between the sources do not mark distinctions among the universes of possible testimonially-, memorially-, and perceptually-based beliefs regarding the explanation of those beliefs' epistemic status. i first criticize the suggestion that perception is a generative epistemic source, while testimony and memory are not; i propose and defend counterexamples in which testimony and memory produce new beliefs. next, i criticize a variety of distinctions that have been drawn between testimony and perception, taken chiefly from the reductionist-antireductionist literature on testimony. i criticize the suggestion that the conceptualization of content and the transparency of experience affect the epistemologies of testimony and perception in different ways. regarding memory and testimony, i advocate modeling testimony on the legal relationship of a principal and an agent, arguing that law's apparatus used to analyze such situations suggests that using others' epistemic services in testimony will supply the same epistemic benefits and burdens as if we had performed those epistemic tasks personally and then relied only on memory. i apply this analysis to the transmission of defeaters in testimony. i argue that memory does feature the epistemic equivalent of a perceptual image and that both perceptuallyand memorially-based beliefs can concern either the past or the present. finally, i construct a set of six transformations that turn individual possible instances of perceptually-, memorially-, or testimonially-based beliefs into individual possible instances of the other two types of beliefs without changing the structure of those beliefs' epistemologies. planchette, loud, spooky plan is a manuscript of poetry that deals with media, culture, the internet, and other online-related issues. zeolites are a class of microporous, crystalline materials that have many applications as adsorbents, membranes, sensors, and catalysts. for use as a catalyst, zeolites can be synthesized with various acidities, micropore structures, bulk porosities, and heteroatom substitutions. therefore zeolites can meet the demands for a wide variety of reactions, especially for reactions that use feed streams with varying compositions (e.g. biomass, petroleum, etc.). the use of lignocellulosic biomass as a source of renewable energy has gained traction in recent years due to the finite supply, environmental effects, geopolitics, and overall sustainability of fossil fuels. as the only source of renewable carbon on earth, biomass has been widely studied to meet the demands of a growing need for liquid renewable energy. although non-catalytic, thermal conversion of solid lignocellulosic biomass to liquids can be achieved, the resulting product is often unstable, highly oxygenated, and subsequently a low quality fuel oil. with an appropriate catalyst, these products or reaction intermediates can be upgraded to valuable and stable fuels and chemicals mimicking those currently produced from petroleum resources. thus, a catalyst is an essential part of the process of converting biomass to drop-in fuels and chemicals. this research addresses the innovative solutions to design and control zeolite catalyst properties to enhance the conversion of biomass feedstocks to value added chemicals and fuels. the results of altering the acidity, microporous structure, bulk porosity, and heteroatom substitution of zsm-5 for biomass upgrading reactions are presented here. this first application of this work was the assessment of these various catalyst properties for the catalytic fast pyrolysis of lignin model compounds. it was determined that acidic, mesoporous, hzsm-5 was the most favorable catalyst for the production of aromatic liquid hydrocarbon fuels. the second application of this work was the synthesis of zsm-5 with cerium incorporated within the framework. with detailed characterization and the use of well-studied model compound reactions, it was determined that cerium was indeed incorporated into the framework of the catalyst, yielding highly active sites to enhance the stability of oils derived from lignocellulosic biomass. adventures in parenting, an informational booklet published by the national institute of child health and human development, is designed to educate parents about basic principles of parenting. the booklet offers five principles that parents can use to develop a model of parenting: responding, preventing, monitoring, mentoring, and modeling (rpm3). the current study was designed to assess the differential impact of three intervention conditions, utilizing adventures in parenting, on knowledge of rpm3 principles, parenting behaviors, and children's behavior. significant intervention effects were found for measures of knowledge of rpm3 principles; number of sessions attended explained a significant proportion of unique variance in rpm3 total and open-ended scores. the more intensive interventions increased and/or maintained knowledge of rpm3 principles over 3 months, whereas the control condition demonstrated a decrease in knowledge from pretest to posttest. pretest father involvement and maternal adjustment were consistent predictors of posttest measures of knowledge of intervention principles and maternal parenting behavior. results are discussed in terms of their contribution to parent training, particularly the use of web-based training sessions. there has been elevating research interest in social network analysis along with prosperous methodology and application studies in network science and other social sciences. most of the studies made a great effort to explain how human behavior, as the nodal effect, and the network structure, as an environmental system, impact each other. although the causal inference implied in these researches is naturally dynamic, most social network methods are cross-sectional. yet, we haven't seen any attempts to incorporate longitudinal mediation analysis with social network analysis. in this dissertation, i propose a new approach to integrating the longitudinal mediation method and social network data. it can provide a better interpretation of the intervened influence between behavior and network. in this proposed method, dynamic networks are modeled as mediators and behavioral variables as either the dependent or the independent variable. the proposed longitudinal network mediation model is specified, estimated, and assessed by three simulation studies and an empirical data analysis. the proposed method achieved good estimation accuracy and computational efficiency. the constructed confidence intervals for statistical inference also showed a reasonably good coverage rate of true parameters, type i error rates, and power under conditions of small, medium, large, and zero mediation effect. the empirical examples provided interpretation of social selection and social influence when given a plausible causality basis. a significant mediation effect of the network was found in an empirical network data set, glasgow data. the results showed that the more similar two individual teenagers were in terms of sporting activity at time 1, their social network would aid the assimilation of their other behaviors, which is more similar in substance use at time 3. in an effort to combat isolated, inflated, and artificial images of misrepresented marginal identities, particularly those of the potawatomi native americans of northern indiana, this paper hypothesizes a design practice that intervenes as a world of storied experience. using methods of subversive fantasy as defined by freud, and folklore as defined by jack zipes, this paper argues that graphic design and storytelling can function as mechanisms for change in communities of long-standing de-personalization and stereotype. advocating co-authored storytelling and exhibit design as an intersection of voices and space for critical engagement with fable, design for change can then center on a dialogical story, where the story is transmitted by many voices speaking together: a blend of history, folk legend, community myth-making. following this argument is a description this designer's contribution to the aforementioned discourse in the form of the thesis exhibit 'the princess & the beast: worlds of storied experience in the ribbon city.' provided is a description of components of such an exhibit. narratives of power examines the interaction between history education and statecraft in uganda since 1925. tracing the development of history curricula through uganda's transition from british colony to independent state, i explore how political elites have appropriated history education in their quests to win the hearts, minds, and votes of young people. i use a mixed-methods approach, drawing on archival material, school curricula, and oral history interviews with curriculum specialists, education officers, and history teachers from nine secondary schools around the country. chapters one and two examine colonial narratives of exploration and empire, first from the pages of british syllabuses, and then from the reactions of african intellectuals who denounced them as colonial brainwashing. next, i examine the efforts of educated african elites whose hopes of reclaiming history as a story of african triumph and platform for national identity clashed with the reality of ugandan social and political cleavages. chapter four investigates the stagnation of curriculum reform under the national resistance movement, and history teachers' reactions to uganda's current curriculum. finally, using a case study about a recently implemented secondary-school program known as patriotism clubs, i illustrate that far from abandoning historical reconstruction, uganda's government is engaging with the politicization of history in ways that try to bypass traditional curricular channels. i argue that historical reconstruction has been, and continues to be, at the forefront of government attempts to communicate political messages to young people. unable to control how the past is taught and interpreted in the formal school system, elites are employing new strategies that use extracurricular programs to bypass non-state actors whose views might bring them into contention with the state's imagined past. the neglect of ugandan history in the education system and the emergence of patriotism clubs should be seen as congruent phenomena; the former limits historical narratives that might delegitimize the state while the latter allows the nrm to use history as a more effective tool of state power. my findings indicate that future studies of education and statecraft must expand to include the changing spaces in which students are encountering state narratives about the past. este trabajo tiene una triple intención. primero, revisar lo que ha sucedido en términos de diálogo interreligioso en américa del sur después de que el concilio vaticano ii diera luz verde al diálogo entre católicos y miembros de tradiciones no cristianas. segundo, buscamos demostrar que razonamiento de la escritura es un método viable para ser practicado en chile y, ojalá, en otros países de américa del sur. en efecto, consideramos tanto la teoría como la práctica del razonamiento de la escritura. el análisis de la práctica lo hacemos a la luz de cuatro sesiones de diálogo interreligioso realizadas en chile en 2019 como parte de este proyecto de doctorado. finalmente, al examinar y traducir autores norteamericanos al español, el idioma de esta tesis, podemos ampliar la audiencia de autores de habla inglesa a la audiencia de habla hispana. del mismo modo, conversamos con autores de américa del sur que enriquecen la reflexión de este proyecto. por lo tanto, este trabajo quiere ser un puente de conocimiento entre el norte y el sur. --this work has a triple intention. first, to review what has happened in terms of inter-religious dialogue in south america after the second vatican council gave the green light to the dialogue between catholics and members of non-christian traditions. second, to demonstrate that scriptural reasoning is a viable method to be practiced in chile and, hopefully, in other countries of south america. therefore, we consider both the theory and practice of scripture reasoning. the practice's analysis is in light of four sessions of interfaith dialogue performed in chile in 2019 as part of this doctoral project. finally, examining and translating north american authors into spanish, the language of this dissertation, allows us to widen the audience of english-speaking authors to the spanish-speaking audience. similarly, we conversate with authors from south america that enrich the reflection of this project. therefore, this work is a bridge of knowledge between the north and the south. despite improvements in the college enrollment rates of latinos, the educational experiences of latino students in the united states of america remain markedly different from students of other racial groups. a greater proportion of latino students attend over-enrolled, under-resourced, and majority-minority high schools than students of other racial groups. upon high school graduation, latinos disproportionately attend two-year colleges and lag behind other groups in college completion. although studies emphasize the relationship between high school achievement and college outcomes for latinos, few focus on how high school contexts influence latinos' transitions to college. this study analyzes how hyper-segregation in high school influences college transitions for latinos and how these contexts may occlude or dilute access to social capital, especially college-linking resources and normative, college-going behaviors and attitudes. recent scholarship has documented the rise of social sorting in the united states, the phenomenon whereby liberals identify as democrats and conservatives identify as republicans. this dissertation analyzes voters who cannot be explained by their social identities, voters whom i call political heretics. in order to better understand the motivations of these renegades, i marshal original ethnographic, observational, and experimental data to investigate one of the largest of these groups of defectors: white evangelicals who support the democratic party. i find that the social context in which they reside – the everyday milieu that animates their daily lives – shapes their partisan identification and conditions their political behavior. i display that the most powerful social context for these evangelicals is their local congregation. beyond this, i explore and critique current measurement schemes of evangelicalism, offering recommendations to the discipline on better ways to understand and categorize one of the largest religious social groups in the united states. these findings have implications for american democracy as political heretics may reduce stereotypes around the parties, thus reducing americans' negative views of the out-party. in the post-gettier era, process reliabilism is one of the most influential epistemic theories on offer. according to process reliabilism, a belief counts as knowledge only if that belief was arrived at by use of a reliable belief-forming process. this reliable process condition is the central constituent in both reliabilist accounts of warrant and justification. over the course of the past three decades, the generality problem has been seen as one of the most pressing objections to process reliabilism. roughly, the generality problem begins with the observation that we currently understand very little about the relevant belief forming process types that are measured for reliability for any given belief forming process token. according to the generality problem objection, there is some normative burden for the reliabilist to supply some account of type relevance. this dissertation is an extended investigation into the generality problem—what it is, and what the reliabilist can say in response. for all of the attention given to the generality problem, there's been no attempt to systematically formulate how the objection to reliabilism is supposed to go. in chapter one, i present what i take to be the four most reasonable approaches to formulating the generality problem objection, and find all of them subject to compelling objections. in chapter two, i argue that if the reliabilist has some special burden to produce a theory of type relevance, then so do theorists of almost every other competitor epistemic theory. hence, the generality problem fails to constitute some unique objection to reliabilism. in chapter three, i criticize recent attempts to ground type relevance in subjective factors like a subject's higher order beliefs, or a subject's practical interests. in chapter four, i argue that relevance theories that merely take into account causal features of the tokens aren't extensionally correct. rather, extensionally correct relevance theories must make relevant types a function of the token's modal properties. finally, in chapter five, i present relevance principles for arithmetical intuition belief formation while highlighting two neglected aspects for crafting a correct relevance theory. in the philosophical portion of this dissertation, i develop an account of absolute provability as this notion was understood by g&ouml;del, post, tarski, and other twentieth century logicians. in chapter 1, i consider some problems facing existing accounts of absolute provability, accounts which describe this notion as involving an idealization from concrete mathematical practice. i propose an alternative &quot;top-down&quot; approach to absolute provability, on which we devise a proof concept satisfying certain essential properties of proof. i describe two such properties: the subgroundedness requirement, the requirement that one should not adopt as absolute a method of proof p which admits extensions by further methods that can be seen to be correct on the same basis as p; and the axiom of solvability, the axiom that all definite mathematical propositions can either be proved, refuted, or proved to be undecidable. in chapter 2, i describe and contrast post and g&ouml;del's respective conceptions of absolute provability. i argue that the common features of their conceptions reflect a shared adherence to the subgroundedness requirement as an essential property of proof. in chapter 3, i describe another family of conceptions of absolute provability which includes the conceptions of cohen, mostowski, and hamkins. on these &quot;limitative&quot; accounts, absolute provability serves to close research problems which can be compellingly argued to be absolutely undecidable. the inclination to settle problems in this way, i argue, reflects an implicit adherence to the axiom of solvability. in chapter 4, i develop a formal framework for representing a proof-concept satisfying the two essential properties described in chapter one. i use this framework to argue that absolute provability is in a certain sense ineffable, but that it is nevertheless amenable to study by formal methods. in the mathematical part of the dissertation, i define and study the provability logics associated with woodin's notions of &#937;-consequence and &#937;-provability. i demonstrate that most of these logics contain gl, and i give upper and lower bounds for a number of such logics. in particular, in a certain metatheory w, the provability logic of &#937;-consequence from w is precisely gl. when an optical beam is transmitted through a compressible turbulent flow, it is distorted due to the non-uniform speed of light resulting from density fluctuations. the distortions caused by turbulent airflow surrounding the exit pupil of a beam director, known as aero-optical phenomena, are a major impediment to applications of airborne laser systems. the objectives of this research are to gain a deep understanding of the fluid dynamical causes of aero-optical phenomena and to improve the ability to predict them in practically important flow configurations.to better understand the spectral properties of aero-optical distortions, a general expression for the phase-distortion spectrum is derived from the ideal-gas law and gladstone-dale relation. using this expression, the relationship among the optical distortion magnitude, turbulence length scales, and aperture size is examined, and resolution requirements for wavefront sensor measurements and numerical simulations are analyzed. large-eddy simulations (les) of weakly compressible, temporally evolving shear layers are used to verify theoretical results and to investigate turbulent density fluctuations in relation to pressure and temperature fluctuations. computational results support theoretical findings and confirm that if the log slope of the one-dimensional density spectrum in the inertial range is -m_rho, the optical phase distortion spectral slope is given by -m_rho + 1. the value of m_rho is shown to be dependent on the ratio of shear-layer free-stream densities and bounded by the spectral slopes of temperature and pressure fluctuations.one of the most widely used optical transmission platforms is the hemisphere-on-cylinder turret. when employed on an aircraft, the bluff-body shape of the turret creates a complex turbulent flow that can cause severe optical aberrations at even low subsonic mach numbers. to investigate the turret aero-optics, wall-modeled les is used to simulate flow over a turret at mach 0.4 and reynolds number of 2.3 x 10^6, and the optical distortions are computed using ray tracing. basic flow and optical statistics show agreement with available experimental data. it is found that the optical distortion over a majority of the turret field-of-regard is solely dependent on the lookback angle. regions of the field-of-regard where the lookback angle alone is not sufficient to relate viewing angle to optical distortion are those strongly affected by the horn vortices in the turret wake. wavefront statistics as functions of viewing angle are presented along with the effects of pressure and temperature fluctuations on optical distortions. topics important to the design of aero-optical mitigation strategies, such as steady lensing, beam jitter and the connection between optical distortions and turret pressure fluctuations, are discussed and quantified. new technologies such as smartphones and wearable devices make it more feasible to collect intensive longitudinal data (ild). ild allows researchers to study intra-individual differences in finer detail. it also brings about some new challenges. this type of research design involves repeated measures from same individuals, at many time points. missing data is ubiquitous with such data. even with new advancements in data collection technologies leading to less burden for participants in longitudinal studies, problems such as equipment malfunctions and limited battery power still make missing data a relevant issue. missing data can lead to smaller sample size, reduced power, and biased estimates. missingness in studies with intensive longitudinal data becomes more complex due to dependencies at nearby time points. therefore, effectively accommodating missing data is essential to analyzing intensive longitudinal data.dynamic factor analysis, a procedure combining factor analysis and time series analysis, is a popular data analytic tool for ild. previous studies have considered methods for handling missing data for ild but few of them considered latent variables. examples include vector autoregressive models or kalman filters for parameter estimation in dynamic factor analysis models. however, none of them compared popular missing data methods and examined their effects on estimates in exploratory dynamic factor analysis in a variety of conditions. in this dissertation, i propose comparing four methods of handling missing data for exploratory dynamic factor analysis in a simulation study. these methods include pairwise deletion, listwise deletion, cross-sectional multiple imputation, and time series multiple imputation. i conduct a simulation study to examine the implications of these different methods of handing missing data on point estimates. the simulation study varies four features, namely, missing data mechanisms, amount of missing data, time series lengths, and model size. i also illustrate the four missing data methods with two empirical illustrations. the first illustration uses a mood study of daily dairy entries. the second one involves physiological measurements of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fmri). the results of the simulation study include that (1) listwise deletion performs poorly in most cases except in some mcar conditions. (2) pairwise deletion and the two multiple imputation procedures perform similarly in many cases. (3) time series multiple imputation had large rmse and biases in certain cases such as the mcar condition for some measurement variables. the results of the empirical illustration are comparable with those of the simulation studies. i discuss the implications and limitations of the current study. during software development, various software artifacts such as requirements, test cases, design definitions and source code are created by engineers. project stakeholders can leverage software traceability to establish connections among these artifacts and then use the trace links to issue trace queries that support diverse software development activities.however, it can be challenging and arduous to create and maintain these links in large industrial projects. researchers have proposed automated traceability techniques to create, maintain and leverage trace links. computationally intensive techniques, that include repository mining and deep learning, have shown the capability of generating accurate trace links. the objective of achieving trusted, automated tracing techniques at industrial scale has not yet been successfully accomplished due to practical performance and accuracy challenges.in order to adopt software traceability in production, it is vital to quickly generate accurate, trustworthy trace links. our work focuses on two important aspects of software traceability, both of which are essential for its deployment in real-world software projects. first, we improve the link quality of the automated trace model by leveraging cutting-edge natural language processing (nlp) and deep learning (dl) techniques. through comprehending the semantic meaning of software artifacts, our approach can produce trace links with significantly better accuracy than classical tracing methods. traditionally, low availability of manually created trace links for training purposes, has limited the application of deep learning trace models. however, the approach we propose in this work produces reliable links with limited labelled training data by transferring knowledge from adjacent domains. secondly, we explore and enhance the performance of software traceability for both link generation and query answering. we formulate traceability computations as reusable workflows, and develop a prototype framework to execute traceability workflows on big data processing platforms. in addition, to more fully take advantage of high performance computation platforms, we have also addressed the speed of link generation by modifying the architecture of our deep learning model. our approach can significantly reduce time complexity and achieve approximately equivalent accuracy with the origin model.we also address a specific tracing challenges raised by our industry collaborators. artifacts in their dataset are intermingled with english and a foreign language. to tackle this intermingled bilingual tracing problem, we proposed an approach leveraging an ir model, cross lingual word embedding and machine translation to mitigate the semantic gap introduced by the use of multiple languages. although, our approach outperforms classical ir-based models, the generated links suffer from accuracy deficiencies. therefore, we leverage deep learning based methods to further improve the tracing performance and to reduce the time for generating links for answering bilingual user query. finally, we look into the transfer learning solutions to further improve the deep learning models on natural language tracing issues. the last part of my work is adapting existing deep learning models for better tracing performance on domain specific projects. we explored three transferring strategies to obtain domain and tracing knowledge from open platforms such as google and github. the results show that our approach not only outperform other language model based deep learning models on resource rich scenarios, but also tackle resource limited scenarios that other deep learning models are incapable of handling. no abstract due to the enormous ways ionic liquids can be designed, they offer great opportunity to be adjusted to meet the needs of various applications.applications that do not require the anion of the ionic liquid to react with co2 have been study extensively, with [tf2n] anion being the most commonly studied anion.for those applications, dialkylimidazolium cations tend to be used most often because they offer low viscosities.for applications that require co2 to have a chemical reversible reaction with the anion, our group has proposed using ionic liquids with aprotic heterocyclic anions (ahas).for those applications, trihexyltetradecylphosphonium ([p66614]) cations tend to be used most often because they are thermally stable and generally make ionic liquids that do not have a melting point.one purposed application that involves ionic liquids with aprotic heterocyclic anions is the vapor-compression co-fluid refrigeration cycle.the project involves finding an anion that gives the desired enthalpy and a cation that gives a low viscosity.the viscosity of numerous [p66614][ahas] were measured to find ones that give low viscosities.of those, the co2 solubilities were measured at multiple temperatures and the chemical enthalpies were estimated.two ionic liquids that are close to what is needed for the refrigeration application are [p66614][3-triz] and [p66614][4-no2pyra].[p66614][3-triz] gives a lower viscosity than [p66614][4-no2pyra].however, [p66614][4-no2pyra] matches the desired chemical enthalpy needed whereas [p66614][3-triz] has a chemical enthalpy greater than desired.the viscosities of both [p66614][3-triz] and [p66614][4-no2pyra] are higher than desired, which required adjusting the cation in order to reduce the viscosity.it turns out by reducing the size of the cation from [p66614] to triethyloctylphosphonium ([p2228]), the viscosity can be reduced.the viscosity of [p66614][4-no2pyra] at 278.15 k is 3560 cp, whereas the viscosity of [p2228][4-no2pyra] at 278.15 k is 1100 cp.the addition of an ether can also reduce the viscosity.the viscosity of [p222(10201)][4-no2pyra] at 278.15 k is 309 cp (where 10201 indicates –ch2-o-c2h4-o-ch3).the down side of the ether substitutent is that the synthesis is more challenging and the ionic liquid is more likely to decompose at lower temperatures.if the viscosity of the ionic liquid needs to be lowered, tetraglyme can be used as an additive to lower the viscosity.tetraglyme was added to various ionic liquids to see how tetraglyme affects the viscosity.tetraglyme always decreases the viscosity of the ionic liquids.it appears that the viscosity of higher molecular weight ionic liquids do not decrease as much as lower molecular weight ionic liquids when tetraglyme is added to the ionic liquid.the viscosity of various ionic liquids mixed with another ionic liquid were measured.for a few mixtures, the viscosity of the mixture is greater than the viscosity of the two pure ionic liquids, such as [p2228][4-no2pyra]/[hmmim][tf2n].for other mixtures, such as [hmmim][4-no2pyra]/[p2228][tf2n], the viscosity decreases greatly when a small amount of the lower viscosity ionic liquid was added; however, at no point was the viscosity lower than the viscosity of either of the two pure ionic liquids.the viscosity of the mole fraction of 0.5 of [p2228][4-no2pyra] in [hmmim][tf2n] matches the viscosity of the mole fraction of 0.5 of [hmmim][4-no2pyra] in [p2228][tf2n].this was true for three other such pairs investigated.this is because the origin of the cations and anions is unimportant once the ionic liquid is mixed with another ionic liquid.the constraint that the viscosities have to match each other at the mole fraction of 0.5, along with the viscosities of the four pure ionic liquids, can result in the log of the viscosity of both mixtures being far from linear functions of composition. plasmodium falciparum malaria is responsible for severe morbidity and mortality throughout the world. anti-malarials used to treat malaria, such as chloroquine (cq), exhibit increased failure and have an effect on the parasite genome potentially resulting in differences in parasite growth. differences in erythrocytic growth rates between parasite clones affect parasite virulence (chotivanich et al., 2000; dondorp et al., 2005). parasite growth is complex, composed of discrete biological steps contributing to differences in overall 'growth.' to identify genes and mechanisms regulating differential growth, a series of phenotypes ranging from bulk growth (e.g. blood smears and hx-incorporation) to its nested steps (merozoite production, invasion efficiency, and cycle time) were measured in progeny of a cross between a cq resistant and cq sensitive parasite, dd2 and hb3 respectively, and used in quantitative trait loci (qtl) mapping. progeny exhibit quantitative distributions of growth in all five growth assays. significant qtls from the two bulk growth assays and cycle time produce a preliminary list of 167 candidate genes. an unbiased method using whole genome datasets and bioinformatics was developed to prioritize the list. putative functions were assigned using protein network datasets, gene expression correlations, and gene ontology enrichment resulting in a final list of 22 candidates. a relationship between parasite growth and drug sensitivity is observed in cqr parasites but not cqs parasites; suggessting cq selection has altered the parasite genome and parasite fitness as measured by growth. progeny inheriting 'd' alleles at three random markers are absent less often compared to progeny inheriting mixed alleles. this suggests the dd2 genome is fitter. when progeny inherit a resistant pfcrt allele, there is an increase in the percent of absent progeny with 'd' alleles at three markers. therefore cq resistant progeny suffer from a fitness cost. specific alleles implicated in the 'cqr background' were used to ask about parasite fitness and lethality support the idea that cq selection alters the parasite genome by causing compensatory mutations in response to a cost to resistance. these compensatory mutations affect other parasite phenotypes such as growth. this hypothesis is further supported by observed growth differences in cq-selected mutant lines. the oft-observed persistence of economic inequality in society after democratization has spurred growing discontent with democracy in many parts of the world and pose an important puzzle to social scientists. this study seeks to explain why democracy performs poorly in some instances but successfully in others. to do so, i examine democracy's heterogeneous effect on how income is initially distributed in the market before taxes and transfers. thus far, the existing literature on the democracy-inequality nexus has disproportionately concentrated on the redistribution of income through taxes and transfers. accordingly, researchers have generally equated lack of improvements in equality with the failure to redistribute progressively and attempted to explain such failure by pointing to elites' capture of democracy. however, the almost exclusive focus on redistribution obscures the fact that market income distribution is logically and temporally prior to redistribution and, as such, shapes the policy leeway available for taxes and transfers. in highlighting the significance of democracy's effect on market income distribution, this study seeks to improve our understanding of the challenges and opportunities in redressing inequality in democracies.democracy, i argue, can reduce inequality of market income but only under the appropriate conditions. by enhancing the protection of civil liberties, democracy strengthens the bargaining power of workers and increases the number of workers covered by a collective wage bargain. such a change holds the potential to lessen inequality of market income, but democracy's effect on inequality is conditioned by trade openness and level of wage bargaining and becomes muted under high trade levels and decentralized wage bargaining. in examining how democracy interacts with trade openness and the level of wage bargaining to influence market income distribution, this study moves beyond the still-unresolved debate on whether democracy affects inequality, suggesting that a more fruitful research agenda involves asking under what conditions democracy can and cannot bring down inequality.to test my arguments, i integrate quantitative and qualitative methods. i employ data on labor's share of national income and personal income inequality before taxes and transfers to run statistical analyses that model the conditional effects of democracy. furthermore, an in-depth study of south korea, based on original primary sources, offers the process-tracing evidence that since the 1980s, political contention over market income distribution among labor unions, businesses, and the government has been influenced by the interactions between democratization and trade openness and the level of wage bargaining as theorized. more vernacular literature came out of fifteenth-century germany than any other time and place in the middle ages. nearly all of it was religious, and nearly all of it taught the same foundational lessons about christian belief, life, and salvation over and over. these books reflect a massive movement of pastoral theology aimed at filtering scholastic theology into its most basic teaching to reach as many lay people as possible, which berndt hamm has called *frömmigkeitstheologie*. they also indicate the choice of many literate germans to supplement their religious lives through reading. this dissertation investigates the impact of this body of literature through the writers overlooked by the top-down focus of a *frömmigkeitstheologie* paradigm: lay people. claiming the writing of visionaries katharina tucher, magdalena beutler von freiburg, elisabeth achler von reute, and ursula haider alongside the poetry of the far better known barber and *meistersinger*, hans folz, for the study of fifteenth-century religion, this dissertation identifies a subconscious spiritual tension hidden in their diverse works over the authority of the church and its clergy. this inchoate unease, barely or not perceived by the writers at all, arose from their particularly strong affinity for religious literature. it came the closest to the surface when sin and confession were the topics, and ultimately came to rest in the writers' perceptions of the human element: the person of the confessor. though these authors were exceptions among the already exceptional, their choice of literary strategies transmitted their own unease to their audiences. fifteenth-century german christians were incubating questions about religious authority—but questions they did not recognize and could not ask. malaria is a disease that affects the tropical areas of the world, killing 1-2 million people every year, particularly in africa. in order to complete its life cycle, plasmodium has to reproduce asexually in the vertebrate erythrocytes and sexually in an anopheles vector. the invasion of host cells is an essential process in the life cycle and it requires parasite ligands and host cell receptors. two invasive stages essential for the completion of the life cycle are the merozoites that invade the red blood cells and the sporozoites that invade the mosquito salivary glands and the vertebrate liver cells. maebl is a homologue of the transmembrane erythrocyte binding proteins (ebp) ligands, first described in erythrocytic stages. it is abundantly expressed in midgut sporozoites and was found to be essential for the invasion of anopheles salivary glands in plasmodium berghei. alternative splicing generates different maebl isoforms and so it is unclear what form is functionally essential. we examined the function of plasmodium falciparum maebl in the erythrocytic stages by creating knockouts in w2mef and nf54 parasites. we found that maebl is not essential in erythrocytic stages but it may have a conditional role in p. falciparum blood-stage growth. therefore, we investigated the function of p. falciparum maebl in the invasion of salivary glands. using p. falciparum nf54 maebl knock outs, we confirmed that maebl is essential for the invasion of salivary glands. to identify the maebl isoform required for p. falciparum (nf54) sporozoite invasion of salivary glands, we created knockout and allelic replacements each carrying cds of one of the major maebl isoforms. only the transmembrane form of maebl is essential and is the first p. falciparum ligand validated as essential for invasion of anopheles salivary glands. understanding what p. falciparum sporozoite ligands are critical for mosquito transmission will help validate targets for vector-based transmission-blocking strategies. a search for the higgs boson decaying to pairs of tau leptons is presented, where the higgs boson is produced in association with a pair of top quarks. the search is performed with data collected from the compact muon solenoid experiment, located at the large hadron collider. a total integrated luminosity of 35.9 inverse femtobarns of proton-proton collisions have been collected during the 2016 data taking period, at a center-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 13 tev. multi-variate techniques are used to perform the search in a final state with two reconstructed hadronic tau lepton decays attributed to the higgs boson, and an electron or muon as well as one or more b-tagged jets from the underlying top quark system. limits and best-fit values on the standard model production cross-section are given, both for the channel alone and in combination with other higgs boson decay channels. marital conflict exposure is a common occurrence that affects adolescents' socioemotional development. additionally, emotional security, which describes adolescents' feelings of vulnerability within their families, is a strong predictor of adolescents' adjustment. limited research, however, has investigated whether marital conflict exposure and emotional security predict adolescents' destructive dating conflict behaviors. using a sample of 279 families, including mothers, fathers and adolescent children (mage = 13.10 years at time 1), a hierarchical regression was conducted to determine whether marital conflict exposure and emotional security predicted the level of adolescents' destructive dating conflict behaviors two years later. results suggested that greater marital conflict exposure predicted higher levels of destructive dating conflict behaviors two years later. after controlling for marital conflict exposure, higher levels of emotional security predicted lower levels of destructive dating conflict behaviors. these findings are important due to the limited research investigating adolescents' dating conflicts, and may help inform future interventions. my dissertation provides a new understanding of how civic organizations affect structural inequality in u.s. neighborhoods and cities. its fundamental premise is that the effects of civic organizations differ, depending on the form they take and the level of analysis at which they operate. it also overcomes a central tension in civil society research: some social scientists argue that civic organizations are the key to well-functioning democracy, allowing people the ability to collectively organize for the promotion of their interests, but others argue that civic organizations instead breed exclusion, leaving only organized communities in the position to reap the benefits of organization. to move beyond this, i treat organizations as having heterogeneous effects. specifically, i investigate the effects of two forms: place-based neighborhood organizations and identity-based community organizing. my research provides evidence that civic organizations are neither wholly positive nor wholly negative. bioinformaticians are constantly developing new algorithms, searching for more accurate answers, more quickly. implementation of novel algorithms is incredibly time and resource intensive, however. challenges from debugging complex algorithms are compounded by the use of low-level languages and parallel processing to achieve optimal performance and scale to large data sets. high-quality machine learning libraries with high-performance, parallel implementations of common algorithms and easy-to-use apis in high-level languages have become widely available. by utilizing existing machine learning libraries, bioinformatics developers can reduce development time and labor. we demonstrate how traditional domain-specific bioinformatics methods can be improved and replaced by machine learning techniques through studies of two problems (gene annotation and population genetics) arising from insect vector genomics. tuberculosis (tb) is a formidable global health concern, with millions of people developing new cases each year. tb disease is caused by the bacteria, *mycobacterium tuberculosis* (*m. tb*). *m. tb* utilizes the esx-1 (esat-6 system-1) protein export system to promote virulence through the translocation of secreted proteins, or substrates. the esx-1 protein export system is also conserved and required for virulence in the fish pathogen *mycobacterium marinum*. as such, *m. marinum* is a widely used model system for studying esx-1 export and therefore understanding *m. tb* pathogenesis. however, many aspects of esx-1 biology remain uncertain. we employed genetic, biochemical, and proteomics approaches to study esx-1 biology. we report on the links between esx systems and the mycobacterial cell envelope, spontaneous loss-of-function mutations in esx-1 components, novel esx-1 substrates in *m. marinum*, and new mechanisms of esx-1 regulation. overall, our findings advance the field of esx-1 research by providing insights into *m. marinum*-specific proteins as well as mechanisms of regulation worth investigating in *m. tb*. a more complete understanding of esx biology will help inform future tb therapies and vaccines based on these complex systems. en observant les chefs-d'œuvre qui ont émergé grâce au carrefour entre la littérature et le cinéma pendant mes études, il y avait un exemple en particulière qui m'a frappée comme extraordinaire : l'amitié entre la cinéaste agnès varda et l'auteur nathalie sarraute. mon projet propose que le cinéma d'agnès varda, particulièrement ses chefs-d'œuvres antérieurs la pointe courte, cléo de 5 à 7 et sans toit ni loi, sont largement inspirés par les contributions de nathalie sarraute au mouvement de « nouveau roman », surtout par son essai « l'ère du soupçon » et ses romans tropismes, martereau, et le planétarium. mon objectif est de montrer comme le style d'écriture révolutionnaire de sarraute et son lancement du mouvement nouveau roman a déclenché le célèbre mouvement cinématographique, la nouvelle vague française, dont je suppose origine avec la pointe courte de varda. mes recherches explorent comment les romans de sarraute sont traduits de l'écran par varda, sans jamais adapter les intrigues explicitement. c'est l'histoire d'une amitié simple entre deux femmes artistes qui a déclenché un des mouvements les plus importants du cinéma français. en étudiant varda et sarraute ensemble, ma recherche va suivre comment le lien humain se manifeste aux arts, et ceci en retour gagne du pouvoir dans la sociéte quand ces arts différents entrent en dialogue avec l'un et l'autre.the haunting opening of french new wave filmmaker agnès varda's 1985 film vagabond makes a point of dedicating the film to nathalie sarraute, a leading author of the new novel movement. noting that varda and sarraute were among the first women in the new wave and new novel movements, the potential connection between them is striking. this thesis seeks to unearth the details of this little-known friendship between varda and sarraute. i will begin with an analysis of the feminist movement that preceded these artists' work, tracing how female connection manifests itself in art, which in turn gains social currency. subsequently, i examine a series of 5 letters between varda and sarraute which span approximately forty years. i finish with a side-by-side analysis of the works of varda and sarraute, which demonstrates how these two artists' works are in dialogue with each other. the malaria parasite, plasmodium falciparum, continues to infect millions of people and kills over a million children annually. multiple drug resistant (mdr) parasite strains are a primary factor in the prevalence of this disease. in some regions of the world, only a single class of antimalarials, the artemisinin-based compounds, remains effective against mdr malaria. once parasite sensitivity is lost to these drugs, the people of these regions will be left with no drug to combat the disease. successful future drug and vaccine policies must incorporate an understanding of how the parasite rapidly adapts to new environments. ultimately, underlying this adaptation are mutations. these sequence variants range from those that affect single nucleotides (e.g. single nucleotide polymorphisms) to those impacting large regions of the genome (e.g. copy number variants). mutations may first influence gene expression in the path to downstream phenotypes, and dissection of this dynamic will assist in understanding parasite adaptation. in chapter 2, expression levels for candidate drug resistance genes are measured in a drug sensitive parasite line, hb3, and a drug resistant parasite line, dd2, in the presence of chloroquine (cq). while cq exposure does not elicit a transcriptional response from the resistant dd2 line, the sensitive hb3 line stalls in development and gene expression levels remain consistent with its stage of development in the presence of cq. to further examine whether different parasite strains exhibit variation in gene expression, chapter 3 describes the mapping of gene expression levels in the progeny of the hb3ìä' dd2 genetic cross as eqtl. contrary to previous results suggesting little to no variation in gene expression levels between parasite strains, we observe significant expression level differences between hb3 and dd2 and their progeny lines. these expression level differences stem from the inheritance of polymorphic regulatory loci across the genome. eqtl map to local regulatory variation (i.e. gene's expression levels mapping back to the gene's location in the genome) and to distant regulatory variation (i.e. gene's mapping distant from their genomic location). as has been reported for other eukaryotic organisms, ~20% of the genome is variably regulated by eqtl, and > 75% of these transcripts are regulated via trans-mechanisms, corresponding to distant eqtl. the chromosome 5 amplification of the pfmdr1 (multi-drug resistance gene) locus is found to associate with expression levels of genes across the genome, highlighting the impact drug selection has on transcriptional regulation in the parasite. to further assess the prevalence of structural polymorphisms in the progeny's genomes, we conducted a comparative genome hybridization (cgh) microarray experiment, presented in chapter 4. 195 structural polymorphisms larger than 1 kb are detected among the 35 progeny and two parent lines as hybridization signal variants (hsvs). we detect hsvs in one of the parent lines that segregated among the progeny ('segregating hsvs') and non-parental hsvs unique to the progeny lines. the rate at which these hsvs appear in the progeny genomes suggest that the parasite genome is highly plastic. in addition, these hsvs are found to influence transcript levels of those genes residing within the structural polymorphism. chapter 5 outlines the inheritance of polymorphisms detected on the cgh microarray more closely by using each probe's relative signal intensity as a phenotype for mapping 's'tructural qtl ('s'qtl). sqtl mapped as local, polymorphism maps back to its location in the genome, or distant, polymorphism maps elsewhere in the genome. the local sqtl correspond to a dense set of genetic markers with which to saturate the existing microsatellite linkage map, while the distant sqtl represent loci at which potentially interesting structural polymorphisms may reside. using direct co-segregation in progeny lines, gene expression data is integrated with the structural data to find that sqtl influence gene expression levels for genes across the genome, as is observed with the chr 5 amplification. through these studies, we use novel whole genome approaches to identify genome-wide polymorphisms, specify their influence on transcriptional variation in a segregating population, and provide insights into the biological complexity underlying parasite adaptation. at the time of writing, nominal exchange rates have been particularly volatile. large exchange rate movements can weigh on export competitiveness, engender price instability, and disrupt financial systems. to mitigate these swings, the fed has extended \$90 billion in new dollar swap lines to nine countries, the norges bank has conducted its first foreign exchange intervention (fxi) in 20 years, and the swiss national bank has sold $8 billion worth of franc in a single week. this dissertation studies the effectiveness fxi and investigates secular changes in the responsiveness of trade to exchange rate movements.chapter 1 investigates trends in expenditure-switching for 17 countries using a factor-augmented vector auto-regression with time-varying loadings. i find that exports and imports have become less responsive to unexpected exchange rate movements, but export and import price responses have been stable. this implies that country export supply curves have become more inelastic while global export demand has become more elastic. similarly, country import demand curves have become more inelastic, but global import supply has become more elastic. this is consistent with the rise in global value chains: multiple stages of production make it difficult for exporters to swiftly increase production in response to demand shocks, and intermediate inputs make imports less responsive to price changes. it is also consistent with the view that trade integration has increased global competition.chapters 2 and 3 are adopted from a joint paper with nelson mark. a key transmission channel for achieving central bank policy objectives works via managing financial market expectations. chapter 2 provides daily estimates of market expectations of future foreign exchange (fx) spot prices. exchange rate expectations are risk-adjusted futures prices implied by a term-structure model of fx futures.chapter 3 employs the event study method to test if fxi causes changes in exchange rate expectations. endogeneity of interventions are addressed via synthetic control. from a panel of 9 countries, we find that fxi leads the market to revise expectations by an average of 50 basis points in the direction predicted by the intervention. under certain conditions, larger changes and success rates of 90\% are achievable. changes in risk premia are also detected, but are less systematic, suggesting that fxi may contribute to fx market uncertainty. this dissertation covers three related research projects investigating the nanoscale interactions of uranyl peroxide nanoclusters with monovalent and divalent cations. each project utilizes complementary experimental techniques, such as ultra-small angle x-ray scattering (usaxs), small-angle x-ray scattering (saxs), dynamic light scattering (dls), single crystal x-ray diffraction (sc-xrd), and ultraviolet-visible near-infrared (uv-vis-nir) spectroscopy, to study the behavior of the nanoclusters in aqueous systems. the first project investigated the nanoscale interactions between u60ox30, [((uo2)(o2))60(c2o4)30]60-, and neptunium(v) as a function of neptunium concentration. our findings showed that neptunium induces aggregation of u60ox30 when the concentration was ≤ 10 mm np, while (npo2)2c2o46h2o(cr) and studtite (((uo2)(o2)(h2o)22h2o(s)) formed at 15–25 mm np. these results suggest that neptunium coordinates with the bridging oxalate ligands in u60ox30, leaving metastable uranyl peroxide species in solution.the second project explored the nanoscale interaction between u60 [(uo2)(o2)(oh)]60 and u60ox30 with plutonium, which was added as pu(vi). our results showed that pu(vi) was reduced to pu(v) in the presence of u60 and a mix of pu(iv) and pu(v) in the presence of u60ox30 over a two-week period. pu(v) subsequently promoted the aggregation of u60 in the form of blackberries and u60 macro-aggregation in the form of u60 blackberry brambles. the latter represents a new structure not previously identified in the literature. in the u60ox30 system, pu(iv/v) promoted aggregation in the form of large mass fractals. all aggregates became more compact with increasing plutonium concentration, suggesting possible encapsulation of plutonium within u60 and u60ox30. the third project investigated the aggregation of u60 nanoclusters as a function of alkali and alkaline earth metal concentrations. our results showed that counterion-mediated attraction was the primary driver for u60 aggregation. other factors, such as cation concentration, charge, and hydration radii, also influence the size and type of aggregates. we observed a distinct trend in aggregate size triggered by the addition of alkali and alkaline earth metal cations: na+ &gt; k+ &gt; rb+ &gt; cs+ and mg2+ &gt; ca2+ &gt; sr2+ &gt; ba2+. tertiary structures were most prevalent among alkali metal cations, specifically for systems containing 9.5 mm rb+ or 9.5 mm k+, but were also observed in the system containing 2.5 mm ba2+. the compactness of the aggregates played an important role in overall size, with cations that had larger atomic radii and smaller hydration spheres producing the most compact aggregates. further research is necessary to deepen our understanding of the mechanisms underlying aggregate formation and the behavior of other uranyl peroxide nanoclusters.these studies provide insights into the nanoscale interactions of uranyl peroxide nanoclusters with actinides elements, alkali metals, and alkaline earth metals. our findings provide the basis for the application of uranyl peroxide nanoclusters throughout the nuclear fuel cycle, perhaps most specifically in the separation of used nuclear fuels. n/a (the abstract is optional for theses) we use brownian dynamics simulations of colloidal systems to explore new nonequilibrium collective effects. colloids driven over a symmetric flashing periodic substrate undergo a ratcheting behavior which can be used to fractionate different particle species. the addition of nondriven colloids can increase the drift velocity of the driven colloids due to collective interactions. we show that colloids in optical trap lattices can be used to create an artificial spin ice system which shows a rich variety of ice rule and other orderings. our study of an interstitial point defect in a two-dimensional colloidal crystal shows that it is more mobile than a vacancy defect due to the more two-dimensional character of the diffusion. we also demonstrate that a bidisperse, phase segregated colloid system can be mixed efficiently in the absence of temperature by driving the colloids over a random substrate and inducing plastic flow. a novel. in this dissertation, we attempt to study connections between various properties of fields, namely boundedness, largeness, and strong form of model completeness called "almost quantifier elimination''. the first chapter consists of background information, and the second chapter is more or less devoted to the study of fields in the ring language, possible expanded by constants. we show that large, perfect fields with almost quantifier elimination are geometric and fail to have a strong notion of unboundedness.the third chapter is dedicated to the study, and characterization, of differential fields with a notion of largeness for differential-algebraic sets. we also make some brief comments on notions of largeness for fields equipped with an automorphism.the fourth chapter is based on joint work with quentin brouette, anand pillay, and françoise point in which we prove that if t is a theory of large, bounded fields of characteristic 0 with almost quantifier elimination, and t' is the model companion of t together with the statement "d is a derivation" then for any model (u, d) of t', differential subfield k of u such that c(k) is a model of t, and logarithmic differential equation dlog(z)=a (defined over some algebraic group g that is definable over c(k)), there is a strongly normal extension l of k for the equation with l a differential subfield of u. the current study examined whether religion/spirituality (r/s) or mindfulness-based interventions attenuate negative emotional experiences and concomitant physiological responses via emotion regulation. secondary aims examined whether trait levels of r/s or mindfulness influenced affective and physiological responding over and above the interventions. participants (mage = 21.301 ± 3.588) were randomly assigned to either a r/s or mindfulness intervention, or a control condition. r/s (n = 28) or mindfulness (n = 26) intervention groups were required to decrease (i.e., attenuate) affective responses to negative images via cognitive reappraisals drawn from a biblical excerpt or poem, respectively. control participants (n = 29) were instructed to maintain their emotions (i.e., respond naturally). paired t-tests constrained to the control group indicated that negative picture blocks were rated higher on average arousal (t(27) = 10.042, p &lt; .001), valence (t(27) = 11.298, p &lt; .001), and state na (t(27) = 8.500, p &lt; .001) compared to neutral-blocks. tests of the primary aims were restricted to the decrease or maintain -negative picture blocks viewed by the intervention groups. results of the repeated measures mixed-anovas revealed that average arousal (f(1) = 91.021, p &lt; .0005), valence (f(1) = 63.225, p &lt; .0005), and state na (f(1) = 30.167, p &lt; .0005) ratings were significantly lower for the decrease-negative picture blocks compared to the maintain-negative blocks. furthermore, average respiration rate (f(1) = 8.821, p = .005) was also significantly lower for decrease-negative pictures, but average heart rate was unaffected . trait effects were also ns. results indicate that emotion regulation potentially undergirds the effects of r/s or mindfulness-based coping. notably, ns differences between intervention-type suggests the approaches are comparable. this collection of poetry explores power dynamics at the intersections of love, sex, and violence. this thesis will discuss the popular transition from utopian contemplation to dystopian representation in contemporary fiction, with a focus on the hidden significance of antebellum american racial history in this regard. in examining the interwoven meaning of dystopia and utopia i argue that america's slave past forms a hidden backdrop that challenges the desire to evade what i call the contemporary trend toward dystopia, which, because of its popularization as a result of commercialization, has blocked the exercise of utopic possibility. by analyzing this problem in the vector of america's problematic past, my project asserts that despite the trend toward dystopia, utopic possibility is still to be found nevertheless, hiding deep within dystopia itself. the thesis offers a synthetic overview of the hymns of ambrose of milan in the context of fourth-century doctrinal song and ambrose's own mystagogical preaching. both settings, i argue, are integral to the interpretation of ambrose's hymnodic project. the hymns, i maintain, employ sophisticated poetic techniques to foster a pro-nicene sensitivity in the bishop's embattled congregation. after a summary presentation of early christian hymnody, with special attention to ambrose's latin predecessors, i argue for the mystagogical function of fourth-century songs. i then examine ambrose's sermons, especially his catechetical and mystagogical works, for preached parallels to this hymnodic effort. close reading of ambrose's hymnodic corpus (fourteen hymns, of which thirteen, i maintain, are authentic) constitutes the bulk of the study. i corroborate my findings through a treatment of early ambrosian imitations, especially the poetry of prudentius. these early readers, i maintain, amplify the hymnodic features that i identify as mystagogical. engaging the mass of literature on ambrose, early christian hymns and poetry, and doctrinal dispute in the fourth century, i make several contributions to the scholarship in the course of my dissertation. first, particular and original readings of words, phrases, and hymns contribute to the ongoing project of deciphering ambrose's meaning. second, i contribute to the emerging consensus on the authenticity of thirteen hymns as genuinely ambrosian. third, close attention to the early reception of ambrose's hymns illuminates both ambrose's methods and the influences shaping the expansion of popular hymns and learned christian poetry in the early latin church. fourth, drawing on these findings i can offer a theological reading of the corpus of ambrose's hymns, a project often ignored in scholars' attention to specific features and hymn-texts. last, i locate that theology in the context of ambrose's wider thought, contributing in some part to our appreciation of ambrose the creative thinker and innovative pastor. although hardly exhaustive, my dissertation thus represents a rare attempt to read ambrose's hymns as a body of literature transmitting his distinctive, pro-nicene theology. the rise of the internet of things (iot) and artificial intelligence (ai) leads to the emergence of edge computing systems that push the training and deployment of ai to the edge of the network, so as to achieve reduced bandwidth cost, improved responsiveness, and better privacy protection. there exist several major limitations of existing research in edge computing for supporting ai applications at the edge. first, existing methods focus on a device-server offloading design while ignoring the collective computing power of privately owned devices. second, the unique analytical skill and domain knowledge of the device owners (humans) are underutilized in existing edge computing systems. third, the current centralized training of ai models is no longer appropriate in privacy-sensitive applications where the training data is owned by individuals. to address these knowledge gaps, the thesis proposes a new application paradigm, the social edge intelligence (sei), that empowers intelligent applications at the edge by revolutionizing the computing, intelligence, and the training of the ai models. the integration of edge computing, humans, and ai in sei allows machines and humans to make collaborative and optimized decisions that drastically improves the performance of edge-based intelligent applications. the sei paradigm introduces a set of critical challenges such as pronounced heterogeneity of the edge devices, the resource limitation at the edge, and the privacy concern and rational nature of the human users. the thesis addresses these challenges by developing a series of principled algorithms and systems that enable the confluence of the computing capabilities of devices and the domain knowledge of the people, while explicitly addressing the unique concerns and constraints of humans. this thesis first develops a set of novel resource management frameworks that enable heterogeneous iot devices owned by end-users to collaboratively provide computing power for executing ai models. the thesis then presents a human-machine interactive learning framework that leverages human intelligence to troubleshoot and improve the ai model performance. finally, the thesis proposes several federated learning-based edge learning frameworks that allow device owners to contribute to the training of ai models with minimized privacy risks. the extensive evaluation of sei in real-world edge computing applications shows that the proposed paradigm benefits edge intelligent applications by achieving impressive performance gains in various aspects such as service responsiveness, energy efficiency, model accuracy, and model fairness. sei enables "social interactions" between machines and humans by allowing the edge devices to directly obtain the unique domain knowledge and expertise from humans to improve the performance and transparency of the application. sei also gives rise to novel social good ai applications such as private-aware health monitoring, disaster damage assessment, and vehicle-based criminal tracking. this dissertation examines coordinated verbal and nonverbal symmetry in turn-taking behavior during conversation using three modern techniques for analyzing conversational data in nonstationary time series data: windowed cross-correlation, multifractal wavelet analysis, and recurrence quantification analysis. a major goal of this work was to combine the well-established qualitative method of analyzing verbal (and more recently nonverbal) discourse known as conversation analysis (ca) with more recent quantitative methods for analyzing nonstationary time series data. windowed-cross correlation (wcc) was used to estimate the degree of relationship between head position and speech output within one participant as well as the degree of (verbal and nonverbal) correlation between participants using a correlation matrix-based approach. the multifractal wavelet analysis called wavelet transform modulus maxima (wtmm) examined the underlying structure of each data series including fractal dimension and the holder exponent. recurrence quantification analysis (rqa) and cross-recurrence quantification (crq) were used to investigate the phase space of each time series, further examining mirroring in verbal and nonverbal behavior (e.g., recurrences) within and between participants at the point where turn-taking occurs during conversation. these three analyses are appropriate human conversation data that is likely to be nonstationary because wtmm, rqa, and crq are nonparametric and wcc assumes only local stationarity (about 2 seconds). the two major goals of these analyses were to: 1) perform these three analyses to examine the relationship between an individual participant's verbal and nonverbal data and the relationship between two people's verbal or nonverbal data with a focus on the phenomenon of conversational turn-taking and, 2) estimate the predictability of the outcome of each of these three analyses based on gender and dominance were calculated. finally, in order to demonstrate the real-world applicability of these analyses, the original digitized video of a conversation at salient time segments identified by the rqa/crqa analyses were transcribed as an illustration of the practical meaning of the analyses using quicktime (apple computers, 1991-2007) to compare to ca transcriptions and plots of the time series data. it has been known that nanoconfinement of ionic liquids (ils) significantly alters their thermodynamic and transport properties, and there is a lot of technological interest in exploiting molecularly confined ils. however, there has been little research on how confinement induces changes in the structure and dynamics of ils as well as sorption and diffusion behavior of solutes dissolved in ils. to our knowledge, there have been no investigations on the permeability (p) defined as the product of solubility (s) and diffusivity (d), and permeability selectivity (βp) defined as the ratio of permeabilities of gases of interest in confined ils, which are very important properties for materials to be used for the gas separation processes.in this work we have used molecular dynamics (md) simulations to investigate the dynamics of the il 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide ([c4mim]+ [tf2n]-) in bulk and under confinement in graphite slit pores of size 2 nm and 5 nm. additionally, gibbs ensemble monte carlo (gemc) simulations were used to compute the pure and mixed gas solubilities of gases such as co2 , ch4 and h2 in different il phase and also in empty pores. also the dynamics of il-gas mixtures were investigated in the bulk and confined il systems. the results thus obtained were used to compute the pure and mixed gas solubility selectivities, diffusion selectivities and permselectivities. the confined il systems were shown to have better gas solubilities than the bulk il and better co2 solubility selectivities over ch4 and h2 than the bulk il and empty pores. additionally, co2 permselectivities over ch4and h2 in confined il systems were either similar or marginally better than those in the bulk il. the simulations suggest that the concept of using confined ils for gas separation has merit and further research should be directed at systems that have higher permselectivities. novel pathogenic diagnostics and on field devices to attest their growth have been the current norm of scientific research and curiosity. microfluidics and nanofluidics have recently been on the forefront of the development of these devices for their inherent advantages of large surface to volume ratio and small diffusion times. with the advancement of soft lithographic techniques, the devices can be easily adapted for medical systems and bio-diagnostic devices to study mechanistic pathways of bio-molecules, bio-chemical reactions and as delivery modules for drug. however, the lack of better sensors, other than optics, to detect low bio-particle numbers in real samples have made the instruments bulky, expensive and not suitable for field use. thus there is an urgent need to develop label-free, portable, inexpensive, rapid diagnostic devices. in order to achieve a viable device, researchers in these fields have been using dielectrophoresis as the mechanism of choice for a variety of tasks, from particle manipulation, to delivery, to movement of the particles through the fluid. however, the exact physical mechanism for not only the dielectrophoresis of the colloidal assembly is unclear, but the dielectrophoresis of single bio-particles/charged nano-colloids is not understood fully. in this thesis, i present a theory for charged nano-colloid dielectrophoresis taking into account the surface charge and debye double layer effects. the exact mechanism of the origin of the stern layer, through the surface conductance effect of a nano-colloid to form a collapsed diffuse layer that renders a nano-colloid conductive at sub-optical frequency has been formulated. this effect is utilized to optimize a nano-colloid assay to detect dna hybridization. the collapsed diffuse layer kinetics with thick diffuse layer is solved, using spherical harmonics of the bessel solution of the poisson equation, to give a modified clausius-mosotti factor, that accounts for the size dependent monotonic rise in crossover frequency, unlike in classical theories. this effect is used to design molecular detection platform based on dielectrophoretic trapping of carbon nano-tube (cnt) in an inter-digitized microfluidics platform. the platform can distinguish the target dna from a heterogeneous dna mixture or from 3 base mismatched congenic species based on the different electrical impedance signatures (eis). the open flow device uses shear enhanced discrimination to shear off the non-target biomolecules from cnt surface and also remove the parasitic double layer signal to high frequency for high resolution of the hybridization signal unlike batch processes. it is used to dielectrophoretically trap dnas, rnas and bio-molecule from a flowing solution to the cnt surface to allow for very rapid, sensitive and selective detection. we designed a rapid, inexpensive, sensitive real time polymerase chain reaction detector; the nano-slot that used dielectrophoresis and eis to concentrate the dna molecules for real time detection near a nano-slot. deep neural networks have recently gained immense popularity, especially for developing surrogate models for applications in the field of science and engineering. these surrogate models are computationally inexpensive and approximate the input-output mapping of the expensive physical simulators. surrogates can be used efficiently for problems that require expensive, repetitive simulations such as inverse modeling, uncertainty quantification, and propagation or design of experiments tasks. this work focuses on investigating deep learning approaches for the inverse and forward solutions of physical systems. for the first part, a inverse model is developed that maps noisy and gappy observations to a high-dimensional input. this problem is ill-posed since one may not be able to uniquely recover the high-dimensional input given the noisy and sparse output. traditional inverse modeling techniques require a large number of simulator runs, which is computationally expensive. to address this issue and solve the inverse problem efficiently, we develop an inverse surrogate model that hinges on the concepts of deep generative machine learning and is trained with limited data in a supervised setting. the other part of this work develops an efficient forward surrogate model that is trained with limited data for the forward solution. here, we develop a data-driven model with a hybrid framework by combining multiscale methods and the deep neural networks for stochastic multiscale pde systems, in particular, flow in porous media. we then introduce a bayesian framework to this hybrid model to perform uncertainty quantification and propagation tasks. overall, deep learning models developed in this work offer a significant acceleration in terms of computational cost and accuracy for both the inverse and forward solutions of physical systems. new synthetic applications of nitroso diels-alder reactions abstract by fangzheng li the focus of this dissertation is to develop new synthetic applications of nitroso diels-alder reactions, which have been powerful synthetic tools for the formation of 1,4-c-o and c-n bonds in a single step. four projects have been evolved from this main research theme. in chapter two, efficient and practical chemoenzymatic syntheses of both enantiomerically pure 4-boc-aminocyclopent-2-ene-1-ols are presented based on an acylnitroso diels alder reaction approach. starting from one enantiomer, total syntheses of (+)-carbocyclic uracil polyoxin c and its ì_å±-epimer were accomplished in eight steps. the synthesis incorporates a pd(0)-catalyzed allylic alkylation, a mild reduction of an ì_å±-nitro ester and a modification of shaw and warrenerìøåàå_s procedure for uracil formation. starting from the other enantiomer, the stereoselective total synthesis of a lipophilic antibiotic, (+)-streptazolin is described in chapter 3. the synthetic sequence highlights an intramolecular aldol condensation strategy to construct the piperidine core and a silicon-tethered ring closing metathesis strategy to install the z exocyclic ethylidene side chain of streptazolin. the overall yield was 4.8% for a total of 16 steps. meanwhile, a highly efficient and selective pyridine nitroso da reaction was used to synthesize novel streptazolin derivatives. in the next chapter, the stabilized iminonitroso diels-alder reaction, particularly the pyridine nda (nitroso diels-alder) reaction, is demonstrated to be a remarkably efficient method for derivatization of complex diene-containing natural products. natural products, turimycin h3, ergosterol, reductiomycin, colchicine and thebaine were found to react with nitrosopyridines in a highly efficient and completely regioand stereo-selective fashion. in most cases, nda cycloadducts were obtained in more than 90% purity without any work-up or purification. meanwhile, pyridine nda reactions of piperine, oligomycin a, rifampicin quinone and flavofungin were also investigated. interestingly, apoptolidin was found to undergo ene reaction instead of da reaction again in a highly efficient and stereroselctive fashion. preliminary bioactivity evaluations of cycloadducts are also presented. finally, efforts toward developing a catalytic enantioselective acylnitroso diels-alder reaction by using three approaches are discussed in chapter 5. those approaches include a cu lewis acid based dual function catalyst system, a gem-c-acetoxynitroso da reaction as an acyl nitroso da reaction equivalent and a use of organocatalysts to incorporate chiral elements into the diene part of the acylnitroso da reaction. this dissertation explores an emerging fascination with devotional complaints in tudor and stuart poetry, written in the voice of the preacher from ecclesiastes, peter, christ, the virgin mary, and mary magdalene.this popular devotional mode was exercised by poets as diverse as edmund spenser, robert southwell, george herbert, william crashaw, richard verstegan, elizabeth grymeston, nicholas breton, aemilia lanyer, william alabaster, gervese markham, john davies, henry constable, and henry vaughan, to name a few.in order to understand this literary movement, this study recognizes two significant but easily overlooked facts. first of all, the complaint was one of the most important poetic modes in the sixteenth century. rather than being a marginal space for second-string poets and disempowered malcontents to vent their social frustration, it was a dynamic voice for advocating real political and social change, employed by nearly all poets of the english renaissance.secondly, the dynamism of the complaint is not reducible to a secular-religious binary, and the widespread use of devotional complaint across confessions and continents indicates that it was a surprisingly cosmopolitan poetic voice.ultimately, in addition to providing a much-needed theoretical model for the early modern complaint, i use this dominant poetic mode of the english renaissance to bring together several scholarly conversations that do not often merge.first of all, i bring the plentiful inquiries about the history of the emotions in the early modern period into the realms of lyric poetry and reformation theology.secondly, i place debates about confessional poetics in the broader context of secular lyric by expanding the scope of sacred parody and prayer into complaint.finally, i allow historical research on gender and social reform to enrich our understanding of early modern prayer and devotion, applying recent work on female and political complaint to devotional poetry.in the cosmopolitan space of complaint, catholic and protestant poets shape an inconclusive discourse about the theology of passions and feminine spirituality that uses human anguish and feminine excess as points of access to christ, flying in the face of some contemporary neo-stoic consolation literature.complaint poetry with its characteristic pathos and suspension of resolution was an ideal medium for this cross-confessional discourse about theologically ambiguous topics in which doctrine and imagination are often in tension.this study thus "redeems" complaint from reductive binaries even as it demonstrates a discourse that sought to redeem both the mode and the act of complaint. in this work, we explore hard and soft biometric systems. hard biometrics are features that are used to uniquely identify individuals over time, while soft biometrics do not uniquely identify individuals and may not persist in the same state over an extended time. we develop methods that enable recognition using 2d ear images. this recognition is performed using a dataset which contains various lighting and pose conditions, as well as time lapse. we explore the growing field of ensemble biometrics, which subdivide a biometric feature into parts, and combine the results of several parts to yield recognition results. we vary the number of parts, the size of each part, and the method used to build each ensemble and report recognition improvements. we also allow the parts to change shape both before and during training, which further improves performance. we perform recognition using soft biometric features extracted from video. although these features are not as reliable as traditional biometric features, they can still contribute to the recognition process. we find that using clothing color and height yield modest performance results that can be extended on their own or applied to other biometric systems. vectorbase is a bioinformatics resource center for invertebrate vectors of human pathogens funded by niaid. it is a centralized relational database based on a publicly available and supported database management system. there are a number of different processes that are carefully designed to effectively share data and communicate throughout the project. we outline the people and processes involved in the project. we hope this document can provide a sort of snap-shot of the status of the vectorbase project at the time of this writing, and may provide an initial look into vectorbase. climate change presents novel challenges to conservation that require predictive tools and new management strategies. to further predictions of species response, i examine plant functional traits in tropical forests with two goals: 1) identify traits indicative of resistance to projected drought in native seedlings, and 2) ascertain if non-native species can capitalize on disturbance over native species through high growth rates and plasticity. i also use the literature to evaluate the risk of inadvertently creating invasive species through human-aided translocations, or assisted migration. i found that high leaf shedding and high stem density promote drought resistance in tropical evergreens. non-native species had traits indicative of higher growth rate, but not plasticity, than native species, suggesting that disturbance may promote non-native species. finally, i found assisted migration's invasion risk is small, but assisted species that do become invasive could have large effects. this work informs proactive management under climate change. this thesis explores the mechanisms by which uranyl peroxide complexes form, the detailed structural features of pyrophosphate functionalized nanoclusters, the spectroscopic signatures of uranyl peroxide monomers, the effect of ph on the identity of the products formed in the uranium-peroxide-pyrophosphate system, and stability of uranyl peroxide nanoclusters.the composition of uranyl peroxide nanoclusters (i.e. u, o) imposed significant limitations on our ability to study their formation. herein, reaction mixtures yielding pyrophosphate functionalized [(uo2)24(o2)24(p2o7)12, ({u24pp12}) cluster were studied across a wide range of ph conditions using 31p nmr spectroscopy providing insights into the mechanism by which these clusters assemble. single crystal time-of-flight (tof) neutron diffraction provided unparalleled atomic resolution allowing unequivocal assignment of {u24pp12} protonation state.raman signatures of a family of uranyl triperoxide monomers [uo2(o2)34-] are studied by combination of experimental (isotopic labeling) and computational (density functional theory) approaches resulting in assignment of previously unobserved asymmetric and mixed asymmetric/symmetric vibrations of peroxide ligands. moreover, the identity of the signals appearing in the 600 800 cm-1 region is reassigned to the symmetric vibration of the uranyl.the effect of ph on the identity of species formed in the uranium-peroxide-pyrophosphate system are studied by combination of single crystal x-ray diffraction, small angle x-ray scattering, 31p nmr, and 31p dosy nmr spectroscopy. results indicate that formation of uranyl peroxide nanoclusters follows a well-defined stepwise mechanism consisting of multiple assembly/disassembly steps showing retention of basic uranyl peroxide building blocks (e.g. [(uo2)4(o2)4], {u4}).finally, stability of [(uo2)20(o2)27(hpo4)6], {u20p6} nanocluster incorporating peroxide in an unusual µ:eta2:eta2 bridging mode is studied by combination of raman, 31p dosy nmr spectroscopy, small angle x-ray scattering, and single crystal x-ray diffraction. results obtained in this study indicate that {u20p6}, upon dissolution in h2o, undergoes a rapid dissolution (t1/2 = 116.3 min) followed by reassembly into previously described {u24} nanocluster. in this work, we investigate metal-oxide-metal (mom) structures for optical sensor applications in the case of low irradiances. mom diodes can detect visible and infrared radiation in two different ways: using the rectifying properties of the diode (wave detection), or by thermal effects arising in the mom junction upon irradiation. we present the fabrication, dc measurements, and visible and infrared measurements of mom structures consist of ultrasmall (50 nm x 50 nm) symmetrical and asymmetrical tunnel junctions made by one electron beam lithography step and double-angle evaporation. the detectors give strong responses for visible and near-infrared radiations, and the wavelength dependence of the responsivity can be altered using different detector geometries. according to our calculations none of the effects previously published in the literature (rectification, thermal effects) can explain the unusually high sensitivity of our sensors. the experimental results suggest that the operation of the sensors is related to generation-recombination of electron-hole pairs in the substrate. squaraine dyes are intensely colored fluorescent dyes that absorb and emit in the red and near infrared wavelengths which are valuable wavelength regions for bioimaging. however, squaraine dyes have tendency to form aggregates and they are susceptible to nucleophilic attack. encapsulation of a squaraine dye inside a tetralactam macrocycle makes a squaraine rotaxane and avoids both problems simultaneously while retaining the favorable photophysical properties of the squaraine dye. this dissertation describes a series of structural investigations of squaraine rotaxanes and their fluorescent properties. rotaxanes with structural variations in the terminal regions of the encapsulated squaraine thread were synthesized and studied. they show high stability in the presence of nucleophiles, and extreme ph values. introducing a hydroxyl group on the anilinium ring of the squaraine thread leads to a congested squaraine rotaxane. dynamic nmr studies of this rotaxane allow measurement of the hindered c-n bond rotation in the squaraine thread. the rotaxane mechanical stability also was found to be affected by the macrocycle structure. a series of squaraine rotaxanes with a pyridyl-containing macrocycle adopt an unusual boat conformation in the solid state. it was deduced that the macrocycle underwent a very fast chair/boat conformational exchange in solution. the photophysical properties of squaraine rotaxanes, especially the fluorescence quantum yield, are affected by the chair/boat conformational exchange of macrocycle. a truncated squaraine rotaxane was synthesized and shown to have enhanced fluorescence. therefore, mechanical encapsulation can be employed as a rational design parameter to fine tune the chemical and photochemical properties of squaraine dyes. in addition, bioconjugation methods were developed to attach the squaraine rotaxanes to targeting ligands. a zn-dpa conjugate could be used to efficiently label various strains of bacteria. the intense fluorescence, photostability, and specific interaction allow the detection of the bacteria infection in vitro and in vivo. furthermore, rotaxanes were explored to label proteins in both non-specific and specific manners. compared to conventional nir fluorophores such as cy5, squaraine rotaxanes are brighter, much more stable, and do not self-quench, thus they are superior replacements in many bioimaging applications. this thesis analyzes the first movement of franz schubert's piano sonata in b-flat major, d. 960, with special attention to issues of sonata form. a schenkerian viewpoint is adopted, and that choice is justified by schenkerian analysis' ability to attend to the most important rhetorical moments of sonata form. the author's schenkerian interpretation is compared with several algebraic or 'neo-riemannian' analyses, and the advantages of the schenkerian analysis are clarified. passages from several other works are invoked to illustrate the role that third-related harmonies play in those works as well as in the schubert sonata. at the beginning of the space age, under the auspices of the international geophysical year (igy), the smithsonian astrophysical observatory (sao) was chosen to develop a network of optical satellite tracking stations in a number of countries around the world. this thesis is not a detailed chronology of the baker-nunn program or a technical account of early optical satellite tracking, it isìäå¢ì¢åâåâì¢åûå alternatively-an investigation of international scientific cooperation as it played out at two observatories in east asia in the late 1950s and 1960s. this thesis, through comparative analysis of the tracking stations in japan and india, will investigate the numerous ways japanese and indian observers negotiated with the sao to advance their scientific institutions and participate in an international scientific program while still maintaining their authority and autonomy. by examining the experience of american observers working at satellite tracking stations in japan and india, this thesis argues that in order to understand the nature and impact of global scientific programs, the day-to-day workings of the scientific outposts, the backbone of the programs, have to be examined. metal phosphides (mp) are a potential new class of ethane dehydrogenation (edh) catalysts. mp structural and compositional diversity brings an opportunity for tuning catalytic properties over a wide range, but it also presents a difficulty in computer simulation. in this dissertation, density functional theory (dft) calculations were employed to describe how i dealt with that diversity and investigated edh performance on metal phosphides.a comparison of the trend in adsorbate-binding and elementary reactions of edh on model ni and ni2p surfaces elucidates the role of p atom in improving edh performance. mechanistics underlying microkinetic models at the experimental conditions rationalize the enhanced edh performance of ni2p. a simple isostructural metal phosphide model was selected to reduce the structural diversity, and they were utilized to perform a screening of selective edh catalyst over metal phosphide series via the adsorbate-binding characteristics which observed in the above ni2p studies. lastly, a systematical strategy is introduced to show how i handle the compositional diversity of metal phosphides through combined theoretical and experimental inference, and thermodynamic evaluation of their structures. this approach demonstrates influences of p content on edh performance, and importance of the size of metallic ensemble in the phosphide surface chemistry. bacteria are present in virtually all environments on earth where liquid water exists, and where they are capable of affecting the transport of a wide range of contaminants from heavy metals to complex organic compounds. in chapter 2, i describe a study of the effects of extracellular polymeric substances (eps) on bacterial adsorption, and the importance of sulfhydryl binding sites on the eps molecules. we observed that removal of eps material from bacterial cells, via cation exchange resin, does not significantly change the mass-normalized extent of cd adsorption onto the biomass. our results suggest that the concentration of binding sites on the eps, and the affinity of these sites to bind cd, are similar to those on the cell surface for the three bacterial species studied, but that the chemical identity of these sites varies between the cell surface and the eps molecules. chapter 3 reports the results of a study of the capability of bacteria to sorb perand polyfluoroalkyl substances (pfas). we used a novel analytical technique involving particle induced gamma-ray emission (pige) spectroscopy to quantify pfas concentrations in solution using total fluorine measurements. our results indicate that gram-positive and gram-negative bacterial cells are capable of removing pfoa and pfos from solution, and that pfas sorption onto bacteria is likely a surface process involving both electrostatic and hydrophobic binding mechanisms. in chapter 4. i describe the results of a study of the effects of varying the concentration and identity of electron donors on bacterial surface and eps sulfhydryl site concentrations. our results suggest that total energy availability represents a strong control on the ability of bacterial cells to produce sulfhydryl binding sites and that there are factors other than electron donor concentration that also influence sulfhydryl site production by bacteria. in recent years karl barth's theological ethics have enjoyed a considerable degree of critical interest and constructive development. at the same time, recent accounts of barth's theological ethics have failed to grapple adequately with barth's claims concerning the central and organizing role christology plays in his overall theological program. the dissertation seeks to demonstrate that barth's theological ethics are grounded in christology in a way that has not yet been sufficiently appreciated, and offers a critical reorientation for the study of barth's ethics within the same christological horizon that characterized his dogmatic efforts. in chapter one the dissertation shows the various ways in which recent treatments of barth's theological ethics fail to consider the christological basis of his thought, and recommends a closer examination of his christology for our understanding of the ethical task and specific ethical commitments. in chapter two the dissertation examines the person of jesus christ in barth's thought as the ground of the authentically human, showing that the basis of human being in barth's thought is the incarnation of jesus christ. chapter three discusses the work of jesus christ, specifically in terms of his obedience to god in the atonement; this obedience is constitutive of all other forms of human obedience and is the basis for barth's description of the ethical event of encounter with the command of god. in chapter four the dissertation examines the significance of the person and work of jesus christ for creation, understood as the context of human action in barth's thought. christology figures centrally here again, as barth thinks of creation and moral order as dialectically determined by covenant, the enactment of god's relationship with human beings that occurs in the obedience of jesus christ. in chapter five, the dissertation brings christology to bear on the criticisms of barth's theological ethics highlighted in chapter one, and recommends that barth's christological basis for theological ethics represents a constructive and positive way forward for christian ethics more broadly considered. anthropogenic alterations to the global nitrogen (n) cycle have doubled reactive n flux into the biosphere and altered aquatic ecosystem function. streams modify n loads carried to coastal ecosystems by converting n to organic forms or removing it as gaseous n. understanding how streams transform n can offer insight to ecologists and land managers about how stream ecosystems function under elevated n loads. i researched how anthropogenic and landscape factors affect n transformations by studying streams in two distinct biomes and at multiple spatial scales. at the landscape scale, i studied n concentrations in streams draining the teton range (wyoming, usa), a sub-alpine and alpine ecosystem with variable lithology. streams draining crystalline geology had higher n compared to streams draining carbonate geology, which had more vegetation, suggesting that lithology mediated patterns in vegetation and terrestrial n retention. at the reach scale, i studied how land use influenced n uptake and transformation in midwestern streams (michigan, usa) and found that dissimilatory n transformation rates (i.e., nitrification and denitrification) within streams were not affected by riparian zones, which are commonly used to mitigate water quality degradation. dissimilatory n transformation rates were always < 10% of whole-stream n uptake and nitrification rates balanced denitrification rates, implying that denitrification did not represent net n loss from the water column. at the substratum scale, sediment organic carbon content correlated with denitrification, but only when nitrate concentration exceeded a threshold. finally, i returned to the tetons and found that grazing activity by invasive snails can increase periphyton n fixation rates in a stream with low n concentrations. a synthesis of my findings from high n streams in the midwest suggests that land-use practices have increased temporary n removal at the expense of permanent n removal. in the low n streams of the tetons, observations from different spatial scales suggest that landscape factors that lower stream n concentrations and high rates of grazing together can influence the importance of n fixation in streams. my dissertation highlights multiple constraints on n processing in streams and emphasizes that basic ecological research can yield important results for management agencies. polyelectrolyte membrane fuel cells (pemfcs) are a promising class of alternative energy devices with potential applications in transportation, portable electronics and stationary power devices that possess high efficiencies and are also environmentally friendly. nafion® is the benchmark polyelectrolyte membrane (pem) for pemfc applications because of its high proton conductivity at high relative humidity (rh) as well as excellent oxidative stability. however, its relatively high cost and poor performance at low rh and high temperature (&gt; 80 °c) has limited the full-scale commercialization of pemfcs. disulfonated poly(arylene ether sulfone) multiblock copolymers have emerged as very promising alternative pems for replacing nafion® due to their improved thermal, chemical and mechanical stability as well as improved proton conductivity under low rh conditions. however, the long hydrophilic sequences (typically &gt;10,000 g/mol) required to achieve high proton conductivity usually lead to excessive water swelling which degrade membrane dimensional stability. this dissertation reports a fundamentally new approach to address this grand challenge by introducing shape-persistent triptycene units into the hydrophobic sequences of multiblock copolymers. a series of novel triptycene-containing multiblock copolymers were developed and their potential for pem applications was investigated. different hydrophilic (bps100, trp100) and hydrophobic (trp0, bps0) oligomers were utilized in the synthesis of the multiblock copolymers in order to study the effect of the copolymer chemical composition on the fundamental membrane properties. the triptycene units, especially those in long hydrophobic sequences, induced strong supramolecular chain-threading and interlocking interactions that effectively suppress water swelling. consequently, unlike in previously reported multiblock copolymer systems, the water swelling of the triptycene-containing copolymers did not increase proportionally with water uptake. this combination of high water uptake and low swelling ratio of these copolymers resulted in excellent proton conductivity and membrane dimensional stability under fully hydrated conditions. these new triptycene-containing materials have great potential for applications in polyelectrolyte membrane fuel cells. the elastic task model is a powerful model for adapting periodic real-time systems in the presence of uncertainty. this thesis generalizes the existing elastic scheduling approach in several directions. first, it presents a general framework, which formulates a trade-off between task schedulability and a specific performance metric as an optimization problem. such a framework allows real-time systems under overloads to graciously adapt by adjusting their performance level.second, it is shown in this thesis that the well-known task compression algorithm in fact solves a quadratic programming problem that seeks to minimize the sum of the squared deviation of a task's utilization from initial desired utilization. this finding indicates that the task compression algorithm may be applied to efficiently solve other similar types of problems that often arise in real-time applications. in particular, an iterative approach is proposed to solve the period selection problem for real-time tasks with deadlines less than respective periods. further, the framework is adapted to solve the deadline selection problem, which is useful in some real-time control systems with fixed periods. this thesis paper details my research regarding mold making and slip-casting within ceramics. it is meant to be an addendum to my thesis exhibition held in the snite museum of art. iii-nitride semiconductors have been of great interest and have been studied extensively for the applications in high frequency and high power devices. so far, most iii-nitride devices are grown and fabricated on sapphire, sic, si and other substrates. the epitaxially grown materials on these substrates suffer from high defect densities due to the lattice mismatch. dislocations and other defects degrade performance, especially for devices utilizing a vertical current path. recently single-crystal bulk gallium nitride (gan) and aluminum nitride (aln) substrates with very low defect densities have become available, opening the door for fundamental advances in epitaxy, and physical re-evaluation of the iii-nitrides, and also potentially new applications in optical and electronic devices. in this work, we have explored various iii-nitride heterostructures epitaxially grown on single-crystal bulk aln and gan substrates. mbe grown vertical p-n junctions enabled by n+ gan bulk substrates are studied for high power applications. gan p-n junctions with off-state leakage current as low as 3 na/cm2, an on-resistance of 0.23 mω·cm2 and a breakdown field of ~3.1 mv/cm are achieved. these leakage and breakdown characteristics represent the highest performance metrics in gan p-n junction diodes grown by mbe. to further improve the high field properties of p-n junctions, polarization-induced algan (pi-algan) p-n junctions are grown by mbe. compared to gan p-n homojunction diodes, the pi-algan p-n diodes take advantages of both polarization-induced doping and the larger band gap of algan, to achieve improved breakdown properties but still with a low resistance. the fabricated polarization-induced al0.23gan p-n diodes show a highest breakdown field of ~3.8 mv/cm. the breakdown field is among the highest reported values for iii-nitrides. based on the observed electroluminescence from the gan p-n diodes, we propose optical cooling for power electronic devices. the excellent high field properties together with unique optical cooling of iii-nitrides makes the pi-algan heterostructures candidates for a new generation of power electronic devices. mbe growths of aln/gan/aln quantum well (qw) heterostructures on single-crystal bulk aln were studied. the qw structure has shown attractive properties such as the presence of a 2deg whose charge can be varied by changing the qw thickness as well as the barrier thickness. the aln barrier of the qw induces the maximal carrier densities while providing the best confinement for gan channels at the same time. bulk single crystal aln substrates offer the highest thermal conductivity possible in the iii-nitride materials and a low dislocation density platform. by the growth optimization of gan qws on single crystal aln substrates, an n-channel 2deg with an electron mobilities of 601/1380 cm2/v·s with a 2deg densities of 3.2/2.6×1013 cm-2 and sheet resistance of 327/171 ω/□ were measured at 300/77 k. the mobilities at 300 k and 77 k are both the highest among gan qw heterostructures on the aln platform. the resulting overall electrical properties make the qw heterostructures well suited for high-frequency field effect transistors. ultra-thin body (utb) gan on aln platform also enables high density of two-dimensional hole gases (dhg), by polarization-induced p-type doping. the growth of the utb gan/aln heterosturcture is studied on single-crystal bulk aln as well, and 2dhg is measured experimentally. the strained gan layer qw layer in the aln/gan/aln qw structures discussed above were demonstrated as optical markers for raman characterization. the gan qw structure is ideally suited as an optical marker because all other regions – the barrier and the underlying buffer have much larger bandgaps. together with isotope 15n as a second optical marker, a new dual marker method for raman spectroscopy is enabled and demonstrated. we demonstrate the effectiveness of dual optial marker raman spectroscopy in studying strain in both vertical and horizontal directions. the overlapping ecological, economic, and social crises created by our contemporary industrialized food system have increased moral attention to the human relationship to the rest of nature. however, despite overt attempts to incorporate evolutionary biology and ecology into moral and theological discourse, some of the central insights of these sciences—such as the symbiotic patterns of interspecies relationships and processes of regeneration by which ecosystems evolved and are sustained—are rarely accorded substantive moral weight, or worse, are explicitly theorized as problems to be overcome. this dissertation describes the normative significance of natural processes of renewal. it argues that (a) god's providential wisdom is evident in natural patterns and processes of regeneration and this means that (b) the moral life consists in part of pious affection for the land and its members through consenting participation in their symbiotic, complex goods. these commitments together comprise a christian land ethic, an interdisciplinary synthesis of theological, ethical, and practical reflections on the way we inhabit the land. it primarily draws on james gustafson, thomist theories of the natural law, contemporary aristotelian philosophy of biology, wendell berry, and the land ethics tradition to outline the moral obligations that arise from the integrated goods of the land and its individual members. it then describes how the principles and practices of agroecology and regenerative agriculture are the natural extension of this normative framework. the problem of the "foundations of ethics" is one of the oldest and most venerable in philosophy, discussed in a literature that stretches from the platonic dialogues to the present. it is also, despite its currency, a remarkably obscure and multifarious problem: it's rarely clear in the literature what "the" problem is, what the solutions are, and indeed, what counts as an instance of either problem or solution. the basic aims of this study are to defend a particular conception of the problem; to offer the sketch of a solution; and to offer an extended critique of one attempted solution, namely, christine korsgaard's in the sources of normativity. topics discussed include foundationalism as a general theory of epistemic justification, intuitionism as a moral epistemology, and meta-ethical approaches to the foundations of ethics (notably kantianism and egoism). principal figures discussed include aristotle, kant, mill, moore, rawls, and korsgaard. siderophores are organic ligands released by aerobic microorganisms and plants to acquire fe; they may also bind other metals such as pb, affecting pb sorption and nucleation and growth of pb-bearing minerals. batch experiments were used to determine the effects of the siderophore desferrioxamine b (dfob) on pb sorption to naand camontmorillonite (mmt) clay at ph 3-7.5 and background electrolyte naclo4 and ca(clo4)2 at 0.1 and 0.01 m concentrations. dfob was observed to have complex phand ionic-strength dependent effects on pb sorption to mmt. lowering the electrolyte concentrations was found to increase pb sorption to na-mmt but had no change of pb sorption for ca-mmt. the effects of dfob 0 to 0.020 m on formation of cerussite (pbco3) and/or hydrocerussite (pb3(co3)2(oh)2) were also investigated, and synthesized particles analyzed by xrd, microscopic and spectroscopic methods. dfob was found to affect particle size, morphology, and twinning. decades of research have documented the distinct ways in which destructive and constructive inter-parental conflict influence family functioning and adolescent development. in particular, parenting quality and emotional security are two processes that are compromised in the context of destructive conflict that are linked with later adjustment problems in adolescents. the present study is an efficacy evaluation of the family communication project (fcp), a randomized controlled trial of a family intervention designed to improve communication and conflict resolution strategies by educating families about the different types of conflict (destructive and constructive) and their implications on emotional security, parenting quality, and adolescent adjustment outcomes. more specifically, the current study investigated program effects on conflict behaviors at post-test, parenting quality and emotional security 6-months post-intervention, and adolescent adjustment outcomes 12-months post-intervention. participants consisted of n = 225 family triads randomly assigned to one of four conditions: parent-adolescent (n = 75), parent-only (n = 75), self-study (n = 38), or no treatment (n = 37). data for the current investigation were drawn from pre-test, post-test, 6-months post-intervention, and 12-months post-intervention. this study tests a series of longitudinal sequential mediation models to examine program effects on long-term adolescent adjustment outcomes. results revealed that the intervention's effect on internalizing behaviors was mediated by improvements in constructive conflict and sequentially through decreased emotional insecurity. these findings support the utility of a brief family-focused psycho-educational program on improving adjustment outcomes and contribute important insight into the mechanisms of program effects. this study explores the intellectual development of anthony ashley cooper, first earl of shaftesbury, from boyhood to the end of a long career in public office, an ending which marked his shift into bitter opposition leadership. shaftesbury has received outstanding attention from biographers. the story of the political opposition of his last decade, which sparked the formation of an early country, or whig, party, is standard to any political survey of stuart england. but an emphasis on shaftesbury's always colorful political career and sometimes radical policies have tended to swamp a more comprehensive exploration of his ideas and intellectual commitments. the result has sometimes been his dismissal as a political chameleon bankrupt of intellectual conviction, yet just as often he has been hailed as a crucial figure in sweeping movements of political thought, from liberalism, to both whig and tory ideologies, to the florentine republican inheritance. moreover, the exact same qualities ascribed to shaftesbury have tended to be conferred on the country politics that he was famous for championing late in life, and almost always stuart historiography has regarded that country politics as something fundamentally oppositional, though loyal, to government carried out in the king's court.the study argues that shaftesbury inherited a conservative vision of english politics with roots in the plantagenet past, a worldview that pictured government as a combination of top-down kingly authority and legitimacy, the court, meeting a public virtue nursed on the land and through local government, the country. this harmonious, balanced medieval vision is the country politics that shaftesbury tried to further in his political career, but he found england unhinged by the convulsions of the civil war and an incomplete religious and political settlement at the restoration. he consistently searched for a new settlement, and in doing so he drew from intellectual sources that he had encountered in his education or public offices—arminian free will, legal equity, venetian conciliarism, protectorate theories linking property and power, and more. the result was an eclectic set of often radical principles that few other englishmen of his time could have completely shared, yet principles forwarded at the service of a desire to restore the harmonious bonds of court and country lodged deep in the english past. plasma-catalysis is a field with great potential in many applications. these include carbon dioxide (co2) conversion, hydrocarbon reforming, synthesis of nanomaterials, abatement of toxic waste gases, and ammonia (nh3) production. it has several advantages: operating close to atmospheric conditions (e.g. pilot plants) unlike thermal catalysis, and not requiring a constant power supply to operate, meaning renewable energies are good candidates to power these applications. this work focuses on one of its applications, nh3 production. ammonia is essential for life because it is a required precursor to fertilizers, explosives, and other products. its production represents 1-2% of energy consumption around the world. in order to improve plasma-catalysis, it is necessary to have a better understanding of the fundamental mechanisms behind catalytically-enhanced plasma ammonia synthesis, in particular, the mutual interaction between the plasma and catalyst. the literature has extensively reported plasma-catalysis manifests in an improvement of the performance of reaction kinetics when plasma and catalyst work together. these interactions between plasma and catalyst can be interpreted from two perspectives: the effects of plasma on the catalyst and the effects of catalyst on the plasma. this work focuses on the latter, with the goal of understanding the fundamental mechanism of the plasma/catalytic synergy in nh3 synthesis. using a packed-bed dielectric barrier discharge, the macroscopic dielectric barrier discharge (dbd) properties were obtained using different techniques such as optical emission spectroscopy (oes), current-voltage (i-v) measurements, and charge-voltage (q-v) measurements. it was found that there are no important statistical differences (through anova analysis) between all analyzed metal-on-oxide support configurations (regardless of metal) for the filamentary characteristics (e.g. number of filaments) and nitrogen temperatures (e.g. vibrational temperature) of various excited species. these results show that the plasma is not appreciably altered by the metal catalyst even though the ammonia rate for each set of experimental conditions changed with the catalyst. ultimately, this work shows any synergy that occurs during ammonia synthesis in this plasma-catalyst system is not due to catalyst modification of the plasma at a macroscopic level. we compute the chern-schwartz-macpherson (csm) class of a schubert variety in a grassmannian using a small resolution introduced by zelevinsky. as a consequence, we show how to compute the chern-mather class using a small resolution instead of the nash blowup. we use these formulas for csm classes to prove new cases of a positivity conjecture of aluffi and mihalcea. specifically, we show that codimension 1 coefficients in the csm class of a schubert cell are strictly positive and give a closed formula for them. factorization algebras are one "approximation'" to physicists' quantum field theories, and spin factorization algebras with point defects are a generalization of factorization algebras which allow us to take spin structures into account. in this thesis, we construct the spin factorization algebra with point defects of quantum observables for a particular free bv theory. taking cohomology yields a spin prefactorization algebra with point defects. we investigate the structure maps of this cohomology prefactorization algebra and use them to give a geometric description of the free fermion vertex superalgebra and a geometric description of a twisted module over a vertex superalgebra. in the pharmaceutical industry, the absolute configurations of chiral compounds need to be produced with high purity. asymmetric catalysis has been used to generate products with high yields and high selectivities. to find the catalyst that gives the best selectivity and yield, a wide range of ligands needs to be tested. there has been immense interest in predictive methods that could search through ligand libraries and find which ligands could give the best selectivity rather than experimentally testing hundreds of ligands so just testing the 5-10 ligands give the best results. the quantum-guided molecular mechanics (q2mm) method has been developed to tackle this problem by developing transition state force fields (tsffs) as a method to predicting stereoselectivity. this thesis describes the process of developing tsff and a virtual screening procedure that automates the process of calculating selectivity. there are two tsff developed, for the pd-catalyzed allylic amination and pd-catalyzed 1,4-additon or arylboronic acids to enones, that have shown the predictive ability that can be useful for experimentalists. there are two additional tsff that are still being developed for the rh-catalyzed 1,4-addition of boronic acids to enones and ir-catalyzed imine hydrogenation that are also presented here. lastly, force field parameters for a ferrocene scaffold are verified and have shown how developed force field parameters can be combined and used to make selectivity predictions. we study various aspects of three-term relations and their generalizations in solvable problem of mathematical physics. first, we consider leonard pairs, pairs of matrices with the property of mutual tri-diagonality. we introduce and study a classical analogue of leonard pairs and show that functions forming leonard pairs satisfy non-linear relations of the awtype with respect to poisson brackets. continuing this approach we introduce leonard triples and describe an algorithm which leads to a chain of leonard triples. second, we introduce a family of non-abelian nonlinear kostant-toda lattices in $gl_n$. we introduce some orbits with special parametrization, present evolution equation on these orbits and show that matrix weyl functions can be used to encode the hamiltonian structure of these lattices, to establish their complete integrability and to explicitly solve them via the matrix generalization of the inverse moment problem. the human iris is extremely unique, stable, and externally visible; making it ideally suited as a biometric modality. the performance of state-of-the-art in iris biometrics is approaching perfect correct recognition rates in small deployments with controlled image acquisition. iris recognition systems need to improve continually in order to keep pace with the increasing number of users enrolled in applications, and in order to perform well in less controlled image acquisition circumstances. in this work we present improvements to all four stages of the biometrics pipeline that increase the accuracy of iris biometrics systems. the effects of mascara and other topical cosmetics on iris recognition are evaluated. a method for detection of soft contact lenses using modified binary patterns is introduced and is shown to accurately detect the presence of a clear, soft contact lens, while not reducing the correct detection rate of textured lenses. this work is further extended by using binarized statistical information feature (bsif) in the place of binary patterns. bsif is shown to outperform the binary pattern algorithm for this use case. the impacts of novel lens types and novel sensors are both also evaluated. a set of improvements to the iris biometrics gallery using multiple samples and regression analysis of quality metrics are also proposed and evaluated. these methods are shown to improve the correct identification rate of an iris biometrics system using real-world scenarios. the protection of light-weight ground vehicle crews from rapid energetic events in hostile operating environments is an active field of study in defense research. in the following work an innovative optimization scheme is developed which couples finite element blast simulations with a spatially decomposed design methodology. the objective of this method is to develop concept designs to improve occupant survivability and reduce key injury metrics. the hybrid cellular automata (hca) framework has been adapted to develop improved designs of the target and supporting structures under blast loading. the blasthca methodology is shown to generate functionally improved thin walled structures for both empirically based and fully coupled blast simulation loads. functionally enhanced concept designs developed by the blasthca methodology will serve to better the understanding of the blast mitigation design problem and produce structures that offer better crew protection for the next generation of lightly armored ground vehicles. the goal of this dissertation research is to investigate co-culture patterning and electrophysiological assessment methods for cardiac tissue engineering applications. controlling and manipulating the cell microenvironment plays a fundamental role in communication, response and behavior of the in vitro cell cultures. the heart is a complex organ consists of many cell types with distinct cellular characteristics. mimicry of the complex bio-structure of the heart in vivo requires precise manipulation techniques. in this dissertation research, we first investigate the microfabrication methods to extend the capabilities to control cell microenvironment and develop three microfabrication methods to pattern co-cultures in vivo. in the second part of this work, we extensively study the electrophysiological activity of the rat and human heart cells using both existing and original electrophysiological assessment methods. in this research, we investigate both fibroblasts and myocytes that play crucial roles in heart function. we both electrically characterize and stimulate heart cells and report our results. finally, we design electrical circuit components utilizing cardiac cells, fabricate them using micropatterning techniques and characterized through electrophysiological assessment methods. taking advantage of a unique moment in history that was the covid-19 pandemic, this dissertation is an attempt to take seriously a university's decision to be open during a global pandemic. the university of notre dame brought back the student body to campus while also transforming the space of campus and the organization of the semesters. the 2020-21 academic year highlighted the importance of bodily dimensions for learning in higher education, both individually and through bodies being brought together (i.e. the student body).in this dissertation i argue that the organization of space and time are central components of what makes a college campus a particular type of experience. the space of the university is one that brings bodies together and operates at its own rhythm for the purposes of learning and growth. i make sense of this moment by thinking with henri lefebvre's concept of rhythmanalysis, which looks at how rhythms within society interact and play off one another. rhythms consist of time, space, and energy according to henri lefebvre. data was collected through participant observation, interviews, and digital ethnography. to bring out the rhythms of this moment i trace the development of the university campus in the united states historically and then move towards an analysis of the space of notre dame's campus and its transformations during covid-19. i then outline what happened over the course of the 2020-21 academic year and make sense of it through rhythmanalysis. i conclude that covid-19 has highlighted the growing relationship between physical and digital spaces within academia, with discussion of how trends identified in fieldwork are cited in other literature. dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (dvfs) has become an accepted and widespread technique to manage power and energy consumption in general-purpose and embedded systems. the careful selection of voltage levels and operating frequencies through dvfs can result in an efficient system that meets deadline, throughput and other timing constraints, while also maximizing the systemìøåàå_s lifetime. however, the misuse of dvfs is also possible, which can result in a system that is either less efficient, or fails to meet timing constraints. in the case of a hard real-time system, this can result in catastrophic failures. this dissertation extends the state-of-the-art in several areas with respect to dvfs. first, several algorithms are introduced to manage the impact of voltage transition overhead on hard real-time systems, including reducing the increase in energy and eliminating deadline misses. jitter constraints are also met through dvfs to increase the stability and predictability of such systems. in addition to a single cpu, a dual-resource system consisting of a cpu and a wireless network interface is also examined. next, the applicability of dvfs as a power-management technique for real-time 3d graphics applications on portable embedded systems is evaluated and an effective graphics-workload prediction technique used to facilitate dvfs is introduced. finally, the simulation platform used to evaluate each of the proposed techniques is presented. many open problems are presented along the way which can serve as starting points for future research. this thesis examines the complex relationship between art and place in an age of translocality, hypermobility, and widespread displacement. as a research-based artist, my art practice integrates studio work with on-site examinations of human relationships to the built environment. my interest in examining the relationship between humans and land use has led me to sites throughout the united states as well as to france, germany, italy, and greece. the research and installation-based work in this thesis display my ever-evolving understanding of the territorial, sociopolitical, and environmental web that we weave on the places we inhabit. within the history of contemporary sculpture, most responses to this topic tend to focus upon individual relationships to specific places through acts such as documentation, preservation, or performance. instead, i am interested in visualizing the expansion of residential space as an existential tension between stability and precariousness. what does community look like for a translocal society increasingly defined by cultural tribalism, populist isolationism, and forced migration? ultimately, how can this sudden fragmentation be visually expressed with a sense of criticality? this thesis explores the potential for the warranted reception of scripture. it examines the way the book of ezekiel prepares its own reception among latter audiences such that later readings might be judged not merely as happenstance reapplications of the text but as instances of authentic exegesis concerning what is in fact conveyed in the book. the first chapter considers the tenets and implications of modern and postmodern exegesis as they relate to this possibility. i argue that both are forms of historicism which restrict meaning, respectively, to the moment of origin and the moment of interpretation. in contrast, i note that the unified, providential view of history characteristic of premodern exegesis leaves open the possibility for warranted recepton and is, moreover, consistent with what scripture itself wishes to make possible. in the second chapter, i turned to see how the book of ezekiel puts forward this understanding of history and, relatedly, certain affirmations about authorship and audience. taken together, i aruge that the text proposes itself as a divinely authored reading of sacred history that functions to explain the present and anticipate the future, written for the whole of israel as she awaits the vindication of god's name and so also her own restoration.in the third and final chapter, i examine the temple vision of ezekiel 40-48 to see in what way, against the backdrop of what was learned concerning history, authorship, and audience, one might understand the potential for these chapters to be properly meaningful in later generations. the text, i argue, functions as a reading of the past and so, even in a situation in which the specific form of restoration which ezekiel envisions does not come about, readerships might nevertheless see and hear a word concerning the return of god's presence in israel. in the final pages of the chapter, i articulate some of the theological content of this prophecy. the aim is not to anticipate and privilege any one moment of reception but only to show, formally, the shape which any and all moments of warranted reception will take. the structural design of tall, slender buildings requires the use of analytical and scaled models, which are influenced by the myriad of simplifying assumptions used to create them. while these models are used to predict the structure's performance and thereby dictate the structural design of the building, the accuracy of the modeling techniques used in the design of tall buildings are rarely every verified despite the tremendous life safety and economic implications of these signature structures. such a lack of validation leads to over-conservative assumptions and presents a barrier to the formalization of performance-based design guidelines.the scale, cost and complexity of tall buildings prohibits the use of full-scale validation tests employed by other engineering disciplines. this leaves full-scale monitoring as the only feedback mechanism to quantify the accuracy of the scaled and analytical models used to predict the performance of tall buildings in the design stage. this research responds by first presenting advances to the hardware used to capture the movement of tall buildings. the dissertation details the development and validation of a rapidly re-deployable accelerometer module. these modules will enable the collection of full-scale data from a wide variety of tall buildings employing different load transfer mechanisms through a community-based framework. second, the use of tiltmeters to capture the low-frequency components of a structure's movement is developed through both laboratory testing and in-situ full-scale monitoring. the research then shifts towards designer-facing objectives. first, new global and local behavioral descriptors are developed to quantify the degree of cantilever action for the overall structure and for discrete locations along the structure's height. second, the research explores how this hardware can be used in hybrid installations with accelerometers to determine total displacement algorithm tied to this nuanced understanding of in-situ behavior. this enables the capture of both the high-frequency and low-frequency components of a structure's total displacement, while also using the respective outputs to quantify different deformation mechanisms such as the degree of lateral sway and overturning. third, the global behavioral descriptor is used to create a predictive damping model, demonstrating the relationship between a structure's degree of cantilever action and its energy dissipation capacity. finally, the dissertation utilizes both the global and local behavioral descriptors in a new framework for parameter selection as a part of the model updating process for a tall building's finite element model. this analysis also investigates the inevitable impact of limited sensor density in full-scale monitoring campaigns on the results of the model updating process.over the course of the dissertation, several changes to conventional wisdom surrounding full-scale monitoring of tall buildings are presented. first, installation locations for tiltmeter sensing technology should focus on the lower elevations of the structure. second, there exists a trade-off between the utilization of more efficient axial load paths in the structure (higher degree of cantilever action) and the structure's ability to dissipate energy. finally, when utilizing full-scale monitoring data for model updating applications, sensor arrays should include sensors towards the base of the structure rather than focusing solely on higher elevations of the building. promising applications in many diverse areas of human endeavor, including medicine, communications, security, and so on, terahertz (thz) technology has recently turned into a very active area of scientific research. the thz frequency band, usually defined in the 0.3-30 thz range, was for decades one of the least explored regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, mainly due to the lack of materials and devices responding to these frequencies in a controllable manner. this work presents a study of tunable two-dimensional electron-gas (2deg) systems and how their unique physical properties can be harnessed to develop novel high-performance active thz devices and systems. first, a new class of highly efficient thz reconfigurable devices based on graphene is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. by employing graphene, an intrinsically 2d semiconductor as the active material, device design with unprecedented degrees of freedom, low-cost, and ease of fabrication is possible thus leading to a substantial improvement with respect to the existing art in terms of controllability of thz waves. although in the infrared/visible range the optical absorption of graphene is only a few percent and scarcely controllable, its optical conductivity dramatically increases at thz leading to the possibility of electrical control of thz absorption. moreover, by combining graphene layers with other passive structures augmenting the electric field intensity in the graphene, the control over thz waves can be greatly enhanced. by employing this approach thz electro-absorption modulators exhibiting better modulation-depth versus insertion-loss tradeoff than the prior art are demonstrated. these devices can be employed as the building blocks for novel thz systems; for instance a prototype single-detector thz camera was developed employing graphene electro-absorption modulator arrays. but 2deg systems exhibit further interesting properties which may be exploitable in the thz range such as collective electron transport, i.e. electron-plasma waves, whose group-velocity can be more than one order of magnitude larger than the electron-drift velocity. based on this phenomenon, novel device concepts for thz detectors and amplifiers are proposed. these devices, named rtd-gated plasma wave hemts promise operation at frequencies >> 1 thz, which has been shown to be very difficult to obtain in conventional high-speed transistors. in sexual organisms, speciation occurs as genetically based barriers evolve between populations to cause them to become reproductively isolated. the types and chronology in which different reproductive isolating (ri) barriers arise may vary depending on the ecological and geographic context of divergence and may not necessarily remain constant throughout the divergence process. thus, mixed modes of speciation may be common. research has mainly focused on divergent ecological adaptation, sexual selection, and intrinsic nuclear genomic incompatibilities as the sources of ri brought about by ecological and geographic speciation, but recent work demonstrates that endosymbionts may also contribute ri. for example, one of the most common endosymbionts, wolbachia, can induce cytoplasmic incompatibility (ci) that causes postmating reproductive isolation between populations infected with incompatible strains. like other forms of ri barriers, wolbachia induced ri is not constant through time as wolbachia are continuously purged from and horizontally transferred into host lineages. studies are needed that synthesize across both endosymbiont and non-endosymbiont related ri to understand how episodic ri provided by wolbachia can contribute to host-related ri and influence the diversification process of its host.to address this gap, the goal of my dissertation is to study how wolbachia induced ci and other mixed modes of speciation influence host ri dynamics during speciation. to accomplish this objective, my research leveraged the biology and natural history of the rhagoletis (diptera: tephritidae) cingulata sibling species group endemic to n. america. chapters 2, 3, and 4 characterize forms of premating and postmating isolation between cherry flies, between olive flies, and between both clades respectively. chapter 5 uses comparative genomics to study a case of putative wolbachia strain introgression, and chapter 6 uses comparative genomics to study the variation of the universal wolbachia strain, wcin2, from cherry flies across n. america. in chapter 2, i found a unique wolbachia strain, wcin3, that putatively causes ci in crosses to other cherry fly populations, and, when coupled with other strong ecological ri, may contribute meaningful ri to the speciation process. in chapter 3, i identified strong ecological allochronic isolation between olive flies. in chapter 4, i observed a mixed mode of speciation between olive and cherry flies in which ecological and allopatric divergence both contribute at differing times to the evolution of preand postmating reproductive isolation, including the observation of increased premating isolation potentially due to reinforcement or reproductive character displacement. in chapter 5, despite near identical sequences for the multi locus sequencing markers, substantial sequence differences for other loci were found between wcer2 and wcin2, as well as structural rearrangements, and differences in prophage, repetitive element, gene content, and ci inducing genes. finally in chapter 6, i report that wcin2 from the southwest strain is highly diverged in gene content, structure, and cif genes from wcin2 genomes from other regions. in contrast, the wcin2 strains from these other regions are very near identical in sequence content and cif gene content, but possess unique structural rearrangements associated with mobile genetic elements, some of which impact cif gene function.overall, my dissertation provides new evidence for the importance of geographic and biological context when studying speciation and how dynamics driving the evolution of ri barriers can potentially change over the course of speciation. my research also shows wolbachia associated ri is likely transient on an evolutionary time scale due its dynamic genome. taken together, these findings provide insight into how mixed modes of speciation, including any associated endosymbionts, may have impacted the chronology and strength of ri barriers in the r. cingulata sibling species group. honeywell, a leading manufacturer of friction materials for aerospace applications, manufactures brakes by densifying a carbon fiber preform using chemical vapor deposition. this has two major drawbacks, namely, the high cost of the fiber preform, and the time required to densify it via cvd. to address these issues, a novel material, mesocarbon microbeads, are investigated. this relatively inexpensive and rapidly processed material has shown good friction characteristics, but unacceptable fracture toughness. therefore, major goals are to understand the behavior of mcmb during processing, and to investigate the most effective approach to producing high-toughness materials. dilatometry, thermogravimetric analysis, x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, pycnometry, indentation, and compact tension were used to study sintering, graphitization, and in-situ reinforcement of mcmb-based materials. it is shown that low temperature sintering consists of two processes: neck formation via a non-densifying liquid-phase sintering mechanism < 800 k, and significant sample shrinkage due to changes of true density in the region 800 &ndash; 1200 k. this results in material densification without decreasing porosity. during high temperature treatment, shrinkage is again accompanied by increases in theoretical density, maintaining porosity. however, observation of pore microstructures indicate that high temperature sintering mechanisms are active, which could result in overall porosity elimination given sufficiently long sintering times. activation energy of 100 kcal/mol was determined for the graphitization of mcmb. this is less than found for many other types of carbon, and indicates the effect of preferred orientation on graphitization. also, it is demonstrated that exothermic reactions during in-situ reinforcement can lead to undesired swelling events. through careful processing, these are reduced or eliminated, and additional sintering is achieved. additionally, polymeric decomposition yields nanoscale reinforcements and enhanced sintering properties. results show that this yields materials which are more tolerant of porosity content. thus it is shown that the combination of excellent compressibility, low temperature sinterability, and rapid graphitization makes mcmb an attractive precursor for manufacturing carbon-based materials. based on this, it is recommended that beta-resin content be optimized, methods of increasing initial sample density be investigated, and techniques of reinforcement without increasing porosity be explored. as global political and economic conditions that cause people to flee their homes continue to intensify and become entrenched, millions of refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced persons occupy managed settlements for years or decades. refugee camps and other settlements have consistently operated under an ideology of biopolitical humanitarian governance, characterized by enforced dependency on humanitarian agencies for basic necessities of food and shelter, curtailed human rights, restrictions on movement, severely limited access to quality education and healthcare, and idleness. in this dissertation, i build upon oka's (2014) description of the "refugee wait" as a state of static transience, using an integrative, biosocial approach based in practice theory. in the context of protracted refugee encampment, waiting is existential and infuses nearly all aspects of life. drawing on both ethnographic and physiological biomarker data, i show that the structural constraints of encamped life that keep refugees in extended limbo—the structured contours of the refugee wait itself—shape daily practices of active waiting. not only do practices associated with waiting reshape the structural constraints of the refugee wait to make it more livable and dignified, but they also mitigate refugees' embodied experiences of stress, health, and physiological function. a central element of the refugee wait at kakuma is being placed alongside the turkana host community. separate narratives of the violent other are produced and reinforced through processes of interdiscursive, chronotopic semiosis that form collective memories of violence and mistreatment at the hands of the other, and these narratives infuse most refugee-host interactions with fear and distrust. refugees cope with these fears by cultivating transactional relationships with turkana, but they also use collective memories of turkana violence to build inter-ethnic solidarity and trust with their neighbors in the camp. another essential feature of the refugee wait is a demoralizing sense that life is placed on hold during encampment. somali and oromo refugees mitigate the stress and uncertainty of the wait by engaging in active practices of waiting that center around miraa (khat) consumption. its psychotropic properties help refugees mentally escape backintonormal life, social chewing sessions provide a means of passing idle time, relationships formed through miraa exchange practices build social capital, and miraa consumption drives the market economy in other "luxury" goods and services. in terms of neuroendocrine and immuno-inflammatory stress physiology, practices of active waiting may mitigate some of the negative psychological and physical health effects of the refugee wait. however, miraa, tobacco, and sugary foods and beverages consumed in the pursuit of a sense of dignity and normalcy may be damaging to long-term health. an integrative anthropological perspective reveals considerable complexity in encamped refugee behavior and well-being, and it has the potential to shape policies that may improve refugees' livelihoods. design patterns have been widely adopted for building flexible and extensible applications. however, this can come at a cost of reduced performance, which may not be acceptable for computationally intensive applications. therefore, we investigate the effects of design patterns on application performance through a detailed measurement and profiling of compucell3d. it is a software framework for three dimensional (3d) modeling of morphogenesis, which is a stage in embryonic development where cells cluster into tissues and organs. by reverse engineering compucell3d subsystems with and without design patterns, we evaluate their impact on application performance and maintainability. finally, we also extend compucell3d functionality, to support irregular domains for biologically realistic simulations. this is a novel about a young woman who grapples with questions of identity. we study the blowup problem for nonlinear heat equations. we show that if the even initial value is close enough to a 2-dimensional manifold of approximately homogenous solutions, the solution blows up in a finite time and the asymptotical profile is an approximate solution with parameters evolving according to a certain dynamical system plus a small fluctuation in $l^infty$.the result allows us to construct initial data with more than one local maximum while the solutions still blow up in a finite time according to the asymptotical profile. we also demonstrated that there is an open subset in the space of initial data and their solutions blow up according to the described asymptotical profile. this dissertation concerns itself with the interaction of diatomic molecules with heme. more specifically, fiveand six-coordinate low-spin iron(ii) porphyrinates will be considered. complexes of the form [fe(porph)(xo)(l)] (x = n or c and l = 1-meim, 1,2-dimeim, 2-mehim, 4-mepip, co, or no ligand) have been synthesized. these systems have been extensively studied using x-ray crystallography, m&ouml;ssbauer spectroscopy, infrared absorption spectroscopy, resonance raman spectroscopy, and nuclear resonance vibrational spectroscopy (nrvs), thereby providing new information regarding structural and vibrational characteristics of hemes coordinated with diatomic molecules. the first structural characterization of a 5-coordinate heme-co, bis-carbonyl ligated heme, and completely ordered six-coordinate heme-no are reported. temperature-dependent information has also been acquired. this information reveals the temperature dependence of the structural and vibrational parameters of heme complexes, especially the biologically relevant fe-his bond, and relates them to thermal expansion and contraction in the solid state. finally, the nrvs technique is used extensively to reveal the fe vibrational dynamics of heme coordinated by diatomic molecules. these studies reveal several reactive vibrational modes associated with ligand ejection and activation which have not previously been described. controversies on how best to deal with other groups of people, especially aggressive ones, have surely been with us nearly as long as people have been forming groups, and modern advances, both political and technological, have only complicated these matters. that moral agents must give some thought to our moral responsibility in this arena is a given, but what form such reasoning will take is not. over time, a number of traditions regarding war have emerged, ranging from categorical rejection (pacifism) to a limited acceptance (just war tradition) to an enthusiastic acceptance (crusading tradition); others ultimately reject the notion that war is subject to moral strictures at all (realism). as a first step to evaluating these views, i will work to more precisely define each, especially the two most popularly espoused (pacifism and just war theory), by way of a survey of their histories and scope. building on this groundwork, i will then show how all four traditions relate to one another, by situating them along a continuum, arguing in particular that just war theory and pacifism have far more in common than most realize. in the course of laying out this continuum, i will also show that the only coherent way to characterize these traditions is with reference to non-consequentialist moral reasoning. i will then argue that pacifism and just war tradition, given their underlying principles, are morally preferable to the alternatives, and more specifically, that a strong form of pacifism (that takes active responsibility for nonviolently combating injustice), and a strict form of just war (that is willing forego war when it is unjust), are morally superior to other forms. of the two, i will ultimately make the case for the former, while nonetheless showing why a dualist approach that accepts both is most appropriate for this moral domain. influenced by bourdieu's cultural capital theory, a relationship between class background and taste is widely studied, but there is not much research on taste in korean society. considering cultural importance of music in korea, this study explores korean's musical taste and influences of parents' socio-economic on musical taste. the survey results of 1037 members of online music communities demonstrate that people think that classical music is the most sophisticated genre among others. also, one's taste for classical music is significantly affected by one's family income, mother's educational attainment, and mother's occupation: people from privileged backgrounds are more likely to prefer classical music over other genres. these results show the cognitive and political aspects of symbolic boundaries. several photometric studies are presented of a few star clusters and a supernovae light echo search. globular clusters ngc 6791 and ngc 5053 and open cluster ngc 6791 are reduced in a homogeneous fashion yielding estimates of the distance moduli and extinctions and a possible color-gradient detection. a six-band optical/infrared survey of the recently-discovered nearby (97+/-4 pc) open cluster eta chamaeleontis is undertaken resulting in the identification of 11 new candidate members. a light echo candidate from hubble space telescope imaging of ngc 2441 is identified in the host galaxy of the type ia supernova 1995e. from the echo's angular size and the estimated distance to the host galaxy, we find a distance of 207 pc between the dust and the site of the supernova. if confirmed, this echo brings the total number of observed non-historical type ia light echoes to three --the others being sn 1991t and sn 1998bu --suggesting they are not uncommon. we compare the properties of the known type~ia supernova echoes and test various models of light echoes. hst photometry of the sn 1991t echo shows a fading which is consistent with scattering by dust distributed in a sphere or shell around the supernova. the uranyl mineral family includes the zippeite minerals, which are [uo2]+2 sulfates exhibiting well-known, well-described complex crystal structures. zippeites have been widely observed in nature, yet they occur as fine grained powdery coatings in mixed aggregates which make their identification and characterization an arduous task. despite being a minor species, zippeites serve as a model in the discovery of physical and chemical properties of other related minerals. nevertheless, few studies exist regarding the thermodynamics of zippeites. herein, i report on the synthesis of well-defined, pure zippeite powders and experimentally determined standard state enthalpy of formation values. monovalent potassium and sodium zippeite k3(h2o)3.78[(uo2)4(so4)2o3(oh)], na5(h2o)11.16[(uo2)8(so4)4o5(oh)3], and divalent magnesium zippeite, mg(h2o)3.5[(uo2)2(so4)o2] were prepared using mild hydrothermal synthesis. characterization of the synthetic material was performed using xrd (x-ray powder diffraction), icp-oes (inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy), and tga (themorgravimetric analysis). standard state enthalpy of formation from the synthetic material for all three phases was obtained using high temperature oxide melt calorimetry. the stability of these phases is presented and discussed in the context of their crystal structures and related environmental implications. tertullian of carthage once queried, "what has athens to do with jerusalem?" today this inquiry is being raised once more in light of two realities: the experience of cultural pluralism within the universal church and the necessity of cultural incarnation for the particular churches. the aim of this dissertation is to engage this ancient question in this new context. this engagement consists of three principal parts.the first part is to understand authentic inculturation and catholicity as it is interpreted by the magisterium of the catholic church. this involves, above all, a detailed reading of the documents of the second vatican council, as well as their implementation by the post-conciliar magisterium. the second part of our engagement analyzes the thought of those contextual theologians who offer a view of inculturation and catholicity that differs from that of the teaching office. based upon the conviction that all theology is "contextual," and therefore particular, contingent, and relative, these theologians claim that the purified hellenic aspect of the early church serves as but one example of cultural incarnation and accordingly ought no longer to be enduring or normative for christianity today.the third part of our engagement consists in examining the work of joseph ratzinger who not only critiqued radical conceptualizations of cultural pluralism, but also described the early christian synthesis between biblical faith and greek inquiry as giving a "definitive form" to the christian religion. here we synthesize and explicate two aspects of his thought: his theology of culture and his theology of history. ratzinger explains how "deculturation" in general can be problematic, misunderstanding the nature of faith and culture, as well as undermining the catholic and historical character of the christian religion. he also shows how "dehellenization" is a theological-pastoral misstep for several reason, including the following: it assumes a false historical narrative at multiple levels; it misunderstands the nature of the early christian synthesis; it ignores how this synthesis is literally written into the deposit of faith; it presumes a philosophy of language that undermines both the integrity of faith and the unity of the faithful. the zebrafish retina is an excellent model to study the molecular basis of neural cell regeneration. dark-treated albino zebrafish exposed to intense light undergo rod and cone photoreceptor apoptosis, which triggers mìäå_ller glia proliferation and the generation of neuronal progenitor cells. next, multiple neuronal progenitor cells will either migrate to the outer nuclear layer and regenerate lost rods and cones or will remain in the inner nuclear layer to repopulate lost m&#252;ller glia. to identify candidate genes encode critical proteins required during photoreceptor regeneration, i performed a time course microarray of six time points representing different cellular events during the regeneration response. qrt-pcr verified the expression profiles for selected genes in the microarray data set. to examine genes involved in m&#252;ller glial cell proliferation and progenitor cell differentiation, i performed temporal and functional gene cluster analysis. i selected three genes for further analysis: i) stat3, which functions through the jak/stat pathway, ii) cntf, a growth factor that is known to activate the jak/stat pathway, and iii) olig2, a transcription factor that regulates neuron and glial cell fates. immunoblots verified increased total and activated stat3 protein expression during the time course. immunolocalization demonstrated increased stat3 expression in m&#252;ller glial cells by 31 hours, and some stat3-positive m&#252;ller glial cells expressed pcna. to determine protein function during regeneration, i electroporated morpholinos into the adult retina to knockdown expression of target proteins. stat3 knockdown significantly reduced the number of pcna-labeled m&#252;ller glial cells during the light treatment, which demonstrated a role for stat3 during light-induced retinal regeneration. intravitreal cntf injections suppressed light-induced photoreceptor apoptosis. injection of cntf into the undamaged zebrafish eye induced stat3 expression in m&#252;ller cells, and m&#252;ller glia proliferation. however, knockdown of stat3 in the cntf-injected undamaged eye still induced m&#252;ller glia proliferation, which demonstrates cntf's mode of action is independent of stat3. these data suggest stat3 and cntf possess independent roles in the damaged and undamaged zebrafish retina. olig2 was expressed in dedifferentiated m&#252;ller glia and inl neuronal progenitor cells between 51 and 96 hrs of light treatment. electroporation of anti-olig2 morpholinos knocked down olig2 during zebrafish retinal regeneration. however, knockdown of olig2 did not effect either cell proliferation, migration, or photoreceptor cell differentiation. a specter is haunting machiavelli scholarship &#8212; the specter of domestication. the author associated with such maxims as "the ends justify the means" and "it is better to be feared than loved," has been turned in recent interpretations into a theorist of liberty and a populist. machiavelli is credited, under the neorepublican reading, with offering a conceptualization of liberty as non-domination, and seeking to actualize this conception. under the populist reading, machiavelli views the elites as the principal threat to the liberty of the polity. machiavelli's central political recommendation under the latter reading is to empower the people in a manner that they can check the perfidious and rapacious elites. in this dissertation i offer a corrective to these interpretations. i begin my reading of machiavelli by demonstrating that liberty is not his central concern. in making this claim i show how machiavelli's partisanship for republics is not based on their superior ability to offer liberty. rather, his preference for republics is premised on the fact that they are better able to deal with the ambitions of both the people and the nobles. machiavelli, i show, holds a unified moral anthropology that does not draw a fundamental distinction between the desires of the people. machiavelli is therefore not a populist, for he thinks that the people are just as capable of oppressing as the nobles when offered the opportunity. machiavelli thus does not call for an adjudication of the conflict between the people and nobles. indeed, his prescription is to ensure that the conflict remains alive. he thus recommends a number of mechanisms and institutions to keep the conflict alive. these mechanism and institutions, however, put the liberty of individuals in danger. machiavelli's recommendations do not only put liberty in danger at home. one of the principal means of ensuring that the conflict between the people and the patricians is kept alive is to give the latter some bargaining power. this is best achieved by enrolling them as soldiers in the republics pursuit of empire. the pursuit of empire leads to the destruction of liberty abroad. thus, neither machiavelli's domestic policy, nor his foreign policy is driven principally by the concern for liberty. having examined machiavelli's recommendations at home and abroad, i conclude with a consideration of his deployment of the concept of necessity. necessity, rather than liberty, i argue, is the central driver behind machiavelli's recommendations. emerging 3d die-stacked drams is a promising solution to satisfy the ever-increasing demands of computer systems on memory throughput, power efficiency, capacity, and cost. this dissertation seeks to model and design 3d dram memory systems with high performance and high power-efficiency from micro-architecture level to system level.this dissertation introduces cacti-3dd, the first architecture-level integrated power, area, and timing modeling framework for 3d die-stacked dram main memory. cacti-3dd incorporates tsv models, improves models for 2d off-chip dram main memory over current versions of cacti, and includes 3d integration models that enable the analysis of a full spectrum of 3d dram designs at various stacking granularities. cacti-3dd enables an in-depth study of architecture level tradeoffs of power, area, and timing for 3d die-stacked dram designs.by extending cacti-3dd, the dissertation builds a comprehensive modeling framework that accurately models cost, bandwidth, and energy efficiency of 3d-stacked dram. with the modeling framework, an extensive design space exploration for 3d stacked drams is performed in a wide range of stack size, partition granularity, bank count, and io width. the results identify the best designs of 3d dram stacks with the highest bandwidth and energy efficiency, and lowest cost targeting the high-performance and low-cost memory markets respectively.in addition, this dissertation introduces a hybrid memory cube cache (hmc$) dram that employs an adaptive caching scheme and an intelligent predictor to support full associativity at various granularities and a large number of banks in 3d memory systems. by increasing the row buffer cache hit rate and improving data caching efficiency, hmc$ dramatically reduces memory access latency and dynamic power. furthermore, in a heterogeneous 3d memory system with non-uniform memory access latencies, an hmc$ is effective at hiding the long latencies of far memories and maintaining high performance at low cost. with memory-intensive workloads, hmc$ outperforms the state-of-the-art row buffer cache for 3d dram by 33.5% for a system with a single memory stack, and improves edp by 2.4x for a system with both on-socket and off-socket stacked memories. acquisition of many diseases requires transmission to humans through the mosquito. one strategy to decrease ill effects of diseases with an obligate mosquito host transfer stage involves an understanding of mosquito sensory biology. however, the visual system of mosquitoes has gone understudied until recent years. the goal of my work was to expand on the existing knowledge in this field. chapter 2 demonstrates that the major rhodopsin, aaop1, is expressed in all ommatidial units and in a rhythmic fashion. furthermore, the management of localization of this protein into and out of rhabdomeric membranes is a light-dependent process that is required for maturation. in chapter 3 i show that the movement of aaop1 into the rhabdomeres correlates with an ~1.5 log unit increase in sensitivity to light. this allows for heightened sensitivity during the morning peak activity when the mosquitoes are under low light conditions. during the course of these experiments it became clear that there is an influence of the circadian clock on the visual system in ae. aegypti. in chapter 4 i supplement the limited information regarding the circadian clocks effect on gene expression. i describe the generation of a publicly available database of gene expression under both normal light dark and constant dark conditions. this database is now available at http://www3.nd.edu/~bioclock/aedes.html. an in depth analysis of data made available from the ae. aegypti circadian database allowed for two advances in understanding the influence of the circadian clock in mosquitoes. in chapter 5 i first examine visual system specific genes to reveal a tight regulation of the circadian clock on expression of many genes involved in phototransduction. secondly, the analysis provided a comparison of ae. aegypti to other dipterans in which similar studies have been completed. this revealed that the circadian regulation of visual gene expression is conserved between both ae. aegypti and an. gambiae mosquitoes but not in drosophila. among the emerging trends in the wireless industry, the internet of things (iot) and machine-to-machine (m2m) communications are notable examples that prompt power efficient communication schemes that can communicate short packets of time-sensitive control information with very low latency. a mathematical analysis and design of networks with such stringent latency requirements, however, cannot rely on conventional information theoretic results which assume asymptotically large blocklengths. in this dissertation, we build upon a recent line of work on non-asymptotic information theory to characterize second-order approximations for channel coding rates over a variety of gaussian settings at finite blocklength. our results reveal several interesting insights for practical systems design. for any gaussian channel at finite blocklength, i.i.d. gaussian input, although capacity-achieving, is not second-order optimal. good codes must possess certain structures to ensure power efficiency and achieve high rates. for the discrete-input gaussian channel at low snr, coded-psk surprisingly outperforms coded-qam with common random i.i.d. codes. for the non-ergodic fading channel with short blocklength, the gaussian noise can have as significant an impact on the outage probability as fading can. and finally, when channel uses are precious, time division multiple access (tdma) is costly, particularly when the number of users grows. on the theoretical side, our key contribution is a unified and convenient approach for proving sharp achievability results for a variety of gaussian settings. we amend the standard method of random coding and typicality decoding to make it applicable to non-i.i.d. inputs and single-user as well as multi-user channels with cost constraints. in particular, we use a new change of measure technique and also apply a convenient yet powerful form of the central limit theorem (clt), called the clt for functions, to analyze certain dependent information random variables. in comparison with other sharp achievability methods, our unified approach is more transparent and follows conventional lines of reasoning. in the face of guilt and shame afflicting the morally injured, psychology has acknowledged there must be spiritual healing. although trauma is a new area of concern for theology, theologians have addressed the suffering caused by interpersonal violence for a long time. this dissertation shows how aquinas, augustine, and leaders of the liturgical movement (virgil michel, dorothy day, and ade bethune), offer a robust sense of mercy, accessed through the eucharistic liturgy, and practiced in the works of mercy, which allow those who have experienced trauma to know their deification. control has frequently been discussed as beneficial to health, well-being, and coping with life's stressors. nevertheless, control is not a unidimensional construct, and different aspects of control may be important at different points in the lifespan or under different life circumstances. in particular, control over one's environment and control over one's emotional responses to his or her environment may each be helpful; however, their unique contribution as well as their relationship to each other has not been fully investigated. additionally, control is not a static construct; individuals may change in their feelings of control across days and years. the main objectives of this thesis were to investigate whether: 1) there is a daily relationship between environmental control and negative affect, 2) that relationship changes within participants across three waves of data spanning five years, 3) the age of the participant (when the study began) influences the daily relationship between environmental control and negative affect, and 4) global levels of emotion or environmental control influence individuals' relationship between daily environmental control and daily negative affect. results indicated a significant daily relationship between environmental control and negative affect, and that this relationship decreased in strength across the 5 years. global emotion control (but not global environmental control) moderated the daily relationship; specifically, on days of lower environmental control, individuals with higher global emotion control had lower negative affect than those with lower global emotion control. age also moderated the daily relationship, with relatively older adults demonstrating lower negative affect on days of lower environmental control. implications of these findings are discussed with regard to the compensatory nature of secondary control, aging, and intraindividual change and interindividual differences. i will argue in this study that montesquieu's primary purpose in writing de l'esprit des lois is to educate legislators by giving them practical advice that will teach them how to address the following question: how is it possible to advance universal goals like security, liberty, and prosperity in the context of particular societies that change over time? he wants to instruct legislators how to understand particular societies in order to effect positive change (by making them more secure, free, and prosperous), or in order to maintain a state's goodness once the state has achieved it. to do so, he argues that it is necessary for a legislator to analyze and understand how a host of political, economic, social, moral, and physical factors shape societies; then, legislators must understand that these variables interact and go into forming an esprit (spirit) or character in a society, and take this esprit into account when making laws. through his careful study of these factors, causes, or variables he seeks to show legislators the ways in which they can or cannot, and should or should not, act in a particular society. ultimately, i argue that he recommends to legislators an approach to political philosophy that i call 'political particularism.' this approach leads him to advise legislators that while they always should seek to augment security, liberty, and prosperity in their society, it is necessary to take account of the particular conditions in their society. the consequence is that laws, commerce, mores, etc. must be appropriate for a particular people, and montesquieu thus rejects a 'one-size-fits-all' approach to political philosophy. a new micromechanical model was developed to predict the elastic moduli of hydroxyapatite (ha) whisker reinforced polymer biocomposites based upon the elastic properties of each phase and the reinforcement volume fraction, morphology and preferred orientation. the effects of the ha whisker volume fraction, morphology and orientation distribution were investigated by comparing two and three-dimensional model predictions with experimentally measured elastic moduli or stiffness coefficients, respectively, for ha whisker reinforced high density polyethylene (hdpe) composites. predictions using experimental measurements of the ha whisker aspect ratio distribution and orientation distribution were also compared to common idealized assumptions. the best model predictions were obtained using the experimentally measured ha whisker aspect ratio distribution and orientation distribution. the same micromechanical model developed and validated for ha whisker reinforced composites was also applied to the elastic properties of human cortical bone tissue. the orientation distribution of apatite crystals in bone was measured and statistically correlated to the elastic anisotropy of bone tissue. the relationship was further investigated using the micromechanical model. the orientation distribution of apatite crystals was shown to be a significant factor contributing to the elastic anisotropy of cortical bone tissue. we used x-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy to study the local molecular environment of cadmium adsorbed to kaolinite at various phs and aqueous cadmium concentrations. quantitative analysis of samples with aqueous cadmium concentration of 100 um and at ph 7 shows a single hydration sphere around cadmium, suggesting the formation of outer sphere sorption complexes. at ph 9, a clear cd-m coordination (where m stands for either si or al) at second shell distance indicates the formation of inner sphere sorption complexes on the edge sites. the possibility of precipitation of cadmium in the form of solid phases was ruled out due to similar local environment around cadmium in samples prepared under air and nitrogen atmospheres, and by the absence of a cd-cd coordination found in the analysis of a 1000 um sample. finally, analysis of samples with cadmium aqueous concentration of 3 um, 10 um, and 100 um at ph 9 suggests the formation of inner sphere complexes adsorbed to both silanol and aluminol edge sites in different ratios. in addition, we used molecular dynamics simulation to study the mechanisms envolved in the adsorption of various ions to the basal surfaces of kaolinite. analysis of simulation data indicates that cations and anions adsorb preferably on the siloxane and gibbsite surfaces of kaolinite, respectively. we observed strong inner sphere adsorption of chlorine at aluminum vacancies on the gibbsite surface and the occurrence of chlorine-driven inner sphere adsorption of cesium and sodium on the gibbsite surface for high ionic strengths. cesium ions form strong inner sphere complexes at ditrigonal cavities on the siloxane surface. outer sphere cesium is highly mobile and only weak adsorption may occur. a small amount of sodium adsorbs on the siloxane surface as inner sphere complexes at diffuse sites. like cesium, sodium onlys forms very weak outer sphere complexes on this surface. inner sphere complexes of cadmium and lead do not occur on either surface. relatively strong outer sphere cadmium and lead complexes are present on the siloxane surface at ditrigonal cavities. small clusters/particles of metal dispersed on high surface-area metal oxide supports are commonly used in industrial catalysis. to advance catalyst design, an understanding of how the interaction between metals and supports influences active site structure, composition, and activity is required. in this thesis, molecular-level density functional theory (dft) simulations and periodic supercell and cluster models are used to describe a trinuclear rhenium (re3) cluster adsorbed on an alumina (al2o3) support as a function of reaction environments. to compare the effects of surface hydroxylation on cluster-support binding, periodic supercell simulations are performed on re3 clusters adsorbed on a hydrogen-free ('dry') and fully hydroxylated ('wet') ìøåá-alumina (0001) surface. calculations demonstrate that both a re atom and the re3 cluster bind more strongly on the 'dry' than the 'wet' surface. electronic structure analysis shows that the metal-support interaction on 'dry' surface is strengthened by electron flow from cluster to the empty orbitals of nearby relaxed first layer al atoms, whereas on the 'wet' surface there is a strong thermodynamic drive for hydrogen to undergo 'reverse' spillover from the surface to the supported metal clusters. these calculations show that re-re bonding is preserved and the clusters are stable to dissociation when adsorbed on both the dry and wet ìøåá-alumina (0001) surfaces. the supercell results demonstrate that the re3 clusters have a strong affinity for hydrogen, a characteristic expected to be important in their operation as hydrogenation catalysts. a hxre3(oh)3 model was used to simulate hydrogen uptake on an alumina-supported re3 cluster. calculations of successive h additions show that h atoms adsorb exothermically and prefer to distribute evenly across re atoms: the first three hydrogen ligands adsorb atop each re; the next three hydrogen ligands prefer bridge bonding in the re3 plane; additional hydrogen ligands again adsorb atop re atoms. the average re-re distance is constant up to six h ligands; additional hydrogen uptake significantly elongates the re-re bonds. a first-principles thermodynamic model based on these results shows that there is a strong thermodynamic driving force for the supported re3 cluster to adsorb hydrogen, and equilibrium is reached when there are 6~8 h ligands. cis-syn cyclobutane pyrimidine dimer and the (6-4) photoproduct are the main photo lesions formed following uv irradiation of skin cells. these lesions are responsible for cell death and development of skin cancers. consequently, all organisms have developed dna repair mechanisms to preserve the integrity of the genetic material. crystallography, nuclear magnetic resonance, and spectroscopic analyses have shown that many enzymes 'flip' the damaged base pairs out of the dna duplex for repair. however, this process is poorly understood. the main problem with photodamaged dna is the 'flipped-out' structure, which cannot be resolved by any existing analytical method because of its small concentration. additionally, the postulated 'flipping' mechanism, now widely accepted and sometimes observed for other repair phenomenon, is a very fast process. the cpd in the 'flipped out' form is also not the most thermodynamically favorable product; its concentration is not measurable by present analytical methods. our first goal is to simulate the structure dynamics of the dna in the presence of the cpd using amber program and to investigate the general perturbation of the conformations of base pairs surrounding the photo-lesion product. a comparative analysis of the 'flipped-in' and the 'flipped out' structures allowed us to understand the local deformations of the dna structure in the presence of the cpd. in a second part, to address questions regarding a possible dependence of the dna sequence on the recognition of the photodamaged units by the artificial enzymes, several examples of modified dna strands have been studied. four adjacent base pairs to the lesion have been modified, and the study of the impact of these modifications has been used in comparison with the data found in the first part. finally, in preparation for experimental testing of artificial enzyme units on the double stranded dna, a synthesis of the cpd unit as well as the synthesis of a single strand dna with the cpd incorporated has been accomplished. these key compounds are used later as prototype in the design of artificial photolyases. miniature diagnostic devices promise to revolutionize biomedical and environmental monitoring systems by integrating biosensors with microfluidic components on a chip platform to produce complete lab-on-a-chip systems. however, successful chip-size devices, even for common applications such as human blood and water pathogen tests, are still not available because of some key technological bottlenecks involving microfluidics of microand nano-colloidal suspensions, such as anomalous bioparticle migration due to hydrodynamic forces, insensitivity of many biosensors to low pathogen concentrations and the lack of rapid pathogen concentration technologies. many of these phenomena are unique to microfluidic devices because certain distinctive forces are presented only at the micro dimensions. i have studied the failure of blood loading into microneedles by high-speed imaging microscopy. radial migration of deformable blood cell in the micro-needle is found to be responsible for the formation of a concentrated slug at the wetting interface (meniscus) which eventually stops the penetration of the blood sample into the micro-needle. after overcoming this loading failure, i showed that the difference in the radial migration rate of rigid and deformable blood cells can be used to diagnose diseases that render the blood cells rigid. i also developed new technologies to enhance on-chip pathogen detection. such techniques exploit classical dielectrophoresis (dep) and the new phenomenon of ac electro-osmosis (aceo), both of which utilize high-frequency ac fields that do not generate bubbles at the embedded electrodes. aceo micro-mixers and micro-pumps i developed are integrated within the chip to enhance the detection speed and time. dispersed nanowires are used to trap and transport submicron bulk pathogens in an ac field due to their large induced dipoles. working as dispersed nano-electrodes, they greatly increase the local electrical field and enhance the docking rate between nanowires and pathogens. nanowire-pathogen aggregates can then be collected using dielectrophoresis within minutes. the integrated micro-fluidic technologies can rapidly (<10 minutes) capture and detect low numbers of bacteria (<1000 cells/ml) and nano particles in ml-sized samples. because the attractive fluorescent properties of semiconductor nanowires as a biomarker, i have also studied their dielectric properties under electrical field. these nanowires promise to allow selective single pathogen detection based on the difference in the photoconductivity and conductivity of the pathogen and the nanowire. climate change is predicted to be faster and more severe in high latitude regions than elsewhere globally due to positive feedback cycles. increased understanding of the vegetation and soil microbial communities across modern biome boundaries will aid paleoclimate reconstructions from high latitude environment. biomarkers from modern plants and soils are potential tools that can be used to enhance understanding of these unique systems. investigations of n-alkyl compounds from plants can be compared to soils to enhance understanding of early-diagenetic processes due to their ubiquity, resistance to degradation, and chemical inertness. based on similarities in n-alkyl distributions from vegetation, we can determine a strong vegetation signal in soils, which aids in constraining paleoclimate models. additionally, based on ratios of mid to long chain lengths from n-alkanoic acids it appears that mosses have a strong control on plant waxes in soils. hydrogen isotopes from n-alkyl lipids can also be used to look at hydroclimate variability. water can leave an isotopic 'fingerprint' of paleoprecipitation in leaf waxes that can be preserved for millions of years. by looking at the major fractionations that occur from evaporation, transpiration, and biosynthesis, we can calculate an apparent fractionation (wax/map) factor that can be used in paleoprecipitation estimates. we find this value to be similar using both n-alkanes and n-alkanoic acids, which are significantly more positive than commonly used values based largely on temperature vegetation. these results contribute to our growing understanding of plant water-wax fractionation in the high latitudes. microbial lipids from soils are often used in proxies used in paleoclimate reconstructions. branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (brgdgts) and bacteriohopanepolyols (bhps) are microbial membrane lipids that have been shown to alter based on environmental factors. low-temperature soils collected along a transect of northern alaska aided in calibrating commonly used paleoproxies based on brgdgts. this work also provided the first proxies for ph, mean annual temperature and precipitation using bhps, which were found to provide comparable results to ones based on brgdgts. overall, these results opened a wide range of opportunities for microbial and plant proxies to be applied in paleoclimate reconstructions from lesser studied high latitude environments. maldi-tof imaging mass spectrometry (ims) is a common technique used for analyzing tissue samples, as it allows the user to detect multiple different analytes simultaneously.however, the detection and analysis of these analytes may sometimes be hampered due to the presence of contaminants in the tissue microenvironment, which leads to ion suppression.this challenge necessitates t­­­he development of an active extraction technique to selectively isolate analytes of interest without compromising their spatial localization within a tissue sample.this study proposes a magnetic bead-based active extraction approach to selectively sequester peptides of interest from tissue samples.the technique utilizes a heterobifunctional cross-linker to covalently bind peptides with free primary amine groups to functionalized magnetic beads. the cross-linked peptides can then be collected using a transfer magnet and imaged using maldi-tof ims.we have established that this technique not only successfully isolates peptides both in-solution and on a solid surface, but also extracts peptides from a tissue section without significantly compromising their spatial localization.this novel method provides the means to detect a unique subset of peptides from tissue sections when compared to unextracted tryptically digested tissue, all while minimizing the presence of contaminants and maintaining spatial localization. middle platonism espoused an intellectual system that would explain how a transcendent supreme principle could relate to the material universe. the central aspect of this system was an intermediary, modeled after the stoic active principle, which mediated the supreme principle's influence to the material world while preserving its transcendence. having similar concerns as middle platonism, three religious traditions from the turn of the era (hellenistic jewish sapientialism, early christianity, and 'gnosticism' ) appropriated middle platonic intermediary doctrine as a means for understanding their relationship to the deity, to the cosmos, and to themselves. however, each of these traditions varies in their adaptation of this doctrine as a result of their distinctive understanding of creation and humanity's place therein. in particular hellenistic jewish sapientialism (philo of alexandria and wisdom of solomon) espouses a holistic ontology, combining a platonic appreciation for noetic reality with an ultimately positive view of creation and its place in human fulfillment. early christians (those who speak in 1 corinthians 8:6, colossians 1:15-20, hebrews 1:2-3, and the johannine prologue) provide an eschatological twist on this ontology when the intermediary figure finds its final expression in the human jesus christ. on the other hand, poimandres (ch 1) and the apocryphon of john, both associated with the traditional rubric 'gnosticism,' draw from platonism to describe how creation is antithetical to human nature and its transcendent source. solvents play an extremely important role in many industrial processes, acting as a media for chemical reactions or for extraction of products. typically, these solvents are volatile organic compounds or vocs. as the vocs volatilize, the risk of human exposure through inhalation is increased. vocs have also been found to increase ozone depletion and smog formation. therefore, it is important to find other solvents that still meet the needs of industry while limiting the environmental and health risks. room temperature ionic liquids (ils) have recently been getting attention as potential environmentally benign or 'green' solvents. ionic liquids, organic salts that are liquids in their pure states at ambient conditions, have many properties that are similar to conventional organic solvents. but, many ils also have the unique characteristic in that they exhibit a vanishingly low vapor pressure. this negligible volatility eliminates many of the concerns associated with traditional organic solvents by decreasing the risk of worker exposure and the loss of solvent to the atmosphere. the main objective of this research is to determine thermodynamic/phase behavior properties by studying the phase behavior of the ionic liquids with various gases and liquids to further develop the relationships between these properties and the molecular structure of these ionic liquids. knowledge of these properties is necessary prior to design and development of industrially relevant processes using ils. this work explores the solubility and associated thermodynamic properties, such as henry's law constants, and enthalpies and entropies of absorption, of a variety of gases in various ionic liquids, mainly those with 1-n-butyl-3-methylimidazolium as the cation and [pf6], [bf4], and [tf2n] as the anions. the gases considered range from simple nonpolar compounds to more complex polar gases capable of hydrogen bonding. water vapor, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide show the strongest interactions with the ionic liquids, whereas gases like n2, o2 and ar are only sparingly soluble. this work also shows ionic liquids have potential for use as a gas separation medium. clusterin is a secreted glycoprotein,upregulated in many physiological and pathophysiological conditions that has been proposed to play a role in tissue remodeling and apoptosis. although clusterin in the mammary gland has not been extensively studied, clusterin has been implicated in mammary gland development and in breast cancer progression. to address the role of clusterin in murine mammary gland development, mammary morphogenesis was monitored in clusterin knockout (cluko) and wild-type mice. the ablation of clusterin alters ductal outgrowth, ductal branching, terminal end bud growth, rates of mitosis and apoptosis, and gland mass. this leads to precocious pubertal mammary gland development. in several pathophysiological conditions such as cancer it is unclear whether the upregulation of clusterin is directly involved in the process of apoptotsis, whether its induction is secondary to stress and/or apoptosis, or whether the protein is induced as a protective or survival mechanism for the cell in response to stress. we have shown that the biogenesis of clusterin in mcf-7 breast cancer cells is significantly altered after treatment with tnf-a or the antiestrogen tamoxifen, leading to an upregulation of clusterin and the appearance of a non-glycosylated isoform of clusterin in the nucleus. overexpression of the wild-type and nuclear isoforms of clusterin in vitro demonstrates a role for clusterin in the regulation of tumor cell growth. clusterin appears to protect cells from apoptosis, and contributes to an invasive phenotype. in vivo work has established that clusterin overexpression increases tumor size, provides resistance to tamoxifen and facilitates the progression to a metastatic phenotype. all of these characteristics are common to the highly aggressive phenotype observed in late stage breast cancer patients. these data are the first to clearly demonstrate that clusterin plays a role in pubertal mammary gland development and also helps to accelerate the progression of human breast cancer to a more invasive drug-resistant phenotype. problems in kinematics often yield large, structured polynomial systems. homotopy continuation is a standard tool from numerical algebraic geometry that can be used to solve systems of polynomial equations and analyze the resulting solution sets arising from problems in mechanism analysis and synthesis. first, we analyze the motion of stewart-gough platforms and define a family of exceptional stewart-gough platforms called segre-dependent stewart-gough platforms which arise from a linear dependency of point-pairs under the segre embedding and compute an irreducible decomposition of this family. we also consider stewart-gough platforms which move with two degrees of freedom. since the segre embedding arises from a representation of the special euclidean group in three dimensions which has degree 40, we consider the special euclidean group in other dimensions and compute spatial stewart-gough platforms that move in 4-dimensional space. next, we investigate coupling methods from numerical algebraic geometry with statistical models to estimate the number of solutions to polynomial systems arising from synthesis problems. these systems generically have far fewer solutions than traditional upper bounds would suggest. the new approach extends previous work on success ratios of parameter homotopies to using monodromy loops as well as the addition of a trace test for validating that all solutions have been found. several examples are presented demonstrating the method including watt i six-bar motion generation problems. lastly, we consider computing curve cognates of six-bar planar linkages, that is, planar mechanisms with rotational joints whose tracing point draws the same curve. cognate linkages are mechanisms that share the same motion, a property that can be useful in mechanical design. while roberts cognates for planar four-bars are relatively simple to understand from a geometric drawing, the same cannot be said for planar six-bar cognates. we provide a simple method to generate these cognates as alternatives in a mechanical design. the simplicity of the approach enables the derivation of cognates for eight-bars, ten-bars, and possibly beyond. a growing body of research suggests that performing actions can distort the perception of size, distance, and other visual information. distance perception can also be influenced by a variety of factors, including the movement of an observer. while this movement has consequences for how spatial knowledge is updated at new viewpoints, it is unclear whether action-specific distortions are similarly influenced by movement. on one hand, these distortions may no longer be observed once observers have moved to new viewpoints. on the other hand, these distortions may persist in visual perception, even after observers have moved to new viewpoints. to distinguish between these two possibilities, the present study assessed whether perception and action are updated across real-world viewpoint changes. participants viewed an object that was projected onto a table, then reached for it with their index finger or a reach-extending tool. after reaching for the object, participants remained stationary or moved to a new viewpoint. participants then estimated the object's distance from their current viewpoint. when participants remained stationary, using a reach-extending tool led them to report shorter distance estimates. however, when participants moved to a new viewpoint, these distortions were no longer observed. these effects were not due to viewpoint dependence, and occurred for different types of movement, including rotations of the body and minimal changes in viewpoint. moreover, these effects were observed even when participants moved on only a subset of trials. together, these findings suggest that visual perception is continuously updated as observers move throughout the environment. nanoscale materials are of importance in a number of areas, including fuel cells, catalysis and ferrofluids. in particular, for direct methanol fuel cells, pt-based catalysts are extensively used for anode and cathode reactions. however, due to problems such as catalyst poisoning and cost, researchers are actively seeking partial/ complete replacement for noble metal electrode catalysts. one possible solution is to replace them with high surface area non-noble metal perovskites. similarly, for solid oxide fuel cells, interconnects and electrolytes should be fully dense to prevent mixing of gases during operation and possess high electronic and ionic conductivity, respectively. specifically, lanthanum strontium chromite (lsc) is currently used for interconnect applications. however, due to its low sinterability, researchers are working on enhancing this property either by addition of sintering aids or increasing its surface area. since the former may deteriorate the electrical conductivity, the latter approach appears promising. current synthesis techniques for preparing nanomaterials including sol-gel and coprecipitation pose problems in attaining desired monophase composition, crystallinity or nanostructured powders in short time. aqueous combustion synthesis (cs) offers a promising solution to this issue. aqueous cs is a novel route to prepare advanced materials including perovskites, ferrites and zirconia. one version of this process involves a self-sustained reaction between metal nitrate solutions and fuels (e.g. glycine, hydrazine, etc). specifically, after preheating to moderate temperature (~115 -150 /oc), the reaction medium, in the form of a viscous liquid, self-ignites. further, owing to high exothermicity of the system, combustion temperature rapidly reaches ~1200oc and converts the precursor materials to fine crystalline powders of the desired complex oxide within short time (~ few seconds). it is important to understand the reaction mechanism to predict the final properties such as phase composition and surface area, which would facilitate tailor-made materials. however, it is noteworthy that while a number of publications exist on the use of this technique for synthesis of numerous compositions such as ferrites and perovskites, little work has been done in this direction. hence in this work, an attempt to study the mechanistic details of aqueous cs has been made by using a simple iron oxide system. for this, synthesis of three major iron oxide phases, i.e. a®õnand gfe2o3 and fe3o4, using the combustion approach and a combination of simple precursors such as iron nitrate and oxalate, as well as different fuels is investigated. based on the obtained fundamental knowledge, for the first time in the literature, above powders with well-crystalline structures and surface areas in the range 50-175 m2/g are produced using a single one-step approach, thus avoiding additional calcination procedures. in addition to the above studies, the magnetic properties of the synthesized a-fe2o3 and fe3o4 are also measured. using this approach, for the first time, spherical nanoscale (6-10nm) iron oxide particles with excellent ferrimagnetic properties are synthesized. while the samples had particle size < 10nm, they exhibited ferrimagnetic behavior at room temperature, as opposed to super paramagnetism as reported previously by numerous workers. further, particularly for fe3o4, the coercivity values are exceptionally high (213 oe), indicating stable magnetization. in the second part of this work, the applications of aqueous cs in areas such as solid oxide and direct methanol fuel cells are investigated. specifically, for laxsr1-xcro3 system used in solid oxide fuel cell interconnects, it is shown that synthesis of perovskites under the self-propagating high-temperature mode produced powders with high specific surface area (~40 m2/g) and well defined crystalline structure. as a result, ceramics sintered by using these powders are dense (~96% of theoretical) and possess high electronic and low ionic conductivities, important for interconnect applications. for direct methanol fuel cell anodes, using the above synthesis method and a high throughput screening approach, a variety of high surface area catalysts including perovskites and oxides are synthesized and tested as anode catalysts. it is found that the sr-based perovskites showed performance comparable with the standard pt-ru catalyst. further, it is observed that the method of doping srruo3 with pt influenced the activity. specifically, platinum added during aqueous cs yields better catalyst than when added externally at the ink preparation stage. finally, it is also demonstrated that the presence of srruo3 significantly enhanced the catalytic activity of pt, leading to superior performance even at lower noble metal loadings. in summary, this research work focuses primarily on understanding the reaction mechanism of aqueous cs for synthesizing nanoscale materials with tailor-made properties. using the mechanistic details obtained for the binary iron oxide system, after optimizing the processing conditions, different novel complex compounds were synthesized for possible applications in the areas of solid oxide and direct methanol fuel cells. this dissertation argues that the modern u.s. supreme court's religious liberty jurisprudence is incoherent because its free exercise jurisprudence, which sometimes requires religion to be shown favor through various accommodations, clashes with its establishment clause jurisprudence, which forbids the state from favoring religion. the instability of the court's religious liberty precedents manifests itself in the inability of the current court to agree on a clear approach reconciling the two religion clauses.one reason for the current contradictory approach is that there was no consensus about the juridical meaning of religious liberty at the time of the founding or of the framing of the first amendment's religion clauses. while the founders generally agreed that there was a natural right to religious liberty, they disagreed about how much government should accommodate religion from otherwise valid laws. they also disagreed about the extent to which government could support religion and religious institutions.given the unsettled nature of american religious liberty jurisprudence, this dissertation proposes looking to the federal constitutional court of germany's religious liberty jurisprudence for more insight. the dissertation argues that the german court shows how various aspects of the freedom of religion can be judicially interpreted in a more coherent way. the federal constitutional court has interpreted its analogous constitutional protections for religious liberty to require the state to show favor to the religious and ideological life of the nation's citizens. therefore, the german court does not forbid government from showing favor to religion in general, so it avoids a contradiction with its generous approach to religious accommodations. this dissertation argues that the german court's interpretation is superior, even apart from its internal consistency, and that the american court would be well advised to adopt an approach more like the german constitutional court. this dissertation investigates narratives of the saintly body in anglo-saxon england that were written between the late seventh century and the late tenth century. specifically, it examines the ways in which the bodies of holy men and women were constructed through these narratives, and read in local appropriations of emblematic vitae and passiones. the saints depicted in these accounts' to whatever extent these narratives rewrote biblical, exegetical, or hagiographic texts' illustrate various manifestations of sanctity. indeed, sanctity itself is a mutable discourse, variously shaped from text to text in order to uphold other key discourses therein, such as those of chastity, christian kingship, penitence, and reformed monasticism. this mutability is made clear in the texts that this study analyzes: the anglo-latin prosa de virginitate and carmen de virginitate by aldhelm and the ecclesiastical history by bede, as well as the anonymous old english martyrology and aelfric's lives of saints. in these works, the textualized body of the saint provides fertile ground for narrative constructions of sanctity, regardless of the genre in which that body figures: it is clear that the processes underlying these constructions are always inflected by the historical circumstances surrounding the marianne alicia malo chenard production of the texts in which the saintly body is narrated. in the first chapter, aldhelm's delicate negotiations of virginity (in the bodily and spiritual dimensions of virginitas) illustrate the intimate connection of sanctity with a body part; in this case, the present or absent hymen. the second chapter examines how the metonymic value of the saintly body in bede's account of king oswald contributes to the cult of a warrior king. the third chapter, which discusses the harlot saints mary magdalene and pelagia, assesses the old english martyrologist's narrative focus on the penitents' nakedness. the final chapter examines aelfric's narrative portrayal of the breost [breast] in his passiones of the virgin martyrs agatha and eugenia. in these two accounts from the lives of saints, the breost emerges as the focal point of a discourse of chastity that, in the context of the benedictine reforms, uses the female body as the ground of argument. most amino acids are encoded by more than one codon. these synonymous codons are not used with equal frequency: in every organism, some codons are used more commonly, while others are more rare. though the encoded protein sequence is identical, selective pressures favor more common codons for enhanced translation speed and fidelity. however, rare codons persist, presumably due to neutral drift. here, we determine whether other, unknown factors, beyond neutral drift, affect the selection and/or distribution of rare codons. we have developed a novel algorithm that evaluates the relative rareness of a nucleotide sequence used to produce a given protein sequence. we show that rare codons, rather than being randomly scattered across genes, often occur in large clusters. these clusters occur in numerous eukaryotic and prokaryotic genomes, and are not confined to unusual or rarely expressed genes; many highly expressed genes, including genes for ribosomal proteins, contain rare codon clusters. rare codon clusters can impede ribosome translation of the rare codon sequence and are not distributed randomly throughout genes: rare codons are enriched at the 5' and 3' termini of genes from e. coli and other prokaryotes. furthermore, rare codon clusters can be conserved across multiple homologues, indicating additional selective pressures govern the use of synonymous codons, and specifically that local pauses in translation can be beneficial for protein biogenesis. to meet their potential for abundant, cost-effective renewable energy production, photovoltaics must be developed which are simultaneously higher efficiency and lower cost. the rise of nanotechnology has enabled the design of new classes of solar cells, such as extremely thin absorber (eta) and perovskite solar cells, which could ultimately meet this goal. this dissertation describes progress in the fundamental understanding of charge transfer processes in sb2s3 eta solar cells, and improving the stability of ch3nh3pbi3 perovskite solar cells. eta solar cells have the distinct advantage of very thin absorber layers which facilitate efficient charge extraction in materials with relatively low minority carrier diffusion lengths. femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy was employed to track minority carrier (hole) behavior in sb2s3 eta solar cells. hole transfer out of sb2s3 is found to be strongly dependent on sb2s3 thickness, therefore we develop a model which allows for the comprehensive exploration of the mechanism of hole transfer and the elucidation of the rate limiting step. the broader implications of these results on photovoltaic performance are explored through measurements on tio2/sb2s3/cuscn solar cells. solar cells employing the hybrid perovskite material ch3nh3pbi3 have recently risen to the forefront due to their unparalleled rise in power conversion efficiency. nonetheless, the so-called perovskite solar cells have substantial hurdles to overcome on the road to commercialization. two issues which have risen to the forefront are the cost and stability of the hole transport material (htm) and the stability of ch3nh3pbi3 when exposed to moisture. we demonstrate that cui, an inorganic htm with dramatically lower cost than typical organic htms, shows promising stability, displays two orders of magnitude higher p-type conductivity, and reaches 75% of the performance of comparable devices featuring a typical organic htm. lastly, we systematically explore the degradation of ch3nh3pbi3 in the presence of atmospheric moisture. it is shown that h2o is able to complex with ch3nh3pbi3, forming a hydrate. we characterize the optical and structural changes associated with this transformation, and subsequently study the deleterious effects of moisture on photovoltaic performance in light on these spectroscopic understandings in order to elucidate the mechanism of degradation. the proposed research is intended to investigate if wall suction in the boundary layer over a rotating disk will transform the absolute instability cross-flow mode into a global mode as postulated by davies and carpenter (2003). previously, lingwood (1997) predicted that the cross-flow instability that exists in the boundary layer on a rotating disk became absolutely unstable above a critical reynolds number of 507. she postulated that this was the primary mechanism of transition to turbulence of the boundary layer. however, when davies and carpenter (2003) performed numerical simulations to solve the linearized navier-stokes equations governing the rotating disk flow, they found that at reynolds numbers in the absolute instability region, the absolute instability did not lead to a sustained temporal growth, but was eventually overcome by the convective instability which dominated the turbulent transition process. this was confirmed in an experiment by othman and corke (2006) who introduced temporal disturbances and followed their development in space and time. more recently, numerical simulations by thomas (2007) determined that wall suction applied in the absolute instability region of the rotating disk could cause the absolute instability to become a global mode. this has yet to be validated experimentally. such experimental validation is the object of this research. a new rotating disk facility was designed for the present research. the experiment will document the mean flow and cross-flow instability characteristics with wall suction. the approach of othman and corke (2006) will be used to introduce temporal disturbances. their space-time evolution will be documented to capture the growth of the absolute instability and to determine if wall suction leads to limit-cycle behavior exhibited by a global mode. patterning biomolecule at nanoscale is important for applications in biosensors, bio-nanoelectromechanical(bio-nems) devices and fundamental biological studies. this dissertation describes the fabrication of biomolecule nanopatterns at sub-30 nm resolution by combination of top down electron beam lithography (ebl) with molecular self-assembly from the bottom up. the ultimate goal is to obtain nanoarrays of intact protein, virus particles and dna nanostructures on silicon substrate at sub-30 nm scale with well-defined size and spacing. in order to effectively bind biomolecules to silicon surfaces without disruption to their structure, i studied the adsorption behavior of tailspike protein and cowpea mosaic virus (cpmv) particles on cationic, anionic and hydrophobic surfaces. self-assembled monolayers (sams) were employed to tailor the silicon surface properties. cationic aptes demonstrated high binding affinity to protein, virus particles and dna nanostructures through electrostatic interactions and did not promote aggregation, so it was picked as the anchor pad for biomolecule attachment on silicon. nanopatterned aptes sams on sio2 fabricated by ebl and molecular liftoff were used to guide deposition of tailspike protein, cpmv and dna nanostructures on silicon wafers. arrays of single dna nanostructures down to sub-30 nm resolution with binding selectivity up to 30:1 were achieved. however, lower binding selectivity was obtained on the resulting protein and virus patterns due to a higher amount of non-specific binding on the sio2 background. in order to reduce the non-specific binding of biomolecules on sio2, a poly(ethylene)glycol sam was studied as an ebl resist. proteins and virus particles adhered to the e-beam exposed region on peg sam and formed sub-30 nm resolution patterns with remarkable increase in binding selectivity. the ability to make chemical modifications to the e-beam exposed regions gives this patterning method flexibility for patterning a wide range of biomolecules. the power and versatility of using ebl to pattern biomolecules at sub-30 nm resolution with well-defined feature size, shape, and spacing is demonstrated. in conjunction with standard semiconductor fabrication techniques, the patterning method developed here could be used to build functional biomedical and diagnostic devices. for example, gold nanoparticles patterned on sio2 by a similar approach have been used to fabricate single-electron transistor by finkelstein etal. this thesis presents two new techniques that enable a pair of cooperating partners (source nodes) to convey their data to a common destination. both techniques employ bandwidth-efficient coded modulation and integrate relayinginto channel coding. the first technique is a form of bit-interleaved coded modulation (bicm) usinglow-density parity check (ldpc) codes. the signal labeling is based on set partitioning (sp), and is carried out in such a way that each partner's knowledge of the relayed data enables it to decode the other partner's data from a sparser subset of the original constellation, thereby enhancing the robustness of the partner-to-partner link. the second technique is a form of trellis coded modulation (tcm), in which 'local' and 'relayed' data are multiplexed together prior to encoding. the receiving partner employs trellis-pruning (tp), i.e., its knowledge of the relayed data helps to 'prune' the inappropriate edges from the code trellis, so the partner-to-partner link is enhanced. moreover, the destination node also benefits from either sp (in the first technique) or tp (in the second technique) with high probability. simulation results show that both of these approaches offer performance gain about 1.5 to 3 db (at a frame error rate of 10^(-2)) over the conventional decode-and-forward time-sharing system in which local and relayed data are transmitted orthogonally. bacterial sensing is gaining lots of interest in the scientific community as well as health and food industries due to its profound impact in human health. with the worldwide burgeoning drug resistance among bacteria, the same bacterial infection now becomes more difficult and costly to treat. the current gold standard bacterial diagnostic methods suffer from being slow, typically several days to a week for infection identification, which unintentionally promotes the use of wide-spectrum antibiotics as an initial treatment, prompting the multidrug resistance crisis. to address this issue, various types of biosensors have been developed; however, it is rather challenging to be rapid, sensitive, selective, affordable, easy to operate, and to have a clinically relevant dynamic range. therefore, achieving all aforementioned merits simultaneously is going to be the central focus of biosensor development.the research presented here describes the development of a versatile whole-cell bacterial sensing platform and its applications to detect pathogens using localized surface plasmon resonance (lspr) spectroscopy. specifically, pseudomonas aeruginosa and acinetobacter baumannii were pulled down on the sensor surface using a pseudomonasspecific aptamer and an acinetobacter-specific siderophore, respectively. the whole-cell bacterial sensing platform developed in this work exhibits (i) rapid detection (~3 h) with minimal sample preparation, (ii) extraordinary sensitivity – down to the level of a singlepseudomonas aeruginosa cell and 80 acinetobacter baumannii cells, (iii) a broad, yet clinically relevant, linear range (10 – 106 cfu ml-1), (iv) excellent selectivity over other tested bacteria, (v) versatile detection (simply switch pathogen specific-affinity reagents), and (vi) long shelf-life (2 weeks to 2 months) when stored in ambient conditions. the whole-cell bacterial sensor represents an important advance in pathogen diagnostics. with further optimization of its sensing performance and extension of its sensing capacity, this bacterial sensor could be a valuable addition to the existing diagnostic tools in both healthcare and food industries. we have developed a new method for modeling the electronic features of molecules that uses confined electrons on the surface of copper. our approach can measure charge-density, bond order, bond length, and other molecular properties. using a scanning tunneling microscope (stm) to perform atomic manipulation, we present techniques that confine electrons into quantum corrals and demonstrate real molecular properties.before constructing synthetic molecules, we refined the computer simulations used to optimize our designs by amending the dispersion relation to account for surface state electrons scattering to bulk states, and we improved the scattering phase by minimizing the error between simulations and experiment. comparing our results with stm measurements showed an improvement.next, we demonstrate methods of constructing synthetic molecules and show they agree with real molecules and density functional theory (dft). we start by building a hydrogen atom, which consists of carbon monoxide molecules dosed onto the surface of cu(111). to establish that our synthetic hydrogen atom represents the properties of real hydrogen, we create a hydrogen molecule and show that the bonding and anti-bond states have the correct relative energies. next, we show that we can also model planar molecules where the valence electrons are π-bonds. we construct benzene, anthracene, and phenanthrene and show that the charge densities are correct. to conclusively show that our molecules represent real ones, we extract the correct bond orders and bond lengths. finally, we propose and show initial results for modeling a single molecule transistor and a single molecule strain sensor. these techniques provide a powerful tool for exploring the properties of molecular devices that do not exist. we model the transistor using artificial benzene and additional rectangular quantum corrals on the outside, which simulate electrical leads. to simulate charge transfer, we measure coherence between the rectangle corrals. we use these same techniques to model a strain sensor.this dissertation demonstrates that we have developed the techniques for a new method of modeling molecules. we have also demonstrated promising initial results that show the usefulness of these techniques by constructing models of transistors and sensors that are not yet possible with actual molecules. quantum-dot cellular automata (qca) were proposed as a new architecture for computation, encoding binary information in the charge configuration of a cell with quantum 'dots'. molecular qca cells could be mixed-valence compounds, in which the metal redox sites play the role of dots and the tunneling paths are provided by bridging ligands. a suitable building block for constructing qca circuits is a square of four electronically coupled dots containing two mobile electrons. based on the general ideas of building the square compounds, a series of square compounds are designed. synthetic approaches to the square compounds using molybdenum propiolate as a core linker failed possibly due to radicals generated in the process of the reactions. alternatively, a known square with four ferrocenyl groups, {cpfe(&#951;5-c5h4)}4(&#951;4-c)cocp (18), was investigated as a possible qca cell, and its structure and dynamic nmr were measured. in contrast to the original work, this square compound does display four reversible waves in cyclic voltammetry and square wave voltammetry corresponding to five oxidation states of the compounds. by chemical methods, compound 18 can be oxidized to the monocationic and dicationic mixed-valence compounds, each of which are fully characterized by x-ray diffraction, ft-ir, epr, magnetic susceptibility measurement and m ssbauer spectra. both mixed-valence compounds display intervalence charge transfer (ivct) bands in near-ir region. based on the analysis of the ivct bands, it is concluded that the monocationic mixed-valence compound belongs to class-ii and the dicationic mixed-valence compound is class ii-iii. the electron hopping frequency of the dicationic compound in acetone is estimated to be 107.5 s-1, which is appropriately fast for qca application. although a strategy for the attachment of mixed-valence compounds via electrostatic interaction is proposed, the experimental results (xps and cv) prove that only neutral compounds are bound on the surface via van de waals forces. moreover, due to the existence of silver ion on the surface, reversible waves in cvs of films were not obtained. conclusive answers about the properties of the compounds on a surface substrate could not be drawn. though dante alighieri deems writing of oneself inappropriate in his convivio, he appears as a protagonist or source of exemplary poetry in almost every one of his works. his vita nova can be considered the most self-reflective of these works, since it recounts the personal emotions, thoughts, and events of alighieri's youth, as part of and in addition to a commentary on his own poetry. written as an autobiographical first person narrative, dante clearly wants his vita nova to say something about him as a person, to portray a certain image to his readers, whether accurate or artificial. this thesis examines the images that dante constructs of himself through his use of the first person in the vita nova and the techniques the poet employs to create these images and self-representations. the protein-protein recognition event that occurs at the interface between a t cell receptor (tcr) and a peptide presented by a major histocompatibility complex molecule (peptide/mhc) is essential to the adaptive immune system. this work examines tcr binding thermodynamics and compares these measurements to structural and functional features to gain insight into the determinants of tcr specificity, cross-reactivity, and binding affinity. we have been studying the a6 tcr, which recognizes the tax peptide presented by the class i mhc hla-a2. we examined the a6-tax/hla-a2 complex formation via isothermal titration calorimetry (itc) in order to study the thermodynamics of binding. however, binding caused a pka shift in one or more ionizable groups, indicated by binding thermodynamics that varied with solution conditions. calorimetric experiments with a variety of buffers, ph values, and temperatures were used to characterize the a6-tax/hla-a2 interaction. the data were fit globally to extract the intrinsic binding thermodynamic parameters. these parameters were compared to structural properties to help elucidate the basis for molecular recognition in this system. additionally, a high-affinity a6 tcr mutant, a6c134, binding to tax/hla-a2 was examined. the a6c134 variant has an approximately 800-fold stronger affinity for tax/hla-a2 as measured by spr. this increase in affinity is due to a significantly slower off-rate for the a6c134-tax/hla-a2 complex than for the wild-type a6 counterpart. crystallographically, the topology of the mutant and wild-type complex are similar, with small differences at the interface. calorimetric data indicate that the a6c134 mutant binds tax/hla-a2 with opposing thermodynamics as compared to the wild-type interaction. overall, the studies of a6 and a6c134 binding their cognate ligand, tax/hla-a2, have shown that each tcr binds with different thermodynamics and kinetics, despite maintaining similar binding footprints. further studies on the movement of the cdr loops are proposed to give insight to the ground state of the tcr-pmhc interaction and the binding pathway behind the observed thermodynamic and kinetic parameters. memory is theorized to promote survival, and stimuli encoded in a survival context have been shown to be better remembered relative to a variety of other encoding techniques. being able to retrieve survival relevant information during stress can promote survival. stress can also promote survival, and the stress response of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (hpa) axis has been shown to change the physiological landscape of the brain, generally promoting memory consolidation and impairing memory retrieval. further, stress during memory consolidation may selectively promote specific elements of memory, e.g. emotional memory at the cost of other elements of memory, such as neutral memory. memory retrieval is dependent on memory relevant regions of the brain, and should therefore be affected by the impact of stress, and stress related neuromodulators such as cortisol, on these same regions. the key hypothesis is that stress during retrieval will impair memory encoded in a survival context, although to a lesser degree than a control condition. to examine stress effects on the retrieval of survival encoded memory, a within subjects design was used to test participants encoding wordlists in a moving or survival context, followed by a 24 hour delay with a stressor or control condition placed immediately before memory retrieval. if stress impairs survival memory retrieval to a lesser degree relative to non-survival memory, it would suggest that survival information is accessible when it is needed most, in stressful or dangerous situations. the survival encoding advantage was replicated for recognition memory over the 24-hour delay, but not recall. in addition, the stressor elevated cortisol, but stress did not, in general, impair memory. within source memory, stress increased survival memory, as well as incorrectly identifying moving encoded words as survival words. these findings suggest that stress effects on retrieval of survival relevant memory may be more subtle, altering response biases so that in stressful situations, contextual information is more available for survival relevant stimuli. a considerable amount of theoretical and experimental work has focused on the application of vibrational infrared spectroscopy to questions of molecular structure and dynamics of aqueous systems. this is due to both the uniqueness of molecular vibrations for a given structure and the exquisite sensitivity of molecular vibrations to changes in environment. thus, a strong understanding of molecular vibrations and spectroscopy gives chemists the ability to directly probe chemical structure and environment of aqueous systems.an accurate quantum mechanical description of the microscopic chemical details which give rise to observed spectral responses leads to a variety of unique differential equations which need to be solved. in chapter 1, a general discrete variable representation method is developed which allows the solution of arbitrary linear differential equations. because this theory applies to the solution and representation of arbitrary differential equations and operators, this chapter is a stand-alone mathematical work.in chapter 2, the origin of spectroscopic transitions from the interaction of the electromagnetic field of light with the charged particles that constitute molecules is shown. an explicit treatment of the theory of molecular vibrations in the harmonic approximation and coupled local mode theory are given, along with commentary on extensions of harmonic theory into post-harmonic methods. a generalization of the coupled local mode theory to include dynamical lineshapes and a treatment of pipek's inverse participation ratio for vibrational non-locality are also given.in chapter 3, numerous results of the applications of the coupled local mode theory to protonated water clusters are given. these simulation results are validated against experimental results. the coupled local mode approach produces accurate results and gives a fully microscopic picture of the molecular vibrations in terms of the contributions of the individual internal coordinates. analysis of methods for costreduction and the dependence of coupled local mode results upon choices in electronic structure methods, basis sets, and the derivative truncation of the potential energy for couplings is given. it is concluded that the coupled local mode method offers hope for accurately dissecting the complicated infrared spectra which arise in condensedphase systems. a building without ornament is like heaven without the stars. george santayana ornament, once an essential and communicative part of architecture, during the last century has experienced serious devolution. it is no longer considered an important and meaningful part of the way humans experience a building. the fringe arguments against ornament have been elevated to doctrine in many cases. the new century needs to reconnect with this language, which speaks to us of such concepts as function, space and symbolism, but also performs such work as direction, the designation of metaphysical transition and expression of movement, among other roles. through the conferment of beauty, grace and honor, ornament enriches and enhances life while expounding the construction of delightful buildings that are fraught with meaning. ornamented architecture will return enchantment and pleasure to the public realm while simultaneously educating and connecting humans with their past accomplishments and future endeavors. through ornament, architecture will once again speak of relevance and transcendence. the 2013 boston marathon investigation presented an ample opportunity to apply advanced face recognition technology. unfortunately, the crowded scenes proved too difficult for existing facial biometrics methods and databases. in this dissertation, we identify some of the limitations of this technology and present approaches for overcoming these deficiencies. these approaches underlie a suite of novel algorithms for detecting faces in unconstrained imagery; clustering images of faces into identity groups; finding people who appear frequently across a collection of scenes; and detecting groups of individuals who often appear together. face detection typically serves as the first step in a facial analysis pipeline. we elucidate the difficulties encountered on uncontrolled imagery by a simple yet strong-performing face detector. although pose has traditionally been the focus of much of the research on face detection, we show that occlusion and blur have at least as significant of an impact for data collected from natural scenes. the results also indicate that classifiers with distinct error modes can result from blur-based perturbations of a detector training set, enabling the successful application of fusion techniques. identity clustering plays a similar role to face detection insofar as it can drive automatic 'pattern of life' analyses. we introduce an active clustering scheme, the framework for active clustering with ensembles (face), with an emphasis on clustering face images. face forms high-fidelity identity clusters by integrating a minimal amount of human feedback with automatic face recognition results. recognition errors are mitigated through the solicitation of human decisions regarding ambiguously matched faces. this scheme precludes the need for a pre-existing gallery or database of known identities, since the gallery is essentially defined by the results of the clustering. our experiments show that the face algorithm is more accurate and parsimonious than the state-of-the-art in active clustering, regardless of whether the human feedback is noisy. at the same time, the face algorithm promotes high performance in appearance frequency and affiliation analyses. these performance trends illustrate the potential efficacy of the proposed suite of algorithms in aiding data mining efforts encountered by the counter-terrorism and law enforcement communities. this thesis computes the value of flexibility embedded in production engineering processes. the flexibility is shown to be similar to a financial option, and is computed using option theoretic techniques. different kinds of flexibilities are identified and two distinct cases are selected for this work. in the first case, a fuel mix flexibility problem is constructed and is solved for the optimum value over time. the second model problem deals with the flexibility associated with the operations of an energy process. a stochastic dynamic programming evaluation of the value function is performed in discrete time via trinomial trees. the value functions are analyzed with respect to the market parameters and several qualitative features are identified. invasion of erythrocytes by plasmodium merozoites is mediated by a series of specific receptor-ligand interactions. the interaction of the duffy binding protein (dbp) with its receptor, the duffy blood group antigen, is essential for p. vivax invasion of human erythrocytes. due to its critical role in maintaining blood-stage p. vivax infection, dbp is a candidate for inclusion in a vaccine against p. vivax. naturally occurring antibodies to dbp are prevalent in individuals living in areas of high malaria endemicity, but individuals show distinct quantitative and qualitative differences in their serological response to the antigen. polymorphisms in the dbp gene are clustered in its ligand domain, suggesting immune selection pressure. previous studies using pooled sera from residents of papua new guinea showed a correlation between anti-dbp antibody titer and inhibition of erythrocyte binding by dbp. serum samples were collected from individuals residing in an area of png highly endemic for p. vivax. sera were tested for anti-dbp titer by elisa and for ability to block binding of dbpii to erythrocytes by means of an in vitro assay. among high responders to the dbp, a range of inhibition from complete to none was observed indicating that some anti-dbpii antibodies are considerably more effective than others at blocking binding of the ligand domain. pooling the inhibitory serum samples did not enhance inhibition suggesting that relatively few neutralizing epitopes are present on the dbp ligand domain. polymorphisms in dbp cluster in the binding domain of region ii, which suggests that they function as a mechanism of immune evasion. to determine if these polymorphisms affect antibody recognition of dbpii, we tested whether antisera to rdbp (sal1 variant) had comparable inhibition of binding activity of two different dbpii variants from png. antisera recognized the variant dbpii types in a strain-specific manner. differences in antigenic character were mediated by single variant residues, with multiple polymorphisms having an additive effect. these results suggest that polymorphism affects the antigenic character of dbpii and may contribute to the strain-specific immunity to p. vivax observed in endemic populations. to investigate the roles of conserved and polymorphic residues in region ii, i used site-directed mutational analysis to identify residues critical to receptor recognition. alanine substitutions were created in 75 surface-predicted residues in the central portion of region ii. effects of substitution ranged from no change to complete abrogation of the erythrocyte binding activity for the ligand domain. mutations that completely abrogated erythrocyte binding were mostly distributed in discontinuous clusters with mutations in flanking residues conferring partial loss of binding function. alanine substitution of polymorphic residues from the hypervariable segment of region ii generally did not impair binding function. these data will help identify epitopes recognized by inhibitory antibodies and characterize conserved, critical binding determinants potentially useful for vaccine design. telenovelas are such a powerful cultural product that they are watched by millions of people daily and represent the largest export commodity in all of latin america. so, why are u.s. latina/o writers critiqued for incorporating this distinctly "hispanic cultural referent" in their narratives? when might one of the most denigrated forms of cultural expression become a catalyst for female empowerment and solidarity? under what conditions can the "dirty discourse of gossip," as robert c. allen has termed it, forge a common ground or bridge amongst women on both sides of the north and south american borders? should novels meant to literarily represent the daily lives and struggles of mexican migrants, cuban exiles, dominican immigrants and puerto rican transnationals in the u.s. ignore the one cultural product which these otherwise diverse groups share? this dissertation attempts to answer these questions. the motivation behind this investigation lies primarily in the tensions between the increasing presence of telenovelas in contemporary u.s. latina/o literature and the adamant criticism of scholars directed at fiction writers who incorporate serialized narrative content and other melodramatic forms in their works. this project offers a new analytical approach to examine melodrama's subversive potential within u.s. latina/o literature by adapting recent scholarship on serialized melodrama and feminist theory to discussions of the latin american telenovelas and u.s. latina/o literature. this dissertation is primarily a literary study that draws from media studies scholarship to explore: (1) why latina/o fiction writers accentuate the role of telenovelas in women?s daily lives and; (2) how writers? preoccupations with the most underappreciated latin american mass-mediated product adds a level of complexity to a set of narratives already rich in representations of latina/o heterogeneous subjectivity and discussions of transnationalism. here, i explore u.s. latina/o fiction's fascination with telenovelas a narrative foil, as topic of women?s gossip, or as a structural model adopted to create a hybrid genre, the "novela telenovelizada": a text that concurrently reads as both a novel and a telenovelas. energy from the sun is enough to provide for the world's energy requirements 12 times over. however, the cost of solar cell technology is still quite significant. commercial solar cells currently use silicon which is expensive. besides the high cost, poor light conversion efficiency is also an impediment for photovoltaics to be used more widely. lead perovskites are a clear alternative to silicon for use in photovoltaic devices. they are valuable as photovoltaic materials because of their high light absorbance coefficient and the ability to tune bandgap. however, the poor stability of this material still prevents it from finding commercial use. one of the main reasons for perovskite instability is that because of its soft lattice, the perovskite ions migrate easily under light soaking and/or thermal stress. this dissertation investigates the phenomenon of halide ion and cation migration in perovskites – both bulk 3d and 2d perovskites, under light soaking and thermal annealing and suggests methods to control ion migration. photoinduced halide ion migration and the resultant halide ion segregation in perovskites can be monitored spectroscopically. however, a quantification of ion migration is challenging because segregated mixed halide perovskites recover to their starting composition when in the dark. when mixed halide perovskites are irradiated in dichloromethane (dcm), iodine is observed to get expelled into dcm. this iodine that is expelled has a spectroscopic signature, which can be used to quantify the amount of iodine expelled and thus ion migration. we have demonstrated that iodine expulsion can be used to (1) quantify ion migration in mixed halide perovskites with various a-site cations and (2) to compare ion migration at different electrochemical biases. 2d layered perovskites have been considered to be a viable replacement for 3d perovskites because of higher stability owing to the hydrophobic spacer cations. for 2d perovskites to be integrated into devices, ion migration needs to be considered. by using 2d mixed halide perovskites, a spacer cation dependence of ion migration was discussed. aromatic spacers like phenethylammonium make 2d perovskites stable to ion migration, while 2d perovskites with aliphatic spacers like butylammonium are unstable. finally, we demonstrate that cation migration occurs between 2d/3d perovskite interfaces on annealing. in physically paired 2d perovskite and 3d perovskite, it is observed on annealing that cations migrate resulting in the formation of higher layer numbers or quasi-2d perovskites. the projects described in this dissertation thus provide important insights into understanding the mechanism of ion migration in perovskites. compared with his christology, cyril of alexandria's pneumatology has received relatively scant attention from scholars in the past one hundred years. nevertheless, when one consults cyril's works, especially his biblical commentaries, one finds frequent mention of the spirit, reflecting deep thought on the subject. through analysis of his voluminous writings (ten volumes in migne's patrologia graeca), but with special attention to his exegetical works, this dissertation focuses on three neglected aspects of cyril's pneumatology: his thought on the work of the holy spirit with regard to christian unity, the bible and its interpretation, and the christian sacraments. because cyril did not write a treatise dedicated to the holy spirit (unlike some other ancient patristic figures), the dissertation is essentially synthetic in its methodology. the dissertation argues that cyril ascribes a significant role to the holy spirit in all three areas and in a variety of ways, but that in all three the spirit plays a rather hidden or subtle role. further, in terms of christian unity, cyril shares his most extensive reflections in his commentary on the gospel of john, and his ideas seem to be somewhat unusual among his contemporaries. in regard to the bible, he expresses the spirit's role using three primary literary devices, but his biggest contribution seems to be his contention that the holy spirit was guiding the council participants at the council of nicaea. in regard to the sacraments, he sees the spirit working with the other persons of the trinity in both baptism and the eucharist (if most obviously the former), and possibly also in ordination. one of the most significant results of the study is that, for cyril, pneumatology is always part of a larger trinitarian structure, even though he can speak quite clearly and extensively about the holy spirit specifically. for cyril, reflection on god the holy spirit does not exist apart from reflection on god the son and god the father. this dissertation examines how the texts associated with the translation program of king alfred the great of wessex (d. 899) engaged with the interrelationship of mind, body, soul, and selfhood. while the authenticity and composition of the alfredian corpus is currently under contention, these translations share an approach that i call "alfredian"; that is, regardless of who authored or authorized them, they possess common ways of describing mental and interior spaces and their relationship to the individual. i argue that, whether or not they emerged from alfred's court, these translations demonstrate a shared scholarly preoccupation, a school of understanding evident in the texts' elaboration of vocabularies and metaphors of interiority and epistemology. this language articulates relationships between mind, soul, and body that have ramifications for our own understanding of the constitution of different forms of identity and a developing notion of a "self"; the language and metaphors employed by the translators allow us access to the various methods by which the anglo-saxons conceptualized a complex set of interactions that were not always described or thought of in specific, unchangeable ways. rather, the self was understood not as a stable, fully-knowable entity, but rather one that was in a constant state of flux and negotiation, and through the process of self-scrutiny or examination refiguring its relationships between itself, the physical world, and the divine. the first two chapters set out the intellectual background of the translations. the last three chapters set out discussions of the alfredian texts that read them as texts concerned with the fashioning of a form of selfhood. chapter three focuses on the role the body plays in the translations of the boethius and soliloquies, with reference to the complicated relationship that obtains between it and the mind that is supposed to harness its desires. in chapter four, i explore how two terms, ingeì¡anc and inneweard mod, associate the mind with interior space, and how the metaphor mind as house articulates the construction of that interiority. the fifth chapter turns to a consideration of self-governance and the relationship between bodily states, the social individual, and the private self. modern states are selective and calculating in their decision to establish their rule throughout the territory. within the same country, state officials may be willing and capable of making major efforts to deliver public goods and provide security to the population in some areas, while choosing to neglect others and delegate their control to different actors. this dissertation studies why and how political elites differentially build state capacity in peripheral and marginalized areas of a country and in the midst of violent conflicts. what drives incumbents to increase state capacity in peripheral and marginalized areas within a country? what type of state expansion is likely to take place in such areas?my central argument is that exogenous shocks that suddenly increase the political and economic value of peripheral areas may prompt incumbents to invest in state capacity, but whether this capacity increases or not depends on the preexisting configuration of violent actors and local rural elites. on the one hand, the type of violent actor---threatening and non-threatening---exerts a differential effect on state capacity by (i) shaping subnational politicians' incentives to cooperate with the central state and (ii) establishing collusive agreements with violent actors. in addition, because greater state capacity tends to undermine rural elites' economic and political power, they will have incentives to oppose to greater state presence and---in contexts of insecurity and violence---establish alliances with non-threatening groups. in short, state capacity is likely to be higher in municipalities with weak rural elites and facing threatening violent groups. in contrast, state capacity will be more difficult to attain in areas with stronger rural elites and where violent groups do not pose a major threat to state authority.this dissertation studies the case of contemporary colombia and, using three empirical strategies, leverages municipal-level data, survey evidence, and in-depth interviews of bureaucrats and politicians. first, i exploit the international price of oil palm, a crop mainly produced in rural peripheries, to understand state expansion in these areas. i find that the oil palm boom had a positive impact on state capacity in areas where rebel groups had been a predominant actor, where land concentration was lower, and were mayors were more financially dependent from the center. second, i exploit mayoral close elections to understand how collusion between non-threatening groups and mayors hinder state authority. i find that the election of `paramilitary-friendly' parties in 2007 had a negative effect on property taxes and positive effect on homicide rates in subsequent years. lastly, i conduct a case study of the peripheral macarena region and the state's attempt to increase its presence there. i show that the state's approach to consolidate its presence---mostly driven by insurgent threats---produced important transformations by promoting cooperation between central authorities and mayors, but it failed to incentivize local authorities to develop capacity on their own and to strengthen tax morale among the population.while my dissertation focuses on colombia---a case of democracy and violent conflict---it provides a more general framework to understand the differential impact of violent groups on the state, the relationship between democracy and the state in violent contexts, and the important role of subnational politicians in facilitating or hindering state consolidation. in the author's experience, he achieves set goals by dedication and persistence. by working within parameters, he gains discipline in studio practice, consistency of sculptural forms, and evaluative criteria to assess the outcomes. the parameters are set by the materials, methodologies and explorations between tradition and innovation. he continually strives to create a new perception in the possibilities of form and the tectonics of the ceramic medium for the arts and industry. visual references derive from both nature and products of human artifice. the author is intensely exploring the vast depth of the entirety of a three dimensional object and its occupied space. in the investigation, he has been driven to achieve excellence in the resolutions of both positive and negative spaces occupied by the object. he is also focused on articulating implied, gestural and fixed lines throughout the entirety of the space. upon examination, these formal qualities of ceramic objects exhibit many technical questions and challenges. what are the physical limitations of clay as the chosen material? of these limits, what alterations can be made for innovation to take place? what methods and combinations of mold construction and hand built techniques must one explore? with any chosen method of construction, is simplification or complication of form more effective to display these relationships? at what point does one decide between designs dictated by structural necessity and visual pleasure? the author is presently exploring the interrelationships and intentions between the maker and the material. through his chosen process of invention, it is his intention to find natural form by staying true to chosen materials and their inherent properties. in his studio, the author is pursuing and establishing a formal vocabulary that allows his sculptural vessels to exhibit qualities of both unique and handcrafted objects of traditional cultures and contemporary machine made and mass-produced objects. the author is constantly intrigued by questions that arise from the final object and has begun to search for ways to assess results. what forms may allow for more or less successful interpretations? (e.g. masculine vs. feminine; organic vs. geometric) is there, or can there be, a lowest common denominator to which all can relate? can and how may these relationships contribute and foster new ideas and questions beyond only three-dimensional realizations? through his current work, and yet unrealized future projects, he wants to pursue works which exhibit a coherent synchronization of his working methodologies; from the genesis of form, through different methods of fabrication to the final evaluation. the culmination of this work should produce visually satisfying objects pleasing, in and of them selves, that also explore the conceptual issues of the object. he desires to make a notable contribution to contemporary ceramic arts by expanding a historical vocabulary of form through an innovative construction format. the author's goal is to create works that inform and engage viewers and create conversations relating to a multitude of disciplines in an effort to seek out new answers and questions relating to one's own time and space in contemporary society. the relationship between hyper-masculine organizations and individual actions that violate heterosexual norms is explored in a study of the el dorado fire department, a rural, wildland firefighting organization. the firefighters working at the station were able to engage in non-orthodox gender behavior because their masculinity stemmed from their status as firefighters rather than their individual actions. men that breached heteromasculine norms were not perceived as less masculine as long as their legitimacy as firefighters remained intact. furthermore, firefighters often used breaches in heteromasculine norms during their interactions because doing so fulfilled the greatest number of occupational objectives in comparison to other social interaction that occurred at the station. in only seven decades since the development of penicillin, antibiotic resistance has become a widespread problem of the modern world to which only few solutions currently exist. the fast paced rhythm of evolution in the world of bacteria is surpassing the rate of drug discovery, with mrsa (a strain of s. aureus resistant to methicillin, a second generation ì_å_-lactam antibiotic) being one of the favorites in the race. responsible for this resistance are the sensing/transducing systems blar and mecr. upon interaction with the ì_å_-lactam antibiotic through its surface domain, blar initiates the signal transduction process. this event leads to the activation of the cytoplasmic domain, with the final result of de-repression of blaz, the ì_å_ lactamase encoding gene. as shown by mobashery et al. [1], the signal transduction process involves conformational changes of the cell surface sensor domain of the blar protein upon ligand binding. this prompts the need to look at the dynamics necessary to the signaling mechanism. nuclear magnetic resonance (nmr) is a spectroscopic technique that provides an atomic resolution description of the system of interest and allows for the study of both protein structure and dynamics. however, many interesting and biologically relevant proteins pose experimental difficulties due to their large molecular weights and poor stability in a highly concentrated solution state. practical solutions to these experimental concerns will be detailed within this thesis. the focus of this study will be the novel characterization of the s. aureus blar sensor domain, blars (30kda). contained within this thesis will be the initial characterization of blar with nmr in both the free and antibiotic bound form. these results provide the first atomic resolution study of blars and its associated signaling mechanism in the solution state, and supply initial data required for future studies. spain's social settlement regularization program is a prima facie inclusive policy that allows irregular immigrants to acquire residence permits after 3 years of continuous residence. the only acceptable proof of residence is registration on a municipal census. each municipality is enabled to designate its own housing requirements for registry on its census, which disproportionately impact racialized irregular immigrants. given this highly decentralized legalization model, the guiding question of this dissertation is: how do municipal rules structure irregular migrants' regularization opportunities and outcomes? using a most-similar case design and interviews with malian immigrants in two rural municipalities with different census regulations, i illustrate how the variation in requirements creates different opportunities and challenges for racialized irregular migrants attempting to regularize their legal status according to their respective locality. since housing and the municipal registry are inextricably linked, racial discrimination in the housing market disproportionately diminishes the opportunities for black irregular migrants to regularize their legal status in some municipalities, trapping them in a cycle of irregularity that impacts their individual and collective economic mobility, civic stratification, and family structure via family reunification policies. by continuously failing to provide national standards for municipal census requirements, the state thereby allows some municipalities to facilitate regularization and others to discreetly impede it. the varied experiences of immigrants with the municipal census and the regularization process in spain exemplify the local mechanisms of exclusion that reinforce civic stratification even in the face of national inclusion measures. as such, municipal census policy not only has significant implications for immigrants' long-term political integration, but it is also instructive for how race and local policy shape citizenship. methodology was developed on a library of cycloadducts derived from a diels-alder reaction involving acyl nitroso species using enolate species under varying conditions. also, a palladium catalyzed decarboxylation reaction was developed as a key step in a new process to synthesize homoaristeromycin, a carbocylic nucleoside possessing anti-viral activity. methane is a potent greenhouse gas emitted from coastal marshes. it is well understood that sea-level rise both affects methane emissions directly and indirectly through shifts in plant community composition. the role of intraspecific genetic variation in explaining variation in plant traits and methane emissions is much less studied. here, we exposed 26 schoenoplectus americanus genotypes "resurrected" from up to century-old seedbanks at two chesapeake bay marshes to different levels of flooding and salinity and the presence or absence of a competing species, spartina patens, to investigate the roles of environmental conditions, species composition, and plant traits in driving methane emissions. comparisons across environmental treatments strongly regulated plant traits and methane emissions. unexpectedly, genetic variation driven by plant provenance explained more variation in methane emissions than did community composition. these findings add to a growing understanding of the often-underestimated role of genetic variation in regulating ecosystem functioning. in this thesis, i began the process of identifying and commenting on the fifteenth century venetian codex, notre dame, university of notre dame, hesburgh library, cod. lat. d. 5. the principal focus of my work was a versification of the prose portions of boethius's *consolatio philosophiae* that is contained therein. i argue that the author, filippo di zara, composed this work in the second half of the fifteenth century primarily for two reasons. the first was to draw young students back to boethius in the face of strong criticism from humanists. the second reason was to make a statement about the efficacy and superiority of the scholastic education system that he embraced. cytoplasmic dynein is a minus-end directed microtubule-based motor protein that is responsible for the transport and positioning of diverse cellular structures within eukaryotic cells, including membranous organelles and chromosomes during mitosis. previous work identified a phosphorylation site in one of the dynein subunits (intermediate chains (ics), which regulates binding to the putative receptor complex dynactin during interphase (vaughan et al., 2001). to identify dynein kinases and to further investigate dynein cargo-targeting mechanisms, we examined mitotic dynein and determined that the mitotic ics are phosphorylated by gel-shift and 2d gel analysis. ics were subjected to ms/ms analysis revealing two novel phosphorylation sites. t89 falls within the binding domain for dynactin, and site-directed mutants designed to mimic a phosphorylated state reduce dynactin binding significantly. t89 fits the consensus for p38mapk, and phosphorylation by p38mapk is specific for this site in vitro. both dynein and p38 have been independently implicated in kinetochore checkpoint roles during the spindle assembly checkpoint. inhibition of p38mapk results in redistribution of dynein from kinetochores to spindle poles and induces dispersed lagging chromosomes. phospho-specific antibodies reveal that ics phosphorylated at t89 bind to pro-metaphase kinetochores and are absent from kinetochores that have achieved microtubule attachment and chromosome alignment on the metaphase plate. in contrast, ics phosphorylated at y130 localize to mitotic spindle poles and reside there from early prophase until late anaphase. y130 falls within a domain implicated in lc8 (a dynein light chain) binding and fits the consensus for phosphorylation by c-abl kinase. c-abl phosphorylates wild-type, but not y130f mutant ics in vitro. this phosphorylation was blocked by treatment with gleevec (a c-abl inhibitor) and gleevec treatment of live cells also blocked phosphorylation at y130, suggesting that c-abl is a mitotic dynein kinase. binding assays to test the impact of y130 phosphorylation demonstrated that ics phosphorylated at y130 do not bind lc8. these results suggest that phosphorylation of dynein ics modulates subunit composition during mitosis and plays a role targeting dynein ics to specific functional mitotic sites. total hip arthroplasty (tha) has become an extremely successful surgical procedure in the past 50 years. it has greatly improved the quality of life of patients. however, there remain clinical concerns. total hip arthroplasty constructs are sophisticated tribological bearings, made of materials such as cobalt-chrome and ceramic. advances in materials and design have allowed industry to provide hard-on-hard bearings such as metal-on-metal and ceramic-on-ceramic devices to the market. these sophisticated tribological bearings require advanced mathematical models and experimentation techniques to better understand and predict performance. in an attempt to more fully understand the behavior of these engineered tha bearing surfaces, thorough literature review was conducted of in vitro wear simulation testing, analyses of retrievals, and clinical assessment of these devices. this information has been combined with further experimental in vitro wear simulations and theoretical analyses. the experimental in vitro wear simulations and theoretical analyses of this dissertation sought to provide further understanding of the fluid film lubrication of the bearing. this was done through several assessments. the protocols employed in the experimental in vitro wear simulations correspond reasonably with clinical and other published data, however, do not provide delineation of wear performance between tha and resurfacing designs as might be expected. to advance these designs, further experimental development is required. additionally, data indicates that inclusion of micro-separation in the protocols more closely replicates in vivo use, and should always be included. contact mechanics of these bearings confirmed that careful selection of design parameters, such as material, diameter, clearance, and surface roughness is needed in the design of the bearings in order to balance the magnitude and distribution of the contact pressure between the articulating surfaces, with surface roughness identified as a primary driver of film parameter and clearance as a primary driver of film thickness. finally, using wear equations and film parameter estimations, wear factor as a function of film parameter was calculated, resulting in distinct regions for particular bearing technologies, providing initial data for establishing formulas to calculate wear factor values for these bearings. distortion at the inlet to diffusers is very common in internal flow applications. inlet velocity distortion influences the pressure recovery and flow regimes of diffusers. this work introduced a centerline wake at the square inlet of a plane wall diffuser in two orthogonal orientations to investigate its influence on the diffuser performance. two different wakes were generated. one was from a mesh strip which produced a velocity deficit with low turbulence intensity and two shear layers. the other wake generator was a d-shaped cylinder which produced a wake with high turbulence intensity and large length scales. these inlet conditions were generated for a diffuser with a diffusion angle of three degrees and six degrees. a pair of rans simulations were used to investigate the influence of the orthogonal inlet orientations on the solution. the inlet conditions were taken from the inlet velocity field measured for the mesh strip. the flow development and exit conditions showed some similarities and some differences with the experimental results.the performance of a diffuser is typically measured through the static pressure recovery coefficient and the total pressure losses. the definition of these metrics commonly found in the literature were insufficient to discern differences between the wake orientations. new metrics were derived using the momentum flux profile parameter which related the static pressure recovery, the total pressure losses, and the velocity uniformity at the inlet and exit of the diffuser. these metrics revealed a trade-off between the total pressure losses and the uniformity of the velocity field. in its entirety, the vibrant life of tamara de lempicka reads like a screenplay for a major motion picture produced during the golden years of hollywood. her personal anecdotes from this particular historical period recount her experiences as the physical embodiment of the quintessential new woman of the interwar years. in this role, lempicka independently maneuvered through a variety of public spaces in modern paris to stage her own melodrama full of intrigue, sex, and complete excess. this thesis, however, spotlights one chapter of lempicka's elaborate story ì¢ ââ" the height of her artistic popularity in the mid 1920s and 1930s. in this period, lempicka depicted art deco icons of modernity, fashioning her women into immense, decorated bodies situated in modern, yet ambiguous spaces of femininity. working within and around this framework of constructed spaces, i argue for an appreciation of tamara de lempicka as a successful modern artist who, through both her images of modern women and her life as a bisexual public figure, contributed significantly to the discourse of gender in modernity. i argue that lempicka created her vision of gender to respond to the flux of gender identities at this historical moment. research on political social networks has centered on strong ties rather than weaker ones, emphasizing homophily. this research highlights heterophily which is underestimated when using a traditional survey method for measuring social networks. using 29 semi-structured in-depth interviews with democrats in the northern indiana area, i find that participants placed a range of restrictions on relationships with republicans and others they disagreed with. as result, they retained the relationships as weaker ties. choice of restriction varied between familial and non-familial ties but did not predictably vary according to the magnitude of political disagreement in the relationship. participants' reflection on their relationships in these interviews showed difficulty in reconciling their identities, group memberships, and existing relationships with those they disagree with politically. the synthesis and characterization of heterobimetallic alkaline-earth metal amides was attempted. this is an entirely new class of compounds and they were targeted with the purpose of evaluating their bond character aggregation behavior in solution and in the solid state. the reaction between the appropriate homometallic bis(hexamethyldisilazide) precursors in non-donating solvents yielded the products: [camg{n(sime3)2}4] (1), [srmg{n(sime3)2}4] (2), [srca{n(sime3)2}4] (3), and [ba2{n(sime3)2}3"¢toluene]+[mg{n(sime3)2}3](4). the synthesis of crystalline ba/ca and ba/sr heterobimetallic complexes was attempted however they do not mix in solution. compounds 1-4 were successfully characterized by single crystal x-ray diffraction. structures 1, 2, and 3 are all heterodimers with a four membered ring core consisting of both metals connected by bridging amide groups. each metal is bonded to a single amide group yielding a coordination number of three. the charge separated complex 4 consists of a magnesium trisamide anion and a dimeric barium cation with one metal site solvated by a &#960;-bound toluene molecule. analysis of the metrical parameters in 1-3 indicates that the more lewis acidic metal pulls the electron density of the bridging amide ligands towards it, causing a lauren t. wendell change in the bonding when compared to the homodimer structures. this change in the bonding causes interesting solution behavior, where charge separated species are often seen in donating solvents. the most extreme case is complex 4 where charge separation is also observed in the solid state. complexes 1, 2, and 3 all undergo a dynamic equilibrium between the heterobimetallic structures and the homometallic precursors in arene solvents. in contrast, complex 4 maintains charge separation. the change in the bonding and solution behavior compared to the homodimers suggests that these compounds will have interesting reactivity with organic substrates. pickering emulsions have been developed into many applications. the droplet size is always the most fundamental property influencing the system's stability, rheology and reactivity. this thesis describes the investigation into three aspects of droplet size in pickering emulsions—the quantification of size dispersion, the understanding of the unusual droplet size distribution caused by multi-body coalescence, and the study of droplet size effects in the oil-water separation using magnetic carbon nanotubes (mcnts).to quantify size dispersion, researchers have proposed four different uniformity indices. here, we quantitatively relate the index span, defined as the normalized size range containing 80% of the total particle volume centered around the volumetric median, to the coefficient of variation and then to the other three uniformity indices. we show that a consistent criterion for mono-dispersity can be obtained with span for all types of distribution functions. we further show that span has an explicit mathematical relationship with another index defined as the ratio between the volume-weighted deviation and median, which suggests that the latter index can also be interpreted unequivocally on the statistical basis like span.next, we discover a magic droplet size distribition with distinctive maxima related to each other through the cubic root of tetrahedral numbers in pickering emulsions. this size distribution is attributed to an unusual behavior of multi-body coalescence in an ensemble of pickering droplets, where all closely packed nearest neighbors are involved in a single coalescence event. in addition, we show that the multi-body coalescence is promoted by the repulsive interactions among the particles at interface but inhibited by the attractive interactions.last, we report the kinetic analysis of treating dodecane-made simulated produced water using mcnts. this technology first wraps the droplets with mcnts and then pulls the wrapped droplets out of water in a magnetic field. here, we find that the wrapping kinetic model follows the first order of both mcnt and oil concentrations. we also show that the salinity improves both the efficiencies and the kinetics of wrapping. the increased performance is quantitatively attributed to the corresponding increasing dodecane droplet size with increasing salinities. antibodies have generated a breakthrough within the biotechnology industry over the past decades in both pharmaceutical areas for treatment of immunological, cancer and cardiovascular diseases, as well as endless applications for biomedical research specifically for molecular diagnostics, cellular imaging, among others. however, the production is still maintained at a high cost mainly due to the current purification method used based on the use of packed columns with proteins a / g.in this way, the present study shows a variant to a method proposed in the scientific literature based on the precipitation of the antibodies through the formation of complexes and their precipitation with ammonium sulfate. the variation relies on the usage of trivalent molecules that have a particular affinity for the unconventional site named as the nucleotide binding site (nbs) on antibodies. the focus for this dissertation involved two main projects that complement the known chemistry of acylnitroso hetero-diels-alder (hda) reactions. the first project involved the synthesis of novel mycobactin analogs from nitroso hda cycloadducts, and also included the discovery and study of a new synthesis of imidazoles. the second main project involved developing new ways to use acylnitroso hda cycloadducts to synthesize biologically useful heterocyclic molecules. in chapter 2, the rationale behind the synthesis of mycobactin analogs was described. in chapter 3, the synthesis of mycobactin analog fragments is described from amino acids and acylnitroso hda cycloadducts. chapter 4 described the assembly of mycobactin analog fragments into fully elaborated and deprotected 1,2-diol-containing mycobactin analogs. general strategies toward the synthesis of &#945;-hydroxy carboxylate-containing mycobactin analogs were also presented as well as interesting results from biological assays on final molecules and intermediates. in chapter 5, the discovery of a new method for synthesizing imidazole analogs of mycobactin fragments from azides and 2-amidoacrylates was described. the initial reaction, optimization of reaction conditions, and a limited study of reaction scope was presented as well as the results of biological assays performed on selected intermediates. this discovery provided a new method for synthesizing imidazole-containing mycobactin analogs as well as a general method for preparing 1-substitutedand 1,2-disubstituted-imidazole-4-carboxylates in three steps from serine, carboxylic acids, and azides. chapter 6 described the development of the addition of azides to acylnitroso hda cycloadducts and the effect of alkene strain on reactivity. the scope of the reaction was investigated as well as conversion of the triazoline products to aziridines. the significance of this research as it related to the synthesis of aziridineand triazoline-containing 5'-norcarbocyclic nucleosides and bioconjugation chemistry was also described. in chapter 7, other ways of utilizing the acylnitroso hda reaction were investigated. preliminary results on addition of diazoalkanes to cycloadducts, br&oslash;nsted acid-catalyzed opening of cycloadducts, acylnitroso [2+2+2] homo-diels-alder reactions, and acylnitroso cycloadditions to indole ortho-quinodimethanes were presented. a discussion of their significance toward the synthesis of biologically useful molecules was also included. organogenesis relies on complex and dynamic cellular processes that are mediated by genetic programs, governed by extrinsic and intrinsic signals, and are extensively coordinated through intercellular communication. during organ development, patterned gene expressions and biochemical signals regulate growth, proliferation, and mechanics to build complex tissues through tissue-level processing. specific unit operations of tissue shaping include epithelial spreading, folding, and sculpting. these processes are essential for shaping two-dimensional epithelial sheets into complex three-dimensional structures. in addition, these morphogenetic modules are regulated throughout the development of an organism, from gastrulation to organogenesis. dysregulation of these morphogenetic processes leads to various diseases, including congenital disabilities and cancer. however, the precise mechanisms through which the gene expression patterns regulate the coordinated cellular processes during organogenesis are poorly understood. a quantitative, mechanistic understanding of the biophysical mechanisms regulating the cellular processes is essential to understand the design principles regulating morphogenesis. these design principles would help develop effective therapeutics to repair defects during embryonic development and wound healing. additionally, a systems-level understanding of combining multiple morphogenesis modules can guide advanced methods for regenerating tissues from basic building blocks. in this dissertation, drosophila melanogaster is used as a model system to investigate how critical biochemical signals coordinate collective cellular processes to drive epithelial morphogenesis. epithelial tissues transduce key biochemical signals into specific cellular responses through second messenger dynamics such as calcium. hence, it is crucial to understand how epithelial cells interpret diverse signals and transduce them into second messengers, such as calcium, to coordinate tissue-level processes. calcium is one of the crucial second messengers regulating various physiological processes and is essential for regulating a diverse range of cellular functions such as growth, mechanics, apoptosis, and proliferation. additionally, calcium signaling is also associated with a physiological signaling system, and its role in regulating neuronal and other physiological activity is well established. however, the mechanisms through which global patterning information integrates second messenger dynamics to regulate the key morphogenetic operations still need to be fully elucidated. moreover, decoding the calcium signaling and its crosstalk with other signaling cascades during epithelial morphogenesis is highly relevant to wound healing and cancer. this is due to the high similarity of cell signaling pathways across the animal kingdom and the cross-hierarchical nature of biological systems. in fact, it is often possible to establish and leverage phenotypic analogies between genetic perturbations in a (slightly) simpler animal like the fruit fly and human diseases to identify promising drug targets and drug candidate systems. this dissertation discusses studies investigating the mechanisms that integrate calcium signaling in regulating epithelial morphogenesis during development. a key motivation for this work is the long-term goal of inferring cell/tissue/organ states from dynamic measurements of a few 'hubs' within cell signaling networks that can capture a large percentage of the whole information processing network within cell systems. such an integrated knowledge base contributes to defining over-arching design principles of organ development and homeostasis.chapter 1 of this thesis briefly introduces epithelial spreading, folding, the drosophila model system, and key biochemical signals. in addition, it discusses drosophila head involution, a poorly studied morphogenetic process that resembles key aspects of wound healing and is a focus of several chapters in this dissertation. chapter 2 of this thesis extensively reviews the existing computational models, including mechanical and chemical models, to reverse engineer morphogenesis. this chapter discusses the types of mechanical and chemical signal modeling techniques that are currently in use. additionally, it discusses coupled mechano-chemical models to elucidate the feedback mechanisms between morphogen signaling and cell mechanics. this chapter further discusses the future perspectives of these modeling techniques and the need for modeling to decouple the interplay between biochemical and mechanical signals. chapter 3 of this thesis studies the significance of morphogen signaling, such as hedgehog (hh), during the late stages of drosophila embryogenesis. this study generates quantitative maps of how hh signaling is patterned during the late stages of embryogenesis. in addition, this study combines live imaging and advanced microscopic techniques to show how epithelial fold formation occurs at the segment boundaries. additionally, this study shows that patterning of morphogen signaling is necessary for proper folding, and disruption to this pattern inhibits fold formation. furthermore, this study proposes that folding occurs due to two coordinated and synchronous morphogenetic operations: pinching of segment groove cells and pushing of cells adjacent to the groove cells. this study validates this hypothesis by incorporating these processes into the computational biophysical model and simulating tissue folding. of note, i have significantly contributed to the establishment and initial testing of a new light sheet microscope at the university during this study. this instrument can image thick tissues three-dimensionally, which is impossible with conventional confocal microscopes. chapter 4 of this thesis investigates the role of calcium signaling during fold formation. this study shows that the calcium transients observed during the late stages of embryogenesis occur during the fold formation of epithelia at the segment boundaries. surprisingly, this study discovered that the intercellular transients are absent during the epithelial spreading, which occurs prior to folding. moreover, this study shows that these calcium transients are essential for proper segment positioning and shape formation, as inhibition of calcium signaling resulted in defects in segment shapes and widths. in addition, this study proposes that the transients are regulated by patterned hh signaling, as the defects associated with hh pattern disruption are similar to those associated with calcium signaling inhibition. in the next part of this study, i used wing discs as a model system to investigate the growth regulation mechanisms integrated with calcium signaling. chapter 5 of this thesis presents a systematic screen of the family of g-protein coupled receptors (gpcrs) during wing morphogenesis. gpcrs are key receptors that bind to diverse ligands and transduce external signals into the cytoplasm through second messenger dynamics such as ca2+. in addition, gpcrs are targets for many drugs treating different pathological conditions. i, along with other graduate students, performed a genetic screening to identify potential gpcrs that play a role in wing morphogenesis. we identified several gpcrs, which, when inhibited, resulted in wing size and expansion defects. in chapter 6 of this dissertation, i investigated the role of g-protein galphaq (gαq) during wing growth. this study demonstrates that the wing size is reduced when gαq is inhibited or overexpressed. moreover, it shows that overexpression of gαq is sufficient to induce global calcium transients in the wing disc. surprisingly, overexpression of gαq reduces wing growth regardless of its stimulating global calcium waves. furthermore, this study shows that the gαq-mediated calcium signaling promotes growth, whereas growth inhibition occurs through its interaction with other downstream signaling cascades. importantly, this study performs rna sequencing to identify the downstream targets that function through gαq to regulate growth. based on rna seq analysis, this study identifies that gαq interacts with nuclear hormone signaling to regulate growth and developmental time. further, it shows that gαq disruption delays development through ecdysone signaling inhibition. in sum, this study demonstrates the significance of the gαq-mediated calcium activity in regulating growth and development. chapter 7 of this dissertation proposes future efforts to elucidate and leverage the underlying conserved molecular and mechanical mechanisms that govern epithelial morphogenesis. overall, these studies have shown the significance of calcium signaling in integrating morphogen and gpcr signaling to regulate growth and morphogenesis. dysregulation of hh signaling results in severe congenital disabilities in vertebrate systems, as hh is a crucial regulator of tissue patterning during embryonic development. the results from the hh and calcium studies would reveal novel insights into the crosstalk mechanisms between hh and calcium signaling during embryonic development in other systems. they would aid the studies on the therapeutic development of hh-mediated congenital disabilities. further, these studies will serve as a basis for future studies investigating the role of hedgehog and other signaling pathways in mediating the late stages of drosophila embryogenesis. the gαq study would provide novel perspectives on the mitogenic activity of g-proteins during organ development. activating gαq mutations are associated with uveal melanoma and cellular transformations. the results from our study would aid the studies investigating the downstream effectors of g-proteins in promoting growth during cancer-related pathologies. additionally, this study would provide a basis for future studies investigating the crosstalk between gαq and signaling cascades such as jak/stat and toll signaling during organ development. a more quantitative understanding of the physical mechanisms behind epithelial morphogenesis advances and facilitates accelerated tissue repair capabilities after wounding, tissue rebuilding, and restoring tissue homeostasis. this work presents research for the ph.d. degree in computer science and engineering. it consists four distinct research parts. the first one is presented as a complete case study (pgms) that uses geo-tagged pdas to electronically collect malaria-related data in the field. it includes two major parts: the database designed for subsequent cross-sectional data analysis and the programs customized for the six study sites. the design principles adopted in pgms can be applicable to a wide variety of data collection implementations. the experience we learnt from this case study can be also used by smart phone-based, tablet-based or netbook-based surveys. due to the anopheles gambiae's pivotal role in malaria transmission, modeling its population dynamics can assist in finding factors in the mosquito life cycle that can be targeted to decrease malaria transmission to a lower level. this dissertation presents an agent-based weather-aware entomological model of the complete anopheles gambiae mosquito life cycle. the model tracks the development and the mortality rates of mosquitoes in eight distinct life stages: egg, larva, pupa, immatureadult, mateseeking, bloodmealseeking, bloodmealdigesting, and gravid. it also models the transitions among these stages. we also explore an application of this model, theoretically comparing the effectiveness of various hypothetical vector control interventions that target mosquitoes in different life stages and mosquitoes having different mosquito biological behavior applied separately and jointly on the reduction of mosquito abundance and malaria transmission capacity of a mosquito population. the emergence and prevalence of insecticide resistance in mosquitoes greatly undermines the effectiveness and sustainability of vector control measures such as long-lasting insecticidal nets (llins) and indoor residual spraying (irs) that use insecticides. read et al. proposed hypothetical evolution-proof late-life-acting (lla) insecticidal strategies to deal with mosquito insecticide resistance, and found that llas could provide more effective malaria control while more weakly resistance evolution in a mosquito population than the current insecticides approved for llins and irs. this dissertation proposes another application of the above model that evaluates the late-life-acting insecticides and instant-acting insecticides in terms of malaria control and evolution-proof of insecticide resistance. we come to the similar conclusions presented by read. and we also relaxed read's strict-timing working pattern of llas by allowing a lla insecticide to target the mosquitoes in much more wide age range. our simulation results show although the relaxed-timing llas' performance of controlling mosquitoes and malaria transmission is less effectively than the strict-timing llas, they still work more efficiently than the traditional instant insecticides. our laboratory has utilized total synthesis, semi-synthesis, and fermentation of bacterial species to produce natural product analogs to study the relationship between conformational preferences and biological activity. our goal is to show the importance of the conformational characteristics of natural products in the development of potential therapeutics, features that are commonly disregarded in structure-activity relationship studies.a new linear analog for zampanolide, a macrolide extracted from the marine sponge faciospongia rimosa; and new diene analogs for gex1a, a compound isolated from streptomyces chromofuscus, were synthesized. their conformational preferences were predicted with computational methods and corroborated by nuclear magnetic resonance experiments. the biological activity of the new compounds was tested on cancer cell lines, which allowed us to assess if the initial hypotheses were valid. in the case of zampanolide, it was demonstrated that the linear analog exhibited potent biological activity due to the conservation of an allylic strain, which restricted the conformational flexibility of the molecule. for gex1a, it was shown that an increase in the population of the main conformational family did not lead to enhanced bioactivity.additionally, an introduction to machine learning and some examples of its use in organic chemistry is given. this is in light of the work done in iridium-catalyzed hydrogen isotope exchange reactions, that was performed during a six-month internship at the catalysis group in merck. high throughput experimentation was used to create a large dataset to train a machine learning model, that predicted the deuterium incorporation on drug-like molecules. this model is now being used and optimized on pipeline projects at merck. the stellar nucleosynthesis of 60fe is currently a topic of great interest to the nuclear astrophysics community. observations of the decay signature of the long-lived radioisotopes 60fe and 26al by &gamma;-ray observatories have offered a unique observational constraint on massive star models. as both isotopes are thought to be co-produced in massive stars, the observed ratio of the line intensities is expected to be well predicted by the models. meaningful comparisons between models and observation depend crucially on reliable inputs concerning the underlying nuclear reactions, and while much work has been performed by stellar modelers to resolve an initial disagreement with observation, the production and destruction cross sections for 60fe nucleosynthesis have remained purely theoretical. the purpose of this work is to experimentally constrain the primary production and destruction reactions, 59fe(n,&gamma;)60fe and 60fe(n,&gamma;)61fe respectively, through coulomb dissociation and direct neutron activation techniques. at nanoscale dimensions, phenomena not observable at the macro-scale can be exploited to enhance chemical measurement. some of the advantageous of fabricating devices with features at nanometer scale lengths include fast mass transport and optical field confinement. at nanometer lengths, the diffusion time between two points can be on the order of microseconds. this is advantageous, particularly in a confined geometry, because it ensures a significant amount of analyte surface interactions which can increase reactivity. additionally, by fabricating pores at sub-wavelength dimensions (typically &lt; 100 nm), the optical field becomes highly confined and creates effective sampling volumes &lt; 200 zl. this extremely small sampling volume is particularly useful for studying propertied of single molecules at concentrations up to 100 µm.this work seeks to use nanoscale properties to develop new measurements not previously possible with current macro-scale techniques. by fabricating solid state membranes with arrays of embedded annular nanoband electrodes, enhanced mass transport is achieved which in turn increases the faradaic current due to highly coupled electrokinetic flow and electron transfer. an additional circuitry based approach is developed to couple electrochemistry and electrokinetic flow to allow for non-coupled measurements. finally, electrically addressable nanophotonic pores, au zero-mode waveguides (zmw), were fabricated and used to study single molecule electrochemistry under diffusive conditions. the highly confined nature of the zmw allows for electrochemical modulation at higher time scales than planar geometries and potentially allows for reaction intermediates to be stabilized in the nanopore. this work shows how operating at smaller length scales can be beneficial for chemical measurement. multi-processor system-on-chips (mpsocs) provide high performance and power efficiency. they have been widely used in many real-time embedded applications such as automotive electronics, industrial automation, and avionics. most of these applications must satisfy deterministic or probabilistic timing constraints. however, due to cmos technology scaling, mpsocs increasingly have higher power density and temperature, which reduce system lifetime reliability. meanwhile, the decreasing feature size of transistors and low supply voltage and frequency make the chip more vulnerable to soft errors and degrade soft-error reliability. maintaining the quality of service, improving lifetime reliability and soft-error reliability, and satisfying the real-time requirement have become major concerns in current mpsocs, especially for such systems deployed in harsh environments.this thesis focuses investigating techniques to improve reliability for mpsocs. two methods are first developed to improve lifetime reliability and soft-error reliability, respectively. the first method aims at improving lifetime reliability by dynamically reducing operating temperature. in order to maximize soft-error reliability and recover failed tasks caused by soft errors, the second method is developed to allocate recoveries to any failed tasks dynamically.based on these methods, two frameworks are designed to improve reliability for homogeneous mpsocs. the first framework maximizes lifetime reliability under real-time constraint. it captures the system run-time status and utilizes the above method to reduce the operating temperature by dynamically reducing core voltages and frequencies. based on the dynamic recovery allocation method, the second framework maximizes soft-error reliability under lifetime reliability and real-time constraints. this framework improves soft-error reliability by allocating recoveries to failed tasks as well as scheduling tasks to guarantee more tasks can be recovered.mpsocs, which has the "big-little'' architecture or is consisting of integrated cpu and gpu, have been widely used in many applications such as autonomous vehicles, in-vehicle infotainment systems, and mobiles. since such applications expect more tasks can complete successfully before their deadlines, we develop two frameworks to maximize soft-error reliability under lifetime reliability and real-time constraints. these frameworks both improve soft-error reliability by dynamically increasing core frequencies, but also consider different features of mpsocs.the first framework is for the "big-little'' type mpsocs. it exams the power features of the "big'' core and "little'' core, and dynamically selects the most power efficient cores to execute tasks. the second framework focuses on the mpsocs with integrated cpu and gpu. based on the analysis of the effects of tasks mapping to tasks' execution times, this framework dynamically migrates tasks to reduce tasks' execution times and achieves a high soft-error reliability.all frameworks proposed in this thesis have been evaluated with tasks from multiple benchmark suites and on different hardware platforms, including a simulator, the nvidia's tk1 chip, and the nvidia's tx2 chip. experimental results show that these frameworks can improve lifetime reliability and/or soft-error reliability and satisfy the real-time requirement. this paper proves geometric manin's conjecture for smooth fano threefolds over the complex numbers and of picard rank at least two. geometric manin's conjecture translates batyrev's heuristic for manin's conjecture to a statement about rational curves on fano varieties. for a smooth fano variety x, the conjecture predicts there is a constant bound on the number of manin components of the morphism scheme of rational curves of each numeric class. on a fano threefold and for numeric classes of anticanonical degree at least four, manin components are precisely those which generically parameterize very free curves. we prove there is at most one such component for each numeric class. first, we describe how a recent, movable version of mori's bend-and-break for free rational curves on fano threefolds reduces geometric manin's conjecture to a study of low degree free curves. we then establish monodromy properties of mori fiber space structures on fano threefolds that are general in their deformation class. this allows us to describe families of low degree free rational curves explicitly on such threefolds. where necessary, we then prove the number of manin components of curves remains constant under specialization of x. we conclude with a case-by-case analysis of the 88 deformation types of smooth fano threefolds of picard rank at least two. as the world falls down in the first part of the thesis we investigate network exploration by random walks defined via stationary and adaptive transition probabilities on large, but finite graphs. an exact formula for the number of visited nodes and edges as function of time is presented, that is valid for arbitrary graphs and arbitrary walks defined by stationary transition probabilities (stp). we show that for stp walks site and edge exploration obey the same scaling ~n to the power of nu as function of time n, and therefore edge exploration on graphs with many loops is always lagging compared to site exploration. we then introduce the edge explorer model, presenting a novel class of adaptive walks, that performs faithful network discovery even on dense networks.in the second part of the thesis we present a random walk-based computational model of enzymatic degradation of cellulose. the coarse-grained dynamical model accounts for the mobility and action of a single enzyme as well as for the synergy of multiple enzymes on a homogeneous cellulose surface. the quantitative description of cellulose degradation is calculated on a spatial model by including free and bound states of all enzymes with explicit reactive surface terms (e.g., hydrogen bond reformation) and corresponding reaction rates. the dynamical evolution of the system is based on physical interactions between enzymes and cellulose. we show how the model provides insight into enzyme loading and coverage for the degradation process. the green movement ushers in a new chapter in the history of the iranian democracy movement which began with the constitutional revolution of (1905-1911). for the first time the movement is also concerned about gender equality and women's rights in the country. it would be interesting to analyze the green movement from different perspectives. looking at this movement through a gender perspective might shed light on an important dimension of the movement. a gender perspective is not only a matter of women's rights but it is broader and includes power relations in different levels. i explain in this thesis the topic through a gender perspective focusing on two areas: the power relations and women rights. women had an incredible participation in the movement such that even some western media called it 'women's revolution'ìøåàå_ in iran. women also were main actors in the movement trying to keep the green movement nonviolent. to learn more about the causes of the green movement after the election in iran through gender perspective, it might be better first to explain the ideological gaps which shape the power structure that has constituted an obstacle for women's rights in iran. the most effective ideological groups in iran are conservative religious and moderate religious groups. all the other causes of the power structure are generated from this problem and the clash among these two groups. their different views on governing and the source of law are the main sources of the clash after the presidential elections of 2009. the conservatives have a very patriarchal perspective on the power structure and women's status, while the moderates are trying to modify islam according to human rights and democracy. apart from this ideological gap in iranian society, the women's movement had an important impact on the democracy movement of iran. the women's movement began along with democracy movement with both emerging out of the constitutional revolution. it is still going on and strengthening over time. women movements' activities such as the one million signatures campaign and their big gatherings in june 2006 and 2009 could be considered as the grounds for the green movement of iran. the women's movement was also an integral component of the green movement and it is still strengthening the green movement of iran through requesting equality and fundamental rights for half of the iranian population and introducing nonviolent tactics and strategies into iranian democracy movement, the green movement. looking through a gender perspective, the authoritarian power structure of government is the outcome of a patriarchal and traditional society in which the father or husband exercises excessive authority over the family and has almost absolute power. therefore to change this structure, we need to change the family structures first. this study is on the green movement and its gender dimensions. the recent presidential election in 2009 was highly controversial. right after the announcement of the result, mehdi karoubi and mir hossein mousavi's supporters took to the streets to challenge the accuracy of the results. the protests were broad, as they managed to attract various segments of the iranian society. the islamic regime of iran responded to the protests violently. i decided to work on this topic for two reasons: 1. the movement is perceived as a new phenomenon and a remarkable development in the political history of iran with a set of unique features in comparison to previous movements and revolutions; 2. aside from some articles, little has been written on the movement from a gender perspective. although, there are a considerable number of articles on the green movement and some on its gender dimensions, i only found two books published on the movement so far. one is iran: the green movement and the usa by hamid dabashi and the other is iran: green movement written by slater bakhavar. these books also look at the movement in general, not from a gender perspective. fixed-point fast sweeping methods are a class of explicit iterative methods developed in the literature to efficiently solve steady state solutions of hyperbolic partial differential equations (pdes). as other types of fast sweeping schemes, fixed-point fast sweeping methods use the gauss-seidel iterations and alternating sweeping strategy to cover characteristics of hyperbolic pdes in a certain direction simultaneously in each sweeping order. the resulting iterative schemes have fast convergence rate to steady state solutions. moreover, an advantage of fixed-point fast sweeping methods over other types of fast sweeping methods is that they are explicit and do not involve inverse operation of any nonlinear local system. hence they are robust and flexible, and have been combined with high order accurate weighted essentially non-oscillatory (weno) schemes to solve various hyperbolic pdes in the literature. for multidimensional nonlinear problems, high order fixed-point fast sweeping weno methods still require quite large amount of computational costs. in this dissertation, we apply sparse-grid techniques, an effective approximation tool for multidimensional problems, to fixed-point fast sweeping weno method for reducing its computational costs. here we focus on fixed-point fast sweeping weno schemes with third order accuracy (zhang et al. 2006 [44]), for solving eikonal equations, an important class of static hamilton-jacobi (h-j) equations. numerical experiments on solving multidimensional eikonal equations and a more general static h-j equation are performed to show that the sparse grid computations of the fixed-point fast sweeping weno scheme achieve large savings of cpu times on refined meshes, and at the same time maintain comparable accuracy and resolution with those on corresponding regular single grids. finite state machines (fsms) and detection problems involving them are frequently encountered in digital communication systems for noisy channels. one type of fsm arises naturally in transmission over band-limited frequency-selective channels, when bits are modulated onto complex symbols using memoryless mapper and passed through a finite impulse response (fir) filter. another type of fsms, mapping sequences of information bits into longer sequences of coded bits, are the convolutional codes. the detection problem for fsms, termed decoding in the context of convolutional codes and equalization for frequency-selective channels, involve either finding the most likely input sequence given noisy observations of the output sequence (hard-output decoding), or determining a posteriori probabilty of individual information bits (soft-output decoding). these problems are commonly solved either running a search algorithm on the tree representation of all fsm sequences or by means of dynamic programming on the trellis representation of the fsm. this work presents novel approaches to decoding and equalization based on tree search. for decoding of convolutional codes, two novel supercode heuristics are proposed to guide the search procedure, reducing the average number of visited incorrect nodes. for soft-output decoding and equalization, a new approach to the generation of soft output within the m-algorithm-based search is presented. both techniques, when applied simultaneously, yield a particularly efficient soft output decoder for large-memory convolutional codes. finally, a short block code is presented, which repeated and concatenated with strong outer convolutional code yields an iteratively-decodable coding scheme with excellent convergence and minimum distance properties. with the help of the proposed soft output decoder for the outer convolutional code, this concatenation has also low decoding complexity. niemann-pick type c is a rare and fatal disease that results in the accumulation of cholesterol within lysosomes. a monogenic disorder that shows recessive inheritance, there is currently no fda approved treatment for this terrible disease. research efforts have implicated the role of the npc1 and npc2 proteins in cholesterol trafficking within lysosomes. histone deacetylase inhibitors, such as trichostatin a and vorinostat, have recently been shown to restore cholesterol homeostasis in niemann-pick type c mutant cell lines. this has been attributed to their ability to upregulate the expression of the npc1 protein.in 1997, type i polyketide natural product gex1a was shown to regulate cholesterol in a manner comparable to that of trichostatin a. unlike trichostatin a, gex1a does not impact histone acetylation. rather, gex1a modulates alternative pre-mrna splicing by targeting the sf3b subunit of the spliceosome. our laboratory determined that the novel cholesterol activity of gex1a merited further investigation within the context of niemann-pick type c.through isolation of natural gex1a from its producing organism, our laboratory has demonstrated that gex1a represents a novel therapeutic candidate for niemann-pick type c. specifically, gex1a restores cholesterol homeostasis in npc1 mutant cell lines and cells induced with the disease associated phenotype. to expand on these initial studies, our laboratory targeted novel structural analogues of gex1a through a synthetic and semi-synthetic approach, in an effort to discern the pharmacophore responsible for this unique cholesterol regulatory ability.a synthetic strategy was devised that produced two novel analogues, as well as an additional compound that had previously been disclosed in the literature. semi-synthesis of the natural product also generated a number of analogues, with a particular focus on the manipulation of the c18 hydroxyl moiety of gex1a. the efficacy of these compounds with respect to restoring cholesterol homeostasis in niemann-pick type c mutant cell lines was examined, and the data has provided valuable insights regarding the structure and activity of gex1a.ultimately, the results of these studies have demonstrated that gex1a represents a therapeutic candidate for the treatment of niemann-pick type c disease. this advocates that other natural products that modulate alternative splicing warrant further investigation as targets for the treatment of niemann-pick type c. the proliferation of personal tracking devices (e.g. smart wristband) allows for the continuous and pervasive collection of an individual's behavioral and physiological data. these sensed multi-modal streams are often chronologically ordered (e.g. time series of heart rate measurements), which we refer to as temporal multi-modal sensory data in this thesis. such data, which is from multiple sensor sources, can benefit a wide spectrum of applications, such as personality inference, wellness assessment, and demographics prediction. mining such data has also become the cornerstones of related researches and applications.however, temporal multi-modal sensory data poses its unique challenges. compared to the other chronological sequences, such as music, temporal multi-modal sensory data is more sensitive to individual characteristics, i.e, data similarities and differences. to tackle this challenge, personal features should be given particular attention when mining such data for research purposes. for example, small fluctuations in heart rate data can pose significant impacts on the data analysis, and it is important to consider recovering the personal characteristics in heart rate missing imputation. as such, this thesis aims to address the research question: how can we make full use of personal insights when modeling the temporal multi-modal sensory data?the main thrust of this dissertation focuses on advancing the personalized knowledge in temporal multi-modal sensory data mining and proposing novel solutions in their applications. specifically, we present research across the data mining end-to-end procedures, including: i. introducing personalized characteristics in data preprocessing; ii. generating the individual feature representations while capturing the temporal and semantic patterns in the data; iii. learning and aggregating the personal insights from multiple sources in various applications.this dissertation will not only provide practical solutions to address the domain-specific problems, but also emphasize the focus of personal insights when tackling the temporal sensory data. it will shed light on future research on processing and learning from temporal multi-modal sensory data. furthermore, the pervasiveness of these self-tracking devices, coupled with the methods to capture the personal traits, will serve as an important role to understand individuals and designing suited contents for them. this thesis is organized in five chapters describing the efforts towards investigating new antibacterial agents for the treatment of gram-positive and gram-negative bacterial infections. the introduction of antibiotics into medical science was deemed as one of the most important successes of the twentieth century. however, the improper and overuse of antibiotics result in antibiotic resistance, which is now recognized as a worldwide threat to the public health. the bacteria that are studied in this thesis are enterococcus faecium, pseudomonas aeruginosa and acinetobacter baumannii. e. faecium is a gram-positive bacterium; p. aeruginosa and a. baumannii are gram-negative bacteria. the centers for disease control and prevention reports that each year thousands of people die because of the e. faecium, p. aeruginosa and a. baumannii resistant infections. in this thesis, i describe the discovery of new antibiotics that originated from computational screening and their lead optimization. i also describe efforts in study of compounds that would circumvent the resistance problem. despite prohibition's repeal, a significant proportion of americans still reside in counties that prohibit the retail sale of distilled spirits. this paper examines variation in prohibitive alcohol control policies at the county-level in 1980 and 2000 as a function of a community's social context. particular attention is given to the presence of dominant cultural belief systems and varying patterns of social relations. drawing from the contextual constructionist perspective (best [1989] 1995), this paper examines objective conditions and subjective interpretation systems that facilitate claims about the problematic nature of alcohol. within the context of the new temperance era, it is found that religious institutions and measures of social homogeneity are positively related to the likelihood that a county will sustain dry policy. however, this relationship is contingent on the spatial distribution of fatal alcohol-related automobile accidents within and outside of a county. while humankind's intellectual limit is advancing forward, the implementations of large-scale systems are expanding as well. no matter whether possessing interconnected appearances, those large-scale systems are often mathematically modelled as dynamic networks which involve abundant nodes and intricate rules regarding the interaction among those nodes. hence, it can be anticipated that plentiful research concerning dynamic networks exist in literature, including studies about graph theories, multi-agent systems and materials' complicated behaviors. however, there exist few applications of frequency-domain methods to a general class of dynamic networks, mostly due to the complexity of computing their frequency response. that gap is filled by this dissertation, which shows that problem is tractable once self-similarities are leveraged and that the resultant outcomes can be further employed in dynamic networks' simulation, monitoring and control through available tools in the frequency domain. the proposed method in this work could efficiently simulate some quantities spreading over complex systems that are typically described by partial differential equations. in addition to being efficient, that method offers another degree of freedom by handling the situation where the physical properties of those complex systems are nonuniformly distributed, in which case partial differential equations are almost impossible to be solved analytically. for health monitoring, this dissertation suggests a new feature for candidate damage cases through their frequency response which can identify the existence, location and extent of the damage state. for controlling dynamic networks, this study takes advantage of the fact that the frequency response of a dynamic network is likely to form a set of neighboring plants when it is undergoing some variations in order to design a unified controller for those different situations by using robust control methods. another merit of this work is that it provides specific examples, i.e., infinite dynamic networks, where fractional and irrational transfer functions naturally come to light. that offers the possibilities for understanding the physical meaning of fractional-order derivatives and implicit operators in the future.the main motivation of this dissertation is to advocate studying dynamic networks through their frequency response. the author hopes that this work would build a bridge between monitoring and controlling complex systems and numerous frequency-domain tools. a collection of short stories, all set in michigan, often set on the great lakes. networks are used to model a wide variety of real-world systems. network alignment (na) aims to find a node mapping between networks that identifies topologically or functionally similar network regions. na has applications in many fields, including computational biology, ontology matching, language processing, and social networks. the focus of this dissertation is on na in the domain of computational biology, where na is used to align biological networks of different species, such as the species' protein interaction networks (pins). then, na can guide the transfer of biological knowledge from well-studied species to poorly-studied species between conserved (i.e., aligned) pin regions. as such, na has the potential to revolutionize our biological understanding, just as genomic sequence alignment has had.na can be categorized into pairwise and multiple. pairwise na (pna) aims to align two networks while multiple na (mna) can align more than two networks. it is hypothesized that mna might lead to deeper biological insights than pna, because mna can simultaneously capture conserved regions between more networks than pna, though at the expense of higher computational complexity. in this context, we make the following contributions. first, we introduce magna++, our novel state-of-the-art pna method. second, we introduce our new method called multimagna++, which is magna++'s equivalent for mna. we also introduce new measures of alignment quality for mna. third, since new pna or mna methods proposed in the literature are generally compared only to other methods from the same na category, we perform the first ever evaluation of pna against mna, where we shockingly find that in general pna is both more accurate and faster than mna, which has many implications for future na research. fourth, existing na methods can only align static networks. however, most of complex real-world systems evolve over time and should thus be modeled as dynamic networks. we hypothesize that aligning dynamic network representations of evolving systems will produce superior alignments compared to aligning the systems' static network representations, as is currently done. for this purpose, we introduce the first ever dynamic pna method and confirm our hypothesis. catalytic oxidation is of practical importance in many chemical processes. model single crystal surfaces are often used to study catalytic oxidations; however, even single crystal surfaces do not behave as quintessential homogeneous models. instead single crystal surfaces exhibit heterogenous catalytic behavior. one example of heterogenous catalytic behavior on a single crystal surface is the oxidation of no to no2 on the pt (111) surface. no + å_ o2 &#8594; no2 prior experiments and theory show that, at reaction conditions, the pt (111) surface is covered in atomic oxygen, the coverage of atomic oxygen is set by the pressure ratio of no to no2, dissociative oxygen adsorption (o2+2&#8727; &#8594; 2o&#8727;) is the rate determining step for no oxidation, and atomic oxygen preferentially sits in fcc hollow sites at coverage up to half a monolayer. in this work we employ planewave, supercell dft calculations, the cluster expansion model hamiltonian, and monte carlo simulations, as well as micro-kinetic modeling to study dissociative oxygen adsorption and no oxidation on transition metal (111) surfaces, including the pt (111) surface. on the pt (111) surface, we find that electronic effects create strong first nearest neighbor repulsions between atomic oxygen adsorbates and that adsorbate induced surface strain reduces these first nearest neighbor repulsions but increase long-ranged repulsions and many-bodied interactions. our micro-kinetic analysis, in contrast to prior theoretical papers, predicts rate orders and apparent activation energies consistent with experiment. we apply our models to eight transition metal (111) surfaces, counting pt (111), to gain a better understanding of catalytic phenomena. the effects of adsorbate induced surface strain are similar for all metals. additionally, these metal (111) surfaces fall into two categories: catalytically active surfaces and catalytically inactive surfaces. the kinetic properties are insensitive to the choice of catalytically active transition metal. oxygen on the catalytically active surfaces are disordered while oxygen on the catalytically inactive surfaces are ordered. this suggests that disrupting adsorbate ordering may activate catalysts at lower temperatures. we define and explore various properties of a generalization of poincaré-type kähler metrics defined on the complement of a complex hypersurface x embedded in an ambient kähler manifold n. after motivating interest in a generalization, especially from the viewpoint of extremal kähler geometry, we construct a distortion potential ψτ v christened the gnarl associated to the vector field v due to its simulation of flowing along level sets of τ in the direction of v upon approaching x. key subexponential estimates are derived to relate the gnarled metric to a starting poincaré-type metric, allowing us to prove statements about the volume and integrals of the curvatures of the gnarled metric.to relate the gnarling construction to the extremal setting, we prove a local perturbation result showing the existence of csck gnarled metrics in kähler classes near to that of a standard product metric on n \ x, providing a significant step towards developing more general openness properties for extremal gnarled metrics. we discuss the challenges of adapting the gnarl to the global situation of embedding x in a compact kähler manifold m, consider the case that n is the disk bundle of an hermitian line bundle over x, and lastly proposing some open problems and avenues for further work using gnarls. the ability to control and direct patterned evolution of tissues into a fully functional organ from isolated stem cells in vitro has been a long-lasting dream for the scientific community. once fully realized, it will be a next generation experimental platform for applications ranging from drug discovery &amp; development, cell therapy, whole organ transplant and fundamental biology studies on interorgan and intercellular signaling driving tissue growth/ regeneration and metabolic/immuno-system dynamics. moreover, it should replace time consuming, inefficient, and expensive animal-based drug screening methods which fails to accurately predict drug response in humans. therefore, motivated by these exciting opportunities, cutting edge research is being actively pursued to realize the dream and has resulted in several miniaturized organ-on-achip (ooc) as well as multi ooc devices. however, despite the exponential growth in this cutting-edge research area, the field is still in its infancy. some key challenges need to be overcome before their transition from academic labs to widescale commercial applications. these miniaturized ooc platforms must closely mimic the cellular microenvironment with required chemical/ mechanical/ electrical stimuli, proper extracellular matrix, the correct growth factor protocol to determine stem-cell fate. furthermore, the platform should allow feedback control with biosensors for signaling proteins released by the cells and molecular/chemical/mechanical/electrical actuators to stimulate and guide the cells. in this thesis, we attempt to address these challenges through the development of multiple electrokinetically driven microfluidics modules which can be integrated to form a semi-automatic ooc system with fast and sensitive protein/dna biosensors acting as a feedback loop. in chapter 1, i will review the key literature as well as introduce some concepts used throughout the texts. in chapter 2, i will present a novel microfluidics-based hearton-a-chip platform where the ion-depletion action of an ion-selective membrane is used to electrically insulate a cell colony. our unique design elevates the cell medium potential uniformly to synchronously activate and deactivate the voltage-gated ion channels of all cells. in chapter 3, i will present a technology where the tip streaming mode in an ac electrospray is utilized to encapsulate a single cell in a micron sized hydrogel (both natural and synthetic) at high throughput (~0.1 khz). the encapsulated stem cells maintained good cell viability over an extended culture period and exhibit robust differentiation potential. in chapter 4, i will present a bias-free high-throughput and highyield continuous isoelectric fractionation (cif) nanocarrier fractionation technology to purify protein nanocarriers (evs, lipoproteins and ribonucleoproteins) and dispersed proteins in cell media (or blood) based on their distinct isoelectric points. in chapter 5, i present a highly sensitive digital sensor for quantification of proteins at concentration as low as 100 am. in the last chapter, future directions are provided for each technology as well as some suggestions are made for their integration. human-machine teaming is the idea that humans and machines can provide complementary information in solving a given task such that their combination results in better performance than either individually. we implement human-machine teaming by introducing the concept of human-ai supervision. this refers to a hypothesis that humans can provide input to train better models by guiding them towards salient information and in turn these human-aided models can help future human examiners to solve the task more effectively. this dissertation aims to address the question of how to accomplish this in the context of human visual perception and deep convolutional neural networks.this document will present a series of works that outline how to effectively guide deep learning models towards human-defined regions of saliency and thus help the models to learn more generalized features (part 1 of human-ai supervision). finally, i will show that these human-guided models can aid future humans solving the task by supplying useful information about the sample (part 2 of human-ai supervision). by guiding our models to human-defined saliency, it avoids learning spurious features i.e. incidental features in the training data that do not generalize to the entire domain. results show that one sample with human saliency can be equivalent to training on multiple samples without. while this idea could theoretically be applied to any domain in which humans can provide meaningful input, for this talk it will be focused on computer vision applications, specifically post-mortem iris recognition, fake iris detection, synthetic face detection and physiological abnormality detection based on chest x-ray scans n/a american vitalism refocuses analysis of the social crises that challenged antebellum american liberalism by investigating their connection to representations of physical nature that sharply differentiated living organisms from dead matter. the new american republic promised radical liberty and prosperity to many, but this project demonstrates how this prevalent bifurcation of the material world into living and dead components contrastingly situated racialized humans and non-human animals as the naturalized economic instruments of their vitally "superior" masters. the dissertation explores how an organic formulation of life—one that envisioned living things as distinctly autonomous and internally unified—influenced the insidious identification of white american males as nature's ideal individuals, and thus as an ideal life form in an otherwise cadaverous universe. "american vitalism" utilizes an interdisciplinary and transnational methodology, uniting close readings of influential antebellum literary texts with analysis of german, french, and english scientific and philosophical works. in chapters on melville's moby-dick, edgar allan poe's the narrative of arthur gordon pym of nantucket, and the writings of native american author and activist william apess, it demonstrates how concepts of life and matter violently supported myths of autonomous caucasian male individualism. each chapter also reveals these authors' creative struggle to ambiguate the limits of life and death—of life and matter—in order to challenge antebellum individualist paradigms.situating its discussion of racial difference within an interdisciplinary discourse on the status of life and matter, "american vitalism" recasts the crisis of american liberalism as one inextricably linked to human violence against non-human nature. in chapters that investigate the worldviews of moby-dick's major caucasian characters it explores how their arrogation of a superior organic vitality to themselves produces a concomitant equation of dead matter with racial others and with the whales systematically slaughtered by the whaling industry. by bringing the european vitalist tradition into conversation with the novel, the project reinterprets moby-dick as a meditation on this diverse but shared life of nature—a nature that is neither fully opaque in its otherness, merely allegorical or symbolic, nor anthropocentric in its structure. the scanning tunneling microscope can be used to build and study synthetic systems that cannot be probed by conventional experiments. carbon monoxide molecules are arranged on the surface of a cu (111) single crystal one at a time to form potential landscapes that mimic the ionic potential of natural materials by constraining the electrons in the two-dimensional surface state of cu (111). this control over the potential landscape on a cu (111) surface simulates quantum systems with great precision. first, two synthetic rhombic penrose tiling quasicrystals were assembled, the penrose vertex model and the penrose center model, to examine how electronic states change in the presence of quasicrystalline order. while these quasicrystals have been studied extensively through tight-binding simulations and photoemission surveys, the results presented within this thesis reveal patterns in the local density of states of these quasicrystals with unprecedented detail. here evidence that the electronic behavior at atomic sites in these synthetic quasicrystals depends on both the local potential of the site and the quasiperiodic order of the structure is presented. second, the creation of synthetic molecules using quantum corrals of carbon monoxide molecules is detailed. the experimental images of electronic states in these synthetic molecules show a remarkable match to the charge distribution predicted by density functional theory calculations. additional carbon monoxide molecules were used to directly break the degeneracy in synthetic aromatic hydrocarbons, and then superposition was used to recombine the resulting kekul\'e structures. the weighted recombination of these kekul\'e structures illustrates the dependence of aromatic molecules on the individual kekul\'e structures.finally, an attempt to build a synthetic single molecule transistor by controlling the degeneracy of a synthetic molecule is outlined. the change in the molecule was directly imaged using tunneling spectroscopy, and quasiparticle scattering was utilized to visualize an electronic connection between the source and drain of our prototype single molecule transistor. taken together, the results in this thesis demonstrate excellent control over electronic states in simulated quantum systems. genomics, or the study of genome-derived data, has had widespread impact in applications including medicine, forensic science, human evolution, environmental science, and social science. the plummeting cost of genome sequencing in the last decade has spurred an exponential growth of genomic data. the rate of data generation from these sequencing techniques has outpaced computing throughput, as predicted by moore's law, causing a major bottleneck in the rate of data processing and analysis. emerging genome data is also characterized by missing and erroneous values, that reduce data fidelity and limit its applicability for downstream analysis. this forms the basis of the following research questions: (i) can we design frameworks that can expedite data analysis and enable efficient utilization of computational resources? (ii) can we develop accurate and efficient algorithms to improve data fidelity in genomic applications?we address the first problem by developing a parallel data analysis framework that accelerates large-scale comparative genomics applications. we identify that optimal data partitioning and caching significantly improve the performance of such framework. we further construct a predictive model to estimate runtime configurations that facilitate optimal utilization of cloud and cluster-based resources while executing data-intensive applications. the fidelity of genomic data derived from next-generation sequencing techniques impacts downstream applications like genome-wide association study (gwas) and genome assembly. for imputation of missing genotype data, we design an accurate, fast, and lightweight algorithm for both model (with a reference genotype panel) and non-model (without a reference genotype panel) organisms. to correct erroneous long reads generated by emerging sequencing techniques, we formulate a hybrid correction algorithm that determines a correction policy based on an optimal combination of base quality and similarity of aligned short reads. we extend the core algorithm by proposing an iterative learning paradigm that further improves its performance.our proposed data analysis framework is accessible to the scientific community and has been used to study the genomes of important plant species and malaria vector mosquitoes. the predictive models exhibit high accuracy in determining optimal parameters of operation on commercial cloud services like amazon ec2 and microsoft azure. finally, the imputation and error correction algorithms outperform state-of-the-art alternatives when tested on real data sets of plants, malarial mosquitoes, and humans. hence, in this thesis, we present novel solutions to expedite data-parallel genomic applications while optimizing cloud and cluster-based resource utilization. we also design novel, accurate, and efficient algorithms to impute missing data and correct erroneous data in emerging genomic applications. imaging is a dominant strategy for data collection in neuroscience, yielding 3d stacks of images that can scale to petabytes of data for a single experiment. machine learning-based algorithms from the computer vision domain can serve as a pair of virtual eyes that tirelessly processes these images to automatically construct more complete and realistic circuits.in practice, such algorithms are often too error-prone and computationally expensive to be immediately useful. therefore we introduce a new fast and flexible learning-free automated method for sparse segmentation and 2d/3d reconstruction of brain micro-structures.unlike supervised learning methods, our pipeline exploits structure-specific contextual clues and requires no extensive pre-training. this approach generalizes across different modalities and sample targets, including serially-sectioned scanning electron microscopy (ssem) of genetically labeled and contrast enhanced processes, spectral confocal reflectance (score) microscopy, and high-energy synchrotron x-ray microtomography (μct) of large tissue volumes. experiments on newly published and novel mouse datasets demonstrate the high biological fidelity and recall of the pipeline, as well as reconstructions of sufficient quality for preliminary biological study. compared to existing supervised methods, it is both significantly faster (up to several orders of magnitude) and produces high-quality reconstructions that are robust to noise and artifacts.after introducing this method, we enrich the software by adding more functionality to it. we use a statistical report functionality to compare different classes of microbiomes in the rodent enteric nervous system to evaluate the influence of the microbiome on the enteric nervous system as well as reconstruct 3d models to help scientists have a better understanding of the health of the model system.we also reconstruct more exotic systems like various butterfly and jumping spider species to evaluate the impact of evolution on their brains and visual systems.a true understanding of the brain lies in multi-resolution studies that incorporate both structural and functional neural data. new imaging technologies and tissue preparation techniques are enabling such studies at an unprecedented scale, allowing the same neural volume to be imaged in vivo and ex vivo. in moving between imaging modalities, however, the shape, orientation, and resolution of the volume may change, hindering cross-modality mapping.to address this, we introduce a novel volume co-registration algorithm based on graph-theoretic principles. starting with two 3d reconstructions, our method creates a graph based on object skeletons and then compares branch points to find the closest match. this results in a transformation matrix that maps one volume onto the other. we demonstrate that this method correctly co-registers two volumes within the same modality, across modalities, and across different resolution settings. notably, we are able to apply this method in sequence across volumes to co-register ssem, μct x-ray, and 2-photon microscopy images of the same neural volume. advancing the development of cheaper and faster photonic integrated circuits (pics) requires strong optical confinement, low bend loss waveguides in order to shrink component size and increase integration density. addressing this need, a self-aligned process utilizing the oxygen-enhanced wet thermal oxidation (oewto) technique developed at the university of notre dame has been successfully applied to realize deeply-etched oxide-confined gaas-based high-index-contrast (hic) ridge waveguide (rwg) structures enabling lasers with promising performance attributes. in this work, especially uniform, low surface roughness (0.2 nm) and low interface roughness (2.3 nm) native oxides grown directly on gaas are achieved, with highly specular optical properties demonstrated by the excellent performance of a quarter wave optical thickness antireflection layer. through extensive optimization of lithography, etching and oewto processes, single mode hic rwg diode lasers are demonstrated for the first time. oxidation smoothing of the semiconductor/oxide interface sidewall roughness along the propagation direction of oxide-confined hic rwg structures is directly observed through focused ion beam milling and electron microscopy. high external differential quantum efficiency (65%), stable single-mode, high beam quality (m^2~1.2), ~880 nm wavelength graded index separate confinement heterostructure (grinsch) hic rwg laser diodes are fabricated and characterized. notably, a circularly symmetric output beam hic rwg laser is achieved for the first time, overcoming the traditional asymmetric, highly elliptical beam divergence limitation of edge-emitting lasers and well surpassing the ~2 mw maximum power of current symmetric single mode vertical cavity surface emitting lasers. this single mode device exhibits a total optical output power as high as 101 mw, with a threshold current of 81 ma and slope efficiency of 0.92 w/a (without heatsinking and under pulsed operation). the oxide-confined deeply-etched 3.25 µm wide ridge produces a single mode laser with a 1.88 µm 1/e^2 near-field mode width and full width half maximum (fwhm) far field divergence of 29.95° and 29.71° in the fast and slow axes, respectively. with detailed stripe width dependence studies, we highlight the performance improvements relative to our prior oxide-confined hic rwg devices and fully characterize the multi-mode to single-mode transition behavior. wider 4.5 µm ridge width devices are observed to operate with single spatial mode output powers up to 166 mw. finally, significant optimization of the oewto process for ingaas and inp-based laser heterostructures is also demonstrated. most of the processes required to apply the oewto process to the fabrication of inp-based quantum cascade lasers (qcls) have been fully explored and implemented, with issues regarding a remaining contact window etch process characterized and discussed. the actinides are a series of f-block inner transition metals, and are primarily used in the production of nuclear power. nuclear power is plentiful, safe, and does not involve the emission of toxic greenhouse gases. therefore, it has the potential to be a transitionary fuel as society moves away from the use of nonrenewable sources of energy. however, the long-term fate of nuclear waste is a major concern. knowledge of the solution-phase thermodynamic behavior of actinides is essential for the design of advanced separation processes used to recycle the fuel. therefore, it is important to understand and be able to control actinides at the nanoscale.the actinides are particularly well-suited for molecular simulation studies. due to their radioactivity, actinides present an significant experimental hazard. in addition, thermodynamic properties of important transuranic compounds like neptunium and plutonium are relatively scarce. molecular simulation can help fill in this data gap. finally, molecular simulation can provide an atomic-scale understanding of a chemical process that would difficult or impossible to observe experimentally. thermophysical properties like free energies, stability constants, and diffusivities can be determined from the simulations.since uo2 and npo2 are commonly found species in the nuclear fuel cycle, we first studied the complexation of these ions with a variety of ionic ligands. in the event that nuclear waste is accidentally discharged into an aquifer, knowledge of the stability of actinyl-ligand complexes would be crucial. therefore, we first used molecular dynamics simulations to calculate the potential of mean force between two actinyl ions (uo2(2+) and npo2(+)) and various ligands (f-, cl-, oh-, no3-, so4(2-), co3(2-), na+, and h2o) in explicitly-modeled aqueous solution. equilibrium constants were calculated, and are consistent with experimental trends. dication actinyls show stronger affinity for anions compared to monocation actinyls, whereas the opposite is true for cation-cation interactions between actinyls. finally, the dynamics of actinyl-ligand contact ion pair dissociation were characterized by calculating rate constants from transition state theory. the transmission coefficient, a dynamical correction factor used to correct for reaction barrier recrossing, was calculated for each actinyl-ligand dissociation event.simple actinyl ions can self-assemble in water to form nanoclusters. the nanoclusters are formed from the self-assembly of uranyl ions in aqueous solution and consist of 20-124 uranium polyhedra, with diameters ranging from 1.5 to 4.0 nm. the nanoclusters carry an overall negative charge ranging from -20 to -60, which is balanced by cations in solution. nanoclusters have a promising future in designing advanced nuclear cycles, where they can be filtered out due to their size, thus avoiding the usage of any liquid-liquid extraction processes. this technology could considerably reduce the amount of nuclear waste for final disposal.the nanoclusters can further assemble into tertiary structures. it was recently discovered by burns et al. that the type of tertiary structure formed depends upon the valency of the charge-balancing cations. when neutralized with divalent cations (ca(2+)), the nanoclusters aggregate into spherical macroassemblies known as ``blackberries", consisting of hundreds of individual nanoclusters. however, in the presence of monovalent salt (k+), the nanoclusters form elongated structures. the exact role of the cations in this process is not well understood experimentally.we sought to accurately determine the binding sites of water and various cations (li+, na+, k+, rb+, cs+, and ca(2+)) to the u20 nanocluster, and to better understand how the identity of the cation affects nanocluster aggregation. we first developed a new classical force field for the simulation of u20 nanoclusters in explicitly-modeled water using a combination of lennard-jones and coloumb potentials. molecular dynamics was used to determine the preferred binding sites of the cations. replica exchange molecular dynamics was used to ensure equilibration and ultimately determine the equilibrium distribution of cations and water around the nanocluster. in addition, the free energy barrier associated with a cation entering the nanocluster was computed. finally, the association of two u20 nanoclusters was explored by free energy calculations. the free energy of association was found to vary greatly with the valency of the charge balancing cations.in this dissertation, solutions of actinyl ions and nanoclusters are studied using classical molecular simulation techniques. thermodynamic properties of actinyl solutions were computed and corroborate experiments, and predictions are made where experimental data is lacking. these studies support the goal of obtaining nanoscale control of the actinides, which is crucial for the advancement of nuclear power generation, human health, and the environment. link prediction is succinctly stated as identifying unobserved links in a network. it has important applications ranging from recommending beneficial relationships in social networks to discovering new protein-protein interactions in biological networks. this dissertation primarily focuses on link prediction in homogeneous, single-relational networks, but it also introduces new techniques for handling multi-relational networks. we identify what we view as the three principal components of effective link prediction: high-performance algorithms and methods, proper evaluation, and computational scalability. performance is the natural requirement that the predictive models provide usably correct outputs. evaluation is the surprisingly difficult question of how to determine the correctness of a model in order to compare models and develop an expectation of effectiveness in real deployment. computational scalability is necessary to obtain output from a link prediction framework in a reasonable amount of time on large networks. each of these three components poses significant challenges, and it is reasonable to say that any of these challenges individually can stand in the way of the proliferation of link prediction techniques for useful research and domain applications. early-life experiences have profound effects on the health, survival, and fitness of many mammalian species, including humans. these consequences are thought to emerge as a byproduct of adaptive processes during development (i.e., adaptive developmental plasticity). to date, two leading, non-mutually exclusive models of adaptive developmental plasticity have been proposed. the developmental constraints model posits that organisms experiencing poor early environments make tradeoffs that promote survival in early life. these tradeoffs lead to poor somatic quality in adulthood, reflected in delayed maturity, low fertility, and shorter lifespans. in contrast, the internal predictive adaptive response (ipar) model posits that organisms use harsh early environments to predict their own poor somatic state in adulthood. accordingly, they accelerate their life history to account for shorter life expectancies. discovering which model dominates is critical to understanding evolved responses to early adversity in long-lived species, and how early-life environments shape individual life-history trajectories, health, aging, and fitness.the objective of my dissertation is to test the evolutionary, developmental, and aging-related consequences of early-life adversity. to accomplish this objective, i utilize long-term, individual-based data from a wild population of baboons (\emph{papio cynocephalus}) monitored by the amboseli baboon research project in kenya. specifically, i leverage demographic, environmental, social, reproductive, and hormonal data that have been collected for thousands of individuals over the last 52 years. for my first data chapter, i used these data to show that accelerating reproduction is not an adaptive response to early-life adversity. instead, females only benefited from reproductive acceleration if they also led long lives. my results raise doubts that accelerated reproduction is an adaptive response to early adversity in baboons and other long-lived, slow-reproducing species. for my second data chapter, i applied machine learning to several long-term data sets on the amboseli baboons to create a non-invasive physio-behavioral aging clock and tested the effects of early adversity on biological aging. i found that early-life adversity is associated with accelerated behavioral and physiological aging, and in turn, accelerated behavioral and physiological aging is associated with short lifespans. these results offer a new, non-invasive tool for measuring biological aging and provide a potential mechanism through which experiences early in life manifest in adulthood. for my third data chapter, i created a bayesian survival model to estimate the impact the early-life adversity has on survival rates for adult males and females. i found no evidence that early-life adversity has stronger effects on male survival compared to female survival. these results suggest that males of polygynandrous species are not always more negatively impacted by early-life adversity, despite the fact that they have increased energy requirements during development. together, my research furthers our understanding of the long-term consequences of early-life adversity and how evolution has shaped organismal responses to early-life adversity. a search for the lepton flavor violating decay of the higgs boson to a muon and a hadronically decaying tau lepton is presented. the search uses 19.7 fb\ extsuperscript{-1} of $\sqrt{s} = 8$ tev proton-proton collision data collected by the compact muon solenoid. limits on the branching fraction are combined with those from a similar search with an electronically decaying tau to set a 95\% cl limit on $b(h \ o \mu \ au) &lt; 1.51\%$. the branching fraction limit is transformed to a limit on yukawa couplings $\sqrt{|y_{\mu \ au}|^{2}+|y_{\ au \mu}|^{2}} &lt; 3.6 \ imes 10^{-3}$. these limits are an order of magnitude stronger than existing constraints set by indirect methods. a slight excess of signal events is observed in multiple categories with a combined significance of 2.4 $\sigma$ corresponding to a best fit branching fraction of $b(h \ o \mu \ au) = 0.84^{+0.39}_{-0.37}\%$. modern electronic devices and electrified vehicles rely heavily on the use of li-ion batteries. a battery with a solid electrolyte would be a safer alternative to current li-ion technologies utilizing organic liquid electrolytes. the stuffed lithium garnet with the nominal composition of li7la3zr2o12 (llzo) is of great interest in as a solid electrolyte owing to its stability against metallic lithium and lithium ionic conductivity of over 5x10-4 s/cm.an approach for tape casting and sintering of substituted li7la3zr1.75nb.25al.1o12 (llznbo) sheets suitable for use in solid state battery development is described. the use of li3bo3 as a sintering aid in both pellet and cast tape samples is examined. 150-175 micron thick llznbo +0.5% li3bo3 tapes sintered at 1000oc for 6 hours exhibited ionic conductivity values of 2-3x10-4 s/cm.sintering of tape cast llznbo sheets at 1050oc without mother powder covering at low levels of lithium loss is performed. the addition of 3%wt. of nano-sized mgo is found to increase sintered tape sheet and pellet density while restricting grain growth and promoting a more homogeneous microstructure. pellets of llznbo with 3%wt. mgo demonstrate density of up to 94% of theoretical and ionic conductivity of 3.6x10-4 s/cm.the addition of an interfacial layer of zinc was found to promote wetting of the llznbo surface but its impact on a li/llznbo/li cell's interfacial resistance and critical current density was indeterminate. the quality of the li/llznbo interface is found to be the most important factor in determining the critical current density (ccd) of a symmetric cell in pellet studies with higher interfacial resistivity predicting low ccd.interaction between llznbo and several cathode materials, including licoo2, is observed at temperatures of &gt;900oc required for co-sintering of a composite cathode. a process for attaching a licoo2 cathode to a sintered llznbo sheet through the melting of li3bo3 is proposed. licoo2 is, however, found to undergo reduction during annealing in an argon atmosphere at the required temperatures.finally, several recommendations are made for implementing a solid-state battery with an llznbo electrolyte along with avenues for improving the electrode/electrolyte interfaces and the properties of the electrolyte itself. this dissertation explores the transmission and reception of roman epigraphic poetry in early-medieval england, using intensive source-study analysis to demonstrate its profound influence on native anglo-saxon literary culture. the texts considered here include the full corpus of anglo-latin poetry up to the beginning of the ninth century, as well as the vernacular old english poem beowulf. beginning with the history of epigraphic writing in the west and the anglo-saxons' first-hand experience in rome of this rich poetic inheritance, it demonstrates the ubiquitous presence of the epigraphic genre throughout the entirety of the early anglo-latin literary milieu. the dissertation also shows how roman verse inscriptions not only influenced works composed by anglo-saxon authors in latin, but also infiltrated their vernacular poetry in significant ways. understanding the full story of how the anglo-saxons appropriated and adapted for their own ends this portion of rome's literary patrimony is critical on at least two fronts. it fundamentally enlarges our conception of the anglo-saxons' literary horizons, and allows us to appreciate this material as holding every bit as important a place in the early-medieval curriculum as the latin classroom poets. it also provides a window into the fledgling english church's engagement with the culture of a specifically roman form of christianity. as a distinct genre in which the concepts of romanitas, the church, the cult of the saints, and episcopal identity potently intersect, roman inscriptions offered anglo-saxon authors a variety of ways, and the language to express and negotiate, their own relationship to these ideas. that the anglo-saxons should utilize this material to help articulate their own historical identity is fitting, for this is exactly what both pagan and christian romans before them sought to do. how the anglo-saxons did so constitutes a vital aspect of their literary culture, and one well deserving of its own fully-fledged investigation. pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (pdac) has a 5-year survival rate of 8%. this dismal outlook is largely due to the inability to diagnose pdac before metastasis occurs. with 52% of patients being diagnosed at metastatic stage, there is a critical need to better understand the mechanisms of metastatic progression in this disease. one hallmark of pdac is inflammation. while many studies have focused on elucidating the mechanisms by which inflammation drives pdac progression, few have focused on the role inflammation plays in metastasis. using a novel inflammation-driven mouse model of pdac, a subset of genes was uncovered that not only were regulated by increased inflammation, but also correlated with poor pdac patient prognosis. the overall goal of this research was to investigate the role and regulation of one of the genes found in this subset that is involved in metastatic progression, namely, metastasis suppressor protein 1 (mtss1). it was established that loss of mtss1 leads to increased invasion and migration in pdac cells. moreover, cells treated with cancer-associated fibroblast-conditioned media also have increased metastatic potential, which is augmented by mtss1 loss. additionally, overexpression of mtss1 in pdac cells leads to a loss of migratory potential in vitro and an increase in overall survival in vivo. furthermore, a novel regulatory mechanism for the stabilization of mtss1 via the tumor suppressor protein, phosphatase and tensin homolog deleted on chromosome 10 (pten) was discovered. the data show that pten loss results in increased metastatic potential and decreased mtss1 expression in vitro. furthermore, it was found that ectopic mtss1 expression rescues this effect. additionally, it was demonstrated that pten forms a complex with mtss1, stabilizing it from proteasomal degradation. finally, it was shown that the inflammatory tumor microenvironment, which makes up over 90% of pdac tumor bulk, is capable of downregulating pten expression, potentially uncovering a novel extrinsic mechanism of mtss1 regulation. collectively, these data offer both new insight into the role and regulation of mtss1 in suppressing tumor cell invasion and migration as well as a different glimpse as to what molecular mechanisms could be leading to early cell dissemination in pdac. egyptian pro-democracy activists mobilized two major uprisings in recent years: one ending hosni mubarak's decades-long rule in february 2011, and the other precipitating a coup against newly-elected president mohamed morsi in july 2013. prior research indicates that nonviolent campaigns succeed more often and are more likely to result in democracy than armed insurgencies. the theory, in essence, is that nonviolent campaigns better facilitate popular participation, which simultaneously serves to mobilize more potent campaigns and encourage democratic governance. but that explanation is inadequate when civil resistance has mixed outcomes, as in the case of egypt. therefore, this dissertation shifts the analytical perspective to the processes of contentious political transitions in which civil resistance campaigns are embedded. it focuses on the years 2010 through 2015 in egypt, using the two major uprisings as a paired comparison to develop the theorized linkage between civil resistance and democratization. it finds that civil resistance in egypt operated through multiple mechanisms that interacted dynamically over time and were sensitive to changes in the wider structure of political relations. the performance of modern computers is limited due to their heat dissipation. even though, following moore's law, the number of transistors in microprocessors keeps increasing, their speeds have been capped around 4 ghz for almost two decades to limit heat generation. such speeds are well below the rc time constant limit of the circuits, sacrificing speed to prevent the chips from melting since traditional cmos circuits dissipate power on every switching in the form of heat. reversible computing is a viable alternative to traditional circuit implementations since it reduces heat generation by avoiding unnecessary dissipation, therefore introducing a trade-off between speed and power. by using reversible logic and switching the circuits slowly (adiabatically), relative to their rc time constants, power can be dramatically reduced.the most developed approach to reversible computing is adiabatic cmos which changes the cmos power supplies to ramping clocks, and operates them adiabatically, but its lowest energy dissipation is still limited by passive power, the energy wasted due to leakage current caused simply by applying a voltage to the circuit. a new approach, adiabatic capacitive logic (acl), implements reversible computing by using variable capacitors as pull-up and pull-down networks. acl eliminates leakage current and therefore is not limited by passive power. acl variable capacitors can be implemented using microelectromechanical machines (mems). this work presents the design and fabrication of adiabatic capacitive logic mems devices that pave the way to implement adiabatic reversible computing not limited by leakage. a radio frequency (rf) reflectometry system is used to measure the capacitance change in acl mems devices. the rf reflectometry system includes a custom-made rf micromanipulator probe with an on-board matching network to match the impedance of the mems devices. a low-frequency measurement technique is also used to measure the variable capacitance. this work presents the first experimental implementation of gap-closing mems for adiabatic reversible computing. adiabatic reversible logic devices require ramping clocks to implement reversible computing. therefore, a complete adiabatic reversible computing system needs to consider the implementation of adiabatic ramping clocks. this work presents mems piezoelectric resonators as an efficient approach to implement ramping clocks for reversible computing that not only supply charge to the logic but can also recycle the energy used by the logic. the two different mems devices presented in this work pave the way for a complete system for reversible computing that includes both the adiabatic reversible logic and the required ramping clocks. part 1: mtbindingsim mtbindingsim is a program that simulates binding curves for proteins binding to microtubules. the operation of the program, the experimental methods it simulates, and the protein binding mechanisms it models are described. experimental data are used to demonstrate the utility of mtbindingsim for experimental design and data interpretation. the use of mtbindingsim as an educational tool is discussed, with the result that students found the program useful but were confused by its terminology. this result led to the creation of bindingtutor, a similar program that models general protein-ligand binding. part 2: yeast-based biosensors for environmental monitoring the development of small continuous culture devices for growing yeast and their application as environmental sensors is described. the systems can be used to detect toxins, phosphate, and mutagens. the development of a prototype, field-deployable sensor and the results of testing it in a lab setting are discussed. perchlorate is a ubiquitous water contaminant that inhibits thyroid function. standards for perchlorate in drinking water range from 2 to 18 µg l-1 in united states and europe. a major natural source of perchlorate contamination is chile saltpeter, found in the atacama desert in chile.this dissertation starts by providing a literature review on the unique situation of perchlorate contamination in chile. the review discusses perchlorate sources, presence in environmental media and in the human population, possible steps to mitigate its health impacts, and opportunities for bioprospecting. microbial degradation is a promising strategy to remediate perchlorate, as it is reduced to innocuous chloride and oxygen. however, perchlorate is typically found in the µg/l range, and exerts a weak selective pressure for perchlorate-reducing bacteria (prb). also, nitrate can inhibit perchlorate reduction, so low nitrate levels are needed. low nitrate levels can favor sulfate-reducing bacteria (srb). sulfate reduction has also been related to inhibition of perchlorate reduction. thus, the overarching goal of this research was to devise strategies to enrich prb when perchlorate is at low concentrations, together with inhibition of sulfate reduction. the proposed strategy was the addition of the perchlorate analogs chlorate or chlorite. both are intermediates in the perchlorate reduction pathway, and could have a stronger selective pressure for prb and also inhibit srb. the addition of chlorate and chlorite was tested in a hydrogen-based membrane biofilm reactor (h2-mbfr). in this type of reactor, h2 is supplied as electron donor through a hollow fiber membrane and bacteria grow on the surface using nitrate, perchlorate and others as electron acceptors. chlorate was added for 30 days to a h2-mbfr reducing oxygen, nitrate, perchlorate and sulfate. before chlorate addition, nitrate and perchlorate were reduced to low levels, but after 17 days sulfate reduction took place, leading to a decrease in perchlorate reduction. when chlorate was added, it increased perchlorate reduction and decreased sulfate reduction. interestingly, analysis of the microbial community with 16s rrna high-throughput sequencing suggested that the srb (desulfovibrionaceae) relative abundance increased. this was probably due to their role in sulfur cycling, although it cannot be ruled out that they played a role in chlorate reduction. to further understand the effect of chlorate on the microbial community, we tested chlorate addition in a h2-mbfr reducing nitrate, perchlorate and sulfate with similar bulk concentrations as before, but the bulk chlorate concentration was 10 times higher. although the effect on perchlorate could not be evaluated, chlorate exerted a strong selective pressure for prb, doubling the abundance of dechloromonas, a common genus of prb. as before, our results suggest that chlorate addition inhibited sulfate reduction.to understand the effect of chlorite, we initially determined the potential of chlorite to serve as an indirect electron acceptor and support bacterial growth, as it is dismutated to o2 during perchlorate metabolism. this was successfully proven by first determining o2 production and consumption rates after chlorite additions to prb and crb enrichments. subsequently, the bacterial growth on chlorite was also demonstrated by measurements of the optical density of prb and crb cultures. finally, we evaluated the selective pressure of chlorite in a h2-mbfr reducing nitrate, perchlorate and sulfate. this showed that chlorite had a minor selective pressure. this research provided evidence that adding chlorate and chlorite to a perchlorate h2-mbfr improved perchlorate reduction. although it should be further studied, the results suggest this strategy could be helpful, particularly in the case of chlorate. in this dissertation, i develop a socio-cultural framework for explaining anti-corruption crusades, understood as widespread efforts from investigative bureaucracies to investigate, prosecute, and convict corporate and political elites. prior explanations typically focus either on factors exogenous to investigative bureaucracies, such as economic shocks and political will, or on organizational-level factors, such as the autonomy of prosecutors vis-à-vis politicians. my socio-cultural approach complements these accounts and is structured on two components: a focus on the group-level culture of prosecutors, which contrasts with prior studies that typically focus on cross-national or organizational-level analyses, and a socio-relational understanding of prosecutors and judges as embedded between state and society, in contrast with the predominant view that the judiciary is insulated from civil society and in particular from social movements. this dissertation focuses on brazil, leveraging different within-country comparative designs, as well as a mixed-methods approach that combines qualitative and quantitative data sources. specifically, i draw on three distinct and original data sources: a) 130 in-depth interviews with judicial agents, b) an original dataset of appeals of corruption cases (n=1,136) constructed through supervised machine learning, and c) an original online experiment in which respondents were randomly assigned to watch videos that simulate a prosecutors' press conference where prosecutors use different frames when calling for public support (n=2,060). i argue that a socio-cultural approach to anti-corruption prosecutions contributes to existing accounts by 1) uncovering new causal drivers that were overlooked by prior studies, such as prosecutors' communication and decision-making practices at the group level; 2) highlighting the importance of looking at new outcomes, such as prosecutors' decisions to pay attention to some issues to the detriment of others; and 3) specifying the conditions under which already known causal drivers, such as prosecutors' outreach efforts, affect public attitudes toward corruption. in this way, my dissertation unpacks the work that prosecutors and judges do on the ground to criminalize corruption, and contributes to a more complete understanding of anti-corruption crusades. two modulation techniques are studied in this thesis, quadrature amplitude modulation (qam) and continuous phase modulation (cpm). these modulation schemes in the presence of amplifier nonlinearity and hostile transmission environments are analyzed as a complete system using simulation to determine relative performance. a fair comparison of these two modulation techniques is carried out, demonstrating the tradeoffs between spectral efficiency and power efficiency of these two techniques. this thesis also presents an idea of nonuniform qam constellations, which can potentially improve bit-error-rate performance in the presence of phase noise. an optimal nonuniform qam constellation is designed to be adaptive to the actual probability distribution of the received symbols. both analytical results and simulation results show that nonuniform constellations are superior to uniform constellations in the presence of phase noise. atherosclerosis is one of the leading causes of mortality and morbidity in western countries and high total cholesterol and high low-density lipoprotein (ldl) cholesterol levels are associated with the development of atherosclerosis. soy intake has been documented to reduce the risk of heart disease by lowering blood cholesterol levels. isoflavone-containing soyfood products and supplements are commercially available and promoted to treat several different health conditions including improving blood lipid profiles. the transport and metabolism of most xenobiotics are affected by the drug transporters and metabolizing enzymes in the liver and small intestine and the expression of these genes affect the potency of drugs or xenobiotics. cytochrome p450s (cyps) are important phase i drug-metabolizing enzymes in the liver and the expression levels of cyp1, 2, and 3 subfamilies are the rate-limiting factor for the turnover of many drugs. the cholesterol-lowering statins may be metabolized by different cyps. among the isoforms, cyp3a4 is responsible for nearly 54% of all drug-turnover and is considered most important. there is evidence showing that soy isoflavones may affect the expression of some of the genes in drug metabolism pathways. my project is focused on the effect of isoflavones on cyp1a2, 2c9, 3a4, as model isoforms of cyps, and the identification of other genes pertaining to drug transport and biotransformation whose expression is affected by isoflavones. we have found that isoflavones upregulate cyp3a4 expression; and equol, a metabolite of daidzein, appears to be a most potent inducer of cyp3a4. similarly, isoflavones also induce the expression of cyp1a2, but not cyp2c9. using gene screening methods, two drug transporters, three phase i enzymes, and two phase ii enzymes were identified to be induced by isoflavones in human hepatocytes exposed to isoflavones. cyp8b1, a gene encoding an enzyme at a branch point in the bile acid synthesis pathway appears to be an important target gene activated by isoflavones. furthermore, an interaction between isoflavones and statins appears to affect cyp3a4 gene transcription and cellular lipid metabolism. taken together, the isoflavones are able to affect the complex drug metabolism pathways and these in-vitro interactions of isoflavones with statins suggest clinical studies are warranted. people often pursue multiple goals and occupy overlapping social roles simultaneously. this occurs against the backdrop of strict psychological and physical limitations. in other words, we want to do a lot with a little. one way to navigate this tension is to scatter agency. this requires putting things on hold to pursue other opportunities at the right time, all while remembering to come back to previously undertaken endeavors when appropriate. this opens up the need for a capacity to manage psychological resources implicated in acting over time. in this project, i call this capacity vigilance and outline the role that it plays in managing first-order psychological capacities such as memory and attention.i focus on the relationship between vigilance and other psychological constructs (attention, memory, self-control, and mind wandering) as well as normative concepts (responsibility). while the main aim of the current project is to illuminate the nature and function of vigilance, focusing on vigilance has implications for thinking about the structure of human agency. in particular, the theory of vigilance outlined here explains self-control limitations without appealing to limited resource consumption. this also furnishes a more nuanced account of the role that motivation plays in action. additionally, i conclude by outlining a robust empirical research program that falls out of the conceptual account of vigilance outlined here. future work will follow up on this program in an effort to confirm the theory or identify potential areas of refinement. staging methods and clinical assessments including the hoehn and yahr scale (h&amp;y), mds unified parkinson's disease rating scale (mds-updrs), dean woodcock neuropsychological assessment system (dwnas), and the neurobehavioral functioning inventory (nfi) are among the current gold standards for doctors and clinicians in the preliminary assessment and monitoring of individuals with neurodegenerative diseases. recently, a transition of clinical assessments to mobile devices for the benefits of their configurable built-in sensors, scoring, interpretation, and storage capabilities has occurred. as mobile technology becomes increasingly accepted in healthcare among both users and clinicians, the ability to use device capabilities (e.g., device positional data and screen interactions) for subject monitoring also increases. with this transition of pen-and-paper style clinical tests to mobile platforms, the current "gold standard" of testing must be updated to include these new beneficial, objective, capabilities. the primary goal of this dissertation was the formation and implementation of a usable and more comprehensive mobile-based neurocognitive digital health assessment system (ndhas) for the objective evaluation of neurocognitive functions and subsequent formation of personalized intervention protocols as they relate to individuals with neurodegenerative diseases. the proposed approach included updating previous versions of testing for a usable, comprehensive, systematic implementation of mobile technology. this systematic approach included the implementation of a mobile device's sensors and user device interactions in addition to patient reported outcomes. all collected data was then interpreted using statistical analysis and machine learning methods to allow for higher-quality, objective, longitudinal analysis. this new standard is intended to aid clinicians in the accurate and objective diagnosis of neurological conditions, monitor the development of symptom-specific deficits over time, while providing individuals with efficient, evidence-based, personalized, rehabilitation programs. object re-identification is a common task in computer vision, a certain object's (person, wildlife, vehicle, etc.) image of interest is used to match against a large gallery of images to determine if the object has already been observed by a network of cameras with non-overlapping viewpoints at different time and location. conventionally, researchers in the computer vision community have proposed various hand-crafted features for the re-identification problem. despite all these research efforts, re-identification remains a challenging problem due to the fact that an object's appearance can change significantly when uncontrolled variations in illumination, occlusion, resolution, pose, view angle, and background clutter are involved. as an instance of object re-identification, person re-identification has drawn increasing interest due to its wide applications. in this dissertation, we explore general mechanisms to model data relationship for the problem. the ability for wild animal researchers to re-identify an animal identity upon re-encounter is crucial for wildlife conservation. the accurate re-identification of individual animal identities requires a considerable amount of training time for them to obtain expert skills. to expedite the process, we leverage the advancement in person re-identification research to develop a novel computer vision and cloud-based serverless wildlife identification framework and build a painted dog identification system based on the framework. however, the designed attention mechanisms are designed from the root of solving object re-identification problems, they are also deep learning mechanisms with the capability of solving other problems. the attention mechanisms are versatile for solving a multi-label text classification problem, which takes advantage of the attention mechanism's capability of modeling pair-wise relationships to model the text representations and label representations. overall, this dissertation is motivated by wildlife conservation to address the object re-identification problem. the goal of the research is to advance the state-of-the-art object re-identification research, which not only has an impact on harnessing the power of ai for better wildlife conservation, but also has broader impacts on other machine learning problems beyond object re-identification. the technology of dedicated short range communication provides a cost-effective alternative to construct a futuristic accident-free traffic system by connecting vehicles, infrastructures and pedestrians wirelessly. the fundamental concept is to enable information exchange between different road participants so that enhanced awareness of traffic situation is obtained. human errors which are the primary contributor to traffic accidents will be mitigated and improved road safety can be achieved. this dissertation focuses on dsrc-based safety communications between vehicles which by default send up to ten messages every second using the maximum transmission power. these messages, without regulation, may saturate the channel, leading to significant packet loss and reduced message throughput. from the perspective of safety applications, this indicates deteriorated accuracy in vehicle tracking, resulting in inconsistent user experience. this dissertation proposed several techniques to improve the scalability performance of dsrc. we leveraged adaptation of several control parameters including transmission power, message rate of a dsrc device to prevent channel from being saturated. these algorithms are demonstrated to achieve a better utilization of channel bandwidth and lead to supreme application performance than the existing dsrc communication scheme in a wide range of vehicle-density environments. in many species, the process of ovarian follicle selection is the rate-limiting step by which a species-specific number of follicles are designated to form mature oocytes in the reproductively active female. selected follicles then transition from an undifferentiated to a differentiated state. this thesis addresses the hypothesis that coordinately timed cell-signaling events are requisite for the onset of differentiation, resulting from a release from inhibitory signaling in combination with stimulatory cell signaling events. the hen provides an excellent model to study granulosa cell differentiation based on large follicle size and easy access to pure populations of granulosa cells from all stages of follicle development. treatment of undifferentiated granulosa cells with transforming growth factor (tgf)&#946;1 increased fshr mrna and enhanced fsh-induced progesterone production. dissimilar results were obtained with the related protein, activin, as high levels of the endogenous activin binding protein, follistatin, precluded activin-mediated transcription. the differentiation-inducing effects of tgf&#946;1 were attenuated by activation of erk signaling. while erk signaling inhibited tgf&#946;1 induced differentiation, it up-regulated tgf&#946;1 mrna, indicating that alleviation of erk signaling is requisite for tgf&#946;1 induced differentiation. results also indicate that erk up-regulates mapk phosphatases (mkps) mkp-1 and -3, as well as dual specificity phosphatase (dusp)-5. in turn, erk signaling is terminated, allowing tgf&#946;1 to initiate differentiation. while erk signaling inhibits differentiation in granulosa cells from undifferentiated follicles, it becomes required for differentiation in preovulatory follicles. this transition occurs post-follicle selection, as results from the 9-12mm (most recently selected) follicle indicate that erk signaling inhibits steroidogenesis at this stage. significantly, while previous work has demonstrated that protein kinase c (pkc) inhibits differentiation in granulosa cells from prehierarchal follicles, results herein demonstrate that pkc activity is required for differentiation of granulosa cells in preovulatory follicles. unlike erk signaling, the requirement for pkc signaling occurs concurrent with follicle selection, as cells treated with a pkc inhibitor in combination with gonadotropin failed to produce progesterone in the most recently selected follicle. in summary, these data support the hypothesis that alleviation from inhibitory signaling is required for granulosa cell differentiation. however, these results also indicate that the removal of inhibitory signaling is transient, as indicated by the requirement for erk and pkc signaling in the latter, preovulatory stage. religion, revolution, and the realm of the literary in twentieth-century central american prose is a study of twentieth-century fictional and nonfictional works written in and about el salvador, guatemala, mexico, and nicaragua, emphasizing the relationship between church and state during times of revolutionary conflict. past scholarship on many of these works has tended to examine them primarily in the context of indigenous, pre-columbian influences and has paid relatively little attention to the overwhelmingly catholic context of their production. this study, in contrast, engages the ecclesiastical content of such texts alongside indigenous themes to make possible a more complete and more nuanced reading. a key aspect of the argument is that these works deploy liturgical language to disrupt the discourse of a state that tries to dominate and control human subjectivity and, more specifically, that the eucharist serves to articulate social mobilization through language that unites the discrete parts of a social body against domination by hegemonic forces. accordingly, a grammar of the eucharist is elaborated to facilitate a reading of the church's historical relationship with both reactionary and revolutionary elements as represented in works by authors including miguel ángel asturias, rosario castellanos, manlío argueta, óscar romero, and ernesto cardenal. the theoretical points of departure include twentieth-century sources ranging from theologians such as william t. cavanaugh, gustavo gutiérrez, herbert mccabe, and johann baptist metz to philosophers such as giorgio agamben and louis althusser. in line with the study's transnational approach, the historical particularities of each of the four countries are explored in detail, and the inclusion of nonfictional texts demonstrates that the social mobilization articulated through the eucharist is not merely metaphorical or symbolic, since the liturgy has sometimes served as a site of actual historical resistance to violent oppression. in this investigation a robotic system's dynamic performance is optimized for high reliability under uncertainty. the dynamic capability equations (dce) allow designers to predict the dynamic performance of a robotic system for a particular configuration and reference point on the end-effector (i.e.,point design). here the dce are used in conjunction with a reliability-based design optimization (rbdo) strategy in order to obtain designs with robust dynamic performance with respect to the end-effector reference point and additionally with respect to changing configurations with a fixed operational point. the workspace is characterized to determine the actuator inputs required to achieve a desired level of performance over a chosen percentage of configurations. in this work a unilevel performance measure approach (pma) is used to perform rbdo. this is important for the reliable design of robotic systems in which a solution to the dce is required for each constraint call. the method is illustrated on a robot design problem. the stability of resilience of 144 adolescent mothers from pregnancy through 10 years after first becoming a mother was examined. there was considerable instability in resilience during the transition to adulthood: only 38% of mothers maintained the same resiliency status across time. three prenatal constructs &ndash; cognitive resources, school involvement and success, and adjustment &ndash; were used to predict resilience and evaluate its mediational role in maternal outcomes. each of three predictor constructs were related to maternal adjustment, socioeconomic status and child abuse potential. additionally, resilience at 5 years mediated the relationships between prenatal characteristics and subsequent outcomes, suggesting that early success in educational attainment, employment, and socioemotional adjustment is the path through which important prenatal characteristics influence 10 year life outcomes. cortisol effects on emotional and neutral memory consolidation are mixed, and both cortisol and emotion elicit selective memory processing. our study manipulated post encoding cortisol between subjects using a psychosocial stressor to examine subsequent emotional and neutral consolidation competition effects using a within stimuli, object/background approach. while both groups had better emotional object memory compared to background memory, the stress group had additional competition effects for neutral objects and associated backgrounds over 24 and 48 hour delays. these findings suggest that neutral memories that were consolidated in the presence of elevated cortisol are processed similarly to emotional memory, and that cortisol may be an important post encoding memory tag to preserve neutral memory. the development of advanced methodologies for the control and attenuation of broadband, non-stationary elastic energy propagating through structural systems has been a long standing challenge in many fields of engineering. these capabilities are of particular importance to enable the next generation of high performance aerospace and mechanical systems that will be required to operate under extreme conditions.the relatively recent discovery of acoustic metamaterial(amm) has open a new direction to manipulate and passively control acoustic wave in bulk materials and structures. only recently, this concept was extended to the field of elastic waves propagation in structural elements. nevertheless this class of applications still remains very limited with even fewer examples of experimental validations. some of the contributing factors are connected to the fabrication complexity of multi-material systems and to their lack of load-bearing capabilities.this research advances the state-of-the-art for acoustic metameterials by integrating their principles at rather the structural geometric level in order to surpass these limitations. consequently, this thesis proposes a single-material based thin-walled system with carefully tailored internal geometries while providing the same level of elastic wave control capabilities enabled by multi-material designs, therefore introducing the concept of elastic \ extit{metastructure}. the main element of the proposed design approach leverages on the use of embedded geometric tapers realized by controlling spatially the thickness variation of flat waveguides. this is a key aspect to maintain structural integrity and to be able to transfer metamaterial concepts to structural element design. particular emphasis is placed on the identification of novel methodologies to design, model and evaluate the performance of thin-walled elastic metastructures.similarly to amms, metastructures can be classified, as non-resonant and locally-resonant types. this research proposed, for the first time, a non-resonant metastructure design based on the use of acoustic black holes, which is an axial-symmetric taper following power-law thickness profile. simple yet versatile, the abh-based design is demonstrated to exhibit the same plethora of high-level wave functionalities, including but not limited to local zero-group-velocity-point, positive and negative bi-refraction, mode hybridization and anisotropy, and dirac-like cones, than more complex multi-material resonant systems. the abh-based design finds a direct application to the design of embedded acoustic lenses in thin-walled elastic waveguides enabling acoustic focusing, collimation and bi-refraction over both the short and long wavelength regimes.the second part of the dissertation extends the concept of a geometric taper to the design of locally-resonant metastructures and explores their novel functionalities. more specifically, this study will present the first experimental observation of a double-zero-index (near zero effective mass density and elastic compliance) material in the elastic structural elements. using an effective medium description, results confirm the possibilities to map the metastrucuture behavior to a medium having simultaneous zero mass density and elastic compliance in shear. both the numerical and experimental investigations confirm the remarkable capabilities of this metastructure system including unconventional effects such as cloaking, supercoupling and energy squeezing.finally, the last part of the dissertation presents the first design and implementation of an elastic metasurface fully embedded into a thin-walled waveguide. a metasurface is a subwavelength interface capable of producing abrupt phase shift gradient of incoming wave, and hence achieving ``on demand" refraction properties. also this concept leverages the locally-resonant geometric taper design in order to synthesize a flat metasurface capable of anomalously refraction, focusing and non-paraxial acoustic beam propagation. overall, this research provided clear theoretical, numerical and experimental evidence of the potential of geometrically-tailored metastructures to achieve high level wave management functionalities. researchers consistently find that educational and familial settings unintentionally reproduce socioeconomic status via distinct socialization patterns in their community contexts. yet there are surprisingly few studies examining this pattern as related to religious settings. this study extends the social reproduction literature by examining intended socialization of religious-based youth programs across socioeconomic status differences of the areas in which religious congregations are located. data analyzed are from the northern indiana congregation study, a high response-rate phone survey with all religious congregations located within three contiguous cities, combined with census data for the postal code of the congregation location, and in-person interviews with stratified-quota sampled religious youth leaders. this analysis provides evidence for a spatially stratified pattern to religious youth socialization. findings reveal how deeply socioeconomic reproduction permeates social life, including even the youth socialization practices of religious congregations, and indicates that low-income youth may be particularly disadvantaged in the available religious socialization. pertactin is localized on the outer membrane of b. pertussis and is one of the virulence factors believed to contribute to the disease state of whooping cough, an acute respiratory disease of children. as the precursor protein, p.93 pertactin has been identified as an autotransporter (at). it is translocated across the inner membrane (im), and then it is secreted across the outer membrane (om) with its c-terminal porin domain forming a pore through which the p.69 passenger domain is transported out of the cell. during this secretion process, p.69 pertactin is cleaved from the porin domain by either an unidentified om protease, or an autocatalytic mechanism. in this study, we investigated possible candidates of the cleavage site and we found that when s602 was mutated to alanine, the proteolysis occuring at the om was obviously impaired. besides we also found different effects of this mutation to the proteolytic process occuring at the om in different cell strains of e. coli cells, which suggested it was unlikely that this proteolysis occuring at the om was autocatalytic. my thesis questions whether there is an essential relationship between one's identity and name, exploring the interaction between the name and the owner of it and reflecting on the arbitrary nature of name. with an excerpt from revelation and fragments of the three little pigs, my thesis alternates between two stories of sooji and hyori, both of whom are alienated from themselves in a different sense: sooji stuck in limbo, oscillating between her old and new names, and hyori cognitively unaware of himself, deprived of an ability or freedom to see. the two stories, set in different worlds, seemingly distinct pieces of subjects, start to converge in the middle of the stories and reveal that they are parallel, with the voice of the wolf in the three little pigs resonating throughout the stories. these two diverge again and have vague and different endings, which makes readers raise a question about the fate of the two characters. with the last two fragments of the three little pigs, i aim to take readers to the first page of my thesis, an excerpt of revelation, ask them whose voice it is and who and what the wolf is. radio frequency (rf) reflectometry is a well understood measurement technique in common use by rf engineers today. this technique has been applied at low temperature to probe the impedance of nanoscale devices for over two decades. these measurements typically employ basic resonant impedance transformers to bring the device impedance close to the characteristic impedance of the measurement apparatus. in 2013 it was discovered by colless et al. that reflectometry could be used to measure extremely small impedance changes in a gate coupled to a quantum dot to directly probe the charge state of the dot. this has simplified measurements of certain nanoscale devices including single electron boxes (sebs) and semiconductor qubits. despite the maturity of rf reflectometry measurements in general, researchers working at low temperature continue to make basic mistakes in their measurements. the root cause of most of these mistakes is the failure to properly calibrate the measurement apparatus. in some cases this leads researchers to unrealistic conclusions when trying to match measurements to theory. this dissertation demonstrates that a low temperature rf calibration can be very easy and straightforward using inexpensive, off the shelf sma terminators as calibration standards. a proper calibration allows for direct quantitative comparisons between data measured on different reflectometers or between data and simulations. the consistency between measurements and simulations then allows for straightforward design and implementation of improved impedance transformers, increasing the snr of extremely sensitive measurements, with simple data-based simulations. a new type of single electron device, the capacitively coupled rf single electron transistor (cset) is proposed and demonstrated which can rival the traditional rf set in sensitivity but integrates more effectively into arrays and may offer a level of resistance to electrostatic discharge damage. two problems at the intersection of atomic theory and particle phenomenology are investigated. in the first, the electric dipole moment (edm) of the neutron is calculated field-theoretically within the cavity approximation in terms of the edms of its constituent up and down quarks. a 17% overall reduction is found with respect to the naive su(6) estimate of this relation, and no relativistic edm enhancement is found. this work is motivated by the existence of edm enhancement in relativistic atoms; a novel calculation of this enhancement effect in alkali atoms is presented using a modification of the furry representation that extends standard screening effects to a field-theoretical framework. the calculation demonstrates the utility of this representation in many-body bound-state field theory. in the second problem, the polarizability of the proton in muonic hydrogen is calculated using another variation of the modified furry representation, in this case for the purpose of generating nuclear structure corrections to the energy levels of the atom. the proton is modeled using the cavity approximation. the proton polarizability is found to agree with existing estimates using dispersion relation theory, indicating that this effect is incapable of resolving the outstanding proton size puzzle. this dissertation focuses on david lewis's patchwork principle. that principle says, very roughly, that scenarios that are "patched" together from other possible scenarios are themselves possible. thus, there are no metaphysically necessary connections between distinct things. more broadly, my dissertation is concerned with the many components of lewis's metaphysical system which are inspired by hume's claim that the world's contents are "entirely loose and separate." i first show that if one makes certain natural assumptions, the patchwork principle implies the rest of those hume-inspired components. it particular, it appears to imply that causal, nomic, and temporal-direction relations are all extrinsic (and always extrinsic to their bearers), and that the causal and nomic relations globally supervene on the non-causal non-nomic properties and relations. thus, lewis's set of metaphysical views is systematic not only insofar as many of its members are inspired by hume's denial of necessary connections, but in the more profound way that its least contentious member appears to imply many of its more contentious members: it seems to present us with a stark dilemma, a dilemma about whether to accept or reject lewis's entire humean system. such a dilemma would be difficult indeed. on the one hand, i go on to offer an argument for the patchwork principle, an argument which seems as compelling as arguments get in this area. on the other hand, i also argue that the patchwork principle's apparent implications are untenable, because they are inconsistent with the existence (or even the possibility) of conscious beings like ourselves. the dilemma is thus a conundrum.the crux of my solution to this conundrum (and dilemma) is that the apparent implications of the patchwork principle are merely apparent, since one of the "very natural assumptions" i made in arguing for those implications – that there can be concrete objects that do not share any parts – is false. indeed, my solution assumes that of necessity, any two concrete objects overlap. thus, while the patchwork principle is maintained, it is emptied of its content. and hume's claim that the world's contents are "entirely loose and separate," along with several components of lewis's metaphysical system which are inspired by it, are shown to be far wide of the mark. this dissertation offers a historical and comparative analysis of edward schillebeeckx's prophetic eschatology and johann baptist metz's apocalyptic eschatology with the goal of identifying relative advantages and limitations of each project for rendering a christian account of hope that prompts action in the public arena. in tracing the historical developments of their work, the study underscores the important relationship between each theologian's increasingly sophisticated social analysis and the emergence of eschatology as a practical and subversive theological category. chapter one begins by examining the interplay of creation and eschatology in metz's early theological engagement with mid-twentieth century interpretations of secularization. it then surveys his shift to a 'political eschatology' and the corresponding emergence of a utopic theology of history in his writings from the mid-1960s. chapter two traces similar developments in schillebeeckx's writings, examining his own reassessment of the processes of secularization and his positioning of eschatology as an 'active hope.' chapter three identifies significant shifts in schillebeeckx's maturing eschatological project, including his employment of a more critical social analysis, a heightened sensitivity to the history of suffering, and the emergence of an eschatology grounded in a creation faith that seeks to stimulate the fragmented mediation of salvation in the world. as chapter four reveals, metz followed a similar trajectory, but his critical analysis of the modern situation led to a turn to apocalypticism as the temporal framework that might sustain the christian's subversive hope within an age of apathy. the conclusion brings these projects into dialogue and presents a comparative analysis. first, it underscores three pivotal interests that increasingly but persistently characterized each theologian's project. then, it assesses schillebeeckx's mature eschatology in light of metz, noting the relationship between schillebeeckx's prophetic eschatology sustained by creation faith and potential limitations in his social analysis. finally, it assesses metz's project in light of schillebeeckx, drawing out the disadvantages of a practical apocalyptic eschatology constrained by a negative theology of creation. the broader aim of this research is to develop fundamental understanding of ductile fracture process in structural steels, propose robust computational models to quantify the associated damage, and provide numerical tools to simplify the implementation of these computational models into general finite element framework. mechanical testing on different geometries of test specimens made of astm a992 steels is conducted to experimentally characterize the ductile fracture at different stress states under monotonic and ultra-low cycle fatigue (ulcf) loading. scanning electron microscopy studies of the fractured surfaces is conducted to decipher the underlying microscopic damage mechanisms that cause fracture in astm a992 steels. detailed micromechanical analyses for monotonic and cyclic loading are conducted to understand the influence of stress triaxiality and lode parameter on the void growth phase of ductile fracture. based on monotonic analyses, an uncoupled micromechanical void growth model is proposed to predict ductile fracture. this model is then incorporated in to finite element program as a weakly coupled model to simulate the loss of load carrying capacity in the post microvoid coalescence regime for high triaxialities. based on the cyclic analyses, an uncoupled micromechanics based cyclic void growth model is developed to predict the ulcf life of astm a992 steels subjected to high stress triaxialities. furthermore, a computational fracture locus for astm a992 steels is developed and incorporated in to finite element program as an uncoupled ductile fracture model. this model can be used to predict the ductile fracture initiation under monotonic loading in a wide range of triaxiality and lode parameters. finally, a coupled microvoid elongation and dilation based continuum damage model is proposed, implemented, calibrated and validated. this model is capable of simulating the local softening caused by the various phases of ductile fracture process under monotonic loading for a wide range of stress states. novel differentiation procedures based on complex analyses along with existing finite difference methods and automatic differentiation are extended using perturbation techniques to evaluate tensor derivatives. these tensor differentiation techniques are then used to automate nonlinear constitutive models into implicit finite element framework. finally, the efficiency of these automation procedures is demonstrated using benchmark problems. the bicuspid aortic valve (bav) is the most common congenital cardiovascular defect affecting 1-2% of the population. a normal aortic valve consists of three leaflets and is often referred to as the tricuspid aortic valve (tav). the bav exists in several different morphogenic phenotypes, resulting in two aortic valve leaflets instead of three and is known as the type-i bav. while the bav anatomy may not intrinsically hamper valvular function, it is associated with a spectrum of secondary valvulopathy and aortopathy such as calcific aortic valve disease (cavd) and aortic dilation. the abnormal mechanical stresses imposed by the bav on its leaflets and on the aortic wall could trigger cell-mediated processes, leading ultimately to valvular calcification and aortic medial degeneration. despite increasing evidence for this hemodynamic etiology, the demonstration of the involvement of mechanical abnormalities in the pathogenesis of bav disease requires the investigation of causality between the blood flow environment imposed on the leaflets and the aortic wall and the local biology, which has been lacking to date. the hypothesis of this dissertation is that is that abnormal wall shear stress (wss) generated on the fused bav leaflet or the endothelium of the proximal and mid sections of the ascending aorta (aa) downstream of various type-i bavs will promote acute expression of biomarkers associated with valvular inflammation and remodeling and vascular remodeling, respectively. therefore, the objective of this study is to determine the biological response of av and aa tissue to bav flow environments. av tissue was exposed to the wss environments of non-coronary and fused bav leaflets. aa tissue was exposed to wss from the convexity and concavity downstream of a bav and wss from the proximal and mid sections of the convexity downstream of three type-i bav morphotypes. the acute remodeling and inflammation responses were measured in terms of expression of matrix metalloproteinases (mmp-2 and mmp-9), pro-inflammatory cytokines (tgf-β1 and bmp-4) and cellular adhesion molecules (icam-1 and vcam-1). this study found that av tissue responds in a time-dependent manner to bav leaflet wss, with acute inflammatory and remodeling expression and activity within 24 hours that begins to decrease after 48 hours, except in the case of pro-inflammatory cytokine bmp-4 and cellular adhesion molecule vcam-1. endothelial activation through vcam-1 peaks at 48 hours after conditioning under the fused bav leaflet wss environment. bmp-4 inhibition on leaflet tissue conditioned under the wss environment from the fused bav leaflet significantly reduces the inflammatory response through suppression of vcam-1 expression. in the aa, remodeling is asymmetric, with wss from the convexity, and not the concavity, inducing a significant remodeling response after 48 hours. the specific wss environment linked to the bav morphotype and location also affects the remodeling response of aa tissue, with overall higher mmp-9 expression in the proximal aa and higher mmp-2 expression in the mid aa. all three morphotypes were linked with significantly elevated remodeling indices relative to tav conditioned tissue and fresh controls. in summary, evidence for the causative effects of bav hemodynamics on secondary valvulopathy and aortopathy is emerging. while those complications may still be promoted by some genetic predispositions, it is likely that their pathogenesis is also driven by synergies between the local mechanical stress abnormalities and the local biology of the leaflets and ascending aortic wall. structural modulation of metal-organic frameworks (mofs) is of importance because it can be used to enhance the gas adsorption abilities and heterogeneous catalytic performance of mofs and their pyrolyzed analogues. therefore, the ultimate goal achieved in this dissertation is to 1) synthesize novel mofs and 2) tailor/modify the structure of the mofs prior to pyrolysis, thereby directing/controlling the properties of the resulting functional carbons. zn-based mofs (zn-mofs) with free pyridine functionalities are promising materials but the synthesis of these mofs is difficult due to the tendency of the pyridine n to coordinate with the zn centers. this dissertation documents synthetic efforts for the generation of free pyridine-incorporating zn-mofs and their characterizations. in addition to the syntheses of novel zn-mofs, the incorporation of pyridines in these zn-mofs motivates their use as templates pyrolyzed to produce n-doped carbons. this dissertation, hence, covers the generation of n-doped carbons derived from these zn-mof templates. furthermore, the structures of these zn-mofs were modulated to enhance the co2 uptake in the pyrolyzed zn-mof analogues. additionally, the pyrolysis of desired metal-incorporating mof templates to produce metal-supported on carbons was studied. specifically, structural tuning of these mofs can be accomplished through post-synthetic modification (psm). psm has been validated as an excellent synthetic route for site-isolating target metal species into the mofs' structures via coordination. ultimately, these metal-modified irmof-3 templates were synthesized and pyrolyzed to produce novel carbon catalysts. four transition metals (i.e., ru, w, v, and ti) are used in this study since these metals are reported as active sites for converting biomass derivatives. the modified irmof-3 intermediates and their pyrolyzed counterparts were characterized and used as catalysts for catalytic transformation of biomass derivatives. furthermore, the ti-supported carbon was also employed as a catalyst in the oxidation of dibenzothiophene. in addition, the pyrolysis of active v species-incorporating mil-47 (v) template is envisioned to produce carbon-supported v catalysts. this was motivated by our previous studies about the use of pyrolyzed mil-125 (ti) analogues as catalysts for oxidizing dibenzothiophene. specifically, mil-47 (v) was pyrolyzed at different pyrolysis temperatures and the resulting v catalysts were tested in this reaction. much like today's young humanities phds, university graduates in the fourteenth century faced a landscape in which the traditional trajectory of the professional scholar began to shift, and many sought to re-contextualize the status and utility of their training within new environments. unable to procure a shrinking number of benefices, clerks flooded into secular communities and found new occupations. london, which had developed institutions of higher learning with their own libraries and cultures, became a melting pot for the intellectually curious, and the definitions of knowledge and learning began to change. aristotelian sources and concepts, which had reached western europe through the arabic tradition beginning in the eleventh century, became more widely available. clerks and lay authors experimented with these ideas to express new modes of authority in vernacular literature. this dissertation argues that four middle english authors—william langland, geoffrey chaucer, thomas hoccleve, and johannes de caritate—engaged in a new tradition of "vernacular aristotelianism" in which they used sources and concepts associated with the philosopher, many of which had arabic origins, to articulate a new middle english literary theory.the authors considered here capitalize on aristotle's legacy in various ways. chaucer, for instance, uses the language and methods of the alchemical tradition, which was steeped in arabic sources, to undermine the distinction between the learned and the "lewed." johannes de caritate exploits the voice of the philosopher in the pseudo-aristotelian secretum secretorum (originally the kitāb sirr al-asrār) to bolster his authority as a medical expert. langland challenges the value of established authorities by putting the wise words of aristotle and solomon at odds with their flawed lives, and hoccleve incorporates langland's aristotelian treatment of the imaginative process into his own assertions about how one should interpret temporal evidence. as these four authors adapt aristotelian ideas, each explores the role that knowledge plays in lived experience. whether it be the obligations and privileges that come with learning, the utility of knowledge gained from morally dubious teachers, or the availability of spiritual truths in a flawed society, the power of knowledge is central to their arguments. the modern study of the actinide elements began more than 70 years ago, yet much remains to be explored about how these radioactive elements behave in complicated systems like the soils at department of energy sites, the forests near chernobyl or the ocean waters off fukushima. the fundamental study of actinide chemistry provides a basis for understanding the mechanisms that control actinide migration in the environment. here two major themes are presented in which one explores the structural properties of u(vi) uranyl germanates as they relate to u(vi) uranyl silicates and the emergence of cation-cation interactions as a structural feature, and the other offers a glimpse at the behavior of np(v) and u(vi) during the growth of rockforming minerals for the purpose of understanding the inorganic controls of crystal growth on environmental remediation. hydrothermal synthesis and single crystal x-ray diffraction were employed in the study of u(vi) uranyl germanates. for the study of np(v) incorporation into rock-forming minerals, a variety of room temperature syntheses were conducted before a simple synthesis in aqueous solution was devised. characterization methods included icp-ms in solid and solution modes and xps. this research demonstrated (1) the structural differences between u(vi) uranyl germanates and silicates by introducing new (vi) uranyl germanate compounds with uncommon structural features, like cation-cation interactions and chains of geo5 tetrahedra; and (2) the potential for structural incorporation to play a role in neptunium mobility in the subsurface by showing that calcite has a higher affinity for neptunium than gypsum during synthetic growth. an extensive literature has documented that individuals raised with more siblings perform less well in school and complete fewer years of education. interest in the relationship between the number of siblings in one?s family (hereafter sibship size) and developmental outcomes spans across a range of disciplines including demography, economics, psychology, and sociology. the study of the relationship between sibship and education provides insight on the processes by which family resources are mobilized to support children?s education. but, ultimately sibship research documents how children?s access to some family resources can become diluted when the resources support the development of several children. in this dissertation i highlight how sibship size shapes individuals? experiences throughout childhood and young adulthood. the empirical analyses described in this dissertation examine developmental outcomes and educational outcomes from the earliest months of birth to the completion of postsecondary schooling. in doing so, i contribute to several ongoing debates and strands of research within the sibship literature. this dissertation performs a retrieval of the theology of louis bouyer (1913-2004) as a contribution to the foundations of catholic ecological theology. despite bouyer's significant influence in the twentieth century upon the church and the academy, few studies of his work exist in english, and his theological project remains to be fully appreciated. the chapters of part one of this dissertation treat, respectively, bouyer's theology of religion, of revelation, and of the church's eucharistic knowledge of god. these chapters show how bouyer's incarnational paradigm provides for recognition of the historical unfolding of the relationship of god and the world. from among bouyer's works, his six-volume doctrinal synthesis receives privileged consideration. the chapters of part two of this dissertation interpret bouyer's thought in relation to the thought of g. w. f. hegel and to the ecological theological frameworks of jürgen moltmann and catherine keller. the dissertation thus demonstrates bouyer's importance as a major catholic figure who represents an alternative to the paradigms of moltmann and keller in terms of grounding ecological theology. many bacteria colonize surfaces in a manner known as swarming, which involves the collective motion of millions of cells at high densities. bacteria that can swarm behave similarly in many ways, indicating that swarming is governed by some general behavioral principles of bacterial cells. in this thesis i will present such general behavioral principles that enable bacteria to move in a coordinated manner and to swarm efficiently without any long-range signaling mechanisms. using a cell-based biomechanical modeling approach and taking myxobacteria as the model system, we have found that (1) social interactions between bacterial cells, (2) directional reversal and (3) cell elongation all constitute the general behavioral principles that govern swarming. they are crucial to create ordered cellular motion and multicellular structures from random movements, hence leading to efficient swarm expansion of bacterial colonies. the findings resolved several long-standing problems in the biology of myxobacteria and other swarming bacteria. the findings also broaden the understanding of the physics of collective behavior in far-from-equilibrium systems, and provide new insights to the engineering strategies of traffic or crowd control. morphogenesis governs the clustering and pattern formation of embryonic cells into bone and organs. many of the patterning instabilities that result from cell interaction with membrane bound chemicals can be described by mathematical models. one such known model is the cellular potts model, which has been incorporated into the three-dimensional c++ framework compucell3d. compucell3d uses various design patterns to address the issues of speed, flexibility and memory consumption, and allow for extensibility of the framework through dynamically loaded plugin libraries. biologo is a domain-specific language (dsl) which we use to provide a higher level of abstraction to the framework with understandable syntax for morphogenesis researchers, further improving extensibility of the software. finally, we validate biologo and compucell3d using three simulations representative of morphogenesis modeling. supercomputers have grown in power in the last 30 years. the cray-1 in 1976 produced 133 megaflops. the earth simulator in 2002 produces 35.860 teraflops. this is a speedup of 269,624 times in 26 years. to keep up this growth in computing power, new discoveries in semiconductor technology, processor architecture, operating systems, and programming models must be made. processing-in-memory (pim) is one concept towards that goal. by supporting fine-grained multithreading, a message passing system, and taking advantage of computing at the memory sense-amps, a framework is laid for future research into a scalable supercomputer with multiple-petaflops peak performance. this thesis presents one possible implementation of a pim device. this includes a history of dataflow and multithreaded machines, how it applies to the pimlite processor, a description of the pimlite instruction set architecture, and also state diagrams and source code in vhdl. this paper explores the role of the religious habit in the lives of young catholic sisters in the u.s. specific attention is paid to the meanings post-vatican ii and millennial generation women religious in flourishing traditional religious communities associate with it. interview data highlights how the habit is valued as a tool in preserving sisters' religious identity as a brides of christ as well as its function in religious witness. findings illustrate themes of resistance and engagement with modern culture, noting comparisons to other religious groups in the u.s. the paper concludes with suggestions for future research on catholic religious life as well as veiling across religious traditions. three novel accelerator-based reactions relevant to nuclear applications have been studied, one light-ion reaction, and two heavy-ion reactions. the two heavy-ion reactions share a methodology and motivation for investigating alternative approaches to light-ion isotope production for nuclear medicine. the light-ion reaction studied here is done with an environmental monitoring motivation using particle-induced gamma-ray emission (pige) spectroscopy that has been improved with a normalization methodology.pige is used for the rapid analysis of ex vacuo samples. an indirect beam current measurement technique has been developed using an ion beam reaction on atmospheric argon, the only sample independent atmospheric component with sufficient abundance (~1%) that produces abundant gamma rays with low-energy proton beams. the 40ar(p,nγ)40k reaction has been studied here, and the characteristic 770 kev gamma ray is observed to serve as a reliable monitor for proton flux. this method allows a real-time calibration of beam intensity on target to measured upstream currents for ion beam analysis at beam energies above 3.5 mev.light-ion production of nuclear medicine isotopes is the standard methodology, but some highly desired proton-rich isotopes have difficult production hurdles including yield, purity, cost, and availability. two heavy-ion approaches have been investigated for medically useful isotopes, 149tb and 44msc. the radionuclide 149tb (t1/2= 4.1 h) is a potential theranostic isotope which can simultaneously be used for targeted-alpha-particle therapy and positron-emission tomography. feasibility experiments were performed to test a near-symmetric heavy-ion reaction of 63cu bombardment on monoisotopic 89y. the indirect reaction was studied to avoid isomer production. there is modest agreement with the statistical model code, pace4, for fusion-evaporation products. a near-symmetric fission yield is also observed. using a complimentary approach and the experimental observations from the terbium project, 44msc (58.6 h) was investigated from a less symmetrical 35cl bombardment of natural boron, natb. the reverse kinematics reaction limited the number of open channels and reaction products. only fusion-evaporation products were observed from boron and some contaminant oxygen. in both these heavy-ion approaches, offline gamma spectroscopy was used to identify the residuals and quantify the end of beam activities. a summary of what implications these heavy-ion experiments hold for the future development of novel radioisotopes is presented in the concluding chapter. this dissertation suggests that ralph waldo emerson's sermons may be fruitfully read as christian mystical texts in light of bernard mcginn's discussion of western christian mysticism. more specifically: emerson's sermons, read systematically with mcginn's historical survey in mind, describe the preparation, pursuit, experience and expression of a mystical encounter with the divine. by re-configuring mcginn's historical snapshots into systematic searchlights, this dissertation explores and maps the mystical depths of emerson's sermons, combing them for elements of his mystical-theological anthropology, his mystical christology, and his mystical homiletics. the fruit of our effort is revealed in what we will call the sublime unselfing of emerson's sermons. this dissertation is a philosophical reflection on the interpretation of absolute music, where the latter is understood as music that is independent of any extra-musical adherent, such as text, program, dramatic action, dance, or social function. in particular, the dissertation is concerned with the debate over whether such music can be said to express meaning of the sort expressed by literature. unnoticed amidst the rancor of this debate is the fact that the disputants share a fundamental premise, which i call linguisticism: absolute music can only express meaning if that meaning has already been expressed in linguistic form. i argue that this premise is false because it leads to category mistakes in the interpretation of absolute music. this falsity, in turn, gives the debate over absolute music's meaning an antinomial character, suggesting that the question of musical meaning is better pursued from a different starting point. in the opening three chapters of the dissertation i pursue three aims. first, i expose the antinomial structure of the debate over the meaning of absolute music by showing how both peter kivy and susan mcclary are committed to linguisticism. second, i show how linguisticism leads to category mistakes in the philosophy of music. third and finally, i argue for the legitimacy of the debate itself, and hence my project, by showing that the concept of absolute music does not by itself preclude such music from expressing meaning. the remaining two chapters consider theodor adorno's theory of the meaning of absolute music and ask whether it might evade linguisticism. in chapter four i argue that while adorno does not evade linguisticism, his theory of musical meaning offers an interpretation of linguisticism that does not succumb to the category mistakes revealed in prior chapters. since adorno's reinterpretation of linguisticism emphasizes the relationship between music and language as sounding phenomena, in chapter five i consider how his theory of absolute music's meaning coheres with his theory of musical performance, showing that the confrontation between these two theories issues in a dilemma. an important body of work has been devoted to understanding both the extent and the causes of the decrease in output volatility in industrialized and middle-income countries since the mid-eighties. in this dissertation, i study the behavior of aggregate output fluctuations in the least developed countries, also referred to as the world's poorest countries. the basic finding is that the output volatility has moderated. i then survey possible explanations responsible for such moderation. chapter 1 establishes two empirical facts on output volatility structural break and moderation. looking at the sample of thirty-two countries between 1960 and 2007, i find that there has been a structural break in the volatility of output. furthermore, examining volatility before and after the break shows that 78% of them experienced moderation during the late eighties. chapter 2 answers the question of what might be the possible causes behind this moderation. in particular, i examine two compelling hypotheses that closely relate to these economies commodity price volatility and trade liberalization. results on commodity price fluctuations show no supporting evidence for moderation. however, trade liberalization seems to have played an important role. in particular, i look at the effect of openness on output volatility and find the relationship to be negative and significant. this chapter also looks at how trade costs have evolved with an increase in openness (trade/gdp) over the span of fifty years. finally, chapter 3 develops a model to determine the impact of trade openness on the aggregate output volatility. in particular, i build a simple two-country, stochastic open-economy business cycle model within a complete market setting. the model incorporates trade costs on the imported good in the home country (poor) to proxy for openness. by varying trade costs, the model is able to explain qualitatively well the changes in the volatility of output. before the 2018 midterm elections, much attention was placed on florida's growing puerto rican population. the crucial swing state had become the main destination for migrants fleeing the ongoing economic crisis and the devastating impact of hurricane maria. the razor thin election results subsequently highlighted two key points: every vote matters to obtain electoral victory and voter registration is not indicative of voter turnout. though demographic shifts can impact the future of american politics, demography is not "destiny" if those members of the electorate are not incorporated into the political system. the dual identity of the puerto rican community endows a unique political salience, garnering the attention of political parties and community organizations. qualitative data was gathered in the form of semi-structed interviews of local community organizations, government officials, and puerto rican migrants on the topics of political behavior, voter mobilization, and the puerto rican community in central florida. this paper argues that concerted voter mobilization efforts are necessary to incorporate individuals lacking the resources to participate on their own. successful mobilization will increase levels of voter turnout, resulting in electoral victories at the ballot box. this thesis paper serves as a point of reference to synthesize the main themes and concerns within my artistic practice and, more specifically, my thesis project, worthy sons. this body of work presents a specific group of teenagers i met through a youth organization i volunteer for in south bend, indiana. all of these young men share a passion for skateboarding. i have learned, though, that this is not their only commonality; each of these boys lives in a home without their father present. i wondered how this group of teenagers navigates through the critical phase between boyhood and manhood without any sort of guidance. however, the more time i spend with them, the more i realize that these boys come together to support one another and their friendships help fill the void where their fathers are absent. over the past two years, i have used the camera not only as a documentary tool but also as a means of affirming value. by turning the camera on them, the photographs give these teenagers an agency they've seldom had at home or in their neighborhood. the exhibition itself serves as a location to invite the viewer to be present. through intentional shifts in how i photograph, from public to private views and the apparent passage of time, the work encourages a familiarity that prompts empathy and compassion within the viewer.an audio piece of ambient noises recorded in these boys' homes, their neighborhood streets, the interiors of a skatepark and from snippets of their conversations is included alongside the photographs. these sounds are meant to lessen the distance between the subject and the viewer, heighten the affective qualities of the photographs and reference the transitional period from boyhood to manhood. with a large group of photographs on the gallery walls, along with the audio sounding through the space, the viewer is placed in the locations where they are forming their identity. this thesis project presents moments of stasis amidst the action occurring in the surrounding space, whether in the home, the neighborhood or the skatepark, and allows the viewer to contemplate one's own perspective on this complex and complicated chapter of teenage life. the reported experiments examine the nature of the orienting of attention in response to indirect cues (central arrow cues). part 1 (experiments 1-4) provides experiments that challenge the claim of involuntary made by previous studies (eimer, 1997; gibson & bryant, in press; hommel et al., 2001; ristic et al., 2002, tipples, 2002). direct cues (peripheral color singletons) are used in a context where meaning-driven attentional orienting can be overridden. there is also further clarification as to the role blocking and expectancy play in any such override process. part 2 (experiments 5-8) includes experiments that determine if previous findings in this line of research actually do reflect attentional orienting or if they follow an alternative location compatibility account. a display size manipulation was used in order to determine whether indirect cues affected attentional orienting during search or if their effects were post-search. in contrast to much of the literature, support is found for a post-search, location compatibility account. finally, the findings of part 2 are reconciled with the findings of part 1, clarifying when and under what conditions attentional orienting is occurring and what mechanisms are being overridden. speciation is a fundamental process responsible for generating the great diversity of life on earth (mayr 1963). speciation occurs as inherent, genetically-based barriers to gene flow that evolves between formerly inter-breeding populations (coyne and orr 2004). the end product of speciation is the generation of new species, reproductive communities that share a common gene pool. thus, to understand speciation we must understand how genetic differences evolve that cause populations to become reproductively isolated from one another and form different reproductive communities.the goal of my dissertation was to discern how geographic isolation interacts with host plant-related ecological adaptation to generate new species of fruit flies in the rhagoletis cingulata sibling species group. the r. cingulata sibling species group is comprised of taxa that may have diverged through both sympatric host shifting and geographic isolation. my thesis therefore focused on r. cingulata flies as a model system for comparing how population divergence is affected by different process associated with ecological adaptation and geography. in particular, patterns of genetic differentiation were compared within and among pairs of r. cingulata populations that have likely alternately diverged via sympatric host shifting versus allopatric speciation modes. such an analysis can provide insight into the relative rate and degree of genetic differentiation these different modes of speciation may have for generating new biodiversity, and, by inference, the speed by which they facilitate the evolution of reproductive isolation, different reproductive communities, and speciation. * in chapter 2, i conducted conduct a microsatellite genetic survey and mtdna analysis of the species r. cingulata (loew) and r. indifferens (curran) to determine whether progressive stages of geographic speciation may be evident across the collective range of these two flies. * in chapter 3, i performed a microsatellite survey of the species r. indifferens in the northwestern u.s. attacking its native host bitter cherry and derived host introduced domesticated sweet cherry (p. avium) to test for genetic evidence of recent sympatric host race formation. * in chapter 4, i reported the results of microsatellite and mtdna surveys of different species of r. cingulata group flies attacking native hosts outside the genus prunus to determine if shifts to plants more phylogenetically distant than cherries may exert stronger ecological selection pressures, causing increased levels of genetic differentiation and population divergence. * finally, chapter 5 constituted part of my studies in graduate school directed at globes interdisciplinary research in which i employ an applied genetics approach to determine the identity of an unidentified infestation of mystery rhagoletis larvae found to be infesting apple fruit in a pest quarantine area of washington (wa) state. the results for microsatellites in chapter 2 indicated that the eastern cherry fruit fly rhagoletis cingulata grades into the western cherry fruit fly rhagoletis indifferens in an inverted arch running through northern mexico and the southwestern u.s. the pattern for microsatellites was consistent with the view of cherry flies having recently formed an interconnected series of populations (a ring-like spatial distribution) across north america than representing a single ancestral populations having been split into two large allopatric demes. however, geographic variation for mtdna differed from that displayed by the microsatellites. the mtdna implied a different history in which southwestern u.s. and mexican populations of r. cingulata were diverged from cherry flies elsewhere, while r. cingulata in the east and r. indifferens in the west were virtually identical. three explanations could explain the difference for mtdna, including differential lineage sorting, a past north-versus-south break in the population structure of cherry flies, and the occurrence of cytoplasmic effects, possibly associated with the endosymbiotic bacteria wolbachia. evidence is presented that supports the possibility of cytoplasmic incompatibility in cherry flies. thus, both geography and cytoplasmic effects may be contributing to population divergence in cherry fruit flies, however, the rate at which cytoplasmic effects are generating reproductive isolation may exceed that of standard population divergence accumulating in allopatry. the results from chapter 3 were negative. little evidence for host-related microsatellite divergence was observed. in addition, there was no strong evidence for the microsatellites to be associated with adult eclosion time, a trait that has been found to correlated with host-related divergence in other rhagoletis flies. in chapter four, pronounced microsatellite, as well as mtdna, divergence was found among host-associated populations of r. cingulata, r. indifferens, r. turpiniae, r. chionanthi and r. osmanthi. thus, it would appear that host ecology can exert strong selective pressures on r. cingulata group flies and help initiate speciation. however, divergent ecology primarily involves shifts between cherry and non-cherry host species, and not cherry to cherry shifts. the extent of host-related divergence observed for r. turpiniae, r. chionanthi and r. osmanthi was as great as or greater than that observed across the entire geographic range of cherry-infesting flies in north america, as well as that associated with possible cytoplasmic incompatibility in mexico. it would therefore appear that host ecology can act on a comparatively rapid timescale to generate divergence in the group, at least for the olive infesting flies r. chionanthi and r. osmanthi. finally, in the globes interdisciplinary chapter five, information generated from the north american microsatellite survey of cherry fly populations was used to address an applied question to determine the identity of unknown rhagoletis larvae that were discovered in the annual field survey of the united states department of agriculture and the washington state department of agriculture to be infesting feral chinese crabapple malus spectabilis (aiton) borkhausen, near a commercial apple orchard in kennewick, benton county, washington in 2011. the unknown fly larvae were determined to be r. indifferens and not r. pomonella, averting an unneeded and costly quarantine. the work allowed me to explore how i can apply genetic analysis to address important question of economic and social concern with partners in the general community, expanding the significance of my research beyond academic issues concerning evolutionary biology. in the concluding chapter 6 of the thesis, a summary of the results of the research is presented and their significance is discussed. avenues for future work are also explored that can build upon the current findings to help resolve that mystery of mystery concerning the origins of new species. the doctrine of the trinity is central to mainstream christianity. but insofar as it posits 'three persons' (father, son and holy spirit), who are 'one god,' it appears as inconsistent as the claim that 1+1+1=1. much of the literature on 'the logical problem of the trinity,' as this has been called, attacks or defends trinitarianism with little regard to the fourth century theological controversies and the late hellenistic and early medieval philosophical background in which it took shape. i argue that this methodology, which i call 'the puzzle approach,' produces obviously invalid arguments, and it is unclear how to repair it without collapsing into my preferred methodology, 'the historical approach,' which sees history as essential to the debate. i also discuss 'mysterianism,' arguing that, successful or not, it has a different goal from the other approaches. i further argue that any solution from the historical approach satisfies the concerns of the puzzle approach and mysterianism anyway. i then examine the solution to the logical problem of the trinity found in st. gregory of nyssa's writings, both due to his place in the history of the doctrine, and his clarity in explicating what i call 'the metaphysics of synergy.' i recast his solution in standard predicate logic and provide a formal proof of its consistency. i end by considering the possibilities for attacking the broader philosophical context of his defense and conclude that the prospects for doing so are dim. in any case, if there should turn out to be any problem with the doctrine of the trinity at all, it will not be one of mere logical inconsistency in saying that 'these three are one.' this dissertation examines the meaning of redemptive suffering in the catholic tradition.in doing so, it contributes to the retrieval of the late medieval and early modern ars moriendi tradition.by examining underappreciated resources and arguing for the presence of goods, virtues, and opportunities for moral growth in christian suffering, it fills a lacuna in recent appropriations of the older tradition.the dissertation falls into three parts.the first part examines suffering as a loss of certain goods that constitute human flourishing and argues that suffering does not diminish human dignity or moral identity.the loss of this dignity is a concern due to medical advances and the global medical context, which has lost a sense of "good suffering."at the same time, the ars moriendi tradition continues to exist in the modern catholic magisterial tradition, and the dissertation locates resources within this tradition that appropriates, expands, and develops the notion of a "good death" and the "art of dying."in the second part of the dissertation, two neglected figures in moral theology, saint alphonsus liguori (1696-1787) and pope pius xii (1876-1958), are examined in order to show how their thought can be used to develop a fruitful account of redemptive suffering, and to show the relationship between suffering and the virtues, god's mercy, and human moral growth.these theologians are thus rehabilitated and re-proposed as centrally important figures whose thought is a fruitful source of reflection for an adequate account of redemptive suffering and preparation of death.the third part of the dissertation turns explicitly to the thought of saint thomas aquinas (1225-1274).in christ, the perfect wayfarer who exemplifies virtue in suffering, human beings are presented with the exemplar of human suffering.members of the mystical body of christ participate intimately in christ's virtuous suffering by means of their membership in the body, and sacramental participation in christ allows human suffering to be redemptive within god's providential plan of history.the dissertation concludes by pointing to individual, social, ecumenical, and practical ramifications of the account of suffering articulated herein, including funerals, hospice care, and daily practices. microtubules are the major component of cytoskeleton. they are proteinaceous polymers which consist of &#945;&beta; tubulin dimers. in microtubules, these tubulin subunits are assembled into thirteen linear polymers, called protofilaments. microtubules play key roles in many cellular functions. one important feature of microtubules is the abrupt transition between polymerization and depolymerization, which is called dynamic instability. dynamic instability allows microtubules to explore cellular space constantly and to respond changes of cellular environment quickly. since experimental data is not available at the smallest scale, modeling is the only approach available at this time to make predictions about mechanisms of dynamic instability to be tested in future experimentally. we extended our previous computational model to simulate dynamics of microtubules after instantaneously changing the nucleotide state of subunits in microtubule structure. we showed that the neighboring protofilaments can be not totally laterally bonded. the region which does not have lateral bonds is called a "crack". the cracks correlate with dynamic instability in two aspects. first, the microtubules display shallower cracks in growth state than in shortening state. second, when the cracks terminate in a gtp-rich (gdp-rich) region, microtubules are more likely to grow (shorten). we performed the multinomial logistic regression and showed that the subunits at the bottom of the cracks are statistically significant for dynamic instability. given the importance of the lateral bonds, we used random walk model to analyze the dynamics of lateral bonds in microtubules. we showed that when the subunits at the bottom of the cracks (gs) and the subunits just above gs are all gtp-bound (gdp-bound), microtubules grow (shorten) almost surely. furthermore, we studied the critical concentrations of two types of microtubule growth by using master equations for a simplified 2-protofilaments microtubule model. one type is the microtubule growth with dynamic instability, called bounded growth. another type is the microtubule growth without dynamic instability, called persistent growth. we calculated these two critical concentrations by numerically solving the master equations. moreover, we extended our computational model to include microtubule binding proteins (mtbps) and studied the mechanism of a key mtbp, stathmin/op18, which destabilizes microtubule structures. one well-studied mechanism of stathmin is to induce depolymerization by sequestering the free tubulin subunits in cells so that few tubulins are available for microtubule polymerization. however, we showed that, besides the sequestration activity, stathmin can induce depolymerization by direct binding on the laterally unbonded region of protofilaments in microtubules. hence, we proposed that stathmin destabilizes microtubules by a combination of the sequestration and the direct binding activities. atomic-layer deposition is used to grow hfo(2) and al(2)o(3) thin films on inas substrates to form high-k-inas metal-oxide-semiconductor capacitors. devices are formed using various substrate pretreatments, film growth temperatures and thicknesses, contact metals, and post-metallization anneals. x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and ellipsometry are used to physically characterize the films, while current-voltage and impedance measurements are used for electrical characterization. hafnium dioxide films with equivalent silicon dioxide thicknesses as low as 0.76 nm are reported with leakage current densities as low as 9.2 x 10^(-2) a/cm^2 at +1 v gate bias. interface trap densities are measured by the terman method to be in the 10^13 cm^(-2)ev^(-1) range at midgap. tem and xps data suggest the high trap densities in the hfo(2)-inas capacitors are associated with an interfacial layer likely composed of native indium oxides. xps measurements indicate that these oxides are not present after the al(2)o(3) ald process, eliminating a source of fermi-level pinning and reducing the number of interface traps. the devices fabricated in this work are compared to other iii-v mos work and international technology roadmap for semiconductors performance targets to assess the viability of metal-high-k-inas mos gate stacks. this work presents the design and implementation of a component system architecture in lam/mpi, a production quality, open source implementation of the mpi-1 and mpi-2 standards. previous versions of lam/mpi, as well as other mpi implementations, are based on monolithic software architectures that -regardless of how well-abstracted and logically constructed -are highly complex software packages, presenting a steep learning curve for new developers and third parties. as a result, parallel researchers face enormous logistical and technical difficulties when using or adapting existing implementations for their own work. not only are existing code bases typically locked into highly-specific implementation models (effectively preventing extensions that did not already conform to existing models), the time investment required to train a researcher in a complex software system can be prohibitive. to address these issues, the current version of lam/mpi has been re-architected to utilize a component system architecture consisting of four component frameworks and a meta framework that ties them together. each component framework was designed from analysis of prior monolithic implementations of lam/mpi and represents a major functional category: run-time environment startup, mpi point-to-point communication, mpi collective communication, and parallel checkpoint/restart. the result is an mpi implementation this is highly modular, has published abstraction and interface boundaries, and is significantly easier to develop, maintain, and use as a vehicle for research. performance results are shown demonstrating that this component-based approach provides identical (if not better) performance compared to prior monolithic-based implementations. in this dissertation, the development of a new membrane technology that can be utilized as a template for separation devices in a broad variety of fields is discussed. in general, membranes are implemented in processes to act as semi-permeable separators, allowing particles to pass through at different rates, thus effecting a separation. however, many currently used membranes are limited by either their selectivity for one particle over another or their permeability. previous research has demonstrated the ability to cast block polymers into membranes with self-assembled nanostructures making them efficient size-selective separators that are both highly permeable and selective. the research presented here builds further upon these materials, changing the chemistry of one of the functional blocks to allow the membranes to act as functionalizable platforms that can be chemically tailored for directed applications. the material demonstrated the ability to self-assemble into nanopores, and after hydrolysis, carried out separations that set new limits for block polymer membranes. by performance testing in affinity-based separations, the membrane displayed high uptake capacities, sharp breakthrough, and good selectivity of divalent ions in water. these membranes offer further versatility in their ability to be chemically-modified to incorporate a variety of small molecules into the pore walls. the efficient removal of heavy metal ions shows the applicability to critical separations needed in our society today. even further, the establishment of the functionalizable self-assembled membrane lays the groundwork for countless opportunities in future separations yet to be developed. no dads no masters serves as an interrogation of white, working-class, midwestern, hetero-masculinities as a material subject, and subsequently, as an interrogation of myself. the work makes for a repositioning of contemporary gender theories to be explored via these specific material masculinities in ways that they are often overlooked in the field of gender studies. the visual articulations of my project, the chimera of painting and sculpture, will act as agents of mutation against traditionally gendered attitudes, spaces, and objects. this interrogation/mutation is grounded within the liminal site of the garage, framing it as a foucaultian heterotopia to highlight the intricate and often contradicting process of white, american, working class manhood--its praxis failure, and prototyping. the simultaneous operation of indulgence and criticism of masculinity complicates a narrative of hegemonic masculinity in favor of an infinitely richer and more difficult approach to identity. in a wireless network, users can relay information to exploit cooperative diversity, thereby increasing reliability and reducing power consumption. this thesis focuses on noncoherent communication theory for cooperative diversity. this thesis develops a general framework for maximum likelihood (ml) demodulation for cooperative diversity with a decode-and-forward protocol at the relays. a piecewise-linear (pl) demodulator is developed as an accurate approximation of nonlinear ml detectors. this pl detector leads to an involved yet closed-form approximation for the error probability of ml detectors. numerical results show that the approximation is very tight. analysis based on the bhattacharyya upper bound suggests cooperative diversity with decoding relays does not achieve full diversity order. this conclusion is supported by the high snr approximation of error probability obtained from the pl approximation. this thesis also presents some results about the application of convolutional codes in cooperative diversity. given the same spectral e ciency, simulation results suggest that cooperative diversity can perform better than non-cooperative single-hop in the block fading channel given both schemes use ml detectors designed for the i.i.d. fading channel. the concept of the "self-emptying" or kenosis of christ is taken from paul's letter to the philippians, and it has presented an interpretive puzzle from the beginning of christianity. this dissertation surveys the different interpretations of kenosis in greek christianity through the trinitarian and christological controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries. this development culminates in the writings of cyril of alexandria, for whom kenosis was a very prominent theological concept.in comparing this historical development with contemporary interpretations of philippians 2:7, it becomes apparent that the ancient conversations were centered very much on questions of how to speak of who exactly is "emptying himself." this quickly comes to involve disputes concerning the understanding of who god is and how union with human nature is possible. cyril emphasizes that it is the word of god that is the subject of the emptying and who makes human nature his own to such a degree that one should not speak of the human and divine natures as having any independent voice or activity.the dissertation opens with a significant survey of twentieth century interpretation of philippians 2:7, in order to provide points of comparison with antiquity. it is striking to find that many of the same problems and questions that arise for contemporary interpreters are similar to the ones with which ancient interpreters struggled. none participants included 116 families (i.e., mothers, fathers, and a target child between the ages of 8 and 16) recruited from the community who completed detailed records of marital conflict situations in the home. participants were part of a larger, multi-wave study concerned with testing pathways among family processes of interparental differences, parent-child relationships, psychological well-being of family members, and child development. the current dissertation study was undertaken to address three broad, interrelated questions about the family-wide role of day-to-day marital conflict in the home. the first question investigated linkages between spouses' psychological symptoms and ratings of marital conflict expressions in the home. results indicated that multiple symptom dimensions are implicated in the expression of various behavioral and emotional forms of conflict. the second question examined associations between child adjustment and marital conflict processes. this question was tested for overall marital conflict and the subset to which the target children were exposed. overall, there were fewer associations than expected, with few differences emerging as a function of exposure to conflict. the third and final question tested links between parental symptoms and child adjustment. associations did emerge and child age moderated some of these findings. however, results were more consistent for parents' than children's ratings of adjustment. interaction tests that included marital conflict x parent symptoms as a predictor of child adjustment were significant for husbands' but not wives' data. probing these interactions revealed that the positive associations between husbands' depressive symptoms and child internalizing and externalizing adjustment problems, respectively, were stronger for husbands' reporting higher levels of dyadic depressive and destructive conflict. in summary, this study provides support for the continued investigation of child development in the context of multiple, interrelated family risk factors. the communication between cancer cells and the tumor microenvironments is critical for metastasis. emerging evidence indicates that tumor-derived extracellular vesicles play an important role in mediating such intercommunication by intercellular transport of bioactive materials. accumulating evidence has shown that the aberrant release of tumor-derived microvesicles (tmvs), a subtype of extracellular vesicles released by tumor cells, correlates with the onset and progression of cancers. this study investigated the mirna content of tmvs and delineated a mechanism through which active arf6 promotes mirna abundance in tmvs.first, the mirna content in tmvs shed from melanoma cells was characterized. a small set of mirnas was selectively enriched in tmvs, although tmv mirna profiles are representative of the mirna profiles of their cells of origin. in addition, the data presented here indicated that tmv mir-21 plays a central role in promoting cell invasion in recipient tumor cells. we also demonstrate that there is a set of mirnas enriched in tmvs shed from breast, melanoma, and prostate cancer cell lines, that may represent a prototype of a potential general mirna signature. moreover, our data indicated that the signature mirnas have a guanine-rich motif.previous research has shown that arf6 activation promotes the shedding of tmvs. here we showed a mechanism through which arf6 regulates the trafficking of pre-mirnas to tmvs. this is facilitated by formation of a complex consisting of pre-mirna, arf6-gtp, exportin-5 (xpo5), and cytohesin-3 (grp1). disruption of this complex results in the release of tmvs lacking pre-mirna and mature mirnas. additionally, we demonstrated that grp1 serves as a scaffolding protein and its depletion disrupts the formation and trafficking of the complex. finally, by interrogating the cancer genome atlas database, we showed that grp1 expression negatively correlates with poor prognosis for breast, colorectal, melanoma, and ovarian cancer patients. together, these studies suggest that tmv mirna holds great potential to be used as biomarkers for cancer diagnosis and the mirna trafficking regulators such as grp1 is a prospective therapeutic target. this dissertation argues that eighteenth-century authors, in writing sequels to their own works, raise important questions about narrative closure, ideal justice, and the literary canon. it considers works by both traditionally canonical writers (e.g., daniel defoe's farther adventures and serious reflections and samuel richardson's pamela ii) and less familiar authors (e.g., sarah fielding's familiar letters and volume the last and frances sheridan's conclusion of the memoirs of miss sidney bidulph). sequels demand a re-examination of how we theorize novelistic form and closure (as found in such works as henry james's the art of fiction and frank kermode's the sense of an ending). sequels do not conform to classical (i.e., aristotelian) theories of artistic closure, which treat an artistic production as a complete work composed of 'a beginning, a middle, and an end' with a uniform effect on a spectator. sequel-writers often devote more attention to perspectives that may be excluded from their earlier novels, consequently complicating earlier assessments of a character's moral worth or revealing the impermanence of a 'happy ending.' sequels are thus frequently at odds with the dramatic convention of 'poetic justice' and often introduce a competing aesthetic, 'poetic mercy.' the presence of the sequel calls for a reformulation of the literary canon: without attentiveness to sequels, critics ignore the 'story' as many earlier audiences have read it and risk misrepresenting how authors engage with their subject matter. the literary sequel complicates our understanding of the eighteenth-century novel and enables us to engage with questions of justice and literary endings in a different way. training is an integral part of disaster preparedness. practice in dealing with crises improves our ability to manage emergency situations. as an emergency escalates, more and more agencies get involved. these agencies require training to learn how to manage the crisis and to work together across jurisdictional boundaries. consequently, training requires participation from many individuals, consumes a great deal of money, and cannot be conducted often. moreover, in the current crisis management environment, most training is conducted through tabletop and paper-based scenario exercises. in this dissertation, we describe a socio-technical training simulator and research tool for upper level emergency managers. this tool is important because it enables emergency managers to train for crises more efficiently and effectively in a virtual environment. it also serves as a research tool for scientists to study emergency management decision-making and organizational learning. finite factor mixture modeling is used to model the covariation between observed variables within component. major issues involved with factor mixture modeling include determining the number of components in a mixture, and evaluating the overall model. however, problems arise when using the conventional single-stage ml approach to fit a factor mixture model. in particular, the determination of the number of components is confounded with model misspecification. besides, the single-stage ml approach only allows relative model fit indices such as aic and bic, which do not support tests of model evaluation, hence tests for factorial invariance across components are not available. to circumvent these problems, this dissertation studies a two-stage ml approach to fit the factor mixture models. three studies are included and results suggest that: (1) the two-stage approach identifies the model with the correct number of components more frequently when the model is misspecified or when the distribution assumption is violated; (2) even when the model and distribution are both correctly specified, the classification-based criteria perform better with the two-stage approach when all components share the same factor loadings; (3) most provided test statistics for overall model evaluation and tests of invariance across components perform well except for extreme conditions, while the conventional chi-square difference test statistics associated with either ml or gls methods rejects the correct models too frequently and can not be trusted. in the united states one in seven americans rely on food pantries and meal service programs to feed themselves and their families. this comprises of more than 46 million people annually, including 12 million children and 7 million seniors. in indiana food insecurity exists in every county in the state with 1 in 7 residents in the state considered food insecure. the hunger rate for children is much higher at 20 percent or more. 7 in 10 indiana children are eligible for some sort of nutrition assistance program, which still leaves approximately 30% of families who make too much to qualify for such programs, but still have issues with food access. in indiana, 1 in 6 residents use food pantries and meal service programs to help them get by. the food bank of northern indiana works to alleviate hunger in st. joseph and surrounding counties by providing a food pantry for area residents and distributing food to other food pantries in st. joseph and surrounding counties. i used the food pantry at the food bank of northern indiana in south bend, in as a primary case study for thinking about design in food pantry settings.many people who rely on food pantries have diet related health issues such as high blood pressure and diabetes. food items coming into food pantries are often limited and change frequently. current food donations to pantries frequently include highly processed canned items, and nearly expired food from grocery stores such as chips, cakes, pastries and other items with high sugar and salt content.this paper details the research and design solution that 1) give food pantry shoppers the tools to make healthy meals out of food pantry options, and 2) encourage healthier, fresher food donations to food pantries through a donation campaign to support the success of the first goal. to support healthy meal planning for clients of food pantries i designed a system that includes: providing food pantry shoppers flexible, nutritious, recipes that are simple to cook and understand, signage to call out and navigate shoppers to healthier food items within the pantry store, and tools for pantry workers to change and share recipes quickly to accommodate for food available in the food pantry space. territorial autonomy is on the rise. more states than ever before are yielding political authority to subnational polities, transforming the fundamental architecture of governance in the modern state. a significant driver of this "devolution revolution" is the perception that territorial autonomy provides a vehicle for peace and democracy in divided societies. yet, territorial self-governance has proven remarkably deadly in unexpected ways. in contexts as diverse as nigeria, russia, indonesia, and the democratic republic of the congo, devolutions of territorial autonomy have been followed by government military interventions, state-led civilian massacres, and armed conflict. this project investigates the causes and downstream consequences of political violence in the context of territorial autonomy, addressing three interrelated questions: 1) how does territorial autonomy affect state violence against civilians?; 2) how does state violence shape political power and resistance in autonomous territories?; and 3) how and under what conditions does political violence impact the survival of autonomous territories? to answer these questions, i develop a new theory of regional consolidation that explains mass civilian killing as a tool for national actors to reassert authority in autonomous territories. i argue that territorial autonomy activates revanchist imperatives among state leaders, who engage violence to eliminate rival factions from the subnational political arena. while mass civilian killing is an effective tool for consolidating regional authority, it has the unintended consequence of provoking violent political mobilization leading to armed conflict. armed conflict, in turn, has detrimental consequences for the survival of autonomous regions. when violent conflict breaks out in self-governing territories, it provides a pretense for national actors to implement centralizing reforms that erode autonomy. the dissertation's empirical investigations examine these dynamics through a series of cross-national quantitative analyses. i develop the territorial autonomy dataset, a new geo-referenced dataset that identifies all autonomous regions globally from 1989 to 2019. to overcome methodological challenges related to selection effects and endogeneity, i leverage innovative statistical techniques in the counter-factual estimation framework. the results analyses produce three key findings. first, while the proponents of autonomy imagine stability, the fundamental substance of autonomy reforms creates new incentives for violence against civilians. second, state violence in autonomous regions nearly always triggers armed uprisings. finally, violent conflict itself reduces territorial autonomy. collectively, these findings highlight the circular process through which states counteract power losses in self-governing regions through violence, and how the downstream instability ultimately fuels the structural erosion of autonomous institutions. no abstract available while the detrimental health effects of lead poisoning have been known for many decades, progress in identifying and remediating the sources of lead has been slow. even though the major sources of lead in the environment and human exposure routes are fully understood, the current way to identify lead in the environment is to simply wait until a child exhibits symptoms of lead poisoning. in the united states, only once a lead poisoned child has been identified will the local health department conduct a lead risk assessment, thus starting the process for locating lead hazards in that child's home environment and connecting the residents with government assistance programs for remediation. as an alternative, it is possible to screen homes for elevated lead levels preemptively. this would locate high risk housing and connect residents to remediation assistance that could ultimately prevent children from becoming lead poisoned in the first place.the predominant contributors of lead in the environment include the use of lead in paint before 1978, the use of lead in gasoline before 1995, and the use of lead in piping before 1986. leaded paint can present an exposure hazard by either contributing lead to indoor dust, especially on high friction surfaces like windows and doors, or by depositing lead into exterior soil along the dripline of the house. the legacy use of lead in gasoline deposited lead in soil, especially along busy roads. lastly, the use of lead in piping and fixtures can lead to lead in drinking water. to quickly identify environmental sources that have high levels of lead, the current testing methods must change. this thesis details the development and implementation of the lead screening kit, a kit designed for homeowners to collect soil, paint, dust, and water samples from specifically chosen areas in the home, that can be rapidly analyzed with x-ray fluorescence (xrf) spectroscopy. it is hoped that this screening kit could be used as an initial screening for health departments, to identify housing that poses a significant risk. this would allow the health departments' resources to be allocated to high-risk homes before children are lead poisoned.additionally, the same water filtration method developed for the lead screening kit was modified to capture to other environmental contaminants in drinking water, specifically arsenic and per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (pfas). there are striking similarities between lead and pfas, as lead was added to the environment in large quantities even decades after its toxic effects were known, unfortunately pfas are following the same pattern giving chemists the ultimate challenge of identifying and remediating these toxic pollutants even as they are still being put into the environment largely unregulated. until policy eventually bans the use of pfas, the ability to measure these contaminants quickly and inexpensively, in drinking water and other matrices, is necessary to locate and hopefully prevent exposure to these toxins before people are poisoned by their environments. this dissertation is a study of the spatial presentation of mark's gospel. the first chapter of the dissertation treats previous studies related to mark's presentation of space. these studies are concentrated largely on galilee and jerusalem as they are presented in the gospel. the second chapter deals with space as it is presented in ancient works of geography, epic, history, philosophy and rhetoric. these works demonstrate several remarkable consistencies in the presentation of space among ancient authors, in particular the idea that certain spaces are inhabited by certain types of people because the place makes the person. this understanding of space is perhaps most clearly seen in the image of the oikoumene, or inhabited world, and its edges, where terrifying and subhuman peoples are thought to exist. the grotesque at the edges of the earth serve to reinforce that those who inhabit the center of the oikoumene (be they greeks, romans or jews) are, by contrast, the height of civilization. chapter three examines modern theories concerning space. these theories highlight the cultural elements of the creation and maintenance of space. understandings of space take effort and power to generate, and power is necessary for the maintenance of these understandings. most often, spatial practices go unchallenged, though occasionally people behave in ways that are outside of the normal patterns of behavior for a particular place. texts frequently challenge understandings of places since texts create their own worlds. chapter four reexamines ancient spaces in light of the material discussed in chapter three. spaces that are central (such as cities, temples, etc.) are usually seen as civilized and civilizing, while uninhabited (or under-inhabited) places are considered dangerous, wild and uncivilized. chapter five examines the gospel of mark from the perspective of this spatial information. it concludes that mark presents the space where people 'gather around' jesus as an alternative to the spaces in which jesus encounters his opponents. these spaces are frequently to be found in wilderness and/or mountainous areas, places in which the control of civilized centers often does not extend. the present study used latent growth curve modeling to examine trajectories of parenting attitudes among fathers with young children. eighty-seven men were recruited to participate in a longitudinal study of fatherhood. information was obtained regarding their personal demographic factors, histories of child maltreatment, socioemotional functioning, and parenting attitudes and beliefs over the first 24 months of their children's lives. results showed that fathers who had experienced abuse or neglect as children had less positive attitudes about parenting. in addition, at each time of measurement, fathers' socioemotional functioning was related to their parenting attitudes. life stress and externalizing behaviors were associated with less optimal parenting attitudes, whereas fathers with higher-self efficacy were more likely to have more positive attitudes toward parenting. finally, fathers who had more positive parenting beliefs had children with greater levels of sustained attention at 24 months. these findings have implications for developing theories of fatherhood that take into account multiple factors that influence both fathers and their children's development. mycobacteria are intracellular pathogens that are capable of surviving and persisting within host macrophages by using sophisticated evasion strategies. one of the most intriguing questions in mycobacterial pathogenesis concerns the initial interaction between mycobacteria and host macrophage and how mycobacteria modulate the macrophage signaling response. interestingly infection with pathogenic strains of m. avium results in diminished activation of p38 and erk1/2 in macrophages compared to infections with the fast-growing, non-pathogenic m. smegmatis and m. phlei. however, the upstream signals required for mapk activation and the mechanisms behind the differential activation of the mapks remain undefined. in this study, using bone marrow-derived macrophages (bmmµð), we determined that erk1/2 activation following mycobacterial infection is dependent on ca2+ and sphingosine kinase (spk) activation. interestingly, in bmmµð infected with m. smegmatis compared to m. avium, there is sustained activation of ca2+/cam dependent camkii, which through induction of camp results in increased erk1/2 activation and tnf-µô production. however, low tnf-µô production in m. avium infected bmmµð is independent of these pathways. furthermore, there was increased activation of conventional pkc isoforms (cpkc) and pi-3 kinase in bmmµð infected with m. smegmatis compared to m. avium. this cpkc and pi-3 kinase activation was also dependent on spk and pi-plc. finally, in bmmµð infected with m. smegmatis compared to m. avium, we observed enhanced secretion of tnf-µô, il-6, rantes and g-csf, which is dependent on spk, pi-plc, cpkc and pi-3 kinase. we then initiated experiments using receptor knockout macrophages to determine the role of different macrophage pattern recognition receptors (prr) in the induction of macrophage pro-inflammatory response. we observed that mannose receptor is not required for mycobacterial phagocytosis or for macrophage activation. additional analysis showed that mapk activation and tnf-µô production in macrophage infected with m. avium or m. smegmatis is dependent on myd88 and tlr2 (toll-like receptor 2) but not tlr4. however, the tlr2 mediated production of tnf-µô by m. smegmatis infected macrophages was dependent on the µõ-glucan receptor dectin-1. a similar requirement for dectin-1 in tnf-µô production was observed for macrophages infected with m. bovis bcg and m. phlei. furthermore, il-6, g-csf and rantes production by mycobacteria infected macrophages required dectin-1. in conclusion, our data clearly demonstrate that multiple signaling pathways are targeted by mycobacteria to induce a differential pro-inflammatory response in macrophages and importantly this difference is due to the qualitative and quantitative differences in the stimulation of macrophage receptors by pathogenic and non-pathogenic mycobacteria. esta disertación examina una serie de representaciones literarias sobre revueltas populares, ocurridas a lo largo del siglo xx en américa latina. la tesis analiza un circuito heterodoxo de textualidades: novelas, crónicas, autobiografías, folletos, memorias, antologías poéticas, etc., producidas a propósito de la revolta da vacina (río de janeiro 1904), el bogotazo (1948), el cordobazo (1969) y el caracazo (1989). la disertación analiza la obra de autores canónicos como lima barreto, manuel zapata olivella, martín caparrós y, menos canónicos, como josé vieira, josé antonio lizarazo y yeniter poleo, entre otros. en sus obras, estos intelectuales intentan explicar el sentido de las revueltas, atribuyéndose una comprensión de la violencia popular desde la autoridad de la letra. esta disertación sostiene, por tanto, que estas obras sobrecodifican la violencia popular dentro de un campo de sentido intelectual, y que esta literatura es posible leer una serie de ansiedades letradas sobre las transformaciones demográficas, raciales y políticas, de la ciudad latinoamericana del siglo xx. en síntesis, esta disertación tiene como objetivo analizar una serie de discursos que interpretaron y definieron la violencia popular, poniendo de relieve la función pública del intelectual latinoamericano vis-à-vis el adevenimiento político de las masas populares-urbanas.----this dissertation examines literary and cinematic representations of urban riots and political unrest in latin america throughout the twentieth century. rather than working on the revolutionary canon, i work on a series of revolutions that "never were," uprisings that failed to challenge the state. my study focuses on novels, chronicles, autobiographies, and documentaries produced in response to: the "revolta da vacina" (río de janeiro 1904), "el bogotazo" (bogotá 1948), "el cordobazo" (córdoba 1969), and "el caracazo" (caracas 1989). i analyze work by authors such as gabriel garcía márquez, lima barreto, manuel zapata olivella, martín caparrós, and less canonical writers such as josé vieira, josé antonio lizarazo, and yeniter poleo. these public intellectuals interpret and explain urban violence, and position themselves as authorities in understanding these revolts. i argue that this cultural production narrowly renders violence either as an irrational expression or as part of a teleological revolutionary process, due to intellectuals' anxieties about demographic, racial, and political transformations of the latin american city. my research thus aims to understand this constellation of discourses that interpreted and defined urban violence during the twentieth century. it ultimately contributes to the ongoing conversation on collective violence by foregrounding the mediating role of literature and cinema in representing urban unrest. this dissertation examines the question of the reception and conceptualization of the christian classic in an african context. it argues that every reception is a poietic interpretation of the truth of faith that leads to the invention of new expressions of the same truth of faith and a new-modeof-being-in the world for, by and within the new community that experiences the encounter with the christ event. therefore, being inseparable from contextualization, reception intrinsically implies pluralism and inculturation.in africa plagued with violence, war and poverty but also displaying exceptional signs of christian growth, the dissertation contends, the poietic reception of the incarnation – god pitching his tent among us – that integrates the hermeneutical criteria laid by david tracy's critical correlation method and leonard santedi's paradigm of the theology of invention constitutes an asset to a new way of doing theology that challenges african imagination, and calls for african political, ecclesial and social transformation.properly understood, the reception of the paradigm of the incarnation leads to the invention and implementation of a new sociality in africa: the sociality of conviviality, forgiveness and togetherness founded upon african adherence to the christ event. tokimane, that is to hold one another up, is the concept that adequately, appropriately and meaningfully renders that new sociality of conviviality born of the adherence and acceptance of the mystery of the incarnation among the batetela people of the democratic republic of the congo. tokimane plays as contribution to the theological development of the understanding and the expression of the mystery of the incarnation – god with us – in batetela culture; it also serves as pastoral program spearhead for the implementation of the new evangelization or evangelization in depth and fosters in batetela's political, social and ecclesial imagination a new mode-ofbeing-in-the world based on reconciliation, forgiveness and peace for integral human flourishing. as theological concept and expression of a new mode-ofbeing-in the world, tokimane brings about in the concrete life of the batetela, and the africans in general, the foretaste of the new earth and the new heaven jesus christ has come to inaugurate. an overview of the history of orthopedic implants is presented along with a review of polymers used in orthopedics. minimally invasive implants are introduced and discussed. design requirements for minimally invasive orthopedic implants are discussed along with design classifications for minimally invasive implants. ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene (uhmwpe) was introduced and the use of the material as a bearing surface is described. a compression molding process is developed and modifications to the molds and mold surfaces are also discussed. an acrylic polymer cement system was conceived and developed for use in a novel minimally invasive implant. the cement serves as a main structural component for a new type of femoral fracture repair device that is installed through a small (~2.5 cm) incision. the physical, chemical, and mechanical characteristics of the polymer are determined and compared to currently available cement. improvements to the acrylic polymer system were pursued. acrylic fibers, developed for the hip fracture device, were incorporated into the acrylic polymer. incorporation of fibers up to 15% was attempted. 5% fibers by weight increased fatigue life of the acrylic polymer system approximately 8 times over the non-fiber reinforced material. blending of the fibers into the powder became increasingly more difficult with higher levels of fibers. 15% fibers were difficult to blend uniformly, with large variations in properties. nanometer sized barium sulfate was added to the blends replacing conventional sized barium sulfate. increases in fatigue life were observed. light initiated curing of acrylic cement was investigated. the object was to initiate curing of the acrylic system over a distance of several inches. camphorquinone was used as the initiator. mechanical properties of the cured samples were determined. north korea's nuclear test in october 2006 came as a stark reminder that the problem of nuclear proliferation is alive and well and that the global nuclear arms control and non-proliferation regime is fighting for its survival. from iran and north korea to the nuclear black-market of a.q. khan, new challenges have been emerging virtually every other day and threatening to undermine the global arms control architecture. in the immediate aftermath of the end of the cold war, nuclear proliferation was considered by many as a problem of the past. but the trends did not turn out as expected. india and pakistan went nuclear in 1998 and opened a pandora's box. nuclear proliferation, however, has tended to remain confined to three regions of the world in the post cold war era: south asia, middle east, and east asia. these are the region where states are locked up in intense regional rivalries. india and pakistan seem perpetually on the brink of a war. india and china continue to have broadly conflictual relationship. israel's conflict with its arab neighbors seems to have no end in sight. the korean peninsula continues to sit on the brink of a rivalry that did not end with the armistice in 1950. this dissertation looks at two of these regions, south asia and middle east, and examines the drivers of nuclear proliferation in so far as the key states in the region are concerned. it examines the role that the rivalries that states in these regions have with their neighbors have played in the spread of nuclear weapons in the region. the basic thesis is that the states in south asia and middle east have acquired or sought to acquire nuclear weapons for traditional national security reasons. but the dissertation goes further in exploring the role that the regional conflicts have played in shaping the basic security imperative of the states in the region. developments in numerical relativistic hydrodynamics over the past thirty years, along with the advent of high speed computers, have made problems needing general relativity and relativistic hydrodynamics tractable. one such problem is the relativistic evolution of neutron stars, either in a head on collision or in binary orbit. also of current interest is the detection of gravitational radiation from binary neutron stars, black-hole neutron star binaries, binary black holes, etc. such systems expected to emit gravitational radiation with amplitude large enough to be detected on earth by such groups as ligo and virgo. unfortunately, the expected signal strength is below the current noise level. however, signal processing techniques have been developed which should eventually find a signal, if a good theoretical template can be found. in the cases above it is not possible to obtain an analytic solution to the einstein equations and a numerical approximation is therefore most necessary. in this thesis the einstein equations are written using the formalism of arnowitt, desser and misner and a conformally flat metric is assumed. numerical simulations of colliding neutron stars, having either a realistic or gamma = 2 polytropic equation of state (eos), are presented which confirm the rise in central density seen by [51, 89] for the softer eos. for the binary calculation, the results of wilson et al. [89] are confirmed, which show that the neutron stars can collapse to black holes before colliding when the eos is realistic and we also confirm results of miller [56] and others that there is essentially no compression, the central density does not increase, when the stiffer equation of state is used. finally, a template for the gravitational radiation emitted from the binary is calculated and we show that the frequency of the emitted gravitational waves changes more slowly for the [89] eos, which may result in a stronger signal in the 50-100 hz band of ligo. this dissertation takes a new stab at an old question in aristotle interpretation. the question is this: how does aristotle understand the process through which we acquire our goals in life, i.e. "practical first principles"? many scholars interpret aristotle as thinking that this process is a rational one: one pursues x because one has arrived at the judgment that x is good through reasoning. others interpret aristotle as thinking that this process is a non-rational one: one pursues x because one has been habituated to find x good. in this dissertation, i argue that the answer lies somewhere in the middle. the process is non-rational in that what one finds good is determined by one's habituation. but the process is rational in that reason plays the crucial role of clarifying what the ends set by one's habituation actually are. i argue for this view by considering aristotle's practice as a teacher of ethics and by showing that aristotle intends his lectures to do just that—to help clarify for his students what the ends set by their excellent habituation actually are. chapter 1 provides a roadmap for the dissertation. i lay out the view of my primary interlocutor, jessica moss, and i introduce and defend my approach to the question, namely to consider aristotle's pedagogical aims as a teacher of ethics. chapter 2 examines the terminus a quo of aristotle's teaching process (point a). i argue that aristotle requires of his students that they have a rough grasp of the ends of the ethical life before they enter his classroom. chapter 3 considers the terminus ad quem of the teaching process (point b). i argue that the point of the lectures is to provide aristotle's students with nature-specifying definitions of the ends of the ethical life. chapter 4 examines the method aristotle employs to move his students from point a to point b. my basic proposal is that aristotle's method is to teach his students through simulated inquiry, and the method he follows in such inquiry is the same method that he characterizes at length in apo ii. in this dissertation, we discuss applications of thermodynamic formalism to various deformation spaces, namely, deformation spaces of metric graphs and immersed surfaces in hyperbolic 3-manifolds.for spaces of metric graphs, we define two conformal but different pressure metrics and study riemannian geometry induced by these two metrics. moreover, we compare the riemannian geometry features, such as curvature and completeness, of these two pressure metrics with the weil-petersson metric on teichmüller spaces. for immersed surfaces in hyperbolic 3-manifolds, we find relations between the critical exponent of the surface group (with respect to the ambient hyperbolic distance) and the topological entropy of the geodesics flow on the unit tangent bundle of the immersed surface (with respect to the induced riemannian metric). these relations lead us to recover the remarkable bowen rigidity for quasi-fuchsian manifolds as well as give a riemannian metric on the fuchsian space which is bounded below by the classical weil-petersson metric. biometrics are physical or behavioral characteristics that can be used for human identification. security plays an increasingly important role in our daily life, and biometric technologies are becoming the solution to highly secure recognition and verification of identity. in this dissertation, we propose the ear as a biometric and investigate its potential with both 2d and 3d data. our work is the largest experimental investigation of ear biometrics to date. the data set used for our experiments contains 415 persons, each with images acquired on at least two different dates. approaches considered include a pca ('eigen-ear') approach with 2d intensity images and range images, a hausdorff matching of edges from range images, and an icp-based approach to matching the 3d data. our experimental results demonstrate that the icp-based approach outperforms the other approaches at a statistically significant level. furthermore, we develop the first fully automated biometric system using 3d ear shape. it is a complete automatic system starting with a raw 3d image, through automated segmentation of the ear, and 3d shape matching for recognition. the automatic system achieves a rank-one recognition rate of 97.6% on a 415-subject dataset. our algorithm also shows good scalability of recognition rate with size of dataset. the results suggest a strong potential for 3d ear shape as a biometric. in a biometrics scenario, gallery images are enrolled into the database ahead of the matching step, which provides the opportunity to build related information before the probe comes into the system. we present a novel approach, called 'pre-computed voxel closest neighbors', to reduce the computational time for shape matching in a biometrics context. the approach shifts the heavy computation burden to the enrollment stage, which can be done offline. experiments in 3d ear and face biometrics demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach. in addition, ear symmetry and partial ear shape experiments are investigated. the results indicate that most people's left and right ears are approximately bilaterally symmetric. however, some people have ears with recognizably different shapes. experimental results with partial ear shape suggest that minor hair covering does not affect the performance substantially, but large hair covering will certainly reduce the recognition rate. this suggests that even in circumstances where the complete ear shape cannot be captured, partial shape has potential for recognition. this lends support for using ear shape as a biometric. our experiments use the biometric database collected at the university of notre dame. this data set is available to other research groups. in geometric stability theory, internality plays a central role, as a tool to explore the fine structure of definable sets. studying internal types, one often encounters uniformly defined families of internal types. this thesis is mainly concerned with the study of such families, both from an abstract model-theoretic perspective and in concrete examples.in the first part, we generalize one of the fundamental tools of geometric stability theory, type-definable binding groups, to certain families of internal types, which we call relatively internal. we obtain, instead of a group, a type-definable groupoid, as well as simplicial data, encoding structural properties of the family.in the second part, we introduce a new strengthening of internality, called uniform internality. we expose its connection with the previously constructed groupoids, and prove it is a strengthening of preserving internality, a notion previously introduced by moosa. we then explore examples in differentially closed fields and compact complex manifolds.in the last part, we study a structural feature of stable theories, called the canonical base property. we prove that hrushovski, palacín and pillay's counterexample does not transfer to positive characteristic. elaborating on the counterexample, we also provide an abstract configuration violating the canonical base property. fume explores two cousins' relationship that grows apart premised on having grown up together. when their lives inevitably includes life-long jealousies, regrets, and misunderstandings, will their bond endure in the end? in the cassiciacum dialogues, augustine attempted to adopt a christian philosophical life by working out what it means to live according to ciceronian friendship. cicero emphasizes that "philosophical friendships" were formed through a shared understanding of virtue and grew due to an appreciation of the other's virtue. according to pierre hadot, ancient philosophers saw the socratic method as well as the oratio perpetua (continuous speech) as spiritual exercises, that is to say, "exercises of reason" (philosophy as a way of life, 59).in the tusculan disputations, cicero used these exercises as a means to become friends with wisdom so that his fellow romans could learn how to accept death and form philosophical friendships.at cassiciacum, augustine found this kind of ciceronian friendship appealing because it offered a way for his community to find christ together and overcome their sinful relationships. augustine adopted cicero's tusculans for his own purpose and utilized the socratic method and the oratio perpetua as spiritual exercises. nevertheless, augustine found these exercises wanting since they did not help his community recognize the need for theological virtues for the perfection of their reason. these exercises did not allow augustine's community to overcome their fear of death, and he thought that they needed a new spiritual exercise: the soliloquy (dialogue with one's own reason). as a spiritual exercise, it allowed an individual to pursue knowledge of god without the shame of being proven wrong in an argument. in adopting such a discourse, augustine showed that his community could form authentic relationships in christ when they saw their friendships as a gift of god's grace. consequently, i argue that augustine was to form friendships not only with those like his closest friend alypius, but also his mother monica, who became the ideal christian philosopher for augustine at cassiciacum. multiscale process systems engineering across molecular to infrastructure scales is essential to realize sustainable technologies. for example, the promise of nanoengineering has been slow to manifest because materials such as novel membranes are rarely evaluated in the context of a process at scale to assess sustainability, feasibility, and economics of their application in realistic conditions. in this dissertation, i propose a molecular-to-systems engineering framework to address this challenge. this framework is built on four pillars which are rooted in computational science and data-driven methodologies, and are general and widely applicable to virtually all facets of sustainable technology development:1. materials-process targeting uses structure-property relations, thermodynamic laws, and conservation equations quantify the feasibility limits of integrated processes. this paradigm may be used to identify the scale-up potential of technologies based on novel materials such as adsorptive membranes. 2. data-driven design of experiments utilizes nonlinear parameter estimation and leverages time-series data from dynamic experiments to fit differential-algebraic equation models for the system. this technique, in collaboration with experimental scientists, enables the efficient building of predictive models via faster turnaround in experiments. 3. superstructure optimization provides a mathematical framework to search through several alternative flowsheet configurations simultaneously to find the optimum topology. in this work, this tool is used to quantify complex tradeoffs across the materialsand the systems-scale to guide property targets for the development of novel materials.4. bayesian uncertainty quantification using hybrid models combine partially known (assumed) mechanistic models with a data-driven gaussian processes (gp) and random noise to account for epistemic (model-form) and aleatory (paramertric) uncertainties. in conjunction with stochastic programming, this works demonstrates the superior performance of bayesian hybrid models for data-driven decision-making under uncertainty.in this dissertation, i describe the development of the materials-process targeting models, superstructure optimization framework, and bayesian uncertainty quantification methods to advance the state of art in multiscale process systems modeling. i briefly discuss how this work provided the impetus for data-driven design of dynamic experiments which sped up membrane characterization experiments. i conclude with a discussion of the future directions of this work and highlight the generality of the framework by identifying potential industrial applications of the proposed framework. noise generated by flow over rough surfaces is an important issue in naval applications and in aeronautical engineering. this work numerically investigates roughness-induced noise from low-mach-number turbulent boundary layers. the computational approach is based on lighthill's acoustic analogy with acoustic sources obtained from large-eddy simulation. an acoustic formulation is derived, which shows that each roughness element acts as an individual in-plane dipole source strengthened by its image in the wall. flow configurations investigated include boundary-layer flows over a single hemispherical roughness element, a pair of streamwisely aligned hemispherical elements and three roughness fetches consisting of 10ìñ4 hemispherical, cuboidal and cylindrical roughness elements, respectively. results for a single hemispherical roughness element and a pair of hemispherical elements show that the spanwise dipole, which has been overlooked before, is of larger or similar strength compared to the streamwise dipole. the viscous contribution to the dipoles is negligible compared to the pressure contribution. the main sound sources arise from the impingement of incoming turbulence and the unsteady horseshoe vortices generated around the element. the roughness-induced unsteady wake motions are unimportant as a source of self noise. however, they significantly enhance sound radiation from a downstream hemisphere. the effects of multi-element interactions and the roughness shape are investigated with arrays of 10ìñ4 sparsely distributed hemispheres, cuboids and short cylinders. the dipole strength, orientation and spatial distribution show strong dependence on the roughness shape. correlations between dipole sources associated with neighboring elements are found to be small for these sparsely distributed roughness arrays. correlations and coherence between roughness dipoles and surface pressure fluctuations are analyzed, which reveals the importance of the impingement of upstream turbulence and surrounding vortical structures to dipole sound radiation, especially in the streamwise direction. for roughness shapes with sharp frontal edges, the edge-induced unsteady separation and reattachment also play important roles in sound generation. large scale turbulent structures in the boundary layer have a relatively low influence on roughness dipoles, except for the first row of elements. the chlorooxide anions form a class of highly water-soluble, toxic species. perchlorate reductase from dechloromonas aromatica rcb is responsible for the enzymatic reduction of perchlorate to chlorate and chlorate to chlorite in two, two electron transfers. two heterologous expression systems for perchlorate reductase were constructed in this work. one system was based on the expression of active nitrate reductase and the second system utilized polycistronic coexpression. gel documentation of enzymatic digests indicated successful molecular subcloning of both constructs. however, the lack of iptg-inducible overexpression of the above constructs supported the supposition that the presence of several rare codons halted dna replication. this finding suggested the use of an e .coli strain genetically modified to replicate such rare codons is necessary for the desired overexpression to occur. the experimentally confirmed high isoelectic point of said enzyme (8.20-9.6) led to the construction of a three-part purification scheme. utilizing deae (diethylaminoethyl) reverse anion exchange as a first step resulted in an increase of perchlorate reductase specific activity from 0.0759 u/mg to 0.218 u/mg. while further downstream steps (carboxymethyl (cm) sepharose fast flow and sephacryl s-200 high resolution gel filtration) were able to increase specific activity to 2.29 u/mg, total activity decreased over the course of purification and complete separation from cellular proteins (mainly chlorite dismutase) was not achieved. thus, a summary of the partial purification achieved is presented rather than the complete purification of perchlorate reductase from d. aromtica. this dissertation aims to provide better understanding of volcanism and impacts on mars and the moon through the use of topographic and petrologic analyses. chapter 2 examines the topographic characteristics of polar volcanic edifices in the borealis volcanic field of mars and, through the use of icelandic analogs, suggests the existence of a former ice sheet. chapter 3 examines the depth-diameter relationship, cavity wall slopes, and morphologic characteristics of interior topographic formations within martian north polar impact craters to constrain polar processes and possible target effects. changing celestial spheres, chapter 4 is a detailed explanation of the geochemical methods of analysis employed for the lunar petrology studies in chapters 5-7; these chapters focus on the petrology of basalt and impact melt samples from apollo 14 and 16 missions. first, in chapter 5, the composition and textural characteristics of olivine crystals are used to distinguish between apollo 14 impact melt-generated olivine vitrophyres and pristine mare basalts of similar texture in a minimally destructive method. next, in chapter 6 whole-rock composition and chemistry of mineral phases are employed to examine rare basalt clasts from apollo 16 and suggest a common component to highly evolved apollo 17 type a basalts. the final chapter focuses on the chemistry of atypical plagioclase crystals with negative eu anomalies and the bulk composition of the samples therein to suggest the incorporation of a kreep component into an impact melt to account for the anomaly. this work highlights the vast knowledge than can be gained about these two processes both remotely and with small sample aliquots. psychometric theory provides a natural foundation to analyze text. the rapid increase in the availability of text as data has contributed to its growing use when measuring psychological and educational constructs. with that in mind, the validity of scores from text needs to be evaluated in order to make sound scientific claims. this dissertation focuses on how one would evaluate the psychometric properties of scores from text.a common approach to analyze text is to use topic modeling. this dissertation will focus on a specific topic model, latent dirichlet allocation (lda). lda is topic model that can summarize a group of documents with a set of topics. a major advantage of lda is that it can quickly score documents using a data driven approach. this dissertation reframes lda also as a measurement model, where one can rigorously evaluate the scores from text.chapter 1 introduces relevant text mining techniques with an emphasis on lda. an applied example will be provided where text responses are gathered from students taking a statistics course. in chapter 2, informative priors will be investigated with lda. chapter 3 proposes new methods to evaluate the reliability of scores from lda. chapter 4 proposes a new model that can be used to jointly estimate models for both self report and text. finally, chapter 5 will close with concluding thoughts and potential future directions. the demand for enhancement of computational performance has been primarily driven by the continued scaling of cmos transistors. however, as gate lengths approach single digits, this method alone is not sustainable in the future, and as such, requires new devices to complement advanced cmos technology. the goal of this thesis is to evaluate the potential complementary device applications that can be enabled through threshold switching-based materials and devices. this work will highlight the design, fabrication, and engineering strategies using threshold switching phenomena that can not only enhance the performance of conventional logic, but also memory and millimeter wave technology for continued improvements in computational performance. the work will discuss the application of threshold switches to three device architectures – (1) a hybrid transistor design, phase-fet, where the innate abrupt switching nature and orders of magnitude change in resistivity are used to surpass conventional transistor performance (2) cross-point selectors, where the large on-off resistivity ratio can aid in the suppression of sneak-path leakage current for high density memory arrays and (3) a mm-wave rf switch, where the abrupt switching phenomenon in the threshold switch can be triggered using mm-wave pulses to enable rf circuits over wide temperature ranges. in this article we investigate volume invariants on the boundary of conformally compact manifolds, subject to constant scalar curvature condition. this work is a generalization of that of r graham, where the einstein condition was considered. it is shown that the invariants under weakening to constant scalar curvature condition are different in general from those under einstein condition. we then look at some cases of constant scalar curvature condition involving the measure of chang, gursky and yang. axial compressor stall causes unsteady aerodynamic loading that leads to blade vibration. prolonged operation in stall can contribute to high cycle fatigue (hcf). the prediction of the impact stall has on hcf is a significant challenge. information about the physics of stall is often obtained through the analysis of unsteady casing pressures, but no observed link has been shown between blade vibrations and unsteady casing pressures.the present thesis describes the characteristics of blade vibration and examines the unsteady casing pressures of a single stage axial compressor in stall. blade strains and unsteady casing pressures were measured during stall at various corrected speeds with two different inlet profiles. the unsteady casing pressures were found to be poorly correlated around the annulus, and not correlated to any of the first four modes of blade vibration. this study compares and analyzes traditional elders' mediation efforts in somalia and somaliland from 1991 to the present. a thorough study of the two conflicts reveals that the conflict in the south of somalia was far more intractable than in the north.this comparative thesis examines peacemaking processes used by traditional elders in the north today in their efforts to build peace while the greater parts of somalia remain chaotic. the application of a traditional peacemaking mechanism reduces violence and builds peace in northern somalia. most contemporary research on the conflict in somalia has focused much on the traditional conflict management in the north,overlooking or misunderstanding the southern traditional elders' role in peacemaking.the purpose of this research is to identify the problems the elders in the south face in this regard and to present an alternative to the existing problem. this dissertation examines and defends a theory of conscience as a person's individual moral self-awareness before god. this understanding of conscience has been dismissed in the communitarian current of contemporary christian ethics. and this is unfortunate, i argue, because it has a long and valuable history in the christian tradition. this understanding of conscience has implicit warrants in the old testament and explicit precedents in the new testament, in the patristic era and beyond. surprisingly, this understanding of conscience is upheld in modern theology and philosophy through the work of immanuel kant, søren kierkegaard, and karl barth. i argue that kant, kierkegaard, and barth each make a persuasive case for conscience as the means god gives to each of us to know ourselves in our singular accountability before god. influential critics discern in this theory of conscience, by virtue of its association with kant, the origins of a modern moral subject who knows herself as accountable before a law simply because it is the law she has given to herself. but i argue that for kant, kierkegaard, and barth conscience is where we strive to approximate god's knowledge of our character before god as god makes a claim upon us. conscience as moral self-awareness is not—at least not in the tradition these three figures uphold—a license for an atomistic, autonomous individual who creates her own morality and values freedom for its own sake. it is, rather, a source of self-awareness for the individual in her singular relation to god. i conclude that these three figures helpfully remind us of this biblical and theological witness that we know ourselves rightly when we see ourselves through the eyes of the one before whom we are fully transparent. the dissertation makes an important contribution to scholarship on kant, kierkegaard, and barth since conscience is for each figure an important topic that is nonetheless neglected in the respective secondary literature. but the dissertation also intervenes in the field of christian ethics with an important normative claim, namely that there is something deeply private and singular about self-knowledge and that self-knowledge is an important element of a person's moral and spiritual formation. we study two objects commonly associated to coxeter systems: root systems and hecke algebras. first, we show that there is a collection of groups (which include coxeter groups) for which we can associate a more generalized notion of root systems. we conjecture that these groups admit a presentation similar to that of coxeter groups, but in which generators might have order different than two. more precisely, we conjecture that these groups (together with their generating sets) are reflection systems. secondly, we generalize the notion of w-graphs, and use the path algebras associated to these graphs to construct representations of hecke algebras on quotients of these path algebras. we provide an algorithm to describe the generators of the ideals we use to construct the quotients. finally, we show how this construction is a special example of a more general framework: d-graphs over non-commutative algebras. this dissertation will consist of three topics which fall under the general umbrella of studies of water radiolysis at supercritical temperatures and pressures for nuclear power applications. introductory material common to all chapters in this dissertation relating to water radiolysis in supercritical water conditions is presented in the opening chapter. chapter 2 explores "the application of hydrogen water chemistry to suppress net radiolysis in supercritical water." one of the largest problems in all nuclear reactors (including the proposed supercritical water reactor (scwr) design) is stress corrosion cracking (scc) of steel pipes. this is controlled by the corrosion potential, on which the o2 and h2o2 species formed in water radiolysis have a major impact.1,2 even at low concentrations they strongly influence corrosion kinetics. in order to control the corrosion potential, a successful strategy employing hydrogen water chemistry inhibits radiolytic decomposition of the coolant by the minimum addition of hydrogen (the critical hydrogen concentration) to the primary cooling water.3 experiments showing that this strategy can be successfully applied in supercritical water reactors are discussed. we have confirmed that suppression of o2 in the bulk water is possible in the sub-and supercritical temperature regimes. however, results indicate that substantial hydrogen (no o2) is still generated by radiation-induced reactions on the walls of the metal flow system, an effect absent at lower (sub 350ìäåâìâå¡c) temperatures. in fact, excess hydrogen seems to be generated at supercritical temperatures. chapter 3 explores "solvated electron (e-aq) yields in supercritical water." in support of an ongoing yield measurement program collaboration with the university of wisconsin, madison, radiolysis yields of h, h2, and e-aq were measured as a function of temperature and as a function of pressure (or density) in the mixed neutron/gamma radiation field from a nuclear reactor at the university of wisconsin. reactor data is compared with nearly identical experiments run with a 3mev van de graaff accelerator to measure the same yields in the absence of neutron radiolysis. radiolysis was carried out using a beam of 2-3 mev electrons from a van de graaff accelerator and sf6 was used as a specific scavenger for the hydrated electron. reduction of sf6 on the walls of the irradiation zone was apparent and subsequently investigated. chapter 4 explores "carbonate radical formation in radiolysis of sodium carbonate and bicarbonate solutions up to 250ìäåâìâå¡c and the mechanism of its second order decay." pulse radiolysis experiments published several years ago raised the possibility that the carbonate radical formed from reaction of ìäå¢ì¢åâåâìâå¢oh radicals with either hco3or co32might actually exist predominantly as a dimer form, e.g. ìäå¢ì¢åâåâìâå¢(co3)23-. in this work we re-examine the data upon which this suggestion was based, and find that the original data analysis is flawed. upon re-analysis of the published data for sodium bicarbonate solutions and analysis of new transient absorption data we are able to establish the rate constant for this reaction up to 250c. the complete mechanism of second order self-recombination of ìäå¢ì¢åâåâìâå¢co3radicals has heretofore not been conclusively demonstrated. a simple optical measurement of the second order half-life does not properly describe the chemistry involved. a pre-equilibrium between ìäå¢ì¢åâåâìâå¢co3and a short-lived dimer c2o62is strongly indicated based on the slightly negative activation energy for the overall recombination found below 300oc. existing conductivity data is only consistent with production of co2 and co42from this dimer. the present work demonstrates the decay is autocatalytic thanks to reaction of ìäå¢ì¢åâåâìâå¢co3with the peroxymonocarbonate hco4/ co42product. in any pulse radiolysis experiment, particularly if oh radicals are incompletely scavenged, reaction of ìäå¢ì¢åâåâìâå¢co3with hydrogen peroxide also contributes to the decay. finally, the radicals ìäå¢ì¢åâåâìâå¢o2and ìäå¢ì¢åâåâìâå¢co4formed respectively from the hydrogen peroxide and peroxymonocarbonate reactions, recombine with ìäå¢ì¢åâåâìâå¢co3-. finally, chapter 5 will present a summary of findings and directions for further studies. energy commodities have significant roles in modern industrial economics. energy price fluctuations caused by unbalanced supply and demand and other exotic reasons can result in financial risks. to mitigate or avoid the financial risks, risk management is necessary and profitable for energy utility owner/operators. in this dissertation, two problems in energy risk management are considered. one is 'valuation of an energy swap for a flexible fuel process' and the other is 'valuation and optimization of energy commodity storage'. an energy swap is a contract between energy utility owner/operators and a banker, where the energy utility owner/operators pay the banker a certain amount of money initially and the banker will take care of the energy cost of the energy utility during an agreed period of time. the problem is to decide a 'fair value' for the energy utility owner/operator to pay. to obtain the 'fair value', a self-financing hedging portfolio is constructed consisting of a flexible fuel process, physical ownership of the underlying energy commodities whose stochastic price models are correlated, and a risk-free asset. pde method is employed to obtain the valuation of the energy swap and the optimal control strategies (the hedging) for the flexible fuel process. both simulated data with monte carlo method and historical data are used for validation. the results can be used either by the process operator directly to reduce financial risk, or by an energy banker to price an 'energy swap' to finance process operation. as for the storage problem, the purpose is to help energy utility with energy storage obtain the optimal storage operations to lower financial risks and to make more profit. first, a storage model for a single commodity with stochastic price serving a known and fixed demand is proposed. convenience yield is also included in the model. a 2-dimensional (2d) hamilton-jacobi-bellman (hjb) equation with embedded optimization problem is formulated and solved to obtain the optimal storage strategies. an oil storage problem is given as an example. the valuation result is compared to two other cases with different control methods and ends up performing the best, which demonstrates the benefit to operate the facility following the optimal control strategies. the control problem is found to be a stochastic sliding mode control problem, which appears novel. the storage problem is further extended by including stochastic demand instead of known demand. a similar 3-dimentional (3d) hjb equation is formulated and solved. the results are consistent with the 2d's. the convergence of the 3d computation is verified with the numerical convergence order. this extended 3d model can be easily adapted for other stochastic variable, like stochastic convenience yield, stochastic volatility or another stochastic commodity price. proper boundary conditions need to be chosen to solve the corresponding 3d problem. this storage model can also be used for general commodity storage optimization problems. the advent of single cell rna-sequencing (scrna-seq) has opened up the gates to a plethora of new research avenues. we stand to make great leaps forward in the understanding of how multi-celled organisms function by analyzing their component parts. we can now analyze the transcriptome landscape of developing stem cells, study how cancer cells change after treatment, examine how the body reacts to disease on a cellular level and create detailed taxonomies of the cellular composition of organisms.however, considerable challenges remain before the full potential of scrna-seq can be utilized, including the high dimensional nature of the data, noise, confounding factors and a lack of suitable methods to adequately compare populations of cells. while there is on-going development and refinement of sequencing procedures to reduce sources of technical noise and bias, this thesis will focus on the issues facing the computational analysis of scrna-seq. data coming from scrna-seq experiments typically contain 100-10,000 cells and measurements for about 20,000-50,000 genes, this leads to a large \ extit{p} small \ extit{n} problem, leading to issues such as conventional clustering algorithms being ineffective due to the curse of dimensionality. a related issue is the proportion of noise in the data, and that the expression of many genes may be unrelated to the information we are trying to extract from the data. confounding factors such as the cell-cycle can affect the expression of many genes, leading to subpopulations in the data being masked by its effect. existing clustering algorithms are unsuitable for the simultaneous analysis of more than a single population at the one time, that is, clusters found in separate populations must be linked after the clustering has been completed, making the tracing of subpopulations of cells through a condition change very challenging. in particular if the transcriptome profile of a subpopulation of cells has changed due to the condition change then there is difficulty in determining whether that subpopulation has died out or survived the condition change. this work will present two methods developed to improve the analysis of scrna-seq data. the first of these, a sparse differential clustering algorithm, sparsedc, is the first clustering algorithm which is suitable for analyzing two populations in a high dimensional setting. this algorithm clusters cells from two populations simultaneously, identifies a unique set of characteristic markers for each of the clusters, links clusters which are present in both conditions and detects features which describe how the transcriptome profile has changed with the condition change. furthermore, sparsedc only uses a subset of the total features in its solution allowing it to avoid the curse of dimensionality and work effectively when faced with data with many features such as scrna-seq data. sparsedc uses a modified k-means clustering algorithm with added $\ell_1$ penalties to enforce sparsity in the marker genes and drive similar clusters from different conditions together. the second method presented is a tool for identifying the cell-cycle effect in scrna-seq data and removing it to improve downstream analysis. this method, ccremover, makes use of prior knowledge about which genes are related to the cell-cycle. it first captures the sources of variation in the data from genes which are not annotated to the cycle, then uses the cell-cycle genes to test which sources of variation are related to the cell-cycle, these cell-cycle related signals are then removed from the data while other biological signals of interest are preserved. the effectiveness of both methods is demonstrated through simulation and real data applications. through these it is shown how both of the methods can enhance the analysis of scrna-seq data and aid in the unlocking of the full potential of scrna-seq data. both methods are applicable to a range of other problems, ccremover can be applied in any situation where an unwanted source of variation is known to have a stronger effect on a subset of features. sparsedc is applicable to any situation where the simultaneous analysis of multiple populations consisting of independent observations is undertaken, such as examining data on individuals from different cities or countries, or stock market data taken from an index at different periods of time. excess nitrogen (n) causes numerous water quality problems, including drinking water contamination, eutrophication, and loss of biodiversity. in the agricultural midwest, the source of excess n is largely row crop agriculture, in which artificial drainage and n fertilizer additions facilitate the rapid movement of n from fields to downstream water bodies. one potential way to mitigate n pollution, while maintaining crop yields, is through two-stage ditch restoration, where floodplains are excavated adjacent to incised agricultural channels. during storm events, water flows onto the floodplains, spreads out, and slows down. my dissertation research examined the influence of the two-stage ditch on ecosystem function, including denitrification and whole-stream metabolism. i also assessed habitat constraints on the endangered clubshell mussel (pleurobema clava), and evaluated the influence of plants on wetland denitrification. i found that floodplain restoration increased reach-scale denitrification by increasing the time and space over which denitrification can occur. denitrification rates increased over the course of a floodplain inundation event, and the presence of vegetation enhanced floodplain denitrification rates. in addition, gross primary production increased during storm events, although ecosystem respiration and assimilatory n uptake remained unchanged. i also compared the two-stage ditch to other n removal practices and found that wetlands are the most cost-effective practice (in $/kg n removed), followed by two-stage ditches and cover crops. in addition, i found that clubshell mussels appear to be limited by low pore water oxygen, likely as a result of interstitial sedimentation limiting the percolation of surface water oxygen. finally, vegetation increased ammonium uptake rates in an urban wetland, but it did not influence denitrification. overall, my dissertation research demonstrates that floodplain and wetland ecotones can enhance n retention, improving water resource management in anthropogenically-influenced landscapes. airplane mode is, first and foremost, an homage to the tv show community, emulating a voice similar to that of main character abed nadir. this collection of poems spins out of my interest in shifting identities and landscapes, (mis)communication, hyper-masculinity, and narrative bricolages. this thesis demonstrates how various computational chemistry methodologies and statistical approaches can assist in material discovery. two directly related areas are membranes for protein separation and lithium-ion battery electrolytes for energy storage. within the protein separation project, coarse-grained brownian dynamics simulations are conducted to study the separation of two similarly sized proteins: villin headpiece and amyloid beta. the preferred membrane pore size and hydrophobicity are determined through calculating separation factors. the simulation also explains the preferred pore size through understanding the protein structural changes both inside and outside the membrane pores. in addition, a simple model based on the net hydropathy of a protein is developed and tested to estimate the separation factor trends of two additional protein pairs: bovine serum albumin and hemoglobin as well as lysozyme and cytochrome c. this work shows the benefits of simulation in material discovery: it presents fast methodologies to guide the experimental membrane design and to provide molecular details to explain the conclusions. in the second project of this thesis, lithium-ion battery electrolytes are studied. while lithium-ion batteries have shown success in portable devices, there is still significant room for improvement in terms of safety, manufacturing cost, and durability. molecular dynamics simulations, optimization algorithms, and quantitative structure property relationships are conducted to improve the predictive behaviors of electrolyte properties, which then could be used to design better liquid electrolytes. this work uses a "scaling method" that scales current molecular dynamics simulation parameters to improve the model estimation accuracy. then an automated framework with latin hypercube sampling and global optimization algorithms is developed to systematically find the scales. the automated framework, combining molecular dynamics simulations and optimization algorithms, provides a simple and systematic way to increase the prediction accuracy and could be extended to completely different systems. different from this framework, a quantitative structure property relationship model that relates the properties with molecules' structural and molecular information is developed. the model is proven to be able to predict properties in a fast manner given sufficient training data. this project shows that exploring and utilizing statistical approaches can improve the predictive behaviors of existing simulation models. overall, diverse topics could be studied through different computational methods serving as predictive tools. in addition, the future outlook of computational chemistry methodologies and their challenges are discussed in detail. mycobacterium avium is an environmental bacteria that can cause disease in people with pre-existing lung conditions or who are immunocompromised. mycobacteria are well known for their complex cell envelope structure and many of the components of the envelope play a significant role in bacterial pathogenesis. the outer leaflet of m. avium bacteria and other non-tuberculosis mycobacteria (ntms) contain unique, surface-exposed, antigenic molecules known as glycopeptidolipids (gpls) that are able to interact with host immune receptors including the mannose receptor (mr). these molecules have also been implicated in immune response modulation, transcriptional modification, virulence, sliding motility, and biofilm formation. as gpls are likely one of the first molecules that the host immune cells interact with, determining the importance of gpls in the context of an infection could be an important step for understanding how the host initially responds to m. avium. our work aims to develop an effective transformation method for creating gpl mutant strains in m. avium and determine how gpl interaction with a specific pattern recognition receptor, the mr, can alter the transcriptional profile of primary murine bone-marrow macrophages. this thesis is an examination of the role that auricular confession played in the relationships between gender, religion, and domestic life in britain in the 1840s and 1850s. it focuses in particular on three texts, georgiana fullerton's ellen middleton, charles kingsley's the saint's tragedy, and charlotte brontë's villette, and examines the consequences of women's auricular confessions in each of these works. is aristotle's ontology of sensible substances a constituent ontology? if so, is it—as some critics of constituent ontology assert—unintelligible? what can be said in defense of the coherence and truth of constituent ontology? in this dissertation, i offer a defense of aristotle's constituent ontology. this defense is a defense twice over; first, against those who assert otherwise, it is a defense of the claim that aristotle's ontology is constituent. second, against those who assert constituent ontology's unintelligibility, it is a defense of the claim that aristotle's ontology is not only not incoherent, but superior to many versions of platonism.my first chapter is an introduction that contextualizes the arguments of my dissertation by reviewing the definitions of constituent and relational ontology and highlighting the features of constituent ontology that will be the focus of the main chapters.my second chapter defends a constituent reading of aristotle's hylomorphic theory against certain contemporary aristotelian scholars who deny that aristotelian substances and accidental unities are composed of real and differentiated ontological parts.my third chapter investigates peter van inwagen's case against the intelligibility of constituent ontology—viz. that it makes a category mistake by posting genuinely located properties. i show that, according to the most important commentators on constituent ontology—michael loux, nicholas wolterstorff, and gustav bergmann—the genuine location of properties is neither an essential nor a coincidentally ubiquitous feature of constituent ontology; van inwagen's argument, therefore, fails as a general refutation of constituent ontology.my fourth chapter explores the possibility that, according to aristotle, substantial and/or accidental forms are genuinely located, and that, therefore, aristotle's constituent ontology is susceptible to van inwagen's attack. i argue that it is immune. the demonstration of its immunity involves investigating aristotle's notions of place, where, and accidental location. my fifth chapter argues for the coherence and truth of constituent ontology; the former is accomplished by showing how certain common aesthetic intuitions lead naturally to the constituent ontological view. the latter is accomplished by defending the soundness of a brief argument whose conclusion is the truth of constituent ontology. superplastic forming (spf) forming is used in the production of a wide range of aerospace structures. however, one pressing concern is the ability to quantitatively model the spf process in order to effectively design tooling. current finite element method (fem) simulations for spf generally do not include the evolutionary nature of friction under creeping conditions nor model proper constitutive behavior. the presence of creep strain leads to junction growth and saturated contact areas at longer time scales than conventional metal forming. therefore, friction models that ignore creep-induced strains will underpredict asperity contact and friction levels.in this work, micro-contact models of a single asperity that follows a power law profile in contact with a rigid flat tool are modeled using an elastic-creep constitutive model. a design of experiment methodology is used to characterize the main parameters that affect asperity contact, and through the incorporation of a physics-based analytical model, a new contact area expression is established based on a characteristic time intrinsic to the asperity deformation behavior. the single asperity model is then further developed to elastic-creep gaussian surfaces in contact with a rigid flat. following a similar methodology, a design of experiment is used to guide micro-contact simulations. the derived predictive contact model follows a general exponential function that eventually saturates at high fractional contact areas. the expression provides a powerful universal solution that is applicable to both gaussian surfaces and single asperities under power law creep conditions. a new characteristic time is introduced for rough surfaces, which is derived analytically based on first engineering principles. the characteristic time provides a self-similar behavior for any given pressure and power law creep multiplier coefficient. finally, it is shown that the friction model adequately captures the general deformation behavior for spf processes and a semi-empirical equation of the real contact area and friction is established. in this grounded ethnography, i examine the university of notre dame's local gay and lesbian social movement field. my analysis of the glbtq-focused student organizations answers the question of how a glbtq social movement has not only emerged on a catholic campus whose administration is generally resistant to the movement's goals, but arguably thrived, spreading across three major glbtq-rights focused organizations. the first substantive chapter discusses the problems of emotional ambivalence among potential glbtq activists on the notre dame campus. through a series of interaction rituals that begin at freshman orientation and continue throughout an undergraduate's four years at notre dame, the institutional structure of notre dame elicits strong feelings of pride and solidarity among students, particularly within residence halls. conversely, heterosexism, homophobia, and the prominence of the controversy between glbtq rights and catholic teaching on the campus lead to interactions that elicit shame and isolation in glbtq students rather that pride. these conflicting emotions leave glbtq students vulnerable to heterosexism, but conflicted about speaking up against their dormmates. however, students with access to alternate sources of emotional energy are able to overcome this ambivalence and join the notre dame glbtq movement. the second substantive chapter examines what happens to glbtq-friendly students after they enter the activist scene at notre dame. repeated failed attempts to mobilize through protest and other events drains non-heterosexual students of whatever emotional energy gains they would otherwise experience through mobilizing, leading to rapid burnout and temporary retreat from the movement; however, heterosexual students experience the failures less personally and are better able to sustain involvement with the organizations over time. thus, straight allies become key to sustaining the organizations in the hostile institutional context of notre dame. the third substantive chapter examines the three major glbtq rights organizations on the notre dame campus as entities themselves. i discuss the ways in which the organizations confound traditional categorization schemes used by scholars of social movements and explain that the apparent paradoxes the organizations present are a function of sociological focus, not inherent qualities of the organizations. the purpose of this study was to establish: (1) that head start children's emergent literacy knowledge would benefit from developmentally appropriate and child-centered intervention; (2) that children's emotional expression and regulatory behaviors are important predictors of interindividual differences in within-individual change in emergent literacy knowledge; (3) that warm and supportive navigation through a childcentered intervention would positively affect a child's perceived-self competence; and (4) that regular (i.e., daily) contextual assessment of emergent literacy is predictive of less frequent and more decontextualized assessments of emergent literacy. children were randomly assigned to either an enriched literacy intervention group or to an attention control group. group differences favoring the enriched literacy intervention group were found on emergent literacy and perceived-self competence measures. random effects models indicated significant within-individual variation in initial status and change in both emergent literacy and perceived-self competence. group membership, contextual assessment, regulatory behaviors, and emotional display significantly predicted individual differences in initial status and change. preschoolers therefore respond to and learn from age-appropriate literacy-targeted instruction; behavioral and emotional indices are important indicators of individual change in literacy ability; and successful and enjoyable experiences during age-appropriate activities can impact children's perceivedself competence. finally, regular and contextually relevant assessment can be an important tool used to monitor individual progress in young children's literacy abilities. meteorological flows are difficult to predict due to their extreme complexity and non-linearity. current numerical weather models are primarily equipped for prediction of less capricious meso and synoptic-scale phenomena. modeling of microscale phenomena, particularly in complex terrain, remains a pain point for the modeling community. this thesis attempts to shed light on multiple questions related to environmental physics and modeling. the first investigation focuses on the effects of stratification on microscale gap flow observed during the perdigão campaign. modified forms of non-dimensional mountain height g are proposed to account for real-world atmospheric variability, and the results are discussed in terms of a gap-averaged value gc. the nature of gap flow is highly dependent on gc, wherein a nearly neutral flow regime (gc &lt; 1), a transitional mountain wave regime (gc ~ o(1)), and a gap-jetting regime (gc &gt; o(1)) are identified. the findings suggest that microscale gaps, while having only a minor effect on the surrounding flow field during nearly neutral time periods, are highly influential as stratification increases and buoyancy becomes a main driver of the flow. the next investigation explores the effects of physics-informed feature engineering when utilizing an artificial neural network for vertical extrapolation of wind speeds. non-dimensional inputs, namely turbulence intensity, current wind speed, and previous wind speed, are the features that most reliably improve extrapolation accuracy. the developed model provides drastically improved extrapolation accuracy compared to the commonly used log law and power law extrapolation methods. a similar question is posed in the third investigation, but for wind speed forecasting. a random forest model is used to predict the forecasting error from a bias-corrected autoregressive integrated moving average (arima) model. multiple meteorological variables are used as inputs, and variables conveying information about atmospheric stability, turbulence, and inertia are all found to be useful in dealing with non-linear error prediction. the developed model is shown to improve upon both the bias-corrected arima and persistence models. finally, a study is performed which investigates optimal machine learning strategies for wind speed forecasting. three sets of modeling strategies are analyzed, suggesting that target variable differencing and direct forecasting are more accurate and robust strategies for multi-step wind speed forecasting. the model is shown to improve as up to 8 equivalent years of training data is added, although such improvement may be negated by changing environmental flow patterns. my work examines perpetual adolescence as it manifests of pop culture. it draws from the aspects of pop culture that are obsessed with the hero story, which has been said to parallel the trials of growing up. if this is the case, then what is to be said about a culture of boy-men growing up who never leave the flights of fancy of their childhood, and who persist in being 'the hero'? i surmise that there exists a zeitgeist within our culture toward a new idea of what it means to be 'grown up,' where play, humor, and wit have a higher calling than more serious pursuits. by investigating the superhero mythos in a post-apocalyptic environment i hope to shed new light on a new group of young people who aren't interested in the former ideal of growing up and are searching for a new way to try and define themselves. through the creation of my own mythos i hope to align myself with this zeitgeist in defining a new path. in classical lefschetz-nielsen theory, one defines the lefschetz invariant l(f) of an endomorphism f of a manifold m. the definition depends on the fundamental group of m, and hence on choosing a base point * in m and a base path from * to f(*). our goal is to develop a family version of lefschetz-nielsen theory, i.e., for a smooth fiber bundle p:e--> b and a fiber bundle endomorphism f:e--> e. a family version of the classical approach involves choosing a section s:b--> e of p and a path of sections from s to fs. not only is this artificial, but such a path does not always exist. to avoid this difficulty, we replace the fundamental group with the fundamental groupoid. this gives us a base point free version of the lefschetz invariant. in the family setting, we define the lefschetz invariant using a bordism theoretic construction, and prove a hopf-lefschetz theorem. we then describe our ideas for extending the algebraic base point free invariant to get an algebraic version of the lefschetz invariant in the family setting. research in the sociology of education has long identified that school socioeconomic composition is the most important school-level attribute in explaining student outcomes, and that the strength of this effect varies across schools and countries. yet research has not fully explained how and why these effects vary across schools and countries. this dissertation analyses school socioeconomic composition effects by decomposing them into contagion and frog-pond effects and analyzes how the strength of these composition effects varies according to the way schools and school systems organize themselves by promoting cross-status relationships, differentiating opportunities to learn and providing information about students' possibilities of greater educational attainment. i find that the decomposition of socioeconomic composition effects is a useful way to understand the dynamics of composition effects: a student benefits from attending an advantaged school, but is simultaneously hurt by his lower relative status position. the positive effect of attending an advantaged school is generally greater than the negative effect of the relative disadvantage for outcomes such as reading performance and status expectations; yet the negative effect is greater for academic self-concept. in other words, for status expectations and achievement, it is better to be a smaller frog in a high-status pond than a big frog in a low-status pond. i also find that organizational attributes that promote cross-status relationships within the school promote positive contagion effects, that the differentiation of opportunities to learn and practices that increase the saliency of socioeconomic status strengthen frog-pond effects for all three educational outcomes. i use these results to explore the contexts of successful socioeconomic integration in schools and find that no organizational attribute in the study unequivocally helps produce successfully integrated learning environments. however, there are a handful of national contexts where socioeconomic integration is successful in promoting disadvantaged students' achievement while not harming advantaged students' achievement. these results speak to the importance of socioeconomic composition in shaping students' educational experience and outcomes, and suggests that this dimension of schooling may be more effective in reducing educational inequality and, if developed and implemented correctly, in promoting overall achievement in the school system. this cultural history examines slave trading in kentucky from 1820 to 1860. i argue that instead of slavery declining in kentucky during the antebellum period, the state's system of intrastate slave speculation, which included the practices of slave hiring and slave catching, provided bluegrass masters with a profitable and flexible system of circulating enslaved black labor throughout communities and within the state. slavery in kentucky existed in a diverse agricultural economy, not a cotton producing economy as in the lower south and this type of slavery characterized by masters who possessed five or fewer slaves shaped the practice of slave speculation in kentucky. white kentuckians were involved in the slave market not just as professional flesh traders but also as hirers, auctioneers, executors, sheriffs, and slave catchers. this study of slave speculation in kentucky expands our existing definition of slave trading in the antebellum south to include the practices of slave hiring and slave catching and also reveals how the speculation in human beings affected the potency of antislavery movements in the upper south. parents' physical discipline has been shown to adversely impact child socioemotional (mcloyd &amp; smith, 2002), and academic development (gershoff, et al., 2016). however, no prior research has investigated the impacts of parents' physical discipline in a process-oriented model. therefore, we tested a developmental cascade model in which child externalizing and internalizing problems mediate the relationship between parental physical discipline and child literacy development. data from the early childhood longitudinal study-kindergarten cohort, 1998-1999 (ecls-k) were used to test a longitudinal mediation using a piecewise latent growth curve model. results demonstrated that externalizing and internalizing symptoms mediated relationship between parents' physical discipline and trajectories of child literacy. furthermore, parents' physical discipline during a child's kindergarten year predicted more externalizing and internalizing symptoms one year later and lower literacy skills in 8th grade. overall, findings suggest that parents' physical discipline may have cascading detrimental impacts on child literacy development through problem behaviors. proper cell function and thus all life processes depend on proteins, which must adopt specific conformations at the right time and place in order to be functional. all proteins start their journey being synthesized by the ribosome as a linear polymer of amino acids and must make a transition from a disordered, unfolded ensemble to a functional folded structure. the transition can occur during synthesis (co-translational folding), or later in the protein's lifetime (intrinsically disordered proteins or idps). the thermodynamic hypothesis of protein folding originally introduced by christian b. anfinsen states that the protein native state is the global energy minimum of a polypeptide. this view is consistent with the behavior observed for many small, simple protein structures, but is not sufficient to explain the observation that most proteins misfold and aggregate during classic test tube refolding experiments. in order to natively fold and avoid intermediates that may lead to misfolding and aggregation, many proteins must fold under kinetic control. in this work i propose that biases in the unfolded ensemble and vectorial appearance of the polypeptide during translation (or analogously the vectorial appearance a polypeptide may experiences as it crosses a membrane) are tools used by the cell to gain kinetic control of the protein folding pathway. while generally appreciated that the unfolded state is a highly dynamic ensemble of rapidly interconverting conformations, the conformational biases and how the sequence of amino acids shapes the ensemble is poorly understood. using new analysis tools and a large, hydrophobic idp i show that the patterning of hydrophobic or charged amino acids govern the intramolecular polypeptide behavior. i develop a novel refolding assay with a fluorescent protein sensor to directly measure the effects of vectorial polypeptide appearance on protein folding. finally, using in vivo and in vitro approaches, both the shape of the unfolded ensemble and vectorial appearance are examined in the context of an autotransporter virulence protein, pertactin. i propose that expanded unfolded ensemble of pertactin serves a functional role by preventing aggregation and promoting efficient secretion to the cell surface. the principles discussed in this dissertation are universal to all proteins, and can be applied to various systems in order to gain a better understanding of protein folding and the molecular basis for disease. salmonella enterica serovars cause an estimated 93 million infections each year that result either in typhoid fever or salmonellosis. among those subspecies that cause typhoid fever, salmonella enterica serovar typhi can form biofilms on gallstones in the gallbladders of acutely infected patients, leading to chronic carriage of the bacterium in 3-5% of patients. these biofilms are recalcitrant to antibiotic-mediated eradication, leading to chronic fecal shedding of the bacteria. as humans are the only known reservoir for this pathogen, this fecal shedding is responsible for the re-infection of poorly treated water supplies, and perpetuates the disease in endemic regions, specifically sub-saharan africa and southeast asia. if gallstone-mediated biofilm formation can be prevented or disrupted, treatment and potential eradication of the disease becomes possible. here, the synthesis and anti-biofilm activity of a library of small molecules is reported based on a previously identified hit that demonstrated the ability to both inhibit and disrupt s. typhi and s. typhimurium (a nontyphoidal model serovar for s. typhi) biofilms. lead compounds were identified that inhibit s. typhimurium biofilm formation in vitro at sub-micromolar concentrations and are five-fold more potent at biofilm disruption than the parent compound. three of the most promising compounds were tested in a murine model of chronic salmonella carriage, and demonstrated synergy with ciprofloxacin. the most potent biofilm disruptor resulted in a 4.5-5 log-fold reduction in bacteria in the gallbladder when dosed with 1 mg/kg cipirofloxacin. further in vivo testing with varying doses of ciprofloxacin and this novel anti-biofilm compound resulted in nearly undetectable levels of bacteria in the gallbladder and two distal organs, the liver and spleen, at the highest dose of ciprofloxacin (4 mg/kg). further compound development focusing on different parts of the parent compound yielded improved activity in both inhibition and dispersion of s. typhimurium biofilms. additional work is proposed that continues modifying different areas of the parent scaffold to probe activity. finally, a derivative of the parent compound was made with a biotin tag for use in pull-down assays to aid in the identification of the cellular target of the compounds and assist in elucidating the mechanism of action. this work furthers the development of effective anti-biofilm agents as a therapeutic against salmonella chronic carriage.targeting a second mode of infection is imperative for treating non-chronic cases of s. enterica infection. s. typhi and s. typhimurium spread intracellularly through the infection of macrophages in the host defense system. a series of compounds were found that inhibit the spread of s. typhimurium in mouse macrophages while reducing the incidence of host cell death and decreasing the bacterial load within the macrophages. this lead compound was found to work effectively both in vitro in human and mouse macrophages and in vivo in mouse models of s. typhimurium infection. in the murine models, the mice survived lethal injections of the bacteria when treated with a sub-optimal dose of ciprofloxacin and the lead compound. further exploration of the scaffold was carried out with a second library of compounds planned awaiting the results of the first library of derivatives. additionally, initial efforts towards biotinylation of the lead compound were undertaken in order to identify the cellular targets of the lead compound. this work seeks to expand the number of treatment options for patients suffering from acute cases of s. typhi and s. typhimurium infection. speciation is the evolutionary process by which previously interbreeding populations become separate species and is thus responsible for the vast diversity of taxa on earth. investigating the biogeographic context of speciation is important to understand how speciation occurred in the past and how species are maintained at present. however, ongoing climate change is presently shifting species distributions and changing interspecific interactions, which may in turn influence the future existence of species. in my dissertation, i investigated the factors driving speciation in the walnut-infesting rhagoletis suavis species group to understand 1) how and where species diverged in the past, 2) how climate change is affecting present species distributions and interactions, and 3) what evolutionary and ecological mechanisms are involved in reproductively isolating species. first, i explored how biogeography shaped the past speciation history of walnut flies through a genetic sequence analysis of mitochondrial dna (mtdna). walnut flies diverged across the eastern sierra madre oriental mountain range in mexico, similar to other rhagoletis species groups. however, i show that the timing of divergence based on mtdna sequences of walnut-infesting r. suavis differs substantially from the other species groups. second, i modeled the role of climate change in shifting present-day species distributions, comparing past and present distributions and predicting the change in distributions with species distribution models. walnut fly species have moved predictably in the united states over the past 40 years, shifting to higher elevations in the southwest united states likely in response to increasing temperature, and moving eastward in the midwest united statesin response to decreasing precipitation. third, i investigated ecological and evolutionary mechanisms of reproductive isolation to understand barriers to gene flow in areas where species co-occur. gene flow is restricted by temporal, sexual, and post-mating isolation. in nature, hybridization was only found between r. juglandis and r. completa in the southwest united states. comparing these results in the r. suavis species group to other rhagoletis species groups with different modes of speciation can help to uncover patterns in the evolution of reproductive isolation. hamkins and lewis have used infinite time turing machines to extend the operations of turing machines to infinite ordinal time. this project investigates some applications of these machines to basic operations and relations over the reals. it also investigates variants of these machines with extra-tapes or extra read-write heads. then, this project investigates strictly weaker variants of these machines, which are obtained by allowing the content in each cell to change only finitely often. it is shown that these weaker machines can already compute basic operations and relations over the reals. finally, the computational power of these machines is further investigated. the present study examined relations among maternal emotional distress, marital conflict, parenting, and adolescent adjustment over time. specifically, the present study considered whether both marital conflict and responsive parenting practices mediated the relation between maternal emotional distress and adolescent externalizing and internalizing behaviors. in addition, a number of alternative models were examined that involved switching the order of effects. three years of self-report data were collected from 136 married mothers and their adolescents, beginning when the adolescents were in fifth grade. results of structural equations modeling procedures using latent variables suggested that marital conflict and responsive parenting practices mediated the relation between maternal emotional distress and adolescent externalizing behaviors. in contrast, only marital conflict mediated the relation between maternal emotional distress and adolescent internalizing behaviors. thus, the present study identified possible time-ordered processes through which maternal emotional distress may affect adolescent adjustment. in this dissertation i challenge the conventional literary history that 1930s black intellectuals were uncritical followers of mainstream american communism. i assert that the literature of richard wright, ida b wells, and w.e.b. du bois are representative of black radicalism's unique engagement with depression-era politics. through close readings of their literature, alongside other cultural productions, i conceptualize 'crisis' as a tool for analyzing the contradictory emergences of alternative agencies in moments of social breakdown. in doing so, i challenge theoretical assumptions, epitomized in trauma theory, that overwhelming experiences are beyond comprehension. i also challenge historical teleologies, as in marxist narratives of revolution, that predetermine when a crisis will occur, who will act, and the outcome of that action. what results is a non-teleological theorization of agency and social change. bert matter is among the most widely influential twentieth-century musicians in the netherlands. his works for organ have made him a highly respected composer in his country, and as a consequence matter has had a significant impact on the dutch organ community. still, his works remain largely unknown outside of the netherlands, even among the most knowledgeable performers.the compositions of matter deserve greater attention due to their high motivic development which often combines traditional forms with modern techniques.further, matter has made a profound pedagogical impact on his many students, and although retired, continues to have a significant influence on those who study and perform his music.this paper seeks to shed light on this important composer through a look at his life, teaching, and compositions, with particular attention on three of his most notable works. future time perspective (ftp), or individuals' estimations of the amount of lifetime they feel they have remaining, is integral to motivation and subjective well-being across adulthood. despite marked individual differences in ftp within age groups, however, there is a paucity of studies examining contributing factors to these individual differences. although proponents of the socioemotional selectivity theory (sst) have theorized that age and health are important contributing factors to ftp, scholars have also reported strong associations between ftp and stable personality traits. utilizing machine-learning techniques, the current study examined the salience of several potential contributors to ftp simultaneously, including age, number of chronic health conditions, frequency of somatic symptoms, self-rated health, and the five-factor personality domains, in a sample of n = 387 individuals (mage = 67.35, sdage = 8.89). first, an elastic net model indicated that conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness predicted an extensive ftp, whereas neuroticism and self-rated health predicted a limited ftp. next, a conditional inference tree uncovered several joint and interactive effects among neuroticism, extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and global self-rated health; different arrays of these factors were associated with varying degrees of open and limited ftp. finally, based on a conditional inference forest model, neuroticism was the most important predictor of ftp, followed by extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, self-rated health, and openness. contrary to what may be expected based on the sst, these findings imply that stable personality traits more saliently contribute to individual differences in ftp than age and health. results indicate that future time perspective may be less context-dependent than scholars originally thought. the metastasis of cancer cells to distant sites accounts for over 90% of cancer related deaths. in order to metastasize, cancer cells must be able to survive during extracellular matrix (ecm) detachment, namely by blocking anoikis (a caspase-dependent cell death) and restoring metabolic deficiencies. such barriers during tumorigenesis are abrogated through activation of oncogenic signaling, and/or inhibition of tumor suppressors. furthermore, the tumor microenvironment (tme), comprised of a heterogeneous population of transformed and non-transformed cells, plays a crucial role in cancer growth. studies have shown that there is continuous bidirectional communication between cancer cells and the different cell populations within the tme. this communication can either work to promote tumor growth, as seen with carcinoma associated fibroblasts (cafs), or inhibit tumor growth, as observed with tumor infiltrating lymphoid cells. in this study, we investigate the context dependent role of cellular flice-like inhibitory protein (c-flip), a protein well known for antagonizing receptor-mediated apoptosis, in modulating the survival of cancer cells. we demonstrate that normal mammary fibroblasts (fibroblasts isolated from normal breast tissue) secrete soluble factors that induce caspase-mediated cell death in a variety of cancer cell lines. we observed a substantive increase in the cleavage of caspase 8 that is mediated by the modulation of c-flip levels by stress-activated mapk signaling. furthermore, our investigation has revealed a surprising role of c-flip in antagonizing the viability of ecm-detached cancer cells. additionally, we demonstrated that signaling emanating from oncogenic growth factor receptors results in the downregulation of c-flip expression providing additional evidence that cancer cells may benefit from diminished flip levels. interestingly, this repression of c-flip expression by activated oncogenes is a consequence of pi(3)k signaling. in addition, our data reveal that elimination of c-flip promotes the survival of ecm-detached cells and that c-flip overexpression in cancer cells restricts the viability of cancer cells grown in anchorage-independent conditions. taken together, our study reveals an unexpected role for c-flip in constraining the viability of cancer cells during ecm-detachment and raises the idea that c-flip may have context-dependent proand anti-cell death roles during tumorigenesis. fast sweeping methods are a class of efficient iterative methods for solving steady state hyperbolic partial differential equations (pdes). this class of methods utilizes the gauss-seidel iterations and alternating sweeping strategy to achieve fast convergence rate. they take advantage of the properties of hyperbolic pdes and try to cover a family of characteristics of the corresponding equation in a certain direction simultaneously in each sweeping order. the first order fast sweeping method for solving eikonal equations has linear computational complexity, namely, the computational cost is o(n) where n is the number of grid points of the computational mesh. recently, a second order fast sweeping method with linear computational complexity was developed. the method is based on a discontinuous galerkin (dg) finite element solver and causality indicators which guide the information flow directions of the nonlinear eikonal equations. in the first part of this dissertation, we extend previous work and develop a third order fast sweeping method with linear computational complexity for solving eikonal equations. a novel approach is designed for capturing the causality information in the third order dg local solver.fixed-point iterative sweeping methods were also developed in the literature to efficiently solve static hamilton-jacobi equations. different from other fast sweeping methods, fixed-point iterative sweeping methods have the advantages such as having explicit forms and not involving inverse operation of nonlinear local systems. in principle, they can be applied in solving very general equations using any monotone numerical fluxes and high order approximations easily. in the second part of this dissertation, based on the recently developed fifth order weighted essentially non-oscillatory (weno) schemes which improve the convergence of the classical weno schemes by removing slight post-shock oscillations, we design fifth order fixed-point sweeping weno methods for efficient computation of steady state solution of hyperbolic conservation laws. especially, we show that although the methods do not have linear computational complexity, they converge to steady state solutions much faster than regular time-marching approach by stability improvement for high order schemes with a forward euler time-marching. in the study of state repression, theorists have largely overlooked the religion factor. as a result, we know very little about the process through which religious groups radicalize, the types of repression that motivate religious groups to radicalize and the kinds of collective action religious groups engage in. this paper addresses a critical gap in the repression scholarship by theorizing the effect of religion-based state repression &#8212; specifically institutional and situational forms of repression &#8212; on religious groups' participation in protest and rebellion. drawing from various works of religion and social movement scholars as well as my own empirical analyses, i argue that religious culture can encourage or discourage dissident groups from taking collective action. religious groups employ and share various resources and symbols from their religious cultures, which help cultivate a culture of resistance and embattled identity. the magnet cove alkaline igneous complex, which was emplaced ~95 to 99 million years ago, is located within the northeastern region of hot spring county (arkansas), and consists of alkaline silicate rocks such as nepheline syenite, ijolite, and jacupirangite along with associated carbonatite. this thesis presents new geochemical, radiogenic (sr, nd, pb) and stable (c, o) isotope data, and first-time reported stable b isotope compositions (δ11b values) for carbonatites and associated silicate rocks from the magnet cove complex. the δ13cpdb (~ -5 ‰) and δ18osmow (~8 to ~12‰) values for most of the carbonatites plot within or proximal to the primary igneous carbonatite (pic) field and are therefore indicative of pristine mantle values. the radiogenic nd, sr, and pb isotope compositions for both the carbonatites and alkaline silicate rocks are relatively constant, and contrast with the highly variable δ11b values, in particular for the alkaline silicate rocks which range from -5.7 to ~ +26 ‰. the combined results indicate that the petrogenetic history of the magnet cove complex does not reflect melt differentiation in a closed-system involving a unique parental magma, and several of the alkaline silicate rocks and one carbonatite sample experienced low-temperature alteration and/or crustal contamination. the δ11b values and radiogenic isotope data from the non-contaminated carbonatites and silicate samples indicate derivation from a mantle source characterized by a mixed himu-emi signature, which is consistent with relatively young (&lt;200 ma old) carbonatite occurrences worldwide. the δ11b values for pristine samples indicate that the mantle source region for the magnet cove complex contains recycled (subducted) crustal material, and prove their greater effectiveness in detecting open-system processes compared to their radiogenic and stable isotope counterparts. understanding the mechanisms governing the behavior of complex networks is a prerequisite for characterizing complex systems. frequently, networks are modelled as unweighted graphs in which each link has the same strength. however, for many real networks appearing in biological, technological and economic systems, each link has a specific weight, as nodes interact with each other with different strengths. in order to extend our understanding of network architecture to such systems, we introduce several weighted network models and investigate their scaling properties. in some real systems each node has a fixed geographical location, forcing some nodes to be connected by physical links of considerable length, such as routers connected by wires on the internet. in such systems, we find that the physical layout of the underlying network strongly impacts the large-scale properties of the network. by combining data from several empirical databases and results from numerical simulations, we uncover the existence of three universal mechanisms which significantly affect the network's global properties. as an application of complex network theory, we also study the large-scale properties of four yeast-protein interaction databases, finding quantitative evidence of strong correlations between the underlying network's structure and protein classes and function. to move beyond the topological properties of networks, we investigate the dynamics of a diffusive system driven by multiplicative noise, uncovering the relationship between the fluctuations of the incoming fluxes and the underlying network topology. in seeking to explore new possibilities for the application of design and to expand its traditional purview, especially in the realm of visual communications, the following thesis is woven of three main threads of concern: orientation toward the near-future, an experimental approach to narrative, and the attempt to use design to engineer debate rather than engineer agreement. in this project i have taken on the dual role of maker and curator. the exhibition work involves motion animation pieces, including sound, as well as print work, all surrounding the theme of bio-technological innovation. utopia/dystopia is formed to align with its conceit; the viewer is walking into a future-history retrospective of historically important or representative visual ephemera anchored to the burgeoning biotechnical revolution. the exhibition is titled utopia/dystopia: the early years of the bio-tech age, 2000-2025. it consists of a retrospective of collected visual and design ephemera representing recent important historical milestones and changes of the 'past' 25 years in a culture grappling with rapid bio-technological advancement. in alignment with the conceit, the exhibition was 'curated' according to the notion that a survey of historically-anchored visual items, from product advertisements to commemorative stamps to spoof ads to bumper stickers, provides a fresh and unique perspective on an issue and a cultural moment, imparting an understanding of which only awareness of the visual landscape as opposed to a philosophical, ethical or purely factual comprehension is capable. the following thesis explores this territory of near-futures, and delves into the decisions and research that culminated in specific pieces in the exhibition. in its initial pages, this paper also traces foundational connections between design, design journalism, and values capable of guiding design activities. this thesis describes an experimental research program on the nonlinear behavior of coupling beam subassemblages in a new type of hybrid coupled wall system for seismic regions. coupling of concrete walls is achieved by post-tensioning steel beams to the walls using unbonded post-tensioning strands. different from conventional hybrid coupled wall systems, the coupling beams of the new system are not embedded into the walls. tests of three half-scale coupled wall subassemblages were conducted under pseudo-static reversed-cyclic loading. each subassemblage included a steel coupling beam and the adjacent concrete wall regions at a floor level. top and seat angles were used at the beam-to-wall connections of one of the test specimens to yield and provide energy dissipation to the structure. the experimental results show that unbonded post-tensioned steel coupling beams can provide significant and stable levels of coupling without experiencing significant damage over large nonlinear cyclic deformations. the nonlinear deformations of a properly designed coupled wall subassemblage occur primarily as a result of the opening of gaps at the beam-to-wall interfaces. the post-tensioning force provides a restoring effect that closes the gaps and pulls the structure back towards its undisplaced position upon unloading from a large nonlinear deformation. this results in a large self-centering capability of the system. the behavior of unbonded post-tensioned steel coupling beams without top and seat angles at the ends is close to a nonlinear-elastic type of behavior with little energy dissipation. yielding of the top and seat angles as a result of gap opening at the beam-to-wall interfaces provides a considerable amount of energy dissipation the structure. the angles are considered as sacrificial components that would need to be replaced after a large earthquake. it is concluded that unbonded post-tensioned steel beams offer an effective and feasible means to couple reinforced concrete walls in seismic regions. this dissertation develops a theological ethics of media use in digital media societies. it does so by focusing on our formation and use of biological memory through as well as for external media use within our overarching pursuit of happiness.current theological interpretations of digital media suffer from three limitations. first, while they attend fruitfully to the virtues and to the impact of devices and use-practices upon thought, emotion, and action, they say little about the cognitive habits that bridge between reason and external media use. second, they have acquired an unbalanced focus on the communicative and social functions of media, to the occlusion of media's cognitive and formative functions. third, their retrieval of theological sources is not normally specified by the particular role of media technologies in human life.because our use of external media both reflects and shapes how we form and use our biological memories, we can address the first two limitations by analyzing memory as a bridge between reason and media. since christian theologians have long approached media as a way to form and extend memory, memory is also a fruitful focus point for consulting the tradition about the ethics and theological relevance of media use.chapter 1 explains the importance of analyzing digital media as memory technologies by engaging psychologists and computer engineers with regard to media's precise relationship to biological memory. chapter 2 assesses modern catholic teaching on media use, highlighting pope pius xii's articulation of a cognitive paradigm and narrating the subsequent occlusion of that paradigm. chapter 3 outlines the social and technological context for how medieval theology approached media in terms of memory. chapter 4 discusses hugh of st. victor's theocentric ethic of reading, which i argue both supports and critiques recent concerns about the prospects of literacy in a digital culture. chapter 5 examines memory's role in thomas aquinas's psychology; this account clarifies reason's interpretive cultivation and use of both memory and media in the human creature's search for perfection. chapter 6 integrates the foregoing and explains the importance of cultivating a general responsibility for our multiple cognitive scaffolds my dissertation is prompted by virginia woolf's famous lament in a room of one's own that writers 'seldom spare a word for what was eaten.' i argue that, contrary to woolf's assessment, food imagery and scenes of consumption serve important (if largely unexamined) functions in early twentieth-century british and irish fiction. transformations in the way food was produced, distributed, and consumed during the first part of the twentieth century had a profound effect on the way people experienced, thought about, and wrote about the cluster of historical phenomena we call modernity. for many, eating became less a familial or communal experience than an individualized one' isolating for some, while liberating for others. my dissertation reads works by modernist or avant-garde authors like woolf, joyce, mansfield, and rhys, showing how changes in eating processes manifest through the failure of food to fulfill its traditional role as a basis for community. food imagery is thus crucial to understanding the precise quality of 'alienation' so characteristic of literary modernism. however, other kinds of literature tell a rather different story about early twentieth-century foodways. my dissertation also explores several 'feminine middlebrow' writers including e.m. delafield, stella gibbons, and barbara pym, whose work, i argue, envisions a more optimistic response to modernity's erosion of food-based ritual by creating consumption communities founded on shared tastes' both literary and gustatory. my work intersects with several vibrant strands of scholarly research, including food studies, women's studies, postcolonial studies, and the 'materialist turn' in modernist studies. moreover, my work on middlebrow women writers is particularly innovative in its focus on the complex relationships between reading, gustation, gender, commerce, physicality, and pleasure. while recent scholars such as jane garrity and ann ardis have emphasized the importance of middlebrow literature in the period, my work also draws on denise gigante's study of the eighteenth-century culture of taste to explore the relationship between literal and figurative taste in the so-called battle of the brows during the twentieth century. conventional separation methods such as sorption processes and cryogenic distillation are extremely energy intensive, and membrane technology is especially attractive as an alternative due to greater energy efficiency, minimal spatial requirements, and simplicity of operation. ideal separation membranes require high permeability (gas throughput) and selectivity (separation efficiency), which is crucial to achieve required separations. one of the greatest challenges of current polymer membranes is the inherent tradeoff between permeability and selectivity. this tradeoff originates at the molecular level, where undesired free volume architectures (small, indiscriminate microcavities) arising from random chain packing in glassy polymer membranes makes it difficult to simultaneously achieve fast and selective gas transport. additionally, physical aging provides another challenge to overcome, as glassy polymer membranes generally exist in a non-equilibrium state upon formation, and over time the polymer chains can undergo relaxation towards a denser, equilibrium state. this process collapses free volume, reducing permeability. to combat these challenges, molecular level design of polymer membranes to incorporate bulky structures that disrupt chain packing, linkages that rigidify the backbone, and introduction of shape-persistent architectures containing configurational free volume elements is a promising strategy. the overarching theme of this work is the simultaneous development of enhanced polymer membranes for improved gas separations alongside the exploration of fundamental relationships between structural variations in polymers through the incorporation of iptycenes and their ensuing property changes. two iptycenes, triptycene and pentiptycene, perfectly fit the aforementioned design criteria with their rigid, threedimensional architectures containing three and five arene rings respectively, arranged in a paddlewheel-like formation (triptycene) and an extended, h-shaped scaffold (pentiptycene), and thus, their integration into polymer backbones comprises the foundation of this dissertation. incorporation of triptycene and pentiptycene into both polymers of intrinsic microporosity (a new generation of high permeability ladder-type polymers) and polysulfones (a traditional gas separation membrane family) yielded exceptional improvements in gas separation performance due to the bulky iptycene structures and their natural free volume elements in the size-range of relevant gas pairs. additionally, the configuration-based free volumes instilled by the iptycene units provided excellent resistance to physical aging, and in some cases, even delivered unique agingenhanced performance. the appearance of triaxial nuclear shapes and the question how to prove their existence is a long-standing problem in nuclear physics. the recent discovery of wobbling rotational bands is considered as first clear cut evidence for this type of nuclear shape. so far wobbling bands have only be found in the lu isotopes. in this thesis, the results of experimental search for wobbling bands in $^{163}$tm are theoretically analyzed. calculations of the energy and electromagnetic transition probabilities are carried out in the framework of the microscopic tilted axis cranking (tac) model. the calculations account well for the data. it is found that the bands have a triaxial strong deformation (tsd). however, the two observed rotational sequences do not correspond to a zero and one wobbling phonon but to the two signature branches of the odd proton orbital, which is a very low lying particle-hole excitation. it is demonstrated that in general wobbling phonons compete with particle-hole excitations. with present-day types of experiments, the two modes can only be disentangled if the wobbling states are the lowest excitations, as in the lu isotopes, whereas in many other cases, including $^{163}$tm, the particle-hole excitations make up the spectrum of observed rotational tsd bands. there exists a large group of transitional nuclei that show a behavior in-between harmonic vibration and rotation, a description of which has been a longstanding challenge to nuclear theory. the new concept of nuclear tidal waves allows one to calculate the sequence of states with maximal angular momentum (yrast states). these states correspond to a surface wave running around the nucleus as tidal waves run over the earth's oceans. such a wave corresponds to a static deformation in the rotating frame of reference, which allows one to calculate its properties by means of the microscopic cranking model. for the first time such calculations are carried out in this thesis for nuclei with $z$ = 44, 46, 48 and $n$ = 56-66. the calculations reproduce very well energies and e2-transitions probabilities of these nuclei. the low-spin parts show the expected gradual transition from vibration-like behavior of the nuclides near the closed shell (z=48,n=56) to rotation-like behavior of the nuclide farthest in the open shell ($z$ = 44, $n$ = 66). in addition, the strong irregularity (back-bending) caused by the alignment of the angular momentum of two $h_{11/2}$ neutrons with the rotational axis is well accounted for. at spins larger than 10 $hbar$, where the back-bending occurs, all nuclei behave more rotation-like, which is borne out by the calculations in accordance with experiment. such a detailed theoretical description of the yrast states of transitional nuclei has been achieved for the first time in this thesis. despite official antipathy towards homosexual men under fascism, homosexual characters in italian cultural production began to emerge as early as 1942 with alberto moravia's novella agostino and the production of luchino visconti's film ossessione. this trend continued in the postwar period, even after the enactment of new censorship laws in 1948. it is now a commonplace that in films and literary texts of the early postwar years, representations of homosexuality fell almost exclusively into a tripartite paradigm of fascists-criminals-pedophiles—in line with cronaca of the time—with homosexual characters occupying one or more of those categories and often blurring the lines between them. while cases such as the villainous homosexual nazis in the films of roberto rossellini, notably major bergmann and ingrid in roma città aperta (1945) and the pedophilic herr henning in germania anno zero (1948), are by now classic examples of such allegory, it would be reductive to limit a study of non-normative sexuality in this period to the fascist-as-homosexual trope. instead, in this thesis i seek to trace cultural representations of male homosexuality in italy in order to demonstrate that vilification was far from the only strategy employed by italian filmmakers and writers of the 1940s and 50s. in so doing, i account for such portrayals in cinema and literature of the first decade following the release of moravia's agostino and the production of visconti's ossessione, thus covering the period 1942 to 1953. ultimately, this thesis contributes to a cultural history of homosexuality in the early postwar years by elaborating a series of thematic categories—cruising, language, and power imbalances—which may be helpful in reimagining how homosexual men were represented in the arts, as well as how they actually lived. we construct a notion of parallel transport along superpaths in a manifold that corresponds to a superconnection (`{a} la quillen), in an attempt to understand geometrically superconnections, the same way as an appropriate notion of parallel transport along paths translates geometrically the concept of a connection. the parallel transport along superpaths is realized by solving some ``half-order' differential equations, as opposed to solving first-order differential equations for the usual parallel transport. before doing this, we extend the usual notion of parallel transport along paths associated to a connection to superpaths, and see how the super-parallel transport incorporates the analytical concept of a connection. such considerations are motivated by trying to understand one dimensional supersymmetric field theories over a manifold, in the hope that they provide geometric cocycles for differential k-theory. the larger context is the stolz-teichner program (see cite{st}) of relating field theories and cohomology theories, and our effort is to complete the understanding of the one-dimensional story. in the last decade probabilistic seismic risk assessment, performance based earthquake engineering and reliability or life-cycle cost based optimal design have emerged as powerful tools to guide risk-informed decisions, especially for advanced protective systems whose cost/benefit needs to be explicitly considered for widespread adoption. the fundamental component of the analysis/design methodologies that have been proposed within this context is the evaluation of seismic risk. accurate evaluation of this risk entails adoption of appropriate excitation, structural and performance evaluation models, quantification of the uncertainties related to these models, propagation of these uncertainties to estimate risk, and, if necessary, adoption of efficient numerical optimization algorithms for performing the risk-based design. accurate estimation of risk within this comprehensive modeling framework typically requires use of stochastic simulation techniques, because of the complexity of the adopted numerical and probability models. in this simulation-based setting the seismic risk-based optimal design of structures might require a large number of evaluations of the system-model response (typically established through nonlinear time-history analysis), which can render the computational demand for direct application of stochastic simulation techniques prohibitive. to alleviate such computational challenges, this research develops methodologies that exploit the merits offered by the reduced order (parsimonious) modeling of structural behavior or the integration of surrogate models in a probabilistic risk quantification framework, to efficiently perform risk assessment and support enhanced risk-informed design of seismic protective systems. this goal is achieved through numerous advances: by (i) providing a framework for the calibration/selection of parsimonious hysteretic structural models; by (ii) developing an efficient stochastic search technique within the context of a simulation-based seismic risk assessment framework to support life-cycle cost based optimal design of seismic protective devices under different design scenarios; by (iii) formulating a kriging surrogate modeling framework for seismic risk assessment when the earthquake hazard is described through stochastic ground motion models; by (iv) leveraging the remarkable computational efficiency of the latter framework to formulate a versatile approach for the multi-criteria design of seismic protective systems, adopting risk quantifications that can facilitate enhanced decision support for the various stakeholders. these advances are illustrated within this thesis in two main applications: design of fluid viscous dampers based on life-cycle cost criteria and reliability-based design of floor isolation protection systems. in 1948, claude shannon provided a sound mathematical foundation for communication, and proved the existence of good codes. low-density parity-check (ldpc) codes are a family of error-correcting codes that achieve reliable performance (i.e., arbitrarily low probability of decoding error) near the shannon-limit when decoded iteratively via very efficient graph-based message-passing decoders, the complexity of which grows only linearly in the block-length. despite their tremendous success, ldpc codes lack a strong theoretical foundation and few explicit constructions of them are known that outperform their random counterparts. the first part of this thesis investigates how the structure of a graph representing an ldpc code affects the decoding performance. in particular, lower bounds on the minimum pseudocodeword weight, a key parameter in predicting iterative decoding performance, are obtained which link the performance of the code to the structural properties of its graph. one bound is a tree bound and is extended to generalized and p-ary ldpc codes. to this end, a suitable definition of pseudocodeword weight is derived for the p-ary symmetric channel. moreover, the relationship between pseudocodeword weight distributions and different graph representations is examined. bounds on the minimum pseudocodeword weight are also presented for several classes of expander codes based on the eigenvalues of the adjacency matrix of the tanner graph. the second part of this thesis constructs ldpc codes having desirable properties. the first construction is combinatorial and uses permutations and mutually orthogonal latin squares. one type results in the well-known projective-geometrybased ldpc codes. another type yields a new family of codes having comparable parameters and pseudocodeword weights suitable for iterative decoding. the resulting performance of these codes is superior in comparison with that of comparable random ldpc codes, a feature attributed to the lack of low-weight bad pseudocodewords. for the second construction, unbalanced expander graphs are obtained by modifying the original zig-zag graph product to take bi-regular expander graphs as components, with suitable constraints on the degrees. graphs resulting from the zig-zag and replacement product graphs are then used in the design of generalized ldpc codes having compact representation and pseudocodeword weights lower-bounded by the eigenvalue bounds. based on data from a seven-year longitudinal study on the impact of political violence on families and children in belfast, this thesis examines predictors of alcohol abuse among 128 northern irish adolescents (aged 15-21, 57% male) across two waves of data. the study focused on factors present in an adolescent's social-ecological system, including levels of anger/aggression, maternal psychological control, and community violence as predictors of adolescent binge drinking across two time points. the analyses indicated that an adolescent's anger/aggression level is not a significant predictor of binge drinking over time (p &gt; .11); however, both maternal psychological control (ß = .215, p = .015) and the level of community violence proved to be significant predictors in the regression analysis (ß = .215, p = .015; ß = .184, p = .027). the results of this study highlight two important implications for interventions: (1) early interventions with parents that promote positive parenting skills may aid in decreasing the severity of adolescent binge drinking, and (2) interventions at the community-wide level may also promote pro-social behavior and help decrease the level of adolescent binge drinking. successful aging, or aging well, consists of the following components: the management of chronic conditions, maintenance of physical and mental health, and active social engagement. while tablet devices could be a potential medium for promoting successful aging, existing studies evaluating the usability of such tablets have been performed using older tablets. therefore, these studies have not explored the potential complexities arising from the increasing number of features generated by advances in tablet technology. moreover, several tablet-based applications have been developed to address each component of successful aging. however, the majority of these applications are not designed specifically for older adults and are generally targeted towards technologically proficient individuals. furthermore, these applications provide limited to no integration with care providers, which is becoming exceedingly important due to the increasing number of older adults and decreasing number of care providers. in this dissertation, we present results from a qualitative study conducted for evaluating the usability of modern tablets for older adults and studying the impact of accessibility settings on the overall tablet experience. additionally, to address the aforementioned challenges related to successful aging, we propose a novel, integrated tablet-based framework taking all the components of successful aging together into a single platform. our proposed framework consists of a tablet-based application used by the older adults for tracking medications and activities. it also has a companion web-portal, accessible to the care providers, for managing missed medications. to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed framework, we conducted a preliminary study with 16 participants from a low-income, independent living facility. we found that this framework helped the participants to track their medications and lowered their risk for depression. our study also highlighted the importance of care providers, providing personal support and medication tracking. encouraged by these results, we conducted a larger study on 50 participants, consisting of two equal-sized groups. the experiment group used the proposed framework for 42 weeks, whereas the control group did not use any application for successful aging. based on the analysis of responses to questionnaires, we deduced that our proposed framework had a significant impact on health-related quality of life and cognitive health of the participants in the experiment group, in comparison with control group. the experiment group expressed the desire to continue using our methodology as it helped them to be organized and remain focused. thus, our proposed framework empowers older adults to take charge of their own health and integrates them with their care providers, representing an important step towards improving care and quality of life. inter-turbine ducts experience flow separation along their outer wall when either the radial offset from the inlet to the outlet is increased or the axial length is decreased. decreasing the axial length of this annulus not only reduces overall engine weight but can potentially increase performance in low pressure turbine stages. two aggressive inter-turbine duct geometries differing in axial length but sharing identical inlet and outlet cross-sectional areas were tested at an inlet mach number of 0.3. velocity and turbulence intensity measurements were taken inside both inter-turbine ducts through a narrow window by means of laser doppler velocimetry. flow separation occurred in regions where the duct depth increased rapidly and where the shroud wall maximum angle reaches a noticeable peak. delta-shaped passive vortex generators were able to reduce the size of the separation bubble by up to 22%. previous research of plasma actuators has shown reductions of a separation bubble on a concave surface. an azimuthal strip plasma actuator was designed on a stereolithography dielectric insert that follows the contour of the duct shroud. the designed model allows for documentation of flow reattachment inside the duct downstream of the body force vector. we shall consider the periodic cauchy problem for a modified camassa-holm (mch) equation. we begin by proving well-posedness in bourgain spaces for sufficiently small size initial data in the sobolev space $h^s(mathbb{t})$, $s=1/2$, by using appropriate bilinear estimates. also we show that these bilinear estimates do not hold if $s<1/2$. well-posedness of the mch for $s>1/2$ has been established by himonas and misiol ek in [hm1]. these results indicate that $s=1/2$ may be the critical sobolev exponent for well-posedness. in the second part of this work we show that the periodic cauchy problem for the mch equation with analytic initial data is analytic in the space variable $x$ for time near zero. by differentiating the equation and the initial condition with respect to $x$ we obtain a sequence of initial value problems of kdv-type equations. these, written in the form of integral equations, define a mapping on a banach space whose elements are sequences of functions equipped with a norm expressing the cauchy estimates in terms of the kdv norms of the components introduced in the works of bourgain, kenig, ponce, vega and others. by proving appropriate bilinear estimates we show that this mapping is a contraction, and therefore we obtain a solution whose derivatives in the space variable satisfy the cauchy estimates. we present a search for the production of neutral higgs bosons in association with bottom quarks in $p ar p$ collisions at $sqrt s = 1.96$ tev. the cross section for this process is enhanced in many extensions of the standard model (sm), such as in its minimal supersymmetric extension (mssm) at large tan $eta$. the data, corresponding to a recorded integrated luminosity of 1 $fb^{-1}$, were collected with the do detector at the fermilab tevatron collider. in the absence of a signal a $95\%$ c.l. limit is set on the production cross section times branching ratio, and the results are also interpreted in the mssm. we have studied the multipolarites of several transitions in the nucleus $^{176}$lu. the synthesis of $^{176}$lu in stellar environments is through the slow (s-) neutron capture process. the s-process is responsible for the creation of 50\% of the heavy elements and 15-20 nuclei in the s-process are s-process branching points. branching points determine if the synthesis path will $eta$-decay or neutron capture. the branching point $^{176}$lu is only produced via the s-process only and has both a long-lived ground state ($k=7^{-}$) of 37.6 gy and a short-lived isomeric state ($k=0^{-}$) at 3.6 h. there is no direct decay to both the isomer and ground state due to selection rules. however, an intermediate state was found at 839 kev in the $k=4^{-}$ band and another intermediate state in the $k=4^{+}$ band at 709 kev which communicate to both the isomer and ground state. the communication to both the isomer and ground state through the intermediate states affects the final abundances of $^{176}$lu in stellar environments which is sensitive to temperature. the experiment was performed at the university of notre dame nuclear science laboratory (nsl) using a $^{176}$yb$(p,n)$ reaction at 7.75 mev. gamma-gamma and gamma-electron coincidences were measured for conversion coefficients using the internal conversion electron ball (iceball) array and two hpge detectors (109\% relative efficiency of a 3'x 3' nai detector at 1332 kev). iceball was upgraded at the nsl for an improved efficiency from 6\%-15\% over $4pi$. a total of 40 conversion coefficients were measured and 35 multipolarities were assigned. 17 new conversion coefficients were measured and the corresponding multipolarities were assigned. levels and spin assignments in both the $k=4^{+}$ band and $k=4^{-}$ band were verified in the intermediate states that are important for establishing a thermal equilibrium in the s-process. with the recent advent of cloud computing and the constant maturing of computation outsourcing techniques, incentives for the adoption of such technologies have reached an all-time high. today, more than ever, companies can easily cut costs by simply offloading their storage and computing needs. however, ensuring that all sensitive data remains private to its owner remains as a major concern. among the several privacy-preserving operations available, a group that can be made considerably useful to the described scenario is that of set operations, in particular set intersection, which can be used by multiple parties to jointly determine if their private datasets share common items while not revealing any information about the portion of that data that is unique to them. despite the very large body of literature devoted to this topic, the majority of the proposed solutions are two-party protocols and are not composable. this work describes the design and implementation of a comprehensive suite of multi-party protocols for set and multiset operations that are composable and optimized to have small interactive round complexities, making this approach highly suitable to secure outsourcing. furthermore, all protocols are secure in the information theoretic sense and have communication and computation complexity of o(m log m) for sets or multisets of size m, which compares favorably with prior work. this dissertation provides a glimpse into the complexities of solid-state actinide materials by using microscopic and spectroscopic techniques to probe chemical and physical properties, such as surface roughness, morphology, and susceptibility to aging and alteration. throughout the nuclear fuel cycle, variations in production, processing, and machining provide ample opportunity for material to undergo changes to its macroscopic appearance and microstructure. understanding how and why these changes occur over time is relevant to the nuclear nonproliferation, safeguards, and forensics communities and could lead to the discovery of new and improved forensic "fingerprints." the work presented herein studies solid-state actinide materials relevant to the nuclear fuel cycle, primarily actinide oxides in either powder or pellet form, using electron microscopy, digital microscopy, optical profilometry, vibrational spectroscopy, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and x-ray diffraction techniques to identify trends and potential signatures. technology and capitalism are intertwined in an historical and dialectical relationship. one aspect of technological advancement is that it allowed for more efficient and distant trade networks which ultimately allowed for the exchange of value to go beyond city walls--and eventually national borders. cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology represent a new phase of this historical process. cryptocurrency systems and their technical details are complex as well as unintuitive. a higher level understanding of these systems assists in deconstructing the particulars. features and protocols underlying cryptocurrencies obscure and obfuscate an individual entity's transaction behavior and real life identity. this obfuscation makes these systems difficult to study.in this study i deanonymize key actors in two cryptocurrency systems--bitcoin and litecoin. using this deanonymized network i study the evolution of the transaction networks in both systems. ultimately i argue that cryptocurrencies, counter to popular rhetoric employed by advocates, are not a decentralizing or democratizing force. i show that consolidation is occurring within these systems' infrastructural and organizational contexts and that this consolidation is deeply intertwined with changes in the underlying social structure as well as the external and abstract market surrounding these systems. this dissertation examines the links between the expansion of slavery, forced labor, racial ideology, and early portuguese colonialism over the ndombe and quilengues populations of catumbela, dombe grande, and quilengues, three areas surrounding the port town of benguela, angola, from 1760 to 1860. from the expansion of the atlantic slave trade during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century to the period after its prohibition in 1836, the social and economic transformations experienced by these african communities intensified and laid the groundwork for further portuguese colonization of angola. in addition to slave trading operations, i demonstrate that the portuguese colonial administration used the control over agricultural production and salt, chalk, and sulfur mining to advance divisions among local populations and exert their influence, often through legal regimes, over the regulation on ownership, free and enslaved labor, space, and knowledge. the success of local economic activities, the organization of chiefdoms, and the networks of trade attracted the interest of the portuguese to establish colonial settlements and vassal relations with african communities. the portuguese constant use of coercion, including the occupation of vassal territories and the imposition of local rulers, turned a system of indirect rule into direct colonialism. local people pushed for the recognition of their rights under colonial jurisdiction while protecting themselves from the violence of enslavement and portuguese expansion. the importance of these areas for african populations made them stay or return and continue to engage in economic activities. they used colonial institutions to secure their possessions, have access to land, and trade. they fled and helped others flee from slave owners within these same areas, defying portuguese authority and pushing for mechanisms to prevent the enslavement of free subjects. they also embraced labels for "blackness" to claim a legitimate place as non-white individuals in the colonial society and jurisdiction. overall, local people pushed to turn around the racial ideology that assumed the european moral superiority and thus excluded them from rights and belonging in their own communities. ultimately, the making of portuguese governance relied on constant negotiations between african rulers, free and enslaved subjects, and the colonial administration. the notion that a dichotomy exists between the cultureì¢ ââ' and even mentalityì¢ ââ' of literate and oral cultures has deep historical and theoretical roots, although its strongest proponents in recent years have been mid-late twentienth-century figures like albert lord, marshall mccluhan, walter ong, and david olson. while many scholars have since accepted that no radical dichotomy exists between oral and writtenì¢ ââ' or indeed elite and 'vernacular' culture--the debate continues, and 'correctives' are still waiting to be articulated in some academic fields. although a number of irish folksong scholars have contested the idea of such a dichotomy, there is yet no comprehensive work on the subject in relation to traditional irish song. drawing on both secondary and primary sources (including interviews, manuscripts, and printed ballads), i describe and anaylze the interaction between oral and literate, 'high' and 'low' culture in several distinct genres of eighteenth-century irish song: the irish-language songs of the so-called 'dispossessed' gaelic poets; the caoineadh, or keen; the 'hedge schoolmaster song'; and the printed ballad. because a different set of social, historical, and literary dynamicsì¢ ââ' as well as theoretical questionsì¢ ââ' are pertinent to individual genres of song, i devote an entire chapter to each one, and include a prefatory chapter on medieval irish literature. in each case, i conclude that, although often operating in different ways according to the different genre in question, the interaction between the world of oral and literary song-poetry and between the spheres of the educated and uneducated, elite and 'vernacular' is demonstrable and pervasive. the centrality of oral performance in irish culture is obviously one of the unifying forces at work; but so are cultural attitudes, including respect for education, for artistic prowess, and even for recondite language--as well as for practices like the composition of bardic poetry or the improvisation of verse. the relatively close proximity of the classes, narrowed by the historical events of the sixteenth-eighteenth centuries, reinforced this interaction. these influences can be demonstrated even in communities in which literacy was scanty; and they continue to shape the repertoire and outlook of the singing tradition to the present day. the kindling hypothesis for depression predicts that as the number of recurrences rises, the intermorbid interval (i.e., wellness period) between successive recurrences decreases in length. studies with unipolar and bipolar samples have supported this premise. however past research may have been subject to a potential statistical artifact known as slater's fallacy. this fallacy maintains that intermorbid intervals may appear to be shortening solely due to the fact that individuals with consistently shorter intermorbid intervals become a larger proportion of the remaining sample with each recurrence. when correcting for this potential bias, researchers have rejected the hypothesis for a progressive shortening of intermorbid intervals for bipolar patients. in the present study, i evaluated slater's fallacy specifically for unipolar depression and assessed an alternative to kindling: that individuals who are highly recurrence-prone have shorter intermorbid periods between recurrences compared to individuals who are not highly recurrence-prone, in general and even specifically following the first lifetime episode. i also examined the variability in individual trajectories to determine whether subgroups of individuals may display particular trajectories in intermorbid intervals. results indicated that cycle acceleration was not supported after correcting for slater's fallacy. further, individuals did not significantly vary in their trajectories for change in intermorbid interval length over time. finally, an alternative model was supported, wherein highly recurrence-prone individuals exhibit significantly shorter intermorbid intervals than non-highly recurrence-prone individuals, on average and even following their very first depressive episode. people high on narcissistic traits tend to experience greater interpersonal difficulties than their counterparts low on narcissistic traits. these difficulties are particularly pronounced in romantic relationships. narcissistic traits are difficult to treat, and no evidence-based treatments exist to address narcissistic personality traits in couple therapy. furthermore, although recent advancements in the definition and diagnostic criteria for narcissism in the dsm-5, section iii have improved our understanding of narcissism, these criteria heavily favor grandiose over vulnerable traits, despite substantial evidence that documents the distinct natures of vulnerable and grandiose narcissism. in non-clinical contexts, interpersonal theory has been used to understand the extent of communal and agentic behaviors of people with narcissistic traits in their interactions with other people, and experimental research findings show that it is possible to produce relationship-enhancing attitudes in people with high levels of narcissism through communal activation (ca). the current study examined a) whether a ca manipulation in the context of viewing psychoeducational videos about healthy relationships could link narcissism and desirable interpersonal behaviors/attitudes, and unlink narcissism and undesirable interpersonal behaviors/attitudes, and b) whether the degree to which ca links and unlinks narcissism and interpersonal behaviors/attitudes is different for vulnerable versus grandiose narcissism. results indicate that when people complete ca exercises, compared to psychoeducation only, vulnerable narcissism and desire for closeness are positively associated. however, there was also evidence that at times ca may have activated participants' self-regulation mechanisms (e.g., withdrawal), which might explain the negative associations among vulnerable narcissism with commitment and empathy. ca in its current form appears to have little impact on people with grandiose narcissism, and it does not appear capable of producing a reduction in vulnerable or grandiose narcissistic tendencies. recommendations for future research focus on adopting more ego-enhancing reinforcement for communal behaviors with grandiose personality disordered therapy clients as well as less personally relevant ca exercises to prevent the activation of self-regulatory coping mechanisms with vulnerable personality disordered therapy clients. in this thesis, i will primarily discuss how molecular dynamics simulations of the transition state of pmhmgr compared to ground state simulations facilitated the prediction of allosteric residues that help stabilize the transition state of the enzyme. three residues were chosen for experimental mutagenesis based on the computations, l407s, e399a, and r396a. the residues were located on the flap domain of the enzyme and at least 15 å away from the transferring hydride. mutagenesis on pmhmgr produced the l407s, r396a and e399a mutants. kinetics were run and the l407s had a 57% reduction in activity, e399a had a 69% reduction in activity, and r396a had 10% in comparison to the wild-type enzyme. while the r396a mutant was more resistant to mutation, the other two mutants caused disruption in the normal function of pmhmgr, confirming the prediction from the computational analysis. this is one of the first instances of computational chemistry predicting allosteric residues in regard to catalysis.in addition, several collaborative projects will be discussed. first, density functional theory was used to analyze the triplet state density of the visible-light-activated [2+2] photocycloaddition through a lewis acid rhodium catalyst. this aided in the determination of triplet excited state mechanism. molecular dynamics was used to help drug discovery efforts for the epigenetic hdac and p300/cbp systems, which, in the case of the latter, shed light on the role of protein dynamics on the ligand-protein and protein-protein interface. finally, monte carlo sampling techniques were employed to study how conformational preference of natural products and natural product analogues can influence their biological activity and was utilized in the design of new analogues to probe the conformation-activity relationship. in drosophila melanogaster, rh1 rhodopsin is the primary photopigment in the photoreceptor cells. photoisomerization of rhodopsin to metarhodopsin triggers the activation of the phototransduction cascade which results in the depolarization of the photoreceptor cell. additionally, rh1 is required to maintain the structural integrity of the rhabdomeres. mutations in components of the phototransduction cascade or the maintenance of the rhabdomere usually result in retinal degeneration. my research focuses on identifying the genetic control of rh1 biogenesis. through a flp/frt mutagenesis screen, six mutants were isolated that exhibit a dim fluorescent pseudopupil phenotype. one identified mutant, kh1, has low rh1 protein levels and shows signs of rapid retinal degeneration. visualization of rh1::gfp fusion proteins within the photoreceptors show that the rh1::gfp fails to progress from the cell body to the rhabdomere and that the gfp signal colocalizes with an endoplasmic reticulum cellular marker. cytological and molecular mapping experiments identified the kh1 gene as dbp21e2. protein sequence analysis of dbp21e2 revealed that it belongs to the dead/dexh box family of rna helicases. the dead-box family of rna helicases has roles in the numerous steps of rna metabolism, which include transcription, splicing, translation, ribosome formation, and rna degradation. in particular, dbp21e2 shares distinct homology with the dead-box family which includes the genes: vasa, eif4a, and pl10. as a result of this screen, i identified a previously uncharacterized gene, dbp21e2, and showed that it has an essential role in the synthesis of proteins within the photoreceptor cells. prior research has demonstrated that when men are conflicted about their own gender roles there is an association between such conflict and negative individual outcomes, such as increased symptoms of anxiety and depression. despite this body of research, little empirical work has been done on male gender role conflict and it's effect upon others. this is especially striking given that current male sex role theories predict that dysfunctional aspects of the male role, including conflict resulting from both conformance to and deviation from the male role, are likely to cause problems for those in contact with men. sixty married couples participated in a study examining the effects of husbands' gender role conflict upon outcomes for wives. each couple completed measures of gender role conflict, marital adjustment, and depressive symptomatology. further, each couple engaged in a 10-minute marital interaction. hypothesized relationships between husbands' gender role conflict and both wives' lowered marital adjustment and increased depressive symptoms were found. husbands who evidenced gender role conflict were more likely to engage in hostile behaviors during a marital interaction, and were also rated as being more critical in general. support was found for the role of husbands' observed hostility as a mediator of the relationship between husbands' gender role conflict and wives' marital adjustment. a measure combining husband and wife reports of the husbands' criticism was also found to mediate the relationship between husbands' gender role conflict and wives' marital adjustment. while there is very little criticism available on the relationship between the gothic tradition and literary modernism, modernist authors found the gothic particularly attractive for working through the experiences and upheavals of the early twentieth century. unsurprisingly, given the especially turbulent modern irish experience, irish writers often turned to the gothic for images and narratives which would enable them to find new ways of articulating a stable identity in the midst of tremendous change. this dissertation encompasses a wide chronological range, from charles maturin in the first half of the nineteenth century, through yeats' plays and elizabeth bowen's novel the last september in the middle of the twentieth century, in order to write a literary history which reassesses the relationship between the gothic and the modern. in undertaking such a project the primary problem i face is the question of what the imperatives for sequencing the texts, other than chronologically, might be. in answering this question, i look to the texts themselves for relationships between the historical and social issues which they grapple with and the ways in which these concerns are manifested within the texts. the gothic as a genre deals with historical processes of transition or change, and derives its gothic effects not simply from the presence of demons or haunted houses, but from the often violent interruption of the present by the return of the past, frequently depicted in supernatural form. the gothic moment is therefore also a moment where a type of historical retrospect is attainable, a moment of crisis in which one mode of existence is being replaced by something new, and is facing extinction as a result. in focusing on the particular modes of representation, i argue that the gothic is an essential component of irish modernist writing. malaria is a vector-borne disease caused by infection with the plasmodium species parasite, and it is a major threat to health systems around the globe. to maintain progress towards elimination of malaria, a continued and detailed understanding of malaria epidemiology is needed. in this dissertation, i present five analyses that showcase how mathematical models can be leveraged alongside routinely collected data to better inform our understanding of malaria transmission and control.first, to demonstrate how the assumptions that we make about routinely collected surveillance data affect our estimates of malaria transmission, i developed an inference algorithm to infer person-to-person networks of p. falciparum malaria transmission and applied it to near-elimination settings. using eswatini as a case study, i demonstrated that the choice of data types and assumptions therein affect the epidemiological conclusions that we reach. further, through extensive simulation, i revealed that routine surveillance data is insufficient to yield reliable estimates of transmission in near-elimination settings.second, i fitted transmission models of p. falciparum and p. vivax to a malaria epidemic in southeastern venezuela. accounting for the clinical definitions applied in the surveillance system, i estimated that many p. vivax relapses were likely misdiagnosed as reinfections, potentially leading to an overestimate of p. vivax transmission from routine surveillance data. then, using the fitted transmission models, i projected the impact of interventions in the region, should resources be mobilized in time. i predicted that long-lasting insecticidal nets are likely to be sufficient to obtain short-term reductions in incidence for p. falciparum, but mass drug administration with radical cure is needed to control p. vivax.third, to demonstrate how mathematical models can further augment our understanding from data, i performed a theoretical analysis that identified biases that are likely to occur in phase-iii clinical trials of 8-aminoquinolines. using an individual-based model, i simulated phase-iii clinical trials under different epidemiological settings. i found that features of the clinical trial setting, such as transmission intensity and the rate of p. vivax relapse, interacted with features of the clinical trial design, such as the duration of follow-up, to lead to strong downward biases in efficacy estimates. this indicated that the effect of 8-aminoquinolines against p. vivax hypnozoites may be underestimated. using the individual-based model, i then demonstrated that the effect of these biases can be reduced by using vector control measures and parasite genotyping.fourth, to show how mathematical models can synthesize insights across distinct data sources, i performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies comparing the performance of light microscopy and polymerase chain reaction for diagnosing plasmodium spp. infections. using a hierarchical bayesian latent class model, i estimated the sensitivity and specificity of light microscopy for each plasmodium spp. my analysis revealed that the sensitivity of light microscopy is particularly low for p. knowlesi, p. malariae, and p. ovale, suggesting that the burden of these plasmodium spp. may be underestimated in a clinical setting.fifth, to demonstrate how mathematical modeling can help to identify data needs moving forward, i considered how misdiagnosis may cause us to underestimate the transmission and burden of emerging infectious diseases from surveillance data. using p. knowlesi as a case study, i performed a theoretical analysis using a branching process framework and realistic estimates of misdiagnosis to show that the burden and transmission of p. knowlesi may be greater than previously thought. these results underscore the importance of evaluating the sensitivity of diagnostics for use in surveillance of infectious diseases.in conclusion, my research demonstrates how the use of mathematical models alongside routinely collected data can provide greater insights about the transmission and control of malaria than would be obtained using either one alone. homotopy methods are efficient tools to compute multiple solutions, bifurcations and singularities of nonlinear partial differential equations (pdes) arising from biology and physics. new and efficient methods based on the homotopy approach are presented in this thesis for computing multiple solutions, bifurcation points, and for solving steady states of hyperbolic conservation law. these new approaches make use of polynomial systems (with thousands of variables) arising by discretization. examples from hyperbolic systems and tumor growth models will be used to demonstrate the ideas. the algorithms presented in this thesis can be applied to other problems arising in nonlinear pdes and dynamic systems in this dissertation, i examine whether democracies with conscript militaries (conscript democracies) experience greater constraints during military conflict than democracies relying on volunteers (volunteer democracies). i argue that the more socially representative nature of conscript armies compared to volunteer armies restrains democracies' ability to wage war. this position coincides with arguments advanced by some scholars of the democratic peace (flowing from the work of immanuel kant) or the vietnam war. however, it has rarely been tested, and never before using a cross-national statistical research design or with longitudinal case studies as i do. from this theory, i generate hypotheses that i test using quantitative and qualitative methods. i use a statistical approach to test my hypothesis that conscript democracies experience fewer military casualties during militarized interstate disputes than volunteer democracies. this hypothesis assumes that as the numbers of conscripts increase in the armies of democracies, then democracies will act to end militarized disputes earlier before the number of military casualties increase.this hypothesis also assumes that with more conscripts in uniform, the political leaders of democracies are more sensitive to domestic political pressure requiring them to minimize casualties. since this dependent variable is process oriented (as opposed to military casualty figures, which are outcome oriented), i test this hypothesis with longitudinal case studies of great britain and australia and president richard nixon's prosecution of the vietnam war. in the british cases, i compare that state's involvement in the korean war using conscripts with its use of volunteers during the falklands war, while also examining the defence white paper of 1957, which ended british national service (conscription). in the australian cases, i compare that state's participation in world war i with volunteers to its use of conscripts during the vietnam war.from this research, the clearest conclusion is that conscript democracies experience fewer military casualties than volunteer democracies. in terms of the case studies, the australian and american cases offer very strong qualitative support for several of my hypotheses. the british cases offer only generally mixed support for my hypotheses, because it is difficult to completely discount the role of alternative explanations in those cases. this dissertation focuses on young adult queer novels published during the twenty-first century, which form an archive of literature that in many ways seems antithetical to the affective and narrative dimensions commonly represented in queer literature. generally speaking, contemporary young adult literature operates within a literary and emotional framework that is constituted by positive affect and optimism—a notion that contravenes the sadness, negativity, and despair commonly found in the broader contemporary queer canon. young adult queer literature presents us with a case in which a genre characterized by negative affect combines with a body of literature meant to instill hope. methodologically, this dissertation focuses on different sub-genres of young adult queer fiction published during the past decade using affective, queer, and narratological approaches. furthermore, this dissertation takes into consideration the social circumstances of queerness present during the time in which novels were published. the chapters in this dissertation are organized temporally, starting with past-oriented narratives and ending with future-oriented narratives. given this temporal logic, the chapters are also organized from realism to speculative fiction. this method of organization allows one to better grasp how departures from realism enable discussions of affect and queerness that are impossible in genres that are more grounded in reality.this project accomplishes two primary goals. firstly, it examines how different genres of contemporary young adult queer fiction conciliate the tension between a tradition of queer negativity and the positive affect often found in the young adult genre. secondly, this project considers the literary and generative effects that positive affect and optimism produce in young adult queer works. while many young adult novels use optimism and happiness as a way of concealing heteronormative foundations, this dissertation attempts to understand the ways in which positive affect could mark new ways of feeling and experiencing queerness. it demonstrates how positive affect and optimism in young adult queer literature possess the potential to not only to create a sense of futurity for past and present queer generations, but also to encapsulate an enduring change in terms of how queerness is (or can be) read, perceived, and experienced. gasless combustion systems offer features that make them attractive tools for a variety of potential applications. among them are rapid heating rates, high exothermicity, and high maximum temperatures. these characteristics were exploited to accomplish three separate concepts including the joining of refractory materials, synthesis of a pore-free composite, and the study of thermal explosion in mechanically activated powders. honeywell aerospace is a leading producer of carbon brakes for commercial aircraft. the manufacturing process involves chemical vapor infiltration (cvi) to form a carbon matrix around a carbon fiber preform. a major disadvantage of this approach is the time required to form a fully dense preform, which is on the order of 140 days. in addition, after the brakes are in service, they have to be discarded while there is a relatively thick amount of friction material still available. there is a profit motive for reusing these discs which are out of spec. one such example would be to perform a refurbishment by bonding a new thin c/c element onto a used 'core' to produce a brake that meets performance specifications. unfortunately, joining c/c composites is not a simple task, as carbon does not lend itself to welding, and other means (e.g. mechanical or adhesives) would not hold up to the harsh operational conditions. a novel apparatus was designed, built, and proven to join c/c using so-called reactive resistance welding (rrw). it is shown that a joint stronger than the original material can be achieved using moderate electrical current and mechanical force. additionally, joining layers of similar thickness and microstructure were obtained with different reactive media, ranging from pellets of pressed powders (~ 1-2 mm) to thin metal foils (~ 25 micron). by modifying the schematic of the rrw apparatus, porous c/c was infiltrated with liquid silicon in order to form a new pore-free c/c-sic composite. it is shown that using such a process, the silicon rapidly fills the open pore structure with only a thin layer of silicon carbide forming around the periphery of the pores. as the high-temperature treatment time is extended, carbon from the composite diffuses through this layer and reacts with the silicon subsequently crystallizing a bulk silicon carbide phase and forming an essentially pore-free composite. the utility of the apparatus was further demonstrated for the study of electrical initiation of an exothermic reactive system, ni-al. the effect of short-term high-energy milling on this system was investigated and it was found to significantly decrease the ignition temperature and activation energy without formation of any new phases. scanning electron microscopy, electron dispersive x-ray spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction, infrared thermal imaging, and mechanical testing were used to study the process dynamics and properties of these materials. this dissertation examines coordinated verbal and nonverbal symmetry in turn-taking behavior during conversation using three modern techniques for analyzing conversational data in nonstationary time series data: windowed cross-correlation, multifractal wavelet analysis, and recurrence quantification analysis. a major goal of this work was to combine the well-established qualitative method of analyzing verbal (and more recently nonverbal) discourse known as conversation analysis (ca) with more recent quantitative methods for analyzing nonstationary time series data. windowed-cross correlation (wcc) was used to estimate the degree of relationship between head position and speech output within one participant as well as the degree of (verbal and nonverbal) correlation between participants using a correlation matrix-based approach. the multifractal wavelet analysis called wavelet transform modulus maxima (wtmm) examined the underlying structure of each data series including fractal dimension and the holder exponent. recurrence quantification analysis (rqa) and cross-recurrence quantification (crq) were used to investigate the phase space of each time series, further examining mirroring in verbal and nonverbal behavior (e.g., recurrences) within and between participants at the point where turn-taking occurs during conversation. these three analyses are appropriate human conversation data that is likely to be nonstationary because wtmm, rqa, and crq are nonparametric and wcc assumes only local stationarity (about 2 seconds). the two major goals of these analyses were to: 1) perform these three analyses to examine the relationship between an individual participant's verbal and nonverbal data and the relationship between two people's verbal or nonverbal data with a focus on the phenomenon of conversational turn-taking and, 2) estimate the predictability of the outcome of each of these three analyses based on gender and dominance were calculated. finally, in order to demonstrate the real-world applicability of these analyses, the original digitized video of a conversation at salient time segments identified by the rqa/crqa analyses were transcribed as an illustration of the practical meaning of the analyses using quicktime (apple computers, 1991-2007) to compare to ca transcriptions and plots of the time series data. network science spans many domains, including computational biology. biomolecules in the cell do not function alone but instead interact with each other to carry out cellular processes. this is what biological networks model. efficient computational analyses of biological networks have a potential to deepen our understanding of complex biological processes, which has important biomedical applications, such as identification of disease genes. however, several challenges exist in biological network research: 1) biological network data are heterogeneous due to availability of various data types. 2) the data represent static snapshots of dynamic cellular functioning. 3) the data are noisy. 4) many network theoretic problems, such as network comparison and alignment, are computationally intractable. yet, developing efficient computational strategies to address these challenges is important, as such strategies can assist with e.g., across-species transfer of biological knowledge or protein classification.with these motivations, this ph.d. dissertation focuses on the development of the following novel computational strategies for integrative, dynamic, and comparative biological network analysis. 1) since different biological data types can complement each other, we develop a computational framework for integrating different data types to allow for comprehensive data analyses. 2) while current biological network research has been static, to better understand dynamic cellular functioning, we use the integrative framework to infer dynamic biological networks. then, we analyze the dynamic networks to (computationally) predict new biological knowledge. 3) since current biological network data are noisy, we computationally de-noise the data to improve the prediction quality. 4) since network alignment (na) can aid across-species knowledge transfer, we develop a computational framework for fair evaluation of na methods. since a heterogeneous network capturing different data types can allow for more comprehensive data analyses compared to a homogeneous network, and also since traditional na has been homogeneous, we introduce a novel heterogeneous na method. also, we develop a comprehensive framework for alignment-free (as opposed to the above alignment-based) network comparison, which can deal with multiple data types. 5) we use the above approaches to study human aging and for protein classification. further, we carry out a collaborative application of network-based analyses of the human ubiquitin-proteasome system. a time-series is a sequence of observations ordered by time. often in the behavioral sciences, these observationsare instances of categorical variables and can be represented by a finite set of symbols, or an alphabet. in thesesequences, there may exist temporal patterns that are important in understanding the dynamics of behavior. however,these patterns may be nontrivial, that is events in the patterns may be noncontiguous and therefore difficult todetect by standard time-series analyses as these methods generally deal with understanding the structure of behaviorat a global level across the entirety of the series. in 1981, temple smith and michael waterman encountered asimilar issue in the field of molecular biology. they developed local sequence alignment as a means to discovernontrivial patterns of similarity in long sequences of dna and protein, each comprised of elements from an alphabetof size four and twenty respectively. this project will describe methods of local sequence alignment as they existin the biological sciences and propose and implement analogous methods for use with temporal data. the genetic code is degenerate, and synonymous codons are not used with equal frequency. rare codons are hypothesized to be associated with generally slower translation and lower translational accuracy. historically, rare codons were believed to be deleterious, and were thought to persist in coding sequences mostly as the result of random genetic drift. however, rare codons have also been hypothesized to encode translation rate, thus promoting proper co-translation folding of the nascent chain and allowing time for co-translational interactions. prior work by the clark lab established that rare codons form clusters within the coding sequences of most species, raising the possibility that these clusters resulted from positive selection. rare codons have been shown to have functional significance in specific protein coding sequences, but there is still no consensus on how widespread such mechanisms are or how to identify functional rare codon clusters. the studies described here seek to identify genome-wide trends in codon usage to aid in building hypotheses about the function of rare codons and identifying functionally significant codon usage. if rare codons modulate co-translational protein folding, their positions are expected to be correlated with the locations of protein structural features. here we report that rare codon clusters are enriched at predicted domain boundaries, at a genome-wide level, in both human and e. coli. transmembrane helices were also shown to have biased codon usage, but in this case codon usage preferences were associated with codon gc content rather than commonness or rareness. functional sequence features are often conserved in evolution, so homologous coding sequences from multiple eukaryotes, archaea, and bacteria were analyzed to determine if rare codon clusters are conserved. this study revealed that such conservation is widespread across the tree of life, and homolog families with conserved rare codon clusters are enriched in functions associated with growth and development. finally, the functional significance of rare codons will have to be verified experimentally. here we describe the design of an experimental system to identify the effects of synonymous codon usage on the fitness of bacteria. generative adversarial networks (gans) with the ability to generate samples following almost any implicit distribution have been successfully applied to a number of different applications, including image synthesis, super resolution, style transfer, image inpainting, image caption generation, etc. a gan contains two main parts: one is the generator, and the other is the discriminator. both are usually implemented via deep neural networks (dnns). as a spin-off of dnns, gans require a large amount of resources as other dnns, no matter in terms of physical resources like memory and computation cost, or data resources needed for training. this high resources demand hinders gans from being widely used in various practical environments with limited resources.this work focuses on three techniques to mitigate the high pressure from the resource demand from different aspects. the first method explores the weight binarization on gans for memory saving and speedup of image construction on the edge, where the physical resources are quite limited. therefore, the aim is to binarize gans as much as possible and cost resources to the least. the study also reveals some constructive hints for more general model compression on dnns. the second method aims to improve the performance of a gan given resources constraints. this gan is applied to medical image processing, where performance improvement under constrained resources will benefit patients and radiologists greatly. this study may guide further performance improvement on similar applications given constrained resources, but not only on gans. finally, orthogonal to the previous mitigation on the physical resource demands, data resource pressure is relieved by the third method when applying a gan to data augmentation. leveraging the ability of gan generating samples from an implicit distribution delicately, it is possible to solve the problem with data resources constraints via both gans and general dnns. in addition, a case study applying a gan into solving a resources constrained problem is also provided. this dissertation presents searches for lepton flavor violating decay of the standard model higgs boson (h) as well as neutral heavy higgs bosons (h) into a muon and an electronically decaying tau lepton. data collected by the cms detector in 2016, in proton-proton collisions at the lhc, at a center-of-mass energy of 13 tev were used to perform both searches. no evidence of signal was found in either search, and stringent upper exclusion limits were set on both processes. observed (expected) upper limits on the branching fraction of h decaying into a muon and a tau lepton was set at 0.25 (0.25) % at 95 % cl. these are the most stringent limits set on this process till date. observed (expected) upper limits on product of h cross-section and branching ratio of decay into a muon and a tau lepton range from 51.9 (57.4) pb to 1.6 (2.1) pb, at 95 % cl, for h masses in the range between 200 and 900 gev. this search is the first direct search to set limits on this decay. recent advances in artificial intelligence have propelled the development of innovative computational materials modeling and design techniques. generative deep learning models have been used for molecular representation, discovery, and design. in this work, we assess the predictive capabilities of a molecular generative model developed based on variational inference and graph theory in the small data regime. physical constraints that encourage energetically stable molecules are proposed. the encoding network is based on the scattering transform with adaptive spectral filters to allow for better generalization of the model. the decoding network is a one-shot graph generative model that conditions atom types on molecular topology. a bayesian formalism is considered to capture uncertainties in the predictive estimates of molecular properties. the model's performance is evaluated by generating molecules with desired target properties. the pi chamber generates moist turbulent rayleigh-benard flow in order to replicate steady-state cloud conditions. we take inspiration from this setup and consider a particle-laden, convectively-driven turbulent flow using direct numerical simulation (dns). the aim of our study is to develop a simple stochastic model that can accurately describe the residence times of the particles in the flow, this time being determined by the complex competition between the gravitational settling of the particles, and the interaction of the particles with the turbulent structures in the flow. a simple conceptual picture underlies the stochastic model, namely that the particles take repeated trips between the top and bottom boundaries, driven by the convective cells that occur in rayleigh-benard turbulence, and that their residence times are determined by the time it takes to complete one of these trips, which varies from one trip to another, and the probability of falling out to the bottom boundary after each trip. despite the simplicity of the model, it yields quantitatively accurate predictions of the distribution of the particle residence times in the flow. we independently vary the stokes numbers and settling velocities in order to shed light on the independent roles that gravity and inertia play in governing these residence times. during the early twentieth century chilean doctors took a different approach to the relation between medicine and politics; they did not only publicly claim for the need of a ministry of health but they got involved in legislation. doctors in chile took the medical expertise they had learned while practicing their trade and moved it into the congress, helping promote and create new laws that would help socialize medicine. critical-sized bone defects that do not heal without intervention have prolonged morbidity and are extremely costly 1,2 additionally, their repair is often limited by insufficient neovascularization 2. bone morphogenetic protein-2 (bmp-2) is used clinically to treat such defects and it has been proposed that bmp-2 is capable of directly inducing angiogenesis by signaling through endothelial cells 3. in addition, thrombopoietin (tpo) has been shown to stimulate bone healing through osteoblast activation by megakaryocytes,2 and has been implicated in angiogenesis. we hypothesized that bmp-2 and tpo delivery would enhance vascularized regeneration of critical-sized bone defects compared to treatment with scaffold alone.bilateral 8mm defects in rat femora were treated with a collagen sponge hydrated with either pbs, 5μg of bmp-2, 5μg of tpo, or 25μg of tpo. neovascularization was evaluated by contrast-enhanced microct angiography at weeks 3 and 8. bone formation was measured post-mortem at 3 weeks and in vivo at 4 and 8 weeks. to determine whether the angiogenic response to growth factor stimulation was a direct effect of endothelial cell activation or a paracrine effect induced by bone formation, we treated endothelial colony forming cells (ecfcs) with bmp-2, tpo, or hmsc conditioned media and evaluated migration, tubulogenesis, and smad 1/5/9 nuclear localization in vitro. we also implanted hydrogels with ecfcs and/or bmp-2 subcutaneously into rats and observed bone and vessel formation in an extraosseous site. in vivo, bmp-2 significantly induced bone formation and neovascularization, but tpo treatment did not significantly affect either. studies have observed significant effects of tpo delivery on bone regeneration, suggesting limitations of the collagen sponge delivery method or need for medullary reaming to promote megakaryocyte mobilization. bmp-2 and tpo had no significant effect on in vitro ecfc migration or tubulogenesis, but bmp-2 supplementation increased smad nuclear localization, confirming endothelial cells are responsive to bmp-2. additionally, ecfcs were responsive to hmsc conditioned media. subcutaneous delivery of bmp-2 and ecfcs did not have a significant effect on neovascularization. these data suggest that the effect of bmp-2 on angiogenesis is secondary to bone formation-induced vascular recruitment rather than direct endothelial cell activation. researchers in the social and behavioral sciences are frequently concerned whether the constructs they study should be represented as categorical types (classes) or continuous traits (factors). two approaches to testing such type versus trait hypotheses are meehlian taxometric procedures and the factor mixture model (fmm). the use of taxometric procedures and the more recently developed fmm has dramatically increased in the last ten years, and initial comparisons have shown that the latent structures that can be detected by taxometric procedures are a subset of the latent structures than can be detected by the fmm (lubke_latent_2009). users of both the fmm and taxometric procedures frequently assign subjects to latent classes and then perform post-hoc comparisons to estimate class covariate effects. it is obvious that the accuracy of this approach will depend on class assignment accuracy, though this has not been previously studied. a simulation study was conducted to compare the two approaches on their relative performance for accuracy in post-hoc estimation of class covariate effects. results show that the fmm can detect classes better than taxometric procedures, and that parameter estimates for post-hoc procedures can be quite biased, especially in conditions where assignment accuracy is poor. it is also shown that direct estimation of class covariate effects using the fmm provides more accurate results. even though direct estimation of covariate effects in the fmm is possible, there some situations where post-hoc comparisons may be advantageous. this includes situations where it is desirable that the interpretation and estimation of the classes not be conditional on class covariates. before taking the post-hoc comparison approach, classification must be accurate. in practice class assignment accuracy is unknown. bootstrap methods are developed for examining the sampling variability of estimated individual posterior probabilities. these bootstrap methods provide the means to estimate individual classification accuracy using confidence intervals or empirical standard errors. simulation results suggest that accurate classification is possible in some conditions for some subjects, though it is expected that classification accuracy may often be poor in many applied settings. in practice, classification accuracy should be checked prior to engaging in post-hoc comparisons. the 2017 women's march was the largest single-day protest in the history of the united states. though people of all genders attended, women's experiences were centered. where then do men and (this study's focus) transgender people fit in? how were transgender people included and excluded in the women's march? this project will focus on the most prominent symbol of the march: the pussyhat. the march claimed to be open to all in support of its cause; but this biological imagery centered an essentialist, binary understanding of womanhood. the prominent symbol of the largest protest in world history was exclusionary, making it difficult to move beyond and focus on the pressing, crucial activism against the trump administration. based on 22 interviews with transgender individuals, this thesis will focus on this symbol, with special attention to the intersection of race and gender. social support has well-documented mental-health benefits. however, research on instrumental support, a domain of social support, has yielded inconsistent results, which may be attributable to shortcomings in extant instrumental-support measures, including insufficient content coverage and confounding with personality and cognitive variables. the present research aims to develop and validate the instrumental support inventory for spouses (isi-s), a self-report measure of enacted instrumental support received from a romantic partner. in study 1, a sample of 372 married amazon mechanical turk workers was recruited. exploratory factor analysis was conducted on a large pool of items to guide factor retention and item selection, resulting in a 39-item inventory with five subscales: logistic, domestic, childcare, resource provision, and maintenance. preliminary evidence of reliability and convergent validity was examined in this sample. study 2 aimed to validate this inventory in a sample of 298 parents of children ages 0-12 and 69 of their romantic partners, using a 1-month retest longitudinal design. further evidence was obtained for the reliability and factor structure of the isi-s, and the inventory showed excellent convergent and discriminant validity. the scale also showed modest criterion validity, correlating only with relationship satisfaction concurrently. patterns of theoretically expected gender differences replicated across samples. competing hypotheses for the associations between instrumental support and depressive symptoms were also tested, but neither hypothesis was supported due to nonsignificant relations. the isi-s possesses several advantages over extant instrumental-support scales, most notably in terms of content and discriminant validity. superstition influences fertility decisions in asian countries. as such, an individual's lunar birth zodiac could affect their parents' birth wantedness, and thus, inform their achievement in education. this thesis uses the 2018 vietnam household living standard survey data to answer this question in the context of vietnam. categorizing lunar years into three groups: good, bad, and neutral, i use these characteristics as proxy variables for the birth wantedness to evaluate its influence on educational outcomes. the findings of this research contribute to the universally consistent understanding of the importance of birth wantedness on children's education. the thesis also unfolds the impacts of some vietnam-customized patterns on educational achievements, such as geographical context and gender discrimination. these insights have implications for both our understanding of household behavior and policymaking. light detection and ranging (lidar) is a popular tool for range sensing applications, with applications including environmental modeling and urban planning. modern acquisition platforms facilitate data collection rates of over two billion points per hour, enabling the collection of massive datasets with ease. these datasets must typically undergo a large amount of processing before use, making maintenance a difficult issue. additionally, the presence of transient objects can affect dataset quality, both as unwanted data and by obscuring the underlying surface model. in this dissertation, we present a framework for enabling automatic change detection between large lidar datasets of urban environments. for two large scale datasets, we extract the relevant portions using information about the paths of the acquisition vehicles. however, acquisition inaccuracies can result in subset misalignment of up to 10 meters. to correct for this, we utilize a variety of point cloud alignment techniques, including a novel point descriptor, to bring overlapping pieces of data into alignment. given the properly aligned data, we then use novel hierarchical and point-based techniques to extract regions of change between the two datasets. these regions can then be extracted and presented for further processing or filtering. we present the results of our research executed on datasets totaling over 93 billion sample points. at over 1.5 terabytes in size, this represents by far the largest collection of ground-based lidar examined in the open literature. we quantify our results with a variety of objective metrics, investigate modes of failure, and recommend directions for future research. in light of the apparent inability of alternative strategies to guide robots satisfactorily, in real-world settings of daily operation, relative to work pieces without precise, permanent fixture as required by "teach/repeat" , the present dissertation proves real-world robustness and workability of the presented paradigm with actual tasks found in industry. two fundamental experiments -thickness-reduction-gauging and five-component positioning -prove experimentally that the high precision, robustness, and workspace-extent versatility of csm can be extended to general robot operations. three types of general applications are implemented based on the present method. the first, peg-in-hole assembly, is a challenging robotics application in industry today, one that requires high precision and robustness of five-component positioning. the second, surface-finishing, task requires a combination of gauging the surface change and positioning the tool with high precision. the third, palletizing and de-palletizing, applications demonstrate the robustness of three-dimensional image analysis in real-world tasks. this dissertation concerns two controversial aspects of descartes' philosophy. the first is the meaning of the distinction between the material and objective senses of the word "idea." the second is an alleged tension between the fifth meditation's claim that the real natures are mind-independent and the claim of the principles that universals are mind-dependent.in the first chapter, i take up the material sense, and argue against those interpretations which see it as a category for the contentless ontology of ideas. i argue that the textual evidence points to the material sense being descartes' category for phenomenological description of how things seem to be to a given mind when it has a given idea. in particular, i argue that he deploys the material sense in his discussions of abstractions and that this points to the material sense being a category for content that lacks existential implication for the extramental world.in the second chapter, i take up the ontology of the real natures, and suggest that there is no tension between the fifth meditation and the principles because descartes accepts two things under the term "nature," namely, universals and individual essences. i suggest descartes is committed to platonism about individual essences in the fifth meditation, and that in the principles he is concerned only with universals, about which he is a conceptualist. i further suggest that individual essences play key roles in both singular and universal thought.in the third chapter, i take up the objective sense, and the widespread interpretation of this sense of ideas as concerning current presentational or phenomenological content. i suggest that this account struggles with cases where there is stability in the object of thought paired with changes in the associated phenomenology. i propose that we ought to reject a straightforward equation of the objective sense with current presentational content, and instead adopt a scheme according to which what has objective being in an idea is the sum total of thinkable, essential features of the object, and that when an idea is clear and distinct, what we perceive has objective being in the idea. since socrates' trial and execution in athens, reconciling the conflict between individual and community has remained a persistent and vital concern in politics. in contemporary political thought and practice, however, the conflict has grown ever more vociferous and increasingly muddled. the rising intensity and confusion of the conflict have resulted from the incomplete acceptance of the transformation of the concept of the individual effected by rousseau, hegel, and nietzsche. before rousseau, philosophers conceived of the individual as a natural entity. after rousseau, hegel and nietzsche argue that nature does not produce individuals, but rather individuals are human products. what previous thinkers understood to be natural qualities of human beings, such as reason or human passions, are results of developments in human history and reactions to social pressures and mores. if we understand that individuals are not natural entities to be protected from an external government or civil society, but are themselves products of political and social interactions, then we can concentrate on re-organizing our institutions so that they do not produce incomplete or dissatisfied persons, but rather reflective and whole individuals who can maintain their own independence by carving out spaces for their freedom and resisting becoming cogs in a social machine. hegel and nietzsche, however, disagree fundamentally about the scope and meaning of this practical act of individuation. hegel claims that individuals constitute themselves within, and find their completion only in, social and political life, whereas nietzsche asserts that individuals are oppressed by state and society, and can only create themselves and thereby experience satisfaction by transcending their time and place. these two positions form an antinomy in the concept of the individual, a contradiction that reflects the perennial conflict of individual and community. this antinomy is salutary for our political practice in that it replaces nature as a restraint on ambitions and expectations of political progress for a final reconciliation of individual and community. there exist several classes of materials that simultaneously exhibit superconductivity and anomalous magnetic order, where both effects are homogeneous throughout the material. no cohesive explanation for this 'apparent ferromagnetism' has ever been published. in the a(1-x)cexsr2cu2mo10 and in the asr2cu2ruo8 (a=ln,y; m=ru,nb) families of materials, it is shown via diffraction, squid magnetometry, and electron spin resonance that the metamagnetism in these materials is due to cuo 2 ferromagnetic order in the ab-plane, with adjacent layers stacked ferromagnetically; this cuo2 magnetic order coexists with superconductivity in these materials. the implications of this on models of high-tc superconductivity may be profound. another controversial class of superconducting material, ba2aru(1-x)cuxo6 (a=ln,y) is examined and the compound ba2yru(1-x)cuxo6 is shown to be superconducting with simultaneous cu magnetic order at temperatures near that of ybco, without cuo2 planes. the magnetic and crystal structures of several members of the ln series are examined by squid magnetometry, electron spin resonance, and x-ray and neutron diffraction, with discovery of simultaneous superconductivity and cu magnetic order in only ba2dyru(1-x)cuxo6. a third related class of materials, la2cumo6 (m=ru,nb,ti,ir,sn) is also examined for superconductivity. the magnetic structure of these materials is investigated by diffraction and squid magnetometry, and new high-temperature synthesis techniques are performed that dramatically improve the structural and magnetic properties of the compound la2curuo6; electron spin resonance has identified cu antiferromagnetism in this material for the first time. hole doping (with ba or sr) and electron doping (with ce or th) fails to generate superconductivity in this material. the high-temperature synthesis techniques are unsuccessful in processing of other members of the la 2cumo6 family due to the stability of la 2m2o7-type compounds at high temperatures. the compound la2cusno6 forms distinct cuo2 and sno2 chemical layers, yet shows no superconductivity. in this dissertation, i argue we have reasons acceptable from a wide range of theoretical perspectives to be fairly intolerant of economic inequality. some of these reasons are often not appreciated, or not appreciated in their full force, by those who occupy those theoretical perspectives. in chapter i, i defend a modified version of the popular argument that economically egalitarian distributive policies are justified partly because they allow us to communicate equal respect and concern for the worst off. what i say there will also have implications for many issues besides distributive justice, and i will gesture at some of these. chapter ii begins by arguing that being too rich probably tends to be bad for people. i then argue that very rich would probably be better off in a more egalitarian society which prevented them from becoming so rich. the political implications of this conclusion will be most obvious for utilitarians and others who think that distributive justice is intimately related to making people better off, but i'll also discuss some reasons why other people should find this conclusion interesting, even if they don't think it justifies preventing people from becoming extremely rich. chapter iii argues that the reasons rawls gives for accepting the difference principle should have led him to endorse another principle which allows less inequality than the difference principle does. chapter iv discusses social egalitarianism, the view, held by figures like elizabeth anderson, philip pettit, samuel scheffler, and many others, that social justice obtains when the members of a society stand in relations of equality with each other. i argue that the considerations which motivate social egalitarians should lead them to be less tolerant of economic inequality than many have in fact been. i also argue that these considerations perhaps should have lead rawls to endorse a constraint on economic inequality which he did not endorse and which is distinct from the one defended in chapter iii. if that's right, there are therefore potentially two different ways in which rawls failed to be as economically egalitarian as, by his own lights, he should have been. this dissertation retrieves a nuanced, pre-conciliar account of the common good and develops it to offer descriptive insight and normative guidance for a post-conciliar and increasingly interconnected world. working within the tradition of catholic social thought, this project extends the concept of the common good to address the international sphere, the common goods that give rise to international society, and the laws of nations that guide and govern the pursuit of these goods.current approaches to a globalized world present three interrelated difficulties: first, a lack of prescriptive guidance at the global level; second, an increasingly vague idea of the common good in the tradition of catholic social thought; and third, an unfamiliarity with the pre-conciliar common good framework. this dissertation addresses these difficulties in reverse order.the first chapter argues for rediscovering the leonine renewal as a mediating tradition that bridges the gap between aquinas' thinking and our own, and between leo xiii's social thinking and our own. the second chapter begins to retrieve the concept of the common good by identifying and sorting out various meanings of the term. the third chapter continues by showing how the primary sense of common good as a good, one in number and sharable by many, gives rise to an ordered array of various common goods, to which correspond various societies. taken together, these first three chapters argue for and then carry out a retrieval of the framework developed within the leonine renewal and a rejoining of this tradition with the recent revival of common good thinking in broadly thomistic circles.with this reconstituted tradition in hand, chapter four develops and applies it to interpreting the description of the common good in gaudium et spes, reading it in continuity with the earlier tradition but also as widening the scope of this tradition to grapple with an interconnected, globalized world. chapter five embraces this widened scope to put forward an account of the common good of political society as the complete, temporal human good. chapter six widens the scope still further to consider the distinction between the political common good and the international common good, focusing on law as the principal means within political society for achieving its common good and how this serves to differentiate it from international society and its laws. the common good framework both illuminates and is illuminated by broadly natural law-type arguments for the necessity and authority of international law and for its formation primarily through customary law. international environmental law illustrates this dynamic in a particularly helpful and urgent way. soft porous coordination polymers (spcps) are a new kind of porous material composed of metal-organic polyhedra and organic linkers. these novel adsorbents could combine the excellent properties of metal-organic frameworks and soft materials. as such, these materials have great potential in many areas of science and engineering. to advance technologies using spcps, fundamental studies on structural properties are needed. it is known from experiments that spcps form amorphous structures but generating them by computational methods is very challenging. we use molecular modeling and simulations to design and generate the crystalline and amorphous structures and calculate their structural properties. we also characterize the systems and gas adsorption performance with nitrogen, hydrogen, and methane. for the first time in human history, the majority of the world?s population lives in urban areas and of the 15 most populated cities, 11 are located in developing countries. this trend towards urbanization in the developing world is creating massive vulnerabilities to natural hazards, especially in housing, something that was tragically demonstrated in the 2010 haiti earthquake. this thesis offers a novel framework for post-quake residential construction in the developing world, which extends beyond engineering, and into financial, capacity, and cultural constraints. the ultimate goal is to establish sustainable solutions through the empowerment of local populations. this thesis also details a case study in the implementation of the framework in haiti, which results in a paradigm shift from traditional masonry construction to a frame and panel system. the latter half of the thesis details the design of the new system, as well as constructability issues in urban haiti. in this dissertation i develop a theoretical framework for understanding why citizens do or do not engage in politics and civic society and how organizations, through their appeals, impact these decisions. specifically, i broaden the 'calculus of voting' and borrow from john zaller's (1992) theory of how people answer survey questions. using this framework, i generate a number of hypotheses about what types of people should participate when solicited, as well as which appeals work best in particular contexts and for whom. in the three empirical chapters, i test these hypotheses using survey and field experiments. i conclude with recommendations for future scholarship in this area, noting its practical importance for increasing participation rates generally and decreasing the participatory gap, which are two ailments of american democracy today. previous studies have supported parental responsiveness and warmth as important predictors in the development of children's attachment. less research has examined the impact of marital processes on attachment; however, support for marital quality and conflict have been linked to attachment in infancy and toddlerhood. the current study investigated the relationships between dimensions of marital functioning, parenting and kindergarten-age children's attachment relationships with mother and father. attachment was assessed using a modified strange situation procedure (main & cassidy, 1988). analyses indicated specific behaviors exhibited during marital conflict, such as anger, were related to attachment while global aspects of marital satisfaction and conflict were not supported. while analyses did not support a relationship between parents' warmth and attachment, parents' non-supportive responses to children's emotional distress were related to children's attachment relationships. structural equation modeling results support marital functioning and parenting's relationship with children's avoidance within their attachment relationships in middle childhood. the university of notre dame evolved from a small catholic boarding school in 1842 into an aspiring research university by 1967. based primarily on original research in the university of notre dame archives, this dissertation explains how science played the key role in this transformation. notre dame is arguably the highest profile catholic university in the united states, and this study makes important contributions to understanding the history of american catholic higher education. by fostering research in science, notre dame aspired to be ranked among the nation's leading research universities and most prestigious academic institutions in american higher education. the priest, botanist, and chemist rev. julius a. nieuwland, c.s.c. conducted acetylene chemistry research that led to mass-produced poisonous gas during world war i and a catalyst for the efficient production of synthetic rubber by the 1930s. during world war ii, notre dame's lay faculty scientists conducted secret research for the manhattan project and biological weapons. in the early cold war, the university's administration attempted to build its research momentum in atomic physics and bacteriology and sought funding to establish other "steeples of excellence" in research. a prominent figure in this history is rev. theodore m. hesburgh, c.s.c. who served as the university's president from 1952 to 1987. by the 1960s, the university was a modern catholic research university adapting to the world of science, but hesburgh remained wary of the influence of the military-industrial-academic complex. aspects of the university's religious identity raised issues relative to federal funding eligibility and were addressed by transferring institutional ownership and control to a lay-clerical board of trustees in 1967. that same year, notre dame issued a declaration of its academic independence as a research university with the land o'lakes statement, and this changed the university's relationship with the catholic church to a less formal one. this dissertation raises challenging questions regarding the relationship between faith and science. the best account of the common good defines it as the just flourishing of a community qua community. a community is an order of common, purposive action oriented to some vision of its own flourishing. we can ask of any community, first what its common goal is, then whether this is just, and finally whether a given act or state of affairs serves that just goal. the roots of this modest view are in aristotle, who uses the common good as a standard of political justice that is less demanding than complete virtue. even though the regime he calls "polity" does not center on full human virtue, it shares the benefits and burdens of political life in a just way among the rich and poor and is thus judged to be for the common advantage. as usually reckoned, liberal institutions do not need or refer to the common good, because of the primacy they give to individual rights or market freedoms over substantive purposes. but, self-description notwithstanding, if a given political or economic institution turns out to be an order of common action, then it is per se oriented toward some common end and should be evaluated by the standard of common good. this study applies such reasoning to three kinds of association that dominate contemporary public life: liberal polity, the market, and the business corporation. liberal polity and corporations are themselves types of common action. like all communities, they wield authority, confer honor, and need solidarity or friendship, and could not do otherwise. both emphasize the private (rights and profit), but this is different from simple absence of common action, in which case private ends would predominate by default. market relations, by contrast, are not common action; thus the common good does not show up in markets unless we regard them as instituted by some larger community. even in aspects of liberal politics and economics that may not seem to concern the common good, the concept proves indispensable to sound deliberation just because common goods are intrinsic features of any community. aristotle's identification of happiness with excellent rational activity makes it difficult to see how others could be valuable to the individual in a way that does not reduce them to a mere means to his own flourishing. in nicomachean ethics ix.9 aristotle faces this challenge head on by addressing the question of why the happy and seemingly self-sufficient person needs friends. my dissertation provides a detailed examination of the chapter and establishes three main theses. first, while the friend is a means to the good person's well-being, he is also "another self," one who is in some real sense identified with the good person. second, aristotle employs two related notions to account for the identification in question: that of living together (suzēn), and that of a sunaisthetic perception (sunaisthēsis), a special form of perception. when aristotle speaks of friends living together he refers to their shared participation in excellent practical and theoretical activities, a participation in which the contribution of each individual is informed by that of the other and, thereby, enriched. each friend becomes, in a sense, identified with the well-being of the other, and is valued by the other as something that is both good and also part of his own flourishing. the cognitive appreciation of the friend as part of one's own flourishing occurs by means of a sunaisthetic perception, a synoptic perception that simultaneously grasps something as both good and also proper to or belonging to oneself. third, the relationship between suzēn and sunaisthēsis turns out to be a special instance of the activity-pleasure relationship that is central to aristotle's account of human flourishing. in this thesis, i study the left adjoint d to the forgetful functor from the ∞-category of symmetric monoidal ∞-categories with duals and finite colimits to the ∞-category of symmetric monoidal ∞-categories with finite colimits, and related free constructions. my main result is that d(c) always splits as the product of 3 factors, each characterized by a certain universal property. as an application, i show that, for any compact lie group g, the ∞-category of genuine g-spectra is obtained from the ∞-category of naive g-spectra by freely adjoining duals for compact objects, while respecting colimits. beam jitter is defined as the unsteady variation of a laser beam's propagation direction. for airborne directed energy systems that feature turrets, the high speed flow around the aircraft introduces jitter into the system. the jitter has two main forms: mechanical jitter from vibration induced by the unsteady pressure field over the turret and aero-optical jitter from large scale structures that impose aberrations with length scales larger than the beam aperture. beam jitter is highly dependent on the specific geometry and construction of a directed energy turret as surface geometry changes will modify the flow field over the turret and interior construction changes will alter the vibrational modes. this dissertation investigates the exact character of jitter over a specific turret geometry. this is done through surface pressure, jitter and vibration measurements to not only separate the total jitter into aero-optical and mechanical components, but also determine which flow features over a turret drive the two different forms of jitter. the techniques presented in this dissertation can be applied to characterize the jitter of any given directed energy system. a few guidelines to mitigate potential jitter in future turret designs are also given. this dissertation investigates a novel adjustable bolted steel plate connection to join steel members at a range of angles with the capability of adjusting in-situ to accommodate additional angles or tolerances by cold bending. the connection is comprised of prefabricated splice plates (cold bent via press brake) to defined angles, then further cold bent during field installation (by bolt tightening) to form moment-resisting joints. this approach uses a small number of prefabricated unique components to facilitate rapid erection. analytical, numerical, and experimental approaches are utilized to (1) develop a versatile connection geometry for greatest adaptability to manufacturing and erection tolerances, as well as member dimensions, (2) understand the residual strains induced during prefabrication via press brake, (3) understand the effect of field installation via bolt tightening on the plates and bolts, (4) investigate the behavior of the connection under service and ultimate loads, and (5) develop recommendations on the design and behavior of adjustable connections. this is the first investigation of cold bending via bolt tightening for a kit-of-parts adjustable steel connection. importantly, findings also offer insight into the behavior of bent connections, as well as misaligned or non-flush connections that are force-fit in the field.investigation of the prefabrication process found that the peak circumferential strain depends primarily on the ratio of plate thickness to bend radius. during investigation of the field installation procedure, the peak strain induced in the plates was found to depend primarily on the difference in ply angles (i.e., magnitude of bending). overall, the field installation strains are significantly lower than prefabrication strains. the field installation process induces both axial and bending strain patterns in the bolts depending primarily on the bolt deformation demand. ply angle deviations below 2.5 degrees are recommended. high bolt eccentricity / diameter ratios up to 0.3 were found to be acceptable with capacity reductions for slip and bolt shear. measured peak loads for the adjustable bolted steel plate connection, for a failure mode of bolt shear, are found to be lower than a comparable straight and flush control scenario. these results indicate that the connection shows promise for future implementation with appropriate reduction factors applied. many studies of the chant of the cistercian order have focused on the order's early roots in twelfth-century france. this study instead considers their activities in the thirteenth century in the area around the diocese of liège, where cistercians were instrumental in promoting the religious activities of laybrothers, beguines, anchoresses, and nuns. this dissertation argues that the liturgical office was an essential genre of history-writing for cistercians, and articulates the methods by which individual office-writers could use the office to promote new cults and feasts. this dissertation discusses several chant offices originating in the religious landscape of thirteenth century liège, as well as their manuscript sources. first, this study considers the techniques for office writing present in the office for the order's most prominent early saint, bernard of clairvaux. subsequent chapters examine how these techniques, and other like them, manifested in later low countries offices. the office written at villers for the cistercian laybrother arnulf shows a consistent process for writing the office that is organized around direct citations from arnulf's vita and quotations from the book of ecclesiasticus. each text is carefully arranged by genre and placement in the office. although arnulf's office is accompanied in the same manuscript by an office for marie of oignies, a close study of the respective practices of the two offices reveals very different approaches to scriptural text and to composition of melody. knowledge of the methods by which each office-writer worked complicates the narrative of authorship of these two offices, and suggests marie's office may have originated outside villers. offices for katherine and ursula and the eleven thousand virgins compiled at the convent of beatrice of nazareth demonstrate that embellishment and arrangement of borrowed material was also a method of office-writing available to new cistercian convents. finally, detailed examination of the cistercian office for corpus christi clarifies the chronology of the celebration of this feast, and indicates that while cistercians used many wide-spread texts, they had a strongly-held sense of musical rhetoric that affected their use of borrowed material. taken together these case studies present a methodology for understanding the process by which communities enacted historical and theological ideals through music and liturgy. multi-specificity is a hallmark of t cell receptor (tcr) recognition, as a high volume of antigen must be identified by the t cell arm of the immune system. the mechanism by which a tcr engages a potential ligand and distinguishes its composition as either foreign or self &ndash; and doing this many times over with a diverse array of ligands &ndash; is a remarkable operation that remains mechanistically ambiguous. protein-protein interactions have been characterized by a wide variety of biophysical and structural methods, which have resolved many key attributes of the interaction process. this is certainly the case of the tcrs and their antigen, peptides bound to cell-associated major histocompatibility complex (pmhc). however, holes in the arguments for how the recognition process is carried out are extremely confounding, calling for new approaches to more fully characterize the mechanism of tcr-pmhc recognition. it has been well-established that protein function is heavily influenced by the dynamic properties of a protein. conformational diversity of tcrs has been revealed through crystallographic and thermodynamic data, yet the pre-existing flexibility of the receptor at its binding surface has gone relatively unidentified. here we address the fundamental dynamics of the a6 tcr protein, and consider the potential effects its conformational variability may impose on its recognition strategy. by the means of time-resolved fluorescence anisotropy and molecular dynamics simulations, distinct and measureable flexibilities of the antigen-binding loops of a6 have been determined. towards the ultimate goal of elucidating the receptor's recognition mechanism, a comprehensive analysis of the data from both structural and energetic perspectives have been critically performed. this dissertation answers the timely questions: how has the black female body been represented in the contemporary poetry of the afro-hispanic caribbean, and why does it matter today? in pursuit of these questions, this project compares the work of afrofeminist poets nancy morejón, georgina herrera, and aída cartagena portalatín, with the work of 21st-century writers lourdes vázquez, ángela hernández núñez, and elizabeth acevedo, all of afro-caribbean and diasporic descent. the literary analysis of these poets is supported by an interdisciplinary framework consisting of historical overview of the african diaspora in the caribbean, anthropological field studies on perceptions of black bodies, and theories of gender, race, violence, and identity. based on the work of judith butler, bodies for the purpose of this project are defined as physical and discursive spaces of trauma and power, the chapters of this dissertation trace how power and violence are transacted and reproduced through black female bodies in the context of enslavement and colonization in the caribbean. frantz fanon's, ginetta b. candelario's, patricia hill collins, and tanya l. shield's readings of blackness as social construct linked with performance of identity are also key to the arguments of this project.the dissertation is divided in two parts: "part 1: bodies in transaction," or power and violence being transacted through women's bodies in their relationships to other bodies; and "part 2: bodies in action," or the black female voice reclaiming agency in narratives of objectification to assert herself as an equal member of society and politics. chapter 2 examines black female poetic protagonists who illustrate saidiya hartman's "discourse of seduction" by which the black enslaved woman appears to conflate her sexually abusive relationship with her master with one of love, but is in fact aware of the limited power she holds by feigning silent consent for her survival and escape as a cimarrona. chapter 3 turns to poetry post-cimarronaje and posits that death of a black mother's child from racial violence is reminiscent of the agony of childbirth and reproduces the colonial violence already enacted on the body of the mother. in part 2, the fourth chapter reads reclamation of the black female body in contemporary dance poetry from the fetishizing male gaze of the negrista movement in the caribbean. and chapter 5 compares two diasporic poets' responses to the eurocentric pressure on afro-descendant women to straighten their hair, and further argues against the oversimplification of complex socio-political performance of race and class through hair and passing. currently a great deal of interest within the community is to utilize the emerging flow control technology to design revolutionary air vehicles without moving control surfaces while still maintaining controlled flight. this work is focused on the application of plasma actuators to control separation on the wing in a manner that will replace the leading-edge slat and trailing-edge flap. the experiment examined the use of plasma actuators at the leading edge to control separation, and at the trailing edge, to control lift on naca 0015 airfoil. at the leading edge, the actuator was operated in both 'steady' and 'unsteady' manner. the steady actuator was able to reattach the flow for angles of attack up to 19ìâå±, which was 4ìâå± past the normal stall angle. even better performance was found with unsteady actuation, which was able to reattach the flow up to a 9ìâå± past the normal stall angle. the leadingedge separation control resulted in a increase in both clmax and astall . it resulted in an l=d improvement of as much as 340%. the trailing edge actuator was located on the surface of one side of the airfoil at x=c = 0:9, and spanned most of its width. when operated in a steady manner, it was found to produce the same effect as plane trailingedge flap. the plasma actuators were found to control the separated flow over the v-22 wing section and reduce the drag. at both 10 m/s and 20 m/s the flow separated relatively evenly over the leading and trailing edges of the wing section. each of the actuators operating separately, were able to reattach their respective flow regions. when operated together, they gave a combined effect that was approximately the sum of their individual effects. overall with both actuators operating the drag coefficient was lowered by 44% and 27% respectively. an experiment was conducted to control the leading-edge vortex breakdown on a 1303 ucav planform at high angles of attack without moving surfaces using plasma actuators. optimum lift enhancement was achieved by placing the actuators at a chordwise location that was close to the leading edge on the suction side at x=c ' 0:03. the actuators were placed parallel to the leading edge and were operated in the unsteady mode. for these, the actuators on the inboard half of the wing was only effective for angles of attack greater than 20ìâå±. the actuator on the outboard half of the wing was, however, effective for angles of attack from 9ìâå± up to the largest angle examined, 35ìâå±, for which the conventional trailing-edge flaps were ineffective. the results suggests that the application of plasma actuators on a swept ucav planform can alter the flowfield of the leading-edge vortex in a manner that allows control without the use of hinged control surfaces. in order to obtain the lift enhancement controllability at low angles of attack, a wall-mounted hump model was selected in this study as a canonical turbulent separated flow field. both spanwise and streamwise plasma actuator configurations were investigated at a chord reynolds number of $re_c=288$,k. the surface pressure coefficients demonstrated that both configurations increased the pressure level in the separation region, and significantly reduced the size of the separation bubble. for the same conditions, both configurations achieved the similar performance. numerical simulations using reynolds-averaged navier-stokes solver were performed to predict the flow field over the wall-mounted hump model with both spanwise and streamwise plasma actuators on and off. for base flow, $sa$, $k$-$epsilon$, and $k$-$omega$ turbulence models were used and all of them predicted the surface pressure coefficient in good agreement with the experimental data. $k$-$epsilon$ model was chosen for the controlled cases. the plasma actuator effect was simulated through a body force model. for both spanwise actuation and streamwise actuation, computations agreed with experimental data very well except around the reattachment region. details of the flow field were also examined through streamlines, vorticity magnitude, velocity vector field, surface static pressure contour, and surface streamlines. using 1990 u.s. census five percent public use microsample data for hawaii and california, i examine the income attainment process for understudied hawaiian men compared to white, japanese, chinese, filipino, and african american men, using a human capital model with multivariate analysis. my analysis is limited to american-born wage earners residing in a metropolitan statistical area. although california hawaiians earn a higher income and obtain higher returns to their human capital, i find that differences are greater between racial/ethnic groups in california compared to hawaii. further, there seems to be a two-tiered socioeconomic attainment process in terms of returns to human capital and income attainment, whereby hawaiians, filipinos, and african americans constitute the bottom tier. possible theoretical explanations for income attainment are explored, including assimilation, cultural and structural theories, internal colonialism, and discrimination. proper maintenance of the cell cycle relies on regulation via pathways of signaling proteins. the function of these cell signaling proteins is often modulated by post-translational modifications (ptms), which install new functional groups on target amino acid residues. these modifications can affect the ensemble of conformations a protein samples, and thereby its function. an abundant ptm in eukaryotes is the reversible phosphorylation of serine, threonine, or tyrosine residues. such phosphorylation can have diverse effects that include alteration of enzymatic activity, substrate binding affinity, and/or oligomerization states.while phosphorylation sites and their biological effects have been documented for numerous proteins, their atomic mechanisms are not well understood. it is known that the addition of the phosphate moiety both increases side chain steric bulk and adds negative charge. however, there is also growing evidence that the orientations and motions of side chains promote allosteric changes stimulated by phosphorylation. therefore, it is important to study how ptms affect functional dynamics. in many cases, phosphorylation sites are also surrounded by charged and polar amino acids, whose side chains would be expected to be sensitive to the change in local environment.using solution nmr techniques on our model protein human pin1, this thesis describes new evidence of pre-existing networks of electrostatic interactions that are perturbed by phosphorylation and mediate long-range allosteric changes. this same principle appears to be used in pin1 to effect distinct functional consequences. comprehending how these phosphorylation events affect pin1 function will hopefully lead to the ability to better predict the outcomes of these ptms in other cell-signaling proteins. enhanced understanding of the atomic-level response mechanisms to post-translational phosphorylation may lead to principles important in emulative drug design. the book of chronicles is examined using the methodology of utopian literary theory. from this innovative perspective, chronicles is interpreted as a utopian work that critiques present society and its status quo by presenting a 'better alternative reality.' my analysis contends that chronicles does not reflect the historical situation of a particular time during the second temple period in its portrayal of the past, but rather conveys hope for a different future. while some scholars have also affirmed that chronicles is concerned with the future, the majority of scholars believe that the content of chronicles largely reflects the present situation of the author and in doing so reinforces or legitimizes the status quo. also, this dissertation argues that utopianism is an underlying ideological matrix that contributes to the coherence of the book of chronicles as a whole. three commonly addressed concerns of the chronicler (genealogy, politics, and the temple cult) are understood from this methodological perspective as vehicles for conveying the chronicler's vision for a utopian future. thus, the scope of this analysis is broader than many recent studies on chronicles that have focused on isolated themes, individuals, or discrete sections in the book. chapter 1 provides an introduction to the state of scholarship on chronicles, to the methodological approach of utopian literary theory, and to the applicability of this method to chronicles. chapter 2 assesses chronicles through this interpretative lens by focusing on the genealogical utopia in the material of 1 chronicles 1-9 and the related issue of delineating the concept of 'israel' throughout the book. chapter 3 investigates the political utopia in chronicles. comparisons and contrasts with other hellenistic utopias are briefly discussed while the main focus is on the presentation of the davidic dynasty in chronicles. chapter 4 consists of a detailed examination of the temple cult and its personnel, the center of the chronicler's utopian history. chapter 5 contains a summary, conclusions, and implications for further research into chronicles as a result of this analysis, many of which challenge the dominant scholarly views and the assumptions that lie behind them. my dissertation, "subversive sensations: reconsidering the sensory in new woman literature," explores how sensory studies can help inform our readings of authors who seek to destabilize traditional social categorizations and create space for forms of identity that prioritize in-betweenness, hybridity, and inclusivity. the project focuses on understudied women writers from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (sarah orne jewett, willa cather, sui sin far, alice dunbar nelson, jessie redmon fauset, and amy levy, amongst others) who believed that changing the way we perceive bodily sensation can affect our social perception. i argue that many women authors from this period tie their rejection of a patriarchal system to an explicit dismantlement of the western hierarchy of the senses (which places the most value on the supposedly more "rational" qualities of sight and sound and treats the senses as isolated phenomena). these writers—who all lived between boundaries of race, class, gender, sexuality, religion, and nation—demonstrate how attuning ourselves to the so-called "lesser" sensations of touch, taste, and smell and viewing them as part of a larger human sensorium can serve as a tool of empowerment. using the theories of feminists such as audre lorde and gloria anzaldúa (who argue that sensory encounters—especially those that are pleasurable—can lead to moments of attunement and awakening), the critical work of sensory studies scholars such as david howes and constance classen, and recent neurological findings, i investigate the ways that women writers who lived during the turn into the twentieth century root social transformation in sensory perception and explain how this kind of approach could be useful in a twenty-first century context. the structural complexity and conformational flexibility of saccharides along with limited experimental and theoretical techniques has hindered structure and conformation determinations of this class of biomolecules as needed to understand their diverse functions found in biological system.the lab-developed ma'at program, aims to use the redundant experimental j-couplings and the dft-calculated karplus-like equations to unbiasedly model saccharide conformation in solution. chapter 2 describes the ma'at analysis to determine contexts effect on biologically related βglcnac-(1→2)-αman linkage conformation in complex n-glycan. chapter 3 describes the first ma'at analysis to determine the conformational equilibrium of alanine dipeptide. the comparison of ma'at analysis to the md simulation results provided the direct experimental validation of the theoretical data.in chapter 4, the conformational dependencies of geminal 13c−13c j-couplings as a function of the exocyclic hydroxyl conformations in saccharides were explored and parameterized as dft-calculated karplus-like equations. a combined solid-state 13c nmr and x-ray crystallography experimental approach was used to validate the predicted behaviors using seven doubly 13c-labeled saccharide crystals in solid-state.the fundamental structural properties of saccharides are investigated in solid-state using x-ray crystallography, as shown in chapter 5 – 7. in chapter 5, a solvomorphism phenomenon is reported, which was caused by the crystal transformation between the methyl β-lactoside monohydrate and methyl β-lactoside methanol solvate crystals. in chapter 6, the ionic hydrogen bonding in saccharides is reported, which is based on the structural analysis of d-mannosamine hydrochloride and related α-d-glucosamine hydro-chloride, β-d-galactosamine hydrochloride crystals. lastly, the topological and charge-density analysis of the oxygen lone pairs in five high-quality saccharide crystals (forty-seven oxygen atoms in two chemical bond types), and their implications for the hydrogen bonding (thirty-one hydrogen bonding) are reported in chapter 7. the supersonic combustion ramjet (scramjet) engine has been developed as a promising propulsion system for hypersonic vehicles. the primary objective of the current study is to investigate the flow features under various backpressure conditions in axisymmetric scramjets. particularly, the current study focuses on the flow behaviors under inlet unstart, a critical phenomenon resulting in a loss of thrust. three angled-wedge inlets (α = 0-, 6-, and 9-degree) were used to investigate the effect of the incident shock wave on unstart. flow visualizations and wall pressure measurements provided qualitative and quantitative results.the fuel injection was used to increase the backpressure in low-enthalpy conditions to trigger unstart. the flow features were investigated by using a flow visualization technique of the planar laser rayleigh scattering (plrs). for the flow without jet injection, the plrs visualized flow features such as the axisymmetric flow structure, transition and the growth of the boundary layer, the conical incident shock wave, the shock wave-boundary layer interaction (sbli), and the shock-shock interaction (ssi). the wall pressure measurement showed that there were pressure gradients in the isolator imposed by the incident shock wave for α = 6 and 9, whereas minor pressure gradients were present for α = 0. for the choked flow, the plrs images depicted the pseudoshock propagating upstream within the isolator. the pseudoshock advanced upstream as the j increased and anchored at a certain location. the pseudoshock location fluctuated to a certain extent for all the inlets, but the pseudoshock for α = 0 fluctuated more than α = 6 and 9. the wall pressure measurement suggested the presence of the termination shock wave and the subsonic acceleration in the combustor.the schlieren imaging system was used to determine the unstart thresholds. the unstart threshold in terms of the jet momentum ratio was highest for α = 6 and lowest for α = 0. the lower unstart threshold of α = 9 compared to α = 6 was attributed to the higher downstream pressure of the baseflow for α = 9; less pressure rise was needed to choke the flow for α = 9. the smaller capture area of α = 0 may be the cause of the lowest unstart threshold of α = 0; the lower total momentum of the captured flow for α = 0 was not able to hold the propagating unstart shock. the plrs visualized the unstart shock that propagates upstream. in addition, the quasi-steady and transient motions of the unstart shock were observed due to the adverse pressure gradient imposed by the incident shock wave. the unstart shock velocity was estimated from the wall pressure data, and the shock velocities for α = 6 and 9 suggested the transient and the quasi-steady motions of the unstart shock. the effect of combustion heat release on unstart was investigated under high-enthalpy conditions. direct flame imaging and ch* chemiluminescence imaging were conducted to investigate the combustion dynamics. the averaged images of the direct flame visualization showed the ethylene flame, the bow shock, and the pseudoshock-induced luminescence in the isolator. as the jet momentum increased, the pseudoshock front advanced, the flame tail shortened, and the flame propagated upstream. the wall pressure measurement revealed that the unstart thresholds were lower than the cold flow experiments since the heat release from the combustion further increased the downstream pressure. the fluctuating flame was observed from ch* chemiluminescence images. it was believed that the coupling between the fluid mechanics and combustion dynamics would account for the fluctuation of the flame. research has just begun to investigate the role that religious disaffiliation plays in general well-being. it is suggested that disaffiliation on average leads to decreased levels of well-being relative to those that remain religious. however, the current state of this work has not yet added in the contexts which may alter this outcome. in this thesis, i examine three contexts that help explain when we might expect someone to disaffiliate from religion as well as how these same contexts might effect one's mental well-being after disaffiliation. though in some situations, well-being is suggested to decrease after disaffiliation, i find that in some situations, well-being actually improves after disaffiliation. i also note some potential avenues future research might take in order to expand our current understanding of the relationship between religious disaffiliation and mental well-being. previous research has demonstrated that public, as compared with private, disclosure can lead to greater psychological symptom reduction. it has been theorized by kelly and macready (2009) that the distal mechanism underlying this benefit of public disclosure is that humans' survival on the ancestral plain was enhanced by recruiting the help of others for their personal problems by non-anonymously revealing their emotional experiences to them. thus, humans today may have inherited the predisposition to disclose publicly; and when they do so, they may experience a reduction in psychological symptoms. the current study tested the hypotheses derived from this idea that the more identifiable (as opposed to anonymous) a person was when disclosing and the more connected and resourceful the confidants were, the fewer psychological symptoms that person would experience. fifty secret topics constructed by lane and wegner (1995) have been adopted in the present study. three hundred and fifty four undergraduates reported on the identifiability of their previous disclosures on each of these topics and the features of their confidants. hierarchical linear modeling revealed that identifability alone, in addition to the interaction of confidants' connectedness and resourcefulness, predicted the discloser's having less psychological disturbance. thus, findings from the resent study provided support for the idea that disclosing more publicly is more healthful. novel applications for plasma actuators necessitate performance predictions that are reliable at a range of environmental conditions. an experimental setup is used to determine how single dielectric barrier discharge (sdbd) plasma actuators perform under variable ambient pressure. measurements of plasma initiation voltage and static thrust were compared to similar data from literature. recurring trends in the experimental thrust were evaluated against simulations from the space-time lumped element model, which was designed strictly for atmospheric pressure. parameters in the model affected by ambient pressure (capacitance, resistance, and debye length of the air) were then systematically adjusted to determine their effects on the plasma-produced body force. even with an empirical approximation of threshold voltage, the model did not predict a body force that changed with pressure in a similar manner to experiment. filament formation, not physically represented in the model, was very prevalent at pressures above atmospheric and may be responsible for the complicated trends in data. lead halide perovskites have rapidly emerged as efficient light-harvesters for thin-film photovoltaics. solar cells made with partially organic perovskites, such as methylammonium lead iodide, have surpassed 20% efficiency; but have been observed to degrade under high temperatures and after long-term light exposure. additionally, the optical properties of perovskites are dependent on crystal structure, and therefore formation temperature. fully-inorganic cesium lead halide (cspbx3) perovskite is stable at higher temperatures than organic perovskite, allowing for control of the crystal structure through formation temperature, and potentially improving longevity in an active solar cell. this study reports the properties of cspbx3 perovskites and photovoltaic cells; specifically cspbbr3, cspbi3, and mixed halide intermediates. crystal structures obtained were determined to vary from orthorhombic/tetragonal to cubic. performance was best for cells containing perovskite in the cubic phase and light harvesting was best for cells with high iodide content, consistent with theory. american psychiatry transformed dramatically between 1945 and 1980. from psychoanalytic dominance beginning during the immediate postwar period, a new diagnostic psychiatry, its near theoretical and practical antithesis, came to dominate by the end of the period, as it has to the present. this paper provides a field-theoretical account of this transformation. the practical fit between forms of practice and the demands of the field are crucial to the account. using field theory, my account also stresses the relationship between meaning and practice, and the residues of the objectified histories of fields and the incorporated histories of the actors who both comprise and change them. i illustrate these concepts with an account of the transformation of psychiatry, and i conclude by critiquing the systems approach to institutional change in the professions developed by andrew abbott. i also draw links between field theory and more general accounts of institutions and institutional change. this dissertation studies the analysis and design of cyber-physical systems (cps) using passivity and passivation theory, concentrating on applications in automotive systems. passivity and dissipativity have shown great promise in the design of cps due to many properties they can provide, such as stability, robustness and compositionality. the main contributions of this dissertation are summarized as follows. first, we show that passivity and dissipativity properties of a system can be implied from its approximate models given that the model is 'close' to the system dynamics in a suitably defined sense. to illustrate, we consider approximation methods such as linearization, model reduction, discretization and quantization. second, to apply passivity-based control, we use a passivation method that can guarantee desired passivity levels for the system. the passivation method allows the use of a non-passive controller to stabilize or passivate another plant. in particular, the passivation method can be applied to systems with input-output delay, such as human operators. third, when control algorithms are implemented in software, delays cannot be avoided. the passivation method can be applied in order to guarantee stability and optimize system performance in the presence of time delay. as an application, we study the passivation method in adaptive cruise control design for automotive systems. finally, we consider a state estimation problem in cps where multiple processes share the communication medium. we analytically calculate the performance expressions for time-triggered and event-triggered schemes under various contention resolution mechanisms. the result demonstrates that a simple time-triggered scheme may perform better than an event-triggered scheme when the effects of the communication strategies are explicitly considered. in summary, this dissertation focuses on the analysis and design of cps using passivity and passivation theory, concentrating on systems with human controllers and automotive systems. in this project, i seek to reinterpret gregory's theory of evil, specifically in relation to negativity—that is, insofar as he handles it in terms of non-being and privation of the good. the common interpretations of gregory identify evil with a one-sided negativity, according to which evil is merely a lack or reduction of what ought to be present. this common interpretation leaves gregory's strong sense of the presence and influence of evil unaccounted for.through attentiveness to gregory's own explanations of the function of privation language, his use of the concept of non-being, and his descriptions of the process of production of evil, i show that gregory's language of privation and non-being in reference to evil should be understood according to a logic of separation and opposition rather than that of mere subtraction. corresponding to any absence or reduction of the good there comes about a new presence and addition of an opposite to the good: evil. for gregory, privative words have a two-fold function, asserting the opposite of what they deny. his non-being language almost never marks out something truly non-existent, but usually serves to mark a sharp and extreme separation of one thing from another. he sees the production of evil as a function of the powers of the soul, not decreased or out of commission, but employed in new directions, contrary to the good, serving the actualization of something new. gregory's response to the problem of theodicy is thus not to evacuate evil of positive ontological standing, as though to free god, the creator of positive beings, from responsibility for its existence. gregory's response, rather, is to show evil to be an opposition to the good that free agents introduce by their self-authoritative capacity of freedom, in a stance of resistance to the good. we examine the relation between the uniformity of a collection of operators witnessingturing computable embeddings, and the existence of an operator witnessingthe universality of a class. the primary equivalence relation studied here is computableinfinitary σα equivalence. this project of exploiting uniformity of turingcomputable embeddings to construct a limit embedding is carried out entirely in thecontext of countable reduced abelian p-groups. one may look at this program as eithera project in the computable structure theory of abelian p-groups, or as a projectin the construction of limits of sequences of uniform turing computable operators. in an attempt to explore the boundary between computable infinitary σα equivalenceand isomorphism, we show that for any computable , certain classes of countablereduced abelian p-groups are universal for ∼cα under turing computable embedding.further, the operators witnessing these embeddings are extremely uniform. exploiting the uniformity of the embeddings, we produce operators which are,in some sense, limits of the embeddings witnessing the universality of the classesof countable reduced abelian p-groups. this is approached in three dierent ways:transnite recursion on ordinal notation, barwise-kreisel compactness, and hyperarithemeticalsaturation. finally, we work in admissible set theory, and use barwisecompactness and σa-saturation to generalize selected results. this dissertation is to explore the interactive relationship between english literary modernism and religion through modernist novels' using of sacred spaces. my argument is that in response to the increasing alienation between churches and characters in the 19th century literature, modernists very actively seek to address the need for religion through refashioning traditional religious sites, or finding new significance in buildings/environments that bear religious connotations. starting by briefly reviewing a few victorian novels, which feature the distancing relationship between characters and churches, this dissertation will devote its main chapters to works by d. h. lawrence, james joyce, e. m. forster and samuel beckett. first, lawrence's richly documented, yet often ignored, churchgoing experiences signal a desire to reoccupy the church space to accommodate his vitalistic life worship. in comparison, in joyce's ulysses, leopold bloom symbolically leaves the church to embrace the vibe of the city, and the city, as an expanded church space, provides the setting for a ritualized civic life that transcends ireland's sectarian rift. then, in forster's a passage to india, further afar from the city, the wilderness that stages the hinducelebration is aligned with a form of democracy with cosmic appeal, one that seeks to change the post-great-war political order. finally, the dissertation takes a brief look at the novels by samuel beckett and evelyn waugh from the 1930s and 40s, investigating how sacred spaces in the novel transform along the changing political climates. this dissertation outlines a generally applicable electrochemistry-based approach towards the creation of template-directed monocrystalline nanowires. the project is presented as essentially two distinct components: nanoporous template development and control of the electrocrystallization of cadmium sulfide. a novel multilayer thin film adaptation of the familiar nanoporous anodic alumina template has been developed allowing the in situ removal of the electrically insulating alumina barrier layer at the pore bases. this barrier-free nanoporous template enables the electrodeposition of a wide variety of materials and ultimately serves as the thread interconnecting the two projects of template development and nanowire synthesis. the first half of this dissertation describes in detail the creation of the multilayer thin film precursor consisting of an al anodization layer, a ti diffusion barrier layer and a pt active electrode underlayer on a si-substrate. three interlaced problems were solved towards the development of the multilayer template. michael matthew crouse firstly, al-pt or al-au thin film bilayers were found to create intermetallic compounds at the interface. secondly, the pt or au present in the intermetallics deleteriously accelerated the oer side reaction during anodization of the al thin film to form alumina. thirdly, an accelerated oer prevented field-driven etching of the oxide barrier layer; thereby, not allowing the creation of the pt active electrode at the pore bases. the solution to these interlaced problems was the deposition of a selectively removable ti diffusion barrier layer between the al and pt layers. following the successful development of this si-based multilayer template, a 'transparent' (25-27 % transmission) extension was developed by shrinking the pt underlayer and using a float glass substrate. cds was chosen as the prototypical material due the rich literature base and the ability to easily probe the microstructure using optical techniques. this electrocrystallization study is examined through the unifying concept of the electrochemical overpotential of the cathodic redox reaction. the overpotential components relating to: electrode kinetics, species transport within the pore, and crystallization are demonstrated to be separable. it is shown through the use of dc galvanostatic electrodeposition and the geometric confinement of the statistics of nucleation, that the crystalline quality of the nanowires can be controlled. the limiting case of monocrystalline nanowires can be achieved at low galvanostatic deposition rates where the system is allowed to choose its most energetically favorable nucleation overpotential. at the end of the work, an application of the project towards ii-vi nanostructured solar cells is discussed with on-going and future work identified. this dissertation consists of three papers examining monetary policy transition to the macroeconomy. it makes use of both theoretical and empirical methods. motivated by structural changes in the financial sector and the central bank's policy conduct in the last decades, this dissertation reappraises monetary policy's impact on the real economy. while the first two chapters focus on conventional monetary policy using the short-term interest rate as the primary policy tool, the third chapter shifts towards unconventional monetary policy using the central bank's balance sheet. such policies came to prominence when the policy rate reached the effective lower bound during the 2007-2009 global financial crisis.the first chapter analyzes the implications of the recent rise in bank concentration for the effectiveness of monetary policy. i study how the structure of the banking system affects the transmission of monetary policy for stabilization and the credit cycle. first, i use branch-level data on deposit and loan rates to evaluate how monetary policy pass-through depends on the level of local bank competition and bank capitalization. i show that banks operating in high-concentration markets, as well as under-capitalized banks, adjust short-term lending rates more in response to changes in the policy rate, especially when the policy rate moves upwards. second, i build a theoretical model with heterogeneous banks that rationalizes the empirical findings and explains the underlying mechanism. in the model, monopolistic competition in local deposit and loan markets, along with bank capital requirements, impose frictions on the pass-through to the real economy. counterfactual analyses highlight that the recent rise in bank concentration strengthened the pass-through by two channels, which i label the market power and capital allocation channel. finally, i demonstrate that both channels strengthen monetary policy transmission to output and investment, amplify the credit cycle, and lead to a flattening of the phillips curve.the second chapter, written in conjunction with rüdiger bachmann and eric sims, focuses on identifying monetary policy shocks. we propose a new approach to estimate monetary policy shocks that exploits exogenous variation in the central bank's policy rate. in particular, we use the nowcast errors of the central bank with respect to the output gap and inflation as instrumental variables to isolate exogenous variation in the policy rate. we then compute the effects of the shock on the real economy using local projection methods. the results indicate that a contractionary monetary policy shock has a limited effect on output but a persistent effect on prices. in contrast to alternative identification approaches, there is no price puzzle when analyzing the period from 1987 to 2008. further, we validate the identification approach in an augmented new keynesian model assuming that the central bank observes current output and inflation with nowcast errors.the third chapter, co-authored with ronald mau and jonathan rawls, turns to unconventional monetary policy and studies the interaction between the central bank's main policy tools the interest rate and balance sheet. first, we derive the welfare loss function in a simple new keynesian model with a role for the central bank's balance sheet. we show that in this model, term premium volatility enters the welfare loss function along with the standard inflation and output gap volatility terms. we then study optimal monetary policy for three cases using a single or dual policy tools, (i) the interest rate as the primary tool, (ii) the interest rate and the balance sheet together, and (iii) the balance sheet is the only tool. we reach several conclusions. first, we find that with optimal policy rate behavior under discretion, an exogenous balance sheet expansion is deflationary and lowers the implied path of the short-term policy rate. at the effective lower bound (elb), optimal policy lengthens the elb event duration following an exogenous balance sheet expansion. this serves as a potential theoretical rationalization for the so-called "signaling channel" of central bank asset purchases. second, with endogenous balance sheet policy in addition to the policy rate, the central bank can simultaneously stabilize inflation, the output gap, and the term premium. finally, we show that endogenous balance sheet policy rules exist that support a permanent policy rate peg. for applications in ultra-scaled integrated circuits (ics) and future internet of things (iot), digital and high-speed analog devices capable of low power operation are needed. in this work, two types of novel gallium nitride (gan) transistors promising for these low power applications­­­-gan nanowire mosfets and gan/inn/gan tunnel field-effect transistors (tfets)-are explored both theoretically and experimentally.nanowire mosfets are promising for more aggressive scaling, high-frequency operation at reduced power, and sensing applications. by combining these features with the intrinsic material properties of gan, such as high electron mobility and wide band gap, gan nanowire mosfets appear promising for the low-power high-speed applications and sensors. in this work, al2o3/gan mos structures fabricated using atomic-layer-deposition (ald) are first investigated to study the oxide/semiconductor interface. using this optimized ald process, fabricated gan nanowire mosfets exhibit promising device performance metrics, including an average switching slope (ss) of 61 mv/dec over 4 decades of drain current, and an on-current (ion) of 44 ma/mm. to improve the process controllability and enable ultra-dense integration, vertical gan nanowire mosfets may be preferred, a fabrication process flow for which is presented. tfets are being explored for low-power logic. using quantum-mechanical tunneling instead of thermionic emission, tfets have the potential to achieve ss below 60 mv/decade. tfets based on small band gap materials, such as iii-v materials, tend to exhibit large off-currents and typically suffer from ambipolar conduction. to address these challenges, wide band gap iii-nitride based tfets are explored in this work. these devices use polarization engineering to overcome the difficulty of tunneling inefficiency imposed by wide band gap. an analytical model for gan/ingan/gan tunnel junctions have been developed. gan/in0.22ga0.78n/gan diodes have been fabricated and characterized, and simulation-based exploration of the design space for iii-nitride based tfets has been performed. simulations suggest that achieving on/off ratios exceeding 106, as well as ss well below the 60 mv/dec and ion on the order of 100's of ma/mm should be possible. this level of performance projects energy-delay products approaching 67 aj*ps/um, a value well beyond projections for conventional cmos. fabrication options and the prospects for additional applications are also evaluated. over the past 150 years, much of the midwestern us has been converted from prairies and wetlands to intensive row crop productions of corn and soybeans. the effects of agricultural land use, including riparian vegetation removal, substrate homogenization, and altered hydrologic regimes, manifest as a complex array of physical and chemical changes to stream ecosystems that influence biogeochemical cycling. as a result, agricultural watersheds, also known as "agroecosystems", export excess nitrogen (n) and phosphorus (p), causing numerous water quality problems including drinking water contamination, loss of biodiversity, and eutrophication of downstream freshwaters and coastal zones. my dissertation research examined linkages between terrestrial land cover and stream ecosystem function by determining the role of abiotic controls on ecosystem processes, including nutrient uptake and ecosystem metabolism. i also contrasted denitrification and ecosystem respiration in restored and naturalized floodplains in an agricultural ditch to examine the role of hydrologic connectivity in an agricultural stream. finally, i examined the effect of shifting land cover at the watershed-scale on n and p loss in a small, agricultural watershed.i found that size and heterogeneity of benthic substrate influenced nutrient processing in streams by controlling spatial and temporal variability of nutrient demand by biological assemblages. stable, inorganic substrate promoted algal biofilm development under stable flow conditions, enhancing removal of n and p from the water column. subsequently, algal biofilm development contributed to benthic organic matter accrual over time and demonstrated the critical link between gross primary production and ecosystem respiration in open canopy streams where light is abundant. these findings emphasized the role that managing benthic substrate can play in restoring ecosystem function to agricultural streams, particularly in the face of increasing disturbance events. i also found that restored, in-set floodplains supported higher rates of denitrification than naturalized floodplain components, i.e., formed via hydrologic variation. floodplain stability and frequent inundation promoted organic matter accumulation on restored floodplains compared to naturalized, effectively jumpstarting the establishment of characteristics needed to increase n removal. finally, i found that planting cover crops increased n and p retention in agricultural fields thereby preventing nutrient loss to adjacent streams and downstream systems. hydrologic variability masked the signature of cover crops at coarse temporal scales (i.e., months, years), hower, cover crops effectively managed tile inputs and storm export of both no3and srp in an agricultural watershed. a poetry manuscript translation is a process that maps sentences in a source language to sentences in a target language while preserving the meaning of the original text. viewed as a mathematical relation, one could expect that translation will exhibit two abstract properties – transitivity and invertibility. transitivity implies that translation through an intermediate (third) language should not differ by much from direct source-to-target translation. invertibility implies that translating a source sentence from, and then back to the source language, should likely result in the original sentence. however, we notice that these two properties are generally ignored by traditional statistical techniques for machine translation, and furthermore, that earlier research that does take them into account fails to fully utilize them. in this dissertation, we describe novel machine learning algorithms and techniques that promote or better employ transitivity and invertibility. we integrate our techniques into the phrase-based machine translation pipeline and carry out translation experiments in the "low-resource" data scenario, which assumes the amount of training data is limited (a realistic assumption for most language pairs), and that syntactic analyzers of the source language are unavailable. our experiments demonstrate that when faced with limited training data, phrase-based machine translation quality can significantly benefit from invertibility and transitivity considerations. part i: the underlying biological phenomena for this work is small molecule signaling in heme-protein systems. a new method for single crystal nuclear resonance vibrational spectroscopy (nrvs) of heme-diatomic model complexes is presented. prior related single-crystal nrvs was conducted in two porphyrin defined directions, parallel to the porphyrin plane (in-plane but non-specific axis) and perpendicular to the porphyrin plane (out-of-plane or z-direction). a varied angle single-crystal in-plane nrvs is introduced and its complex implementation and revealing results are detailed. crystals of [fe(oep)(no)] and [fe(dpix-dme)(no)] were analyzed by nrvs along specific in-plane axes, along (x-direction) or normal to (y-direction) the fe-n-o defined direction. for both, iron motion was found to be highly influenced by the bound no ligand; either parallel or normal to the fe-n-o direction. the x-y or "special in-plane" nrvs (sip) is also used to judge the purity of out-of-plane modes as prior in-plane analyses could, by chance, fail to fully observe in-plane components to iron motion. similar results were observed from the sip of the [fe(tpfpp)(no)(1-meim)]. comparisons to dft calculated directional spectra are made. part ii: the potential for hydrosulfide-heme based signaling is evaluated. structures of two hydrosulfido iron(ii) porphyrinates are reported and compared to other like porphyrin complexes. further characterization included far-ir, mossbauer spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. porphyrin core deformations are determined and analyzed in conjunction with mossbauer data. solution studies were used to determine spectral maxima frequencies and absorption coefficients and indicated the formation of bis-hs and (hs)-fe-(1-meim) porphyrin complexes. in spinal vertebral burst fractures, the dynamic properties of the trabecular centrum, the central region of porous bone inside the vertebra, can play an important role in determining the failure mode. if the failure occurs in the posterior portion of the vertebral body, spinal canal occlusion can occur and ejected trabecular bone can impact the spinal cord resulting in serious injury. in some cases these ejected bone fragments impinge the spinal cord and cause paralysis. about 15% of all spinal cord injuries are caused by such burst fractures. unfortunately, due to the uniqueness of burst fracture injuries, post-injury investigation cannot always accurately assess the degree of damage caused by these fractures. this research makes an effort to begin understanding the governing effects in this important bone fracture event. measurements of the dynamic deformation response of bovine trabecular bone with the marrow intact using a modified split-hopkinson pressure bar apparatus are reported and compared to quasi-static deformation response results. because trabecular bone is soft, typical hopkinson pressure bar experimental techniques used for high strain rate testing of harder materials cannot be applied. instead, a quartz-crystal-embedded, split-hopkinson pressure bar developed for testing soft materials is used. care is taken to account for the orthotropic properties in the bone by testing only along the principle material axes, determined through micro-ct. in addition, shaping of the stress wave pulse is used to ensure a constant strain rate and homogeneous specimen deformation. results indicate that the bone fails catastrophically beyond a critical strain and that pressure build-up in the fluids contained within the porous structure may be the cause of more extensive bone damage when compared to failure at quasi-static strain rates. adsorption reactions are one of many processes to consider when attempting to predict and understand the movement of contaminants through the subsurface. this dissertation presents the work of four individual but related studies that measured and quantified adsorption reactions of chemical contaminants onto a variety of particulate subsurface media with special consideration of the reactivity of the bacterial surface. chapter 2 describes the adsorption of an ionic liquid onto mineral oxides, clay, and bacteria. the experimental results reveal that 1-butyl, 3-methylimidazolium chloride (bmim cl) is unstable in water below ph 6 and above ph 10 and that it exhibits ph independent and ionic strength dependent adsorption onto na-montmorillonite with 0.4, 0.8, 1.0, 1.2, and 2.0 g/l of clay. we observed no adsorption of the bmim cl onto bacillus subtilis (3.95 or 7.91 g (dry weight) bacteria/l) at ph 5.5 to 8.5 or onto gibbsite (500 or 1285 g/l) or quartz (1000 and 2000 g/l) over the ph range 6-10. the measured adsorption was subsequently quantified using a distribution coefficient approach. chapter 3 focuses specifically on the reactivity of the bacterial surface using the new technique of combining titration calorimetry with surface complexation modeling to produce site-specific enthalpies and entropies of proton and cd adsorption. our results provide mechanistic details of these adsorption reactions that are impossible to gain from previous techniques used to study the bacterial surface. chapters 4 and 5 present work measuring and quantifying the adsorption of u and np onto b. subtilis under a variety of conditions. np adsorption exhibited a strong ionic strength dependence and unusual behavior under low ph high ionic strength conditions that was consistent with reduction of np(v) to np(iv). u adsorption, in constrast to np adsorption, was extensive under all conditions studied. thermodynamic modeling of the data suggests that uranyl-hydroxide, uranyl-carbonate and calcium-uranyl-carbonate species each can form stable surface complexes on the bacterial cell wall. these studies investigate a variety of adsorption reactions and provide parameters to quantify adsorption that may aid in integration of these reactions into geochemical models to predict contaminant transport in the subsurface. master's thesis no abstract in this dissertation i seek to offer a constructive proposal in the area of an ecumenically-oriented roman catholic theology of the word, by addressing the specific topic of the sacramentality of preaching. this inquiry is guided by a characteristic that distinguishes the sacramentality of preaching from either the sacramentality of the scriptures or most of the sacraments proper, namely, the variability that arises from preaching's adapted or interpretive quality. this characteristic yields a highly important consequence: the creative activity of the preacher and hearers is intrinsically related to the sacramentality of preaching. as a result, the basic agenda of this dissertation will be the following: to explore the sacramentality of preaching, construed in terms of an encounter with jesus christ, from the angle of its creativity through the coordinated contributions of the holy spirit and human imagination. in addition to the introduction and conclusions sections this dissertation has six chapters, three each devoted to the implications for the sacramentality of preaching of yves congar's pneumatology, and paul ricoeur's philosophy of the imagination. in the theological chapters i examine the role of the spirit in the apostolic and prophetic dimensions of preaching, and its sacramental structure. approaching the sacramentality of preaching from a pneumatological perspective has significant consequences, such as: the recognition that the preaching of every member of the church can mediate a sacramental encounter; that the spirit acts as the church's "memory" of the events at its origins; and that the spirit works both from without and from within to make of preaching an interior, living word of faith. mirroring the theological chapters, in chapters four to six i examine the role of the imagination in the present, future, and past temporalities of preaching. drawing on a great range of paul ricoeur's published works, i identify the role of the productive imagination in preaching in a variety of ways including, but not limited to: the split-level reference of poetic and religious language; the configuration of the preached word; epochìäåãì¢åûåï, free variation, and metaphoric transfer in prophetic utopian projections; and the representation of the past. this dissertation develops an account of prayer as a constitutive source of christian thought and life. it does so largely in order to address certain crises that are characteristic of the modern age. the concern is not only to resist processes of secularization that imply a loss of prayer but also to consider how a prayerful way of thinking (theology) and living (spirituality) enables one to overcome the most dangerous aspects of modern metaphysics and to counteract various structures of modern violence associated with economic injustice and identity-based exclusion. this dissertation promotes a practice of doxological contemplation that glorifies the god of christian revelation, while distinguishing this contemplation clearly from a difference-concealing conceptualization of being as such and as a whole, allowing it to be troubled by the prayers of lament that arise in the midst of suffering, and connecting it with historical struggles of liberation. the present work brings many voices into one conversation. it includes a critical analysis of martin heidegger's somewhat doxological effort to overcome metaphysics in dialogue with friedrich hölderlin; an appreciative assessment of hans urs von balthasar's form of analogical, aesthetic, and dramatic doxology, especially as crystallized by his reading of charles péguy; an account of the limitations of jacques derrida's and john caputo's prayers of apophatic deconstruction; a fresh take on the 'theological turn' of french phenomenology, as represented by jean-luc marion, jean-yves lacoste, and jean-louis chretien; a new interpretation of johann baptist metz, which clarifies the prayerful character of his political theology (in contradistinction to those of carl schmitt and the frankfurt school) and situates his remembrance of auschwitz in relation to paul celan and nelly sachs; and an examination of the various doxological possibilities of latin american liberation theology, including not only the problematic cases of enrique dussel and juan-luis segundo, but also the more adequate proposals of gustavo gutiérrez, leonardo boff, and ignacio ellacuría. the dissertation concludes with an elucidation of james cone's black liberation theology in relation to the doxology of the slave spirituals; this is the prayerful perspective that provides the final point of integration for the entire text. computational approaches have made significant contributions to our understanding of heterogeneous catalysis. these calculations reveal insights regarding the reactivity and stability of catalytic systems that may otherwise be difficult or impossible to observe experimentally. in this collection of work, computational techniques are applied to understand the reactivity and stability of three types of catalytic systems: (1) metal surfaces, (2) plasma-assisted reactions, and (3) zeolites. first, i describe and present several approaches to evaluate the free energy and entropy of adsorbed atoms and molecules on metal surfaces. i developed a python-based utility that numerically evaluates the schrödinger equation to compute the density of states (dos) for a particle in an arbitrary potential. the dos can be used with standard statistical mechanical models to evaluate the free energy and entropy of an adsorbate. using this method, we can obtain accurate free energies and entropies as compared to analytical approximate methods, at no additional computational cost. next, i discuss my contribution toward characterizing products made from plasma-assisted catalysis. our experimental collaborators report inelastic neutron scattering (ins) observations of ni particles after treatment with nitrogen and hydrogen plasmas. i modes of various species on the surface and present predicted ins spectra to facilitate the characterization of the products generated. our results show that we can overcome reaction barriers that are thermally inaccessible when a plasma is present. finally, i present two projects related to zeolite stability. first, i show that current models to predict the zeolite phase a templating molecule will crystallize are not always reliable. i introduce a new augmented scheme to predict the affinity a templating molecule has to crystallize one topology over another. i also show that the coocclusion of alkali surrogates has an impact on how the template molecules fit in the zeolite cavities. second, i present results regarding the stability of defects in zeolites post-dealumination. we find that energies are sensitive to proton arrangements in the defect, but the location a defect can form is independent of the locations of other brønstead and defect sites in the framework. these observations can then be extended to better understand how hydrolysis occurs in zeolites. this thesis extends ravenel-wilson hopf ring techniques to c2-equivariant homotopy theory. our main application and motivation for introducing these methods is a computation of the ro(c2)-graded homology of c2-equivariant eilenberg-maclane spaces. the result we obtain for c2-equivariant eilenberg-maclane spaces associated to the constant mackey functor f2 gives a c2-equivariant analogue of the classical computation due to serre at the prime 2. we also investigate a twisted bar spectral sequence computing the homology of these equivariant eilenbergmaclane spaces and suggest the existence of another twisted bar spectral sequence with e2-page given in terms of a twisted tor functor. what is the relationship between military coups and interstate conflict? in this dissertation i intend to make the following argument: leaders face two intersecting dilemmas. the first dilemma is one of civilian-military relations and we typically refer to it as the guardianship dilemma. leaders need the armed forces to protect the state from external threats. however, armed forces are perennial challengers to a leader's tenure. increasing the capacity of the military increases the ability to deal with external threats also increases the threat of the military as a challenger. decreasing the capacity of the military lowers its threat to the regime but decreases its ability to fend off foreign threats. this second is at the international level. a state that increases its capabilities decreases the security of surrounding states, increasing the likelihood of militarized expansion and conflict. we refer to this condition as the security dilemma. i argue that states are locked into an ongoing struggle to balance their internal and external threats and that states with weaker relative military capability are trapped in a vicious cycle of coups and conflict. i explore this relationship using descriptive and inferential statistical modeling to demonstrate the consistency of these empirical patterns implicated by the theoretical framework. metamaterials are engineered nanostructured materials having exotic properties which are beyond those observed in conventional materials. hyperbolic metamaterials, a special class of metamaterials showing hyperbolic dispersion, exhibit some unique optical properties which make them exceptionally suitable for super-resolution imaging using structured illumination microscopy. hyperbolic metasurfaces, which are the two-dimensional analog of hyperbolic metamaterials, are even more promising due to their negligible propagation loss. this thesis mainly focuses on the experimental characterization of metasurface samples using the broadband spectroscopic technique. an experimental setup is built in order to characterize the samples in terms of their spectral response. the samples are characterized by changing the length of the ridges, changing the incident angle of the illumination beam, and changing the azimuthal angle of the metasurface samples. finally, the results obtained experimentally are compared with those obtained using full-wave effective mode index simulations done using comsol multiphysics. the experimental results exhibit a great match for both elliptical and hyperbolic modes obtained using simulations. in a typical biological system studied using computer simulations, a few large solute molecules are scattered in a bath of tiny solvent molecules. in an md simulation of such a model, a traditional cutoff radius is dependent only on the radius of the largest solute atom present in the system. this results in a large number of 'extra' solvent interactions due to the fact that solvent molecules greatly outnumber solute molecules. however, the most useful information comes from the interactions of the solutes and we would like to limit the unnecessary calculations of solvent-solvent interactions. since all the molecules in the system are constantly on the move, the neighbors of a given molecule are changing with time. this is normally handled using verlet neighbor lists for computational efficiency. we need a smarter way to calculate the cutoff radius to take sizes of both of the molecules into consideration. in this thesis, i present a pair-wise cutoff method which largely solves this problem. our new cutoff methods take into account the chemical identities of both parties of a pair of atoms. we have developed two novel cutoff methods to improve the efficiency of md simulations. we have tested the new methods against the traditional cutoff method. in the preliminary testing, we acquired a speedup of more than three times in some model system. we have implemented the new methods into our group simulation code, oopse1, where another simple test showed a factor of ten speedup in some cases. biological invasion, the establishment of organisms beyond their native ranges, represents powerful global change, disturbing native communities and nutrient cycles, disrupting human land use, and threatening human health. my research has addressed methodological and technological uncertainties associated with the ecology and management of biological invasions, focusing on prediction and detection of aquatic invasions. i considered aquatic plants as a case study to improve predictions of species transport and establishment. in laboratory experiments, plant fragment mass loss due to air exposure accurately predicted viability upon reintroduction to an aquatic environment, but similar periods of air exposure differentially affected different species. understanding species traits like desiccation response can contribute to predicting dispersal. to improve predictions of where dispersing propagules may establish, i used the species distribution modeling program maxent to predict potential north american distribution of the invasive aquatic plant hydrilla verticillata. i demonstrated that information gaps due to non-reporting of native occurrences alter model accuracy and transferability. i concluded that distribution modeling efforts must consider potential spatial biases in occurrence data. i have also advanced current knowledge about genetic surveillance of freshwater fish using environmental dna (edna). in a laboratory experiment, biotic and abiotic environmental factors influenced common carp (cyprinus carpio) edna degradation. logistic regression accurately predicted detection vs. nondetection over time, while edna concentration decayed exponentially. i explored the influence of environmental factors on edna particle size distribution (psd) in experimental ponds. psd did not differ between common carp and bigheaded carps (genus hypophthalmichthys), but abiotic and biotic factors influenced psd differences between ponds. quantifying the influence of local environmental conditions on edna degradation and psd rates will improve edna surveillance. overall, the science of prediction and detection of aquatic invasions continues to progress rapidly. in my dissertation, i have evaluated uncertainties in current predictive methodologies and technologies to increase understanding of the ecology of invasive species and improve management and mitigation of damages due to aquatic invasions. in an era of global change, advancing science will allow a transition from simply reacting to the latest environmental crises to instead averting future challenges. recently, lipid based biocolloids, such as micelles and liposomes, have been of increasing interest as drug delivery systems for controlled release, specific cell targeting, and medical diagnostics via advanced electrokinetic and microfluidic techniques. in this work, complex bio-nanocolloids are synthesized via electroformation, manipulated through dielectrophoresis (dep), and induced to release encapsulates through electromigration with the use of ac-electric fields. developing a theoretical understanding of the polarization for complex nanocolloids is an essential stepping stone for creating a robust diagnostic device and advanced delivery techniques. in this work, ac-electric fields are applied to spin coated lipid membranes to induce membrane swelling and the creation of giant unilamellar vesicles (guv). a formation phase diagram is experimentally determined and it is discovered the traditional range for electroformation is expanded. additionally, the ability to manipulate and assemble lipid based particles, or liposomes, is determined by the use of dep. the generality of dep response of these vesicles is tested by testing plain liposomes and liposomes with surface modification: patchy coverage by nanoparticles and complete covered by a calcium phosphate layer. finally the applicability of electrokinetic techniques is extended to the nanoscale by thorough testing of latex nanoparticles of a&lt;50 nm and surfactant micelles of a&lt;10 nm. strong ac-frequency dependence of micelle concentration is observed, from which the dep crossover frequency is determined for the first time for micelle particles. surprisingly, an ac-field induced dissociation of the micelle structure and a resulting release of fluorescent encapsulates at a characteristic low ac-field frequency of 1-10 khz is discovered, where the dissociation has been found to be dependent on the surface charge of the interior encapsulate. this work elucidates polarization mechanisms for complex bio-colloids and details new phenomena not previously predicted. with the fundamental development of the tools described here, advanced diagnostics and drug delivery integration is limited only by ones creativity. positron emission tomography (pet) provides insight into the physiology of living subjects and is an invaluable tool for the detection and staging of cancer. a pet scanner detects photons emitted from targeted regions inside the body and reconstructs them into images. these emission measurements are inherently noisy due to the limitations of the detection system and the physics of the decay. consequently, this noise causes poor representations of the region of interest and ultimately complicates diagnoses. one primary method for reducing the influence of the noise is to improve the models used in the image reconstruction. this dissertation defends that the statistics of the pet measurements provide valuable information for improving the system and data model. in particular, this work develops a successful method for estimating geometric system parameters directly from data measurements. these parameters are then used to accurately describe the system model. along with refining the system model, this research improves the data model for rebinned pet measurements. rebinning represents an approach for simplifying high sensitivity 3d pet data into a form that can be quickly reconstructed into a meaningful image. the proposed improved data models are incorporated into direct and statistical reconstruction algorithms, leading to techniques tailored for the statistics of rebinned measurements. results prove that some of the new tailored methods significantly outperform conventional 2d reconstruction algorithms. my work in this thesis is about the lasso-based penalties, scad-based penalties and their applications to genetic research and economic forecasting. motivated by functional genome-wide association studies (fgwas), a procedure with penalization on both linear regression coefficients and the inverse covariance matrix is proposed. motivated by macroeconomic variable forecasting, the differences in the performance of forecasting from lasso regression and scad regression are examined and the improvements of forecast accuracy resulting from the inclusion of group structure, residual bootstrap and forecasts combination are investigated. the first proposed procedure applies lasso-based penalties on both coefficients and inverse covariance matrix estimation in nonparametric varying-coefficient models in fgwas to select snps that are significantly associated with an interested phenotypic trait based on limited number of measurements. the genetic effects of snps are time-varying and the phenotypic trait is measured repeatedly. the procedure provides satisfactory variable selection results in simulation, facilitates model interpretation and enhances variable selection power with sparse inverse covariance matrix estimation. the rest of the dissertation is about penalized linear regressions in macroeconomic forecasting. lasso and scad regressions are first examined as two alternative forecasting methods. based on comparison in simulation and real examples, scad penalty is recommended over lasso penalty for macroeconomic data because they are grouped data and model mis-specication risks have to be considered. with such recommendation, scad penalty is further extended to group scad regression, scad regression with residual bootstrap and group scad regression with residual bootstrap. group scad penalty provides more consistent variable selection results and enhances model interpretability. residual bootstrap increases model selection stability. group scad regression with residual bootstrap and scad regression significantly improve forecast accuracy for most macroeconomic variables. in the end,the forecasts combination of scad-related models and dynamic factor model are studied. the combined forecast shows advantages over individual forecasts in out-of-sample forecasting. metal-poor stars are time capsules into the earliest epochs of the universe. their stellar populations, chemical abundances, and proper motions allow for insight into the nucleosynthesis paths and proto-galactic systems which became the building blocks of the milky way. through a wide variety of methods, the aim of this thesis is to advance the understanding of the chemodynamical evolution of the galaxy. in ``metal-poor stars from the south african large telescope'', the first release of a large-scale study of relatively bright (v &lt; 13.5) metal-poor stars is presented. the elemental abundances of c, sr, ba, and eu are reported, as well as several alpha-elements (mg, ca, sc, ti, v) and iron-peak elements (mn, co, ni, zn). we find a diverse array of abundance patterns, including several consistent with the signatures of carbon-enhanced metal-poor cemp-i and cemp-r stars. we find that 15 of 50 (30%) are carbon-enhanced (with [c/fe] &gt; +0.70), and that a large fraction (26 of 50, 52%) are enhanced in r-process elements. among the r-process-enhanced stars, five are strongly enhanced r-ii stars (two of which are newly discovered) and 21 are moderately enhanced r-i stars. there are eight stars in our sample that, on the basis of their abundances and kinematics, are possible members of the metal-weak thick-disk population. we also compare our measured abundances to progenitor-enrichment models,and find that the abundance patterns for the majority of our stars can be attributed to a single (rather than multiple) enrichment event. next, an abundance measurement of uranium in the metal-poor r-process-enhanced star bd+17 3248 is reported. the heavy-element abundance pattern of 20 elements produced by the r-process from this optical spectrum and an archival ultraviolet spectrum taken with the hubble space telescope is re-analyzed. the u abundance is log_epsilon(u) = -1.45 +0.15, the highest yet detected in a metal-poor star, and so far the only detection made in an r-i star. our analysis finds the actinide content much higher than the values previously reported, leading to the classification of bd+17 3248 as an actinide-boost star. additionally, it has an unusually high log_epsilon(u/th) value compared to the other five known stars with detected uranium. we consider the implications of this for r-process nucleosynthesis models and suggest that further studies be done to determine whether this ratio is evidence of nuance within our extant understanding of r-process channels or whether it suggests a new site altogether. the assembly of the milky way's halo is an open question in the field of galactic chemodynamical evolution. kinematic analyses propose that the halo is composed of the remnants of small stellar systems as well as at least one major accretion event; however, such studies are not well equipped to tell us about the chemical nature of such systems. instead, chemical tagging of halo stars is needed to gain insight into their nucleosynthetic histories. with the advent of the r-process alliance (rpa), we have, for the first time, sufficient numbers of r-process-enriched metal-poor stars to perform chemical tagging with neutron-capture element abundances. by analyzing sr and eu in these stars, we construct a new paradigm which accounts for the varying contributions of both supernovae (sne) and neutron star mergers (nsm) to the star-forming gas. we calculate the number of nsm and sne required to form a given star and build a sne-based mass function of the early universe's stellar systems. using this information we find that strongly-enriched r-i (+0.70 &lt; [eu/fe] &lt; +1.0) and r-ii stars ([eu/fe] &gt; +1.0) likely form exclusively in small stellar systems, while stars of lower [eu/fe] abundance can form in a system of any size.finally, the search for exoplanets around metal-poor stars with t(r)ess (seamstress) survey seeks to answer the question: "when and how did planet formation begin in the universe?" to achieve this, we have conducted a large-scale search for transits of metal-poor stars in tess light curves and discovered 47 previously unknown planet candidates around host stars in the metallicity range -2.28 &lt; [fe/h] &lt; -0.5, eight of which have lower [fe/h] than any known transiting planet hosts. new electric energy and charging infrastructure demands are emerging in future electric transportation systems. these demands affect many diverse aspects of the transportation infrastructure, ranging from charging station locations to routing and optimal speed profiles. the sensitivity of electric vehicle (ev) energy consumption to environmental factors drastically affects optimal strategies, especially when facing uncertainties in the available data. the proposed methods in this dissertation will aid in achieving the goal of building a future energy efficient and sustainable transportation system infrastructure.the fundamental concept of this research is an environmentally aware energy consumption prediction model for given routes. environmental effects on ev energy consumption have been investigated using a sensitivity analysis. adaptive multi-resolution energy consumption predictions are implemented for various real-time accuracy requirements. based on accurate energy cost prediction, sustainable driving and infrastructure strategies have been investigated.in the first part of the dissertation, energy-efficient driving strategies are designed for optimal transportation energy utilization. sustainable optimization models are constructed for optimal speed profiles. they exploit various environmental conditions to minimize the overall energy consumption along a route. two different aspects are investigated: minimum energy cost with travel time constraint and minimum time cost with energy constraint. infinite dimensional optimization models are proposed for exact problem descriptions and approximate discretized convex models are derived for highly efficient solutions. in addition, an eco-routing decision-making framework based on stochastic programming is introduced for optimal routing. route planning with minimum energy cost expectation is performed when facing random effects of environmental factors and electric drive limits. this problem is tackled using convex relaxation along with a primal-dual interior point method and a path reconstruction algorithm.in the second part of the dissertation, sustainable strategies are analyzed and introduced for satisfying the ev energy demand. spatio-temporal models have been constructed to essentially describe three-dimensional (location and time) features of energy demand. charging urgency models take into consideration many practical factors in order to estimate the perceived demand. all of these factors provide concrete demand information to help building a sustainable charging infrastructure. optimal charging station placement under an energy demand framework has also been studied. two different optimization requirements are addressed in this dissertation: maximum number of reachable households and minimum overall energy consumption. a multi-objective optimization model will synthesize a solution using both requirements so as to obtain better decisions for charging infrastructure placement. this dissertation is an attempt to identify the operative pneumatology of the second vatican council. the study will probe not only the final documents but also the event itself by looking for the pneumatology that guides the changes in the conciliar processes and procedures and in the speeches of the participants. there are two warrants for grounding the study in pneumatology. the first is that the activity of the holy spirit is intimately and inextricably associated with the life of the church. the second is that the council is often called a 'pentecostal event.' gustave thils offers a method for such an exploration of the council's underlying pneumatology. he suggests that we interpret the council as a event by attending to the 'trajectory' in the various theologies at the council. this trajectory indicates which ideas acquired increasing importance and which ideas and concepts consistently lost in importance. by tracing the various conciliar notions of god's presence and activity in the church and in the world, as manifested in the speeches, processes and texts, this dissertation seeks to describe and clarify this 'trajectory.' such a clarification may then be applied when the final documents themselves are interpreted. using pneumatology as a basis of measurement, we shall study the varying understandings of the holy spirit of the council members, their theologian advisors, the powerful vatican cardinals and, of course, the two popes of the council, john xxiii and paul vi. the study will compare the pneumatology developed during the council and the theology that was available at the time. placing the dominant pneumatology that emerged from the council in dialogue with the state of pneumatology in contemporary catholic thought will provide a corrective for pneumatological discussions that fail to account for the intimate relationship of the theology of the holy spirit with the life of the church. in addition, the theological description of the pneumatology of the council may be used in the further interpretation of the council's texts. this dissertation undertakes an investigation of a behavior practiced by kings and commoners alike: charity to the poor or, to adopt the term favored then, almsgiving (eleemosina). it covers early medieval england and francia. this work makes two arguments, one for continuity and one for change. early medieval christians embraced their late antique inheritance of almsgiving, entrenching it as a sophisticated and robust system of personal and institutional charity. nonetheless, early medieval charity evolved its own particular character in light of economic circumstances and especially the influence of the carolingian and anglo-saxon programs of christianization. its distinctive aspect was its rejection of the idea of discriminating among poor recipients, and its strong push for universal giving. the dissertation falls into three parts. the first part outlines the place of almsgiving in medieval christianity. almsgiving was defined as an act of mercy, and the interior dimensions of it (including love) were key. the theology of charity revolved around a triangle of relationships between god, giver, and recipient; these relationships are best understood in light of anthropological insights into gift exchange. this theology differed from its patristic roots in its emphasis on christ receiving the alms directly without the pauper having to do anything, as well as its incorporation of private penance and purgatory. the second part describes the practice of almsgiving. it revolved around the liturgical and agricultural cycles of the year, as well as times of crisis or death. all groups in society gave to varying extents, although there was some resistance, especially regarding hospitality. the church played a significant role in the institutional provision of charity through hospitals, the matricula, rural churches, and the tithe. the third part turns to society. most people were 'poor' in some sense, and many faced the possibility of needing charity at some point. using marco van leeuwen's model of charity as a social negotiation between elites and the poor, the final chapter analyzes what exactly each side gained from charity. hierarchy was influential, but early medieval religious preoccupations and the impetus for creating community were even more decisive in shaping eleemosynary interactions. nanofluidic devices are known to exhibit a plethora of non-equilibrium ion transport phenomena due to the presence of surface charge on domains comparable in size to the debye length. with the help of asymptotic analyses and numerical simulations, we shed light on the physical mechanisms of nanofluidic devices like batteries and diodes, and designed new nanofluidic devices like inductors and oscillators. nanofluidic batteries are energy generating systems for converting mechanical work into electrical power. an atomically smooth surface can reduce the drag of a flow by relaxing the no-slip boundary condition with a slip length. we found finite optimum values of surface charge density and ionic strength for specific slip lengths to design a more efficient nanofluidic battery. as simple as it may seem, conic-shaped nanopores can be used to design non-equilibrium devices such as diodes and inductors. for these nanopores, we observed current rectification such that the ion current is asymmetric with respect to the voltage polarization. more intriguingly, under dc bias at low frequency, the ac impedance of the conic nanopore behaved like a serial rl circuit with positive bias and a parallel rc circuit with reverse bias. by expanding from the weakly ion selective limit of a cross-section averaged model, we were able to derive explicit analytical solutions to quantitatively capture empirical and numerical data for ion current rectification and ac impedance data. another interesting non-equilibrium device, an oscillator, was designed by coupling pressure-driven flow with history dependent electroosmotic flow. autonomous current and mass flow oscillations were produced in an ion-selective monolith based on the hysteretic conductance of a wetting film around an expanding/contracting air bubble. a regular oscillation of ion current was sustained indefinitely under a dc voltage. nanofluidic systems that exhibit electricity generation, current rectification, inductance and oscillations have hence all been developed and verified by careful analyses of the underlying non-equilibrium phenomena. these non-equilibrium systems are very sensitive to surface charge. since biomolecules carry inherent charges and hence introduce new surface charges when they are within these nanofluidic devices, the next step is to utilize these systems to develop an efficient multiplex biosensing platform. this thesis presents a design for a digital control and dataflow system in 28 nm cmos supporting a fefet-based compute-in-memory (cim) core designed by the intelligent microsystems lab (imsl) at the university of notre dame. this design includes a circuit for per-adc asynchronous capture and forwarding of cim outputs, a re-configurable adder tree taking advantage of the naturally ternary fefet array weights, a memory system which uses banking and shift-registers to interface at high-bandwidth to the cim array, and an abstracted programming interface suitable for further exploration of accelerator-algorithm co-design. an overview of the imsl fefet cim chip architecture is provided for background, and the control and dataflow circuitry is described in detail. design decisions and tradeoffs, as well as performance and power projections, and comparisons to related works, are discussed. this thesis proposes that a simple custom digital control system and a banked-memory-based dataflow and be effectively combined with a cim array to exploit the unique architectural advantages offered by cim. high order accurate weighted essentially non-oscillatory (weno) schemes are a class of broadly applied numerical methods for solving hyperbolic partial differential equations (pdes). due to highly nonlinear property of the weno algorithm, large amount of computational costs are required for solving multidimensional problems. in our previous work (lu et al. 2018, zhu and zhang 2021), sparse-grid techniques were applied to the classical finite difference weno schemes in solving multidimensional hyperbolic equations, and it was shown that significant cpu times were saved while both accuracy and stability of the classical weno schemes were maintained for computations on sparse grids. in this thesis, we apply the approach to recently developed finite difference multiresolution weno scheme specifically the fifth-order scheme, which has very interesting properties such as its simplicity in linear weights' construction over a classical weno scheme. numerical experiments on solving high dimensional hyperbolic equations including vlasov based kinetic problems are performed to demonstrate that the sparse-grid computations achieve large savings of cpu times, and at the same time preserve comparable accuracy and resolution with those on corresponding regular single grids. by providing substantial amounts of data and standardized evaluation protocols, datasets in computer vision have helped fuel advances across all areas of visual recognition. but even in light of breakthrough results on recent benchmarks, it is still fair to ask if our recognition algorithms are doing as well as we think they are. the vision sciences at large make use of a very different evaluation regime known as visual psychophysics to study visual perception. psychophysics is the quantitative examination of the relationships between controlled stimuli and the behavioral responses they elicit in experimental test subjects. instead of using summary statistics to gauge performance, psychophysics directs us to construct item-response curves made up of individual stimulus responses to find perceptual thresholds, thus allowing one to identify the point at which a subject can no longer reliably recognize the stimulus.in this work i will demonstrate the efficacy of visual psychophysics for computer vision from four main perspectives: visual psychophysics for evaluation, visual psychophysics for explainability, visual psychophysics for improved generalizability, and finally it presents a real life application that could substantially benefit from the capabilities visual psychophysics has to offer. the arch from evaluation to application completes a life cycle of a computer vision algorithm, providing positive evidence to the community that visual psychophysics can aid any stage of development. the human behavioral and psychological component of climate change must be explored if we hope to address and counter many of the detrimental changes resulting from a changing climate. previous research has demonstrated that perhaps many environmentally un-friendly behaviors in the west are due to an understanding of the natural environment as separate from the human cultural world. this study explores how different mass media coverage of the consequences of climate change may impact individuals' perceived relationship between humans and the natural environment, the importance of climate change relative to other global problems, as well as behavioral intentions towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions. results suggest that the perceived relationship between humans and the natural world is likely deeply engrained and enduring, but that media messages may indeed work to increase the saliency of climate change. this dissertation examines the qur'an's presentation of the function and authority of prophets; that is, its construction of definitions of prophethood, which i refer to as its prophetology. the dissertation's core thesis is that the qur'an does not have just one vision of prophetology—rather it evinces two primary paradigms of the prophetic vocation. i refer to these as the qur'an's "kerygmatic" and "theonomic" paradigms of prophethood. first i situate the qur'an's broader presentation of prophethood within the history of prophetic activity as a whole and demonstrate its connection to developments within the context of late antiquity. second i outline the contours of these two paradigms. i argue that its sequential recollection of earlier prophetic figures (what i call "messenger-reports")—the building blocks of much of the kerygmatic paradigm—suggest a typological reading of prophets as preachers of an eschatological message, but also demonstrate a certain adaptability in its understanding of prophethood. the kerygmatic paradigm itself is also constructed through a set of recurrent motifs that limit the role of prophets to proclaiming this eschatological message. the theonomic vision, however, emphasizes the authority of a prophet over his community, delineating communal and legal norms, directing his community in armed struggles, and emphasizing the centrality of his person and status. a collection of original poetry for fulfillment of the master of fine arts degree from the graduate program in english at the university of notre dame. the necessity for development of new technologies has opened doors to novel devices that potentially would continue the progress in technology. single electron transistors (sets) show a promising future as an option for computing and other applications in electronics. one of the applications we are interested on, is using them as electrometers, sets as the most charge sensitive devices, to perform ultra-sensitive charge fluctuation measurements. this work consists on the fabrication and implementation of sets to measure charge fluctuations made by electrons, and establish the cause of the fluorescence intermittency seen in molecules and quantum dots (qd). the sets have to meet requirements of high stability and high charging energy, greater than 0.5 mev, for its application in the qd experimental setup. supply voltage scaling, as a means of reducing power dissipation in integrated circuits, is hampered by the 60 mv/decade limit on the inverse subthreshold slope (ss) imposed by boltzmann's tyranny in today's complementary metal oxide semiconductor (cmos) transistors. for this reason, tunnel field-effect transistors (tfets) are actively being investigated as cmos alternatives for low-voltage applications thanks to their ability to achieve subthermal ss, i.e. below 60 mv/dec. owing to their atomically thin body and transport attributes, transition metal dichalcogenides (tmds) represent an intriguing class of channel materials for the realization of 2d tfets. however, processing techniques suitable for the very-large-scale integration (vlsi) of tmd devices are still in their infancy.as part of a tmd-based tfet process development on a silicon platform, some technology challenges such as a robust doping technique for tunnel junction formation, need to be addressed. as a first step, transport properties of molecular beam epitaxy (mbe) wse2 films grown on amorphous oxides on si are evaluated and benchmarked. to properly characterize the transport properties of mbe-grown wse2 thin films in a fet configuration in the presence of schottky barrier-limited injection at the contacts, a semianalytical model has been developed and validated against experiments for different tmd channel materials.ion doping employing the solid polymer polyethylene oxide:cesium perchlorate (peo:csclo4) is then applied to decanometer wse2 channels to form 2d lateral esaki junctions. this was achieved thanks to a proper electrostatic design of the strength and spatial extent of the electric double layers (edls) at the semiconductor/solid polymer interface as guided by numerical simulations.finally, the occurrence of hysteretic steep swings, ss &lt; 60 mv/dec, employing a peo:csclo4 ionic gate on top of a wse2 channel, required the analysis of transient phenomena associated with the formation and subsequent dissipation of edls at the electrolyte/semiconductor interface. we show that hysteretic steep ss can arise simply by the presence of a delay element embedded within the gate of a mosfet. it is then the choice of measurement slew rate (sr) and slew direction that directly affects the measured ss. the ferroan anorthosite suite (fas) is thought to contain material representing the very first lunar crust. as such, the fas serves as the only direct sampling of the lunar magma ocean (lmo) available for study. understanding the history of this ancient suite is paramount to furthering our knowledge of the evolution of the moon and the early solar system as a whole. recent geochronologic studies of this suite, however, challenge our conventional understanding of lunar evolution through necessitating a protracted active lmo beyond which most thermal models can account. in an attempt to investigate this outstanding issue in lunar geology, this study aims to better characterize six fas samples with reported sm-nd crystallization ages on a mineral scale resolution via implementing a variety of in-situ analysis techniques. we then compare these results to five models of lmo evolution to determine likely provenance for the individual minerals in each sample. the results of this study reveal individual fas members to be largely heterogeneous in nature containing material both consistent and inconsistent with an lmo source. in addition to this, individual samples also contain material representative of crystallization out of separate stages of lmo evolution. as such, we prescribe caution to any interpretation to the ages of this suite within the context of the lunar geologic history and propose investigating a non-chondritic initial lmo depleted in the light rare earth elements (lree). diesel engines provide superior fuel economy to gasoline engines, but their emissions contain harmful compounds that endanger human health and the environment. because of this, government regulations have demanded increasingly cleaner exhaust from diesel engines. diesel engines are now being fitted with additional "exhaust aftertreatment units" which utilize catalysts in various components in the exhaust stream to eliminate the unsafe compounds. one harmful diesel exhaust component that has proven difficult to eliminate is solid carbonaceous particulate matter. diesel particulate filters (dpfs) are currently required of all engines to remove the solid pm, also termed soot, from the exhaust. one means for reducing cost of the aftertreatment unit is to lower the required temperature for soot oxidation (dpf regeneration) by implementing a low cost, low temperature soot oxidation catalysts. potassium based catalysts provide the low temperature oxidation of soot, but quickly degrade in the harsh conditions of the diesel exhaust. novel k-glass catalysts have recently been shown to stabilize the k within a silicate matrix and initial degradation studies have shown promise with soot oxidation as low as 380&deg;c in loose catalyst-soot contact conditions. to further the study of these k-glass catalysts, this dissertation will delve into the measurement and characterization of the prolonged degradation mechanisms experienced by the glasses that fall into two categories termed as follows: combustion (k loss) and chemical (hydrothermal) degradation. k-glass catalyst samples were used to measure end of useful lifetime (eul) testing for an estimated 100,000 mi of engine use. a baseline glass compound (kcs-1) was found to sustain acceptable soot oxidation temperatures after this lifetime (t50 < 500&deg;c). catalytic degradation was caused by the creation of k-rich carbonate or sulfate precipitates. these precipitates deplete the surrounding glass of active k and also mask active regions with inactive material such as caco3. through these revelations, various changes to the baseline glass were tested such as bilayer glasses and ce and zr substitutions for ca. both methods measured improved catalytic activity and improved chemical durability respectively. this dissertation examines the long trajectory of revival religion in the eighteenth century by following george whitefield into his latter years beyond the height of the great awakening. known as the grand itinerant, he was not only the most important preacher of the eighteenth century but also a cultural phenomenon whose life bears significance for understanding the british atlantic world. if a study of whitefield must work out the complex puzzles presented by his peripatetic life, there is also the prospect of rich insights to be gleaned from a grand globetrotting life that held the attention of british subjects everywhere captive across three decades. by focusing on this prominent priest who declared the whole world his parish, the dissertation argues that the evangelical revivals became absorbed into larger processes of british imperial state formation over the course of the eighteenth century. due to his homiletical effectiveness, historians and hagiographers alike have placed inordinate focus on whitefield the preacher. by paying close attention to the imperial context of the itinerant's religious career, this study uncovers connections between evangelical faith and the broader culture which provided the soil for its growth. though whitefield stepped onto a tumultuous stage in the mid 1730s, by the time of his death in 1770, a new world was coming into shape. his ongoing revision of revival strategies contributed much to this remaking. therefore, tracing whitefield's later years will show that some of his most significant contributions came after the revivals, as he struggled to work out the implications of a fast-fading revivalism in the face of an ever-expanding empire. this dissertation systematically explores the origins and evolution of the charter school movement in the united states from 1985 to 2015. i begin by analyzing the role of governors in k-12 education policymaking and find that while governors have generally placed greater emphasis on k-12 education policy over time, republican governors have demonstrated significantly more engagement on education issues than their democratic counterparts. this is puzzling given that the k-12 education policy arena has traditionally been dominated by the democratic party. i also trace the relative emphasis that governors have placed on the three competing goals of american public education: social efficiency, social mobility, and democratic equality. i demonstrate that republican governors were more likely than democrats to use all three frames in discussing their education priorities. i then argue that the rise of the colorblind social order in the 1980s ushered in a period of republican leadership in education. this leadership initiated the outcome-based education reform movement, which has pushed for both standards and accountability reforms and school choice reforms. republicans gained a leadership advantage in the k-12 education arena by developing an abstract racial equality frame and linking it with the social efficiency and social mobility frames of the standards and choice movements. the abstract racial equality frame emphasizes closing the racial achievement gap, providing equal educational opportunity for all, and promoting school choice as a civil right symbolically rather than substantively.next, i explore the institutional, partisan, and contextual determinants of charter school authorization and implementation. i find that republican governors are effective policy entrepreneurs in the charter school authorization phase and that republican state legislators serve as important policy venues in the charter school implementation phase. i also demonstrate that the urban composition of states positively impacts charter school authorization and growth. however, the racial and ethnic composition of states has no effect on charter school adoption and mixed effects on charter school implementation. this finding partially supports my theory that the symbolic nature of abstract racial equality framing has failed to produce broad, multiethnic support for charter schools. the final section focuses on the education philanthropists and charter school advocacy organizations driving charter school growth. i find that philanthropists are both more likely to invest in right-to-work states as well as states with higher rates of union membership indicating that foundations balance strategic considerations and policy objectives. additionally, while the size of a state's urban population influences philanthropic charter support, its racial and ethnic composition is not a significant predictor of grantmaking. this finding, again, confirms my theory that the abstract racial equality framing of the charter school advocacy coalition is more symbolic than substantive. soy intake has been documented to decrease blood lipid levels, improve overall arterial status, and improve insulin resistance. the physiological mechanisms by which soy improves blood lipid and glucose profiles is not known. soy contains several different components including protein, soy lipids, fiber, and other phytochemicals including isoflavones. it is unclear if one or more of these fractions contribute to the beneficial properties of soy. our research focused on the effect of soy isoflavones and the risk of developing atherosclerosis and other symptoms of metabolic syndrome. metabolic syndrome is a pre-diabetic state characterized by dyslipidemia, insulin resistance, obesity, and hypertension. some of the complications resulting from metabolic syndrome include cardiovascular disease and diabetes. macrophages and the liver are an integral factor in the development of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. macrophages exposed to high blood lipids become foam cells and contribute to heart disease by imbedding into vessel walls leading to fatty streaks, plaque formation, and atherosclerosis. the liver is the main site of glucose and lipid metabolism and has a major impact on the overall metabolic homeostasis of the body. my project is focused on the hypothesis that soy isoflavones are activating ppars (peroxisome-proliferator activated receptors). ppars are nuclear receptors that activate genes involved in cellular lipid and glucose homeostasis. we have found that soy isoflavones up-regulate ppar-regulated activity explaining, at least in part, the effect of soy intake on lipid and glucose metabolism. furthermore, my research also shows that the soy isoflavones genistein and daidzein potentiate the effect of the hypolipidemic medication clofibrate (a ppar&gamma; ligand) and the insulin-sensitizing medication pioglitazone (a ppar&alpha; ligand) potentially increasing the efficacy of these medications. in vivo, soy isoflavones also ameliorate some of the symptoms associated with atherosclerosis in both ppar&gamma; wild-type mice and ppar&gamma; ko mice. therefore, soy isoflavones may be affecting other ppar&gamma;-independent pathways such as ppar&atilde;. taken together, the isoflavones are able to activate the ppar&gamma; and ppar&atilde; pathway although the overall physiological significance of these activations is complex and has yet to be fully characterized. ebola belongs to the filoviridae family of viruses, which are negative sense single stranded rna filamentous viruses that cause severe hemorrhagic fever. ebola hemorrhagic fever (ehf) is a major public health concern in central and eastern africa and parts of asia. during ehf outbreaks fatality has varied between 25-100 %. since there are no prescribed vaccines or therapeutic treatment, ebola virus remains a viable candidate for biological warfare. further, most endemic regions of the virus have little resources and lack access to quality healthcare. hence, a timely discovery of drug interventions is needed to stem the increasing outbreaks of the disease. the highly contagious nature of the virus makes it difficult for investigators to study the virus as a whole except in maximum containment facilities. even under such strict precautionary environments ebola virus is often inactivated with uv irradiation. the ability to study sections of the viral proteome and the use of reverse genetics offer the opportunity to study the virus assembly process. vp40, the most abundantly expressed protein of the virus assembles into virus like particles (vlps) from the plasma membrane independent of other viral proteins. this suggests that vp40 possesses the essential information needed for virus assembly. the goal of this phd dissertation was to investigate the mechanisms by which ebola vp40 is targeted to the cell surface (plasma membrane) and remodels the host membrane in order to efficiently form virus particles and bud from the cell. little is known regarding how filoviridae proteins interact with host cell membranes in order to assemble and bud into new virions. a number of in vitro and cellular methods have been employed to understand factors important for membrane targeting of ebola virus proteins. first, i have determined that vp40 binds and inserts into the plasma membrane bilayer using a hydrophobic loop in its c-terminal domain.. i also showed using surface plasmon resonance (spr), liposome sedimentation assays and different pharmacological agents that alter membrane composition and charge that vp40 is recruited to the host cell surface by binding selectively to phosphatidylserine (ps). these results demonstrate that vp40 associates with and bends the plasma membrane in a phosphatidylserine dependent manner. recent evidence has suggested that the oligomerization of vp40 represents a crucial step in viral particle synthesis yet, the underlying mechanism is not understood. to understand the mechanism of oligomerization of ebola vp40 in cells, fluorescence fluctuation methods such as number & brightness methods (n and b), raster image correlation spectroscopy (rics), and internal reflection fluorescent microscopy (tirfm) were used to resolve the spatio-temporal organization of vp40 into virus like particles (vlps). results from this study indicate that vp40 molecules are recruited as monomeric protein from the cytosol to the cell surface. on the plasma membrane, it was observed that vp40 oligomerizes to form filamentous virus particles of different sizes and lengths. lastly, i have attempted to define the role of actin in the assembly of ebola vlps through a number of in vivo fluorescent labeling methods. raster image correlation spectroscopy (rics) method was used to establish that actin co-ordinates the movement of ebola vp40 protein. using single particle tracking in live cells it was demonstrated that the ebola vp40 vlps utilize actin filopodia for assembly and egress. most importantly, it was shown that inhibiting actin filopodia formation with pharmacological agents significantly reduced the egress of vlps. together, the results of this study present another paradigm to the search for new antivirals for filoviruses. my comparative study focuses on the negotiation of national, regional, religious, and ethnic identity in the works of four latin american jewish authors: argentines alberto gerchunoff and rebeca mactas, and brazilians frida alexandr and adìäå£o voloch. each author uses collections of independent but interrelated short stories, or short story cycles, to fictionalize his/her experiences as a child growing up in jewish agricultural colonies in latin america in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. i reevaluate the literary legacy of gerchunoff, the father of jewish latin american literature, by showing how his canonical los gauchos jud&#237;os (1910; translated as the jewish gauchos of the pampas, 1955) offered a structural and thematic template for works by mactas, alexandr, and voloch. nowadays, with the extensive use of computers, huge amount of data are generated everyday. the need to understand large, complex and information-rich data sets is very important to many fields in business, science and engineering. however, due to the complicated patterns, complex hidden relationships, and multidimensional and multimodal natures of data, it is not easy for users to glean insights. these issues have become critical with the exponential growth of data over the years. in this dissertation, i focus on graph-based techniques to tackle those issues because graphs can be used to naturally encode various kinds of relationships, reveal complicated patterns, and allow users to easily identify features of interest. i demonstrate the effectiveness of graph-based representations by applying them to three kinds of data including time-varying volumetric data, image-text collections, and eye-tracking data.time-varying volume visualization plays an essential role in many scientific, engineering and medical disciplines. many works have presented novel algorithms and techniques for processing, managing and rendering time-varying volume data. however, two critical challenges still remain. the first challenge is addressing visual occlusion caused by projecting the 3d data to a 2d image during rendering. this problem is exacerbated when the time and variable dimensions are considered. the second challenge is the lack of capability to help users analyze and track data change or evolution. as the size of data keeps increasing, these challenges would only become more severe. this dissertation proposes three solutions that leverage the generalized, understandable and familiar form of graphs to address a wider range of problems for visualizing time-varying scientific data. first, i will present transgraph that maps the evolution of a 4d space-time data set to a 2d graph representation so that the transition relationships among data could be revealed in a single graph. through brushing and linking, users can track the evolution of spatiotemporal data over time. second, in many cases, users can only rely on low-level visual hints from transition graphs, such as the sizes and densities of nodes and edges, to figure out interesting features to explore. this entails a heavy burden on users to identify interesting graph features and make connections to data features. i will therefore introduce graph analytics techniques, such as graph simplification, community detection, and visual recommendation, to help users explore the transition graph and understand the time-varying volumetric data. third, i will present an indexable tree named itree for time-varying data visualization which integrates efficient data compacting, indexing, querying and classification into a single framework.visualization of image-text collections is very practical in our daily lives. a significant challenge is the lack of the ability to browse, navigate and explore the large heterogeneous collection in an adaptive manner. this dissertation presents a graph-based framework called igraph that shows the relationships among images and texts in a dynamic fashion with progressive drawing capability. igraph also supports node comparison and visual recommendation for guided navigation and exploration.eye-tracking data visualization is important for understanding the patterns of eye movements. there are two major challenges that i aim to address. first, due to the revisiting of the screen, the scanpath may overlap with each other which not only causes visual occlusion, but also obscures the reading patterns. second, as the number of participants increases, classification and cross-comparison of the participants become increasingly difficult. i introduce etgraph, a graph-based analytics framework that visualizes the reading patterns, identifies saccade outliers, and classifies the participants.--in reference to ieee copyrighted material which is used with permission in this thesis, the ieee does not endorse any of the university of notre dame's products or services. internal or personal use of this material is permitted. if interested in reprinting/republishing ieee copyrighted material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution, please go to http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publica... to learn how to obtain a license from rightslink. oscillatory flow has numerous interesting and useful applications, many of which take advantage of oscillatory flow's unique features. two processes which benefit from oscillatory flow are investigated herein: the first, using oscillatory flow to enhance mass transport in a porous medium, and the second, developing separation strategies from the study of inertial migration of particles and bubbles in oscillatory flow. the effect of oscillatory flow on mass transport in a porous medium was studied both fundamentally, in a model porous medium, and specifically, in the direct methanol fuel cell (dmfc). in the limit where the oscillatory flow could be considered quasi-steady, it was found that the transverse diffusivity of a solute could be predicted accurately using a steady flow model. the transverse diffusivity was observed to increase a factor of 104 over the molecular diffusivity. enhancement in the transverse diffusivity was observed in the dmfc, where the mass transfer resistance of the system was reduced by superimposing fluid oscillations on the anode feed. the oscillations increased the peak power density by up to 30% and the limiting current density more than twofold. an optimization study was performed which examined the effect of other variables relative to the mass transfer resistance of the dmfc. a promising alternative use of oscillatory flow in the dmfc was discovered during this study: it assists with carbon dioxide bubble management at low steady feed rates. inertial migration of particles and bubbles in oscillatory tube flow was investigated in both the horizontal and vertical orientations. in the horizontal case, particle mobility was controlled by the ratio of the inertial force to the gravitational force and can be predicted using existing steady flow theories. this result suggested a particle/bubble removal technique using an asymmetric oscillatory flow. an asymmetric oscillatory flow was used to remove bubbles in the dmfc and stabilize its performance. in the vertical case, oscillatory flow was used to stabilize or reverse the net drift of non-neutrally buoyant particles. a simple asymptotic model was developed which is consistent with the experimental data and suggests a possible particle separation strategy. psychological research on adults often relies on participants' self-report, despite agreement that gathering information via multiple assessment methods (e.g., interview and questionnaire, selfand informant report) is important for establishing measurement validity. in this study, i examined personality trait assessments from multiple sources—the self, informants, interviewers, and written documents—each of which provides information from a different perspective, and therefore has its own validity, biases, and limitations. assessments included measures from two measurement models: the alternative model for personality disorder (ampd) in the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorder–5th edition (dsm-5; american psychiatric association, 2013) and the schedule for nonadaptive and adaptive personality (snap; clark, simms, wu, &amp; casillas, 2014). research that includes this many measures and concurrent sources of information about target individuals is rare. in this study, i examined the validity of ratings via various methods: measurement reliability, cross-source agreement, and relations with psychosocial-functioning and psychopathology outcomes. moreover, i provide evidence supporting the validity of measurements that used a document-based instrument in a general psychiatric-adult sample. mean-level agreement revealed that participants generally rated themselves as more pathological than did interviewers or informants. convergent correlations were weaker than hypothesized, with mild agreement between self and interviewer and weak agreement among all other sources. hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated the strength of within-source associations, with modest incremental contributions from other sources. considerations for using multiple sources of personality data are discussed. the overdose epidemic remains one of the most pressing public health issues in the united states. the epidemic started with the increased availability of prescription opioids. later, when access to prescription opioids was limited by prescribers due to an increase of dependency, many people turned to illicit heroin use. illicitly manufactured fentanyl, which has a potency 50 to 100 times greater than morphine, was then introduced into the heroin supply causing another spike in overdose deaths. as drug overdose deaths across the united states continue to rise, and the overdose epidemic was declared a national emergency, there is increasing interest in field testing of illicit substances for law enforcement and harm reduction stakeholders. street drugs consist of unregulated and highly variable mixtures of illicit drugs and cutting agents, including diluents and adulterants, making them difficult to evaluate under field conditions. tools most commonly used for field drug analysis include presumptive drug test pouches containing concentrated liquid reagents, immunoassay-based test strips, liquid dropper reagents, portable fourier transform infrared spectrometers and mass spectrometers. while effective, disadvantages of these technologies include financial limitations, safety concerns, and analytical impacts from the presence of cutting agents and multicomponent illicit drug mixtures on presumptive substance identifications in the field. these challenges have led to the need for and interest in a screening tool with the ability to characterize known illicit drugs, cutting agents, and provide chemical information about emerging drugs of abuse.during the course of my thesis research, i developed, validated, and optimized a paper-based analytical device for illicit drug detection (idpad). the idpad involves a library of 12 colorimetric tests that are run simultaneously, each detecting different chemical functional groups and materials found in illicit drugs, diluents, and adulterants. the visual results produced from the 12 tests form a color barcode which is "read" by comparison to standard images. the idpad could have a real impact on field drug detection. this device is inexpensive, fieldand userfriendly, and does not require any specialized instrumentation or electricity. while the idpad is not a replacement for laboratory confirmatory testing, these paper test cards can be used for rapid screening of unknown substances for the presence and identification of illicit drugs, cutting agents, and potential emerging drugs of abuse.in addition to illicit drug research, i have worked with non-profit organizations and governmental regulatory agencies in lowand middle-income countries on the implementation of a paper analytical device for pharmaceutical quality control including performing trainings for stakeholders and developing training materials. aerodynamic measurement techniques have evolved significantly in recent years, especially in the field of optical sensors. while luminescent sensors such as pressureand temperature-sensitive paints (psp/tsp) have become widely used for quantitative steady-state measurements, there are still numerous error sources that make quantitative unsteady measurements challenging. this work addresses two major error sources that currently limit these measurement techniques: the nonnegligible temperature dependency of porous psp and the problems in estimating heat transfer when a tsp coating is added to a model. to address the temperature dependency of porous psp, pyrene derivatives are used as the luminescent marker in the paint, which have been shown previously to have a lower temperature dependency than more commonly used markers. this luminescent chemical has been previously used for anodized aluminum psp, another type of fast psp, but the ability to spray it onto an existing model as a porous psp would be advantageous for practical application, particularly to models fabricated from materials other than aluminum. this study examines the influence of different parameters in the chemical makeup of the sensor on paint performance. static performance characteristics, namely signal level, pressure sensitivity and temperature dependency are discussed as they relate to these parameters. using methanol as a solvent with alumina porous particles results in a sensor with 0.4 %/kpa pressure sensitivity and 0.3 %/°c temperature dependency, which makes it much less temperature dependent than comparable psps. this results in an uncertainty in pressure due to temperature that is approximately half that of current fast psps. additionally, dynamic characterizations show that the sensor has a response time of approximately 20-30 us, which is comparable to current fast psp sensors.to address challenges with coating a model to obtain surface temperature measurements, a sensor using phenolic resin is developed that acts as an integral sensor to optically measure temperature. naturally, luminescent materials such as phenolic resin provide an attractive alternative to chemical sensor coatings. global temperature distributions are particularly helpful when validating computational models or when mapping temperature over complex geometries and can be used to calculate surface heat flux values. static tests of different phenolic resin samples are conducted using two binder materials to strengthen the material: cloth and paper. the material shows temperature sensitivities up to -1.3 %/k with a wide operating temperature range. a novel tsp dynamic characterization method is also performed, showing a response time of approximately 90 us. following the characterization of both sensors, demonstrative tests were performed to show practical applications for the sensors. the new pyrene psp was employed to measure the surface pressure and visualize the shock oscillation upstream of a forward-facing step in supersonic flow. the sensor was able to capture the mean pressure field as well as the unsteady three-dimensional motion of the shock wave. using a shock tube, the phenolic resin tsp was used to visualize the temperature rise on the sidewall, and the results compare very well with predicted shock location data. results from these tests and recommendations for future improvements to the sensors are presented. to what extent can a politics of rights be reconciled with a politics of the common good? to what extent can a government understood to arise from a social contract and committed to the freedom of its contracting citizens seek to promote the development of a set of civic virtues that incline those citizens to concern for the common good? in this dissertation i investigate this enduring question in political and legal theory with the data of american political history. specifically, i examine the ways in which three american presidents, thomas jefferson through the ward republic, abraham lincoln through political religion, and franklin delano roosevelt through the ethic of new individualism, attempted to give greater security to the rights of individuals by encouraging the formation of certain habits of devotion to the common good. from this comparative study i draw three conclusions about the limitations, reasons, and sources each statesman abided by and drew upon in promoting the character formation of citizens. the limitations they observed were largely lockean in nature, observant of the fact that the end of american government was to "secure rights" and not to cultivate moral virtue per se, they attempted to promote those character traits they believed particularly useful in the further securing of political, natural, and economic rights. the reasons they believed character formation was necessary, i contend, were largely tocquevillian in character, reflecting their concern about the effects individualism, antinomianism, and the industrial aristocracy can have upon the character of citizens and ultimately their various freedoms. and finally, the sources they drew upon in their formative efforts were quasi-aristotelian, drawing upon the ideals, institutions, and moral energy of various non-liberal (although not necessarily illiberal) elements of the "american amalgam" such as classical republicanism, christianity, and communitarianism, but which were substantively modified and oriented towards the welfare of the liberal state. these presidents, then, were attempting to "pave the rights infrastructure," encouraging the formation of certain character traits they believed particularly necessary to vindicate america's culture of rights from some of its own potential cultural contradictions. in mexico, the 1980s —often referred to as the "lost decade"—are mostly remembered for the 1982 debt crisis, the 1985 mexico city earthquake, and the fraudulent 1988 presidential election. the reaction of citizens to these events and their decision to elect oppositional parties at the local level signaled the weakening of the institutional revolutionary party (pri), which lost its grip of the nation to the conservative opposition in 2000, after seventy years of undisputed political leadership and twenty years of economic neoliberal reforms that included privatization, structural adjustments, and the dismantling of the welfare system. how and to what extent did the generation that came of age during the 1980s respond to these economic and political changes? these questions, which are at the center of this dissertation, are particularly relevant in mexico city, where youth (10-29 years old) made up 43% of the population during this period and composed the bulk of those who responded to the economic, political, and cultural crises that marked the "lost decade" with the rise of neoliberalism.however, mexico city's youth were not monolithic. competing youth expressions were divided by questions of class, gender, and sexuality. these differences shaped their view of the crises, their rights-based activism, and their imagined futures. drawing from a broad range of archival materials that include newspaper accounts, films, and songs, in conjunction with oral history, i examine four youth groups that were differently affected by neoliberalism in mexico city: "chavos banda," or marginalized youth who engaged in gang-like and punk-like subculture and developed a unique style as a form of resistance to their exclusion from the neoliberal project; queer youth (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans), whose response to neoliberal policies coincided with the aids crisis and the collapse of the homosexual liberation movement (1978-1984); national autonomous university of mexico (unam)-affiliated youth, middle-class university and high school students, who organized a massive student protest against the privatization of the unam in 1986 and made up a significant base of the left opposition that contributed to the defeat of the pri; and yuppies and wealthy young people who welcomed and benefited from the neoliberal economic reforms and strengthened the conservative opposition. these innovative cultural expressions of youth and their political movements opened opportunities for leftist and conservative oppositions that ended the historical longevity of the pri at the start of the 21st century. phase equilibria thermodynamics has a central role in understanding many processes relevant to chemical engineering. the main motivation of this dissertation is the development, implementation and application of molecular simulation methods to predict phase equilibria thermodynamics. molecular simulations allow researchers to study matter at the microscopic level and make predictions of macroscopic properties at a wide range of conditions. important advances have occurred over the past fifty years regarding molecular simulation methodologies. however, some systems offer exceptional challenges to standard simulation algorithms. thus, there is a strong incentive to develop, implement and apply state-of-the-art molecular simulation techniques to tackle these hard problems.first, the theory underlying classical monte carlo simulations as applied to molecular physics is reviewed. then, specific algorithms to simulate molecules with highly coupled internal degrees of freedom are discussed. additionally, the molecular models that represent interand intramolecular interactions are introduced. these methods and models are applied to the simulation the vapor liquid equilibria of water and ionic liquids. it is shown that electronic polarization should be included in phase equilibria calculations when simulating this type of systems. next, a novel monte carlo method that aims to mitigate pathologies found in standard phase equilibria techniques is presented. the method is applied several systems to prove its validity. finally, algorithms that were implemented as part of the development efforts of an open source monte carlo code are overviewed and validation tests are presented for each of the implemented techniques. heidegger is often said to be the most important philosopher of the twentieth century, but the political import of his thought is by no means easily discernible. he has been associated with a striking variety of political positions, from left to right, west to east, peaceful to violent. this dissertation argues that this variety is best understood as deriving from two discreet inflections: a particularist-revolutionary inflection and the quietist-awaiting inflection. the 'paradox' of heideggerian politics is the necessary proximity of these two inflections to one another. the proximity derives from the treatment of actually existing 'everyday' arrangements and institutions as at once essentially paltry, ephemeral, and evanescent and yet also constituting the only available route to the most important question, the question of being. of the two inflections, the 'particularist-revolutionary' treats the everyday as the product of arbitrary and willful historical human activity and thus calls for a revolutionary retrieval of unexhausted resources from a people's 'ownmost' history. the 'quietist-awaiting' inflection, however, regards the existing status quo as having been granted by the unfathomable endowments of being and therefore entails a submission to the political order as it has been determined and a quietist waiting for a new dispensation of being. through supplying textual interpretations of several of heidegger's most important writings, the dissertation argues that the ambiguous political import of heidegger's thought derives from his characteristic approach to fundamental ontology. it concludes that heidegger's bequest to his successors is the requirement, for which his thought does not supply adequate means, to negotiate the tension between the demand for the revolutionary transformation of politics and the retreat from politics. networked control systems may include some unknown plants. but it is usually possible to access input-output data sets of such plants. as a result, methods that use input-output pairs to design the controllers such as passivity based controllers (pbc) are gaining a lot of attention. on the other hand, robustness and compositionality of pbcs make them strong candidates for system designers. in this thesis, auto-tuning pbcs with a specific measure of passiveness, named passivity indices, are discussed. after reviewing passive and dissipative systems, passivity indices are introduced, and then controller design based on passivity indices are discussed. we show how to find passivity indices of a system which has limited frequency inputs. it is specifically useful since most of practical systems usually have only limited frequency input. next, different methods of determining passivity indices are reviewed. specially we review how system designer can use specific input-output sets to learn passivity indices of a system. finally, control design and tuning using passivity indices is covered in the last chapter. specifically we focus on auto-tuning procedure for pi controllers based on passivity indices. in summary, this thesis includes main results on control design based on passivity indices. the influence of the victorian novel on 20th and early 21st century fiction takes many forms: from rewritings of classic works, to the creation of historical fiction, to the transposition of literature to different media. this thesis focuses on the contemporary novel's formal engagements with its victorian predecessors, arguing that multiculturalism and immigration impact the ways in which contemporary novels utilize victorian narrative structures and plots. using british novelist zadie smith as a case study, i analyze how smith adopts victorian narrative structures and views on sympathy in her first novel, white teeth. part i addresses the impact of multiculturalism and the windrush generation on national, individual, and literary identity in britain, before examining how smith's nonfiction writing addresses the role of sympathy and identity in 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-century fiction. part ii extends smith's reflections to the formal and thematic concerns of white teeth by showing how its chapter structures, shifts in perspective, and emphasis on alternative families provides a particular model of sympathy. in this model, characters sympathize with various imagined, generalized perspectives in order to more clearly define their own identity, particularly in relationship to their familial roots. as such, it sheds light on how the victorian novel functions in contemporary writing: as an imagined, generalized form of the past that is both adopted and rejected. this dissertation develops a genealogy of the meanings of social justice as they first appeared and evolved in britain between 1834-1914. applying a maximal interpretive framework to discursive data drawn primarily from theoretical texts, and paring this with a policy analysis of the social reforms passed by the british parliament that together constituted the "19th century revolution in government," i argue that social justice acted as a moral coordination device for social reformers, mps, and liberal intellectuals during this period, justifying and motivating state-based collective actions whose purpose was to sustain the belief that society (modeled here as a historicized "matrix" of social orders that feature justifiable and state-sanctioned forms of social inequality) was socially just. thus, the policy initiatives implemented in britain during this time, and still resonant in societies imprinted by the meanings and institutional forms assumed by social justice (like public health, a professional civil service, public education, and welfare policies like health insurance, old age pensions and workmen's compensation), are interpreted as the collateral effects and institutional markers that resulted from concerted efforts to sustain this shared belief in a root moral meaning. my argument develops a purposive (or "why") based account of the development and introduction of social policy paradigms that stands in contrast to approaches rooted in either political ideology or in social policy modeled as the rational response to social problems as "brute facts." in contrast to the former, i argue that political ideologies are subsumable as offshoots of the meaning of social justice understood as an encompassing moral logic; in contrast to the latter, i use counterfactual analysis to demonstrate the moral basis of the "rationality" dictating the rational response to social problems. instead, i conclude that the moral purpose of social reform &#0151; emergent during cultural moments given over collectively to "why"-based reflexive moral questioning &#0151; functions (ceteris paribus) as the key variable in the motivation and internal diversification of social policy paradigms. from this analysis, i develop an explanatory model for the effects of moral meanings derived from the genesis of shared normative categories; this offers a way of fostering mutually binding social critique that departs from the principles of communicative action; i contribute a new argument for the role that social justice meanings play in general processes of institutionalization; i also offer a moral and evaluative counterweight to contemporary neo-polanyian understandings of the "amoral market" in economic sociology; finally, i identify endogenous mechanisms for theorizing macro-cultural change (like rationalization) as part of non-derivative cultural processes. while reversible protein phosphorylation plays an important role in many cellular processes, simple and reliable measurement of the stoichiometry of phosphorylation can be challenging. this measurement is confounded by differences in the ionization efficiency of phosphorylated and unphosphorylated sites during analysis by mass spectrometry. diagonal capillary electrophoresis is a two-dimensional separation method that incorporates an immobilized alkaline phosphatase microreactor at the distal end of the first capillary and employs identical electrophoretic separation modes in both dimensions. by online dephosphorylation in the capillary, there is no bias in ionization efficiency, and phosphorylation stoichiometry can be determined by the ratio of the signal of the two forms. in the work, i demonstrate diagonal capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry for characterization of protein phosphorylation, the accurate determination of this stoichiometry and applied this technique in the study of kinase activities. the preferential oxidation of co (prox) on hydrogen rich streams has been studied using pt-based and pt-free catalysts. a combination of spectroscopic techniques is used to characterize the studied catalysts such as x-ray diffraction (xrd), x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (xps), x-ray absorption fine structure (exafs), scanning electron microscopy (sem), fourier transform infrared (ftir), and diffuse reflectance infrared fourier transform spectroscopy (drifts). a monte carlo method is proposed to deal with stiff reaction mechanisms, and it is used to simulate the prox reaction on pt. the experimental results indicate that when a pt/al2o3 catalyst is promoted with small amounts of nb, the activity on the prox reaction is improved. in contrast, on a ptb2o5 catalyst the co oxidation is strongly inhibited. the latter catalyst shows resistant to co poisoning since it maintains high activity on hydrogen oxidation. it was found that the nb promoted pt-catalysts stabilize pt+2 and it remains stable after reduction treatments and under reaction condition. infrared results show that pt+2 species are still able to adsorb co. it was found that surface carbonate-like species are a function of surface hydroxyls. the most active nb-promoted catalysts show the highest absorbance of carbonate-like species. kinetics results suggest that the formation of carbonate-like species restrict the hydrogen spillover mechanism. a new kinetic monte carlo approach (log-kmc) has been introduced which allows solving reaction systems with high degree of stiffness. the simulations of the prox reaction show that the decrease in pt dispersion leads to the decrease in less active corner sites. as the crystallite size increases, the population of more active (111) face sites also increases leading to more active catalysts. in addition, it was found that oxygen adsorption is the rate limiting step in the prox reaction. the prox reaction on pt-free metal oxides shows that when copper is supported on tio2 nanotubes, the activity to co oxidation is similar to that of pt-based catalysts. copper is finely dispersed when supported on tio2 nanotubes and it is present as a mixture of both cu+1 and cu+2. the rate of transformation of the copper oxidation states follows the expression: r=k[cu+2][cu+1]-1 . in this dissertation i argue that philadelphia physician benjamin rush (1746-1813) merged medical and political theory in an unprecedented matter to form a concept of biological citizenship for the united states in the years following independence from great britain. a graduate of the university of edinburgh's medical school, rush began his career in 1769 as one of the few elite colonial physicians who held an md degree. by the time he died in 1813, however, rush publicly rejected the medicine he had learned in scotland. he claimed to have created a new system predicated on simple physiological concepts adjusted to meet the needs of the young republic. in doing so he created an american medicine which had implications far out stripping the comparatively narrow purview of twenty-first century medical practice. historically rush's legacy has been fragmented into the histories of medicine, psychiatry, american political history, social history, and the history of reform movements. this informs the question this dissertation seeks to answer: rush is a perennially-cited player in the history of medicine and that of the early united states, why? he was not the only scottish-educated american physician nor the only member of a medical faculty; yet, his work stands out in a way which that of his contemporaries does not. to recover rush's significance and role in the development of early american medicine this project reflects the scope of his intellectual inquiry independent of modern disciplinary boundaries.rush's status as the american physician between 1790 and 1813 is explained through several characteristics of his work. he achieved his status by becoming an important synthesizer of knowledge both local and foreign. rush participated in a trans-atlantic network of physicians, improvers, and intellectuals through personal correspondence and shared publications. in particular he leveraged the work of neo-hippocratic colonial practitioners in the tropics to claim that the united states had a unique environment. unlike the hot west indies or cool britain, the united states was unified by its variability. in order to succeed as an independent republic populated by moral and rational citizens new institutions were required to promote the country's development and to correct mistakes manifest in immorality, filth, and disease. rush promoted hybrid political and medical projects some, but by no means all, of which might be considered "public health." in other instances – like public education, temperance, and personal hygiene -he used medical theory to make claims about individual choice and the reciprocal relationship between body and society. during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, the soviet political and intellectual elite&#8212;including both apparatchiks and dissidents&#8212;made up only tiny minorities in a very large and populous country. what was life like for the rest of soviet society? what was it like for the vast population who usually supported the regime, mostly accepted the rules, essentially internalized the ideology, and generally made the same choices as their neighbors and friends? what was it like to live soviet? this project seeks to provide answers to those questions. it is a close examination of a group of the last two soviet generations from kharkiv, ukraine, covering their lives from childhood to the present. the brezhnev era, when many of them came of age, was arguably the most stable for the soviet peoples; since then, their world has turned upside-down. during this period, kharkiv's military professors and their families&#8212;the primary subjects of this project&#8212;went from comfortable economic circumstances, professional prestige, and political influence as part of the upper stratum of a superpower, to virtual destitution and ignominy in the mid-1990s. today, many of them are part of europe's largest ethnic minority&#8212;russians in ukraine. having always considered themselves soviets, they woke up one morning to find themselves in the new, 'foreign' country of independent ukraine. i conducted 65 'life history' and follow-up interviews with this group, as well as 15 interviews with their civilian counterparts, for a total of 80 interviews. the 3,000+ pages of transcripts generated from this research provide the core of my evidence. supplementing those sources with materials gleaned from personal, family, and institutional archives, i investigate how these families endured shifting social, cultural, and political realities&#8212;and show what those experiences have to offer the study of soviet and post-soviet history, bridging the borders and boundaries created by the collapse of the ussr and exploring the foundations of 21st-century ukraine. the military officers in this study personified the soviet state's ambitions&#8212;both in the official propaganda and in their own personal identities. from the 1960s on, these officers and their comrades made up a volunteer, professional, and cohesive officer corps that was dedicated to the defense of their state, was highly trained and educated, and was insistent on high standards of performance. these men internalized marxist-leninist ideology and were committed to safeguarding the soviet state, indoctrinating its conscripts, and spreading communism worldwide&#8212;the three most important reasons that the soviet leadership maintained the world's largest military from 1945 until the collapse of the ussr. these were the new soviet military men, and their lives were so entwined with the state they served that when it fell, so did they. the study of these men, their families, and their contemporaries&#8212;as individuals&#8212;provides insights into soviet society and the continuing transition of that society in eastern ukraine, especially in the areas of gender, ethnicityationality, and religion. in the mature soviet union, women had clearly defined boundaries at home and at work. transcending those boundaries took skill, extraordinary drive, and a considerable amount of effort&#8212;but it could be done, both at the workplace and in the home. in terms of ethnicity and nationality, the individuals described in this study did not move across borders; rather, the borders moved across them. as their history shows, a diaspora is not always created by the movement of people; in post-soviet ukraine, it was possible to be a transnational individual without ever travelling. these are not individuals who had to divest themselves of 'natural' national feelings; rather, they were supranational individuals who were forced into transnationality by circumstances. in the post-soviet period, they learned the mentalities of nationalism in response to nationalist initiatives from others. regarding religion, i argue that the number of believers in the ussr was always quite strong; grandmothers kept baptizing babies and whispering prayers even when the society seemed to be entirely secularized. the secrecy that surrounded religious belief was also quite strong, demanded by an ideology that required an atheistic society. overall&#8212;both while they were living it and in their memories&#8212;life in the soviet union was profoundly normal. joy and heartbreak, triumph and failure, daily life and professional lives&#8212;all were experienced not within the framework of orwellian repression or titanic struggle, but within the framework of daily, normal, soviet life. a strand of liberal thought called liberal egalitarianism wants to accommodate religious commitments on an equal basis with nonreligious or secular commitments. however, in accommodating religion, liberal egalitarians do not want to recognize religious commitments or activities qua religious as uniquely deserving of protection or accommodation. this dissertation disputes the central contention of liberal egalitarians that religion is not a unique activity. drawing on thomas aquinas and the new natural law theory, this dissertation argues that religion is an aspect of human flourishing that reason can grasp, and that such an understanding provides the most reasonable grounds for religious freedom. chapter one is an introduction and overview of the project. chapter two shows how liberal egalitarian theories are insufficiently protective of religious freedom because of internal inconsistencies or shortcomings. chapter three examines aquinas's understanding of religion as a natural virtue and his failure to argue for a robust sphere of religious freedom. chapter four lays out the principles of the new natural law theory. chapter five examines the new natural law theory's understanding of religion as a basic good in depth and derives principles of action thereof. chapter six discusses the nature and extent of religious exemptions and the relationship of the state to religious truth from the perspective of both the new natural law theory and liberal egalitarian theories. chapter seven concludes the dissertation by pointing out how the new natural law theory's understanding of religion can be developed and likely challenges liberal democratic states will face in the future as religious diversity increases. writing at the edge of the person argues that the poetry of the cambridge (u.k.) poets j.h. prynne, peter riley, and denise riley uses the lyric to present a form of subjectivity that incorporates exteriority. in other words, lyric subjectivity is not a retreat from the world but is rather a means of interaction with it. this engagement with lyric subjectivity, i claim, responds to basil bunting's briggflatts, which succeeds in presenting nondominative subjectivity in relation to the poem's unified structure. further, the poets' work contributes to european philosophical debates about the relation between subjectivity, language, and ethics. experience (as erfahrung) is central to the cambridge poets' conception of subjectivity, because, as gadamer argues, experience thwarts conceptual certainty. prynne's poetry focuses on the perceptual middle ground between concept and exteriority. influenced by the work of merleau-ponty, prynne writes poetry centered on perception understood as reflection or reversibility. at this level, poetic language refuses to abstract itself from the material immediacy of perception. in poetic artifice, prynne's student veronica forrest-thomson argues that poetry must be understood at the level of its basic materiality before one can convert it into conceptual meaning. her position had political appeal for the cambridge poets who were deeply skeptical of new, late-1970s forms of capitalism. peter riley's poetry of the early 1980s uses the earth of coal mines as a principle of impenetrable exteriority and of language's fundamental materiality. yet he maintains that one's subjective relationship with such otherness is essential to being ethical. riley's poetry demonstrates that an experience with exteriority exposes a subject and leaves one responsive to the world. denise riley's work insists that cambridge-inflected lyric subjectivity can help women negotiate the competing demands for self-identity and identity-as-woman. her most recent poetry is deeply invested in contemporary painting in part because painting's ability to have colors bleed into one another suggests to her the active, constructive symbiosis of disparate identities. like prynne, she deals with perceptual multiplicity through experiential reflection, which allows her in her poetry to assert subjective identity and a willingness to meet the challenges to stable lyric form and self-identity. early detection of disease and subsequent clinical intervention are central strategies in modern health care. ongoing synergistic advances in medical understanding and bioanalytic technology are enabling scientists and clinicians to identify and quantify an increasing number of molecular biomarkers that reflect disease status and treatment effectiveness. since enzymes play a key role in cellular functions such as signaling and metabolism, they are especially important as biomarkers of disease and indicators of likely prognosis. low abundance and limited stability make it technically challenging to reliably detect enzymes in living subjects or in clinical samples such as excised tissue or biofluids such as urine or plasma. in addition, there is an emerging effort to develop enzyme assays that can be employed at the point of care where the technology must be affordable, sensitive, user-friendly, and deliverable. in this regard, optical-based methods are very attractive and there are many different assays to measure enzyme levels using colorimetric, uv-vis, fluorometric, or chemiluminescence detection techniques. however, these assays often suffer from technical drawbacks such as insensitivity, high cost, long preparation time, and poor selectivity. this thesis describes work that aims to eventually overcome these common limitations. chapter 1 gives an overall introduction to the subject area by describing a range of methods for optical imaging and disease diagnosis, with a specific focus on n-acetyl-β-d-glucosaminidase (nag) as an enzyme biomarker for various diseases including acute kidney injury disease (aki), and the enzymes nitroreductase (ntr) and carbonic anhydrase ix (ca-ix) as biomarkers of tumor hypoxia. chapters 24 describe experiments that demonstrate new bioanalytical assays for early disease detection. chapter 2 focuses on the optimization of a colorimetric assay that uses a supramolecular method to enhance colorimetric detection of urinary nag. chapter 3 describes a more user-friendly and accessible way to directly measure nag levels and distinguish between healthy individuals versus patients with aki . the method in chapter 4 incorporates surface-enhanced raman scattering (sers) as a new and highly sensitive means of detecting glucosidase enzyme levels. finally, chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8 describes optical imaging and quantification of tumor hypoxia biomarkers using novel fluorescent near infrared molecular probes. the probes are highly specific and sensitive substrates for the clinically relevant hypoxia-associated enzymes, ntr and ca-ix. this dissertation highlights the benefits of cooperation in various multi-node networks. we first consider a wireless network with a single user and a single destination and draw conclusions about when is it advantageous to use the available relay(s) and when is it advantageous to transmit directly. using capacity (for the awgn environment) and outage probabilities (for a fading environment) as metrics for comparison, relative advantages of multi-hop (two-hop) routing over one-hop routing as a function of required end-to-end spectral efficiency and relay locations are highlighted. it is shown that if the desired end-to-end rate is above a critical spectral efficiency, it is always preferable to use direct (one-hop) transmission regardless of where the relays are located. we later consider a wireless system consisting of two user nodes and a destination node and discuss a cooperative (trellis pruning) strategy used by the two source nodes in delivering their packets to the common destination. in this scheme, each partner multiplexes local data with relayed data and convolutionally encodes the resulting bitstream prior to transmission; the other partner then uses its knowledge of the relayed data to prune edges from the code trellis, thereby decoding at a lower (and more robust) rate. the destination observes two copies of each source's data -one transmitted as local information, the other transmitted as relayed information -and employs iterative decoding to recover the same. this proposed scheme is generalized to a larger cluster of users cooperating to convey their data to a common destination. finally we compare the performance of convolutional codes to that of ldpc block codes with identical decoding latencies. the decoding algorithms considered are the viterbi algorithm and stack sequential decoding for convolutional codes and iterative message passing for ldpc codes. it is shown that, at very low latencies, convolutional codes with viterbi decoding offer the best performance, whereas for high latencies ldpc codes dominate -and sequential decoding of convolutional codes offers the best performance over a range of intermediate latency values. for sequential decoding, both blockwise and continuous resynchronization procedures are used to allow the decoder to recover the correct path. the relentless improvement in very large-scale integration (vlsi) technology over the past few years has made it feasible to conceive of an all-digital transmitter architecture that entails modulation as well as digital up-conversion to rf on a single dsp chip. however, shifting the rf stage to the digital domain severely burdens the dynamic range and bandwidth requirements of the high resolution dacs that provide the interface between the digital and the analog domains. the alternative is to use a1-bit dac that operates on a binary dsp output that trades resolution in amplitude for resolution in time by quantizing a highly oversampled (e.g., by a factor of 100)time domain signal, for example, a converter. this, in turn, taxes the on-chip requirements. the number of floating point operations that need to be performed on the dsp per second grows linearly in the oversampling ratio, once again putting the transmitter design beyond the reach of dsp speeds for many years to come. this thesis presents a technology that overcomes the barriers of both dac dynamic range and computational speed and presents a practicable scheme for building high-frequency direct-digitizing transmitters. the transmitter uses a simple look-up table to generate a binary stream, which then is filtered to produce a radiated signal so that there is no need for precise digital-to-analog converters. the data in the look-up table is produced by a new constrained list-decoding algorithm operating over the real alphabet. the transmitter can be a modulator only, or a combined encoder and modulator. the technology presented in this thesis supports generation of rf signals for commercial applications, e.g, 10 gbit dsp architectures being produced for ethernet can be directly used to transmit these binary sequences. this thesis presents spectra and error vector magnitude measurements for gmsk and bpsk signals with frequencies over 10 ghz for a wide range of data rates. when this all-digital transmitter structure is used in high-speed applications like radar synthesizers, however, the output contains significant spurious signals that considerably degrade the spurious-free dynamic range (sfdr) at the dac output.this is because when the output clock speed approaches the intrinsic bandwidth of the dac, even a 1-bit dac which intrinsically avoids static nonlinearities exhibits dynamic nonlinearity that causes past output symbols to interact in a nonlinear fashion with the present symbol. the second part of this thesis presents a simple and very general model for this nonlinear intersymbol interference (isi) and uses it to design binary signals that can both measure and suppress the spurious tones that arise in a single-bit dac. the experimental verification is presented in two phases of measurement for three different hardware setups. the first set of measurements establishes the presence of the spurious tones in the hardware, as predicted by the model, and the second set demonstrates improvements in sfdr of up to 22 db after the suppression of the spurious tones. while the analysis in this thesis is for a 1-bitdac, extension to multibit dacs is straightforward, since a multibit dac is merely a collection of 1-bit dacs and exhibits the same nonlinear effects. we study riemannian submersions from positively curved manifolds and from einstein manifolds. we first prove a diameter rigidity theorem for riemannian submersions.secondly we show that there is no nontrivial riemannian submersion from positively curved four manifolds such that either the mean curvature vector field or the norm of the o'neill tensor is basic. we also classify riemannian submersions from compact four-dimensional einstein manifolds with totally geodesic fibers. does salvation in jesus coming from god have a universal purchase? this is a perennial christological/soteriological question which, under an earlier awareness, was captured in the theological axiom: "there is no salvation outside the church." this question is what drives the present enquiry within the african context where african traditional religion, christianity, and islam lie side-by-side as the dominant religious traditions. in posing this question, this dissertation is aware of the ongoing challenges of religious pluralism as well as religious violence on the continent. these challenges are further complexified by certain socio-historical factors such as the transatlantic slave trade, colonization, and fratricidal conflicts. drawing upon edward schillebeeckx, this dissertation posits that salvation in jesus coming from god does, indeed, have a universal purchase.the major problematic of this dissertation is, therefore, how to articulate succinctly god's definitive offer of final and universal salvation in jesus in a manner that avoids the extremes of both absolutism and pluralism. while the absolutist claim tends to subscribe to either exclusivism or inclusivism, pluralism also lends itself to religious indifferentism. writing in a historical mode, schillebeeckx's final "proposal" to this problem was his commitment to a constitutive christological position within a theocentric soteriology. although he himself referred many times to jesus' salvific role as "normative," his usage of the term does not preclude the sense in which that role is also "constitutive." this understanding undergirds his provocative affirmation that jesus is unique and universal, but not absolute, savior.in positing this claim, this dissertation pays attention to the various contours of schillebeeckx's theological development, as well as his shift in the late 1960s from a more explicit dogmatic, theoretical, and apologetic starting point of doing theology to a hermeneutical method which he identified as mutually critical correlation of the great christian tradition and contemporary situation. this later method was informed by the problem of secularism, religious pluralism, suffering, interreligious dialogue, and religious violence in a postmodern world. as a result, schillebeeckx developed his later christology in a historical and narrative-practical, rather than a dogmatic, mode. shifting from his earlier sacramental preoccupation in which jesus christ was affirmed as the primordial sacrament of our encounter with god, his later christological view speaks of jesus as a "parable of god and paradigm of eschatological humanity" and in soteriological terms as "definitive salvation coming from god."in a historical mode, the constitutive position refuses to affirm any historical manifestations of god as absolute. this refusal extends to all religions, and even to jesus of nazareth whom christianity defines as the personal identification of god. schillebeeckx did concede to the view that in the eschaton, jesus' constitutive salvific role will become apparent before all in god's very presence. although schillebeeckx did not develop a full ecclesiology in his later work, in the final volume of his trilogy, church the human story of god, he calls for shift from ecclesiocentrism to "church theology in a minor key." this dissertation proposes that his view benefits the church and its mission in africa. this research examines the hybrid membrane-biofilm process (hmbp), a novel means to achieve total nitrogen removal from wastewater. the hmbp incorporates membrane aeration into an activated sludge basin. nitrifying bacteria attach to the membranes, and heterotrophs are maintained as suspended growth. oxygen transferred to the biofilm by the aeration membranes is consumed by the nitrifying bacteria, which oxidize ammonia to nitrate and nitrite. the nitrate and nitrite produced by the biofilm is reduced in the bulk liquid by suspended heterotrophs using influent bod. this system allows for nitrification and denitrification in a single tank, reduces the required bulk liquid sludge retention time by maintaining the slow-growing nitrifiers in attachment, and utilizes almost all influent bod for denitrification, minimizing the need for carbon augmentation for denitrification. bench scale studies indicated that the hmbp was effective in removing total nitrogen. nitrification in the hmbp was sensitive to the bulk liquid bod concentration, with bod concentration as low as 0.5 g m-3 impacting nitrification rates. however, if sufficient solids were maintained in the system to achieve a low bulk liquid bod concentration, the hmbp was effective at bod surface loadings of up to 17 gbod m-2 day-1 at a bod:n loading ratio of 12.5:1. this ability to treat high organic loading rates while maintaining high nitrification rates is a great improvement over past membrane aeration processes. shortcut nitrogen removal (i.e. the reduction of nitrite rather than nitrate) was confirmed using microsensors and fluorescence in situ hybridization (fish). low oxygen concentrations in the were believed to cause the shortcut nitrogen removal. shortcut nitrification was further explored in an isolated membrane aerated biofilm (mab) reactor. shortcut nitrification was quantified in a mab as a function of membrane and bulk do concentrations. the intra-membrane pressure was shown to effectively control the oxygen concentrations in a mab. it appears that nob are not able to effectively compete with aob for oxygen in the biofilm when the do was below 2 g m-3. a tradeoff was found between obtaining high ammonium oxidation fluxes at high membrane do concentrations and obtaining high nitrite accumulation at low membrane do concentrations. a combination of experimental and modeling results were used to assess the impact of bulk liquid bod concentration on nitrification in a mab. in the experimental mab, bulk liquid bod, when supplied as acetate, inhibited nitrification at concentrations as low as 1 g m-3. fish results indicated heterotrophs had an increasing presence in the biofilm with increasing bulk liquid bod concentrations, which would lead to the decreased nitrification rates. a distinct heterotrophic layer formed in the outer biofilm when the bulk liquid bod concentration was above 3 g m-3. modeling of varying bod sources indicated that the type of bod has a large impact on the concentration that impacts nitrification in a mab. nitrification was not impacted until the bulk liquid bod concentration reached 3 g m-3 for a more slowly degradable bod. typical effluent bod5 from nitrifying activated sludge plants are in the 3-5 g m-3 range. the majority of this bod5 is more than likely recalcitrant bod, therefore the nitrification rate in a system such as the hmbp treating a real wastewater would not be drastically impacted by these concentrations. the selection of membrane materials was shown to significantly impact the effectiveness of a membrane aerated treatment systems. gas transfer rates and biofilm attachment efficiency both contributed to the nitrification rates in membrane aerated bioreactors (mabrs) constructed with polyethylene, cellulose tri-acetate, and polyester membrane materials. biofilm adhesion studies indicated that the polyethylene membrane material produced the highest coverage after 28 days, and also the greatest biofilm adhesion rate. the polyethylene material also had the highest oxygen transfer rate, which was more than twice as high as the other membranes tested. the polyethylene mabr also exhibited the highest nitrification rate, which was more than 4 times as high as the mabrs constructed of cellulose tri-acetate and polyester. pilot scale studies were used to assess the applicability of the hmbp to a real wastewater. the average nitrification rate at the pilot scale varied with nitrogen loading, but the maximum achieved rate was approximately 0.4 gn m-2 day-1. this is significantly lower than the 1 gn m-2 day-1 rate found at the bench-scale. although nitrification rates were not as high as expected, denitrification and tn removal efficiencies were very favorable. typically, greater than 75% of the nitrified ammonia was denitrified, and effluent tn concentrations below 6 gn m-3 were achieved with an average influent scod concentration of only 68 g m-3. the majority of scod consumed was shown to be utilized for denitrification. although little nitrite was measured in the bulk liquid, nitrite may be preferentially reduced by denitrifying bacteria, and the high levels of denitrification with low influent scod would suggest that some nitrite reduction is occurring. overall, the performance and function studies confirm that the hmbp is a promising technology. nitrification and denitrification can be achieved in a single tank, with a short bsrt, limiting the process footprint. by incorporating nitrification and denitrification into a single tank, the use of influent bod for denitrification is maximized, minimizing the need for carbon augmentation. the hmbp was also shown to achieve shortcut nitrogen removal through oxygen limitation of nitrite oxidation, decreasing both the oxygen demand for nitrification and the carbon requirement for denitrification. the energy efficient gas transfer associated with membrane aeration, combined with minimal oxygen supply for scod removal and decreased oxygen demand for shortcut nitrification, provide an excellent opportunity for increased energy efficiency in the aeration tank. this dissertation investigates the exegetical form, rhetorical function, and theological imagery of paul's midrash on exodus 34 in 2 cor 3:7-18. paul's pattern of biblical exegesis in this passage, which is unique among his letters, has given rise to numerous explanations. the contribution of this study is to read paul's midrash through comparison with the forms and traditions of hellenistic jewish commentaries, particularly philo of alexandria's allegorical commentary. through a close textual evaluation, i suggest that paul's midrash bears the closest formal similarity to a commentary pattern found in philo's interpretation of secondary biblical lemmata in the allegorical commentary. although paul may have adopted this pattern from homiletic convention, it seems more likely that he has borrowed it directly from jewish commentaries, which he could have known through his advanced jewish education. a study of the reuse of jewish and platonic commentary traditions in various contemporary treatises and letters confirms this hypothesis. such traditions were often incorporated as exegetical excursuses. reading paul's midrash on exodus 34 in light of other exegetical excursuses has several ramifications for the study of 2 corinthians. first, it offers new evidence for the rhetorical unity of 2 cor 2:14-4:6. second, recognizing the presence of covenant renewal themes in both paul's epistolary frame and in his midrashic excursus suggests that his opponents in 2 corinthians were hellenistic jewish christian missionaries. third, paying attention to paul's complex portrait of moses, facilitated by his sequential commentary in the exodus midrash, provides a window into his confrontation with these missionaries. although he approves of their use of moses as a model of christian transformation, paul wants to distinguish further between christian and hellenistic jewish versions of this tradition. shying away from the more traditional biblical locus used to promote mosaic exemplarity in hellenistic judaism (exodus 33), paul focuses on moses' role as a renewed covenant minister in exodus 34. drawing together central theological themes like covenant renewal, priestly tabernacle vision, and particularly parrh&#275;sia, paul aims to present moses as both a foil and an exemplar of the christian apostle, a figure whose glory should be viewed in light of the glory of jesus christ. new synthetic methodologies, ti(iii)-promoted n-o bond reductions and pd(0)/ini-mediated allylations, are developed with acylnitroso-derived hetero-diels-alder adducts to provide relevant syn-1,4-disubstituted cyclopentene intermediates. the carbocyclic scaffolds are further functionalized to afford biologically significant molecules, including carbocyclic uracil polyoxin c analogs, carbocyclic aminonucleosides and (-)-epi-4'-carbocyclic puromycin. chapter two explores pd(0)/ini-mediated allylations with acylnitroso-derived hetero-diels-alder adducts in the presence of diverse electrophiles. eschenmoser's salt, 4-acetoxy-2-azetidinone, and formaldehyde (formed in situ from eschenmoser's salt) serve as appropriate electrophiles for the indium(iii)-mediated allylic additions. the resultant functionalized cyclopentenes are key intermediates in the syntheses of biologically significant molecules. in chapter three, titanocene monochloride (cp2ticl) is described as an alternative source of ti(iii) for the selective reductions of the n-o bonds of acylnitroso-derived hetero-diels-alder adducts, n-hydroxy carbamates and hydroxamic acids under mild conditions. additionally, n-o bonds may be reduced with catalytic amounts of cp2ticl. the synthesis of carbocyclic polyoxin c analogs is discussed in chapter four. a ì¢-lactam-derived carbocyclic scaffold is used as a key intermediate in the preparation of unprecedented carbocyclic nucleosides. an n-methylthio protecting group is required for the key transformation to the uracil moiety. in chapter five, hydroxymethyl(cyclopentenyl) derivatives are used as intermediates in the syntheses of carbocyclic aminonucleosides and (-)-epi-4'-carbocyclic puromycin. the cis-2',3'-aminoalcohol moiety is installed by employing an osmium-catalyzed tethered aminohydroxylation reaction to afford functionalized carbocyclic substrates with complete regioand diastereocontrol. in conclusion, acylnitroso-derived hetero-diels-alder adducts are versatile substrates that may be elaborated to provide functionalized cyclopentene scaffolds. these carbocyclic platforms serve as key intermediates in the syntheses of biologically relevant molecules. the preservation of blood flow is essential for the delivery of vital nutrients and metabolites to the different organs of the body. in case of vascular damage, well equilibrated coagulation and fibrinolysis are required to maintain homeostasis so that repair occurs promptly and efficiently, without severe stenosis or thromboembolism. anticoagulant protein c (pc) is an important serine protease that down-regulates thrombin generation by proteolytic cleavage of coagulation factors (f)viiia and fva, cofactors that participate in the xase and prothrombinase complexes, respectively. additionally, it was shown that pc behaves as an anti-inflammatory agent when it binds to its receptor epcr and/or the protease activated receptor par-1, diminishing cytokine and chemokine production by endothelial and inflammatory cells. administration of pc to patients undergoing septic shock, as well as animals in different models of inflammation, not only decreased the inflammatory response but also improved the survival effectively. on the contrary, individuals with hereditary pc deficiencies have propensity to coagulopathies that could result in disseminated intravascular coagulopathy (dic) and death. moreover, pc deficiency is a major risk factor in atherothrombosis and atherogenesis. nonetheless, the response to inflammatory events has not been extensively studied in pc deficient individuals and therefore needs to be further examined to clarify the role of pc in such processes. recently, mice with pc deficiencies were generated by targeted complete gene deletion and replacement by a neomycin resistant cassette. as a result, mice with a homozygous deficiency ($pc^{-/-}$) survived up to 5 days after birth due to severe coagulopathies with consequent hepatic and cerebral necrosis. thus, $pc^{-/-}$ mice were not viable for coagulation and inflammatory studies. to analyze whether an additional deficiency in a procoagulant such as fxi alleviates the hypercoagulable state induced by a pc deficiency and hence improves the viability of these mice, $pc^{+/-}$ mice were crossbred with $fxi^{-/-}$ mice in successive rounds. consequently, the generated mice with a combined deficiency in pc and fxi ($pc^{-/-}fxi^{-/-}$) presented improved survival and lived up to 100 days. nonetheless, these animals presented symptoms of coagulopathies with fibrin(ogen) deposits and fibrosis as well as increased inflammation in the major organs. additionally, the supplementary fxi deficiency rescued $pc^{-/-}$ embryos from pre-natal coagulopathies in the late gestational stage proving the importance of fxi in the activation of coagulation in this developmental period. unfortunately, only a small fraction of $pc^{-/-}fxi^{-/-}$ mice survived birth which rendered them unsuitable for inflammatory-challenge studies. subsequently, systemic and focal inflammatory responses were studied in mice with heterozygous deficiencies in pc. for this purpose, we chose the cecal ligation and puncture (clp) model of sepsis, a systemic inflammatory response syndrome, and the copper/silicone cuff model of arterial injury and inflammation. in the sepsis studies, a partial deficiency in protein c conferred clp-treated mice increased mortality in comparison with treated {it wt} mice. plasma cytokine levels as well as cytokine expression in liver, kidney and lung were more elevated in $pc^{+/-}$ mice compared to {it wt} mice at 24 hours post-clp surgery. additionally, renal and hepatic damage were more severe in $pc^{+/-}$ treated mice relative to similar {it wt} mice. hepatic and renal expression of pc as well as plasma levels of the protein decreased to under 50,\% of the original values in both {it wt} and $pc^{+/-}$ mice 24 hours after surgery, although a more significant diminution in these parameters was observed in $pc^{+/-}$ mice, relative to {it wt} mice. further, up-regulation of coagulation and consumption of intrinsic coagulation factors was seen in both {it wt} and $pc^{+/-}$ mice to a similar degree. hence, the difference in outcome of $pc^{+/-}$ and {it wt} mice after sepsis seems to be related to the anti-inflammatory properties of pc in contrast with its anticoagulant activity. importantly, bradycardia and hypotension were more severe in $pc^{+/-}$ mice during septic shock which reveals a previously unknown activity of pc in the modulation of blood pressure, indeed indispensable for the survival of the animals during sepsis. arterial inflammation was more prominent in mice with a heterozygous pc deficiency after copper-silicone cuff placement around the left carotid artery. at an early time point, 7 days after cuff placement, the areas of the different arterial compartments in transversal sections of the arteries, presented no significant differences, although the percentage of inflammatory and proliferating cells was higher in $pc^{+/-}$ carotids, relative to {it wt} treated controls. at the chronic stage, 21 days after cuff placement, the areas of the different compartments were significantly larger in $pc^{+/-}$ carotids, as compared to {it wt} arteries. additionally, arterial occlusion, cell proliferation, and inflammation were more elevated in $pc^{+/-}$ arteries. these results show the importance of pc in the modulation of initiation, progression, and resolution of arterial inflammation. during the analysis of control $pc^{+/+}fxi^{-/-}$ animals in the characterization of $pc^{-/-}fxi^{-/-}$ mice, some surprising anomalies were found in the vasculature of $fxi^{-/-}$ mice. the arteries of these mice showed signs of vascular relaxation denoted by arterial dilatation and flattening, in opposition to the corrugated phenotype displayed by {it wt} arteries. in addition, endothelial integrity was occasionally compromised in $fxi^{-/-}$ arteries. considering these observations and the evidence of increased granulocyte activation in $fxi^{-/-}$ cattle, we decided to include $fxi^{-/-}$ mice in the study of copper-induced arterial inflammation. as a result, arterial inflammation and cell proliferation were remarkably more elevated in $fxi^{-/-}$ arteries, compared to similar {it wt} arteries, at early and late time points. however, the areas of arterial transversal sections were larger in $fxi^{-/-}$ arteries than in {it wt} arteries, only in the earlier time point. these observations suggest that the initial condition of the arteries as well as the favorable pro-inflammatory state in $fxi^{-/-}$ arteries was important in the initiation of the arterial damage and repair. however, a deficiency in a pro-coagulant such as fxi may play a compensatory role in the progression of the disease, albeit the existing inflammatory propensity. we believe that elevated kallikrein and bradykinin (bk) generation are crucial in the development of the arterial pathology in $fxi^{-/-}$ mice, balancing the up-regulation of inflammation through complement and neutrophil activation, with the enhancement of fibrinolysis or decrease of blood pressure through bk and its cellular receptor. nonnative species engage in a suite of novel interactions in their introduced ranges, the collective outcome of which will determine their success as well as the fate of resident species. the major goal of my dissertation research is to examine how food web interactions influence long-term ecological and economic impacts of an invasive omnivore. my study system consists of the invasive rusty crayfish (orconectes rusticus) and its interactions with fish, aquatic plants, and snails in north temperate lakes of northern wisconsin and michigan. i studied aspects of intraguild predation between o. rusticus and smallmouth bass (micropterus dolomieu) that were previously unknown using a combination of field surveys, video surveillance, diet reconstructions, and a controlled feeding experiment. i found that higher densities of o. rusticus increased rates of bass nest abandonment, but that consumption of crayfish by bass may overall lower abandonment. additionally, consuming the resource pulse of bass eggs confers a growth benefit for o. rusticus. together, these results support our field observations on why o. rusticus and m. dolomieu can coexist in abundance in north temperate lakes. i used a long-term multi-lake survey of crayfish, macrophytes, and snails, as well as germination assays, to examine the potential for natural recovery following significant declines in o. rusticus abundance. i also examined how spatial heterogeneity influences both negative impacts and recovery over time. in general, crayfish impacts are realized quickly and recovery is gradual and incomplete. the magnitude of response scales with the magnitude in crayfish change, but this relationship is influence by substrate and is taxon-specific. i developed a bioeconomic framework to evaluate which management strategies in response to o. rusticus are most likely to produce positive net economic benefits. the model simulations reveal that when prevention fails, immediate action to reduce o. rusticus will produce the greatest net economic benefit. i identified that the density-impact relationship between the invasive species and the ecosystem service has the greatest influence on model predictions. my dissertation research contributes to our understanding of how complex food web interactions influence the net impact of an invasive species. this work provides new information about an intraguild predator and prey relationship, and describes limitations and conditions for natural recovery among multiple trophic levels in lakes impacted by an invasive omnivore. further, i developed a management tool that can be adapted and applied to a variety of systems to help make time-sensitive decisions about invasive species control. my dissertation treats theories of evidence. the main questions addressed therein are, what questions does a theory of evidence aim to answer? are the popular extant theories of evidence satisfactory? what other possible competing theories are worthy of consideration? and do the intuitions about the evidence people have in so-called ``bad cases' (evil-demon, biv) give us conclusive reason to reject otherwise attractive theories of evidence? much recent epistemology has proceeded without explicitly considering these questions. this dissertation offers a critical examination of recent theories of evidence, and a constructive proposal for a new one, thus filling a significant gap in our philosophical understanding. the dissertation divides into two parts. in the first part, i critically examine some other theories of evidence. first, i examine some members of a family of theories of evidence that are committed to propositionalism, which is the thesis that all evidence consists in propositions. second, i examine a theory i call rochester evidentialism, which is the theory of evidence developed and defended by earl conee and richard feldman for the past twenty-five years. in the second part, i articulate and defend a new theory of evidence that i call factualism. a fundamental commitment of factualism is that the fundamental evidence role is that of indicating some truth to someone. this conception of the fundamental evidential role helps us derive an ontology of evidence according to which all evidence consists in epistemically-usable facts, where facts here are not understood a true propositions, but as that which true propositions represent. intuitively, what makes a fact epistemically usable for someone is that she possess certain cognitive capacities which permit her to exploit the fact in her cognition. the notion of evidential support is cashed out in terms of epistemic usability, specific fact-types, and partial dependence. put roughly, a fact e evidentially supports p for s iff e is epistemically usable for s and either most tokens of e's specific fact-type partly depend on a token of the specific fact-type of which p represents a token, or most tokens of the specific fact-type of which p represents a token depend on some token of e's specific fact-type. evidence possession is defined in terms of what a subject knows, and a kind of awareness that i call t-awareness, which takes as its objects both internal and external facts, and does not entail the having of any beliefs. i then define a subjects total evidence at a time as including all and only those facts which she either knows, or is t-aware of at that time. phase equilibria thermodynamics affects all facets of our daily lives. of particular interest to the present study is the role of phase equilibria in the drug design process, more specifically, the solubility of pharmaceutical solids. this is crucial not only to predict bioavailability and toxicity, but is essential for production and formulation as well. given the importance of the problem, many of the great scientific minds of the past century have attempted to develop theories to predict solubility. however, the current state-of the-art involves correlations of large sets of experimental solubility data. a promising alternative design tool is molecular simulation. not only would this allow for solubility predictions to be made, but molecular level insight into why a drug is soluble or insoluble can be obtained. however, molecular simulation has not yet evolved to a level in which it may be used as a practical design tool by novice modelers in industry. the focus of this dissertation is on developing molecular simulation tools useful for design purposes by a novice. first, a formalism in which the solution phase residual chemical potential of a solute may be computed in an efficient, automated and reliable fashion is demonstrated. the method requires performing only a single simulation at each concentration, and may be used to reliably sample molecules of complex topologies. these calculations form the basis of novel methods developed to predict solubility. a general scheme is first presented wherein the chemical potential of the solid phase and the concentration dependent chemical potential of the solution phase are computed relative to a common reference. next, it is demonstrated how solution theory may complement molecular simulation, and reduce the computational demand required to make solubility predictions. a novel method is demonstrated wherein the solution phase properties at finite concentration may be estimated from a single molecular simulation at infinite dilution combined with established solution theory. the method is applied to both phenanthrene and acetaminophen in pure and mixed solvents, with promising results comparable to the current state-of-the-art. additionally, a hydrophobicity scale is developed to understand the phase behavior of proteins in ionic liquids. lipids are important for supporting the homeostasis of cellular life. they play primary roles in energy storage, formation of cellular membranes, and acting as secondary messengers. many of these roles occur through specific lipid-protein interactions. the first part of this thesis will describe different techniques and assays currently used to study lipid-protein interactions. in addition, it will describe the optimization of lipid-protein overlay assays.the second part of this thesis will discuss a class of lipids called, sphingolipids. they play major roles as secondary messengers in health and disease. specifically, ceramide 1-phosphate (c1p) is an important signaling sphingolipid that has been shown to regulate physiological processes such as cell proliferation, inflammation, apoptosis, and macrophage chemotaxis. however, despite this information, little is known about the biophysical properties of c1p, including many of its specific protein effectors.here, we set out to discover new c1p binding proteins through several immunoprecipitation assays followed by mass spectrometry. in addition, we describe in detail how a fluorescently modified c1p could be used to reveal new biophysical information regarding this lipid. the areas of the western pacific, indian ocean, and their marginal seas (indwpac) contain significant political, economic, and cultural centers where major storms have global impact. a large-scale, high-resolution grid adcirc model of indwpac is developed, designed to simulate tides to show how well it can capture the significant hydrodynamic exchanges between neighboring basins and to better understand continental shelf dynamics in the domain. the unstructured mesh contains 9.6 million nodes and varies in resolution from 20 km to 100 m.several high resolution bathymetry datasets are collected and tested, and errors necessitated numerous depth corrections by referencing digital navigation charts. dissipative effects are concentrated in two major parameters: bottom friction and internal tide dissipation. bottom friction parameterization based on seafloor sediment characteristics was developed and found to vary mainly in shallow continental shelf regions, while internal tide dissipation varied in deeper ocean depths. other tests perturbing bottom friction zone values found that local shelf zones controlled local response of tides.the best model setup of indwpac is compared against a collection of 760 tidal observation stations positioned throughout the domain mainly near the coast. a comparison against a global data-assimilated model is made to gauge the indwpac model's response in the deep ocean where observations lack coverage. indwpac model's errors compare favorably in the nearshore against other hydrodynamic models, and future pursuits for model improvement are suggested. malaria is a mosquito-borne parasitic disease that poses a significant public health threat to millions of people worldwide. malaria is transmitted by female anopheles mosquitoes. mosquitoes in the genus anopheles are incredibly diverse, with different ecologies and behaviors that impact how effectively they can act as vectors of malaria parasites. in areas where there are several different anopheline species, this diversity can sustain malaria transmission through seasons and intensive malaria control interventions. part of this work addresses the limits of the utility of morphological and molecular species identification in areas of high biological diversity, such as in indonesia. in areas with many closely related species, which may belong to the same species group or cryptic species complex, molecular tools are essential for the accurate identification of vector species. in areas with more distantly related species that can be discriminated using morphological keys, molecular species identification may not be necessary. site-specific evaluation of species compositions at the molecular level is recommended prior to the implementation of any control or monitoring program. species-specific behaviors ultimately determine the effectiveness of traps and mosquito-based control interventions in any area. in three different sites in indonesia, different traps were found to be effective for collecting anophelines, based on the particular biology of those species. a detailed study of host feeding behavior demonstrated that even a set of zoophilic, outdoor biting anophelines can contribute to malaria transmission. animal-based control methods may be useful for vector control or monitoring in this area. in sub-saharan africa, there are regions with uncharacterized anopheline species which demonstrate behaviors that enable them to avoid typical mosquito-targeted malaria control interventions. this work has identified potential novel malaria vectors in the western kenyan highlands. the accurate characterization of these species and their associated behaviors is crucial for effective malaria control and elimination. overall, this work demonstrates that anopheline species diversity and behavior have important implications for malaria control. the ultimate goal of this work is to inform mosquito-targeted malaria control efforts in order to effectively reduce malaria transmission. these results will contribute to our understanding of the distribution of vector species, their behavioral patterns, and population structure, as well as provide new diagnostic tools. to build a recognition system for any application these days, one's first inclination is to turn to the most recent machine learning breakthrough from the area of deep learning, which no doubt has been enabled by access to millions of training images, clean and correctly labelled from the internet. but there are many circumstances where such an approach cannot be used as an off-the-shelf component to assemble the system we desire, because even the largest training dataset does not take into account all of the artifacts that can be experienced in the environment. as computer vision pushes further into real-world applications, what should a software system that can interpret images from sensors placed in any unrestricted setting actually look like? can we leverage inputs from multiple sensory modalities, to built such systems? how can we utilize the knowledge acquired from such generalized setting to create tools for specific applications in neuroscience? in this dissertation i answer these questions in the following ways.first, to study the impact of difficult scenarios on automatic recognition, i explore the usefulness of state-of-the-art visual recognition combined with image restoration algorithms as off-the-shelf components, operating on the idea that restored images should be somewhat easy to classify. remarkably, little thought has been given to image restoration and enhancement algorithms as pre-processing methods for visual recognition: the goal of computational photography thus far has simply been to make images look appealing after correction. our work on this research led to the following contributions – 1) a new video benchmark dataset, ug2 representing both ideal conditions and common aerial image artifacts, which is publicly available to facilitate new research 2) an extensive evaluation of the influence of image aberrations and problematic conditions on common object recognition and one stage detection models, 3) an analysis of the impact and suitability of basic and state-of-the-art image and video processing algorithms used in conjunction with common object recognition and detection models. second, i investigate the impact of multimodal data (in the form of raw neural activations due to olfactory signals) to improve recognition. we use zebrafish, (danio rerio), a vertebrate belonging to class pisces for the experiments as they share striking resemblance to human retina. we found out that the neural activations due to a single modality such as vision is remarkably different from the activations in response to multiple sensory modalities (vision and olfaction) as they come from different distributions. based on our observations, we create a computational model that can distinguish between activations when stimulus due to a single or two modalities are present or not. as zebrafish maintains high evolutionary proximity to mammals, our model can be extended to humans as well. finally, in order to study behavioral changes in fish due to multi-modal sensory activation, i create a new fully automatic end-to-end tool that requires minimum human supervision. our tool extracts meaningful information such as a fish's trajectory using state-of-the-art deep learning and supervised classification methods to predict behavioral changes when the sensory integration system is instantiated. additionally, it can be generalized to a number of experiments that involve studying motion-based animal behavior. to date, this is the only tool that can automatically predict changes in behavior in zebrafish due to odor stimulation. development of fully functional organs from undifferentiated cells requires constant communication between various participating cells. an important component in this cellular communication machinery are second messenger systems that relay external mechanical, chemical and hormonal stimuli to the genetic machinery of the cells. due to their conserved nature in both healthy and diseased tissues, and their roles in mediating numerous critical cellular processes, there is a considerable interest to elucidate mechanisms of signal integration and transduction using a range of model systems. however, the shear complexity of protein-protein interactions along with non-intuitive feedforward/feedback loops makes it challenging to comprehensively understand second messenger regulation in multicellular systems. the work herein describes multiple studies that incorporate quantitative experiments using microfluidicbased cellular and organ-based assays, multiscale computational modelling along with transcriptomic approaches to reverse-engineer the dynamics of ca2+ signaling during epithelial morphogenesis. decoding the coupling between multicellular calcium dynamics and downstream gene regulation is critical in identifying new therapeutical approaches for addressing diseases exhibiting dysregulated calcium signaling and paves the way to define biological design principles important to rapidly advance the emerging field of synthetic biology. towards this end, a review of the selective set of studies exploring the interplay between morphogen-directed positional informational systems and physiological signals including ca2+ is presented in chapter 1. more specifically, the role of physiological signals in mediating and moderating morphogen-based response in multicellular systems is emphasized. in chapter 2, a quantitative image-analysis pipeline is presented to decode organ-level calcium signaling dynamics in drosophila wing discs. using this pipeline, we show that the calcium signaling dynamics is strongly correlated with physical properties of the organ such as the size. based on these experimental findings, a multiscale mathematical model is formulated and presented in chapter 3 to explore the dynamic instabilities in ca2+ signaling caused by the physical and chemical properties of the individual cells in the developing organ. in chapter 4, an experimental investigation using genetic tools along with omics analysis on the role of gq mediated spatiotemporal ca2+ waves in organ development is presented. major findings from our studies along with future directions are presented in chapter 5. in real euclidean space, polar coordinates allow mathematicians to calculate the norm of higher dimensional so-invariant functions with relative ease by reducing the problem to a 1-dimensional integral. in this dissertation i look at the complex segal-bargmann space using the c_t transform. i find there is a "holomorphic" version of polar coordinates that allows us to do the same in the odd dimensional cases. a geometric approach for this was done by areerak kaewthep and wicharn lewkeeratiyutkul using the b_t transform in [9], but this method is not easily generalized to non-euclidean spaces. motived by the works of gestur olafsson and henrik schlichtkrull in [10], i use shift operators to find this "holomorphic" version of polar coordinates in c_t version of the segal-bargmann transform. statistical iterative image reconstruction methods for x-ray computed tomography (ct) have, over the past few years, shown promise in maintaining diagnostic image quality across a wider range of dosage than has been routinely practical with standard deterministic methods. in this dissertation, iterative reconstruction techniques are modified to attack three limited-information problems: (i) photon starvation due to low signals; (ii) artifacts induced by high attenuation objects and (iii) spatially non-uniform sampling geometry.dose reduction in clinical x-ray ct causes low signal-to-noise ratio (snr) in photon-sparse situations. all techniques meet their limits of practicality when significant portions of the sinogram are near photon starvation. the corruption of electronic noise leads to measured photon counts' taking on negative values, posing a problem for the log() operation in pre-processing of data. we propose two categories of methods for extremely low-count sinogram pretreatment: an adaptive denoising filter and a pointwise bayesian inference method. the denoising filter is easy to implement and preserves local statistics, but it introduces correlation between channels and may affect image resolution. the bayesian inference is a pointwise estimate incorporating a prior model for poisson rates. both approaches achieve significant improvements in diagnostic image quality at dramatically reduced dosage. high-attenuation materials pose significant challenges to ct imaging. formed of high mass density and high atomic number elements, bones and metals, for example, have high resistance to transmission of photons. scatter and beam hardening effects are more prominent, raising substantially the importance of the nonlinear relation between line-integral projection estimates and path lengths. as a result, streaking artifacts often appear in reconstructed images along high density directions. in this dissertation, two novel iterative approaches are proposed to reduce such artifacts. one method parameterizes scatter and beam hardening as a locally varying additive poisson noise, and attempts to estimate the offset as part of the iterative reconstruction loop. the other method uses a prior image to guide both reconstruction and sinogram correction. artifacts are significantly reduced at little cost in resolution loss. cone-beam geometry creates non-uniform spatial sampling rates, which becomes a more pronounced issue as scanners are extended to wider cone angles. while in new, wider-coverage detectors, noise non-uniformity can be mitigated by spatially adaptive regularization design, some data dependent systematic errors are difficult to model deterministically. the detector array is adjusted to accommodate detection efficiency issue at large cone angles. array modules are compromised to be tilted towards the source, which causes systematic inconsistencies between two module boundaries. to combat the challenge of increased sampling non-uniformity, we propose a joint system parameter estimation with image reconstruction algorithm. clustering and regularization are used to avoid overfitting and "dc" drift. the classical mahowald invariant is a method for producing nonzero classes in the stable homotopy groups of spheres from classes in lower stems. in this thesis, we study the mahowald invariant in the settings of motivic stable homotopy theory over spec(c) and spec(r), as well as c2-equivariant stable homotopy theory. in the c2-equivariant setting, we prove an analog of lin's theorem by adapting the motivic singer construction developed by gregersen to the c2-equivariant setting. we compute a motivic version of the tate construction for various motivic spectra, and show that this construction produces "blueshift" in these cases. in the complex motivic case, we use these computations to show that the mahowald invariant of η^i , i ≥ 1, is the first element in adams filtration i of the w1-periodic families constructed by andrews. this provides an exotic periodic analog of mahowald and ravenel's computation that the classical mahowald invariant of 2^i , i ≥ 1, is the first element in adams filtration i of the v1-periodic families constructed by adams. we obtain similar results in both the real motivic and c2-equivariant settings. finally, we also study the behavior of the mahowald invariant under various functors between the motivic, equivariant, and classical stable homotopy categories. this thesis presents the development and progress at notre dame of a 0.25 ì_å_m complementary metal oxide-semiconductor (cmos) process that integrates a novel packaging process, quilt-packaging (qp). deep-submicron lithography and very large scale integration (vlsi) circuit with roughly 50000 transistors per chip require the high through-put of the g-line photolithography stepper tool and the high-resolution of the electron beam lithography (ebl) tool. an elaborate mix-matching scheme between the two very different tools provides accurate pattern placement to meet the stringent requirement for alignment. process and device simulation were executed to tune the various process parameters and predict the electrical behavior of such devices. this cmos process features 5nm gate oxide, various implants to suppress short channel effects (sce), dual-type polysilicon gates, silicon nitride spacer, titanium silicide, and two metal layers for interconnection. copper nodules for quilt packaging (qp) are fabricated and protrude outside the chips to provide fast off-chip interconnection speed for the cmos circuitry. each die contains twelve individual qp chips that can be soldered together with another qp chips from the same wafer or another wafer with a different process, to achieve the ultimate high performance system integration. attentional selection is driven by a complex interplay between endogenous cues (e.g., words or symbols indicating the likely identities or locations of task-relevant objects), exogenous cues (e.g., salient stimulus features such as unique motion or color), and past experience (e.g., selection history). recently, one's interactions with the physical world have also been shown to bias attention. specifically, the sense of agency that arises when our actions cause predictable outcomes to bias our attention toward those things which we control, even when our actions are task-irrelevant or divorced from volitional decision-making. in these three experiments, i investigated how these agency-driven attentional biases interact with other drivers of attentional selection. participants controlled the movement of one object while others moved independently. in a subsequent search task, targets that were previously controlled were found faster than those that were not. this benefit of agency augmented effects of valid endogenous cues as well as effects of selection history. moreover, agency effects were observed when endogenous and exogenous cues as well as historical information contradicted current goals. thus, agency does not lose informative value when other additional drivers of selection are simultaneously available. most conventional data structures and data analysis methods were designed with simple transaction data in mind. however, data miners are increasingly presented with more complex datasets that have embedded within them some relationships or dependencies. incorporating these relationships into the data mining process can pose both algorithmic as well as computational challenges, but there is also a tremendous opportunity to leverage them as an additional source of information. indeed, we believe that there is relational structure in every dataset, which can be exploited for analysis and learning if a suitable data representation is used. in this dissertation, we take a look at the world through a 'network lens', that is, we advocate the use of networks for representing and analyzing complex datasets from various domains. first, we propose a methodological advance in the form of a novel algorithm for identifying community structure in networks that is relevant across many domains. second, we present applications wherein we impose the network view on datasets that do not contain explicit relationships and show how the 'network lens' brings into focus some interesting and potentially useful patterns in the data. specifically, in climate science we demonstrate the value of networks as a unified framework for descriptive analysis and predictive modeling, which has led to some novel insights in the domain. the lotka-volterra model for population dynamics is used to study the controllability and evolutionary trajectories of large, complex communities. a simple geometric interpretation for modifying interactions to displace the equilibrium abundance of communities towards some desired state is derived. it is possible to change communities with high specificity by modifying multiple interactions. on the slower evolutionary timescale, a mean-field adaptive dynamics model is used to predict the analytical trajectory of the community. this effective model averages over the noisy mutation-invasion events to provide an analytically tractable scheme representing local evolutionary behaviors. the two analytical frameworks presented can be used for (short) population dynamic and (long) evolutionary timescales. the biometric menagerie, or biometric zoo, is a classification system used to label the matching tendencies of a given subject?s biometric signature. these tendencies may include matching their own signatures poorly or matching other subjects? signatures better than their own. several experiments show the biometric menagerie to be an unstable classification system where subjects frequently change class labels. in an attempt to improve the stability of the biometric menagerie, existing score normalization techniques are expanded to create covariate f-normalization (covf-norm). when the normalization methods are applied to the biometric menagerie, the classification system remains unstable and unreliable for practical use with subject-specific thresholding. the new normalization method, covf-norm, is also shown to be algorithm independent and data set independent unlike the biometric menagerie which is dependent on both the algorithm and data set. covf-norm is shown to significantly improve performance when compared to the standard f-normalization technique?s equal error rate. an experiment has been designed and executed by the author with the support of a university of notre dame based research group to study boundary layer transition over a 7° half-angle right circular cone coupled to a 70° swept fin in mach 6 flow. particular interest was given to the swept fin portion of the model which creates a boundary layer conducive to the crossflow instability. infrared thermography was used to assess surface heating caused by stationary boundary layer disturbances. pressure transducers were embedded in the surface of the fin to capture non-stationary boundary layer disturbance. the model was tested over a range of reynolds numbers and cone nose tip bluntness. strong evidence of the stationary crossflow instability was found at the highest tested reynolds number with the most blunt nose tip applied. discrete roughness elements were then used to delay the onset of boundary layer transition by forcing a less amplified stationary mode. pressure sensors were able to pick up on non-stationary boundary layer disturbances of several frequencies. a 117 khz disturbance was found to have characteristics consistent with the travelling crossflow instability. finally these experiments were conducted concurrently with computations performed by the computational stability and transition (cst) lab at texas a&amp;m university and comparisons were made between experimental and computational results. this research is framed around five questions. the questions are: what is poverty? why is africa so poor? who are the victims of poverty and who is a person? how do we recover the full personhood of the poor? how do we translate the theology on the recovery of the full personhood of the poor to social policy?with the framing of the first and second questions, it is obvious that the interest of this research is poverty, and its context is africa. however, the framing of the third question is not quite expressive about the field of the research. the type of personhood that interests this research is philosophical and theological, that is, philosophical and christian personalism. as such, this research is a project in philosophy and theology of the person. the fourth question shows that this project will transition from describing the person to proposing the theology that recovers the full person hood of the poor. it implies that this project understands poverty as that which undermines the person of the poor. and the fifth question captures the intent of this project to transition theology into social policy on poverty. a chemical vapor deposition/infiltration reactor used to manufacture carbon aircraft brakes has been simulated numerically. this simulation accounts for a homogeneous gas reaction mechanism as well as a heterogeneous surface reaction mechanism. non-boussinesq equations are used to predict fluid flow, heat transfer, and species concentrations inside the reactor and porous brakes. a time-splitting algorithm is used to overcome stiffness associated with the reactions. a commercial code is used to solve for the convection/diffusion step while an implicit time-integration algorithm is used to solve for the reaction step. results showing the flow, temperature and concentration fields, as well as the deposition rate of carbon, are presented.the direct solution of large scale coupled nonlinear differential algebraic equations (dae) is extremely difficult if not impossible to obtain. moreover, such solution is beyond the capability of present computers for unsteady and multidimensional problems that include, multi-species, gas phase as well as surface chemicalreactions, and surface to surface radiation. therefore, we propose an integration procedure that employs the projection (fractional-step) method for the solution of the momentum equation.this method is based on operator decomposition where the pressure is obtained by solving a poisson equation followed by a projection or correction step for the velocity field so that it satisfies the conservation of mass equation. in addition we use a symmetric strang operator-splitting algorithm to overcome stiffness that arises from chemical reactions. non-uniform, variable-density fields, resulting from compressibility effects in turbulent flows, are the source of aero-optical distortions which cause significant reductions in optical system performance. as a laser beam transverses through an optically active medium, containing index-of-refraction variations, several optical phenomena occur including beam wander, image distortion, and beam defocus. when encountering a variation in the index field, light waves refract causing an otherwise planar wavefront of a laser beam to become aberrated, contributing to the adverse effects mentioned above. adaptive-optics (ao) is a technique used to correct for such spatially and temporally varying aberrations on an optical beam by applying a conjugate waveform correction prior to the beams transmission through the flow. conventional ao systems are bandwidth limited by real-time processing issues and wavefront sensor limitations. therefore, an alternative to the conventional ao approach has been proposed, developed and evaluated with the goal of overcoming such bandwidth limitations. the alternative ao system, presented throughout this document, consists of two main features; feed-forward flow control and a phase-locked-loop ao control strategy. initially irregular, unpredictable large-scale structures within a shear layer are regularized using flow control. subsequently, the resulting optical wavefront, and corresponding optical signal, emerging from the regularized flow becomes more periodic and predictable effectively reducing the bandwidth necessary to make real-time corrections. a phase-lock-loop controller is then used to perform real-time corrections. wavefront corrections are estimated based upon the regularized flow, while two small aperture laser beams provide a non-intrusive means of acquiring amplitude and phase error measurements. the phase-lock-loop controller uses these signals as feedback to synchronize the deformable mirror's waveform to that of the shear layer by adjusting its amplitude and phase. a third-order analog phase-lock-loop controller has been designed and a prototype board assembled; the higher order controller was designed to accommodate for any step and ramp changes in phase. the control system was assessed and validated through numerical simulations. the prototype controller was then constructed and several experimental tests were run using a function generator signal as the input. the frequency and phase of the input signal was varied throughout the testing process and the phase-lock-loop controller was able to successfully synchronize its output signal with the changing sinusoidal input. this work represents a key step in the successful development of an automated ao controller capable of applying real-time corrections to an optical beam for high-speed aero-optic applications. no abstract available employing an engaged, integrative anthropological framework, this dissertation investigated how the covid-19 pandemic impacted people's ability to feed themselves and their families, how consumption becomes embodied, and how external, structural factors such as crises affect and inform how people make nutritious choices. this research provides a grounded ethnographic and biocultural example of how people protect their bodies via their thoughts, perceptions, and behavior regarding food in order to make sense of the changing sociocultural world around them. as such, this dissertation expands our understanding of how people make sense of, choose, and embody necessary objects, like food, in rapidly changing contexts.this dissertation advances and adds nuance to our understanding of the food as a form of ethnomedicine as well as people's decision and meaning making surrounding food choice during the covid-19 pandemic. this research evaluated how people's perceptions became embodied by analyzing nutritional data collected from both prior to and during the pandemic using mixed anthropological methodologies. this dissertation additionally brings to light an ethnographicallyand methodologically-rich view of insect eating that complicates the ways in which people—those who have historically and culturally consumed insects as well as those new and apprehensive of the practice—view and conceptualize insects as food. as a whole, this dissertation brings together a comprehensive, integrative investigation of nutritional habits to operationalize what it means to go beyond nourishment—viewing food not just as something to eat, but as a bridge between lived realities and local biologies assisting people in making sense of the world around them, especially amidst unprecedented change. this thesis presents a general-purpose software defined radio architecture, surfer, which has been designed to allow for dynamic modification of system behavior during runtime. surfer leverages commodity processing devices such as those on a typical laptop to allow heterogeneous processing. this heterogeneity is enabled through the use of one or more signal processing implementations, or flavors, per block. each flavor can target a different processing device, and flavors can be swapped during runtime without interrupting data flow. two waveform programming interfaces are provided that can be intermixed for waveform definition: traditional block-centric programming, and a buffer-centric approach such as that found in matlab. within a waveform graph consisting of processing blocks, each connection is a buffer that holds the data being generated by one block and consumed by others. each connection is paired with a threshold on the amount of data in the buffer, and is used for scheduling. runtime statistics allow a system supervisor to assist in mapping and scheduling, dynamically during runtime, in order to meet waveform requirements. this work demonstrates that it is both possible and useful to implement dynamic reconfiguration, mapping, and scheduling during runtime on commodity hardware, entirely in software. these capabilities are demonstrated via an ofdm transmitter implementation. the radionuclide 129i, with a half-life of 15.7×10^6 years, is naturally produced on earth through cosmic-ray-induced reactions on xenon in the atmosphere and spontaneous fission of uranium. the natural production is significantly less than the amount that has been released by the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. 129i can move efficiently through the environment, and because it has an effectively point-like release from nuclear fuel reprocessing centers, 129i represents a potentially powerful environmental tracer. for this ability to be realized, the distribution of 129i in the environment needs to be measured previous measurements have focused on reprocessing centers and nuclear disaster sites, leaving large areas unmeasured. this inspired the collon group to contribute data on 129i content in the great lakes region, measured by accelerator mass spectrometry using the time-of-flight method. two mcp detectors were used to obtain adequate timing resolution for discrimination against 127i, the primary contaminant in 129i measurement. samples were collected throughout michigan and measured for their 129i content. following the measurement, potential methods for improving the ams system for 129i measurement were identified for future development, both in terms of sample preparation and technical developments that can improve the ease and consistency of an 129i measurement. a new challenge in robotics is the development of humanoids, which are robots that assume an anthropomorphic form. a difficulty with humanoid design is the kinematic interpretation of human joints and the development of mechanisms that can mimic human motion. the focus of this work is the development of a kinematic description of the shoulder-elbow complex. the coupling that exists between the shoulder movement and the orientation of the elbow joint is quantified. a mechanism capable of reproducing this coupling is introduced along with the procedural method utilized to determine the variables needed to enforce the couplings that exist within the human shoulder-elbow complex. experimental results are presented highlighting the accuracy of this mechanism along with the similarities to human configurations. the first century of the british museum library and its reading room (1753-1860) illustrates the political, economic, and social considerations that were changing the larger british society, both in small scale (as in purchasing changes in the wake of the french revolution) and in large scale (as in the submerging of aristocratic authority in a democratizing period). i will investigate this evolution in order to trace three main movements and their larger relevance. framed by the models of jurgen habermas' and mary poovey, and following a roughly chronological line, i will examine the continued influence of the aristocratic interests in what was an increasingly liberal institution. this influence plays out in admissions policies as well as government financial support. those permitted access to the british museum library under the parameters so created included many of the leading figures of the victorian age as well as autodidacts of all classes. this conglomeration within the reading room constituted a unique type of crowd, and i end my paper with a discussion of the tension within such a gathering and its depiction in literature and art of the period. this dissertation presents a normative intellectual history of the development of religious toleration in the latin west. in the middle ages, canon lawyers and theologians provided biblical justifications for tolerating unbelievers within their societies. during the crusades, however, a doctrine of missionary warfare justifying religious coercion for the purpose of punishing idolatry gained currency thus violating toleration as a political and ecclesiastical norm. out of this crucible a stronger doctrine of natural freedom and natural rights for infidels emerged, which became the basis for sixteenth-century spanish dominican arguments in defense of amerindian rights and peaceful evangelization. according to the spanish dominicans, most notably bartolom de las casas, freedom, property, and political rule were protected by the theological doctrine of the image of god, which provided the objective safeguard for the subjective rights of individual persons and communities on the basis of natural equality. their peaceful ethic of evangelization and use of the principle of toleration challenged and constrained the centuries-old doctrine and practice of religious wars against idolaters. the culmination of these opposed doctrines of religious coercion and religious toleration in the sixteenth century surfaced at the valladolid debate from 1550 to 1551 between las casas and his principal adversary, juan gin s de sep lveda.this dissertation examines the broad corpus of las casas' writings throughout his life to make the claim that his legal theory of religious toleration, which was wedded to a doctrine of natural rights for believers and unbelievers alike, provided a compelling justification for what came to be understood as the most important of human freedoms' immunity from coercion in religious matters. for believers, the freedom to preach meant greater ecclesiastical immunity from the material interests of the crown and the authority to reform gravely sinful practices among christians. for unbelievers, the right to freedom in religious matters meant immunity from the political judgments of christians. las casas' theory of religious toleration offered an unprecedented defense of religious rights for persons in error. but it also identified limits to toleration in the case of human sacrifice thereby rescuing his view from moral relativism. overall, the inseparability of the doctrine of infidel rights from the christian legal theory of religious toleration among spanish scholastic jurists generated a normative ideal that remains constitutive of a theological vision of human rights today: preaching the gospel to all persons demands the genuine freedom of those persons and the struggle, even sacrifice, on the part of christians, to protect it. this dissertation focuses on developing novel density-based topology optimization frameworks and optimization algorithms that can be used to obtain optimal structural designs while consistently incorporating the physics associated with higher-order continuum theories and inelastic constitutive models with plasticity/damage effects. following are the key contributions of this thesis: novel dual sequential approximation (dsa) algorithms for design variable updating are proposed for topology/structural optimization problems. these algorithms are demonstrated to have better performance on solving the benchmark problems. higher-order continuum theories – including the elasticity with microstructure, gradient elasticity and staggered gradient elasticity theories – are incorporated into the density-based topology optimization frameworks. these enhanced optimization frameworks can be used to design systems where material length-scale effects are prominent. a topology optimization framework is proposed for design of energy absorbing elastoplastic systems under cyclic loads. in particular, the bauschinger effect in materials under cyclic loads is considered using kinematic hardening rules. a unified framework for nonlinear path-dependent sensitivity analysis is developed that allows for consistent and accurate design sensitivity calculations with various inelastic models. the optimized designs demonstrate that bauschinger effect has significant influence on the optimized topologies, and the designs are sensitive to the applied cyclic loading history. damage constrained topology optimization frameworks are proposed with the aim of optimally controlling the damage evolution in material during the elastoplastic energy dissipation process. uncoupled, coupled and nonlocal elastoplastic-damage models are considered in the proposed topology optimization frameworks with the aim of balancing computational robustness and response accuracy. effectiveness of the proposed frameworks is demonstrated through numerical examples, and the influence of adding damage constraints on the optimized designs is evaluated by parametric studies. it is envisaged that the proposed topology optimization frameworks will lay the foundations for the next-generation of design methods wherein accurate physics of a system response is consistently considered and incorporated in the topology optimization design process. sequential decision making under uncertainties in a complex and changing environment is a crucial research area with many practical applications, such as autonomous driving, human-robot interaction, multi-robot tasking and so on. most of the existing results focus on the strategy that assigns a single action at each decision time that (approximately) optimizes some performance metric. however, in many applications, especially the ones that are safety critical, achieving the given task in a provably correct manner is preferred or even required, where optimizing a utility function may not be adequate. my ph.d. dissertation is motivated by such a need to build a correct-by-design framework that considers permissive controllers, unknown models and privacy preservation in the model of markov decision process (mdp). the work in this dissertation is multidisciplinary by nature and integrates automata theory, supervisory control, machine learning, and robotics. the goal is to establish a fundamental understanding of design principles in systems modeled as mdps and to develop adaptive, scalable and provably correct solutions for diverse applications. in particular, my research utilizes control theory, formal methods, optimization, machine learning, and stochasticity.starting with counterexample-guided permissive supervisor synthesis given a formal specification, an iterative learning framework is established for both single and multiple agents. to reduce the verification complexity, abstraction based assume-guarantee framework is applied. then we move on to consider the controller synthesis problem when the mdp model is not known with human-robot collaboration as the motivating example. through mathematical derivation, the procedure to learn the model while guarantee that the optimal controller based on the learned model is approximately optimal with a high confidence level is summarized in an algorithm. then we go on to consider the privacy problem in mdp control, which first makes use of the existing notion of opacity and later we propose our own notion defined in the belief state. numerical and abstraction based methods are proposed. the synthesized controllers are guaranteed to satisfy or optimally satisfy the given specification while preserving the secret from being detected. iejimalides are a novel family of marine macrolides shown to be active against cancer cells in vitro that inhibit vacuolar h+-atpase (v-atpase) activity in osteoclast cells. iejimalide b (iej b) arrests cells in g1or s-phase of the cell cycle and induces apoptosis in a cell-line specific manner. multiple genes in the p53 cell cycle arrest/cell death pathway are induced upon treatment by iej b, suggesting that apoptosis is mediated by a p53-dependent mechanism. iej a and b prevent acidification of lysosomes and depolarize mitochondria and induce reactive oxygen species production in a time-dependent manner. mitochondrial depolarization is augmented by cyclosporin a treatment, suggesting an autophagic response to iej b. iej b is not an inhibitor of atp synthase (f-atpase) as measured by oxygen consumption of rat heart mitochondria in the presence of adp. at least one target of atm/atr phosphorylation is de-phosphorylated in pc-3 prostate cancer cells in the presence of iej b, suggesting a block in cell cycle progression at the intra-s-phase checkpoint. this arrest is irreversible in the aggressive pc-3 cell line. iej a/b induce s-phase arrest in several cell lines regardless of p53 status, suggesting that this effect of iej a/b is p53-independent. cho-a8 cells, which re-duplicate their centrioles under conditions of prolonged s-phase arrest, maintain normal centriole numbers when arrested by iej a/b. iejimalides appear to have unique effects on cancer cells and should be further developed as anti-cancer agents. typically small angle neutron scattering (sans) experiments on the vortex lattice of type ii superconductors measures only the first order bragg reflections. if higher order bragg reflections are measured they are simply ignored. in our study, the measured higher order bragg reflections allow us to perform a more comprehensive data analysis with minimum theoretical input. we have performed sans experiments on the non-magnetic members, yni2b2c and luni2b2c and the magnetic member, tmni2b2c of the rare-earth nickel borocarbide family of superconductors. with an unprecedented number of reflections observed, we are able to analysis the vortex lattice form factors in a model free fashion to calculate the magnetic field modulation. luni2b2c displayed highest number of observed bragg reflections where up to the (32) reflection was measured. with our model free analysis of the magnetic field modulation, we compare our results with numerical calculation based on the quasiclassical eilenberger theory performed by ichioka et. al. our results are most consistent with an anisotropic superconducting gap, either d-wave or anisotropic s-wave. the magnetic field reconstruction in all three materials studied are consistent and robust. while the absolute values of the field does change with variation of the form factors, the overall features do not change. the radius of the vortex core, defined as the maximum in the superconducting screening current, was calculated and agreed reasonably with coherence length measurements. the current around the vortex displayed a four-fold anisotropy which is typical of the borocarbides. the vortex lattice was measured in both square and rhombic unit cell symmetries. a symmetrization of the rhombic unit cell to square unit cell shows no appreciable change in the magnetic field reconstruction. with measurements done on both magnetic and non-magnetic borocarbides, we are able to estimate the interaction between magnetism and superconductivity on the measured vortex lattice form factors in tmni2b2c. this thesis examines the relationships among members of the chlorite dismutase (cld) heme protein family, focusing on sequence, structural, and functional characterization of two highly distinct chlorite dismutases from divergent phyla. the name "chlorite dismutase" refers to the heme-facilitated conversion of chlorite (clo2-) to chloride (cl-) and o2, a remarkable reaction in that cld is the only well-characterized enzyme, aside from photosystem ii, capable of o-o bond generation. the cld from dechloromonas aromatica (dacld) is a homopentamer that very rapidly and efficiently generates oxygen from chlorite. interestingly, cld homologues are found among 10 diverse phyla, suggesting ancient origins for the family. the handful of clds from known perchlorate respirers group closely in protein-based phylogenetic analysis, which could be indicative of an evolutionary response to a relatively recent pollutant, chlorite. the majority of clds are not expected to respire perchlorate, leaving a vast amount of relevant bacterial genome unexplored with respect to gene product function. in order to explore cld diversity, cld homolog proteins from the gram-positive firmicutes staphylococcus aureus (sa) and the gram-negative proteobacterium klebsiella pneumoniae (kp), two very different types of bacteria, were functionally characterized. both sa and kp eskape pathogens, drug-resistant bacteria that increasingly escape the effect of antibiotics and account for about 2/3 of all hospital-acquired infections, so gene product characterization for these particular bacteria has the potential for eventual organism-specific antimicrobial applications. the active site of kpcld very closely resembles that of dacld but the protein is a dimer, while sacld is a homopentamer like dacld but lacks the distal arg critical for the cld reaction. these two proteins were expressed, purified with bound heme, and studied through a wide array of bioinformatics and biochemical techniques. furthermore, their corresponding gene knockouts were constructed and their phenotypes studied in parallel. bioinformatic, biochemical, and genetic studies showed that sacld, or sahemq, lacks cld activity, instead playing a critical role in the heme biosynthesis pathway, particularly in the final few steps. knockout growth curves, metabolite analyses, and reactivity studies, among others, provided evidence that sacld is likely not a direct enzyme in the pathway, but rather serves as an iron, heme, or redox sensor that is able to influence the collaborative activity of protoporphyrinogen oxidase and ferrochelatase, the final two enzymes in the heme biosynthetic pathway. in stark contrast to this functionality is kpcld, a protein that performs the cld reaction despite lacking both a perchlorate reductase and a biological need by the organism to metabolize perchorate. instead, kpcld has been shown to be capable of reductant oxidation (specifically, abts) and chlorination upon chlorite addition, and the cld reaction can be controlled by the presence (or absence) of o2 as well as by concentration of abts. overall, this thesis provides insight into the functional diversity of the cld family by examining two distinct representative cld proteins. in order to look beyond only the sequence-based phylogeny of the cld family, a more integrated approach has been taken that marries both sequence and structural information for functional study. in a dynamic spectrum access system, radios seek robust communications in a communication channel with unknown interfering signals. cooperative distributed spectrum access radios provide a way to share the spectrum without prior knowledge of other radios' spectrum occupancy. competitive distributive spectrum access radios provide a solution to deal with malicious radios using the same spectrum. in this thesis, both cooperative and competitive distributed spectrum access radios are designed and implemented. strategies for the cooperative and competitive distributed spectrum access system are proposed and analyzed. a packet management system is especially designed to deal with feedback and packet management for the dynamic spectrum access system. this thesis proposed a new spectrum sensing technique based on the statistical characteristics of the mean and standard deviation of interference signal energy across frequency. a tdd system based on the gnu radio software and the ettus universal software radio peripheral usrp n210 hardware is also analyzed and implemented. experiments demonstrate that all the components can achieve their design goals and the cooperative distributed spectrum access system can cooperate well with radios running the same protocol. louis vierne, organist at the cathedral of notre dame in paris from 1900 until his death, composed six organ symphonies over the course of his career, and it is primarily for these works that he is remembered. the sixième symphonie pour orgue, op. 59 was composed during the summer of 1930, at which time vierne also began sketches of a seventh symphony. however, these sketches were never completed, leaving the sixth symphony as vierne's last contribution to the genre. this project attempts to analyze the sixth symphony, proposing the work as the culmination of vierne's compositional style as represented in his organ symphonies. detailed analysis of the work will reveal this style to consist of a synthesis of aspects of impressionism, dodecaphony, traditional elements such as sonata form, and nineteenth century methods such as cyclic treatment and thematic transformation. in a virtuosic masterpiece influenced by both classicism and romanticism, vierne's inclusion of aspects of dodecaphony and impressionism marks the entrance of the genre of the organ symphony into the twentieth century. highly selective ion separations are vital in producing raw materials for manufacturing lithium-ion batteries, high-flux magnets, catalytic converters, and many other functional products. this dissertation explores an ion-separation mechanism based on counter-flow electromigration in isoporous membranes. in this mechanism, movement of ions due to an electrical potential gradient opposes their advective flux in a solution flowing through membrane pores. for ions with especially high electrical mobilities, electromigration results in a net flux that approaches zero, whereas ions with lower mobilities pass through the membrane to create high selectivity.remarkably, in dilute solutions the electrical potential gradient needed for these separations arises spontaneously during flow through pores containing sufficient surface charge. pressure-driven flow through negatively charged membranes yields a streaming potential that creates a cation electromigration flux that opposes advection and gives high selectivities among cations that have different electrical mobilities. in track-etched polycarbonate membranes with 30 nm pores, pressure-driven flow spontaneously yields li+/k+ selectivities as high as 70 at around 50% li+ passage. however, to achieve this selectivity the ionic strength in the feed solution needs to be low (0.2 mm), and significant concentration polarization can dramatically reduce selectivity. typical natural aqueous resources have ionic strengths that are orders of magnitude &gt; 0.2 mm, and in such solutions the spontaneous streaming potentials are too weak to effectively separate cations. the use of electrodes to provide the counter-flow electric field, rather than relying on streaming potentials, expands the applicability of counter-flow electromigration to monovalent ion separations in 0.3 m ionic strength solutions and gives li+/k+ selectivities above 100. however, the energy cost is high due to low current efficiency. most membrane-based ion separations exploit differences in the size, charge, dehydration energy, and chemical affinity of various ions. this dissertation demonstrates that opposing flow and electromigration is also a viable approach for separating ions with significantly different mobilities. the influx of refugees around the world has been increasing exponentially these last years, and refugee assistance became a plight. current aid and relief agencies' approach to refugee assistance primarily parallels maslow's hierarchy of needs theory that prioritizes fulfilling biological and physical needs over psychological, psychosocial, and spiritual needs. i argue that maslow's hierarchy of needs theory presents needs in a static progression, as if the satisfaction of needs was linearly determined, and furthermore ignores the value of psychological, psychosocial, and spiritual needs as basic human needs inherent to human dignity. moreover, i challenge the aid and relief agencies' approach to refugee assistance as negating refugees' ultimate concerns and mastery over their life. the indignities generated by this neglect of refugees' basic needs are in a permanent interaction, creating a general malaise characterized by depletion of purpose, the energy of which leads refugees into a problematic reentry into everyday life and purpose. in the long term, i argue that neglecting refugees' voices and ignoring their psychological, psychosocial, and spiritual needs results in a cycle of indignity during the encampment process, and also portends readjustment problems following repatriation or resettlement.i then problematize both this hierarchy as well as aid and relief agencies' approach to refugee assistance through ethnographic research on the dynamic relationship between well-being and satisfaction of needs/worries among refugees (n=49) from the great lakes region refuges living in kakuma refugee camp, kenya. data analysis of interviews and participation observation suggested a complex process in which lower attention and/or neglect paid to refugees' voices, and their non-biological/physical needs resulted in long-term to decline of well-being, including a general malaise. this in turn fed back into and affected bio-physical well-being, and resulted in an overall observed depletion of purpose, creating a legacy of indignity. based on my findings, i suggest that relief providers understand that psychological, psychosocial, and spiritual needs are as important as bio-physical needs. furthermore, it is only when humans come to grasp with their own dignity that they are capable of making their life useful. hence, i provide a dignity approach to refugee assistance, an alternative approach to maslow, wherein human physical, biological, psychological, psychosocial, and spiritual needs are interconnected and interdependent i.e., they influence and complete each other in a dynamic web of intersections and interactions. in the mathematical part, we focus on computability-theoretic issues concerning models of first-order peano arithmetic (pa). in chapter 2, we investigate the complexity of m-diagrams of models of various completions of pa. we obtain characterizations that extend solovay's results for open diagrams of models of completions of pa. in chapter 3, we characterize sequences of turing degrees that occur as {deg(t cap sigma_n: ninomega}, where t is a completion of pa. in chapter 4, we answer three questions asked by j. knight concerning potential simplifications to solovay's results. we show that these simplifications cannot be made, by proving some new independence results. in chapter 5, we extend those independence results, using methods from higher recursion theory. in the philosophical part, we focus on purity constraints in mathematics. a proof is pure, roughly, if it uses methods `close' or `akin' to the statement being proved. we consider three different types of purity, which we call systematic, elementary and cognitive purity. systematic purity, which we study in chapters 7 and 8, has roots in aristotle's views concerning scientific knowledge. elementary purity, which we study in chapters 9 through 12, has roots in pappus' work in geometry, in descartes' work in both geometry and epistemology, and in hilbert's foundational work. cognitive purity, which we discuss in chapter 13, has roots in kant's distinctions between philosophical and mathematical cognition, and between different sources of knowledge. we explain in detail what are each of the types of purity, consider what epistemic benefits are conferred by restricting ourselves to pure proofs, and discuss the consequences of apparent violations of these constraints in mathematical practice. predicting effective material properties of nonlinear heterogeneous materials from the knowledge of its microstructure through numerical modeling and computational homogenization (ch) has many applications in engineering design. direct numerical modeling (dnm) using finite element method (fem) is capable of predicting material behavior accurately. unfortunately, dnm and/or ch are computationally expensive methods. to address the computational complexity issue, many researchers have focused on reduced order modeling. however, most of the available schemes are only suited for linear and moderately nonlinear behavior in 2d setting. moreover, these techniques do not preserve local micro-scale fields in localization processes and cannot accommodate generic loading conditions. addressing these shortcomings, this doctoral work presents a robust reduced order modeling technique for heterogeneous materials with nonlinear hyper-elastic constitutive behavior in a finite strain setting. the model is not only capable of predicting homogenized (overall) material properties, but also recovers the micro-fields (i.e., the local deformation gradients) with acceptable accuracy. in the present work, a novel manifold based reduced order model has been developed for nonlinear hyperelastic materials utilizing advanced machine learning techniques. this data-driven model can perform well in comparison with traditional ch.proposed technique extracts the pattern in the solution manifold, which consists of an ordered set of microscale deformation fields. each point on the manifold represents data obtained from a detailed parallel finite element simulation of a representative microstructure. since essential micro-fields are invariant of macro-rotations, the parameter space is created based on the macro-scale stretch tensor, which is parameterized by three principal stretches and three rotation parameters which represent the corresponding principal directions. this parametrization leads to a 6-dimensional loading space. also a novel pattern/physics based sampling strategy has been introduced to construct a representative solution manifold with a few number of simulations. this graph-based technique essentially explores the rotational (principal direction) sensitivity (in terms of an approximate diameter of the submanifold) of the principal stretch vector with a few number of fe solutions and guides to achieve a representative hd manifold by eliminating the redundant expensive simulations. in this work, a global dimension reduction technique, isomap, is used to understand the underlying pattern of the submanifolds. isomap returns a reduced low-dimensional euclidean space which approximately unfolds the hd manifold by preserving the geodesic distances. next, a map between the reduced space and the macroscopic loading conditions has been established using a neural network. finally, the micro-scale deformation field is obtained through a nonparametric regression model by exploiting the concept of reproducing kernel hilbert space (rkhs). this novel reduced order model is able to predict the macro-scale as well as micro-scale deformation field for any unknown loading condition without any expensive simulation. furthermore, this model potentially can accelerate the traditional ch by providing an initial solution vector. accumulating evidence has shown the presence of embryonic stem cell programs in cancer cells that contribute to aggressive malignancy. to strategically identify relevant embryonic-like mechanisms exploited by cancer cells, we performed mass spectrometry of the cell surface proteome of human induced pluripotent stem cells (ips cells) and breast cancer cells to find surface molecules shared by both cell types. plakoglobin was identified as a target of high significance for its reported importance in circulating tumor cell (ctc) clusters of breast cancer. moreover, as a homolog of β-catenin, plakoglobin has also been described to be involved in signaling pathways essential for both cancer cells and stem cells. however, how plakoglobin affects cancer aggressiveness, and whether it plays an important role in maintaining stem cell functions, remains unclear. here, we report that plakoglobin is overexpressed in cancer stem cell populations of breast cancer, as well as ips cells compared to their parental somatic cells. overexpression of plakoglobin resulted in elevated cell-cell adhesion, as well as motility, in both breast cancer cells and ips cells. furthermore, overexpression of plakoglobin in both cell types led to increased resistance to apoptosis by alleviating rho/rock activity through increased cell adhesion. our findings establish a novel role for plakoglobin in regulating cell behavior and survival in cancer and stem cells, and suggest that an embryonic-like mechanism of plakoglobin may be exploited by cancer cells to provide a survival advantage to overcome anoikis during metastasis. the paralleled studies in ips cells provide insights into future mechanistic inquiries of tumor progression, and thus new potential avenues for therapeutic target discoveries towards the long-term goals of preventing cancer metastasis and relapse. this dissertation proposes new methodologies for the supervisory control of concurrent systems. the focus of this work is on discrete-event concurrent systems. however, the extension of the discrete-event methods to concurrent systems with continuous dynamics is also approached. petri nets are a convenient discrete-event representation of concurrent systems, and are used here for the modeling of concurrent systems. several discrete-event supervisory control problems are approached here. first, the enforcement of specifications described as linear inequalities in terms of three petri net parameters is considered. then, the decentralized supervisory control problem is considered for specifications described by linear marking inequalities. the decentralized supervision problem is approached in three settings: no communication, unrestricted communication, and restricted communication. finally, procedures for deadlock prevention and liveness enforcement are presented. additionally, new results relating deadlock and liveness to the structure of a petri net are also presented. the main feature of the supervision methods proposed in this dissertation is that they rely on the structure of the petri net. this structural approach has computational benefits and allows the supervisor design to be independent of the initial state of the system. the methods are given in a general supervision setting, which makes no assumptions on the structure of the petri nets and allows partial controllability and partial observability to be present. this dissertation addresses also the supervisory control problem in the more general framework of hybrid systems, that is, systems involving both discrete-event and continuous dynamics. a two-level approach is proposed. the lower level design is concerned with the development of controllers for the continuous part of the hybrid systems. the higher level design is concerned with the design of a supervisor coordinating the operation of the lower level controllers, according to given discrete-event specifications. at the higher level the controlled hybrid systems are abstracted as petri nets. petri net methodologies can then be applied to design the appropriate supervisor. the discrete-event setting here is extended to model some of the hard constraints arising in the supervision of hybrid systems. extensions of discrete-event methods to this setting are also approached. finally, the controller design at the lower level is considered in a discrete-time setting. the controller design produces both a controller and a petri net abstraction for the higher level. this dissertation aims to contribute to the automated design of controllers for complex systems. this work is believed to be relevant for applications in a variety of areas, including automated manufacturing, robotics, computer networks, and traffic control. tumor necrosis factor alpha (tnf-ì_å±) and nitric oxide synthase 2 (nos2) are crucial in the control of mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. previous studies have shown that murine macrophages produce lower levels of tnf-ì_å± and nos2 following infection with pathogenic mycobacteria compared to non-pathogenic mycobacteria. here we compare the virulent (h37rv) and avirulent (h37ra) isogenic strains of m. tuberculosis and their ability to activate tnf-ì_å± and nos2 at a transcriptional level. we determined that macrophages infected with h37rv compared to h37ra and m. smegmatis showed diminished tnf-ì_å± and nos2 promoter activity. differences in the ability of the isogenic strains to activate the transcription factors ets/elk and nf-ì_å¼b were also observed. the reduced ability of h37rv to activate ets/elk correlates with diminished tnf-ì_å± production by infected cells relative to cells infected with h37ra. this work demonstrates that virulent m. tuberculosis is capable of modulating the host immune response at a transcriptional level. 'the allegory of peace and war' (national gallery, london) by peter paul rubens was painted as a gift for king charles i during the artist's diplomatic sojourn in england from 1629 to 1630. it is generally conceded that the painting was created as a diplomatic gift. 'peace and war' has been understood as a means of celebrating the success of the peace negotiations between spain and england and encouraging charles i to quickly ratify the peace treaty once it was delivered to england. one additional way to think about 'peace and war' is in terms of the beholder, that is, through the lens of reception theory. to his reception of 'peace and war,' charles would have brought his zeal and connoisseurial expertise, his philosophies of sovereignty, and his participation in the gift economy. charles accumulated one of the greatest collections of the seventeenth century and became a connoisseur of venetian renaissance painting, in particular. he was an individual who enjoyed the unraveling of allegory, which is apparent from his participation in court masques. charles' philosophy of statecraft included the advocacy of peace and his role as protector of the realm, the 'parens patriae.' these were ideas that had been passed down to him from his father, king james i of england and iv of scotland. when the painting is examined in its original reception environment, it becomes apparent that the manner of its acquisition would also have affected the way in which charles perceived the painting. it was given as a gift from a spanish envoy, and one who was also an internationally renowned artist. 'peace and war' therefore must be contemplated in the context of gift giving, a practice that charles understood from contemporary philosophies and traditions, and which one can now understand through the seminal work of the anthropologist marcel mauss and those who elaborated upon his theories. the painting would have appealed to the king to take up his role as a bestower of favor and reward. in this respect, the gift of 'peace and war' may have played an important role in rubens receiving the commission for the banqueting house ceiling, where his role as an artist is visible to this day. the objective of this thesis is to explore the context of rubens' opulent 'peace and war' as a gift to a king from a diplomat and artist, and charles' reception of the painting based on his own political ideologies and experience as a collector. the ontong java plateau (ojp) and the hawaiian ridge-emperor seamount chain (hr-esc) are two of the largest volcanic structures on earth. as the ojp covers an area of more than 2 x 10^6, the plateau represents the largest known magmatic event in earth's history. equally impressive, the hr-esc stretches for more than 6,000 km through the north-central pacific ocean. despite the magnitude of these events, the chemistry of significant portions of the ojp and the hr-esc are poorly known to completely unknown. a full understanding of the chemistry of the ojp and the hr-esc is necessary to make realistic models of their formation. major element, trace element, platinum group element (pge), and isotopic ratio analyses have been conducted on samples collected from several locations on both the ojp and the hr-esc using inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy (icp-oes), icp-mass spectrometry (icp-ms), and negative thermal ionization mass spectrometry (ntims). using a combination of the aforementioned analytical techniques, it was discovered the ojp has more geochemical variation than previously recognized, especially at the margins of the plateau. the discovery of a previously unknown lava type from the volcaniclastic succession at site 1184 on the eastern salient of the ojp and more primitive lava types from basaltic crustal xenoliths suggests that further sampling via deep sea drilling is necessary to better understand the complex origins of the worlds largest igneous province. esc seamounts have been assumed to undergo similar stages of development as their younger hawaiian counterparts despite the paucity of non-dredge samples. the investigation of a greater than 300 km thick sequence of basement from nintoku seamount confirms that a typical esc volcano develops in a similar manner to modern hawaiian volcanoes. pge and re/os isotopic work on three esc seamounts suggests that both recycled oceanic crust and outer core material contribute to the overall pge budget in the hawaiian plume but that it requires unusual melting conditions for both sources to manifest themselves. the enolization of ketonic substrates is a cornerstone reaction in modern organic synthesis. the research in this dissertation is split into three main sections, with the investigation of s-block metal enolate chemistry being the underlying theme. the first section focuses on the synthesis and characterization of a series of homoand heterobimetallic potassium and calcium enolates. this set of compounds was generated from the enolization of 2', 4', 6'-trimethylacetophenone using potassium hexamethyldisilazide (khmds) and calcium bis(hexamethyldisilazide) (ca(hmds)2). the section details the crystallographic characterization of a tetrameric potassium enolate, a dimeric amidocalcium enolate, a mixed-metal k/ca amide, a solvent-separated k/ca complex with a [ca(hmds)3]ìâåø anion, and three mixed-metal enolate complexes containing 1:1, 2:1 and 2:2 stoichiometries of k and ca. this set of complexes has allowed a comparison of the bonding between the two periodic neighbors within single complexes. the reactivities of magnesium bis(hexamethyldisilazide) mg(hmds)2, khmds, ca(hmds)2, several mixed-metal k/ca amide combinations in enolization reactions are reported. the second section concentrates on an investigation into the utility of ca(hmds)2 to mediate the enolization of ketonic substrates. these studies demonstrate that ca(hmds)2 clearly deprotonates a variety of ketones in good to quantitative yields under mild conditions. furthermore, this reagent is significantly more reactive than its magnesium analogue, which is a practical advantage. the regioselectivity of this calcium bisamide has been tested by reaction with a series of unsymmetrical ketones. these studies show that ca(hmds)2 is a highly kinetically selective base. the stereoselectivity of the base was also investigated and found to be strongly solvent-dependent. e-enolates are the major products in weakly polar solvents like toluene, while z-enolates are the major products in donor solvents such as thf or pyridine. a group of amidocalcium enolates derived from a subset of the ketones used in the selectivity studies were isolated from various solvent mixtures, and characterized in the solid state. crystallographic analyses revealed the formation for monomers, dimers, and charge-separated complexes. nmr spectroscopic studies in pyridine solution indicate the establishment of complex equilibria between amidocalcium enolate, charge-separated species, bisenolate and bisamide. the final section outlines a detailed mechanistic study for the enolization of propiophenone mediated by mg(hmds)2 in toluene. a combination of nmr spectroscopy, kinetic studies, crystallographic analyses and theoretical investigations has been used to elucidate the mechanism for ketone enolization. this investigation indicates that a key intermediate prior to the enolization is a three-coordinated precomplex formed between the amide and the ketone. a large primary isotope effect indicates that deprotonation is the rate-determining step, and that a tunneling effect may be in operation. from these data, a six-membered transition state has been proposed that aids in rationalizing the observed selectivity of the enolization. the growing occupation and development of low lying coastal areas in combination with the projection for increased flood susceptibility due to rising sea levels and storm climatology suggests a mounting necessity to advance our understanding of coastal and ocean processes and improve our risk assessment and forecasting abilities. presented herein is a treatise on the application and model response sensitivities of coastal and ocean models that solve the diverse and multi-length-, -time-, and -energy-scales of astronomical tides, hurricane storm surge, coastal inundation, and wind-waves. this gulf of mexico region specific study included: 1) a performance assessment in terms of skill and execution speed for leading coastal and ocean models at simulating astronomical tides, hurricane storm surge, coastal inundation, and wind-waves; 2) an investigation of the national weather service's operational forecast model, slosh, with respect to its internal wind model performance and sensitivity to domain size; 3) an evaluation of coastal and ocean model response sensitivity to mesh resolution and wave bottom friction formulation; 4) an analysis of the spatial and temporal contributions of wave radiation stress gradients and non-linear advection terms and a scaling of other components of the shallow water equations; and 5) an examination of the mechanistic role that anthropogenic features, discharge, and wetlands play in the generation and propagation of riverine storm surge. in order to facilitate the improvement of existing and the transition of additional models to operational use, this study seeks to clarify many of the assumptions that are generally made with coastal and ocean modeling, particularly by addressing model sensitivities to aspects of numerical approach, mesh design, parameterization, and physical components. tidal harmonic analyses, hindcasts of hurricane ike (2008) and rita (2005), and a probabilistic ensemble of a suite of historical and hypothetical storms were performed to address both low and high energy processes as well as a diverse range of storm characteristics. in a moment where we've seen wakanda on the big screen, octavia butler is a household name, and colson whitehead has won two pulitzers, black speculation is officially mainstream. while this moment has its excitement, it has its perils as well. what is lost when a historically marginalized genre like black speculative fiction is mainstreamed into a hot commodity? how do we re-center the transformative black feminist vision that characterizes so much of black speculation that is sometimes less popular? what about the nuance it represents? this dissertation examines how black writers and creators have utilized the power of speculation to blur categorization as we know it, moving through and outside of the parochial confines of the white imaginary to expand our perception of everything from what we make of blackness and black womanhood to what speculative fiction is.i focus primarily on black femme-centric speculative narratives that combine the black femme body with non-human elements to illuminate both the way black womanhood is assumed to be less than human and how it provides us with new political allegories by way of characters that redefine and reclaim themselves using their own agency. i also read these texts and characters through a critical lens that not only acknowledges the epistemological barring of the black femme subject from the category of human, but also overlaps the lenses of afro-pessimism, afrofuturism, and other lines of black thought in a way that highlights their importance as a collective body of work that informs black speculation now rather than posing them against each other. reading characterslike cora from the underground railroad, maeve from westworld, and even the infamous marvel comics hero storm, i attempt to read various types of black womanhood through the lens of black speculation to demonstrate not only its breadth and meaning, but also how it is further complicated by gender and medium.this project not only examines how black speculation has transformed itself and its meaning in the wake of its mainstream success, but also explores what the interaction between blackness and technology in the genre means regarding the phenomenology of the black body. by focusing on a variety of cultural texts—fictional novels, television, film, comics, and visual art—i aim to create a sense of how these narratives work together to construct a new sort of black imaginary in popular culture, unburdened by an emphasis on white authorship. the interdisciplinary nature of this inquiry highlights the interrelationship between these popular cultural modes to create a valid site from which black women can fabulate their own identity for themselves. adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (adhd) symptoms often experience social-relational impairments related to peers and family. emotion regulation (er) difficulties and aggression are often comorbid with adhd and are related to social functioning. using empirical findings from the childhood adhd literature to supplement the limited adult adhd literature, the current study examines direct and indirect relations of adhd symptoms on social-relational impairment via er difficulties and aggression. with a community sample of 256 women, two models were examined via structural equation modeling. the first model examined peer impairment, whereas the second model examined family impairment as the outcome variable. in both models, adhd symptoms were directly related to social-relational impairments. there was an overall indirect effect for each model such that adhd symptoms were associated with greater er difficulties, which were associated with greater aggression, which in turn was associated with greater social-relational impairments. additional findings are discussed in greater detail. second generation hemoglobin-based o2 carriers (hbocs) are being developed with high o2 affinity (low p50) in order to suppress vasoconstriction elicited by over-oxygenating tissues, a problem associated with low o2 affinity first generation hbocs. two novel reactive dialdehydes were synthesized by ring-opening 2-chloroethyl-beta-d-fructopyranoside (2-cefp) and 1-o-octyl-beta-d-glucopyranoside (1-ogp) at the 1,2-diol position, respectively, to yield novel hb polymerizing reagents. high-affinity polymerized hbocs were synthesized by reacting r-state bovine hemoglobin (bhb) with ring-opened 2-cefp and 1-ogp at cross-linker to bhb molar ratios ranging from 10:1 to 30:1. the resulting polymerized bovine hbocs (bhbocs) displayed p50s ranging from 7-18 mmhg, cooperativities ranging from 0.8-1.4, and methemoglobin (methb) levels ranging from 3-10%. the cross-linking reaction also stabilized the third stepwise adair coefficient for 1-ogp20, 1-ogp30, and 2-cefp30. additionally, the number-averaged molecular weight of each polymerized bhboc was larger compared to bhb. bhb was purified from bovine red blood cells (brbcs) via anion exchange chromatography preceded by dialysis. q sepharose xl, a strong anion exchange resin, was found to have twice the binding capacity for bhb compared to three other anion exchange resins that were studied in this work. methb levels remained below 2% with bhb concentrations between 0.7 and 1.7 mm. the effect that increasing the cross-linker to bhb molar ratio to 100:1 had on methb levels and size distributions was further studied in detail. purified bhb was found to elute from a size exclusion chromatography column as a dimer. bhbocs synthesized with ring-opened 1-ogp and 2-cefp each showed an increase in bhb species having both decreased and increased mw distributions compared to bhb as the ring-opened 1-ogp to bhb molar ratio increased. however, for bhbocs synthesized with 2-cefp, the mw distributions at cross-linker to bhb molar ratios between 50:1 and 70:1 remained constant. furthermore, bhbocs synthesized with 2-cefp created mw species centered at 63.6 and 96 kda, correlating to intact tetrameric bhb and tetrameric bhb bound to a bhb dimer, respectively. autoregulatory theory has been presented as a possible explanation for increased vasoconstriction observed in the transfusion of low-affinity hbocs, where it is hypothesized that low-affinity hbocs over-deliver o2 to tissues surrounding capillaries thereby eliciting vasoconstriction. an a priori model has been developed in which the performance of mixtures of acellular hbocs (having p50s between 5 and 55 mmhg) and hrbcs has been simulated using a krogh tissue cylinder model. at normoxic inlet po2s, there was no correlation between o2 flux out of the capillary and the o2 affinity of the hboc. however, a correlation was found between the average po2 tension in the capillary and the o2 affinity of the hboc. as scientific research becomes more data intensive, there is an increasing need for scalable, reliable, and high performance storage systems. such data repositories must provide both data archival services and rich metadata, and cleanly integrate with large scale computing resources. roars is a hybrid approach to distributed storage that provides both large, robust, and scalable storage and efficient rich metadata queries for scientific applications. this dissertation presents the design and implementation of roars, focusing primarily on the challenge of maintaining data integrity and achieving data scalability. we evaluate the performance of roars on a storage cluster compared to the hadoop distributed file system. we observe that roars has read and write performance that scales with the number of storage nodes. we show the ability of roars to function correctly through multiple system failures and reconfigurations. we prove that roars is reliable not only for daily data access but also for longtime data preservation. we also demonstrate how to integrate roars with existing distributed frameworks to drive large scale distributed scientific experiments. roars has been in production use for over three years as the primary data repository for a biometrics research lab at the university of notre dame. cancer metastasis alters many of the processes that are necessary for tumorigenesis to facilitate successful metastases.however, a global analysis of the transcriptome landscape of the metastatic tumor has not been well studied.in my analysis, i compared the primary tumor to the brain metastatic tumor to identify the occurring functional transcriptome changes.i further identified the changes that are unique to the brain metastatic process. i finally analyzed the gene expression pattern that occurs between the colonization stage and outgrowth metastatic stage.this analysis provides a global view of the brain metastatic process starting from the primary tumor to early colonization stage and finally to the overt late stage brain metastatic tumor.in conjunction with the analysis of the metastatic tumor, i also conducted a global analysis of the surrounding microenvironment.i first compared the primary tumor and brain metastatic microenvironments for their respective gene expression changes.furthermore, i compared the surrounding microenvironment during the early and late stages of brain metastases.this global analysis provides one of the first global views of the transcriptome landscape of the brain microenvironment during the entire metastatic process.my global analysis of both the tumor and stroma provide insights into many aspects of the metastatic process.to further investigate these insights, i focused on the role of metabolism in the brain metastatic process.based on a distinct metabolic transcriptome profile in brain metastases compared to their primary tumor counterparts, i hypothesized that metabolic transcriptome shifting during metastatic evolution is crucial for metastatic success to the brain. here i show that the expression of the gaba metabolic pathway mediator glutamate decarboxylase 1 (gad1) is significantly up-regulated. down-regulation of dna methyltransferase 1 (dnmt1) induced by the brain microenvironment results in decreased gad1 promoter methylation and subsequent up-regulation of gad1 expression. i utilized the peredox biosensor coupled with time-lapse imaging to monitor the cytosolic nadh:nad+ equilibrium in tumor cells. knocking down of gad1 abolishes the capability of tumor cells to utilize extracellular glutamine. repurposing of a neurological drug, vigabatrin, results in a significant decrease in brain metastasis incidence. taken together, my results demonstrated that brain microenvironment-specific metabolic shifting through gad1 promoter demethylation contributes to the context-dependent cellular metabolic adaption and facilitate brain metastasis outgrowth. this thesis presents an analysis on sections of the relaci&oacute;n del estado del per&uacute; (1689) related to the construction of the city-walls around the capital city of the viceroyalty, lima. this document was written by the peruvian viceroy melchor de navarra y rocafull to the king of spain as a report of the actions undertaken during his government. my main task is to determine the rhetorical devices used for presenting the genesis, negotiation and construction process of the walls, as given by the functionary to the king. in the viceregal description, i will identify techniques utilized for auto representation of his figure and the ways of portrayal of the criollo population within the city. both, viceroy and citizens, enact a complicated negotiation process that defines a purpose for the enterprise that goes beyond its usage as a protective barrier. for this they use discursive constructions inherited from medieval rhetoric appellations of the ars dictaminis. this view of the complicated politics within the project will prove key to understand the two proposed barriers that were contained within the physical wall. on the side of the viceroy, as a method of affirming the power of the control exercised by the bureaucracy installed in the core of the city that he presides. from the criollo neighbors is a symbolic construction that helps to the nascent efforts of erecting a local identity based on the geographical space limited by the walls. oxygen rich combustion in diesel engines produces nitrogen oxides, nox (no, no2), which are pollutants causing smog and acid rain, and must be removed to meet emission regulations. cu-ssz-13, a microporous zeolite exchanged with cu metal, is the leading choice for selective catalytic reduction (scr) of nox to harmless n2 and h2o, using nh3 as the reductant. the cu site in cu-ssz-13 is the active site for scr reaction, as demonstrated by many previous literatures. however, the understanding of standard scr mechanisms from a molecular level is not as well developed. in this dissertation i used different molecular modeling tools to study the dynamics and mobilities of the cu sites under simulated reaction conditions, developed a correlation to accurately calculate the free energies of adsorption on cu sites, and compared sulfur poisoning species between the two different types of cu sites.chapter 2 includes a general description of the computational techniques used in this dissertation, these techniques applied to solve specifc problems are described more in detail in the methods section of each chapter. chapter 3 contains detailed study of the dynamic nature of the cu sites in cu-ssz-13 under different gas exposure conditions. cu metals are solvated by h2o ligands when the samples are exposed to air, and are solvated nh3 ligands when the samples are exposed to scr gas conditions. the cu centers have limited mobility when they have no ligand, and their mobility increased dramatically after h2o or nh3 solvation. chapter 4 contains simulation of uv-visible absorption spectra of the cu sites. we found it essential to perform more than 100 ps of ab initio molecular dynamics (aimd) simulations at a relevant temperature to extract a collection of geometries at those conditions for spectrum calculation. the final spectrum averaged from the 400 aimd snapshots agrees closely with experimental spectra. we also studied eight different cu dimers with a variety of geometric isomers, each giving peaks at different absorption energies in the simulated uv-visible spectra, but hard to be assigned to contributions in the observed spectra. chapter 5 introduced a method to accurately calculate the free energies of adsorption of small molecules onto cu-ssz-13, using constrained molecular dynamics sampling technique and the potential of mean force method. the simple correlations between the entropy of adsorption and the ideal gas entropy of adsorbate allow us to quickly compute the free energy of adsorption under experimental gas pressures and temperatures. chapter 6 compares the sulfur poisoning species on the two cu sites. (bi)sulfates are shown to be the stable poisoning species under simulated standard scr conditions on both types of cu sites, agreeing well with x-ray experimental evidence of copper and sulfur oxidation states. events containing one or more top quarks produced with additional prompt leptons are used to search for new physics within the framework of an effective field theory (eft). the data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 41.5 fb^-1 of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 tev at the lhc, collected by the cms experiment in 2017. limits are placed on 16 dimension-six operators by performing a simultaneous fit to the data of the corresponding wilson coefficients (wcs) that parameterize the effects of the eft operators. two standard deviation confidence intervals for the wcs are extracted; the standard model expectations for the wc values are within these intervals for all wcs probed. the concept of root systems arises in the study of many mathematical areas. in particular it is a crucial tool for understanding coxeter groups and various groupoids which demonstrate coxeter like properties.in this dissertation we study matroidal properties of various root systems. first we consider the signed groupoid set, a concept which was developed by dyer and generalizes many notions including coxeter groups, coxeter groupoids and coxeter-like groupoid studied by brink and howlett. we show that the finite, connected, simply connected, real, compressed, principal, complete and rootoidal signed groupoid sets correspond bijectively to the oriented simplicial geometries.in the second part, we studied the closure operator and lattice property of the root system of an infinite coxeter group. we establish a bijection between the infinitely long words of an affine weyl group and certain biclosed sets of its positive system. using this bijection, we show first that the biclosed sets in the standard positive system of rank 3 affine weyl groups when ordered by inclusion form a complete algebraic ortholattice and secondly that the (generalized) braid graphs of those coxeter groups are connected, which can be thought as an infinite version of tit's solution to the word problem. finally we investigate the relationship between infinitely long words and twisted weak orders and show that for affine weyl groups, a biclosed set is an inversion set if and only if the associated twisted weak order on the group is a meet semilattice. these results are analogous to the fact that the weak order of a simplicial base chamber of a finite simple oriented matroid is a complete lattice (such order is defined on the family of biconvex sets of a given hemispace under inclusion).finally, we treat the root systems of an affine weyl group as an infinite oriented matroid in the sense of buchi and fenton. we compute all of their hemispaces, covectors and the stabilizers of the covectors. also we describe a complete rootoid structure from locally finite coxeter groups which is analogous to the structure of a simplicial oriented geometry. transition metals can be used to catalyze chemical reactions, allowing rapid and selective access to fine chemicals. the discovery of new reactions, as well as the improvement and understanding of existing reactions is thus a highly important task for organic chemists. herein, work toward the improvement of a new transition metal-catalyzed reaction as well as work toward improving and understanding some existing transition metal-catalyzed transformations is described.the mechanism of the ir-catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenation of prochiral imines has been investigated for an experimentally relevant ligand-substrate combination using dft calculations. the hydrogenation was found to proceed by an outer sphere pathway with an iridacyclic active catalyst species. studies on the optimization, scope, and mechanism of a ni-catalyzed α,β'-coupling of ketone enolates are also described. while the method does not appear to be very general or high yielding, an awareness of the conditions under which it occurs and the nuances of mechanism which lead to the ketone coupling product over the expected α-alkenylation product are important. these studies have been backed up by a more detailed study of the mechanism of the ni-catalyzed α-alkenylation of ketone enolates using both experiments and calculations. a complementary study of the mechanism of a related ni-catalyzed halogen exchange, proposed to accompany the alkenylation, is also described. while no specific mechanism can be concluded on as being operative at this time for either of these two reactions, significant progress has been made toward ruling out classical monometallic ni-catalyzed pathways for both. finally, computational work on understanding the rate acceleration and the role of a rh catalyst in an asymmetric giese radical addition to an alkene as well as work explaining the origin of stereoselectivity in a redox-relay heck reaction is described. the effects of confirmation bias on juror decision-making have long been a topic of investigation, as this line of questioning allows for academic study of human decision-making while also speaking to an important social reality. however, very few studies have extended this work into the field of memory. across two experiments, this dissertation addressed this gap in the field by assessing memory retention in a juror decision-making task where participants were subject to an experimentally-manipulated, trial-specific initial bias towards the defendant. the second experiment also addressed the novel area of confirmation bias mitigation by implementing a perceptual disfluency manipulation—a manipulation which has been hypothesized to operate by shifting individuals from a heuristic mode of processing into an analytical mode of processing. the decision-making results showed a dissociation where juror bias scale score (a measure of pre-existing personal biases towards the criminal justice system) predicted verdicts while the experimentally-manipulated initial bias predicted suggested length of sentence—both in a direction that supported an effect of confirmation bias on decision-making. additionally, results failed to replicate previous findings where disfluency mitigated the effect of confirmation bias on decision-making. results on memory showed that information that supported a guilty verdict and information that supported a not guilty verdict were both remembered better overall and had steeper slopes of forgetting than neutral information. overall, this study emphasized the need to consider factors beyond trial-specific bias (such as the pre-trial bias captured by the juror bias scale) when predicting juror decision-making and found that memory outcomes in this type of task are better predicted in light of theories such as the goal relevance hypothesis of memory facilitation (rather than through the posited effects of confirmation bias). this work introduces novel, loosely-coupled and easy-to-implement partitioned algorithms for fluid-structure interaction (fsi) and fluid-poroelastic structure interaction, based on spatial discretization using the standard galerkin finite element method, and applying finite difference approximations in time. the methods are also immune to the added-mass effect.first, we present a new method for fsi, based on operator splitting and the crank-nicolson discretization method. we prove its stability and second-order convergence properties, and then demonstrate its applicability to blood flow modeling under physiological conditions.next, we introduce two new algorithms for modeling the interaction between a flowing fluid and a viscoelastic material with a fully-saturated porous matrix. both methods are based on implicit-explicit methods and are also second-order convergent. we prove the stability of each method, and show that one of the methods is uniformly stable over a long period of time. finally we investigate their behaviors using numerical examples.last of all, we introduce a new loosely-coupled partitioned scheme based on generalized robin interface conditions, using a model in which the coupling conditions account for the flow entry resistance. this partitioned method that we present is applicable for the interaction between a freely-flowing fluid and a fully-saturated poroelastic material. the proposed method is non-iterative and unconditionally stable, and we demonstrate its applicability using numerical examples. chronic kidney disease (ckd), though not reported on much in the media, is a disease that kills more americans every year than breast or prostate cancer (niddk). in fact, almost 14% of the american population is currently suffering from ckd (niddk). at present, there are few avenues for treatment and almost no way to reverse this damage. one of the limiting factors for developing new treatments to kidney disorders is a lack of knowledge about the pathways utilized to develop this cellularly diverse organ. specifically, there is little understanding about the development of the functional unit of the kidney, the nephron. gaining this knowledge could continue the progress in the evolution of targeted therapeutics and organoid technology. hampering this progress are the feasibility issues of mammalian-based studies. fortunately, the embryonic zebrafish kidney, or pronephros, contains two nephrons that are genetically conserved to the adult human kidney. the studies of this work involve utilizing the advantages of the embryonic zebrafish kidney to identify novel regulators of nephrogenesis to fill the void in knowledge about the genetics of nephron development across vertebrates. this dissertation is a collective of several of those identified genetic regulators. we discovered that the tbx2a and tbx2b transcription factors promote the formation of the distal late (dl) segment and cooperatively with notch inhibit the development of the corpuscle of stannius (cs) gland. the factors osr1, brca2, and wnt2ba do no impact distal fates, but rather are critical for proximal lineages such as the podocytes. these findings improve what was previously known about the genetics of kidney development, which will be useful in the future avenues of diagnostics and targeted therapeutics. this thesis investigates adult native english speakers' acquisition of italian (l2) grammar via enrollment in college courses. predictions are derived from the competition model (bates & macwhinney, 1982; 1987; 1989) according to which subject-verb agreement (sva) is a vertical cue, reflecting a correlation between word form and meaning (e.g., subject noun agent role). noun-adjective agreement (naa) is a horizontal cue, reflecting a correlation between word forms only. sva should be acquired by l2 learners sooner than naa because of its vertical mapping. however, constructions in which sva has an irregular mapping should be difficult to acquire. for example, the italian verb piacere (to like) has a mapping of grammatical-thematic roles that is irregular in both italian and english (i.e., subject-theme, object-experiencer). the predictions were tested with a grammaticality judgment task that was administered in the middle and end of a semester to beginner and advanced learners. the task measured sensitivity to agreement violations in spoken sentences representing the three conditions (sva, irregular-sva, and naa). general factors that may affect learning, such as working memory capacity, motivation to learn, knowledge of other languages, etc, were also assessed. both groups had higher a' scores in the sva condition than in the other two conditions. the implications of these results for the competition model as well as effects of other general learning factors are discussed. this project studies the retrieval of the concept of mystery in the movement of biblical, liturgical, and patristic renewal known as the twentieth century ressourcement. in particular, it explores the spiritual dimensions of a liturgical theology of mystery. it argues that the concept of mystery serves as a bridge between the liturgy and the wider life of the church, especially the ascetical and mystical aspects of spiritual theology. after first introducing the roots of a rediscovery of mystery in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and surveying the pioneering work of odo casel, it details the integration between liturgy and the spiritual life in two major sections. the first part analyzes and synthesizes the interrelation and intrinsic unity between the bible, liturgy, and spirituality in the work of louis bouyer. it proceeds by examining how bouyer deepens the spiritual implications of casel's insights through a robust biblical theology of the word, such that bouyer's vision can be seen as following the dynamic word-mystery-liturgy-spirituality along an unbroken continuity. it then uses insights from the schmemann-kavanagh-fagerberg-taft school of liturgical theology to illustrate how bouyer unites asceticism and mysticism with liturgy around an integrative, multifaceted vision of the christian mystery. the second part studies the contribution of mystery to a liturgical spirituality in the additional voices of columba marmion, alexander schmemann, and jean corbon. they complement bouyer's account by situating mystery in the context of a monastic vision of the spiritual life and showing its affinity with the trinitarian, pneumatic, and eschatological liturgical vision of eastern christianity. this project observes that the concept of mystery is inextricably tied to the concept of union with god, understood in various ways as divinization, divine adoption, and recapitulation. it concludes that mystery is an integrative, synthetic, participatory, and transformative concept that is capable of renewing the spiritual and liturgical life of the church in every age. this dissertation will argue that the author of luke has redacted mark in terms of the characterization of jesus. in the characterization of jesus, the lukan redactor has removed strong emotion (and the actions which would result from these strong emotions). further, luke has sometimes 'transferred' these emotions to other characters or groups. these redactions include the traditionally-viewed negative emotions grief, neediness, stern speech, and especially anger. they also include some of the more traditionally positive emotions including compassion, love, and general affection. it will be shown that luke consistently depicts (with two exceptions in the special 'l' material) the persona of jesus (and only the character of jesus) as bereft of strong emotion. this dissertation will further attempt to explain why these redactions and transferences have occurred by examining the lukan redactions in light of the philosophical traditions. evidence will be presented from the hellenistic, jewish, and roman philosophical traditions on the subject of emotions in order to show that with notable exceptions (i.e., aristotle), the primary philosophical view of the emotions was depreciatory and disapproving. this dissertation will conclude that it is primarily the stoic tradition (and in particular the popular rendering of these in the roman imperial authors) that leads the author of luke to present his auditors with a jesus character (quite to the contrary of mark) without emotion, an exemplum of apatheia. the operation of modern security systems demands too much sophistication from the average user. further, in the face of increasingly common malware and spyware, users are not empowered to protect themselves. to address these issues, i propose sub-identities, a simple abstract identity model for practical containment in the operating system. in this model, user identities form a hierarchy, and each user may create sub-identities at any time without the help or approval of an administrator. while this model does not provide the fine-grained security available with more intrusive or comprehensive systems, it provides a significant measure of drop-in security that is more accessible to the average user. in this work, i demonstrate an implementation of the abstract model of sub-identity in the form of a user-space toolkit, pluggable authentication module, and user-space filesystem, as well as several applications of sub-identity and a continuum of disciplines for using sub-identity. many systems are designed with a central controller that is responsible for managing and coordinating all system components. examples include the master/slave model for distributed computing, and the command and control of unmanned aerial vehicles (uavs). in such systems, the existence of the central controller presents a bottleneck that limits system scalability. for the system to expand beyond these limitations, the scope of control must be reduced, with communication increased among components. in this dissertation, i investigate improving scalability through reducing scope, demonstrated through two applications. the first application is the command and control of uav swarms. bandwidth limitations and increased software complexity prevent conventional centralized uav control methods from being applied to the remote operation of many uavs. mission planners are investigating the application of swarm intelligence to uav swarms, where uavs communicate between one another and the environment to self-organize and solve problems, absent of explicit central command. for one set of projects, i explore the application of swarm intelligence to uavs, with attention to specific behaviors and quantifiable performance. the second application is the distributed processing of large-scale graphs. large graphs, common for big data, exceed the memory capacity of conventional machines and must be partitioned across distributed memory in order to be processed. however, typical centralized graph algorithms presume every node to be randomly accessible, leading to high-latency remote data access and prohibitively large intermediate data structures. recently developed frameworks provide a platform for executing distributed algorithms on graph data, which reduce algorithmic scope to increase scalability. i comprehensively overview these frameworks, and observe the relationship between graph algorithmic scope and scalability.together with these two applications, uav swarms and distributed graph processing, i illustrate how centralized control must be relaxed, and component communication increased, in order for large systems to overcome limitations of central control and successfully scale. this dissertation advances scholarship on textuality and knowledge in late antiquity through interdisciplinary analysis of the eusebian apparatus. devised by the fourth-century scholar eusebius of caesarea, the apparatus organizes an intricate web of textual relationships. the four gospels of the new testament (matthew, mark, luke, john) share language, narratives, and ideas, yet they also differ in structure and detail. i argue that eusebius employed emerging textual technologies to create new possibilities of reading, thereby rewriting the fourfold gospel in a significant and durable way. the meaning of the eusebian apparatus was, and continues to be, in its use—in the possibilities of textual encounter it affords and constrains. eusebius' system has enjoyed an enormous reception, accompanying the gospels in more than a dozen languages and in thousands of manuscripts from the fourth century ce to the present. by tracing how the eusebian apparatus reconfigured gospel literature, created new possibilities of reading, and developed in response to readers' changing priorities, i advance scholarship on textuality and knowledge in three major ways. first, i advance the historiography of the late ancient mediterranean by demonstrating how material and textual technologies participated in a late ancient transformation in knowing. second, i nuance conventional histories of gospel literature by demonstrating the significance of fourth-century developments. third, i demonstrate the paradoxical centrality of marginal phenomena in the history of gospel reading and beyond. security has long been a technical problem with technical solutions. over time, it has become apparent that human behavior is a major weakness in technical solutions. extensive efforts have been taken to inform individuals about the threats and safeguards with which to protect against such threats. organizations have developed awareness campaigns to enhance the security behaviors of employees. these awareness campaigns seek to provide employees with information about a threat as well as measures to take to prevent against the threats. this dissertation investigates the effectiveness of various security awareness message themes as well as the individual perceptions and characteristics that affect security behavior. first, a survey study is conducted which measures perceptions surrounding security threats and safeguards. the analysis of the survey data builds a foundational understanding of how individuals assess and respond to technical security threats. next, five awareness themes are evaluated through the use of targeted interventions with non-complying individuals presented awareness messages. the individual responses to interventions and surveys allow for the usage of personality data to inform both initial security safeguard behavior as well as response behavior to targeted awareness messages. overall, the tested awareness methods were found to be somewhat effective. however, with the addition of individual information, analysis identified correlations with individual response. these correlations point to the importance of considering individual motivations and perceptions surrounding security threats and safeguards. this dissertation seeks to reduce the computational cost in radiation transport calculations using dynamical low-rank approximation (dlr) methods, a complexity reduction technique to approximate a tensor or a matrix with a reduced rank. a dlr approximation method is developed for the time-dependent radiation transport equation in 1-d and 2-d cartesian geometries. a low-rank system that evolves on a low-rank manifold via an operator-splitting approach is constructed using a finite volume (fv) method in space and a spherical harmonics (pn) basis in angle. numerical results demonstrate that the low-rank solution requires less memory than solving the full-rank equations with the same accuracy. furthermore, the low-rank algorithm can obtain much better results at a moderate extra cost by refining the discretization while keeping the rank fixed. the dlr method does not preserve the number of particles, which limits its practicability. this conservation issue is addressed by solving a low-order equation with closure terms coupled to a low-rank approximation with the high-order solution. the high-order solution approximates the closure term well, and the low-order solution corrects the low-rank evolution's conservation bias. the so-called high-order / low-order (holo) algorithm is demonstrated that overcomes the conservation difficulty while the computational efficiency and accuracy are preserved. the low-rank scheme is extended for the time-dependent radiation transport equation in 2-d and 3-d cartesian geometries with discrete ordinates (sn) discretization in angle. the reduced system that evolves on a low-rank manifold is constructed via an "unconventional" basis update &amp; galerkin integrator to avoid a substep that is backward in time, which could be unstable for dissipative problems. the resulting system preserves the information on angular direction by applying separate low-rank decompositions in each octant where angular intensity has the same sign as the direction cosines. then, transport sweeps and source iteration can efficiently solve this low-rank-sn system. the numerical results in 2-d and 3-d cartesian geometries demonstrate that the low-rank solution requires less memory and computational time than solving the full-rank equations using transport sweeps without losing accuracy. non-suicidal self-injury (nssi) is the intentional, direct destruction of one's own bodily tissue in the absence of intent to die. nssi is both a prevalent and concerning behavior given its association with a variety of negative clinical and interpersonal outcomes. common stereotypes and other negative beliefs about nssi exist and may be associated with poor interpersonal functioning among those who engage in nssi. this indicates a need to better understand the nssi-specific stereotypes and their impact on one's self-view. stigma, particularly self-stigma, is one potentially useful construct for characterizing this impact. a widely cited theoretical model of stigma suggests self-stigma is developed via a progressive, four-step process, and encompasses the self-application of a stereotype and its resulting harm to self-view.despite evidence supporting the danger of self-stigma among individuals with concealable identities, research has not yet examined the impact of self-stigma specific to nssi behavior. this may be due to a lack of a validated measure specifically measuring the construct. as such, this study sought to validate the newly developed self-injury stigma scale (siss), a measure of nssi stigma based on a widely used four-step model of stigma. it was hypothesized the siss would follow a four-factor structure parallel to the four-step self-stigma process. as tests of convergent and discriminant validity, it was hypothesized measures of shame and help-seeking self-stigma would be moderately, negatively and weakly correlated, respectively, with the siss scales. participants from study 1 were college students (n = 264, 65.8% female) with at least one lifetime history of nssi. through a series of factor analytic models, a one-factor structure of the application of stigma scale (i.e., third step of the four-step model) demonstrated acceptable fit and was retained as the final siss. this factor structure was then tested on a second sample of community participants with a past-month of nssi engagement (n = 240, 41.3% female). confirmatory factor analysis was used to evaluate the one-factor structure and demonstrated acceptable fit on most, but not all, indices. convergent and discriminant validity were supported, such that the final siss scale concurrently predicted shame and help-seeking self-stigma. to examine clinical utility, relationships between the siss and characteristics of nssi behavior were examined, showing the siss retrospectively predicted recent (i.e., last 3 months) frequency of nssi, but not lifetime nssi frequency or nssi disclosure. as such, study 2's hypotheses were partially supported, offering some evidence in favor of the siss's appropriateness and utility as a measure of self-stigma of nssi. the united states constitution protects the free exercise of religion, but does not define what religion is. religious liberty in the united states, however, hinges on the meaning of this term in the first amendment. this dissertation describes and analyzes how the supreme court has conceptualized religion in its free exercise jurisprudence. based on the analysis of free exercise cases decided between 1878 and 2005, this study finds that justices have offered three different accounts of religion. it classifies these as ontological, sociological, and individualistic approaches' depicting religion with reference to truth, groups, and individuals, respectively. the supreme court's earliest free exercise decisions address religion ontologically, defining it in terms of metaphysical truth. the court's subsequent efforts to avoid ontology result in two distinct lines of religion decisions. each of these reflects an alternative definitional method' one individualistic, one sociological. the individualistic approach construes religion in broad and indefinite terms, avoiding establishment clause conflicts by excluding very little from the category of 'religion.' the sociological mode proves narrower, appealing to the characteristics of recognized religious groups to identify and protect religious conduct. while the present state of religion jurisprudence remains convoluted, this dissertation offers three conclusions. first, the three-fold model for how justices think about religion proves a useful tool for describing and analyzing supreme court opinions regarding religious exercise. second, applied to the history of free exercise jurisprudence, this model helps to explain variations in the court's decisions. third, while the supreme court's current individualistic approach provides relatively little protection to religion, returning to a more ontological mode offers some promise. this dissertation research examines the boundary-making process of 'being danish' and focuses on the ethno-racialisation of multiracial ethnic-danes. how can you be multiracial in a society where race does not officially exist? in theory, race should not matter in denmark because in-group membership is demarcated by immigration status, and there is no racial enumeration. with examples of personal stories from life-narrative interviews with multiracial and multi-ethnic danes, my research shows how multiracials' daily experiences differ from white-ethnic danes' experiences. racialisation processes of multiracial ethnic-danes' everyday experiences confirm their insider and outsider status. by examining racialisation, immigration, and group boundary formation in a country absent racial categories, my work expands the sociological understanding of racialisation processes by showing that immigration policies are inherently linked with race irrespective of the socio-political context or claims of nordic exceptionalism. this research also challenges the assumption that state-imposed racial categories are inherent to a racial hierarchy or necessarily precede commonly used folk categories.in the first paper, i analyse the differences between older and younger multiracials and find that the understanding of race as a category and the salience of race for multiracial ethnic-danes has changed over time concurrently with demographic changes and a heightened awareness of racialisation processes. i argue that young multi-racial danes are uniquely positioned to push public discourse toward a better understanding of how whiteness is integral to national identity and advocate for a broader danish identity type that challenges white hegemony and nordic exceptionalism.in the second paper, i apply a modified version of kim claire's triangulation framework to explain the specific mechanism by which the everyday experiences of multi-racials confirm both their insider and outsider status. i use my modified framework, multiracial relative racialisation, to explain how the formation of western/non-western categories also creates a social position as a 'racialised other' for multiracial ethnic-danes. in the danish field of racial positions, white ethnic-danes ostracise multiracial ethnic-danes as outsiders and deny them cultural citizenship. at the same time, they receive a valourised status relative to non-western immigrants who are both culturally and legally ostracised. i argue that multiracial ethnic-danes come to embody a racial identity loosely defined as 'mixed', not as a result of institutional racial ascription or to mobilise for resources and power. instead, through a racial triangulation process that negates their ethno-national identity and limits access to cultural citizenship.in the third paper, i argue that although white multi-ethnic danes benefit from white privilege and have access to cultural citizenship and 'danishness', some experience social exclusion and feel conflicted about their national belonging. multi-ethnic danes grow up with more than one cultural orientation within their homes and between home and majority culture. the mixing of cultures can cause self-identity confusion, and a combined cultural frame of reference can lead to social blunders in social interactions. moreover, the extent to which white multi-ethnic danes experience discrimination and social exclusion depend on their specific 'other-ethnic' background because there is variation in the amount of status associated with european ethnicities. for some white multi-ethnic danes, being white is not a guarantee for complete acceptance in denmark because group boundary processes include racial and cultural elements. humans use devices to expand their empirical limits. observations of astronomical objects as well as other aspects of the universe--previously out of reach of human observational capabilities--have become ubiquitous. by design, these technological devices experience fundamentally different qualia than their human creators; and yet through them humans are able to gain access to those qualia. this thesis and its accompanying visual work explores the limits of observation and experience, and highlights the contrast between the advancements of humans and their relative insignificance within the context of the greater cosmos. theory in the sociology of emotion suggests that receiving help from a position of relative lack ? with no ability to reciprocate ? should lead to negative emotions. how, then, does one sustain flexibility through positive emotions while receiving significant support even for the most basic material needs? this paper presents a case of a group who are able to negotiate a web of negative emotions and generate the flexibility needed to pursue long-term goals. using interviews with 14 recently resettled refugees, i find that gratitude, surprisingly, is associated with capacity to generate and sustain flexibility and positive disposition. gratitude and flexibility seem to open opportunities in a new context without denying the incredible difficulty of the challenges of the first months and years of resettlement. this study has implications for the study of emotion in situations of resource deprivation and policy implications regarding the resettlement process. eye morphology refers to the biological structure of the human eye. this includes the cornea, aqueous humor, limbus, lens, and iris surface in the anterior portion of the eye. with regards to iris recognition, pupil dilation has been known to affect algorithm performance. this work examines the impacts of other morphological factors such as the three-dimensional shape of the iris surface, corneal refraction, and subtle changes induced by changes of visual focus. because of the difficulty in obtaining data to measure such factors, a model of the eye is used to create data sets varying each factor. an examination of relevant eye anatomy is presented along with visualizations of iris texture distortions caused by various morphological factors. a detailed examination is made with regard to changing iris shape separate from pupil dilation, corneal refraction, and difficulties in recognition caused by non-planar irises. finally, work into correcting for corneal refraction effects is presented. liturgical inculturation in the twenty-first century has stalled for many reasons, one of which is the reality of the postmodern world. in an increasingly global, multicultural, and rapidly changing world, practices of liturgical inculturation that rely on a "structural-functional" definition of culture—that is, the idea of cultures as fixed, homogenous, and structured wholes—inevitably fail. this dissertation seeks to create a path forward by developing a postmodern model, method, and theology of liturgical inculturation. to this end, a study of american deaf catholic churches, whose congregations and liturgical practices exhibit postmodern traits which naturally critique the dominant method and theology of liturgical inculturation, is used as an empirical case study. chapter one explains the research methodology and aims of the dissertation. data gathered from field research, including ethnographic participant observations, interviews, and archival sources, form the basis for methodological and theological development. narratology and performance theory are employed to analyze the data, and placed in dialogue with the history of anthropology, scholarship from deaf studies, and theology. from the analysis, three proposals emerged for advancing a theology of liturgical inculturation grounded in eschatology. the first is to question and re-examine the context behind the term "culture" as understood by the community that claims it. one way to do this is by providing a historical account of ethnogenesis, as demonstrated in chapters two, three and four. chapter five provides an example of the fruits of ethnography for understanding the complexities of postmodern cultures. the second proposal is a definition of liturgical inculturation as the "co-creation of eschatological signs of hope." "co-creation" accents the relational aspect of inculturation, consequently requiring the consideration of social dynamics such as power inequities between and within cultural groups; "eschatological signs of hope" brings attention to the ethical dimensions of liturgical inculturation. the definition also presents the goal of liturgical inculturation as an effort toward transforming the church's operative eschatology by expanding eschatological visions. the final proposal entails the adoption of a theological sense of "culture" as an eschatological society, to guard against the fragmentation of the people of god and reduction of salvation to mere political processes. re-tasking and remote programming of sensor networks is an essential functionality to make these networks practical and effective. as the availability of more capable sensor nodes increases and new functional implementations continue to be proposed, these large collections of wireless nodes will need the ability to update and upgrade the software packages they are running. in order to do this, the new binary file must be distributed to all nodes in the network. making a physical connection with each individual node is impractical in large wireless networks. standard flooding mechanisms are too energy-costly and computationally expensive and they may interfere with the network's current tasks. a reliable method for distributing new code or binary files to every node in a wireless sensor network is needed. we propose a reprogramming/re-tasking framework for sensor networks that is energy effcient, responsive, and reliable, while maintaining a stable network. the aims of this dissertation are to explore isotope labeling of biologically important saccharides, and establish new correlations between nmr parameters and molecular structures with a particular focus on trans-glycoside scalar couplings and their application to the studies of glycosidic linkage conformation. the work is divided into five parts. chapter 2 reports a novel synthesis of the disaccharide, alpha-d-gal-(1-3)-beta-d-galome, which is the main cause of antibody-mediated hyperacute rejection in xenotransplantation. this disaccharide was selectively labeled with 13c in a manner that allows accurate measurement of all available inter-residue carbon-based nmr spin-couplings sensitive to linkage conformation. these j-couplings were interpreted using karplus-type equations derived from density functional theory (dft) calculations and mathematical modeling. chapter 3 reports a simplified cyanohydrin synthetic route to prepare a series of 2-amino-2-deoxy-d-[1-13c]aldohexoses and their methyl glycosides. jch and jcc spin-spin coupling constants involving the labeled anomeric carbon were measured and compared to those observed previously in methyl d-[1-13c]aldohexopyranosides. theoretical j-couplings were calculated in model n-acetylated aldopyranosides by dft to predict the effect of oh vs nhcoch3 substitution at c2 on jch and jcc values in aldopyranosyl rings. the synthetic method was also modified to accommodate 15nand 13c-labeling within the n-acetyl side-chain, methodology explored in chapter 4. chapter 4 reports the preparation of, and nmr measurements of j-couplings in eight compounds: alpha and beta methyl glycosides of n-acetyl-d-glucosamine and n-acetyl-d-allosamine which were 13c labeled at c1/c3 of the pyranose ring or at the carbonyl carbon of the exocyclic nac group. the couplings that depend on the c2-n2 torsion angle were extracted. these parameters were used to assess the n-acetyl side-chain conformation in combination with dft parameterized equations. chapter 5 reports the preparation of selectively isotope labeled alpha,alpha-trehalose, which is important in cryobiology and other pharmaceutical applications, 2-deoxy derivatives. the isotope labeling strategy allowed the measurement of all trans-glycoside couplings in alpha,alpha-trehalose and its 2-deoxy derivatives. conformational analysis based on experimental scalar couplings was performed using dft-parametrized karplus equations for 3jch and 3jcc. these studies provided new experimental data to assess linkage conformation in (1,1)-linked pyranose disaccharides. chapter 6 reports the synthesis of a mannose-containing hexasaccharide, which is a constituent of glycoprotein cd2. the chemistry to prepare this hexasaccharide is described, including characterization by 1h and 13c nmr, and high resolution mass spectrometry. nmr characterization of intermediates provided an important reference for future synthesis of 13c isotopomers. a strategy for isotope labeling is also discussed. we give a rigorous treatment of the notion of screening pairs of screening operators $(\ ilde{q},q)$ for a rank $d$ lattice vertex operator superalgebra $v_l$. certain such screening pairs proved to be useful machinery in the study of the internal structure of the $\mathcal{w}\mbox{-algebra}$ $\mathcal{w}(p)=\mbox{ker }\ ilde{q}$ by adamovi\'c and milas and in proving the $c_2$-cofinite property in the rank 1 case. we analyze and classify when screening pairs can arise for $l$ of arbitrary rank, and then give a classification of when configurations of multiple screening pairs can occur for lattice vertex operator algebras with lattices of rank $2$ and ade-type root lattices. we then show how to construct subalgebras of $v_l$ by considering the kernel of a screening operator for $v_l$ when $l$ is of rank $2$, and how one can take the intersection of the kernels of certain commuting screening operators to obtain interesting vertex operator algebras that can be analyzed using this intersection of kernels structure. the subalgebras studied here share features similar to the $\mathcal{w}(p)$-algebra in the rank 1 setting, in that they are simple, $c_2$-cofinite, and irrational. we classify the irreducible modules for these vertex operator superalgebras. autobiographical memory (am), which refers to memory for information related to the self and personally experienced events, is a socially-relevant cognitive skill that is essential to examine in autism spectrum disorder (asd), a condition defined along a continuum of socio-communicative functioning. the profile of am strengths and weaknesses during the preschool period remains unclear in asd, and little is known regarding predictors of am during early childhood. to address this gap in the literature, 17 preschool-aged children (ages 4-6) with asd and 21 typically-developing children matched on age, gender, and expressive language completed two measures of am, including collaborative and independent recall tasks (autobiographical memory test-preschool version). children completed standardized measures of executive and self-functioning. mother child dyads completed an emotional reminiscing task, and dialogues were rated for children's memory contributions and maternal open-ended, closed-ended, emotional, and off-topic elaborations. children with asd required more prompting to complete am tasks and demonstrated difficulties with am performance in independent and collaborative recall contexts, including reduced am specificity. regarding executive functioning, working memory only predicted am specificity in the asd group, supporting that ef is an important compensatory mechanism facilitating am retrieval in asd. regarding self-related factors, theory of mind predicted am specificity for asd and td children whereas self-concept predicted am specificity in the asd group only. mothers of children with asd utilized distinct reminiscing strategies, including more closed-ended and off-topic elaborations. maternal open-ended elaborations promoted children's am in both independent and collaborative recall contexts for the asd group. limitations and theoretical and clinical implications are discussed. in this work, two avenues for potentially improving the performance of future electronic and optoelectronic devices have been explored. backside contact technology for high-performance iii-v solar cells and the exploration of plasma-wave effects in gan have been developed and evaluated. for the backside contact solar cell technology, we analyzed the performance of an advanced novel design for iii-v multi-junction solar cells —the backside contact iii-v triple-junction solar cell. for the study of plasma-wave effects, we have focused on observing and studying plasma-wave effects in iii-n plasmonic devices at room temperature. the fabrication of both backside contact solar cells and iii-n plasma-wave devices is discussed. backside contact technology has been demonstrated successfully in silicon solar cells, but has not been explored carefully or demonstrated in iii-v multi-junction solar cells so far. in this work, a numerical model was developed to evaluate and optimize both the electrical and thermal properties of backside-contact triple-junction solar cells. the optimization of the epitaxial structure resulted in a 14% (relative) efficiency improvement and the backside-contact technology results in another 5% (relative) efficiency enhancement. for the fabrication and ultimately the demonstration of backside-contact triple-junction solar cells, the critical process step — via-hole fabrication — is demonstrated. the developed full-wafer via-hole fabrication process, which is compatible with the process flow for backside-contact solar cells, resulted in uniform and smooth etch morphologies and near vertical sidewall profiles. for the study of plasma-wave effects, in this work we designed and fabricated gan-based devices for observation of plasma-wave effects at room temperature. while plasma-wave effects have been reported previously at cryogenic temperatures, this study seeks to characterize the potential of these effects for room temperature operation. the devices explored here use grating-gate structures to enhance the plasma-wave signatures in the device response. the device geometries were optimized and nanoscale fabrication techniques were developed to fabricate the devices. on-wafer electrical testing showed clear signatures of plasma-wave effects at room temperature. these signatures were found to agree very well with analytical models of plasma-wave propagation. the observation of electrically-significant plasma-wave effects in gan opens the possibility of future devices that exploit this physics for enhanced functionality. nuclear energy does not generate greenhouse gas emissions during power production, but the high-level nuclear waste generated in the commercial nuclear fuel cycle remains a barrier to increased nuclear power use in the united states. this waste will eventually be disposed of in deep geologic repositories, yet the development of a nuclear repository is hindered by knowledge gaps related to how radionuclides behave and migrate in the environment.to fill these knowledge gaps, the work presented in this dissertation focuses on understanding how actinides and lanthanides interact with different aluminum (hydr)oxide minerals and how the different surface acidities of these minerals effect macroscopic sorption trends. europium and neptunium interactions to gibbsite, bayerite, corundum, and γ-alumina were investigated through a series of batch sorption experiments at varying mineral and metal ion concentration, ph, and time. minerals were characterized to monitor for phase transformations and aqueous metal ion concentrations were measured using inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry. kinetics analyses and equilibrium descriptions of the sorption and desorption processes of these systems are discussed in detail. preliminary data focusing on the surface-mediated reduction of plutonium in the presence of bayerite and gibbsite are also presented. the relative cost of memory operations continues to increase as processor performance improvements outpace memory performance improvements. in operating systems based upon copy semantics, this widening performance gap represents an ever-increasing portion of application execution time consumed by i/ooverhead. buffering schemes such as fbufs and container shipping incorporate virtual memory page remapping and exploit locality in i/o traffic in an effort to reduce memory copying in the kernel. this thesis introduces a circular (ring) buffer management facility that reduces computation on the i/o critical path and allows greater control over memory consumed in the course of i/o. the system is implemented in linux and cross-domain and network i/o bandwidths are measured, analyzed, and compared to those offered by fbufs. oral susceptibility of aedes aegypti mosquitoes to dengue viruses varies between different aedes species and the genes contributing to susceptibility are unknown. the first goal of this project was to investigate midgut gene expression variation elicited in dengue susceptible (sus) and refractory (ref) aedes aegypti mosquitoes during the first 96 hours following dengue infection. the serial analysis of gene expression (sage) technique was utilized. libraries were constructed from midgut rna obtained from susceptible (sus) and refractory (ref) strains after denv-2 (i), naìäåøve blood (n) and sucrose meals (sm). the z-test software scored expression variation between nsus vs isus; nref vs iref; sm vs nsus; sm vs nref libraries. a total of 65,069 sage tags representing 14,474 distinct tag sequences were obtained from the libraries. variation between denv-2 infected libraries vs the respective strain-specific naìäåøve libraries revealed few transcripts that were common between infected libraries. among uniquely mapped genes, 31 genes in nsus vs isus and 28 genes in nref vs iref showed preferential expression while 12 genes showed shared differential expression between the naìäåøve and denv-infected libraries in both strains, suggesting a common response to infection. several functional processes were represented but generally varied between strains. of note, we determined that 29% and 39% of tags mapped to anti-sense transcripts in the sus and ref strains, respectively, and confirmed anti-sense transcription for a galectin, angitensin converting enzyme and a conserved hypothetical protein gene. in the second goal, expression variation between nsus and nref libraries with respect to the sm library was assessed. of the annotatable genes, 20 and 22 showed preferential expression in the sm vs nsus and the sm vs nref comparison, respectively, while 48 genes showed similar expression patterns in blood fed libraries. various processes, such as proteolysis and transport, showed similar expression patterns in blood fed libraries, although a few others varied. the translation process showed increased expression in the sm library. a proportion of our sage tags also mapped on the anti-sense strand of annotated genes. the third goal was to perform functional analysis of two putative dengue candidate genes, a pellino homologue gene and the inhibitor of apoptosis 1 (iap) gene. this is the first in vivo study to investigate the function of any iap and pellino homologues during arboviral infection in mosquitoes. while silencing the pellino gene had little effect on dengue, silencing of iap had a significant increase in midgut and disseminated infection rates, suggesting iap is a possible candidate gene for dengue vector competence. our study highlights new vector-specific molecular factors found in aedes aegypti midgut transcriptome, that likely contribute to differing capacities for dengue midgut infection in different strains, including those factors that could have potential as effectors against arboviruses. the early part of the 21st century saw the creation and quick adoption of social media as a way for people to communicate with their friends and loved ones. in the early days of this new online media, people were generally enthusiastic about this new "democratic'' way for citizens to express themselves the beginning of the arab spring, in particular, was seen as an example of how social media gave voice to those not in power, and how these combined voices could be used to topple dictators. however, as more people turned to social media for their news, polarization increased as individuals became more isolated from sources that valued nuance and balance. as a consequence, news organizations, social media companies, and government policy makers are now grappling with how to balance questions of free speech with incitement to violence and harassment on social media platforms.in this dissertation i describe several different methods to understand and describe human behavior on the internet, and the effect of offline events on online communities. the central focus of this work is a broad investigation into how groups of people behave online. i also present research that seeks to better understand the effect of policies enacted by governments or other social media companies on online behavior. finally, i provide an alternative to censorship as a way to stop the spread of misinformation and propaganda online as well as preliminary results on this intervention. we use github to research how new information is adopted into a group, and the resulting struggle that emerges from fights over how to apply this new knowledge. the results suggest that censorship has an impact on the structure of groups and that deplatforming results in more frequent users to leave reddit, for example. additionally, our results in piloting a social media literacy site suggests that people can be taught to do their own fact checking when they come across misinformation on social media, which we hope will result in less misinformation in the news feeds of citizens and a more informed public. networks provide a natural and powerful way to model complex real-world systems in various domains. studying structure of a network can help extract functional knowledge about the corresponding system. as real-world networks exhibit non-trivial organization at many scales, this extraction can be done on different levels: from the global perspective of the whole network to the intermediate perspective of node groups (or communities) to the local perspective of individual nodes. with new technological advances, the amount of available real-world network data in different domains rapidly increases. in addition, networks are growing in size and complexity. for example, whereas traditional network data has been static, because it has become easier to record system evolution, more of dynamic network data is becoming available. for these reasons, it is critical to develop novel computational strategies for efficient extraction of functional information from the structure of such complex (e.g., dynamic) networks. and this is the main focus of this dissertation. we achieve this goal in two different ways, by: 1) answering novel research questions via established network approaches, and 2) developing novel network approaches for established research questions.in the first context, we apply global network analysis to answer a novel question in a novel domain in which network research has not been used to date -interpreting affective physiological data. in addition, we employ local network analysis to study the interplay between individuals' social interactions and traits from a new dynamic (rather than traditional static) network viewpoint.in the second context, we take a well-established local analysis approach for static networks to develop a novel method for the problem of link prediction, which we use for de-noising biological networks. moreover, we take the same static local approach and develop new theory for dynamic network analysis. we demonstrate that accounting for temporal information helps and use our method to study human aging from biological networks. finally, we introduce a new approach for studying dynamic networks from the intermediate perspective, which deals with the problem of segment community detection. we show that our approach outperforms existing methods in terms of both accuracy and computational complexity. in this dissertation i consider the merits of certain nominalist accounts of phenomena related to the character of ordinary objects. what these accounts have in common is the fact that none of them is an error theory about standard cases of predication and none of them deploys god or uniquely theistic resources in its explanatory framework. the aim of the dissertation is to answer the following questions: ì¢ ââå¢ what is the best nominalist account on offer? ì¢ ââå¢ how might it be improved?ì¢ ââå¢ does it ultimately succeed?i will argue that while so-called trope theory is the best account on offer, it can be significantly improvedì¢ ââ' or replacedì¢ ââ' by a novel version of nominalism that is modeled after trope theory. ultimately, however, i will argue that even the novel version fails.the dissertation unfolds as follows. in chapter 1, i introduce austere nominalism (an), which is perhaps the most extreme version of nominalism that falls within the scope of the dissertation. an is often described as the view that there exist only concrete particulars. according to an, it is unnecessary to posit any entities other than ordinary objectsì¢ ââ' turkeys, tables, and the likeì¢ ââ' in order to account for explananda related to the character of those objects. (such explananda include the phenomenon of attribute agreement, of attribute possession, of true subject-predicate sentences, etc.) in this chapter i argue that an fails to provide an adequate account of these explananda. in addition, introducing and criticizing an serves an important heuristic role for the rest of the dissertation. to understand this role, we must distinguish between the basic explanatory strategy deployed by the austere nominalist and the type of explananda for which she deploys that strategy. the austere nominalist deploys the strategy to account for the character of ordinary objects. as i argue in chapter 1, this deployment is a failure. as i go on to show in chapter 2, the widespread rejection an has led to a variety of rival accounts of the character of ordinary objects. in rejecting an, however, these accounts also tacitly reject its basic explanatory strategy. thus goes the baby with the bathwater, since, arguably, there are some attractive features of an's basic explanatory strategy. indeed, those who defend the most prominent version of nominalismì¢ ââ' trope theoryì¢ ââ' seem to overlook the advantages of an's basic strategy, and by so doing, make an unnecessary concession to the realist. or so i argue in chapter 3. and, as i will argue in chapter 4, the strongest version of nominalism is a novel account, modeled after trope theory, that deploys an's basic strategy at a more fundamental level than that of ordinary objects. this novel accountì¢ ââ' troper theoryì¢ ââ' is closer in spirit to an than is traditional trope theory. (thus, an serves as a foil for the discussion of other nominalist views.) finally, in the afterword i show how troper theory is subject to some of the traditional objections to which trope theory is subject. thus, while troper theory is the best nominalist account on offer, it is ultimately inadequate as an account of the character of ordinary objects. finally, in the afterword i indicate how troper theory is equally vulnerable to some of the traditional objections that plague trope theory. thus, if you are not convinced that traditional objections to trope theory are conclusive and you want to be a nominalist, then you should abandon trope theory and adopt troper theory. if you take traditional objections against trope theory to have significant force, then you should reject both theories. the complex yet interrelated connections between cancer metabolism, gene expression, and oncogenic driver genes have the potential to identify novel biomarkers and drug targets with prognostic and therapeutic value. in this thesis, i quantified and compared the levels of 374 metabolites in breast tumor tissue from normal tissue and transgenic mouse breast cancer models overexpressing a panel of oncogenes (pymt, pymt-db, wnt1, neu, and c3-tag). i identified oncogene-specific metabolic profiles and used these model-specific metabolites to predict patient survival. except for c3-tag-specific metabolites, the model-specific metabolites were unable to predict survival in breast cancer patients.to further identify the critical metabolic players in breast cancer, we developed a correlation-based network analysis that captures the interactions between metabolic profiling and gene expression data. our network analysis identified 35 metabolite and 33 gene hubs that had the most network correlations. these hubs have prognostic value and are likely integral to tumor metabolism and breast cancer. i then focused on the gene hub aquaporin-7 (aqp7), a water and glycerol channel protein, as a novel regulator of breast cancer. aqp7 deficiency in animal models is associated with adipocyte hypertrophy, increased glycerol and triglyceride accumulation, insulin resistance, and obesity. i discovered that aqp7 is a prognostic marker of overall survival and metastasis in breast cancer patients. aqp7 is expressed in the epithelium and adipocytes in normal and tumor breast tissue. reduced aqp7 expression in mouse breast cancer models leads to reduced primary tumor burden and lung metastasis. these data suggest aqp7 as a target of breast cancer treatment. further metabolomics and complex lipid profiling of the cells and tumors revealed dramatically altered amino acid, carbohydrate, nucleotide, and lipid metabolism, including lowered glutathione levels and increased lipid levels in aqp7 knockdown cells and tumors compared to scrambled control. using cell-based assays, we confirmed that aqp7 knockdown decreased the oxidative stress tolerance of cancer cells, and altered the usage of arginine.using an unbiased, discovery-based approach, this study shed light on important players in breast cancer metabolism from a new perspective that complements current guided network analyses. this essay offers an evaluation of the current state of levi's reception in the anglophone world, with a particular focus on the us, in light of the reviews to this edition of his opera omnia. using data from a recent chicago survey among latinos, this paper explores the economic situation of latinos and their economic motivation for assimilation. i find that assimilation, outside its acculturation dimension, has no significant effect on wages, concluding that the labor market offers few incentives for latinos to assimilate. the ubiquitous development of information technology (it) infrastructures has greatly enhanced the technological evolution from automated to autonomous cyber-physical systems (cpss), such as networked mobile robots, autonomous vehicles, intelligent transportation systems, flexible manufacturing systems and so on. increasing demands for safety, resilience, security and operational efficiency of cpss have motivated us to pursue a correct-by-construction design methodology. this dissertation is devoted to the study of the resilient and secure coordination and control problems of a class of cpss that consist of multiple heterogeneous subsystems performing under uncertain environments, and contributions are made to both the theory and designs of provably correct local control policies and coordination rules to achieve complex goals.by characterizing the cyber logical behaviors of the cpss as discrete event systems (dess), we start our study with the supervisory control problems of dess whose complete plant models are not necessarily given a priori. by modifying l* learning algorithm, we develop learning-based supervisor synthesis algorithms over unknown plant under both complete and partial observation. furthermore, automatic synthesis methods of decentralized supervisors when the plant is unknown is also considered, and a learning-based algorithm that solves the decentralized supervisory control problem is proposed in terms of language controllability and co-normality. the correctness and finite convergence of the proposed algorithm are proved.we then investigate the formal coordination and control problem of cooperative multi-agent systems for a regular language specification. we propose an automatic synthesis framework to synthesize appropriate local mission plans and corresponding motion plans for each agent by integrating supervisory control theory and compositional verification techniques. furthermore, by presenting a modified l* learning algorithm, we are able to reconfigure the synthesized motion plans whenever the real environment is different from the idealized prior knowledge.next, the resilience of the proposed coordination and control framework in the presence of potential sensor and/or actuator faults is investigated. the sensor fault tolerant control scheme involves local supervisor reconfiguration upon the detection of the sensor faults, which are captured by permanent loss of observability of certain sensor reading events; while for the actuator faults that are modeled as loss of controllability of local events, a controller switching mechanism is developed for each agent after the detection of the faults. an assume-guarantee post-fault coordination among different subsystems is applied so that fault tolerance can be achieved.apart from the high-level performances, we take the dynamics of the robots into consideration and study the path planning problem with application to robotic systems. based on the mu-tangency conditions, a computationally efficient path planning approach is presented to derive the existence conditions and computationally efficient construction for a class of sub-optimal continuous-curvature paths for nonholonomic mobile robots. the proposed approach not only allows fast determination of the existence of a continuous curvature path, but also guarantees to construct the desired continuous curvature path.finally, we also study a confidentiality notion named opacity that characterizes the information-flow between the cyber and the physical parts of an autonomous cyber-physical system within the des formalism. more specifically, an enforcement mechanism based on the implementation of insertion functions is developed to assure decentralized and joint opacity properties if the system can be observed by multiple intruders either with or without coordination.the results on simulations on some illustrative examples are given to show that the theory established is correct and the proposed algorithms are efficient. we consider the higher order mkdv equation, so that we are examining those equations with a higher dispersion term of the order m, where m is odd and larger than 3. the corresponding periodic cauchy problem is in fact well-posed in sobolev spaces for all s ge 1/2. we then show that the solution to the periodic cauchy problem for this higher order equation with analytic initial data is analytic in the space variable x at any fixed time t near time zero. however, while this analyticity is not guaranteed in t, the solution does have gevrey-m regularity with respect to the time variable t. children exposed to intimate partner violence (ipv) experience heightened risk for negative outcomes, and research needs to observationally analyze children's socialization components after ipv to improve positive outcomes. one element is positive talk, defined as vocalizations contributing to relationships and exchanges. using observations of mother-child dyads playing, the current study aimed to examine effects of ipv, maternal mental health, and mothers' positive talk on children's positive talk. contrary to hypotheses, children exposed to ipv did not engage in less positive talk than non-exposed children, and poorer maternal mental health was not negatively associated with children's positive talk. controlling for child age, mothers' positive talk related to children's positive talk, but did not significantly moderate ipv and children's positive talk. future research should examine children's positive talk with other positive outcomes, and promoting positive talk between mother-child dyads may stimulate facilitative communication, despite ipv and mental health symptoms. this dissertation will cover cyclopropane methodology for the synthesis of 1,2,3-trisubstituted cyclopropanes. we envisioned building a cyclopropane precursor with two main features. the first feature was to use the known equilibrium between the homoallylic cation, the cyclobutane cation, and the cyclopropyl carbinyl cation. we incorporated this feature by having a homoallylic group (x) displaced with allylsilane forming the cyclopropyl carbinyl cation. this cation would then begin to equilibrate. however, the second feature was to include a silyl group ? to the olefin and in a position to stabilize the forming cyclopropyl carbinyl cation with the ?-silicon effect and therefore drive the equilibrium toward the cyclopropane. the silicon was necessary to make sure that ring fragmentation and subsequent 1,2-elimination did not occur. also, the facile elimination of silicon allowed us to trap the cyclopropane, which resulted in a terminal olefin which can be elaborated further. the 'state of the art' at the time of my arrival entailed building the cyclopropane precursor with a boron acetylide opening of mono-substituted epoxides. this methodology allowed us to prove our concept, but was limited toward the synthesis of trisubstituted cyclopropanes. therefore we proposed a method highlighted by the formation of the cyclopropane precursor using rcm chemistry. the goal was to investigate the closure of substituted cyclopropane precursors and determine the stereochemical course of the reaction. the new method allowed us to start from a substituted homoallylic alcohol and in three transformations yield the desired precursor. there are many methods known for the preparation of suitable homoallylic alcohols. however, for this summary i will only highlight the results obtained from homoallylic alcohols derived from an indium mediated crotylation of hydrocinnamaldehyde. the indium mediated crotylation resulted in a 3:1 mixture of anti:syn diastereomers. the predominance of anti is due to a closed six membered transition state where the crotyl indium species coordinates the aldehyde and delivers the crotyl group when the ethyl ester and the r group on the aldehyde are suedo equatorial in relationship. the diastereomers were separated by flash column chromatography. then, each was taken on independently to yield a single 1,2,3-tribubstitued cyclopropane. the homoallylic alcohol was protected with allylchlorodimethylsilane followed by closure with grubbs' ruthenium catalyst to afford the silyloxycycloheptene. the seven-membered ring was opened with hf'¢pyridine to give the desired cyclopropane precursor bearing a fluorosilane ? to the olefin and a homoallylic alcohol ready for activation. activation was accomplished with triflic anhydride and 2,6-lutidine in methylene chloride and afforded a single 1,2,3-trisubstituted cyclopropane from the displacement of triflate and subsequent elimination of the fluorosilane. after both diastereomers were taken through the sequence we postulated the transition state structure that would result in the formation of the 1,2,3-cyclopropane that resulted. we determined the relative cyclopropane stereochemistry after several 1h-nmr decoupling experiments. we concluded that the reaction was an sn2 displacement and that the steric environment controls the resulting stereochemistry. once we limit the discussion to an sn2 reaction we find there are only two possible transition states that allow for the anti-bonding orbital of the carbon-triflate bond to overlap with the ? bond of the olefin. the allylsilane can be either on the same side as or oppose the ethyl ester. we found that a classic a-strain argument can be used to determine what transition state is preferred. therefore the allylsilane and the ethylester will oppose each other, or the hydrogen ? to the carbonyl prefers to eclipse the olefin (a-strain). the transition states shown lead to the cyclopropane formed. the ethyl ester substituted case has also been further established using methyl substituted homoallylic alcohols showing that the argument was universal. starting from the homoallylic alcohol we have established a four-step sequence to give a single diastereomeric cyclopropane. the method is highlighted by the rcm strategy and has shown to be quite robust. after finishing the trisubstituted cyclopropane work we looked back into the sequence at our silyloxycycloheptene intermediates and realized that within the molecule laid a latent homoallylic alcohol with a ?-silyl group. this is shown when we took the intermediate and reduced the ethyl ester to the corresponding primary alcohol. this reaction was carried out at low temperature to ensure that silicon-oxygen bond cleavage did not occur. with the silyloxy ring intact we activated the primary hydroxy and the cyclopropanation took place to afford a disubstituted cyclopropane with cis orientation of the two substituents. we then took the same intermediate and treated it with excess lah which provided the corresponding diol from reduction of the ester followed by silicon-oxygen bond cleavage. this molecule was activated using standard conditions and cleanly yielded a disubstituted cyclopropane where the orientation of the two groups were trans to each other. this second case once again proved the a-strain argument. we have proposed that the reason for the diol to afford a cyclopropane of trans stereochemistry was because of the steric environment during the carbon-carbon forming step. we have postulated that the olefin and the ?-hydrogen are eclipsed or in other words, that the group containing the secondary hydroxyl and the olefin oppose each other. this theory is in concert with the transition states we have seen before in the trisubstituted case where the 1,3 interaction is the dominant force. all this work was published in organic letters, vol. 2, no. 5, 601-603. the paper summarizes the work that used the rcm strategy for the synthesis of trisubstituted cyclopropanes and disubstituted cyclopropanes of both cis and trans geometry. our methodology had now developed from a limited three-step sequence from epoxides to a four-step sequence starting from a homoallylic alcohol that exploited the rcm reaction with grubbs' ruthenium catalyst. at this time grubbs et. al. began publishing on a second generation catalyst that was quite promising for cross-metathesis reactions and exhibited a large range of functional group compatibility. we chose to exploit the new catalyst for our third generation synthesis of cyclopropanes. we envisioned using allyltrimethylsilane and a homoallylic alcohol as coupling partners in a cross metathesis reaction. we accomplished crossing both substituted and simple homoallylic alcohols with allyltrimethylsilane using the new grubbs' catalyst in yields ranging from 70% to 95%. this new procedure was then used to make all the cyclopropanes previously published. however, during the development of this two step method we found that when the cyclopropane precursor of substituted alcohols was activated we got a 50:50 mixture of desired cyclopropane and trimethylsilane protected starting material. previously we did not encounter this problem when the fluorosilane was the stabilizer. since the result ruined the efficacy of our route we explored other activation conditions (table #). after attempting multiple conditions we found that thionyl chloride at 0o c in methylene chloride was a viable substitute. with these new activating conditions we then were able to synthesis a variety of cyclopropanes, both disubstituted and trisubstituted. we have now shown that cyclopropanes can be synthesized in two steps from a variety of homoallylic alcohols. we have demonstrated the viability of the grubbs' catalyst for the cross-metathesis of allyltrimethylsilane and varied homoallylic alcohols . we have also shown that thionyl chloride is an excellent reagent for the activation of the cyclopropane precursor. all this data was published as a full paper in the journal of the american chemical society. as real-world complex networks are heterogeneous structures, not all their components such as nodes, edges and subgraphs carry the same role or importance in the functions performed by the networks: some elements are more critical than others. understanding the roles of the components of a network is crucial for understanding the behavior of the network as a whole. one the most basic function of networks is transport; transport of vehicles/people, information, materials, forces, etc, and these quantities are transported along edges between source and destination nodes. for this reason, network path-based importance measures, also called centralities, play a crucial role in the understanding of the transport functions of the network and the network's structural and dynamical behavior in general. in this thesis we study the notion of betweenness centrality, which measures the fraction of lowest-cost (or shortest) paths running through a network component, in particular through a node or an edge. high betweenness centrality nodes/edges are those that will be frequently used by the entities transported through the network and thus they play a key role in the overall transport properties of the network. in the first part of the thesis we present a first-principles based method for traffic prediction using a cost-based generalization of the radiation model (emission/absorption model) for human mobility, coupled with a cost-minimizing algorithm for efficient distribution of the mobility fluxes through the network. using us census and highway traffic data, we show that traffic can efficiently and accurately be computed from a rangelimited, network betweenness type calculation. the model based on travel time costs captures the log-normal distribution of the traffic and attains a high pearson correlation coefficient (0.75) when compared with real traffic. we then focus on studying the extent of changes in traffic flows in the wake of a localized damage or alteration to the network and we demonstrate that the changes can propagate globally, affecting traffic several hundreds of miles away. because of its principled nature, this method can inform many applications related to human mobility driven flows in spatial networks, ranging from transportation, through urban planning to mitigation of the effects of catastrophic events. in the second part of the thesis we focus on network deconstruction and community detection problems, both intensely studied topics in network science, using a weighted betweenness centrality approach. we present an algorithm that solves both problems efficiently and accurately and demonstrate that on both benchmark networks and data networks. we examined the impact of speaker variability on 19-month-old infants' ability to learn word-referent mappings. infants were randomly assigned to either a single speaker training condition (st) where they learned word-referent mappings from voice recordings from one female or a multiple speaker condition (mt) where they learned the same pairings, but heard them labeled from voice recordings of eight females. infants were tested on the mappings immediately following training and after a one-week delay. at test infants had to generalize the mappings to a new female voice and sentence not heard during training. females in the mt condition demonstrated generalization of the mappings immediately after learning, but not at the delayed test. in contrast, females in the st condition only exhibited generalization of the mappings at the delayed test. males did not demonstrate word learning at either the immediate or delayed test, regardless of condition. our findings suggest that high amounts of speaker variability promotes generalization of mappings immediately after training, but that lower variability benefits recognition after a delay, at least for females. this dissertation examines textual and literary culture in england during the first half of the fifteenth century and the nascent canon of english literature emerging in the decades after chaucer's death in 1400. its focus is the manuscripts of john shirley (ca. 1366-1456), the bureaucrat and bibliophile whose autograph manuscripts contain unique copies of many of geoffrey chaucer's and john lydgate's shorter poems. while extant scholarship on shirley tends to narrowly focus on his biography or on the codicology of his manuscripts, this dissertation connects his life and works to larger discourses of literary history. while my research expands and challenges past scholarship on the audience of shirley's manuscripts, i contend that shirley played a much more extensive role in the development of english literary culture than has previously been acknowledged. integrating manuscript studies and literary history, this project provides new insight into the profound transformations in the meanings of "literature," authorship, canonicity, and pre-print "publishing" in fifteenth-century england. i argue that shirley played a new role in the development of ideas of authorship and the english literary canon; during an age when poetry regularly circulated anonymously, his anthologies, which specifically attribute poems to various authors, are radically author-centered and embody a marked shift from the "household books" or thematically grouped anthologies of courtly and religious verse which usually circulated in england in his life time. my research explores how shirley's conception of these issues is embedded in the mise-en-page, or lay-out, of his manuscripts (including his prefaces, introductory headnotes, colophons, running titles and glosses), and was disseminated throughout the nascent english literary community as his manuscripts circulated in varied "reading circles" during his lifetime and were copied and used as exemplars after his death. complete transcriptions of shirley's headnotes, colophons, and running titles, many of which are unedited and unpublished, are appended. the elements heavier than iron are believed to be synthesized through a combination of rapid (r) and slow (s) neutron capture processes. the s-process and r-process are each generally responsible for half of the heavy elements overall. the specific astrophysical site(s) of the r-process is not known for sure, but neutron star mergers and core-collapse supernovae appear to be good candidates. the s-process occurs in asymptotic giant branch stars (main component) and massive stars (weak component). many of the light heavy-elements (lhes) 70&lt;a&lt;110 have their largest abundance components from the weak s-process (a&lt;90), but also contain significant contributions from the main s-process and r-process. this work focuses on two independent aspects of lhe production, 1) neutron production in massive stars for the weak s-process and 2) the nuclear structure present in the lhes. the former is investigated through low-energy reaction cross section measurements of the reaction 12c(12c,n)23mg where measurements are pushed to lower energies than previous works could achieve and a new low-energy extrapolation is provided along with a quantitative estimate of the uncertainty in the astrophysical reaction rate. the new results suggest that this reaction is responsible for a significant neutron flux in weak s-process scenarios with a correspondingly significant affect on lhe abundances. the latter is investigated through sub-nanosecond lifetime measurements of excited states in odd-mass neutron-rich nuclides near a~110. results are presented for the nucleus 109pd, where 8 new lifetimes have been determined with several new levels and transitions assigned to the beta-decay of its parent 109rh. the new results are discussed with the systematics in the mass region, which indicate that a strong p-n interaction between valence g9/2 protons and g7/2 neutrons influences the nuclear structure in the region including the rapid onset of shape transitions and presence of long-lived isomeric states which could play a role in the various nucleosynthesis processes. this dissertation investigates the role of gender in generating and processing divorce litigation. drawing on a probability sample of 1064 divorce litigation records and 33 in-depth interviews in a northern midsize city of china, my research demonstrates pronounced gender differences in motivations, experiences, and outcomes of divorce litigations. the first chapter shows that failing to provide economic resources was more likely to be cited by women but rarely cited by men. husbands are held more accountable for providing economic resources. failing to live up to the breadwinner norm can jeopardize the marriage, and particularly motivate women's divorce. in the second chapter, i found that marital discords are not limited to nuclear households; extended family members play a significant role in influencing marriage stability. types of complaints concerning in-laws are gendered, with women are more likely to complain about being victims of violence from their in-laws, and men are more likely to complain about their wives do not show enough respect to their parents. last, i found adjudicated divorce outcomes regarding child custody differ significantly by gender. yet, the effect differs between rural courts and urban courts. compared to rural, urban courts are more likely to grant child custody to women. overall, my dissertation contributes to the growing body of gender literature on how gender-based inequalities in marital life connect to and interact with other social institutions. further, my research challenges the prediction that families in societies like china will converge into the western model to become more nuclear and individualized. i find a great heterogeneity and a strong pattern of coexistence of individualism and familism in chinese marriage and family life, which calls for more nuanced theories to capture the complexity of different cultural and institutional contexts. the north american religious landscape is characterized by declining participation in religious institutions, increasing uncertainty about matters of faith, and a growing population who identify as nonreligious. nevertheless, people with a range of relationships with religion continue to turn to religious practices occasionally rather than routinely, often in connection with specific occasions such as holidays, life transitions, and personal or communal crises. integrating method and theory from sociology of religion and liturgical studies, i develop the concept of occasional religiosity through a case study anchored in three years of ethnographic fieldwork in the anglican church of canada in toronto, including analysis of 41 interviews with participants in baptisms and funerals and 20 interviews with clergy.sociologically, i argue occasional religious practice is a consistent yet underdeveloped theme in research on religious change in canada, the united states, and europe. i draw out this common thread and explore the diversity of religious and nonreligious identities claimed by those who participate occasionally in christian worship. i also outline different types of occasional practitioners based on their motivations for participation, changes in practice over the life course, and how practitioners assess their occasionality. within the field of ritual studies, i examine occasional practice as selective participation in a ritual system some practice routinely. i explore how multiple ritual systems overlap and how participants positioned differently within ritual systems may interpret the same system in different ways as they intuitively negotiate the strategic selection of certain practices.theologically, this research unsettles the assumption that liturgical participants are fully believing, actively practicing, morally compliant, and formally affiliated with a tradition. it claims that doing theology with occasional practitioners is not only necessary to access the lived liturgical theology of present-day worshipers, but also an obligation emerging from jesus' attention to the marginalized, including those on the liturgical and theological margins. privileging the perspectives of occasional practitioners centers materiality, emotion, and relationship, although occasional practitioners also speak of god, tradition, and ethics. this research has broad implications for understanding religion, ritual, and liturgical theology as well as practical implications for clergy and occasional practitioners. this dissertation challenges prevailing critical views of the new woman by investigating the colonial and rural dimensions of the new women in ireland and irish literature. although depicted differently by individual fin de si cle authors, the new woman became synonymous with demands for increased access to education and the public sphere as well as critiques of sexual double standards and the institution of marriage. critics have tended to discuss the new woman as a british, and to a lesser extent american, phenomenon. however, such a focus perpetuates the misconception that the new woman is produced only within geographies associated with certain experiences of modernity. looking at the irish authors emily lawless, rosa mulholland, george moore and m.e. francis, i outline how ireland's particular situation as a british colony seeking cultural and political independence shaped irish writers' representations of new womanhood. within my dissertation, each chapter focuses around a different aspect associated with the new womanì¢ ââ' sexuality, emancipation from the domestic sphere, modernity, and political engagement. each chapter explores how these specific aspects become inflected in the irish context in the works of emily lawless, rosa mulholland, george moore, and m.e. francis respectively. i contend that the geography and specific cultural experience of ireland produce distinctly irish versions of the new woman, figures who challenge the new woman's assumed connection to an urban and british modernity. my analysis follows the lead of such recent critics as leeanne richardson and iveta jusovìäåá to uncover the varied intersections of the new woman with empire while arguing that a modernity capable of producing new women also exists in the colonial periphery. this dissertation also alters understandings of the irish literary scene of this period by recovering literature that remains outside the dominant narratives primarily devoted to the irish literary revival and irish nationalist politics. this body of work explores information processing of metabarcodes. it seeks to answer the following questions: what does this string of metabarcode dna mean? where does it come from? and how do we utilize it in new and interesting ways? this is done by implementing a genomic informatics processing framework, utilizing provenance and metadata to increase data utility of metabarcode data. three terms are critical to the understanding of this body of work: provenance, the history of the data; metadata, information about the data, and data utility, the general reusability of the data. under these definitions' provenance is a subset of metadata. i show an increase pf data utility in three ways: by looking at the different features of the metabarcode itself, and exploring how manipulation of those features can start to explain variance in the analysis of metabarcode data; in chapter two, agent based simulations are used to analyze features, such as the relative abundance of barcodes, to show their effect on resulting metabarcode datasets. unsurprisingly, varying the abundance of metabarcode sequences results in the variance in the similarity between samples. other features, like the addition of single nucleotide polymorphisms can also result in variance in simulaity. i then go on to show how metadata and provenance of previously published metadata can be utilized in order to further describe the environment of a species of interest; in chapter three, i utilize natural language processing techniques in order to draw conclusions about the environment of a particular species, a human pathogen known as cryptococcus neoformans. lastly, by utilizing the metadata of various metabarcode datasets i show we can now explore not only the intermixing of various previously published metabarcode data but derive new estimations of arthropod diversity and rarefaction; in chapter four, i implement a novel data framework called met, which utilizes the metadata from different metabarcode datasets in order to make comparisons across different projects. what i conclude is that by utilizing a genomic informatics and informatics processing framework we can increase the data utility of the metabarcode; this is useful because this allows us to gain more "bang for our buck" to use an adage. why do states develop intransigent maximalist preferences in territorial disputes? i argue that shifting relative power dynamics between states with territorial disputes causes dissatisfaction with the status quo. rising powers feel they are entitled to more than the status quo and set new aspirational references points. declining powers fail to accept the new status quo and retain the previous status quo as their reference point. when reference points shift such that states view compromise as a loss they develop a preference for territory that is averse to loss, resulting in intransigent maximalist preferences. this argument explicitly draws on the insights of prospect theory. i test my argument using a mixed-methods approach. i first present evidence from a survey experiment in which participants demonstrated a decreased willingness to compromise when primed in the domain of losses. i then present three case studies of territorial indivisibility, namely israel/palestine, taiwan, and ireland. i test these cases against prominent theories of indivisibility and find that issue indivisibility is an important factor in international relations and that the source of intransigent maximalist preferences lies in the psychology of loss aversion driven by shifting power dynamics. my dissertation research centers around the experiences of shareholders at 'state-line farm', a small, sustainable, not for profit community supported agriculture (csa) organization in the midwest. using a combination of participant observation and semi-structured interviews, my research details the interrelated mechanisms and processes that supported shareholders' experience of community, shaped their perceptions of social exchange, and facilitated members' construction of coherent and convergent explanations in the face of unexpected and ambiguous organizational change. i begin by establishing how three social mechanisms at the organization level the division of labor; recruitment and homophily; and false consensus allowed members to experience the csa as a community of like-minded producers and consumers of ethical food despite their ideological disagreements. i then demonstrate how state-line's organizational identity, which draws heavily on a community logic, influenced the cognitive and affective outcomes of social exchange. by constraining the forms of exchange deemed normatively appropriate and priming sensemaking processes, state-line's identity facilitated members' experience of social exchange as being consonant with community ideals and supportive of positive affective group bonds, even in instances where contemporary sociological exchange theories suggest that they should not.finally, i articulate how the length of a member's tenure and the strength of their identification with the organization were integral to their ability to construct coherent and convergent explanations when faced with a radical shift in the structure of the csa. i show that long term members were more likely to engage in sensemaking, and were better able to provide coherent explanations when they did. additionally, i found that those who more strongly identified with the organization were more likely to offer convergent, 'community lost', narratives than members with weaker identification. equilibrium charge fractions have been measured for 3 7 mev lithium, boron,and carbon ions passing through thin carbon foils. the data are compared to the predictions of several semi-empirical models of charge equilibrium in the ì¢"¡å_ 1mev/u regime. the current work underscores the general problem of extrapolating models developed for high-z projectiles to ions of low-z. the charge fractions for lithium, boron and carbon ions passing through thin foils of carbon, aluminum, copper, silver, and gold are compared with the mean charge of the projectile, the functional form of the charge distribution, and the distribution width. these are parameters used to examine the effects of the electronic structure on charge exchange for various target-projectile combinations. projectile shell structure is found to have a large influence on the widths of the charge state distribution and the data for these low-z ions can be used to establish a baseline for more complicated electron systems encountered with ions of higher z. experimental techniques and comments on the nature of the equilibrium charge states of low-z ions are presented. the growth of b. viridis was characterized in an undefined rich medium and a well-defined medium, which was later selected for further experimentation to insure repeatability. this medium presented a significant problem in obtaining either multigenerational or vigorous growth because of metabolic limitations; therefore optimization of the medium was undertaken. a primary requirement to obtain good growth was a shift in the ph of the medium from 6.9 to 5.9. once this shift was made, it was possible to obtain growth in subsequent generations, and the media formulation was optimized. a response curve suggested optimum concentrations of 75 mm carbon, supplemented as sodium malate, 12.5 mm nitrogen, supplemented as ammonium sulfate, and 12.7 mm phosphate buffer. in addition, the vitamins p-aminobenzoic acid, thiamine, biotin, b12, and pantothenate were important to achieving good growth and good pigment formation. exogenous carbon dioxide, added as 2.5 g sodium bicarbonate per liter media also enhanced growth and reduced the lag time. the optimized medium enhanced the total growth of cells slightly, and increased the culture optical density and pigmentation by a factor of 2 and 3, respectively, bringing the culture performance in the defined medium above the performance in the rich, undefined medium. a total of 31 chemicals from 17 chemical families were screened at either 10 mm or 2 mm concentration to determine their effect on the growth and pigment formation of b. viridis. most alcohols surveyed caused significant enhancement to growth rate, and the primary carbon in a secondary alcohol was proposed as the site of attack allowing usage of these compounds. aromatic compounds were not as successfully cultured, and potential mechanisms for cell damage and compound degradation were discussed. b. viridis demonstrated the ability to grow unimpaired in the presence of mek, methyl chloride, mimethyl sulfoxide, dimethyl formamide, chloroethane, acetonitrile, and dioxane. several methods for working with bacteria were presented. the two-point method, a rapid and reliable method to compare cell growth and health, was demonstrated. a mechanized device for spin plating was also introduced, both significantly reducing operator fatigue and injury, and increasing the consistency of plate count data. plots containing witches and acts of witchcraft were particularly popular on the english stage because of their theatrical potential. performing incantations, ritualistic spells, and making people and objects fly, among other things, allowed playwrights and theatre companies to exploit theatrical mechanisms and push the limits of the theatre, providing awe-inducing scenes for their audiences. moreover, as witchcraft prosecutions and convictions peaked from 1560 to 1630, the english stage became a space where common people could experience and witness acts of witchcraft, which were otherwise prohibited and condemned by the law. thriving on the sensationalism of witchcraft and exploring the ideas and morality of their era, playwrights capitalized on these historical trends in their works.this dissertation argues that the presence of witches on the stage was an integral part of early modern english theatre that helped shape the conventions of different genres and transform theatre itself. by looking into early modern english histories, tragedies, and tragicomedies, the project explores the inherent queerness of witches and their disrupting natures. within histories, witches are used to disrupt the act of history-making and queer english history. in tragedies, the witches push the limit of the genre by becoming physical embodiments of fate, destiny, and failed justice, and they use their powers to lead men into their seemingly inevitable tragic ends. lastly, in tragicomedies witches disrupt gender norms, society and politics in a way that allows the playwrights and their audiences to imagine new futures. ultimately, this dissertation argues that witches on stage are agents of unregulated sexualities and power, capable to disrupting the heteronormative while also effectively queering the theatre. this dissertation describes a search for new physics that has been performed at the compact muon solenoid experiment. the search makes use of an integrated luminosity &#8747;l=19.5/fb of data taken during the 2012 proton-proton collisions at center of mass energy sqrt(s)=8 tev produced by the large hadron collider near geneva, switzerland. the search has been performed on events with two photons, jets, and missing transverse energy. the final state for this search is motivated by the theory of gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking but is sensitive to any new physics producing massive particles decaying via this channel. the dominant standard model backgrounds to this final state include quantum chromodynamics processes and electroweak processes involving w bosons. no excess above standard model backgrounds is observed. the results have been interpreted in the context of gauge-mediated supersymmetry in multiple model scans, resulting in 95% confidence level limits on signal production cross sections between 0.7 and 6.6 fb for a bino-like neutralino and between 50 and 5000 fb for a wino-like neutralino. the upper limits for the bino-like case are the most stringent to date for gauge-mediated supersymmetry models. this study explored adolescents' emotional security as an intervening variable in the path from the interaction between interparental aggression and parental problem drinking and adolescents' internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. additional tests were conducted to explore the impact of parental gender in these relationships. information from multiple reporters was obtained during laboratory sessions attended by mothers, fathers and their adolescent child. direct and indirect effect models were tested. results indicated a direct relationship between marital aggression and adolescents' internalizing behavior problems, and adolescents' emotional security was shown to mediate the relationship between marital aggression and adolescents' depression and anxiety. furthermore, analyses suggested deleterious effects of parental problem drinking on adolescents' adjustment. implications of these results are discussed. bacterial resistance to antibiotics is becoming increasingly prevalent and dictates a desperate need for new therapies. a means of fighting this resistance is through the exploitation of microbial iron uptake. in order to obtain this necessary nutrient, bacteria synthesize a plethora of low molecular weight iron chelators known as siderophores. while drugs can be attached to these molecules and actively transported into cells in a 'trojan horse' approach, activity is often lost when the target is present in the cytoplasm. as these drugs no longer reach their target or do not bind correctly, the incorporation of a releasable linker between the siderophore and antibiotic may restore activity and circumvent resistance due to decreased permeability of the bacterial outer membrane. in this thesis, work towards the production of siderophore-drug-conjugates containing nitroreductase-triggered linkers is discussed. in chapter 2, the design and syntheses of linkers hypothesized to be reduced and cyclized by bacterial nitroreductase enzymes are described. initially, test molecules were synthesized and reduced to demonstrate the feasibility of triggered drug release. after this proof of principle, a first generation linker was prepared, however a nitroreductase assay suggested that linkers with adjusted reduction potential might be necessary for drug release. therefore, additional molecules were synthesized and the three prepared linkers were coupled to ciprofloxacin to form linker-drug conjugates. biological testing was completed for several synthesized molecules and dinitro containing compounds showed moderate to strong activity against m. vaccae and m. tuberculosis. in chapter 3 the production of a mixed-ligand siderophore and attempts at preparing siderophore-drug conjugates are described. many conditions were employed unsuccessfully to couple the siderophore and the linker-drug conjugates. currently, a new pathway is underway with the hope that it will be successful in the formation of siderophore-drug conjugates. further studies are required to see if nitroreductase-triggered linkers in siderophore-drug conjugates will create effective antibacterial agents. this dissertation contains two essays on the impact of maternity leave policy and one chapter illustrating the advantage of a rarely used but powerful experimental design. in chapter one, my co-authors and i exploit a sudden expansion of paid leave from 6 to 12 weeks in the united states military to assess impacts on maternal health. using detailed medical records covering all medical care by mothers in the year following birth, i assess the impact of additional maternity leave on maternal health under multiple designs. i find that the additional leave decreases the likelihood of postpartum depression diagnosis. i provide some evidence that expanding leave reduced mothers' pain and health care utilization but these results are more sensitive to specification choice. these results provide some of the best and most comprehensive evidence of the impacts of paid maternity leave on maternal health. chapter two utilizes the same policy variation as chapter one to study impacts of additional paid leave on leave taking, continued employment, and promotion of mothers. administrative records enable estimation under multiple designs. i find that the policy increases leave taking by 5 weeks, has minimal impacts on continued employment, and significant negative impacts on promotion. features of the military mean that results are absent return to work and income effects. as a result, my estimates provide evidence which can help reconcile estimates of positive short run and negative long run impacts found in past research.chapter 3 builds on my existing published work regarding the impacts of the flipped classroom and the design of educational experiments. when educational interventions are studied using randomization of treatment by classroom and semester, power requires many classrooms and rigorous evaluation is costly. i use placebo treatments and monte carlo simulations to evaluate precision under randomization at the classroom by lesson, an alternative discussed in (wozny et al., 2018). i find that standard errors under randomization by classroom and lesson are one-fourth the size and have less bias than those under randomization by classroom and semester. improvements are robust to changes in key parameters and of violations of identifying assumptions. in this dissertation, a new molecular level platform that can bear single transition metal active sites was introduced. the new platform was developed by utilizing a known synthetic method of lacunary defect formation on well-defined polyoxometalate (pom) structures and subsequent metalation of formed defective vacancy. on the lacunary defects of wells dawson phosphor-tungstate structures, single ni2+ active sites were isolated. upon dispersion of ni substituted wells dawson polyoxometalate (ni-pom-wd) on sba-15, substituted ni sites successfully converted ethylene to linear butene species and heavier oligomers. ni-pom-wd catalysts yielded resembling kinetic parameters to those of other solid nickel catalysts such as ni2+ exchanged zeolites. the robust stability of ni-pom-wd catalysts was shown by multiple regenerated cycles ethylene oligomerization without structural degradation. we investigated the influence of molecular surroundings on substituted ni sites by changing the size and elemental compositions of site bearing polyoxometalates. it was shown that the size of polyoxometalate structure does not perturb the kinetic nature of substituted ni sites. on the other hand, the activation energy of ni sites was found to be correlated with the electronegativity of internal heteroatoms. moreover, three ni sites were isolated on one polyoxometalate structure. mass normalized ethylene consumption rate was increased due to the increased per pom ni concentration. more interestingly, the ratio of 1-butene/2-butene was able to be changed by facilitating re-adsorption and isomerization of 1-butene with structurally controlled ni site proximity. other known transition metal active sites (cr, co) for light olefin coupling reaction were isolated on lacunary defects and their catalytic performance was evaluated. as scientists, we don't often have the opportunity to observe the early stages of a biological introduction and even more rare to witness the beginnings of a speciation event. however, the discovery of the apple maggot, rhagoletis pomonella, in the western us offers a unique opportunity to study both of these events in an agriculturally and economically important system that is well known as the model for the study of incipient sympatric speciation. its recently observed introduction to the western united states allows for the testing of hypotheses regarding the origins of western populations. in addition, discovery of its attack on native black hawthorns (crataegus douglasii) and invasive ornamental hawthorns (c. monogyna) are relevant to studies on sympatric host shifts of phytophagous insects as a result of divergent selection. the goal of my dissertation was to test for evidence supporting the hypothesis that populations of r. pomonella in the west and mountain west in the united states are the result of a recent introduction and are not native, to test for evidence of recent host shifting from apple to black and ornamental hawthorn in the west that has resulted in ecological host race formation, and discuss a novel method for the control of invasive species. we tested for evidence of an introduction by genotyping populations from the western range of r. pomonella and made comparisons between western populations and known native populations from the east and the south. we tested for evidence of host race formation by performing behavior assays to test for differences in behavior and by identifying differences in allele frequencies and loci under divergence between different host-associated populations in the west. lastly, we suggest the concept of 'invasivory,' meaning to eat invasive species, as a novel method for control of invasive species populations. our results show that there is genetic evidence that populations from the west in washington state are likely the result of an apple fly introduction from the east and populations from the mountain west in utah and colorado are likely the result of a red hawthorn fly introduction from the east. in addition, behavior studies show attraction to natal host-odor blends and avoidance of non-natal host-odor blends by all host-associated populations of r. pomonella. lastly, there is genetic evidence for host race formation in the west through the identification of loci showing divergence in pairwise comparisons. the loci under divergent selection in the west are the same loci under divergent selection in the east, which suggests that the same traits and underlying genes are under selection. in addition, there is evidence for gene flow between different host-associated populations at sympatric sites, which indicates that selection must be strong for divergence to still be occurring. lastly, though 'invasivory' is an interesting experiment, the act of eating invasive species is unlikely to result in changes in invasive species populations. however, through public outreach, it is possible that 'invasivory' as a concept can be used as an educational tool to bring attention to the threat of invasive species and thereby result in the prevention invasive species establishment through vigilance and changes in public policy. the work throughout my dissertation makes contributions to our knowledge of invasive species, ecological divergence, and host race formation in sympatry. this thesis has revealed a new component to the natural and evolutionary history of the rhagoletis pomonella system in the context of invasion and speciation biology. deficiencies of key proteins of the coagulation cascade have a measurable impact in haemostasis when murine models are used. in our studies, these models allow us to study the implications of factor xi (fxi)-/-, factor xii (fxii)-/-, fxi-/-/ fxii-/-, very low-expressing factor vii (fviitta/tta), fibrinogen (fg)-/-, and protein c (pc)+/mice in biological systems other than coagulation. these systems include inflammation and the resulting tissue modifications from such process. all of the murine models used in these studies exhibit extended life spans and do not develop the life threatening conditions seen in other murine deficiencies. most of these deficient mice slowly develop pathologies and abnormalities caused by the partial or total lack of the coagulation protein. occasionally a phenotype with no obvious compromises is seen under resting conditions, however, the deficiencies become very obvious after inflammatory or vascular challenge when compared to the responses observed in wild type (wt) mice. evaluation of spontaneous and induced phenotypes of mice deficient in proteins from the contact system, reveal evidence implicating fxi and potentially fxii in the regulation of the normal inflammatory response. this response was evident in unchallenged fxi-/-mice and becomes more conspicuous after arterial oxidative challenge when a silicon-copper cuff is used (copper-based oxidative challenge). potential implications of the contact system in the regulation of inflammation are observed by exacerbated counts of granulocytes in the blood of fxi and fxii double deficient mice. similarly, a low expression of fvii in mice of the same genetic background produces an inflammatory response that results in spontaneous left ventricular fibrosis. this phenomenon seems to be caused by an angiogenesis-driven cardiomyocyte degeneration. this abnormality in endothelial cell behavior was only seen in mice with compromised tissue factor (tf)/fviia complex levels. the direct impact of the deficiency of fg in haemostasis is frequently observed by clot instability if examined by transluminescent video microscopy and extension of coagulation times in fg-specific, pt, and aptt tests. however, cellular and structural differences are apparent when clots are studied at an ultrastructural level. detailed differences that impact the size and stability of the clot, as well as the degree of platelet activation, become evident in electron micrographs of platelet clots in the absence of fg. the impact of the anticoagulant pc on the regulation of thrombin-dependant angiogenesis and inflammation in mice exposed to copper-based oxidative arterial challenge was evaluated. a partial deficiency of normal pc levels (&asymp;60% of wt) supports a normal development and viability in pc+/mice. nevertheless, these levels in pc+/mice are enough to cause significant phenotypical differences upon copper-based oxidative challenge. characterization of each one of these deficiencies under resting or challenging conditions reveal the extent of their effects on coagulation and, when also studied, in inflammation. such effects often involve implications beyond the thrombin and/or fibrin-dependent induced cell behavior or inflammatory changes. these models for murine deficiencies disclose new or understudied potential interactions of each one of these proteins with other biological systems. current research has shown that building energy consumption contributes to more than 40\% of the total energy use in united states. in recent years, the investigation of the reduction of a building's energy consumption, both at the design stage and operational stage, has received great attention. to obtain an optimal design and improve energy efficiency during operation, a reliable building energy model is needed to incorporate the important static and dynamic information from various resources. static information includes building geometry, materials, and installed hvac system, while dynamic information includes weather information, occupants' temperature schedule, inputs from sensors (e.g., temperature and occupancy), and internal heat and moisture sources during operation. at the design stage, using a building energy model can assist architects with normative design and building optimization workflows. the developed energy model in this dissertation can be easily integrated with revit architecture, one of the most commonly used building design tools, to accelerate the design optimization process. its use can save redundant efforts of going back-and-forth between an energy modeling tool and a design tool to assess the energy impact of design modifications. at the operational stage, a machine learning method is utilized to predict the occupants temperature schedule, and this schedule is input to the model-based predictive control for further optimization with the goal of minimizing energy consumption while maintaining comfort conditions. though many attempts have been made to study the basic mechanisms of building energy modeling and predictive control, major challenge still lie in how to develop a simple but also relatively accurate thermal model to simulate a building's energy performance. the other challenge lie in how to develop a comprehensive cost function with sufficient constraints for a model predictive control algorithm. this dissertation introduces and illustrates a method for integrated building control to reduce energy consumption and maintain indoor temperature setpoints, based on the prediction of occupant behavior patterns and weather information. it primarily focuses on the following goals. firstly, an energy model for building energy simulation has been developed, and integrated to assist architects to do design optimizations. secondly, a model-based predictive control (mbpc) method has been developed and experiments have been conducted to validate the energy-saving benefits of mbpc compared with other conventional control methods. in the end, a machine-learning algorithm is developed to predict the future temperature schedule based on historic data. many of hume's positions have received as much attention as those of any other early modern figure, but his position on knowledge has been surprisingly neglected. in my dissertation, i develop a general interpretation of hume's position on knowledge. the most striking features of hume's account, under my interpretation, are that (i) instances of knowledge are immediately present perceptions and (ii) the objects of instances of knowledge are relations between some of their parts. the exegetical and philosophical implications of this account are significant. first, i argue that hume runs afoul of the widespread contemporary dogma that knowledge entails belief, both in cases involving sense perception and in cases involving abstract philosophical reasoning. second, i argue that knowledge infallibilisms like hume's—views that maintain that a knower could not err with respect to what she knows—are compatible with the negation of external world skepticism, contrary to the consensus in the field. some strains of direct realism provide ample space for the infallibilist to deny this skeptical conclusion. third, i argue that some of hume's "demonstrations" do not, in fact, generate knowledge. (demonstrations are, among other things, sound arguments with necessary premises.) since hume is widely interpreted to hold that these demonstrations have literally unbelievable conclusions, this means that hume must maintain that we can demonstrate claims that we cannot believe. there are numerous methods for implementing tomographic image reconstruction. commercially, the technique which is most commonly used is filtered backprojection (fbp), due to its simplicity in computation. however, this technique is not the most appropriate in cases where the data set is incomplete or the signal-to-noise ratio is low. therefore, methods based on statistics have been introduced, such as maximum a posteriori (map) estimation. these methods rely on modeling the process of projection data generation and modeling of the image a priori. since the reconstruction problem posed in this manner usually reduces to an optimization problem, a variety of iterative numerical methods for solving this problem has been explored. this dissertation will explore techniques for tomographic image reconstruction that use non-standard two-dimensional filtering of the sinogram prior to conventional backprojection. these techniques take advantage of features of both the conventional and statistical methods. in the first of our techniques, we will develop optimal nonstationary linear sinogram filters based on sinogram statistics. the advantages of this method are the exploitation of correlation information among the projections of the sinogram data for the filter design, while maintaining a low computational cost for the reconstruction, comparable to that of fbp. this document also introduces a second technique named nonlinear backprojection (nbp), which attempts to directly model the pseudo-optimal reconstruction operator through off-line training. this allows a more general, less explicit modeling of the data than the traditional statistical methods. the reconstruction of the image is non-iterative, reducing the cost of the method but achieving quality comparable to that of other statistical methods. results with both methods introduced in this dissertation refute the commonly held belief that sinogram filtering should be one-dimensional along the radial variable. poetry collection about childhood occurrences in a domestic space. this dissertation is a collection of essays encompassing macro and monetary economics. together, they seek to understand how fiscal and monetary policies can better facilitate trade, stimulate demand, and reduce the volatility of macroeconomic aggregates in response to economic shocks. my first chapter studies the optimal maturity structure of government debt in response to demographic shocks. my second chapter compares the quantitative performance of a gold standard to other popular central bank policies. my third chapter examines how various monetary policies conducted by a central bank impact the debt-financed fiscal multiplier. lymphatic vasculature pervades the human body and is responsible for extracellular fluid homeostasis, immune cell trafficking, and inflammatory responses. despite the critical functions of this complex and nearly ubiquitous system, much remains to be understood. discovery of the uniquely expressed receptors vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-3 (vegfr-3) and lymphatic vessel hyaluronan endothelial receptor-1 (lyve-1) in 1996 and 1999, respectively, enabled the identification of this secondary circulatory system, distinct from the blood circulatory system. dysfunction of the lymphatic system is associated with a wide spectrum of disease states, including progression of neurodegenerative diseases, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, lymphedema, cancer metastasis, and wound healing. despite an exponential increase in lymphatic-related research, the field is still nascent and limited understanding of development and disease has constrained the discovery and creation of therapeutic interventions for conditions related to lymphatic dysfunction. controlling lymphangiogenesis, the formation of new lymphatic vessels, exhibits potential as a novel therapeutic strategy for the treatment of lymphatic-related conditions and could provide the first-long term treatment, replacing current treatments which are limited in effectiveness and longevity of relief. while this approach has widely been postulated as a novel treatment, its exploration has remained very limited, partly due to the unavailability of controllable matrix environments, challenges associated with 3-dimensional (3d) lymphatic vessel morphogenesis, and an incomplete understanding of the regulatory processes governing lymphangiogenesis.to bridge this knowledge gap, the main goal of this dissertation was to develop a physiologically relevant, advanced model of lymphatic development for in vitro mechanistic investigations and in vivo regenerative medicine applications. hyaluronic acid (ha) provides a unique advantage as a material for lymphatic tissue engineering applications due to lyve-1 on lecs being a receptor for ha, and it was selected as the biomaterial of choice for the hydrogel-based models developed in this dissertation. ha-based hydrogels were used to investigate the role of mechanical and biochemical cues in regulating lymphatic vessel formation within a synthetic matrix, and to evaluate their potential for in vivo functionality to progress towards a viable lymphatic vessel transplant therapy. both 2.5d and 3d models were developed with the ability to precisely tune mechanical properties of the matrix and pro-lymphangiogenic growth factors were incorporated. in the 3d model, parameters including polymer composition, crosslinking modality and degree, and peptide patterning added additional methods to tune lymphatic morphogenesis. this ha-based system preserved the expression of key lymphatic markers and demonstrated that matrix stiffness primes lymphatic tube formation. the individual contributions of matrix and biochemical factors were investigated, demonstrating the functionality of this system to probe specific pathways which are traditionally very difficult to study in animal models. within two to three days after encapsulation within this synthetic matrix, self-assembled lymphatic tubes are observed. these human cell-laden matrices were also implanted into immunodeficient mice and demonstrate the ability to survive, integrate with the host vasculature, and continue to grow. collectively, the studies presented in this dissertation present a novel system that can be used for both in vitro mechanistic insights and various approaches in tissue engineering. moore's law, which aims to double the number of transistors in the same area every 18 months, has been in full swing over the last 60 years. almost every high-performance chip company considered moving to the next available technology node as a primary way to maximize value, however, with moore's law slowing down, it is necessary to start looking at different strategies that are more closely aligned with the individual needs of each application. without the expected device performance boost every 18 months, industries have started looking closely at each step in the production chain providing many opportunities to improve performance outside of simply reducing the scale of the transistors. our novel work explores and optimizes oxide-based emerging devices for logic, memory, neuromorphic computing and high frequency applications. we performed electrical characterization of several devices and developed high-fidelity, compact circuit-level models. these models bridge the different levels of the supply chain allowing us to exploit the performance of these novel devices for specific applications. for instance, for logic applications we modeled, built, and tested doped-hafnuim dioxide based ferroelectric field effect transistors (fefet). we then utilized these experimentally calibrated compact models to explore the phenomenon of negative capacitance (nc). this phenomenon can be harnessed to provide a boost in logic transistor performance. we also proposed and experimentally demonstrated the utilization of an amorphous semiconductor oxide channel transistor using a tungsten-doped indium oxide transistor. this transistor provides ultra-low leakage and is back-end-of-line (beol) compatible. using these devices, we modeled, built, and tested a beol compatible embedded dram (edram) with ultra-long refresh time. structural and mechanical properties of fibrin networks are essential factors determining growth and stability of blood clots. changes of a blood clot structure and its mechanical properties can occur dynamically in blood flow, during clot contraction or vasospasm. predicting these alterations using multi-scale modeling is important not only for getting better understanding of clot deformation under various (patho-) physiological conditions but also for designing new fibrin-based biomaterials. a discrete worm-like-chain model of a fibrin network calibrated using confocal microscopy data, is used in this thesis to study how microscopic behavior of individual fibers affects macroscopic behavior of the whole network. the novelty of the approach is in combining study of the mechanical properties of individual fibers and fibrin network, such as rigidity, bending, stiffness and elasticity, with the study of the structural properties of the network, such as fiber degree distribution, length distribution and density. in particular, model simulations demonstrate that the surface shape of the entire network and its stress–strain behavior dramatically depend on the alignment ofindividual fibers and their stress–strain response. simulation results agree well with the data obtained in recent fibrin gel stretching experiments and suggest a novel microscale mechanism of the fibrin network mechanics and blot clot deformation under action of the tensile force based on alignment and bending of individual fibers. public transportation is often not available in the united states, particularly in places outside of metropolitan areas. in such regions, bicycles, motor scooters and motorcycles are some of the few alternatives to an automobile. unfortunately, these choices provide little shelter, cargo space, or safety. these extremely limited choices of supplemental transportation has exacerbated public's perception about personal safety and security concerning two-wheelers, and statistical evidence supports the fact that two-wheeled supplemental transportation can be unsafe. furthermore, motorcycles provide little cargo-carrying capacity to the drivers. this leaves cars as the only popularly accepted means of transportation outside city environments. an automobile ownership has become less attractive among members of generation y, also known as millennials. people between the ages of 16 to 34 are now driving 23% less than the national average. while many are shifting away from automobiles, their transportation demands must still be met. thus a more reliable, sustainable, efficient and affordable means of supplemental transportation, residing between the car and the motor scooter, could provide a solution. such a new departure in vehicle design would also respond to excessive speed capabilities and high ownership costs of automobiles, while providing sufficient protection and utility. gen-y, a supplemental light vehicle, is a three-wheel, low-emission, low-cost and structurally-safe option. designing such a niche vehicle that resides between car and motor scooter, will 1) enable affordable commuting in suburban and rural regions where public transportation is not available for short-distance travels within twenty-five miles, 2) offer an innovative solution that provides a safe, supplemental alternative to automobiles, 3) enable members of an on-the-go family to remain mobile when the family car is not available. scientific visualization (scivis) is one of the core components in supporting fundamental scientific discoveries and engineering designs. for example, scientists perform numerical simulations and produce 3d scalar and vector data to visualize, analyze, and understand various kinds of natural phenomena, such as climate change and star formation. however, the cost of these simulations is expensive when time, ensemble, and multivariate are involved and the scientific data are presented in diverse forms including streamline, pathline, stream surface, volume, and isosurface. a core problem in scivis is how to efficiently and effectively produce and analyze these diversified data. in this dissertation, i develop novel deep learning methods to enable more effective and efficient frameworks for scientific data representation and generation.in scientific data representation, i propose a unified framework that processes both streamlines and stream surfaces through auto-encoder decoder structure. moreover, i build an interface that allows users to explore the relationships between the learned features and visual representations. i also utilize geometric deep learning (e.g., graph neural network) to extract node-level and surface-level features in an unsupervised fashion for node clustering and surface selection tasks. in scientific data generation, i introduce a comprehensive pipeline for variable selection and translation through feature learning, translation graph construction, and variable translation. this framework can serve as a data extrapolation and compression solution to reduce simulation costs. besides, i develop an end-to-end generative framework that can synthesize spatiotemporal super-resolution volumes with high fidelity. further, to improve network generalization, i propose an unsupervised pre-training stage using cycle loss. this spatiotemporal super-resolution approach can upscale data up to 512 times in spatial dimension and 11 times in temporal dimension, which offers scientists an option to reduce data storage. transuranium elements, especially plutonium, play a special role in science and politics, due to their importance in both nuclear weapons and nuclear industry. however, owing to the radioactivity and toxicity of actinides there are severe restrictions regarding their storage, use, and disposal. one of the outcomes of this is the use of less toxic and less or non-radioactive surrogates for transuranium elements. the most central question is: do these surrogates actually mimic the chemistry of transuranics? in this present work we probe the structural chemistry of actinide diphosphonates to address this aforementioned question. in this research, the surrogates chosen are ln(iii) (ln=la~lu) for the an(iii) (an= pu, am, cm), ce(iv), th(iv) and u(iv) for np(iv) and pu(iv), and uo22+ for puo22+. the ligands used in this research are methylenediphosphonic acid (c1p2) and phenylenediphosphonic acid (php2). hydrothermal reactions, room temperature evaporations, as well as ionothermal reactions were conducted to study the interaction between these two ligands react with the transuranic elements and their surrogates, the difference and similairy between transuranic diphosphonates and their surrogates in terms of structural topology. to further illustrate the properties of those synthetic compounds, the following characterization techniques are used. the single crystal x-ray diffraction and powder x-ray diffraction experiments are conducted to explore the structure details of the products. for the elemental analysis, inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrum (icp-ms) and energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (eds) techniques are utilized. spectroscopic techniques like uv-vis-nir are applied to identify the oxidation states for actinide elements. as a result, in total 99 diphosphonate compounds were synthesized to fulfill this task. the structural types vary from zero-dimensional clusters, one-dimensional chains, two-dimensional layers to three-dimensional frameworks. the oxidation states of those transuranic elements involved are from trivalent to hexavalent. such results offer a great opportunity for a thorough comparison of transuranic elements with their surrogates in different structure topologies and oxidation states in the diphosphonate system. besides the comparison study, many new actinide compounds were synthesized with special properties. for example, two chiral, porous uranium metheylenediphosphonates were crystallized with channels about 1nm×1nm wide, large enough to conduct ion-exchange with coordination complexes such as [co(en)3]3+. the bond valence parameters for pu(iv), np(iv) and np(vi) was calculated and reported to assist the study the chemistry of transuranic elements. membrane-based biofilm reactors for wastewater treatment will play a pivotal role in the next generation of sustainable wastewater treatment and water reuse systems. countless studies have been conducted regarding both scaling up the reactor systems and managing and understanding the complex biofilm communities present in the reactors. however, the conclusions drawn are weakened by the fact that protozoan predation is largely ignored, despite their ubiquitous presence in biofilm systems. this may result in misleading assessments of results and failures in system control.this dissertation explores the impacts and control of predation on biofilms in membrane-based wastewater treatment processes. three representative types of biofilm systems were studied: (1) a heterotrophic membrane-aerated biofilm reactor (mabr), (2) a nitrifying mabr, (3) a membrane-based biofilm photobioreactor (mbpr), and (4) a novel biofilm reactor that allows for control of protozoan predation. during the first three studies, conditions both with the presence of protozoa and with the suppression of protozoa were compared to quantify effects of protozoa.in all systems examined for this dissertation, predation decreased the amount of biomass, resulting in decreased biofilm thickness and subsequent decreases in system performance. the effects of predation in heterotrophic and nitrifying mabrs were severe due to the increased biofilm sloughing caused by predation. in biofilm growing in a mabr system, biomass near the membrane surface was the most vulnerable to predation, inducing a void layer at the base of the biofilm. this void layer weakened the mechanical stability of the biofilm and promoted biofilm sloughing. conversely, a void layer was not seen near the base of phototrophic biofilms grown in the mbpr. this discrepancy can be explained by the fact that phototrophs grow via dark respiration at the base of the biofilms where light sources are limited. unlike the mabrs, the base of the mbpr was likely to have been anoxic. in the last study, an effective and economical method of protozoan control was evaluated. in this method, a novel membrane-based biofilm reactor was implemented where chemicals (e.g., a protozoan inhibitor) were directly supplied to the base of a biofilm via a combination of advection and diffusion. this reactor reduces the loss of chemical to effluent and eliminates the dilution of chemical that occurs in the bulk liquid delivery methods. the novel reactor successfully suppressed predation, resulting in improved reactor performance. the following series of essays has been assembled to examine the determinants and implications surrounding the choice of undergraduate major. other studies have analyzed various aspects of the decision making process associated with the choice of college major, however, many questions remain unanswered. these questions include: 1.) how does the probability of receiving a job offer and expected earnings that incorporate risk affect a student's choice of major at a selective university? 2.) what are some of the implications that the choice of major has upon other college decisions such as borrowing behavior? 3.) what affect does choosing a second major have upon a student's earnings? 4.) how do the answers to these questions change when describing the choices of men and women? these essays are an attempt to address these shortcomings in previous research in this area. there have been several studies that model the college student's choice of major as a utility maximizing decision that is primarily based upon the relative expected earnings that are correlated with different majors. one problem with these studies is that few incorporate the fact that students face various forms and degrees of uncertainty and risk in their choice of major. motivated by this shortfall, this first essay models a student's choice of major as being determined primarily by a student's relative expected earnings. students' choice of major at a selective university is shown to be positively correlated to relative expected earnings adjusted for earnings uncertainty or risk. students at this selective university are less motivated by another form of uncertainty inherent in the choice of major, the probability of receiving job offers across majors. once a student has chosen a major, this choice may have particular importance in other decisions that a student makes while in college. the second essay takes an alternative look at the relationship between a student's choice of major and the amount of loan debt they choose to accumulate during college. based on a life-cycle model of consumption and borrowing, this essay suggests that a student's choice of major could influence the level of debt that a student will take on. this study finds that some students in higher earnings majors do tend to have higher total debt levels. the endogenous nature of major choice and loan debt is also addressed. the final essay explores an aspect of the choice of college major that has previously been ignored. while the earnings implications of a student's primary major have been the focus of several empirical studies, little attention has been paid to the earnings implications of a student's choice of a second major. this essay empirically tests whether students from a selective university actually receive some type of monetary return to investing in a second major. results show that some students do benefit from choosing to obtain a second major. in this dissertation we will examine the philosophical and theological projects of emmanuel lì©vinas and johann baptist metz as discourses involved in the remembrance of the prophetic jewish and christian roots of western thought in response to the persecution of the jewish people during the shoah and more broadly to any persecution or oppression of the other. as a consequence of this focus, lì©vinas and metz are particularly concerned to prioritize the ethical response to the suffering of others as the most basic and important commitment of philosophy and theology. this movement toward the prioritization of ethics and praxis is intimately linked to the task of contesting and criticizing alternative approaches to philosophy and theology which fail to acknowledge this prioritization. thus, the projects of lì©vinas and metz stand in contrast with alternative first philosophies and theologies based on a commitment to metaphysics, ontology, or even doxology and mysticism as the fundamental starting point of philosophy or theology. although they share this prophetic focus, lì©vinas and metz adhere to different methodological and disciplinary protocols and as a consequence the style and ultimately the content of their prophetic retrievals remain distinctive. as will become evident over the course of the dissertation, lì©vinas is engaged in a philosophical redescription of central prophetic themes from the hebrew bible and as a consequence generalizes prophetic commitments in the direction of a radical ethics of responsibility for the other, particularly those who suffer unjustly and experience persecution and oppression. metz, on the other hand, while concerned to defend responsibility for the other as something of an ontological faktum of the human condition, nevertheless prosecutes his defense of prophetic discourse in terms of an explicit retrieval of the prophetic and apocalyptic contours of the hebrew bible and the new testament. metz's theology, furthermore, as an apocalyptic theology, represents an intensification of prophetic discourse which differs from the generalizing tendencies of lì©vinas's philosophy (we will return to these points in the introduction to chapters two and three). while these different inflections of prophetic discourse account for notable differences in their projects, lì©vinas and metz share a focus on subjectivity as responsibility for the other, the centrality and irresolvability of the problem of theodicy, and eschatology as an approach to philosophy and theology which focuses on the unfinished and unreconciled character of history and prioritizes the ethical interruption of the status quo. in order to describe these prophetic retrievals in the projects of lì©vinas and metz this dissertation will unfold in five chapters, each chapter exploring different contours of their engagement with prophetic discourse. in the first chapter, we will examine the intellectual biographies of lì©vinas and metz with specific attention to the ways in which the shoah constitutes a rupture in their biographies and more broadly in their philosophical and theological development. while the exact terms in which lì©vinas and metz reorient their thought in response to the shoah remains debated, it is clearly the case that the projects of both thinkers constitute direct and sustained responses to the incomprehensible tremendum at auschwitz. after examining the development of lì©vinas's philosophy and metz's theology in response to the shoah, in conclusion to the first chapter we will briefly describe their projects as discourses of mourning. because lì©vinas and metz refuse to integrate unjust suffering into the order of the meaningful their projects are characterized by a constant critique of those forms of philosophy and theology which accent reconciliation. this mournful contestation of idealist and aesthetic discourses of reconciliation leads to the prioritization of a radical ethics of responsibility that attempts to respond to the suffering of the victims in a world which remains tragically unreconciled. in the second and third chapters we will focus on the way in which lì©vinas and metz prophetically transform philosophical and theological discourse by focusing on the priority of ethics or praxis in response to the suffering of others. in an introduction to chapters two and three i will introduce the prophetic and apocalyptic movements of lì©vinas's philosophy and metz's theology by first examining their projects more broadly in terms of their remembrance of the jewish roots of the west. in chapter two we will explore lì©vinas's specific criticisms of ontological forms of philosophy (husserl, heidegger, and parmenides) and his return to a prophetic form of philosophy that focuses on the encounter with the face of the other as the interruption of self-concern and self-interest. in chapter three we will examine metz's own contestation of idealist forms of philosophy and theology as well as his criticisms of the postmodern aesthetic projects of nietzsche and heidegger by returning to an apocalyptic form of theology that disrupts and disturbs the march of the victors by remembering the nameless victims of history. in the fourth and fifth chapters we turn to the two central concerns of the projects of lì©vinas and metz: the defense of the subject as unconditionally responsible for the suffering and death of the other and the critique of theoretical forms of theodicy and the discourses on god which issues from these reconciling theodicies. both lì©vinas and metz explicitly define their projects as defenses of the subject against the postmodern critique of the subject. but in their defense of the subject they resist returning to modern forms of subjectivity predicted on self-consciousness and instead maintain that the identity of the subject is located in its asymmetrical responsibility for the other. this defense of the subject culminates in their criticisms of heidegger's approach to death which points toward the death of the self as the limit experience which discloses the authenticity or inauthenticity of dasein. for both lì©vinas and metz, heidegger is right to focus on death as a central event in the life of the subject, but heidegger misinterpreted its significance by failing to see that it is the death of the other which is central and not the death of the self. in the fifth chapter we will extend our discussion of the unjust suffering and death of the other by examining the thoroughgoing criticisms of the project of theodicy in western philosophy and theology. the criticism of western ontologies and idealisms (as well as aesthetics) that we traced in chapters two and three are intimately connected to their retrieval of prophetic and apocalyptic discourses which focus on the problem of suffering rather than the acquisition of knowledge or the experience of beauty. specifically, both thinkers are concerned to the assault the totalizing nature of these ontologies and idealisms which engage in projects which justify meaningless and useless suffering by comprehending this suffering in terms of knowledge (gnosis) or by referring this suffering to some harmonious whole (aesthetic). in either case, suffering is explained away or aestheticized and thereby made bearable. writing in the shadow of auschwitz any practice of justification of the suffering of the other is not only resisted, but interpreted as scandalous and unethical. we will conclude the dissertation by reflecting on the significance of the prophetic projects of lì©vinas and metz for contemporary theology by returning to the juxtaposition that we pointed to in the introduction to chapters two and three between ethics and aesthetics as the privileged post-metaphysical discourses. in particular, i want to sharpen the terms of the debate between ethical-prophetic and aesthetic-mystical forms of theology by placing the projects of lì©vinas and metz in dialogue with the aesthetic, mystical, and sacramental retrievals found in the theology of hans urs von balthasar and the phenomenology/theology of jean-luc marion. while i ultimately think that what is urgently needed in contemporary theology is a renewed mystical-prophetic theology, for our purposes this juxtaposition will serve to accent the distinctiveness of the projects of lì©vinas and metz and point to the important contribution that prophetic theology offers to debates in contemporary theology. after juxtaposing these trajectories and briefly analyzing what is at stake in their different starting points, i will then move to offer a constructive analysis of the focal points of a prophetic starting point in theology and conclude by bringing lì©vinas and metz into critical conversation on the issues an ethics of the flesh and the ethical status of memory. plasma electrolysis consists of an electrolytic cell where a direct current (dc) nonthermal plasma replaces the cathode, anode, or both electrodes. as opposed to conventional electrolysis, where surface reactions are controlled by the catalytic properties of the electrode material, the chemistry is brought about in the volume of the liquid via the introduction of highly reactive species such as the solvated electron (e-aq), and the hydroxyl (•oh) radical.this chemistry is not unique to plasma-liquid systems, and has been studied in the field of radiation chemistry for decades. however, while the chemistry is the same, the experimental systems used to generate it are very different which, in addition to other factors like cost and safety, makes it worthy of study. for example, while pulses of radiation may penetrate deeply into a solvent, the much lower energies of either electrons or positive ions going into the solution ensures that these reactive species will be formed uniquely in a very thin layer (~10-100 nm) of liquid close to the surface. on an opposite note, while the chemistry is different between plasma and solid electrodes, the experimental system can be very similar, and similar issues are experienced in both systems. these include the decrease in faradaic efficiency due to competing reactions at an electrode, the requirement to exchange charge at the interface, and the added effect of reactant transport toward the interface, in addition to the kinetics. in this work, an electrolytic cell consisting of a dc nonthermal, atmospheric-pressure argon plasma was used as with a submerged platinum counter electrode as an experimental system to study some of these issues. experiments were conducted using both, a plasma cathode, and a plasma anode configuration. in addition to experiments, matlab simulations were used to study the combined effect of chemical reactions and diffusion as a function of time in a plasma cathode.first, measurements of the faradaic efficiency in the reduction of chloroacetate and ferricyanide at a plasma cathode are used to qualitatively show that the system is transport-limited. additionally, it is shown that •oh introduced from the plasma significantly decrease the faradaic efficiency for reversible reactions, but not for non-reversible reactions. second, the combined use of mathematical scaling and simulations of reaction-diffusion equations show that depletion of a scavenger close to the interface can be predicted with a characteristic time, tc, which scales proportionally with the scavenger diffusivity (ds) and the square of the scavenger bulk concentration (sb) and inversely proportional to the electron flux (j) squared; that is tc ~ dssb2f2/j2, where f is faraday's constant. and third, measurements of the plasma voltage and breakdown voltage were used to study the charge exchange via electron emission from an aqueous solution into the plasma under a plasma anode configuration. results show that emitted electrons are never solvated, or even pre-solvated, and are independent of the liquid chemistry. the secondary emission coefficient is also quantified, and it is estimated that roughly only one out of a million positive ions colliding with the liquid generate an electron which escapes into the plasma. the history of clay reaches back into the earliest memories of our species, as a primary material of creation. i intend my artwork to present a critical view on humanity's use of its gift of creation in our own self-manifested race for progress. they are objects of contemplation, metaphors for the development of our species and the passage of invention through time. our technological ingenuities have proven our abundance of applied scientific knowledge, while simulantaneously exposing our lack of the wisdom of restraint. from richard ligon's throbbing turtle hearts to mary rowlandson's boiled horse leg, lewis and clark's bear gut pudding, and james riley's feast on putrid goat, graphic accounts of food and dining dominate early american travel writing. in this dissertation, i take a comparativist american studies approach to argue that travel writers from both north and south america, including the caribbean, from the mid-seventeenth century through the mid-nineteenth century, read and write their environments through a hermeneutic of appetite. as these authors cross geographical and cultural boundaries, their stomachs and tongues mediate between their individual bodies and their transforming encounters with new systems of religion, economy, and enslavement. literary scholars in the psychoanalytic tradition have long offered helpful explanations of oral metaphor as a representation of desire. my work, however, participates in recent interdisciplinary efforts among cultural historians, sociologists, and art historians to focus more on the physiological than the psychological articulation of gastronomical language. early american travel writers record through a language of food and eating the physical transformations that they believe confirm their religious piety, their economic viability, their visions of themselves as citizens of a civilized nation, and the success of their nation's imperialist projects. in each of these instances, these authors articulated through a language of taste their anxieties about what they encountered, their pride in their successful interactions with previously unfamiliar institutions or people, and even their hopes of furthering personal or national and imperial gain. culinary language in this literature is key to understanding how anglo-, franco-, and ibero-americans reacted to change in their economic, religious, and social environments, or even resisted or adapted to this change. through a hermeneutic of appetite, these writers described how they regulated, transformed, or reformed their desires, and thus themselves, to come to terms with an environment out of their own control. this paper deals with the philosophical implications of queer subjectivity in relationship with monster in horror film. cancer is the second leading cause of mortality in america and has a profound impact upon individuals, families, health care providers, and society at large. a substantial minority of cancer patients experience clinically significant symptoms of psychological distress, which can be associated with a wide range of negative health outcomes. currently available screening measures narrowly define distress, are relatively primitive tools and their relationship to patient behavior is largely unknown. the current study sought to evaluate the psychometric properties and clinical utility of distress screening system (dss), a comprehensive measure developed to address these limitations. there were 492 individuals diagnosed with cancer assessed in the current study through mail-out questionnaires and follow-up phone interviews. the majority were female (71.3%), married (59.6%) and caucasian (68.6%) or african american (20.7%), with a mean age of 61.41 years (sd = 12.92). preliminary and exploratory factor analysis revealed the dss to possess appropriate internal and concurrent validity, and to be sufficiently unidimensional to proceed with further examination. item response analysis revealed moderate overall model fit, with the majority of items performing well with adequate levels of discrimination and difficulty across the distress continuum. the dss was most accurate in assessing moderate to high levels of distress. examination of clinical utility revealed no significant advantage for the dss in predicting quality of life or referral preference. the dss appears to be a psychometrically valid measure of distress and provides the basis for a broader conceptualization of this construct. the majority of items performed well within a unidimensional item response framework and may therefore be suitable to utilize within a computerized assessment format. despite these results, the dss did not demonstrate a significant advantage in the prediction of participants' quality of life or referral preference. the current study provides a foundation for future work examining the conceptualization of distress and development of screening tools within an advanced psychometric framework and computerized administration. advances in empirical measurement and clinical assessment are vital in addressing the ongoing challenge of providing nationwide comprehensive cancer care. understanding the growth and properties of oxygen phases on platinum surfaces is fundamental to many heterogeneous catalytic reactions of industrial importance. at pressures of commercial applications, o exists on pt surfaces in a variety of states or phases, intermediate between a chemisorbed layer and the bulk oxide(s). substantial motivation for understanding the properties and development the different o phases derives from different o phases having distinct catalytic properties. an understanding of conditions leading to different o phases, and interactions of o phases with reactant and product molecules could more accurately describe and even predicting the behavior of pt catalysts. the ability to control the formation, size and spatial separation of oxides is important for improving pt and other oxidizing catalysts.molecular o adsorbs on the pt(111) surface below 160k, but dissociates at higher temperatures forming a p(2x2) adlayer structure with o atoms occupying fcc three-fold hollow sites. the surface saturates at a coverage of 0.25ml in ultra high vacuum, due to strong lateral repulsive interactions between the o atoms. higher chemisorbed o coverages (0.25-0.75 ml) or oxide overlayers (0.75 ml and higher) can be obtained either by annealing in \ce{o2} or by utilizing ozone, atomic o, or \ce{no2}. since oxidizing no to \ce{no2} is of important interest to our group, understand how o occupies different surface sites (fcc and hcp hollow sites) on pt(111) at intermediate coverages in the range of 0.25-0.75 ml could further enhance our no oxidation studies.the occupation of the hcp three-fold hollow site becomes thermodynamically favored at coverages above 0.42 ml and agree with experimental results indicating the occupation of fcc only sites at lower coverages. when the 1 nearest neighbor fcc-hcp pair is occupied, surface pt atoms buckle up into the o layer to screen repulsive o-o interactions. the buckled pt becomes geometrically and electronically similar to pt atoms in bulk pt oxides, further supporting the formation of surface oxide chains. combining \ extit{ab initio} density functional theory calculations and cluster expansion models we find new thermodynamically stable ground state structures with an underlying p(2x1) fcc o pattern consistent with experimental low-energy electron diffraction patterns.the diffusion of o across the pt(111) surface is mostly independent of surface o coverage and configuration, both in terms of energetics and diffusion barriers. however the buckling of surface pt atoms highly depends on local surface coverage and local o configuration. the strong repulsive o-o interactions within the chemisorbed layer at moderate (0.25-0.75ml) coverages may act to overcome kinetic barriers and drive the structural changes promoting surface pt oxide formation in continuous chains. in agreement with literature values and experimentally observed results, the barriers to buckle become lower with increased oxygen coverage. our analysis of the energetics and kinetics reproduces the characteristics needed for describing experimentally observed temperature program desorption data. trabecular architecture plays an important role in trabecular bone biomechanics. the objectives of this dissertation were to investigate the effects of architecture on microdamage susceptibility and the failure mechanisms in trabecular microstructures using computational methods.direct prediction of microdamage by computational modeling is challenging. since the weibull probabilistic model did not improve the ability of computational models to predict damage, the morphology, number, and mean volume of the predicted yielded regions were studied for overloading of trabecular bone specimens along two orthogonal directions. during on-axis overloading, the expanding compressively yielded regions and the increasing number of tensilely yielded regions indicate the importance of vertical trabeculae and stress redistribution, respectively. during transverse overloading, the simultaneous increases in the number and mean volume of both the compressively and tensilely yielded regions suggest buckling of the struts. in a following study, an individual trabeculae segmentation (its) technique was exploited to label the type and orientation of the predicted failed trabeculae. for both on-axis and transverse overloading, most of the yielding occurred in longitudinal plates. however, the primary loading mode was axial compression with superposed bending for on-axis loading in contrast to bending for transverse loading. in addition, the yielding mode of plates does not depend on their orientation relative to the loading direction, which is different from rods, being compressed along the loading direction and bent perpendicular to the loading direction. when yielding with respect to trabecular type and orientation was compared to experimental measures of microdamage in the same specimens, only the proportion of the predicted tissue yielding in longitudinal rods was correlated with the measured microcrack density. this suggests that although longitudinal plates provide most of the mechanical support, longitudinal rods determine the whole structure's susceptibility to microdamage formation.in the end, effects of the tissue constitutive model and geometric nonlinearity on the amount and location of the predicted yielding were compared between a bilinear principal-strain tissue constitutive model and the fully nonlinear drucker-lode tissue constitutive model. results from the investigations confirm that using a simple bilinear model that omitted geometric nonlinearity should not compromise the conclusions of this dissertation for the dense plate-like specimens used in the study.overall, this study provided a quantitative way to look at the role of trabecular architecture in microdamage susceptibility and explored the yielding modes of individual trabeculae during microdamage formation. finance is conventionally associated with modernity and secularization, yet in recent decades pakistan has seen the institutionalization of shari'a ? observant, desecularized banking services. how and why did islamic banking and finance emerge in pakistan? how did islamic economic theory begin to challenge conventional economic theory, and what were the barriers to its implementation? what role did various religious groups play in this process? how does islamic banking function, and what does it mean to islamic bankers themselves? i explore these questions using content analysis of the earliest publications of islamic theory, semi-structured interviews with islamic bankers and shari'a board members, and participant observation at an islamic bank. i found that there were two historical cultural discourses that gave rise to two norms of exchange. the first norm was to strive for halal income for individual muslims. it was generated by the traditional islamic discourse focusing on following the eminent islamic jurists of the past and deliberately avoiding engagement with western thought. the second norm was to provide a socially just economic system. this norm was formed by non-traditionalists who also take into account the spirit of the law and directly engaged with the west, albeit in a reactionary manner within a colonial context. the traditional approach has successfully institutionalized because it was able to align smoothly with the conventional financial system. there are a number of implications of these observations. although political concerns play an important role, they work alongside cultural processes. de-secularism does not work if it is enforced but, as a social process, it takes a pragmatic and non-confrontational route. period and level of analysis are important for any understanding of de-secularization processes, as pakistan's economic system has been secular, de-secular, then re-secularized in the past three decades. now, islamic finance is successfully institutionalized at the meso-level i.e. the market. as well as studying institutionalization at the macro level, i examine institutionalization 'on the ground'. the form focused industry is primarily institutionalized by regulative mechanisms like shari'a audits but some normative aspects exist. ibf is a modern institution that enables muslims to lead a meaningful life while participating in the un-precedently globalized world. the environment and economy can suffer various adverse effects from the rising concentration of co2 in the atmosphere, which is primarily due to the extensive combustion of fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas for energy. to separate co2, membrane technology is extensively employed because of its low operating expenses and high energy efficiency. despite the potential benefits of co2 separation and removal in reducing emissions, there are still risks associated with transporting and storing the collected co2, including the possibility of leakage and energy consumption. to address these challenges, this dissertation proposes an integrated co2 capture and conversion membrane system that utilizes amine-based facilitated transport membrane. this system not only separates co2 from the gas mixture but also converts the captured co2 into valuable chemicals under mild condition in situ. by integrating co2 capture and conversion into a single system, the energy consumption and costs associated with co2 transport and storage can be reduced. to integrate co2 capture and conversion using a membrane-based system, our first step was to investigate the transport intermediates and kinetics of co2 in a typical facilitated transport membrane (pvam membrane) using an operando surface enhanced raman spectroscopy (sers) platform and mathematical model. we then examined the formation of co2 transport intermediates in facilitated transport membranes with various chemical structures. finally, we designed and constructed a membrane-based integration system capable of capturing and converting co2 to cyclic carbonate under mild conditions. our polymeric membrane system was able to capture and convert co2 in a simulated flue gas even at a low co2 concentration of 1%, and at mild condition of 57 ℃ and 1 atm. this work provides a foundation for further studies and represents an important step towards achieving direct air capture and conversion with a polymeric membrane system, and it would also become an important step toward a more sustainable and efficient co2 management strategy. identifying targetable and cancer-specific vulnerability is a prerequisite to the development of novel personalized cancer therapies. lacking mechanistically-defined and targetable molecular drivers, triple-negative breast cancer (tnbc) is the most clinically-challenging breast cancer subtypes. in this study, through a genome-wide synthetic lethal rnai screen, we revealed death effector domain-containing dna-binding protein (dedd) drives a mitogen-independent g1/s cell cycle transition in tnbcs, independent to dedd's pro-apoptotic functions in the nucleus. overexpressed in &gt;60% tnbc tumors, cytosolic dedd facilitates an accelerated cell cycle progression and renders tnbc cells vulnerable to cell cycle inhibition. mechanically, the gain of cytosolic dedd enhances cyclin d1 expression by interacting with heat shock protein hsc70. concurrently, dedd interacts with tumor suppressor rb family proteins and promotes their proteasome-mediated degradation, further contributing to the accelerated g1/s cell cycle progression. clinically, despite the successes of cyclin d kinase cdk 4/6 inhibitors in breast cancer, tnbc patients have been excluded from cdk 4/6 inhibitors clinical trials due to the perceived high frequency of rb loss. contrary to this prevailing notion, my study demonstrated that, regardless of rb status, tnbcs with dedd overexpression exhibit a dedd-dependent vulnerability to the combinatorial treatment of cdk4/6 inhibitor and egfr inhibitor in vitro and in vivo. taken together, my study revealed a tnbc-specific vulnerability conferred by dedd-driven dysregulated cell cycle progression and provided a rationale for the clinical application of cdk4/6 inhibitor containing combinatorial regimens for tnbc patients. we construct a chern-simons gauge theory for dg lie and l-infinity algebras on any one-dimensional manifold and quantize this theory using the batalin-vilkovisky formalism and costello's renormalization techniques. koszul duality and derived geometry allow us to encode topological quantum mechanics, a nonlinear sigma model of maps from a 1-manifold into a cotangent bundle as such a chern-simons theory. our main result is that the partition function of this theory is naturally identified with the a-hat genus of the target manifold. from the perspective of derived geometry, our quantization constructs a volume form on the derived loop space which can be identified with the a-hat class. our understanding of solid state neptunium chemistry is still in its infancy with only a handful of structures determined. this lack of knowledge poses a problem in regards to accurately describing and interpreting the physical and chemical properties of neptunium compounds. pentavalent neptunium is of particular interest due to its importance in the long-term storage of commercial spent nuclear fuel in a geological repository and its potential release into the environment. the research presented herein focuses on the crystal chemistry of pentavalent neptunium that contains ligands of environmental importance. hydrothermal synthesis techniques and single-crystal x-ray diffraction were used to study the structural details of 19 neptunium compounds. several environmental significant anions were investigated, including sulfate, phosphate, oxygen, hydroxide, chloride, and silicate. the magnetic susceptibilities of five np5+ compounds were measured and magnetic ordering was observed in compounds containing special linkages commonly referred to 'cation-cation' interactions. the nature of the magnetic ordering for np5+ was found to be related to the structural details of the compound. similarities in the crystal chemistry of pentavalent neptunium and hexavalent uranium has lead to the idea that the crystal chemistry of np5+ will mirror that of u6+. most notably both compounds contain a nearly linear dioxo cation that is further coordinated by four, five, or six equatorial ligands to create square, pentagonal, and hexagonal bipyramids. a structural hierarchy of u6+ crystal chemistry has been previously established as a means for comparison between structures with vastly different chemistries. a similar hierarchy has been constructed here for np5+crystal chemistry, providing a tool to evaluate the structural topologies of np5+and u6+ compounds. the difference in valency of the actinyl ion combined with a prevalence for cation-cation interactions in np5+compounds causes a significant divergence in the crystal chemistries of np5+and u6+ compounds. in the past decade there has been rapidly growing interest in ionic liquids, molten salts that melt near room temperature. interest in these compounds is due to their unique properties, especially their negligible vapor pressure and unique solvent characteristics. there has been a concerted effort to measure the physical properties and phase behavior of ionic liquids and ionic liquid mixtures and gain a deeper understanding of the unique behaviors of ionic solvents. in addition, there have been numerous theoretical studies to predict properties of ionic liquids and explore the underlying physical interactions that influence ionic liquid properties. in this study, two separate methods are used to predict properties of ionic liquids and investigate the fundamental relationships between molecular structure and chemical properties. the quantitative structure-property relationship (qspr) method combines experimental data with statistical techniques to construct functional relationships between molecular structures and physical properties. this method is used to create predictive relationships for melting point and limiting solubility behavior of ionic liquids. the resulting structure-property relationships provide a deeper understanding of how the molecular structure of ionic liquids influences their properties. in addition, these numerical relationships are shown to be useful in predicting properties of new compounds. molecular simulation uses relationships from statistical thermodynamics to determine bulk properties of a system based on the molecular level interactions of the system. the key link is the energetic model, or force field, which describes the interactions between molecules. one problem in molecular simulation of particular interest is determining the phase behavior of a system based on the energetic model of the system. solid-liquid equilibrium is particularly challenging due to the nature of the solid phase and the solid-liquid transition. in this study, a new methodology is developed to evaluate solid-liquid equilibrium for complex molecular systems in a general way using molecular simulation. this method is validated against two simple atomic systems and applied to two molecular systems. the results indicate how strongly a system's force field can influence phase coexistence and this analysis can be a stringent test of a force field's ability to model a system's interactions. in this study, two common classroom experiences--boredom and challenge--and their relationship with positive and negative emotions were explored. the purpose of study one was to establish whether students associate boredom and challenge with positive or negative emotions, as well as to determine whether there are any grade-level differences in students' perceptions of boredom and challenge. in study two, semi-structured interviews were then conducted to elicit students' interpretations of boredom and challenge in their classrooms. boredom was related to negative emotions, and students reported that inactive, uninteresting, and repetitive classroom activities were most boring. challenging classroom experiences were found to be related to positive emotions, and students reported that challenging classroom experiences are related to feeling that the teacher cares about students' thoughtful and effortful work. differences between students' negative responses to an item using the word 'challenge' and the positive associations with challenging classroom experiences indicate that middle school students perceive 'challenge' and challenging classroom experiences differently. kidney disease is a devastating condition affecting millions of people worldwide, where over 100,000 patients in the united states alone remain waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant. concomitant with a surge in personalized medicine, single-gene mutations and polygenic risk alleles have been brought to the forefront as core causes of a spectrum of renal disorders. due to the increasing prevalence of kidney disease, it is imperative to make substantial strides in the field of kidney genetics. nephrons, the core functional units of the kidney, are epithelial tubules that act as gatekeepers of body homeostasis by absorbing and secreting ions, water, and small molecules to filter the blood. each nephron contains a series of proximal and distal segments comprised of distinct stretches of cells each expressing unique solute transporter surface proteins. these ion channels are tightly linked to specific nephron cell identities and confer explicit metabolic functions. to date, the transcriptional code driving nephron patterning, epithelial maturation, solute transporter program activation, and subsequent terminal differentiation of specialized nephron segments remains poorly understood. the embryonic zebrafish provides an ideal platform to dissect the genetic cues governing kidney development. this aquatic vertebrate possesses an architecturally simple two-nephron kidney (pronephros) and a conserved nephron segmentation pattern coupled with high fecundity, ex utero development, and optical transparency for easy visualization of organogenesis. here, we demonstrate that employing the zebrafish to perform genetic studies cultivates the identification of novel nephron regulators. by performing a forward haploid genetic screen, we discovered that the transcription factor ap-2 alpha (tfap2a) directs a genetic regulatory network that promotes the terminal differentiation of the distal early/thick ascending limb (de/tal) and distal late/distal convoluted tubule (dl/dct) nephron segments. tfap2a operates a circuit consisting of tfap2b and irx1a to activate the expression of distal nephron solute transporter genes clcnk, slc12a1, kcnj1a.1, and slc12a3. in a separate study, we reported for the first time that kctd15 paralogs, kctd15a and kctd15b, are key components of the tfap2a distal nephron network. by employing crispr-cas9 and knockdown strategies, we determined kctd15a/b loss primes nephron cells to adopt a de/tal cell signature. mechanistically, kctd15a/b restricts de/tal differentiation by repressing tfap2a activity in developing nephrons. further interrogation of this signaling axis revealed tfap2a can reciprocally promote kctd15 transcription. our data presents a new transcription factor-repressor feedback module where nephron segment fate is controlled by precise regulation of tfap2a-kctd15 kinetics. lastly, we identified two discrete roles for the grhl2 paralogs, grhl2a and grhl2b, in solute transporter program activation and epithelial maturation during distal nephron development. loss of grhl2a/b produced developmental abnormalities in both the pronephric duct and otic vesicle. in addition to reductions in clcnk and slc12a3 expression, grhl2a/b-deficient nephrons exhibited defects in cell polarity, ciliogenesis, and basement membrane integrity. significantly, grhl2a/b functions as part of the tfap2 genetic network and promotes expression of tfap2b in the distal nephron. taken together, key developmental insights from our zebrafish studies will support the assembly of the genetic blueprint required to fashion a nephron, and in turn support efforts to advance kidney organoid technology, further develop precision medicine, and deepen our understanding of congenital renal syndromes. this research improves the 3d hydrodynamic model environmental fluid dynamics code (efdc), to better capture thermal behaviors in lake ontario. lake ontario, being in temperate great lakes region, exhibits special thermal characteristics including thermal bar evolution in spring and thermal stratification patterns in summer. the thermal bar is a vertical wall of dense sinking water at the temperature of maximum density (4°c), which reduces horizontal mixing, inhibits the exchange of nutrients, and may intensify eutrophication in near-shore areas. during the summer months, the thermal bar disappears, and the lake becomes stratified. summer temperature differences establish strong vertical density gradients (thermocline) between the epilimnion and hypolimnion, which serve as an energy barrier to vertical mixing evolution of the spring thermal bar and summer stratification patterns through lake ontario is simulated using efdc. the model is forced with the hourly meteorological data from weather stations around the lake and flow data for the niagara and st. lawrence rivers. the lake bathymetry is interpolated on a curvilinear grid (cells are ~ 2 km2 ) with 20 vertical sigma layers. the simulation is performed from early april to mid-october 2011. the model is improved by (a) updating the evaporation algorithm following quinn (1979) and croley (1989) to ensure accurate simulation of evaporation rates and latent heat fluxes (b) specifying appropriate solar radiation attenuation coefficients to ensure sufficient absorption of incoming solar radiation by the water column (c) updating the vertical mixing scheme following eddy diffusivity parameterization by vinçon-leite et al. (2014) and eddy viscosity parameterization by pacanowski and philander (1981) to better capture thermal stratification. in addition, values for horizontal mixing coefficients, bed heat flux parameters are specified through the model calibration process, and convective velocity mixing is implemented to thoroughly mix the water column from late august. the improved efdc model simulates overall surface temperature profiles with rmses between 1.5-2.5°c. the vertical temperature profiles during the lake mixed phase (early april to late may) are captured with rmses &lt; 0.5°c, and the evolution of the thermal bar is replicated. with the newly implemented vertical mixing parameterization, the model captures the summer thermal stratification and thermocline formation from late may to mid-october. the simulated temperature profiles match the observed profiles for a deep (180 m) location, with rmses between 0.6 – 1.6 0c. the model captures the thermocline formation at a shallow (19 m) location, with rmses of 1.25-3.7°c. the model is further augmented with meteorological data from the north american regional reanalysis (narr) climate model. simulated vertical profiles at the deep location, and surface temperature profiles using narr over-lake data match observed data better than the simulations forced by land station based data. this comparative study establishes a baseline for the future coupling of efdc lake ontario model with a regional climate model. externalizing problems—like aggression and delinquency—become increasingly more stable and severe over time making early identification of risk factors essential for intervention and prevention efforts. previous research has identified insecure parent–child attachments as a risk factor; however, additional research is necessary to understand not only how secure attachments buffer externalizing behavior, but also which insecure classifications (i.e., avoidant, ambivalent, or disorganized)—and to which parent—have the worst long-term prognoses. the current study utilized a six wave, multi-method, multi-reporter longitudinal study to explore the effect of early attachment relationships on externalizing trajectories of children and adolescents from 6to 15-years-old. first, stability of mother–child and father–child attachments from time 1 to time 6 was assessed using a variety of attachment measures. second, multilevel growth curve models were used to explore externalizing trajectories in two models, one with mother–child attachment classifications (secure, avoidant, ambivalent, or disorganized) and other with father–child attachment classifications as time-invariant covariates. third, another multilevel growth curve model examined trajectories of externalizing symptoms with the number of secure attachments (i.e., two, one, or none) across both parents as a time-invariant covariate. results showed that father–child attachment was moderately stable with no significant differences between assessments in the same time point or similar assessments over time; however, mother–child attachment stability appeared largely dependent upon the use of similar measures over time. results of latent growth models showed that—whether the attachment relationship was with mother, father, or both parents—children did not differ on their initial externalizing levels or rates of change with two exceptions: children with avoidant or ambivalent mother–child attachments experienced a greater decrease in symptoms over time and when insecure classifications were collapsed into a single category, children with insecure attachments still experienced a faster decline in externalizing symptoms over time than did children with secure mother–child attachments. results are discussed with regard to the importance of selecting similar attachment assessments in longitudinal investigations and the impact of divorce/separation on continuity of attachment.finally, suggestions for future research are presented. this research aims at using ions to add new functionality to semiconductor devices. electrically-insulating, ion-conducting polymers, such as poly(ethylene oxide) (peo), with ion salts like cesium perchlorate (csclo4), are known as solid polymer electrolytes (spes). these can be coated on a semiconductor and internal or applied electric fields can move the ions to the semiconductor interface, where they attract charge carriers of opposite polarity to form an electric double layer (edl). this can be used to reversibly configure the semiconductor surface charge carrier profiles, e.g. to form p-n and tunneling junctions and to convert metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (mosfets) from n-fets to p-fets to tunnel fets (tfets). spes can also dope 2d crystals and carbon nanotubes (cnts), which are difficult to dope substitutionally. spe capacitors with an added charge retention layer could lead to new forms of digital and analog memory at the scaling limits of the polymer. additionally, capacitor or transistor structures may be used as weight storage devices to accelerate the training of deep learning systems, as well as in other neuromorphic devices based on coupling ions and electrons. however, edl devices have various fundamental and technological limitations. it is important to understand the edl formation and dissipation speeds, polymer thickness limitations, and forms of ion encapsulation to enable further lithography.this research is intended to deepen the understanding of the static and dynamic response of ultrathin peo in metal insulator semiconductor (mis) and metal insulator metal (mim) structures with and without csclo4. while spes are typically studied in micron-thick films, this dissertation explores decananometer thicknesses for their potential to increase the ion response time, since certain bulk properties, e.g. peo's ionic conductivity, are known to change in polymers confined in one dimension. record-thin films of peo:csclo4 are demonstrated on commercial si-on-insulator wafers and carbon nanotubes (cnts) on quartz. spin-coated peo:csclo4 as thin as 7.8 nm, a physical thickness relevant to nanoscale device applications, is characterized in cross–sectional images by transmission electron microscopy (tem) and electron energy loss spectroscopy (eels), to reveal the coating of structures with nanometer features. through eels analysis, the polymer's amorphous carbon character is distinguished from the sp2–hybridized carbon of the cnt. with sio2evaporated over the peo, cs is observed to be contained within peo, indicating encapsulation by the sio2, which can serve as a capping layer for further lithography. eels mapping reveals the unbiased accumulation of cs at the peo/sio2interface due to the built-in electric field. in the coating of 2-nm-diameter cnts, eels mapping shows that peo:csclo4closely surrounds the cnt wall, with no indication of interlayers, as desired for electric double layer formation used in transistors and memory.these nanometric spe films are modeled in comsol multiphysics, using the poisson and nernst-planck equations modified to account for a finite ion size. the films' static and dynamic behavior in response to a constant bias, a voltage step, and a bipolar triangular pulse train is simulated and compared to measurements in ultrathin peo:csclo4mim capacitors.the impedance–frequency and capacitance–voltage characteristics of peo mis capacitors at thicknesses relevant to transistor technology are measured with and without csclo4. basic understanding of the impedance frequency and voltage characteristics of this mis system is established in spin-coated films in the thickness range from 6 nm to 19 nm, as determined from capacitance and tem measurements. estimates of the dielectric constant, energy band diagram, charge trap density, and conductivity in ultrathin peo are obtained. simple equivalent circuits based on resistive and capacitive elements that reflect the physical system are used to model the measured impedance frequency trends and compare films with and without csclo4 in the polymer matrix. this study reveals the physical characterization and the simulated and measured electrical properties of peo near the limits of thickness scaling, toward memory and neuromorphic device applications. na object storage has traditionally been seen only in low level interfaces, visible only to kernels and filesystem code. however, if storage objects are made visible across a distributed system, it dramatically simplifies the construction of large storage systems that are flexible, expandable, and migrateable. the fobs filesystem, consisting of a simple metadata layer containing pointers to storage objects on remote filesystems, demonstrates this concept. the layer of indirection allows for filesystems larger than any single disk, permits multiple filesystems to share common objects, and enables users to create and manage private namespaces. experimentally, this work demonstrates that the overhead of indirection is low, a single client can write faster than disk speed, and multiple clients can harness aggregate disk throughput. fobs scientific application is examined with case study of the filesystem as employed by a high energy physics experiment on a cluster of 32 nodes for over one year. a microkinetic model was constructed that modeled the formation of hydrogen cyanide from methane and nitrogen on the platinum (111) surface using elementary reaction data found in the literature and calculated using density functional theory. vibrational energy effects were then added to the model to simulate the plasma effects for the nitrogen dissociation reaction and methane to methyl group reaction. the model showed that an increase in vibrational energy for the nitrogen dissociation reaction assisted in the formation of hcn, while the increase in vibrational energy for the methane to methyl reaction did not. suppose that p is a fibration with total space e over a connected, finite cw complex b whose fibers are homotopy equivalent to a finite cw complex f. then there is a fibration associated to p whose fibers are all homotopy equivalent to a(f), the algebraic k-theory space of f. dwyer, weiss, and williams have constructed a section of this fibration, called the parametrized euler characteristic of p, which has a lift to a parametrized excisive euler characteristic if and only if p is fiber homotopy equivalent to a topological fiber bundle whose fibers are homeomorphic to a compact topological manifold, possibly with boundary. assuming that p does admit at least one compact topological fiber bundle structure, we can also try to classify the space of all such structures on p. we show that this space of structures on p is homotopy equivalent to the product of the space of all lifts of the parametrized euler characteristic of p to a parametrized excisive euler characteristic with the space of stable euclidean bundles over e. an experiment was performed to study the effects of applying a uniform normal flow of suction to the surface of a flat disk rotating at constant speed. previous research has shown that the absolute instability of type i crossflow modes can initiate transition to turbulence in the boundary layer flow over a rotating disk. this same crossflow instability is evident in boundary layer flow over the leading edge of a swept wing. thus, an understanding of the transition to turbulence in flow on the rotating disk can help in future research and development of laminar flow control on swept wings. for this experiment, a new disk was designed that applied suction through two different surfaces. the basic flow over this disk was documented for each surface, both with and without suction, by acquiring hot-wire velocity measurements at various radial and wall-normal positions throughout the boundary layer. these results were compared to see the effect suction had on the location of the boundary layer's transition to turbulence, as well as the wall-normal and radial growth of velocity fluctuations caused by type i stationary modes. the amplitudes and frequencies of these modes were also examined. spin waves are currently being investigated as an emerging alternative to electrical signals for high-speed computing. this work contributes new designs of electrical-to-spin-wave transducers for the realization of computing devices based on the interference and diffraction of spin waves in a magnetic thin film.these devices need a material in which spin waves will be excited. all computing is then done via the diffraction and interference of the spin waves that travel in the material. yttrium iron garnet (yig) is chosen as the spin-wave medium in this work. because of its very low gilbert damping parameter, spin waves in yig are able to travel millimeters before dissipating. a significant barrier to the adoption of spin-wave devices is the inability to grow good quality yig on silicon substrates. to this end, this work presents several studies on the quality of yig thin films grown on silicon dioxide via radio frequency magnetron sputtering. rapid thermal annealing as the post deposition anneal was explored for different thicknesses, and a surprisingly narrow temperature window was found to produce the highest saturation magnetization for ultra-thin films. transmission electron microscopy imaging visually shows a correlation between the saturation magnetization and the structure of the film, and shows a change in structure when annealing above the temperature window.future applications of spin-wave devices that this work is focused on require spin-wave transducers that operate across a relatively wide bandwidth. coplanar-waveguides (cpw) would typically be unsuitable for this application due to their comb-like frequency response, which depends on the dimensions of the cpw. micromagnetic simulations were performed using mumax3 with fields extracted from hfss to explore the use of the edge of a yig film to excite spin waves. the simulations show that this produces spin waves in a relatively broad frequency range, but at the expense of peak transducer efficiency.finally, this work explores using the edge of a yig film to excite spin waves with sub-micrometer wavelengths. because more wavelengths will fit in a smaller area, this would enable further shrinking of spin-wave devices. not only does this increase the density of these devices, but it also allows for the use of poorer quality yig, which could lead to the integration of spin-wave devices on silicon substrates.typically, the shortest wavelength that a cpw placed on top of a magnetic film can excite depends on the dimensions of the cpw. the possibility of using the edge of a yig film was explored using mumax3 simulations, which show that the loss in transducer efficiency is too great for this to be a viable solution. however, this work builds on those designs and presents a novel solution that uses a supermalloy film adjacent to the yig film. relatively large cpws are used to launch spin waves having long wavelengths in the supermalloy; these waves travel into the yig where they are converted into short-wavelength spin waves. micromagnetic simulations show that this design greatly increases the amplitude of the launched spin waves for the same power delivered to the transducer. this design can also be used in reverse to convert short-wavelength spin waves to long-wavelength spin waves, which would allow for the use of cpws as outputs for short-wavelength spin-wave devices. using data collected from surveys, 32 in-depth interviews, and over 40 hours of classroom observations within an all-boys-all-black high school, the brotherhood academy, this project explores two critical questions: 1) how do schools shape narratives of hypermasculinity and 2) how do these narratives inform black boys' performance and understanding of what it means to be man? bridging the extant literatures on masculinities and race, gender, and sexuality, this paper offers a novel theorization of narratives of hypermasculinity that provides a framework for examining the implications of black boys' internalization of racialized, gendered, and sexualized scripts on performing manhood, which are often rooted in heteronormative, hypersexual, and deviant conceptualizations of masculinity. i find that even within a generally non-contested site for socialization, such as the brotherhood academy, which provides opportunities for resistance by bolstering a novel mission and value set rooted in destigmatizing what it means to be a black man in society, these narratives of hypermasculinity still exist and negatively impact school actors' ability to hold these boys accountable to the school's standards on manhood. these findings reveal the bounded masculinity that gets propagated within school and has implications for black boys' consequent socialization outside of school contexts. perchlorate (clo4-) is found in potable water sources across the united states. dissimilatory reduction to chloride by perchlorate-reducing bacteria (pcrb) is an effective treatment strategy, but little is known about the kinetics of pcrb. two novel pcrb isolates accumulate high levels of chlorate during batch perchlorate reduction. dechloromonas sp. hcap-c and dechloromonas sp. hcap-1 accumulate chlorate at around 20 % and 13 % of the initial perchlorate concentration, respectively; conventional pcrb accumulate less than 3% chlorate. the kinetic parameters for hcap-c were determined and found to be distinct from conventional pcrb. hcap-c had low qmax values (qmax for perchlorate = 4.6 mgvss/mgvss-day; qmax for chlorate = 6.5 mgvss/mgvss-day) and high k values (k for perchlorate = 40 mg/l; k for chlorate = 20 mg/l). perchlorate reduction rates appear to increase and chlorate accumulation appears to decrease with co-cultures of hcap-c with conventional pcrb and chlorate-reducing bacteria. none 'herald of the word: gregory of nazianzus evoking christ' is a study of gregory's speaking of jesus christ with particular attention to its autobiographical features. when gregory speaks of christ, he does so through reflection on his own life. his rhetoric, which frequently includes mixture terms to describe the incarnation, evokes the blending not only of divinity and humanity in jesus, but also of the savior's life with his own. the intermingling in gregory's baptismal union with the word incarnate fosters his personal devotion and public proclamation of the mystery of christ. when we attend to this context, we gain a fuller and more vibrant picture of gregory's christology than what has previously been drawn. eight chapters guide our study. chapter 1 puts gregory's christology in perspective by reviewing modern scholarship, traditions that hail gregory as a doctrinal authority, and sources for gregory's thought. chapter 2 then argues that gregory's love for the logos reveals his encompassing christological view of such topics as classical literary form, philosophy, rhetoric, scripture, and the trinity. attending to gregory's ways of writing about himself, chapter 3 highlights the frequent evocation of christ in his autobiographical poetry. chapter 4 elucidates the distinctive significance of gregory's mixture language for how he understands the mystery of his own humanity and the mystery of christ's incarnation which saves him. chapter 5 studies gregory's most renowned christological text, ep. 101, within the complex set of issues sparked by the apollinarian controversy. gregory's celebration of the mysteries of christ and of his own incorporation in them is examined in chapter 6. chapter 7 highlights the significance of his attention to the blend of christ and himself for the church's ministry at his time. chapter 8 briefly summarizes the dissertation and states four theses of what can be gained by this exploration for ministry today. this exposition demonstrates the fundamentally autobiographical basis of gregory's christology, in order to enrich the long-disputed quest to understand his perplexing teaching on christ. the study thus offers a key to open up a new view of gregory's contribution to the christian reflection on jesus. chemistry straddles the confluence of science and engineering, in that the hypotheses proposed, tested, and honed in the field cannot be fully divested from the utility of the knowledge gained for the application of those materials. for this work, two projects will be presented. first a series of studies involving [4+1]-cycloadditions will be presented wherein the outcomes were finely controlled through substrate design to establish the factors determining product formation for scaffolds useful in the development of small molecule pharmaceuticals. that series includes an investigation into the mechanism of cyclopropyl spirooxindole rearrangements wherein the determination of hammett lfer plots elucidated a polar transition state for ketene substituted spirocyclopropanes, and a less defined mechanism for spirocyclopropyl isocyanates. then the development of a [4+1]-cycloaddition strategy toward 1,5-dihydro-2h-pyrrol-2-ones from vinyl ketenes was established, though the steric sensitivity of the nitrene addition limited the substrate scope for this transformation. in the final section of the first project the development of a [4+1]-cycloaddition toward spirobenzofurans led us to delve into the composition of an intermediate oxyphosphonium enolate equilibria. to determine the relative composition of intermediate phosphonium species and the sensitivity of this cycloaddition to sterics and solvent, the off-target formation of epoxide dimers was studied via variable temperature nmr. a more complex mixture of oxyphospholenes and oxyphosphonium enolates and their correlating dimers were observed in a solvent stabilization and steric repulsion controlled equilibrium. second, i will present my work probing the intermolecular bonding driving thermoresponsive ionic liquid phase separation, material properties leveraged for use in the fields of energy storage, desalination, separations, and refrigeration. phosphonium ionic liquids with halogen or fluorinated anions were modified to probe the effect of chain length and anion size on their thermoresponsive phase separation in aqueous mixtures. rather than size, the effective nuclear charge of the anion paired in balance with the hydrophobic pocket provided by the alkyl chain, to control the temperature and nature of il phase separations. then, systematic changes to phosphonium benzoate ils were performed to isolate the contribution of h-bond directionality, ion pair strength, sterics, and pka on water solvation through substitution of the benzoate anion with hydroxyl, carboxy, or sulfonyl functional groups. the systems in these studies have potential as pharmaceutical targets and scaffolds, or materials for energy storage and separations. in each case, the structural features of the molecules subjected played a crucial role in determining the product outcome, the reaction efficiency, and the material behavior. this dissertation consists of three chapters. in the first two chapters i study factors that influence the entry of individuals into military service. in the last chapter, my co-authors and i look for evidence of peer effects in marriage and fertility decisions among junior enlisted soldiers in the u.s. army.in chapter one i use variation in advertising exposure across the universe of u.s. television markets over the period 2010-2019 to identify the effect of advertising by components of the department of defense (dod) on the quantity and quality of u.s. army applications and hires. to estimate advertising effectiveness, i employ two identification strategies. in the first strategy, i use variation in advertising exposure driven by different levels of viewership across tv markets. in the second strategy, i isolate variation in advertising exposure along the borders of tv markets. i estimate long-run own-advertising elasticities of applications and hires of 0.007-0.013 and 0.006-0.008, respectively. these estimates imply a marginal cost per applicant of $1,027-$1,953 and a marginal cost per hire of $3,155-$5,014. however i find consistent evidence of negative spillovers in advertising across dod components. on the margin, every dollar spent on advertising by the army can be undone by an additional dollar of expenditure by another dod service. this suggests that tv advertising primarily shifts applicants among dod components without substantially expanding overall labor supply. the existence of combative advertising by dod components contributes to an inefficiently high level of public expenditure on dod tv advertising. (jel l10, j30, m31, m37) in chapter two i consider how the demographic composition of recruiters affects the racial and gender composition of applicants and hires. using detailed administrative data covering all applications and enlistments into the u.s. army from september 2005-september 2019 (1.5 million applicants, 847 thousand enlistees, and 29 thousand recruiters), i show that frictions in the selection and assignment of army recruiters to recruiting stations leads to plausibly random within-recruiting station variation in the presence of a minority-race or female recruiter after conditioning on variables that could influence the recruiter assignment decision. i find that black and hispanic recruiters have modest positive effects on same-type applications and enlistments, but no effect on total enlistments. i find no evidence that female recruiters increase female applications or enlistments. i confirm my results by estimating an unmatched and matched difference-in-difference to identify the effect of recruiter race and gender around recruiter arrivals and departures. i find evidence that the same-type shift in applications and enlistments is strongest upon arrival, with only black recruiters having a statistically significant effect at departure. over the 15 years of the sample, i estimate that black recruiters increased the fraction of army hires that were black by 0.24 percentage points (1.2 percent). (jel j23, j30, j71)chapter three is a joint project with susan carter and abigail wozniak. a large literature links marriage to later life outcomes for children and adults, but u.s. marriage rates have declined markedly in recent decades, particularly for those with less education. this connection raises concerns that declining marriage might exacerbate inequality in outcomes like children's achievement and adult longevity. in this paper, we provide causal evidence on one mechanism for marriage rate patterns: peer effects. we use exogenous assignment to peer groups for 18-24 year-olds in the u.s. army to identify the impact of peer marriage on individual marriage choices in our sample. we find that peer choices have statistically significant but economically small impacts on own marriage. these precisely estimated, small impacts are robust to a range of sample restrictions focusing on different demographic groups. we argue that our u.s. army sample can potentially identify upper bounds on peer impacts on marriage. our precisely estimated, small peer impacts suggest that other factors are likely more important for explaining the decline in marriage rates. (jel j12, j13) dynamic process models are an important mathematical tool in chemical engineering and a number of other fields in science and engineering. such models are often used to simulate situations that are otherwise difficult, dangerous, immoral, impossible, or tedious to investigate. mathematical modeling can also be used together with experiments to improve the design of further models and experiments. process models frequently involve uncertain parameters and inputs. propagating these uncertainties rigorously through a mathematical model to determine their effect on system states and outputs is a challenging problem. such process models are often represented by a system of ordinary differential equations (odes). described in this work is a new approach, based on the use of taylor model methods, for the rigorous propagation of uncertainties through nonlinear ode systems. the focus is on uncertainties whose distribution is not known precisely, but can be bounded by a probability box (p-box), and how to use p-boxes in the context of taylor models. it is then possible to obtain p-box representations of the uncertainties in the state variable outputs of a nonlinear ode model. using this approach, rigorous probability bounds can be determined at a computational cost that is significantly less than that required by monte carlo analysis. the examples presented here are used to demonstrate the potential of this approach for studying the effect of uncertainties with imprecise probability distributions. direct examples from chemical engineering include those of reactor and control models for both chemical and biological processes. uncertainties in the context of initial states, observed reaction rates, and/or control parameters are investigated for a number of examples including exothermic reactions, biomass production, and metabolic processes in humans. the same tools also apply to a variety of situations considered in mathematical biology, including the fields of epidemiology and ecology. the work of a number of epidemiological studies is put together here to use a consistent notation and investigation. population ecology models are covered theoretically with a consideration of a model that has been developed to investigate the effects of a contaminant being introduced into an ecosystem. this thesis details the development and implementation of a novel design-driven harmony search (ddhs), derived from the recently introduced harmony search algorithm, in a variety of steel frame optimization problems. by using constraint evaluation data from vectors stored in the harmony matrix and using logical search neighborhoods to define the appropriate magnitude and direction of trial solution mutations, ddhs demonstrates improved performance over other stochastic algorithms as measured by the optimality of designs obtained, the frequency with which optimal designs are obtained, and the amount of required computational cost. ddhs is validated in seven standard weight minimization optimization examples. additionally, ddhs is implemented in optimizations in which frame sections and beam fixities are variable and the objective function considers the high cost of moment connections. when paired with standard harmony search in a two-phase method proposed herein, ddhs consistently identifies optimal designs for such connection topology optimizations. road space rationing policies keep cars off the street on the basis of the last digit of the license plate number. the first chapter evaluates how different road space rationing policies affected the air quality of cities in a chinese province from 2017 to 2019. i offer the length of the policy as a novel way to categorize road space rationing. using a variety of methods including difference-in-differences, event study, and the synthetic control method, i find significant heterogeneity in policy effectiveness. in cities where road space rationing was implemented permanently, the policy reduced air pollution, while in cities where road space rationing was implemented temporarily, i cannot reject that the policy had zero impact.do people in china move from more polluted cities to less polluted cities? in the second chapter, i estimate a fixed effects model to study the effect of air pollution in the origin on out-migration and a conditional logit model to study the effect of air pollution on location choice, employing air pollution from distant sources carried by wind as an instrument for local air pollution. i find that, at the household level, a one standard deviation increase in particulate matter concentration increased the probability of having a migrant in the household by 9 percentage points.in 2004, zhengzhou institute of technology changed its name to henan university of technology. the third chapter examines the short-run effect of the name change on graduates' employment outcomes. i find that the name change did not affect graduates' probability of being employed, but increased the probability of going to graduate school. i also find substantial heterogeneity in the effect of the name change on employment. for example, employment in cities with a high-ranking similar-sounding college increased more than employment in cities with a low-ranking similar-sounding college, a result consistent with the hypothesis that employers formed beliefs of the quality of the college based on its name. the purpose of this study was to discover how young activist groups develop strategies of action – patterned ways of ordering action through time – in order to better understand the forces that shape these groups' capacity to incubate transformative economic and social relationships. the study consists of a comparative ethnography of two nascent activist groups, acting independently of each other in two rust belt cities. ethnographic data are supplemented by interview data and document analysis. both groups perceived a lack of access to affordable, healthy, and sustainably produced food – "good food" – in their urban communities. by establishing alternative food projects, they hoped to address this problem in ways that would build social ties between community members and create new economic opportunities. study findings show that imagined futures of sustainable community powerfully mobilized activists and oriented their work. these future projections, and the strategies that activists initially utilized to pursue them, were informed by dominant narratives about the lack of good food in urban neighborhoods, as well as activists' skills and prior knowledge. over time, however, three intervening processes affected activists' collective pursuit of sustainable community. first, activists adopted styles of conflict management that affect participation and, consequently, action. second, activists' busy schedules narrowed their horizon of engagement, and finally, activists' social ties made variable resources available and legible for action. these intervening processes were particularly influential when the groups faced significant resource obstacles. ultimately, these findings explain why groups struggle to establish patterns of action that create viable economic opportunities and durable social relationships in inner-city neighborhoods. they also explain why activists come to act in ways that seemingly undermine their best intentions. the study concludes with propositions for future research to establish a general theory of strategy formation in activist groups. this dissertation examines the interaction between franciscan missionaries and the indigenous people of california at the franciscan missions (1769-1833). using the framework of the seven roman catholic sacraments, it considers how sacramental rituals were adapted to the mission context. by focusing on religious practice, as opposed to the evaluation of religious beliefs, it seeks to problematize the notion of conversion to christianity. doing so also provides a way to consider the historically-overlooked agency of the native americans of california. this work has implications for the global, multicultural church of the present, providing historical evidence for modern theological tools such as multiple religious participation and liturgical inculturation. the broad objectives of this study were to document the nature of stress in the lives of older adults and to examine how stress is related to clinical depression in later life. although considerable research links stress and depression, the term stress has been used to refer to the presence of a life event (i.e., a stressor), a psychological appraisal (i.e., perceiving an experience as stressful), or a physiological response (e.g., activation of stress hormones, allostatic load). in order to understand the relationship between stress and depression, each of these different definitions was considered. the extensive literature on stress can be grouped into three broad traditions: environmental, psychological, and biological. the environmental tradition focuses on the idea of stress as life events that affect the individual or important members of family or friends. the psychological tradition focuses on individuals' subjective appraisals of events and their own resources to cope with the stressor. the biological tradition defines stress as stimulus that activates specific physiological responses. each of these theoretical perspectives conceptualizes links between stress and mental health differently, emphasizing the influence of their particular view of stress (i.e., occurrence of a severe life event, the individual's psychological appraisal, cumulative adaptational wear-and-tear on the body, respectively) on the outcome. at the conceptual level, investigators from each domain mention potential contributions from the other perspectives; however, environmental, psychological, and biological stress data are rarely collected in the same investigation. using a multi-pronged approach to assessing stress and synthesizing this information to create stress profiles in persons with and without psychopathology is a necessary next step. this descriptive study examined stress from environmental, psychological, and biological perspectives in a sample of 16 outpatients from a local community mental health center with a diagnosis of depression and 16 community-dwelling (matched for demographic characteristics) older adults. quantitative and qualitative techniques were employed. first, life events, perceived stress, and allostatic load were used as predictors of current depression. second, qualitative themes derived from individuals' stories of stress were developed and patterns across depressed and non-depressed explored. exploratory, data-intensive studies such as this can guide future investigations of the complex processes between stress and illness. how do intergovernmental human rights regulatory institutions actually help to shape cultural understandings about the meaning of religion, including its relationship to women's human rights and the types of actions governments must take to protect them? how, if at all, do united nations (un) and state elites matter in the effort to develop shared ways of understanding and talking about religion, women's rights, and their relationship in these settings? answering these questions requires examination and understanding of the cultural dynamics and processes that take place within these institutions themselves. yet, sociological investigation within these spaces has been largely neglected or limited to analysis of civil society organizations and people affiliated with them. in this dissertation, i help to correct this problem and answer these questions by looking at dynamics that take place at the micro-interactive level within one of the most important intergovernmental institutions at work in the world to address and resolve differences around human rights, gender, and religion. this is the monitoring procedure of the un's main convention on women's rights—the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (cedaw). i examine how un treaty body members and state representatives involved in cedaw monitoring procedures talk with one another about religion and its relationship to women's rights within this setting, as well as how they think about this relationship and work out how to approach it. to do this, i analyze and triangulate interviews, ethnographic fieldnotes based on un meetings, and documents produced as part of cedaw monitoring procedures. my findings have implications for several areas of scholarship but are especially relevant for global society scholarship and secularism studies scholarship. they provide new knowledge about how intergovernmental institutions and people who work within them interactively shape how religion and its relationship to women's rights are talked about, understood, and pushed forward. using these findings, i illustrate and explain an underlying conflict that makes differences in this area difficult to resolve. finally, i demonstrate inadequacies in central binaries that have undermined the accuracy of dominant social scientific scholarship in this area and show ways to overcome them. articular cartilage loss, due to diseases such as osteoarthritis or traumatic injury of the tissue, typically results in permanent damage because of cartilage tissue's avascular and aneural nature. there are conventional treatment options, such as subchondral abrasion, microfracture or mosaicplasty, but these treatments have their limitations, ultimately resulting in a total joint replacement, even if the cartilage damage is limited to a small area within the whole joint. this is undesirable, especially in younger active patients. a synthetic material which mimics natural cartilage behavior would be advantageous to repair focal defects in cartilage less invasively than a joint replacement to prolong life of an injured joint. hydrogels have been proposed as a promising option to replace articular cartilage because of their cartilage mimicking properties. even though hydrogels show promise for mimicking mechanical properties, a crucial limitation of hydrogels is that their tribological properties do not compare with natural cartilage tissue. to achieve improved friction properties, novel hydrogels were developed by functionalizing the biocompatible hydrogel polymer, polyvinyl alcohol, with an organic boundary lubricant carboxylic acid derivative. different hydrogels were investigated by means of chemical, physical, mechanical and tribological experiments. functionalization was verified by results of fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and attenuated total reflectance spectroscopy which displayed formation of an ester peak, diminishment of the alcohol peak, amplification of the alkyl peaks, and elemental analysis that displayed an increase in carbon and hydrogen content, further confirming boundary lubricant attachment. physical characterization by water content and contact angle measurements revealed that the physical properties varied depending on the processing method used to make the hydrogels. mechanical characterization was performed using nanoindentation and the oliver-pharr technique to explore the change in hydrogel elastic modulus, and was compared to matching experiments performed on bovine cartilage samples. results revealed that the processing method had an effect on the elastic modulus and that the values were within the lower range of cartilage. tribological characterization was performed by sphere-on-flat friction tests at the macro-scale and compared to experiments on natural cartilage. it was demonstrated that a significant decrease in friction occurred for the boundary lubricant functionalized hydrogels when compared with neat polyvinyl alcohol hydrogels, and that friction coefficients were within the range of reported values for cartilage. hydrogels display viscoelastic time dependent behavior, and experimental analysis of stresses at the surface and within the gel is difficult to perform. to explore the stresses that develop at the surface of the hydrogel, a three dimensional model of a hydrogel was created in the commercial finite element software abaqustm. the simulated hydrogel was created by implementing a poro-viscoelastic constitutive model with contact-dependent flow and friction conditions. the material property inputs for the hydrogel were found by nanoindentation, friction, and water content experiments which were performed on boundary lubricant functionalized and pure polyvinyl alcohol hydrogels. a comparison study performed with the model showed typical results that viscosity and modulus had the greatest influence on indentation depth while friction coefficient had the greatest influence on tangential force. simulation results showed that the maximum compressive surface pressure in the hydrogel occurred at the leading edge of movement, and the maximum tensile stress occurred at the trailing edge of the slider. the functionalized hydrogels displayed a decrease in both tensile and compressive stress when compared to neat polyvinyl alcohol hydrogels. this decrease in tensile stress shown by the boundary lubricant functionalized hydrogels implies improved tribological performance with better wear potential than neat polyvinyl alcohol hydrogels. the bulk tribological behavior of the boundary lubricant functionalized hydrogels was investigated by wear testing in a pin-on-flat reciprocating sliding apparatus. the friction and wear behavior of the functionalized hydrogels with increasing hydrocarbon boundary lubricant was compared to neat polyvinyl alcohol gels while sliding against a titanium pin in deionized water. polymer weight loss results revealed that at high wear cycles the neat polyvinyl alcohol displayed the highest weight loss, and the boundary lubricant hydrogels exhibited greater wear resistance. optical microscopy qualitatively showed that the polyvinyl alcohol hydrogels exhibit a predominant abrasive wear mechanism, while the boundary lubricant functionalized hydrogel exhibited reduced wear, with the hydrogel having the lowest hydrocarbon chain length boundary lubricant displaying the best wear performance with barely any noticeable wear. wear testing was also performed with polyvinyl alcohol and boundary lubricant functionalized hydrogels articulating against bovine cartilage pins in phosphate buffer saline solution as a fluid. the results showed that there was no statistical difference between the weight loss of the neat polyvinyl alcohol hydrogels and the boundary lubricant functionalized hydrogels, and all hydrogels displayed low wear for all tests. qualitative microscopy showed virtually no wear patch development on the boundary lubricant functionalized hydrogel surface at 2,000 cycles as well as minimal wear of the cartilage pins. this established that the boundary lubricant functionalized hydrogels exhibited improved wear performance as compared to the polyvinyl alcohol neat hydrogel. this thesis explores the determinants of political representation. political parties and other agents, such as factions and individual politicians, represent citizens by providing either policies or particularistic services. at a descriptive level of analysis, these types of goods entail the two extremes of a continuum on which it is possible to locate party systems, parties and individual legislators across countries. recent literature explaining patterns of political representation in latin america do not provide compelling evidence regarding the incentives political actors have to provide policy or service to constituents. most of the literature on parties holds that competition can be either electoral or ideological, underscoring that these two dimensions are analytically different and that this difference has important implications for the type of representation that parties provide: different combinations of these two dimensions (electoral and ideological) lead to different types of political representation, measured as the type of goods provided by parties in terms of policy or service to constituents. this dissertation contends that these two types of goods can be better explained by the type of political competition in which parties are involved. to provide a new explanation for the variation observed across countries, i elaborate a new typology of political competition and use it to compare fifteen latin american cases circa 2003. this comparative analysis allows me to map the type of party competition for each country in the region, as well as the predominant type of representation provided by parties in the form of policy or service. this analysis is followed by an in depth case study of the uruguayan party system, which is the extreme case in policy provision at the comparative level. the thesis asks how uruguayan parties changed over time from a strongly service oriented model towards the current policy oriented model. my explanation revolves around the evolution of party competition, from low levels of electoral competitiveness without clear policy stances towards increasing levels of electoral competitiveness and moderately high levels of ideological polarization after 1971. the confluence of these two factors has driven parties to compete on policy rather than service in the last decades. networks are widely used to understand complex real-world systems. this thesis focuses on social networks in which nodes are individuals and edges are individuals' friendship, family, or professional relationships. social networks play an important role in individuals' physical and mental health. traditional research aiming to link individuals' social networks and health has focused on studying a relationship between static network structure and static health-related traits due to the inability to collect individuals' dynamic social interaction data and dynamic health-related trait data. with recent advancements of data collection technologies, such as smartphones and wearable sensors, one is able to collect such data. this is exactly what we have done in the nethealth study, which gathered social interaction data from smartphones (i.e., sms communications), health-related behavioral data from wearable sensors (i.e., fitbit data), and individuals' trait data from surveys (e.g., personality traits and mental health) of around 700 notre dame undergraduates during 2015 to 2019.leveraging the rich nethealth data, this thesis focuses on uncovering relationships between individuals' social network positions, health-related behaviors, and various other traits and developing network-based models to predict individuals' mental health. in particular, we look at the co-evolution of individuals' social network positions (i.e., centralities) and their behaviors (i.e., physical activities), with the goal of studying whether groups of individuals who have similar evolving social network profiles or similar evolving physical activity profiles (or both) share similar traits such as personality, depression, and anxiety. we are the first ones to study the relationship between individuals' positions in a dynamic social network and their dynamic health-related behaviors. our results reveal several associations between individuals' social network structure, health-related (i.e., physical activity) behaviors, and other (e.g., personality or mental health) traits. so, in a follow-up study, we integrate the different data types from the nethealth study into a heterogeneous information network (hin) to develop a predictive model of social network structure from behavioral/trait information or vice versa. specifically, we focus on the task of predicting one's mental health (i.e., likelihood of being depressed or anxious) from the rest of the data. in this context, we are the first ones to define the problem of predicting individuals' mental health as applying to our hin a popular paradigm of a recommender system (rs), which is typically used to predict the preference that an individual would give to an item (e.g., a movie or book). in our case, the items are the individuals' different mental health states. since the existing rs methods work on static network data and extending them to dynamic network data is non-trivial, our constructed hin aggregates the dynamic social network data from the considered study time period into a static network. and while we show that even this leads to high mental health prediction accuracy, at least some temporal information is lost. including as much of temporal information as possible could further improve prediction accuracy. with this hypothesis, in a follow-up study, we fairly evaluate whether using dynamic social network data has more power than using static social network data in the task of predicting mental health. indeed, we find this to be the case. we are the first ones to develop predictive models of mental health that use dynamic social network data. it is known that any model of the theory of the group of integers can be decomposed into a direct sum of a torsion-free divisible abelian group and an elementary substructure of the profinite group. we give a similar result for models of the theory of presburger arithmetic and discuss orderings on direct summands. we show that the torsion-free divisible abelian group is densely ordered and we find the number of non-isomorphic expansions of the profinite group to a model of presburger arithmetic. we also give a description of the f-generic types of saturated models of presburger arithmetic.we consider nonstandard analogues of finite cyclic groups as a family of groups defined in an elementary extension of presburger arithmetic. since the theory of presburger arithmetic has nip, any such group h has a smallest type-definable subgroup of bounded index. each quotient is a compact group under the logic topology. the main result of this thesis is the classification of these compact groups.the universal definable compactification of a group g, in a language in which all the subsets of g are definable, coincides with the bohr compactification bg of g considered as a discrete group. for an abelian group g, in particular the group of integers, we compute the type-connected component. we show that adding predicates for certain subsets of g is enough to get bg as the universal compactification. a collection of short stories and a novella. ram is a narrative poetry project that experiments with the erasure form and translation. at its core, ram is a feminist erasure of vergil's aeneid, a voice found hiding underneath the surface of vergil's epic, waiting to tell a story of its own. these poems tell the story of ram and her lover, seahorse, and of ram's journey to understand herself, her language, her gender, her sexuality, and her trauma. ram is at times a character and at times not. she is at once a woman and gender fluid. she is all binaries and all voices, but yet, isn't. ram is juno's anger and poseidon's wave, dido's fire and apollo's arrow… but isn't. ram is something old and something new. in the end, her story will give and take from you. contact theory (allport, 1954) was used as foundation to develop an educational experience questionnaire (eeq), which was designed to operationalize the tenets of contact theory based on the perceptions of nondisabled students who experienced intergroup contact with students who have disabilities in primary and secondary schools, as a predictor of attitudes toward persons who have disabilities. a factor analysis of the eeq yielded a reasonable four-factor structure that was similar across primary/secondary and developmental/physical disabilities domains. the eeq was administered to a sample of 444 college students along with the neo-ffi, the scale of attitudes toward disabled persons, the mental retardation attitudes inventory, the marlowe-crowne socialdesirability scale, and demographic questions. correlational analyses found a strong relationship between the quality of intergroup contact in ability-integrated educational environments and long-term attitudes toward persons who have disabilities. classification and regression tree (cart) analyses revealed evidence of cumulative, negative david r. parker cumulative, compensatory, and reverse compensatory effects among predictor variables, indicating that there are a variety of complex interactions between the conditions of intergroup contact and the characteristics of the individual. the importance of adequately operationalizing the conditions of contact in school environments and the use of cart to assess the social outcomes of educational practices are discussed. this dissertation is composed of three essays on empirical macroeconomics. chapter 1 investigates the transmission of monetary policy shocks to us state-level house prices. using a factor-augmented var with time-varying parameters, i find that the response of national house prices to monetary tightening is less sensitive during the housing boom, which does not necessarily align with the response of the state house prices. a state's house price is more likely to fall to a monetary tightening if the state has a higher level of land use regulation and is more dependent on construction. chapter 2 examines the effects of monetary policy shocks on economic inequality among us households. i estimate the effects of monetary policy shocks on three types of expenditure inequality: necessities, luxury, and total. contractionary monetary policy shocks have negligible effects on necessities (and total) spending inequality but have statistically significant effects on luxury spending inequality. six years after a 1 pp contractionary monetary policy shock, the poor cut their luxury spending by 1.8 pp more than the rich, while both cut their necessity (and total) spending by a similar percentage size. an exploration of the mechanisms uses non-homothetic preferences, suggesting that monetary tightening worsens welfare inequality among us households. chapter 3 is joint work with nelson mark, jonas nauerz, jonathan rawls, and zhiyi wei. we find heterogeneous impulse responses of monthly u.s. dollar (usd) real exchange rates of 76 countries to global temperature shocks. four years after a positive 1-degree-celcius increase in global temperature over its historical average, the czech republic currency appreciates by 14.5 percent against the usd, while the currency of burundi depreciates by 4.2 percent. the determinants of response heterogeneity are studied by regressing local projection response coefficients on country characteristics. at the 48-month horizon, a country's currency is more likely to depreciate if the country has grown faster and is more dependent on agriculture and tourism. characterization of three zebrafish cell polarity genes, pard3, lin7, and scribble are described here. anti-rabbit anti-pard3 antiserum was generated and detected 180 and 150 kda protein bands on the immunoblots. the pard3 protein localized to the apical region of the neuroepithelial cells, either co-localizing with the apical adherens junctions or slightly apical to the adheren junctions. the apical subcellular localization of pard3 protien is dependent on the apkc and nok proteins. anti-rabbit anti-lin7 recognizes all three lin7 protiens on the immunoblots. lin7 protein localizes to retinal bipolar and horizontal cells. the correct subcellular localization of lin7 requires the functional nok protein in the retinal neuroepithelium.the zebrafish scrib gene encodes a protein of 1724 amino acids that possesses one lrr and four pdz domains in the same arrangement as in the human and mouse scrib proteins. two anti-rabbit anti-scrib antisera were generated and detected a major protein band (250 kda) and a minor protein band (235 kda) on the immunoblot. the scrib protein localized at the basalateral subdomain of the retinal neuroepithelial cells and expressed in all neural cell in mature retina. anti-scrib morpholinos knocked down scrib protein and resulted in a small retina without discernable neural layers. co-injection of in vitro transcribed full-length scrib mrna partially rescued the scrib morphant phenotype. tunel labeling showed a large amount of cell death throughout the retina. pvna and brdu labeling showed that the neuroepithelial cells in the scrib morphants retina failed to exit the cell cycle and continue to proliferation. specification of retinal neural cells was abolished and the ath5 differentiation signaling pathway required for ganglion cell differentiation was inhibited in the scrib morphant retina. loss of scrib expression resulted in the persistent expression of cyclin d1 but not cyclin b1. knockdown of scrib protein did not significantly affect the subcellular localization of the apical proteins like pard3 and nok, though the apical nok-expressing subdomains were significantly expanded. thus, scrib contributes to the zebrafish retinal lamination in a different way relative to the apical cell polarity proteins. this thesis will explore a methodology for the establishment of self-contained neighborhood developments through the creation of commercial centers that capitalize on the retail principles of comprehensive ownership and centralized management. more specifically this thesis will examine ways of creating self-sustaining neighborhood developments by building on the market place as a vehicle for social and economic revitalization. a case study for a new market hall in lagrange georgia will demonstrate how the traditional market hall typology can serve as a model for contemporary markets. a primary goal of this thesis is to produce a design proposal that provides the daily needs of individuals within walking distance of their homes. a second goal is to demonstrate how the design of the market hall can serve to enhance the overall community. providing a thriving commercial center that supports and encourages other local businesses and provides an atmosphere that encourages pedestrian activity. while the framework for cytosolic delivery has been well established, there is a need to develop new ways to enhance cell permeation and intracellular targeting of drugs and imaging agents. theranostics, which combines these features into one system, needs new molecular strategies to overcome undesirable differences in biodistribution and selectivity that currently exist between distinct therapeutic and diagnostic agents.this thesis investigates different supramolecular methods to deliver fluorescent payloads into the cell including the use of nanoparticle delivery systems and small molecule imaging agents. specifically, chapter 2 evaluates the supramolecular properties of a new family of water-soluble hyperbranched polytriazoles that have a unique unimolecular micelle structure that could be broadly useful as a nanocarrier for various applications in therapy, imaging, or a combination of the two. chapter 3 describes fundamental studies of four liposome systems that explored different supramolecular strategies for targeted liposome delivery and fusion, liposome leakage, and chemically triggered membrane fusion. much of this work employs synthavidin technology, which is based on the supramolecular capture of deep-red fluorescent squaraine dyes by tetralactam macrocycles. subsequent chapters focus on microscopy using small molecule fluorescent probes. in chapter 4, an intracellular fluorescence competition assay is developed to assess the capability of inhibitor candidate molecules to engage the biomedically important enzyme histone deacetylase 6 (hdac6) inside living cells. the assay uses fluorescence cell microscopy and flow cytometry to quantify cell staining by a hdac-selective fluorescent probe. in chapter 5, two structurally related deep-red fluorescent probes are evaluated for microscopic imaging. one of the probes is a targeted fluorescent molecule with appended ni-nitrilotriacetate groups that provided affinity for histidine-tagged proteins. the other probe is equipped with polyarginine peptide that improve cellular uptake. together, these projects represent a new approach to intracellular microscopy using targeted deep-red fluorescent probes. from publishers marketplace: eighteen-year-old noah moves to new hampshire's remote isles of shoals for the summer, where he learns of his grandmother's romance with a selkie woman, falls for the selkie's daughter, and works with her to save her siblings from his mentor's cruel experiments. what is the final state of unity of an interfaith, bilingual organization? after introducing such social service aids as translation, does it exhibit more or less solidarity among its members? this paper seeks to determine this final state of solidarity, through tracing the accretion or loss of emotional energy (ee) in a social movement group (collins 2004). two kinds of translation, consecutive interpretation (ci) and simultaneous interpretation (si), are observed for their ee production, according to interaction ritual theory (ir) (collins 2004), and recommended conditions are given the better production of ee. after spending one year in a social movement group, during which qualitative data was collected using ethnographic participant-observation methods, i found that this group engaged in two kinds of translation, both of which led to lower ee. both types led to a decrease in ee because of the non-optimal states of ingredients necessary for a successful interaction ritual (ir), (1) a mutual focus of attention and (2) emotional entrainment. those in ci experienced overlaps and gaps in their presentations, and these irregularities caused certain interactional problems between foci, and the lack of an agreed upon rhythm for achieving entrainment. in si, the foci of attention were visually and auditorily split, and the two rhythms inherent in english and spanish mismatched such that emotional entrainment was difficult to attain. however, religion had a positive effect for the organization, in that it provided high ee to compensate for the loss of ee resulting from moments of translation; religion produced energy through its cultural actions, tools, and forms, with these assets resembling those cited in other church cultures, such as the black church culture. the data in my research support pattillo-mccoy's conclusion that religion in its cultural forms can promote organizational goals (pattillo-mccoy 1998; bellah et al. 1985; swidler 1986), and in this case, specifically through the creation of ee. this thesis demonstrates the use of classical molecular simulations to provide a fundamental understanding of the molecular interactions in surfactant solutions that govern the macroscopic behavior of the system. two directly related projects are highlighted as follows:• understanding the cytotoxic mechanisms of aqueous ionic liquids towards a model cell membrane • predicting the adsorption isotherms of nonionic surfactants at the air-water interface in the former (comprising the majority of this thesis), molecular dynamics simulations of aqueous ionic liquids (ils) are performed with a lipid bilayer as a model cell membrane. while ionic liquids have been the subject of extensive research in the past decade, the risks associated with their unknown toxicities have persisted as a major bottleneck in their commercialization. this work provides crucial molecular-level detail on the cytotoxic mechanisms of ionic liquids towards biological membranes that can help guide the rational design of novel, nontoxic ionic liquids. both atomistic and coarse-grained simulations are used to investigate the molecular mechanistic pathways through which ils can disrupt a model cell membrane, consistent with the experimental observations of a supported lipid bilayer in aqueous il media.in the latter, a newly-developed monte carlo scheme for simulations of surfactant solutions is presented. specifically, this scheme is used to predict bulk concentrations and interfacial tensions at various coverages of surfactants at the air-water interface. since the actual concentration regime of these systems of interest are typically very dilute (&lt;&lt; 10−5 mol. frac.), monte carlo simulations can, in principle, provide an advantage over molecular dynamics simulations, as insertion/deletion moves allow the system to reach concentrations below those limited by system size and within reasonable computational cost. in performing these simulations, state-of-the-art monte carlo moves are implemented in the gibbs ensemble framework. these moves vastly improve sampling and help overcome the classical "insertion problem" of large molecules in a condensed medium. the future outlook of this methodology as well as its limitations are also discussed in detail. this dissertation explores the ways in which gender influenced the construction and stability of the newly created irish free state, how national identity and citizenship were understood in gendered terms in those years, and how these gendered constructions of civic life affected irish women and men. in the wider context of a post-war europe, the free state wrestled with issues of national identity and citizenship, working to distance itself from its past as a former part of the united kingdom and to present an image to the world of a potentially strong sovereign state. working from intersection of democracy, religion, and gender, this dissertation considers the history of the formative years of the free state, from 1922-1937. by studying the passage of laws that impacted men and women differently, i argue that constructions of gender and the family, grounded in a catholic moral tradition, were central to the creation and stability of ireland. tracing the history of legislation focused on women and the family, i argue gender shaped the free state's sense of national identity, created new qualifications for citizenship, and effected political participation. through extensive archival research in public and private political, religious, and popular documents, i examine the construction of gendered citizenship. moreover, i demonstrate the impact of gender on the formation of a socially conservative retrenchment from the revolutionary principles of the 1916 easter rising and the war of independence.the creation of gendered citizenship in the wake of revolutionary potential not only illuminates an irish story, but speaks to the wider european context of state-formation, the legacy of successor states, counter-revolutions, and sovereignty in the twentieth century. the constructions of gender that precipitated this retrenchment in ireland undermined the social contract inherent in the democratic tradition, and effectively created two classes of citizens. this research contributes to the history of women and gender, illuminating the record of political agency in a formative era of irish history, and contemplates the implications of gender inequality in twentieth-century europe. this dissertation is an attempt to reorient the study of the german philosopher friedrich nietzsche around metaphilosophical questions: what is the proper task of philosophy, and, consequently, what relationship should philosophy bear to science? my thesis is that nietzsche's conception of philosophy is intentionally revisionary – his work is an attempt to make philosophers reconceive themselves as creators of value, and to own up to and embrace the cultural significance of that task.after a brief introduction on nietzsche's immediate intellectual climate, i move on in the first chapter to a critical discussion of the naturalist interpretation of nietzsche's work advanced by brian leiter, which seeks to show that nietzsche thinks that the method of philosophy ought to be continuous with that of the sciences. in the chapter, i demonstrate that the neglect of nietzsche's peculiar metaphilosophical ambitions that is consequent upon accepting leiter's interpretation threatens to undermine our ability to understand the most important features of nietzsche's work. the argumentative upshot is that the topic of naturalism is simply not a helpful lens through which to view nietzsche's work, if one wants to grasp what is distinctive about it.in the second chapter, i put forward what i take to be a far more helpful lens through which to view nietzsche's work: his own revisionary conception of philosophical activity. i argue that his speculations on this issue remain remarkably consistent over the course of his career, and are central to each of the three traditionally demarcated "periods" of his thought – early, middle, and late. his conception is developed first out of his reaction to the "pre-platonic" philosophers and schopenhauer in the early period, is central to his understanding of the "free spirit" in the middle works, and is a central and explicit theme of his late masterpieces beyond good &amp; evil and on the genealogy of morality. in the third and final chapter, i take up the topic of nihilism, which nietzsche sees as the central problem that must be overcome by philosophers of the future. i develop an interpretation of nihilism as a psychological illness, the effect of which is an incapability to feel the inspiration from values that is needed for them to influence one's action. this interpretation of nihilism, i argue, is both well-supported by the textual sources – in both the published works and the nachlass – and a fruitful background against which to interpret some of the peculiar rhetorical goals nietzsche sets himself, especially in thus spoke zarathustra, among which are the ambition to "create" the audience who will be properly receptive to his writings. postmodern american gothic: the politics of fear in the works of thomas pynchon, david lynch, and steve erickson abstract by brett paice whereas the gothic traditionally relied upon supernatural figures of evil (vampires, ghosts, monsters) to produce the sensation of fear or terror, contemporary manifestations of the gothic repudiate such abstracted constructions, favoring, instead, metonymical and everyday representations of terror. in this project, i argue that the works of artists thomas pynchon, david lynch, and steve erickson signify, what i term, the postmodern american gothic, through their production of a symbolic economy of fear, paranoia, and dread. i contend that these artists' works represent narrative critiques of the united states' culture of consumption and history of imperialism dating back to the myth of manifest destiny. moreover, these artists' historiographic narratives rigorously complicate traditional conceptions of gender, sexuality, race, nationhood, and colonialism as aspects of american history. deconstructing the tropic elements of the gothic genre distinguishes these artists' creation of a gothic aesthetic that privileges the lived horrors of historical record (slavery, the holocaust, imperial modernity, oppression engendered through male-centered master narratives) over the metaphorical monsters of the traditional gothic narrative that represent actual cultural anxieties over lived social conditions. in its contemporary form, the gothic challenges the very real institutions and social practices that systematize oppression, enable cultural alienation, and deny individual subjectivities. by revisiting actual horrifying events and their impact on human life, pynchon, lynch, and erickson establish the irreducibility of social and historical trauma. in this examination, i comprehensively track pynchon, lynch, and erickson's respective deployments of gothic themes and tropes, illustrating the political significance of their creations. moreover, my project broadens the understanding of these artists' works, as well as those artists whose works employ similar techniques. the scholarly attention paid to manifestations of postmodern paranoia elicits a powerful connection to the horror invoked in the gothic texts. considering the profound urgency that differing conceptions of 'terror' represent in a post-9/11 world, i believe that understanding representations of terror in contemporary artistic practice is vital to reassessing the gothic genre, from its origins in the 18th century to the present, as defined by its politics of transgression. in simulations of metallic interfaces, a critical aspect of metallic behavior is missing from the some of the most widely used classical molecular dynamics force fields. i present a modification of the embedded atom method (eam) which allows for electronic polarization of the metal by treating the valence density around each atom as a fluctuating dynamical quantity. the densities are represented by a set of additional fluctuating variables (and their conjugate momenta) which are propagated along with the nuclear coordinates. this "density readjusting eam" (dr-eam) preserves nearly all of the useful qualities of traditional eam, including bulk elastic properties and surface energies. however, it also allows valence electron density to migrate through the metal in response to external perturbations. i show that dr-eam can successfully model polarization in response to external charges, capturing the image charge effect in atomistic simulations. dr-eam also captures some of the behavior of metals in the presence of uniform electric fields, predicting surface charging and shielding internal to the metal. i further show that it predicts charge transfer between the constituent atoms in alloys, leading to novel predictions about unit cell geometries in layered l10 structures.i have also studied the interfacial thermal conductance, g, of the flat au(111) water interface using non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations. i utilized two metal models, one based on the embedded atom method (eam), and one which includes metallicpolarizability via a density-readjusting embedded atom method (dr-eam). these were combined with three popular water models, spc/e, tip4p, and tip4p-fq to understand the role of polarizability on the thermal transport process. a thermal flux was introduced using velocity shearing and scaling reverse non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (vssrnemd), and transport coefficients were measured by calculating the resulting thermal gradients and temperature differences at the interface.the primary finding is that the computed interfacial thermal conductance between a bare metal interface and water increases when polarizability is taken into account in the metal model. additional work to understand the origin of the conductance difference points to changes in the local ordering of the water molecules in the first two layers of water above the metal surface. vibrational densities of states on both sides of the interface exhibit interesting frequency modulation close to the surface, but no obvious differences due to metal polarizability.i extend dr-eam to study the oxides. the oxygen functional is tuned to match the structural properties and the enthalpy of formation of the oxides. the pair potential for metal-oxygen is tuned explicitly to make the oxide structure stable. original poems. rebecca west's the strange necessity, virginia woolf's three guineas, and mary colum's from these roots were perceived by their authors to be central to discussions concerning modernist aesthetics and politics in the modern period. focusing on these non-fiction works, my dissertation analyzes the complex ways in which these writers sought to establish themselves as serious literary and social critics in an aesthetic environment that both trivialized women's writing and feminized promotional efforts. west, woolf, and colum used their unique understandings of criticism and its relationship to the literary marketplace to construct and perform personae through which they assessed modern culture. around the same time that these writers performed these personae in their book-length works, they also published revised portions of these books as periodical articles. in my dissertation, i argue that west, woolf, and colum altered their performed personae in these recirculated versions to address problems they understood to be specifically associated with female authorship. by attending to colum and overlooked works by west and woolf, i uncover a repeated use of re-mediation as a mechanism for managing female literary authority. aaron jaffe posits in modernism and the culture of celebrity that modernist scholarship lacks a comprehensive understanding of "the full range and extent of the practices, conventions, and institutions that regulate modernist cultural production." my dissertation joins jaffe's work on male modernists with faye hammill's and catherine keyser's on female middlebrow authors by analyzing how female critics sought to position themselves as highbrow intellectuals. in the process, i shed light on the workings of modern print culture by tracing the transatlantic circulation and recirculation of the strange necessity, three guineas, and from these roots and by contextualizing these works within their various discourse networks. this dissertation offers a multi-dimensional picture of eucharistic devotion among the faithful of the southern low countries in the thirteenth century. the method is to assemble writers of various genres in order to demonstrate that they shared a common theological framework for eucharistic devotion, which holds the triune god as the beginning and end. this framework presumes that life is a journey, with christ as the way, and which is stabilised by the eucharist at its centre. in effect, the trinitarian context proves to be fundamental in all genres of eucharistic devotion from the strictly theological approach of the treatises of male scholastics and testimonies of mystical women through to the pastoral practice of ecclesial action, public ideals of sanctity, preaching, and liturgical practice. chapter one offers a background into the theology of the trinity and its relation to eucharistic theology in this period. the second chapter provides a detailed study of the visions recorded by the brabantine mystic hadewijch. although experiential rather than speculative, her work reveals that a sophisticated understanding of the trinity shaped her eucharistic devotion. chapter three examines a range of works of the scholastic theologian hugh of st. cher. hugh is an interesting case study from that genre of writers on account of his interaction with the local religious personalities in liége and his service to the campaign for corpus christi. the texts included in this chapter complement the abstractly theological perspective with the practice of preaching, a commentary on the mass, and hugh's action as an ecclesiastical statesman. chapter four follows naturally from hugh's involvement in liége by exploring the devotional life of juliana of cornillon and ida of nivelles through their vitae. these texts present an ideal of sanctity and devotion that places ritual practices involving the eucharist squarely in the context of devotion to the trinity. concerning the feast dedicated to the eucharist, juliana herself explained that it always existed in the secret of the trinity, semper fuit in secreto trinitatis. the goal of this research is to develop an inexpensive and non-invasive alternative to mri scans and tissue biopsies currently used to detect metastatic breast cancer and its relapse. it is well established that circulating tumor cells (ctcs) in blood stream plays a crucial role in determining metastases, and quantification of receptors erbb2 (her2), estrogen (er) and progesterone (pr) within the ctcs provide valuable information regarding the stage of the cancer, treatment options and patient survival rates. therefore, we report a highly sensitive and selective cnt-switch liquid biopsy platform to detect and monitor early metastasis and its relapse by analyzing protein expressions within the ctcs from the blood of breast cancer patients.detection and quantification of low-concentration proteins on circulating tumor cells are generally plagued by two distinct obstacles: lack of sensitivity due to high dissociation equilibrium constant kd; non-specificity due to an abundance of non-targets with similar kd. the detection sensitivity for our protein sensing platform is achieved with complete association of the antibody-antigen-antibody (ab-ag-ab) complex by precisely and rapidly assembling carbon nanotubes (cnts) across two parallel electrodes via sequential dc electrophoresis and dielectrophoresis (dep), and with single-cnt electron tunneling conductance. the high selectivity is achieved with a critical hydrodynamic shear rate between the activated dissociation shear rates of target and nontarget linkers of the aligned cnts.we are able to reach detection limits of 10 femtomolar (fm) for three breast cancer biomarkers homogeneous samples with high dissociation constants: her2/her2 antibody (0.44±0.07 nm), er (0.35 nm) and pr (1 nm). we also demonstrate in spiked serum sample high selectivity towards target her2 proteins against non-target her2 isoform of a similar kd. the detection limit for her2 in serum is lower than 100 fm. for all tests, irreversible capture and shearing allow us to tune the dynamic range up to 5 decades by increasing the cnt numbers.1 with three different breast cancer tumor cell line samples, we further validate the cnt-switch nanosensor platform's capability to detect her2, er and pr protein expressions down to a single tumor cell. the quantifications of protein expressions per tumor cell allow us to develop cut-off r score values for breast cancer subtype classification. at last, the detection limit of the cntswitch liquid biopsy platform for tumor cells spiked blood sample is 5 tumor cells within 7.5 ml of blood. this demonstrates the commercialization potential of the cnt-switch nanosensor as an early screening liquid biopsy technology for metastatic breast cancer and its relapse. quantum-dot cellular automata is an exciting novel device architecture for implementation of digital logic using bistable elements. this architecture offers a number of advantages such as logical completeness, low power dissipation and possibility of miniaturization of devices into the nanometer scale. in this dissertation, we demonstrate the operation of metal-based qca devices such as double-dot, cell, latch and shift register, and investigate properties such as memory, power gain and errors in these devices. the devices are fabricated using the aluminum tunnel junction technology. charge is confined on islands of aluminum connected to each other by tunnel junctions formed by a thin layer of aluminum oxide. these islands or "dots' are arranged in the form of cells so that each cell has two degenerate ground states depending on the position of electrons in the dots. various digital logic gates can be formed using arrangements of these cells with respect to one another. we start with the demonstration of a leadless qca double-dot and cell. switching is accomplished in the qca cell by application of input voltage signals through gate capacitors. electron transfer between the dots in a qca cell is detected by measuring the dot potentials using set electrometers. control of switching in a qca cell by an external signal can be accomplished by using an extra dot between the top and bottom dots of a half-cell and modulating its potential using a clock voltage signal. we demonstrate clocking in qca devices using a half cell containing three dots (triple-dot), with inputs applied to the top and bottom dots and clock applied to the middle dot. memory is demonstrated in a clocked qca half-cell by suppressing co-tunneling between the top and bottom dots by fabricating multiple tunnel junctions between them. this device is called the qca latch. a qca shift register can be made by placing multiple latches next to each other and applying phase-shifted clock signals. a two stage qca shift register is demonstrated using two latches capacitively coupled to each other. power gain is demonstrated experimentally in a latch and a shift register by calculating the work done by each latch on the next, in a row of latches. further, the types and properties of errors in the operation of the qca latch and shift register are investigated by statistically measuring error rates under various conditions of input magnitude and bias. finally a circuit for microwave frequency measurements of qca devices using an rfset is discussed. the experiments presented in this dissertation demonstrate leadless operation, clocking, memory and power gain in qca devices. error analysis performed on the latch shows that as the charging energy of these devices is increased, the error rates would fall exponentially. the iii-v compound semiconductoir wet oxidation system for the nanofabrication laboratory at the university of notre dame has undergone an extensive redesign and rebuild. improvements to the various subsystems are described in detail followed by processing techniques and concluded with a set of standard oxidations. this dissertation examines the collaboration between public health officials, government administrators, and roman catholic clergy in propagating smallpox vaccination as a case study for modern state building in post-revolutionary france. the interdisciplinary nature of my research, which considers the dialogue between government, medical, and religious sources, challenges the medical-historical community to rethink the role of religious institutions in the promotion of public health measures in the modern era.the most important concern that shaped vaccination debates was the degree the church should do the work of the state and the significance of that collaboration for catholics in an increasingly secular france. at a time when boundaries between secular and religious authority were questioned and refashioned, religious authorities served an important role as intermediaries between parisian health officials and far-flung parishes and villages. this interaction between religion and vaccination demonstrates how religious institutions in particular mediated between the demands of the post-revolutionary state and the aspirations of a people understood equally as laity and citizens. at a time when boundaries between secular and religious authority were questioned and refashioned, the relationship between religion, medicine, and government was, on the whole, collaborative rather than obstructive. in this dissertation, the notion of symmetry in dynamical control systems is studied. large-scale dynamical systems present significant challenges to control design and analysis. the energy-based analysis methods, namely dissipativity and passivity theory, are studied with the presence of symmetry in system dynamics and interconnection structures. it is shown that symmetry is a powerful tool in preserving system properties and performances such as dissipativity, passivity, stability, robustness and controllability. in order to recognize the important role of symmetry in dynamical systems, background is first given on general definitions of symmetry for geometric control systems in chapter 2. in addition, symmetry examples in nonlinear affine control systems and in multi-agent systems are also given. chapter 3 discusses symmetry in multi-agent dissipative systems. stability conditions are derived for large-scale systems by categorizing agents into symmetry groups and applying local control laws under limited interconnections with neighbors. extensions on passivity results are presented in chapter 4. also the passivity indices are characterized for large-scale passive systems with symmetric interconnections. approximate symmetry in terms of network effects is discussed in chapter 5. chapter 6 explores the relationship between symmetry and nonlinear controllability. chapter 7 discusses experimental testing to determine the passivity indices using numerical optimization. overall, this dissertation provides new approaches in analyzing and synthesizing large-scale dynamical control systems with regard to energy and input-output relationships, where symmetry property provides interesting results for system analysis and control design. numerical simulations and illustrative examples are presented to demonstrate the practical usage and to motivate the theory. in this dissertation, we address the most immediate concern of water stress by purposing a potential option for the freshwater production through engineered polymeric membranes. despite the demonstrated success of state-of-art filtration membranes, the performance of current membrane-based separations is limited by a trade-off between the solute selectivity and hydraulic permeability. it is critically important to prepare membranes with well-defined structures (i.e., high porosity with a well-defined pore size) in a controllable manner. furthermore, to meet the growing demand of adsorptive membranes that selectively remove harmful contaminants, the attachment of a robust binding ligand is strongly desired. membranes based on block polymer precursors are an emerging class of promising multifunctional separation devices due to their simple to control macromolecular architecture and tailorable surface chemistry. this dissertation presented the design, fabrication and characterization of block polymer-based advanced functional membrane with tailored chemistry. in general, two different membrane architectures, a self-assembled block polymer membrane with a thin selective layer and a homogeneous phase inversion membrane with surface segregated ligands were purposed. membrane architectures are controlled with proper nanofabrication techniques to target the desired performance profiles. moreover, tailored chemical functionalization that modified the surface chemistry of these membranes offer a highly tunable platform that defines myriad material properties for designated applications. the self-assembled nanostructure based on the direct design of polyisoprene-b-polystyrene-b-poly(2-acrylamido-ethane-1,1-disfulonic acid) (pi-ps-padsa) enables a highly selective nanofiltration membrane that is capable of fully gating solutes with an 8 å difference in size. meanwhile, the polystyrene-b-poly(acrylic acid) preferentially segregates to the surface of the polysulfone matrix and functions as highly efficient heavy metal purification device with robust adsorption performance (i.e., 99+% removal of dissolved metal ions). the rational design of block polymer-based membranes promises to provide new separation archetypes for advanced membrane applications yet to be precisely engineered. piv data were collected from the sltest site in utah. the site was chosen because conditions produce a high reynolds number boundary layer (rq = o(106)) over a flat surface. time averaged results indicate that the data are an accurate representation of a rough wall laboratory boundary layer with zero pressure gradient. instantaneous realizations of the velocity field show an inclined shear layer in approximately 40% of the images at a mean angle of 19o. the shear layer separates a region of relatively uniform high momentum from a region of relatively uniform low momentum. this shear layer typically exhibits a set of vortex cores identified by circular streamlines in a convected reference frame. conditionally averaging the velocity field based on high swirl strength yields inclined regions of low momentum and inclined streamlines. these results supplement the work of previous authors who have found these features in low reynolds number flows. research hypothesizing the underlying causal mechanisms of positive religious effects on mental health and psychological well-being emphasize the potential social support found in religious communities, and psychological resources that provide comfort and security in difficult times. missing from much of this literature are uniquely religious measures of these mechanisms. little of the available research has focused upon these effects among adolescents. this paper applies these theoretical constructs using explicitly religious measures of an adolescent's perceived congregational support and beliefs about god's availability. results indicate that among religiously engaged adolescents, increased worship attendance has no effect on adolescent subjective well-being (swb). religious salience is positively associated, and contrary to prior studies, private prayer has a negative association. while perceived congregational support and divine proximity are strongly associated with swb they do not mediate the effects of prayer and religious salience. further analyses indicates that the positive effects of religious social support for adolescents are linked to this subjective perception of congregational support, independent of the quantity of religiously affiliated peers and adults one trusts, or one's level of participation in religious communal activities like youth group or bible studies. in fact these measures of actual relationships have little impact on adolescent swb. scientific workflows are common and powerful tools used to elevate small scale analysis to large scale distributed computation. they provide ease of use for domain scientists by supporting the use of applications as they are, partitioning the data for concurrency instead of the application. however, many of these workflows are written in a way that couples the scientific intention with the specificity of the execution environment. this coupling limits the flexibility and portability of the workflow, requiring the workflow to be re-engineered for each new dataset or site. i propose that workflows can be written for pure scientific intent, with the idiosyncrasies of execution resolved at runtime using workflow abstractions. these abstractions would allow workflows to be quickly transformed for different configurations, specifically handling new datasets, diverse sites, and different configurations. i examine three methods for developing workflow abstraction on static workflows, apply these methods to a dynamic workflow, and propose an approach that separates the user from the distributed environment.in developing these methods for static workflows i first explored dynamic workflow expansion, which allows workflows to be quickly adapted for new and diverse datasets. then i describe an algorithm for statically determining a workflow's storage needs, which is used at runtime to prevent storage deadlocks. finally, i develop an algebra for transforming workflows, which isolates site and configuration specific designs to be applied to workflows as needed. these methods were combined and applied to a dynamic workflow, adapting a site bounds mpi application to a dynamic cloud workflow. i combine these methods and formulated the continuously divisible jobs abstraction to separate the domain scientist's application from the distributed logic of a dynamic workflow. this abstraction defines an api which applications can implement to allow for dynamic distributed computation, showcasing the flexibility and portability provided through workflow abstractions. despite their environmental importance, thermodynamic properties of uranyl and neptunyl phases remain largely unknown. in this thesis, i examine thermodynamic properties of a large family of uranium minerals from the meta-autunite group, as well as the uranyl vanadates from the francevillite group, and neptunium compounds, npo2 and np2o5. a calvet-type high-temperature oxide melt calorimeter was utilized to obtain enthalpies of formation of these phases.in the first part of this dissertation i describe the process of building the calorimetry laboratory. discovery and expansion of the large family of actinide compounds motivated the creation of the high-temperature calorimetry facility at the university of notre dame. in order to produce precise, reproducible, and reliable thermodynamic data, high-precision calorimetry is required. a setaram alexsys high-temperature oxide melt calorimeter was installed in the special temperature controlled laboratory that is necessary for proper operation of the instrument. the calorimeter was installed, stabilized, calibrated and custom tailored to the needs of work with actinide materialsthe remainder of this work presents results of the experimental thermochemistry of several uranium and neptunium phases. synthesized compounds were analyzed for phase purity using pxrd and analytical chemistry methods (icp-oes, icp-ms, and tga). their enthalpies of formation were measured using high-temperature calorimetry. the normalized charge deficiency per anion (ncda) approach relates the thermodynamic stability of these compounds to their crystal structures, and is a useful approach for probing thermodynamic properties of materials with identical structural units. we also show experimental evidence why autunite is meta-stable relative to its lower hydrate, meta-autunite. calorimetric data allowed us to calculate the enthalpy of dehydration of autunite, indicating that dehydration should be spontaneous. data presented in this dissertation confirms the common occurrence of the mineral meta-autunite in nature. thermodynamic properties presented here are important for understanding the genesis of uranium deposits, long-term disposal of radioactive waste in a geological repository, and uranium and neptunium mobility in the subsurface. autotrophic sulfur-based denitrification has gained significant interest in recent years as an alternative to conventional heterotrophic denitrification using expensive supplementary electron donors such as methanol. past research has addressed the potential of elemental sulfur (s0) and reduced sulfur compounds such as thiosulfate (s2o32-) and sulfide (s2-) to serve as electron donors for denitrification in wastewater treatment systems. however, little is known about the efficacy of sulfite (so32-) as an electron donor. unlike s0, so32is soluble in water and could be applied to existing suspended growth systems, while avoiding the drawbacks of elevated costs and handling risks associated with other reduced sulfur compounds.this thesis tested the hypothesis that sulfur-oxidizing denitrifiers such as thiobacillus denitrificans can use so32as an electron donor in an activated sludge system. it also explored whether so32-, known to have some antimicrobial properties, might inhibit nitrification. in experiments with four-stage, nitrifying and denitrifying sequencing batch reactors, so32was found to effectively serve as an electron donor for autotrophic denitrification. however, so32had a chronic inhibitory effect on nitrification. this may preclude its use for processes including nitrification, such as the modified ludzack-ettinger (mle) process. so32may be more suitable for processes without nitrification, such as denitrifying biological filters. meeting anscombe's demand: toward a moral psychology of character abstract by liam murphy monahan contemporary virtue theorists suggest a conception of moral perception, practical reasoning, and motivation radically different from that of their enlightenment-inspired rivals. however, without a psychologically credible understanding of how it is possible for rationally limited creatures like human beings to be virtuous, virtue theory cannot be a genuine alternative. many virtue theorists believe that being virtuous involves the possession of stable character traits that provide an agent with the capacity to consistently recognize objectively appropriate reasons for action as well as the ability to act reliably for, or because of, those reasons. what many virtue theorists fail to realize is that this description of being virtuous makes both normative and psychological assumptions that must be vindicated. i argue that no normative account of the existence of objectively appropriate reasons for action can be derived from an agent-based account of right action. an agent-based account of right action claims that evaluations of human action are derived from the motivation or behavior of a virtuous agent. i conclude that in order for virtue ethics to be a viable alternative moral theory, it must begin with a substantive account of the good. i also argue that a theory concerning the moral psychology of a virtuous agent can be constructed from michael bratman's descriptive account of his temporally extended planning theory of human agency. by identifying the primary functional roles played by the virtues in the psychology of a virtuous agent, i conclude that an agent's commitments can become embedded in her intentions, plans and policies in such a way that her commitments take on a central role in: (1) directing her attention to what is morally relevant, (2) framing her practical reasoning around the good, and (3) motivating her to pursue appropriate ends. when this account of the moral psychology of a virtuous agent is coupled with an adequate substantive account of the good, virtue theory stands a chance of becoming a genuine rival moral theory. increasing demand for water to meet a variety of needs places stress on shared sources, and gives rise to the requirement for effective techniques and practices in water resource development. fulfilling the demand for water also requires assessing the potential for contamination of water used for human consumption and ensuring a sufficient quantity. delivery of clean water at the point of use / consumption involves a number of steps from the source (where water is typically collected in containers), through transportation, storage, and treatment. any of these steps carries a potential for contamination or failure in terms of final volume of water delivered to the household. it is suggested in this research that probabilistic risk analysis (pra) methods combined with the application of fault tree analysis (fta) represents an effective means to characterize these steps and the impact they have on the overall success or failure of the water development system. pra provides a systematic means of quantifying the impact of the uncertainties in each step, whereas fta provides a visual representation of those sequences of events that can lead to failure of the system. the field methods used for this research include individual household surveys and the collection of basic water quality data in the region of buyamba, uganda. the research question asks whether the data necessary to estimate the probabilities of failure for each step can be collected from the field work methods, allowing for the potential application of fta in the assessment of quantity and quality failures in local potable water resource systems. preliminary conclusions include: i) a fault tree can be constructed to represent the routes to failure in the system, ii) local water practitioners appear to view the resulting fault tree as a useful tool in the design of water development projects, and iii) measuring necessary and sufficient data in the field to quantify probabilities for fta is possible, but will require both substantial application of the field surveys and careful attention to cultural sensitivities. monte carlo studies and a case study in benin investigated data collection methods applicable in rural regions of developing nations. these studies were cased within the framework of three progressions: the progression of analytical methods (poam), the progression of sampling strategies (poss), and the progression of expertise (poe). these studies demonstrated the strength of using the full range of each of the progressions. the monte carlo studies were based on use of five scenarios of contamination in water derived from a groundwater well in combination with five instruments and six sampling strategies. these studies were applied to assessment of three parameters: mean concentration, max concentration, and total mass load. a wide range of observations regarding use of instrument and expertise were derived from the results. significant among these is the observation that analytical methods at the low end of the poam combined with sampling by personnel at the low end of the poe can provide high-quality estimates of measures (e.g., nitrate or uranium) and parameters (e.g., mean concentration) of groundwater quality. the goal of the benin case study was to compliment the monte carlo studies by introducing the realities of field work. following a regional exploratory study, the case study focused on characterization of nitrate and uranium in groundwater in south-central benin. the nitrate portion of the study included collaboration with local populations for the sampling effort. these local populations were sampled at high frequency with a uniform sampling quality over a period in excess of a year, thus demonstrating the potential to use the low end of the poe in combination with the low ends of the poam and poss. overall, these studies demonstrated the value of data gained using the less complex portions of the progressions. further benefit is obtained by using different portions of the progressions at different stages of, or for different aspects of, research projects. it is hoped that these results will be applied to address the growing disconnect between the current direction of groundwater research and the great need for such research and monitoring in rural regions of developing nations. bone is a metabolically active tissue that undergoes constant repair and remodeling, depending on its biochemical and biomechanical environment. bone metabolism is partially controlled by mechanical cues, with higher loads causing net bone accretion and lower loads fostering bone loss via cell signaling. while the osteocyte is considered the primary mechanosensory cell in bone, the bone marrow provides a niche for a multitude of mechanosensitive cell types that may also play a role in maintaining bone health and bone marrow health and physiology. the characterization of trabecular bone marrow mechanics during whole bone loading has been difficult due to its location, surrounded by cortical bone or within the complex geometry of trabecular bone which has limited our understanding of the role of bone marrow mechanobiology. the goal of this dissertation research was to establish methods to assess the micromechanical environment of trabecular bone marrow and to apply these methods to investigate changes in bone marrow mechanobiology in disease. fresh bone marrow was experimentally tested to identify an appropriate constitutive model. the properties were highly non-newtonian, viscous and deteriorated with storage. implementation of this constitutive model in simulations is computationally expensive due to the multiple physics. however, comparison of the fluid constitutive model to several alternative elastic and viscoelastic formulations indicated that the solid models could not capture the fluid behavior despite the high viscosity and low velocity gradients. hence, a power-law fluid constitutive model was adopted for later simulations.to assess the mechanical environment of the bone marrow during whole bone loading, bone marrow pressure was measured experimentally. six fresh porcine femora were loaded cyclically while pressure and load were monitored. the marrow pressure reached 5 kpa, and the pressure gradients reached 0.46 kpa/mm. experimental pressure gradients were applied to microscale models. the models found that the shear stress within the marrow pore space in the range of 2 pa. the potential to generate these levels of pressure gradients and shear stress was further verified by novel high-resolution fluid-structure interaction finite element simulations. the models showed that the pressure gradients measured during loading were consistent with fluid-structure interaction simulations, based on measured marrow properties. simulations further illustrated that increased strain rate, bone marrow viscosity, and bv/tv increase the pressure and shear stress within the bone marrow. in order to investigate how the calculated marrow shear stress is translated to the cell level, multi-scale models were applied. at the cell-level, the marrow shear stress was amplified by 4 times due to localized cell adhesion. however, this effect was attenuated as the adipocyte content in the marrow increased. finally, in the conclusion of this work, experimental and computational studies seek to further elucidate the role of marrow mechanobiology on de novo bone formation in vivo. this dissertation presents research using classically based molecular dynamics techniques to study the structure and dynamics of phases exhibited by unique metallic systems. these systems include metallic glasses, nanoparticles, and lastly glassy nanoparticles. it is arranged in the order the research was conducted since later material builds on formerly presented materials. introductory material common to all chapters in this dissertation relating to molecular dynamics techniques is presented in the opening chapter. this includes an introduction to metallic force fields, integration of the classical equations of motion and langevin dynamics. chapter 2 explores transport dynamics in a known glass former (a mixture of silver and copper). this system presents an interesting target for computational study because it is a real glass forming system that closely resembles model binary lennard-jones systems that have been previously studied. lennard-jones glasses are interesting because they have decay functions that obey the kohlrausch-williams-watts (kww) law. comparisons will be made between dynamics (mean squared displacement, cage correlation funcion) in model systems and models of real glass formers. additionally, a model for fractal distributions of waiting times in glassy materials will be examined and compared to the waiting times in this metallic glass. it has been experimentally observed that spontaneous alloying of bimetallic core-shell au-ag nanoparticles (nps) can occur shortly after synthesis. chapter 3 will use computational techniques to explore a possible mechanism for such alloying. nanoparticles differ in many ways from their bulk counterparts in both physical and chemical properties. some of these differences are attributed to the large surface area to volume ration present in nanoparticles. computational techniques will be used to explore whether the hypothesis that a small fraction of vacancies formed at the au-ag core-shell interface, during synthesis, can result in the alloying of the nanoparticle. and, if this alloying occurs on a time scale consistent with experimental observations. chapter 4 computationally explores experimental observations involving the transient response of metallic nanoparticles to the nearly instantaneous heating undergone when photons are absorbed during ultrafast laser excitation experiments. because the time scale for heating is faster than a single period of the breathing mode for spherical nanoparticles, hot-electron pressure and lattice heating contribute to thermal excitation of the lattice. both mechanism are rapid enough to coherently excite the breathing mode ofthe spherical particles. molecular dynamics simulations are used to replicate the laser-excitation event allowing the nanoparticle dynamics to be probed after excitation.it was observed during the studies of metallic nanoparticles dissused on in chapter 4 that the time scale for the cooling of these particle is very short (on the order of tens of picoseconds). since these experiments are carried out in condensed phase surroundings, the large surface area to volume ratio makes the heat transfer to the surrounding solvent a relatively rapid process. this leads to cooling rates commensurate with those experimentally observed for glass formation. molecular dynamics will be used to determine if it is plausible to construct a glassy nanobead from the metallic glass forming system discussed in chapter 5. it may be feasible to use laser excitation to melt, alloy and quench copper-silver nanoparticles in order to form a glassy system. the physical processes involved in star formation are not completely understood and are hotly debated in the literature. star formation occurs in molecular clouds, which are turbulent, dense environments with strong magnetic fields and very low ionization fractions. early models of star formation relied on strong magnetic fields and ambipolar diffusion to regulate star formation. later models suggested that turbulence was the primary driver of star formation. more recent models suggest that both could play an important role. recent observations have shown a difference between ion and neutral line widths in some molecular clouds; specifically, the ion line-widths were narrower than the neutrals. this was attributed to the effect of ambipolar diffusion on the turbulence in the ions. we present high resolution simulations which include the full dynamics of both ions and neutrals. this has only previously been done at relatively low numerical resolutions. this sort of simulation, which tracks the full dynamics of both ions and neutrals, is necessary to reproduce observations that show any difference between ions and neutrals. the results show that the magnetic fields present in molecular clouds influence the velocity and density distributions of the ions and neutrals in a way which would be observable. when viewed with the mean magnetic field in the plane of the sky, the line widths of the ions are preferentially narrower than those of the neutrals. the line widths are nearly the same when viewed along the direction of the magnetic field. the probability distribution functions of the column densities of ions and neutrals are different when observed along the direction of the magnetic field, and they are the same when observed perpendicular to the mean field. thus, the simulations predict complementary observables each sensitive to different components of the magnetic field. these effects have implications in the observation of magnetic field strengths and could be used to deepen our understanding of the magnetic fields in molecular clouds. the simulations also show that the turbulent cascade in the ions is not damped at the ambipolar diffusion length scale, but continues to smaller length scales depending on the magnetic field strength. this dissertation argues that the narration of the gospel according to mark addresses the groups primarily reading the gospel through repeated appeal to the rituals practiced in these reading communities. this discourse presents who jesus is and jesus's call to discipleship in analogy to the baptismal ritual, shown in the markan narrator's description of jesus's baptism (mark 1:9–11), figurative reference to baptism (mark 10:38–39), as well as figural representations of baptism in the narrative structure of the gospel. although several studies of the gospel of mark have observed the evangelist's emphasis on baptism, these studies often appeal to reconstructions of the gospel's sitz im leben that are of questionable critical value. other studies employ ritual theories that can be helpful in recognizing diachronic commonalities in the rituals of many religions but are of less value in explaining nuances of distinct practices in early christianity. in contrast to these approaches, the methodology of this dissertation is limited to analysis of the text of the gospel of mark and the ritual practices demonstrable prior to the composition of the gospel in the undisputed pauline epistles.this argument involves an analysis of paul's references to baptism in gal 3:26–4:7; rom 6:3–11; 8:11–17; 1 cor 1:13–17; 6:11; 10:1–4; 12:13, 2 cor 1:21–22, in comparison to the baptism of jesus in mark 1:9–11. the use of immersive narration and reference to scripture (e.g. gen 22:2, 12, 16) in mark 1:9–11 correlates the markan portrayal of jesus's baptism with the baptismal rite known and interpreted by paul. jesus's figurative reference to baptism in mark 10:38–39 provides impetus for comparing the baptism of jesus in mark 1:9–11 with other baptism-like events in the gospel, including sea crossings (mark 4:35–41; 6:45–52; 8:13–21) and healings of sense perception (mark 8:22–26; 9:14–29; 10:46–52), akin to jesus's illuminating reception of the spirit (1:10). the results of this study demonstrate the union between jesus's path to death and resurrection as god's messianic "beloved son", prefigured in his baptism (mark 1:9–11), and the call to discipleship as participation in jesus's death and resurrection, characterized as a "baptism" (mark 10:38–39; cf. mark 8:34–38). the gospel of mark should therefore be read as a mystagogical narrative, aiding readers' identity construction through figurative reference to the identity-forming ritual of baptism practiced at the time of the gospel's composition. basada en teorías del psicoanálisis y la antropología feminista, esta disertación propone el término "violencia patriarcal primigenia" para designar una forma de violencia contra la mujer, inserta en el continuo histórico de dominación patriarcal y tangible en regímenes autoritarios, conflictos armados y otros contextos de violencia estructural en latinoamérica durante los siglos xx y xxi. se examina aquí un corpus visual y literario de autores latinoamericanos y latinx (fátima sime, miguel lawner, luz arce, alejandro obregón, víctor gaviria, claribel alegría, carlos cañas, regina josé galindo, reyna grande, gaspar de alba, entre otros). estos creadores culturales denuncian cómo esta violencia, con sus rasgos sexuales y misóginos, se ha utilizado de manera sistemática y como una herramienta política para intimidar, castigar y corregir a mujeres y comunidades que trasgreden o se oponen a los órdenes dominantes. de manera simbólica, los textos retornan o reconstruyen lugares y paisajes que constituyen la escenografía de esta misoginia en su forma más inmediata: campos de guerra, centros de detención política, zonas fronterizas, incluso, en el seno del hogar. el estudio tiene en cuenta otras formas de violencia contra la mujer como lo son la explotación laboral, el destierro y la imposición de un duelo por causa de la desaparición forzada de sus seres queridos.a modo transhemisférico, el estudio reúne una serie de artefactos culturales que trazan un recorrido y entrecruzan diferentes momentos históricos en regiones, tradicionalmente delimitadas para su estudio académico. estos son el cono sur, con la dictadura de augusto pinochet en chile; las guerras civiles de el salvador y guatemala en el istmo centroamericano; el perenne conflicto armado en colombia; por último, las diferentes manifestaciones de violencia, pertinentes al tránsito no autorizado de personas y la precarización de la vida en la región fronteriza entre méxico y los estados unidos._______based on theories of psychoanalysis and feminist anthropology, this dissertation proposes the term "primordial patriarchal violence" to designate a form of violence against women, inserted in the historical continuum of patriarchal domination, and tangible in authoritarian regimes, armed conflicts, and other contexts of structural violence in latin america, during the 20th and 21st centuries. i examine a visual and literary corpus of latin american and latinx authors (fátima sime, miguel lawner, luz arce, alejandro obregón, víctor gaviria, claribel alegría, carlos cañas, regina josé galindo, reyna grande, gaspar de alba, and others). these cultural creators denounce how this violence, with its sexual and misogynistic features, has been used systematically and as a political tool to intimidate, punish, and correct women and communities that transgress or oppose the dominant orders. symbolically, the texts return or reconstruct places and landscapes that constitute the scenery of this misogyny in its most immediate form: war camps, political detention centers, border areas, and even within the home. the study considers other forms of violence against women such as labor exploitation, exile, and the imposition of mourning due to the forced disappearance of their loved ones.in a transhemispheric way, the study brings together a series of cultural artifacts that trace a path and intertwine different historical moments in regions traditionally delimited for academic study. these are the southern cone, with the dictatorship of augusto pinochet in chile; the civil wars of el salvador and guatemala, in the central american isthmus; the perennial armed conflict in colombia; finally, the different manifestations of violence, relevant to the unauthorized transit of people and the precariousness of life in the border region between mexico and the united states. a material is considered energetic if a significant portion of the constitutive compounds possesses a molecular structure that can release large quantities of stored chemical energy. highly energetic materials are commonly employed in the defense and aerospace industries for their application as propellants. due to the chemical nature of the energy storage, a large portion of molecular simulations of energetic materials have been conducted from a quantum mechanical perspective. studies of energetic materials that employ classical atomistic models do exist, but the chemical space covered by these classical studies is small when compared to the literature of quantum mechanical studies. one reason for this difference is the requirement of high fidelity force fields for the production of quantitatively meaningful results when using a classical atomistic model. only a handful of classical models exist for different energetic materials and the parameterization process is typically tedious. the primary focus of this work is the development of classical atomistic models for conventional solid propellant that contains ammonium perchlorate and hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene. the secondary focus of this work is the investigation of modifying classical models and parameterizing polarizable models for studying energetic deep eutectic solvents. a single computer chip has more components than there are people in the world. available space on the silicon chip is reaching the limit for adding new features. scientists and engineers continue to look towards understanding single molecules, nanostructures, thin films, and microstructures as components with which to build smaller, more robust circuits. in this regard, dna origami has taken shape as a promising star. the nanostructure, made entirely from polynucleotides, forms by self-assembly, yields billions of copies in a small drop, and can be functionalized, all in a one pot synthesis. the placement of new and smaller features on a silicon chip is possible with directed dna origami binding onto silicon surfaces. lithographically patterned anchor pads[1] and complimentary shapes[2] have been shown to direct the placement of individual origami on modified silicon surfaces. however, binding errors and non-uniform orientation still occur. therefore, it is important to understand and to develop methods to control dna origami binding. i will present the first set of results on the characteristics of dna origami adsorption to and desorption from silicon and mica substrates, which speaks to the stability of these structures on surfaces, and their ability to anneal during deposition. i will also compare the maximum surface coverage of dna origami with predictions based on a random sequential adsorption model. in addition, i worked on burn-in doping of phosphorus and electrical manipulation of dna origami, and i will present this data. finally, i include a time capsule which places the reader in 1896 chicago, and gives insight on the university of chicago's progressive influence on science and stem education in chicago and the city of chicago's political support at that time. borrowing from those changes in attitudes about science education, i propose that nanotechnology curriculum development could help turn around low achievement scores in science and math among african american students in the city. i discuss an engaging tactile activity modeled after the atomic force microscope that i developed as a university of notre dame-nsf gk-12 graduate fellow. details of how to make and use this teaching tool are provided. inland freshwaters have been recognized as an important component of the global carbon budget; however, the contribution of small streams, especially those draining agricultural watersheds, is not well understood. open-canopy streams draining row-crop agriculture (i.e., maize and soybeans) in the midwestern united states are assumed to be dominated by autochthonous production; however, crop detritus may comprise an important but overlooked allochthonous resource, particularly post harvest. in addition, transgenic crop detritus, such as maize that is modified to express insecticidal cry proteins (i.e., bt maize), may enter aquatic ecosystems with unknown effects. my dissertation research quantifies organic carbon cycling in midwestern agricultural streams, and examines the fate of bt maize detritus in these systems. i found that agricultural streams are less retentive of organic carbon compared to relatively pristine, forested streams, yet they are biologically active, with high light availability and elevated nutrient concentrations fueling production and respiration. the dominant forms of allochthonous organic matter in agricultural streams (i.e., maize leaves and grasses) decompose along a continuum due to differences in substrate quality (i.e., lignin and nitrogen content). thus, similar to the processing continuum in forested streams, allochthonous detritus in agricultural streams is available for microbial and invertebrate consumption over a sustained period of time. in assessing the fate of bt maize detritus in streams, i found no influence of genetic engineering on maize decomposition, but that cry proteins consistently leach from submerged detritus into the water column. i also detected dissolved cry proteins in agricultural streams and subsurface tile drains in the field throughout the year, even though laboratory microcosm experiments suggest that cry proteins are rapidly degraded by water-column microorganisms and/or are tightly adsorbed to stream sediments. these results suggest the presence of multiple and/or temporally-consistent sources of cry proteins to agricultural streams. overall, my research demonstrates that agricultural streams are important processors and transporters of organic carbon to downstream ecosystems. in addition, understanding the fate of transgenic maize detritus and associated cry proteins in agricultural streams provides a necessary first step in investigating whether bt maize may affect aquatic organisms and ecosystem processes. neurological disorders and disease have been shown to impact the speech production of affected individuals. speech signal analysis can provide clinical information that can be used to predict the onset of certain diseases and their progression, together with the effectiveness of treatment procedures. while speech analysis has a tremendous potential as the foundation for a new generation of diagnostic tools, the development and deployment of such tools has been hindered by two closely tied problems: (1) the lack of an in-depth understanding of the relationship between neurological disorders and speech production and (2) the small and incomplete sets of speech samples (and the lack of medical context) prior studies are based on. as a consequence, the exact links between neurological conditions and speech are not understood well enough to allow us to design accurate diagnostic tools yet. further, while pervasive and mobile technologies have made it easy to collect significant amounts of data that can be used for diagnosis, the collected data are often insufficient to perform appropriate assessment without access to historical data and careful correlation and analysis of data over extended periods of time. for example, evaluations of potential minor traumatic brain injuries (mtbi), like concussions, rely on baseline data that were collected at an earlier time (e.g., during a pre-season physical exam of an athlete). access to historical information is required and the more data available, the more accurate the assessments can be. access to sensor data collected from a large number of subjects, whether sick or healthy, may allow us to extract new information or to establish new types of baselines. hence there is a need for a fully automated assessment system, that can collect, organize, process, and analyze speech from individuals with concussions and provide meaningful insights about the effects on speech production. in this work, a portable speech collection and analysis system is designed and implemented to extract acoustic metrics from speech tests developed to study various aspects of speech production affected by concussions. data is collected and analyzed from high school and collegiate athletes for the fall 2014 athletic season for this purpose. statistical analysis and machine learning techniques are used to predict the most significant metrics that could be indicative for the particular case of mtbis. the system is extensible to incorporate test designs that could be used to study the impact of other neurological conditions and diseases on speech. this dissertation investigates the microbial deep biosphere in important energy systems relevant to long-term carbon storage and unconventional natural gas reservoirs in the michigan and delaware basins. microorganisms inhabiting the deep geologic subsurface will drive important biogeochemical reactions with significant implications for carbon storage and shale gas recovery. the three main objectives of this work were to (1) characterize the microbiology and geochemistry of co2 enhanced oil recovery (co2-eor) reservoirs exposed to super critical co2 conditions that would be expected during geologic carbon storage (gcs), (2) evaluate the biogeochemistry of produced water from the antrim shale natural gas reservoir including microbial abundance and taxa relevant to hydraulic fracturing operations and key geochemical drivers of the microbial community, (3) perform a metagenomic analysis of produced water collected from a hydraulic fracturing well in the prolific wolfcamp formation to investigate the metabolic potential of the predominate microorganisms during the initial stages of hydrocarbon production. for my first objective i characterized produced water collected from co2-eor well separators in the oil-producing niagaran pinnacle reef, a proposed target for future gcs. i found wells were characterized by high salinity and total dissolved solids (tds) contributing to the overall low microbial abundance observed. there was little well-to-well communication, suggesting low permeability reservoirs with reduced flow and fluid migration that allowed the subsurface microbiomes to evolve independently of one another and suggests the need for site-specific examination of potential carbon storage units. our microbial community analysis revealed important microbial taxa with putative functions including sulfide and acid production, and biofilm formation that could affect reservoir quality and the long-term storage of co2 in this system. for the second objective i analyzed produced water collected from well heads of the shallow, vertical drilled, hydraulically fractured antrim shale for biogeochemical characterization. statistical analysis showed that tds and salts were significantly correlated with the observed community and potential drivers of the subsurface microbiome in this region. i observed a trend of rising salinity concentrations of produced water with increasing proximity of the well to the basin center. 16s rrna sequencing revealed that wells were characterized by relatively low abundance with high variability in microbial taxa amongst geospatially close well. putative functional capabilities of the identified taxa included sulfur reduction and fermentation that could have important implications for hydraulic fracturing operations. overall, these results suggest that differing geochemical conditions between antrim wells fosters unique environmental niches that drive the heterogeneous microbial community composition observed from well to well and that there is an important relationship between well location and geochemistry and the microbial community that persists in these gas reservoirs. for my third objective i analyzed production fluid samples collected during the early phase of production of the hydraulic fracturing test site 2 (hfts 2) in the prolific, shale gas-bearing wolfcamp formation, in the permian delaware basin. prior analysis of 16s rrna data through the first 35 days of production revealed a strong selection for a clostridia species corresponding to a significant decrease in microbial diversity. i performed a metagenomic analysis of produced water sampled on day 33 of production to further investigate the functional capacity of the produced fluid and generated three high-quality metagenome-assembled-genomes (mags). draft genome annotation revealed the presence of genes encoding for metabolic processes including thiosulfate reduction, mixed acid fermentation, and biofilm formation suggesting the potential of this community to contribute to well souring, biocorrosion, and biofouling in the reservoir. this dissertation work sheds light on microbial community composition in a potential carbon storage reservoir to understand how co2-impacted microbial communities may influence the fate and permeance of stored co2. this research also expands the current knowledge of shale microbiology of produced water in a shallow shale reservoir and during early phase production in two natural gas recovery regions. ultimately, this study aims to characterize the deep microbial biosphere of three hydrocarbon recovery systems in the michigan and delaware basins with important implications for energy extraction and climate change mitigation. malaria continues to be major health burden for sub-saharan africa, particularly for the democratic republic of congo, where it causes nearly 12% of deaths worldwide. in recent years, the anopheles coustani group have demonstrated their importance to malaria transmission throughout africa, as studies have begun to document their vectorial competence, propensity for human biting, and most importantly early evening exophagy. these epidemiologically relevant bionomics have been shown to vary at the local level, leaving questions as to how members of this species group (including an. coustani, an. paludis, and an. caliginosus) contribute to malaria transmission in the democratic republic of congo. this dissertation attempts to fill gaps in understanding coustani group bionomics and vector capacity by taking a thorough molecular approach to identifying species and characterizing behaviors, as well as providing a clearer understanding of how methods of plasmodium detection impact our understanding of potential vectors. for objective one, characterize temporal coustani group populations, bionomic characteristics, and contribution to transmission, this research found that in two sites of the drc—lodja and kapolowe—biting patterns of anopheles paludis and an. caliginosus varied considerably, as reflected in the morphological and molecular data, where early evening biting in lodja indicates the bionomic potential of this species to circumvent llins. two genetically distinct populations of coustani-like species were identified between the sites, offering a possible explanation to the varying bionomics observed. with respect to vector status, 12 an. paludis specimens were identified by pcr with plasmodium parasites, however only a single specimen was confirmed with sporozoites by csp elisa. as prompted by conflicting data regarding vector status of an. paludis, the second objective of this research sought to evaluate molecular methods for vector incrimination—the cox-1 pcr and csp-elisa. this dissertation research has demonstrated that the cox-1 pcr is highly sensitive to non-sporozoite parasites present in the head and thoraces following an infected bloodmeal. compared to csp-elisa, pcr results are highly discordant at early life stages, though improve in later timepoints following sporozoite development. its lack of life-stage specificity makes it a poor candidate as a primary method for vector incrimination, and thus results following this method alone should be interpreted with caution or supplemented with csp-elisa. taken together—the bionomic characterization and vector incrimination—the role of coustani group species in the drc becomes clearer. there is no evidence gained from this research that suggests that an. caliginosus is a vector of malaria in the drc. while there is no evidence to suggest that an. paludis currently plays a major role in transmission, it has demonstrated its vectorial capacity and behaviors which circumvent llins, and should thus be monitored. randomized longitudinal designs are commonly used in medical and psychological studies to investigate the treatment effect of an intervention method or an experimental drug. traditional linear mixed-effects models for randomized longitudinal designs are limited to maximum likelihood (ml) methods which assume data are missing at random (mar). in practice, because longitudinal data are likely to be missing not at random (mnar), the traditional ml method might lead to severely biased estimation results. in such cases, an alternative approach is to utilize pattern-mixture models. in this dissertation, monte carlo simulation studies are undertaken to compare the traditional ml method and two different approaches of pattern-mixture models (i.e., the d-a method and the a-d method) across (1) different variations of mixed-effects models (i.e., with or without adjustments), (2) different missing mechanisms (i.e., mar, random-coefficient-dependent mnar or outcome-dependent mnar), and (3) different types of group-based missing probabilities. analytical derivations are also provided to explain the source of bias across different estimation methods. results suggest that the traditional ml method is well suited for mar data whereas the proposed pm-ad model has the best overall performance for mnar data. omitting the group membership predictor for the intercept or including the baseline score as a covariate can lead to larger power and smaller bias in treatment effect estimates when the ml method is used. applications of different estimation methods are also illustrated using a real data example. this study investigates american christians' interpretations of the civil war, spanish-american war, and world war i.lyman abbott (1835-1922), a congregationalist minister, prominent editor, and advisor to theodore roosevelt, serves as the focal point because as a widely-respected popular voice he consistently championed america's wars.in doing so, he deployed theological language to justify armed conflict, explain american victory, and exalt national righteousness.although abbott regularly spoke for the nation's white mainline protestant leadership, he did not speak for everyone.the opinions of christian groups far removed from abbott's ideological convictions and elite social position offer a counterpoint to his understanding of america's military conflicts.juxtaposing abbott's vehement support for america's wars with the views of groups less a part of the american mainstream (specifically african american methodists, roman catholics, and missouri synod lutherans) reveals much about the history of his era.for abbott as well as for these counterpoint groups, ideological orientation and social position did the most to shape perspectives on american warfare and influence their wartime commentary.an understanding of american history in the civil war era, gilded age, and progressive era remains incomplete without reckoning with the ways religion was mobilized to support or oppose warfare. the work presented in this dissertation is primarily focused on the synthesis and characterization of thorium and uranium containing coordination polymers using benzenediphosphonate and carboxyphenylphosphonate derivatives as ligands. i investigated three broad areas of study that determined the structural features and properties of these materials as they apply to sequestration and remediation of actinide waste and their potential material applications. the first area of investigation is concerned with the use of structure directing agents in the assembly of uranyl diphosphonate frameworks. this work which began with simple templates such as organoammonium cations, was later extended to encapsulated cations, hydroniumand alkali metal-crown ether inclusion complexes, and was concluded using alkali metal ions. two elliptical uranyl nanotubules were isolated along with other series of framework materials with voids that are filled with alkali metal cations and organic templates respectively. i developed the first highly stable functional uranyl nanotubule with exceptional ion-exchange properties towards monovalent cations. the second area of research explores the structural features and trends in actinide diphosphonates and carboxyphosphonates as important tools in understanding how actinides behave in the biological and geological environments. the dimensionality and overall topology of these compounds depends on the coordination preferences of the metals as well as the functionalized organic ligands. the rigid phenyl spacer connects low-dimensional uranyl chains into layered three-dimensional pillared structures. uranyl cations display a high propensity for phosphonates over the carboxylate moieties of the bifunctional ligands examined in agreement with the hard-soft acid-base prediction. in the final part of the dissertation i utilized the hard-soft acid-base distinctions to prepare heterometallic uranyl-transition metal coordination polymers using carboxyphenylphosphonate ligands. the objective was to develop actinide materials for magnetic or other material applications. i demonstrated the importance of using pliable 1,2-carboxyphenylphosphonate ligand in stabilizing high nuclearity uranyl heteropolyoxometalate cage clusters under mild hydrothermal condition. this work suggests that metal linkers are needed to complete the sphere. in addition, this result opens up this field for exploration as this material represents an excellent model system with which to design and study uranyl nanoclusters. moreover, this research will undoubtedly stimulate much more activity in this important area of actinide chemistry in the future. my overall project is to develop a metaphysical framework in which a correspondence theory of truth can be adequately developed. i offer a theory of the correspondence relation and of the relata that it relates. i view this project as part of a more general investigation into the nature of facts, propositions, and truth. in chapter 1, i discuss what i take to be three of the most challenging metaphysical criticisms of correspondence theories of truth. one is the problem of funny facts, which is the problem of seeing how certain propositions, such as ones that report the non-existence of things, could correspond to a fact. second, there is the famous slingshot argument for thinking that if there were facts, then there could only be one fact. third, there is the problem of understanding how abstract propositions could correspond to concrete facts. i argue that the standard versions of the correspondence theory are susceptible to these problems because they require that all the objects of correspondence (the things to which true propositions correspond) be concrete or else that they all be abstract (as in abstract states of affairs). i argue that if true propositions correspond to anything, then some correspond to abstract things and others to concrete things. in chapter 2, i develop a theory of the objects of correspondence (facts). the gist of the theory is that the objects of correspondence are arrangements of entities. i offer a formal definition of an arrangement and various identity and existence conditions. the theory allows some arrangements to be wholly abstract and others to be concrete. in chapter 3, i develop a theory of propositions and of the correspondence relation. i begin by offering three reasons to think that propositions are not concrete. i then put forward the hypothesis that a proposition is an arrangement of individual essences. the theory of propositions allows me to offer an account of the correspondence relation in terms of the 'parts' of a proposition being exemplified by the parts of an arrangement in the right order. (i define what 'in the right order' means.) in chapter 4, i defend the correspondence theory of truth against the metaphysical objections discussed in the first chapter. i attempt to show that each of those objections can be adequately answered if the metaphysical theories in chapters 2 and 3 are true. for example, to address the problem of funny facts, i identify an abstract arrangement to which negative existential propositions may correspond, and i deal with many other difficult cases, such as counterfactuals, modal claims, universal quantification, and so on. pulmonary arterial hypertension (pah) is a progressive, incurable and devastating cardiopulmonary vascular disease with a 3-year survival rate &lt;60%. accumulation of risk factors to the pulmonary vasculature can lead to uncontrolled pulmonary arterial smooth muscle cell (pasmc) proliferation. unfortunately, current pah therapy offers only symptomatic relief. thus, the underlying mechanism mediating the pathophysiological influences in pah that modulate pulmonary vascular remodeling should be explored.the bioactive sphingolipid, sphingosine-1-phosphate (s1p), a microvascular and immuno-modulator associated with vascular remodeling in pah. along with plasma s1p, both s1p generation catalyzing enzymes, sphk expressions are reported to be elevated in remodeled pulmonary arteries of patients with ipah. here, we identified endothelial monocyte activating polypeptide ii (emap ii) as a strategic early regulator of sphks. this study establishes two coherent signaling pathways and subcellular activation for each isoenzyme. unique identification of emap ii mediated tissue injury response through triggering a bimodal phosphorylation of sphingosine generating s1p in a two-pronged manner by modulating both phosphorylation and transcriptional regulation of the s1p synthesis catalyzing kinase sphk isoforms and downstream targets was demonstrated. our findings are an important discovery for pah, as novel and epigenetic roles for sphk's were identified and represents a new therapeutic target that could provide opportunities for the development of novel pah therapies. this dissertation examines thomas aquinas's engagement with the contra faustum, the largest and most comprehensive of augustine's anti-manichaean works, especially as it is deployed in thomas's teaching on the old and new law in the summa theologiae's treatise on law. thomas first encountered the contra faustum through cited quotations in various twelfthand thirteenth-century theological texts; but in the early 1260s, he gained direct knowledge of the contra faustum in its integrity, and it came to occupy an increasingly important role in the articulation of his thought. the significance of the contra faustum for thomas emerges most clearly in his teaching on divine law, where he shows a unique grasp of what is most valuable about the work, judiciously adopting augustine's signature emphases as his own. due the volume of cited uses of the contra faustum in his discussion of the old and new law, the work's import for thomas's teaching has occasionally been noted, yet this has never been studied in detail, nor have the potential antecedents or originality of thomas's usage been explored. the dissertation falls into three parts. part i provides an introduction to the contra faustum, establishing a necessary background for considering thomas's use of it, and filling an existing gap in augustine studies, where analysis of the work in its entirety is largely absent. further background to thomas's use of the workis established in part ii, which tracks the contra faustum's reception from augustine's lifetime up to that of thomas, supplying what is at present the fullest medieval reception history of any single augustinian work. the culmination of the dissertation comes in part iii, which provides a close reading of the treatise on law, exposing how the contra faustum shapes thomas's teaching, while attending to other textual influences, and to contested aspects of his teaching concerning jews and judaism, and his approach to the old testament more broadly. analysis of this material yields rich gains for illuminating not only the extent of augustine's influence on thomas, but also thomas's practices as reader and teacher, establishing his location—and distinction—within thirteenth-century scholastic theology. in this treatise competition and mutualism interactions are evaluated for two different spheres in an infinite medium with constant fickian diffusion. various source and sink reaction types, reaction rates, and size differences are considered. the competition problem is evaluated for the first order surface reactions, and the mutualism problem is modeled with a zeroth order surface source while the sink is either diffusion-limited, first order surface, or a volume distributed reactor. the reaction rate and concentration are evaluated using the bispherical expansion or the bispherical coordinate system. the bispherical expansion involves one infinite sum, for the mutualism problem and two nested infinite sums for the competition problem. a matrix elimination technique is used to obtain an exact analytical solution from the bispherical expansion. only one infinite sum is required in the calculation of the reaction rate and concentration for the bispherical coordinate system. in either case the solution is completely convergent, and often converges rapidly over the full range of parameters. in the competition study three effects were displayed: blocking, competition and a combination of the two. when the two effects were combined and both sinks are diffusion-limited the reaction rate for the larger sink goes through a minimum as the much smaller sink approaches it. the mutualism study, when both the sink and source are impenetrable, produced a surprising maximum in sink reaction as it approaches the larger source when the sink is very reactive and much smaller than the source. the reaction rate of a diffusion-limited sink when exposed to a source with a constant surface concentration is also included; it diverges when the two spheres touch but as the sink and source move further apart it approaches the diffusion-limited single sphere result. finally, the mutualism problem for a permeable first order sink impermeable zeroth order source is compared with its effective surface reaction counterpart. when the sink is strong there is very good agreement, but when the sink is weak the two solutions diverge. interestingly, this weak sink diverging region is the most likely physical chemical condition for cellular interaction. while several studies have questioned the integrity of public policies produced during periods of divided government, this analysis will examine the potentially positive effects of divided partisan control on distributive federal spending policies. it suggests that an increase in veto players through political parties will reduce the discretionary authority of the political branches, especially the executive through the decrease in non-formulaic monies thereby facilitating more formulaic spending and hence greater genuine checks and balances between the branches. during divided government, there will also be more bi-partisan deliberation and negotiation regarding substantive policy making and hence less partisanship and particularistic tendencies that are typical of unified government. as a result, under divided government there will be more effective institutional veto players positioned against each other and thus more of a need for significant deliberation between these players to accommodate differing policy perspectives. furthermore the allocation of the majority of federal grants is possibly more proportional during divided government due to the greater potential for such institutional veto points. thus, when national government is controlled by multiple parties serving as effective veto players, consensual policymaking is more prevalent and congressional formulas generally favor broad, non-competitive patterns of distribution with minimal political influences by way of presidential objectives or committee/sub-committee assignments for example. alternatively, under unified government, fewer veto players are positioned against each other-a condition which enhances the ability to create congressional formulas that support less formulaic distributive patterns. instead such formulas favor much more targeted and competitive disbursements which are also more partisan and particularistic and less proportional. in sum, divided government with more unaligned institutional veto players tends to generate less targeted, less competitive, less non-formulaic disbursements of federal grants than unified government and such distributive patterns are inclined to be less partisan and particularistic and hence less conciliatory to the presidential agenda. furthermore divided government necessitates greater negotiating and consensual policymaking as more interests need to be accommodated thus expanding the policymaking process rather than facilitating exclusive, particularistic politics. antibiotic resistance (abr) is a naturally occurring phenomenon that is being exacerbated by inappropriate use of antibiotics to treat human infections. infections caused by resistant pathogens lead to more severe, long-term illness or fatality. as abr becomes more prevalent, the development of novel antibiotics is necessary to overcome resistant infections. antimicrobial peptides (amps) provide an untapped source of potential antibacterial therapeutics. of particular interest are bacteriocins, amps produced by bacteria, which exhibit bacteriostatic or bactericidal activity. the circularized bacteriocin enterocin as-48 produced by enterococcus sp. exhibits antibacterial activity through untargeted membrane disruption. the membrane-penetrating activity of enterocin as-48 has been attributed to a specific alpha-helical region on the circular peptide. truncated, linearized forms containing these domains have been shown to preserve limited bactericidal activity. i utilized the amino acid sequence of the active helical domain of enterocin as-48 to perform a homology-based search of similar sequences in other bacterial genomes. i identified similar domains in three previously uncharacterized as-48-like bacteriocin genes in clostridium sordellii, paenibacillus larvae, and bacillus xiamenensis. enterocin as-48 and as-48-like homologs from these bacterial species were used as scaffolds for the design of minimal peptide libraries based on the active helical domain of each bacteriocin sequence. rational design techniques took into account charge, hydrophobicity, and amphipathicity to create novel amp libraries. in total, 95 synthetic peptide variants of each scaffold peptide, designated syn-enterocin, syn-sordellicin, syn-larvacin, and syn-xiamencin, were designed and synthesized from each scaffold sequence based on defined biophysical parameters. a total of 384 total peptides were assessed for antibacterial activity against a panel of gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria. minimal inhibitory concentrations (mics) were observed as low as 15.6 nm to escherichia coli, 125 nm to streptococcus pyogenes and 250 nm to multidrug-resistant staphylococcus aureus (mrsa), with no significant cytotoxicity to eukaryotic cells. characterization of secondary structure and evaluation of potential mode of action of our most potent peptide variants suggest an alpha-helical structure causing bacterial membrane disruption. further, peptide drug candidates were evaluated for potential to develop resistance in e. coli to evaluate long-term, therapeutic use preservation. bacterial colonies with stable mutations that caused resistance to peptide drug candidates were isolated. six resistant mutants were observed to be cross resistant with cell wall inhibiting antibiotics, however, this resulted in decreased bacterial fitness. it was determined that changes to o-antigen chain length, shifts in lipid a asymmetry, and increased net charge of lipid a caused changes to susceptibility to the peptide drug candidates. my work demonstrates for the first time a general workflow of using minimal domains of natural bacteriocin sequences as scaffolds to design and rapidly synthesize a library of bacteriocin-based antimicrobial peptide variants for evaluation. this thesis contains four research topics in the phenomenology of physics beyond the standard model (sm), specifically focusing on the mass spectra of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (mssm) and extra dimensional tev scale compactification scenarios with gauge, matter and higgs kaluza-klein (kk) excitations of the sm fields. in the context of the mssm, an overview of the muon anomalous magnetic moment with the latest sm theoretical and experimental data is provided. a general analysis of the mssm contributions to the muon anomalous magnetic moment is given and general upper bounds on the masses of the four lightest sparticles are derived as a function of the deviation from the expected sm theoretical value. also in the context of the mssm, regions in the parameter space predicting an electrically charged lightest supersymmetric particle (lsp) are typically discarded based on thermal relic abundance estimates combined with direct searches for anomalously heavy water. independent of the cosmological relic abundance, a novel method using cosmic ray production from the all-particle incident cosmic ray flux is shown to provide a nontrivial constraint on the strongly interacting sector of the mssm when the lsp is charged. this methodology of cosmic ray production of weak-scale massive charged particles is extended and applied to ``universal extra dimensions", orbifold extra dimensional models in which all the sm fields have kk excitations, the lightest of which is stable. in the final section of the thesis both supersymmetry and extra dimensions are applied toward constructing a model which can accommodate a late-time variation in the fine structure constant (based on reports of such a phenomenon in the literature), while simultaneously relating this variation to the onset of dominance of an effective cosmological constant occurring in the same epoch. using the shape, rather than the radial moduli of the compactification manifold, it is possible to radiatively induce a change in the fine-structure constant from the kk modes of the sm sector confined to a "thick" brane. in drosophila, vitamin a is only required to provide the chromophore of the visual pigment rhodopsin. drosophila nina mutants are characterized by reduced rhodopsin levels in photoreceptors and altered electroretinograms. in the case of ninab and ninad, the mutant phenotype is rescued by dietary retinal, showing the defective rhodopsin production is due to failure to generate the chromophore of rhodopsin. the ninab gene encodes a beta-carotene-15,15'-oxygenase responsible for the centric cleavage of beta-carotene to yield the retinal chromophore. the ninad gene encodes a scavenger receptor mediating the cellular uptake of carotenoids. despite their importance to the synthesis of the chromophore of rhodopsin, genetic mosaic analysis showed that ninab and ninad are not required in the retina, and exclusive retinal expression of either gene or both genes simultaneously does not support rhodopsin biogenesis. in contrast, nonretinal neuronal expression of ninab and ninad allows for rhodopsin biogenesis. to determine the cell types responsible for ninab activity, i constructed and analyzed a transgenic fly strain carrying ninab promoter driving gal4 (pninab-gal4). the results showed that ninab is expressed in the adult fly optic lobes and central brain. the expression profile of ninad was investigated by construction and analysis of a transgenic fly strain carrying the ninad promoter driving a fusion gene of ninad and gfp (pdninad-gfp). immunohistochemical analysis verified that ninad is expressed in the adult fly optic lobe and brain. the localization data obtained from both transgenic flies was confirmed by in situ hybridization analysis. developmental rt-pcr showed that ninab is restricted to adult fly head, while ninad is expressed in both the head and body, and at all developmental stages. these results support a sequential model for ninab and ninad action in vitamin a metabolism. ninad is the membrane receptor required for uptake of dietary carotenoids throughout the fly life cycle. beta-carotene is transported to brain tissue and optic lobe, and cleaved by the ninab enzyme to produce retinal chromophore. the retinal is then transported to photoreceptors for rhodopsin biogenesis. immense progress has been made in iii-nitride optical devices since the demonstration of blue lasers in mid 90's. the attention of the solid state lighting has shifted to longer wavelength (green), and to short wavelength (ultraviolet: uv). at the same time, major challenges remain in improving the efficiency of iii-nitride optical emitters. in this work, we explore the many consequences of the electronic polarization fields at heterojunctions of long-$lambda$ (green) and very short-$lambda$ (uv) light emitters. by using molecular beam epitaxy (mbe), we grow iii-nitride heterostructures with high composition in-composition ingan on gan substrates for investigating very long-$lambda$ visible emitters and detectors. we also investigate the growth of high al-composition algan on aln substrates for uv emitters. a careful analysis of the role of polarization in heterostructures enables us to design and demonstrate novel n-face quantum well (qw) light emitting diode (led) heterostructure that incorporates polarization-induced doped p-type layers. these qws emit at room temperature (rt) at and near gan qw band gap. for shorter-$lambda$ emission, we design and demonstrate a novel quantum dot (qd) uv led that uses tunnel-injection of carriers. this qd uv led emits at rt at 261 nm, 301 nm and 341 nm. besides, we incorporate polarization-induced doping with gan/aln qd active region to improve the emission intensity at 259 nm and subdue the relatively longer wavelength emission at 290 nm. both demonstrations help us identify unique opportunities for improvements in iii-nitride leds and lasers of the future. this objective of this dissertation is to establish the relevance of imagination in understanding health behavior, particularly the phenomenon of patient nonadherence. this prevalent phenomenon refers to situations in which patients fail to follow through on medical advice. finding a solution to patient nonadherence in the u.s. context is of great interest, due to nonadherence significantly contributing to rising healthcare expenditures, higher mortality rates, and more frequent hospital stays. health psychology is the principal disciplinary field within which the search for solutions occurs. there are many theoretical frameworks within health psychology that aim to adequately describe and/or explain the nature of nonadherent behavior. however, the vast majority of these frameworks overestimate the importance of cognitive factors (e.g., beliefs, background knowledge, consciously articulated desires, etc.) while downplaying the importance of experiential and/or emotional factors. the one theory that does account for the latter features of health behavior, the common sense model (csm) of illness representations, ultimately succumbs to the asymmetric focus on cognitive factors. my central argument is that reorganizing the csm in terms of imagination has the potential to both reorient the empirical study of nonadherence as well as the patient-provider relationships. non-rapid eye movement (nrem) sleep is known to play a critical role in episodic memory consolidation. sleep spindles, events in the 12-15 hz range that are characteristic of nrem stage 2 sleep, are often implicated in this process. however, spindles also occur during slow wave sleep (sws), and it remains unclear whether stage 2 sleep is sufficient to observe spindle-related memory benefits, if obtaining sws is necessary as well, or if the temporal coupling of spindles and lower frequency oscillations in sws (i.e., slow oscillations, &lt; 1 hz) is essential for memory consolidation. to address these possibilities, the present study compared episodic memory retention after a period of active wakefulness, a nap containing stage 2 but not sws, and a nap containing both stage 2 and sws. this study also examined relationships between spindles, slow oscillations, and their crossfrequency coupling in relation to episodic memory. the results indicated that, while there were no significant group differences in memory performance, slow oscillations in sws significantly predicted the retention of episodic information across a 90-minute nap. however, memory retention was not significantly predicted by spindles in either stage 2 or sws, nor was it predicted by the temporal coupling of slow oscillations and spindles in sws. although these findings suggest that a daytime nap may affect episodic memory consolidation via sws-specific mechanisms, further research is needed to understand the role of spindles, slow oscillations, and their cooccurrence for episodic memory consolidation. mycobacterium tuberculosis (m.tb), the causative agent of tb, is the leading cause of death due to an infection recently overtaking hiv in this dubious category. m.tb is an intracellular pathogen that primarily infects macrophages. the major focus of our laboratory is to understand how this intracellular pathogen interacts with the host immune system focusing primarily on exosomes, which are bioactive vesicles of 30-150nm in size that facilitate intercellular communication, and how they may be involved in modulating the host immune response. although a significant effort has focused on characterizing host cell responses to antigen-loaded exosomes, we know little about how exosomes affect cellular function of the endothelium, which is an important regulator of host immune response during an m.tb infection. this dissertation aims to characterize the interaction between endothelial cells and exosomes derived from m.tb-infected macrophages. we also studied how exosomes isolated from the serum of m.tb-infected mice modulated endothelial cellular function ex-vivo.our previous studies indicate that exosomes released from m.tb-infected macrophages contain soluble mycobacterial proteins that can function in modulating the innate and acquired immune response. interestingly, during a mouse m.tb or m.bovis bcg infection exosome concentration in serum correlated with bacterial burden. however, the function of these exosome is unclear. endothelium, which can modulate immune responses by regulating leukocyte and antigen traffic, would be accessible and responsive to the exosomes in the serum. we hypothesize that the interactions between exosomes and endothelial cells would affect the immune response. to test this hypothesis, we treated the mouse endothelial cell line svec4-10 with exosomes released from uninfected or m.tb-infected macrophages. our results indicate that endothelial cells treated with exosomes isolated from infected macrophages show increased permeability to dextran and enhanced macrophage migration through the endothelial cell monolayer. to evaluate the effects more globally, we sequenced the transcriptome of endothelial cells following exosomes treatment. we found 26 genes were significantly up-regulated in endothelial cells treated with exosomes derived from m.tb-infected macrophages compared to untreated cells, of which 12 were also up-regulated when compared to endothelial cells treated with exosomes derived from non-infected macrophages (q value &lt; 0.05). pathway analysis (using genes which show &gt; 2-fold changes in expression) indicates that several immune response-related pathways were up-regulated in endothelial cells following exosome treatment.transcriptome studies defined a set of genes involved in adhesion and the inflammatory process were significantly up-regulated in endothelial cells treated with exosomes from m.tb-infected macrophages when compared to untreated cells or endothelial cells treated with exosomes from non-infected macrophages, including vcam1, tlr2 and ccl2. these results were validated by quantitative pcr. the upregulation of gene expression extended to protein level as flow cytometry data indicated enhanced expression of immune response-related proteins such as vcam1, tlr2 and ccl2, when endothelial cells were treated with exosomes derived from m.tb-infected macrophages compared to cells treated with exosomes derived from non-infected macrophages. moreover, immunofluorescence microscopy data indicated that the nf-kb pathway was activated in endothelial cells treated with exosomes released from m.tb-infected cells.to test the function of the in vivo-derived exosomes, endothelial cells were also treated with exosomes isolated from the serum of m.tb-infected mice. interestingly, exosomes isolated 14 days but not 7 or 21 days post-infection showed a similar ability to induce endothelial cell activation. we found that the same set of genes that were upregulated in our in vitro study were also increased at least 2 fold in endothelial cells when treated with exosomes derived from mice 14 days post m.tb infection. this differential expression extended to the protein level as ccl2 was expressed at the highest level when endothelial cells were treated with serum exosomes isolated 14 days post infection. simillarly, there was enhanced macrophage migration through the monolayer when the endothelial cells were treated with these serum-derived exosomes. these results suggest a change in exosome composition and function during the course of an m.tb infection.in summary, our data suggest that exosomes can activate endothelial cells and thus may play an important role in modulating the host immune response during a mycobacterial infection. using high-spatial-resolution time-resolved and temperature-dependent spectroscopy, this dissertation investigates emission properties of cdse nanowires (nws) synthesized using solid-liquid-solid (colloidal) growth. temperature-dependent nearfield scanning optical microscopy (nsom) achieved spatial resolution of ~50 nm and imaged single nws having wurtzite(wz)-zincblende(zb) polytype structure. temperature-dependent nsom and micro-photoluminescence (ì_å_pl) spectra produce sshape peak emission energy dependence on temperature, which reveal the formation of band-tail states in the nws due to the variation of the polytype structure along the length of the nw. time-resolved photoluminescence (trpl) measures emission decay data that shows type-i band alignment between the wz-zb heterojunction due to the spectral dependence of the emission decay: the decay times decrease as the energy decreases. finally, a robust rate equation model was completed for a single nw that produces theoretical calculations for the measurements. a collection of short stories about growing up in rural pennsylvania. that is to say, stories about fascism, the internet, pornography, anime, escape, boredom, and doom. three boys declare war on the japanese race in a town where there are none. a handful of teenagers in titusville, pennsylvania discover a genre of music called 'noise' which requires minimal skill and minimal effort and use it as a cudgel against their enemies both perceived and imaginary. two friends drive to new jersey so that one of them can have sex with a middle-aged iraq war veteran he met playing world of warcraft. a chubby teenager is drawn towards the flickering flame of the doomed. all and all, a meager attempt at finding a geography of the hearts of isolated young people after the internet began piping all the worst things in the world into their lives. direct numerical simulations (dns) of multiphase flows have progressed rapidly over the last decade and it is now possible to simulate motions of hundreds of deformable bubbles in turbulent flows. the availability of different statistics calculated from such dns data could help advance the development of new reduced order models of the average or large-scale flows. dns simulation of a laminar system with nearly spherical bubbles have been used to examine the full transient motion and shows a non-monotonic evolution where all the bubbles first move toward the walls and then the liquid slows down, eventually allowing some bubbles to return to the center of the channel. dns simulation of a turbulent system with bubbles of different sizes at a friction reynolds number of 250 shows that small bubbles quickly migrate to the wall, but the bulk flow takes much longer to adjust to the new bubble distribution. the dns results are then used to help develop the averaged model equations with unknown closures accounting for the effect of the unresolved scales. a database is generated by averaging the dns results over planes parallel to the stream-wise direction of the flow. the most important turbulent quantities are selected first with the feature selection algorithm. then a neural network (nn) is used for the a priori test, to examine the relationships between unknown closure terms in averaged models for the flow and quantities that are available through the dns results. for laminar cases, the closure relations are then tested, by following the evolution of different initial conditions, and it is found that the model predictions are in reasonably good agreement with dns results. for turbulent cases, the preliminary results for the feature selection and a priori test are promising and robust, the future work is to validate the predictive performance of the turbulent modeling. in the early decades of the nineteenth century, british missionaries disrupted the century-old tea-trade triangle by their insistence on penetrating the closed chinese empire. their cultural knowledge made these missionaries attractive potential allies for merchants while also giving accounts of their mission a literary appeal. although missionary writing was intended for specifically evangelical audiences, the influence of these works extended to popular culture and into the crafting of foreign policy for the opium war as the political situation in china intensified due to opium trafficking. the first chapter traces the scholarly traditions on mission and imperialism, and the missionary movement in china. it also shows that two differing perspectives on mission and empire derive from competing subcultures in early-nineteenth-century britain: middle-class popular culture and the growing evangelical subculture. the second chapter adapts the notions of 'imagined communities' and an 'imperial archive' for considering ways in which evangelicals created literatureì¢ ââ' an 'evangelical archive'ì¢ ââ' that formulated and maintained their conceptual unity both at home and with their missionaries and converts abroad. aimed at recruiting missionaries, encouraging believers, providing ethnology, and garnering support, mission narratives first emerged from the difficult mission context of china. the third chapter contrasts evangelical representations of china with those by thomas dequincey, jesuit missionaries, and travel writers. encoding spiritual terms for both spiritual and material subjects of attention, mission narratives assisted in coloring china as dark and depraved in opposition to christianity's enlightening brightness. the fourth chapter examines the work of charles gutzlaff, journal of three voyages, and demonstrates a shift in the evangelical approach to both british culture and foreign peoples, and thus a refiguring of the relationship between mission and empire. the chapter also shows how the distribution of the gospel in china and the circulation of gutzlaff's writing in britain provided justifications for the opium war, while at the same time they revealed a growing division of opinion among evangelicals regarding cooperation with commerce and government. the dissertation argues that the mission in china represents a shift in british thinking about mission and empire, which reflects the achievement of evangelical hegemony in british culture. in-flight electrospraying (ifes) is a novel approach to generate electrically charged micrometer-sized and/or nanometer-sized progeny drops in a controlled manner. this is accomplished in flight, beginning with millimeter-sized parent drops. the break-up of charged drops that is exploited in ifes also occurs (sometimes unwantedly) in conventional electrospraying, electrospinning, and electrospray mass spectrometry. an understanding of what controls the break-up of a parent drop into its progenies is essential in estimating the resultant sizes and charges. the results of experiments on the break-up of electrically charged parent drops into progeny drops are described. the break-up occurs in applied electric (1 kv/cm to 10 kv/cm) and ionic (1013/m3 to 1015/m3) fields that are generated using a dc-corona discharge in a needle-plate configuration. the size, velocity, and charge of mm-sized to nm-sized drops are measured for different initial parent drop sizes. to predict the distribution of the ion space charge, the current density is measured at different positions on the grounded electrode. the effects of the applied electric field strength, the ion concentration and the initial drop surface temperature on the drop break-up are quantified. several models also are summarized, including simulations of the electrohydrodynamics of the corona discharge, drop charging, drop trajectory analysis, and an electro-capillary stability analysis of the drop's charged surface. the experiments clearly demonstrate that the charge and size distribution of the progeny drops can be controlled by subjecting specific-sized parent drops to different electric and ion fields. the resultant charge of first-generation progeny drops is found to vary as d3/2, where d ranges from ~ 1 ì_å_m to ~ 100 ì_å_m, and is independent of the intensity of the applied electric field and the parent drop size. similarities of the observed drop in-flight spraying modes with those of conventional electrospraying from capillaries are noted. iii-v nitride semiconductors have exhibited a promising technology platform for optoelectronic and electronic devices. for low al composition (<40 %) algan/gan high-electron mobility transistors (hemts), enormous progress has been made in high frequency and high power applications. for scaling down to deep sub-micrometer dimensions, high al composition algan barrier can offer higher two-dimensional electron gas (2deg) density and lower sheet resistance than low al composition algan. however, molecular beam epitaxy (mbe) grown high al composition algan has been observed to suffer spontaneous phase modulation and the electron mobility was severely limited. in this work, mbe growth of high electron mobility 2deg in nitride heterostructures with >70 % al composition algan ternary alloy barriers is reported. the mbe epitaxial growth of relatively thick (>3 nm) high al composition (>70 %) algan directly on top of gan resulted in hexagonal stripes, indicating of lateral phase separation. by inserting an ultrathin (~0.6 nm) aln spacer, the room temperature electron mobility was increased by more than one order of magnitude, and the surface morphology was dramatically improved and exhibited terraces and atomic steps. an ultrathin aln interlayer was crucial to suppress phase separation and yield high mobilities, paving the way for deep submicron hemts. based on the high quality algan barrier layers, threshold voltages (vth) shifts of al0.72ga0.28n/aln/gan hemts by employing different gate metal stacks was observed for the first time. with a 4 nm al2o3 gate dielectric deposited by atomic layer deposition (ald) on top of the nitride heterostructures, the ~0.9 ev work function difference between al and ni induced ~0.9 v vth shift in pairs of al/au and ni/au gate hemts, which indicates that the fermi level is unpinned at the ald al2o3/algan interface. the results were reproducible for hemts of various gate lengths suggesting that it is possible to tune threshold voltage and obtain enhancement (e) and depletion (d) mode algan hemts using work function engineering. this finding can enable integrated monolithic digital circuits without post-growth gate recess etching or ion implantation. biometrics, the discipline of establishing an individual's identity based upon physical or behavioral characteristics, has become a major research area due to the numerous applications for reliable personal identification. the performance of a biometric system is highly dependent on the chosen biometric identifier. a novel approach for personal identification which utilizes 3d finger surface features as a biometric identifier is presented. using 3d range images of the hand, a surface representation for the index, middle, and ring finger is calculated and used for comparison to determine subject similarity. the curvature based shape index is used to represent the finger surfaces. a large unique database of hand images supports the research. data sets obtained over time are used to examine the performance of each individual finger surface as a biometric identifier as well as the recognition performance obtained when combining them. the probe and gallery sets sizes are varied to determine their affect on overall system performance. performance results for both authentication and identification tasks are presented, which suggest that 3d finger surface is a viable choice as a biometric identifier. this work describes an experimental investigation into the use of plasma actuators for lift and roll control. the use of plasma actuators for flow-control applications has been demonstrated extensively in recent years, for example, to postpone flow separation or eliminate karman shedding behind bluff bodies. the current research describes a unique application of plasma actuators in which the actuators were placed near the trailing edge of a wing or airfoil in an effort to directly control circulation. experimental data are presented showing the effect that the actuators have on lift, pitch, roll-moment and pressure distribution as a function of angle of attack and wind speed. the experiments are performed in the range of reynolds numbers re = 30,000370,000 and the angle-of-attack range: -3ìâå¡ to +10ìâå¡. the results indicate that the performance of the actuators is strongly influenced by reynolds number effects. the implications of the results on the application of plasma actuators as lift and roll-control devices are discussed. multinary quantum dots such as agins2 and alloyed agins2-zns are an emerging class of semiconductor materials being explored in numerous applications such as bioimaging, leds, catalysis, and solar cells. the ternary chalcogenide agins2 forms a solid solution with zns which affects the properties greatly. the emission of agins2-zns quantum dots can be tuned across the visible spectrum and into the infrared, with high photoluminescence quantum yields. these quantum dots can absorb much of the visible spectrum, making them potentially suitable for photovoltaic applications.in this dissertation, the photophysical properties of agins2-zns with varying cation ratios are investigated through the use of steady state and transient spectroscopy. these multinary chalcogenides demonstrate radiative and non-radiative mechanisms atypical of many semiconductors. in addition to band edge absorption and emission, agins2-zns demonstrate defect-driven absorption and emission pathways which greatly influences their overall optical properties. these agins2-zns quantum dots display wavelength-dependent photoluminescence decays, large stokes shifts, and long photoluminescence lifetimes, strongly suggesting that donor-acceptor pair recombination arising from intrabandgap defects accounts for the vast majority of emission. both surface defects and intrinsic crystallographic defects, which form easily in these compounds, play a role in the optical properties and will be discussed in detail. excited-state interactions between agins2-zns quantum dots and tio2 are probed through time-resolved absorption and emission spectroscopy to elucidate the photoinduced electron transfer mechanism. photovoltaic devices utilizing these quantum dots as light harvesters are fabricated and tested in order to assess their feasibility in a practical application. the internet has newly amplified and distorted the many voices and pressures present on the stage of american life, and has thus fundamentally changed the political landscape of the united states. political action, thanks to the connective power of online communication, is easier to organize than ever before, benefiting both benign and disruptive actors. however, our understanding of these changes often relies on incompatible or outdated theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. this project aims to remedy this problem by offering three studies which approach this topic in an appropriate way. the first study, "squaring the virtuous circle," provides one of the few causal estimates of the provision of internet access on individual voter turnout and propensity to engage in the political process. the second and third studies, "live, laugh, lurk" and "i'll listen to you schizo but it's time to take your meds," investigate political discussion on reddit, and 4chan, respectively. together, these two chapters demonstrate an alternative approach to commonplace survey measures of online political engagement by directly measuring the comments of individuals. it does so by matching respondents from the 2008-2009 american national election panel to respondents from the main 2008 study. overall, i find that internet provision to those who lack access causes a 13% increase in one's likelihood of voting, as well as increased participation in the political process.the second study, "live, laugh, lurk" finds that, on reddit, political knowledge is unrelated to the rate at which individuals contribute political content, and that political interest is primarily involved with an initial political post rather than the motivation of further political posts. additionally, i find that free time and civic skills, core components of the civic voluntarism model of political participation, are unrelated to posting political content. the third study, "i'll listen to you schizo, but it's time to take your meds," finds that, contrary to my expectations, the novelty and opinion content of a thread's original post are negatively related to the number of replies it receives. i argue that the hierarchical structure of the data must be modeled in order to properly discern the relationship between a post's content and the attention it receives. ionic liquids (ils) are salts with a melting temperature below 100&deg;c and a large liquidus range over 300&deg;c. ils have many beneficial properties; most notably they are negligibly volatile under normal operating conditions. ils are being investigated for a variety of applications including reaction media, separation solvents, non-volatile electrolytes, heat transfer fluids, and gas capture. our research interest focuses specifically on how ils can be designed for specific and selective gas separations. one potential application for this research is the separation of industrial flue gases for removal of environmentally hazardous gases. the ils' negligible vapor pressure and tunable properties make them ideal to replace volatile and/or corrosive solvents currently being used for these processes. to this end, gases of interest to our study include carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen, and light hydrocarbons, as well as mixtures of these gases. selection of different combinations of anions and cations influences the physical properties and functionality of an il. thus, one objective of this work was to determine the thermophysical property relationships between ils and the gases of interest by making systematic changes to both the anion and cation. overall, the anion was found to influence the thermophysical properties to a larger degree than changes to the cation. gases dissolve in ils via a physical absorption mechanism, a chemical complexation mechanism, or a combination of the two. the physical absorption of gas increased with increased fluorination; the effect was most pronounced with fluorination on the anion. additionally, even common ils like 1-hexyl-3-methyl-imidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide ([hmim][tf2n]) were found to have excellent selectivity for co2 relative to n2 and other components in flue gas based on pure physical absorption. importantly, ils also exhibit high absorption capacity for so2 without degradation of the il. however, ils designed for chemical absorption, those which contain acetate or amine functional groups, were found to be superior to physical absorbing ils. these efforts have resulted in a ten fold increase in the carrying capacity of ils for co2 while maintaining good selectivity relative to other flue gas components. however, preliminary calculations suggest that successful competition with amine-based scrubbing techniques requires a higher carrying capacity for co2. the continued emergence of multi-drug resistant (mdr) bacteria is a rising threat to global human health. with the discovery of plasmid borne resistance to colistin found in 2015, the possibility of bacterial strains with pan-antibiotic resistance became a reality. due to financial issues, most large pharmaceutical companies have all but abandoned the development of new antibiotics, favoring research and development on treatments that can provide their shareholders greater returns on investment. due to the lack of industrial interest, the challenges of developing new antibiotics and finding alternative approaches to fighting multi-drug resistant bacterial infections have fallen on small startup biopharmaceutical companies and academic research groups. herein, two alternative strategies to developing novel broad-spectrum antibiotics will be discussed: antibiotic adjuvants and small molecule virulence inhibitors.antibiotic adjuvants are compounds that disrupt mechanisms of antibiotic resistance and can be administered with traditional antibiotics to provide a powerful combination treatment to combat mdr bacteria. one example of adjuvants are compounds that can disrupt biofilms. biofilms are highly organized surface associated communities encased within an extracellular polymeric substance (eps) which can afford the bacteria up to 1000-fold increases in resistance to antibiotics. by either inhibiting biofilm formation or dispersing pre-formed biofilms, adjuvants can allow antibiotics to eradicate infections more effectively. additionally, adjuvants that are capable of reversing colistin resistance offer the possibility of decreased antibiotic resistance evolution while also allowing physicians continued use of colistin as the antibiotic of last resort against mdr gramnegative infections. small molecule virulence inhibitors are small molecules that are nontoxic to the bacteria but prevent the secretion of virulence factors. by selectively inhibiting nonessential signaling pathways such as two-component systems, virulence inhibitors can prevent increased incidence of resistance and weaken bacteria allowing the host's immune system to clear infections without additional antibacterial agents. this manuscript discusses the synthesis and testing of compounds that show antibiofilm activity against methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (mrsa) and colistin potentiation against colistin resistant strains of klebsiella pneumonia and acinetobacter baumannii. furthermore, two sets of compounds are presented that inhibit a global virulence signaling cascaded in s. aureus, one of which is also able to potentiate the ß-lactam oxacillin in mrsa. in natural hydrologic environments, the surrounding geologic media influences the flow field and associated transport behavior. specifically, the inherent multi-scale, heterogeneous nature of geological media gives rise to complex fluid flow fields, where the velocity distribution spans several orders magnitude. modelling the transport of dissolved materials in such multi-scale systems remains a challenge, but has important applications for scientific and engineering problems. in this dissertation, we study transport in hydro-geologic systems with lagrangian random walk methods. the benefit of random walk methods is that transport behavior can be accurately upscaled, meaning physical process governing transport at a range of scales can be effectively captured in bulk parameters. here we focus on modifying existing random walk models and improving parameterization schemes, so that they can be applied in more general settings. we consider transport in a variety of hydro-geologic systems, including porous media, fracture networks, and a turbulent channel flow with an underlying sediment bed. this work highlights how transport properties at small scales can be incorporated into effective parameters to predict conservative and reactive transport behavior at larger scales. there has been much interest in the study of topological insulators (ti) recently. due to their unique electronic structure, these new materials have been an active area of research to discover new quantum phenomena and their application in new technologies. unlike the electronic structure observed in traditional semiconductors, the strong spin-orbit coupling induces a band inversion in the electronic structure of tis. one of the side effects of this band inversion is creating metallic-like surface states at the material's surface that are protected by time invariance and whose spin angular momentum is locked to the direction of the momentum of the electron.these surface states are essentially resistant to scattering events that otherwise affect other materials. leveraging the characteristic scattering resistance, the spin-momentum locking of the surface states, and the dirac cone structure, a spin-resonant tunneling diode using topological insulators has been investigated to implement a negative differential resistance device. utilizing the spin texture of the surface states, an additional spin-filter can help to suppress the valley current in a negative differential resistance device. in the spin-resonant tunneling diode, the tunneling process would also benefit from having protection from conventional scattering processes due to defects and thickness or line edge roughness.this research is focused on the manufacturing of a spin-filtered tunnel diode. using molecular beam epitaxy to grow a three-layer heterostructure, with two layers of bismuth selenide as the topological insulator separated by a thin layer of tungsten diselenide as a tunnel barrier. the alignment of the fermi levels of the topological insulator layers and the thickness of the tunnel barrier were investigated using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. the fabrication and initial electrical measurements of the spin-filtered tunnel diode were also investigated. plasma-assisted catalysis is a process combining non-thermal plasma and solid catalysts to drive difficult chemical transformations at low temperatures and atmospheric pressure, and to achieve production rates and/or selectivities beyond what either system could do individually. this thesis examines the interactions between nitrogen activated by a dielectric barrier discharge plasma and supported metal catalysts primarily for driving low temperature atmospheric pressure ammonia synthesis, but also for the coupling of nitrogen with oxygen and hydrocarbons. initial studies focused on evaluating the ammonia production rates over various supported metal catalysts (ni, ru, co, fe and pt) in a n2/h2 plasma discharge. here we distinguished between plasma phase production rates and ammonia production from plasma-catalyst interactions through careful kinetic studies and measurement of background plasma reactivity. by isolating plasma-catalyst interactions, we observed how plasma parameters like discharge power control catalytic activity and demonstrate the importance of n2 activation by the plasma. we further show through comparison with microkinetic models, that plasma-phase n2 activation shifts the well-known thermal catalyst activity trends for ammonia synthesis. this non-thermal n2 activation also dramatically alters thermodynamic control of this system allowing for conversion beyond the thermal equilibrium limit. direct observation of plasma-catalyst interactions through inelastic neutron scattering makes it clear that plasma activation of n2 facilitates the adsorption of n on a catalyst surface at atmospheric pressure and low temperature. in the final part of this dissertation, we show that this plasma activated n is not only able to be hydrogenated to nh3, but can also be coupled to oxygen over a wide range of different metals. understanding how domain-general and domain-specific cognitive characteristics impact school readiness is crucial for developing improved early interventions for preschoolers living in poverty. this longitudinal study investigated the structure and development of domain-general executive functioning skills and the development of domain-specific mathematics skills across the preschool year in children attending head start. using confirmatory factor analyses, results indicated that a unidimensional factor structure best fit executive functioning data at both the fall and spring time points, and this structure was stable over time as indicated by tests of measurement invariance. after controlling for both age and verbal ability, structural equation modeling analyses revealed that executive functioning skills in the fall predicted mathematics skills in the spring, and mathematics skills in the fall were also predictive of children's spring executive functioning scores. these relationships did not hold after controlling for fall scores on executive functioning and mathematics. to interpret the finding that fall executive functioning and fall mathematics were highly correlated, theoretical models of cognitive dissociation and specialization are discussed. implications of these findings for early intervention and future research directions are highlighted. in purgatory, maintains my friend brett salkeld in his short book on purgatory, "we will all have our sins judged and we will all have our wounds healed, for heaven can abide neither." yet aside from a few rare voices speaking about eschatological reconciliation, very little has been said on the eschatological healing of victims. the claim of this dissertation is that it is a precondition for heaven that victims experience an eschatological healing of their other-inflicted wounds. we also assert that the most logical category for theological reflection upon this eschatological healing of wounds within the catholic tradition is in purgatory. in its full doctrinal articulations at lyons ii, florence, and trent purgatory as a doctrine is concerned with personal sin. victims, on the other hand, require healing from other-inflicted sin rather than self-inflicted sin. for this reason, a certain expansion of the doctrine is required in order to make theological space for victims. nevertheless, we argue that we find that theological space within the church's ample tradition. throughout the dissertation, we return continuously to two sources: the wiping away of victims' tears in the book of revelation and the healing of dinocrates through the prayers of his sister perpetua. these sources are significant touchstones for us and guide us in our long journey through the history and doctrinal development of the doctrine of purgatory, as well as through our soteriological reflections on the salvation and healing of victims. they ground us in the conviction that the wounds of victims must not be eschatologically discarded but must be subjected to the healing salvation which christ came to offer. the commercium of the kiss who saves: a study of thomas the cistercian's commentary on the song of songs abstract by catherine rose cavadini this dissertation is a theological study of the twelfth-century commentary on the song of songs by thomas cisterciensis entitled in cantica canticorum. it contextualizes thomas's style, method, and message within the broader history of song of songs interpretation, draws out what is more particulary 'cistercian' about thomas the cistercian's interpretation, and what is unique about his vision of the song's meaning. in order to accomplish each of these tasks, we will take up the motif that the author himself most prizes: the admirabile commercium. the admirabile commercium is a long-standing, patristic summary of salvation history. this theological concept sums up christ's act of redemption from his incarnation to his passion and resurrection as the 'exchange' that occurs between divinity and humanity. more commonly, we hear this phrase: god became human so that humans might become divine. in the history of song of songs interpretation, beginning with origen, the 'kiss' of song of songs 1:1 is read as this 'exchange,' or commercium. although earlier exegetes did not color this 'kiss' as the commercium, but as the embrace of the incarnation, and later as the amplexus christi. thomas cisterciensis, then, takes the traditional understanding of the commercium and reads the 'kiss' of 1:1 both as the 'exchange' of redemption and the monk's individual, spiritual experience of the amplexus christi. by following this novel spin on a traditional motif throughout thomas's lengthy commentary, we draw a picture of thomas's vision of the song of songs as the story of the commercium of the kiss who saves. the dissertation is composed of four chapters. the first discusses the style, method, and content of thomas's in cantica canticorum as a sermon-commentary. the bulk of the discussion is a comparison of thomas's commentary with bernard of clairvaux's sentences. chapters two and three respectively discuss the bridegroom and the bride, depicted by thomas as christ and the church. chapter four completes our preacher's picture with an emphasis on thomas's use of liturgical texts and on the liturgy as the place of the bride and bridegroom's ongoing commercium. in this dissertation it will be argued that contrary to many current views the concept of genius is of considerable importance for understanding what is most significant in the aesthetics of german philosopher immanuel kant (1724-1804). in the recent literature on kant's aesthetics, it is commonly asserted that kant's discussion of genius in the critique of judgment is 'parergonal,' or merely extrinsic to his aesthetics. part one reconstructs kant's conception of genius and demonstrates that genius, and the art produced by genius, has a fundamental and not only 'parergonal' place in kant's aesthetics, his moral teleology, and his philosophy of history. drawing on the results of part one, part two argues that schelling, inspired by his early tìäå_bingen plato studies and kant's conception of genius, transformed kant's relatively modest conception of creative subjectivity into a much more ambitious conception of creative agency. according to kant, there is an aspect of the genius's production that escapes the complete determination of the understanding because neither the genius nor the observers of its products can account for the steps involved in the genius's production. but kant also suggests that even though the genius's production presupposes a certain privileged intuitive state that is not reached through judgment, this state engages the genius's rational faculties in such a way that it results in a genius's insightful judgment which allows genius to determine whether its products meet relevant epistemic standards of intelligibility. influenced by plato's account of poetic inspiration as a state of possession by something divine, schelling soon transformed the intuitive process of the genius's creativity in kant into a genius's intellectual intuition of the supersensible, leaving a genius bereft of any rational means of discussing the normative aspects of his works. by systematically establishing for the first time the significant connection between kant's conception of genius and schelling's only recently made available early studies of plato, part two clarifies the still not sufficiently explored issue of the relevance of plato's philosophy for the origin of german idealism. this thesis looks at the role of the body in the contemporary context. i discuss affect theory through the lens of brian massumi and julia kristeva's concept of abjection as a means to reveal postmodern humanity as fragmented and socially schizophrenic, in the lacanian sense. by delving primarily into the theories of massumi, kristeva, kristine stiles, and gilles deleuze, i suggest that the current condition of humanity is that of the traumatized. through this argument, i support my visual thesis also entitled affective corporeality, which offers a fragmented and abstracted sculptural enviornment intended to be interacted with. through using visual iterations of affect and the abject, i instill in the viewer the heightened sense of empathy and/ or trauma. this affect intends to counteract the epidemic of apathy that has taken hold on our contemporary society. with the trend of increasing demand for rich media content, it is only natural that there will be an increase in redundant network traffic. hence, a wide variety of techniques have been developed to eliminate redundant traffic in the network ranging from multicast to caching. multicast techniques suffer from deployment issues, while caching techniques offer limited benefit for data with close temporal proximity (i.e. streaming). in this thesis, a novel approach, stealth multicast is presented, which offers a practical solution for the adoption of network-level ip multicast. in short, stealth multicast dynamically combines redundant data payloads into multicast packets for transmission across a domain. at the edge of the domain, the packets are converted back to unicast, with neither the user applications nor the external domain aware of the presence of stealth multicast. additionally, simulations are presented, showing stealth multicast approaches the efficiency of ideal multicast, with minimal increase in end-to-end delay. multiciliated cells (mccs) are specialized epithelial cells that are found throughout the human body to aid in proper organ function. specifically, this cell type helps to provide the force needed to direct fluid and material flow. although mccs are not found in the normal adult human kidney, they have been identified in biopsies of multiple renal diseases. mccs are a poorly understood aspect of human renal health and development. however, multiple studies have taken an interest in bettering our understanding of these cells within the context of the kidney. a previous study performed by marra et al. in 2019 aimed to determine chemical regulators of mcc development in the zebrafish nephron. cannabinoids were included in this chemical screen, and interestingly resulted in a decrease of mcc numbers. this finding indicates a possible role for endocannabinoids in mcc development. recently it has been discovered, that the ecs may be a therapeutic target for chronic kidney disease (dao and françois, 2021). while a large emphasis has been placed on the study of the ecs in the context of these diseases, little has been considered for its role in renal development itself. through the use the zebrafish as a model, this thesis aims to better understand the role of endocannabinoid signaling in mcc development. the use of a welded high strength low alloy steel for an aerospace application involving high cycle fatigue was investigated. welded specimens were fabricated and investigated under static and dynamic loading. the fatigue behavior of welded specimens was shown to vary significantly from unwelded specimens as expected, but also varied based on the type(s) of welding flaws detected by radiography. lefm principles and crack growth parameters from steels with similar microstructures were used to model fatigue crack propagation in specimens with sharp flaws. the model was able to reasonably predict the fatigue life for these specimens. after the model was calibrated, specimens with internal pores were also studied in order to separate regimes of crack initiation and propagation during the fatigue lifetime. in specimens with only porosity flaws, the mean initiation life was over 60% of the total fatigue life, showing the benefit of removing sharp flaws from welds. the term cloud computing has been used to define commoditized clusters of server nodes where elasticity and on-demand resource provisioning facilitate the efficient processing of user applications and services. a promise of the cloud computing paradigm is that workflows can be hosted and managed more efficiently based on the new level of dynamism and control. however, new requirements and challenges arise when leveraging cloud techniques in this manner. this dissertation explores the monitoring, configuration and dynamic resource management of service workflows in a cloud environment. a major contribution is to utilize the dynamism of virtualized cloud resources in various workflow management operations. several algorithms are proposed throughout the dissertation, each focusing on a different aspect of the larger problem, from monitoring individual services, to placing a new service workflow in the cloud, to dynamically reallocating resources across different services to satisfy demands and reduce costs. the goal is to add an end-to-end solution to the cloud provider's offerings to workflow owners so that the latter can host their workflows in the cloud smoothly without worrying about managing the underlying cloud resources themselves. we show through experimental results, from both real world cluster trace logs and synthetic data, that the proposed approaches can perform various management tasks for service workflows efficiently. the effects of the cold war in latin america resulted in a series of violent dictatorships that transformed marxism into a transnational threat to erase all dissidence. following the model imposed by augusto pinochet in chile, the southern cone witnessed the reshaping of its respective nations: from the political engagement of the sixties and seventies to neoliberal countries shaped by fear. the results of the military policies were thousands of murders, disappearances, and tortures, along with various economical crises. as a result, the victims of these policies started to resist the oppression of their illegitimate governments. they opposed a homogenous political program that excluded any alternative form of political discourse. focusing on the contemporary corpus of literature and films of the last fifteen years, this study analyze the use of aesthetics in both chile and argentina as an additional expression of critique to the national homogenous definitions proposed since the time of the dictatorships. these films and novels propose a new body of/for the collective national imaginary. i suggest that they open a new space for aesthetics, a new form of interaction with the politics imposed in the public space. in chapter one the terms, theoretical frame and historical context that guide the dissertation are introduced. chapter two analyzes the contemporary literature of chile as a response to the dictatorship and its effects, focusing on both writers that endured the regime and those who left. chapter three takes these considerations in terms of film language and how we can understand the collective identity of chile. chapter four focuses on argentina and how identity is build from memory and the language that forms that memory. chapter five explores a varied sample of the 'new argentine cinema' and how they build a visual language that interacts with both the national and global context. the conclusion explores the implications of film and literature in a world used to media while opening the door for further investigations how contemporary literature and film are used in similar conditions though different national specificities, specifically in spain. this dissertation explores comparisons of italy and latin america in the post-unification emigration literature of italy's best-selling author and most-read travel writer, edmondo de amicis. composed during the decade following his 1884 transatlantic journey to visit italian emigration settlements in latin america, de amicis' italian-latin american emigration narratives highlight the hardships faced by the author's emigrant compatriots. largely ignored by the academic establishment, these popularly successful writings are remarkable for their assimilation of latin america to geopolitical italy. although much italian emigration following the risorgimento, for instance by chain and seasonal migrants, was experienced harmoniously with life in the italian homeland, late nineteenth and early-twentieth century italian nationalist writers and political ideologues portrayed emigration as a transnational phenomenon incompatible with national italian identity. concerned that mass emigration threatened efforts to project a geographically cohesive italian nation that would attest to italian political and economic parity with leading european powers, they supported imperialist plans to redirect italian emigrants to state-sponsored colonial settlements and accommodate all italian citizens on what had traditionally been italian soil. consonant with the aims of italy's colonial empire, correlations of italy and latin america in writings by de amicis naturalize italian-latin american emigrants as residents of the italian homeland and establish an expansive territorial as well as cultural basis for italian national unity. contributing to existing scholarship on italian migration and national identity formation, my study demonstrates that the post-unification italian-latin american emigration literature of de amicis is a key locus for understanding post-unification geographical constructions of national italian culture. read in their post-risorgimento context, i explore the historical conditions and rhetorical moves by which the texts minimize latin american alterity and reinscribe italian-latin american emigrants within the historical bounds of italy. tracing the evolution of the author's characterizations of latin america as well as its native and immigrant peoples in terms of geopolitical italy and domestic italian society, my work illustrates the special significance of de amicis' writing on italian-latin american emigration for defining and critiquing unified italian culture. this project coalesces around a simple but highly counterintuitive claim forcefully emphasized by the 17th century dutch rationalist, baruch spinoza. following others, i call it the explanatory barrier between the attributes (eb), and i suspect it may be true. my aims here are far more modest than establishing the eb's truth, however, for fairly strong critical consensus in spinoza scholarship suggests that spinoza did not have, and that there really could not really be, any good reason for believing it. that claim is certainly false, in both respects. this project is my attempt to uncover what spinoza's reasons might have been and to show that they are compelling.the explanatory barrier between the attributes is the thesis that there are no causal or explanatory connections between the mental and the physical. actually, it is broader than this, but this framing is a reasonable place to start. in what follows, i establish the centrality of the explanatory barrier within spinoza's overall metaphysics. i argue that spinoza responds not directly to traditional cartesian skepticism, but to a related, and more interesting explanatory problem previously unappreciated by his commentators. i show this by giving a new reading of spinoza's short treatise that reconstructs an argument for the eb as a response to this problem. spinoza thinks the explanatory barrier's truth provides the best explanation for our causal knowledge in ordinary cases. said differently, the explanatory barrier is the best response to a class of skeptical or explanatory problems that appear intractable if the eb is not true.the dissertation's latter half uses this argument to defend what i call spinozistic isolationism: spinozism, plus a compelling justification for the eb. i claim that isolationism strongly undermines interactionist dualism, accommodates the best arguments for physicalism while retaining key advantages over it, and can be interpreted as either a form of or very nearby rival to russellian panpsychism. i think the argument given here for the explanatory barrier helps justify spinoza's basic metaphysical project. so justified, isolationism deserves serious consideration as the most compelling route towards resolving longstanding debates in the metaphysics of mind. based on a careful ethnographic study of a racially and ethnically diverse immigrant mosque in a mid-sized midwestern city, i examine the divergent perspectives developed by a group of immigrant muslims about the american reality and their muslim entity. the core question is that how muslim immigrants negotiate their multiple identities in relation to the racial/ethnic differences, divergent visions of islam, varied socioeconomic status, competing views of gender roles and ambivalent attitudes toward american society among the younger generations. i particularly focus on the conflicts within the community and investigate how community members of diverse backgrounds deal with these conflicts. while examining the different approaches to questions that are essential to these muslims, i ask if muslims--like many other immigrants--become american by becoming more religious, or if they become american by leaving their religion behind, or if there is an alternative path. i also try to understand how they interpret the multiple dimensions of the american dream in the islamic context. this dissertation contributes to the growing literature on american muslims, especially on their religious life and identity issues in the post-9.11 american society, as well as the general literature on immigrant religion. in this thesis the growth of aluminum oxides, specifically alumina, is described. the research will be applied to single electron memories. the aluminum oxides are grown using a variety of oxygen plasmas. a variety of experimental techniques and setups are described and explained. preliminary results will be discussed as these guided the changes in the experiments. the changes in setups will then be discussed in order to explain the reasoning behind these changes, and troubleshooting of the techniques is described, and annotated. final setups and techniques are shown to allow for reproduction. finally, the results of the experiments are shown and commented on. lastly, the implications for single electron memories and future work are discussed. the goal of this thesis is to study rees algebra r(i) and the special fiber ring f(i) for a family of ideals. given a map between projective spaces parameterizing a variety, the rees algebra is the coordinate ring of the graph and the special fiber ring is the coordinate ring of the image. we will compute the defining ideal of these algebras. let r=k[x_1, ..., x_d] for d greater than or equal to 4 be a polynomial ring with homogeneous maximal ideal m. we study the r-ideals i which are m-primary, gorenstein, generated in degree 2, and have a gorenstein linear resolution. the defining ideal of the rees algebra will be of fiber type. that is, the defining ideal of the rees algebra is generated by the defining ideals of the special fiber ring and of the symmetric algebra. the defining ideal of the symmetric algebra is well understood, so we concentrate on computing the defining ideal of the special fiber ring. in chapter 4, the defining ideal of the special fiber ring f(i) will be given as a sub-ideal of the 2x2 minors of a symmetric matrix of variables modeled after the defining ideal of f(m^2). in chapter 5, the defining ideal of the special fiber ring of i will be described as a saturation of the maximal minors of the jacobian dual. we include both descriptions of the defining ideal in this manuscript because while the methods in chapter 4 give explicit polynomial generators of the defining ideal, the methods in chapter 5 are more likely to generalize to the larger class of m-primary gorenstein ideals having a gorenstein linear resolution. this thesis includes the beginning excerpt from the novel lawthy, and then a chapbook length set of micro prose titled sad sad. the narrative of lawthy moves with the approach of a hurricane in a southern city space. sad sad follows a woman who experiences a duplicity of self in the form of either human or raptor. one of the primary functions of the cell mediated immune response is the recognition and elimination of infected or damaged cells. this process is facilitated through the interactions between the t lymphocyte cell surface receptor, or t-cell receptor, and a major histocompatibility complex, or mhc, presenting a peptide on the surface of antigen presenting cells. if the affinity between these two molecules is strong enough, the t-cell will become activated and mount an immune response against the antigen presenting cell. amazingly, while a single tcr can recognize over a million peptide-mhc ligands, it is still able to discriminate between peptides sourced from normal and aberrant expression. through the study of crystal structures, this specificity and cross reactivity has been attributed to a structural and chemical homology between the tcr and the peptide-mhc. while the structural and chemical compatibility between the tcr and peptidemhc is essential for conducive interactions, these two things alone neglect to account for the inherent dynamics of these molecules. conformational diversity, and by association protein dynamics, has been observed for all three components of this interaction; the tcr, peptide and mhc. the magnitude of protein motion, however, is not conserved for any one of these molecules. as such, it stands to reason that differential dynamics for any of these molecules can have a direct impact on the recognition of a peptide-mhc by a tcr. to that end, in this dissertation i address the differential dynamics of these molecules. through the use of molecular dynamics simulations, i decomposed differences in protein motion for all components in the tcr/peptide-mhc complex. through critical analysis of these simulations, i was able to identify key differences in dynamics for each of the three proteins involved. i was able to correlate these differential dynamics to differences in mechanisms of cross reactivity, specificity and immunogenicity. while much is left to be done, the data presented herein demonstrate the clear role that differential dynamics play in immunological recognition. conventional aerodynamic shape design of tall buildings relies on a trial-and-error procedure in which wind tunnel experiments for a limited number of building forms are carried out to select the best performing one. now the burgeoning digital revolution offers opportunities to navigate through the labyrinth of form design space. in response to this pressing need, a computational platform for aerodynamic shape tailoring of structures is developed, which takes full advantage of computational fluid dynamics (cfd) to assess wind effects on a variety of parameterized structural profiles and surrogate modeling approaches to emulate the responses from cfd simulations.in particular, multi-fidelity surrogate modeling through fusing cfd simulation data of multiple fidelities is applied to aerodynamic shape optimization. another important aspect in multi-fidelity surrogate modeling is its sequential design strategy. in this work, a multi-fidelity sequential design framework is proposed, in which a probabilistic classification model is introduced to avoid the low-fidelity sampling in the regions of low accuracy.uncertainties in cfd modeling could largely impact the reliability of cfd simulations. an uncertainty quantification framework is developed to enable inflow and model-form uncertainties to be quantified in a coupled fashion to guide the shape optimization of buildings. in particular, synthetic inflow velocity generation is extended through harnessing the power of gpus to speed up data processing.to venture beyond static shape optimization, autonomous morphing of a structural form is proposed in order to mitigate dynamic wind loads. this study introduces reinforcement learning agents to learn to predict the optimal state of the building's profile in near real-time, which are prototyped on a computational platform for the proof of the concept. a major challenge in the use of cfd as a tool to model wind effects on structures lies in the steep learning curve of cfd software posed to general cfd users. to address this issue, jupyter notebooks with an interactive computing environment is developed to alleviate the sophistication in running cfd models. this dissertation is about various puzzles that arise when we attempt to construct general theories of propositions, properties and relations. the goal of the dissertation is to make some progress on these puzzles by employing a broadly abductive approach to them. on my view, one feature of an abductive approach is working out the overall algebraic structure of the objects in question. on grounds of simplicity and elegance, theories admitting of more straightforward algebraic description are favored, at least initially. theories not admitting of such a description must make up for this lack of elegance. this provides us with some guidance when our evidence and intuition falls short. chapter 1 concerns the relationship between theories of propositional fineness of grain and theories of belief. i argue that we should accept a relatively coarse grained account of propositions, booleanism, and deny the principle of distribution, according to which believing a conjunction implies believing both conjuncts. the principle of distribution turns out to be surprisingly strong: for many theories of propositional fineness of grain, conjoining that theory with distribution has implausible consequences. indeed i will tentatively suggest that no theory of propositional fineness of grain can accommodate distribution without some collateral damage.chapter 2 concerns the relationship between indefinite extensibility and theories of propositional explanation. in particular, i will argue that we cannot overcome problems with the principle of sufficient reason by adopting a view on which contingent truth is indefinitely extensible. given our best theories of indefinite extensibility, even if contingent truth turns out to be indefinitely extensible, the principle of sufficient reason still entails that all truths are necessary, given plausible background principles.chapter 3 concerns a puzzle of logical form that has been put forward recently by kit fine (2017). this chapter develops a solution to the puzzle by outline two notions of form and arguing that our intuitive notion of logical form does not privilege one over the other. the puzzle is then answered by showing that it rests on a conflation of these two notions of form.chapter 4 puts forward a theory of the representational properties of propositions that goes some way towards answering worries relating to the unity of the proposition. contra many recent accounts in this vicinity, i will argue that the best theory here is a primivitist one. the theory makes use a novel operation i call application. i will argue that with this primitive, a very general theory of the representational properties of various sorts of abstract objects can be developed. this dissertation examines augustine's writings on the relation of temporal activity to eternal contemplation of god. it argues that augustine resolves this question theologically in christ with his doctrine of the totus christus, l558the whole christ with christ as head and the church as body, teaching that christ united himself to all of humanity in order to transform humanity into his body, the church. reading a selection of augstine's works, primarily his sermons, through the lens of the doctrine of the totus christus reveals that the present life holds great value for him because the transformation of the totus christus reaches to all of life, giving the doctrine a profoundly sacramental dimension. having been transformed into members of christ's body in the sacraments of the church, christians participate in christ's life, being conformed more fully to christ by sharing in his love. contemplation breaks into present activity as christians know god by sharing in god's love, a vision of god that begins in the present and will culminate in eternity. chapter 1 traces the development of augustine's thought on action and contemplation showing that as he matures, he comes to understand action and contemplation as two phases of life, the present and the future, for each christian and the church as a whole. chapter 2 introduces augustine's doctrine of the totus christus, explaining that christ serves as the meeting point of the two lives of action and contemplation as he transforms the church into his body. chapter 3 considers the sacramental dimension this transformation gives to the totus christus, a transformation that brings individual christians into the unity of christ and the church through the sacraments and activity in the world. chapter 4 concludes the dissertation by describing the value christ's love gives to daily life as it becomes a place for meeting christ as well as the matrix for ongoing conformation to christ as the church joins his work of love. christ unites action and contemplation by bringing union with god into the present life of the church where the promise of vision begins to be fulfilled in love. the introduction of nonindigenous species is an increasing threat to global biodiversity and ecosystem function. the success of management efforts often relies on the study of the dynamics and impacts of previous invasions. small-scale experiments of nonindigenous species provide valuable and timely information, but are limited in their ability to assess adequately the potential long-term effects of invasion at the whole-ecosystem level. here, i build on previous smaller scale studies of the impacts of the invasive rusty crayfish orconectes rusticus in order to assess the impacts and dynamics of the invasion at longer temporal scales, larger spatial scales, and more complex levels of ecological organization. using data from long-term monitoring, i evaluated trends in the crayfish community over three decades in lakes invaded by o. rusticus. results showed that an earlier congeneric invader, o. propinquus is extirpated, while the native o. virilis tends to coexist by using a habitat refuge. patterns of o. rusticus abundance were more variable than previously believed. most lakes sustained high o. rusticus abundance through time, while a few exhibited a pattern of boom-and-bust. long-term o. rusticus abundance appeared to be related to risk of fish predation, variation in lake benthic substrate, and crayfish resource limitation. a long-term, whole-lake survey of snail and crayfish abundance showed that the magnitude of impact by o. rusticus can be great, differs across habitats, and that the full extent of impact on congeners and prey may not be evident until many years after initial colonization. analysis of snail gut contents and a set of laboratory feeding experiments demonstrate that snails do not consume macrophytes, indicating that the primary effect of o. rusticus predation on snails is reduced grazing efficiency on periphyton. samples from two lakes that experienced large declines in o. rusticus abundance indicated little ecosystem recovery. comparison of food webs in invaded and uninvaded lakes using stable isotopes provided evidence that o. rusticus decoupled littoral and pelagic food webs. the combined effect of reduced grazing efficiency and food web decoupling is likely to be reduced flow of energy to the top of the lake food web. as one of the fundamental issues in the fields such as computer vision and deep learning, accelerating the inference speed of the convolutional neural network (cnn) has attracted a lot of attention, which is to reduce the gap between the desired high performance of deep cnn and the required huge amount of computation. various techniques have been explored to address this challenge, such as network compression and quantization, lightweight networks targeting resource-constrained platforms, dynamic computation graphs providing efficient early exits, and, on top of all these techniques, network parallelization. although a large body of works exists in neural network parallelization, most of them focus on the training phase only or distributing a batch of instances to multiple computation cores. none of these parallelization works, however, helps to reduce the inference latency of a single instance (such as an image), which is critical for real-time applications. existing techniques for single image inference include operator parallelism and model parallelism. the former technique explores concurrency in operators such as convolution, and the latter distributes kernels of convolutional layers across multiple cores. these approaches do not offer good scalability and usually cannot fully utilize a large number of cores available in modern high-performance computing platforms.in this dissertation, we introduce a new general framework named statistical convolutional neural network (scnn) to speedup the instance inference with the help of independent component analysis (ica), which can be applied to various tasks. as a general framework, scnn can be implemented with different neural network backbones to speedup, while it is orthogonal to the existing speedup methods. we use ica to decompose the spatio-temporal correlated data and propagate the extracted essential features as the learning process. the performance evaluations of scnn in video object detection and 3d cardiac cine mri segmentation shows that scnn could achieve a large speedup compared with the existing methods. we further introduce ica-net as an improvement of scnn in accuracy, throughput, and latency. the improved framework is implemented and verified by multiple tasks including image classification, image object detection, video object detection, and 3d cardiac cine mri segmentation. the latencies of the models are all largely reduced and the accuracies achieve state-of-the-art. in this thesis, the effect of creep on steel columns at high temperatures is investigated with the objective of furthering performance based design codes for structures subjected to fire. first, the phenomenon of creep, which is a rate dependent deformation process that occurs in steel at elevated temperatures, is studied. the specific processes that govern creep, how its deformation is assessed, and recent research in the area are all reviewed. then how creep can be included in numerical simulation models of steel at high temperatures is considered. with knowledge of the general framework for high temperature creep models, a creep model for astm a992 steel is proposed. the model is calibrated to high temperature experimental creep data and then used to assess the differences in steel column behavior when creep is included in the analysis. steel columns subjected to different temperatures distributions across its cross section, various boundary conditions, and different loads are all analyzed in a parametric study and design implications are discussed. finally, a computationally efficient geometrically nonlinear beam finite element for performing coupled plastic-creep analysis is presented. the present study extends an on-going approach to preventative intervention based on translating findings from basic research on relations between marital discord and adolescent adjustment into brief (4-visit) psychoeducational programs. one such intervention program, the family communication project (fcp), is evaluated in terms of its aims of improving family-wide, parent-adolescent, and adolescent adjustment. building off of previous studies of the program's efficacy, we evaluated the program's longitudinal (3-year) effects on observed family-wide conflict behaviors, parenting behaviors, family reports of the family environment, parent-adolescent communication, and adolescent psychological adjustment. we further investigated potential theory-based mechanisms of change – including emotional security theory (est; davies &amp; cummings, 1994) by which improvements in family-wide conflict may lead to consequent improvements in family and adolescent adjustment. participants included 225 couples with a participating adolescent child between 11 and 17 years of age. families were randomly assigned to groups: (1) a parent-only group (n = 75), (2) a parent-adolescent group (n = 70), or (3) a non-intervention group (n = 80). pretest, post-test, 1-year, and 3-year assessments were conducted. structural equation modeling was used to test main effects of the intervention as well as research-informed process models of family conflict and its effects on later family and adolescent psychological adjustment. in addressing the three aims that we set out to test (i.e., the direct effects of the intervention, whether or not these effects occurred through changes in family conflict behaviors, and whether emotional insecurity mediates the effect of the intervention on child psychological outcomes), we found support for the efficacy of the intervention itself at improving several long-term outcomes (both observed and reported). direct effects of group assignment on observed constructive conflict behaviors, maternal parenting attitudes, and family reports of the family environment were found; however, contrary to our hypothesis, these changes did not occur through observed changes in conflict behaviors. instead, emotional insecurity mediated the effect of the intervention on adolescent psychological adjustment (externalizing symptoms) at the 3-year follow-up. some support was found for the moderating effect of adolescent gender; no moderating effects of adolescent age were indicated. the dissertation offers an intellectual and cultural portrait of the nikoladze family—with a primary focus on nikolai (niko) nikoladze (1843-1928) and his elder daughter rusudana nikoladze-polievktova (1884-1981)—who belonged to the georgian intelligentsia, a group of highly educated and critical thinking intellectuals who had a commitment to modernize their homeland according to the principles of scientific rationalism. this family of professionals played a visible role in the industrial and cultural transformation of georgia during a long period encompassing late imperial russia, georgia's independence in 1918-1921, and the soviet era. methodologically, the dissertation focuses on a representative family of intellectuals and explores in detail what it meant for them to be the intelligentsia. it argues that the history of the family helps us understand the long-term continuities in the history of the intelligentsia's cultural traditions from the prerevolutionary to the late soviet periods by showing how these traditions were preserved, expressed, and transmitted. it examines the intellectual development of niko nikoladze and other young georgian students under the influence of nikolai chernyshevskii, the most vivid representative of russian nihilist counterculture of the 1860s. it explores the everyday family life and examines the family's interactions with a wider intelligentsia community both in russia and europe. it investigates how the philosophical values that the family identified with affected their professional choices, political alliances, romantic life, and cultural tastes. by analyzing family's methods of child education, it reconstructs the intergenerational transmission of the intelligentsia's collective memory from the late nineteenth century to the soviet period. it argues that under the soviet regime, the memory of prerevolutionary lifestyle became the major self-identification criterion for the nikoladze and many other old intelligentsia families, contributing to the development of a distinct identity that combined loyalty to the regime with emotional and intellectual attachment to the prerevolutionary traditions. research has clearly demonstrated a link between marital conflict and child adjustment. yet few studies have explored the impact of early exposure to constructive marital conflict and the transition to adolescence using a longitudinal study design that does not involve retrospective data, and especially few studies have attempted to identify pathways and mediators accounting for the positive effects of constructive conflict. additionally, few studies have examined how family processes change overtime, as well as how those changes impact other family systems and child adjustment. this study sought to answer three main questions: first, to understand the change trajectory of constructive and destructive marital conflict, as well as warm parenting and family expressiveness; second, to understand how changes in constructive and destructive marital conflict impact adolescent social adjustment; and third, to explore how changes in warm parenting and family expressiveness may act as intervening variables between changes in marital conflict and positive adolescent outcomes. a longitudinal sample over eight years, from early childhood into early adolescence was utilized. latent growth curve modeling results suggest that constructive and destructive marital conflict, as well as mothers' and father's warmth and family expressiveness all decline overtime. additionally, initial levels of positive family expressiveness act as intervening variables between initial levels of destructive marital conflict and adolescent closeness in friendships, and initial levels of mothers' warmth act as intervening variables between initial levels of constructive marital conflict and adolescent prosocial behavior. results highlight the need to take a family systems approach to understanding adolescent development, as well as demonstrate the importance of positive family relations for adolescent development. nedd4 (neural precursor cell expressed, developmentally down-regulated 4) proteins are a family of e3 ubiquitin ligases. these enzymes play important roles in various cellular activities by transferring ubiquitin to various substrates. several key regulators of cellular homeostasis, such as the tumor suppresser pten, are nedd4 substrates. the ubiquitination of pten by nedd4 proteins is involved in cellular proliferation and neuron survival. early studies showed that both nedd4-1 and pten can bind phospholipids and localize to cellular membranes. here we further explored the lipid-binding properties of nedd4-1 and found that calcium promotes nedd4-1 lipid binding affinity to phosphatidylserine. ubiquitination assays showed that the increasing lipid binding affinity stimulated by calcium can enhance the ubiquitination of pten by nedd4-1. intracellular calcium fluctuations also alter the cellular localization of pten. to determine if calcium induced binding to phosphatidylserine regulated other nedd4-1 substrates, we investigated the previously identified nedd4-1 substrate ebola virus matrix protein vp40. we confirmed that ubiquitination promotes vp40 induced virus-like particle binding (vlp) and for the first time demonstrate that nedd4-1 ubiquitinates vp40 in vitro. as intracellular levels of calcium rise, virus like particle (vlp) budding of vp40 is stimulated. this finding implies that cytosolic calcium levels may stimulate vlp budding by localizing nedd4 proteins to the cytosolic plasma membrane interface, which is enriched with phosphatidylserine. the adult zebrafish possesses the ability to regenerate injured and lost photoreceptors following light-induced damaged. during regeneration a subset of müller glia undergo an asymmetric division to produce a population of transiently amplifying neuronal progenitor cells (npcs). these npc cells then migrate to the outer nuclear layer (onl) where they differentiate to replace the lost rod and cone photoreceptors. a complete understanding of the mechanisms that this process remains relatively unknown. notch signaling has been implicated in both retinal development and regeneration, and often serve to regulate cellular proliferation and differentiation. specifically, notch signaling is suppressed in response to light damage in the adult zebrafish retina and inhibition of notch is sufficient to induce a proliferative response in the absence of cellular damage. there are four notch receptors in the zebrafish. the expression levels of each notch receptor gene was examined, and each receptor was inhibited prior to light damage via morpholino-mediated knockdowns. notch1a, notch1b, and notch2 were all upregulated in response to light damage and shown to be necessary for müller glia dedifferentiation and npc amplification. notch3 expression was localized to quiescent müller glia and downregulated in response to light damage. knockdown of notch3 was sufficient to induce a higher number of müller glia to dedifferentiate and proliferate for a prolonged period of time; producing a substantially higher population of npcs. the notch3 knockdown elicited increased expression of the downstream target her4 and suppression of her6 and her9. the present increased pool of npcs upregulated atoh7 and successfully differentiated with a bias towards inl neuronal cell types. the canonical notch ligands deltaa, deltac, deltad, and dll4 were shown to be upregulated in response to light damage and necessary for the full proliferative response. deltaa exhibited increased expression in the notch3 knockdowns, but deltab expression most closely resembled the notch3 expression profile. knockdown of deltab expression disrupted notch3 staining and increased the number of proliferating progenitor cells. this implicated deltab as co-negative regulator of proliferation and established a possible ligand-receptor relationship between notch3 and deltab. this study establishes a unique role for notch3 among the notch receptors in the adult zebrafish retina and identifies notch3 as responsible fluid manipulation at the microscale presents enormous promise for chemical and biomolecular detection. the advent of such technology could allow complex laboratory functions to be performed on a microchip, which would reduce the quantity of chemicals consumed, improve portability and turnover time, and reduce manufacturing costs. in order to deliver on these promises, an effective actuation mechanism must be developed which can overcome the viscous and capillary forces that tend to dominate at small scales. this document describes surface acoustic waves (saws), which are elastic compression waves generated on the surface of piezoelectric substrates, as a mechanism for such actuation. these waves can refract from the solid piezoelectric into a liquid film on the substrate surface, producing a highly non-linear acoustic forcing pressure. in addition, the electromechanical coupling inherent in saws produces an electric field at the solid-liquid interface and thus an electric maxwell pressure. when applied to a pinned liquid film, the acoustic and electric pressures are shown to generate two sequences of surface droplets extending away from the bulk, spanning in from nanometers to tens of microns in size. the size distributions of these two sequences of droplets obey self-similar exponential scalings, with the two distinct exponents corresponding to the radiative decay length of the acoustic pressure and to the electric field leakage length scale. a high acoustic pressure has also been shown to rupture the bulk liquid film. appropriate experimentation and analysis to predict the onset of film breakup and of global rapid aerosolization is presented by the author. this newfound understanding of saws is then applied to the study and diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, which has a five year survival rate of less than 6%. the aforementioned saw pressures are shown to capable of lysing exosomes, secreted membrane vesicles ~30-200 nm in diameter that are present in blood, saliva, urine, and other bodily fluids. a microfluidics-based approach to the analysis of exosomal rna is presented based on saw exosome lysis and ion-exchange nanomembrane rna sensing. graphene has a linear energy momentum dispersion and its fermi velocity is vf=10^8 cm/s. this high carrier velocity and its perfect two-dimensional structure make it suitable for high speed electronic devices. in this work, we study the carrier transport in graphene and quasi-one dimensional graphene nanoribbons. the current-carrying capability in graphene under high fields is investigated by numerical simulations. the simulations reveal the roles of the hot-phonon effct and carrier-carrier scatterings in graphene under high fields. the effect of line edge roughness on mobility in sub-10 nm graphene nanoribbons is studied analytically. the results indicate the mobility in sub-10 nm graphene nanoribbons is limited by edge roughness scatterings and agree with experimental work. in addition, we explore inter-band tunneling in graphene and graphene nanoribbons and the current-voltage characteristics of their p-n junctions are calculated. finally, an optical-phonon limited velocity model is extended from carbon-based materials to iii-nitride semiconductors, which have comparable optical phonon scattering rates. the electron-phonon interaction in graphene and iii-nitride semiconductors have similarities characterized by light mass atoms (c or n). thus, high-field transport in both materials have similarities which enable analytical modeling of radio frequency performance in these materials. gan-based transistor performance is studied based on the model. this dissertation is a study of the theme of natural contemplation in maximus the confessor's ambigua to john. the ambigua have not received a synthetic treatment and the dissertation argues that the central concern of the text is to define the philosophical life in terms of the renewal of nature and its contemplation in christ, the incarnate word of god. the dissertation is divided into two parts. the first is a study of the contemplation of nature among the ancient greek philosophers and patristic theologians before maximus. chapter 1 is an analysis of the place of the contemplation of nature amongst the ancient greeks, beginning with the pre-socratics parmenides and heraklitus and then proceeding to plato, aristotle, the stoics, and plotinus. chapter 2 then considers the theme in greek patristic sources before maximus, where it shows how clement and origen of alexandria, the cappadocians basil, gregory nazianzen, and gregory of nyssa, evagrius of pontus, and finally dionysius the areopagite turn the contemplation of nature to the specifically christian concerns of creation and the incarnation of the divine word. in part ii the study of the contemplation of nature in the ambigua unfolds in four chapters. chapter 3 analyzes maximus' account of the basic human experience of the world in terms of the tension between time and eternity and matter and spirit. this leads to maximus' account of the philosophical life in chapter 4. here i show how maximus accounts for the coherence of philosophy, specifically that between praxis and contemplation; i then give an analysis of his understanding of the contemplation of nature itself. chapter 5 explores the theme of god and the world in the ambigua and chapter 6 demonstrates how maximus reconciles the various aspects of philosophy he has explored throughout the text in his understanding of the renewal of nature in the economy of salvation. my dissertation assessed the chemical and microbial drivers of ecosystem function in high-latitude wetland ponds and how they might be influenced by climate change. using a landscape ecology approach, i investigated how landscape position influenced physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of multiple ponds along a 20-km trajectory from glacial headwaters to ocean in southcentral alaska, usa. ponds more strongly influenced by glaciers tended to be more heterotrophic, exhibiting higher rates of decomposition and ecosystem respiration. in contrast, ponds near the ocean tended to be more autotrophic, exhibiting greater gross primary production and net ecosystem production. despite this heterogeneity, nutrient diffusing substrate experiments demonstrated that pond biofilms responded similarly to nutrients. nitrate amendments reduced biofilm biomass by about 60% with corresponding changes in microbial communities. the community patterns suggested that nitrate can strongly affect microbial interactions during biofilm formation by altering redox conditions. because redox conditions structure functional processes in these systems and ponds play a disproportionately large role in the methane (ch4) budget of global inland waters, i also examined physicochemical and biological factors that influence the ch4 cycle. ebullition, or bubbling, often dominated total ch4 emissions from these ponds and appeared to integrate alternate sources of ch4 other than current production. the predictability of processes in the ch4 cycle diminished from ch4 production to diffusive emissions to total emissions. although specific processes in the ch4 cycle were challenging to predict, i demonstrated that carbon stable isotopes of detritus are a potential tool for tracing ch4 production. tracing this process is important because global change is likely to affect the ch4 cycle. my experiments suggested that ch4 production in coastal wetlands will be sensitive to increased organic matter availability and potentially seawater intrusion. overall, my dissertation shows that environmental heterogeneity contributes to differences in microbial processing and ecosystem function. global environmental change is likely to disproportionately affect coastal wetlands at northern latitudes because they are subject to increased glacial melt, sea-level rise, higher temperatures, and longer growing seasons, all of which have the potential to influence the physicochemical properties that shape microbial communities that are largely responsible for ecosystem function. ecologists have long been interested in understanding factors that regulate food web dynamics. both top-down and bottom-up forces affect populations within a food web, and their relative importance is influenced by many factors. using the aquatic inquiline community found in pitcher plants as a model system, i conducted a series of field and laboratory experiments to explore various factors that influence the relative importance of top-down and bottom-up effects. specifically, i examined the influence of 1) latitude 2) detritus processing and 3) temperature. i manipulated predator and resource density in factorial experiments and crossed these treatments with the three factors listed above. i measured the response of bacteria, protozoa and rotifers, the intermediate consumers in the food web. i first demonstrated that strong top-down and bottom-up effects are present in the pitcher plant food web and comparison with another study suggested that these effects varied with latitude (chapter 2). to pursue the latitudinal effect (chapter 3), i conducted two field experiments at disparate sites (michigan and florida). differences in top-down and bottom-up effects were detected both within and among trophic levels and temperature was hypothesized as an important difference between the sites. i isolated the effect of temperature by manipulating top-down and bottom-up effects at 6 different temperatures in a laboratory experiment (chapter 5). temperature was hypothesized to increase both top-down and bottom-up effects and to potentially alter their relative importance. higher temperature resulted in faster predator metabolism and consequently an increase in the magnitude of top-down effects. this suggests that temperature may be an important regulator of top-down effects and that climate change can have major effects on biological communities. i also examined the effect of detritus processing on the relative importance of top-down and bottom-up effects (chapter 4). detritus processing did bolster bottom-up effects and surprisingly also resulted in some top-down effects, depending on the habitat preference of protozoa and rotifers. this demonstrated that detritus processors can also be important consumers in detritus-based food webs. the goal of this thesis is to outline the significant issues affecting the performance of antenna-coupled metal-oxide-metal diodes for the detection of infrared radiation, and to present techniques for the analysis and design of these structures. possible detection mechanisms in the metal-oxide-metal junctions are presented, and their relative likelihood is discussed. fabricated junctions are also fitted to theoretical tunneling models. techniques for analyzing the effects of a substrate on the performance of an antenna are described. the finite-difference time-domain method for analyzing antenna structures is also presented. code was written based upon this method, and its results are compared to existing infrared antennas from other research groups. the interest in the ability to monitor a structure and detect, at the earliest possible stage, any damage to it has been pervasive through the civil engineering community, even before the catastrophic collapse of the i-35w bridge over the mississippi in the summer of 2007. this was driven largely by the fact that the current manual inspection and maintenance philosophy charged with preventing such failures cannot detect damage in its early stages, and the labor burdens associated with it are extremely heavy. in response, this dissertation proposed a two stage wireless structural health monitoring process, including damage detection and localization, to replace the manual and subjective paradigm. to enhance performance, this dissertation offers a network architecture that is organized into a multi-scale format, with data fusion of decentralized real-time damage decisions based on spatially distributed heterogeneous sensors, operating under a restricted activation scheme and within the computational constraints of the wireless platform with the objective of minimizing intrusion, enhancing the reliability of automated detection, maximizing network lifetime and eliminating the need for strict synchronization and transmission of large amounts of data. thus the primary research tasks in this dissertation can be summarized as: develop a wireless sensor network philosophy that provides reliable data for detection and localization of damage in complex civil infrastructure, while maximizing the performance and lifetime of the hardware develop an assessment framework suitable for damage detection and localization using data measured from a distributed wireless sensors and suitable for operation within said network, i.e., recognizing the computational resources, communications constraints, and power available to the network analytically and experimentally verify, at various scales and levels of complexity, the proposed network philosophy and assessment framework. the result of this effort is number of novel contributions achieved through the integrated development of the wireless sensing philosophy, network activation scheme and condition assessment framework to offset inherent limitations of the hardware and optimize performance for the challenging problem of output only, ambient vibration monitoring. these contributions include (1) a bivariate regressive adaptive index (brain) for damage detection that proves to be more robust and accurate than previous formats, (2) a restricted input network activation scheme (rinas) with a new image-based vehicle classification algorithm that not only reduces the size of reference databases and enhances detection reliability, but also relieves computational burdens and extends network lifetime and (3) an offline damage localization technique employing dempster-shafer evidence theory that is capable of effectively isolating damage positions even for minor loss levels. in total, this dissertation offers a definitive step in translating research to practice to advance the notion of ubiquitous sensing to address the 21st centrury infrastructure challenges facing society. the united states military has taken an increasing interest in offloading equipment and machinery from roll-on/roll-off (ro/ro) vessels in open seas. however, the current design of the ro/ro discharge facility (rrdf) has been determined to be structurally inadequate in sea state 3, in that relative roll motions between the ship and the rrdf induce stresses above yield. this project focuses on experimentally evaluating the efficacy of the ramp/rrdf motion compenstation/mitigation system proposed by yang and spencer on a laboratory-scale ship/ramp/rrdf system utilizing magnetorheological (mr) fluid dampers. design of the experimental model, verification of the dynamic properties of the system, characterization of the dampers, system identification, control design, and experimental testing are discussed. results appear to be promising, in that semi-active control achieves performance gains over uncontrolled and optimal passive cases. dialogue processes can be a powerful, life-changing experience for participants. this paper presents an ethnographic study of the south bend study circles on race, which explores how dialogue structure interacts with participant needs and organizational goals. as our nation grapples with racism, spaces for people to develop social awareness, build relationships that break down barriers and prejudices, and heal from the damage of discrimination are welcome. they can provide a breath of fresh air for marginalized people, and deep, honest conversation about the hard topics we avoid as a society. yet for dialogue to be productive and positive, facilitators need to be trained to welcome disclosure and manage emotions and social injustice. when it comes to highly content-structured dialogues, having multiple levels of dialogue, or support for participant action, could be necessary. dialogue certainly can lead to group action, but its strengths may lie in fostering learning, community, and healing. this dissertation examines how, by appropriating canonical stories, authors john barth and italo calvino expose the fictionality of the 20th century idea of 'genius,' or the artist as the solitary creator of original material. by rewriting texts like the arabian nights, don quixote, faust, hamlet, the odyssey, and orlando furioso, they take up the idea that a finite number of narrative forms exist, and employ this principle against itself to produce original literature. i call this paradoxical approach to writing their 'poetics of ultimacy,' and argue that they return to a pre-romantic recognition of the writer as a conduit for pre-existing materials to be artfully arranged. barth and calvino's work deconstructs the notion of an 'original' version of a text, arguing that as stories are told and retold, they enter the collective cultural consciousness and become part of the 'public domain' from which authors continuously draw. consequently, the reimagination of an iconic figure is no longer the adaptation of a particular text, but the reuse of a familiar narrative element like those found in the oral narrative tradition. this reading challenges the hierarchical relationship of 'original' and 'derivative' in adaptation studies, offering an organic model in which an adaptation becomes a purposeful process of collaboration between the writer (who is already a reader), the creators of the source stories, and the eventual audience.this type of fiction operates as literature which is itself comparative: one that registers, explores, and comments on the relational position of texts. while the majority of recent scholarship hinges upon the idea of world literature as a function of transmission and reception, i argue it is possible for a work to be created as an act of world literature. barth and calvino's texts translate and appropriate stories from multiple traditions, as well as reinterpret figures now common worldwide; therefore, they become works of world literature simply through the act of composition. because their texts selfconsciously investigate their own relationship to their author, reader, and the multinational network of texts that has brought them into being, they can be called 'meta-world literature.' this aim of this thesis is to show that the fiabe italiane are directly related to the historical formation of a standard italian, and may be viewed as a literary operation to nationalize italy in the wake of the war. in the first part of my thesis, i give a concise synopsis of the introduction, synthesizing the main arguments contained within it. in the second and main part, i focus on various ways the introduction suggests, alludes to, and defines an italian national tradition through folktales. as 'lavoro di unificazione,' the fiabe work to create a linguistic reality and participate in reforming and uniting italian identity. photoelectronic properties of cdse and cdte nanowires (nws) were investigated for the application of photodetector and photovoltaic devices. component nws were typically synthesized by solution-liquid-solid (sls) method. tem images reveal that nws are highly crystalline with diameters between 7-20 nm and lengths exceeding 1 ì_å_m. a modified chemical vapor deposition process was also developed to synthesize long (>10 ì_å_m), 20-60 nm diameter cdse and cdte nws at low temperatures on a plastic substrate. the approach applies synthetic strategies developed during the growth of solution-based semiconductor nanowires (nws). namely, bi film was deposited on the substrate and acted as a catalyst to induce the growth of nws. the length, width, and overall density of the wires can be modified by varying the growth temperature, bi film thickness, as well as the introduced precursor metal:chalcogen stoichiometry. additional studies were conducted to grow wires on other substrates such as silicon, glass, indium-tin-oxide coated glass coverslips and teflonì¢"_å¢. while the polarization sensitivity of single or aligned nw ensembles is a well known phenomenon, we surprisingly found the existence of a residual photocurrent polarization sensitivity even in random nw networks. when illuminated with visible (linearly polarized) light, such random nw networks exhibit significant photocurrent anisotropies ì =0.25 (ì ®õ=0.04) [ì =0.22 (ì ®õ=0.04)] for cdse (cdte) nws. additional studies have investigated the effects of varying the electrode potential, gap width, and spatial excitation profile. these experiments suggest electrode orientation as the determining factor behind the polarization sensitivity of nw devices. a simple geometric model has been developed to qualitatively explain the phenomenon. the main conclusion from these studies, however, is that polarization sensitive devices can be made from random nw networks without the need to align component wires.cdse nws are also investigated to build solar cell devices. incorporating colloidal cdse quantum dots (qds) into cdse nanowire (nw)-based photoelectrochemical solar cells increases their incident-photon-to-carrier conversion efficiencies (ipce) from 13% to 25% at 500 nm. this beneficial effect originates from an interplay between nws and qds where the latter fill voids between interconnected nws, providing electrically accessible conduits, in turn, enabling better carrier transport to electrodes. the presence of qds furthermore reduces the residual polarization anisotropy of random nw networks. the effect appears to be general and may aid the future design and implementation of other nw-based photovoltaics. to improve charge separation of nw based solar cells, single-walled carbon nanotube (swnt) was added. both emission quench measurement and transient absorption measurement confirms the ultrafast electron transfer to swnts with estimated rate constant about 2.54ìä" 108 s-1. the improved charge separation and transport doubled the photocurrent generation of cdse nw based solar cells. the constraints on various evidences for physics at the planck scale are examined in the context of inflation. this thesis considers that in three parts. in one we examine resonant particles or superstrings that may have been present during inflation. in another part we examine the effects of extra dimensions in the brane-world cosmology on inflation. also the effects on dark radiation is checked and examined.the primordial power spectrum is believed to derive from quantum fluctuations generated during the inflationary epoch. the various observed power spectra of the cosmic microwave background (cmb) are then modified by the dynamics of the cosmic radiation and matter fluids as various scales re-enter the horizon along with effects due to the transport of photons from the epoch of last scattering to the present time. indeed, the planck data have provided the highest resolution yet available in the determination of the cmb power spectra. although the temperature tt primordial power spectrum is well fit with a simple tilted power law, there remain at least two interesting features that may suggest deviations from the simplest inflation paradigm.one such feature is the well known suppression of the l=2 moment of the cmb power spectrum observed both by planck and by the wilkinson microwave anisotropy probe (wmap). there is also a feature of marginal statistical significance in the observed power spectrum of both planck and wmap near multipoles l=2-30. both of these deviations occur in an interesting region in the cmb power spectrum because they correspond to angular scales that are not yet in causal contact when the cmb photons were emitted. hence, the observed power spectrum is close to the true primordial power spectrum for these features.number of mechanisms have been proposed to deal with the suppression of the power spectrum on large scales and low multipoles. in this thesis, a particular approach is proposed to explain irregularities in the low $\ell$ of the cmb power spectrum. in a series of papers we have explained that deviations at l = 2 and l = 10-30 could be of the resonant creation of planck-scale fermions that couple to the inflation. this thesis explores the possibility that a specific sequence of super-string excitations may have made itself known via its coupling to the inflaton field of inflation. if these ideas are correct this could be the first evidence of new physics during the planck scale.here, an analysis of the randal sundrum brane-world cosmology in the context of the latest cmb constraints from planck is done. we summarize constraints on the most popular classes of models and explore some more realistic potentials. the constraint on standard inflationary parameters changes in the brane-world scenario. the constraints on the so called 'dark' radiation term from the latest light-element nuclear reaction rates and the latest cmb data is studied. here i also summarize the constraints on the higher dimensional cosmology. hydrogen sulfide (h2s) is an endogenously produced gas affecting the mammalian nervous system and smooth muscle (sm). while mechanisms of h2s action have been proposed, these models require further testing and the biological role of h2s within the vasculature remains to be elucidated. the present study utilized plasma [h2s] measurement, enzymatic h2s production assays, and sm myography to examine the evolution of h2s as a gasotransmitter and to determine its mechanism of action and physiological role in select vertebrate sm. this study found h2s vasoactivity in all vertebrate classes ranging from mono-phasic relaxation and contraction to complex multi-phasic responses. various phases of the muli-phasic relaxation-contraction-relaxation response in trout vessels were sensitive to katp/clchannel inhibition, endothelial modification, and ph manipulation, but independent of [cgmp] and extracellular [ca2+]. trout plasma [h2s] was ~40 ìâm, near effective dilatory concentrations of pre-contracted trout vessels (ec50 67 å± 9 ìâm). h2s-induced relaxation of trout urinary bladder was insentive to most manipulations with the exception of kcl prestimulus. removal of extracellular chloride (0 [cl-]o) and blocking clchannels altered the mechanical responses of lamprey, trout, and rat vessels to h2s. changes in po2 elicit a variety of responses in sm to match physiological requirements. the mechanisms by which sm cells sense po2 are heavily debated. the redox relationship between h2s and o2 suggests h2s could serve as an o2 sensing molecule in sm. these studies found; (1) hypoxia and h2s produce temporally and quantitatively identical responses; (2) responses to hypoxia and h2s are mutually exclusive, the presence of one stimulus, substantially or completely eliminates the response to the other; (3) h2s is synthesized by sm; (4) increasing [substrate] for h2s production increases vessel response to hypoxia; and (5) inhibition of h2s synthesis inhibits responses to hypoxia. in addition, manipulation of [cl-]o and inhibitors of cltrafficking had similar effects on responses to h2s and hypoxia. h2s is a phylogenetically ancient and versatile regulatory molecule appearing to be opportunistically suited to meet organand species-specific homeostatic requirements. h2s appears to act through a clsensitive pathway and is intrinsically coupled to cellular o2 sensing. globally, urbanization leads to increases in the human-wildlife interface. within these spaces, urban wildlife must navigate complex 'natural' and anthropogenic habitats. among primates, members of the genus macaca are often highly synanthropic, living alongside humans across varied cultural and ecological contexts. here, i examine three populations of urban macaques: long-tailed macaques from bali, indonesia, and singapore, and barbary macaques from gibraltar. while each population has unique cultural, environmental, and ecological backdrops, the three sites share many commonalities, including extensive overlap between humans and macaques. here, i pair phylogeographic, landscape genetic, and gps-geographic information systems (gis) approaches to test how the anthropogenic landscape, demographics, and other variables impact urban primate populations. this combined, technology-informed approach is then applied to issues of urban primate population management. first, i characterize long-tailed macaque populations at a broad phylogeographic scale using mitochondrial dna. the phylogeny uncovers dozens of newly defined haplotypes within bali and singapore and highlights island-specific haplogroups within the composite dataset. additionally, analysis of y dna across bali calls into question the traditional divide between continental and insular populations within southeast asia. a complementary population genetic approach is used to examine within-island mitochondrial diversity and structure. population genetic analyses identified major differences in population structure between the two islands largely related to differential access to human food resources. i complemented these approaches with gps collar studies of macaque ranging patterns. ranging patterns characterized and compared gibraltar's barbary macaques to singapore's long-tailed macaques. analyses uncovered significant seasonal variation in daily ranging patterns as well as species-specific differences that can be linked to food provisioning policies. i finish by applying a synthetic, technology-based approach to management-specific questions. i present a series of case studies from both the genetic and spatial datasets that use a statistical modeling approach to examine how habitat composition, demographics, habituation, as well as seasonal and anthropogenic schedules impact home and core range size and mitochondrial diversity. finally, these case studies are used to inform specific management recommendations. these approaches emphasize the natural and anthropogenic variables that have the greatest impact on urban primate populations at the human-macaque interface. what political influences shape the outcomes of first amendment lawsuits? what are the juridical effects of civil liberties litigation? what institutional forces shape individual rights of expression and dignity--and collective rights to challenge political authority? contributing to the law and society tradition, and taking a durkheimian perspective, informed by critical theory and bourdieu, this study assesses the judicial management of liberty. the analysis develops a sociology of the first amendment, tracing the political influences and institutional logics that shape judicial decisions and, conversely, the influence of first amendment law on institutional logics and behavior in other spheres. the term paths of legitimacy is used to designate institutional associations in the public sphere by which disputes are resolved into rules of law by court and rules of law are converted into norms of practice. the project is organized by three liberties of the first amendment--religion, speech, and assembly--and a range of case-based methods: discursive explanation; neoinstitutionalism and field theory; and legal geography. in the first two parts of the study, it is shown that the juridical field is sometimes influenced by political codes, such as civil religion, a form of nationalism that governs the display of religious symbols in public; and, conversely, that legal categories influence the realm of civil liberties, for instance, media ethics, an area considered beyond regulation. in the third part, on the freedom of assembly and protest policing, competing hypotheses of the 'negotiated management' of demonstrations and the political regulation of territory are examined. it is found that certain regulations of assembly are better explained by the global city thesis, urban differentiation, and political economy of place, than by negotiated management or state-offered legitimations--security needs after 9/11 and riot prevention. as the police turn toward zero tolerance, so do the courts in regulating the 'time, place, and manner' of protest. data examined are judicial opinions, institutional histories, and legitimation claims regarding the regulation of liberty, including the use of mass arrests and free speech zones during the presidential national conventions. future avenues include examining paths of legitimacy in other areas of law. image segmentation is a fundamental problem in computer vision and has been studied for decades. it is also an essential preliminary step for quantitative biomedical image analysis and computer-aided diagnoses and studies. recently, deep learning (dl) based methods have witnessed huge success on various image analysis tasks in terms of accuracy and generality. however, it is not straightforward to apply known semantic segmentation algorithms directly to biomedical images due to different imaging techniques and special application scenarios (e.g., volumetric images, multi-modal data, small amounts of annotated data, domain knowledge from experts). in this dissertation, i develop new deep learning methods to save annotation efforts, improve model efficacy, and generalize well to different biomedical image segmentation tasks. first, i introduce advanced model architectures and training algorithms to make use of abundant 3d information from volumetric images (e.g., mr and ct images) for delineating detailed structures. the heterogeneous feature aggregation network utilizes anisotropic 3d convolutional kernels to explicitly extract and fuse contextual information from orthogonal geometric views. i also devise a new ensemble learning framework to unify the merits of both 2d and 3d dl models and boost segmentation performance significantly. second, i introduce the representative annotation method to only select the most effective areas/samples for annotation, thus saving manual efforts. our method decouples the selection process from the segmentation process and makes a one-shot suggestion. it can achieve comparable performance to full annotation and active learning based methods. third, noticing that using sparse annotation leads to huge performance degradation, i introduce two semi-supervised methods to leverage unlabeled images and utilize automatically generated labels (i.e., pseudo labels) in model training. specifically, i propose combining representative annotation and ensemble learning to bridge the performance gap compared with full annotation methods. i also propose a method to estimate the uncertainty of pseudo labels and use them to guide iterative self-training. fourth, i present a new self-supervised learning framework to extract generic knowledge directly from unlabeled data and demonstrate its high robustness and efficiency on diverse downstream segmentation tasks. after reading an article in national geographic titled "the mysterious end of moctezuma," in a special history issue, i began thinking about the conquest and creating a fictional character whose name i would find a year later, after i read bartolom&eacute; de las casas' a brief account of the destruction of the indies, during a caribbean literature course taught by poet and creative director orlando menes. this fictional character germinated as i thought of an imaginary sister to moctezuma; her name, anaca&iacute;da, would evoke the fall of an ancient mayan empire. in the first part of this poetry series, i'm reimagining bartolom&eacute; de las casas as a priest who is very invested in this subaltern narrative and trying to help their cause not merely out of duty to his faith, but out of love for the fictional figure of anaca&iacute;da. while i was inspired by the historical figure of bartolom&eacute; de las casas, mine is a fictional figure set in a fictional time. this dissertation examines the political construction of public attitudes towards crime in latin america. crime has surfaced as the most salient issue on the public agenda in much of latin america in recent years, and it poses a serious threat to democracy in the region. crime threatens citizen security, undermines democratic governance, corrupts state institutions, and discourages economic investment. however, despite the threat crime poses to democratic governance in latin america, a scholarly literature on this question is only just starting to emerge. this dissertation adds to this literature by arguing that citizen support for authoritarian responses to the crime problem cannot be explained only by looking at violent crime rates and personal victimization. inspired by the political science literature on media effects and sociological literature on crime and deviance, this dissertation contends that how citizens perceive crime drives support for authoritarian crime control. focusing on the political construction of public attitudes, it tests hypotheses that link indirect experience via the news media with support for authoritarian crime control measures. using guatemala, el salvador, and argentina as cases for a focused comparison, this dissertation relies on extensive content analysis of newspaper coverage of crime, an original survey experiment, and data from the americasbarometer surveys to tests the relationship between crime news and support for authoritarian crime control measures. it finds that the news media plays both an agenda setting and issue framing role. by setting the public agenda, the news media raises citizens? awareness of crime as a pressing public issue. crime news also influences attitudes towards crime through its mediated relationship with citizen support for authoritarian crime control measures via its effects on fear of crime and self-reported victimization. intimate partner violence (ipv) and psychopathology pose risk to families, and parenting has emerged as a key outcome variable and intergenerational conduit for maladaptive paths. little research, however, has examined maternal communication in ipv-exposed populations, and observational data on this construct are particularly lacking. the current dissertation aims to integrate observational data to assess risks (e.g., ipv subtypes, psychopathology) for mothers' communication in dyadic interactions, using variable-centered and person-centered analyses in two studies. participants included a community sample of (n = 70) women and their children (n = 112) from a study of ipv in families.mothers and children participated in dyadic play, and interactions were coded to measure maternal communication. in study 1, observed communication data were used in variable-centered analyses to identify the potential emergence of macro-factors of communication and analyze possible risks for maternal communication. no macro-factors of communication emerged, but results found that a subtype of psychological and physical ipv was inversely related to mothers' praise of children. additionally, psychopathology did not moderate ipv subtypes. in person-centered analyses, latent profile analysis was implemented in study 2 to explore the emergence of maternal communication profiles, and analyses revealed a five-profile model of maternal communication, including reserved, harsh directive, warm directive, inquisitive guidance, and interactive typologies. ipv subtypes and psychopathology were not related to profiles of maternal communication in regression analyses, but models found significant roles of child age, maternal age, and mothers' minority status. results from the current dissertation underscore the importance of understanding parenting from granular, interactive, and contextual perspectives. solid state materials including semiconductors and metals deeply shaped our modern world, from smartphones and light-emitting diodes to electric cars. besides the electrical transport properties, thermal transport properties also play significant roles in various applications, such as thermoelectrics and electronics thermal management, where thermal transport properties can affect both performance and reliability of the devices. in most semiconductors and insulators, it is the quasiparticle phonon that dominates the thermal transport, which is the quanta of vibrational modes in crystals. a fundamental study of phonon in semiconducting materials is thus of great importance in order to understand how heat is transported and how to better design new nanoscale devices and materials. electron, on the other hand, contributes significantly to the thermal transport of metals in most cases, while it usually contributes little to thermal transport in semiconductors. it can, however, play a central role in thermoelectrics, where its transport is limited by the electron-phonon scattering. in this way, a comprehensive understanding of coupled electron and phonon properties are needed to fully understand thermal transport in metals and semiconductors.nowadays, data-driven techniques have emerged as powerful tools for materials design when analytical principles are not established between material compositions and properties. it is thus of great interest and potential to apply the data-driven machine learning techniques to the area of thermal transport in solid state materials. with more data available on thermal transport properties, using machine learning techniques can help us understand and utilize the relations between thermal transport properties and materials structures without complex analytical expressions.in the first part of the thesis, considering the phonon-phonon scattering, lattice thermal conductivities of various two-dimensional (2d) semiconductors are studied by solving the phonon boltzmann transport equation iteratively with the help of the parameter-free first-principles calculations. we found that a bond saturation rule can work as a general strategy for the design of high lattice thermal conductivity materials. several ultrahigh thermal conductivity materials, such as the 2d penta-cn2, three-dimensional t12-carbon and aa t12-carbon are predicted.the electron-phonon scattering is then focused in the second part, where thermoelectric properties in semiconductors and the thermal and electrical transport properties of metals are studied in a first-principles calculation scheme. the 2d blue phosphorene is found to be with a low thermoelectric figure of merit, zt, due to its high lattice thermal conductivity. however, with nanostructures which reduce lattice thermal conductivity, the zt can be improved dramatically to around 1. in metallic hexagonal nbn, a promising and important superconductor, the first-principles calculation predicted thermal conductivity agrees well with experimental measurements.finally, machine learning techniques, especially the transfer learning (tl), are applied to study the phonon properties of semiconductors. considering the fact that electron properties are much easier to obtain. tl is used to leverage electron properties to help predict phonon properties. we found that tl can help improve the prediction accuracy significantly compared with direct training, indicating a deep connection between electron and phonon. results also indicate that tl can leverage not-so-accurate proxy properties, as long as they encode composition-property relation, to improve models for target properties – a significant feature to materials informatics in general.in general, with the help of both the first-principles calculations and data-driven machine learning techniques, the thermal transport properties of semiconductors and metals are studied. these studies provide us a clearer understanding about how those quasi-particles can interact in solid state materials and they can potentially enable us to design materials and devices with desired thermal transport properties. recent advances in tetrel chemistry (tt = si, ge, sn, pb), stimulated the search for other zintl phases with novel anionic structures. for that reason, we began thorough and systematic studies over the pseudobinary a&ndash;ae&ndash;tt systems (a = alkali metal; ae = alkaline-earth). after exploring a great deal of compositions within the pseudo-binary systems with mixed a/ae metals, we have embarked on exploring analogous systems with the help of mixed of alkali and rare-earth metals (re). the major part of the work presented in this dissertation deals with the synthesis and structural characterization of a variety of novel intermetallic compounds. a few noteworthy examples are: 1) na8basn6 and na8bapb6 with aromatic pentagonal rings of sn56and pb56-, respectively, that are isostructural and isoelectronic with the cyclpentadienyl anion, c5h5 -; 2) li9-xeusn6+x, li5ca7sn11, l i6eu5sn9 with trimers, hexamers and infinite conjugated chains of sn, in addition to aromatic pentagonal rings; 3) limgeu2sn3 and limgsr2sn3 with infinite conjugated chains of sn and single atom anions; 4) na4casn6 with channels built of cyclohexane-like units of sn6 6-; 5)li2ln5sn7 (ln = ce, pr, sm, eu) with branched polymeric 1d chains. another part of this dissertation concentrates on our attempts to synthesize heteroatomic rings isoelectronic with those of group 14 by a combination of elements from groups 13 (tr) and 15 (pn), respectively. however all probed reactions produced novel compounds with extended structures based on trpn4-tetrahedra. all of the above-mentioned compounds nicely illustrate the delicate balance between packing efficiency and electronic requirements, which explains the stabilization of these novel tetrel clusters, which are inaccessible in pure binary systems. this dissertation considers the various ways in which chaucer explores three distinct, though related, theoretical issues posed by the development of english as a literary vernacular: namely, the nature of translation, the construction of textual memory, and the relationship between reading and ethics. chaucer's use of translation as a means of rhetorical invention is deeply connected to medieval technologies of memory; chaucer's poetry not only explores the theoretical possibilities of these activities, but also offers different perspectives on the relationship between right reading and right action. by analyzing works from each stage of chaucer's poetic career, i demonstrate that these theoretical concerns are fundamental to chaucer's art. in the early dream-visions, chaucer experiments with the use of rhetorical and mnemonic loci as, literally, places -an experiment that results in brilliant ekphrastic moments and a uniquely architectural poetics. with regard to the troilus and criseyde, i discuss chaucer's dramatization of the problems posed by translation, focusing on his development of two english neologisms to convey the term "ambiguity" which also serve to engage the linguistic and philosophical history of polysemy. the problem of ambiguity, in turn, raises the twin questions of intention and interpretation, the questions that most inflect the activity of textual mediation. the troilus is presented as the translation of a latin, secular text, but the problem of textual mediation becomes highly vexed when it is addressed with regard to sacred materials. in order to examine chaucer's dramatization of the problems of biblical translation, i set the miller's tale against the parson's tale and the retraction. the parson's tale and the retraction encourage a return to the discussion of the relationship between texts, memory, and ethics. tracing out the progression of chaucer's poetic thought in this way yields an appreciation of his poetry as profoundly philosophical, and it becomes clear that, as a poet, chaucer understood both the great potential and the great risks inherent in the development of a language. single-electron transistors (sets) are the most sensitive electrometers known to-date (sensitivities of 0.9 μe/hz1/2) [1, 2]. advancement and optimization of sets are important to fields such as quantum-based metrological standards [3-5], electron-spin based quantum computing and spintronics [6, 7], and scanning probe technology. noise, the random fluctuations in voltage, current and/or resistance intrinsic to the device that obscure a signal, limits the sensitivity of these devices. to push the sensitivity of these devices to their ultimate limits, the noise sources in sets need to be identified and studied to determine if and how they can be removed or reduced. this thesis will present the findings and conclusions on flicker noise from measurements made on al/alox/al sets.flicker noise, or 1/f noise, is a significant component of the noise power spectral density in sets at low frequencies (&lt;1khz). the flicker noise found in the sets presented in this thesis originates from a superposition of the noise power from numerous two or more level fluctuators. in the limit of one, two-level fluctuator, the time domain noise signal resembles that of telegraph signals as a result of the fluctuator changing between its two possible states. since these "signals" are random, this type of noise is called random telegraph signals (rts). in order to avoid flicker noise, the radio-frequency single-electron transistor (rf-set) [1, 8, 9] was developed, which moves the measurement frequency into higher frequencies where the 1/f noise is negligible compared to thermal and shot noise. while this engineered solution provides a work around for current set applications, this thesis uses the study of flicker noise in sets as an opportunity to characterize material imperfections. identification of these imperfections guided the proposal of future work that will minimize their effect on the performance of the device across the frequency spectrum. of special interest is the improvement of the low-frequency set measurements. improvement of this spectral region would allow for improved sensitivities without needing to implement the more complex radio-frequency setup. as discussed in detail in this thesis, a substantial contribution to the flicker noise in al/alox/al sets stems from atomic reconfigurations within the tunnel barriers that make up the set. during the formation of aluminum oxide, according the model presented by cabrera and mott [10], aluminum ions diffuse through interstitial sites in the oxide as they move toward the surface to combine with oxygen adsorbed to the surface. if this process is abruptly stopped, as done in this thesis work through the removal of the oxygen source and sealing the surface of the oxide by the deposition of more aluminum on the oxide surface, then the aluminum oxide will be non-stoichiometric and highly disordered. in addition to non-stoichiometric aluminum oxide, another non-ideality of thermally grown aluminum oxide is the presence of hydroxide ions in the oxide. this is a well-known phenomenon which results from the dissociation of water at the oxide surface during its formation. the disorder of the constituent ions and presence of hydroxide ions are two possible physical sources that give rise to the two-level systems that produce the flicker noise presented in this thesis. since this noise is a result from imperfect ion coordination within the oxide and impurity ions, it is proposed that thermal annealing in high vacuum will provide the oxide with sufficient energy to achieve a more energetically stable configuration. results from the literature confirming this hypothesis are briefly discussed. accounting for the sex difference in religiosity has centered recently on a problematic risk-management thesis. i concur that risk is indeed importantì¢ ââ' but primarily as a signal of an underlying semi-heritable trait called sensation-seeking. this trait directly contributes to, and is antecedent to, risk preference and assessment. sensation-seekers take risks to gain new, varied, and novel experiences, which are often lacking in religious settings. using direct measures from the 2006 panel study on american religion and ethnicity, i find that enjoying thrilling and frightening sensations and experiences has a direct negative effect on personal religiosity. sensation-seeking also somewhat mediates the effect of biological sex on religiosity. these two effects provide plausible support for the partial-heritability thesis and demonstrate that biology and personality influence personal religiosity. the objective of this research was to improve the understanding of the sound source mechanisms in a low speed ducted fan through experimental and analytical efforts. to this end, a new experimental model with carefully controlled boundary conditions was developed. a new method for quantifying the net acoustic transfer function between the rotor and an observer was found. this transfer function caused by the duct can significantly affect the spectral character of the radiated sound. quantifying this function enables the study of the rotor sound source, without need of other methods for considering duct effects. a new formulation for predicting the noise generated by a ducted rotor interacting with a casing boundary layer has been developed. the method accounts for the streamwise-elongated turbulent structures that have been recently observed in flat-plate boundary layers. an approximation for the duct boundary layer two-point correlation function allows the net sound source to be estimated. finally, the self-noise generated by a ducted rotor was studied. the flow rate through the rotor was varied independently from the rotor rotation rate in order change the mean lift on the blades. measurements of the flow field around the rotor were found to provide insight to the mechanisms of sound that depend on mean loading conditions. quilt packaging (qp) is a novel, high-speed, direct interchip interconnection technology invented and developed at the university of notre dame. quilt packaging uses conducting structures, called 'nodules,' that protrude from the thin, vertical faces of a chip, connecting to matching structures on an adjacent chip, forming a high-performance and dense system-in-package. groups of chips are tiled much like cloth pieces in a patchwork quilt, so a group of tiled, or 'quilted,' chips are called 'quilts' or 'metachips.' as an emerging technology, quilt packaging has novel failure modes that require investigation. in this work, a reliable structure for quilted chips is proposed and demonstrated. simulation models are developed to study the failure modes of qp. simulations based on material properties and static, uniform temperature provide guidelines for the size of interconnects and materials to use for a reliable qp structure. additionally, simulation results are used to explore the most vulnerable regions of the structure, and are verified by experiments. some ways of reducing stress at the critical areas is addressed. the number of failure cycles for the qp nodules is estimated using simulation results and a fatigue failure model. test structures are fabricated. we use both thermal cycling and thermal shock tests to examine the failure modes of individual qp chips (i.e., unquilted) as well as two-chip metachips, focusing on reliability issues for various shapes. to explore the test results, both noninvasive and invasive methods are used. the test results are consistent with simulation results; viable operating temperature ranges are also identified. this dissertation inferred brown adipose tissue (bat) activity and its metabolic effects in samoans. i assessed the changes in metabolic rate and body heat dissipation associated with bat activity as a result of mild cold exposure. i also measured fasting glucose, cholesterol levels, and substrate metabolism by bat, granting insight into the potential health benefits of bat activation in a samoan population with obesity. furthermore, following modifications in the cold exposure protocols, i observed that bat is activated at a wide range of temperatures, warranting further validation of current field methods assessing bat.this work suggest that bat is activated in samoans at mild cold exposure, despite their warm climates. this indicates that this cold activated organ may be metabolically active across all populations and may have contributed to adaptation and successful human expansion across different environments. this work also revealed that bat may be using both glucose and lipids as fuel sources but has little effect on blood cholesterol levels in samoans. these findings indicate that bat has potential health benefits, such as reducing the risk of type ii diabetes, in populations with obesity.finally, i found that bat was activated at different ranges of cold exposure within the same population, emphasizing the variation in its activity between individuals.not only do these findings call for further validation of the current bat inferring protocols, but they also suggest that in non-cold habituated populations, bat may be activated at any temperatures perceived as cold. my findings underline the importance of considering the inter-individual variation in bat activity when developing evolutionary or health-related arguments centering around bat. this dissertation provides additional data on bat activity needed to understand its variation and metabolic effects in humans. this work contributes to the field of anthropology by providing evidence for the adaptive role of bat in human global dispersal and highlighting its importance in metabolic health. based on my findings, future work may identify further individual and population-specific characteristics of bat, strengthening evolutionary theories on human cold adaptation and providing evidence for potential manipulation of bat in health care among samoans and others. this dissertation aims to advance the fundamental optical toolkit by designing, fabricating, and characterizing novel fir light sources that drastically exceed the state-of-the-art. these new devices will engineer interactions between lattice vibrations and quantum structures to generate fir electromagnetic radiation that exceeds the emission from blackbody sources. in particular, we develop traditional iii-v semiconductor materials and opto-phononic-electronic (ope) devices by engineering electronic transport and optical modes, and the interaction between photons and phonons.this work has shown two structures of fir emitters, including the surface cascaded phonon-polariton emitters, and metal-metal waveguide phonon-polariton emitters. the work demonstrated both the photonic and phononic characterization of each of these devices. first, surface cascade devices exhibit strong emission close to the gaas lo phonon energy. the emission is compared directly to thermal emission. second, we show the modeling and experimental results for phonon-polariton edge emitters, including the quantum model of gain, quantum well heterostructure design, polariton dispersion, fabrication, and electrical characterization. finally, to investigate the photon-electron-phonon tripartite coupling mechanism and thermal characteristics of such complex infrared emitters, we use raman spectroscopy-based techniques to determine the temperature distribution and thermal conductivity from a continuous wave (cw) mode quantum cascade laser (qcl) at room temperature. the work has shown the raman peak shift of both the inas transverse optical (to) and gaas to phonons provide a robust way to cross-check the extracted output facet temperature and anisotropic thermal conductivity. the techniques provide a valuable toolkit to characterize the thermal emission and optical emission in the ope devices in the fir range. this work is important for the design of the qcl-based photonic integrated circuits in the infrared wavelengths, improving the accuracy of device selection, failure analysis, and thermal management in manufacturing. possible worlds theory is one of the most important developments in analytic philosophy within the last fifty years. possible worlds have been put to use in almost every problem in metaphysics, been used to clarify important epistemic ideas such as luck and reliability, helped us understand mental content, and been a crucial tool in philosophy of religion. an essential part of possible worlds theory is what i call orthodox modal semantics (oms). in my dissertation i argue that an alternative theory, unorthodox modal semantics (ums), should be adopted. we should accept ums because it is useful. specifically, it helps us solve important problems involving counterfactuals, modal epistemology, free will, and meta-philosophy. in the first chapter i present the argument for acceptance of ums based on its utility. specifically, we should prefer ums to other modal semantics because it can be used to solve three important problems. in the second chapter i present ums and compare it to oms. there are two primary differences between the theories. ums evaluates modal claims not with respect to possible worlds but with respect to less than maximal states of affairs. second, ums introduces the concepts of explicit and implicit truth at a state of affairs while oms relies merely on truth at a state of affairs. in chapters 3-5 i apply ums to various problems. each of these chapters defends one premise in the argument from utility presented in chapter 1. in chapter 3 i address the problem of modal knowledge. i argue in chapter 4 that by applying ums we can both accept the conclusions of metaphysicians and reject the claim that worlds with bizarre arrangements of stuff are possible. chapter 5 contains an application of ums to the evaluation of counterfactuals with impossible antecedents. finally, i end the dissertation by ruling out a competitor to ums, the theory of impossible worlds. the characteristics and design of a high-bandwidth flow sensor that uses an ac glow discharge (plasma) as the sensing element is presented. the plasma forms in the air gap between two protruding low profile electrodes attached to a probe body. the output from the anemometer is an amplitude modulated version of the ac voltage input that contains information about the mean and fluctuating velocity components. the anemometer circuitry includes resistance and capacitance elements that simulate a dielectric-barrier to maintain a diffuse plasma, and a constant-current feedback control that maintains operation within the desired glow discharge regime over an extended range of air velocities. mean velocity calibrations are demonstrated over a range from 0 to 140\,m/s. over this velocity range, the mean output voltage varied linearly with air velocity, providing a constant static sensitivity. the effect of the electrode gap and input ac carrier frequency on the anemometer static sensitivity and dynamic response are investigated. experiments are performed to compare measurements obtained with a plasma sensor operating at two ac carrier frequencies against that of a constant-temperature hot-wire. all three sensors were calibrated against the same known velocity reference. an uncertainty based on the standard deviation of the velocity calibration fit was applied to the mean and fluctuating velocity measurements of the three sensors. the motivation is not to replace hot-wires as a general measurement tool, but rather as an alternative to hot-wires in harsh environments or at high mach numbers where they either have difficulty to survive or lack the necessary frequency response. the characteristics and design of a high-bandwidth pressure sensor that uses an ac glow discharge (plasma) as the sensing element is also presented. a dielectric barrier was utilized between two electrodes with plasma forming at its surface. as with the plasma anemometer, the output from the plasma pressure sensor is an amplitude modulated version of the ac voltage input that contains information about the mean and fluctuating pressure components. static pressure calibration was performed to approximately 4 bar. the static calibration followed a power-law relation. ac carrier frequency and electrode length are investigated with respect to their effect on static sensitivity. the static sensitivity increased with increasing electrode length which produced a larger volume of plasma. the power-law exponent increased with increasing ac frequency, thereby, becoming more nonlinear. shock tube experiments were conducted to determine the factors involved in frequency response of the plasma sensor. the dielectric thickness, electrode length, and ac carrier frequency were varied. the frequency response was maximized with the thinnest dielectric layer, moderate electrode (plasma) length, and the highest ac carrier frequency. under these conditions the plasma pressure sensor performed as well as a high frequency response commercial pressure transducer. relationships among effortful control, parenting strategies, and social behavior were examined contemporaneously for 4and 5yearolds. hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that parenting moderated the relationship between effortful control and social behavior, especially for 5-year-olds. in addition, the extent to which infant regulation and reactivity during a stranger approach situation and maternal sensitivity during play predicted rates of effortful control in early childhood was examined longitudinally in 39 participants. hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that infants who showed more regulation during the stranger approach later showed higher effortful control scores, compared to infants who showed more reactivity to the stranger approach. furthermore, maternal sensitivity during play in infancy predicted later effortful control in early childhood. results are discussed in terms of self-regulation theory and the role of child factors and caregiver behavior in the development of regulation. prediction and reduction of airframe noise are critically important to the development of quieter civil transport aircraft. the key to noise reduction is a full understanding of the underlying noise source mechanisms. in this study, tandem cylinders in cross-flow as an idealization of a complex aircraft landing gear configuration are considered to investigate the noise generation and its reduction by flow control using single dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuators. the flow over tandem cylinders at re_d= 22,000 with and without plasma actuation is computed using large-eddy simulation. the plasma effect is modeled as a body force obtained from a semi-empirical model. the flow statistics and surface pressure frequency spectra show excellent agreement with previous experimental measurements. for acoustic calculations, a boundary-element method is implemented to solve the convected lighthill equation. the solution method is validated in a number of benchmark problems including flows over a cylinder, a rod-airfoil configuration, and a sphere. with validated flow field and acoustic solver, acoustic analysis is performed for the tandem-cylinder configuration to extend the experimental results and understand the mechanisms of noise generation and its control. without flow control, the acoustic field is dominated by the interaction between the downstream cylinder and the upstream wake. through suppression of vortex shedding from the upstream cylinder, the interaction noise is reduced drastically by the plasma flow control, and the vortex-shedding noise from the downstream cylinder becomes equally important. at a free-stream mach number of 0.2, the peak sound pressure level is reduced by approximately 16 db. this suggests the viability of plasma actuation for active control of airframe noise. the numerical investigation is extended to the noise from a realistic landing gear experimental model. coarse-mesh computations are performed, and preliminary results are discussed with a view of future directions. our world produces massive data every day; they exist in diverse forms, from pairwise data and matrix to time series and trajectories. meanwhile, we have access to the versatile toolkit of network analysis. networks also have different forms; from simple networks to higher-order network, each representation has different capabilities in carrying information. for researchers who want to leverage the power of the network toolkit, and apply it beyond networks data to sequential data, diffusion data, and many more, the question is: how to represent big data and networks? this dissertation makes a first step to answering the question. it proposes the higher-order network, which is a critical piece for representing higher-order interaction data; it introduces a scalable algorithm for building the network, and visualization tools for interactive exploration. finally, it presents broad applications of the higher-order network in the real-world. this dissertation examines the place of the jerusalem temple in practice, thought, and self-understanding of diaspora jews during the hellenistic and early roman periods prior to the destruction of the temple in 70 ce. the significant distance separating diaspora jews from jerusalem impacted their ability to participate in the sacrificial cult. it is often thought, therefore, that the temple was essentially irrelevant as an institution, even though it maintained a certain symbolic value, for most diaspora jews who reoriented their identity toward other universally accessible focal points, such as the torah. such conclusions do not appreciate fully the diversity of the perspective among diaspora jews concerning the jerusalem temple and often give preference to literary evidence, most of which comes from alexandria specifically.taking a different approach, this dissertation investigates not only the perspectives of the individual diaspora jews whose writings mention the jerusalem temple (letter of aristeas, philo of alexandria, philo the epic poet, 2 maccabees, 3 maccabees, sibylline oracles, book 3) but also the customs of diaspora jewish communities linking them to the temple, such as their financial contributions and pilgrimages there. more specifically, in part one, we suggest that most diaspora jews voluntarily adopted these practices, which increased in popularity during the second temple period, in order to maintain regular contact with and participation in the sacrificial cult. in part two, we analyze the place of the jerusalem temple in diaspora jewish literature. various descriptions of the grandeur of the jerusalem temple and its environs exemplify the pride with which certain diaspora jews viewed the temple as well as how some jews desired for their non-jewish neighbors to view the temple with which jews were foundationally connected. accounts of the divine protection of the temple from foreign threats emphasize the unique association of the presence and worship of the god of the universe with the jerusalem temple. in various ways, certain diaspora jewish authors also correlated the jerusalem temple with the legitimacy of diaspora jewish communities and stressed the role of the temple as a unifying institution for the entire jewish nation in the present and future. extreme response style is the tendency for scale respondents to use more extreme ends of a response scale (e.g., 1s and 5s on a 5-point likert-type scale) independent of the item content. existing research has demonstrated that such response biases potentially yield erroneous results in research findings that rely on scale responses that are susceptible to extreme responding. potential factors that may affect such response behavior may be the format of the response options and fatigue. with the format of the response options, the current study examined whether descriptors of the ends of a scale (i.e., completely disagree/completely agree versus strongly disagree/strongly agree) or the decision to label all or only the ends of the scale options may lead to extreme responding. furthermore, it was assessed whether fatigue (defined by the lengthening of the number of scale items) serves as a moderating factor. study 1 was a 2x2x2 factorial design (2 response options factors and fatigue factor) and found a significant main effect for the descriptor of a scale. specifically, more absolute descriptors (i.e., completely disagree/completely agree) yielded more extreme responses than did less absolute descriptors (i.e., strongly disagree/strongly agree). study 2 involved examining the potential effect that extreme response style may have in mediating the relationship of individualism/collectivism on satisfaction with life (bettencourt & dorr, 1997). this study found that extreme response style's effect on the findings was negligible and did not mediate the relationship between individualism/collectivism on satisfaction so as to lead to different estimates of the effect size. the internalization of appearance ideals presented by the western media has many maladaptive consequences, including increased trait self-objectification and appearance monitoring (calogero et al., 2005). while previous research has evaluated internalization of media appearance ideals, trait self-objectification, and appearance monitoring as they relate to various domains of cognitive performance, no study has examined their potential relationship with academic intrinsic motivation. the present study seeks to add to the literature by examining relationships between the internalization of media appearance ideals, trait self-objectification, appearance monitoring, and academic intrinsic motivation among college women. three hundred forty-three (n = 343) freshman and sophomore self-identified college females were recruited to complete questionnaires related to key study constructs. path analyses via structural equation modeling indicated that the internalization of media appearance ideals was indirectly related to academic intrinsic motivation through trait self-objectification and subsequent appearance monitoring. specifically, the internalization of media appearance ideals was associated with increased trait self-objectification, which was in turn associated with increased appearance monitoring. this appearance monitoring was subsequently associated with decreased academic intrinsic motivation. implications and future directions of findings are discussed. (i) the baculovirus expression vector system was employed for the expression of n-acetylglucosaminyl transferases in sf9 insect cells. udp-glcnac:alpha-3-d-mannoside beta-1,2-n-acetylglucosaminyltransferase i (gnt i), a key enzyme in the biosynthesis of the beta(1,2)-linkage between glcnac and the man-alpha(1,3)-man branch of the core mannose trisaccharide of n-glycans, and udp-glcnac:alpha-6-d-mannoside beta-1,2-n-acetylglucosaminyltransferase ii (gnt ii) involved in the transfer of glcnac from udp-glcnac to the man-alpha(1,6)-man branch of the same glycan, were expressed and partially purified. gnt i was tested in an enzymic reaction that yielded a homogeneous sample of the tetrasaccharide, d-mannose-alpha(1,6)-[n-acetyl-d-glucosamine-beta(1,2)-d-mannose-alpha(1,6)]beta-o-methyl-d-mannoside, which was structurally characterized by 1d 1h and 13c nmr spectroscopy, and 2d 13c-1h hmqc experiments. the primary goal of this work is to establish reliable methodology for the enzymic synthesis of 13c-labeled oligosaccharides needed for structural studies by nmr spectroscopy.(ii) protein-amadori intermediates, the products of reaction of the primary amino groups of proteins with the acyclic aldehyde form of glucose, gradually convert into several advanced glycation end-products (ages) which lead to nephropathy and many other diseases. the reactive intermediates and advanced glycation end-products have not been fully characterized and mechanisms of their formation remains to be elucidated. protein-amadori can be prepared in vitro from proteins and d-glucose in the presence of pyridoxamine, an intermediate of vitamin b metabolism, which inhibits the formation of glycation endproducts. detailed nmr analysis of spontaneously forming intermediates of the glycation pathway (after the removal of pyridoxamine) can provide valuable information about their chemical identity and kinetics of their formation if suitable isotopically-labeled samples are available. ubiquitin, a small eukaryotic and archaebacterial protein, has been proposed as a model protein to study the formation of advanced glycation end-products because of the limited number of its sugar-exposed lysines and its well-characterized structure. expression of 15n(and 15n/13c)-labeled ubiquitin in e. coli and purification of this protein to homogeneity for the use in nmr studies of protein glycation are presented in this chapter.(iii) one or more molecules of sialic acid (sa) are often found on the terminal non-reducing ends of biologically important oligosaccharides. these sa residues are often attached to the remaining oligosaccharide via alpha-2,3-o-glycosidic bonds. the conformational properties of glycosidic bonds involving sa are difficult to investigate by nmr spectroscopy, but proper isotopic labeling with 13c can improve the situation by making new experimental parameters such as 3jcocc available. the enzyme, alpha-2,3-(n)-sialyltransferase, can be used to install sa onto a growing oligosaccharide chain provided that the substrate, cytidine-5'-monophospho-n-acetylneuraminic acid (cmp-sa), is available. reported here is the enzymic synthesis of cmp-sa catalyzed by cmp-sialic acid synthetase from sialic acid and ctp. this method will be used to prepare 13c-labeled cmp-sa for use in the preparation of labeled sialylated oligosaccharides found in the n-glycan on the fc domain of human igg. the use of a nitrile vibration to measure structure and dynamical properties of complex chemical and biochemical systems with sub-picosecond resolution has been investigated computationally. the nitrile functional group is an interesting candidate for use as a vibrational probe because it has a good infrared absorption coefficient, can be used to monitor hydrogen bonding environments and local electric fields, and it absorbs in an uncluttered region of the infrared spectrum. the calculation of vibrational spectra allows for a direct connection between the atomistic simulations and the observed experimental features. the nitrile stretch infrared absorption line shape was calculated for dilute acetonitrile in water and methanol using a novel optimized quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (oqm/mm) methodology. once the oqm/mm methodology was validated the chemical-exchange two-dimensional infrared spectra of acetonitrile in methanol were computed. these calculations provide new insights on the dynamics of hydrogen bonding in the acetonitrile/methanol mixture. additionally, vibrational frequencies of the nitrile vibration in a cyanylated cysteine residue at a protein-protein interface have been calculated, with the intent of understanding the experimentally observed vibrational stark shift due to the electric field of the interface. biomedical image analysis plays a vital role in disease investigation and computer-aided diagnosis. operations like target object segmentation, and classification are principal tools used in biomedical image study. in medical images, a segmentation task is performed to extract regions of interest from the background. medical image classification is an essential task performed to detect the existence of a target disease. both segmentation and classification are fundamental problems in the medical imaging research area, which can provide insights for quantitative biological research and disease studies.in the last decade, convolutional neural networks (cnns) have achieved much success in biomedical image analysis. however, in most cases, standardized cnn models are used irrespective of the data under consideration. the absence of input data domain-specific knowledge impedes such boilerplate cnns performance and accuracy. since each dataset has its own domain-specific challenges, we believe data-driven approaches can improve model performance.in this dissertation, multiple data-driven approaches are proposed for cnn based biomedical image segmentation and classification models. exploiting domain-specific prior knowledge to improve the model's performance and accuracy is the main objective of this work. specifically, we consider data-driven approaches from three specific directions of segmentation/classification model designing: (1) network architecture, (2) requirement-based modeling, and (3) application driven designing. from a network architecture perspective, we present approaches such as data-driven deep supervision, graph convolution based topology inclusion, and uncertainty driven multi-objective learning. image complexity guided network compression is presented to highlight the benefits of data-driven requirement based modeling for medical image segmentation. finally, on data-driven approaches for application driven designing, we present our framework for the assessment of cnn based methods for vitiligo diagnosis. this dissertation argues for a new interpretation of sydney owenson's national identity and her national tale novels. almost invariably classified as an anglo-irish writer with liberal unionist views, owenson's most famous novel, the wild irish girl (1806), has become the faulty prototype for most scholarly definitions of the national tale genre. giving due attention to her later works, including florence macarthy (1818), manor sackville (1833) and the princess (1835), i explore how owenson's identity is far more complex when taking into account her gaelic-speaking catholic father, her nearly native, gaelic approach to irish history and her move away from using any kind of allegorical marriage plot, unionist or otherwise, in her later writings. i argue that her father's connections to the world of the irish theatre and to the volunteer movement had a major impact on her novels. i also argue that owenson's writings have important implications for the unresolved issues relating to the contemporary political relationships between northern ireland, the republic of ireland and great britain. various synthetic methodologies for preparation of functional polymers with branched architectures by using atom transfer radical polymerization (atrp) of ab* inimers (containing initiator fragment b* and monomer vinyl group a in one molecule) and reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (raft) polymerization of polymerizable chain transfer agents (transmers) are discussed. the target of this body research is mainly focused on development of new methodologies for synthesis of hyperbranched polymers and hyperbranched-star (hyperstar) polymers with controlled structures and site-specific functionalities via controlled radical polymerization (crp) techniques. the main tools used to achieve this goal include controlled radical self-condensing vinyl polymerization (scvp) and chain extension polymerization in solution and heterogeneous microemulsion and seeded emulsion. research progress on the use of radical polymerization to introduce branching points into polymers via crp methods is discussed in the introductory chapter. chapter 2 describes the application of microemulsion and seeded emulsion to produce core-shell structured hyperstar polymers in a one-pot process with activators generated by electron transfer (aget) atrp technique without worrying about the hyperstar-hyperstar coupling reactions. chapter 3 presents the synthesis of high-molecular-weight hyperbranched polymers (mn ~106) via raft polymerization through copper-catalyzed trithiocarbonate transmer. chapter 4 discusses a facile approach for successful synthesis of hyperbranched polymers with high molecular weight and uniform structure by a one-pot polymerization of transmers initiated using copper catalyst in a microemulsion. this dissertation investigates twenty-eight instances of praise of god in luke-acts by combining a close, intrinsic reading with extrinsic, comparative study. part one overviews praise of god in selected early jewish literature and greek texts and analyzes it as a narrative motif in tobit and joseph and aseneth. part two focuses on luke-acts, in comparison with the findings of part one. the analysis concludes that praise of the divine is a distinct, identifiable phenomenon regardless of form. in ancient discourse, praise is a mark of human righteousness and humility; acknowledges divine providence; responds to spiritual renewal; and narrates the action of deity. ancient discourse on praise corresponds with how praise appears in the three narratives, which have numerous points of contacts among them. in tobit, praise responds to divine activity related to healing and revelation; in joseph and aseneth, to conversion and revelation; and in luke-acts, to healing, conversion, and revelation. in all three narratives, praise responses by characters introduce and resolve narrative tensions; mark climactic moments in the plots; show recognition of divine beneficence; interpret characters' experiences as paradigmatic for their communities; and to varying degrees, link these experiences with expectations about israel's eschatological restoration. in luke-acts, characters' praise responses acknowledge four key moments in the divine visitation as it unfolds in the plot in surprising but purposeful ways. such responses also fulfill prophetic expectations that joyous praise would greet eschatological salvation. vigorous praise responds first to angelic revelation, builds in response to healing miracles, and reaches a climax as jesus approaches jerusalem. but the moment jesus enters the city, praise responses fall silent, creating a central narrative tension. but praise resumes immediately upon jesus' death, building momentum again in response to revelation about jesus' resurrection and to a representative healing early in acts. the context for praise then shifts to scenes of gentile conversions, which are narrated in the same pattern as healing miracles. finally, praise is heard on the outskirts of rome, marking the movement of the divine visitation from jerusalem outward to the ends of the earth. the impact of the landscape, especially a complex, anthropogenic landscape, on wildlife populations is substantial, influencing reproductive success and fitness, dispersal ability, pathogen exposure risk, resource availability, and ultimately, population success. on the island of bali, humans shape their environment and the environment of populations of long-tailed macaques. here, i examine how this long-term anthropogenic alteration to the landscape affects the population structure and pathogen transmission patterns of 15 populations of long-tailed macaques. first, the environment of bali is analyzed and partitioned into 3 major components the anthropogenic, the mixed environment, and the non-anthropogenic components. using traditional parasitological techniques, i show that the anthropogenic landscape is significant in determining the pattern of pathogen success of both individual parasite species and the community of gut parasites. next, genotyping and subsequent analysis of the landscape genetics across macaque populations reveals the anthropogenic landscape as a significant driver in shaping the population structure of macaques, serving as a force of both homogenization and fragmentation. finally, in an effort to understand the effects of this anthropogenic landscape on dispersal patterns and pathogen transmission potentials, an agent-based model was developed and tested, with which it was determined that landscape complexity is significant in determining host dispersal and is a significant barrier to between-population transmission of highly virulent pathogens. while it is clear that the landscape is important to wildlife population connectivity, this research demonstrates the significance of humans, as a landscape component and developer, in shaping the ecology of the macaque. allopregnanolone is a neurosteroid and reduced progesterone metabolite synthesized in the nervous system of vertebrates. allopregnanolone is an antiepileptic, anxiolytic, mood elevating drug and emerging as a therapeutic choice for neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders. allopregnanolone modulates neuronal functions via both nongenomic and genomic mechanisms. however, the genomic effects of allopregnanolone are poorly understood. allopregnanolone also alters various behavior patterns including learning and memory but the mechanisms involved beyond this largely remain unknown. in amphibian brains, synthesis of various neurosteorids is well established, however the endogenous synthesis of 5 alpha and 5 alpha-3 alpha reduced neurosteroids such as allopregnanolone, thdoc and androstanediol, in amphibian brain is not demonstrated yet. the studies in this project include three main objectives. first, we examined the global genomic effects of allopregnanolone on neuroendocrine circuits using amphibian (xenoups laevis) brain. second, we studied the role of allopregnanolone on intracellular signaling mechanisms of synaptic plasticity--a basic conserved cellular mechanism underlying learning and memory formation. third, we studied the expression and localization patterns of mrna encoding steroidogenic enzymes that are involved in 5 alpha and 5 alpha-3alpha reduced neurosteroid synthesis in amphibian brain. to study the global genomic effects of allopregnanolone, isolated in vitro brains were treated with micromolar doses of allopregnanolone. using microarray technology and bioinformatic tools, we identified novel regulatory roles for allopregnanolone on various neuroendocrine and neurotransmitter circuits at the transcript level. allopregnanolone regulated several critical transcription factors and genes involved in the neuronal cell cycle, differentiation, development, neurite growth, axon guidance, cytoskeletal remodeling, neurodegeneration and inflammatory processes. to identify the potential role of allopregnanolone on intracellular signaling mechanisms of synaptic plasticity, isolated in vitro brains were treated with a wide range of allopregnanolone doses with or without an nmda receptor blocker. allopregnanolone regulated the molecular signaling components implicated in cerebellar longterm depression, fear conditioned plasticity and bidirectional synaptic plasticity. as a third project, in situ hybridization and reverse transcription pcr studies demonstrated that expression of mrna encoding the steroidogenic enzymes srd5a1, srd5a3 and akr1c2 is wide spread across the amphibian brain. the localization patterns of mrna suggests a possible functional role of 5 alpha and (or) 5 alpha-3 alpha reduced neurosteroids in olfaction, multimodal sensory integration, auditory communication and neuroendocrine systems of amphibians. the expression of mrna encoding srd5a3 enzyme, a novel isoform of 5 alpha reductase, suggests that it may be involved in the synthesis of 5&#945; dht in the brain, apart from peripheral androgenic targets. regime shifts refer to sudden changes in the structure and function of a system due to forces from external disturbances. such shifts occur because the system has alternative stable states and external disturbances force the system's operating point to shift from one stable state to another. examples of regime shifts include the collapse of coastal fisheries as a result of human-induced nutrient enrichment and the voltage collapse in power network due to variations in storm frequency or user demand. due to such undesired consequences, there is a great challenge in finding methods to forecast their occurrence. the work presented in this thesis addresses this challenge using techniques from polynomial optimization. we first identify two mechanisms by which regime shifts may occur and then formulate some real-valued quantities that can be used as indicators of how close a system is to each type of regime shifts. the first regime shift mechanism will be referred to as bifurcation-induced regime shifts and it occurs because variation in the system's parameters exceeds a critical threshold and forces the system's equilibria to undergo a bifurcation. we use a quantity known as the minimum distance to bifurcation as a measure of how close a system is to this type of regime shift and then formulate polynomial optimization problems that can be used to compute the global minimum of this quantity. we show that by using techniques from algebraic geometry and polynomial optimization, the computation of this quantity in a class of nonnegative systems with kinetic realizations can be simplified. the second regime shift mechanism will be referred to as noise-induced regime shifts and it occurs because the underlying system has multiple stable equilibria and external stochastic disturbances drive the system's state from the region of attraction (roa) of one stable equilibrium to the roa of an alternative stable equilibrium. we use probabilistic quantities called mean first passage times and safety probability to characterize the expected time and the likelihood for this type of regime shifts to occur. we also formulate polynomial optimization problems that can be used to compute upper bounds for these quantities. in an article for the january 1864 edition of macmillan's magazine, charles kingsley accused the catholic church of being an arbiter of falsehoods. what would prove to be the most critical line is a direct attack against the famous catholic convert, john henry newman, saying "truth, for its own sake, had never been a virtue with the roman clergy." to refute both kingsley's accusation and prejudice against the catholic church, newman published his autobiography, the apologia pro vita sua. but, the apologia occupies an unusual position in the canon of newman's works. while it is one of newman's most famous works, some think that it was not written well, others that it is a dry text when compared to his rhetorical polemics, or that newman did not adequately refute kingsley's accusations, thus obscuring the literary accomplishments of the text. further, some like martin svaglic argue that the apologia is not an autobiography, while others like linda peterson argue that its place among victorian autobiographies is firm. this thesis will argue that the perceived dryness of the text rests less in the book itself so much as it is a result of a misconception of the book's genre. by focusing on the titles that newman gives the text, both the latin translation of its common title, a defense of one's life, and the title given in the 1865 edition, a history of my religious opinions, newman frames the text as something more than just an autobiography. this thesis will argue that the apologia, along with being an autobiography, is also a defense of newman's life, and as such newman treats the text as a trial in the court of public opinion. further, newman's use of the word "history" rather than "autobiography" implies his understanding of the necessity to read his own life through the appropriate generic lens. by expanding our considerations of the text's genre, we might then ease some of the tension between its recognized importance and anomalous position within newman's corpus and within a larger literary framework. this repositioning enables an understanding of the text as a response to a general prejudice against him and his religion. this dissertation considers the idea of medieval anglo-scandinavian england as explored in artistic and literary remains dating from the immediate post-conquest period up through the fourteenth century. social and literary histories treating this era typically focus on anglo-norman relations, leaving unexplored the fact that this period, following hard upon the heels as it did of centuries of viking conquest, settlement, and rule, was still alive with the idea of anglo-scandinavian england. alongside literary criticism, this study makes use of tools from music and art history and social linguistics to explore multiple possible social identities that existed in post-conquest england. passing from overtly scandinavian artifacts like runes and the living use of norse language itself, the study considers artistic representations of the vikings in visual media that provide evidence of diachronic development in representations of the anglo-scandinavian other along with shifting views of the anglo-scandinavian past. this reuse and repurposing of anglo-scandinavian materials and the demonstrably-continued historical influence of these on the religion, art, and politics of the later medieval england illustrate that elements of society and life conditioned by events and habits from the anglo-scandinavian period continued to influence post-conquest english society. the evidence explored in this dissertation suggests that, far from forgetting anglo-scandinavian england, post-conquest authors and artists working in the twelfth and even thirteenth centuries continually reimagined this history in countless ways. finally, i argue that despite demonstrable literary and artistic links between the anglo-norse period and late medieval culture and literature, no substantiatable idea of anglo-scandinavian social identity survived into the early modern period, despite later modern claims of nationalistic norse-english racial identity. this dissertation has three separate research projects. the first project proposes a mechanism that would explain why hybridization is so prevalent in oaks (quercus) which hybridize freely within the same botanical section. hybrid zones do not usually form, and the hybrids are fertile and capable of backcrossing. due to its prevalence and lack of species barriers closing between species, we propose that hybridization must yield some fitness advantage or benefit to the parent species. we test this by subjecting a population of progeny seedlings from three species (quercus bicolor, q. macrocarpa, and q. robur) and two hybrids (q. x schuettei (q. bicolor x q. macrocarpa) and q. x warei (q. robur x q. macrocarpa)) to a severe drought test in a greenhouse. our data shows that while under severe drought conditions the hybrids survive better than both or one of its parent species. under normal conditions they hybrids are as fit as or less fit than the parent species. we use these data to inform a basic drought model testing whether the results we observe could create an episodic hybrid advantage when following historical drought cycles in june in missouri (1895-2018). we term this the hybrid episodic advantage theory (heat).the next data chapter is aimed at developing a panel of ancestry informative markers to differentiate the ancestry of the many cultivated chestnuts in production today. most chestnut species are able form fertile hybrids with each other. american chestnut (castanea dentata) populations were decimated in the early 20th century by chestnut blight (cryphonectria parasitica (murrill) barr) which rendered the species ecologically extinct. various unsuccessful breeding efforts have taken place attempting to create a blight-resistant mostly-american chestnut and reintroduce it back into its native environment. however, years of uncontrolled hybridization in cross-species orchards and chestnut-blight resistance breeding programs have resulted in a myriad of cultivars with unknown genetic background. we aim to solve this issue by developing a set of genetic markers that can be used to cheaply screen the recent ancestry of any chestnut tree. we generated these genetic markers by harvesting est-ssr sequences from publicly available transcriptomic data. we worked with arborbiosciences to create a target-capture platform to sequence hundreds of est-ssr markers in parallel.the final data chapter revolves around adding est-ssr markers to a previously constructed snp-based genetic map for a mapping population of 282 full-sibs in black walnut (juglans nigra). these markers were developed using the target-capture technology used in chapter 3 for 61 of the 282 individuals. in total, 54 markers were added to the linkage map. more are expected to map as more individuals are sequenced later this year. juglans species exhibit a high degree of collinearity, so a well-constructed map in juglans nigra will be useful in juglans regia and other species.overall, these projects will add significant resources to their respective communities and can provide long term benefits beyond the scope of this dissertation. nanoporous aluminum oxide films were synthesized and used as the templates to form nanostructured materials. in this work, gold nanowire arrays were formed by this template synthesis method involving electroand electroless depositions. the applications of both nanoporous aluminum oxide films and gold nanowire arrays to biosensors have been explored for the detection of hydrogen ion and e.coli bacteria. electrochemical transduction strategies, including electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (eis) and equilibrium potential measurements were applied. preliminary experimental results showed that the combination of nanostructured materials and bioarchitecture improved the immobilization of the biological sensing components and the sensitivity of the biosensors. for the hydrogen ion sensor, a linear calibration curve between the sensor output signal and the logarithmic concentration of hydrogen ion precursor was obtained in the concentration range from 10-5 m to 10-2 m. for the e.coli senor, the attachment of every 50 e.coli cells on the surface can be detected by eis. in order to understand the effect of the nano-scaled structure of the substrates on the performance of biosensors, electrochemical studies of the adsorption of 1-dodecanethiol on gold substrates with different morphologies were carried out. the adsorption kinetics and the ordering of the adsorbed monolayer of 1-dodecanethiol were studied by electrochemical methods, including cyclic voltammetry (cv), chronoamperometry, and eis. it was found that the binding of 1-dodecanethiol contained a fast adsorption step followed by a relatively slow reorganization process. the nano-sized structure affected the ordering of the thiol monolayer by a spatial confinement effect and influenced the electrochemical measurements by changing the electrode-electrolyte interfacial properties. in this thesis, i revisit the question of aristotelian influences on plotinus' thought, but mediated by alexander of aphrodisias. this methodological choice was guided by porphyry's comments in the life of plotinus, to the effect that aristotle's metaphysics is condensed in plotinus' writings, and that plotinus studied alexander's commentaries. i proceed on the understanding that plotinus was influenced not simply by aristotle, but by aristotle as interpreted by alexander. i focus on two interrelated areas. the first is the role of dialectic in philosophy. i argue that according to alexander, dialectic is the primary part of philosophic practice and thus used throughout aristotle's writings. demonstration proceeds by deduction from first principles. but first principles are approached by way of aporiai and dialectic. dialectic is the way up to first principles, the way of discovery, only after which can one have properly demonstrable knowledge. for the aristotelians, dialectic is guided and structured by the principle of non-contradiction. for plotinus, too, dialectic is central to philosophy. but he rejects the peripatetic claim that dialectic is ultimately guided by the pnc. for plotinus, the aristotelian treatment of dialectic is consequent upon a failure to fully understand the highest metaphysical principles. plotinus argues that the pnc must be abandoned if one is to have contemplative knowledge of the first causes, since the highest principles transcend the pnc, resulting in a substantially different conception of dialectic. the first principle of thought and being are unified by plotinus in the divine intellect. the second subject discussed is the nature and causal role of the divine intellect. alexander famously took the productive intellect from de anima to be identical with the divine intellect of the metaphysics. he attempts to explain the actualization of the human intellect by reference to the divine intellect but struggles to explain this causal role. i argue that plotinus responds to the peripatetic account of the divine intellect, answering the problems raised by alexander's interpretative approach. the peripatetics failed to understand that the divine intellect is neither the simplest nor the highest principle, and that the intelligibles must be in the divine intellect. many arctic fishes and polar terrestrial arthropods have evolved unique adaptive mechanisms as responses to frigid environments. anti-freeze proteins (afps) can either prevent freezing by lowering the freezing point of internal fluids or (in combination with ice-nucleation proteins) reduce the damage by inhibiting recrystallization and stabilizing the cell membrane. in this thesis, i will present my research results on a computational study of beetle anti-freeze protein, specifically dendroides canadensis afp (dafp). molecular dynamics (md) simulation is a powerful technique for theoretical calculation which complements ongoing experimental efforts. openmd, a robust and efficient simulation package developed in my group, was utilized to investigate the mechanism of dafp binding to the growth planes of ice-ih. in order to sample the whole space, an orientational restraint was applied to drive the dafp smoothly through the desired coordinates. finally, weighted histogram analysis method (wham) was utilized to generate free energy profiles. nanostructure intrinsically possesses large interface area to volume ratios at nanoscale that gives rise to many amazing properties differing from their macroscopic behaviors. this thesis addresses two interfacial phenomena at nanoscale: the taylor cone of electrospray and stick-slip dynamics of confined liquid. 1.the conducting taylor cone can activate specified harmonics of laplace equation near the cone and can generate field maxima at multiple discrete polar angles. these harmonics are verified by nanocolloids electrospray. the nanocolloid ejected along the discrete electric field lines of these mode maxima and observed to deposit a universal spectrum of rings on an intersecting plane. 2.different size nanocolloid selects different harmonics resulting in the size-dependent separation. a scaling theory that collapses the binary nanocolloid spatial distribution suggests that the nanocolloid-controlled rayleigh fission cascade asymptotes towards a distinct size-sensitive charge and trajectory due to a balance between axial electrophoresis and coulombic radial repulsion. 3.a rapid electrospray-nanocolloid based platform for simultaneous docking and detection of dna/rna/biomarker is developed. as the hybridization of the target ssdna or biomarker docking onto a nanocolloid can increase its surface charge and particle size significantly. this causes hybridized or biomarker docked nanocolloids select different harmonics and deposit on a single line or single band different from ones without the molecular target. furthermore, the in-situ hybridization or docking is verified in the electrospray-bead based platform. it is a distinguish advantage of this technique which shortens the detection time significantly. 4.a mesoscopic continuum model with local lattice resolution quantitatively reproduces the stick-slip dynamics of a solid mass (cylinder) connected laterally to a stationary restoring spring and separated from a translating substrate by two monolayers of lubricating liquid. key to the model is that liquid molecules can reversibly condense onto the solid with a corresponding jump in the film viscosity, which is estimated with kramer's molecular activated transport theory. the transitions between the "melted" and condensed phases are determined by viscous drag and the viscosity jump stipulates a hysteretic phase transition with respect to the substrate velocity. this hysteresis couples with the restoring spring force to produce stick-slip dynamics and with premature melting due to cylinder inertia to generate two-frequency oscillations. the rapid-neutron capture process (r-process) is attributed as the source of nearly half the elements heavier than iron in the solar system. the astrophysical scenario responsible is still unknown, making the specific astrophysical conditions uncertain. to gain insight into the r-process nucleosynthesis, uncertainties in the nuclear properties of the involved isotopes must be minimized. the r-process path traverses nuclei far from stability through many isotopes which have not yet been produced in the laboratory. this forces astrophysical models to rely heavily upon theoretical models of the involved nuclear physics. to help constrain parameters used in both astrophysical and nuclear models, an experiment was performed to measure properties of neutron-rich nuclei just below the n=82 shell closure. these nuclei are believed to be responsible for production of the a=130 peak in the solar r-process abundance pattern. the first measurements of &#946;-decay half-lives and neutron branching ratios, pn values, were performed for neutron-rich isotopes of palladium and silver. scanning tunneling microscopy was used to investigate the dynamics of gas/surface reactions as they take place on the molecular scale. experiments between atomic hydrogen and an au(111) surface functionalized with a 1-adamantanethiolate self-assembled monolayer resulted in signicant evidence that the reconstruction of the gold during monolayer formation is dependent on the thiolate molecule density on the surface. reactions have also been completed between atomic chlorine and 1-octanethiolate monolayers, we believe, based on a number of methodologies used to quantify the products, that atomic chlorine is more than five times more likely to react in bulk ordered ares of the monolayer than at defect sites. further, we have determined that, while chlorination and sulfur abstraction does occur over extended dose times, the principle reaction pathway is likely hydrogen abstraction followed by the recombination of surface radicals, leading to an extensively cross-linked surface. increasing the throughput of instrumentation already present in the lab has been a major goal. a high-voltage supply capable of supplying 280 v to the tunnel junction has been constructed to make in vacuum tip changes possible. an electrochemical tip etcher has been built and used to prepare sharp spm tips with a reproducible etched length to apex diameter aspect ratio, and a novel thermoelectrically cooled stm was constructed that will go on to allow the lab to complete thermally activated reaction studies in a controlled environment. further, we have designed and developed a new ultra-high vacuum, cryogenically cooled stm capable of reevaluating the reactions between h atoms and thiolate sams previously completed in the lab, but now, at low-temperature. this will hopefully allow us to further elucidate the kinetics of chemical reactions taking place at surfaces on the molecular level. the partitioned global address space (pgas) model has emerged as a promising abstraction for programming large-scale systems. in pgas, threads share a common heap address space, which may in reality be partitioned and distributed across independent memories. concurrency control mechanisms are thus required to ensure threads see each other's updates in a consistent manner. the real challenge in building such mechanisms is that the memory locations that need to be updated in an atomic fashion may reside in different memory partitions. in this dissertation, we develop solutions based on software-based transactional memory (stm) mechanisms to address the programmability and performance aspects of this challenging problem. stm mechanisms primarily guarantee that transactions, i.e. code sequences that access shared state, either execute as a single atomic operation or retry their operation in case such guarantees cannot be provided. this dissertation makes the following contributions: first, we showcase the programmability benefits of providing language support for atomic transactions over lock-based approaches. second, we develop first-of-its-kind compiler techniques for mapping these high-level language constructs to low-level stm designs. third, we develop stm runtime implementations that not only guarantee correctness for concurrently executing transactions, but does so in an efficient manner. for instance, we demonstrate for the first time how stm procedures can be implemented in a non-blocking manner, and use them to overlap computation and communication within a transaction. in general, we demonstrate the feasibility of these techniques by implementing them in chapel, a parallel programming language being developed by cray inc. as part of darpa's hpcs program, and gasnet, a runtime library that implements the pgas abstraction. overall, we show that stm implementations can be scaled to hundreds (if not thousands) of nodes executing tens of thousands of threads, while exhibiting performance that exceeds, if not just matches, the performance of lock-based approaches. the consequences of legal offending and involvement in the criminal justice system are significant and well-established. research published to date has important implications for understanding the underlying causes behind the perpetration of criminal activity; however, the current body of research is inconclusive and suffers from a lack of integration. for example, though childhood adversity and personality pathology have both been linked to legal offending in numerous studies, there is little research examining these three domains in conjunction. in this study, i investigated the relations among childhood adversity, personality pathology, and adult antisocial behavior to attempt to elucidate the complex pathways that lead to antisocial behavior and legal offending. the study included a wide range of adverse childhood experiences and antisocial behaviors and also used a trait-based dimensional framework of personality pathology, which has many advantages over the categorical models that have been used in most previous studies.aces and antisocial behavior were generally associated, but individual experiences and domains of antisocial behavior evidenced patterns that were not apparent when they were characterized as single constructs. similarly, personality dimensions showed differential relations with antisocial behavior and aces. personality pathology partially mediated the relation between aces and antisocial behavior, but personality did not mediate the relation between most pairs of specific variables. although most of the proposed mediation models were not significant, the results have important clinical implications and suggest directions for future research. husbands' gender role conflict is related to wives' mental and marital adjustment. husbands' withdrawal is also associated with wives' dysphoria and marital adjustment. this study investigated whether husbands' withdrawal is related to their gender role conflict. the study also examined whether withdrawal moderates the relationship between husbands' gender role conflict and wives' dysphoria and marital adjustment. 150 married couples participated in 10-minute marital interactions that were videotaped and coded for each spouse's demand/withdraw behavior. other constructs of interest were assessed via self-report. two aspects of gender role conflict -restricted emotionality and restricted affectionate behavior between men -were associated with husbands' withdrawal. husbands' withdrawal also moderated the association between gender role conflict and wives' marital adjustment. implications of results are discussed. although modern economics has much of value to say about markets, it sets aside the ethical questions raised by the market economy such as materialism or economic injustice. theologians anxious to take up ethical concerns raised by market outcomes accordingly tend to dismiss economics, but thereby lose access to the genuine insights economists have into the workings of markets and the influence of incentives on individual behavior. this dissertation argues that the thought of st. thomas aquinas can help us overcome the resulting impasse. for aquinas, economic concerns cannot be meaningfully separated from ethical concerns, but at the same time his framework can accommodate many of the genuine insights of economists. the first two chapters of the dissertation explore the impasse between theologians and economists. the first argues that theologians encounter difficulties when they attempt to criticize markets without first developing their own systematic account of human behavior. to develop a meaningful account of economic justice requires an account of the role economic goods play in a good human life. the second defends economists' model of human behavior as rational choice against na&#207;ve critiques, but argues that their model is not as value-neutral as they believe. the third chapter develops aquinas's account of human happiness, with an emphasis on its connection to his metaphysics and the implications it has for the exercise of practical reason. i demonstrate that the rational choice model would not be suitable in such a world, and that there are compelling reasons to take aquinas's richer account of practical reason seriously. the fourth develops the argument that economic goods are properly ordered by reason, with the crucial conclusion that our desire for material goods is properly bounded. these chapters offer an account of why economists' models of human behavior are plausible, yet inadequate. the final chapter uses aquinas's account of private property to link his views about proper consumption to questions of economic justice. aquinas's nuanced views on private property accommodate the insights of economists about the role of markets and incentives, while still ordering economic goods to the virtues, including the virtue of economic justice. motivated by the abundance and ubiquity of functionally modular systems in the real world, we propose a novel way of quantifying functional modularity of a system to analyze the source of functional modules. because of its abundance, understanding how modular structures emerge can help us build better and more useful systems. also, the ubiquity of modular structure should not be a coincidence because it is observed all over the places ranging from biological systems like humans to conceptual systems like computer programs. we want to find under what conditions such functional modules emerge. the knockout analysis described in this dissertation is a model independent method of measuring each component's importance and specialization. it allows us to quantify functional modularity of a system in terms of functional specialization of individual components. we find that modular structures are observed in almost all multitasking systems, except in extreme cases where the tasks are almost similar to each other. with a deeper investigation on the source of modular structures, we find that task dissimilarity plays a crucial role in formation of modules. furthermore, functional modules emerge naturally from multitasking systems because specialized components are extremely more probable to form than multitasking components. why has the institutional u.s. army changed since the end of the cold war? there is evidence that supports existing scholarly arguments that the civilian leaders caused important changes, which authors like barry posen (1984) and graham allison and philip zelikow (1999) expect. while analyzing changes in army officers' personnel, education, and training systems, however, the preponderance of the evidence strongly suggests that the army is changing itself--when it does change--providing further support to stephen peter rosen (1991) and williamson murray and allan millett (1996). however, evidence suggests there are limits to what the army will change itself, absent a change in its culture or priorities of its elite. both shifts occurred during this study's time period: while evolving gradually throughout the 1990s, after experiencing difficulties in iraq, the institutional army transformed itself in ways that fundamentally changed the experiences for those involved. this dissertation primarily tests four internal, three external, two u.s. army specific cultural, and three organizational theory explanations for why organizations in general, and the u.s. army specifically, has and has not changed from 1991-2007. i focus specifically on changes in the officer personnel management system and the officer evaluation report; the three army combat training centers california, louisiana, and germany; and the u.s. military academy at west point and the u.s. army war college at carlisle barracks. the evidence supports six important and cross-cutting findings. first, civilians are not fixing the military, even when problems arose. second, despite its hierarchical structure, leadership priority and consensus were both critical in the army making voluntary changes. third, despite the oft-repeated claim by posen (1984) and allison and zelikow (1999), there was overwhelming evidence that the army changed itself without first failing. fourth, evidence was less supportive of the institutional army's willingness to incorporate experiential lessons that countered its culture. during this time period, it consistently prioritized changing itself in expectation of future threats. fifth, major changes often occurred outside of bureaucratic constraints, in part because these changes to the formal systems were so difficult to make. finally, there were real limits to the changes the army could voluntarily make. this dissertation concludes with specific institutional recommendations for civilian and military leaders and scholars to help continue the major changes being implemented since 2005-06. the objective in crashworthiness design is to generate plastically deformable energy absorbing structures which can satisfy the prescribed force-displacement (fd) response. the fd behavior determines the reaction force, displacement and the internal energy that the structure should withstand. however, attempts to include this requirement in structural optimization problems remain scarce. the existing commercial optimization tools utilize models under static loading conditions because of the complexities associated with dynamic/impact loading. due to the complexity of a crash event and the consequent time required to numerically analyze the dynamic response of the structure, classical methods (i.e., gradient-based and direct) are not well developed to solve this undertaking. this work presents an approach under the framework of the hybrid cellular automaton (hca) method to solve the above challenge. the hca method has been successfully applied to nonlinear transient topology optimization for crashworthiness design. in this work, the hca algorithm has been utilized to develop an efficient methodology for synthesizing shell-based sheet metal structures with optimal material thickness distribution under a dynamic loading event using topometry optimization. this method utilizes the cellular automata (ca) computing paradigm and nonlinear transient finite element analysis (fea) via ls-dyna. in this method, a set field variables is driven to their target states by changing a convenient set of design variables (e.g., thickness). these rules operate locally in cells within a lattice that only know local conditions. the field variables associated with the cells are driven to a setpoint to obtain the desired structure. this methodology is used to design for structures with controlled energy absorption with specified buckling zones. the peak reaction force and the maximum displacement are also constrained to meet the desired safety level according to passenger safety regulations. design for prescribed fd response by minimizing the error between the actual response and desired fd curve is implemented. with the use of hca rules, manufacturability constraints (e.g., rolling) and structures which can be manufactured by special techniques, such as, tailor-welded blanks (twb), have also been implemented. this methodology is applied to shock-absorbing structural components for passengers in a crashing vehicle. these results are compared to previous designs showing the benefits of the method introduced in this work. effective computer security is highly dependent upon the behavior of the end-user. 50 participants analyzed five themes of computer security messages in an attempt to determine which theme(s) were the most effective in encouraging end-users to make sound security decisions and adopt safe security practices. several findings stood out. regret and morality messages were the least likely to influence change based on their memorability, believability, persuasiveness, and actionability. next, incentive messages performed at an intermediate level with respect to these change factors. finally, deterrent and feedback messages performed well in terms of influencing change, with feedback messages unexpectedly performing the best. it is recommended that future research explore ways to enhance the memorability of all message types, improve the believability and persuasiveness of incentive messages, and unpack what it is about feedback messages that makes them effective. the latter work might well focus on the normative aspects of feedback. we have seen an unprecedented expansion of technology in our daily lives in past decades. however, we still far from idealized future when intelligent systems are part of our quotidian life. as they directly operate in the physical world, they must achieve high-level task specifications with performance guarantees. much recent progress towards this goal has been made through an automatic controller synthesis from temporal logic specifications. existing approaches, however, have been limited to relatively short and simple specifications. furthermore, existing methods generally require conservative assumptions and do not scale well with system dimensionality. to promote long-term autonomy for these intelligent systems, our research focus on two main aspects: taskable and adaptive.taskable intelligent systems can interpret and plan tasks from high-level instructions and execute actions which can adapt to a particular context in which the system is operating. hence, we propose a scalable, provably complete algorithm that synthesizes continuous trajectories to satisfy non-convex temporal logic specifications. we separate discrete task planning and continuous motion planning on-the-fly and harness highly efficient boolean satisfiability (sat) and trajectory optimization solvers to find dynamically feasible trajectories that satisfy non-convex specifications for high-dimensional systems. the proposed design algorithms are proven sound and complete, and simulation results demonstrate our approach's scalability. adaptive intelligent systems are aware of their capabilities and limitations to overcome uncertainties and learn from their own experiences from observation, planning accordingly. thus, we propose a framework for scalable task and motion planning in uncertain environments that combines the best of belief-space planning and symbolic control. specifically, we provide a counterexample-guided-inductive-synthesis algorithm for the robust satisfaction of probabilistic signal temporal logic (prstl) specifications in the belief space. our method automatically generates actions that improve confidence in a belief state when necessary, thus using active perception to satisfy prstl specifications. this dissertation constructs and analyzes a theory for why islamic religious leaders choose to form political parties in some muslim-majority countries, but not others. it particularly focuses on the choice of prominent islamic leaders either to engage directly in the political process through party formation or to operate as powerful non-partisan interest group players. i argue that islamic parties form when the country's initial electoral transition is dominated by an authoritarian power and when the country has historic examples of indigenous islamic rule. the former point is important for two reasons. first, islamic leaders are more likely to form parties when there is limited space for civil society so as to secure a degree of influence in the political process. second, because of the lack of space for civil society, islamic leaders are often the only ones with a strong grassroots network since social and political life in mosques is generally less constrained than in other parts of civil society, so islamic leaders often feel an obligation (and see an opportunity) to organize a strong opposition party. a history of islamic rule' by which i mean having an indigenous government led by islamic religious leaders or governed under islamic law' is important because it provides islamic leaders with a historical precedent to legitimate islamic party formation. i also examine the role of anti-islamic regime behavior in motivating the islamic opposition. while my research concurs with the literature that anti-islamic regime behavior plays an important role in pushing islamic leaders to mobilize opposition, i show that this opposition does not directly lead them to form political parties. finally, i keep the role of individual political agency at the center of my analysis throughout. my theory draws on the existing literature and on my process tracing of the cases of algeria and mali, as well as on field research conducted in egypt, mali and senegal. i conclude the project by carrying out a comparative historical analysis of a larger sample of muslim-majority countries to analyze the theory's plausibility, demonstrating that the theory applies across a broad sample of cases. this work examines and improves the efficiency of numerical modeling of tides, storm surge and associated flooding on unstructured meshes. unstructured meshes composed of triangles are frequently used for numerical simulations of the coastal ocean because they can resolve the large gap in horizontal length scales necessary for accurate simulations of total water levels. however, the accuracy and the associated computational expense of the mesh are in direct conflict, which makes the mesh development process challenging. a comprehensive approach to automatically build sophisticated planar triangulations (meshes) is developed in a toolkit called oceanmesh2d. in this software, resolution is controlled via functions of seabed data and shoreline geometry. the most challenging step of simplifying the shoreline boundary in the mesh is made automatic with a sequence of mesh improvement strategies. the main result is that seamless regional and global modeling systems can be built in minutes to hours automatically and approximately reproducibly.the toolkit is used to investigate the design of unstructured mesh resolution and its impact on the modeling of barotropic tides along the united states coastlines. the key findings indicate that pre-existing mesh designs that use uniform resolution along the shoreline and slowly varying resolution sizes on the continental shelf inefficiently discretize the computational domain. instead, targeting resolution in narrow geometric features and along large topographic gradients and estuarine channels, while aggressively relaxing resolution elsewhere, leads to an efficient mesh design with an order of magnitude fewer vertices than a reference solution with comparable tidal accuracy (~3% harmonic elevation amplitudes).lastly, coastal ocean models with overland floodplains induce computational workload imbalances because dry elements incur zero computational cost. a capability to evenly distribute computational work dynamically as floodplain regions wet and dry during the passage of a storm is developed for the advanced circulation model. the approach is based on partitioning the decomposition of the mesh during run time so that the that the computational load is determined by the degrees of freedom in wetted areas. i demonstrate that the implementation has a low overhead cost and speed-ups of 10-45\% can be achieved for real world coastal flooding simulations in this project i have explored the moral significance of inequalities of income and wealth through an historical examination of the roman catholic and the quaker traditions' definitions, interpretations, and analyses of economic inequality. one of my concerns has been to enhance the moral force of arguments against increasing inequality (or stated positively, to enhance the moral arguments for relative economic equality). as sources for moral arguments against inequality, i turned to the teaching documents of the roman catholic and quaker branches of christianity. i chose to draw on these two traditions because of their longstanding and visible commitments to working for social justice and also because of the striking differences in their organizational structure. the catholic and quaker traditions turned out to be instructive in an unexpected way &ndash; both evaded the problem of inequalities of income and wealth. while the two traditions evaded the particular problem of inequality of income and wealth, both have conceptual resources which can be utilized to mount a vigorous critique of economic inequality both internally and in the public sphere. the resources within the roman catholic tradition that could and should contribute to an ethic of relative economic equality include an egalitarian theological anthropology, the principles of universal destination of goods and the right use of property, the virtue/value of solidarity, the value of participation, and a theology of work. the resources within the quaker tradition that could and should contribute to an ethic of relative economic equality include the testimonies of equality, peace, simplicity, and stewardship as well as quaker decision-making processes and a quaker spirituality of work. in this project, i have been most concerned to show how the traditions can and should generate more internal dialogue about the problem of inequality. i have proposed the development of catholic and quaker theologies of equality as the foundation for robust ethics of relative economic equality. the development of theologies of equality would also, importantly, be an opportunity for and a means to mounting an integrative theo-ethical critique of the interconnected inequalities associated with race, gender, and class. parenting is a difficult social role involving sensitivity towards a child's needs, appropriate limit setting, guidance, and more. attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (adhd) symptoms as well as oppositional defiant (od) and aggressive behaviors create additional challenges for parents, especially if both the parent and child display these symptoms and behaviors. in such cases, parents may experience more emotion dysregulation or stress which may interfere with their ability to provide appropriate discipline. the current study utilized a process-oriented approach to assess the associations of maternal and adolescent adhd symptoms and od and aggressive behaviors with dysfunctional discipline, as well as the mediating roles of maternal emotion dysregulation and stress. an indirect pattern of effects was observed such that maternal adhd symptoms and od behaviors were associated with maternal emotion dysregulation, which was associated with dysfunctional discipline. meanwhile, adolescent adhd symptoms and aggressive behaviors were associated with maternal stress, which was associated with dysfunctional discipline. clinical implications and future directions are discussed. this dissertation is composed of two main topics related to high-temperature high-pressure water radiolysis, the reactions of hexaaquo transition metal ions and radiolysis suppression by hydrogen injection. the introductory chapter provides the fundamental materials of all chapters. chapter 2 investigates 'the divalent-to-monovalent redox potentials of hexaaquo transition metal ions'. the marcus theory of electron transfer has been applied to estimate the redox potentials of hexaaquo transition metal ions. a number of coordination compounds whose redox potentials and self-exchange rate constants are well-established have been used as references. the rate constants for the cross-reactions of the transition metal ions with the selected coordination compounds have been carefully measured by means of pulse radiolysis. the calculation using the marcus cross relation fails to give sensible results. the reasons for this failure are discussed. chapter 3 investigates 'electron transfer in the reactions of hexaaquo transition metal ions with the hydrated electron'. the rate constants for the reactions of divalent hexaaquo transition metal ions with the hydrated electron have been measured. the reaction rates have been found to be affected by the ionic strength of the ionic systems. none of the reactions studied are limited by the diffusion rate of the reacting species. all of the reactions studied exibit the arrhenius behavior at temperatures up to 300oc. the marcus theory has been applied to estimate the range of the reorganization energies of the electron transfer reactions. chapter 4 investigates 'the reactions of hexaaquo transition metal ions: nickel(i) and zinc(i) with radiolytic oxidizing species'. the reactions of the monovalent metal ions with the radiolytic oxidizing species are responsible for the decays of the transient species in pure water. the study in aqueous methanol has revealed that the ni+(aq) ions do not undergo bimolecular disproportionation, whereas, the zn+ (aq) ions decay via this reaction forming metallic zinc with a relatively slow rate constant. applying the smoluchowski equation, it is apparent that all of the reactions studied are not limited by the diffusion of the reactants, one exception being the reaction of ni+(aq) with &#9679;oh radicals at room temperature. the recombination reaction of hydroxymethyl radicals has been investigated as part of the kinetics model used in the aqueous methanol solutions. the high-temperature optical spectra of ni+(aq) , zn+(aq) and &#9679;ch2oh radical have been recorded. chapter 5 investigates 'the critical hydrogen concentration in elevated temperature and supercritical water'. the critical hydrogen concentration (chc) for suppression of water radiolysis has been studied at temperatures up to the supercritical regime in hastelloy and sapphire tubing. the high chc results in hastelloy tubing have suggested that a radiation-induced corrosion process may take place in this material under the experimental conditions. the experimental results obtained from the sapphire system have been used to estimate some rate constants needed for water radiolysis modeling. structurally novel fluorescent molecular imaging probes were evaluated for ability to identify tissue containing dead and dying cells using whole-animal epi-fluorescence imaging and histological analysis. the near-infrared probe, pss-794, with an appended zn2bdpa affinity ligand, was evaluated in both subcutaneous and spontaneous prostate and mammary tumors animal models. in vivo imaging showed that pss-794 had selectively accumulated in all tumors and targeting ratios were twice that of two control fluorophores. ex vivo biodistribution and histological analyses suggest that pss-794 targeted the necrotic regions of the tumors, which is consistent with in vitro microscopy. furthermore, pss-794 detected an increase in tumor cell death due to successful anti-tumor treatment in animal models employing focal beam radiation and chemotherapy. the kinetic and perfusion properties of pss-794 were assessed in two additional models of a cell death: a thymus atrophy mouse model and acute tissue damage model model. uptake of pss-794 in the atrophic thymi was significantly higher than control fluorophore at all time points, and the highest amount of pss-794 accumulation occurred at 42 h after treatment. fluorescent histological analyses of excised thymus tissue confirmed that pss-794 targeted the dead and dying cells within the thymus. the tissue damage study used whole animal fluorescence imaging to visualize pss-794 uptake at the site of injury, which was confirmed by ex vivo and histological analyses. further, a comparative study with a mechanistic similar but larger, fluorescent protein conjugate, annexin v, showed less intense uptake at the site of muscle damage. a preclinical mouse model for traumatic brain injury was adapted to investigate a set of complementary fluorescent imaging probes. using non-invasive whole-body fluorescence imaging, pss-794 permitted visualization of the injury in a living animal. ex vivo imaging and histological analysis confirmed pss-794 localization to site of brain cell death. the non-targeted, deep-red tracer-653 was validated as a tracer dye for monitoring blood-brain-barrier disruption, and a binary mixture of pss-794 and tracer-653 was employed for multicolor imaging of cell death and blood-brain-barrier permeability in a single animal. the imaging data indicated that at three days after brain cryoinjury the amount of cell death had decreased significantly, but the integrity of the blood-brain-barrier was still impaired; at seven days the blood-brain-barrier was still three times more permeable than before cryoinjury. finally, multivalent zn2bdpa were evaluated to determine the whether increasing the number of zn2bdpa ligands enhances cell death imaging. imaging probes consisting of a fluorescent squaraine rotaxane scaffold with either two or four zn2bdpa ligands were developed and their targeting properties were assessed in etoposide-treatedcells. fluorescence microscopy showed that increasing the number zn2bdpa units enabled lower concentrations of probe to be used while retaining high selectivity for dead and dying cells. when tested in three animal models of cell death, the tetra zn2bdpa probe produced higher tt ratios than the analogous bis zn2bdpa probe and an untargeted control fluorophore. an in vivo cold block study using an excess of zn2bdpa inhibited accumulation of both the tetra and bis zn2bdpa probe at the site of cell death. overall, the results in this dissertation indicate that synthetic fluorescent zn2bdpa conjugates are outstanding molecular probes for optical imaging of cell death. group-4 metals (m4+ = zr, ti, hf) anchored on silica and silica-alumina are reported to be active catalysts for ethylene coupling and hydrogenolysis of paraffins to fuel range hydrocarbons. density functional theory (dft) calculations are employed to rationalize their observed activity. we construct atomistic models of metal sites grafted on (111) and (001) surfaces of beta-cristobalite, a silica polymorph. while group-4 ions are isovalently substituted into silica, substitution of al3+ produces more diversity into the reactive site with the introduction of proximal brønsted and lewis acidic sites. we contrast ethylene oligomerization and hydrogenolysis pathways for group-4 ions on silica and al-doped silica to probe the synergistic effect of different acid sites on reaction pathways, including cossee-arlman chain growth and beta-termination mechanisms. microkinetic models parameterized on dft-based rate constants are applied to infer reactivity under experimental conditions and compare predictions with observations. degree of rate control analysis shows that the steps controlling the rates vary across these sites. the approach is extended to examine the role of charge and of partially filled d-orbitals on reaction pathways for similarly constructed ga3+, zn2+, ni2+, co2+ sites on silica. a comprehensive set of reaction pathways, including cossee-arlman, metallacycle, and proton transfer mechanisms proposed in the literature is evaluated to analyze structure activity-relationships. results obtained aid in understanding trends across metal ions and factors governing their activity towards hydrocarbon conversion reactions relevant to today's economy based on oil and increasing production of shale gas. in galatians 3:26-28, paul states: "in christ jesus you are all children of god through faith. as many of you as were baptized into christ have clothed yourselves with christ. there is no longer jew or greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in christ jesus." (nrsv) in this text, paul proclaims an end of ethnic, social and gender inequalities by virtue of baptism into christ. scholarly debate has surrounded the interpretation of these verses. while prior to the middle of the twentieth century this text was understood in a spiritual way without any social consequences, subsequent scholars have understood these verses to proclaim actual, practical social equality. despite the scholarly consensus, paul's letters offer little and contradictory evidence of such practical consequences. this dissertation explores further practical implications of this proclamation, by studying paul's relationship with his associates. this dissertation argues that paul's relationships with these associates were essentially egalitarian. paul expressed such equality through the language of true friendship, and the language of symmetrical fictive kinship relationship (brotherhood and sisterhood). he also employed the language of partnership and egalitarian terms in describing their mission, their role, and their attitude towards the task of evangelization. although paul used the asymmetrical language of patronage and fictive kinship relationships, this usage was secondary to the primary egalitarian expressions of these relationships. these egalitarian relationships offer further evidence of the practical consequences of the proclamation of equality in galatians 3:28. the dissertation is designed to address two basic areas: 1.) the text of the genesis apocryphon; and 2.) the scroll's relationship to jubilees in their analogous accounts of the division of the earth among noah's progeny (genap 16-17//jub 8:11-9:15). the introductory chapter surveys a number of issues dealt with in studies of the genesis apocryphon since its discovery. the designation of the scroll as "rewritten bible" is kept, but qualified. the relationship to genesis is explored, as well as previous claims of authorship by the qumran sect of essenes. the latter is most unlikely. the relationships to 1 enoch, jubilees, and other works from qumran are evident, but prior evidence does not allow a more refined knowledge of their connections. a new transcription, translation, and textual notes (with an apparatus of previous readings) are provided. these incorporate a number of corrections of earlier editions, and many new readings. the background of the division of the earth includes the table of nations from genesis 10 (and other biblical passages), the ionian world map, the broader geographic setting of the genesis apocryphon, and noah's arboreal dream-vision (genap 13-15). an authorial interest in heightening noah's righteousness, stressing his role as divider of the habitable earth, and legitimizing the right of arpachshad's descendents (abram, and later the israelites) to inhabit the levant, or biblical land of canaan, is revealed. a comparison of the earth's division in jubilees and the apocryphon shows that the latter is shorter, simpler, and employs a different ordering scheme. while jubilees follows the biblical arrangement of noah's progeny, the apocryphon lists them directionally. this may suggest that the apocryphon preserves an earlier account than jubilees, but the passages are best seen as dependent on a common cartographic source. several new toponyms are proposed for both texts. based on a reappraisal of its language and comparison to jubilees, the apocryphon is dated to the early-mid second century b.c.e. it is an apocalyptic work concerned with the heavenly "mysteries" and interested in dream interpretation. it was apparently intended to be read alongside and interpret genesis, attesting to the distinctive format of scriptural interpretation during this period. this dissertation contains three essays on housing policy and community development. chapter 1 examines whether a 1992 act that forced fannie mae and freddie mac to purchase loans from underserved populations contributed to the subprime mortgage crisis. chapter 2 examines whether programs that provide housing assistance to homeless people can reduce chronic homelessness. finally, chapter 3 examines whether municipal governments manipulate fiscal policy in election years. the 1992 'gse act' mandated that a specified percentage of fannie mae and freddie mac purchases come from underserved populations. a number of prominent observers have pointed to the gse act as a root cause of the recent housing crisis. chapter 1 evaluates the link between the gse act and relaxed mortgage market standards. using loan application-level data from the home mortgage disclosure act, i analyze whether the gse act's affordable housing goals altered mortgage lending or purchasing decisions. to identify this effect, i use a regression discontinuity design that exploits arbitrary cutoffs used to determine whether a loan satisfies the gse act goals. i find that the gse act's affordable housing goals had little to no effect on mortgage lending or purchasing. additionally, using census tract-level data, i find no relationship between the gse act's affordable housing goals and increased foreclosures, vacancies or other housing outcomes. these results suggest that the 1992 gse act had a negligible effect on the recent mortgage market crisis. chapter 2 examines whether programs that provide housing assistance to homeless people can reduce chronic homelessness. i analyze data from the department of housing and urban development for 130 communities across the u.s. over the period 2005 to 2007. because the amount of federal money allocated to a community to combat homelessness may depend on unobserved characteristics of that community, i estimate a fixed effects model which examines the effect of new federal homeless funding on chronic homelessness. i find that increased funding for homeless programs can reduce chronic homelessness. a $1 per capita increase in federal homeless funding is associated with a 1.80 person, or 2.8%, decrease in the number of chronically homeless per 100,000 population. an analysis of new funding to specific types of homeless programs indicates that programs that provide long-term housing and services to homeless people with disabilities drives this relationship. these results indicate that the first-year cost of moving one chronically homeless person into permanent supportive housing is $55,600. chapter 3 examines whether municipal governments manipulate fiscal policy in election years. according to the political budget cycle hypothesis, in election years government officials engage in opportunistic fiscal policy manipulation for electoral gains. this paper tests that hypothesis using data on taxes and spending for a panel of 268 us cities over the period 1970-2004. while our estimates provide no evidence of altered total expenditures or taxes in election years, we do find evidence of election-year manipulation of employment. we find a 0.7 percent increase in total municipal employment, including increases in police, education, and sanitation employment. knowledge discovery in spatial (i.e., numerical) data sets is becoming more and more important since increasingly large amounts of spatial data are available and used in key application areas such as public administration, science, and business. data clustering, i.e., grouping various objects into meaningful subclasses, is one of the major data mining operations, and is a fundamental problem that arises in many applications. due to the huge sizes and large number of attributes of the input data nowadays, achieving computational efficiency has become a primary objective and a big challenge to data clustering algorithms. in this dissertation, we study a number of spatial data clustering problems such as density-based data clustering, density-based data clustering with secondary memory management for lower dimensions, agglomerative hierarchical data clustering, and constrained 1-d k-means data clustering. based on interesting spatial data structures such as bbd-tree, fair-split tree, and hashing, and computational geometry techniques such as range search, closest pair search, well-separate pair decomposition, and k-link shortest path, we present new efficient and effective spatial data clustering algorithms with applications. comparing with the previous best known algorithms, our algorithms improve the time complexity and/or the quality of the output significantly. we believe that our spatial data clustering algorithms are of considerable practical importance. large distributed computer systems have been successfully employed to solve modern scientific problems that were previously untenable. with the advent of low cost hardware, high speed computers and sizable storage resources are pervasive and often notably underutilized. modern opportunistic middleware systems seek to congregate the potential of these existing systems into a powerful resource for scientific computation. within distributed computing, the study of these systems considers the ability of middleware to respond to heterogeneous or low reliability environments, as well as the need to obtain high performance or guaranteed quality of service. in various forms such as internet computing, desktop grids, and even ``big iron' grids, this philosophy realizes the genuinely unpredictable nature of large scale computing projects. the development effort in this field takes two important forms: it attempts to build aggregate systems that are more reliable than their underlying components, easier to utilize in concert, and effectively unified administratively; it attempts to provide performance that is timely and predictable. in this dissertation, the need to construct reliable, high performance storage from loosely trusted, low reliability components is addressed. we investigate methods to catalog and maintain large networks of storage components and present them to scientific users as a unified resource. the methods developed in this area resulted in the implementation of the gems replica management system. the need to obtain good, reliable, predictable performance when performing a new computation is also addressed. we investigate methods to obtain job runtime estimate information and use this knowledge to establish probabilistic guarantees on the completion time of new computation. the methods developed in this area resulted in the implementation of the east scheduling simulator. a common idea underlines both techniques: the use of a higher level managing software system that operates around an internal model of the controlled resources. this model is both queried for historical and predictive information and used by a middleware grid overdrive controller to make intelligent management decisions that satisfy user requirements. the design of the controller borrows from techniques used in a variety of disciplines including mathematical modelling, system theory, and autonomic systems to manage user jobs and data. the result is a synthesis of existing building blocks and new abstractions that results in efficiency, practicality, and scientific benefit. in this dissertation, convolutional codes possessing the maximum distance profile (mdp) and strongly maximum distance separable (smds) properties are studied. more specifically, ideas from linear systems theory and algebraic geometry are used to 1. give an affirmative answer to the conjecture in~cite{gl03r} that convolutional codes possessing both the mdp and smds properties exist for arbitrary code parameters over finite fields of every prime characteristic and 2. show that the set of such codes may be seen as a generic set in a certain quot scheme. in order to think of all points of the aforementioned scheme as somehow representing convolutional codes of the same degree, we associate so-called homogeneous convolutional codes to them. we introduce this notion, develop a body of results similar to those that exist in the traditional (nonhomogeneous) setting, generalize the notions of mdp and smds to these codes, and prove existence and genericity results analogous to those mentioned above for nonhomogeneous codes. finally, the topic of superregular matrices is addressed. superregular matrices arise when one considers the problem of constructing codes having the mdp property. after introducing superregular matrices, we consider group actions preserving the property of superregularity. we then derive an upper bound on the smallest size a finite field can have in order that a superregular matrix of a given size can exist over that field. this dissertation considers the epistemic problem of adapting expert knowledge to an established political goal. its particular focus is the failure of scientific and technical experts in different fields to effectively communicate across their disciplinary boundaries in order to provide coherent advice. the information needed to meet the goals of environmental policy is rarely limited to the domain of any individual scientific discipline or technical field. each discipline has its own technical language, experimental procedures, problem solving strategies, exemplars, scale of application, factors that are included in models, factors which are considered exogenous to models, and background assumptions -all elements of what might be termed the 'cognitive map' of a discipline. because experts produce knowledge within the context of their field's cognitive map, and these cognitive maps vary greatly between disciplines, there are significant epistemological difficulties involved in the provision of interdisciplinary expertise for policy purposes. using the clean water act as a case study, i will argue that these epistemic divisions between different disciplines are an important part of the reason why a group of technical advisors who are honest, competent, attempt to be objective, and have similar goals for the policy can still manage to fail to communicate, or even to have productive disagreements about the technical advice they provide to lawmakers. i will also explore the extent to which a philosophy of epistemic mediation might be possible; making some suggestions of how philosophers of science might help not only to clarify but also to bridge some of the divides between disciplinary fields of expertise. flow-induced structural acoustics involves the study of the vibration of a structure induced by a fluid flow as well as the resulting sound generated and radiated by the motion of the system. the thesis examines several aspects of flow-induced structural vibration for fluid-loaded systems. a new method, termed magnitude-phase identification, is derived to experimentally obtain a modal decomposition of the vibration of a structure using two-point measurements. mpi was used to measure the auto-spectral density of various modes for a non-fluid-loaded, rectangular, clamped plate excited by a spatially-homogeneous turbulent boundary layer. these results agreed well with theory. using mpi, it was shown that when both fluid-loading and a spatially non-homogeneous wall pressure field is applied to a structure that the mode shapes become dependent on the forcing field, an effect which does not occur when either characteristic is applied individually. furthermore, the resulting mode shapes are potentially highly asymmetric. it was shown through a discretized string model that these results can be attributed to the increased damping induced by fluid loading. internal acoustic wall pressure fields due to a ducted rotor were measured, and it was shown that the acoustic effects of the rotor can be approximated by replacing the rotor with a continuous ring of dipoles located at the blade tip. the finite length of the duct was accounted for through use of a method of images. the theoretical results from this model match well with the measured values. lastly, the vibration of a fluid-loaded duct excited by an internal rotor is measured through use of mpi. the resulting vibration field appears similar to the field examined earlier due to fluid loading, with a decrease in the coherent vibration magnitude for increasing spatial separation from the reference location. californian maria amparo ruiz de burton (1832-1895), considered the first u.s. latina writer, and venezuelan author teresa de la parra (1889-1936) shattered cultural boundaries as public critics who exposed social oppression and exclusion from citizenship while situating their works in the domestic, private sphere of patriarchal hierarchy and gendered subjectivities. along with gender, class, and race, 'home' operates as an ideological marker of the subject, where exclusionary practices and repetitions construct self-identity as much as they establish difference, otherness. stemming from these concepts, my thesis draws on the foucauldian rendition of discourse as a medium through which relations of power produce speaking subjects and the realities of which they speak. building on this model, i propose we approach home as a discursive site (and product of discourse) that is no longer simply the domain of the domestic sphere. rather, this new idea of home is an in-between space where silence becomes voice, located in an unstable, uncomfortable place of enunciation. it is the perspective of the other made manifest. home, then, becomes the site where the other becomes self in the narratives of these women writers. my dissertation explores how maria amparo ruiz de burton's and teresa de la parra's novels manipulate dominant discourses through different linguistic and narrative strategies that privilege the other, ultimately rendering the discursive object into a subject, a speaking agent who reclaims the power of voice. their fiction thus complicates established sites of power and dichotomies delineated by gendered and racialized borders (public/private, whiteon-white) while creating a space of their own, a conceptual home from where the historically home-bound object, as it were, speaks, thus transforming itself into a privileged subject. the conventional notions of home, then, are questioned and expanded, and home transcends bounded definitions of belonging and permanence to suggest, instead, the possibility of reshaping subjectivities, allowing us to rethink designations of class, ethnicity, gender, nationality, and how these affect and influence the way in which we see ourselves with relation to the world. oftentimes, the abstractions that outline and that are at the same time contained in this conception of home are rendered visible in the novels precisely by way of discursive strategies. this thesis addresses electrokinetic phenomena at microano level for potential microfluidic applications. two kinds of electrokinetic objects: electroosmosis and electrospray under both dc and ac conditions have been explored and exploited. (1) nonlinear ac electrokinetic flow has been observed based on electric field induced mobile charges at the interfaces of fluid/electrode. polarization of the electrodes by charge transfer from the electrode or the bulk is used to improve a tangential maxwell force and a surface flow along the electrodes. a prototype chip made of in-house fabricated microelectrodes is designed to study ac eo phenomena for pumping and mixing. (2) both high-pressure and high flowrate electrokinetic micropumps have been fabricated. electroosmosis flow model within microchannels is analyzed and verified experimentally. thermodynamic efficiency analysis is carried out which shows the optimum efficiency can be achieved by matching double layer thickness to the channel pore size. applications towards micro total analysis systems are also demonstrated. (3) new deformation/fission phenomena have been reported for micro-drops driven by an ac electric field at their resonant frequencies. maxwell force can be enhanced when ac frequencies are comparable to both the drop resonant frequency and the inverse charge relaxation time of the double layer. high throughput electrospray is achieved under resonant conditions. additionally, dc electrospray has been exploited as a novel coating method to deposit carbon nanotubesafion suspensions upon target electrodes. the deposition is achieved by using electrohydrodynamic atomization to eject monodispersed droplets into the gaseous phase followed by directing them to the target electrodes alone electric field. electrochemical study of the deposited layer shows its advantage over conventional coating methods. does not apply scholars recommend improvements to the state-centric approach of liberal peace, arguing that it creates conflict rather than promoting its resolution. their opinion, however, remains divided on methods to fix the problem. while one group suggests some reform to liberal peace, others propose the promotion of hybrid peace that values coordination between indigenous and liberal peace practices. but, none of them envision autonomous functioning of indigenous peace practices. so, using case study method, research analyzes the experience of an ngo which supports those practices and uses documentaries to promote and disseminate them. promotion of indigenous practices facilitates healing and reconciliation at the local level, but it can also favor discrimination. furthermore, it is challenging to receive continuous funding in support of these practices. while documentaries can witness and record local peace practices, the subject matter and presentation style can pose barriers for dissemination of documentaries to wider audiences. research demonstrates that memory is better for emotional events than neutral events, especially as delays between learning and testing increase. this indicates a role for memory consolidation processes, which work to selectively stabilize emotional over neutral information in the brain over the hours, days, and years following learning. while previous research has focused on how certain aspects of experienced emotion, including arousal and stress, benefit memory consolidation, little has been done to investigate how induced emotional states themselves impact the consolidation of memory. participants were randomly assigned to a happy, fearful, sad, or neutral emotion induction condition following the encoding of word and picture stimuli. memory for this stimuli was tested 24-hours later. although happy and fear emotion inductions similarly resulted in the mere suppression of neutral word recognition, sad emotion induction following learning resulted in a mood congruent memory bias for sad words. emotion induction did not impact word recall or picture recognition. these findings suggest that emotional states can impact memory consolidation processes toward emotion congruent information under some circumstances. distributed spectrum sensing uses multiple sensors to measure spectrum power levels in multiple locations simultaneously, thus allowing the formation of a spectrum occupancy map at a given frequency. an accurate spectrum occupancy map can be used to inform spectrum policy, determine usage patterns and situational awareness, and evaluate the feasibility of opportunistic spectrum access methods indoors and outdoors, especially in the crowded sub-6 ghz spectrum. in general, sensors operate in a complex time-varying propagation environment, and the problem of estimating an occupancy map from a small set of sensors is ill-defined especially when the number of emitters is large or unknown. to simplify the problem, assumptions involving the number of emitters, the power of emitters, and idealized parameterizations of the propagation model are usually made. this dissertation considers using a neural network-based system to tackle the problem of estimating occupancy maps with minimal assumptions.we present a general neural network framework for computing a binary decision map over a region from a limited number of sensor measurements, and apply the framework to spectrum occupancy mapping. given a sub-region and threshold, we wish to determine if power at a given frequency exceeds the threshold, thus determining if that frequency is ``occupied" in that sub-region. the sensors, which measure the signal power, are random in number and location. the emitting sources at the given frequency have unknown number, locations, and powers. using an aggregation step, the variable number of measurements are transformed into log-likelihood ratios (llrs) that are fed as a fixed-resolution image into a neural network. the system is trained to produce a map of occupancy decisions over a wide area, even where there are no sensors, and achieves excellent accuracy at determining occupancy in a variety of complex environments with an arbitrary number of emitters.in this dissertation, we examine the robustness of the developed neural network-based system to mismatch in the number of sensors, the occupancy threshold, thermal noise and multi-path fading between training and testing. we show that our system is robust, and performs similarly with or without the knowledge of such parameters during training. we introduce the concept of threshold-to-noise ratio (tnr) to characterize the accuracy in the presence of noise, and show that the accuracy of the system can be maintained at low tnr. this robustness is attributed to our input modeling and aggregation process, and allows the system to be usable in many settings without retraining.finally, we consider a case study of simplifying the sensors to reduce the cost and power consumption for distributed spectrum mapping, while maintaining accuracy. the baseline sensor is our radiohound sensor developed here at the university of notre dame, which is well-understood, and modifiable. we show that there is an advantageous trade-off of quantity over quality when the sensors are used as part of our neural network-based system; reducing quality cuts cost and power down significantly (factor of 10), but the system requires a very modest increase in the number of sensors to recover accuracy (factor of 2). perhaps surprisingly, the effective number of bits in the sensor measurement is relatively unimportant to the accuracy of the decision maps. using speeches presented by japanese delegates to the 1893 world's parliament of religions, this paper investigates how non-western religious organizations were capable of responding to the western encounter. for religious groups who did not have a means of legitimacy within the western christian academic environment—such as a mastery of western discursive techniques or affiliation with christianity—their efforts were focused on establishing the legitimacy of their religious organization. depending on the religious group, this occurred in one of two ways: shinto's ties with the japanese state afforded religious spokespersons the ability to seek legitimacy on political grounds, while buddhism's marginalized status within the japanese state forced their spokespersons to affirm the legitimacy of their religion through theological avenues. however, for those who had attained a means of legitimacy, the possibility arose for them to engage in criticism of western christianity in both its institutional and state manifestations. the period known as the italian renaissance witnessed a rebirth of greek learning and, along with it, a renewed impetus to translate the two epic poems, the iliad and odyssey, attributed to homer in antiquity. during the course of one century (1362-1460s) there were more than a dozen attempts to translate homer from greek into latin. these latin versions were the first to be printed in the fifteenth century and in turn offered a template for the first vernacular translations well into the seventeenth century. in addition to translation practice, humanists also began to develop increasingly more sophisticated ways of thinking about the task of the translator and thus did much to advance the field of translation theory. despite this decisive contribution to the history of homer's reception and interpretation, critical commentary on the period as a whole has been largely negative. the argument of this dissertation is that much of the scholarship on homer's reception in the renaissance is still beholden to aesthetic assumptions inherited from the period in question. chief among them is the assumption that translation can only take place between two texts (source and target) and that one of the most important features of a good translation is its fidelity to the source text, whether that be in word or sense. additionally, scholars often expect a translation to stand alone as a piece of literature in its own right. many humanists of the day and scholars thereafter held homeric translations up to these standards and judged them a "failure." by applying a historical-contextualist methodology, i put pressure on the "failure thesis" by arguing that there was never any consensus about the standards to which translators ought to hold themselves; these standards changed over time; and in many cases they were simply impossible to fulfill. these translations can be divided into three phases: literal ("the feather") (1362-1440s), oratorical ("the wing") (1438-1460s), and verse translation ("the flight") (1440s-1500). this dissertation examines the sixteenthand seventeenth-century english and dutch sabbath debates and considers their influence on john milton's writings. previous studies of the sabbath debates have concentrated on the english _book of sports_. this study focuses instead on exegesis of the bible's sabbath passages among english and continental writers, and it shows that the sabbath debates were an occasion for them to reflect on the nature of liberty. in particular, it argues that the sabbath debates prompted them to consider the relationship of law and labor to liberty. until the early 1640s, interpreters of the bible's sabbath passages focused on defining christian liberty and explaining how christ had changed the christian's obligation to obey the mosaic law and perform religious works. by the mid-seventeenth century, the sabbath debates were also shaping understandings of political liberty. political writers explored how sabbath-keeping could constrain and liberate subjects and also how the sabbath could offer subjects rest from weekly toils and opportunities to participate in political life. chapters 1 and 2 consider the turn from theological to political explorations of sabbath law in england, focusing on the writings of the puritans, the laudians, gerrard winstanley and the diggers, and thomas hobbes. chapter 3 examines how the sabbath debates shaped political thought in the united provinces, concentrating on how johannes cocceius' covenant theology influenced benedict de spinoza's _theological-political treatise_. finally, this dissertation argues that milton was in conversation with the sabbath debates and that they influenced his views of christian liberty and political liberty. chapters 4 and 5 show that milton's understanding of sabbath law changed throughout his career: during the early 1640s he agreed with the puritans that christians were bound to hebrew sabbath law, but in his later career he argued that christ had freed christians from the law. nevertheless, in both _paradise lost_ and _samson agonistes_, milton draws from jewish teachings about sabbath law in order to explore the social and political functions of sabbath-keeping. he suggests, like contemporary political thinkers, that sabbath law could create and preserve healthy social relationships and that it could empower and liberate political subjects. the research in this thesis involved two main projects that focus on the development of novel antibiotics to overcome bacterial resistance problem. the first project involved the syntheses and biological evaluation of cephalosporin and oxazolidinone-based antibiotics using nitroso dielsì¢ ââ'alder and related chemistry. the second main project involved the syntheses and biological studies of cephalosporin-oxazolidinone dual action prodrugs. in chapter 1, the synthesis of cephalosporin-based antibiotics using nitroso dielsì¢ ââ'alder chemistry was rationalized and described. chapter 2 described the synthesis of novel oxazine and aminocycloalkenol containing oxazolidinone antibiotics using nitroso dielsì¢ ââ'alder chemistry. in addition, in vitro antibacterial studies were included. in chapter 3, cephalosporin-oxazolidinone multifunctional compounds were rationally designed and synthesized. their stability in aqueous media in the presence of beta-lactamase and in vitro antimicrobial activity were investigated the current gold standard for bone repair, autologous bone graft, is costly and destructive to the harvest site. moreover, the amount of available donor tissue is limited, so it is not always a viable option. the aim of this work was to investigate tissue engineering as an alternative to autograft-based bone repair through the combination of donor cells and three-dimensional cell carriers. the results presented herein describe the progress made toward that goal. to evaluate the intramembranous bone forming capacity of human adipose-derived stem cells, novel collagen scaffolds with or without hydroxyapatite reinforcement were loaded with cells and treated with growth or an osteogenic differentiation medium. upon implantation, the cell-scaffold constructs produced varying amounts of immature bone characterized by highly vascularized osteocalcin and osteopontin-positive matrix and an increase in mineralized tissue volume. hydroxyapatite reinforcement and the particular pretreatment of the cells were identified as key factors influencing tissue formation in vivo. in order to determine important characteristics for engineered constructs capable of inducing an endochondral response in vivo, an ectopic model of endochondral ossification was developed with pre-chondrogenic murine cell line atdc5. when coupled with an osteoinductive scaffold in vivo, pellets been pre-treated in an optimized chondrogenic differentiation medium underwent chondrogenic maturation and partial ossification over the course of 8 weeks. this effect was dependent on the treatment medium applied and a three-dimensional culture environment. with these findings in mind, chondrogenic treatment was applied to human adipose-derived stem cells seeded in high density pellet culture or encapsulated in alginate beads to investigate the potential for endochondral bone formation in a clinically relevant cell type. despite identical pre-treatment, the culture systems induced significantly different volumes of mineralized tissue formation in vivo. cell pellets resulted in a greater amount of mineralized tissue which accumulated around a large volume exterior to the implants, while mineralized tissue deposits were confined to a smaller volume in cell seeded alginate beads. these findings further highlighted the importance of pretreatment and culture methods with respect to the in vivo response induced by tissue engineered constructs. a series of experiments were performed to study the absolute instability of type i traveling cross-flow modes in the boundary layer on a smooth disk rotating at constant speed. the basic flow agreed with analytic theory, and the growth of natural disturbances matched linear theory predictions. controlled temporal disturbances were introduced by a short-duration air pulse from a hypodermic tube located above the disk and outside the boundary layer. the air pulse was positioned just outboard of the critical radius for type i cross-flow modes. a hot-wire sensor primarily sensitive to the azimuthal velocity component, was positioned at different spatial locations on the disk to document the growth of disturbances produced by the air pulses. ensemble averages conditioned on the air pulses revealed wave packets that evolved in time and space. two amplitudes of air pulses were used. the lower amplitude produced wave packets with linear amplitude characteristics that agreed with linear-theory wall-normal eigenfunction distributions and spatial growth rates. the higher amplitude pulse produced wave packets that had nonlinear amplitude characteristics. the space-time evolution of the leading and trailing edges of the wave packets were followed well past the critical radius for the absolute instability based on lingwood (1995). with the linear amplitudes, the absolute instability was dominated by the convective modes, agreeing with the linear dns simulations of davies and carpenter (2003). with the nonlinear amplitudes, larger temporal growth of the wave packets existed which supports the finite amplitude analysis of pier (2003), and more closely resembles the wave packet evolution in the experimental study of lingwood (1996). this suggests that the disturbance levels in the experiment that was intended to demonstrate the linear analysis, were likely finite. creative writing thesis biological representations, as found in both the literary and scientific texts of the nineteenth century, exacerbated epistemological problems in such a way that it became necessary for nineteenth-century intellectuals' whether explicitly concerned with epistemology or not' to begin formulating practical epistemologies and philosophies of scientific representation. in attempting to make these representations, these writers and scientists gradually became aware that scientific representation complicated scientific claims to objectivity and philosophical realism. understanding this growing awareness of representational issues allows us to better understand the ways in which nineteenth-century biologies helped to create the theoretical emphasis on the difficulties of interpretation that continue to pervade academic conversations across the disciplines. to this end, this dissertation examines the work of a number of nineteenth-century scientists and literary artists in an effort to understand the nature of the representational difficulties they encountered. the first chapter examines the medical work of john and william hunter, as well as the plays and theater theory written by their niece, joanna baillie. in their collective work we see a continual preoccupation with the diagnostic difficulties that medical misrepresentation can create. the second chapter explicates the use of phrenology in the novels of charlotte brontìç; the contradictions found in the work of phrenology writer george combe led brontìç to embrace a more open epistemic stance in her last novel, villette. the third chapter discusses the concept of the biological archetype, as found in the work of charles darwin and george eliot. the archetype allowed them to get beyond the epistemological difficulties encountered by baillie and brontìç, but also placed a new emphasis on the importance of tentatively known contexts in scientific observation. the last chapter explores the work of max nordau and h.g. wells; both were concerned about the possibility of distinguishing artistic representation from scientific representation. these last chapters document the emergence of 'conceptual realism;' wells and eliot attempted to present narratives that simultaneously recognized the perceptual mediation that occurs in any apprehension of reality and at the same time insisted on the ability to know reality. this thesis explores the development of home-built precision instrumentation and the nature of reaction between alkanethiols and atomic hydrogen gas using scanning tunneling microscopy (stm). stm is a powerful technique, but due to the nature of the instrument it is also an expensive one. the stm used in this work has been built by or machined from commercially available parts. the development of 3d printing offers a new avenue for instrument design. if parts can be 3d printed, this instrument can be built and implemented at a significantly cheaper price than commercially available. 3d printing allows instruments to be replicated with a single geometry file and adjustments can easily be made as needed. the transfer system involved with the stm as well as the instrument housing have been 3d printed as this technology offers a level of customization that is unmatched by machining alone. 3d metal printing parts allows for complex and intricate parts to be made at a fraction of the cost of commercially available systems. this transfer system and its parts are explored. the instrumentation build is also examined. with a functional instrument and means of introducing samples to a vacuum chamber, reactions of alkanethiols on au(111) with atomic hydrogen can be examined on an atomic scale. 8-mercapto-1-octanol was investigated due to its similarity with a better studied molecule, 1-octanethiol. the 8-mercapto-1-octanol surface lacks long range order that was characteristic of 1-octanethiol. despite the difference in surface features, the reaction pathway of 8-mercapto-1-octanol is similar to that of 1-octanethiol. 1-octanethiol on au(111) has been studied robustly, but the system is still not fully understood. a temperature increase of a few degrees celsius resulted in a significant change in the dynamics of the reaction between 1-octanethiol and atomic hydrogen because of a phase that does not occur at room temperature. this new phase can be visually distinguished from the other phases using stm. the change of the reaction pathway and how it differs from previous studies is explored. in addition future molecules that contain two sulfur groups rather than one that 1-octanethiol and 8-mercapto-1-octanol have and their potential reactivity is briefly discussed along with the prospect of repeating experiments at cryogenic temperatures. malaria is a severe disease causing significant morbidity and mortality. the disease is caused by the plasmodium species of parasites that belong to the phylum apicomplexa. transmission of the parasite requires the completion of its life cycle in the mosquito involving the invasion of salivary glands. maebl is a chimeric protein present in the micronemes of sporozoites that invade salivary glands and has been shown to be essential to invasion. my hypothesis is that successful invasion of salivary glands requires the recognition of a specific receptor by maebl on salivary glands. we expect that this recognition is dependent on interactions with glycosaminoglycans and conformation of the ligand domain m2 of maebl, which is a domain, rich in cysteines and other residues typically important for 3d structure. the aims of my research are: 1) to gain insights into the structure of ligand domain m2 and to determine its function of in the invasion of mosquito salivary glands, 2) to study the role of glycosaminoglycans in maebl ligand-receptor interactions. to understand the function of maebl ligand domains in the invasion of mosquito salivary glands, the ligand domain m2, and the subdomains of m2, m2sd1 and m2sd2 were cloned and expressed in the bl21(de3)plyse strain of e.coli. refolded, recombinant proteins were analyzed by lc-ms/ms mass spectrometry. we performed binding assays using these recombinant proteins with anopheles stephensi salivary glands. our results showed that refolded, recombinant, ligand domain m2 binds to mosquito salivary glands, while reduced and alkylated protein fails to bind. maebl ligand domain binding was dependent on a protease-sensitive epitope. additional analysis using a panel of sulfated glycosaminoglycans suggested an essential role for these molecules in receptor recognition. this dissertation explores the tensions between two ideological facets of the british empire—voluntarism and imperial supremacy—that emerged after the seven years' war as british officials attempted to come to terms with the territorial expansion and the increased diversity of their empire.in the immediate aftermath of the war, few perceived any challenges incorporating diverse peoples like catholic, francophone canadians into the protestant british empire because most perceived commerce, not ethnicity or religion, as the empire's principle mechanism for gaining and maintaining loyalty of disparate peoples.at the same time, the empire pursued a policy of imperial supremacy in north america: a deliberate attempt to exclude foreign competitors from the continent to ensure the security of the provinces.through a series of successive crises that stretched the limits of the empire's resources throughout the continent, imperial officials slowly began to codify inequality in the laws and governance of its provinces, which had the effect of cementing social, political and economic distinctions between different groups in order to exploit those differences and allow the empire to draw directly on provincial societies for men and material in pursuit of maintaining britain's supremacy over the continent.this process emerged in full force in quebec, where a series of challenges compounded to produce a political settlement that almost fully subordinated the province to the empire's control. face recognition from video is an important theme in biometric research today. we also survey the current approaches used for recognition in video including published techniques for addressing problems such as pose and illumination variations. it has been attacked using pca-based approaches, exploitation of the temporality of the frames, construction of 3-d face models to handle pose changes. these approaches have drawbacks such as preprocessing and requiring prior knowledge about the datasets. some of these approaches require the face to be manually cropped out of the background, or the eyes to be marked. in this work, we develop strategies to select a set of frames to represent a subject in our gallery and probe set, to improve recognition performance over that of a single frame, when the data is acquired from video. we exploit the fact that there are many such frames available in a few seconds of video data. we incorporate quality and diversity in making a decision about which images will be used to represent the subjects in our dataset. we demonstrate our approaches on the notre dame dataset. it uses three different sensors and is the largest known research video dataset. we also compare our best approach to using a single high-quality image in our gallery set and compare the performance of faceit and viisage, using this set. the honda/ucsd dataset is used to show that our approach performs comparably to an existing approach. this dissertation theorizes how natural hazards interact with historically-situated institutional and cultural context in shaping the political significance of events. employing interpretive and comparative methods, i analyze historical media and government records to study seismically-triggered viaduct collapses in the 1989 loma prieta earthquake (u.s.) and the 1995 great hanshin earthquake (japan). part one of the dissertation examines the causes of these collapses: in contrast to existing scholarship on technical disaster, i find that these disasters cannot be ascribed to organizationally-embedded cognitive error or positive asymmetry. rather, the disasters were conditioned by macro-level political economic factors which constrained organizational decision-making—a finding that leads me to develop the concept of the political accident. part two examines the political consequences of these collapses, with anti-viaduct campaigns forming in oakland and san francisco and successfully removing these unpopular structures from their host communities. by contrast, a similar campaign did not mobilize after a major viaduct collapse in japan. i theorize that materiality primarily explains this stark difference in outcomes: while material conditions (i.e., the interaction of geological forces with the built environment) enabled successful anti-viaduct campaigns in the u.s., these same conditions constrained contentious political action in japan due to their physical extremity.this research has implications for our theoretical understanding of the event as a phenomenon, which is implicitly important yet undertheorized in contemporary cultural research. theorists to date have focused on how agentic social actors orchestrate and react to events, and craft, interpret, and contest associated meanings, but have yet adequately to consider how non-agentic materiality shapes events. my research contributes to this ongoing dialogue—not only by underscoring the social role of materiality in post-disaster contexts, but by identifying specific cultural and political processes and conditions through which non-agentic material impacts event outcomes. bacteria mobilization and diversity as a function of rate of extraction from a monitoring well abstract by nicholas michael petruzzi various physical, chemical and biological processes can be responsible for groundwater colloid mobilization. earlier studies by other investigators demonstrated that rate of production at a well can have significant impact on total colloid concentration observed in groundwater samples. however, little work has been done to quantify the impact of pumping rate at a sampling point on bacterial and inorganic colloid concentrations, as well as the diversity of the bacteria population observed in a groundwater sample. it was hypothesized that total bacteria concentrations will increase with increasing pumping rate (consistent with the previously observed increase in total colloids with pumping rate). it was further hypothesized that bacterial diversity, as reflected by the dna of the microbial population present in the water sample, will also show variation with the pumping rate. these hypotheses were addressed experimentally by collection of natural groundwater samples at various rates of production (passive to 2.0 l/min.) from two monitoring wells at a field site in the st. joseph aquifer, northern indiana. a passive sampler was designed, tested, and implemented for collection of groundwater under natural hydraulic gradients. active sampling was accomplished using a dedicated pumping setup and monitoring water quality in order to determine appropriate purge time prior to collection. enumeration of total colloids was performed with an environmental scanning electron microscope (esem), total bacteria concentrations were determined by fluorescent microscopy using the nuclear stain acridine orange, and bacteria diversity was identified by denatured gradient gel electrophoresis (dgge). the results of these experiments provided quantitative data supporting the hypotheses. respective total colloid and bacteria concentrations were comparable between the two wells, with total colloid concentrations approximately 2 orders of magnitude greater than bacteria concentrations. total colloid and bacteria concentrations increased significantly at the higher pumping rates. it appeared that bacteria diversity varied (appearance and disappearance of community bands in the dgge results) as a function of pumping rate. diversity appeared to remain approximately constant at low-flow rates (excluding passive) but showed variation at higher pumping rates (coincident with the pumping rates for which the colloid concentrations were observed to increase). laboratory and field experiments provided confidence in the ability of the passive sampler to collect water samples. application of the passive sampler at the field site demonstrated that the water existing within a wellbore under zero pumping is not representative of water quality in the pore fluids in the aquifer. total colloid and bacteria concentrations were higher in samples obtained passively than for samples obtained at all pumping rates (excluding total colloids collected at 2.0 l/min.). bacteria communities also appeared to be less diverse in samples collected using the passive sampler than in samples collected at each of the pumping rates. by utilizing cdna microarrays including about 20,000 cdnas, gene expression levels of o'nyong nyong virus (onnv)-infected female mosquitoes were compared to that of the uninfected control females harvested at 14 days post-infection. in response to onnv infection, expression levels of 18 genes were significantly modulated, being at least two-fold upor down-regulated. quantitative real-time pcr analysis (qrt-pcr) further substantiated the differential expression of six genes of these genes in response to onnv infection. these genes have similarity to a putative heat shock protein cognate 70 (hsc70), dan4, agglutinin attachment subunit (agglutinin), elongation factor 1 alpha (ef-1&gamma;) and ribosomal protein l35 (rpl35). one gene, with sequence similarity to mitochondrial ribosomal protein l7 (mrpl7), was down regulated in infected mosquitoes. in addition, the phylogenetic analysis of hsc70 shows that it was in the same lineage to heat shock protein cognate 70b (hsc70b) rather than other hsc70s or hsp70s of drosophila. thus we named it an. gambiae hsc70b. secondly, for a functional analysis, female an. gambiae were co-injected with onnv and the respective double-stranded rna (dsrna) based on a cdnas of the hsc70b and two other candidate genes, agglutinin attachment subunit (agglutinin), ef-1&gamma; from above cdna microarray study (sim et al., 2005) among these post-transcriptional silencing of endogenous transcripts, only, dsrnas of hsc70b (dshsc70b) promoted onnv replication in adult an. gambiae compared in the control mosquitoes that were co-injected with onnv and dsrna of ì¢-galactosidase (dsì¢-gal). onnv titers from mosquitoes coinjected with dshsc70b were 9-fold higher at 6 days post injection than in the control mosquitoes. to validate the results, by using recombinant onnv that expresses enhanced gfp (onnv-egfp) as a marker (keene et al., 2004), the coinjection with dshsc70b shows approximately 2 or 3-fold higher gfp expression rates than in the controls at the three tissues (head, thorax, and abdomen). hence, these observations provide direct evidence that hsc70b impedes onnv replication in an. gambiae. in addition, to clarify the tissue tropism of an. gambiae in onnv infection, onnv infectious system (onnv-egfp) which is capable of express green fluorescent protein (brault 2004), has been used to characterize tissue tropism and dissemination of onnv in an. gambiae by intrathoracic injection. an. gambiae clearly showed the accumulation of gfp in the anterior midguts, foreguts, hindguts, cardia, ovaries, salivary glands and heads at 6 days post infection. however, interestingly, the gfp expression in intrathoracic injection of onnv-egfp did not show any infection foci in the posterior midgut at 6 and 12 days post-infection, implying that dissemination patterns of onnv within an. gambiae posterior midguts are different from other culicine infection with alphaviruses. this study of constantine vii porphyrogennetos' de cerimoniis, a compilation of old and new material produced under imperial patronage during the middle of the tenth century, focuses for the first time on the significance of its language. rather than treating the book as a source for the reconstruction of ceremony, as has been traditional in the past, it looks at the place of ceremonial language in middle byzantine culture and its wider social functions.by examining the place of latin in the specialized linguistic register of de cerimoniis, this study challenges received wisdom on the place of latin in byzantium and the relative prestige of latin and greek both within the tenth century and across the long centuries of their contact and mutual influence. turning to the greek of de cerimoniis, the study presents a typology of "technical greek" to explain some of the linguistic peculiarities of what scholars are now calling the "middle register" or "literary koine." the linguistic and stylistic features of this register furthermore reveal de cerimoniis to take part in the long tradition of "practical philosophy," which encompasses both technical treatises and the moral encheiridion.the study also places de cerimoniis in its wider cultural and literary milieu, focusing on how the text both reflects and projects a deeply philosophical and theological vision of the ways by which language and ceremony have real effects in the world and how constantine vii understood his book as an essential tool in his project of recovering the roman past and restoring cosmic order. in this regard, this study seeks to connect constantine vii's programmatic statements to traditional concepts of mimesis, anamnesis, and liturgical realism along with contemporary speech-act and performance theory.finally, the study looks at the place of de cerimoniis within the corpus of works produced under constantine vii's name, especially the vita basilii. de cerimoniis emerges as an essential and culminating project in the work of the macedonian dynasty to "recover" order. this study proposes that the "macedonian renaissance" be understood as a two-step project, beginning with "analepsis" of the past and pointing towards an as yet unrealized "katalepsis" of an idealized future. in this conception, de cerimoniis is the practical outcome of constantine vii's desire to build on the achievements of his predecessors basil i and leo vi. through ceremony, the basileus and his basileia begin to reflect heavenly rather than historical taxis, and constantine vii imagines the possibility of directing his empire towards the fulfillment of its transcendent destiny. this study traces a transformation in the way french kings were ritually commemorated during the wars of religion, focusing on the deaths of henry ii (1559), charles ix (1574), henry iii (1589), and henry iv (1610). it suggests that the violence of the civil wars first between catholics and protestants, and later between royalists and supporters of the catholic league, created a crisis of memory by allowing the development of divergent understandings of the meanings of their deaths. in a dynastic political culture that depended on continuity and tradition, such divided memories centered on factional political and religious identities posed a threat to the legitimacy of the king and the stability of the institution of monarchy.traditional approaches to commemorating the king were not influential enough to stop huguenot opposition to successive valois rulers from finding an origin story in henry's sudden death. by 1589, the catholic league emerged to combat the religious policies of henry iii and the succession of henry iv, and when jacques clément assassinated henry iii and was celebrated as a martyr, it showed how contested the memory of a french monarch could become. when france again faced a sudden, violent royal death in 1610, marie de' medici and her advisers not only improvised the rituals surrounding the change of regime, they flooded the market with a wide range of printed propaganda that was designed to ensure universal mourning of henry iv and support for both marie as regent and louis as legitimate successor. the campaign employed traditional literary forms and intensified the quantity and intensity of emotional language, in imitation of the catholic league's attempts to undermine henry iii in 1589. in the aftermath of the death of henry iv, the stability of the monarchy rested on the attempt to shape and constrain collective memory of the late king through appeals to and critiques of feelings and emotional display. i argue that this inextricably linked politics with a contested set of emotional norms that particularly challenged marie de' medici's authority as a woman in a patriarchal french political culture. i also suggest that this created a template for large-scale public mourning that would increasingly shape early modern and modern political life. the aim of this research is to further develop a dynamically adaptive algorithm based on wavelets that is able to solve efficiently multi-dimensional compressible reactive flow problems. this work demonstrates the great potential for the method to perform direct numerical simulation (dns) of combustion with detailed chemistry and multi-component diffusion. in particular, it addresses the performance obtained using a massive parallel implementation and demonstrates important savings in memory storage and computational time over conventional methods. in addition, fully-resolved simulations of challenging three dimensional problems involving mixing and combustion processes are performed. these problems are particularly challenging due to their strong multiscale characteristics. for these solutions, it is necessary to combine the advanced numerical techniques applied to modern computational resources. we highlight the contributions described in this dissertation and envision the future works. first, a comprehensive background, related works, and dataset information are given at the beginning of this dissertation. the latter part of the dissertation focuses on researching the lrfr task from several aspects. first, we curate two face datasets, the vbolo dataset which was collected from a real surveillance camera network, and the ndfacereid dataset which was collected under a near-surveillance environment. second, we employ deep neural networks and research on two major face recognition tasks in digital forensics, face re-identification, and face identification. for each task, we propose new deep architectures and training strategies to improve the performance of the real surveillance datasets. we also conduct studies on the capacity of the deep models on the lq face images from these datasets utilizing an efficient model searching engine to get the insight on performance change as gradually change the complexity of the deep network and the input size. third, considering the fact of lacking training data at scale, we develop a practical way to solve the face recognition task under this consideration. we address weakly-supervised lrfr in videos by incorporating pre-trained general face recognition models as prior and propose an approach to gradually adapting a general face recognition model into a more robust lq face recognition model. finally, we explore the face redaction task in surveillance quality videos. we address the challenges compared to a redaction system for hq face images in video frames. by employing a state-of-the-art stacked hour-glass as well as intermediate supervision during training, we are able to evaluate the performance of a face redaction system with very lq surveillance videos. by providing a qualitative result, we are able to foresee the potential directions to improve the existing method. first, a more reliable facial keypoint detector needs to specifically curated for lq face images, contour or template matching could be applied when not detailed information on the face could be catching due to the image degradation. this could be fused with the sota face landmark detectors. this dissertation is composed of three related papers, all using quantitative methods to address how the religious beliefs and practices of u.s. catholics intersect with those pertaining to family life. in the first empirical chapter, i investigate how religious authority is measured in the catholic tradition, and how beliefs pertaining to magisterial catholic authority connect with the traditional family and gender ideologies of u.s. catholics. in the second empirical chapter, i examine the relationship between full-time employment and the religious commitment of u.s. mothers, specifically investigating the moderating effect of religious tradition – the catholic tradition included. in the third empirical chapter, i analyze the social attitudes of u.s. millennial catholics, considering how religious attendance relates to attitudes on abortion and same-sex marriage of this population and whether this relationship is also seen across other generations of u.s. catholics.my findings illustrate how adherence to particular religious beliefs and religious practices inform family ideologies, as well as how family arrangements affect the religiousness of u.s. catholics. firstly, i show that beliefs about magisterial authority in the catholic tradition account for variation in catholics' social attitudes regarding gendered parenting roles, thus demonstrating that beliefs particular to catholicism influence attitudes on social issues and that beliefs regarding catholic magisterial authority connect with family issues beyond human sexuality – the relationship almost exclusively examined by scholars. second, i show how religious tradition, and the orthodoxies contained within religious traditions, affect the relationship between employment status and women's religious practice. i establish quantitatively that the relationship between employment status and religious involvement is complicated by religious tradition and historically salient religious orthodoxies. while full-time employment was related to lower religious involvement for evangelical mothers historically, this is not so today. full-time employment is also unrelated to the religious practice of catholic mothers. third, i demonstrate that generational status affects the relationship between religious attendance and the social beliefs of u.s. catholics regarding sexuality and family life. mass-attending u.s. catholic millennials currently exhibit a distinctive social conservatism on select family issues, though this is only the case for millennials most involved in the church, namely, daily mass-goers. this thesis is a critical examination of structured propositionalism (sp), the view that propositions are complex entities composed of the semantic values of the (meaningful) parts of the sentences that express them. according to sp, propositions have constituents and are individuated by the identity and arrangement of their constituents. two questions face advocates of structured propositionalism. first, what does it mean to say that propositions are structured and have constituents? and second, why think that propositions have these properties? these are the primary questions i address in this thesis. given the deficiency of contemporary attempts to answer these questions, three chapters are spent examining historical accounts of structured truth-bearers, going back to plato's theaetetus and sophist. i argue that an important reason for sp's wide acceptance is the historical ubiquity of the view that the fundamental truth-bearers are sentential, and thus obviously structured. after presenting historical accounts of structured truth-bearers, with a focus on frege's and russell's influential versions of sp, i present some objections to the application of mereological notions to abstracta, with an emphasis on the difficulties for providing a metaphysics of propositional constituency. i discuss five approaches and show that all of them face serious problems. these problems, while perhaps not insurmountable, shift the burden of argument to the proponents of sp. i then argue that the required arguments have not been given. in the penultimate chapter, i evaluate six arguments for sp: the compositionality argument, the logical form argument, the argument from analyticity, the similarity argument, the direct reference argument, and the language-based argument. these arguments are based on suggestions in the historical literature' primarily from the early analytic philosophers' and enthymemes in the contemporary literature. i conclude that none of the arguments makes a compelling case for sp. in the final chapter i examine two versions of sp recently advocated by scott soames and jeffrey king. i argue that 'propositions' of the kind postulated by these theories are unable to play some of the fundamental roles that motivate the postulation of propositions in the first place. bisphosphonates are the most common pharmaceutical used to reduce fracture risk in postmenopausal women suffering from osteoporosis, but long-term bisphosphonate treatment has been associated with a rare adverse effect, atypical femoral fractures (affs). there is currently no suitable animal model to study the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms of affs, which remain unknown. therefore, the objective of this project was to investigate a rabbit ulnar loading model for affs in cortical bone during long-term bisphosphonate treatment. the fatigue life and mechanical degradation of rabbit ulnae were measured during ex vivo loading of whole forelimbs in order to determine allowable limits for in vivo fatigue loading regimens. post-fatigue mechanical testing of whole ulnae was determined to be impractical for use in the model due to the number of animals required and low sensitivity to fatigue damage. therefore, a novel method was developed for measuring the plane strain fracture toughness of small animal bones at multiple locations along the diaphysis using arc-shaped tension specimens. this test method was able to produce highly repeatable measurements in replicates (coefficient of variation &lt; 15%) and detect differences in fracture toughness due to small differences in tissue mineral density. finally, an in vivo rabbit ulnar loading model was implemented to study affs in cortical bone during long-term bisphosphonate treatment. several low body mass rabbits suffered displaced fractures during ulnar loading and were thus removed from the study. treatment groups included a sham (control) and ovariectomized rabbits which were administered either vehicle (saline), a clinical dose, or a high dose of bisphosphonate (alendronate) over one year. differences in tissue mineral density and fracture toughness between treatment groups were not statistically significant. preliminary results from histology indicated that periosteal bone formation was stimulated in all treatment groups immediately following in vivo ulnar loading and returned to negligible basal levels within three months, as expected. interestingly, intracortical remodeling (labelled osteons) was increased immediately following in vivo ulnar loading in the vehicle treatment group and not in the bisphosphonate treatment groups, but further analysis is needed. the production of co2 gas at the dmfc anode leads to dramatic increases in pumping power requirements and reduced power output because of mass transfer limitations as bubble trains form in the channels of larger stacks. experimental observations taken in a 5 cm2 dmfc test cell operated at 60c, 1 atm, and with a methanol/water fuel flow-rates of 5-10 cc min-1 indicate that the rate of bubble formation can be reduced by increasing the fuel flow because more liquid is available for the co2 to dissolve in. further observations indicate that koh and lioh added to the fuel eliminates co2 gas formation in situ at low concentrations because of the greatly increased solubility that results. a mathematical model for the volumetric rate of co2 gas production that includes effects of temperature and solubility is developed and extended to include the effects of hydroxide ions in solution. the model is used to predict the onset location of gas formation in the flow field as well as the void fraction at any point in the flow field. predictions from the model agree very well with our experiments. model predictions explain differences in the initial location of bubble formation for fuel solutions pre-saturated with co2 as opposed to co2-free solutions. experiments with koh and lioh added to fuel solutions confirm the validity of the model extension that includes solubility that is enhanced by chemical reaction. experiments with lioh, koh, and ammonium hydroxide show that the long-term durability of standard pt-ruafion/pt membrane electrode assemblies is compromised because of the presence of lithium, potassium, and ammonium cations that interact with the nafion membrane and result in increasing the ohmic limitations of the polymer electrolyte membrane. experiments with ca(oh)2, while reducing gas formation, precipitate the product caco3 out of solution too rapidly for downstream filtering, blocking channels in the flow field. attempts to manipulate multiphase flow by altering fuel fluid properties through the addition of glycerin, sucrose, and triton x-100 are negative, resulting in no useful improvements due to oxidation of the additives on the platinum catalyst and poisoning by reaction intermediates. experiments with independent pressurization of the direct methanol fuel cell anode and cathode allow for the observation of dmfc operation with carbon dioxide gas formation suppressed. results indicate that the limiting current density is strongly related to the applied pressure, and, therefore, to the presence of co2 in the liquid phase. an additional experiment where co2 is allowed to accumulate in recycled anode fuel solution over a period of time and is then stripped from solution using nitrogen gas indicates that the presence of co2 in anode fuel solution at any pressure contributes to significant decreases in power and current density. because co2 bubbles are ubiquitous in direct methanol fuel cells, this finding is key to the optimization of these systems. principles of kinetic theory are used to model the coalescence of bubbles in horizontal and vertical upflows where bubble movements are restricted by channel geometry. there are four critical variables that determine the rate at which a swarm of small bubbles will coalesce: the initial bubble population, the average initial bubble diameter, the average relative velocity of the bubbles, and the efficiency of bubble collisions. model descriptions of bubble population and size distributions agree well with experimental results for air/water and air/water/glycerin systems performed in a rectangular channel with an aspect ratio of 12.5 and a cross-sectional area of 2 cm2 under both vertical and horizontal orientations. previous in vivo and in vitro studies have suggested that vitamin d3 may have chemopreventive and chemotherapeutic properties in the management and treatment of androgen-dependent and androgen-independent prostate cancer. to investigate the therapeutic potential of vitamin d3 for prostate cancer, we have utilized the lpb-tag transgenic model of prostate cancer and a vitamin d receptor-null (vdrko) mouse model to determine the effects of high dietary calcium on tumor progression, and the role of the vitamin d receptor (vdr) in prostate tumor progression. altered levels of dietary calcium did not change tumor progression in the lpb-tag mouse model, refuting many epidemiological studies, and providing the groundwork for the use of a high calcium rescue diet in later studies of vdrko mice. in animals with low levels of circulating testosterone and in the absence of exogenouse testosterone supplementation, the vdr confers protection against tumor progression. in the presence of exogenous testosterone, tumor morphology is not different in vdr wild-type (vdrwt) or vdr knock-out (vdrko) tumors, suggesting a loss of the protective effects against tumor progression. vdrko tumors show increased epithelial proliferation, resulting in a larger epithelial compartment. conversely, vdrwt tumors have a higher level of epithelial apoptosis, and thus have a more pronounced stromal compartment. laser capture microdissection of the epithelial and stromal layers of vdrwt and vdrko tumors and subsequent quantitative rt-pcr shows an overall increase in genes promoting cell cycling, such as cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (cdk2) and survivin in vdrko epithelium and stroma over both vdrwt and non-transgenic tissues. epithelial-stromal signaling also appears to be enhanced in vdrko epithelium through upregulation of the growth factor receptors igfr-1 and igfr-2. loss of the vdr, and thus vitamin d3 action correlates with increased cell proliferation, decreased cell death, and a potential increase in paracrine growth factor signaling; this correlation appears to be affected by androgen signaling, and has important implications in co-treatment administration of anti-androgens and vitamin d3 for the treatment of prostate cancer. when a laser beam propagates through a field of varying index of refraction, its wavefront becomes optically distorted. the distortions imposed onto the wavefront resulting from these index-of-refraction non-uniformities can be categorized into the mean, tip, and tilt (tip/tilt) components, as well as variations over the laser beam diameter referred to as higher-order disturbances. while higher-order disturbances cause the laser beam to diffract and spread energy out in the far-field, tip/tilt causes the beam to deflect from its original path. this is caused by propagating the laser through optical turbulence structures larger than or on the order of the size of the beam diameter. the dynamic, net deflection of the beam in the far-field caused by tip/tilt is referred to as jitter. beam jitter poses a serious problem for tracking in directed energy applications. the work presented in this dissertation sought to make in-flight experimental measurements of the tip/tilt imposed onto a laser beam by the atmosphere. the measurement of tip/tilt is challenging since the optical distortions caused by mechanical contamination in the form of aircraft platform vibration and aerodynamic buffeting also manifest as tip/tilt. a procedure referred to as the stitching method was used to remove the influence of mechanical contamination and quantify the atmospheric-induced component of tip/tilt. in order to generalize the results, the strength of the atmospheric optical turbulence environment through which the beam propagated was also quantified. from these results, it was found that the tip/tilt imposed onto the beam aligned with what analytic solutions predict and that the optical turbulence environment had kolmogorov-like characteristics. using both simulated and experimentally-measured turbulence-induced tilt time series, realistic tilt compensation approaches could be studied. it was shown that current approaches underpredict the bandwidth required to sufficiently compensate for tip/tilt imposed onto the beam. based on the developments presented in this dissertation, suggestions are provided on how tracking can be improved in realistic digital control systems. en esta investigación estudio las causas y los efectos de la violencia en personajes de la literatura española picaresca y la novela corta de los siglos xiv y xvii. las aproximaciones tradicionales a estos textos a menudo justifican las representaciones de la violencia como un mero ejemplo de repeticiones de modelos retóricos y literarios propios de la cultura española premoderna, perpetuando así la marginalización de personajes estigmatizados como los pícaros, las mujeres deshonradas y las esposas maltratadas. mi disertación se enfoca en las representaciones de la violencia, pues estudia los efectos de las agresiones en los personajes subyugados desde las perspectivas de las teorías de la discapacidad, los estudios de género y de violencia. argumento que en lázaro de tormes, el buscón de quevedo, las novelas ejemplares de cervantes y los desengaños amorosos de maría de zayas, la violencia física y sicológica afecta los comportamientos y las identidades de los personajes quienes, al mismo tiempo, intentan cumplir con expectativas socioculturales propias del periodo. en el capítulo uno, propongo que el deseo de medro de los pícaros es un mecanismo de supervivencia que lázaro y pablos desarrollan en su intento por escapar su estigmatizada posición social. en ese sentido, los pícaros utilizan los discursos oficiales para resignificar sus posiciones de víctimas y sobrevivientes a través de sus autobiografías. en el segundo capítulo analizo las protagonistas de las novelas la gitanilla y la ilustre fregona de miguel de cervantes. argumento que las mujeres de baja categoría social son doblemente vulnerables porque son estigmatizadas tanto por su posición social como por sus cuerpos femeninos. en el capítulo tres estudio el impacto que la violencia sexual y doméstica tiene en las protagonistas cervantinas de las dos doncellas y el celoso extremeño y en las novelas de maría de zayas, la esclava de su amante y el desengaño quinto (o la inocencia castigada). en estas historias, las protagonistas están expuestas a diferentes agresiones que surgen de las expectativas de conducta femenina y la institución del matrimonio. a pesar de que las prescripciones tradicionales en torno al género y comportamiento facilitan la violencia en estas historias ficticias, concluyo que los protagonistas de los textos analizados recurren a una multiplicidad de estrategias como el desplazamiento, el silencio, el disfraz de género y las transacciones económicas para sobrellevar, denunciar y resistir sus posiciones como víctimas y sobrevivientes. como resultado de estas intersecciones, la representación de la violencia en estos textos proporciona ejemplos de resistencia y ambigüedad que cuestionan las prácticas socioculturales en la españa de la temprana modernidad. this dissertation studies the causes and effects of violence among characters in the 16th-17th century picaresque novel and the novela corta (short stories). traditional approaches to this literature often justify the representations of violence as repetitions of the rhetoric and literary stereotypes of premodern spanish culture, thus subtly perpetuating the marginalization of the stigmatized characters such as rogues, dishonored women, and battered wives. my analysis shifts the focus to the representations of violence, studying its effects on the marginalized subjects from the perspectives of disability, violence, and gender studies. i argue that in lázaro de tormes, quevedo's el buscón, cervantes's novelas ejemplares, and maría de zayas's desengaños amorosos, physical and psychological aggressions impact the characters' behaviors and identities while they also attempt to meet the sociocultural expectations of the period. in chapter 1, i argue that the pícaros' desire of social promotion is a coping mechanism that lázaro and pablos develop in an attempt to escape their stigmatized social positions, while they use the official discourses to resignify their positions of victims and survivors through their autobiographies. chapter 2 analyzes the protagonists of cervantes's short novels la gitanilla and la ilustre fregona, arguing that low class women are doubly vulnerable because they are stigmatized both for their social positions and for their feminine bodies. chapter 3 studies the impacts that sexual and domestic violence have for the protagonists of cervantes' las dos doncellas and el celoso extremeño, and in zayas' la esclava de su amante and desengaño v (or la inocencia castigada) are exposed as the result of the expectations that surround female behavior and institutional marriage. although the traditional prescriptions regarding gender and behavior facilitate violence in these fictional works, i conclude that the protagonists of these stories resort to a variety of strategies such as mobility, silence, cross-dressing, and economic transactions to cope, denounce, and resist their positions as victims or survivors. as a result of these intersections, the representation of violence in these texts provides examples of resistance and ambiguities that question sociocultural practices in early modern spain. heterogeneous reactive materials are relevant for a variety of scientific and engineering fields. modeling these complicated systems often requires highly advanced mathematical models, cutting edge numerical algorithms and implementations, and intensive calibration thereof. much effort has been made in accomplishing these tasks. this has led to a great deal of progress in the modeling and simulation of these material systems which, in turn, has led to vast improvements in the physical understanding of the various mechanisms at play. however, these efforts are often limited by issues with thermodynamic consistency, the inherent nonlinearity of the relevant fields of interest (chemical species, temperature, deformation, etc.), and complex physical coupling between said fields.to this end, this dissertation develops a chemo-thermal-mechanical model that considers phase transition phenomena, heat generation due to chemical reactions and mechanical deformations, and finite strain elasto-plastic behavior. the dissertation also develops numerical algorithms for the computational implementation of the model which are developed as a state-of-the-art finite element solver. the model is calibrated using available experimental data, then applied to the β→δ phase transition of single crystal hmx as well as to hmx based pbxs. modern products ranging from simple components to complex systems should be designed to be optimal and reliable. the challenge of modern engineering is to ensure that manufacturing costs are reduced and design cycle times are minimized while achieving requirements for performance and reliability. if the market for the product is competitive, improved quality and reliability can generate very strong competitive advantages. simulation based design plays an important role in designing almost any kind of automotive, aerospace, and consumer products under these competitive conditions. single discipline simulations used for analysis are being coupled together to create complex coupled simulation tools. this investigation focuses on the development of efficient and robust methodologies for reliability based design optimization in a simulation based design environment. original contributions of this research are the development of a novel efficient and robust unilevel methodology for reliability based design optimization, the development of an innovative decoupled reliability based design optimization methodology, the application of homotopy techniques in unilevel reliability based design optimization methodology, and the development of a new framework for reliability based design optimization under epistemic uncertainty. the unilevel methodology for reliability based design optimization is shown to be mathematically equivalent to the traditional nested formulation. numerical test problems show that the unilevel methodology can reduce computational cost by at least 50% as compared to the nested approach. the decoupled reliability based design optimization methodology is an approximate technique to obtain consistent reliable designs at lesser computational expense. test problems show that the methodology is computationally efficient compared to the nested approach. a framework for performing reliability based design optimization under epistemic uncertainty is also developed. a trust region managed sequential approximate optimization methodology is employed for this purpose. results from numerical test studies indicate that the methodology can be used for performing design optimization under severe uncertainty. this dissertation sheds light on why accountability for corruption fails and corrupt politicians survive democratic elections. this study relies on a multi-method approach that brings together quantitative and qualitative data from brazil as well as a broader set of countries. challenging prior works on this topic, which focus on the low salience of corruption in voters' minds, this dissertation shows that even when corruption is a salient issue to voters, responses to corruption are not more clearly observed. rather than working just like accountability for other components of government performance, accountability for corruption follows a particular dynamic, one that is distinct from accountability for other electoral issues. accountability for corruption fails because the issue of corruption itself tends to be perceived with cynicism, an attitude characterized by the belief that all politicians and political parties are equally incompetent in dealing with corruption. when voters perceive corruption to be a constant among candidate options, they are likely to overlook this aspect of government performance and base their vote on different issues. this perceived lack of differentiation among available alternatives is a function of actual levels of corruption. when corruption is widespread, more politicians are likely to be implicated in it, which in turn fosters the perception that politicians are indistinguishable when it comes to either fighting corruption or refraining from it. this explanation predicts that electoral accountability for corruption will, ironically, be weakest where it is needed most. political corruption perpetuates through a self-fulfilling prophecy. while democratic elections and voters may not represent an effective solution to the problem, independent and credible institutions with the legitimate power to enforce efficient punishment for corrupt behavior may change voters' poor expectations regarding the prospects of corruption in politics and break the vicious cycle of corruption. hodge spectrum is one of the most important invariants of hypersurface singularities and a hyperplane arrangement contains the simplest higher dimensional singular set. it is known that the hodge spectra of hyperplane arrangements are combinatorial. calculating the hodge spectrum is a difficult task and combinatorial formulas exist for only a few cases. in this thesis the main result is the formula for reduced hyperplane arrangements in four variables. low density parity check codes are attractive because of their excellent performance with simple iterative message-passing algorithm. however, straightforward hardware implementation of these codes encounters troubles because of the randomness of the parity check matrices. in this thesis, we focus on algebraically constructed ldpc codes, especially quasi-cyclic ldpc codes that were first presented by tanner. we show that the quasi-cyclic ldpc codes can provide us with a highly parallel decoding architecture. furthermore, we construct an analytical model to estimate the power/area/throughput performance of these codes. by using this model, we find that these codes are wellsuited especially for high code rate applications. the blue bull &amp; other stories is a collection of short stories which proceeds chronologically, from the present era to the distant future, through characters, settings, and themes—especially those related to ecology, memory, history, and sense of place—based largely in the gulf coast region of the american south. quality-of-service (qos) support for wireless mesh networks (wmns) poses a significant challenge because they are increasingly used as multi-purpose networks, i.e., they serve multiple objectives and different applications simultaneously. as a consequence, a one-size-fits-all routing solution is difficult to achieve, particularly when the performance and qos expectations of these applications differ. this dissertation presents several mechanisms to provide qos-aware routing in wmns. it introduces the configurable mesh routing (cmr) framework, a toolkit that supports the discovery and management of routes based on any combination of a number of supported qos metrics. cmr is autonomous, that is, it requires limited participation from the application. in addition, cmr relies on qos adaptation mechanisms to dynamically respond to changes in the wmn. finally, cmr allows applications to customize the wmn to their own needs, that is, routes are discovered, monitored, and adapted based on application-specific requirements. the humanists disseminated their grammatical priorities amongst england's student population and grammar schools during the early tudor period. by 1535, the demand for their methods was vast and growing. the very reason for the early spread of humanist ideas, however, nearly proved the downfall of the latin education in general and the educational fashion with it. pre-reformation english humanism had proven itself to be entirely compatible with late medieval religious beliefs about the role of intercessory prayers in the life of the church; schools founded by humanists maintained traditional expectations about the role of school as religious organization. thus, when henry viii and edward vi attempted to disentangle schools from the fabric of english religious life, simultaneously stamping out practices they regarded as superstitious, many schools vanished with the institutions that had been outlawed. fit instruments: gaels, indians, and the diverse origins of imperial reform and revolution compares the experiences of three groups of marginalized people in the eighteenth century british empire—native americans, irish gaels, and scottish gaels—in order to better understand race and exclusion in early america. drawing on native american council speeches as well as gaelic-language poetry, i argue that these marginalized people strove to reshape empire in ways that reflected their cultural and material interests, ensuring that questions of diversity drove the process of imperial reform and revolution. i argue that the american revolution—and its troubling racial legacies—must be understood as a response, one among many, to that imperial reality and the difficult global transition from empire to nation-state.fit instruments begins with the glorious revolution of 1688-90, describing how the late seventeenth century witnessed the creation of tentative alliances between the empire's indigenous peoples and the crown—as well as the ways that anglophone provincials used these alliances as a justification for ousting james ii, creating an "exclusionary constitution" that barred indigenous people from the benefits of empire. this constitution began to crumble in the 1740s, when gaelic and indian people forced themselves onto the imperial agenda in a series of events that convinced imperial leaders that winning over indigenous people would be central to victory in the imperial struggle against france.this "atlantic' 45," i argue, reveals that imperial reform had different origins and goals than is usually assumed: it was focused on the need to manage diversity within a broader imperial framework. the second half of the project tells the story of successive imperial attempts to do so, with emphasis on the ways that gaelic and indian people themselves contributed to imperial reform both as its targets and as active participants. fit instruments closes with an epilogue that depicts the american revolution as one possible response to these changing imperial understandings of diversity, arguing that the familiar american struggle with race and exclusion owes much to its roots in an imperial crisis fundamentally concerned with the role of government in managing diversity. a complex algebraic variety is said to be (brody) hyperbolic if it does not admit any non-constant holomorphic maps from the complex line, which are called entire curves. conjectures by kobayashi, green, griffiths, lang, and others predict that the hyperbolicity of a variety is controlled by the positivity of its canonical bundle. more precisely, this circle of conjectures predicts that a variety of general type is hyperbolic outside of a proper subvariety called an exceptional locus, which may be empty if its canonical bundle has enough positivity. in this dissertation, we make several advances to the study of these conjectures with respect to the notion of algebraic hyperbolicity as defined by demailly. we obtain a complete classification of very general hypersurfaces in pm x pn by their bidegrees, except in the case of threefolds in p3 x p1. we present three techniques to do so, which build on past work by ein, voisin, pacienza, coskun, riedl, and others. as another application of these techniques, we solve the penultimate case of degree 8 fourfolds in the widely-studied question of the algebraic hyperbolicity of very general hypersurfaces in pn, leaving sextic threefolds as the only open case. in a collaboration with x. chen and e. riedl, we develop some of the above techniques to the setting of quasi-projective varieties. we prove that curves in the complement of a very general hypersurface in pn of degree 2n that may possibly violate algebraic hyperbolicity lift to the universal line via the associated line map. assuming an additional hypothesis on the associated line map, we show that algebraic hyperbolicity holds for such varieties outside of a proper exceptional locus when n is at least 2. moreover, for the complement of a very general quartic plane curve, we show that the exceptional locus is precisely the union of the bitangent and flex lines to the curve, given this additional hypothesis. the mind is an allegorical place. as it receives countless sense impressions from the body's nerves and the external world, the mind turns its impressions into ideas and then attempts to organize this perpetual stream of thoughts. this, at least, is the basic philosophical account of mind and body which runs through descartes's groundbreaking work in optics and locke's theory of psychology from an essay concerning human understanding. descartes and locke agree that the mind's perception of external reality cannot always be trusted. locke's famous chapter on the association of ideas, a late addition to the essay's initially optimistic account of perception and cognition, anxiously shows how the mind joins together and confuses all sorts of images and ideas which should be kept distinct. locke's ambivalent account of cognition—that the mind should give us a clear and distinct picture of reality even while it deceives us—held a firm grip on the eighteenth-century imagination. locke's theory of association demonstrates the need for allegory. allegory asks its readers to find an organizing principle of coherence within a host of images and figures. yet locke and his eighteenth-century disciples condemned allegory because its ever-changing metaphorical imagery can work against the mind's production of clear and distinct ideas.for eighteenth-century writers, locke's comparison of allegory to the association of ideas would become a settled but unsettling truth. my dissertation argues that the renaissance mode of allegory, a dynamic system of imagery which at once obscures its meaning and points toward some external or spiritual reality, carries on into the enlightenment. even if eighteenth-century fictions appear to prize the probable and the sensible over the spiritual, this secular description of fiction obscures the theological themes of many eighteenth-century works. my dissertation ultimately recovers the hidden remains of allegorical structure and narrative in eighteenth-century works from bunyan's prose allegories to richardson's clarissa. in these writers' works, the mind or soul is an allegory-making factory which produces pictures or stories which help us make sense of the world. in this doctoral thesis, i overview the empirical and theoretical consequences of evolution by drift and/or natural selection, as it acts upon lineages during ecological speciation. then, i outline the evolutionary divergence between two such lineages. to address my questions empirically, i utilize genomic and transcriptomic data applied to a taxon (daphnia; crustacea : cladocera) which serves presently more as an ecological model than a genetic one. i am fortunate to have undertaken the necessary research at the present time and place, where high throughput next-generation sequence data could be generated for and meaningfully applied by a doctoral student for novel purposes. i have had a lot of help. what follows in this text are an introductory chapter, three data chapters, and a conclusion, concerning the diversity and divergence among north american daphnia pulex and daphnia pulicaria. in the second chapter, i use novel data to address their genomic divergence; in the third, their regulatory divergence; and in the fourth, their ongoing hybridization and admixture. each chapter is written to be submitted as a stand-alone manuscript for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. herein, their content is presented as a dissertation for the partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy from the university of notre dame. finally, i offer my concluding remarks upon completion of this research, concerning the state of biology as a field, and the immense opportunities that exist going forward. the logic lω1ω admits sentences that are infinitely long by allowing countably many conjunctions and disjunctions. in this logic, we can describe countable structures such as the natural numbers up to isomorphism among countable structures via a single sentence φ known as the scott sentence of that structure. the syntactic complexity of a scott sentence for a structure tells us a host of information about the structure. we consider a finer notion of this complexity than that historically considered in the literature known as the scott complexity. we also consider an effective analogue of this concept, and prove analogues of known results about scott complexity.next, we compute the scott complexity for some well-behaved classes of structures. a linear order l is said to be scattered if there is no embedding from the order type of the rationals into l. we give sharp upper bounds on the scott complexity of an arbitrary scattered linear order in terms of an invariant known as its hausdorff rank. finally, we consider the case when the scott complexity of a structure is d − σα or σα. such structures are controlled by a special finite tuple inside the structure similar to the way in which a finitely generated structure is controlled by its generating tuple. we call such structures finitely α-generated and show that several previously known results about the scott sentences of finitely generated structures can be lifted. as a possible replacement or supplementary technology for complimentary metaloxide-semiconductor (cmos) technology, nanomagnet logic (nml) employs nearest neighbor dipole-dipole interactions for logic operations. nml has the benefits of low power consumption, non-volatility, radiation hardness, etc. to leverage the benefits of nml, the research in this dissertation has helped advance the state of the art of design and modeling of nml circuits and architectures. the work in this dissertation has shown that the integration of nml with cmos is feasible through magnetic-electrical interface (mei) designs based on magnetic tunnel junction. these mei designs are especially important as hybrid nml and cmos architectures are approached. as an extension from the mei work, designs of magnetic content addressable memory based on current induced domain wall motion are compact and energy efficient without sacrificing speed, overcoming a major challenge faced by content addressable memory designs. as much of nml studies need designs and simulations, an nml layout design methodology using energy states tackles the side effect of next nearest neighbor couplings in nml circuits, and a software package developed for assisting simulation is practical and effective for automating nml simulation processes and saving time. this master's thesis further examined the relation between child sexual abuse history and subsequent restraint and seclusion incidents, and additionally evaluated the influence of three potential moderators on this primary relationship (namely, prenatal exposure to alcohol, tobacco, and/or illicit drugs, child temperament, and executive functioning). results revealed that child temperament, specifically effortful control, and prenatal exposure to alcohol, tobacco, and/or illicit drugs were both significant moderating influences on the relation of child sexual abuse history to restraint and seclusion. in contrast, child executive functioning was not found to be a significant moderator in predicting restraint and seclusion. ultimately, this research, focused on a high-risk clinical population, is essential for increasing our understanding of child psychopathology and enhancing treatments for youth affected by sexual abuse. specifically, these findings have critical clinical implications that may inform specialized inpatient treatment in the prevention of the use restraint and seclusion. human integration into cyber-physical systems, such as the smart grid, smart transportation systems, and crowdsensing, while possibly contributing to the efficiency and sustainability of the system, introduces the possibility of externalities due to the actions of various participants who act strategically to further their own interest. in order to ensure desired system performance in spite of such strategic decision making, the system operator may need to design appropriate incentives for the users. this dissertation presents some techniques for incentive design in some particular problems modeled from practical cyber-physical systems and studies the behavior of the participants in response to the mechanism. in particular, we focus on the role of interest misalignment as well as information asymmetry among the participants in these systems. we focus on three settings: demand response program in a smart (power) grid, distributed estimation in crowd sensing applications, and task allocation in a general multi-agent system. we design mechanisms to mitigate strategic behavior of the participants and address the challenges specific to each system, while satisfying certain properties such as individual rationality, incentive compatibility, and social optimality. we also study the gap between mechanism design and classical cost allocation for an incentive design in a general multi-agent system and propose future directions as well as several extensions of the presented work. for the latter part of the 20th century, photographic practice has generally been discussed within a framework of modernist or postmodernist theories. modernist photographic theory holds the art object dear, while postmodernist approaches believe the photograph to be a vehicle for the transference of power between larger cultural institutions. such ideas have become stale in the wake of the 21st century, and a new photographic theory must be established to take into account the various media and processes currently available to photographers. the post-historical photographic movement, a loosely affiliated group of photographers who use historical photographic processes to explore contemporary themes, have sparked this need for a new approach to photographic discourse. by exploring the work of two photographers working within this movement — jerry spagnoli and mark osterman — we may come to a better understanding of where photographic practice is headed and what it means for our understanding of the medium. the modernist object and postmodernist message are not mutually exclusive, but exist in a symbiotic relationship that may be christened "interdependent photographic theory." practitioners and scholars of traditional tibetan medicine generally recognize the centrality of the texts known as the four tantras (tib. དཔལ་ལྡན་རྒྱུད་བཞི, dpal ldan rgyud bzhi), but the relationship between the study of texts, on the one hand, and everyday clinical practice and embodied skill, on the other, is not clear. this dissertation, based on sixteen months of multi-sited fieldwork at four sites of medical practice in qinghai province, china, explores this relationship and the everyday use of texts in and out of clinical practice. it addresses three questions about the tantras: 1. as texts: what do the four tantras say about their own history and structure both explicitly and implicitly through their poetics? what are their institutional histories and presents including their relationships with other texts? what hermeneutics do contemporary doctors use to read the tantras? 2. as practice: how do the teachings of the tantras relate to practical knowledge, or become embodied knowledge, in practices like pulse examination, and what reflexive role the tantras play once competency in such practical actions is achieved? what non-pedagogical role do the tantras play in clinical practice and interaction? is this 'legible' to an informed observer? and 3. is tibetan medicine, truly a 'holistic' medicine, in what way, and what does 'holism' mean? drawing on anthropological theories of textuality, semiotics, apprenticeship, and embodied skill, using methodology from linguistic anthropology, philology, ethnopoetics, and microethnography, i look beyond the denotational meaning of the texts to analyze both their poetic structure and their relationships with other texts. i examine the ways that textual claims of holism find their way into clinical practice. i look at the relationship between texts and tactility, showing that even in these most embodied of skills that seem immune to shared attention and discursive intersubjectivity texts still have their place. i show that textual practice is a specific type of embodied skill and offer an alternative view of the relationship between this skill and other embodied skills to more common views. this study has implications for the multimodal and intertextual study of medical systems and practices beyond idealized claims. saccharides are arguably the most talented molecules in the biological repertoire of molecular structures. however, the code correlating complex saccharide structure with biological function remains elusive. the saccharide code may involve more subtle physical principles involving hydration and dynamics, since saccharide oligomers are commonly considered conformationally flexible structures, especially with regard to the glycosidic bonds involved in their assembly. to date, no clear set of rules has been developed that correlates oligosaccharide primary structure with conformational preference and dynamic properties. a large component of this work involved developing experimental and theoretical methods to prepare biologically important oligosaccharides with isotopic enrichment and to study their solution properties. the use of isotopically labeled monosaccharide precursors dramatically increases the information content of structural studies of monoand oligosaccharides. detailed structural studies of oligosaccharides are best conducted by experimental methods involving the use of aqueous solutions that mimic, as well as possible, the biological environment. nmr spectroscopy offers a powerful means to conduct these studies, partly based on the conformational dependencies of nmr spin-spin coupling constants involving carbon and hydrogen (jh,h, jc,h, jc,c) and other nmr parameters. in this dissertation, spin-spin coupling constants measured in these compounds are interpreted using theoretically-derived karplus or karplus-like relationships between molecular structure conformation and coupling magnitude. in chapter 2, fundamental studies of j-couplings in biologically important, isotopically labeled hexuronic acids (monosaccharide level) are presented. chapter 3 focuses on conformational and dynamics studies of isotopically-labeled mannose-containing oligosaccharides that form part of the structures of high-mannose n-glycans of human glycoproteins (oligosaccharide level). concentrations of 3-deoxyglucosone (3dg) are elevated several fold above normal levels in serum and tissues of diabetic patients. 3dg can damage protein functionality and pyridoxamine (pm) can protect from 3-dg-induced protein damage. in chapter 4, a novel protection mechanism involving pm was investigated, which includes transient adduction of 3-dg by pm followed by irreversible pm-mediated oxidative cleavage of 3-dg. lastly, in chapter 5 an x-ray crystal structure of 3-deoxy-beta-d-glucopyranose is presented with a full structural analysis, including discussion of ring-puckering behavior and comparison with other structurally related sugars. estimation of health risks from exposure to contaminated groundwater traditionally focuses on the maximum risk. as such, the traditional approach does not provide insight into the time evolution of risk. here, a continuous time-dependent method is developed and explored that allows estimation of chronic, carcinogenic risk as a function of when exposure to contaminated groundwater starts, thus producing a distribution of risk through time capable of capturing fundamentally different information than maximum risk. in addition to direct consideration of the time-dependent risks, measures for quantifying temporal variation in risk are explored: reliability, resilience, vulnerability, (rrv) and non-compliance projections (ncps). the rrv measures serve to estimate the probability of an acceptable health risk, probability of system recovery, expected maximum health risk, and average exceedance of a prescribed health risk threshold. ncps provide for visualization of unacceptable health risk as a function of time and population characteristics. the time-dependent chronic risk and accompanying measures are investigated in two systems: (1) two synthetic breakthrough curves of equal total mass but varying temporal distribution in concentration observed at the well and (2) a case study with uncertainty in hydraulic conductivity and variability in population characteristics. the results obtained for the synthetic curves demonstrate that episodic contamination events produce fundamentally different time-dependent risks than long-term events, even when both curves contain equal total mass arriving at the well: these differences are apparent in the risk versus time curve and can be captured via the rrv and ncp measures. the results from the case study highlight that assessment of time-dependent risks provides rich insight into the structure of the risk in time, space, and as a function of population variability. overall, the results of this study demonstrate that further study of time-dependent risk from groundwater contamination, including application under different management scenarios, is well justified and promises to fundamentally enhance our ability to assess risk from a contaminated water supply. in particular, this work demonstrates that consideration of time-dependent risk provides a substantially broader set of tools for assessing potential chronic health risk from groundwater contamination than is available from the classic, maximum risk methodology. identity of network traffic is becoming increasingly important in the definition and enforcement of security policies in an enterprise network. network management and auditing require a finer granularity to be associated with the traffic flows in addition to the host level. unfortunately, the inability of current architecture results in the local context of the connectivity in terms of the user and application being inferred from the packet content, such as ip address and port numbers. it is this inference that frequently results in overly coarse rules for the firewall in the interest of performance or simply enabling connectivity. while there are mechanisms proposed in the literature that purport to address this issue, the reality of deployment often negates adoption of such techniques. to that end, this work proposes a distributed network data collection and analysis system, expsicor, that pro-actively gathers the missing characteristics (local context) for the purpose of enterprise network management. by combining the full visibility at the end hosts (through such simple tools as netstat, ps, and lsof) and the global aggregate view at the central management server, it is demonstrated how local context improves network insight, and can be used for security auditing, finer network management and better policy mapping without costly deployment overhead. the system has been built and evaluated, and tools for visualizing analyzing data have been developed. the system has been deployed on over 150+ machines in our department. many interesting analysis have been performed and shown in this thesis based on the data that has been collected since april 2007. bone, is a dynamic tissue that is continually being renewed at a rate dependent on the health of its cells, which is linked to nutrient availability and other incompletely understood factors. it is known that weight-bearing exercise can noticeably affect bone density and has been hypothesized as a mechanism for increased nutrient delivery in bone. to date the only model for mass transport in bone is passive diffusion, which insufficiently meets bone cell metabolic requirements and is independent of mechanical stress. the objective of this research was to: 1) propose a theoretical model for enhanced mass transport in cortical bone due to shearing oscillatory fluid flow dependent on molecular size, strain magnitude, and frequency; 2) demonstrate experimentally that oscillating fluid flows affect the mass transport of particles in sheep cortical bone; 3) prove that increased nutrient levels influence bone cell osteogenesis and metabolism in-vitro; 4) develop calcium phosphate nano-carriers for nutrients and drugs deliverable through the new mechanism. the theoretical model predicted transport enhancements of up to 100 fold for molecules larger than 7 nm in diameter. in sheep cortical bone, for 20 and 40 nm sized solutes, for frequencies of 1-3 hz and 20 khz, experimental diffusivity enhancements of respectively 40-550 and 150 were observed, in accordance with model predictions. the rate of bone deposition, related to nutrient level by michaelis-menten kinetics for human fetal osteoblast, was measured by in-vitro experiments, which showed that if passive diffusion in bone was increased by 1000 using oscillatory flow mechanisms, then kinetic and diffusional rates would be equal, and bone deposition would be an ideally tuned biological transformation. in addition, in-vitro experiments showed that bone cell osteogenesis was affected by core-shell and mesoporous calcium phosphate nano-carriers. the transport of these carriers in bone was theoretically predicted by the model. in conclusion, a new model describing oscillatory fluid shear-effects can enhance solute transport in cortical and osteoporotic bone by repetitive strains generated during physical activity and acoustic healing. the model gives new insights into the mechanisms behind bone functional adaptation and is the basis for a strain-based therapy involving bioactive "smart' osteoconductive nano-device. applying deep learning methods to solve high-dimensional and nonlinear differential equations(de) has raised much attention recently. a goal of using machine learning in systems of differential equations is to train a surrogate model with prior physics information and generate predictions with stability and accuracy. however, training such models for high-dimensional/nonlinear multi-scale ode or pde systems with limited or labeled data is a grant challenge; and the proper design of the architecture of the neural network is still poorly understood.this dissertation explores data-driven methods in modeling and predicting differential equation governing systems. to tackle the training issue in learning switch systems with imbalanced scales, we propose a novel pinn-based neural network model that resolves the training issue of regular pinn in learning nonlinear switch systems. we explore and incorporate batch statistics in physics-constrained loss functions. the numerical results are demonstrated via three examples by semi-supervised learning and supervised learning algorithms with a small batch of the signal dataset.for learning the system of pdes, a sequence to sequence supervised learning model for pdes named neural-pde is proposed in this work. unlike the conventional machine learning approaches for learning pdes, such as cnn and mlp, which require a great number of parameters for model precision, the neural-pde utilizes an rnn based structure, which shares parameters among all-time steps. thus the neural-pde considerably reduces computational complexity and leads to a fast learning algorithm. we showcase the prediction power of the neural-pde by applying it to problems from $1d$ pdes to a multi-scale complex fluid system.motivated by those innovative methodologies for learning systems of differential equations, we develop a machine learning framework for learning the dynamics of time-dependent oceanic variables across multiply detection sensors. the prediction accurately replicates complex signals and provides comparable performance to state-of-the-art benchmarks. self-propagating high temperature reactions are of interest due to the potential for fabrication of unique materials, including metastable phases and super refractory alloys and ceramics. reactions occurring in the tin/b, ni/al, and ti/bn systems were investigated and characterized using mechanically-induced nanostructured composites through high energy ball milling (hebm). a wide range of diagnostic equipment was applied, and experimental techniques were developed to characterize the reaction mechanisms, reaction kinetics, and diffusion behavior of these systems with particular focus on tin/b, which was investigated here for the first time. tin/b belongs to a subset of combustion reactions, known as solid flame systems, where the adiabatic combustion temperature does not exceed any phase transition temperature or eutectic point of the reactants, intermediates, or products, but for which no ternary phases or substantial solid solutions form. in situ time-resolved x-ray diffraction, infrared video recording, and thermal gravimetric analysis/differential scanning calorimetry were employed to determine the reaction pathway of this system, which is one of the primary goals of this dissertation. cubic boron nitride, the high-pressure bn polymorph, was produced by shock-induced reactive synthesis using the tin/b system. high speed microscope video analysis identified two propagation modes for ni/al nanostructured composites: a micro-heterogeneous mode limited by heat transfer between composite particles, and a nano-quasi-homogeneous mode limited by reaction kinetics within single particles. an in situ tem technique that couples energy dispersive spectroscopy mapping with a heated transmission electron microscope stage was used to measure diffusivity in the temperature range of 623 k – 723 k, which is relevant for understanding solid-state ignition behavior of ni-al. the development of mechanical processing methods for fabricating nanostructured composites presents an opportunity to prepare novel reactive mixtures from systems for which thermodynamic calculations indicate substantial heats of formation but were not previously identified as feasible due to solid-solid diffusion limitations. this project examined relationships between maternal resources and the socioemotional development for 129 14-year old children born to adolescent mothers. based on data from the notre dame adolescent parenting project, key variables assumed to mediate the relationship between parenting practices and children's socioemotional development were included as well as potential variables that might protect against risks associated with poor maternal adjustment. the primary hypothesis was supported: parental attitudes at age 14 mediated high levels of maternal adjustment and children's emotional adjustment during early adolescence. the hypotheses that examined protective factors financial resources, religiosity, parenting support, father involvement, and parenting attitudes as moderators were not supported by the data. the current study examined risk and protective factors in the lives of adolescent mothers combined with models of family processes and parenting that contributed to successful socio-behavioral outcomes in their adolescent children. such a model advocates for psycho-educational interventions that yield improved parentfocused interventions that are designed to lower the risk of these problems in children. the performance of thermal control systems has, in recent years, improved in numerous ways due to developments in control theory and information technology. however, our understanding of controllability and related questions remain rudimentary. the main characteristics of thermal systems that we are interested in are their distributed nature and delay due to fluid advection from one point to another. two basic systems, heat exchangers and long ducts, are investigated, and the following issues are addressed. (a) the first is controllability for which conductive-convective systems and cross-flow heat exchangers are examined in detail. in the heat exchanger, controllability results for different choices of the manipulated variable are presented. (b) the second is the control methodology for the outlet temperature in cross-flow heat exchangers. a transient model is developed and tested. the response of this system to control strategies is studied and the performance of a proportional-integral (pi) controller to disturbances in the system is presented. (c) the third is the effect of delay in heating or cooling in long ducts in which the flow velocity is the manipulated variable. the governing first-order partial differential equation is transformed to a nonlinear dynamical system represented by an integro-differential equation in the residence time of the fluid in the duct. both eulerian and lagrangian versions of the equation are numerically solved. a pi-based controller is used to control the duct outlet temperature. investigation of the linear stability of the system leads to a transcendental equation for which pontryagin's theorem can be applied. the stability map for the controller parameters is obtained and the effect of the residence time on the system stability is determined. simple as well as suband super-critical hopf bifurcations are found. this dissertation investigates bone fracture fixation. in the proposed method, bone fractures are stabilized using multiple bioresorbable metallic or polymer dartsails that are inserted into bone at high velocity and which are subsequently incorporated/absorbed by the body so that removal is unnecessary. this dissertation will introduce the proposed method in detail and discuss its advantages to standard bone fracture fixation techniques. prior work relevant to fracture healing and potential dart materials will be discussed. the dissertation highlights many of the issues that may be encountered during final product design. prototype work also provided an extensive framework for the development and initial validation of analytical and numerical models. a major focus of this dissertation is to describe the numerical models that were used to analyze dart penetration in bone. the models gave insight into the importance of various design and material parameters on penetration performance. the results are useful for device design since many of the parameters cannot be varied easily in an experimental setup. the numerical models also show the bone and dart material reaction to impact stresses and high strain rates. another focus of this dissertation is the mechanical characterization of pinnedailed constructs in bone and bone analogs. one set of experiments will use foam analog femurs to compare the performance of nails and traditional bone screws in fixating femoral condylar fractures. nails are a viable alternative to bone screws for demanding applications. nail and screw pullout forces in foam bone analogs and freshly slaughtered porcine bone were characterized since pullout is expected to be a common failure mode. the models and experiments presented in this dissertation should provide a basic knowledge of various mechanical issues that arise in the development and use of this novel technology. the subject of this dissertation is arithmetical knowledge and arithmetical definability. the first two chapters contain respectively a critique of a logicist account of a preferred means by which we may legitimately infer to arithmetical truths and a tentative defense of an empiricist account. according to the logicist account, one may infer from quasi-logical truths to patently arithmetical truths because the arithmetical truths are representable in the logical truths. it is argued in the first chapter that this account is subject to various problems: for instance, the most straightforward versions seem vulnerable to various counterexamples. the basic idea of the alternative empiricist account considered in chapter two is that complicated arithmetical truths like mathematical induction may be inferred by way of confirmation from less complicated quantifier-free arithmetical truths. the notion of confirmation here is understood probabilistically, and responses are given in this chapter to several seeming problems with this importation of probability into arithmetic. the final two chapters are concerned with arithmetical definability in two different settings. in the third chapter, the interpretability strength of the arithmetical and hyperarithmetical subsystems of second-order peano arithmetic is compared to the interpretability strength of analogous systems centered around two principles called hume's principle and basic law v, which respectively axiomatize a standard notion of cardinality and an alternative conception of set. one of the major results of this chapter is that the hyperarithmetic subsystem of hume's principle does not interpret the hyperarithmetic subsystem of second-order peano arithmetic. the fourth chapter is concerned with arithmetical definability in the setting of descriptive set theory, where the relevant benchmark is between notions which may be defined without quantification over elements of certain topological spaces (borel notions) and notions whose definitions do require such quantification (analytic, coanalytic, projective notions). in this fourth chapter the denjoy integral is studied from the vantage point of descriptive set theory, and it is shown that the graph of the indefinite integral is not borel but rather is properly coanalytic. this contrasts to the lebesgue integral, which is borel under this measure of complexity. radiative capture reactions involving neutrons are of particular importance to various nuclear applications. experimental constraints, however, make measurements of these types of cross sections nontrivial. therefore, it is essential to have a reliable method for predicting (n, γ) and (γ, n) reaction cross sections. indirect measurements of compound nuclear reactions can be performed using more easily accessible reaction channels as a way of studying the reaction of interest. two methods of extracting (n,γ) cross sections from indirect measurements are the oslo method and the surrogate method. for this ph.d. dissertation, indirect measurements of 145,146sm(n, γ)146,147sm and 159,160dy(n, γ)160,161dy were attempted using both methods.data for this thesis was taken at texas a&amp;m university, using the hyperion particle-γ detector array. reactions measured include 148sm(p, d)147sm, 148sm(p, t)146sm, 162dy(p, d)161dy, and 162dy(p, t)160dy. eex − eγ matrices were generated for 147sm, 160dy, and 161dy using particle-γ coincidence measurements, and were then run through the oslo method fitting algorithms to simultaneously extract γ-strength function and nuclear level density. the data taken explores the existence of the low energy enhancement of the γ-strength function in a spherical and deformed nuclear system, and verifies the robustness of the method to different indirect reaction channels. surrogate measurements of (n,γ) cross sections were attempted, and γ-decay probabilities were extracted for 146sm, 147sm, and 160dy. extracted γ-decay probabilities exhibit spin inhibition, where neutron evaporation cannot occur in a compound nucleus until conservation of both energy and angular momentum are conserved. ultra-high-vacuum scanning tunneling microscopy was used to observe copper phthalocyanine molecules deposited on the au(111) surface. the primary goal of these experiments was to isolate a single copper phthalocyanine so that its electronic properties could be studied closely with the molecule not interacting with any other surface bound molecules. there where several issues that had to be addressed satisfactorily before the microscope would be ready to scan single molecules. these steps included fabricating a support structure for the instrument, and eliminating or minimizing all sources of external noise. several samples were used to calibrate the microscope and verify that the instrument could image atomic-scale features. dip-casting was used to create au(111) samples with low coverages of copper phthalocyanines. we optimized the experimental parameters used to acquire images, including bias voltage, tunneling current, and scan speed; this optimization was done to maximize resolution, contrast, and tunneling stability. stm imaging of single copper phthalocyanine molecules was demonstrated. modification of porous membranes with polyelectrolyte multilayers and subsequent attachment of mimotope peptides or antigens enables capture of relevant monoclonal antibodies (mabs) in diluted human serum. this thesis explores the functionalization of nylon membrane and followed by embedding the membrane in spin columns for a 30 min assay. elution with detergent/reducing agent solution and analysis of intrinsic tryptophan residues in eluted mabs allows concentration measurement, using calibration curves established using mab standards. to further improve our antibody quantification method, we modify glass fiber membrane in a 96-well plate and this assay requires only 5 min processing time. we reduce detection of non-specific binding by employing fluorescently labelled secondary antibodies with specificity against human immunoglobulin g (igg) to bind to immobilized mab and the measured fluorescence intensity directly correlates with the level of mab in samples. we demonstrated the capability of our functionalized membranes in spin column and 96-well plate format in quantifying trastuzumab, bevacizumab, and sars-cov-2 mab in relevant clinical concentration ranges. future work would involve incorporating our functionalized membranes in microfluidic devices for user-friendly and convenient point-of-care assays. while christ's salvific role as 'primal sacrament' is a widely documented part of karl rahner's soteriology, another major and yet underappreciated part is christ's identity as 'representative' (both our representative before god and god's before us). the dissertation uncovers this identity within rahner's theology, situating it in relation to other historical examples of representative soteriology (e.g., irenaeus of lyons) and to rahner's more familiar sacramental soteriological categories. it gives special attention to rahner's early studies of and writings on the church fathers, particularly rahner's own untranslated and recently published dissertation, e latere christi ('from the side of christ'). the structural reforms implemented in the late 1980s and early 1990s transformed the regional characteristics of the mexican economy and led to a redistribution and concentration of economic activities in some favored regions. this study analyzes the structural transformations of the mexican economy after the period of structural reforms to highlight the internal and external adjustments that took place between 1993 and 2003, and their effects on regional income distribution. two regionalized social accounting matrices (rsams) were constructed with households grouped according to geo-political area of residence to function as databases for the inter-temporal comparison of the economic structure, output and income multipliers, and the development of relative distribution measures. the analysis contributes to the understanding of the complex phenomenon of regional income distribution in mexico by providing evidence that the internal dynamics of the mexican economy work against the states with lower levels of per capita income, but that, contrary to what is found in the literature, external intervening factors contribute to the reduction in the dispersion of regional income per capita during the period. rousseau seems 'republican' in critiquing modern people as luxurious and soft, in contrast with primitive sternness and virtue. yet he also seems 'romantic' in exposing modern life as cruel and oppressive, in contrast with primitive gentleness and idleness. this dissertation comprehensively analyzes themes related to gentleness and severity in rousseau, while also comparing him with other major political philosophers and social theories. it shows that, despite the pervasiveness of these themes in rousseau, scholars have either neglected them or treated them in isolation from one another. chapter 1 characterizes the pivotal social types appearing in rousseau, including the citizen, the civilized modern, the moral human (emile), the solitary dreamer (rousseau), and several kinds of 'savages.' an innovative typology reveals substantial coherence behind many of his central paradoxes. chapter 2 argues that despite his searing critiques of modern oppression, rousseau typically does not characterize his contemporaries as cruel. instead, the fundamental structures of civilization institutionalize basic conflicts of interest and self-reinforcing inequalities. with these structures secured, modern elites can reap civilization's false benefits without needing to be violentì¢ ââ' they need only be 'harsh' or 'hard.' in chapter 3 we turn to 'doux commerce,' the prevailing enlightenment theory that increasing commercialization and cultural refinement would make people more 'gentle,' 'mild,' and tolerant. whereas rousseau has been understood to repudiate commerce simply because of its cruelty, we find that he largely concedes the descriptive premise of doux commerce. however, he frames the 'softness' it generates as politically base in comparison with the stern virtues of the ancients, as resulting from moral indifference rather than genuine conviction, and as perfectly compatible with the ramification of cruel institutions. chapter 4 discusses basic tensions in rousseau's highest prescriptive ideals, the citizen and the moral human. we find, for instance, that he was more critical of the violence generated by republican patriotism than is usually believed, that his domestic education counterbalances emancipation from direct human authority with exposure to the harshness of nature, and that the pinnacle of his social thought may be a stoicizing overcoming of the violent jealousy which arose with human society itself. when designing an agent model for a multi-agent swarm, many decisions must be made regarding which aspects of the agent should be included in the simulated agent's specification. this thesis investigates the role of physics and visualization in agent modeling. particularly, this work demonstrates that when modeling an agent which represents a physically embodied entity, the physical description of the agent may be vital to the accuracy of the simulation results. extensions are made to the simworld environment, a simulator for multi-agent swarm experimentation, to provide rigid-body physics and three-dimensional renderings of simulations. the extended simulator is used to highlight the impact of physics and visualization in several swarm scenarios. without any doubt, location is one of the most important and key requirements of most mobile and wireless networks. localization is necessary to provide a physical context to sensor readings for services such as intrusion detection, inventory, and supply chain management. it is also a fundamental task for sensor network services such as geographic routing and coverage area management. over the last few decades, localization technologies have undergone significant progress and they now play a crucial role for many locations and context-aware services and applications such as navigation, robotics, patient monitoring, and emergency response systems. this work studies the topic of localization using radio-frequency (rf) technologies for several applications. we study the localization concept in the context of range-free, range-based and machine learning algorithms, presented in three chapters of this thesis. we aim at addressing the heterogeneity problem in range-free localization algorithms where the non-uniform distribution of nodes and different transmission power are the main cause of heterogeneity. our two proposed approaches improve the localization accuracy in heterogeneous networks using a joint route discovery and localization approach, and elliptical range estimation algorithm. the joint route discovery and localization algorithm deploys a variable range route discovery that improves the connectivity of nodes in a heterogeneous network and then performs a hop-length estimation for localization of nodes. in our other approach, we introduced an elliptical range-estimation, which is based on studying the shape and geometry of path between nodes in a heterogeneous network. the simulation results confirm the improvement of localization accuracy compared with popular range-free methods such as dv-hop, zblm, and ezblm. in the next part of the thesis, we investigate the main challenges and problems of range-based algorithms using rf technologies such as ble, wifi, xbee, and dsrc (ieee802.11p). mainly the fading characteristics of the wireless channel, i.e. path loss exponent, multipath fading, and shadowing, with unknown distribution, are the main issues with range-based methods. in the third chapter, we introduce several approaches to address these issues. first, we investigate the diversity concept to reduce the impact of the multipath fading on the received signal strength (rss). we show that by using time diversity or transmitting beacon signals at different time slots, spatial diversity or using multiple antennas for transmitting beacons, and frequency diversity or transmitting beacons at different channels or bands, we can reduce the impact of multipath fading. we investigate these concepts by experimentation using ble and wifi in indoor environments. the experiment results demonstrate an improvement in ranging by leveraging the time diversity and averaging over the rss samples at different time slots. similar to time diversity, having multiple copies of a signal from different antennas can improve the ranging accuracy. the ranging accuracy significantly improves by using the frequency diversity by deploying wifi beacons working in 2.4ghz and 5ghz bands. more specifically, a sub-meter accuracy was achieved using 5ghz for short distances, and for larger distances, 2.4ghz showed more accurate ranging. besides the diversity concept, we introduce an algorithm based on multi-range beaconing where beacons are allowed to change their transmission power and range. we have shown that the multi-range beaconing is robust against multipath fading and can estimate the distance accurately even in the presence of deep fading. as the last part of the range-based localization algorithm, we focus on the application of rf technologies such as dsrc for ranging and localization in vehicular environments. due to the dynamic of the environment, multipath fading and shadowing can significantly degrade the ranging performance. to address the localization accuracy, we introduced parametric and non-parametric (learning-based) approaches to estimating the distance and noise profile. the non-parametric algorithm leverages a learning approach and the mobility of devices (e.g. the vehicle) for estimating the distance of a transmitter and receiver device. the results demonstrate that by having enough rss samples, we can reach an average ranging error of 1 meter. one of the main concern of this approach is the convergence time. we address this issue by using a filtering scheme and trilateration. furthermore, we introduced a novel parametric algorithm to estimate the path loss exponent and shadowing distribution in a network of beacons using centroid localization algorithm. for the parametric approach, we also studied different parameters such as beacon configuration having direct impact on localization accuracy. the last chapter of the thesis leverages the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning frameworks as a new and interesting approach to solve the localization problem. we present a survey of existing work in this area and propose a supervised learning model for rss-based localization in vehicular environments. the performance of the proposed approach shows a significant improvement in localization accuracy and convergence time for ranging. increasing the efficiency of existing refrigeration systems is possible if a new alternative refrigerant can be selected. an ideal refrigerant would be co2 because it is a natural refrigerant with an extremely high efficiency. in an effort to use co2 as a refrigerant, ionic liquid lubricants were considered to carry the co2 and act as the working fluid. the thermal conductivity, viscosity, and pressure-viscosity coefficient were measured for several ionic liquids using a unitherm thermal conductivity measurement system, a viscometer, and an elastohydrodynamic lubrication (ehl) rig, respectively. the ionic liquids tested are 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium-trifluoromethanesulfonate, tributyl(dodecyl)phosphonium 1,2,3-triazolide and trihexyl(tetradecyl)phosphonium 1,2,3-triazolide. tests were also performed on paraffin, hexadecane, and dodecane for comparison. results show that ionic liquids have the potential to be suitable lubricants. an indispensable part of the cell envelope, the bacterial cell wall, is a vitally important part of virtually all bacteria. many proteins found in the bacterial cell envelope are involved in biosynthesis of the cell wall, its remodeling and recycling or protection of this structure from antibacterial agents (ì_å_-lactamases). the significance of these processes came to fore soon after introduction of penicillin to clinical use in 1940s. currently, many of the antibiotics used in clinical practice target different aspects of cell wall biosynthesis. the biggest class in this group of antibiotics is that of ì_å_-lactams. exposed to ì_å_-lactam antibiotics, bacteria quickly develop new mechanisms to neutralize these harmful substances and to preserve the cell wall integrity. one such mechanism is production of ì_å_-lactamases, enzymes that hydrolyze ì_å_-lactam antibiotics. three classes of these enzymes are believed to have evolved from ancestral penicillin-binding proteins (pbps), enzymes responsible for bacterial cell wall biosynthesis. although both pbps and gram-negative ì_å_-lactamases operate in the periplasm, pbps are anchored to the cytoplasmic membrane, but ì_å_-lactamases are not. it is believed that ì_å_-lactamases shed the membrane anchor in the course of evolution. the significance of this event remains unclear. our attempt to demonstrate potential influence of the membrane anchor on the overall biological efficiency of ì_å_-lactamases is going to be discussed in this dissertation. in some gram-positive bacteria expression of ì_å_-lactamases is induced by ì_å_-lactam antibiotics. arguably, the most clinically significant pathogen from this group is staphylococcus aureus. expression of the ì_å_-lactamase, encoded by blaz, is regulated by two genes, blar1 and blai. our efforts towards cloning, expression of these genes, and elucidation of the blaz expression regulation are one of the subjects of this dissertation. in our search for answers about regulation of the cell wall biosynthesis, remodeling, and recycling we turned our attention to the low-molecular-weight pbp 5 and six lytic transglycosylases found in e. coli. our findings about biochemical functions and kinetics properties of these enzymes are reported in this dissertation. light has long been investigated as a medium in which to realize logic. the invention of the laser in 1958 generated great interest in optical logic, as a source of coherent light was now available. various implementations of optical logic have since been proposed. an all-optical logic paradigm could in principle offer advantages over electronics. however, semiconductor electronics remain the dominant method of conducting logical operations. in this work, a novel means of realizing optical logic, called interference logic, using passive silicon-on-insulator waveguiding elements is described and demonstrated. the origins of the paradigm are discussed, as well as the method by which an arbitrary boolean logic function can be realized. the results of the design, simulation, fabrication, and test of rib waveguides and multi-mode interference devices used to construct the logic are presented. additional optical logic device designs are proposed and are demonstrated through the use of computer simulation. many radionuclei with potential medical applications are difficult to produce routinely, especially those on the proton-rich side of the valley of stability. current production methods typically use light-ion reactions on materials of similar mass to the target radionuclide, which may require the use of targets poorly suited to withstand irradiation. these reactions may also create significant amounts of proton-rich decay products which require chemical separation from the desired product in a highly radioactive environment. a promising alternative method using heavy-ion fusion-evaporation reactions for the production of the medically relevant radionuclei 52fe, 76br and 77br is presented. heavy-ion beams of 28si and 16o were used to bombard natural aluminum, chromium and copper targets at the university of notre dame's nuclear science laboratory to produce these and precursor radionuclei by fusion-evaporation reactions. production yields for these reactions were measured and compared to pace4 calculations, and simple physical-chemical separation methods which will lead to very high radiopurity yields are proposed. heavy-ion fusion-evaporation reactions are shown to lead to more reasonable and implementable production, which may scale to satisfy clinical demand. a summary of accelerator facility requirements needed for routine production of these radionuclei is also presented. habitat restoration commonly is used in stream improvement and mitigation projects, but its effectiveness rarely is assessed. as mitigation for golf course construction, two 400 m sections of juday creek, a 3rd-order cool-water stream in northern indiana, were relocated into new channels containing pool-riffle sequences, large woody debris, and cobble and gravel substrate in 1997. an upstream sediment basin was installed to protect habitat improvements and stream relocation areas. my dissertation focuses on the effects of stream restoration and the effect of sediment basins on the benthic macroinvertebrate community of juday creek. habitat quality, suspended and deposited sediment dynamics, and macroinvertebrate density and diversity were monitored prior to and for five years after completion of the restoration. the effectiveness of sediment basins and their maintenance was studied in two locations of juday creek in 2001 and 2002. from july 2002 to july 2003, nutrients, physical characteristics, suspended sediment, deposited sediment, fine benthic organic matter, and macroinvertebrates were sampled to examine the relationships among habitat restoration, sediment removal, and secondary production rates of macroinvertebrates. habitat quality improved and was sustained for six years in the restored reaches. macroinvertebrate densities were higher in the restored reaches when compared to unrestored reaches. when properly maintained and designed, sediment basins were effective at reducing instream sediment loads and maintenance had little effect on the stream biota. restored reaches had better habitat quality and lower amounts of deposited sediment than the upstream control reach. secondary production rates were 2 to 5 times higher in the restored reach for baetis sp., cheumatopsyche sp., hydropsyche morosa, and h. betteni. rates of secondary production for optioservus fastiditus were similar at restored and unrestored reaches. this study suggests that the restoration improved habitat quality and availability for benthic macroinvertebrates, resulting in increased densities, number of genera, and secondary production rates. the sediment basin protected the restored reaches and greatly improved the success of this project. in addition, this study shows that secondary production rates are a sensitive indicator that may be used to evaluate the effectiveness of stream restoration projects. the main thrust of the following study is the babylonian devastation of jerusalem and exile of 587/6 bce which resulted in the disintegration of judah, and the contribution of prophetic conflicts between jeremiah and his opponents to this national tragedy. the book that bears his name provides considerable information concerning the events of this period and portrays jeremiah as a prophetic colossus that played a prominent role in the decades that climaxed in the calamity of 587/6 and its aftermath. the book seems to argue that the conflicts between himself and his prophetic opponents were not only prevalent in this period of political turmoil, but that they also played a decisive role in the unmitigated disaster that befell jerusalem. in its final form, the book apparently makes the case that the šālôm prophets were partly responsible for the national tragedy, thereby warning the post-587/6 community about the disastrous consequences of false prophetic activity. and because this also appears to be the theme of the deuteronomistic history, it is commonly posited that parts of the book of jeremiah were the product of exilic deuteronomistic redactors which, according to some scholars, is meant to reflect the dtr ideologies concerning the disaster of 587/6; a proposal that calls for fresh critical assessment.what follows will be a critical investigation of the period surrounding the calamity of 587/6, the roles of jeremiah and his rivals in the duel for prophetic legitimacy during this decisive period, and their divergent interpretations of the prevailing historical situation. within this spectrum, the question of criteriology for distinguishing true from false prophet/prophecy will be reassessed. against contrary scholarly opinions, it will be argued that the denunciation of rival prophets in the book of jeremiah presents some consistency for discerning the authenticity of one who claims to be yahweh's spokesperson, a point that will be corroborated by the greek tradition's exegetical intervention. finally, we will examine the literary evaluation of the disaster in the aftermath of 587/6 in two biblical literature from the exilic and postexilic periods, namely lamentations and zechariah respectively. cytotoxic t cells destroy virally infected cells and tumor cells and are also implicated in transplant rejection. these cells are also known as cd8+ t cells, since they express the cd8 glycoprotein at their surface. the t cell receptor (tcr) is a molecule found on the surface of t cells that is responsible for recognizing antigens presented by major histocompatability complex (mhc) proteins. mhc proteins are expressed on the surface of cells and display fragments of molecules from invading microbes or dysfunctional cells to the tcr. measurements of tcr-pmhc binding equilibrium and kinetic parameters have been obtained through the utilization of surface plasmon resonance (spr) and isothermal titration calorimetry (itc). unlike pure solution methods, spr does not allow for detailed resolution of the kinetic mechanism for the tcr-pmhc interaction, which can be obtained from stopped-flow fluorescence anisotropy. the need for such an assay is essential to understanding the recognition mechanism of the tcr as well as enabling further investigation of tcr cross reactivity and specificity. fluorescence studies of the tcr-pmhc interaction were completed using a fluorescein derivative to label an mhc free cysteine via maleimide chemistry. current data with the a6 t cell receptor and the tax peptide presented by the class i mhc hla-a2 shows that as the concentration of a6 increases, the pmhc is bound resulting in an increased anisotropy. this trend is seen in various a6 constructs (a6 wild-type and a6 c134 zippered constructs, cole /sewell a6 wild-type and a6 c134) that have been studied. once we have determined that an anisotropy reading is observed using our fluorescein derivitized protein we can utilize various peptides and their corresponding tcrs to determine their unique kinetic parameters and recognition mechanism. this dissertation proposes a new model for examining the political strategies of noble families during the central middle ages. it uses the german noble house of andechs as a case study to argue that the analysis of family relationships is critical to understanding how noblemen and noblewomen exercised their lordship and expanded their power. the kinship networks active within the andechs family are shown to be the principal reason why this noble house became during the twelfth century one of the most influential families in the german empire. part i's introductory chapters assert that recent scholarly approaches to the medieval nobility in general (chapter one) and the house of andechs in particular (chapter two) are inadequate for explaining the roles kinship played in medieval politics. the chapters in part ii demonstrate how two of the most popular source bases used by historians of the nobility, property donations (chapter three) and memorial records (chapter four), are unreliable as evidence for kinship networks because they reveal more about the interests of the religious communities who wrote the texts than they reveal about the families who are named in the documents. part iii proposes a series of new directions in the study of medieval noble houses. first, the family relationships of the secular lords who belonged to the andechs lineage are analyzed to explain how these interactions affected decisions concerning succession (chapter five). the roles andechs churchmen played inside their family's networks of cooperation and support are then considered (chapter six). lastly, despite a problematic source base, andechs women's family relationships are explored to determine their potential significance for the noble house's politics (chapter seven). this study concludes in part iv (chapter eight) by arguing that the political success of the house of andechs in the twelfth century can only be appreciated by reconstructing the kin networks on which family members relied as they sought to expand their positions in the empire. through the examination of a single noble house, this dissertation seeks to demonstrate how the analysis of family relationships can provide new perspectives on medieval politics and noble society. nanomagnet logic (nml) is an emerging technology being studied as a possible replacement or supplementary device for complimentary metal-oxide-semiconductor (cmos) field-effect transistors (fet) by the year 2020. nml devices offer numerous potential advantages including: low energy operation, steady state non-volatility, radiation hardness and a clear path to fabrication and integration with cmos. however, maintaining both low-energy operation and non-volatility while scaling from the device to the architectural level is non-trivial as (i) nearest neighbor interactions within nml circuits complicate the modeling of ensemble nanomagnet behavior and (ii) the energy intensive clock structures required for re-evaluation and nml's relatively high latency challenge its ability to offer system-level performance wins against other emerging nanotechnologies. thus, further research efforts are required to model more complex circuits while also identifying circuit design techniques that balance low-energy operation with steady state non-volatility. in addition, further work is needed to design and model low-power on-chip clocks while simultaneously identifying application spaces where nml systems (including clock overhead) offer sufficient energy savings to merit their inclusion in future processors. this dissertation presents research advancing the understanding and modeling of nml at all levels including devices, circuits, and line clock structures while also benchmarking nml against both scaled cmos and tunneling fets (tfet) devices. this is accomplished through the development of design tools and methodologies for (i) quantifying both energy and stability in nml circuits and (ii) evaluating line-clocked nml system performance. the application of these newly developed tools improves the understanding of ideal design criteria (i.e., magnet size, clock wire geometry, etc.) for nml architectures. finally, the system-level performance evaluation tool offers the ability to project what advancements are required for nml to realize performance improvements over scaled-cmos hardware equivalents at the functional unit and/or application-level. this dissertation focuses on the development of sheath-flow surface enhanced raman (sers) detection for liquid chromatography (lc), to enable online separation, detection and quantification of biomolecules at low concentrations in flow. the experiments reported here focused on the direct, label-free sers aspects in analysis and identification of small biomolecules. the direct sers detection is very straight forward and has been reported to be able to detect different classes of biomolecules ranging from nucleic acids, proteins, carbohydrates, and nucleotides to small molecule metabolites. the coupling of lc-sers to a lab-built flow cell using hydrodynamic focusing is reported. the sers cell is connected directly with the lc outlet for simultaneous post-separation detection. a mixture of model metabolites (thiamine, folic acid, and riboflavin) has been successfully separated, characterized and quantified using acetonitrile in the mobile phase provides an internal standard. the results demonstrated that sheath-flow sers is provides improved detection of molecules compared to standard uv-vis detectors. the lc-sers system has been further explored to detect and quantify of three phosphorylated carbohydrate molecules: glucose 1-phosphate, glucose 6-phosphate and fructose 6-phosphate. an alkanethiol (hexanethiol) self-assembled monolayer is formed over the silver sers-active substrate helps retain and concentrate the analytes of interest at the sers substrate to improve the detection sensitivity significantly. mixtures of 2 µm of phosphorylated carbohydrates in pure water as well as in cell culture media were successfully separated by hplc, with identification using the sheath-flow sers detector. the results suggested a tremendous potential for lc-sers for targeted molecular identification in complex biological environment for metabolomics and other bioanalytical studies.the excellent sensitivity of sheath-flow sers has provided a new detection technique for proteins study. for instant, the sheath-flow sers has been successfully demonstrated to decipher the three different small ubiquitin like modifier (sumo) proteins of a post-translational modifications process of proteins known as the sumoylation. the differentiation of three sumo proteins was achieved in a direct, label-free approach without the need of additional sample functionalization or affinity reagents. additionally, we demonstrate that the identity of the sumo tag on a protein can be determined. this work used dft calculations to study adsorbate induced reconstruction on rh(110). coverage dependent formation and binding energies of o and co species on rh(110) show a missing-row type (1 x 2) reconstruction of the rh(110) surface as a result of adsorbate binding. o adsorbates at 0.5 ml coverage bind to pseudo 3-fold sites of rh(110)-(1 x 2) surface. co adsorption on rh(110) surface is not coverage dependent. nudge elastic band (neb) calculations suggest co can facilitate missing row reconstruction on rh(110) surface. comparison to experimental co oxidation reaction studies on rh(110) support co induced reconstruction nucleating from defect sites. cytotoxic t cells destroy virally infected cells and tumor cells and are also implicated in transplant rejection. these cells are also known as cd8+ t cells, since they express the cd8 glycoprotein at their surface. the t cell receptor is a molecule found on the surface of t cells that is responsible for recognizing antigens presented by major histocompatability complex (mhc) proteins. mhc proteins are expressed on the surface of cells and display fragments of molecules from invading microbes or dysfunctional cells to the tcr. here, through the utilization of fluorescence anisotropy, we investigate mhc flexibility when different peptides are bound. the peptides presented by class i mhc hla-a2 utilized in this study are as follows: tax 9 (llfgypvyv), tel1p (mlwgylqyv), ela (elagigiltv), gp100 t2m (imdqvpfsv) and flu m1 (gilgfvftl). to assess the changes in flexibility, we engineered a series of cysteine mutants in the &#945;1 and &#945;2 helix of the mhc complex. the samples were refolded in the presence of peptide, purified and consequently labeled with alexa-fluor 488 (alexa488) for fluorescence studies. steady-state fluorescence anisotropy measurements were performed, and we were able to show that the overall flexibility on the &#945;1 and &#945;2 helix regions of the mhc varies dependent on the peptide presented on the mhc complex. measurements of tcr-pmhc binding equilibrium and kinetic parameters have been obtained through the utilization of surface plasmon resonance (spr) and isothermal titration calorimetry (itc). unlike pure solution methods, spr does not allow for detailed resolution of the kinetic mechanism for the tcr-pmhc interaction, which can be obtained from stopped-flow fluorescence anisotropy. the need for such an assay is essential to understanding the recognition mechanism of the tcr as well as enabling further investigation of tcr cross reactivity and specificity. fluorescence studies of the tcr-pmhc interaction were completed using a fluorescein derivative to label an mhc-free cysteine via maleimide chemistry. current data with the a6 t cell receptor and the tax 9 peptide presented by the class i mhc hla-a2 shows that as the concentration of a6 increases, the pmhc is bound resulting in an increased anisotropy. the same trend is seen in various a6 constructs (a6 wild-type and a6 c134 zippered constructs, cole/sewell a6 wild-type and a6 c134) that have been studied. we have determined that upon ligation we see a change in anisotropy is observed using our fluorescein derivitized protein and determined the unique kinetic parameters and recognition mechanism of the a6/hla-a2 binding interaction. the phase behavior of carbon dioxide and oxygen mixtures in the ionic liquid 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide, [hmim][tf2n], at (40 å± 0.5) &#778;c was investigated. experiments were carried out in a fixed volume high pressure view cell with the vapor phase being sampled and analyzed using a gas chromatograph. solubility data was determined by difference. measurements were carried out at equilibrium pressures from 18.7 to 72.5 bar and feed compositions of 25, 35, and 50 mole percent oxygen with the balance being carbon dioxide. noticeable enhancement was seen at pressures greater than 30 bar and was quantified by calculating enhancement factors and showing ternary diagrams. these results were compared with those of the same system at a lower temperature and carbon dioxide-expanded organic solvents. randomly connected recurrent neural networks (rnns) serve as a parsimonious model of cortical dynamics, and could be used to model memory, decision making, and cognition. machine-learning based variants of rnns have recently gained popularity due to their utility in a wide array of application including speech recognition, medical outcome prediction, handwriting recognition, or robot control. however, the methods used in these applications are either too far removed from biological rnns, or not biologically plausible. a biologically plausible method could both provide insight into how biological rnns function, and improve performance in artificial systems. here i describe my contributions towards biologically plausible algorithms for rnns. i begin with an extension of balanced network theory, which creates a parsimonious model of neural dynamics. existing rnn algorithms use simplified neuron models due to difficulties using more complex or realistic neuron models. accounting for the spatially dependent structure observed in real cortical networks increases the reliability of the reservoir network, allowing it work in realistic spiking networks. finally, i develop a biologically-inspired rnn algorithm, which solves an issue of unrealistic supervision found in most existing algorithms. this dissertation argues that the analogia entis, the idea for which jesuit philosopher and theologian erich przywara is best known, serves as the framework for an ignatian ecclesiology. the first chapter argues that the analogia entis is the structural principle of "creaturely metaphysics," that is, the basic sensibility shared by all worldviews affirming creation from nothing. the second chapter argues that this analogical structure finds expression not only in speculative metaphysics but in religious experience (both supernatural and natural), thus providing the medium through which religion informs metaphyiscs and vice-versa. the third chapter shows how ignatian religious sensibility both embodies the formal analogia entis and gives it a concrete shape. among its characteristic emphases are reverence for the "ever greater dissimilarity" between god and creatures and respect for creaturely agency. the fourth and fifth chapters designate two different attempts by przywara to transpose this specifically ignatian configuration of the analogia entis into an ecclesial register: first, an ecclesiology of "discretion," in which przywara models the relationship between church as hierarchy and the church as mystical body on the relationship between the ideal jesuit superior and his subject; second, a nuptial ecclesiology, in which przywara models the tenson between the church "from above" and the church "from below" on the relationshp between christ and mary. the catholic church turns out to be the true church, according to przywara, because it is the most "analogical" church and thus the best school of "creatureliness." this thesis contributes to the comparative study of ancient novelistic literature by examining the characterization of the primary rival lover figure in chariton's callirhoe and the acts of andrew, two greek novels dated to the first through third centuries ce. in chariton's callirhoe, this rival lover is dionysius, whose love for and marriage to the novel's female protagonist – callirhoe – temporarily prevents her from being reunited to her first husband and lover, chaereas. in the acts of andrew, the central rival lover is the pagan husband aegeates, who is a "rival" insofar as he is an enemy to the apostle andrew (the story's protagonist) and his wife's unwanted lover. this study explores features of dionysius' and aegeates' characterization that lead readers to empathize or sympathize with them. in my analysis of empathy, i adopt the recent cognitive approach to narrative immersion, which refers to the reader's mental state of being absorbed in the narrative world such that she may experience it as if it were the actual world. in my analysis of sympathy, i examine instances of mediated sympathy (i.e., sympathetic in-frame reactions towards the rival) alongside passages that portray the rival's suffering as not primarily caused by his own culpable actions. this thesis advances comparative scholarship on the ancient novels by demonstrating that similarities between the greek novels and apocryphal acts are not limited to motifs and themes, but extend to narrative strategy. this study also contributes to a recent trend within scholarship that reassesses the literary quality of these texts. by showing the complexity of dionysius' and aegeates' characterization, this study challenges the established scholarly view that ancient novelistic characters lack any kind of depth. furthermore, this study demonstrates the usefulness of the distinction between "sympathy" and "empathy" in reader-response approaches to the ancient novels and christian apocryphal acts. when nicholas of cusa (1401-1464) writes that distinctions between masculine and feminine collapse into a "coincidentia oppositorum" [coincidence of opposites] as they approach the threshold of paradise and bernard of clairvaux (1019-1153) interprets the song of songs as figuring christ as both a bride and the bridegroom, they join other spiritual writers in positing what is today called "non-binary gender" as an aspect of the divine. in this dissertation, i argue that certain medieval english hagiographers engage in a project of representing the ways in which this aspect of the divine might enrich a saint's pursuit of holiness. i analyze this type of narrative, often called the "cross-dressing saints' life," using examples from the old english martyrology, ælfric's lives of saints, the northern homily cycle, saints' lives contained in two well-known literary manuscripts, british library ms harley 2253 and oxford bodleian library ms eng. poet. a. 1, also known as the vernon manuscript, gilte legende, and caxton's early print translation of jacobus de voragine's golden legend. i demonstrate that authors and scribes in medieval england understood identity as capable of moving beyond the gender binary in a spiritual context, which they explored through the narratives of saints who exhibit both masculine and feminine identities.in this project, i also demonstrate the intellectual engagement with non-binary gender by authors and scribes through an analysis of the linguistic, literary, and rhetorical tools they use to create these identities. the vernon manuscript, which has not yet been studied for its inclusion of several gender non-binary saints' lives, presents these texts alongside other representations of gender in religious life, prompting its likely audience of women religious to consider the complexity of their own gender identities in relation to their spiritual occupations. by developing a greater understanding of the role of non-binary gender in medieval english religious culture, i challenge the notion of the gender binary as a foregone conclusion in anglophone cultural heritage. furthermore, i show that non-binary gender as it develops in these narratives adds nuance to our understanding of gender diversity as well as the intersectional relationships between gender, language, spirituality, and culture in medieval britain. using classical definitions from admissible set theory, we examine computable model theory for uncountable structures. we begin the first chapter by recalling several classic results from &#945;-recursion, as stated in greenberg and knight. we give a few examples of '&#969;2-computable' structures. in the second chapter, we continue work of greenberg and knight on '&#969;2-computable' structure theory. all results in this chapter are joint with jacob carson, julia knight, karen lange, charles mccoy, and john wallbaum. we define the arithmetical hierarchy through all countable levels (not just finite levels). the definition resembles that of the hyperarithmetical hierarchy. we obtain analogues of the results of chisholm and ash, knight, manasse, and slaman, saying that a relation is relatively intrinsically &#931;0&#945; if and only if it is definable by a computable &#931;&#945; formula. in the third chapter, we focus on quasiminimal-excellent classes, which are important classes of structures in modern model theory. we give a definition for &#954;+-computable categoricity and give properties of classes of structures, under which the unique element of size &#954;+ has a &#954;+-computable copy and is &#954;+-&#916;02-categorical. we then show that any class satisfying these properties is &#954;+-computably categorical if and only if there is no triple (n',n,m) of structures of dimension &#954; such that m &#8838; n &#8838; n' and m is 'closed' in n and n', but n is not 'closed' in n'. we then apply this result to some well-known examples of quasiminimal-excellent classes, showing that the pseudo-exponential field of size &#954;+ is not &#954;+-computably categorical, but the 'zil'ber cover' is relatively &#954;+-computably categorical. we end by connecting the results of computable categoricity to axiomatizability for quasiminimal-excellent classes. global change is causing the reorganization of earth's biota. for example, species are being moved around the globe through trade and traffic, and species are shifting their ranges in response to climate change. interacting species will not move in concert, however, resulting in altered and novel community interactions. these rapidly-changing interactions could have large effects on biodiversity. the aims of my dissertation are to uncover the effects of range-expanding species on their recipient communities and to examine the responses of range-expanding species to altered community interactions. i studied the recent range-expansion of a phytophagous insect in the context of its community. i found that this species was undergoing increased demographic success in its introduced range. as a result, this species negatively affected the fitness of a threatened, native butterfly by reducing the foliar nutrients of their shared host plant. i then tested a leading hypothesis to explain this species demographic success. the enemy release hypothesis (erh) predicts that range-expanding species will lose enemies in their new range and will be released from enemy control. this is the first experimental test of the erh for a range-expanding animal species, and despite popular expectations, i found that enemy release fails in explaining this species success. i also evaluated the erh as a general mechanism of invasion success in a variety of ecosystems and taxonomic groups. i conducted a meta-analysis of an important, overlooked assumption of the erh, that enemies negatively affect species in their native range. i found systematic differences in native enemy effects among prey types. these results suggest that the assumption of native enemy effects should not be overlooked and that enemy release is not an equally likely explanation for the success of all invasive species. overall, my dissertation contributes to our understanding of the community context of range expansions. it highlights that community interactions need to be incorporated into theories, predictions, and empirical studies when assessing the effects of global change on biodiversity. also, i show that species that move over short distances, such as those undergoing climate-driven range expansions, can undergo demographic release and impact recipient communities. the astrophysical r-process generates around half the abundance of elements heavier than iron, yet precisely where or how this process occurs remains a topic of intense inquiry. detailed simulations studying the sensitivity of nuclear properties performed in recent years have shown that among the various experimental quantities entering into modeled r-process abundances, atomic mass differences between isotopes hold the greatest sway. in particular, masses near the abundance peaks at n=82 (a~130) and n=126 (a~195), as well as in the rare-earth region (a~165), are particularly influential. despite these facts, the latter two regions' masses are largely unmeasured. understanding the formation of one of these r-process hallmarks, the rare-earth abundance peak, could shed light on the astrophysical sites because this peak is uniquely sensitive to underlying nuclear properties, particularly to nuclear binding energies which have so far been largely derived from theoretical mass models.we have performed precise atomic mass measurements of 24 neutron-rich rare-earth isotopes using the jyfltrap double penning trap mass spectrometer at the university of jyväskylä in finland. the atomic masses of 14 of them have been experimentally determined for the first time, while the precisions for all have been significantly improved. changes in two-neutron separation and neutron pairing energies show systematic deviations from theoretical mass model predictions. their impact on the calculated r-process abundances in this region are significant, resulting in a smoother overall pattern with less odd-even staggering.finally, a new experimental facility in development at argonne national laboratory will allow for penning trap mass spectrometry on a swath of n=126 isotopes previously inaccessible, and of critical importance for understanding the r-process. one essential component for this facility to efficiently purify its radioactive ion beams, a multi-reflection time-of-flight mass spectrometer (mr-tof), has been built and commissioned at the university of notre dame. we have performed the off-line commissioning of the mr-tof utilizing, for the first time, ion bunches produced using a bradbury-nielsen gate. we found that this bunching method results in large initial efficiency losses as the ions loop in the mr-tof relative to bunches that would be produced by a radiofrequency cooler and buncher. nevertheless, the off-line commissioning has shown that the mr-tof can meet the new facility's demands in terms of resolving power. while the end of moore's law has been predicted for many years, it appears that transistors may finally hit physical scaling and packing density limits in the next ten to twenty years. this possibility has led to the development of many nanoelectronic devices such as carbon nanotubes, single electron transistors, molecular transistors, and quantum-dot cellular automata (qca), among others. one common issue with these nanoelectronic devices is that many manufacturing defects are likely to occur. to this end, defect-tolerant architectures for nanoelectronic systems will be required. in order to study how qca wires could be made defect tolerant, the possible manufacturing defects were identified, and models to represent these defects were found. however, to perform simulation, qca design tools were expanded by developing a file format framework capable of separating the system architecture from the technology used to implement the system. this file format framework was developed using the extensible markup language (xml). in this work, qca wires of varying widths are examined to determine their resistance to certain individual defects and a specific subclass of manufacturing defects: missing cells. the results show that ``wide' wires, at least to five cells wide, can be used to offer inherent defect tolerance in a qca system. autobitchography. this dissertation describes the design, synthesis and characterization of a novel type of molecule for the inhibition of allergic reactions to food proteins and drug molecules. allergies are a growing problem in the western world, causing a person's immune system to attack innocuous compounds such as food, environmental factors or drugs. moreover, allergies do not have a preventative treatment that works for severe reactions. by targeting the immune proteins responsible for triggering allergic responses, immunoglobulin e molecules (ige), in a specific manner, allergies can be prevented prior to reactions. the process of designing these inhibitors requires first to identify the iges responsible for triggering allergic reactions to an allergen. we developed a novel nanoparticle based platform, we call nanoallergens, for identifying the iges and the regions of the allergens they react against, called epitopes. we characterized this platform in chapter 2 using small molecules and used them to identify the major epitopes of peanut allergen proteins. next, we developed a new inhibitor design called covalent heterobivalent inhibitors (chbi). these molecules can permanently inhibit allergy reactive iges and therefore prevent allergic reactions. we characterized these molecules in chapter 3 by demonstrating their effectiveness in preventing allergic reactions to small molecule drugs. finally we used the epitope analysis from chapter 2 and the inhibitor design from chapter 3 and designed chbis specific to peanut allergens and used them to prevent allergic reactions to peanuts. this is a working example of how this technique can be applied to formulate inhibitors for any allergy. an important aim of nanoparticle research is to understand how the properties of materials depend on their size and shape. in this thesis, time-resolved spectroscopy has been used to measure the physical properties of nanometer sized objects, such as the characteristic time scale for heat dissipation and their elastic moduli. in our experiments, metal nanoparticles are excited with a sub-picosecond laser pulse, which causes a rapid increase in the lattice temperature. in the first project, the rate of heat dissipation from au nanoparticles to their surroundings was examined for different size gold nanospheres in aqueous solution. laser induced lattice heating can also impulsively excite the phonon modes of the particle that correlate with the expansion co-ordinates. for spherical au particles the symmetric breathing mode is excited. experimental results for ~50 nm diameter au particles were compared to a model calculation where the expansion coordinate is treated as a damped harmonic oscillator. this gives information about the excitation mechanism. in the second project, the extensional and breathing modes of cylindrical gold nanorods were studied by time-resolved spectroscopy. these experiments yield values for the elastic constants for the rods. both the extensional mode and the breathing mode results show that gold nanorods produced by wet chemical techniques have a smaller elastic moduli than bulk gold. hr-tem and saed studies show that the rods have a 5-fold twinned structure with growth along the [110] crystal direction. however, neither the growth direction nor the twinning provide a simple explanation for the reduced elastic moduli measured in the experiments. in a final project, polydisperse silver nanoparticle samples were investigated. a signal due to coherently excited vibrational motion was observed. the analysis shows that the observed signal arises from the triangular-shaped particles, rather than the rods or spheres that are present in the sample. the triangles dominate the response because they have a much narrower size distribution than the rods. colon cancer is a common and deadly disease characterized by aberrant genetic alterations. we are using quantitative tools to measure biological macromolecules that are altered in expression between different states associated with colon cancer. the studies in this thesis relate to comparisons between normal colon tissue versus colon tumor tissue, chemotherapeutic treatment versus non-treated, poor prognosis (relapse) versus good prognosis (disease-free survival), aneuploidy effects and gene silencing. transcript data has been collected with microarrays and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qrt-pcr). protein level data was collected by bottom-up, global proteomics strategies using esi-3d ion trap, esi-orbitrap, and maldi-tof mass spectrometers. as well as through targeted experiments including immunohistochemistry and selected reaction monitoring (srm) on an esi-triple quadrupole mass spectrometer. studies were also conducted to improve and optimize our ability to analyze samples by mass spectrometric techniques include an evaluation of bottom-up sample preparation approaches and a proof of principle method to capture proteins/peptides from a matrix. taken as a whole, these studies focus on developing and utilizing quantitative methodology to measure biological species in colon cancer cell lines and primary human samples to enhance our understanding of this complex disease. the results of these studies have implications for improved treatment selection for stage ii colon cancer patients, identification of biomarkers and potential targets for therapeutic options, and an overall enhanced understanding of the biology behind microrna clusters and aneuploidy. the present study is primarily concerned with understanding giacomo leopardi's 'system' described in 1820 in his zibaldone, which fuses the incongruent relationship between the myth-like 'origin story' of humanity described in genesis and its modernity into a comprehensible reality through the medium of irony. due to what scholars have called a shift from historic pessimism to cosmic pessimism in the year 1824, this study focuses on his opening story of the operette morali, 'la storia del genere umano,' written in early 1820. soy consumption is known to reduce serum cholesterol levels, thereby decreasing the risk of cardiovascular disease. however, the physiological mechanisms and the components of soy that are responsible for this effect are not known. it is our hypothesis that the hypocholesterolemic effects of soy are mediated at least in part by isoflavone-mediated regulation of the sterol regulatory element binding proteins (srebps) and the sterol regulatory element(sre) regulated genes. in hepg2 cells exposed to isoflavones, an increase in the mature form of srebp-2 and a corresponding increase in the expression of the sre-regulated genes hmgcr, hmg coa synthase and the ldl receptor was observed. the observed isoflavone-mediated increase was found to be blunted by the presence of cholesterol. to see if similar results could be observed in vivo, we carried out a 10 day soy feeding study in c57bl/6j mice. male mice fed isoflavone-containing soy exhibited enhanced decreases in serum lipid levels compared to female mice. while there was a slight increase in hepatic srebp-2 protein levels in isoflavone fed mice, there was no effect on sre-regulated gene expression. we then investigated the mechanism by which the isoflavones upregulated srebp and sre-regulated genes in vitro. in vitro, genistein acted as a proteasome inhibitor but daidzein did not. genistein also increased phosphorylation of hmgcr, a modification associated with reduced enzymatic action. daidzein did not increase phosphorylation of hmgcr in preliminary studies. in conclustion, isoflavones may be increasing srebp and sre-regulated genes in vitro but they do not appear to have the same effect in vivo. most likely, there are multiple mechanisms by which the increase is caused; genistein and daidzein may act by different mechanisms. monopolar spindle 1 (mps-1) and aurora b (aurb) are highly conserved mitotic kinases that are required for proper chromosome alignment and accurate chromosome segregation. previous investigations identified similar defects in chromosome alignment after inhibition of either aurb or mps-1, thus suggesting that the two kinases might be redundant. based on their redundant roles in chromosome alignment and motility, it has been proposed that mps-1 and aurb kinase activities might regulate the same substrate. to test that hypothesis mps-1 inhibition was achieved using reversine and compared to aurb inhibition by zm447439. inhibition of mps-1 perturbed recruitment of the fibrous corona, affecting dynein, dynactin, the rod-zw10-zwilch (rzz) complex, spindly, &#8195; bubr1, mad1 and mad2 but not zwint-1 or hec-1 kinetochore localization. this defined the boundary of mps-1 activity in between zwint and the rzz complex, similar to that seen with aurb inhibition. in vitro kinase assays were used to identify candidate substrates and identified zwilch, but not zw10 or zwint, as a novel substrate for mps-1. lc/ms/ms analysis of phosphorylated zwilch revealed 3 novel phosphorylation sites which were further validated by in vitro kinase assay. expression of a triple-ala (3a) mutant of zwilch induced defects similar to mps-1 inhibition and led to a loss of dynein, dynactin, spindly, rzz complex and anaphase inhibitors from the kinetochores. a triple-glu (3e) mutant of zwilch rescued the effects of mps-1 inhibition by reversine. recombinant gst-zwilch-3e mutant was able to pull down zw10 from mitotic cell lysates unlike wild type gst-zwilch. these studies suggest that mps-1 and aurb are non-redundant kinases, where mps-1 phosphorylation of zwilch is required for proper assembly of the fibrous corona during prometaphase through its interaction with zw10, placing zwilch and rzz at the center of checkpoint signaling and chromosome alignment. the research presented in this thesis investigates the use of metal carboxylates as permanently porous materials called metal-organic frameworks (mofs). the project has focused on three broad areas of study, each which strives to develop a further understanding of this class of materials. the first topic is concerned with the synthesis and structural characterization of mofs. our group and others have found that the reaction of metal salts with carboxylic acids in polar solvents at elevated temperatures often leads the formation of crystalline mof materials that can be examined by single crystal x-ray diffraction. specifically, chapter 2 reports on some of the first examples of magnesium mofs, constructed from formate or aryldicarboxylate ligands. the magnesium formate mof, [mg3(o2ch)6] was found to be a permanently porous 3-d material capable of selective uptake and exchange of small molecules. once the synthesis and structures of some of these materials was known, their physical properties were studied. the magnesium formate mof, [mg3(o2ch)6], was found to be permanently porous and able to reversibly adsorb both n2 and h2 gas. furthermore, the material was also capable of taking up a variety of organic molecules to form new inclusion compounds that were characterized by xrd studies. size exclusion was shown for cyclohexane and larger molecules. chapters 3, 5, and 6 attempt to build off of the synthetic findings reported in chapter 2. specifically, the ability of these materials to take up guest molecules is expanded by the attempted synthesis of porous, homochiral mofs using enantiopure carboxylic acids in the synthesis. it was found that under the appropriate synthetic conditions, both l-tartaric acid and (+)-camphoric acid were robust linkers for the formation of homochiral mofs. of the compounds synthesized, the most interesting were the set of compounds, [zn2(cam)2(bipy)ìä'¡3dmf] and [zn2(cam)2(apyr)ìä'¡2dmf]. these compounds formed isoreticular cubic networks in which the pore size was dependent on the size of the linker molecule (bipy or apyr). additonally, the compounds [zn2(cam)2(bipy)ìä'¡3dmf] and [zn2(cam)2(apyr)ìä'¡2dmf] were found to be capable of guest exchange. due to their chiral nature, these materials were screened for the enanatioselective separation of racemic alcohols. no selectivity was seen with either mof, likely owing to factors such as large pore size and disorder in the chiral camphorate ligand. [zn2(cam)2(bipy)ìä'¡3dmf] contained large voids and preliminary studies showed that free-radical polymerization of methylmethacrylate could take place within the channels of the material. the amino group of the apyr ligand in [zn2(cam)2(apyr)ìä'¡2dmf] was able to be functionaled with acetaldehyde by treatment of the porous mof with the bulk organic reagent. a further area of study detailed in this work deals with a central question in mof chemistry, concerning the assembly process of these extended materials from solution. chapter 3 reveals that the trimeric species mg2(hcam)3+, the sbu for the formation of the mof [mg2(hcam)3.3h2o].no3.mecn, can be identified using esi-ms on the the reaction solution prior to crystallization. further studies showed that the addition of chelating additives led to new solid-state structures and new ions in the mass spectrum, indicating that the mg2(hcam)3+ ion is likely present in solution prior to mof formation. chapter 4 discusses extension of these esi-ms studies on various other mof and organometallic systems. finally, chapter 7 discusses the synthesis and structures of magnesium imides. these compounds were originally investigated for use as sbus in network synthesis. this strategy proved to be unsuccessful, as the compounds form molecular clusters in the solid state. the coordination chemistry and computational studies regarding the adopted aggregation state is detailed. arctic ecosystems are responding to unprecedented climate change with implications for the carbon cycle and feedbacks to global climate. the balance between carbon losses through increased soil respiration and carbon gains through changes in vegetation productivity will in part determine the strength of these feedbacks. climate change is altering the productivity of arctic vegetation as well as the distribution of species within tundra ecosystems. however, gaps exist in our understanding of arctic vegetation, including how shifts in species with different growth forms and intra-specific variation impact the climate response of these ecosystems. in this dissertation, i utilize field observations and models to explore these knowledge gaps via a detailed investigation of the foundation arctic sedge eriophorum vaginatum l. in tundra ecosystems. i first broadly investigated the role of the foundation tussock forming sedge e. vaginatum in tundra ecosystems and find that tussocks are a large climatically vulnerable arctic carbon stock. i then investigate e. vaginatum's unique tussock growth form and find that tiller root production and the carbon balance of the tussock mound are key to explaining tussock growth over time. finally, i investigate the response of e. vaginatum ecotypes to climate and find that differences in morphology between ecotypes impact carbon cycling and that ecotypes differ in their response to climate. my dissertation shows that shifts in tundra species with different growth forms as well as variation within tundra species can have impacts on the c cycle and the response of tundra ecosystems to climate change. these results have implications for understanding and representing the role of e. vaginatum in tundra ecosystems. they also have implications for understanding the role of foundation species, tussock forming species, and ecotypes in the carbon cycle in other ecosystems. since the end of the second world war in the united states, an increased number of public sector employees and private contractors have been engaged in tasks that historically were the sole purview of the soldier. why do civilians gain responsibility for some military tasks, the military for others and for still others there is a mixed outcome? the literature on private security companies examines the role of civilians in military operations, while the literature on military professionalism examines the role of soldiers in military operations. in this dissertation, i bridge the gap between these two literatures by considering civilian and military professions on equal terms: i suggest civilian professionals compete with one another over military tasks to be recognized as expert authorities on these tasks. if a profession has a significant comparative advantage, then it will be considered the expert authority on the task. to test this theory, i use a combination of congruence testing and process-tracing in two case studies: nuclear weapons strategy, 1945-1960 and countering insurgents in vietnam, 1960-1968. this work traces the importance of gospel hymnody in shaping popular theology and influencing american culture. in particular, it analyzes how gospel hymns were created, defined, and performed, how they helped produce interdenominational cooperation among conservative evangelicals during the early twentieth century, and how they became part of larger american culture. in worship services, mass revival meetings, and home gatherings, music was a central feature. increasingly though, the music used in these contexts was standardized and became a point of connection between disparate protestant groups. this was largely achieved through the mass marketing of gospel hymns in the publications and broadcasts controlled by interdenominational institutions, such as the moody bible institute. through these channels, gospel hymnody became a point for interdenominational cooperation among conservative evangelicals. understanding how gospel hymns were being utilized by the interdenominational evangelicals also helps delineate the parameters of evangelical culture and its relationship to broader american culture. in various evangelical denominations, debates over gospel hymns both inside and outside the church building provided a means for negotiating theological, social, and cultural boundaries. through creating, defining, and performing music in specific ways, evangelicals placed themselves within the mainstream of american middle class culture and distinct from both an emerging separatist fundamentalism and an increasingly secular liberalism. outdoor air pollution from particulate matter (pm) is a worldwide issue, affecting society in terms of not only public health impacts, but also of economic impacts such as increased health costs, production losses, and lost tourism revenue. these impacts are often disproportionally suffered by marginalized populations, and even in regions where air pollution has decreased with time, the same groups experiencing higher exposures a few decades ago are still overexposed today. studying the scale and severity of outdoor particulate air pollution, its interaction with meteorology and climate, its exposure effects on human physiology, and its association with socioeconomic inequalities, is critical to improving our understanding of pollution impacts on visibility, economy, public health, and environmental justice. however, data scarcity has often precluded a proper characterization of the full spatio-temporal extent of pollution dynamics and their effects on different populations. the work presented in this dissertation addresses the challenges that data scarcity presents to the investigation of air pollution dynamics and effects through different approaches, in order to (i) characterize spatio-temporal patterns and main drivers of pm pollution, (i) create strategies for targeted uncertainty reduction of air quality health impact assessments, and (iii) orient uncertainty reduction strategies towards the benefit of previously overlooked populations. first, we investigate the emission and meteorological variables key to explaining spatio-temporal variability in coarse pm pollution levels, using a parsimonious statistical model and pm observations from a dense monitoring network in malaysia. second, we develop a method to compare the effects of information gain in air pollution and epidemiological data, by using the metric of information entropy, to identify the most efficient pathway to reduce uncertainty in estimates of air pollution-associated health risks. lastly, we propose an expansion of the information entropy method for the study of socioeconomic disparities in the correlations between air pollution levels, epidemiological effects, and mortality assessment uncertainties, highlighting the important influence of minority representation in the uncertainty reduction of air pollution health assessments. the methods developed in this work are highly generalizable, allowing for their application to a wide variety of pollution-effects scenarios beyond the particular case studies presented. when developing efficient numerical methods for solving parabolic types of equations, severe temporal stability constraints on the time step are often required due to the high-order spatial derivatives and/or stiff reactions. the implicit integration factor (iif) method, which treats spatial derivative terms explicitly and reaction terms implicitly, can provide excellent stability properties in time with nice accuracy. one major challenge for the iif is the storage and calculation of the dense exponentials of the sparse discretization matrices restulted from the linear differential operators. the krylov subspace approximations can overcome this shortcoming and greatly save computational cost and storage as long as the arnoldi errors are smaller than the schemes local truncation errors. most explicit numerical methods for solving fourth order partial differential equations (pdes) have time constraints that require small time steps, which is not feasible for high dimensional problems. when dealing with time-dependent fourth order pdes with linear high order terms and stiff lower order nonlinear terms, implicit methods are often used to solve these types of equations. previously, implicit integration factor (iif) methods are often a good choice as a class of efficient "exactly linear part" time discretization method for second order equations, namely advection-diffusion-reaction (adr) equations. i provide linear analysis on the fully discretized fourth order equation using the implicit integration factor method and show the error analysis. solving time dependent fourth order partial differential equations usually suffer from slow time evolution. previous methods that solve fourth order equations explicitly need small time steps. i provide a solution to solving fourth order partial differential equations that have time steps of the same magnitude as the spatial grid size. . i provide an introduction to the various fields in which fourth order partial differential equations are used. i will give details of the implicit integration factor method that integrates fully nonlinear advection-diffusion-reaction equations exactly in time. i will present numerical results by solving 1-d cahn-hilliard equation and 1-d kuramoto-sivashinsky equation using both the second and third order implicit integration factor method (iif). i also present several fourth order equations in 2-d and 3-d that have stiff reactions. i will discuss computational efficiency with krylov subspace approximation and the benefits of having large time step sizes in all problems. machine learning models are expected to work across a variety of settings, or inputs, with reasonable performance. a model that does not exhibit reliability work across settings cannot be trusted for real-world usage. the measure of a model's adaptability across inputs is its generalization, or generalizability. traditionally, a machine learning model is evaluated for generalizability by testing it on unseen data, unseen inputs. the justification behind this is models that are unable to adapt to this unseen data cannot be relied on to adapt to other unseen data. this evaluation considers metrics of correctness to assess performance on the unseen data, measuring the model's ability with metrics like accuracy, precision/recall, specificity, and f1 score. this style of evaluation effectively weeds out models which cannot hope to generalize to unseen inputs by testing the model on a sample of inputs, and showing the model fails. however, this is no guarantee; a model that succeeds on this set of unseen inputs may still fail on another.in this work, i show that generalization behavior can be inferred by evaluating models across an intentional range of inputs and studying how internal behavior varies across that input range, specifically in correspondence with the way instance similarity varies across the input range. the way an input progresses through a model's internal processes can be thought of as the internal behavior of the model in reaction to that input. for neural networks, internal behavior is literally the activation patterns of the network's neurons in response to the input stimuli. a neural model's internal behavior between two inputs can be abstractly compared by correlating the activations in response to each instance. a measure of the model's internal behavior is obtained by repeating this process across the full set of stimuli pairs. consistent behavior manifests as similar behavior for similar inputs, and dissimilar behavior for dissimilar inputs. if a model's internal behavior is inconsistent, or unpredictable, then it cannot be trusted to generalize to unseen input. a drawback with this evaluation is that internal behavior is defined in accordance with input similarity. i implement a practical work around by considering the activations of the brain as ground truth for the relationship between instance similarity and behavioral similarity. in this dissertation, i propose and study a new model evaluation technique which assesses models on the consistency of their internal processes in relation to the similarity of different instances. i first present, evaluate, and discuss evaluation issues with two machine-learned models, one trained and evaluated on the relation of learner's physiological data to their attention (mind wandering), and the other trained and evaluated on utilizing teacher speech to identify the number of questions asked in a class session. i contrast my evaluations on these traditional models with my proposed evaluation, a human-model similarity measure of internal model behavior. i study my proposed evaluation in relation to other performance metrics, across various architectures, and for potential use in model search. i find the metric is predictive of traditional accuracy metrics and can be used to predict which models will succeed well before training is complete. i define and test how this evaluation could be used in model search, specifically finding that it can reduce training time by 67% with no loss in final model performance. this dissertation brings into dialogue two traditions that have developed largely independently of each other, namely, pragmatism and critical realism, and brings insights from this dialogue to bear on questions of action and cultural change central to sociological theory. after the introduction, the first chapter, "peircean realism: a primer," explicates the realism about causation presupposed in the founder of pragmatism, charles s. peirce's, concept of abduction as the mode of inference critical for scientific progress. the second chapter, "continuities between peircean realism and critical realism: on causation, ontology, and truth," argues that peirce's realism about causation anticipated contemporary neo-aristotelian approaches to causation, of which critical realism is a major representative, and highlights additional points of continuity between peirce's thought and critical realism with respect to ontology and truth. the third chapter, "revisiting the peircean foundations for theorizing action and personal cultural change," thematizes the concept of potentiality, integral to peirce's realism and critical realism alike, as central to peirce's theories of action and inquiry, while reading the latter as together implying a theory of personal cultural change. the conclusion is preceded by a coda, in which i offer a preliminary response to the question of conceptualizing social mechanisms the dissertation raises for future work. a long stream of literature in macroeconomic growth and international development has focused on understanding the large income differences across countries. these income differences are much larger in the agricultural sector than in the non-agricultural sectors of the economy. and since poor countries allocate a large share of their economic resources to the agricultural sector, understanding the sources of low agricultural productivity in these countries is key to understanding underlying reasons for low agricultural incomes. in each chapter of this dissertation, i investigate a possible solution to the issue of large share of economic resources in the low productivity agricultural sector in developing countries. the first chapter studies how agricultural productivity can be increased by a more efficient allocation of resources. the second chapter focuses on improving productivity through increased fertilizer usage in poor countries and the last chapter studies how agricultural incomes can be increased through an open economy and increased trade. the liturgical reforms of vatican ii have issued in two signal developments in modern american catholic worship: the rise of more fully active participation by the lay faithful, and the virtual disappearance of the historic body of western church music, gregorian chant. these two profound developments, however, were not a sudden product of sacrosanctum concilium, but rather had a long, turbulent, and intertwined history in the decades of the twentieth century leading up to the council. that history began with the promulgation of the motu proprio tra le sollecitudini in 1903 by pope pius x, which tied gregorian chant and the active participation of the laity together. this dissertation seeks to document the history of how tra le sollecitudini "played out" in the united states, looking at its reception by clergy, musicans, and lay worshipers. the discussion is grounded in an overview of lay liturgical singing back to the early church, the history of papal legislation on music, and the debate as it unfolded in the twentieth century (charted particularly through the major catholic music journals.) in particular the notion of "full, conscious, and active participation" is shown to have had the sponsorship of all the pontiffs of the twentieth century back to pius x, and the significant efforts to implement that participation through music and especially chant are chronicled, down to their end in frustration. in our day of liturgical retrenchment, this research adds a cautionary note to romanticized notions of pre-vatican ii music; it shores up the commitment to fully active liturgical participation both by historical precedent and the long theological grounding of the twentieth century; and it offers a (non-political) groundwork for re-appropriating the "inestimable treasure" of the gregorian inheritance. circulation control is a promising method to augment the lift of airfoils and hydrofoils and enhance vehicle maneuverability. however, its acoustic effect is a significant concern and not well understood. in this study large-eddy simulations of a circulation control airfoil in a low-mach-number flow are performed at a chord reynolds number of 650,000 and three jet momentum coefficients. the acoustic radiation is calculated by solving the lighthill equation using a boundary element method. the predicted sound pressure spectra show good agreement with the experimental measurements of reger et al. (j. sound vib. vol. 388, 2017). the coanda jet is shown to suppress the low-frequency airfoil vortex-shedding noise, but at the same time causes a significant increase in broadband noise in the mid-to-high frequency range. the amount of increase grows with the jet momentum coefficient. high-frequency tonal noise is generated as a result of strong vortex shedding from the slot lip, and its magnitude and frequency also increase with increasing jet momentum coefficient. my dissertation recovers the nineteenth-century religious practices of jews, catholics, and protestants in louisville, kentucky. additionally, a comparative analysis of these religious practices reveals that by the end of the nineteenth century in louisville, the public practices of some catholic, protestant, and jewish congregations had moved toward a refined, formalized public religiosity, while other congregations in those traditions protested these changes. by refinement, i mean a conscious effort at beautifying spaces and material culture as well as the ordering and routinization of practices themselves. many of louisville's religious congregations transformed eclectic, unsophisticated religiosities of the early nineteenth century into consciously urbane projections of their refinement. louisville's nineteenth-century history lends itself excellently to this type of comparative study on the religious practices of catholics, protestants, and jews. the city's demography and economy illustrated the westward migration of eastern populations in the post-revolutionary and early republic and louisville also represented growing regionalism and urbanization in the nineteenth-century united states. the pluralism of louisville was remarkable in its mixture of regional origin, ethnicities, and races. the city had the ethnic european enclaves of a northern urban center, but also a substantial (slave and free) african american presence of a southern city. one result of this racial and ethnic diversity was a religious pluralism rich with a mixture of american, european, and 'americanized' religiosities. there were a variety of catholic parishes, jewish synagogues and temples, white protestant churches of wide diversity, and african american churches of an impressive breadth. two hundred and fifty local religious institutions emerged in louisville, kentucky, before 1900. with the emphasis on the religious practices of local institutions in nineteenth-century louisville, my dissertation examines community formation, identity, sermons, death practices, hymnody, liturgy, and architecture. thus, each chapter takes a specific topic (congregational formation, space and architecture, worship, death) and analyzes that topic throughout the entire nineteenth century for louisville's congregations. i focus on the most public and ordinary elements of religious practice in nineteenth-century louisville. in the coming months, a free version of this dissertation will appear online and available through common web searching. malaria remains the most prominent cause of child mortality worldwide. infections resulting from plasmodium falciparum kill more than one million children in africa alone and cause an estimated half-billion episodes of disease each year. the current paradigm of antimalarial drug resistance, that a single gene determines resistance, neglects the complexity with which drug resistance evolves. although, major gene effects such as the chloroquine resistance (cqr) determinant, pfcrt, have been identified, epidemiological studies identify a range of drug responses indicative of a complex trait that is impacted by multiple genes. understanding the bases of these traits using a more robust quantitative approach will lead to the identification of novel genes and their underlying role in drug resistance. in the first study we re-examined response to chloroquine (cq) and cq reversal agents in the progeny of the hb3 and dd2 cross. quantitative trait loci analyses (qtl) identify a major role of pfcrt chloroquine resistance, but additional loci were found that account for the three-fold quantitative variation of response in cqr progeny. we find that the degree of cq reversibility by reversal agents is independent of cqr response, whereas reversed cq response is dependent on levels of inherent cqr response. the identified additional loci highlight the background complexity to provide clues to the evolution of cqr and to facilitate the improved design of combination therapies that can reverse cqr. in the second study, we performed a qtl analysis to identify genetic loci that account for the strongly correlated quantitative sensitivities mefloquine and artemisinin, the components of the widely used combination therapy in multi-drug resistant (mdr) regions. we identified two qtl that are shared for both drug responses that point to genes controlling these correlated responses. we identified underlying gene polymorphisms in candidate genes at each qtl and address the application of these findings in surveillance and anticipation of imminent drug resistance. in the third study, we used an alternative approach to identify the gene polymorphisms underlying antimalarial drug resistance. isogenic parasite lines were screened for polymorphisms using an integrative genomics approach. comparative genome hybridizations and expression arrays identified co-adapted gene complexes associated with in vitro laboratory selections by cq and quinine. we demonstrate the feasibility and utility of this approach to identify structural and transcriptional gene polymorphisms that will provide insights to unresolved questions of drug resistance evolution. we have measured directly via laser absorption spectroscopy the 6s2s1/2 &#8594; 7p2p3/2 to the 6s2s1/2 &#8594; 7p2p1/2 transition strength ratio in atomic cesium along with the individual electric dipole matrix elements for both of those transitions. the laser absorption spectrometer constructed for this experiment is described. our motivation for constructing this apparatus is to perform high precision measurements of transition strengths and ratios important to the interpretation of parity nonconservation measurements and for testing electronic structure calculations in atomic cesium. we find a value for this ratio of 4.461 (23), for the 6s2s1/2 &#8594; 7p2p3/2 transition of 0.5759(30) a.u., and for the 6s2s1/2 &#8594; 7p2p1/2 transition of 0.2743(29) a.u., all of which are consistent with previously performed measurements. techniques for improving the accuracy of the global approximations used in various multidisciplinary design optimization (mdo) procedures, while reducing the amount of design space information required to develop the approximations, were studied in this research. these improvements can be achieved by incorporating gradient or sensitivity information into the existing approximation techniques. an approach to develop response surface approximations based upon artificial neural networks trained using both state and sensitivity information is developed. compared to previous approaches, this approach does not require weighting the residuals of the targets and gradients and is able to approximate gradient-consistent response surfaces with a relatively compact network architecture. numerical simulation on selected problems shows that this approach possesses the capability to develop improved response surface approximations compared to the non-gradient neural network training approach. one issue that this approach cannot address properly, however, is to determine the step size for the design variables in the taylor series expansion that is used to utilize sensitivity-based, approximate information. it is also a common challenge associated with a particular gradient-enhanced approach, database augmentation. this research develops another gradient-enhanced approach based on kriging models to solve the problem by including the step size as one of model parameters. this approach can also characterize the uncertainty of approximations, which is another goal of this research. based on database augmentation, the approach develops kriging models by minimizing the integrated mean squared error (imse) criterion instead of the maximum likelihood estimation (mle) process often used. numerical simulation on selected, small-scale problems shows that this imse-based gradient-enhanced kriging (imse-gek) approach can improve approximation accuracy by 60~80% over the non-gradient kriging approximation. an analytical approach to compute imse was developed to reduce the prohibitive computing cost associated with applying the imse-gek approach to high-dimensional problems. some additional implementation issues associated with the approach, such as the database augmenting scheme, the use of variable step sizes and the inclusion of nugget effects at added points, are also presented. this paper studies the effect of doubles on the characterization and message of roman comedy. the first section studies literary devices used for characterization. the second examines the characterization of doubles in terence's adelphoe to discover how doubles can complicate usual characterization techniques. this section also focuses on how doubles affect the formation of identity for characters within the play. the last portion of this study centers around plautus' bacchides. it explores the way in which doubles subtly question traditional roman morals. the rhagoletis pomonella species complex is a paradigm for sympatric speciation. sympatric speciation hypothesizes that adaptation to alternative environments, without geographical barriers, is an initial trigger for population divergence. walsh (1867) proposed that races of r. pomonella infesting the ancestral host hawthorn (crataegus spp.) and the introduced apple (malus pumila) were an example of sympatric speciation in action. the goal of my dissertation was to determine the roles that diapause and host odor identification, both crucial adaptive differences between host races and sibling species, play in r. pomonella race formation and speciation. diapause traits act as an allochronic premating barrier to gene flow because populations eclosing at different times cannot freely interbreed. previous studies hypothesized that warm prewinter conditions exert strong selection pressures on apple and southern populations to avoid developing a non-diapause generation and that eclosion order in nature is not predicted by allozymes. these hypotheses were tested by raising flies under standardized conditions in the laboratory. the results showed that the apple and southern populations were less prone to non-diapause development and adult emergence did parallel eclosion order in nature. host odor recognition is significant because rhagoletis flies mate exclusively on their host plants fruit. host choice, therefore, translates directly into mate choice, forming a premating barrier to gene flow. studies have shown that flies prefer their natal volatiles. here, hybrid generations between host races and sibling species were raised and tested for their preference to fruit volatiles. surprisingly f1 hybrids showed limited responses to fruit volatiles, suggesting that the hybrids lack of behavioral response to fruit odor may be a post-mating barrier to gene flow. parental responses to fruit odor were reconstituted in a proportion of f2 and backcross progeny (30-50%). in conclusion, the results add another layer of complexity to understanding speciation in rhagoletis. the evidence suggests the genetic architecture of diapause and fruit odor discrimination is complicated but resolves that both traits serve as preand post-mating barriers to gene flow. characterization of the traits responsible for reproductive isolation and speciation is therefore possible in r. pomonella. humans have a primal desire to connect and share intimacy, while also having the conflicting desire to remain disconnected, anonymous, and un-touched. this connection can induce a feeling of vulnerability, which can be lessened by remaining 'unseen.' as western culture grows more and more touch-averse, we seem to rely on visual representation to navigate a majority of our interactions. this reliance is found in contemporary ethnographic modes of representation in art and photography; presenting subjects to the viewer to be critically analyzed, using, to the artist's advantage, a 'to see is to know' mindset. the retreat from a more physical engagement with others and the world around us provokes me to explore and test personal boundaries of interaction, to question the integrity of sight, and to alter the viewer's relationship and role in art from visual observer to visual participant. nanoparticles made of transition metals have attracted increasing attention as catalysts for sustainable hydrogen economy and environmental remediation. compared to conventional techniques, the use of nanocatalysts can shorten reaction time, target recalcitrant compounds, and selectively transform wastes into valuable products under mild conditions. an important challenge is, however, to reduce the high cost associated with the initial investment and subsequent replenishment of catalysts. a variety of catalysts have been investigated to improve the reactivity of the reactions; however, little attention has been given to the possible influence of size-effect on catalyst design. understanding how size controls the active sites and thus determine the reactivity is the key to reduce the cost of these catalysts. here, cobalt (co), ruthenium (ru) and palladium (pd) nanoparticles with controllable sizes are synthesized for environmental heterogeneous catalysis. it is shown that co nanoparticles can be affixed on spinel nanodisks through heteroepitaxy with thermal phase transformation. however, in-situ reduction of adsorbed cations on support and protecting nanoparticles with polymers are more readily to be used for noble metals like ru and pd. using size controlled face-centered cubic (fcc) packed ru, which have tunable activation energies from 18 to 87 kj mol-1, compensation effect and the resulting isokinetic temperature of ti = 17.5(±1.6) oc was observed in ammonia borane hydrolysis to generate hydrogen. the surface area normalized rate constant, ks, can be maximized below ti by reducing the size of ru-fcc nanoparticles, which increases the fraction of edge/corner atoms and lowers the activation energy. to generate hydrogen above ti, ks is maximized by using enlarged ru nanoparticles. we also connect hydrogen solubility in pd nanoparticles to their size sensitivity in hydrogenation of p-nitrophenol. the unvaried activation energy for pd nanoparticles with different sizes suggests the unchanged active sites, which is proposed as the dissolved hydrogen activated pd dimer. a quantitative structure-activity relationship is established to reconcile paradoxical observations of size-dependent reaction rates and a size-independent activation energy. in summary, size-effect is crucial for the design of environmental catalysts. more importantly, it helps elucidate both the active sites of the catalysts and the mechanisms of reactions. the increasing prevalence of network data in a vast variety of fields and the need to extract useful information out of them have spurred fast developments in models and algorithms for the inference of networks. among various learning tasks with network data, community detection, which divides nodes into clusters or `communities', and change-point detection, which detects possible change points among multiple networks, have arguably received the most attention in the scientific community.in many real-world networks, the network data often comes with additional covariates information, which should ideally be leveraged for inference such as for performing community detection. we add to a limited literature on community detection for networks with covariates by proposing a bayesian model in which the effects of the covariates are incorporated via a covariates-dependent random partition prior, under which a block model is assumed. under our prior, the covariates information is explicitly expressed in specifying the prior distribution on the cluster membership. our model has the flexibility of modeling uncertainties of all parameter estimates, including the community membership. another key feature of our models compared with the existing work is that it has the ability to learn the number of the community via posterior inference without having to assume it to be known. our model can be applied to community detection in both dense and sparse networks. we carried out a comprehensive simulation study and apply our model to two real data sets which demonstrated superior performance of our model over existing methods.for community detection in sparse weighted network, we propose a novel bayesian model, which we call the spike and slab stochastic block model (sssbm). a random partition model such as the chinese restaurant process is combined with the spike and slab prior for modeling the community structure as well as the sparsity of the networks. a random partition prior such as the chinese restaurant process, is imposed on the community structure under which the edge weights are assumed to follow a cluster-dependent spike and slab distribution. one of the key novelties of our model is that it can explicitly model the sparsity levels of edge weights, and the sparsity patterns are allowed to vary according to the community structure. another appealing feature of our model is that it automatically learns the number of communities in a network without having to assume it is known or estimating it beforehand. efficient mcmc algorithms are developed for sampling the posterior distribution of the parameters. extension simulation study and data analysis have been carried out demonstrating the efficiency as well as the utilities of our algorithms.in the change-point problem, one studies a series of networks indexed by time and wants to find out whether there is a significant change in the structure of these networks at some time point. in our work, different from classical network inference methods, which are mainly based on node, edge, or correlation, we also take the underlying topological structure into account. we extracted topological features from these networks using persistent homology and then employed tools from topological data analysis to perform change point detection on networks. we illustrate our method using both simulated and real data set. water and wastewater treatment accounts for around 4% of energy consumption in the united states. the energy requirements for wastewater and water treatment, as they currently exist, add to the strain on limited fossil fuel resources. microbial fuel cells (mfcs) can allow direct conversion of the chemical energy in wastewater to electrical energy, increasing the sustainability of wastewater treatment. to allow the implementation of mfcs, more efficient and cost-effective reactor configurations are needed. also, a better understanding of the microbial communities that facilitate electron transfer in an mfc is required. several novel mfc designs for water and wastewater treatment are described in this work. hollow fiber membrane (hfm)-mfcs were developed and a prototype was demonstrated to sustain power production and removal of wastewater organics. an mfc for total nitrogen removal was proposed, and achieved nitrogen removal fluxes comparable to conventional treatment technologies. additionally, an mfc with a biological cathode was shown to reduce perchlorate, an emerging drinking water contaminant. the role of microorganisms in bioelectrochemical processes was investigated through a variety of studies. first, oxygen crossover from the cathode to the anode was shown to decrease power densities, coulombic efficiencies, and the abundance of electrode-respiring bacteria. second, putative electrode-oxidizing bacteria, phylogenetically similar to iron-oxidizing bacteria, were identified in denitrifying and perchlorate-reducing biocathode communities. finally, despite previous reports to the contrary, similar community structures and mfc performance were observed in mfcs operated at varying external resistances. this research developed novel mfc-based processes for energy-efficient water and wastewater treatment, and contributed to the fundamental understanding of microbial communities within these processes. these results will lead to improved mfc designs and advances the technology toward implementation. assessing educational outcomes is a matter of great importance for everyone in a society that relies primarily on public schools to shape the next generation of citizens. given the vital nature of this task, it is imperative that the researchers who undertake it have an informed understanding of the measures used to evaluate educational outcomes. this dissertation contributes to that task by analyzing grades as a potential complement or alternative to standardized test scores as a measure of educational outcomes. the research is based on a theoretical framework that emphasizes the importance of both instruction and socialization as goals of the education system. grades are theorized to assess elements of both of these goals because they account for academic achievement and student behavior, while standardized test scores primarily reflect knowledge and instruction. therefore, grades are expected to provide a more comprehensive evaluation of student achievement than standardized test scores. in addition, grades function as feedback to students that can affect their future outcomes. given the comprehensive nature of grades and their role in shaping students' later outcomes, the theory establishes the necessity of developing a thorough conceptualization of grades. both quantitative and qualitative data are utilized to test elements of the theory. the analyses examine several aspects of grades and provide information that contributes to a more complete understanding of grades than has been available in the past. the research confirms that grades account for students' behaviors and achievement orientations while standardized test scores do not offer a thorough assessment of these characteristics of students. observations clarify the importance of behavior for mediating opportunities to learn within a classroom setting and support the inclusion of behavioral assessments in grades. the analyses also highlight the role of teachers in interpreting and evaluating students' behaviors in grades. in addition, teachers are found to mediate the impact of students' behavior on their own academic achievement and on classmates' opportunities to learn. the models estimated in this study demonstrate that grades can serve as an appropriate supplement to standardized test scores or act on their own as measures of educational outcomes. their viability as outcomes in analyses is determined based on the variables used to predict achievement and the information in which researchers are interested. because grades act as a proxy for behavior and achievement orientation and also act as feedback to shape students' academic self-concepts, they are valuable predictors of outcomes that are influenced by those characteristics of students. in many situations, using both grades and standardized test scores to predict outcomes is appropriate because each accounts for different aspects of educational achievement. overall, the study establishes the usefulness of grades as measures of educational outcomes. it accomplishes this goal by generating a theoretical basis for understanding the meaning and function of grades. the research also sets a foundation for understanding what grades represent in analyses and how they can be appropriately utilized and interpreted in research. the ionization of liquid water produces three primary reactive radical species; the solvated electron (e-aq), the hydroxyl radical (ì¢ ââå¢oh) and the hydrogen atom (hì¢ ââå¢) each capable of reacting with an organic substrate to form a radical adduct. this dissertation presents a detailed investigation of the spectroscopic and kinetic properties for a number of such short-lived radical adducts. the model system chosen for this work was benzoate, enabling the additional inquiry into the role of protonation on the kinetics and molecular structure of the various transients formed. hydroxyl radical oxidation of aromatics in aqueous solution produces hydroxycyclohexadienyl radicals as intermediates. to date there has been little understanding of the vibrational spectra, structure and electronic absorption of these transients in water. these radicals are characterized by the presence of a relatively strong transient absorption in the near-uv. identification of the molecular structure and kinetic parameters of the species contributing to this absorption requires a structural technique linked to absorption. we have applied time-resolved resonance raman (tr-rr) spectroscopy to structurally identify isomers of cyclohexadienyl radicals formed in pulse radiolysis, using aqueous benzoate solutions as a model system. an early electron spin resonance (esr) study [eiben, et al.; j. phys. chem. 1971, 75, 1186.] has shown that a mixture of three benzoate hydroxycyclohexadienyl radical isomers: ortho-, metaand paraare formed upon electron irradiation of n2o saturated benzoate solution. their collective transient absorption is observed to exhibit a single broad band in the near uv region (ì_åèmax = 330 nm, ì_åµ330 = 3400 m-1cm-1). extracting the single isomeric contribution to this collective absorption requires probing the tr rr spectra at individual wavelengths within the broad transient absorption range looking for a characteristic indication of each individual isomer. raman signals of various para substituted benzoates were also collected to aid in the vibrational studies of the aforementioned benzoate hydroxycyclohexadienyl radicals. ionizing radiation can be used to selectively induce redox reactions that are found in naturally occurring systems. this dissertation also explores the reaction between the hydrated electron and benzoate by absorption and tr-rr spectroscopy. initially this reaction forms the benzoate radical dianion, absorbing at ~320 nm and 440 nm, which depending on the ph will react with water on a 10 ns time scale forming the protonated radical monoanion whose absorption is blue shifted by 10 nm in both bands. both the transient absorption and resonance raman spectra excited at 341 nm are similar for these radical anions indicating prontonation has minimal effect on the nuclear and electronic structure. however, the observed resonance raman enhancement of these radicals was weaker than transients with similar extinction coefficients. electron photodetachment was concluded to be responsible for this observation as it is a very fast photochemical process that can compete with raman scattering. the details of the various findings from vibrational spectroscopy will be discussed in this dissertation. metal–organic frameworks (mofs) have developed into a prominent porous materials class through rational design, reticular chemistry, and an emphasis on applied science. while mof applications continue to manifest and pervade many fields, mofs are increasingly becoming relevant in matters of fundamental science, and this is especially true when it comes to the actinide elements. the atomic precision and tunability of mof structures provides a unique opportunity to study the perplexing f-orbital chemistry of the actinide elements, which are pivotal in global energy, security, medicine, and so forth. this dissertation explores several frontiers of mofs and actinide chemistry: (i) diversifying metal selection, (ii) diversifying linker selection, and (iii) probing radiation stability. the first two frontiers focus on novelty in structural assembly. we unlocked the synthesis of the first plutonium-based mof and fostered exploration with a softer donor linker in a thorium mof system. the third frontier pivots from assembly to breakdown with understanding the role of metal selection in mof radiation stability. these works relied on mastering appropriate materials handling and method development for characterization of alpha-emitting radionuclides. understandably, there are experimental and material limitations with radioactive samples, and thus, versatile theoretical perspectives were integral to comprehensive evaluations of our actinide mof systems. an additional theme of understanding periodic trends of tetravalent metals is interwoven throughout to contextualize the works. these efforts at the intersection of the actinides with the mof platform underscore fundamental actinide science and fortify the viability of mof applications in high radiation fields. the purpose of this project is to identify differences in the elements of masculinities associated with single player, online multiplayer, and offline multiplayer video game play contexts. messner's (2002) tri-level gender framework is used to compare the structural, cultural, and performative components of gender across these environments. the systematic differences highlighted in this research across the three contexts are likely to be related to important differences in how male gamers perceive and construct masculine identities. in short, this study demonstrates that it is insufficient to examine only the content of the video games people play. the social context in which they are played and consumed is also important. many image restoration and analysis approaches in the literature rely on an accurate characterization of the linear blur kernel for an image, the point-spread function (psf). existing psf models are either parameterized and spatially-invariant, or spatially-varying and discretely-defined. in this thesis, we propose a parameterized, spatially-varying psf model to describe the blur due to lens aberrations and defocus. the model follows from the combination of several geometric camera models, and the seidel third-order aberration model. we propose a novel estimation algorithm for computing the parameters of the aberration model from a set of psf observations, and we demonstrate through simulation that this yields a more reliable set of psf estimates. in simulated psf sets with spread measure noise as strong as 10 db snr, the proposed model consistently led to psf estimates with a 5 db snr improvement over the observations, and typically a 10 db snr improvement. as a result of climate warming, wildfire is an emerging pressure on arctic tundra ecosystems. as a result of wildfire, some communities experience a shift in composition while others gradually return to their pre-wildfire state. however, it is unclear what is responsible for the observed heterogeneity between post-fire communities. since historic research has shown that low nutrient soils largely limit the composition of undisturbed tundra, we hypothesize that the trajectory of post-wildfire community composition will be controlled by the availability of nitrogen and phosphorus in post-burn soils and that changes in composition will lead to changes in community productivity. to test this, we artificially added nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers separately and in combination at a burned site and adjacent unburned site nine years after the 2007 anaktuvuk river fire in northern alaska. after four years of fertilization, we observed a strong relationship between deciduous vegetation and community productivity where an increase in deciduousness led to a subsequent increase in productivity. specifically, the individual addition of nitrogen and phosphorus did not result in a shift towards more deciduous vegetation. however, we observed a marked shift in community composition towards more deciduous vegetation as a result of combined nitrogen and phosphorus fertilization which, consequently, stimulated community productivity. with the area of tundra effected by wildfire projected to increase in the future, our results demonstrate the importance of nutrient availability in determining the composition and productivity of post-fire systems. the health of horses, mules, and donkeys meant the difference between prosperity and penury, even life and death, for those who depended on them for agriculture, communication, travel, war, and spectacle in sixteenth-century castile. despite the social and symbolic significance of equids and the dependence of castile and so many other human societies on their health, historians have attended far less to veterinary compared to human medicine. in this study, i examine sixteenth-century equine medicine (albeitería) through the figure of the equine doctor (albéitar herrador). i investigate what made these practitioners distinctive: their licensing and social organization, growing canon of texts and assertion of status, roles in legal medicine, and surgical skills. by relying on hippiatric treatises and lawsuit records, i am able to investigate their activities and knowledge in theory and practice. after an introduction, i examine their occupational hierarchy in chapter two. though histories of albeitería emphasize the crown's licensing tribunal, i also attend to their communal institutions and informal cooperation. in chapter three, i survey the castilian hippiatric treatises published in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to show how their authors developed a canon of texts, and by extension asserted the dignity and nobility of their art. i examine these works as trade manuals, destined for an equine doctor audience, and as medical literature, sharing theory and authorities with its human counterpart. in chapter four i explore the role of equine doctors and medical arguments in legal disputes. these suits suggest that the medical concepts most relevant in a forensic setting differ from the presentation of medicine in treatises. finally, i argue in chapter five that surgical skills set equine doctors apart from other practitioners, and examine two such procedures as case studies: a specialized bleeding technique and cauterization. whereas the first half of this study highlights connections between the occupational structure and intellectual tradition of human and equine medicine, the second suggests differences between the two in practice thanks to the nature of their patients and the ways people used equids. over 200 minerals contain uranium as an essential structural constituent. uranyl minerals, which contain u6+, are significant for understanding the genesis of uranium deposits, as well as the water-rock interactions that occur in uranium-rich rocks. they may impact the mobility of actinides in contaminated soils and in vadose zone sediments polluted with actinides, such as the hanford and savanna river sites in the united states. uranyl minerals are important phases of alteration of nuclear waste forms under simulated geological repository conditions, such as those expected in the proposed repository at yucca mountain, nevada. despite their environmental importance, the crystallography and chemical thermodynamics of uranyl phases remains largely unexplored. the primary objectives of the research presented herein are to (1) expand the current foundation of uranyl crystal chemistry, (2) collect calorimetric data to assess the enthalpies of formation of environmentally relevant uranyl phases and (3) examine the relationship between crystal chemistry and chemical thermodynamics of select uranyl phases. crystal structures were determined for twenty-two uranyl phases, natural and synthetic, from single crystal x-ray diffraction data collected using mok&gamma; radiation and a bruker ccd-based detector. research efforts focus primarily on uranyl peroxides, of which thirteen crystal structures were determined. the uranyl peroxides discussed herein represent a new class of uranyl polyhedral topologies, as well as a new class of polyoxometalates with the polymerization of 20, 24, 28 and 32 uranyl polyhedra into finite clusters. in addition, crystal structures were determined for four uranyl carbonates, three uranyl oxide hydrates, a uranyl nitrate and a uranyl silicate. enthalpies of formation were determined using high temperature oxide-melt drop-solution calorimetry for a variety of well-characterized uranyl phases: one uranyl peroxide, three uranyl carbonates, ten uranyl oxide hydrates, a uranyl silicate and nine uranyl phosphates. standard enthalpies of formation from the elements were used to ascertain energetic trends of uranyl mineral formation from the binary oxides. enthalpies of formation with respect to the binary oxides are dominated by the acid-base character of the binary oxides. the energetics of these systems suggests that some additional stabilization associated with changes in crystal structure and/or hydration states are possible. sleep is a unique process that is beneficial for the consolidation of emotional memory. more than this, sleep selectively enhances memory for emotional components at the expense of neutral components, earning the name emotional memory tradeoffs, and these findings have been replicated among healthy young adults. however, it still remains unclear how disrupted sleep, typically evident in depression and in aging, might alter the existence of these sleep enhancing effects toward emotional memory. to address these gaps within the literature, the present study compared emotional memory consolidation after a period of active wakefulness and full night of sleep in young and middle-aged adults in an online study. the results indicated that there were no statistically significant differences among younger adults in memory consolidation for sleep compared to wake, no significant relationship between depressive symptomatology and emotional memory, nor interaction between poor sleep quality, high depressive symptomatology and the tradeoff. however, when looking at both young and middle aged adults, sleep enhanced emotional memory tradeoffs compared to wake while also not showing any significant relationship with age and depression on the tradeoff. although these findings suggest sleep may affect emotional memory consolidation regardless of age, more research is necessary to understand how poor sleep and depression mutually and exclusively contribute to emotional memory consolidation. this dissertation examines the colonial factors contributed to surprisingly high levels of social development and postcolonial democracy in the west indies vis-ìê-vis sub-saharan africa. i develop a hypothesis that distinguishes between forced settlement (i.e. the import of non-indigenous slaves and/or indentured laborers to newly settled territories) vs. colonial occupation (i.e. european domination over indigenous societies, and the reorganization of these societies into modern states) as the modal forms of colonization in each region. i argue that the superior developmental outcomes associated with forced settlement vis-ìê-vis colonial occupation are the consequence of specific social, political and administrative reforms introduced following the abolition of slavery, when the colonial state was reorganized along metropolitan lines, and emancipated slaves were legally reconstituted as citizens or subjects of the metropolitan state. in colonies of occupation, by contrast, state power was bifurcated: there were distinct legal-administrative institutions for indigenous vs. non-indigneous populations, as the indigenous majority was generally denied metropolitan citizenship, and subjected them to harsh and arbitrary forms of justice and compulsory labor, which persisted until after the second world war. consequently, civil law remains weakly institutionalized in these societies, which gained independence with low levels of social development, and have struggled to maintain democratic rule after independence. this argument not only explains the superior postcolonial development outcomes in the west indies vis-ìê-vis sub-saharan africa, but it also explains why african states colonized by forced settlement (e.g. mauritius, r union, seychelles, cape verde, s&atilde;o tom & principe) have experienced patterns of development and political regime outcomes that are broadly similar to those of the west indies. the dissertation follows a multi-method approach: first, i use statistical analysis to examine the long-term consequences of each mode of colonization on education attainment (1950 to 2008) and political regime outcomes (1946-2004) across countries and territories decolonized after world war two. second, i use comparative historical analysis to elucidate the causal mechanisms that link each mode of colonization to specific developmental and regime outcomes across pairs of former british and portuguese colonies in the west indies and sub-saharan africa: jamaica and ghana, cape verde and guinea-bissau. research indicates the value of examining how specific positive emotionality (pe) facets relate to psychopathology, but the facet-level structure of pe remains unclear. previous factor analyses of pe-related scales provided evidence for a four-factor structure of elation, attentiveness, excitement seeking, and warmth. with the exception of attentiveness, which emerged as a more general facet and was labeled cheerfulness, this structure replicated in the current sample. these four factors then were related to psychopathology measures assessing internalizing, externalizing, and psychotic symptoms. excitement seeking showed considerable specificity, as it associated more strongly with externalizing than internalizing symptoms, demonstrating especially strong relations with risk taking, attention seeking, manipulativeness, and impulsivity. cheerfulness and elation related negatively to internalizing symptoms, and the former also showed moderate negative relations with externalizing symptoms such as distractibility and drug use. warmth had mostly weak relations, although it showed notable negative correlations with antisocial symptoms. freshwater fishes are a globally imperiled natural resource.to aid conservation, natural resource agencies frequently assess changes in fish biodiversity and distribution.however, detection probabilities for fishes are frequently low when sampled via traditional methods.in this dissertation, i demonstrate how novel sampling approaches can complement traditional sampling to improve detection of fishes. first, i evaluated the effects of road-crossing culvert removal on longitudinal connectivity of fish assemblages in three tributary streams in the manistee river watershed of michigan.upstream versus downstream assemblage similarity increased following culvert replacement by bridges.in addition, relatively small sample sizes of fishes were needed to detect an increase in assemblage similarity. the remainder of my dissertation focused on how environmental dna (edna) can improve the detection of fishes.i compared the financial costs and sampling effort required to assess the distribution of at-risk brook trout (salvelinus fontinalis) in the namekagon river watershed, wisconsin, using both electrofishing and edna.brook trout distribution was accurately determined with both edna and electrofishing, but edna analysis incurred up to 92% lower effort and up to 67% less cost than electrofishing.i then evaluated how edna metabarcoding can be used to estimate fish species richness.in a replicated mesocosm experiment, i demonstrated that metabarcoding could detect all the species present regardless of species relative abundance or density.further, i found a positive statistical relationship between species abundance and sequence read abundance.in a field study of a small impoundment, i then compared species richness estimates derived from metabarcoding and capture-based sampling.metabarcoding detected all 10 species that were observed via capture-based sampling plus an additional 11 uncaptured species.the detection of stream-dwelling species in the impoundment suggests downstream transport of viable edna.additional research on edna transport will improve our ability to infer the source of edna in aquatic ecosystems.overall, my dissertation illustrates that edna analysis can be an effective supplement to traditional sampling.i, however, caution that edna should not be viewed as a replacement for traditional sampling methods that provide unique information.research and management objectives should be carefully assessed when selecting a sampling approach. over the past few decades colloidal chemistry has provided access to a growing variety of inorganic nanostructures with diverse and customizable properties, which can be tailored to many different applications. however, such diversity presents challenges when it comes to characterizing the structure of functional nanomaterials, where the small size and the increased complexity impose technical limitations.this thesis aims to address these challenges by developing novel approaches to characterize and describe the structure of nanomaterials, which are here demonstrated on lead halide semiconductor nanostructures. these materials are widely investigated for their appealing properties and the structural diversity they express at the nanoscale, and pose therefore a variety of compelling scientific questions. here are discussed four case studies, each characterized by increasing nanoscale complexity. i) colloidal nanocrystals of previously unknown lead chalcohalide phases are used to demonstrate strategies for solving the structure of novel inorganic materials by means of combined electron and x-ray diffraction techniques. guidelines are proposed for each step of the structure solution process, from the stoichiometry determination to the cell indexation and the final structure refinement.ii) epitaxial dimers formed by cesium lead halide compounds are rationalized as reaction intermediates in the chemical transformation of colloidal nanocrystals, and the structural relationships enabling their formation are explored. following this lead, perovskite/chalcohalide heterostructures are demonstrated as effective templates for the phase-selective synthesis of colloidal nanocrystals. iii) superlattices of lead halide perovskite nanocrystals are used to develop a novel approach for characterizing the nanoscale structure of self-assembled nanocrystal solids. this method is based on diffraction techniques developed for multilayer thin films grown by physical methods, and relies on the analysis of collective interference phenomena in the wide-angle x-ray diffraction pattern of samples.iv) microcrystalline samples of hybrid layered ruddlesden-popper perovskites, composed by nanoscale stacks of organic and inorganic layers, are investigated through a geometric analysis of their unit cell parameters to determine the inhomogeneous distribution of different halides alloyed within their structure. quantum-dot cellular automata (qca) is an approach to computing which eliminates the need for transistors by representing binary digits as charge configurations rather than current levels. coulomb interactions provide device-device coupling without current flow. molecular qca uses redox sites of molecules as quantum dots. clocked control of the device allows power gain, control of power dissipation, and pipelined computation. we present ab initio analyses of both clocked and unclocked molecular qca cells. we compare the results of calculations using several different levels of theory. we examine the role of the relaxation of the nuclear coordinates. we show how simple molecular qca devices can be implemented. the recent spate of antidiscrimination ordinances, also known as "bathroom bills", represents a new facet of american anti-lgbt policy. using the example of houston's equal rights ordinance (hero) this paper analyzes the neighborhood configurations wherein opposition to antidiscrimination legislation becomes manifest. this paper focuses especially on the ways that a neighborhood's dominant family structure as well as its religious or lgbt-friendly environment determines whether legislation such as hero is perceived as threatening to the community. using a unique data set, this paper finds support for the association between a neighborhood's normative traditional family structure or conservative religious environment and opposition to hero, while finding that the presence of lgbt-friendly businesses and organizations is associated with support for antidiscrimination ordinances. notably, though, opposition is greatest in contexts where lgbt-friendly organizations and conservative religious environments exist together. while the conventional algan-barrier gan high electron mobility transistors (hemts) gradually matured in the past fifteen years, one of the recent research interests is focused on highly scaled structures to achieve high current gain and power gain cut-off frequency ft/fmax for high speed and power amplifying applications. to reach this goal, we must address several critical issues by realizing: 1) low on-resistance (both low ohmic contact resistance and low sheet resistance in the access region), 2) sub-100 nm gate length, 3) minimal gate-drain depletion extension, 4) favorable carrier confinement in the channel with thin top barrier thus high transconductance, 5) sufficient passivation of surface states and traps to suppress the current collapse and frequency dispersion, 6) small parasitic capacitance and gate resistance, and 7) reasonably high breakdown voltage. in this work, inalgan/aln-barrier hemts have been developed for the first time at the university of notre dame due to its inherent scalability: thin barriers (1-10 nm, i.e. eot ~0.5-5 nm) and attractive 2deg properties (ns > 1 x 10^13 cm-2, mobility> 1000 cm2/v.s). based on the successful development of ohmic contacts and novel dielectric-free passivation, record performance devices are demonstrated, e.g. ft of 220 ghz with a 66-nm-long trapezoidal gate and ft/fmax of 230/300 ghz with a 40-nm-long t-gate. in this dissertation, advanced epitaxial designs have been investigated in order to obtain excellent transport properties, good scalability, and improved electron confinement for high speed electronics. the process developments have been summarized, including mesa isolation, ohmic contact formation, and t-gate fabrication. the device passivation mechanism with both dielectric films and dielectric-free plasma treatments have been intensively studied and compared, based on which an effective passivation solution for devices with alloyed and non-alloyed ohmic contacts has been proposed: plasma-assisted thin dielectric passivation. deep learning models have nowadays gained increasing attention in the scientific computing field due to their inherent nature to capture nonlinear and high-dimensional features. the main motivation of my research is to leverage physics laws and data to develop predictive deep learning model for physics systems. on the one hand, when the physics laws is known but the data is little, the deep learning model can be used to develop surrogate modeling of the high-accuracy simulation or measurements instead of directly replacing the canonical models. on the other hand, when the data is abundant but the underlying physics is partly known, equation discovery model can be used to identify the underlying governing equations. under both circumstances, it is of great importance to quantify the uncertainty of the developed models. this dissertation demonstrates that deep learning based model is a good candidate for both surrogate modeling and equation discovery from several perspectives. firstly, we developed a data-free physics-informed surrogate modeling of fluid flows without relying on any simulation data. secondly, when the flow measurements are sparse and noisy, we propose an innovative physics-constrained bayesian deep learning approach to reconstruct flow fields from corrupted velocity data. several test cases on idealized vascular flows with synthetic measurement data are studied to demonstrate the merit of the proposed method. in the third part, we aim to discover the governing equations for dynamical systems from limited observation data. to achieve this goal, we first developed a deep sparse bayesian learning approach to uncover the explicit governing equation of a parametric dynamic system, where predictive uncertainty will be estimated. to further improve the robustness against data noise, we propose another bayesian spline learning approach for equation discovery. several linear/nonlinear ode/pde systems are used to demonstrate the effectiveness. in the last part, we also proposed to use a normalizing flow based model to predict complex dynamics. the preliminary result shows that the prediction is accurate and the model can give reasonable forward uncertainty estimation. we present a unified framework for segmentation and regression tasks with convolutional encoder-decoder networks, using, as a motivation, the problem of estimating the relative pressures from velocity fields acquired through magnetic resonance imaging (mri). first, we characterize the properties of the noise generated from undersampled 4d flow mri fourier space data. next, we propose several convolutional neural network architectures for jointly segmenting the fluid region and predicting the relative pressure within that region, combining commonly adopted loss function formulations with physics-informed regularization. finally, we extend these architectures to fuse multifidelity data for various regression tasks and perform uncertainty quantification through monte carlo dropblocks. for the multifidelity fusion, we consider data regimes with varying input and output dimensionality. the appearance of oxygen in the earth's atmosphere approximately 2.3 billion years ago led to considerable changes in the environment. the species that inhabited earth, and wished to remain, had to adapt to an oxygen-rich atmosphere. at the biochemical level, this forced the production of enzymes and cofactors that were able to react with and bind oxygen, while limiting and elminating the toxic side products of its reduction. modern species contain several oxygen-reactive biomolecules that are critical for survival; the following describes an in-depth examination of two enzyme systems with evolved highly sophisticated mechanisms for the use and production of molecular oxygen, respectively. the first part of the thesis describes mechanistic studies of a member of a novel subclass of n-hydroxylating flavin-dependent monooxygenases. the enzyme, l-ornithine monooxygenase (omo), activates oxygen to a reactive flavin hydroperoxide intermediate to hydroxylate the primary amine of l-ornithine in a critical step for the biosynthesis of iron-chelating siderophores. the second half describes the cde (chlorite dismutase, dyp-type peroxidase, efeb) protein-family. this microbial protein family contains the enzyme chlorite dismutase (cld), a recently discovered enzyme from perchlorate (clo4-) respiring bacteria. these organisms have achieved the ability to respire oxochlorates and make use of the man-made molecules for their survival. cld is a heme-dependent enzyme that catalyzes the conversion of chlorite (clo2-), the toxic end product of perchlorate respiration, to molecular oxygen (o2) and chloride (cl-). studies to understand cld's detailed chemical mechanism and the protein residues essential for its function are described. the large cde protein-family, to which cld belongs, is described in detail with structural and sequence based analyses. work shows that several annotated cld genes are found in non-perchlorate respiring bacteria and likely have as yet unidentified non-dismutase functions. in the last chapter, biochemical and microbiological data are presented with an effort towards determining the biological function of a cld homolog in the pathogenic species staphyloccoccus aureus. the biological roles of both the l-ornithine monooxygenase and chlorite dismutase center around redox biochemistry, and each story will be described within the context of microbial redox cofactor acquisition, synthesis, storage, and utilization. the importance of each is described in regard to virulence in pathogenic species and the potential development of new antimicrobial targets. gan based high electron mobility transistors (hemt) are among the most promising semiconductor devices for future high frequency, high efficiency power switching applications due to unique material properties of gan, featuring wide band gap (3.4 ev), high critical electric field (> 3 mv/cm) and high electron saturation velocity. while the material and device physics for gan hemts have been studied extensively in the past decades, penetration of power device market relies on the development of high performance devices, which requires solving a series of critical issues including gate leakage, device passivation and threshold voltage control. in this work, development of enhancement mode gan hemts and moshemts is discussed, with a focus on variation of device fabrication techniques and its impact on device characteristics, providing solutions to the aforementioned issues. experimentally, high performance gan moshemts with the lattice matched in0.17al0.83n barriers are demonstrated, which show comparable metrics to the state-of-the-art devices in terms of switching frequency and power density. as computational techniques have grown in speed and accuracy, the interplay of experiment and computation has become an attractive way to tackle chemical problems. our research group has been particularly interested in combining experimental and computational efforts to elucidate reaction mechanisms, predict reaction outcomes, and design new molecules. molecular design of chemical tools has a broad range of applications, from the development of probes for use in chemical and cell biology to the development of chiral catalysts for use in enantioselective chemical synthesis. this thesis spans this range of applications, demonstrating how experimental and computational studies can inspire and inform one another. this interplay is first shown in the design, synthesis, and evaluation of a novel 15-azasterol as a luminescent cholesterol mimic for the monitoring of cholesterol trafficking. the brightness of this probe, which is ~32 times greater than the widely used dehydroergosterol (dhe) probe, is combined with resistance to photobleaching in solution and in human fibroblasts and an exceptionally large stokes-like shift of ~150-200 nm. the experimental observations of the probe motivated computational studies to explain the photophysical properties and predict protein binding behavior. the study of this cholesterol mimic also prompted the design and synthesis of other luminescent steroid mimics, which are described herein. the interplay of experiment and computation is also shown in work on the prediction of enantioselectivity for catalyst screening and design of chiral ligands. the quantum-guided molecular mechanics (q2mm) method is used to develop transition state force fields (tsffs) that enable conformational sampling of transition state structures, which allows for accurate prediction of enantioselectivity to aid in selection of known catalysts. this thesis reports efforts toward the development of tsff parameters for the asymmetric transfer hydrogenation (ath) of ketones using half-sandwich complexes of ru, rh, and ir. it also describes a new application of q2mm and tsffs in the in silico design of novel ligand classes, enabling a user to virtually screen new ligand designs prior to synthesis. the design of chiral ligands with predicted enantioselectivities up to 97.9% ee for ath reduction of acetophenone and efforts toward their synthesis are reported herein. the phaseout of high global warming potential refrigerants has environmental, economic, and engineering implications. these refrigerants are often azeotropic mixtures of high value hydrofluorocarbons (hfcs) which must be separated for their sustainable reuse and recycle. however, energy efficient and economically feasible azeotropic separations are a significant challenge in the chemical engineering community, often requiring the design of novel solvent materials, e.g., ionic liquids. here, we propose a multi-scale design and optimization, ``data-to-design", framework for identifying an ideal il separating agent for each hfc refrigerant mixture. this framework is an iterative loop in which data is generated and used to fit thermodynamic models and then perform preliminary process design calculations and technoeconomic analyses under uncertainty. a feedback loop guides data generation efforts towards valuable experiments and the thermophysical properties of optimal ils.this data-to-design framework is an example of highly collaborative, integrated research that bridges the perspectives and tools of the experimental, molecular science and engineering, and process systems engineering communities to develop novel solutions to an ongoing chemical engineering challenge. here, we highlight two examples of successful synergistic research efforts in the data-to-design framework. first, we demonstrate two workflows which harness machine learning and bayesian optimization techniques to fit cheap-to-evaluate surrogate models as replacements for computationally expensive molecular simulations, enabling rapid calibration of molecular models for hfcs. then, we propose a rigorous thermodynamic model selection and analysis workflow which utilizes data science tools, including information criteria, fischer information matrix-based identifiability analyses, uncertainty quantification, and model-based design of experiments. this workflow enables the systematic selection of a thermodynamic model that is the most accurate, predictive, and interpretable from a library of candidate models for an hfc/il system. additionally, it guides data generation collaborators towards the most valuable measurements, facilitating more efficient allocation of experimental resources. finally, we conclude with a prospective for applying the data-to-design framework to hfc/il systems, but emphasize this framework and the tools presented here are applicable to many systems of interest in the chemical engineering community. in this dissertation, we address two problems associated with the development of an emergency response system that utilizes a cell phone network as a sensor network to facilitate the initiation and online validation of predictive simulations. schoenharl (2007) describes the simulation component of the emergency response system; this dissertation addresses two other significant components of the system: the historical data source and the detection and alert system. the historical data source is a data warehouse designed to facilitate the development of additional simulation models for the predictive component of the system and has wider applications for scientific research on social networks and human mobility. the detection and alert system provides an automatic mechanism for initiating the simulation system without intervention by emergency response managers. this system identifies potential emergency events in both time and space, allowing the simulations to begin shortly after an event as well as focus on the area affected by the event, reducing the computational costs significantly. this dissertation uses elite professional advisors as a case study to explore the relationship between social stratification and knowledge production. in the first essay, i use a novel dataset of articles written by management consultants at the three most prestigious firms to measure the relationship between education, seniority, and innovativeness. i find that while those with elite educations and seniority are the least innovative of the authors, they are also the most likely to write about "disruptive innovation.'' in the second essay, i explore what it means to "think like a consultant.'" relying on a close reading of articles and books written by consultants, interviews with management consultants, and participant-observation at recruiting events, i find a contradiction between the "front stage" presentation of the work of consultants, and the "back stage" beliefs about how a consultant ought to think. in particular i find that, rather than creativity, firms hire for, and value, simplicity. in the third essay, i consider the question of the relationship between occupational stratification and political thought. using data from the general social survey, and multi-model, automated selection approach, i find that to the extent a significant political gap between the occupational groups exists, it is only among non-black men. while both managers and professionals have grown more left-leaning in the last decade, these occupational groups have also grown more politically heterogeneous. marital dysfunction has been implicated in the development of psychopathology among spouses and their children. the present study investigates (1) changes in depressive symptoms among married adults and the transactional relationship between husbands' and wives' symptoms, (2) changes in two dimensions of marital functioning (namely, marital satisfaction and conflict), as well as the transactional relationship between husbands' and wives' relationship satisfaction, (3) the dynamic, longitudinal associations between depressive symptomatology and marital processes both within and between spouses, and (4) transactional relationships between parental depressive symptoms, marital functioning, and children's adjustment. results from latent difference score (lds) structural equation models revealed that having a spouse with high levels of depressive symptoms predicted subsequent elevations among wives' symptoms over time. changes in husbands' depressive symptoms were proportional to their previous levels of symptomatology. transactional associations between marital processes and depressive symptoms were found separately for husbands and wives; however, different domains of marital functioning related to husbands' versus wives' symptomatology. for husbands, bivariate lds models revealed longitudinal coupling between marital satisfaction and depressive symptoms. for wives, high levels of depressive symptoms predicted subsequent elevations in marital conflict over time. no evidence was found for longitudinal coupling between marital functioning and symptoms across spouses. transactional relations between parental depression, marital functioning, and children's adjustment were not in the expected direction: increased levels of paternal depression and marital conflict predicted subsequent decreases in children's externalizing problems over time. results are discussed with regard to theoretical perspectives on the marital functioning-depression link and directions for future research are outlined. while most of the literature on political clientelism focuses on the mobilization of poor voters in developing democracies in the global south, a growing number of studies examine how clientelism operates across different levels of class. scholars of clientelism have demonstrated that political machines recruit party support by directly providing poor voters with goods and services during elections; however, this study demonstrates how patronage structures also target middle-class voters. consistent with the literature on class and contentious politics, i argue that being middle class may actually bolster party activism in clientelistic settings by providing the kinds of resources and social capital needed to sustain political activity over time. for instance, middle class actors possess more material assets than their working-class peers, and they may circulate in white-collar job networks, both of which are factors that encourage activism in contexts where demonstrating party loyalty is necessary for social advancement. on the other hand, highly educated actors who lack access to the network of high-status jobs may register their disaffection with clientelism by decreasing their levels of political activity. this study adds to the literature on class and clientelism by using survey and interview data from lebanon to demonstrate that middle class voters occupy a complex position within patronage structures. while some may be pushed to demonstrate party loyalty based on their professional and business associations, those who are alienated from that network will be more likely to disengage. the implications of these results may extend beyond lebanon, meriting further study. in this study, i probe the romantic, tourism-originated myths embedded in america's slave memory introducing a fresh site of inquiry, the efforts of three white female jim crow era historians carita doggett corse, minnie moore willson and bernie babcock who wrote them into slave history. all three go on to play influential roles in the wpa slave narrative project. to unfold this story, i explore their lives, careers, and relationships with an eye towards ferreting out the interconnected roles racial and gender barriers play, to understand the why and how behind the production of the problematic history they write.this dissertation argues that their ex-slave narratives have deep roots in cultural heritage tourism and romantic fiction, creating a distinct and problematic slavery legacy that because of its association with the wpa slave narrative project, continues to play out in dangerous ways today. investigating the lives, relationships and work of these women at the center of this story, provides a multi-dimensional view into the life cycle of a slave memory born from romantic fiction and tourism, charting its dangerous transition to history and into the american imagination. this project traces this troubling lineage in an effort to give coherence to the reasons behind its production and to better understand the implications of its historical legacy today. the challenge of thermal management in small form-factor electronic devices drives the development of novel technologies for heat dissipation. ionic wind devices, which operate on the principle of electrohydrodynamic interaction, are being studied as a replacement for conventional fans because of the inherent advantages of small acoustic signature, low weight, low power consumption, and the absence of moving parts. in particular, corona discharge driven ionic winds are favored for their ease of operation in direct current (dc) mode and stability at atmospheric pressures. miniaturization of ionic wind blowers to extremely small form factors (heights < 3 mm) is accompanied by various challenges. the operating potentials too are constrained to ~2000v to minimize safety hazards. to obtain flow rates comparable to fans under such constraints necessitates development of novel configurations and new modes of operation. this dissertation presents a multi-electrode corona discharge as a solution to the challenges arising from miniaturization of duct heights in ionic wind devices. an overview of fundamentals of corona discharges and ionic winds, and a literature survey of various ionic wind devices and numerical modeling procedures is included. data from preliminary experiments on sub-millimeter scale coronas is presented and compared to theory to study the limiting conditions for corona formation and sustenance. corona discharges are studied experimentally and numerically in configurations that induce asymmetric electric fields in the discharge space. multiple collector configurations are a particular subset of these and are studied in more detail to characterize their fundamental behavior and to understand the differences from traditional discharges involving a single collecting electrode. the configurations are shown to present characteristics that are suitable for mitigating some of the problems encountered in device miniaturization. the three-electrode configurations are shown to reduce the onset potentials for device operation, increase the total current production, and present a favorable redistribution of current to the various collectors. traditional corona modeling procedures are demonstrated to have significant shortcomings in asymmetric configurations and an alternative modeling procedure is developed for application in these conditions. the multi-electrode configurations were adapted to the development of an ionic wind blower. in a laboratory setup, these configurations are shown to improve flow rates by a factor of ~3x and reduce power consumption by up to 0.5x. a prototype fabricated within the constraints imposed by handheld electronic systems on size and operating potential is described. the performance of the prototype-installed system is compared to the baseline system for flow and acoustic characteristics and is shown to be comparable in terms of the flow rates generated and significantly better in the acoustic signature levels. patriotism is seen as something positive in our common political discourse; however, among political philosophers it is often seen as an unreflective and irrational love of the familiar. this dissertation explores the question of what precisely patriotism is and whether or not it can be moral. first, i examine martha nussbaum's cosmopolitan critique of patriotism based upon her theory of universal human 'capabilities.' secondly, i explore the concept of 'constitutional patriotism,' particularly in the work of jan-werner mìäå_ller. constitutional patriotism is a concept, first formulated by jìäå_rgen habermas, that attempts to make patriotism compatible with liberalism by transforming the object of the patriot's attachment from a concrete political entity to a set of liberal constitutional principles. finally, i attempt to construct a conception of patriotism which is both substantive and limited based upon an aristotelian/thomistic notion of friendship. i suggest that patriotism has to be understood as acting for the good of one's political community. in addition, it has to be limited by an understanding of the political community as a finite entity dedicated to the pursuit of one among many possible instantiations of the political good. the origin of carbonatites and their associated alkaline silicate rocks has been linked to metasomatized upper mantle sources and related to mantle plume activity. however, the lithospheric or asthenospheric origin of the carbon contained within mantle-derived carbonatite melts is still under debate. in order to investigate this, carbonatite samples from worldwide sources have been analyzed for their stable c and o isotope ratios and for the first time, boron (b) isotope compositions. it is well documented that the global boron geochemical cycle is closely tied to recycling of geological material via subduction processes. therefore, it is hypothesized that investigation of boron isotope systematics of carbonatites will aid in testing for a recycled component present in carbonatite magmas; this creates a unique way of evaluating their mantle sources. carbonatites investigated here span a wide range of emplacement ages (~40 ma to ~2600 ma old), and therefore provide insight into the temporal evolution of their mantle sources. results show that b abundances in carbonatites range between 0.04 and 2.0 parts per million (ppm), well within the range reported for mantle-derived rocks. δ11b values for the carbonatite samples varybetween +5.5‰ and -8.6‰. these seem to define a bimodal distribution: one group is characterized by more negative δ11b values (&lt; -4.0‰), which suggests derivation from typical asthenospheric (depleted) upper mantle source, whereas samples belonging to the second group record more positive δ11b values (&gt; -4.0‰) and indicates involvement of subducted (crustal) material. the latter may be sampled by carbonatite melts associated with mantle plume activity, and their corresponding emplacement ages coincide with major tectonic events in earth's history; these are linked to episodes of supercontinent formation and consequently significant periods of subduction at a global scale. in wireless communication systems with no channel state information (csi) available at the transmitter or receiver, channel correlation plays a pivotal role in analyzing system behavior. this thesis explores the theme of channel correlation in several scenarios. the first part of the thesis investigates a rayleigh fading channel without correlation in time. using a suitable logarithmic transformation, the channel model can be converted into an equivalent channel model with additive noise only. such a perspective lends geometric intuition and often substantially reduces mathematical machinery to evaluate performance in terms of achievable rates and capacity. on one hand, a series of known results are revisited and reinterpreted; and on the other hand, several new results are obtained using this induced additive-noise perspective. the second part of the thesis focuses on channel correlation in time. using a block decision-feedback architecture, the original channel is decomposed into a series of parallel sub-channels, each being conditionally coherent linear gaussian. both discrete-time and continuous-time channels are examined, and the asymptotics of mutual information at low signal-to-noise ratio (snr) are obtained. compared to known capacity upper bounds under peak constraints, these asymptotics lead to negligible loss in the low-snr regime for slowly time-varying fading channels. the third part of the thesis studies channel correlation in space, {it i.e.}, across multiple transmit and receive antennas. in the low-snr regime, it is shown using asymptotic analysis that spatially correlated antennas lead to both multiplicative rate gain as well as peak power reduction, at no cost of additional transmit power. then a low-complexity communication scheme employing on-off signaling with hard-decision demodulation is evaluated, which demonstrates that most of the benefits promised by asymptotic analysis are realizable. finally, the last part of the thesis summarizes the main contributions and points out directions for future work. this dissertation is a virtual ethnography examining the ways in which trans and nonbinary individuals construct, discuss, and "do" gender through the medium of online social networking services, specifically through twitter. as being trans involves contesting the gender previously assigned to the individual—with the body providing the primary basis for this initial assignment—and as social networking services provide an interactional environment where the body can be curated or concealed entirely, these services provide a fruitful case study into how the construction and enactment of gender manifests itself outside the context of the body. this dissertation is comprised of three substantive sections, covering how the trans community constructs and justifies a definition of gender and how this definition both conflicts and aligns with definitions proposed by anti-trans groups, how twitter's affordances for both personal expression and collective organization are utilized to foster within-community solidarity and how structural tensions within these affordances also work to undermine it, and the role that pervasive anti-trans opposition plays on influencing both the structural and emotional composition of the online trans community. the dissertation finds that the definition of gender employed by the online trans community—which prioritizes self-declaration—is mirrored within the community's structure, with twitter's affordances utilized to cultivate group boundaries and a group style centered around a logic of inclusion. yet the same structures which help to foster solidarity between members of the trans community also work against it: twitter's privileging of messages which have the potential for wide dispersion comes at the expense of excluding more peripheral members, and increased immersion into the field exposes individuals to anti-trans hostility occurring on a global scale in a way that is difficult to emotionally separate oneself from. participation in u.s. civic life is influenced by individual religiosity, and many congregations are corporately active in their communities. most explanations of the religion and civic life relationship focus on a sole level of analysis, but the cross level relationship between congregations and their members' public participation is more pertinent to general sociological theory. taking congregations and members as instances of stable collectives and active individuals, this dissertation addresses questions about the relation of social groups and members, and the connection between religion and public participation. i operationalize civic involvement from an action theory perspective and call for a more general understanding of civic engagement as collectively sustained, goal oriented, civic culture maintaining social action. theorizing congregations as social networks embedded in pre-existing and emergent cultural environments, i use hierarchical non-linear modeling to test cross level hypotheses about independent congregational effects on individual voluntary association, community organizing, and evangelism. findings demonstrate the presence of contextual effects, and support expectations about the role of congregational culture and social networks as influential of individual action. specifically, those attending congregations affiliated with mainline congregations are more likely to report voluntary association membership while those at conservative protestant congregations are more likely to report evangelism. a network approach to congregations proves useful, and those at congregations with dense networks are less likely to report standard forms of civic involvement, but more likely to report evangelism. if a congregation's leader is active in the local community, then those who attend are also more active in civic affairs. finally, congregational education heterogeneity decreases the odds of public participation, while race heterogeneity increases the odds of individual evangelism. the dissertation calls specifically for further consideration of the relationship between congregations and individual civic participation, and generally for common use of contextual modeling to adequately portray the role of religion in social life. interiors is a photographic body of work that investigates interior spaces and the layered interactions that exist within the built environment. by analyzing the architectural, metaphorical, and psychological conditions of place as it relates to the human psyche, i construct detailed diorama sets illustrating fictional worlds that represent altered perceptions of inhabitable spaces. the psychology of space is defined by light, color, and transitions in architecture, and through the genre of constructed photography and the use of the miniature, i aim to bring an emotional and reflective experience to the viewer. the most commonly adopted method for building better complementary metaloxide-semiconductor (cmos) device is by reducing the physical dimensions of the structure. through scaled size-reduction, cmos devices can run at higher speed, consume less power and attain higher packing density. the aim of the thesis is to design the fabrication process for building cmos devices with 0.25&#956;m gate length and quiltpackaging protruding metal nodules. alterations to the existing one-and-a-half micron cmos fabrication process were made to accommodate the structural modification for the deep-submicron device. prior to wafer processing, computer simulations were executed to determine the suitable processing conditions and to predict the electrical behavior of such device. pattern definitions would be relied on a combination of photolithography and electron beam lithography. although we are unable to complete the fabrication process at the moment, we have demonstrated the ability to perform the large-scale electron beam lithography needed for our fabrication with the elionix els-7700 ebl system. this dissertation explores connections between the gender politics of british, irish, and german modernist drama and novels and total war discourse. a historically contested term, total warfare is chronicled here from britain's late-nineteenth century new imperialism to europe in the decades following the second world war. furthermore, its impact extended far beyond the battlefield with civilian collateral damage on a massive scale, through air raids, concentration camps, forced labor, and other means. establishing this timeline and parameters for total warfare allows for a closer look at its significance beyond a typical "war literature" canon. the first of the dissertation's parallel narratives about gender and war examines the female body as a contested site in performance and dance theatre, at once embodying political complicity and subversion. oscar wilde's an ideal husband (1895) sets the precedent for this dilemma with a woman whose threatening gestures not only confirm male anxieties of the era, but also revealed the hypocrisies of british imperial ideology. the premiere of w.b. yeats's the dreaming of the bones (1931) and mary wigman's extravaganza totenmal (1930) align female physicality with modern dance for different political ends, respectively seeking freedom from censorship and espousing an authoritarian aesthetic. samuel beckett's answer to this dilemma is confinement and contraction, reducing the female figure to a disembodied mouth in 1972's not i.the second arc within this dissertation explores how modernist novelists transform generic conventions when faced with total warfare. works such as virginia woolf's mrs. dalloway (1925) and elizabeth bowen's the last september (1929) turn to nineteenth-century domestic fiction, including the marriage plot and comedy of manners, to depict young women's struggles for autonomy during and in the aftermath of conflict. james joyce's finnegans wake instead turns to medieval history and legend, adding familial dysfunction and sexual objectification to heady gender politics. in combining focus on a domestic interior and pre-christian ritual, samuel beckett's ill seen ill said (1981) mediates between these confrontations with history and literary form. as a test of the matching hypothesis, the buffering effects of social support were examined on the stress-distress relation among n = 239 undergraduate international students from asia. international students can experience both unique stressors that are specific to international students and general (i.e., college) stressors that are common to most college students. the negative impact of these stressors on psychological distress may be reduced by appropriate social support from similar others. it was hypothesized that international and co-national support would moderate the relation between unique stressors and psychological distress, and that college support would moderate the relation between college stressors and psychological distress. exploratory analyses using implicit social support and post-hoc analyses using more specific outcome variables were also conducted. although the results were not consistent with the original hypotheses, results from the post-hoc analyses indicated that college support interacted with college stressors to exacerbate the relation between stressors and anxiety and phobic anxiety symptoms, respectively. implications for these unexpected findings are discussed, particularly in regard to outreach with asian undergraduate international students. the field of design is historically exclusionary. design education has played a significant role in perpetuating these practices, focusing on formal design structures, design schools, and professional bodies. in response, my work employs a feminist and practice-based approach to develop a design pedagogy that challenges dominant ideologies in design education.my intervention begins with a podcast, social media, and a website containing resources for design educators to create equitable pedagogy. the podcast, titled "design is not neutral," features design educators who research gaps in design education and seek to deconstruct the binaries that have traditionally excluded subaltern forms of making from the design field. this podcast serves as a centralized source of resources for individual educators to incorporate feminist curricula into their classrooms.the second phase of my intervention involves a knitting workshop that utilizes co/autoethnographic research to challenge power dynamics in design curricula. through the use of personal narrative and reflection, participants engage in a critical examination of their own experiences with craft and design while also learning new techniques for creating with non-digital materials. by emphasizing alternative ways to initiate a design process and increasing agency for traditionally designated 'craft' practices, this workshop seeks to re-center subaltern forms of making in design education. this approach aligns with feminist scholars who emphasize the importance of 'design in the margins' and seeks to create a more inclusive and equitable design pedagogy that centers marginalized perspectives. ultimately, this intervention leads to a more diverse, accessible, and empowering design education that challenges dominant patriarchal, eurocentric, and heteronormative design education. current biomarker measurements using benchtop analytical systems strongly suggest that real-time monitoring of the concentration of specific lipids and/or their derivatives in patient biofluids would enable physicians to more accurately track disease progression and swiftly administer therapeutic treatments. although fluid-borne lipids constitute a severely underexplored class of biomolecules, primarily due to poor solubility in aqueous media, restrictive studies of a select few subclasses, using current bioanalytical methods, namely enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (elisas), high performance liquid chromatography (hplc) and capillary electrophoresis (ce), have afforded invaluable correlations between these analytes and a number of neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases such as parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, amyotropic lateral sclerosis, atherosclerosis, lupus, and niemann pick type c. however, lipid analysis using benchtop elisas, hplc, and ce systems in real-time has yet to be realized, because execution of these techniques require highly specialized technicians within the confines of well-equipped laboratories. moreover, analysis times are on the order of several hours. fortunately, the development of point-of-care medical diagnostic systems has progressed tremendously over the last decade, aggressively replacing conventional laboratory-based clinical tests with the ability to rapidly provide diagnostic information to a patient at the bedside. this technology enables faster administration of care and improved analysis of the efficacy of therapeutic methods, thus extending the duration that patients suffering from life-threatening diseases enjoy a good quality of life. this dissertation introduces a three-dimensional hybrid microfluidicanofluidic device that performs electrophoretic separations of lipid biomarkers and discusses the development of this technology into a promising alternative to current analytical methods using benchtop ce separation units. taking advantage of a newly devised approach, non-aqueous microchip electrophoresis coupled to mass spectrometry via nanospray ionization (name-nsi-ms), the device successfully executes label-free characterization of lipid biomarkers in a matter of minutes. additionally, the highly versatile architecture is compatible with in-vivo sampling methods such as microdialysis, and future iterations may incorporate additional capabilities such as sample pre-processing and analyte preconcentration. collectively, these features constitute the invention of a powerful new medical diagnostic system with the potential to significantly improve the quality of healthcare administered to society at large. this thesis explores the origin of carbonatites, unique mantle-derived, carbonate-rich rocks, using a relatively novel approach based on combining boron isotope signatures (δ11b ‰) with other radiogenic and stable isotope tracers, geochemical indices, and petrographic evidences. this work attempts to investigate three controversial issues regarding carbonatite melt formation, which are: 1. depth of melt generation (i.e., lithospheric or asthenospheric), 2. possible influence of late-stage hydrothermal activity giving rise to associated mineral deposits, or secondary post-emplacement alteration (or crustal involvement), on their original (upper mantle-inherited) geochemical and isotopic signatures, 3. origin of carbon present within their upper mantle (metasomatized) sources (i.e., primordial or recycled), and whether this flux has changed through geologic time. by documenting the first-reported δ11b values for the world's largest rare earth element deposit, the bayan obo carbonatite complex, the behavior of boron during multiple hydrothermal events was investigated. the boron isotopic compositions reported for pristine samples from bayan obo indicate an upper mantle origin despite significant hydrothermal activity. this result demonstrates the robust nature and effective use of δ11b values in deciphering the composition of their mantle source region.boron isotopic ratios were determined for carbonate-rich rocks of contentious origin found within the grenville province and sri lanka. the grenville province samples yielded b isotope compositions compatible with high-temperature regional metamorphism of limestone, whereas the sri lankan samples were formed from carbonate-rich and 11b-poor fluids derived from a crustal source. the combined sr-b isotope approach used was effective in establishing distinct isotope fields that can be applied to future carbonatite-related studies.a comprehensive b investigation of worldwide carbonatites ranging in age from 2.0 ga to 40 ma was conducted so as to provide insights into the origin and flux of deep mantle carbon within carbonatite melts over time. the results indicate an enhanced variability in δ18ov-smow, δ13cv-pdb, and δ11b signatures of carbonatites with increasing geologic time. the total range (up to ~16‰) in δ11b values for carbonatites examined suggests either the presence of enriched recycled subducted material in their mantle source region, or reflects the interaction between continental lithosphere and upwelling asthenospheric mantle. this dissertation describes efforts to develop spectroscopic reporters to understand better the surface redox chemistry of colloidal semiconductor metal chalcogenide nanocrystals. through the use of surface-bound metal carbonyl organometallic fragments, changes to the surface electrostatics were observed through ir spectroscopy. chemical reduction and oxidation, photoinduced charge trapping, and modifications to the metal-to-chalcogenide surface stoichiometry caused observable shifts to the c–o stretching frequencies of the functionalized metal carbonyls.chapter 2 describes the synthetic pathways for functionalized cde-cdm(co)4 ncs (e = se, s; m = fe, co) through x-type ligand exchange. through the addition of increasing equivalents per nanocrystal of chemical reductant and oxidant, the relationship between the change in c–o stretching frequencies was related to the number of electrons added or removed from the surface. the differences in the reducing potential of the [fe(co)4]2precursor were explored through the initial energies of the c–o stretching band and the change in c–o stretching frequencies from the addition of chemical reductant and oxidant was compared between the samples. the c–o stretching force constants and group dipole moment derivatives for each species were also calculated and showed upon the addition of reductant, reduced π contribution from the surface cd to the metal carbonyl center. altogether, these results showed that cdse-cdfe(co)4 ncs were sensitive to changes to surface reduction and oxidation and that the metal carbonyl bonding interactions could be tuned by altering the nc surface.chapter 3 describes a new synthetic pathway to metal carbonyl functionalized metal chalcogenide nanocrystals through z-type addition of [cdfe(co)4]. the z-type exchange mechanism for functionalization was explored. the surface metal-to-chalcogenide ratio was changed through l-type assisted z-type displacement, and the changes to the surface electrostatics were observed through ir spectroscopy. the displacement isotherms of cdx2 from the surface were also calculated and showed heterogeneity in the effect each binding site had on the surface electrostatics. these results were used to demonstrate the use of cdse-cdfe(co)4 ncs as a probe sensitive to changes to the surface electrostatics induced by modifying the surface metal-to-chalcogenide ratio.chapter 4 describes the instability of cobaltocene under certain photochemical conditions. the released cyclopentadiene radical was trapped and observed through epr spectroscopy. the wavelength dependency of the radical release was detailed. a reactive [cocpi] species was proposed to be generated and was shown to facilitate the catalytic trimerization of alkynes.appendix a describes efforts to probe the surface of metal chalcogenide nanocrystals during photoexcitation and photocatalytic conditions. appendix b contains additional characterization of precursors and photocatalysis products. the thirteenth-century secular master of theology gerard of abbeville (&dagger; 1272), who taught at the university of paris for well over a decade, was on the wrong side of history. although the history of the university of paris during the thirteenth century has received much scholarly attention, the contribution of secular masters to that history during the middle of the thirteenth century has been largely overlooked. it has become a generally agreed upon assumption that soon after their arrival in paris, dominican and franciscan theologians made the most significant contributions to the development of scholastic philosophy and theology, especially thomas aquinas and bonaventure. this dissertation challenges this assumption by presenting the life, career and writings of the leading secular master of the third quarter of the thirteenth century. this study originates from a close examination of two of gerard's manuscripts that were included among the more than three hundred books that he donated to the college of sorbonne. in addition to preserving the content of his thought, these books contain important evidence concerning the nature of gerard's scholarly career and the manner in which he taught. after a preliminary examination of his will, which reveals his social and ecclesiastical position, this dissertation probes gerard's manuscripts for what they reveal about the way in which secular masters taught theology as well as the content of that teaching. gerard was an ardent advocate and defender of the theologia communis of the university of paris. by means of his donation to the sorbonne he ensured the legacy of this tradition among parisian thinkers. in order to elucidate how gerard embodied the official scholasticism of the thirteenth century, this thesis examines his conception of the continuity of cognition from faith through contemplation to the vision of god at the general resurrection and presents for the first time editions of several of gerard/s writings. the experimentally determined response of the time-averaged turbulence of a $re_{ heta}=4590$ boundary layer exposed to a large favorable pressure gradient is presented. the favorablepressure gradient is generated using a linear contraction with a contraction ratio of $9.5:1$ and is characterized by a peak acceleration parameter, $k_{max}=4.4 imes10^{-6}$. threecomponents of velocity are measured using multiple x-wires and the wall shear stress is directly measured using oil film interferometry. the accelerated boundary layer is found to exhibit behavior typical of extit{relaminarization} for values of $k geq 3.0 imes 10^{-6}$. the onset of reverse transition is believed to coincide with the modification of the near-wall structure and its eventual propagation into the downstreamboundary layer. modification of the normal stresses in the near-wall region, large-scale changes in the skewness and kurtosis of the velocity components, a change in integral length scales of the accelerated boundary layer, and a shift in the energy spectrum each lend support to this assertion. finally, a conceptual model of the motions of the coherent structures in the accelerated turbulent boundary layer is shown to be consistent with the measured data. my clusters of objects are about relationships. i view them as a muddle of creatures engaging with their environment. each organism serves a role as they give and take from their habitat. together they create a complex system of interdependent relationships where the individual and the collective depend upon one another. each piece can stand alone, but they become visually activated when placed in a group.while engaging with the natural world, discoveries are made that stimulate philosophical notions of what it means to be alive and evolve. the act of making mirrors this in effect and discoveries are made by interacting with the material. i hope my viewers gain a sense of their place within this web of life that is less hierarchical and more symbiotic or interdependent.i seek to parallel the evolution of my craft with biological evolution as both are engaged in a constant state of becoming. choices are made by giving agency to the clay and letting its physical characteristics influence the resulting shape. it is an ongoing, evolutionary process. in this paper, i seek to define how biological evolution and unfolding of my studio process are profoundly similar. this paper examines the sources of the evangelical advantage in religious strength over other protestant religious traditions. christian smith's (1998) subcultural identity theory of religious strength posits that this advantage is produced by the unique way that self-identified evangelicals interact with hostile outgroups in society. specifically, smith claims evangelicals maintain strong symbolic boundaries between themselves and relevant outgroups, while at the same time engaging these groups. other major protestant religious traditions do not maintain the correct balance between distinction and engagement with relevant outgroups &ndash; hence they display lower levels of religious strength. the effects of this interaction between religious tradition and relevant societal outgroups on measures of church attendance and self-reported importance of faith are empirically investigated. the results suggest that evangelicals do not derive their strength from interacting with hostile outgroups, thus questioning the validity of the subcultural identity theory of religious strength. alternative explanations are explored. let f be a smooth self-map of a compact smooth manifold m. we may ask if f is homotopic to a fixed point free map. wecken(1942) and jiang(1981) showed that if dimension of m is bigger than 2 then there is an invariant in a framed bordism group which vanishes if and only if f is homotopic to a fixed point free map. the next question we may ask if this invariant is not trivial, what can we say about the fixed point set? in this work, we will show that we can extract important information from this invariant by using the geometric point of view. the proof of the main theorem relies heavily on intersection theory. the key ingredients in the proof are fact about transversality, embedding theory and classifying spaces which in general do not hold for the equivariant setting. fortunately, by using results of petrie on equivariant transversality, komiya on equivariant embedding, we are able to prove the main theorem for the equivariant case. recent studies have demonstrated that cognitive enhancement training methods directed at working memory can improve the symptoms of disorders characterized by deficits in executive functioning such as attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder. although additional studies have explored the effects of training on other populations such as the older adults and those who have experienced a stroke, they have not extensively examined whether or not training can improve working memory for typically developed populations. additionally, the underlying mechanisms impacted by the training have not been elaborated on. two studies seek to address whether or not working memory can be trained in a population of college students, by examining how three constructs of working memory: interference control, the focus and scope of attention, and cue dependent retrieval, are impacted by working memory training. emotional experiences often become our strongest, longest-lasting memories. this preference for emotional information, often referred to as the emotional enhancement of memory (eem), is magnified when stress occurs in proximity to encoding and when sleep occurs during consolidation. recent behavioral findings suggest that stress and sleep interact to facilitate the eem effect, which invites questions about the neural underpinnings of stress–sleep interactions in emotional memory processes. this dissertation investigated (1) the effects of pre-encoding stress on neural correlates of emotional memory encoding and (2) interactive effects of stress, encoding processes, and subsequent sleep on emotional memory consolidation. these questions were addressed using a pre-existing dataset that included a psychosocial stress manipulation, functional magnetic resonance imaging during an emotional memory task, and polysomnographic recordings during overnight sleep. results show that stress reactivity moderates relationships between patterns of brain activity during encoding and next-day emotional memory performance. however, there was no evidence for stress–sleep interactions, as defined in the present study, on emotional memory consolidation. these findings shed light on neural networks underlying the effects of stress on the prioritized encoding of emotional information and suggest avenues for future research at the intersection of stress, sleep, and emotional memory. drosophila have become an important model organism in the study of hematopoiesis due to conservation of the myeloid blood cell lineage with conserved transcription factors and signaling pathways used between organisms. in order to study hematopoiesis, we analyzed eater, a transmembrane protein that mediates phagocytosis of bacterial pathogens in drosophila. the gene was shown to be expressed solely in one of three types of drosophila hemocytes, the plasmatocyte, and only after embryonic development. the transcriptional enhancer of eater was extensively analyzed and the gene was found to be regulated by gata factor serpent. the specificity of the eater transcriptional enhancer has allowed the generation and use of eatergal4 to selectively knockdown genes in plasmatocytes via uas-rnai technology. hemocyte samples obtained from these larvae are observed for cell number irregularities and other aberrations caused by targeted gene knockdown. this approach identified a critical gene, eip78c, which caused a three-fold decrease in cell number when compared to control. this decreased cell number was rescued by overexpression of drosophila inhibitor of apoptosis. interestingly, it was noted that there was a significant increase in the number of crystal cells in embryonic, as well as larval samples. these data suggest eip78c plays a role in plasmatocyte survival, but also repression of the crystal cell fate. the rnai screen also identified components of the scf complex, which targets proteins for degradation via the ubiquitin ligase pathway. to investigate the scf complex, all known members were analyzed via rnai knockdown or mutant analysis. lin19, skpa, roc1a, nedd8 and skp2 were identified as the components of this specific complex, as knockdown of each elicited an enlarged cell phenotype. further investigation determined that knockdown of scf members caused an accumulation of cyclin e and double-parked in the nucleus of large cells, which are also p1-positive, indicating these cells are plasmatocytes. double-parked accumulation in the nucleus forced these enlarged cells to undergo re-replication causing polyploidy and centriole overduplication. conversely, geminin, the inhibitor of double-parked, was removed from the nucleus in the enlarged cells. by overexpressing geminin, we partially rescued the scf knockdown phenotype, suggesting that double-parked accumulation in the nucleus is responsible for these re-replication events. together, these studies show the value of investigating drosophila hematopoiesis during larval development, as the screen identified eip78c and the scf complex, which had not yet been implicated in fly plasmatocyte development. understanding drosophila blood cell development may elucidate genes and pathways that function in hematopoiesis of higher organisms, such as mammals. the impressive properties of graphene such as the linear energy dispersion relation, room-temperature mobility as high as 15 000 cm2/v.s, and current densities in excess of 2 a/mm range &ndash; or even 10 a/mm for nanoribbons &ndash; make it an attractive candidate for electronic devices of the future. this work explores whether graphene fulfills the promises raised by the extraordinary material properties. first, realistic expectations of large area and nanoscale graphene devices are examined. fabrication and electrical measurements of 2d graphene devices lead to the verification of the predicted t^2 dependence of the intrinsic carrier concentration in graphene. a suitable model allows the extraction of the mobility of carriers at the dirac point, a quantity of great ambiguity in the literature. the opening of bandgaps in graphene nanoribbons (gnrs) by quantum confinement holds promise for digital electronic device applications. the fabrication, device performance, and modeling of low bandgap gnr fets are presented. for substantial current modulation at room-temperature, sub-10 nm gnr widths are required &ndash; and is challenging. process limitations lead to the utilization of a new e-beam lithography resist (hsq) and to the switch to epitaxial graphene on sic substrates. the measurements of the gnr fets confirm larger than ~0.1 ev bandgap in ~10 nm wide ribbons. these results have been replicated on fets formed from cvd grown graphene. gustavo gutiérrez, the "father" of liberation theology, insists that this-worldly socioeconomic and political dynamics bear on a person's and a community's ability to realize the liberation/salvation that god desires for human beings. this dissertation focuses on an aspect of gutiérrez's turn to historical realities as important for theology that has been largely overlooked or downplayed by commentators: his insistence that personal transformation, i.e., the conversion of an individual's heart and mind, is a requisite for the transformation of societal meta-structures; that healing of persons poor and rich on the micro-level goes hand-in-hand with healing on the macro-level.gutiérrez's written corpus offers a seminal presentation of the importance of personal transformation for liberation, but this dissertation testifies to the ways in which gutiérrez the person witnesses it to a greater extent. this dissertation also explores the formative influences on gutiérrez's appreciation for the interior dimension of the human person. it further analyzes gutiérrez's writing and key themes in light of personal transformation, and finds that the notion functions as a figurative scaffolding for his overall system of thought. the method of this dissertation includes appeal to personal experience, which i draw on to demonstrate how persons and communities impacted by poverty and violence are oftentimes left interiorly thwarted as a result of exterior turmoil. hence my argument that we must more explicitly acknowledge gutiérrez's insights about the connection between individual and societal woundedness. this dissertation contributes to the ongoing development of gutiérrez's thought via its claim that a posture of vulnerability is necessary for the real-life application of liberation theology. select voices in feminist thought, spiritual theology and psychology teach that confronting and healing one's personal wounds requires lowering one's defenses. therefore, if, as gutiérrez himself argues, macro-level, structural justice depends upon micro-level, interior healing, then it follows that being vulnerable in primary personal relationships is essential for liberation theology in practice. this dissertation takes a further step in the analysis of vote buying, exploring two fundamental questions on the causes and consequences of this phenomenon. namely, why is vote buying more frequent in some latin american countries than others? and, to what extent does vote buying affect aggregate political outcomes? in contrast to previous studies, my research not only explains how and why the nature of the party system influences the candidates' decision to engage in vote buying in some elections and not others, but also under what conditions voters are more likely to exchange votes for money. further, i suggest that by engendering this phenomenon at the individual level, inchoate party systems increase the likelihood of electoral fraud, dampening democracy. results from a multi-methodological research design including a field experiment, archival and survey research, in-depth interviews, and large-n time-series-cross-sectional statistical analysis provide strong support for my hypotheses. as such, my study makes important contributions to the extant literature on clientelism and vote buying, parties and party systems, electoral fraud, and democratization this dissertation contains three essays about the economics of health and health care. the chapters that follow consider health inputs through multiple channels, including health care providers and family structure. motivated by extraordinary growth in the outpatient surgery market in the past 30 years, the first chapter examines ambulatory surgery centers (ascs) as an alternative to outpatient surgery in hospitals. for a national sample of medicare patients that varies over time and controlling for physician fixed effects, we show that ascs treat healthier patients than hospital outpatient departments. using the variation in asc use generated by exogenous changes in medicare payments, we find that treatment in an asc is associated with better health outcomes, holding patient risk constant. these results suggest that health policy planners have to trade off the superior and cheaper treatment in ascs against the subsidy outpatient surgeries provide to hospitals. the second chapter examines the effects of minimum nurse staffing legislation in california on labor market outcomes for registered nurses (rns). using annual financial data from california hospitals, i find that nurse-to-patient ratios in california hospitals increased substantially following the staffing mandate. however, individual-level survey data indicate that the law had no effect on the aggregate number of rns or the hours they worked in california hospitals, and at most a modest effect on wages. my findings suggest that offsetting changes due to hospital closures and shifting staff within hospitals mitigated employment effects of the mandated minimum staffing legislation. the final chapter investigates the effect of the age difference between siblings (spacing) on educational achievement. because spacing may be endogenous, we use an instrumental variables strategy that exploits variation in spacing driven by miscarriages. the results indicate that a one-year increase in spacing increases test scores for older siblings by about 0.17 standard deviations. these results are larger than ordinary least squares estimates, suggesting that failing to account for the endogeneity of spacing may understate its benefits. for younger siblings, we find no causal impact of spacing on test scores. two issues define the contours of late 20th century and early 21st century literary culture in britain. on one hand, the strict division between accessible popular culture and difficult genuine art has been challenged and reformulated even as it has a residual force. on the other, england has been displaced from the center of anglophone literary culture as works identified as "commonwealth," "postcolonial," "multicultural," and now "global" literature in english have become centrally important. this study of the booker prize illuminates the way that these two issues – the changing understanding of accessibility in literature and the decentralization of england from anglophone literature – have taken place in relation to each other. the booker prize makes visible how two new categories of literature, the literary bestseller and the postcolonial or minority novel, emerged in relation to each other. moreover, the booker prize helped to create these categories and to establish their paradigmatic texts. the booker prize played, and continues to play, an important role in establishing what books are read and how they are read in classrooms, living rooms, chat rooms, and bedrooms throughout the english-speaking world. this is a collection of short stories. this is a master in fine arts thesis discussing the personal history and working sculpturual practice of the artist and author ben craigie. development of airborne laser systems began in the 1970s with the airborne laser laboratory, a kc135 aircraft with a co2 laser projected from a beam director mounted atop the aircraft as a hemispherical turret encased in a fairing. it was known that the turbulent air flowing around the turret and separating over the aft portions of the turret would aberrate the laser beam's wavefront (the aero-optic problem); however, the co2 wavelength, 10.6 ì_å_m, was long enough that the aberrating turbulent flow decreased the system's performance by only about 5%. with newer airborne laser systems using wavelengths nearer 1 ì_å_m, this same turbulent flow now reduces system performance by more than 95%. it has long been known that if a conjugate waveform is used to pre-distort the outgoing laser's wavefront, the turbulence will actually correct the beam, restoring most of the system's performance. the problem with performing this compensation is that the system for performing this function, the so-called adaptive-optic system, is bandwidth limited in its conventional architecture, by orders of magnitude lower than that required to correct for the aero-optic effects. the research described in this dissertation explored changing the adaptive-optic paradigm from feedback to feed-forward by adding flow control to make the aberration environment predictable rather than unpredictable. this research demonstrated that the turbulent high-speed separated shear layer could be robustly forced into a regularized form. it was also shown that these regularized velocity patterns in the shear layer produced periodic optical aberrations. extensive measurement and analysis of these convecting aberrations yielded the underlying structure required to produce the conjugate wavefront correction patterns required for a range of laser propagation angles through the shear layer. ultimately, a feed-forward adaptive-optic system was developed and used to demonstrate the highest-bandwidth correction of aero-optic aberrations ever performed; the effective bandwidth of the demonstrated adaptive-optic correction was at least two orders of magnitude greater than the capabilities of existing conventional adaptive-optic systems. dividing information into more than one event has been shown to enhance or impair memory performance in different studies. recent findings suggested that the number of events at both encoding and testing work together to influence prospective memory performance (remembering to do something in the future) when the cue is a location (o'rear &amp; radvansky, 2019). specifically, two encoding events and one cue event led to the highest performance.theories of event cognition, cue overload, and priming make competing predictions about how different patterns of event structure will influence memory performance. with the goal of clarifying the boundaries of these three theories, the present study tested the effect of event structure on other types of prospective and retrospective memory tasks. of secondary interest, event and non-event information were tested to determine if the nature of materials has an effect beyond that of external structure.in experiment 1, participants traveled through a virtual shopping mall and performed pairs of prospective memory tasks cued by locations, people, or times. instructions for the two tasks came from one or two sources, and the tasks were done in response to one or two cues. experiment 2 embedded the four event structures in narratives, in which one or two characters discuss one or two event or non-event topics. retrospective memory was measured with a recognition test. finally, experiment 3 evaluated event structure using sentence pairs describing events and non-events that either can or cannot co-occur. sentences were presented in one or two computer windows, and memory was assessed with a recognition test. event cognition theory was nominally supported by location-based prospective memory, and verbatim memory for narrative non-event information significantly supported this as well. cue overload was partially found in propositional and event model memory for narrative event information. finally, partial support for priming was found in personand time-based prospective memory, and the event sentence pairs. these results further identify how event structure can improve or impair memory performance in multiple conditions by clarifying the boundaries of event cognition, cue overload, and priming theories of memory. this dissertation uses the ecological inference (ei) method to produce subgroup estimates of health outcome proportions for 22 us counties. unlike individual level models based on survey data, the ecological inference method begins with fractions among aggregates and estimates proportions for the subgroups of interest. this advance in aggregate data methods allows for lower level inference in the absence of micro-level information. however, the ei method has not been extensively tested outside of research on voting behaviors. this project unpacks the critical pieces of the ei method and tests the assumptions of the model using demographic indicators and fractions of health-related outcomes. each level of analysis and interactions that take place across levels are considered using quantitative methods. the results from these models are then compared to the subgroup proportions estimated using ei. finally, ei is used in an attempt to replicate results from a multilevel model for smoking with measurable contextual influence. data for this project are taken from the 2000 us census and 2001 behavioral risk factor surveillance survey (brfss). data from the brfss are aggregated to the county level for use as outcome measures with ei. a consideration of the consequences associated with the aggregation of survey data suggests that the use of brfss data at the county level does not ensure adequate representation of all relevant groups. the results of this project suggest that the ei method assumes a compositional difference for subgroup proportions. further, the accuracy of ei estimated proportions is strongly dependent on the level of contextual influence present in the grouped data, the strength of the relationship between grouped measures, and the level of aggregation. the solution to the ecological inference problem is identified as a solution for aggregation bias present in the explanatory variable only when using the basic model. data structure, relationships between measures, and the level of aggregation are all identified as having an impact on ei's ability to make accurate estimates of subgroup proportions. contextual effects influencing variation in the outcome measure is unaccounted for in the estimation procedure and is lost to aggregation bias. an industry has arisen dedicated to the study of the interplay between combinatorial principles and computational strength. in particular, much work has been done on theorems similar to ramsey's theorem and to weak k nig's lemma. we study two related principles, which are interesting both for their combinatorial form and for their computational content. we begin by studying the computational strength of a version of ramsey's theorem that combines features of finite and infinite ramsey theory. paul erd&#337;s and fred galvin proved that for each coloring f, there is an infinite set that is 'packed together' which is given 'a small number' of colors by f. we show that this theorem is close in computational strength to standard ramsey's theorem, giving arithmetical bounds for solutions to computable instances. in reverse mathematics, we show that that this packed ramsey's theorem is equivalent to ramsey's theorem for exponents n other than 2. when n=2, we show that it implies ramsey's theorem, and that it does not imply aca. we next introduce a new combinatorial principle, called rkl, which combines features of weak k nig's lemma and ramsey's theorem. we show that this principle is strictly weaker than both wkl and rt22, and that it is strictly stronger than rca. we also consider two generalizations of this principle. we obtain the surprising result that these stronger principles are closer in strength to rt22 than they are to wkl. the aim of this dissertation is to describe the synthesis, characterization, and catalytic performance in the copolymerization of co2 and cyclohexene oxide of various homogeneous metal complexes containing magnesium, zinc, and aluminum metal centers.the introduction provides historical context for this work, including discussion of heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysis using zinc as the choice metal. also included is a mechanistic discussion leading to the development of dinuclear metal complexes as catalysts.chapter 2 describes the synthesis and characterization of a bis(pyrazolyl)methylphenol "heteroscorpionate" ligand and the corresponding zinc and magnesium complexes. chapter 3 focuses on the synthesis of five "salen-type" ligands and the corresponding magnesium, zinc, and aluminum metal complexes. chapter 4 focuses on the synthesis and characterization of heterobimetallic dinuclear macrocyclic metal complexes containing lithium and magnesium, or lithium and zinc centers.chapter 5 focuses on the synthesis of three novel m-phenylene-bridged (phosphinimino/phosphorano)methane ligands. the coordination chemistry of the phosphine oxide derivative with magnesium, zinc, and aluminum metal centers is discussed. conantokins, which are neuroactive peptides found in the venom of marine snails, contain post-translationally modified &gamma-carboxyglutamate residues (gla; &#947;). the gla residues are integral for their structure, function, and subunit-selective antagonism of ion channels of the n-methyl-d-aspartate receptors (nmdar). the functional heterotetramer of the receptor is composed of glun1 and glun2 subunits which impart specific biochemical and physiological properties to the ion channels. the optimum spacing of gla residues in conantokins stabilize the structure when complexed to divalent ions and mediate nmdar-subunit selective properties. in this study, the structural and antagonistic properties of conantokins conpr-1,-2, and -3 from conus parius and conrl-b from conus rolani species were studied. the conus parius family of conantokin peptides are glun2b selective and adopt a low properties of &#945;-helix conformation in the presence of mg2+. these peptides also display the ability to diminish downstream signaling events. conrl-b, conpr-2, and conpr-3, additionally contain the post-translationally modified 4-transhydroxyproline (hyp; o) residue. the hyp10 residue in conrl-b, not only changes the gla positioning in the c-terminal part of conrl-b, but also affects the structural properties of the peptide. a combination of biophysical techniques, e.g., cd, 1h nmr and itc, was employed to study the structure and metal binding properties of mg2+/conrl-b. the structure determined by high-field 1h nmr, shows disruption in the &#945;-helix due to hyp10 further interfering with mg2+-binding, thus resulting in solvent accessible backbone amide protons. to assess the role of hyp and the molecular requisites for the unique structural and functional properties of conrl-b, mutant peptides, cong[10 &#9660;o] and conrl-b[&#916;kao&#9660;nq] were synthesized. although, the 3d structure and mg2+ binding abilities of conrl-b[&#916;kao&#9660;nq] were similar to con-g, this peptide displays complete non-selectivity towards nmdar. local disruption of the &#945-helix backbone in con-g on the introduction of hyp, differs from that of conrl-b. additionally, con-g[10 &#9660;o] loses selectivity towards ion channels containing the glun2b subunit. these results suggest that the natural occurrence of hyp in the conrl-b backbone is important for high glun2b selectivity. in conclusion, the presence of hyp residue changes the structural and functional properties of conantokins. semaphorins (semas) are an evolutionarily conserved family of proteins that have been implicated in the development of a wide range of tissues in a variety of organisms ranging from arthropods to mammals. understanding the function of semas in a developmental context has led to the elucidation of their roles in various disease states. with this in mind, it is critical to understand the basic function and conservation of this family of proteins across different species to better appreciate their importance from a developmental and evolutionary perspective. in order to better understand the broad impacts of sema1a signaling, my graduate work focused on two dipteran species &ndash; drosophila melanogaster and aedes aegypti. in my work, novel roles of sema1a in the well-studied model organism d. melanogaster were identified. i showed that sema1a signaling regulates cellular growth within the wing imaginal disc tissue. this work suggested sema1a signaling could modulate growth in developing neurons in addition to its well-studied function in axon guidance and highlighted similarities between axonogenesis and tumorigenesis (chapter 2). in addition, our comparative, multiple species approach has also allowed us to fill the fundamental gap in understanding the development of disease vector mosquitoes. specifically, we characterized the role of sema1a in the central nervous system (cns) and olfactory system development of the non-model species and deadly disease vector, ae. aegypti (chapters 3 and 4). not much is known about the development of these arthropods, including the mechanisms underlying the development of the olfactory system. the olfactory system is of particular interest because it plays a critical role in mosquito behavior (e.g. host-seeking and mate selection) and, therefore, is a necessary component of disease transmission. the results of this work showed that sema1a plays a critical role in ae. aegypti cns and olfactory system development and demonstrates the importance of studying the development of disease vectors. the work presented in this dissertation underscores the importance and utility of a comparative approach in developmental biology. it also advances the vector biology field by making strides in understanding the developmental biology of a species that is responsible for the transmission of deadly diseases. the objective of this dissertation is to make capillary zone electrophoresis electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (cze-esi-ms/ms) a more useful tool in large-scale bottom-up proteomics.cze employs very simple instrumentation. analytes are separated within a buffer-filled fused silica capillary under the influence of an electric field. however, traditional cze has limited capability in analyzing large-scale complex proteomes.to overcome this issue, i have worked to reduce sample complexity and enrich low abundance components while depleting high abundance ones. as a consequence, several prefractionation methods were employed before cze-esi-ms/ms to separate the entire proteome into simpler fractions. the number of protein and peptide ids generated by cze-esi-ms/ms coupled with prefractionation steps did increase dramatically. the identification number produced by cze-esi-ms/ms can approach those produced by uplc-ms/ms, but using nearly two orders of magnitude lower sample amounts. the quantification result generated by cze-esi-ms/ms was also evaluated.with further improvements, including optimization of electrokinetically pumped sheath flow interfaces, improved sample preparation procedures, and reproducible separation capillary coating protocols, cze-esi-ms/ms will be a powerful alternative in large-scale bottom-up proteomics. the distinctive identity and role of marcus julius (herod) agrippa ii as a client king of rome are a medium for the two near contemporary historians, josephus and luke, to shape their view of their ethnic and religious identities in the late first century ce. before delving into the portraits of agrippa, we first investigate three greco-roman historians-polybius, livy, and tacitus-who showed their own view of rome and the mediterranean world through their descriptions of client king figures. the portraits of agrippa josephus and luke paint function as a mirror on which the identification of their own respective community is reflected. for josephus, a judean could survive, and even flourish in the roman world because status quo is sanctioned by god. like king agrippa and josephus himself, most judeans are willing to live under the yoke of rome while observing the torah. for luke, the client king embodies a group of judean-roman communities, whose allegiance lay in both judaism and the empire. they constituted a part of the gentile world in which christianity strove to find its voice and place toward the end of the first century. the judean diaspora in the roman world played a meaningful role in shaping the identity of the christian church. not unlike the way josephus conceptualizes rome, the author of luke-acts affirms the value and rationale of the imperial order. but, the judean-roman community is not just a "setting" for the church's evangelizing mission, but the very object of it. the client king represents an anomaly in the narrative context in which judeans and romans have alternated. as a legal counsel, a judge, and a listener of the gospel, agrippa declares paul and christianity to be innocent. the king's verdict upon paul could be seen in the context of evangelism. thus josephus and luke utilize their portraits of agrippa in establishing the identities of their own communities. dual citizenship, dual allegiance, ancestral faith and universalism are all at play in the two historians' treatments of the client king. aedes aegypti is the principal vector for dengue virus, of which there are four serotypes. no effective vaccine exists to protect against dengue infection, and in recent years investigators have begun to focus on the vector to elucidate factors contributing to the vectorial capacity of ae. aegypti for dengue. the current study focuses specifically on the role temperature stress plays in stress protein expression and dengue vectorial capacity. three laboratory strains differing in their innate susceptibilities to dengue virus were subjected to a control or heat shock treatment during their late juvenile stages. at six time points post-heat shock, larvae from each strain and treatment group were randomly sampled to quantify levels of hsp70 expression and measure the differences among them. moyo s, which is has the greatest innate dengue susceptibility, was also found to express significantly more hsp70 over time (p < 0.01). expression was highest at 24 and 48 hours post-heat shock relative to all other time points (p < 0.05). additionally, hsp70 expression was assessed in larvae collected from trinidad, a nation plagued with endemic dengue transmission, in order to compare their stress protein profiles with those observed among the laboratory strains. adults from all six strain and treatment groups were challenged with a dengue infection at 3-5 days post-eclosion, and dengue dissemination was assayed over three time points post-infection from a total of 233 mosquitoes. rna was extracted from one leg per individual and rt-pcr was performed to gauge the dengue infection status. the extrinsic incubation period was not found to influence the probability of occurrence of a disseminated infection in any significant way (p > 0.1 for all strain and treatment groups). there were, however, significant differences depending on the strain and treatment combination (p < 0.005). for each group, 90% confidence intervals were calculated; only the heat shocked moyo s and control trinidad groups had significant differences in their probabilities of infection. the results of this study indicate that a great deal remains unknown about the factors that contribute to the vectorial capacity of ae. aegypti to dengue. evidence suggests a correlation between the level of stress protein expression and the degree of susceptibility of ae. aegypti to dengue, but the strength of this relationship is not well defined. it is also not clear whether natural climate variation alters hsp70 expression in the field, and whether this variation might impact vectorial capacity in the adult mosquito. exploring this phenomenon may elucidate a critical target for vector control in the future. blood development, or hematopoiesis, is an evolutionarily conserved process that is essential to life in many organisms. the hematopoetic development of drosophila melanogaster is an effective genetic and functional model of the myeloid lineage of vertebrate hematopoiesis, due to conserved signaling pathways and transcription factors dictating cell proliferation and differentiation. in both vertebrate and drosophila hematopoiesis, the differentiated blood cells, or hemocytes, form from a common hematopoietic precursor cell. both the hematopoietic stem cells (hscs) in vertebrates, and the hemocyte progenitors in drosophila, asymmetrically divide into one pluripotent stem cell and one cell that has been committed to a path of differentiation. two genes whose functions have been studied in the differentiation of germline stem cells of drosophila, bag-of-marbles (bam) and zero population growth (zpg), and have been found by our lab to be necessary for normal larval hematopoiesis. preliminary data i have collected from a sensitized genetic screen suggest that a negative regulator of translational initiation, nat1 (n-acetyltransferase 1), may be necessary for proper bam function in the larval lymph gland. in addition, phenotypic analysis of zpg homozygous null mutants and zpg rnai knockdown suggest that zpg is necessary for proper differentiation of mature crystal cells and it represses lamellocyte fate in the hematopoietic organ, the lymph gland (lg). though bam and zpg were originally thought to be specific to the germline, we hypothesize that these and other factors involved in germline stem cell maintenance and differentiation may also be important in hematopoietic progenitor maintenance and differentiation. superconductivity remains a rich and active field over a century after its discovery. when exposed to a magnetic field, type ii superconductors become threaded with a periodic array of vortices. this vortex lattice can reveal properties of the host material as well as display novel physics of its own. in the type ii superconductor mgb2, the vortex lattice exhibits several different phases and an unexpectedly robust metastability. small-angle neutron scattering (sans) provides an ideal probe to study the vortex lattice and search for the mechanism that stabilizes these metastable states.to this end, dynamic, structural, and doping studies were performed using sans. an ac magnetic field can be used to induce vortex motion and drive the transition from the metastable state to the equilibrium state. reversing the metastable preparation method from supercooling to superheating across the phase boundary changed the nature of the transition pathway from discontinuous to continuous. for the supercooled vortex lattice, the metastable to equilibrium state transition can be analyzed with an activated behavior, and can be described in terms of a single parameter based on the ac amplitude. measurements of the longitudinal correlation lengths revealed that the vortex lattice remained highly ordered along the direction of the vortices throughout the entire transition. the distribution of vortex lattice domain orientations was examined using spatially-resolved sans, and an upper limit of 100 μm was found for the domain size. finally, doping with non-magnetic carbon resulted in substantial changes to the vortex lattice phase diagram, while doping with magnetic manganese yielded a phase diagram and metastability that was qualitatively similar to that of pure mgb2. maltreated children tend to have deficits in language skill throughout childhood, regardless of socioeconomic status. it is thought that children's exposure to language during early childhood is predictive of later language development. the current study investigated the quantity and quality of maltreating mothers' speech during interactions with their threeto six-year-old children and assessed whether differences in maternal speech quality mediate the relation between maltreatment and children's language skill. 83 mother-child dyads played together with experimenter-provided toys and their language skill was assessed at baseline and one year later. 55 of these dyads had a documented history of child maltreatment with the mother being named as a perpetrator. results indicated that there was not a significant difference between maltreating and nonmaltreating mothers' speech quantity or quality. further, maternal speech quality did not significantly mediate the association between maltreatment and child language skill. climate change will alter the flow availability and expected water allocations in international river treaties, many of which were designed using historical flow records. effective transboundary treaties should anticipate these concerns and seek to satisfy the priorities of all riparian countries while being robust to impending changes in climate. this task is complicated by the fact that specific outcomes associated with each party's priorities are not necessarily public information, and the direction, amplitude and effect of long term changes in hydro-climatic drivers can be highly uncertain. to address these challenges, we use hierarchical clustering to visualize the trade-offs imposed by the bio-physical characteristics of the shared river system and identify key hydrological outcomes associated with each country's priorities. we then use these outcomes in a pareto-optimization process combined with a climate sensitivity analysis to identify climate-robust treaty alternatives. we illustrate the approach for the ganges water agreement, which is due to be renewed in 2026. using the current treaty as a template, we generated 25,121 treaty alternatives, and identified four key clusters of meaningful outcome variables for both india and bangladesh. we then determined central variables of each cluster and show that 16 of the treaties are pareto optimal under most considered combinations of changes in sea level and dry season flow regime. this work provides a path towards improving transboundary allocations in the ganges water treaty and, more broadly, a template to support transboundary cooperation over shared international rivers. in this work, high quality inn films grown on gan substrates using rf plasma assisted molecular beam epitaxy (mbe) are reported and the structural, electrical and optical characterization are presented. structural quality was characterized by high resolution x-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy to optimize the growth conditions. the transport properties of inn have been studied using hall effect measurements. a close correlation is found between the structural quality and the electron transport properties of inn. magnetic field dependent hall effect measurements were performed and a quantitative mobility spectrum analysis (qmsa) was used to extract the mobility spectrum for electrons in inn. with photoluminescence and absorption spectroscopy measurements, the optical band gap of inn was found to be ~ 0.67 ev. to study the conduction band offset between inn and gan, n-n isotype inn/gan heterojunction diodes were grown and fabricated. the devices were characterized by i-v, c-v, and photocurrent spectroscopy measurements. the conduction band offset between inn and gan was extracted to be ~ 1.67+/0.1 ev. an aln/gan hemt using inn as the gate was fabricated. the study showed that the inn gate only has weak modulation in source/drain current due to an ultra thin aln barrier layer. this research outlined a path for the future pursuit of utilizing inn for hemt applications. to explore the application of inn in solar cells, a p-gan/inn-gan heterojunction diode was grown and fabricated. the device showed photocurrents in response to visible lights, and also exhibited a photovoltaic effect. this study indicates the feasibility of incorporating inn and high in containing ingan in traditional nitrides, and outlines a clear pathway for further investigation in this area. agent-based models allow for more descriptive results than simpler mathematical models, especially for the individuals that reside and interact within the model. for disease transmission models, the agents modeled usually include hosts that get sick, vectors that transmit, and/or the interventions themselves. one common disease that is typically modeled in this fashion is malaria. normally, disease transmission models have been created for a unique research purpose, but then are discarded once the research is complete. this means that if another researcher required a model to answer similar questions, they would need to build their own model from scratch. however, with an ever increasing ability to share information, it is becoming more common for many researchers one model that can be modified to fit many research purposes. my thesis work involves aligning two well-used models, emod and openmalaria, and creating a new climate-based mosquito habitat model for the former. this dissertation studies thomas aquinas's doctrine of theological hope, on its own terms and in its full context, in order to elucidate hope's essence and significance in the christian life. the study is undertaken through a close reading of the summa theologiae according to which aquinas's doctrine of theological hope is related to his doctrines of the divine ordinatio, human beatitude, providence, predestination, the trinitarian missions, christ, grace, sin, the theological virtues, the natural desire for happiness, human free choice, and the passions. it also attends to the way in which thomas develops his teaching on hope over the course of his career. this research addresses a lack of sustained attention to aquinas's doctrine of hope within contemporary scholarship, especially regarding its evolution and significance within his larger account of god and god's activity ad extra. in thomas's mature teaching, hope is not an ambiguous middle term between faith and charity. the theological virtue of hope is a person's holy self love and desire for eternal beatitude, as well as her trust in god's merciful and omnipotent love, and her voluntary reception of his grace. with charity, hope is the holy spirit's assimilation of the human will to his eternal procession from the father and the son by way of love, and a fundamental aspect of the gradual restoration and perfection of the imago dei. thomas's doctrine illuminates why hope is most perfectly expressed in the prayer of the "our father," and manifested in the life of the gospel beatitudes. charity and meritorious acts depend on hope, and so it is the origin of every step on the human being's journey to god. in thomas's account, hope for oneself is always hope for one's brothers and sisters in the body of christ, and hope for others plays an indispensable role in their salvation. furthermore, thomas's understanding of hope's significance in preserving the order of creation luminously reveals god's wisdom and love in the dispensation of salvation. modernidad en la sangre: vampirismo y cultura en américa latina (s. xix-xxi) estudia las diferentes narrativas y representaciones culturales de vampiros y vampirismo en américa latina desde el siglo xix hasta hoy. en particular, esta disertación analiza de qué manera el vampiro ha servido como figura clave para representar y entender una serie de ansiedades, miedos y fantasías culturales relativas al proyecto de modernidad industrial en latinoamérica. uno de los puntos centrales del argumento es que el estudio del vampiro no sólo es fundamental dentro del campo de la representación cultural. por el contrario, esta disertación propone que, gracias a su relación con la sangre—elemento que está conectado simbólica y materialmente a las transformaciones sociopolíticas, tecno-científicas y epistemológicas de la modernidad—la figura del vampiro permite pensar en proyectos políticos y gubernamentales concretos; entre ellos, la organización de la identidad (racionalizada a partir de las categorías de género, clase, raza y sexualidad), la fundación y administración de los estados-nación latinoamericanos, y el desarrollo del capitalismo. esta disertación, además, es la primera que repasa y analiza de forma sistemática el problema del vampiro y su relevancia para la historia cultural del continente. su corpus de análisis incluye escritores como rubén darío, leopoldo lugones, griselda gambaro, y mario vargas llosa, así como artistas y cineastas contemporáneos como luis ospina, guillermo del toro, y teresa margolles.--modernity in the blood: vampirism and culture in latin america (19th-21st centuries) studies narratives about vampires across national, cultural, and linguistic borders in latin america, from late nineteenth century to contemporary literature, film, and art. it analyses how the image of vampirism has been key to understand and represent a series of cultural fantasies, fears and anxieties around modernity in latin america. i argue that, thanks to its characteristic relationship with blood—an element deeply connected both symbolically and materially to the socio-political, techno-scientific and epistemological transformations brought by modernization—the vampire figure is able to render intelligible larger political and social contexts throughout the continent. these include issues about "deviant" identities (race, gender and class), the development of capitalism (the extraction of labor, economic imperialism, systemic inequality), as wells as questions about nation formation and dictatorial regimes in latin america.this dissertation includes a large and comprehensive corpus, analyzing major vampire narratives by authors like rubén darío, leopoldo lugones, griselda gambaro, mario vargas llosa, luis ospina, guillermo del toro, and teresa margolles, among others. early in 2021, new data from gallup found that the number of people who identify as lgbtq has reached an all-time high of 5.4% (jones 2021). more specifically, this research found that the portions of that population who identify as bisexual and transgender are the most rapidly growing, which is consistent with the academic literature on the lgbtq community (england et. al. 2016: watson et. al. 2020). scholars have pointed out previously that sexualities that fall under the multisexual spectrum and transgender identities fundamentally unsettle the assumptions made about gender sexuality that allow people to be neatly sorted into categories. it is assumed, for example, that a) a person's sex/gender gives you enough information to make inferences about their sexuality and b) that the partner someone has at any given point confirms their identity as either heterosexual or straight. in short, sexualities that are not monosexual are rejected because they threaten existing schemas, and transgender identities disrupt peoples' ability to make assumptions about gender based on a person's presumed biology (callis 2014; lucal 2008). given that these identities are gaining more visibility and there are more people claiming these identities in recent years, this raises a wide range of questions for sociologists, both in terms of how these identities are understood by the dominant culture, and how the inner dynamics of the community have been altered as a result of this increased visibility. species divergence is the formation of a new species by the accumulation of changes in the dna between different populations of the same species. the formation of these new species can be caused by various factors, but many times the deep effect of these changes remains unknown until the newly diverged or currently diverging species can be genetically examined. focusing on two primary divergences, that of rhagoletis pomonella, a fly that is in the process of switching host plants, and the anopheline mosquitoes, the only vectors of human malaria, we present software and methods to examine these divergences. from rad sequencing to explore rhagoletis divergence, to ancestral reconstruction to examine the history of anophelines, to using ancestral gene blocks to improve anopheles genomes for better analysis, this work provides biological researchers with tools they need to answer questions about species divergence in many stages. computationally, the masses of data and the complex problems lead to the oft-encountered difficulty of run time versus solution approximations, which plays a large role in this research. by finding a balance between these two integral parts of computation we provide as correct of data as possible in a reasonable amount of time, and we enable biologists to study organisms by providing them with useful tools. bone is subjected to cyclic loading in vivo through daily physical activities, leading to the accumulation of fatigue microdamage and, possibly, fractures. therefore, the ability to characterize microdamage accumulation is important for understanding and assessing fracture risk. the overall objective of this study was to evaluate methods for measuring microdamage accumulation in cortical bone using both mechanical and novel, non-destructive histological techniques. during fatigue testing, linear elastic beam theory (lebt), the secant modulus, the tangent modulus, the unloading modulus, and creep have been used to measure the accumulation of fatigue microdamage via changes in mechanical properties. mechanical measures for the accumulation of damage in bovine cortical bone during four-point bending fatigue were shown to be highly dependent on the initial specimen modulus and mechanical measure employed. the lebt modulus was shown to include the combined effect of both elastic (recovered) and creep (accumulated) strain indicating that both the secant modulus and creep should be measured throughout a test to most accurately indicate damage accumulation and account for different damage mechanisms. moreover, indentation of roller supports resulted in inflated measures of the lebt modulus degradation and creep. the results of this study suggest that investigations of fatigue microdamage in cortical bone should avoid the use of four-point bending unless no other option is possible. conventional techniques used to image damage accumulation in cortical bone are inherently invasive, destructive, two-dimensional, and tedious. therefore, micro-computed tomography was investigated as a possible non-destructive technique using a precipitated barium sulfate contrast agent to label damage. the ratio of the segmented stain volume to bone volume increased from the unloaded control group to specimens loaded in cyclic uniaxial tension to a 5 and 10% reduction in secant modulus. segmented images showed distinct regions of bright voxels, verified to be due to the presence of baso4, which were indicative of fatigue cracks, as well as the accumulation of linear microcracks and diffuse damage. local variations in mineralization were also measured by micro-ct and suggested to be useful in predicting the susceptibility of tissue to the initiation and accumulation of microdamage. this dissertation examines how circumscription and manipulation of the public sphere contributes to the persistence of authoritarian regimes. it argues that while ruling ideologies of such regimes may differ in content, they rely on similar sets of underlying mechanisms designed to impact interactions in the public sphere. it analyzes how the democratic people's republic of korea (dprk or north korea) under kim jong il and burma/myanmar under successive military juntas have attempted to legitimate themselves as military regimes in the post-cold war era. the dissertation illustrates how the ideologies of the dprk and the burmese junta worked to forestall critiques about authoritarian rule &#8212; even if many citizens were dissatisfied with the state's authoritarian practices &#8212; by limiting and manipulating discussion in the political public sphere. data is drawn from domestically-oriented media as well as 75 semi-structured interviews with north koreans and burmese conducted in 2011 and 2012. while the study empirically focuses on the dprk and myanmar, in broader comparative and analytical chapters it also points to the generalizability of the argument, with implications for theories of ideology, the study of authoritarianism, and debates about how closed societies change. this dissertation takes as its point of departure two fundamental insights about the scriptural text and judaism in the late second temple period that have been proven beyond doubt by the scrolls discovered in the judaean desert. first, it is evident that an exegetical process was operative in the scribal transmission of the biblical text in varying degrees and to various ends. second, legal matters were clearly among the foremost questions occupying exegetes at this time. to what extent, then, has reflection on legal exegetical issues found articulation in extant textual variants from the second temple period? when, where, how, why, and to what extent did jewish scribes deliberately alter the scriptural text for legal-exegetical purposes? what 'rules' applied, and were they the same as governed non-legal material? what were the underlying exegetical (or theological, or sociological) motives, rationales, and justifications for this scribal behavior? a synoptic picture of all extant, deliberate, legal variants is an essential prerequisite for answering these questions in a precise, empirically sound way. the present dissertation offers a specific contribution toward these larger ends by collecting and analyzing all examples of a single type of variant--namely, major textual pluses--preserved in extant witnesses to pentateuchal legal texts from the period. three types of expansions are studied: (1) cases in which 'new' material is inserted into the biblical text, (2) cases of exegetical pastiche (a combination of locutions borrowed from elsewhere in biblical law), and (3) cases of 'simple transfer,' in which the wording of a parallel verse is imported unchanged for interpretive purposes. these expansions function primarily to solve exegetical problems, to clarify or specify scriptural wording, and to articulate scriptural implicature. they are therefore important for understanding the role of scripture and the development of canon in the period. the analysis of these cases offers important data for better understanding the pluriformity of the pentateuchal text in the period, for assessing the character and scope of scribal exegesis in the transmission of biblical law, and for charting the unclear literary boundaries between scriptural transmission and exegetical rewriting in the period. the process of reintegrating excombatants into civilian live has at least two dimensions: the ex-combatant and the recipient community. the ex-combatant oriented reintegration process provides for individual reintegration solutions to the ex-combatants who are perceived 'as continuous threat to long-term security' . this is the traditional perspective that has been applied in different ddr programs around the world since 1980s. the second dimension is the community reintegration, which can be understood as the process by which the communities get the required tools and skills to accept and help the ex-combatants in their process of resettling and reincorporating into civilian life . by including the communities into the reintegration process, not only the programs are creating conducive conditions to reintegration, but also they are creating a space for reconciliation in which both former combatants and host communities (which includes vulnerable populations and victims of violence) would benefit in the same way. thus, a more equal and fair environment would be created in the process of reintegrating ex-combatants into civilian life. this statement is analyzed in two contextual cases in africa, and the case study of colombia. emerging economies accumulate a significant amount of foreign debt at the same time, frequently defaulting on their external obligations. however, standard models of sovereign debt cannot jointly explain the debt-to-output ratio and the default frequency observed in the data. chapter 1 introduces sovereign's recursive preferences and uncertainty on default costs to a standard sovereign debt model which allows capturing the above-mentioned statistics. uncertainty about default costs makes risk-averse agents default less and get better prices on bonds from competitive lenders. therefore, the sovereign borrows more, resulting in the debt-to-output ratio and default frequency observed in the data.in chapter 2, we explore a sovereign debt model where all agents have recursive preferences and lenders are small in the sense that the default events impact their marginal utility. we develop a new technique to solve this class of models by iterating on an endogenous stochastic discount factor until convergence. we find that model dynamics differ significantly from the canonical case in which lenders are `large' relative to the country. spreads not only price default risk but are also used to entice lenders to adjust their holdings. emerging economies' debt to china is large, non-marketable, and opaque. we study the impact that such borrowing from china has on the equilibrium quantities and prices for marketable sovereign debt. we use a standard sovereign debt model with long-term debt and find that following a positive inflow from china our model economy chooses to rebalance its debt portfolio by delevering from market debt. in the process, it pays lower spreads and faces less volatile consumption. on the other hand, when facing a capital outflow from china, the economy taps international debt markets, levers up on defaultable debt, and ends up paying higher and more volatile spreads in equilibrium. the syllogistic of aristotle's analytics is widely interpreted either as a theory of deduction or as a specialized logic of the a-e-i-o predication relations. i argue that it should instead be understood as a computationalist epistemology: an algorithmic treatment of evident validity, or what aristotle calls 'perfection'. against the prevailing opinion that aristotle meant for the class of syllogisms to be coextensive with the class of deductions, i suggest that he understood syllogisms to constitute a particular kind of deduction. roughly, he took them to be either computational deductive procedures, or data structures susceptible to such procedures, where both are dependably linked to the epistemic feature of evident validity.using contemporary techniques in the theory of computation, i show how the underlying data structure of syllogisms can be represented as full binary trees. further, i elucidate several mechanical procedures that are found in the analytics, most notably, the procedure of perfecting imperfect syllogisms.the exposure of these computational features is found to raise an interesting combinatorial problem for syllogisms with more than two premises. informally, the problem may be posed as a question: for such a syllogism, what are all the distinct ways in which its conclusion may be obtained from its premises? this is algorithmically interpreted as the task of finding all the possible syllogistic full binary trees of a multi-premise syllogism.this turns out to be a computationally challenging task. for such syllogisms whose premises are ordered, i show both that the problem is computationally solvable, and executable in polynomial time. for multi-premise syllogisms with unordered premises, i suggest that the problem of finding all the relevant trees may be np-complete. in closing, this thesis suggests that aristotle should be credited with the innovation of computationalist analysis as a philosophical method. it further observes that the algorithmic features of the syllogistic deserve further study, and should not be occluded by the more purely logical aspects of the analytics. the karner blue butterfly (lycaeides melissa samuelis) is an endangered species living in fragmented landscapes within the midwest and eastern u.s. being a specialist feeder and ectotherm, the karner blue may be highly susceptible to climate change. therefore, we pursued several experiments to explore its climate change sensitivity. deep eutectic solvents (dess) are an emergent class of liquid with a host of useful properties including but not limited to low volatility, cheap components, and a wide chemical design space. these properties have found them a home in numerous applications such as redox flow batteries, biomatter synthesis and processing, separations, and catalysis. despite their broad appeal, a majority of des applications are \ extit{ad hoc} and little is known about the fundamental, molecular-level interactions that effect their useful bulk properties. type iii dess, composed of a hydrogen bond donor (hbd) and a hydrogen bond acceptor (hba) pair are the most frequently studied with many focused on the prototypical dess reline, ethaline, and glyceline. there still remains the question of understanding the entire concentration range of a des, not only the eutectic point, as well as investigating more complex hbds. computational modelling offers a way to delve deep into these fundamental interactions, especially when combined in a collaborative effort with experimental experts. fully atomistic classical molecular dynamics (cmd) in particular is well positioned to simultaneously capture dynamic and structural features to shed light on structural and dynamical heterogeneities present in these novel systems. this is the primary focus of this work, using cmd to study in depth (i) glycerol-choline chloride des mixtures of varied concentrations to explain des-unique characteristics and (ii) phenolic-derivative hbds mixed with choline chloride to derive an understanding of how hbd molecular structure influences des bulk behavior. the secondary focus is on utilizing quantum mechanical density functional theory methods to understand and predict redox molecule stability in an alcohol-based des. fukui functions and dual descriptors use these high-level calculations to explain reactivity differences in two oxoammonium cation molecules that are potential redox molecules in a redox flow battery based on dess. a further application of condensed fukui functions and dual descriptors allows for quantitative assessment of stability, allowing for a scalable and potentially automatable analysis of redox molecule candidates. in my dissertation i seek to provide an account of well-being that is wider in scope than other contemporary accounts, and has the power to play a much more substantial and fruitful role in moral theory. i will argue that contemporary discussions of well-being have construed well-being too narrowly, thereby stripping it of its capacity to play a much more fruitful role in moral theory. once we develop a better understanding of well-being, we will realize that it can play a much more significant role in our ethical theorizing. to do this i will: (a) show that well-being can be understood to be much more closely tied to moral goodness or virtue than previously thought, (b) develop an account of well-being that can harmonize both subjective and objective elements that all ethical theorists find appealing. a central claim that i defend is that well-being (or welfare) is not just one kind of value or consideration among others, but one that can be taken to unify other values that can be realized in a person's life, by providing their purpose and point. the reason why this has not been fully appreciated is that during their discussions of the very concept of well-being, philosophers have often assumed a particular substantive conception of well-being. (this is, i will argue, due to a deeper philosophical position that attempts to make a sharp division between morality and self-interest.) but well-being, as that in virtue of which a person's life goes better, when taken in its most general sense, is a very broad notion that leaves wide open what particular kinds of values constitute it. so while it is true that welfare or 'prudential' value is conceptually different from other kinds of value that can be realized in one's life' aesthetic, moral, or perfectionist' these values are constitutive of welfare; what is good for us will depend on the different ways in which these values enter our lives. another important part of the dissertation will also be to address what is perhaps the most central issue concerning well-being' whether or not well-being is ultimately subjective or objective. my strategy will be to go through some of the standard accounts of well-being offered by both subjectivists and objectivists and argue that none of them are fully adequate. i will contend that both subjective and objective elements of well-being are constitutive of it. i will then attempt to develop a more plausible and satisfying account of well-being, a species of perfectionist or nature-fulfillment account, that integrates both subjective and objective components. once we see that the life with highest well-being includes both subjective and objective components, we will have a picture of how an ideal human life would go. and once we keep this picture firmly on our minds, we will also be able to have a deeper appreciation for the kind of work that well-being can do within moral theory, by providing an intelligible aim as the formal object of practical reason. the exotic collective excitation transverse wobbling has been investigated in the nucleus, 135pr. a pair of zero and one-phonon wobbling bands has been observed. the nature of these wobbling bands was confirmed by the delta i=1; e2 nature of the nw=1 to nw=0 interband transitions making 135pr the first nucleus observed to exhibit wobbling behavior other than have nuclei in the a~160. additionally, a possible two-phonon wobbling band has been observed and its nature has been partially confirmed by measuring the i=1; e2 nature of the nw=2 to nw=1 interband transitions. the theory of transverse wobbling was proposed to explain contradictions in the wobbling energy predicted by previous quasiparticle plus triaxial rotor calculations; this theory has been confirmed. in this model, the quasiparticle aligns with an axis perpendicular to the axis with maximal moment of inertia (in contrast to previous theories, which aligned the quasiparticle with the axis with maximum moment of inertia). with this modification the fall in the energy of the wobbling phonon, observed in experiment, is now correctly predicted by theory. this confirmation of theory suggests a reevaluation of the previously discovered wobbling nuclei in the a~160 region in the framework of transverse wobbling as well. the focus of this work is to fabricate algan/gan high electron mobility transistors (hemts) and provide feedback to the mbe lab. cl2-based gan reactive ion etching, as a critical step of hemt process flow, is investigated to obtain consistent etch rates with smooth etched surfaces. the adverse micromasking effect is largely mitigated. the atomic force microscopic study show the roughness of etched gan surfaces is comparable with that of the as-grown surface. a more predictable etch rate is also obtained, ~ 110 nm/min at a plasma power of 150 w with reduced etch damage. hemts are fabricated using algan/gan samples grown both by molecular beam epitaxy (mbe) system at notre dame and by metal organic chemical vapor deposition (mocvd) at ucsb for comparison. the current mbe hemts exhibit smaller currents and higher buffer leakage due to the lower charge concentrations, low carrier mobilities and poor regrowth interfaces. flourine-treatment to reduce gate leakage is also attempted. the preliminary results are summarized. because bacteria are found widely spread in almost every habitat on earth and even in, or on, other organisms, they are vital for the global ecosystem and greatly impact human health. pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen that can rapidly develop resistance during antibiotic treatment by genetic mutation utilizing a horizontal gene transfer mechanism. moreover, the tendency of p. aeruginosa to form biofilms and its ability to utilize multiple mechanisms of motility make p. aeruginosa biofilms hundreds of times more resistant to antibiotics than the corresponding planktonic cells. the work described in this thesis uses multimodal chemical imaging – raman microspectroscopy, mass spectrometric imaging and electrochemical measurements together with microand nanofabricated structures of high spatial definition to investigate the mechanisms of p. aeruginosa biofilm growth by characterizing the spatial and temporal distributions of signaling molecules and other secreted metabolites.using a combination of confocal raman microscopy and mass spectrometry imaging, p. aeruginosa biofilm growth from both mucoid and nonmucoid strains was investigated on lithographically defined patterns, allowing differences in the spatial and temporal distributions of secreted molecules including quinolones, rhamnolipids, and phenazines – to be characterized as a function of the surface environment. results indicate that microbial attachment was accompanied by secretion of 2-alkyl-4-quinolones and rhamnolipids from both mucoid and nonmucoid strains, while pyocyanin was only detected from the mucoid strain. the mucoid strain was found to be sensitive to composition and patterning, while the nonmucoid strain was not; unpatterned surfaces were better than patterned surfaces in promoting community development in the mucoid strain; and mucin was also better than mercaptoundecanoic acid in this regard. also, the mucoid strain was observed to secrete the virulence factor pyocyanin in a way that correlates with distress. confocal raman microscopy was also applied to investigate the response of p. aeruginosa biofilm grown on lithographically defined patterned or unpatterned mucin to antibiotic treatment and to characterize the spatial and temporal distribution of secreted metabolites from static biofilms on the substrate, from supernatant of the bacterial broth, and from pellicle biofilms at the air-liquid interface. the significant differences observed in metabolite secretion between p. aeruginosa mucoid and nonmucoid strains, static and pellicle biofilms, and patterned and unpatterned mucin surfaces suggests that tobramycin exposure and spatial patterning both strongly affected p. aeruginosa growth. under tobramycin treatment, static biofilms of the mucoid strain favor unpatterned mucin surfaces, while static biofilms of the nonmucoid strain prefer patterned mucin surfaces as judged by their secreted pseudomonas quinolone signals. phenazines were only detected in pellicle biofilms and the supernatant in both strains, and the differences between phenazine species in supernatant showed the same preference of mucin surfaces as the static biofilms.a hierarchically organized ph-responsive block co-polymer (bcp) membrane was combined with gold nanoparticle (aunps)-filled nanopore electrode arrays (neas) to separate and detect phenazine-1-carboxylic acid (pca) from bacterial broth. by adjusting the ph of bacterial broth to 4.5 which is above the pka of pca but below the pka of pyocyanin (pyo) and phenazine-1-carboxamide (pcn), negatively charged pca was selectively captured. because of the selectivity of bcp membrane at ph 4.5, only pca was transported into the aunps-filled neas, while pyo and pcn were blocked. pca secreted from p. aeruginosa with various incubation time was quantified by square-wave voltammetry and sers on this electrochemical sers sensor with high sensitivity and efficiency.overall, this work illustrates the effectiveness of a multimodal approach combining raman microspectroscopy, mass spectrometry imaging and electrochemistry to investigate biofilm growth, formation, and response to different stimuli in p. aeruginosa by characterizing the spatial and temporal distributions of signaling molecules and other metabolites. the potential application of multimodal techniques to future investigate other biologically relevant systems is also explored. despite the ongoing use of rewards in education, there is still an open debate about the circumstances when extrinsically-valued rewards are considered to be effective. the current experiment attempted to address this question by investigating the effects of both extrinsic value (high vs. low value) and text difficulty (easy vs. difficult texts) on engagement and learning during an instructional learning task. students' engagement was measured during learning by assessing two types of engagement: (1) affective (i.e., valence and arousal), (2) cognitive (i.e., mind wandering). results indicated that extrinsic value and text difficulty impacted the two types of engagement differently. specifically, extrinsic value had a negative impact on valence, but a positive impact on arousal and learning. this suggests extrinsic value can in fact be an effective motivator for learning, given the right context. conversely, text difficulty had a negative influence on mind wandering. theoretical implications and potential future directions are discussed. this dissertation focuses upon the use of handlaying as an initiatory rite among early western churches up to the point preceding the carolingian reforms in the eighth century. the study begins by surveying the various types of handlaying rites revealed in graeco-roman literature, the hebrew scriptures, and the new testament in order to set a potential background for the origins and significance of handlaying as an initiatory practice. following a critical analysis of the new testament accounts of initiatory handlaying, the evidence of this rite in patristic writings and liturgical sources is evaluated chronologically and regionally, thus providing a clear and straightforward means to speak of the commonalities and differences concerning this initiatory practice over time and from one place to another. such an approach reveals the pitfalls of earlier studies of this rite, which have tended to assume a far greater degree of liturgical uniformity among early churches than what the evidence actually reveals. by assessing the evidence from a critical historical perspective and with the aid of the principles of comparative liturgy, the picture of early christian initiatory practice appears less clear than prior assumptions have stated it to be, yet does undoubtedly demonstrate the great deal of diversity present among early christian communities in their ecclesial structures, theologies, and liturgical practices. in addition to treating all of the extant witnesses of initiatory handlaying, other related uses of handlaying (e.g., for those baptized in the bishop's absence, for the reception of heretics) are also examined because of the common belief that such independent handlaying rites are equivalent to initiatory handlaying, thus attesting that a particular community also employed handlaying as a part of its "normal" initiatory ritual. arguing strongly against such a position, this dissertation maintains that the evidence can only support the view that initiatory handlaying was predominantly, though not exclusively, a north african practice during this early period, where it was interpreted in various nuanced ways as ritualizing the conveyance of the holy spirit. vapor bubble formation in liquids is important for many processes including boiling, removal of co2 from the anode of methanol fuel cells, and various microfluidic applications. phase change and two phase systems are difficult to understand and control for several reasons, including the multiple time and length scales involved and the difficulty in dealing with heterogeneous systems.this work was concerned with heterogeneous bubble nucleation on nanometer length scales and nanosecond time scales. the focus was on the effects of surface chemistry and nanometer scale geometric defects. the main tool for these studies was non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations under constant temperature and constant heat flux conditions. additionally, a mean field thermodynamic model based on the redlich-kwong equation of state was used to explain and extend the molecular dynamics results.the molecular dynamics results at constant temperature showed that heterogeneous nucleation on an atomically smooth surface was always more favorable than homogeneous nucleation and that weaker surface-fluid interactions increased the nucleation rate compared with stronger interactions. increasing the strength of surface-fluid interactions induced more ordering in the fluid near the solid surface causing nucleation to occur at the solid surface for weak interactions and above the surface for stronger interactions. in the cases where nucleation occurred above the surface, the nucleation rate did not decrease much with increasing interaction strength due to the similar nucleation environment.for nucleation on indented surfaces, constant temperature molecular dynamics showed that the nucleation rate increased by two orders of magnitude compared to a flat surface for an indentation that was large compared to the critical size. at constant heat flux, nucleation was even more favored in the large indentation due to concentrated heating of the fluid, especially with weak solid-fluid interactions.the mean field model explained the location of nucleation on flat surfaces and why small indentations have no effect on nucleation. weak surface interactions created a region of tension near the surface and stronger surface interactions created a region of high pressure. the minimum pressure for weak interactions was associated with the indentation only for large enough indentations. cellular mobile devices have become an increasingly large part of society, permeating almost every aspect of life. consequently, researchers have been searching for ways to distribute communication and data usage across not only the cellular networks but also infrastructure and ad-hoc wifi connections. current methods for evaluation of network protocols include network simulators and mobile testbeds but suffer from inaccurate models of physical interactions and time consuming network programming. our work aims to create an easy to use, highly configurable software framework which will allow for the quick implementation of network experiments on mobile devices utilizing features such as packet interception, modification and injection. furthermore, our results indicate that the framework allows researchers to create experimental prototypes with minimal performance overhead. the topology of zeolite frameworks and of associated tetrahedral sites (t-sites) are commonly characterized by their associated rings, typically defined as some set of closed paths or cycles through a framework that cannot be decomposed into shorter cycles. these ring descriptors have been used to identify feasible zeolite topologies, to describe the similarity and differences between zeolites, to identify sites or voids of catalytic relevance, and as machine learning fingerprints. numerous definitions and algorithms for finding zeolite rings have been proposed and applied throughout the literature. here we report an analysis of rings and t-sites in a large number of zeolite frameworks using zeolite simulation environment, a python package that implements an efficient algorithm presented by goetzke and klein for finding rings in arbitrary frameworks. we compare the result of a number of common and new ring definitions applied to a large number of common zeolite frameworks. we discover previously unrecognized rings in a number of frameworks. we show that the vertex symbol, a common approach used to characterize t-sites, misses important parts of the stereochemistry around a t-site, and propose an alternative definition. this tool provides an effective platform for characterizing zeolite and t-site structures useful for building models and doing machine learning. we further relate the topology of zeolite frameworks to ion exchange energy siting preferences for various monovalent cations in a number of common frameworks. we show that cation size and ring distortion both influence the cation location in the framework. finally, we combine information about topology and ion siting preferences to help rationalize experimental findings from our collaborators that show differences in infrared ir spectra between protons associated with isolated and proximal al atoms in the cha framework, and that the first-order protolytic propane cracking rate constants in cha increase with the fraction of al atoms in pairs. for cancer cells to survive during extracellular matrix (ecm) detachment, they must inhibit anoikis and rectify metabolic deficiencies that cause non-apoptotic cell death. previous studies in ecm-detached cells have linked non-apoptotic cell death to reactive oxygen species (ros) generation, although the mechanistic underpinnings of this link remain ill defined. here, we uncover a role for receptor-interacting protein kinase 1 (ripk1) in the modulation of mitochondrial ros levels and cell viability during ecm detachment. mechanistically, we find that ripk1 activation during ecm detachment results in the induction of mitophagy through a mechanism requiring the mitochondrial phosphatase phosphoglycerate mutase family member 5 (pgam5). as a consequence of mitophagy induction, ecm-detached cells experience diminished isocitrate dehydrogenase 2 (idh2)-mediated nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate hydrogen (nadph) production in the mitochondria and the subsequent elevation in mitochondrial ros levels leads to non-apoptotic cell death. furthermore, we find that antagonizing ripk1 or pgam5 enhances tumor formation in vivo. expanding upon these studies further, we also find that prostate cancer cell lines that have developed resistance to the immune checkpoint blockade inhibitor pd-1 have antagonized the liability associated with ripk1/pgam5-dependent mitophagy to enhance survival during ecm detachment. in aggregate, ripk1-mediated induction of mitophagy may be an efficacious target for therapeutics aimed at eliminating ecm-detached cancer cells. if a poet assumes that the self is a product of history, then the historical poem becomes, in effect, a new form of autobiography. this shifts the emphasis of autobiography from a self that precedes or anchors history to a self that 'comes out' of history. my dissertation is about how this view of an 'inherited self' reinvents autobiography and thereby provides an entirely new way to read the historical epics of ezra pound and charles olson and the historical lyrics of susan howe. i begin with an ars poetica of the inherited self in the work of henry adams, whose turn from autobiography to history sets a pattern that is more or less followed by the later poets. i look next at the seeds of howe's investigation of inheritance in her early poetry and art criticism from the 1970s. in another chapter i suggest that the documentary forms associated with historical poetry should be read as documenting inheritance rather than documenting history as such. because the document provides a window onto each poet's inheritance, the documentary form is essential for the autobiography of an inherited self. in the final chapter i examine the tendency of each poet to assume or 'take on' historical figures as precursors of the present &#0151; as for example certain archetypal figures for olson and emily dickinson for howe. i conclude by briefly suggesting how a reinvention of autobiography can be seen in the work of recent avantgarde poets who assume the self is constituted not so much by history as by language or culture. quantum cellular automata (qca) is a computing paradigm where binary information is encoded as charge configurations. binary information is processed and transmitted through coulomb interaction from neighboring cells. power dissipation is low due to the absence of current flow. this paradigm is best suited for molecular implementation. high device densities and fast switching are possible with molecular qca. this dissertation is a theoretical study of energy dissipation in molecular qca cells during switching.first, we calculate the excess energy left at the end of switching in isolated two-state and three-state qca cells. this excess energy decreases exponentially with increasing switching adiabaticity. this presents a significant advantage over classical systems exhibiting linear dependence. for an open two-state system we use the lindblad operators to model the impact of system-environment interaction. at rapid switching we observe exponential adiabaticity. at intermediate switching speeds we observe an inverted regime where the dissipated energy increases as the switching slows down. subsequent slowing of switching results in a classical behavior. we then introduce molecular reorganization energy to an open two-state system. here we model the energy lowering of a charge-occupied dot due to relaxation of surrounding atoms. the reorganization energy causes the hamiltonian to be non-linear and allows multiple steady-state solutions at small biases. charge localization is stabilized due to the self-trapping nature of the reorganization energy and the qca cell can act as a memory element. but this bit stability comes at the expense of higher energy dissipation due to accelerated electron transfer. finally, we extend the study to an open three-state system. adiabatic switching during a write operation can cause the system to refrigerate the bath. for logically reversible operations like write or erase with copy, there is no fundamental lower limit to energy dissipation in accordance with landauer principle. for erase without copy where no external bias is applied, the reorganization energy internally biases the system in the state it is in. this is a limitation of our model which makes this operation logically reversible. as future work, this model can be improved to include dissipation for nuclear degrees of motion. lakes vary widely in limiting nutrients (nitrogen and/or phosphorous) and trophic status as a result of natural variation in geology and land cover and due to intensification of agriculture in watersheds of many freshwater lakes. since eutrophic lakes have the potential to absorb greater quantities of atmospheric carbon dioxide (co2; a greenhouse gas), eutrophic lakes might be a benefit in terms of carbon burial and mitigating climate warming (finlay et al., 2009; lazzarino et al., 2009; balmer and downing 2011). however, upon sinking and decay, phytoplankton biomass creates an environment suitable for fermentation and methanogenesis (kiene 1991). in fact, lake eutrophication may yield greater generation of warming potential as co2 emissions are traded for release of methane (ch4), a greenhouse gas with 25x greater radiative forcing than co2 (huttunen et al., 2003). however, influence of phytoplankton carbon on methanogenesis and subsequent ch4 emissions from lakes has hardly been studied, and the only evidence of the influence of eutrophication on ch4 emissions is derived from weak correlations between lake trophic status and ch4 emission (huttunen et al., 2003; juutinen et al., 2003; bastviken et al., 2004; sepulveda-jauregui et al., 2014). the implications of enhanced primary productivity for microbial-mediated ch4 production and ecosystem scale greenhouse gas emissions must be investigated further to fully evaluate whether eutrophication enhances ch4 emissions from freshwater lakes.while my research does not assess the direct effects of agricultural eutrophication on ch4 emissions, and most of my research is conducted on natural lakes, the research in this dissertation does highlight the potential for enhanced eutrophication (natural or anthropogenic) to increase contributions of ch4 to the atmosphere from freshwater lakes. to address key questions regarding the influence of eutrophication on ch4 emissions, my dissertation research utilizes experimentation and observation to test hypotheses at multiple temporal and spatial scales, and employs concepts from microbial, community, and ecosystem ecology. the most recent report published by the united nations (un) intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc) has indicated that the catastrophic impacts of climate breakdown may soon outpace humanity's ability to adapt.[1] according to un secretary-general antonio guterres, "the report is an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership."[2] climate breakdowns impact every facet of society and exacerbate underlying inequalities that force a growing number of people to make the precarious decision to remain home or move. this is because climate change and migration are inextricably linked. as the impacts of climate change increase and intensify, so does the internal and cross-border migration that overwhelms unprepared and unresponsive local, national, regional, and international systems. this paper is a primer for academics and policymakers on the interrelated complexities, existing protection gaps, and future possibilities in the governance of environmental mobility. chapter one provides a detailed look into the intersectional impacts climate change has on human systems, leading to internal and cross-border movement. chapter two discusses the environmental migrant protection gap that persists despite the mechanisms from the state to the international level that can but have not yet, provided reliable protection to environmental migrants. chapter three demonstrates the growing global recognition of the environmental migrant protection gap and highlights the significant obstacles and potential opportunities facing policymakers as they seek to close the gap. chapter four ends with a call to action that focuses on the need for a universal terminology and definition of environmental migrants, the potential of regional free movement agreements (fmas), and the imperative that states implement initiatives that address the root causes of movement and create legal pathways that respect the dignity and agency of environmental migrants.[1] pörtner, h. et al. (2022, february 27). climate change 2022: impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability: summary for policymakers. ipcc intergovernmental panel on climate change. retrieved from https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/[2] united nations. (2022, february 28). ipcc adaptation report 'a damning indictment of failed global leadership on climate.' united nations news. retrieved from https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/02/1112852 a goal of contemporary proteome research is the elucidation of protein-protein interactions in a cell. based on currently available protein-protein interaction and domain data of s. cerevisiae, we introduce a novel method, maximum specificity set cover (mssc), to predict protein-protein interactions. mssc features three stages: first, mssc selects high quality protein-protein interactions based on a clustering measure. second, mssc assigns probabilities to domain pairs. third, mssc uses the domain pairs to infer protein-protein interactions. we also modified mssc to include the possibility of having more than one domain from each protein causing the protein-protein interaction. mssc allows us to predict previously unknown protein-protein interactions with a degree of sensitivity and specificity that clearly out-scores other approaches. mssc achieved 86% sensitivity and 62% specificity using 80% of the high quality interactions in the dip database. the predicted interaction network preserves the characteristics of the initial web of known protein interactions. we also observe high levels of co-expression among putative interactions. we also observe high levels of co-expression among putative interactions. we extend our method to infer protein-protein interactions in multicellular organisms where protein-protein interaction data currently does not exist. starting from predictions in yeast, we find a set of orthologous interactions in a. thaliana, c. elegans, d. melanogaster, m. musculus, and h. sapiens. some previous studies of the adaptiveness of communication for behavior coordination have found that communication is beneficial and, therefore, will evolve. others point out shortcomings in prior studies with positive results and find that when those shortcomings are addressed, communication no longer will evolve for coordination. it appears, however, that communication has evolved for coordination, which suggests that those studies with negative findings also are missing some key factor. none of these studies undertakes a systematic examination of important variables such as communication range, sensory range, and environmental conditions. to address this shortcoming, an extensive series of simulations is presented that explore the effect of such parameters on the utility of communication for coordinating agent behaviors in the multi-agent territory exploration (mate(n)) task. agents in the mate(n) task are required to visit all checkpoints given in the environment in as little time as possible; n agents are required to be present at a checkpoint simultaneously for it to be counted ``visited.' a comparison of the absolute performance of communicating and non-communicating agents on the mate(n) task (i.e., their performance without regard to cost) finds that there are configurations in which communication provides an absolute performance advantage. a subsequent analysis of the results establishes constraints on the cost of communication must be satisfied in order for it to provide a benefit in relative performance} (i.e., absolute performance scaled by agent cost), required for communication to evolve. further analysis determines that these cost constraints are probably too strict, making it unlikely that communication evolved for coordination in mate(n) tasks. many problems in computer vision and engineering can be formulated using a parameterized system of polynomials which must be solved for given instances of the parameters. solutions and behavior over the real numbers are those that provide meaningful information for these applications. by using homotopy continuation within numerical algebraic geometry, one can solve these parameterized polynomial systems. first, we propose a new approach which uses locally adaptive methods and sparse matrix calculations to solve parameterized overdetermined systems in projective space. examples are provided in 2d image reconstruction to compare the new methods with traditional approaches in numerical algebraic geometry. second, we discuss new homotopy continuation methods for solving two minimal trifocal calibrated relative pose problems defined by point and line correspondences, which appear together, e.g., in urban scenes or observing curves. experiments are shown using real and synthetic data to demonstrate that challenging scenes can be reconstructed where standard methods fail. third, we present a new definition of monodromy action over the real numbers which encodes tiered characteristics regarding real solutions. examples are given to show the benefits of this definition over a naive extension of the monodromy group (over the complex numbers). in addition, an application in kinematics is discussed to highlight the computational method and impact on calibration. rh1, the major rhodopsin in drosophila, is the visual pigment expressed in r1-r6 photoreceptor cells. rh1 is trafficked through the secretory pathway to its final destination in the rhabdomere. visualization of the rh1 trafficking process was examined in this work. in addition, the location and role of two proteins, arf72, a small gtpase and the drosophila tetracycline transporter known to affect rh1 trafficking were probed. the initial effort involved developing a methodology to visualize rhodopsin during its progression through the secretory pathway. the visualization of rh1 was accomplished by use of a heat shock promoter to drive transient expression of a rh1:gfp tagged transgene (hs-rh1-gfp). intracellular membrane markers were also utilized to determine specific intracellular locations of rhodopsin. co-expression of hs-rh1:gfp and pdi:rfp (protein disulfide isomerase) confirmed localization to the endoplasmic reticulum at early time points. co-localization of rh1 and pdi was first visible at 2.5 hours post heat shock induction. after 3 hours, rh1 began to progress beyond the er before reaching the rhabdomere at approximately 10 hours. rhabdomere localization was confirmed using labeled phalloidin to decorate the rhabdomere membranes. at 20 hours post heat shock induction, rh1:gfp had completely localized to the rhabdomere. thus, the earliest and final locations within the secretory pathway were labeled and co-localization was seen at the appropriate times. this data enabled us to approximate the time points when rh1 would interact with cytoplasmic proteins suspected to play a role in rhodopsin trafficking. an alternative approach was used to determine the intracellular location of arf72. arf72 is a member of the ras superfamily of gtp binding proteins and required for rhodopsin transport. an arf72:rfp transgene was created and co-expressed with characterized golgi markers to identify specific location in the golgi apparatus. grasp65, a cis-golgi marker, partially co-labeled with arf72. in addition, arf72 was expressed with rab6, a medial/trans marker, but did not co-localize. to determine arf72 function, arf mosaic flies were generated. em analysis of arf72 mosaic flies show swelling of the er and reduction in rhabdomere size. co-expression of er and golgi markers were also expressed in arf72 mutant photoreceptors. er and golgi distribution, as detected by the labeled markers described above, were unchanged in the arf mutant background. a series of experiments were also performed on the tetracycline transporter (tet). tet was determined to play a role in rh1 maturation as the gene disruption in tet resulted in an overall reduction in rh1 production. electron microscopy also revealed changes in rhabdomere morphology. co-expression of intracellular markers resulted in uncharacteristic rab6 expression and localization. these results extend the characterization of the rhodopsin maturation process and provide additional insights to the roles of arf72 and tet proteins. this dissertation comprises a body of research in the field of classical molecular simulations, with particular emphasis placed on the proper depiction of water. it is arranged such that the techniques and models are first developed and tested before being applied and compared with experimental results. accordingly, the first chapter starts by introducing the technique of molecular dynamics and discussing technical considerations needed to correctly perform molecular simulations. the second chapter builds on these consideration aspects by discussing correction techniques for handling long-ranged electrostatic interactions. particular focus is placed on the damped shifted force (sf) technique, and it is shown to be nearly equivalent to the ewald summation in simulations of condensed phases. since the sf technique is pairwise, it scales as o(n) and lacks periodicity artifacts. this technique is extended to include point-multipoles, and optimal damping parameters are determined to ensure proper depiction of the dielectric behavior of molecular systems. the third chapter applies the above techniques and focuses on water model development, specifically the single-point soft sticky dipole (ssd) model. in order to better depict water with ssd in computer simulations, it needed to be reparametrized, resulting in ssd/rf and ssd/e, new variants optimized for simulations with and without a reaction field correction. these new single-point models are more efficient than the more common multi-point models and better capture the dynamic properties of water. ssd/rf can be used with damped sf through the multipolar extension described in the previous chapter. the final chapter deals with a unique polymorph of ice that was discovered while performing simulations with the ssd models. this form of ice, called imaginary ice (ice-i), has a low-density structure which is different from any previously known ice polymorph. the free energy analysis discussed here shows that it is the thermodynamically preferred form of ice for both the single-point and commonly used multi-point water models. including electrostatic corrections is necessary to obtain more realistic results; however, the free energies of the studied polymorphs are typically so similar that system properties, like the volume in nvt simulations, can directly influence the ice polymorph expressed. the adaptive immune system provides a highly specialized pathway, which can recognize and protect against pathogens. the cell-mediated immune response is a component of the adaptive immune system which responds to infected or aberrant cells. t-cell receptors (tcrs) are heterodimeric molecules expressed on the surface of t lymphocytes. their function is to recognize peptide antigens presented on major histocompatibility complex (mhc) proteins, which are expressed on the surface of antigen presenting cells (apcs). the repertoire of tcrs is the result of the thymic education process during, which precursor t cells undergo both positive and negative selection to acquire tolerance of self-peptides presented on self-mhc molecule [1]. however, tcrs are capable of responding to foreign or non-self mhc proteins in a well-established phenomenon termed alloreactivity, as evidenced by the rejection of transplanted organs and graft-versus-host disease (gvhd).t-cell receptor (tcr) allorecognition is often believed to proceed with limited specificity, owing to either a tcr focus on the exposed polymorphic residues on the non-self mhc (mhc-centric) or the degenerate recognition of allopeptides (peptide-centric) [2]. for instance, the precursor frequency for alloreactive t cells is 100-fold to 1000-fold higher than that of convention t cells that are specific for one foreign-peptide-self mhc complex [3]. the large difference in precursor frequency suggested nonspecific allorecognition. surprisingly however, alloreactive t cells can achieve high peptide and mhc specificity [4]. although the underlying molecular mechanisms remain elusive, people are interested in the use of such highly specific alloreactive tcrs in cancer immunotherapy. in this dissertation, we mainly discuss how an alloreactive tcr achieves both peptide and mhc specificity. in contrast with current theories of alloreactivity (mhc-centric or peptide-centric), our structural and biophysical data suggests that high specific allorecognition is critically depend on the unique features of allogeneic mhc and the antigen peptide, relatively. more importantly, our findings emphasize that the peptide features working together with the distinctive surface chemistry of allogeneic mhc, can direct the specificity of allorecognition. our results broaden the understanding of the specificity of allorecognition and provide insight into the use of allospecific tcrs in immunotherapy. addressing the perception and incidence of corruption in ghana calls for a holistic approach. unlike studies which privilege the importance of institutions and policies to addressing corruption, this dissertation pivots the idea of corruption as a vice and, as such, argues the necessity of focusing on forming virtuous individuals who work in those institutions. using the virtue ethics tradition in catholic moral theology, and with particular emphasis on thomas aquinas' account of justice and its related concepts, this dissertation illustrates how the virtue of justice enables us probe the latent and manifest socio-cultural and economic reasons for the perpetration and perpetuation of corruption. furthermore, the thomistic account of justice and its related concepts such as the common good, helps us examine nepotism, greed, extortion and other forms of corruption carried out by politicians, civil servants and citizens. since corruption occurs between actors and actants in a particular social setting, the dissertation uses anthropological theories of corruption and social relations to understand corruption in ghana. it also explores reasons why certain corrupt practices are accommodated while others incur public anger. this work further explores the intersection between moral assemblages and social navigation, and how people access and distribute the goods of the state. the dissertation concludes by examining how the discussion of justice can be used as a formative tool in liturgical and para-liturgical settings and counseling sessions. over the last thirty years cross-border holdings of financial assets have increased dramatically. historically economists have regarded changes in these positions as being due to cross-border trade in goods and services. yet, this explanation does not hold in this latest period of financial globalization as financial asset-to-asset trading has become a much larger contributor to changes in cross-border financial asset positions. the literature has also generally subtracted foreign claims on domestic agents from domestic claims on foreign agents before analyzing cross-border positions. however, events during the 2008 financial crisis showed that the evolution of gross positions are critically important to study as well. this dissertation is comprised of three papers that consider causes and consequences of gross cross-border financial asset linkages and their dramatic growth over the last two decades, defined as financial globalization. chapter one provides a new explanation for the long-run build-up of total foreign borrowing by the united states from 1970 to 2007. in this chapter i present empirical evidence that suggests that shadow banking in the form of asset backed securities was a meaningful driver of the long-run increase in total external debt. i then develop an open economy model that shows how asset backed securities can cause long-run increases in investment, consumption, total secured borrowing, and total external borrowing. applying the model to the u.s. data i am able to qualitatively replicate the long-run trends in key macro aggregates. counterfactual experiments show that while declining and low interest rates did cause long-run increases in external borrowing (consistent with the literature), the effect of financial innovation in the form of asset backed securities had at least as great of an impact. chapter two empirically shows that different types of capital inflows have different abilities to predict banking crises in developing and emerging economies, and that the relationship between banking crises and capital inflows has changed over time. in a sample of 29 developing and emerging economies over the period 1976-1991 increases in short-term debt inflows raised the probability of a banking crisis while increases in inflows due to long-term borrowing by the private sector had the opposite effect. conversely, over the period 1992-2007 increases in inflows due to long-term borrowing by the private sector increased the probability of a banking crisis. the findings suggest distinct optimal capital account liberalization policies between the two periods. chapter three empirically shows that central governments in developing and emerging economies meaningfully increase their borrowing in domestic credit markets while they are in default of their debt owed to foreign investors. typically, the only recourse that international lenders have after a sovereign debt default is exclusion from international credit markets. access to domestic credit markets reduces this cost of external debt defaults. the findings in this chapter inform the theoretical literature on sovereign debt defaults in that future work should consider the effect of domestic credit markets on sovereign debt default probabilities and the time it takes to resolve such a default. the interplay of relativistic astrophysics and nuclear physics is an active frontier in the unraveling of the properties of matter. the physics of extreme gravity is also one of the most challenging to understand due to its inaccessibility from terrestrial laboratories. in this dissertation i discuss my work on understanding the interactions of relativistic fluids and nuclear matter in two extreme environments: 1) the merger of two neutron stars and the subsequent collapse of the postmerger hypermassive neutron star to a black hole; and 2) the first few moments of cosmic expansion in the big bang. in the first part i will describe my investigation of the role of the high-density nuclear equation of state in the emergent gravitational radiation from the collapse to a black hole during neutron star mergers. in the second environment i will discuss the work i completed to formulate a solution to the multicomponent multi-dimensional relativistic thermalization to directly obtain baryon distribution during primordial nucleosynthesis. #showherstory is a design intervention that consists of a multifaceted campaign which uses advocacy channels and guerilla marketing tactics to stir conversations about the limited portrayals of pakistani women in local tv series. in this thesis, i will deconstruct the stereotypes of women that dominate contemporary pakistani tv series. i will also discuss the origins of these stereotypes and their effects on young pakistani women. the thesis will also reflect on the importance and the need for this design intervention and what role it might play in a larger feminist discourse in pakistan. this study explores how parental racial socialization (prsoc) operates in schools as racialized organizations. to do this, i merged three datasets together. child-level data comes from the maryland adolescent development in context study (madics; eccles 1997), while school-level data comes from the national center for education statistics (nces) and the office for civil rights data collection (crdc). first, using ordinary least squares (ols) and ordinal logistic regression modeling, i evaluate the extent to which engagement in prsoc affects academic outcomes and educational experiences of black and white students within public middle schools. i find a significant difference in engagement in prsoc between racial groups, whereby black students, on average, engage in significantly higher levels of prsoc than white students. while engagement in prsoc only has a positive impact on black students' gpa, it has mixed effects on both white and black students' affect toward school. second, i evaluate the impact of the racialized school context and find a significant negative impact on academic outcomes and educational experiences for both white and black students. further, i find a significant interaction between engagement in prsoc and the racialized school context for black students, highlighting the mediating impact of prsoc on black students' gpa. lastly, the study finds variation in the content and purpose of white and black prsoc. these differences may have repercussions on students' educational experiences as black prsoc largely serves to protect students from racism, while white prsoc ultimately maintains and exacerbates racial inequality in schools. downhill treadmill training aims to rehabilitate eccentric motor control in subjects with incomplete spinal cord injury (isci). the purpose of this study was to characterize lower limb control deficits in kinetic, kinematic, and emg characteristics of subjects with isci performing stand-to-sit maneuvers. observations of body weight supported (bws) downhill treadmill training effects were made through examination of vertical ground reaction force (vgrf), valgus knee characteristics, and emg signals of individuals with isci. results from this study can be used to validate and further develop experimental techniques of isci rehabilitation. analysis from this study showed that un-exercised subjects with isci appear to have less control over their center-of-mass (com) velocity during stand-to-sit. deceleration phase duration was shorter in un-exercised subjects than in healthy control subjects. some training subjects exhibited a decrease in deceleration phase duration after completing downhill training, but most subjects appeared to be unaffected. it is possible that subject need a longer time to recover from training before a rested data collection can be made. the majority of subjects with isci exhibited symmetrical vgrf. downhill training did not have any effect on subjects with asymmetrical vgrf. abnormal vgrf characteristics could be a result of injury location and severity. statistically significant deficits in valgus moments and angles were found in subjects with isci. valgus moment values were not significantly affected by downhill training, but more subjects exhibited negative training effects in a longitudinal study. unhealthy valgus characteristics can be caused by strengthening the quadriceps and gmed without simultaneous strengthening of the hamstrings and gmax. it is possible that downhill training does increase leg muscle strength, but not in all muscles necessary for lower limb control and stability. un-exercised subjects have significantly lower peak emg signals than healthy subjects. in a longitudinal study, some training subjects exhibited healthy emg characteristics in muscles that act eccentrically during stand-to-sit after training. this suggests that downhill training does aid in the rehabilitation of eccentric motor control of some subjects with isci. results show that individuals with isci exhibit statistically significant deficits in lower limb control and eccentric muscle activation. bws downhill training has negative training effects on more subjects than it has a positive training effect on in terms of lower limb control and joint stability. some subjects exhibit positive training effects in terms of eccentric muscle activation during stand-to-sit. a larger sample size is needed to make stronger observations of the training effects of downhill training. there are some topics plato returns to again and again in his dialogues. sometimes he does this to reiterate the same reply, sometimes to introduce a novel answer, and sometimes to address the question in a novel way. among the questions plato repeatedly addresses is: what is the nature of justice? what kind of thing is it, and how—if at all—is it in a person's interest to be just? and how does a person become just? as many scholars read plato, early attempts at answering this question are largely unsuccessful, hampered by the early plato's allegiance to distinctively socratic modes of philosophy, the most notable example of this failed approach being found in the gorgias. on this view, the republic represents plato's progression from the early, largely negative socratic ethics and the introduction of his better, more mature account of justice, built on the foundation of a highly un-socratic metaphysical theory. this dissertation argues, by contrast, that there is more than this to be said for the gorgias—deeply socratic work though it is—and that the republic, for all the ways it represents a new developmental stage in plato's philosophical career, is fundamentally continuous with the gorgias on the question of justice. the dissertation works toward this conclusion from both ends. the argument starts by showing of the gorgias that it has more to say about justice than is sometimes thought, even as it preserves the central ethical content of so distinctively socratic a work as the apology. finally, i show of the republic that, mature work though it is, we find in the essential features of its characterization of justice a clear continuity with the socratic account of virtue in the gorgias and apology. a look at the phylogenetically widespread class of flavin-dependent monooxygenases shows that little is known of those involved in biosynthetic pathways. two homologous flavin-dependent enzymes described in this work, ornithine monooxygenase (omo) from aspergillus fumigatus and lysine monooxygenase (lmo) from klebsiella pneumoniae, initiate hydroxamate siderophore biosynthesis in their respective pathogens. understanding how the enzyme class functions could lead to design of rational inhibitors to be used for the eradication of hydroxamate siderophore-producing pathogens. at the inception of this project, the omo and intact lmo proteins had not yet been expressed or characterized from any organism. the chemical and kinetic mechanisms, as well as 3d-structure, for any representative siderophore-associated monooxygenase, were unknown. omo was especially amenable to spectroscopic characterization and therefore the focus of the majority of this work. omo was first characterized in the steady-state, as it would exist in the cell. transient steps were then examined, allowing derivation of a more detailed mechanism and gave the first insights into how the biosynthetic enzymes might be distinct among all those that use flavin. the substrate l-ornithine plays a unique regulatory role in the oxidative half reaction, which has never been described for a flavin-dependent monooxygenase. this led to the pursuit of a study on the oxygen-dependent reaction as a function of substrate analogs and as a function of ph. a type of protein regulation yet again unforeseen in this class of enzymes is demonstrated, which may help to explain how biology regulates, temporally and spatially, the production of the important metabolites that they produce. the structure of a homolog of omo shows that a strictly conserved histidine in n-hydroxylating monooxygenases resides on the side of the flavin opposite to the site of substrate binding. his91 mutagenesis in omo shows that this residue plays a role in the formation of a stable flavin-peroxide species, fundamental to substrate hydroxylation. altogether these findings define the behavior of a new subclass of flavin-dependent monooxygenases that are involved in important biosynthetic processes. the results may help explain how diverse and biologically vital biosynthetic pathways are regulated, in diverse organisms from bacteria to plants. in this dissertation i argue that by focusing on different forms of female desire contemporary caribbean american women writers reinvent the literary genres of the romance and the historical novel and, in doing so, extend notions of what constitutes us-american literature and history. they create alternative accounts of us-caribbean political and cultural relations that underscore the connection between women's desire for intimacy and national belonging on the one hand, and autonomy and independence on the other hand. i analyze the depiction of female desire in three contemporary english-language novels by us authors with origins in the hispanoand francophone caribbean: haitian american edwidge danticat's the farming of bones (1998), dominican american julia alvarez's in the name of salom (2000), and cuban american ana men ndez's loving che (2003). these authors challenge traditional representations of women's participation in nation building which link the female body to national territory and limit women to being suffering mothers, virgin lovers, or seductive traitors. instead they privilege the embodied experiences of women based on specific material and historical conditions. this emphasis on the personal, intimate aspect of history foregrounds the implication of women in creating historical discourse and in developing transnational identities in the americas. asymmetric catalysis is fundamentally important in the creation of molecules that contain chiral centers, which is the case for many biologically active molecules. the process for choosing an appropriate chiral ligand and metal catalyst to confer high enantioselectivity for a desired stereospecific transformation is mainly accomplished through very expensive experimental screening. the expense can be dramatically reduced with the use of computational methods that can predict subsets of ligands that will induce high selectivity. to create computational tools that can aid in the accurate prediction of highly selective chiral catalysts, in-depth, atomistic knowledge of the reaction mechanism is necessary.the q2mm method has previously been used to generate a molecular mechanics force field that can predict experimental enantioselectivity for the rhodium-catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenation of enamide substrates. a limitation of the screening process is that it requires manual creation of the three dimensional structures for the screening process. a series of programs and scripts are implemented to rapidly generate three-dimensional libraries of ligand-catalyst-substrate combinations. this virtual screening technology dramatically reduces the setup time for screening implementation and makes it more accessible to a chemist that is less familiar with computational software.the hydrogenation of acrylamide using chiral rh(i) complexes is an attractive method for the enantioselective synthesis of highly functionalized intermediates. the mechanism of the reaction is not as well understood as that of the hydrogenation of the enamide substrates. the hydrogenation of acrylamide with simple rh(i) bisphosphine complexes was studied at the b3lyp/lanl2tz(f)/6-31++g** level of theory. the minimum energy reaction pathway was found to involve attack of the molecular hydrogen parallel to the c-rh-p bond, followed by an isomerization at the stage of the dihydride complex to give an altered orientation of the hydride, which is the transferred to the beta carbon.in examining modern ligands that induce high selectivity in hydrogenation reactions to use within tsff for the prediction of selectivity, ferrocene based ligands show high promise and a necessary inclusion in virtual screens. the existing mm3* force field does not have parameters for ferrocene, so a ground state force field was created for ferrocene based ligands using the q2mm method. the ground state force field is compatible with the enamide force field and is able to reproduce dft structure and enthalpy data.the ruthenium-catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenation of simple ketones is another well-studied reaction that is widely used in organic synthesis. a transition state force field for the hydrogenation of ketones using bisphosphine-rucl2-diamine complexes has been created through the implementation of the q2mm process. the completed force field was able to predict enantioselectivity in comparison to experimental selectivity from the literature with a mue of 2.7 kj/mol. anitibiotic resistance is developing at an alarming rate and is one of the world's most pressing health problems. new methods for developing microbe-selective antibacterial agents including novel small molecules and molecular antibiotic delivery systems that challenge existing bacterial resistance mechanisms and limit the emergence of resistance are described in this dissertation. siderophores are multidentate fe(iii) chelators used by bacteria for fe-assimilation. siderophores are important therapeutic agents in the treatment of chronic fe-overload diseases. sideromycins, also called siderophore-antibiotic conjugates, are a unique subset of siderophores that enter bacterial cells via siderophore uptake pathways and deliver a toxic antibiotic in a 'trojan horse' fashion. sideromycins represent a novel antibiotic delivery technology with untapped potential for developing sophisticated microbe-selective antibacterial agents. significant advancements in the design, syntheses, and understanding of sideromycins are described in chapters 2-6. linear trihydroxamate sideropohores were found to be gram-positive selective antibiotic delivery vectors and the full trihydroxamate siderophore backbone was necessary for siderophore-associated active transport into bacterial cells. maintaining high fe(iii)-affinity was important for sideromycins to compete with siderophores for entry into bacterial cells. changing the siderophore structure changed the microbe-selectivity of sideromycins. antibiotics with intracellular targets were useful against gram-positive pathogens and antibiotics with periplasmic targets were useful against gram-negative pathogens. sideromycins were found to bring new life to antibiotics that fail to enter bacterial cells due to permeability problems. finally, a microbe-triggered antibiotic release process was not required for activity, but was desired to maximize sideromycin potency. the work from chapters 2-6 culminated with the discovery of a trihydroxamate-fluoroquinolone sideromycin with potent and selective activity against staphylococcus aureus sg511 (mic90=1 ìâm) and a mixed ligand biscatecholate-monohydroxamate-ì¢-lactam sideromycin with potent and selective activity against acinetobacter baumanii atcc 17961 (mic90=0.0078 nm). the discovery of a structurally novel small molecule antibacterial scaffold based on n-alkyl-n-(pyridin-2-yl)hydroxylamines is described in chapter 7. the scaffold was discovered from antibacterial testing of a compound library generated from nitroso diels-alder and ene chemistry. the scaffold had selective and potent antibacterial activity against micrococcus luteus atcc 10240 (mic90=2 ìâm) and other gram-positive organisms, including resistant strains of s. aureus (mrsa) and e. faecalis (vre). centrosome duplication normally occurs once per cell cycle. while centriole number determines the number of centrosomes, it remains unclear whether or not centrosomes can duplicate in the absence of centriole elongation. to test this, chinese hamster ovary cells were arrested in s-phase, and thus were capable of undergoing repeated rounds of duplication without coordinate cell cycle progression. microtubule polymerization was subsequently inhibited, allowing the centrosome duplication cycle to continue but preventing the elongation of centrioles. by immunofluorescence, it was found that after 60h of s-phase arrest in the absence of microtubule polymerization, multiple ìøå¤-tubulin-containing structures form, often close to the nuclear envelope. by electron microscopy, it was verified that these structures lacked centrioles. after colcemid is removed, these structures assembled morphologically and functionally normal centrosomes. importantly, the number of centrosomes that assemble following colcemid removal is similar to the number of true centrioles that assemble during s-phase arrest alone. therefore, the reduplication of centrosomes during s-phase arrest does not require an intact microtubule network. in addition, there is a duplication event that repeatedly occurs during s-phase that does not require the formation or elongation of daughter centrioles. such a duplication event could represent the formation of a centrosome precursor structure, which has the capacity to assemble a complete centrosome. tektins represent a conserved family of proteins are thought to confer structural stability to the axonemal doublets. however, the role of tektins in somatic cells is unclear. here, the possible roles of tektins in centrosome duplication and cytokinesis are examined in mammalian cells. to determine the role of tektin in centrosome duplication, sirna of tektin 1 or 3 in s-phase arrested cho cells was shown to prevent centrosome reduplication, indicating that that these proteins are required for the centrosome to duplicate. additionally, sirna of tektin 2 in mitotic cells prevented the formation of the midbody, and caused the mislocalization of known midbody matrix proteins. therefore, a key role for tektins in the centrosome duplication cycle has been shown. in addition, a novel function for tektin 2 maintaining the midbody and completing cytokinesis has been shown. in this work, i present the development and improvement of capillary electrophoresis (ce) methods and instrumentation. included are advancements made for two-dimensional ce separations, the development and characterization of an online sers detector for ce, an automated fraction collector for ce separations, a current sinking power supply for electrospray ionization mass spectrometry that is used with a ce instrument, and the development of an instrument and method for high through-put aptamer generation termed 2d-ce-selex. this document presents work examining open source software (oss) project and developer networks, built from concurrent versions system (cvs) log data, from topological and temporal perspectives. statistical analysis, visualizations, and comparison of two major oss communities are presented. one aspect of this study is the nature of developer ties, how repeat ties affect long-term project popularity and development on sourceforge, as well as the distributions of various temporal measurements. lastly, we examine evolutionary trends of the collaboration network. network slices in yearly increments are analyzed to determine how centralities change from year to year, where new developers and projects join the network, and the change in modularity and number of communities in each network. in this thesis, we develop a hydrodynamic technique for the rapid concentration of dilute suspensions using the inertial secondary flow in the rotating parallel plate system. the major purpose of this thesis is the improvement of bioparticle detection by accelerating the sample preconcentration process. current techniques such as centrifugation, filtration, dielectrophoresis, and immunomagnetic separation are time consuming and have sample volume limitations. the mechanism we employ is the shear induced secondary flow produced in the rotating upper plate and stationary lower plate system. this flow field has been well established by a regular perturbation expansion (e.g., mellor, et al., 1967). we couple this flow to the particle motion model of a rough sphere interacting with a smooth plane (king & leighton 1997). the model was tested experimentally and showed good agreement with no adjustable parameters. in addition to studies of the unmodified parallel-plate geometry, we also examined a modified geometry produced by adding triangular bumps at the bottom plate to accelerate inward particle migration. we investigate the interaction between particles and this bump geometry through both experiment and the simulation results. while the bumps were found to accelerate inward migration, they also imposed limitations on allowable rotation rates which prevented an overall improvement in concentration under some conditions. we conclude by identifying the scaling laws necessary for further design improvement. in this contemporary retrieval of the christian doctrine of original sin oriented toward an apocalyptic perspective, we pursue a deeper understanding of this doctrine that is built upon a rigorous and critical retrieval of the ideas of karl rahner and ren&eacute; girard. their diverse insights reveal the historicity of sin in a remarkable way. they show not only that the universality of original sin is grounded upon the fact that sin happened at the beginning of human history, but also that the concrete historical effects of our decisions continue to have a deleterious influence upon the exercise of human freedom, such that all of our decisions are codetermined by a prior history of guilt and distorted desire. sin truly has a history, and our concrete actions are the means by which this history makes progress toward our death and self-annihilation. at the same time, from within human history the truth of the gospel struggles against the escalation of sin and works to bring human history out of the meaninglessness of evil and toward realizing and revealing the deeper meaning of the world in view of the eschatological future. rather than reducing the truth of original sin to a simple formula, we proceed by showing the complex and profound interrelation of several different theological aspects. guided by rahner and girard and in conversation with contemporary viewpoints, we explore issues of human evolution, history, freedom, desire, and the ways in which society and culture incline us toward sin. we then constructively expand upon these ideas. linking rahner&rsquo;s theology with girard&rsquo;s apocalyptic perspective, we illustrate the ways in which sin continues to make progress in our world: by infiltrating and distorting our naturally-good desires, aesthetic systems, societal institutions, and even our very biological nature. these reflections are ultimately directed toward combining a deeper appreciation of divine grace with a revitalized christian ethic of striving toward justice even in the face of escalating violence. by our actions for a better world, we hope for the transcendent and apocalyptic victory of divine love over original sin. in the past decade, violent protests have been on the rise. we have seen riots not only against authoritarian regimes, as in the arab spring, but also defying reforms or structural problems in consolidated democracies, as we witnessed with the yellow vest protests in france or the george floyd protests in the united states of america. however, violent protests are more common in weak democracies, which combine civil and political rights with ineffective institutions. weak democracies have several incentives for violent protests and yet, these events vary not only across but within countries. how do we explain that some regions are more or less likely to shape violent protests within a weak democracy?scholars have mostly focused on whether the protesters or the state explain violent protests. and the ones that pay attention to the interaction, generally look only at the effects of state repression. from a relational approach, my dissertation proposes a theory of violent protests that focuses on state accommodation capacity and on how the interaction of this capacity, through conflict prevention agencies, and civil society organizations generate higher or fewer chances to use violent repertoires. my argument is that subnational regions with robust conflict prevention agencies and structured civil society organizations will be less likely to have violent protests. the interaction of these two factors generates the mechanisms needed to institutionalize a dialogue dynamic that may not be exempt from protests, but it is from the use of violence. we need to pay attention to state accommodation capacity.i develop my argument by comparing the likeliness of violent protests in four regions of post-fujimori peru, from 2001 to 2018. with ineffective institutions, which implies a weak state and a poor representation, peru should have a higher rate of violent protests. however, there are regions where the use of violent repertoires is less frequent. employing interviews, an original database of protests from 2008 to 2018, and archival data from local newspapers and reports in arequipa, puno, lambayeque, and cajamarca, i show that when robust local cpas and a non-competitive ecology of csos are in place, the likeliness of violent protest will reduce. conversely, when one of these two factors is missing, we will see that the mechanisms that deactivate violence will not function and multiple actors will have more incentives to radicalize/repress. a collection of stories about family, and culture, and the living mexican landscape. animal associated microbes—from single microbial taxa to whole microbial communities—have profound effects on animal health. yet despite their importance, scientific understanding of the forces that shape host-associated microbial populations and communities is limited. a growing body of empirical work indicates that host social organization and behavior play a strong role in shaping these microbial populations and communities. if true, social effects on animal-associated microbes would constitute an unappreciated evolutionary consequence of social interactions and a new means by which social behavior affects animal health. however, many non-social forces—from host physiology to microbe-microbe interactions—also play strong roles in shaping microbiota. i used genetic, behavioral, and comparative analyses to investigate the effects of both social and non-social factors on gut and vaginal microbiota at inter-host, intergroup, and interspecies levels. i did so using data from a well-studied population of wild baboons (papio cynocephalus) in the amboseli ecosystem, kenya. i found that both social and non-social forces are important in shaping baboon microbial populations and communities. for instance, using strain typing to document the spread of escherichia coli between baboon individuals and groups, i found that geographic overlap between baboon social groups promotes the spread of e. coli across host populations. further, using next-generation sequencing of baboon vaginal microbiota, i found strong effects of baboon reproductive state on the relative abundance of microbial taxa, especially during ovulation. however, microbial diversity was linked to host promiscuity and females with more similar histories of sexual partners harbored more similar microbial communities. finally, to understand the physiological mechanisms and evolutionary processes underlying interspecies variation in vaginal microbiota, i analyzed comparative data on vaginal tract ph and lactobacilli relative abundance from 26 mammalian species. i found that interspecies variation in the vaginal microbiome was not attributable to either differential reproductive physiology or evolutionary selective pressures for protective microbes. overall, my dissertation provides new information on when social behavior influences host-associated microbial community structure and contributes to our understanding of the forces responsible for inter-host, intergroup, and interspecies variation in commensal microbial communities. ecosystem functions, which drive global cycles and provide services to humans, can be influenced by losses and gains of nutients, detritus, and organisms from beyond an ecosystem's boundaries (i.e., resource subsidies). anthropogenic disturbances, such as the transport and release of invasive species and chemical contaminants, can disrupt the functioning of ecosystems and i examined how these stressors caan influence the flux of resources across ecosystem boundaries. ionic liquids (ils) are a novel class of chemicals with great potential for industrial use yet they /may pose a threat to aquatic habitats. i found that certain ils reduce zebra mussel feeding at concentrations well below lethal levels, which, if ils are released into an invaded lake, may alter the flux of resources from pelagic to benthic habitats. european earthworms, which have been introduced to historically earthworm-free north american temperate forests, can reduce forest biodiversity and alter nutrient cycling. i demonstrated that non-native earthworms can also increase the flux of nitrogen from riparian soils by both increasing nitrate leaching and stimulating microbial denitrification. additionally, non-native earthworms may alter the flux of detritus into soil food webs by consuming leaf litter at a high rate and producing nutrient-enriched feces. finally, i present evidence that non-native earthworms may be spreading to new riparian habitats by using stream ecosystems as corridors of invasion. to control how chemical contaminants and non-native species negatively affect ecosystem functions, we must understand that seemingly separate ecosystems can be connected through resource subsidies and, thus, the impact of stressors can move across ecosystem boundaries. despite several discoveries furthering our understanding of nephrogenesis, the factors that influence cell fate decisions within the nephron remain largely unknown. the zebrafish, danio rerio, forms a simple embryonic kidney organized in a proximal-distal pattern of contiguous segments homologous to the human nephron. here, we performed a multiplex chemical genetic screen using zebrafish embryos to determine factors that regulate proximal and distal nephron fate choices. employing this method, we identified prostaglandins as a major player in nephrogenesis, which have been previously shown to dictate liver versus pancreas cell fate decisions. we found that prostaglandin agonists restricted distal segment formation and expanded the proximal segment lineage during nephrogenesis. genetic abrogation or inhibition of the prostaglandin producing enzymes, prostaglandin-endoperoxide synthase 1 or 2a (also known as cox-1/ptgs1 and cox-2/ptgs2a respectively), or the prostaglandin e receptor 2a or 4a (ptger2a, ptger4a), which we found to be expressed in renal progenitors, triggered an alteration in the balance of distal segment fates. of particular note, distal segment fate in ptgs1 or ptgs2a deficient embryos was rescued by exogenous prostaglandin treatment. further, we saw that overexpression or inhibition of the prostaglandin pathway significantly altered the renal progenitor expression domains, sim1a, irx3b, and mecom, which are necessary for proximal and distal tubule patterning. epistasis studies suggest that prostaglandin signaling functions upstream of these transcription factors. taken together, these findings show for the first time that prostaglandin signaling is an essential component of nephron cell fate choice, and indicate that the prostaglandin family may have considerable implications in understanding how to treat kidney failure that arise from congenital kidney diseases and end-stage renal disease. heeding the theoretical evidence in favor of supersymmetry(susy) as a candidate for physics beyond the standard model (sm), two important questions become immediately apparent. first, how can we search for susy? second, what can we learn from these searches? it is these questions that guided the choice of investigation for this theis. here i present two practical phenomenological studies of susy parameter space, which are now in ongoing experimental development. the two processes i focus on are the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon, and the rare meson decay $b_s ightarrow mu^+ mu^-$. for both of these processes to be experimentally interesting, the ratio of the vacuum expectation values of the two higgs fields, $ aneta = langle h_u angle / langle h_d angle$, must take on large values. thus i spend some time motivating large values of $ aneta$ to facilitate interest in this region of parameter space. i shall show that the muon anomalous magnetic moment gives access to information about the slepton and gaugino sectors of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (mssm), and the rare decay $b_s ightarrow mu^+ mu^-$ allows the extraction of information about the squarks, the higgs sector, $ aneta$, and possibly the origins of susy breaking. both of these have the possibilty to provide circumstantial evidence for susy, or become useful constraints on susy models. gpus provide a fast but simplified architecture that leads to major challenges in implementation of algorithms. this document looks at how this can be applied to scientific problems that require both rigor and performance.this work looks at solving three different problems by utilizing the gpu for visualization and computation. firstly, it looks at exploring better methods of creating accurate and realistic 3d models from laser scan data and photographic images. secondly, it explores the implementation of a coarse-grained molecular dynamics algorithm on the gpu and the how the factors of the simulation affect the performance and accuracy. finally, it looks at transitioning part of an mpi particle laden flow simulation code to utilize the gpu as well as the challenges associated.this work demonstrates that by implementing algorithms to utilize the power of the gpu provides an opportunity for providing scholars to be able to research more effectively and efficiently. firstly, by using gpus, effective on-site feedback can be provided for architects and archaeologists who are collecting data as well as off-site scholars attempting to explore this data after collection. secondly, the performance of molecular dynamics simulations can be improved by $\approx6\ imes$ whilst keeping the accuracy, allowing for faster drug research and development. finally, a particle laden simulation's mpi particle update calculations can be migrated to the gpu to improve the performance by $\approx14\ imes$, allowing for more accurate exploration of areas such as pollution dispersion in the atmosphere. t-cell receptors (tcrs) are clonotypic, heterodimeric receptors on the surface of t-cells which possess complementarity determining region (cdr) loops similar to immunoglobulins. their function is to interact with peptides presented on major-histocompatiblity complexes (mhcs) on the surface of most nucleated cells. the tcr of a circulated t-cell (one which has undergone selection in the thymus) binds to an mhc presenting a 'non-self' peptide with a stronger affinity than mhcs presenting 'self' peptides. the tcr must be able to distinguish between these two cases despite the fact that the majority of the potential interface is conserved between the two. to assess to what extent the different portions of the tcr-pmhc interface contribute to binding, we quantify the contributions to binding of the side-chain contacts between the residues at the interface through double-mutant cycles. in a double mutant cycle between two residues, binding experiments are performed between i) the native partners, ii) the two partners with one residue mutated to alanine, iii) the two partners with the other residue mutated to alanine and iv) the two partners with both residues mutated to alanine. the interaction energy between those two residues is defined as native free energy change minus the free energy changes of the two single mutants, plus the free energy change of the double-mutant; ddgint = dg(xwt-ywt) dg(xz->a,ywt) dg(xwt,yz->a) + dg(xz->a,yz->a). by comparing the interaction energies of the tcr/peptide residue pairs and the tcr/mhc residue pairs, we can approximate the relative contributions of the peptide and the mhc to tcr/pmhc binding. double-mutant cycles allow us to compare the contributions to affinity from contacts made by the germline cdr 1&2 loops and the variable cdr3 loops between the a6 tcr and the hla-a2/tax9 pmhc. our results show a strong favorable interaction energy between cdr3 alpha and the mhc. these data suggest that despite the strong immunological pressures, the energetic profile of tcr recognition may be more malleable or variable than previously thought. alternative means of malaria control are urgently needed. vector targeted malaria control campaigns require good grasp of the biology and population structure. use of insecticide treated nets has been recommended and control by genetic manipulation of the vectors considered.evaluating the effectiveness of measures that involve genetic manipulation of vector populations will be facilitated by identifying small, genetically isolated vector populations. the study was designed to recover anopheles.gambiae 2la inversion distal breakpoint structure and to establish snps and use variation in both snps and microsatellite markers to look at genetic structure across 4 lake victoria islands and 2 surrounding mainland populations and for evidence of any restriction to free gene flow. four islands (from 20-50 km apart) and two surrounding mainland populations (96 km apart) were studied. samples of indoor resting adult mosquitoes collected over two consecutive years were genotyped at marker loci distributed broadly throughout the genome and analyzed for general population structure and for marker comparisons. effective population size (ne) estimates showed island populations to consist of smaller demes compared to the main-land ones. most populations were significantly differentiated geographically, and from one year to the other. average geographic pair-wise fst ranged from 0.014-0.105, and several pairs of populations had ne m < 3. the loci showed broad heterogeneity at capturing or estimating population differences. snps confirmed microsatellite population structure though at lesser resolution. these islands are significantly genetically differentiated; with real differences that reoccurred over the study period, from the two mainland populations and from some of each other. this appears to be the product of their separation across water, dynamics of small populations and local adaptation. with further characterisation these islands could become possible sites for applying measures evaluating effectiveness of control by genetic manipulation. the 2la breakpoint was successfully cloned, found monophyletic across a. gambiae siblings' inverted karyotypes and a diagnostic pcr based molecular karyotyping assay developed. the pcr based 2la molecular diagnostic will greatly facilitate study of inversion biology in natural populations. this dissertation examines, clarifies, critiques, and, in the end, enriches hans urs von balthasar's theological vision by exploring more adequately the place of historical oppression, suffering, and liberation within his theodramatic account of jesus christ, the christian life, and history. four questions are posed as a challenge to balthasar: to what extent does he present the christian life 1) as life-in-the-world, 2) with a challenge to the status quo of the world, 3) with a call to transform the world, 4) and as shaped by the preferential option for the poor? after outlining these fundamental questions the dissertation begins with discussions of ignatian spirituality and the idea of a theodramatics. the second chapter builds upon these foundations by exploring balthasar's christology and anthropology of mission. here the christian life is conceived of as fully in-the-world as one responds to god's call to act in and for the world in accordance with love. the third chapter responds more directly to the second and third questions as it develops balthasar's account of history, human action, and the kingdom of god. this chapter concludes with a critical reading of balthasar's responses to liberation theology. the culminating chapter focuses its attention directly upon the place of the preferential option within balthasar's theology. balthasar affirms the preferential option as ethical/political and as part of our understanding of god. this affirmation is unambiguous and yet rather formal -it remains underdeveloped and at the periphery of his work. through an engagement with the work of jon sobrino, balthasar's account of the life, death, and resurrection of jesus and the christian life today is reconfigured in two ways: in his aesthetics by focusing our gaze on the particularity of jesus christ and his merciful love of the poor; in his theodramatics by attending to the role of historical oppression within our relation to god and one another and to the place of the preferential option within a theodramatics attentive to the suffering of the poor and vulnerable. this widening of balthasar's vision concludes with an engagement with the figure of oscar romero within balthasar's theology of sanctity. lab on a chip devices utilizing microfluidics and nanofluidics have the capability of bringing a paradigm shift in medical and analytical technologies. given the large surface to volume ratio in these devices, as well as the small length scales involved, the basic fluid manipulating mechanisms in these systems, including electrokinetics, electrohydrodynamics, capillary phenomena, etc. are quite different from the bulk pressure gradient systems found in almost all engineering devices at large length scales. these surface phenomena have traditionally received widespread attention, and there are specific theories explaining their behavior under standard conditions. however when the experimental system is modified to include non-standard forcing, the conventional theories fail. for example, using an ac electric field instead of a dc electric field for electrospraying produces dramatically different results, which can not be explained from dc electrospraying theories. in this work four such anomalous microfluidic behaviors are examined in detail. we focus on systematically studying and classifying our observations and on providing a mechanistic explanation behind the departure from conventional theories. in the first part of this work, we focused on ac electrospraying, which was broadly classified into a low and a high frequency regime. at low frequencies a resonance effect was dominant, which produced specific polyhedral shapes and enhanced the flow rate. at high frequencies, significant departure from dc spraying occurred, and new spraying modes were seen. a combination of the applied frequency and sample conductivity along with the applied voltage determined the exact spraying mode. the difference from conventional spraying behavior was explained. in the second part, the use of ac electrospraying was extended to entirely different areas. we demonstrate the use of an ac electric field for electrospinning in chapter 3, and report the generation of novel multi-stranded threads. it was found that the use of an ac field, lead to the localization of the whipping instability, and formation of the threads. in chapter 4, drops generated by electrospraying were studied, and a unique multi-ring phenomenon was observed. it was found that this behavior was independent of the applied field. instead precipitation dynamics were responsible for the slip-stick behavior seen. in chapter 5, the ac electrospraying set-up was used for generating a non-contact converging flow in a small volume of a liquid suspension. this converging flow acted as a particle trap and increased the local concentration at the stagnation point. suitable modifications were used to generalize the particle trap under different flow conditions, and in conjunction with raman scattering, the particle trap was used for bacteria detection. the purpose of this pilot initiative is to identify a better measure for assessing the moral atmosphere on collegiate athletic teams. it is believed that an athlete's moral reasoning, judgment regarding caring, and helping as well as aggression (i.e. backtalk), are related to his/her team's moral atmosphere. by asking participants to explain the reasoning behind their judgment, this study looks to (a) explore the athlete's perception of their team environment with the purpose of identifying pro-social collective norms. the hypothesis is pro-social collective norms will be both prevalent and persuasive within collegiate athletic teams. second, this study will (b) attempt to further examine the feelings about these norms as it pertains to their original source. specifically, this study hopes to investigate whether collective norms are established and maintained by the coach or organization (top-down) or if they develop and are institutionalized by the team members themselves (bottom-up). the hypothesis is that the collective or community norms established within the context of the group (bottom-up) will have a positive, powerful, and persuasive influence on the members of the team. results supported both of the aforementioned hypotheses. the prior studies naturally assume that wives' gender attitudes and resources are key elements in predicting their husbands' housework. i argue, however, that this emphasis on women's attitudes and income in affecting division of domestic labor leads to an overlook on the possibility that men's housework is only affected by their own or other men's attitudes and resources. drawing on the nationally representative data, this research examines how these two perspectives explain men's housework in china. results indicate that men's attitudes and income are primary factors predicting their own housework time, whereas women's attitudes and income have much less prominent effects. results suggest a dominant logic of patriarchal culture in china, that is, it is men's own attitudes and income, and men's comparisons with other men that affects their behaviors. it further explains why the gender revolution is stalled in china even though women's income and educational levels have been widely improved in recent decades. mediation analysis investigates how certain variables mediate the effect of predictors on outcome variables. existing studies of mediation have been limited to normal theory maximum likelihood (ml) or least squares with normally distributed data. because real data in psychology are seldom normally distributed, classic methods often lead to biased or inefficient parameter estimates, which make the result of mediation analysis misleading. to circumvent these problems, this dissertation proposes to utilize robust methods for parameter estimation, and then to evaluate the mediated effect based on robust estimates. theoretical details of robust procedures for mediation analysis are provided. their properties are investigated via simulation studies, and results suggest that (a) the most commonly used sobel z method relying on ml point and information-based standard error (se) estimates has the worst overall performance; (b) the distribution of the product confidence interval based on robust point and sandwich-type se estimates has the best overall performance. applications of robust procedures are illustrated using real data examples, which show that robust procedures provide more reliable results. recent scholarship on early christianity has witnessed a great deal of interest in the identity of that movement, particularly with respect to the diverse forms of christianity and their relationships to judaism. one conclusion many scholars involved in studying these questions have reached is that there was an early period in the history of the jesus movement in which it would be anachronistic to call it christianity, which then leads to the problem of what to call this movement that would become christianity. however, little attention has been given to the question of what vocabulary was used in identifying those who would later be called christianoi. this dissertation attempts to fill part of that gap with a discussion of a particular subset within the early vocabulary of identification for the jesus movement, namely the use of jesus's names and titles in identifying his followers. the method is historical critical and includes a general discussion of the ancient use of individuals names in identifying various sorts of groups that were appurtenant to those individuals, followed by several chapters treating specific examples of this phenomenon in designations of the early jesus movement, including periphrastic expressions, the label christians, and the labels nazarenes and galileans. finally, inquiry is made into what might have been the vocabulary of identification for this movement in its earliest period, prior to the writing of any of its extant literature. this is done by consideration of the uses of jesus's names and titles in baptism and persecution. in his doctrine of the lord's supper, john calvin emphasizes that christ truly nourishes the souls of believers with his body and blood. this transpires, says calvin, virtute spiritus sancti--by the power of the holy spirit, who is the vinculum--the bond--between christ and his own. such pneumatological emphasis does not appear in calvin's first doctrinal exposition on the sacrament, that is, in his 1536 institutio, but emerges soon after: first, in 1536 in the midst of the lausanne disputation, when he speaks of the spirit as the bond between believers and the ascended christ; then, shortly after, in his first catechism for geneva; and then again, more robustly, with patristic and biblical reference, in the 1539 revision of his institutio. given the distinctive emergence of this emphasis in calvin's thought, the question at the fore of this study is this: what is the provenance--the impetus, the derivation, or source--of calvin's emphasis on the role of the holy spirit with regard to believers' participation in the lord's supper, and, further, his particular expression of that emphasis? with due caution regarding the difficulty of discerning the provenance of any particular element of his thought, this study offers a consideration of 1) calvin's early doctrine of the trinity, 2) the thought of several of his contemporaries, and 3) his patristic references on this point. in the end, calvin's emphasis is suggested to be his assimilation of elements deriving from each of these three resources. finally, calvin's liturgy is considered, since it exhibits a failure on his part to assimilate his pneumatological emphasis liturgically and euchologically. this cross-denominational study explores the relationship between religion, wealth, and social status among the upper class in philadelphia from the closing decades of the nineteenth century to the onset of the great depression. it examines church responses to affluence, describes the religious beliefs that guided members of the upper class, and explores the influence wealthy individuals had within their local churches and broader denominations, particularly through their involvement in congregational formation, church governance, philanthropy, and architectural patronage. in return for their outward commitment to religious principles, wealthy individuals obtained the spiritual capital necessary to secure social status and strengthen class identity. those who used their financial influence to transform the local religious environment helped lay the foundation for the ascendancy of a national religious establishment that upheld mainline protestantism as the religious arbiter for the nation. this research advances our understanding of american social and religious history in the modern era by revealing the prevalence and potency of religious belief among members of the upper class, and by giving heed to the ways in which social class affected religious institutions and their mission. i propose that o'brien and klay present an alternative to plot structure as a means of presenting the experience of the combat soldier in war literature. if we are to embrace the belief that war's inherent confusion, anxiety, and resistance to coherent storytelling makes a construction of narrative through the traditional modes of plot unsatisfying, then what do o'brien and klay present as an alternative? what we see in both works is a development of character as a means to tell the story of war. because of the distinctive qualities of military culture, which inculcates its own ethical code of conduct that distinguishes its members from the civilian public by a peculiar relationship to the body politic, the cultivation of character within the context of combat provides a unique opportunity to develop narrative outside the conventional constructs of plot. this dissertation explores how struggles among labor unions, mexican workers, and sunbelt entrepreneurs shaped modern conservatism. chronicling the business culture of arizona in the twentieth century, i argue that an anti-labor ideology formed out of conflicts among entrepreneurs, labor unions, and mexican workers before world war ii, led to the politicization of many arizona entrepreneurs, and the enshrinement in the local business culture and politics of an anti-labor ideology that contributed to the rise of modern conservatism. opposed to the new deal and to the political influence of labor unions, arizona's entrepreneurial conservatives, such as barry goldwater, developed a successful republican party after world war ii devoted to limiting the political power of labor. in later years, the entrepreneurial conservatism of the sunbelt, exemplified by senator barry goldwater and president ronald reagan, would play a critical role in the rise of the right in national politics and economic life. as a work of political history and western history, this dissertation highlights two important processes: how did anti-labor ideology and the presence of mexican workers shape conservatism in the southwest? i argue that from the beginning of the twentieth century, the presence of mexican workers (and the proximity of mexico) weakened the labor movement in arizona, and contributed to the development of a local entrepreneurial culture that prized low wages and non-unionized labor. outnumbered by the democrats, arizona's republican party pursued an inclusionary conservatism targeted to sell the ideas of reform and opportunity to all classes and races. with a message crafted in a diverse environment, arizonans played an important role in developing a national conservative movement as their anti-labor and small government message went mainstream. initiatives to encourage and maintain diversity within higher education have been in place for decades. however, the vagueness of the definition of "diversity" has left white and minority students to have drastically different experiences at pwis. this project explores the way that racial habitus affects student interactions, and, thus, their conceptualizations of diversity. specifically, this project intends to answer three questions: 1) 1) how does habitus influence conceptualizations of diversity?; 2) are these conceptualizations similar or different amongst black and white students?; and 3) how do these conceptualizations change over time? ultimately, i find: racial isolation leads to structural conceptualizations of diversity; black and white students seem to conceptualize diversity similarly, but with different effects; and structural conceptualizations of diversity have remained consistent over time. this project makes several important sociological contributions to racial habitus, meaning-making around diversity, and to diversity initiatives in higher education. the phlebotomine sand flies are important vectors for human diseases, transmitting different types of pathogens comprising of viruses, bacteria and protozoa in different parts of the world. the most devastating of the vectored diseases are the leishmaniases, with 350 million people at risk in 88 countries. there are approximately 35 different sand fly species transmitting different species of leishmania, the causative protozoa for leishmaniasis; a diasese with at least one non-human reservoir host. the reservoir differs with different vector species. the clinical manifestation and severity of leishmaniasis varies with the different parasites from self-healing cutaneous lesions to life-threatening visceral leshmaniasis. two other, more recent, factors that aggravate the disease are the presence of co-infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) and emergence of resistance to available drugs. the distribution of leishmaniasis encompasses the world, being present in regions of mediterranean basin, middle east, the indian subcontinent and south america, however the distribution across socio-economic levels is more biased towards the poorer segment of the population. the high costs of developing new drugs, along with the low level of income in the affected population has deterred pharmaceutical companies from investing as much in treating this disease as others. while there are available drugs for the treatment of the different forms of leishmaniasis, they are expensive and resistance to them is emerging the parasite. at this point, the main control measure of the disease is based on vector and reservoir host control. due to the high diversity of the reservoir hosts, which include both wild and domestic animals, available to sand flies, disease control through animal control is considered to not be cost effective. vector control remains the main method for disease control yet, in spite of their world-wide impact, sand flies remain relatively understudied, with limited laboratory and genomic resources yet available. while many different leishmania species can be readily cultured and manipulated in the laboratory, sand flies are notoriously difficult to colonize and maintain. with the upcoming genome assemblies for phlebotomus papatasi and lutzomyia longipalpis the available genomic resources for these important vectors will be greatly improved and it is necessary to develop resources that would help with the genome annotation. one such resource that has the potential to improve future genome annotation is a transcript library. in chapter 2 we generate and analyze a normalized est library, generated from total rna and representing the different transcripts expressed at any point in the sand fly lifetime. the est library was generating using all life stages (both adult and immature) as well as both genders (females and males); for females both sugar fed and blood females were used. the sequences generated from sequencing this library were cleaned and assembled with an in house generated pipeline combining several different available tools. also in chapter 2, we identify new proteins potentially involved in digestion and immune response and study their expression levels across different life stages and different feeding conditions. these new proteins are important because of their potential role in the vector-parasite interaction. the leishmania parasite is contained in the sand fly midgut and has to evade both the innate host immune response as well the digestive process. targeting processes at these levels might decrease the chances for a successful transmission of the parasite to a mammalian host. prior to the genome sequencing, a bacterial artificial chromosomes (bacs) library were generated from ph. papatasi containing large stretches of genomic dna. fifteen of these bacs have been randomly selected and sequenced. in chapter 3 we take a look at 15 fully sequenced ph. papatasi bacs in attempt to understand more about what to expect from this genome regarding the number and distribution of repeats and genes. in the same chapter (chapter 3), we make a first attempt to analyze the newly released genome assembly with regards to possible miss-assemblies, inversions and gaps. it is believed that a better understanding of the sand fly genome will help generate possible targets for vector control and in help with better understanding of these organisms in general. one class of possible targets for insecticides (vector control method), in sand flies as well as other vectors, are g-protein couple receptors (gpcrs). gpcrs are 7-transmembrane protein that connect the extracellular world to the intracellular one, transducing a high number of external stimuli into intracellular responses. in chapter 4 we analyze and validate a set of predicted gpcrs for three different vector species: aedes aegypti, a mosquito responsible for transmission of dengue virus, anopheles gambiae, another mosquito, responsible for the spread of plasmodium falciparum, a malaria parasite present in africa and pediculus humanus, a tick. our method for identifying gpcrs results in novel sequences for all three vector species that can at a later time considered for their potential as insecticide targets. in conclusion, these studies greatly add to our knowledge about phlebotomine sand flies genome and transcriptome and are hope to help improve the genome annotation now available in genbank. this dissertation is a study of the strikingly similar prayers found in chapters 27 and 50 of the acts of thomas. these distinctive prayers give evidence of an understanding of spirit that did not survive in the dominant christian church. the prayers in question address the spirit, being feminine in syriac (probably the original language of the work), as 'mother,' 'fellowship of the male,' and 'dove.' the epicleses appeal to the spirit with a series of appellations describing her as one who reveals hidden mysteries, who is a compassionate mother, and who provides joy and rest to her adherents. the prayers ask her to 'come' and be present in the ritual actions of initiatory anointing and eucharist. the dissertation seeks to place these prayers within their historical, literary, and liturgical contexts. the composite nature of the acts of thomas is emphasized, and it is suggested that the author of the unified second half of the work also edited the discrete tales that appear in the first half. in contrast to earlier scholarship, this study suggests that acts of thomas stems from the middle of the third century and has been brought together in its completed form by someone with ties to the northern mesopotamian city of nisibis. the redactor has inserted prayers and speeches into the narrative; some of the prayers were apparently composed for the occasion, but others, including the epicleses of interest to the study, were most likely in use in and adapted from liturgical contexts. the acts of thomas includes several initiation rituals, including those in which the epicleses appear. although there is variety in the rituals, they point to a prominence accorded the oil of anointing, to a eucharist of bread and water, and to a practice of water baptism that is tertiary in significance, if present at all. finally, the dissertation compares the epicleses in form and content with other prayers from the ancient world, and discusses their emphasis on a revelatory figure who is present in ritual action and who provides her adherents with a glimpse of an otherworldly reality. which forms of political association promote peace? peace is usually connected with cosmopolitan unity or the oneness of humanity. my exploration of the relative benefits of a society of states and the pluralistic orders it creates for peace challenges this view. in this dissertation, i examine hannah arendt's thoughts on political association. extensive engagements with three different institutional models characterize arendt's work: the nation-state (in the origins of totalitarianism), the ancient polis (in the human condition), and the modern republic (in on revolution). my study traces the main features of these models and shows how arendt's interest in and understanding of constitutional law and participatory politics lead her to reject both abstract legalism and all-too-concrete nationalism. in my view, arendt's writings evince an acute awareness of how difficult it is to balance the domestic need for robust political participation, public spirit, and care for a particular political "world" with the need, at the inter-state level, to create and maintain a framework of international law. i argue that arendt's political theory does not founder on this tension. arendt underlines the need to maintain a tense equilibrium between these two poles, which is required if we are to avoid the cosmopolitan privileging of international law and institutions above all else. similarly, such a tense and consciously maintained equilibrium enables us to avoid the nationalist conclusion that, in order to be self-governing, a state must possess more or less unfettered sovereignty. in order to back up these assertions, i investigate arendt's novel idea of federalism and her notion of how a constitutional regime can be "augmented and preserved." arendt's concepts of constitutional augmentation and federalism allow us to bridge the gap between domestic and international politics. indeed, her thought suggests the possibility of re-conceiving of states in a way that does justice to both intra-state and inter-state relations. the potential result is something neither idealistic cosmopolitan theory nor conventional realist theory can offer: a nuanced and well-articulated model of a pluralistic society of states. proteins are the 'machines of life' and understanding their motions is crucial to understanding the nature of various diseases, for instance alzheimer's and huntington's. molecular dynamics simulations are useful since they provide a atom-level resolution of a protein's motion. of particular interest are measuring the rates at which different molecular conformations interchange. a significant bottleneck in the use of molecular dynamics is the difference in timescales. as a result, simulations require billions of steps to access slow motions such as protein folding. this work describes the development of a software pipeline to address this issue. the result is a set of software packages aimed at facilitating specific points is the study of proteins: exploratory simulations, conformational sampling, and rate calculations. due to the large number of simulations that need to be run, each step supports the use of distributed systems and supports long-running applications and fault-tolerance. problem addressed is that current approaches suffer from systematic bias and my contribution is an implementation of a method that does not suffer this bias, as well as a distributed computing pipeline. differentiation from hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (hspcs) to committed blood lineages is orchestrated by a network of transcription factors and cytokines that promote lineage specific gene expression while simultaneously repressing genes associated with alternative lineages. in addition to transcription factors and cytokines, small non-coding micrornas (mirnas) also have the potential to influence cell fate decisions through negative regulation of lineage specific genes. the aim of this dissertation was to elucidate the role of two microrna clusters, mirn23a and mirn23b, as well as the transcription factor arid3b, during hematopoietic development in mice. in chapter 1, i characterize a mirn23a germline knockout mouse and observe that loss of mirn23a results in increased b lymphopoiesis at the expense of myelopoiesis, which is the first report of a mirna being necessary for immune cell fate decisions in a genetic knockout model. in chapter 2, i elucidate the molecular mechanisms by which mirn23a influences cell fate decisions and report that mirn23a negatively regulates essential b cell transcriptional networks to promote myeloid development. chapter 3 focuses on the effect of compound loss of both mirn23a and mirn23b mirna clusters using a conditional knockout system, which revealed that loss of both mirn23a and mirn23b results in decreased hspc production and bone marrow cellularity. for the final chapter, i characterize mice deficient for transcription factor arid3b using a conditional knockout system and observe that arid3b is necessary for de novo b cell production. together, this work enhances our understanding of the molecular mechanisms governing hematopoiesis. in this dissertation we discuss the local solvability of two classes of fully nonlinear partial differential equations. in the first chapter we discuss the geometric background of our equations, state our main results and describe the methods for proof. in chapter 2 we prove the prescribed k-curvature equations, for 2 le k le n-1, are always locally solvable, in particular the sign of the right-hand side is irrelevant. the proof is based on the observation that these equations can always be made to be elliptic, so we can use the implicit function theorem. the following three chapters are devoted to the study of degenerate hyperbolic monge-ampere equations. we prove they are locally solvable if the zero set of certain directional derivatives of the right-hand side has a special structure. for the proof, we carefully analyze the linearized operator and then derive the a priori estimates for the linearized equations. after these, we use nash-moser iteration to prove the existence of a local solution. i clarify and critically examine aquinas's claim that the human soul is a part of the human substance, arguing that the claim that the soul is a part is the key to understanding his ontology of the human being. i begin by setting out aquinas's understanding of parthood and then proceed to look critically at the features aquinas attributes to the soul that are particularly relevant to its parthood. such features include the soul's subsistence, its causal interaction with the body, and its status as source of esse of the human being. i conclude with a synthesis in which i argue that the human soul is a part in two ways: as an aristotelian substantial form and as an incorporeal organ analogous to the heart or the eye. i further argue that the picture of the soul that emerges from this account is internally coherent and that that fact, in itself, makes the view defensible, given its considerable explanatory power. this work describes the fabrication of single electron transistors using electron beam lithography and atomic layer deposition to form nanoscale tunnel transparent junctions of alumina (al2o3) on platinum nanowires using either water or ozone as the oxygen precursor and trimethylaluminum as the aluminum precursor. using room temperature, low frequency conductance measurements between the source and drain, it was found that devices fabricated using water had higher conductance than devices fabricated with ozone. subsequent annealing caused both waterand ozone-based devices to increase in conductance by more than 2 orders of magnitude. furthermore, comparison of devices at low temperatures (~4 k) showed that annealed devices displayed much closer to the ideal behavior (i.e., constant differential conductance) outside of the coulomb blockade region and that untreated devices showed nonlinear behavior outside of the coulomb blockade region (i.e., an increase in differential conductance with source-drain voltage bias). transmission electron microscopy cross-sectional images showed that annealing did not significantly change device geometry, but energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy showed an unusually large amount of oxygen in the bottom platinum layer. this suggests that the atomic layer deposition process results in the formation of a thin platinum surface oxide, which either decomposes or is reduced during the anneal step, resulting in a tunnel barrier without the in-series native oxide contribution. furthermore, the difference between ozoneand water-based devices suggests that ozone promotes atomic layer deposition nucleation by oxidizing the surface but that water relies on physisorption of the precursors. to test this theory, devices were exposed to forming gas at room temperature, which also reduces platinum oxide, and a decrease in resistance was observed, as expected. recent studies showed that carbohydrates play critical roles in a lot of biological activities, and conformations of carbohydrates and hydrogen bonds were believed to hold the key to understanding these biological functions of oligosaccharides. since the pioneer work of karplus, spin-spin coupling constants (j-coupling constants) had been the most important and reliable tool in conformational analysis.in this thesis, density functional theory (dft) was used to calculate j-coupling constants involving hydroxyl protons, while systematically changes the dihedral angles of interest. karplus-like equations paramerized were in good agreement with previously reported equations, in which small non-carbohydrate molecules were used as model compounds. newly obtained karplus equations were used to interpret experimentally collected 3jhcoh and 3jccoh coupling constants in methyl-d-ìøåáand ìøå¢-lactoside. low temperature (20 ìø'_å¡c) and mixed solvent (aceton-d6 and water) were applied to reduce the exchange between hydroxyl protons and bulk solvent. most h-c-o-h coupling constants measured were in the 4-6 hz range, which should be expected from a free c-o rotation. however, an exceptionally small coupling (2.8 hz) for h3'-c3'-o3'-h suggested a rotational bias of c3'-o3' bond. changing solvent to dmso reduced the coupling constants further to ~ 1.3 hz, indicating stronger bias in non-protic solvent. this bias was consistent with the gauche conformation of c3'-o3' in crystal structure and was interpreted as potential hydrogen bonding between o3'-h in the glucose ring and ring oxygen (o5) in the galactose ring. the hydrogen bond was studied theoretically, and its strength (~ 4 kcal/mol) was in line with normal hydrogen bond. a few experiments were designed to find direct evidence of this h-bonding. some interesting observations were made, however, none of them could firmly prove the persistency of this h-bond.trans-glycoside linkage coupling pathways c-o-c-h and c-o-c-c are another focus of this thesis. early parameterizations of c-o-c-h and c-o-c-c assumed similar karplus behavior as vicinal h-h couplings. however, there is no rigorous theoretical support of this assumption. in this thesis, it is clearly shown that electronegative substituents can significantly affect the karplus-like behavior of these coupling pathways; hence substituent effects should be considered when interpreting the experimental data. substituent effects are systematically studied for c-o-c-c coupling constants. the results support the usage of karplus-like equations for c-o-c-c coupling pathway, with some necessary modifications when electronegative substituents exist. the milky way is believed to have been assembled through hierarchical mergers to form the galactic structure observed today. galaxies incorporated into the milky way have their stars scattered and displaced, no longer retaining the spatial coherence they once had. to understand these mergers and their impact on the structure of the milky way is a fundamental goal of galactic archaeology, one which is possible thanks to recent advancements in both observational and computational astronomy. in this work, data sets are assembled from large-scale stellar surveys to discover the smallest of these mergers, put them in context with the currently known milky way structures, and track chemical evolution progress throughout the galaxy. associations of remnants to known milky way substructures are recovered, such as gaia-sausage-enceladus, the helmi streams, thamnos, the splashed disk, the metal-weak thick disk, and lms-1 (wukong). previously discovered remnants are, for the first time, analyzed in exhaustive detail to compare relations between discoveries, showing remarkable consistency across the field even when using differing detection methods. evidence of remnants connected to globular clusters is presented, while no known dwarf galaxy connections are recovered. this work presents a crucial step towards understanding the smallest substructure of the milky way. previous research finds that religiosity and participating in church activities are frequently correlated with greater levels of political participation. while latinos are often regarded as being a highly religious social group, however, this does not appear to translate into the expected rates of participation when compared to those of other racial and ethnic backgrounds. one of the most prominent explanations for this offered by the current literature suggests that, because latinos have historically affiliated with catholic churches instead of protestant churches, they are less likely to engage in political activity due to the fewer opportunities available to develop civic skills in a hierarchical religion. fundamentally, this raises the question of whether latinos participate in politics at lower rates because of or in spite of their religious experiences. the above hypothesis, however, tends to treat religious traditions as monolithic without recognizing the different manners in which latinos practice religion in the united states. in this dissertation, i utilize national survey data that takes into account the context under which individuals practice their faith to examine the key ways that religion can mobilize or demobilize individuals for political action: civic skill acquisition, direct political mobilization, religious beliefs, and networks of recruitment. while some religious beliefs lower rates of political engagement among latinos, i demonstrate that, on the whole, churches have a substantial mobilizing effect for the latino population. i conclude that it is in spite of religion that latinos participate at comparatively low rates, rather than because of it. furthermore, i argue that without the mobilization found in churches across religious traditions, latinos would participate at lower rates than they presently do. while recognizing that churches serve an important civic function as a vehicle of political incorporation for latinos and other historically underrepresented groups, the fact that churches (and not political parties or other democratic institutions) have this significant impact also highlights the substantial barriers and ongoing inequality of opportunity that prevent greater engagement of latinos in the american political system. the doctrine of biblical inspiration has been considered suspect for contemporary belief by some christian theologians. patristic thinking about biblical inspiration has been rejected even more widely, with the common accusation being that it downplays the human element in the biblical texts. suspecting that the patristic thinking about biblical inspiration has not been assessed correctly, this study considers what saint augustine says about the importance of believing in the divine inspiration of the bible. augustine does not offer a treatise on biblical inspiration in itself, nor does he say much about how the process of biblical inspiration took place. but he does speak of two common traits of the bible as consequences of its divine inspiration, namely, that the bible has the highest authority and that it is unfailingly true. this study investigates augustine's thinking about the bible as inspired by investigating what he thinks about the bible as authoritative and true.rather than investigate augustine's thinking on these matters within the modern framing of biblical inspiration, this study does so in the context of the saving dynamic of faith seeking understanding. augustine's thinking about the inspired texts is best examined from this context. this study finds that for augustine faith in the bible as inspired, and therefore as authoritative and true, is a crucial component in the believer's saving journey to god through the purification of one's loves and in an increasing participation in god's wisdom. this faith is put in the bible as an authority alongside the authority of christ and that of the catholic church. within the christian system of these three authorities, the biblical texts mentor believers in wisdom, mediate the divine wisdom, teach purification, and impart the correct knowledge of how to "use" temporal things, so that god is attained. indeed, the meanings of the biblical texts can be considered right judgments that, when appropriated by believers, are passageways into an ever greater participation in the wisdom within which god is loved and "enjoyed." efficient treatment with therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mabs) requires mab concentrations above a lower limit in a patient's serum. in some cases, such as bevacizumab treatment, the concentration needs to be within a therapeutic window to ensure effective treatment without side effects. rapid and simple methods to quantify mabs in patients' sera or plasma could enable personalized dosing regimens to increase the effectiveness of these treatments. the research described in this dissertation employed epitope-mimicking peptides (mimotopes) immobilized in porous nylon membranes to capture bevacizumab, rituximab, and panitumumab. terminal modifications and the positions of linkers on the mimotopes are important to ensure a high binding affinity. the target mabs were captured from 25% serum and then eluted with high purity that allowed quantitation using native mab fluorescence. this technique successfully quantified bevacizumab across its therapeutic range.subsequent studies explored mimotope-modified alumina membranes and a fluorescent dye (cy5)-labelled anti-human igg secondary antibody to increase the sensitivity of mab quantitation based on capture in a membrane. lower detection limits are vital for analyses of most therapeutic mabs. selective capture of bevacizumab followed by quantitation using the tagged secondary antibody allowed a &gt;100-fold increase in sensitivity compared to analyses using native florescence of the mab. this technique was effective in quantifying bevacizumab between 0-400 ng/ml in buffer, as well as in 0.1% serum or plasma in under 30 minutes. current work in collaboration with the linnes lab at purdue university focuses on incorporating these membranes into a microfluidics device. these devices will remove red blood cells and capture and detect bevacizumab in less than 15 minutes. such a prototype could prove valuable in developing a point-of-care device for therapeutic drug monitoring. this research aims at addressing the global concern for a peaceful pluralistic society by calling attention to the responsibility of engaging diversities among muslims and christians. it is the position of this study to argue that asymmetric-mutual substitutive hospitality between muslims and christians (nigeria in particular), at the ordinary level, will diminish age-old antagonisms. it will as well generate growth through improved openness for the respect of each other's otherness and deepen one's own particular faith commitments. with a primary focus on the ordinary adherents of both religions, who spontaneously interact with the religious other daily, this study aims at learning from their much-understudied elements of the dialogue of life. above all, it seeks to articulate them into an abrahamic theology of hospitality for the sustenance of peaceful coexistence.this academic work engages an interdisciplinary discourse by applying an aspect of emmanuel levinas' hospitality ethics into an interreligious dialogical pattern. hospitality practice, though, not entirely absent in both muslim and christian traditions, lacks a theological systematization of its values for interreligious purposes between these two major religions. it is part of the goal of this research to fill that theological gap.to attain its goal, this research sets out to awaken mutual hospitable awareness among muslims and christians through a three-step (chapters) approach. the christian-muslim mutual antagonistic past and their previous inadequate altruistic tenets will form the primary concern of chapter one. chapter two will build on the identified problem by introducing the possibility of dialogical embrace as a way forward, but with special concentration on the dialogue of life through hospitality. in chapter three, levinas' substitutive responsibility will be harnessed into a theological model (the abrahamic pilgrim model), through which, ordinary muslims and christians in nigerian are challenged to demonstrate their respective faith by outdoing each other in good works. purge flows are necessary for ensuring that hot gasses do not penetrate the thermally sensitive rim seal and disk cavity regions of turbines. the temperature and mass flow rate of the purge air can affect the component life and aerodynamic performance of a turbine stage. therefore it is of interest to understand the basic mechanisms that govern this complex flow problem. the present work focuses on two turbine rim seal investigations. the first focused on temperature measurements in the rim cavity region of a rotating, high-speed, low-pressure turbine as means to quantify a rim seal's effectiveness. the seal had a realistic geometry with a small axial overlap between the stationary and rotating components. the purge flow rate was varied from 0 to 1 percent of the core mass flow rate. the results will describe the temperatures as well as the seal's effectiveness as a function of the purge flow rate, and turbine operating point. the second was a study on the effect of purge flow on the aerodynamic performance of a turbine stage. exit flow field surveys were taken in both a low pressure turbine stage and a high pressure turbine stage. also a computational study was done on the low pressure turbine stage to add insight into the effect of purge flow on turbine stage performance. in addition, the computation results provide insight into the effect of purge flow on the low pressure turbine blade passage flow field. nominalism, the position that everything is concrete, is an attractive position to many philosophers. however, nominalism faces the serious problem of accounting for ordinary discourse about abstract objects. abstract objects are referred to in all the essential domains of ordinary inquiry and practice, from natural science to the trades. nominalism is thus in need of a novel, comprehensive strategy for nominalistically reconstructing essential ordinary inquiries and practices if it is to be a viable position. this dissertation lays the foundation for a comprehensive nominalist system. it thus significantly raises the credibility of nominalism.the structure of the dissertation is as follows:chapter 1, the introduction, explains the problem that ordinary discourse poses for nominalism and the need for a new paraphrase strategy, criticizing strategies that have already been suggested. chapter 2 articulates a new paraphrase strategy for simple sentences about intrinsic properties of concrete objects. speaking loosely, the paraphrases i suggest are counterfactuals concerning certain inscriptions – one-place open sentence-tokens, specifically – that would exist were there some universes so plentiful and diverse that they collectively realized every way a universe could possibly be. for example, if "pluriverses" are composites of universes that are plentiful and diverse in the way described, 'spiders have anatomical properties' can be replaced with 'were there a pluriverse, spiders in our universe would satisfy one-place open anatomical sentence-tokens.chapter 3 summarizes and defends the assumptions on which my strategy relies. this chapter offers brief justifications of these assumptions and shows how some of them can be dropped by modifying the paraphrase strategy to fit different metaphysical visions.chapter 4 extends the paraphrase strategy to include more sophisticated sentences about intrinsic properties of concrete objects as well as sentences about extrinsic properties of concrete objects, higher-order properties, and dyadic and greater adicity relations.finally, chapter 5, the conclusion, summarizes what has been accomplished and suggests how the paraphrase strategy might be further extended to include sentences about classes and propositions. the objective of this project is to develop a reliable synthesis and characterization procedure for the development of silicate-based nanoshell chemical reactors. these materials may be useful in a wide range of areas including drug and gene delivery, biocatalysis, sensors, and photoactive devices. to achieve this objective, synthesis methods for two types of nanoparticle encapsulating a chemically or photochemically active species in aqueous and hydrophobic cores were evaluated. templates used to form these shells included micelles, gold nanoparticles, and liposomes. model compounds in the form of cascade blue dye, pyrene, and urease enzymes were encapsulated inside the nanoshells. the interdependence of shell formation and model compound encapsulation efficiency was characterized using a variety of colloidal and microscopic methods such as dynamic light scattering, transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and steady-state and time resolved fluorescence. using these methods, nanoparticle yields and size distributions, estimates of the internal viscosity, and diffusion of molecules in and out of the nanoshell as a function of chemical and physical environment were examined. based on these results, the effect of nanoshell encapsulation on the kinetics of chemical reactions and their potential for future applications of these materials are evaluated. drosophila has emerged as an important model system in the examination of the hematopoietic process owing to the conserved nature of many of the transcription factors and signaling pathways utilized to produce blood cells. mirroring vertebrate hematopoiesis, drosophila generate hemocytes in a distinct spatial temporal course. the focus of the following study concerns the definitive wave of hematopoiesis, which occurs in the lymph gland (lg). through microarray analysis, bag-of-marbles (bam) was found to be transcriptionally active in the lg. furthermore, bam was expressed in both the niche cells of the posterior signaling center (psc) and the progenitors of the medullary zone (mz). the progenitor cells of bam mutant lgs prematurely differentiate into all three hemocyte types. additionally, the psc number is dramatically increased and the cells are dispersed throughout the primary lg tissue. these two distinct phenotypes demonstrate that bam has cell-autonomous functions in these separate regions of the lg. in order to further define the function of bam, a sensitized third chromosome deficiency screen was conducted implementing one null copy of bam (bam&#8710;86) and the lamellocyte specific enhancer reporter, msnf9mcherry. through continued screening, two genes were uncovered that displayed a bam-dependent lamellocyte suppression, rab11 and qin. an additional three genes previously unknown to function in hematopoiesis were found to suppress lamellocyte differentiation in a bam-independent manner (msps, cct1, and chavacht). further investigation of the interaction between bam and qin revealed co-localization of the two proteins in early third instar lgs and a significant reduction of hematopoietic progenitors in lgs heterozygous for both bam&#8710;86 and qine03728. forced expression of the c-terminal domain of qin with a mz-specific driver caused significant expansion of the mz, similar to the full-length construct and was able to rescue the reduced lg and mz size characteristic of qin mutants, highlighting the importance of the tudor domains located in this fragment. lastly, qin and bam may be functioning through an epigenetic mechanism as the nuclear localization of hp1a (heterochromatin protein 1a) is altered in heterozygous mutant lgs. together, these findings have provided important insights into the genetic control of hematopoietic progenitor fate in drosophila. historians of the decembrists have long examined the uprisings of 1825 and 1826 and their preludes but have emphasized less the nobles' siberian exile. moreover, studies of the decembrists' social and cultural activities focus mostly on the nobles' experiences in european russia, largely ignoring their pursuits while in siberia. this dissertation fills lacunae in decembrist studies by examining in the english language the siberian experiences of the exiled nobles.this dissertation demonstrates that the decembrists in siberian exile engaged in activities that served the russian empire, but not necessarily the tsarist authorities. through their production of knowledge about siberia, the decembrists raised interest among readers in the european russian metropole and allowed them to imagine the distant region and its people as part of the russian empire. furthermore, the exiles often made policy recommendations based on the knowledge they acquired in siberia. however, the decembrists also demonstrated in their writings the failings of government policies toward the region and its people, thus undermining the tsarist authorities in their readers' eyes.this dissertation moreover argues that despite its brutality, the siberian exile system is not unusual within the context of global history per se. european empires had long used the practice of criminal transportation to remove undesirables from their metropoles and to populate their colonies with a labor force for resource extraction. moreover, like the decembrists, exiles often served as cultural intermediaries between the metropole and the colony. in this dissertation, the development of polymeric nanofiltration membranes that can be chemically tailored for potential applications are introduced. in general, membranes derived from copolymer materials demonstrate an advanced separation platform due to their straightforward fabrication and highly ordered, yet tunable nanostructures. the well-defined pore structure derived from self-assembled morphology exhibit advances in both selectivity and permeability. to date, the most common applications of copolymer membranes are limited to particle filtration by size exclusions. in this research, further efforts are made to selectively incorporate chemical functionalities into this system while taking advantages of its unique structure that combines self-assembly and an amphiphilic grafted morphology. when the copolymer material is fabricated into a membrane, the reactive groups uniformly distribute within the nanochannel generated by phase separation of side chains and backbones. the reactive groups introduced to pore walls allow for the facile solid-state functionalization of the membrane and consequently enhance the membrane performance in multiple applications. performance tests of the membrane suggest significantly enhanced charge-selectivity while the overall membrane nanostructure remains unchanged after chemical modification. furthermore, functionalization using a novel micro-patterning technique allows the development of a fast and versatile modification of membrane chemistry, which results in more selective and chemically affiliated separations. by engineering structural and chemical properties, the functionalized membrane shows its excellence in performance of facilitated ion transport and fouling resistance. the versatile and precise control over membrane chemistry at the microscale provided by the technique suggests the potential in future development of a variety of highly selective membranes. second-generation fluorescent molecular imaging probes were evaluated for their ability to target dead and dying cells. this was accomplished using epi-fluorescence microscopy, whole-body fluorescence imaging and histological analysis. two complimentary approaches for enhanced targeting to the anionic membrane were evaluated: (1) the addition of functionality groups to a single zn-bdpa scaffold for potential secondary interactions at the membrane surface, and (2) the addition of multiple zinc(ii)-bis(dipicolylamine) (zn-bdpa) target ligands to a core squaraine rotaxane deep-red-emitting fluorophore. lead candidate optical probes from approach 1 were evaluated in a subcutaneous prostate tumor model. biodistribution analysis showed that the lead modified zn-bdpa candidate selectively accumulated to the necrotic tumor tissue over 3-fold greater than the unmodified zn-bdpa probe and 7-fold greater than the control dye with no attached target ligand. ex vivo analysis also showed that the zn-bdpa probes had selectively labeled the tumor necrotic foci. approach 2 showed that the tetravalent zn-bdpa probe had greater selectivity for anionic vesicles than the bivalent zn-bdpa probe. both probes were evaluated in cell culture and selectively targeted dead and dying cells over healthy cells. interestingly, the divalent probe entered into the dead and dying cells, whereas the tetravalent probe only stained the membrane periphery. the multivalent scaffold was also applied to bone targeting capabilities. rather than zn-bdpa targeting ligands, iminodiacetate groups were appended to the central squaraine rotaxane core. bivalent and tetravalent iminodiacetate probes were evaluated in slices of bone tissue and in living mice. in vitro tests show that binding to bone was done in a calcium-dependent manner. in vivo results revealed that the tetravalent probe had enhanced affinity for the mouse skeleton that the bivalent version and it colocalized with a commercially available bisphosphonate bone-targeting near-infrared probe. zn-bdpa molecules were further explored as non-covalent triggers for triggering leakage of contents from vesicles. preliminary work had triggered leakage of a quenched dye in cuvette studies. as an extension to this work, the water-soluble prodrug 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ala) was triggered from vesicles. this was further evaluated with modified versions of the trigger in the presence of cells for eventual protoporphyrin ix (ppix) production. the modified trigger successfully improved 5-ala leakage and interestingly improved ppix cellular production greater than free 5-ala. this phenomenon was further tested and revealed over 3-fold increase in ppix cellular production using tyrosine zn-bdpa triggers. the elucidated mechanism is a nontoxic 'popping' of the membrane for greater 5-ala cellular diffusion. the last section of this dissertation uses novel light-absorbing molecules in applications of photothermal therapy (ptt). these molecules, croconaine dyes, are designed to absorb 800 nm laser light and generate sufficient heat to kill cancerous cells. multiple probes were tested for photothermal output and the slightly more lipophilic version was able to selectively destruct cells. this was evaluated in standard viability assays and in a live-dead fluorescence microscopy assay. the lead candidate probe was also evaluated for ptt in a living prostate tumor mouse model. results showed the suppression in tumor growth compared to the control mice for laser-only conditions. overall, the results in this dissertation indicate that next-generation small fluorescent molecular probes can enhance targeting to dead and dying cells. other applications of these molecules include noncovalent triggered release of drug. lastly, a novel strong-absorbing small molecule can achieve selective laser destruction of cells and tumor repression, proving it is an outstanding molecular probe for ptt. there has been increasing demand for accessible radio spectrum with the rapid development of mobile wireless devices and applications. for example, a ghz of spectrum is needed for fifth-generation (5g) cellular communication, but the available spectrum below 6 ghz cannot meet such requirements. fortunately, spectrum at higher frequencies, in particular, millimeter-wave (mmwave) bands, can be utilized through phased-array analog beamforming to provide access to large amounts of spectrum. however, the gain provided by a phased array is frequency dependent in the wideband system, an effect called beam squint. we examine the nature of beam squint and develop convenient models with either a uniform linear array (ula) or a uniform planar array (upa). analysis shows that beam squint decreases channel capacity, and therefore, path selection should take beam squint into consideration. current channel estimation algorithms assume no beam squint, and channel estimation error is increased by the beam squint, further decreasing the channel capacity. three problems involving phased-array beamforming are studied to incorporate and compensate for beam squint. first, we show that carrier aggregation can be used to improve system throughput to a point. we study the optimal beam alignment to maximize channel capacity, and demonstrate that, with sufficient band separation, focusing on only one band outperforms carrier aggregation. approximations are developed for a system with two symmetric bands to determine the critical values of system parameters like band separation, and angle of arrival beyond which it is preferable not to aggregate. second, beamforming codebooks are designed to compensate for one-sided beam squint by imposing a channel capacity constraint. analysis and numerical examples suggest that a denser codebook is required compared to the case without beam squint, and the codebook size increases as bandwidth or the number of antennas in the array increases and diverges as either of these parameters exceeds certain limits. third, to decouple the transmitter and receiver arrays with two-sided beam squint, and to extend conventional codebook design algorithms, codebooks with a minimum array gain constraint for all frequencies and angles of arrival or departure are also designed to compensate for the beam squint. again, either the bandwidth or the number of antennas in the array is limited by the effects of beam squint if the other one is fixed. x-ray bursts are some of the most energetic events known, releasing roughly 1039 ergs in 10 to 100 seconds. the energy for these events is thought to be provided by the explosive thermonuclear runaway occurring near the surface of accreting neutron stars. during the explosive event, the &gamma;p-process, which is characterized by a series of (&gamma;,p) and (p,&atilde;) reactions, may play an important role in determining the time-dependent release of energy. models of x-ray bursts are used to test predictions of the physical characteristics of the neutron star surface, such as the temperature and density, as well as to predict the distribution of nuclei created during the burst. to determine the time dependence of the energy release for the models, nuclear reaction network calculations are performed. these calculations are based on the thermonuclear reaction rates of the reactions taking place during the x-ray burst, therefore the reliability of the burst models is dependent on the accuracy of the reaction rates. to investigate the importance of the &gamma;p-process, the 32s(p,t)30s, 36ar(p,t)34ar, and 40ca(p,t)38ca reactions were studied to determine the excitation energies of the excited states in 30s, 34ar and 38ca above the &#945;-thresholds with uncertainties below 10 kev. the properties of these excited states determine the (&gamma;,p) reaction rates. the experiments were performed at rcnp in may 2008 using 100 mev, dispersion matched protons and the grand raiden spectrometer. thin natural sulfur and calcium foils, each about 3.5 mg/cm2 thick, were used as targets. the sulfur target was enclosed in thin gold layers to keep the target from sublimating while being bombarded with beam. the 36ar target utilized the gas cell designed at rcnp to be used with dispersion matched beam and highly enriched 36ar gas. the 1 mg/cm2 thick gas target was contained in the cell by windows made of 6 ìâm aramid foil. this experiment represents the first time a dispersion matched (p,t) experiment was performed on an extended target. the high precision (p,t) data was collected at the focal plane using the two multi-wire drift chambers, capable of determining horizontal and vertical positions and angles of each ion detected. additionally, two plastic scintillation detectors provided timing and energy loss information, which was used for particle identification. 24mg(p,t)22mg data was used to calibrate the focal plane and an asymmetric slit was used to perform the angular calibration. the high resolution triton data allowed for the full reconstruction of the reaction kinematics at the target and the energy of the states in the residual nucleus could be determined with uncertainties below 10 kev. of the 122 states observed in these experiments, 59 were seen for the first time. for the case of 30s, these mark the first states observed above the &gamma;-threshold. the excitation energies determined here have been used to estimate the astrophysical reaction rates for the 26si(&#945;,p), 30s(&#945;,p) and 34ar(&#945;,p) reactions. the present results indicate a smaller rate compared to the statistically based hauser feshbach rates currently being used in x-ray burst models. the lower rates imply it is possible the nuclear material proceeds through the mass 26 to 38 range more slowly, thus affecting the time distribution of the energy generated during an x-ray burst. with more accurate reaction rates, x-ray burst models are able to more reliably determine the characteristics of the physical environment near the surface of neutron stars. none the accuracy of a biometrics system increases with the quality of the sample used for identification. all current iris biometrics systems capture multiple samples that must be processed to identify a single, ideal image to be used for identification. many metrics exist to evaluate the quality of an iris image. this thesis evaluates current metrics and introduces a method for determining the ideal iris image from a set of iris images by using the mean self-match algorithm to examine the set of true matches. this proposed method is shown to outperform other methods currently used for selecting an ideal image from a set of iris images. the application of this method to face biometrics is also examined. categorization and decision-making were combined in a task with photorealistic faces to test for the presence of racial profiling processes. participants were asked to make a racial categorization and a decision about whether and for which type of crime to apprehend the target face. results indicated that participants did engage in racial profiling behaviors, and did so of african americans and european americans at statistically indistinguishable rates. in addition, results indicated that crime decision-making was dependent on racial categorization and participants made race categorizations before deciding crime apprehension, even when the order of judgments required a crime decision prior to a race categorization. additional findings were that ambiguous-race faces were not racially profiled, and also that these faces were twice as likely to be categorized as african american. the scattering spectra of single gold, silver, bimetallic gold-silver particles (both core-shell and alloyed) were recorded by dark field microscopy. the results show that core-shell nanoparticles have broader scattering spectra than the corresponding pure gold or silver nanoparticles. however, plots of the width of the plasmon resonance versus resonance frequency for the core-shell and alloyed samples are very similar. this observation implies that the broadening is mainly caused by the frequency dependence of the imaginary component of the dielectric constants of the particles. for the core-shell particles scattering at the interface between the two metals does not seem to be a significant effect. the effect of two passive boundary layer flow control techniques, large-eddy break-up (lebu) devices and wall heating/cooling, on turbulent boundary layer induced aero-optical aberrations is experimentally investigated. a series of experiments is performed investigating the effect of lebus on levels of optical aberrations in the turbulent boundary layer. the results of these experiments are analyzed to determine the physical mechanisms responsible for the experimentally observed changes, and to characterize the sensitivity of optical distortions to different lebu device configurations. the effect of moderate levels of boundary layer wall cooling, both for full and partial wall cooling, on aero-optic aberrations is also experimentally investigated, and the results are compared to a statistical model derived using the temperature-velocity relation from the extended strong reynolds analogy and a simple model for the development of thermal sub-layers in partially cooled boundary layers. a method is proposed to use wall heating to passively amplify aero-optic aberrations to measure wavefront distortions in boundary layers with normally weak aero-optical effects. the method is used to study turbulent boundary layers with low reynolds numbers. this work concludes with a brief summary of important findings, and a discussion of the implementation of these flow control techniques for real laser transmitting systems. the last couple of decades have witnessed an explosive development in models, theory and algorithms for inferences of network data. among the many tasks in statistical network analysis, community detection has arguably received the most attention in the literature. however, there are still some gaps in the existing research. for example, most of the literature focuses on the frequentist inference which does not provide an easy path for uncertainty quantification. in addition, a majority of existing work assumes that the number of communities in a network is known which can be restrictive. to address these problems, we propose some bayesian models for community detection in networks by employing novel random partition priors. such models allow uncertainty quantification as well as learning the community structure via posterior inference without having to specify a known number of communities a priori. in chapter two of the thesis, we first propose a bayesian model for weighted networks by employing the chinese restaurant process (crp) as a random partition prior for the community structure, under which a weighted stochastic block model is assumed. in chapter three of the thesis, we then propose a bayesian model for community detection in a sparse weighted network by combining a random partition prior with a spike and slab type model. more specifically, the sparsity of a weighted network (expressed through the probability of forming a zero edge between two nodes) is explicitly modeled as the spike part of the spike and slab distribution. the weighted network is assumed to follow a mixture of the stochastic block model in which both the sparsity and edge weights play a role in informing the community structure of a network. efficient mcmc algorithms are developed, and the model and algorithms are applied to extensive simulation studies and real data analysis. the last chapter (chapter four) of the thesis is devoted to developing efficient algorithms for change point detection in sparse dynamic networks. more specifically, graphon estimators are first obtained, based on which a screening and detection algorithm for detecting change points is proposed. our model is purely nonparametric which does not rely on specific model assumptions and can effectively utilize the network structure for detecting change points. we provide theoretical guarantees of such algorithms by proving consistency of the detection algorithm. the thesis ends with a summary. energy-efficient operation of battery-powered radios is becoming more important to improve device operational times on a battery charge. future radios will also likely take on a more active role in coordinated monitoring and use of the spectrum in shared spectrum environments, placing additional demands on energy management and requirements to operate with tolerance to interference. meanwhile, because of increasing demands on spectrum resources, spectral efficiency (se) is becoming a more crucial design specification of future radio systems. hence, multiple-input multiple-output (mimo) technology is expected to be fundamental to future radios.anticipating the need for energy-efficient, spectrally-efficient, and interference-tolerant mimo systems, this dissertation analyzes the energy efficiency (ee) and se of full-multiplexed mimo systems and adaptive mimo systems under diverse channel and interference conditions. the analysis considers mimo systems with space diversity, polarization diversity, and combined space-polarization diversities. architectures include co-polarized mimo (cp-mimo) arrays, dual-polarized mimo architectures (dp-mimo), and space-polarization mimo (sp-mimo) architectures.the analysis first considers full multiplexing systems in the absence of interference, and assumes that channel state information is not available at the transmitter. emulation results reveal that the performance of space-based systems degrades in space-correlated channels, but that dp-mimo systems provide robust performance across the various channel conditions considered in the analysis. systems that take advantage of channel state information at the transmitter (csit) are addressed next, again in the absence of interference. these adaptive transmission systems employ linear precoding and power control to optimize ee while operating at near-maximum se for the selected number of beams, symbol rate, and constellations. finally, systems that operate in environments with co-channel interference (cci) are considered. these mimo systems employ an interference avoidance (ia) strategy followed by adaptive transmission to optimize ee on the available subcarriers. the minimum energy solution is conditioned on various factors such as channel coding characteristics, linear precoding, ia schemes and channel realizations. a method to identify the optimal transmit power is derived and simulation results show the effectiveness of the ia techniques over mimo fading channels with different cci statistics. the coastal environment during a hurricane is a complex and chaotic one with winds, waves, and atmospheric pressure generating storm surge that can cause potentially catastrophic flooding across hundreds of kilometers of coastline. because of the large spatial scale of the impact of storm surge engineers and scientists employ numerical models to simulate coastal flooding causedby storm surge. however, by their nature numerical models most times cannot capture every process in an event. whether limited by time, knowledge of processes, available technology, or other shortcomings modelers often must sacrifice some level of detail in order for the model to operate in a useful fashion.to compensate for this deficiency the modeler often times must use his or her best judgment to properly capture this process in a parameterized fashion. either by innovation or invention, it is the duty of both the modeler and the civil engineer toutilize the most accurate model and tools available in order to provide the best understanding of storm surge and other catastrophic natural processes and how best to protect and prepare in the case of these catastrophes. while historical events may not fully capture the range of hurricane intensity, they do represent a reasonable sample from which future events may be estimated.through the careful study of historical events it is possible to identify geographically unique localized storm surge processes as well as the underlying fundamental universal processes of storm surge generation, propagation, and dissipation.additionally, historical events for which observational data exists can be used to validate numerical models and their components. it is the author's intent that the work presented in this dissertation aids the field of civil engineering through detailed model validation and analysis of storm surge processes for hurricanes ike (2008, texas) and sandy (2012, new yorkew jersey).additionally, the integration of hydrologic processes into the adcirc coastal circulation model allowing for a more accurate depiction of flooding in the coastal environment during a tropical cyclone is presented. this integration is validated via observed data from hurricane ike and future improvements to increase model accuracy are presented. metal-bacteria adsorption reactions play a role in controlling the distribution of metals in the environment. the ability to predict the fate of metals in complex geological systems is dependent on: understanding bacterial adsorption mechanisms, being able to quantify bacterial metal adsorption, and creating accurate models for bacterial metal adsorption. the research presented in this dissertation explores each of these aspects of bacterial metal adsorption. chapter 2 describes how the ratio of hg to bacteria, known as hg loading, affects the mechanism of bacterial hg adsorption. the results suggest that the mechanism of hg-bacteria adsorption is loading dependent and that the change in mechanism must be accounted for in predictive models in order to accurately estimate the extent of bacterial hg adsorption under low hg loading conditions. these findings lead to the creation of a predictive model that can accurately estimate the extent of hg adsorption over a wide range of loading and ph conditions. chapter 3 details the development of a novel technique that uses a cd-specific fluorescent probe in conjunction with confocal scanning laser microscopy to quantify cd adsorption to bacteria in aqueous systems. the results demonstrate that the fluorescent probe technique is a feasible option for quantifying the total amount of cd adsorbed to a bacterial population and that the extent of cd adsorption is highly heterogeneous between individual bacterial cells. lastly, chapter 4 uses the novel cd-specific fluorescent probe technique described in chapter 3 to quantify cd distribution in multi-component, bacteria-bearing systems. the experimentally determined cd distributions are compared to component additivity surface complexation model predictions. the results show that the fluorescent probe technique is a viable option for quantifying bacterial cd adsorption in multi-adsorbent systems and component additivity models predict cd distribution with reasonable accuracy in systems containing bacteria, a mineral powder, and a chelating ligand. modern state interventions in society often encounter popular resistance, especially in developing countries where informal rules dominate and formal institutions that conflict with them find it difficult to gain legitimacy. how can we achieve the transition to a legitimized rule of law in an unfavorable environment where informal rules do not support it? based on a comparative case study of two villages in china, this paper argues that grassroots bureaucrats' obfuscatory work work on blurring the conflict between formal and informal rules can gradually change the legitimacy of formal rules and thus have a long-term impact on the political ecology. specifically speaking, by describing the different obfuscatory efforts officials can take in the pre-, mid-, and post-policy implementation stages, this paper analyzes in detail how officials can enhance or diminish the legitimacy of formal rules in five dimensions: legibility, universality, obligation, favorability, and public-private distinction of the rules. the more officials work to make formal rules exhibit these five characteristics, the more the legitimacy of formal rules will increase and people more likely to build the habit of following formal rules. meanwhile, this paper also challenges the dualistic "resistance-compliance" framework that pervades the scholarship on state intervention and social response by claiming that obfuscatory work constitutes the main part of everyday politics. when the fields of advertising and design are too closely linked, as they have grown to become, design skills are not only squandered, they can be put to use in a destructive way?creating visual messages that are streamlined and stereotyped. one can contribute to existing critiques of the advertising-design relationship by examining marketing practices for beauty products. the cosmetics industry is notorious for portraying unrealistic paradigms of feminine beauty through elevated promises in copy lingo and heavily manipulated imagery. the ugly reality to this advertising fantasy is that many beauty products contain concerning levels of skin irritants and toxins. by contrasting the unattainable images of femininity presented in make-up ads with the ugly reality that cosmetics contain toxins, this thesis and the accompanying fierce cosmetics campaign question the out-of-control nature of consumer culture in the united states and graphic design's role in contributing to, as well as subverting, the advertising industry. my dissertation examines the evolving methods of biblical interpretation and criticism in america from the beginning of the eighteenth through the first half of the nineteenth century. during this time, protestant thinkers in the anglo-american colonies faced unprecedented theological and epistemological challenges. the received understanding of the bible as divine revelation and as a historically accurate account of the past faced challenges from deism in the eighteenth century and then from german 'higher criticism' in the nineteenth century. i argue that the bible's theologically conservative defenders appropriated the interpretive tools of their opponents and adapted their conceptions of revelation to preserve their beliefs in light of changing philosophical standards. the first three chapters examine cotton mather, jonathan dickinson, jonathan edwards, and the community of pastors around harvard. they defended revelation by selectively appropriating aspects of the new empirical epistemology. however, the battles against skepticism altered the traditional understanding of the bible. protestants still affirmed that the bible was accurate, but they transformed revelation into an object of scientific, historical, and empirical examination. by the beginning of the nineteenth century, the bible faced threats from german historical critics, who argued that the bible must be interpreted as an amalgam of myth and history. joseph stevens buckminster and andrews norton, two of the most erudite american biblical scholars, defended the traditional view that the new testament was an accurate record of the past. however, they did so by appropriating the linguistic, historical, and empirical tools of the german critics. what becomes apparent in their defense is the scientific and naturalistic manner of their discussion. in the early eighteenth century, most christians could not imagine that the bible was anything other than supernatural revelation from god. by the early nineteenth century, american protestants could most effectively defend holy writ by following spinoza's dictum to examine it almost 'like any other book.' asymmetric synthesis is an important area of modern organic chemistry as many biologically important molecules contain chiral centers, but the choice of ligand is often based on high throughput screening or simply trial and error. a virtual screening method can greatly increase the speed of the ligand screening process by calculating expected enantiomeric excesses. the q2mm method was utilized to develop molecular mechanics parameters for such a method. the rhodium catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenation of enamides to generate amino acid products and derivatives is a widely used method to generate unnatural amino acids. the b3lyp/lacvp** calculated potential energy surfaces for the hydrogenations of varied substrates while utilizing a common ligand indicate a mechanistic change based on substrate. this has a significant impact on the origins of enantioselectivity as the first hydride transfer to the substrate is calculated to be irreversible for all substrates, independent of whether it occurs at the ì_å± or ì_å_ carbon of the olefin. utilizing the q2mm method, new molecular mechanics parameters are derived to model two important transition structures and an intermediate ground state structure in the hydrogenation of dehydro-ì_å±-amino acids and corresponding derivatives. the new parameters are based on structures calculated at the b3lyp/lacvp** level of theory and added to the mm3* force field. the new parameters were tested against a test set of 47 points of experimental data utilizing a wide range of bis-phosphine ligands, with good agreement between theory and experiment. data points with large quantitative errors still give good qualitative results, and reasons for these errors are discussed. a second reaction studied was the silver catalyzed intramolecular hydroamination of alkynes, which is an effective method for the rapid construction of nitrogen heterocycles. the chiral ligands in the library are derived from a phenanthroline scaffold. as before, new mm3* parameters were developed to describe the transition state and subsequent screening of a selection of chiral ligands against a common, symmetric aminodiyne. preliminary synthesis of an aminodiyne substrate was also performed for experimental verification of the predictions. in vivo fluorescence imaging is a powerful tool for understanding and characterizing biological systems. for example, with the help of in vivo fluorescence imaging, one can record the neural activity (neuronal firing) of freely moving mice. while in vivo fluorescence imaging technique has been widely used and has brought many benefits to the biomedical image processing field, a few major physical limitations affect the image quality and data analysis. the three fundamental limits in fluorescence microscopy include poor signal-to-noise ratio (snr), poor spatial resolution, and dense axial images. in this work, we employ machine learning (ml) models based on deep convolutional neural networks (cnn) to overcome the above-mentioned fundamental limits for 3d in vivo fluorescence imaging.firstly, the poor snr arises due to the faster imaging speed in scenarios where one needs to understand the dynamic processes in 3d in vivo. conventionally, to improve image snr for a given image acquisition rate, one can use statistical methods-based computational denoising techniques to suppress the noise. however, these methods are either computationally expensive or rely on only simple poisson or gaussian noise statistics, which are not appropriate for fluorescence microscopes that usually contain a mixture of poisson and gaussian (mpg) noise. therefore, to overcome this fundamental limitation, we have developed two cnn models based on the noise2noise and dncnn architectures trained on the massive fluorescence microscopy denoising dataset containing mpg noise. noisy images in the trained dataset were collected by wide-field, confocal and two-photon microscopes with samples including fixed cells, zebrafish, and mouse brains. an open-source imagej plugin was developed using the trained cnn model that performs instant image denoising within tens of milliseconds with superior performance (~8.1 db psnr improvement or 8x faster in acquisition) compared to the conventional denoising methods. hence, imaging speed is improved by eight times using this cnn-based image denoising method. next, extensive validation of the pre-trained models was performed on the out-of-distribution noise, contrast, microscope modality, biological samples (2d and 3d images), and other open-source fluorescence microscopy datasets. ml-based fluorescence lifetime and phasor denoising techniques and their applications are also demonstrated. the ml-based approaches provide high snr in lifetime information and improve the lifetime segmentation with denoised phasor.secondly, after achieving a faster image acquisition speed of the in vivo images, our next goal is to improve the spatial resolution of the fluorescence images by overcoming the fundamental diffraction limit. to develop the ml model, we need another massive training dataset that maps from the diffraction-limited images to super-resolution images, which is a cumbersome process. currently, we have developed a prototype of the ml model that requires only an ultra-small training dataset (15 target sr images with 50 diffraction-limited images per target) to generate super-resolution images. briefly, this model is based on the novel ``dense encoder-decoder" (denseed) block, developed based on the dense layer in the existing popular super-resolution models. we experimentally verified our demonstrated ml model using fluorescent-labeled fixed bovine pulmonary artery endothelial (bpae) cells. the improvement in snr and spatial resolution in the ml-generated super-resolution images is ~3.49 db and 2x, respectively, compared to the diffraction-limited image. this approach is beneficial for in vivo imaging, x-ray, and mri imaging, where extracting large datasets is challenging. next, validation of the proposed methodology is shown on the experimentally captured diffraction-limited and super-resolution image datasets. clearly, the demonstrated ``denseed" ml block provides enhanced super-resolution images compared to simple cnn-based ml models when trained with an ultra-small training dataset (minimal number of fovs). in the case of flim super-resolution, we proposed a traditional deconvolution approach to identify the true object/sample from the diffraction-limited images (experimentally captured). in this project, we provide a theoretical model for convolution in flim and richardson-lucy (rl) based deconvolution, including the total variation (tv) regularization method to correct the convolution-induced distortions in flim measurements. in addition, the proposed method is validated on experimental images captured using multi-photon microscopy (mpm)-flim images of fluorescent-labeled fixed bovine pulmonary arterial endothelial (bpae) cells. finally, we further enhance the capabilities of low dosage, long-term, in vivo imaging with the assistance of ml models. compressive sensing-based (unsupervised machine learning model) 3d volume reconstruction and image denoising for low-power image acquisition will be developed to accurately reconstruct and improve the snr for long-term imaging. experimental results are presented in the respective sections.overall, in this dissertation, we show that the above-mentioned methods namely image denoising, image super-resolution, and low-dosage 3d volume imaging can be used to solve the fundamental limitations of fluorescence microscopy/flim using machine learning models and obtain significant acceleration in terms of accuracy and computational cost (in-terms of instant imaging, faster training ml models and avoiding photo-bleaching of the sample) than conventional methods. memories for events have been found to increase when the number of causal connections increases, and when emotional intensity increases. the aim of this study was to examine how causal connectivity and emotional intensity relate to one another when both are present in an event. using a text comprehension paradigm, memories for events that varied in terms of their causal connectivity and emotional intensity were examined for influence on memory performance. emotionally intense information was better remembered than less emotionally intense information, and more causally connected information was remembered best. however, there were no interactions between the two constructs, suggesting that they are separate influences and independently affect memory. my art is about story telling and myth building and the role that memory plays in these two things. a large part of my work is also about how the story, once created, is then delivered. i use written, oral, and graphic language to tell my stories. these three story-telling methods are as old as humankind. written being the newest of the three, but by no means a modern invention. i have always questioned the historical precedence of the story. 'is this real, did that really happen, and if not then what did?' i have found joy in both telling and listening to stories all of my life. i have enjoyed metering the level of embellishment. i grew up in the rural heartland. i'm using my memories to create a story about the place where i was raised. what is that story about? it's about doad and how he helped me break my deal with the devil. it's about joy and hurt mixed with persimmon mush. it's about going out in the woods and finding the pinnacle. there are two separated parts of my thesis. the first part is about how to design robust unstructured weighted essentially non-oscillatory (weno) schemes. the weno schemes are a popular class of high order numerical methods for hyperbolic partial differential equations (pdes). a major difficulty for unstructured weno is how to design a robust weno reconstruction procedure to deal with distorted local mesh geometries or degenerate cases when the mesh quality varies for complex domain geometry. we combine two different weno reconstruction approaches to achieve a robust unstructured finite volume weno reconstruction on complex mesh geometries. numerical examples including both scalar and system cases are given to demonstrate stability and accuracy of the scheme. the second part is about computational biology. we studied the pattern solutions of several mathematical models, chematical cell movement, zebrafish dorsalventral patterning and tumor angiogenesis. the detailed dynamics, pattern structures and robustness of the nonlinear reaction-diffusion model of chemotactic cell movements [89] are discussed using high resolution numerical simulations. we show that the model can form network patterns similar to early blood vessel structures seen experimentally. the model solutions do not blow up in finite time, a property of other chemotaxis cell movement models. the reaction-diffusion system modeling the dorsal-ventral patterning during the zebrafish embryo development, developed in [128] has multiple steady state solutions. seven steady state solutions are found by discretizing the boundary value problem using a finite difference scheme and solving the resulting polynomial system using algorithms from numerical algebraic geometry. the stability of each of these steady state solutions is studied by mathematical analysis and numerical simulations via a time marching approach. the results show that three of the seven steady state solutions are stable and the location of the organizer of a zebrafish embryo determines which stable steady state pattern the multi-stability system converges to. numerical simulations also show that the system is robust with respect to the change of the organizer size. similar approaches are applied to a more complicate free boundary problem on tumor growth. in this dissertation i examine the security motivations that prompted the states of north america to enact free trade agreements (ftas) in the 1980s and 1990s. specifically, i analyze the decision of the us and canadian governments to establish a bilateral fta in 1989, and the decision of the us and mexican governments to negotiate a subsequent fta, which then resulted in the creation of the north american free trade agreement (nafta) in 1994. i argue that the us and canada were motivated to establish their 1989 fta in order to reinforce a military balancing effort that they were engaged in against the soviet union; in particular, to counter the soviets' nuclear arms buildup in the arctic region. regarding the us and mexico's fta negotiating process, i argue that, in the wake of the cold war, the us sought an fta with mexico in order to ensure that mexico did not ally itself with another foreign power, now that mexico's cold war strategy of occupying a diplomatic middle ground between the superpowers was no longer an option. mexico, conversely, sought an fta with the us in order 1) to establish greater influence over us foreign policy, and 2) to make mexico more attractive to the europeans as a trading partner, with the idea being that, by establishing a mexican-european fta, mexico would then be better able to balance against the us, which was now liberated from the constraints of the cold war, and hence able to pursue a more aggressive foreign policy in the western hemisphere. this analysis rests upon two hypotheses: 1) that an fta can serve to reinforce a balancing effort engaged in by states against a threatening, third-party state, and 2) that an fta can serve to reinforce a bandwagoning strategy, whereby states establish an fta with a threatening state in order to constrain that threatening state's behavior. these hypotheses draw upon aspects of both neorealist and neoliberal theories of international relations (ir). this argument thus demonstrates a manner in which the two schools of ir theory can not only be reconciled in terms of their theory concepts, but can also be combined to form a more useful theory than other theories which rely strictly upon either realist or liberal tenants. through the application of this more useful approach, in-turn, the seemingly unlikely claim that the north american ftas were prompted in-part by security concerns is demonstrated to be valid. base metal oxides have long been of interest as catalysts for oxidation of small molecules such as co and no. as an example, ru metal becomes active for catalytic oxidation only after partial surface oxidation. the (110) surface of ruo$_2$ is a convenient model for the oxidized metal surface because it is active for co oxidation and well characterized. in this study we employ plane-wave, supercell dft calculations to examine the mechanisms of oxygen activation, coo oxidation as well as surface poisoning on ruo2(110) surface. we first consider o2 adsorption and dissociation, and show that the molecular o$_2$ species observed in tpd experiments and identified as a precursor to o2 dissociation is in fact a spectator present only at high coverages of surface o. we then study the co and no oxidation mechanisms on the ruo2(110) surface and compare the fundamental differences that lead to complete different catalytic reactivity of this surface on co and no oxidations. practical applications of oxidation catalysts are limited by surface poisoning, so it is important to understand and ultimately to learn to bypass surface poisoning. we investigate catalytic co oxidation and its competition with surface poisoning by employing first-principles thermodynamics as well as micro-kinetic modeling method. we identify both carbonate and bicarbonate surface poisons and show that the coverage of the latter is highly sensitive to water concentration and likely accounts for the surface poisoning observed experimentally. as an attempt to understand how surface metal oxides develop on metal surfaces and what their exact role is during oxidation, we study the formation of oxide nuclei on pt surface. we hypothesize that the roughening on pt surfaces observed in stm experiments initiates from small surface ptxoy clusters. we quantify the stability of these clusters vs. the cluster size and oxygen chemical potential and explore whether these clusters might account for the anomalously high catalytic activity of pt and other metals at high oxygen pressure. endochondral ossification is an indirect path of bone formation involving the condensation of progenitor cells into a cartilaginous anlage that grows in size, matures, and releases growth factors to promote blood vessel invasion and cartilage remodeling, resulting in a robust, vascularized bone organ. this is the dominant pathway of bone formation in both long bone development and fracture healing and has emerged as an attractive tissue engineering template to address the lack of angiogenesis and poor engraftment seen in current intramembranous engineering approaches. though it is known that mechanical cues are essential to the progression of endochondral ossification in both processes, the role of mechanical loading in endochondral bone defect regeneration has not been investigated. in vivo, we applied mechanical loading to chondrogenically-primed hmscs within a critically-sized rat femoral defect either immediately after implantation, or delayed until 4 weeks into chondrogenesis, compared to unloaded controls. delaying loading significantly improved bone regeneration through increased bone volume, bridging across the defect, and recovery of mechanical properties compared to unloaded controls, and this was further potentiated by supplementation of additional growth factors. conversely, early loading increased bone volume but did not enhance bridging or mechanical properties. there was significantly decreased vascular invasion and persistent unmineralized gaps of cartilage, resulting in lack of functional repair. this suggests that the timing of in vivo mechanical loading during progenitor cell maturation is an important factor in directing tissue formation. to this end, we investigated, in vitro, the role of endochondral priming length prior to dynamic compression in a custom-made bioreactor. mechanical load initiated chondrogenic gene expression at all stages, but only enhanced endochondral progression when applied after 6 weeks of priming. loading at earlier stages of priming had an inhibitory effect on chondrocyte maturation, consistent with in vivo findings. together these results suggest that mechanical loading is necessary to induce successful endochondral progression for bone tissue engineering. over the past two decades the high rate of growth achieved by the indian economy has been widely celebrated. not many studies, however, have focused on the sectoral decomposition of this growth or analyzed its distributional aspects. my dissertation focuses on the rural sector of the indian economy, and explores the possibility of achieving an inclusive and equitable development process. my particular focus is on the state of west bengal which has been governed by a regime that promised to usher in a development process that is substantively different from the path treaded by capitalist growth-led development. two-thirds of the indian work-force is employed in the rural sector, and yet, this section of the population has largely been left out of any benefits accruing from the overall fast growth rate that the economy has enjoyed over the last couple of decades. worse still, the farmers in many states have been led towards complete destitution. this is due to a variety of reasons, including, falling share of agriculture in the planned allocation of resources, falling productivity in relation to industry, and increasing vulnerability of farmers to international price fluctuations. in my dissertation, i closely examine these issues, and analyze how the implementation of rural government programs can address the problem of rural and agrarian distress. utilizing the data obtained from national sample surveys (various rounds), agricultural censuses, national censuses, and national health surveys, i perform a case study of the rural policies implemented in the indian state of west bengal. i analyze the quality of the policies by comparing the levels of development of human capabilities of the rural population of west bengal in comparison with that of four other indian states, namely, kerala, punjab, gujarat, and uttar pradesh. i also explore the possibility of achieving sustainable agricultural practices and rural welfare through the expansion of political and economic democracy through popular control over societal resources, and cooperative-based initiatives. god's marshall plan deepens our understanding of the crucial role religious actors, ideas, and aid played in the international relations between the united states and germany from the progressive era to the cold war. from the early twentieth century onward, american protestant religious leaders and policymakers worked hand-in-hand to advance an international agenda of "democratization" and "christianization." their efforts to establish "world christianity"—a godly global order that was both christian and democratic—and activate "christian america" culminated in "god's marshall plan," a theopolitical intervention in germany that sought to reshape the defeated nation's religious and civic culture. seeing vibrant religious life as essential to a functioning democracy, these americans worked to export american religious values such as lay activism, voluntarism, stewardship, and ecumenism to germany. through launching a far-reaching relief program that made humanitarianism a central pillar within protestant internationalism, they also helped forge a christian and democratic coalition between west germany and the united states. as such, the protestant ecumenical movement became a vehicle for american national interests in post-war germany and the expansion of america's "empire by invitation" in western europe. "god's marshall plan" furthermore marked a turning point in the twentieth century relationship between german and american protestantism. as theological actors, ideas, and relief flowed across the atlantic, american protestants worked to remake german-american relations through positioning themselves as the leaders of global protestantism. on their side of the atlantic, germans both welcomed american aid while also contesting the americanization of their religious life. "god's marshall plan" thus marked a flash point in a shared german-american protestant culture that is much more vibrant and contentious than historians have recognized. although the german protestant church maintained much of its conservative character immediately after the war, the grassroots adoption of american theologies promoted reform and transformation. by the end of the adenauer era in 1963, german protestantism had emerged as an ecumenical and activist force in in its own right. protestant activism increasingly targeted, however, american foreign policies in the cold war. as germans contested nuclear proliferation and the vietnam war, the coalition around christian and democratic values that had turned one-time enemies into close allies began to fracture and come to an end. asthma is a chronic pulmonary disease that affects over 150 million people worldwide and over 17 million in the united states alone. in asthma, chronic inflammation causes an associated increase in airway hyperresponsiveness that leads to recurrent episodes of wheezing, breathlessness, chest tightness, and coughing, particularly at night or in the early morning (ref. 2). the pathophysiology of asthma is typically described as chronic inflammation in the airways, dominated primarily by the helper t-cell 2 (th2) inflammatory response. this response is characterized by eosinophilic infiltration into the airway smooth muscle cells but also mast cells, macrophages, plasma cells, and neutrophils may be present (ref. 1). another hallmark characteristic of asthma is airway remodeling which encompasses structural changes in the airway wall as a result of lung responses to damage from inflammatory events (ref. 1). to counter these effects, the protein c (pc) pathway, intervenes by exerting anti-inflammatory and anticoagulant effects. pc interacts with endothelial cell protein c receptor (epcr) which is an endothelial transmembrane glycoprotein that is expressed on the luminal surface of the endothelium. when pc binds to epcr, it enhances the activation of pc to apc by thrombin/thrombomodulin, by at least 20-fold (ref. 26). therefore, it has been proposed that epcr may contribute to the anti-inflammatory effects of apc. the current study examined the role of epcr in mice challenged with the inflammatory agent ovalbumin (ova). epcrì_å«/ì_å« (epcr very low-expressing mice) and wild-type (wt) mice were utilized for this study. while the airway hyperresponsiveness to ova challenge in wt and epcrì_å«/ì_å« mice were similiar, examination of bronchioalveolar lavage fluid (balf), lung tissue, and circulating blood showed significantly higher levels of eosinophils in epcrì_å«/ì_å« mice versus wt mice, and significantly higher levels of eotaxin and interleukin-13. the th2 cell response from isolated peribronchial lymph nodes in epcrì_å«/ì_å« mice showed significantly elevated interleukin-5 levels. bronchial epithelial cell adenovirus-12 sv40 hybrid virus transformed cells (beas-2b), a human epithelial cell line, when stimulated with balf from wt and epcrì_å«/ì_å« mice, showed higher eotaxin message ribonucleic acid (mrna) production in the epcrì_å«/ì_å« mice. results from this study indicate that a deficiency in epcr increases the inflammatory response in a murine model of ova-induced asthma. viscous drag reduction in turbulent boundary layers has been an exceptionally interesting topic within fluid dynamics for several decades. the field itself is rich with studies, efforts, failures and successes starting back from the 1950s. that being said, with each attempt, experiment, simulation and trial, the field grows little by little and what is commonly understood today is a result of all the work that has came before. the work presented in this dissertation contributes to the field from two different aspects; the practical application of improving the performance of aerodynamic vehicles and the understanding of complex interactions and dynamic mechanisms that exist withing wall-bounded turbulent flows. a series of experimental drag reduction studies with the utilization of a novel pulsed-dc plasma actuator as the primary means of flow control were conducted. viscous drag reduction over a flat plate in a zero-pressure gradient boundary layer was achieved over a decade of mach numbers all while maintaining net power savings. accompanying flow diagnostics revealed a stabilization and reduction of the spanwise mean flow distortion of the wall-layer as evidenced by a decrease in the activity of the wall streak structure, which plays a significant role in turbulence production and, subsequently, viscous drag. three-dimensional imaging and image processing provide tools that ultimately improve measurements in biomechanics research. with appropriate processing techniques, images can be used directly to assess bone geometry, or converted to more detailed computational models that can be applied to analyze the local mechanical environment of bone. the objective of this dissertation was to study bone healing, damage, and adaptation through the novel application of computational modeling and image processing techniques.the local mechanical environment is vital to study of bone biomechanics. however, it is often difficult to determine the mechanical behavior of whole bones, because individual bones have complex geometry that varies between species and individuals within a species, heterogeneous composition, and relevant features that span multiple length scales. for this reason, specimen specific finite element models coupled with complimentary experiments have become a common tool for analyzing the detailed mechanics of bone and test specimens. in an initial study, specimen specific, longitudinal imaging was employed to evaluate the efficacy of a hydroxyapatite-reinforced collagen scaffold for the treatment of critically-sized defects in rat femurs. image processing was used to allow each animal to effectively serve as its own control. ten weeks following implantation, the scaffolds failed to induce healing. however, the scaffolds improved when compared to defects implanted with porous collagen, or empty defects. image processing allowed the time course of healing to be quantified for each experimental group, and identified important trends with only a small number of animals.in a second study, specimen specific finite element models of rat femurs were used to interpret the outcomes of a fatigue loading experiment. femurs that had been loaded in three-point bending to induce damage were analyzed. the locations of microdamage were correlated to the strain distribution using a probabilistic model. the results demonstrated that damage was dependent on strain, but also had a random component, which can be attributed to the presence of pores and other flaws smaller than the spatial resolution of the models. a weibull distribution function was used to predict the damage distribution.finally, poroelastic finite element models of porcine femurs were validated and used to characterize the mechanical environment of bone marrow in a whole bone under cyclic loading. this is essential to understanding the role that mechanical signaling within the marrow plays in bone adaptation and other diseases associated with marrow abnormalities. to improve the fidelity of these models, orthotropic material orientations were first applied in the directions of principal stress, and then validated through microscale modeling. a poroelastic constitutive model enabled the calculation of pore pressures resulting from whole bone loading, and these were validated against experimental measurements. the calculated pore pressure gradients were further applied to estimate the shear stress using a darcy flow model. although this is a simplified model, shear stress was estimated far in excess of the mechanostimulatory threshold, suggesting that whole bone loading is mechanostimulatory to marrow cells.overall, this work has developed new approaches to the application of specimen specific 3-d imaging to biomechanical analysis. these approaches can be applied to a wide range of biomechanical studies. the initial multiscale techniques that have been developed have opened up the potential for simulations that that span from whole bones to tissues, and potentially the cellular level. part i: we describe aspects of metal-semiconductor bonding in gold-linked ge$_6$ cages in gas phase. using total energy calculations and short molecular dynamics simulations, we examine the relative stability of au$_n$ge$_{12}$ where n = 0, 1, 2, 3 and classify cluster geometries with bondlengths, angles, bonding strength. we evaluate neutral and ionic charge states and calculate partial and total density of states. in agreement with previous experiment, our work suggests that linear ge-au-ge bonds stabilize linked cluster systems. we predict favorable bond geometries in the au-ge system with a focus on the structure au$_2$ge$_{12}$ and evaluate the ge$_6$ cluster as an alternate building block to ge9 in the synthesis of germanium solids. part ii: using large scale numerical simulations, we examine the ordering of colloidal particles on a rigid square periodic lattice. we explore static regimes where specific ratios of colloids to optic traps produce ordered and disordered patterns. we focus primarily on patterns which form from interacting grain-boundaries in an otherwise hexagonal lattice. after classifying groundstate patterns, we apply driving forces to the colloids. while the trapped colloids remain fixed throughout the simulation, the interstitial particles reveal distinct dynamical responses based on the overall static pattern. this reveals the relative pinning strength of the static pattern to the substrate. furthermore it shows how topological defects such as solitons move and interact with one another. this dissertation examines how the roman catholic community of cincinnati, ohio, experienced the reform movement initiated by the catholic church's second vatican council, at which the world's bishops met in rome in four sessions between 1962 and 1965. the study focuses on two aspects of conciliar reform as it shaped life in cincinnati: jewish-catholic relations and the catholic response to racism in church and society. as such it makes two major interventions into the historiography.first, while the second vatican council ("vatican ii") is often touted as a revolutionary moment given its repudiation of centuries of catholic anti-semitism, in cincinnati such a pronouncement barely rippled among local catholics and jews, who had long cooperated, especially on civic projects, with little thought for the theological obstacles that ostensibly divided them. thus what was revolutionary at the level of the global church was met with little attention at the local level. second, vatican ii's neglect of race as a discrete social concern fueled intra-catholic conflict over the church's response to discrimination in local communities. with no clear direction on how the catholic laity were to respond to racism, despite making forceful admonitions that lay men and women should be deeply engaged in their surrounding communities, vatican ii led to bitter disputes over the propriety of lay activism on race or even the acknowledgement of race as a systemic illness of american society. how religious believers were to reform their own communities, then, was conditioned by their experience of reform within their own traditions, with local conditions taking priority over universal pronouncements at the highest levels of theological authority. to paraphrase a well-worn saying: "all religion is local." in cincinnati, catholics determined a formal response to these problems through an archdiocesan synod, which concluded in 1971 and outlined the local church's renewal process vis-á-vis vatican ii and contemporary social upheaval. most importantly for this dissertation, cincinnati catholics confirmed their friendship with cincinnati jews, acknowledged the need for a coherent racial policy, and formulated a response to the conditions of their community in the post-vatican ii world. gene expression during embryogenesis impacts adult mosquito fitness, the ability of an organism to survive and transmit its genotype to offspring as compared to competing organisms. sequencing of the ae. aegypti genome has made possible the characterization of many genes, but analysis of developmental genes has proven challenging, largely as a result of technical difficulties encountered when manipulating mosquito embryos. first, techniques that focused on handling/manipulation of embryos and various analytics were designed (chapter 2). with these techniques i was able to properly rear, fix, stain and perform functional analyses on embryos. even with these techniques, genes important to organismal development remained fairly uncharacterized. second, we used comparative genomics to study genes in ae. aegypti that are found to be homologous to developmental genes in drosophila melanogaster, a genetic model organism. doing so i was able to show that netrin/frazzled signaling at the cns midline was conserved (chapter 3) between the mosquito and fruit fly. i showed via rnai, immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization that frazzled (fra) expression is important for proper axon guidance. in d. melanogaster axon guidance genes are known to control salivary gland migration during development. salivary glands are critical to disease transmission in mosquitoes. although there was a level of gene conservation shown in cns development, development of the salivary glands is different (chapter 4). lastly, there are populations of ae. aegypti, that show differences in susceptibilities to pathogens. the noticeable physiological difference between the two is body size. body size in all organisms is controlled by insulin signaling (iis). developmental stressors are shown to decrease overall body size, but increase longevity and pathogen resistance. stress during development modulates iis. stress signaling is activated by c-jun n-terminal kinase (jnk) and regulated by puckered (puc) phosphatase. i found the smaller less susceptible moyo-r subpopulation expresses higher levels of jnk at all stages of development when compared to the larger more susceptible moyo-s subpopulation (chapter 5). in future studies, we intend to show rnai of puc in moyo-s will lead to smaller and less susceptible mosquitoes. this dissertation is built on the premise that anthropogenic climate change is more likely than not to result in 2c+ of warming above pre-industrial levels by 2100. in such a scenario, anthropogenic climate change will variously impact virtually all aspects of human social, political, and economic processes during the remainder of the 21st century. given this premise, this dissertation explores this question: "in the context of 2c+ of anthropogenic climate change, and with the high likelihood of unprecedented human population displacement because of this warming, what are some of the resources that might help empower the construction of systems of peace instead of systems of bloodshed, scapegoating, and violence?" in response to this question i argue that the tradition and practice of intentional hospitality toward the vulnerable other found within the larger christian tradition is a practice that contains rich resources which may help empower communities that seek to welcome the vulnerable other in the context of anthropogenic climate change. in addition to a survey of some of the historical and theological foundations for such a practice, i also offer a theological (micro) ethnography of hospitality within three case studies located in vancouver, bc, among a community and network of people who have been engaging the practice of hospitality toward vulnerable others for approximately three decades. ultimately i argue that while the practice of intentional hospitality toward vulnerable others in the context of anthropogenic climate change is unlikely to be sufficient—that is to say, the needs are likely to far exceed the capacities of different communities to sustain the offer of hospitality—the practice of hospitality toward the vulnerable other is a vital practice that is worth engaging in pursuit of peace amidst the anthropocene. for all who find a way through the challenges that are likely to come, welcome and hospitality and care—in different forms and in distinct manifestations within particular places and particular communities at particular times—will be pivotal in making a way possible. just in the last six years, a new debate has emerged around the question of whether or not modern gauge symmetries can be empirically significant, either in a way analogous to boosts in galileo's ship thought experiment or in some "non-relational" manner (i.e., in a manner where there is not an external system that allows us to distinguish between the symmetry-related states of the original system). the first two chapters of the dissertation tackle this debate. in the first one, i defend the claim that there can indeed be gauge symmetries that are empirically significant in a way analogous to boosts, and in the second chapter, i show that gauge symmetries cannot be empirically significant in a non-relational way and connect this issue to recent developments in theoretical physics (i.e., "edge modes"). in the second half of the dissertation, i clarify the conditions under which symmetry-related states can be taken to be representionally equivalent. brief gatherings are critical to social movement collaboration across national, regional, and continental boundaries. these assemblies condense the timescales of political activity, creating conditions where seemingly mundane aspects of political involvement can reshape broader patterns of mobilization. drawing upon ethnographic data collected at the 2007 world social forum and united states social forum, i demonstrate that the very ecological shifts that create opportunities to collaborate across geographical and social locations can also threaten participants' physical capacity to take advantage of those opportunities. to capitalize on the favorable, but fleeting opportunities at the ussf and 2007 wsf, participants both put forth intense physical effort and disrupted their typical strategies for maintaining their bodies. as a result, participants sometimes reluctantly chose to forego even those forum events which they were passionate about attending. however, in decoupling activists' from their ideological goals, exhaustion provided a mechanism for mixing activists of different political stripes. cultural sociology is centrally concerned with "how culture works." while insights from the cognitive sciences have advanced understandings by illuminating the distinct operations of practical and discursive cognition, limited consideration has been given to the underlying semantic structures beneath these cognitive modes. this article develops an "image schematic" approach to interview data in order to reconstruct how 50 religious americans unconsciously understand religion in their lives. systematically focusing on implicit knowledge structures rather than discursive language structures, its findings reveal five schemas, which are internally coherent, widely shared, but variably relied upon as scaffolds for understanding. these findings highlight the importance of attending to both embodiment and social environment for understanding culture. no abstract in this thesis, we look at principal $spin(n)$-bundles $p o m$ whose pontryagin class $phalf (p)=0 in h4(m;r)$. we say that such a bundle admits a string structure, and a choice of string structure is given by particular elements in $h3(p;)$. this provides an analogue to the idea of a spin structure, where the topological group $string(n)$ is, up to homotopy, the unique 3-connected cover of $spin(n)$ $(ngeq 5)$. choosing a riemannian metric on the base $m$ and a connection on $p$ determines a 1-parameter family of metrics on $p$. we prove that in a scaling limit known as the adiabatic limit, the harmonic representative of a string structure is equal to the chern–simons 3-form on $p$ minus a 3-form on $m$, denoted $hin omega3(m)$. this 3-form $h$ is closely related to the chern–simons form, and can be thought of as a reduction of the chern–simons form on $p$ to a form on $m$. the exterior derivative of $h$ is the $phalf$-form; the integral of $h$ on any 3-cycle is equal, modulo $$, to the integral of the chern–simons 3-form pulled back via a global section on the same 3-cycle. finally, we note that for the $spin(n)$-frame bundle $spin(m)$ of a riemannian spin manifold, this 3-form $h$ determines a canonical metric connection on $m$. this canonical metric connection depends on both the metric and string structure, and its torsion is determined by $h$. my dissertation offers a reassessment of the linguistic situation of the italian humanist leon battista alberti (1404-1472), addressing specifically alberti's bilingualism and the unique role that his switching between latin and italian, even within the same work, played in his program of self-fashioning and repatriation from exile. in fact, leon battista was the illegitimate offspring of the florentine alberti family which had been banished from florence following the revolt of ciompi in 1378.born in exile in genoa, leon battista was exceptional among italian humanists of his time for his enlightened and spirited promotion of the florentine language, which also represented a vehicle for his own social integration and repatriation from exile. leon battista alberti famously authored a vast variety of prose and poetical works, which ranged from scientific treatises to satirical novels, both in latin and in tuscan vernacular. this dissertation examines leon battista alberti's language choices as cognate to the concern showed by his predecessors (dante, petrarca, and boccaccio), but in light of the unicity of his endeavor to bring florentine back to florence, as evidenced by the tuscan regional identity that he chose for his language, and thus the civic nature of his linguistic commitment. his prose and poetical works, both in latin and in the florentine vernacular, are ripe for reinterpretation because modern scholars consider them in a reductionist lens of either latin humanism or vernacular humanism, rather than view him in terms of a complex mix of the two codes.my dissertation employs classic categories of codicological and linguistic analysis as well as newly acquired critical categories, such as codeswitching, to address this centuries-old blind-spot. alberti's strong belief in the value of vernacular as on the same level with latin, was parallel to his support of the equal worth of literary and visual artistic endeavors. the dialogue on latin spoken language in 1435 worked as the the stage on which to develop his own authoritative persona.the present work argues that alberti's use of languages sensu lato, meaning his engagement with visual and written arts, and with latin, greek, and vernacular languages was the primary tool he used to fashion a public persona and to influence the culture around him. in particular, the present work aims to demonstrate that alberti, between the years 1428 and 1443, employed different languages as a means of self-promotion among florentine humanists, so as to reacquire the position of prominence that his family had lost due to its exile in 1401. to avoid freezing while overwintering beneath the bark of fallen trees, dendroides canadensis (coleoptera: pyrochroideae) larvae produce a family of antifreeze proteins (dafps) that are transcribed in specific tissues and have specific compartmental fates. thermal hysteresis activity (tha) and dafps have been conclusively shown in hemolymph and midgut fluid, but the presence of dafps or ice binding factors (ibfs) has not previously been explored in primary urine which has the potential to contain endogenous ice nucleating compounds that could induce freezing. a maximum mean thermal hysteresis activity of 2.65 + .33oc was observed in primary urine of winter acclimatized d. canadensis larvae. thermal hysteresis activity in primary urine increased significantly through fall, peaked in the winter and decreased through spring to levels less than 1oc in summer, in a pattern similar to that described previously in hemolymph and midgut fluid. thermal hysteresis activity was also found in hindgut fluid and excreted rectal fluid suggesting that these larvae not only concentrate afps in the hindgut, but also excrete afps from the rectal cavity. addition of recombinant dafps to solutions containing ice nucleating crystals that have been shown in malpighian tubules significantly decreased the supercooling points of the solutions suggesting a potential role for dafps in malpighian tubule fluid (primary urine). short photoperiod (10 hour critical pp) and low temperature (10oc) have been shown to induce thermal hysteresis in d. canadensis. however, late summer collected d. canadensis larvae, acclimated to varying temperature and photoperiods, responded primarily to temperature. the th induction in response to short pp described 30 years ago could not be reproduced. perhaps because of a changing global climate, d. canadensis larvae are relying on temperature cues rather than photoperiodic cues for induction of thermal hysteresis. also, when d. canadensis larvae were treated with juvenile hormone iii (jh-iii) and held under non-inductive conditions, tha in hemolymph and midgut fluid increased significantly after seven days. previous studies that used jh-i did not show significant induction of tha until 14 days. ionic liquids (ils) are organic salts comprised entirely of organic cations and organic/inorganic anions. ils are recognized as "designer solvents" due to their composition and the endless combinations of anions and cations. ils have various outstanding properties, such as negligible vapor pressure, excellent thermal and chemical stability, nonflammability, nonvolatility, etc. these unique attributes explains the interest in ils, which has been growing since the 1930s, for a wide variety of applications, including gas/liquid separation, chemical reaction, lubrication and electrochemical devices. even though there are many thousands of possible combinations of anions and cations for ils design, the choice/selection of cations and anions commercialized in electrochemical devices is much less diverse due to strict industrial standards. most electrolytes currently in commercial use are volatile and flammable organic solvents, so safety is a serious concern that must be addressed. the focus of this thesis is to develop halogen-free ionic liquid electrolytes to overcome the drawbacks of conventional organic solvents used in lithium-ion batteries and to gain further insight into the influence of structure on physicochemical and electrochemical properties from both theoretical and practical perspectives. this thesis describes the effects of the experimental temperature, the structure of the cation and anion, and the concentration of lithium salt on the properties of ils. more specifically, physicochemical property measurements cover density, viscosity and diffusivity, and electrochemical property investigation includes conductivity, electrochemical window, walden plot behavior and ionicity. understanding these effects can not only guide practical development of safer and more liable electrolytes for lithium-ion batteries, but also pave the way for future theoretical investigation of ils as electrolytes for lithium-ion battery applications. in "vom nutzen und nachteil der historie für das leben," nietzsche quotes leopardi's "a se stesso" as the creation of a dejected mind, 'hypersaturated' by knowledge. leopardi's philosophical conclusions are, according to nietzsche, the dangerous consequence of the excessive pursuit of scientific and scholarly truth. this thesis discusses leopardi's theory of pleasure as the motivating force behind human action, and its implications for the idea of truth. it first attempts to show how this theory underlies his poetry as well as his prose works, and ultimately leads to the extreme pessimism of "a se stesso". the thesis then argues that nietzsche's negative attitude towards factual truth is, at least in part, inherited from leopardi himself, and explains how an analogous understanding of the role of pleasure and a radical skepticism towards a stoic system of morals is at the core of both of their works. on the basis of their nearly identical premises, this thesis aims to show how nietzsche's renowned theory of the superior individual may be understood as an attempt to resolve the philosophical impasse that underlies leopardi's late works. in this thesis, classical molecular dynamics simulations are used to provide insight into systems of electrolytes for use in next generation batteries. in the first part of this thesis, a collection of tools are developed to calculate coordination numbers, self-diffusivities, ionic conductivities, molecule pair lifetimes, dielectric constants and viscosities in a reliable, reproducible and automated fashion. these tools include an extension of recently released guidelines for calculating viscosities to include an estimate of the uncertainty. in the next part of this thesis, ion pair lifetimes and diffusivities are tested as predictors for viscosity in ionic liquids. these predictors were shown to be able to predict low viscosity ionic liquids with an 80% success rate, with significantly reduced computational expense. these methods can be applied to high-throughput screening to reduce the computational expense. the second half of this thesis looks at the molecular structures in electrolyte solutions for lithium sulfur-batteries. lithium-sulfur are high capacity batteries, but suffer from poor cycling capacity due to the polysulfide shuttling mechanism. the polysulfide shuttling mechanism can be mitigated by controlling the solubility of polysulfides in the electrolyte solution. one method of mitigating the polysulfide shuttling mechanism is to include highly-fluorinated ethers in the solution. molecular dynamics simulations were performed on a system of an electrolyte solution mixed with a fluorinated ether. it was shown that the fluorinated ether aggregated in solution instead of coordinating with the lithium in the electrolyte solution. the final part of the thesis focuses on using free-energy calculations to determine the role of solvent on the solubility of polysulfides in electrolyte solutions. a combination of bennett acceptance ratio and adaptive biasing force are used to calculate the relative solubility of polysulfide in various solvents. these relative solubilities showed the same trend as experimental measurements, but showed a significantly larger difference between solvents than experiment. adaptive biasing force was also used to calculate the free energy of association between lithium polysulfide in solution. these free energies are compared to other properties such as the dielectric constant and local coordination environment. these findings were used to propose new solvents for use in lithium-sulfur batteries. constructing a more cognitivist account of wesleyan ethics abstract by kevin twain lowery the underlying premise is that two of john wesley's most distinctive doctrines, the doctrines of assurance and christian perfection, have not been intellectually developed to a sufficient degree. rather, these doctrines, to a great extent, have either been distorted or neglected. i suggest that wesleyan ethics needs to be recast in a schema that more adequately emphasizes the cognitive aspects of religious knowledge and moral development. a new framework is constructed in three stages. first, wesley's reliance upon lockean empiricism is explored, and i contend that wesleyan epistemology should remain more closely tied to empirical knowledge and distance itself from mystical and intuitionist models like wesley's own 'spiritual sense' analogy. second, by carefully examining the way that wesley appropriates jonathan edwards' view of the religious affections, i show that wesleyan ethics should not regard emotions as something to be passively experienced. rather, emotions have cognitive content that allows them to be shaped. in fact, wesley rejected mystical approaches to spirituality in favor of a more cognitive approach to spiritual and moral development. third, the new framework is completed by suggesting ways that wesley's own conceptual framework should be revised and expanded. this will allow more of wesley's concerns to be incorporated into the schema without sacrificing his core commitments. the final chapter provides a sketch of what the doctrines of assurance and perfection will look like in the new framework. essentially, assurance will be based on religious faith and on self-knowledge, both empirical and psychological, and perfection will be understood in a more teleological context. hopefully, the end result will be a version of wesleyan ethics that is a more faithful development of wesley's own thought and can withstand the scrutiny of higher intellectual standards. in this dissertation, we will discuss some properties of pure o-sequences, which, due to macaulay's inverse systems, are in bijective correspondence with the hilbert functions of artinian level monomial algebras. in particular, we will focus on their unimodality. a sequence of numbers is unimodal if it does not increase after a strict decrease. there has been previous progress in this area. specifically, it is known that all algebras in two variables are unimodal, due to macaulay's maximal growth theorem. furthermore, it is known that all pure o-sequences of type two in three variables are unimodal and the hilbert function of monomial complete intersections are unimodal; these results are due to the weak lefschetz property. in addition to these families of pure o-sequences which are unimodal, there are known families of pure o-sequences which fail to be unimodal. in particular, for any r > 2, there exists a monomial artinian level algebra in r variables whose hilbert function fails unimodality with an arbitrary number of peaks. we will focus on the question of whether particular socle types or socle degrees in a fixed number of variables guarantee unimodality. since the weak lefschetz property is only guaranteed to hold in the cases mentioned above, we will use different techniques in our approach. we will show that all pure o-sequences of type three in three variables and all pure o-sequence of type two in four variables are strictly unimodal. we will also show that all pure o-sequences with socle degree less than or equal to nine in three variables are unimodal and all pure o-sequences (except for possibly two cases) with socle degree less than or equal to four in four variables are unimodal. finally we will show that for r greater than or equal to 4 and e greater than or equal to 7, there exists a non-unimodal pure o-sequence in r variables with socle degree e. nonlinear site response analyses can provide more accurate predictions of ground motions during an earthquake than equivalent linear procedures, especially for higher amplitude ground motions.however, the accuracy of the nonlinear analysis is limited by the availability and accuracy of the models used to represent the soil profile. the availability of models that represent cemented soil is very limited because the response of such soil to dynamic loading is not well understood, even though natural cementation occurs in manyseismically active areas.this research investigates the shear modulus and damping of cemented sand through laboratory tests with flush mounted transducers, bender element and resonant column devices. the effect that the cement type, cement content, void ratio, confining pressure and sand particle properties have on the reduction of shear modulus and increase in damping with increasing shear strain as well as the maximum shear modulus are examined through the test results.a new formulation modeling the nonlinearity of the stiffness of cemented sand based on the model simsoil is proposed and evaluated with the data from this and previous studies. model parameters are determined for different types of sand andcementation agents. the model was also implemented in a nonlinear site response analysis code, ample 2000 to illustrate the influence of cementation in deposits on the site response.this research advances the understanding of cemented sands by providing a database of test results, and a model which can be used to predict the response of cemented sand to dynamic loads. this can be useful for performing site response analysis for naturally cemented sites or sites that have been improved by cementation. in this dissertation, i propose a reconsideration within contemporary constitutional theory of the original functional character of the united states constitution. the founders designed the constitution as a functional instrument of complex democratic procedures oriented toward substantive constitutional norms. it established procedural means that would function to achieve moral ends. constitutional theorists too often analyze only one half of this functional equation. moral constitutionalists understand the constitution in light of its substantive ends, diminishing the importance of constitutional procedures. and contemporary originalists too often elevate constitutional procedures at the expense of the constitution's moral principles. yet, the founders believed that the constitution's carefully calibrated procedures would in fact operate to secure substantive constitutional ends. an evaluation of the constitution's full functional character will improve our understanding of american political thought, our political and constitutional development, and the requirements of contemporary constitutional design. the current failure to capture the constitution's functional operation is not unique to our own age. i begin in the first chapter by considering the pre-civil war debates over the nature of the constitution. i argue that those debates reflect an effort by abraham lincoln to salvage the original functional constitution from those who prioritized either constitutional substance or constitutional process at the expense of the other. in defending the union, lincoln understood that maintenance of the original constitution was a prerequisite for guaranteeing and extending individual rights. i follow with two chapters that critique contemporary originalism, specifically its elaboration of the "madisonian system" and its normative defense of democratic procedures. my own approach is an effort to recover the original constitution, but contemporary originalist accounts are often an obstacle to this recovery. i conclude by putting the original functional constitution back together again. drawing from sources rejected by both originalists and their criticsì¢ ââ" specifically james madison's analysis of the deficiencies of the articles of confederation and his recommendations for constitutional reformì¢ ââ" i demonstrate that the original constitution, is a functional document designed to achieve substantive results through democratic procedures, including democratic procedures in the states. the objective of this work is to compare the various adsorbate free energy approximations by comparing them against a full pes sampling method. furthermore, we show the impact of free energy model choice on equilibrium predictions of a catalytic reaction model involving polyatomic adsorbates. focus is placed on comparing the harmonic oscillator and free translator (ho,ft) free energy approximations. the procedure for performing dft calculations and computing free energies will be given initially. next, the formulation of the equations of an equilibrium model will be derived and we will explain possible limitations of the model due to the assumptions used. finally, we will quantify the differences in adsorbate free energy approximations by means of direct comparison and by looking at the sensitivity of model results to free energy calculation method. the pursuit of biologically active natural products affords numerous avenues of study, all of which strive for a common goal: enhancing activity of and access to potential lead compounds of therapeutic interest. the systems of particular interest to this research are polyketides synthase derived natural products and, in particular, the epothilones and peloruside a. toward the design of novel methodologies, this project has focused on development of 1,3-diols and their related monoethers with high diastereoselectivity. the method has focused on the intramolecular delivery of an oxygen nucleophile in the form of a methyl ether. the delivery of the oxygen atom to a carbocation via multiple activation schemes was explored, with both iodide activation and alcohol triflation providing the desired diol-monoether in high yield and with high diastereoselectivity. the delivered oxygen nucleophile has also been demonstrated to be synthetically variable, affording both stable and labile ether products. the synthesis of natural product analogues has also been addressed in the course of this research. specifically, the total synthesis of a hybrid analogue of the epothilones has been undertaken affording two analogues containing both a c14 methyl group and a c9ìâåâ-c10 olefin, both designed to impact the conformation of the macrocycle. in the course of the synthesis, a new methodology was employed to install the c14ìâåâ methyl group, employing the magnesium-catalyzed anti-aldol chemistry developed by evans. this reaction provided a simple and highly selective method to install the c14 and c15 stereocenters in a single and high-yielding step. a final and novel project in our efforts toward polyketides is the design of analogues based on analysis of solution conformation. this research has provided an advanced spreadsheet-based method to process data generated by a strategy of molecular modeling and dihedral determination into polar coordinate maps suitable for analysis of large amounts of conformational data. in addition, comparisons of molecular modeling of peloruside a has been accomplished by an array of diverse force fields using the conformational search routines of the macromodel software. this analysis has revealed interesting conformational preferences of the c9-c15 region of peloruside, which may be exploited in the design of novel analogues based on molecular conformation. supplemental data not included in the dissertation: nicholsonc_data_mm2.zip (151 mb) nicholsonc_data_mm3.zip (154 mb) nicholsonc_data_opls.zip (19.1 mb) this ph.d. thesis studies the interplay of cooperativity and noise in realistic systems, largely focusing on superradiance. cooperative effects emerge from the collective interaction of an ensemble of elements to an external field. notable examples are superconductivity, where the electron cooper pairs interact with the lattice vibrations, plasmon excitations, arising from the collective interaction of electrons in a metal with the coulomb field, and superradiance, that is a cooperative spontaneous emission process stemming from an aggregate of identical emitters. cooperative effects are typically robust to disorder and noise, making them interesting for applications to quantum devices operating at room temperature. in this work, we first present a general master equation formalism that describes the collective coupling of an aggregate of emitters/absorbers to the electromagnetic field, valid both when the size of the aggregate is larger or smaller than the emitted/absorbed wavelength. also, the formalism is valid both for weak and strong coupling of the emitters to the electromagnetic field and, most importantly, it allows to correctly describe superradiance in different regimes.within such formalism, the interplay of superradiance and thermal noise is studied both for molecular nanotubes (of size smaller than the transition wavelength) that are present in the antenna complexes of photosynthetic green sulfur bacteria, and also for novel solid state quantum dot superlattices, having size larger than the emitted wavelength. in both cases it is shown that coherence can persist in presence of thermal noise at the temperatures where these systems have been experimentally analyzed (room temperature for molecular nanotubes, and 6 k for quantum dot superlattices). specifically, in natural molecular nanotubes we show that the macroscopic coherent delocalization of the excitation at room temperature, covering hundreds of molecules, can be considered an emergent effect originating from the combined effect of the specific geometric disposition of the molecules and the presence of cooperatively enhanced couplings between cylinder subunits. these results open the path to new ways of engineering quantum wires robust to noise thanks to cooperativity. moreover, our analysis of solid state systems based on perovskite (cspbbr3) quantum dot superlattices provides a theoretical framework able to explain recent observations of superradiant emission. based on our theory, we suggest that further experiments, using smaller quantum dots, could significantly increase the robustness of the system to thermal noise, paving the way towards room-temperature superradiance in solid-state systems. we also considered the antenna complexes of purple bacteria, where cooperative effects are well known to boost the transfer and storage of photo-absorbed excitations. we show how these properties can be exploited to create a bio-inspired molecular aggregate laser medium, where natural sunlight, although weak, would be used as a pumping source. the efficient energy transfer within this system would effectively focus the absorbed excitation on a suitably chosen molecular dimer, composed by a pair of interacting molecules. the orientation of the molecule transition dipole moment in each dimer is such to concentrate all the dipole strength in the highest energy level, leaving the lower excitonic state dark. a molecular dimer in such configuration, which is ideal to achieve population inversion, is called h-dimer. such an h-dimer in our proposed architecture for a bio-inspired laser medium, is placed at the center of the bio-inspired molecular aggregates. the h-dimers, pumped by the surrounding molecular aggregates, reach population inversion and, therefore, can lase when such aggregates are placed in an optical cavity. turning the incoherent energy supply provided by the sun into a coherent laser beam would overcome several of the practical limitations inherent in using sunlight as a source of clean energy. for example, laser beams are highly effective at driving chemical reactions which convert sunlight into chemical energy. further, since bacterial photosynthetic complexes tend to operate in the near-infrared spectral region, our proposal naturally lends itself for realising short-wavelength infrared lasers which would allow their beams to travel nearly losslessly over large distances, thus efficiently distributing the collected sunlight energy.in search of a common mechanism to cooperativity and its robustness, we have compared the cooper pair model of superconductivity and single-excitation superradiance, showing many similarities between the two: in particular, superradiant systems present an imaginary gap in the complex plane (that is, a segregation between the lifetimes of the system eigenstates) that, similarly to the superconducting gap, makes these systems robust to static disorder. more in general, we show that any long-range interaction between the constituents of a system generates collective behaviours, manifested by gaps in the excitonic spectrum. therefore, our further analysis considers the effect of long-range interactions on excitation transport along disordered chains. we show that the presence of a gapped, collective state affects the whole spectrum of the system, generating quite counter-intuitive disorder-enhanced and disorder-independent transport regimes, that extend over many orders of magnitude of the disorder strength. we also prove that a chain strongly coupled to a cavity mode is equivalent to a long-range interacting chain, thus being very promising for future experiments and applications. specifically, we show that realistic molecular chains, state-of-the-art trapped ions and rydberg atoms are all able to reach the needed long-range interaction strength that would show disorder-enhanced or disorder-independent transport, aiming to the realization of dissipationless transport of energy in disordered quantum wires. hylomorphists coherently commit to intrinsically unified composites only if they affirm the existence of prime matter. doing so frees them to concede that for a substance y composed of the xs, the causal powers of the xs upwardly determine y's causal powers. unlike some hylomorphic theories that endorse upward determination, however a theory that includes prime matter is not a version of non-reductive physicalism. chapter 1 introduces robert koons's distinction between staunch hylomorphism (sh) and faint-hearted hylomorphism (fh). sh is committed to composite substances, but fh holds denies there are such. i argue that koons's answer to the question of how a substance y's powers are related to those of the xs collapses into a version of fh on account of his view that y's fundamental parts are the "enduring substrate of substantial change."chapter 2 studies three hylomorphic theories that claim emergent causal powers distinguish composite substances from accidental unities. both patrick toner and william jaworski insist that emergent powers are not realized in the powers of the xs as the xs are configured in y. in contrast, eleonore stump claims that some of y's powers are emergent in a weaker sense, such that they are realized in the powers of the xs. i argue that all three views are instances of fh. each regards substantial forms as higher-level properties of a sort that do not forge intrinsic unity among a composite's parts. chapter 3 argues that sh must characterize relations among a substance's properties differently than toner, jaworski, or stump. unlike the proposals of toner and jaworski, sh must be compatible with the view that the properties of the xs upwardly determine all y's properties. unlike stump's theory, however, sh must not claim that y's substantial form f is among the upwardly determined properties of y. on the contrary, the properties y bears as a member of its substantial kind are among f's effects. chapter 4 argues that sh can fulfill these desiderata by appealing to prime matter. if y's substantial form factualizes a principle more basic than physical matter, i.e., some prime matter m, then f is not among y's physical properties; rather, f's is metaphysically prior to any such property. moreover, f is the form not only of y, but also y's physical parts, the xs. in that case, being part of y is of the essence of every x, and y's intrinsic unity is secured. now if f is the form of every x, then for every x, the properties x bears as a functional part of y are also posterior to f. a fortiori, the powers of y that are upwardly determined by the properties of xs are posterior to f. therefore, sh is compatible with the upward determination of y's causal powers. in this thesis, i will present evidence from the works of walt whitman to suggest he implemented his reading of dante alighieri's inferno seven years earlier than current scholarship believes and that he used explicitly dantean words in leaves of grass. while american-literature studies have noted that whitman read, and greatly admired, dante, they have, to this point, focused on later editions of leaves of grass; specifically, that of 1867 and the drum-taps sequence, inspired by the sights and horrors of the american civil war, which whitman served in as a nurse. neglected is dante's presence in the earlier, 1860 edition of leaves of grass, which followed his initial, 1859 reading of the inferno. both implicitly and explicitly, whitman used dante's own words to both enrich his poetry and cement his position as the great american bard. contractility of heart muscle cells, or cardiomyocytes (cm), is the major parameter for determining their maturity and functionality. consequently, investigating the effect of mechanical microenvironment on cm function is vital for understanding the underlying mechanism of their behavior in healthy as well as in diseased state. in this work, we investigated the contractile biomechanical properties of cms using two different approaches, for biomedical applications ranging from biorobotics to heart disease studies.in the first section, a bionanoindentor was used to investigate the effect of substrate stiffness on the cm contractile force as well as force propagation through neighboring non-contractile cells (i.e. cardiac fibroblasts (cfs)). to this extent, an elastomeric polymer, polydimethylsiloxane (pdms) was used to form in vitro patterned co-cultures of cm and cf. by leveraging the tunable properties of the pdms polymer, substrates of varying stiffness were fabricated to mimic the mechanical characteristics of normal and diseased myocardial tissue. it was observed that myocardial cells on soft substrates (14 kpa) with a stiffness value similar to the healthy heart tissue exhibited higher contractile force (250 nn) and larger propagation distance of mechanical signals up to 800 μm. these values were much lower, 100 nn and 200 μm, respectively, for cells cultured on stiff substrates (484 kpa) with stiffness values similar to those of the infarcted heart tissue. we also studied the corresponding biochemical changes in cell adhesion and cell-cell interaction proteins. finally, we investigated the influence of single cell-level external mechanical forces on the modulation of the contractile behavior of cms using an atomic force microscope (afm). for this purpose, we micropatterned the myocardial cells into defined rectangular geometries to control the cell density and the degree of cell-cell contact. the outcome of this work has significant potential to advance our understanding of the effect of scar tissues, which are comparatively stiffer than healthy tissues, on cardiac function and could help the development of novel therapies for cardiovascular diseases.since the indentation approach can be used to quantify only a single cell at a time, an alternate method, the thin-film bending technique was used to measure the contractile forces generated by a large group of cms cultured as a cell sheet. such cm cell sheets that are made to beat synchronously could be used as bioactuators for potential biorobotics applications. to this extent, in the second part of this work, a bioactuator was fabricated by combining a pdms base with a thin pdms film cantilever seeded with a confluent layer of cms. characterization of the cell sheet contractions revealed a gradual increase of the dynamic contraction force and the static cell traction force over time, which was accompanied by a linear increase in the expression levels of contractile and cytoskeletal proteins. the rhythmic contractions of the cantilever produced sufficient force, which was harnessed to drive a small biorobot. the biorobot was engineered by incorporating the bioactuator with a pdms base made of two composite materials with different mass densities (i.e. pdms with microballoons and pdms with nickel powder). the difference in the densities of the materials enabled self-stabilization of the device which exhibited different swim propulsion modes depending on the resting angle of its "fin" (the cantilever). the technique described in this work to stabilize and propel the biorobot can pave the way for novel discoveries in biorobotics. a cavitating nozzle flow was studied experimentally with high-speed video, pressure, and void fraction measurements. results were obtained with both aviation fuel (jp-8) and water. three different flow regimes were examined: a single-phase liquid flow where no cavitation occurred, fully developed cavitation originating from a pure liquid flow at the nozzle inlet, and a two-phase nozzle flow where gas bubbles were injected in to the nozzle inlet. the majority of the study focused on the fully developed cavitation, where below a certain nozzle back pressure, both fluids obtained a limiting mass flow rate through the nozzle test section as the flow became choked. high-speed video showed an abrupt region of bubble collapse (a bubbly shock) in the diffuser section of the nozzle for water cases. in fuel cases, bubbles persisted through the entire length of the nozzle with no obvious collapse region. the differences in the cavitation for fuel and water were attributed to the multi-component composition of the aviation fuel, resulting in a spatially distributed bubbly shock that was not visually obvious. bubble injection experiments revealed a strong sensitivity of both the bubble shock location and thickness to the void fraction in the nozzle inlet for both fuel and water. yid is a multigenerational novel exploring themes of jewish identity, adolescence, and sexuality. lakes are areas of intense biogeochemical processing. there is approximately an order of magnitude more organic carbon stored in lake sediments than in the remainder of the terrestrial biosphere (e.g. land plants, soils), and current global estimates of lake co2 emissions offsets nearly 20% of carbon sequestered by terrestrial land plants on an annual basis. clearly, lakes play an integral role in global carbon cycling; however, quantification of regional and global process rates is based upon crude scaling of site-specific rates to regional and global lake area coverage. these types of scaling processes disregard the complex interactions of hydrologic setting, climate, land cover, and geomorphology and are not suitable for making projections in an altered climate. my dissertation research addressed the role of hydrologic behavior in regulating lake carbon cycling both within lakes through time and across lakes on a landscape. my dissertation demonstrated the important role of lake hydrologic characteristics play in determining the fraction of carbon received from the watershed that is processed within the lake. using cross-system surveys, i found that seepage lakes (evaporation dominates hydrologic export) process a greater fraction of carbon received from the watershed than drainage lakes (fluvial transport dominates hydrologic export) for a given hydrologic residence time. i used a whole-ecosystem manipulation experiment to switch a seepage lake to a drainage lake and confirmed spatial patterns of carbon processing between seepage and drainage lakes. i also demonstrated that lake carbon cycling responds strongly to natural perturbations of hydrology as extreme precipitation events induced high carbon loading to lakes, enhanced lake heterotrophy, and elevated the mineralization rate of dissolved organic carbon (doc). i used data assimilation techniques to demonstrate that variability in terrestrial doc reactivity coupled with high rates of doc discharge from the watershed leads to elevated mineralization rates of doc following precipitation events. finally, i incorporated these important hydrologic characteristics into a large-scale lake carbon model and demonstrated that the fraction of evaporation as hydrologic export explains a majority of the variability in lake carbon fluxes across thousands of lakes on a landscape. using survey data from a representative sample of adults in the united states, this article examines the effects of grievances and voluntary organizational membership on protest invitation and protest participation. instead of comparing protestors to non-protestors, it looks at protest participation as a two-step process. first, people are invited (or not) to protest. second, they accept (or not) the invitation. the article shows that aggrieved individuals are more likely to be invited to protest. yet grievances do not have a significant direct effect on protest participation. membership in political, collective identity, and community service organizations increase the likelihood of being invited to protest. but only political organizations contribute to protest participation after controlling for the effect of protest invitation. speech production is a very complex process, involving the coordinated involvement of several parts of the brain, along with the proper activation of around a hundred muscles. connected as it is to many components of the neuromuscular system, it has been shown to be impacted in different ways by several types of neurological conditions. if their impacts on speech have been demonstrated by previous works, their exact nature is still not entirely well defined. furthermore, the ability to utilize the specific changes certain conditions induce on speech to be able to detect or monitor these conditions has yet to be implemented on a wide scale. such a solution would consist of a protocol to define the speech samples to collect, an apparatus to allow this capture, a system to extract speech features from the samples, and finally, using these features, a method to classify the different samples by condition.in this work, we present two different approaches, one to detect mild traumatic brain injuries (mtbi), and another to detect two neurodegenerative conditions: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (als), and parkinson's. similar underlying principles are behind both approaches, with one building upon the other. these approaches strive to be portable and accurate and to rely upon well researched speech sampling methods and large data collection efforts.a series of tests, whose designs are informed by speech language pathology research, is presented to collect feature-rich speech samples. in order to be portable, a mobile application is also created to facilitate the collection of speech samples and associated metadata from over 2,500 student athletes in the context of an analysis of mtbi's impact on speech. we then extract time and spectral domain features, and use logistic regression to create a classification model. with this large dataset of samples, we are able to obtain good classification accuracy between the control and mtbi populations (area under the curve (auc) of the receiver operating characteristic (roc) curve &gt;0.85).we use the basic design of the mtbi tests as a starting point and develop them further as we pivot to diagnosing neurodegenerative conditions. a new application is then introduced for the data collection based on these new tests. it includes several improvements in the way the tests are administered, and the data stored, transferred and analyzed. using this application, we collect speech samples from over 80 participants. we then use xgboost to create classification models to diagnose the speech samples. with these models, we are able to reach an accuracy ≥80\% in classifying the participants in each of our three classifications (control vs als, control vs parkinson's, and parkinson's vs als). ireland's recent history is defined by the waning of long-powerful institutions, with membership in the european union and the failure of the catholic church at the center of rapid economic and social change. between 1990 and 2000, ireland's standard of living jumped from the bottom tier of european countries to become the highest in the eu, while outward migration--a constant since the early nineteenth century--was reversed and ireland began to draw central european, african, and asian immigrants. in short order, the same corrupt postcolonial governance, shortsighted policy, and widespread greed that drove the rise in the nation's fortunes (known popularly as the celtic tiger) helped bring about the stunning financial collapse of 2008. i focus on recent literary texts while examining economic, social, and institutional history, drawing upon performance, music, and film to identify a previously unrecorded literature of male anxiety and adaptation. aggregating these disparate narratives illuminates broader debates over national identity and institutions in addition to gender and economics. using the lens of hegemonic masculinities and social relations of gender, i examine texts that are both symptoms of and interventions in the legitimation of patriarchy. i concentrate on characters who attempt to adapt to new expectations of masculinity, but are nevertheless anxious about the erosion of male privilege or the assumption of new roles. taking these characters as productively unreliable guides through this period of rapid change, i highlight the ways in which male privilege is continually reinscribed even as it is ostensibly challenged. in grouping depictions of land developers, entrepreneurs, rock stars, priests, queers, and soldiers, i unpack the rapid developments in and changing attitudes toward prosperity, modernity, clerical scandal, and revisions to national narratives. i then turn to a group of formal innovations in post-collapse theatre as a case study in techniques for resisting the reinscription facilitated by texts in the period of prosperity. ultimately, i demonstrate that these texts and their negotiations of hegemonic masculinity provide a robust archive of the challenges the contemporary period presents to the performance of masculinity. elaborative and detailed discussions about past emotional events are a hallmark of positive parent-child relationships. the language used during these dyadic conversations may provide insight into maternal well-being, given evidence that differences in maternal language, specifically the disproportionate usage of first-person pronouns, are reflective of negative cognitive biases. to capture self-focused and distancing maternal language, the current study employed theory driven text mining methods to measure the frequency of first-person singular and first-person plural pronouns use during a mother-child reminiscing task. participants included 229 maltreating and non-maltreating mother-child dyads involved in a larger randomized clinical trial of reminiscing and emotion training. results indicated maternal depressive symptoms were negatively associated with first person plural pronoun use. these findings extend work on the association between maternal depressive symptoms and maternal language to maltreating and non-maltreating families, and to a new linguistic context—reminiscing about children's past emotional events. future directions are discussed. this dissertation presents novel numerical experiments and model developments to address challenges in coupling numerical weather prediction models (nwp) with large eddy simulation (les) and diagnostic wind solvers. the benefit of coupling microscale models with large scale dynamics is to improve the characterization of the atmospheric boundary layer (abl) in complex and realistic scenarios where canonical representations of the abl are not valid, for instance when unsteadiness, advection, baroclinicity, subsidence and complex terrain phenomena are not negligible.we explore outstanding challenges in achieving nwp-les coupling, such as the gray zone of turbulence in the convective boundary layer and the sensitivity of fine resolution les driven by realistic surface fluxes, topography and gray zone tendencies. we introduce and validate an ode-based 1d scheme to account for large scale dynamics in a fast-running and building-aware 3d urban diagnostic wind solver (quic). new insights, challenges and opportunities for multiscale modeling and its applications are discussed. we demonstrate that coupling large scale dynamics with turbulence-resolving and diagnostic simulations is a promising tool for atmospheric problems in complex scenarios. nanomagnet logic (nml) is a spin-based logic paradigm and one of the potential alternatives to cmos based logic as we approach the end of moore's law. in order to become a viable next generation device, nml needs an electrical means to sense the states of output magnets. furthermore, the error rate and the power dissipation have to be sufficiently low to make nml a reliable and low-power system. to this end, we pursued experimental study on exchange-biased systems to solve these critical problems in nml. first, we investigated the switching behavior of cofeb/mgo/cofeb/ru/cofe/ptmn based magnetic tunnel junctions (mtj). we observed a presence of parasitic bias field in the free layer of the nanoscale mtj which can impede proper operation of the mtj as an nml output. as an alternative to the mtj we developed a cofe/cu/cofe/irmn based giant magnetoresistance (gmr) stack that is more suitable as an nml output. current-in-plane (cip) magnetoresistance (mr) ratio and exchange bias field of the blanket gmr stack were improved up to 4.5% and 120 mt, respectively. the optimized gmr stack was then integrated with the nml platform. the clock-field requirement and power dissipation in nml can be lowered by improving the field coupling strength through inter-magnet space reduction. in this regard, a double e-beam exposure technique with 3&#948; overlay accuracy of 4 nm was developed to fabricate nml datalines with sub-10-nm spacing. reduction of spacing from 30 nm to 10 nm lowered the power dissipation by 77%. dependency of error rate on the coupling strength was studied by varying the inter-magnet spacing. a 46% improvement in error rate was achieved by reducing the spacing from 30 nm to 10 nm. types and causes of error in ultra-dense nml dataline were also investigated. finally, we proposed a novel approach for synchronous and directional operation of in-plane nml circuits that leverages the unidirectional anisotropy properties of exchange-biased systems and asymmetric field distribution of shape-engineered magnets. this approach promises to eliminate errors in nml by avoiding the stochastic switching of nanomagnets and ensuring simultaneous arrival of input bits at the logic gates. partially oxygenated hydrocarbons provide the building blocks for plastics and synthetic fibers as well as precursors for specialty chemicals. the majority of these oxygenated hydrocarbons are produced through catalytic selective oxidation reactions between hydrocarbons and oxygen. selective oxidation reactions pose a great challenge, as the combustion reactions to produce co and co2 are favored both thermodynamically and kinetically. acrolein and methacrolein, the c3 and i-c4 aldehydes, are two selective oxidation products that are currently utilized extensively in the polymer industry as derivatives for various monomers due to the ease in which the aldehydes can be functionalized. aldehydes are typically produced directly from alkenes and it is of economic interest to utilize the less expensive alkanes as a feedstock for these processes.improved selectivity in selective oxidation reactions can be realized through catalyst and reactor design. the current studies compare inert membrane reactor (imr) and fixed bed reactor (fbr) studies to demonstrate that the imrs improve the selectivity for c3 and i-c4 aldehydes. additionally, dual bed reactor studies are performed to convert alkanes to alkenes in an oxidative dehydrogenation reaction followed by a partial oxidation reaction for the conversion of alkenes to aldehydes. catalysts prepared for these reactions are characterized with surface area, x-ray diffraction, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. theoretical reaction simulations for the fbr and imr are performed using a matlab program.experimental studies of the fbr and imr have demonstrated that the imr improves the selectivity to selective oxidation products in comparison to the fbr. dual bed reactors were successful in converting the alkanes to aldehydes in both c3 and i-c4 reaction studies demonstrating that the imr concept is versatile for multiple reaction networks. dual bed reactors demonstrated great flexibility as conditions such as temperature, residence time, oxygen to hydrocarbon ratio, and membrane or fixed bed could be altered independently in each catalyst bed to coincide with the optimum conditions for each reaction. overall, distributive membrane reactors are beneficial in promoting the selective oxidation reactions of alkanes and alkenes to their respective aldehydes while limiting the production of co and co2. many complex physical systems can be modeled as interacting particles and studied via a particle-based model. such techniques have been widely applied in chemical physics, material science, and biophysics. in this thesis, we study such particle-like complex systems via numerical simulation. we specifically focus on abrikosov vortices in type-ii superconductors, but extension to other systems is also discussed. we first study abrikosov vortices coupled to an artificial-spin-ice (asi) structure. compared with artificial defects in superconductors in previous studies, asi provides an in-situ reconfigurable pinning landscape for the abrikosov vortices, which enables more flexibility to control vortex dynamics. furthermore, we realize geometrical frustration for the first time in a 2d flux-quanta system. we then study single vortex manipulation via a moving magnetic probe. this provides new insights into vortex operations and can be generalized to other types of particle-based systems. for a systematic study of vortex matter, in particular, vortex matter confined in a mesoscopic container, we adopt a network science approach to generate a compact representation of the full configuration space. we find that for almost all the systems we studied, the ground state is at the "core" of this network, which correlates the energetic property of the system with the topology of its network representation. we further study how system stability depends on container symmetry, container size, and vortex number. we elucidate their effects and explain the emergent "magic number" states, which are extraordinarily stable states at specific vortex numbers. this paper focuses on a set of twenty-seven manumission inscriptions from the delphic corpus. my analysis denotes that the mother-child relationship contained in these manumissions serves as a legitimizing definition of both the mother and the child's place within society. i rely heavily on the two primary collections of delphic manumission records for the project: die delphischen inschriften, in hermann collitz's sammlung der griechischen dialekt-inschriften volume ii, and daux's fouilles de delphes, volume iii: épigraphe. although the manumission inscriptions at delphi have enjoyed a rich history, only a few scholars such as hopkins and zelnick-abramotitz have turned their attention to the presence of women. my work expands upon these existing contributions in various ways. the first chapter evaluates the group of twenty-seven inscriptions which include the mother-child clause by running statistical analysis to determine patterns or deviations in chronology, price, gender, syntax, and place of origin. after a detailed investigation, the second chapter turns to the wider manumission corpus at delphi and investigates instances of motherhood within the paramone clauses of enslaved women. the final chapter situates the mother-child clauses within their greater context and concludes that the paramone clauses include motherhood because the slave's status during paramone was inconsistent. thus, the status of any child born during this time of deferred manumission was variable. since motherhood in the paramone clauses serves as a necessary clarification of either slavery or freedom, the same can be said of the mother-child corpus. the mother-child clauses, which appeared decades before paramone clauses concerning motherhood, delineated the statuses of slave children and added legitimacy to the mother's and children's emancipation. in this way, the mother-child clauses represent a tangible example of both the societal concern surrounding the roles of these women and children as well as their attempt to address these concerns through the manumission inscriptions. the hollow-fiber membrane biofilm reactor (mbfr) is based on gas-supplying membranes that passively deliver a gaseous substrate to biofilm formed on the membrane exterior. mbfr biofilms exhibit unique behavior due to substrate counter-diffusion, where the electron donor and acceptor enter the biofilm from opposing sides. this research used mathematical modeling to study the behavior of a denitrifying, hydrogen-based mbfr. a number of numerical counter-diffusional biofilm models were developed, including a one-dimensional, ph-dependent, multi-species model and a more sophisticated two-dimensional, particle-based model coupled to solution of fluid dynamics and mass transport. on a fundamental level, the models predicted the unique response of counter-diffusional biofilms and revealed the mechanisms responsible for their behavior. in terms of application, the results identified best practices for maintaining high rates of denitrification. this dissertation explored three topics important to mbfr success: spiral-wound mbfr spacer design, competition for hydrogen among denitrifying (dnb), sulfate-reducing (srb), and methanogens(met), and gas back-diffusion in mbfr membranes. for complex substratum geometries, such as that used in a spiral-wound mbfr flow channel, complex fluid dynamics led to non-uniform biofilm development. biofilms grew in low-shear regions behind inert plastic spacers, which may be strategically designed to manage biofilm growth. modeling results showed faster-growing dnb outcompete srb and met, but when given adequate substrate and space, srb and met proliferate and lower the activity of the dnb. when established, srb and met consume hydrogen and decrease denitrification fluxes. due to counter-diffusion, sufficiently thick biofilms can also decrease denitrification fluxes, though with frequent sloughing events denitrifying bacteria were favored. the two-dimensional model predicted greater proliferation of srb and met than the one-dimensional model due to their dominance in the crevices between hollow-fibers. back-diffusion of inert gases from the bulk liquid and biofilm into the lumen of the membrane can be detrimental to mbfr performance, though the extent of gas back-diffusion and its effect on denitrification is highly interdependent upon substrate concentrations, membrane properties, and biofilm thickness. applying similar modeling techniques to a membrane filtration application, the effect of fouling layer roughness on permeate flux was also evaluated. the run ii physics program at the tevatron started in the spring of 2001 with protons and antiprotons colliding at an energy of ps = 1.96 tev, and is continuing with about 1.2 fb-1 of data currently collected by the cdf and dzero experiments. a measurement of the b-jet cross section as function of jet transverse momentum pt has been performed using 312 pb-1 of dzero data. the results for this measurement were obtained and are presented herein. a neural network algorithm was used to identify b jets. this thesis focuses on the compressive stress-strain behavior of unreinforced north american concrete under elevated temperatures from fire. a database on the temperature-dependent properties of concrete is developed from previous experimental research. predictive multiple least squares regression relationships are proposed for the concrete strength, elastic modulus, strain at peak stress, ultimate strain, and stress-strain behavior, including the temperature, aggregate type, test type, and strength at room temperature as parameters. high-strength and normal-strength, and normal-weight and light-weight materials are considered. it is shown that at elevated temperatures, the concrete strength and elastic modulus are significantly reduced, whereas the strain at peak stress and ultimate strain are increased. differences between high-strength and normal-strength concrete are quantified. in comparison with previous temperature-dependent relationships, the proposed relationships utilize a larger dataset. furthermore, the previous models implicitly include creep strains, whereas the proposed relationships provide a baseline to which creep strains could be explicitly added. the purpose of this dissertation is to enrich contemporary theology of human creativity through a reconsideration of the work of twentieth century philosopher jacques maritain. i contend that maritain's mature work on creativity, creative intuition in art and poetry, provides a sound philosophical basis on which to build a theology of human creativity. i will argue that maritain's work on human creativity has two related virtues that recommend it for such a task. first, it provides a corrective to a standard modern account of the subject, one that alienates the subject from creation. second, it offers a philosophical account of human creativity that is implicitly related to divine creativity by way of the analogy of being. in order to fully apprehend maritain's work on creativity, and in particular, the two aspects of that work described above, one must examine it in relation to maritain's earlier philosophical work, especially his early work on metaphysics and epistemology and his development of a thomist existentialism. this dissertation begins with a study of, arguably, maritain's most important work, the degrees of knowledge, and his epistemological critique of modernity. i argue that a key thesis of the degrees of knowledge claims that a consequence of modernity's prioritization of epistemology is what might broadly be referred to as a radicalization of the subject. the second part of the dissertation examines maritain's robust response to the crisis of the radicalized subject in the form of a thomist existentialism, which restores the subject to its proper place among the community of existents. the third part of the dissertation analyzes maritain's philosophy of art in relation to post-kantian german idealism and early romanticism. it argues that maritain's recalcitrance regarding certain aspects of romanticism and modernism arises from a residue of kantian philosophy that persists in them in the specific form of the radicalized subject. this section concludes with an exegesis of maritain's philosophy of art in light of the philosophical developments highlighted in earlier sections. in the final section of the dissertation, i elaborate on why the philosophy of art i have expounded provides a sound basis for theological reflection on human creativity. type ia supernovae (sn ia) are standardizable candles and excellent distance indicators. for almost 25 years they have been used to measure the distance to extragalactic objects. when comparing distance versus velocity of distant objects, astronomers can put constraints on the content and dynamics of the universe.a major assumption of the best fit cosmological model (lambda-cdm) is that the universe is homogeneous and isotropic on large scales. that means there is no preferred location or direction. in relation to cosmology, isotropy means that at a sufficiently large scale, the relationship between distance and redshift should be uniform across the sky. that is, there should be no bulk flows at very large scales. both theoretical and observational research in the past decade have begun to challenge this assumption.in the first part of this dissertation, i re-analyze the detectability of this large scale bulk flows based upon the redshift-distance relation for sn ia. these are commonly referred to as dark flows. this analysis uses a model based upon the angular dependence of the deviation from hubble flow on the sky. i apply this analysis to the union2.1 sn ia data and to the sdss-ii supernova survey. results for low redshift, z &lt; 0.05, are consistent with previous searches. i find a local bulk flow of v_bf ~ 300 km/s in the direction of (l,b) ~ (270, 35) degrees. however, the search for a dark flow at z&gt;0.05 is inconclusive. based upon simulated data sets, i deduce that the difficulty in detecting a dark flow at high redshifts arises primarily from the observational error in the distance modulus. thus, even if it exists, a dark flow is not detectable at large redshifts with current sn ia data sets. i estimate that a detection would require a sn ia data set with both significant sky coverage, and a reduction in the effective distance modulus error from 0.2 mag to &lt; 0.02 mag, at a redshift of 0.3. i estimate that a greatly expanded data sample of ~ 10^4 sn ia might detect a dark flow as small as 300 km/s out to z = 0.3 even with a distance modulus error of 0.2 mag. this may be achievable in a next-generation large survey like the large synoptic survey telescope.the second part of this dissertation focuses on improving the standardization of sn ia. since the mid 1990s, sn ia have been corrected for light curve decline rate and photometric color. in the early 2000s, it started to become apparent that sn ia peak luminosity was not just correlated with properties of the sn ia but also with properties of the host galaxy. the residuals of the best fit cosmology should be the uncorrelated noise, but quantities like host stellar mass appear to be correlated with hubble residuals.i continue the effort to improve distance measurements by looking to see if the age of the local stellar environment trends with hubble residuals. i use a bayesian method to estimate the age of the supernova's local (and global) environment by matching observed sdss seds to an fsps stellar population. at ~8 gyr, there appears to be a 0.114 +0.039 mag "step" in the average hubble residual. this step is seen in both the local environment age and the average age of the host galaxy. using principal component analysis (pca) on the salt2 parameters, host stellar mass, and local environment age we see that a combination of light curve stretch (x1), host stellar mass, and local age have a significant (4.7-sigma) correlation with hubble residual. i find that x1, host mass, and age should be combined into a single parameter that best corrects for residuals in the hubble diagram. because there is a difference in the average properties of galaxies in the hubble flow and nearby hosts used to calibrate the luminosities of sn ia, this parameter may have a strong impact on the measurement of the current hubble constant (h0). there appears to be a ~1.3% overestimation of h0 using sn ia, detected at a a ~2.5-sigma level. this effect is less then the current 1-sigma uncertainty of h0 and as such, does not relieve the full difference currently seen in the the measurement of h0 via the cosmic microwave background radiation and with sn ia. proteins participate in many important functions in the cell, from serving as catalysts in biochemical pathways to providing structural integrity. to carry out their functions, proteins must fold into complex, three-dimensional structures. if proteins misfold or aggregate, their function is impaired, which can lead to disease, such as alzheimer's and parkinson's disease. protein folding to the native state can be promoted or disrupted by both amino acid identity and synonymous codon usage. early work by christian b. anfinsen showed that the amino acid identity was important for directing small proteins to their native state. however, the information contained in amino acid identity alone is not always sufficient to drive larger, more complex proteins to their native state. the inability of larger proteins to refold in vitro suggests that cellular context is crucial for directing proteins to fold properly. in vitro conditions lack chaperones, cytoplasmic crowding, and varying translation elongation rates. elongation rate can be modulated by synonymous codons through their variable decoding rates and can therefore influence the co-translational folding process of the nascent protein.progress in the field of protein folding has included the understanding that a sequence containing more rare codon substitutions is more likely to misfold, and that exchanging hydrophobic amino acids with polar ones is likely to significantly disrupt folding. despite these significant advances, we are still unable to build predictive tools for protein folding. one way to build a reliable predictive tool for protein folding is to couple large experimental datasets with machine-learning, but this has been difficult to accomplish due to a lack of tools that can map thousands of protein sequences to a folding outcome in the cellular environment. additionally, synonymous codons are known to participate in many aspects of functional protein production and disentangling the impact of synonymous codons on folding from their other effects in the cell has proven challenging, in large part due to a lack of folding models.in chapter 2, i describe my use of the previously established synonymous codon folding model chloramphenicol acetyltransferase iii (cat) to probe synonymous codon effects on functional protein production in e. coli. we define functional protein production as the net effect of transcription (mrna synthesis), mrna half-life, translation (protein synthesis) and the probability of a protein folding correctly to its active, functional structure. although many synonymous codon substitutions did not significantly disrupt cat protein folding in vivo, i discovered a novel role of synonymous codons in functional protein production. specifically, synonymous codon substitutions in the cat gene upregulated the basal expression levels of an upstream gene which shares a promoter with cat (known as an overlapping, divergent promoter, odp). the upregulation of the neighboring gene, tetr, which is a transcription factor that binds to the shared promoter region, repressed expression of several synonymous cat mutants. increased repression by tetr resulted in decreased accumulation of cat which resulted in decreased e. coli fitness when cells were challenged with the antibiotic cam, due to insufficient accumulation of cat to fight off the antibiotic. this is a significant finding given that (1) odp's are widespread in e. coli, which means this form of regulation may be pervasive and (2) synonymous codons may be under an additional, previously unrecognized selective pressure to regulate expression of neighboring genes.in chapter 3, i describe the development of a protein folding screening tool (folding reporter) that can capture changes to folding upon amino acid mutations in the context of the cellular environment. this screening tool enables the rapid screening of many mutants at once for folding perturbations. rapid in vivo screening is necessary for mapping folding information to amino acid sequence to couple with machine-learning and for building predictive tools that can determine if a protein is likely to fold to its native state from amino acid sequence alone. an additional promising application of the folding reporter is to use it as a discovery tool for synonymous codon folding models to study synonymous codon effects experimentally. having the capability to rapidly measure protein folding perturbations in the cell will significantly expand our understanding of protein folding by providing large amounts of in vivo relevant data that can be used to predict folding outcomes and to identify new folding models. fluid-structure interaction (fsi) problems help to describe many physical phenomena in our world, including topics such as aerodynamics, hydrodynamics, geophysical flows, engineering, and biomedical applications. the problems may be mathematically modeled using a system of navier-stokes and elastodynamics partial differential equations (pdes). the fluid of interest is viscous, incompressible, and newtonian, and the solid is elastic and thick, meaning the solid may be described in the same dimension as the fluid. when the densities of the fluid and solid are comparable, an added-mass effect is introduced where the force from the fluid acts as a mass on the fluid-structure interface. this added complexity makes finding solutions to this two-way coupled problem especially difficult to numerically solve. in order to solve these fsi problems, three novel algorithms are presented and analyzed. more specifically, the solvers developed throughout this dissertation are based on partitioning, using both loosely and strongly coupled techniques. the proposed schemes are then analyzed for stability and convergence and their performance is investigated in numerical examples. one of the main novelties of each of the three schemes is based on the implementation of generalized robin-like boundary conditions, which are imposed on each subproblem in order to account for matching velocities and stresses at the fluid-structure interface. the adaptation of our method compared to classical robin-robin boundary conditions allows us to use energy estimates to prove our algorithm applied to a moving domain problem is unconditionally stable. the time-discretization varies between methods and spatial discretization is done using the finite element method (fem). when considering spatial discretization, it is important to note that a saddle-point problem arises due to the fluid's incompressibility. hence, certain conditions of the finite element spaces are met, which is addressed in our choices of finite elements used in the numerical examples. i highlight the importance of social relationships in shaping religious tolerance and political behavior in muslim-majority countries and the united states. pertaining to religious tolerance, i propose an explanation for why scholars have found a lower level of religious tolerance in muslim than in non-muslim countries. contrary to the mainstream explanations that focus on theological, cultural, institutional, and socio-economic variables, i argue that muslim countries' lower tolerance is driven by lower levels of interfaith friendships of muslims in the countries. analyzing a survey of more than 15,000 muslims in 17 muslim countries, i show that interfaith friendships are related to higher tolerance among muslims and that muslims in muslim-majority countries indeed have lower levels of interfaith friendships than catholics in catholic-majority latin american countries (chapter 2). i also provide experimental evidence for the relationship by analyzing an original survey experiment that i conducted in the world's largest muslim-majority country indonesia (chapter 3).in the next chapters i demonstrate that social relationships also influence americans' tolerance toward muslims and political behavior in general. analyzing the 2008-2009 anes panel i show that individuals embedded in politically diverse networks are less likely to believe in the conspiracy that obama is muslim (chapter 4). this finding complements previous works on the topic that have exclusively focused on political and psychological predispositions. lastly, i relate social relationships to one of the most hotly debated issues in american politics: polarization (chapter 5). i show that a mistaken assumption that partisan bridging (relationships with politically different others) and partisan bonding (relationships with politically similar others) are inversely correlated led previous work to associate partisan bridging with positive outparty attitudes and lower political engagement. employing a novel measurement of bridging and bonding, i demonstrate that bridging and bonding are only weakly correlated and have independent effects on political behavior. partisan bridging, in particular, offers a remedy for a polarized public as it both improves attitudes toward the outparty and encourages participation among individuals.the contributions of my social relationships-based approach to tolerance extend beyond the academic world by highlighting avenues for policy interventions. the power of social relationships means that our efforts to promote democracy and tolerance in the muslim world and beyond must not be limited to promoting moderate religious views or institutional improvements but also must include strategies to enhance social integrations between various social groups. gan and related materials have become one of the most promising material systems for high efficiency power electronics due to their unique material properties, such as a high critical electrical field, large band gap, high electron saturation velocity, large electron mobility, and high thermal conductivity compared with alternatives, such as si, gaas and sic. however, the actual performance of many lateral gan devices has fallen short of expectations, including large ideality factors, the inability to achieve avalanche breakdown, dynamic on-state resistance, current collapse, and hysteresis in fets. unlike other power device options, most gan devices are built on lattice-mismatched non-native substrates such as sapphire or sic because of the high cost and limited availability of bulk gan substrates. these foreign substrates result not only in large dislocation densities, but also limited thermal conductance for heat removal. this work focuses on the development of several gan power device concepts, such as schottky diodes and p-n diodes for high efficiency power switching applications, made possible by vertical device architectures. the prospects for, and benefits of fabrication processing using epitaxial lift-off (elo) using band gap selective photoelectrochemical (pec) etching techniques are also examined.vertical devices are advantageous for power applications because they can utilize thick low-doped drift layers to achieve higher breakdown voltages. this leads to smaller die sizes than comparable lateral devices. on the other hand, vertical devices are more sensitive to the presence of threading dislocations and thus must be made on high quality bulk gan substrates for best performance. elo technology has the potential to allow cost-effective device production using native gan substrates through substrate re-use, as well as to improve thermal performance of devices by eliminating the thermal resistance associated with conventional substrates by enabling direct thermal and electrical bonding. to investigate vertical gan devices and the potential benefits of elo processing, schottky diodes and p-n junction diodes have been fabricated and tested. the schottky device results suggests that elo processing could potentially improve device performance for devices on non-native substrates. in addition, to realize high-voltage, high-current vertical gan-on-gan power diodes and surmount the limitations of mesa-isolated power diodes, we developed a new vertical p-n diode design with ion-implantation edge termination (et), sputtered sinx passivation and back-side cathode contacts. the measured devices exhibit a breakdown voltage exceeding 1.68 kv, with differential specific on resistances of 0.15 momega-cm2. a baliga's figure-of-merit (bfom) of 18.8 gw/cm2 is obtained; this is among the highest reported bfoms for gan homoepitaxial p-n diodes. these devices also exhibit near-ideal scaling with area, enabling currents as high as 12 a for a 1 mm diameter device. to investigate the effect of elo processing on devices on bulk gan substrates, a comparison study was performed on the devices after lift-off processing (after transfer to a cu carrier wafer) and nominally-identical control devices (on a bulk gan substrate and without the buried release layer). the results show that elo-processed devices have nearly identical electrical performance---and improved thermal performance---compared to devices on full-thickness gan substrates. in addition to these high power diodes, vertical gan mesfets have been designed and simulated, and functional devices have been obtained. this dissertation focuses on the development of a new type of hybrid coupled wall structure for seismic regions. coupling of concrete wall piers is achieved by posttensioning steel beams to the walls using unbonded post-tensioning tendons. different from conventional hybrid coupled walls, the coupling beams of the new system are not embedded into the walls. steel top and seat angles are used at the beam-to-wall connections for energy dissipation. unbonded post-tensioned hybrid coupling systems offer important advantages over conventional coupling systems, such as simplified construction, ability to undergo large lateral displacements with little damage, and self-centering capability. analytical investigations are conducted on the nonlinear behavior of floor-level coupled wall subassemblages and multi-story structures under combined lateral and gravity loads. both finite element and fiber element analytical models are developed. the effects of design parameters (e.g., amount of post-tensioning, beam/wall properties) on the behavior of the structures (e.g., strength, energy dissipation, deformation capacity) are investigated. systems with precast concrete walls as well as monolithic cast-in-place concrete walls are considered. the behavior of the proposed coupled wall system is compared with the behaviors of uncoupled walls and conventional systems with embedded steel coupling beams. the analytical results are used to develop approximate procedures to estimate the nonlinear load-deformation behavior of the structures without sophisticated analytical models. the results from eleven half-scale experiments of floor-level unbonded posttensioned hybrid coupled wall subassemblages are also summarized in this dissertation. the tests results are used to validate and improve the analytical models, evaluate critical structural components that can limit lateral strength and ductility, and make recommendations for practical applications. finally, a performance-based seismic design approach is developed for unbonded post-tensioned hybrid coupled wall structures. two prototype eight-story hybrid coupled wall systems are designed using the proposed procedures. evaluations of the global and local behavior of the structures are conducted based on nonlinear static lateral load analyses as well as dynamic time-history analyses under selected ground motion records. the results from these analyses are ultimately used to critically evaluate the validity of the design approach and procedures in achieving the target design performance objectives for the structures. this dissertation addresses four specific issues: modeling of the vertebral endplate, mesh generation for human vertebrae, material property variation in vertebral trabecular bone, and modeling spinal fusions in rabbits. the objective of this study was to develop and validate techniques for subject-specific finite element modeling and analysis of spinal constructs. while models have been applied to analyze whole bones and bone-implant constructs, application to fused spinal segments has been limited. using computed tomography scans as input, models could provide a non-invasive means to assess biomechanics of fusion progress. geometric segmentation and meshing techniques were developed for human vertebral endplate surface. smooth b-spline surface representation was generated for the vertebral endplate surface. smoothness was found to be an important guideline for judgment of a sound surface fit. a moderate decrease of resolution (close to the level of clinical scans) had minimal effect on errors. a set of atlas based techniques were developed to segment geometry and construct hexahedral finite element meshes of human vertebrae from ct scans. algorithms were robust to low quality medical images, and allowed manipulation of the finite element meshes. application of an atlas will allow automatic processing of a large number of subjects, and facilitate comparison between subjects within a study. material properties are an essential input for the finite element models. the study investigated the effect of heterogeneity in the vertebral trabecular bone on the mechanical properties predictions for accurate material modeling in the finite element models of spine. the relationship between trabecular bone volume fraction and elastic constants was assessed. the results showed that inclusion of morphology can improve the predictive strength compared to a single power-law, and most of the variations in the power-law prediction can be captured by incorporating degree of anisotropy (da) in the model. the finding may be used to establish intrasite relationships of density-modulus within the vertebral body to improve the material modeling in the finite element analysis of spinal constructs. the modeling techniques were implemented and validated by rabbit spinal fusion study. posterolateral lumbar spinal fusion was performed on twelve animals. fused segments harvested from two postsurgical time stages were mechanically tested. the tensile tests were simulated using finite elements with density based material modeling to represent the heterogeneity in the fusion mass. the model prediction of stiffness, which is the primary variable of interest in spinal fusion, strongly correlated with the measured data. the results demonstrated the feasibility of using the finite element method to estimate the biomechanics of spinal fusion. although strength wasn't correlated, application of alternate material models showed the potential to improve strength predictions by choosing appropriate density and strength calibrations. overall, this study showed that subject-specific finite element model has great potential for the study of spinal fusion mechanics. self-heating is a critical issue in microand nano-electronics, and efficient heat removal is crucial for the long-term reliability and performance of microand nano-electronic devices. in many semiconductor devices, the power dissipation is non-uniform, which results in hot spots in the device and makes the heat removal very complicated. when two-dimensional materials are used for the electronic applications, heat dissipation problem can be aggregated because even a small amount of joule heat can lead to a dramatic temperature rise in the ultrathin materials. in industrial practice, high-performance site-specific heat spreader and thermoelectric material based solid cooling component are two potential tools for the hot spot mitigation. graphene, which has ultrahigh thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity and thermoelectric power factors, can potentially be used as the core material for these two applications. in my ph.d. study, the thermal transport properties of graphene and its derivatives were investigated using classical molecular dynamics simulations. the research goal was to understand how the chemical functionalization, isotopic effects and structural modification to influence the phonon transport in graphene and across graphene-metal interfaces, which could provide important insights to the thermal transport physics in graphene, and are of practical significance for graphene-based devices in nano-electronics and thermal management applications.four projects have been finished in my ph.d. study. in the first project, the phonon transport physics of pristine graphene, hydrogenated graphene and graphene oxide was investigated using large-scale molecular dynamics simulations. for the pristine graphene, highly ballistic thermal transport was observed. as for the hydrogenated graphene and graphene oxide, the thermal conductivity was significantly reduced when the hydrogen and oxygen coverage increased. for example, an oxygen coverage of 5% could reduce the graphene's thermal conductivity by ~90%, and a coverage of 20% oxygen could lower it to ~8.8 w/mk. this value is even smaller than the calculated thermal conductivity of graphene in amorphous limit (~11.6 w/mk), which is usually regarded as the lower boundary of graphene's thermal conductivity. the vibrational power spectral analyses showed that this large reduction in thermal conductivity was due to the significantly enhanced phonon scattering induced by the oxygen and hydrogen defects.in the second project, the thermal conductivity of oxidized polycrystalline graphene was studied. grain boundaries and the spontaneous oxidization around grain boundary regions are the inherent features of graphene. our study found the thermal conductivity of oxidized polycrystalline graphene decreased as oxygen coverage increased, which was due to the phonon-defect scattering. however, the relative thermal conductivity reduction of oxidized polycrystalline graphene when the oxidization was localized at the grain boundary regions was much smaller compared to that of oxidized single-crystalline graphene with the same oxygen coverage. this was because the grain boundaries themselves are already strong phonon scatterers, such that oxygen atoms residing at the grain boundaries have far less impact on the thermal conductivity as compared to the oxygen atoms on uniformly oxidized single-crystalline graphene. an effective medium approximation model was also developed, which predicted that the influence of both grain boundaries and oxygen atoms on the thermal conductivity of oxidized polycrystalline graphene became smaller as the grain size increased, and the thermal conductivity of oxidized polycrystalline graphene approached that of pristine single-crystalline graphene at the large grain limit.in the third project, the coherent and incoherent phonon transport behavior in 12c/13c graphene superlattices was studied. the existence of coherent phonons in superlattice structure was observed when the period length was small. by changing the period length of the superlattices and thus the interface density, a minimum thermal conductivity was observed, which implied the crossover from incoherent to coherent phonon transport. the thermal conductivity of the superlattices could be further decreased as we disrupted the coherence of phonons by manipulating and randomizing the superlattice structure. our results showed that graphene – a two-dimensional material with intrinsically weak anharmonic phonon scattering – is an ideal platform for studying the nature of phonons. in the last project, the interfacial thermal conductance of oxidized graphene /copper interface was studied. the cross-plane thermal conduction at graphene /copper interface is very poor due to the weak van der waals interaction. our study found that the oxidization could enhance the thermal conductance at graphene /copper interface due to the copper-oxygen covalent bonding. the time-domain thermoreflectance measurements revealed that the interfacial thermal conductance increased with the degree of graphene oxidization until a peak value was obtained at ~7.7% oxygen/carbon atom percentage. the molecular dynamics simulations verified that the strong interfacial covalent bonds were the key to the thermal conductance enhancement. overall, the projects conducted in my phd study contributed to a better understanding of the thermal transport physics in pristine graphene, functionalized graphene, graphene superlattice and graphene/metal interface, which is of significant scientific importance. for application perspective, my studies offered valuable information for the design of graphene-based electronics and thermal management applications, such as graphene heat spreader and thermoelectric solid state cooling components. carbon nanotubes are being studied for their special 1d properties. in this work, an attempt is made to study the factors behind carbon nanotube growth. growth is carried out by thermal chemical vapor deposition (cvd) using a solid catalyst. single electron transistors (sets) made from carbon nanotubes are studied. measurements are carried out on metallic and semiconducting nanotubes at room temperature, 77 k and 4 k. cardiovascular diseases (cvds) such as myocardial infarction are the primary cause of death worldwide. the current clinical approach after mi is reoxygenating the infarct heart tissue, however, this may lead to further damage due to the oxidative stress created, causing reperfusion injury (ri). occurrence of cvds and the related mortality drastically increases with age; over 69% of patients who die of such diseases are age 65 or older. therefore, having a thorough understanding of the pathophysiology of cvds in the elderly population is crucial. most studies, however, use animal models such as mice or rats that are 8-12 weeks old. thus, the drastic differences brought by age and interspecies differences lead to poor success in translating treatments to the clinical settings, showing the immense need for a more pathologically relevant tissue/disease model. using tissue engineering, highly controlled yet complex tissue level 3-dimensional systems can be developed. such systems can be incorporated with human induced pluripotent stem cell (hipsc)-derived cells to fabricate fully human-origin, personalized platforms.the main goal of this dissertation was to develop physiologically relevant, aged human-origin myocardial tissue models to study the pathology of ri. towards that goal, we first determined the characteristics of aging on the tissue level and observed that aging is not just the sum of cellular failures, but it is an emergent event that manifests due to the interdependency of the cells within the tissue. we then designed and fabricated myocardial model tissues using hipsc-derived endothelial cells (ecs) and cardiomyocytes (cms) from rats to study pathophysiology and potential ameliorations of ri. we showed that ec-cm interactions and hypoxia inducible factor 1 expression in ecs is crucial for myocardial survival under ri. using whole genome transcriptome analysis, we showed that this protective effect is governed by ec-driven stabilization of mitochondrial complexes, suppression of oxidative phosphorylation, and activation of rap1 signaling pathway. finally, we developed the first in vitro aged engineered myocardium which shows molecular and functional characteristics resembling aged mammalian heart. this novel platform showing age-appropriate physiology and pathology is promising for investigating cvds or other age-related diseases in a time and cost-effective manner. this work explores the synthesis of two natural products possessing unusual amino acid residues, as well as a bioinspired unnatural prolyl residue.pseudouridimycin (pum) is a naturally occurring c-nucleoside dipeptide antibiotic. pum inhibits bacterial rna polymerase (rnap) in vitro at nanomolar concentrations while exhibiting &gt;10-fold selectivity over human and viral rnap. it also exhibits a 10-fold lower rate of spontaneous resistance in s. pyogenes rnap compared to rifampicin (rif). this natural product harbors a dipeptide tail that consists of n-guanidinoglycine and n-hydroxyglutamine (hgln) residues, as well as a β-pseudouridyl moiety. we report our total synthesis of pum and the structure-based design of dipeptidyl analogues. we also explore conformation-activity relationships for pum via modifications to the dipeptide hydroxamate bond.as part of our continued interest in hydroxamate-containing residues, we devised the synthesis of an unnatural analogue of pipecolic acid (pip), ε-oxapipicolic acid (oxapip). immunosuppressants fk506 and rapamycin are only biologically active when the amide bond preceding pip adopts the trans conformation, highlighting a need for trans-inducing pip surrogates. utilizing model systems, we determined that oxapip enhanced trans amide population in peptides, which we presumed was due to lone pair-lone pair repulsion between the amide carbonyl and the oxapip ε oxygen. we also pursued the total synthesis of eleganine a, a complex indole alkaloid natural product capable of inducing apoptosis in huh-7 cancer cells. this molecule possesses an unusual ethylideneproline core with e alkene geometry. we devised a nickel-catalyzed route to this proline analogue that was highly selective for the desired alkene geometry, while also installing the necessary trans stereochemistry for the c2,c3 ring substituents. we successfully employed larock heteroannulation to link the ethylideneproline ring to a substituted indole. unfortunately, attempts to form the final intramolecular hemiaminal ether bond of eleganine a were unsuccessful, instead affording us an enamine dimer product. emotions are part and parcel of human motivation and behavior and are central to our understanding of psychopathology and conceptualization of treatment. the concept of emotion processing has emerged in various schools of psychology and been shown to be crucial to understanding the nature of emotion and its role in psychopathology. however, current measures of emotion processing are inadequate in how they conceptualize and/or operationalize the construct. using insights from psychoevolutionary theory and the extant literature on emotion processing, i propose a conceptual model of emotion processing according to which affect, conceptualized as a reaction about environmental exigencies that affect basic needs, is processed to inform context-responsive, adaptive action in multiple parallel stages including awareness, acceptance, experiencing, and expression. next, to address the lack of a comprehensive and psychometrically sound measure of emotion processing, i report on two studies that aimed to develop and validate a new integrative measure: the multidimensional executive emotion processing schedule (meeps). the pilot study used an undergraduate student sample (n=371), whereas the primary study used a larger and more diverse mturk sample (n=450). in both studies, exploratory factor analyses revealed a robust factor structure with three underlying factors: rejection, embracing, and expression. the meeps scales showed high internal consistency (i.e., cronbach's alpha), and their convergent and discriminant validity were supported. finally, the meeps scales predicted internalizing psychopathology symptoms (i.e., depression, social anxiety, panic, and traumatic intrusions) more strongly than externalizing symptoms (i.e., ill-temper) and over and above all convergent measures (i.e., eacs, meaq, and kims/ffmq) combined. overall, the results indicate that the meeps measures emotion processing with excellent reliability and promising validity, including predictive power for psychopathology, particularly internalizing domain symptoms. dual-polarization radar is typically associated with high-cost national assets such as nasa's smap satellites and noaa's weather radar. however, with the advent of software defined radio (sdr) technologies, platforms are becoming available that provide capability to implement low-cost radars having tunable operations, multiple channels and programmable signal processing. while sdr platforms are often not well-suited for radar implementation, radar operation can be achieved with significant customization efforts.many researchers have demonstrated sdr-based radar, but very few have considered dual-polarized (dual-pol) sdr-based radar, and fewer yet, exploit the diverse polarization responses obtained from a coherent, full-polarization radar operation. this latter implementation typically requires consistent phase (and gain) relationships among all transmit and receive ports as a function of frequency and enables repeatable, phase-consistent complex-valued characterizations, constituting the target response matrix. very few sdr radar researchers, if any, attempt to implement a phase-aligned radar system, which preserves the exact phase relationships among the components of the target response matrix. such phase-aligned operation offers capability to synthesize and analyze signals with an accurate sense of the polarization, assuming proper antenna orientations.the full-polarization target matrix is commonly referred to as the sinclair backscatter matrix in monostatic radar configurations or the forward (back-) scattering matrix in bistatic configurations for orthogonal transmit polarizations and orthogonal receive polarizations. this target matrix can reveal more information than is possible with a single-polarization (single-pol) radar, but requires more sophisticated multiport radar operation and signal processing. in particular, phase coherent (or phasealigned) transmission using two orthogonal polarization states is required, and these must be received on coherent (or phase-aligned) orthogonally-polarized receive ports. furthermore, the implementation must limit cross-coupling between the transmittoreceive channel pairs.an important constraint associated with radar operation is the signal isolation between the transmit and receive functions. poor isolation limits the range at which targets can be sensed. conventional systems operate in a monostatic mode and employ circulators along with carefully designed waveforms to limit interference induced by transmit signal reflections from the antenna interface and the local environment. these architectures are known to provide reciprocal target responses between the cross-polarized responses (such as v/h and h/v transmit/receive polarization components) for reciprocal (e.g., non-ferrous) targets. for off-the-shelf circulatorsand continuous-wave waveform designs, these traditional architectures lead to poor isolation. to overcome the limitation of circulators, we instead employ a pseudomonostatic architecture that incorporates a septum between the transmitter and the receiver. the architecture achieves suitable isolation, limiting blanking to the first few range gates in our experiments, and when coupled with complementary waveform designs, the architecture provides an additional diversity through non-reciprocal vh and hv responses.typical characterizations for a conventional single-pol radar system include target position (range and angle), and velocity. common examples of these types of radars include air traffic control radars and early-generation doppler weather radars. in the literature, one relatively new type of target characterization is based on microdoppler target features, or target motions exhibiting small displacements. in singlepol radars, the micro-doppler phenomenon has successfully been exploited to characterize target vibrations. however, this approach is known to have a prominent limitation: target vibrations can induce polarization-dependent responses that are largely mismatched to the polarization of a single-pol radar. in contrast to the micro-doppler approach, a dual-polarization radar can utilize polarization-based microvibrometry to measure changes in the target's polarization while also providing polarization-diverse micro-doppler features. complex target reflections often exhibit unpredictable (i.e., arbitrary) polarization states. obtaining a full-polarization characterization of a target allows for transmit and receive polarization dependencies to be leveraged in post-processing. this permits a more complete analysis of target attributes, like vibration, and offers a capability not possible with a single-pol radar system. this approach is shown experimentally to generate more diverse responses, relative to a single-pol radar characterization.five different radar prototypes of varying complexities have been designed, developed, built, and/or integrated using sdr platforms to demonstrate the capabilities of coherent, dual-polarization radars. the prototypes are based on architectures incorporating single and multiple sdrs. different commercial-off-the-shelf (cots) sdr platforms and architectures offer various trade-offs in radar design related to cost, signal isolation, range resolution, and magnitude/phase coherency. to achieve phase coherency, a calibration procedure that does not require an external signal source, was designed and implemented to provide magnitude/phase coherence across all transmit and receive channels. laboratory experiments were performed to validate the technique's effectiveness.the developed radar systems were also used in numerous field experiments conducted on the campus of the university of notre dame and a steel manufacturing plant in new carlisle, in. full-polarization operation of these systems were demonstrated and compared. the most capable of the radar systems was utilized in various experiments to analyze dynamic responses from a host of different targets. in each instance, target features of interest were hypothesized and then verified with simulated and experimental results. where possible, field tests were also compared against non-radar-based sensor systems (e.g., vibration measurement systems) to provide a baseline comparison of target behaviors.each testing location provided unique challenges that necessitated the use different signal processing schemes to combat undesirable attributes in target behavior and/or environmental clutter. techniques which highlight time-varying attributes are considered alongside longer-term statistical analyses, including a novel method based on polarimetric-vibrational entropy, to help characterize steady-state target responses. the results from these experiments demonstrate capabilities of dual-pol radars and further support the advantage of polarimetric characterizations over those possible with single-pol radars. molecular simulations have, for many years, been used to investigate transport phenomena, with a goal of validating theories of transport and predicting material properties. although equilibrium molecular dynamics (emd) simulations can be utilized for these purposes, they are somewhat limited due to noise issues. previous non-equilibrium md (nemd) methods have improved the quality of transport coecients obtained from simulation results, but their application is still limited to homogeneous materials. in this dissertation, i present two algorithms, the "non-isotropic velocity scaling" (nivs) and "velocity shearing and scaling" (vss) approaches that improve the applicability of the nemd methods. the implementation of these algorithms in md simulations will be discussed in detail. applications of these methods in homogeneous fluid and solid systems as well as complex metal-liquid interfaces with surface capping agents follows, along with simulation results for thermal transport and interfacial shearing. our results demonstrate that these algorithms can provide reasonable estimates of transport coefficients as well as retaining desirable features of previous nemd methods, while fixing defects in these previous methods. furthermore, with the vss algorithm, an efficient evaluation of shear viscosity over a wide range of temperatures can be obtained with a single simulation. we expect these methods can be used for more advanced applications in complex systems such as coupled transport properties. the field of actinide metal-organic frameworks (mofs), specifically transuranic mofs, is vastly underexplored. the first transuranic mof was reported in 2018 and although others have since been reported, understanding of their chemistry lags behind those of early actinides and transition metals. this is in part due to their potent radioactivity and strategic importance, in addition to the need for dedicated facilities to study these elements. in this work, the subset of thorium mofs is expanded by exposing this actinide element to synthetic conditions typical of mofs. a thorium mof containing organic linkers with extended pi systems was synthesized, characterized, and irradiated. gamma and he-ion irradiation studies reveal exceptional radiation resistance. neptunium mofs are also investigated. synthesis and characterization of multiple np mofs underscore that unprecedented clusters and structural units are stabilized in mofs. this is achieved using a variety of organic linkers with diverse structures and geometries. gamma-irradiation studies of one np mof indicated the interesting reactivity of transuranic structures when irradiated. to relate these novel np mofs to the published body of literature on neptunium crystal chemistry, an expanded structural hierarchy of neptunium crystal structures was constructed. by sorting crystal structures based on oxidation state and dimensionality of the structural unit, structural trends and similarities are identified. additionally, i develop a graphical notation system for neptunyl compounds coordinated by organic ligands and apply it to this subset of compounds to facilitate its comparison to structures coordinated by oxyanions. zeolite is a fascinating porous material made up of many chemical building blocks. the use of zeolite is prevalent in modern days applications. its usage can be widely seen in agriculture, cement making, wastewater treatment, environment protection, and numerous small-scale and micro-scale applications.1–5 zeolite is built up by its tetrahedral sites (t-site) such as silicon (si4+) and aluminum (al3+) t-sites that are bridged together by oxygen atoms.6 an incumbent si4+ type tetrahedra which is replaced by al3+ leads to the creation of a -1 charge on its connected oxygen. within that al3+ inclusive zeolite ring, such as the six-membered-ring (6mr) and the eight-membered-ring (8mr), there can be another al3+ substituted site that gives another -1 charge in the ring. these two al3+ form a -2 charge al pair in the ring. altogether, these negative charges can be compensated by many types of cations, such as bronsted acids (h+), metal cations (cu2+, fe3+), or metal combinations with oxygen and hydrogen (cuoh+, fe(oh)2+).7,8 copper is a common species in ssz-13 due to its excellent catalytic properties in scr and partial methane oxidation (pmo).10,18,19 in copper exchange, copper prefers to be located either in the 6mr as cu2+ or the 8mr as cuoh+.20,21 the siting of copper species strongly depends on the availability of the 'low energy' sites present in these membered-rings. thus, researchers have formulated a way to estimate the number of these preferred sites using composition parameters such as si/al and cu/al ratios.22–24 in fact, quantification of copper in zeolite has long been an interest to the catalyst community. in literature, several spectroscopic and molecular adsorption methods have been proposed and studied. in one of those works, paolucci et al. measured the proportion of cu2+ and cuoh+ by reducing the copper species with no+nh3 reduction and ammonia temperature programmed desorption (nh3-tpd).28–30 the presence of no and nh3 reduces cu2+ into cu+ and h+ while it reduces cuoh+ into cu+.31,32 when nh3 is introduced to the species after reduction, it adsorbs on both cu+ and h+ sites.33,34 when temperature ramps up, the temperature which nh3 desorbs will tell the number of cu+ and h+ sites available in the zeolite. comparing with a nh3-tpd conducted before the reduction step, the quantity of cu2+ and cuoh+ can then be counted. though nh3-tpd works satisfactorily in the study, it rarely serves as a final step to quantify cu2+ and cuoh+. thus, several interrogation methods are used to complement each other.24,33,35,36hydrogen temperature programmed reduction (h2-tpr) is an easy and direct method to quantify cu2+ and cuoh+. h2 is a simple molecule compared to nh3. it adsorbs directly onto cu2+ and cuoh+ instead of using cu+ and h+ as surrogates as in nh3-tpd. however, it also shares a similar shortcoming with nh3-tpd, among others. in its case, the type of intermediary species and their formation steps in h2 reduction of cu2+ and cuoh+ have yet been understood. in a big picture, the elementary steps of getting from the reactants (h2, cu2+, and cuoh+) to the products (h2, h2o, cu+, and cu+/h+) are not yet understood. therefore, this work will investigate their reduction mechanisms in ssz-13 zeolite through making and validating hypothesis on their reaction mechanisms. the understanding of this copper reduction mechanism has an impact in the understanding of copper reduction pathway, the types of intermediate species, and possibly the effects of water solvation on copper reduction rate. women have been historically decentered within industrial labor communities. this work uses archaeology and historical research to reveal some women's response to paternalism in the "model" company town of pullman, chicago, during its period of historic significance,1880-1894. pullman had well-constructed homes and an aesthetically-appealing community that came with paternalist forms of company oversight that alienated some residents.archaeology performed in pullman by jane baxter indicated that some residents may have used their backyards less intensively during the period of company control than residents after, and she attributed this to alienation experienced due to surveillance and company oversight. alienation requires a robust analysis of the complexities and nuances that accompany the phenomenon, however, and baxter's work was limited. therefore, this work had two primary goals: to test the archaeological work performed by jane baxter, and to locate examples of women's labor within the town that contradict characterizations of alienation. archaeology was performed in 2020 at two sites in pullman with students from depaul university. results from this work were consistent with previous archaeology; few diagnostic artifacts were recovered from levels of historic significance, supporting the hypothesis that some of the worker-residents of the model town of pullman may have been alienated from their backyards.few documents exist about women in pullman during this period, however we can combine what we have with what we know about women's behavior to consider the ways women performed significant, fulfilling labor that was frequently empowering. i use the words of mary wollstonecraft, who referred to women's labor as "the necessary and the ornamental" (wollstonecraft [1792] 1974, 51), to frame women's labor in pullman. "necessary" refers to gendered domestic labor for activities of daily life, while "the ornamental" refers to the unique requirement of women to maintain pleasant aesthetics for our bodies and homes. each of these can be performed in fulfilling, non-alienated manners.this work brings historic visibility to women in pullman. further, company towns continue among universities, military bases, and tech campuses and his work helps us understand how women seek and find empowerment within these communities. the extreme conditions that can arise in astrophysical environments enable nuclear transmutation processes to take place, by which atomic nuclei interact with their environment or decay to form new nuclei. insofar as different astrophysical environments may foster certain transmutation processes but not others, these environments may be categorized by the different types of nucleosynthesis that occur in each; one of the primary goals of nuclear astrophysics, then, is to explain how these different nucleosynthesis sources produce all of the chemical elements observed in the universe, beginning with the primordial hydrogen and helium produced during the big bang. in this work, i develop a collection of computational tools and analytical techniques that provide insight into astrophysical nucleosynthesis, specifically in the areas of quantitatively propagating uncertainties from nuclear properties to nucleosynthesis calculations; isolating the specific role of individual nuclear properties in complex nucleosynthesis processes; and combining nucleosynthesis calculations with astrophysical observations to evaluate nuclear models. in each case, i investigate applications to the rapid neutron capture process (r process) of nucleosynthesis, which is expected to be the formation mechanism for the heaviest elements observed in the universe. in this dissertation, i examine the implications of the problem of mental causation and what david chalmers has dubbed the &quot; hard problem of consciousness&quot; for competing accounts of the mind. i begin, in chapter one, with a critical analysis of jaegwon kim's physicalism, or something near enough. (2005) there, i maintain that kim's ontology cannot adequately address both the problem of mental causation and the &quot; hard problem of consciousness.&quot; in chapter two, i examine the causal pairing problem for substance dualism. i demonstrate both that the substance dualist can respond to the argument at no great cost, and that the pairing problem applies, with equal force, to the irreducible qualia posited on kim's account. chapters three and four are devoted to what i take to be the central argument against any kind of dualism: the causal exclusion argument. in chapter three, i examine dualistic responses to the exclusion argument that grant the causal closure of the physical world. i note that these responses, though technically adequate, are nevertheless theoretically unpalatable. in addition to requiring the dualist to adopt unconventional attitudes towards causation, responses of this variety also have the unfortunate result of rendering libertarian freedom impossible. finally, in chapter four, i turn my attention to the question of causal closure. i maintain that the causal closure of the physical world, though widely affirmed, is nevertheless extraordinarily difficult to support. in light of hempel's dilemma, causal closure is either false, compatible with dualistic interaction, or unacceptably stipulative. there is, i maintain, no causal closure principle up to the tasks required by the causal exclusion argument. for that reason, i conclude that the dualist ought not to worry about causal closure. given a (partial) flag variety over algebraically closed field k, a fundamental problem is to determine the sheaf cohomology groups of line bundles on it. in characteristic zero, a complete answer is given by the borel-weil-bott theorem. over fields of positive characteristic, results such as kempf's vanishing theorem and anderson's characterization of (non)vanishing of h1 provide partial answers. however, the problem still remains largely unknown in positive characteristic. this thesis is dedicated to characterizing the (non)vanishing of cohomology of line bundles on the incidence correspondence x = {(p,h) ∈ ℙv × ℙvv : p ∈ h}, where v is a vector space of dimension n ≥ 3 over an algebraically closed field of characteristic p &gt; 0. when n=3, this is the result of griffith from the 70s. our strategy is to recast the problem in terms of computing cohomology of (twisted) divided powers of cotangent sheaf on projective space. we study the vanishing behavior by estimation of castelnuovo-mumford regularity of composition factors induced by natural truncation of frobenius. we also investigate the character of cohomology groups of line bundles on the incidence correspondence with respect to the natural action of n-dimensional torus. when n=3, we give an explicit recursion formula which recovers the result of linyuan liu. we also provide a resursive formula in the case n=4, p=2. for the case p=2, we give a conjecture of non-recursive character formula, involving symmetric polynomials naturally defined in terms of winning positions of the game of nim. we will show the conjecture holds in the case n=3 and n=4. the active metabolite of vitamin d3, 1,25d, induces growth arrest and apoptosis in mcf-7 breast cancer cells through a mechanism involving mitochondrial disruption, reactive oxygen species (ros) generation and autophagy. the purpose of these studies was to further investigate the signaling pathways impacted by 1,25d in mcf-7 cells and a 1,25d resistant variant, mcf-7dr. characterization of mcf-7dr cells revealed lower expression and activity of vdr which probably underlies resistance of these cells to 1,25d. disruption of redox balance and ros generation is characteristic of 1,25d induced apoptosis in mcf-7 cells. vdup1 is a 1,25d regulated protein that binds to the small redox protein thioredoxin, which is responsible for neutralizing ros. in mcf-7 cells 1,25d altered thioredoxin localization and redox status. to further elucidate the pathways affected by 1,25d a large screen for apoptosis related proteins was carried out. this screen identified grim19 as a 1,25d regulated protein in mcf-7 cells. in follow-up analysis 1,25d significantly reduced grim19 protein in mcf-7 cells and induced its nuclear localization. grim19 binds to and negatively regulates stat3, a member of the signal transducer and activator of transcription family of proteins. 1,25d treatment reduced stat3 phosphorylation at tyrosine 705, which is necessary for stat3 activity. through these studies a newly characterized protein, grim19, was identified as a 1,25d target and the stat3 pathway was implicated in 1,25d mediated apoptosis and signaling. in this dissertation, i argue that to understand plato's socrates—who he is, what he knows, what he does, and so forth—we ought to attend to his particular focus on self-knowledge. i examine socrates' theory of self-knowledge through the apology and charmides. in chapter 1, i use the apology to sketch an outline of socratic philosophy, and argue that socrates' so-called "human wisdom"—what is therein portrayed as something at the center of the sort of examined life socrates evangelizes throughout the dialogues—is a complex form of self-knowledge. that self-knowledge, i contend, is a knowledge not only of the condition of his soul but also a knowledge of what is valuable, and a knowledge of how to practice certain activities that are conducive to moral improvement. in chapter 2, i explore how socrates' method induces this self-knowledge in others—specifically, i argue that his portrait of it in the first half of the charmides, wherein socrates compares himself to a therapist or doctor of the whole soul, indicates that socrates conceives of his practice as having the power to generate in his interlocutors positive progress with respect to self-knowledge. finally, in chapter 3, i look at a series of arguments in the second half of the charmides that are widely regarded as problematic for socratic self-knowledge, as there a theory of sôphrosunê that bears some resemblance to socrates' self-portrait in the apology appears to be struck down as either impossible or lacking in benefit. i outline a variety of interpretations of the dialogue, and argue that negative readings of the charmides are due, on the one hand, to faulty interpretations of the nature and purpose of the arguments therein, as well as, on the other, misconceptions about socrates himself (what he knows, the purpose and aims of his method, and so forth). i conclude that socratic self-knowledge, as i understand it, escapes unscathed. we study novel ways of doing computation by using nanomagnetic systems. extending the nanomagnet logic (nml) concept, which is based on dipole coupling between neighboring nanomagnets, we attempt to use inter-layer exchange coupling as an additional coupling mechanism between two laterally adjacent nanomagnets. simulations show that more than 4 times stronger coupling can be achieved between magnets in such a system compared to a conventional dipole-field coupling based system. the simulated system was successfully fabricated, and more than 90% of the fabricated devices worked reliably. using the coupling scheme as a building block, a three-input majority gate has been successfully simulated. this coupling mechanism can tremendously benefit miniaturization of nanomagnets, enhancing its immunity to thermally induced errors at the same time, and this opens new perspectives for magneto-logic devices.additionally, we study the reversal properties of nanomagnets patterned from exchange and/or dipole-coupled magnetic multilayers using vibrating sample magnetometry (vsm). the joint effects of shape anisotropy, exchange, and dipole coupling between the multilayers have been explained by micromagnetic simulations, and transverse magnetization metrology (tmm) was used for the first time to study the switching behavior of such systems. gradual/macro-spin type and abrupt/nucleation-growth type switching have been observed in exchangeand dipole-coupled nanomagnets, respectively. the role of thermal fluctuations in these systems has also been explored. part of my work was to develop the capability to measure magnetic processes in the ghz range. ferromagnetic resonance (fmr) was used to study dynamic properties of nanomagnets with strong emphasis on application drivers. these measurements were the first dynamic, high-speed characterization of nanomagnet devices by the notre dame group. moreover, new device concepts based on spin waves and the interactions of spin waves with magnetic fields and magnets of different shapes have been explored. this dissertation describes the technologies for fabrication and characterization of nanomagnet arrays and their integration with waveguides for high-frequency studies. simulations were done to reveal the details of the switching process, and the interaction of nanomagnets with microwave components. this study is an interpretation of descartes' theory of space and vacuum. descartes famously holds that space is identical to matter, and that a vacuum or empty space is logically impossible. these positions earned descartes a great deal of criticism from philosophers during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. two main strands of criticism are dealt with here. first, descartes was charged with dogmatism for holding that rival notions of space were inconceivable, a position for which he seems to have no good arguments. second, some philosophers claimed that descartes is guilty of inconsistency: his position on the vacuum, they said, was incompatible with his theory of the metaphysics of extended substance. this dissertation comprises a comprehensive interpretation of descartes' treatment of space and vacuum, particularly in the principles of philosophy (1644). a new reading of the discussion of place and space in principles part ii is articulated and defended; the result is a fundamental rethinking of what descartes means by the claim that body and space are identical. this reinterpretation provides the basis for the culminating point of the study. descartes' position on the vacuum is discussed in relation to a number of different understandings of what a vacuum might be. the different arguments he offers concerning the vacuum are analyzed and related to each other. two chapters are devoted to objections raised by arnauld, henry more, and spinoza. the implications of these objections for descartes' theory of extended substance are pursued in these chapters, and direction for further research on this topic is discussed in an appendix. the central thesis argued here is that descartes' position on space and vacuum is more plausible in its context than has been recognized. it turns out that descartes takes great care to address the strengths of his opponents' positions on space and vacuum, and that he has an argument for his view involving an appeal to ontological economy or simplicity. his position on this topic, which is commonly taken to be a paradigmatic example of dogmatism, is argued for more plausibly, and more responsibly, than has previously been recognized. part 1: the tetradentate ligand tbucliph4 (tbucliph4 = 4,4'-di-tert-butyl-n,n'-bis(3,5-di-tert-butyl-2-hydroxyphenyl)-2,2'-diaminobiphenyl) forms molybdenum(vi) complexes with a varying number (0-2) of terminal oxo groups. the doubly deprotonated cis-dioxo complex (tbucliph2)moo2 readily loses water to form a series of monooxo complexes (tbuclip)moo(l) in the presence of donor ligands. (tbucliph2)moo2 also reacts with 3,5-di-tert-butylcatechol to form oxo-free (tbuclip)mo(3,5-tbu2cat). the facile formation and interconversion of these species highlights the ability of the amidophenoxide ligand to stabilize the high-valent molybdenum metal center by strong &#960;-donation. (tbuclip)mo(3,5-tbu2cat) has lower lewis acidicity compared to oxo and catecholate analogues (tbuclip)moo, mo(3,5-tbu2cat)3, and (3,5-tbu2cat)2moo, which is apparent from rates of pyridine dissociation. these amidophenolate ligands enable oxygen atom abstraction by the molybdenum(vi) in a ?nonclassical? fashion, as the required reducing equivalents for oxygen reduction are drawn from ligand oxidation and not the molybdenum center. this generates a reactive intermediate, tentatively identified as (tbuclipsq)moo2, with oxidizing equivalents stored in a bis-semiquinone ligand. (tbuclipsq)moo2 can be deoxygenated by dimethylphenylphosphine, establishing a closed loop cycle for catalytic oxygen atom transfer. part 2: silylation of the oxidized ligand in lead(ii) bis(3,5-di-tert-butyl-1,2-quinone-(3,5-di-tert-butyl-2-oxy-1-phenyl)imine), pb(onoq)2, with chlorosilanes rsix2cl (r = me, ph; x = me, ph, cl) results in tetracyclic, pentacoordinate silicon compounds x(y)si(on[r]o) in which the aryloxyiminoquinone ligand is irreversibly reduced. the trigonal bipyramidal silicon products of migration in some cases form kinetic isomers, r(cl)si(on[r]o) with an equatorial chlorine substituent, which isomerize to their thermodynamically stable stereoisomers, cl(r)si(on[r]o), in which the chlorine is axial. the kinetic stereoselectivity in these reactions is determined not only by relative barriers of migration from isomeric octahedral silicon intermediates, but also from the reversibility in isomerization of &#954;3-r(x)(y)si(onoq) isomers via the tetrahedral &#954;1-r(x)(y)si(onoq). in reaction of me3mcl (m = si or sn) with h(dopoq) (dopo = 2,4,6,8-tetra-tert-butyl-1-oxo-1h-phenoxazin-9-olate), tetrahedral intermediates &#954;1-me3m(onoq) can be isolated or spectroscopically identified. the rates of methyl migration from these intermediates indicates that migration from tetrahedral tin is 10^4 times faster than migration from silicon. in stark contrast, methyl migration from silicon in the octahedral intermediate &#954;3-mecl2si(dopoq) is at least 10^7 time faster than migration from tin. the enhanced reactivity of the silicon-carbon bond in monomethyl compounds results from the increased stability of the &#954;3 intermediate realtive to &#954;1. this inference can used to the drive the desired reactivity of silicon and tin. this dissertation characterizes the geometry of mobile wireless networks and their performance. in mobile networks, distance variations caused by node mobility generate fluctuations of the channel gains. such fluctuations can be treated as another type of fading besides multi-path effects. interference statistics in mobile random networks are characterized by incorporating the distance variations of mobile nodes to the channel gain fluctuations. the mean interference is calculated at the center and at the border of a finite mobile network. the network performance is evaluated in terms of the outage probability. compared to a static network, the interference in a single snapshot does not change under uniform mobility models. however, random waypoint mobility increases (decreases) the interference at the center (at the border). due to the correlation of node locations (in mobile or static networks), the interference and outage are temporally and spatially correlated. we quantify the temporal correlation of the interference and outage in mobile poisson networks in terms of the correlation coefficient of the interference and conditional outage probability, respectively. the results show that it is essential that routing, mac scheduling, and retransmission schemes need to be smart (i.e., correlation-aware) to avoid bursts of transmission failures. for communication between two neighboring nodes in wireless networks, the local delay, which is defined as the time it takes a node to successfully transmit a packet, is an important quantity. previous research focuses on the local delay in static or infinitely mobile poisson networks with aloha. in this dissertation, we extend the local delay results to poisson networks with finite mobility. bounds of the local delay in mobile poisson networks are derived for different mobility and transmission models. although mobility helps reduce the local delay, its impact depends on the particular mobility model. the phase transition that marks the jump of the local delay from finite to infinite is also characterized. pittsburgh has been known for coal smoke since its founding. yet no comprehensive study exists of the meaning of smoke to the city. urban pollution is usually discussed in terms of problem and solution. such narratives seldom do justice to the mixed losses and benefits inherent in historical outcomes or to the ambiguous motives and capacities of historical actors. this dissertation asks when, for whom, and why smoke became a problem in pittsburgh. more broadly, it examines the rich variety of roles smoke played in urban history. pittsburgh began as a frontier settlement. the smoky spectacle described in travelers' accounts advertised its abundant coal and industrial promise. valued for economic potential rather than civic culture, pittsburgh's future seemed precarious. environmental sacrifice shored up its uncertain prospects. nuisance judgements and local newspapers characterized opposition to smoke as a threat to economic necessity &ndash; arising from luxurious and vicious tastes of coddled and feminized elites. by the 1880s technological changes, especially the introduction of natural gas, broke connections between particular production processes and economic success. for skilled workers of pittsburgh's national labor tribune, and their employers, values like cleanliness, previously regarded as antithetical to industry, became supportive of it. natural gas made better steel, iron and glass than bituminous coal. changes in class structure and social geography encouraged elites to reject provincialism and frontier exceptionalism. from the 1890s on, interest in economic diversification justified smoke abatement through values formerly seen as threats to economic welfare: leisure, consumption, and domesticity, embodied in real estate and retail commerce. the mellon institute smoke investigation and its successor studies (1911-1941) exhibit the interplay of such interests with changing environmental, scientific and reform orientations. despite such sustained efforts, environmental attitudes fluctuated as depression and defense industry booms reshaped civic hopes and fears. architects of pittsburgh's mid-twentieth century 'renaissance' would construct the previous 150 years as an environmental dark age. yet, pittsburghers had no more passively accepted smoke than they had unanimously resisted it. throughout the period, smoke had been put to varied political uses, serving diverse and shifting constituencies, shaping and shaped by pittsburgh's social and cultural history. peptide secondary structures within protein-protein interfaces mediate a wide-array of biological processes and represent an important group of targets for therapeutic intervention. peptidomimetics capable of recapitulating the structural features with protein domains would thus be of great use as probe molecules for targeting disease-relevant macromolecular interactions. the stabilization of β-sheet secondary structure through peptide backbone modification represents an attractive approach to protein mimicry. here we present backbone n-heteroatom substitution as a subtle yet remarkably effective approach to β-sheet/strand stabilization. we describe the synthesis of chiral α-hydrazino acid building blocks and their incorporation into peptidomimetics using solid-phase methods. using the n-amino group as a nucleophilic handle, we prepared a series of covalently constrained dipeptide surrogates and evaluated their effect on β-hairpin stability with a model system of folding. we then developed an electrophilic aminating protocol to expand building block scope, and demonstrate that acyclic n-amino peptides(naps) exhibit enhanced β-sheet propensity using two separate β-hairpin model systems. we explored additional n-heteroatom substituted peptides by describing a method to prepare n-hydroxy peptides (nhps) and show they can be incorporated into β-hairpin folds without energetic penalty. lastly, we applied our minimalist approach to β-strand peptidomimetics to the development of ligands targeting β-rich amyloid structure. we describe the design and synthesis of a nap-based library derived from the aggregation-prone 275vqiink280 and 306vqivyk311 hexapeptide sequences in the tau protein. biophysical and cellular transmission assay data reveal that naps are capable of blocking tau fibrilization and seeding in a sequence-specific manner. data derived from model n-amino peptides suggest that extended conformations are stabilized through cooperative steric, electrostatic, and h-bonding interactions from the nh2 substituent.overall, we demonstrate for the first time that n-amination represents an important step towards a unified peptidomimetic approach towards the stabilization of β-sheet/strand structures. we anticipate the conformational and non-aggregating characteristics of naps will be an effective tool in the design of soluble sequence-specific ligands of amyloidogenic proteins. this dissertation is a cultural, religious, and military history of the experiences of besieged protestants and catholics during the french civil wars through 1575. it is a cross confessional and comparative study that examines dozens of eyewitness siege accounts and other sources born of the awful crucible of siege warfare, exploring how contemporary christians understood their relationship to god, to each other, and to the distant past in the midst of chaos and trauma. it focuses on the ways in which french huguenots and catholics attempted to make sense of their siege experiences by appropriating the identities of the israelites of the hebrew bible and gentiles of classical pagan antiquity. this dissertation is composed of three large and moving blocks of material: a narrative of key siege campaigns in the french religious wars; a treatment of the written narratives which came out of those campaigns, and a thematic exploration and analysis of the place of ancient texts—particularly the hebrew bible—in informing and structuring the combatants' sense of themselves and their enemies. these three components are both integrated and layered atop one another throughout this study. whereas francophone roman catholics leaned more exclusively on ancient pagan exemplars—as well as on those of the early and medieval church—during times of crisis, i argue that huguenots turned more pronouncedly to the old testament to make sense of their experiences. i illuminate how these distinctive self-perceptions helped sixteenthcentury christians to understand what it meant to be human in an period of severe social, religious, and political turmoil and in the darker shadows of divine providence. chapter one examines the siege literature of 1550-1562. it begins with artus desiré's portrayal of the coming religious conflict as a siege assault by members of the "synagogue of geneva" against the catholic city of god. it then juxtaposes the political motivations of the french siege defense of metz (1552) with the confessional concerns of the siege narrators of the first civil war. chapter two investigates catholic providential interpretations of the successful siege defense of the catholic city of chartres during the second conflict, exploring how successive generations of chartrain siege historians revised both the virgin mary's alleged role in delivering the city as well as the historical understanding of the morality and devotion of the chartres' catholic defenders. chapter three compares the distinctively classical identity assumed in marin liberge's catholic account of the siege of poitiers with the israelite identities appropriated by protestants in the sieges of navarrenx, niort, saint jean d'angély, and lusignan. chapter four juxtaposes jean de léry's distinctly negative understanding of what it meant to be a besieged israelite with the more optimistic conception of hebrew identity appropriated by the ministers at la rochelle during the fourth civil war. in this dissertation, i give an account of the indirect voluntary control we have with respect to some processes of belief formation, and show how this control can plausibly serve as the ground of some epistemic responsibility. my overarching argument proceeds in three steps. first, i argue that if we are responsible for any of our beliefs, then we must have some voluntary, non-manipulated control over our beliefs. this is a familiar sort of control; it's the sort we enjoy with respect to our intentional actions. secondly, however, i argue that locating such control in the doxastic case is far from straightforward: we do not have direct voluntary control over our belief formation, and the kinds of indirect voluntary control we most obviously have is unsuited to the task of grounding epistemic responsibility. after narrowing in on more precise and plausible versions of doxastic voluntarism, then, i argue for one that would allow for the necessary kind of control: the process of belief formation, in at least some cases, is a non-basic intentional action, and we thus have indirect (non-basic), but intentional, voluntary control over these processes. in giving an account of these processes, then, we explain the possibility of epistemic responsibility by accounting for its grounds, and greatly clarify a number of issues regarding the role of the will in cognition and its evaluation. as the college-for-all movement presses forward, public and non-profit institutions alone appear to have been unable to keep pace with the increasing demand for higher education and the share of students enrolled in for-profit institutions has increased. but are these proprietary institutions an adequate substitute for traditional colleges and universities? this paper reviews sociological theory on the role of higher education in the matching of employees and employers in the labor market. we would expect returns to for-profit and non-profit institutions to be indistinguishable, if proprietary institutions are equally effective at fulfilling the selection, human capital improvement, or signaling roles of traditional higher education. the analysis shows that the short-term financial returns to attending a non-profit institution are higher than those of attending a proprietary. while those who enroll in for-profits are more likely to receive a credential, they are more likely to leave school with a lower degree than students at non-profits. those who attended at for-profits earn less, face higher costs, greater debt burden, less stability in employment, and are less likely to attend an institution that is regionally accredited. this project examined relationships among early maltreatment risks, maternal parenting behaviors, and children's self-regulation in a sample of 304 primiparious mothers and their children. structural equation modeling (sem) was used to examine the relationships among prenatal maternal maltreatment risk; 4, 8 and 18 month parenting; and children's regulation at 24 months. a more detailed investigation of specific parenting behaviors and how they change over time, including risk antecedents and children's regulatory consequences was provided by hierarchical linear modeling (hlm) and a series of regression analyses. results provided support for the role of maltreatment risk in determining both early and later parenting. moreover, children's regulatory difficulties, assessed by physiological, emotional, and behavioral scales of regulation, were influenced by parenting at 18 months; changes in specific parenting behaviors, especially the quality of the home environment; and prenatal maltreatment risk. findings are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding the effects of prenatal maltreatment risk on parenting and children's self-regulation and how prevention efforts can best target these domains in high risk families. subversion of the host fibrinolytic system has long been recognized as a powerful method employed by various bacteria to penetrate host tissue barriers. highly virulent strains of group a streptococcus (gas) have been shown to acquire surface plasmin(ogen) (pg) activity through multiple mechanisms; direct binding to pg through plasminogen binding group a streptococcal m-like protein (pam) or indirect, which requires fibrinogen (fg) to directly bind various m proteins to mediate pg binding. although m protein-fg binding has long been studied for its role in phagocytosis prevention in gas, its role in pg activation has not been extensively investigated. gas also produces an endogenous pg activator, streptokinase (sk). our laboratory, as well as others, has shown that subclasses of sk exist which have different pg activating potentials that are dependent on the mechanism of pg binding. the goal of this study is to investigate the molecular mechanisms involved in the fg-dependent acquisition of plasmin (pm) activity. various m proteins from strains thought to employ this mechanism, as well as their secreted sk's, designated subclass sk2a, were cloned and expressed in e.coli. surface plasmon resonance (spr) was employed to the study binding affinity of m protein for fg. the results obtained indicate that these m proteins have high affinities; not only for fg, but for hfg fragment d. d-dimer however binds to these m proteins with variable affinity. hpg, on the other hand, does not bind to these m proteins directly. the sks isolated from these strains also show low activation potential with hpg alone, while the presence of fg and m proteins greatly enhances pm generation. whole cell assays also showed significant pm surface activity only in the presence of fg, while pam-containing strains showed enhanced activity in the presence and absence of fg. the data obtained in this study greatly enhanced our understanding of the molecular mechanisms by which gas interacts with fg and the fibrinolytic system. maternal supportiveness protects against negative outcomes in at-risk children. the present study sought to understand whether there are multiple trajectories (classes) of maternal supportiveness across toddlerhood, whether supportiveness classes relate to unique child outcomes in middle childhood dependent race/ethnicity, and whether early childhood emotion regulation mediates these relations in a low-income sample. to address our objectives, 2,977 mother-child dyads from the early head start research and evaluation project were examined. maternal supportiveness was assessed at 14, 24, and 36 months, emotion regulation was assessed at 36 months, and mothers' and children's perceptions of internalizing and externalizing behavior were assessed during fifth grade. growth mixture modeling revealed four classes: high and stable, moderate and increasing, moderate and decreasing, and low and stable. ultimately, emotion regulation mediated the effects of class on child outcomes for all outcomes except parent-reported internalizing behavior. although children whose mothers were high and stable in supportiveness showed the least negative outcomes, those whose mothers were more moderate in supportiveness showed protection from negative outcomes when compared to those whose mothers were low in supportiveness. race/ethnicity played a significant role in the mothers' perceptions of their child's problem behaviors. results elucidate protective patterns of maternal supportiveness that distinctly buffer at-risk children from negative outcomes and can inform prevention/intervention design. this dissertation explores how native gentlemanliness, a specific category of colonial masculinity, allowed indian men to partner with british women to reform women's education in the highly racially segregated british empire. this study tracks the beginning of native gentlemanliness, its deployment by mary carpenter, and the ways elite male indian social reformers became native gentlemen to gain social capital, imperial prestige, and imperial funding for their education reforms. in doing so, it investigates the ways race, gender, and class all influenced who could participate, and ultimately control, the practice and ideology of imperial gender reform. multi-biometrics, or the fusion of more than one biometric modality, sample, sensor, or algorithm, is quickly gaining popularity as a method of improving biometric system performance and robustness. despite the recent growth in multi-biometrics research, little investigation has been done to explore the possibility of achieving multi-modal fusion from a single sensor. this approach to multi-biometrics has numerous advantages, including the potential for increased recognition rates, while still minimizing sensor cost and acquisition times. in this work, experiments are presented which successfully combine multiple samples of face and iris biometrics obtained from a single stand-off video sensor. several fusion techniques are explored to test the effectiveness of multi-modal and multi-algorithm fusion, with the best recognition rates achieved by using a borda count of face and iris modalities. the final results out-perform either single-modality approach, and the proposed multi-biometric framework represents a viable and natural extension to many commerical stand-off iris sensors. this thesis investigates the writings of three greek-speaking roman citizens, plutarch, cassius dio, and the emperor julian, to determine how they negotiate between the inheritance of classical hellenism and their present circumstances living in the roman empire. kaldellis (2007) has written extensively on the way that hellenism was received and understood within the byzantine empire, while elm (2012) and athanassiadi-fowden (1981) trace julian's intellectual development. simon swain has written many articles and books on plutarch and his view of the past, while millar (1964) has analyzed cassius dio's writing and his relationship with the romans. plutarch serves as a baseline, identifying himself consistently with the classical greeks while also attempting to determine the comparisons between greek and roman culture and history. cassius dio, on the other hand, always calls himself a roman and has very little interest in the culture of ancient greece, although he knew it well. julian places himself in the middle of these previous two. he also always identifies as a roman, but is very interested in hellenism and developed an ideology and religious system in which greek and roman elements were combined into one seamless whole. furthermore, julian also strove to protect this cultural and religious synthesis from the rising tide of christianity, which he viewed as deeply perverse.by analyzing these three men and their ideologies, i show that the strict distinction between greek and roman found in plutarch's writing was dissolving by the time of dio and julian, and a new set of markers were developing and new identities were emerging.this complicates the process of identity formation and change during late antiquity and byzantium that many modern scholars simply to a great degree by attributing it to solely the rise of christianity and offers a different, more nuanced model. ionic liquids (ils) are a class of organic salts that in their pure state exist as liquids over astonishingly large temperature ranges, from just below ambient temperature to over 400 oc. in addition to having a wide liquidus range, ionic liquids possess many other intriguing physical properties including vanishingly small vapor pressure and the ability to dissolve both polar and non-polar compounds. a host of potential applications for ils have been proposed including use in fuel cells, catalysis, as heat transfer fluids, and as (potentially) environmentally benign replacement solvents for industrial reactions and separation processes. a solid understanding of how the molecular structure of an il affects its thermophysical properties and phase equilibrium behavior is necessary to be able to design an ionic liquid that can be used for a specific industrial task, will not pose a serious health hazard if released in a chemical spill, and can be produced in large quantities at a low cost. this problem can be addressed using computational molecular modeling methods, which provide a useful tool for studying the structure-property relationships of ils. in this dissertation computational methods, including ab initio quantum mechanical (qm) calculations and molecular dynamics (md) simulations are used to study a variety of ionic liquid systems, including a pure il, an aqueous il mixture, and mixtures of ils with 1-butanol. the microscopic fluid structures and dynamics of the ils and their mixtures are reported in the form of site-site radial distribution functions and association factors, and self-diffusion coefficients for the cation, anion, water and alcohol. the prediction of phase equilibrium properties of complex fluids and fluid mixtures by molecular simulation remains a challenging task. many of the current computational methods for the prediction of phase equilibrium properties rely upon trial particle insertion/deletion steps or particle transformation steps. it is well known that particle insertions, deletions, and transformations become problematical when performed in fluids at high densities. in this dissertation a new method for the prediction of phase equilibrium is developed which relies upon gradual and dynamic particle transformations. it is shown that dynamic particle transformations are nearly an order of magnitude more efficient than standard mc-type transformations. the interior and exterior margins of vertebrate bodies are blurred by the microbes occupying these spaces. microbial assemblages associated with a host are thus built and shaped by a multitude of sources which originate from both the host and the environment. host functions and external environment exhibit 'inside-out' control over residential and introduced bacteria, leading to the fluctuation or depletion of a host-associated bacterial community composition. bacteria exhibit 'outside-in' behavior in turn, presenting products and functions of their own immune system to the host. in addition, host behaviors such as foraging, eating, and physical contact with other hosts provide nearly constant influxes of microbes which act to replenish populations and introduce competition to existing communities. eukaryotic microbes, such as protozoans and helminths, add to the already incredibly dynamic mixture of organisms associated with a mammalian host, inducing control over cohabiting microbes as well as the host.this dissertation aims to analyze host-associated microbiome dynamics on varying scales and increase our understanding of the underlying interactions by expanding our scope to include eukaryotes. first, i examine site-specific bacterial communities of long-tailed macaques in singapore, concentrating on the oral and gut microbiomes and how they vary through geographical space. revealed in this work is evidence showing that, though oral microbes have greater diversity than gut microbiomes, they show greater similarity across geographic space, which reflects their role as a barrier between hosts and the environment in which they live. next, i expand this work to bali, indonesia, and examine the differences of gut bacterial microbiomes across landscapes through host diet. i find macaque diets vary with location, and that this variation is associated with changes in the gut bacterial community. i then show how macaque consumption of plants with medicinal properties is tied to parasite presence by incorporating a medicinal database as a framework to evaluate diet-parasite interactions. finally, i find variation of gut parasites of macaques to be driven by the protozoan blastocystis and extend this finding to analyze the prokaryotic microbiome, the diversity and composition of which shifts in the presence of blastocystis. collectively, this work shows that aims to understand mechanisms driving host-microbiome relationships fall short without considering eukaryotic context. bacteria can adsorb a wide range of metals through interactions with their abundant cell envelope binding sites, thereby strongly affecting the speciation, distribution, bioavailability and mobility of metals in these systems. besides carboxyl, phosphoryl, and amine groups, the sulfhydryl sites have also been identified recently as potential metal binding sites, but the exact role of sulfhydryl sites has not yet been extensively studied. the research presented in this dissertation focuses on the role played by sulfhydryl sites in metal adsorption onto bacteria. chapter 2 presents an approach to determine the concentrations and acidity constant values of sulfhydryl sites within bacterial cell envelopes, and the approach is applied to a range of bacterial species. chapter 3 focuses on understanding the adsorption and desorption of cd onto bacterial sulfhydryl sites, and the work results in the first determination of a thermodynamic stability constant value for a metal-sulfhydryl bacterial complex. chapter 4 presents work that determines the distribution of sulfhydryl sites within cell envelopes, with a focus on the concentrations of sulfhydryl sites on eps molecules. the results in chapters 2 and 3 demonstrate that the measured concentration of sulfhydryl sites is lower than those of the more abundant carboxyl and phosphoryl sites within cell envelopes, but that the concentration of sulfhydryl sites is high enough to control the binding of chalcophilic metals onto bacteria under low metal-loading conditions due to the high affinity of these sites to bind chalcophilic metals. in chapter 3, i developed a surface complexation model based on the calculated stability constants of cd-sulfhydryl and cd-non-sulfhydryl bacterial complexes that successfully accounts for the adsorption of cd onto shewanella oneidensis as a function of ph and metal loading. the distributions of sulfhydryl sites within cell envelopes determined in chapter 4 vary significantly between shewanella oneidensis and pseudomonas putida, likely resulting in the different cd resistance that was measured between these two bacterial species. the research presented in this dissertation significantly improves our understanding of the controls on metal adsorption onto bacteria, especially under environmentally-relevant low metal loading conditions, and thereby can lead to improved models of the transport and global cycling of metals. the influence of top-down effects is a subject of great interest to community ecology. however, little work has been done to experimentally test trophic cascade hypotheses in regards to large, terrestrial predators. i investigated whether a large mammalian predator affects forest community structure and diversity. i asked: 1) how do predators affect plants through changes in prey density/behavior?, 2) how do predators affect nonadjacent plant/animal communities through changes in the density/behavior of their competitors?, and 3) how do these changes affect soil nutrients? i performed natural and manipulative tests in a northern mesic forest mosaic from 2008-2013. twelve permanent sites were established in forest patches scattered throughout highand lowwolf use areas (six each). i manipulated deer access, hare access, and rodent access with exclosures at each site. i measured sapling height, forb diversity, seedling abundance (rodent exclosures only), deer behavior, hare herbivory, rodent abundance, and soil nitrogen levels at these sites. i also surveyed mammalian carnivore distributions throughout the forest. my research suggests wolves play a significant role in determining community structure in this forest. deer and coyote use were significantly lower in highcompared to low-wolf use areas. foxes meanwhile used high-wolf use areas almost exclusively. snowshoe hare browsed high-wolf use sites more intensely, whereas deer mice abundances were significantly lower in high-wolf use. wolf-deer interactions appeared to generate a cascade. deer had no significant impacts on plants in high-wolf use areas based on exclosure results. maple saplings were less browsed and significantly taller in high-wolf use areas, and forb species richness was greater. meanwhile we did not observe evidence for significant hare or rodent impacts on maple growth regardless of wolf use, suggesting no cascading effects. we also monitored soil nitrogen levels to see if wolf-deer interactions would produce food web effects on ecosystem-level processes. neither deer nor wolves had an effect on soil nitrogen, suggesting food web effects will not cascade to soil nutrients. taken together, this research suggests that mammalian top predators can have significant effects on other mammalian consumers and plants, but that this does not affect soil nutrients. this study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of using the mother child neglect scale, a measure of neglect potential, to predict subsequent perpetration of neglect by evaluating associations between scores on this self-reported measure and child self-reported neglect at two subsequent time points, to determine whether maternal self-reported neglect potential is associated with child internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and to determine whether child self-reported neglect mediates associations between maternal neglect potential and child internalizing and externalizing symptoms. participants (n = 134) included adolescent mothers and their children who were part of a larger, longitudinal study. the current study drew from data collected in middle childhood as well as 14-year and 18-year visits. for the main analysis, a structural equation model of the direct effects of maternal neglect potential on child self-reported neglect and child internalizing and externalizing was evaluated. in addition, indirect effects of maternal neglect potential on child internalizing and externalizing through child self-reported neglect was evaluated. there was a significant direct effect of maternal neglect potential on child neglect at age 14. furthermore, there was a significant indirect effect of maternal neglect potential on child internalizing problems through neglect at age 14. implications include the use of the mcns as a potential screening measure for those most at risk for perpetrating neglect on their children along with potential interventions aimed at adolescents who have experienced neglect in order to prevent the development of internalizing symptoms into adulthood. this thesis contains poems about a fantasized matriarchal world, though the speaker does not know how it will be achieved, likely through her own blood. uruguay presents a continuing paradox to sociologists of religion. embedded in a continent characterized by relatively high religiosity and religious dynamism, how is it that uruguay has maintained an intensely secular society for over 100 years? the central claim of this study suggests that secularization achieved in uruguayan society is to be understood as historically grounded, embedded in conflict between interests groups, and attributable to agency more than macro-social structures. bourdieu's concepts of field and capital provide a useful theoretical framework for understanding how internal dynamics of competition and conflict between anti-religious and religious elites in the sub-field of education diminished catholic socialization capacity. competition and conflict between religious and secular projects generated a specific form of symbolic capital &#8212; representational capital &#8212; the capacity to contextualize the elite project through social representations to non-elites in order to affirm the project's relevance and legitimacy. at stake for the group able to dominate discursive and representational capital was the opportunity to gain the loyalty, allegiance and trust of popular sectors. because both secular and religious elites engaged in discursive practices, the analytical focus of this study is on discursive language, symbolic representation and strategic action that emerged in the educational field. this study employs a case study method conducted in historical perspective. a deviant case study can be particularly revealing because an explanation must be developed as to why the case did not conform to a pattern or outcome established by the other cases. this research will contribute theoretically and substantively to the historical debate of secularization by showing that secularization is not an inevitable macro-social mechanical process imputed to impersonal and abstract forces, but is carried out by people and groups who manifestly want to laicize society and its sub-structures. in recent years, extracellular nucleic acids and extracellular rna carriers have been demonstrated as promising biomarkers for cancer diagnostics, treatment, and prognostics. however, the lack of proper isolation and quantification tools still hinders the advances of related liquid biopsy technologies based on these biomarkers. high-efficiency rna carrier isolation techniques must be accessible to researchers and doctors to truly understand and utilize them for clinical applications. the sensitivity and specificity of nucleic acid quantification also can be improved through the development of extraction methods with better yield and purity. a fully-automated point-of-care system can be envisioned by integrating all these steps sequentially into a turn-key microfluidic system. we address these challenges through the development and integration of multiple micro/nanofluidic devices for isolation of carriers and nucleic acids, downstream lysis and quantification. sensitivity, selectivity, and throughput of isolation and diagnostic technologies are enhanced with optimized non[1]equilibrium mechanisms and non-uniform structures. in chapter 1, i review current extracellular rna carrier isolation and nucleic acids purification/quantification technologies. in chapter 2, i demonstrate our solution to overcome the current inefficient size-based ev isolation by asymmetric nanoporous membrane (anm) ultrafiltration and explain how the symmetry-breaking geometry of the nanopore combining with shear force increase the yield and throughput. in chapter 3, i will further utilize the asymmetric nanoporous membrane (anm) for purification of both retrovirus and sars-cov-2. i demonstrate our technology, along with qrt-pcr improves the virus detection sensitivity by more than 30-fold compared to the conventional rna extraction-based method. in chapter 4, a novel electroplated magnetic nanoporous membrane (mnm) with heterogeneous superparamagnetic nano-junction is fabricated to improve the throughput and yield of immunocapture. in chapter 5, an ionic transistor is designed to control the non-equilibrium depletion front for extraction of highly-charged biomolecules like nucleic acids. both extracellular dnas and rnas can be isolated effectively without bias in length and concentration. in chapter 6, i integrate surface acoustic wave lysis, depletion-induced concentration, and ion-exchange membrane sensors into a microfluidic platform for plasma ev-mirna sensing. the various micro/nanofluidic modules developed in my thesis, plus their parallel electronic modules, enable a new turn-key integrated platform for isolating and quantifying extracellular nanocarriers and their disease biomarker (rna and protein) cargoes. in the last chapter, i summarize their functionalities, how they can be further improved and the appropriate integration strategies for different applications. anopheles funestus is a major vector of malaria, yet its population genetic structure, which may have major implications for malaria transmission, is poorly understood. this dissertation analyzes the population genetics of a. funestus at three geographical scales, as well as estimating an important parameter for population genetic studiesì¢åûåóthe effective population size. the total gene pool of a. funestus in sub-saharan africa was shown to have a main subdivision between western and eastern populations, probably a manifestation of different demographic histories. in the country of burkina faso, in west africa, previous population genetic studies suggested the presence of two sympatric but reproductively isolated populations, based on the observation of heterokaryotype deficits and linkage disequilibrium among inversions located on different chromosomal arms from single locales. two chromosomal forms were hypothesized, provisionally named kiribina and folonzo. this hypothesis was tested first within two villages less than 1km apart in a nested spatial design to negate any affect due to geographical distance. slight, but significant molecular differentiation was found between forms among mtdna and microsatellites located along chromosome 3r, which contains two important inversions for chromosomal form designations. differentiation was also found across the country; populations did not follow an isolation by distance model, but grouped populations by chromosomal form regardless of distance. both studies gave evidence of reduced gene flow between chromosomal forms, a result of selection on chromosome 3r, recent reproductive isolation, or a combination of both. effective population estimates were large for both forms; however, there was a substantial difference in current effective population size between the two forms which may contribute to population differentiation. long-term effective population size was reduced in the kiribina form along chromosome 3r indicative of selection. the results from this dissertation will provide avenues for future research with a. funestus population genetic structure not only within burkina faso, but across its entire species range. annually, hundreds of thousands elect for a total hip replacement (thr), a surgical operation meant to address the complications associated with severe osteoarthrosis. the forecasted rise in thr utilization has heightened the demand for implant materials optimized for survivorship. consequently, a critical factor in thr longevity is wear resistance. oxide ceramics like zirconia (zro2), have consistently surpassed metal and polymer variants and been long accepted constituents in hip implants. however, ceramics are damage intolerant, requiring costly processing steps to mitigate microstructural defects that could initiate catastrophic failure in vivo. as a result, premium pricing of ceramic-on-ceramic thr has limited their widespread use, a problem further compounded by clinician concern over brittle fracture despite generational improvements in manufacturing. as such, additive manufacturing (am) has emerged as a platform positioned to revitalize the ceramic market. am presents a cost-reduction opportunity for orthopedics because upfront tooling is eliminated, and the process remains competitive for moderate production runs. though the am market has observed significant growth, developments around dense structural ceramics have lagged behind metals and polymers. consequently, factors that produce am ceramics that favorably compete with traditional bulk-forming methods are largely unknown. layered manufacturing strategies could potentially accelerate the next generation of ceramics with improved thr utilization. the primary objective of this work was to advance material processing of am orthopedic ceramics through tribological and mechanical evaluation. zirconia specimens produced with photo-polymerization and material-jetting am, tested in pin-on-disk configurations, were found to have wear coefficients equivalent to reported literature and experimental controls. investigations into the effect of build direction for stereolithography (sla) zro2 coupons were performed with respect to thermal aging and accelerated wear outcomes. results from a modest data set revealed that wear behavior of self-mated sla zro­­2 was isotropic when build direction was varied. in addition to wear-resistance, mechanical competence is a crucial metric for orthopedic bearing applications. certain am technologies demonstrated that bend strengths of photopolymerized zro2 can meet the minimum standard. subsequent fractography showcased defect populations introduced by layered manufacturing, including air bubbles and incomplete laminar consolidation. preliminary experiments then established a size-strength dependency for sla zro2 which supports that predictive strategies employed for brittle materials can be extended to the development and advancement of am ceramics. in the dissertation i argue that the united states has always been selective in determining where immigrants may come from and under what conditions, including undocumented status, to create a category of persons who are neither slave nor free. first, i show that american legislatures have developed this ability by setting immigration preferences throughout the nation's history to forge mixed settlements between multiple political, economic, and cultural interests with regard to immigration. i then draw preference systems from the christian tradition-david hollenbach's priority principles, gustavo gutierrez's preferential option for the poor, and thomas aquinas' order of charity-to argue that current u.s. immigration preferences are not simply wrong, but backwards. these preference systems, i conclude, offer moral grounds for prioritizing the legalization of undocumented immigrants. they also suggest that meaningful immigration reform requires no less than ending america's dependence on immigrant workers who are neither slave nor free. in recent years, the tunnel diode has attracted interest from companies and researchers. integrating tunnel diodes with transistors provide input-out isolation, gain and fan-out ability which the tunnel diode by itself lacks. the sparsity of tunnel diode fabrication processes compatible with transistor processing hinders the wider use of the device. fabrication processes, which could be applied to integrated tunnel diode/transistor circuits on si and ge, are explored in this work. silicon tunnel diodes were demonstrated in both vertical and lateral geometries using spin-on diffusants and rapid thermal processing. silicon tunnel diodes were first formed in the substrate plane through an oxide window process, with peak current densities of approximately 1&#956;a/ìâm2 and peak-to-valley ratio of approximately 1.3. a self-aligned lateral fabrication process, which forms the junction perpendicular to the substrate plane, has also been successfully developed and yielded backward si tunnel diodes with peak current densities of 30 na/ìâm2. to the author's knowledge, these accomplishments are the first demonstration of lateral si tunnel diodes using spin-on diffusants and rapid thermal processing. low current density tunnel diodes can find applications as zero biased detector. germanium tunnel diodes were demonstrated both using a diffusion-based approach and an on-wafer liquid-phase regrowth approach. the diffusion-based approach utilized spin-on diffusants and rapid thermal processing. germanium tunnel diodes with current densities up to 0.6 na/ìâ2 and pvr of 1.1 were demonstrated for the first time using this approach. an on-wafer liquid-phase regrowth approach with a silicon nitride microcrucible was developed. germanium tds with current densities up to 1.2 ma/ìâm2 were demonstrated. a primary goal of this project, demonstration of a 1 ma/ìâm2 tunnel junction, was fulfilled. optical resonator is an essential element in modern optical and optoelectronic devices. the advances in the field of cavity quantum electrodynamics (cqed) requires high quality optical resonators that goes beyond the diffraction limit of light. consequently, subdiffraction optical resonator has become the foundation for next-generation mid-infrared (mir) emitters, sensors, etc. in this work, we demonstrate subdiffraction optical resonators based on two material systems: the polar semiconductors and all-semiconductor hyperbolic metamaterials (hmms).we first introduce the basic dielectric property of polar semiconductors as well as the concepts of travelling and localized surface phonon polaritons (sphp). the numerical simulations and experimental results of subwavelength phononic resonators in gan are presented. in the second part, the theory of hmm and hmm based optical resonators is introduced, followed by the simulation and experimental results on fabricated devices. we thoroughly investigate the mode volume, q-factors and radiation patterns of the resonators. furthermore, the hmm resonators' optical emission property is investigated using the modified long wavelength approximation (mlwa). specifically, we thoroughly study the impact on q-factors, radiative and non-radiative decay rates by changing the resonator geometry and material composition. as for future work, we show two possible directions with preliminary simulation and experimental results. we first propose the quantum well embedded hmm structures for resonant light-mater coupling and cqed applications, followed by the possibility of using gan and hmms as high-index dielectric mie resonators. we study the soul theorem for low dimensional topologically regular open complete nonnegatively curved alexandrov spaces and give a topological classification of these spaces. these spaces occurs naturally as the blow-up limits of sequences of riemannian manifold with a lower curvature bound. this will be used to study the collapsing of 3-dimension manifold as well as of 4-dimension riemannian manifold with a lower curvature bound. these spaces have also been studied in [sy00] and [yam02]. our main tools are critical point theory for distance functions and perelman's fibration theorem. each year, natural disasters devastate landscapes and lives, uprooting communities around the world. such disturbances invoke widespread human, material, and economic losses, as well as environmental impacts. unfortunately in informally constructed environments, these effects often exceed the ability of the affected community to cope and respond using its own resources, creating either an unsustainable reliance on the international community or more often an incomplete recovery. natural hazard risk is continuing to heighten throughout the developing world, where trends in urbanization that cannot be supported by frail governments and economies create disproportionate vulnerabilities within the building stock. in these environments, where complex geo-political and socio-economic processes impede the delivery of resilient infrastructure, there is desperate need for innovation that can shift the paradigm particularly in the oft overlooked residential sector. in response, this thesis offers a design innovation: a precast wall panel and reinforced concrete frame housing system. this solution was developed using the design lens offered by an empowerment model that enables a holistic consideration of non-engineering constraints on the innovation process. this innovation process is contextualized in the design space of haiti, which has continued to struggle in its recovery from the devastation of the 2010 haiti earthquake. the thesis offers a detailed design of this new housing system and validates its capacity using a locally replicable experimental testing protocol and series of analytical investigations. the experimental investigation enhances the understanding of the precast wall panel's response to out-of-plane loads induced by wind. meanwhile, a comprehensive analytical investigation reveals the interaction between the as-designed panel system and the reinforced concrete frame in developing in-plane resistance to seismic demands. a series of as-adopted scenarios explored through nonlinear static analytical investigations further reveals potential vulnerabilities induced by local adaptations of the system that blend conventional construction practices and typologies with the proposed housing system. these efforts ultimately verify the ability of this housing system to meet the demands imposed by regional hazards, even in the presence of mild local adaptations, while assuring a design that is readily implementable using local materials, technologies, and skillsets. perhaps most importantly, this thesis demonstrates the value of innovation and deep engagement with local stakeholders to empower the delivery of lasting solutions to the residential sector within informally constructed settings. the present study aims to contribute to three aspects in iris recognition technology. first, in the area of database search, an alternative search technique that has been used in operational 1-to-many matching scenarios was evaluated. results show that critical degradation of the error rates can occur when compared to the traditional approach. further evaluation showed, however, that upon careful selection of operational parameters it is possible to obtain reduction in the number of comparisons performed, with minimal loss in accuracy. iris presentation attack detection (pad) is the second area approached by this work. recent works show that the ability to identify artifacts in cross-domain scenarios is still limited. this work proposes a new method for pad that is based on cnn classification of multiple views of the data, followed by fusion of the multiple results. evaluation shows the new approach outperforms the current state of the art in cross-domain pad. finally, gender prediction based on iris images is the last domain explored. our study shows that despite an optimistic trend in related works, the actual potential of the iris texture for gender discrimination is very limited, and most of the information that is used in the process comes from surrounding regions. the question posed in the title of this dissertation is straightforward, but the answer is not. the great lakes-st. lawrence river basin water resources compact (compact) is a legislative attempt to answer this question. it is the thesis of this dissertation that the negotiation, adoption, and implementation of the compact is an example of the natural law process at work. this thesis is based on the work of jean porter. this process arises out of human inclinations and the human imperative to form societies that are conducive to the attainment of happiness. the successful ability to organize and distribute natural resources, such as water, is a fundamental, necessary task of any society.the space between inclination toward and desire for a mode of living depends upon a community choosing over time how to live together; the political movement from custom to norms to law often follows, and in the process the community decides to specify what it considers most valuable. this process of specification, the formulation of collective intentionalities, arises out of the community's history, its geography, and its experience, as well as its love of place. the provisions of the compact are the result of that process of defining that "collective intentionality" with regard to the management of the vast water spaces of the great lakes. it is the further thesis of the dissertation that the act of the drafting of the compact, and the organizing of the collective will of eight great lakes states and two canadian provinces, was an example of an effort made to further the common good.the provisions of the compact forbid the use of water outside the great lakes basin but allow exceptions to this rule. the provisions use certain value terms as part of a decision-making standard regarding who gets water and how water should be managed in a way that is unusual. it is the further thesis of this dissertation that the presence of these terms imposes an ethical standard upon decision-makers that extends legal possibilities beyond the traditional notions of property and economics. however, this contrast between the old and new sets up areas of potential conflict. the examples of recently approved diversions in wisconsin, in particular in waukesha and in racine, illuminate some of these problems. these conflicts must be considered part of the natural law process also. synthesis of a novel beta-cyclodextrin conjugate for the use as a potential therapy toward treatment of niemann-pick type c, a rare autosomal lipid storage disorder. the view that happiness consists in virtuous action is an attractive view. a relationship to happiness may help explain, define and give distinctively human content to the virtues, and may encourage us to cultivate virtue. yet many virtue theorists today are wary of this view. there is tension between ordinary notions of happiness and virtue. there is also concern that choosing virtue for the sake of happiness is inappropriate. however, i defend a version of the claim that happiness consists in virtuous action, and i show that when properly understood, happiness is an appropriate motive for virtuous action. key to my view is an account of friendship whereby actions and the happiness they constitute are routinely shared. i analyze four competing views of the relationship between virtue and happiness. john mcdowell holds that happiness consists in virtuous action, performed for its own sake, and hence is independent of goods of fortune, but this view is unrealistic and encourages self-absorption. rosalind hursthouse maintains that the virtues are conducive to happiness, but neither necessary nor sufficient: happiness consists in goods of fortune. i argue that tensions in hursthouse's text are better resolved by the bicameral view: happiness consists in virtuous action, but one's ability to act depends on goods of fortune. richard kraut's reading of aristotle yields a bicameral view centered on contemplation, but this is overly narrow. the perfectionist view, including ethically virtuous action in happiness, mitigates the self-absorption of mcdowell's view at the cost of introducing unsavory competition for opportunities to act. the four preceding views construe happiness individualistically. however, the best human actions can only be performed in cooperation. actions are shared through cooperation and, more importantly, shared choice. since happiness consists in actions, happiness too is often shared. shared action overcomes the self-absorption of mcdowell's view and the competition of the perfectionist view. in helping another to act well, one participates in her action, rendering her action constitutive of one's own happiness as well as hers. where one finds happiness precisely in the happiness of another, one's happiness is an appropriate motive to virtue. the st. george recoil separator (strong gradient electromagnetic online recoil separator for capture gamma ray experiments) has been commissioned by comparing its design parameters with the ones measured; the angular and energy acceptance has been characterized; the hippo gas target has been rebuilt and recommissioned; a scalable separator tune has been determined; and the rejection has been characterized. st. george has then been used to measure three well known resonance strengths in the 14n(α,γ)18f reaction. this reaction is important to furthering understanding of nuclear astrophysical systems and reaction networks involved in nucleosynthesis, particularly as a precursor to a neutron source reaction in agb stars for s-process nucleosynthesis. the determined absolute resonance strengths are compatible with the literature values, proving that st. george can be used to measure alpha-capture reactions of astrophysical interest. modern laptops are resource rich with hardware resources rivaling that of desktops. broadband wireless access is also becoming inexpensive and ubiquitous. hence, wireless laptops are emerging as the primary computing platform for many users. however, this migration could seriously impact the viability of traditional group communication systems that were designed for users who used wired desktops. ubiquitous wireless access allows users to be mobile and work from a number of different locations such as from home, work and from public venues. even though the users can continue to collaborate with each other from any of these locations, the wireless user availability patterns might be different than was observed for wired desktop users. systems that benefited from the ability of desktops to continue to participate in the group communications with other users even after the group member had left might suffer if laptops were offline for long durations while moving from one location to another. in this dissertation, i expand on our understanding of the behavior of group communication systems to include wireless users. wireless users work from different locations. hence, i use the availability traces of a large number of users in a university, corporate lab, conference and in a hotspot federation for my investigation. i show that wireless users are available for shorter durations and are unavailable for longer periods than was observed for wired users. a long term analysis shows a trend towards shorter session and longer duration between sessions with significant node churn in all these scenarios. next, i investigate the implications of this observed availability for two classes of group communication mechanisms. first, i analyze apple itunes, a popular application that uses serendipitous sharing model and opportunistically accesses any contents that are currently available. i show the limitations of such synchronous sharing for wireless users. the temporal consistency of wireless users can provide reasonable availability for replicated objects, especially at the times of the day when users were typically active. reliance on a server storage shows modest improvement. using information about objects that are shared by itunes users, i show that shared object annotations exhibit a zipfian long tail distribution making them inappropriate for applications that require access to a specific object. i demonstrate that mechanisms that allow the user to specify classes of interesting objects are better suited for wireless serendipitous sharing. for asynchronous systems, i show that the fundamental impediment to the system performance is the wireless user availability behavior and node churn characteristics. i investigate the relative performance of several distributed as well as server mediated approaches. i show that pull mechanisms naturally randomize the times when updates are propagated and thus achieve better performance than push based mechanisms. for a given number of gossips, it is preferable to propagate updates to all available nodes rather than increasing the frequency while correspondingly reducing the number of nodes to propagate updates. i develop a practical adaptive approach that customizes the update frequency using the last session duration and show that this mechanism exhibits good performance when the required update frequency intervals are large. my research results will allow wireless group communication system developers to choose the appropriate system parameters to satisfy their own application constraints. this dissertation studies representations of the most significant event of christian history--the passion of christ--in english devotional poetry in the post-reformation period. the passion was central for both catholic and protestant writers in early modern england, and, despite the period's widening theological and confessional distinctions, writers drew on a common set of devotional discourses in order to represent christ's passion in a variety of literary genres, and especially in poetry. in examining the passion as a set of discursive strategies visible in a variety of texts across confessional lines, this study challenges traditional scholarly accounts of devotional poetry in renaissance england, accounts which typically isolate catholic and protestant writers from one another and which privilege theological or confessional identities over shared representational strategies. additionally, this study complicates recent critical claims that the passion receded in literature as the seventeenth-century progressed. by privileging previously neglected catholic writers such as william alabaster and john beaumont and contextualizing their work against broader discursive traditions of the passion, this dissertation rethinks our conceptions of mainstream and marginal writing in seventeenth-century england. after identifying a set of trans-confessional representational strategies common to catholics and protestants, this dissertation then examines the poetry of robert southwell, william alabaster, john donne, sir john beaumont, and richard crashaw in order to discover how each poet appropriates the passion to speak to problems of ecclesial and political community in seventeenth-century england. while each writer adapts similar passion discourses to his work, each also enlists the passion to critique and construct various visions of the church, of political community, and of literary communities. ultimately, in arguing that the passion continued to be vital to english poets for engaging questions of communal identity, members of his body suggests that future study of the period must reconsider how received accounts of the waning of catholicism and the ascendancy of protestantism shape traditional and often incomplete accounts of english literary history in the post-reformation period. this dissertation examines the perennial problem in philosophy and theology of reconciling divine simplicity with the plurality of divine attributes. simplicity is a negative doctrine, according to which god lacks parts of any kind, whether physical or metaphysical. but philosophers and theologians of all three western monotheisticreligions have upheld the truth and applicability of statements that ascribe to god various perfections, such as 'god is wise,' 'god is just,' and 'god is good.' these statements appear to violate divine simplicity, because taken individually they introduce a distinction between an attribute or property of god and the divine essence itself (for example, between god and god's goodness), and taken together they posit a plurality of attributes in god. my dissertation is a close examination of the scholastic controversy concerning the divine attributes and the philosophical attempts to reconcile a plurality of divine attributes with the simplicity of god. after motivating the discussion by referring to early islamic thought and contemporary philosophy of religion, i reconstruct and analyze the debate at the universities during the period 1100-1300.my thesis is that three families of solutions emerge in the medieval debate: (1) what icall the semantic solution. according to its proponents, statements such as 'god is just' have a double signification. the primary signification is the divine essence. according to their secondary signification, they signify the plurality of god's actions in creation. so, on this solution, even if 'justice' or 'wisdom' are predicated of god, both signify only the one, simple, divine essence. (2) the thomist solution, which claims that the plurality of attributes is not in reality but the result of an intellectual activity. the proponents of this view were split between defenders of thomas, who maintained that the intellect in question is the human intellect, and defenders of henry of ghent, who argued that the divine intellect generated the attributes. (3) the realist solution, which holds that the plurality of the attributes is in reality independently of any intellect, even the divine intellect. both god and human beings 'discover' the divine attributes already present in the divine essence. cognitive radio for dynamic spectrum access enables opportunistic use of the radio-frequency (rf) spectrum, allowing unlicensed users to utilize licensed bands under the condition that they interfere as little as possible with the licensees. a cognitive radio transmits on bands detected as being free, leaving them whenever a primary user is sensed. this work focuses on the practical implementation of a cognitive radio for dynamic spectrum access. a power detector is chosen to sense the spectrum. the receiver operating characteristic (roc) of the detector is obtained experimentally. after sensing, the cognitive radio will transmit on one of the free channels. detection and transmission are implemented in parallel at the cognitive transmitter. there is a tradeoff between transmission rate of the cognitive radio and interference created to the licensed user. this thesis also presents the implementation of a cognitive receiver, the counterpart to the cognitive transmitter. the cognitive receiver must change frequency of reception every time the cognitive transmitter changes band (in order to keep receiving packets). the transmitter sends warning packets when switching from one channel to another so that the receiver can get resynchronized. performance of the cognitive radio system is evaluated using the minimum amount of time necessary for synchronization. a demonstration has been set up. music samples are sent by the cognitive transmitter and a graphical user interface (gui) shows the state of the channels (open or in use). frequency switching is shown to be essentially unnoticeable to the end user. the use of stories to teach character is popular among educators, yet very little is known about student comprehension of these stories (leming, 1997, 2000). in order to tap the educational potential of literature-based character education, more must be known about the development of students' comprehension of story themes. in this dissertation, two types of themes were studied: moral themes involving social cooperation, and functional themes involving prudence. participants (n=356) in grades 4 through 12 read short stories and identified the best theme from a list of choices. participants also completed measures related to reading, motivation, and moral development. developmental differences were found among all ages for both types of theme comprehension, except for moral themes in early adolescence. there were significant differences between comprehension of the moral and functional themes; however, the effect size was very low. in a multiple regression, social responsibility (or compliance) and ability-avoidance goals were predictors of moral theme comprehension. moral reasoning and ethical problem-solving skills were predictors of both types of theme comprehension. in this thesis we study the riemannian geometry of diffeomorphism groups equipped with a variety of sobolev-type metrics. most notably, we consider the group of volume-preserving diffeomorphisms equipped with a weak l^2 metric, whose geodesics correspond to lagrangian solutions to the euler equations. a well known result of ebin and marsden states that lagrangian solutions to the euler equations, when framed as an initial value problem, are exactly as smooth as their initial conditions. we investigate a similar regularity property for lagrangian solutions to the euler equations when framed as a two-point boundary value problem. in particular, we prove that these l^2 geodesics are exactly as smooth as their boundary conditions. we achieve like results in an array of other settings including 3d axisymmetric ideal fluids, symplectic euler equations, euler-alpha equations, and one dimensional integrable systems including the mu-ch and hunter-saxton equations. this dissertation addresses teleology in the writings of aristotle and in relation to modern mechanics. in chapters one through three, i argue that aristotle's teleology is theoretically grounded in the claim that both as an explanatory and as a causal factor, actuality is prior to potentiality. as actualities, therefore, both form and function are prior to the material and efficient causes that condition their occurrence in nature. in chapters four and five, i then consider the recent 'systems' or 'cybernetic' view of goal-directedness, along with some basic features of mechanical systems and laws more generally, in light of aristotle's teleology. i conclude that from an aristotelian point of view there is no conflict between teleological and mechanical approaches to nature. ionic liquids (ils) have become popular in recent years as possible green replacements for conventional organic, volatile solvents. potential applications that have been purported in the literature include using ils as reaction media, electrolytes for electrochemical processes, heat transfer fluids, absorption refrigeration media, entrainers for extractive distillation, and extraction solvents among others. in order to determine an il's aptitude as an extraction solvent, ability as an entrainer or potential toxicity, phase equilibria of il-containing systems must be observed or predicted. in this dissertation, the fluid phase equilibria of systems containing ils are examined in order to gain insight into the predictive capability of conventional and electrolyte excess gibbs energy (ge) models. particularly, we assess the prediction quality of these models in terms of their accuracy in calculating ternary liquid-liquid equilibrium (lle) and binary vapor-liquid equilibrium (vle), which are compared to experimental data collected both from our research group and the literature. the models are fit to pure component and binary data, also from our group and the literature. additionally, novel thermodynamic frameworks are derived, presented and demonstrated that allow for symmetric electrolyte reference states with complete ionic dissociation, partial dissociation and different degrees of ionic dissociation in different equilibrium phases. it's further shown that these novel approaches allow for improved ternary lle predictions over conventional methods for systems containing ils and water. furthermore, n-octanol/water partion coefficients are calculated as an assessment of toxicity for several ils. heuristic oriented discussion directs the modeler to an effective model and thermodynamic framework for accurate ternary lle prediction subject to the system's components and experimental data available. my research addressed a novel type of environmental treatment technology known as the membrane biofilm reactor (mbfr), or the membrane-aerated biofilm reactor (mabr). these types of technologies provide new opportunities to improve current limitations of wastewater/water treatment systems. with the elevated use of energy per cubic meter of treated water, a critical need for alternative and more cost-efficient technologies exist. this research aims to contribute to a better understanding of the underlying processes that govern a mabr system and also to optimize the performance of these reactors. this improvement could shorten the gap between a novel technology and an industry competitive technology. i addressed four main topics:1.economic evaluation of the air-based, hybrid membrane biofilm reactor (hybrid-mbfr2.improving the gas transfer rates of closed-end hollow-fiber membrane contactors by venting lumen ga3.effect of metabolic activity on the porosity of counter-diffusional biofilm4.modeling biofilm fluid-structure interactions using a viscoelastic constitutive model and a phase-field approachthe findings of this work highlighted the critical importance of investigating mbfrs using different approaches. both scientific and economical evaluations need to be performed synergistically to advance not only in science, but also to develop competitive solutions to the water treatment area. technologies that include biological and physical processes involve a very complex and linked set of processes. understanding the individual effects of these processes in the overall performance is a difficult task and must be performed with an appropriate balance between the different scales. the presented results provided some details of critical factors that must be addressed in future studies and also opened new areas of biofilm research. one of the biggest problems in political behavior research and popular discourse is for conservative attitudes and beliefs to be construed in terms of racial resentment. furthermore, it is equally problematic for racists to be misconstrued as conservatives. while many examples of the conceptual overlap between conservatism and racial resentment exist in popular political discourse and within the public opinion and political psychology literatures, it is an open question as to whether or not conservatism and racial resentment can become more or less related under certain conditions. in this dissertation, i examine the following research questions: (1) to what extent is the relationship between conservatism and racial resentment moderated by a common covariate such as perceptions of a racial threat? (2) what are the policy implications of this relationship? i argue that the anxiety produced by the threat of racially egalitarian changes in the status quo conditions the relationship between conservatism and racial resentment, ultimately increasing opposition to racial policies. i conceptualize the 2008 presidential election of barack obama -the first african american president of the united states -as a racial threat some whites perceive and utilize the 1992 and 2008 anes time series data, the 2006-2010 gss panel data, and the 2007-2009 ucla ccap panel survey to assess my theoretical claims. i demonstrate that while political ideology, particularly conservatism, powerfully influences racial attitudes, the liberal-conservative distinctions in racial resentment evaporate under a perceived racial threat, making liberals who perceive such threats indistinguishable from conservatives. i also find that under perceptions of threat, the enhanced effect of racial resentment among political liberals increases opposition to explicitly and implicitly racial policies such as affirmative action and healthcare reform. i conclude this dissertation with a discussion of the implications of these results for political behavior research. supportive relationships enhance mood and patient adjustment (stanton, revenson, & tennen, 2007). however, unsupportive or critical relationships lead to relapse and poor outcomes in both mental and physical disorders (wearden et al., 2000). the converse is also true. patient adjustment, specifically patient mood, influences the amount of support or criticism given by spouses (gotlib & beach, 1995; revenson, 1994). both spouses in couples with chronic low back pain (clbp) have higher than average rates of depression (schwartz & ehde, 2000) and marital discord (leonard, cano, & johansen, 2006). therefore, relational models describing how depression and unsupportive behavior develop in both spouses are necessary for understanding problems that these couples face. we examined bidirectional relationships between spousal affect and behavior in a sample of 105 married couples with one spouse experiencing clbp. ecological momentary assessment (ema; shiffman, stone, & hufford, 2008) with electronic diaries was used to obtain reports of patient and spouse affect as well as criticism and support for five times a day over 2 weeks. hierarchical linear modeling was used to investigate both concurrent and lagged associations between behavior (criticism and support) and depressed affect. as hypothesized, both withinand cross-spouse associations between criticism and depressed affect were significant when both criticism and depressed affect were measured at the same time point. contrary to expectations, only some withinand cross-spouse associations between support and depressed affect were significant at the same time point. results from lagged models of criticism and depressed affect suggested that there are bidirectional relationships between spouse criticism and spouse depressed affect; as well, they highlighted the role of spouse depressed affect in predicting patient criticism. lagged models of support were similar to those for criticism. these results highlight the implications of being critical and providing support as well as the role of spouse affect in generating marital conflict. results also call for the importance of expanding theory and interventions to address not only patient affect but also spouse depressed affect as it may be a stress generating vehicle leading to both spouse and patient criticism and support. high index contrast (hic) optical waveguides permit a move towards very large scale integration of photonic integrated circuits (pics), primarily because of the very small waveguide bending radius achievable. a novel self-aligned fabrication process combining conventional dry etching and a unique non-selective (i.e., oxygen-enhanced) wet thermal oxidation technique for gaas-based heterostructures is demonstrated in which a layer of native oxide is formed on the sidewall and base of an etch-defined mesa, largely simplifying the fabrication by simultaneously providing both electrical insulation (eliminating the need for a deposited dielectric and additional mask step) and effective optical mode confinement. oxidation smoothing, a new technique allowing ultra-low loss hic waveguides, is demonstrated for the first time in iii-v compound semiconductor heterostructures via non-selective oxidation. excellent device performance (low threshold current, high efficiency, stable-mode operation) is achieved for 808 nm graded-index separate confinement heterostructure (grinsch) hic laser diodes in both straight and curved geometries, indicating a low surface state density at the semiconductor/oxide interface. a record small (r=10 micron) radius half-racetrack-ring resonator laser diode patterned by conventional photolithography is demonstrated. a strong lateral optical confinement factor also leads to a 1.39 micron wide aperture laser with a nearly symmetric output beam, showing the great potential of the hic laser structure to overcome longtime limitations in edge-emitting lasers of asymmetric beam divergence and large astigmatism. detailed stripe width dependent studies also highlight the tremendous performance improvement due to the elimination of current spreading by the hic structure. as the most critical factor for active devices, interface passivation is qualitatively studied by varying the native oxide thickness, comparing native oxides with conventional plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (pecvd) silicon dioxide, and conducting an initial reliability test on an unbonded straight laser. wet thermal oxidation is also demonstrated for the first time on 1.3 micron dilute-nitride and mid-ir quantum cascade laser (qcl) structures with al-free active regions, with enhanced dilute-nitride laser performance achieved. potential benefits of the oxide-confined hic structure for high-power laser diode bars and other devices are also addressed. the simplified hic laser fabrication process developed in this work also shows the great potential of non-selective oxidation for future high density pics. vectorbase is a full featured web site that provides the latest genomic data for invertebrate vectors of human pathogens. complex computer systems are involved in keeping the site operational. this paper describes how all of these systems were migrated from one set of computers to another. along with providing genomic data to users, the site also makes available several sequence analysis tools. vectorbase uses distributed computing systems to process all the data submitted for use by these tools. the site's distributed computing system has gone through several changes over the years and those modifications are documented in this paper. finally, the blast genomic tool is the most popular feature of the site. great detail was put into improving the way users interact with this tool to provide a more efficient, intuitive, and beneficial experience for its users. all the modifications, reasons for them, and technologies used for the new interface are described herein. short stories storm surge is the rise of water caused by hurricane winds blowing over large regions of the ocean surface. this rise of water induces coastal flooding and is responsible for much of the destruction of property and loss of life caused by hurricane events. as computational resources have grown, numerical simulation has become a powerful tool in the mitigation of these disasters. today's state-of-the-art surge models, based on relatively robust low-order numerical methods, have become increasingly accurate with the inclusion of additional physical processes and the use of high-resolution domains. however, these improvements have come at the expense of rising computational cost, demanding large high-performance computing resources. as a result, some analyses must resort to older, less advanced models that sacrifice accuracy for the sake of lower computational effort. the goal of this dissertation is to increase the efficiency of high-fidelity coastal modeling through the application of high-order numerical methods. although high-order methods promise greatly increased efficiency, they have not yet been widely adopted in the coastal surge modeling community. while inherently more accurate than low-order methods, high-order schemes are also much less diffusive, often leading to stability issues for complex applications. additionally, the computational meshes and parameter sets that describe a given model domain must incorporate high-order representations of the underlying data in order to maintain consistency with the accuracy of the numerical method. techniques for accomplishing this in real-world coastal circulation problems are not well developed.in addition to replacing low-order algorithms, many fundamental aspects of traditional surge modeling techniques must be reconsidered in order to fully realize the potential performance improvements of high-order methods for real-world problems. simply incorporating high-order methods into today's models is not a viable solution. despite their greater accuracy, they are also more expensive than low-order methods at a given resolution level. as a result, efficiency gains must come from using high-order solution approximations along with coarser discretizations to obtain a level of accuracy that would require higher resolution for a low-order approach. this means boundary conditions and input parameter fields (i.e. bathymetric depth, wind stress, manning's n friction, etc.) that are typically comprised of high-resolution linear approximations, must now be resolved through higher-order polynomials inside larger elements. this dissertation seeks to apply high-order discontinuous galerkin finite element solutions of the shallow water equations to realistic coastal tidal and surge problems.the goal is to obtain results on par with the accuracy of current low-order models, while significantly surpassing their performance. accomplishing this goal requires developing boundary conditions, parameter field representations, and mesh discretizations that are consistent with the high-order accuracy of the numerical methods. in addition, coding paradigms can be adapted to exploit current computational technologies to further improve performance. these developments will allow coarse, high-order models to provide comparable accuracy to today's state-of-the-art high-resolution, low-order models at greatly reduced computational expense. computer-aided manufacturing (cam) is an area of manufacturing where computer algorithms are used for planning and controlling fabrication processes of three dimensional objects. most often the final surface is created by folding or sculpting the raw material. in this dissertation we study several problems arising in cam. specifically, we develop a memory-efficient technique for constructing a triangular mesh of a surface given its continuous representation and prove that the problem of flattening an already triangulated surface is np-hard. we also develop algorithms for two problems related to finding an optimal surface orientation with respect to the machining tool: we show how to efficiently partition a surface into two sub-patches, subject to certain objective functions, and we show how to find an orientation of the surface that maximizes the area that can be sculpted during a single setup. furthermore, we present methods for finding a feasible set of tool orientations for already computed sculpting paths. since problems in cam are often geometric in nature, as a result of our work, we develop several algorithmic techniques and data structures that are interesting from the point of view of theoretical computational geometry, geometric optimization, and graph theory. for example, we reduce the space requirement for a class of problems that seek a path from among many shortest paths in certain weighted grid graphs, we develop new algorithms for processing an off-line sequence of insertions and deletions of convex polygons interspersed with certain point queries on the common intersection of the polygons, and for finding a line segment of a fixed-length that intersects the maximum number of given polygons. we also study two problems on interval structures that arise in cam. we give efficient algorithms for a single-source k-link shortest path problem on an interval graph and for an optimal color covering problem for n points on a line, where each point is assigned one of m colors. some of our results improve existing algorithms, others are new. our methods combine geometric modeling, new algorithmic techniques, and new data structures. many of our algorithms find applications in areas outside of computer-aided manufacturing. the captive friday, mute but grateful to his white savior to avoid a fate worse than death at the hands of cannibalistic fellow islanders, leaving his fleeting footsteps in the sands of time. fayaway, all smiles, mystery and silence, trapped by the cultural restrictions of her own paradise. queequeg, speaking in undecipherable pidgin while hawking embalmed heads on the streets of boston on a sabbath. these are a few of many examples of fictional portrayals of pacific islander who are either unable, or in some cases unwilling, to speak for themselves: fictional portrayals influenced by a discourse that perceived indigenous people as mystified by western technology, helpless before the onslaught of disease, unable to progress into a modern age, silent victims of preconditioned fate. yet as the nineteenth century progressed and western literacy spread throughout the pacific, such fictional portraits of pacific islanders did not reflect the complex, increasingly hybrid culture that became the reality of a globalized—and in many cases, forcefully colonized—oceania, whose inhabitants survived despite all the forces poised for their annihilation. specifically, native hawaiians were one community among many in oceania to adapt western alphabetic literacy and print technology in the service of preserving autonomous nationalism during a period when the united states increasingly turned its imperial gaze to the hawaiian islands. as this study will demonstrate, pro-imperialist discourse encouraged the erasure of native voices, including records of their dissent. in each instance in which native hawaiians addressed an american audience through the medium of print, they provided a corrective to false representations of pacific islanders as uncivilized and passive—deconstructing expansionist rhetoric through the content as well as the context of their self-representations. this study examines an archive of hawaiian writings in english directed to american readers throughout the nineteenth century, with the conclusion that trans-hawaiian/u.s. print networks represent a site of creative adaptation in which hawaiians strategically engaged with the medium of print as one tool for asserting their sovereign identity on a global stage. this dissertation focuses on imaging localized surface plasmon resonances (lsprs) by utilizing electron energy-loss spectroscopy (eels) and resonance-rayleigh scattering to understand energy transfer and changes in lspr morphology dependent upon the location of a catalytic metal in contact with a plasmonic metal. imaging and understanding the unique properties supported by plasmonic metals has become increasingly more intriguing in the plasmonics community since eels is able to spatially map lsprs. we are able to utilize eels to spatially image the lspr mode structure of gold nanoprisms and gold nanoprisms of the same size decorated with a catalytic metal, particularly, platinum. importantly, we can use the plasmon mode maps to understand lspr behavior of gold when in the presence of a catalytic metal. we demonstrate the location-dependence of the catalytic metal on the lspr mode structure changes. we further elucidate that conservation of three-fold symmetry in the nanoprisms inherently causes no lspr mode differences. finally, we use simulations only to show that, although gold and platinum couple, better energy transfer may be facilitated in a system whose lsprs spectrally overlap, such as aluminum and platinum. although eels is capable of spatially mapping lsprs, a cheaper and more universally available spectroscopy can spectrally image low-energy lspr modes (dipole and quadrupole modes) with high resolution. using depolarized and polarized plane-wave excitation in the dark-field, we excite the lspr of a single platinum-decorated gold nanoprism to demonstrate a splitting of the low-energy plasmon mode. this splitting relies on the location of the platinum decoration on the nanoprism. like eels, three-fold symmetry conservation results in a single dipolar lspr mode; however, when the decoration breaks the three-fold symmetry of the nanoprism system, a distinct splitting of the dipole lspr mode is observed. we show that resonance rayleigh scattering coupled with high-resolution transmission electron microscope (hr-tem) images is capable of probing the location differences of the platinum decoration on a single gold nanoprism. finally, we show through experiment only how electron beam lithography (ebl) affords great control over nanodimer fabrication including junction distances of less than 10 nm. of interest in the molecular and refractive index sensing communities, the fano effect is observable under plane-wave excitation. unfortunately, it remains unclear if a fano interference can be probed by an electron beam. in order to elucidate the fano effect under a near-field probe, nanodimers with very small junction distances (&lt; 10 nm) must be fabricated. ebl allows for systematic fabrication of nanodimers with small junctions. this dissertation investigates some propositions that fall outside the mainstream of the standard big bang cosmology. we begin with partial evidence from the cosmic microwave background (cmb) that the universe may be finite, compactified and flat, or at least nearly flat. the simplest interpretation of a flat universe is that it is infinite and non-compact. however, there are a great variety of ways that infinite universes can be 'wrapped up' and given a compact finite volume, without the need to modify general relativity. detailed analysis of the cmb could potentially tell us the nature of the compactification, except that there is considerable uncertainty over sources of error. another approach is to correlate the positions of distant luminous objects. while this cannot probe so broad a set of possibilities, it may be more sensitive for those that it can. in this thesis a new technique is developed that is much more sensitive to the very-nearly flat cases than previous tests of this type. application to existing catalogs rules out a compact dimension smaller than 90% of the present horizon radius. the test requires that the position of objects is corrected for relativistic aberration. this gives rise to a second piece of work that systemizes corrections for objects and also the microwave background. the final part looks at an unusual explanation for galaxy rotation curves. these are conventionally thought to be the result of a dark matter halo that dylan r menzies-gow enshrowds each galaxy. such dark matter also helps to account for the large quantity dark matter deduced from observations of the cmb. however, it has been suggested that the rotation curves could be a classical general relativistic effect, despite the non-relativistic velocities and densities involved. such a claim is very unusual and has created considerable contraversy. the chapter presents a conclusive analysis to demonstrate that the suggested model is unphysical by implying an infinite mass for each galaxy. dielectrophoresis has been shown to be effective in controlling the collection of nanoparticles. we extend this idea into binary systems by using microelectrodes to control the segregation and assembly of different sized particles. although dielectrophoretic separation of binary suspensions has been reported in the past, the bulk structure of the binary system under dep has not been studied. in this paper, we report on the structural frequency dependence of a binary colloidal system using latex particle suspensions. we also report the effects of medium conductivity, viscosity, and size ratio on structure and summarize with a binary phase diagram. finally, we speculate the physical phenomena responsible for phase diagram boundaries. this study identified the mutated sill gene, which is responsible for the nbb phenotype. sill gene is located on 22 chromosome and encodes 1263 amino acids. the function of sill is unclear in zebrafish. using the gene candidate cloning approach, we identified a 'g->a' site mutation in the sill transcript, resulting in a truncated sill protein. rt-pcr and in situ hybridization results demonstrated that sill expresses in the very early stages of embryonic development and expresses in many different cell types. in addition, the relationship between sill and shh pathway was examined. we found that the expression of the shh pathway target gene gli1, which play a role in inducing ventral neural tube development, was decreased in nbb mutants. to further investigate the nbb phenotype, we also examined the development of tn in nbb mutants and forskolin treated fish.the data suggested that nbb phenotype was caused by the mutated sill, inducing deficiencies in the shh signaling pathway. additionally, abnormal development of the tn caused by deficient shh pathway may also contribute to the nbb phenotype during the early embryonic development. white fear, or distrust of non-whites, has been identified as a key psychosocial cost of racism to whites. the purpose of this research was to test a model that not only identified (a) what personality characteristics could predict white fear, but also whether (b) exposure to other racial and cultural groups or (c) cultural self-efficacy could predict white fear among a sample of 189 white undergraduates. cultural self-efficacy was defined as one's perceived ability to interact competently with people from other races and cultures. neuroticism, openness, multicultural exposure through family and friends, and cultural self-efficacy were statistically significant predictors of white fear. mediational analyses revealed that the relation between multicultural exposure and white fear was explained by cultural self-efficacy. the findings suggest that whites' exposure to people of color can enhance cultural self-efficacy, which can account for the degree to which they will experience white fear. the main objective of this study is to determine the impact of distinct social traditions (i.e., cultural behaviors) on sub-adult male long-tailed macaque (macaca fascicularis) social relationships by comparing two allopatric populations (padangtegal and uluwatu) on the island of bali, indonesia. stone handling occurs only within the two study groups at padangtegal, while "robbing and bartering" occurs only among the two study groups at uluwatu. in this research i characterize the relative influence of these social traditions on patterns of sub-adult male social behavior at the individual level. sub-adult males are highly active in both social traditions, and occupy a life history stage characterized by shifting social relations. data were collected during 15 minute sample periods via focal animal scan and all-occurrence sampling. scan data were collected every 180 seconds during the sample period and consist of focal animal state behaviors and nearest neighbor identification. changes in state behaviors, and all event behaviors (e.g., gestural interactions), were recorded throughout the entire 15 minute sample period. these data were assessed via social network analysis to understand individual social behavior in relation to other members of the social group. such analyses offer specific insight into how individuals utilize particular social relationships to navigate complex social networks. this research offers a distinctive contribution to the literature on the evolution of primate societies by examining the patterns by which social traditions and social networks interface with, and shape, social structures among nonhuman primates. heterogeneous materials are widely used in engineering applications. materials with different properties can be combined to obtain composites with enhanced capabilities. the application of these materials can be observed across many different industries, with much interest given to designing and predicting their response to applied loads. utilizing finite elements such materials are able to be simulated. if such materials are modeled using a direct numerical model (dnm), the finest length scale is represented by the mesh discretization. however, for large, industrial problems this is done at great computational cost. multi-scale formulations have been used to decrease the computational cost, making use of a periodic representative unit cell (ruc). such cells are embedded into the coarse scale domain's integration points (fe2), which can also be computationally expensive. methods have been produced to further reduce the cost of multi-scale formulations by embedding the macro-scale solution with the relevant micro-scale features. such methods are referred to as transformation field analysis (tfa).this work presents a new approach to the traditional tfa developed by dvorak, expanding on the multi-scale enrichment techniques developed by fish. tfa relies upon the development of influence functions and concentration tensors to upscale information on the fine scale to the coarse scale, with information being passed between a fine scale mesh and a single coarse scale element (local tfa). a new model is proposed, one that allows communication of eigenstrain effects between all fine scale meshes and all coarse scale elements (nonlocal tfa).a 2d plane-strain mechanical model is developed to solve 2-scale problems. an isotropic linear hardening model is used with j2 plasticity to represent eigenstrains as plastic strains. a model reduction is also used to demonstrate how nonlocal tfa performs in comparison to local tfa with piecewise continuous strains. the models are discretized and implemented into a numerical solver. a direct numerical model is also provided for verification purposes, with a method of manufactured solutions used to verify the dnm. afterwards, the results are discussed.this work may be expanded to include cohesive interfaces between the matrix and particles, as well as the inclusion of fracture mechanics, allowing the model to capture separation of particles from the matrix, as well as other micro mechanical effects. party system collapse is a rare phenomenon worldwide. in the andean region, however, it has been the rule, rather than the exception: all of the andean countries have experienced severe crises of democratic representation. peru faced the first party system collapse in the 1990s, which proved to be one of the most severe in the region. although the specialized literature has concentrated on explaining why citizens abandoned traditional political parties, there is an enormous gap in the literature regarding how post collapse party systems actually function. the term "democracy without parties" is superficial; it emphasizes what is lacking in the political system, without describing what has taken its place to organize politics in the andean region. i argue that partisanship can emerge and survive in a post party system collapse scenario such as peru. despite obstacles to partisan politics, politicians can establish successful connections with citizens through a combination of programmatic and personalistics linkages. although political parties in peru are based on extremely weak organizations with minimal levels of social rootedness, their national leaders have developed permanent connections that exceed mere personalistic appeals. programmatic considerations and issue-positioning. coupled with charismatic and pro/anti-establishment appeals are efficient predictors of political behavior at the individual level.i identify the existence of transitional partisanships based on the relative strengthening of programmatic-political linkages. transitional partisanships are not full-fledged versions of party identification. they are loosely based on programmatic considerations, but can tolerate ideological shifts. they include personalistic appeals, but can transcend specific leaderships. i identify three types of transitional partisanships: surviving, nascent, and negative partisanships. survival partisanships represent long-enduring party identifications that have survived the party system collapse through strong leadership (the case of apra). nascent partisanships consist of emerging party identifications that are ideologically disperse, but grounded by strong personalistic legacies (the case of fujimorismo). finally, "negative partisanships" represent a coherent, hardcore opposition to particular party identifications that also coalesce around programmatic and personalistic appeals (the cases of anti-aprismo and anti-fujimorismo). the three types of transitional partisanships successfully explain electoral alignments in peru at the individual level, as well as the decline of electoral volatility in peruvian politics.based on original national survey data applied after the 2011 peruvian presidential elections and qualitative information gathered through interviews and focus groups with national leaders of apra and fujimorismo, i explore how contemporary peruvian politics functions and the challenges to and opportunities for its political institutionalization. a comparative perspective is utilized to explore this argument's applicability in other andean countries. increasing data rates in wireless devices is particularly challenging due to the presence of many impairments in the medium, including multipath fading. diversity techniques are a means of increasing transmission reliability in multipath environments. this thesis focuses on cooperative diversity, a concept that obtains spatial diversity via relaying. cooperative diversity encompasses a broad range of issues, from the physical layer through network layer, making the emerging reconfigurable technology of software-defined radio ideal for experimentation. the main contribution of this work is the development of an extendable experimental framework for implementation and analysis of cooperative protocols. a decode-and-forward (df) relay network is constructed and analyzed by means of received symbol distributions and bit error rate (ber) versus signal-to-noise ratio (snr) curves. the former shows a shift in the distribution of instantaneous snr for both simple and selective df, while the latter indicates that only the selective scheme actually achieves a diversity gain. in recent years several studies have shown that field transport phenomena in media with non-homogeneous properties are characterized by unconventional behaviors. these processes, usually denoted as anomalous transport phenomena, are accurately described by fractional order mathematical models, whereas the classical integer order models fail to capture their properties. there are several examples of anomalous diffusion throughout the different fields of physics, such as wave propagation and diffusion processes in viscoelastic and heterogeneous media (e.g. soil, porous materials, etc.) fluid flow in porous media, non classical heat transfer. in particular, the diffusion processes in heterogeneous materials have shown to develop anomalous features characterized by non-local behavior due to the onset of long-range interactions. while integer order transport models are not able to explain these effects, fractional order models have shown to be able to capture these phenomena. the aim of this thesis is to investigate the occurrence of anomalous transport mechanisms associated to wave-like fields propagating in highly scattering media and to diffusive fields propagating in inhomogeneous media. anomalous diffusion models are applicable to complex and inhomogeneous environments where classical diffusion theory ceases to be valid. anomalous diffusion shows a nonlinear time dependence for the mean-squared displacement, and predicts stretched exponential decay for the temporal evolution of the system response. these unique characteristics of anomalous diffusion enable to probe complex media, with an approach that is not permitted by classical diffusion imaging. the behavior of the initial wave-like field turning into a diffused one will be governed by a classical or anomalous diffusive mechanism depending on the density of the medium. in this work this conversion phenomenon will be studied via a combination of stochastic molecular and fractional continuum models in order to capture the non-local nature of the underlying physics. the numerical analysis presented in this work shows a very distinctive feature of this anomalous mechanism consisting in the transition from gaussian to heavy-tailed distributions. the unique properties shown by fractional-order models in describing anomalous diffusion phenomena in complex physical systems also suggest their application to inverse problems for tomographic imaging in inhomogeneous and scattering media. in this thesis we consider an application to thermal tomography approach where the heat diffusion in an inhomogeneous medium is described by a fractional differential model. the integration of fractional models in classical tomographic methods, may lead to significant improvements in the sensitivity accuracy and resolution of the reconstruction procedure. these characteristics may be particularly useful in those applications requiring higher level of localized information on the internal structure of the medium investigated. the coherent structure in the near-field of an axisymmetric turbulent jet at a reynolds number of 380,000 and mach number of 0.3 is experimentally characterized by a vector implementation of the proper orthogonal decomposition (pod). the pod eigenfunctions and associated eigenvalues are extracted at several selected streamwise locations in the initial region. the focus on the near-field is motivated by its importance in numerous technical applications. results show a rapid energy convergence with pod mode number. examination of the relative energy contained in the combined azimuthal and radial components of the pod modes reveals that it is comparable to that in the streamwise component. the streamwise evolution of the eigenvalue spectra is characterized by a remarkable variation in the azimuthal mode number energy distribution leading to the dominance of azimuthal mode m =1 beyond the end of the jet core. in contrast, a scalar implementation using only the streamwise component shows the dominance of mode m = 2 which is consistent with previous scalar implementations of the pod. for a given azimuthal mode number, the eigenvalue spectra exhibit a broad spectral peak which occurs at a constant value of strouhal number based on local shear layer momentum thickness and jet velocity. the phase information required for a local reconstruction of the jet structure is obtained by projecting the pod eigenmodes onto instantaneous realizations of the flow at fixed streamwise locations. the instantaneous realizations are obtained by utilizing cross-stream arrays of multi-sensor probes in conjunction with linear stochastic estimation (lse). results clearly show the local dynamic behavior of each component of the jet structure. while most research on patients explores the patient-physician relationship, this paper examines the conceptualization and meaning of patients. given this focus, my research explores the evolution of the meaning of being a patient. i use qualitative document analysis to examine the first meeting of the american medical association's house of delegates for each year from 1980 to 2000. i find that the use of the word patient includes both individualized and generalized terms that describe patients. i find that the generalized cases exist in both a medical and social form. i conclude proposing that a conceptualization of a patient using the social generalized form allows for future research on social phenomena to be undertaken in a shared language with physicians. the transcription factor znf217 is amplified in 20-30% of breast cancers. its overexpression accelerates tumor progression, metastasis, and chemoresistance in vivo and correlates strongly with poor prognosis in patients. due to the high expression and heterogeneous localization of znf217 in some human breast tumors, both znf217 levels and localization may be critical determinants of znf217's function. however, little is known about how znf217 is regulated as a protein to promote breast cancer. i discovered that breast tumors and cell lines express both full length and smaller znf217 proteins generated by a protease-dependent mechanism. although the smaller znf217 proteins are even more prominent than full length znf217 in both human and mouse breast tumors and cell lines, the importance of these smaller forms remains unknown. to investigate the function of smaller znf217 proteins, i overexpressed znf217 truncation mutants in human breast cancer cells. interestingly, removal of the n-terminus increased the cytoplasmic znf217 and significantly increased primary and metastatic tumor burdens in vivo. calpain-induced proteolytic cleavage of znf217 protein to generate smaller proteins and increase cytoplasmic localization is a potential mechanism by which znf217 promotes oncogenic functions. identification of the smaller znf217 oncoproteins as tumor promoting factors may be clinically valuable in generating an assay used to generate personalized treatment strategies for patients with advanced metastatic breast cancer and high znf217 expression. prosper of aquitaine was augustine's most important early interpreter, defender, and promoter. he was among the earliest scholars to distinguish augustine by gathering together brief statements (sententiae) from the vast ocean of augustine's writings. this epitome to a large extent set up the parameters for one mode of reading of this complex and variegated theologian. prosper then fashioned poetic renderings based on his augustinian sententiae in the form of a collection of epigrams (liber epigrammatum), thereby continuing the tradition practice of employing poetry for the service of philosophical and theological discourse. prosper's choices of theme and language determined the contours of augustinian exegesis for many centuries. this dissertation is something of a prolegomenon to the further study of the early centuries of the interpretation and transmission of augustine's theological reflections. it provides a study of the epigrams' genesis and transmission along with the first modern critical edition and english translation. by providing a new textual reckoning of the epigrams, it will be possible to fix the contours of prosper's (and therefore augustine's) influence and establish a sound textual footing for further investigations. the hybrid shear wall system investigated in this dissertation is constructed by stacking rectangular precast concrete wall panels along horizontal joints above the foundation and at the floor levels. the term 'hybrid' reflects that a combination of mild reinforcing steel (u.s. grade 60) and high-strength unbonded post-tensioning (pt) steel is used for lateral resistance across the joints. during a large earthquake, gap opening at the base joint allows the structure to undergo large lateral displacements with reduced damage. upon unloading, the pt steel provides a restoring force to close this gap and pull the wall back towards its undisplaced position, reducing the permanent lateral displacements. the mild steel crossing the base joint is designed to yield and provide energy dissipation. the primary goal of the dissertation is to investigate the seismic behavior and design of hybrid walls with practical details, while specifically focusing on the classification of the system as 'special' reinforced concrete shear walls according to the requirements of the american concrete institute (aci). the behavior from six 0.40-scale test specimens subjected to service-level gravity loads combined with reversed-cyclic lateral loading is studied, including walls featuring multiple panels and panel perforations, both common features in practical building construction. the primary experimental variables include the detailing of the mild steel bars crossing the base joint, relative areas of the mild and pt steel, concrete confinement, and size of panel perforations. the measured behaviors of the test specimens are compared against design predictions and analytical simulations, using both detailed fiber element models and simplified finite element models created with a 'design office' philosophy. the results demonstrate that hybrid precast walls can satisfy all of the requirements for special reinforced concrete shear walls in high seismic regions with improved performance, while also revealing important design, detailing, and analysis considerations to prevent undesirable failure mechanisms. in addition to this dissertation, a key deliverable from the project is a validated design procedure document (smith and kurama 2012) containing detailed guidelines and tools for engineers and precast producers involved in the seismic design of aci-compliant hybrid shear walls with predictable and reliable behavior under earthquakes. ida refers to combining data from independent studies into a concatenated dataset and analyzing the new data jointly (curran &amp; hussong, 2009). ida is an alternative to meta-analysis, which synthesizes summary statistics (such as effect sizes or standardized parameter estimates) from multiple studies. pooling data for research is not a new idea; however, it has seen limited use in psychology. the ida framework is innovative in its use of different models and methods to account for heterogeneity across different data sources. this dissertation evaluates the performance of particular applications of ida in the field of behavior genetics, where meta-analysis is common practice. behavior genetics researchers often perform exhaustive searches across the entire genome seeking genetic markers that are associated with an observed outcome. because there are millions of genetic markers, and because even true gene associations have extremely tiny effect sizes, genome-wide searches are often combined across multiple studies to increase statistical power. regression coefficients from tests of association are meta-analyzed, even though psychological or behavioral outcomes may be defined differently across studies. this dissertation tests the hypothesis that more precise measurement of an integrated outcome, achieved through ida, can provide added power over typical meta-analysis in multi-study genome-wide searches. in chapter 1, a general overview of the ida framework is discussed, genome-wide association studies are presented, and ida for genome-wide searches is presented. chapter 2 covers a simulation study evaluating measurement model ida using a proposed bi-factor integration model. chapter 3 covers simulation studies investigating multiple imputation ida performance with a novel imputation model, namely, boosted decision trees as an extension of single-tree imputation. chapter 4 presents an application of ida to the aggression in children: unraveling gene-environment interplay to inform treatment and intervention strategies (action) consortium, a large-scale collaboration of six research projects studying the genetic underpinnings of aggression in children. the fast development and growth of portable electronic devices for wireless communications demand radio frequency (rf) devices that can amplify signal power in the range of microwave frequencies and beyond. the transistor is the core of power amplifier circuits. this requires transistors to be capable of amplifying the current or the power so that larger power will be delivered to the load than the power received from the input signal at high frequency. this work focuses on exploring new materials and new device structures to develop novel devices that can operate at very high speed. in chapter 2, the high frequency performance limitations of graphene transistor with channel length less than 100 nm are explored. a nano-scale transistor simulation approach is presented based on the non-equilibrium greens' function (negf) formalism self-consistently solved with the two-dimensional poisson equation under the ballistic limit. the simulated results predict that intrinsic cutoff frequency ft of graphene transistor can be close to 2 thz at 15 nm channel length. the parasitic resistances and capacitances are included in the simulation, which degrade the on current ion, the transconductance gm, and the peak ft. in spite of zero gap, graphene based electronics are promising for specific application. for instance, since graphene and other two dimensional materials are bendable, they show promise for the emerging field of flexible electronics. in chapter 3, we explored the possibility of developing a 2d materials based vertical tunneling device. an analytical model to calculate the channel potentials and current-voltage characteristics in a symmetric tunneling field-effect-transistor (symfet) is presented. the current in a symfet flows by tunneling from a n-type graphene layer to a p-type graphene layer. a large current peak occurs when the dirac points are aligned at a particular drain-to-source bias vds. the model shows that the current of the symfet is weakly dependent on temperature. the resonant current peak is controlled by chemical doping and applied gate bias. the on/off ratio increases with graphene coherence length and doping concentration. the symmetric resonant peak in symfet is a good candidate for high-speed analog applications. rest of the work focuses on gallium nitride (gan), a compound semiconductor with high electron mobility, high saturation velocity and large band gap. several novel device concepts based on gan heterostructure have been proposed for high frequency and high power applications. in chapter 4, we compared the performance of gan schottky diodes on bulk gan substrates and gan-on-sapphire substrates. the forward bias iv characteristics of gan schottky diodes on bulk gan substrate and gan-on-sapphire substrate are well explained by the thermionic emission model. due to the high quality of the gan bulk substrate with low dislocation density, gan schottky diodes on bulk gan substrate show > 4 orders of magnitude less reverse leakage current density than those on gan-on-sapphire substrate. the dislocation induced schottky barrier lowering is added into the thermionic emission model, which explains the temperature dependent iv characteristics. in additional, we also discussed the lateral gan schottky diode between metal/2degs. the advantages of lateral gan schottky diodes are a), the intrinsic cutoff frequency is in the thz range, and b),lateral gan schottky diodes can be directly integrated with gan hemts, which offers the feasibility to design gan mmic. in chapter 5, a gan heterostructure barrier diode (hbd) is designed using the polarization charge and band offset at the algan/gan heterojunction. gan hbd is similar to gaas planar doped barrier (pdb) diode. the polarization charge at algan/gan interface behaves as a delta-doping which induces a barrier without any chemical doping. the iv characteristics can be explained by the barrier controlled thermionic emission current. one advantage of gan hbd is the constant capacitance, which reduces the nonlinearity of the device. gan hbds can be directly integrated with gan hemts, and serve as frequency multipliers or mixers for rf applications. in chapter 6, a gan based negative effective mass oscillator (nemo) is proposed. in the designed structure, a graded algan emitter is used to inject hot electrons into the gan collector. the current in nemo is estimated under the ballistic limits. negative differential resistances (ndrs) can be observed with more than 50% of the injected electrons occupied the negative effective mass (nem) region. the negative effective mass oscillator with hot electron injection has been simulated by solving the boltzmann transport equation in 1d real-space and k-space. a stable self-sustaining current oscillation is observed. the designed nemo structures are grown by mbe on bulk gan substrates. ndrs are observed in four nemo samples under dc and pulsed measurements. the influence of traps and defects on ndrs is also discussed. knowledge of genetic determinants of the metabolic state of plasmodium falciparum can reveal crucial details about the evolution of antimalarial drug resistance. there is a growing demand for high resolution data to quantify and characterize the enzymatic and metabolic status of the human malaria parasite. global metabolomics offers an unbiased, real-time readout of cellular activity and metabolic flux regulation, promising insights into parasitic drug responsive biology and pathophysiology. quantitative trait locus mapping of metabolite profiles from untargeted mass spectrometry can uncover genetic loci influencing metabolite levels and parasite physiology. i extracted metabolites from two p. falciparum genetic crosses at three erythrocytic cell cycle stages. individual mass signatures from this highly inclusive dataset map to all chromosomes in the genome in an asymmetrical manner. my approach is also enhanced by the incorporation of network theory and graphs to model metabolic pathways. the resolution of a metabolic network offers insights into the pathophysiology of the parasite. an understanding of these metabolites and metabolic pathways could serve to guide chemotherapeutic approaches to multiple cellular targets and identifying strategies to circumvent antimalarial drug resistance.generating a cross between strains with different phenotypes and studying intermediary phenotypes of recombinant progeny has been a highly effective approach for studying the genetic basis of drug resistance. the data is subjected to linkage analysis to study inheritance patterns to pinpoint genes associated with a phenotype of interest. traditionally, genetic crosses in p. falciparum have relied on chimpanzees for liver-stage parasite development, however due to the extensive labor and overwhelming issues like cost and ethics, the chimp-based crosses are no longer feasible. here, we demonstrate that genetic crosses can be made in a humanized mouse model. i characterized four genetic crosses derived from this model, identified recombinant progeny using microsatellite markers, constructed a linkage map for one of them with snp genotyping data, performed phenotyping and qtl analyses. we generated the first experimental crosses using parent lines recently isolated from clinical patients in geographical regions with emerging drug resistance. generation of crosses using recently isolated parasites will allow for a quicker understanding of the mechanisms of resistance development. anthropogenic activities have increased the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere destabilizing global climate patterns. together, carbon dioxide (co2), methane (ch4), and nitrous oxide (n2o) are responsible for over 70% of the increased radiative forcing of the atmosphere relative to pre-industrial levels. identifying the sources of these gases is key to controlling their emissions. i investigated whether headwater streams are an important source of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and how emission rates respond to anthropogenic land use. employing a variety of methods including 15n stable isotope tracer experiments, i demonstrated that n2o was produced in the sediments of headwater streams, and that production rates were correlated with stream water no3concentrations, an indicator of agricultural land use. at the basin scale, the streams had high areal n2o emission rates relative to soils, but only emitted about 5% of the n2o evading from soils due to the small total surface area of streams. although n2o emissions from streams have received more attention than ch4, i found that ch4 emissions induced by anthropogenic activity had a global warming potential 12 times that of n2o. methane emission rates were highest in streams affected by agriculture and urbanization, likely because the accumulation of fine sediments in these streams promoted sediment anoxia and methane production. in a separate line of research, i investigated the environmental fate and transport of a new class of chemical compounds (ionic liquids, ils) that may replace traditional solvents that indirectly promote the accumulation of ch4 in the atmosphere. i found that ils do not strongly sorb to aquatic sediments and are unlikely to bioaccumulate if released into aquatic ecosystems via industrial effluent. my dissertation research demonstrates that headwater streams are sources of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, but that n2o emissions have been overestimated while ch4 emissions have been overlooked. by linking in-stream ch4 and n2o production to specific effects of anthropogenic land use (e.g., nitrate enrichment and sedimentation), i have identified management actions that could be taken to reduce these emissions. the 'consistent ethic of life' notably advocated by the late cardinal joseph bernardin is not an academic theory about attitude consistency, but is instead one particular expectation of moral discourse on a broad range of social, economic, and cultural issues. within this perspective, a 'seamless garment' of life might serve as the defining ideological package that expresses a call to a certain 'life ethic,' with opposition to abortion as a frequent and nonnegotiable center of discourse. as such, this perspective is labeled by certain organizations to function as an ultimate grounding in implementing governmental policy and triggering individual-level attitude change. however, recent research finds limited evidence for a 'seamless garment' ideological package within u.s. catholics, and unsurprisingly, much less evidence among the general population. indeed, such a combination of attitudes challenges traditional understandings of conservative-liberal politics. the absence of adherence to 'seamless garment' ideals within any particular religious or social group raises questions of how individuals respond to advocacy of such ideological packages and pattern their attitudes towards often contentious issues such as abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, and suicide. this dissertation proceeds with two general questions regarding the promotion and prevalence of life ethics. first, how has the ideological package of 'pro-life' consistency been advocated outside the catholic church? i conduct a case study of the seamless garment network, an organization committed to reframing what it means to be 'pro-life,' and demonstrate with qualitative discourse analysis the rhetorical frames and challenges associated with consistent life ethic advocacy. second, how do individuals structure attitudes related to life issues? i conduct latent class analysis, examining the structures of attitudes related to life issues from 1977 to 2012 with nationally representative survey data. findings from the qualitative discourse analysis demonstrate the challenges related to combining issues from the political left and right. additionally, this case study outlines difficulties related to forming long-term coalitions among social movement organizations. findings from the latent class analysis support previous research that suggests that individuals rarely structure attitudes in a 'consistent' or 'inconsistent' manner. this dissertation explores how britons used their experiences raising five of the most prolific european animals -cows, sheep, horses, pigs, and dogs -to understand, implement, and question the enslavement of humans in america between 1550 and 1815. expanding the historiographical boundaries of slave and animal histories, i argue that whites put africans into bondage as an outgrowth of their divine sanction to "improve" nature, to turn wild and unproductive beasts into tame and useful ones. this process was far from static. as farmers and agricultural improvers developed new, more rigorously mercantile, ways of relating to livestock at the center of the british empire, they shaped and were shaped by a growing commodification of slaves on the peripheries. beginning in the seventeenth century and continuing with breeding experiments with sheep in the eighteenth, herd animals in britain were transformed from individual servants on the farm into aggregates, vast collectives of living meat. horses and dogs saw their conditions improve, but they too were increasingly bred for profit and specialized labor. while colonists were slow to adopt british innovations as they related to animals, they supported and appropriated them in their interactions with africans. as early as the sixteenth century, explorers and artists characterized africans as wild and unproductive animals whom whites had a duty to make useful and profitable. colonial officials, first in barbados and then in the chesapeake and lowcountry, extended these arguments to the legal realm, often placing servants and slaves in the same categories as livestock. and planters increasingly treated slaves as equivalent units of financial production, replaceable cogs in massive and lucrative plantation machines. as britons on both sides of the atlantic saw the improvement of nature as a mercantile rather than moral endeavor, and thus treated slaves as commodities, eighteenthand early nineteenth-century century humanitarian reformers came to criticize slavery and animal cruelty alike. electromagnetic waves in the terahertz (thz) frequency region have attracted increased attention and interest owing to emerging applications in radio astronomy, medical imaging, biological sensing, security screening, defense, material characterization, and communications, etc. the vast development of thz sources and detectors in the last two decades has turned the thz research into a rapidly growing technological field. despite the large strides made in those fields, there is still a lack of progress in the development of high-performance tunable and reconfigurable thz circuits and components. those devices are critical for the implementation of unique functionalities and superior system performance for thz applications such as advanced thz imaging and adaptive high-speed wireless communications at thz band. demonstrations of such functional thz devices have been reported, but most of them suffer from limited achievable tunability, versatility, and performance. besides, they are mostly based on free-space quasi-optical configurations, which make them difficult to integrate into practical and compact thz systems.in this thesis, we explore and demonstrate the use of high-performance reconfigurable thz waveguide components based on spatially-resolved optical modulation technology to implement key tunable and reconfigurable circuits that are required in advanced thz sensing and adaptive thz wireless communication systems.the theories of such a novel optical control methodology using photogenerated free carriers in semiconductors are introduced first. an optically controlled wr-4.3 waveguide attenuator with record-breaking 60-db range, 0.7-db insertion loss, 350 khz modulation speed, and high stability has been developed and demonstrated using the suggested optical control methodology for thz sensing, imaging, and communications. furthermore, tunable and reconfigurable photo-induced electromagnetic band gap (pi-ebg) structures have been investigated, and the performance potential of the pi-ebg has been studied through simulations. an x-band tunable and reconfigurable microwave band-stop filter (bsf) based on the pi-ebg structures has been designed and simulated, showing large tunable center frequency range from 8-12 ghz and adjustable stop-band rejection and bandwidth. two limiting factors, localized heating effects and finite lateral spatial resolution (due to carrier diffusion), that may affect the circuit performance in this technology have also been investigated and discussed. to verify the concept of using photogenerated free carriers to realize tunable and reconfigurable microwave circuits, a reconfigurable microwave circuit prototype based on photo-induced microstrip line structure has been experimentally demonstrated, with its design, simulation, fabrication, and characterization presented and discussed in details. in addition, on the basis of the microwave demonstration, two optically controlled reconfigurable thz waveguide filters based on photogeneration of ebg structures have been designed and simulated at wr-5.1 band. the first design features a pre-patterned ebg ground, and the functionality of the component can be reconfigured between a bsf with a center frequency at 175 ghz and a transmission line. the second design features an increased level of tunability and reconfigurability at thz frequencies by employing mesa array structured ground planes, showing a wide center frequency tunable range from 166-200 ghz and reconfigurable stop-band rejection and bandwidth. mesa arrays have been designed and employed to overcome the limited lateral spatial resolution in naturally existing semiconductors for more effective optical spatial modulation of thz waves. the much-improved lateral spatial resolution enabled by the mesa array structures allows for the implementation of dynamically reconfigurable thz waveguide filters for a wide range of applications including constructing advanced thz sensing, imaging, and communication systems.finally, on the basis of the accomplishments in this thesis, future research directions including the development of optically controlled integrated rf switches for the implementation of more advanced tunable and reconfigurable thz waveguide circuits and photo-induced substrate integrated waveguides with the potential for realizing universally programmable thz passive circuits have been envisioned and briefly discussed. ebola virus (ebov) is a lipid-enveloped virus with a high fatality rate. with only seven genes in the ebola genome, how is a deadly infection scheme achieved? a critical component of the virus is vp40, the matrix protein. not only is this protein the most abundantly expressed of the virus, it is also a protein that can multitask in structure and biological function. one of vp40's roles is to bind the host plasma membrane (pm) and bridge the viral nucleocapsid upon exiting the host cell. surprisingly, vp40 is sufficient to form the virus particle without any other ebov components. particles formed by vp40 without the other viral components are called virus like particles (vlps). vlps are non-infections and thus an excellent tool to study vp40 function in live cells. vlps are formed through two vp40 actions: 1. vp40 host lipid binding and 2. vp40 oligomer formation. both events are believed to occur at the pm. vp40 lipid binding and vp40 oligomerization are closely related as lipid binding promotes and stabilizes the formation of oligomers. vp40 lipid binding and oligomerization are both required for vlp egress and thus ebov to be infectious. the work presented in this thesis aims to understand the mechanism of vp40 membrane binding and vp40 oligomer formation. a variety of biochemical techniques to visualize, detect, and quantify changes in vp40 lipid binding and oligomer formation were used in live cells and in vitro to better understand how these processes occur. previous work in the lab found that vp40 required phosphatidylserine (ps) for pm association and vlp budding. ps was also required for vp40 hexamer formation at the pm. in this thesis, we found that in addition to ps, vp40 binds phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (pi(4,5)p2) with high affinity and selectivity at the pm. this interaction seems to form and stabilize larger oligomers built from hexamer subunits. pi(4,5)p2 is also required for efficient vlp formation and egress, suggesting the stability of large vp40 structures is necessary for efficient viral egress. we now understand that the interaction between vp40 and pi(4,5)p2 occurs through c-terminal domain lysine residues. since vp40 is necessary for the structural integrity of the virus, our results reveal the molecular underpinnings of how this process might occur. thus, the vp40-pi(4,5)p2 binding site is an excellent candidate for site-directed inhibition. remarkably, vp40 membrane sensing and binding extends beyond the lipid headgroup. vp40 binding is significantly influenced by the membrane packing density (i.e., fluidity). ordered membranes containing ps or pi(4,5)p2 illicit robust vp40 binding while disordered membranes containing ps or pi(4,5)p2 exhibit no significant binding. while the relationship between vp40 and membrane fluidity is still under investigation, it holds potential for a novel therapeutic approach against ebov and potentially other filoviruses. overall, the work presented in this thesis establishes novel insights into vp40 lipid binding and the mechanism by which ebov forms from the pm of the host cell. the zebrafish retina provides an excellent model to study neuronal regeneration because it possesses the inherent capacity to generate new neurons in the growing retina throughout its life and to restore any neuronal types that are lost upon injury. in response to retinal cell loss caused by injury or disease, zebrafish müller glial cells re-enter the cell cycle to produce neuronal progenitor cells that continue to proliferate and differentiate into any retinal neuronal type that was lost. we previously demonstrated that tumor necrosis factor α (tnfα) is required and sufficient to initiate this proliferation response (nelson et al., 2013; conner et al., 2014). however, the activation and upstream regulator of tnfα signaling during retinal regeneration remained undetermined. in this study, i investigated the roles of two a disintegrin and metalloproteases 17 (adam17) paralogs, adam17a and adam17b, in stimulating regeneration of the damaged zebrafish retina and tnfα processing. reduced expression of either adam17 paralog significantly suppressed müller glia cell cycle re-entry in the light-damaged retina, which indicates that both adam17a and adam17b are necessary and functionally nonredundant in initiating müller glia proliferation during retinal regeneration. the recombinant soluble tnfα rescued müller glia proliferation in damaged adam17b morphant retinas, but not adam17a morphant retinas. we also demonstrated that knocking down adam17b expression reduced tnfα processing in the light-damaged retina, which results in decreased levels the soluble form of tnfα. in contrast, the adam17a morphant retina did not exhibit reduced amounts of the soluble tnfα. intravitreal injection of the soluble tnfα into light-damaged retinas rescued müller glia proliferation in adam17b morphant retinas, which produced proliferating neuronal progenitor cells (npc). however, fewer npcs in the tnfα-rescued light-damaged adam17b morphant retinas committed to the atoh7 neuronal lineage relative to control retinas and differentiated into greater numbers of amacrine cells rather than photoreceptors. thus, adam17b is required to process tnfα prior to müller glia proliferation and is necessary for npc commitment to a neuronal lineage. after a war between highlanders (who have the ability to magically manipulate the land around them) and lowlanders (who do not) leaves their city in ruins, james and oliver struggle to rebuild a life as the world around them recovers. but when old friends seem to come back to life, political enemies gain steam, and the city itself begins to fight back, magic, technology, and lost loves lead them towards an inevitable rupture. in this work, novel device and circuit technologies for realizing advanced terahertz (thz) receiver systems will be explored. thz detection techniques have shown great promises in astronomy research, remote sensing, security screening, spectroscopy and medical diagnostics. although various thz devices and circuits have been developed in recent years in response to the needs of the above applications, the performance of current thz receiver systems still remains unsatisfactory. mixers or receivers based on superconducting hot-electron bolometers (hebs) have been widely used for thz sensing and detection owing to their advantages of high sensitivity, low noise, and low local oscillator (lo) power requirement. however, single-element heb mixers may suffer from noise introduced by lo injection. balanced heb mixers are superior to single-element ones since the thermal noise and am noise from the lo injection can be effectively suppressed. although a 1.3 thz balanced waveguide heb mixer has been reported, waveguide mixer configurations offer relatively narrow rf bandwidths. in this work, we report on the development of heb devices, broadband balanced mixer circuit and novel tunable/reconfigurable components for realizing advanced thz receivers that can potentially achieve both ultra-high sensitivity and multiband/broadband operation. in the balanced mixer configuration, a lens-coupled dual-polarization sinuous antenna (four arms) was designed for operation from ~0.2 1.0 thz with a nearly frequency-independent embedding impedance of ~105 ohm. two identical superconducting niobium heb devices were integrated at the antenna feedpoints, connecting each opposing pair of antenna arms to form a balanced mixer configuration. the balanced mixer circuit has been fabricated, and the sinuous antenna has been characterized at multiple frequency ranges demonstrating the broadband capability of the proposed balanced receiver circuit design. in addition to the development of a quasi-optical balanced mixer architecture, unique device processing technologies have been developed that permit the direct integration of two hebs and an airbridge into planar antennas for realizing ultra-sensitive mixers. the dc testing results for the fabricated heb devices including resistance vs. temperature (r-t) and current vs. voltage (i-v) characteristics indicate successful fabrication of superconducting heb devices with dimensions below 400 nm. to fully characterize the performance of the balanced heb mixers, a cryostat rf testing system has been designed and constructed. the noise performance of the proposed balanced heb receiver has been initially simulated at 585 ghz, and compared with that of a single-ended mixer, showing that improvement on noise performance can be achieved using a balanced configuration.in order to achieve multiband receiver operation, a tunable thz mesh filter has been proposed. at thz frequencies, mesh filters are routinely used in low noise receiver front ends to block thermal radiation and filter out undesired signals. however, traditional thz mesh filters have fixed center frequencies, so they are not suitable for multiband receiver operation. in this work, we report a novel electronically-tunable thz mesh-filter based on a two-dimensional array of frequency tunable annular-slot antennas (asas). for initial demonstration, a single tunable asa loaded with a high speed schottky varactor diode as a tuning element has been designed, fabricated and characterized at wr-5.1 band (140-220 ghz), showing nearly 50 ghz tuning range. a thz mesh filter has been designed and simulated for achieving multiband receiver operation. this approach enables the development of a variety of tunable/reconfigurable thz circuits and components including tunable/reconfigurable mesh filters and tunable detectors. as discussed above, balanced configuration can improve the noise performance of a receiver by suppressing the noise introduced by lo injection. for optimum balanced receiver performance, it is required that the two mixers are fed with equal lo power. however, this is very challenging to achieve in a practical system, and a high-performance variable attenuator can be used to solve this problem by dynamically controlling the lo power for the two mixers. in this thesis, a novel optically-controlled attenuation approach has been investigated for realizing high-performance variable attenuators. for prototype demonstration, a compact wr-4.3 (170-260 ghz) optically-controlled waveguide attenuator has been developed and characterized, showing that high performances including a 0.6 db insertion loss, greater than 10 db return loss, and an average of ~25 db tuning range have been achieved over most of the wr-4.3 band, with decent long-term stability in a regular lab environment. the demonstrated optically-controlled attenuation approach can also be applied to develop a variety of important components, such as modulators, switches and reconfigurable filters, and will find promising applications in advanced thz receiver/imaging systems and future high-speed thz/millimeter wave communication systems. to the best of the author's knowledge, the quasi-optical balanced receiver proposed in this thesis is the first broadband balanced mixer design reported at thz frequencies. the electronically tunable wr-5.1 antenna and optically-controlled wr-4.3 variable waveguide attenuator are also unique demonstrations and contribute significantly to the development of reconfigurable thz/millimeter wave components. the accomplishments achieved in this work not only provide novel devices and circuits which are essential for realizing advanced thz receiver systems, but also a comprehensive set of techniques that can be extended to multiple directions and applied to broader applications. what constitutes successful reconciliation and how do i know it when i see it? under what conditions do societies achieve reconciliation after civil war and autocratic rule? to answer these important questions, i created the coexistence dataset and categorized 172 "coexistent periods" according to four distinct levels of societal relationship. i evaluate each period over 10 years and find that high levels of societal reconciliation are uncommon, occurring in only 27% of cases.to achieve genuine reconciliation (and not merely the absence of conflict or autocratic rule), justice is critical – justice that holds perpetrators accountable and restores victims. when implemented well, such justice translates into trust and reconciliation between groups, even in deeply divided societies. using a configurational approach to account for the interactions of justice practices with background conditions, i find that there are many different paths that consistently result in reconciliation. when background conditions are favorable, the implementation of justice practices that restore victims virtually guarantees a country will reach high levels of societal reconciliation. when conditions are not so favorable – such as when the state is weak, or the society is deeply divided, or both – reconciliation is more difficult but still possible. in these "difficult cases" international intervention, an active civil society, and balanced justice practices are critical. the aftermath of the civil war in sierra leone and the management of the basque conflict in spain illuminate the challenges and pitfalls of reconciling societies when the state is weak and when the society is deeply divided. both cases and the findings from across the coexistence dataset contain important lessons for future policymakers interested in reconciling societies after conflict and autocratic rule. polyelectrolytes are polymers whose repeating units bear an electrolyte group. these groups dissociate in aqueous solutions (water), making the polymers charged. both natural and synthetic weak polyelectrolytes are used in a variety of industries, mostly related to modifying flow and stability properties of aqueous solutions and gels. for instance, they are often used in water treatment, oil recovery as well as cleaning products like soaps, shampoos and cosmetics.in many practical applications, the performance of weak polyelectrolytes is crucially related to their structural conformations. to get incisive insight of the conformational dynamics of polyelectrolytes, the research started from polyelectrolytes with simplest architectures: linear polyelectrolytes in dilute solution at single molecular level. for weak polyelectrolytes whose charge fraction is in ionization equilibrium with the solution, the effect of ph and added salts on conformations and electrostatic states was systematically studied and discussed.based on the understanding with linear polyelectrolytes, the study was subsequently expanded to polyelectrolytes with complex architectures, which compose a large group of materials including dendrimers, micelles, and branched-polymers. the study was primarily focused on star-shaped polyelectrolytes in dilute aqueous solution. polyelectrolyte stars with various architectures were synthesized and labeled with fluorophores. the effect of arm density and arm length on the conformations of polyelectrolyte stars was explored by fluorescence spectroscopy in aqueous solution. furthermore, the inhomogeneous charge distribution inside a star-shaped polyelectrolyte was investigated.along with the study of single polyelectrolyte in aqueous solution, the research was furthered to a more practical form, polyelectrolyte brushes, in ionic environments. polyelectrolyte brushes with high tenability and stimuli-responsive "smartness" have been shown to be extremely useful in cell adhesion substrates, drug delivery, biosensors, microactuators, etc. in this study, the wetting property and swelling behavior of planar polyelectrolyte brushes were carefully examined in the presence of different salts under varied solution ph and compared with previous scaling theory. the immediate implications of these experimental results are related to design of "smart" surfaces with controllable charge distribution, membrane thickness and wettability. in this dissertation, i call into question an interpretative trend that assimilates origen's theology to valentinian gnosticism. this interpretation proposes that origen's theology is an all-encompassing system based on the axiom that 'the end will be like the beginning.' in this view, all rational beings were incorporeal minds that were with god eternally, but later fell from unity, thus becoming souls and eventually bodies. in being saved, we return to a state of pure incorporeality. furthermore, since this return is metaphysically necessary, christ's role as redeemer is limited. he may teach us about our real nature, but he does not effect our salvation. christ's historical passion is thus evacuated of meaning. in the four chapters of this study, i argue for a different interpretation of origen. in the first, i evaluate the gospel of truth as a representative valentinian text. although some have claimed that this text approaches mainstream christian theology, i argue against this position.in the second, i examine the opening sections of origen's peri archōn. i argue that origen's discussion of incorporeality is foundational for his theology, especially in the context of gnosticism. i then examine origen's tractate on christ, focusing on what he says about creation as taking place within the eternal wisdom of god according to providence and foreknowledge. in the third, i continue my evaluation of origen's understanding of creation, focusing on the eschatological underpinning of his theology. in light of this eschatological framework, i then offer re-interpretations of some of origen's most troubling claims about the soul and creation. in the fourth, i analyze origen's understanding of the return of rational creatures to god. although many have alleged that origen minimized christ's redemptive work, i argue that it is the key to his theology. moreover, i argue that, since christ's experience of deification in the passion is the model for all believers, origen's theology does not diminish the significance of life in the world, but rather validates it to the uttermost. finally, i briefly comment on the implications of this view (and its particular importance in the gnostic context) in a concluding epilogue. leishmaniasis is a group of sand fly vector-borne parasitic diseases which exhibit clinical pathologies specific to the species of causative intracellular parasites. visceral and cutaneous leishmaniasis can be caused leishmania donovani and leishmania major parasites, respectively. macrophages (mps) and dendritic cells (dcs) are host cell types for leishmania. these parasites employ immune evasion strategies in order to infect their vertebrate hosts that may include advantageous microenvironments resulting from the effects of sand fly salivary components at the site of inoculation in the host, or parasite influences on host cell transcriptional and translational molecular pathways. the host:vector interface was examined through analyses of anti-sand fly salivary gland proteins using blood plasma antibodies from persons residing in differentially endemic regions of phlebotomus papatasi vectors. five major salivary proteins were immunogenic, which permitted the clustering of blood donors based on antibody specificity corresponding to the endemic characteristics of their native regions. the host:pathogen interface was examined through investigations of host microrna (mirna) expression and quantitative associations with predicted transcript targets. mature mirnas are short non-coding single stranded rnas that associate with argonaute 2 (ago2) in humans. the mirnas complement to rna transcripts to block protein translation. an analysis of mature mirna expression in mps and dcs infected with l. donovani or l. major found that most mirnas were down-regulated compared to uninfected cells. however, l. donovani-infected dc mirnas were, on average, more highly expressed compared to l. major-infected dcs. a second temporal study was performed with l. donovani and l. major-infected dcs, where mature mirnas were co-immunoprecipitated with ago2 and quantified by rnaseq. concurrently, gene transcript expression from paired samples was assessed by microarrays. the multi-dimensional datasets were compared through mirna:target prediction guided-correlations. in examining mixed regulatory circuits among significant correlations, mir-155 was found to target smad1. target reporter experiments confirmed mir-155's ability to target smad1, while quantitative western blot analysis found a greater down-regulation of smad1 protein in l. donovani infection samples compared to l. major samples. the work presented herein makes substantial contributions to our understanding of the host cell immune responses to both leishmania parasites and their sand fly vectors. metal adsorption onto bacteria not only affects the mobility and transport of metals in geologic systems, but also may control the bioavailability of metal ions to bacteria. surface complexation modeling (scm) represents a flexible approach for quantifying the extent of metal adsorption onto bacterial cell walls, and hence may be used to predict the fate and transport of metals in water-rock systems and even the bacterial bioavailability of metals. the goal of this dissertation research is to test if metal adsorption onto bacteria controls the bioavailability of metals to bacteria and whether it is possible to use a scm approach to predict metal bioavailability. hence, the studies described in this dissertation examine possible correlations between u(vi) adsorption onto bacteria and the kinetics of enzymatic reduction of u(vi) by bacteria, and also put rigorous constraints on the uranyl bacterial surface complexation reactions in order to better understand the bioavailability of uranyl to bacteria, and the fate of uranium in natural and engineered environments. three studies are presented in this dissertation. the first study (chapter 2) examines u(vi) reduction by bacteria in the presence of variable concentrations of edta or dissolved ca. the results of this study demonstrate that edta increases the u(vi) reduction rate by forming u4+-edta aqueous complexes which remove u(iv) from the cell surface after reduction, and prevent uo2 precipitation on the cell wall, thereby preventing blockage of u(vi) binding sites. furthermore, the data demonstrate that dissolved ca decreases the u(vi) bioreduction rate by forming ca-uranyl-surface complexes, and that the u(vi) in these surface complexes is not easily reducible. therefore, the concentration of ca-free uranyl surface complexes controls the u(vi) bioreduction rate in the presence of dissolved ca. in summary, the results of this study indicate that u speciation, both of u(vi) before reduction and of u(iv) after reduction, affects the reduction kinetics, and that thermodynamic modeling of the u speciation may be useful in the prediction of reduction kinetics in realistic geologic settings. in the second study (chapter 3), i measured u(vi) adsorption onto bacteria as a function of dissolved nahco3 concentration. the data provide unequivocal evidence for the formation of a series of uranyl-, uranyl-hydroxide-, uranyl-carbonate-hydroxide-, and uranyl-carbonate-bacterial surface complexes. the calculated stability constants for the uranyl-bacterial complexes from this study provide a framework for estimating the adsorption and speciation of u(vi) on bacterial cell walls in complex environments. based on the results of the first two studies, the third study (chapter 4) focused on the enzymatic reduction of u(vi) by bacteria in systems with elevated concentrations of nahco3, revealing a strong positive correlation between the u(vi) reduction rate and the total concentration of adsorbed u(vi). this positive correlation indicates that the speciation and adsorption of u(vi) on the bacterial cell wall control the kinetics of enzymatic reduction of u(vi) by bacteria. the successful use of surface complexation modeling to relate u speciation to enzymatic reduction rates in this study may enable predictions of enzymatic u(vi) reduction kinetics or bioavailability of uranium to bacteria in complex geologic settings. there is much interest in the use of nanoparticles as targeted contrast agents, biosensors, targeted drug delivery vehicles, and as artificial oxygen carrieres. nanoparticles of interest consist of liposomes/polymersomes, emulsions, micelles, and silica. each of these nanoparticles have demonstrated efficacy in at least one of the mentioned areas but none can be effectively used universally. liposomes, emulsions, and micelles suffer from stability issues in high turbulence environments, polymer based materials require organic solvents for their synthesis that are disadvantageous for biological applications, while silica based materials are not biodegradable. to expand the use of these nanoparticles for other applications requires major synthesis modifications, adding to the time required for implementation. the objective of this research is to develop, characterize, and demonstrate the applicablility of a novel, versatile, calcium phosphate based, core-shell nanocarrier that can be used in the above applications with straightforward modifications. calcium phosphate is rigid, biocompatible, and can be synthesized in biofriendly conditions. initially, several novel synthetic methods will be developed and evaluated for reproducible calcium phosphate nanoshell synthesis and a reaction mechanism proposed. nanoshells from 5-200 nm are deposited around a 30-200 nm liposome template first (chapter 2) followed by deposition around a 100-350 nm soybean oil and perfluorocarbon emulsions (chapter 3). the ability of the resultant nanoshells to effectively entrap hydrophilic pyranine, and hydrophobic pyrene while protecting them from quenching molecules (h2o2 and cu2+) is verified (chapter 4). the potential for use in targeted delivery applications is demonstrated by development of a covalent attachment method for an anti-fitc igg antibody and horseradish peroxidase enzyme. the attachment efficiency and residual activity are quantified (chapter 5). the ability of perfluorooctyl bromide cored calcium phosphate nanoshells to carry and deliver oxygen to the body is demonstrated through enzymatic assay methods (chapter 6). the calcium phosphate nanomaterial developd here shows strong potential to be a universal delivery system. the calcium phosphate shell provides protection, rigidity, stability, and a scaffold for the covalent attachment of proteins and other biomolecules. the ability to change the core hydrophobicity of the nanoshell allows potential entrapment of proteins, dyes, contrast agents, and pharmaceuticals. polymeric membrane gas separation technology is increasingly common in chemical industries such as natural gas purification, syngas and ammonia production, as well as air separation, and carbon dioxide capture, impacting both energy and environment. an ideal polymer membrane should have desirable gas permeability for the gas of interest, i.e. h2, o2, or co2, and high selectivity relative to other gases such as ch4 and n2. additionally, membrane's stability and durability under various operating conditions are of equal importance for practical implementation.several important challenges exist for polymer gas separation membranes. the most well-known issue is the permeability-selectivity trade-off relationship, which is visualized as robeson's upper bound. many academic and industrial research groups have been focusing on sophisticated macromolecular design to achieve maximized permeability/selectivity combinations over the last few decades, some of which demonstrated excellent gas separation performance for multiple gas pairs, exceeding robeson's permeability-selectivity trade-off upper bound. even so, it has been observed that the significant improvement in permeabilities does not necessarily facilitate the improvement of selectivity, suggesting that these new polymeric membranes are still challenged by the permeability-selectivity tradeoff. other challenges associated with polymeric gas separation membranes are physical aging, which is caused by polymer chain or segmental relaxation leading to loss in gas permeability over time, and plasticization, which occurs when the membrane is exposed to and swollen by condensable gases such as co2. crosslinked polymeric membranes have been shown to be resistant toward physical aging and condensable-gas-induced plasticization. however, the much improved membrane stability upon crosslinking is frequently accompanied with greatly reduced permeability due to crosslinking-induced densification. moreover, current crosslinking approaches are essentially random crosslinking, resulting in very complex crosslinked structures with extremely limited structure tunability that prevents fundamental structure-property relationship studies for crosslinked gas separation membranes. based upon these considerations, this dissertation reports studies of crosslinked polymer gas separation membranes with model network structures based on triptycene-containing polybenzoxazoles (tpbos) prepared via a fundamentally new end-linking approach. in this new approach, crosslinking reaction only occurs at the chain ends of telechelic oligomers, which allows for precise control of crosslink density and crosslink inhomogeneity (i.e., uneven distribution of crosslink sites), a previously unexplored structure parameter in crosslinked membranes. the research in this thesis focused on probing the effect of various structural and fabrication parameters on membrane properties, infrastructure, and gas separation performances, including crosslinking thermal protocols, crosslinking chemistry, crosslink density, and crosslink inhomogeneity. all crosslinked model network membranes in the study displayed excellent gas separation performances compared with previously reported similar materials, suggesting their promising potential in crucial industrial gas separation and carbon capture technologies. the development of new membranes for energy-efficient gas separations has gained the attention of researchers over the past several decades. numerous studies focus on designing novel polymers with the aim to overcome the limitations of an empirical trade-off between permeability and selectivity. however, another feasible route to further enhance the separation performance is to incorporate inorganic materials into select polymers, creating mixed matrix membranes (mmms), rather than solely focusing on modifying polymer structures. ideally, composite membranes combine the superior separation properties of inorganic fillers and the mechanical integrity and good processability of polymer matrices, synergistically leading to better performance. however, the fabrication of mmms introduces a new set of challenges, which limit their gas separation performance. a major obstacle is the insufficient adhesion or mismatch between the filler and polymer phase that frequently result in interfacial defects like non-selective voids or less-permeable rigidified layers, leading to the separation performance of mmms much lower than what theoretically predicts. preparing defect-free mmms with homogeneous nanofiller dispersion remains the major challenge in this field.to address the interfacial compatibility issue, in this work, a series of novel mmms were developed by incorporating selected fillers to 6fda-tp, a triptycene-containing polyimide. the novelty of the new mmm design lies in the use of strong supramolecular interactions and nano-confinement effect to promote filler/polymer affinity and filler dispersion. triptycene is a unique molecule composed of three benzene rings hinged on a common axis. the incorporation of these rigid, bulky moieties in the polyimides can introduce additional free volume elements with a narrow size distribution to improve permeability without loss of selectivity. more importantly, the three-dimensional framework of triptycene is able to induce supramolecular interactions and strong π-π stacking, preventing particle aggregation and promoting filler-polymer adhesion, which makes triptycene-based polyimides promising candidates for mmms fabrication. in this dissertation, different strategies were explored to engineer the organic-inorganic interfacial morphologies to establish fundamental structure-property relationships for this new family of mmms. the interfacial morphologies, microporosity and gas separation performance of the newly developed mmms under a variety of conditions were systematically examined and discussed. reconciliation should be seen as a process and not as a goal. the peacebuilders'role is to make that process move forward. this thesis argues that oppression can be seen as a continuum in which oppressive reactions to oppression appear, limiting the reconciliation process. specifically, it looks at the wys in which non-violent peace seekers react to oppression. the field of peace studies evolved as a reaction to the oppressiveness of violence, focusing on the ways to reduce it, rather than trying to understand oppression itself. as a result, reconciliation often means achieving "negative peace." criminal courts, truth and reconciliation commissions and peacebuilding strategies, sometimes respond to reactions to oppression, contributing to the advancement of the vicious circle of oppression. the thesis also presents a tool to transform this circle into a virtuous one: non-oppression. reconciliation, healing memory and conflict transformation are possible. i present a dissertation concerning the structural properties and phase behavior of lipid bilayers. the ripple phase, named for the periodic buckling of the membrane, is an thermotropic phase which develops either from heating the gel phase or cooling the fluid phase. this phase typically exhibits surface buckling with wavelengths of 100 ì¢è ' 250 angstroms and amplitudes of 10 ì¢è ' 50 angstroms. at first, i investigated the system by using monte carlo simulations on a simple dipolar membrane model. secondly, to obtain the dynamical properties of the ripple phase of lipid membranes, molecular dynamics simulations were performed on a more realistic molecular-scale lipid model. finally, an algorithm of langevin dynamics was developed to investigate the ripple phase in an implicit solvent environment. this dissertation develops a constructive and interdisciplinary reformulation of the classical christian account of the human as a sojourner in this world for whom being at home in the world is a complex task. i characterize this sojourning condition as the way of being an embodied animal distinctive of the human. i focus primarily on the unique human mode of embodiment from which arises the need for the development of cognitional, sensorimotor, and affective habitus. i offer what i call a "biological-metaphysical" account of habitus as the means by which the human comes to inhabit or be at home in both its body and its correlate "umwelt" or "lifeworld." the task of being at home in the world therefore has as its correlate the task of being at home in the body. my account of this twofold inhabiting draws from three main sources: the ecological biology of jakob von uexküll, the philosophical anthropology of helmuth plessner, and the metaphysics of habitus developed by thomas aquinas. by developing a "biological-metaphysical" account of habitus in relation to the unique form of human embodiment, this project also provides a theoretical framework for further theological engagements with social theory and the social sciences that do not bypass the life sciences. this thesis discusses the efforts toward the total synthesis of sphinxolide; specifically, it focuses on the synthesis of the joint, east, and south fragments of the molecule which comprise the side chain and the bottom half of sphinxolide. this compound has been shown to possesses potent activity against several cell lines of human carcinoma including several drug resisitant cancer cell lines. due to the low natural abundance of this molecule, a total synthesis of sphinxolide is necessary for further biological testing on the title compound. efforts toward the total synthesis of the molecule have been made and will be discussed within which include synthesis of the east fragment, joint fragment, and progress toward the south fragment. malaria parasites induce uncomplicated and severe malaria such as anemia, cerebral malaria and death in a wide range of mammalian hosts. in recent years, our lab has used combination of rodents and rodent malaria parasite plasmodium berghei anka (pba) to understand the role of parasite proteins in severe malaria. in this project, we investigated the role of members of merozoite surface protein 7 (msp7) family for their modulatory effect on malaria invasion, death and cerebral malaria using in-vivo rodent models in acute infection balb/c mouse and experimental cerebral malaria (ecm) c57bl/6 mouse. this is the first report that shows that msp7 related proteins 1 and 2 (msrp1 and msrp2) enhance normocyte invasion and contribute to death during acute infection. in addition, this study strongly supports msp7 and related proteins (msrp1 & msrp2) as virulent factors in the manifestation of ecm. cerebral malaria (cm) is a major complication of plasmodium falciparum infection with high mortality and morbidity in endemic regions. presently there are not many effective treatments to manage the severe pathologies associated with cm and thus we are interested in testing and validating new therapeutics for the treatment of this neurological disorder. we carried out in-vivo experiments in the ecm mouse model to evaluate the efficacy of three small molecules for the treatment of cm. the first molecule, 2-hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin, (hp&#946;cd) is a form of cyclodextrin, a cyclic oligosaccharide composed of &#945;-(1,4) linked glucopyranose subunits that acts as both a drug delivery vehicle and a therapeutic agent. the second molecule, nd-364 compound, is a matrix metalloprotease 9 (mmp9) inhibitor and also a potent gelatinase inhibitor. however, we also evaluated in-vivo efficacy of a liposomal formulation of synthetically modified artesunate. while our in-vivo studies with both hp&#946;cd and nd-364 showed no significant therapeutic benefits, the liposomal artesunate formulation exhibited an outstanding efficacy in both early and late stage murine cm models. treatment with liposomal artesunate formulation resulted in complete cure of blood infection, abrogation of death and prevention of neurocognitive impairment in the late stage ecm. this formulation is thus proposed as a future treatment option for late stage cerebral malaria. with the ever increasing demand for low-cost, high performance er-doped opticalamplifiers and light sources for both civilian and military applications, compactintegrated er-doped planar waveguide devices have recently been extensively explored.substantial research effort is still focused on developing host materials suitable for theincorporation of the high er concentration required in devices of limited waveguidelength, critical to compensate for the small optical transition cross sections of er ions.in this work, we present breakthroughs both in performance of er-doped hostmaterials and on the schemes whereby the materials are employed to achieve the highestpossible performance. we have substantially improved the performance of the er-dopedalgaas native oxides by a new post-oxidation er-implantation method (as demonstratedby a ~2-3x increase in intensity and 7-8x increase in fluorescence lifetime in roomtemperature continuous photoluminescence). we also demonstrate the excellentperformance of a new er host material of native oxides of inalp, high er-solubility of upto ~ 12 wt.%, a very long excited lifetime of 6-8 ms, and an unusually broad bandwidth,making them quite competitive with other host materials utilized for the aboveapplications.a novel vertical intra-cavity pumping (vip) scheme, proposed in this study,should provide an alternative way to compensate for the length limitation issue in erdopedwaveguide through a more efficient design for optical excitation of the er ions.this vip scheme should be able to increase overall pumping power, provide uniformlydistributed pump power along er-doped waveguides, and better noise control comparedto conventional end pumping techniques.finally, as the er host materials developed in this work are based on gaassubstrates, they provide (when integrated with the proposed vip excitation scheme) aunique advantage over other candidate hosts in their potential for achievingmonolithically-pumped er-doped optical devices of greatly reduced size and cost, pavingthe way for a possible future revolution in more agile optical networks, compact lasersfor range finding, sensors and other applications. iii-nitride semiconductors like aln, gan, inn and bn are used in a range of optical and power devices due to their different bandgaps and superior optical and electrical properties. gallium nitride (gan) is a wide bandgap semiconductor with huge potential in power electronics devices due to its large direct bandgap (3.4ev), high critical electrical field, high electron saturation velocity, large electron mobility, and high thermal conductivity compared with other common materials like si, gaas and sic. based on this promise, vertical gan diodes have been demonstrated that are promising for high-voltage power applications. however, the edges of the device can lead to compromised performance due to electric field crowding that leads to premature breakdown at the device perimeter. therefore, in order to improve the performance of high power gan devices, it is essential to study the role of edge effects in these devices.in this thesis, we have evaluated the edge termination design of vertical gan p-n diodes through numerical tcad simulations. the effectiveness of beveled edges, field plates, and field plates incorporating a step are evaluated for their ability to suppress edge breakdown and increase the avalanche breakdown voltage of the device. the stepped field plate design was the most effective edge termination design for improving the breakdown voltage.in addition, vertical gan p-n diodes with junction termination extension (jte) are also studied through simulation. jte designs were explored to maximize the breakdown performance of vertical gan p-n junction diodes. for a diode structure with 1.5 µm drift layer and drift layer doping of 4x1016 cm-3, breakdown voltages of up to 372v was obtained with the optimum jte design. based on this design, devices were fabricated and tested experimentally using material grown under different conditions. a breakdown voltage of ~344v was achieved in the sample with highest growth temperature. the current leakage difference between each sample was also investigated. this dissertations addresses 19th century irish migration to the united states, and the ways in which migrants navigated the complex structures through which they moved. focusing on three different aspects of the 19th century irish migration process – transatlantic crossing, arrival into urban america, and the experience of situating themselves within a neighborhood space, this dissertation draws upon a variety of data sources, including historical records, archaeological assemblages, and phenomenological studies, to ask in what ways did migrants negotiate the social, physical, and community structures that shaped the experience and processes of migration? chapter 2 looks at the ways migrants worked to improved travel conditions during transatlantic crossing and contended with the physical and social constraints of shipboard space based on framings of class and gender. chapter 3 focuses on the role of community networks in structuring residential practices of the 19th century irish arriving into the small industrial city of clinton, massachusetts. analyzing the movement of irish through boardinghouses in different clinton neighborhoods, i argue that community networks facilitated the formation and persistence of ethnically concentrated neighborhoods which defined the broader urban space. finally, in chapter 4 i explore the strategies by which migrants navigated structural violence within the industrial setting of irishtown bend in cleveland, ohio. using historical records and archaeological assemblages from four excavated households, i demonstrate how residents used the consumptive practices of self-medication, class-based aspirational purchasing, and leisure in smoking and drinking as strategies for improving the marginalizing conditions they faced. this research provides a detailed analysis of the different ways in which migrants relied on personal agency and social community to contend with, and shape, the structures defining 19th century migration processes. collectively this thesis illustrates how the processes of migration were an integral part of urban life and community structures within 19th century industrial narratives. the use of ionic liquids (ils) for metal separations processes is a developing field. the use of systems of ils with dissolved metals could lead to the development of electrolyte solutions, metal electrodeposition processes, liquid-liquid metal extraction processes and new material design. in order to develop new processes using metal-il mixtures, physical property data and fundamental understandings of metal-il interactions are needed. in this work the measurement of fundamental physical properties and phase equilibria are combined with spectroscopic characterization of metal-il systems to better understand solute-solvent interactions between metals and ils. ils can be designed to have a specific functional group that binds to a metal, or ils can be designed to share a common anion with a metal salt. ils with specialized functional groups, or task specific ils, are investigated through uv-vis and raman spectroscopy to understand the il-metal complexes that are formed and how this behavior effects metal solubility. the temperature dependent solubility of lithium salts in ils with a common anion has been measured to better understand how the physical properties of an il affect the solubility. the effect on metal salt solubility in an il when tuning the properties of the cation is important to designing processes that retain high metal solubilities but allow for adjusting other physical properties of the il solvent. the solid liquid equilibria measurements in this work have also shown that the solubility of a metal salt in an ionic liquid results in activity coefficients below 1, and that the data can be fit to the wilson equation in some cases. the role of water in an il-metal mixture has also been investigated. water can play an important role as a cosolvent for an il, affecting the physical properties of the il-metal mixture. water can also interact with a metal species in an il, affecting the metal solubility through solvation. mixtures of il, water and nd2o3 have been investigated in this work through liquid-liquid equilibria to examine the effect of metal loading. near infrared spectroscopy has been utilized to quantify water in ils and to characterize the state of water in il-metal mixtures. the segal–bargmann transform on a sphere with a positive time parameter is a unitary map from the hilbert space of square-integrable functions on the sphere with respect to its volume measure onto the hilbert space of holomorphic square-integrable functions with respect to a certain heat-kernel measure on the quadric corresponding to the sphere. in this thesis, i study the limiting behavior of the segal–bargmann transforms on high dimensional spheres. as the dimension of a sphere tends to infinity, with a proper scaling of its radius, the normalized spherical volume measure converges to the infinite-dimensional unit-time gaussian measure; the heat-kernel measure on the quadric likewise converges to a certain gaussian measure determined by the time parameter; and, the segal--bargmann transform tends to an exponential operator defined via the hermite differential operator. this thesis aims to provide an explicit formulation and describe the geometric models for these convergence phenomena. it turns out that the limiting transform is still a unitary map from the limiting domain hilbert space onto the limiting range hilbert space. ongoing anthropogenic changes, such as land-use change, climate changes, and direct effects of co2, can alter vegetation structure, composition, and growth rates. if these changes are substantial, they may redistribute forest biomes, with downstream feedbacks onto terrestrial carbon storage, climate, and availability of natural resources. species and ecosystems at the edge of current distributions, such as at the boundary between savannas and closed forests, may be the most vulnerable to these environmental changes. in this dissertation i explore the long term effects of anthropogenic changes on the structure, composition, function of vegetation at a savanna-forest boundary. we use historical vegetation survey data from both the 1800's and today to test whether vegetation had multiple stable states within the same environmental space in the past, and to determine if long-term changes in land-use and management drove a vegetation state shift. we find that past vegetation had a multiple stable vegetation states of open savanna and closed forests likely maintained by disturbance-vegetation feedbacks. but ongoing fire suppression and logging have created and maintained modern vegetation in a single closed forest state. we show that disturbance is a strong predictor of aboveground biomass in the past, but only has a negligible effect on aboveground biomass on the present landscape. strong residual taxa relationships that are unexplained by relationships with the environment were common in the past vegetation, but have since disappeared from the modern landscape. while it is likely that modern systems will be maintained as mostly closed forests by continued land management, future projections for the region indicate much hotter and potentially drier growing seasons, questioning how long vegetation will remain forested. positive effects of increases co2 on plant water use efficiency (wue) could aid forest resilience to future drought conditions, but may be complicated by climate changes. to test whether combined changes in co2 and climate have a positive or negative effect on growth, i use bayesian models of annual tree ring growth and wue. we find that co2 increases plant wue, driving precipitation sensitivity declines, but the negative impacts of increasing summer temperatures outweigh any positive impacts of higher wue. long-term ecosystem model runs simulate similar increase in wue and declines in precipitation sensitivity by plant functional types over the 20th century, but do not always agree on either the direction or magnitude of overall growth changes or changes in temperature sensitivity. overall, the historical perspective provided in this dissertation demonstrates that a combination of land-use, climate changes, and co2 can drive very different vegetation structure, composition, and functional response to climates that would not be predictable from modern vegetation-environment relationships alone. as a result, future forecasting efforts might be improved by including the disturbance processes, species compositional feedbacks, and non-stationary climate responses highlighted in this dissertation. this dissertation describes the use of several classes of small molecules that perturb or mimic membrane functions to explore specific membrane-related processes. for example, it was demonstrated that cationic triple-chain amphiphiles facilitate membrane fusion, as compared to doubleand single-chained analogues. these triple-chain compounds were observed to promote negative membrane curvatures and most likely act through stabilization of membrane fusion intermediates that contain such inverse curvatures. however, our results also provide support for the extended conformation hypothesis of membrane fusion initiation. in addition, the properties of two symmetrical, non-natural phospholipids, a conformationally restricted, cyclopropyl-containing compound and more-flexible control analogue, were explored and compared to the properties of natural phospholipids. both analogues assemble in bilayers, however remarkable differences in the leakage of aqueous contents of vesicles formed by the two compounds were observed. it was found that restriction of the structural flexibility in the interfacial region of these molecules diminishes the permeabilty of their bilayer assemblies through closer packing of individual molecules. in a separate study we explored the extraordinary ability of a series of synthetic compounds containing a steroid backbone and two phenylurea moieties to facilitate transport of chloride anions across phospholipid and cellular membranes. it was established that these anionophores act via a carrier-based anion antiport mechanism. also, after a structure-activity study of a large number of analogues, it was demonstrated that the activity of these compounds depends on the subtle balance between lipophilicity and anion binding affinity. a different example of ion transport across phospholipid membranes presented in this dissertation demonstrates symport of chloride-sodium/potassium ion pairs. in this case, a ditopic salt-binding macrocyclic compound was used as a transport vehicle. finally, we describe two generations of synthetic fluorescent compounds that mimic the ability of the protein annexin v to preferentialy bind membrane surfaces that contain negatively charged phospholipids. more importantly, it was demonstrated that these compounds can detect phosphatidylserine at the outer surface of mammalian cells, after its externalization during apoptosis. these annexin mimics, therefore, can be used as fluorescent sensors for detection of apoptotic cells. all synthetic molecules described in this dissertation have potential utility as tools in membrane research and possibly in therapeutical and diagnostic practice. the mosquito, aedes aegypti, is responsible for transmission of dengue and yellow fever and serves as an excellent model vector for transmission of malaria and lymphatic filariasis. understanding the genetics of vector competence could allow for the development of vector-based control strategies that would alleviate mortality and morbidity worldwide. in the first study we developed genetic markers based upon chromosomal regions conserved throughout the culicidae. we designed 35 pcr primer pairs based upon orthologous exons in aedes aegypti and drosophila melanogaster or anopheles gambiae. twenty-three of the primers yielded a single pcr product in at least one dipteran in addition to a. aegypti when screened with genomic dna from seven dipterans including five mosquito species. eight of the primers amplified a single pcr product in only a. aegypti while four primer pairs gave no pcr product in any species. the 23 successful cats primer pairs gave broad genome coverage in a. aegypti and demonstrate an efficient strategy for developing comparative anchor marker loci for any species of culicidae. in the second study we isolated and identified microsatellite sequences from multiple genomic libraries for a. aegypti. we identified seven single-copy simple microsatellites from three plasmid libraries enriched for (ga)n, (aat)n and (taga)n motifs from a. aegypti. in addition, we identified 5 single-copy microsatellites from an a. aegypti cosmid library. seven of these microsatellite markers were polymorphic and were genetically mapped in a segregating f1 intercross population. these markers greatly increase the number of microsatellite markers available for a. aegypti and provide additional tools for studying genetic variability of mosquito populations. additionally, most a. aegypti microsatellites are closely associated with repetitive elements, accounting for our and other researchers limited success in developing an extensive panel of microsatellite marker loci. in the third aim of this study we employed single nucleotide polymorphism (snp) markers to analyze an advanced intercross line for quantitative trait loci associated with brugia malayi susceptibility. using single marker analysis of variance and linear regression we identified a single qtl at lf178 associated with susceptibility when evaluated as a quantitative phenotype and we identified one qtl for susceptibility when the phenotype was treated as binary trait. in this thesis, the importance of rare codons on protein biogenesis as well as cell fitness will be discussed. to test the effects of rare codons, a continuous cell culture device known as a turbidostat was built and optimized within the lab. the turbidostat, as well as batch culture, is used to test the extent to which rare codons affect an antibiotic resistance protein known as chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (cat). cat has three known types (i, ii, and iii), and is responsible for the acetylation of the antibiotic chloramphenicol. there are two main methods that are used to test the fitness effects of different cat-iii constructs, one of which is a competition between two strains, and the other is a cat assay to directly measure chloramphenicol conversion rates. a recurring puzzle in the voting research literature is the finding that asians are less likely to vote compared to other racial group members in multivariate analyses, despite their high aggregate levels of income and educational attainmentì¢ ââ' the strongest predictors of voting behavior. curiously, previous studies also find that asians are actually more likely to vote than whites in some contexts. this nationally representative multilevel study examines variation in asian voting behavior, focusing on the influence of county characteristics and characteristics of asian communities on asian voting behavior. using hierarchical linear modeling, individual-level data from the 2000 current population survey voting and registration supplement, and county data from the 2000 u.s. census, the encyclopedia of associations, and america votes, the findings indicate that several contextual factors promote the social and political integration of asians. supporting assimilation theory, the interaction of asian heterogeneity and intermarriage rates increases the likelihood of voting, while asian occupational segregation, and the interaction of racial heterogeneity and percent asians who are foreign born, decrease it. supporting biculturalism as a form of social integration, national ethnic organizations also promote political integration and increase the likelihood of voting for asians. when combined with national ethnic organizations, concentrations of asian ethnic groups appear to have varying effects on asian electoral participation: percent chinese decreases it, percent asian indians increases it, and the interaction of larger filipino communities with the presence of an ethnic organization increases it. unexpectedly, this research also finds that in the context of counties with small asian communities, asians may be more likely to vote in counties with a high percentage of foreign-born asians, high levels of asian occupational segregation, and the dominance of an ethnic community. however, due to the small sample size of asians in these counties, these findings must be considered speculative and need to be further investigated. in sum, assimilation into mainstream institutions and mobilization by national ethnic organizations promote the political integration of asian americans. where asians do not experience political integration by mainstream or ethnic organizations, they are less likely to vote. as a measure of difference between two probability distributions, relative entropy (or kullback-leibler divergence) is of fundamental importance in many fields including information theory and detection theory. in this dissertation, we formulate and solve two major problems in which relative entropy plays an important role. we first study the problem of binary sequential hypothesis testing using multiple sensors with associated observation costs. the objective is to find a sequential detection rule and a sensor selection strategy (sss) such that the expected total observation cost is minimized when subject to constraints on reliability and sensor usage. we consider randomized sss in which a sensor can be selected randomly based on a specified probability distribution at each time step. we present two types of scheme &mdash; an off-line sss and an on-line sss. for the off-line schemes, the sensor selection probability vector is fixed and not updated. for this problem, we begin by first showing that the sequential probability ratio test is the optimal sequential detection rule. further, by characterizing the optimal sensor selection probability vector, efficient algorithms for obtaining the optimal sensor selection probability vector are derived. in particular, a special class of problems in which the algorithm has complexity that is linear in the number of sensors is identified. for the on-line sss, the sensor selection probability can be adaptively updated according to the sensor selected and measurements obtained in the past. we begin by providing a dynamic programming interpretation of the optimization problem. by partitioning the state space for sensor selection into three regions, we propose a novel approach that solves the on-line sensor selection problem by minimizing the cost-to-go at every step. in the second part of the dissertation, we consider security for cyber-physical systems. suppose that a linear time-invariant plant regulated by an output feedback control law. a malicious attacker can hijack and replace the control signal or the measurement data by an arbitrary attack sequence. the objective of the attacker is to maximize the estimation error of the kalman filter (which in turn quantifies the degradation of the control performance), while remaining undetected. we introduce a notion of stealthiness to quantify the difficulty of detecting an attack in progress by the controller using any possible detection algorithm. for a desired level of stealthiness, we quantify the largest estimation error that an attacker can induce, and also analytically characterize an optimal attack strategy. because our bounds are independent of the detection mechanism implemented by the controller, our analysis characterizes the fundamental security limitations of stochastic cyber-physical systems. the resurgence of populism in the united states and europe in recent years has ushered in an explosion of popular appeals to the notions of heritage and identity to justify the preservation of controversial monuments and memorials. the history of ireland offers a unique opportunity to study the development of both nationalist and imperial memorial traditions in a highly contested political environment. yet historians of irish memory have focused on particular memorial cultures in isolation either geographically or socially from the broader history of the island, thus marginalizing the central role of imperialism in the development of irish memorial culture. this dissertation recovers that centrality by analyzing the development and shifts of memorial culture and conflict as ireland progressed from a british imperial territory to a pair of multifaceted european nation states.i apply memory and commemoration as units of historical analysis to understand how the irish experienced their changing geopolitical position from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries. following an introductory chapter that establishes the continued resonance of imperial iconography in ireland long after the formal end of british governance, i focus on acts of violence and commemorative conflicts as they flared along several fault lines in irish society. i examine these ruptures in the context of the eighteenth century development of an exclusionary, protestant commemorative culture, the expressions of anglo-irish anxiety following the act of union in 1800, the rise of nationalist commemoration in the 1840s to 60s, and the years surrounding the centenary of the 1798 rebellion at the turn of the twentieth century.this dissertation demonstrates that memory and commemoration were transformational forces that influenced the contours of public memorialization in pre-independence ireland. it recovers the hidden role of the empire in shaping nationalist memory, rendering its impact more visible and its contributions more accessible. in the process, it reveals the importance of violence and identity in the discourse of public remembrance, ultimately contributing to debates about the role of heritage and identity in modern western culture. sexual dimorphism is critical for the survival and propagation of many different species. in mosquitoes, sexually dimorphic behaviors include courtship, blood feeding, and oviposition site selection and are the result of both morphological differences and differences at the level of gene regulation. gaining a better understanding of these behaviors requires an understanding of the developmental genetic basis for sexually dimorphic traits. this study utilizes a microarray-based approach to identify global gene expression profiles in male vs. female developing pupal heads of aedes aegypti; the dengue and yellow fever vector mosquito. the dimorphism microarray revealed 2,527 significantly differentially expressed transcripts (dets) in the pupal head. significantly upregulated dets in females were primarily related to proteolysis, metabolic processes, cell cycle, and cellular homeostasis gene ontology (go) terms. the pathways that were over represented among female dets include proteasome, glycosphingolipd biosynthesis, glycan degradation, glycosamingoglycan degradation, and glycine/serine/threonine metabolism pathways. the pathways that were over represented among male dets include oxidative phosphorylation, alanine/aspartate/glutamate metabolism, porphyrin/chlorophyll metabolism, citrate cycle, and pyruvate metabolism. significantly upregulated dets in males were associated with ion transport, nucleotide metabolic/biosynthetic processes, microtubule-based processes, and cellular respiration go terms. whole mount in situ hybridization was used to both validate the microarray experiment and to identify regions of the brain with dimorphic gene expression. in many cases, dimorphic gene expression was localized to the optic lobe of the brain. one of the genes identified in the microarray, doublesex (dsx), was pursued further. sex-specific expression of dsx was identified in the ae. aegypti brain. sirna-mediated knockdown studies demonstrated that dsx, regulates expression of a number of sex-specific dets in the developing ae. aegypti central nervous system. these studies identified global sex-specific gene expression profiles in the developing ae. aegypti pupal head and identified dsx as an important regulator of sex specific expression in the brain. this work forms a basis for understanding sexual differences in the developing ae. aegypti cns. we describe the vlsi implementation of pim lite, a prototype of the first multithreaded pim chip. we give details about the rtl vhdl model, the floorplanning of the chip, design of its clock and power distribution networks and the deep-submicron drc that was employed like antenna rule checking and minimum density rule checking. we also describe the techniques that we used to verify the rtl vhdl model and the chip layout. we present the area, timing and power results that we obtained using the chip layout. we analyze these results and discuss the inferences. we also present lessons that we have learned about vlsi design in the deep-submicron era, obtained from our experience of designing this chip in a deep-submicron process. human malaria remains a disease of huge global public health burden and the reported stagnation in malaria control raises further concerns since in the past decade, malaria prevalence had been drastically reduced. sub-saharan africa disproportionately shoulders the global malaria burden given that over 90% of malaria cases in 2018 were recorded in this region. subsequently malaria is both a health and economic burden in these countries many of which are classified as developing countries by major economic indices.anopheles gambiae and anopheles funestus are largely responsible for sustaining malaria transmission in sub-saharan africa. these two major malaria vectors exist as complexes and have a wide distribution across the heterogeneous biomes in the sub-saharan region. in this dissertation we explore two broad themes that will advance our understanding of the vector biology, and specifically aspects of the genetic structure of the two most important malaria vectors in the afrotropic region. a thorough understanding of the genetic structure of these anopheline vectors is vital for improvement of the effectiveness of the current vector control strategies while also laying the baseline for novel genetic control strategies like gene drive technology which is likely to supplement the existing vector control tools in the near future.we examined the genetic structure of anopheles gambiae in the northwestern lake victoria basin in uganda. there are over 80 islands within lake victoria which constitute the ssese island archipelago most of which have human habitations partly because of the lucrative fishing industry in uganda. our aim was to assess whether lake victoria is a significant barrier to gene flow among an gambiae populations in the lake victoria basin and hence assess the potential of the lacustrine islands as potential sites for field trials of gene drives.in this research we expanded on the previous study in this region by i) increasing the number of island and mainland sites sampled ii) using multiple genetic markers iii) re-analyzing data from a previous study to exclude microsat markers within the proximity of inversions and iv) incorporating a temporal aspect by estimating the proportion of genetic variation due to sampling the same site for three time periods. our study has observed significant genetic isolation of an gambiae populations in lacustrine islands in the lake victoria basin from mainland populations, which is consistent with findings of a previous study. limited genetic connectedness was also observed among island populations meaning that lake victoria is a significant barrier to gene flow. we deem these islands to be potential sites for future genetic control trials.another theme of this dissertation is focused on anopheles funestus, an important malaria vector in sub-saharan africa that often sustains malaria transmission during the dry season when the population density of an gambiae is low. this vector is generally understudied compared to an gambiae despite its huge medical importance. as such chromosomal inversions in an funestus are poorly studied compared to an gambiae. however, there is sufficient evidence indicating the presence of two chromosomal forms or ecotypes co-occurring in burkina faso called 'kiribina' and 'folonzo' based on differences in the frequency of common inversion genotypes and linkage disequilibrium among inversion rearrangements within populations. the kiribina form is characterized by overabundance of standard genotype for these inversions while the folonzo form is polymorphic. this suggests on going assortative mating between the two ecotypes even when in sympatry. these forms have been observed in other parts of west africa like senegal and cameroon.since inversions in an funestus are still poorly studied, further studies on these ecotypes is still limited. in addition, the hypothesized roles of inversions (especially in an gambiae) in enhancing behaviors that may impact vector control approaches in sub-sahara africa are still largely unknown.one of the major obstacles in studying inversions is the difficulty in rapidly diagnosing inversions. the current traditional cytogenetic karyotyping approaches are sex specific (only half gravid female) and stage specific (4th instar larvae). consequently, cytogenetic karyotyping is time consuming, may require specialized personnel and difficult to scale up especially in field activities in high mosquito density areas.this study aimed at developing molecular karyotyping assays for common inversions in an funestus, that is, inversions 2ra, 3ra and 3rb. we computationally identified tag snps that are in high concordance with inversion genotypes for our inversions of interest. we then validated the candidate tag snps using cytogenetically karyotyped samples. validation of candidate tags was implemented using two high-throughput genotyping platforms; taqmantm openarraytm and genotyping in thousands by sequencing (amplicon sequencing). our study observed relatively high concordances between cytogenetic karyotype and molecularly determined karyotype.this study is the first attempt to molecularly karyotype inversions in an funestus, a poorly studied malaria vector. it lays foundation to further explore the vector biology of an funestus and specifically the two forms kiribina and folonzo. the tools will also help enhance our understanding of the roles of inversions in adaptive divergence, local adaption as well as other epidemiologically relevant behaviors like resting and oviposition behaviors.in conclusion, the research in this dissertation is vital in building our knowledge base about the vector biology of the most important and widespread vectors of malaria. knowledge generated in this research will not only help improving existing vector control strategies but also lay a foundation for implementation of novel vector control. any practical application of machine learning necessarily begins with the selection of a classification algorithm. generally, practitioners will try several different types of algorithms (such as decision trees, bayesian algorithms, support vector machines, or neural networks) and select the algorithm that performs best on a subset of the available data. that is to say, some measurement of the classifier's performance on past data is used as an estimate of its performance on future data. ideally, this estimate is perfectly aligned with the extit{true cost} of applying the classifier on future data, but this far from guaranteed in practice. first, any estimate of classifier performance has variance, and this variance is difficult to estimate. additionally, misclassification costs are rarely known at model-selection time and the characteristics of the population from which data are drawn may change over time. if the training-time estimate of either misclassification cost or data distribution is incorrect, the chosen classifier is sub-optimal and may perform worse than expected. finally, once a suitable classifier is built and deployed, there need to be systems in place to ensure that it continues to perform at a high level over time. the purpose of this dissertation is to improve the processes of classifier evaluation, selection, and maintenance in real-world situations. investigating interaction effect is very popular in psychological research. the present study is concerned with a special kind of interaction effect, which is essentially the interaction effect between two continuous latent variables and hence is refereed to as latent variable interaction effect in this study. the goal of the present study is to investigate the estimation of such interaction effect in the context of missing data. two estimation approaches, direct maximum likelihood and multiple imputation, are proposed for estimating such interactions with missing data. a monte carlo simulation study is sequentially conducted to examine the behavior of these two estimation approaches across different data distributions, sample sizes, reliabilities of measures, and missing data rates and mechanisms. specifically, their performances are examined with respect to both parameter estimation and model fit evaluation.to summarize the empirical findings in a succinct manner, the simulation results indicate that all of above factors affect, with varying degree, the parameter estimates and model fit statistics from both approaches. direct maximum likelihood approach yields acceptable estimation results when the missing data are missing completely at random. it also exhibits limited robustness when the data are nonnormal and missing at random. parameter estimates from multiple imputation approach tend to exhibit severe negative biases when the rates of missing data are high, regardless of missing data mechanism. issues related to these findings are discussed in detail. how religious are the chinese? estimates vary greatly, and the answer to this question generally depends on what definition of religion is being applied. china, however, complicates efforts to apply standard sociological definitions of religion in two main ways: the chinese government's official conceptualization of religion has dominated chinese religious discourse over the past century, and the exclusive, belief-centric, and congregational conceptualizations of religion developed in the western, judeo-christian context are of little use in understanding the largely local, ritual-based practices common in places like china. in short, such complications illustrate the fact that we will never understand and measure 'religion' in china well until we theorize 'religion' well, and understanding religion in china requires adequate measures that are appropriate for the case. martin riesebrodt's practice-based theory of religion allows us to sidestep issues of meaning, belief, and subjective understandings of religion and instead look at religion as a systematic complex of practices. adam yuet chau's five modalities of chinese religious practice are, in turn, a prime example of riesebrodtian-style theorizing specific to the chinese case. this paper explores the implications of applying riesebrodt's theory, as operationalized using chau's modalities, to china before concluding that according to this definition of religion, the vast majority of the chinese qualify as religious. the penitentiary was a key institution of thevictorian era. this social control was designed by assembling modern ideas of religion, science, administrative theory, architecture, and philosophy into a means for the production of a more manageable population. its engineers distilled a broad body of knowledge about what humans were supposed to be into a comprehensive and enormously expensive technology. as such, the institution's attempt to strip the inmate of her/his subjectivity and reinscribe the state's consensus values offers one of the most legible readings of nineteenth-century english social systems available. the literary analysis of prison writing reveals the ambitious scale of this technology by depicting its human consequences. chapter one analyzes michel foucault, erving goffman and edward said's approaches to the penitentiary in a productive tension, suggesting that the consequences of the wall-to-wall and minute-to-minute management of the prisoner's experience are as significant as the broad social agenda the prison enacts. in chapter two i argue that public intellectual and radical mp michael davitt reconstructs his subjectivity through his representation of criminality in leaves from a prison diary; or, lectures to a 'solitary' audience (1885), a social critique using an empirical study of crime and criminals based on his nine years in seven english prisons. i read this intellectual study of the criminal as a means by which davitt's publication reconstructed his identity. chapter three analyzes the ballad of reading gaol and oscar wilde's two other post-prison publications discursive understanding of penal discipline, arguing that after prison wilde refined and redefined his aesthetics to concentrate on the conflict between individuals and the mechanism of the penitentiary. in chapter four i examine nationalist leader tom clarke's glimpses of an irish felon's prison diary as a radical manual on surviving and resisting imprisonment drawn from nearly fifteen years segregated from the population of a convict prison as a fenian. in the final chapter i map further study of irish prison writing, suggesting directions for the extension of the theoretical tools available to understand the institution, the inmate's experience and the possibility of resistance. in scores of passages across his extensive corpus of writings, philo of alexandria takes care to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary sin. while various subsequent interpreters have recognized philo's interest in this matter in general terms, no focused and extended study of the phenomenon has been offered previously. what motivates philo's fascination with this issue, and what are the primary influences on philonic thought with regard to this distinction? to what degree does philo discover a similar concern in scripture, and how does philo's reading of particular texts compare with that offered by other early interpreters of scripture? these are the kinds of questions explored in the present dissertation as it offers a preliminary account of philo's conceptualization of the distinction between voluntary and involuntary sin. the dissertation evaluates the ways in which philo's attention to the distinction between voluntary and involuntary sin represents an unsurprising emphasis for this exegete of scripture. as a reader of the greek bible, philo sometimes finds in the texts he interprets a roughly similar concern, and that, on occasion, utilizing the terminology that dominates philo's vocabulary for the voluntary and the involuntary. correspondingly, the identification of different sins according to an agent's volition, intention, or knowledge is a common phenomenon among other second temple authors.the dissertation demonstrates, nevertheless, that the primary influence on philo's treatment of the distinction between voluntary and involuntary sin is the prominent and enduring concern with the distinction between voluntary and involuntary error or wrongdoing that emerges in a very wide range of classical and post-classical sources, and becomes a particular point of philosophical-ethical focus in regard to the distinction between the voluntary and the involuntary in the analysis of human agency and action. the dissertation argues that the strength and scope of philo's interest in the distinction between voluntary and involuntary sin should be understood as a function of his assessment of the condition and responsibilities of created humanity, and the usefulness of the distinction as an index to the ethical standing of different kinds of soul. the peculiar privilege of created humankind is possession of the rational mind, gifted with freedom from necessity, or the voluntary faculties. voluntary sin is, then, by its nature a very serious thing, a denial of the creator's claim on the creature and the mark of a thoroughly reprehensible soul. in contrast, involuntary sin is simply an unfortunate entailment of created human existence, an inevitability of life in the corporeal realm for those who cannot escape the non-rational within and without, even exemplary souls still in the process of striving for virtue. over the past century, zintl ions have been studied in an effort to improve their synthesis and understand the differences in geometry and electronic structure. in the past ten years, research has begun to explore the functionalization and reactivity of the ge9 cluster. the work herein furthers the understanding of ge9 clusters, as well as provides new insights into the functionalization that the cluster undergoes. this work contains three sections: (i) functionalization of the ge9 monomer cluster by various organic functional groups, (ii) potential synthesis of a tri-substituted cluster, and (iii) synthesis of cluster oligomers and studies of their functionalization and reactivity by mass spectrometry. this thesis describes the extension of a valuable polymerization method, atom transfer radical polymerization (atrp), to synthesis the star polymer economically and applied to aqueous dispersed media. several parameters were tested during the synthesis of star polymers in solution condition, including the different arm lengths, different ratios of arms to cross-linkers, and different densities of cross-linked core in chapter 1. in chapter 2, synthesis of star polymers in microemulsion system was explored, and various synthetic condition was deployed during this process. in particular, a new synthetic method, named as microemulsion, was recently developed by our group, and it shows high livingness and better control during the synthesis of polymers. at the same time, click reaction was used here to test the loading efficiency of star polymers. vibrational spectroscopy of proteins labeled with site-specific carbon-deuterium (cd) bonds is emerging as a powerful experimental technique for investigating protein structure, dynamics, and function. the c-d stretch mode makes an excellent probe because it is minimally perturbative and appears in an otherwise transparent region of the spectrum. the viability of ì_å±-carbon deuterated bonds (alpha-c-d) as infrared (ir) probes of protein backbone dynamics was explored using ì_å±-carbon deuterated alanine (ala-d1) as a convenient model system for a comparison of experiment, density functional theory (dft), and combined quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical (qm/mm) simulations. in addition to the primary alpha-c-d absorption, the experimental spectrum contains three features resulting from fermi resonances. dft calculations confirmed the assignments and identified the lower frequency modes participating in the fermi resonances. qm/mm simulations of the ala-d1 line shape were in qualitative agreement with experiment. two model dipeptide compounds, alpha-c-d labeled alanine dipeptide (adp-d1) and alpha-c-d2 labeled glycine dipeptide (gdp-d2), were used to validate the alpha-c-d vibrational probe as a reporter of local peptide conformation. these model compounds adopt structures that are analogous to the motifs found in larger peptides and proteins. the alpha-c-d2 frequencies of gdp-d2 show the most substantial difference between its stable conformations: there is a 40.7 cmì¢è '1 maximum difference in the symmetric alpha-c-d2 stretch frequencies, and a 81.3 cmì¢è '1 maximum difference in the asymmetric alpha-c-d2 stretch frequencies. moreover, the splitting between the symmetric and asymmetric alpha-c-d2 stretch frequencies of gdp-d2 is remarkably sensitive to its conformation. the protonation state of titratable amino acid residues has profound effects on protein stability and function. therefore, correctly determining the acid dissociation constant, pka, of charged residues under physiological conditions is an important challenge. the ability of c-d vibrational probes to distinguish the protonation state of arginine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, histidine, and lysine amino acid side chains was examined using dft calculations. lysine exhibited the largest c-d2 frequency shifts upon protonation, 44.9 cmì¢è '1 (symmetric stretch) and 69.5 cmì¢è '1 (asymmetric stretch). furthermore, the predicted harmonic intensities of the c-d2 probe vibrations were extraordinarily sensitive to protonation state of the nearby acidic or basic group. accounting for this dramatic change in intensity is essential to the interpretation of an ir absorption spectrum that contains the signature of both the neutral and charged states. histidine is a particularly important contributor to protein stability and function because its side chain pka is near physiological ph. the sensitivity of c-d vibrational frequencies to the protonation state of histidine dipeptide (hdp) was investigated in aqueous solution using two-layered integrated molecular orbital and molecular mechanics (oniom) calculations. solvating the labeled hdp molecule produces an overall blue shift in the average c-d vibrational frequencies relative to the gas-phase. the beta-c-d2, delta-c-d, and epsilon-c-d vibrational probes all showed sensitivity to the histidine protonation state, with shifts of up to 40 cmì¢è '1 in the mean frequencies after deprotonation. the success of using c-d probes to distinguish protonation states in gas-phase and solvated dipeptides is encouraging for their application in proteins. preliminary results calculating the epsilon-c-d frequency in protonated and deprotonated his12 in the protein ribonuclease s show good agreement to experimental results, although additional work is necessary to completely account for the spectral complexity in the experimental spectrum. despite wide applications of growth curve models, few studies have dealt with a practical issue -nonnormality of data. previous studies have typically used student's t distributions to remedy the nonnormal problems. in this dissertation, three types of robust distributionalgrowth curve models are proposed from a semiparametric bayesian perspective, in which random coefficients or intraindividual measurement errors follow either normal distributions or unknown random distributionswith dirichlet process priors. based on monte carlo simulations, we evaluate the performance of the robust models and demonstrate that selecting an appropriate model for practical data analyses is very important, by comparing the three types of robust distributional models as well as the traditional growth curve models with the normalityassumption in analyzing different types of data. in addition, we compare the semiparametric bayesian methods to the existing robust methods using student's t distributions and conclude that the semiparametric bayesian methods are more robust to nonnormal data. an example about the development of mathematical abilities is used to illustrate the application of semiparametric bayesian growth curve models, using school children's peabody individual achievement test mathematical test scores from the national longitudinal survey of youth 1997 cohort. two methods and models are presented to solve the nonlinear wave equation with shock formation using mass, momentum, and energy conservation in multi-layer one-dimensional rods made of cellular material. using the method of characteristics, the rigid-perfectly-plastic-locking model is proven to be unable to predict shock formation at a material interface. thus, a rate-independent mechanical model is proposed and incorporates an elastic-plastic-densifying material model to describe the stress-strain behavior of the cellular materials. the conditions for shock formation at a material interface are provided. a two-layer analysis is conducted to gain insights into the behavior of two-layer cellular systems and to determine which material properties are most important for design. finally, the significant parameters are optimized to reduce the length of oneand two-layered cellular systems with impulse and mass constraints subject to pulse loading. the results reinforce the concept of sandwich structures and show that two-layer systems can achieve a 30% reduction in length over single layer ones. next, a rate-dependent thermo-mechanical model is used to incorporate thermal and viscoplastic effects; the finite difference method is used to solve this model. analysis of 1-layer systems reveals a viscoplastic stress spike on the distal boundary. additionally, experimentally observed stress amplification is determined to be a function of the material velocity behind the incident shock in the layer. the amplification amount is derived analytically and matches well with existing models. initial and boundary condition studies on the one-dimensional multi-layer cellular systems are conducted. the results indicate that pre-stressing and convex density arrangements reduce the peak impulses transferred through the system. increasing temperature is found to increase system crush while reducing distal stress. further, load pulse shape affects the shape of shocks and transmitted loads. finally, increasing the number of layers in an even length distribution will reduce the performance of the material if the same linear density gradient is used. these results indicate a significant leap in the understanding of multi-layer cellular materials subject to pulse loads. current advances in biological research demand imaging resolution on the scale of tens of nanometers or less. due to the innate diffraction limit associated with the physics of imaging, there is a limit on the resolution capable through traditional optical imaging systems. there have been a variety of techniques to overcome this resolution limit to produce what are known as super-resolution images. these techniques vary in their areas of application, theory, implementation, and limitations. one of these methods, known as structured illumination microscopy (sim), has the advantage of creating wide-field images with both compatibility with a wide array of fluorophores and the capability of higher imaging speeds that are needed for observation of cellular processes. the performance and super-resolution capabilities of sim are dictated in part by the illumination pattern, where using illumination patterns with higher spatial frequencies corresponds to the potential for better resolution enhancement. we intend to utilize metasurfaces, a class of artificial materials known as metamaterials, to achieve this. metasurfaces are surfaces comprised of subwavelength features which can exhibit modes with extraordinary optical properties and can facilitate modes with fine spatial frequencies. the goal of this work is to is to lay the groundwork for the use and application of these metasurfaces in obtaining super-resolution images through sim.we demonstrate the ability to engineer the dispersion of modes present along the top of silver nanoridge array metasurfaces through simulations. the dispersion can be engineered through adjusting geometric, optical, and material parameters of the metasurface simulations. this added control over the dispersive properties of coupled plasmonic modes differentiates our technique from other demonstrated techniques which use surface plasmon polaritons or localized surface plasmon polaritons in similar methods we intend to for sim.we show that we can design a silver nanoridge metasurface to exhibit a hyperbolic mode at a given design wavelength of 458 nm. we also demonstrate that we are able to confine these hyperbolic modes on nanoridges of finite length to produce standing wave patterns in the electric field of the mode present on the nanoridges. we then demonstrate that we are able to achieve super-resolution images using these electric field patterns associated with our hyperbolic metasurfaces as structured illumination patterns in sim algorithms through simulation. we showcase the adaptability of this technique to reconstruct super-resolution images for a variety of metasurface and imaging parameters.we will show current metasurface fabrications designed with hyperbolic dispersion at 458 nm. we then use reflection measurements and comparisons to simulation to analyze and characterize it. finally, we demonstrate experimental results of sim using our fabricated metasurfaces. integration factor (if) methods are a class of efficient time discretization methods for solving stiff problems via evaluation of an exponential function of the corresponding matrix for the stiff operator. the computational challenge in applying the methods for partial differential equations (pdes) on high spatial dimensions (multidimensional pdes) is how to deal with the matrix exponential for very large matrices. compact integration factor methods developed in [nie et al., journal of computational physics, 227 (2008) 5238-5255] provide an approach to reduce the cost prohibitive large matrix exponentials for linear diffusion operators with constant diffusion coefficients in high spatial dimensions to a series of much smaller one dimensional computations. this approach is further developed in [wang et al., journal of computational physics, 258 (2014) 585-600] to deal with more complicated high dimensional reaction-diffusion equations with cross-derivatives in diffusion operators. another approach is to use krylov subspace approximations to efficiently calculate large matrix exponentials. in [chen and zhang, journal of computational physics, 230 (2011) 4336-4352], krylov subspace approximation is directly applied to the implicit integration factor (iif) methods for solving high dimensional reaction-diffusion problems. recently the method is combined with weighted essentially non-oscillatory (weno) schemes in [jiang and zhang, journal of computational physics, 253 (2013) 368-388] to efficiently solve semilinear and fully nonlinear convection-reaction-diffusion equations. a natural question that arises is how these two approaches may perform differently for various types of problems. in the first part of this dissertation, we study the computational power of krylov if-weno methods for solving high spatial dimension convection-diffusion pde problems (up to four spatial dimensions). systematical numerical comparison and complexity analysis are carried out for the computational efficiency of the two different approaches. we show that although the krylov if-weno methods have linear computational complexity, both the compact if method and the krylov if method have their own advantages for different type of problems. this study provides certain guidance for using if-weno methods to solve general high spatial dimension convection-diffusion problems.in the second part of this dissertation, we combine the krylov integration factor methods with sparse grid combination techniques and solve high spatial dimension convection-diffusion equations such as fokker-planck equations on sparse grids. numerical examples are presented to show that significant computational times are saved by applying the krylov integration factor methods on sparse grids. it is known that adaptive power and rate allocation is a useful technique for combating channel variations induced by multipath fading in wireless systems. we consider several fading channel models for which we aim to optimize a performance metric subject to various power and energy constraints. first, we find the general structure of optimal or suboptimal power policies in order to maximize the ergodic capacity subject to various combination of short-term, long-term, and per-antenna power constraints in multiple-input multiple-output (mimo) wireless systems. the power policies depend upon the ratio of the power constraints. furthermore, we characterize the conditions for which one or more power constraints dominates and the others can be ignored. next, we specialize the results to rayleigh fading. an important observations in this case is that the short-term power constraint is more relevant in the low snr regime. therefore, a system designer can ignore a short-term power constraint that is larger than a long-term power constraint for large values of average snr's. finally, we consider an energy harvesting wireless system, and study rate allocation policies to minimize a delay criterion, e.g., average delay in the data buffer or probability of overflow, subject to the hard power constraints imposed by the available energy. this dissertation describes the development and application of surface-enhanced hyper-raman scattering (sehrs) as a nonlinear spectroscopic probe in three studies. the first study explores the measurement of sehrs from short-wave infrared (swir) excitation sources. ultrasensitive detection of the scattered signal, which occurs in a "biological transparent window," is accomplished for three analyte molecules under modest experimental conditions. these results demonstrate that sehrs-based methods have compelling potential for chemical analysis and molecular imaging.the second study compares resonance hyper-raman scattering of crystal violet from experimental sehrs measurements and theoretical calculations over its two lowest-lying electronic states (12,700-27,400 cm-1). the qualitative agreement between theory and experiment indicates that first-principles calculations capture many of the complex resonance contributions in this prototypical octupolar system. the discrepancies between theory and experiment are investigated by comparing spectra obtained in different local environments as well as from higher-order surface-enhanced spectroscopies. a comparison between relative sehrs band ratios plotted as a function of excitation wavelength and crystal violet's absorption spectra elucidates correlations between groups of vibrations and the excited-electronic states. the results suggest that the spectral features across the range of resonance excitation energies (~15,500-27,400 cm-1) are dominated by strong a-term scattering. the final study focuses on orientation effects in the sehrs of rhodamine 6g on resonance with its lowest electronic state s1. first-principles calculations demonstrate the non-condon effects that dominate resonance hyper-raman scattering produce unique spectra depending on molecular orientation, thereby, making sehrs a much more sensitive probe of adsorbate geometry than its linear counterpart, surface-enhanced raman scattering. comparisons between theoretical calculations and experimentally measured sehrs from aggregated silver colloids reveal r6g adsorbs mostly perpendicular with the nanoparticle surface. the predicted geometry both agrees well with previous reports and adds significantly to our understanding of r6g's interactions with metal colloids. breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease composed of multiple subtypes, each with its own distinct biological characteristics, therapy, and clinical outcomes. there are five generally well-known subtypes, also known as "intrinsic" subtypes: luminal a (lum a), luminal b (lum b), her2-enriched, basal-like, and normal-like. these subtypes, also now referred to as pam50, were introduced in 2001 by unsupervised clustering on whole-genome expression data. recently, some studies have suggested that these pam50 subtypes are dependent upon normalization, gene-centering techniques, or other transformations of gene expression data, resulting in uncertainty in the subtype classifications of a large percentage of patients. even with this uncertainty, there are no other subtyping systems or studies that currently challenge pam50's use. hence, there exists a need to address these classification inconsistencies and uncertainties in these subtypes. an existing subtyping method is applied to breast cancer gene expression data in which multiple different clustering approaches on a common set of samples are coalesced together, formed into a network, and ultimately results in consensus-based classifications of samples. the advantage of this consensus-based subtyping method is that it does not produce subtypes based on a single unsupervised clustering method like pam50, but rather produces subtypes that are based on multiple clustering strategies that are integrated together. in doing so, this subtyping method will not be biased towards one unsupervised clustering algorithm, as in pam50. the consensus-based subtyping method is applied to two different datasets: one containing both er+ and er− samples, and one containing only er− samples. a single-sample classifier for the subtype system is applied to expression data from different technologies, resulting in clusters that have the same biological features across numerous cohorts. this suggests that these clusters are biologically driven as their characteristics are conserved in the clustering, no matter which dataset is being inspected. results from the clustering of this subtyping method identify clusters that were not included in the pam50 clusters. one cluster, c5, from the dataset containing both er+ and er− samples, exhibits characteristics associated with epithelial mesenchymal transition (emt), along with increased abundance of endothelial cells and fibroblasts. clustering from the data that contains only er− samples identified another novel cluster, c3, which is associated with immune-like characteristics. these two novel subtypes comprise of characteristics that have not been previously identified in past breast cancer subtype studies. these subtypes can potentially have an important effect on the future of breast cancer, as well as promoting different types of treatments for patients whose tumors belong to these new subtypes. to gain deeper insights of these potentially novel clusters, more analyses focusing on these two subtypes will be needed. this thesis is concerned with the reception-history of aquinas' teaching on eucharistic sacrifice in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. because of the increasingly pervasive use of aquinas' summa theologiae as a text of theological commentary in universities during this period, the summa became a ubiquitous resource for early modern theology. because of challenges from the protestant reformers, during this time many catholic theologians began to defend the church's traditional teaching on the mass as a true sacrifice, at times using resources from aquinas to do so. while the details of these protestant and catholic interactions are significant, this study is not concerned with the features of these debates directly. rather, this thesis is focused on the reception and transmission of the conceptual content of aquinas' teaching in early modern catholic theology. because aquinas' own teaching in the summa is broader than reformation polemics, in this thesis the term 'eucharistic sacrifice' has been adopted in order to capture the full range of meaning that is associated with the concept of sacrifice in aquinas' eucharistic theology in the summa. although the summa became the primary conduit for aquinas' teaching during this timeframe, the text of the summa itself is the product of a very different historical context. for these subsequent interactions with the summa to be intelligible, therefore, it is essential that this text be first understood on its own terms. accordingly, this thesis begins with a textual study of the concept of eucharistic sacrifice in aquinas' summa theologiae. this first chapter studies the way in which aquinas applies the concept of sacrifice in relation to the eucharist in his discussion of the figurative meaning of the old law, the moral character of sacrifice as a human act, and the significance of christ's sacrifice in relation to the sacramental and liturgical reality of the eucharist. the following chapters examine the work of thomas de vio cajetan, francisco vitoria, dominic soto, melchior cano, domingo bañez, robert bellarmine, francisco suárez, gabriel vásquez and john of st. thomas. when engaging each of these thinkers, this thesis explores the shape of their specific reception of aquinas, and factors and methodological assumptions that have conditioned these receptions. there are persistent disparities in educational outcomes across racial and socioeconomic groups, even when accounting for differences in academic preparation. the standard economic theory of human capital accumulation suggests that these variations simply reflect the different costs and benefits these groups face and do not on their own justify government intervention. however, a large economic literature emphasizes the role that financial and informational constraints play in an individual's education decisions. as a result, there are many studies that try to examine the effectiveness of policies meant to alleviate these burdens. despite the massive amount of work on this topic, policymakers are continually exploring new ways to increase access to education at all levels, and there is still much to learn on whether these policies can close the existing gaps. in this dissertation, i contribute new evidence on the extent to which policies intended to increase access to schooling alter educational outcomes. the first chapter focuses on the impact of the indiana choice scholarship program on the quality of schooling provided. the second chapter examines test-optional policies in higher education. the third chapter examines a policy in washington state that increases access to dual-credit courses. discourse analysis of book 3 of apuleius's golden ass reveals that multivalent vocabulary in both the narration and dialogue alerts readers to plot themes and events before they are explicitly addressed, and that apuleius writes on multiple levels which may be detected by different readers.i begin with a summary of scholarship on apuleius's golden ass and the methodology of discourse analysis, and i divide my analysis of book 3 into two chapters. in the first, i analyze the risus festival sequence (3.1-11), arguing that roman readers could realize the punchline of the event before the protagonist does. dialogue prior to the scene prepares the reader to detect numerous double meanings throughout the ensuing sections. a close linguistic analysis reveals that both the dialogue and narration of the scene are rife with references to the religious nature of the proceedings. i conclude that the first reader would be able to notice the same flags as the hypatans and understand the humor of the scene before lucius does. in the second chapter, i analyze the subsequent dialogue between lucius and photis, which is rife with legal and commercial vocabulary. lucius linguistically rejects his status as a roman citizen prior to his transformation, which completely strips him of these rights, while photis uses the language of public religion to describe magic, demonstrating her ignorance of the dangers of magic and her magical error which precipitates lucius's titular metamorphosis. the reader is alerted to the danger lucius's curiosity presents for his person and photis's magical inability linguistically before the events themselves.i conclude that discourse analysis of an extended section of prose reveals details present in apuleius's writing which are difficult to detect without very close reading. this analysis argues that apuleius's twists are not universally unpredictable for a roman first reader, for whom a single word or group of words can conjure up associated concepts and actions searching for the presence of similar groups of polysemous words in the novel may reveal other instances of hints for the first reader. short stories mixing in aquifers is an important process for the proper characterization of various subsurface chemical reactions, however its quantification is difficult in practice. a commonly used method in the assessment of mixing relies on the evaluation of concentration breakthrough data at a well over time. for homogeneous systems this is perfectly acceptable, however natural systems are generally heterogeneous. to study the specific relationship between spreading and mixing in a heterogeneous system, solute transport is simulated across an angled interface separating two homogeneous porous media. discernible differences in the concentration breakthrough at the outlet are examined and measures of mixing are evaluated as dimensionless parameters are varied. it is shown that the inherent transverse dispersivity and direction of flow can lead to variations in mixing despite breakthrough curves remaining nearly identical. this implies that for the defined system, limited information is obtained regarding mixing from the calculated concentration breakthrough curves. this thesis evaluates various geometrical, reinforcement, material, and loading parameters that affect the behavior of diagonally-reinforced concrete coupling beams under reversed-cyclic lateral loading. to isolate the primary load-resisting components inside the beams, a two-dimensional nonlinear strut-and-tie analytical model is developed based on comparisons with measured coupling beam behavior from previous research. most of these previous experiments were conducted on coupling beams free to displace axially, ignoring the axial restraining forces that develop in a coupled wall structure. the thesis shows that these boundary conditions can produce an unconservative evaluation for the design of the beams, in particular with respect to the diagonal strut in compression. the development of the horizontal beam reinforcement across the beam-to-wall joints can also induce critical conditions for the compression strut. following the coupling beam analyses, multi-story coupled wall analyses are conducted to investigate the forces that develop in the beams and the wall piers. 28si is formed by successive alpha captures on 12c during the agb (asymptotic giant branch) stage of stellar burning. the last reaction in this series, 24mg(alpha,gamma)28si, has not been examined with sufficient sensitivity at alpha energies below 1.5 mev. several 28si states appear favorable for formation by this reaction in the alpha energy range of 1.0 1.5 mev, motivating a new study of this reaction at the university of notre dame. to maximize experimental sensitivity, a high efficiency coincidence detection system was developed. several previously unknown resonances were observed between 1.1 and 1.5 mev, and an upper limit for any lower energy resonances was obtained. resonance parameters were determined and reaction rates were calculated. additionally, neutron capture reactions on the stable magnesium isotopes were studied at the n_tof facility. the data were fit using the r-matrix code sammy; newly calculated resonance parameters are presented. this paper seeks to understand to what extent can civic identity be constructed while promoting ethnocultural language policies. the argument is that ethnocultural language policies must be based around an inclusive civic identity, rather than an exclusive ethnic identity. colonial and soviet social engineering led to a separation of ethnic and civic logic within ukrainian identity that risks fracturing the ukrainian imagined community further. to mitigate that, these dual logics should be consolidated into one inclusive identity with the ethnic ukrainian language at its core and civic notions of active citizenship for its membership. by utilizing ukrainian language as the official state language and being tolerant of the ethnic minority languages within its borders, ukraine can stay united under an inclusive ukrainian identity that strives for the promotion of an imagined community of many languages, instead of an imagined community of one language that excludes others. multiscale and multiphysics problems need novel numerical methods in order to provide practical predictive results. to that end, this dissertation develops a wavelet based technique to solve a coupled system of nonlinear partial differential equations (pdes) while resolving features on a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. the novel n-dimensional algorithm exploits the multiresolution nature of wavelet basis functions to solve initial-boundary value problems on finite domains. a sparse multiresolution spatial discretization is constructed by projecting fields and their spatial derivatives onto the wavelet basis. by leveraging wavelet theory and embedding a predictor-corrector procedure within the time advancement loop, the algorithm dynamically adapts the computational grid and maintains accuracy of the solutions of the pdes as they evolve. consequently, this new method provides high fidelity simulations with significant data compression. the implementation of this algorithm is verified, establishing mathematical correctness with spatial convergence in agreement with the theoretical estimates. the multiscale capabilities are demonstrated by modeling high-strain rate damage nucleation and propagation in nonlinear solids using a novel eulerian-lagrangian continuum framework. the standard model is now viewed as an effective field theory (eft), a theory that is valid only up to some high energy scale λ, at which point it is subsumed into its ultraviolet (uv) completion. given this, it is of both theoretical and phenomenological interest to enumerate a minimal basis for the operators in this eft at various mass dimensions. this problem can be extended beyond the standard model effective field theory to encompass generic effective field theories and the question of writing down a minimal lagrangian at some desired mass order.i approach this problem from two angles. first, i calculate the set of dimension-7 operators in the standard model effective field theory "by hand." even though there are relatively few operators at dimension-7 as compared to dimension-8, this calculation is somewhat lengthy and thus illustrates the desirability of a more automated method. second, i introduce a mathematical structure known as the hilbert series. after providing some mathematical background on the hilbert series, i illustrate how it can be used to attack the problem of finding a minimal operator basis through several examples. finally, the hilbert series as initially presented does not deal with the twin problems introduced by derivatives: integration by parts and equations of motion. i present a conjecture for the correct method to deal with these problems, and then, in my conclusion, discuss how this conjecture fell short of the correct method. a circulation control (cc) airfoil uses a wall jet exiting onto a rounded trailing edge to generate lift via the coanda effect. the aerodynamics of the cc airfoil have been studied extensively. the acoustics of the airfoil are, however, much less understood. the primary goal of the present work was to study the radiated sound and unsteady surface pressures of a cc airfoil. the focus of this work can be divided up into three main categories: characterizing the unsteady surface pressures, characterizing the radiated sound, and understanding the acoustics from surface pressures. the present work is the first to present the unsteady surface pressures from the trailing edge cylinder of a circulation control airfoil. the auto-spectral density of the unsteady surface pressures at various locations around the trailing edge are presented over a wide range of the jets momentum coefficient. coherence of pressure and length scales were computed and presented. single microphone measurements were made at a range of angles for a fixed observer distance in the far field. spectra are presented for select angles to show the directivity of the airfoil's radiated sound. predictions of the acoustics were made from unsteady surface pressures via howe's curvature noise model and a modified curle's analogy. a summary of the current understanding of the acoustics from a cc airfoil is given along with suggestions for future work. sensitivity to immune checkpoint blockades (icb) depends on the overall balance of immunogenic and immunosuppressive signals in the tumor immune microenvironment (time). chemotherapy as an immunostimulatory strategy showed potential in improving icb's clinical efficacy. yet, evolution of highly plastic tumor-associated myeloid cells hinders icb's potential to reach its full therapeutic potential. in this study, we leveraged single-cell transcriptomic and trajectory analyses to delineate time dynamics after chemotherapy priming. we found that metronomic chemotherapy (mct) treatment led to an accelerated t cell exhaustion through cxcl16mediated recruitment of peripheral immature myeloid cells and expansion of stat1driven pd-l1 expressing myeloid cells. inhibiting stat1 signaling in mct-primed breast cancer relieved t cell exhaustion and significantly enhanced the efficacy of anti-pd-1 icb treatment. our study leveraged single-cell analyses to dissect the dynamics of breast cancer time and provides a pre-clinical rationale to translate the anti-stat1 plus anti-pd-1 combinatorial immunotherapy regimen to maximize icb's efficacy. instrumental accounts of practical reason are usually thought to have few or no implications for the moral virtues. i argue, on the contrary, that the social characteristics of instrumental practical reasoning give us very good reasons to be virtuous. i work to show this by first confronting with one another four recent accounts of practical reason (those of simon blackburn, candace vogler, david gauthier, and philippa foot) in order to develop a powerful account of instrumental practical reasoning as an irreducibly social practice. i then connect this to a much older account of practical reasoning drawn from st. thomas aquinas which is both instrumental and deeply connected to the moral virtues. after showing how this thomistic account of instrumental practical reasoning both accommodates the insights gained from the contemporary accounts and includes a clear and persuasive grounding for practical deliberation as a social activity, i argue that the resulting picture of practical reason gives us very good reason to be virtuous. in short, we are always in need of others' good counsel, since our knowledge of the means to and parts of our final end is both always open to revision and essentially limited (because of the infinite number of potentially relevant particulars, our propensity for making mistakes, and the necessary role played by those who participate with us in the pursuit of a common good). in turn, successful deliberation with others regarding the means to and parts of one's final end requires aiming at the final ends of those with whom one is deliberating. and to aim at the final end of another is to treat that person virtuously. the past two decades have witnessed the emergence of an array of large-scale astronomical surveys of the milky way. as a result, photometric and spectroscopic data for many millions of stars in the galaxy, including hundreds of thousands of ancient metal-poor stars in the galactic halo, have been obtained. the hundreds to thousands of so-called chemically peculiar stars presently recognized from these surveys can shed light on the chemical nature and birth environments of early generations of stars in the universe. in this thesis, i carry out a chemo-dynamical analysis for two sets of chemically peculiar stars r-process-enhanced (rpe) stars, and carbon-enhanced metal-poor (cemp) stars.the sample of rpe stars includes a total of 426 stars with available accurate dynamical information and high-resolution spectroscopic abundances of iron, carbon, strontium, barium, and europium. a friends-of-friends clustering algorithm is used to identify 24 chemo-dynamically tagged groups (cdtgs) in these data, which are demonstrated to exhibit significantly lower dispersions among their elemental abundances compared with random draws from the full sample. this result strongly implies that the stars within most of these cdtgs share common chemical-evolution histories, and were likely formed in low-mass galaxies accreted into the milky way halo.these methods are also applied to a literature compilation of 223 cemp stars with available dynamical and elemental-abundance information. while the elemental-dispersion results for the 17 identified cdtgs are only marginally significant when applied to the entire sample, when the individual cdtgs are separated into the morphological groups in the so-called yoon-beers diagram of a(c) vs. [fe/h], the group i (primarily cemp-s and cemp-r/s) stars exhibit more statistically significant similarities in their full set of elemental abundances, while the group ii (primarily cemp-no) stars exhibit strong similarities only in [fe/h]. these results indicate that the cemp stars in these groups, at least in some cases, have also experienced common chemical-evolution histories, presumably in their parent lower-mass galaxies, prior to being disrupted into the milky way's halo. plasminogen (hpg) conversion to the serine protease plasmin via host and exogenous factors results in activation of the human fibrinolytic system and ultimately degradation of fibrin and extracellular matrices. group a streptococcus (gas), a bacterial pathogen responsible for diseases including rheumatic heart disease, impetigo, and necrotizing fasciitis; activates pg through the extracellular protein streptokinase (sk). this process is enhanced when virulence factors m or m-like proteins, i.e., pam, found on the surface of gas, bind to pg. pg has 5 kringle domains (k1-k5), which are homologous triple-disulfide-linked peptide regions of approximately 80 amino acids in length. it has previously been shown that pam selectively binds to the second kringle domain, k2, of pg. kringle domains, excluding k3, bind to ω-amino acids such as lysine and c-terminal lysines. the work described herein studied the key proteins involved in gas virulence, specifically pg, sk, and pam. through mutagenesis of the lbs of each kringle it was demonstrated that pam exclusively binds to the kringle 2 of plasminogen. these hpg mutants all have a faster rate of sk-mediated activation in comparison to wt-hpg. through studies of isolated kringle 2 and a kringle 2 mutant with the lbs of kringle 1 it was found that the additional pro in kringle 1 prevents pam binding due to structural differences. it was also found that sk activates hpg faster when hpg adopts the open conformation; however, the addition of a lysine analogue, eaca, inhibits hpg activation. lastly, it was found that mpg cannot be activated by sk, but can be activated by the sk-hpg complex. these findings lead to a better mechanistic and structural dynamic of how these three proteins interact. this dissertation draws upon qualitative mixed methods to consider three mechanisms through which vacant and abandoned commercial and industrial buildings become constructed as problem properties by those residents living around them. the three papers, which make up this dissertation, draw on a wide array of literature from social movements and historic preservation to criminology and the sociology of culture in order to illuminate the many ways in which residents understand vacant and abandoned buildings.the first paper examines how differences in mobilization draw attention and resources to some vacant and abandoned properties and not others. using two cases—a vacant brewery complex and a vacant school—i argue that residents make mobilization decisions based on their perceptions of both present and future opportunities, choosing to mobilize when they anticipate greater relative opportunities for mobilization in the present than the future and delaying mobilization when they anticipate opportunities for mobilization will be better in the future.the second paper looks at differences in the perception of vacant and abandoned historical buildings by preservationists. it pays particular attention to how preservationists' temporal orientations inform when they see historic buildings as social problems. this paper asks: when does historic value insulate buildings from being perceived as problem properties?the third paper demonstrates how residents perceive buildings as social problems. building upon critiques of the "broken windows" hypothesis which argue that not all physical disorder stands out to residents as disorder, this paper argues that buildings that violate expectations that residents hold about buildings as private property become seen as out of place, and therefore as disorder. focusing on expectations that buildings match their surrounding environment's development trajectory and be cared for and used early modern drama and terms of endearment is the first expansive study of pet names in sixteenth and seventeenth century english performance. in this dissertation i look to terms of endearment shared by couples in plays by william shakespeare, thomas dekker, francis beaumont, and margaret cavendish to explore the performative function of pet names and its relationship with early modern notions of marriage, desire, and gender hierarchy. ultimately, i argue that intimate language expresses forms of mutuality and solidarity which contest dynamics of power, and that the performative nature of affectionate language affords a better understanding of an addressee's character, the character of the addressor, and, particularly, the relationship between the two.in this dissertation, i approach the theatrical use of affectionate address not merely as a socio-linguist, or even a cultural historian, but from the perspective of an avid theatre-goer and literary scholar. my intention is to magnify etymological details in order to connect to the larger narrative context, consider gender implications, and provide affordances for performance and editorial practices. in this sense, this dissertation rescues terms of endearment from obscurity, revealing them as consequential not only for the negotiation of power hierarchies and the establishment of mutuality, but for modern theatrical and editorial practice. depression is a prevalent and debilitating psychological condition that is one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. severe life stress has consistently been found to precede the onset of depression, but not everyone who experiences severe life stress breaks down. therefore, there must be moderators of life stress' depressogenic capability. there is suggestive evidence that the personality trait of introversion may moderate the depressogenic potential of interpersonal life stress, yet this personality domain is understudied. in the present research it was predicted that introverts experiencing a romantic break-up would be more depressed, have higher negative affect, and have lower positive affect than introverts without a break-up and extraverts regardless of break up. two studies addressing these hypotheses found support for a moderating effect of introversion on the depressogenic potential of interpersonal life stress, but in the opposite direction. possible explanations for these unexpected results and their implications are discussed. strong electron-electron interactions in transition metal oxides (tmos) give birth to many exciting and potentially useful phenomena, such as metal-insulator transition, high-tc superconductivity, colossal magnetoresistance etc. for practical applications, controlling these phenomena reversibly by a field effect like in a silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor or mos transistor would be very useful. however, modulating large carrier densities ~1014 cm-2 and greater to see drastic changes in tmo properties is challenging. recently, a two-dimensional electron gas (2deg) with extremely high density of ~3 x 1014 cm-2 has been discovered at the heterointerface of srtio3/rtio3 (r:gd, sm). in addition to being interesting in its own right for high power electronic and tunable plasmonic devices, this 2deg can also act as a test bed for modulating extremely large charges and to explore potential challenges in this endeavor and possible solutions. such an effort on modulating large electron concentrations in srtio3 and in srtio3/rtio3 (r:gd, sm) systems is the central focus of this work. gdtio3 is a mott-hubbard insulator whose bandgap is not well known. we performed photoluminescence spectroscopy measurements of gdtio3 thin films and discovered room temperature emission at red wavelengths. these measurements suggest that the bandgap of gdtio3 is much larger than previously suspected. srtio3/gdtio3 heterostructures have a type-ii energy band lineup, and the 2deg resides in srtio3. to develop an understanding of the electron transport in srtio3 we modeled hall-effect mobility data measured in srtio3 thin films by considering various electron scattering mechanisms. we quantitatively explain the mobility values from 2-300k. we propose that in intermediate temperatures of ~10-200k, the electron scattering is dominated by a ~6mev transverse optical phonon present in srtio3, thus resolving a long-standing problem in the field.with its high room temperature dielectric constant of ~300, srtio3 is attractive as a gate dielectric for modulating extreme electron concentrations. to realize field-effect devices, we have developed dry etching, ali/au ohmic contacts, and pt & au based schottky contacts for srtio3. using temperature-dependent capacitance-voltage measurements on srtio3 schottky diodes, we have discovered a ferroelectric transition in compressively strained srtio3 grown on lsat substrates. using au schottky contacts, we demonstrate ~ 1.6 x 1014 cm-2 charge modulation in srtio3 mesfets. we also demonstrate srtio3/gdtio3 schottky diodes and hemts on lsat substrate modulating ~1014 cm-2 electron density, and srtio3/gdtio3 schottky diodes on (100) si substrates modulating greater than 1.1 x 1014 cm-2 electron density. using capacitance enhancement in fin structures, we demonstrate record electron density modulation of ~2.5 x 1014 cm-2 in srtio3/smtio3 finfets. the need throughout the machining industry for cost reduction and increases in productivity have contributed to new interest in high-speed machining. even though, many model for machining exist, most of them are for low-speed machining, where momentum is negligible and material behavior is well approximated by the quasi-static laws. in machining at high speeds momentum could be large and the strain rate can be exceedingly high. for these reasons a fluid mechanics approach to understanding high-speed, very high-speed and ultra-high-speed machining is attempted here. namely, a potential flow solution is used to model the behavior of the material around a tool tip during machining at high speeds, i.e. greater than or equal to 100 $m/s$. it is carefully argued that the potential flow solution is relevant and can be used as a first approximation to model the behavior of a metal during high-speed, very high-speed or ultra-high-speed machining events. at a minimum, the potential flow solution is qualitatively useful in understanding mechanics of high-speed, very high-speed and ultra-high-speed machining. interestingly, the flow solution predicts that there is a ``stagnation' point on the rake face, not at the tool tip as is usually assumed. because the ``stagnation' point is not at the tool tip, the flow solution predicts a significant amount of deformation in the work piece resulting in large residual strains and a possible related temperature rise on the finished surface. to verify the fluid flow model, an experimental apparatus has been designed to examine fluid flow in orthogonal machining. experiments were conducted at room temperature for different newtonian fluids, cutting conditions and cutting tools. it was seen that, indeed, the ``stagnation' point is not at the tool tip. next, a modified hopkinson bar apparatus is employed to simulate dry orthogonal machining at 30 $m/s$ cutting velocity. a focused array of mercury-cadmium-tellurium infrared detectors is used to measure the temperature distribution. a three-component quartz force transducer is utilized in measuring the cutting and feed forces. measurements of the cutting and feed forces contributed to the ability to prove the steady-state conditions as well as to estimate the coefficient of friction on the tool rake face along with the partition of the thermal energy produced during the high-speed machining process. force measurements show that at this speed, on the upper boundary of the range of cutting velocities for high-speed machining not high enough to be very-high speed or ultra-high speed cutting, the role of momentum is negligible and the cutting event is dominated by material deformation, making the fluid model less applicable. much higher cutting speeds, beyond the capability of this apparatus, are needed to make the fluid approach accurate. not-surprisingly, measurements of temperature distributions showed little heating of the finished surface. therefore, a study of the temperature fields generated during machining with a cutting tool that has a wear-land was performed. it is seen that the wear-land contributes significantly to the heating of the workpiece and, at this speed, is the most likely mechanism for the generation of residual stress and a temperature rise on the finished surface. the state of rio de janeiro has implemented a new proximity policing program known as "pacification" in select slums located in the city of rio. the goal of the program is to regain control of these slums from armed drug traffickers through the establishment of a pacifying police unit (upp). here i examine two slums that share a single upp that represent extreme cases of the program's success in terms of its positive reception by residents. building on ethnographic observations and interviews with residents and community leaders, i find that the mediating role played by the local residents' association is central to the program's success. not only does the residents' association cooperate with the upp by sharing its knowledge of the community, its residents, and its norms, but it receives complaints from residents regarding offensive police behavior. residents' association leaders then relay these complaints to the upp commander, who then pulls the offending officer aside to discuss his or her behavior. this mediation results in the pacification of the pacifying police as officers are pressured to modify their behavior. police learn to act in ways that abide by residents' norms of respect, which eases residents' acceptance of police. residents report that there are frequently problems when new officers arrive in the community, but that these officers eventually calm down. the residents' association and other informal mediators ease the acculturation of officers to the community who would otherwise be oblivious to community norms and likely to offend residents by their actions. current scholarship conceives of medieval society as remote, existing in the chronological and intellectual space of the pre-modern and thus, categorically other. in the study of literature, this enforced alterity takes form as an assertion of conceptual difference in the ontological status of literature. medieval literary criticism, as current scholarship holds, had no concept of 'literature' as we understand it; rather, literary works were considered to pertain to the study of ethics. under this hermeneutic rubric, medieval readers would seek moral instruction in their poetry; fictional narrative and literary style were integumenta concealing an ethical truth which was to be identified and clearly explicated.this dissertation addresses marginalia that suggest another set of reading practices entirely. latin marginalia in the manuscripts of chaucer's poetry reveal an affinity not for delineating orthodox interpretation, but rather for creating—and reveling in—intertextual hermeneutic ambiguity that diverges more from ethical reading practices than current scholarship has allowed. yet the glosses have never been properly understood or integrated into the study of the poet's works, despite the fact that the scholars who have most closely studied these manuscripts believe the glosses to be the work of chaucer himself. this dissertation begins from a consideration of the authorial glosses in troilus and criseyde and the canterbury tales which engage readers at multiple levels of literacy, enabling, for certain tiers of readers, the proliferation of multiple competing interpretations of the text. i trace the glosses' evolution through their adaptation by readers the 15th century. before turning to a case study of a series of readers' glosses to troilus and criseyde, which highlight a new emphasis affective methods of reading—typically only addressed in devotional literature—in which readers engage in emotional identification with, and absorption into, their texts. it concludes by addressing potential analogues—both in england and on the continent—arguing that these manuscripts further affirm the hermeneutic of the chaucer glosses. reading chaucer's poetry as it was circulated in medieval england, accompanied by its marginal apparatus, significantly reshapes modern critical approaches to chaucer's poetry in particular and to medieval critical practices in general. surrogate modeling is computationally attractive for problems that require repetitive yet expensive simulations of pdes, such as uncertainty propagation, deterministic design or inverse problems, where the main challenges are curse of dimensionality, data efficiency, uncertainty quantification and generalization, especially for problems with high dimensional input. to tackle those issues, we propose an image-to-image regression approach with deep dense convolutional encoder-decoder networks to learn accurate surrogate models for problems with up to 4225 input dimensions that is out of the reach of traditional surrogate models. a stein variational inference method is scaled to modern bayesian deep neural networks to further boost the regression performance and provide well-calibrated uncertainty estimate even with limited training data. we further explore how to incorporate the governing equations of the physical models into the loss/likelihood functions of the physics-constrained surrogates to completely avoid any simulation (or labeled data) while achieving similar accuracy with the date-driven surrogates. a conditional flow-based generative model with reverse kl-divergence loss without labeled data is trained to capture the predictive uncertainty. we also extend those methods to dynamic problems by treating time as extra input for dynamic multiphase flow. the efficacy of those methods are demonstrated in a variety of surrogate modeling and uncertainty quantification tasks in heterogeneous porous media flow. the observation of gamma rays from the beta decay of 26al provides direct evidence of ongoing nucleosynthesis in the galaxy. while the observed galactic distribution of 26al points to massive stars as the main production sites, the underlying nuclear processes are uncertain. sensitivity studies have found that two reactions contributing to the uncertainty of 26al production in massive stars are the 25mg(α,n)28si and 26mg(α,n)29si reactions. these reactions influence 26al production in stable and explosive c/ne shell burning in massive stars. the 26mg(α,n)29si has also been found to have a direct influence on the isotopic ratio of 29si/30si found in pre-solar grains formed from supernova. models of supernova nucleosynthesis have failed to reproduce this ratio. while previous measurements of these reactions have been made, reaction rates rely solely on statistical model calculations in energy ranges where experimental data is present and in good agreement. below this energy range, the reaction rates are based on discrepant, unpublished thesis data. to resolve these issues, measurements of the 25,26mg(α,n)28,29si total cross sections were performed with a newly developed active target detector at the university of notre dame's nuclear science lab. this dissertation investigates how groups cultivate profound experiences of their circumstances. based upon ethnographic research at a religious college retreat and with a group of paranormal investigators, i illustrate how both groups disrupted actors' implicit expectations, leading actors to reinterpret who and what was in their midst. however, because these experiences were predicated upon thwarting actors' sense of anticipation, such experiences were necessarily short-lived. thus, each group had to consistently reorganize themselves in order to achieve similar experiences across time. in particular, the ghost-hunters sought out new places to hunt, and the retreat recruited new cohorts of participants. over time, these second-order efforts to secure resources for extraordinary experiences led to increasing social organization, and a sense of the groups' history. because the capacity to anticipate specific events varied across the members of each group, actors who were more familiar with a specific event were well-positioned to strategically manage others' expectations. such interactions provided motivations for involvement (such as gleaning status) that were largely decoupled from the central tasks of the group. headwater streams not only dominate river networks, but also supply resources, provide habitat, and improve water quality, and are therefore integral to the health of entire river basins. yet headwater streams are also highly susceptible to degradation via anthropogenic activities because of their small size. agricultural and urban land use activities often increase stream inorganic nitrogen (n) and phosphorus (p) concentrations and reduce riparian canopy cover. previous research has found that agricultural and urban land use can saturate biotic inorganic n and p demand, but less is known about the impacts of human land use on the cycling of organic c and n. by examining each component of nutrient spiraling in streams, i examined how anthropogenic land use may alter stream dissolved organic carbon (doc) and nitrogen (don) dynamics. i first examined nutrient limitation of benthic biofilms in 72 streams across north america draining native vegetation, agriculture, or urbanization. i found that human land use differentially influenced heterotrophic versus autotrophic nutrient limitation and these metabolic pathways need to be investigated separately to fully understand how stream biota may respond to nutrient enrichment. i also measured labile doc and don uptake in 18 low-gradient streams in southwest michigan and in 6 highly autotrophic streams in northwest wyoming. results from these two studies indicated that labile don and doc uptake can be equivalent to, or even higher than ammonium uptake, a solute characterized as being highly bioreactive. i concluded that interactions between c and n, as well between organic and inorganic forms of n, should be considered when examining the effect of human land use on streams. finally, i quantified autochthonous don production as a source of n to stream biota and related don production to other transformations of nitrate in numerous streams across north america as part of the linxii project. i found that autochthonous don production becomes an increasingly important part of n cycling in streams draining anthropogenic land use, due to increases in primary production associated with open riparian canopies. by examining doc and don, relatively understudied solutes, my dissertation research has shed light on the complex effects of human land use on streams, the mechanisms behind stream n saturation, and the interactions between the biogeochemistry of multiple stream nutrients. ailbhe darcy's debut collection is a set of urgent despatches from her point of origin, dublin, and from her skirmishes further afield: london, paris, africa, eastern europe or the states. driven less by metaphor than by wild conceits, semantic leaps, and startling juxtapositions, these are poems that itch and pluck at the pelt of what we think we know. over the last forty years, political science has moved toward a consensus as to how to conduct research. the best evidence of this consensus is the growing acceptance of the rational choice paradigm that deduces testable hypotheses that meet the parsimony standard of ockham's razor. unfortunately, in a world with multiple political actors (e.g., voters, individual politicians, leaders of special interests and political parties), such simple models often fail to explain the complexity created by the interactions between these various groups. this dissertation examines how the broad acceptance of parsimony in evaluating theory has impacted the discipline. the primary result is the formulation of potentially limited theories that may reduce the opportunity to gain insight. an assessment of the field of voting behavior yields illustrative examples of the shortcomings of the pursuit of parsimony over comprehensive explanation. the author outlines an alternative to the disciplinary norms of generating hypothesis that utilizes conditional hypotheses to produce 'thicker' explanations without sacrificing generalizability. the currently accepted quantitative methods generally used to test hypotheses are less suitable for analyzing conditional hypotheses. by applying methodologies from the machine learning and artificial intelligence subfields of computer science, the author introduces a unique approach to evaluating hypotheses that leads to more descriptive and predictive theory. these recommendations are explored in detail vis-ìê-vis two important dilemmas of political participation: (1) over-reporting of voting behavior and (2) the influence of political sophistication on turnout. constraining forces within the discipline have forced scholars to accept the inferential inadequacies that result from application of orthodox quantitative methodologies as part of the process. the author demonstrates that political scientists need not make this accommodation. the predominant vision of liberal democracy sees democratic institutions as a way to secure a stable regime for a people with plural and irreconcilable views of the good. pluralism is assumed to be a permanent condition of life under democratic institutions. all we can hope for, indeed all we should shoot for, is agreement with respect to the political doctrines governing constitutional essentials. an alternative vision of democracy is more optimistic. here, democratic institutions secure the conditions for an open-ended conversation about the good life, in which citizens reflectively and jointly seek a comprehensive view of the good. not every citizen is expected to participate and no particular outcome is presupposed, but the culture as a whole reflects this progressive disposition. my sympathies lie with the second vision. however, a thorough defense is beyond the scope of a single dissertation. my aim instead is to make a first step toward such a defense. the issue here is democratic stability. many philosophers argue that civil society is crucial to democracy because it cultivates and sustains democratic moral character. however, 'civil society' is used in so many ways that it is difficult to see its theoretical value. in order to critically evaluate its importance, i proceed as follows. in chapter one, i clarify the problem that civil society is thought to solve: 'how is it possible to cultivate a democratic political culture, given the ideals of democracy and the realities of the human condition?' next, in chapter two, i analyze attempts to give a general account of civil society. i argue that no such account is possible: conceptualizations of civil society are context-dependent. this forces a particularist evaluation of the appeal to civil society; i consider five theories through chapters three and four. none of these, i argue, successfully explains how a democratic political culture might be secured. finally, in chapters five and six, i present an alternative account. in my view, the civil society that best solves the problem of democratic political culture is also one in which the grand conversation intrinsic to the second vision of democracy takes place. this thesis describes my work on antibiotics against methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (mrsa) and clostridioides difficile (c. difficile), which are the leading causes of death associated with antimicrobial resistance in the united states. structure-activity relationship (sar) study of quinazolinones against mrsa was carried out. one featured compound exhibited antibacterial activity of its own and synergized with the piperacillin-tazobactam (tzp) combination both in vitro and in vivo. the synergy is documented and rationalized by the ability of the quinazolinones to bind to the allosteric site of pbp2a, a key penicillin-binding protein that confers methicillin resistance.c. difficile is an important nosocomial pathogen that causes recurrent diarrhea and colitis. the troublesome high recurrence of cdi results primarily from c. difficile's ability to produce dormant spores that survive antibiotic treatment and opportunistically germinate in a perturbed microbiota to initiate more infection. oxadiazoles discovered in our lab were found to kill the bacterial cell and interfere with spore germination, which enable oxadiazoles to halt colonization by vegetative bacteria and spores.an sar study of the oxadiazole antibacterial was conducted to assess their bactericidal activity against c. difficile vegetative cells. an oxadiazole-nitroimidazole hybrid was found to show high selectivity against c. difficile over the common gut bacteria and eukaryotic cells. the high selectivity of the antimicrobial spares the gut microbiota avoiding further spore germination after the treatment. this new series of nontoxic, narrow-spectrum antibiotic holds promise for being a better &amp; cheaper alternative for treating rcdi. an additional sar study of the oxadiazoles that weighed on spore germination inhibition were also explored. dual-acting analogs or exclusively spore germination inhibitors were discovered.based on the previous sar discovery, oxadiazole probes were designed and synthesized for target identification. proteomics studies with oxadiazole analogs/probes were carried out. the application of proteomics study leads us to two key proteins involved with c. difficile germination, which showed strong binding with oxadiazole antibacterial by microscale thermophoresis (mst) binding assay. plasmodium falciparum is the causative agent of the most severe and deadly form of malaria in humans causing significant amounts of human suffering. these intracellular parasites are spread between vertebrate hosts by the bites of infected anopheles mosquitoes. a campaign to eradicate malaria initiated by the world health organization in the 1950s had some initial success but the goal of global eradication was eventually abandoned as it was determined to be unrealistic. currently there is no approved vaccine to combat malaria, and drug resistance of parasites to antimalarial drugs is a real and growing concern. genome sequencing projects have been completed for humans, the mosquito vector, and the causative parasite with the prospects and expectations of breakthroughs in combating malaria. these genome sequences, in addition to being substantial technical achievements, are significant and meaningful enabling resources of information. the challenge to the research community is to devise useful applications, leading to discoveries from this wealth of information. the parasite has shown a remarkable ability to adapt to novel antimalarial drugs. microarrays -which have enabled by the information from sequencing projects -afford a global view of changes in the parasite over time and following selection pressures. depending on the target (rna or dna), this includes the ability to monitor gene expression levels, large copy number variations in the genomic dna, and even allows for the identification of smaller polymorphisms (e.g. snps, indels, and tandem repeats). the first aim of this thesis is to assess the snp detection performance of a firstgeneration p. falciparum microarray and to identify optimal probe features for polymorphism detection to be incorporated in future designs. by adjusting specific probe design parameters identified through this study, we can build high specificity while improving sensitivity. the second aim is to use cgh microarrays to monitor genomic changes that have occurred in a parasite line under chloroquine pressure. this approach identifies significant genomic changes of various types which may have implications for drug response and genome evolvability. the final aim is to globally characterize tandem repeat sequences in the p. falciparum genome initially identified by cgh. this previously unrecognized variation is ubiquitous and impacts the coding structures of hundreds of genes, underscoring their potential role in genome evolution. general characteristics of these sequences including their genome-wide distribution, their size distribution, and common features in the tandem repeat flanking regions are described. this dissertation contains three essays about the economics of education, focusing on k-12 math education, college attainment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) fields, and merit-based financial assistance. the first chapter investigates the impact of stricter high school math curriculum requirements on stem degree completion by exploiting cross-state variation in the timing of requirement increases on the number of years of math courses required for high school graduation from two waves of nationwide math reforms, the first in the 1980s, and the second in more recent years. i find that the earlier reforms that focused on adding minimum year requirements substantially increased stem degree completion of traditionally underrepresented groups, particularly black and hispanic males, and white females. by contrast, the more recent standards-based reforms disproportionally benefited white males, but had little impact on other groups. the results suggest that the effectiveness of math reforms on college stem attainment depends on the specific features, and to effectively improve college stem attainment for all groups, different policy interventions might be necessary. the second chapter examines whether the expansion of merit-based state financial assistance improved students' college outcomes. merit scholarship programs provide state residents who meet certain academic requirements with grant money to attend in-state institutions. taking advantage of the variation in program adoption dates and features across states, i find that the level of academic requirements and the amount of scholarship funding awarded are important determinants of program effectiveness. specifically, the leniency of academic requirements largely contributes to associate's degree completion, whereas the generosity of scholarship amount significantly increases college attendance and bachelor's degree completion. in the third chapter, i examine the gap in college stem attainment between immigrant and native students. using detailed student survey data from the beginning postsecondary longitudinal studies 2004/09, i find that first-generation immigrant students, especially those who attended foreign k-12 schools, are significantly more likely to enter and persist in stem fields compared to natives. the immigrant college stem attainment advantage is particularly large among asian and white students. i explore the factors leading to the immigrant-native college stem attainment gap, including socioeconomic status, individual preferences, and academic preparation in math and science. results from a linear probability model demonstrate that immigrants' higher college stem attainment is largely due to better math and science academic preparation. the estimated immigrant-native differences in stem entry and persistence are no longer statistically significant after including the full set of academic control variables. this suggests the important role of k-12 math and science education in improving students' college stem attainment. this thesis provides an account of how conducting research on location can enable the designer engaged in social design to create a product that truly addresses the needs of end users in cultures that have radically different traditions, resources and infrastructures. i begin by situating my approach to design theoretically, as an amalgamation and synthesis of insights from social and design philosophers like e. f. schumacher, nicolas jìäå©quier, victor papanek, william mcdonough & michael braungart, and the group superflex. then, drawing on my field work in nepal as a case study, i describe the valuable insights into the necessary functions, features, materials, and method of manufacture of products that i gained by living and working directly with the people who will eventually make and use the products i am designing. i describe the information that i gathered through close observation and interview, and explain how what i learned was not only helpful in designing the specific products i set out to develop, but can also be more generally helpful, in terms of process, in making more realistic (informed) design choices. the argument that underpins this thesis work is that a more ethnographic approach to design for the developing world is crucial to both effective product development andì¢ ââ' what's most importantì¢ ââ' to the successful adoption of a given design by the intended recipients. the solid-state chemistry of uranium has greatly advanced over the past few decades because of improvements in instrumentation, new synthetic methods, and recognition of the importance of correlating structural features with physicochemical properties for elements involved in the nuclear fuel cycle. in particular, uranium(vi) forms many compounds with all known oxoanions. there are many uranium(vi) families, such as borates, iodates, tellurites, phosphates, germanates, chromates, and phosphonates. by using single crystal x-ray diffraction, the structures of these types of novel compounds can be examined and studied. with our research, we strive to design and investigate materials that will sequester radioactive elements. in this doctoral thesis, the reader will find a collection of published results that are focused on synthesizing novel heterobimetallic (mixed-metal) transition metal uranyl phosphonates. to prepare these compounds, the moderate-pressure and temperature process of hydrothermal synthesis was used. the key step of achieving these mixed crystals was the slow hydrolysis of triethyl phosphonoacetate, which allows the gradual introduction of this ligand. the phosphonoacetate ligand was used to bridge between various early transition metals and uranium(vi). the most important method used to analyze these structures was single crystal x-ray diffraction. additional methods used for characterization were uv-vis spectroscopy, raman spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, and bet. these compounds have unexpected structures, unusually high-symmetry, and uncommon features in the family of carboxyphosphonates. with these types of behaviors, we demonstrated the unpredictable and diverse nature of uranyl phosphonates. this study seeks to illuminate the irreducibly biblical character of augustine's mature christology through a close study of his tractates on the gospel of john (in iohannis evangelium tractatus cxxiv). the first chapter serves as an introduction and basic consideration of the status quaestionis with regard to the study of augustine's christology. this background provides the necessary context for clarifying the importance of a closer investigation of augustine's preaching about christ. the second chapter turns to a close sequential study of the text of augustine's preaching on the gospel of john, beginning from his unified interpretation of the prologue as a unique exposition of the incarnational framework of the gospel as a whole. it is demonstrated that this focus upon the normativity of the prologue and its proclamation of the wholeness of christ in both humanity and divinity (totus christus) functions as a guiding principle for augustine's understanding of the complexity of the gospel narrative concerning the incarnate word.the third chapter analyzes those portions of augustine's homiletic commentary that focus upon episodes in the gospel where christ teaches particularly about the nature of his divinity. throughout augustine's preaching, he identifies the narrative of the gospel as essential to revealing christ's divinity because of the way it presents the real condescension of the word. in a complementary manner, chapter four studies the manner in which augustine identifies other portions of the gospel as revealing the true nature of christ's humanity as the "way" to his divinity. the complexity of this concept helps clarify augustine's interpretation of christ's human weakness and limitation as a function of god's mercy, and illuminates his mature understanding of the revelatory and soteriological function of christ's humanity. the fifth chapter rounds out the study by examining the manner in which augustine's christology is intimately connected with his ecclesiology in the tractates. christ's union with his members is essential to a complete understanding of the way in which the wholeness of christ's person expresses the ultimate end and purpose of the condescension of the word in the incarnation. the concluding chapter clarifies that augustine's exegesis argues that this wholeness is achieved in no other way than through the embodied mediation of christ's entire life. scattered starlight limits the ability of high-contrast instruments to directly image extrasolar planets and other faint companions orbiting nearby stars. several ground-based facilities have developed integral field spectrographs to perform point-spread function subtraction using software post-processing while simultaneously acquiring low-resolution spectra of the sub-stellar companions they discover. however, spectroscopic images (nominally in the form of a data cube) may also be used to improve wavefront correction at low temporal bandwidth. this ph.d. thesis focuses on enhancing the performance of high-contrast adaptive optics systems by taking advantage of the readily available information provided by an integral field spectrograph. focal plane measurements from the science detector can be used to sense and correct for wavefront non-common-path (ncp) errors introduced by imperfections in the optical system.this thesis accomplishes the following objectives. an existing focal plane wavefront sensing algorithm, called ``electric field conjugation'' (efc), which has previously only been tested in the lab, is used to sense and then correct quasi-static phase and amplitude errors with an advanced ground-based coronagraph at palomar observatory, the project 1640 (p1640) coronagraph and hyperspectral imager. the baseline efc algorithm has been developed and adapted for monochromatic applications with this instrument. this algorithm is carefully examined through numerical simulations, and then through whitelight experiments using p1640 in the adaptive optics (ao) lab at palomar. we show in this thesis that despite the practical complications introduced in moving efc from the lab to the telescope setting, our efc implementation is capable of providing an improvement in the contrast achieved in whitelight experiments. this result is the first step in the ultimate goal of developing and fully implementing a robust and efficient procedure to remove scattered starlight introduced by ncp spatial errors in p1640 and other high contrast imaging instruments. phenotypic plasticity is the ability of an organism to alter its phenotype in response to changing environmental conditions. the recognition that phenotypic changes often improve the fitness of individuals (i.e., are adaptive) has expanded interest in plasticity as an important driver of many ecological and evolutionary processes. predation risk and competition density are important environmental factors that induce adaptive phenotypic changes in many species. however, the specific impact of these factors on an individual's phenotype depends on the foraging behavior employed by the predator, the type of competition experienced (interference vs. exploitative), and other environmental conditions. for anuran larvae (i.e., tadpoles), the presence of vertical habitat structure may affect phenotypic responses by altering: 1) capture success and foraging behavior of predators and 2) the type and level of competition experienced. using large-scale mesocosm experiments, i found that, compared to simple environments, tadpoles were less likely to express adaptive behavioral and morphological phenotypes in habitats containing greater environmental complexity. for example, tadpole phenotypic responses to changes in habitat structure and competition density were adaptive, but only in the absence of predation risk. however, in a survey of natural ponds, predation risk and competition density, but not habitat structure, explained substantial portions of tadpole phenotypic variance. even though tadpoles experience changes in multiple environmental variables, predation and competition seem to exert the greatest influence in shaping tadpole phenotypes. predation risk and competition intensity also interacted to modify the development of a maladaptive tadpole malformity linked to ultraviolet-b radiation overexposure. behavioral changes of tadpoles induced by predation and competition, such as activity levels, likely mediated this effect. through this research, i have demonstrated that increasing environmental complexity constrains the ability of organisms to express adaptive phenotypes. patterns of phenotypic plasticity observed in laboratory conditions do translate to natural environments, but are limited to phenotypic responses to environments that exert strong inductive and selective pressures. furthermore, phenotypic plasticity can modify the susceptibility of organisms to the effects of environmental stressors. proteins represent a diverse class of biomolecules that carry out a vast number of functions, enabling life. proteins must fold into specific, three-dimensional structures in order to perform their functions. how a protein adopts its native structure is not well understood. small, simple protein domains can refold reversibly in the test tube, suggesting that all the information required for folding is contained in the amino acid sequence. however, the majority of proteins misfold and aggregate upon in vitro refolding. these proteins require additional information besides their amino acid sequence to fold. in the cell, proteins are produced by the ribosome from nto cterminus, and can begin to fold during translation. synonymous codon choice can alter the rate of translation, and synonymous substitutions have been shown to affect folding for a handful of proteins. synonymous codon usage may therefore represent the additional level of information most proteins need to fold, but this process has remained difficult to study. in this dissertation, i describe novel experimental and computational techniques that i developed to study co-translational protein folding. using a strategy designed to study subtle fitness defects, i discovered a decrease in fitness upon synonymous mutation of an enzyme necessary for e. coli cell growth. the synonymous mutant was able to produce active enzyme, but it accumulates at a slower rate than protein translated by the wt sequence. the fitness defect was exacerbated by a degradation tag, suggesting that the decreased accumulation was due to enhanced degradation brought about by impaired folding. i also adapted a coarse-grained model of co-translational folding to simulate a protein with two native states, whose folding is known to be sensitive to changes in the translation rate. this model accurately predicted the folding ratio between the two states and proposes a reasonable folding mechanism. this model also predicted an unknown co-translational folding intermediate and experimental support was found for the population of this intermediate during co-translational folding. finally, i explored the ability of different promoter systems to produce low levels of protein in vivo. ensuring uniform, low levels of protein per cell is important for a variety of applications, such as detecting subtle changes in function, or in reducing aggregation. i demonstrate that there are inherent differences between various systems to produce recombinant protein, and that not all systems are amenable to producing low amounts of protein per cell. contrary to solutions given by the advection dispersion equation, asymmetric break through curves dependent upon flow direction have been experimentally produced for the conceptual system of two equal length sections of different homogeneous porous media separated by a sharp, macroscopic interface perpendicular to flow. the work presented in this paper builds upon the methodologies and results of berkowitz et al. incorporating digital imaging and light reflectometry as a non-invasive method to fully reconstruct tracer concentration fields throughout time during laboratory experiments (berkowitz et al., 2009). these images reveal a complex flow field within the system created by variations in pore geometry at the edges and corners of the flow cell. two distinct and unexpected features observed in the digital images are discontinuous tracer concentration at the interface and a pocket of tracer lagging behind the interface in a single flow direction. a second experiment was conducted featuring glass balls of reduced diameter while retaining the same diameter ratio across the interface. the concentration break through curves produced by this second experiment are symmetric, suggesting that asymmetric break through curves are the result of complex pore geometries occurring when the flow cell is packed with glass balls of 4 mm diameter. the burgeoning class of metal halide perovskites constitutes a paradigm shift in the study and application of solution-processed semiconductors. advancements in thin film processing and our understanding of the underlying structural, photophysical, and electronic properties of these materials over the past several years have led to development of perovskite solar cells with power conversion efficiencies that rival much more mature firstand second-generation technologies. characterizing the behavior of photogenerated charges in metal halide perovskites is integral for understanding the operating principles and fundamental limitations of perovskite optoelectronics. the majority of studies outlined in this dissertation involve fundamental study of the prototypical organic-inorganic compound methylammonium lead iodide (ch3nh3pbi3). time-resolved pump-probe spectroscopy serves as a principle tool in these investigations to analyze excited state decay kinetics and optical nonlinearities in perovskite thin films.it is demonstrated herein that nonresonant photoexcitation of ch3nh3pbi3 yields a large fraction of free carriers on a sub-picosecond time scale. in practical optoelectronic applications, these photogenerated carriers must travel large distances across the thickness of the material to realize large external quantum efficiencies and efficient charge extraction. using a powerful technique known as transient absorption microscopy, long-range carrier diffusion in a ch3nh3pbi3 thin film is directly imaged. charges are unambiguously shown to travel 220 nm over the course of 2 ns after photoexcitation, with an extrapolated diffusion length greater than one micrometer over the full excited state lifetime. furthermore, through structural and steady-state and time-resolved absorption studies, the important link between the excited state properties of perovskite precursor components, composed of solvated and solid-state halometallate complexes, and ch3nh3pbi3 is evinced. this connection provides insight into optical nonlinearities and electronic properties of the perovskite phase. in the final chapter, the operation of ch3nh3pbi3 solar cells in a tandem architecture is presented. utilizing an all solution-processed tandem water splitting assembly composed of a bivo4 photoanode and a single-junction ch3nh3pbi3 hybrid perovskite solar cell, hydrogen is generated from pure water at neutral ph at an efficiency of 2.5% without external bias. the design of low-cost tandem water splitting assemblies employing single-junction hybrid perovskite materials establishes a potentially promising new frontier for solar water splitting research. with our current antibiotic arsenal dwindling, the need for new antibiotics with novel mechanisms is needed. described herein are the syntheses of sets of hydroxamate containing monobactams, bicyclic β-lactams, and cephalosporins in addition to their biological evaluations.chapter 1 provides a general introduction to antibiotics and the β-lactam family with an emphasis on utilizing the β-lactam core for delivery of medicinal agents. the chapter then concludes with a preview of the present work in addition to key literature precedent. chapters 2-4 detail studies on the syntheses of monobactams, bicyclic hydroxamate containing β-lactams, and cephalosporins bearing hydroxamate functionality. as reported, a number of compounds exhibited notable antibacterial activity and/or β-lactamase inhibitory activity. chapter 5 discusses the synthesis of hydroxamate containing β-lactam systems bearing an alkylthio linkage between hydroxamate and β-lactam. chapter 6 presents the syntheses of an intriguing library of hydroxamate containing, n-methylthiolated monobactams. a number of compounds exhibited significant anti-tb and β-lactamase inhibitory activity, with mic values in the range of 25 to &lt;0.19 μm against tb, and ki values in the range of 25-0.03 μm against purified ndm-1 and vim-1 lysate metallo β-lactamases. chapter 7 then focuses on the syntheses and biological evaluations of penicillins and cephalosporins possessing o-substituted hydroxamates as alternative "ionizable" groups in place for the carboxylate. many of these compounds have potent activity against a variety of gram-positive bacteria. lastly, chapter 8 discusses the design, syntheses, and anti-tuberculosis activities for a number of cephalosproin-pbtz conjugates. these conjugates showed notable anti-tuberculosis activity with mic values in the range of 4.6 to 1.5 μm. this full-length manuscript is a complex collection of poems and prayers told through the voice of a queer man of color. contemporary themes are threaded through the work, offering a new perspective to traditional views on catholicism, and verse poetry. the author blends genders, sexes, races, classes, and truths to create an over-satisfying fruit-smoothie intended to fill, over-fill, and spill. some of the themes discussed in the manuscript include, but are not limited to: america, whiteness, racism, sexism, cannibalism, terrorism, migration, immigration, displacement, violence, silence, abuse, rape, love, queerness, gender, sex, and sexuality, among many others. the growing complexity of enterprise networks and the proliferation of security devices creates a resource availability crisis for security professionals seeking to concurrently manage security controls and analyze voluminous log records for evidence of suspicious activity. this dissertation proposes the use of data mining techniques and firewall management tools to facilitate the secure management of controlled networks and simultaneously reduce security management resource requirements. the techniques presented in this dissertation each advance the state of the art in resource-constrained security management by focusing on the implementation of security controls in a controlled environment, such as a university data center. the techniques presented in this research present practical approaches to security management. earlier work in this space offers unwieldy techniques difficult to implement in a production environment due to either the complexity of the technique or the overhead introduced by significant false positive rates. this work applies analysis techniques that leverage the uniquely stable nature of such environments and proposes an architecture for the extension of this control to mobile systems. it strives to maximize the benefit achieved by the tools while simultaneously minimizing the cost to the implementing organization. extant sociological research on why some communities are more prone to crime than others rely on theories of social disorganization, which argues that neighborhood ethnic heterogeneity fractures community solidarity, which in turn, increases crime. however, such research has failed to examine how the effects of neighborhood ethnic heterogeneity vary by city level racial segregation. drawing upon peter blau's theory of social structure, in this thesis, i propose that city racial segregation creates a social environment that constrains intergroup relations and engenders feelings of alienation toward the dominant society. i find that under such conditions, the social cohesion consequences of neighborhood ethnic heterogeneity operate differently. when cities are integrated, ethnic heterogeneity disrupts community solidarity, which, in turn, increases crime. however, under conditions of widespread city racial segregation, where race becomes highly salient, the effects of ethnic heterogeneity on crime weaken because it serves to reduce the harmful effects of social isolation. a book of poetry focusing on the intersection between the human and the nonhuman. precision measurements of nuclear β-decays can be used to test the validity of the standard model through the evaluation of the vud element of the cabbibo-kobayashi-masakawa quark mixing matrix and the fierz interference term b. this dissertation consists of precision half-life measurements for three superallowed mixed mirror β-decays: 13n, 25al, and 29p. 13n is the second most sensitive decay to standard model violating currents. the 25al and 29p half-lives are the least precisely known of the light mirror transitions (i.e a&lt;40), and both are evaluating from conflicting measurements all of which are over 30 years old. these measurements were conducted at the university of notre dame nuclear science laboratory using the twinsol β-counting station. to help with the identification of possible radioactive contaminants i have also developed and commissioned a new particle identification gas cell detector acbar. the measured 13n half-life value of t1/2 = 597.13(17) s is the most precise measurement to date by a factor of 2. an evaluation of the 13n literature values results in a tworld = 597.37(15) s, improving the precision of this value by a factor of 1.5. an updated standard model prediction for the fermi to gamow-teller mixing ratio ρ and its associated correlation parameters have been calculated using the new 13n world half-life in preparation for a future measurement of the mixing ratio, which will then allow the fierz interference term b to be constrained. our half-life measurement of 25al resulting in t1/2 = 7.1657(24) s is in good agreement with the most recent measurement, while being 3 times more precise. using our new measurement, an evaluation of the 25al world half-life has been performed, leading to an average half-life of tworld = 7.1665(26) s, which is 5 times more precise than its predecessor. to aid in future measurements of correlation parameters, a new fermi to gamow-teller mixing ratio ρ and correlation parameters for this mixed transition have been calculated assuming standard model validity using the new world half-life. a measurement of ρ is stilled needed in order to extract vud from the 25al decay. finally, the resulting 29p half-life value of t1/2 = 4.1055(44) s is the most precise 29p half-life measurement to date. utilizing this measurement and re-evaluating the world data leads to a new world average of tworld = 4.1031(58) s, which is 2.3 times more precise than the previous world value. the new evaluation of the element yields vud=0.949(44) for 29p shifts closer into agreement with the superallowed pure fermi β-decay value. the uncertainty in this value of vud, however, is still dominated by the uncertainty in the fermi to gamow-teller mixing ratio ρ for 29p. the american cancer society estimates that there will be more than 1.7 million new cases of cancer diagnosed in 2018, so the need for understanding the molecular mechanisms of cancer is great. research has long suggested that the necrotic core of tumors may not receive the full dose of treatment and the cells residing there can ultimately be responsible for cancer progression.spatial analysis of chemical species can allow one to detect small changes over time and differences between data sets. this type of analysis allows for important questions to be critically analyzed beyond the scope of a simple one-dimensional analysis. these spatial localizations can be analyzed in numerous ways. however, the techniques utilized within this document include matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-mass spectrometry imaging (maldi msi) and stable isotope labeling by amino acids in cell culture (silac) followed by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (lc-ms/ms).tumors in vivo have a complex microenvironment and researchers have spent decades developing different models to test the efficacy of novel treatments. the work described in this document utilizes a three-dimensional cell culture system. these multicellular aggregates referred to as tumor spheroids, display pathophysiological gradients that are more complex than conventional two-dimensional cell cultures in addition to being higher throughput than animal models.the main focus of this work is liposomal drug carrier distribution within tumor spheroids. these nano-carriers have the ability to positively alter pharmacokinetics profiles and have the capability for encapsulation of therapeutics. doxorubicin was the chemotherapeutic utilized in this work due to its native fluorescent properties as well as its ability to be detected using mass spectrometry. the work described herein develops a new platform that can readily be analyzed using maldi msi, something that has not previously been done. additional work presented herein describes a silac labeling approach that creates a "zip code" system for proteins residing in the various cellular populations of a tumor spheroid.all together this work focuses on the spatial localizations of endogenous and exogenous molecules within tumor spheroids. human malaria is transmitted only by female anopheles mosquitoes, which are regarded as the primary vector for transmission. agent-based modeling (abm) is a powerful tool for representing complex biological systems. following a biological core model of an. gambiae for malaria entomology, we develop agent-based simulation models (abms). for the abms, we describe the verification & validation (v&v) processes, a spatial extension, and a landscape generator tool. using the spatial abm, we demonstrate the effects of spatial heterogeneity, investigate the impact of vector control interventions, and describe an example application by integrating the abm with a geographic information system (gis). for malaria, there is a growing need to integrate the existing heterogeneous data sources. data warehouses (dws) and dimensional modeling (dm) can be viable alternatives to meet this challenge. we describe the design and implementation of a multi-dimensional dw, to be integrated into the vector ecology and control network (vecnet) cyberinfrastructure (ci) analytical framework, which provides a robust way to store, access, and analyze malaria-related data. the properties of a material are governed by its microscopic structure, and the investigation of structure-property relationships has been the focus of material science. group iii-v compound semiconductors have been demonstrated to be promising candidates for incorporating into devices for solar cell, photoelectrochemical water splitting and co2 reduction applications. the surface structural properties of iii-v semiconductors are often affected by their interactions with their environment, such as the surrounding electrolyte, which is usually an aqueous solution exposed to an ambient environment. for controllable design and fabrication of high-quality iii-v semiconductor-based devices, knowledge of environmental molecule/iii-v semiconductor interfacial chemical and electronic properties is highly desirable, especially that gained from studies performed under close to practical operational conditions. however, previous studies have been limited by the complexity of the system or the availability of suitable instrumentation, and all the experimental data in literature are performed under ex-situ and ultra-high vacuum conditions.in the frame of my phd thesis, i aim to investigate the chemical and electronic properties at the environmental molecule (h2o and o2)/iii-v semiconductor interface under in-situ or operando conditions using ambient pressure x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (ap-xps). chapter 1 introduces background information for solar water splitting, the motivations of the thesis, the details of the major instrumentation (ap-xps) and the overall goal of the thesis; chapter 2 and 3 present the studies of the interfacial chemistry of o2 and h2o/iii-v semiconductors, respectively; chapter 4 focuses on the investigation of the interfacial chemical and electronic property relationship in a iii-v based photoelectrode; chapter 5 is an extension of the previous three chapters, where a real electrochemical device for water splitting is designed, fabricated and incorporated into the ap-xps system, and properties including the h2o/device interfacial chemical, electrical and catalytic features are investigated under operational conditions. the present study has important implications for the fundamental understanding of environmental molecule (h2o or o2)/iii-v semiconductor interactions and for the practical design and fabrication of a future high-quality solar water splitting device. this dissertation is a study of st. augustine's commentary on psalm 118 (119). one of the latest works of augustine, enarratio in psalmum 118 can be considered as the crowning augustine's commentaries on the psalter. the first part of the dissertation examines the historical and literary context in which augustine wrote his expositions on the psalms, to which erasmus gave the title of enarrationes in psalmos. the second part studies augustine's enarratio in psalmum 118 in the context of patristic exegesis on psalm 118 and underscores the originality of augustine's exegesis, the date and audience of the commentary, and the literary and theological structure of the exposition as a whole. in particular, the study highlights the use of the notion of the totus christus, through which augustine develops the description of the church as a people walking on the way of the lord that is christ, the end of law. augustine's commentary on this psalm of the law thus becomes the narratio of a church graced with god's guidance and mercy in christ. the dynamics of reading and writing the partial polarization state in ferroelectric (fe) capacitors have been explored for use in nonvolatile analog memory for application in training neural networks. new pulse measurement protocols that minimize spurious interface charging effects have been developed to more precisely measure polarization, polarization reversal, and current-voltage characteristics. analytic methods to interpret these measurements have also been developed.a strictly symmetric pulse protocol, where the integral of the measurement waveform over a measurement cycle is zero, was developed to measure dynamic effects in fe capacitors. in this way, the effects of biasing were balanced equally to minimize charging of the interfaces. unsaturated polarization reversal was observed in tin/hzo/tin capacitors with asymmetric measurements; the unsaturation was substantially eliminated using the strictly symmetric protocol.using the strictly symmetric measurement protocol, partial polarization in metal-fe-metal capacitors was shown to be stable up to 250 ms. a surprising dependence of partial polarization on the delay between reset and write pulses, and the reset conditions, was discovered, with the partial polarization changing by 50% of the fe remanent polarization. this delay-before-write dependence was qualitatively attributed to the dynamics of subcritical nuclei that exist up to 1 s in hzo, and whose size is estimated to be less than 4x4x4 hzo unit cells.a strictly symmetric pulsed protocol was designed for current-voltage-time (i-v-t) measurements on pd/hzo/p+ si capacitors. the i-v-t measurements showed the capacitor current direction to be opposite to the applied bias polarity for voltages lower in magnitude than certain characteristic zero crossing voltages. the current magnitudes increased when the applied bias magnitudes were decreased further. a quantitative analysis showed these observations to be consistent with the assumption that the hzo electric field controls the capacitor current direction, and that a flat band condition exists in hzo at the zero crossing voltages.a spectroscopic photoresponse measurement system was constructed, capable of measuring electrical responses to photons ranging in energy from 0.6 7 ev, to measure polarization dependent band offsets of metal-fe-semiconductor capacitors by internal photoemission (ipe). the bandgap of hzo was extracted as 6.2 +/0.2 ev from pd/hzo ipe transitions. maurice merleau-ponty's (1908-1961) chief philosophical contributions are often thought to pertain to the philosophy and phenomenology of perception. through a historical study of the development of his thought, and a systematic analysis of its central claims, this project shows that his work contains rich and under-appreciated reflections on the philosophy of language, which are of key consequence for understanding his thought and the broader phenomenological movement. already in the structure of behavior (1938/1942), merleau-ponty struggles to define the role of language in phenomenology. this attempt continues in phenomenology of perception (1945) and is sharpened in his exploration of literary, scientific, and philosophical expression during the writing of the prose of the world (ca. 1952). it eventually becomes a problem of central philosophical importance in the various projects he pursues in his later work, and especially in the visible and the invisible (ca. 1958-1961). merleau-ponty's abiding interest in questions of language demonstrates that his philosophy of language is indispensable for properly understanding even non-linguistic arguments and concepts that are central to his work, and shows that it must take on a privileged role in appraising the broader development of his thought. in addition to demonstrating that central concepts of merleau-ponty's work originate in and depend on research in the phenomenology of language, among them, the concept of 'form,' the account of the phenomenological cogito, key elements that make up the concept of 'the flesh,' and his unique understanding of philosophical ontology, the findings of this study also reveal that one of his lasting contributions is to have given us the first systematic understanding of phenomenology that gives as much primacy to language as it does to vision or intuition. merleau-ponty reminds us that, in keeping with its more basic meaning, phenomenology is also the logos of phenomena, the linguistic account of appearance. the implications of this insight extend beyond the confines of merleau-ponty's work, and touch the heart of the phenomenological enterprise and the philosophy of language. the unsteady pressure and optical properties of subsonic flow over open and partially covered rectangular cavities were investigated through a series of wind-tunnel experiments. when the cavity was open, the well known "rossiter" modes were excited, but when the cavity was partially covered, peak frequencies arose which were lower than the rossiter modes for a cavity with the same opening length. a new "long-path" frequency prediction formula was developed in order to estimate these lower frequencies in a manner similar to the rossiter formula. when one of these new "long-path" mode frequencies coincided with the natural frequency of the cavity, the shear-layer motions were dominated by a resonant frequency. phase-averaged schlieren images were used to examine the suitability of these resonant shear-layer motions for aero-optic applications. additionally, the acquisition of time-resolved schlieren images of the shear layer allowed the development of a novel form of schlieren velocimetry, which revealed that coherent optical structures in the shear layer traverse the length of the cavity at speeds lower than those presupposed by the rossiter or long-path formulations. this dissertation describes an analytical study on the seismic behavior, evaluation, and retrofit of older reinforced concrete structural walls. the designs of many reinforced concrete structural walls built in the past were dominated by gravity loads, resulting in construction details that are now recognized to be critical. in this dissertation, a set of prototype and parametric walls is designed to represent concrete walls from the 1960s and early 1970s in regions of the u.s. with high seismicity. the parametric walls are determined by changing the wall cross-section geometry, amount of flexural reinforcement, amount of concrete confinement, and wall height. high-rise (10-story) walls where the nonlinear lateral load behavior is governed primarily by flexural effects and medium-rise (5-story) walls where the behavior is governed by both nonlinear flexural and nonlinear shear effects are included. low-rise shear-critical walls where the shear strength is not sufficient to allow for the wall flexural strength to be reached at the base, resulting in brittle shear-dominated failure modes with little flexural deformations are not considered. analytical models of the walls are constructed to capture their nonlinear behavior under reversed-cyclic lateral loads. a concrete fiber that can model nonlinear shear effects and a steel fiber that can model the buckling of reinforcing bars are implemented in the drain-2dx program. comparisons between the analytical and test results of older reinforced concrete walls indicate that the models are able to reasonably estimate the wall behavior including nonlinear shear effects. using these models, nonlinear static reversed-cyclic lateral load analyses are conducted to evaluate the behavior of the prototype and parametric walls before and after retrofit. the following retrofit methods are investigated: (1) reducing flexural reinforcement; (2) increasing concrete confinement; and (3) increasing reinforced concrete wall web thickness. it is found that nonlinear shear deformations can play a significant role on the behavior and retrofit of the walls under lateral loading. the results also show that older concrete structural walls may exhibit limited lateral displacement capacity without retrofit or with the application of a single retrofit approach. a combination of different retrofit methods may be needed to achieve an effective retrofit strategy. this research project explores the relationship between faith and nation, and the institutional entanglements of religion, state and democracy in catholic and muslim societies. it is specifically animated by the following research question: what are the effects of bringing religion into the public sphere in new democracies, especially those whose theological values are considered to be hostile to democratic precepts? my analysis presents a theory for modeling the dynamics which are created when states allow hostile religions more access to the political and public spheres during moments of democratization (or lesser forms of political liberalization) by a) allowing religious political parties to contest elections and b) biasing religion-state arrangements in favor of religion. drawing from more than eighteen months of field research in italy and algeria, i test the mechanisms of my theory through in-depth case studies in both a catholic and islamic setting and then use cross-national data on religion-state arrangements by grim and finke (2006) and fox (2008) to statistically explore the theory's wider explanatory weight. research on prenatal depression is relatively sparse despite its demonstrated importance in predicting mother and child outcomes. we tested the degree to which childhood trauma predicted prenatal depressive symptoms and whether this relation was moderated by social support as well as risk status of the mother in 682 pregnant adults and teens. results indicated that childhood trauma significantly predicted prenatal depressive symptoms; the moderating effect between social support and child trauma was marginally significant when models were constrained to be equal across group. using multigroup moderation analyses, however, moderation effects were significant for teens but not adults. findings expand the current knowledge on prenatal depression and have implications for prevention/intervention programs, particularly for pregnant adolescents. through churches, religion shapes social values and conditions the institutional environment where all political and hence economic activity occurs. religious groups have different ideas about the role of religion in the affairs of the broader community. in particular, churches instill in members either communitarian or individualistic values. this is the most important characteristic of religious groups that arguably helps explain the nature of the relationship between religion and material rather than moral outcomes. moreover, in the us conservative religious groups have thrived and now dominate the religious marketplace, taking up market share that could be held by churches promoting communitarian rather than individualistic religious perspectives, which conservative religious groups tend to promote. accordingly, the research proposed here is designed in part to examine the current relationship between the most notable among these types of religious groups, evangelical protestants, and economic inequality. for most racial and ethnic minorities, experiences of racial discrimination are pervasive. specifically, about sixty percent of african americans report incidents of both subtle and blatant forms of racial discrimination (kessler, mickelson & williams, 1999). research on the stress associated with perceived racism in african americans is important because of differences in health outcomes (anderson, mcneilly, & myers, 1991; james, 1993). the purpose of this study is to examine the impact of perceived racial discrimination and the stress from significant negative life events on mental and physical health in a sample of african americans. in this study, two hundred adults completed an electronic survey. sixty-six percent of the sample was female; most worked fulltime, completed a college degree and reported that they were 'middle class.' the average age was 41.72 (sd = 14.58). two key hypotheses were tested; first, participants would endorse experiences of perceived racism and second, perceived racism is positively associated with psychological distress and physical health. additional hypotheses tested race-related stress and stressful life events as predictors in both depressive symptoms and physical health problems. the measures included: center for epidemiological studies depression scale, self reported health (belloc, breslow, & hochstim, 1971), psychological well-being (ryff and keyes, 1989b), the stressful life events scale (dohrenwend & dohrenwend, 1974), the schedule of racist events (landrine & klonoff, 1996); the color-blind racial attitudes scale (neville, lilly, duran, et.al., 2000), and subjective religiosity (mattis, fontenot, & hatcher-kay, 2003). the results of this study suggest that the stress from perceived racism was a predictor of depressive symptoms; however, it was not a predictor of physical health problems as hypothesized in this sample. this raised an important question concerning the role of racial salience on perceptions of racism. finally, the challenge of data collection across diverse social classes is also discussed as more studies rely on middle class, educated african americans. the internet is a vast and rapidly changing landscape. for every new algorithm invented to increase the security and reliability of our society, an adversarial group coalesces in reaction. some may argue that this constant arms race between defenders and attackers is currently being won by the latter. to shift the tides, we need scalable approaches to counter their attacks, whatever they may be, at the scale and speed with which the internet moves. this dissertation focuses on developing computer vision algorithms to help ensure security within three main areas: 1) in the video surveillance chapter (ch. 2), we focus on the problem of re-identification, or finding all appearances of a given subject across a given camera system. most all existing reid approaches employ local and global body features (e.g., clothing color and pattern, body symmetry, etc.). these `body reid' methods implicitly assume that facial resolution is too low to aid in the reid process. we assert that faces, even when captured in low resolution environments, may contain unique and stable features for reid. such `facial reid' approaches are relatively unexplored in the literature. we explore facial reid using a new dataset that was collected from a real surveillance network in a municipal rapid transit system 2) in the facial recognition chapter (ch. 3), we focus on the problem of off-pose faces. if a convolutional neural network (cnn) is intended to tolerate facial pose, then we face an important question: should this training data be diverse in its pose distribution, or should face images be normalized to a single pose in a pre-processing step? to address this question, we evaluate a number of facial landmarking algorithms and a popular frontalization method to understand their effect on facial recognition performance. 3) in the image forensics and retrieval chapters (ch. 4, 5, and 6), we focus on building novel image retrieval algorithms that can retrieve and trace modified images back to their origins. images from social media can reflect diverse viewpoints, heated arguments, and expressions of creativity. they are often composites, borrowing content from many different sources to create a single image. taking into account these attributes introduces new complexity to image search tasks. we propose multiple new frameworks for image retrieval that model object-level regions, allowing for fine-grained object level retrieval results. these retrieval results can help aid in the task of verifying the forensic integrity of an image. we then utilize these algorithms to perform real-world analysis on data scraped from twitter and instagram from the 2019 indonesian election. peer-to-peer (p2p) networks are decentralized, distributed networks where the participating nodes self-organize and communicate with each other to support a distributed application. p2p networks have been used to support such diverse applications as file sharing, distributed storage and backup, and content distribution. because p2p networks are decentralized, the manner in which the participating nodes make local decisions about the management of the p2p overlay has significant impact on the functionality and performance of the system as a whole. in this thesis, we explore the nature and design of unstructured p2p systems. we show that a well-connected overlay for unstructured p2p systems can be fault tolerant and support efficient searches. to achieve this goal, we construct an overlay that has high expansion, and thus good connectivity. because analyzing the expansion of a graph is np-hard, we describe the use of techniques from spectral graph theory such as laplacian eigenvalue analysis to determine bounds on the expansion of a graph. we use these techniques to examine the overlays generated by various algorithms and compare their connectivity to that of a known good expander graph. we show that a realistic hybrid algorithm that considers both proximity and connectivity information generates overlays that have low communication costs as well as have the high expansion and connectivity required to support efficient search. the high expansion results in an overlay that can tolerate the instantaneous failure of up to 30% of most highly connected nodes while still resolving all search queries with few messages. we use this algorithm, which we call makalu, to address the problem of searching efficiently in an unstructured p2p network. we analyze the range of replication ratios required for good search performance using makalu. we observe that, on average, for very low replication ratios, the search in makalu can generate many duplicate queries in order to locate the desired object. we show that high expansion forces duplicate messages beyond a threshold which we call the convergence boundary. for more realistic replication ratios of 0.5% or higher, we show that the overlay topology generated by makalu can successfully resolve all queries within four hops and only 6% duplicate messages on a 10,000 node network. additionally, we show that makalu overlays can support an indexed identifier-based searches with the use of attenuated bloom filters. the high expansion of the makalu overlay greatly increases the accuracy of the attenuated bloom filter and we show that makalu can resolve all identifier-based queries using attenuated bloom filters with less than ten messages. microtubules are essential to cellular organization and are thus regulated by many proteins. one family of these regulatory proteins is known as the clipr (clip-170 related) family, so-called because its members contain conserved cap-gly domains originally found in clip-170. this thesis describes the characterization of an alternatively spliced member of this family, clipr76, by a combination of cell biological, biochemical, and bioinformatic approaches. clipr76-4, the smallest human splice isoform, contains a hydrophobic c-terminus that drives er localization and aligns with the c-terminal golgi-localizing domain of the clipr76 relative clipr-59. the mechanism of clipr76-4 membrane localization was investigated by mutating a key conserved cysteine necessary for clipr-59 localization. cells transfected with gfp-fusion mutant clipr76-4 were visualized by immunofluorescence microscopy displayed unperturbed er localization. this indicates that clipr76-4 and clipr-59 target their membranes via distinct mechanisms. the nature of the clipr76-microtubule interaction was then investigated. microtubule cosedimentation assays with purified proteins showed that two of the clipr76 cap-glys, including one common to all isoforms, bind mts with affinities in the 1åµm range and also promote mt polymerization. these observations demonstrate that clipr-76 proteins act on mts directly and do so through their conserved cap-gly domains. while the mt-binding ability of the clipr76 cap-gly domains is similar to that of the clip-170 cap-gly domains, cosedimentation assays in the presence of eb1 showed that clipr76 lacks that ability to bind eb1. bioinformatics was then used to identify aspects of the cap-gly structures that could mediate these different activities. multiple sequence alignments of several cap-gly domains were generated and then mapped onto their corresponding 3d structures. there is a large conserved patch on all of the clipr76 cap-gly domains, corresponding to residues that may mediate mt-cap-gly interactions. a comparison of the two cap-gly domains of clip-170 revealed a region of non-conservation which could explain the two cap-glys' different affinities for eb1. these regions of non-conservation remain important targets for future mutagenesis studies. finally, using a k-12 outreach opportunity, a brief survey was developed to rate students' attitudes towards science and showed that interactions with scientists and inquiry based projects significantly improved student attitudes towards science. the large polarization difference between aln and gan provides extremely high electron densities at the interface of aln/gan heterojunctions. in this work the growths of high-quality single aln/gan heterojunctions with rfmbe are reported, which leads to high-conductivity two-dimensional electron gases. the sheet densities can be tuned from ~5* 1012/cm2 to ~5*1013/cm2 by varying the aln thickness from 2 7 nm. a critical thickness is observed beyond which biaxial strain relaxation and cracking of aln occurs, and a degradation of carrier mobility is seen to occur at extremely high sheet densities. high-mobility windows are identified with different growth rates. record low sheet resistances in the range of ~148 å_åü/sq has been achieved. interface roughness scattering and strain relaxation are identified as the factors preventing lower sheet resistances at present. at low temperature, shubnikov-de-haas oscillations have been observed for the first time in single aln/gan heterojunctions. the mbe growth for multiple aln/gan heterojunctions are also studied. the electron energy states are calculated in the aln/gan superlattices which inductivelyto obtain give the miniband structures, for the design of intersubband emitters of detectors. propagation of longitudinal acoustic phonons through aln/gan superlattices is simulated. finally, phonon filters and phonon cavities are designed for efficient thermal engineering from nitride active layers. evaluation of cognitive impairment in adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (adhd) identified a significant deficit in working memory. with this knowledge, researchers developed working memory training programs for individuals with adhd in the hopes of ameliorating working memory deficits and alleviating symptoms of the disorder. neither the nature of this working memory deficit nor the manner in which working memory is improved through training has been addressed by prior studies. the reported experiments shed light on this area by utilizing a model of working memory that evaluates two components of working memory, active maintenance in primary memory (pm) and cue-dependent retrieval from secondary memory (sm). experiment 1 found that adhd participants differed from non-adhd peers largely in their ability to retrieve information from sm. experiment 2 addressed changes in both pm and sm after either verbal-only or spatial-only training was completed, finding evidence for enhancement of pm following training. this thesis is an exploration of interdisciplinary collaboration within the field of industrial design. the projects discussed combine field and scholarly research with a focus on uniting people in order to initiate enterprise as a system of meeting objectives and producing insights and ideas for the benefit of the greater good. first-hand immersion into the realm of each project yielded the observations and understandings necessary to conceive the trajectory and objectives of my design practice. the collaborative approach involved with my work is a common thread that can be noted in each of projects in graduate school. these projects will be cited and explained in this paper to help illustrate the reasoning behind my decision to coordinate inter-disciplinary efforts in my work. it is my belief that designers must be willing to step into the unknown in order to create meaningful solutions, discover future possibilities, and break from the status quo. this includes immersing oneself in unfamiliar territories, striving to understand and become fluent in as many disciplines as possible, collaborating with those who can provide the expertise in other disciplines necessary to the success of an endeavor, and as john bielenberg stated, one must "think wrong" from time to time. when design is used a vehicle for the communication of ideas among a diverse audience, the potential outcome can possess exponential and outlasting advantages over other mediums and outlets. designers have the power to unite, inspire, and establish a base of supporters that will aid in forming positive movements, providing hope for often overlooked and disparate communities, creating something as simple as a new tool for social interaction, and ultimately achieving seemingly impossible dreams; the only question is how far one is willing to reach. researchers in a variety of disciplines are interested in methods to establish causal links among several constructs. statistical methods for modeling causal relations among brain regions in neuroscience are referred to as effective connectivity (ec) methods. three popular effective connectivity methods are multivariate autoregressive modeling (mar) with granger causality testing, structural equation modeling (sem), and dynamic causal modeling (dcm). i conducted a head-to-head comparison of these three methods using both empirical and simulated data. the factors manipulated in the simulation study included (1) causality definitions (2) neural delays (3) variations in hemodynamic delay and (4) sampling frequencies. results showed that none of the three ec methods showed satisfactory performance in terms of type i error rates and power across all conditions. with respect to interregional connectivity, the mar method outperformed the other two ec methods. for bilinear effects which are the induced change by external stimuli, the sem and the dcm method had higher average power than the mar method. regarding the direct effects of experimental inputs, the dcm method outperformed the other two methods. in the empirical example of integration of olfactory-visual threats, the three ec methods provided different connectivity patterns. this thesis investigates the behavior of atmospheric flows over complex terrain using data collected in a field site in the vale de cobrao near perdiagao, portugal.the study investigates and analyzes the complex interaction between the land surface, near-surface down-valley flow, and ambient flow aloft. flow near the land surface is primarily driven by topography and temperature, whereas ambient flows aloft are primarily pressure driven. the valley of interest is encompassed by parallel ridges, with a rough vertical distance of 160m from the valley base, running from south-east to north-west. general climatology and regional forcing in the site were conducive to the formation of parallel countercurrents in the valley. main dataset for this study comes from a 100m instrumented tower located in the valley base and a halo lidar located close the tower in the valley base. a novel mechanism of break-up of down-valley flow, with downward momentum transport from above, was identified. richardson number, governing the physical processes at the interface, was utilized to provide insight into a series of events leading to the break-up. the results illustrates that turbulence, low below the interface and high above the interface, is detached at the interface before the break-up. this suggests that turbulence is generated at upper levels where stratification is weak and diffused downward via a top-down mechanism to eliminate the cold pool in the valley. after the break-up more traditional boundary layer, in which turbulence decreases with height and heat flux is almost zero above the ground, was restored. additionally, this study also presented how the ridge-top speed relates to the depth of down-valley flow. though personal authenticity is an organizing ideal of late-modern western societies, it also is a site of some of our most contentious disagreements, lacks coherence in many of its formulations, is not fully understood in all of its implications, and is often unidentified in its function as a marker of social distinction. there is a need for conceptual clarification and deeper historical understanding of the ideal of authenticity. scholarship on authenticity has argued that it was birthed by nineteenth-century romanticism and popularized in the counter-culture movements of the 1960's. on this understanding, authenticity is distinct from previous moral ideals, especially rationalist ones, exemplified by immanuel kant's notion of autonomy. but pre-romantic moral rationalism was itself motivated by an ideal of authenticity. authenticity is not a deviation from the ideal of rational autonomy. on the contrary, rational autonomy is one of a long series of attempts to generate philosophical and religious programs which meet the requirements of authenticity understood as a norm of validity applicable across diverse but analogous domains, such as aesthetics, metaphysics, semantics, and ethics.this study analyzes the concept of authenticity as it appears in the writings of kant and his contemporary, moses mendelssohn. their writings reveal the religious shape of the ideal of authenticity in two religious traditions and illustrate how authenticity as a moral ideal is best understood as an attempt to overcome religious and philosophical idols. both mendelssohn and kant rely on the pauline distinction between the spirit and the letter as a shorthand for the distinction between the authentic and the idolatrous. both retain a place for 'the letter,' which mitigates the rigorous demands of authenticity, but they configure the relationship between spirit and letter differently, in ways that track with broader commitments about the relationship between signs and meanings, body and soul, and historical and natural religion. the study concludes by observing how authenticity can be used as a tool for social exclusion and intolerance, while pointing toward the possibility of constructing more inclusive conceptions of authenticity by retrieving the best insights of the past from authors such as mendelssohn and kant. program dependency analysis is a fundamental approach to code-based impact prediction which underlies change planning and management, as well as a range of other dependency-based client analyses such as testing, debugging, and comprehension, all of which are crucial for reliable software evolution. however, existing such approaches suffer from difficult cost-effectiveness balancing: fine-grained analyses offer detailed but large results at prohibitive costs, whereas coarser analyses achieve better efficiency at the cost of great imprecision. in addition, current techniques have little utility when applied to distributed systems consisting of decoupled components. this dissertation addresses these challenges via three novel approaches to cost-effective dependency analysis, followed by a comprehensive study of prior alternatives. first, a quantitative semantic-dependency analysis is presented to separate program entities by relevance so as to prioritize impact prediction at statement level. the second approach exploits a diverse set of hybrid techniques that combine static and dynamic dependency analysis to offer not only improved but variable cost-effectiveness to fit varying budgets and task scenarios for impact prediction at method level. finally, an efficient dynamic analysis is developed to discover method-level runtime dependencies both within and across multiple concurrent processes, which is shown instrumental in evolving distributed systems. this dissertation will describe the design, characterization, biodistribution, and efficacy of peptide-targeted liposomes for use in selective treatment of multiple myeloma. multiple myeloma (mm) is a plasma cell malignancy that forms solid lesions in the bone marrow. it is estimated that 86,000 new cases appear each year worldwide, and it is responsible for about 1% of all cancer deaths. it remains incurable with a median survival of 5 years due to recurrence and development of drug resistance. actively targeted liposomal treatments have been shown to be able to overcome drug resistance in other types of cancers, including those in the bone marrow. in light of this, a targeted delivery system would be likely be effective in improving mm treatment outcomes. liposomes are a nanoparticle consisting of a spherical lipid bilayer with various elements either contained in the aqueous core, trapped in the lipophilic bilayer, or attached to a lipid to be presented on the surface. they are highly modifiable and can be designed to deliver a wide range of drugs and present molecules on the surface for targeting purposes. in order to selectively target mm cells, we discovered or designed short targeting peptide sequences that specifically bind to receptors frequently overexpressed in mm cases such as vla-4, lpam1, cd38, and cd138. specifically, the design and evaluation of a liposomal system targeting both vla-4 and lpam-1 in vitro will be explored in chapter 2. vla-4 liposomes will then be further optimized for in vivo delivery to a tumor in chapter 3. then the knowledge gained from designing this in vivo system will be used in chapter 3 to design additional liposomes for delivery of chemotherapeutics in vivo via targeting of cd38 and cd138. finally, chapter 4 will cover and compare all previously evaluated targeted liposomes as well as using the tumor-penetrating peptide irgd and their uptake in vitro and biodistribution and tumor cell uptake in vivo. this dissertation examines the conditions under which rebel groups commit to international humanitarian law with a particular focus on un action plans to end and prevent child rights violations in armed conflict. most researchers have simply considered an armed group's non-use of child soldiers to be a gesture of active commitment to international humanitarian law. however, such a presupposition overlooks the fact that some groups may not choose to use children or violate other types of child rights merely because they initially have no incentive to commit those violations and/or have viable alternatives. by focusing on the groups that have been blacklisted for violating child rights by the un from 2002 to 2018, i examine conditions under which "naming and shaming" by international institutions changes rebel groups' commitment to international humanitarian law. the sequence of rebel groups' commitment to un action plans is divided into four phases: violating child rights, listing violators, signing un action plans, and complying with un action plans. to examine this sequence, i use a mixed-method approach that consists of statistical analysis with large-n cases, qualitative comparative analysis (qca) with medium-n cases, and congruence tests with small-n cases. first, i argue that rebel groups consider their legitimacy in the eyes of domestic and international audiences throughout the phases of violating child rights, as well as signing and complying with un action plans. second, i argue that a host state's motivation to blacklist its rebel group is the key factor in influencing the un's decision to blacklist a particular rebel group. these findings contribute to the literature on international institutions and political violence by bridging theoretical approaches in both fields and considering new empirical evidence on rebel groups' behavior. by better explaining the determinants of rebel groups' commitment to international humanitarian law with a particular focus on rebel groups' efforts to gain a domestic and international reputation for legitimacy, my findings also have implications for current and future approaches to public policies for the protection of children in armed conflicts. informal interest in the consumption savings decision under uncertainty dates as back as to writings of alfred marshall. the 2007-2008 financial crisis brought about a renewed focus on the spending and savings decision of household and the quantitative strength of the precautionary saving channel in response to time varying uncertainty. this dissertation focuses on direction and strength of households precautionary saving motive and its implications for modelling household preferences and disciplining macroeconomic models. it tests empirically for precautionary saving motive and combines these estimates with simulation-based distance minimizing methods to jointly estimate two key structural parameters for recursive preferencescoefficient of relative risk aversion (rra) and intertemporal elasticity of substitution (ies). rra turns out to be small suggesting mild precautionary motive among u.s. households. further, loosening the link between households preferences across time and risk seem more data consistent approach to model household preferences. the estimated structural parameters provide micro-data consistent estimates for calibrating macroeconomic models and shed light on a variety of macroeconomic phenomena like the precautionary saving channel, the inter-temporal channel and the propagation and amplification of aggregate uncertainty shocks in dsge models and the modelling of household preferences. overall, precautionary motive does not seem to be a possible channel for propagation and amplification of aggregate uncertainty shocks. chapter 1 focuses on investigating the response of household's planned spending to time varying self-reported wage uncertainty and tests for the precautionary saving motive among u.s. households in growth rates. it uses novel self-reported density forecast of household ex-ante wage growth, expected inflation and point prediction of ex-ante household spending growth in a region-time fixed effects regression framework. the smaller estimates on wage growth uncertainty and modest estimates on expected inflation imply that households spending is more sensitive to interest rates than it is to uncertainty. overall, the precautionary saving motive among u.s. households seems weak. chapter 2 uses the estimated coefficients from chapter 1 and combines it with indirect inference, a simulation-based technique to jointly estimate structural parameters rra and ies for recursive preferences. it also studies the implications of disciplining dsge models of aggregate uncertainty with microdata consistent estimates of rra and ies. the estimates of rra and ies suggest that using crra preferences where one parameter is inverse of the other can be restrictive. further, smaller estimates of risk aversion casts doubt on the ability of precautionary saving channel to propagate and amplify aggregate uncertainty shocks in a way that is consistent with the observed co-movements during the financial crisis of 2007-2008.chapter 3 uses dispersion in consumer confidence as an empirical measure of time varying household uncertainty and studies its consequences for the macroeconomy. it uses cross-sectional dispersion in consumer confidence over time as a measure of consumer confidence uncertainty or "disagreement" among consumers. consumer confidence has prolonged expansionary effects on economic activity even when accounting for effects of dispersion in consumer confidence. these responses are robust to ordering in the structural var. the quantitative responses of consumption and output to consumer confidence shocks are higher than the shocks to dispersion in consumer confidence. a temperature-dependent crystallographic phase change has been observed in [co(tpp)(no)]. crystal structures at multiple temperatures reveal that the system changes from a system with eightfold disorder at 250 k to one that is more ordered below 195 k. interestingly, at 190 k, it was possible to trap the structure in its transition state, resulting in three distinct structures of [co(tpp)(no)]. the phase change is reversible and has given insight into the nature of nitrosyl disorder in the porphyrin system as a dynamic disorder. the reproducibility of the phase change has been studied through both dsc measurements and crystallographic unit cell indexing on several crystals. in an attempt to understand the reason for the phase change, [fe(tpp)cl] and [mn(tpp)(no)(meoh)] were synthesized and studied crystallographically at multiple temperatures. this study uses the history of campus crusade for christ to explore the trajectory of post-1945 american evangelicalism. campus crusade, founded by bill bright (1921-2003) and vonette bright (1925-) at the university of california los angeles in 1951, grew by century's end into a global evangelical empire with ministries far beyond the university campus. much like the older transdenominational fundamentalism networks, a loose coalition of missionary agencies, seminaries and colleges, and megachurches provides the structural framework of the modern evangelical movement. campus crusade exemplifies the contribution of these parachurch organizations to evangelical vitality, the ability of evangelicals to adapt quickly to changes in popular culture, and the theological pragmatism and fundraising prowess central to modern evangelicalism. as evangelicals grew better educated and more affluent, evangelicalism moved closer to mainstream american culture. evangelical organizations, including campus crusade, carved out a niche for evangelicalism at otherwise secularizing universities and colleges. although evangelical ideas rarely penetrated the university classroom, evangelicals effectively marketed their message in greek houses, locker rooms, and dormitories. also, evangelicals occupied an increasingly prominent place on the american political landscape. the world of postwar anticommunism drew many evangelicals, particularly in the southwest and california, into conservative political circles. moreover, as parachurch organizations, suburban megachurches, and televangelist empires grew into large enterprises, conservative politicians like richard nixon and john conlan cultivated relationships with bill bright and other rising evangelical leaders. on issues of gender, by contrast, evangelicals created distance between themselves and mainstream culture. in the 1950s and 1960s, campus crusade's emphasis on male leadership and female domesticity reflected broader cultural trends. by the 1970s, mainstream culture began moving towards an egalitarian conception of gender, but conservative evangelicals retained and even sharpened their traditional teachings. such rhetoric legitimated continued gender inequality within evangelical organizations, but by the end of the century evangelicals partially accommodated themselves to mainstream gender norms. through their willingness to retain only a small number of theological essentials and continually adapt themselves to cultural change, evangelicals kept their gospel an attractive product in the marketplace of modern american religion. this dissertation describes two main research topics that are associated with the development of effective treatments for the common diseases, cancer and allergy. the 1st part of this dissertation will describe the design, synthesis, characterization, and optimization of peptide-targeted liposomal nanoparticles that show enhanced selectivity to cancer cells including her2+ breast cancer, cd22+ blood cancer, grp78+ metastatic breast cancer, and multiple myeloma. targeted nanoparticle drug delivery systems have widely been investigated to combat a variety of cancers, however, have not yet successfully translated into the clinic. for successful clinical translation, we employed our synthetic strategy that enables reproducible and reliable nanoparticle production with high precision in targeting functionalities. additionally, we exploited multivalency with moderate affinity receptor-binding peptides as targeting moieties of nanoparticles. multiple nanoparticle design parameters were both in vitro and in vivo optimized to accomplish enhanced target cancer cell selectivity in order to improve tumor growth inhibition efficacy of chemotherapeutic agents with minimal toxicity. we demonstrated that the targeted nanoparticle formulations outperformed non-targeted counterparts given enhanced anti-tumor efficacy via tumor cell-selective uptake with high therapeutic indices. this suggests a high therapeutic potential of the peptide-targeted nanoparticles to improve patient outcomes in the clinic.the 2nd part of this dissertation will describe the development of inhibitors for food allergic reactions. currently, there are no treatments that effectively prevent allergic reactions. allergic reactions are triggered by crosslinking of several immunoglobulin e (ige) antibodies on immune cells with multiple epitopes on an allergen. in light of this, a key point in developing preventative allergy medicine is to inhibit epitope-ige interactions. by using nanoallergen platform displaying epitope alone or in combination, we determined and ranked epitope of importance according to epitope immunogenicity. this information was implemented to generate various covalent heterobivalent inhibitor (chbi) mixtures to test their inhibition efficacy for allergic response. the results demonstrated &gt; 90% of inhibition of allergic response mediated by crude peanut extract and a major shrimp allergen, pen a 1. although further studies are necessary, these promising results provide evidence for the potential of nanoallergens and chbis for the diagnosis and treatment of food allergies. despite living in a tradition-bound world of social hierarchies, many seventeenth-century catholic clerics advocated for young men and women the "freedom" to "choose a state of life," in response to a "vocation," god's act of calling. moreover, although most present-day commentators associate lay vocation with early modern protestantism, these catholic writers did not limit the concept of vocation to clerics or to those taking religious vows. rather, every young catholic had a calling, even to the lay (especially married) state. and since all were called by god, all had to take care to discover god's particular will for them. failing to do so would imperil both their temporal happiness and their eternal salvation. the new seventeenth-century advice literature on choosing a state inspires intriguing questions relevant to the history of french catholicism, of catholic reform more generally, and of french social and political life. why were catholic clerics so convinced about the importance of choosing a state of life? what did this process of choosing a state of life look like, in the ideal? what brought into being this advice literature? and what does this phenomenon reveal about france and about catholicism in the early modern period and beyond? this dissertation argues that seventeenth-century vocational discernment advice developed from several strands of the medieval catholic tradition and of catholic reform in the sixteenth century, and this advice literature gained particular traction in the rigorist milieu of mid-seventeenth-century france, where catholic promoters of vocational thinking saw their advice as essential to solving the spiritual problems of individuals and of society as a whole. this advice on choosing a state of life illustrates the peculiar modernity of early modern catholicism, which focused on the individual without jettisoning corporate identity, which held in tension the subjective good for the individual and an objective spiritual hierarchy, and which promoted a religiously-oriented individual liberty in the face of entrenched social and legal norms. the main source bases are works of spiritual advice and pastoral care from the early middle ages to the twentieth century, along with religious biographical sources and ecclesiatical records. in this dissertation, i describe my work on reducing complexity in feature analysis. features are aspects of a program that are defined by the requirements and implemented in the code. my work addresses three aspects of feature analysis: effort estimation, feature reuse, and comprehension of the underlying code by blind programmers. correctly estimating the time and effort required to implement or extend a feature avoids cost overruns. cost estimation tools use feature location algorithms to map requirements to the code that implements them. the literature describes numerous feature location algorithms, but not all are useable in industrial environments. some algorithms are very complex, imposing training costs and impeding communication. other algorithms require complex tuning for best results. still others require hardware support. this level of complexity is discouraged in an industrial environment, where the resource allocations stemming from a feature location algorithm must be justified. instead, industry requires a balance between complexity and performance rather than performance at any cost.once found, features can be reused in other programs to save the cost of reimplementation. the problem with feature reuse is that it requires the programmer to comprehend and copy the dependencies of a feature. previous work has shown that reusing a single statement requires the programmer to comprehend and copy 30-60% of the original program. in many cases feature reuse is deemed too complex to be practical.the code comprehension process itself contains a great deal of complexity. this complexity obscures the relationship between features and implementation details that relate to those features. this is especially a problem for blind programmers, who use a screen reader to read code. the screen reader speaks the contents of the screen aloud. blind programmers cannot skip to the most important code areas in the way sighted programmers can but must read code sequentially one line at a time. very little work has been done on the precise difference between the ways blind and sighted programmers read code, and comprehend that code in terms of the features of the overarching program.i address these areas of complexity in four projects presented in this document. i present my research in designing a feature location component for use in a cost estimation system for the united states navy. i also present flashback, a library for drastically simplifying feature reuse through record and replay technology previously used for debugging and security. i investigate possible differences between the program comprehension strategies of blind and sighted programmers, and finally present an interface to allow blind programmers to skim code much like sighted programmers. mountain weather has a remarkable range of phenomena, which are signified by two flow types: modifications to the background (&#8764;100 km, synoptic-scale) flow driven by regional pressure gradients and thermal circulations (valley/slope flows, mesoscale) generated by local heating/cooling of the ground surface. current state-of-the-art mesoscale models typically employ a grid resolution of &#8764;1 km, with the assumption that over such scales there is sufficient spatial homogeneity to represent heat, mass and momentum transport within a grid cell. nevertheless, because of topographic heterogeneities, differential heating/cooling and flow interactions, the flow within a mesoscale model grid element can be highly inhomogeneous, and this exemplifies the difficulty of mathematically representing (parameterizing) sub-grid processes of a slope-scale grid. the aim of the mountain terrain atmospheric modeling and observations (materhorn) program was to conduct fundamental research to improve weather predictions for mountainous terrain, and improvements in understanding of sub-grid scale processes and their parameterizations were a significant part of it. to this end, field and laboratory studies were conducted and theoretical formulations were developed, which are described in this thesis. a suite of flow diagnostic techniques were used. at the core of the work are the subtopics of upslope flow separation in mountainous terrain, multi-scale interactions of slope and valley flows and measurement of turbulence in katabatic flows. owing to the vast range of scales involved, new cutting edge techniques were developed and deployed for process identification. these include tower mounted three-dimensional hot-film combo probes, consisting of sonic anemometers co-located with hot-film anemometers. the combo probes follow mean winds using a feedback control loop and use a neural network to calibrate the hot-films in-situ. once calibrated, these probes can measure from mesoscale flow down to the kolmogorov scale. also deployed were three scanning doppler lidars in coordination to visualize the velocity structure and to obtain three-dimensional velocity virtual towers up to 300 m agl. turbulence in slope and valley flows, upslope flow separation, flow collisions and interactions between different types of flow are discussed in this thesis, with particular emphasis on quantitative results of consequence for numerical modeling. this dissertation describes studies encompassing a variety of areas of carbocation chemistry. carbocation formation in ionic liquids, which are polar aprotic solvents, was studied. the chemistry of some unusual silicon substituted carbocations was also investigated. reactions of a number of triflates, mesylates and trifluoroacetates in ionic liquids have been investigated. it was concluded that these substrates all react via carbocationic intermediates. in fact, some of the ionic liquids under investigation were found to have an ionizing power similar to that of cf3ch2oh, a commonly used solvent for carbocation formation. evidence in support of this conclusion include the observation of carbocationic rearrangements in a variety of substrates, a hammett-brown rho+ value of ì¢ ââ'7.1 for the solvolyses of 1-aryl-2,2,2-trifluoroethyl triflates, and the facile solvolysis of 1-adamantyl mesylate which necessarily proceeds via a carbocationic intermediate. some unusual reactivity was seen in ionic liquids as well. for example, it was found that small concentrations of water in the ionic liquids have a significant impact on the rates of solvolyses of mesylates. the effect of water on triflate solvolyses however, was negligible. additionally, a novel oxidation process of triflates involving loss of sulfinate was found to occur in certain ionic liquids. an investigation of the stabilizing effect of beta-silyl groups on cyclopropyl carbocations was also undertaken. the normally large effect of a beta-silyl group (which can cause solvolysis rate enhancements of up to 1012) was found to be greatly repressed in cyclopropyl systems. computational studies agreed with this conclusion. the intermediate silyl-substituted cyclopropyl cations instead tended to undergo ring opening since silyl stabilization is reduced. a similar study was undertaken involving cyclobutyl carbocations. incorporation of a beta-silyl group into cyclobutyl carbocations led again to a smaller than expected b-silyl stabilization. in fact, the effect was successfully quashed in a beta-silyl benzocyclobutenyl carbocation in which beta-silyl stabilization would have led to antiaromatic character in the carbocation. the gamma-silyl effect was also investigated in cyclobutyl systems. experimental and computational studies showed that gamma-silyl stabilization can occur via two distinct modes. either the front, or the rear lobe of the gamma-silyl group can donate electron density into the empty p-orbital of the carbocation. this effect was also found to be much larger than previously recorded. the effects of ionizing radiation on boehmite (γ-alooh) and gibbsite (γ-al(oh)3) was explored as it pertains to the hanford waste cleanup challenges. initial studies of the radiolytic stability of boehmite and gibbsite with gamma rays and alpha particles revealed that the bulk structure of both boehmite and gibbsite are remarkably stable to high doses as probed by both raman spectroscopy and powder x-ray diffraction. x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy revealed that the surface of both materials was greatly reduced following high doses, and charge corrections for x-ray absorption spectroscopy indicated a change in charging behavior following irradiation. the changes in charging behavior were followed up with aggregation studies that revealed that irradiated boehmite aggregates differently than pristine boehmite, and those differences remain even with the addition of large amounts of salt. surface sensitive measurements made with the radiation atomic force microscope revealed that radiation could enhance dissolution rates of gibbsite at a high ph. finally, the radiolytic activity of thermal transition phases in boehmite was explored. it was revealed that the different transition phases had radically different radiolytic activities even when the structural characterization gave similar results. analysis of the trapped hydrogen atom seen in room temperature electron paramagnetic resonance along with the hydrogen gas production revealed that the most likely primary production mechanism for readily detected hydrogen gas in the radiolysis of boehmite is the formation of an interlayer hydrogen atom that then travels to the surface and undergoes an abstraction reaction with adsorbed water. the hydrogen atom trap itself is likely a defect in the material which is why the measured lifetime of the hydrogen atom at room temperature is orders of magnitude larger than predicted with density functional theory calculations. the systematic series of advances in semiconductor device manufacturing over the last 70 years has enabled previously unforeseen applications and allowed semiconductor device technologies to become a hidden yet central part of everyday modern life. in the past, the computational and data storage demands of our everexpanding digital information ecosystem have been primarily fulfilled through scaling silicon based complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (cmos) technologies. however, in order to fulfill the demands of future computing systems, the continued scaling of current semiconductor device technologies alone will not suffice. instead, a deep holistic integration is required, where devices, circuits, architectures, and algorithms are co-designed and co-optimized, rather than seeking drop in replacements for current devices technologies. in this light, this thesis explores the response of emerging devices based on collective phenomena, including insulator-to-metal phase transitions and ferroelectrics, with the goal to intimately understand the underlying electrically driven dynamics and how they can be harnessed to either engineer or augment, new and existing hardware primitives. this dissertation describes key enabling device characteristics, their physical origin, and scalability, including abrupt switching, multi-domain behavior, and stochastic response. this work reveals how fundamental stochastic dynamics in phase transition materials can be exploited for computation, allowing new designs of true random number generators as well as stochastic neuron cells tailored to neuromorphic computing architectures and algorithms. further, this work discusses the design of an analog synaptic weight cell using the natural multidomain dynamics and non-volatility of ferroelectric field-effect-transistors for accelerating neuromorphic workloads compared to existing cmos technologies. the dissertation concludes by assessing future research directions, including remaining opportunities and challenges presented by phase transition and ferroelectric devices. polymers are large molecules composed of many repeating subunits. they widely exist as both natural biopolymers and synthetic plastics. the thermal transport properties of polymers are critical in many applications. for example, high thermal conductivity is desired for a wide variety of heat transfer applications, such as the thermal interface material and the heat spreader in microelectronic devices. traditional polymers are found to have very low thermal conductivities, usually between 0.1 to 1 w/mk, because the defects such as polymer chain ends, entanglement, random orientation, voids, impurities and etc. act as stress concentration points and phonon scattering sites for heat transfer.ultra drawing the polymers into nanofiber form with highly oriented chains can help eliminate these defects and improve the thermal conductivity. we use molecular dynamic simulations to study the structural origin of high thermal conductivity of these polymers in the nanofiber form, and unveil its relationship with thermal stability at the molecular level. polymers with strong backbone and rigid backbone bonds, e.g. π-conjugated polymers, are found to have both high thermal conductivity and good thermal stability. on the other hand, the phase transition at ~400 k in polyethylene is found to cause signification thermal conductivity drop by as much as one order of magnitude. although the phase transition in polyethylene questions its ability for high temperature applications, the phase transition and the high contrast thermal conductivity switch are found fully reversible. this makes it possible to use cheap and readily available polymers for thermal conductivity regulation in a wide range of applications such as thermal management of electronics, phononics, sensors, and energy storage and conversion.another route to improve the thermal conductivity of polymer is through compositing, where the thermal transport across the interfaces between polymers and solid filler particles is important. two factors are known to significantly impact the thermal transport efficiency across the interfaces: vibration coupling and interfacial adhesion strength. our present results show that vibration coupling alone can improve the interfacial thermal conductance at gold-polyethylene interface by a factor of ~7. our further investigation reports the ultra-efficient thermal transport across non-aqueous hydrogen bonds by molecular simulations of the thermal conductance across hard-soft material interfaces under systematically controlled interfacial bonding conditions. we found that these non-aqueous hydrogen bonds can enhance the thermal transport by as much as one order of magnitude.besides fillers and interfaces, the intrinsic low thermal conductivity polymer matrix limits further improvement of thermally conductive composite materials. as polymer chains exhibit unique anisotropic molecular structure along covalently bonded backbone and across tunable inter-chains, detailed investigation of thermal transport in amorphous polymer by decomposing the effective thermal conductivity to different contributions from intra-chain and inter-chain interactions is provided. we find that the thermal transport in amorphous polymers with weak inter-chain interaction is dominated by along-chain heat conduction, and thermal conductivity is a strong function of the radius of gyration of the molecular chains. polymers with stiffer molecular backbones have larger persistence length, which can lead to more extended chain morphology and thus higher thermal conductivity. in all, this dissertation sets understanding polymer materials with high thermal conductivity as the overarching goal. it provides comprehensive understanding of a variety of possible strategies to achieve this goal from orientated fibers via ultra drawing process, amorphous bulk with larger persistence length, to composite materials with enhanced thermal transport across hard/soft materials. two x-ray techniques have been employed to study two classes of semiconductors. x-ray absorption fine-structure spectroscopy (xafs) was used to examine the mn environment in the dilute magnetic semiconductors ga1-xmnxas and ga_(1-x-y)mn_(x)be_(y)as. x-ray reflectivity was used to characterize the structure of inmnas heterostructures and inalp oxide films. xafs measurements of the mn local environment were performed in order to match structural parameters such as coordination numbers, bond lengths, and xafs debye-waller factors to the ferromagnetic properties of the materials. the mn local environment in ga_(1-x)mn_(x)as materials with x = 0.01, 0.03, 0.05, and 0.08 was found to be that of a mn ion substituting for a ga ion in the gaas lattice (mnga). the mn local environment of the ga_(1-x-y)mn_(x)be_(y)as materials was also measured for six samples with constant x = 0.05 and y = 0.0, 0.01, 0.03, 0.05, 0.08 and 0.11. the mn local environment depended upon the concentration of be in the material. at y = 0.0 and y = 0.01 the mn local environment was found to be that of the mnga site. the percentage of mn in this local environment decreased as the be concentration of the samples increased. meanwhile, the percentage of mn in an interstitial site and the percentage of mn in a precipitate mnas site both increased. no evidence of mn-mn or mn-be pairing was found in the ga_(1-x-y)mn_(x)be_(y)as materials. the x-ray reflectivity measurements were used to characterize the structure of inmnas and inalp in order to improve understanding of the structural characteristics. this improvement can then be used to improve the growth parameters in order to create materials upon which device development may be undertaken. the inmnas materials were found to have a structure closely matching the expectations from growth with the addition of a surface water film. the inalp oxide films were found to have an additional layer at the interface between the substrate and the oxide film which has higher electron density than the oxide film and large roughness. this layer could be a precipitate layer based upon the thickness of the layer and its roughness. a flow excited helmholtz resonator was investigated experimentally and theoretically. the analysis was focused on a simplified momentum balance integrated over the region of the orifice. the resulting expressions were used to guide an experimental program designed to obtain measurements of the resonator pressure under flow excitation, as well as the dynamics of the shear layer in the orifice using particle image velocimetry. the piv results provided a detailed representation of the shear layer vorticity field, as well as the equivalent hydrodynamic forcing of the resonator. the forcing magnitude was found to increase with speed over a range of flow speeds.a model was proposed that provides a prediction of the resonator pressure fluctuations based on the thickness of the approach boundary layer, the free stream speed, the acoustic properties of the resonator and the spatial growth rate of the shear layer across the orifice. the model was shown to provide an accurate representation of the resonating frequency as well as the magnitude of the resonance to within a few db.various passive flow control methods were examined to reduce the flow-excited resonance. foam and tuned absorbers were employed to control the acoustic properties of the resonator. both methods succeeded in reducing the flow-excited resonance. the hydrodynamic forcing was controlled through both changes to the orifice geometry and with the disruption of the approach flow. most changes to the orifice geometry resulted in significant decreases in the magnitude of the resonance. thickening and rounding the upstream and down stream edges of the orifice was found to increase the resonance. obstructions placed upstream of the orifice to disrupt the approach flow decreased the resonance to varying levels of success. comparisons were made to a full-scale vehicle. both microphone and piv measurements were acquired for a full-scale vehicle and compared to simplified small scale models. the fundamental flow physics were found to be consistent between the full-scale vehicle and simplified small scale models. the cloning and characterization of two zebrafish genes are described here: pitx3, a bicoid-like homeodomain transcription factor, and foxe3, a winged helix/forkhead domain transcription factor. human homologs of these two genes have been associated with various forms of anterior segment dysgenesis, congenital cataracts and glaucoma. the zebrafish pitx3 gene consists four exons, which is similar to the genomic organization of other vertebrate pitx3 genes. it encodes a protein of 293 amino acids possessing 63% amino acid identity with the human pitx3 protein. zebrafish pitx3 expression was first detected at 24 hours post fertilization (hpf) and continued to increase through 5 days post fertilization (dpf). in the eye, expression of the pitx3 protein was restricted to the lens epithelial cells and differentiating lens fiber cells. after injected with antisense morpholino to knockdown pitx3 protein expression, the morphant embryos exhibited small eyes with abnormal lens development relative to the controls. the morphant retinas also contained pyknotic nuclei accompanied by a reduction in the number of cells in different neuronal classes. the absence of detectable pitx3 protein expression in the retina suggested that pitx3 expression in the lens induces a required effect on retinal development. the intronless organization of the zebrafish foxe3 gene is conserved among its mammalian homologs. it encodes a protein of 422 amino acids. the foxe3 protein, which is first detected on immunoblots at 24 hpf, persists throughout development, with the greatest expression levels at 4 and 5 dpf. within the lens, the foxe3 protein was restricted to the lens epithelial cells and differentiating fiber cells, in the same manner as its mouse homolog and pitx3. anti-foxe3 morphants exhibited a small lens with increased number of nucleated cells, disordered arrangement of fiber cells and alteration of lens cell fates. there was no detectable change in the morphant retina. neither pitx3 nor &gamma;a-crystallin expression levels were affected in the anti-foxe3 morphants. in contrast, the anti-pitx3 morphants had no detectable foxe3 proteins on immunoblots and reduced &gamma;a-crystallin expression levels on eye tissue sections. the expression and functional analysis suggests the expression of both the foxe3 and &gamma;a-crystallin genes requires the normal expression of pitx3. the molecular structures of biomolecules are highly associated with their cellular function. the determination of accurate structures is imperative to understanding how these molecules operate. however, methods to assign structures in solution have remained challenging for flexible molecules such as carbohydrates. this problem has led to a heavy reliance on theoretical calculations to produce models of solution conformations with limited or no experimental validation. this dissertation details the development and validation of a novel method, ma'at analysis, to model conformational behavior in solution using a combination of nmr spin-couplings and density functional theory (dft). the work presented here is separated into three distinct areas. first, chapter 2 details the development of the ma'at method and its encoding into a user-friendly web-based application. ma'at utilizes a set of parameterized equations that quantify the relationship between torsional angles or conformations with nmr spin-spin coupling constants (j-couplings) to produce population distributions. the theory and mathematical proofs underpinning the method are detailed in chapter 2, along with a description of the testing, validation, and limitations of the method. conformational studies utilizing ma'at are presented in chapters 3–7. these studies developed new equations that describe the karplus-like relationships between molecular conformation and coupling magnitudes as determined by dft. also discussed are the methods to obtain experimental j-couplings. the conformational models produced by ma'at analysis are then compared to those obtained from molecular dynamic (md) simulations and x-ray crystal structures. finally, chapters 8–9 describe studies undertaken to validate the dft-derived parameterized j-coupling equations used ma'at analysis. chapter 8 describes studies that utilized solid state 13c nmr (ssnmr) to measure jcc spin-coupling constants in molecules having essentially fixed conformations. in these cases, experimentally-measured j-couplings were directly compared to those calculated from dft. finally, chapter 9 describes a computational study on the torsional dependence of non-conventional coupling pathways for o-glycosidic linkages. distributed denial of service (ddos) attacks can quickly bring normally effective web services to a screeching halt. while there has been a significant amount of research conducted on dos and ddos attacks in the literature, the vast majority of the solutions focus on isolating the perceived static signature or static set of attackers. however, the noisy nature of internet traffic coupled with sophisticated dynamic attacks negates the effectiveness of most solutions. this thesis presents randomized algorithms for packet inference and rejection (rapier), an adaptive scheme for maintaining web service despite the presence of multifaceted attacks in a noisy environment. in contrast to existing solutions that rely upon 'clean' training data, a live web service environment makes finding such training data difficult if not impossible. thus, rapier focuses on quickly and efficiently salvaging good connections with the realization that the chaotic nature of the live environment necessitates implicitly limits the accuracy of such detections. rapier employs an adaptive k-means clustering approach co-located with the load balancer to defend the legitimate connections in a mixed attack environment. i present the rapier approach and evaluate its performance through initial simulation surveys, which are explored further through experimental studies in a diverse attack environment ranging from syn floods to flash crowds to zombie wget loops. we propose learning and optimization algorithms for the next generation power systems. first, we design distributed algorithms to schedule the charging of electric vehicles. by implementing the algorithms, we obtain a favorable total load profile, while accounting for the capacity constraints induced by the power grid distribution lines and other components such as transformers. we further propose a novel algorithm for distributed charging control of electric vehicles using online learning. many of the existing distributed charging control algorithms in the literature implicitly assume fast two-way communication between a distribution company and electric vehicle customers. this assumption may be impractical at present. our algorithm does not impose such an assumption. the proposed algorithm requires one-way communication, which is implemented through the distribution company publishing the pricing profiles of the previous days. second, we propose a distributed algorithm for online energy management in networked microgrids with a high penetration of distributed energy resources. in general, the state-of-the-art forecasting for distributed energy resources such as solar is not sufficiently accurate, which results in inaccurate energy scheduling. to address the high uncertainty issues, we propose an online energy management algorithm and use the historical data about the power generation from the distributed energy resources to proceed. the proposed energy management algorithm does not require the online algorithm to be fully executed, which further reduces the burden on the wireless communication spectrum usage.in the last part of this dissertation, we study the alternating current optimal power flow problem in the smart grids. in the alternating-current model, optimal power flow becomes a notoriously difficult non-convex non-linear optimization problem. we introduce two novel methods for solving the semidefinite programming relaxations of the alternating current optimal power flow problem in the literature. first, we present a method to include the block constraints from a higher-order semidefinite programming relaxation one-by-one, as required, to converge to the objective function value of the higher-order relaxation. second, we present a method for solving the resulting semidefinite programming relaxations based on the block-coordinate descent method for the associated augmented lagrangian. alevis, who are ancestral to anatolian turkey, trace their migration to germany to the 1960s, when they first arrived as guestworkers. they primarily define themselves by their faith – alevism – a syncretic religion with roots in islam which alevis refer to as "the path" (yol, in turkish). the path has been followed and transmitted orally through generations. throughout turkey's history, alevis have been subjected to persecution and were confined to practice their path in private home settings until the late 20th century. due to salient differences between alevi and sunni muslim (the majority and state-funded religious group) ritual practices, alevis continue to face stigma and discrimination. the turkish government does not legally recognize alevi path rituals or their worship and communal space (called cemevi, in turkish). in germany, conversely, the alevi community is the first among the turkish migrant groups to receive public and legal recognition as a religious community (köperschaftsstatus). by situating the berlin alevi community within relevant migratory, transnational, and inter-religious dynamics, this dissertation argues that the very path practices that resulted in alevis' persecution and marginalization in turkey, in the migratory setting constitute a form of local, national, and transnational integration. thus, the berlin cemevi (as others elsewhere in the european union, eu) constitutes a site affording alevis conspicuous cultural and religious expression, and as such these organizations are crucial to reproducing and renegotiating the path. at the same time, the community centers provide a nexus affording alevis and alevism a broader civic engagement with social and political issues, including in relation to the normative position of sunni islam and muslims, both in turkey and in the german perception of turkish migration. epistemologically and analytically, my approach privileges alevi emic understandings, and makes the case for using the path as a vernacular theoretical framework that is relevant toward understanding personal, communal, national, and transnational experiences. seemingly insular embodied rituals and communal practices (and their documentation), constitute a gateway toward the social scientific understanding of how people continue to find meaning in everyday life and navigate inter-minority and broader social tensions. this dissertation's contributions and anthropological analysis are thus necessarily grounded in extensive fieldwork rich in ethnographic details and photographic visuals which is centered on the berlin alevi community. between august 2019 and july 2020, i collected qualitative data based on participant observation, semi-structured interviews, life histories, and semiotic landscaping (visual documentation). exploratory factor analysis (efa) is a widely used multivariate statistical method in social and behavioral sciences. researchers sometimes need to factor-analyze correlation matrices with unavailable elements. one situation to encounter such incomplete correlation matrices is when researchers synthesize information from multiple studies that involves a number of questionnaires designed for measuring a complex construct. for example, daly (2014) investigated narcissism with a meta-analysis, which required to factor-analyze a 41 by 41 correlation matrix with 63$\%$ of elements unavailable. another situation is to use a planned missingness design to reduce participant burden. there are currently no methods of factor analyzing incomplete correlation matrices. i propose a one-step estimation method to conduct efa with an incomplete correlation matrix. i adapt the iterated principal factor method to estimate unrotated factor loadings while accommodating missing correlation. the usual efa identification conditions do not carry over to the current situation because the correlation matrix contains unavailable elements. i thus numerically check whether an efa model is identified with an incomplete correlation matrix. in particular, i compute the rank of the hessian matrix of the discrepancy function. if the rank is smaller than the effective number of efa parameters, the efa model is not identified.i also use the parametric bootstrap to determine the number of factors and estimate standard errors. i generate bootstrap samples according to the efa model with parameter values being the sample estimates. i reproduce the missing correlation pattern by mimicking the scale pairing process of empirical studies. i obtain bootstrap versions of discrepancy function values, rotated factor loadings, and factor correlations. these bootstrap replicates form reference distributions for the test statistic and standard errors of efa parameters. i illustrate the method using two studies. the first study entails the analyses at the population level to explore identifiability of efa models with different different missing patterns in the incomplete correlation matrix. incomplete correlation matrices whose observed elements spread across rows and columns allowed identifying larger models than those matrices whose observed elements are clustered. the second study entails simulated samples and explores the statistical properties. in addition to identifiability of efa models, factor congruence coefficients, standard errors, and bootstrap tests are explored. studies showed that (1) one may reduce the participant burden by half while still adequately recovering factors; (2) parametric bootstrap can provide adequate standard error estimates; and (3) bootstrap tests may underestimate the number of factors. tris(2-(arylamido)-4,6-di-tert-butylphenoxo)molybdenum(vi) complexes (rap)3mo can be prepared either from (cycloheptatriene)mo(co)3 and the n-aryliminoquinone, or from moo2(acac)2 and the aminophenol. in contrast to all other reported unconstrained transition metal tris(amidophenoxide) complexes, the molybdenum complexes show a facial geometry in the solid state. in solution, the fac isomer predominates, though a small amount of mer isomer is detectable at room temperature. at elevated temperature the two species interconvert through rây-dutt trigonal twists, which are faster than bailar twists in this system, presumably because of steric effects of the n-aryl groups. substituents on the n-aryl ring shift the fac/mer equilibrium of the complex, with more electron-withdrawing substituents generally increasing the proportion of the mer isomer. the preference for fac over mer geometry is thus suggested to be due to enhanced π bonding in the fac isomer. in contrast to analogous catecholate complexes, the tris(amidophenoxide) complexes are not lewis acidic and are inert to nucleophilic oxidants such as amine-n-oxides.the tris(aminophenol) ligand meclamph6 (tris(2-(3',5'-di-tert-butyl-2'-hydroxyphenyl)amino-4-methylphenyl)amine) reacts with cr(thf)3cl3 to make the octahedral (meclamp)cr complex. x-ray crystallography shows that (meclamp)cr is octahedral, and has little interaction between the metal and the central triarylamine nitrogen (cr–nar3 = 3.32 å). through the use of variable-temperature nmr the singlet-triplet energy gaps for (meclamp)cr and cr(phnc6h2tbu2o)3, its meridonal tris(chelate) equivalent, were determined to be 4.28 ± 0.10 kcal mol-1 and 3.26 ± 0.04 kcal mol-1 respectively. neutral (meclamp)cr can be oxidized by one electron which gives an epr signal diagnostic of a ligand centered radical. (meclamp)v is prepared by reacting meclamph6 and vanadium(v) oxytriisopropoxide. the neutral complex is seven coordinate in the solid state (v– nar3 = 2.38 å) but the optical spectrum gives evidence to suggest it is six-coordinate while in solution. neutral (meclamp)v can be reduced or oxidized by one electron with redox titrations showing isosbestic points indicative of a clean conversion from one complex to the other. the electronic structure of both (meclamp)cr and (meclamp)v is best described using a covalent model in which the metal center is supported by iminoxolene ligands with substantial π donation.oxobis(iminoxolene)osmium(vi) compounds (rap)2oso (rap = 2-(4-rc6h4n)-4,6-tbu2c6h2o) are deoxygenated by phosphines and phosphites to give five-coordinate (rap)2os(pr′3) or six-coordinate (rap)2os(pr′3)2 complexes. analysis of the intraligand distances indicates that this net two-electron reduction is accompanied by the apparent oxidation of the iminoxolene ligands. this change is due to the increased ability of the iminoxolene ligands to engage in π donation to the reduced form of the osmium complex. kinetic studies indicate that the rate-determining step is the attack of the phosphorus(iii) reagent on the five-coordinate oxo complexes. while varying the substituents of the aryl groups on the iminoxolene ligands or on the triarylphosphines has little effect on the rate of oxygen atom transfer, the best correlation of the data is shown between the rates of oxygen atom transfer and the homo−lumo gap of the oxo complexes. this correlation suggests that the osmium oxo group shows a balance between both electrophilic and nucleophilic character in the oxygen atom transfer reactions with phosphorus(iii) reagents.(hap)2os(l) complexes react with substrates such as styrene oxide. when l = pph3, the reaction proceeds rapidly at room temperature to form products where the epoxide has opened and formed a new c-n bond to the iminoxolene ligand. the complexes are capable of catalytic reduction of aryland vinyl-substituted epoxides to the corresponding alkenes using triphenylphosphine at 50 °c. when cis-stilbene oxide is used, isomerization of the epoxide is observed in addition to formation of stilbene. changing the aryl substituents on the phosphines has small effects on rates and product distributions, while changing to pcy3 or imes has dramatic effects on the relative amounts of deoxygenation vs. isomerization observed. epoxide isomerization as well as iminoxolene ligand modification suggests a radical mechanism where the ligand-modified products are the resting state of the active catalyst. nuclear potential energy surfaces are generated using a micro-macro model. this is done in an automated procedure called autotac which is used to find equilibrium deformation parameters corresponding to an energy minimum. this information will be used as a starting point for nuclear structure calculations with implications that are of astrophysical significance. ibm parameter fits based on energy ratios and transition probabilities are used to determine the ground state shape probability distribution from experimentally measured input. an alternative approach involves mapping fermionic potential energy surfaces on to bosonic space. this can predict the low-lying excitation spectrum as well as the probability distribution of the ground state. the probability distributions can be combined with the dipole strength function calculated using qrpa. the instantaneous shape sampling (iss) procedure involves adding many weighted strength functions, which is particularly important for the photo-absorption cross-section of transitional nuclei. the linear coefficient in symmetry energy term of nuclei, called the wigner x, is determined from the experimental binding energies by removing the coulomb energy by use of mirror nuclei with corrections for deformation based on additional experimental information. energy differences are calculated using groups of three nuclei along an isobaric chain in steps of tz=2, starting near n=z. the resulting energy dependence is of the form t(t+x) and appears to involve fluctuations about x=1 and x=4. for the strong pairing limit of isovector pairing the dependence should be of the form t(t+1), which reflects the spontaneous breaking of the isorotational symmetry by the isovector pair field. correlations generated by the isovector monopole pairing interaction are treated exactly by means of diagonalization for small 6 and 7 level systems. the equilibrium deformation parameters calculated in autotac are used as input. the wigner x observable is particularly sensitive to the deformation. in mid-shell regions, theoretically determined deformations are fairly constant and small, whereas experimental values are large and varied. in closed shell regions, where the theoretical deformations appear to be more accurate, the model excellently reproduces the observable. it is shown that allowing for slight adjustments of the experimentally determined deformation parameters will reproduce the large amplitude fluctuations seen experimentally near a=80. the pairing calculations also allow for comparisons with the energy difference between the even-even and odd-odd mass parabolas to be determined, using the same procedure. the results indicate that the same pairing mechanisms that mediate the pairing gap are also responsible for the wigner x. by examining religious connections among brazil, portugal and other parts of western europe from 1554-1654 i attempt to rethink one aspect of early modern christianity: the continuity of protestant and catholic reforms in the missionary context of brazil. historians have come to understand the catholic church in europe as engaged in defending itself against the protestant reformation and in catholic renewal, while in latin america, africa and asia it was dedicated to overseas missionary enterprise, where the objective was converting the indigenous peoples to the faith. i challenge the common paradigm of the "catholic spiritual conquest" of latin america. starting from a reconsideration of the french and dutch protestant presence in colonial brazil, i seek to understand how the reformation affected brazilian society. i argue for an atlantic reformation by suggesting that brazil be included in the larger history of the reformation. i explore several problems within this arena: how and why catholic and protestant traditions crossed the ocean; how contestation among protestants and catholics unfolded in brazil after a century of catholic "spiritual conquest;" how cross-confessional influences originating in brazil affected european religion in turn; how missionaries communicated specific notions and practices of european origin, including sacraments, priesthood, martyrdom, and traditional devotions and cults; and how and why some natives became protestant adepts. i approach these questions in a way that looks, first, at how contentious doctrines, rituals, and cultural practices from the era of reformations in europe arrived in brazil and how they affected catholic evangelization, portuguese colonization and the inhabitants' lives. second, i examine how theological debates and cross-confessional killings that occurred on brazilian soil contributed to discourses in europe at the time of the reformation. i suggest that since scholars rarely tell the history of both catholic and protestant colonial missions, we have come to misunderstand the christianization of brazil and consequently the atlantic world. i show how a legacy of what i call "exported confessional conflict" affected the construction of brazilian society. the new max and mix cutoff methods are compared to the traditional cutoff method, in order to study what affects these new methods have on the dynamic and structural results. the traditional cutoff method uses 2.5 times the largest contacted distance in the system to calculate the cutoff radius of all the particles in that system. the new max cutoff method uses the larger contacted distance of the pair to calculated cutoff. the mix cutoff method which uses an arithmetic mean of the contacted distances of the given pair to calculate the cutoff radius. cases are shown in which these new methods produce the same dynamical and structural results as the traditional cutoff methods. cases are also shown in which the mix and max cutoff methods do not produce the same dynamical or structural results as the traditional cutoff method. many of the judgments we express in everyday moral discourse employ concepts which rarely appear in works of ethical theory. those engaged in constructing and defending ethical theories typically proceed on the assumption that judgments using terms like 'evil', 'saint', 'obscene' and others can be easily translated into a much sparser, and hence more easily theorized, moral vocabulary. however, a careful examination of our moral language suggests that this assumption is unwarranted and that by focusing on a small set of moral concepts ethical theories have ignored much of our moral thinking. this has a number of problematic consequences, especially for those who believe that the justification of an ethical theory derives from its ability to bring our moral beliefs into a state of reflective equilibrium. our moral concepts also play a role in the formation of moral beliefs as instruments of moral perception. judgments as to whether particular moral terms serve to reveal or to obscure ethically important features of the world will affect the evaluation of ethical theories, a fact that has important implications for how we conceive of the methods and tasks of moral philosophy. experimental determination of protein function is resource-consuming. as an alternative, computational prediction of protein function has received attention. in this context, protein structural classification (psc) can help, by allowing for determining structural classes of currently unclassified proteins based on their features, and then relying on the fact that proteins with similar structures have similar functions. existing psc approaches rely on sequence-based or direct 3-dimensional (3d) structure-based protein features. however, in this thesis, we first model protein 3d structures as protein structure networks (psns). then, we use network-based features for psc. we propose the use of graphlets, state-of-the-art features in many research areas of network science, in the task of psc. moreover, because graphlets can deal only with unweighted psns, and because accounting for edge weights when constructing psns could improve psc accuracy, we also propose a deep learning framework that automatically learns network features from the weighted psns.at a higher scale of cellular organization lies another biological network type: a protein-protein interaction (ppi) network of a species. in a ppi network, nodes are proteins (i.e., psns themselves) and edges correspond to physical bindings between the proteins. so, we also use proteins' features from the ppi network in the task of psc. importantly, we evaluate whether integrating psn and ppi features of proteins improves psc accuracy compared to using psn features alone or ppi features alone. in the process, we compare a traditional machine learning approach (which is based on user-predefined graphlet features) against a deep learning approach (which is based on features learned automatically by a graph convolutional network method called graphsage). specifically, we propose an approach that integrates graphlet features and graphsage features. importantly, we find that the integrative approach improves the accuracy compared to using only graphlet features or graphsage features. humans and animals emit thermal electromagnetic radiation in the long-wave infrared range. the atmospheric absorption in this range is relatively low making this band attractive for application, such as target detection and tracking. unbiased, uncooled, and frequency-selective antenna-coupled nanowire thermocouples have been designed, fabricated from different metal combinations, and characterized for long-wave infrared detection. due to their small size, nanowires exhibit different physical properties from their bulk counterparts. one of these properties, the seebeck coefficient, specifies how well the thermocouple converts a temperature gradient into an open-circuit voltage. we have developed a characterization platform, with which the seebeck coefficient of the nanowires was measured. the nanowire thermocouples were calibrated, and their fabrication process was optimized. the characterization platform was co-located on the same chip as the infrared detectors. the area of the hot junction of the nanowire thermocouple was approximately 75 nm x 75 nm. the antenna-coupled thermocouples show polarization dependence with a maximum normalized detectivity (d*) of 5.46?10^5 cm&#8730;hz/w. we also investigated an unexpected and novel effect, namely the antenna-coupled shape-engineered thermocouples. only one single metal was used for the fabrication of the entire thermocouple. the necessary seebeck coefficient difference between the two conductors was reached by shape engineering and using the reduction of the seebeck coefficient in thin films. this phenomena opens the door for possible cheap implementation of these devices as well as the mass production for future application, since the complexity of fabrication is greatly reduced. almost all living organisms require iron (fe) to live. although iron is abundant on earth, aerobic conditions and circumneutral ph restrict it to the 3+ oxidation state, in which it is bound up as insoluble fe(iii) (hydr)oxide minerals (i.e. hematite, goethite), or, in a human host, tightly sequestered by proteins such as transferrin and ferritin. hence, although a typical cell needs a concentration of ~10-6 m fe to survive, readily available, soluble fe is only ~10-18 m. microbes have responded to this enormous discrepancy by evolving very efficient strategies for iron acquisition, primarily the production and secretion of fe-chelating siderophores. however, the long-held assumption that siderophores alone deliver mineral fe to microbes at a rate sufficient to support microbial growth has recently been called into question by abiotic measurements of siderophore-promoted dissolution. this dissertation presents an approach and bioinformatic analyses based on tools from molecular biology, such as knockout mutant and biosensor strains, in conjunction with classic biochemical and physiological assays, to investigate this process in a living system. the versatility of this approach allowed questions in both environmental and biomedical contexts to be addressed. in studies with the common environmental aerobe p. mendocina, it was found that the contribution of siderophores to fe acquisition from hematite depended strongly on the presence and concentration of other organic ligands common in the soil. mineral particle size was also shown to be an important parameter, as nanohematite proved to be far more bioavailable to p. mendocina, even supporting robust growth in the absence of siderophores. of biomedical relevance, ferritin (a protein "cage" with a core of nanomineral ferrihydrite) was shown to be an excellent source of fe to the pathogen p. aeruginosa regardless of the presence of siderophores. although close cell-mineral interaction was a requirement for siderophore-independent fe acquisition from nanohematite by p. mendocina, this was not observed for ferritin and p. aeruginosa. other possible mechanisms include secreted proteases and reductants. overall, this work shows that microbial acquisition of fe from mineral sources is complex, and reveals a variable role for siderophores. tuberculosis (tb) remains a formidable global health threat, with 10 million new cases and 1.5 million deaths reported in 2018 alone. tb disease is caused by the bacteria mycobacterium tuberculosis (m. tuberculosis). additionally, infections with non-tuberculous mycobacteria (ntm) are rapidly becoming a public health threat, especially to those who are immunocompromised. during infection, pathogenic mycobacteria are taken into the phagosome by host macrophages. they use the esx-1 secretion system to permeabilize the phagosomal membrane, and evade death by fusion with the lysosome. this critical step in virulence is highly conserved between m. tuberculosis and the ntm pathogen m. marinum, which has been used for decades as a model system to study esx-1 secretion and virulence. the esx-1 secretion system consists of a core membrane complex, which resides in the cytoplasmic membrane of the mycobacteria. it is responsible for transporting small esx-1 protein substrates from the inside of the mycobacterial cell, across the cytoplasmic membrane, to the exterior of the cell. this process is both exceedingly important and tightly regulated. the survival of the pathogenic mycobacteria relies upon secretion of the correct substrates, in the appropriate amounts at exactly the right time. to do this, the bacteria must connect membrane complex assembly with gene transcription, and substrate secretion. whib6 is a transcription factor which activates expression of esx-1 substrate genes. we found that the whib6 transcription factor responds to the assembly of the core esx-1 complex at the cytoplasmic membrane, a critical checkpoint. additionally, a transcription factor, espm, binds the promoter of the whib6 gene, and is required for repression of whib6 gene transcription in the absence of the core membrane complex. this effectively connects the assembly of the core membrane complex to gene expression in m. marinum. further, we discovered that espe and espf, known esx-1 secreted substrates, negatively regulate whib6 gene expression. they are also required for virulence in m. marinum and m. tuberculosis, effectively connecting esx-1 secretion and virulence with gene expression and fine-tuning of esx-1 substrate production. biocomplexity is the study of the complex relationships among biological entities that are responsible for life. this dissertation addresses two important computational in biocomplexity: morphogenesis and protein-protein interaction networks. morphogenesis is the development of multicellular organisms. i develop models, algorithms, and software that integrate the genetic regulatory network and physical or generic cellular mechanisms that explain how cells interact to form tissues. the genetic regulation is modeled by a combination of a rule-based state automaton and a set of partial differential equations (pdes); the generic cellular mechanisms include cell adhesion, cell differentiation, cell growth, mitosis, secretion of morphogens, haptotaxis and chemotaxis.protein networks are part of signaling, metabolic, and other biological pathways important to cells and organisms. we develop a new algorithm called maximum specificity set cover (mssc) to predict protein-protein interactions. the predictions by mssc preserve not only the topological characteristics of protein interaction networks, but also the protein co-expression. our method outscores other prediction methods in quality. heterogeneous materials are indispensable to a variety of scientific and engineering applications. however, the design of these complex material systems has often been outpaced by the product to market cycle. in other words, these materials are not being understood quickly enough to exploit their full potential. this is often due to the lack of integration between necessary experiments and modeling capabilities. the modeling of these complex systems often relies on the microstructural information acquired from imaging techniques. to this end, this research focuses on establishing a co-designed framework which improves characterization techniques and image-based modeling protocols for investigating multi-scale behaviour of heterogeneous materials. specifically, an image-based modeling concept along side complex three-dimensional imaging techniques is used to understand the influence of microstructure and local damage phenomena on the effective mechanical response of particulate reinforced composites.the experimental framework encompasses utilizing the x-ray micro-computed tomography imaging technique to obtain a detailed characterization and statistical analysis of the evolution of microstructural features upon uniaxial compression loading. furthermore, the nondestructive, three-dimensional image-based analysis protocol is leveraged in the development of representative unit cells (rucs). rucs enable the ability to perform complex computations on relatively smaller domains all the while conserving the statistical characteristics of the original microstructure. by properly representing the microstructure and calibrating relevant physical models, accurate numerical predictions are realized. moreover, this co-designed framework is used in the development of a novel damage model to study particulate reinforced composites. continuum damage mechanics are employed to develop the novel damage model that correctly accounts for the deviatoric and volumetric split of the strain energy density function and the damage variables in the finite strain setting. numerical studies are included to demonstrate the full co-designed experimental and computational framework while using the novel damage model to investigate damage at the interface in a particulate reinforced composite.large three-dimensional damage simulations of particulate composites under high-strain rate loading are performed to address the effect of the microstructure on the overall transient mechanical behavior. spheres as well as oblate, prolate, and plane strain ellipsoids are used and show that resolving the wide range of spatial and temporal scales in complex morphologies is essential to capture damage characteristics. in order to resolve the characteristic damage length-scale, a highly parallel finite element solver, pgfem3d, is used. this work shows that microstructural details as well as high-strain rates play an important role in addressing complex damage patterns and the overall material response. the goal of this dissertation is to further improve the fidelity of image-based modeling and enable high confidence in simulation-based engineering decision in design and analysis. this dissertation contains two essays on the consequences of large-scale school voucher programs for private elementary and secondary schools. by altering the market for private schooling, large-scale school voucher programs may have effects on the educational experience of private school students beyond the effects of small-scale programs. in chapter one, i use eight large, state-level, voucher programs adopted between the late 1990s and mid-2000s and a unique dataset on school expenditures and teacher compensation to examine how the introduction of voucher programs affects the educational inputs (e.g. class sizes, instructional hours, per-student expenditures) students experience in private schools. i find that large-scale, voucher programs alter the inputs students experience in ways that tend to worsen the experience of black students while improving the experience of white students. these effects are driven by changes in inputs deployed at newly established schools. back-of-the-envelope calculations indicate that the market effects of vouchers are large enough to substantially reduce the benefits of moving from public to private school for black students, reversing more than 100 percent of the gains in student-teacher ratio, 87 percent of the gain in per-teacher compensation, and 51 percent of the gain in instructional hours. my estimates suggest that extrapolation from prior studies may be inappropriate when considering how larger programs affect students.in chapter two, which is coauthored with daniel hungerman, we explore how vouchers have affected the fiscal outcomes of private schools and the affordability of a private education. we find that subsidy programs created a large transfer of public funding to private schools, suggesting that every dollar of funding increased revenue by a dollar or more. turning to the incidence of subsidies and the impact of subsidies on enrollment, our findings depend on the type of program introduced: programs that restrict eligibility to certain groups of students create relatively large enrollment gains but no change in price, while programs that offer unrestricted subsidies lead to price increases but no change in enrollment. we calculate elasticities of demand and supply for private schools, and discuss welfare effects. an important motivation for libertarian theories of free will derives from the view that freedom (and moral responsibility) requires the power of origination, the power to act in a way that is not determined by the law-driven causal stream of events that precede the action. but no plausible libertarian theory can maintain that free actions are completely causally or explanatorily independent of events that precede them: this would make actions chancy, random, and inexplicable--in particular, inexplicable by reasons. for the libertarian, then, prior events and states of affairs--including an agent's circumstances, reasons, and character--must typically function as mere influences on free actions, 'inclining but not necessitating' the agent to act. this dissertation focuses on the concept of influence--the metaphysical middle ground between determinism and chance--in libertarian accounts of free will and moral responsibility, a concept that, despite its centrality to libertarianism, has not been given a satisfactory explication. one main project of the dissertation is to make significant progress toward an explication of influence; the other main project consists of tracing some of the implications of this explication, especially implications for theories of moral responsibility. i contribute to an explication of influence in two ways. first, (in the introduction and chapters 1 and 2) i identify important sources of influence, distinguish philosophically useful kinds of influence, and clarify salient features and properties of influence. i focus especially on the need to account for the fact that influences vary in strength and hence come in degrees. second, i raise and develop significant challenges (in chapters 3 and 4) for extant attempts by non-causal, agent-causal, and event-causal libertarian views to account for influence. hence, appeals to irreducible teleological relations, objective causal propensities, and relative causal contribution face considerable difficulties, leaving libertarians with substantial metaphysical puzzles. i identify the most promising replies or amendments such views should adopt, though i remain skeptical of their success. in chapter 5 i begin the project of tracing the implications of the foregoing chapters by examining the thesis of restrictivism--the view that human freedom is exercised only rarely, under relatively unusual circumstances. i offer numerous refinements to our understanding of the scope and nature of our overall freedom, and thereby help to frame the final chapter in which i take up questions about moral responsibility. the main conclusion defended in the final chapter is that one's degree of moral responsibility or desert for an act or consequence ought to be a function, partly, of the kinds and strengths of influences on it. against arguments to the contrary, i defend the view that moral responsibility for an act is mitigated to the degree to which it is, in certain ways, influenced. moreover, i argue that actual human agents typically are subject to influences of a kind and strength that does in fact tend to sharply diminish their moral responsibility--more than seems to be presupposed by most libertarians. hence, even mere influence can pose a threat to freedom and moral responsibility. although the perfectly branched dendrimers with degree of branching (db) and molecular weight distribution (mw/mn) of 1 are very promising structures, the tedious multistep synthesis and inefficient chromatographic purification have led to attempts to replicate their structural properties via synthesis of hyperbranched polymers with high db and low polydispersity in one-pot processes. the chain-growth cui-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition polymerization (cuaacp) to produce structurally defined hyperbranched polymers in one pot, is discussed in the thesis. the chain-growth mechanism is attributed to the dedicate complexation between cui catalyst and triazole groups that confine the cu catalyst in the polymers and selectively favor the polymer-monomer reaction rather than the monomer-monomer reactions. the living nature of this cuaacp is extensively explored to demonstrate the intriguing features of multiple-batch addition of various ab2 monomers to produce hyperbranched polymers with high molar mass, low dispersity, core-shell segmented structures and orthogonal functionalities. this article draws from active participant ethnographic fieldwork with a new religious movement and a microsociological perspective to better understand bystander recruitment. specifically, i shift focus from the individual to the situation to explore dynamic influences on bystanders' assessments of protest situations organized around two issues: attempts to 'reclaim' the clitoris in order to liberate women's sexuality and their use of the swastika inside the star of david as their group's religious symbol. integrating cultural sociology and social psychology, i demonstrate processes of meaning-making that occur as bystanders enter protest situations and that mediate their engagement with the protests: (1) spatial dynamics as they mediate emotions and cognitions; (2) the presence of potentially polluting symbols; and (3) the consequences of emotional inconsistencies. results not only extend our understanding of bystander recruitment, especially unexpected variation, but also demonstrate the value of an analytic shift away from the individual toward the protest situation and processes of meaning-making. gateways are entrances from one space to another and as such, they are intended to function as specific transition points between two delineated spaces. this study is concerned with the manner in which the notion of transition is expressed architecturally and what implications this may have for textual analyses of greek drama. monumental architecture, including entryways, is invariably a practical form transformed beyond its practical function into something that is intended to perform the function of inspiring a particular state of mind in the viewer. a monumental gateway not only performs the practical function of articulating and controlling entrance and egress between two spaces, but it also prepares the viewer for the difference in experience from one space to another. this study concludes that the same principles that dictate the ideals of monumental gateways, as physical and metaphorical boundaries and vehicles of transition between spaces of contrasting character, are also prevalent in the staging and representation of space in aeschylus' agamemnon. between 1960 and 2000 the percentage of the united states population classified as immigrants increased from approximately 6% to 12%. in this dissertation i analyze the effects of this increased immigration on both native educational choices as well as on native population changes. in chapter 1, i use a panel of school districts across the united states to investigate whether increased immigrant presence in u.s. public school districts between 1990 and 2000 has led to increases in native private school enrollment. results show that native flight to private schools due to increased immigrant presence in public schools is largely driven by the white population; an additional 10 immigrants in public schools leads to approximately 2 additional white natives enrolled in private schools. while chapter 1 focuses on outcomes measured at the school district level, it is important to understand which schools are most likely to be impacted by this flight within a school district. chapter 2 answers this question by focusing on native flight from individual public and private schools in the state of florida between 2001 and 2007. analysis at the individual school level confirms native flight is driven by white natives and is most prevalent in public schools that are located in close proximity to a private school. results suggest that an additional 4 white students enroll in a particular private school for every 5 additional immigrant children who enroll in the 5 closest public schools to that private school. chapter 3 investigates the short-run population changes of native individuals to an increase in the immigrant population in a metropolitan area. using annual level population totals for approximately 150 metropolitan areas from 2000-2009, i estimate that an additional immigrant leads to an increase in the low-skill native population of approximately 0.5 to 0.8 individuals in that current year. results also show that high skill native populations decrease as immigrant inflows increase to a given metropolitan area. this dissertation analyzes the liturgical commemoration of earthquakes in constantinople ca. 400-600 ce. earthquake commemorations were some of the earliest rites created locally for the city's liturgy. this thesis argues that analysis of this rite, its origins, and its contested reception history illuminates the theological, environmental, and political concerns that shaped the early liturgy of constantinople.the thesis begins with a reconstruction of the original ritual pattern and theology of the commemoration rite and its evolution. it was comprised of readings, hymns, and a long procession that mimicked the evacuation route taken during earthquakes. over the course of its performance, which lasted from evening until the afternoon on the next day, the rite depicted earthquakes as manifestations of divine wrath against the people for their unfaithfulness, for which collective repentance is prescribed as an effective response. next, the thesis locates the origins of the liturgical rite in a ritual repertoire of prayer and supplication that emerged from spontaneous, popular responses to earthquakes in constantinople. prior to the practice of commemorating earthquakes liturgically, the late-fourth and early-fifth century preachers severian of gabala and john chrysostom drew from this ritual repertoire to make theological sense of constantinopolitan earthquakes. they framed earthquakes as divine manifestations and placed constantinople at the center of a narrative of god's providential guidance of history. the thesis then analyzes the five earthquakes commemorated between 438 and 557. with its call for mass repentance in the face of god's wrath, the commemoration rite challenged constantinople's ambitions as the new capital of the roman empire. those dedicated to augmenting constantinople's political and ecclesiastical power disputed the theology of earthquakes as signs of divine wrath, and reframed local earthquakes as signs of divine blessing upon the city and its ambitions. analysis of the liturgical commemoration of earthquakes illuminates hitherto unexplored tensions between christianity and classical roman ideology at play in the formation of the liturgy of constantinople. by showing how the liturgy connected environmental, theological, and political concerns, this dissertation pursues new avenues for exploring the role played by the natural environment in the shaping of christian ritual and liturgy. multiphoton microscopy (mpm) combined with frequency-domain fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (fd-flim) has enabled three-dimensional quantitative molecular microscopy in vivo. the integrated mpm-fd-flim imaging system possesses both the advantages of mpm, such as reduced photodamage and deep tissue penetration, and the strengths of flim, including error tolerance and the ability to discriminate different fluorophores with similar emission spectra. in this work, a variety of mpm-fd-flim imaging systems are investigated and developed in order to handle multiple imaging tasks. all systems utilize the same mpm technique as excitation sources but different fd-flim methods as detection modalities.in the first part of this work, several original techniques are developed to improve the sensitivity, i.e., the speed and signal-to-noise ratio (snr) performance, of mpm-fd-flim. starting with a thorough investigation of the snr of mpm-fd-flim and their limits, a super-sensitivity technique that fundamentally improves the imaging speed by a factor of two is developed and experimentally demonstrated. another method to improve the snr is to increase the excitation laser power, which, however, can cause fluorophore saturation and lead to incorrect fluorescence lifetime measurements. to address this issue, a novel fd-flim method that permits accurate and fast lifetime measurements even with a 2.6-fold increase in excitation power is presented. next, phase multiplexing flim, a technique that can generate 2d, 3d, and 4d intensity, lifetime, and phasor images simultaneously, is proposed and demonstrated in deep scattering tissues. to improve the speed of image analysis, a novel and unbiased approach to segment flim images automatically by k-means clustering of flim phasors is presented. successful image segmentation on 2d and 3d flim images of fixed cells and living animals acquired with two different flim systems are demonstrated. additionally, to improve the snr of flim, the first poisson-gaussian denoising dataset that can be used to benchmark state-of-the-art denoising algorithms is presented. the benchmarked algorithms, especially those which utilize deep learning, can be used to further improve the snr of mpm-fd-flim.in the second part of this work, a super-resolution fluorescence microscopy technique that can be easily implemented and requires neither additional hardware nor complex post-processing is proposed and demonstrated. the method is based on the principle of stepwise optical saturation (sos), where m steps of raw fluorescence images are linearly combined to generate an image with a -fold increase in resolution compared with diffraction-limited images. additionally, an upgrade version of sos, desos, where the raw images go through a deconvolution procedure for an improved snr before sos processing, is demonstrated. with sos and desos, super-resolution images can be generated in intact animals. finally, a novel super-resolution flim technique called generalized stepwise optical saturation (gsos) that generalizes and extends the concept sos is presented. sos and gsos both utilize the linear combination of m raw images to increase the resolution by a factor of , but sos is a special and the simplest case of gsos. the super-resolution flim capability of gsos is experimentally demonstrated with biological samples on an mpm-fd-flim system based on radio frequency analog signal processing. this is the first implementation of super-resolution imaging in fd-flim. characterization of the seismic hazard comprises undoubtedly the most critical component in probabilistic seismic risk assessment, and definitely the one associated with the largest amount of uncertainty. for applications involving dynamic analysis this hazard may be characterized through stochastic ground motion models. these models facilitate a versatile description of earthquake acceleration time-histories by modulating a stochastic sequence through functions that address spectral and temporal properties of the excitation. this is established by relating the parameters of these functions to earthquake and site characteristics though appropriate predictive relationships. there have been limited investigations, though, that examine the impact of the uncertainty in these predictive relationships on the seismic risk or that compare in detail the seismic risk provided through such stochastic ground motion models to other established approaches for describing seismic hazard (such as scaling of ground motions). motivated by this realization, the current research seeks to advance probabilistic seismic risk assessment by a) providing a better understanding of how stochastic ground motion models impact seismic risk, especially in terms of the uncertainty included in their predictive relationships, b) developing an efficient framework for a hazard compatible tuning of record-based models and c) investigating how these models can support probabilistic seismic risk assessment within the context of performance based earthquake engineering. a framework for comparison of existing ground motion models is first developed. this is established through a parametric investigation, examining seismic risk for different seismicity characteristics (such as moment magnitude and rupture distance of seismic events), but also through developing a global sensitivity analysis approach, aiming at identifying the importance of different risk factors towards the overall seismic risk. extensive comparisons are made between two alternative ground motion models utilizing this framework and critical insight is provided for their relative benefits/drawbacks in characterizing seismic hazard. these models are also compared against ground motion prediction equations (gmpes), corresponding to the established approach for characterizing seismic hazard, and potential discrepancies are identified. this motivates then the next component of the research, which is the selection/optimization of the predictive relationships of ground motion models so that compatibility to gmpes is directly established. a versatile methodology is developed that allows the selection of seismicity and structural characteristics for this compatibility to be established, and then computationally efficiently performs the tuning of the chosen model. the foundation of the methodology is the development of a metamodel to approximate the median predictions of this chosen ground motion model and of the corresponding response quantities. the optimization can be then performed very quickly utilizing the developed surrogate model, providing the ability to tune the stochastic ground motion model to match specific gmpes of interest. the impact of the use of stochastic ground motion models within the context of probabilistic seismic risk assessment is emphasized throughout the thesis. discussion is also included at the end of the dissertation on how disaggregated information from hazard maps can be extended to a complete probabilistic description for regional seismological characteristics, which can then support a comprehensive risk assessment utilizing the proposed gmpe compatible ground motion modelling. upgrade is a collection of ten stories written and revised under the supervision of the creative writing faculty at the university of notre dame, south bend, indiana, 2020. it is entirely a work of fiction, with no referents outside the imagination. understanding who participates in the anti-vaccination movement has been of public and academic interest, particularly in the last twenty years. when studying this movement, the quantitative default approach is to dichotomize vaccination groups between those who are fully-up-to-date and those who are not. due to a lack of consistent categorization, inconsistencies arise in demographic characteristics. using direct measures from the national immunization survey (nis), i find that dichotomizing vaccination groups between fully-up-to-date and some form of underimmunized is unable to capture shifts in the movement. however, when looking at the anti-vaccination movement in terms of complete non-, selective (mmr and varicella), and fully-up-to-date, we capture the shift in types of non-compliance associated with non-vaccinators and limit demographic inconsistencies. more specifically, the anti-vaccination movement has shifted from inequalityto lifestyle-based non-compliance. tunnel diodes have received interest because of their remarkable multivalued i-v characteristic and inherent high switching speeds. the exploration of tunnel diode applications was impeded by the incompatibility of tunnel diode fabrication technology with integrated-circuit processing. rapid thermal diffusion from spin-on diffusants is the particular focus of this work as a basis for establishing a rapid thermal processing method compatible with commercial foundry processes. vertical tunnel diodes formed on high resistivity substrates have been demonstrated to allow s-parameter measurements and extraction of a full ac device model. a current density of 2.7 ì_å_a/ì_å_m2 and peak-to-valley current ratio (pvr) of 2.25 has been achieved, which is the best result ever achieved using spin-on diffusants. several other approaches were also explored such as flash-lamp annealing and rapid thermal annealing from doped metal sources. phosphorus activation was improved using flash-lamp annealing. tunnel diodes were formed by rapid thermal annealing from an al:b:si source on si with a peak current density of 2.7 ì_å_a/ì_å_m2. backward diodes were formed by evaporating 50 and 100 nm undoped ge layer as well as 100 nm al on an n+ ge. this indicates that the undoped amorphous ge was successfully transformed into heavily doped crystalline ge. transmission electron microscopy (tem) was taken which allow characterization of the regrown layer thickness. tem also showed that the regrown layer is clearly epitaxial and free of defects. the potential and limitations of each approach is discussed in this work. this study examines the relationship between two influential moral orders in american culture: christianity and consumerism. using interview and survey data from the university of notre dame's science of generosity project, i explore how mainstream american christianity interacts with the quasi-religion of consumerism. i define and specify cultural rules and schemas by which americans participate in consumerism and christians engage the consumerist religion. i also extend the study of christianity and consumerism beyond consumption by discussing how religious giving, especially tithing, indirectly leads a minority of christians to partially and indirectly resist consumerism. findings reveal important aspects of normative consumer culture in america, but also show several underlying mechanisms, "monies," ideal types, and images of god that help explain how and why mainstream american christianity generally supports, and sometimes resists, consumerism. i argue that that mainstream american christianity is multi-vocal regarding consumerism, but the most widely accepted voices prop up the consumerist regime by dualistically compartmentalizing some aspects of economic life from religion&mdash;especially point-of-purchase situations&mdash;promoting unfettered consumerism through the prosperity gospel, and by encouraging prudent consumerism through a gospel of fiscal responsibility. empirical studies of the structure of personality and psychopathology have demonstrated the importance of hierarchical modeling for extending our understanding of relations among mental disorders, as well as between and among abnormal personality traits and dimensions of psychopathology. the current study aims to contribute to this work by examining the joint structure of well-known measures of 'axis i' psychopathology, the mmpi-2 (butcher et al., 2001) restructured-clinical (rc) scales (tellegen et al., 2003), and 'axis ii' personality pathology, the schedule for nonadaptive and adaptive personality (snap; clark, 1993; clark, simms, wu, & casillas, in press) using a series of 'top-down' factor analyses, termed the 'bass-ackwards approach' (goldberg, 2006). the proposed study is a partial replication of simms, casillas, clark, watson, & doebbeling (2005), but expands upon this work through the use of structural analysis and an expanded clinical sample (n = 419). malaria caused an estimated 627,000 deaths, mostly among african children in 2012. anopheles gambiae is one of the most efficient vectors of malaria in the world. an. gambiae is highly anthropophilic, preferring the human host as a source of blood. an. gambiae enjoys an exceptional long life span, allowing a high probability to transmit malaria. an. gambiae exiles in adapting to diverse ecological environments, with a widespread geographical distribution from humid tropical rain forest to arid savanna across almost the whole africa. an. gambiae practices its ritual of feeding on blood with a flavour of plasticity, with evidences of both indoor and outdoor biting, and resting behaviour, which asks for a diversity of vector control measures. the stunning ability of an. gambiae to adapt to diverse ecological environments and the rich polymorphism of feeding related behaviour is considered to be related to the extensive chromosomal inversion polymorphism in the nature. frequencies of inversions have been associated with multiple climate factors including aridity along transects starting from rain forests in southern nigeria and cameroon to arid savannas in the north. frequencies of inversions vary inside and outside african huts, leading to differential human-vector contact rates. frequencies of inversions run up and down while seasons come and go. however, ecological physiology and genetics of inversions in an. gambiae was not well explored, in contrast to numerous population studies of correlation of inversion frequency with ecological and environmental factors. a typical inversion contains hundreds of genes in strong linkage equilibrium, which makes mapping genes inside an inversion with any trait much less enjoyable process comparing to regular association or qtl mapping exercises. to understand the genetic basis of 'adaptation by inversion', we decided to take novel and powerful genomics approaches. first, by taking advantage of generations after generations of limited but ongoing gene flux between alternative gene arrangements in natural populations, we resequenced the genomes of female an. gambiae along a latitudinal cline in cameroon. we were able to identify genetic regions highly differentiated between alternative gene arrangements. the genes or genetic factors involved in adaptation would have a higher probability located in those highly differentiated regions. second, we systematically measured a set of ecological and epidemiological traits and found significant impacts of inversions on most of life history traits. in addition, we studied influences of inversions on genome wide gene expression patterns by microarray. the effects of inversions on transcriptome were apparent, as transcript abundance of 10% to 40% genes were altered by inversions. we also identified genes with significant association with traits at the expression level. by combining results from the two different but complementary approaches, we were able to show that inversions have complex effects on multiple important traits, involving multiple genes/genetic factors, depending on sex and environments. the results also suggested a common mechanism of inversions' impact on phenotypes, probably by reprogramming energy metabolism and translation process through insulin/tor pathway. the following dissertation looks at individuals who have transitioned out of the teenage or adolescent years yet have not fully established themselves as independent adults in order to address the question of religion's role in shaping behavior. despite previous research considering the connections between religion and alcohol consumption, theoretical insights into the mechanisms that link religion and substance use or abuse remain incomplete. this dissertation primarily examines the influence of religion and religious practice on alcohol consumption among 18 to 25 year olds. with religion as the principal factor under investigation, this work also looks at social and familial context to further understand the competing factors that affect patterns of consumption. using data from all three waves of the national study of youth and religion (nsyr), which is a comprehensive investigation into the religious lives of american youth, i argue that religious belief and participation contributes something unique to the lives of young adults that shapes the way they behave in positive ways. results indicate that when examining patterns of alcohol use, within the emerging adult population, religion and religious involvement are important factors to consider in conjunction with social and familial context. specifically, religious affiliation, organizational religious participation, and non-organizational religious participation each affect consumption to differing degrees. however, the principal mechanism by which religion influences consumption is through the non-organizational act of reading sacred scriptures, suggesting the utility of spiritual capital in producing positive outcomes. additionally, results indicate that family context exerts an indirect effect on binge drinking while prior heavy drinking and social context exert strong direct effects. results reveal that prior antisocial behavior wields a stronger influence on later antisocial behavior than peer relationships. lastly, findings show that not all conservative protestants are alike in whether or how often they drink alcohol and differences in the factors that influence that behavior are present. disaggregating conservative protestants into smaller subgroups for analysis reveals heterogeneity that would otherwise be missed. pathogenic mycobacteria are a global health burden. mycobacterium tuberculosis accounts the most pathogenic mycobacterial infections in the world, but nontuberculous mycobacteria (ntm) infections are on the rise. m. tb and m. marinum, an ntm, share conserved mechanisms of pathogenesis, including the esx-1 secretion system. we use m. marinum as a model for m. tb to study esx-1 secretion and pathogenesis. here, we use molecular genetics, biochemistry, and proteo-genetic approaches to interrogate integral aspects of mycobacterial pathobiology with specific emphasis on regulation of the esx-1 secretion system. using these approaches, we identified a novel esx-1 protein substrate, mmar_2894, that is unique to m. marinum. mmar_2894 is important for esx-1 secretion in vitro but is dispensable in vivo, suggesting there may be compensatory mechanisms to rescue loss of mmar_2894. we also defined roles of additional esx-1 substrates inside the mycobacterial cell. the espe and espf esx-1 substrates are required for the lytic activity of esx-1 outside the cell and they are negative regulators of gene expression inside the mycobacterial cell. finally, we identified a novel transcriptional regulator of the esx-1 system, espn, that is required for pathogenesis and whose activity is infection-dependent. collectively, our findings have expanded our understanding of esx-1 regulation, emphasizing that this regulation is both multifaceted and complex, involving coordination of esx-1 substrates and transcription factors themselves. the recent commercialization and privatization of scientific research has reconfigured the organization of science worldwide, fostering new scientific practices and new political tools to manage scientific research. focusing on the mechanisms of ignorance production, the recent literature in agnotology has been a fruitful approach for understanding the social and epistemological consequences of commercialized science today. in particular, agnotology has made evident the need for a well-articulated normative approach capable of identifying and evaluating the epistemic concerns raised by the private funding and performance of science. although philosophers of science have dealt with some of the social aspects of scientific knowledge production, they have yet to articulate an appropriate social epistemology that addresses these pressing issues. in my dissertation i take up this task. the aim of this dissertation is two-fold. first, through the examination of four crucial cases of agnogenesis &#8212; i.e., the tobacco industry's support of cancer research, the ongoing debate over global warming, the pharmaceutical industry's influence over clinical trials, and economists' assessment of the financial crisis of 2008 &#8212; and of the epistemic and social problems that they entail, i aim to show that agnotology poses a serious challenge to philosophy of science. second, i aim to provide a preliminary sketch of a normative approach in philosophy of science to address this challenge. to do so, i use the science and values framework and in particular the contributions of feminists philosophers of science who have dealt with similar challenges. following the insights from feminist philosophy of science, i argue for a naturalized social epistemology that allows for the empirical assessment of value commitments and that is explicit as well as critical about the social and political values it endorses. this preliminary sketch opens the door for a broader philosophical project, the project of a politically informed philosophy of science. following the events that transpired after 9/11, evidence suggested that the mental health of muslims across the globe was affected significantly, resulting in decreased wellness for members of this group. hate crimes toward muslims and those perceived as muslim increased. though the implications of this major event were evident for adults, little research has examined the ramifications on youth growing up during this time. in the present study, a grounded theory approach was utilized to examine the identity development of muslims growing up in the age of the "war on terrorism." nine students (3 females, 6 males) participated in the current study, and represented undergraduate (4) and graduate students (5). participants completed two phases of data collection. the first was an open-ended interview questionnaire completed online. the second phase consisted of an in-depth interview. the results of the present study yielded three models. the first described the experience of being muslim on a catholic campus. at the core of students' experiences was an appreciation of the campus' spirituality. it was defined by four interconnected dimensions: connection with a spiritual community; a sense of uniqueness and pride; appraisal of student attitudes; and overcoming challenges and barriers. the second model answered the primary question of the investigation which sought to understand the identity development of muslim youth who grew up in the united states during 9/11. results suggested a two-tiered interconnected multidimensional model, with a core made up of the collectivistic self. the inner ring of the model depicts elements most central to the participants' identity and included: family; ethnic heritage; and religion (islam). the outer ring illustrates domain that were also important but less salient and included: region; field of study; ethnic minorities; social justice; hobbies; and ses. the third model was a moderation model and depicted the effects of 9/11 on participants' lives. it was evident that participants were exposed to discrimination and resulting negative repercussions. despite this, their positive coping strategies appeared to significantly mitigate its effects. limitations and challenges of the present study are discussed. future directions and practical applications are also provided. as stockpiles of nuclear waste from both commercial spent nuclear fuel and nuclear weapons disarmament grow, a particular concern is the fate of the radioactive elements; namely uranium, neptunium, and plutonium. these elements pose grave danger if their long-term storage and possible release in the environment is not addressed in great detail. one method in addressing this problem is developing and designing advanced waste forms that sequester these elements that are not degraded by either radiation or environmental effects. actinide phosphates have proven to be promising candidates in this regard. traditional routes to ceramic waste forms require the use of high temperatures (>1000ìâå¼c) and long reaction times. my doctoral research has focused on the development of low-temperature hydrothermal crystal growth methods for synthesizing actinide phosphonates that can be thermally or radiolytically decomposed to phosphates at relatively low temperatures. in addition, the structural chemistry of actinide phosphonates is of great interest, and developing their structure-property correlations is one of the main goals in my research matriculation. using structural data, we are illuminating the similarities and differences in bonding between uranium and transuranium phosphonates.a compilation of published results from my doctoral research will seek to provide a better insight and understanding of phosphonates with actinide elements; exploring the preparation, structural characterization, and physical properties in this class. to accomplish this, the use of in situ hydrothermal redox chemistry was used in the synthesis of these novel compounds. standard spectroscopic techniques such as vibrational spectroscopy, raman, uv-vis-nir spectroscopy, and second-harmonic generation(shg) measurements were also used to determine structure-property relationships, but single crystal x-ray diffraction was the primary means of characterization in elucidating the structures of these new compounds. examples of the structures of thorium, uranium, neptunium, and plutonium diphosphonates, and well-characterized heterobimetallic mixed-actinide phosphonates are provided. these compounds demonstrate the versatility and flexibility of a polydentate phosphonate with the actinides. this dissertation examines the relationship between financial liberalization and financial crises and its impact on small open developing countries using trinidad and tobago (tt) and the fall of the cl financial conglomerate as the case study.i engage the institutional and post-keynesian theories to analyse the circumstances that led to the cl financial crisis. i argue that financial liberalization leads to financial crisis and i show that the liberalization of tt's financial system allowed clf to engage in financial practices which were responsible for clf's difficulties which initiated a financial crisis. the shooting at robb elementary school greatly inspired me to write this manuscript. these poems not only talk about gun violence but also domestic and climate violence. this is likely a study or remedial study of violence that seeks resolution for existing trauma or justice for a half-dead mother, and/or is exhausted by experiencing different forms of violence. i hope these poems strike a nerve. this thesis analyses the fourth-century hand-written wall inscriptions found in the basilica of saint felix in cimitile/nola, and uses them to explore the "non-christian" context of campania in its relationship to the larger early christian community in the mediterranean. using the graffiti, other inscriptions, and archaeological material, i examine the shrine's status as a pilgrimage site and a center of monasticism, and the agency, identity and literacy of those who lived and visited the site. i introduce the history, context, and layout of the basilica vetus in cimitile. the following chapter records the graffiti and explains their meaning, state of preservation, and context within the physical layout. anopheles gambiae is the primary mosquito vector of malaria in sub-saharan africa. it has adapted to thrive in contrasting ecological conditions from the humid rainforests of central africa to the near desert-like conditions of the northern sahel. within a single location, it survives extreme seasonal fluctuations in rainfall and temperature. this ecological adaptation has driven incipient speciation into two forms, termed m and s, which exploit permanent and temporary larval habitats, respectively. polymorphic chromosomal inversions shared between forms are non-randomly associated with multiple environmental factors further promoting adaptation. a long-term goal is to determine the genetic basis of ecological adaptation in an. gambiae. chapter 2 reports a molecular diagnostic of the 2la inversion that will enhance both phenotypic and genetic studies of this rearrangement. traditional cytogenetic karyotyping is labor-intensive, requires rare skills, and is limited to semi-gravid females. this new pcr (polymerase chain reaction) for determining 2l karyotype is accurate, simple, and can be utilized on mosquitoes of any development stage and either sex. in chapter 3 and 4, an oligonucleotide microarray platform was used to map genome wide divergence between malian an. gambiae carrying alternative chromosomal arrangements. divergence mapping between alternative arrangements of five common, polymorphic inversions revealed three regions of elevated differentiation. two of the regions are located within the 2la inversion and appear to contain at least some of the genes responsible for the selective maintenance of this polymorphic inversion. the other four inversions ì¢ ââ' all on the right arm of chromosome 2 ì¢ ââ' exhibited substantially less differentiation, confounding the genome scans. possible explanations for the contrasting patterns of evolution seen between these different inversions systems are discussed. in chapters 5 and 6, the same microarray platform was used to map divergence between the m and s forms of an. gambiae. three rangewide islands of genomic divergence were discovered between nascent species; one at the pericentromeric region of each chromosome. whether these islands are incidental or instrumental to speciation remains an open question. a fourth island, on chromosome 3 and distant from the centromere, is likely due to recent geographically-restricted selection within the m form at the tep1 immunity gene. the diverse pathogen community in the permanent larval sites utilized by the m form may have driven a novel tep1 allele (tep1rb) to fixation in this form. intriguingly, this derived allele may inadvertently increase resistance to plasmodium. while each region of elevated divergence needs to be further investigated, these studies represent a crucial first step in connecting genetic polymorphisms to adaptive phenotypic diversity in this medically important species. recent scholarship has examined timanthes' legacy and the exemplum of the sacrifice of iphigenia to show its important place in the history of western art. however, a major figure has been omitted from these discussions, giambattista tiepolo (1691-1770). as the premier italian fresco painter of the eighteenth century, tiepolo seems to have depicted the sacrifice of iphigenia more often than any other artist. some scholars have suggested that tiepolo's treatment of the theme was primarily the result of contemporary trends in opera production. this paper will argue that tiepolo's representation of the subject aligned him with the classical painter timanthes of kythnos, and was a self-conscious effort to reinforce his identity as the preeminent history painter of his day. all people are impacted by the global and regional processes that create climate. however, climate impacts play out on local scales, resulting in a diverse set of human-climate relationships across time and space. thus, archaeological studies of human-climate relationships should work toward high-resolution reconstructions that allow us to trace the complex pathways by which global processes stressed local systems. the following chapters present three articles pursuing a detailed understanding of the role of climate stress on subsistence practices at persistent settlements in the central mesa verde (cmv) region of the northern u.s. southwest. these chapters present a refined method for identifying periods when climate acutely stressed people's ability to subsist at three large, long-lived villages in the cmv from a.d. 600-1300, a high resolution maize productivity model to understand how people avoided maize shortages from a.d. 700-1300, and a novel method for documenting ancient roads across the u.s. southwest to understand how communities in the cmv region and beyond were physically connected to one another. results from these studies suggest that: 1) the effect of acute climate stress is strongly dependent on the resilience of subsistence and social systems at individual communities; 2) irrigation-based maize intensification was critical to the persistence of certain large settlements in the cmv region; and 3) persistent settlements, and possibly people's willingness to endure climate stress, were also managed through regional connections and relationships. there are two approaches often taken to advance cancer research and improve patient outcomes: i) developing more sensitive medical diagnostics to detect specific disease biomarkers earlier and ii) through the development of more advanced drug delivery technologies to more effectively, and selectively target and kill cancerous cells. this dissertation will demonstrate how an underutilized, highly conserved binding domain located on the antibody variable fragment, known as the nucleotide binding site (nbs), can be implemented for antibody purification, advanced medical diagnostic development and for next generation antibody based therapeutics. through overlaying all available antibody crystal structures it has been shown that the nbs is conserved across nearly all species and all antibody isotypes. an in silico screening of small molecules was carried out to select for a high binding nucleotide analog to selectively target the nbs leading to the identification of indole-3-butyric acid (iba), with a monovalent kd = 1-10 micromolar, based on various igg and ige antibodies tested. by targeting the antibody nbs with surface immobilized iba a unique small molecule antibody purification method has been developed. a stable covalent bond can also be formed through a photo-chemical reaction in a uv energy dependent manner between iba and the antibody nbs to provide for a unique, homogenous, site-specific conjugation of a target molecule selectively to the antibody light chains. using this method we have developed an oriented antibody immobilization technique to produce immunosensors that maintain an exceedingly high level of antibody activity, including fc recognition, allowing for greatly improved biomarker detection. this method of crosslinking also has implications in the development of next generation pharmaceutical antibodies by providing a site-specific insertion of functional moieties such as: chemotherapeutics, cell penetrating peptides, targeting sequences for bispecific antibody preparation, imaging molecules, and immobilization of antibodies to various nanoparticle drug delivery platforms, without negatively impacting antibody-antigen binding interactions. utilization of this highly conserved binding pocket allows for simple, site-specific, covalent antibody modification with numerous applications in both clinical and diagnostic laboratory settings for rapid antibody modification and surface immobilization. the concept phase of microprocessor design involves optimizations at all levels of the design, including the microarchitectural level, instruction set, and compiler. to evaluate isa-level or microarchitecture modifications, the compiler also needs to be updated to take advantage of the new target. the requirement of meeting the power budget further complicates the problem. given the size of the search space, it is unrealistic to use detailed modeling of the performance and power, because it requires a substantial amount of time to evaluate just a single point in the search space. however, such detailed analysis is not necessary in the early stages of a processor design. instead, it is important to evaluate as many architectural ideas as possible, even with lower accuracy. my work develops an infrastructure for quicker exploration the microarchitectureisa-compiler design space using estimation. a benchmark is first profiled on a host machine, then the assembly code of the compiled benchmark is scheduled on the target processor, and the profile information is used to produce an estimate of performance and power. this approach is applicable to general purpose processors, but specifically targets simd processors. a retargetable simdization phase was developed, which is capable of generating simd instructions, including data reordering instructions, or permutations. the simdization phase was validated on hardware (pentium), and the estimation methodology was validated against commonly used modeling tools (simplescalar and wattch). this dissertation explores the ways that church of ireland clergymen of the restoration era (1660-1689) used religious beliefs to construct their identity as ireland's national church. the episcopal protestant church was reestablished, along with the monarchy, in 1660 following two decades of war and religious pluralism that saw the church's leadership scattered and its services banned under puritan rule. those who led the restored church understood themselves to be protectors of the spiritual interests of the kingdom while the king upheld its temporal interests. however, the patchwork of ethnicities and religions in ireland meant that the "national church" in reality encompassed only a tiny fraction of the island's population. the clergy therefore faced an uphill battle as they sought to create a space for their church in the public sphere while dealing with pressures from protestant dissenters, the majority catholics, and a government more interested in peace than in religious conformity.this dissertation draws on sources of "public theology" – published sermons, as well as personal correspondence, tracts, and manuscript sermons – from a number of clergymen to establish a broad picture of the restoration clergy. these works are examined for common themes that the clergymen presented to the laity and government officials in order to determine the churchmen's key concerns. topical chapters explore the religious context of the seventeenth century, ideas of authority and episcopal church structure, pastoral ministry among the laity, the balance of variety and uniformity in theological positions among the clergy, and the theological roots of objections to supposed disorder and sedition among the scots presbyterians. contested issues that have hitherto been perceived as a matter of politics and ethnic prejudice are thereby revealed as having foundations in genuine religious belief. this dissertation argues for a recentering of religion in discussions of restoration ireland. from it, we see that an understanding of religious belief changes our knowledge of matters previously considered solely through social or political lenses. we can also appreciate the ways that the church of ireland's minority status shaped its post-1660 development in the church of the protestant ascendancy of the long eighteenth century. mechanical systems are often combinations of many interacting components. examples of such systems include gas turbines, washing machines, machine tools, and cars. these systems' vibrations are commonly analyzed with numerical methods, but the complexity makes mathematical analysis challenging. this research has pursued a mathematical framework to relate applied force and displacement in mechanical systems of this type by modeling them as networks.fractional differential equations are a simplifying tool for complex systems. the overall dynamics of a mechanical (or mechanically behaving) system with many moving parts can be modeled as having a fractional order, circumventing any need to include the many intermediate degrees of freedom explicitly. damage to a complex system of this type can be assessed by measuring the change in its fractional order.this research has yielded a system identification procedure to compute fractional-order models from frequency data. in analyzing simulated systems representing multi-robot vehicle formations, shifts in fractional order are evident in response to changes in both the severity and the location of damage. these results support the primary goal of this research: a monitoring method that can diagnose damage without complete sensor coverage, instead measuring fractional order to infer operational changes.if fractional calculus can be likened to monomials in the derivative d for example, first derivative d, second derivative d squared, and half derivative d to the power 1/2 implicit operators are the next frontier: general expressions in d. in this research, implicit operators have been used for concise models describing the dynamics of complex vibrating systems. these models are promising for ease of accurate simulation and control of such systems. along with this mathematical extension, the concept of fractional order as a defining parameter in modeling and control has been extended toward application in simulated trajectory-following control of a dynamically walking two-legged robot. both extensions are meant to demonstrate the breadth of previously undiscovered utility for fractional and implicit operators in engineering. if we are to have knowledge of the external world, the nature of that knowledge turns on the particular relations that we bear to the external world. one of the important roles played by skeptical arguments is that of narrowing down the relevant relations; skeptical arguments seem to show that some relations to the world do not obtain and thus that knowledge of the external world, if we are to have it, must not involve these relations. my dissertation focuses on this role of skeptical arguments. i first systematically determine which types of arguments for external world skepticism are the best, then examine which relations these arguments target. i conclude that the two best types of argument for external world skepticism are (i) arguments that turn on claims about the nature of evidential support and (ii) arguments that turn on the prevalence of lottery-like situations. i also conclude that the best arguments for external world skepticism target relations that are either"internal" (i.e. reflectively accessible) or "maximal" (i.e. at the extreme point along a certain scale). my conclusions are an important first step in discovering which relations we bear to the external world and thus what knowledge of the external world, if we are to have it, will amount to. it is essential and urgent to develop an efficient yet cost-effective approach to convert solar energy into useful energy sources to sustain our society in the near future. tio2 supported nanostructures have the potential to tackle this challenge due to its low-cost nature and flexibility in device design. the light absorbers that are anchored onto tio2 surface play important roles on determining the device performance, however, the current systems provide low efficiencies even after decades of studies. in this dissertation, i have investigated two emerging nanomaterials, glutathione-capped gold nanoclusters and organometal halide perovskites as light absorbers, respectively. their performances in tio2 supported systems for solar to electricity and solar to fuel conversion applications are examined and discussed.glutathione-capped gold nanoclusters which exhibit molecule-like properties are first investigated for solar to electricity conversion applications. the excited state behavior of the gold nanoclusters elucidated from time-resolved spectroscopy shows favorite long-lived excited state lifetime. these long-lived excited states are found to inject energetic electrons into the conduction band of tio2 upon light excitation, confirming the role of gold nanoclusters as the new class of photosensitizer alternative to dye molecules and quantum dots. we fabricated a metal cluster-sensitized solar cell (mcscs) using these clusters as the photosensitizers and demonstrated its ability of delivering stable power conversion efficiency of 2 %. this new class of photosensitizer is further explored as a co-sensitizer in a dye-sensitized solar cell (dssc). the metallic core of the gold nanoclusters is found to accumulate electrons and raise the quasi-fermi level of tio2 under illumination when two of them are in contact. the resulting co-sensitized solar cells show greater energy conversion efficiency compared to the solar cells composed of single photosensitizer. the promising gold nanoclusters-sensitized tio2 nanostructures are further studied for light-driven hydrogen production application in two electrode photoelectrochemical cells (pecs) and photocatalytic slurry systems. the glutathione-capped gold nanoclusters characterized using cyclic voltammogram show suitable energy levels for hydrogen and oxygen evolution reaction at neutral ph. the gold nanoclusters-sensitized tio2 nanostructures are capable of producing hydrogen gas under visible light illumination at neutral ph without applying external bias or sacrificial reagents. these exceptional performances are superior to the pre-existing systems using dye molecules and quantum dots as the photosensitizers.lastly, organometal halide perovskite is explored for light-driven hydrogen production. this emerging light absorber composed of inexpensive, earth-abundant elements and can be prepared using low-cost solution processes, has already demonstrated its ability of delivering power conversion efficiency of 20 % in tio2 supported nanostructures. the uniqueness of perovskite solar cells in delivering high open circuit voltage is designed to supply additional photovoltage to a n-type semiconductor photoanode to drive the overall water splitting reaction in a photoanode-photovoltaic tandem device. the solar to hydrogen conversion efficiency of this device is 2.5 % under simulated sunlight illumination. further improvement on the device efficiency and stability are expected via optimizing the electrochemical activity of the front photoelectrode. this dissertation contains three essays on the macroeconomic effects of labor market policies. chapter one focuses on the effect of the minimum wage on overqualification, the situation where workers are employed in jobs that do not require their skill levels. this chapter introduces match-specific productivity and a minimum wage to a labor search model with both heterogeneous workers (lowand high-skilled) and vacancies (simple and complex). although higher minimum wages make simple vacancies more attractive to high-skilled workers, which may result in aggregate misallocation, they also create conditions that either promote or discourage vacancy creation, the net effect of which determines whether firms open more or reduce the amount of vacancies of a given type that they open. i find that there is an inverted u-shaped relationship between the overqualification rate (the ratio of overqualified workers to all employed high-skilled workers) and the minimum wage. the higher overqualification rate is driven by both an increase in the amount of overqualified workers and a decrease in the amount of appropriately matched high-skilled workers, which implies that the minimum wage has a misallocation effect by moving high-skilled workers out of complex jobs and into simple jobs. the overqualification rate peaks at 41.6 percent when the minimum wage reaches $9.05. i also show that there is an inverted u-shaped relationship between the amount of simple vacancies and the minimum wage and explain theoretically how that could give rise to lower unemployment in the economy upon a minimum wage increase.chapter two studies the spillover effects of the minimum wage on wages higher up in the wage distribution. i introduce a minimum wage into a mortensen and pissarides (1994) search and matching model to analyze the direction of these spillovers. i show that a model with a binding minimum wage delivers lower nash-bargained wages than one without that feature, and higher minimum wages negatively affect wages of those for whom the minimum wage is not binding. this finding helps explain why inequality falls as the minimum wage increases: wages are less dispersed because higher wage floors compress the wage distribution both from the bottom and from the top, i.e. they raise the wages of those at the bottom of the wage distribution and lower the wages of workers who earn the most in the economy.in chapter three, joint with jan gottschalk and ruifeng zhang of the international monetary fund, we analyze the macroeconomic effects of a public employment reduction in bosnia and herzegovina (bih) whose labor market is characterized by a high level of public sector employment along with many structural problems such as a high labor income tax and rigid wages. we inspect the effect of a reduction in public sector employment on the economy under two scenarios, one of which assumes that the labor market environment remains the same where laid-off public employees cannot find work in the private sector, and another that assumes a reformed labor market where there is perfect labor mobility across the public and private sectors. our analysis finds that under the current rigid labor market, there is a modest increase in total output, while the increase in production under the reformed labor market is much larger. we attribute this latter result to the investment boom that accompanies the increase in the supply of labor to the private sector, which results from the reduction in public sector employment. ab initio methods for obtaining accurate predictions of nuclear structure directly from inter-nucleon interactions require enormous computational resources. in no-core configuration interaction approaches, the accuracy of the predictions depends on our ability to solve the hamiltonian eigenproblem in a basis large enough to capture the essential properties of a nuclear many-body system within limited computational resources. however, the basis size grows rapidly with the number of nucleons and calculations quickly become intractable.the symplectic no-core configuration interaction (spncci) framework seeks to reduce the necessary basis size by carrying out calculations in an sp(3,r) symplectic basis. in the symplectic basis, states are organized into subspaces forming sp(3,r) irreducible representations (irreps). the efficacy of this framework depends on the extent to which the wavefunctions are dominated by specific sp(3,r) irreps and are thereby accurately described in a basis restricted to the dominantly contributing irreps.the first steps toward achieving the goal of reducing the basis size by using the sp(3,r) symmetry are carried out in this thesis. (1) the necessary mathematical and computational framework is developed for large-scale ab initio calculations in a symplectic basis. preliminary calculations of 3he, 6li, 7be and 8be are carried out. (2) the evolution of the accuracy of energies, radii and e2 transitions strengths in 3he and 6li are analyzed with respect to a simple truncations of the basis by sp(3,r) irrep to gain the necessary insight for developing more efficient truncation schemes. (3) decompositions of 6li, 7be and 8be wavefunctions by their sp(3,r) content are analyzed to identify which sp(3,r) irreps dominantly contribute. these decomposition reveal that most of the low-lying wavefunctions project onto a few sp(3,r) irreps. moreover, families of states emerge which are characterized by having the same dominant sp(3,r) content. the sp(3,r) symmetry also provides a useful classification scheme for analyzing emergent collective phenomena. an excited rotational band belonging to the same sp(3,r) family as the ground state rotational band is identified in the energy spectra of both 7be and 8be, using the sp(3,r) and u(3) decompositions of the band members' wavefunctions. water plays a vital role in sustain life on earth. however, the quality of the water resources is seriously affected by the pollution caused by industrial, municipal and agricultural activities. to remediate the toxic organic and inorganic contaminants in water, several physical, chemical and biological water treatment methods are employed. however, current water treatment technologies present limited performance, materials of high cost, and need highly energy consuming infrastructure. in this scenario, the utilization of advanced materials and innovative methods could be helpful for reducing the cost and enhancing the performance of the wastewater treatment. one of most promising method is the advanced oxidation processes (aops). the aops use semiconductor materials that are activated by the uv or visible light irradiation that are able to mineralize organic water pollutants. currently, commercial available photocatalysts are mostly used in slurry or powder form, but this requires post-treatment processes in order to avoid secondary pollution, causing the increase of the overall treatment cost. to face up such limitation and to resolve problems related to the post-treatment process, the immobilization of the photocatalysts on solid compact matrices is a feasible solution. in particular, the use of polymeric matrices as host solid materials may result in a final system that combines the photocatalytic properties of the semiconductor component with the mechanical properties, usability and cost effectiveness of the polymers.in this study are developed polymeric nanocomposites for their utilization in aops. the study is focused on the (i) investigation of the chemical and physical characteristics of the prepared samples and (ii) evaluation of their photocatalytic performance on the degradation of organic pollutants in water. this study was possible thanks to the collaboration of the smart materials group of istituto italiano di tecnologia (iit) in genova, the research group of interdisciplinary laboratory for advanced materials physics (i-lamp) at università cattolica del sacro cuore (ucsc) in brescia and the radiation laboratory of the university of notre dame (nd, indiana, usa).the promising results are summarized and illustrated in this thesis, which has been structured in five chapters:the chapter 1 is dedicated to the water pollutants, starting from the causes and reaching to the remediation processes. in this chapter, the description of the advanced oxidative processes (aops) and their utilization as an innovative solution for water decontamination are presented. specifically, are discussed the characteristic of this process and the different types of semiconductors which are used in this process concluding on the utilization of polymeric nanocomposites in the wastewater treatment through aops.chapter 2 presents the development of a porous nanocomposite mat composed of cellulose acetate (ca) and tin dioxide (sno2) for the photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants. the nanocomposite is prepared by the combination of the electrospinning technique and the in-situ thermal activation of tin precursor directly in the fibrous mats. the final nanocomposites are used for the photocatalytic degradation of an anionic dye (methylene blue (mb)) and a cationic one (methyl orange (mo)) in water under uv irradiation. the mats are able to photodegrade both types of dyes with an efficiency of more than 90%. after the photodegradation process the by-products are studied with the liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (lc-ms) which indicates the de-methylation of the organic structure for both dyes and a hydroxylation process in the mo azo-dye as the main degradation roots.the characteristic and photocatalytic activity of the ca polymer fibers combined with cerium nanoparticles (cenps) and platinum (pt) nanostructures (ca/cenps/pt) are discussed in the chapter 3. the mats are prepared by the combination of the supersonic beam deposition (scbd) of pt nanoclusters directly on the surface of electrospun ca fibrous mats, which are pre-loaded with a cerium salt precursor and transformed into cenps directly in the solid mats by a simple thermal treatment. the photocatalytic performance of the final composites is evaluated by the degradation of the mb under visible light irradiation, and is proved that the mats reach a degradation efficiency of 70%. as demonstrated the presence of pt nanoclusters enhances the photocatalytic activity of the nanocomposites, while the detection of the reactive oxygen species in solution showed that holes and •oh radicals are the main species involved in the photodegradation process.in the chapter 4 a novel system composed by a bipolar membrane (bmp) and the combination of cadmium sulfide (cds) and palladium (pd) nanostructures are used for the degradation of phenolic compounds in water. the combination of cds and pd in the different sides of the membrane improved the photocatalytic activity of the system, that resulted from the simultaneous oxidation of 4-chlorophenol and the reduction of 4-nitrophenol under visible light irradiation. the choice of these compounds allows to obtain a mechanistic insight into the sequential electron transfer between segregated phases embedded in the membrane.the chapter 5 summarizes the results obtained throughout this study and outlines possible future developments and related applications. this paper explores the environmental factors that influenced gustav holst, ralph vaughan williams, and percy grainger in their wind band compositions and their use of english folk song. while security in the parent-child relationship and about the marital relationship have been found to be important mechanisms linking family risk to maladjustment in children and adolescents, little is known about how individual differences in security processes about the larger family context may impact adolescent regulation and psychopathology. pattern-based or person-oriented approaches provide unique advantages to understanding individual differences inherent in development. the present study sought to identify distinct patterns of adolescent regulatory processes important to relations between family risk and adolescents' mental health trajectories. adolescents' emotional, behavioral, and physiological responses to family conflict were assessed in the context of mother-father-adolescent triads. building on research on risky family environments, the present study explored how adolescents' regulatory patterns serve as precursor outcomes between family-wide risk and protective factors and adolescents' trajectories of problem behavior. four patterns of regulatory processes were identified; the majority of adolescents displayed an adaptively regulated pattern consisting of low subjective and overt emotional distress. under-controlled adolescents displayed high levels of subjective anger and high levels of overt anger and frustration and observable opposition and defiance. over-controlled adolescents displayed higher levels of subjective distress, higher overt withdrawal, and lower cortisol reactivity. lastly, a physiologically reactive pattern emerged such that these adolescents displayed higher cortisol reactivity in combination with low subjective and observable distress. regulation patterns were associated with different profiles of family risk and protective factors, adolescent family-wide insecurity, and trajectories of mental health. findings underscore the usefulness of examining higher-order organizations of regulation patterns exhibited in the family context and contributing to unique mental health outcomes during adolescence. in this study of the theology of henri de lubac, s.j., i examine de lubac's confrontation with what he calls the "spiritual posterity" of joachim of fiore. i argue that this tradition is one of the principal phenomena against which de lubac's theology is framed, showing that he interprets it primarily as a source for the atheism he faces in early twentieth century france and for the theological problems he identifies in the postconciliar church. his judgment is that the theology of joachim of fiore and the spiritual movements he inspired lay the foundations for atheistic reinterpretations of christian doctrine.i also develop a creative reconstruction of de lubac's theological alternative to joachimism—the part of his late work, la postérité spirituelle de joachim de flore, which he was unable to complete. i argue that de lubac's confrontations with joachimism allowed him to re-present his positions from earlier writings (on the trinity, exegesis, the church, and the eschaton) as always already providing an alternative to joachim's teachings, as well as a response to his atheist interlocutors. the dissertation advances our knowledge of de lubac by illuminating a hitherto poorly-explored area of his thought. it also adapts from this study new insights about the nature and purpose of fundamental theology, the theology of history, and the church's engagement with the modern world. t cells are integral in mediating cellular immune responses against foreign pathogens and cancerous cells, and are activated by antigenic peptide-major histocomapatibility complex (pmhc) proteins. though t cells are sensitive for specific antigens, many t cell receptors (tcr) can cross-react with multiple antigenic peptides. t cell cross-reactivity is important for initiation of immune responses against pathogens and tumors. although tcr cross-reactivity is well appreciated, the molecular mechanisms of tcr-pmhc interactions are poorly understood. we have provided a molecular description of tcr cross-reactivity by structural and binding affinity characterization of melanoma specific tcrs bound to different mart-1/hla-a2 ligands. mart-1 melanoma is a tumor protein presented by the class i mhc, hla-a2. the mart-1/hla-a2 antigens the nonamer, aagigiltv (aag) and the decamer, eaagigiltv (eaa) differ only by one amino acid, yet adopt strikingly different conformations when bound, therefore making this system ideal to study cross reactivity. expressive writing has been established over the last several decades as an effective way to cope with distressing life events. although the literature has clearly established the health benefits of expressive writing, the mechanisms that cause those benefits are still under debate. an area that has yet to be explored in the expressive writing literature is that of blame attributions in the writing. previous research has shown that placing blame on oneself or others is associated with poorer physical and mental health outcomes. however, no studies have tested the effects of manipulating blame in the writing. the current study filled a gap in both the expressive writing and blame literatures by manipulating self versus other blame in the writing of participants. approximately 217 undergraduates were randomly assigned to engage in one of five 25-min writing tasks. the first group wrote about a distressing event and served as a standard expressive writing control. a second control group wrote about trivial events. the remaining 3 groups were asked to write about a distressing event while engaging in one of the following: (a) placing the blame for the event on oneself, (b) placing the blame for the event on someone else, or (c) not blaming anyone for the event. all groups completed preand post-test measures of psychological and physical symptomatology. results found that participants in the other-blame group showed significantly less symptom reduction that those in the standard expressive writing group. however, participants in the self-blame group showed symptom reduction equivalent to that of the standard expressive writing group. the findings point to the study of self-blame, particularly behavioral self-blame, as a promising future research direction in the expressive writing literature. collaboration between humans and robots has been increasing as society progresses. with this increased collaboration, intuitive human-robot interaction (hri) is important for enabling humans and robots to accurately predict each others' actions to achieve safe and successful collaboration. one class of hri being studied is that of robotic exoskeletons used in the gait rehabilitation of people with incomplete spinal cord injuries (iscis). during that process, an individual with isci walks using a powered exoskeleton that assists them through their gait and allows them to relearn how to walk. the exoskeleton must be able to understand the user's intent to achieve this objective. however, this process is hindered by several challenges such as the difficulty of quantifying intent, as it is an abstract notion, and gait variability arising due to the user's injuries. this dissertation aims to advance the state of the art of user intent estimation for lower-limb exoskeletons. existing strategies rely on rudimentary methods such as detecting weight transfer or torso tilt to initiate predefined gaits. this dissertation aims to provide a more intuitive approach that uses additional gait variables to provide insight into the user's desired motion. to make the quantification of intent viable, the user's desired gait speed was assumed to be the expression of their intent. this dissertation first describes a model-based method using interacting multi-model (imm) estimation to compare simulated steady-state gaits with measurements from the exoskeleton to infer the user's gait phase and speed. while the framework was able to estimate the gait phase and speed, this approach was reactive. additionally, first principles cannot well model the decisions underlying an individual's realization of gait speed changes. the primary mode of inferring user intent is through physical hri (phri), as that is a direct expression of the user's desired actions. this dissertation further shows that exoskeleton users' desire to change gait speed was apparent through their interactions with the robot and the environment. driven by this insight, the work herein describes a predictive two-stage estimation framework called the buttressed kalman filter (bkf) that uses data-driven models to relate gait speed and gait features. this framework uses changes in the trends of gait features such as step length, frequency, and torso angles to infer the direction and magnitude of an exoskeleton user's desired future speed change. the predictive nature of the estimator is in contrast to many state-of-the-art estimators that are reactive and infer speed changes only after they have happened. gait patterns vary across individuals, making it difficult to generalize a single estimator across multiple users and motivating the need for personalized estimators to suit an individual's gait patterns. however, the scarcity of individualized training data for people with isci presents a significant challenge. this dissertation details a method to address this scarcity by transforming easily accessible user-independent base data from uninjured users and pooling it with user-specific data from a novel user to create a larger dataset. the pooling method and bkf were tested on data collected during trials of users with isci walking in an eksogt exoskeleton. using only 8-12 steps' worth of data from the novel user, the average successful estimation of speed-up and slow-down changes improved from 52% to 67% when compared to using base data alone, with a best-case improvement of 32%, from 48% to 80%. the contributions presented in this dissertation have the potential to increase the ease of use of lower-limb exoskeletons for people with iscis. this dissertation uses voting rights, gender, military doctrine, and military identity to study the evolution of the french army's relationship to the republican state from 1871 until 1940. drawing on papers from the archives nationales and the service historique de l'armìøåàå_e de terre, the dissertation argues that french military leaders responded to pressure to weaken their control over their soldiers' lives and transition to a militia-style army by redefining military identity in opposition to the third republic and civilian society. during the 1920s, military intellectuals reacted against the social and political changes caused by the great war by trying to separate the army from the rest of french society. this manifested itself in the generals' opposition to giving soldiers the right to vote, their unexpected integration of women into the army as civilian employees, and military doctrines focused on controlling french soldiers and civilians. the process of separation began with bataille conduite (methodical battle) theorists' focus on exercising political control over conscripts and escalated in the mid-1920s to include plans to use civil employees, including women, clandestinely to maintain a larger army than authorized by law. the situation deteriorated in the early-1930s, leading to a crisis of civil-military relations in december 1933, when france's generals directly attacked the government, and escaped without being punished, shattering the third republic's system of civil-military consultation and conciliation. the army attempted to use women, veterans, and african men as defenses against demands for political and social equality for and among soldiers. studying the process whereby military leaders tried to integrate these groups revealed a rapidly growing separation between the army and political society that manifested itself in a fear of the electoral system and undermined civilian control over the armed forces. attention to gender and doctrine revealed that over the 1920s, army leaders increasingly defined military identity in opposition to democracy and the republican political regime. this evolution created the preconditions necessary for marshal philippe pìøåàå_tain and general maixime weygand to challenge the third republic's legitimacy during the german conquest of france in 1940. the history of nigeria is replete with instances of violent conflict between christians and muslims. some scholars attribute the continuance of the crisis to a failed educational system, which lacks the ability to provide adequate formation for christian and muslim students that would enable them to appreciate religious traditions other than their own. consequently, some studies have suggested the need for a paradigm shift in the education curriculum to enable religious education to meet the needs of nigeria's pluralistic context. however, not much has been done in terms of a critical examination of the christian and muslim religious education textbooks and how they present their religious traditions and that of others. this dissertation, therefore, explores how religious education textbooks in junior high schools can be used to promote integration and dialogue in nigeria.the dissertation analyzes the religious textbooks used in teaching islam and christianity in nigeria. it pays attention to how students are formed in their own religious traditions and how they are prepared to interact with people of other religious traditions. it demonstrates that the current religious education textbooks are inadequate in promoting integration among students of different faith traditions. the dissertation also examines the textbooks used for religious instructions in junior high schools in ghana. it juxtaposes the content of the religious education textbooks in ghana and in nigeria, and argues that unlike the religious education textbooks in nigeria, the religious education textbooks in ghana use religious education to form students to respect diverse religious beliefs and practices and promote integration. further, the dissertation uses perry schmidt leukel's concept of religious pluralism to construct an inclusive religious textbook that would promote early integration that is vital to mutual understanding and peaceful co-existence between christians and muslims. it also opines that for interreligious education to be effective, christian and muslim students must study in the same space. it notes the following as important topics that must be treated in interreligious education textbooks: formation of students in their faith traditions; formation in intra-religious and interreligious diversity aimed at promoting respect for the other, formation in human rights and the need for peaceful coexistence. research indicates that bulimia is a fairly common disease among adolescent girls. however, the longitudinal processes involved in predicting the development of bulimia are not yet well understood. this study therefore examined the role of parents, peers, and the individual in predicting bulimic symptoms during the transition to adolescence. specifically, we hypothesized that sociocultural parent and peer factors (e.g., direct encouragement to lose weight or pressure to be thin and discussions about dieting) would lead to individual body dissatisfaction and dieting behaviors among adolescent girls. body dissatisfaction would then lead to dieting behaviors and depressive symptoms, which in turn would predict the development of bulimic symptoms. four years of self-report data were collected from 87 adolescent girls during 5th through 8th grades. in model testing, parent and peer influences were first examined separately and then together in combined models, in order to determine whether parents or peers more strongly contributed to the development of adolescent girls' bulimic symptoms. when considered separately, mothers, fathers, and peers drove the process leading to adolescent girls' bulimic symptoms. when parents and peers were considered together, peers appeared to be a stronger contributor to the development of body dissatisfaction while both parents remained important influences on dieting behaviors; these attitudes and behaviors ultimately led to bulimic symptoms. in examining models with maternal and paternal influences together, fathers' contributions appeared to be stronger than mothers'. these results indicate that both parents and peers are important influences in the process leading to adolescent girls' bulimic symptoms. in particular, future prevention and intervention work with girls during the transition to adolescence should target both parents and peers, with a particular emphasis on involving fathers and peers. no abstract is included in my masters thesis. this study assesses the degree of alignment of preferences to live at home while attending college between students and parents. previous research has identified that a familistic orientation toward the family adversely affects latino students from applying and attending college (desmond and turley 2009). using data from the educational longitudinal survey (els), i measure the alignment preferences between students and parents across all race-ethnic groups and find that latino students and parents are more likely to state it is 'very important' to live at home while attending college. and yet, latino families are less likely to align on their preference that it is 'not important' while whites are overwhelmingly represented in this category and furthermore align on this disposition. future research will utilize these alignment relationship to understand how they lead to differentiated pathways to postsecondary education. several studies have concluded that high doses of x-ray could be a cause of cancer. therefore x-ray doses as low as possible are preferred. however, simply lowering the radiation dose will introduce low signal artifacts and severely degrade the image quality and diagnostic capabilities. to reduce low signal artifacts while retaining the relevant anatomical details in ct images, low signal algorithms are heavily relied upon. low signal can be encountered in cases where sufficient numbers of x-ray photons do not reach the detector to have confidence in the recorded data. due to the nature of poisson noise, the signal-to-noise ratio (snr) is proportional to the x-ray dose or the signal. therefore, snr is poorer in low signal areas. addition of electronic noise by the data acquisition system further corrupts the data. we are going to demonstrate different ways to combat low signal artifacts including metal artifacts. the first one, which is a "classical" signal processing approach, deals with the problem by adaptive filtration. it entails statistics-based filtering on the uncorrected data, correcting the lower signal areas more aggressively than the high signal ones. we look at local average to decide how aggressive the filtering should be, and local standard deviation to decide how much detail preservation to apply. a second approach for low signal correction is using a deep learning (dl) algorithm which entails the use of deep neural networks to correct the low signal data points. here a deep neural network is trained to remove low signal artifacts. since getting clinical data for supervised training is difficult in this case, training of the network was done entirely on phantom scanned data. it was accomplished by using 2 different networks trained to counter specific artifacts and a part of uncorrected data was carefully blended back to the dl outputs for preserving some lost details, boundaries and preferred noise texture. presence of metal in patients may cause severe low signal artifacts, thus low signal correction could directly benefit metal artifact reduction (mar). a rudimentary mar scheme using dl will be presented. we present novel dl losses that involve spectral shaping of the dl output error, or retention of desired frequency components or structures in the dl input. this will turn the dl loss function from generic to application-specific. another topic that is related to low signal in ct is detection and estimation of contrast agents in low dose ct imaging. we present mbir reconstruction of photon-counting spectral ct in presence of very low concentration contrast agents, detailing how to directly get maps for different constituent materials, spatially separated or coincident, from multiple energy sinograms. we will also compare it with the conventional indirect decomposition of constituent materials. chapter 1 assesses the impact of household car ownership on individual labor supply. various economic theories suggest one reason for low rates of employment among low-skill, inner-city residents is that their residences are spatially separated from suburban jobs. to measure this, i exploit changes in state insurance rate regulation which has been shown to suppress auto insurance prices, thereby decreasing the cost of owning a car. i find that rate regulation increases multi-car ownership among married couples with children. i find that the additional car in the household consequently encourages married mothers to decrease their labor supply while their husbands increase their labor supply. one possible explanation of this result is that second cars are stronger complements to time spent in home production (and especially childrearing) than they are to time spent in the labor market. chapter 2 (with shawn moulton) tests for political budget cycles among us municipalities. according to the political budget cycle hypothesis, in election years government officials engage in opportunistic fiscal policy manipulation for electoral gains. this chapter tests that hypothesis using data on taxes and spending for a panel of 268 us cities over the period 1970-2004. while our estimates provide no evidence of altered total expenditures or taxes in election years, we do find a 0.7 percent increase in total municipal employment, including increases in police, education, and sanitation employment. chapter 3 (with andrew deines, david lodge, and richard jensen) assesses trade-offs between fisheries and hydropower production in a tropical floodplain fishery. we compile catch per unit effort, total harvest, and monthly-mean hydrographs from the kafue river in zambia for the years 1955-1996 and develop population growth models to test for effects of density, total fisheries harvest, and water regime. we find that alteration of the flood regime has reduced fish density but enhanced hydroelectric production. the total cost of replacing this hydroelectricity is less than a third of the additional surplus generated by a natural flood regime's impact on fisheries production, implying changes in dam operation to provide environmental flows can be a cost-effective means of improving the material well-being of subsistence fishermen. results of molecular dynamics simulations are reported in which the structure and dynamics of the reacted and unreacted forms of the task specific ionic liquid (tsil) tetrabutylphosphonium 2-cyanopyrrolide are computed. this particular ionic liquid is one of several newly discovered tsils containing aprotic heterocyclic anions designed specifically for co2 capture. the physical properties, liquid structure and dynamics of the ionic liquid are computed as a function of extent of reaction with co2. translational and rotational dynamics show little change upon reaction with co2, in sharp contrast to traditional tsils and consistent with experimental viscosity measurements. it is shown that this is due to the failure of a hydrogen bond network to form upon reaction with co2. molecular dynamics simulations were also carried out to investigate the solubility and dynamics of water in five different ionic liquids capable of chemically reacting with co2. the ionic liquids all have a common tetrabutylphosphonium cation paired with five different aprotic heterocyclic anions. these ionic liquids have properties that make them attractive candidates for use in co2 capture applications, which undergo a solid to liquid phase transition when it reacts with co2. the heat of fusion can be utilized to reduce the energy requirements for co2 capture from the flue gas. however, the impact of water on their properties is unknown. the simulations show that the ionic liquid having a 2-cyanopyrrolide anion is the most hydrophobic of all the liquids studied, but that upon reaction with co2 it becomes much more hydrophilic. the other ionic liquids investigated show little change in water solubility upon reaction with co2. henry?s law constants, enthalpies and entropies of water absorption, liquid structure, hydrogen bonding and self-diffusivities were computed and found to correlate well with the strength of interaction between water and the anions and the relative hydrophobicity of the liquids. why do some state apologies that address past atrocities succeed at bringing about reconciliation while others fail? under what conditions would the recipients of apologies find them satisfactory and acceptable? in order to close the gaps between theory and practice regarding the efficacy of state apology, i identify and test four causal factors that can affect victims' reception of state apologies. these factors are: the manner in which expressions of apology are made (who speaks what, when, where, and how), behavioral consistency of the apologizer, conspicuous opportunism of the apologizer, and prior communicative interactions. i conduct mixed-methods research that incorporates qualitative comparative analysis (qca) and in-depth case studies, using primary sources such as media reports, government statements, organizational reports, and in-depth interviews. by assessing whether and how certain features of an apology affect its reception, this research aims to introduce cross-case empirical analyses and a new dataset on state apologies that could be shared and used for future research on apology and reconciliation. total syntheses of two classes of polyketides were completed. in the first project, we accomplished a structural reassignment of lyngbyaloside c via total syntheses of the nominal structure and two diastereomers. the longest linear synthetic sequence is 20 steps from readily accessible aldehyde in overall yield 3.4%. this scalable and robust synthetic route features the formation of a tertiary ester and the thp moiety via a one-pot intramolecular ketene esterification. in addition, we applied a regioselective ether transfer reaction in the synthesis of the tertiary alcohol and developed a practical method to synthesize the z halo-diene. in the second project, we developed a convergent synthetic route toward ambruticin j, which is highlighted a suzuki-miyaura cross coupling and julia-kocieński olefination. as a highlight of the sequence, we demonstrated a robust synthetic route toward the requisite trisubstituted cyclopropane moiety using cyclopropanation methodology previously developed in our laboratory. nanofluids belong to a new class of fluids with supposedly enhanced heat transfer performance. a broad spectrum of applications in science and engineering can potentially benefit from their use. however, the physical explanation for this enhancement, if it exists, is still lacking. the novelty of this work is in a fundamental, realistic, and comprehensive approach to the problem of understanding nanofluids through the use of molecular dynamics simulations with accurate potentials to effectively model realistic materials. specifically, this study treats the case of a gold-water nanofluid at different particle volume fractions between 1% and 15% by volume. in order to understand more fundamental physical phenomena at the gold-water interface, water confined between gold nanolayers is also studied at different plate separations. simulations make use of the quantum sutton-chen (qsc) potential for gold-gold interactions, the extended simple point-charge (spc/e) forcefield for water-water interactions, and a modified spohr potential for gold-water interactions. these potentials ensure that most of the physics is captured properly. for completeness, thermodynamics and transport properties will be discussed for all systems. it is interesting to note that while the thermodynamic properties of the mixture have been commonly used in the literature by assuming that the nanofluid is an ideal mixture, such assumption is found to be generally not correct. our results of computed thermodymamic properties indicate that values are between 10% and 400% different than ideal mixture predictions. nevertheless, several works in the nanofluids literature make extensive use of such relations in engineering analyses. the anisotropy induced by the gold-water interface, and its effects appear to be responsible for the disagreement. transport properties, in particular shear viscosity, and thermal conductivity, are computed using novel equilibrium methods. specifically, the present work adopts hybrid formulations that exploit the benefits of both einstein and green-kubo classic formulations, while avoiding the limitations of each. transport properties are generally enhanced, and appear not to follow the predictions of classic theories. interfacial effects, such as liquid layering and acoustic mismatch of pressure waves appear to be the leading factors of the observed anomalies in the thermodynamic and transport properties of the gold-water nanofluids. the study of chiefs as legitimate political players is a growing field in political science. recently, scholars have looked at vote brokerage and the provision of resources, but few talk about the power of chiefs as agents of cultural change. using malawi as a case study, this project uses 121 interviews with chiefs, with supporting evidence drawn from approximately 50 additional interviews from key stakeholders (including teachers, child protection workers, government bureaucrats, and ngos), and 23 focus groups with over 200 women, to explore how and why chiefs are promoting political and a cultural reform to combat child marriage. i find that the dual positionality of chiefs as both political and cultural actors, invested with high levels of trust and support from their communities, contributes to their ability to address culturally embedded practices like child marriage, which actively promote violence against children. chiefs are joining with government and ngo actors to promote political reform in that they are working to educate their constituents on recent changes to the national marriage laws; in many cases, they are also using their authority as chiefs to pass bylaws that incorporate harsher punishments for those found breaking the law. but chiefs are—paradoxically, many argue—taking their advocacy a step further by using their authority as the "custodians of culture" to address and reform the underlying cultural norms and practices that make child marriage acceptable. to this end, chiefs emerge as curious political actors that have the power to do what many political reforms fail to do: change the underlying culture. chiefs should therefore be central to the efforts of ngos, governments, and human rights activists interested in, not only passing legal reforms to reduce forms of violence, but addressing underlying culture practices that create a space through which this violence emerges. the growing interest in the mid-infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, 3–30 µm, is due in large part to the potential for advancing applications in spectroscopy and sensing, optical free-space and on-chip communications, and passive radiative cooling. much of the recent progress made in these areas have leveraged surface plasmon polaritons in metals and doped semiconductors at shorter wavelengths (λ &lt; 10 µm). recent efforts have also used surface phonon polaritons (sphps) as well as the epsilon-near-zero (enz) response of polar materials to increase light-matter interaction at longer wavelengths, but this work is limited due to the lack of an optical infrastructure at these wavelengths.in this thesis, we leverage both the sphp modes in nanoparticles (nps) and the berreman mode in enz films to realize selective thermal emission and absorption. we identify and characterize sphp modes in finite crystals of zno. we model the absorption of zno nps using mie theory and discrete dipole approximation (dda) method. we characterize these nanoparticles experimentally using ftir spectroscopy. we study and discuss the effects of anisotropy, surrounding medium, temperature, shape, and agglomeration of the nanoparticles on the sphp modes.we also demonstrate coupling to and control over the broadening and dispersion of the berreman mode in sub-wavelength films of aln, a mid-infrared enz material. by engineering the dielectric environment above and below the enz film, we demonstrate the ability to engineer many aspects of the optical characteristics of the berreman mode including resonant frequency, coupling strength, broadening, and dispersion.finally, we experimentally evaluate the role of enz substrates on the thermal emission profile of multi-mode optical antennas and provide a platform for engineering both the spectral response as well as the radiation pattern. we leverage the coupling between the berreman mode and the resonant mode of the antenna to obtain narrowband normal thermal emission with higher spacial coherence.the work presented here could lead to new ways of engineering absorption, emission, and scattering in the midand far-infrared and offers an approach to make novel narrowband infrared sources and detectors. pancreatic cancer adenocarcinoma (pdac) is currently the third leading cause of cancer related death in the united states with a 5-year survival rate below 9%.even though the poor prognosis of pdac is often attributed to late diagnosis, patients with early diagnosis who undergo tumor resection and adjuvant chemotherapy usually show tumor recurrence, highlighting a need to develop therapies which will overcome chemoresistance.many studies relate chemoresistance to the prominence of cancer associated fibroblasts (cafs) which comprise the majority of the tumor bulk.despite the long-standing recognition of the prominence of cafs in pdac, the effect of chemotherapy on cafs and how they mechanistically contribute to drug resistance in neighboring cancer cells is not well characterized.the goal of this research was to explore the effect of caf-secreted extracellular vesicles, called exosomes, on the phenotypic traits of pdac cells.we show that cafs exposed to chemotherapy play an active role in regulating the survival and proliferation of cancer cells.cafs are intrinsically resistant to gemcitabine, the chemotherapeutic standard of care for pdac.further, cafs exposed to gemcitabine significantly increase the release of exosomes, which promote proliferation and chemoresistance of recipient pdac epithelial cells. mechanistically, these exosomes increased chemoresistance-inducing factor, snail, in recipient epithelial cells as well as pten-targeting micrornas.blocking exosome release from cafs in vitro significantly reduces survival of co-cultured epithelial cells, and exosome blockade in vivo reduced tumor growth during gemcitabine treatment, signifying an important role of caf exosomes in chemotherapeutic drug resistance.collectively, these findings show the potential for exosome inhibitors as treatment options alongside chemotherapy for overcoming pdac chemoresistance. this work seeks a theological method that can serve as a guide to articulating a relevant way to engage the science and religion discourse in the philippine context. it examines the theology of langdon b. gilkey, particularly the role of symbols in his theology of culture, to arrive at such a method. the work begins by arguing for the need to articulate a filipino theology that considers the elements of religiosity, poverty, and science. it argues that neither liberation theology nor current discourse in science and religion adequately engages all three elements. it proceeds to examine gilkey's theology to uncover how he is able to critically take into account these elements. it describes the two stages of in his theology, namely the prolegomenon and the constructive theology proper. more specifically, it presents the development of gilkey's thoughts on the relationship of science and religion, which moves his theology of culture into a theology of nature. through a closer look at his theology of history and his reinterpretation of the symbol of providence, the work explores how gilkey's focus on science as a cultural force explicitly demonstrates the consequences of science for religion and political life. following gilkey's framework, the work then examines the symbol of providence in the philippine context. by explicating a prolegomenon informed by the concrete situation of the philippines and the specific attitude of bahala na, the work undertakes a preliminary reinterpretation of the symbol of providence.the work concludes that it is possible to participate in the science and religion discourse in a manner relevant to the philippines if one begins by engaging science as a cultural force. once the significance of science for culture is establish, so too is the need to engage science as an epistemology and as a body of knowledge. more specifically, the work suggests that a fruitful area of discourse is one between indigenous religions, contemporary science and the christian faith around a theology of nature. ireland was once popularly characterized by its close relationship with the catholic church. over the last thirty years, this characterization has grown inaccurate. in poems written during and after the "celtic tiger" era, dorothy molloy, eil&eacute;an n&iacute; chuillean&aacute;in, peter sirr and justin quinn cast light on this important and complex change in the relationship of irishness to religion. their poems challenge the narrative in which "catholic ireland" is simply dead and gone, inviting us to think deeply about the legacy of organized religion in ireland, and about the possibility, or otherwise, of moving imaginatively beyond that legacy into some different future. molloy, n&iacute; chuillean&aacute;in, sirr and quinn take on issues of "post-secular" religious thinking by combining poetic innovation with traditional lyric forms, rethinking conventional strategies of lyric with attention to these strategies' religious implications. their work is illustrative of what is made available to us by the recent return to, and revaluing of, lyric in the american academy, led by thinkers such as jonathan culler, mutlu konuk blasing, amittai aviram, susan stewart and daniel tiffany. this poetry reveals an ireland for whom religious faith and practice has become newly negotiable but not irrelevant. it demonstrates that, in late capitalism, irish poets are preoccupied with the threats posed by globalized capital and its new technologies to a sense of community, to the distinctiveness of the local and to a richness and complexity of language and thought. they treat religious tradition as an inheritance that they can employ, part of an arsenal of strategies for thinking through, surviving and even resisting these perceived threats. the work of these poets suggests that if we move on from "catholic ireland" too blithely, we risk losing something, too. it is urgent with the possibility of resisting the homogenization and commodification of identity in an ireland made vulnerable not only by the loss of its once-characteristic feature &#8212; catholicism &#8212; but also by the legacy of colonialism, division, political corruption, growing inequality, recession and austerity. it teaches us to think better about community, ritual, continuity and language that aspires to something greater and stranger than efficiency. nature has long served as a source of scientific inspiration, leading to groundbreaking designs and discoveries. the field of peptide chemistry has benefited greatly from the discovery of new peptide natural products and the unique amino acid residues encountered within them. these residues represent an exciting opportunity for developing novel synthetic strategies towards unusual chemical scaffolds and for exploring the utility of these scaffolds in peptide mimicry. one such scaffold is the backbone n-aminated motif found in piperazic acid (piz), a six-membered cyclic hydrazino acid residue found in several non-ribosomal peptide (nrp) natural products. these molecules exhibit a wide array of biological function such as antibacterial, antifungal and antiproliferative activity. the n-amino backbone modification also has a profound effect on amide bond conformation, isomerization kinetics, and proteolytic stability. we describe the total synthesis of two piz-containing nrp natural products via an electrophilic amination/late stage cyclization strategy. l-156,373 is an oxytocin receptor antagonist that harbors a di-piz motif as well as a rare n-hydroxyisoleucine residue. we show that our submonomer approach is effective in installing this unusual motif when compared to other strategies that incorporate pre-formed piz residues. we also employ this approach towards the first total synthesis of pargamicin a, a complex piz-containing antibacterial agent that harbors five contiguous backbone-modified residues and various side chain oxidations. pargamicin a exhibits potent activity against methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (mrsa) and vancomycin-resistant enterococci (vre) and thus serves as a promising candidate for treating bacterial infections that are refractory to current treatments.we also evaluate the impact of backbone n-amination on the conformation of peptides and peptidomimetics. intrigued by the unique trans amide propensity of piz, we investigated the conformational properties of its lower homologue, δ-azaproline, and two oxidized variants. here, cis-trans conformational equilibria and amide isomerization barriers of residue model systems are examined in comparison to proline. we show with nmr, dft calculations, and nbo analyses that n-heteroatom backbone modification can modulate peptidyl prolyl amide conformations and result in faster amide isomerization. our work demonstrates that δ-azaprolines can be useful conformational probes of prolyl peptide structure and folding. this dissertation develops an understanding of the metaphysics underlying depictions of wealth in the hebrew bible and akkadian literature. the study reveals a shared theological grammar of wealth and piety which surfaces in three forms: the dangerous or illusory quality of wealth, economic generosity as a form of piety, and economic metaphors for piety. in identifying these features of the relationship between wealth and piety the study explores the conceptual ancestry of second temple jewish and early christian theologies of wealth and almsgiving. the dissertation proceeds first by means of six case studies in akkadian literature. the illusory quality of wealth arises in the depiction of the profit lost by the deceptive merchant in the šamaš hymn; the characterization of the impious, rich bēl pāni in the babylonian theodicy; and the foolishness of trust in wealth in several neo-assyrian letters and inscriptions. the connection between economic generosity and piety appears with the generous merchant in the šamaš hymn, the repayment of generosity by šamaš in the counsels of wisdom, and the notion that economic assistance reaches marduk's "basket" in the dialogue of pessimism. economic metaphors for piety feature throughout the case studies, especially in the dialogue, which employs the language of commercial lending or consignment (qīptu) for sacrifice.the final two chapters apply and compare the results of the case studies to the hebrew bible. psalms 49, 52, and job view wealth not only as illusory or transient but also as a great danger, lest it become an object of the trust and piety one should reserve for god. psalms 37, 112, and job display the comparatively central significance of economic generosity––including generous lending––as a form of piety. notably, as in the akkadian texts, these wisdom compositions praise economic generosity for its divine rewards rather than its social utility. the dissertation concludes with a consideration of the extent to which the hebrew bible inherits and develops a theological grammar of wealth. an appendix shows the trajectory of this grammar as it appears in the qur'an in relation to loans, usury (riba), and almsgiving (zakāt/ṣadaqa). lifetimes of excited states are one of the most powerful observables for nuclear structure. lifetimes directly relate to the transition probability between states, which in turn provides information on nuclear collectivity, deformation, band structure and single particle states. these are exactly the type of information needed in the hunt for triaxiality in the nuclear landscape. this long-proposed axially asymmetric deformation has recently been the focus of many experimental and theoretical efforts, and while a handful of triaxial nuclei have been observed, rigid triaxial deformation in the nuclear ground state has not been established. far from stability, nuclear structure and the onset of deformation evolves rapidly. reliable structure information is crucial in understanding this shape evolution across isotopic and isobaric chains, and triaxiality has been proposed as the shape-transition mechanism responsible for the behavior seen in rapid transition regions. in particular the a ~ 110 nuclei exhibit a brisk onset of deformation. signatures of shape-phase transitions, triaxial deformations, shape coexistence and oblate configurations have been reported within a small window of the nuclear landscape, from both theory studies and experimental measurements. in this thesis, we investigated the behavior of the a=109 beta decay chain, specifically the ruthenium and palladium isotopes, from the fission of 238u at the univ. of jyvaskyla igisol facility. level lifetimes and gamma-ray transitions were measured with a multi-detector array consisting of of 2 hpge detectors, 2 labr scintillators and 1 plastic scintillator. triple coincidence $\ eta$-$\gamma$-$\gamma$ events were recorded and used to construct/check level schemes, and extract picosecond-range level lifetimes via the fast-timing method pioneered by h. mach. our results include new data for the low energy level schemes of 109tc, 109ru and 109pd, including the first lifetime measurements in 109tc, where three excited state half-lives were measured; 3 new levels, 31 new transitions and 9 new half-lives in 109ru; and 1 new level, 7 new transitions and 8 new lifetimes in 109pd. these results are discussed in the context of the ru and pd isotopic chains. calculations with the core-quasiparticle coupling model for both the case of rigid triaxial rotational deformation and $\gamma$-soft collective deformation are used to compare the level-energies, angular momentum + parity and transition rates for 109ru and 109pd. this comparison provides evidence of rigid triaxiality in the a = 109 isotopes. the present study explored the antecedents and consequences of metaparenting, or a mental plan for parenting, in a diverse sample of fathers (n = 66). cross sectional data were drawn from a larger longitudinal project that interviewed fathers four times over the first two years of their children's lives. childhood residential status and positive role models were found to relate to fathers' internal working models of parenting as measured by metaparenting. higher levels of metaparenting led to more authoritative parenting, greater knowledge of child development, lower stress, and less abuse potential, when controlling for paternal age and intelligence. the results suggested that past experiences influenced fathers' internal working models of parenting and their ability to metaparent. in turn, metaparenting influenced parenting effectiveness. the classification by palais of g-spaces, topological spaces acted on by homeomorphisms by a compact lie group g, is refined. under mild topological hypotheses, it is shown that when a sequence of orbit spaces is 'close' to a limit orbit space, in some suitable sense, within a larger ambient orbit space, the g-spaces in the tail of the sequence are strongly equivalent to the limit g-space. three applications of the theory to alexandrov and riemannian geometry are then given. the covering homotopy theorem, which is key to the classification theory, is used to prove a version of the slice theorem for alexandrov spaces, showing that the local action of a group of isometries is topologically determined by its infinitesimal action. the refinement of the classification theory is used to prove an equivariant version of perelman's stability theorem for equicontinous sequences of isometric actions by a fixed compact lie group. the class of riemannian orbifolds of a given dimension defined by a lower bound on the sectional curvature and the volume and an upper bound on the diameter is shown to be finite up to orbifold homeomorphism. furthermore, any class of isospectral riemannian orbifolds with a lower bound on the sectional curvature is also shown to be finite up to orbifold homeomorphism. the infused and acquired virtues in aquinas' moral philosophy abstract by angela m. mckay throughout his writings on the virtues, aquinas consistently makes two claims: 1) the infused moral virtues are completely different from the acquired virtues (for instance, they can co-exist with a disposition to the corresponding acquired vice); and 2) it is the infused moral virtues which are moral virtues in the truest sense. together these facts present a puzzle about the detailed accounts of the moral virtues in the second part of the second part: might these be primarily accounts of the infused moral virtues, and only derivatively about acquired moral virtue? given that parts of the treatment are clearly concerned with infused moral virtues and other parts are clearly concerned with acquired moral virtue, what portion of the discussion in the second part of the second part is devoted to each? what relevance does acquired moral virtue have to its infused counterpart, and vice versa? these two facts, together with the questions they raise, tend to go unmentioned in literature that deals with aquinas' treatment of the virtues, but they have important ramifications, particularly for those who might wish to appropriate a thomistic notion of virtue into contemporary virtue ethics. for if it can be established that there is a significant difference between the infused and acquired moral virtues at both the practical and theoretical level, that aquinas is aware of these differences, and that, aware of these differences, he focuses almost exclusively on the infused virtues, then aquinas' moral philosophy departs farther from aristotle's ethical system than most scholars acknowledge. this dissertation aims to address the distinction between the infused and acquired virtues in aquinas' moral theory, and to show that the infused virtues are not only different from and independent of the acquired virtues, but that &ndash; at least as evidenced by the treatises on prudence and fortitude &ndash; this drastically different set of virtues is the true subject of aquinas' detailed discussion of the virtues in the secunda secundae. the mosquito-vectored dengue virus (denv) causes a potentially fatal infection found mostly in tropical regions of the world. nearly 2.5 billion people are at risk of infection and an estimated 50 million cases occur annually. there is no vaccine and the only way to fight the spread of dengue is to combat the mosquito vector. an emerging strategy for preventing dengue transmission involves genetic modification of the mosquito with anti-viral agents. rna enzymes known as ribozymes hold great potential in this area due to their autocatalytic properties and minimal cofactor requirements. the hepatitis delta virus (hdv) ribozyme is a promising candidate for dengue inactivation because it can be easily altered to cleave a target of choice and is both active and stable at physiological ph and magnesium concentrations. we have investigated the potential of an hdv-based ribozyme to function as a means of inducing denv refractivity in mosquitoes. we have modified the hdv ribozyme to target a portion of the denv genome that is conserved among all four dengue serotypes. the ability of the ribozyme to cleave this conserved sequence was examined in cell culture using a 5' denv/firefly luciferase fusion target and luciferase assays, rt-pcr, western dot-blot, and in-vitro cleavage assays. our analyses provide validation of this ribozyme as a candidate effector gene for dengue virus refractivity in mosquito cells, although future work is necessary to determine the extent of target cleavage. we also propose further development of the ribozyme for use as an rna drug. cation-exchange membranes modified with polyelectrolyte multilayers (pems) could provide a platform for lithium purification based on the large hydrated radius and hydration energy of lithium relative to the corresponding values for other alkali metal ions. the pems give rise to li+ selectivity, and the cation-exchange membrane allows separation through either donnan dialysis (dd) or electrodialysis. alternating adsorption of protonated poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (pah) and poly(4-styrenesulfonate) (pss) on nafion 115 membranes increases the k+/li+ dd selectivity and with source phases containing 0.01 m hno3, the k+/li+ selectivity reaches ~60. however, more recent studies suggest this may depend on the batch of cation-exchange membranes. ellipsometric studies show increased pem swelling at low ph, which may open cation-exchange sites that preferentially bind k+ to enable highly selective transport. subsequent studies modified the interior of porous membrane with pems to allow attachment of small-molecule drugs and identification of their protein targets. a model system of carbonic anhydrase ii (caii) binding to immobilized 4-(2-aminoethyl)benzenesulfonamide (aebsa) demonstrates the efficiency and selectivity of affinity capture in modified membranes. selective elution of captured protein, tryptic digestion, tandem mass spectrometry analysis, and label-free quantification (lfq) identify caii as the dominant aebsa target in diluted serum or cell lysate global proteomics shows that the spiked caii is the only protein with a log2 ratio (sample/control intensity) consistently &gt;2, and the detection limit for caii identification is 0.004 wt% of the total protein in 1:4 diluted human serum or 0.024 wt% of the total protein from breast cancer cell lysates. the same approach also identifies native caii in human kidney cell lysate as an aebsa target.comparison of affinity capture using membranes, affi-gel 10 resin or m-270 dynabeads derivatized with aebsa suggests that only membranes allow identification of low-abundance caii as a target. depression is a common a debilitating form of psychopathology. often models of adult psychopathology are used to test in children, they often do not fit. cole and colleagues (cole, 1990; tram & cole, 2000) examined a diathesis-stress model of depression using perceived competence as a diathesis. they found that this model did not fit these data. however, a meditational model (i.e., perceived competence mediates the relationship between negative life events and depressive symptoms) was found to be true. while much of cole's work is done in younger children, the transition period of middle school to high school, a time of great change, is vastly understudied. this study makes use of data of 1,075 students followed for 6 years. results show that this mediation model does not hold true for 7th-12th grade. this dissertation investigates the fate of different sewage associated viruses and bacteria in environmental waters so to inform best practices for water quality management. the four main objectives addressed in this dissertation were to (1) understand the persistence of fecal indicator bacteria (fib), viral indicators and pathogens in model freshwater systems, (2) characterize the particle associations of promising molecular fecal pollution indicators, (3) determine the transport characteristics of bacterial and viral indicators in flowing waters, and (4) determine the persistence of infectious severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (sars-cov-2) in wastewater and water. the results of these investigations will help develop promising viral fecal indicators for water quality monitoring purposes where they can improve upon the traditionally used fecal indicator bacteria (fib) and other proposed bacterial indicators. additionally, this research will also address the concerns around the handling of wastewater by examining the persistence of emerging pathogen, sars-cov-2, in water and wastewater. ultimately, the results from this research will help with risk assessments protecting the general public, maintenance personnel and scientists around the world in contact with wastewater. none an artist's job is to point at things miranda julyin the aftermath of the 2016 election, my practice shifted in response to contemporary gender politics. in my current and ongoing body of work, i examine contemporary socially constructed notions of identity through the lens of the "female gaze." the female gaze was coined by jill soloway in response to laura mulvey's theory of "the male gaze," where cinematic depictions of women are seen as the objects of male pleasure. the female gaze is an alternative way of seeing and representing everyone as a subject. this acknowledges that everyone has their own complicated narrative. i aim to question and subvert gender hierarchies through both humor and vulnerability. in my recent work, i use fanciful, intricate porcelain mirror frames, candelabras, and miscellaneous vessels that merge iconography from antiquity, with rococo, pop, and surrealism infused with contemporary feminist themes, sprinkled with allusions of dime-store kitsch. i aim to reference imagery and structures that are associated with the feminine, domestic, and even grotesque or monstrous, to explore the constructed and idealized world of femininity. i want to create a speculative headspace that questions our contemporary notions of taste, beauty, value and gender. as a society, we have limited views of power. i hope to broaden these views by gathering imagery across cultural lines and histories that explore the subjugation of the female body and create decorative quasi-functional sculptures that offer a remixed interpretation of utopia or rather an alternative reality. in 2016 american television creator, show runner, director and writer, jill soloway, coined the term the female gaze, "i think the female gaze is a way of "feeling seeing". it could be thought of as a subjective camera that attempts to get inside the protagonist, especially when the protagonist is not a chismale. it uses the frame to share and evoke a feeling of being in feeling, rather than seeing – the characters." electrical impedance tomography (eit) is one of the widely used non-intrusive technique to reconstruct the internal properties of a medium. these properties, typically expressed in the form of electrical conductivity or resistivity, are obtained using boundary voltage measurements resulting from a known current excitation. tomography is a prototypical inverse problem that uses a numerical model to mimic the physical response of the system in order to identify the optimal distribution of material parameters that best fit the measured data. eit is a highly ill posed nonlinear inverse problem. numerical regularization and prior information on the system are often a necessity to guarantee the stability of the solution. analytical solutions are rarely available so that iterative numerical techniques are typically employed.the main goal of this thesis is to develop the numerical techniques based on wavelet decomposition capable to enhance the computational efficiency of tomographic inverse problems while maximizing the reconstruction accuracy and resolution.wavelet decomposition has been widely used in signal processing. thanks to their compact support, wavelet enables efficient identification of localized features in both the temporal and the spatial domain. a more recent development in the field of wavelet consists in wavelet adaptive mesh refinement (wamr) algorithms. in this area, wavelet allows to adaptively adjust the spatial discretization of the numerical mesh in order to capture the subtle changes in field variables while maintaining a high computational efficiency and accuracy. the power of this algorithm lies in the multi-resolution representation of a function expanded in wavelet basis. the model parameters are represented in the wavelet space and quantified using wavelet coefficients. then, to represent the spatial scales in the given analysis, the corresponding wavelet coefficients are filtered so to eliminated that are not significant. by reducing the design variable to be evaluated, the reconstruction procedure becomes much faster while the recovery of the calculation is preserved. a detailed discussion of wamr algorithms and its application in solving partial differential equations (pdes) and inverse problems will be presented, with specific application to electrical impedance tomography (eit).the nature of iterative methods brings inevitably a considerable computational burden. in an effort to develop efficient computational algorithms, this thesis explores a wavelet basis function approach (wbfa) method to fully exploit the localized features of electrical conductivity distribution. the core idea of this algorithm is based on the superposition principle. the conductivity distribution is assumed to be a linear combination of a few basis 'images', i.e., the wavelet basis functions. the reconstruction of the conductivity distribution is obtained by reconstructing the unknown coefficients corresponding to these wavelet basis functions. this procedure greatly reduces the unknown parameters to be evaluated and thus accelerates the computational efficiency. different types of wavelet functions are chosen as basis for the solution of the eit inverse problem, and their performances are evaluated and compared. a detailed implementation of wavelet basis function approach in 1-d and 2-d will be presented. it will be shown that the wbfa has a better performance than periodic methods. sortases play important roles in covalently anchoring bacterial virulence factors to the cell wall. sortase a (srta), the most ubiquitous sortase in gram-positive bacteria, is regarded as 'the housekeeping sortase' due to its role in anchoring many proteins involved in adhesion, immune invasion, internalization, and phage recognition. the activity of srta is specific to cell surface proteins with a c-terminal lpxtg-motif followed by a hydrophobic region and a positively charged tail. many of the cell surface virulence factors in group a streptococcus pyogenes (gas), including plasminogen-binding m-protein (pam), have a lpxtg-motif and are anchored to the cell wall by srta. while the role of srta in the presentation of virulence factors on the cell wall has been recognized, the ability of these virulence factors to present themselves and maintain function without srta has not been well studied. the goal of this research is to investigate how lpxtg-motif surface proteins anchor and present themselves without srta, what effects this has on their function, and what subsequent effects these changes have on cell hardiness and virulence.a gene deletion mutant for srta was made in gas strain ap53 and compared with the parent strain for the investigations described. the cell wall and cell membrane were isolated via phage lysin c (plyc) and centrifugation and examined for pam content by western blotting. whole cell elisas were also employed to investigate the presence and presentation of proteins on the cell surface. the results obtained from these assays demonstrate in the δsrta mutant the retention of lpxtg-motif proteins in the cell membrane and that the presentation of these proteins to the environment remains unaltered. the functionality of these proteins was investigated via the ability of the cells to bind and activate human plasminogen (hpg). in the absence of srta, the cells were found to retain their ability to bind hpg via pam and activate hpg in the presence of the secreted virulence factor streptokinase. the viability and environmental hardiness of the cells were investigated via growth assays to observe their ability to tolerate high salt, antibiotics, and neutrophil killing and their ability to form adherent biofilms via crystal violet staining. the cells without srta were not significantly different in their ability to grow under favorable conditions, but they were found to have increased susceptibilities to high salt and antibiotics, indicating a disruption in their membrane integrity. the δsrta mutant was also found to have a reduced survivability against direct neutrophil exposure and a reduced ability to form adherent biofilms, indicating that covalent anchoring of lpxtg-motif proteins is necessary for full functionality in neutrophil evasion and cell adherence. overall, the results of this study suggest the existence of an alternative mechanism for cell surface protein expression and the necessity for srta activity for bacterial viability and hardiness. lead halide perovskites have been shown to be a promising class of semiconductors for use in light-harvesting and light-emitting applications. while these materials have been employed in high efficiency devices in laboratory settings, instability issues inhibit the adoption of perovskites into market applications. this thesis investigates the transformations perovskites undergo that lead to operational instability. the research presented in this thesis approaches the study of perovskites through optical measurements and materials characterization methods. using these techniques, both cesium and methylammonium lead halide perovskites are studied.physical changes that occur in lead halide perovskites are investigated through three different studies.cesium lead bromide nanocrystals are studied under elevated temperatures and the transformation process they undergo to change into bulk perovskites films is monitored. physical changes in perovskites are further studied by investigating the movement of halide ions between perovskite heterostructures. this thrust of research focuses on both cesium and methylammonium based perovskites. the movement of halide ions in these two species are compared.the excited state properties are perovskites are also elucidated using transient absorption spectroscopy. the underlying theory of transient absorption spectroscopy is discussed as well as an explanation of interpretation of transient absorption data. transient absorption spectroscopy is used to find optical properties of perovskite nanostructures and a band filling model is proposed.inhibiting anion migration between perovskite nanocrystals through pbso4-oleate capping is studied. the optical properties of the novel nanostructure made with pbso4-oleate capping are explored. the ability of these nanostructures to inhibit anion movement in thin films is also discussed. the potential for tandem photovoltaic devices of this material is also elucidated using transient absorption spectroscopy to study the excited state. this dissertation focuses on the literary persona of boethius, a classical sage turned christian martyr, and its influence on later writers. in particular, it investigates how later authors went beyond literary imitation to impersonate boethius himself, fashioning themselves as later-day avatars of boethius and reincarnating the details of his life in their own accounts of themselves. unlike modern sanitized approaches to persona, the medieval textual transmission of boethian material emphasized connections between the historical person and literary representation. the consolation of philosophy particularly encouraged such authorial discrimination, responsibility, and development of medieval literary theory due to its first-person narrator, dialogic nature, and apparent autobiography. chapter 1 traces the literary history of boethius's first person narrator through hagiography, the vita tradition, and the interpretive framework accumulated across centuries of marginal notes, and illustrations. vernacular translations, such as the alfredian old english boethius, provide an on-site glimpse into early medieval applications of boethius's persona to new circumstances. medieval commentaries, on the other hand, were interested in mapping points upon which author spoke in propria persona, or in his own person. the remigian gloss, and its successors, the commentaries of william of conches and nicholas trevet receive particular attention. by the fourteenth century, vernacular translations and looser, more literary imitations also abounded. chapter 2 examines london scrivener thomas usk and his testament of love, his aspiring impersonators. a condemned conspirator who becomes a traitor twice over by serving as king's evidence, usk's self-preoccupation and worldly ambitions apparently belie the testament's boethian form, and infuse it with the more ambivalent allusions of troilus and criseyde. chapter 3 traces usk's efforts to move outside of self-fashioning to objective persuasion. by deploying the tradition of topical logic, long transmitted by boethius's de topicis differentiis, usk tries to show himself to be not only like the boethian prisoner, but also a philosophical magister with a claim to truthfulness. thomas usk's textual strategies reveal the proximity of the whole boethian corpus to the consolation of philosophy, as vitae and university texts transform the testament of love into more than a consolation--a disputation to restore usk's lost credibility before a hostile audience. chapter 4 turns to thomas hoccleve's prologue to the regiment of princes, where hoccleve 'vulgarizes' and ventriloquizes boethius by overlapping the consolatio tradition with the chaucerian corpus. piling up double and triple allusions, hoccleve transforms boethian recollection to memorialize an authority closer to his own life--geoffrey chaucer--not only through the famous eulogies and portrait, but through the figure of the 'old man.' through all of these means, vernacular writings like the prologue to the regiment of princes and the testament of love maximize the dramatic overtones of the consolatio tradition, and its potential for narrative, agency, and self-transformation. far from a monolithic and static entity, medieval understandings of 'boethianism' range across a spectrum of attitudes and interpretations. the focal point of each, however, is the person of boethius. examining the connections made between the man and the texts he produced, and how far one illuminates the other, facilitates understanding of who boethius in propria persona was in the middle ages; as well as for whom, and to what uses boethius may be put. thermal properties play important roles in applications such as high efficiency thermoelectric materials and the thermal management of electronic devices. while electrons dominate thermal transport in metal, phonons (i.e., the quanta of lattice vibrations) are the primary energy carriers in crystalline insulators and semiconductors such as silicon and germanium. a fundamental understanding of the transport properties of multiple carriers including phonons and electrons can enable us to better design nanoscale materials. however, many of the current techniques to calculate the lattice thermal conductivity and interfacial thermal conductance involve major approximations.the first part of this work involves studying the role of scattering strength, such as anharmonicity (i.e., high order phonon-phonon scattering) and electron-phonon coupling, on thermal conductance at interfaces, based on molecular dynamics (md) simulations. the second part of this work involves building accurate tools to predict the thermal conductivity of crystal materials. one approach is md simulations. the other approach is lattice dynamics calculation from boltzmann transport equations (bte) combined with fermi's golden rule, based on the force constants fitted from first-principles calculations. it is so far the most accurate approach and is essential for the prediction of thermal conductivity in crystal materials.with the completion of the tool for thermal conductivity prediction, several important semiconductor materials are studied using these first-principles methods. one is single layer molybdenum disulfide (mos2), a two dimensional material with an intrinsic bandgap of 1.8 ev and a high electron mobility around 200 cm2v-1s-1, which can potentially enable applications in transistors, photovoltaics, valleytronics and thermoelectrics. another material studied is wurtzite zinc-oxide (w-zno), a wide bandgap semiconductor that holds promise in power electronics and transparent electronics applications. finally, with the proven predictive power of our methods, we discover a strategy to tune thermal conductivity via bond engineering by modifying the bond saturation of materials. we find that penta-graphene and hydrogenated penta-graphene are promising candidates for future nanoelectronics applications due to their high lattice thermal conductivity. this helps providing a general guideline for the design of high thermal conductivity materials.all these studies provide us a better understanding of thermal transport in solid state crystal materials and can potentially enable us to design materials with desirable thermal transport properties. vibrational spectroscopy is a powerful technique for interrogating the structure and dynamics of liquids due to its exquisite time and spatial resolution. this dissertation exploits the vibrational technique to examine the structure and dynamics of various liquids: water, dilute mixtures of water and alcohol, neat alcohol, il mixtures, and water surrounding dna. specifically, by monitoring the vibrational frequency of a reporter group as the surrounding environment changes, process called spectral diffusion, important dynamical information can be extracted. the vibrational probe of interest in this research is the od stretch, which has been used extensively in experiments and theory. experimental studies examining the structure and dynamics of deuterated alcohols isolated in ionic liquids (ils) have revealed that spectral diffusion of the od stretch of the alcohol slows slightly as the length of the alkyl chain increases. orientational relation, however, shows a more dramatic effect as it slows with increasing alkyl chain length. molecular dynamics (md) simulations of isolated water, methanol, and ethanol in the 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide, [emim][ntf2], il were performed to shed insight into the nature of coupled solute-ion dynamics. also, md simulations of the alcohols at dilute concentration in aqueous solution were carried out to provide a comparison. the theoretical calculations of the spectral diffusion dynamics and orientational relaxation of the od stretch of the isolated vibrational reporters in [emim][ntf2] agree well with experiment. the size of the alcohol does not affect the spectral diffusion timescales very much, while there are distinct differences between the reorientational relaxation timescales.the sensitivity of the phosphate asymmetric stretch vibrational frequency to dna hydration was investigated with md simulations and a spectroscopic map relating the vibrational frequency to the electrostatics of its environment. 95\% of the phosphate vibrational frequency shift in fully hydrated dna was due to water within two hydration layers. the phosphate vibration was relatively insensitive to water in the major and minor grooves and the sodium counterions but was enormously sensitive to water interacting with the dna backbone. comparisons to experimental measurements on dna as a function of relative humidity suggest that one water molecule per phosphate group likely persists at the lowest values of the relative humidity. finally, the calculated spectral diffusion dynamics show that water in the vicinity of the dna backbone is slowed by a factor of five, in agreement with nmr and solvation dynamics experiments, as well as previous md simulations. redox active ligands allow for new avenues of reactivity that go beyond traditional inorganic or organometallic reactivity. these ligands play a role beyond being a spectator, whether it is allowing for enhanced metal-ligand cooperativity, multiple proton and electron transfer, or stabilization of unusual metal oxidation states. the incorporation, design, and reactivity of redox active ligand metal complexes provide a rich, new area of chemistry to explore.the chemistry of a bis(catechol) ligand, xbich4, formed from schiff base condensation of 1,8-diamino-9,9-dimethylxanthene with 4,6-di-tert-butylcatechol-3-carboxaldehyde was explored with silicon and zirconium. when metalated by silicon to form [(xbich2)siph]+, the complex adopts a five-coordinate, square pyramidal geometry, where silicon lies above the plane of the two catechols with an apical phenyl ring. zirconium complexes are formed by reaction of xbich4 with (tpp)zr(oac)2, to yield heteroleptic (tpp)zr(xbich2), or with zr(acac)4, to give the homoleptic zr(xbich2)2. in both the silicon and zirconium complexes, xbich2 binds to the metals in the catecholate-iminium form. the imines of these complexes can be deprotonated, to give a complexes of the fully deprotonated xbic[4-] ligand. deprotonation with alkali metal bases results in heterobimetallic complexes with the alkali metal cation adopting a pentagonal monopyramidal geometry in the lower bis(imine) pocket. some of the eight-coordinate bis(catecholate) zirconium complexes show fluxional behavior, an uncommon occurrence in analogous eight-coordinate bis(porphyrin) zirconium complexes. elucidation of the mechanism has been carried out through vt-nmr and by dft calculations, which suggest that a seven-coordinate intermediate plays a significant role in the dynamic behavior.different oxidation states of the bis(catecholate) silicon complexes were found to be inaccessible. the bis(catecholate) zirconium complexes show rich cyclic voltammograms and optical spectra that revealed that oxidation of these compounds is possible, with (tpp)zr(xbich2) showing two ligand-centered redox waves and zr(xbich2)2 showing four redox waves. the analogous deprotonated zirconium compounds show similar redox waves, but at lower potentials. complete oxidation of na2[(tpp)zr(xbic)] with two equivalents of fcpf6 gives the fully oxidized (tpp)zr(xbis)•napf6, with a sodium ion bound in the lower pocket (xbis = 9,9-dimethylxanthene-bis(imine)-bis(semiquinone)). this is the first known bis(semiquinonate) zirconium complex that has been fully characterized spectroscopically and structurally. the oxidized zirconium complex dehydrogenates hydrazobenzene, forming azobenzene and (tpp)zr(xbich2).complexes of the late transition metal iridium with redox-active iminoxolene ligands can be accessed by reactions of iridium(i) precursors with the bulky iminoquinone n-(2,6-diisopropylphenyl)-3,5-di-tert-butyl-o-iminobenzoquinone (diso). this five-coordinate complex, (diso)2ircl, adopts a distorted square pyramidal structure with an apical chloride ligand. this complex undergoes halide exchange to form an air-stable iridium iodide complex, (diso)2iri. (diso)2ircl binds to neutral donors, such as pyridine, and isomerizes from a trans to cis geometry. 1h nmr spectra of the cis-pyridine iridium complexes reveal the existence of a low-lying triplet state. oxidation of (diso)2ircl by one electron leads to formation of air-stable trans and cis-(diso)2ircl2 complexes. conversely, (diso)2ircl can be reduced by one electron to form (diso)2ir. structural and spectroscopic features of these complexes indicate a degree of covalency between the metal and the ligands, with the amount of π donation from ligand to metal dependent on the oxidation state of the metal.the reaction of (diso)2ircl with oxygen atom transfer reagents produces discrete iridium alkoxide complexes derived from oxidation of the isopropyl groups of the diso ligand as products. these oxidized alkoxide iridium products suggest the formation of a reactive iridium-oxo intermediate, which goes on to perform c-h activation. mechanistic studies show the existence of an intermediate that can be intercepted with base and affects the product distribution of the two iridium alkoxide complexes. kinetic isotope competition studies, via an intramolecular competition between reaction with the c-h vs. c-d bond of the isopropyl methine carbon, are done using different oxygen atom transfer reagents. kie ratios of 10 are obtained, regardless of the nature of the oxidant, and suggests that transfer of a hydrogen atom is part of the product-determining step. these kie results show that the oxidation reactions proceed through a common intermediate and that the intermediate is not a complex with the oxidant. while reaction of (diso)2ircl and oat donors yield iridium alkoxides, reacting (diso)2ircl with molecular oxygen yields entirely different products. spectroscopic data suggests that initially, there is formation of an o2-bound iridium complex, with the dioxygen bridged across the iridium metal and a carbon of one of the iminoxolene c=o bond. rather than forming alkoxide complexes, this reaction undergoes ring cleavage of one of the iminoxolene ligands. this is highly suggestive of peroxo chemistry when (diso)2ircl reacts with molecular oxygen, rather than metal-oxo chemistry. reaction of (diso)2ir, a lower oxidation state of (diso)2ircl, produces an iridium-alkyl bond with one of the isopropyl groups on the diso ligand. different iminoxolene ligands were synthesized and complexed with iridium, but produces a distribution of four-, five-, or six-coordinate complexes, unlike diso, which only produces the five-coordinate complex. over the past 40 years, there has been growing interest in both laser communications and directed energy weapons that operate from moving aircraft. as a laser beam propagates from an aircraft in flight, it passes through boundary layers, turbulence, and shear layers in the near-region of the aircraft. these fluid instabilities cause strong density gradients which adversely affect the transmission of laser energy to a target. adaptive optics provides corrective measures for this problem but current technology cannot respond quickly enough to be useful for high speed flight conditions. this research investigated the use of plasma as a medium for adaptive optics for aero-optics applications. when a laser beam passes through plasma, its phase is shifted proportionally to the electron density and gas heating within the plasma. as a result, plasma can be utilized as a dynamically controllable optical medium. experiments were carried out using a cylindrical dielectric barrier discharge plasma chamber which generated a sub-atmospheric pressure, low-temperature plasma. an electrostatic model of this design was developed and revealed an important design constraint relating to the geometry of the chamber. optical diagnostic techniques were used to characterize the plasma discharge. single-wavelength interferometric experiments were performed and demonstrated up to 1.5 microns of optical path difference (opd) in a 633 nm laser beam. dual-wavelength interferometry was used to obtain time-resolved profiles of the plasma electron density and gas heating inside the plasma chamber. furthermore, a new multi-wavelength infrared diagnostic technique was developed and proof-of-concept simulations were conducted to demonstrate the system's capabilities. non-innocent ligands can be versatile tools in providing catalytic function to organometallic redox catalysts. in the case of the redox-active tbucliph4 ligand (n,n´-bis(2-hydroxy-3,5-di-tert-butylphenyl)-2,2´-diamino-4,4´-di-tert-butylbiphenyl), the ligand can undergo 2h+/2e− redox changes, shuttling between an oxidized bis(iminosemiquinone) and a reduced bis(aminophenoxide), when coordinated to group 10 metals. the frontier orbitals of bis(iminosemiquinone) complexes consist of a ligand-centered orbital, and a higher-lying orbital that is largely ligand-centered but is metal-ligand π antibonding. these two orbitals are collectively occupied by two electrons. the complexes are always ground-state singlets, but many of the studied complexes possess low-lying triplet states that can be thermally populated. measurement of the singlet-triplet energy gap by variable-temperature nmr, in combination with uv-vis spectroscopic data of the cationic, neutral, and anionic forms of the complex, have provided a comprehensive view of the electronic nature of the complexes.group 10 bis(iminosemiquinone) metal complexes of cis geometry were hypothesized to be able to accomplish a concerted transfer of a pair of hydrogen atoms from an organic substrate. what has been observed is that the mechanism of hydrogen atom transfer is stepwise in all investigated reactions. in regards to 2h+/2e− reactivity, the palladium complex (tbuclip)pd dehydrogenates hydrazines and hydroxylamines to generate the (tbucliph2)pd complex. in comparison, the platinum analogue is much less oxidizing, and dehydrogenates hydrazobenzene reversibly (∆g° = 1.85 kcal/mol at 22 °c). not only are the complexes different in terms of their thermodynamic reducing power, but also in how the initial hydrogen atom transfer affects the transfer of the second hydrogen atom. the (tbucliph2)pd complex shows practically no coupling between the two hydrogen atom transfer events, both thermodynamically and kinetically. the platinum complex displays much stronger coupling between the two hydrogen atom transfer events and favors two electron chemistry more than the palladium complex. while the extent of coupling in the analogous nickel complex remains unknown, it is estimated to be more like the platinum complex in this regard.in the reactions involving the bis(iminosemiquinone) complexes with hydrazobenzene, all three complexes display exceedingly large primary kinetic isotope effects that are beyond the theoretical limit for a classical hydrogen atom transfer. such large kies are interpreted to arise from hydrogen atom tunneling. the reactivity with the palladium complex also has a non-linear dependence of rate on mole fraction protium. the proposed explanation is that a change in the fate of the intermediate hydrazyl radical (disproportionation vs. further reactivity with palladium), depending on its isotopic composition, alters the stoichiometric factor of the hydrogen atom transfer events, and therefore the observed rates of reaction. in exploring the hydrogen atom transfer with alkynes, only the bis(aminophenoxide)platinum complex was observed to have reactivity. however, rather than the stepwise hydrogen atom transfer seen between these complexes and nitroso/azo substrates, (tbucliph2)pt engages in ene-type reactivity with cyclooctyne. the evident stereoselectivity and regioselectivity of the product, along with results from radical trapping experiments, strongly suggest a concerted addition reaction. (tbucliph2)pt was also observed to have unique reactivity with other electron withdrawing alkynes. suspension footbridges provide access to education, healthcare, and economic opportunity to isolated communities all over the world. despite the construction of hundreds of these footbridges over the past sixty years, their dynamic behavior and vulnerability to wind effects remains largely unknown. progress in predicting the overall aeroelastic behavior of bridges to date has been effective in reducing the flutter vulnerability of major infrastructure projects with multi-million dollar budgets and teams of highly specialized bridge aeroelasticity researchers. however, basic flutter analysis remains out of reach for organizations like bridges to prosperity, who are building dozens of footbridges a year and lack the expertise and resources to conduct a specialized aeroelastic evaluation of each individual bridge they build. they are further constrained by a lack of knowledge of probabilistic design practices, the unknown dynamic properties of their standardized suspension bridge design, and design engineers without specialized knowledge of dynamics, much less flutter. in addition, the nature of the communities where bridges to prosperity footbridges are built differs considerably from sites where traditional vehicular suspension bridges are built, which introduces additional constraints related to material availability, construction practices, and cultural considerations which impact flutter mitigation options. this combination of constraints renders even the simplest flutter formulations and mitigation strategies inaccessible to designers and builders of rural footbridges. this study addresses these challenges with a footbridge flutter mitigation framework which addresses the above constraints by adopting a human-centered approach. the framework offers a comprehensive approach for the prediction and mitigation of flutter in standardized footbridge designs. in contrast to current flutter prediction and mitigation efforts, the framework leverages data from multiple standard footbridges to eliminate the burden of detailed bridge by bridge analysis. a novel set of design thinking first tools is proposed which is tailored to civil engineering applications to infuse the needs and aspirations of community members into the research and design process. the framework includes several components to enable the ongoing collection and analysis of vibrational data from constructed footbridges to inform the dynamic inputs of the flutter analysis platform. the framework includes a probabilistic approach to translate predicted critical flutter velocities into actionable span guideline charts and flutter check tools designed specifically to comply with existing standard design procedures. fifty years ago, gordon moore formulated his well-known prediction that transistor count would double every two years. this prediction has set a benchmark for semiconductor processor manufacturers to achieve and driven them to aggressively reduce transistor dimensions with every succeeding generation. however, as transistors approach their fundamental limits, major advances must be made in other areas of processor chips to continue the increase in computing performance. currently, one of the biggest bottlenecks is the interconnect bandwidth, or the ability to pass data quickly between chips or among the multiple cores within each processor. the telecommunications industry was revolutionized by the advent of optical communications over optical fibers, replacing copper wires. a similar shift from electrical wires to optical interconnects could increase chip-level interconnect bandwidth by one to two orders of magnitude and allow continued performance enhancements. however, dense optical interconnects require an efficient, intimatelyii integrated laser on si, something that does not yet exist. this work highlights two routes to achieving optical interconnects on si: tensile-strained ge and dilute ge1-xcx alloys. while ge does not efficiently emit light due to its indirect bandgap, tensilestrained ge can be made to be a direct bandgap semiconductor that emits orders of magnitude more efficiently than si. in addition, comsol strain simulations of ge waveguides with si3n4 stress liners show that sufficient strain to change the refractive index and allow optical mode confinement within a strained ge waveguide is achievable within conventional wafer fabrication techniques. similarly, ge1-xcx alloys may offer a direct bandgap according to earlier simple models, but published results have been ambiguous. this work offers definitive support of a strongly direct bandgap based on both a band anticrossing (bac) model and highly accurate density functional theory (dft) using hybrid functional techniques, as well as experimental growth of ge0.998c0.002 using gas source molecular beam epitaxy that supports our computational model. the splitting of the conduction band predicted by our bac and hse models is confirmed by a 50 mev band splitting by photoreflectance measurements. our models further predict the onset of a direct bandgap for carbon concentrations of just 0.8% c. the class of real closed fields (rcf) has nice model theoretic properties, among them o-minimality and quantifier elimination. we examine rcf and the non-elementary subclass of rcf composed of archimedean real closed fields, arcf, from a computable structure theory perspective. also, we explore connections with the class of linear orders (lo). we focus on two main notions: turing computable embeddings and relative categoricity.the notion of turing computable embedding (tce) is an effective version of the borel embedding defined by friedman and stanley in 1989 [1]. in fact, many borel embeddings are computable. the relation < is a preordering on classes of structures. in [1], the authors provide a computable borel reduction showing that lo is a maximal element of the preordering defined by tce's. an embedding, due to marker and discussed by levin in his thesis, shows that lo < rcf, hence rcf is also maximal.we consider the class dg, of daisy graphs, a non-elementary subclass of the class of undirected graphs. each structure a in dg codes a family s of subsets of the natural numbers n. we show that each of dg and arcf is tc embeddable into the other. we use = to denote this.theorem 1: dg = arcf.to prove theorem 1 we construct a computable perfect tree t whose paths represent algebraically independent reals. we pass from an element of dg to a family of paths through t, and from there to a real closed field which is the real closure of this family of reals.we generalize theorem 1 and obtain the following.theorem 2: let k be a class of structures such that any a, b satisfying the same quantifier-free types are isomorphic. then k < arcf.a computable structure a is relatively delta-alpha categorical if for any copy b, isomorphicto a there is a delta-alpha relative to b isomorphism between a and b, here 'alpha' stands for a computable ordinal. ash, knight, manasse, and slaman, and independently chisholm, showed that a structure is relatively delta-alpha categorical if it has a formally sigma-alpha scott family of formulas. results by nurtazin imply that a real closed field is relatively computably categorical if it has finite transcendence degree. later work by calvert shows that if a real closed field is archimedean then it is relatively delta-2 categorical.marker's embedding takes a linear order l to a real closed field we denote by rl. essentially rl is the real closure of l, where the elements of l are positive and infinite in rl, and if l is less than s in l, then all positive powers of l are less than s in rl.theorem 3: if a computable linear order l is relatively delta-alpha categorical, then rl isrelatively delta-(1+alpha) categorical.the converse of theorem 3 holds for alpha = 1. we show it also holds for alpha a natural number, assuming further computability properties on one copy of l. we are able then to show the following.theorem 4: for arbitrarily large computable ordinals, there is a real closed field that is relatively delta-alpha categorical and not relatively delta-beta categorical for any ordinal beta less than alpha. in this dissertation, we study several problems in commutative algebra. the first problem we study is the regularity of tor for weakly stable ideals. we prove that if i and j are weakly stable ideals in a polynomial ring r=k[x_1,...,x_n] over a field k, then the regularity of tor^r_i(r/i,r/j) is bounded by reg^r r/i + reg_r r/j + i. we also give a bound for the regularity of ext^i_r(r/i,r) for i a weakly stable ideal. for the second problem, we define an operation on monomial ideals known as the lcm-dual. we study the properties of the lcm-dual for several classes of monomial ideals. the first class of ideals that arises from graph theory are ferrers ideals, which are edge ideals of a ferrers graph. we show that the lcm-dual of a ferrers ideal is the alexander dual of the edge ideal of the complement of the ferrers graph. the second class of ideals we consider are specializations of ferrers ideals, strongly stable ideals of degree two. we find a cellular complex which supports the minimal free resolution for the lcm-duals of these strongly stable ideals. we describe minimal free resolutions of lcm-duals of strongly stable ideals generated in degree two. we describe the special fiber ring in this case. using the same technique, we consider a larger class of ideals generated in degree two, and find their minimal free resolutions. we also show that when the height of a monomial ideal i is at least 2, the special fiber ring of i is isomorphic to the special fiber ring of the lcm-dual of i. we use this to describe the special fiber rings of lcm-duals of strongly stable ideals in degree two. the third problem we consider deals with hilbert functions of cohen-macaulay local rings. given a cohen-macaulay local ring (r, m) of dimension d &gt; 0, we study the depth of the associated graded ring of r with respect to the maximal ideal m. we analyze the case where the multiplicity e is h+3, where h is the embedding codimension. the tool we use is the bigraded sally module s of m with respect to j, where j is a minimal reduction of m. arthropods are one of the most abundant groups of animals with diverse lifestyle and habitats. because of the different niches arthropods live in, arthropods are great organisms for studying gene family evolution. given the great number of arthropod species, only a few arthropod species are model organisms with complete reference genomes. taking advantage of the development of next generation sequencing techniques and bioinformatics, more and more arthropod genes, transcriptomes and genomes are available. this growing genomic data provides a great opportunity to study arthropod gene family evolution. in this doctoral dissertation, i investigated the gene family evolution in three different systems. firstly, i applied transcriptome sequencing on caddisfly species to understand the tetrodotoxin resistance and pyrethroid resistance of sodium channel genes. i found potential molecular mechanisms relating to tetrodotoxin and pyrethroid resistance. secondly, i used transcriptome sequencing dataset of 1000 insect transcriptome project to understand the co-evolution between mitochondrial-encoded and nuclear-encoded oxidative phosphorylation (oxphos) genes. i found elevated nuclear oxphos gene evolutionary rate in hymenoptera. lastly, i investigated the mitochondrial-nuclear interaction in five different haplodiploid species across 500-million year of evolution. and i found elevated mitochondrial gene evolutionary rate in all the haplodiploid species. i also found fast-evolving random nuclear genes in hymenoptera, indicating mixed pattern of mitochondrial-nuclear evolution in arthropods. what follows are an introductory chapter, three data chapters, and a conclusion chapter where i summarized the findings in three systems and the future applications of comparative genomics on arthropod gene family evolution studies. the extensive use of fertilizers in agriculture has led to widespread eutrophication. in this thesis, i explored sulfur-based autotrophic denitrification in agricultural headwater streams as means to remove nitrogen before it impacts receiving waters. i studied a stream mesocosm, simulating a headwater drainage ditch, amended with elemental sulfur. nitrate removal efficiencies were as high as 99%, corresponding to effluent concentrations below 1 mg/l no3--n. however, nitrate removals decreased over time, concurrent with accumulation of biomass on the bed surface, probably phototrophic growth. a model was developed to describe the hydraulic and biological reactions taking place within the mesocosm. the model captured trends in bulk liquid nitrate concentrations, but provided reasonable accuracy only when a high diffusive exchange coefficient was used. this suggests advective exchange with the bulk may be significant. microbial community analysis of the sulfur-oxidizing biofilm suggested significant bacterial diversity existed within the mesocosm, with little variation in depth. in the united states, education is widely thought of as the "great equalizer" (mann 1848), functioning to improve economic and social status. sociological literature, however, indicates that family background is a stronger predictor of student achievement than are schools themselves. in many cases, low socioeconomic status students have a disadvantage that cannot be overcome by schools, and family socioeconomic status, not merit, often determines student academic success. this research considers how family socioeconomic status, school factors, and structural characteristics of nations interact in order to produce educational stratification. it argues and finds support for the idea that since national social organization and government policy vary, the effects of socioeconomic status on achievement also vary on a cross-national basis. moreover, the dissertation argues that certain social organization and governmental policies of nations create mechanisms by which socioeconomic status influences student achievement. these mechanisms have the potential to create circumstances whereby socioeconomically advantaged individuals are able to obtain greater benefits from schooling than their socioeconomically disadvantaged peers. the dissertation applies hierarchical linear models (hlm) to data from twenty-nine nations to explore how a number of structural characteristics of nations, including national education policy, social welfare policy, and societal inequality, influence the relationship between socioeconomic status and student achievement. results confirm that policies and characteristics of nations do indeed have the potential to influence the relationship between socioeconomic status and student learning. specifically, i find that countries with educational policies which aim to provide equal learning opportunities to all students have a weaker link between student socioeconomic status and learning outcomes, as do countries with more liberal social welfare policies. further, i find that there is a curvilinear relationship in the effect of income inequality on the relationship between socioeconomic status and learning. these findings of strong macro-level influences on student achievement have the potential to advance the objective of equal educational opportunities for all students, as they suggest ways to break the link between socioeconomic background and learning outcomes. this study seeks to clarify the date, nature, and probable origin of a noted breviary currently preserved as part of a greatly misunderstood manuscript, lucca, biblioteca arcivescovile, ms 5. it argues, from a close study of the manuscript's hands and codicological structure, that the breviary of lucca, bib. arc. ms 5 was once an independent manuscript, not part of the rest of the liturgical material now appended to it, but created sometime between 1125-1150. the notation of the breviary, taken together with the breviary's primary hand and curious red neumes added by the rubricator, suggests that the breviary may have been compiled by a scribe from chartres, probably a cantor. no obvious feature of the breviary connects it to the crusader latin kingdom of jerusalem, but painstaking comparative study of the breviary's contents show that its liturgy was drawn from diverse european sources; this points to the breviary's composition outside of europe. methodical study of the breviary's liturgy in the context of known manuscripts representing the liturgy celebrating in the patriarchate of jerusalem in the twelfth century demonstrates that breviary's creators drew upon the early twelfth century use of the church of the holy sepulchre in jerusalem; this limits the breviary's production to somewhere in the patriarchate. further comparative analysis of the breviary's liturgy shows that the breviary does not represent the pre-1149 office of the church of the holy sepulchre itself. instead, by excluding other major churches of jerusalem for various reasons as the breviary's probable point of origin, this study argues that the breviary of lucca, bib. arc. ms 5 most likely represents the use of one of the cathedrals of the patriarchate. finally archaeological and prosopographical research, and especially a study of the career of fulcher of angoulême, archbishop of tyre, is used alongside the contents of the breviary's liturgy to argue that out of all the cathedrals of the patriarchate, the breviary of lucca, bib. arc. ms 5 most likely represents the use of the cathedral of tyre as it existed sometime between 1135-1150, though the breviary itself must have been copied for the personal use of someone associated with the cathedral, probably the cantor. a key goal in ecology is to understand the factors limiting species' distributions. important range-limiting factors are often difficult to generalize, however, because organisms have many different life-history traits, evolutionary histories, and diverse interactions with other species. climate is often implicated as the most important range-limiting factor in modern species distributions. yet many species are not or not yet exhibiting range changes associated with anthropogenic climate change. a potentially important non-climatic range-limiting factor is dispersal limitation. recently, some researchers have concluded that dispersal limitation is likely as strong a range limiting factor as climate. one way to tackle the limits to generalization is to investigate range limiting factors and patterns of range shift for well-chosen taxa in a comparative fashion to glean general principles. my research uses a comparative approach to investigate patterns of post-glacial colonization, factors involved in geographic range limitation, and species responses to future climates using genetic techniques, a field experiment, and a chamber experiment, respectively. all studies were conducted on species associated with the garry oak ecosystem in the pacific northwest of north america and focused on four plant taxa: quercus garryana var. garryana, the flagship species of the garry oak ecosystem, and three lomatium species, l. dissectum var. dissectum, l. nudicaule, and l. utriculatum. an overall conclusion from this dissertation is that related, co-occurring species provide an appropriate comparison for determining speciesand trait-based generalization. lomatium chloroplast genetic data suggest that abundance is important in determining the ability of long-distance seed dispersal. the field experiment shows that dispersal limitation is currently important in determining range boundaries for species no matter their regional abundance. the field experiment also shows that closely related species may differ in their competitive abilities and responses to competitors/facilitators. my genetic survey on q. garryana provides evidence that generalizations about range changes in oaks as a taxonomic group seem to be relatively universal, no matter the historical landscape conditions. the chamber experiment provides evidence that some responses to global change will be unpredictable, making certain generalizations difficult. given these findings, humans may consider accelerating species migration through purposeful translocation outside species' ranges to overcome dispersal barriers. a long tradition of work in sociology and education is concerned with patterns of rigorous high school course taking, as course taking shapes students' opportunities to learn and their college and career attainment and has the potential to increase equity. the quality of students' high school course taking has also been a major focus of education policy reform dating back to the early 1980s. the potential for high school course taking patterns to increase and equalize educational opportunity is particularly important given the stagnation of college completion rates, wide and growing socioeconomic gaps in college entry and completion, and the increasing income and educational inequality of the past several decades. in this dissertation, i present three papers examining changes over time in high school curricular intensity for nationally representative cohorts of students in the hs&amp;b, nels, and els data. in chapter 2, i develop and validate a new measure of curricular intensity that identifies and accounts for how curricular intensity has changed over time. in chapter 3, i find that despite increased curricular intensity between 1982 and 2004, incomeand education-based gaps did not narrow, and the association between higher levels of parental education and higher curricular intensity increased across cohorts. in chapter 4, i find that students with higher curricular intensity were consistently more likely to enter postsecondary education and less likely to delay postsecondary entry in each cohort. students with higher curricular intensity were also less likely to enter 2-year or for-profit institutions as compared to 4-year institutions, and the protective influence of higher curricular intensity against entering 2-year or for-profit institutions increased across cohorts, despite educational expansion. the change in odds of each outcome associated with a 1-unit increase in curricular intensity is about one-third to one-half the size of the change in odds associated with going from the lowest parental income or education to the highest and is even larger for delayed postsecondary entry. there has been three decades of work on applying single particle emission spectroscopy to semiconductor nanostructures. this technique has proven immensely useful towards uncovering novel photophysics of these systems, normally hidden due to ensemble averaging. however, despite valuable knowledge gleaned, the limitations of single particle emission spectroscopy are now becoming apparent. first and foremost, photoluminescence is not a universal phenomenon, immediately restricting the applicability of this technique to only limited families of nanomaterials. second, surface defects, and resonant or non-resonant stokes shifts can complicate interpretations from emission spectra. finally, photoluminescence offers no insight into the excited state progression of a nanostructure's electronic structure.single particle extinction spectroscopy is an immediate solution towards overcoming these shortcomings. this thesis explains why these measurements are inherently challenging and briefly discusses two of the most popular approaches towards detecting a single nanostructure's extinction. next, it describes the greater understanding of one-dimensional cadmium selenide nanostructures, i.e. nanowires and nanorods, derived from these measurements. finally, it describes a future extension of single particle extinction measurements to the infrared spectrum and discusses the application of infrared microscopies to novel photovoltaic perovskite materials. this dissertation presents a philosophical and developmental account of the mathematical conceptualization of force in isaac newton's writings, starting from the early dynamical writings in the 1660s and ending with the first edition of the principia of 1687. broadly speaking, this project is a contribution to the epistemology and metaphysics comprised in (i) the mathematical practices underlying the birth of dynamics and (ii) the philosophical foundations of the transition from natural philosophy to mathematical physics. as a project in the history of ideas, it casts a new light on the foundations of modern science by focusing on the conceptualization of force as a mathematical quantity. as a contribution to the philosophy of science, it introduces a novel understanding of newton's philosophy of science centered on the use of what have come to be called models based on mathematical concepts. should public school districts purposefully recruit african american teachers to help close the racial achievement gap? to answer this question, piecewise achievement growth models are fit to all seven data points in the early childhood education longitudinal study in a test of the racial matching hypothesis, which posits that african american students experience greater rates of achievement growth when they have african american elementary school teachers. furthermore, this study situates the racial teacher matching hypothesis as a test of two larger theoretical frameworks pertaining to the black-white test score gap, namely the oppositional culture and sociolinguistic theories. the results of this study yield null effects of racial teacher matching on students' achievement growth rates, which supports neither the sociolinguistic nor the oppositional cultural hypothesis. positioning the findings of this study within the current era of accountability in american education leads to two possible interpretations of the null effects of racial teacher matching on the achievement growth rates of black students: 1) the increasing professionalization of the teaching profession, and 2) the increasing standardization of the task of teaching. trying to make sense of the brutal crucifixion of jesus christ has been one of the more controversial tasks of soteriological discourse in christianity. while always understood within the light of the resurrection, scripture abounds with multiple metaphors that have attempted to ascribe salvific meaning to the cross. from a catholic standpoint, sacrifice, and in particular, a "sacrifice for sins" has remained central to both theological and liturgical reflections on the death of jesus. while the language of sacrifice pervades catholic liturgy and has been used throughout the christian tradition to describe the salvific meaning of the cross, its use has been particularly challenging in light of contemporary critiques that have emerged from the fields of feminist, womanist, and eco-theologies. many theologians operating within these fields view the language of sacrifice as damaging for those on the very margins of society, for it continues to perpetuate violence and abuse. some feminist and womanist theologians find it deeply problematic to claim that jesus' death was anything other than a brutal crucifixion, disclosing the reality of a violent world plagued by patriarchal power structures. for many eco-theologians, there has been an over-emphasis on the cross as a "sacrifice for sins," which confines soteriological discourse to the human realm. in this dissertation, i argue that the scriptural language of "sacrifice for sins" can be re-claimed through the lens of cultural anthropologist, rene girard, to describe the salvific meaning of the cross for both women and the wider ecological world. to do this, i first present and critically engage the various criticisms offered by feminist, womanist, and eco-theologians for why the language of sacrifice should be dismissed. while these reasons differ, i argue that there is in each of them a false assumption about how sacrifice has been understood in the christian tradition. in order to argue for this, i offer my own reading of four central figures from the past that are oftentimes critiqued for putting forward an understanding of the cross as a sacrifice that is deeply problematic for women and the non-human world: paul, augustine of hippo, anselm of canterbury, and finally, martin luther. here, i argue that a lutheran understanding of sacrifice is a deviation from the past three theologians and is responsible for putting forward a soteriology that has rightfully been critiqued by contemporary theologians. while paul, augustine, and anselm offer more nuanced understandings of the cross as a sacrifice for sin, i argue that there is a need for a contemporary hermeneutical apparatus within which to place the language of sacrifice. this will allow for sacrifice to be fully re-claimed and for it to speak directly to the victims of violence today. i finally argue that rene girard's developed understanding of sacrifice offers both feminist and eco-theologies, concerned with liberation a soteriology that addresses the conversion of those who are complicit in systematic injustice, thus offering an account of how forgiveness, healing, and ultimately, transformation of injustice occurs through the christ-event. multiple myeloma (mm) is a hematological malignancy which results from the uncontrolled clonal expansion of plasma cells within the body. despite recent medical advances, this disease remains largely incurable, with a median survival of ~7 years, owing to the development of drug resistance. this dissertation will explore new advances in nanotechnology that will combine the cytotoxic effects of small molecule chemotherapeutics with the tumor targeting capabilities of nanoparticles to create novel nanoparticle formulations that exhibit enhanced therapeutic indices in the treatment of mm. first, doxorubicin was surfaced conjugated onto micellar nanoparticles via an acid labile hydrazone bond to increase the drug accumulation at the tumor. the cell surface receptor very late antigen-4 (vla-4; &#945;4&#946;1) is expressed on cancers of hematopoietic origin and plays a vital role in the cell adhesion mediated drug resistance (cam-dr) in mm. therefore, vla-4 antagonist peptides were conjugated onto the nanoparticles via a multifaceted procedure to actively target mm cells and simultaneously inhibit cam-dr. the micellar doxorubicin nanoparticles were able to overcome cam-dr and demonstrated improved therapeutic index relative to free doxorubicin. in addition to doxorubicin, other classes of therapeutic agents, such as proteasome inhibitors, can be incorporated in nanoparticles for improved therapeutic outcomes. utilizing boronic acid chemistry, bortezomib prodrugs were synthesized using a reversible boronic ester bond and then incorporated into liposomes. the different boronic ester bonds that could be potentially used in the synthesis of bortezomib prodrugs were screened based on stability using isobutylboronic acid. the liposomal bortezomib nanoparticles demonstrated significant proteasome inhibition and cytotoxicity in mm cells in vitro, and dramatically reduced the non-specific toxicities associated with free bortezomib while maintaining significant tumor growth inhibition in vivo. carfilzomib, another proteasome inhibitor, was embedded into the lipid bilayer of liposomes to improve its therapeutic efficacy. vla-4 antagonist peptides were also incorporated to facilitate mm cell targeting and uptake. the liposomal carfilzomib nanoparticles demonstrated improved therapeutic index and synergy with doxorubicin compared to free carfilzomib. these nanoparticle formulations can significantly improve the efficacy of the respective therapeutic agents and have an immense potential to positively impact the treatment of mm providing for improved patient outcomes. this dissertation analyzes how two catholic charismatic lay apostolate associations, which emphasize the gifts of the holy spirit, shape catholic parish life, informing how parishioners understand and practice their faith and forming them into cohorts of christians embracing distinctive configurations of catholic identity and practice. it compares two groups active in a rural parish in western uganda: the internationally-linked catholic charismatic renewal (ccr) and the bakaiso, a movement of local origin devoted to the uganda martyrs.association members' sense of themselves as commissioned to promote authentic catholic practice among themselves and their neighbors generated controversy, for that vocation presumed particular ideals toward which they were called to motivate their catholic community as well as particular paths considered best for pursuing those goals. inter-association critique was a critical mechanism by which the ccr and bakaiso groups differentiated themselves from each other and enunciated arguments for their favored spirit-empowered devotional habits, outreach activities, organizational patterns, and modes of belonging in the catholic church.drawing on archival research, interviews, and ethnographic participant observation, this dissertation analyzes how the ritual practice and organizational cultures of the two associations cultivated divergent styles of catholic practice. chapters 2 through 4 explore both groups' development in light of the history of catholic action and lay apostolate groups in uganda, showing how the ccr and bakaiso built on different patterns of lay associational life developed in the early and mid-twentieth century for nurturing lay formation and leadership. these chapters also show how healing and deliverance ministries served as often-controversial means of popularizing both movements, and they highlight how the ccr in particular developed close links with mainstream ecclesial institutions like seminaries and the uganda episcopal conference. chapters 5 and 6 analyze how the ccr and bakaiso associations' devotional habits, outreach practices, and organizational patterns located participants differently in the church, fostering different relationships with ugandan landscapes and the global church. while the ccr cultivated horizontal international networks that connected ugandan participants with catholic charismatics worldwide, the bakaiso prioritized geographically circumscribed and territorially rooted worship and outreach. the hematopoietic niche is crucial for maintenance of homeostasis and the blood stem cell population. while mirnas have been shown to be vital for normal blood development and play a role in cancers of the blood, relatively little is known about mirnas in the blood stem cell niche in regards to what mirnas are important, what their targets are and what pathways they operate in. the work of this dissertation advantageously employs drosophila as a model to better understand the role mirnas play in the intricate relationship between hematopoietic progenitors and their supportive niche, and how aberrant signaling causes this system to result in hematopoietic malignancy. i demonstrate that bantam mirna is an essential positive regulator of growth endogenously active in the blood stem cell-like niche, whose loss leads to severe niche reduction. bantam facilitates growth through targeting of a negative regulator of cell proliferation, which i have determined to be suppressor of cytokine signaling at 36e (socs36e). additionally i show that the evolutionarily conserved epidermal growth factor receptor (egfr), whose aberrant activation has been previously correlated with human cancers, is vital for niche maintenance. under conditions of elevated egfr, socs36e, similar to its human homolog socs5, acts as a tumor suppressor, consequently leading to suppression of the expanded niche phenotype. importantly, bantam is able to relieve this inhibition to enable massive niche overgrowth. taken together, this signifies novel roles for bantam, socs36e, and egfr in the psc and provide a mechanism and pathway in which bantam operates during blood development. these findings support the study of mirnas as a promising approach for further discovery of genes related to tumor suppression or oncogenesis during blood development and a means through which to gain valuable insights into the factors that cooperate to maintain proper hematopoietic homeostasis. lastly, during the study of blood cell lineages in drosophila, i created a novel tool for developmental biologists. m2(h37a)-mediated ablation can be used for determining the interdependent relationships between cell populations during development that can be applied to not just the blood system but any cell linage within the organism. this study evaluates the imaging performance of fluorescent probes which contain the zn(ii)-dipicolylamine (zn-dpa) affinity ligand. interaction between the probe and the bacterial cell wall occurs through binding of the anionic phospholipids embedded within the lipid bilayer(s). the targeted phospholipids were identified from titration experiments with liposomes created to serve as a model for bacterial membranes. treatment of a variety of gram-negative and gram-positive strains of bacteria show conclusively that zn-dpa probes bind to a variety of bacterial pathogens and support the claim that zn-dpa probes have universal affinity for all strains of bacteria. molecular probes composed of zn-dpa ligands linked to a near-infrared fluorophore have utility in detecting bacterial infections in vivo. imaging studies of murine models infected with staphylococcus aureus show that bacterial infections can be detected using whole animal imaging equipment within three hours of treatment with the molecular probe. additional data shows that probe performance is similar in athymic models and mice which contain an active immune system. clearance of the zn-dpa probes progresses through the liver, kidneys, and intestines during the 21 hour fluorescent imaging experiment. in the second half of the nineteenth century, nations scrambled to create systems of universal elementary education, prompting numerous policy debates. in the midst of this "schools question," english-speaking catholics appointed themselves the defenders of parental rights. catholic parental rights arguments, drawn from the tradition of natural law, were meant to appeal to their protestant neighbors by emphasizing rights and appealing to religious liberty. however, in cultures still permeated with traditional anti-catholicism, catholic claims to defend conscience and family struck many as implausible. catholics did not think that the family should be autonomous, and they were not promoting independent consciences. they upheld duty and obedience rather than choice, championing the right of catholic parents to follow the teachings of the church. the success of this argument varied. it worked best in the united kingdom, where catholics eventually managed to ally themselves with the church of england in defense of publicly supported denominational education. in the united states, catholics failed to create a coalition in favor of funding religious education, but they did manage to convince their neighbors that catholic schools had a right to exist with minimal government interference. catholics, however, disagreed among themselves on how much control the state ought to exert over the family. because they grounded parental rights in duties rather than familial autonomy, they could support the state's attempt to ensure that parents fulfilled those duties. the history of parental rights arguments shows the challenges nineteenth-century english-speaking catholics faced in attempting to preserve their faith, live in a pluralistic society, and contribute to forming their rapidly changing nations according to their understanding of justice and the common good. extant studies of howells leave some details about his early choral music and certain mechanics of his mature church music undiscussed. in evaluating certain mechanics of a quintessential mature church piece (the magnificat dedicated to gloucester cathedral), a texture of three-part, equal voice treble counterpoint, new to howells' church music, is exhibited. prior to his arrival as a mature church music composer in the 1940s the majority of howells' choral music was limited-texture educational music, which has not received scholarly focus. the reduced ranges of exclusively treble voices necessitated by the educational idiom promoted the equal voice practice generally, and there are three examples of three-part, equal voice treble writing in this area of howells' music. in a separate survey of the development of howells' earlier church music, the use of texture in general is exhibited as a significant aspect of his style, howells' interactions with idioms and the associated expectations are discussed, and the absence of three-part equal-voice writing confirms the educational music's primary role in developing that specific texture. the much-discussed opening of the magnificat dedicated to gloucester cathedral is a display of howells' mastery of expressive use of texture, a novel use of three-part, equal-voice counterpoint in his church music, and a stylistic culmination that combines use of texture, expectation, and idiom with the incorporation of lesser-known practices associated with educational music. thus, a quintessential piece of howells' mature church music was significantly influenced by the educational music, and there is now a musical explanation to contribute to the current explanations of this moment and the larger matter of howells' arrival as a master composer of church music. the first chapter of this thesis is devoted to the study of the euler equations of hydrodynamics as geodesic equations on the infinite-dimensional group of volume-preserving diffeomorphisms of a compact two-dimensional manifold m. we prove that the set of conjugate vectors for the l2 exponential map contains an open and dense subset, called regular conjugate vectors, which forms a smooth, codimension one submanifold of the tangent space. we then proceed to obtain several normal forms for this map in a neighborhood of a regular conjugate vector. these results apply, more generally, for infinite-dimensional riemannian manifolds with fredholm exponential maps. in particular, they are true for any finite-dimensional riemannian manifold, and some are new even in this context.in the second chapter we study the cauchy problem for the navier-stokes equations on a hyperbolic manifold of dimension three. our main result is that the problem is ill-posed, in the sense that there are smooth initial data in the leray-hopf class for which there are non-unique leray-hopf solutions. global environmental change is putting increasing demands on freshwater resources. three of the greatest threats to freshwater ecosystems are invasive species, over exploitation, and flow modification. these threats are manifestations of the human use of freshwater ecosystem services that illustrate the tradeoffs in services which will become more common. these drivers of environmental change all provide some set of ecosystem services while also reducing the provision of other services, making them excellent examples from which to draw guidance for future management. the introduction of the freshwater fish nile tilapia (oreochromis niloticus) to the kafue river, zambia provides the motivation for the four studies presented here; each explores a particular tradeoff in ecosystem services that results from species invasions, overexploitation, and flow modification. a review of global tilapia introductions demonstrates that the ecological effects of tilapia invasion are ubiquitous, but perceptions of whether tilapia positively or negatively affect social well-being is dependent on socioeconomic background. i also show the introduction of nile tilapia to the kafue river has decreased genetic diversity and threatens the long-term production of both aquaculture and capture fisheries. i evaluate the value of the kafue river fishery by modeling the tradeoff between fisheries production and hydropower generation, as imposed by dam-induced flow modification, and find that annual fishery production is $usd 7 million per year, but this production is not affected by flow modification. finally, i consider how the harvest of invasive species may contribute to conservation goals, and demonstrate that market forces alone are unlikely to substantially reduced invasive populations because the value of harvest may supplant the value of other ecosystem services. overall, i break new ground on the extent and impacts of global tilapia introductions, the relationship between flow modification and fisheries production in a novel context, and the ongoing social and economic adaptation to species invasions. this research provides managers, policy makers and stakeholders new analyses and tools with which to better inform future decisions about tradeoffs in ecosystem services that accompany major global environmental changes. following the lead of aws lambda, services such as azure functions, google cloud functions, apache openwhisk, iron.io ironfunctions, and openlambda have emerged as a new cloud offering coined "serverless computing", where application logic is split into functions and executed in response to events. in this work, i detail real world applications utilizing these platforms, and explore how existing applications can be adapted to run in serverless environments. additionally, i present the design of a novel performance-oriented serverless computing platform implemented in .net, deployed in microsoft azure, and utilizing windows containers as function execution environments. metrics are proposed to evaluate the execution performance of serverless platforms and conduct tests on the prototype as well as existing commercial platforms. these measurements show the prototype achieving greater throughput than other platforms at most concurrency levels, and i examine the scaling and instance expiration trends in the implementations. student feedback is essential for teachers to improve their teaching and for schools to evaluate faculty performance, and in turn, helps student learning. the feedback also provides suggestions and information for other students to choose courses to take. identifying valid, useful and multidimensional information from student feedback with is an important problem to solve. with digital tools, teaching evaluation data are more widely collected and effectively stored. therefore, researchers are allowed to develop and apply mixed methods to analyze teaching evaluation data. this study aims to develop a framework for analyzing quantitative and qualitative teaching data with aspect-based sentiment analysis, deep learning models, and other state-of-the-art techniques to help researchers, teachers, students, and educators better understand teaching evaluation. with large-scale long-term student evaluation data, this dissertation is also able to discover longitudinal trends and detect potential gender bias of teaching evaluation. microdamage is an important aspect to assess bone quality. the objectives of this dissertation were to study the interaction between microdamage accumulation and different loading modes, and to observe microdamage in three dimensions. a method for accurate preparation of cylindrical trabecular bone specimens was developed. the current level of on-axis accuracy using this technique could translate to an estimated average error of less than 5% in modulus measurements. the specimens were damaged by overloading in compression followed by torsion. sequential staining technique was used to label microdamage due to the different load modes. nearly 40% of the microcracks due to torsion propagated from the pre-existing microcracks caused by axial compression, indicating that existing microcracks may extend at relatively low strain if the loading mode changes. a second group of specimens was tested with torsion followed by compression. the microcrack density and diffuse damage area due to torsional overloading increased with shear strain level while the mean microcrack length was independent of shear strain level, indicating that the applied strain tended to initiate new microcracks rather than extending the existing ones. over 20% of the microcracks formed in the initial torsional overloading propagated. the propagating microcracks were longer than microcracks from a single load measured in our own and other studies. a new technique was developed to non-invasively observe microdamage in three dimensions using micro-ct imaging. barium sulfate, used as the radio-opaque contrast agent to label microdamage in bone, had partial volume effects on adjacent bone tissue in micro-ct images. four-point bending of double-notched beams was used to generate microdamage in a specific region in bone. in micro-ct images, the damaged region had higher intensity and could be differentiated from the healthy bone tissue, indicating that microdamage was stained with barium sulfate. the staining method was also applied to study microdamage in trabecular bone. the concentration of barium sulfate in damaged specimens was higher than in undamaged specimens. overall, this research provided insight into trabecular bone damage mechanics by studying microdamage development, and developing an innovative new technique to study microdamage in three dimensions. cognitive reappraisal is a widely used emotion regulation strategy that involves changing the meaning of a situation to alter which emotions we feel, and for how long or intensely we experience them. research has linked cognitive reappraisal success with improved social functioning and well-being, as well as fewer psychopathological symptoms. the present work examined whether preparatory regulation cues facilitated success in generating cognitive reappraisals and if success or failure in implementing preparatory cognitive reappraisals was differentially associated with how events are experienced and subsequently remembered. to achieve these aims, participants were presented with pictures of negative scenes and were instructed to either decrease their emotions with cognitive reappraisal or to let their emotions unfold naturally prior to making emotional ratings (i.e., arousal, success in generating reappraisals). importantly, across experiments participants were given either preparatory regulation cues (cognitive reappraisal, view) prior to the negative scene, preparatory regulation cues paired with emotional information about the upcoming negative scene (moderate, intense), preparatory emotional information prior to online regulation, or no preparatory cues prior to online regulation. following a 24-hour delay, participants completed a recognition memory test. the results revealed no evidence that preparatory regulation cues, relative to online reappraisals, were associated with greater success in generating cognitive reappraisals, nor with improved reductions in self-reported arousal ratings of the negative scenes. interestingly, preparatory regulation, relative to online regulation was associated with enhanced memory accuracy for negative scenes which converges with prior neuroimaging findings and suggest that preparatory cues can facilitate successful memory. one implication from these findings is that preparatory cues may not improve our ability to regulate our emotions but may enhance the memorability of these events. whether or not this outcome is beneficial may depend on the goals of the situation, such that preparatory cues may be ideal when our primary objective is for individuals to remember information opposed to being able to change how they feel about the events. future work can expand upon these findings by investigating different types of preparatory reappraisal strategies that may benefit our ability to regulate our emotions. the goal of this thesis is to advance our knowledge of stream ecosystems by evaluating how physical habitat, especially large woody debris (lwd), affects fish populations and particulate matter retention in streams of the upper peninsula of michigan (up). even though streams in the up had relatively low amounts of lwd compared to other regions in north america, lwd still influenced physical habitat variables. in up coldwater streams, trout populations were positively related to lwd amounts whereas the total fish community related more to the overall stream habitat conditions (e.g., stream area and volume, substrate size, pool habitat, temperature). all streams were highly retentive of coarse particulate matter, which was strongly influenced by discharge, current velocity, and debris dams. on average, all particle types traveled less than 7 m. overall, my research provides an ecological framework for the management of physical habitat in low-gradient streams of the upper midwest. atomic-scale junctions (asjs) are the ultimate thin nanowires that exhibit great potential as chemical (lewis bases) sensors through adsorbate-induced conductance changes. the goal of this work was to fabricate robust asjs for sensing applications that fully utilize this potential and detect chemical noise. au-ag-au bimetallic asjs were formed with high yield using a novel fabrication scheme that creates initially overgrown junctions followed by controllable thinning processes. ag deposition was galvanically triggered to initiate junction formation across specially prepared au electrodes in the presence of aqueous ag(i). the process was then self-terminated through the agency of an external resistor. junction thinning could be performed via three different approaches: self-dissolution at low ag(i) concentration, current-induced electromigration, or potential-induced oxidation. the fabricated asjs showed robustness, enabling pyridine sensing studies. the fluctuation of surface population at equilibrium was reflected in the noise in steady-state electrical signals which cannot be observed directly. fluctuation spectroscopy was used to isolate and study this chemical noise. the combination of asjs with fluctuation spectroscopy constitutes a powerful method of studying adsorption-desorption kinetics at high sensitivity and may lead to quantification of single molecules on atomic surfaces by purely electrical measurements. over the last half-century mathematicians and physicists alike have done quite a bit of work on the problem of quantization commutes with reduction and its generalizations. it turns out that in general quantization commutes with reduction, but only weakly; that is the map between the first-quantized-then-reduced space and the first-reduced-then-quantized space is only a vector isomorphism, not necessarily unitary and therefore respecting the physically relevant inner product. in this dissertation we use the techniques developed by hall and kirwin to show that if our starting manifold is a compact, simply connected lie group under the adjoint action, then the map we get is, in fact, unitary. obtaining high-frequency, water-quality data in rural developing regions is made difficult by limited financial and personnel resources; a problem that can be addressed by using local populations, a currently underutilized resource, to perform the monitoring. a case study involving elevated groundwater nitrate in rural benin, west africa, is used to investigate appropriate technical and sociological methods to promote monitoring. technical methods included test strips, colorimetry, and avoidance of methods requiring electricity or sterile conditions. sociological methods included surveys, focus groups, and participant observation. despite technical difficulties with nitrate colorimetry and cultural biases associated with surveys, the combination of the technical and sociological methods both allowed establishment of the monitoring program and identification of strengths and weaknesses of the current approach. the general nature of the principles of methods employed in this research make them applicable in a wide array of locations and situations. in this work, the issue of preserving labile post-translational modifications (ptms) for mass spectrometric analysis is studied. electrospray ionization (esi) and matrix assisted laser desorption ionization (maldi) mass spectrometry (ms) are currently the methods of choice for the analysis of ptms. however, even for softer ionization methods such as esi and maldi, several ptms are labile and the modification can be lost upon ionization prior to ms detection. a new ionization method called alternating current (ac) esi has been conjectured to be a 'softer' ionization technique, and, as such, is a candidate for preserving labile ptms for high sensitivity and more efficient mass spectrometry. in this work, ac esi and dc esi are compared over a series of experimental studies using a model peptide. the impact of various parameters, including operating voltage, temperature, ph, and solvent, have been explored and the results analyzed within the context of potential ptm loss mechanisms. the results of this work demonstrate that ac esi has significant potential to outperform dc esi for ph-sensitive labile ptms. in the past fifty years or so, it has become common for scholars of anglo-saxon england to (first of all) claim that wulfstan's institutes of polity is of central importance to the old english canon, and (secondly) to complain that it is strangely neglected by the wider academic community. this dissertation traces the reasons for the neglect and attempts to correct it. most of the neglect stems from the fact that no suitable modern edition exists; because of this, the first step in the process of remediation is to return to original manuscripts that contain it. this return to the manuscripts provides valuable new information, and allows us to draw several new conclusions about the genesis of the text and the broader social project contained therein. in the first place, we can see the polity is not a stand-alone text: it is part of a wider project of social renewal. this project was rooted in clerical and liturgical reform, and looked forward to the later eleventh-century clash between regnum and sacerdotium. even more importantly, the texts in the manuscripts help to connect wulfstan's writings with the two most important developments in social theory from the continent: namely, the three orders of society and the peace of god movement. comparison with the continental developments allows us to view polity as yet another sub-carolingian response to the crises of the early eleventh century. the dissertation opens up three prospects for future research. the connections with continental political thought should be pursued in order to gain a fuller understanding of the interdependency of english and continental thought. moreover, the dissertation reveals the need for a new edition of polity: this should be completed as soon as possible. finally, once polity is revealed as a coherent and unified text, specialized studies can be made to analyze it as a literary text &#8212 rather than simply as a historical curiosity. this research is a comparative case study using a qualitative research methodology. through critical evaluation of secondary data from multiple organizational and independent sources, the thesis assesses the contribution and interventions strategies of australian aid (ausaid) peacebuilding in sierra leone and the solomon islands. the study contributes to the literature in a number of ways; first, it creates opportunities for donors to re-evaluate their approach and reconsider some of the 'conditionalities' normally attached to aid for country's post-conflict reconstruction. second, it posits that dialogue among stakeholders assists coordination, facilitates successful service delivery and cultural understanding among peacebuilding actors. analysis of the two case studies reveals donor intervention and funding is largely political and humanitarian context driven. donor exit strategy has major implications for post-war peacebuilding process. the study recommends, adopting a comprehensive approach is critical for successful peacebuilding; and gradual phasing out of aid is critical to sustainability. vehicle hybridization is an increasingly pursued strategy for improving fuel economy and lowering emissions. in an effort to provide a low cost and environmentally friendly system, compressed air energy storage (caes) was pursued as an alternative to current hybrid systems. a driving simulator was created to predict areas for potential performance gains by use of the caes system. engine start-stop (ess) and launch assist (la) were considered as two potential methods for energy reintroduction. a pilot study was conducted over a range of vehicle speeds and traffic patterns that are provided for standard government testing purposes. based on this study, the modeled caes system was optimized to provide for necessary power flow and storage for the previously identified beneficial scenarios. results show ess benefits for schedules with numerous vehicle stops and la benefits over all schedules considered. coded modulations with dense constellations can achieve high spectral efficiency, but the optimal receivers are often extremely complex, especially when the communication channel suffers from additional non-ideality, such as the inter-symbol interference (isi) and fading. thus practical designs resort to suboptimal schemes at a cost of reduced data rate. in this work, we propose a multilevel coding paradigm with low complexity and capacity-approaching performance for some channels with memory, specifically, the linear (nonlinear) isi channels and the flat fading channels. the transmitter maps many levels of independently encoded binary data to generate the dense constellation for channel input. the receiver performs multistage decoding with decision feedback where at each stage, the linear or nonlinear equalization and channel estimation may be used depending on the channel type. for linear isi channels and block fading channels, the complexity scales linearly with the channel length and the number of levels, and the process is shown to be asymptotically information lossless if a fixed input power is properly distributed over a sufficiently large number of layers. in addition, existing codes designed for memoryless channels can be applied directly. for nonlinear isi channels, two nonlinear equalizers are introduced, the nonlinear isi cancellation with linear complexity and the reduced-state bcjr algorithm with better performance and slightly higher complexity. capacity analysis and code simulation results show that these two schemes can achieve significant improvement over the conventional approaches. using data on the cell phone and email behaviors of 196 college freshman attending u.s. university, i examine the effect that the presence of an intimate long distance relationship has on the formation of ties during the first weeks of school. this data indicates that individuals who maintained a relationship with a 'significant other' averaged fewer ties than those who did not have a significant other upon arrival at the university. i theorize that the development of new relationships is limited by the presence of these relationships due to the time and energy required to maintain them. polyketide natural products have drawn attention from the synthetic community due to complex molecular structures and unique biological activities. polyketides are biosynthesized by numerous species via large polyketide synthases which act as assembly lines to produce large natural products from malonyland methylmalonyl-coa subunits. accessory domains and post polyketide synthesis tailoring install many oxidative and stereochemically relevant elements necessary for biological activity. the intrinsic stereochemistry about the molecular backbone of the molecules afford distinct conformational preferences which give these large and complex molecules a defined shape.herein is described the relationship between conformational preference and biological properties of the type-i polyketide natural product gex1a (herboxidiene). our laboratory has utilized total synthesis, semi-synthesis, and fermentation of bacterial species to produce the natural products and analogs of the natural product to study the structures and conformational preferences and the respective relationships to biological activity. we utilize these studies to determine new analogs to increase therapeutic potential in future analogs. the first three chapters of this thesis provide background for niemann-pick type c disease, rna binding molecules and their therapeutic relevance, and analogs of gex1a and their relationship with biological activity. the compounds present as viable therapeutic agents in several cancers and disease states. this thesis will focus on the biological activity relevant to acute myeloid leukemia and niemann-pick type c. chapter four focuses on the development of structural analogs of gex1a to study the effects of the 'turn' conformation observed in gex1a and its relation to observed biological activity. the studies herein explore the structure of gex1a computationally and experimentally. total synthesis of two gex1a conformational analogs has been completed which explore gex1a's conformational families and the rigidification of the side chain to explore the impact on the 'turn' conformation. something a collection of poems none the intramolecular hydroamination reaction is among the more versatile means of forming nitrogen-containing hetereocycles, compounds of interest in a variety of chemical disciplines. while the reaction has been intensely studied, concerns still exist over its amenability to organic synthesis. this thesis details the implementation of a readily-recyclable silver-1,10-phenanthroline catalyst which has demonstrated high efficiency for the hydroamination of a variety of aminoalkynes. as a means for developing a protocol for enantioselective synthesis, the desymmetrization of a prochiral diyne was accomplished using the silver-1,10-phenanthroline catalyst. this desymmetrization creates chiral compounds, an occurrence not often observed in the alkyne hydroamination. a separate project involved in the development of improved immunotherapies led us to develop and complete a synthesis of &#946;-hydroxy-methionine. the third attempt via vinyl glycine eventually allowed for the completion of this molecule. it is planned for this amino acid derivative to be included in an antigenic peptide. courts have showed to be key political actors and, at times, important promoters of social change. however, not enough attention has been devoted to the role of lower courts as effective enforcers of the rule of law, especially in relation to crimes involving state agents. similarly, while scholars have examined in-depth the nature and causes of corruption, few, if any, studies focus on its effective judicial prosecution. therefore, this dissertation aims at answering the following question: under what conditions can lower courts effectively hold corrupt politicians accountable? i examine this question in relation to the italian judicial and political scenario. italian politics has long been marred with corruption, until a judicial breakthrough occurred in 1992, with the so called "clean hands investigation." this dissertation examines the conditions that promoted the effective judicial prosecution of systemic corruption in the clean hands investigation, and its diffusion across italian jurisdictions. i argue that judicial effectiveness depends on the structure of professional relationships among judicial actors, both at the national and local level. first of all, i argue that the overall flattening of the judiciary branch creates the conditions for the emergence and diffusion of legal innovations among its lower ranks. secondly, jurisdictions where the relationship between local judicial authorities and their subordinates is hirarchical will impede the effective prosecution of complex criminal issues. in contrast, jurisdictions where the relationship between local authorities and lower ranked judges has been "flattened" will be more prone to the emergence and diffusion of legal innovations, and, as a result, to the aggressive and effective prosecution of complex criminal issues, including systemic corruption.i test this theory through a longitudinal analysis of the italian judiciary's transformations over the years, and through the case studies of four jurisdictions: milan, rome, palermo and reggio calabria. case studies are paired to control for potential confounding variables that might affect the judicial prosecution of complex criminal issues in each of these judicial units. the use of process tracing allows me to detail the significance of local judicial relationships for the judicial prosecution of systemic corruption in each of these case studies. this dissertation explores the possibility that statistical discrimination in wages may be more likely in firms that are not subject to antidiscrimination legislation. federal antidiscrimination regulations differ by size and type of firm, resulting in lower costs to discrimination in firms not subject to the laws or less likely to be prosecuted under them. less intensive screening practices in these firms may also increase the benefit to statistical discrimination in wages. utilizing employer-reported results of equal employment opportunity law compliance from the multi-city telephone employer survey, i predict the likelihood that an individual in the national longitudinal survey of youth 1979 (nlsy) was employed by a firm that considers equal employment opportunity legislation in their hiring. using observations from nlsy years 1986-2000 and an empirical test for employer learning and statistical discrimination developed by altonji and pierret (1997), i examine statistical discrimination in wages by education and race for male employees in firms that are not likely to actively comply with antidiscrimination legislation. i find that statistical discrimination by education is evident for black males but not for white males, suggesting that information for black males in the labor market is inferior. statistical discrimination by education is then shown to be more pronounced for black males employed by firms that are unlikely to actively comply with equal employment opportunity legislation. an investigation of statistical discrimination by race in these firms is inconclusive in both a public learning framework and an asymmetric learning model. these results show that a complete analysis of statistical discrimination must consider differences in the incentive firms have to discriminate. while there is not clear evidence of statistical discrimination by race, the results do illustrate that productivity information for black males in firms that are unlikely to comply with antidiscrimination legislation is inferior to the information these firms have about white males. equal employment opportunity laws may correct a market failure of underinvestment in information by firms, suggesting that policies to enhance the information available to firms not subject to these laws may be beneficial. this thesis examined two possible means to reduce the impact of combined sewer overflow events: to use a novel, inexpensive, distributed, decentralized, real-time network of wireless nodes called csonet to maximize upgradient storage potential during wet weather and to create an in situ treatment method that could treat the stored wastewater to below wastewater treatment plant standards. two pilot csonets were created. one increased the storage capacity of a basin by up to 152%, improved flood protection, and regulated the basin draining. the other csonet controlled a 429,140 gallon section of inline storage. a combination of enzymes and hydrogen peroxide was examined as a possible in situ treatment system. the hydrogen peroxide reduced the e. coli concentration in combined wastewater by over 5 log units and reduced the total suspended solids concentration by up to 10%. the enzymatic treatment, though, did not improve the net oxidation of oxygen demanding compounds. this work centers around two subjects: 1) verification and validation of simulation models and 2) identifying transposable elements through novel approaches. performing verification and validation on simulations has become increasingly important as they are used in more and more applications. agent-based simulations are becoming very popular and the verification and validation work previously performed on them is minimal. here, we perform verification and validation techniques, including docking and visualization, on an agent-based and an equation-based model and contrast the effectiveness of the techniques used. identifying transposable elements in a genome is important for many reasons, such as when performing evolutionary studies or when annotating genomes. here, we identify transposable elements in the newly released aedes aegypti genome using innovative approaches, while utilizing some standard bioinformatics tools. biofilms are ubiquitous in the natural environment and engineered systems. while biofilms can play a beneficial role, they also can be detrimental. for example, biofilms enable biological treatment processes such as the membrane-aerated biofilm reactor (mabr). on the other hand, biofilm can foul reverse osmosis systems, increases the energy requirements, and they can reduce the heat transfer efficiency of cooling towers, and increase hydraulic resistance of oil pipelines. the common theme is that biofilms must be properly managed. however, the mechanical properties of biofilms, which determine their development and persistence, are poorly understood. by better characterizing the mechanical properties of biofilms, better biofilm management strategies can be developed. the mechanical properties of biofilms can be used to predict biofilm response to external forces. for example, biofilms commonly develop in flowing aqueous environments, where the flow causes the biofilm to deform. because biofilm deformation affects the flow regime, and because biofilms behave as complex heterogeneous viscoelastic materials, few models are able to predict biofilm deformation in these highly coupled systems.biofilms have a complex matrix with heterogeneous structural and mechanical properties. this heterogeneity is commonly neglected, but may have important impacts on biofilm mechanical behavior. considering biofilm mechanical heterogeneity in experimental and modeling studies may allow for more effective biofilm management strategies. in this study, we firstly developed a phase‐field (pf) continuum model coupled with the oldroyd‐b constitutive equation and used this model to simulate biofilm deformation. the accuracy of the model was evaluated using two types of biofilms: a synthetic biofilm, made from alginate mixed with bacterial cells, and a pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm. after validating the viscoelastic pf model, the spatial distribution of biofilm non-newtonian viscosity was considered in a second study. image processing techniques were employed to transform the two-dimensional optical coherence tomography (oct) biofilm image to a pixel-scaled non-newtonian viscosity map of the biofilm. deformation and stresses were compared for homogeneous and heterogeneous biofilm simulations. finally, we explored the potential bias of rheometry when used to measure the mechanical properties of heterogenous biofilms. a viscoelastic biofilm model was developed using kelvin-voigt model, and a synthetic biofilm with layered mechanical properties was studied. in all, the results provide an important tool for predicting biofilm viscoelastic deformation with the consideration of biofilm mechanical heterogeneity. it also can benefit the design and control of biofilms in engineering systems. semiconductors play an important role in modern electronic technology. they are present in most sensing and transduction applications, satisfying requirements such as compactness, tunability and portability. it is known that any fluctuation in electron density inside a semiconductor produces acceleration or deceleration of the electrons that generates electromagnetic radiation. for this reason, in recent years this has been proposed as a source of radiation for what is called the 'thz gap' in the electromagnetic spectrum. radiation sources at this frequency range can provide an improvement over current techniques in bioimaging and sensing due to advantages such as non-ionizability and easy absorption by water. an understanding of how electron-flow instabilities occur and the parameters that affect them is needed to determine if semiconductors can be used as thz radiation sources. the main motivation of this work is to analyze from a hydrodynamic perspective the conditions under which instabilities occur in electron flow in ungated semiconductors. a continuum description of the electron flow is presented. the governing equations include gauss' law, the mass, momentum and energy conservation equations for electrons and a constitutive equation for energy flux in the lattice. linear stability analysis was used to study the instabilities of the steady-state solution of this system of equations. three configurations were analyzed. the first is one-dimensional, with a mathematical model that is thermally uncoupled in that it does not consider electron-lattice interactions, and it is assumed that the lattice and electron temperatures are not affected by the electron flow. the second configuration is two-dimensional, but still thermally uncoupled. the third is a thermally-coupled one-dimensional analysis in which electron-lattice interactions exist, and the lattice and electron temperatures are dependent variables. the driving force in all cases is due to an imposed external electric field. stability analysis in the thermally-uncoupled configurations showed that the instability spectrum becomes denser when the configuration goes from one to two dimensions. the uncoupled system becomes more unstable when the applied voltage increases. changes in the material parameters such as doping density and length of the semiconductor can also affect stability. in general, the thermally-coupled configuration does not become unstable with higher applied voltages. however, it does if electronic heat conduction and energy loss from electrons to the lattice through scattering are neglected. therefore, control of these phenomena is crucial for the generation of instabilities in semiconductors. applied voltage and room temperature can determine suitable operating conditions for thz electromagnetic sources based on semiconductors. the limelight of the idols: political theology as fiction in renaissance england explores the apparent paradox that idolatry &#8212; an object of the highest opprobrium among nearly all early modern protestants &#8212; inspired a series of poets, including philip sidney, spenser, and fulke greville, to think about state authority as a poetic fiction. confronted with the collapse of religious consensus and authority after the reformation, these poets turned to the idol as a blueprint for how authority could be invented where it was not self-evident. at the same time, the idol was attractive precisely because it was fictional: it created a kind of authority parallel to but separate from the authority of divine truth. through the idol, the elizabethans rediscovered civil religion as a poetic fiction. their work, i argue, would be extended in civil war-era figures like thomas hobbes, james harrington, marchamont nedham, and john milton, who collectively rethought authority as a product of art and culture. "the limelight of the idols" thus bridges the gap between two kinds of genealogies of modernity employed by literary historians. one is largely secular, finding the roots of the enlightenment in the growth of republicanism and political science. the other, associated with max weber and later with carl schmitt, argues that the concepts of the modern state are really secularized or, less charitably, corrupted versions of religious concepts. in this view, political theology is the permanent truth of politics. my dissertation demonstrates that a special attention to literature can resolve these opposed theses. the poets in my study are no political scientists in the secular sense; for them, political authority was intrinsically tied to emotions and beliefs associated with religion &#8212; in this sense, they were political theologians. yet their interest was less in political theology conceived as a genuine divine right politics than in political theology built on the explicitly fictional model of pagan civil religion. more often than not, they meant to protect true religion from the compromises and sheer humanity inherent in statecraft and sovereignty. at the nexus of secularity and religion, political science and political theology, we find fiction. the reliability of automobile brake components is a very important issue from the point of view of safety. this thesis presents a combined experimental and numerical stress analysis of a vacuum booster. the booster consists of a thin-walled, closed shell that contains a diaphragm and a mechanical control system. the master cylinder which provides hydraulic pressure to the components on the wheels, is mounted directly on the booster shell using threaded bolts. the booster under consideration developed crack near one of these bolts during an endurance test. the numerical stress analysis conducted here demonstrated that significant stress concentration can be present on the booster shell near these mounting bolts. the numerical model was validated by direct comparison of meridional strains to experimental measurements at selected locations. the results also showed that increasing the wall thickness of the booster by 25% would allow the booster to successfully complete the endurance test. the translation of sterneìøåàå_s sentimental journey by ugo foscolo is not only of an extempore work of craftsmanship, but rather constitutes a very precise cultural point of split towards modernity. in confronting the world of the english novel, foscolo sees a serious and concrete possibility for the renewal of italian literary world, through the introduction of a foreign work in the literary marketplace of italy as well as of a new prose for discussing the problems of the present. in imitating and re-creating sterneìøåàå_s journey, foscolo discovers also a critical discipline in translating and a candid engament in criticism, rooted in vicoìøåàå_s historicism, which will deeply renovate the motionless italian debate. foscoloìøåàå_s life-lasting activity of translating therefore constantly moulds his lively laboratory of language, and establishes the base for his english engagement in literary criticism. this dissertation focuses on the development of probe-mediate method in detection of targeted analytes based on sers. even though sers is capable of delivering detection of single molecule level concentration, the method still heavily relies on the interaction between the substrate and the analyte as well as the raman cross-section of the analyte. because sers is notorious for extreme distance dependence requirement, many researchers are focused on improving the interaction between the analytes and the sers substrate. however, in some cases, no appreciable sers signal could be obtained even when the analytes is in direct contact with the sers substrate due to the small raman cross section. we solved this problem by introduction of a probe molecule which can specifically interact with the analyte yielding a complex with greater raman cross section than the original analyte. we further simplified such scheme into two categories: in-situ detection and in vivo or in vitro detection and we showed the examples of detection hydrazine in-situ and hydrogen peroxide in vitro respectively. although our proposed scheme is not perfect for every molecule that possesses small raman cross section, it still provides a method to consider when analyzing such class of molecules.also, we will introduce a brand-new concept of releasing the molecules from plasmonic nanoparticle through a very efficient and well-known plasmon-driven reaction. researchers in this field mainly focus on the mechanisms behind this classic plasmon-driven reaction model, para-aminothiphenol (patp) to 4, 4'-dimercaptoazobenzene (dmab), instead, we realized the reaction is not only limited to patp but applies to all patp derivatives. bearing this mind, we coupled patp with a fluorescent tag to demonstrate the release of the fluorescent molecule upon the excitation of plasmon using a cw laser. we believe this method will give inspiration in designing the next generation drug delivery systems. palladium-catalyzed cyclization conditions were screened for compatibility in forming bicyclic hydroxamic acid-containing ß-lactam cores. a palladium(ii)-catalyzed oxidative amidation methodology was developed and used to synthesize several bicyclic cores, including two examples of unusual aminal-containing cores. the carboxylic acid side chain could be installed via a facile oxidative cleavage of an exocyclic alkene. various routes were explored to install a 3-amino side chain. chapter one provides a brief history of ß-lactam antibiotics, the rise of antimicrobial resistance, methods used to combat resistance, and the syntheses of existing core structures. in chapter two efforts towards the utilization of an intramolecular pd(0)-catalyzed cyclization between a nitroso diels-alder cycloadduct and the ß-lactam amide nitrogen are described. chapter three describes the development of a diastereoselective intramolecular pd(ii)-catalyzed oxidative cyclization between pendant alkenes and the ß-lactam amide nitrogen. the exocyclic alkene that was formed could then be cleaved to give the desired carboxylic acid. chapter four details how aminal-containing cores are accessed in two steps from allyl hydroxamates utilizing a ruthenium-catalyzed isomerization followed by pd(ii)-catalyzed oxidative cyclization. chapter five contains progress towards 3-amino substituted hydroxamic acid-containing bicyclic ß-lactam cores and a brief summary of accomplishments. to date, research on palestinian liberation theology has focused on texts. this has had two limitations. first, this has constrained the study of palestinian liberation theology to theologians who have published writings, the majority of which are men, resulting in the exclusion of women and laypeople. second, there has not been rigorous attention to the daily practices of liberation theology. this dissertation uses theological ethnography to attend to voices that are typically excluded from academic studies on palestinian liberation theology (specifically women and laypeople), and to consider how liberative practices shape this movement. this dissertation asks three questions: 1) what does it look like to follow jesus in the context of political oppression? 2) how is liberation interpreted and practiced at sabeel (a palestinian liberation theology center)? 3) in light of (1) and (2) what does it mean for the church to respond to the witness of sabeel, and act in solidarity? the answers to these questions are multivalent, reflecting the diversity of voices included in this research. what becomes clear through this study is that ongoing liberative practices, which constitute palestinian liberation theology, allow for new responses to these questions to emerge in the ever-shifting political context. this capacity is what makes palestinian liberation theology a living theology. niemann pick disease type c (npc) is an autosomal recessive disorder characterized by abnormal lipid trafficking and storage. the majority of npc cases are caused by mutations in the npc1 protein, a multi-pass transmembrane protein found primarily in late endosomes and lysosomes. preliminary studies have shown that wild type npc1 localizes to tubulovesicular membranes (tvms) that move rapidly between membrane compartments, whereas npc1-i1061t mutant localizes primarily to immobile spherical vesicles. observations from these experiments support the hypothesis that cholesterol transport is achieved through membrane tubulation and exchange. in order to determine the role of tvms in cholesterol transport, tvm-associated proteins including ehd1 and rabs7-9 were investigated in npc1 tvms through transfection of wild type and mutant constructs and immunoprecipitation studies. in addition, cholesterol localization was assessed in relation to npc1 and rab8 tvms. results indicate that ehd1, rab8, and rab9 are necessary for npc1 tvm formation and cholesterol was present in rab8 tvms. this data suggests that npc1, ehd1, and rabs are essential components in initiating membrane tubulation to facilitate cholesterol transport. the limits between modern philosophy and literature are difficult to define. in the 20th century, the way we write theatre, novels, philosophical treatises, criticism and theory changed dramatically. this change presents itself especially in the relations between artistic expression and the philosophical search for knowledge. in this dissertation, writing derrida thinking beckett: a study of the limits between philosophy and literature, i chose these two authors as a case study of the shifting boundaries between modern literature and philosophy. i structured the analysis by focusing on three constant themes in the work of these authors. these themes are important for both literature and philosophy, because they present a way of questioning human existence in its beginning and end, as well as one of the forms through which we come to represent and come to know our lives and the world. the themes are: the mother or birth, death, and the image. ten years after his sister's mysterious death by asphyxiation, johnny longfellow, 21, is lured to key west by the promise of clarity. there he meets the performers of loose associations who entertain their nightly crowds by combining social phenomena with acts of illusion. beyond the sensationalism of this nightly underworld, lies a story where johnny, known by his friends as fellow, is forced to reckon with the reverberations of his sister's death. he must decide which parts of the illusion are useful and which parts must be leveraged in order to unearth his own selfhood. research has supported the prominent influence of attachment security on many facets of adjustment; however, findings are primarily based in examining attachment with mother in infancy. moreover, examining the context in which attachment and adjustment develops, the role of the father in child development, and the importance of identifying domains of adjustment that are salient to attachment have been neglected. this study investigated longitudinal associations between attachment, observed in a strange situation procedure, with mother and father simultaneously and domains of socio-emotional adjustment and psychopathology during the early school years. analyses indicated insecurity with mother was associated with externalizing behavior and school adjustment difficulties, while insecurity with father was associated with friendship difficulties; the interaction was not associated with adjustment. findings have important implications for examining family and developmental contexts to understand the influence of attachment on adjustment. niemann pick type c (npc) disease is a rare pediatric neurodegenerative disorder that primarily impacts purkinje cells in the cerebellum. the disease is an autosomal recessive disorder caused by point mutations on two cholesterol-binding proteins in the lysosome: npc1 and npc2. live cell imaging of npc1 mutations revealed a significant decrease in lysosomal tubulation, which is essential to cholesterol transport. stard9 was recently identified as the kinesin that drives lysosomal tubulation. similar to npc disease cells, stard9 depleted cells lack lysosomal tubulation and accumulate cholesterol. in addition, stard9 knockout mice develop npc disease symptoms.interestingly, stard9 appears to be regulated by a proposed cholesterol-binding start domain at the c-terminus. removal of this domain results in the loss of lysosomal tubulation, thereby causing a pathological accumulation of cholesterol within the lysosome. a novel lysosomal tubulation assay was generated to test stard9 sterol-sensing in relation to lysosomal tubulation. cells were starved of cholesterol and subjected to live cell imaging. tubulation is significantly impaired in cholesterol-free conditions and is rescued by ldl treatment. this does not occur without stard9 sterol-binding. together, these results suggest that cholesterol acts a novel signaling molecule by binding to the start domain of stard9 to stimulate lysosomal tubulation.oxysterols are natural cholesterol analogues that are known to modulate cholesterol metabolism. interestingly, treatment with purified oxysterols also rescues lysosomal tubulation. one oxysterol, oxysterol-x, was able to rescue lysosomal tubulation to control levels. oxysterol-x treatment, through activation of lysosomal tubulation, ameliorated cholesterol accumulation in both in vitro and in vivo models of npc disease.taken together, these studies demonstrate that stard9 is a multifunctional kinesin that couples ldl-uptake to the projection of lysosomal membrane tubules, thereby serving as a compelling therapeutic target for treating npc disease. due to their high catalytic activity and low-cost ni based catalysts are of special interest for the dry reforming of methane (drm), however, they also suffer from heavy carbon deposition, which eventually results in catalyst deactivation. in this dissertation, the deactivation mechanism of ni supported catalysts during drm has been studied and highly active and stable ni based catalysts have been developed.to decouple active metal-support interactions, first ni supported on sio2 catalysts were studied. it was shown that carbon mostly forms on bigger ni crystallites, hence, the sintering of ni particles is one of the leading causes for catalyst deactivation. a novel synthesis method, referred to as "pressure dilution" was developed, which allowed the preparation of highly dispersed ni/fumed sio2 catalysts with increased stability. in order, to prevent the sintering of ni active sites, nio-mgo solid solution-based catalysts with strong metal-support interactions were developed. cellulose assisted solution combustion synthesis (cacs) method was used to synthesize ni/mgo catalysts with record-high surface areas, which improved their catalytic activity and stability. the main criterions for the stability towards carbon formation were determined to be metal dispersion, strong metal-support interactions, and an increased amount of ni3+ site defects.to reveal the specifics of cacs method in obtaining high surface area materials, mechanistic studies have been performed (chapter 5). it was found that combustion parameters, i.e., time-temperature profile, combustion front velocity, etc., have a direct impact on the microstructure (phase composition, crystallinity, morphology, etc.) of synthesized materials. it was demonstrated that cellulose degradation/decomposition itself is being catalyzed by metal ions and, depending on metal ions, the pyrolytic combustion reaction between metal nitrates and cellulose fibers proceeds with different mechanisms.to better understand the reaction pathways of the drm, the experimental data obtained for ni/mgo catalyst was used to perform kinetic simulations. chapter 6 presents drm kinetic simulation results, which were obtained by the monte-carlo based "kinetiscope" stochastic program. drm reaction network was constructed and simulated based on eley-rideal and langmuir hinshelwood-hougen watson type models, using single and dual active site concepts. this research addressed whether upward or downward social comparisons can affect people's prosocial behavior toward the comparison targets. in this experiment, 123 undergraduates responded to cards from a standard inkblot test. then they were randomly assigned to conditions in which they were told that their performance indicated that they were either inferior or superior to their peers on personal characteristics. a control group was given no feedback about their performance. participants' prosocial behaviors were measured 2-days post-manipulation. results indicated that participants in both the upward and downward comparison groups, compared with the control group, showed significantly reduced prosocial behavior. i suggest that drawing either upward or downward comparisons can make people feel competitive with the targets and thus less inclined to help them. mammals typically process foods in the oral cavity much more extensively than other vertebrates. dental morphology, jaw-muscle activity patterns, mandibular movements, and tongue manipulation all work to facilitate oral fragmentation of dietary items. during the oral processing of mechanically challenging foods, mammals modulate mandibular movements and bite forces via the recruitment of greater jaw-adductor muscle forces and/or protracted biting and chewing. as jaw-loading patterns are influenced by the magnitude, frequency, and duration of muscular forces during routine feeding behaviors, relatively larger jaws are thought to be more characteristic of mammals that experience higher masticatory loads due to the processing of mechanically challenging foods. the ease of food fracture during postcanine biting and chewing is mainly determined by the extent to which a food item is stiff and/or tough. such foods have been associated with increased loading magnitude and greater amounts of cyclical loading (i.e., chewing duration). dietary properties are thought to modulate cyclical loading through changes in chewing frequency and chewing investment. on the other hand, chewing frequency has been found to be independent of dietary properties in rabbits and primates. in both cases, however little evidence exists regarding the influence of dietary properties on these parameters in a broad range of mammals. here, we assessed chewing behavior in 7 adult llamas processing foods with a wide range of mechanical properties (grain, hay, carrots, and dried corn). each subject was filmed at 60 frames/second, with video slowed for frame-by-frame computer analysis to obtain feeding bout length and the number of chewing cycles for each food type. these parameters were used to calculate chewing frequency (chews/s), chewing investment (chews/g), and chewing duration (s/g). chewing frequency was unrelated to food mechanical properties, while chewing investment and chewing duration were related to both dietary stiffness and toughness. therefore, cyclical loading is positively influenced by stiff and tough foods. this suggests that variation in jaw morphology in extinct and extant mammals appears to be positively related to dietary stiffness and toughness, which requires a greater chewing investment and increased chewing duration. yellowstone holds a special place in america's heart a young nation's eden and the crown-jewel of modern preservation. as the world's first national park, it is globally recognized as the prototype of natural purity and goodness. but in recent decades, yellowstone and its surrounding areas have become a lightning rod for environmental controversy, an area plagued by social disunity and intractable political struggle. science and policy efforts are especially protracted in the gye, involving hundreds of diverse interest-organizations, dozens of state agencies, three separate state governments, hundreds-of-thousands of local residents, and millions of concerned americans. accordingly, management decisions in the gye rely on a hyper-rationalized form of governance that privileges technical facts, scientific analysis of nature, bureaucratic administration, and legal formalism. this raises the following puzzle: why, with the flood of expert scientific, legal, economic, and political efforts to resolve disagreements over yellowstone, are matters not improving? despite all of these efforts, why do even the most minor issues still recurrently erupt into impassioned and long-lasting disputes? my argument is that this modern obsession with scientific, legal, and economic reasoning misses out on deeper cultural mechanisms driving the conflict in the first place. put more specifically, i argue that any sociological account of this conflict should be built upon a more empirically accurate and philosophically sophisticated model of human persons and cultures, that does not presuppose narrow or deterministic motivational frameworks, but understands that the "why," in the end, is a question of morality perhaps even "spirituality" stemming from our lived experiences as part of human cultures, shaped by narratives and moral orders that tell us most fundamentally who we are, why we are, what we should do, and why it all matters. drawing on work in cultural sociology and moral theory to make this argument. i reorient our attention to the sorts of "whys"' that make life meaningful for different cultures, and propel them forward toward particular ends, and not other ends. these are the sorts of answers to the "why" questions that we need to incorporate into our theories and methods if we hope to improve our understanding of the human-environment relationship more generally. my sociological approach focuses less on the individuals themselves, and more on the cultural, moral, and spiritual contexts in which stakeholders are embedded, shaping their beliefs and desires. somewhat implicit in my argument is that, for a variety of reasons, these deeper moral and spiritual meanings are often ignored, muted, and misunderstood. but only until we engage these sorts of questions at a much deeper level can we begin to understand why the mountains of technical evidence marshaled in the yellowstone conflict have done little to solve disputes that are, finally, not about the facts themselves, but about what make the facts meaningful. further, this book shows that when we glimpse beneath the cultural context of the yellowstone conflict, and bring these deeper moral and spiritual dimensions to the surface, we often learn what conflict is really about and in some cases discover roadmaps leading beyond the thick pines of techno-rational policy stalemate. possible enhancement of low temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (pemfc) or direct methanol fuel cells (dmfc) was investigated by modifying catalyst and support layers. platinum (pt) and platinum cobalt (ptxco1-x) alloys were prepared by pulsed electrodeposition onto toray carbon paper. composite supports composed of either commercial multi-walled nanofiber (mwnf) mats or mwnf layers on a commercial backing were also investigated. x-ray diffraction (xrd), scanning electron microscopy (sem), inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy (icp-oes), and energy dispersive x-ray (edx) were used to characterize the surface structure, composition, and catalyst loading. various electrochemical techniques with a wet electrochemical cell, a nuvant multi-array system, and a scribner fuel cell system were used to study and rank the effectiveness of the catalysts and supports toward both the methanol oxidation reaction and the oxygen reduction reaction. the activity toward methanol oxidation of the electrodeposited pt catalyst was found to be dependent on the deposited mass. further comparisons between commercial electrodes in the nuvant system showed these deposits can yield activities comparable to those of commercially available electrodes. the structure of the pt electrodeposits was highly non-uniform due to the h2 evolution during the deposition process blocking the cathodes surface. the activities of the planar structured ptxco1-x deposits were insignificant for both oxygen reduction and methanol oxidation. the composition of the deposits ranged from 5 to 15 at% pt. it was found by both the nuvant and scribner systems that the addition of a thin hydrophilic mwnf layer to a hydrophobic electrode would enhance the performance of a dmfc anode. in the nuvant system, the addition of a thin hydrophilic mwnf layer to a hydrophobic electrode also enhanced the pem cathode activity. this however was not corroborated by scribner analysis, showing a performance below that of commercially available electrodes. the best prepared electrode for the anode in a dmfc consisted of a pulse plated pt catalyst loading of ~0.2 mg cm-2 and a composite support with a 2.0 mils psf mwnf layer on a hydrophobic elat 2500lt backing. the best composite electrode for the cathode in a pem fuel cells consisted of a 0.1 mil psf mwnf layer on elat 2500lt backing. people need high quality fortified foods and medicines to protect their health. however, bad quality products are on the market. regulatory agencies can remove bad products from the market but only after the quality is confirmed with expensive testing techniques. as a result, bad products persist in the marketplaces of lowand middle-income countries (lmics). analytical chemistry can solve this problem, but monetary and infrastructure problems prevent it from doing so. labs are expensive to build, maintain, and employ with trained personnel. labs are also reliant on a constant supply of electricity. the goal of my project was to design chemical analyses to work within the financial and infrastructure constraints of lmics, thereby increasing testing capacity. i addressed this need for analysis outside the lab by adapting quantitative chemical tests to paper platforms, resulting in inexpensive technologies that require no technological infrastructure.during the course of my thesis research, i engineered three test cards. two test cards support universal salt iodization programs by quantifying the amount of iodate in fortified salt or by measuring urinary iodide levels. the cards can be used during surveillance studies to see if iodized salt is in the marketplace and whether the iodine is making its way into people's diets. i made another card to quantify beta-lactam antibiotics in finished pharmaceutical pills, so the user can determine if the medicine contains the dosage stated on its label. i have taken these new technologies through validation studies to establish how well they work. all of them have about 90% accuracy or greater, and in some cases rival the performance of traditional analysis techniques. these paper test cards could have real impact in lmics. they are inexpensive, fieldand user-friendly, not dependent on power or specialized instrumentation, and enable critical analyses to be performed in lmics. breaches in compliance systems could be detected immediately with paper analytical devices and texting the results to a database would isolate the geographic location. after confirming the bad results, public health agencies and law enforcement can be dispatched to remedy the situation, thereby protecting public health from low quality products. each year, together, leishmania and plasmodium infect more than 500 million individuals and these infections result in the deaths of approximately 3 million, illustrating the drastic need for immunological research on these and other tropical diseases. both leishmania and plasmodium are transmitted by the bite of an infected female hematophagus insect; leishmania by sand flies, while plasmodium by anopheline mosquitoes. studies have demonstrated the strong effects associated with saliva from hematophagous insects, like mosquitoes, sand flies, and ticks. work has shown that the pathology associated with disease models, like lymeìøåàå_s disease and leishmaniasis, is exacerbated by the inclusion of saliva or salivary gland portions during introduction of infection. however, previous vaccination to uninfected vector saliva induces protection from severe pathology upon infection in the presence of saliva or salivary gland extract in the case of sand flies. chapter 2 illustrates that a similar phenomenon also is present in the mosquito-plasmodium model. our study reveals that previous vaccination with uninfected mosquito bites induces interferon gamma (ifng) systemically upon exposure to p. yoelii-infected mosquito bites. chronic diseases such as leishmaniasis and malaria are able to induce immuno-suppression in their hosts. one recently characterized mechanism of immuno-suppression/ immuno-regulation by dendritic cells is the induction of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (ido), the rate-limiting enzyme in the tryptophan catabolism pathway. ido limits growth of tryptophan auxotrophs. chapter 3 demonstrates that ido is induced in human dendritic cells in response to exposure to l. major, l.donovani, and p. falciparum. in the case of leishmania infection, the ido protein is active and inhibits a mixed lymphocyte reaction. additionally, ido is induced during an in vivo p. yoelii infection. subversion of immune recognition is a mechanism by which different pathogens are able to gain a niche in a host. two methods of inhibition of immune surveillance are discussed in chapters 4 and 5. cd1, the group of molecules that dendritic cells utilize to present lipid antigen to t cells is expressed at significantly lower levels in leishmania-infected human dendritic cells. also, leishmania-infected macrophages do not readily undergo apoptosis induced by cycloheximide via a strainand phosphoglycandependent mechanism. iii-v nitride semiconductors have attracted a lot of interest for their applications in optoelectronic and high power devices. however the highly resistive p-type layers of nitrides have limited the performance of bipolar devices. polarization charges present in nitride heterojunctions can be engineered to enhance theperformance of different devices and introduce novel material physics not present in other semiconductors.regions of 2and 3-dimensional mobile carriers can be produced with the aid of polarization charges in graded algan structures. such impurity-free electron concentrations have been demonstrated experimentally. polarization-enhancedhole concentrations are theoretically and experimentally studied in this work. bandgap engineering of polarization-induced doping in iii-v nitrides is demonstrated by molecular beam epitaxy. applications of these polarization-enhanced layers in working p-n junction diodes is achieved.polarization charges can also utilized to enhanced the properties of other devices. p-type conductivity in aln/gan superlattice structures is increased due to field-assisted acceptor ionization. improved p-type conductivity as compared to conventional bulk doped gan structures is achieved, and insertion into a p-njunction allows vertical conductivity.demonstration of the nitride-based backward diodes is also achieved by utilizing the high polarization-induced electric fields. interband tunneling current is observed in gan-aln-gan p-n junctions under reverse bias. application of thesebackward diodes as a zero bias rf detector is demonstrated. this dissertation seeks to explore how, and under what circumstances, living as a religious minority or majority at the local level shapes the social identities, outgroup perceptions, and religious commitments of religiously active evangelical protestants and latter-day saints in the contemporary united states. qualitative interviews were conducted with both groups in two very different local religious ecological contexts: knoxville, tennessee (and neighboring oak ridge), where protestants represent a local religious majority and latter-day saints represent a small local minority; and utah county, utah, where latter-day saints represent a strong local majority and evangelical protestants represent a small local minority.the dissertation argues that local religious minority and majority contexts have diverse effects on religious adherents. local religious minority contexts, for example, tend to increase opportunities for contact and engagement with local majority outgroups and decrease opportunities, or increase the associated costs, of some specific within-tradition forms of religious participation. local religious majority contexts can sometimes, in contrast, "normalize" religious commitments and foster more open religious "conversational rules," or even favorable sociolinguistic subcultures. building off of previous theoretical frameworks, various pathways through which "engagement" with religious or secular others can reinforce religious worldview commitments are identified. the motivations of respondents to engage with religious others and their frames for understanding religious difference are also explored.differences in the experiences of minority and majority context based on religious tradition are also identified. variation in the cultures and organizational structures of the two groups account, in part, for their different experiences in the two contexts. religious traditions place different types of demands on members. they also create resources to help members fulfill these demands that can be unequally distributed. differences in the forms and structures of religious congregations also shape religious minority and majority experiences. in areas with strong mormon-majorities, for example, ward boundaries at times shrink to the point that the distinction between "neighborhood" and "congregation" is blurred. in short, there is no universal religious "majority" or "minority" experience. these experiences are shaped, in part, by the specific cultures and organizational structures of religious traditions.finally, this dissertation seeks to explore, through rich description, the encounter between evangelical protestants and latter-day saints within the contemporary united states. how these two groups understand the differences and commonalities between their respective movements are explored in detail, as well as the experiences of each group living on the other's "turf." i explore the role of congregational racial composition on adolescent interracial friendships. i hope to make two contributions. (1) little is known about adolescents in multiracial congregations so by focusing on them, i add to this line of research. (2) i suggest that those interested in adolescent interracial friendships need to pay attention to the racial composition of their religious congregations. using contact theory, i hypothesize that adolescents attending multiracial congregations are more likely to have close interracial friendship than those attending uniracial congregations. i also expect increased interracial social contact in schools and neighborhoods to increase the likelihood of adolescent close interracial friendships. i use national study for youth and religion wave (nsyr) 1 data. the findings suggest that increased intteracial social contact in religious congregations has a significant positive effect on close adolescent interracial friendships. school racial composition also has a positive effect, but neighborhood is not significant. in this thesis, we discuss a simple extension to the standard particle swarm optimization algorithm, inspired by genetic algorithms that allow swarms to cope better with dynamically changing fitness evaluations for a given parameter space. we demonstrate the utility of the extension in an application system for dynamical facial feature detection and tracking, which uses the proposed 'real-time evolving swarms' for a continuous dynamic search of the best locations in a two-dimensional parameter space to improve upon feature detection with static parameters. we show in several experimental evaluations that the proposed method is robust to lighting changes and does not require any calibration. moreover, the method works in real time, is computationally tractable, and not limited to the employed static feature detector, but can be applied to any n-dimensional search space.further, this thesis introduces a novel hierarchical extension to the standard particle swarm optimization algorithm that allows swarms to cope better with dynamically changing fitness evaluations for a given parameter space. it present the formal framework and demonstrate the utility of the extension in an application system for dynamic face detection. specifically, the feature detector/tracker uses the proposed 'hierarchical real-time swarms' for a continuous concurrent dynamic search of the best locations in a two-dimensional parameter space and the image space to improve upon feature detection and tracking in changing environments. the present study explores the relationship between challenge, control, perceptions of competence and boredom during an experimental science task. seventh and eighth grade students (n=35) completed an easy or hard version of a timed, paper-pencil science task involving punnett squares. before the task, students endorsed either an entity or incremental theory of intelligence. at four time points during the task students reported boredom, perceptions of challenge, control, and perceived competence. in the complete sample, challenge and control predicted boredom early in the task, while control and competence were more predictive of boredom later in the task. although students were equally bored in the easy and the hard tasks, tests of the quadratic effect of perceptions of challenge on boredom revealed that at t2, students are least bored when challenge is moderate. mixed within-between ancovas were performed to ascertain whether there were any interactions or main effects of condition (easy, hard), perceptions of challenge, control on students' boredom. no interactions or main effects emerged, possibly due to the limited sample size. tests of moderated mediation were conducted to determine whether theory of intelligence moderates the mediation of perceived competence on challenge predicting boredom, and were not significant. this dissertation analyzes the unprecedented eruption of organized criminal violence in mexico. to understand the dynamics of drug violence, this dissertation addresses three questions. what explains the onset of the war on drugs in mexico? once the conflict starts, why does drug violence escalate so rapidly? and lastly, why is there subnational variation in the concentration of violence? based on a game theoretic model, the central argument indicates that democratization erodes the peaceful configurations between the state and criminal organizations and motivates authorities to fight crime, thus triggering a wave of violence between the state and organized criminals and among rival criminal groups fighting to control strategic territories. in this account, state action is not neutral: law enforcement against a criminal group generates the opportunity for a rival criminal organization to invade its territory, thus leading to violent interactions among rival criminal groups. these dynamics of violence tend to concentrate in territories favorable for the reception, production and distribution of drugs. in this way, the disrupting effect of law enforcement unleashes a massive wave of violence of all-against-all resembling a hobbesian state of war. to test the observable implications of the theory, the empirical assessment relies on a novel database of geo-referenced daily event data at municipal level providing detailed information on who did what to whom, when and where in the mexican war on drugs. this database covers all municipalities of the country between 2000 and 2010, thus comprising about 9.8 million observations. the creation of this fine-grained database required the development of eventus id, a novel software for automated coding of event data from text in spanish. the statistical assessment relies on quasi-experimental identification strategies and time-series analysis to overcome problems of causal inference associated with analyzing the distinct &#8210;yet overlappingprocesses of violence between government authorities and organized criminals and among rival criminal groups. in addition, the statistical analysis is complemented with insights from fieldwork and historical process tracing. results provide strong support for the empirical implications derived from the theoretical model. ligand design plays an important role in the performance of transition metal catalysts. it is well known that the use of chelating ligands offer the metal center more stability, and additionally, chelating ligands can be tuned readily to influence the reactivity of the metal center. many of these chelating ligands do not participate with the metal center throughout the course of chemical reactions, however interest has been increasing in the design of ligands that can cooperate with the metal center. metal-ligand cooperation takes place in many forms including hemilability, charge switching, flexible coordination geometry, and ligand assisted substrate activations. with these design features in mind, investigations centering around multidentate ligands possessing a central pi-system were carried out. these ligands allow for a variety of coordination modes to the metal center which are adaptable, and respond to the electronic requirements of the metal center. the coordination chemistry of the trans olefin ligands tpcr=crp (r = h, me), the cis olefin ligand, cpcme=cmep, and the o-terphenyl ligand, pterp, will be discussed. all the ligands, except for tpcme=cmep, showed versatility in their coordination modes, and were responsive to reaction conditions. furthermore, the ability of the ligands cpcme=cme and pterp to stabilize difficult to observe, non-heteroatom stabilized group 10 carbenes was assessed. the reactivity of the resulting palladium and platinum carbene species was investigated. these species proved to be competent at a variety of bond activation processes, consistent with their proposed reactivity in the literature. the presented work demonstrates the cooperative tendencies of p based chelating ligands, and how they can be used to elucidate intermediates not commonly observed in the literature. this dissertation focuses upon the baptismal theology of the fourth century bishop-theologians basil the great, gregory of nazianzus and gregory of nyssa, particularly their use of paul's romans 6 image of dying and rising with christ. though the theology of john 3 and the model of jesus' baptism in the jordan were dominant in the churches of the east prior to the fourth century, from then on romans 6 theology surges to prominence. rather than seeking to explain how the cappadocians fit into that shift, this dissertation focuses on how the death imagery of romans 6 serves the theological purpose of linking baptism to the christian life as a whole. this is an investigation of the cappadocians' theological assessments of what baptism accomplishes and what life should be like after baptism. according to them, baptism must be preserved and even validated by a holy life: a life of moderation characterized by self-control, detachment from the flesh and worldly concerns, and generous care for the poor. chapter 1 sets the historical and theological context with summaries of: the development of the rites of initiation in the east (with emphasis on the importance of jesus' baptism in the jordan and the feast of epiphany), the development of penance and theological views of postbaptismal sin, and the christian and hellenistic influences on the cappadocian view of the life of philosophy. in chapters 2-4 each of the cappadocians is considered in turn. each chapter includes a close reading of the baptismal texts. the names used for baptism, descriptions of the rite, accounts of the effects of baptism, and a consideration of the importance of romans 6 (and john 3) theology are given particular attention. also included is an assessment of each figure's account of the philosophical life. drawing on ascetical texts, the topics of postbaptismal sin, death, and the connections between baptism and the philosophical life are considered. chapter 5 draws on insights gained from each figure and offers a summary of their collective view of baptism, their use of romans 6, and the connections they make between baptism and the philosophical life. in this thesis, i will explore the processes and mechanisms that took place to form, crystallize, and solidify the lunar magma ocean (lmo). it is generally accepted that the lunar crust and at least the uppermost (500 km) mantle was formed by crystallization of a magma ocean. the conditions under which the magma ocean cooled and crystallized, however, are still under debate. these conditions, among others, are the bulk composition, lunar magma ocean (lmo) crystallization (fractional vs. equilibrium), depth of the lmo, and time for lmo solidification (effects of tidal heating mechanisms, insulating crustal lid, etc.). lunar magma ocean theory has undergone extensive analysis and discussion throughout the past 40 years, ranging from observations by numerical modeling, lunar petrology and geochronology, to laboratory experiments. this study is a reexamination of the lmo crystallization model proposed by snyder et al. (1992) and the incorporation of recent studies using numerical modeling of the lmo, geochronology of the anorthosite highlands, and experimentally derived lmo crystallization scenarios. we combine all of these factors into a new hybrid model. note: relevant code files are included in the programs.zip archive for ease of access. of the three published instruments that assess cultural issues in supervision, two have not been tested for convergent or discriminant validity, but one the multicultural supervision inventory (msi), has garnered initial empirical support (pope-davis, toporek, ortega, 1999; pope-davis, toporek, ortega-villalobos, 2003). this study presents the refinement of the multicultural supervision inventory (msi; pope-davis, toporek, ortega, 1999), a measure of multicultural competence in supervision developed for use by both supervisors and supervisees. data was collected from a diverse national sample of 176 supervisors and 424 supervisees in apa accredited internship training sites and academic programs, through self-report questionnaires hosted by a website. participants completed a detailed demographic background and experience questionnaire, the msi (pope-davis, toporek, ortega-villalobos, 2003), the mckas (ponterotto et al., 2002), the working alliance inventories (bahrick, 1990) and the paulhus deception scale (pauhlus, 1991). the hypothesis that multicultural competence in supervision was a multidimensional construct received empirical support based on the confirmatory factor analyses of a correlated two factor structure. multi-group analyses indicated that there is limited evidence of the factorial invariance for the msi across the supervisor and supervisee samples. the results also provided supportive evidence for the scale's reliability (supervisor α=.90; supervisee, α=.96). a discriminant validity test indicated a small significant relationship between the msi and social desirability scores accounting for 6% of the variance, which required the control of this variable in additional construct validity tests. convergent validity tests confirmed the hypothesized theoretical relationships, demonstrating significant positive relationships between msi scores and multicultural counseling competence scores, supervisory working alliance scores, the amount of time and quality of discussions addressing cultural variables in supervision, supervisors' intentionality, direct guidance, and perceived importance given to multicultural issues in supervision, and multicultural training and experience. in closing, this study outlines the next steps in the construct validation of the msi including studies involving matched supervision dyads, longitudinal data collection, and mixed methodology. recommendations are also made for the use of the msi as an empirically supported training tool to help supervisors and supervisees in their process of developing multicultural competence. twenty-first century technology and its uses has increased the visibility of girl's bodies in mass and social media, revealing a pattern in posing that is complicated by a long artistic tradition of female body presentation. in an effort to make sense of this mediated self-styling, play &amp; pose is a web application and exhibition experience which promotes design as a tool for visual and media literacy. the primary aim is to expand the visual vocabulary of posing by investigating the history of some of the most common poses found online. a secondary, more didactic concern is to encourage conscious decision-making when posing and posting images. using an interdisciplinary approach, this exploratory study offers an interactive methodology for collecting and cataloguing poses; including a case study with thirty girls ages 12–16 and instagram as a site for research. it further provides a critical analysis of these poses through a variety of contextual lenses; including visual communication design, art history, feminist studies, and screen culture.in this paper and project, i offer an analysis that acknowledges some of the potential problems within our selfie culture regarding female body presentation and suggest a design intervention that advocates design as a tool for media and visual literacy. the goal is to bring awareness to the history of female body presentation and encourage consciousness through a web application and exhibition called play &amp; pose. this dissertation analyzes the ways that representations of a heroic and physical masculinity express changing attitudes toward violence in political fiction published in britain between the french revolution and the decline of chartism, that is, from around 1790 to 1850. exploring the subgenres of jacobin and anti-jacobin fiction, historical fiction, chartist fiction, and social fiction, this dissertation reads scenes of political heroism alongside developing ideals of nonviolence in britain—especially concerning typically violent political processes such as warfare and revolution—and it shows how these ideals place important limits on the motives for and kinds of heroic violence depicted in fiction. methodologically, this dissertation focuses on the minute details of scenes of action, especially those pertaining to gestures and weapons, to examine how heroic uses of the male body contribute to rather than detract from an emergent culture of nonviolence. by focusing on how authors use heroic scenes of action not to promote but to question and reimagine the concept of heroic violence, this project complicates prevailing critical and historical narratives of british masculinity's nineteenth-century transformations. treating description as a means of textured political argument, i argue that the fiction in this study depicts complex scenes of action to judge the proper level of physicality for men to express as well as the threshold for using force justly, all the while crafting a physical heroism attuned to the modern era's espousal of nonviolent political change. augustine's first commentary on genesis 1-3 has largely been approached as evidence of an overly philosophized christianity rather than as an exhortation to openness to the mystery of jesus christ. i trace this bias to the co-opting of augustinian early biblical exegesis: first by robert j. o'connell who defined it as the severing of biblical words (uerba) from the reality they express (res) and the supplanting of that res with a plotinian res, and later by roland j. teske who carried forward o'connell's definition and further entrenched it. in this dissertation, i propose and employ a new approach to the study of de genesi contra manichaeos (dgcm) that prioritizes both augustine's main concern as expressed in dgcm and how he proceeds to address it in dgcm, book 1. contrary to the dominant readings of dgcm, i work to show that in addressing his main concern augustine approaches genesis 1-2:3 as a union of human words (uerba) and their immediate referents (the created realities (res) they signify) with a divine reality (res), a union that he claims yields an unfamiliar reality, a hidden truth, or 'mystery' in contradistinction to manichaean falsehood or 'myth.' i argue this point through a close and careful study of the exegesis he provides for each verse. i first show that in interpreting each verse, augustine presents the union between the letter, its immediate referent, and divine reality as one whose meaning and veracity are only discernible through an appeal to authorities or 'manifest realities.' i then show that in his interpretation of each verse, the 'manifest realities' augustine turns to when examining this union include genesis 1-2:3, the whole of scripture, reality as experienced in creation and in being human, and reality as revealed most perfectly and fully in jesus christ's humanity, that is, his external teaching given in and through his words and deeds. when an otherwise-planar wavefront is made to propagate through a variable-index-of-refraction, relatively-thin turbulent flow, the wavefront becomes aberrated. the study of the effect on optical propagation through such flow fields is referred to as aero-optics. the rapidly time-varying aberrations imposed on the wavefront degrade the performance of an optical system attempting to make use of the optical signal. until 1995, a time-resolved time series of wavefronts for laser propagation through a mach 0.8 free shear layer, representing propagation through a separated flow region over an aircraft, was not available. in that year, a joint project between the university of notre dame and the arnold air development center (aedc) made the first ever high-bandwidth wavefront measurements for laser propagation through this simulated flight condition in aedc's acoustic research tunnel modified specifically to make aero-optic measurements. these measurements revealed a much higher level of wavefront aberrations than had previously been presumed to exist for these conditions. finally, in 1995, fitzgerald and jumper realized that the widely accepted presumption that the unsteady pressure fluctuations, p', in a free shear layer were negligible, the so-called strong reynolds analogy (sra), could not be correct. a new model, the weakly compressible model (wcm), was then developed that was able to predict (with remarkable accuracy) wavefront amplitudes and character to those measured at aedc. while this model began to gain acceptance on its own merit, its acceptance was resisted due to its most-controversial result of large pressure fluctuations within a free shear layer concomitant with the coherent vertical structures in the layer which form naturally under the influence of the kelvin-helmholtz instability. not only were the data collected at the time the aedc wavefront experiments absent extensive fluid-mechanic measurements that might have vindicated the predictions of the wcm, but also the use of the art facility was no longer possible to revisit these issues. these developments in the study of aero-optics led directly to the objectives of this thesis research. the objects were specifically: 1.develop a compressible shear layer facility at notre dame that, on the one hand recreated as closely as possible the flow conditions of the earlier aedc tests, and on the other, overcome some of the limitations of the art facility (particularly its limited, 5-cm, aperture) 2.design a method of making time-resolved, conditionally-sampled static pressure measurements through the core of the large-scale coherent vertical structures that form in the shear layer to specifically address the most-controversial implication of the previous work; that p' is, in fact, not negligible as has been previously assumed. in both these objectives, this thesis research was eminently successful. this thesis describes the construction of notre dames new weakly-compressible shear layer facility. it then describes the method developed to capture the pressure profiles through the core of the coherent vertical structures in the shear layer at a location of 0.5 m down stream from the origin of the shear layer (i.e., the splitter plate). the results of the unsteady static pressure experiments are then presented along with a unique serendipitous flow-visualization method that allowed us to capture the actual form of the coherent structures. both the static pressure data and the flow visualizations unequivocally vindicated the wcm's predictions of large static pressure wells concomitant with the coherent character of the vertical structures. the work of this thesis has once and for all refuted the claim of the sra that the static pressure fluctuations a relatively-high mach number free shear layer are negligible. statistical power is typically thought of univariately. however, the most common statistical models are multivariate, i.e., multiple regression and structural equation modeling. researchers are likely interested in finding all parameters statistically significant that are non-null in the population. that is, it is desirable to commit no type ii errors. the probability of committing no type ii errors in an analysis can be termed simultaneous power. what is often ignored is that simultaneous can be substantially lower than the power for a single predictor, or more so if the probability of finding at least one significant result is examined. this expresses the need to explore ways to improve simultaneous power other than increasing sample size. this project examined four ways for simultaneously testing structural coefficients in structural equation modeling in the special case of two exogenous latent variables. namely, these methods are the delta method, assymptotic confidence intervals based on the distribution of the products, the percentile bootstrap, and the bias-corrected and accelerated bootstrap. combustion synthesis (cs) has been explored as a novel tool for catalyst synthesis. cs is a simple, fast and economic process for materials synthesis which possesses many advantages over other traditional techniques for catalyst's synthesis such as co-precipitation. some modifications were introduced to the conventional cs technique in order to prepare fine nano-particles with high surface are to suite the catalytic applications. time-temperature profile, adiabatic combustion temperature and product surface area were measured with varying the fuel content in the reactive combustion mixture, more specifically the so called solution combustion synthesis (scs) mixture. a correlation was established between surface area, adiabatic combustion temperature and the amount of fuel in the reactive mixture. based on thermodynamic calculations the fuel content was adjusted to produce metal oxides, pure metals and alloys. a mechanism for product synthesis was developed on the basis of tga/dta results, xrd analysis of the products during cs and thermodynamic calculations. these findings were used to synthesize partially reduced catalyst with high surface area for hydrogen production from alcohols. the reactive mixture of the scs was impregnated on a thin cellulose paper in order to enhance the heat transfer effects after combustion which would in fine particles with high surface area. this technique is known as impregnated layer combustion synthesis (ilcs). temperature distribution across the combustion front was measured using flir systems ir camera, and sony camcorder was used to record the visual changes leading to product development. the evolution of catalyst synthesis and the mechanism of self propagation were explained on the basis of these images, tga/dta, xrd results and with some help from other literature results. a model for ilcs process was developed in order to study the effect of different combustion parameters on the physical properties of the catalysts synthesized. using the abovementioned techniques, cu, zn, zr based catalysts were synthesized to study hydrogen production from partial oxidation of methanol. addition of small amount of pd, and impregnation of the cu/zn/zr catalyst on zro2 support were also studied. presence of pd helps in starting the methanol combustion reaction at an earlier temperature whereas zro2 provides structural stability as well as high surface area to increase the active sites participating in the reaction. ni, fe and cu based multicomponant catalysts were synthesized for hydrogen abstraction from ethanol reforming reactions. the molar ratios of these elements were optimized to get high ethanol conversion and hydrogen selectivity for ethanol partial oxidation using a high throughput ten-channel reactor. the most active and hydrogen selective catalyst was further studied along with single phase ni, fe and cu catalysts, using a single flow recycle reactor for ethanol decomposition and partial oxidation reactions where the effluent products were analyzed using gas chromatographs. these catalysts were further characterized using xrd, bet, sem, xps, xafs techniques. explored in this dissertation are methods for controlling monomer sequence, molecular weight and polydispersity of branched and linear copolymers. in chapter 1, an overview of polymer control methods, recent advancements, and a brief discussion about the scope of structures and relevant materials is presented. following this is a detailed description of the methods and materials proposed in the subsequent chapters. in chapter 2, copolymerization of monomer and ab* inimer in heterogeneous media by atom transfer radical polymerization is investigated for the controlled synthesis of one-polymer-per-latex nano-plastics. also included is the introduction of organic photocatalyst, replacing traditional transition metal based mediating species, into hyperbranched polymerization in solution and microemulsion to improve biocompatibility of the polymer particles. in chapter 3, acid-catalyzed friedel-crafts hydroxyalkylation polymerization of 1,4-disubstituted benzene and benzaldehyde derivatives is used to obtain multisegmented block copolymers. this polymerization takes advantage of the intriguing unequal reactivity in step-growth polymerization to control the structure and produce block copolymers from carefully tuned oligomers. osteoarthritis is a widespread problem throughout the world especially as the average lifespan continues to lengthen. relieving arthritic pain and finding less intrusive, longer lasting joint replacements revolves around finding a material to replace natural articular cartilage. poly(vinyl alcohol) hydrogels (pva-h) have the potential to be an articular cartilage replacement in the future with properties similar to those of natural articular cartilage. injection molding and solution casting techniques were employed to manufacture pva-h specimens. the mechanical properties of pva-h were then studied using knee simulation, creep, and friction tests. the results show that injection molding produces stiffer and stronger specimens than solution casting due to the higher polymer content. however, injection molding specimens also have a higher coefficient of friction. further improvements must be made before pva-h is a suitable material for articular cartilage replacement. radioisotopes, produced in stars and ejected through core collapse supernovae (sne), are important for constraining stellar and early solar system (ess) models. the presence of these isotopes (specifically 60fe) can identify progenitors of sne, give evidence for nearby sne, and can be used as a chronometer for ess events. the 60fe half-life, which has been in dispute in recent years, can impact calculations for the timing of ess events, the distance to nearby sne, and the brightness of individual, non-steady state 60fe gamma-ray sources in the galaxy. to measure such a long half-life, one needs to simultaneously determine the number of atoms in, and the activity of, an 60fe sample. we have undertaken a half-life measurement at the university of notre dame. this thesis gives results of both an activity measurement and an accelerator mass spectrometry (ams) measurement on an 60fe sample. this is the first time that the ams technique is coupled with the direct isomeric day of 60co instead of the ground state decay of 60co. the resulting half-life from this work is (2.55 +/0.15) million years, agreeing with the two most recent measurements. this is substantially longer than the previously accepted value of (1.49 +/0.27) million years published in 1984. this thesis paper will describe both the conceptual logic and formal qualities behind the work in my master of fine arts thesis exhibition at the snite museum of art. my exhibition, entitled, digital artefacts (chernobyl): self-organizing matter contends with the catastrophe of chernobyl, not simply as an event optimizing technological hubris, but instead as an example of the complex relationship humans have with progress. generated from objects i digitally 3d scanned in chernobyl; i consider my work to be fragmented digital artefacts of emergent self-organizing matter. contrary to the methodology of archaeology, that as the natural transition of material, or entropy, increases, information and thus meaning decreases, i am interested in the inverse, or that as entropy increases, meaning has the potential to increase. i am interested in embracing the artefact as a source of fragmentation, and i think of this work as moving toward new non-anthropocentric archaeology, wherein the agency of the fragment, autonomous of the intact object, can lead to a deeper meaning. devoid of nostalgia and bereft of reconstruction, these generated artefacts focus on the undoing as a more accurate understanding of a place and time. this new body of work shifts away from the culturally constructed myths surrounding human progress, and embraces natural patterns of the dynamic and the chaotic as a more complex and accurate view of the relationship humans have with perceived advancement. although anticipated in crucial respects by the greek and arabic philosophical traditions, the doctrine of a primum cognitum remains primarily a scholastic invention, receiving its first systematic treatments at the hand of thirteenth-century latin scholastic theologians. the problem of what is first known sits at the center of a broad constellation of philosophical and theological issues. it concerns, above all, the determination of what stands at the basis of all our cognitive activities: is there something whose knowledge is presupposed by the knowledge of all other things, but that does not, of its own, presuppose anything else? the resolution of knowledge into its most basic components ultimately arrives at the knowledge of something whose own intelligibility is presupposed by, and included in, the intelligibility of everything else, but that does not presuppose anything beyond itself. because it is the radical starting point of cognition, the primum cognitum opens up the horizon of all our cognitive possibilities; it defines the scope of what is cognitively available to us: whatever we could ever come to know must be known in light of, and in connection to, that which is first known.this dissertation contributes towards reconstructing the origins and early stages of the development of this debate by closely examining bonaventure and aquinas's accounts of what is first known. after explaining in the introduction the particular historical and intellectual circumstances surrounding the appearance of this concern and the contemporary attempts in secondary literature to account for it, the body of the dissertation is devoted to the detailed study of each thinker's views. bonaventure and aquinas stand each at opposite sides of this philosophical divide: the primum cognitum is either god or being. by espousing these solutions, they embody the fundamental mentality that each solution conveys and that is clearly manifested in their corresponding understanding of the issues that are theoretically associated with an adequate treatment of this problem. by systematically reconstructing bonaventure and aquinas's accounts of what is first known, the dissertation shows how the treatment of this issue was made possible, and fostered, by an emerging awareness of the broad range of theoretically connected issues it involves. these connections were sometimes implicitly operative in their writings, while other times they were explicitly voiced, and correspondingly addressed. they are all, however, unavoidable components of an elaborate doctrine of what is first known. as revealed from the study of bonaventure and aquinas's thought, these issues include: (i) the necessity of divine illumination for cognition; (ii) the transcendental concepts of the mind; (iii) the proper and formal object(s) of the human intellect; (iv) our natural knowledge of god; (v) the discussion concerning the subject matter of the science of metaphysics; (vi) the analogy (or univocity) of being; and (vii) distinct and confused knowledge. the dissertation shows that the founding contributions of bonaventure and aquinas on both sides of this important philosophical divide fundamentally set the stage for later thinkers by either explicitly addressing the relevant issues theoretically involved in the systematic treatment of this problem or by at least raising those questions and drawing attention to them. whatever subsequent scholastic authors thought of the primum cognitum, their views could not avoid addressing the same issues first raised by bonaventure and aquinas, and usually in the very same terms and contexts in which they first addressed them. the present study details evidence for a predictive coding account of attention control, which expands as a unified theory of perception, cognition, and action. on this account, virtually every aspect of human cognition serves the universal imperative of minimizing prediction error between implicit hypotheses about the state of the external world and data from sensory inputs, under a constraint that computational efficiency is prioritized. in a novel demand-selection visual search paradigm, support for this view was evident in patterns of objective performance, self-reports, and indices of neuromodulatory activity collected via eye-tracking. in particular, observers routinely exploited the task strategy associated with less cognitive demand, but their behavior was also flexibly adaptive and sensitive to alternative motives for goal-driven behavior. these and additional findings collectively offer a substantial contribution to several different scientific literatures, and they validate the foundation for a promising theoretical framework of attention control. the mass production and wide application of engineered nanoparticles (nps) increase the possibilities for their unintended or irresponsible release to the environment. streams are an integral, connecting network in the environment that can transport contaminants long distances. thus, understanding the fate and transport of nps in the streams is critical to environmental health and sustainable nanotechnology. numerous lab-scale studies explored the behavior of nps in artificial stream water, such as their interaction with various aqueous parameters (e.g., ph, temperature, ionic strength, presence of natural organic matter, mineral ions, or inorganic particles). nevertheless, lab-scale studies are limited in incorporating all the environmental factors simultaneously, including mimicking seasonal variations (e.g., biofilms) and hydraulic factors (e.g., stream bed size and material), thus there exists a need to better understand the nps behavior in realistic streams. furthermore, reliable mathematical models are required to predict the fate and transport of nps accurately for the feasible management of the environmental risk of nps and the use of nps for environmental remediation. the primary research originality of this dissertation were to (1) elucidate the interaction of nps with environmental macromolecules (e.g., proteins and natural organic matter) under realistic lab-scale conditions, (2) evaluate the effect of physicochemical properties of nps (hydrodynamic size and zeta potential) and environmental parameters (ph, ionic strength, and ionic species) on the fate of nps at the lab-scale, (3) monitor the transport of nps in field-scale streams under hydraulically controlled conditions, (4) evaluate the effect of natural organic matter, biofilms, and streambed substrate size on the transport of nps in field-scale streams, and (5) develop a one-dimensional stochastic model to predict the transport of nps in streams. the outcomes of this dissertation suggest (1) more field-scale studies are required for a better understanding of nps' behavior in the real environment, and (2) modeling approaches should consider the effect of streambed gravel sizes and biofilms on the transport of nps in streams. lastly, the computational modeling outcomes in this study will contribute to predicting the transport of nps irresponsibly or accidentally released to the stream environment. image forensics has become an important area of research due to the exponential increase in availability and free exchange of media. the accessibility to good quality sensors and image hosting websites is now at the disposal of more users than ever. the increase in sharing of images has also led to more ways to edit image content aimed towards achieving a certain goal. improved and freely available image editing software can allow a non-technical person to create images with changes undetectable to the naked eye. whether it is altering one's portrait to look younger, increasing color contrast in natural scenes, or adding external objects to the images to change their perception and understanding. edits or manipulations with malicious intent can be used to mislead readers or followers. certain kinds of usage create social and legal concerns with respect to the spread of misinformation while others can skew people's perception of reality. images manipulated with benign intent behind them may also be fatal to the society by shifting what is perceived as normal and giving the viewers unrealistic expectations.in order to assess and regulate the quality of media, it is important to devise algorithms that detect and analyze manipulated content in an automated way. this work focuses on solving two such problems detecting retouching effects in face images and analyzing the provenance of a given image. the former one detects appearance-based manipulations in face images of individuals while the latter implies understanding the evolution history of an image. in addition to understanding single image properties, provenance analysis considers a collection of active variants of the image in question and requires retrieving the stages of evolution of the manipulated media object and the other objects contributing parts to the stages. the proposed methods used to solve these problems focus on efficiency and generalizability as the scale of operation is quite large and the problem is very unconstrained. this work contributes towards formalizing the problem definition and creating solutions that are applicable to general cases of manipulated images at a large scale. we propose methods to (1) improve multi-demographic operation for retouching detection in faces, (2) image provenance analysis appliable to image with diverse content, quality and source. they are evaluated on unconstrained scenarios and tested with large scale datasets. our proposed pipelines solve important problems in the domain of image forensics and utilize techniques from image analysis, pattern recognition, and computer vision. clinical and correlative studies have shown that targeting one signaling pathway alone is inefficient at controlling aggressive cancers, such as triple negative breast cancer (tnbc), whereas combinatorial strategies are more effective and necessary. while targeted therapies, such as kinase inhibitors are widely used, rewiring of cell signaling post treatment has been shown to reduce efficacy, which demands new methods of inhibiting proto-oncogenic kinases. cdk4/6 is one such kinase that is targeted and used in combination therapy with a high success rate. we have previously demonstrated that, in tnbc cells, co-targeting cdk4/6 and egfr was synergistic. thus, we hypothesized that inhibition of cdk4/6 with other kinases can be synergistic for treating tnbc.as such, we hypothesized that there are other kinases, when inhibited in combination with a cdk4/6 inhibitor would synergize to effectively treat tnbc. to explore targeted combinatorial kinase therapy, we performed a pooled kinome crispr knockout screen in tnbc cells under the treatment of cdk4/6 inhibitor (abemaciclib).using the cancer genome atlas (tcga) database, the hits were then ranked based on the prevalence of up-regulation in tnbc supporting clinical relevance and src is among the top six drop-out hits. inhibition of src using dasatinib, an fda approved inhibitor for cancer therapy, synergize with abemaciclib and decreased cell proliferation in a tnbc cell lines. we also found that treatment with abemaciclib, and a multi-kinase inhibitor, lestaurtinib, rewires through the receptor tyrosine kinase receptor (rtk), fak in multiple tnbc cell lines. based on this observed rewiring, and the known advantage of using sequential treatment to prevent reemergence of parallel signaling pathways, we theorized that sequential treatment would be more effective than concurrent combination treatment. sequential treatment with abemaciclib, lestaurtinib and defactinib, a fak inhibitor, resulted in decreased cell proliferation and an increase in cell death. we demonstrate that sequential treatment induced apoptosis, as indicated by an increase in cleaved caspase 3(cc3) and cleaved parp. we further show that the induced apoptosis may be mediated by p38, as cc3 and cleaved parp are increased while phospho-p38(p-p38) decreases under sequential treatment. further we found that src, which is known to interact closely with fak and is a well-known proto-oncogene, coordinates with fak in the rewiring activation. using either a src inhibitor, dasatinib, or defactinib the sequential treatment showed inhibition of the signaling interaction between fak and src, as well as a decrease in the downstream signaling through p38. in summary, our results show that even with combination treatment, rewiring occurred through an rtk and thus, a sequential treatment scheme is a more effective approach and necessary to prevent reoccurrence and resistance. this dissertation is concerned with signal processing for communications. the first part of the dissertation considers the problem of enhancing data throughput and radio link reliability with limited resources (including time, frequency and power) through multiple-user multiple-antenna systems. by allowing multiple data streams (to multiple receivers) to occupy the same channel, multi-user systems can potentially provide significant system throughput improvement. in this dissertation, we developed multi-user multi-antenna techniques to suppress various severe interferences in multi-user systems. we also developed user selection schemes to enhance link reliability and improve system throughput, by efficiently exploring the multi-user diversity and spatial isolation between any two users which is measured by the (normalized) inner product of their channel vectors. the results in this dissertation show that, through advanced interference suppression and proper user selection, data throughput and link quality in wireless systems can be improved significantly. both single-carrier and multi-carrier schemes are considered here for multi-user multi-antenna systems. for single-carrier systems, frequency-domain multi-antenna signal processing techniques are investigated to suppress both multi-user cci (co-channel interference) and isi (inter-symbol interference). our results show that the combination of frequency-domain signal processing and multi-antenna technique provides an effective and low-complexity scheme for suppressing severe interference in multi-user systems. as such, with a given ber performance constraint, the throughput of a multi-user system can grow linearly with the number of users if multiple data stream transmission over the same channel is allowed . for multi-carrier multi-user systems, our research focused on the issue of user selection. the results show that we can exploit wireless channels more efficiently through optimal user and subchannel allocation according to the time-varying nature, multi-user diversity and spatial isolation. specifically, we show that, one can improve the system throughput of wireless systems by up to 100% through two-user schemes with reasonable complexity. the second part of this dissertation is concerned with parameter estimation through adaptive filtering. set-membership filtering (smf) is studied and frequency-domain smf is developed. adaptive frequency-domain smf algorithms are derived and applied to frequency-domain equalization in broadband wireless communications. results show that frequency-domain smf can effectively improve the performance and reduce the implementation complexity of wireless communications. the problem of designing robust filters in impulsive noise is also investigated with the employment of smf. we developed an ellipsoidal smf algorithm to detect and suppress the outliers due to impulsive noise, which usually leads to major distortion in adaptive filtering. the problem of smf is also formulated in the framework of general m-estimation and smf-type of m-estimation algorithms are proposed. simulation results show that the proposed algorithms offer robust filtering in impulsive noise and outperforms conventional least-squares methods. the mathematics portion of this dissertation is a study of the various interactions between definitions of algorithmic randomness, turing functionals, and non-uniform probability measures on cantor space. in chapter 3, we study the connection between turing functionals and a number of different definitions of randomness, culminating in a number of characterizations of these definitions of randomness in terms of a priori complexity, a notion of initial segment complexity given in terms of turing functionals. in chapter 4, we investigate possible generalizations of demuth's theorem, an important theorem in algorithmic randomness concerning the behavior of random sequences under truth-table reducibility. one technique developed in this chapter, that of inducing a probability measure by means of a special type of truth-table functional that we call a tally functional, proves to be very useful. we use this technique to study randomness with respect to trivial computable measures in both chapters 5 and 6. in the philosophy portion of this dissertation, we consider the problem of producing a correct definition of randomness. some have claim that one definition of randomness in particular, martin-l f randomness, captures the so-called intuitive conception of randomness, a claim known as the martin-l f-chaitin thesis. prior to evaluating the martin-l f-chaitin thesis and related randomness-theoretic theses, in chapters 8 and 9 we discuss two roles of definitions of randomness, both of which motivated much early work in the development of algorithmic randomness: the resolutory role of randomness, which is successfully filled by a definition of randomness that allows for the solution of problems in a specific theory of probability, and the exemplary role of randomness, which is successfully filled by a definition of randomness that counts as random certain sequences that exemplify the properties typically held by sequences chosen at random. in chapter 10, we lay out the status of the martin-l f-chaitin thesis, discussing the evidence that has been offered in support of it, as well as the arguments that have been raised against it. in chapter 11, we argue that the advocate of a claim like the martin-l f-chaitin thesis faces what we call the justificatory challenge: she must present a precise account of the so-called intuitive conception of randomness, so as to justify the claim that her preferred definition of randomness is the correct one and block the claim of correctness made on behalf of alternative definitions of randomness. lastly, in chapter 12, we present two further roles for definitions of randomness to play, which we call the calibrative role of randomness and the limitative role of randomness, which can be successfully filled by multiple definitions of randomness. definitions filling the calibrative role allow us to calibrate the level of randomness necessary and sufficient for certain "almost-everywhere" results in classical mathematics to hold, while definitions filling the limitative role illuminate a phenomenon known as the indefinite contractibility of the notion of randomness. moreover, we argue that in light of the fact that many definitions can successfully fill these two roles, we should accept what we call the no-thesis thesis: there is no definition of randomness that (i) yields a well-defined, definite collection of random sequences and (ii) captures everything that mathematicians have taken to be significant about the concept of randomness. in this work, we are concerned with finding topological conditions ensuring that a local diffeomorphism is bijective. a classical result in this direction is the well-known hadamard-plastock theorem. it states that a banach space local diffeomorphism f : x &#8594; x is bijective provided inf x&#8712;x kdf(x)&#8722;1k&#8722;1 > 0. although the proof of the hadamard-plastock theorem involves some technical details, it follows essentially from simple arguments involving covering spaces. in recent years new topological and geometric ideas have been introduced in the subject of global invertibility, pushing the field in different directions. the emerging picture reveals that global invertibility is also influenced by more subtle topological phenomena. in particular, the work of nollet and xavier provided a substantial improvement to the hadamard-plastock theorem when dimx < &#8734;. using degree theory, they showed that a local diffeomorphism f : rn &#8594; rn is bijective if there exists a complete riemannian metric g on rn such that for all unit vector v, inf x&#8712;rn kdf(x)&#8727;vkg > 0. a short computation shows that this analytic condition implies the one in the hadamard-plastock theorem. arguments from elementary morse theory show that under the conditions of the nollet-xavier theorem, the pre-images of affine hyperplanes h satisfy f&#8722;1(hr &#8764;= rn. in particular, it follows that f&#8722;1(h) is acyclic, that is, f&#8722;1(h) has the homology of a point. the aim of this dissertation is to show that knowledge of the topology of the pre-images of hyperplanes alone is enough to detect global invertibility. theorem. a local diffeomorphism f : rn &#8594; rn is bijective if and only if the pre-image of every affine hyperplane is non-empty and acyclic. other results of similar nature are also established in this dissertation. the proof of our main theorem is based on some geometric constructions involving foliations and computation of intersection numbers between certain chain complexes. our result also allows for an analytic corollary that is stronger than the nollet-xavier theorem in the sense that one can choose the complete metric g to suit the unit vector v. for an airborne optical beam-director the use of a spherical turret is a common choice, however, turrets are far from ideal from an aero-optical standpoint. this is due primarily to two dominant aero-optical features, consisting of the separation region on the aft of the turret and, at high enough mach numbers, the presence of a shock. in order to mitigate or eliminate these dominant optically-active flows over a spherically-shaped turret, the "virtual-duct" technology was designed as a passive flow-control approach. the virtual-duct is designed as a fence with a diffusion section and a contraction section with contours generated using 5th order polynomials. previous investigations revealed that the virtual-duct also generated secondary flows on the turret surface, in particular, oil-flow visualization showed regions next to the virtual-duct fences that were swept clear of oil that was pushed towards the centerline of the hemisphere. further investigation showed that these oil-free regions were caused by streamwise vorticies that form in the corners of the virtual-duct at the junction between the virtual-duct fences and the turret surfaces.this dissertation describes research into the mechanism behind the generation of these corner vorticies, their general behavior, and their effect on the virtual-duct aero-optical performance. results are shown for steady flow measurements performed in low-speed flow (m approximately 0.12) for virtual-ducts of varying curvature on; flat plates with different boundary layer growth distances, and on a hemisphere of diameter, d = 0.3048 m. oil-flow visualization, surface pressure, and five hole flow angle probe measurements were conducted to study the secondary flow corner vorticies. results show that these vorticies are generated from a local corner separation within the diffusion section of the virtual-duct, and are dependent on the curvature and hence possibly the adverse pressure gradient in the diffusing section. the strength of the corner vorticies do not seem to be dependent on the underlying model surface, showing circulation that is the same whether the virtual-duct fences are mounted on a flat plate or hemisphere.the research also experimentally demonstrates that the virtual-duct is performing as intended by countering the effects of turret curvature by increasing the centerline pressure coefficient and delaying separation off the aft of the turret, however performance is reduced by the presence of the corner vorticies. the flow measurements also show that the initial corner separation that generates the corner vorticies is local to the intersection of the virtual-duct and the mounting surface, and not severe as the flow reattaches within the contraction section of the virtual-duct.lastly, wavefront measurements were performed at m = 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5 for one set of virtual-duct fences on a hemispherical turret with diameter d = 0.254 m. it is shown that there are regions of large optical distortions over the turret aperture where the corner vortices are present. this suggests that the virtual-duct should be designed to eliminate the corner vorticies or displace them off the aperture, as their affect cannot be neglected. outside the corner vortex regions, there are low optical aberrations showing that the virtual-duct substantially improves aero-optical performance, but better performance could be obtained without the corner vorticies. thermionic energy converters are devices that convert heat directly to electricity using a process called thermionic emission. due to their high operating temperatures (1000°c – 1700°c), thermionic energy converters have the opportunity to be an efficient source of electrical energy. however, the theoretical efficiencies have not been realized due to negative space charge effects and lack of materials with favorable properties. to improve the performance of thermionic energy converters, this work investigates the benefits that microscale plasmas can bring to thermionic energy converters. microplasmas can be used both in converters, canceling out the effect of negative space charge and enhancing emission current, and outside converters by synthesizing low work function materials such as diamond-containing materials. these methods of enhancement are examined in depth to better understand their underlying physics and to explore new methods to improve the technology of thermionic energy converters. this dissertation provides a philosophical study of gravitational-wave astrophysics.this field was launched in 2015 by the first "direct detection" of gravitational waves and the first "direct observation" of a binary black hole merger by the ligo-virgo collaboration. the dissertation includes three main chapters. the first provides an account of the sense in which the ligo-virgo detections of gravitational waves are"direct," and examines the epistemic significance of the direct/indirect distinction thus given. the second concerns the use of gravitational waves to observe binary black hole mergers. i argue that a problematic circularity arises in this context due to the model-dependence of these observations. finally, the third chapter considers the implications of multi-messenger observations (in this case, observations of the same event with both electromagnetic and gravitational radiation) for overcoming the epistemic challenges of astrophysics. overall, this dissertation delves into the methodology and epistemology of this emerging field with an aim of understanding both the new resources it offers for learning about the universe and the epistemic challenges (new and old) that confront it in doing so. the ability of variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometry (vase) to determine the thickness of the thin in0.49al0.51p (inalp) native gate oxide ('inalp-ox') for gaas-based mosfet devices has been demonstrated. the optical constants of inalp-ox, in0.49ga0.51p (ingap), and inalp have been determined by vase measurements using a photon energy range of 1.45 to 5.45 ev at room temperature. the optical constants of inalp and inalp-ox are used to characterize a thick partially-oxidized inalp epitaxial film grown on gaas structure. the excellent agreement between the thickness values determined by transmission electron microscope (tem) imaging and by vase supports the validity of our optical constants results. models have also been developed to accurately fit the thickness of less than 100 ìä'_ inalp-ox gate oxides grown directly upon a multi-layer mosfet heterostructure. the deviation of inalp-ox thickness results determined by vase from those determined by tem is within 4%. peer-to-peer (p2p) systems have been studied as alternatives to centralized systems for their ability to federate the processing, storage and network resources available among a set of independently owned peers for the common good. various distributed applications have been designed on top of a p2p infrastructure. for example, systems such as pplive and joost use peers for streaming videos while systems such as gnutella and bittorrent use peers for distributing files. in this thesis, i focus on p2p file sharing systems. peers in file-sharing systems form an application-level distributed overlay to manage the communication between peers. peers then use this overlay to locate files available from other peers. the effectiveness of locating files in unstructured p2p systems depended on the ease with which other peers could be reached. prior research efforts created overlays that had good network behavior. however, these prior research efforts did not fully investigate the nature of query resolution. in general, queries for objects were resolved by matching terms in the query to terms in the object annotations. the performance of file-sharing systems fundamentally depended not only on the ability to route queries to various peers, but also on whether the query itself could be resolved. we performed an extensive analysis of the annotations of the files stored in the gnutella and itunes p2p systems as well as queries that users were issuing to locate objects in gnutella. despite differences in how objects were annotated between gnutella and itunes, the overall popularity distribution of objects was similar. i observed a fundamental mismatch between the way that objects were named and the way that they were searched in gnutella; terms that were popular in the file annotations were not popular in the queries. this mismatch meant that many search queries were unlikely to find matching objects in the system. i showed that approximately 55% of the queries in gnutella had no matching files. optimizing the overlays or the search mechanisms itself was unlikely to resolve the mismatch between query terms and file annotations. these results remained consistent across my analysis of the p2p system over several years, suggesting that both the users query behavior and the way that objects were annotated had stabilized. in this thesis, i addressed the problem of unresolved queries due to query term and object annotation mismatches by transforming the original query and selectively removing terms from the original query in order to broaden its scope. the challenge was to choose query terms without analyzing user intent or performing semantic analysis of the queries and objects. i removed query terms based on observed data from a small number of peers (< 1%) before issuing the modified query against the entire p2p system. using captured queries and files shared by peers in gnutella, i showed that my approach improved the maximum success rates from about 45% to over 85% of the queries. we also performed experimental analysis of the query term selection algorithm on a live gnutella network. we showed that over 61% of the re-written queries were resolved successfully by the gnutella network. improvements in fabrication technology, guided by moore's law, has provided significant boost in clock rate and hence performance of microprocessors. over the years, large amounts of chip area have been dedicated to components that try to extract more parallelism from single instruction streams. however, as we scale the process technology to smaller feature sizes, traditional techniques of exploiting instruction level parallelism (ilp) especially using superscalar processors has yielded diminishing returns in terms of cost/performance. this thesis focuses on computer architectures, which increase the opportunities for concurrency usually not possible in systems based on complex superscalar based cores. we are specifically interested in the lwp architecture that supports light-weight multithreading capability coupled on the same die as the memory by using the processing-in-memory (pim) technology or the embedded dram technology. the primary objective of this thesis is to explore scalable synchronization mechanisms for lwp architecture. we explore the design space for efficient low overhead implementations of mutex and barrier implementations that scale as the number of threads increases. we try to achieve this with a combination of hardware and software techniques depending on the target requirements. towards this goal, we attempt to answer some of the following questions in this thesis: '¢ how best to implement current synchronization mechanisms in the lwp architecture? '¢ what sort of additional hardware or software support should be added to the lwp architecture to enhance the implementation? '¢ how does the lwp implementations compare to that on current architectures/isas? '¢ are there any new techniques that can be developed for lwp architecture? '¢ are any of these lwp based ideas applicable in conventional systems? carbon burning and oxygen burning in massive stars are important burning phases in late stellar evolution following helium burning. they determined the nucleosynthesis phases and the initial matter distribution. hydrostatic burning of 12c and 16o at lower temperatures remains an important feature. the critical reactions are the 12c+12c, 12c+16o and 16o+16o fusion processes. extensive effort, both experimentally and theoretically, has been invested in the determination of the reaction rates for all reaction channels. despite this effort, there remain large uncertainties in the predicted results that rely primarily on the extrapolation of the data into the gamow range. the predicted results depend sensitively on the adopted model parameters, hindrance effects, and the possibility of resonances at relevant energies. the astrophysical important energy range of the 12c+12c fusion reaction spans from 1.0 mev to 3.0 mev. however, its cross section has not been determined with enough precision, despite numerous studies, due to the extremely low reaction cross sections and the large experimental background. the 12c+16o is difficult for experimental measurement due to the same reason. to allow measurements of the 12c+12c and 12c+16o fusions at astrophysical energies, a large-area silicon strip detector array was developed. the total cross section of the 12c+16o fusion has been measured at low energies using the st ana 5mv accelerator at the university of notre dame. a high-intensity oxygen beam was produced impinging on a thick ultrapure graphite target. protons and γ-rays have been measured simultaneously in the center-of-mass energy range of 3.64 to 4.93 mev, using silicon and hpge detectors. statistical model calculations were employed to interpret the experimental results. this provides a more reliable extrapolation for the 12c+16o fusion cross section reducing substantially the uncertainty for stellar model simulations. ligand-targeted nanoparticles are increasingly used as drug delivery vehicles for cancer therapy, yet have not consistently produced successful clinical outcomes. although these inconsistencies may arise from differences in disease models and target receptors, nanoparticle design parameters can significantly influence therapeutic efficacy. by employing a multifaceted synthetic strategy to prepare peptide-targeted nanoparticles with high purity, reproducibility, and precisely controlled stoichiometry of functionalities, this work evaluates the roles of polyethylene glycol (peg) coating, ethylene glycol (eg) peptide-linker length, peptide hydrophilicity, peptide density, and nanoparticle size on tumor targeting in a systematic manner. these parameters were analyzed in multiple disease models by targeting human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (her2) in breast cancer and very late antigen-4 (vla-4) in multiple myeloma to demonstrate the widespread applicability of this approach. by increasing the hydrophilicity of the targeting peptide sequence and simultaneously optimizing the eg peptide-linker length, the in vitro cellular uptake of targeted liposomes was significantly enhanced. specifically, including a short oligolysine chain adjacent to the targeting peptide sequence effectively increased cellular uptake ~80-fold using an eg6 peptide-linker compared to ~10-fold using an eg45 linker. in vivo, targeted liposomes prepared in a traditional manner lacking the oligolysine chain demonstrated similar biodistribution and tumor uptake to non-targeted liposomes. however, by including the oligolysine chain, targeted liposomes using an eg45 linker significantly improved tumor uptake ~8-fold over non-targeted liposomes, while the use of an eg6 linker decreased tumor accumulation and uptake, owing to differences in cellular uptake kinetics, clearance mechanisms, and binding site barrier effects. to further improve tumor targeting and enhance the selectivity of targeted nanoparticles, a dual-receptor targeted approach was evaluated by targeting multiple cell surface receptors simultaneously. liposomes functionalized with two distinct peptide antagonists to target vla-4 and leukocyte peyer's patch adhesion molecule-1 (lpam-1) demonstrated synergistically enhanced cellular uptake by cells overexpressing both target receptors and negligible uptake by cells that do not simultaneously express both receptors, providing a strategy to improve selectivity over conventional single receptor-targeted designs. taken together, this process of systematic optimization of well-defined nanoparticle drug delivery systems has the potential to improve cancer therapy for a broader patient population. parenting self-efficacy (pse) is an important mechanism linking maternal adjustment to children's healthy development. the present study investigates (1) how pse among first-time mothers changes over children's first two years of life, (2) how these patterns of change are associated with early maternal risk factors, and (3) how trajectories of pse are related to children's cognitive development at age 2 among a racially diverse sample of 684 first-time mothers ranging in age from 15 to 35 years. results of confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the six-item measure used to assess pse did not load onto a common factor; therefore, growth models were fitted at the individual item level. in terms of change over time, analyses of item thresholds revealed that changes in pse were nonlinear, with most items showing an initial increase followed by a decline as children entered toddlerhood. analyses of maternal risk factors revealed that early childbearing (i.e., teenager at first birth) had a negative effect on prenatal efficacy in the abilities to be a good role model, provide material needs, and effectively parent. in other words, during the third trimester of pregnancy, teenagers demonstrated doubt in their parenting skills in three out of the six domains of pse. furthermore, maternal histories of abuse (i.e., verbal and physical abuse during childhood) had a negative effect on prenatal efficacy in providing material needs. in turn, prenatal perceived ability to provide material needs was the only domain of pse that significantly predicted higher children's cognitive development at age 2. results are discussed in terms of maternal risk for low pse, recommendations for pse measurement, and the implementation of intervention programming designed to facilitate the development of pse among at-risk mothers. the house of the tree of sores, which was written in english and in swedish, follows a white american male's late night activities in a phantasmal ikea department store. his english language, masculinity, sexuality, notions of whiteness and foreignness, notions of family and understanding of nationhood, is all severely disrupted as his body undergoes continuous mutation in fake living room scene after fake living room scene of what is referred to as ideal comfort. over and against models of literary reception, which privilege the coherent text and the closed body of literary form, the collection is interested in the idea of poetry in translation as something never complete. advances in structural modeling, combined with the growth in computational processing power, have motivated the use of more accurate but, at the same time, more computationally intensive finite element models (fems) for seismic performance assessment. though, these models can accurately describe hysteretic structural behavior even for strong levels of earthquake shaking, their use for seismic risk assessment imposes, still, a substantial challenge, since uncertainty propagation in this setting, typically performed using monte carlo (mc) approaches, entails a large number of nonlinear response history analyses (nlrhas). to alleviate this challenge, this dissertation develops methodologies that can leverage lower fidelity models to accommodate higher computational efficiency while still maintaining the accuracy of an original high-fidelity fem for a structure. the foundation of all developments considered is a new reduced order model (rom) framework for hysteretic moment-resisting frame structures. the rom is calibrated by explicitly comparing its nonlinear time-history response to the nonlinear fem response, under different earthquake excitations. two different calibration approaches are proposed: i) a deterministic, nonlinear least-squares optimization and ii) a bayesian model updating implementation. an extension of the rom framework to describe the behavior of structures with seismic protective devices (spds) is also examined. it is shown that the rom calibration does not need to be updated to accurately assess the effect of the spd addition. while the rom can offer a substantial speedup, the corresponding predictions might be biased when compared against the ones established using the higher-fidelity fem. a multi-fidelity monte carlo (mfmc) framework for seismic risk assessment is also proposed to guarantee unbiased predictions. this approach utilizes evaluations from both the high-fidelity nonlinear fem and the rom, to established unbiased risk estimates, and balances the number of evaluations between the two models to accommodate the highest computational efficiency (smallest mc variability) within the uncertainty propagation. these methodological advancements supported additional advances across two different earthquake engineering practical applications: a) design of seismic protective devices (spds), focusing on the impact of the fidelity of the structural response estimation on the device effectiveness; b) accuracy of seismic performance assessment within a performance-based earthquake engineering (pbee) setting, examining the potential vulnerabilities of alternative approaches to achieve computational efficiency by approximating either the uncertainty propagation or the fidelity of the structural response estimation the limited capability of the traditional nuclear shell model in dealing with calculations for nuclei with large numbers of valence nucleons or with phenomena requiring multiple shells for their description motivated ongoing research on establishing an economical model space, one which still could reveal nuclear structural properties but in a lower dimensional space compared to the traditional shell model. towards this goal, the generalized seniority shell model (gssm) and the symplectic no-core shell model (sp-ncsm) were developed. the gssm is based on the bcs description of nucleon pairing. it is most effective for spherical and semimagic shell-configured nuclei. the sp-ncsm is established on the su(3) many-body basis motivated by the su(3) symmetry structure of the harmonic oscillator many-nucleon basis states, embedded further with a higher sp(3,r) symmetry, as an extension of su(3) symmetry to multiple harmonic oscillator shells. we set up a recursive method to compute matrix elements in the gssm basis. this method is implemented and carried out in a computer program we developed for nuclear calculations under the generalized seniority scheme. the gssm was not previously well benchmarked, and we have used our method and code to test this model by comparing the calculated nuclear properties in the gssm model space with calculations in the full shell model space. such comparison is made under the same nucleon-nucleon interaction for both spaces. meanwhile, the sp-ncsm offers a different approach to modeling light nuclei without the need to assume the presence of an inert core. numerical evidence shows an important role of the symplectic sp(3,r) symmetry in the ab initio no-core shell model results for light nuclei. therefore, the construction of sp(3,r) states from su(3) states is necessary, as a prerequisite and crucial step of understanding the symplectic symmetry for those nuclei. we contribute to the sp-ncsm by providing the numerical calculation that decomposes the basis states of sp(3,r) irreducible representations (irreps) in terms of the su(3) nuclear basis. none jacques lef&#232;vre d'etaples (c.1450-1536) renovated the medieval quadrivium in renaissance paris circa 1490-1520. using lef&#232;vre and his circle, this dissertation portrays new print and traditional university culture at the origin of mathematics' rise to philosophical and cultural prominence. joining the histories of the book and mathematical practice, it contributes to the history of manuscript and print, and the history of mathematics in early modern science. part one of this dissertation presents lef&#232;vre's textbooks on arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy within the first comprehensive effort to reinvent textbooks for university education using the printing press. lef&#232;vre meant his textbooks to correct the scholastic accretions of traditional university culture ? to simplify student access to the ancient authorities. lef&#232;vre first circulated them in manuscript among students, who then experimented with them in print. i argue that collective, experimental authorship, visible in paratexts, especially opened these mathematical works to unintended interpretations. part two examines lef&#232;vre's goals for mathematics. he thought mathematics a paradigm for analogies that applied across disciplinary boundaries; reasoning from physical to theological realities permeated his contemplative account of mathematics. from the student notes of his pupil beatus rhenanus, i show these ideals in action in lef&#232;vre's classroom, where mathematics inaugurated the arts cursus (instead of being last, as was traditional). beatus' notes reveal contemplative concerns, but also a turn to practical, operational mathematics. part three argues that lef&#232;vre's textbooks encouraged unintentional consequences. in particular his appreciation of analogy helped to cross disciplinary boundaries despite his commitment to traditional authorities and disciplines. in music, lef&#232;vre broke traditional rules of arithmetic to incorporate musical practice. in astronomy, lef&#232;vre offered ptolemy's techniques for mapping, effectively transforming medieval astronomy into the early practical genre of cosmography. thus lef&#232;vre's analogies and print practices produced a fertile instability, as i show with lef&#232;vre's student bovelles, author of the first printed french practical geometry. he encouraged a new public interested in mathematics to uncover the secrets of nature and industry. this dissertation thus addresses the reconfiguration of the disciplines in the scientific revolution, manuscript and print, and new interest among the learned in artisanal crafts. the main questions pursued in the present dissertation are, first, what happiness is for aristotle, next, how this happiness is achieved, and, last, if this happiness is possible even under imperfect but common circumstances. these questions arise from the very last chapter of his nicomachean ethics, where he focuses on ethical virtue and political action in discussing how to become happy. why does he stress practical pursuit, having declared contemplation to be perfect happiness? presumably, could it be because happiness, whether it be theoretical or ethical, involves practical pursuit and because practical virtue somehow enables the achievement of happiness? indeed, for aristotle happiness is a composite good that includes ethical virtue and political pursuit. further, it is not simply the sum of different goods but some organized whole of them, viz., the state of completion; being happy means being complete in every way, i.e., with respect to one's state, capacity, and resources. given that happiness is the state of completion, we may think of two other points about happiness: one is that there should be some capacity to coordinate different goods in happiness and organize them into a structured whole, which will be shown to be the role of practical virtue; the other point is that happiness would be something that develops over time and in stages, which accords with aristotle's idea that one should be educated in order to be happy. the fact that happiness requires education implies that we cannot become happy without the help and guidance of those who are more mature than we are. moreover, those who educate others in virtue, in so doing, would also produce their own happiness. thus, having others in our life, i.e., living in communities is essential to our happiness—we need both those who educate us to be good and those whom we may teach to be good. and happiness as aristotle conceives it should be possible even in less than the best community, for a political allows some room for its members to pursue what they deem to be worthwhile. the present paper examined multiple ways to measure change in maternal knowledge over the transition to adolescence. in addition, we considered the relative contributions of maternal warmth, maternal behavior control, adolescent behavioral competence, and adolescent delinquency to the prediction of knowledge over time. a number of demographic predictors were also examined. change was assessed using correlations, structural equation modeling, t-tests, hierarchical linear modeling, and growth mixture modeling. growth mixture modeling was also used to examine the possibility of population heterogeneity. five years of self-report data were collected from 159 mothers and their adolescents, beginning when the adolescents were in fourth grade. all study variables were assessed at all five time points. the results indicated that there was a high degree of rank-order stability in knowledge but that there was mean change over time. growth mixture modeling analyses indicated that the data followed a quadratic trend, with three classes of individuals for both mother and adolescent reports. for both mother and adolescent reports we found one large, normative class with moderate declines in knowledge over time, and two smaller classes which exhibited different patterns of change. maternal warmth, but not behavior control, was a consistent predictor of the knowledge trajectory. adolescent behavioral competence and adolescent delinquency both consistently predicted knowledge over time. none of the demographic predictors were significant predictors of change in knowledge. to summarize, the present study identified multiple patterns of change in maternal knowledge, indicating that our sample had underlying population heterogeneity. in addition, we were able to compare the relative contributions of a number of predictors of change in knowledge over time. this project considers the ways in which the anglo-saxons used writing (in both its documentary and discursive sense) to establish legitimate and enduring possession of property and in doing so formed longstanding cultural ideas that connected writing and holding land. anglo-saxon legal texts designed to control the ownership, use, and transmission of property produced a pervasive discourse for land possession with its own terminology and concepts. composed in latin and old english, these texts stipulated specific terms and limits of possession, but more powerfully, they also defined land by establishing its history and charting its boundaries. land tenure practices were originally an instrument of ecclesiastical institutions, and tenurial texts, originally written in latin, were heavily inflected with religious language. from at least the late sixth century, for example, land holding in anglo-saxon england was framed in a rhetoric of salvation and oppositions between the eternal and transitory. the terminology of land tenure was translated into the vernacular, yielding such terms as bocland and lì_nland, which further facilitated the adoption of tenurial language for considering issues of transience, salvation, political power, and sacred history. tenurial discourse moved beyond legal texts to inform widely varied textual genres in the vernacular, including homilies, historical writing, biblical narrative poetry, and the lives of native saints. the project examines a range of texts, including latin diplomas, vernacular leases and dispute narratives, the tenth-century annals of the anglo-saxon chronicle, guthlac a, and genesis a, considering them within a matrix of contemporary texts and events in order to examine questions of historical reception. in their engagement with issues of landholding and inheritance, these texts variously enact a tension endemic in the language and practices of land tenure: an assertion of the instrumentality of writing in securing legitimate and longstanding possession, shadowed by an insistent anxiety over the stability of those claims. in using writing as a means to contain dispute over time, the anglo-saxons repeatedly inscribed the troubling evidence of past dispute and anticipated loss into their thinking about land. the thesis presents the theory, implementation and experimental validation of a fast approximation multicommodity flow algorithm and, as an important application of this multicommodity flow algorithm, the first provably good approximation algorithm for the minimum normalized cut problem. the normalized cut problem has been applied to segment static images. our experimental results of the implementation of both algorithms show that the output quality of our approach compares favorably against some previous approximation multicommodity flow implementation and the eigenvalue/eigenvector based normalized cut implementation. we also show the comparisons on the execution times and analyze the underlying reasons. cancer imaging is useful for multiple clinical and research purposes such as diagnostics, surgery guidance, monitoring disease progression, and metastasis detection. in particular, fluorescence imaging has the advantage of being relatively non-toxic and inexpensive compared to other imaging modalities, and thus, there is a need to create new classes of cancer-targeted fluorescent probes. this thesis describes cancer imaging studies using novel molecular probes based on two near-infrared dyes called squaraine dyes and heptamethine cyanine dyes.the first half of chapter 1 provides a broad introduction to the different strategies that are used to fabricate molecular probes. over the last decade, covalent click chemistry has emerged as a powerful synthetic method for connecting two molecules together to make a larger conjugate for molecular imaging. also discussed is the new concept of non-covalent click chemistry as an effective way to conjugate molecules rapidly and under mild conditions. the second half of chapter 1 provides a broad introduction to the concept of targeted cancer imaging using targeted molecular probes. the focus is on aminopeptidase n as a molecular protein target that is overexpressed on the surface of cancer cells and tumor vasculature. many different imaging modalities have been investigated in recent years and the work is presented as a classic example of systematic progress in modern molecular imaging. the second chapter describes an imaging study using a new squaraine fluorescent probe with a covalently attached cyclized peptide sequence arg-gly-asp-d-phe-lys (crgdfk). the crgdfk peptide targets integrin receptors overexpressed on the surface of cancer cells and tumor vasculature. the probe was utilized to fluorescently image a clinically relevant mouse tumor model of ovarian cancer. in the second half of the chapter, the crgdfk peptide was incorporated onto a tetralactam macrocycle which subsequently threaded a squaraine dye. the pre-assembled probe was used to successfully target implanted tumors comprised of non-small cell lung cancer cells. the third chapter summarizes a study using a new non-covalent crgdfk probe with a different tetralactam macrocycle and squaraine dye. this probe permitted successful targeting of a cancerous tumor in a mouse model and enabled a mock surgery that removed the tumor. however, the tumor-to-background ratio varied significantly between mice due to tumor-to-tumor variability of the vasculature structure and interstitial pressure. thus, a new paired agent imaging technique was developed where squaraine dyes with two different emission wavelengths were encapsulated within either a crgdfk macrocycle or an untargeted macrocycle. the non-covalent probes were simultaneously injected into tumor-bearing mice and imaging showed enhanced tumor accumulation of the targeted probe with less tumor-to-tumor variability. the fourth chapter describes a new probe molecule whose structure is based on a figure-eight scaffold. the scaffold permits easy synthetic incorporation of peptide loops as rigid recognition motifs for selective, high affinity biological targeting. the squaraine figure-eight probes displayed excellent imaging capabilities for in-vitro cancer imaging, histological bone staining, and in-vivo bone imaging. the last chapter focuses on a new class of non-aggregating heptamethine cyanine dyes which have short ethylene glycol chains that serve as protecting "arms" that shields the hydrophobic core. these dyes were used for antibody bioconjugation and in-vivo cancer imaging. they displayed ideal in-vivo imaging characteristics such as low serum binding, low cell toxicity, good water solubility, and safe and complete in-vivo clearance. motivated by the increasing demand for higher data rate, broader coverage, and lower infrastructure cost in wireless systems, a major effort is being made to study the use of relay stations in wireless networks. in this dissertation, we propose efficient relaying protocols for two types of wireless networks, ie, networks with one destination, one relay and multiple sources, and networks with one destination, one source and multiple relays. we model the former as a multi-access relay channel (marc) and refer the latter as a multihop network. for a marc, we propose the multi-access relay amplify-forward (maf) protocol. the proposed protocol allows for a low-complexity relay, allows the users to operate as if in a normal (non-cooperative) multi-access channel (mac), and allows multiple users to achieve significant gains from sharing a single amplify-forward relay in slow fading environments. maf achieves the optimal diversity-multiplexing trade-off at high multiplexing gains. analysis of the protocol reveals that it outperforms the compress-forward strategy at low multiplexing gains and further outperforms the dynamic decode-forward protocol at high multiplexing gains. we also propose different routing protocols for wireless multi-hop networks. an information theoretic analysis suggests that there is an optimum number of hops in maximizing the end-to-end spectral efficiency for a multihop network with awgn channels. motivated by this observation, this dissertation takes the trade-off between power and bandwidth efficiency into account and proposes two routing schemes, namely, approximately-ideal-path routing (aipr) and distributed spectrum-efficient routing (dser). aipr finds a path to approximate an optimum regular path and requires location information. dser is more amenable to distributed implementations based on bellman-ford or dijkstra's algorithms. we show by simulations that the spectral efficiencies of aipr and dser for random networks approach that of nearest-neighbor routing in the low signal-to-noise ratio (snr) regime and that of single-hop routing in the high snr regime. in the moderate snr regime, dser offers significant gains compared with nearest-neighbor or single-hop routing. we further demonstrate the trade-off between the number of hops and spectral efficiency in a broadband multipath fading system by considering resource allocation in an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (ofdm) multihop network. we formulate a power and subcarrier allocation problem for a network with one destination and multiple sources and relays and discuss the properties of the optimum solution for a convex relaxation of the problem. we then focus on low-complexity, efficient algorithms for a multihop network with one destination, one source and multiple relays. we develop an algorithm that is optimum at high snr for a two-hop network. for a general multihop network, we propose a greedy approach to subcarrier allocation. we show by simulations that judicious allocation of power and subcarriers offers significant gains compared to a fixed assignment of subcarriers in a multi-hop network. furthermore, our results demonstrate that, even for a broadband system with frequency selective fading, there exits an optimum number of hops that maximizes the end-to-end spectral efficiency. the research presented here introduces a new type of liquid mass damper, called tuned liquid damper with floating roof (tld-fr) which combines the favorable characteristics of traditional tuned liquid dampers (tld) and liquid column dampers, and further examines its efficiency for seismic applications for chile. the tld-fr consists of a traditional tld (liquid tank filled with liquid) with the addition of a floating roof. the sloshing of the liquid within the tank is what still provides the inertia damper effect, but the roof prevents wave breaking phenomena and introduces a practically linear response and a dynamic behavior in a dominant only mode. this creates a vibratory behavior that resembles other types of a linear mass dampers and a framework is developed to characterize this behavior with a simple parametric description that can facilitate an easy comparison to such dampers. within this framework, focus is given on a theoretical/computational characterization of the new device, coupled with an experimental validation of its capabilities and of the established numerical tools. the aforementioned parametric formulation is then used to develop an approach that facilitates a direct design in the parametric space, as well as an efficient mapping back to the different tank geometries that correspond to each parametric configuration. during this process the efficiency of mass dampers for seismic applications in chile is also examined by comparing the performance across different types of ground motions, representing different regions around the world. finally, a versatile life-cycle assessment and design of the new device is established considering risk characterizations appropriate for the chilean region, so that the cost-benefits from its adoption can be directly investigated. this involves the development of a multi-criteria design approach that considers the performance over the two desired goals: (i) reduction of the total life-cycle cost considering the upfront damper cost as well as seismic losses and (ii) reduction of the consequences, expressed through the repair cost, for low likelihood but high impact events. through this approach the financial viability of the tld-fr (competitiveness against tmds) for enhancing seismic performance is demonstrated. recent political events have drawn greater attention, among scholars and among other political observers, to the possibility of turmoil and change in the party system. yet, despite a remarkable depth of scholarship on american political parties, remarkably little is known about how parties in the united states emerge. existing approaches to political science have offered reviews or sketches of party formation but have not treated it as a distinct research topic. this dissertation argues that successful party formation is caused by `strategic cadre-building,' a strategic orientation toward building a broad coalition of elites able to leverage their own resources toward victory for the broader party. existing models of political parties depend on variables of party system crisis and appropriate ideology to conceive of the emergence of a new party. i show that these variables are not easily specified and do not appear to distinguish between new party success and failure. rather, parties with similar ideologies succeed and fail within the same or very similar crises. instead, successful instances of new party emergence are characterized by elites making the strategic choices that bring other elites into the party and thereby favor success. however, to do so, they build a party in which competition, for seats and for policies, exists. as a result, new party success often has a surprisingly limited impact on the political order. this project conducts a series of paired case studies comparing cases in which a new party successfully formed to similar cases in which a new party failed. in this way the democratic party is compared to the jacksonians, the whig party to the national republican party, and the republican party is compared to the free soil party. in each case, extensive qualitative historical analysis combines detailed evaluation of secondary sources with new review of the primary sources. in each case, the evidence strongly favors cadre-building as the determinative variable in new party formation. malaria mortality has decreased substantially since 2000, largely due to the success of artemisinin combination therapies (acts). however, these gains are threatened by the emergence of artemisinin resistance in southeast asia. if artemisinin resistance spreads from southeast asia to africa, as has happened for other drugs, malaria deaths due to plasmodium falciparum would increase dramatically. there is an urgent need to develop new classes of effective antimalarial drugs and to extend the effectiveness of acts. historically, acts contain partner drugs with a long metabolic half-life to counteract the rapid metabolism of artemisinin. ideally, partner drugs in combination therapies should act synergistically, targeting different pathways. this requires knowledge of drug mechanism of action (moa) and mechanism of resistance (mor), which may not be related to moa. unfortunately, moa and mor are difficult to determine for large numbers of drugs using standard methods. understanding moa and mor for artemisinin and candidate drugs will enhance our ability to rationally identify optimal act partner drugs to overcome existing resistance and to buy time to allow new drugs to progress through the drug development pipeline.transcription profiling and chemogenomic profiling are ideal for quickly evaluating moa of many compounds. chemogenomic profiling is a powerful tool for determining drug moa by comparing profiles of susceptibilities to a panel of drugs in a collection of mutant lines representing a wide range of disrupted genes. in our studies, artemisinin functional activity was linked to signal transduction and cell cycle regulation pathways. transcription profiling of plasmodium parasites perturbed briefly with sub-lethal concentrations of drug can be used to generate a drug pathway fingerprint to infer moa. transcriptional signatures of artemisinin resistance can be used to predict novel partner drugs for acts to treat artemisinin resistant infections.artemisinin mor is not fully understood. pathway-based networks analysis of genomic variation data and gene expression data from published studies of artemisinin resistance can provide a more complete understanding of the mechanism underlying artemisinin resistance. understanding moa for drug candidates, along with a thorough understanding of artemisinin mor would enhance efforts to design new combination therapies that can circumvent artemisinin resistance. additive manufacturing (am) has been widely applied to many material classes and economic sectors. am is of special interest to the medical device industry because of the need for complex geometries, the economics associated with tool elimination, and the ability to democratize production. unfortunately, am materials currently are lacking with respect to wear resistance.in orthopedics applications, ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (uhmwpe) has emerged as the preferred bearing material. typically, uhmwpe is produced through compression molding or sintering, followed by machining to final tolerances. producing uhmwpe components with am would represent a major accomplishment that has been elusive to date. the main problem is the very high viscosity of uhmwpe upon melting, which limits reflow that can take place in a powder bed process.this thesis demonstrated in-situ pressurization in am of uhmwpe for the first time, leading to increases in strength and wear resistance even under moderate applied pressures. a novel additive manufacturing machine was fabricated, complete with conventional selective laser sintering controls and a pneumatic mechanism for applying pressure through a glass plate onto the powder in the build chamber. by using glass, the powder is sintered while pressurized. the apparatus produced in this research used a fiber laser and commercial toner (clearweld®) added to the uhmwpe powder to produce am components. a design of experiments approach demonstrated that improvements in strength and density could be achieved. even more impressive were the gains in wear resistance, evaluated by using an amti orthopod. the research demonstrated the scientific hypothesis that selective laser sintering combined with in-situ pressurization is a viable approach for producing high-performance polymers like uhmwpe. the pressures applied were only 0.015 mpa, due to limitations in the pneumatic design and compressed air available. much higher pressures could easily be designed into the system using hydraulic or mechanical compression means. mathematical models suggest the higher pressure will have an even greater effect on material properties. wind induced effects on structures governed by the navier-stokes equations are not adequately represented by the conventional linear analysis framework. this shortcoming is becoming important for contemporary structures, as their increasing span-lengths and heights make them more sensitive to nonlinear and unsteady aerodynamic/aeroelastic load effects. to address this challenge this study focuses on responding to following key questions: (1) what are the typical nonlinear behaviors observed from wind tunnel studies and full-scale observations and their underlying physics? (2) what are the effects of nonlinearity and unsteadiness on bluff-body aerodynamics? (3) what is the ability of existing nonlinear models to capture nonlinear and unsteady effects? (4) is it possible to go beyond the current nonlinear models, and establish more effective nonlinear unsteady low-dimensional modeling techniques? in this context, the higher-order spectral approach is utilized to identify nonlinearity in bluff-body aerodynamics observed in wind-tunnel experiments. physical sources of aerodynamic nonlinearities are investigated by analyzing the aerodynamic forces on a suite of cross-sections obtained through computational fluid dynamics (cfd). the effects of nonlinearity and unsteadiness on bluff-body aerodynamics are evaluated by comparing aerodynamic responses derived from different analytical models. current models set in the conventional analysis framework are reviewed to understand their ability in simulating nonlinear unsteady aerodynamics; also, an improved model within the same framework is proposed. several advanced low-dimensional modeling techniques, characterized by different levels of analysis of nonlinearity and unsteadiness, are then proposed. these include an approach based on artificial neural networks, a nonlinear moving average model (within the framework of volterra theory), and a volterra series-based model in which the kernels are identified using impulse functions. the fidelity with which the proposed approaches are able to simulate nonlinear bluff-body aerodynamics and aeroelasticity is verified through wind-tunnel or cfd-based data. this study allowed to better understand the nonlinear and unsteady features of bluff-body aerodynamics and aeroelasticity and to establish an effective analysis framework which, although mainly developed in the context of cable-supported bridges, has also immediate applications to stay cables, super-tall buildings, airfoils in the transonic region or with high angle of attack, and wind turbines near dynamic stall conditions. in 1898, the vatican issued a censure to john zahm, a north american priest and scientist, for publishing the book evolution and dogma. while zahm's political connections ensured the censure was not published, he never again wrote on the matter of evolution and theology. this thesis argues that zahm's censure was partly predicated upon his theological and philosophical conceptions of science, especially as these stood contrary to the neo-scholastic philosophies of science held closely by the senior vatican officials who issued the censure. in arguing so, the dissertation intends to exemplify the value of investigating the philosophical approach to science in historical theological discussions. this thesis represents a design solution for what is commonly known as a company town, a community built around a single industry or company, and to develop urban planning and architectural solutions that could realistically be implemented to improve the lives and conditions of people in developing countries. in order to accomplish this goal i have prepared the following chapters to explain both the current problems and potential solutions involving haiti, company towns, urban planning, and architecture. college well-being is often approached topic-by-topic. as a follow-up to a series of specific design investigations (on subjects including drinking culture and sleep habits), this thesis takes a broader, systemic approach to well-being in the college context. an in-depth design research process, including interviews and observations conducted on-site at seven different institutions, offers deep insights into the perspectives, experiences, and considerations of various university stakeholders.the combination of the weft framework and satellite team implementation model is a disruptive approach to college well-being. the framework, which includes accepting change, identity development, community building, and reflection, is meant to be simple to remember, easy to understand, and relevant. the satellite team model proposes a new approach for health promotion professionals to act as subject matter experts, collaborating with stakeholders to develop meaningful, personalized, and lasting interventions. i examine how white nationalist organizations in the u.s. south distributed their attention across grievances and other organizations in their field between 1980 and 2008. i ask two main research questions. first, why do organizations focus their attention on one set of grievances at the expense of others? i refer to this as grievance-based attention-focusing. second, why are some organizations more likely to be taken as a point of reference by other organizations in their field? i refer to this as peer attention-getting. i use a combination of archival data, natural language processing, network analysis, and statistical modeling to address these questions. in the case of grievance-based attention-focusing, i put forth a theory outlining the conditions under a white nationalist organization is more likely to shift attention to immigration-related issues. i find that these organizations were more likely to shift attention to immigration when there was a high number of domestic non-right-wing terror events relative to the size of the organization's non-hispanic/latino community size, but only when the organization was disposed toward a cognitive style emphasizing the perception of threats and opportunities for action as proximate. in the case of peer attention-getting, i posit that any given organization has a higher capacity for garnering internal peer attention when they also have leaders that are high status enough to warrant external countermovement attention—but that the peer attention-getting capacity for these groups is positively moderated to the extent that the organization presents itself discursively with fearful language. i find support for this theory, and also find that attention-rich organizations are most inclined to divvy out attention to their peers that communicate with fearful language because of their own proclivity for using fear as an attention-getting mechanism. i conclude with implications for culture and cognition studies, computational social science, and broader discussions of organized racism in the contemporary united states. this thesis offers a new interpretation of the thesmophoriazusae which further explores the transvestment of characters within this comedy. i will argue that the repeated use of sex and senses language creates a reciprocal relationship of stabilization and deconstruction that allows for a more sophisticated reading of the transvestment. in chapter one, i analyze the sex and senses language inside the prologue and how they connect to a metatheatrical reading of the play.[1] in chapter two, i focus on how this interpretation sheds new light on the assembly scene. the connection between the sex and senses which is established by chapter one creates subtle expectations for the audience, which aristophanes is able to challenge in the assembly scene, so that gender identity is always unstable, always unsure.throughout this thesis, i combine feminist criticism mostly inspired by foley with revermann's performance theory and with the recently developed interest in multisensorial aspects of ancient greek and roman literature.[2] building off the work of structural and cultural anthropologists, some have seen aristophanic plays through the equation "female is to male as nature is to culture,"[3] which implies that they are distinct categories with no overlap. foley claims, conversely, that this equation does not show an appropriate relationship with greek culture and cannot fully represent reality. she claims that the dynamic is between oikos and polis, female and male, nature and culture, and that this is a reciprocal relationship, that functions both individually and collectively.[4] by showing how these dichotomies work together, foley provides the framework for understanding the connection between the senses and the sexes, which will be a key point of my analysis of the thesmophoriazusae. performance studies is also required to understand the relationship between the senses and the sexes. revermann asserts that the way to understand the absurdism of the comedy is to look at how it is "created, engineered, and managed" to understand its meaning within its own context.[5] by applying revermann's performance theory to the use of senses, i will analyze how aristophanes repeatedly links the prologue both to the development of the plot and the characters' interaction with the audience. [1] metatheatrical as defined by metadrama (metatheatre) in the oxford dictionary of literary terms (3 ed.): "drama about drama, or any moment of self‐consciousness by which a play draws attention to its own fictional status as a theatrical pretense". [2] for an influential study which contributed to the development of this approach, see butler and purves 2013, and all the other volumes of the senses in antiquity series. [3] taaffe, 1993, 24. [4] foley, 1982, 5. [5] revermann, 2006, 5. this dissertation focuses on the development of a 2d planar surface enhanced raman spectroscopy (sers) substrate and demonstrates its utility through in situ detection and the monitoring of the dynamics of macromolecular particles via correlation spectroscopy. a highly-enhancing sers substrate was fabricated via thermal evaporation of noble metals into a nano-porous aluminum oxide (aao) template. characterization of the substrate was carried out by imaging the surface using scanning electron microscopy (sem), measuring the sers signal from a self-assembled monolayer of thiophenol, mapping the thiophenol sers signal, and mapping the dark-field scattering from the substrate. the data indicate that the substrate shows an extraordinary enhancement factor (108) and uniform sers response (rsd ~10%) due to its high density of enhancing sites. the substrate was incorporated into a commercial flow cell to facilitate the labelfree, in situ detection of single macromolecular particles including lipid vesicles (dppc) and polystyrene (ps) beads. the substrate facilitates detection by providing enhancement of signal from particles in solution approaching the surface. the duration of the observed signal demonstrates the capability of monitoring the diffusion of macromolecular species in solution on the millisecond time scale. finally, the sers substrate was utilized to demonstrate surface enhanced raman correlation spectroscopy (sercs) for assemblies interacting with the substrate. autoand cross-correlation of the time dependent sers signal allows for the monitoring of diffusion dynamics for particles ranging in radius from 50 to 500nm while simultaneously rejecting extraneous signal fluctuations. when the extension of the sers field away from the surface is approximated to be 5nm, the diffusion constants measured are on the order of 10-10-10-11 cm2/s, a factor of 40 slower than stokeseinstein predictions. the slow diffusion constants suggest that particles are interacting with the substrate and experiencing hindered diffusion near the surface. semiconductor quantum dots have potential to be an alternative to the high cost and process-intensive materials that are currently used in photovoltaic devices. colloidal quantum dots are simple to process via solution-based chemistry and have highly tunable absorption properties that make them ideal for use in photovoltaic devices. however, due to their small size and large surface area to volume ratio, quantum dots are highly sensitive to their chemical environment. thus it is necessary to understand the reactive nature of the quantum dot surface and determine both ways to circumvent this sensitivity as well as ways to use it to our advantage. more specifically, it is important to demonstrate ways in which surface-adsorbed species influence the excited state behavior of these qds. this document first describes the sensitivity of the quantum dot surface to adsorbed oxygen. in a long-term storage study, it was demonstrated that the most oxidative environment was under the exposure of light in the presence of atmospheric oxygen. this was shown to oxidize the nanoparticle surface, a process which was heavily dependent on the relative coverage of the quantum dot surface by organic surfactant molecules. the importance of these molecules in dictating the excited state properties of quantum dots prompted the study of bi-functional organic linker molecules, which are typically employed to anchor quantum dots to tio2. specifically, these studies show that the chemical nature of the linking molecule heavily affects the rate constant of electron transfer between cdse and tio2. linker molecules were assessed on their functional groups, lengths and lower unoccupied molecular orbitals (lumos) to determine ideal conditions for electron transfer reactions. these results were modeled using rectangular and trapezoidal tunnel barriers that approximate the barrier created by each molecule and determine the effects of barrier shape on the rate constant of electron transfer reaction. lastly, the reaction of the cdse surface with s2species was studied to better understand the mechanism for hole transfer in quantum dot solar cells. from these studies it was determined that s2in solution binds to the quantum dot surface and stabilizes the charges as they separate in the quantum dots. as the holes are stabilized on the quantum dot surface there is a greater probability of electron injection into tio2. the studies described in this dissertation highlight the sensitivity of the quantum dot surface to storage environment while elucidating information about electron and hole transfer processes that are imperative to the function of quantum dot solar cells. the focus of the present research was the evolution of the wake downstream of a ten bladed propeller. previous experimental efforts have examined the wake at a single downstream location with upstream turbulence. the present experiments focused on the development of the wake by traversing an x-wire probe across the radius of the propeller at six axial locations. the data were acquired at two advance ratios, and two inflow turbulence levels. the blade position was monitored so that relevant statistics could be calculated in the rotating reference frame. plots of the mean and rms velocities for each of the three directional components at all downstream locations have been created for comparison with computational results. two different methods were used to separate the blade wakes from turbulent fluctuations. a wake half width was calculated from the mean streamwise velocity component and the karhunen-lo$grave{e}$ve decomposition was used to separate blade wakes and turbulent velocity fluctuations with promising results. the current investigation will provide data and confirmation of experimental techniques and theoretical predictions to be implemented on full size surface ships and submarines. this dissertation endeavors to read the colossian hymn (col 1:15-20) in light of its cultural and epistolary contexts. i will argue that col 1:15-20 is a citation of a pre-existing prose-hymn which represents a fusion of jewish and greco-roman conventions for praising an exalted figure. while christ is not explicitly praised as god, the qualities and actions ascribed to him as agent of god resonate with some of the qualities and actions ascribed to the divine in the jewish and greco-roman hymns of the ancient world, thus moving this passage beyond the realm of praise of honored humans and justifying the appellation hymn. a review of hymns in the literature of second temple judaism will demonstrate that the colossian hymn owes a number of features to jewish modes of praise, including the clear movement from the work of god in creation to the work of god in redemption, key terminology in the hymn which derives from hellenistic expressions of judaism, as well as the prominent use of parallelism. a review of hymns in the broader greco-roman world will demonstrate that the colossian hymn is equally indebted to conventions used for praising the divine in the greco-roman tradition, including the arrangement and order of the topics of praise, the style of the passage including prose rhythm, and the introduction of philosophical concepts into the hymn. in light of the hymnic traditions of antiquity, the analysis of the form and content of the colossian hymn will show that the passage fits well into a greco-roman context, and is best understood as a quasi-philosophical prose-hymn cited in the context of a popular philosophical/paraenetic letter. the final chapter of this dissertation demonstrates that in its epistolary context the colossian hymn serves a number of significant rhetorical functions. these include: 1) development of the character of the writer, 2) establishment of a prior tradition that could be drawn on for didactic purposes, 3) affirmation of values already embraced by the colossians, and 4) the laying of a foundation for acting on those values. the conformation of a small molecule is crucial to its biological activity, as ideal binding requires both ligand and protein to spatially complement one another. this is particularly important when considering compounds such as the polyketide class of bioactive natural products, in which evolution has included a wide variety of structural features designed to limit local conformational preferences. as such, these molecules, particularly the macrocyclic varieties, will adopt preferred low-energy conformations. we believe that understanding these preferences for a given polyketide is a necessary precursor to analogue design, as any modifications to the structure should be mindful of how conformation will be affected. as such, our research uses techniques based around high-field nmr and molecular modeling experiments to analyze polyketide conformational preferences.neopeltolide is a 14-membered marine polyketide natural product that has demonstrated considerable antifungal and anticancer potential. our conformational analysis of its macrolide found that it adopts a single conformation in solution, which minimizes syn-pentane interactions between substituents at the c9, c11, and c13 positions. further analyses found that c2 substitution should not affect this conformation, and a methyl group was attached synthetically to probe any potential biological effects. additionally, a preliminary analysis was made of neopeltolide's purported biological target, cytochrome bc1, for potential binding sites, which found a potentially new allosteric region that fits neopeltolide better than either of the known sites of inhibition.zampanolide and dactylolide are related 20-membered marine polyketides that exhibit considerable cytotoxicity against multiple human cancer cell lines and act as a microtubule stabilizing agents. our research used material from a synthesis of dactylolide to elucidate its solution structure and conformational preferences. this work found that the shared macrolide interconverts between three major families in dmso-d6, one of which bears considerable resemblance to the bound conformation of zampanolide. we used this work to design a simplified analogue that omits the c17 methyl and c13 exocyclic alkene, which possessed a considerably shortened synthetic route in comparison with the parent compound.finally, the misidentification of the bioactive conformation of the polyketide epothilone prompted us to investigate whether the notable structural elements that influence polyketide conformation could be affected by a solid state environment. this research involved searching the cambridge structural database for a variety of features, including syn-pentane interactions, the gauche effect, allylic strain and others. our results found that high-energy features relying on steric effects will be unaffected by crystal packing forces, while features reliant upon lower-energy stereoelectronic effects or hydrogen bonds were far more likely to be influenced. turbo codes are powerful error-correcting codes that are already part of several wireless technologies. advanced low complexity turbo coding solutions are necessary for next generation systems that will have peak data rates in excess of 100 mbps. in a high throughput turbo decoder, a significant hardware problem arises due to the interleaver present in the turbo code. this dissertation analyzes contention-free interleavers that avoid this problem by incorporating the hardware constraints into the interleaver description. it is shown that the fraction of interleavers that are contention-free is small. in spite of this seemingly tight constraint, contention-free inter-window shuffle (iws) interleavers are designed for the eight-state encoder of the 3gpp turbo code, with performance identical to that of the 3gpp interleavers. since iws interleavers have a very low complexity implementation, several block sizes are supportable without incurring a storage penalty. a multiple turbo code (mtc) that consists of a parallel concatenation of four two-state component encoders is also investigated. due to the reduced number of states, the mtc supports larger block sizes than the eight-state 3gpp turbo code with the same decoder hardware. first, using exit chart analysis, puncturing patterns for code rates ranging from 1/4 to 3/4 are found. next, iws interleavers to facilitate high throughput decoding are designed based on a summary distance approach. simulation results indicate that the mtc has a better error floor performance than the 3gpp turbo code. a fixed point model for the decoder is obtained using simulation and analytical methods. a technique to resolve a hardware re-use problem in the decoders is proposed, which leads to a further reduction in complexity. using computational complexity comparisons, it is shown that the mtc can support four times the block length supported by the 3gpp turbo code. a fair comparison framework is adopted to compare the two codes for equal throughput/complexity, and it is shown that the mtc outperforms the 3gpp turbo code. therefore, the mtc is proposed as an advanced solution for next generation wireless systems. what, according to aristotle, accounts for the fact that two co-specific organisms, composed of matter and form, are distinct from each other? is their difference accounted for by the difference of their matter or of their form, or in some other way? my introduction clarifies important terminological and philosophical ambiguities surrounding this question and contextualizes the argument of my dissertation. my first chapter explores the two mainstream views on this question, both of which claim that the diversity of co-specific organisms is derivative (either from the diversity of their matter or from the diversity of their form), arguing 1) that both mainstream views are committed to what we might call a constituent ontological vision of hylomorphism (according to which matter and form are non-identical components of organisms) and 2) that there are considerable advantages to viewing aristotle's hylomorphism as a constituent ontology, perhaps most notably for defending the coherence of generation and corruption. my second chapter, however, argues against each of the mainstream views, pointing out conflicts with key points of aristotle's metaphysics. my third chapter introduces my thesis that diversity is underived and defends it by appeal to aristotle's metaontology and his nonreductivist vision of organisms (in a way that, at the same time, cuts equally against both mainstream views). my fourth chapter argues that we need not throw away constituent ontology along with the mainstream views; rather, we can maintain both the thesis that diversity for co-specific organisms is underived and a constituent ontological understanding of hylomorphism. i outline a constituent ontological interpretation of hylomorphism which maintains that the diversity of organisms is underived. a constituent ontological understanding of organisms does not, as some have argued, in itself undermine the irreducible unity of organisms; rather, is only when constituent ontology is coupled with one of the mainstream views on diversification that unity is undermined. finally, my fifth chapter argues that the version of hylomorphism articulated in my fifth chapter is compatible with both 1) the claim that an organism's body includes a plurality of distinct parcels of matter within it, and 2) the claim that an organism's matter pre-exists and persists after the life of that organism. i explore key claims of aristotle's about the nature of matter 's unity to support these claims. by advocating a constituent ontological hylomorphism that does not see the diversity of the organism as derived from the diversity of one of its constituents, we can maintain both these two advantages associated with the traditional view on diversification and the irreducible unity of organisms. making the marvelous is an exploration of how black and otherwise racialized people in u.s. cities employ care as a relational practice, expressive mode, form of labor, and gift to collectively survive historical traumas and present-day harm, conflict and violence—particularly those produced by racial capitalism and neoliberal logics of austerity and charity which determine who is worth caring for and about, as well as who has the power to control how care is enacted.the dissertation draws from ethnographic research conducted in the summers of 2018 and 2019 and from june 2020-april 2021 when the researcher was a participant observer with four communities of practice—two wellness centers in brooklyn, new york and two racial justice organizations in chicago, illinois—with people who worked toward making sincere relationships and achieving greater personal well-being by experimenting with different traditional ways of healing illness and trauma, constructing restorative relationships, and establishing sustainable communities of mutual belonging based on black identity, interracial solidarity, and shared spiritual epistemologies.the author applies an ecological framework to understand how care is mobilized, whereby personal healing grows people's capacity to function in right relationship with one another while the values, beliefs, and visions cultivated in and through these relationships can be articulated onto the social and cultural landscape through community action. in this way, the author builds out a framework for thinking about care at the levels of "self", "relation", and "articulation"—as that collective work which builds sustainable social infrastructures. this dissertation contributes to the newly emerging research field of "transpacific studies," whose interdisciplinary approach is meant to shed light on the dynamic interactions between countries on the pacific rim. reflecting this transpacific turn in academic research, i examine four contemporary american poets whose literary innovations are rooted in the buddhist and daoist lineages of asian philosophy. while examining the chosen poets' texts as heterocultural forms of east-west dialogue, i criticize previous reading models that often dismiss the western transformation of asian sources simply as "inauthentic," "fictional," or even "orientalist fantasy." american avant-garde poetry, i argue, can be read more productively when we consider it as a radically contextual space in which foreign signifiers are leaping, curving, clashing, resounding, and displacing themselves boundlessly. referring to such a non-hierarchical, palimpsestic textual space, i propose "a poetics of the radical middle," a term i draw from the buddhist concept of sunyata or "emptiness." ultimately, through the experimental texts of four american poets, i seek to provide a new reading model for transnational literary studies by taking the transpacific as an important site for literary innovation. while complementing recent studies on transpacific american literature and culture, my work goes beyond them in investigating the positive social changes that poetic texts can promote as we reconceive nation, citizenship, racial identity, ethnic diversity, and gender equality. the give-and-take between peasant and indigenous grassroots movements, authorities, and political elites has occurred intensely in several countries of the region in the past two decades, particularly in ecuador, brazil, and chile. although successive governments in these countries have redistributed substantial amounts of land in the past two decades, we have little certainty about the direct overall impact that these grassroots organizations' mobilization and political strategies have had on land policy since the early 1990s. the complex array of factors at play in establishing a balance between these two poles of action (politics and mobilization) is indeed one of the most difficult challenges confronting democratic politics throughout latin america. utilizing data derived from newspaper reports of protest events and interviews with movement leaders, government officials, and politicians this research explores the following argument: the policy influence of social movements is a consequence of movements' ability to sustain mobilization in face of the negotiations it engages in with political actors. the realization of the need to engage in a double-pronged approach (mobilization and politics) reflects a substantial distancing from the historical tendency for grassroots movements to adopt an either reform or revolution approach. the efforts of movement leaders to maintain their capacity to mobilize at the grassroots without excessive interference from government or political parties is imperative to its ability to obtain long term policy concessions. the intensity of mobilization tactics, particularly the level of violence and disruption espoused in activism, is the main factor that influences political elites to respond with accommodation or opposition. this dissertation explores the behavior of plutonium in the presence of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (edta) under environmentallyand repository-relevant boundary conditions. there are two main research foci: (i) defining the binary interactions between plutonium and edta and (ii) probing the impact of major cations of environmental relevance (ca(ii), fe(ii/iii)) on the interactions of plutonium and edta. the first area of research utilized undersaturation solubility studies, spectrophotometry, and advanced spectroscopic methods as a function of ph and time to investigate the speciation, solubility, and redox reactions in binary pu-edta systems. the second area of research highlights the role of aqueous ca(ii) and iron oxide minerals within pu-edta systems through the use of undersaturation solubility studies, advanced spectroscopic techniques, theoretical modeling efforts, and ternary sorption studies. the results of this dissertation indicate that the investigation of binary systems is not enough to develop a comprehensive understanding of the fate and transport of plutonium; the interplay between different environmental interactions can significantly impact the long-term mobility of plutonium in environmental settings and must be understood to further waste disposal and remediation/containment efforts. what does it mean to be an artist at this moment in history? i pose this question to myself as a starting point for my written thesis in order to help layout what i have come to realize as the role of art and the artist is in these ever intensely changing times. by being aware of the current economic shortcomings of the united states, having knowledge of the atrocities being committed overseas, and watching the gradual decay of our infrastructure at home may leave one's brain little space for pondering the beauty and truth that art of the past has been typically concerned with. in the more recent past, artists have chosen to respond in ways that highlight or challenges the world in which we live and the causes of the dilapidated state in which we find ourselves. in dealing with subject matter that weighs heavy on people's minds, some artists use humor in their delivery. this approach is often successful at breaking down complex subject matter that may seem a bit overwhelming. i prefer an approach which has guided my art making and has given me the context in which to discuss, what i feel, is one of the obligations of the artist today. at times i have more questions than answers, but it all helps me navigate the current incarnation of the art world, the world at large and my place in both growth mixture models (gmms) with non-ignorable missing data have drawn increasing attention in research communities, but few studies have discussed robust growth mixture models with non-ignorable missing data. blindly using normal theory based models for non-normal data may result in biased point estimators, stand errors, and associated confidence intervals. also, ignoring the non-ignorable missingness may pose substantial risk of reaching incorrect conclusions. this dissertation proposes and evaluates a bayesian approach to robust growth mixture models with non-ignorable missing data. first, backgrounds are introduced on missing data, robust methods, and the normal approach to estimate growth mixture models with missing data through bayesian methods. second, robust growth models with non-ignorable missing are proposed. three growth models are reviewed; three robust growth models are presented, in which measurement errors and random effects are assumed to follow t distributions for heavy-tailed data. four non-ignorable missingness selection models are formulated with robust growth models. third, a full bayesian method is then proposed to estimate the models. through the data augmentation algorithm, conditional posterior distributions for all model parameters and missing data are obtained. a gibbs sampling procedure is then used to generate markov chains of model parameters for statistical inference. fourth, model selection criteria in the bayesian context are proposed. fifth, 5 simulation studies are conducted. results from different models with different data distributions, missingness mechanisms, sample sizes, class separation (or distance), number of classes are analyzed and compared. the main conclusions drawn from simulation studies are (1) the proposed bayesian method recovers model parameters very well; (2) almost all the proposed model selection criteria can identify true models with very high certainties; and (3) ignoring the non-ignorable missingness or incorrectly modeling data distribution will cause misleading conclusions. suggestions for real data analysis in practice are provided. sixth, a real data set of mathematical ability is analyzed to demonstrate the application of the model and the method. last, the model selection criteria, the convergence problem, the sample size, the sensitivity of the selection model, the number of classes, the missingness, the number of replications, and the future directions of the approach are discussed. a bistable-body tunnel sram is proposed and validated using simulations. this cell, using one transistor and two tunnel diodes, is a high speed, low power static memory cell, offering over four orders of magnitude reduction in static power compared to 6t sram at the 32 nm technology node. the speed of the cell is comparable to the 6t sram. a layout with cell area equal to 48 f2 is shown. a two-transistor based negative-differential -resistance element is analyzed as an alternative to tunnel diode in bistable-body tunnel sram. the peak to valley ratio of 2000 is obtained for the two-transistor based ndr element at the 32 nm transistor technology node. lipids participate in cellular homeostasis through selective interactions with proteins, by functioning as second messengers in signaling processes and through the generation of cellular compartments to transfer cargo between organelles. the focus of this thesis is on the peripheral protein cytosolic phospholipase a2 &#945; (cpla2&#945;) that participates in all three of these functions of lipids. cpla2&#945; generates the lipid metabolite arachidonic acid (aa) by hydrolyzing phosphatidylcholine at the sn-2 position. aa is then further metabolized by cyclooxygenase (cox) 1 and cox 2 to generate prostaglandins (pgs) and by lipoxygenases to generate leukotrienes (lts), which play both homeostatic and pathological roles. this cpla2&#945; signaling has been implicated in cancer, allergy, asthma, arthritis and heart disease, causing cpla2&#945; to become a high profile therapeutic target in the literature. the enzyme is composed of two domains: a c-terminal catalytic domain and an n-terminal lipid binding conserved 2 (c2) domain. our initial aim was focused on developing a better understanding of the ceramide-1-phosphate (c1p) recognition within the cpla2&#945; c2 domain, as it has been implicated in the regulation of the enzyme's activity. in this study, we identified the molecular basis of the first c1p binding site primarily through the basic residues arg59, arg 61 and his62. in addition, we have helped collaborators to identify and characterize other selective c1p binding proteins. during the course of these studies, we found that cpla2&#945; is also capable of generating cellular vesicles proposed to be involved in trafficking cargo from the golgi apparatus to the plasma membrane, which is supported by several other reports in the literature. seeing that the c2 domain of cpla2&#945; was only one of three c2 domains shown to bend membranes, we began a mechanistic study to better understand c2 domain-dependent membrane bending. we found that cpla2&#945; c2 domain penetration into the membrane is a critical component of the protein's ability to bend membranes in vitro. our recent work delivered evidence supporting the formation of large protein oligomers through the c2 domain that are capable of sensing and inducing membrane bending through a novel mechanism for c2 lipid binding domains. these experimental findings have already been utilized to better understand c1p binding and have improved our understanding of this tightly regulated protein and its function in vivo. this work has provided the groundwork necessary to develop a selective cpla2&#945; inhibitor that is capable of recognizing cpla2&#945; over other phospholipases by targeting the c1p binding site. through further analysis of the particular residues responsible for oligomerization, cpla2&#945; could maintain its homeostatic function in vesicular trafficking after treatment with the therapeutic. this knowledge of the enzyme's structure and function provide insight to develop an optimal therapeutic inhibitor. this model therapeutic would retain membrane-bending capabilities while decreasing catalytic activity of the enzyme, which has been linked to pathological roles in cancer, asthma, arthritis and heart disease. the increasing interest in wireless sensor networks can be promptly understood simply by thinking about what they essentially are: a large number of small sensing self-powered nodes which gather information or detect special events and communicate in a wireless fashion, with the end goal of handing their processed data to a base station. sensing, processing and communication are three key elements whose combination in one tiny device gives rise to a vast number of applications [5, 46]. sensor networks provide endless opportunities, but at the same time pose formidable challenges, such as the fact that energy is a scarce and usually non-renewable resource. the minimization of energy expenditure in the sensing nodes is a natural direction for wireless sensor network research. reducing the computational load and minimizing radio power consumption are necessary steps dictated by common sense; on the radio side, the knowledge of the properties of the wireless medium can help minimize packet loss. wireless analytical models are useful, but the oversimplifications introduced by many of them can lead to wrong considerations and conclusions. for this reason, it is essential to analyze the wireless medium with real hardware. sensor network design should be performed by considering the interactions between the physical layer and the upper layers: physical layer phenomena should be taken into account in the development of mac and routing schemes. in the present work, we consider the impact of multipath fading on sensor networks. chapter 2 focuses on the analysis of the properties of multipath fading, and the verification of the most common models through software simulations and tests based on hardware implementations. in chapter 3, we use the properties of multipath fading to propose a novel, lightweight protocol for the acquisition of data from the nodes in a wireless sensor network based on the exploitation of mobility and the concept of opportunistic transmissions. our protocol aims at the avoidance of packet loss by the nodes and the minimization of their energy consumption. while chapter 3 revolves around the mitigation of the eå¨ects of multipath fading, chapter 4 describes a novel idea for its constructive exploitation. we show how the footprint of multipath fading on the received signal strength can be used for purposes of motion detection. the present work is completed by an appendix where extra details specific to our hardware implementations are provided to the interested reader. in the rest of the present chapter, we provide an overview of the research efforts in the field of wireless sensor networks. we start by listing some interesting applications and research projects currently underway. we then indicate the main peculiarities of sensor networks to give a feeling and basic understanding of what makes them unique and to justify the enormous interest in the field that is being displayed by the community. finally, we present the most interesting and commonly used hardware platforms that enable wireless sensor network research. genome sequencing of plasmodium falciparum is almost complete but the functional analysis of the plasmodium falciparum genome is restricted because of our limited ability to genetically manipulate this malaria parasite. gene regulation is one of the most intriguing and enigmatic aspects of malaria parasite biology. the ability of the parasite to control differential gene expression is poorly understood and so far only a few plasmodium promoters have been identified that share no significant homology with either themselves or with other eukaryotic promoters. maebl is a paralogue of the ebl gene family in p. falciparum and is expressed at a different time point in the blood stages of the parasite as compared to the other well characterized members of the family, baebl and eba-175. transcript analysis by northern blot hybridizations and random amplification of cdna ends (race) idenitifed a much longer 5' untranslated region for maebl when compared to baebl and eba-175, suggesting the possibility of post-transcriptional regulation for maebl. a single transcription start site was mapped for eba-175 and multiple transcription start sites were identified for baebl and maebl. in order to test the promoter activity of the 5' regions of baebl, eba175 and maebl, a modified chloramphenicol acetyl transferase (cat) reporter assay was developed for p. facliparum that is more accurate and user-friendly compared to the conventional cat assays. the 5' regions of all three genes expressed cat from episomes in p. falciparum blood stages confirming the presence of promoter elements in 5' regions. so far, only a few promoters are used for transgene expression in p. falciparum and our results show that the 5' regions of these three ebl genes could be used for the same. maebl is expressed in the mid-trophozoite stages of blood-stage development and is located on the surface of merozoites just before the invasion of new host erythrocytes. to understand the role of maebl in erythrocyte invasion, maebl was disrupted in p. falciparum nf54 parasites by single homologous recombination. there was no apparent phenotypic effect of maebl disruption in these parasites. erythrocyte invasion assays performed on different enzymatically-treated erythrocytes showed that maebl is not essential for blood-stage development and the disruptant clones had a similar invasion phenotype to that of wild-type parasites. it is possible that the function of maebl is complemented by another parasite protein hence masking the effect of maebl disruption. in the rodent malaria parasite, p. berghei, maebl has been shown to be essential for mosquito salivary gland invasion by malarial sporozoites. in future, we would like to confirm a similar role for maebl in p. falciparum using the maebl disruptant clones and also investigate the possible role for maebl in the sporozoite invasion of human liver cells. application of new technologies has produced a wealth of information in recent years about the genomes, proteomes, and other aspects of the basic composition of the malaria parasites. many aspects of the parasites' biology can be inferred through these approaches and yet our ability to utilize this new information to reveal the complex biology of plasmodium has been painstakingly slow due to the lack of robust and user-friendly molecular genetic tools. one of the most important genetic tools that are missing in plasmodium is an efficient transposon-mediated mutagenesis system. piggybac transposable element has been widely used in eukaryotic metazoa to perform various genetic analyses. we tested the ability of piggybac transposition system to transform p. falciparum blood stages. we were able to transform p. falciparum blood stages with a helper-dependent piggybac transposition system at considerably high transformation efficiency. multiple integrations were obtained through out the genome of the parasite at ttaa target sites. our results also confirmed the suitability of this system for large-scale genetic analysis of p. falciparum which will provide new insight into the complex genetic structure of the malaria parasite and greatly accelerate efforts to develop novel intervention strategies. this thesis presents work on the low-frequency noise characteristics of fet structures made from single-layer graphene. samples were created using standard e-beam lithography and exfoliated, epitaxially-grown, and cvd-grown graphene films. noise measurements were made under vacuum at room temperature. the lowest overall noise was observed in epitaxially-grown films on sic. we also investigated the gate dependence of the noise amplitude. in our experiment, a single noise peak was observed, offset from the charge neutrality point (cnp). a new noise model based upon a random array of charge traps is presented, which not only reproduces the observed gate voltage offset of the noise peak from the cnp, but also explains the noise asymmetry between the electron and hole branches. this dissertation examines the mechanisms that lead to the formation of actinyl peroxide cage clusters, the mechanism of aggregation of actinyl peroxide cage clusters, the photochemical generation of actinyl peroxide complexes in nonaqueous solution, and the electronic structure of the neptunyl peroxide cluster {np24}. in order to study the formation mechanism of {u24} i have also developed spectroscopic and mass spectrometric methods to characterize these clusters in solution. actinyl peroxide cage clusters have been the subject of synthetic efforts by a number of groups since the single crystal structures of the first isolated clusters appeared in 2005. herein, the mechanism by which one of these clusters, [uo2(o2)(oh)]2424({u24}), assembles in solution is examined in detail. speciation data from electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry is complemented by x-ray diffraction, kinetic analyses, raman spectroscopy, and small-angle x-ray scattering (saxs), enabling a full description of the formation mechanism and the role of each reagent. using this mechanistic understanding, a rational synthesis of the cluster is developed and the proposed mechanism is analyzed in terms of the structures of known uranyl peroxide cage clusters. the reactions of these cage clusters are studied in aqueous solution using similar spectroscopic and mass spectrometric methods to determine the reactivity of uranyl peroxide cage clusters and whether cluster-cluster interconversions or postsynthetic functionalization of clusters are possible. in addition, raman and ultravioletvisible (uv-vis) spectroscopic analyses are used to probe the aggregation behavior of uranyl peroxide cage clusters in the presence of monovalent cations, and voltammetric and spectroscopic methods are used to study the electronic structure of the {npo2@[np(o2)(oh)]24} ({np24}) cluster. finally, a mechanistic study describing the formation of actinyl peroxide cage clusters in nonaqueous solvents is undertaken and shown to involve the photochemical of bridging (&#956;2) hydroxide ligands of a dinuclear actinyl complex with concomitant evolution of dihydrogen. this reactivity is shown through a combination of isotopic labeling (2h, 18o) studies and synthetic work, and all materials are characterized by esi-ms, uv-vis, raman, and nuclear magnetic resonance (nmr) spectroscopies. the evolution of dihydrogen (1h-1h and 2h-1h) is confirmed by gas chromatography-isotope ratio-mass spectrometry (gc-ir-ms) and incorporation of 18o into the peroxo ligand is monitored using the o-o symmetric stretching mode in the raman spectrum. face recognition technology has recently become a topic of controversy over concern about possible bias across demographics. however, media coverage has not always been concerned with an accurate understanding of face recognition technology and the underlying causes for the observed bias. in this dissertation, we perform a detailed examination of face recognition bias. first, we explore the problem by looking into differences in face recognition accuracy across race, where our experiments show a mixed set of results for african-american and caucasians, but african-americans usually have higher false match rates (fmr) and lower false non-match rates (fnmr). we investigate the speculation that darker skin tones somehow causes higher fmr, but our experiments show no evidence to support this speculation. second, we investigate face recognition accuracy across age groups. varying face recognition accuracy across age ranges receives almost no attention compared to varying accuracy across race or gender. also, it is the most difficult demographic aspect to investigate, since datasets with correct meta-data and enough data across middle and older age ranges are required for investigation. using the best available dataset, we present an extensive analysis of face recognition accuracy across age groups, where our results show that there is a drop in performance when subjects are older. third, we investigate face recognition bias across gender, which is the main focus of this dissertation. our results show consensus higher fmr and higher fnmr for women ("gender-gap"), agreeing with previous works. we investigate various speculated causes for this gender gap, and find face visibility to be the main cause for females' higher fnmr. we speculate that differences in face shape similarity are a main cause for females' higher fmr. we arrive at this speculation for the fmr because other possible causes that were investigated did not result in a major difference in fmr. we also show results of extensive experiments on the correlation of gender balance in training datasets and accuracy on test sets. using face segmentation methods, we show that face regions have different effects across demographics, suggesting that matchers should weight face regions differently. moreover, motivated by the apparent media confusion between facial analytics (such as ``gender from face'') and face recognition, we present an evaluation of the correlation of gender classification errors and face recognition errors. finally, we investigate the effect that the training margin during network training has on gender bias. we train models with different margins for each gender, and analyze the effect that this has on training and testing accuracy. when margins are the same for both genders, we show that the gender-gap is present in both training and test datasets. however, when margins are different during training, with females given a larger margin than males, the gender-gap in test accuracy is reduced. this project sheds new light on the origins and development of the ukrainian dissent in the soviet union from the time of khrushchev (in office 1953/54-1964) and until the ussr's disintegration (1991). interest among western historians in the origins of ukrainian dissent has been modest, even though ukrainian intellectuals comprised almost half of the political prisoners in soviet labor camps and established one of the largest dissident groups in the ussr. those historians—both western and in the post-soviet ukraine as well—viewed ukrainian intellectuals as anti-soviet activists who sought ukraine's secession from the ussr. this research shows how future dissidents' criticism of the soviet regime was actually in line with the views and policies shared by more progressive groups within the soviet establishment during khrushchev's thaw. both sides envisioned the de-stalinization course leading to a more open union with the constitutionally guaranteed rights and cultural freedom within national republics. my dissertation argues that the regime's persecutions in the 1960s–80s, with its exceptional harshness in ukraine, contributed to the radicalization of future ukrainian dissidents. in this case, overt 'imperial' measures to shore up a uniform identity across different localities only served to create and buttress the varied, oppositional identities that the 'empire' sought to suppress.my argument is based on the extensive personal materials of ukrainian dissidents, their personal and official correspondence, interviews, and documents from kgb archives. apart from published and manuscript materials, i interviewed ten former dissidents in kyiv and lviv. utilizing sources both from the soviet period and those produced retrospectively in post-1991 ukraine, my research demonstrates how ukrainian intellectuals of different backgrounds and dispositions to the soviet regime, became one of the most dynamic and united dissident movements in the ussr. my project contributes to the studies of human rights by showing how ukrainian dissidents advocated for their rights and protested the authorities' abuses of power by relying on the soviet constitution and leninist teachings—not challenging them. this is the story of young intellectuals' pursuit of personal and cultural freedom which inadvertently turned into anti-colonial resistance. my research depicts the relations between intelligentsia and the regime in which the former started viewing the latter as oppressive, imperial and unable to fulfill its promises in the 1970s and 1980s. the dissertation shows how decades of persecutions alienated these intellectuals from the regime and turned them into open dissidents. despite composing a small minority of the ukrainian postwar intelligentsia, dissident ideas did not vanish in prisons and camps but became mainstream during the late 1980s and in post-1991 independent ukraine. this sociological study, attentive to the historical context of postwar evangelical social and political practice, analyzes evangelical views of climate change. the analysis shows that evangelicals are at least as concerned about the effects of climate change as the reference group, but less willing to support governmental intervention. using event-history conditional risk-set models to examine daily event data in 98 countries over a period of fifteen years, this dissertation explores the relationship between contentious collective action and state repression. specifically, it argues and finds support for the idea that the structural influence of regime type, the specific forms that state repression and contentious action take, and time effects all act together in order to define the dynamic ways in which state repression and contentious collective action act and react to one another. models of the effects of state repression on the hazard of contentious collective action show that, in the short-term, the application of state repression has a dampening influence on contentious collective action, but after a period of seven days, such dampening effects give way to a backlash of contention. in addition, violent and non-violent forms of state repression lead to different hazards of contentious collective action, while the structural influence of regime type is a marked determinant of the hazard of contention experienced in a country. similar results are found to be true when examining the effects of contentious collective action on state repression; in the short term, contentious collective action increases the hazard of state repression. yet, when and the extent to which states respond to contentious action with repressive action varies greatly depending on the type of contention that actors resort to, the timing of such contention, and the structural context in which this action occurs, especially when taking into consideration regime type. these results highlight the complexity of the relationship between these two variables and are indicative of the dangers of overly simplistic examinations of their effects on each other. consideration of the multidimensional forms that state repression and contentious collective action can take, the influence of time on the process, and several geopolitical influences acting on the manner in which state repression and contentious collective action interact suggest that these are all important factors that researchers must consider if they hope to gain insight in to the true nature of the relationship between state repression and contentious collective action. this paper will situate my paintings within the context of feminist theory and politics. i see my work as a continuation of past and present feminist thought. the notion of vertex operator coalgebra is presented, which corresponds to the family of correlation functions modeling one string propagating in space-time splitting into n strings in conformal field theory. specifically, we describe the category of geometric vertex operator coalgebras, whose objects have comultiplicative structures meromorphically induced by conformal equivalence classes of the worldsheets swept out by propagating strings. we then show that this category is isomorphic to the category of vertex operator coalgebras, which is defined in the language of formal algebra with a generalized jacobi-like identity. this notion is in some sense dual to the notion of vertex operator algebra. we also prove that any vertex operator algebra equipped with a non-degenerate, virasoro preserving, bilinear form gives rise to a corresponding vertex operator coalgebra. finally, we explicitly calculate the vertex operator coalgebra structure and unique bilinear form for the heisenberg algebra case, which corresponds to considering free bosons in conformal field theory. newman's doctrine of universal revelation is a genuine catholic doctrine, a scriptural and patristic doctrine, and one of those ì¢åûåïforgotten truthsì¢åûå which he recovers in the service of revealed religion and of the fullness of christianity. this doctrine is suitable for facilitating the difficult work of inculturation among the igbo of nigeria on account of its positive determination of the theological status of traditional religion, and its potential for deconstructing the eurocentric imperialist construction of african identity and the gross mischaracterization of african traditional religion (atr) in missionary discourse. the thesis is argued in six chapters. chapter one situates newman as a nineteenthcentury english theologian, tracing his indebtedness to the anglican divines of his formative years and to the alexandrian fathers in whom he discovers the doctrine. chapter two is a detailed expose of newman's comprehensive elaboration of this doctrine in his vast and varied writings, starting with his peculiarities as a writer and concluding with his proposal of the early church's development from judaism into christianity in the early church is the model of fulfillment. chapter three is an historical investigation of the evolution of the church's teachings on other religions through the centuries starting with their scriptural foundations and demonstrating both the biblical sources of newman's doctrine and its continuity with the church's living tradition. chapter four is on newman and catholicism among the igbo of nigeria showing how newman's doctrine can help to critique and deconstruct eurocentric diffusionism (which justified africa's colonization and domination by europe), and the mischaracterization of atr by european missionaries, and the development of colonial, mission policies of the early decades among igbo catholics today. chapter five pairs newman up against six twentieth-century theologians of religious pluralism to show why newman is the preferred ì¢åûåïauthority and guideì¢åûå in this matter and ends with a speculative glimpse into what a slice of life might look like in an inculturated igbo catholic church. chapter six brings the work to a close by suggesting a number of steps to be taken by igbo dioceses in order to get inculturation decisively off the ground. the majority of proteins have multiple independently folding and functioning domains; this is known as protein modularity. most of these molecular machines are tethered together by flexible linkers. consequently, there is a lot of mobility between the domains of modular proteins. this mobility allows proteins to use interdomain motion to carry out their functions, often with different partners. thus, if we want to understand how modular proteins function, we must characterize the range of conformations modular proteins sample. this thesis makes strides to describe the biophysical behavior of modular proteins and understand how their interdomain motions matter for function. the result is new developments in molecular biophysics on two levels; (i) methodological and (ii) biological. a biophysical method to describe flexible systems needs to be dynamic, or at least, characterize the ensemble of conformations visited. this thesis demonstrates a new way to do this. we recognized the power of combining nmr parameters that can resolve long-range atomic information with molecular dynamics to view the atomic details of these large-scale motions. to this end, we developed the mapsgld-nmr method for quantitatively describing interdomain orientations of modular proteins. as a test system for this new method, this thesis focuses on human pin1, a two-domain signaling protein of therapeutic relevance because it is implicated in alzheimer?s disease, cancer, and many other human diseases. the ensemble description of pin1 uncovers insights about its interaction modes with different binding partners. the results suggest we can control interdomain motions of pin1. the biological impact of this work is that we may be able to account for interdomain motions to improve drug discovery tactics for modular proteins. this dissertation addresses a longstanding question in the scholarship on early christian liturgy: namely, were the earliest-known liturgical rites of jerusalem influenced by the egyptian liturgical tradition? this question is answered in the affirmative on the basis of a detailed analysis of the baptismal and eucharistic rites of fourth-century jerusalem. chapter one explores the general relationship between egypt and jerusalem, and explains the comparative method of liturgical studies that is used in the rest of the dissertation. chapter two provides an overview of three key strands of liturgical scholarship pertinent to the question of egyptian influence on the liturgy of jerusalem. chapter three offers a thorough examination of the hagiopolite baptismal rite (as described in the mystagogical catecheses traditionally ascribed to cyril of jerusalem), and it reveals numerous parallels between the early baptismal liturgy of jerusalem and the early egyptian baptismal tradition. chapter four provides a similar investigation of the hagiopolite eucharistic rite, demonstrating that significant parallels can also be found between the early eucharistic liturgy of jersualem and the early egyptian anaphoral tradition. chapter five offers a brief conclusion to the dissertation as a whole. this dissertation compares the theologies of roman catholic louis-marie chauvet (b. 1942) and reformed protestant karl barth (1886-1968) on the relationship between the word of god and ecclesial rites (sacraments), and the impact these have upon the founding and formation of christian faith and identity. both theologians' works place ethical transformation as logically subsequent though integrally related to the encounter with god's word in ecclesial worship, but the significance of ecclesial rites differs between them. barth's ultimate rejection of the sacraments necessitates an analysis of the evolution of his theology on this score. it has also generated significant secondary literature either defending his rejection or accounting for it otherwise. to compare barth with chauvet, the first two chapters of this dissertation demonstrates this evolution and several major commentators. chauvet's work not only attempts to answer barth's critique, but to incorporate contemporary trends in theology, philosophy, and anthropology in a sacramental interpretation of christian existence. the third chapter surveys the influences at work in chauvet's theology and summarizes his sacramental theory. the dissertation compares barth's and chauvet's theology on relevant doctrinal loci and the role of ethics, and concludes that their theologies may be seen as complementary. it culminates in an assessment of the particular contributions each makes to sacramental theology, suggestions towards an ecumenical sacramental theology informed by both, and a pastoral evaluation. the ombrotrophic-minerotrophic gradient in peatlands, a diverse assemblage of wetlands, has led to the assumption that nutrient availability is significantly lower in bogs than fens. this dissertation focuses on the availability and movement of phosphorus (p) and nitrogen (n) across the ombrotrophic-minerotrophic peatland gradient using both radioactive and stable isotopes. in initial studies, available, microbial, and root p at 10-20 cm depth did not differ across the gradient, although total soil and aboveground vegetation p content increased from bog to rich fen. this study showed that p retention was greatest in the more ombrotrophic sites, but the proportion found in the vegetation and microbial pools in the rich fens were in the same range as the intermediate fens and bogs. in a subsequent study, we saw major differences in both retention and distribution of p among the pools across the gradient. the p pool size in the vegetation and recalcitrant soil fractions increased from bog to rich fen. this time uptake of radioactive p into microbial biomass was more important in bogs than fens, while roots were more effective at uptake in fens. despite overall p retention being greater in more minerotrophic peatlands, the distribution and uptake of p into individual pools were determined by complex interactions that varied over time and among peatland types. the overall n pool and individual n pools increased from bogs to rich fens. retention of the added n tracer was greater in rich fens and within the soil profile. microbial biomass was not a significant sink for n. our results indicate that mosses and vascular plants have spatially segregated competition for n, with mosses being more competitive for atmospherically deposited n and vascular plants being more competitive for n mineralized from within the soil profile. uptake of n into the residual soil fraction dominated retention in most cases indicating a potential role for abiotic transformation of n. in comparing four methods of gross p mineralization, we suggest the kirkham and bartholomew method, because the assumptions were generally met and does not require sterilized samples, representing a conservative estimate of p mineralization. in this dissertation, i will discuss the concepts of biopolitics and precarious life as they relate to irish modernist fiction. i will refer to the works of flann o'brien (real name: brian o'nolan) and james joyce, and, in particular, their respective novels, the third policeman and finnegans wake.in short, both o'nolan and joyce can be considered biopolitical writers, to the extent that they use metaphor and allegory to deal with the relation between the body and politics. i argue that both writers engage with the concept of vitalism in order to make sense of the epistemological gap between the body and its political determinations. it is through a reading of the metaphors of vitalism that i uncover the link that either writer envisages between the political subject and the political regimes under which they live.i interpret irish modernism as an aesthetic that depends on figures of marginal community in order to give shape to this linkage. by considering groups of people that are politically ambiguous and economically precarious (like displaced women and radical labourers), i arrive at a model of biopolitics that is informed by the subversive political potential of subjects on the fringe of irish civil society. this study examines u.s. policy toward missile defense (md) focusing both on the international opportunities opened up for the u.s. after the cold war and on the variation of domestic policy consensus at the governmental level that influenced the actual decision making regarding the deployment of the current md system. based on the insights of offensive realism, this study argues that the u.s.'s pursuit of md is related to u.s. strategic calculations motivated by systemic incentives and opportunities. this study also addresses how domestic policy consensus played an important role in determining the timing and nature of the decision toward the deployment of the current md. by comparing the u.s.'s different policy paths under the clinton and the bush administrations, and analyzing u.s. experiences with md during the cold war, this study concludes that the u.s. is about to deploy an md system because it has power and resources to pursue strategic advantages, not because a new threat enforces the deployment of the system on it. facing no peer competitor who can directly challenge u.s. exploitation of international opportunities, the u.s. began the active deployment of the system only after the effective veto dissolved by way of the republican full control over both executive and legislative branches. in other words, international opportunities and domestic policy consensus have been the main determining factors shaping the policy outcomes regarding the current md. while international opportunities gave the u.s. a strong incentive to pursue md as an additional power component, policy consensus at the governmental level enabled the u.s. to mobilize domestic resources for the power pursuit. the two-stage robust procedure for structural equation modeling with nonnormal missing data was developed, where the saturated mean vector and covariance matrix are obtained by robust m-estimators in the first stage and the robust estimates of means and covariances are then fittedby the structural model in the second stage. several test statistics have been used to evaluate the two-stage robust method. although theperformance of those test statistics for complete data has been evaluated and compared in the literature, their properties for incomplete nonnormal data have never been studied. this article aims to systematically evaluate and compare five test statistics, including the naive test statistic derived from normal-distribution-based maximum likelihood,a rescaled chi-square statistic, an adjusted chi-square statistic,a corrected residual-based asymptotical distribution free chi-square statistic, and a residual-based f-statistic. these statistics areevaluated under a linear growth curve model by varying eight factors: data distributions, missing data mechanisms, missing rates, samplesizes, numbers of measurement occasions, covariances between latent intercept and slope, variances of measurement errors, and downweight rates of the two-stage robust method. when the missingness exists, the test statistic derived from the two-stage normal-distribution-based maximum likelihood performs worse than the other four test statistics. application of the two-stage robust method and of the test statistics is illustrated through growth curve analysis of mathematical ability development, using data on the peabody individual achievement test (piat) mathematics assessment from the national longitudinal survey of youth 1997 cohort. new methodologies were developed and used to synthesize novel benzodiazepines with anti-cancer activity and carbocyclic nucleosides. appropriately functionalized acylnitroso-derived hetero-diels-alder cycloadducts were subjected to intramolecular allylation chemistry to give benzodiazepines. novel allyl alkyl malonate systems, also derived from acylnitroso-derived hetero-diels-alder cycloadducts, were synthesized and subjected to decarboxylative allylation reactions en route to homocarbocyclic nuleosides. in chapter one, palladium catalyzed allylic additions are introduced and the progression of the chemistry is summarized. recent advances in the literature relating to allylic alkylations with in situ generated enolates are highlighted. in chapter two, the biological activity of several relevant carbocyclic nuleosides is explored and various synthetic strategies to the molecules and their analogs are discussed. chapter three describes the intramolecular palladium(0)-mediated ring openings of acylnitroso-derived cycloadducts with emphasis on the syntheses of benzodiazepines. progress towards diazepine analogs and pyrrole containing tricycles is also explored. in chapter four, decarboxylative allylations of allyl 2,2,2-trifluoroethyl malonates is described. the reaction gives access to homoallylic esters in a single transformation. the homoallylic esters are used as key intermediates in the syntheses of several homocarbocyclic nuleosides, which are discussed in chapter five. the decarboxylative allylations of allyl 2,2,2-trifluoroethyl malonates were the key steps en route to 5'-homocarbocyclic nucleoside core structures. carbonucleosides 5'-homocarbovir, 5'homoabacavir, epi-4'-homocarbovir, epi-4'-homoabacavir, and 5'-homoaristeromycin were synthesized in order to further investigate their activity profiles in antiviral assays. in chapter six, the use of in situ generated titanocene monochloride (cp2ticl) as a reducing agent for diverse n-o bonds is discussed. the method was applied to synthesize a key benzodiazepine intermediate and as a key step in the synthesis of each carbocyclic nucleoside target molecule. finally, a brief summary of synthetic accomplishments and an analysis of the biological activity of various molecules are given. the spatial structure of base stations (bss) in cellular networks plays a key role in evaluating the downlink performance. the bss are usually assumed to form a lattice or a poisson point process (ppp). in reality, however, they are deployed neither fully regularly nor completely randomly. accordingly, in this thesis, we first use different spatial stochastic models, including the ppp, the poisson hard-core process (phcp), the strauss process (sp), and the perturbed triangular lattice, to model the spatial structure by fitting them to the locations of bss in real cellular networks obtained from a public database. we propose the coverage probability (the probability that the signal-to-interference-plus-noise-ratio (sinr) exceeds a threshold) as the criterion for the goodness-of-fit, and provide two general approaches for fitting. one approach is fitting by the method of maximum pseudolikelihood. as for the fitted models, the sp provides a better fit than the ppp and the phcp. the other approach is fitting by the method of minimum contrast that minimizes the average squared error of the coverage probability. this way, fitted models are obtained whose coverage performance matches that of the given data set very accurately. second, we consider the very general class of motion-invariant point processes as models for the bss and theoretically analyze the behavior of the outage probability. (complement of the coverage probability). we show that, remarkably, the slope of the outage probability (in db) as a function of the threshold (also in db) is the same for essentially all motion-invariant point processes, as the threshold goes to zero. the slope merely depends on the fading statistics. using this result, we introduce the notion of the asymptotic deployment gain (adg), which characterizes the horizontal gap between the coverage probability of the ppp and another point process in the high-reliability regime (where the coverage probability is near 1). to demonstrate the usefulness of the adg for the characterization of the coverage, we investigate the coverage probabilities and the adgs for different point processes and fading statistics by simulations. similarity scores in face recognition represent the proximity between pairs of images as computed by a matching algorithm. given a large set of images and the proximities between all pairs, a similarity score space is defined. cluster analysis was applied to the similarity score space to develop various taxonomies. given the number of subjects in the dataset, we used hierarchical methods to aggregate images of the same subject. we also explored the hierarchies occurring above and below this level, including clustering by gender and ethnicity. furthermore, image specific error rates (a tool for measuring the usefulness of iris images within a dataset) were extended to face images. observations on the effectiveness of this adaption are presented. heterostructure backward diodes based on the inas/alsb/gasb material system have been designed, fabricated and characterized. fabrication processes have been developed based on conventional photolithography, wet chemical etching, planarization and passivation techniques. the performance of devices based on three different heterostructures is compared. devices incorporating an al0.1ga0.9sb anode instead of a gasb anode show improved curvature coefficient. a junction capacitance of 15.5 ff/um^2 and a junction resistance of 2.5 kiloohm*um^2 have been obtained on a structure with a p-gasb anode. for a device with area of 7.6 um^2, a curvature coefficient of -20.9 v^(-1), a junction capacitance of 85.3 ff, and a junction resistance of 291.7 ohm were obtained. based on estimates of potential for contact resistance improvement and device scaling (down to 1 um^2), improvement of the intrinsic cut-off frequency to over 500 ghz appears possible for this structure. johnson noise limited noise equivalent power (nep) is estimated to be 1.05 pw/square root(hz) for a conjugately-matched source. the detector's figures of merit can be further improved through additional optimization of the heterostructure and fabrication processes. the prospects for developing gaas-based metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (mosfets) using the wet thermal oxide of inalp as the gate dielectric have been investigated. the microstructural properties of inalp oxide have been examined, and the mechanisms governing the oxidation of inalp have been explored. fabrication processes for realizing gaas-channel mosfets with sub-micron gate lengths have been developed and used to demonstrate depletion-mode transistors. the inalp oxide is found to be largely amorphous, but contains small microcrystalline regions. energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopic analysis shows that the oxide is composed of all pre-existing elements (in, al, p) in addition to o. a layer of in-rich particles was observed at the oxide-semiconductor interface for thick oxides (thicknesses greater than 17 nm), but is absent in thin 'device-scale' oxides. through the use of a diffusion marker experiment it has been demonstrated that the inward diffusion of oxygen dominates the kinetics of oxide growth. this si-like diffusion mechanism is a critical advantage, significant because it can lead to a cleaner oxide-semiconductor interface since surface impurities remain on the outer oxide surface. gaas-channel mosfets using inalp oxide as the gate dielectric have been fabricated and characterized. new fabrication process flows for submicron gate-length mosfets were developed and demonstrated. a non-self-aligned process in which the gate electrode metallization and gate oxidation region are aligned using electron-beam lithography is demonstrated for sub-micron gate lengths. an enhanced process in which the gate metallization and oxidation region are self-aligned has also been developed and demonstrated. these process improvements have enabled significant improvements in device performance over previous reports. a record peak extrinsic transconductance of 144 ms/mm and a record cutoff frequency, ft, of 31 ghz for a gaas-channel mosfet has been measured on self-aligned mosfets with 0.25 åµm gate length. the st. george recoil separator is designed to measure (α,γ) cross sections of astrophysical interest in inverse kinematics. the design of the separator allows for a large energy (±7.5% ∆e/e) and angular (±40 mrad) acceptance that must be verified across a wide range of electric and magnetic rigidities before primary experimental work can begin. the beam rejection properties of the separator system must be determined to ensure that the direct incident beam is adequately rejected such that the produced recoils can be confidently measured. the procedures used during the commissioning work to experimentally verify these properties will be discussed. utilization of the separator for measuring cross sections of astrophysical interest that were not considered during the design phase is an additional benefit of the commissioning work and expands the potential domain of study for the separator. the first such experiment to measure two strong resonances in the 27al(p,α)24mg cross section has been completed. this reaction study is additionally a test of the separator's energy and angular acceptances in situ as a precursor to studying (α,γ) reactions. the results of this measurement in relation to the properties of st. george will be discussed. an analysis package and pipeline were developed to support the study of the reaction in question and any future experiments using st. george. growing up in a post-accord society characterized by ongoing intergroup tension and cyclical violence such as northern ireland may put youth at a higher risk for psychopathology. prior research in belfast showed that increased exposure to sectarian violence often resulted in more emotional insecurity about the community and subsequent adjustment problems. though the impact of direct exposure to violence is well documented, few studies account for factors outside of one's immediate environment – such as the broader sociopolitical climate and the levels of tension or threat in society. the current study advances research in this area by using systematically coded newspapers from northern ireland (n = 2,797) to assess the overarching trends in catholic-protestant relations from 2006-2011 and explore the relation between these macro-contextual changes and adolescents' emotional insecurity. a qualitative analysis of the news reports showed that, despite progress in the peace process during these years, intergroup conflict was prevalent. at the societal level, political tension and intragroup threat were characterized by sectarian community violence, lack of trust in the police, and a spike in dissident republican attacks. a series of multilevel moderation analyses using the coded news reports and five waves of survey data from families in belfast (n = 999) indicated that adolescents responded differently to community violence depending on the political climate. overall, emotional insecurity increased with exposure to sectarian violence. during periods of high intragroup threat in society, this relation was stronger for protestants and weaker for catholics. as macro-level threat increased, catholics who had more cumulative exposure to violence became more secure, catholics who had less cumulative exposure became more insecure, and protestants who had more cumulative exposure remained more insecure than their peers. during periods of high intergroup tension in society, adolescents with more cumulative exposure to violence became more secure, regardless of their group. these findings illustrate how individual responses to the immediate environment can vary based on salient events in society, thus contributing both empirically and methodologically to the design of interventions and policies in belfast and other areas affected by violent conflict. heat dissipation is the fundamental limit to computational performance. in conventional digital architectures, transistors are used as switches to charge and discharge capacitors, and signal transitions between a high-energy state (i.e. logic 1) and a low-energy state (logic 0) either dump the energy to the ground or draw more energy from a power source. energy has to dissipate to heat in the process. in quantum-dot cellular automata (qca), binary information is represented by two arrangements of electrons in the ground states of a qca cell, and logic operations can be highly energy efficient.single electron transistor (set) can be used to implement qca, but set operations at room temperature require extremely small device geometry that remains very difficult to achieve. miniaturization of silicon-based sets (siset) benefits from si-related fabrication technologies that are extensively studied and accessible. in a manufacturable 'top-down' approach, fabrication of such nanoscale devices has traditionally relied on the finest resolution of lithography and dry etching. this dissertation reports the development of a siset fabrication technique that incorporates a new approach. chemical mechanical polishing (cmp) removes material based on the surface topography instead of a mask, and the integration of cmp in device fabrication has provided us with new possibilities to construct an ideal siset.the fabricated devices show that the presence of dopants in the silicon causes coulomb blockade oscillations (cbo) to be very irregular, which is an undesirable feature for sisets to be used as electrometers. by replacing the doped silicon island with aluminum, we produce a composite al-siset with that exhibits periodic cbos that are similar to an al/alox set. by eliminating dopants from the island of the siset, we are able to study the effects of dopants in the access region in the silicon leads. the al-sisets exhibit various characteristics that are influenced by the electron and the dopant density in the leads. at low temperature, these devices operate as sets, but at room temperature, tunnel field effect transistor-like behaviors are observed. in conclusion, we have developed a new type of sisets by integrating cmp in device fabrication. the fabrication technique has demonstrated great potential to construct an ideal electrometer for qca. in0.53ga0.47as tunnel junctions were fabricated towards use in tunneling field effect transistors which have shown promise as low-subthreshold-swing transistors. tunnel junctions were fabricated with doping densities ranging from 1e19 /cm3 to 1e20 /cm3. reverse tunneling current, the regime of operation in tfets, was measured and modeled as function of doping density and electric field up to a current density of 1.5 ma/ì_å_m2. high current density tunnel junctions are demonstrated as evidenced by forward bias peak current densities in the range 0.06 to 0.94 ma/ì_å_m2, the latter comparable to the best reported results for in0.53ga0.47as junctions. tunnel junctions were also explored in ge motivated by tunnel diode oscillator sensors. germanium tunnel junctions were fabricated using two approaches: (1) rapid melt regrowth of al-doped p+ ge from an al metal source into n+ ge and (2) p+ ga doping by diffusion from a ga metal source, deposited by molecular beam epitaxy, into n+ ge. the n-type dopant was p, introduced either via ion implantation or diffusion from spin-on diffusants. in the rapid melt regrown junctions, negative differential resistance characteristic was obtained with peak current density of up to 0.27 ma/ì_å_m2 and peak to valley ratios of 1.1 1.23. in the diffusion based approach, p-type doping by ga diffusion from a molecular beam epitaxy source was characterized as function of ga flux and deposition time. diodes fabricated using ga as p-type, and p as n-type dopant, exhibited a backward diode behavior. the aedes aegypti mosquito is one of the world's most medically-important vectors and an emerging public health threat. ae. aegypti is the primary vector for dengue, an emerging disease which afflicts 50-100 million people annually in 128 countries. with no widely available vaccine or specific treatment for dengue, vector control is crucial to controlling its transmission. in order to develop novel methods of mosquito control, insight into interactions between host and pathogen are necessary to understand factors that lead to vector competence. this dissertation aims to elucidate the roles and functions of several of these host pathways in the context of denv infection of ae. aegypti. previous work from the severson lab demonstrated that several clusters of genes are differentially expressed between dengue virus (denv) susceptible and refractory mosquitoes. these denv-responsive genes included members of metabolic, apoptotic, autophagic, vacuolar transport, immune and mapk signaling pathways. apoptosis is a highly regulated programmed cell death pathway important for developmental and homeostasis. it is also been demonstrated as a protective mechanism against viral infection, including denv infection in mammalian systems. here we characterize the apoptotic pathway and its effect on denv infection. we further demonstrate that apoptosis genes also act as regulators of the conserved cellular recycling process, autophagy, which has been previously been implicated as necessary for denv. in parallel to the identification of viral host factors, we also evaluate the use of oral delivery of double-stranded (ds) rnas to target genes important for denv infection. rna interference (rnai) has previously been fed to agricultural pests through the feeding of dsrnas as a bio-insecticide. we demonstrate that orally-induced rnai can induce gene knockdown of several genes, including highly connected hub genes, which were previously identified as denv-responsive. knockdown of these hub genes decreases denv infection of adult mosquitoes. this represents the first report of oral delivery of dsrnas to successfully reduce denv infection of adult ae. aegypti. correlated chemical imaging is an emerging strategy for acquisition of images by combining information from multiplexed measurement platforms to track, visualize, and interpret in situ changes in the structure, organization, and activities of interesting chemical systems, frequently spanning multiple decades in space and time. acquiring and correlating information from complementary imaging experiments has the potential to expose complex chemical behavior in ways that are simply not available from single methods applied in isolation, thereby greatly amplifying the information gathering power of imaging experiments. however, in order to correlate image information across platforms, a number of issues must be addressed. first, signals are obtained from disparate experiments with fundamentally different figures of merit, including pixel size, spatial resolution, dynamic range and acquisition rates. in addition, images are often acquired on different instruments in different locations, so the sample must be registered spatially so that the same area of the sample landscape is addressed. the signals acquired must be correlated in both spatial and temporal domains, and the resulting information has to be presented in a way that is readily understood. these requirements pose special challenges for image cross-correlation that go well beyond those posed in single technique imaging approaches. the work described in this thesis focuses on employing molecular imaging to study complex samples, in particular biological samples that exhibit great complexities in their chemical species and often tend to be dynamic, thus making it difficult to perform imaging and chemical analysis using one technique. the work demonstrates the utility of combining complementary experiments to perform chemical imaging. specifically, a correlated imaging platform combining mass spectrometry techniques is developed to overcome technical limitations in each method and to amplify the information gathering power in the experiments. the work describes the designing and implementation of the imaging platform and shows its utility in studying bacterial biofilms. when do states litigate their territorial disputes? existing studies of the selection of litigation as a peaceful settlement method generally emphasize broad, macro-level factors like democracy or relative power levels that often remain stable throughout a territorial claim. this means that current theories of litigation in territorial disputes provide relatively little information regarding when litigation is likely to occur, especially when a dispute lies dormant for an extended period of time. to remedy these shortcomings, i propose a theory of the timing of litigation in territorial disputes that focuses on the events that determine the "ripeness" of a dispute for the use of legal settlement methods. settlement failure, defined as the failure of nonbinding settlement methods to resolve a dispute, provides states with information regarding the existence of bargaining deadlock. delegating a dispute to a third party is always risky and uncertain, but when the evidence for an impasse is compelling, adjudication and arbitration become attractive for breaking the deadlock and ending the costs associated with maintaining a dispute. instead of facilitating bargaining, the new information provided by settlement failure encourages delegation.to complicate matters, the effects of settlement failure vary across disputes and disputants. economic opportunity costs, broad interests, and legalization accelerate the "path" to litigation in offshore island disputes. legal factors also alter the calculus of settlement failure. clear legal arguments create a legal focal point that allows states to coordinate policy around litigation. this decreases the amount of settlement failure needed to make litigation proposals likely. finally, states that have won court cases in the past are much quicker to suggest litigation during negotiations. this dynamic occurs because positive experiences with international courts or arbitral panels enhance the perceived fairness of legal settlement methods and, therefore, the attractiveness of litigating again. the primary contribution of this dissertation involves theorizing and testing how static factors like geography combine with dynamics of settlement failure to explain when proposals for litigation become likely.hybrid logistic regressions employed on newly collected panel data covering territorial disputes between 1945 and 2015 are used to gauge the validity of my theoretical claims. despite the lofty goal of eradication, malaria is one of the leading causes of mortality in sub-saharan african children. significant reduction in the number of annual deaths have been realized in recent years due to the widespread use of artemisinin combination therapies. recent reports from the thai/cambodia border clearly show the emergence of artemisinin resistance, re-emphasizing an urgent need to prevent or slow the spread of drug resistance. success in this endeavor will require deeper understanding of the basic biology and adaptation mechanisms of the malaria parasite. much of this biology is complex, subtle, and currently unexplored.gene expression is a crucial step in the process of turning dna into observable phenotypes like drug resistance. transcriptional regulation is a malleable process; responsive to changes in dna sequence, environmental fluctuations, and alterations in the overall abundance of many other cellular and molecular components. variation in transcript levels, even among genetically identical individuals, provides an important foothold for adaptation and evolution. to explore some of the mechanisms that contribute to parasite adaptation, i investigate variation in transcript abundance within single clone cultures and the role differential variation may play in the parasite fitness and competitive growth.this dissertation describes previously unrecognized features of gene expression in the malaria parasite. chapter 2 comprehensively evaluates several sources of variation and quantifies the contribution of each source to the total variation for each gene in plasmodium falciparum. this variation is then repeatedly measured for parasite clones across the parents and progeny of a genetic cross in chapter 3. in this chapter, the heritability and regulatory elements that contribute to transcriptional variation are characterized at the level of individual genes using quantitative trait loci mapping. chapter 4 investigates the genotypic and transcriptional changes that accompany drug selection, and how these changes impact in vitro parasite fitness for single clones and multiple clone cultures. cumulatively, this project addresses the hypothesis that existing variation in gene expression, both among parasite cells with identical sequences, and between genetically distinct parasite strains, provides a foundation for malaria parasites to adapt to new environments. people often are faced with situations that seem as though they may be discriminatory (e.g., racist, sexist) but which are vague enough to provoke a variety of judgments. prior research has shown that people take into account the characteristics of the executor of the ambiguous behavior, and also that certain personality traits of the perceivers as well as certain conditions of the environment influence these judgments. one particular construct that has been shown to moderate perceptions of discrimination is the need for cognitive closure (e.g., bucchianeri & corning, under review). this need is defined as the tendency to jump quickly to a conclusion ì¢ ââ" right or wrong ì¢ ââ" and stick tightly to it. whereas there is empirical evidence to support the operation of this factor in the perception of discrimination (i.e., heightening one's tendency toward prototype use), there also is cause for criticism of this construct. in particular, the purpose of the studies presented here was to test whether a more basic and parsimonious explanation, situational interference with working memory, may account for previous studies' results regarding prototype use in the perception of discrimination. results provided mixed support for this hypothesis. contrary to expectations, study 1 demonstrated that prototype use in the perception of discrimination was in fact related to higher levels of verbal working memory capacity. study 2 did not support the hypothesized exacerbation of the prototype effect by interference with working memory, but provided preliminary evidence in support of this effect via a near-significant prototype main effect within the working memory interference condition. for many years, cilia have been appreciated for their role in signal transduction, serving as antennas for mechanosensory cascades and highways of protein transport. additionally, cilia dysfunction results in excess fluid accumulation and aberrant particle displacement responsible for a variety of diseases and larger syndromes, collectively known as ciliopathies. as such, the functions and anatomical structure of cilia have been carefully characterized. while primary and motile cilia vary in microtubule arrangement, their core roles remain highly conserved across vertebrates. consequently, vertebrate models of ciliogenesis span a wide range of species and tissues, including the zebrafish pronephros, or embryonic kidney. aside from optical transparency and large clutch size, the zebrafish pronephros presents a functionally conserved and anatomically simple model to examine ciliogenesis. in zebrafish, the pronephros is comprised of two linear nephrons that are fully formed and organized in functionally distinct segments of mono-ciliated transporter cells by just 24 hours post fertilization, or the 28 somite stage. the arrangement of these segments is highly conserved to that of the mammalian nephron, the smallest functional unit of the vertebrate kidney. in addition to the transporter cells, the zebrafish pronephros houses a second epithelial population of multiciliated cells (mccs). mccs are a highly specialized and conserved cell type that is characterized by apical bundles of motile cilia. in the pronephros, mccs are dispersed in a "salt-and-pepper" like fashion and function in fluid propulsion through the nephron tubule. disrupted multiciliogenesis can lead to hydrocephaly, respiratory disease and infertility in humans, and the abnormal presence of mccs in renal biopsies of patient's with kidney disease has been observed in a handful of cases. this dissertation will describe reverse and chemical genetic approaches that revealed novel insights into the genetic mechanisms of mcc development in the zebrafish pronephros. in short, the work presented here uncovered an integrated network of etv5a, etv4, irx2a, and prostaglandin signaling in the specification and maturation of renal mccs. these findings demonstrate the fecundity of using the zebrafish pronephros as a model to examine multiciliogenesis in vivo, enhancing our knowledge of the complex process of mcc ontogeny that will further increase understanding the connection between cilia dysfunction and disease in vertebrates. émile meyerson (1859-1933) helped inaugurate a philosophical tradition in early twentieth-century france – épistémologie – which harkened back to auguste comte's historical method, analyzing science in order to grasp the nature of human reason, while rejecting orthodox positivism. meyerson's own épistémologie had ambitious, specifically kantian, aims: to reveal principles universally necessary for scientific knowledge, thereby providing "prolegomena to all future metaphysics." this historicized kantianism was the centerpiece of a vibrant intellectual circle – the "meyerson circle" – which included such luminaries as alexandre koyré, hélène metzger, léon brunschvicg, lucien lévy-bruhl, and gaston bachelard. while some of these thinkers are now garnering interest among anglo-american philosophers – especially in light of "historical epistemology" (see ian hacking, lorrain daston, and arnold davidson) and revitalized post-kuhnian concerns about the rationality of science (see michael friedman) – meyerson's own contributions remain underappreciated. despite his role as intellectual godfather and praise from such readers as albert einstein, louis de broglie, ernst cassirer, walter benjamin, arthur lovejoy, karl popper, w. v. o. quine, and thomas kuhn, no books and only a few articles have been published on meyerson in english since 1966. this is unfortunate especially given his relevance for contemporary interest in neo-kantian approaches to the history and philosophy of science. this dissertation contextualizes meyerson's épistémologie historically – focusing on both the preceding french traditions of positivism, spiritualism, neo-kantianism, and conventionalism and how meyerson's views anticipate such thinkers as quine and kuhn – and assesses its viability as a philosophical project today. my aim is to revitalize a broadly neo-kantian approach to epistemology, which bears in fruitful ways on contemporary problems in philosophy of science – and philosophy more broadly – while remaining distinct from other neo-kantianisms defended today. specifically, i argue that meyerson is unique for accepting epistemological holism along with a kantian commitment to the essential "oneness" of human reason; and defending a distinctive brand of scientific realism along with a kantian commitment to the essential unknowability of nature in itself. i conclude by showing how meyerson's épistémologie provides a powerful framework for practicing a historically-grounded form of philosophy today. in the area of dynamic load effects, advanced analysis, modeling, and simulation tools are becoming increasingly important in order to address the non-stationarity, non-gaussianity, and nonlinearity inherent in hazard related events and their associated structural response. previous assumptions of stationarity, gaussianity, and linearity, while convenient, have proven to over-simplify the complexity of the problems associated with dynamic effects associated with wind, wave, and earthquake related events. in order to address these issues, this research introduces a suite of tools that can be used to analyze, model, and simulate complex environmental hazard-induced loads and resulting structural response. univariate and multivariate processes are both considered. specific areas of focus include: develop improved methods for the detection of key features in datasets, such as non-stationarity, using the method of surrogates; assess current analysis procedures utilized for both stationary and non-stationary wind datasets and introduce more flexible averaging interval schemes for the proper determination of turbulence characteristics in non-stationary wind; develop an efficient multivariate non-gaussian simulation approach that considers non-gaussianity of the joint probability density function in addition to considering non-gaussianity of the marginal distributions; improve upon existing non-stationary simulation approaches by also allowing for consideration of non-gaussianity; and develop a more flexible and robust approach for the detection and analysis of nonlinear coupling between two processes related to hazard loading/response or within the same process between two different modes. these tools allow for the consideration of extreme events, which is often not addressed due to lack of data and complexity of interactions. the assurance of the safety and reliability of structures subjected to environmental loads, however, requires the consideration of extreme loading scenarios and response.besides consideration of non-stationarity, non-gaussianity, and nonlinearity in events, it is also important to consider the multiple hazards with which a structure may be faced over its lifetime. design and construction in a coastal environment would benefit from the consideration of the effects of concurrent hazards as well as hazards in isolation. multi-hazard engineering strategies can be incorporated into design to enhance the inherent resilience and improve the robustness of structures. a performance-based engineering (pbe) approach would also allow for a structure to be designed for specified levels of performance under particular hazard scenarios. a possible design methodology that integrates multi-hazard engineering with pbe is introduced and seeks to improve structural reliability for a wide range of loading scenarios. the success of the proposed research tools will provide engineers with a better understanding of the loads to which a structure will be subjected, improving the ability to more accurately predict structural response in the design stages. this knowledge will help designers to determine the most efficient and effective designs for structures to best withstand a range of natural hazards. clouds have joined clusters and grids as powerful environments for large scale scientific computing. while these platforms provide virtually unlimited computing resources, using more resources for an application does not always result in superior performance. the extra amount that does not contribute to any performance increase is a waste. this dissertation seeks to answer the question of how many computing resources should be allocated for a given workload. two categories of workloads ? static and dynamic, are identified where viable solutions are found for this problem. for static workloads, we show that distributed abstractions allow for accurate performance modeling on distributed, multicore, and distributed multicore systems and thus can automatically make better resource allocation decisions. for dynamic workloads, we present dynamic capacity management as a solution to avoid resource waste without compromising on the application performance. we evaluate the effectiveness of this technique on a selection of workload patterns, ranging from highly homogeneous to completely random, and observe that the system is able to significantly reduce wasted resources with minimal impact on performance. finally, we show that both solutions have been successfully applied in real world scientific applications in areas such as bioinformatics, economics, and molecular modeling. this is a work of fiction. there are six essential hallmarks of cancer that are targeted by current therapies to overcome the progression and metastasis of cancer cells. many current treatments lack continued efficacy due to problematic side effects including off-target toxicity and the development of resistance mechanisms. one such strategy to overcome these limitations that has been implemented involves targeting multiple sites within cancer cells. this thesis discusses projects that contribute to the development of more beneficial cancer therapeutics using this approach.apicularen a is a polyketide natural product that has been shown to act as an inhibitor of the v-atpase enzyme. this enzyme plays a critical role in maintaining the homeostasis of the ph within a cell. up-regulation of this enzyme has been observed in cancer cells. we have developed a formal synthesis of apicularen a, incorporating our ether transfer methodology and diels-alder chemistry to produce the macrolactone of the natural product. this synthetic route can be applied to the synthesis of a chimera that consists of the apicularen a macrolactone and the side chain of cruentaren a, an f-atpase inhibitor. the addition of the cruentaren a side chain to create a chimeric analogue was envisioned to shift the selectivity of apicularen a to a dual-target drug, both a vand an f-atpase inhibitor. the ability of a drug to influence different components of a cell limits the cancer cell's propensity to develop resistance to the compound. therefore, this chimeric analogue could lead to more effective treatment than the parent compound. natural products such as paclitaxel (taxol®) and the epothilone analogue ixempra® are microtubule stabilizing agents that are used for the treatment of various cancers. we have been interested in the conformational profile of the epothilones in relation to their activity. our group has previously published the major conformational profiles of this class of natural products. in the second part of this thesis we have synthesized two novel epothilone analogues that are designed to assess the importance of the c7oh moiety in the molecule's activity profile. our conformational profiles suggest that removal of this functionality will minimize the inactive conformation, resulting in a more active compound. the synthesis of the analogues without the c7oh is carried out and their activity in cancer cells was determined. the results showed that while conformation is important for the design of analogues, key intermolecular bonding within the target site can override these preferences.the last project investigates the use of the epothilones in a combination treatment. subtle differences in the role of microtubules during the cell cycle can provide an opportunity to increase the susceptibility of specific protein targets. we have shown using fixed and live cell imaging that the combination of epothilone and the aurora kinase inhibitor zm447439 leads to a highly penetrant mitotic defect that was distinct from the observed phenotype in individual treatment. this novel mechanism of cell death is further investigated by the synthesis of an epothilone – aurora kinase inhibitor conjugate. covalently combining these drugs has two main advantages: ensuring each cell is delivered both compounds for the novel effect, and driving the aurora kinase inhibitor into the cell by utilizing the known effect of high accumulation of epothilones within the cells. our synthesized conjugate was shown to exhibit nanomolar activity. together the projects described in this thesis demonstrate that both enzymatic and structural components of the cell can serve as useful targets for the development of cancer therapeutics. furthermore, the combination of known molecules in different ways can lead to novel therapeutics with the potential to be more effective cancer treatments. the problem of finding structure in big data sets is becoming increasingly relevant to psychologists as it becomes easier and cheaper to collect data on human behavior. this dissertation focuses on the problem of identifying important structural features like main effects, nonlinear effects, and interactions in big data sets when the number of predictors is large. in general, this goal can be referred to as exploratory regression analysis. exploratory regression analysis is beneficial because the results suggest testable hypotheses, can limit the number of plausible models, and help avoid errors in model specification. exploratory regression analysis is usually carried out using basic data visualization techniques, simple statistical models, or by fitting a number of parametric models and selecting the best from among them. however, these procedures can require strong assumptions and may not be feasible when the number of predictors is large.gradient tree boosting (friedman_greedy_2001) is a promising alternative for exploratory regression analysis because it builds an interpretable model that approximates nonlinear effects and interactions among predictors without a priori specification. however, it is not clear how to build and interpret gradient tree boosting models in the context of multivariate, longitudinal, and hierarchically clustered data commonly found in psychological research.this dissertation develops two procedures for estimating gradient tree boosting models for multivariate, longitudinal and hierarchically clustered data. multivariate tree boosting selects predictors that explain covariance in multiple outcomes. mixed effects tree boosting takes hierarchically clustered data into account by treating a grouping variable as random. longitudinal data can be modeled in boosted decision trees by including time as a candidate for splitting in mixed effects tree boosting. these procedures are illustrated by application to real data. simulations demonstrate that the methods balance true and false positive rates when selecting variables, and achieve low prediction error at sample and effect sizes commonly observed in psychology. human action recognition (har) is frequently used to detect an individual's motion patterns based on a series of observations of the individual's body and environment. this technique is essential to many fields such as stroke rehabilitation and driver monitoring. there are two main approaches for a har system: vision-based and sensor-based. as more sensors (e.g., gps and accelerometers) are integrated into modern smartphones, interest in action recognition using mobile devices has increased in recent years, where machine learning plays a central role in the action detection.the performance of a har system depends on data quality and sensing and processing parameters to control data processing. however, to the best of our knowledge, the user-provided data is prone to human error, and the impact of each input parameter on classification performance is not fully understood. in this dissertation, we proposed three novel works to improve har performance. first, we summarized a set of typical sensing and processing parameters and evaluate their impacts on classification performance using regression analysis. second, we applied and adapted the concept of intraclass correlation coefficient to measure the consistency of time-series data (such as accelerometer readings). third, to detect and remove smartphone label error, we proposed a scheme for four stratifiedtrained classifiers and an ensemble technique for them. these works provide a guideline to improve har performance from both training data and parameter optimization. in this dissertation i present work on the modeling of adsorbate-metal interactions with a specific focus on carbon monoxide (co) induced restructuring of platinum stepped surfaces. additionally, i will present work on the development of a multiple-minima fluctuating charge (mm-flucq) potential which has been used to simulate charge responsive platinum surfaces.new pt-co and au-co forcefields were developed to study coverage-dependent restructuring of high-index platinum &amp; gold (557) surfaces. it was observed that the weak au-co binding led to minimal disruption of the surface, whereas the strong pt-co interactions resulted in significant disruption of the step-edges which led to increased step-wandering. specifically, the strong co-co quadrupolar repulsion caused an increase in adatom mobility. this increased mobility eventually led to large-scale surface reconstructions including the formation of a metastable double layer.a platinum/palladium (pt/pd) (557) surface was simulated to explore co-induced reconstructions on a more complicated bimetallic surface. the pt-co forcefield was retuned while a new pd-co forcefield was developed. the difference in binding strengths was found to play an important role in the disruption of the pt/pd surface while the preferred binding sites on each system (pt: atop, pd: bridge/hollow) led to significantly different behaviors with regards to surface diffusion and mobility.the importance of step-edge energetics for the formation of adatoms encouraged us to directly examine straight edged (557) &amp; (112) and kinked edged (765) &amp; (321) platinum surfaces. as expected, the systems with rougher edges experienced a greater amount of surface diffusion and a concomitantly increased amount of step-wandering. the length of the (111) plateaus between step edges also played an important role with regard to the extent of surface reconstruction observed.accurate treatment of the electrostatic interactions between adsorbates and surfaces is often neglected in molecular dynamics simulations because of the increased computational cost and difficulty of implementation. our new mm-flucq potential allows us to more properly describe a metal surface's response to impinging charged species in a dynamic fashion by allowing the charges on each atomic site to fluctuate in response to the local electronic environment. there are a number of emerging nanoscale devices that promise to operate at amazing speeds with very low power and at very high densities. however, many of these promises ignore critical factors in the design of a computer that would render them little to no better than today's transistors. this dissertation explores reversibility as an avenue to allow the high speed, high density, and low power potential of nanoscale devices to be harnessed. this work begins by providing the foundation for a theory of reversible computation by presenting a formal investigation of reversible finite automata and reversible regular languages that surpasses previous discussions of reversible finite automata that were insufficient to allow fundamental and important discussions to be held about the differences between reversible finite automata and reversible regular languages and their traditional counterparts. the discussion is also extended to reversible regular expressions. the work continues by discussing a new symmetry discovered in reversible gates that facilitates the identification of complete, reversible gate sets for emerging nanodevices. next, a simple reversible architecture, palindrome, is presented that demonstrates the impact of reversibility on the instruction set architecture, microarchitecture, and assembly level programming. finally, a path is shown for designing physically reversible architectures using a particular nanoscale device, quantum-dot cellular automata. party polarization has fundamentally altered the political landscape in the united states. for good or ill, it has increased the contentiousness of elections, it has changed the conduct of government business, and it potentially affects the quality of representation many citizens receive in congress. nonetheless, explanations of its emergence remain incomplete, often being time-bound or region-bound, and most ignore the possibility that party strategy lies at the heart of this development. in response to this lacuna, in this dissertation i present evidence that over the past thirty years party leaders have helped bring about party polarization in congress in the way they have distributed party campaign funds to candidates. i find party leaders helped make congressional caucuses more ideologically homogeneous over time by providing party support to ideological challengers and open-seat contestants and thereby significantly improving their likelihood of gaining seats; by targeting resources toward races against moderate incumbents of the opposite party with great success; and by providing party monies to protect their own moderate incumbents at the expense of making those incumbents more vulnerable to seat-challenges and targeting by the other party. these allocation decisions contributed to the replacement of moderates in congress with ideological new members and made the party caucuses in congress more ideologically unified and distinctive over time. this dissertation concerns the development of a person-centered extension to the linear model that can be used to test the association of multivariate outcome data and a set of covariates. while the focus of the standard linear model test statistic is the sum of squares of the outcome variable(s), the focus of the multivariate distance matrix regression (mdmr) test statistic is the sum of squared distances between response profiles. the freedom to choose any distance metric to quantify the dissimilarity between these response profiles can result in the relaxation of several assumptions that are commonly required to conduct multivariate association tests. this renders mdmr a flexible, powerful alternative to standard approaches to multivariate multiple regression. mdmr, however, is not commonly used in the social sciences, and this is partially due to three key issues that are addressed in this dissertation: (1) the null distribution of the mdmr test statistic is unknown, so the computation of p-values is currently contingent upon permutation tests that can be computationally infeasible, (2) the mdmr framework does not provide a useful measure of effect size for specific outcome variables, and (3) the mdmr framework relies on the assumption of independent observations. wind tunnel experiments were performed with active flow control using a dielectric barrier discharge (dbd) plasma actuator to determine the effects of flow control in a test section simulating the bend in a centrifugal compressor. these experiments were performed over a range of pressures and mach numbers to determine the applicability of plasma actuators under the extreme conditions of compressor flows. vortex generators were also examined as an easily quantifiable disturbance to test the sensitivity of the system. significant 3-d effects were discovered in the experiment that were not predicted to be present in centrifugal compressors. vortices were found to form in the corners of the bend test section which promoted mixing through the section. this caused significant changes to the velocity profile through the bend test section compared to that predicted by 2-d and fully azimuthal simulations. despite these differences, the results of the experiment remain valid for predicting the effectiveness of plasma actuators in high pressure flows. while previous work has been performed investigating the effects of pressure on plasma actuators and the force generated by plasma actuators, this experiment examines plasma actuators as flow control devices in high pressure flows. plasma actuators are shown to improve the performance of the system by as much at 5%. the effectiveness of dbd actuators is seen to increase with pressure for a constant applied voltage to a maximum beyond which effectiveness is reduced. from the results of the simulations, it is suggested that by increasing the plasma actuator flow control authority, the performance of the system can be improved beyond that of the present work. the performance scaling trends associated with moore's law have motivated device feature size scaling and development of conventional complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (cmos) technology over the past several decades. however in recent years the end of dennard scaling and the dark silicon problem, [1, 2] as well as therapid growth of machine learning (ml) and internet of things (iot) are challenging the capabilities of both existing technologies and conventional von neumann computing paradigms and architectures. on the one hand, the increasing subthreshold leakage current of cmos as the device size reduces to sub-μm scale becomes a major concern in integrated circuit (ic) designs, resulting in significant power consumption; on the other hand, in the era of artificial intelligent (ai), ml, and the iot, many applications and systems place new demands on computing paradigms and architectures for massive data transfer, extremely low power consumption, high-speed performance and nonvolatility in energy constrained environments. conventional von neumann architectures alone are insufficient to support future applications and systems, thus revolutionary advancements exploiting new computing paradigms and architectures, as well as emerging technologies are needed. this dissertation studies novel circuit and architecture designs by exploiting the unique characteristics of emerging devices. a number of emerging device have been explored to develop novel circuit designs that can address the processor-memory bottleneck caused by massive data transfer and achieve better energy efficiency and performance than conventional cmos designs. among the emerging devices being studied, ferroelectric field-effect transistors (fefets) stand out with unique hysteretic ids-vgs characteristics. we proposed novel logic-in-memory (lim) circuits to address the processor-memory bottleneck in different computing platforms by exploiting the hysteretic characteristic of fefets, which allows the devices to function as both switches and a non-volatile (nv) storage element. moreover, fefets offer advantages over other emerging technologies, including its three-terminal structure, voltage-driven write mechanism, high on current, high on-off ratios, etc. our proposed circuits are evaluated to be superior to equivalent lim approaches based on cmos and other emerging technologies in terms of area, energy and performance. another class of emerging devices, i.e., symmetric fet (symfet), exhibit bell-shaped i-v characteristics. by exploiting this unique characteristic, we proposed symfet-based sequential circuits that are more compact and energy efficient than conventional equivalents. we also proposed a compact symfet-based voltage protector that improves the hardware security aspect of protected circuits against the side channel attack. our work paved the way to building pure emerging device based systems and emerging technology based hardware security primitives.this dissertation also considers novel hardware design based on emerging computational paradigms for hard optimization problems in the context of ml and iot applications. boolean satisfiability (sat), the first problem proven to be np-complete, is intractable on digital computers based on the von neumann architecture. an efficient sat solver can benefit many applications such as artificial intelligence, electronic design automation, as well as scheduling and functional verification. we propose a novel analog hardware sat solver, ac-sat, implementing an analog computing algorithm called continuous-time dynamical system (ctds). this algorithm shows polynomial analog time-complexity on the hardest k-sat (k≥3) problem instances, but at an energy cost dependent on exponentially growing auxiliary variables. ac-sat is intended to be used as a co-processor and is programmable for handling different problem specifications. it is especially effective for solving the hard k-sat problem instances that are challenging for algorithms running on digital machines. furthermore, with its modular design, ac-sat can be readily extended to solve larger size problems. spice simulation results show that ac-sat can indeed solve the sat problems, and it has speedup factors of ∼10^4 on even the hardest 3-sat problems, when compared with a state-of-the-art sat solver on digital computers. the study of ferromagnetic semiconductors (fms) continues to be of great interest because of their potential for spintronic devices. while there has been much progress in our understanding of fms materials &ndash; particularly of the canonical iii-v system gamnas &ndash; many issues still remain unresolved. one of these is the nature of interlayer exchange coupling (iec) in gamnas-based multilayers, an issue that is important from the point of view of possible spintronic applications. in this connection, it is important to establish under what conditions the iec between successive gamnas layers is antiferromagnetic (afm) or ferromagnetic (fm), since manipulation of such iec can then be directly applied to achieve giant magnetoresistance (gmr) and other devices based on this material. in this thesis i describe magneto-transport, magnetization, and neutron reflectometry experiments applied to gamnas-based tri-layer structures, consisting of gamnas layers separated by non-magnetic gaas spacers. these measurements serve to identify conditions under which afm coupling will occur in such gamnas/gaas multilayer systems, thus providing us the information which can be used for manipulating magnetization (and thus gmr) in structures based on the ferromagnetic semiconductor gamnas. in addition, i describe results regarding vertically graded magnetic anisotropy in gamnas. controlled vertical grading of magnetization of the ferromagnetic semiconductor gamnas represents a significant step toward optimizing its magnetic properties for device applications. we show that vertical magnetization gradients in gamnas layers can readily be achieved by appropriate growth strategies, although quantitative control of such grading is difficult in the growth of such layers due to various competing effects, such as mn diffusion, self-annealing, and diffusion of charge carriers. furthermore, there also are several surface effects that can influence the magnetization profile, which should be considered in designing and fabricating graded gamnas specimens. polarized neutron reflectometry provides direct evidence that vertical grading of mn concentration has been successfully achieved in our gamnas samples, and that the samples exhibit magnetic 'hardening' near the surface. finally, i describe results from efforts to carefully engineer the hole concentration in gamnas both after and during growth. when ge is grown on gamnas, the incorporation of mn has already been fixed during its growth, but the holes are drained off into ge. squid measurements show tc in gamnas drops rapidly when layers of ge are deposited over it, the decrease in tc scaling roughly with the thickness of the ge layers. based on our current understanding of impurity band behavior in gamnas, this precision control over hole concentration may be important for efforts to optimize tc. in addition, i describe efforts (and their unintended consequences on magnetic anisotropy) to control the incorporation of mn in substitutional and interstitial positions of gaas via increasing the fermi level of gamnas during the growth by growing gamnas over ge layers. this study assessed the direct relation between young adolescents' regulated noncompliance and democratic parenting as well as the potential mediating role of mothers' perceived influence during the transition to adolescence. three years of self-report data were gathered from 166 mothers and their firstborn children (55% female), ages 9 11 years at time one. structural equation models indicated a total effect between adolescents' regulated noncompliance and higher maternal democracy. in addition, the total effect was mediated by mothers' perceived influence, such that adolescents' regulated noncompliance at time one was associated with greater perceptions of influence at time two, which, in turn, was associated with greater maternal democracy at time three. this suggests that mothers with young adolescents who resist in a relatively mature, regulated manner tend to have more positive perceptions of their influence on their emerging adolescents' behavior. in turn, mothers expecting to maintain their influence despite normative adolescent resistance tend to be more likely to use democratic parenting strategies, granting their adolescents more input in decisions that affect them. the majority of cancer-associated deaths are due to metastasis, and understanding mechanisms that initiate this process is essential for targeting aggressive tumors. the process of invasion is a crucial primary step for cancer metastasis, and the mechanisms involved are not fully understood. in this research dissertation, the role for mixed lineage kinase 3 (mlk3) in the regulation of invasion in melanoma is demonstrated. mlk3 is a mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase kinase (map3k) that more recently has been recognized as an important regulator of tumor invasion and metastasis. using cellular, molecular and biochemical approaches, we have investigated the effects of depleting mlk3 in cutaneous melanoma. we outline a pathway involving brafv600e hsp90 and cdc37 that impacts erk activation, wnt signaling and regulators of extracellular matrix invasion including the levels and spatial distribution of matrix metalloproteinases. we also investigate mlk3 signaling on uveal melanoma invasion. we demonstrate similarities and differences in the regulation of cutaneous and uveal melanoma invasion. these studies provide critical insights into the role of mlk3 in cutaneous and uveal melanoma cell invasion. this thesis is devoted to the study of magnetic properties of multilayer structures involving combinations of a ferromagnetic metal with a semiconductor. understanding such is expected to be relevant for achieving integrated spintronic devices, i.e., applications that depend on electronic and spin effects of the system as a whole. specifically, we explore structures comprised of ferromagnetic layers of fe deposited on semiconductors gaas, znse and ge fabricated by the method of molecular beam epitaxy. the ability of growing fe films of high crystalline quality on these semiconductor layers is made possible by a fortuitous between match the body-centered cubic crystal structure of fe and the face-centered cubic structure of gaas, znse and ge. the fe films so fabricated, and are capped by au or al to protect the film from oxidation after it is taken out of the growth chamber. in investigating these hybrid magnetic metal/semiconductor structures, we first focus on determining their static magnetic properties by systematic magnetization measurements carried out using a superconducting quantum interference device (squid). these studies reveal that the magnetic properties of these highly crystalline fe films are highly anisotropic, with well-defined easy axes of magnetization. they also reveal a strong dependence of their magnetic anisotropy on the underlying semiconductor materials, as follows. the gaas/fe structures show a strong uniaxial magneto-crystalline symmetry in the plane of the film; znse/fe multilayers show a finite but weak uniaxial anisotropy; and ge/fe show a fully cubic symmetry. these studies are followed by measurements of the ferromagnetic resonance in the semiconductor/fe systems, which provide the opportunity for a quantitative determination of the magneto-crystalline anisotropy parameters revealed qualitatively in the squid measurements. the quality of the fmr spectra further attests to the very high crystalline quality of the fe films grown on the gaas, znse and ge buffer layers. having determined their magnetic properties, we then study interactions of the fe films with their adjacent neighbors. we observed that the gaas/fe structures capped by au show striking exchange bias effects, which we ascribe to the formation of an antiferromagnetic (afm) layer. while no afm layer is intentionally deposited on the fe film, we conclude that penetration of oxygen through the thin capping au layer leads to the formation of feo or related oxide, which is an antiferromagnet below room temperature, and is thus likely to lead to exchange bias. the exchange bias studied by squid then allows us to quantitatively measure the exchange field arising from the afm film and acting on the fe layer. the exchange bias effect is accompanied by highly-asymmetric magnetic hystereses observed when a magnetic field is applied at different angles to the film. the observed hystereses can be satisfactorily fitted by the magnetic free energy modified by including a unidirectional exchange bias term. we conclude the study of the fe/semiconductor hybrid structures by investigating the magnetic properties of fe/gaas core-shell nanowires. these structures are grown by mbe using catalytic nucleation of gaas nanowires of about 10 nm diameter and 2000 nm length by gold droplet nucleation. the gaas nanowires are then coated by fe (to form in effect fe tubes), and again by au to protect them from oxidation after removal from the mbe chamber. magnetic studies by squid and by fmr show that the resulting nanowires are magnetically highly anisotropic. the fmr measurements further reveal that the as-grown ensemble of such nanowires can be described by an entirely new demagnetizing factor, not previously known. in this thesis we give numerical algorithms to find theone-dimensional and two-dimensional parts of the solution sets on$rn$ of systemsegin{equation}label{realsystem}f(x):=left[egin{array}{c} f{1}(x{1},ldots,x{n}) \ vdots \ f{n}(x{1},ldots,x{n}) end{array}ight]=0end{equation}of $n$ polynomials on $rn$.typically, we want to find the solutions on $rn$ as opposed to the solutions on $cn$ when we need to solve such a system of $n$polynomials. however, the real solutions are much more complicated and expensive to compute than the complex solutions. our approach is to find the real solutions starting with the known complex components. recently in cite{svw1,svw2,svw3}, new techniques have been successfully developed to numerically decompose complex algebraic sets into irreducible components. with the help of this decomposition and a morse-theoretic decomposition, we give algorithms for numerically computing the real solution sets. the morse-theoretic decomposition only works for multiplicity one components. for the components of multiplicity at least two, we use the technique of deflation to make them into reduced components in a higher dimensional space. the one-dimensional and two-dimensional real sets are the most interesting ones in applications. we focus on these two cases in this thesis. an application of our algorithms to mechanisms, specifically the stewart-gough platform robot, is presented. what are the causes and consequences of state-sponsored political violence against civilians and how can international actors limit such violence? this dissertation takes a prospect theory approach to understanding these questions, diverging from the typical expected-utility framework presented in the existing literature. the primary argument is that governments decide whether to perpetrate violence against their citizens based on whether that government is operating from a domain of gain or a domain of loss. the result is that distinct governments will respond to similar types of threats with difference levels of violence depending on their domain. this dissertation consists of an introduction and three chapters which use quantitative methods to study several consequences of this argument. chapter 2 explores the causes of state repression, arguing that a government's domain influences how governments frame threats and the level of risk a government will accept to eliminate those threats. a statistical analysis of government responses to dissent among african countries supports this argument, showing that governments in the domain of loss repress low levels of dissent at higher rates than governments in the domain of gain. chapter 3 considers the effects of government violence, examining how the killing of civilians in intrastate conflict influences its outcome. this chapter argues that a government's domain shapes its use of civilian victimization, which in turn affects the conflict's outcome. a global study of intrastate conflicts finds that the patterns of violence perpetrated by governments in the domain of loss are more likely to lead to rebel-preferred conflict outcomes, while those used by governments in the domain of gain increase the probability of a government-preferred outcome. chapter 4 looks at how international actors influence the use of state repression, proposing that the effect of interventions on the use of state-sponsored violence is conditioned on government domain. quantitative testing provides some limited support for this theory. in combination, these chapters suggest that utilizing a prospect theory framework can improve our understanding of state-sponsored political violence. social scientific studies have sought to characterize and explain the state of prejudice toward different religious groups in the united states, and muslims have increasingly been the objects of this exploration since 9/11. however, few studies have explored religious out-group bias among muslims, particularly outside the us context. using a representative cross-national sample, this study seeks to explain variation in religious out-group bias among muslims in minority contexts around the world. theories of religion, as both a social identity and an institution, and religious discrimination are explored as predictors of social distance. results show institutional religion and religious discrimination to be significant predictors of social distance. further findings indicate institutional religion mediates the relationship between state religious discrimination and religious out-group bias among muslims in minority contexts. the main objective of this study was to explore relations between early adversities and two associated risk factors for depression, trait depression and patterns of hpa axis function. specifically, the study sought to test whether an indicator of hypothalamic-piuitary-adrenal (hpa) axis function, the cortisol awakening response (car), mediates the relation between early abuse and trait depression. no study to date has examined the association of these constructs in the same study at similar conceptual levels (i.e., trait function). although the car has been studied extensively in association with depression and psychosocial variables associated with depression, the research has produced mixed results. yet it is frequently implied or stated that differences in the car may be causally associated with depression. although this speculation finds some support in animal research, associations between early adversities, the car, and dispositional factors such as trait depression cannot be assumed. thus, the present study sought to advance the literature by exploring the mediating effect of morning cortisol increase (i.e., trait car and car flexibility) in a model examining the relation between early adversities and trait depression. drawing a sample of adults from the notre dame health &amp; well-being (ndhwb) study, 144 participants reported their experiences of early abuse and parental care. a focused test of the indirect effect showed a trend for trait car and car flexibility to statistically mediate the relation between maternal abuse and trait depression. this trend was evident only when the late-life cohort data was excluded from the analyses. the results suggest that the core index of parental abuse, maternal neglect and antipathy, is associated with trait depression and blunted trait car and car flexibility in early-, midand late-life in this dissertation, i will examine the organization of the united methodist church, exploring in particular how policies such as the system of itinerancy undermine the power and efficacy of pastors. using data from interviews of pastors in the united methodist church of indiana, along with observational and interview data from two congregations in a mid-sized, midwestern city, i outline the ways in which the strength of laity within the united methodist system, developed over years of shifting pastoral leadership, undermines the strength of pastoral leadership. finally, i discuss ways in which the lack of leadership within congregations leads to a gap in vision within the congregations. this dissertation describes the ability of four classes of synthetic small molecules to promote the transport of anions across biomembranes without disturbing membrane integrity. the anions are either glycerophospholipids or anionic small dyes. the first motivation for exploring these transport molecules was to better understand the minimal supramolecular requirements to achieve membrane transport. the second motivation of this research was to find biological applications for these synthetic small molecules. bolaamphiphile molecules, which have two hydrophilic ends connected by a hydrophobic core, in a bilayer membrane have been shown to facilitate transport of fluorescently labeled phospholipids in vesicles. while bolaamphiphiles are generally thought of as membrane rigidifying agents, these two classes of bolaamphiphiles facilitate phospholipid translocation and perturb membrane integrity in vesicle systems. two classes of hydrogen bonding transporters were studied, the cholates and tris(2-aminoethyl)amine) (tren) compounds. they appear to work by associating with the phosphate portion of the phospholipid head group; thus, masking the polarity and raising the probability for the complex to enter the hydrophobic membrane core. the steroid-derived cholates have a bis-urea anion-binding pocket. in general, it seems that the apparent binding constant does not have a direct correlation to the translocation half-life of a cholate:phosphatidylcholine complex. a cationic cholate series was shown to facilitate the exposure of phosphatidylserine on the surface of erythrocytes. the synthetic scramblase class based on the structure of tren also transports phospholipids across vesicle and nucleated cell's plasma membranes. the decrease in translocation of phosphatidylserine as compared to phosphatidylcholine may be due to the residence time of the tren localized at the plasma membrane. the last class of small molecule sensors and scramblases are the zinc coordinated dipicolylamine compounds that coordinate to the head group of anionic phospholipids and facilitate the transport of anions across the membrane. this research has lead to the development of compounds that can alter or sense the phospholipid asymmetry and composition of plasma membranes for use as biological sensors. my dissertation argues that machine ethics has not paid nearly enough attention to contemporary research in cognitive neuroscience. while many fields in artificial intelligence have benefited from neuroscience, machine ethics has largely eschewed help from this quarter, and as a result, has failed to take advantage of our growing understanding of how moral cognition is implemented in the human brain. this is at least partially because moral cognition consists in a complex interaction between many different neurocognitive systems, none of which is exclusive to moral decision making. given this complexity, there remain significant gaps in our ability to explain how these diverse brain areas and functions interact in constituting our ability to navigate the world in moral terms. imperfect though it may be, our neuroscientific understanding of moral cognition is sufficiently advanced to help us build machines better able to participate in our moral lives. detailed findings in cognitive neuroscience have the potential to benefit machine ethics in a number of important areas, informing the development of better machine architectures, suggesting promising approaches to solving difficult cognitive problems, and possibly even helping us to better understand our own complicated relationships with machine agents. however, human moral cognition is hardly a guarantee of morally correct behavior and machine ethics should be careful not to build machines so biologically faithful that they share our moral failings. in this sense, the potential of cognitive neuroscience to benefit machine ethics is not a matter of modeling moral cognition in toto, but rather, one of understanding how the neural implementation of certain cognitive functions might inform our best efforts to realize similar functions in machine agents. ultimately, the hope is that by better understanding our own brains, we might better understand a project that aspires to recreate in machines what seem to be some of the most distinctive aspects of human cognition. a bundle gerbe is constructed from an oriented smooth vector bundle of even rank with a fiberwise inner product, over a compact connected orientable smooth manifold with riemannian metric. from a trivialization of the bundle gerbe is constructed an irreducible clifford module bundle, a spinor bundle over the smooth free loop space of the manifold. first, a clifford algebra bundle over the loop space is constructed from the vector bundle. a polarization class bundle is constructed, choosing continuously over each point of the loop space a polarization class of lagrangian subspaces of the complexification of the real vector space from which the clifford algebra is made. being unable to choose a lagrangian subspace continuously from the polarization class over each point, the thesis constructs a bundle gerbe over the loop space of the base manifold to encode over each loop all such subspaces, along with the isomorphisms between the fock spaces made from them, resulting from their being in the same polarization class. the vanishing of the dixmier-douady class of the bundle gerbe implies that the latter has a trivialization, from which is constructed a spinor bundle. the work presented in this dissertation investigates the use of various alkali metal aggregates as secondary building units, sbus, for the formation of extended framework materials. three main avenues of research have been studied, which each consider different approaches to better understand this class of materials. the first topic is concerned with the manipulation of extended supramolecular structure of lithium aryloxide complexes using either self-assembled mixed-anion species or solvent additives (chapters 2 and 3). our group has previously shown that molecular cage aggregates of s-block metal complexes can successfully be utilized as sbus to direct network assembly. for example, tetrameric cubanes of specific lithium aryloxides may be designed such that each metal center has a single open site for coordination to a lewis base. in turn, employment of a ditopic linker results in these aggregates acting as tetrahedral nodes to form 3d diamondoid, and related lower dimensionality polymers. another level of sophistication to these systems is presented here through the control of the number of metal atoms within each aggregate that may act as points of network extension. a set of zero-, one-, two-, and three-dimensional materials have been synthesized by systematically varying the stoichiometry of the two components, 2,4,6-me3-c6h2oli (aroli) and me2n(ch2)2oli (roli), within single aggregates while using 1,4-dioxane (diox) as a ditopic linker. the homoleptic complex [{(aroli)4ì¢ ââå¢(diox)2}3(diox)] forms a 3d diamondoid extended structure, where li4o4 cubanes act as tetrahedral nodes. attempts to rationally alter the dimensionality of the network through the sequential replacement of aroli vertices by potentially chelating roli units have succeeded. the mixed-anion complexes [{(roli)(aroli)3ì¢ ââå¢(diox)1.5}1/2(c6h14)] and [(roli)4(aroli)2ì¢ ââå¢(diox)], adopt 2d hexagonal net and 1d chain structures, respectively. furthermore, the two complexes [{(roli)3(aroli)3ì¢ ââå¢(diox)0.5}(c6h14)] and [(roli)5(aroli)ì¢ ââå¢(diox)0.5] both form unusual 0d molecular dumbbell structures in the solid state. incorporation of multiple roli units in the mixed-anion complexes not only results in reducing the number of possible sites for polymer extension through chelation, but also changes the aggregation state of the building block from tetrametallic li4o4 units to hexametallic li6o6 units. the second area of investigation explores the molecular aggregation and extended network chemistry of substituted aryloxide ligands in combination with the heavier alkali metals na, k, rb, and cs (chapters 4-6). in particular, we reasoned that aggregates containing the larger alkali metals were appealing candidates as sbus for high-connectivity systems since they should allow multiple sites for network extension (increased metal solvation), leading to interesting or novel network topologies. ring and cage aggregates containing the large alkali metals potassium or rubidium have proven to be excellent building blocks for the creation of high-connectivity nets, as demonstrated by their use as septahedral and nonahedral nodes. highlights from this work include the characterization of [(4-cl-2,6-me2-c6h2ok)2ì¢ ââå¢(dioxane)3.5] and [(2,4,6-me3-c6h2ok)5ì¢ ââå¢(dioxane)5], which form two new types of 7-connected nets, and [2-ipr-c6h4orb)6ì¢ ââå¢(dioxane)4.5], which is the first ever example of a 9-connected net. an expected finding during the study of the potassium 2-tert-butylphenoxide system was the encapsulation of molecular water inside a k6o6 hexameric drum, forming [{(2-tbu-c6h4ok)6(h2o)}ì¢ ââå¢(dioxane)4]. encapsulation of neutral molecules within alkali metal aggregates is rare. the scope and cause of this unusual behavior was studied in detail (chapter 5). the final part of the dissertation explores the synthesis of organometallic polymers assembled from cation-pi interactions (chapter 7). the objective was to utilize ferrocene, the prototypical metallocene, as a neutral, linear, ditopic pi-linker to bridge between preformed alkali metal aggregates the combination of m(hmds), where m = na, k, rb, cs, with ferrocene gives rise to one-dimensional polymeric chains of dimeric ring amides bridged through ferrocene. in addition, the rubidium and cesium analogues have close intermolecular agostic interactions with neighboring chains, such that the supramolecular structures may be considered as two-dimensional square planar nets. these studies demonstrate that cation-pi interactions can be used to rationally build extended networks using appropriate conditions. patterns of experience: pragmatism, perception, and cultural cognition in modern american literature, tracks experience-based forms of mimesis in the writing of herman melville, henry david thoreau, ernest hemingway, and zora neale hurston. it is this project's contention that these four american writers attend to the interplay among perception, conception, and culture in their narratives, and collectively articulate an anti-foundationalist theory of cognition in which our concepts are anchored in culturally-situated acts of perception. from melville's depiction of machine-mediated modes of perception in european navigational practices, to hurston's pragmatist epistemology in which her subjective, participatory engagement with haitian and jamaican culture is a source of narrative authority and objectivity, patterns of experience suggests that how we think is not a transparent process in which ideas get transferred directly from world to body to mind. at the same time, however, my project points to the search for alternative modes of perception and conception that are anchored in the cognitive environments of thoreau's maine woods and hemingway's african savannah and the gulf stream. sir james steuart wrote the first english language work on economics as a separate subject, introduced the phrase political economy into english, and published the principles of political economy (1767) nine years before the wealth of nations. why then is adam smith considered in standard histories of thought to be the father of economics and steuart an antiquated mercantilist and lesser smith at best, and a command socialist at worst? standard histories of economic thought tend to place these two works in isolation from their eighteenth century scottish and continental context. the dissertation seeks to rectify the imbalance by examining both the economic and social history of scotland, as well as both authors' positions in those histories and how they influenced their works. specifically, the dissertation presents a new interpretation of steuart as a scottish patriot who conceived of political economy as a new tool with which smaller, dispossessed nations could forge a new identity. based on archival research, the work also traces the impact of steuart's family and personal allegiances with the jacobite rebellion on his life and economic ideas. using historical and literary criticism to recast steuart in his proper social, cultural, and political background his principles can be read as a policy handbook for smaller nations struggling with political identity and economic survival in the face of the rise of the imperial power of britain and france.through the application of ideas from the sociology of scientific knowledge on how scientific communities and canons are formed, the dissertation also places steuart in his proper enlightenment context, and acknowledges that his work, which is reliant on local oversight and knowledge, is anathema to nineteenth century british needs for universal economic policies, and, in doing so, explores the political and intellectual reasons why he was written out of the canon of economics. the dissertation also seeks to show what was lost to economic theory thereby, namely steuart's alternative and complex vision of a more 'people-centered' economics that is concerned more with respect for a community's local history, culture, and consumption than with universal principles, capital accumulation, profit, and production. previous research suggests that stress and depression each impact sleep and memory consolidation. both reportedly can lead to measurable changes in sleep architecture, as well as a bias toward negatively arousing information over neutral. the effects of stress and depression may be related, as a hyperactive hpa axis or dysfunctional negative feedback loop has been identified as a marker in some forms of depression. the present study was designed to determine the individual effects of stress and depression and how they interact to affect sleep architecture and emotional and neutral memory performance. healthy and mild-to-moderately depressed students were recruited to participate. all participants arrived at approximately the same time of day and encoded complex scenes consisting of negative or neutral objects placed on neutral backgrounds. after encoding, half of each group participated in a psychosocial stress task designed to elicit an endogenous cortisol response, while the other half completed a matched control task, and salivary samples were collected for later cortisol analysis. that evening, participants returned to the lab for a night of polysomnograph-recorded sleep. in the morning, their memory was tested for both the negative and neutral scene components viewed the previous day. results indicated that while the stressor was successful in generating a stress response in both groups, the healthy and depressed cohorts demonstrated no difference in baseline cortisol or cortisol reactivity. while there was no impact on memory consolidation for the negative components of scenes, individuals in the depressed group that participated in the stress task were found to have poorer memory for neutral scene information, particularly for the neutral central object. stressed depressed individuals also spent significantly more time in rem sleep compared to depressed controls, but this association did not appear to influence subsequent memory performance. these results indicate that stress and depression interact to reduce veridical memory of neutral information. further cognitive research in clinical populations is necessary to refine the individual contributions and combined effects of mental health on cognitive performance and sleep in hopes of generating better understandings of the disorders and potentially highlight new forms of treatment. an extensive and detailed description of heat conduction at the microand nano-scale is presented. during the last two decades this phenomenon has become very attractive to study because of the shrinking in size of thermoelectric technologies and electronic devices. these newer technologies are at the microand nano-scale. due to the small size, a power dissipation problem has presented itself in these applications. the proper thermal performance is related with the performance of the technology. because of these facts a description of the thermal transport in different materials at these scales is required. this problem is important because understanding the energy transport will allow engineers to design faster electronic devices and more efficient thermoelectric applications. for macro-scale it is known that diffusive behavior is presented in heat conduction; here models that show different behavior than diffusive such as wave-like are presented. one extra tool to understand heat conduction is to calculate the thermal conductivity. equilibrium molecular dynamics combined with the green-kubo formula can be used to calculate the thermal conductivity of materials such as germanium and carbon. the foundation of this calculation is extracting the heat current from the results, and implementing it into the green-kubo formula. this work considers all formulations from the literature that calculate the heat current for the tersoff potential, the interatomic potential most applicable to semiconductor materials. the formulations for the heat current are described, and results for germanium and carbon are presented. the formulations are compared with respect to how well they capture the physics of the tersoff potential and how well the calculated value of the thermal conductivity reflects the experimentally-measured value. the second part of this work deals with heat transport in low dimensions at the nano-scale. the energy transport in a two dimensional graphene sheet is studied and compared to that in a one dimensional chain. the equations of motion for each individual atom of the sheet are solved numerically to generate the distribution of kinetic energy in the structure. the distribution of kinetic energy in the sheet shows two different characteristics of the transport. the components of frequency of the kinetic energy in the graphene structure are identified. the components allow the identification under which potential more low frequency carriers are expected. the presence of chaos in the graphene sheet using the anharmonic potential is identified. finally, conclusions and recommendations for the study of heat conduction at the nano-scale are presented. computerized tomography(ct) is widely applied in medical imaging and industrial cases for non-invasive/non-destructive studies of varying materials. bayesian statistical, algebraic approaches to image reconstruction have shown potential to better control noise and improve resolution relative to conventional, single pass methods. the first stage of this work verifies the viability of bayesian estimation in several cases with single-energy data using synthetic data and scans from medical ct and security-focused systems. due to advancements in detector technology, energy-specific information can be extracted from scans, yielding separate datasets for each of many energy levels of x-ray energy. this higher-dimensional data provides potentially distinct reconstructions for different materials. this thesis presents a generalization of existing algebraic reconstruction to directly calculate the material decomposition of an object, with the sinogram partitioned into predefined energy bins as input. iterative coordinate descent (icd) is expanded to a newton-raphson like optimization in the space of the fractional content of known materials. preliminary results under quadratic regularization demonstrate rapid, reliable convergence to images of three materials from five energy bins. comparisons are provided with existing reconstruction methods. toxic heavy metal contamination from human activities has posed a great threat to the ecosystem, and the searching for the remediation strategy has long been a challenge. the fate of heavy metals in subsurface environments is controlled by interrelated adsorption, precipitation, and redox reactions where living bacteria play a critical role. the use of bacteria in the amendment of metal contamination is becoming an important topic in the environmental science research. the work presented in this dissertation utilizes a synchrotron based technique x-ray absorption fine structure (xafs) to collect molecular-level information of the interactions between heavy metal ions and microorganisms.soluble uranyl ion can form stable mineral with phosphate ligands. bacteria can affect the extent and the morphology of the resulting precipitate. at first, we identified the nano-particulate mineral on the cell wall of bacillus subtilis in the uranyl-phosphate-bacteria system with the form of hup (uo2hpo4'¢4h2o). furthermore, we chose three gram-negative bacteria species: anaeromyxobacter dehalogenans strain k, geobacter sulfurreducens, and shewanella putrefaciens cn32, to reduce u(vi) in the form of biotically and abiotically formed hup mineral. the experiments demonstrated that the hup mineral could be reduced by the reducing bacteria, and the reducing bacteria only transferred electrons to the aqueous uranium species rather than directly to the mineral surface. the analysis indicated that the mononuclear u(iv) and ningyoite mineral (cau(po4)2'¢2h2o) were formed after the reduction.extracted from brown algae, alginate is a natural anionic linear copolymer. in order to investigate the binding of metal species by alginate and provide basic knowledge for the study of extracellular polymeric substances (eps), adsorption and xafs measurements were performed to the alginate cd2+ system. the xafs spectra showed that the major binding sites on alginate involved carboxyl groups. in the following study of cd adsorption by eps, shewanella oneidensis and pseudomonas putida were grown to yield biofilms. the xafs measurements confirmed that the cd binding environments of the eps and the bacterial cells were broadly similar. carboxyl, phosphoryl and sulfhydryl groups were identified as the binding sites in both eps and cell wall with slightly increasing sulfhydryl site binding in eps. great salt lake (gsl) is a large hypersaline lake with simple benthic and pelagic food chains characterized by high production of invertebrate herbivores, brine flies (ephydra spp.) and brine shrimp (artemia franciscana) that feed upon phytoplankton and attached algae on benthic microbialites. over the course of its recorded history, gsl water levels have fluctuated in response to climate patterns and human interventions, which affect abiotic conditions and food web components. however, studies of benthic responses to abiotic conditions and the role of microbialites in the food web are few and a major gap of knowledge. as concerns about the potential impacts of climate change and human development on the gsl food web increase, understanding the effects of changing abiotic factors on the benthic and pelagic components is crucial for managing and protecting productivity.three objectives guide this research: 1) characterize microbialite primary producer and diversity responses to changing abiotic conditions; 2) determine the effects of physical and biotic factors on food web components and how future climate changes may affect gsl; and 3) provide an initial assessment of benthic-pelagic linkage and herbivore population responses to changing food availability and abiotic conditions. my review of historical and recent gsl studies showed that changes in temperatures and nitrogen were more impactful than salinity on primary producers and consumers. microbialite primary producers in the lab grew best at low salinity and intermediate temperature, and diversity increased with temperature and declined with salinity and showed a positive relationship with primary producer abundance. lab studies showed that both herbivores survived best at 90 ppt salinity and 10°c, but brine fly larvae performed best on diatoms and least on cyanobacteria, while brine shrimp exhibited opposite responses. field studies revealed a mid-summer benthic-pelagic linkage in which brine shrimp feed on microbialite-associated production and potentially compete with brine fly larvae when their primary food source, phytoplankton, are depleted. this work provides a first comparative assessment of benthic and pelagic responses to abiotic changes and establishes a seasonal linkage that suggests microbialites are an important resource sustaining brine fly and brine shrimp production in gsl. antibiotic resistance is a crucial problem facing modern society as all pathogens inevitably evolve resistance to known antibiotics. however, the susceptibility of bacteria to existing antibiotics is only readily understood in select environmental contexts. the bacterium pseudomonas aeruginosa has been shown to exhibit reduced susceptibility to aminoglycoside antibiotics when grown with moderate or low concentrations of calcium (ca2+). this form of resistance has been linked to membrane-based two-component systems, which act as efflux pumps for the antibiotic when calcium is present. other antibiotic classes, such as ß-lactams, are not known to be influenced by these efflux pumps. in this thesis, i explore the ability of calcium levels to influence antibiotic susceptibility when considering glucose or glutamate as carbon sources for bacterial growth. p. aeruginosa exhibited decreased susceptibility when exposed to gentamicin and ceftazidime and supplemented with calcium and glutamate. these trends were not observed with ciprofloxacin. this dissertation offers a theological analysis of the theological condemnations of fr. sergius bulgakov (1871-1944) issued by the moscow patriarchate and the russian church outside of russia (karlovtsy synod) in 1935. these condemnations of bulgakov's theological system, known as "sophiology," provoked a boom of theological literature in the years of 1935-1937, which period historians have named the "sophia affair." although bulgakov was acquitted of all charges of heresy by his own episcopal superiors within his jurisdiction, the controversy over bulgakov's theology remains live to this day—hence the necessity of a monographical study of the affair. the study explicates bulgakov's sophiology by critically examining four distinct loci of controversy implicated in the theological condemnations. these are bulgakov's theology of 1) christ, 2) sex, 3) sophia, 4) heresy. it is concluded that bulgakov's critics regularly misunderstood the complexity of his theological views and thus inappropriately judged a number of them heretical. nonetheless, his opponents in the sophia affair in some instances accurately assessed problematic aspects of sophiology, and these are also identified and critiqued. this study argues, in sum, that the sophia affair represents a major moment in recent orthodox theology, insofar as the rising neo-patristic synthesis defined itself explicitly and implicitly against bulgakov's sophiology. this controversy was, furthermore, a sort of "modernist crisis" in miniature for eastern orthodoxy in the 20th century. by clarifying the mistaken assessments of bulgakov's thought that were generated in the sophia affair, bulgakov's sophiology is suggested as a resource valuable for contemporary theological retrieval. unlike most other vertebrates, zebrafish are able to regenerate many tissues including retina. light-induced photoreceptor cell death causes inner nuclear layer m&#252;ller glia to dedifferentiate, reenter the cell cycle and produce proliferating progenitor cells. these progenitor cells continue to proliferate and migrate to the appropriate retinal layer and differentiate into functional photoreceptors. while a number of genes essential to retinal regeneration have been identified, the mechanisms regulating these genes have been little studied. many post-transcriptional regulatory mechanisms exist in the cell including mirnas, short rna sequences encoded in the genome. to determine if mirnas play a role in retinal regeneration, i reduced global mirna expression by dicer knockdown, an enzyme essential to mirna maturation. dicer knockdown prior to light damage lead to decreased proliferation in regenerating retinas without affecting the number of m&#252;ller glia during retinal regeneration or cell death. these studies demonstrate an essential role for global mirna expression during retinal regeneration. to identify which of the 346 mirnas known in zebrafish were likely to play an important role in retinal regeneration, both a microarray and rna deep sequencing experiment were conducted. these analyses identified 63 and 104 mirnas respectively, that had a greater than 2-fold change in expression during retinal regeneration. nine candidate mirnas were knocked down prior to light damage, resulting in three distinct phenotypes, reducing proliferation 1) during progenitor production and proliferation 2) only progenitor production or 3) only during progenitor proliferation. the different effects on proliferation caused by these individual mirna knockdowns suggest that individual mirnas have distinct roles in retinal regeneration. one mirna, mir-7a, was further characterized through knockdown prior to light damage and analyzed for effects on proliferation. this knockdown reduced proliferation during progenitor production, but did not affect the number of proliferating progenitors at later time points. nor did mir-7 knockdown alter the number of m&#252;ller glia or affect cell death. these data suggest that mir-7 plays a specific temporal role in the production of progenitor cells. this study demonstrates that global and individual mirna expression play specific and essential roles in gene regulation during retinal regeneration. vagueness in software requirements documents can lead to several future maintenance problems, especially when the customer and development team do not share the same language. currently, companies rely on human translators to maintain communication and limit vagueness by translating the requirement documents by hand, which is expensive and time consuming. because of that an automatic solution is desirable to reduce this effort. in this thesis, i present two approaches to identifying vagueness in requirements documents in a multilingual environment. subsequently, i conduct two studies of these approaches for calibration purposes. in the first study, six participants, two native portuguese speakers and four native spanish speakers, evaluated both approaches. then, i conduct a field study to test the performance of the best approach in real-world environments at two different companies. in order to fill the need for more densely packed photonic integrated circuits (pics) the higher optical confinement provided by high-index-contrast (hic) ridge waveguide (rwg) structures is required. in order to realize the high index contrast (&#916;n) between the semiconductor waveguide core and the dielectric cladding, an oxygen-enhanced non-selective wet thermal oxidation (oenso) process developed at the university of notre dame has been applied to the fabrication of gaas and inp based hic rwgs. in this work, the unique characteristics of hic rwgs as well as the interface between the semiconductor and the native oxide have been examined. utilizing this process, passive single mode hic rwg devices have been fabricated which exhibit record low propagation losses. active diode laser devices are fabricated with improved performance over previous results. for the first time these devices have been modified for junction side down bonding to heatsinks and characterized under continuous wave (cw) excitation while mounted to a temperature controlled stage. finally, the use of the oenso process has been extended for use in the oxidation of ingaas lattice matched to inp. as proof of the efficacy of this process for use in this new material system, a novel native-oxide confined quantum cascade laser operating at &#955;=5.4 &#956;m has been demonstrated. recently, biggs and gibson (2010) provided evidence that distractor interference depended upon the context of the task, suggesting top-down effects were responsible for distractor interference. our present study examined this evidence under varied task demands by randomizing distractor presence. the results indicated better performance in the presence of a singleton distractor with a neutral identity relative to an absent distractor condition. by incorporating the distractor into the search strategy, participants located the target faster with this supposedly distracting information. top-down strategies were also increased interference as participants were priming distractor processing by trying to ignore the irrelevant singleton. when provided with an efficient means of locating the target, the irrelevant information no longer produced the same benefits. our findings suggest that top-down mechanisms can increase or decrease interference produced by irrelevant information depending on how this information is incorporated into visual search. in this paper i apply pierre bourdieu"s theory of practice to the study of internal movement culture in a prefigurative social movement organization, using data from an ethnographic study of a nascent food cooperative. organizers of the cooperative, who were white and highly educated, attempted to promote an inclusive movement culture and organizational structure that would facilitate cross-class and cross-race alliances with neighborhood residents. i argue that group attempts to promote inclusivity were undermined by counter-processes, the origins of which i trace to group members" social locations as white, educated individuals influenced by the discourse and ideology of the alternative food movement and the catholic worker movement. evidence from this case suggests that values-based movements in the new social movements paradigm may reinforce, rather than ameliorate, structural inequalities. in this thesis, i explore the ideas on exoticism and foreignhood in form of poetry. these ideas and the impulse to produce this collection of poems derive from my experience in the united states as a foreigner, the literary and philosophical texts i have read regarding the idea of foreign, and most importantly, the conversations i had with my peers and mentors. these poems are not in traditional poetic form, for the nature of foreign is impossible to contain; there are constant intrusions of various voices: voice of standard english, sometimes manifested as an entity called 'spellcheck machine'; voice of coy foreigner; voice of mimicry; voice of death drive; voice of seductress; voice of unidentifiable machines in these poems, which i seemingly have failed to contain in the form of a singular project with a sense of coherency; writing a project poetry, a collection of poems with coherence, with a definite sense of singular motive, a driving force of certainty is impossible for a foreigner. thus i call this foreigner's folly: a tale of attempted project. &#8195; memory consolidation was once thought to stabilize memories; that is, a memory was immune to alterations after the consolidation process had completed. currently this view has changed, as reactivating a memory will make the memory labile once again, susceptible to being modified by amnesic and enhancing agents. the process that occurs after this reactivation-dependent labilization is called 'reconsolidation', and it is thought that when several labilization-reconsolidation events occur, a memory can be strengthened. the current study aimed to 1) replicate this memory strengthening effect and 2) test, in an ecologically valid way, the efficacy of this memory strengthening process by multiple reactivations. stress has been robustly shown to be detrimental to memory retrieval. therefore, we used the trier social stress test, a psychosocial stressor, at retrieval to probe how resistant memories become once strengthened by repeated reconsolidation. we partially replicated the strengthening effect, as multiple (two but not four) reactivations resulted in better memory. however, no stress or strengthening effects were observed, likely due to low statistical power. described by others as zany, tasty, and wild, pink batteries is a collection of poems that obliterates the envelope. my dissertation—"armed with good intentions? explaining arms embargo compliance"—investigates why major arms exporters have come not only to comply with international arms embargoes, but also to embrace them as policy instruments. i examine and contrast the historical developments in two leading arms exporting nations, germany and the united kingdom. during the past 50 years, these countries moved away from treating arms embargoes as a nuisance they reluctantly navigated—and sometimes violated—to championing them as policy instruments. based on rich case studies of the arms embargo regimes against south africa and china, and interviews with policymakers and archival research, the dissertation finds that the growing strength of the arms embargo norm has made noncompliance a costly choice for arms exporting states. a unifying description of phase transitions is proposed, based only on the notion of boltzmann entropy, or equivalently, the density of states function and jaynes's maximum entropy principle. being a universal description, it can be applied to systems from both traditional physics, such as of interacting particles of arbitrary composition and interaction ranges, and more general systems of interconnected variables, e.g. networks, combinatorial structures, biological systems, etc. we demonstrate that this approach recovers the key properties of phase transitions and yields a rigorous classification of their nature in both physics and non-physics type systems. we present several examples such as the two-star model, strauss' cluster model of transitive networks, gelation in random graphs (erdös–rényi), magnetic spin models with short range interactions such as the ising model, the blume--emery--griffiths model, which is characterized by long-range interactions and finally, the van der waals gas as a model system with continuous variables. microkinetic modelling occupies a central role in heterogeneous catalysis research by enabling a detailed mechanistic and kinetic understanding of catalytic reactions. while successful in elucidating multiple catalytic systems, microkinetic models are commonly constructed by assuming that all active sites are homogeneous and equivalent in reactivity. for systems where this assumption break down, spatially resolved kinetic monte carlo (kmc) methods can provide a robust protrayal of reaction kinetics. in this dissertation, i will describe the application of spatially resolved kmc methods in three distinct reaction systems. the first system pertains to reactions on catalytic surfaces, where interactions between proximal adsorbed reaction intermediates can affect potential energy landscapes (and ultimately kinetics) of elementary steps in which they participate. the second system relates to nox selective catalytic reduction (scr) on cu-exchanged chabazite zeolites, where scr-active, mobile and cationic cu complexes are electrostatically tethered to anionic al centres, influencing their ability to participate in the catalysis. the third system relates to non-steady microkinetic modelling of temperature programmed evolution of nh3 from plasma induced n, where temperature dependent surface hopping of reaction intermediates and reaction rate constants of surface reactions are explicitly incorporated through stochastic lattice-kmc methods. this dissertation examines the dominant social and political mindset of northern white evangelicals during the civil war and reconstruction. relying upon sermons, serial publications, and archival and presidential papers, it follows a standard political narrative. particular attention is given to evangelical interaction with the presidencies of abraham lincoln, andrew johnson, and ulysses s. grant. the mindset explored here combined a traditional evangelical proprietary and covenantal regard for america with unionism and republicanism. this dissertation argues that non-radical evangelicals consistently subordinated concern for the slaves and freedmen to an abstract vision for their christian republic throughout the period. these evangelicals went to war to save the union, with emancipation instrumental, yet incidental, to the cause of union and the preservation of a christian people under god&#39;s providential hand. such evangelicals entered reconstruction expecting to see the emergence of a speedily restored and culturally homogeneous union. that securely restored union would be one in which evangelicalism would be even more culturally dominant than had been the case during the antebellum period.the study primarily intersects with four historiographies. first, examining the intersection of the northern evangelical proprietary impulse with widespread devotion to the union contributes to the body of scholarship on unionism that has only tangentially recognized the overlap with evangelicalism. the mainstream evangelical vision for the union, with strong antebellum ties, retained significant ethno-cultural elements and was not synonymous with the civic-nationalist vision put forth by abolitionist evangelicals. second, this dissertation shifts attention away from radicals and millennialism as the primary loci for understanding northern protestantism and the civil war to the more encompassing idea of union. third, focusing on evangelical unionism also contributes to our understanding of the place and importance of religion in relation to reconstruction and the failure of the federal government to adequately prepare the ex-slaves for freedom; evangelical unionists consistently functioned as a brake on radical visions for a racially equitable and inclusive american union. finally, evangelical unionism forged during the civil war era is a significant part of the background for the fundamentalist-modernist controversy and thus contributes to our understanding of the religious right&#39;s historical origins. quantum decoherence is a dynamical process whereby a system's phase relations become delocalized due to interaction and subsequent entanglement with its environment. this delocalization, or decoherence, forces the quantum system into a state that is apparently classical (or apparently an eigenstate) by prodigiously suppressing features that typically give rise to so-called quantum behavior. thus it has been frequently proposed by physicists and philosophers alike that decoherence explains the dynamical transition from quantum behavior to classical behavior. statements like this assume the existence of distinct realms, however, and the present thesis is an exploration of the metaphysical consequences of quantum decoherence motivated by the question of the quantum-to-classical transition and interlevel relations: if there are in-principle ``classical' and ``quantum' levels, what are the relations between them? and if there are no such levels, what follows? importantly, the following philosophical investigations are carried out by intentionally leaving aside the measurement problem and concerns about particular interpretations of quantum mechanics. good philosophical work, it is argued, can be done without adopting a specific interpretational framework and without recourse to the measurement problem. after introducing the physics of decoherence and exploring the four canonical models applied to system-environment interactions, it is argued that, ontologically speaking, there exist no levels. this claim--called the ``nontological thesis'--exposes as ill-posed questions regarding the transition from the quantum regime to the classical regime and reveals the inappropriateness of interlevel relations (like reduction, supervenience and emergence) operating within metaphysical frameworks. the nontological thesis has further important consequences regarding intralevel relations: not only are there no meaningful ways to carve the world into levels, but there are no meaningful ways to carve the world into parts and wholes either. these conclusions, supported by quantum decoherence and the empirical success of its models, drastically alter the philosophical terrain--not just in physics or in the philosophy of physics, but in traditional metaphysics as well. proteomic studies are usually performed using lc-ms, uplc-ms through out the past decades. however, electrophoresis has emerged as a high-resolution separation method that can be coupled to various detection method for a thorough analysis of the proteome of any biological system. the dovichi group uses capillary zone electrophoresis (cze) coupled to a mass spectrometry through electrospray ionization (esi) to perform bottom-up analyses of complex proteomes.in this work, we demonstrate the reproducible detection of two fragment ions from injection of 1 zmol (600 ions) of angiotensin onto a cze system coupled to a q-exactive hf using our electrokinetically-pumped nanoelectrospray interface. the methods described herein establish the state of the art detection limits of capillary electrophoresis with mass spectrometry. mozart's "great" mass in c minor, k. 427 emerged during a great period of transitions. its date of composition, 1782/3 places it toward the end of the enlightenment, between the american and french revolutions, within the early years of josephinism, and within the early years of the industrial revolution. its date further places it in the midst of sweeping changes in the development of musical instruments and the orchestra. this thesis not only aims to frame this work within its historical context, but it also investigates what the first presumed performance may have looked like based upon documentary evidence, primarily musician rosters from salzburg and vienna including the roster from mozart's 1789 performance of his version of handel's messiah. further, this thesis examines the work's orchestration and its expressive devices such as tempo and dynamics and studies them from the mindset of the classical era musician using the writings of eighteenth and nineteenth century writers such as leopold mozart, daniel gottlieb türk, and heinrich koch coupled with the writings of modern scholars and performers such as leonard ratner and robin stowell. this paper's ultimate purpose is to aid the modern conductor by presenting a well-rounded view of the work, its sources, and its performance history, as well as by offering performance suggestions. this thesis explores the manipulation of dna and colloids in suspension and at surfaces. specifically: (1) we investigate the evaporative self-assembly of dna and colloidal particles at surfaces; (2) we explore the like-charge attraction between dna and colloids in suspension; (3) we examine janus particles with varied surface chemistry and inner structures as model systems to understand dielectrophoresis (dep) of anisotropic particles.in chapter 2, we investigate multiple-ring formation from an evaporating dna droplet, and demonstrate that an internal stagnation flow is responsible for the formation of precursor ring and repeated stick-slip motion leads to multiple-ring formation. we further examine dna-colloid binary suspensions as model systems to understand evaporation-induced interfacial hydrodynamics and self-assembled morphology of multi-component systems. the results demonstrate the feasibility of fabricating periodic self-assembled hybrid structures via one-step evaporation of droplets consisting of multiple components. in chapter 3, we investigate like-charge interaction of ìøåâ-dna and colloids in aqueous suspension and the resultant dna-colloid complex structures. direct microscopic observations demonstrate enhanced adsorption of dna on like-charge colloids with the addition of monovalent or divalent salts. zeta potential measurements indicate that functionalized colloids remain negatively charged with increasing ionic strength, suggesting that screened electrostatic repulsion can account for enhanced dna adsorption in high ionic strength media, despite the possible hydrophobic origin for dna adsorption in low ionic strength media. additionally, dna-mediated colloid clustering is observed and the optimal dna and salt concentration ranges are explored to predict the formation of considerable fractions of dna-induced colloidal doublets, which could lead to a simple and rapid method to synthesize colloidal clusters of desirable shape and bio-functionality.in chapter 4, we examine janus particles as model systems to understand dielectrophoresis of anisotropic particles. janus particles with gold-coated hemisphere or with assembled cooh-end thiol monolayer on gold-capped hemisphere always experience positive dep. janus particles with assembled ch3-end thiol monolayer on gold-capped hemisphere exhibit negative dep to positive dep (n-to-p) crossover frequencies at high medium conductivities because interfacial polarization dominates at low frequencies and conductive gold layer dominates at high frequencies. time is an abstract concept that is better understood when it is mapped onto space. one mechanism to accomplish this mapping is a reference frame that has a number of parameters that are used to define space, including origin, orientation, direction, and scale. previous research has shown that the origin (kolesari &amp; carlson, 2016) and the orientation and direction (boroditsky, fuhrman, &amp; mccormick, 2011) parameters of a spatial reference frame are involved in understanding time. for example, the orientation and direction parameters are used together as a timeline. for english speakers, this timeline runs horizontally from left (past) to right (future). the current experiments focus on the scale parameter. experiment 1 changes temporal scale across trials, and illustrates that the scale parameter is set, as evidenced by a cost when the parameter value changes. experiment 2 examines the correspondence between the spatial scale and the temporal scale, requiring participants to map short or long temporal spans to short or long spatial distances. the results illustrate flexibility in this mapping. together these experiments support the idea that all the parameters of a spatial reference frame are used when understanding time. despite its importance to structural equation modeling, model evaluation remains underdeveloped in the bayesian sem framework. posterior predictive p-values (ppp) and deviance information criteria (dic) are now available in mplus and winbugs for bayesian model evaluation, but they remain under-utilized. this is largely due to the lack of recommendations and guidelines on their use and interpretation. to address this problem, ppp and dic were evaluated in a series of monte carlo simulation studies. the results from these studies show that both ppp and dic are influenced by severity of model misspecification, sample size, model size, and choice of prior, and that ppp is additionally influenced by data distribution. it was also found that the cut-offs ppp 0.10 and dic&gt;7 work best in the conditions and models tested here. this and other recommendations provided in this study will help researchers evaluate their models in a bayesian sem analysis, and set the stage for future development and evaluation of ppp, dic, and other bayesian sem fit indices. the timely call of the second vatican council for incarnating the gospel message in different cultures demonstrates an authentic response of the church to the command of christ, which is to spread the gospel message to the ends of the earth. thus, the catholic church while conscious of prevalent cultural diversities of her members, earnestly seeks to inculturate the gospel message in different cultures for a better expressed, experienced, and lived catholicism in the modern world. part of the gospel message that needs to be incarnated by the church in various cultures is the call to eucharistic communion of all believers. eucharistic communion, the core of a christian's relational life, expresses communal solidarity, mutuality, and interpersonal relationship. relational and theological expressions of eucharistic communion increase in wealth and meaning when christians of different races and cultures are able to understand the global call to unity and interconnectivity in the world today. in line with the clear expressions of the theological and relational aspects of eucharistic communion in terms of thanksgiving, meal sharing, fellowship, reconciliation, and unity, this dissertation relates these themes to the traditional rituals of communion expressed in igbo culture, for an enrichment of igbo catholicism. the study investigates some traditional rituals of communion in igbo culture, and explores the significance of these communal rituals when integrated into the liturgical life of igbo catholics. the rituals used for this contextualized study are rituals that are still prevalent and valued among the igbo people; rituals that pilot and determine the wellbeing of present and future generations of igbos. these traditional igbo rituals of communion that communicate thanksgiving, meal sharing, fellowship, reconciliation, and unity, help to establish a link between the christian faith and cultural practices which in turn underscore how igbo catholics can be truly christians and yet fully cultural. therefore an integrative study of liturgy, faith, and culture, establishes the theological and relational aspects of both the traditional rituals of communion in igbo culture and the christian understanding of eucharistic communion, for a truly inculturated eucharistic theology. financial inclusion has grown in importance as a policy goal, both as an end and as a means to eradicating poverty and achieving 10 of the 17 sustainable development goals. in particular, digital payments have revolutionized the way financial services are provided and have the potential to expand financial inclusion for all. digital financial services (dfs) have often been argued, albeit not without controversy, to be a tool for empowering women and helping economies withstand unforeseen shocks. the covid-19 pandemic has accelerated this shift towards digital finance, highlighting both the positive aspects and the challenges that accompany this transition.this thesis explores the relationship between financial inclusion, financial well-being and human development in the context of covid-19. using a cross-sectional dataset from the world bank global findex and undp human development index in year 2021, this study employs regression analyses to investigate the determinants of financial inclusion with respect to financial well-being and hardship in lowand middle-income countries in the age of covid-19. it also explores the distributional concerns and identifies vulnerable groups that face even greater challenges and barriers to financial inclusion. the results are expected to contribute to the larger discussion on the role of digital financial services in promoting financial inclusion and financial well-being for all, particularly during times of economic uncertainty. the results of this study will provide important insights for policymakers to improve in financial inclusion and strengthen the resilience of lowand middle-income countries against future pandemics and economic shock. dengue poses an increasing threat to about half of the world's population. in this dissertation, i present four mathematical modeling exercises aimed at improving understanding of the natural history, dynamics, and control of dengue viruses (denv) and the mosquitoes that transmit them. first, i present a quantitative analysis of how denv-infected individuals across the spectrum of disease outcomes contribute to transmission. using a suite of models, i parsed available data on viremia dynamics within humans, human infectiousness to mosquitoes, and demographic projections of the infectious reservoir. i found that individuals with inapparent or no symptoms whatsoever—i.e., 'silent' infections—are likely the primary reservoir of denv, which casts doubts on current practices for dengue control. second, to examine what mechanisms govern temporal patterns characteristic of dengue epidemiology, i compared alternative models with differing assumptions about serotype-immune interactions and seasonal forcing. i found that, when assuming that primary and secondary infections constitute the infectious reservoir, all models were capable of reproducing real-world dengue dynamics. when post-secondary infections were assumed to contribute to transmission, cross-immunity was found to be the most important factor for reproducing patterns characteristic of dengue dynamics. the competing hypothesis of cross-enhancement had limited support. third, i present a new modeling tool to parse data from mark-release-recapture studies. a markov chain model fitted to data using bayesian techniques was used to estimate the effect of a volatile vector control product on aedes aegypti in an experimental hut design. i inferred concurrent product effects on unobserved processes such as mosquito repellency, which could potentially impact transmission by reducing human-mosquito contacts. fourth, i introduce a modeling framework to examine how different modes of action of vector control products act in symphony to effect epidemiological outcomes. i used the estimates from the experimental hut studies and additional laboratory experiments to parameterize this framework and showed that, whereas toxic effects are the most effective in reducing transmission, products that reduce human-mosquito contacts through repellency or irritancy can have a considerable impact on transmission, as well. such spatial repellent products could augment available control tools, in particular in areas with emerging insecticide resistance. this dissertation explores the relationship between two prominent uranyl mineral phases relevant to the nuclear fuel cycle through controlled storage, irradiation, and novel synthesis studies. nuclear materials subjected to various storage environments may undergo important chemical changes as a consequence of variables including atmospheric gases and ionizing radiation. understanding the complexities of these alteration pathways is an essential part of responsible disposal of nuclear waste and nuclear forensics efforts, among others. the work presented herein is centered on the uranyl oxy-hydroxide hydrate phase, metaschoepite [(uo2)8o2(oh)12](h2o)10, and its transformation to the uranyl peroxide hydrate phase, studtite [(uo2)(o2)(h2o)2](h2o)2. specifically, the origin of peroxide is investigated in systems where depleted uranium is used, and alternate methods of obtaining uranyl peroxide are described for the first time. this work is achieved through characterization techniques including powder x-ray diffraction (pxrd), raman spectroscopy, and infrared spectroscopy to analyze changes in structure and bonding during alteration. social requirement theory is the view that moral obligations are reasons for action constituted by the actual demands of an agent's culture. these demands constitute practical reasons in virtue of being backed by threats of censure or ostracism for noncompliance, and they obligate only agents whose desires or interests are served by avoiding such consequences. this stance is best construed as a version of realism about moral obligation since the reasons in question are as real as any practical reasons could possibly be; but the mind-independence versions of realism that most interest philosophers are of little practical relevance. mark kalderon's recent arguments for moral noncognitivism are flawed. and contra richard joyce's recent argument for moral error theory, moral obligations need not be strictly metaphysically necessary to satisfy our prephilosophical intuitions about morality's inescapability. social requirement theory is form of agent relativism and compares favorably to other contemporary moral relativisms, such as those of gilbert harman, david wong, and james dreier. as an actual-demand theory, it is similar to robert adams's divine command theory but enjoys several advantages over the latter while still allowing a substantial role for god in the moral life. in the popular imagination, the middle ages are still perceived as a period in human history in which superstition, intolerance, and oppression controlled the lives of anyone who was perceived as 'different' from the rest of society. these prejudiced views of the past appear in modern histories of disability and have perpetuated the popular assumptions that illnesses and impairments were believed to be the result of sin or supernatural forces and that people with disabilities were marginalized, abused, and oppressed by the their societies. this dissertation challenges these contemporary perspectives of impairment and disability by exploring social and religious constructions of disability in the anglo-saxon period (600-1100) of medieval england. drawing on modern disability theories, the chapters of this dissertation examine the material evidence, religious discourses, and literary representations of impairment and disability in order to highlight the dominant cultural perceptions concerning impairment and the treatment of people with impairment and disabilities. contrary to the modern assumption that people with disabilities are and have always been marginal to their communities, this study reveals that there was no single perspective on impairment in anglo-saxon england and that people with physical impairments were socially accepted and active participants in their communities. in addition to exploring cultural conceptions and constructions of disability, this dissertation attempts to demonstrate various ways of considering disability in anglosaxon england in order to present new approaches for the study of disability that are more specific to the medieval period and avenues of inquiry to facilitate further studies of disability in the middle ages and the development of a more accurate and complete history of disability. the removal period, which nationally spanned the years 1785-1840, posed new environmental challenges to the potawatomi. they were forced to respond to everything from shrinking landholdings, to changing subsistence patterns, to a domineering u.s. presence. these dynamics touched off a complicated intra-tribal debate over how best to manage the risk and survive. a band-level split occurred during the 1820s-1830s in the area encompassing southwestern michigan and northern indiana. two potawatomi bands emerged, one located throughout the tippecanoe valley and the other located along the michigan road, whose leaders opposed one another over the issue of whether or not to engage the u.s. "civilization" policy and adapt to life in an american context. the tippecanoe valley leadership rejected the idea of adaptation and acceded to the federal government's subsequent removal policy. the michigan road leadership embraced "civilization," but manipulated it in such a way so as to preserve their lives, rights, and identity, and avoid forced removal. this study focuses on the origins of the "civilization" policy and how some potawatomi leaders used it to their advantage. a combination of documentary and archaeological evidence is used to demonstrate how members of the michigan road band developed syncretized life ways. these life ways allowed band members to survive amid a rapidly changing environment. they functionally acculturated to the predominant american society, while retaining core elements of their traditional identity. the resultant strategy of adaptive resistance ultimately allowed a significant number of potawatomi to thwart forced removal and survive in their eastern homelands. to better investigate complex nonstationary multivariate time series, the current thesis aims to extend earlier work on using time-varying dynamic factor models to represent linear changes of coefficients to nonlinear cases. a method is proposed that uses the extended kalman smoother (eks) to track dynamics of both latent factors and time-varying coefficients, the gaussian maximum likelihood (gml) for point and the bootstrap for standard error (se) estimation of parameters. the performance of the proposed method was examined via monte carlo simulations. results suggest that (i) the eks recovered dynamics of latent factors and time-varying coefficients rather faithfully; (ii) the gml and the bootstrap worked well, expect for certain parameters in the dynamic model; (iii) the amplitude of changes of the time-varying coefficient played a crucial role in whether the coefficient can be assumed to be fixed and the accuracy of estimates. explanations and implications for applied research were also provided. developing cost effective and energy efficient water treatment technologies is critical for expanding water resources to meet municipal, agricultural, power plant cooling, and other needs. while technologies to remove normal contaminants, such as particulates and biological organisms, are mature and efficient, removing ions (desalination) requires more sophisticated processes, such as reverse osmosis (ro) and thermal distillation. ro uses fine membranes and high-pressure pumps, and thermal distillation relies on intensive high temperature thermal energy, making both technologies very energy intensive. rather than using costly electricity or high-quality heat for water treatment, the directional solvent extraction (dse) process can utilize abundant low-quality waste heat from sources like power plant condensers and solar thermal energy to treat a wide variety of water sources, including seawater, brackish water, and condenser blow-down water.this study provides the analysis of the feasibility and cost implications of using dse methods as an alternative desalination technology. the performance data of a continuous dse prototype with a footprint of 50(l)×25(w)×50(h) cm3, which can produce water with salinity lower than 700 ppm consistently at a rate of 25 ml per hour, are also presented. an electrocoalescer for speeding up the separation process of the water-in-da emulsion is introduced. an economic feasibility studies based on the laboratory testing data is also developed to compare the dse costs to the other state-of-the-art desalination technologies for a large-scale desalination plant. recommendations and a pathway for building full-scale plants are proposed based on the economic analysis.the study shows that dse can be a viable process that utilizes low-grade waste heat to desalinate seawater. the thermodynamic calculation and economic analysis suggest that dse presents a great opportunity to tackle the two most predominant challenges in the current state-of-the-art desalination processes by eliminating reliance on membrane-based separation, and the use of expensive, nonrenewable, fossil fuel derived, intensive high temperature thermal sources. once it is mature and widely deployed, dse technology promises to considerably lower desalination costs and help ameliorate the global water scarcity problem. highly-sensitive detection capabilities of trace actinide isotopes are desired for a wide range of applications from nuclear astrophysics, environmental surveys, nuclear forensics, and nuclear reaction studies. observing the presence of these isotopes can be difficult. depending on their half-life, abundance, or decay mode, traditional decay counting may not be practical or even possible. even commercial mass spectrometers may not be sensitive enough due to the presence of molecular interference. at present, accelerator mass spectrometry (ams) is the most sensitive technique for such measurements. development to establish capabilities of actinide detection was performed at the university of notre dame's nuclear science laboratory. this required key developments of the ion source, accelerator yield and transmission, as well as improvements to the detection system. specifically, a compact ionization chamber was created to improve efficiencies, energy resolution, and longevity of the detection system. to both establish and characterize these capabilities, several uranium ores and nbs standard materials were measured to demonstrate agreement when compared to other ams laboratories and provide measurements of ore material that, to our knowledge, have not been measured or reported in literature. additionally, since this measurement technique may be applicable to a large range of actinide isotopes, we explored other rare isotopes present within the sample material to search for other possible characterizing signatures that may assist providing unique "fingerprints" of these materials. within this work i will show that we have demonstrated consistency in measured values and established detection capabilities for 236u/u (10-10), 233u/u (10-11), 231pa/235u (4 x 10-8) and 230th/234u (8 x 10-5). further exploration projected the true 236u/u limit to down to 1.4 x 10-11 limited by beam transport, detection efficiency, and sufficiently low-level sample material. research concerning the penitentes of northern new mexico and southern colorado holds out many unique gifts to scholarship. unfortunately, because of the difficulties inherent in the study of this population, the information available is incomplete. one of the largest gaps in current scholarship lies in investigation of the medieval roots of penitente devotion, another in the documentation and examination of their unique tradition of musical worship (the alabados), and a third in the role of women in penitente society and spirituality. further, work is still necessary to explore the theology expressed in penitente art, ritual, and daily living. the area of liturgical studies offers the methods and approach necessary to address all of these issues.this dissertation will present an historical analysis of the evolution of the northern new mexican penitente cult with an attempt to establish its relationship to the traditions of medieval spain. this relationship can be revealed especially through the study of penitente devotional music. the medieval musical roots that evolved into the expression known as flamenco in spain (including arab/islamic, jewish/ladino, and extra-iberian catholic/european traditions) appear to have been preserved in their more primitive forms in the isolation of northern new mexico, perhaps because of the liturgical conservatism of the penitentes, and reveal much about the group's origin and the genesis of their spiritual world view. therefore, where the history of the group's development has been disputed (and the prevalent theories will be explored), the arts give insight. in close relationship to this investigation, the dissertation will attempt an inquiry into penitente understandings of their own unique theology. finally, it will be the hope of this dissertation to demonstrate an active and even leadership-oriented role in for women in penitente society and spirituality, which preliminary but extensive field interviews have so far confirmed, and which would be more consistent with the tradition's medieval roots than the more popularly held understanding that the expression and devotion of the penitentes is an exclusively male endeavor. what is there? this is the ontological question. to ask the ontological question is to engage in ontology. one's views about what the question means and how to go about answering it is one's meta-ontology. in this dissertation a particular meta-ontology will be in view: quine's. call it `quinean meta-ontology.' but there is confusion over how quine intended ontology to be done, enough confusion to warrant a very close look at his meta-ontology. one of the primary goals of this dissertation then is to clearly present quinean meta-ontology, showing just what it is---and isn't. another goal is to show how quinean meta-ontology is used, particularly in arguments for the existence of abstract objects. so after carefully presenting quinean meta-ontology in a way that shows it's key features as well as merely putative features, i provide evidence that the arguments for platonism which use quinean meta-ontology are really indispensability-style arguments. i do this by showing how both peter van inwagen's argument for properties and hilary putnam's argument for mathematical objects are species of the same genus.once this is done, the philosophical geography surrounding quinean meta-ontology (the meta-ontology proper as well as its use in arguments for platonism) should be apparent. given this better view, i will then address four important objections to both quinean meta-ontology and the indispensability-style argument for abstracta. most of these objections, it turns out, focus on the uniquely quinean views of existence and quantification. and all of them focus on particularly subtle aspects of language and so suggest that quinean meta-ontology may just be too heavy-handed when it comes to interpreting our sentences. in the last chapter, i make a proposal for future work, work for a nominalism that takes the subtleties of natural language quite seriously. i propose that a type of fictionalism might be the answer. such a view needs a lot of attention though and so i point out four of the most salient problems for fictionalism, also alluding to where the solutions to these problems lay. for more than a decade observations and analyses of type ia supernova (sne ia) explosions have resulted in profound insights into the nature of our universe. however, in spite of the amazing discoveries, the list of fundamental things that we still do not understand about sne ia is quite long. we attempt to address a few of these questions through an analysis of the galaxies in which they are hosted. we study the effect of environment on the properties of sne ia by analyzing the integrated spectra of a sample of local sn ia host galaxies. we deduce from the spectra the metallicity, current star formation rate, and star formation history of the host and compare these to the supernova decline rates, an indicator of their peak magnitude. our results indicate a statistically insignificant correlation in the direction that higher metallicity spiral galaxies host fainter type ia supernovae. however, we present qualitative evidence suggesting progenitor age is more likely to be the source of variability in supernova peak luminosities than is metallicity. additionally, we compare the host properties to the difference between the derived supernova distance and the distance determined from the best-fit hubble law. from this we investigate possible uncorrected systematic effects inherent in the calibration of type ia supernova luminosities using light curve fitting techniques. a tenuous correlation is observed between the supernova hubble residuals and host galaxy metallicities. however, further host galaxy observations will be needed to refine the significance of this result. furthermore, we characterize the environmental property distributions for type ia supernova host galaxies through a comparison with two larger, more general distributions of field galaxies using kolmogorov-smirnov tests. distribution discrepancies are presented and used to place a lower limit of ~ 2.0 gyrs on the sn ia characteristic delay time. in addition, we present a host galaxy study focused solely on the environmental properties of early type host galaxies. our narrow focus allows for the simultaneous measurement of both global age and metallicity, further allowing for a direct identification of possible dependences between both sn peak magnitude and hubble residual on host galaxy age and metallicity. we find evidence for either or both age and metallicity effecting the peak v-band magnitudes of sne ia, and we discuss the difficulty in differentiating between a real correlation and one arising from the degeneracy of age and metallicity. we also find an ~ 2 sigma detection of a trend between early type host galaxy metallicity and hubble residual. moreover, we compare the early type host galaxy age and metallicity distributions to corresponding distributions of elliptical galaxies from sdss via ks-tests and make predictions on the relative sn ia rate based on a detailed comparison between the age distributions of the ia hosts and sdss galaxies. finally, we present an analysis of the star formation rate distribution of high-z essence sn ia host galaxies through a global comparison to the low-z sample of host galaxies and a sample of high-z field galaxies. this research is motivated by the need to understand and parameterize mixing processes that occur during degassing and refilling of oil in large underground strategic petroleum reserve spr caverns. the oil is pumped from cavern bottom to a degassing station and then returned to the cavern by using a vertical turbulent jet located near the cavern top. this dissertation concerns a laboratory experimental and theoretical modeling program conducted to investigate: (a) mixing mechanisms and precession of turbulent jets in homogeneous fluids (b) mixing of turbulent jet in stratified fluids and (c) wall attachment of offset jet in a homogeneous fluid. in the first part, a round turbulent axisymmetric jet is discharged in a long cylinder. it is found that the flow does not reach a true steady state, but vacillates periodically. digital video recordings and particle image velocimetry are used to map the flow structures and velocity/vorticity fields, from which the frequency of jet switching, jet stopping distance, mean flow, turbulence characteristics and the influence of end-wall boundary conditions are inferred. the results are parameterized using the characteristic length d and velocity j^ (1/2)/d scales based on the jet kinematic momentum flux j and cylinder width d. the scaling laws so developed could be used to extrapolate laboratory observations to spr flows. in the second part, a turbulent (positively or negatively) buoyant jet is injected vertically into a slender cylinder containing a stratified fluid. the interest is the vertical density distribution in the container and its dependence on time and other parameters. for each case (lighter or heavier jet) the experimental data, when properly non-dimensionalized, could be collapsed into a 'universal' time dependent behavior. a theoretical model is advanced to explain the results. finally, a round turbulent offset jet in a low-aspect ratio cylinder is investigated. particle image velocimetry and flow visualization are used for flow diagnostics. the measurements include the jet penetration (mixing) depth l, jet spreading rate and the mean velocity/vorticity fields for different offset positions 'delta'. with the introduction of offset, the flow patterns change drastically. for 0 < delta/d < 0.2, the jet deflects toward the wall while precessing (as in the axisymmetric case), for 0.2 < delta/d < 0.4 the jet hugs the wall but with an oscillating tail, and for 0.45 < delta/d the jet appears as a wall jet. in all cases, the jet is destroyed at a certain distance (mixing or penetration depth) from the origin. this mixing depth takes its lowest value for 0 < delta/d < 0.2, with l &#8776; (3.2-3.6)d, becomes maximum at delta/d equal to 0.4 with l &#8776; 5.2d, and drops to l &#8776; 4.5d when the jet is close to the wall. based on derived results some recommendations are made for optimal operation of spr degassing. this dissertation discusses the development of microporous polymers with heterocyclic ring structures using iptycene motif for high-performance gas separation membranes. a large body of polymers containing rigid heterocyclic ring structures have demonstrated promising gas separation performances, attributed to high fractional free volume owing to disrupted chain packing. however, due to lack of control over the free volume architecture, these microporous polymers are still subject to the commonly observed permeability-selectivity tradeoff, where the ultrahigh permeability achieved with high fractional free volume is accompanied with much less attractive selectivity. moreover, the solutions to physical aging (loss of permeability over time) and plasticization (loss of size sieving upon sorption of condensable gases like co2) remain uncovered. recently, macromolecular design strategies through the use of hierarchical triptycene moieties have emerged, which generated various microporous polymers with high gas separation performances that redefined the upper bound limits along with good resistance to physical aging and plasticization. triptycene represents the simplest structure of iptycenes that has three-dimensional pedal wheel-like structure composed of fused rings. the bulky and rigid triptycene building blocks can efficiently disrupt chain packing to create low-barrier diffusion pathways for fast gas transport, while the intrinsic molecular free volume between the arene blades provides ultrafine free volume microcavity to simultaneously enhance size sieving.with the promise of utilizing triptycene moieties to create desirable free volume architecture, opportunities for further performance advancement exist for pentiptycene, which, in an even bulkier h-shape scaffold, can impose more efficient chain packing frustration for high permeability while offering more internal free volume to enable size sieving. the research in this thesis focused on the development and fundamental structure-property relationship studies of several classes of novel pentiptycene-based polymers with heterocyclic rings in the backbone including pentiptycene-based thermally rearranged (tr) polybenzoxazoles (pbo), tröger's base (tb) polymers, and triptycene-based polybenzimidazoles (tpbi). it was demonstrated that pentiptycene-based tr pbos and tröger's base polymers achieved higher permeability-selectivity combinations than their triptycene-based counterparts and transcended the most recent robeson upper bounds for h2/ch4, o2/n2, and co2/ch4 gas pairs. in particular, pentiptycene-based tr polymer series showed excellent microstructure tunability enabled through engineering the precursor structures or varying thermal treatment protocols during film preparation processes, which, in turn, led to a wide range of separation performances along with excellent resistance toward plasticization and physical aging in these polymers. lastly, the first introduction of triptycene moieties into pbi structure was demonstrated for high temperature h2/co2 separation, from which the efficiently disrupted polymer chain packing led to much enhanced gas permeability compared to existing pbis that suffer from low h2 permeability with comparable selectivity. in stochastic optimal control theory, the complete specification of the probability density function of the random cost functional might be considered the most a designer can do when formulating an optimal control law. the field of cost cumulant controls has made considerable advances towards this capability in the past few decades, largely because of the advantage gained from controlling the cost cumulants instead of the cost moments. however, current cost cumulant control paradigms have left the deliberate specification of the probability density function for the random cost outside the designer's direct influence. the ability to design control laws upon the desired shape and location of the cost density would be highly valuable to control engineers, since there is evidence that the shape of the cost density under high-performance controllers directly corresponds to the resulting closed-loop system behavior. this dissertation proposes a multiple-cumulant cost density-shaping (mccds) optimization problem for the lqg framework. the control solution to the mccds optimization is derived using dynamic programming techniques; it is the finite-horizon, linear state-feedback control that minimizes a smooth, convex, scalar function of arbitrarily-many initial cost cumulants and target initial cost cumulants. the mccds theory is shown to generalize the linear quadratic gaussian (lqg), 'k cost cumulant' (kcc), and risk-sensitive (rs) control paradigms for zero targets and linear performance indices. additionally, the mccds framework enables the minimization of well-known distance functions between the cost density and a target cost density, such as the kullback-leibler divergence, bhattacharyya distance, and the hellinger distance. the finite-horizon mccds control is extended to the infinite-horizon in this dissertation. other areas of investigation include mccds performance index construction, cost density-shaping minimax and nash games, and a statistical target selection (sts) iterative procedure for control design. together mccds and sts enable the design of control laws with optimality among a family of target cost densities, which might be regarded as a new approach to robust lqg control design. for structures excited by seismic disturbances, numerical experiments show that the mccds controls identified thru sts can achieve greater vibration suppression than nominal kcc controllers, without any compromise to robust stability. this dissertation explores the role of reciprocity and gift exchange in the book of sirach, contextualizing these themes within the author's understanding of "charity." along with other necessary prolegomena, chapter 1 situates this study relative to anthropological, sociological, and historical study of reciprocity and gift exchange. a brief exegesis of sir 22:23-26 introduces the theme in ben sira.chapter 2 examines a text, sir 14:3-19, which stresses the importance of "generosity" for a life well-lived. generosity aims at the proper enjoyment of "good," and includes a marked interest in the circulation of good in cycles of "giving, receiving, and enjoying oneself." such generosity here likely refers above all to gift exchange among "friends." chapter 3 examines sir 18:15-18 and sir 20:9-17. both texts are concerned that gifts be coupled with proper speech, and both emphasize that words and gifts alike do things—having the potential to reinforce social solidarity (or to destroy it), and to elicit return gifts. chapters 4 and 5 explore themes clustered around expressions for "repayment" from god. chapter 4 looks first at sir 35:1-13 and the concept of the sacrificial cult articulated there. sacrifice is understood as a "gift" for god—a gift that god will reciprocate. significantly, this passage brings both ordinary or "self-interested" generosity as well as more "altruistic" generosity within the ambit of sacrificial repayment. it is argued that this accounts for the move found in sir 12:1-5a, where a strong claim is made about divine repayment of "ordinary," intrahuman generosity. the final sections of chapter 4—and all of chapter 5—then attempt to account for the incorporation of ordinary generosity into the sacrificial economy by pointing to the history of effects of texts such as deut 26:13; prov 10:2, 11:4, 19:17; and deut 15:1-18.this study finds that the presence of "charity" does not abolish the category of "reciprocity" for ben sira. rather, the former opens up the possibility of generosity in cases where the latter is likely to fail, while simultaneously allowing reciprocity to remain a legitimate source of social solidarity. structure based computer aided drug design has been proven as a potent tool in identifying lead molecules for drug targets, with the increasing number of x-ray structures, validated drug targets and the ever increasing computer power. in my thesis, i have applied the structure based drug design for multiple target families including antibiotics targets (enzymes), transcription factors and epigenetic readers. the computational techniques i have used to study these systems are mainly docking, molecular dynamics simulation, mmgbsa binding free energy calculation and homology modeling. these techniques are fast, cost efficient and can provide mechanisms of binding. my major project is to develop a blueprint for antimicrobial hit discovery targeting metabolic networks. to illustrate this methodology, e. coli & s. aureus were used as examples for which multiple inhibitors have been discovered. system-level identification of drug targets was achieved through metabolic network construction of e. coli & s. aureus. this is followed by atomistic modeling of small molecules capable of modulating the targets' activity and in vitro enzyme and cell viability assays to test the activities of the predicted inhibitors. this project combines genome analysis, network biology and computational chemistry, which provides a general strategy for strain-specific anti-infective therapy. my contribution to this project includes both computational prediction of potential inhibitors and experimental validation of their activities in both in vitro and bacterial cell viability. my second project involves designing peptide analogs to disrupt the protein-protein interactions of the notch transactivation complex, the loose or gain-of-function of mutations of which are related with various diseases, including cancer. i have identified binding hot-spots of maml & csl/ank interface through mmgbsa energy decomposition. stapled peptide analogs of natural maml are then computationally designed with mutations around the hot-spots to other residues or non-natural amino acids using md simulations and mmgbsa rescoring, which have been subsequently validated experimentally by our collaborators to have stronger potency. my third project is studying a small molecule inhibitor ì¢ ââ' (+)-jq1 targeting bromodomains for potential cancer therapy. using docking and molecular dynamics simulation, i explained the selectivity of brd4(1) over jq1 enantiomers and the different binding modes of brd3(1) and brd3(2) with (+)-jq1. in this dissertation, i argue that the creation and adoption of the rome statute resulted from the successful entrepreneurial role of a group of states predisposed to support a strong, independent international criminal court because of a combination of ideational and material variables. norms shaped the national security interests and security policy of states, creating incentives to cooperate through institution building around the issue of core international crimes. states with a pro icc identity (high values in westernness, legalism, and post westphalian sovereignty and low values in proximity to the core) with enough resources to realize their preferences and without excessively high levels of participation in militarized interstate disputes, created an alliance, the like-minded group (lmg), to advance the creation of an effective international criminal court. these states advocated for a strong and independent court, with complementary jurisdiction that could effectively prevent, and prosecute, core crimes under international law&ndash; i.e., genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and aggression. this would also include a court that is independent from the security council, with automatic jurisdiction (as opposed to opt-out mechanisms) over core crimes triggered by territoriality and active nationality, and a prosecutor with propio motu powers. the lmg accomplished this by persuading the vast majority of states, which did not develop early preferences towards the icc, to support, or at least acquiesce to, a statute that reflected this ideal. the process of negotiation that led to this outcome followed a path dependent process, with every instance of the negotiation being conditioned by the previous instances, consolidated in evolving drafts and in the collective memory of the delegations. the end of the cold war was a necessary precondition to the definition of international crime as a common goods problem, and to the establishment of cooperation around it. to prove my argument i use a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, specifically ordinal regression, process tracing, and case studies. in addition to presenting a general explanation of the negotiation process, i examine four case studies (germany, france, argentina and the us) using a 'most similar case' design to better understand how the relevant variables affected particular states' behavior towards the icc. layer-by-layer (lbl) deposition of polyelectrolyte multilayers (pems) on membranes greatly enhances ion-transport selectivities in dialysis and nanofiltration. this dissertation explores monovalent/divalent ion separations in dialysis through pem-coated membranes and examines the effect of ionic strength and ph on the ion fluxes, selectivities and limiting currents. coated anion-exchange membranes (aems) show cl-/so42selectivities as high as 140, and a moderate increase in ph gives a five-fold increase in the limiting current through modified cation-exchange membranes (cems).development of aems with selectivities among anions may expand the applications of these membranes in salt separations. this work shows that lbl coating of aliphatic polyamide aems with poly(4-styrenesulfonate) (pss)/protonated poly(allylamine) (pah) films enhances cl-/so42dialysis selectivities. importantly, the extent of this enhancement depends on the source-phase salt concentrations. with a source phase containing a 0.01 m nacl, 0.01 m na2so4 mixture and a receiving phase of 0.01 m na2co3, a (pss/pah)5pss coating (5 pss/pah "bilayers" capped with a layer of pss) increases the cl-/so42selectivity from 1.7 to 5.3 in diffusion dialysis and from 1.3 to 7.4 in electrodialysis. more important, the diffusion dialysis selectivity of a coated membrane increases to 140 when the salt concentrations in the source phase are 0.1 m. even with bare membranes, selectivity increases to 13 with 0.1 m source-phase salt concentrations. partitioning studies and modeling suggest that the increased cl-/so42selectivities at high source-phase salt concentrations stem from enhanced clpartitioning and electromigration that disproportionately decreases so42flux in the aem.lbl polyelectrolyte coatings on membranes are attractive for their high selectivities between monovalent and divalent ions. however, deposition of pss/pah films on ion-exchange membranes leads to low ion fluxes that restrict productivity or current efficiency. remarkably, increasing the solution ph from 6.5 to 8.3 enhances cation fluxes and limiting currents through (pah/pss)5pah-coated cems while still achieving order of magnitude selectivity increases compared to bare membranes. in donnan dialysis through (pah/pss)5pah-coated nafion, at ph 8.3 the k+/mg2+ selectivity is 100, and the k+ flux is 22 times that at ph 6.5. moreover, at the higher ph the electrodialysis limiting current through these membranes increases ~5-fold. this enables electrodialysis separation of k+ and mg2+ with a current efficiency around 0.75, a selectivity of 18, and 50% k+ recovery from the source phase. transmembrane potential measurements and increases in cl-/so42selectivities (from 9.5 at ph 6.5 to ~70 at ph 8.3) for porous alumina membranes coated with (pss/pah)5pss films suggest that the coating becomes cation-permselective at higher ph. increased cation transference numbers in polyelectrolyte coatings likely lead to the enhanced limiting currents for coated nafion at higher ph. finally, (pah/pss)5pah-coated nafion shows a li+/mg2+ donnan dialysis selectivity &gt;1000 at neutral ph and a selectivity of 10 at ph 8.3. however, the li+ flux is 6 times greater at ph 8.3, which might make operation at the higher ph desirable. ultra-scaled gan high electron mobility transistors (hemts) are attractive candidates for high-power electronics with speed approaching thz, due to its wide bandgap, high electron velocity and high channel charge concentration. to realize these potentials, transistor technologies that offer low parasitic resistances and capacitances have to be developed, in addition to design of the intrinsic device layer structures. to this end, this thesis describes the development of non-alloyed ohmic contacts regrown by molecular beam epitaxy (mbe) and the resultant hemts at notre dame. this effort placed notre dame as the third group in the world to successfully demonstrate high performance gan hemts with non-alloyed regrown ohmics after ucsb and hrl. the developed technology was subsequently transferred with success to triquint semiconductor, inc. compared to the conventional alloyed ohmic contacts, non-alloyed mbe regrown ohmic contacts have several advantages: 1) lower contact resistance, 2) source/drain definition with uncompromised edge acuteness, and 3) unpinned hemt surface, which is discovered by our group and described in this thesis. the fabrication processes for the regrown contacts were first developed while the mbe regrowth was performed by dr. jenaåáåøs mbe group members. following liftoff of the regrowth mask, the gate electrode was placed using electron beam lithography. several generations of metal-face lattice-matched inaln/aln/gan hemts without gate recess were fabricated and tested. the highlights of these efforts include: a minimum total contact resistance of 0.1 ohm-mm with a regrowth interface resistance of 0.02 ohm-mm; an output drain current of 1.8 a/mm, an extrinsic transconductance of 544 ms/mm, ft/fmax of 216/80 ghz on a 60-nm inaln hemt with non-alloyed ohmic contacts and without passivation. temperature dependence behavior of ohmic contacts and hemts was also investigated to uncover the underlying physical processes limiting their performance. it was found that the regrowth interface resistance obtained in this work is very close to the quantum resistance limit. it was also discovered that for these hemts with non-alloyed ohmic contacts, the conventional dielectric passivation actually decreases the device speed, opposite to the observations for conventional hemts with alloyed ohmic contacts, which in turn suggests traps states generated during ohmic alloying are responsible for the dispersion effect plaguing the hemts. to further improve device performance, self-aligned hemt processes are being developed at notre dame. the preliminary results of a gate-first self-aligned symmetric hemt process development are discussed, as well as simulated device performance. not available the increasing interest in on-chip plasmonic devices underscores the importance of having a fundamental understanding of the interactions occurring when noble metal nanostructures are brought into contact with substrate materials. the resulting adjustments to the plasmon resonances and electric near-fields are both significant and unavoidable. in the solid-state dewetting of ultrathin metal films specifically, an important nanosynthesis technique for many modern technologies, the resulting spherical nanostructures exhibit a thermodynamically determined truncation by the substrate. the effects of introducing asymmetry in both the surface structure and the dielectric environment are critical for determining optoelectronic properties and are hence impactful parameters to understand and manipulate in the rational design of on-chip plasmonic devices. herein, is demonstrated a comprehensive study of the effects of surface truncation on the plasmon resonance and near-fields of substrate-truncated nanostructures, beginning with ag nanospheres, and expanding to include au nanostars and hexagonal au nanoplates. this dissertation treats the contribution of the public playhouse to the development of early modern historiography and historical culture. though scholars remain divided over the extent to which early modern english historiography involved methodological innovations, there is little doubt that the period witnessed the widespread proliferation--due partly to print technology--of increasingly various forms. as a medium that appealed to an especially broad cross-section of english society, the playhouse had an important role in the production and dissemination of historical knowledge. i argue that the relationship between the playhouse and historical culture was reciprocal: just as the theater contributed to an awareness and understanding of the past, historical matter helped legitimize theater in early modern england. situating the history play in the context of developments in early modern historiography, this project seeks to expand our understanding of the genre's interests beyond matters of monarchy and state, drawing attention to theatrical representations of local histories, both urban and provincial, and marginalized figures, including women and the commons. research suggests that early executive functioning skill development may enhance the school readiness of children growing up in disadvantaged homes. questions remain, however, concerning both the structure and stability of executive functioning among preschoolers. additionally, there is a lack of theoretically based research addressing potential predictors of longitudinal change in executive functioning during early childhood. this longitudinal study examined the structure of executive functioning from fall to spring of the preschool year using a multi-method battery of measures. confirmatory factor analyses revealed a unidimensional model best fit the data at both time points. after establishing partial measurement invariance over time, results indicated that children's mean latent executive functioning scores significantly improved. verbal ability was a significant predictor of spring executive functioning, but neither age nor negative emotionality was a significant predictor. theoretical implications and directions for future research are discussed. the radiolysis of three iron oxides, two copper oxides, and aluminum oxide with varying amounts of water were performed using &#947;-rays and 5 mev 4he ions. the adsorbed water on the surfaces was characterized using temperature programmed desorption and diffuse reflectance infrared spectroscopy, which indicated that all of the oxides had chemisorbed water on the surface. physisorbed water was observed on the fe2o3 and al2o3 surfaces as well. molecular hydrogen was produced from adsorbed water only on fe2o3 and al2o3, while the other compounds did not show any hydrogen production due to the low amounts of water on the surfaces. slurries of varying amounts of water were also examined for hydrogen production, and they showed yields that were greater than the yield for bulk water. however, the yields of hydrogen from the copper compounds were much lower than those of the iron suggesting that the copper oxides are relatively inert to radiation induced damage to nearby water. x-ray diffraction measurements did not show any indication of changes to the bulk crystal structure due to radiolysis for any of the oxides. the surfaces of the oxides were analyzed using raman spectroscopy and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (xps). for the iron samples, feo and fe3o4, raman spectroscopy revealed areas of fe2o3 had formed following irradiation with he ions. xps indicated the formation of a new oxygen species on the iron oxide surfaces. raman spectroscopy of the copper oxides did not reveal any changes in the surface composition, however, xps measurements showed a decrease in the amount of oh groups on the surface of cu2o, while for the cuo samples the amount of oh groups were found to increase following radiolysis. pristine al2o3 showed the presence of a surface oxyhydroxide layer which was observed to decrease following radiolysis, consistent with the formation of molecular hydrogen. my thesis aims to explore luigi pirandello's ideas on the nature of humanity, and how pirandello represents the human through elements outside of corporality, whether it be through boundaries incorporated by law or through the perceptions of others. the widespread "recovery" of the pneumatic epiclesis in contemporary western eucharistic praying can be attributed to the combined influence of a number of factors, especially the confluence of liturgical, ecumenical, and pastoral concerns. although the location and language of the epicleses incorporated into western eucharistic prayers during the last half century have varied, many of these pneumatic invocations were influenced at some stage of their development by early models (and often early eastern models) of eucharistic praying. this study explores the theological and textual connections among ancient and modern epicleses, primarily through analysis of a selection of epicletic texts in contemporary western eucharistic prayers and the theological principles that shaped themì¢ ââ" principles derived in part from perceptions of the role played by the spirit inherited from traditions ancient and modern. this study demonstrates how liturgical scholarship on the spirit's role in early liturgical prayers and texts conducted during the twentieth century contributed to the language and pneumatology of contemporary eucharistic prayers in the western christian tradition and considers how more recent studies of these ancient sources may suggest ways to articulate and incorporate a more expansive understanding of the connections between the holy spirit and the eucharist into the euchological repertoire of various ecclesial traditions in the future. contemporary western prayers analyzed in this study include the eucharistic prayers of the missale romanum (1970-2002) of the roman catholic church, the book of common prayer (1979) of the episcopal church in the united states of america, the united methodist book of worship (1992), the presbyterian church (u.s.a.)'s book of common worship (1993), the church of england's common worship (2000), and evangelical lutheran worship (2006) of the evangelical lutheran church in america and the evangelical lutheran church in canada. the recent surge of nostalgia in american politics and popular culture has motivated scholars across humanities disciplines to ask whether the emotion can be a means of creatively redefining national identity, or if it inevitably reinforces reactionary visions of cultural heritage. svetlana boym's monograph the future of nostalgia (2001) set the terms of this debate, defending the creative potential of a passive "reflective" nostalgia, while critiquing the reactionary tendencies of "restorative" nostalgia, which drives a political agenda. while most subsequent studies have concurred with boym's assessment, modernism and nostalgia (2013), edited by tammy clewell, suggests that the politics of nostalgia may be more nuanced than boym supposes, particularly in light of the modernist movement's conflicted political and historical vision. yet scholars have largely overlooked nostalgia's role in modernist literature, particularly modernist poetry. my project, the first extended study of nostalgia's relationship to modernist poetics, argues that the modernist epic, with its fragmentary forms and vast allusive range, exhibits a mode of nostalgia that disrupts linear cultural tradition in favor of layering and juxtaposing the past and present. i term this longing for the past of a place one already inhabits "archaeological nostalgia." the methodological lens of literary form illuminates how these texts seek neither to abandon nor to reconstruct the past, rather striving to preserve and reclaim it. chapter 1 considers james joyce's paradigmatic modernist epic, ulysses (1922), reading its meticulous reconstruction of 1904 dublin as a nostalgic return to the author's homeland and childhood. the text juxtaposes everyday experience with ancient epic, thereby sidestepping a xenophobic account of national heritage while retaining the resonance of mythic parallels; in other words, it rejects an unhealthy obsession with the past through its use of nostalgia. chapter 2 deals with mina loy's anglo-mongrels and the rose (1923–25), which satirizes conventionally nostalgic images like childhood, courtship, and the english countryside, while nonetheless returning nostalgically to moments of personal illumination experienced by the young protagonist and her father. this nostalgic, epiphanic individualism facilitates loy's critique of narrow accounts of englishness along with her exploration of her own cultural identity.chapter 3 examines how t. s. eliot's four quartets (1936–42) and lynette roberts' gods with stainless ears (1951) respond to the violence of world war ii, by composing long poems which construct an image of national heritage through fragmentary images of local culture and the submerged national past. eliot and roberts carried on a significant correspondence during the period, but almost nothing has been written about the connections between their work.chapter 4 considers david jones' the anathemata (1952) in terms of his theory of art as re-presentation, concluding that for jones, poetry is inevitably a nostalgic process. this is particularly the case for poets in the twentieth century, who in jones' view must assemble the fragments of the cultural past as a means of resisting the increasingly utilitarian nature of modern culture. ultimately, these authors, all of them displaced or alienated in some way, use nostalgia to redefine their national identities, disrupting rigid accounts of heritage. by resisting the initial urge to absolve or indict nostalgia's politics, and focusing instead on its relationship with epic form, the project offers a new account of the emotion's cultural possibilities. in developing this account of productive nostalgia, moreover, it sheds light on modernism's equivocal relationship to the past and the nation, while providing a standard against which humanities scholars can assess our own, highly nostalgic, cultural moment. studies of violence in the late nineteenth-century south focus almost exclusively on racial and political violence against african americans. while this emphasis is both understandable and appropriate, what has been largely neglected is the violence committed against religious outsiders, and more generally their overall treatment in what was essentially a hegemonic culture of evangelical protestantism. in addition to the many instances of violence against african american churches and ministers in the south, there were also dozens of episodes of anti-jewish violence and literally hundreds of cases of anti-mormon violence from 1865 to 1910. acknowledging and understanding this relatively hidden chapter in american history provides us with unique insights into postbellum southern culture and the sometimes violent side of the american experiment in religious pluralism. this dissertation adds to the growing body of scholarship exploring the relationships between religion and violence in southern history and american history more broadly by making three primary contributions. first, it uncovers numerous untold narratives of violence against southern religious outsiders. second, it examines the interrelationships between minority religious groups and the dominant evangelical protestant culture in the south. third, it explores the various ways in which religious identity and religious motivations, whether explicit or implicit, informed the attitudes, actions, and reactions of the perpetrators as well as the victims of the violence. the four groups treated herein' black christians, mormons, jews, and catholics' were the groups most commonly seen (and treated) by contemporaries as providing substantial challenges to the cultural, racial, and religious orthodoxies of southern anglo-saxon protestantism. in short, this dissertation is a study of the multiple religious dimensions of violence in the postbellum south. although some episodes treated herein qualify as overt religious violence, in most of the cases religion was one among a number of variables that shaped and triggered violent interactions, including race, gender, family structure, politics, class, economics, and ethnicity. as a set of sacred doctrines and practices, a cultural category, or an analytical lens, religion played different roles in the ways that black christians, mormons, jews, and catholics precipitated, experienced, and responded to southern violence as religious outsiders. rotaxanes are an example of a molecular machine designed to mimic machines at a molecular level. in this thesis, i will discuss the dynamics of rotaxanes, focusing on the influence of components on these motions. a deep understanding of how components govern the motions of molecular machines can aid in their design process.this need to understand the basic motions of our rotaxanes had us apply an advanced array of nmr experiments. historically used for biological molecular machines, we used these experiments to study artificial molecular machines. these experiments highlighted differences in a switchable rotaxane which led to our macrocyclic breathing model for the free pirouetting form of [3]rotaxane 1. this model was found through our relaxation dispersion studies, where we detected chemical exchange at critical points on the macrocyclic wheel.we continued these studies with another form of [3]rotaxane with a different axle structure which provided the impact of the axle component on the wheel components. we see the effect of the change in the axle structure on the cyclodextrin through our relaxation studies. we did not detect the exchange process that led to our macrocyclic breathing model for the alternate rotaxane, [3]rotaxane 8, indicating a change of dynamics due to the axle.we ran molecular dynamics simulations in association with the nmr experiment work to provide further information on the relationships between components. a shuttling motion was detected where interactions between the cyclodextrins are possibly mediated by inter hydrogen bonding. the impact of the axle on the cyclodextrin and the dynamics between the cyclodextrin show the importance of these studies on future molecular machines. the properties detected in our macrocyclic breathing model of rotaxane may be specific to a particular rotaxane, as this thesis showed the importance of individual components on function. future work will provide the basic motions that govern all rotaxanes. it is generally accepted that the design of the foot can influence gait for both robots and amputees. however, the nonlinear nature of bipedal systems combined with the intermittent contacts required for walking makes rigorous investigation of the influence of foot design difficult. further, it is not known how to predict even normal human walking across a range of speeds. this work extends a robot modeling and control technique to create highly accurate, yet computationally inexpensive, predictive models of human walking. the models were validated using new robotic hardware experiments and existing data from human subject studies. the results have implications both for the design and control of robots and for models of amputee gait. the models are grounded on a hybrid zero dynamics (hzd)-based control technique originally developed for planar bipedal robots with point feet and instantaneous transfer of support. to account for the function of the human foot, curved feet were incorporated into the hzd framework, which required rederiving the model of the transfer of support and the stability criteria. the effects of foot design on gait were systematically investigated in both simulation and hardware. due to interaction effects between foot radius and center of curvature location, there are two distinct design strategies that yield energetically efficient gaits. in addition, models of human walking must also include the effects of toe-off. this can be achieved either with an impulsive force at the hip during the impact phase or with ankle joints. using a six-link planar model with ankle joints and curved feet, normal human joint kinematics and energy expenditures can be predicted very accurately at walking speeds ranging from very slow to very fast using a torque-squared-based objective function. by removing one of the ankle joints from the symmetric human model, asymmetric amputee gait can be investigated. it is shown that small reductions in amputated/contralateral leg symmetry lead to large improvements in energetic efficiency. portable wireless devices, like phones and laptops, are an indispensable part of daily life worldwide. these devices are transceivers, meant to transmit and receive on many different frequency bands, often simultaneously. as transmitting emit electromagnetic waves, viewed as a potential health threat, wireless transmitting devices are regulated on how much exposure a person experiences during their use. regulatory agencies impose limits on exposure measures such as specific absorption rate (sar) and power density (pd) to ensure portable wireless devices are safe for public use. recent developments in the new generation of portable wireless devices, such as the fifth generation of the cellular system (5g), have introduced devices with multiple transmitters operating in the millimeter-wave (mmwave) frequencies.this research aims to provide a practical solution for proper measurement procedures for multiple-antenna portable wireless devices and mmwave frequencies. we start by determining the compliance of multiple-antenna portable wireless devices exposure with the minimum number of measurements. evaluation of regulatory requirements for multiple-antenna devices is time-consuming and costly in measurements since there is a large set of excitation signals for measurements. therefore, the development of proper measurement procedures for when there are multiple transmitting antennas operating at the same carrier frequency is of great interest. to this end, we next model peak spatial-average sar of multiple-antenna portable devices using a simple mixed quadratic function of the transmitted excitation signal. this model can be used in the design of any communication systems with exposure constraints, to reduce exposure and improve overall performance. finally we propose a pd measurement procedure for evaluating exposure safety in mmwave frequencies. we show that greater accuracy for pd as a proxy for temperature can be achieved by adapting the averaging area according to a simple prescribed process that uses the half-power beamwidth of the excitation signal. moreover, we show that testing must happen over a multitude of distances up to the far-field of the device. the blagg research lab is an interdisciplinary medicinal chemistry and chemical biology team focused on the rational design of new molecules and advancing putative therapeutic agents that target the 90 kda heat shock protein (hsp90) and its proteostasis network for the treatment of cancer, alzheimer's disease, and glaucoma. within this context, my thesis work has focused on the design, synthesis, and evaluation of small molecule disruptors of aha1/hsp90 interactions for the reduction of tau aggregation; the development of a novel in vitrosplit renilla luciferaseassay for assessment of aha1/hsp90 disruptors; and the biological evaluation of small molecule inhibitors of tumor necrosis factor receptor-associated protein 1 (trap1), the mitochondrial hsp90 paralog. supporting evidence and information from these studies helped to guide the development of both hsp90/aha1 disruptors and trap1-targeting molecules. the work and methodologies described herein have provided a foundation for the evaluation of small molecule modulators of these specific hsp90 networks, with the goal of identifying compounds that exhibit increased efficacy and potency toward their biological targets. such molecules can be used to reveal the cellular processes and pathways that mediate the neuroprotective effect manifested by these molecules in models of ad, pd, and other neuropathies. the following dissertation describes the measurement of the top pair differential cross section in the semi-leptonic, &mu;+jets, channel taken with respect to the invariant mass of the top pair system. this measurement was performed using the compact muon solenoid, an experiment at the large hadron collider located at cern in geneva, switzerland. the 2012 dataset was used with a total of 19.44 fb-1 of data recorded at a center of mass energy of &radic;s = 8 tev. the top pair differential cross section with respect to the invariant mass was found, within uncertainties, to agree well with the leading theoretical models. the chain of events involved in the production and use of uranium for power generation and defensive purposes has serious environmental consequences. study of the crystal chemistry of uranium minerals and compounds can help to lead to effective approaches to remedy uranium contamination in the environment, and aid in the development of reliable strategies for the long-term disposal of spent nuclear fuel nuclear waste. the research presented herein focuses on the structures and crystal chemistry of hexavalent uranium (uranyl) phosphate, arsenate and chromium(v) compounds as revealed mainly by single-crystal x-ray diffraction. the uranyl phosphates and uranyl arsenates are of particularly low solubility under environmental conditions, and thus may control the mobility of uranium in groundwater and at some contaminated sites. a total of fifty-six single-crystal structures were studied using diffraction data (collected with a three-circle x-ray diffractometer, mo radiation, and a charge-coupled-device area detector), in conjunction with the results of other instrumental techniques. only three of these compounds are from mineral specimens; the rest are synthetic in origin (although many are synthetic equivalents of mineral species), and were grown either by gel-diffusion or by hydrothermal methods. of the refined structures, twenty-five are uranyl phosphates, twenty-seven are uranyl arsenates, and four are uranyl chromium(v) oxysalts. four principal structural themes are observed in the uranyl phosphates and uranyl arsenates: 1) structures based on infinite chains of uranyl polyhedra and either phosphate or arsenate tetrahedra; 2) structures based on the sheet found in phosphuranylite; 3) structures based on the sheet found in autunite; and 4) layered and framework structures containing uranyl phosphate or uranyl arsenate sheets whose sheet-anion topology is identical to that found in uranophane. the four uranyl chromium(v) oxysalts are structurally analogous to the uranyl vanadate carnotite. uranyl phosphates and their chemically corresponding uranyl arsenates are generally, but not always, isostructural. similarly, hybrid organic-inorganic compounds, which contain protonated amines rather than simple cations, exhibit structural themes that are analogous with their inorganic counterparts. the size of aquatic humic substances (hs) influences many aspects of their physicochemical behavior, including proton and metal binding, organic pollutant partitioning, and adsorption onto mineral surfaces. however, in addition to differences in size, hs display a wide range of chemical structures across their molecular weight (mw) distribution. approaches are needed to cut through this complexity to develop reliable conceptual and quantitative models of hs behavior. this dissertation deals specifically with hs transport in sandy porous media, and asks whether mw could be used as a key parameter to help predict hs mobility. to answer this question, we conducted a series of column experiments using aquatic hs, polystyrene sulfonate (pss) mw standards of various sizes, and natural aquifer sand. column influent and effluent were analyzed to track changes in the hs mw distribution over time. differences in retardation of various size fractions of hs and pss suggested that mw could indeed be considered a key parameter, although questions remained as to whether different mw fractions interact with one another, leading to behavior that differs from the simple sum of the component parts. additional experiments using mixtures of pss standards revealed that models must take interactions between different components into consideration. finally, transport of hs was modeled using a continuous time random walk (ctrw) approach. by explicitly considering differences in the transport rates of different hs fractions, the ctrw model captured hs transport behavior more accurately than the conventional advection-disperision equation (ade) under all conditions examined. this suggests that the multi-component nature of hs is critical to understanding their mobility in the environment, although adsorption kinetics and interactions among hs components are also likely to play a role. in summary, mw is one of several parameters that control hs adsorption and transport. while a strong correlation between mw and hs mobility exists, knowledge of mw alone is not sufficient to predict hs transport. however, a basic understanding of variability in transport behavior across the mw distribution can provide insight into how different fractions of hs and substances associated with those fractions travel through the subsurface. sea spray aerosol particles in the atmosphere contribute to the fundamental processes of mass, momentum, and heat transfer. all of these transfers depend on the aerosol particles' size, mass, and distribution throughout the atmosphere. due to these interactions, its spatio-temporal distribution and transport processes has been studied over decades. this dissertation presents the further progress and study of the contribution, transport, and behavior of sea spray aerosol particles in the atmospheric boundary layer. the conclusions given by this dissertation can be used to better model, predict, and study sea spray aerosol particle transport. this study explores representations of the river arno in dante's divine comedy. in particular, it builds upon recent cartographic readings of the poem by contextualising dante's mapping of the arno within his broader project of re-mapping the entire italian peninsula across hell, purgatory and paradise in accordance with his subjective – and more often than not polemical – perspectives on the political and ethical state of contemporary italy. the first chapter begins by proposing new evidence to suggest that dante consciously establishes a parallel between the river phlegethon of inf. 14 and the river arno of purg. 14., a fluvial conflux which opens the poet's moral critique of italy to new avenues of interpretation. the second half of the chapter will trace the trajectory that the arno – now superimposed onto the phlegethon – will traverse across lower hell, offering a close analysis of the passages in which the river is charted as it passes through the ditches of the malebolge reserved for the hypocrites and the falsifiers in inf. 23 and inf. 20 respectively before making its descent into the final circle of hell, where in inf. 33 dante cartographically aligns the mouth of the arno with the terminus of the phlegethon. the chapters which follow discuss the rarer occasions in which the tuscan river features in the second and third canticles. specifically, the second chapter examines how the arno's negative characterisation as an infernal river will change as it performs a central role in the salvation of bonconte da montefeltro in purg. 5, while the final chapter explores how dante's political ideology and moral ideals are reflected in the mapping of the arno and tiber during the episode on the life of saint francis in par. 11. this study's central argument is that social christianity was in no small part "union made." in saying this, i advance two interrelated theses. the first is that wage earners cultivated a variety of social gospels well before the rise of the much-studied social gospel of washington gladden, walter rauschenbusch, and other middle-class reformers. throughout the gilded age dissenting strains of faith flourished in chicago's working-class communities, as socialists, anarchists, and trade unionists alike insisted that the city's christian leaders had forsaken the religion of christ. their championing of an alternative christian gospel was not confined to the realm of ideas. by the turn of the century ordinary believers across the city were rising up against "scab" ministers. collectively, these actions compounded the religious elite's mounting anxiety that the churches might soon lose their foothold amongst the masses. were the very institutions that had long been the nation's cornerstone now threatened with irrelevance? desperate to avoid this catastrophic outcome, fin-de-siecle church leaders began finally to take their working-class critics more seriously. the second thesis is that working people played an integral role in the eventual mainstreaming of social christianities. a select subset of the working classes &ndash; namely, white, skilled, native-born men &ndash; wielded disproportionate influence in this process, as the churches were especially intent upon retaining their loyalty. through the industrial travails of the late nineteenth century, in fact, even as some religious leaders issued violent calls for the blood of the (foreign-born) "mob," they made sure to laud the dignity of (native-born) "labor." but such tactics by themselves did not succeed in meeting workers' producerist demands. at the turn of the century a worried christian elite repeatedly surveyed respectable workingmen and found that the churches' opposition to trades unionism was at the root of their disenchantment. it was no coincidence that during these very same years leading protestants' and catholics' views on the labor question finally softened. in early twentieth-century chicago, the social gospel was quite literally ascendant &ndash; from below. metal complexes supported by redox-active ligands have the ability to promote multielectron transfer reactions. advances in multielectron transfer reactions have significant impacts in catalysis and renewable energy storage. the synthesis and characterization of group vi metal complexes using the dopo ligand, 2,4,6,8-tetra-tert-butyl-1-oxo-1h-phenoxazin-9-olate, is described, and their reactivity in non-classical oxygenation reactions is examined. h(dopoq) is prepared using a modified literature procedure, where 2,6-dihydroxy-3,5-di-tert-butylaniline and 3,5-di-tert-butylcatechol are reacted at room temperature in the presence of 10 mol% triethylamine under aerobic conditions. cr(dopo)2 is synthesized by the reaction of h(dopoq) with chromocene. its crystal structure reveals c2v symmetry, with one partially reduced ligand, doposq, more tightly bonded to cr than the other fully oxidized ligand, dopoq. the magnetic susceptibility of cr(dopo)2 is measured both as a solid and as a toluene solution, showing curie-weiss paramagnetism with some temperature independent paramagnetism in the solid. pb(dopoq)2 is prepared by dissolving lead acetate trihydrate in a heated methanol solution with h(dopoq). its geometry differs from most homoleptic dopo metal complexes, with the dopo ligands forming a &#954;2-like coordination to pb due to the stereochemically active lone pair of electrons in the 6s metal orbital. pb(dopoq)2 is employed in the synthesis of m(dopo)2 (m = mo, w) from m2br4(co)8. the crystal structures of mo(dopo)2 and w(dopo)2 are isomorphous, with the dopo ligands coordinated in a meridional fashion to the corresponding metal centers. 1h and 13c nmr spectroscopy along with metrical data from x-ray diffraction studies support a fully reduced catecholate form for both ligands. reaction of the molybdenum and tungsten complexes, m(dopocat)2, with excess me3no gives mo2(dopo)2, with both dopo ligands in the fully oxidized quinonoid form, in addition to paramagnetic products. reaction of m(dopocat)2 with a weaker amine n-oxide such as nmo only gives traces of mo2(dopo)2, with the major product being h(dopoq) and paramagnetic products. the molybdenum dioxo complex, moo2(dopoq)2, has been prepared independently from moo2cl2(dmf)2 and pb(dopoq)2. addition of 2 equivalents of pph3 to moo2(dopoq)2 results in regeneration of mo(dopocat)2 and formation of opph3 via the intermediacy of a pph3containing species observable by nmr. less bulk and more basic pme2ph achieves the same net deoxygenation more rapidly, but without formation of detectable amounts of an intermediate. enterobactin is prepared using a modified procedure, and its reactivity with molybdenum(vi) is examined. a one-pot reaction of 2,3-bis(benzyloxy)benzoyl chloride with tris(n-trityl-l-serine) trilactone affords hexabenzylenterobactin directly. this procedure consolidates the removal of the n-trityl protecting groups and amide bond formation between the trilactone backbone and the side chains into one facile step. while moo2(acac)2 reacts with enterobactin, factors such as the limited solubility of enterobactin and aggregation of enterobactin-mo complexes into oligomers inhibit the formation of a stable c3-symmetric enterobactin-mo(vi) complex. discovered several meters below the roman forum, the wooden remains shed light on butrint's early history, between the 7th century b.c. and the augustan period. this study discusses uses for wood in antiquity and available technologies, tools, and land use in butrint. a catalogue contains the data gathered from analysis of every natural and worked wooden artifact excavated at butrint. this dissertation argues that there is a dogmatic or doctrinal structure to the theology of bonhoeffer's doctoral dissertation sanctorum communio. it argues that this dogmatic structure is crucial for understanding bonhoeffer's engagement with social theory and his account of the church. chapter one argues that bonhoeffer develops a distinctive ecclesiological approach to theology as a response to both ernst troeltsch's historicism and karl barth's dialectical theology. against troeltsch and barth, bonhoeffer understands the church as both revelational and as a fully human, social entity. chapter two examines how bonhoeffer sets up this theological engagement with social theory. it explores the central methodological distinctions he makes between historical and formal approaches to sociology, and between social-philosophy and sociology. this chapter also examines how bonhoeffer carefully situates his engagement with social theory as a critique of the social-philosophy of idealism. bonhoeffer develops a 'theological narrative' or 'conception of reality' that contests the idealist understanding of reality (i.e., the progressive unfolding or realization of spirit in history). chapters three and four develop my claim that bonhoeffer's engagement with social theory is structured by this 'theological narrative' or 'concept of reality.' chapter three explores how bonhoeffer uses the doctrine of creation as a basis for appropriating from existing social theory, and for developing his own 'specifically christian social-philosophy and sociology.' chapter four explores how he then fundamentally reworks this christian social theory in light of the new situation of sin. in both these chapters, bonhoeffer gives priority to narrative or concept of reality as intrinsically broken over insights and concepts from social theory. chapter five argues that bonhoeffer's theological engagement with social theory (in the earlier chapters of sanctorum communio) is integral to bonhoeffer's account of the church. in chapter five, i argue that many of bonhoeffer's central theological formulations' e.g., 'vicarious representative action' and 'christ existing as community'' are only fully comprehensible in relation his christian social philosophy. i also argue that bonhoeffer's analysis of the church as its own unique sociological type only makes sense when viewed in relation to his specifically christian sociology. this dissertation concludes by reflecting on the implications of the theology of sanctorum communio for recent scholarship in theology and christian ethics. in particular, i address some of the implications of sanctorum communio in relation to scholarship that has given emphasis to the visible distinctiveness of the church. this dissertation presents anti-patriarchal islamic and christian theologies that are constructed from the lives of indonesian female migrant workers (fmws) in singapore. the concept of border theologies is introduced to denote the kind of theologies that come out of the embodied experiences of the fmws who live at the liminal spaces of belonging/non-belonging in the diaspora. to do so, three major aspects in the lives of the fmws (theology, theodicy, and religious practices) are analyzed through the lenses of feminist ethnography and anthropological theology in this dissertation. in language production, it has been shown that lemmas that share overlapping semantic features cause interference for each other's production when encoded in the same local context. this research examined how differences in the morphological and/or semantic componential complexity of verbs affect the accuracy of producing them in speech. three experiments tested the hypothesis that more complex verbs replace their simpler counterparts more often than vice versa in contextual errors due to being associated with a greater number of activated semantic features at the point of lemma selection. experiment 1 examined the light/heavy contrast involving specification of manner, experiment 2 investigated the antonymic contrast between verbs where one is semantically and/or morphologically marked, and experiment 3 examined the contrast between verbs that differ with respect to inflectional morphology. the results support a compositional view of verb meaning and have implications for the role of semantic features in lemma retrieval. the aortic valve is one of the four valves of the heart, responsible for the unidirectional flow of blood from the left ventricle to the aorta. the most common aortic valve disease, calcific aortic stenosis, is characterized by the narrowing of the valve due to the presence of calcified nodules on the valvular leaflets and is present in 8% of the population above 65 years of age. the processes by which calcification occurs are poorly understood. blood exerts a combination of forces on the valve leaflets, which are believed to have a significant effect on valvular disease progression. this study investigates the role played by blood flow dynamics and prospective mechanosensitive molecules in the development of aortic valve disease. these insights may aid in development of pharmacological management of valvular disease. this study maintains that allegory is the key to understanding boccaccio's poetics and literary theory. boccaccio either composed allegorical fictions such as the ameto, amorosa visione, or buccolicum carmen, or he theorized allegory's role in literature's semiotics, for example in his trattatello on dante and in the genealogie deorum gentilium. despite boccaccio's interest in allegory, it has not been understood that allegory is foundational for boccaccio's conception of literature. traditionally, scholars have considered boccaccio to be the first italian "realist" author, who criticized simplistic notions of god, theology, and medieval allegory. this thesis reevaluates boccaccio's understanding of allegory in the wake of proto-humanist defenses of classical literature and dante's valorization of vernacular fiction. chapters 1-2 contextualize allegory within medieval literary theory. medieval debates about allegory turned on two questions: what texts are allegorical and how are they allegorical? chapter 3 suggests that boccaccio represents the culmination of medieval literary theory because he develops a theory of allegory universally applicable to all texts. rather than prioritize the historical and figural semiotics of the bible over fiction, boccaccio suggests that all texts and literatures are equally allegorical, and thus communicate similar truths and have similar value. boccaccio's allegorical literary theory allows him to justify the coherence of his own diverse writings, synthesize the italian and latin cultural projects of dante and petrarch, and valorize secular fiction. chapter 4 treats boccaccio's allegorical use of the erotic in the ameto and amorosa visione. boccaccio's early fictions experiment with literary semiotics as a system in their own right, without being justified by theology or philosophy. in polemic with dante, whose fiction signifies in relation to biblical prefiguration and metaphysics, symbolized by the ideal erotic, boccaccio's signify in relation to the real and the physical, symbolized by the mundane erotic. chapter 5 suggests that boccaccio's corbaccio functions as an ovidian remedium for readers who do not read allegorically. based on elegy's connection, as developed in ovid's amatory writings, between loving, reading, and writing, the corbaccio uses hatred as a metaphor for the literal reading of women and literature. the conclusion briefly discusses allegory in the decameron. the existence of small surface discontinuities beneath a turbulent boundary layer plays a significant role in generating enhanced wall-pressure fluctuations and acoustic radiation. this study investigates numerically the aeroacoustics of low-mach-number flows over small gaps and forward-facing steps using large-eddy simulation and lighthill's aeroacoustic theory. the lighthill's equation is solved using an approximate tailored green's function for acoustically compact gaps and steps, and a boundary-element method to evaluate the effects of gap/step non-compactness and free-stream convection. the objectives of this study are to elucidate the acoustic source mechanisms and the effects of flow and geometric parameters including the step/gap size, shape and orientation. in the gap flows considered, it is found that the maximum surface pressure fluctuations, which increase with the gap width and trailing-edge height, occur at the trailing edge of the gap or near the reattachment point if there is separation from the trailing edge. the downstream recovery towards an equilibrium boundary layer is significantly faster compared to the boundary layers perturbed by a single forward step, and the recovery distance scales with the reattachment length for gaps with trailing-edge separation. the radiated sound field is dominated by the forward-facing step in the gap if it is exposed to oncoming turbulence. a mixed scaling using both backwardand forward-step heights as length scales has been found to collapse the sound pressure spectra for wide gaps with different forward step heights. for narrow and symmetric gaps, destructive interference of the sound from leading and trailing edges causes a significant decline in the low-frequency content. the effects of gap acoustic non-compactness and free-stream convection are found to be negligible at the typical hydroacoustic mach number of 0.01, but become significant at mach numbers as low as 0.1 and moderately high frequencies. flow over forward-facing steps is considered to investigate the effects of step orientation and corner rounding. for swept steps, it is found that the sweep independence hypothesis holds for mean flow quantities for sweep angles up to 45?, and for fluctuating quantities including surface pressure fluctuations and reynolds stresses for sweep angles up to 30?. the sound pressure spectra also exhibit approximate sweep independence for sweep angles up to 30?. rouding the step upper corner is shown to cause reduced flow separation on the upper surface, increased level of peak surface pressure fluctuations and faster downstream relaxation to an equilibrium turbulent boundary layer. step rounding also reduces the sound spectral level significantly due largely to reduced surface diffraction effect, and the reduction increases with increasing rounding radius and frequency. multiframe superresolution restoration refers to methods for still image and video restoration from multiple low-resolution, degraded observed images derived from an underlying scene. these methods extend classical single frame image restoration methods by simultaneously utilizing information from multiple observed images to achieve restoration at resolutions higher than that of the original data. since multiframe methods are capable of restoring spectral information beyond that which is available in any of the observed images, they are referred to as superresolution methods. multiframe superresolution restoration methods register the observed images to a common reference frame in order to formulate multiple observed data constraints for a given region of the restoration. the image registration process thus requires knowledge of the visual motion occurring in the observed image sequence. since this typically is not known, the motion information must be estimated from the observed image sequence in order to effect the restoration process. an exhaustive survey of the multiframe superresolution restoration literature is presented along with some of the necessary background material. a detailed introduction to the problem of motion estimation is also provided. the performance characteristics of a common class of block-matching subpixel motion estimators is examined in an effort to understand the limitations that these motion estimators impose on the performance of multiframe superresolution restoration frameworks. a new bayesian multiframe superresolution restoration procedure, which computes multiple restored frames simultaneously, is introduced. the proposed method enables the incorporation of temporal as well as spatial constraints on the restored image sequence. a novel approach for incorporating general interframe motion and linear, but spatially-varying, degradations in an observation matrix relating the observed low-resolution image sequence to the unknown restoration is presented. stemming from the work conducted on multiframe superresolution restoration, the equivalence between two mathematical models describing a pinhole camera used in the computer graphics and computer vision communities is proved. this dissertation attempts to address a perennial problem, i.e., the original understanding of the religious liberty provisions. to do so the author employs traditional primary source materials as well as cases interpreting the provisions from 1776 to 1900. the thesis of this study is that the religious freedom provisions were understood to embody a consensus in favor of liberty of conscience which held that: (1) civil rulers had no authority to define, compel observance or punish the breach of, religious duties; and (2) the individual must be left free to define and observe his religious duties so long as he did not threaten the civil order. the author argues that the americans who ratified the first amendment conceived of liberty of conscience and understood the religious liberty provisions primarily in terms of a set of beliefs and concepts expressed in terms of a religious strain of discourse, and based on a new understanding of scripture that had been worked out over hundreds of years prior to the revolution. at the same time, however, this religious understanding of liberty of conscience overlapped with a more rationalistic, natural law and natural rights notion of liberty of conscience. the convergence of these two strains of discourse around the shared concept of liberty of conscience made possible the consensus principle that the religious liberty provisions were understood to embody by the americans who ratified them. the author further argues that the case law interpreting the religious liberty provisions throughout the nineteenth century evidence the consensus posited by this study because they show courts struggling to distinguish religious and civil duties as the courts interpret the provisions, and, in this process, show a gradual unfolding of the implications of the consensus the provisions were understood to embody. finally, the author also argues that this process of interpretation also demonstrates the preeminent influence of the protestant christian culture that engendered them and, in so doing, testifies to the preeminent influence of the religious strain of discourse in the understanding of the religious liberty provisions at the time they were ratified. despite a broadening of the research agenda on pornography in the late 1980s, pornography research largely remains its own distinct enterprise. this paper integrates pornography into the sociology of taste by examining the taste for pornography using the dominant theoretical perspectives and methods applied to other tastes, specifically the "omnivore thesis." taking advantage of the unique set of variables in the 1993 general social survey, three hypotheses are tested: (1) pornography is low culture; (2) cultural omnivores are more likely to like pornography; and (3) the taste for pornography is indicative of exceptional political tolerance in people of otherwise similar omnivorousness. the results for hypothesis 1 are unclear, pornography cannot easily be classified as high or low culture, but the results are consistent with hypothesis 2 and hypothesis 3. implications of this analysis for both traditional "texts and effects" pornography research and the omnivore thesis are then discussed. biological structures are continually adapting to changes in their physical environment. in bones, for example, it has been widely accepted that mineral tissue is resorbed in regions exposed to low mechanical stimulus, whereas new bone is deposited where the stimulus is high. this process of functional adaptation is thought to enable bone to perform its mechanical functions with a minimum of mass. many theoretical models for bone remodeling use this concept as part of the strategy to simulate bone structural adaptation. these models imply the existence of an equilibrium state where the bone structure is adapted to the environment and no net remodeling is required. the first practical computational models were developed under the assumption of isotropy of the trabecular structure in the continuum level. despite the similarities in density distribution with in-vivo bone, no convergent solution was possible to obtain. recent models have been developed to consider the anisotropic nature of the trabecular bone in the continuum level making use of optimization principles; however, despite of some mechanical aspects reflected by these idealized microstructures, they just represent a mathematical abstraction of the trabecular architecture. the objective of this investigation is to develop an algorithm that incorporates tissue-level mechanisms of bone functional adaptation compatible with both phenomenological and optimization approaches. this technique makes use of the cellular automaton paradigm and concepts of structural optimization. the algorithm also incorporates the finite element method to perform structural analysis over a design domain that represents the bone structure. this design domain is composed of a lattice of sensor cells or cellular automata. these cells activate local processes of formation and resorption with changes in their relative variable mass. parameters of the proposed algorithm include mechanotransduction of the mechanical stimulus and intracellular communication. this algorithm has been applied to a variety of tissue-level models which exhibit self trabeculation for all parameters applied. the resulting trabecular structure is also incorporated into a continuum level model in which the anisotropic nature of the trabecular bone is determined by direct simulation and not by a mathematical approximation. microparticle agglomerates were formed using water, magnetic forces and direct material deposition. these methods gave different agglomerate structures and had an effect on the detachment fraction of the agglomerates. the effect of temperature, relative humidity and size of the agglomerate on the detachment was observed experimentally. different materials of microparticles were used as well as different microparticle sizes. the experimental data obtained was characterized as detachment fraction versus free stream velocity. there was no large difference on the detachment fraction of agglomerates compared with the detachment fraction of single particles. graphene oxide (go) is a phenomenal nano-adsorbent for heavy metal cations; however, its acidic properties limit its practical application. this study investigated the adsorption behavior of neutralized graphene oxide, herein referred to as sodium graphene oxide (sgo). titration data revealed that the preparation of sgo did not alter the surface sites of go. an equilibrium derived model was used to estimate the amount of base needed to neutralize go and gave an excellent approximation of the total number of sites on go. adsorption experiments and the subsequent langmuir modeling showed sgo to have a maximum adsorption capacity for lead of 910 (mg g-1) surpassing that of every known carbon adsorbent. this study shows that sgo retains go excellent adsorption capabilities without caustic conditions. the improvement and discovery of new chemical reactions can provide a way to more rapidly access fine chemicals. these reactions are especially desirable if they can be conducted catalytically and/or in a multicomponent fashion. herein, different reactions based on transition metal-catalyzed a-alkenylation of enolate couplings were developed utilizing either twoor three-components. both a pdand a ni-catalyzed a-alkenylation procedures that operate under mild conditions were established. the pd-catalyzed procedure was used as a platform to develop new multicomponent reactions to rapidly access complex molecules from readily available starting materials.the developed reactions were then applied to synthesize potential therapeutics for the treatment of niemann-pick type c disease and towards the synthesis of a fluorescent cholesterol mimic. factorization algebras are a mathematical tool for modeling the observables of field theories. in this dissertation, we consider two particular types of factorization algebras: g-equivariant factorization algebras on a model space m, where g is a group acting on m; and factorization algebras on a site of manifolds which locally look like m and with geometric structure encoded by the g-action. our main result is that the categories of these factorization algebras are equivalent. to show this, we formulate an alternative, categorical description of the locality (or descent) condition that factorization algebras satisfy, and show that this agrees with the original, more geometric descent condition. we then generalize the definition of factorization algebras to the infinity-operadic setting, and utilize higher algebraic techniques to prove the comparison result. one of the motivations for this new infinity-operadic perspective is the ability to use these general results in future work involving parameterized families of factorization algebras. the trolley problem (foot, 1967) is a flexible moral dilemma often used within decision-making research as it enables researchers to investigate a variety of questions related to dilemmic decision-making. the current research introduces a modern variation on the trolley problem involving three different remotely piloted aircraft (rpa) simulation scenarios. our objective was to investigate emotional engagement within dilemmic decision-making by increasing the emotional and social "value" of the one across three "missions." heart rate and decision time served as correlates for measuring emotional engagement. results indicated that participants were less likely to sacrifice the one as its value increased. further, emotional engagement varied across the three scenarios, evidenced heart-rate change and longer reaction times. these findings are discussed through a dual-process lens, emphasizing the interaction of reason and emotion in dilemmic decision-making. implications of this research could be the first steps to a deeper understanding of rpa pilot decision-making. understanding the mechanism of enzymes has a paramount role in drug discovery and chemical biology. to reach these goals, it is necessary to have access to chemical tools, which improve our understanding about the biochemical pathways. in this thesis, the synthesis of photocaged nicotinamide using p-hydroxyphenacyl as the caging group has been accomplished and the photophysical and photolytic properties were established. nad+ as a redox cofactor plays a pivotal role in metabolism. different strategies for the synthesis of nad+ and its analog were explored by applying the zincke reaction and the addition of organozinc reagents. the synthesis of the nmn moiety of 4-alkyl nad+ was successfully developed by chemoselective addition of organozinc reagents. finally, palladium catalyzes the asymmetric conjugation addition to cyclic enones for generating quaternary carbon centers using novel chiral pyridine-oxazolines ligands, which were explored to experimentally test computational predictions of stereoselectivity. this dissertation examines the relationship between state policy diffusion and related national public opinion over time. specifically, i ask whether state-level policy activity can influence national opinion where a policy diffuses sufficiently to encompass a majority of citizens. although scholars have identified the linkage between policy activity and public opinion at the national level and within the states, the dynamics of this relationship across levels within the american federal system remain largely unexplored. consequently, our understanding of public opinion on a host of issues in politics – such as gay marriage, abortion, crime policy, and gun control – remains incomplete. there is reason to suspect, however, that where issues are acted upon at the national and subnational levels, related opinion is influenced by the policy activities of both systems. in this dissertation, i offer a new dynamic underlying public opinion change in the united states, the diffusion-opinion-linkage, which reveals the influence of state policy diffusion on related national opinion over time. i analyze this relationship by leveraging temporal and geographic variation in the passage of "shall-issue" concealed carry laws in the states from 1990-2010. i assess the effects of shall-issue debate, passage, and policy feedback on individual attitudes, state-level opinion, and national measures, finding a clear relationship between the diffusion of this policy and growing national gun policy conservatism over time. i conclude by discussing how this study contributes to the public opinion and diffusion literatures, with a recommendation that the individual and collective dynamics of the diffusion-opinion-linkage be considered when evaluating the connection between policy activity and public opinion in future work. retrieval practice can cause forgetting of related information, an effect that can be eliminated for integrated information. participants in the current study read narratives, had retrieval practice of a subset of sentences directed at surface form (experiments 1 and 3) or event model memory (experiment 2), and took a recognition test to measure three levels of narrative memory: the surface form (verbatim memory), textbase (propositional memory), and event model (gist memory). surface form retrieval practice improved surface form memory but impaired event model memory for practiced sentences. however, event model retrieval practice did not impair event model memory and somewhat reduced surface form memory. findings of simultaneous facilitation and impairment of practiced sentences at different levels of memory cannot be explained by classic theories of retrieval-induced forgetting (rif). the results argue for consideration of an event cognition theory to explain rif. in keeping with the dominant literature on legitimacy, i find that scientists are interested in preserving the status quo authority relationship between religion and science. science has enjoyed a comfortable position of authority in the uk for more than 100 years, and scientists are not eager to surrender that position. however, conflict narratives and narratives portraying science and religion as mutually exclusive are not adequate to describe the relationship between religion and science in the uk. indeed, the status quo that scientists are interested in preserving is not one of conflict between religion and science, but rather one where religion occupies an utterly separate realm from science, does not directly challenge scientific claims, and benefits society in a variety of ways that science cannot. respondents' objection to fundamentalist or 'extreme' forms of religion stems from their perception of these religions as violating this norm and encroaching upon science. these findings indicate the ways that shifts in the public presence of religion in a country may also lead to shifts in the boundaries between religion and science. moreover, they indicate the multi-layered nature of legitimacy, as well as the multi-layered nature of both science and religion. neither science nor religion can be analyzed as a monolithic whole. rather, scientists themselves attach different meanings to different types of religious expression, belief, and practice, and legitimacy varies according to these different meanings. meaning, in this sense, is not flat or static, but multivalent and highly contingent upon the context in which it is embedded. scientists, rather than objective and removed, are subject to these contextual factors when sorting out the validity and propriety of the social forces at work around them. real-time multimedia communication over a wireless link presents many challenges that require non-traditional methods to ensure good performance. a strict delay constraint prevents averaging over variations in the channel's fading coefficient, resulting in a channel with zero capacity in the shannon sense. without knowledge of the channel realization at the transmitter, separate source and channel coding is no longer optimal, and we must consider joint source-channel coding techniques. in this thesis we examine the performance of several schemes that attempt to mitigate the effects of non-ergodic fading on the end-to-end mean-square distortion. we derive an upper bound on the rate at which the expected distortion decays for high snr, and the performance of each scheme is analytically characterized using this metric, the distortion exponent. limitations of this distortion metric are also discussed and illustrated. we analyze the performance of uncoded and rate-optimized digital transmission over both a single channel and parallel channels. we consider successive refinement source coding utilizing superposition channel coding and show that in the high snr limit it offers significantly improved performance relative to standard digital techniques. we present a hybrid digital-analog scheme as a simple form of multiple descriptions and show that it outperforms the other techniques considered for parallel channels. aero-optical aberrations associated with turbulent compressible flow fields can seriously degrade the performance of an optical system; the effect of these aberrations increases as the wavelength of the transiting light becomes shorter, and so is particularly strong at visible and near-infrared wavelengths. these aero-optic aberrations originate from both spatialand temporal-variations of the index-of-refraction, and are associated with the low-pressure cores and concomitant reduced density within the vortical structures in certain turbulent flow field such as free-shear layers and tip vortices. to date, aero-optics research has focused primarily on fixed-wing aircraft travelling at compressible-flow speeds, where compressible shear layers and turbulent boundary layers are the dominant source of aero-optic aberrations. helicopter platforms, on the other hand, operate at much lower mach numbers (m<0.3) and are actually best suited for hover. in this case, the optical aberrations produced from shear-layer or turbulent boundary-layer flows are greatly reduced or eliminated in the case of hover; instead, aero-optic aberrations result primarily from the wake of the rotor that can have tip speeds up to a mach number of one. the tip vortices shed from the rotor blades, have an aberrating effect similar to the vortices in a compressible shear-layer that forms behind a turret on a fixed-wing aircraft. in this dissertation, experimental and numerical results are presented that both calibrate and validate a scaling relationship derived from euler's equations and the lamb-oseen vortex model. extended numerical simulations of basic helicopter flowfield features were performed for a medium-sized helicopter both in hover and in forward flight to determine estimates of the spatialand temporal-degradation of a collimated beam traveling through the rotor-blade wake. the results indicate that the severity of the aberration is highly dependent on the vortex circulation strength and core radius. even with the most conservative estimates, the farfield effects of light propagating through these tip vortices greatly reduces the irradiance delivered on target through both tip/tilt and higher order effects. finally, the use of adaptive optics to correct for these aberrations is examined for the case of hover. sense-datum theorists, adverbialists, naìøve realists, and representationalists disagree about the structure of sensory experience. in this debate, theoretical fit with the apparent nature of experience is rightly regarded as an important desideratum. the apparent nature of experience is what is revealed to us from the first-person perspective. features of illusions, hallucinations, and perceptual constancy are among the ingredients of the apparent nature of experience. in this dissertation, i argue that a novel form of naìøve realism provides the best theoretical fit with the apparent nature of experience. i argue further that the core commitments of naìøve realism, which my view maintains, have other important advantages. there are two corollary themes. first, naìøve realism is more resourceful than the traditional reckoning allows. the core commitments of naìøve realism are combinable with other commitments that allow us to deal with traditional problems for the theory (e.g., indistinguishable hallucinations), and to offer accounts of other features of experience, like perceptual constancy, that have received very little theoretical treatment. according to naìøve realism, veridical experience is an event in which one's mind reaches out to the world. the world does not cause us to have experiences that are constitutionally complete without the world. rather, worldly items are ingredient-objects of veridical experience. the second theme of my dissertation is that the foregoing metaphysical distinction is vital. rejecting the naìøve-realist account imperils the idea that we are visually aware of the world. further, naìøve realism best coheres with the value that we attribute to having contact with the world and its inhabitants (a value that robert nozick's 'experience-machine' example brings to light). finally, and against mcdowell's own claims, the 'nonconceptualist' version of naìøve realism that i defend in the dissertation offers the best resolution of the transcendental problems discussed by john mcdowell in his recent book, mind and world. naìøve realism, which i slightly modify but mainly affirm, provides the best theoretical fit with the apparent nature of experience, while achieving several other important benefits. frequency-domain near-infrared spectroscopy (fdnirs) provides quantitative noninvasive measurements of tissue optical absorption and scattering, as well as a safe and accurate method for characterizing tissue composition and metabolism. however, the poor scalability and high complexity of most fdnirs systems assembled to date have contributed to its limited clinical impact. to address these shortcomings, we present a scalable, broadband, digital-based handheld fdnirs platform capable of measuring optical properties and tissue chromophore concentrations in real-time. the system can display single frequency, single wavelength fdnirs amplitude and phase data at a maximum rate of 36,600 hz, and provides tissue optical property and chromophore concentrations at a maximum of 17,891 and 10,211 hz, respectively, all of which are world records 100x to 3,600x faster than previous systems in literature. the entire system is enabled by several innovations including an ultra-high-speed k-nearest neighbor lookup table method, embedded fpga and cpu high-speed co-processing, and high-speed data transfer (due to on-board processing). optical property accuracy was compared to a traditional network analyzer-based system and was found to be within 10\% over a range of attenuating tissue-simulating phantoms. we demonstrate real-time optical tracking with mm accuracy on tissue used for real-time 2d spatial optical property maps. these ultra-high speeds can provide advantages in image resolution, accuracy and scalability. for example, a real-time high-speed system allows for higher spatial density imaging of tissue that lends itself to better assessment of tissue heterogeneity and overall resolution. the system's high-speed capability allows for scaling to hundreds of source-detector channels, while maintaining real-time display of optical properties and chromophores. we show use-case examples enabled by our approach including tumor simulating phantom images, in vivo arterial occlusion and high-resolution pulsatile measurements. the platform is applicable to existing applications such as functional nirs and breast cancer imaging, but also opens new applications as the technology is disseminated in clinical and laboratory settings. this dissertation sets forth thomas aquinas's mature teaching on sacrifice, specifically as presented in several key contexts throughout the summa theologiae. by tracing thomas's concept of sacrifice, we cast light on the relationship between several other topics. attention particularly to its interior-exterior dimensions as an act of the virtue of worship (religio), and as exhibited in the old law sacrifices, shed light on how to read thomas's discussions of the passion and the eucharist each in terms of sacrifice. according to aquinas, sacrifice is integral to christ's own pilgrim journey and thereby to ours as well. christ does not offer sacrifice merely in response to our sin. he offers out of his perfect charity and religio a sacrifice of worship to his father for the sake of overcoming our sin and, what is more, accomplishing our salvation by incorporating us into his sacrifice. five main chapters analyze the five points at which thomas considers sacrifice in relation to other significant theological themes. the first chapter analyzes sacrifice as fundamentally an act of the virtue of religio, noting thomas's dependence on augustine's ddee civitate dei for articulating his conception of sacrifice. the second chapter evaluates the sacrifices of the old law as divinely ordained laws for ancient israel, by which the ancient israelites were pedagogically formed into and prefigured the worship of christ and his church. the third chapter analyzes the development in thomas's mature concept of sacrifice of the necessity of the priesthood, by which sacrifice becomes an offering for the sake of others, exemplified by the sacrifice of christ in the passion, in which he was both priest and victim. the fourth chapter looks at thomas's understanding of the sacrifice of the passion. rather than being one among many ways by which the passion brings about human salvation, thomas presents sacrifice as the act by which satisfaction and merit are gained, for the sake of redemption for sin. this all happens by way of christ's sacrifice, which, while indeed overcoming sin, aims at honoring god and clinging to him in charity. the fifth and final chapter considers the eucharist as the means by which the sacrifice of christ becomes the sacrifice of the church, thereby teaching the church true worship by participating in christ's own. the negative impacts of human behavior on the natural environment are increasingly apparent, and while environmental education offers the hope that teaching and engaging young people will lead them on alternative paths in their interactions with the natural world that worthy goal has not come to fruition. our environmentally significant behaviors as a society only continue to worsen. i suggest not only that we have not taken the time to understand children and their own child-centered understanding of the world, but more importantly that it is this very understanding that will reshape how we think about environmental education. to do this, i present an environmental sociology of children. i orient this project within the tradition of american pragmatism, allowing multiple methods and operationalized theories to be applied in tandem. i address three primary questions using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, with a sample of 191 kids at a title i public montessori school in northern indiana. what does 'nature' mean to children aged 3 11? what are these children's attitudes towards nature? what do environmental identities in kids, aged 7 11, look like? key findings include: constructions of nature were often close to home, immediate, and experiential. these kids hold strong pro-environmental attitudes, but how they make sense of these attitudes vary in meaningful ways. those kids with strong environmental identities made sense of their own and other people's interactions with the natural world in two primary and often overlapping ways -giving moral standing to the natural world and/or applying the theory of evolution to make sense of human interaction with the natural world. these findings point to the need to recognize the legitimacy of child-centered ways of knowing as pathways to engage youth and underscore the need for greater consideration and intentionality in the development of a nuanced pedagogy of humanature interaction in environmental education. i conclude the dissertation with suggestions for improving environmental education. the current study used data from the early childhood longitudinal study (birth cohort) to explore determinants of father involvement. belsky's (1984) process model of parenting and lamb and colleagues' (1987) model for measuring fathering involvement were used as foundations for the development of a theoretical framework examining specific constructs of caregiving and play. father, mother, and child characteristics were measured at three time points (9-months, 2 years, and 4 years of age) for approximately 2,900 biologically related cohabitating families. specifically, parental socioemotional functioning, the marital relationship, father role identity, and maternal involvement, as well as child gender and temperament were examined in relation to father caregiving and play over time. in addition, demographic characteristics of the family were included as covariates. latent dual change score models were examined for father caregiving and play and determinants of each behavior were included in a final model. results indicated that caregiving and play are differentially determined, with only child gender and father role identity relating to both behaviors. fathers engaged in more caregiving when mothers reported higher depression. fathers' role identity was related to increased caregiving and play behaviors, as well as faster rates of change in play when fathers more strongly identified with their role as a father. mother play and father play were related, and fathers increased in play over time at a faster rate with girls than boys. in addition, temperament and infant gender interacted to predict changes in caregiving over time. a theoretical framework for father involvement is presented. since the introduction of the automobile, the american automotive industry has actively courted women. always desirable as household purchasers, female consumers became an early target of market research into how they shopped for cars and what they looked for in an ideal vehicle. this research showed that women enthusiastically bought and used cars, enjoying the independence, the convenience, and the mobility that they offered. but this feminine embrace of the automobile proved challenging to a society uncomfortable with women using technology and an emerging car culture centered around masculine expertise and work. to assuage that discomfort, the automotive industry sifted through these market research reports and selectively chose data that conformed to their already-held biases about female consumers. despite women expressing interest in automotive technology and in safety innovations, the auto industry declared that they cared only about paint color and upholstery. advertisements began reflecting this, showing women using cars as domestic spaces or as stylish accessories rather than as the means to escape and explore.women perusing car ads, reading news reports, visiting auto shows, watching television commercials, and viewing the new models in their local dealership saw constant reminders that the auto industry did not listen to them. from the beginning of the twentieth century, women had asked for reliable cars that fit their bodies and clear information about how to use, maintain, and repair them. these demands increased after world war ii, as suburban living and postwar spending brought more cars into american garages and more women onto american roads. the auto industry responded with pink cars and gendered marketing appeals. by the 1970s, frustrated women began sharing automotive knowledge themselves, creating a network of teaching and learning that gave them the expertise and the confidence to define their own relationships to automobiles."pink cars and pocketbooks" examines the fraught relationship between the automotive industry and female consumers throughout the twentieth century and how, through their purchases and their persistence, women bought their way into the automobile, into masculine car culture, and into an automotive future of their own making. the central question of this dissertation is: during the course of a war, what induces states to accept the end of hostilities and sue for peace? despite the wide variation in how wars end and the significance that variation holds to the making of post-war peace, international relations (ir) scholars have generally neglected this key wartime behavior of states. to that end, this dissertation analyzes the factors that induce a losing belligerent to accept an end to hostilities before battlefield destruction. i argue that states will surrender or quit a war when the decision-makers experience high levels of strategic vulnerability during the course of the war. that is, it is the growing disjuncture between military means and political ends that result from the defeat of a state's military strategy rather than domestic regime type, simple military calculations or cost-related motives that lead states to concede defeat.i develop and test my arguments in two stages. first, this research develops a common conceptual framework for understanding war termination based on the notion of endgame phase of conflicts. second, i test my argument through five in-depth case studies: the german surrender case of both world war i and world war ii; the japanese surrender case of world war ii; the egyptian surrender case in the october war; and the u.s. case of disengagement during the vietnam war. the findings from the case studies strongly support the theoretical arguments developed in the study. ultimately and contrary to the established literature on war termination, the factors that impact the probability of continued resistance during wars serve as the major determinant in understanding war termination. constructing state institutions in order to address violence against women is an important component to building a democratic state. in particular, reshaping the police and their practices so that they are responsive to the basic needs of citizens is central to promoting democratic citizenship. when are countries, in varying degrees of development, likely to construct state institutions, and transform their practices, in order to implement norms that protect women from violence? what explains variation in the extent and types of institutional transformations? this dissertation brings into focus something generally ignored by other scholars studying institutional change across both developed and developing contexts: the importance of a continued presence of international organizations and donors constantly pressuring, providing monitoring, and providing funding to domestic governments, which has enabled the development and improved performance of many specialized women's institutions. i argue that institutional change within the justice system to address violence against women has happened incrementally, with a lot of pressure coming from coordinated efforts among local activists, international activists and donors, and sympathetic actors within the state. relying on external support and pressure for state-building does give rise to many dilemmas. for example, donors sometimes undermine the aims they intend to support by increasing competition for resources and failing to support long-term efforts to challenge underlying inequalities that make women vulnerable to violence. however, institutions addressing the needs of marginalized groups would not be changed or transformed if we relied on the initiative of states. states have historically been a major source of marginalization for women, and this is the reason that inter-institutional coordination is necessary for state-building in the first place. this dissertation focuses on how these processes are exemplified by the rise and transformation of policing and judicial institutions in latin america to address violence against women. reliability-based optimization (rbo) for engineering design deals mainly with two design attributes, namely the merit, for example cost, and the reliability of the design. in this work the class of design problems which are considered, are designs characterized by a minimum merit function and that satisfy certain reliability constraints. the reliability constraints are typically constraints on the probabilities of failure due to component failure events or a system failure event. these are obtained using standard reliability analysis techniques such as first order reliability method (form), second order reliability methods (sorm) and monte carlo simulation (mcs) techniques. the reliability analysis and rbo are very expensive for multidisciplinary systems consisting of various disciplines that are dependent on each other or coupled, for example, an aeroelastic structure. hence, the primary goal of the research is to develop efficient methodologies that perform rbo for multidisciplinary systems. the methodologies considered incorporates a concurrent subspace optimization technique that allows concurrent design optimization in each discipline. the methodologies also incorporate approximation concepts to reduce the computational costs. there are essentially two methodologies, one that uses a traditional reliability analysis method and the other that uses a new reliability analysis method geared towards reduction of computational expenses for coupled multidisciplinary problems. a new reliability analysis tool based on trust region methods was developed for the latter case. both methodologies were applied to multidisciplinary test problems and about 20%-30% computational savings were observed. a second goal of the research was to investigate the use of monte carlo simulation (mcs) techniques for reliability analysis in rbo, that are more accurate but more expensive than form or sorm. in this work, conditional expectation mcs was selected over indicator-based mcs techniques based on smoothness criteria and the availability of analytic sensitivities. a mcs-based rbo methodology was developed and successfully implemented to problems with both component and series failure events. it was observed that designs with significantly lower merit functions were obtained for the application problems considered, compared to a form-based rbo approach. it was also observed that the computational costs were extremely high for one of the application problems. some suggestions for future research are made regarding development of efficient methodologies for the mcs-based rbo. generally, the ever-increasing demand for mobile data in recent years has culminated in dense deployments of wireless systems. furthermore, due to scarcity of the available radio frequency spectrum, wireless systems have to reuse it. in light of these two facts, wireless systems are becoming more and more interference-limited. considering macrocell-based cellular networks with centralized control, and wireless local area networks (wlans) with decentralized control as two extremes, an intermediate architecture is emerging that borrows specifications and technologies from both the cellular and wlan worlds. due to the nature of this intermediate architecture, distributed low-overhead interference mitigation techniques are desirable. motivated by this intermediate architecture as a potential use case, this dissertation presents a low-overhead distributed uplink interference management scheme called anywhere decoding. we study anywhere decoding from an information-theoretic perspective and then investigate its applicability in the context of cellular networks. we compare anywhere decoding to other uplink interference management schemes in the literature with varying levels of cooperation and observe considerable gains in outage probability performance compared to baseline, non-cooperative schemes. a new measurement of the 19f(p,g) breakout reaction to cno cycle has been completed at the university of notre dame, covering energies from 200-800 kev. the sensitivity of the measurement is a significant improvement over past measurements, including measurements of sufficient accuracy to observe previously unmeasured interference terms. as part of the development for the measurements, an particle accelerator of nuclear astrophysics was refurbished and installed in the nuclear structure laboratory at the university of notre dame. a gamma-ray detector system was designed for isolating high q-value reactions in a strong gamma-ray background. the new measurements decreased the resonance strengths for the 19f(p,g) reaction which decrease the stellar reaction rate by a factor of four. as 19f(p,g) represents the only possible breakout path from the cold cno cycle, this confirmed that the cno cycle is closed in typical stellar burning scenarios. why are some militaries more effective in combat than others? in this dissertation, i argue that soldiers are effective in battle when they believe there is a close connection between their national identity and the goals of the war. troops will have strong morale, few disciplinary incidents and take initiative on the battlefield when they identify the goals of the battle with the emotionally resonant myths and symbols of their own national identity. the existing literature on this topic offers three main arguments. the first claims that soldiers are more effective in battle when they have close emotional and psychological relationships with their fellow soldiers. small-unit cohesion in the form of close, almost familial relationships between soldiers leads them to fight for one another, thus increasing effectiveness on the battlefield. the second argument claims that soldiers who come from democracies are more effective in combat than non-democratic soldiers. these soldiers take more initiative on the battlefield, have more faith in their leaders, and are more committed to their country than soldiers from authoritarian states. third, realists argue that nationalism leads to combat effectiveness, but define nationalism in terms of a threat to the territorial nation-state. nationalism increases combat effectiveness when the territorial state is threatened, threatening the political survival of the nation. i assess the strengths and weaknesses of each argument through two in-depth case studies comparing british, indian and australian troops in the british military during world war ii: the battle for north africa against the germans and italians, and the defense of malaya against the japanese. the evidence suggests that national identity theory is the most powerful explanation for combat effectiveness, though small unit cohesion also plays an important role. this dissertation has important scholarly and policy implications. it helps policy makers assess their own military's potential combat effectiveness, as well as that of potential opponents. theoretically, it contributes to our understanding of the role of nationalism in conflict processes and military power. it is well established that personality disorders (pd) and pathological levels of personality traits are associated with various types of consequential difficulties, often called functional impairment or psychosocial disability. i use the term "extrinsic disability" to refer to these difficulties, to distinguish them from impairment in functioning that is an inherent part of personality pathology, specifically, criterion a of the section-iii alternative dimensional pd model in the fifth edition of the diagnostic and statistical manual (dsm-5; american psychiatric association, 2013). however, the literature lacks clarity in both its theoretical conceptualization of extrinsic disability constructs, particularly as they relate to disorder constructs, and also the empirical measurement of extrinsic disability. a comprehensive exploration of the functional consequences of pd is crucial to understanding its diagnosis and treatment, especially now that the field is in a time of great transition. although several studies have examined relations between personality pathology and its associated extrinsic disability, these studies rarely include a comprehensive assessment of both maladaptive personality traits and measures of extrinsic disability; moreover, studies of the dsm-5 section iii alternative dimensional pd model, with its component of impairment in personality functioning, are still developing. current research efforts to improve psychiatric diagnosis and classification support the use of a hierarchical dimensional approach, but research incorporating functioning and extrinsic disability constructs into structural models is limited. this study assessed personality pathology as well as a broader range of functioning and extrinsic disability variables than is typically used in studies of personality pathology. in two mixed samples of community adults and psychiatric outpatients (ns = 402 in phase 1 and 605 in phase 2), i examined the extent to which, and how, extrinsic disability fits into the recently established joint dimensional structure of personality and various constructs of psychosocial functioning (see clark &amp; ro, 2014) by creating and replicating a hierarchical factor structure of these constructs using goldberg's (2006) "bass-ackwards" method. results highlight considerable empirical overlap of theoretically distinct constructs and show a fairly robust factor structure in replication, particularly at higher levels of hierarchical factor extraction. historical bodies contains five book projects: esperanto pass, the future, gypsieland, postnatural, and historical bodies. the collection is framed by two pieces of creative nonfiction, anchoring the creative pursuit in the story of my mother's illness. as a thesis, this collection entwines fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry and translation to investigate the embodiment of historical and contemporary narrative. this thesis explores the crystal chemistry and thermodynamics of uranyl vanadate minerals, and describes transformations between these and other groups of u minerals. structural properties of synthetic uranyl vanadate minerals carnotite (k2[(uo2)2(v2o8)•3h2o), curienite (ba[(uo2)2(v2o8)•5h2o), and francevillite (ba[(uo2)2(v2o8)•5h2o), are related to thermodynamic data utilizing normalized charged deficiency per anion (ncda) calculations. this enables quantification of structural stability from crystal chemical properties and has broad applications for understanding the factors that govern the formation of uranyl (and other) minerals. a new uranyl vanadate mineral, finchite (sr[(uo2)2(v2o8)]•5h2o), is described, and is the first u(vi) mineral found to contain stoichiometric quantities of sr. furthermore, several novel synthetic uranyl vanadate phases are discussed as related to the safe disposal of nuclear waste with further implications for the environmental impact of u mineralogy on natural and anthropogenic radioactive materials.uraniferous hyalite opal has been analyzed for uranium distribution and concentration and several uranyl minerals including meta-autunite (ca(uo2)2(po4)2∙6-8h2o), haiweeite (ca(uo2)2[si5o12(oh)2]∙6h2o), uranophane (ca(uo2)2(hsio4)∙5h2o), and meta-uranospinite (ca(uo2)2(aso4)2∙8h2o)) have been identified in proximity to opal. paragenetic sequences developed in this work provide insight into the transport and fate of uranium in near-surface environmental regimes. also investigated in this work are forensic signatures of u-rich materials. trace element and u isotope analysis of uraninite, the primary ore mineral for u, and uranium ore concentrate (uoc), an important intermediate material in the nuclear fuel cycle indicate that these forensic signatures remain viable indicators of the geologic origin of radioactive materials through early ore processing. parallel analysis of uraninite and uoc using both laser ablation (la) and solution mode (sm) inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (icp-ms) produced corroborating results and expands the techniques by which radioactive materials can be analyzed for forensic signatures. a novel nuclear forensic technique was developed and represents a significant contribution to the nuclear forensics community. the average trace element signatures and factors governing these signatures are discussed and related to the origins of u ores. this technique is used to successfully identify the origin of u-rich materials and can be further applied to classify u deposits of ambiguous geochemical origins. optimal decision-making or policy satisfies both short-term and long-term objectives. policy optimization in complex dynamic environments is notoriously difficult due to the absence of succinct mathematical models. reinforcement learning (rl) leverages data from experiments or simulations to learn optimal policies that, in many domains, have already outperformed policies designed by humans. rl still faces numerous challenges in the multi-agent setting, where the participating agents interact in shared environments. this dissertation aims to address two challenges in decentralized cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning, a new training paradigm that features scalability and privacy guarantees for cooperative agents.in the first part, we study the behavior of the cooperative agents in a network that includes adversarial agents. adversarial attacks in training can strongly influence the performance of multi-agent rl algorithms. it is, thus, highly desirable to augment existing algorithms such that the impact of adversarial attacks on cooperative networks is eliminated, or at least bounded. we introduce a resilient projection-based consensus multi-agent actor-critic algorithm, whereby each agent receives a private reward and communicates with its neighbors to estimate the team-average reward and value function. we show that in the presence of byzantine agents, whose estimation and communication strategies are arbitrary, the estimates of the cooperative agents converge to a bounded consensus value, provided that there are at most h byzantine agents in the network that is (2h+1)-robust. furthermore, we prove that the joint cooperative policy converges to a bounded neighborhood around a locally optimal cooperative policy.in the second part, we consider a fully cooperative network subject to communication delays and packet dropouts. the assumption about disrupted communication is reasonable in online decentralized training where agents continuously accumulate new experiences from the environment and communicate periodically. we present a multi-agent actor-critic algorithm with td error aggregation, where the aggregation of td errors ensures cooperation between the agents. the assumptions about the communication lead to an increased communication burden for every agent as measured by the dimension of the transmitted data; nonetheless, the communication burden is only quadratic in the graph size, and thus the algorithm is applicable in large networks. we prove analytically that the agents approximately maximize the team-average objective function. one of the challenges in current therapies used to treat allergies is the non-specific suppression of the immune system which puts patients at increased risk for infections and development of cancers. this underlines the need to develop more specific treatments without the overall suppression of the immune system. this work demonstrates the proof of principle studies of a new approach that has the potential to respond to this need by selectively inhibiting mast cell degranulation. specifically, heterobivalent inhibitors (hbi) were designed that simultaneously bound to two nearby sites located on the fab domains of ige antibodies?the antigen and nucleotide binding sites. these dual targeting hbis had greater than 120 fold increased affinity for the target ige compared to the monovalent hapten and prevented mast cell degranulation in a variant of the commonly used dnp/igednp allergy model, however due to the many simplifications of this allergy model a more advanced heterotetravalent allergen (htta) model was developed. the htta allergy model allowed an integrative approach to study mast cell degranulation by presenting 2 haptens each with a valency of 2 and requiring both hapten specific iges to be present on the mast cell surface to stimulate degranulation. this model better reflected the polyclonal response observed in natural allergy systems and by chemically modifying the haptens, httas that presented combinations of high and low affinity haptens were evaluated. using this model we demonstrated the significance of low affinity epitopes and that selective inhibition of only the low affinity hapten, of an allergen made up of high and low affinity hatpens, was sufficient to prevent mast cell degranulation. the inhibition of mast cell degranulation observed in the in vitro rat basophilic leukemia mast cell model was used to define the parameters for the passive cutaneous anaphylaxis mouse model of allergy where similar stimulation and inhibition of allergy were observed, demonstrating the utility of the design. the described method of targeted inhibition has broad applications in inhibiting drug, food, and environmental allergies where the allergy epitopes are known and this study establishes a new practical use for the nucleotide binding site. epithelial cancer progression is a consequence of deregulation of a number of cellular processes, and is accompanied by the perturbation of epithelial glandular architecture. the breakdown of adhesive contacts, internalization of cell-surface proteins, recycling of cargo back to the plasma membrane, and intracellular signaling are all events that are derailed during epithelial glandular disruption. multiple platforms have emerged that enable the study of cellular events preceding and contributing to glandular disruption, as it pertains to early epithelial tumor progression. while investigations of monolayers provide insight into interactions between cells, the 3d morphogenesis culture system allows for further analysis of hyperactivated cellular signaling and its effects on acinar structure development, reminiscent of glandular remodeling during epithelial cancer progression. ultimately, the studies made in vitro are validated with the use of mouse models to demonstrate the role of key signaling cascades in tumor development.this dissertation contributes to the understanding of epithelial glandular morphogenesis by utilizing monolayers, 3d culture systems, and a mouse model of mammary ductal carcinoma in situ. in response to chronic wnt stimulation, an observed characteristic of some tumor microenvironments, the small gtp-binding protein arf6, promotes the internalization of cell surface proteins by employing distinct endocytic mechanisms in polarized epithelial cells. mcf10dcis.com cells were used to study the role of these pathways in a model of ductal carcinoma in situ (dcis). arf6 knockdown or dominant inhibition of the protein results in striking alterations of the dcis acinar phenotype and decreased cell proliferation in vitro. these defects are coupled with a marked perturbation of cargo recycling along the endocytic pathways. finally, in a mouse mammary model of dcis, arf6 depletion or its inhibition results is profound changes to the development and progression of dcis with pronounced reduction in tumor cell invasion. taken together our studies suggest a vital role for arf6 signaling and endocytic recycling in the onset and progression of mammary epithelial glandular cancers. this thesis intends to study how some american cities have faced growth and detrimentally relocated their civic identity, the courthouse, to outside the city. all too often cities are making choices, due to tremendous growth, to abandon the historic center and hastily disperse the community beyond its periphery. in order to embrace tradition and maintain a sense of place, cities must find ways to maintain their historic center, keeping important civic functions at the core and clearly defining the city edge. as a case study for this thesis, an alternative design for a new courthouse building and new town square in monroe, georgia will be proposed. special attention will be given to the study of classical architecture and traditional urbanism to prove the significance of maintaining healthy, timeless cities with a civic identity and sense of place. some recent efforts to mitigate coastal damage caused by flooding and surge during storm events have focused on the use of coastal vegetation as a means of inducing wave energy dissipation. unfortunately, no comprehensive method is used to account for vegetation in nearshore wave models. this work outlines the development of a framework that can be used to better model vegetation in a variety of coastal settings. numerous sets of test runs were conducted to estimate the amount of wave dissipation caused by coastal vegetation, and the uncertainty and accuracy of the methods and results are analyzed. the overall results show a tendency to overestimate the dissipative effects of certain types of vegetation. comparisons between model runs conducted with the stwave numerical model also demonstrate that the friction factors typically used by coastal wave models do not accurately account for the effects of vegetation on wave heights. network intrusion detection systems (nids) are deployed near network gateways to analyze all traffic entering or leaving the network. the traffic at such locations is frequently transmitted in such volumes and speeds that a commodity computer quickly becomes overwhelmed. nids must be able to handle all of the traffic available. the spanids platformaddresses this problem with a custom hardware load balancer that spreads traffic over several nids sensors. the load balancer ensures that sensors do not become overloaded by shifting traffic between sensors while maintaining network flow continuity when possible. the balancer must be resistant to attacks designed to overwhelm it. this work outlines the design of the spanids load balancer and evaluates its performance using simulation. several design points are examined, including overload detection, locating overload causes, and several overload avoidance techniques. the simulation results confirm the viability of the spanids architecture for scalable parallel network intrusion detection. this dissertation examines the teachings of thomas aquinas (d. 1274) and gabriel biel (d. 1495) on questions of motivation for christian activity. what is the proper motivation for loving god and neighbor? is it acceptable to look to a reward in performing acts of charity? in order to answer these questions, i explore each thinker's understanding of human or voluntary action, merit, the relationship between nature and grace, the role of the divine missions and of habits in moral activity, and what it means for each to love god above all else.this research addresses a void in the scholarship because there is little substantive comparison between aquinas and biel. prior examinations of biel's reception of aquinas were mainly concerned with whether biel accurately quotes or paraphrases him. however, this method provides little insight into their core theological emphases. this dissertation explores many of the controlling insights that influence how each thinker approaches questions of motivation.for aquinas, it is acceptable—even necessary—to look to a reward while performing acts of charity. in general, aquinas establishes a non-competitive relationship between self-love and love for god that allows him to claim that the act of charity is spontaneous because it is consistent with the human person's god-given will for self-perfection. for biel, however, the act of charity cannot include any reference to the good of the human person. god is loved from charity solely for god's goodness ad intrarather than ad extra. by establishing a competitive relationship between self-love and love for god, biel emphasizes restraint rather than spontaneity in christian activity.biel's use of aquinas on questions of motivation is negligible. decisive differences regarding the relationship between god and the human good, the role of habits in the christian life, and each thinker's appreciation for divine transcendence lead to very distinctive takes on motivations for christian activity. moreover, a preliminary examination of sixteenth-century debates about motivation reveals that the default position of both protestants and catholics seems to be closer to that of biel than to that of aquinas. major outstanding questions regarding vertebrate limb development are how the numbers of skeletal elements along the proximodistal (p-d) and anteroposterior (a-p) axes are determined and how the shape of a growing limb affects skeletalelement formation. a mechanism based on local autoregulation of a molecular activator of cell aggregation coupled to a laterally acting inhibitor (a lali system), is consistent with in vivo and in vitro experimental results and provides qualitative interpretations of several genetic anomalies affecting limb development.nonlinear reaction-diffusion systems are often employed in mathematical modeling to study the activator-inhibitor subnetwork in developmental biology. these systems are usually highly stiff in both diffusion and reaction terms and are typically considered on multidimensional complex geometrical domains because of complex shapes of embryos. using an empirically based mathematical representation of such reaction-diffusion mechanism and combining discontinuous galerkin(dg) finite element methods with strang type symmetrical operator splitting technique that permits simulation of lali systems in domains of varying shape and size, we show that major aspects of the limb pattern, including those of aberrant and evolutionary transitional forms, emerge in a robust fashion from the inherent self-organizing properties of a core skeletal patterning mechanism in different geometric settings, without a requirement for positional information. why do states with few or no nuclear weapons challenge and resist opponents with superior nuclear capabilities? international relations theory and common sense suggest that these instances should be rare. however, conflict in these asymmetric nuclear balances, what i call nuclear primacy, occurs very frequently. i argue that such conflict occurs because nuclear primacy creates the opportunity for the inferior side to use limited force to redress political grievances. the argument is therefore a story of motive and opportunity. on the motive side, states are most likely to challenge or resist rivals with superior nuclear forces when they believe there is a threat to their core interests. on the opportunity side, nuclear primacy permits conflict because the low threat to the strong side's nuclear arsenal reduces the dangers for deliberate and accidental nuclear use. the dangers of pressing too hard and inviting nuclear retaliation will tend to constrain the amount of force that the weak side will utilize. as such, though conflict will occur quite frequently in nuclear primacy, it will tend to remain limited. the inferior side is most likely to press the issue to war when it has outside support that can constrain the nuclear superior side or it is directly attacked. i test the argument by examining conflict in nuclear primacy from 1945-2000. specifically, i examined data on all states' nuclear arsenals from 1945-2000 and found that nuclear primacy permits frequent, low-level conflict. i next examined a series of historical case studies in nuclear primacy. these included periods of conflict and no conflict as well as confrontations that did and did not escalate to war. consistent with my argument, conflict was most likely to occur when the nuclear inferior side faced a challenge to its core interests. during the confrontations the inferior side proceeded in a cautious manner, testing and probing the strong side's reaction to attain a favorable political settlement. billions of people globally live in developing countries where infrastructure and regulatory bodies are often lacking and socioeconomic inequality is prevalent. due to this disparity, people living in these areas may not have access to high quality commodities such as essential medicines, clean water, or even nutritional staples such as milk. at face value, these items appear to be unrelated; however, they actually share the same underlying causes including lack of regulatory oversight, poor laboratory infrastructure, and insufficient funding. often, these issues tend to go unaddressed which further incentivizes their existence. this is problematic because consumption of substandard medicines, contaminated water, or poor quality milk can lead to a slew of health problems including disease, chronic illness, antibiotic resistance, and even death. the gold standard analytical technologies used to assess the quality of these commodities are often lacking or inaccessible in developing countries. as a result, there is a dire need for low-cost and portable alternative technologies to assess the quality of medicines, water, and milk.at the heart of my work are two powerful analytical tools, paper and yeast. paper has long been used since ancient times as a platform for chromatography. it is still widely used today in a wide array of point-of-care diagnostics which can detect glucose, fungal pathogens, viral dna, enzymes, or even antibiotics. much like paper, yeast are powerful bioanalytical tools. yeast, specifically s. cerevisiae, are microorganisms which are responsive to a wide range of genetic modifications, thus facilitating the fabrication of different biosensors for clinical, diagnostic, and environmental purposes. yeast have been engineered to detect heavy metals such as cadmium, fungal pathogens, antibiotics, and environmental estrogens. this work describes the optimization and development of several paper and yeast based devices i created to assess the quality of substandard medicines, milk, and drinking water. with some room for improvement, my hope is that one day these tools can be used in a low-technology or field setting to identify the sources of each problem and prevent their re-occurrence. recent advances in stochastic methods and machine learning (ml) techniques have opened new pathways that can be explored for addressing uncertainty quantification and for accelerating computational tasks in various mechanics applications. however, to realize the potential of these methods, effective computational frameworks that integrate stochastic and ml methods in computational mechanics are needed. thus, to harness the power of these tools in mechanics applications, the goal of this dissertation is to investigate and develop novel frameworks where advanced stochastic and data-driven machine learning techniques are integrated into computational platforms to address various challenges such as response simulations and uncertainty quantification in linear and nonlinear systems, design optimization under uncertainties, and multiscale modeling. in particular, probabilistic methods based on stochastic polynomial expansions are applied to quantify the uncertainties in linear and nonlinear structural responses given stochastic inputs of loading and/or material properties which are modeled by random variables or random fields. the efficiency and accuracy of these methods are then systematically investigated for linear and nonlinear mechanics problems within the context of stochastic finite elements. based on the performance studies on uncertainty quantification methods, an efficient 2nd-order stochastic perturbation technique is integrated with a density-based topology optimization framework for designing robust structures at finite deformations while considering load, material, and geometric uncertainties. in addition, novel data-driven machine learning models and learning techniques are proposed to create efficient and accurate surrogates for (a) linear and nonlinear dynamical systems; and (b) constitutive models of 2d and 3d microstructures in multiscale modeling. it is envisaged that the proposed probabilistic and data-driven frameworks in this dissertation will lay the foundations for the next generation of advanced computational methods in applied solid and structural mechanics. virginia woolf's famous proclamation, "as a woman, i have no country. as a woman i want no country. as a woman my country is the whole world," is now considered one of the defining moments in the formulation of modernist cosmopolitanism. woolf's declaration of a world citizenship locates the crux of modernist cosmopolitanism in renouncing national loyalties and transcending cultural boundaries. however, transcending boundaries is not equivalent to dissolving national borders and imposing a widespread homogeneity on distinct communities. how does modernist cosmopolitanism preserve cultural difference without invoking binaries of superiority/inferiority? how does postcolonial literature alter the modernist legacy in the context of rising ethnocentric nationalism and insistence on preservation of cultural and ethnic 'purity'? my dissertation uses theories of cultural and political cosmopolitanisms, nation formation, and urban studies to address these questions. in particular, plurabilities of the city examines how cosmopolitanism is especially manifest in urban cultures and how a variety of urban spatial practices reveal multiple forms of cosmopolitanism. through a series of case studies, comprising british, irish, and bengali novels and ranging from james joyce to bernardine evaristo, i study how literary expressions of metropolitan cosmopolitanism evolve over time. i examine the representations of dublin, london, and kolkata in both modernist and postcolonial novels from ireland, britain, and india (west bengal). my project responds to douglas mao and rebecca walkowitz's call for a new modernist studies by exploring different iterations of modernism in irish, british, and bengali literatures. by focusing on various modes of cosmopolitanism my project distinguishes cosmopolitanism from transnationalism, multiculturalism, globality, and planetarity. it concludes that modernist and postcolonial literary representations of cosmopolitanism perform several functions. they are committed to transcending cultural borders, insistent on preserving cultural specificity in intercultural exchanges, and resistant to homogeneity. overall, plurabilities of the city dismantles the binary between the global north and the global south and showcases how global modernist studies and postcolonial studies are informed by each other. zebrafish is an excellent model organism to study the molecular basis of retinal regeneration. damage-induced apoptosis of retinal neurons in adult zebrafish stimulates mì_ller glia within the inner nuclear layer to dedifferentiate and divide giving rise to undifferentiated transiently amplifying multipotent neuronal progenitor daughter cells. these cells continue to proliferate and migrate to the damaged retinal layer where they differentiate into functional and integrated retinal neurons. the mechanisms in which mì_ller glia are induced to divide by the apoptotic neurons during the initiation of regeneration are unknown. following retinal damage, the expression of transcription factors signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (stat3) and achaete-scute complex-like 1a (ascl1a) are upregulated in mì_ller glia and are each required for maximal mì_ller glia proliferation following retinal damage. to examine the requirement of each of these factors for regeneration and their hierarchal relationship, morpholino-mediated knockdowns were performed. this analysis revealed a complex signaling cascade involving three separate populations of mì_ller glia that have differential requirements for the expression of stat3, ascl1a and proliferation (nelson et al., in press). to examine the mechanism in which mì_ller glia are signaled to divide, retinal lysates were collected at the peak of photoreceptor apoptosis, homogenized and injected into the intravitreal space of undamaged eyes. the light-damaged retinal homogenates stimulated mì_ller glia proliferation, which demonstrated that a mì_ller glia proliferation-stimulating factor was present during the peak of photoreceptor apoptosis. to identify candidate protein signaling pathways that could be responsible for the initiation of mì_ller glia proliferation, i performed a maldi-tof mass spectrometry proteomic analysis comparing proteins of undamaged retinas to those isolated during the peak of light-induced photoreceptor apoptosis. tumor necrosis factor &#945; (tnf&#945;) signaling proteins were increased in expression in the light-damaged retinas. tnf&#945; expression was increased by apoptotic photoreceptors and later in mì_ller glia. knockdown of tnf&#945; significantly decreased the expression of ascl1a and stat3 and significantly reduced the number of mì_ller glia stimulated to reenter the cell cycle, but did not affect levels of photoreceptor death. this study identifies the tnf&#945; signaling pathway as a novel participant that is induced by retinal damage which acts upstream of ascl1a and stat3 during danio rerio photoreceptor regeneration. recent shortages in the supply of 99mtc, a critical medical isotope, have prompted research into an alternative production method,100mo(p,2n), which could exploit an existing network of medical cyclotrons. one complication of this method, however, is the unavoidable co-production of other tc isotopes which will affect both diagnostic imaging quality and radiation dosimetry. currently, the production of these isotopes is being evaluated with statistical nuclear physics models, whose accuracy is highly dependent on input model parameters. the objective of this study is to provide experimental cross section measurements that can be used to predict tc production in thick yield targets, as well as guide the choice of these model parameters. in this thesis, production cross sections for (p,x) reactions from all stable mo species were measured using the charged particle activation method. we report the majority of the cross sections for production of tc, mo, and nb isotopes with half-lives between four minutes and ninety-one days. while not directly relevant to radiopharmaceuticals, nb and mo production will have an impact on target composition after repeated recycling and dosimetry in the case of incomplete chemical purification. from these measurements, a set of input parameters for a talys calculated hauser feshbach model were identified as best reproducing the experimental measurements. using this experimentally guided model, we have estimated yields for various target impurity profiles. these yields were combined with dosimetry calculations from the literature to estimate the feasibility of regional production based on the produced 99mtc specific activity and radionuclidic purity as a function of incident energy, target thickness, target composition, and distribution time. this analysis demonstrates that the specific activity of cyclotron produced 99mtc-pertechnetate will likely always be below---in certain conditions substantially---than that from a typical (24 hour) generator elution from the current reactor production method, and that the specific activity will depend critically on target processing and distribution time and to a limited extent on incident proton energy. target composition will likely play a minor role. the continued path forward for cyclotron production of 99mtc will necessitate further study on the impact of low specific activity on labeling efficiency for currently available kits. the results of this study also suggest that radionuclidic purity (and similarly, the expected patient dose increase relative to a procedure with 99mtc from the current reactor production method) will depend on subtle difference in the isotopic impurity profile. specifically 94-97mo content in the target will contribute to a large dose increase. the unique lifetimes, production cross sections, and dosimetry of each tc isotope make a "one-size fits all" approach to finding an optimal set of irradiation parameters impossible. due to this highly individual nature, regulatory limits will most likely be imposed for individual tc species, making accurate estimation from experimental measurements critical. finally, our study suggests that given the current mo recovery rates in target processing, build-up of trace contaminants in the target is likely not a significant issue.ultimately, the feasibility of this method of production will depend on currently non-existent regulatory limits. our work suggests that a significant factor in meeting these potential limits will be the availability of highly enriched 100mo with minimal (&lt;0.02%) 94-97mo content and the use of short (~3 hour) bombardment duration. in this dissertation, i developed a boundary integral formulation to simulate a red blood cell (rbc) squeezing through a submicron slit under prescribed inlet and outlet pressures. the main application of this computational study is to investigate splenic filtrations of rbcs and the corresponding in vitro mimicking microfluidic devices, during which rbcs regularly pass through inter-endothelial slits with a width less than 1.0 micrometer. the diseased and old rbcs are damaged or destroyed in this mechanical filtration process.we first derived the boundary integral equations of a rbc immersed in a confined domain with prescribed inlet and outlet pressures. we applied a unified self-adaptive quadrature to accurately evaluate singular and nearly singular integrals, which are especially important in this fluid-structure interaction problem with strong lubrication. a multiscale model is applied to calculate forces from the rbc membrane, and it is coupled to boundary integral equations to simulate the fluid-structure interaction.after multi-step verifications and validations against analytical and experimental results, we systematically investigated the effects of pressure drop, volume-to-surface-area ratio, internal viscosity, and membrane stiffness on rbc deformation and internal stress. we found that spectrins of rbcs could be stretched by more than 2.5 times under high hydrodynamic pressure, and that the bilayer tension could be more than 500pn/（mu*m）, which might be large enough to open mechanosensitive channels but too small to rupture the bilayer. on the other hand, we found that the bilayer-cytoskeletal dissociation stress is too low to induce bilayer cytoskeleton detachment and bilayer vesiculation. a variety of cell shapes have been observed when they transmigrate the microfluidic slit, such as small tip, "jellyfish" shape, "half-moon" shape and "whale-tail" shape. we found that two biophysical and physical conditions play a significant role for these various shapes. one is the adhesion force between the cell membrane and the channel wall. the other one is the slip condition between the cell membrane and the fluids inside the cell. in addition, we found that the surface-area-to-volume ratio has a vita effect on cell front shapes. furthermore, we carefully examined the transit time for the cell to pass through the slit. we found that higher pressure drop and larger surface-area-to-volume ratio dramatically reduce the transit time. on the other hand, the transit time increases significantly when the viscosity of the internal fluid increases. the numerical method is also applied to another application to study the physical arresting of circulating tumor cells in the mouse brain vasculature. we predicted the mechanical microenvironment in the in vivo mouse brain vasculature. more importantly, we predicted the cell deformation and internal stress on the cell membrane under distinct pressure drops. much of today's culture has given up confidence in many of the long-standing principles that once stood behind the creation of art, architecture, and other products of culture. these principles include the ability to establish true precepts, the ability to judge goodness, and the ability to create objective beauty. all of these are now commonly undercut by doubt, uncertainty, or outright opposition, so that cultural products now posit questions rather than truth, convey doubt rather than goodness, and cater to a sense of pleasure rather than beauty. in opposition to this allegedly necessary quicksand is a purposeful movement of practitioners asserting the reality of solid ground. they argue that this solid ground is found in the wisest principles of the past, and that the best forward route in many disciplines is the embracing of this wisdom. the contest between these practitioners and those of the current mainstream is not stylistic, but presuppositional. what this thesis intends to examine is the role that the christian church, and more specifically the protestant church, plays in this contest. alasdair macintyre, in after virtue, portrayed this contest, in the realm of moral philosophy, as a choice between nietzsche and aristotle. he shows that nietzsche's views were both the culmination and the necessary abandonment of the enlightenment project of replacing tradition with self-grounding truth and meaning based solely on human reason. nietzsche ripped the mask off of enlightenment morality by revealing that all moral utterance based on nothing higher than human rationality is only the concealed utterance of individual will. the relativism in all realms, including the arts, which followed nietzsche, has held sway over the last century, with disastrous results. macintyre argues that the only other possible choice is a return to a pre-enlightenment intellectual tradition, originated by aristotle, and developed by others, such as thomas aquinas. the general cultural trend toward relativism and away from tradition has led to a loss of once-held values. simultaneously, the protestant church, if not the whole church catholic, has become inattentive to many of its own inherited values. what makes this latter loss more troubling is that these values are not simply based on a tradition, but rather are part of a holistic understanding of the core of the christian faith. forced in the last century to seriously question its every bedrock precept, the church has practiced the strategy of holding tight to its most central core beliefs, while allowing other important beliefs to be nearly lost or forgotten, or at least held so loosely that they are rarely seen by christians as having immediate relevance in the actual activities of the church. one thing that is interesting to note is that the same beliefs (to be noted below) that the church has nearly let slip away is coincident with those enumerated by macintyre and others as being central to a reconnection to lost traditions: aquinas-aristotelianism for macintyre, classicism for a host of artists and architects, and traditional urbanism for new urbanists. if the church can reacquaint itself with its lost values, it can simultaneously restore both its own internal culture, and aid in the restoration of art, architecture and other cultural activities inside and outside of the church. this is important because the interests of the church extend beyond the walls of the church building. the church has a mandate to participate in the mending of culture, which will continue until the full arrival of the new city. this thesis will address the loss within the protestant church of a deep understanding of the connection between beliefs and cultural products, and attempt to demonstrate how the reacquisition of this understanding can bring a restoration to both art and architecture in general and within the church itself. it will begin by taking one of these beliefs, the importance and value assigned to community, and examining its relationship to urban design, in order to provide an example of the intimate link between a belief and created form. following this will be a consideration of several other beliefs, the full recovery of which are imperative to the church and which can become the basis for the church's participation in the development of art and architecture. the subjects of these beliefs are items highly valued by the church, and may be termed as: mandates for cultural creation, authority, tradition, sign and symbol, the sacred, beauty, and narrative. after a reflection on these values, there will be a brief account of the traditions of protestant church design, followed by a description of a new design adhering to the values which will be laid out. as a method driven organic chemistry group, we strive to resolve problems not only within the realm of academia, but those facing all of humanity. recently, the pollution of the planet with greenhouse gases has become an ever pressing global challenge to overcome. while there has been a strong push towards alternative forms of energy to combustion of coal and fossil fuels, other chemicals are even more damaging than co2 emissions, such as those used as refrigerants. our group envisioned that the use of ionic liquids (ils) could potentially replace these compounds, using the ability of these ils to selectively and reversibly absorb co2 over other gases like n2 and o2. in order to do this efficiently, we developed a new method for synthesizing aprotic heterocyclic anionic ils (aha-ils), allowing for a much cheaper, more time efficient route towards these compounds; both requirements necessary to make large scale application a viable possibility. while doing so, we began to focus on the imidazole ring, an important moiety that can act both as the anionic and cationic component in an aha-il. what we required was a quick and efficient route towards these structures.to achieve this, we developed a method using the bimetallic combination of au(i) and ag(i) co-catalysis for the convergent assembly of propargyl bromides and amidines towards the construction of highly substituted imidazoles. this mild and efficient process provided a convergent route towards these heterocycles, alleviating the necessity for a linear construction as well as harsh reagents, conditions, and generating and isolating unstable intermediates. from this research we have been able to make site-specific modifications to the imidazole core, as well as assembling both highly functionalized and unsubstituted imidazoles. development of this method would assist us in fine-tuning ils and their chemical and physical properties by making site-specific modifications prior to generating the desired ils, allowing us to easily access ils with desirable properties for reversible co2 capture. past research has shown that factors related to both schooling and religious background can influence the development of gender role ideologies. nevertheless, there has been little analysis of differences in gender role beliefs held by those educated in different religious school sectors. this project uses data from two nationally representative studies to examine whether or not past high school education in protestant schools, catholic schools, and homeschools is associated with differing levels of support for two measures of traditional gender role belief among american young adults when compared to past education in public schools. the results show that catholic education is largely insignificant with regard to these measures. in contrast, protestant school education and homeschool education maintain positive associations with support for these aspects of traditional gender role belief, though they differ in their levels of association. in addition, interactions between gender and schooling types are significant in accounting for outcomes associated with one of these measures. micro cavities (mcs) with a small effective volume (veff ) and a high quality factor (q) are promising for applications in nonlinear optics, sensing, low-threshold lasers, single photon sources, quantum information processing and cavity quantum electrodynamics (cqed) for individual quantum dots (qds) in the low temperature emission spectra. near-field mapping of the emission spectra from embedded self-assembled qd provides a better means to understand and control those applications. this thesis is largely focused on the development of a variety of opticallypumped micro-cavities, including photonic crystals (pcs), microdisks (mds), and microrings (mrs), utilizing an asymmetric waveguide structure of inas/algaas or inp/gainp with ultra-small veff and high-q. good isolation of the waveguide layer from substrate by using a wafer bonding technique with a spin-on-glass or wet oxidation of algaas to produce a stable structure for subsequent device development has been achieved. both far-field and near-field luminescence have been carried out as a function of temperature, along with near-field imaging and finite-difference-timedomain (fdtd) calculations to study the pc defect and whispering gallery modes (wgms) inside of the mcs. optically-pumped lasing of microdisk structures has been investigated in both semiconductor systems. ultra-low lasing thresholds for inp md and mr lasers at both room temperature and low temperature are demonstrated for the first time. exploration of development requires the use of research designs and processoriented methodologies that can capture daily fluctuations within individuals, systematic changes within individuals, and differences between individuals (nesselroade, 1991). because the daily relationship between stress and negative affect (na) relates to long-term mental and physical health outcomes, gaining a better understanding of the environmental and person-related contextual factors that relate to daily variability, systematic change, and individual differences in this daily stress-na relationship can not only illustrate the resilience process as a whole, but also inform intervention and preventative care strategies aimed toward promoting positive wellbeing. examining the stress-na relationship with multiple time scales and multi-level modeling, therefore, illustrates how the day-to-day relationship between stress and na changes over time as well as how global characteristics, such as overall stress levels, dispositional resilience, and age relate to differences in the way in which the stress-na relationship changes.the purpose of the current study was threefold: 1) to establish the relationships among daily fluctuations in stress, yearly changes in stress, average stress levels and daily na, and explore how age changes and age differences influence these relationships, 2) to explore the relationships among the daily stress-na relationship, yearly changes in dispositional resilience, average dispositional resilience levels, and age differences, and 3) to depict the relationships among age changes, age differences, yearly changes in dispositional resilience, and the daily stress-na relationship. participants from the midlife and later-life waves of the notre dame study of health &amp; well-being (ndhwb; n = 958) completed daily "burst" assessments of stress and na as well as global questionnaires that assessed dispositional resilience. three-level multilevel models were used to analyze the data, and ultimately depicted how cross-sectional age, within-person age changes, dispositional resilience differences, within-person fluctuations in dispositional resilience, and global stress differences impact the daily stress-na relationship. thus, the current study provides a holistic illustration of resilience as a dynamic process and depicts how interventions and prevention strategies can best promote resilience. the use of anti-androgen therapy for the treatment of invasive and metastatic prostate cancer is common practice. however, after an initial response, the tumor frequently progresses to 'castrate resistant prostate cancer' (crpc), and becomes very difficult to treat. this progression has been attributed to mutations in the androgen receptor. however, despite its widespread use, the mechanisms and effects of anti-androgen therapy on prostate cancer cells are poorly understood. utilizing flow cytometry, gene array, qpcr and western blotting we have compared the response of two androgen receptor positive cell lines lncap (which harbors a mutated androgen receptor and the pc-346c (which expresses the wild type receptor) to bicalutamide, the most commonly used anti-androgen in the clinic. bicalutamide induces dose dependent effects on cell cycle and cell death in both cell lines. whole genome expression profiling indicates that bicalutamide exerts similar, but not identical effects on the two cell lines, suggesting that the transition to crpc is not due to somatic mutations in response to treatment. however these experiments identified a distinct threshold response to bicalutamide: at low doses of bicalutamide both cell lines induce cell cycle arrest but no significant level of cell death, while at higher doses both cell lines exhibit extensive cell death. this threshold response appears to involve the p53 axis, since many of the affected genes are downstream of this central mediator of cellular stress. the overview of gene expression changes and cellular responses to higher concentrations of bicalutamide indicates that increased doses of the anti-androgen may have clinical benefits. hybrid sterility studies have typically focused on hybrid males that lack the ability to produce functional gametes; however, considerable variation in fertility exists for hybrid females. using whole genome microarrays, expression profiles for d. simulans/d. melanogaster hybrid females exhibiting different levels of oogenic development were examined. hybrid females with higher levels of oogenic development have fewer loci overor under-expressed compared to pure species expression. these hybrid females also have more loci dominantly expressed like d. melanogaster, especially female reproductive loci and transcription factors. higher d. melanogaster dominance could be the result of master regulatory switches that act to reduce the regulatory conflict that has accumulated as the species have diverged. one candidate regulatory locus is hybrid male rescue (hmr). hmr interacts with lethal hybid rescue (lhr) due to complementary binding domains, and both regulate gene expression in heterochromatic regions. d.melanogaster-like expression of hmr, lhr, and out at first (oaf), a female reproductive locus with multiple splice variants, begins in the pupae for the more fertile female hybrids. the hybrid with the highest oogenic development was from the only d. simulans line to express hmr and all of the oaf variants like d. melanogaster in the pupae. additionally, reduced inviaibilty rescue was seen with over-expression of oaf in the larval stage and adult expression of hmr like d. melanogaster and lhr like d. simulans, consistent with the dobzhansky-muller model. matching expression patterns seem to reduce regulatory conflict and also influence a hybrid's mate choice, as increased preference for mating with d. simulans males was seen with female hybrids expressing two pheromone loci, olfactory-specific c and odorant-binding protein 56h, like d. simulans. these results suggest that reduction in regulatory conflict leads to more reproductive compatibility and hence more fertile hybrid females, and that mate preference is stronger when the loci involved in mating are expressed like the mate chosen. the interval newton method can provide mathematical and computational guarantee that all roots will be found in nonlinear equation solving problems, and that the global optimum will be found in nonlinear, nonconvex optimization problems. thus this provides a methodology for deterministic global optimization, including the problem of finding all stationary points in unconstrained optimization, or all fritz-john points in constrained optimization. we present here a new strategy based on the use of linear programming (lp) techniques to exactly (within round out) bound the solution set of the linear interval equation system that must be solved in the context of the interval-newton method. the tighter bound on solution set thus enhances may greatly enhance the efficiency of the interval-newton method. an implementation of this technique is described and several important issues are considered. these include combination with a simple, low-overhead pivoting preconditioning technique, selection of the interval conner required by the lp strategy, and determination of rigorous bounds on the solution of the lp problems. the procedure based on these techniques, liss_lp, will then be demonstrated using several global optimization problems, with focus on problems arising in chemical engineering. the comparative computational performance results between liss_lp and the hp/rp approach of gau and stadtherr, have shown that the new lp strategy leads to substantial reductions in computation time requirements. in addition, liss_lp has also been applied to some global optimization problems arising in molecular modeling, such as locating all stationary points of the potential energy surface of a sorbate particle in silicalite, locating all stationary points of the potential energy surface of triatomic molecules, and seeking molecular conformation with global minimum potential energy. it has been shown that the new lp-based strategy for the interval newton method implemented in liss_lp, is very effective on these problems. in the mid-1960s, fazlur khan created a hierarchy of structural systems, ranging from two-dimensional moment resisting frames to three-dimensional tubular systems, to aid designers in making efficient choices to resist lateral loads. while this hierarchy has historically been a valuable tool for designers, the ever-advancing modeling and computational capabilities have enabled far more exotic structures to become inhabitable possibilities. this implies that few modern systems obey this classical hierarchy, requiring a new approach to classify structural systems and their applicability to modern practice as both a design aid and educational tool for future designers. therefore, this thesis will respond to this need by modernizing the hierarchy, not from first principles or theory, but actually from practice by mining the attributes of constructed systems already in existence. the result of this thesis is a newly proposed system descriptor, a database structure and procedure to generate modern hierarchies that can be dynamically updated with time. the aim of this thesis was to explore a long-term memory retention function that deviates from the typical ebbinghaus pattern of a sharp initial decrease that slows at a negatively accelerated rate. this pattern, commonly fit to a power function, has been observed across a variety of stimuli, tasks, and retention lengths. however, a recent study by radvansky, o'rear, and fisher (2017) has revealed a retention function for event-based sentences that shows little forgetting through the first week before dropping quickly. this thesis tested the robustness of this pattern under a similar design and over an extended retention period of eight weeks. results revealed a retention pattern that fell at a consistent linear rate across time. the possibility that this is due to a standard forgetting process involving multiple event components, partial matching or reconstruction at retrieval, and the passage of time is discussed, along with proposals for further studies. the dissertation focuses on trade among developing countries, or south-south trade. although south-south trade has been advocated as an alternative to north-south trade, few studies that attempt to gauge its benefits exist. the first chapter presents an analysis of the literature on south-south trade. i argue that analyzing south-south integration from the perspective of static 'trade diversion' versus 'creation' elements or even the so-called dynamic 'building' or 'stumbling blocks' that characterizes much of the mainstream literature on regionalism is insufficient. instead i focus on the literature that has dealt with south-south integration and trade per se and their relation to development within the countries of the south. the literature can be divided into two waves, the first emerging from early development economics and the second dealing with the factor content of south-south trade. despite being conceptually different, the two waves share the common themes of advocating south-south trade based on self-sustaining growth and indigenous technological development. i also review the implications of the uneven development literature on south-south trade. in the second chapter, south-south trade in medium to high skill intensive is analyzed in a sample of 20 developing countries. previous studies have demonstrated that south-south trade in manufactures is human capital intensive but no verification of the benefits exists. in this chapter, the impact of direction of trade on developing country performance in skill intensive manufactures is investigated. for each developing country in the sample, an annual time series is generated of both exports and imports in a) total trade; b) trade in total manufactures (sitc 5-8); c) as well as trade in a set of 75 medium to high technologically (skill) intensive manufactures. this is done for trade in both directions with a set of countries classified as 'north' as well as the rest of the world, classified as 'south.' empirical tests indicate that direction of trade has mattered and that south-south trade has had a positive impact on developing country performance in the skill intensive manufactures as measured by a time series of revealed comparative advantage indices. in the last chapter, the impact of the revealed comparative advantage indices on income levels and income growth is estimated. the goal is twofold: first to make a contribution to the cross-country empirical literature by focusing on structure of trade rather than overall trade as a relevant factor in growth. second to provide an indirect link between south-south trade and growth in developing countries. results indicate that the revealed comparative advantage indices to have a positive impact on growth in the country sample above and beyond the impact of overall trade. this dissertation evaluates a new family of near-infrared fluorescent molecular probes called squaraine rotaxanes for utility in whole animal imaging studies. conjugating squaraine rotaxanes to zinc(ii)-dipicolylamine (zn-dpa) ligands produces probes that bind anionic phospholipids and related phosphate containing structures in the cell wall of bacteria. planar fluorescence optical imaging proves that these zn-dpa probes bind leg infections of gram-positive "staphylococcus aureus" or gram-negative "salmonella typhimurium" in living mice. high probe signal was visualized in the infected leg compared to the uninfected control leg. control experiments showed that the zn-dpa probes have little affinity for an inflammation response after intramuscular injection of &#955;-carrageenan into the mouse leg. to quantify the affinity of zn-dpa conjugated fluorophores for anionic bacterial membranes, a zn-dpa with a conjugated far-red cyanine dye was employed in a f rster resonance energy transfer assay using liposomes that mimic bacterial membranes. the binding constant to phosphatidylglycerol, a major component gram-positive bacteria membranes, was determined to be 1.3 x 10^4 m-1 and the binding constant to lipid a, a major component of a gram-negative bacteria, was determined to be 1.2 x 10^5 m-1. the zn-dpa conjugated cyanine dye also bound bacterial cells in vitro and successfully targeted gram-negative and gram-positive infections upon intravenous treatment in living mice. another significant use of squaraine rotaxanes is shown through the development of squaraine rotaxane endoperoxides (srep) as chemiluminescent-fluorescent imaging agents. the endoperoxide units within the squaraine rotaxane structure undergo a chemical reaction that produces near-infrared light. by encapsulating these self-illuminating sreps within microparticle systems, it is possible to perform planar optical imaging at relatively deep tissue depths in living mice and rats. in addition, the delivery of microparticles to the lungs can be monitored via whole animal optical imaging. although still in early stages, sreps have tremendous potential for deep tissue imaging applications of various disease states in small animals. finally, a lipophilic fluorescent squaraine rotaxane encapsulated inside a lipid micelle, is shown to act as a targeting agent for brown fat in mice. by treating animals with as little as 1 nmol of dye, interscapular brown fat can be visualized by planar fluorescence imaging. in addition, accumulation of the lipophilic squaraine rotaxane in brown fat is shown to be significantly greater than a previously described fluorescent probe. potential as a diagnostic tool is further supported by the colocalization of lipophilic squaraine rotaxane with 18fdg, a common brown fat imaging reagent used in positron emission tomography. overall, the results in this dissertation indicate that squaraine rotaxanes are a promising molecular probe for optical molecular imaging. this paper considers the degree and quality of henry david thoreau's self-professed mysticism, principally in his journal, in which he uses the term and which features a representative and under-studied mystical experience. i begin by summarizing existing scholarship on the question of thoreau's status as a mystic, highlighting important ideas to keep in mind and identifying scholarly shortcomings upon which to improve. i then move to the sites of thoreau's most extensive use of the chaldean oracles, in his essay, "walking," and a week on the concord and merrimack rivers, and the first notable instance of his association between mist and mystical thought. i conclude with the first five volumes of the journal, leading to march 5, 1853, the date of thoreau's self-designation as a mystic. throughout the paper, my enquiry will proceed along three primary thematic lines—sense-experience, time, and reproducibility of observation—as considered in the motif of mist in the journal. cardiovascular diseases (cvd) have been the leading cause of death in the developed world for nearly 100 years, responsible for nearly 18 million deaths yearly, more deaths than all forms of cancer combined. the majority of cvd related deaths are due to myocardial infarction (mi). additionally, the only viable long-term solution for undiagnosed mis and the remaining cvds is heart transplant, in which nearly 70% of potential donor organs are deemed unusable. the major mechanism of damage for both mi as well as that which occurs during organ procurement and transplantation is ischemic/reperfusion injury (i/r). due to an extreme limit on viable human hearts available for transplant, let alone research, the use of animal models has become a common alternative for cvd study. unfortunately, due to differences in human and animal physiology and pathology, results from such studies are often inconclusive or contradictive to one another.in recent decades, tissue engineering has developed model tissues utilizing human derived cells to better mimic human physiology in vitro. this reduces species to species variability as well as ethical concerns regarding usage of clinically precious human organs. several studies have utilized tissue engineered methods for studying human myocardium, however they have been restricted to specific characterization and/or pharmaceutical screening rather than recapitulating a physiologically relevant human heart tissue model. it is imperative that a physiologically relevant model is developed to better diagnose and treat cvd, specifically mi and heart transplant, as being able to accurately identify and understand the underlying mechanisms of i/r in human physiology is crucial for cvd treatment and prevention.the main goal of this dissertation was to develop a high throughput physiologically relevant human derived myocardium tissue model to investigate novel diagnosis and treatment methods of i/r in both mi and heart transplantation. towards this goal, we first developed a microfluidic human heart anoxia and reperfusion tissue (heart) model using human induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes (icms) and endothelial cells (iecs) and observed that cells seeded in the heart retained their canonical cell specific markers and functionality and were able to survive within the device for up to 7 days under flow giving physiological wall shear stresses. we then utilized the heart to validate the therapeutic potential of adipose derived mesenchymal stem cell (asc) secretome (asc-s) in an organ transplant scenario. we showed that the detrimental effect of cardioplegic solution was mainly limited to icms, and the inclusion of asc-s was able to ameliorate this via the oxidative stress pathway. finally, we developed an in vitro mi model for the heart and compared mirna expression to mi patients using a near real-time mirna concentration sensor, and observed that the heart was able to closely mimic clinical mirna expression through both the ischemic and reperfusion stages of mi. the novel heart provides researchers with a modular and physiologically relevant in vitro tool for the development of novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to cvd. this dissertation argues against the conventional wisdom in political science that nineteenth century american presidents were weak and passive. it challenges the common belief that because of the suffocating effects of partisan politics in this period, chief executives for the most part did not insert their policy preferences into national politics. by looking at the leadership strategies of four presidents in the party period, i posit that early incumbents, while certainly not empowered by the modern office's apparatus for independent action, were purposive, goal-seeking actors who maneuvered around the constraints of the party state by (1) utilizing control over executive patronage, (2) manipulating the fragile, locally-oriented parties, (3) communicating with the public through administration newspapers, and (4) seeking extra-partisan means of support. drawing on nineteenth century presidential papers, letters, biographies, and newspapers, i demonstrate through historical process-tracing that the early presidents james k. polk, zachary taylor, benjamin harrison, and grover cleveland, like their modern counterparts, occupied an inherently assertive and politicized office constitutionally involved in the national policymaking process. this meant that while presidential nominees may have expressed unflinching fidelity to their parties in a campaign context, once in office they pursued 'great and arduous enterprises' with an eye on accomplishing their programmatic objectives in office. the case studies show how pre-modern executives exploited the dynamics of american party politics by using strategic tools for policy action. i conclude with a discussion of the study's broader implications. contemporary scholars need to revisit the dichotomy between the passive pre-modern and the goal-seeking modern presidencies, which i show does not hold up under close historical examination. researchers for the most part have incorrectly applied modern theories to the pre-modern presidency, devising inaccurate empirical indicators for presidential activity in the nineteenth century. in this regard, this study joins a relatively new literature focused on reinterpreting executive leadership in the pre-modern period, concluding that over time what changes from president to president is not the substance of goal-seeking, but rather its form and execution. this analysis undertakes an interdisciplinary study grounded in the field of memory studies of the literary genre, testimonio, utilizing luz arce's 1993 testimonial narrative, el infierno, as the primary case study and considers it within four critical lenses: a narratological approach, a juridical approach, a psychoanalytical approach, and an ethical approach. each of these critical frameworks seeks to illuminate various aspects of this type of literary text in order to appreciate testimonio's significance within several different fields of study. el infierno disrupts the monolithic narratives that have sprung from the turbulent period of the pinochet dictatorship. in doing so, arce's complex narrative shines light on the problematic hold that good-versus-evil narratives maintain in post-conflict societies and problematizes the abundance of overly simplified readings that have come to narrate this period of chile's history.in considering arce's testimonio, which is a palimpsest of her expressions of trauma, this analysis delves into the complexities of the testimonial process, examining the intricate relationships between victim/witness, author/text, author/narrator/protagonist, and text/society. the theoretical analysis of el infierno also contemplates the disjuncture between trauma and language, arguing that corporeal avenues of expression offer a link between linguistic expression and pain, establishing a space for the (re)inscription of agency and a textual space for healing and recovery after mass trauma.in addition to highlighting the literary and theoretical richness of this genre of literature, this investigation also aims to illustrate the practical applicability of testimonial texts within interdisciplinary studies. in considering the testimonios of traumatic experiences – this study focuses on the detention and torture of women political prisoners during the pinochet dictatorship of chile – this analysis recognizes testimonial texts as an important component in the construction and preservation of collective memory, and favors them as a key element in the development of transformative justice frameworks in post-conflict societies. furthermore, this study examines the ethical issues involved in the process of testimonio, considering all of the parties involved in its constitution and their interactions with the text itself. in exploring the development of ethical relationships through testimonio, this analysis suggests that this genre can be better integrated into peacebuilding processes as a vital building block in sustainable transformative justice frameworks in order to establish more effective methods of achieving psychosocial justice in post-conflict societies. this analysis also argues that it is through the formation of ethical relationships and the development of a compassionate imagination that healthy democracies are sustained and preserved, a process that can be textually mediated through the literary genre of testimonio and supported through an educational model that foregrounds sustainable peacebuilding practices. a combination of multiresolution analysis (mra) and a modified schroeder integration method is tested as a means of identifying unknown oscillating signals in time series data, and estimating signal decay. significant signals can be detected by applying a single-value criterion to each level of the mra decomposition of the time series. alternately, subject to certain constraints, significant signals can be detected during the modified schroeder integration step by applying a reverse-integrated criterion vector to the reverse-integrated decibel transformation of each level of the mra decomposition. given that the modified schroeder integration procedure failed to produce a better estimate of signal decay than other currently available procedures, the single-value criterion method of identifying significant signals is retained as the simpler and more flexible of the two methods of determining signal significance. this study seeks to understand how a catholic enclave simultaneously (re)constructs catholic tradition and american community life in a washington, d.c. suburb and the role that race, class, and neighborhood features contribute to this process of reconstruction. after conducting participant observation and interviews with 37 residents, i find that catholics are engaging in the formation of a subcultural religious identity, which smith et al (1998) theorize in their book on american evangelicals as a creation of boundaries and engagement with modernity. while neighborhood design does not determine social interaction, it fosters this catholic community's subcultural identity by facilitating face-to-face meetings and engagement with the broader neighborhood and metropolitan area.this study extends subcultural identity theory, not only by offering another case (catholicism) but also by showing how space and place – and their attendant dimensions of race and class – are crucial to the development of a subcultural identity. modern wireless network architectures are increasingly exploring the use of intermediate radio nodes, called relays, to improve system performance in terms of coverage and capacity. beyond significant modeling and theoretical analysis, ongoing integration of relays into the long term evolution (lte) cellular standard promises many key benefits but also poses many challenges. this dissertation develops theoretical and practical tools for evaluating the effect that different relaying approaches have on the fundamental tradeoffs in radio communication systems among the rate, reliability, and delay with which data is transmitted. these tools range from information theoretic, giving general insight into encoding and decoding procedures, to experimental, allowing the performance quantification of real-world implementations. after reviewing related literature, we develop an achievable rate-reliability-delay tradeoff for decode-and-forward on the general relay channel by extending gallager's random coding error exponent from the point-to-point case. the achievable tradeoff varies depending on the encoding and decoding approaches taken and can be improved by increasing the decoding window size at the destination. we next propose a number of low latency relay processing schemes for the multihop channel. by having the relay exploit only part of the source's channel code structure, we can adaptively tradeoff increased latency for greater reliability. simulations confirm that these schemes give better performance than existing techniques for certain network geometries for both convolutional codes and the turbo code employed in lte. finally, we implement a wireless relaying testbed whose design and parameter selection is itself inspired by lte. experimentation captures more effects of various protocol layers when evaluating the relationship between rate, reliability, and delay for different relay types. initial characterization experiments with the testbed are reported and directions for future development are suggested. novel plots often center on questions of knowledge, and characters often desire to conceal certain things about themselves. the act of reading a novel often entails coming to learn this privileged information. readers thus typically function as antagonists in relation to the characters they read. in antagonistic reading: metalepsis and the intrusive reader, i argue that such antagonistic relationships between readers and characters typify the novel-reading experience. i demonstrate this point by examining novels that represent the moment of their being read in such a way as to draw attention to such conflicts of interest—namely, james joyce's ulysses (1922), jean rhys's good morning, midnight (1939), samuel beckett's the unnamable (1953), and zoë wicomb's playing in the light (2006). each novel compares its readers to antagonistic observers present in the novel's fictional world, from imperial intelligence agents in dublin castle in ulysses to unwanted voyeurs in good morning, midnight to torturer-interrogators in the unnamable. playing in the light, in turn, represents itself as an unauthorized biography, making its readers violators of its characters' privacy. however, further consideration of this last novel demonstrates the potential usefulness of such antagonistic reading for representing contested truths, specifically, in this case, a revised, more inclusive account of the history of south african apartheid. i argue that, by representing antagonistic reader-character relationships, novels such as those that i examine in my dissertation draw attention to the antagonistic relationships that the novel form in general entails. in contrast to the recent affective turn of criticism that examines readers' love of literature, best exemplified by rita felski, antagonistic reading argues that readers' relationships with the novels they consume and the characters inhabiting them are complicated and tend towards conflict. gan based devices are ideal for high frequency and high power applications due to gan's wide bandgap and high electron saturation velocity, and the ability to take advantage of polarization in heterostructures. to further enhance the capabilities of gan-based electronics, work in two main directions has been pursued: low-loss interconnects for gan-on-si monolithic microwave integrated circuits (mmics) and gan impatt diodes as novel high power microwave and mm-wave sources.low-loss interconnects are important for maximizing circuit performance in amplifiers and oscillators, but have proven challenging to realize in low-cost gan-on-si technology. in this work, low-loss coplanar waveguides (cpws) on algan/gan hemt heterostructures grown on high-resistivity si substrates (gan-on-si) are demonstrated. performance has been measured from 0.1 to 20 ghz, and loss as low as 0.27 db/mm at 20 ghz have been achieved. in addition, the nonlinear behavior of the cpw lines were experimentally characterized using large-signal measurements. in contrast to the small-signal loss, more significant differences in secondand third-order nonlinearity, and thus intermodulation, are observed between si and sic substrates.impatt diodes employ impact ionization and transit time effects to directly generate rf power with high efficiency. however, the impact ionization behavior of gan is not well understood. in order to measure the impact ionization rates of electrons and holes in gan, p-i-n avalanche diodes grown on native gan substrates have been fabricated and characterized. by incorporating a pseudomorphic in0.07ga0.93n layer below the drift layer, the photomultiplication method was used to experimentally determine the impact ionization coefficients. the impact ionization coefficients of electrons and holes are also measured at elevated temperatures up to 498 k. in addition, the low frequency noise characteristics of these devices have been measured under forward and reverse bias conditions. at reverse biases in the avalanche regime, the multiplication noise overwhelms the 1/f noise, resulting in a white noise spectrum. the impact ionization ratio extracted from multiplication noise is consistent with impact ionization coefficients obtained using the photomultiplication method.in addition, the dc and rf performance of a gan impatt diode operating at w-band is simulated using tcad sentaurus. numerical simulation results demonstrate that the impatt diode is capable of generating rf power larger than 1 mw/cm2 from 80 ghz to 120 ghz with an efficiency larger than 18% over w-band. first and second generation gan impatt diodes grown on bulk gan substrates have been fabricated and characterized. two fabrication processes, based on mesa etching and ion implantation for isolation, were developed and their influence on the diode's forward and reverse iv characteristic were compared. the 1st generation impatt diodes show poor reverse-bias characteristics due to inadequate edge termination. compared to the 1st generation impatt diode, the second generation impatt diodes exhibit promising avalanche behavior with improved edge termination methods. however, the rf characteristics of the second generation impatt diodes do not exhibit negative conductance, possibly due to large series resistance.in terms of future work, the demonstration of functional gan impatt diodes and oscillators based on them is proposed. this dissertation examines two areas of active research: 1) solution and aggregation behavior of uranyl peroxide nanosclusters, and 2) post-detonation nuclear forensic analysis of trinitite. over the past several years, the burns group has reported more than 38 distinct uranyl peroxide nanoclusters utilizing the curvature induced by bridging uranyl ions through bidentate peroxo ligands. these nanoclusters self-assemble in aqueous solution. mono-disperse distributions of clusters are achieved by dissolving cluster-bearing crystals in water. subsequently, complementary dynamic light scattering (dls), electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (esi-ms), small angle x-ray scattering (saxs), and ultra-small angle x-ray scattering (usaxs) studies have been conducted to examine the solution and aggregation behavior of the u60 nanocluster. addition of alkali and alkali earth cations to cluster-bearing solution induces exchange of the counterions associated with the clusters, as well as triggering aggregation of clusters into larger entities. the world's first atomic bomb, the trinity "gadget" was detonated on july 16, 1945. the explosion resulted in partial melting of the surrounding desert sand, which subsequently fused into blast-melt glass known as trinitite. post-detonation nuclear forensic analysis was conducted on several trinitite samples, utilizing analytical techniques such as optical microscopy, alpha track and beta radiography, gamma spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectroscopy (sem-eds), and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (la-icp-ms). this study examines the radionuclide distribution and pu isotopes within trinitite. the results emphasize the importance of utilizing a combination of radiometric techniques and high spatial resolution mass spectrometry when characterizing post-detonation nuclear material. hydrogen sulfide has in the last 15 years been elevated from its previous place as nothing more than a toxic gas to the status of ubiquitous gasotransmitter with numerous physiologic functions. in this thesis the focus is two-fold: whether h2s functions as a gasotransmitter in blood and whether h2s could act more locally as an endogenous oxygen sensor. the initial research presented here examines sulfide measurement techniques for biologic samples, and assessed their applicability for use in blood and plasma. it also shows the development of an amperometric means of conducting this research. it was found that the standard protocol for potentiometric measurement of sulfide in plasma is unsuitable for such use. the experimental conditions liberate sulfide from cysteines in plasma proteins, creating artificially high sulfide measurements. using the methylene blue method we were unable to replicate blood sulfide measurements found in other studies, while showing unequivocally that this method should work in plasma if sulfide is present. the amperometric sensor developed here may be used in real time without altering the sample. using this method we showed in blood from numerous animals that free h2s is undetectable in blood and that blood consumes sulfide quite rapidly. the second portion of this research showed that tissues consume endogenously-produced h2s oxygen-dependently and that the likely location of this consumption is in the mitochondria. the inhibitory level of oxygen was quite low, and the levels of cysteine required to stimulate measurable production were supraphysiologic, thus an attempt was made to develop a means of measuring intracellular sulfide. this was done through sulfide-sensitive photonic explorers for bioanalysis with biologically localized embedding (pebble). pebbles were produced in an organically-modified silica matrix using the sulfide-sensitive fluorescent dye fluorescein mercuric acetate. while the pebbles were sensitive to h2s and insensitive to cysteine, intracellular production of sulfide was not successfully demonstrated. h2s may function as an oxygen sensor intracellularly, but it does not circulate in the blood and is unlikely to exist outside of localized pockets within cells due to rapid oxidation. further work should be done to establish a means of intracellular measurement of h2s. this thesis intends to study the nature and problems of the american city's commercial core and &ndash; by an extension and adaptation of the principles of traditional urbanism &ndash; produce a new masterplan for the central business area and lakefront of chicago. special attention will be given to the relationship of open public space within the urban fabric, as well as the correlative relationship of monumental buildings within open space. ultimately, this plan will show how, through a process of defining and developing public spaces, establishing a hierarchical network of buildings and streets, and better addressing the notion of human scale, one can begin to re-humanize the american commercial core. in stars whose temperature is greater than 0.05 gk, hydrogen burning can proceed via the nena cycle, which is important for the nucleosynthesis of ne, na, and mg isotopes. the first reaction in this cycle is 20ne(p,g)21na, which also has the slowest proton capture reaction rate (iliadis et al., 2001), thereby influencing the rest of the cycle. the stellar reaction rate for 20ne(p,g)21na is dominated by direct capture and the high energy tail of a sub-threshold resonance. the aim of this work is to understand the direct-capture component of this reaction. using notre dame's recently commissioned 5u-4 accelerator, the 20ne(p,g)21na cross-section has been measured relative to the 1169 kev resonance at low energies using the rhinoceros gas target. the resonance strength of the 1169 kev resonance was also independently determined. finally, the cross sections were analyzed with the notre dame's r-matrix code azure. we present the first working aln/gan hemt with a 3 nm aln barrier layer that provides high polarization induced charge densities for the 2deg. without the need for impurity doping the mobility of the aln/gan heterostructure is drastically increased and is the basis of hemt technology. also enhanced by the lack of alloy disorder scattering at the interface, the aln/gan heterostructure appears to be the ideal candidate for high speed applications. as the aln barrier is quite thin it is presupposed that a high leakage current will persist through the gate contact. high-k dielectrics offer a possible solution to reduced gate leakage and allow the transconductance and scaling of the device to be optimized. preliminary results on non-optimized aln/gan devices show decent current-voltage characteristics amongst other characterization measurements performed. a major issue arose with obtaining ohmic contact to high quality aln/gan heterostructures. lower quality aln barriers have large dislocation densities and are easy to form ohmic contacts on, however with higher crystalline quality aln, conventional methods of forming ohmic contacts seem to be of little value. conventional and unconventional ohmic contact experiments to high quality aln have been performed and discussed. one of the pressing questions of our day is whether the laws of governments dedicated to liberty may regulate sexual behavior by legislating sexual morality. although contemporary liberal theorists often argue that it is illegitimate to regulate private sexual behavior, the early modern liberal theorist, montesquieu, takes the opposite view. in _spirit of the laws_, he argues that governments dedicated to liberty ought to legislate sexual morals according to the standards of natural laws and rights.that montesquieu is a natural law and natural rights thinker is itself a debated claim. chapter two argues that montesquieu appeals to a non-perfectionist, justice based, liberty oriented, natural law and natural rights theory. on the subject of his sexual morals, his essential view is that sexual behavior should be reserved for marriage between one man and one woman, and that sexual practices outside of marriage are violations of natural laws, rights, and the political and civil needs of free societies.in order to understand how he legislates sexual morals, one must first answer which of the three government forms most conforms to the requirements of natural laws and rights. chapter three establishes that monarchy is that form by appealing to his teaching that the condition, moral character, and liberty of women in a given society are key indicators of the degree of liberty and morality generally practiced there. monarchy is the most hospitable to the female's nature, natural laws and rights. chapter four studies how the civil laws of montesquieu's monarchy regulate marriage and procreation, divorce, adultery, homosexuality, polygamy, and modesty, and shows that his laws do regulate sexual behavior according to the requirements of his natural law, natural rights sexual morality. the final chapter assesses the relative merits of montesquieu's position by comparing his recommendations to those of the contemporary liberal theorist, richard posner, who also aims to show how the laws can regulate sexual behavior, but from a morally neutral standpoint. montesquieu's position is internally more coherent, persuasive, and desirable for thinking about how the laws of a government dedicated to liberty ought to regulate sexual behavior. improving our current refrigeration systems is important from an energy standpoint as well as from an environmental standpoint. one method of improving our refrigeration systems is developing new working fluids that reduce the energy required for operation, and have less of an environmental impact. one of the possible types of working fluids that displays a great deal of potential is a mixture involving co2 (the refrigerant) and an ionic liquid (the co-fluid). the ionic liquid co-fluid greatly reduces the pressure that would be required if co2 alone was used. to identify appropriate ionic liquids, two important aspects are the properties of ionic liquid / co2 mixtures and the potential environmental impact of the ionic liquid / co2 co-fluid refrigeration system over its entire life cycle. in this work properties of various ionic liquids are modeled using the saft equation of state. this modeling has been done for both pure component and co2 solubility and it shows the effects of impact of the association term for these compounds in regards to the goodness of fit. furthermore properties of untested ionic liquids are predicted using the same model. synthesis routes are also predicted for the synthesis of both 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide and trihexyl(tetradecyl)phosphonium 1,2,3-triazolide. from these synthesis routes, and from an estimation of the refrigeration systems theoretical efficiencies, environmental impacts can be determined and analyzed. the study of root systems attached to groupoids that resemble coxeter groups has seen many recent developments. we take the notion of signed groupoid set, introduced by dyer to abstract primitive features of such groupoids with root systems, as our general framework.the main purpose of this thesis is to discuss realizations of root systems of signed groupoid sets in real vector spaces. inversion sets and the weak and dominance preorders play a major role, and we discuss realizations in relation to these notions. compressed signed groupoid sets, for which the dominance preorder is a partial order, are particularly important and we give a construction attaching a compressed realized signed groupoid set to an uncompressed one under certain hypotheses. in some cases, we establish a correspondence between the inversion sets and hyperplanes that separate the roots of a realization of a compressed signed groupoid set. we then focus on the groupoids defined by brink and howlett in their study of normalizers of parabolic subgroups of coxeter groups. the strongest results we obtain hold when the coxeter group is finite, in which case we give an isomorphism between a realization of the universal covering of the corresponding signed groupoid set and a realized signed groupoid set arising from a simplicial hyperplane arrangement. the advancement of the field of liturgical studies as a venue for contemporary critical historical and theological discourse depends upon liturgical scholars who effectively utilize gender in their method of analysis. presently, in liturgical studies, the voices and witnesses of women are often marginalized or completely absent from the recounting of a liturgical-historical narrative. this dissertation, titled ''there were also many women there': roman catholic lay women in the american liturgical movement,' re-examines the narrative of the liturgical movement by focusing on this complex era of liturgical reform and the practical, spiritual, and intellectual engagement of lay, non-religious women with liturgical worship within the mid-twentieth century american roman catholic church. a study of this nature offers a fresh perspective by recovering the integral role which lay women played in the development of liturgical life, including social action, education, worship practice, and familial activity. this historical survey begins with the origins of the liturgical movement in nineteenth century europe and european women's involvement (chapter 1), before describing the unique social context of american women who entered the liturgical movement in the twentieth century (chapter 2). detailing the advance of the catholic intellectual movement and radical catholic social movements (chapter 3); and the importance of an integrated lifestyle which sought to combine liturgy with life and labor (chapter 4); leads to the final social frontier of the liturgical movement, the catholic family and home life (chapter 5). throughout, use of primary sources reveals the integral nature of american women's work within the mainstream of the liturgical movement, contributing a valuable new social history to the field of modern liturgical studies. this dissertation contains the results from three related projects, each within the fields of algorithmic randomness and probability theory. the first project we undertake, which can be found in chapter 2, contains the definition a natural, computable borel probability measure on the space of borel probability measures over 2ω that allows us to study algorithmically random measures. the main results here are as follows. every (algorithmically) random measure is atomless yet mutually singular with respect to the lebesgue measure. the random reals of a random measure are random for the lebesgue measure, and every random real for the lebesgue measure is random for some random measure. however, for a fixed lebesgue-random real, the set of random measures for which that real is random is small. relatively random measures, though mutually singular, always share a random real that is in fact computable from the join of the measures. random measures fail kolmogorov's 0-1 law. the shift of a random real for a random measure is no longer random for that measure. in our second project, which makes up chapter 3, we study algorithmically random closed subsets of 2ω , algorithmically random continuous functions from 2ω to 2ω , and the algorithmically random borel probability measures on 2ω from chapter 2, especially the interplay among these three classes of objects. our main tools are preservation of randomness and its converse, the "no randomness ex nihilo principle," which together say that given an almost-everywhere defined computable map from 2ω to itself, a real is martin lo¨f random for the pushforward measure if and only if its preimage is random with respect to the measure on the domain. these tools allow us to prove new facts, some of which answer previously open questions, and reprove some known results more simply. the main results of chapter 3 are the following. we answer an open question in [3] by showing that x ⊆ 2ω is a random closed set if and only if it is the set of zeros of a random continuous function on 2ω . as a corollary, we obtain the result that the collection of random continuous functions on 2ω is not closed under composition. we construct a computable measure q on the space of measures on 2ω such that x ⊆ 2ω is a random closed set if and only if x is the support of a q-random measure. we also establish a correspondence between random closed sets and the random measures studied in chapter 2. lastly, we study the ranges of random continuous functions, showing that the lebesgue measure of the range of a random continuous function is always strictly between 0 and 1. in chapter 4 we effectivize a theorem of erd¨os and r´enyi [11], which says that for c ≥ 1, if a fair coin is used to generate a length-n string of 1's and −1's, which are interpreted as gain and loss, then the maximal average gain over lc log nj-length substrings converges almost surely (in n ) to the same limit α(c). we show that if the 1's and −1's are determined by the bits of a martin lo¨f random, then the convergence holds. this dissertation explores the phenomenon of grief in a postmodern context. after a year of fieldwork and interviews with members of support groups in a medium-sized midwestern city, the author explores the meanings of death in an american cultural and political context. the thought of theodor adorno, jean baudrillard, paul ricouer, jacques derrida, and other postmodern theorists is used to frame the meanings surrounding bereavement. examining individualand group-level data, the author explores class, gender, race, and religious dynamics in the construction of meanings of death. at the individual level, social psychological phenomena including ambivalence, limit experiences, and emotional work are discussed. at the group-level, the author discusses the interplay of communitas and diff rance as well as the norms of sincerity and authenticity in support groups. the author also suggests a call for renewal in sociology's methodological enterprise with a reading of feminist methods and the ethics of the phenomenologist emmanuel l vinas. understanding of future climate variability and climate change impacts on regional hydrologic systems is imperative to support sustainable and resilient adaptation strategies in water resources planning and management and many other disciplines. the overarching objective of this dissertation is to develop a comprehensive framework for analyzing regional-scale climate change impacts and quantifying non-stationary risk of hydrologic extremes over the midwest and great lakes region under a changing environment. chapter 1 provides an introduction, background information, research foundation, and specific goals of this dissertation. chapter 2 produces high-spatio-temporal resolution hydrometeorological variables over the midwest and great lakes region by downscaling global climate model simulations based on a statistical downscaling method called hybrid delta. the results show that future impacts for seasonal mean and extreme climate are substantial over this region. the study in chapter 3 analyzes hydrologic impacts based on physically-based hydrologic simulations coupled with historical and downscaled future climate projections for the 2020s, 2050s, and 2080s, especially focusing on the changes in intensity, timing, and frequency of hydrologic extremes in 20 large watersheds throughout the region. to better address statistical problems associated with the changing behavior of hydrologic extremes over time, chapter 4 introduces a new risk-based framework for analyzing non-stationary statistics of hydrologic extremes. a case study demonstrates that this new framework can be used to quantify risk of failure of existing infrastructure or develop robust design standards for new hydrologic infrastructure by explicitly accounting for design lifespan and gradual changes in climate. chapter 5 focuses on an intercomparison between statistical and dynamical downscaling approaches, especially focusing on extreme high temperatures and summer extreme precipitation events associated with small-scale convective storms. the results showed that the raw simulations of 25-yr summer extremes from rcms are fairly biased in some cases; however, they may still provide more useful information on change in small-scale dynamics than statistical downscaling because the rcms are more physically based. for example, the rcms can successfully account for complex decoupling effects between summer averages and summer extremes (longer droughts, but more intense p from individual storms) over the midwest and great lakes region. lastly, chapter 6 concludes the dissertation by giving a summary of key findings and arguments as well as suggestions for future research. rapidly deployable gap-crossing technologies composed of lightweight latticed modules arranged longitudinally to form a girder-type bridge (i.e. callender-hamilton, bailey, medium girder, acrow, and mabey-johnson systems) are effective short-term solutions to increasingly common natural and anthropogenic disaster-induced infrastructure collapse. however, their spans cannot exceed 210 ft, making them ineffective at addressing long-term recovery in regions isolated by larger gaps and creating an urgent need for ``transitional bridging" (a methodology that adapts deployable bridge components to longer-span solutions). this thesis provides a proof of concept for transitional bridges. first, three efficient forms for an approximately 300 ft span transitional bridge structure are determined. finite element models of these forms are then analyzed under current american association of state highway and transportation officials (aashto) criteria. an impact analysis comparing transitional forms to both a steel and concrete girder bridge of comparable length is completed, supporting the claim that transitional forms compare well to conventional construction practices. kidney disease is among the most common disorders in the united states as 37 million americans suffer from chronic kidney disease (ckd). unfortunately, current treatments for kidney diseases are lacking and those that do exist, transplantation and dialysis, are either very limited in availability or not suitable for long-term quality of life. additionally, over 20% of birth defects are congenital anomalies of the kidney and urinary tract (cakut) making it the most common condition in neonates. a better understanding of kidney development and disease is necessary to improve the lives of those suffering from renal ailments. one tool that can be used to gain a better understanding of the molecular events resulting in kidney development and disease is the embryonic zebrafish. the zebrafish pronephros, or embryonic kidney provides a simple yet conserved nephron structure that allows for rapid results while conducting genetic studies. the numerous benefits of the zebrafish allow for high throughput screens to identify novel roles and interactions among molecular pathways. here, we performed a chemical genetic screen that identified peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator 1 alpha (ppargc1a, or pgc-1a) as a novel regulator of kidney ontogeny. multiple models of ppargc1a deficiency including mutants and morpholino injected zebrafish models were used to interrogate the molecular pathways involved in nephron segmentation. we discovered unique interactions where ppargc1a acts upstream of tbx2b to properly form the distal late tubule domain. also, data suggests a rare reciprocal antagonistic role between ppargc1a and sim1a to negotiate proximal straight tubule development. further, loss of ppargc1a results in phenotypes associated with ciliopathies including polycystic kidney disease (pkd). investigations found ppargc1a is necessary for proper multiciliated cell (mcc) development and ciliogenesis throughout the zebrafish. interestingly, a novel interaction between ppargc1a and the prostaglandin pathway component cox-1 (ptgs1) was identified as evidence supports the hypothesis that ppargc1a regulates prostaglandin e2 levels via ptgs1 in order to properly develop mccs and cilia outgrowth in the pronephros. in an attempt to ascertain upstream regulators of ppargc1a we cross referenced known pkd causing genes with literature suggesting relationships with ppargc1a. the transcription factor hepatocyte nuclear factor-1 homeobox β had been shown to regulate renal mitochondria via ppargc1a in human and mice. interestingly, zebrafish lacking hnf1ba present with similar phenotypes as ppargc1a deficient samples. because of this, we investigated the relationship further and found a drastic decrease in ppargc1a expression in hnf1ba mutants and ppargc1a overexpression is able to partially rescue the number mccs in the zebrafish pronephros. by gaining a better understanding of the molecular interactions resulting in disease states such as pkd we can continue to develop approaches to treat or perhaps cure underlying genetic issues that result in decreased quality of life among patients. we study asymptotic behaviors of positive solutions to the yamabe equation near isolated singularities and establish expansions up to arbitrary orders. such results generalize an earlier pioneering work by caffarelli, gidas, and spruck, and a work by korevaar, mazzeo, pacard, and schoen. then, we study the existence of solutions with prescribed asymptotic expansions near singular points and an arbitrarily high order of approximation. this study is aimed at numerically predicting the noise of rotor ingesting a thick turbulent boundary layer at the tail end of an axisymmetric body of revolution (bor) and elucidating the noise source mechanisms. the bor consists of an ellipsoidal nose, a cylindrical centerbody and a tail cone with a half-apex angle of 20 degrees, and is at reynolds number of 1.9 million based on its length. a large-eddy simulation (les) methodology that involves wall-modeling in the nose and centerbody sections of the bor but is wall-resolved in the tail-cone section is employed to compute the turbulent flow field. this approach is validated by comparisons of velocity statistics with the experimental data from virginia tech (hickling et al., aiaa-2019-2571) and the results from a wall-resolved les in a bor flow without a rotor. the evolution of flow statistics and structures in the tail-cone boundary layer is analyzed in detail. the two-point correlations of velocity fluctuations and the pressure fluctuations on the tail-cone surface demonstrate significant growth of length scales in the downstream direction as the boundary layer thickens under strong adverse pressure gradient.a hybrid computational approach combining the partially wall-modeled les with the ffowcs williams-hawkings equation is employed to investigate the noise generation from a five-bladed rotor operating at the tail end of the bor. two rotor advance ratios, 1.44 and 1.13, are considered. the computed sound pressure spectra exhibit reasonable agreement with the experimental measurements of hickling et al. (aiaa-2019-2571) at free-stream mach number of 0.059 over a wide range of frequencies. the spectra show broadband noise with haystacking peaks. consistent with experimental results, the frequencies of the haystacking peaks are blue-shifted by 8-12% from the blade passing frequency and its first three harmonics, and stronger sound is produced as the advance ratio decreases. a mixed mach number scaling for the ingestion noise is identified, which successfully collapses the sound pressure spectra for the two advance ratios. an examination of acoustic dipole-source distributions on rotor blades reveals that the leading-edge region is acoustically more important at low frequencies, whereas the trailing-edge region become dominant at high frequencies. large correlations are found between sectional dipole sources on neighboring blades, and the corresponding blade-to-blade coherence is significant at the frequencies of haystacking peaks and valleys between these peaks. the blade-to-blade correlations and coherence are related to successive blades cutting through the same coherent turbulence structure and are the source of haystacking acoustic peaks. the accuracy of the sears theory for predicting the rotor noise is evaluated using the upwash velocity field from the les. the sears theory accurately predicts the haystacking peaks in the sound pressure spectra, but the accuracy deteriorates at higher frequencies. the first part of this dissertation introduces a statistical mechanics based formalism to model real-world social networks, while the second, more exploratory part describes application of the network-based description of complex systems in biology where we use boolean networks to model molecular pathway controlling mammal vertebra formation. although large-scale social networks have a random appearance when naively represented by simple layout/drawing methods, a more careful, statistical analysis of their graph theoretical properties reveals features that are inherent in the formation and evolution of these networks due to human social behavior. in particular, social networks have the empirically observed property of assortativity by degree: a given individual is more likely to be connected to another individual with a similar number of contacts than expected by a uniformly random distribution of the connections. here we present a dynamic agent-based model of social network evolution that offers an explanation of the observed positive degree assortativity in social networks in terms of a simple mechanism of preference for reciprocity in communication flows: agents drop relationships in which they invest more than their partners and attempt to search and keep relationships in which they invest as much or less. the model rules are built using the jaynes' maximum entropy principle of statistical mechanics, and the networks are evolved using a standard monte-carlo simulation with metropolis rates. the simulated network properties are compared with those obtained from real cell-phone trace logs (from a non-us based company) among approximately 7 million users over a period of 65 days. interestingly, not only the assortativity values of the model networks are found to closely match those of the empirical data network, but also many other graph theoretical measures, implying that reciprocity is a major behavioral determinant of social networks. methods of network theory also have important implications in biology, in the second part of the thesis we develop the boolean network approach to study somite formation. the development of an embryo requires precise spatial and temporal control. during somite formation, the periodic expression of the cyclic genes of the notch pathway matches the regular formation of somites. it is believed that transcriptional and translational delays drive the oscillatory behavior of the cyclic genes (hes1/7, lfng, mesp2 and dll) during somite formation. we hypothesize that the delays do not cause the cyclic expression of hes1/7, lfng, mesp2 and dll in the notch pathway, but rather, the interaction map of notch pathway components drives the oscillations during somitogenesis. to investigate this, we construct and analyze two qualitative and logical-based network models, with and without delays, to study the cyclic oscillation of the hes1/7, lfng, mesp2 and dll during somitogenesis. our analysis shows that the notch pathway interaction map could alone determine cyclic expressions on hes 1/7, l-fng, mesp2 and dll. we have also shown that the presence of the delays coordinates the timing of the molecular interactions making them robust. in other words, we have shown that the structure of the network intrinsically determines oscillations but presence of delays stabilizes this behavior in the notch pathway during somitogenesis. quantum-dot cellular automata (qca) is a novel nanotechnology with great potential for very dense memory and low power logic. this work presents the h-memory architecture, a memory architecture that exploits the characteristics of qca and results in order of magnitude density gains over end of the roadmap sram and dram. two enhancements to the basic architecture are also presented, including a complete merging of processor and memory. finally, a novel clocking wire layout is presented and its effect on architecture discussed. every year we see a growing use of iris recognition, with it now utilized as a means of border control in a number of countries, including the united kingdom, canada, and the united arab emirates. as this technology becomes more common and more relied upon, the importance of algorithms that can identify subjects in a robust, consistent, and accurate manner becomes all-important. working with a collection of over 20,000 iris images captured in 2008, we determine optimal parameters for different elements of the texture encoding process. additional work was done to improve the segmentation process, both to handle the introduction of images captured with the lg 4000 and to improve iris segmentation and eyelid masking. furthermore, we study the relative biometric performance of images captured with the lg 2200 based on which of three illuminants were used to light the eye in each image, and determine the sameand cross-sensor performance of the lg 2200 compared with the lg 4000. discussions of the foundations of evolutionary theory -especially natural selection, fitness, and genetic drift -are saturated with terms referring to various kinds of chance, stochasticity, randomness, unpredictability, and so forth. this dissertation examines these uses of chance in philosophical and historical perspective. i begin by arguing that, both in the contemporary and historical arenas, the current state of the literature on chance is deeply troubling. work in the philosophy of biology (i) often conflates various clearly distinct notions of chance, and (ii) often approaches the analysis of chance from the perspective of a debate (on the causal potency of natural selection and genetic drift) that does not in fact profitably engage evolutionary theory. historically, as well, the most common way of analyzing the development of the use of chance in evolutionary theory does not engage the actual research of historical actors, a point i make by exploring the work of karl pearson and w.f.r. weldon at the turn of the twentieth century. i thus propose a new guiding question for research into the role of chance in evolutionary theory: what is the relationship between our statistical biological theories and the processes in the world those theories aim to describe? i then offer a novel framework for determining the answer to this question, derived from a deeply biologically-informed understanding of fitness, selection, and drift. this view combines core insights from work in philosophy on the propensity interpretation of fitness with cutting-edge biological treatments of population modeling. chance enters this model at only a single point -the distribution over the various possible lives that an organism might live -and this single source can explain the influence of chance throughout fitness, natural selection, and genetic drift. this framework, i claim, constitutes a fruitful way to understand both the foundations of evolutionary theory and the role of chance in those foundations. in my dissertation, entitled breaking-up is hard to do: secession and state formation (1815-2010), i ask: why are some secessionist movements that fight for statehood are recognized as states while others are not? there are two prevalent explanations for this phenomenon. one takes a domestic perspective, arguing that successful secessions are determined by specific domestic factors inherent to the secessionist movement; geography, population, party systems, and economic prosperity. the second explanation argues from an international perspective, claiming that statehood is a product of external recognition that is determined by international relationships and not domestic conditions. in addition, this perspective views politically motivated self-interest by existing major powers in the international system as driving the recognition of seceding territories. i argue that these prevalent explanations do not account for normative factors associated with democracy and material factors associated with great power involvement. to test my argument, i utilize a mixed-methods approach consisting of quantitative and qualitative components. the quantitative component uses a large-n dataset consisting of secessionist conflicts that occurred from 1815-2010. the data comes from a variety of sources, which are listed in the appendix of my dissertation, but the majority of the data was collected from two sources; the minorities at risk data project and the correlates of war data project. the qualitative component consists of case-studies from the break-up of yugoslavia. these cases are selected to account for how (or if) norms diffuse in the international system over time. selecting cases that are similar except for the variables of interest (norms of self-determination and liberal democracy, strength of secessionist movement, and proximity to major powers or contiguous rivals) allows me to explain in detail the causal mechanism that leads violent secessionist movements to become recognized as new states in the international system. cd93 is emerging as a novel regulator of inflammation. cd93 was identified and cloned based on its ability to modulate c1q-triggered enhanced phagocytosis. however, both cd93 and another putative c1q receptor, lrp, were not required for the c1q-triggered enhancement of phagocytosis; therefore, the c1q receptor and the molecular function of cd93 remained elusive. cd93 belongs to the group xiv family of transmembrane glycoproteins, implicated in regulating inflammation and innate immunity. the molecular structure and expression profile of cd93 suggest a role in adhesion and inflammation. cd93 exists as a membrane bound and truncated soluble form (scd93), however the bioactive form of cd93 is unknown. interestingly, cd93-/mice have a defect in clearance of apoptotic cells, a phenotype associated with dysregulated inflammation; therefore, an investigation was undertaken that tested the hypothesis that cd93 regulated inflammation. cd93 was shed from murine inflammatory macrophages, and scd93 was elevated with inflammation in vivo suggesting that cd93 may be a biomarker for inflammation. in addition, inflammatory peritoneal lavage fluid from cd93-/mice failed to enhance the engulfment of apoptotic cells as efficiently as wildtype fluid. these data suggested that the inflammatory microenvironment in the peritoneum of cd93-deficient mice was altered compared to wildtype controls. in support of these observations, cd93-/mice had a proinflammatory phenotype; cd93-/mice had 1.6 to 1.8 times more leukocytes in the peritoneum between 3 and 24 hours post injection of thioglycollate compared to wildtype controls. increased leukocyte recruitment was accompanied by changes in vascular integrity and dysregulated c1q hemolytic activity. scd93 was elevated with inflammation when cd93 was expressed on non-hematopoietic cells, however low/undetectable levels of scd93 were found when cd93 was expressed exclusively on hematopoietic cells in bone marrow chimeric mice. expression of cd93 on either hematopoietic or non-hematopoietic cells restored leukocyte recruitment and c1q hemolytic activity to wildtype levels, suggesting the cell-associated form was required to regulate inflammation. in conclusion, these data demonstrate that cell-associated cd93 is required for normal leukocyte recruitment and c1q hemolytic activity during peritonitis, and support the hypothesis that cd93 is required for the regulation of acute inflammation and innate immunity. this thesis consists of the work towards two books of poetry. though triple helices were deduced to form in a test tube over sixty years ago, the function of triple helices in nature is only beginning to be appreciated. my graduate work focused on pyrimidine-motif triple helices, whereby a pyrimidine-rich third strand binds in the parallel orientation along the purine-rich strand in the major groove of a double helix. herein, i explored two questions about triple helices: (i) which base triples stabilize rna•dna-dna triple helices? and (ii) how does a protein recognize an rna triple helix?noncoding rnas are hypothesized to bind to genomic dna, forming an rna•dna-dna triple helix, to regulate gene expression. however, beyond the canonical u•a-t and c•g-c base triples, the stability of base triples that compose rna•dna-dna triple helices is unknown. therefore, i designed a 22-base triple u•a-t-rich rna•dna-dna triple helix to systematically determine the stability of the triple helix when a single central base triple, z•x-y (where z = c, u, a, g, and x-y = a-t, g-c, t-a, c-g), is varied, using an electrophoretic mobility shift assay to examine the binding between the rna and double-stranded dna. results indicate that the canonical u•a-t and c•g-c base triples are among the most stable, seven non-canonical base triples have stabilities within two-fold of the canonical u•a-t base triple, and multiple consecutive non-canonical base triples completely disrupted the formation of the rna•dna-dna triple helix. additionally, an rna shorter than 19-nucleotides disrupts triple helix formation, though longer triple helices did not lead to tighter binding. further examination of the rna•dna-dna triple helix revealed that natural rna modifications either have no observable effect or destabilize the triple helix. these studies have led to a better understanding of rna•dna-dna base triples that may form in nature. to understand how a protein interacts with a triple-stranded rna, i utilized the methyltransferase-like protein 16 (mettl16), which binds to the triple helix from the metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (malat1) long noncoding rna. using a variety of biochemical assays, i show that the c-g doublet that interrupts the triple helix and its location within the triple helix is necessary for binding to mettl16, though the identity of the doublet can be any of the four watson-crick base pairs. further, both the nand c-terminal domains of mettl16 bind to the malat1 triple helix, with the c-terminal domain providing the specificity for the c-g doublet while the n-terminal interacts with structural features below the triple helix. overall, this work has increased our knowledge of base triples that stabilize triple helices and of protein-triple helix interactions the agent-based computing paradigm has flourished in the past few decades. as its popularity has grown, there has been a corresponding growth of agent systems that support the design, development, and operation of applications that incorporate agents. this work derives a set of features desirable to an agent designer, both from a broad set of applications and from existing systems. the ages system is then described, highlighting the functionality it provides that is not found in other systems. in addition, a synopsis of an implementation of ages and projects that currently rely on it is given. genome structure is the order and orientation of pieces of dna comprising a genome, which contains the information of life. with advances in dna sequencing technology and now massive availability of sequence data, the study of genome structure cannot be easily carried out without efficient and expressly designed algorithms. in this dissertation, we study three genome structure-related problems: structural error correction of draft genome assemblies, inversion prediction, and predicting operons. our work with draft genome assemblies explores a novel maximum alternating path cover (mapc) model to improve genome correctness and downstream analysis. our work on inversion prediction aims to predict and catalog inversions by exploring the well-known range maximum query model and max-cut model for what we call ``global'' inversions, and the novel rectangle clustering model and representative rectangle prediction model for more localized inversions. for operon prediction, we again apply the mapc model (with improved algorithms and theoretical analysis), coupled with a novel intro-column exclusive clustering model, to predict and catalog operons in closely related species. evaluated using both simulated and real genome data, our algorithms and implementations have shown substantial promise for accurate computational analysis of genome structure in significantly shorter time. an energetic approach for analysis of the impact problem in two and three dimensional multi-legged robot locomotion is hereby presented. the equations of motion for impact are developed for the two and three dimensional cases. the two dimensional case yields algebraic expressions. the expressions obtained in the three dimensional have to be numerically integrated. however, a special mathematical artifice is needed to proceed with the integration when slip in the impacting end halts. the equations for impact are developed in terms commonly known to the robotics community. the first part of the approach resembles traditional impact analysis. here, it can be determined if slip in the end effector halts and remains halted before impact termination, a condition known as {em sticking}. achieving sticking depends upon the coefficient of friction between the ground and the end effector, as well as the impact configuration the most important contribution of this thesis is in going beyond the traditional way of analyzing impact by looking at the problem in an energetic framework where rigid and deformable body approaches naturally come together. formerly, impact analysis methods always predict rebound for a {em coefficient of restitution} greater than zero. the proposed hybrid approach can predict both rebound and non-rebound for a coefficient of restitution greater than zero. currently, the robotics community makes the {em ad-hoc} assumption that the coefficient of restitution equals zero to simulate impact in walking robots. this assumption may incorrectly predict non-rebound when the impact energy goes beyond what the system can safely store or dissipate. this thesis presents a novel method for analyzing impact for legged robots as well as any other rigid body. here the energetic definition cite{stronge} of the coefficient of restitution is primarily used but other may be used as well. this analysis will help determine if the level of compliance in the system at a given configuration is adequate to insure a no-slip, no-rebound impact. this thesis utilizes the works of gaius licinius mucianus and pausanias to demonstrate the presence of travelers who traveled for purposes of intellectual curiosity, escapism, and nostalgia. we describe a class of real banach manifolds, which classify $k^{-1}$. these manifolds are grassmannians of (hermitian) lagrangian subspaces in a complex hilbert space. certain finite codimensional real subvarieties described by incidence relations define geometric representatives for the generators of the cohomology rings of these classifying spaces. any family of self-adjoint, fredholm operators parametrized by a closed manifold comes with a map to one of these spaces. we use these schubert varieties to describe the poincare duals of the pull-backs to the parameter space of the cohomology ring generators. the class corresponding to the first generator is the spectral flow. one of the key proteins involve in clot lysis in vertebrate organisms is plasminogen (glu1-pg). it is the circulating zymogen of the serine protease plasmin (pm). generation of the active enzyme requires cleavage of the arg561-val562 bond and proteolytic removal of the 77-residue, n-terminal activation peptide (ap). binding of lys and lys-analogs by pg/pm is mediated by kringle domains (k), and they determine the interaction of pg/pm with substrates, receptors, activators and inhibitors. activation rate of pg is highly dependent on its conformation and it has been shown that the zymogen can assume at least two major conformational states; closed and open. the former is resistant to activation and is detected in the presence of cl-, and the latter is more easily activated and is observed in the presence of lys and lys analogs, such as 6-amino hexanoic acid (6aha). pg lacking the ap (lys78-pg) exists in the open conformation, suggesting that intramolecular interactions between the ap and the kringle domains of glu1-pg induce the closed form of the zymogen. to assess the contributions of specific domains on the maintenance of the closed form, we have generated a panel of recombinant pg truncation mutants, which include apk1-3 (residues 1-338 of pg), apk1-4 (residues 1-438 of pg) and apk1-5 (residues 1-543 of pg). variants of apk1-5 carrying single point mutations in every lys residue of the ap have also been generated. analytical ultracentrifugation, differential scanning calorimetry and circular dichroism, have been used to evaluate the hydrodynamic properties, conformational stability and secondary structure alterations of the generated constructs in the presence of clor 6aha. our results suggest a critical, but not exclusive, role for kringle 5 and lys residues 50 and 62 of the ap in the stabilization of the closed conformation of glu1-pg. lys to ala mutations in residues 50 and 62 of the ap appear to have destabilizing effects in the apk1-5 construct. direct interaction of ap and isolated kringles was demonstrated and the binding of the ap to glu1-pg induces an enhancement in the activation rate of the zymogen. moreover, the interactions of pg with pam (pg-binding group a streptococcal m-like protein) and its pg binding motif (vek30) were characterized. here, we demonstrate the existence of a partly-open conformational state of pg when bound to pam or vek30. this novel state of pg can be more effectively activated by pg activator such as urokinase and streptokinase. ab initio calculations face the challenge of describing a complex multiscale quantum many-body system. the nuclear wave function has both strong short-range correlations and long-range contributions. natural orbitals provide a means of adapting the single-particle basis for ab initio no-core configuration interaction (ncci) calculations to better match the many-body wave function. natural orbitals are obtained by diagonalizing the one-body density matrix from a calculation using an initial single-particle reference basis, such as the traditional harmonic oscillator basis. the natural orbital basis builds in contributions from high-lying oscillator shells, thus accelerating convergence of wave functions, energies, and other observables.the convergence of the ground and excited state energies, radii, and electromagnetic observables of he, li, and be isotopes calculated using natural orbitals in ab initio ncci calculations is discussed. it is found that electromagnetic observables involving the m1 operator fully converge, while the calculated energies, radii, and observables involving the e2 operator converge significantly faster with the natural orbital basis than with the harmonic oscillator basis. the use of infrared (ir) extrapolation schemes with the natural orbitals calculations is also explored. in recent decades, molecular simulation has become an increasing popular tool and field for study in chemical engineering. simulation has made it possible to tackle problems which otherwise could not be addressed by experimentation due to barriers like a difficulty measuring specific properties, a difficulty safely experimenting, or a difficulty conducting enough experiments to fully explore a material class. however, there are a number of drawbacks which hamstring the proliferation of molecular simulation. the accessibility of molecular simulation for new users is poor, with advanced knowledge of statistic mechanics required for success. logistically, popular molecular simulation codes require users to develop their own complex multi-step workflow. additionally, the capability of molecular simulation, while ever expanding, can still be improved. popular classical molecular simulation techniques like metropolis monte carlo still struggle with common systems, such as the phase equilibria of dense fluids.this work addresses the accessibility and capability of the open source monte carlo code cassandra. through collaboration with the scienomics company, a cassandra plugin was added to their commercial materials and process simulation (maps) software. maps provides a graphical user interface platform for users to conduct their entire simulation workflow cradle-to-grave, including visual system construction, force-field selection/application, simulation code selection. job manager, and post-analysis toolset. it is hoped that this plugin will lower the high barrier to entry for cassandra for new users, as well as expose cassandra to existing maps enterprise customers. this work also demonstrates the improvement of the capability of monte carlo by introducing the identity switch move. this move is a compound molecular swap move which may ameliorate sampling issues in dense systems and is explored in detail. a derivation is provided for the acceptance criterion of this move, which is implemented in the cassandra v1.3 release. a manuscript of poetry. computer simulation of metal deformation processes has become an essential part of process planning and tooling procurement. however, current computational approaches are known to be lacking in their treatment of friction and heat transfer. most commonly, friction and heat transfer are restricted to constant values; a situation that does not accurately reflect real metal forming operations. metal forging exemplifies a dynamic process where the surfaces roughness can increase or decrease with respect to time and location and the lubricant film can vary by an order of magnitude or more for a single, moderately sized part. the current representations of constant friction and heat transfer coefficients is a serious shortcoming of modern finite element codes and leads directly to their limited capability to serve as a predictive design tool. a new scheme for a friction and heat transfer module has been developed. this model accounts for the changing nature of roughness and lubrication to predict local friction and heat transfer coefficients for a metal/tool interface. the lubricant film thickness is analyzed through the reynolds equation; heat transfer coefficients are obtained from a new model specifically derived for metal forming geometries and surfaces are allowed to roughen according to semi-empirical rules. the approach is implemented in a commercial code (deform2d) through a user routine. initial evaluations are based on forging examples. the thesis is a collection of poems that explore the effects of wartime service on personal and political relationships. the style and form can loosely be described as an obscene post-modern surrealist verse play. i am drawing on the affective qualities of jean genet's wounding theater in order to produce negative and disturbing affects in the reader. the themes and content are drawn from autobiographical material, dream sequences, and existing texts such as zelda fitzgerald's correspondance with f. scott fitzgerald. biotin/(strept)avidin binding is a remarkable molecular recognition process in nature with extraordinary high binding affinity (ka ~ 10^15 m-1). biotin/(strep)avidin selfassembly is a powerful platform for nanoscale fabrications with many different applications in science, medicine, and nanotechnology. however, there are several well recognized structural drawbacks of biotin/(strept)avidin self-assembly that limit performance in certain technical areas, and there is a great need for synthetic mimics that can either become superior replacement or operational partners with bio-orthogonal recognition properties. our group is pursuing a synthetic mimic approach, called synthavidin technology, that is based on high affinity binding of tetralactam macrocycle and squaraine dye in water. this thesis presents different ways to manipulate the underlying molecular recognition process that produces this high affinity binding pair. a set of structurally related compounds was prepared and studied to reveal the factors that control the binding thermodynamics and kinetics. also presented are synthetic methods to fine tune the photophysical properties using tetralactam macrocycle recognition in water while keeping the high affinity. as a new molecular recognition platform with high affinity in water, three practical applications of synthavidin technology are demonstrated. the first part demonstrates the concept of in situ capture for detection of neuraminidase, an indicator enzyme of flu infection. the second part uses the high affinity and rapid association between squaraine and tetralactam macrocycle for noncovalent functionalization of liposome surface. part three illustrates the concept of pre-assembly and its application in fabricating fluorescent molecular probes for tumor targeting. in this dissertation i make three different claims concerning the role that symmetries and conservation laws played in particle physics in the 1950s and the 1960s, during the early history of the discipline. first, i provide a historical contribution outlining the main developments that took place in particle physics during these two decades. secondly, i make a technical point about the manner in which symmetries and conservation laws relate to each other in different physical theories. finally, i make a philosophical point, which concerns the ways in which scientists decide what theories deserve to be developed further, and what research programs ought to be abandoned.the main historical contribution in the dissertation comes in chapter 2. the central claim in this chapter is that symmetries and conservation laws played a central role in particle physics during the 1950s and 1960s. although this claim is not controversial, my analysis adds a nuance that is frequently overlooked in the literature. as i show, different authors used symmetries and conservation laws in different ways, giving rise to different research programs. chapters 3 and 4 contain the main technical point in the dissertation. my claim here is that the nature of the relation between symmetries and conservation laws is different in different physical theories. in particular, i provide an account of the differences that obtain between the cases of quantum and classical mechanics, and the reasons why these differences obtain. my claim in these two chapters is that in quantum mechanics, unlike in classical mechanics, noether's theorems are not needed in order to derive a conservation law from a symmetry. as a result of this, the nature of the relation between symmetries and conservation laws is different in the two theories in the following two ways. in classical mechanics, on the one hand, the relation between symmetries and conservation laws is restricted to some theories and some symmetry transformations. in quantum mechanics, on the other hand, no such restrictions obtain. in this case, however, symmetries have further consequences that can be used for practical purposes and have no classical analogue.having argued that symmetries and conservation laws played a crucial role during the early history of particle physics, and that the nature of the connection between symmetries and conservation laws varies from theory to theory, i go on to show how different accounts of the nature of this connection were used to sustain different research programs in particle physics, and to investigate how the particle physics community chose between different options available. i consider, in particular, a historical case-study that concerns two different attempts to use symmetries and conservation laws in order to develop a theory for the strong nuclear interaction. this allows me to support the main philosophical claim in the dissertation, which comes in chapters 5 and 6.this final contribution concerns the manner in which decision-making operates in science. my claim here is that a small number of criteria, which are known in the literature as epistemic values, provide the basis on which scientists make decisions about the evaluation and development of scientific theories. as my case-study on the strong nuclear force illustrates, however, these criteria lend themselves to different interpretations, and this raises the question of what grounds the integrity of scientific decision-making. i conclude by suggesting that we answer this question by turning the social organization of science. this dissertation focuses on the analysis and control of cyber-physical systems (cps) using dissipativity and passivity theory. cyber-physical systems, as a new generation of systems with integrated computational and physical capabilities, present significant challenges in control design and analysis, due to non-traditional modeling, uncertain environment and highly coupled discrete-event and continuous-time dynamics. on the other hand, it is well known that passive and dissipative systems have modeling, compositionality advantages and stability-guaranteed performance, which are desirable requirements in cps design. however, it is not straightforward to apply dissipativity and passivity theory to cps directly in general. the main contribution of this dissertation is to provide systematic and computational methods of passivity analysis and passivation for continuous, networked and hybrid dynamical systems, which provide modeling foundations for cps. these methods are originally developed for classical nonlinear systems. they include passivity analysis and passivation for interconnected systems using passivity indices and a transformation-based passivation scheme for individual systems. later, it is shown that the proposed methods can address the issues in the design of cps, by considering hybrid systems and networked control systems (ncs), respectively. for hybrid systems, the transformation-based passivation scheme provides valuable results on preserving passivity of switched systems under quantization. for networked control systems, the problems of passivity analysis and passivation using passivity indices for interconnected event-triggered feedback systems are investigated. the co-design of passivity levels and event-triggering conditions demonstrates how the trade off between required passivity levels and communication resource utilization can be achieved in ncs. overall, this dissertation provides new approaches to passivity analysis and passivation of cps with the focus being on hybrid systems and networked control systems. numerical simulations and relevant examples are also provided to demonstrate the practical applications of these methods. the mongol invasions of the islamic near east (c.a. 1230-1260) brought profound demographic, political and cultural changes to the region. in anatolia, the sixty years that followed the first mongol invasion (1242/1243) saw the seljuk sultanate of rum, once the unchallenged dominant political power in the region, collapse into a myriad of smaller emirates, the so-called anatolian beyliks. this dissertation studies the formation, expansion, and growth of the early karamanid beylik (c.a. 1256-1340), from a weak warband of nomads into one of the most politically, economically, and culturally significant entities to emerge from the ashes of the seljuks, analyzing the processes through which the mongol invasions forced the ancestors of the karamanids to abandon their homeland for the greener pastures of anatolia. it contends that the systematic destruction of much of the economic and agricultural landscape of anatolia allowed for the emergence of the embryo of the karamanid beylik, originally a band of predatory turkmen warriors under the leadership of karīm al-dīn karaman. in addition, this study brings to light the hitherto ignored role played by local emirs and the foreign powers whose interests collided with that of the karamanids and allowed them to expand the boundaries of their burgeoning emirate. this dissertation concludes with a study of the main political, cultural, and economic challenges faced by the young karamanid beylik in the post-seljuk era (c.a. 1307-1340) this dissertation explores the sources of employment protection legislation. employment protection legislation, or 'epl,' is regulation which restricts the hiring and firing of workers. i build on and expand the existing literature, which has largely focused on cross-national variation by examining why policies change over time. i focus on the domestic sources of these changes. to do so i develop a theory based on changing population dynamics--specifically, the rise of the boundaryless actor--which result in new preferences over employment protection. these preferences are translated through political institutions--operationalized as veto players--to the outcome arrangements of employment protection.i test this theory, along with competing hypotheses from the existing literature, using both quantitative and qualitative research methods. in addition to a quantitative analysis of 22 oecd countries over 23 years, i present case studies of australia and new zealand, utilizing both quantitative and qualitative evidence. there is some evidence supporting the role of boundaryless actors in changing employment protection arrangements. the empirical evidence i present also highlights the role of groups (unions and business associations), veto players, macroeconomic conditions, and legal origins in determining employment protection legislation. surprisingly, i also find a negative and statistically significant correlation between union density and employment protection legislation in the cross-national data. i attempt to further explore and explain this relationship throughout this dissertation, providing several avenues for future research. in the conclusion i summarize the results and present several implications of this dissertation for future research, policy, and various groups who may wish to affect policy outcomes. hmg-coa reductases are four electron oxidoreductases that process three substrates in the same active site. the computational studies performed using theozyme (dft) and qm/mm models show that the thiohemiacetal decomposition reaction, that occurs between the two hydride transfer reactions, has an energy barrier of ~ 7 kcal/mol in presence of cofactor nadh. md simulations performed using a transition state force field (tsff) for this reaction show that two hydrogen bonds of the nicotinamide and ribose moieties of nadh are necessary for maintaining the ts geometry.experimental studies of pmhmgr with different intermediates are challenging because the optimum activity for the reductive reaction occurs at the crystallization ph. ph-jump experiments have been used to obtain time-dependent crystal structures for the oxidative reaction, whose optimum activity is at ph 9. all-atom md simulations were used to probe all possible protonation states of catalytic residues to investigate the variations in the optimum ph for the reductive and oxidative reactions. the favorable protonation states system, in presence of mevaldehyde and nadh, had a positively charged his381, a neutral glu83, and an hie-neutral his385. a photocaged substrate (php-hmg-coa) would also facilitate time-dependent crystallography by restoring the substrate activity after the cleavage of the covalently bound photoprotecting group (php). md simulations performed on select binding poses of the photocaged hmg-coa in pmhmgr, in the presence and absence of the flap domain, show that the proximity of the photocaged substrate to the binding site is maintained in presence of the flap domain. this suggests soaking the pmhmgr crystals in photocaged substrate and cofactor since the flap domain only closes over the active site in presence of both ligands.to crystallize staphylococcus aureus hmgr, its surface residues were mutated guided by the crystal structure of efhmgr. the initial 25 aa mutant was challenging to purify but a single shortened loop mutant was easier to purify and was used in crystallization screening experiments. two other regional mutants were suggested and are currently being investigated in the stauffacher lab at purdue university.stabilized helices have been used to target protein-protein interactions in biomolecular systems. classical md simulations of n-aminated peptides at the evp40 dimeric interface show conservation of helicity in ~4 hydrophobic residues at the center of the stabilized helix.engineering large proteins such as spcas9 in order to add functionality through domain insertions is of great interest albeit a labor-intensive process. rmsf analysis from long timescale (1 μs) all-atom md simulations shows a good correlation to the experimental domain insertion hotspots. this indicates that md simulations can be used to guide protein engineering. this historical/comparative dissertation focuses on three western suburbs of chicago: naperville, west chicago, and wheaton. this study answers three questions: how these communities began with similar features and arrived at very distinct outcomes in terms of population, wealth, prestige, character, and other traits; how suburbs, particularly railroad suburbs, mature over time; and how the interaction between these three towns and other suburbs influence their development. i draw upon three paradigms in urban sociology, the chicago school, the political economy model, and the los angeles school, to answer these questions and develop an approach that emphasizes deep studies of small groups of suburbs due to their unique histories, character, and growth trajectories. this dissertation examines st. thomas aquinas' interpretation and use of st. augustine's theory of the seminal reasons, and the wider use of seed imagery in his writings. the starting point of the inquiry is the observation that in his talk about generation, whether physical or spiritual, aquinas makes considerable use of seed imagery. the dissertation studies that imagery in aquinas, showing his debts to his predecessors and how his use of that imagery corresponds to, while also differing from, its use in his immediate medieval predecessors as well as contemporaries. through this study, one gains a keener sense of the complementarity of aquinas' accounts of nature and grace. seed imagery facilitates aquinas' presentation of the totality of god's plan as emanating from the divine goodness, and the importance of the participation of creatures in creation and the supernatural order of new creation. part one is made up of four chapters, and examines the generative principles of creation. chapter one examines augustine's teachings on the seminal reasons, grace, and miracles in de genesi ad litteram and in de trinitate, book iii. chapter two examines the influence of these texts upon the discussion of the relation of wonders and miracles to the natural order in four works from the early scholastic period. chapters three and four offer aquinas' analysis of the seminal reasons and how miracles and wonders relate to the fullness of god's plan for creation, including the works of grace. part two includes three chapters. chapter five examines the incarnation and how christ is the generative principle of a new creation. chapter six considers grace as the seed of eternal life, which enters into the soul as the principle of the journey of grace. chapter seven applies the conclusions reached in the previous two chapters and presents a vision of the order of creation as perfected by the order of a new creation, with a causal hierarchy that parallels that of creation. a meta-analytic methodology was used to synthesize 29 intervention studies in the area of mathematics conducted from 1977 to 2003 with preschool or kindergarten children. a total of 1845 students were identified as participants in these 29 studies. on average, the mean weighted effect size for the difference between the experimental and control groups was .467. a combination of direct and guided instruction was the most beneficial instructional approach followed by guided instruction. in addition, interventions including controlling task difficulty, additional explanations provided about taught concepts, sequencing activities, and small group games showed larger effect sizes than interventions not including these techniques. the magnitude of mean weighted effect size was lower for skill-specific than for standardized measures of math performance. weighted regression analyses indicated that such variables as the year of publication, sample size, whether a study was published or not, length of treatment, age, type of the control group, type of design, type of population employed, and percentage of attrition did not predict effect size estimates. implications of the findings and future directions in this field are discussed. this dissertation seeks to reconstruct the lectionaries of antioch and constantinople as they existed at the time of john chrysostom. it also relates them to the byzantine lectionary as appearing in the tenth century typicon of the great church. this dissertation describes the design, synthesis, and activity of molecules that interact specifically with vesicle or cellular membranes. the first section describes a series of second generation zn2+ bis dpa coordination complexes that selectively target negatively charged membrane surfaces including those found in apoptotic cells and bacteria. several types of conjugates were constructed including fluorescent versions suitable for microscopy, multivalent receptors designed for increased membrane affinity, and lipophilic derivatives. the synthesis and membrane activity of each is discussed. the second portion of this dissertation describes general strategies for the synthesis of sn-2 functionalized phospholipids from dppc. phospholipases were utilized for selective headgroup and side chain modification of commercially available phospholipids circumventing a de novo synthetic approach. several classes of functionalized phosphatidylcholine derivatives were constructed including bolaamphiphiles which in some cases were found to destabilize membranes and chloride anion transporters that function by a novel relay mechanism. other phospholipid derivatives include phosphatidylserine and phosphatidylethanolamine conjugates that were designed for receptor-mediated delivery of cargo into cells. understanding how pathogens limit host populations is a central question in population ecology. however, disease ecology is still an emerging field with strong theoretical and laboratory work, but little experimentation in natural settings. this dissertation examined how disease affects host population dynamics using a fungal pathogen-grasshopper model system. three main questions were addressed in a series of field experiments: 1) how do host density level and life stage affect host-pathogen interactions? 2) do ants act as mechanical vectors and affect disease dynamics of this host-pathogen system? 3) how do temperature and moisture impact host-environment and pathogen-environment outcomes? manipulative field experiments were conducted in a bunchgrass prairie at the national bison range in western mt from 2010-2013. grasshopper density, grasshopper life stage, ant presence, temperature, and moisture were manipulated in field cages. grasshopper survival time and disease mortality rates were measured as well as temperature, relative humidity, and grass biomass. the experiments show that both biotic and abiotic factors are important in this grasshopper-pathogen system. these factors interact to produce pathogen limitation under some conditions and no pathogen limitation under other conditions. host dynamics was a key biotic factor with pathogen limitation occurring during earlier developmental stages when hosts are most vulnerable to disease and at low host densities when food is abundant. despite increased rates of disease mortality at high densities, a large proportion of disease mortality simply replaced mortality from starvation as intraspecific competition also increased with host density level. while ant scavengers did increase disease mortality rates, the effect on grasshopper survival was minimal due to the ephemeral nature of conidia. moisture supplementation resulted in a three-fold increase in disease mortality rates. warming had both negative and positive effects on the grasshopper host with increased temperatures resulting in decreased disease mortality rates and decreased grass biomass (i.e. food availability). this research indicates that the effects of pathogens on host population dynamics can be very complex depending on both abiotic and biotic factors. the growing presence and impact of social media has changed the way people communicate with one another, interact with news, and view the world. therefore, online social media presents a unique opportunity to examine human behavior in a collaborative environment. the rapid adoption and spread of various social media platforms allows for social interaction beyond the previous geographical limits, connecting people from different countries, time zones, and backgrounds. studying information adoption and the factors influencing content popularity provides insight into the motivations and decisions of individual users. also of interest is the role of communities in these environments -not only as agents of diffusion, but as diffusers of content. these online communities serve to organize both social media content, and the users that produce and consume it, leading to unique community identities.in this dissertation i present several studies undertaken to understand and describe user behavior within online social media, with a specific focus on the dynamics of the early life of online content, and the role of user collaboration and communities in these processes. the central focus of this work is analysis of reddit, a popular social media platform for anonymous users to create and interact with content organized into communities called subreddits. with easily accessible data, reddit allows for comprehensive large-scale modelling and natural experiments. we find that leveraging community history allows for the prediction of comment threads on reddit without observed activity, and that text summarization highlights the unique language found in each subreddit. reddit communities also interact via direct subreddit links, inducing changes to community activity levels and spurring the creation of new communities. we also investigate software library adoption on github, which reveals the cognitive cost of knowledge acquisition within a collaborative environment. taken together, the work presented here underscores the complexity and nuance of user behavior and interaction within online social media communities, along with the challenges associated with predicting and understanding early content dynamics. in this work, we describe an adaptive wavelet method for the solution of time-independent and time-dependent partial differential equations in d-dimensions. the method is based on d-dimensional interpolating wavelets constructed from tensor products of 1-d interpolating wavelets. the connection between interpolating wavelets and dyadic grid points, and the fact that wavelet amplitudes indicate the local regularity of solutions are used in the construction of a computational grid of irregular points. operations, such as the wavelet transform, its inverse, and interpolation are performed efficiently. in the spatial discretization, the derivative approximation on the irregular grid is obtained by means of consistent finite differences. an extension of the adaptive method to problems defined on more complicated domains is achieved by a domain transformation technique. for time-independent problems, the method is tested on 2and 3-d poisson and helmholtz problems with exact manufactured solutions in order to numerically study the connection between the order of the wavelet, the order of finite difference, the threshold values, and the accuracy of numerical solutions. the combustion of a $2$-d flame ball-vortex interaction is used as a test problem for the time-independent algorithm. application of adaptive method to incompressible navier-stokes equations is accomplished through the use of the chorin projection method for time discretization. we apply the algorithm to simulate the flow in the 2-d lid-driven cavity at moderate reynolds numbers and in the 2-d differentially-heated cavity at high rayleigh numbers, and in the 3-d differentially heated cavity for various values of rayleigh numbers. it is found that numerical results, while requiring a relatively small number of degrees of freedom, are in good agreement with the most accurate results available in the literature. corticosterone (cort) is well known for its involvement in energy use and stress responses. corticosterone peaks during frog mating, along with androgens. the relationships between endogenous cort, androgens, body characteristics and male and female behaviors are still poorly understood. we studied these relationships in the gray tree frog, hyla versicolor. corticosterone dropped over the night of calling in males, while androgen was stable. call properties were not correlated with hormone levels. males with larger gonads were heavier with shorter intercall intervals. longer males had longer intercall intervals. amplexing males were longer and had heavier gonads. in female phonotaxis experiments, females with higher cort levels were slower to reach the speaker. thus, some body characteristics of males are associated with mating success or call properties. our results in male treefrogs do not support the hypothesis that high cort impairs mate success. in females, cort may impair mate success. let sl be the infinity-category of simplicial restricted lie algebras over f, the algebraic closure of a finite field f_p. by the work of a. k. bousfield et al. on the unstable adams spectral sequence, the category sl can be viewed as an algebraic approximation of the infinity-category of pointed p-complete spaces. we study the functor calculus in the category sl. more specifically, we consider the taylor tower for the functor l^r of a free simplicial restricted lie algebra together with the associated goodwillie spectral sequence. we show that this spectral sequence evaluated at sigma^l f, l&gt;=0 degenerates on the third page after a suitable re-indexing, which proves an algebraic version of the whitehead conjecture.in our proof we compute explicitly the differentials of the goodwillie spectral sequence in terms of the lambda-algebra of a. k. bousfield et al. and the dyer-lashof-lie power operations, which naturally act on the homology groups of a spectral lie algebra. as an essential ingredient of our calculations, we establish a general leibniz rule in functor calculus associated to the composition of mapping spaces, which conceptualizes certain formulas of w. h. lin. also, as a byproduct, we identify previously unknown adem relations for the dyer-lashof-lie operations in the odd-primary case. bacterial infections caused by multidrug resistant (mdr) organisms are one of the greatest global health threats. however, insufficient resources are allocated to the development of novel strategies to combat this growing issue by pharmaceutical companies and governments worldwide. as a result, antibiotic resistance threatens to outpace antimicrobial development potentially reverting society to a post-antibiotic era. as a result, new approaches to identify effective therapeutics are essential. one such approach, is the identification of antibiotic adjuvants that re-sensitize resistant bacteria to an antibiotic, broaden the spectrum of an antibiotic, or decrease the needed antibiotic dose, while possessing limited or no antimicrobial activity itself. this dissertation focuses on the development of these small molecule adjuvants.firstly, this work describes the biofilm inhibitory activity of a novel 6-substituted 2-aminoquinazoline library against mycobacterium smegmatis, which is a model organism for mycobacterium tuberculosis. two lead compounds were identified from a structure-activity relationship (sar) study as low micromolar inhibitors of m. smegmatis biofilms.further, these compounds were both found to be nontoxic alone, suggesting this scaffold may be effective to model new adjuvants. this work also discusses a sar study conducted against m. smegmatis using the natural product meridianin d as the lead compound. several derivatives improved upon the biofilm inhibitory and dispersal properties of meridianin d. notably, replacement of the 2-aminopyrimidine moiety attached to the indole with a 2-aminoimidazole improved antibiofilm activity. also, halogen substitution and position on the indole impacted activity. however, the sar revealed that meridianin d analogues lack β-lactam potentiation activity.next, this work expands on the concept of using natural products, such as meridianin d, as antibiotic adjuvants. to explore this concept, the national cancer institute (nci) natural product library set iv was screened for adjuvant activity using four classes of antibiotics (β-lactams, aminoglycosides, macrolides, and polymyxins) against three bacterial pathogens (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (mrsa), acinetobacter baumannii, and klebsiella pneumoniae). several natural product adjuvants were identified in combination with colistin against colistin-resistant strains of a. baumannii and k. pneumoniae. clorobiocin, novobiocin, and prodigiosin were determined to be the most effective adjuvants.lastly, this work discusses the antibiofilm properties of ar-12 against m. smegmatis and m. tuberculosis which has been found to selectively kill these pathogens only when in the biofilm state. it also briefly discusses the synthesis and results of a preliminary sar study using ar-12 as the lead compound. in manipulation tasks, humans have the advantage over machines due to an unparalleled ability to process information from various inputs, including touch. a set of four robot end-effectors was equipped with force sensors to provide haptic feedback to aid in performing the manipulation tasks of rotating a sphere and a cube. the motion planning algorithm used to compute the robots' joint angles is called steering-using-piecewise-constant-inputs and is applicable to underactuated, nonlinear, nonholonomic, driftless systems. nonholonomic constraints arise during contact, requiring the fingers to only roll relative to the object. however, the algorithm gives rise to new vector fields called lie brackets that allow the fingers to be reconfigured without releasing the object, effectively increasing the workspace of the manipulation system. experiments were conducted with fixed-point manipulation to produce a baseline for comparing reconfigurable manipulation experiments. both open loop and closed loop, reconfigurable manipulation experiments were conducted on a spherical object. for the open loop cases, the entire trajectory was computed offline and executed on the robots as position commands to each of the joints. for the closed loop cases, the force sensors provided information to a fuzzy controller which periodically checked the grasp's quality. the force sensors also updated the algorithm with the finger's contact locations. in both forms, the reconfigurable manipulation experiments increased the system's workspace over that for fixed-point manipulation. furthermore, the closed loop system proved to be more robust than the open loop system. this was shown by its improved repeatability and its improved performance when rotating about an arbitrary axis. an approach to switching between faces on a nonsmooth polygonal object while lie bracketing was verified. to do this requires discernment of the edge, and the sensors used were found to be adequate for this task. in addition, it was shown that end-effectors with a compliant surface could be used to grasp the cube on its edges as an aid in manipulation. while the experiments were successful, the complexity of performing lie bracket motions coupled with the small movements they give rise to was not conducive to manipulations requiring large object displacements. however, the method would be applicable for fine-scale, dextrous manipulations. in data collection applications of low-power wireless sensor networks, a major challenge is ensuring reliability without a significant goodput degradation. retransmissions over lossy links are often necessary, but energy is at a premium. the use of short, high-quality hops minimizes the number of per-hop retransmissions, but unnecessarily long routes cause congestion and load imbalance. while the former induces packet loss in the form of ingress drops, the latter causes a non-uniform energy depletion pattern in the network that penalizes the nodes with the best channel to their next-hop neighbor. an unbalanced network imposes a particularly heavy burden on the neighbors of the sink that have to relay all the upstream traffic; in a many-to-one collection tree, however, the lifetime of the sink neighbors upper-bounds the lifetime of the network as a whole. there exists a complex interplay among routing performance (reliability, goodput, energy-efficiency), congestion control, and load balancing. we present an energy-aware data collection architecture for sensor networks, arbutus, that leverages on this interplay. we thoroughly describe the various aspects of the arbutus architecture and present the results of the experimental evaluation of its tinyos implementation. the evaluation is performed on large-scale remote-access testbeds of berkeley motes (motelab, twist, tutornet) with 100-150 nodes. arbutus is benchmarked against the standard tinyos 2.x network protocol, the collection tree protocol. an extensive performance analysis is conducted, and the broader implications of our results are shown. tools from the field of transport geography are employed to interpret the most elusive aspects of our evaluation. arbutus is shown to achieve a level of reliability suitable for most applications while ensuring energy-efficiency. while goodput degradation is contained at low levels of offered load, at relatively high offered load points arbutus typically provides a significant goodput gain, as it exploits the inter-dependencies between reliability, routing and congestion control. beetles form the largest group of organisms on the planet and exhibit numerous interesting phenotypes. one in particular, cucucus clavipes, is a freeze avoiding beetle that has two unique traits which are linked; the ability to vitrify (or form a glass-like transition state) and survive temperatures as low as -100å¡c. there are two sub-species, cucujus clavipes puniceus (western, c.c.p.) and cucujus clavipes clavipes (eastern, c.c.c.). previous work has shown c.c.p. undergoes dehydration, diapause, produces anti-freeze proteins (afps), glycerol, anti-freeze glycolipid (afgl) to successfully overwinter. c.c.c. produces afgl, glycerol, and afps to overwinter, though they generally produce less of each compound than c.c.p.to characterize biochemical adaptations, we applied high-throughput proteomics to ascertain proteins that may contribute to overwintering. to facilitate our study, especially data analysis, we compiled a compendium of low temperature responsive proteins. we generated a database containing 2,030 low temperature responsive protein/gene product entries, of which 1,353 were up-regulated and 549 were down-regulated in response to various cold exposures across 34 different species; including bacteria (9 species), yeast (1 species), animals (including nematodes (1 species), collembola (2 species), insects (5 species), fish (1 species), amphibians (1 species), reptiles (1 species), mammals (2 species)), and plants (moss (1 species), gymnosperms (1 species) and angiosperms (9 species)). there were 39 studies using 12 different cold treatments; 20 used proteomics and 18 used transcriptomics. concerning our purpose of identifying specific temperature responsive proteins/gene products across species, we found 113 shared proteins/gene products groups, each of which was found in at least two species. of these shared proteins/gene products groups, 58 proteins/gene products (including protein/gene product families) that were consistently regulated, meaning always either upor down-regulated, across species. another 23 proteins/gene products were inconsistently regulated, meaning that the proteins/gene products were up-regulated in some species and treatments while being down-regulated in other species and treatments. an additional 32 proteins/gene products that are part of larger family headings and are difficult to separate from related member proteins (such the ribosomal proteins, 30s, 50s, and others) were inconsistently regulated. using a tandem ms based approach, we compared the proteomes of winter and summer collected c.c.p. to identify proteins that may play functional roles in successful overwintering. this represents the first high throughput ms/ms analysis of a non-model, cold-tolerant organism without a concurrent microarray analysis. using gene ontology (go) analysis and manual interpretation, we identified 104 proteins in winter and 128 proteins in summer samples. we found evidence to indicate a cytoskeletal rearrangement between seasons, with winter ndsc possessing unique actin and myosin isoforms while summer larvae up-regulated &gamma; actinin, tubulin, and tropomyosin. we also detected a fortification of the cuticle in winter via unique cuticle proteins, specifically larval/pupal rigid cuticle protein 66 precursor and larval cuticle protein a2b. also, of particular interest in the winter larvae, was an up-regulation of proteins related to silencing of genes (bromodomain adjacent to zinc finger domain 2a and anti-silencing protein 1), proteins involved with metabolism of amines (2-isopropylmalate synthase and dihydrofolate reductase), and immune system process (lysozyme c precursor), among others. previous studies showed that some individuals typically supercool to mean values of approximately -40å¡c, with some individuals supercooling to as low as -58oc, but these non-deep supercooling (ndsc) individuals eventually freeze if temperatures drop below this. however, other larvae, especially if exposed to very cold temperatures, supercool even further. these deep supercooling (dsc) individuals do not freeze even if cooled to -100oc. in addition, the body water of the dsc larvae vitrifies (turns to a glass) at glass transition temperatures of -58 to -70oc. this study examines the proteomes of dsc and ndsc larvae to assess proteins that may contribute to or inhibit the dsc trait. using high throughput proteomics, we identified 138 proteins and 513 gene ontology categories in the dsc group and 104 proteins and 573 go categories in the ndsc group. go categories up-regulated in dsc include alcohol metabolic process, cellular component morphogenesis, monosaccharide metabolic process, regulation of biological quality, extracellular region, structural molecule activity, and antioxidant activity. proteins unique to dsc include alpha casein precursor, alpha-actinin, vimentin, tropomyosin, beta-lactoglobulin, immunoglobulins, tubulin, cuticle proteins and endothelins. winter temperatures are lower in alaska than indiana, and previous studies showed that alaska c.c.p. has somewhat different overwintering adaptations compared to indiana c.c.c. this study examines the proteome differences between winter and summer acclimatized c.c.c. larvae. we identified 84 proteins in winter c.c.c., and 50 proteins in summer c.c.c. winter larvae enrich the following go categories; binding (dna binding, chaperones, protein-protein binding proteins), organelle (which includes the cytoskeleton), metabolic process (including atp synthesis proteins, general enzymes, and expression proteins), and biosynthetic process (expression proteins, atp synthesis proteins, and kinases). proteins up-regulated in winter relative to summer larvae include cytoskeletal elements (including myosin, actin, paramyosin, tropomyosin, and actinin), muscle proteins (myosin, actin, paramyosin, and tropomyosin), atp synthesis proteins (atp synthase), glycolysis proteins (glycogen phosphorylase), binding proteins (hsp70, nucleolin, dna gyrase, and myosin) anti-microbial agents, and calcium binding proteins (alpha casein precursors). anti-freeze proteins (afps) are produced by a wide variety of species and confer cryoprotection during exposure to low temperature. insect afps are among the most active and the highest activity was recorded in the beetle cucujus clavipes, who produces the beetle type afps. this study applied tandem ms to ice purified protein samples from the two cucujus clavipes subspecies. we also created the first database containing published afps and other ice binding proteins in ncbi, resulting in 1,111 entries; 84 beetle type afps from 7 different species and 1,027 non-beetle type afps from 240 different species. afps from homogenates of c. clavipes larvae were isolated by ice-binding procedures. the resulting afps were trypsinized and the peptides applied to a tandem ms analyzer. we identified both beetle and non-beetle type afps and non-afp proteins using our database and a cross species approach. in cucujus clavipes puniceus (western subspecies) from alaska, we identified 18 total afps, including a protein in the gut similar to the plant daucus carota afp. in cucujus clavipes clavipes (eastern subspecies) from indiana, we identified 25 afps, including one plant afp. there were four non-afp proteins detected in both sub-species: actin, lysozyme c, myosin, and tropomyosin. both subspecies possessed a plant type afp, identified previously in populus suaveolens. this dissertation addresses the subject of noncommunist political and cultural ideology in urban south vietnam during 1954-1975. it contributes to the historiography of the vietnam war, specifically on the long-neglected republic of vietnam (rvn) that has received greater attention in the last decade. the basic argument is that the postcolonial ideological vision of most urban south vietnamese diverged greatly from that of the vietnamese communist revolutionaries. this vision explains for the puzzling question on why the communist revolutionaries were far more effective in winning the minds and hearts of vietnamese in countryside than in cities. at the same time, this vision was complicated by the uneasy relationship with the americans. the dissertation examines four aspects in particular. first is the construction of anticommunism: although influenced by cold war bipolarity, anticommunism in urban south vietnam was shaped initially and primarily by earlier differences about modernity and post-colonialism. it was intensified through intra-vietnamese experiences of the first indochina war. the second aspect is the promotion of individualism. instead of the socialist person as advocated by communist revolutionaries, urban south vietnamese promoted a bourgeois petit vision of the postcolonial person. much of the sources for this promotion came from the west, especially france and the u.s. but it was left to urban south vietnamese writers to interpret and promote what this person ought to be. the third one concerns the development of nationalism. urban south vietnam continued to uphold the views of nationalism developed during late colonialism, such as the elevation of national heroes and the essentialization of vietnamese civilization. noncommunist south vietnamese urbanites were influenced by ethnic nationalism, although they also developed the tendency to look towards other newly independent nations for nationalistic inspiration and ideas about their own postcolonial nation. the last aspect has to do with the relationship with americans: the views of urban south vietnamese on the u.s. were generally positive during the early years of the rvn. but there was also wariness that burst into resentment and anti-americanism after washington americanized the war in 1965. the dissertation looks into two very different urban groups in order to extract the variety of sources about anti-americanism. nanomagnets that exhibit only two stable states of magnetization can represent digital bits. magnetic random access memories (mram) store binary information in such nanomagnets, and fabrication of dense arrays of nanomagnets is also under development for application in hard disk drives (hdd). the latter faces the challenge of avoiding magnetic dipole interactions between the individual elements in the arrays, which limits data storage density. on the contrary, these interactions are utilized in the magnetic quantum-dot cellular automata (mqca) system, which is a network of closely spaced, dipole-coupled, single-domain nanomagnets designed for digital computation. mqca offers very low power dissipation together with high integration density of functional devices, as qca implementations do in general. in addition, mqca can operate over a wide range of temperatures from zero kelvin to the curie temperature. information propagation and negation have previously been demonstrated in mqca. in this dissertation room temperature operation of the basic mqca logic gate, i.e. the three-input majority gate, is demonstrated for the first time. the samples were fabricated on silicon wafers by using electron-beam lithography for patterning thermally evaporated ferromagnetic metals. the networks of nanomagnets were imaged by magnetic force microscopy (mfm), with which magnetization states of the individual nanomagnets were distinguished and mapped. magnetic dipole-ordering in the networks was investigated in different samples. average ordering lengths were calculated by statistical analysis of the mfm images that were taken after several independent demagnetization processes. the average ordering length was found to be dependent on shape and size of the nanomagnets, and it was limited by defects introduced during fabrication. the majority gate was demonstrated by employing 30 nm thick nife polycrystalline nanomagnets with 70 nm x 120 nm lateral sizes. inputs were provided by additional nanomagnets fabricated together with the gate, and the operation was tested by mfm. the work presented here is an experimental proof of concept for the mqca. the theoretical calculations can be found in the dissertation of gy rgy csaba.# #gy rgy csaba, 'computing with field-coupled nanomagnets,' phd dissertation, university of notre dame, 2004. various aspects of linguistic context affect how we interpret words within discourse. we systematically assessed the influence of contextual events on temporal prepositions (before, after) by asking participants to estimate the duration of events and the duration that passed between these events. in four experiments, we varied the durations of the events, the sentence structure, and the semantic relation between the events. we found that there is a strong relationship between the durations of events and the estimates of time that passed between them, corresponding to before and after. the event duration with the strongest influence on these estimates was often based on their temporal sequence, and only based on their role in the sentence in a few specific cases. this demonstrates a strong role of time in these interpretations, which is different from other influences of context on terms. this paper begins at the intersection where the nafta's chapter 11 and the takings clause of the 5th amendment of the u.s. constitution meet. its purpose is to examine the manner in which chapter 11 authorized tribunals answer the question of how far is too far when reviewing disputed governmental regulation that may rise to the level of an expropriation and therefore compensable under chapter 11's investor-protection provisions. this topic invites students of international trade agreements to direct their attention toward u.s. regulatory takings jurisprudence, asking themselves how the u.s. experience may serve as a guide for the challenges that future chapter 11 tribunals confront as they expound on the meaning of what constitutes an indirect expropriation? the question of how far is too far is, after all, one that still leads to vigorous debate on the bench of the united states supreme court nearly 30 years after penn central and 80 years since justice holmes first framed the debate in mahon. u.s. supreme court precedent shows that sketching clear, distinguishable limits to how far government may go in taking private property through various regulations is not only difficult, but frequently results in a confused and often contradictory body of law. supporters and critics of the nafta's chapter 11 investor-protection provisions claim that they are at once a boon to individual property rights or, alternatively, an assault on democracy and the right of a sovereign country to enact regulations through lawful and democratic means. in weighing the merits of their respective arguments, i conclude that the current confused and contradictory state of u.s. regulatory takings jurisprudence is one that is likely to inform future chapter 11 tribunal decisions. if this is indeed the case that confused reasoning and contradictory rulings become the norm over time then the nafta's investor protection provisions may well come to frustrate the hopes and fears of supporters and critics alike. a series of disaccharides containing beta-(1->4) o-glycosidic linkages were synthesized with 13c-enrichment at the two carbons involved in the linkage. karplus equations for these six trans-glycoside j-couplings were derived from dft calculations. molecular dynamics (md) simulations using both the charmm and amber force fields for five representative disaccharides containing ìøå¢beta-(1->4) o-glycosidic linkage have been carried out to study the structural and dynamic properties of the linkage. comparisons between experimental trans-glycoside j-couplings and calculated ensemble-averaged j-couplings were made for these five disaccharides. this comparison shows that the amber force field may be more reliable than the charmm force field. similar conformational studies on three disaccharides containing ìøåáalpha/beta (1->2) o-glycosidic linkages were also performed. amide cis-trans isomerization (cti) in methyl 2-deoxy-2-acylamido-d-glucopyranosides was investigated by 1h and 13c nmr spectroscopy. singly 13c-labeled methyl 2-deoxy-2-formamido-d-glucopyranoside (glcnfm) anomers provided standard 1h and 13c chemical shifts, and 1h-1h and 13c-13c spin-coupling constants, for cis and trans amides that are detected readily in aqueous solution. equipped with this information, doubly 13c-labeled methyl 2-deoxy-2-acetamido-d-glucopyranoside (glcnac) anomers were investigated, leading to the detection and quantification of cis and trans amides in this biologically important aminosugar. eight new karplus relationships have been determined for use in conformational studies of saccharide n-acetyl side-chains in solution by nmr spectroscopy. six j-couplings sensitive to the c2-n2 torsion angle were parametrized: 3jh2,nh, 3jh2,co, 3jc1,nh, 3jc3,nh, 3jc1,co and 3jc3,co. two j-couplings sensitive to amide bond configuration (cis and trans amide) were also investigated, namely, 3jnh,ch3 and 3jc2,ch3. in relevant cases, comparisons were made to analogous coupling pathways found in proteins to evaluate the effects of peptide vs saccharide pathway structure on coupling magnitude. these new parametrizations will enable multiple, redundant j-couplings within the n-acetyl fragment of saccharides, and related structures, to be used for more confident assignments of side-chain conformation in biologically important saccharides, especially those where this structural element may play a role in molecular recognition or other biological processes. lastly, an x-ray crystal structure of methyl beta-d-galactopyranosyl-(1->4)-alpha-d-mannopyranoside is presented with a full structural analysis, including discussion of ring-puckering behavior and comparison with other structurally related sugars. this thesis focuses on searches for new physics effects using angular distributions in particle colliders. in particular, angular distributions in dilepton and diboson final states have been studied. two type of new physics effects have been searched for: 1. small deviations in dilepton distributions due to the presence of quantum interference effects involving dark matter particles, and 2. signals from exotic heavy resonances in the rapidity distributions of wgamma production. in this thesis, i present a new equation of state for use in simulating supernovae, black holes and neutron star mergers. it is the first such equation of state for astrophysical applications to use a density functional theory description for hadronic matter. the inclusion of thermal effects of matter enable nuclear skyrme models, which have been highly tested and constrained at laboratory energy scales, to expand their domain to predictions of astronomical phenomena. broadening the scope of these models can further confine parameter sets, using vastly different energy scales.the new equation of state, titled the notre dame-livermore equation of state (ndl eos), allows for the creation of a pion condensate at high density and pair production of all known baryonic and mesonic states at high temperature. the description of matter also allows for the possibility of the formation of a net proton excess (ye &gt; 0.5). in addition to the density functional theory formulation for hadronic matter, the ndl eos contains low and high density completions to better describe matter in these specific energy regimes. the low density description expands upon a bowers and wilson formulation, adding a transition through nuclear pasta phases, which are of particular importance in neutron star structure. these low density definitions have further been updated to include an improved treatment of the nuclear statistical equilibrium and the transition to heavy nuclei as the density approaches nuclear matter density. at high densities, matter is allowed to transition to a quark-gluon plasma (qgp) either as a first-order gibbs transition, or a smooth crossover.i identify predictions of the ndl eos, contrasting them to existing equations of state and various skyrme models of the ndl eos. the observation of a heavy (two solar masses) neutron star restricts many descriptions of matter, and rules out several skyrme parameter sets that had heretofore been entirely within the bounds set by nuclear experiments.finally, i present the results of core-collapse simulations, both with the original bowers and wilson equation of state and the ndl eos, using the spherically symmetric mayle and wilson supernova code. adverse childhood experiences (aces) pose risk for poor mental health in adulthood. the aces scale has two subscales: child maltreatment and household dysfunction. less is known about how the aces subscales contribute to adult mental health. this study explored the relationship between aces and posttraumatic stress symptoms (ptss) in adult pregnant women (n = 137) who had experienced past-year intimate partner violence (ipv), and examined the moderating effects of the age, frequency, and duration of aces exposure. results indicate that child maltreatment aces predict ptss significantly better than household dysfunction aces, controlling for past-year ipv. age, frequency, and duration of exposure did not significantly moderate the effects of either aces subscale on ptss. witnessing ipv during childhood was the only household dysfunction ace that significantly predicted ptss. findings indicate that, in a sample of trauma-exposed pregnant women, experiencing multiple types of child maltreatment has strong predictive validity for ptss in adulthood. this dissertation investigates the effect of n-type doping on the optical spectra of the dilute nitride gaasn alloy system. using conventional and high spatial resolution photoluminescence (pl), including the temperature and power dependence, photoreflectance and time-resolved photoluminescence measurements together with structural characterizations (x-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy) we identify the effect of local modulation doping of band-tail states in these alloys. i use the modeling of nitrogen composition distribution over large supercells to further demonstrate the existance of intrinsic phase separation arising from the disorder nature in these dilute nitride alloys. this model allows us to explain several debated issues, like the existence of quantum dots and the additional splitting of the photoreflection spectra, in a self-consistent way. i also use frequency-domain and time-domain simulation methods to calculate optical mode structures in iii-v semiconductor microcavities with self-assembled quantum dots as light source. our future work includes the design of whispering-gallery mode (wgm) laser devices using the dilute nitrides. lumes is a semi-autobiographical poetry manuscript that deals with the implications of growing up in a military family in the landscape of the southwest united states. these poems directly and indirectly address the idea of globalized military-industrial complex and how we as citizens are implicated in the actions of war, even when we are not active participants. the poetry in this manuscript moves from spaces of childhood and the home, to places of torture and destruction with a figure called "the man." this figure represents, among many things, the seemingly "invisible" violence of war which looms in the lives of u.s. citizens in various ways -whether that be through our own comfort, the films we watch, or the way we play as children. ultimately, lumes combines autobiography and situations of surreal violence in order to reveal truths about our ways of life as u.s. citizens. multiphase flows are known for forming a wide range of scales of motion and geometries as they develop. advancements in computation have provided the opportunity to study many aspects of multiphase flows, however it is not always possible to resolve every scale. topology changes are one example of complex phenomena that may occur and that requires understanding how multiple scales behave. multi-scale models provide the capacity to simulate complex flow problems without requiring high resolutions. several multi-scale multiphase flow problems have been studied including two-dimensional and three-dimensional flow with topology changes. a model for thin films based on mass and momentum conservation principles is developed. the simulations were done using a front-tracking/finite-volume method, where the interface is represented by connected marker points moving with the fluid, while the governing equations are solved on a fixed grid. the results are evaluated by comparison with fully resolved simulations. low dimensional models such as this one can potentially reduce the computational cost of multi-scale and multiphase simulations. this dissertation explores the *specula principum*, or advice treatises for rulers, written in ireland and the carolingian world between the seventh and tenth centuries. including collections of aphorisms, the deathbed speeches of literary figures, formal manuals on courtly behavior and other texts in old irish and latin, these advice manuals offer insight into several aspects of early medieval european culture. this work contains two major arguments. first, i argue that the intense interest in this genre across northwestern europe suggests that the concept of what made a good leader was changing, which i show to be the result of a negotiation between an older, pre-christian moral code and the emerging christian concept of morality. second, i demonstrate the interconnectivity of these regions by making a case for irish influence on the carolingian manuals, which most likely occurred when irish missionaries and scholars brought ideas to the continent in the eighth and ninth centuries. this dissertation is divided into four parts. the first addresses the old irish and hiberno-latin materials, beginning with a discussion of the central concept of irish kingship, the *fír flathemon*. turning to the *specula* texts themselves, i organize the advice for kings into three categories based on its range of influence: universal, public, and personal. also addressed is the christian influence on these mostly traditional texts, as well as the changing nature of idealized masculinity revealed within the advice on leadership and personal behavior. the following chapter parallels the first but addresses the latin *specula* written for a carolingian audience with a focus on the influence of secular sanctity. this allows for comparison of the two bodies of texts while also highlighting the irish influences on the carolingian material. section three is focused on the portrayal of women within the various regions, making the argument for the increasing importance of the christian family unit as a microcosm for the larger kingdom. the final section addresses the implications of the *speculum principis* genre for the discussion of early medieval king-making ceremonies, showing where themes from the *specula* have found their way into the coronation oaths and evaluating the evidence for community participation in the ceremonies. a collection of short fiction. robots are quickly becoming fixtures of modern life showing up in a wide variety of contexts from museums to classrooms to train stations. yet the timing requirements of face-to-face natural language interactions with humans are quite strict. in fact, the requirements are so strict that some natural language systems have implemented explicit protocols to show hesitation in order to seem more natural. human speakers in face-to-face interaction rapidly and incrementally integrate syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic information with information from the visual environment and the words of the utterance itself to interpret the utterance as it is being spoken. while listening, humans also produce backchannel feedback such as eye-gaze movements and ``uh-huh' vocalizations. if this feedback is absent or delayed, the discourse seems unnatural and confusion is common. yet the stage-by-stage natural language processing systems often used by robotic systems require that an utterance be completed and a full syntactic parse tree constructed before any semantic understanding can occur. such systems are incapable of producing meaningful backchannel feedback during an utterance, and face difficulty in meeting the requirements of turn-taking. we present tide, a timing-sensitive incremental discourse engine, capable of simultaneously and incrementally processing an utterance at the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic levels while it is still being spoken. tide is capable of performing backchannel feedback actions at appropriate times during the utterance, responding to utterances within the boundaries of human turn-taking, and even interrupting a speaker as necessary. we argue that tide operates at a level of incrementality required for natural language interactions with humans, and demonstrate tide's functionality as a framework for further expansion with the implementation of a model of reference resolution in a shared visual environment. heterogeneous hydrogenation catalysis (hhc) is a promising advanced reductive process for treating oxidizing contaminants in drinking water including oxoanions such as nitrate and nitrite. hhc has yet to be implemented at large scales due to challenges regarding reactor design and catalyst cost. the overarching goal of this dissertation was to develop the catalytic hydrogel membrane reactor (chmr), an interfacial membrane reactor for hhc that allows for high activity in a continuous flow reactor. the chmr consists of a central, gas permeable, tubular hollow-fiber membrane (hfm), the exterior of which is coated with a highly aqueous ca-alginate hydrogel that serves as a support matrix for embedded catalytic pd nanoparticles that can drive catalytic reduction of oxidized contaminants by h2. primary research objectives of this work were to (1) develop a structurally stable and catalytically active chmr and demonstrate its efficacy for hydrogenation reactions, (2) evaluate the effect of water quality and operational parameters including reactive species concentration, ph, co-occurring aqueous species, and gas delivery mode on catalytic activity and hydrogel stability, and (3) develop a 1-d model of the chmr to predict the effect of reaction conditions and reactor configuration on catalytic performance and optimize the reactor design for catalytic activity and contaminant conversion. results show that the chmr effectively reduced the selected model contaminant, nitrite (no2-), when operated in a continuous flow configuration. the interfacial nature of h2 and no2delivery to catalyst active sites allowed for excellent control of reaction conditions for optimization of catalytic activity and byproduct selectivity. maximum catalytic activity for no2hydrogenation in the chmr (1.87 l mol-pd-1 s-1, 2.49 x 10-3 mol-n mol-pd-1 s-1) was comparable to alternative immobilized catalyst reactors. mass-transfer limitations on catalytic activity were minimized by the excellent effective diffusivity of aqueous species within the hydrogel and the hydrogel showed excellent stability to typical groundwater conditions. development of a 1-d model of the chmr demonstrated the potential for further enhancing activity of the chmr by optimization of hydrogel properties. these results show that chmrs are a promising class of interfacial catalytic membrane reactor that deserves further investigation. though christians have been in india since late ancient times, we have no surviving witnesses to a pre-modern christian siddhāntin tradition, one that might have taken its place in the hubbub of debate among late ancient and medieval naiyāyikas, vaiśeṣikas, pūrva mīmāṃsakas, vedāntins, buddhists, sāṃkhyas, jainas, cārvākas, and so on. what would christian theology look like were it forged in the crucible of these late ancient and medieval interreligious debates, responding to these indian questions and elaborating answers within that spectrum of intellectual possibilities? this dissertation is a work of christian comparative theology that addresses itself to that broader question, but by way of a focused engagement with the indian buddhist school yogācāra. it takes up indian yogācārin accounts of nondual cognition (=buddhahood) from about the second to the eleventh centuries ce, and develops a critical christian theological reception of those accounts, one articulated in yogācārins' own technical terminology. the result is a critical philosophical basis for wider christian theological receptions of these buddhist accounts of nondual cognition, from yogācāra, to indo-tibetan mahāmudrā and dzogchen, to the east asian buddhist traditions likewise indebted to yogācārin teachings.after two introductory chapters, chapter 3 articulates a basic yogācārin ontology of delusion and awakening in the terms of mind only idealism and the three natures, drawing from early and "classical" yogācāra texts. chapter 4 turns to dignāga's and dharmakīrti's account of nondual "reflexive awareness" (svasaṃvitti, svasaṃvedana) as the purely perceptual core of all cognitions as such. in dharmakīrti's elaboration, this amounts to the claim that the ultimately real nature of all cognitions qua cognitive is buddha-awareness: a nondual luminosity always already intrinsically pure of the stain of duality. chapter 5 takes up the pratyabhijñā śaiva authors utpaladeva and abhinavagupta, tracing their critical theist reception of dharmakīrtian accounts of nondual reflexive awareness. these indian theists' reception of buddhist accounts of nonduality is instructive for christians; it identifies, with a high level of technical specificity, the dharmakīrtian positions that prohibit absolute theism, as well as the available theist alternative. chapter 6 uses all the foregoing to develop a christian reception of yogācārin accounts of nondual cognition. it takes up bernard lonergan as its primary interlocutor, who also held that rational consciousness is "primarily" nondual, and that this primary nonduality is what makes the human spirit a created image of the "uncreated light." the preface and epilogue point to how this christian theological reception of yogācārin nonduality can underwrite a deeper reception of indo-tibetan mahāmudrā for christian contemplation, anthropology, and accounts of god. apoptotic mimicry utilized by lipid-enveloped viruses for infection is dependent on external leaflet viral phosphatidylserine (ps) expression and host cell kinase activity involving tim proteins, axl, and tyro3. in addition, it has been shown that matrix proteins ebola vp40 and hiv-1-gag induce external leaflet expression of ps. ucn-01 is a staurosporine fda approved for phase ii clinical trials for multiple neoplasms, which acts as a non-specific kinase inhibitor and has been shown to disrupt ps localization to the plasma membrane by redistributing to endomembranes. by utilizing ucn-01 at lower concentrations than used for anti-cancer clinical trials it is hypothesized that viral replication in multiple lipid enveloped viruses can be inhibited in two ways: first, by inhibiting matrix protein localization to the plasma membrane and viral budding by localizing ps to endomembranes from the plasma membrane, and second, by inhibiting viral infection which utilizes apoptotic mimicry by reducing available ps on viral particles and by also inhibiting host cell kinase activity of receptor proteins known to interact with ps. cellular toxicity of ucn-01 was reproduced from the literature and concentrations from 50-400nm were determined to be within the acceptable range in the cells being studied. using these concentrations ucn-01 was shown to reduce plasma membrane localization of ebola vp40, marburg vp40, and hiv-1-gag significantly using confocal imaging of recombinant gfp tagged viral proteins. changes in budding were then assessed in marburg vp40 and ebola vp40 using western blot with significant increases in budding at 200 nm and 300 nm in ebola vp40 at 24 hours and significant decreases in budding at 100 nm – 400 nm in ebola vp40 and 400 nm in marburg vp40 at 48 hours. tem of ebola vp40 showed reduction of surface budding in presence of ucn-01 and 7-oss and a non-significant decrease in vlp diameter with 100 nm ucn-01 treatment and a significant decrease in vlp diameter with 50 nm 7-oss treatment. a decrease of filament density on the cell surface was also shown using sem for 100 nm ucn-01 and 50 nm 7-oss treatments. finally, live chikungunya virus, zika virus, hiv-1, and ebola virus was shown to be inhibited by ucn-01 treatment. given the success seen in these models, additional live virus studies will be pursued, including dengue virus and marburg virus among other lipid enveloped viruses. current anti-hiv methodologies have allowed for the reduction of hiv plasma concentrations to undetectable levels in infected patients, but have been unable to eliminate latent reservoirs, resulting in a persistent infection that could potentially generate escape mutations. we have created trans-splicing group i introns targeting the primer activation signal and the primer binding site of hiv as potential transgene antiviral agents in an effort to prevent re-establishment of virus pathology in the absence of drug therapy. trans-splicing group i introns are catalytic rna molecules that can splice an rna sequence of choice (3'-exon) to a target rna molecule, in this case creating a hybrid rna molecule that encodes a protein which is capable of inhibiting virus replication. we demonstrate the catalytic capabilities of these group i introns against rna derived from infecting virus (in addition to an artificial target) and that inclusion of a 3'-exon encoding the pro-apoptotic protein ∆n-bax induces programmed cell death, augmenting the suppression of viral replication. all introns exhibited specific targeting and splicing of rnas containing pas/pbs sequences as demonstrated by rt-pcr and sequencing analysis. by fusing the gaussia luciferase coding sequence to target rnas containing the pas/pbs sequence we were able to demonstrate that these introns mediated a ~70% reduction in observed luminescence produced from transfected cells. annexin v staining demonstrated efficient induction of apoptotic cell death resulting from expression of ∆n-bax from splice products. transient transfection of each intron in hek-293t cells, followed by infection with pseudovsv-g-hivnl4-3 at moi 2 suppressed viral replication by ~50% at 4 dpi as measured by p24 elisa. clonal cem-a cell lines were generated by limited dilution and confirmed for group i intron via rt-pcr and ∆n-bax expression by caspase 3 assay. clones were then infected at moi 1 with hiv-1 pnl4-3 and at 14 dpi p24 elisa analysis yielded no detectable hiv in a clone and 2 logs reduction in multiple clones, demonstrating that a homogeneous population of group i intron expressing cells are capable of 100% viral suppression. in addition, two clones showed 2 logs reduction at 30 dpi. future experiments include moving into an animal model to see if viral clearance is achievable in vivo. microplasmas or microdischarges have been attracting a growing amount of interest from the low-temperature plasma community due to many of their favorable properties. in microscale geometries, such non-equilibrium plasmas have a high aspect ratio and, therefore, are strongly influenced by boundary-dominated phenomena. especially for microplasmas at extremely small scales less than 10 µm, the ultra-high aspect ratio can result in two unique features: ion-enhanced field emission on the cathode surface and highly non-local electron kinetics. this dissertation work aims to fundamentally understand and therefore establish the basis for designing the unique features of microplasmas at extremely small scales into plasma engineering systems.the work first investigates the resonant tunneling behavior in ion-enhanced field emission by solving the one-dimensional time-independent schrödinger's equation in the presence of an ion, and evaluates the enhancement in field emission due to resonant processes. results shows that as the applied electric field decreases or as the ion moves closer to the cathode, the resonant states shift up in energy. these shifts of resonant states directly impact the emission current density, especially when the applied field is about 0.5–3 v/nm and the ion is about 0.5–3 nm away from the cathode. further, when the energy level for resonant emission coincides with the fermi level of a metallic cathode, the current density is particularly enhanced. through a simplified perturbation analysis, an expression for resonant energies is derived to predict the general scaling of these trends. the work suggests that it may be possible to control (augment/inhibit) the resonant emission current by manipulating the supply function of a cathode relative to the microdischarges operating conditions.this work also explores the highly non-local electron energy distribution (eed) and the scaling of rate coefficients in microscale field emission-driven townsend discharges via one-dimensional particle-in-cell/monte-carlo-collision (pic/mcc) simulations. to better understand the scaling, a pseudo-analytical model is developed for the spatially integrated eed and rate coefficients in the transition from the collisional to the collisionless regime based on the weighted sum of a two-temperature maxwellian eed and a ballistic eed. results show that at these extremely small dimensions the eed's and rate coefficients scale with e/p and pd separately, demonstrating the potential of controlling the eed in microplasmas for reaction selectivity. to demonstrate this potential, this work looks into the selectivity for the asymmetric vibrational excitation to potentially promote carbon dioxide (co2) dissociation in microscale plasma-catalyst systems. the results suggest that field emission-driven microdischarges could form the basis for intentionally coupling the plasma state with a catalyst for improving the performance of co2 reforming. a novel this dissertation focuses on the design, synthesis, characterization, and mechanistic evaluation of selective targeted nanomedicines with endosomolytic properties for efficient intracellular delivery of chemotherapeutic agents. targeted nanomedicine result from modification of nanoparticles (e.g., liposomes) with ligands capable of binding to cell-surface receptors with high specificity and the ability trigger cellular uptake or internalization. targeted nanoparticles have been shown to provide significant enhancements in receptor-mediated internalization with great promise for personalized medicine but have yet to reach the clinic.three separate components of rational nanomedicine design are explored throughout this dissertation. in chapter one, the rational design of multivalent systems is explained, suggesting a paradigm shift in the optimization parameters for targeted nanomedicines: prioritize selectivity, not avidity. next, chapters two and three focus on how targeted nanomedicines can be rationally designed for tackling one of the major bottlenecks in nanoparticle-based drug delivery: endosomal escape. in short, following internalization, nanoparticles are shuttled through endosomal vesicles leading to exocytosis/recycling or lysosomal degradation, rarely reaching the cytosolic compartment. using a modular liposomal nanoparticle system, we have studied the implications of endosomal escape moieties in targeted drug delivery and determined optimizable parameters for optimization, improving targeted nanoparticle internalization &gt;10-fold and nanomedicine potency by ~3-fold. importantly mechanistic differences between the endosomal escape of targeted and non-targeted nanomedicines were evaluated, providing further insight into endosomal escape for basic and applied sciences. finally, lessons learned from targeting and endosomolytic design are combined with the design of prodrugs that improve selectivity of nanomedicines by optimizing for intracellular release rather than sustained released.altogether, this work provides guideline for the rational design of targeted nanomedicines and highlights the value of systematic analysis for the basic understanding of biological problems, followed by application of this knowledge for engineering solutions that improve patient outcome. this dissertation studies different aspects of multi-user wireless communication over channels with unknown fading. the first part of the dissertation presents a practicable successive decoding strategy for a multiple access channel with $n$ users and $k$ receive antennas and independent rayleigh flat-fading between the transmitter receiver pairs. the receiver has access to the received signals from all the antennas and there is no channel side information. an optimal receiver is presented and various simplified receiver schemes are proposed whose achievable rate is very close to the constrained capacity for both block fading and correlated fading models. a rate-splitting algorithm is developed that equalizes the individual user rates without diminishing the sum rate of the system. the second part of the dissertation presents analytical upper and lower bounds on the information rate of a multiuser rayleigh fading channel with no channel state information (csi) at the transmitters or the receivers. these bounds are shown to converge whenever an individual user's data rate is small compared with the bandwidth, e.g., when users can employ cdma. the amount of spreading required for a given degree of convergence depends on the number of receive antennas. the number of users can be sufficient for the aggregate spectral density to be large. exact analytical expressions for the information rates of both the block fading and the continuous correlated fading channel models in this regime are presented. finally, the results are extended to more general channel models. the third part of the dissertation presents asymptotic results on the capacity of growing wireless networks. this part considers a very general system model for a large wireless network which subsumes a variety of practical networking scenarios including networks with relays. the transmitters and receivers are distributed through space (in two or three dimensions) and the channels between any transmitter receiver pair are non-coherent rayleigh block fading channels. the transmitters are allowed to design their codebooks jointly even though their data is independent. the received signals are attenuated by path loss which is polynomial with distance. the receivers in the system are allowed to cooperate completely by sending the received signals to a central decoder which can jointly decode the transmitted symbols. under this very general system model, the per user capacity of the growing network is shown to go to zero unless the system bandwidth or the coherence time is increasing. we present necessary and sufficient conditions on how the channel coherence time and the system bandwidth must vary for capacity to be non vanishing. these results are fundamental and result from the randomness of the fading present in the network rather than any peculiarities in the system model. multiscale heterogeneity is ubiquitous in hydrologic systems. geological media exhibit structure on scales ranging from micrometers to hundreds of kilometers. correctly predicting large-scale behavior often requires a framework capable of assessing how the effects of heterogeneity propagate across scales. in this dissertation, we explore the concept of lagrangian random walk methods, which represent variability through a statistical description. we develop numerical particle tracking methods and theoretical descriptions relying on random walk theory and apply them to a variety of problems with an impact on the hydrologic sciences. specifically, we address solute reactions and mixing in the presence of nonuniform background flow fields, mixing through bioturbation in freshwater systems, tracer tests in river and stream transport, and broad return time distributions in hydrologic and other settings. engagement is complex and multifaceted, yet crucial to learning. one context in which engagement frequently plays an important role is in computerized learning environments. computerized learning environments can provide a superior learning experience for students by automatically detecting student engagement (and, thus also disengagement), adapting to it, and providing better feedback and evaluations to teachers and students. this dissertation provides an overview of several studies that utilized facial features to automatically detect student engagement. several aspects of engagement detection are discussed, including affective, cognitive, and behavioral components.studies in laboratory environments illustrated the efficacy of several types of facial features extracted for engagement detection. engagement was detected in several learning domains for the first time as well, including essay writing, computer programming, and illustrated textbook reading. each domain has its own challenges; for example, textbook reading is non-interactive and unlikely to trigger discriminative facial expressions at predictable times. methods were thus tailored for each domain to address their unique challenges. engagement detection was also researched in a classroom environment, where data noise introduced by talking, gesturing, and distractions such as cell phones and other students add additional challenges. engagement detection methods were effective in many instances despite these distractions. this dissertation also explores face-based detection of mind wandering (mw), a type of cognitive disengagement in which students' thoughts drift away from the learning task toward internal thoughts. a dataset of videos in which students reported mw (disengaged) has been developed which can be used to answer key questions about engagement and mw detection. individual models for various types of facial features were developed to answer questions of how mw manifests in students' expressions. human observers were also asked to judge video clips as mw or non-mw, to determine how well automated methods compare to human annotations. automated detectors were also improved by incorporating observers' mw annotations using techniques such as feature engineering specifically to capture facial expressions noted by observers, and weighting training instances that were exceptionally wellor poorlyclassified by observers in automatic detector training. finally, implications of results are discussed. advances in deep learning have made constructing, training and deploying deep neural networks more accessible than ever before. due to their flexibility and predictive accuracy, neural networks have ushered in a new wave of data-driven and data-free modeling for physical phenomena. with several key research breakthroughs in the deep learning field, modern deep learning architectures are now more accurate and generalizable facilitating improved physics-informed models. this dissertation explores the use of several different deep learning approaches for learning physical dynamics including bayesian neural networks, generative models, physics-constrained learning and self-attention. by leveraging these recent deep neural network advancements and probabilistic frameworks, powerful deep learning surrogates of physical systems can predict complex mutli-scale features. none this doctoral dissertation includes three chapters, each with a focus on the interaction of finance and monetary policy in the macroeconomy.the 2007-2008 financial crisis brought about a renewed focus on the role of the financial sector in macroeconomic models. chapter 1 investigates the role commercial banks play in this relationship by (i) providing business cycle facts for commercial bank balance sheet items (quantities) and balance sheet shares (allocation) along with standard macroeconomic business cycle facts and (ii) characterizing commercial bank responses to monetary policy shocks using local projection methods. a key result is the substitution by commercial banks between liability types in response to monetary policy shocks. this liability substitution limits the effect of monetary policy shocks on the asset side of the balance sheet, thus limiting monetary policy transmission effects on commercial bank balance sheets. this mechanism should be considered in future models of financial intermediation and monetary policy transmission.financial shocks have been shown to play a large role in explaining endogenous movements of real variables during the ``great recession". chapter 2 considers a monetary model with an exogenous financial shock. the implications of the presence of financial shocks for optimal monetary policy are explored and the model is estimated via bayesian techniques. i find inflation targeting accomplishes over 85\% of the potential welfare gains of optimal policy and financial shocks explain over 20\% of the variation in output in united states data from 1984 to 2008.chapter 3 is a joint work prepared with timothy s. fuerst. the chapter integrates two traditional explanations for the mean and variability of the term premium into a medium-scale dsge model: (i) time varying risk premia on long bonds, and (ii) segmented markets between short and long bond markets. we consider two sources of business cycle variability, shocks to total factor productivity (tfp) and the marginal efficiency of investment (mei). we find market segmentation is required to match empirical moments of the term premium in the model. the market segmentation reflects a real distortion, thus smoothing the term premium is typically welfare-improving, although we discuss difficulties with such a policy. this dissertation is an attempt to think to some philosophical effect about the christian doctrine of scripture. it explores, defends and develops an incarnational model for the doctrine of scripture. such a model has been widely criticized, but these criticisms are not well-founded. properly understood, the model provides a helpful heuristic for mapping the terrain in debates about the doctrine of scripture. i start by detailing the linguistic framework i will assume in the dissertation. in chapter 1, i offer in some detail, an overview of a pair of programs called semantic minimalism and speech act pluralism (mspap). after situating mspap in its philosophical context, i defend it from one type of extant criticism, supplementing the defense with recent work on the concept of salience. in chapter 2, i turn to the incarnational model itself and survey the kinds of critical responses it has drawn in contemporary theological discussion. the arguments one there finds, i argue, all fail. these criticisms, though unsuccessful, do highlight how poorly the model has been articulated, which suggests that a fresh statement of the model is in order. this i provide, arguing that the incarnational model works the way all models work: by raising to salience shared structure. i then explain how the incarnational model thus construed can be put to use in articulating an approach to the humanity and divinity of the text. the data that provides the basis for our understanding of the humanity of the scriptural text comes primarily from critical biblical scholarship; the data that provides the basis for our understanding of the divinity of the scriptural text comes from a largely conceptual approach to the attributes of scripture. in the following two chapters, i discuss two of these attributes: authority (chapter 3) and perspicuity (chapter 4). in chapter 3, i examine the most recent analysis of biblical authority, arguing for an alternative conception. the proposal for which i argue is consistent with several prominent theological discussions of scripture's authority and can be extended so as to supplement them. in chapter 4, i offer an interpretation of the traditional reformed position on the perspicuity of the text in terms of salience (as introduced in chapter 1) and authority (as defended in chapter 3). i consider the most persistent objection to scriptural perspicuity and argue that it fails. in chapter 5, i apply the findings of the previous chapters to develop an example of the incarnational model: a kenotic model. widely held (though not by that name) the kenotic approach to scripture emphasizes the humanity of the text, accepting the findings of critical scholarship, opting instead to revise whatever pre-theoretic conceptions we might have the divinity of the text. i examine the implications of a kenotic approach for both authority and perspicuity and argue that, contrary to what is typically argued, the problems kenoticism faces are most serious when it comes to the perspicuity of the text. in the conclusion, i draw the dissertation to a close by suggesting that a compositional model may fair better than its kenotic counterpart. this dissertation studies the implications of frictions in the labor and financial markets for the aggregate economy and the central bank's policies. in each of the two chapters, i develop a general equilibrium model that provides a theoretical justification for the empirically observed behavior of agents in a particular market. i then study the implications of these mechanisms in a dynamic setting and relate these developments to central bank policies.the first chapter focuses on the household side of the economy and analyzes the multi-dimensional nature of labor supply decisions, aiming to understand how these decisions matter for monetary policy. in particular, i extend the textbook dynamic new keynesian (dnk) model to include home production and labor supply decisions along both extensive and intensive margins. home production introduces an asymmetric effect of wage changes on the employment rate and average labor hours. as a result, the path of total labor hours over the business cycle becomes ambiguous. when the elasticity of substitution between home and market goods is above a threshold value of 2, the aggregate hours become procyclical. in contrast, the total labor hours are always countercyclical in the textbook model.this discrepancy is important for monetary policy: if the central bank excludes household production from its analysis, it mismeasures the output gap. the resulting welfare loss is substantial and equals 0.013 percent in terms of consumption equivalent. the second chapter centers around the financial sector and analyzes the interbank lending market through the lens of network theory, intending to evaluate how developments in this market affect the overall economy. more specifically, i examine the implications of changes in the interbank lending network for the aggregate loan rate and lending to the real sector. i show that the aggregate loan rate increases in response to a shock that destroys a large fraction of bank relationships and decreases in response to a shock that destroys a small fraction of bank relationships. furthermore, i find that the topology of the interbank network matters for these dynamics: the loan rate is less responsive to the network disruptions if the interbank network is incomplete. the amplification and propagation of these network shocks depend on the corridor of the policy rates set by the central bank. in particular, as the difference between the discount window rate and the interest rate on excess reserves decreases, the effect of a network disruption on loan rates becomes less significant but more persistent, which in turn leads to a smaller but more prolonged effect on the real sector. this dissertation examines several protestant challenges to the rise of evangelical religion in the mid nineteenth century. concerned that religious and political cultures were too readily blending into each other--to the detriment of both--leading protestants criticized populist evangelicalism for its easy accommodation to and sanction of american cultural norms. they held that strong ecclesiastical traditions and institutions, rather than weak ones, could nurture a lasting christian identity as well as stabilize national progress. unlike many american protestants, these churchmen (principally of lutheran, episcopalian, old school presbyterian, and german reformed background) rejected the aims and tactics of revivalism and of experimental religion more generally. they were, moreover, deeply and controversially attracted to elements of the roman catholic tradition, and they sought a conservative, organic politics that would protect them from the radical doctrines of abolitionists, european revolutionaries, and sectional ideologues. most important, in their contest with evangelical notions of the church as an invisible and ideal community of truly regenerate humans, churchly protestants insisted that the church was also a visible body of christians who gather regularly for worship in specific locations. less concerned with purity, such protestants sought unity under stable confessions of faith less susceptible to the impulses of popular culture. neither a political nor even a religious party--in fact principally opposed to the tactics of 'partyism' --these protestants directed their energies into the welfare of their respective churches. the cultural and political crisis that led to the civil war, however, while giving impetus to the churchly vision in the 1840s and early 1850s, proved in the late 1850s to undermine it. the churchly agenda of mid nineteenth-century protestantism collapsed in the years leading up to the civil war as a new more stridently nationalistic evangelicalism transformed the aspirations of those who sought to ground protestant identity in what many perceived as antiquated old world traditionalism. this study includes discussions of important protestant leaders like john williamson nevin, philip schaff, charles hodge, william rollinson whittingham, and charles porterfield krauth, samuel s. schmucker, among others. marburg virus causes deadly hemorrhagic fever in humans and non-human primates and is a close relative of ebola virus. to date, there are no fda approved vaccines or drugs that can be used to treat ebola or marburg virus infection, however, multiple therapeutic agents are in clinical trial showing promising results. the marburg virus genome encodes seven proteins and the matrix protein-vp40 (mvp40) is the most abundantly expressed protein in viral proteome. the vp40 protein has the capacity to interact with inner leaflet of the plasma membrane of the host cell and assemble into viral like particles (vlps) independent of other viral proteins. although a wealth of information is available on how ebola virus matrix protein-vp40 (evp40) interacts with the plasma membrane to assemble the viral matrix and form vlps, information on mvp40 plasma membrane interactions were scarce.the goal of this dissertation was to investigate membrane targeting properties of mvp40 and to understand the molecular basis of mvp40 lipid selectivity and self-assembly that regulates viral matrix formation and subsequent budding from the host cell. using a number of cell-based assays and in vitro methods we uncovered that mvp40 interacts with the plasma membrane using electrostatic interactions and does not show binding specificity to a particular type of anionic phospholipid. mvp40 association with the plasma membrane was highly anionic charge dependent like that of established anionic charge sensors. next, we investigated if mvp40 membrane association induced structural changes in mvp40 using hydrogen-deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (hdx-ms). we identified two potential oligomerization surfaces on mvp40 that facilitate mvp40 assembly into multimeric structures. using site directed mutagenesis we further investigated these potential oligomerization surfaces and found that mutations to these interfaces independently did not induce any changes in plasma membrane localization of the mutant proteins, however, when both surfaces were mutated an altered phenotype was observed as the mutant protein showed increased cytosolic presence. thus, this mutant may shed light on the molecular basis of mvp40 oligomerization. we also uncovered that unlike evp40, mvp40 does not penetrate into the hydrocarbon region of the plasma membrane, however, multiple mutations to a mvp40 hydrophobic loop region resulted in altered cellular localization.compared to the wildtype mvp40, mutants of this hydrophobic loop region showed altered interaction with host cop-іі transport machinery protein, sec24c by showing increased association indicating possible involvement of the ctd-hydrophobic loop region for intracellular trafficking. thus, this study has elucidated structural and functional properties of mvp40 comprehensively to understand mvp40 as a potential therapeutic target such that marburg virus infection can be treated through inhibiting mvp40 assembly at the plasma membrane. what factors explained party system formation in the post-conflict countries of el salvador, guatemala, and nicaragua? the answer to this question is not immediately obvious as the countries present two puzzles for the existing literature on party systems. the first is the surprising path of development that the systems have followed, given the history of the countries and their institutions. the second is the continuity that the three post-transition systems have exhibited. to explain the development of these systems, i propose a path dependent argument that identifies the transition process as a critical juncture (pierson 2000:75; collier and collier 1991:29). the events that took place during the transition, when a competitive and inclusive party system began to take shape, placed these systems on a particular path of development. early decisions shaped future possibilities and self-reinforcing mechanisms make the probability of departing from the set pattern increasingly unlikely (pierson 2000:74-6; collier and collier 1991:29-31). chapter one outlines the project's main argument: that the transition process explains party system institutionalization. chapters two, on leftist parties, and three, on conservative parties, analyze how the interactions between four actors (the military, the armed opposition, the conservative political elite, and the economic elite), during the transition determined the degree to which the party system would be polarized and the type of party organizations that would form. chapter four explores how polarization and party organization explain party system institutionalization. polarization increases or decreases the distance between parties, lowering or raising the costs of switching parties from one election to the next, while the type of partisan organization affects the extent to which citizens are bound to the party system, with durable organizations tending to encourage loyalty among voters. chapter five explores whether differences across party systems matter for how citizens relate to the party system and democracy. the chapter analyzes how the two party system characteristics that are the focus of the dissertation, polarization and electoral stability, affect voter turnout. the conclusion discusses the generalizability of the argument and examines some consequences of party system formation for new democracies. the twentieth century witnessed a renewed interest in the development of a roman catholic theology of the word. the beginning of this renewal is marked by the work of karl rahner who, before the second vatican council, decried the fact that roman catholicism, in contrast to the protestant theological tradition, lacked an adequate theology of the word. relying on a roman catholic theology of grace, rahner's work, along with that of sacramental theologian louis-marie chauvet, demonstrates the roman catholic conviction that the word is fundamentally sacramental: it has the capacity to bear god's presence to humanity. this dissertation examines the contributions of rahner and chauvet, contextualizing them within the larger christian tradition, and identifying ways in which their contributions advanced a roman catholic theology of the word. to that end, the first chapter describes the twentieth-century context. the second chapter treats classical sacramental theology: the work of augustine and thomas aquinas. here words are identified as types of signs, and similarities between classical approaches to god's revelation found in scripture and in the sacraments are demonstrated. the third chapter considers the work of reformation theologians martin luther and john calvin. these figures emphasize that the scriptural word is also the sacramental word of promise; they grapple with the necessity of material elements to mediate god's grace in a fallen world. the fourth chapter examines rahner's efforts to demonstrate the relationship between word and sacrament by contextualizing them within an understanding of an already graced world in which language is the privileged place of the self-expression of god. the fifth chapter examines chauvet's work, focusing on the sacramentality of language, culture, and creation, yet emphasizing the radical absence of the body of the risen christ. christians are formed by the word into the body of christ through participation in liturgy and maintenance of a sacramental world. the conclusion compares these approaches, and analyzes their implications for trinitarian theology, sacramentality, and the understanding of the relationship between word and sacrament. it suggests that the principle of sacramentality is a necessary consideration for roman catholic theologies of the word. a j-dimensional multiple turbo code consists of the parallel concatenation of j (j>2) convolutional encoders connected by j-1 permutors. this dissertation is devoted to the ananlysis and design of multiple turbo codes. the convergence behavior of multiple turbo codes, which is the most important factor that determines the bit error rate (ber) and frame error rate (fer) performance in the low signal-to-noise ratio (snr) region, is studied using two approaches. first, an analytical approach to determine the transfer characteristics of 2-state convolutional codes is derived. the extrinsic information transfer (exit) chart method is then generalized to multiple turbo codes and used to search for low complexity multiple turbo codes with low convergence thresholds. the performance of a multiple turbo code in the high snr region is largely affected by its minimum distance. to simplify the minimum distance analysis, the concept of summary distance is extended to j-dimensional (a set of j-1) permutors and used as a general design metric. a sphere packing upper bound on the minimum length-2 summary distance (spread) of j-dimensional permutors is derived. we derive a lower bound on the minimum summary distance in the ensemble of random permutors. furthermore, we show that this lower bound can be improved by expurgating the 'bad' symbols that are associated with small summary distances. two joint permutor construction algorithms are then presented, one for random permutors and another for linear permutors. the success probability of the random construction algorithm is estimated and a modified version of the algorithm is presented that takes the constituent encoder period into account. a constructive proof is given showing the existence of j-dimensional linear permutors with optimal spread. it is also shown that the minimum length-4 summary distance of a single linear permutor is greatly improved in the case of multiple linear permutors. a computer search for short linear permutors that result in large minimum distances for multiple turbo codes is performed. compared to conventional turbo codes using the best drp permutors, significant improvement has been achieved by using multiple turbo codes with linear permutors. the s-process or the slow neutron capture process is a nucleosynthesis process taking place at relatively low neutron densities in stars. it runs along the valley of beta stability since the neutron capture rate is much slower compared to the beta decay rate. the s-process occurs mainly during core helium burning and shell carbon burning phase in massive stars and during thermally pulsing helium burning phase in asymptotic giant-branch stars. the potential stellar neutron source for the s-process is associated with &alpha-capture reactions on light nuclei. the capture-reaction rates provide the reaction flow for the build-up of 22ne neutron source during the helium-burning phase in these stars. the low energy 26mg resonances at stellar energies below 800 kev are predicted to have a critical influence on the &alpha-capture rates on 22ne. some of these resonances may also correspond to pronounced alpha cluster structure near the &alpha-threshold. however, these resonances have remained elusive during direct alpha capture measurements owing to the high coulomb barrier and background from cosmic rays and beam induced reactions. hence, in the present work, &alpha-inelastic scattering and &alpha-transfer measurements have been performed to probe the level structure of 26mg nucleus in order to determine the 22ne+&alpha-capture rates. both experiments have been performed using the high-resolution grand raiden spectrometer at the research center for nuclear physics (rcnp), osaka, japan. for the &alpha-inelastic scattering measurement, a self-supporting solid 26mg target was used and for the &alpha-transfer study via the (6li,d) reaction, 22ne gas enclosed in a gas cell with aramid windows was used. the reaction products were momentum analysed by the spectrometer and detected at the focal plane equipped with two multi-wire drift chambers and two plastic-scintillation detectors. the focal plane detection system provided information on the position, the angle, the time of flight and the energy of the particles enabling the reconstruction of the kinematics at the target. the focal plane energy calibration allowed for the study of 26mg levels from ex = 7.69 12.06 mev in the (&alpha,&alpha') measurement and ex = 7.36 11.32 mev in the (6li,d) measurement. six levels (ex = 10717 (9) kev , 10822 (10) kev, 10951 (21) kev, 11085 (8) kev, 11167 (8) kev and 11317 (18) kev) were observed above the &alpha-threshold in the region of interest (10.61 11.32 mev). the ex = 10717 kev had a negligible contribution to the &alpha-capture rates. the ex = 10951, 11167 and 11317 kev exhibited pronounced alpha-cluster structure and hence, dominated the &alpha-capture rates. the ex = 11167 kev had the most appreciable impact on the (&alpha,&gamma) rate increasing it by 2 orders of magnitude above longland et al. and bisterzo et al. rates and by a factor of 3 above nacre rate. hence, the recommended 22ne(&alpha,n) + 22ne(&alpha,&gamma) rates, from the present work, strongly favour the reduction of s-process over-abundances associated with massive stars as well as agb stars of intermediate initial mass. also, the uncertainty range corresponding to the present rates suggest the need for a more refined measurement of the associated resonance parameters. currently, 21% of the world's electrical energy is used in artificial lighting. white light leds, the holy grail of lighting, are currently the subject of research toward efforts to reduce this alarming percentage. one method of realizing a white light emitter is to combine red, green, and blue leds. the achilles' heel of this method is the 'green gap' in current led technologies. due to large lattice mismatch between materials with bandgaps near those needed for green emission and popular epitaxial substrates, dislocations prevent fabricating materials with high optical efficiencies. this research focuses on growing nitride nanowires as a potential material solution to this challenge. the nanowires grow as three dimensional pillars and therefore their lattice constants can relax more closely to their inherent values. this will allow for the growth of material free from dislocations. specifically in this work, gan and ingan nanowires were successfully grown on silicon substrates. data on the characterization of the molecular beam epitaxy grown ingan wires, which are the first ever reported, reveal they are of high structural quality. the ingan nanowires show indium concentration gradients which result in a broad optical spectrum. the internal quantum efficiency of the ingan material was found to be 8%. siliconitride nanowire p-n junctions were grown and fabricated for the first time in nitride mbe nanowire technology using p-type silicon. further, nitride nanowire growth by mbe on ald oxides of precisely controlled thickness has been reported here for the first time. success in the growth of nitride nanowires on controlled oxides has led to the first ever reported silicon/oxideitride nanowire heterostructures. also reported for the first time is the observation of the quantum confined stark effect in nanowire multi quantum well structures. the goal of this dissertation is to explore the fundamental chemistry of various hexavalent uranium and neptunium compounds with a focus on crystal structure determination to better understand the formation and stabilization of actinide compounds in the solid-state. solvothermal synthetic approaches using both aqueous and ionic liquid solvents were implemented to grow crystals yielding a variety of different organic-inorganic hybrid structures. special emphasis is placed on the use of ionic liquids as the main reaction medium, given the relatively few reports of their use in the synthesis of actinide-bearing compounds.projects were developed to further study organically stabilized uranyl sulfate materials, which are known for their rich structural diversity. the goal of the first of these is systematically changing solvothermal synthetic parameters to better understand how the chemical and heat treatment variables influence the resultant crystal structures. the second study investigates the way in which the organic cations and interstitial species coordinate to and stabilize uranyl sulfate structural units.projects were also developed to investigate uranyl phosphate chemistry, which has importance to separations and environmental remediation strategies. the first produced four novel uranyl phosphate crystal structures with unique topologies influenced by the incorporation of the diethyl phosphate anion from the ionic liquid. the role the organic on the organophosphate anion is further investigated by replacing the diethyl phosphate with dimethyl and dibutyl phosphate to see how the chemical system and the resulting crystal structures change.the third set of projects explores more complex chemical systems, namely the addition of vanadium into the uranyl phosphate system and neptunium with ionic liquids. the addition of vanadium precursors promotes the crystallization of novel uranyl vanadate clusters with unusual shell architectures that are described and the solution speciation was analyzed. in the final study, isostructural uranyl and neptunyl compounds are synthesized to compare spectroscopic details to understand differences between the uranyl and neptunyl ions. overall, these studies highlight the use of ionic liquids in the synthesis of novel uranyl and neptunyl compounds. this dissertation argues for the valuable contribution and ongoing relevance of latin american liberation theology by exploring the work of ignacio ellacur a. ellacur a articulated the christian message of salvation with an emphasis on a discipleship that entails a creative and mutually-transformative engagement with historical reality. this dissertation contends that ellacur a's account of christian discipleship must be understood within a philosophical, christological, and ecclesiological framework that coherently integrates consideration of transcendent and historical reality. after a brief biographical summary, the dissertation unfolds (chapter 1) by locating ellacur a within the debate over latin american liberation theology. it characterizes this debate as soteriological; that is, a debate over the manner to proclaim christian salvation and its implications for discipleship. three themes (the link between salvation-liberation, the option for the poor, and the emphasis on praxis) will serve to identify the major contours of liberation thought in the 1970's and 1980's, the critiques levied against them by the vatican, and a preliminary outline of ellacur a's thought. after locating ellacur a's thought historically, the dissertation will turn to its central descriptive task: exploring ellacur a's soteriology and account of ecclesial praxis (chapters 2-4). the methodological guide for considering ellacur a's theology comes from his own proposal for latin american theology; an integrated, threefold (noetic, ethical, praxis-oriented) method characterizing the human confrontation with reality. this allows for the central components of his soteriology' its philosophical underpinnings, its christological account of jesus christ as principle of salvation, and its ecclesial proposal for christian action' to be illumined and to be understood as interdependent. the dissertation concludes (chapter 5) with an analysis of thinkers of the so-called 'radical orthodoxy' . since their work positions itself as an alternative to liberation theology in offering a critique of the modern capitalist order and advocating a distinctive form of christian practice, recourse to radical orthodoxy thinkers offers a critical foil against which the continuing value of ellacur a's thought might be construed. ellacur a's hope and call for christian engagement in historical reality provides a sober, integrated vision of the church that seems lacking in the exalted ecclesiologies of other contemporary theologians. this thesis proposes two algorithms for data generation and density estimation. the algorithms use gradient flow formulation and neural-network-based discretization of the gradient flow. in our first algorithm, we uniquely propose using maximum mean discrepancy(mmd) as an energy functional to measure the dissimilarity between distributions. in our second algorithm, we propose the neural network-based algorithm that uses the second-order backward differentiation formula(bdf2) scheme to discretize in the time dimension. meanwhile, the importance of understanding and leveraging the underlying geometric structures in datasets has been increasingly recognized. the other topic of this thesis is utilizing intrinsic geometric information to enhance learning. we propose two algorithms to extract intrinsic geometric information from the data. the first algorithm is constructing a graph for points in the dataset and applying the graph neural network to conduct the learning tasks like regression and classification. the second algorithm is manipulating kernels in gaussian processes and using the properties of the diffusion process to redefine metrics in the dataset and, hence, extract geometric information. then mcmc method can be applied to obtain the samples of parameters. recently there has been rapidly increasing use of biometrics as ways of authentication of individuals in various gateways such as airports, atm machines, electronic devices and more. biometric modalities include voice, iris, face, fingerprint, dna, handwriting, etc. they are attached to a person's identity and may not be changed should they ever fall in the hands of unauthorized individuals. thus with the abundance and promise of biometric usage in each person's life, it is of great importance to preserve the privacy of an individual's biometric data. secure computation and outsourcing, on the other hand, have been constantly improving and becoming more practical in the last few years. the goal of secure computation is to provide privacy of sensitive data while the data is being used in computation involving not fully trusted parties. the task of protecting the privacy of biometric data is quite challenging. one challenge in this regard is the variety of types of computation that different biometrics require. based on the biometric type and the goal of computation, different computational techniques are required. providing security in each case requires its own tools and techniques. in addition, usually these computations are carried out on a large number of inputs, and they demand high computational power. thus such computations are outsourced to powerful yet untrustworthy servers. providing secure solutions for outsourcing biometric computations often proves to be very difficult. in this work we explore solutions and techniques to provide secure computation over iris images and voice data. in particular, we provide the first secure solutions for outsourcing of iris matching computation to either a single server or multiple servers. we evaluate the accuracy of the proposed approaches experimentally. in addition, we provide the first solutions for secure multi-party computation and secure outsourcing to multiple servers of voice data. to achieve this goal, we develop the first secure multi-party computation techniques for floating point operations. we show experimentally that floating point operations enjoy rather fast performance and in some cases outperform integer operations. we then extend our solution to secure two-party joint computation on voice data. our solutions work both in passive and active security models. remanufactory is the title given to the ceramic sculpture exhibition created by ryan bantz at the snite museum of art that was shown march 28, 2010 to may 16, 2010. the installed works are analyzed for their significance to ceramics as well as the subject matter of reuse of urban industrial sites that informed their creation. the artist writes and illustrates the processes, materials, and inspirations that served his work. atomic force microscopy (afm) has been used for investigate the erythrocyte cytoskeleton structure and its stability without removing the plasma membrane by detergent treatment and without extending or staining the cytoskeleton. a novel lectin attachment method was developed to immobilize cell membranes on glass surfaces for afm imaging and a morphological image analysis protocol was built to quantify cytoskeleton structural change under different sample preparation conditions. human healthy and pathological erythrocytes as well as murine mutant erythrocytes were examined with the developed method. an aggregation model was proposed to explain and quantify the observed morphological changes of the cytoskeleton. also studied was the effect of free ca2+ on the cytoskeleton structure and properties of healthy young erythrocytes. finally, tapping-mode afm was used to investigate cytoskeleton elastic properties. this thesis provides evidence to demonstrate that afm combined with quantitative image analysis is a promising approach to connect biochemical and structural data for the study of cytoskeleton physical properties. my dissertation explores the connection between minority melancholia, mathematical form, and modernist fiction via the existential philosophy of martin heidegger, the psychoanalytic theory of jacques lacan and melanie klein, and the non-euclidean mathematics of the twentieth century. through a special study of the common concerns about the historical and personal development of human worlding across these thinkers' philosophies of human being, my project introduces the mathematically-borrowed concept of homotopia, or the change in valence that an entity accrues as it moves from one symbolic domain to another, as a formal heuristic within modernist texts. i investigate homotopia as a structuring trope for re-imaginings of the existentially and culturally contingent, ultimately racialized, and thereby ever formally progressive, nature of human being-in-the-world amidst the decline of european imperialism in the interwar period in germany, britain, and ireland in the (inter)national imaginaries of the canonical modernist fiction of thomas mann, ford madox ford, virginia woolf, and james joyce. my project especially re-examines the epistemologically developmental, bildungsroman-like aspects of these narratives' melancholic stagings of new modernist challenges to the universalized bourgeois transition from childhood worlding to adult epistemologies in an era of deep philosophical interrogation into the existential and scientific nature of human being. i argue that modernist form opens a melancholically dynamic space in which to re-investigate the factical aspects of human being. modernist treatments of the biological and contingent aspects of minorized and racialized existence, exoticized into subaltern categories of social and political affect and exclusion, transform these qualities into formally, relationally, and aesthetically malleable and abstracted, queered categorizations of a new universal, multiply existential approach to human being. through the tropes of the gaze, skin, non-euclidean planes, inassimilable relations of parts to wholes, and fractal temporality, my project uncovers a modernist narratological poetics of homotopic changes to traditional subject-object relations that re-imagines a plurality of potential viewpoints through which narratives of human development can be refracted into an endless array of symbolic, scientific, and mathematical form. in ultimately rendering these imaginary aspects as so many uncannily homotopic, mathematically abstractable, and at the same time potentially mutually democratizing forms of human being-in-the-world, these modernists' texts resist the formal homogeneities of imperialist logic in favor of a provisionally pluralist approach to form. thus, canonical modernist fiction plays with both the liberating and also uncanny philosophical antinomies of oneness and multiplicity still embedded in the progressive hopes, political failures, and ongoing modern(ist) horizons of multicultural pluralism in our contemporary era today. metallic structures at the nanoscale exhibit numerous properties which enable fascinating uses. plasmonic responses, electromagnetic field generation, chemical sensing and catalytic capabilities are facilitated by the appropriate implementation of metallic nanoparticles. these properties can be enhanced significantly by strategic morphology and placement control; namely selective faceting, and nanogap formation. while colloidal syntheses have been explored in great detail throughout the literature, providing a vast selection of available morphologies which enable facet selection, controllable placement of the structures remains challenging for colloidally synthesized particles. conversely, substrate-immobilized structures such as those achieved through thin film dewetting can provide excellent placement capabilities, through lithography processes, though the ability to control morphology remains underdeveloped. even provided acceptable syntheses, the challenge of preserving such structures remains, as material properties of nano-dimensioned structures differ significantly from our understanding of those in bulk materials. thermal degradation, as well as oxidation and other chemical reactions tend to alter the nanostructures much more significantly, rendering many materials unfeasible for the applications for which they may otherwise be selected. this dissertation provides means by which each of these challenges can be addressed.it is demonstrated that the faceting of dewetted metallic structures can be enhanced by subjecting them to a liquid-phase chemical environment in which metal ions are reduced and deposited on the nanostructure surface in a manner that leads to facet formation. the resultant structures exhibit sharper corners which far surpass those which can be produced by thermal routes alone. the faceting procedure, which can be carried out in minutes, is also shown to be amenable to a templated dewetting approach in which arrays of lithographically defined nanostructures are formed. the work has the potential to increase the functionality of dewetted nanostructures by enabling facet dependent chemical reactivity and enhanced plasmonic hot spots.the functionality of such well-tailored nanomaterials can only be retained if they are robust to the environmental factors in which they operate. herein, it is demonstrated that atomic layer deposition can be used as a pliable technique for the application of oxide coatings to substrate-based metallic nanostructures. emphasis is placed on cu, which is typically rejected as a feasible material despite having favorable plasmonic and electronic properties at low cost. it is shown that suitably protected structures become robust to oxidation, high temperatures, and aqueous, acidic, and alkaline solutions without unduly influencing important plasmonic properties. moreover, strategies are presented for maximizing plasmonic near-fields and allowing for the transport of hot electrons while maintaining coating integrity. within the scope of the investigation, alumina, hafnia, titania, and combinations thereof are all shown to be effective under certain conditions, but where hafnia shows the greatest durability in extreme ph environments, enabling lspr preservation for over 100 days in 1 m hno3 or naoh. alumina-hafnia laminates provide optimal thermal protection against oxidation and morphology altering surface diffusion, to temperatures as high as 600 °c.strategic application and removal of ald alumina is then used to facilitate the synthesis of advanced nanogap structures. the fabrication method enables an easily tunable nanogap width, at angstrom level precision. the resultant trimer structures form parallel to the substrate and show preferred alignment, which enables optimal coupling under surface-normal light, and polarization dependent lspr spectra, which are of importance to various optical sensing modalities. the trimer geometry enables high density of nanogaps on the substrate, at 4.9 billion gaps per square centimeter, a feature of great importance to photocatalysis and sers. the superior crystallinity of these trimer structures is also notable, as many other nanogap syntheses produce only polycrystalline structures.the combined scientific achievements demonstrated in this dissertation serve to further the capabilities of nanoparticles for real-world applications: greater morphology control over substrate-immobilized nanostructures, preservation of the shape-engineered structures, and advanced synthesis methods are developed, each of which may serve independently or in tandem to greatly advance the capabilities of applied nanotechnology. we report the fabrication and characterization of single and network of cdse nanowire (nw) field-effect transistors (fets). the nws are grown by the solution-liquid-solid (sls) technique and are on an average 10 nms in diameter and few microns in length.back gating is employed to fabricate fets. electrical contacts are defined to network of nws by photolithography while e-beam lithography (ebl) and focussed ion beam (fib) methods are employedto contact single nws that act as channels of the fets. fabrication of nw fets, with problems encountered and possible solutions to the problems are discussed in detail.individual cdse nws are found to be very resistive with current levels in a few pas for few volts of applied bias. pronounced photoconductivity is observed in the presence of visible lightwith current levels increasing from a few pas to 100s of pas for single nws and a few nas to few $mu$as for network of nws.field effect characterization indicates n-type unintentional doping of cdse nws. in dark, turn-on to turn-off current ratios between 10 and $~$10$^{3}$ for single nws and between 10$^{3}$ and 10$^{6}$ for network of nws fets have been realized.under optical illumination, current increment from over 10 to 10$^{3}$ as gate bias is changed from +40v to -30v is observed for single nw fets while current increment from over 10 to 10$^{6}$ isobserved for network of nws fets as gate bias varies from +10v to -10v. loss of gate control under optical illumination is observedfor both single and network of nws.our nw fets show high photoconductivity which makes them suitable for nw based optical sensing. mass drug administration, a key malaria control strategy, has been thwarted by the development of drug resistance to nearly all classes of antimalarials in use. antifolate drugs are antimalarial compounds that target and inhibit the folate pathway necessary for pyrimidine synthesis in the blood stage parasite. discovering and understanding the evolution of resistance is essential to developing novel treatment regimes and avoiding future treatment failure. previous studies of p. falciparum malaria parasites derived from the field isolates suggest an association between gch1 copy number variations (cnvs) and resistance to the antimalarial drug pyrimethamine (pyr). however, the actual functional role of this cnv on drug sensitivity and parasite fitness has not been determined. using the parents and progeny of the genetic cross between clonal parent lines, hb3 and dd2, we identified a positive correlation between gch1 copy number (cn) and pyr ic50 values and confirmed the phenotypic effect of the gch1 cnv by amplifying the cn in hb3 parasites (a two-fold increase) using the piggybac transfection system. our data raise the interesting possibility that the genetic background of resistant parasites, specifically dihydrofolate reductase (dhfr) mutation background, influences the magnitude of effect of gch1 cnv on parasite drug response. previously, cnvs have been associated with resistance levels in natural parasite populations, however evidence for their direct impact on drug-related traits was lacking. a key outcome of this project was the development of approaches for the continued study of the gch1 cn phenotype. new transfected parasites are already being produced to further explore the role of dhfr background mutations. we have also developed a multiple-reaction monitoring massspectroscopy assay to measure changes in flux of the folate biosynthesis pathway caused by the gch1 amplification. this method will enable experiments to determine the mechanism by which gch1 amplification we leads to shifts in drug susceptibility. witchcraft has exploded in popularity as a genre within entertainment media, as a fashion aesthetic, and as a lifestyle: crystals, tarot decks, and spellbooks are now sold at major retailers and these tools and information about witchcraft are easily accessible in ways that would have once seemed unimaginable. only a few decades removed from the "satanic panic," the moral uproar of the 1980s and onward that cast suspicion on a variety of occult practices and non-christian spiritual practices, the trendiness of witchcraft is surprising, existing as it does alongside a real marginalized religious and/or lifestyle practice that is still stigmatized and discriminated against in many places. in this work, i examine how self-identified witches respond to the mainstreaming of interest in the "witchy" and esoteric: given the proliferation and newfound visibility of witchcraft (and availability of information and resources), how do witches navigate their own identity and feelings of authenticity within this context of witchcraft-as-fad? how do witches navigate this saturated cultural context, and what is at stake for members of the witchcraft community? in conducting interviews with self-identified witches across the united states, i show that two competing logics emerge in response to the popularity of witchcraft: one that embraces the mainstream trend and encourages "normalizing" the craft, and another that advocates for preserving a degree of secrecy within what is ultimately a magical tradition. the former welcomes newcomers whatever their entry point while those in the latter camp are more critical of the kinds of information inexperienced witches have access to, and thus more wary of the direction an influx of beginner witches might take the community as a whole. ultimately, i argue that the mainstreamers are better positioned to take advantage of opportunities to generate emotional energy in interactions given the fresh enthusiasm coming into the community, but in this they are equally exposed and vulnerable to situations that drain and dilute the emotional energy available. those in the "mystery" camp generate less overall emotional energy, but are better able to protect that which they do have, and which is experienced as more intense than those who embrace the mainstream. i will further argue that this emotional energy matters because it has a direct effect on witches' ability to generate and sustain a sense of solidarity and community. this dissertation situates the corporeal body as a site of political engagement, activism, and communication across the western hemisphere in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. i argue that economic and political policies, like the north american free trade agreement, build on the historical realities of imperial and colonial conquest in north, central, and south america, and the caribbean to further structure inter-continental connections in neoliberal economic terms. this comparative approach shapes my readings of hemispherically-oriented novels, short stories, and performances since 1991 as direct, performative responses to life on the continent structured by free trade.this project theorizes nonrepresentational and nonverbal discourses, in the form of gestures, embodied cartography, and rituals, which provide a basis for new forms of realism and continental coalition. applying performance studies to prose and poetry by claudia hernández, rosario sanmiguel, ana maurine lara, achy obejas, dahlma llanos figueroa, toni morrison, karen tei yamashita, leslie marmon silko, ana castillo, janet campbell hale, jeannette armstrong, and calixta gabriel xiquín, i find embodied responses that constitute a framework for understanding emergent forms of realism and continental coalition. ultimately, i argue that to fully understand the contemporary is to move through it. this movement cannot be singular, nor can it be simply collective. coalition is an extension of the self—where we meet, encounter, and struggle together. i suggest that this is a decolonial alteration of a continental trajectory is a form of agential realism. this study investigates the impact of schemas related to the body on the experiences of runners in a mainstream running group, the funrunners, and a more extreme ultrarunning group, the ultramaniacs. i use the cases of running groups to make contributions to the field of cultural sociology by employing a variety of research methods including textual analysis of online chatboard interactions and content analysis of popular running publications. i use this data to explore public discourse around running, to examine the structuring of the two running groups, and to investigate the specific meaning structures at play in the groups. ultimately, i wanted to know how hermeneutics matter in human lived experience. also, what is the relationship between internal group cultures and external macro cultures? and why do processes or objects that garner no attention in one setting become objects of intense focus in another and what effect does this have? that is, are there cultural virtuosi within the running world, ala weber's religious virtuosi, and, if so, what processes constitute them? the focus on the funrunners and ultramaniacs was chosen primarily because of the possibilities for seeing the processes of interest here in order to build theory and best illustrate meaning-making and meaning-influence. this is not a study about running, it is a study of the sui generis creation of meaning in groups, an examination of the conditions both organizational and external under which this meaning-making is most likely to occur, and then an exploration of how the meanings created (at times) within groups can matter to the people who encounter and hold them. the layered exploration of these processes in this study shows that not all people are equally likely to pay attention to meanings in all areas of their lives. there are many places where meaning is taken for granted, and in part, this study shows why cultural virtuosi are created in certain types of situations. why do states sometimes decline profitable opportunities to annex their neighbors? my dissertation answers this question by examining the domestic political effects of international territorial annexation. in short, i argue that state leaders consider domestic political consequences in addition to material benefits and military costs when determining the desirability of annexationism, and reject opportunities to annex territory where they fear it impairing their domestic influence (even where annexation would be materially profitable). i argue that such fears lead democracies, which are particularly vulnerable to swings in the domestic balance of power resulting from annexation, to reject the absorption of neighboring societies. i suggest that the current stability of the international system is a result of this mechanism, rooted in the spread of democracy among the great powers. testing this theory has involved two types of research. first, i constructed an original dataset of 288 annexationist ventures conducted by the modern great powers throughout their histories as powerful states. using this dataset, i conclusively established both the decline of annexationism after world war ii and the lack of annexationism by democracies. after laying out my theory of annexation?s domestic political consequences, i test its causal logic against the conventional wisdom by process-tracing the decision making of us leaders facing major opportunities to expand into canada and mexico between 1774 and 1871. the unique geopolitical features of the united states should have made it particularly desirous of conquering its neighbors, yet these case studies clearly demonstrate that us leaders desired the lands of their neighbors but not their populations because they feared the domestic political consequences of assimilating them. synonymy, interprets the unsustainable and ephemeral characteristics of the physical human body. for every human being, bodily vulnerability and inevitable decay are a fact of life. no body escapes death. simultaneously, my work seeks to examine the existence of an intangible self, the possibility of unseen metaphysical life energy, and/or the presence of a divine sustaining incorporeal spirit. all, which in the end, body and soul, may exist entangled as well as supersede one another. my thesis research culminates in a kinetic, mixed media sculptural series of life-sized human figures. each sculpture is rendered in a representational manor making apparent a sense of bodily individualism as well as energetically capturing its fluctuating homeostatic characteristics. moreover, within each figurative vessel is an abstracted internal space that seems compositionally interconnected to the surface, yet is infinitely volumetric, formless, and otherly. for me, this ambiguous and luminous interiority suggest the mysterious unknowns that continue to surround our developing yet the limited knowledge about body, cognitive science, and the extraordinary universe around us. our primal sameness, our harmonious synonymy, is that we are all simply human. every human is gifted a miraculous biologically evolving body, a fascinating sense of psychology, and a limited tenure on earth called life. it is my intent to honor human individualism and celebrate life's diversity while simultaneously recognizing a sense of certain universalisms to communicate an idea of unification, togetherness, and oneness. my hope is to generate a highly personal, introspective, and affective visual art experience that ultimately alludes to the intertwined, interdependent, and communal nature of humankind and the world we exist in. in the end we are all simply human. early life experiences influence the regulatory and relational capacities of a developing human. under healthy conditions, mothers and newborns achieve synchrony in their social interactions wherein the infant signals the caregiver, who, in return, responds sensitively and contingently. these healthy interactions provide an optimal environment, nourishing the development of self-regulation. the still face paradigm is used frequently as a lab-controlled situation for studying self-regulation in infants. the lab task interrupts contingent interaction between mother and infant, typically eliciting affective responses indicative of the infant's self-regulatory skills. the current study proposed implementation of longitudinal statistical techniques which allow for the examination of response patterns during the socially stressful task with the mother and infant, specifically examining and comparing the intercepts and slopes of affect within each segment of the task. it was concluded that 15-second intervals are ideally reliable and able to detect differences in change among the three segments of the still face paradigm. the holy ghost is a magical realist novel set in a world where the christian god exists, one thousand years after the return of jesus. it begins in an anarchist village in the mountains. a young boy's mother dies after being possessed by a demon—and, traumatized, the family leaves the village for the holy city of jerusalem: a place where, once every ten years, someone is sent to see god. along the way, the novel is a very serious exploration of the nature of goodness, knowledge, and belief in a strange, surreal world where human society and history are unrecognizable; prophets read the words of holy books embedded somewhere in their chest; and the stars are holes in the sky, letting the light of heaven shine through. for the performance analysis of multihop wireless networks, the key issues are energy consumption, end-to-end reliability, delay and throughput. in the research of wireless multihop networks, the ``disk models' that are often employed assume that the radius for a successful transmission of a packet has a fixed and deterministic value, irrespective of the condition of the wireless channel. taking into account the stochastic nature of the fading channel, the rayleigh fading link model includes fading as a random variation in the path loss. as a result, all properties of the network become random variables, in particular the signal-to-noise-and-interference ratio (sinr) that determines the success of a transmission. this thesis explores the performance of oneand two-dimensional networks with equidistant nodes and uniformly randomly placed nodes. for regular two-dimensional networks, three topologies are studied based on a uniform traffic model and a simple random mac scheme. square networks are explored in more detail for their load distribution. by comparing the energy consumption and the achievable throughput for random and regular networks, we demonstrate that random distributions incur substantially higher energy expenditures at a lower achievable throughput. for sensor networks with a slotted aloha mac protocol in rayleigh fading channels, we present closed-form expressions of the average link throughput, and we compare networks with three regular topologies in terms of throughput, transmit efficiency, and transport capacity. for random networks with nodes distributed according to a two-dimensional poisson point process, the average throughput is analytically characterized and numerically evaluated. uniformly random or poisson distributions are widely accepted models for the location of the nodes in wireless sensor networks if nodes are deployed in large quantities and there is little control over where they are dropped. on the other hand, by placing nodes in regular topologies, we expect benefits both in coverage and efficiency of communication. we describe and analyze quasi-regular networks, which only use nodes as sentries and relays that are approximately evenly spaced, thereby emulating a regular grid topology. it is shown that quasi-regular networks have a significant energy and lifetime advantage compared with purely random networks. single dielectric barrier discharge (sdbd) plasma actuators have been applied to a wide variety of aerodynamic flow control applications ranging from stall suppression of airfoils at high angles of attack to reducing tip leakage in jet engine turbine blades. with increased interest in applying plasma actuators to various engineering problems comes the need for an efficient model of the actuators that can be used in a cfd simulation. prior to the current work, a model was developed that captured many of the spatial and temporal dynamics of the actuator by using circuits consisting of resistors and capacitors to model the plasma and dielectric material. in the current work, this model was refined by casting the governing equations in terms of a generalized coordinate system so that it can be applied to curved surfaces, the grid dependence of the model was eliminated, and the method of applying this model as a boundary condition to the electrostatic equations to calculate the body forces generated by the actuator was studied. this new formulation of the lumped circuit element model was then validated against various experimental observations including force vector orientation needed to produce observed induced flow, the scaling of the force with input voltage, and the directivity patterns and pressure time-series from acoustic measurements. the model was also implemented in a flow solver for the case of an impulsively started actuator on a flat plate and compared to experimental data found in literature. finally, the utility of the model was demonstrated by simulating the use of actuators for flow control of the flow over a circular cylinder and a modified blunt trailing edge wind turbine blade. p190b rhogap is a negative regulator of the rho gtpase signaling pathway. rho signaling is involved in proliferation, migration, polarity and cytoskeletal rearrangement. it has also been shown to be elevated in many forms of cancer. in the developing mouse mammary gland p190b is expressed in the terminal end buds(tebs), which are the proliferative structures responsible for expanding the ductal system into the mammary fat pad during virgin mammary gland development. overexpression of p190b during development leads to disruption of the stromal composition of the tebs. in addition, ductal tree expansion and morphology is abnormal and is characterized by increased branching, lack of organization and stunted expansion of the tree into the fat pad. overexpression of p190b during pregnancy has also been shown to result in the development of hyperplastic lesions. in this project we aim to determine the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which p190b overexpression disrupts mammary gland development. for this we have mimicked mammary gland ductal development using a three dimensional culture technique. primary mammary epithelial cells(mecs) are harvested and placed in single cell suspension in matrigel reconstituted basement membrane(rbm). individual cells seeded in matrigel-rbm form hollow acinus-like colonies of cells, which resemble the natural ductal structure formed in vivo in the mammary gland. primary mecs are obtained from tetracycline regulatable p190b transgenic mice. the mecs harvested from these mice are compared against wild type mice mecs in the 3d culture. using this method it was determined that p190b overexpression altered proliferation, polarity, cell death rates and morphology. children coming from disadvantaged backgrounds tend to have smaller vocabularies than their higher income peers, which can lead to further academic discrepancies over the early school years. this suggests the need for intervention research that addresses various ways to boost low-income children's word knowledge before the start of kindergarten. this study examines how different forms of scaffolded adult extra-textual input (questions, comments, or a combination of the two) during shared book reading might enhance vocabulary acquisition in young children attending head start. additionally, child characteristics such as general vocabulary level and executive functioning are examined as potential predictors for vocabulary learning in the context of shared book reading. results indicated that children who heard extra-textual input during shared book reading were able to receptively identify more new vocabulary words than those who did not hear any extra-textual input. no significant differences were found between groups that heard scaffolded questions, comments, a combination, or simple repetition of the target words, however. results also indicated that children's general vocabulary level was a positive predictor of their new vocabulary word learning during shared book reading after controlling for age, and children's executive functioning skills moderated the effect of extra-textual input vs. no extra-textual input on children's expressive and definitional vocabulary learning. implications for early literacy intervention and head start classroom practices are discussed. through the argument and action of the laws, plato teaches his readers that political life will never reach a state of rational perfection, but progress is possible through incremental reforms introduced through gentle persuasion. these reforms should strengthen the leadership of reason, but also educate the irrational to support this rule willingly, thereby establishing harmony between them. the athenian stranger encourages his interlocutors to aspire toward this goal by demonstrating new approaches to lawgiving and to education based on his double vision. this entails envisioning the perfectly ordered city and soul as his telos, while also acknowledging the ways in which his actual city and citizens fall short of this ideal. finally, the athenian advocates using gentle persuasion to move the latter towards the former. persuasion incorporates argument, but also addresses the passions through pleasure, poetry, habituation, appeals to the divine, honor, and shame. the athenian also demonstrates that while gentle persuasion may be successful in private education, it has limitations when applied to the city by lawgivers. specifically, although the athenian does persuade his interlocutors to follow the leadership of intelligence, he is less successful in creating an effective public paideia for his city in speech. however, unlike socrates who refrains from direct involvement in politics because he prefers private education, the athenian continues to aspire to improve the city, despite his awareness that perfect, lasting resolution between the rational and irrational is not possible in political life. ultimately, magnesia is not a blueprint for future cities because the dialogue remains unresolved on the proper way to reconcile the tensions between the rule of law and living intelligence, between philosophy and politics, between individual freedom and the common good, between positive and negative freedom, between the many and the few, between the possibility of education and the limits imposed by human nature. yet by encouraging readers to recognize these tensions, the laws allows them to appreciate the flaws and limitations in themselves and in their political communities, to moderate their expectations, but also to remain engaged in political life and to continue to aspire to bring positive change. this work details the analysis and design of compact square-law envelope detectors employing schottky diodes for use as low-power energy efficient gbps on-off-keying receivers. an efficiency and noise model is presented and verified, and the implications for system design are discussed. the main motivation for these receivers and models is for the design of low-cost, low-complexity millimeter wave mimo systems. both antenna-coupled and probed detectors are designed and measured. a detector with record minimum nep of 0.28 pw/√hz is presented. a high input impedance peaking baseband lna for wideband buffering of the diode baseband output is designed, fabricated, and integrated with the detector to create an on-off-keying receiver with a bit rate of 1 gbps. the receiver exhibits a sensitivity of -36 dbm for a bit error ratio of 1e-3, which is a record for gbps nonpreamplified on-off-keying receivers employing passive detectors. the receiver energy efficiency is 1.44 pj/bit, which is competitive with even monolithic implementations. it also dissipates a low absolute power of only 1.15 mw, which is especially attractive for multi-antenna systems. this thesis demonstrates that nonlinear, nonstandard detector-based receivers can simultaneously achieve both high data rate and low power consumption over the air in a commercial millimeter wave band. this dissertation presents a fundamental reinterpretation of the cultural politics of postwar american fiction, arguing that the robust linkage between liberalism and highbrow literary fiction in the post-sixties united states must be understood in relation to the rise of modern conservatism and its evolving positions on race. in the best existing accounts describing the influence of american politics on postwar fiction, scholars such as michael szalay and sean mccann emphasize a constellation of aesthetic disputes between the technocratic rationality of the old left and the anti-authoritarianism of the new left. but i argue that the conservative movement played an equally significant role in reshaping the dominant political order in ways that also reshaped normative assumptions about novelistic form, literary merit, and the value-laden implications of literary fiction. at midcentury, movement conservatives positioned themselves as elite traditionalists who supported jim crow segregation and defended high culture against the masses. during the 1960s, though, they began to embrace both laissez-faire capitalism and coded racial populism in ways that generated the institutional conditions for the eventual presumed linkage between liberalism and highbrow literary fiction.bringing together a politically diverse group of fiction writers including, but not limited to, ralph ellison, flannery o'connor, ayn rand, james baldwin, norman mailer, saul bellow, thomas pynchon, william f. buckley, jr., tom wolfe, and toni morrison, i advance this argument through two key, interdependent claims: first, that fiction as a cultural form played a larger role than previously assumed in the emergence and evolution of movement conservatism's racial politics; second, and most importantly, that major american writers responded to the dynamic rise of conservatism by reimagining the equivocal, racially fraught term conservative and thus the complex political ramifications of their works. in this first book-length study of the more than half-century intersection between american fiction and postwar conservatism, i trace the shifting racial politics of movement conservatism, neoconservatism, and the new right in order to show that the postwar conservative movement was a major driver of literary change, and ultimately reveal how contemporary literary form is inextricably bound up with the rise of the american right. theoretical, numerical and experimental studies of hydraulic, thermal and control aspects in fluid networks are presented. first, a one-dimensional differential-algebraic nonlinear model, based on first principles, representing the time-dependent behavior in networks is developed. a thermal-hydraulic analysis of a small network with three common control strategies for heating and cooling of buildings is carried out. pid controllers are used to respond to changes in the thermal load. the temperature difference between the chiller supply and return water is used as a criterion for comparison. next, an experimental hydronic network featuring these control methodologies is used to complement the theoretical study by including all the complexities of the problem, such as valves hysteresis, dynamic time constants, imperfect actuators and imperfect sensors. stability and reachability issues arise during the control process as a consequence of changing the thermal load. the importance of location and selection of the hardware used for control becomes evident. control hardware placement is addressed next. the discrete space of possible locations for a specific layout is explored in order to find the best configuration. the hardware elements are a control valve and two booster pumps. pumping action is divided among the two pumps to be able to look at different combinations. the change in operating conditions and the output reachabilities of the control system are used as criteria to compare the relative merits of different configurations. finally, the mathematical model is extended to the study of large, possibly infinite, self-similar networks configured in the form of a regular branching tree. each branch of the tree bifurcates with a constant diameter and length ratio. since the local reynolds number changes at every generation, the flow may transition from laminar to turbulent or relaminarize from turbulent to laminar. the global stability of the steady flow is demonstrated for friction laws for which viscous forces are nondecreasing functions of the flow rate, otherwise the flow may oscillate. in addition the control properties of the network hydrodynamics are investigated using valves and pumps as control elements to manipulate branch flow rates and nodal pressures. i. the effects of titanium dioxide nanoparticles on cell-cell contacts during xenopus embryogenesis titanium dioxide nanoparticles (nps), previously considered inert, are semiconducting nanomaterials that possess photocatalytic activity. these nanoparticles are found in a variety of consumer products, including foods, paper, paints, and cosmetics. however, few methods are in place to monitor the safety of these products. to study the effects of tio2 nps on embryonic development, precise amounts of tio2 nps were microinjected into xenopus laevis embryos shortly after fertilization to test for toxicity. these studies have shown that tio2 nps are teratogenic and compromise cell-cell contacts during embryogenesis. a microarray analysis of embryos injected with tio2 nps indicated a disruption of genes implicated in tight junctions (occludin, claudins 4 and 7, cadherin 26), cell movement (calcipressin 1, rhoa, gαi), and cell adhesion (ephrin a1, rhoa, gαi). western blot analysis confirmed decreased levels of occludin in embryos microinjected with tio2 nps. confocal analysis of these embryos also confirmed decreased levels of occludin protein and increased levels of ephrin-a1 in the involuting ectoderm. preliminary studies suggest that actin polymerization is increased in embryos microinjected with tio2 nps. in line with this, expression of rhoa is increased in the microarray data, and activated rhoa promotes actin polymerization and contraction. disruption in signaling pathways involving these proteins could account for the phenotypes observed in the tio2 nps injected embryos. this research highlights the need for an increased understanding of the bioactivity of tio2 nps. ii. targeted depletion of sumoylation in cardiomyocytes of xenopus embryoschds are the most common form of human birth defect with 36,000 american births and ~1% of worldwide births affected each year. chds also account for more infant deaths during the first year of life than any other birth defect. however, genetic inheritance can only explain a small percentage of chds, leaving the cause for the majority of abnormalities unknown. several transcription factors that are critical for normal heart development are modified by sumoylation. additionally, there are many examples where sumoylation is critical for normal cardiovascular development and function. sumoylation, a post-translational modification that occurs via an enzymatic cascade, affects a variety of biological processes. transcription factors are a frequent target of sumoylation, and this reversible modification plays a significant role in regulation of gene expression. expression of gam1, an adenoviral protein that degrades the sumo e1-activating enzyme, was placed under the control of three cardiac specific promoters (nkx2.5, mlc2, and anf), in order to reduce sumoylation in cardiac progenitor cells at distinct embryonic stages. results indicate that reduction of sumoylation activity causes a variety of cardiac malformations, including ventricular noncompaction cardiomyopathy, cardiac edema, reversal of cardiac laterality, failure of looping morphogenesis, failure of fusion of cardiac heart fields, and decreased cardiomyocyte proliferation. the occurrence of these phenotypes varied according to the cardiac promoter controlling expression of the transgene. embryos expressing gam1 under control of the nkx2.5b promoter exhibited a high occurrence of outflow tract and atrial defects. on the other hand, embryos expressing gam1 under control of the anf promoter exhibited a high occurrence of atrial septal defects. surprisingly, embryos expressing gam1 under control of the mlc2 promoter were least affected by loss of sumoylation, with most defects being moderate in nature and involving the atrial septal wall. these studies shed light on the molecular mechanisms underlying congenital heart defects in humans and provide potential therapeutic targets to prevent the occurrence of these malformations. this dissertation offers the first english translation of the treatise *de natura et gratia* by the spanish dominican domingo de soto (c. 1494-1560), published shortly after his initial tenure at trent during the first period of the council. the treatise examines four "states" of humanity (the state of pure nature, the state of original justice, the fallen state, and the justified state) in fifty-seven chapters across three books. while soto himself styles the treatise as an exposition and defense of the fifth and sixth sessions of the council of trent, it mainly aims at refuting lutheran teaching and, even more, presenting thomistic soteriology in light of the reformation controversies. along with the translation (appendix b), the dissertation also provides a latin text of *de natura et gratia* (appendix a), a comparison of significant differences between the first printing of the treatise and two subsequent printings (appendix c), and an introduction to the treatise (chapters 1-3). the first chapter of the introduction explores soto's involvement at the council of trent and its bearing upon *de natura et gratia*. the first chapter thus also considers soto's explicit interaction with the council of trent's decrees concerning original sin (fifth session) and justification (sixth session). the second chapter of the introduction examines soto's engagement with lutherans, while the third chapter offers an overview of soto's approach to scripture, the fathers, various medieval figures, and his own catholic contemporaries. a bergman space hl2(bd, du_eta) is non-zero if and only if eta>-1. we define new spaces,hl2(bd,eta), which are the same as bergman spaces if eta>-1 but non-zero for eta>-(d+1). we define toeplitz operators associated with polynomials to the spaces hl2(bd,eta) when -(d+1)<eta =< -1. we can show that some properties of toeplitz operators do not hold in this range. we also use some properties of berezin transforms and hilbert-schmidt operators to extend the definition of toeplitz operators associated with l2(bd, d au), where d au is the hyperbolic volume measure, to the spaces hl2(bd,eta) when -(d+2)/2<eta=< -1. this dissertation investigates the robust analysis and control of uncertain hybrid systems, which are perturbed by time-variant parametric uncertainties and persistent disturbances. three kinds of hybrid control problems are considered: robust tracking and regulation control, robust stabilization, and robust performance. for robust tracking and regulation control, the aim is to design hybrid control law so that all the trajectories starting from a given initial region in the state space can be driven to a specified target region while satisfying certain state and control constraints. this problem is solved by a backward reachability analysis approach, and a linear programming based model predictive control scheme. the problem of robust stabilization for uncertain hybrid systems is then formulated and studied in the framework of tracking and regulation control. next, the persistent disturbance attenuation problems are considered for the uncertain hybrid systems. it is shown that the robust optimal disturbance attenuation control law can be implemented as piecewise linear state feedback. however, the difficulty is that the disturbance attenuation property analysis problem for general uncertain hybrid systems is undecidable. an important question is then to specify the decidable class for the robust performance analysis problem. it is proved that the robust analysis and synthesis procedures terminate in finite number of steps for switched linear systems under certain conditions. switched linear systems represent an interesting subclass of hybrid systems with simplified discrete event dynamics. one of the most elusive problems in the switched system's literature has been the switching stabilizability problem, that is under what condition it is possible to stabilize a switched system by properly designing switching control laws. a necessary and sufficient condition for the asymptotic stabilizability of switched linear systems is introduced here, which is an improvement upon the sufficient only conditions found in the literature. considering a class of applications, networked control systems(ncss) with uncertain access delay and packet dropouts are studied in the framework of switched systems. the stability and disturbance attenuation properties of such ncss are explored. in particular, two different switched system approaches are proposed. in the first approach, which is based upon the assumption that the access delay and consecutive packet dropouts are bounded, an arbitrary switching system model is obtained by incorporating all possible delay-dropout patterns and relaxing the switching signal to be arbitrary. alternatively, the second approach is based on average dwell time concepts and restricts the occurring frequency and the number of dropped and delayed packets in the time average sense. in addition, a stability and l2 performance preserving network bandwidth management policy is proposed based on the average dwell-time approach. of the candidates for meeting our world's increasing demand for clean energy, solar energy outshines the others, presenting the potential for orders of magnitude more power than is currently demanded. in order for solar energy use to be economically feasible, however, efficient yet inexpensive solar cells need to be developed. third generation photovoltaics utilizing nano-scale materials have the potential to fill that need. in this dissertation, three aspects of quantum dot solar cells are addressed with the objective of understanding the nature of the nano-materials utilized and improving efficiencies of the devices based on those nano-materials. firstly, growth of zno nanowires (commonly employed as high-surface area, directional substrates in nano-structured solar cells) is examined. reaction species are identified and quantified via in-situ, time-resolved x-ray absorption spectroscopy. contrary to explanations presented in the literature, zno nanowire growth is shown to proceed via direct deposition from precursors without the formation of an intermediate species. better understanding of the growth mechanisms of will lead to finer control of properties of the deposited nanowires. next, a nano-scale semiconductor active layer is considered. spectroscopic, microscopic, and photovoltaic characterization of cdse deposited on meso-porous tio2 nanoparticle films via successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (silar) is described. using x-ray absorption fine structure (xafs), the identity of deposited species is shown to depend on the order in which the cd and se are deposited, and the interface is only affected during the first few cycles of deposition. photocurrent and power conversion efficiencies of similarly-constructed quantum dot solar cells also indicate that the order of deposition has a small but noticeable effect on photovoltaic performance. cdse films deposited via se-initiated silar cycles are shown to increase photocurrent by as much as 16%, and a mechanism for this enhanced performance is described. finally, a polymer hole-conductor is employed as the counter-electrode interface for a solid-state solar cell. pedot:pss is shown to efficiently quench the emission of cdse quantum dots, and analysis of the degree of quenching indicates strong association of the two species. the quantum yield of cdse is increased by up to 40% in the presence of pedot:pss under steady-state illumination, providing evidence of hole transfer from excited cdse to pedot:pss. solid-state solar cells with a tio2 / cdse active layer and a pedot:pss hole-conducting layer show a >80 times increase in power conversion efficiency when compared to a solid-state device prepared without a pedot:pss layer. this dissertation consists of three chapters examining the effects of public policy on the labor supply decisions of households, particularly women, and the heterogeneous impact of changes in temperature across countries. motivated by structural changes in female labor force participation in the past decades, cross-country differences in participation rates today, and political debates about constraints and disincentives for women to supply labor, the first two chapters study the effects of the policy tools of income taxation and public childcare on female labor supply. the third chapter is motivated by the notion that climate change is a global rather than a country-specific phenomenon and focuses on differential exposure of exchange rates to common global temperature risks. the first chapter analyzes the effects of abolishing joint taxation of married couples, an element that, in a progressive tax system, constitutes a disincentive for many married women and is at the center of policy debates. i contribute to the debate by highlighting that the effects of abolishing joint taxation on labor force participation and gdp are twofold. raising female labor inputs increases output by adding more workers to the labor force. second, the reform also changes the labor force's composition, allowing for added effects from gender diversity. the chapter presents empirical evidence for such a gender diversity channel and develops a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents to characterize its quantitative importance. calibrating the model to germany, i find that the tax reform has a substantial effect on labor force participation and that the complementarities between men and women substantially amplify the positive effects of the tax reform. the second chapter focuses on public childcare and cross-country differences in female labor force participation. the uninterrupted rise in u.s. female labor force participation throughout the 1970s and 1980s stalled in the 1990s and has fallen since. women in other western countries, especially in scandinavia, where childcare is heavily subsidized, are more likely to participate in the labor market. even though working mothers in the u.s. face substantially higher childcare costs, they receive less public support. i build a structural model, which allows me to examine whether increasing u.s. public spending on childcare to scandinavian levels can promote growth in the women's labor supply. while financing larger public spending with higher payroll taxes has distortionary effects, raising child-related transfers reduces mothers' disincentives to work. the policy increases long-run labor force participation among married women, and households with young children benefit substantially from the reform. however, overall welfare falls as many households lose marginally. the third chapter, co-authored with sinyoung o. lee, nelson c. mark, jonathan rawls, and zhiyi wei, studies how u.s. dollar real exchange rates of multiple countries respond to global temperature shocks. we find heterogeneous impulse responses and study the determinants of response heterogeneity by regressing local projection response coefficients on country characteristics. if real currency strength represents relative strength in that country's current and future economic fundamentals, a real appreciation caused by a global temperature shock should be reflected in foreign exchange market participants' beliefs that the country in question is less adversely affected by the shock than the rest-of-world. we find that, at the 48-month horizon, a country's currency is more likely to depreciate if the country has grown faster and is more dependent on agriculture and tourism. this dissertation asks how and why connection, communication, exchange, and travel were such integral parts of early medieval hagiography in northern europe and how this kind of religious travel fit into the larger picture of early medieval travel, which has previously focused on secular or commercial exchange. first, i argue that the way that people connected and traveled through networks of spiritual and biological kinship. in addition to these networks, travel was shaped by the interaction between micro-regions (such as neustria in francia or northumbria in anglo-saxon england), which focuses less on individual saints and their movements are more on authors' and audiences' responses to travel within hagiographical texts. second, i argue that the reason that travel was such an important part of hagiography was that saints' knowledge of geographically distant places mirrored their knowledge of the divine; their holiness was as dependent upon their stature as miracle workers or ascetics as well as their stature as wanderers or travelers. from these questions and arguments, we get a picture of early medieval regions travel that reflects both the continuity and the change inherent in the "transformation of the roman world." the continuity exists because the practicalities of travel changed little between antiquity and the early middle ages; not only did the currents and tides remain unchanged, but the technology of travel also remained stable. the changes in religious travel in the period 500 åð 800 particularly involved the direction of travel, with the early travelers focusing on the mediterranean. over time, this focus broadened to include northern europe without excluding the mediterranean basin. travel and cultural exchange in this period involved the delicate negotiation of multiple and intersecting loyalties to god, to family and kin groups, to local and communities, and to secular and ecclesiastical authorities that provided economic advantages, societal benefits, and religious blessings. religious travel often overlapped with secular travel and this dissertation's analysis of hagiographical and religious sources complements previous important work on political and commercial travel. the petrogenesis of lunar and martian basalts and lunar troctolites is explored with crystal stratigraphy, which combines textural and in situ geochemical analyses. is situ analyses via electron microprobe and laser ablation are conducted on zoned pyroxene in basalts, and olivine and plagioclase in the single lunar troctolite. zoned pyroxene is an excellent recorder of geochemical changes in the melts that produced these basalts because it comes on the liquidus early and continues to stay on until late in the crystallization sequence. combining in situ geochemical analyses with published partition coefficients allows for parental liquids to be calculated for each individual sample, which then allows a crystallization sequence and petrogenetic model to be constructed for each sample. this study finds that parental liquids determined for apollo 12 basalts using crystal stratigraphy are more primitive than liquids calculated using a corresponding quenched sample as was done in all previous studies of apollo 12 basalt petrogenesis. these primitive liquids are a better representation of the true nature of the parental liquids, and are therefore better suited for accurate petrogenetic modeling. using the crystal stratigraphy approach, the complete crystallization history from the onset of pyroxene crystallization to the final dregs of crystallization are determined for the martian meteorite shergotty. this study finds that shergotty formed from 2 discrete batches of magma, both with pyroxene on the liquidus, which then mixed with continued pyroxene crystallization. the origin of lunar troctolites has remained an enigmatic problem ever since they were described 40 years ago because they contain both primitive and evolved signatures. using crystal stratigraphy of olivine and plagioclase crystal, we determined the nature of the parental liquids and constrain the formation mechanisms of lunar troctolites. polymers with high thermal conductivities are of great interest to both scientific research and industrial applications. in this dissertation, i use molecular dynamic (md) simulations to study the fundamentals of thermal transport in bulk amorphous polymers, including 1) polymer blends, 2) block copolymers and 3) polyelectrolytes. in polymer blends, the thermal conductivity is strongly related to the chain conformation, especially the spatial extent of the polymer chains, which can be characterized by their radii of gyration (rg). increasing the inter-chain interactions in polymer blends will increase the thermal conductivity, which is due to the conformation change in the major component that eventually leads to an enhancement in thermal transport along the polymer chain backbone through the intra-chain bonding interactions. the polymer chain conformation and thermal conductivity relationship is also applicable to polyethylene-polypropylene (pe-pp) diblock copolymers. the thermal conductivity of the pe-pp diblock copolymer can be tuned continuously by the block ratio, which influences the rg. however, in polyelectrolytes the mechanism of thermal conductivity enhancement with ionization ratio increasing is not due to the chain conformation change. in solid polyelectrolytes the chains are collapsed, and the thermal conductivity contribution from intra-molecular bonding interaction is constant. by adding metal cations, the coulombic force attracts the atoms and increases the lennard-jones (lj) repulsive force, and as a result the thermal conductivity contribution from lj interaction increases. the fundamental structureproperty relationship in soft materials (polymers) established in this research project can provide guidance for designing and synthesizing polymers with desirable thermal conductivity.the interfacial thermal conductance (itc) between hard-soft interfaces is another critical factor that can affect the thermal conductivity of composite materials. i use 1) equilibrium molecular dynamics (emd) simulations combined with the green-kubo (gk) formula and 2) phonon wave packet (wp) md methods to study how different types of self-assembled monolayers (sam) affect the thermal transport across the au (gold)-sam-organic liquid interfaces. in the emd method, we focus on a practically synthesizable heterogeneous sam structures with alternating short-long molecular chains, namely the "molecular fin" structure. the "molecular fin" structure is found to improve the thermal conductance by 46-68% compared to a homogeneous sam. i find that the root reason of this enhancement in thermal conductance is due to the penetration of the liquid molecules into the spaces between the long sam molecules, which increases the effective contact area. the wp method shows that the au-cooh sam-hexamine interface has the highest energy transmission coefficients of all phonons, and as a result its itc is also the highest. the fundamental understanding of thermal transport across hard-soft interfaces can help design engineered surfaces with controlled thermal resistance. the advent of controllable synthetic methods for the production of semiconductor nanostructures has led to their use in a host of applications, including light-emitting diodes, field effect transistors, sensors, and even television displays. this is, in part, due to the size, shape, and morphologically dependent optical and electrical properties that make this class of materials extremely customizable; wire-, rodand sphere-shaped nanocrystals are readily synthesized through common wet chemical methods. most notably, confining the physical dimension of the nanostructure to a size below its bohr radius (ab) results in quantum confinement effects that increase its optical energy gap. not only the size, but the shape of a particle can be exploited to tailor its optical and electrical properties. for example, confined cdse quantum dots (qds) and nanowires (nws) of equivalent diameter possess significantly different optical gaps. this phenomenon has been ascribed to electrostatic contributions arising from dielectric screening effects that are more pronounced in an elongated (wire-like) morphology.semiconducting nanostructures have thus received significant attention over the past two decades. however, surprisingly little work has been done to elucidate their basic photophysics on a single particle basis. what has been done has generally been accomplished through emission-based measurements, and thus does not fully capture the full breadth of these intriguing systems. what is therefore needed then are absorption-based studies that probe the size and shape dependent evolution of nanostructure photophysics. this thesis summarizes the single particle absorption spectroscopy that we have carried out to fill this knowledge gap. specifically, the diameter-dependent progression of one-dimensional (1d) excitonic states in cdse nws has been revealed. this is followed by a study that focuses on the polarization selection rules of 1d excitons within single cdse nws. finally, shape effects are explored by probing the absorption spectra of cdse nanowires and nanorods of varying length. all experimental studies are complemented by theoretical predictions from an effective mass model that takes electrostatic interactions into account. thus, this thesis seeks to show the delicate interplay between quantum confinement and dielectric screening effects in single cdse nanostructures. the market basket problem, the search for meaningful associations in customer purchase data, is one of the oldest problems in data mining. the typical solution involves the mining and analysis of association rules, which take the form of statements such as ``people who buy diapers are likely to buy beer.' it is well-known, however, that typical transaction datasets can support hundreds or thousands of obvious association rules for each interesting rule, and filtering through the rules is a non-trivial task. one may use an interestingness measure to quantify the usefulness of various rules, but there is no single agreed-upon measure and different measures can result in very different rankings of association rules. in this thesis, we take a different approach to mining transaction data. by modeling the data as a product network, we discover more expressive communities (clusters) in the data, which can then be targeted for further analysis. we demonstrate that the network based approach can isolate influence among products without excessive ambiguous associations. we further consider a collaborative marketplace, where it may be beneficial for the market for stores to share their product networks. to that end, we propose a robust privacy preserving protocol that encourages stores to share their product network without compromising their individual information. we demonstrate the effectiveness of the product networks and the privacy preserving protocol on a real-world store data. finally, we build upon our experience with product networks to propose a comprehensive analysis strategy by combining both traditional and network-based techniques. evaluation of five different metallizations schemes for ohmic contact to p-type inas was performed. the metallizations evaluated were ti/pt/au, w/ti/au, mo/au, cr/au and pd/pt/au. all the metals except w were deposited by electron beam evaporation; w was deposited by both sputtering and evaporation. four different samples of inas were used for this study. contact resistance was measured using the transmission line method (tlm) with a kelvin probe connection to minimize measurement error. exploratory studies of the feasibility of reducing contact resistance through temperature annealing, as well as increasing the surface acceptor concentration through post-growth doping were undertaken. most of the contacts showed improvement in the contact quality (as manifested by the specific contact resistance) with annealing. ti/pt/au contacts exhibited the lowest contact resistance of 2 x 10^{-7} omega mbox{cm}^{2}$ after annealing at $200 ^{o}$c for 5 minutes. a spin-on glass source was used with rapid thermal diffusion to introduce zn acceptors into the inas. contrary to simple contact models, this process resulted in increased contact resistance. considering wireless networks whose channel quality and node distribution are random, this thesis studies two types of techniques that can potentially significantly boost the network performance: random power control and successive interference cancellation (sic). random power control generalizes conventional (deterministic) power control by allowing the transmitters to randomly vary their transmit power. in the first part of the thesis, we study random power control in two types of wireless networks: the noise-limited networks and the interference-limited networks. in noise-limited networks, we show that random power control can significantly reduce the local delay, and the optimal power control policies are aloha-type random on-off policies. in interference-limited networks, we take a game theoretic framework and focus on two sets of strategies: single-node optimal power control (snopc) strategies and nash equilibrium power control (nepc) strategies. snopc strategies maximize the expected throughput of the power controllable link given that all the other transmitters do not use power control. under nepc strategies, no individual node of the network can achieve a higher expected throughput by unilaterally deviating from these strategies. we prove that under mean and peak power constraints at each transmitter, the snopc and nepc strategies are aloha-type random on-off power control policies. successive interference cancellation (sic) allows the receiver to decode and cancel signal components from users sequentially and thus can potentially significantly boost the network throughput. however, the feasibility of sic depends on the received signal power ordering which further depends on the fading distribution, network geometry, and many other system parameters. in the second part of the thesis, we provide a unified framework to study the performance of sic in d-dimensional wireless networks with arbitrary fading distribution and power-law path loss. using this framework, we are able to analytically characterize the performance of sic. the results suggest that the marginal benefit of enabling the receiver to successively decode k users diminishes very fast with k, especially in networks of high dimensions and small path loss exponent. on the other hand, sic is highly beneficial when the users are clustered around the receiver and/or very low-rate codes are used, and with multiple packet reception, a lower per-user information rate always results in higher aggregate throughput in interference-limited networks. in contrast, there exists a positive optimal per-user rate that maximizes the aggregate throughput in noisy networks. the analytical results serve as useful tools to understand the potential gain of sic in heterogeneous cellular networks (hcns). using these tools, we quantify the gain of sic on the coverage probability in hcns with non-accessible base stations. an interesting observation is that, for contemporary narrow-band systems (e.g., lte and wifi), most of the gain of sic is achieved by canceling a single interferer. ils show potential for different types of applications, yet removing compounds such as reaction products and impurities can be difficult. this work describes the solvent strength effects on the anti-solvent behavior of co2 with ils and il/organic mixtures. the anti-solvent behavior is measured for both liquid and solid solutes in ils. a systematic study was done to highlight the effect of specific interactions.for liquid solutes, the anti-solvent ability is measured in terms of the lower critical end point (lcep). for all the il/organic mixtures measured, the lcep increases as the concentration of il increases above ~10 mole%. the ease of separation depends on the co2 solubility in the pure organic; 2-butanone is the easiest to separate and has the highest co2 solubility. another measure of the anti-solvent ability of co2 is the nucleation pressure of solid [cu(acac)(tmen)][bph4] dissolved in il/organic mixtures. it is not possible to separate [cu(acac)(tmen)][bph4] from [hmim][tf2n] using co2; a cosolvent is needed. for organic/[cu(acac)(tmen)][bph4] mixtures, the nucleation pressure depends on specific interactions and solute solubility. the presence of il is significant, causing an increase in the nucleation pressure.the results for the systematic study of the solvent strength of il/organic mixtures indicate that ils in general preferentially solvate polar, protic compounds. the solvent strength of ils is unaffected by co2, even at large mole fractions. however, the organics are affected. the il/organic mixtures with co2 behave intermediary between that of il/co2 and organic/co2. the solvent strength behavior can be used to explain the anti-solvent ability of co2 for liquid organic solutes and the solid [cu(acac)(tmen)][bph4] solute. the solvent strength behavior can also be used to predict the anti-solvent behavior in terms of the lcep. a correlation based on the linear solvation energy relationship (lser) equation modified to take into account two components was used. the fit is excellent, and can also be used to predict data of other mixtures within 10% for ils other than [bmim][pf6]. this is excellent considering that only pure component parameters for ì¡*, &gamma;, and ì¢ were used. single-molecule studies with optical techniques have become instrumental in shedding light upon the heterogeneities in molecular property distributions, which are averaged out in ensemble measurements. gaining insights into the nature and magnitude of such heterogeneities in molecular systems, particularly when they are subject to anisotropic chemical, optical, electrical, or other perturbations, has important implications in the design of targeted detection schemes. strategies that enable detection and manipulation of subpopulations of molecules have the potential to contribute in transformational ways to lab-on-a-chip (loc) analytical systems and point-of-care (poc) diagnostic devices.the work in this dissertation aims to provide a novel approach for the electrochemical manipulation of redox-active fluorophores coupled with spectroscopic measurements. the design, construction, and utilization of a fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (fcs) optical system for the measurement of freely diffusing single-molecules form the basis for more advanced studies. piezoelectric stages for nanometer spatial resolution and advanced acquisition hardware for sub-nanosecond temporal resolution are implemented. the fabrication of au-clad zero-mode waveguide (zmw) arrays by focused ion beam (fib) milling is described. simulations of the decay of the optical field within zmws support the basis for single-molecule experiments.spectroelectrochemical measurements of the redox-active fluorophore, flavin mononucleotide (fmn), were performed at single-molecule concentrations in a bulk solution above an indium tin oxide (ito) electrode and in the approximately 200 zl observation volumes of individual electrochemical zmws (e-zmws). fluorescence analogs of standard electrochemical experiments were implemented. these are fluorescence emission under static control and chronofluorometry as analogs to amperometry, and cyclic potential sweep fluorometry as an analog to cyclic voltammetry. a long-lived semiquinone state of fmn was stabilized and observed in a zmw. the work in this dissertation represents the first single-molecule spectroelectrochemistry investigations in an e-zmw nanophotonic structure. means of improving the performance of the fcs optical system and expanding its capabilities are explored. experimental modifications, device design variations, and other possible redox-active chemical systems are discussed. heterogeneous systems are present in a variety of scientific and engineering fields including biology, structural engineering, aerospace systems, material science, and geology, just to name a few. many of these materials arrange randomly with locally complex features and only lend themselves to being characterized statistically. of particular interest to this work is determining effective (macroscopic) transport and mechanical properties of particulate composites from higher order statistical data, which is a fundamental problem studied by many including einstein and maxwell. the geometrical arrangement of heterogeneous materials plays a critical role in a material's behavior, and this work illustrates that the detailed characterization of real materials is essential to accurately predict the macroscopic (overall/effective) behavior. the past half century has seen the formation of rigorous bounds and approximate theories relying on a higher order description of the complex morphologies. however, assumptions are often made about the microstructure including alignment of inclusions, dispersity of particle sizes, etc., and inclusions in real materials are often irregularly shaped and can lead to anisotropic and complex configurations. therefore, the impact of these arrangements on material behavior is not well understood. in order to limit assumptions made about the microstructural features, real materials are characterized in this work using micro-computer tomography, and a framework is developed for determining microstructure-statistics-property relations for a wide spectrum of microstructures. in this work, anisotropic second-order and isotropic third-order statistical micromechanics estimates are obtained for complex highly packed microstructures regardless of the complexity of the probability spectrum. this is accomplished through development of adaptive integration techniques and a monte carlo statistical sampling algorithm designed for a high performance computing environment. verification and validation studies are conducted, and good agreement is shown with direct numerical modeling. moreover, these methods are able to predict effective behavior for particle concentrations and infinite material contrast ratio beyond the limits of direct numerical approaches. for the first time, anisotropic second order estimates are computed for highly packed systems of nonspherical inclusions. in addition, third-order estimates predict a significant shape effect for the effective thermal conductivity and a moderate shape effect for elastic constants when considering composites with platonic solid inclusions. the understanding of the seismic response of fault-crossing bridges is still insufficient despite the increasing interest in this subject by earthquake engineers over the past two decades. this dissertation focuses on (a) developing and validating a simple method for generating across-fault seismic ground motions for the analysis of bridges crossing strike-slip faults, (b) investigating the sensitivity of the seismic response of bridge structures crossing strike-slip faults to different parameters and conditions by means of nonlinear response history analysis (nlrha), and (c) evaluating the accuracy of the fault rupture-response spectrum analysis (fr-rsa) method against nlrha in estimating the peak response of bridges crossing strike-slip faults for different fault crossing conditions.the effect of ground motion filtering on the dynamic response of a seismically isolated bridge with and without fault crossing considerations is first investigated. the results indicate the importance of permanent ground displacement on the dynamic response of spatially extended engineering structures crossing fault rupture zones. a simple and effective method for generating across-fault seismic ground motions for the analysis of ordinary and seismically isolated bridges crossing strike-slip faults is then proposed. two loading functions are introduced based on pulse models available in the literature to represent the coherent (long-period) components of ground motion across strike-slip faults. a comprehensive methodology is presented for selecting the input parameters of the loading functions based on empirical equations and practical guidelines. an analysis procedure for bridge structures crossing strike-slip faults is introduced based on the proposed method for generating across-fault ground motions and the parameter selection methodology for the loading functions. moreover, a parametric study of ordinary and seismically isolated bridges crossing strike-slip faults is presented by performing nlrha using the proposed loading functions and by varying their parameters according to the aforementioned methodology. the sensitivity of the displacement demands of the analyzed bridges to each parameter of the loading functions is examined.to investigate the effects of fault crossing conditions and structural properties on the seismic response of bridge structures crossing strike-slip faults, a parametric study of ordinary and seismically isolated bridges is presented by performing nlrha using actual near-fault ground-motion records from earthquakes of different magnitudes and by varying the fault crossing angle, fault crossing location, pier height, and span length. in addition, the effects of seismic excitation polarity and number of ground-motion components on the seismic response of the analyzed bridges are examined. finally, the adequacy of the fr-rsa method for estimating the peak response of ordinary and seismically isolated bridges under different fault crossing conditions is investigated. such an investigation involves examining the effects of modal combination rule, number of modes, damping ratio, and mode type on the peak response of bridge structures estimated from the fr-rsa method. this thesis consists of two parts. in the first part, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (xps) was used to study a new neutral mixed valence complex: [((acac)2ru)2b(pz)4]. xps study of the a powder sample of the ru dimer indicated only one group of ru signals with binding energies close to those of ruiii in creutz-taube-type complexes, which suggested that the ru dimer used was possibly oxidized ruiii/ruiii during the experiment. surface attachment of the ru dimer was measured on self-assembled monolayers of alkanethiols with various terminal groups. contact angle, ellipsometry and xps measurements suggested that the ru dimer molecules form self-limiting monolayers on hydrophilic surfaces and not bind detectably to hydrophobic surface. additionally, an anchoring group 4-mercaptopyrazole was studied by xps, demonstrating that the adsorption of the molecules on gold surface is self-limiting. in the second part, water meniscus condensed between an afm tip and a nacl substrate was studied in various conditions, including ambient, dry nitrogen and ultra-high vacuum (uhv). water meniscus formation was measured by probing the ability of the meniscus to dissolve the nacl near the contact point and evaluating the pull-off point as a function of water partial pressures. these studies are consistent with the formation of water meniscus under ambient and dry conditions. data and data collection is a fundamental tenet of science. as technology has advanced, so has our ability to record, store, and analyze data en masse. while there has always been interest in networks, and graphs have been studied for centuries, it is only recently that we have developed the tools to chronicle the timely, complex interactions of multiple, varied sources. the frontier of this field is in understanding the network data.one way to understand data is to create a model that mimics the behavior of that data. models are often tailored to a specific aspect of the understanding of the data and are judged according to the metrics of that field which have been deemed important. in graph theory, we have many different models for generating graphs, each with varying degrees of fidelity to the source data. one thing that many have in common, however, is that they focus on creating a single snapshot of the graph. yet, we know that graphs are often not static; they evolve, and this feature is absent from many generative models.my work has focused on using time-series data and the hyperedge replacement grammars graph generation model to model graphs as they grow and change over time. this will be done by developing a synchronous grammar model that extends the hyperedge replacement grammar, which itself has been shown to perform well as a graph generation model. i will then mine the resulting growth patterns that are observed in order to better understand the process surrounding evolving topologies. polybenzoxazoles (pbos) are highly attractive membrane materials because of their superior gas separation parameters (high permeability and high selectivity) and excellent mechanical and thermal stability. however, the practical application of pbo-based membranes is frequently frustrated by their poor processability due to insolubility problem. current pbo synthesis approach addresses the insolubility issue by solid-state thermal rearrangement (tr) of aromatic polyimides (apis) with ortho-positioned hydroxyl group, wherein the soluble api precursors are solution cast into membranes before being thermally converted to tr membranes.however, the api-tr process poses some major challenges, complicating the implementation of tr membranes for practical industrial applications. first of all, the temperatures required for the tr conversion are very high (&gt; 400 °c), which severely limits the choice of porous supporting polymers used in common membrane modules such as hollow fibers. moreover, the high thermal conversion temperature causes collateral thermal degradation in the tr polymers, causing brittleness and defects in the resulting membranes. in addition, the thermal conversion process requires strict inert media (n2 or vacuum) for the imide-to-benzoxazole conversion to occur, which makes the api-tr process of pbo membranes production highly cost-intensive and complex.this work explores the feasibility of alternative routes to produce high performance pbo-based membranes as well as investigate new synthesis approach of pbos with much improved processability to overcome the abovementioned challenges in the api-tr route. specifically, four approaches to form pbo-based membranes have been investigated in this work: developing an alternate process to produce pbo membranes via thermal cyclodehydration (cd) of polyhydroxyamide (pha) precursors: investigating the interplay between the tr and cd processes in a series of blends of api and pha in varying ratios: developing a novel one-pot, solution cyclization synthesis route to produce organo-soluble pbos (s-pbos) via a silylation assisted process of in situ amide-to-benzoxazole conversion: synthesizing pbo-based copolymers via a combination of in situ solution cyclization and solid-state tr conversion to maximize separation performance: this dissertation examines thomas aquinas' theology of sanctification as deification in the summa theologiae, through a contextualized analysis of his treatments of grace, charity and the gift of wisdom in the imago dei on the journey to beatitude. the summa represents thomas' mature thought on the graced movement of the elect towards god" conformed to, and moved by, their trinitarian exemplar. here, thomas defines grace as a created habitus which is a deifying participation in the divine nature, and charity and wisdom as participations in the likeness of the holy spirit and son. deification is thus a true conformation to the image of the trinity, and to the image of the son, and at the same time, takes place through the graced creature's own free moral activities, led by the holy spirit. chapters one and two examine god's participation of the divine perfections to creatures, and especially to the imago dei by nature, grace and glory. chapter three treats participation in the divine nature by grace, as the principle of supernatural activities; chapter four, christ as source and model of grace and adopted sonship. chapters five and six examine charity and wisdom, which deify the will and intellect, ordering adopted children to beatitude as participants in christ's fellowship with the father, especially through his sacraments. attention is given to thomas' use of scripture and developments from earlier works. in chapter seven, a theology of deification is traced throughout the summa, linking treatments of the divine missions and image, the journey to beatitude through the moral life, adopted sonship through christ and his sacraments, and the deiform worship of the beatific vision. thomas' theology of deification in the summa theologiae demonstrates his mature vision of god's loving and sapiential ordering of predestined human persons to communion with himself, by a progressive participation in the divine likeness and activity, which accounts for both the primacy of divine causality in all its modes, and the fullness of graced human freedom. the deification of adopted sons reveals god's glory, by fully manifesting god's gracious plan to share the divine life with rational creatures. this dissertation investigates the problem of historicism from the perspectives of leo strauss's political philosophy and hans-georg gadamer's hermeneutics. both present historicism as a crisis that undermines our ability to properly interpret eras other than our own. consequently, they develop distinct applications of interpretative theory to explain both how to understand others and—more importantly—how to consider truth itself. on the one hand, strauss treats historicism as the manifestation of the inherent problems of modernity. by denying the possibility of understanding fundamental questions in the manner that socrates approaches them, strauss argues that modernity has abandoned the quest for truth. he thus posits that we can "return" to the fundamental questions of the ancient philosophers themselves as proof that the modern abandonment of classical philosophy was a mistake. instead of searching for a "new dispensation of being" or novel tools to understand the world, we can think like the ancients did. in contrast, gadamer treats the discovery of "historical consciousness" [geschichtliches bewußtsein] as a serious break between the ancients and moderns. because we have learned how history "always already" prefigures who we are, this recognition requires us to design new tools for interpreting reality. fortunately, gadamer argues that through hermeneutics we can properly interpret truth as an endless conversation that—while always changing—represents a real set of understandings that enable discourse. although` gadamer and strauss have many serious disagreements about the nature of historicism, they both agree that interpretive discourse is the one thing needful for approaching the political problems that undermine the possibility of practicing philosophy. the vibrational response from single silver nanocubes and nanowires to ultrafast laser induced heating is studied using transient absorption spectroscopy. modulations due to coherent excitation of the breathing modes of the particles are clearly seen in the traces for both systems. fitting the data to a damped cosine function yields the periods and homogeneous lifetimes of the vibrational motion. different particles show different periods and lifetimes. the distribution of periods is believed to come from the size distribution in the samples. in both samples the lifetime distribution is significantly broader than the period distribution. a weak correlation between the periods and the lifetimes was found for the nanocubes, whereas the nanowires showed a moderate correlation between the period and lifetime. these results imply that the local environment has a strong effect on the lifetimes.the nanowires images and polarization analysis showed that light is preferentially absorbed at the ends of the nanowire due to coupling between the propagating surface plasmon polariton (spp) modes and the near-ir pump laser. the propagating spp mode travels down the wire at light-like speeds and as it moves it dephases, which causes lattice heating and coherently excites the breathing vibrational mode of the nanowires. experiments with spatially separated pump and probe beams show that the transient absorption signal decays exponentially with distance. this shows that the spp dephasing creates a gradient in both the electronic and lattice temperatures. these results also imply that the vibrational mode excited is not a normal mode of the wire. the timescale for the damping of the vibrational motion for the nanowires is similar to that for the nanocubes ì¢ ââ' which shows that the shape of the particle (1d compared to 3d) does not strongly affect the way acoustic energy flows into the environment. tocqueville's understanding of freedom has been notoriously difficult to determine. his contribution becomes more apparent when he is seen as attempting to solve problems that emerge from the tradition of french political thought and practice. french liberalism after rousseau sought to empower popular sovereignty so as to enable political freedom, while also restraining political power so as to ensure individual freedom. indeed, the french revolution revealed that the constituent power that made political freedom possible also endangered individual liberty. simultaneously, french liberals such as benjamin constant and franìäå¤ois guizot also feared that if the people were overly concerned with their individual liberty they would become prey to a strong state. while paying heed to the numerous variants of freedom within his thought, i argue that tocqueville's philosophy of freedom solves the dilemma of french liberalism by developing the idea of non-sovereign freedom. this is the notion that participatory political freedom occurs primarily when the people do not exercise their constituent power as a sovereign body. this shifts the meaning of political freedom away from a model of strong autonomy found in rousseau, or exercising final control over one's life and actions, towards participation in la chose publique more broadly, which includes, but is not exhausted by, the institutions of government. non-sovereign freedom sees individual and political freedom as mutually reinforcing rather than mutually corrosive. it also enables a higher form of individual freedom that tocqueville calls individuality, or the development of an independent and original personality. tocqueville's account of non-sovereign freedom, i argue, is an alternative source of inspiration for those working within democratic theory and who are attempting to combine democratic dynamism and institutional stability. instead of looking to figures who largely shunned the institutions of liberal democracy, democratic theory should return to the tradition of french liberalism. even as the representation of women by medieval poets has been extensively studied, scholars have yet to explore how images of women have informed images of political counsel. in this study, i forge a connection between the "mirrors for princes" genre of advice giving and the subject of women. the connection between women and counsel, i argue, is one that poets found fruitful, vexing, enabling, and troublesome by turns. following on the work of such scholars as larry scanlon, richard firth green, judith ferster, david wallace and paul strohm, i examine the major vernacular poetry of the late fourteenth and fifteenth century in light of both the mirrors for princes tradition and historical accounts of counsel. what distinguishes my work from prior scholarship is that i focus specifically on a neglected aspect of the history of counsel: the role of women in literary texts as counselors to kings. i examine selected middle english works by john gower, geoffrey chaucer, and stephen scrope, as well as manuscripts and french sources, in order to evaluate the association of women with political counsel. when authors articulate their instruction through female voices, the process of advice subsequently becomes a feminized one, and the female counselor emerges as a significant literary trope — as an outlet through which male poets articulate challenging political discourse. what this project ultimately demonstrates is that, far from exclusively using women's voices as an "other" against which to define themselves, late medieval vernacular poets embraced the feminine as both a representation of their own subordination to kings and patrons, and a subject position from which to criticize, advise, and influence those in power. understanding the poet's conception and development of female counselors is thus essential to understanding his or her own approach to the process of advice and the composing of politically-oriented narratives within the vernacular poetics of the late medieval period. the performance of machine learning algorithms is heavily dependent on the quality of the data representation. learning discriminative data representations becomes a critical step in the machine learning task pipeline. data representations can be obtained from multiple views. for example, in a complex network model, the representation of each node can be viewed as a combination of the correlations between itself and its neighbors and the node attributes. a comprehensive representation can be obtained because data from different views usually contain complementary information.this dissertation tackles the problem of multi-view representation learning. how to generate the data representations by incorporating multiple aspects of data, such as text, network topological information, and data derived from various sources. multi-view representations are capable of uncovering the implicit and complex explanatory factors of variation behind the data. the research in this dissertation focuses on the synthesis and in vitro testing of structurally novel potential &#946;-lactam antibiotic mimics utilizing a heteroatom-activation strategy. it had been previously demonstrated that isoxazolidines appended with a phenyl acetyl side chain exhibited antibacterial activity when tested against a strain of bacteria sensitive to &#946;-lactam antibiotics such as e. coli x580. it was then hypothesized that the activity seen with this compound was due to the weinreb amide moiety present in the molecule and a carefully positioned ionizable group. this moiety was believed to activate the weinreb amide carbonyl towards acylation in the same way that monobactams such as oxamazin and aztreonam are activated by adjacent heteroatoms. if isoxazolidines are in fact mimicking &#946;-lactam antibiotics by exploiting a heteroatom-activation strategy, then appropriate elaboration of these molecules may provide a more potent antibiotic. the overall hypothesis of the present work is that heteroatom-activated acylating agents are a potential new class of antibiotic, that mimic &#946;-lactam antibiotics. in order to test this hypothesis, three specific aims were executed. first, side chain variation of the lead compound was explored in order to increase the potency and broadspectrum antibacterial activity. additional isoxazolidines were synthesized which incorporated side chains analogous to side chains that many effective &#946;-lactam antibiotics utilized. these side chains included phenylglycine and 2-(2-aminothiazol-4-yl)-2methoxyiminoacetic acid (atmo). secondly, it was imperative that the minimum essential features of a heteroatomactivated &#946;-lactam mimic were established. the hypothesis was accomplished by synthesizing three different core structures such as an acyclic, monocyclic and bicyclic core. all of which utilized heteroatom-activation strategy and contained side chains analogous to those used in known &#946;-lactam antibiotics. in addition, the current progress towards a diketopiperzine derived from an isoxazolidine is presented which could also exhibit antibacterial activity. lastly, each compound synthesized was evaluated for antibacterial activity by conducting zone of inhibition assays against a broad range of bacterial isolates, determining mic values for active compounds, and submitting all the compounds for &#946;lactamase inhibition assays. in the visible and near-ir, structures are engineered to achieve subwavelength confinement of modes to support optical sensing and imaging applications, the so-called plasmonics. however, at the midand far-infrared (ir) spectral regions (long-wavelength ir), noble metals typically used in plasmonics, underperform due to their inherent loss. therefore, a different approach is researched here by using optical phonon polaritons instead of plasmon polaritons. we investigate optical phonon polaritons resonances, these resonances are the result of light coupling with lattice vibrations (phonons) of polar materials, and are a promising approach to achieve the electrical field enhancement in a subwavelength volume in the long-wavelength ir.in our devices, phonon polariton resonances are achieved by coupling nanoantenna modes with epsilon-near-zero (enz) modes. the enz mode is obtained from light interacting with a material at a frequency where the permittivity is vanishing, such material is known as an enz material.furthermore, we observe the pinning behavior of successive nanoantenna modes (m=1, 2, 3…) on an enz material, near the enz frequency. this pinning is due to the near-zero permittivity of the material. eventually, these multiple modes result in a near-monochromatic multimode antenna response. we demonstrate the ability to engineer the spectral response of the nanoantennas on enz materials and coupling to the enz modes.in this work, we present an innovative approach to engineering light-matter interactions using the properties of the polar materials, nanoparticles, and thin films, to design devices for the mid-ir, such as negative and near-zero permittivity. the approaches developed in this work are achieved in the mid-ir; however, the techniques used here are part of the foundation for our group work to support devices and structures in the far-ir. for either of these two regions, phonon interactions have been a limitation for the development of technologies. nevertheless, these excitations, such as localized surface phonon polaritons (lsphp) and epsilon-near-zero modes (enz), can be exploited using polar dielectric materials to support new technologies for the long-wavelength ir region. the power constrained scaling of conventional silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors (mosfets) below the 90nm technology node has led to innovations such as strained-si, strained sige, high-k/metal gate, finfet, as well as mitigation of parasitic elements to enable improvement in device performance and lowering of cost-per-function of integrated circuits. higher mobility channel materials for n and p channel transistors, channel architecture innovation and mitigation of device-to-device variation are focus of current research to further boost transistor performance at scaled technology nodes.this dissertation focuses on three key aspects of enhancing transistor performance, mitigating variation, and improving reliability in cmos transistors. in the first section, we evaluate and benchmark gate-all-around nanowire fets (gaa-nw) vs current finfet architecture for 5nm technology node via tcad finite element simulation and circuit level analysis. the concept of electrically gate-all-around hexagonal nanowire fet (hexfet) is introduced to show that this channel architecture can provide electrostatic robustness similar to gaa-nw, in conjunction with the high current drive current capabilityof finfet. short channel experimental device results are in alignment with tcad simulations.in the second section, we focus on higher mobility compound semiconductor (iii-v group materials) belonging tothe inxga­1-xas family as a potential channel material for high performance n-channel transistors. weextend the hexfet concept to iii-v finfet architecture and show via tcad simulation that high mobility quantum well inxga­1-xas fets can outperform silicon mosfetsat the same technology node.. the third section of this thesis evaluates oxygen-inserted silicon (oi-silicon) channel mosfetsto provide a cost-effective means for mobility improvement, gate leakage reduction, threshold voltage variation reduction and positive-temperature-bias-instability reliability improvement. oi silicon is evaluated using poly/sio2 as well as hfo2 based high-k/metal gate stack, where we observe mobility improvement, gate leakage reduction and improved threshold voltage variation.the dissertation concludes with a brief summary and a discussion of future work to further evaluate the device concepts portrayed in this work. this dissertation is in the first place an interpretation of the thought of michel foucault. beyond interpretation, it also makes provides a qualified defense of his views on the significance of ethical theory, particularly in its "critical" forms, the shape of the space of reasons, and the role of subjectivity within it. i take as my starting point an orthodox view of foucault's work, namely, that it can divided in terms of its content into three distinct periods. first, an "archaeological" phase spanning most of the 1960s. second, a "genealogical" devoted to unearthing power-relations beneath purportedly progressive institutions. finally, an "ethical" period, focused on rehabilitating practices of moral self-formation in antiquity. this so-called "ethical turn" has been a source of persistent criticism of foucault's thought for several decades. i claim that this periodization is mistaken. there is no substantively "ethical" period in foucault's work that would stand in contrast to his genealogical inquiries. in the first chapter, i present overwhelming textual evidence against this interpretation, and then diagnose the motivation for it: the charge of "ethical nihilism" and the demand for a normative framework from critics of foucault's genealogical works. in brief the charge is that in revealing the power-relations that partially constitute enlightenment institutions and the ideals that sustain them, foucault deprives himself of the resources required to construct the kind of ethical theory needed to ground his critical project.in the second chapter and third chapters, i bring foucault into conversation with several figures in analytic philosophy, most prominently wilfrid sellars and the "pittsburgh school," and p.f. strawson. i argue that foucault's archaeological and genealogical works are best construed as an historical inquiry into the construction of "spaces of reasons," in which we find ourselves subject to normative evaluation and direction. i then argue that the charge of nihilism against foucault is the result of a process of neutralizing and depoliticizing the essentially plural, agonistic character of the space of reasons. i conclude by using my interpretation to explain and defend foucault's controversial engagement with the iranian revolution. the thesis is divided into two sections: scenes towards a novel titled to stop train pull chain, and a collection of short stories titled variations on the mahabharata. this study explores both the reformulation of, and the solution to, the traditional problem of envy in the political science of baruch spinoza (1632-1677). the idea that envy tears communities asunder predates the history of political philosophy. the problem has a central place in ancient greek political thinking. more recently, political philosophers like john rawls and martha nussbaum argue that diverse societies of rights-bearing equals are less prone to destabilizing envy. however, the history of envy as a topic of political philosophy remains unwritten. this study proposes a pivotal chapter of this yet-unwritten history. it credits spinoza for inaugurating the contours of the arguments that modern democratic political philosophers make about envy today.spinoza is the first to argue that increased commercial and political opportunities in more market-oriented and more democratic societies will bypass situations that, absent these opportunities, would generate socially destabilizing envy. in spinoza's unfinished political treatise (1677), the stability of every classical regime type—monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy—depends upon greater commercialization and greater democratization in order to thwart the underlying threat of envy. spinoza criticizes regimes where wealth and power are monopolized by very few, and proposes property laws and political structures that more widely distribute these scarce and rival goods. spinoza's proposals are unrecognized prototypes of contemporary political philosophers' arguments that liberal-democratic institutions buttress some modern societies against the ancient political problem of envy. these breakthrough modern solutions in the political treatise are meant to address the problems that emerge in the psychology of spinoza's ethics, where he presents envy as the first cause of hatred. while envy is a political problem attested by the most ancient writers, spinoza arrives at the problem of envy in his attempt to reduce political behavior to a simpler level of psycho-physiological causes. this commitment to naturalism leads spinoza, furthermore, to reject the account of the cause of war given by thomas hobbes, with whom spinoza is often compared. identifying envy as the fundamental problem of spinoza's political science gives us an appreciation of the originality and power of his political theory, and also of his pivotal importance in the history of political thought.spinoza proposes a political science that completely accounts for the origins of all hatred, religious violence, and civil war—in envy. he also proposes a way to bypass this problem at the level of constitutional design: creating opportunity, not relying upon moral authority. spinoza's account has none of the attractive modesty that characterizes contemporary political philosophy in the same vein. however, reconstructing his political science in its completeness allows us to better understand the presuppositions, benefits, and unintended consequences of modern solutions to this most ancient political problem. gold nanostructures have found use in molecular sensing, logic functions, and nanocircuitry through the propagation of surface plasmon polariton (spp) modes. despite spp usefulness, the effects of defects in the supporting substrate, the effects of defects in the nanostructures, and the effects of the geometry of nanostructures on the modes, the mode shapes, and various mode characteristics (such as damping as measured by propagation length) has not been well understood. other key issues include coupling between nanostructures and the interactions of multiple spp modes launched simultaneously. this dissertation clarifies some of these fundamental properties as exhibited primarily in gold nanowires through the use of pump-probe spectroscopy and computational modeling using comsol multiphysics. two primary spp modes are studied: the bound mode, which propagates at the nanostructure/substrate interface, and the leaky mode, which propagates primarily at the nanostructure/air interface. spps are launched using end-fire coupling in which a laser is focused on the end of the nanostructure. when the field of the laser matches that of the plasmon field, spps are launched. often multiple modes are launched simultaneously during an experiment, despite only one mode being of interest in a given experiment. the modes often have different properties and are affected differently by geometry and other factors in the system. discontinuities in the supporting substrate result in the elimination of the bound mode while the leaky mode is retained. nanowires that are cut in several places suffer 60 – 80% attenuation when cut widths range from 20 – 100 nm. counter-intuitively, greater losses at are sustained at smaller gap sizes due to coupling to localized surface plasmon resonances, demonstrating a fundamental loss mechanism. additionally, it is observed that as the lateral size of the nanowires increases, damping decreases. this is due to the reduced confinement of the mode at larger sizes, resulting in proportionally more of the field outside of the nanowire. this dissertation concentrates on a moment in the history of writing when the terms of literary production shifted, and with them the categories of author, reader and late-medieval 'maker.' focusing on the figure of william caxton, the project analyzes the ways in which the advent of print intersected with late-medieval theories of literary production, and demonstrates that through his prologues, editorial interventions, and textual selections, caxton sustained a rich and markedly literary dialogue with not only the new terms of printed production, but the complex political, economic and legal horizons of his enterprise. caxton's new visibility in shaping and guiding his texts marks an important formative moment in early print history &ndash; a moment often overlooked by reading caxton's productions without reference to their precise chronology, nor to the specific events against which they were produced. thus, this project will focus on the years of richard iii's reign (1483-85) as crucial ones in understanding how caxton constructed literary work within the new form of print, and how the role of incunables might emerge against the backdrop of fifteenth century politics. drawing on the work of the new constitutionalists, the dissertation's central chapters introduce caxton's interest in courtesy books, and build a framework for understanding caxton as a literary figure with distinct political engagements. caxton's response to richard employed a 'popular metaphorics,' a figurative language of the body that richard himself advanced through his titulus regius. these metaphorics were widely parsed and disseminated through the speeches of archbishop john russell; caxton's editions of the curial and the book of the knight of the tower rehearse these metaphorics as a mode of response and critique to the violence that marked richard's rise to power. this project's conclusion re-situates caxton by suggesting that the changes in caxton's production during richard iii's reign can be read as a move from auctor to printer, a shift deliberately effected by caxton as a response to the specific context of the 1484 statute. this dissertation examines the literature of the female poisoner in nineteenth-century america, primarily in new england between 1840 and 1864. these narratives centered on women who, among other crimes and transgressions, poisoned their victims, often men, typically their domestic partners. the writers of these narratives, however, characterized the female poisoners' crimes in radically divergent ways' from horrors to misfortunes to heroic acts' depending upon how they envisioned the distribution and shape of cultural authority within the nation. female poisoner texts engaged with a literary tradition of the poisonous woman, which deployed poison as a metaphor for mixture' a crossing and blurring of gender, class, racial, generic, and national boundaries. narratives of these mixtures could figure structures of power and identity that ran the gamut from heterogeneous possibilities for establishing more egalitarian modes of authority and androgynous forms of identity to hegemonic possibilities for rigidifying social hierarchy and clarifying boundaries of identity. in short, this literature enabled a debate about how power should be distributed in a 'civilized' society, what boundaries and structures constituted that civilization, and which configurations of race, class, and gender should wield hegemonic authority over it. this literature traversed multiple popular genres, and the dissertation tracks the female poisoner from the figure's inception in published trial transcripts and newspaper coverage to the sensational ephemera i call 'true' female poisoner pamphlets to fiction and drama by luminaries of the american renaissance such as harriet beecher stowe, oliver wendell holmes, and nathaniel hawthorne. the dissertation analyzes how the media affected the conversation and how the conversation affected the media as the female poisoner was adapted to address changing political concerns. each chapter thus examines another step in the evolving conversation as the argument shuttled back and forth through these various media and literary communities. this movement expanded outward from local conflicts over elite new england masculinity in the trials (chapter one) to questions about racial and regional power between north and south in the pamphlets and stowe's work (chapters two and three) to a debate over empire and forms of imperial hegemony between holmes and hawthorne (chapter four). mathematical and computational models are playing an increasingly prominent role in developmental biology. many biological phenomena have interactions and behaviors that operate across multiple spatial and temporal scales, so accurate simulation of the phenomena requires those scales to be explicitly modeled. agent-based modeling is a paradigm, typically discrete and stochastic, whereby entities or agents interact locally with other entities and their environment, and global patterns can emerge from the local interactions of many agents. in this thesis we describe a discrete, multiscale agent-based stochastic model for the behavior of limb bud precartilage mesenchymal cells in high-density cell culture. the model employs a biologically motivated reaction-diffusion process, and cell-matrix adhesion (haptotaxis), as the bases of chondrogenic pattern formation, whereby multicellular condensations are generated in a self-organizing fashion. the cells are extended, multipixel objects that can change shape in the plane and 'round up' by moving pixels into a virtual third dimension. chemical reactions, molecular diffusion, and diffusion of cells operate on different physical and temporal scales. we calibrated the model using experimental data and study sensitivity to changes in key parameters. we have found that not only does this model reproduce the experimental data, but that additional morphogenetic features of the micromass culture system are simulated as well. simulations show that spot and stripe patterns (which also correspond to the nodules and bars of the developing limb skeleton in vivo), are close in parameter space and can be generated in multiple ways with single parameter variations. our simulations have disclosed two distinct dynamical regimes for pattern self-organization involving transient or stationary inductive patterns of morphogens. an important implication is that some developmental processes do not require a strict progression from one stable dynamical regime to another, but can occur by a succession of transient dynamical regimes tuned (e.g., by natural selection) to achieve a particular morphological outcome. we discuss these modes of pattern formation in relation to available experimental evidence for the in vitro system, as well as their implications for understanding limb skeletal patterning during embryonic development. the current study attempts to explain some of the factors related to patient self-disclosure in the medical encounter, including gender dynamics, patient overall concealment tendency, and physician verbal behavior. participants were asked to put themselves in the place of patients while listening to audio files of three staged doctor visits (no problem scenario, fatigue scenario, and diabetes scenario). the design of the study is a 2 (patient gender) x 2 (physician gender) x 3 (physician statement: symptom focused question, feeling focused question, or self-disclosure) factorial using perceived privacy and importance of facts and self-disclosure tendency as covariates. participants' perceptions of the physician were measured, as well as their willingness to disclose specific information to this physician. results indicated that the experimental manipulation was indeed salient to the participants, and the proposed covariates were statistically useful. initial analysis suggested that the no problem scenario was conceptually different from the other two scenarios. in the fatigue and diabetes scenarios, the feeling question resulted in greater likelihood of disclosure than did the symptom question. the self-disclosure statement resulted in the higher attractiveness ratings than did the symptom question in all three scenarios. additional findings relating to gender were nearing critical significance levels. the findings did not support reciprocity theory in the medical encounter. there was support for the use of patient-centered interviewing methods to increase patient likelihood of disclosure. the strengths and limitations of analogue studies are discussed, as are recommendations for future studies, including studies with other cultural groups and patients with chronic or serious medical conditions. low-temperature plasma (ltp) ignited at atmospheric pressure is emerging as an alternative radiation type that offers excellent capabilities in diverse applications ranging from medicine to material processing. many of the physical aspects, such as reactive species formation, thermal properties of plasma, absorbed dose rate of plasma, diffusion properties of reactive plasma species, etc., are crucial for dictating the efficacy of plasma for numerous applications. the primary goal of my research is to develop a novel methodology to perform the diverse diagnostics of these aspects based on experimental data-generated predictive models of plasma-induced changes in diverse biologically relevant targets such as dna and agarose gel.the dissertation includes an overview of the various experimental and supervised machine-learning models i used to generate predictive models of plasma-induced changes in dna and agarose gel targets. then, i discuss the diverse diagnostics capabilities i achieved using predictive modeling of plasma-induced dna damage, including plasma's gas temperature, reactive species generation, and dose rate of ltp. the qualitative diagnostics on the reactive species generation and the gas temperature were made from the predictive modeling of strand breaks and denaturation of dna, respectively. the dose rate assessment capability i achieved using the dna probe involved a creative strategy that combined the predictive modeling of dna damage with correlations of absorbed dose versus dna damage for other radiation types. the results indicated a remarkably high dose rate that can be further enhanced by tuning various process parameters, such as applied voltage and frequency, which would be beneficial for inducing radiobiological effects in a controllable manner.in addition, my dissertation focuses on the colorimetric detection of the penetration of reactive oxygen species (ros) in an agarose gel target, a tissue phantom. the predictive model of the penetration extent of ros was used to derive specific metrics analogous to the ros diffusion coefficients, and the impact of applied voltage and frequency on these metrics was investigated. in this dissertation, i demonstrated the potential to perform diagnostics of crucial plasma properties from the predictive modeling of plasma-induced changes in targets. my study opens a potential gateway for developing novel plasma diagnostics tools that combine the power of predictive modeling tools such as machine learning and alternate probes like dna. natural populations are increasingly challenged by rapidly changing environmental conditions. toxic compounds produced from industrial and urban activities present a significant challenge to aquatic organisms. heavy metals, in particular, are common stressors that play a major role in environmental damage. since aquatic systems are the major sinks of industrial effluents they are often more highly impacted by heavy metals than terrestrial ecosystems. understanding the fitness consequences of heavy metal exposure requires knowledge of the physiological responses of organisms and the genetic basis of these responses. this information is critical to environmental scientists interested in predicting the long-term consequences of altered environments, and to regulatory agencies constructing predictive models to assess the impact of pollutants on human and environmental health.we evaluate the underlying genetic architecture and transcriptional responses of the freshwater microcrustacean daphnia magna to cadmium exposure in order to identify genes and pathways involved in the physiological response to this common environmental contaminant. we use qtl-mapping in recombinant lines derived from parental lines that differ in their response to cadmium exposure to detect genome regions associated with survivorship, and cadmium assimilation and depuration rates. in addition, we use a functional genomic approach with rna-seq data to examine transcriptional responses to cadmium exposure. our investigation of organismal response to cadmium will enhance our understanding of the effects of stressful environments on a widely distributed and ecologically relevant aquatic organism, and will add valuable information to current ecotoxicology research. this dissertation proposes that jon sobrino's christology offers the basis for a christian spirituality and a theology of reconciliation that promotes both the mending of historical reality and the reconciliation of human beings with god and among themselves. it also argues that such a spirituality advances the theological conversation on reconciliation by: prioritizing the perspective, role, and contribution of the victims in the process of reconciliation; insisting on the need both for personal forgiveness and for a social restoration of justice inspired by jesus' merciful praxis and the values of god's kingdom; and by arguing that christian discipleship must foster a ministry of reconciliation aimed at the eradication of structural sin, the corresponding humanization of its victims, and the rehabilitation of the oppressor. to this end, chapter one offers a brief scriptural background on the topic of reconciliation before turning its attention to the current theological conversation on the subject as exemplified by the works of robert schreiter, miroslav volf, and john de gruchy. their theologies of reconciliation help frame the conversation and identify the key questions for this project. acknowledging the contextual character of all theologies, chapter two examines the development of sobrino's theology within his historical context and intellectual history. the conflictual character of recent salvadoran history, the development of latin america liberation theology, the influence of monsignor oscar romero and particularly ignacio ellacuria's intellectual legacy, all help explain sobrino's theological method, his understanding of the purpose of the theological task, and his foundations for a christian spirituality. in chapter three i examine sobrino's fundamental theologal spirituality which outlines the basic dispositions or spirit with which any human person should engage reality. then, in chapter four, i move to explore how jesus' life and spirit instantiate the appropriate manner in which christians should engage reality. this instantiation describes, in general terms, what christians should do as they strive to live a life of discipleship. in chapter five, i move from a general christian spirituality (the following of jesus) to a more particular christian spirituality of reconciliation (following jesus in a situation characterized by conflict). i then offer a constructive proposal that illustrates how following the structure of jesus' life--his incarnation, mission, cross, and resurrection--informed by a spirit that enables us to be open to the 'more' of reality, and to engage this in an honest and faithful manner, constitute a christian spirituality that can effectively begin to heal and reconcile our conflicted reality. this christian spirituality of reconciliation, in turn, lays the groundwork for a preliminary christian theology of reconciliation that i subsequently bring into conversation with the theological projects of volf and de gruchy. permanent disposal of high-level nuclear waste requires efficient separation of trace amounts of various radioactive elements from alkaline waste solutions in order to minimize the final disposal volume required for vitrification. development of highly selective ion exchangers with increased capacity and kinetics is desired for a more cost-effective separation process. in collaboration with researchers at savannah river national laboratories, sandia national laboratories, and texas a&m university, various classes of high-capacity ion exchangers, such as crystalline titanosilicates (cst), pharmacosiderates, and polyoxoniobates are under investigation to enhance their ion exchange performance. molecular simulations have the potential to be a valuable design tool in guiding future synthesis efforts. the accuracy of molecular simulations is critically dependent upon the quality of the intermolecular force field used to describe the interactions. due to the large number of experimental x-ray diffraction studies that have characterized both materials, a semi-empirical intermolecular force field potential model is developed for crystalline titanosilicates and polyoxoniobates materials. in addition, ab initio methods, such as density functional theory (dft) simulations, are investigated to provide additional insight into the electronic structure of these materials and improve upon the force field. once a suitable potential model is obtained, molecular dynamics and monte carlo simulations are applied to predict preferred sorbent sites for cations and water molecules in various cation exchanged structures to supplement experimental x-ray diffraction studies. in particular, this study focuses on understanding the interplay between cations and water molecules in these ion exchangers. it has been amply demonstrated that water can significantly alter ion exchange performance due to its interaction with the exchangeable cations. to this end, replica exchange monte carlo simulations as well as grand canonical monte carlo simulations are conducted to better understand sorptive properties of the system, such as adsorption isotherms and heats. the computed properties compare well with existing experimental measurements, giving indication that the physics of each system is adequately described through the intermolecular potential model. given that an accurate potential model has been developed, the ultimate goal is to utilize molecular modeling techniques to understand what controls the selectivity for certain ions and to determine if this selectivity can be enhanced through structural modification of the materials. previous research has shown that rumination is negatively correlated with forgiveness across a wide range of relationships. in addition, experimental research has revealed that rumination increases anger and aggressive retaliatory behavior following an interpersonal offense. the current study was designed to expand upon these findings by providing an experimental investigation of rumination, anger, and forgiveness in the context of marital relationships. we sought to determine whether rumination had a causal effect on anger, forgiveness, explicit attitudes, and implicit attitudes toward one's spouse. spouses were randomly assigned to either ruminate or engage in cognitive reappraisal of a transgression they had recently experienced in their marriage. following this thought manipulation task, we assessed subjects' anger, forgiveness, explicit attitudes, and implicit attitudes toward their spouse. the results revealed that rumination led to an increase in subjects' anger toward their spouse from preto post-manipulation, while cognitive reappraisal did not cause any changes in subjects' anger. after controlling for baseline rumination, we found that rumination led to lower motivations for forgiveness than cognitive reappraisal. in addition, anger mediated the effect of rumination on forgiveness. contrary to our predictions, rumination and cognitive reappraisal did not cause differences in subjects' negative explicit or implicit attitudes toward their spouse. we conclude that the relationship between rumination and forgiveness may be causal and not simply correlational, and that anger seems to play a significant role by mediating this effect. the vast array of news and information available online enables individuals to seek out sources more in-line with pre-existing beliefs. selective exposure to content facilitates the formation of homogeneous echo chambers which limit exposure to dissenting points of view. as a result, it is increasingly difficult for individuals to distinguish between reliable facts and misinformation, a trend which contributes to increased sociopolitical polarization. in fact, a recent survey finds that americans are more politically divided today than at any other point in nearly a quarter of a century. given the serious ramifications of digital misinformation, this study advances a new subcategory of internet memes, identified as infomemes, as viable countermeasures: first, by establishing infomemes as a practical method for dissemination of verifiable facts; second, by advancing guidelines for their production and diffusion across social platforms. the objective is to empower practitioners such as journalists and activists with a better understanding of the techniques, tools, and skills required to produce content capable of countering the adverse effects of digital misinformation. ground-based telescopes rely on adaptive optics (ao) systems to correct wavefront distortions that result from light propagating through earth's turbulent atmosphere. in an ao system, the wavefront sensor (wfs) detects and reconstructs the input wavefront phase and amplitude. current industry-leading wfs designs, such as the shack-hartmann wfs (shwfs), lack vital sensing capabilities such as a broad spatial frequency capture range and high photon-efficiency, limiting the use of diffraction-limited observations for various science cases of interest. more accurate and photon-sensitive wfs designs are needed to advance the next generation of ground-based telescopes and instruments.this dissertation investigates and develops the fresnel wfs (fwfs) and zernike wfs (zwfs) as alternative designs to overcome the current state-of-the-art. it is shown that the fwfs is more accurate than an equivalent shwfs, providing sensitivity to a broad range of spatial frequencies, a large capture range, robustness to scintillation, and an increased photon-efficiency. these advantages establish the fwfs as a promising candidate for a variety of ao applications for both astronomy and industry. future investigations should study and improve the sensor's slow operating frequency, which results from the sensor's non-linear reconstruction algorithm. a collection of stories about disembodiment, embodiment and the course of desires from the state in between. a troop of mothers escape their bodies to be the essences that cause swear words in the dark. a spirit of the snow displaces the soul of a young girl and regrets her 'forever embodiment' as the lost soul goes through puberty suspended above a beach. fish-exhausted mothers compliment pastors who receive letters from dead girls. a girl exponentially expands realizing she may have been an abusive man in a past life but finds redemption in a spiritual kinship with laika the first dog in space, when a parent gets teriminal cancer she realizes laika is really more destined for him, discovering an occult truth about air hunger. this work focuses on the study of through-silicon-via (tsv) inductor and its utilization in various on-chip applications such as dc-dc converter and resonant clocking. tsvs are the critical enabling technology for three-dimensional integrated circuits (3d ics). tsvs can be potentially used to implement inductors in 3-d integrated systems for a minimal footprint. however, different from conventional 2-d spiral inductors, tsv inductors are fully buried in the lossy substrate, thus suffering from low quality factor at high frequencies. on the other hand, a major limiting factor for the implementation of many on-chip circuits such as dc-dc converters and resonant clocking is the large area overhead induced by spiral inductors. towards this, we propose to use tsv inductor instead of the spiral inductor to reduce the inductor area overhead. in this work, we first systematically examine how various process and design parameters affect the performance of tsv inductor. we then propose a novel shield mechanism utilizing the microchannel, a technique conventionally used for heat removal, to reduce the substrate losses at high frequencies. we also discuss on-chip magnetics based tsv inductor for high inductance density. we then demonstrate the effectiveness of such tsv inductors in inductive dc-dc converters. a single inductor multi-tier single voltage regulator design in 3d ics with time-sharing and spatial-sharing techniques is also proposed and is compared with the conventional design scheme. we then study the effectiveness of tsv inductor in the resonant clocking scheme. experimental results show that by replacing conventional spiral inductors with tsv inductors, inductor area reduced by up to 6.3x for on-chip applications. this thesis is an exploration in the ways that painting and the specific historical languages of abstraction can represent attitudes, strategies and processes that arise under competing pressures to be unwavering in our decisions and our public and self-images, while also staying easy-going and adaptable in the face of recent technologies, social media platforms, and instantaneous and overwhelming access to information and opinions. through a combination of gestural mark-making and wobbly geometric design, i reflect a human desire to create and contribute in productive and meaningful ways. ionic liquids have been studied as a possible solvent in a carbon capture process to reduce the co2 emissions from coal-fired power plants and to replace conventional aqueous amine solvents. this study examines the reactive properties of amine functionalized ionic liquids and their use as a solvent for absorbing co2. a post-combustion absorber is normally operated around 40&deg;c and a pre-combustion process could be operated at even higher temperatures. therefore, this work determines how the ils behave at temperatures above room temperature in the presence of co2. aprotic heterocyclic anion (aha) ils are promising solvents to capture co2 due to their ability to react equal molar with co2 and their ability to be tuned for specific applications. second order reaction rate constants were measured between 22 and 50&deg;c for four different anions paired with the [p66614] cation. it was found that the reaction rate constant varied from 2100 l/mol/s to 18000 l/mol/s and can be estimated from the &#916;habs-co2. the second order rate constant is linear with the &#916;habs-co2, where the anions that more strongly bind with co2 have a faster reaction rate than anions that weakly bind co2. the calculated activation energies were surprising. [4-triaz]and [brbnim]had similar activation energies to previously studied ils (< 20 kj/mol); however, [bnim]and [inda]had activation energies greater than 40 kj/mol. the high activation energies are comparable to aqueous mea solutions, however the reaction mechanism is much different. the effect of the cation on the reaction rate is also studied. it is found that the second order rate constant increases when the cation is changed from a tetra-alkyl phosphonium to a tetra-alkyl ammonium cation, which could be due to interactions between the anion and cation of the il. the il + co2 reaction pathway was studied at high temperatures to explain the high ea measured for [bnim]and [inda]-. at room temperature the ils chosen in this study react with co2 to form a carbamate product. it was found that as the reaction temperature is increased, a second reaction channel competes with the carbamate formation. the cation is not an innocent bystander to the reaction and actually reacts with co2 as well, due to the phosphonium cations having an acidic proton. the acidic proton on the &#945;-carbon of the tetra-alkyl chain of the phosphonium cation is deprotonated by the basic anion forming an ylide. the ylide is then free to react with co2. by changing the cation to an ammonium based cation, the ylide formation is kinetically suppressed and only the carbamate product is formed. this study gives insight into how the il would react with co2 in an actual absorber column. the use of multiple amines and additives is used to try and improve the co2 capacity in ionic liquids. [p66614][dipyrrole-ketone] was tested to show greater than 1 : 1 molar uptake at 1 bar. water and alcohols were added to ils and shown to modify the reaction chemistry. the addition of the &ndash;oh groups in water and alcohol with the basic anions in solution led to the formation of a predominately bicarbonate product. the carbamate reaction was suppressed as the il acted as a proton acceptor. this study examines popular and scholarly perceptions that young american evangelicals are becoming more liberal than older evangelicals. examining a range of "hot-button" issues relating to sexuality and family, i find that young evangelicals are significantly more likely to have more liberal attitudes on same-sex marriage, pre-marital sex, cohabitating, pornography, and to a lesser extent, abortion. using recent work on emerging adulthood, i explore education, delayed marriage, and a shift away from god as moral authority as potential explanations. i also explore a new method for operationalizing evangelicals in future quantitative analysis by using three different classification schemes simultaneously: religious tradition, self-id evangelicals, and theologically conservative protestants. the data come from the 2006 panel study of american religion and ethnicity. hydroxyapatite (ha) shows promise as a reinforcement phase in synthetic orthopedic bicomposites due to a close resemblance to bone mineral, as well as demonstrated biocompatibility and bioactivity. polymers reinforced with ha whiskers have exhibited improved bone-like mechanical properties compared to equiaxed ha powders. preliminary studies have also indicated that ha whiskers are at least as biocompatible as conventional ha powders. therefore, the objective of this study was to examine the effects of ha crystal morphology on osteoblast-like response in two-dimensional substrates independent of the ha composition, stoichiometry and porosity. the ha crystal morphology affected the substrate surface roughness, which was measured by profilometry. the average roughness of ha whisker compacts was more than twice that of the powder compacts. specific aims of this study were to quantify and compare osteoblast attachment, viability, proliferation and differentiation in response to ha powder and whisker morphology. mc3t3-e1 osteoblast-like cells were cultured on ha powder and whisker compacts for a period of up to 14 days. cell attachment, proliferation and differentiation were similar on both substrate types, although spreading was greater on ha whiskers. proliferation did not increase throughout a seven day culture period; however, cells reached confluence by 14 days in culture on both substrates. these results, in conjunction with the improved mechanical properties of polymer composites reinforced with ha whiskers, establish whiskers as a biomaterial of similar cytocompatibility to conventional equiaxed ha powders and worthy of further study. as the world continues to become more intertwined, complex, and dynamic, so too do the conflicts that affect our societies. conflicts are becoming more intractable and less conducive to traditional approaches to peacemaking and political resolution, thus presenting a grave and immediate problem for the larger international community to address. in the past decade non-state actors have been emerging as peace mediators, presenting their own unique approaches to peacemaking which has proven successful in a number of cases. this thesis analyzes the case of the community of sant'egidio, a lay catholic association which has become known for its noteworthy track 1.5 peace mediation efforts around the world. using direct experience and personal interviews with the mediators from sant'egidio, i analyze the etymology of the community's peacework through applying a historical review of the genesis of the community, specifically the impact of vatican ii. i describe the key facets of sant'egidio's charism through the integrated lens of the "three p's" of prayer, poor, and peace. in subsequent case studies i highlight and explain the differences in sant'egidio's approach as compared to other track 1.5 mediation groups and leaders. through the particular case study of sant'egidio's present-day parallel peace dialogue in south sudan, i ask whether sant'egidio's engagement in south sudan is truly inclusive and what approaches could be applied to increase the rome initiative's inclusivity. this thesis describes the growth of gas bubbles on a static surface. during the course of normal operation, flow within devices such as pumps, pipes, and reservoirs create low pressure regions. though the pressure decrease may not be sufficient to cause vaporous cavitation, bubbles containing gases that were either dissolved in the fluid or trapped in crevices on solid surfaces will form. these bubbles have a significant effect on the performance of machinery and make it difficult to simulate the behavior of the flow in this range of conditions. instead of being a simple single-phase incompressible liquid, the fluid is now a compressible two-phase gas-liquid mixture. the understanding of the process of formation and growth of cavitation bubbles is important in the design of any fluid system. the growth of a spherical bubble under static conditions and positioned far from any interfering surface is well understood and has an analytical solution. the problem of a bubble growing on a surface is more complex because the symmetry of the system is broken.the experiment described in this thesis has three components. as an initial verification of the experimental apparatus, the surface tension of three separate fluid (distilled water, dodecane, and jet-a) is calculated using a force balance involving measured quantities at the instant of bubble departure. to examine pressure-driven growth, the pressure experienced by a bubble trapped on a surface is cycled to and from atmospheric pressure. by comparing the changes in volume to the magnitude of the pressure changes, pressure-driven bubble growth was found to be an isothermal polytropic process and independent of the fluid. to observe diffusion growth, an initial bubble is exposed to a step change in pressure that is maintained over the lifetime of the bubble. the change of the bubble volume over time due to diffusion is determined by two parameters, the diffusion coefficient (d) and henry's law constant (h). the experiment demonstrates that the epstein-plesset solution to the concentration gradient within the system is viable for limited applications when suitably modified to account for the non-spherical nature of the bubble. to use the epstein-plesset model as a predictive tool, both d and h, must be known a priori as the problem is indeterminant. the work presented herein covers two separate research projects. the first is a study of the flow dynamics over impact craters that host a central mound by utilizing a model with an idealized geometry and another model with a geometry sourced from that of a martian impact crater. the second project consists of the fabrication of flexible idealized vegetation elements seeded with fluorescent particles to facilitate the quantification of both the flow and solid deformation field.both projects leveraged the experimental methods of high-resolution planar particle image velocimetry (piv) and refractive-index matching (rim). the rim approach acts to render the models optically invisible and thus facilitate measurements throughout the full domain.the first research project investigated the intracrater and extracrater flow structures over mounded craters induced by unidirectional flow. results showed that the mean flow within the idealized crater exhibits more complexity compared to an empty crater. second-order statistics highlighted regions of elevated turbulent stresses, which revealed a complex interaction between shear layers at the upstream and downstream parts of the rim and the central mound. these results have implications mass and momentum exchange, and for sediment transport processes. lastly, results from the realistic crater model showed both similarities and differences with the primary flow features over the idealized model.quantification of the hydroelastic phenomena linking plant deformation and fluid flow is critical in investigating key fluvial processes. in the second project, measurements of unidirectional flow surrounding idealized, submerged flexible canopy elements, together with the corresponding solid displacement field, were simultaneously obtained by combining fluorescent imaging and rim. the operating principle of the approach involves seeding the two phases with different tracers, facilitating independent interrogation of the dynamics of each. furthermore, time-resolved data allowed for observation of the dynamic link between a deformable object and the surrounding flow field. subnational regimes vary significantly within countries around the world. even in well-established national democracies " like the usa in the 1950s or argentina in the 1990s " local regimes are often far from democratic. in the last five decades scholarship on political regimes has produced an impressive body of research, but the focus has been mainly national. this dissertation tackles what robert dahl called the "grave omission" of subnational regimes by providing and justifying rigorous descriptive and causal inferences for the 24 provinces of argentina between its re-democratization in 1983 and 2007. at the level of description, i provide a detailed operationalization of the concept of subnational democracy, including a "thick" conceptualization and two alternative measurement strategies. the first (objective) strategy resorts to electoral and institutional indicators to create an index for all provinces and all gubernatorial terms since 1983. the second (subjective) strategy is based on the survey of experts on provincial politics (sepp), in which 155 experts in all the provinces provided disaggregate information about their regimes for the period 2003-2007. seventeen indices of different aspects of democracy were derived from this dataset. at the level of explanation, i propose a rentier theory of subnational democracy, which shifts the focus of the rentier-state literature up by climbing sartori's ladder of abstraction from the concept of resource rents to that of fiscal rents. drawing on fiscal theories of the state, i argue that inter-provincial regime differences are to a large extent explained by a type of rentierism that is not geographically determined by natural resources but politically created by certain fiscal federalism arrangements. i posit that less democratic regimes are more likely in rentier provinces " those that receive disproportionately large central government transfers and practically forgo local taxation. intergovernmental revenue-sharing rules that produce large vertical fiscal imbalances and favor the economically smaller districts provide their incumbents with generous fiscal federalism rents that allow them to restrict democratic contestation and weaken checks and balances. statistical evidence from the argentine provinces supports this explanation, which overshadows its main alternative, modernization theory. these findings are robust to alternative estimators and measurement choices. qualitative and quantitative evidence suggest that the effects of heavy public spending and statism on the economic autonomy of political actors are the main causal mechanisms at work. considerable research indicates women tend to outperform men on tasks of episodic memory. stress hormones, like cortisol, have been implicated in influencing the consolidation of emotional episodic memory. however, recent studies suggests cortisol may interact with testosterone to influence behavior and cognitive functions, like memory. the aim of this study is to investigate the role of testosterone, in addition to cortisol, to account for the sex differences in episodic memory performance. participants (n=143; women=89; control=68) completed an encoding task in the afternoon, provided saliva samples prior to and after a stressor or matched control condition, and were tested for memory performance the following morning. reactivity measures for cortisol and testosterone were utilized. a repeated measures anova revealed no significant effect of testosterone, or an interaction with sex, on episodic memory performance. additionally, endogenous testosterone did not correlate with any episodic memory measures. though results of our study fail to account for sex differences in episodic memory performance, previous research suggest a need to consider cortisol-testosterone interactions to understand emotional episodic memory performance. note: permanent private status; do not release file or record; do not catalog. thesis was approved, but the student did not complete her degree requirements and was dismissed without graduating. contact the graduate school dissertation editor with questions. 1/3/2012 shari hill in recent years, st. cyril of alexandria has received growing scholarly attention. never losing cite of his exceptional contribution to the articulation of the seminal aspects of christian doctrine, cyrillian scholarship moved to explore related aspects of his teaching on the trinity, the eucharist, the church, the spirit, and scripture. many areas of his teaching still remain virtually unexplored &#8212; one of which is the notion of the priesthood of christ, a crucial point of contention during the nestorian controversy. this dissertation examines three aspects of cyril's priestly christology: his understanding of christ as teacher, sacrifice and sanctifier. the notion of christ's priesthood is doctrinally integral to the whole of cyril's thought, including his reflections on the eucharist, the trinity, the church, sanctification, divine filiation, anthropology, grace and pastoral ministry. this dissertation argues that tracing the development of cyril's theology of christ's priesthood throughout his oeuvre imparts indispensable insight into the overall development of his theological doctrine. it also provides a schema that aids in determining the dates of composition for many of his works, as well as his unique synthesis of eastern and western authors. sb-heterostructure backward diodes have been designed, fabricated, characterized and modeled for zero-bias millimeter-wave detection and imaging. detectors with three different heterostructures and various active areas have been characterized. the effect of the incorporation of a p-type ì_å«-doping layer in the cathode, as well as the vertical and lateral scaling of the device structure on the detector's performance has been studied. a typical 10-ìä'_ barrier thickness detector with ì_å«-doping layer and an active area of 0.85ìä' 0.85 ì_å_m2 has been demonstrated with a record-high sensitivity of 4200 v/w, a cut-off frequency of 620 ghz, and an nep of 0.24 pw/hz1/2 at 94 ghz for a conjugately-matched rf source. in addition to the directly-measured performance at w-band, predictions of the device performance through y band and beyond using a non-linear device model show the potential of the sb-heterostructure detectors for high-frequency operation in millimeterand submillimeterwave imaging systems. the temperature-dependent dc and microwave characterization of these devices demonstrate very favorable characteristics have been achieved for the sb-heterostructure detectors for both ambient and cryogenically-cooled applications. a simple physical model that captures the temperature-dependent effects is described. the high sensitivity, low noise, wide bandwidth, good detection linearity and favorable temperature-dependence make the sb-based device a promising candidate for improving the performance of passive millimeter and submillimeter imaging systems. while the influence of sleep on memory has a long history, sleep's role in the formation of false memories is less clear. false memory has been widely studied using the drm task. although technically a false memory, remembering the gist of experience is arguably an adaptive process. recent studies demonstrate that a period of sleep benefits both true memory and gist-based false memory when compared to a wake period. over longer delays (e.g. 1-2 weeks), true memory tends to deteriorate while false memory persists, but it is currently unknown how sleep influences this pattern. here we assess how the positioning of sleep relative to memory encoding impacts later retention across longer delays of 24 and 48 hours. participants encoded 16 drm lists in the morning (wake 1st groups) or evening (sleep 1st groups), and were tested either 24 or 48 hours later at the same time (four groups). results show that true memory was better after sleeping first, than after waking first. to a lesser extent, sleeping soon after learning also increased false memory. a negative correlation between sws and false recognition was found, suggesting that sws may be detrimental for semantic/gist processing. these findings are consistent with fuzzy trace theory, so that verbatim (true) memories are independent from gist (false) memories, and therefore, sleep can impact them differently. my work comes from the intersection between my identity as both a practicing artist and as the united states' only traditional bell maker. campanology has, and continues to be, a subject that exists between various disciplines. it has never been fully independent, but subject to multiple perspectives and methods of study. this creates a vast and interconnected network of seemingly different historical objects, icons, ideas, and technologies together. i seek to position these things in certain ways to expose the conditions and political nuances that shape how certain forms of national identity have &mdash; or may be &mdash; constructed, changed, destroyed, or are otherwise affected. at the same time, this collection of work also renders these objects within the scope of human social activity, and situates these concerns against enlightenment era philosophies as a critique of the west-o-centric humanist tradition. through addressing these relationships, it becomes clear that a sense of one's national identity is certainly constructed and not congenital. these formative practices act to differentiate people and things according to a variety of cultural and political factors. moreover, because there is no singular conception of a specific form of national identity, the zones where differing perspectives intersect become multi-layered, plural, and often discordant. as these factors condition a certain level of identity to exist in regards to the nation-state, the underlying issue within this subject centers on issue of humanhood: the sate of condition of being human. or, as diderot would have it, "patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it." exchange of financial support between geographically distant groups was a characteristic practice in early christianity. the pauline collection for the poor in jerusalem was one of the most ambitious undertakings in christian origins. recent assessments of the pauline collection have focused on patronage to explain the social relations between jerusalem and the pauline groups and the strategies adopted by paul in promoting and completing the collection. this dissertation challenges this approach and proposes that other factors shaped paul's stance with respect to the collection and the practical details of its execution. a comparison with the worries that surrounded patronage in the greco-roman world shows that patronage is not the appropriate framework to understand the pauline collection. paul was interested in reassuring the corinthians, most of whom lived around subsistence level, about the financial outcome of the collection and in dispelling doubts that he might take advantage of them. in paul's eyes, the collection was not only an action modeled on the self-sacrifice exemplified by jesus and divine generosity, but also an exchange within a reciprocal relationship with the jerusalem group. the jerusalem believers had already offered spiritual gifts to the pauline groups and would provide material help if need were to arise in corinth. this dissertation surveys similar instances of intergroup support between christian communities in the first three centuries ce. this examination demonstrates that intergroup support was a widespread phenomenon in early christianity, involving churches from most of the mediterranean basin and known even outside of christian circles. transfers of money were organized according to a consistent pattern probably modeled on local charitable practices. intergroup support especially addressed financial needs connected with the ransom or sustenance of christians imprisoned for their faith. bishops had a key role in the organization and administration of financial support. although there was no direct link between the pauline collection and later instances of intergroup support, the pauline collection had similar characteristics and can be seen as part of a more widespread economic practice. the category of perverse sheaves is known to be an abelian and artinian category. as a result, we can talk about the length and decomposition factors of a perverse sheaf. in this thesis we look at a class of perverse sheaves arising from local systems on a complement of a hyperplane arrangement and give a concrete (combinatorial) formula to identify the simple ones; that is, those of length one. by the riemann-hilbert correspondence, there is an equivalence of categories between perverse sheaves and regular holonomic d-modules. therefore, we also obtain the analogous criterion for a class of regular holonomic d-modules on the complement of a hyperplane arrangement.the above result is obtained by studying the cohomology jump loci on the complement of a hyperplane arrangement and relating it with the support of sabbah's specialization complex, which generalizes the nearby cycles complex of deligne. the state of the catalytic surface during oxidation reactions on supported pt catalysts has been investigated by kinetic studies and in-situ infrared (ir) and extended x-ray absorption fine structure (exafs) spectroscopies. the results of this work show the effect of the preparation method, the pretreatment, and most significantly of the reaction atmosphere on the co oxidation activity. experimental data are compared with theoretical results obtained with dynamic monte carlo (dmc) simulations. kinetic results indicate that, under oxidizing conditions, the specific rate of co oxidation on pt/sio2 catalysts increases with increasing particle size. dmc simulation results suggest that these differences are due to the variation on the activity of the various types of sites present in a crystallite. ir results clearly show that the active surface of pt/sio2 catalysts during co oxidation is the metallic pt. the presence of residual cl on pt/al2o3 and pt/sio2 catalysts affects their activity during co, methane and ethane oxidation. on the cl-containing catalyst, pt-cl as well as pt-pt and pt-o bonds were detected using exafs. this catalyst, however, does not chemisorb co, indicating that there are no reduced surface pt atoms. ir results show that chlorine significantly reduces the amount of co adsorbed on metallic pt sites. the mechanism of chlorine poisoning occurs mainly by site blocking. the state of the working surface of pt/sio2 and pt/al2o3 catalysts were also studied in the presence of sulfur. the activity results show that the light-off temperature for co oxidation increases with ex-situ h2s addition. in-situ ir results show a shift of the linear co band indicating a change in the bonding of adsorbed co due to the presence of sulfur. continuous addition of 20 ppm of so2 to the reactant mixture also increases the light-off temperature. activity and ir results demonstrate that alumina acts as a sulfur storage reservoir. this delays the initial deactivation but after extended time on stream in presence of so2 the activity of the silicaand alumina-supported catalysts is similar. the results indicate that sulfur poisoning is not only due to site blocking but also because of modification of the pt-co bonding. this dissertation studies state estimation (se) and scheduling algorithms for modeling and managing smarter electric power systems. se is the backbone of control functions in the energy management system of the power grid. in this dissertation, we consider se at both the transmission system and the distribution system. although se has been widely implemented in the transmission systems, deployment of a large number of phasor measurement units (pmu) call for major changes in the legacy se algorithms. this dissertation presents a reduced-order forecasting-aided state estimator which effectively incorporates pmu measurements with conventional measurements and demonstrates its viability through simulations. the evolution of the grid towards a smarter grid will mean an increasing demand for situational awareness and require se at the distribution level. we develop an enhanced forecasting-aided state estimation (fase) algorithm that incorporates forecasting-aided topology change detection and an event-triggered recursive bayesian estimator to identify the correct topology of the distribution network. simulation studies with microgrid-induced changes are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. this dissertation also considers the problem of optimizing the charging of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (phevs) with a centralized controller. as the penetration level of phevs increases, their charging will become more stressful to the distribution system. in our studies here, we concentrate on phev charging in public infrastructures, such as shared parking lots in commercial office campuses and shopping malls. in such clustered scenarios, phev charging demand can vary significantly and stochastically with time, and the overall system performance is a trade-off between the peak load on the distribution system and the consumer specified deadlines that are met successfully. in these scenarios, centralized scheduling of charging will be beneficial, unlike distributed residential charging. in this dissertation, we show that centralized scheduling algorithms can help the parking lot owner to balance distribution system load with quality of charging service. the overall objective of this study was to produce hydroxyapatite (ha) whisker reinforced polyaryletherketone (paek) biocomposites and scaffolds with tailored mechanical properties similar to those of bone tissue. the effects of the reaction temperature and carboxylic acid on the morphology and composition of ha whiskers synthesized by chelate decomposition were first studied using a controlled heating rate under static conditions. reaction temperature affected both whisker composition and morphology, while the carboxylic acid used as the chelating agent affected whisker morphology. polyetheretherketone (peek) was reinforced with up to 50 vol% ha whisker reinforcement using a novel powder processing and compression molding technique. composites with 40-50 vol% ha whisker reinforcement exhibited elastic moduli similar to that of human cortical bone in the longitudinal direction. composites with 10 and 20 vol% ha whisker reinforcement exhibited tensile strengths similar to that of human cortical bone in the longitudinal direction. ha whisker reinforced polyetherketoneketone (pekk) scaffolds were successfully processed with 75-90% porosity and 20-40 vol% ha whisker reinforcement. the compression molding/particle leaching technique used in this study facilitated the incorporation of high levels of bioactive ha whisker reinforcements into the polymer matrix. micro-ct indicated interconnected porosity in the size range required for bone ingrowth. the mechanical properties of ha whisker reinforced pekk scaffolds were investigated in uniaxial compression. scaffolds processed at 375ìâå¡c with 75% porosity and 20 vol% ha whisker reinforcement exhibited an apparent modulus of 141 mpa and an apparent yield strength of 2.3 mpa. these values fall within the ranges reported for the modulus and strength of trabecular bone. germanium was one of the first semiconductors of promise, serving as the basis for the first transistor, a key enabler of the information age, which has fundamentally transformed society. ge has since been supplanted by silicon (si), which has superior electronic and chemical attributes, and gallium arsenide (gaas), which possesses superior properties for light-matter interaction (optoelectronics). ge is most widely applied today as a chemically compatible means of boosting performance in mature si technology. but ge may also address a growing need for tightly integrated optoelectronic functions on si.the key to excellent optoelectronic performance in ge lies in interacting with the direct bandgap in the conduction band γ valley, which is only 140 mev above the fundamental bandedge. this has been exploited by other groups to realize state-of-the-art photonic components such as photodetectors and modulators, but no ge devices with a truly direct bandgap have been demonstrated to date. to this end, it would be highly advantageous if ge could be transformed into a direct bandgap semiconductor, such that the behavior of most electrons in the material is strongly γ in character. this confers efficient radiative recombination (light emission) and large absorption coefficients, giving rise to large gains under population inversion in laser applications. two methods for shifting the bandstructure are investigated in this thesis: deposition of stress liners to induce tensile strain, and alloying ge with dilute amounts (&lt;1%) of carbon. in the first case, tensile strain induced by highly compressive films modifies the band structure, potentially dropping the γ valley below the l valley. in the second case, carbon sitting on ge lattice sites induces strong local perturbations leading to an effect called band anticrossing, which strongly repels the γ valley downward, again potentially yielding a direct bandgap. ge is also valued for long carrier lifetimes. however, low rates of recombination require high quality material and interfaces. though bulk purity has been refined to acceptable levels for substrates, defects at surfaces are inevitably a challenge. this work shows that by changing the stoichiometry of surface oxide passivation, drastic improvements in light emission from ge are realized. furthermore, it is found that for optoelectronics, geo interfaces are superior to geo2, but ge+3 states are entirely undesirable. what does it mean politically, morally and theologically to claim that the dead are presente? responding to this question, the following dissertation constructs a messianic political theology of the resurrected dead through an extended case study of the school of the americas watch. currently one of the longest running nonviolent movements for social change in the united states, this movement has called for the closure of the soa/whinsec, a training facility for latin american military and police officers, and a fundamental change in us foreign policy. the movement has been centered on an annual protest liturgy that names those killed by graduates of the soa/whinsec and claims them as ¡presente! this dissertation explores the political, moral and theological significance of this claim, a claim that draws upon a creedal affirmation of a belief in and hope for the resurrection. through the course of this study i construct a political theology that coordinates the dynamics of messianism, liturgy and practical reason. i argue that the performance of the messianic claim in the ¡presente! litany generates obligations between the living and the dead. these obligations underdetermine the actions that follow, however, and therefore require practical reasoning as activists discern how to faithfully enact effective political action. thus, the need for practical reason remains, even as the development of that practical reason is fundamentally conditioned by the messianism of the liturgy. each chapter examines a different dilemma that soa watch activists face and examines how the coordination of these three dynamics impacts that dilemma. these include the use of liturgy as a repertoire of contentious politics (chapter 2); the building of nonviolent coalitions across differences of race, religion, class and citizenship (chapter 3); the transgression, affirmation, and appropriation of the law (chapter 4); and the function of exemplarity and charisma to motivate movement involvement (chapter 5). while each of these chapters draw upon empirical materials, my goal is ultimately constructive and i conclude by gesturing toward the possibilities enabled by a messianic political theology rooted in the resurrected presence of the dead. in this thesis, i analyze book 9 and book 10 of the odyssey through a posthumanist lens. i argue that, in contrast to the rigid hierarchy suggested by colonial readings of the narrative, the animal/man dichotomy is presented as imprecise and blurred. by acknowledging these ambiguities, i suggest that the poem repeatedly presents similarities between odysseus and those he encounters rather than stark dichotomies. metal nanowires draw large attention due to their wide application, such as in electronic and sensor devices. in this study, we explored the electrical and chemical-sensing behaviors of gold nanowires fabricated by focused ion beam etching (fib) and electron beam lithography (ebl). the chemical sensor is composed of a single nanowire connected to two gold contact pads. the resistivity of nanowires fabricated by ebl shows a size effect that thinner nanowires have higher resistivity. nanowires fabricated by fib etching show greatly reduced sensitivity toward molecular adsorption compared to those fabricated by ebl, though nanowires fabricated by fib etching exhibit very high resistivity. gold nanowires fabricated by ebl show different chemical sensing behavior upon exposure to thiols and amines. thiols cause positive resistivity change, while amines cause negative resistivity change. thinner nanowire fabricated by ebl showed higher sensitivity. people who attend religious services are more likely to report higher levels of happiness. although this relationship has been documented in numerous studies, the theoretical explanation is unclear. some studies argue that religious involvement enhances one's relationship with god, which increases one's level of happiness. other studies suggest that religious involvement increases one's number and quality of social ties, which increase one's level of happiness. in this paper, i compare these explanations by examining two key mediating variablesì¢ ââ' self-reported relationship with god and strength of social ties from the religious organizationì¢ ââ' to explain the correlation between religious attendance and happiness, finding that both mediate the relationship between religious attendance and happiness. in the second part of this analysis, i question the degree to which the assumed causal direction of religious attendance to happiness is accurate. using a cross-lagged model of change over time, i compare the paths of religious attendance to happiness and happiness to religious attendance. i find that the path from religious attendance to happiness is much stronger than the alternative. over the last century some philosophers and political thinkers have begun to question the subject-centered conceptions of political existence that has largely characterized modern political thought. emphasizing difference and "otherness," some of the challenges to subjective thinking appear to be hostile to any positive conception of political community. one criticism is that "post-subjective" political thinking does not adequately describe positive identity within a community, nor that it acceptably justifies individual or group accountability. nevertheless, many thinkers persuaded by criticisms of subjectivity have endeavored to describe and substantiate political agency without recourse to the modern conception of a subject. this dissertation evaluates the "post-subjective" political theories of seyla benhabib, iris marion young, and chantal mouffe, with specific interest in the way political identity, accountability, and agency are conceived. the argument explores where these accounts explicitly or implicitly suggest a new source for identity and accountability, and suggests when we should find them politically unacceptable where they might lack such consideration. of the iii-nitride family the aln/gan heterojunction has demonstrated the largest combined polarization charge and energy band osets available in the system. engineering the polarization fields through varying the aln thickness leads to two-dimensional electron gas densities (2degs) that may be tailored between 0.5 5 x 1013 cm2. furthermore, the ultra-thin (< 5 nm) barrier and excellent transport properties of this all binary heterostructure make it well suited for high electron mobility transistor applications where high frequency and high currentare required. this work encompasses various design aspects of gan-based high electron mobility transistors (hemts) which ultimately result in the realization of several generations that utilize the aln/gan heterostructure.hemts fabricated from high-mobility, low sheet resistance heterostructures have achieved drain current densities up to 2.3 a/mm and transconductance of 480 ms/mm, which set new benchmarks for gan-based hemts. ultra-thin pre-metallization etching has been employed for the rst time to reduce ohmic contact resistance for aln/gan hemts and has enabled small signal frequency performance in excess of 100 ghz. moll's method for delay time extraction has been utilized to extract an effective electron velocity in the intrinsic region of the aln/gan hemt and was found to be ~ 1.2 x 107 cm/s.by leveraging the allowable thickness window of the aln barrier along with the high density 2degs that result, several novel hemt devices have been designed and realized. high al-content alxga1-xn back barriers have been employed for improved 2deg confinement in several new variations of the ultra-thin aln/gan hemt. a dual, parallel-channel aln/gan-based hemt structure is designed and realized for the first time as an epitaxial approach to mitigating dc-rf frequency dispersion. these structures emphasize the facilitation of new device designs that are made possible through the particular qualities the aln/gan heterostructure possesses. this thesis documents the efforts to characterize the mach 4.5 flow over a flat plate model with a 30° compression ramp over a range of unit reynolds numbers (rel = 4‧105 – 1‧107 m-1) in low enthalpy (t0 = 293 k) and high enthalpy (t0 = 800 – 1250 k) flow conditions. the compression ramp model was designed, fabricated, and implemented in a hypersonic test facility (act-1) to simulate small-scale scramjet inlet operation. flow visualization was provided by a schlieren imaging system and planar laser rayleigh scattering (plrs) to characterize the flow structure with various rel. three measurement methods were used to determine the frequency spectrum of flow perturbations: a high-frequency shack-hartmann wavefront sensor, a laser differential interferometer, and high-frequency pressure sensors. all three methods provide complementary results to indicate the existence of dominant frequencies of perturbations in the flow. it is determined that of these three measurement tools, shack-hartmann wavefront sensing is the most beneficial for this flow analysis. these measurements detect modification to the flow perturbation spectra during plasma actuation and across varied rel. damping of the perturbations in certain frequency bands occurred in the spectra of measurements taken in the corner separation bubble. in this way, the spectra indicate dominant frequency bands of perturbations occurring in regions of the boundary layer and separation bubble. it is shown, that in the highest tested rel cases, initial disturbances in the freestream develop into strong perturbations, which significantly affect the boundary layer and separation zone size over the compression ramp. both amplification and damping effects from the natural state are seen within different bands of the spectra of perturbations measured within the flow occurring over the separation region of the compression ramp collected during high-frequency plasma actuation (100 khz). the amplification observed leads to a fast laminar to turbulent transition immediately after flow reattachment and potential stabilization of the shock wave structure. this effect was not observed at f = 50 khz plasma pulsing frequency. many real-time systems have rm real-time requirements which allow occasional deadline violations but discard any jobs that are not nished by their deadlines. to measure the performance of such a system, a quality of service (qos) metric is needed. examples of often used qos metrics for rm real-time systems are average deadline miss rates and (m; k)rm constraint. however, for certain applications, these metrics may not be adequate measures of system performance. this thesis introduces a novel qos constraint for networked feedback control systems. we show that this constraint can be directly related to the control system's performance. we then present three di erent scheduling approaches with respect to this qos constraint. experimental results are provided to compare our scheduling algorithms with edf and another scheduling algorithm for rm real-time system. the project motivation was to more effectively engage residents during stormwater management planning. a simplified stormwater model was developed to improve neighborhood-scale urban hydrologic modeling by a) modeling fine-scale details affecting individual lots, and b) simplifying calculations and reducing the number of calibration parameters. the model contained mathematical objects representing time lags and exponential decays to simulate runoff-producing elements (streets, roofs, etc.) and green infrastructure (gi) choices (rain gardens, pervious pavement, etc.). validation with observed data found that calibration of response time constants for specific elements captured combined effects of different factors (slope, material, etc.) without needing detailed field measurements. incorporating gi highlighted the need for fine-scale models to tailor runoff reduction strategies to specific neighborhoods, lots, and houses. workshops with community partners showed that integrating stormwater management with other neighborhood issues encouraged resident engagement and customizing the model to simulate specific lots and houses improved visualization of gi options. an examination of joseph haydn's 1767 setting of the stabat mater reveals a masterpiece of profound depth. much has been written about the style and musical architecture of haydn's music, however, very little has been written about this opus in its entirety. this study examines the history of lament or planctus mariae, from which the poem of the stabat mater sprang, briefly studies some of the musical antecedents to the 1767 setting, and illuminates the various musical gestures, forms, and tonal architecture, within the context of haydn's stabat mater. this study shows that imitative forms like canon and fugue, text painting, and the harmonic underpinning of the various movements, when viewed within the context of the planctus tradition, all work together to provide a musical pathos whose sole aim is to make listeners and performers unite in feeling the pain of the virgin and her son. when contextualized this way, haydn's stabat mater emerges in a completely new light, and the question of empathy can be understood, not just by the text and the history of the tradition of lament, but by becoming fully immersed in rhetorical resources of the music. the skewness of the streamwise velocity is an important parameter in a zero-pressure gradient turbulent boundary layer (hereafter referred to as tbl). it is related to the energy cascade mechanism and is a measure of interactions between different scales in a turbulent flow. the contribution of different scales (frequencies) to the skewness is analyzed in terms of the bispectrum for near wall locations in a tbl (reθ = 1770). their contribution to the skewness is quantified and plotted as a function of interacting frequencies. the individual contributions are then summed up to produce the skewness of the original signals. the main contribution comes from the larger scales having frequencies f ∗ (= fδ/u∞) &lt; 2. the frequencies in the range of ejection-sweep and sweep-ejection events play a crucial role in producing positive skewness for the near wall streamwise velocity. in fact, it is shown that, especially in the near wall region, the range of skewness producing frequencies matches closely with the probability density function of the frequency of the ejection-sweep and sweep-ejection events. single point hot wire data and the variable interval time averaging (vita) technique are employed to detect these events. their role in skewness is quantified using a novel method for tbls. five different event sizes (t + w = 30, 60, 90, 120 and 195) are used and their contributions to skewness computed. despite their short duration (1−30%), these events' contribution to skewness can exceed 80% in the near wall region also confirmed from the bispectrum. the contribution to skewness from the active signal for reθ = 6700, 8300 and 39100 is always positive, but can be negative for reθ = 1770. it is speculated that the skewness produced by these events in the near wall region ( y + &lt; 15) may follow a near wall scaling. similar analysis is done for a tbl (reθ = 1770) with an active-large-scale-structure-actuator (alssa) in its outer layer. both the passive and active alssas reduce the frequency of these events in the near wall region by ≈ 20%. however, these events remain relevant to skewness production for such actuated tbl. despite being less frequent, their contribution remains the same as in the canonical case till y + = 20. they produce 60% of the near wall positive skewness and 90% of the buffer and log layer negative skewness. in addition, the large-scale organized structures introduced by an active alssa influence these events. although neither an active nor a passive alssa affect the randomness of these events, an active alssa organizes their occurrence. with an active alssa, despite having unchanged total event frequency in the region y + ≤ 30, the events occur more frequently in one half of the actuation cycle but less frequently in the other half. a similar trend is found for y + ≥ 30, although the plasma decreases the total event frequency. this indicates that the outer layer synthetic structures do not act as a trigger for these events but can create conditions favorable/unfavorable to these events. the periodicity of these events are in phase with phase averaged skewness, which further supports the proposition that these events are a key contributor to the near wall skewness for any reynolds number. it is also discussed how the near wall third moment can be used as a representative of the relative strength of the ejection and the sweep events in wall bounded turbulent flows. low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy (stm) is used to investigate the self-assembly behavior of small organic molecules on metal surfaces at ultra-high vacuum conditions. additionally, the self-assembly behavior of molecules in rapidly evaporating solutions is investigated via electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (esi–ms). this work is a systematic investigation of indole-derivative molecules in which the hydrogen-bond contacts are probed to observe how two-dimensional selfassembled morphologies change as a result of small changes to the chemical structure. non-equilibrium methods of sample preparation are exploited in order to prepare complex assemblies that are otherwise not observed near equilibrium. metastable cyclic pentamers are a common structural motif which are stabilized by secondary weak ch...o hydrogen bonds. it is observed in some cases that there are unusually intense oligomer peaks in the mass spectra, which correspond to enhanced stability of these oligomers as gas-phase ions. dft calculations are done to study the energetics and calculate optimized geometries of these small-molecule oligomers. in addition, an active pharmaceutical is studied via stm and esi–ms. ordered, long-range packing of tetramers are observed on the gold surface and the mass spectrum exhibits a relatively intense tetramer peak; tetramers are not a motif that is present in any of the solid-state crystal polymorphs of carbamazepine. this work may shed light on the early stages of crystallization in which self-assembled structures form from evaporating droplets. in addition, these findings may contribute to the fundamental understanding between molecular structure and supramolecular structure, a question of interest in the fields of crystal engineering and supramolecular chemistry. machine learning is one of the most successful branches of artificial intelligence, with applications ranging from medicine to control systems and computer vision. with the increase in computational power in the last 40 years and the increase in data availability, many new algorithms have emerged as well as new challenges, such as feature selection and optimal data selection. in this dissertation, we analyze applications of image classification algorithms in the optics field, by leveraging the physical properties of the models and embedding them into the algorithms, and the robustness of neural networks against adversarial attacks using incremental dissipativity.first, we consider the problem of minimizing wavelength usage and therefore decreasing measurement time in spectroscopy experiments. we propose an algorithm for wavelength selection for substance detection and classification of spectral data in overdetermined systems, that is when the number of wavelengths is greater than the number of substances that are in the set to be detected. this type of problem is common when using low signal-to-noise portable sensors. a cardinality-penalizing constrained multivariate regression-based method is proposed and evaluated experimentally.we also analyze the problem of substance classification using a mid-infrared laser and sensors with a low signal-to-noise ratio. we propose and demonstrate a statistical method that classifies spectral data generated from mir imaging spectroscopy experiments using few wavelengths and inexpensive detector arrays while still achieving high accuracy, by leveraging the spatial structure of the data and compensating for the thermal changes on the samples. our method can classify using as few as a single measurement and allows the use of low snr sensors.finally, we address the problem of adversarial examples degradation on the classification performance in neural networks. empirical methods for promoting robustness to such examples have been proposed, but often lack both analytical insights and formal guarantees. recently, some robustness certificates have appeared in the literature based on system theoretic notions. this work proposes an incremental dissipativity-based robustness certificate for neural networks in the form of a linear matrix inequality for each layer. we also propose a sufficient spectral norm bound for this certificate which is scalable to neural networks with multiple layers. we demonstrate the improved performance against adversarial attacks on a feed-forward neural network trained on mnist and an alexnet trained using cifar-10. the geminal organodimetallic complexes [{{ph2p(me3si)n}2c}2m4], l2m4, where m4 = na4; li2na2; lina3; li2k2; na2k2; na3k, have been prepared through a variety of methods including: direct or sequential deprotonation of the neutral ligand with strong bases (t-buli, n-buna, (me3si)2nna, phch2k or (me3si)2nk), transmetallation of the homometallic derivatives (m4 = li4 or na4) with t-buona or t-buok, and by cation exchange upon mixing the homometallic complexes in arene solution. the dianionic complexes have been characterized by single-crystal x-ray diffraction and found to form a homologous series of dimeric structures in the solid-state, in accord with the previously reported structure of l2li4. each complex is composed of an m4 plane of metals, with the ligands adopting capping positions to form distorted m4c2 octahedral cores. the metals in homometallic complexes l2li4 and l2na4 define an approximate square, whereas the heterometallic derivatives have distinctly rhombic arrangements. the lighter metals in these heterometallic compounds interact strongly with the carbanions and the heavier metals are pushed towards the periphery of the structures. 1h, 13c, 7li, 31p and 29si multinuclear nmr spectroscopic studies, cryoscopic measurements, and electrospray ionization-mass spectroscopic studies are consistent with the dimers being retained in solution. dynamic solution behavior was discovered for l2li2na2, where all five possible tetrametallic derivatives l2li4, l2li3na, l2li2na2, l2lina3 and l2na4 coexist. density functional theory (dft) and natural bond order (nbo) calculations in association with natural population analyses (npa) reveal significant differences in the electronic structures of the variously metallated dianions. the smaller cations are more effective in localizing the double negative charge on the carbanion (in the form of two lone pairs), leading to differences in the distribution of the electron density within the ligand backbones. in turn, a complex interplay of hyperconjugation, electrostatics and metal-ligand interactions is found to control the resulting electronic structures of the geminal organodimetallic complexes. the lithium-based geminal organodimetallic [{{ph2p(me3si)n}2cli2}2], l2li4, undergoes major structural changes in polar media. upon dissolution of l2li4 in thf, a new charge-separated species [l2li3]-[li(thf)4]+ is immediately formed. in turn, the ion pair slowly (hours) undergoes dismutation to form a neutral monomer lli2(thf)n. the identities of these two solution complexes were confirmed through a series of experiments including variable concentration keq measurements, 7li nmr, and diffusion-ordered nmr. the ion pair [l2li3]-[li(thf)4]+ was also crystallized from thf solution, and the structure was elucidated in the solid state. attempts to further charge separate the lithium cations from the ligand backbone with additives such as 12-crown-4 or hmpa generally resulted in decomposition of the dianion system. density functional theory calculations of l2li4, [l2li3]-[li(thf)4]+, and lli2(thf)n were also performed. two possible structures for the monomer, lli2(thf)3 and lli2(thf)4, were found and are different in energy by only 1.41 kcal/mol. 1h nmr rate studies of the [l2li3]-[li(thf)4]+ to lli2(thf)n equilibration process were performed (dhì¢ ââåá = 12.6 ìâå± 0.5 kcal/mol, dsì¢ ââåá = -33.6 ìâå± 1.8 kcal/molì¢è  ã¢k). we furthermore explored the reactivities of [l2li3]-[li(thf)4]+ and lli2(thf)n. addition of the protic amine (me3si)2nh to an equilibrium mixture of the two complexes at room temperature showed immediate consumption of lli2(thf)4 (forming lin(sime3)2(thf)n and l(h)li(thf)n) followed by the slow disappearance of [l2li3]-[li(thf)4]+. room-temperature rate studies using 1h nmr spectroscopy reveal first-order decay of [l2li3]-[li(thf)4]+ with rate constants independent of the concentration of (me3si)2nh. this decay of [l2li3]-[li(thf)4]+ primarily occurs through dismutation to lli2(thf)n (which in turn reacts with (me3si)2nh). 1h nmr rate studies could be directly performed on the reaction between lli2(thf)n and (me3si)2nh by performing experiments in the temperature range of -75 to -45 ìâå¼c. the observed rates for lli2(thf)n from measurements between -75 and -45 ìâå¼c were extrapolated to 25 ìâå¼c. comparison of the reaction rates of lli2(thf)n and [l2li3]-[li(thf)4]+ provide a reactivity ratio on the order of 8x105!!! this dissertation is a case study of the theological politics that fuel, undergird, and transform catholic efforts to alleviate poverty across borders. focusing on chimbote, peru, i analyze how catholic sisters' work in peru, aligned with and later critiqued john f. kennedy's alliance for progress in order to better understand how peruvian people, theology, and politics impacted the u.s. through networks of religious women. i argue that catholic sisters' encounter with the peruvian critiques of development—especially those distilled in liberation theology—provided missionary sisters with the language to criticize their own charitable aid efforts in peru. this same language of liberation would later contribute to an intersectional understanding marginalization in society on the basis of class, gender, and nationality, an increased emphasis on educating the powerful and the marginalized through consciousness raising efforts, and a focus on direct service to and with the marginalized.while current scholarship on liberation theology emphasizes the importance of male authors and priests, my dissertation shows how women participated in the liberation theology movement and also implemented its theological praxis across the united states, even though their formal roles in the group remained restricted because of their status as women. one of this dissertation's major contributions is recovering some of the women who participated in the dialectical process out of which liberation theology emerged and tracing its reinterpretation by returned female missionaries in their home communities across the united states. the wars of religion that followed the reformation raised fundamental questions regarding citizens' competing religious, conscientious, and political obligations. in particular, early modern philosophers witnessed the potentially destabilizing nature of conscience-objections for legal and political order. in response, thinkers like hobbes, locke, and rousseau reevaluated medieval christian epistemologies of conscience – what conscience means and what access to truth it gives to individuals – to make conscience "safe" for politics. these innovations had profound implications for both the epistemology of conscience and the freedom of conscience in modern political societies.first, i show how of all early modern political thinkers, hobbes most clearly and radically identified the danger that individual conscience-claims pose for political stability and set the stage for early modern discourse on conscience. next, i present locke's solution to the problem identified by hobbes, and demonstrate that locke's advocacy of religious toleration and freedom of conscience rests on a fundamental shift in the epistemology of conscience and thus, for the relevancy of conscience for political life. last, i argue that in contrast with hobbes and locke, rousseau presents a much stronger – though no less modern – epistemology of conscience, while presenting the fundamental conflict between conscience and political society. what resulted from these thinkers are three distinct modern approaches to conscience which continue to influence the way liberal democracies understand and navigate conflicts between duties of conscience and duties of citizenship. this dissertation explores the determination of asset prices in the world through a low-dimensional set of risk factors. the economic intuition driving this work comes from the idea that investors form their future expectations on the economy based on observable risk patterns that determine the price of assets today. given that those risk factors are summarized in current prices, studying the dynamics of interest rates at different horizons provides information on the market's expectations of future macroeconomic fundamentals. i provide a summary of the literature that investigates asset pricing dynamics through term structure models. after analyzing the empirical applications of the yield curve and extracting the underlying factors that drive different assets and macroeconomic fundamentals, i pose the question: can interest rate factors explain exchange rate fluctuations? in other words, is the information summarized in the yield curve enough to account for movements in the exchange rates? to answer this question, i expand a canonical no-arbitrage factor model of the term structure, in which the yields for the domestic and the foreign countries are determined by their own interest rate factors, and the ratio of their stochastic discount factors determines the (log) exchange rate changes, as predicted by the theory. my results suggest that yield curves do contain important information to determine exchange rates, and potentially other asset prices, particularly at longer horizons. moreover, extracting three or more factors from the yield curves (characterized as level, slope, and curvature) significantly improves the fit of the model. the information content in the yield curve can also account for the uncovered interest parity puzzle, suggesting that financial markets contain information on the exchange rate risk premium. i also explore the ability of european countries to predict the path of the euro/u.s. dollar exchange rate with their own country specific factors. the results suggest that yield curve factors from many european countries have explanatory power over the euro dynamics. this work has important implications for understanding theoretical and empirical connections between interest rates and exchange rates through term structure models. metaphysicians commonly encounter challenges to why metaphysics matters. sometimes, the challenge arises because metaphysical disputes are thought to be unresolvable. if (as is often assumed to be the case) the natural sciences and theoretical considerations constitute the totality of our evidence, there will be many cases in which we are not epistemically justified in believing any one of several competing metaphysical theses. other times, the challenge arises because even if we can figure out which theses are true, their truth is thought to be practically irrelevant for our everyday lives. i appreciate the beauty of a statue regardless of whether it is identical to or distinct from the clay that constitutes it. i love my cat regardless of whether there are one or many cats occupying nearly the same spatial region. i value the ways in which friendships have changed my life for the better regardless of whether i persist through these changes by perduring or enduring over time. if these challenges of unresolvability and practical irrelevance are insurmountable, then the practice of metaphysics is a tragic pursuit hopelessly cut off from truth and devoid of practical significance. this dissertation is a response to these challenges. the four independent essays that compose it are united by a central theme: to what extent does normative data—roughly, facts about value and what we ought to do—bear on metaphysical disputes? approaching metaphysical disputes in light of normative data is significant in two ways. first, an ethics-first metaphysics methodology is epistemically significant because it provides a way to resolve some metaphysical disputes. second, focusing on the connection between metaphysics and normativity shows the ways in which metaphysical concerns matter for our practical lives. thus, the central theme of this dissertation provides a way to answer both the unresolvability and practical irrelevance challenges for metaphysics. this dissertation updates the debate over the nontriviality of general covariance for einstein's general theory of relativity (gtr) and considers particle physics in the debate over underdetermination and empirical equivalence. both tasks are tied to the unexplored issue of artificial gauge freedom, a valuable form of descriptive redundancy. whereas einstein took general covariance to characterize gtr, kretschmann thought it merely a formal feature that any theory could have. anderson and friedman analyzed substantive general covariance as the lack of absolute objects, fields the same in all models. some extant counterexamples and a new one involving the electron spinor field are resolved. however, geroch and giulini diagnose an absolute object in gtr itself in the metric's volume element. one might instead analyze substantive general covariance as formal general covariance achieved without hiding preferred coordinates as scalar 'clock fields,' recalling einstein's early views. theories with no metric or multiple metrics make the age of the universe meaningless or ambiguous, respectively, so the ancient and medieval debate over the eternity of the world should be recast. particle physics provides case studies for empirical equivalence. proca's electromagnetism with some nonzero photon mass constitutes a family of rivals to maxwell's theory. whereas any proca theory can be distinguished empirically from maxwell's, the proca family approaches maxwell's for small masses, yielding permanent underdetermination with only approximate empirical equivalence. the weak nuclear force also displays a smooth massless limit classically, but not after quantization, recalling the instability of empirical equivalence under change of auxiliary hypotheses. the standard electroweak theory apparently permits a photon mass term and hence underdetermination, but possible further unification might not. the question of underdetermination regarding massive gravity is unresolved. physicists often reformulate a theory to install additional fields and new gauge symmetries preserving empirical content. post-positivist philosophers might judge the result a distinct and inferior theory, but physicists consider it a perhaps superior formulation of the same theory. evidently a step back from na&iuml;ve realism towards mathematical-empirical equivalence is appropriate for physical ontology and theory individuation. artificial gauge freedom licenses a generalized kretschmann objection, but the clock field case suggests a resolution. the performance and detailed flow physics of a transonic, low-pressure turbine (lpt) stage with design zw=1.35, ∆ht /u2 = 2.8, ϕ = 0.78, and η = 90.5% has been investigated experimentally. recent developments in boundary layer transition modeling were utilized in the aerodynamic design of the stage. measurements were acquired in a recently developed, high-speed turbine facility constructed to investigate the effects that reynolds number, nozzle exit flow, freestream turbulence, vane-blade spacing, and rim seal flows have on the loss generating mechanisms of a highly loaded lpt stage. flow control techniques were applied at the stage inlet with the intent of reducing a source of stage losses. a research dissertation designed to provide understanding of the loss mechanisms that reduce the effectiveness of the notre dame highly loaded turbine stage 01 (nd-hilt01) is described. this dissertation marks the first full-length study to examine how irish catholics in the northern united states remembered the american civil war era. the narrative begins in the war's immediate aftermath and continues up to 1925, after which time interest in memorialization ebbed as a new generation who came of age during world war i took on leadership roles within irish america. drawing upon an array of sources, including newspapers, monuments, textbooks, published reminiscences, and private letters, the dissertation argues that catholics of irish birth or descent, much like other groups in society, claimed that the war vindicated their varied – and at times competing and contradictory – understandings of the american nation. through the course of four chapters, this study reveals how politics, religion, gender, and race fed into irreconcilable views of the nation. in this way, the dissertation presents irish america as a microcosm of the united states, which remained deeply divided even after some veterans and political leaders proclaimed that north and south had fully reconciled. by placing irish catholics at the center of analysis, this study further advances the scholarship on civil war memory in three significant ways. first, it draws attention to the importance of religion. second, it adds nuance to accounts of race and national reunion by stressing how memorialists drew racial distinctions between various white groups. third, it pushes beyond world war i to incorporate the late 1910s and early 1920s into its narrative. in sum, while this study comes to a close in 1925, it examines questions of national identity and belonging that remain profoundly relevant in the present. in this dissertation, trade-off moral decision-making was examined through three experiments using military contexts, specifically rpa or related intelligence operations. the first investigation expanded upon previous work done by christen et al. (2020; zenk, 2018) and introduced an updated rpa simulation which added physiological and expression measures as well as an active-choice paradigm and a varied order of missions, which would allow us to extend the conclusions of earlier research. the second and third investigations used a new paradigm involving militaristic dilemmas wherein participants took on the role of an intelligence officer. one experiment had participants approve a neutralization opportunity based on the deviant background of known targets, while the other had participants approve this opportunity based on variations in the demographics of innocent casualties (i.e. age and nationality).for the updated rpa simulation investigation, results indicated that the order in which missions were presented had an effect on overall moral decision-making choices, which was a concern in the original investigation. in addition, the influence of the active-choice paradigm was limited to instances where the non-redirect (non-utilitarian) choice was active. in this case, fewer than normal participants elected this choice even decision dilemma became more personal. this outcome was different from what is often found in trolleyology research: namely, when moral decisions become more personal, more non-utilitarian choices are made.the two intelligence officer experiments showed that moral decisions are, indeed, affected by casualty numbers and the demographics of both targets and civilian casualties. first, the larger the number of civilian casualties, the less likely decision-makers are to make the choice to neutralize a target. additionally, the higher threat perceived from a target, the more likely it is for a participant to authorize target neutralization, even as casualty number changes. differences in decision-making also occurred as civilian demographics changed, most notably such that less information given about a casualty led to higher likelihood of neutralizing the target.overall, these studies are important steps toward the creation of more in-depth simulations which are needed to better understand moral decision-making in a remote warfare context. moreover, this research indicates that the common-dual-process explanations for trolleyology outcomes must be modified to include a context-dependent component. this dissertation examines how the prescriptivist linguistic ideologies early medieval english students encountered in their grammar classrooms influenced the way they later wrote about language and its relationship to identity. examining the linguistic ideologies underlying the grammar textbooks students studied in schools, this dissertation argues that grammars associate linguistic error with xenophobic stereotypes of foreigners, teaching students to equate linguistic, moral, spiritual, and intellectual error, and to assume that second-language speakers will demonstrate all of these. this project then uses these linguistic ideologies as a hermeneutic to examine passages about language throughout the old english literary corpus. writers use these frameworks of thinking about error to dehumanize foreign characters by limiting their opportunities to speak, by presenting their speech as threatening, or by associating their speech with supposed immorality and heresy.this dissertation divides into four substantial chapters and a conclusion. chapter 1 argues that the subject of grammar was taught so ubiquitously in early medieval english schools that its linguistic ideologies influence most of the old english literary corpus. chapter 2 argues that prescriptivist and xenophobic linguistic ideologies underlie etymologies, sound theory, and error theory in the grammars authored by english writers. the grammars associate linguistic errors with foreignness, immorality, heresy, and poor cognition, and restrict language to humans. the remainder of the dissertation shows how writers extend these linguistic ideologies and their prejudices into literary texts. chapter 3 argues that writers dehumanize foreign characters by denying them the opportunity to speak, and by linking their non-normative or absent speech to presumptions that they are immoral, unintelligent, and heretical. chapter 4 shows that these linguistic ideologies have been generalized beyond their scope in the grammars—preface-writers stigmatize their own people as they argue that their translations save non-latinate english people from becoming like the supposedly immoral, unintelligent, and heretical foreigners. chapter 5 argues that because linguistic ideologies are deeply internalized, these xenophobic and prescriptivist ideologies pervade the corpus's mentions of language. by reevaluating discussions of language in the corpus in light of these theories, we can uncover as-yet-unnoticed racializing discourses, and also humanize the characters that the texts dehumanize. argentina and brazil have the most powerful sub-national governments and are the most decentralized federal countries in latin america. being politically and administratively strong, provincial and state governments ransacked national coffers several times in recent history, contributing to profound fiscal imbalances at the central government level and large macroeconomic crises. likewise, the resources and autonomy of sub-national units have also been assaulted by the central government. fiscal re-centralization processes triggered large budget deficits in the provinces and, hence, shortages in the delivery of basic services. in many cases, provincial authorities could not pay for salaries or afford basic supplies, having to face protests, demonstrations, and violence. this oscillating distribution of resources has occurred despite federal rules that should, in principle, institutionalize relations and ease conflicts between the two levels of government. what determines these changes in the distribution of resources among units in these federal democracies? when are substantive changes in the distribution of resources more likely to occur? this work intends to explain under what conditions substantive shifts in the allocation of resources and functions are more likely to occur. the central argument of this work is that changes in the allocation of fiscal resources and the distribution of administrative functions are to be expected when either presidents or governors prevail in their power relations, when they are pressed by fiscal urgency, and when they have to cope with hard budget constraints. this study presents, first, a theoretical argument making use of formal modeling and game-theoretical tools. relying on a statistical analysis, it also tests the main explanation and alternative arguments to account for changes in the distribution of resources and functions in federal democracies in a large-n study. third, it applies the game theoretical framework to a comparative historical analysis of argentina and brazil since their transitions to democracy until 1999 and 2002 respectively. it finally concludes with some theoretical and comparative implications for the study of fiscal federalism and the functioning of developing federal democracies. osteoporosis is the most common pathology affecting bone and is characterized by degradation of bone's structural integrity, leading to increased fracture risk. fractures result from the compromised mechanical integrity of bone; thus, a deeper understanding of the governing factors in bone mechanics could provide insight to the pathology and treatment of osteolytic diseases like osteoporosis. trabecular bone is the primary site of osteoporosis. as a mechanobiological tissue, degradation in trabecular structure can affect tissue mechanics, and impaired biological response to local mechanical signals can lead to structural deterioration. both of these factors can contribute to the progression of osteoporosis. therefore, this work aimed at understanding the interactions of mechanics and biology of these phases in relation to trabecular bone density and architecture. trabecular bone structure and biology were found to have a significant effect on bone quality. the relationship between structure, biology, and solid phase mechanics in trabecular bone was studied using the ovariectomized ewe. microdamage accumulation was quantified based on architecture and ovariectomy status. degraded architecture predisposed bone to the new crack formation, and microdamage accumulation was exacerbated by ovariectomy. fluid phase mechanics of trabecular bone was governed by the trabecular architecture. computational fluid dynamics was used to model the relationship between trabecular architecture and permeability, which describes fluid flow resistance in porous materials. predictive models were developed relating the anisotropic permeability to architectural parameters, which showed that permeability primarily depends on pore size, shape, and directionality. the mechanical environment of bone marrow was also found to have an effect on trabecular architecture. knowledge of the structural-mechanical relationships in trabecular bone was used to guide work that applied loads to bone marrow in situ. loading was associated with improvements in trabecular architecture, and the results suggested that shear stress plays a role in this response. this work contributes to a better understanding of the interactions between the structure, mechanics, and biology of trabecular bone in its mineralized and fluid phases. critical factors in bone quality and fluid mechanics were described, and new tools were developed to further study, model, and develop treatments for osteoporosis. artemisinin combination therapies (acts) are frontline, fast-acting drugs that have been key in helping reduce the burden of malaria cases and deaths. however, malaria parasites are developing resistance to artemisinins, threatening global malaria control and elimination. through the use of whole-genome sequencing (wgs) of artemisinin resistant parasites, mutations in pfkelch13 (k13) were shown to be associated with resistance both in vitro and in vivo. from its sequence and predicted molecular structure, k13 was predicted to be a substrate adapter involved in target identification, binding, ubiquitination and subsequent degradation of select substrates, keeping their levels low to maintain proper cellular homeostasis. identification of a molecular marker of resistance led to the identification of underlying mechanisms. two major k13 effector mechanisms have been proposed to overcome artemisinin-induced proteopathy and death. they are, firstly, proteostatic dysregulation of parasite phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (pi3k) resulting in elevation of parasite pi3p and second, the upregulation of parasite oxidative stress and protein damage pathways via the unfolded protein response (upr). however, how these two mechanisms were related (if they were at all) and the dynamics of pi3p, k13 and proteostasis systems that included the upr had not yet been delineated. our work used bioinformatic and computational methods along with cryoimmunoelectron microscopy to show that k13 concentrates at pi3p vesicles / tubules in the parasite endoplasmic reticulum (er) in p. falciparum infected erythrocytes. we also showed that k13 copurified with the parasite virulence adhesin pfemp1. isolation and subsequent analysis of the pfemp1-k13 immunoproteome showed that this proteome is comprehensively enriched in multiple systems of proteostasis including protein export, quality control, protein folding in the er and cytoplasm and the upr. these findings were validated by showing that the major resistance marker k13c580y quantitatively increased pi3p tubules and vesicles, exporting them throughout the parasite and the host red cell. the amplification of these vesicles containing signatures of proteostatic control that disseminate throughout the parasite might be involved in neutralizing the toxic proteopathy artemisinins cause in the parasite. while these findings were focused on the major resistance mutation in south east asia (sea), k13c580y, we expanded our studies to encompass all known k13 polymorphisms identified in asia and africa (over 200 polymorphisms). since different polymorphisms lead to different levels of resistant (if at all), we developed an in silico tool to separate resistance causing mutations from sensitive ones. we can use this tool to distinguish between sensitive polymorphisms and resistance mutations in malaria endemic regions. overall, through our computational analyses presented here, we provide several insights into the role and function of the artemisinin resistance marker pfk13. we show that k13 is a marker for parasite pi3p, concentrating in vesicles in the er. expansion of these vesicles (containing pathways of protein proteostasis and the upr) might confer resistance by disseminating resistance intermediates to mitigate the promiscuous artemisinin-induced proteopathy throughout the infected erythrocyte. we also develop an in silico tool to show how different polymorphisms along k13 might be involved in this mechanism of resistance. a key component of earthquake early warning systems is the development of an accurate and robust predictive model relating the recorded waveform to seismicity and/or ground shaking characteristics. this has been traditionally established by adopting deterministic calibration methods and aggregating or even binning the available data within a region. unfortunately, these practices ignore the fact that the use of limited information to establish these models within a real-time estimation setting, typically corresponding to the first few seconds after the identification of the seismic wave arrival, introduces significant uncertainty (variability) in the predictions and a strong dependence of the results on regional wave propagation effects. for developing robust predictive models, the resultant variability needs to be explicitly and formally considered in the model calibration stage. this dissertation presents a probabilistic bayesian inference methodology to address this challenge. to better focus on the research effort, the calibration of earthquake magnitude regression models is investigated, while the application to the sichuan region of southwestern china is examined. specifically, the records from the 2008 wenchuan earthquake and the 2013 lushan earthquake sequences are used to develop a relationship between the seismic maximum predominant period and the earthquake magnitude. both classical and hierarchical bayesian calibration formulations are examined. the classical bayesian learning accommodates the following improvements: a model class selection is established, comparing across different candidate models to promote the most appropriate from accuracy and robustness perspectives; the full posterior distribution of the model parameters is identified, quantifying relevant uncertainties in their values given the available data; a heteroscedastic model is considered for the estimation error variance; the dependence of the predictive model robustness on binning practices for the available data is investigated through a comprehensive inclusion of the regression error on the analysis. the hierarchical bayesian formulation extends these efforts, exploring how regional wave propagation effects impact the predictive models, while simultaneously allowing for the use of a sufficient amount of data for the calibration scheme. within this hierarchical updating framework, the predictive models for each station are separately calibrated (first level), while sharing information across the stations by selecting common calibration hyper-parameters (second level). a computational framework relying on markov chain monte carlo techniques is established for accommodating the developments for both the classical and hierarchical calibration. this pertains to both sampling from the posterior distribution of the updated parameters, as well as the estimation of model evidence for the modal class selection and averaging. results demonstrate the value of the formal implementation of bayesian model updating for the calibration of predictive models for earthquake early warning applications, as it accommodates a more comprehensive incorporation of the different sources of uncertainty/error impacting the development and implementation of these models. this ultimately improves the robustness of predictions. additionally, results demonstrate the value of hierarchical calibration formulations, contributing to a significant reduction of the prediction variability that originates from regional wave propagation effects. a short life in soccer many commercially available 3d sensors suitable for face image capture employ passive or texture-assisted stereo imaging or structured illumination with a moving light stripe. these techniques require a stationary subject. we describe a design and evaluation of a fixed-stripe, moving object 3d scanner designed for human faces, called the static light screen (sls) scanner (patent pending). our method of acquisition requires the subject to walk through a light screen generated by two laser line projectors. triangulation and tracking applied to the video sequences captured during subject motion yield a 3d image of the subject's face from multiple images. to demonstrate the accuracy of our initial design, a small-scale facial recognition experiment was executed. in an experiment with 476 images of 161 unique subjects, we achieved 46.3% rank-one recognition using an iterative closest point (icp) based matching method, demonstrating the feasibility of the technique. this is the subset of our full sls dataset with 2270 images of 379 unique subjects, which has a subject velocity less than 0.33 m/s. we also developed techniques to improve face recognition based on icp using fusion techniques and score normalization techniques. we improved rank-one recognition on a data set (frgc v2) of 4007 faces of 466 unique subjects from 96.4% rank-one recognition to 98.6%. a long-standing problem in international macroeconomics has been to understand exchange rates. there are two broad aspects to the macroeconomics of exchange rates. the first is to understand the determinants of exchange rates and the other is to understand how exchange rates impact the macro economy. this dissertation focuses on improving the profession's understanding of exchange rates by studying both of these relationships. chapter 1 studies how a country's choice of monetary policy and its associated exchange rate regime impacts a country's welfare. the analysis is conducted using a three-country dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (dsge) exchange rate model with nominal price stickiness &aacute; la calvo (1983). under complete markets, the managed float dominates under local-currency pricing (lcp), but the fix dominates under producer-currency pricing (pcp). under incomplete markets, the choice of exchange rate regime is nearly irrelevant for welfare whether export prices are set by lcp or pcp. the presence of third-country shocks are also largely irrelevant to the choice of exchange rate regime. chapter 2 studies a country's choice to remain in or to exit a currency union, such as the european monetary union. welfare rankings for a single country exit, complete dissolution, and preservation of the union are examined under a variety of economic environments. using a three-country dsge model and simple taylor-type monetary policy rules, remaining in the currency union is consistently the least best option. unless physical capital is included in the model, however, the magnitude of the welfare differences across alternative policy regimes is very small. although the behavior of macroeconomic aggregates differs across regimes, the monetary policy choices considered may be largely irrelevant to welfare. chapter 3 addresses the exchange-rate disconnect puzzle (joint work with nelson mark). predictive regressions for bilateral exchange rates are typically run using variables from the associated bilateral country pairs. these regressions characteristically show limited explanatory power. considerable relative increases in adjusted r2 are obtained by augmenting the regressions with third-country variables. a three-country exchange rate model is presented in which cross-country heterogeneity opens up channels for third-country effects to influence the bilateral rate. this thesis develops an account of ethical discourse through a unified approach to ethical evaluation, practical reasoning, and action explanation. it pursues a comparative analysis with respect to modern moral theories, theories of practical reasoning, and action theories so as to explain how a unified approach can resolve the chronic problems in each area. the thesis argues that, just as philosophy of science is concerned with explaining the nature of scientific discourse rather than establishing scientific truths, so too ethics is concerned with explaining the nature of ethical discourse rather than establishing ethical truths. the question of what is worth pursuing in life is not a question that philosophy is supposed to answer by providing a normative theory; it is a practical question that one needs to address in practice with respect to a particular situation. this is what ethical discourse is about, and ethics is a meta-level discourse about the nature of this discourse. the thesis proposes a phenomenological view of ethical discourse on which narrative is the central metaethical notion. in practice, what we are trying to assess, prospectively or retrospectively, are actions that we either might perform or have performed. so we inevitably turn to a form of description that shares the formal structure of action relations and reveals the evaluative qualities of particular actions. narrative is precisely description of that kind. it is only in the broader context of a particular event that actions exhibit certain qualities; and it is only with respect to a narrative account of an event that we can judge or form an intention for acting in a particular way. therefore, practical reasoning consists of narrative deliberation about possible actions, not just for arriving at a practical decision, but even for forming an intention; and explaining an action retrospectively consists in giving a narrative account of that action as well as of the reasons for the intention with which the action is done. ethical discourse is the generic name for practical reasoning and action explanation, because narrative is the common form of prospective and retrospective practical assessment, and practical assessment is never merely a question of what it is rational to do, but involves evaluation of what is worth doing. my thesis attends to the relationship between dante's reflection on salvation and the rhetorical development of the term sospeso throughout the commedia. in their coming together, i offer that we discern a more profound realization of what it might mean for humanity to participate fully in the mystery of salvation. many complex siderophore conjugates have been synthesized by the miller group and others for the purpose of antibiotic delivery, the treatment of iron overload diseases and for the use of mri contrast agents. desferrioxamine b (dfo), a commercially available siderophore, has rarely been used to synthesize such conjugates due to the complexity of starting from a complete, non-protected siderophore. the methodology needed to allow dfo conjugates to be easily prepared without the need for standard protecting groups has been discussed here. a dfo-ferritin binding peptide conjugate was synthesized by using fe(iii) as a protecting group. using a ph controlled edc coupling reaction, selective reaction at the terminal serine of the ferritin binding peptide versus the internal lysine of the peptide was facilitated. the dfo-peptide conjugate was found to increase the demineralization of ferritin by 8-times. after the synthesis of the first peptide conjugate a scaled up synthesis was designed to provide enough conjugate for in vivo testing in mice. a maleimide linker containing dfo derivative was synthesized. a second dfo-ferritin binding peptide conjugate was synthesized using a thiol maleimide michael reaction as the key conjugation step. preliminary results indicate the dfo-peptide conjugate does not increase iron excretion.a dfo-dual action cephalosporin conjugated was designed which would also use a thiol maleimide michael reaction for the key conjugation step. a dual action cephalosporin (dac) releases a drug when attacked at the ìøå¢-lactam ring. although the final conjugation step had been worked out, the synthesis of the cephalosporin portion of the dfo-dac conjugate had not. work toward the cephalosporin portion of the conjugate led to the development of a method to deacetylate an acid protected cephalosporin. the final dfo-dac conjugate was not obtained due to the inability to remove the cephalosporin protecting groups. further development of the methodology reported, however, is anticipated to provide an opportunity for the discovery of new, selective antibiotics and diagnostic agents. two avenues of research on numerical simulations to achieve robust designs in thermophotovoltaic (tpv) energy conversion devices are explored. for the first of these, a recently proposed numerical scheme able to quantify performance changes due to shape perturbations and its application to one-dimensional (1d) gratings is investigated. the second avenue, also based on numerical simulations, focuses on the study of gratings as selective emitters to enhance tpv cell energy conversion efficiency.in the first part, we present a novel deterministic method capable of calculating statistical moments of transverse electric polarized fields scattered by perfect electric conductor gratings with small surface random perturbations. based on a first-order shape taylor expansion, the resulting electric field integral equations are solved via the method of moments with constant hierarchical basis or haar wavelets. this allows for a sparse tensor approximation, significantly reducing the number of required unknowns and yielding a higher rate of convergence than a dense approximation. moreover, the proposed approach converges faster than monte-carlo simulations with significantly less computational effort. validation of the proposed approach is performed for several cases, and simulations applied to the calculation and prediction of grating efficiency for realistic grating structures reveal the applicability of the method.in the second part, we explores the performance potential of gratings based on tungsten/hafnia (w/hfo2) stacks for thermophotovoltaic thermal emitters via numerical simulations. structures consisting of a w grating over a hfo2 spacer layer and a w substrate are analyzed over a range of geometries. for shallow gratings (w grating thickness much smaller than the grating pitch), an emittance of 99.9% can be achieved for transverse magnetic (tm) polarization, but the transverse electric (te) performance is appreciably lower. for deep gratings (w grating thickness on the order of the grating pitch), peak emittances of 97.7% and 99.7% for te and tm polarizations, respectively, are achieved. we find that both surface plasmon polaritons and magnetic polaritons play a crucial role in shaping the emittance for tm radiation. on the other hand, cavity resonances are responsible for the almost perfect emittance in the case of te polarization. these results suggest that by introducing an hfo2 layer it is possible to reach high emittance for operating temperatures that match the absorption characteristics of gasb and ingaas photovoltaic cells. in addition, tungsten-hafnia (w-hfo2) selective thermal emitters with high hemispherical emittance for thermophotovoltaic (tpv) applications are explored through numerical simulations. two structures were analyzed: a planar multilayer stack and a grating. in both cases, through suitable design choices high thermal emittance with low directional sensitivity can be obtained. the designs are obtained by optimization of the structures using a genetic algorithm and a suitable cost function, along with simulations of the structures' emittance by using rigorous coupled wave analysis. calculations show that these optimized structures possess high hemispherical thermal emittance for the wavelength range that matches the optical response of gasb photovoltaic cells. for each structure, both the output power from the tpv cell and the conversion efficiency are studied as a function of emitter temperature and physical understanding of the optimized structures is developed. this thesis describes the results found during a project to investigate the sources of trailing edge noise production. a flat plate airfoil was investigated for the office of naval research. this document shows the results of the two parts of this project. first an experimental database used as the input for numerical acoustic modeling at stanford university was obtained. therefore the flow around and inside a defined control volume was investigated using hot-wire probes (single and x-wire measurements) and pressure measurements. in the second part, far field acoustic measurements and correlation measurements between x-wire probes and the microphones were made to investigate possible correlation between the flow physics and the far field acoustics. the control volume boundary results show that the incoming flow is of low turbulent intensity and that the wake behind the trailing edge shows an asymmetric development. vortex shedding could be identified separately by acoustic and hot-wire measurements at a frequency of around 220hz. similar frequency behavior could be identified in the correlation measurements between the x-wire probes and the microphones. unimolecular polymeric nanocontainers possess exclusive single molecular architecture with covalently bonded core-shell structure, which can maintain outstanding stability upon surrounding environmental changes and are suitable for various applications, including small molecules encapsulation for drug delivery, bio-imaging, reaction catalysis, and the generation of inorganic nanoparticles as templates. in this thesis, the one-pot chain-growth copolymerization of ab2 and ab monomers via the copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition (cuaac) reactions is reported for the first time to tune the compositions and structures of (hyper)branched polymers for their application as unimolecular nanocontainers. the structural investigation provides more opportunity to synthesize functionalized hyperbranched polytriazoles (hbps) via the post-modification at the periphery and in the interior of polymers. the chain-growth mechanism and living polymerization characteristic facilitate the production of branched polymers with low dispersity, varied sizes, tunable degrees of branching, and functionalities. the application of these affordable hbps as unimolecular nanocontainers for bioimaging, drug delivery, and template for inorganic nanoparticles are investigated by encapsulating various functional payloads. biometric verification systems employing images of the iris are claimed to be extremely accurate, yielding no false accepts at any reasonable false reject rate. however, there are few if any large scale experimental evaluations on public iris datasets reported in the literature. we have collected an iris image dataset of over 25,000 iris images from over 300 persons (over 600 irises). when collecting the dataset, we intentionally allowed a broader image quality range than that allowed by default in current commercial iris recognition systems. the iris images used in our experiments have been, or will be, released as part of the iris challenge evaluation (ice). we reimplemented in c an open source iris recognition system, which was originally implemented in matlab by libor masek. the ice baseline is a c++ translation of our c re-implementation with modifications for optimization in speed and memory usage. we evaluated the effects of iris image quality by using the ice baseline system on our iris dataset. we have implemented an improved iris segmentation and eyelid detection stage compared to the ice baseline code, and experimentally verified an improvement in both the verification and identification contexts. replacing the ice baseline segmentation with our improved segmentation algorithm, and keeping other modules of the ice baseline the same, leads to an increase of over 6% in the rank-one recognition rate and a decrease of over 4% in the equal error rate. we utilized an active contour model to refine the noise detection results and optimized the matching stage to compensate for the possible inaccuracy in iris segmentation and noise detection, which leads to another 0.95% increase in the rank one recognition rate and 0.85% decrease in the equal error rate. this research demonstrates that a more accurate iris segmentation helps to improve the overall system performance, and that the inaccuracy of iris segmentation and noise detection could be partly compensated for with optimizations in the matching stage. twin and family studies have routinely observed that many psychological traits and disorders are at least moderately heritable (turkheimer & gottesman, 1991). genome-wide studies of single nucleotide polymorphisms (snps), however, have had only limited success in finding specific variants associated with psychological outcomes explaining the estimated level of heritability. in response, it has been variously hypothesized that genome-wide studies may lack statistical power to identify the small effects of individual snps, that heritability may be a result of other forms of genetic variation, or that twin studies may over-estimate the degree of heritability for common psychological traits (bohacek, gapp, saab, & mansuy, 2013; maher, 2008; park et al., 2010; zuk, hechter, sunyaev, & lander, 2012). to help investigate these hypotheses, so, li, and sham (2011) and others have proposed methods to estimate the proportion of heritability that can be jointly attributed to all snps even when there is insufficient power to identify effects for individual variants. the current dissertation expands upon the method of so, li, and sham (2011) to provide more flexible and accurate estimates of the proportion of variance in psychological traits that can be explained by observed snps. specifically, it is shown that valid estimates of the proportion of variance explained can be obtained using the results of genome-wide meta-analysis, leveraging the larger sample sizes in meta-analysis to achieve much greater precision in estimating the joint effect of all snps. in addition, monte carlo p-values are developed to provide hypothesis testing of the estimate of variance explained that accounts for bias and skewness in the null distribution of estimates. formulas are also derived to allow estimation in genome-wide studies that include covariates with either dichotomous or continuous traits. simulation studies verify the validity of these procedures, and clearly demonstrate strong statistical power to identify the relative influence of snps with small effects that are unlikely to be detected in conventional genome-wide studies. finally, the developed methods are applied to a genome-wide meta-analysis of self-rated health. implications of the results for identifying heterogeneity in meta-analyses are discussed, and guidelines are suggested for the minimum sample sizes necessary to estimate the total snp effect. the 5s rrna gene-specific transcription factor, tfiiia, interacts with the sumo e3 ligase, pias2b, and with one of its targets, the transcriptional corepressor xctbp. pias2b and xctbp are present on the oocyte, but not somatic, 5s rrna genes up through the gastrula-neurula transition, as is a limiting amount of tfiiia. histone h3 methylation, coincident with the binding of xctbp, also occurs exclusively on the oocyte genes. immunohistochemical staining of embryos confirms occupancy of some fraction of the oocyte genes by tfiiia that become positioned at the nuclear periphery shortly after the midblastula transition. sumoylation can be inhibited through injection of mrna encoding the adenovirus protein gam1, which decreases the levels of the e1 activating enzyme by triggering its proteolytic degradation. gam1-induced decrease in sumoylation activity relieves repression of the oocyte 5s rrna genes and is correlated with a decrease in methylation of h3k9 and h3k27. these results reveal a novel function for tfiiia as a negative regulator that recruits histone modification activity, through the ctbp repressor complex, exclusively to the oocyte 5s rrna genes, resulting in their terminal repression. sumoylation deficient embryos also exhibit a range of important developmental defects including failure of the blastopore and neural tube to close, shortened axis, fused eyes, and perturbed heart development. embryos injected with gam1 mrna or water (control) were taken for microarray analysis at three developmental time points: early gastrula, late gastrula, and early neurula. a bioinformatics analysis of this data was conducted using the metacore(r) suite of programs, bingo, david, and the gene ontology database. functional enrichment analysis of the differentially expressed genes demonstrates that sumoylation regulates the expression of genes that span several different biological processes during early embryogenesis. bioinformatics analysis provides evidence that, in some cases, sumoylation generates two pools of a given transcription factor that control different subsets of genes. although sumoylation impacts a large variety of processes, certain signaling pathways appear to be particularly sensitive to the loss of this modification and can account for the observed phenotypes. pathways enriched for differentially expressed genes were identified using the extensive metacore(r) database and include; non-canonical wnt signaling and regulation of cytoskeleton remodeling (shortened axis and open blastopore), regulation by yin yang 1 (heart defects), twist/snail regulation of the epithelial to mesenchymal transition (open blastopore and neural tube), and ets-1 regulation of transcription factors e2f1/e2f4 (heart defects and open blastopore). this dissertation takes up the project of analyzing and evaluating contemporary moral particularism. moral particularism is a family of views---a family unified by its rejection of moral principles---in moral metaphysics and moral epistemology. some versions of particularism claim that there are no true moral principles, while others claim that we shouldn't use moral principles in moral deliberation; i call the former view 'eliminativism' and the latter view 'abstinence.' chapters 1-3 concern eliminativism. i argue that contemporary presentations of eliminativism are inadequate on the grounds that they do not make clear how eliminativism is compatible with the supervenience of moral on descriptive properties. however, i also present an overlooked version of eliminativism---a version i call 'incompactness eliminativism'---that avoids the problems faced by other versions. i examine how an incompactness eliminativist can respond to typical objections posed to particularism, and i thereby show that incompactness eliminativism is both coherent and defensible. i also explore how an incompactness eliminativist can provide positive motivation for her view. i show that one promising strategy is to use an argument from 'radical holism' and develop a normative theory (of a certain structure) in order to support the premises of that argument. thus, it turns out that although eliminativism places some constraints on what kind of normative theory one can accept, one must at least partially develop a normative theory in order to motivate eliminativism in the first place. the fourth and final chapter addresses abstinence. i argue that those who accept incompactness eliminativism should not accept abstinence. i do this by showing that abstinence entails a commitment to a strong form of intuitionism, and that extant attempts to defend the plausibility of such an intuitionism require models of moral reasoning that are incompatible with incompactness eliminativism. however, i develop another model of praiseworthy moral deliberation that the eliminativist can accept, one according to which good moral deliberation can involve the responsible use of 'rules of thumb.' the solution phase synthesis of narrow diameter (< 10 nm) straight and branched cdse and pbse nanowires (nws) is described. crystalline nws with lengths up to 10 microns are grown in solution, where nw growth is initiated by au/bi core/shell nanoparticles (nps). these nps have diameters less than 5 nm and are catalytically active towards the growth of similar diameter nws. such wires may exhibit quantum confinement effects since the exciton bohr radius of cdse (pbse) is 5.6 (46) nm. branched nws are also obtained by varying the reaction conditions, yielding tripod, v-shaped, and y-shaped nws in the case of cdse and right angle and t-shape nws in the case of pbse. the morphologies obtained in each case emphasize the influence of crystal phase on nw growth. a geminate nucleation mechanism is described to explain nw branching. blar1 is an integral-membrane b-lactam sensor protein involved with b-lactam resistance in pathogenic bacteria such as methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (mrsa). specifically, binding of b-lactam (penicillin-like) antibiotics to the extracellular sensor domain of blar1 (blars) initiates a transmembrane signal that stimulates the production of b-lactamase proteins, which then destroy the b-lactam antibiotics. the atomic-scale mechanism for the signal transduction remains poorly understood. the dominant hypothesis proposes an essential interaction between an extracellular loop (l2) and blars, which breaks upon antibiotic binding and thus supplies the transmembrane signal. but the evidence of this interaction is conflicting and direct atomic-level evidence of this interaction is lacking.accordingly, we used amide 15n spin relaxation and paramagnetic relaxation enhancement (pre) to investigate the interaction between l2short – a peptide mimic of l2 – and blars, and its response to b-lactam antibiotic binding by blars. our results indicate transient specific contacts between l2short and blars at a site close to the active site pocket. this interaction involves residues in the b-sheet hairpin. importantly, b-lactam binding does not disrupt the l2short-blars interaction. instead, our spin-relaxation studies suggest the b-sheet hairpin is intrinsically mobile, and that b-lactam binding leads to a redistribution of ps-ns backbone mobility of the b-sheet hairpin and adjacent α-helix. our results suggest a new basis for the blar1 signaling mechanism, in which sustained l2-blars contact mediates transmembrane signaling stimulated by changes in blars dynamics upon binding of b-lactam antibiotics. we also found the b-lactam 2-(2'-carboxyphenyl)-benzoyl-6-aminopenicillanic acid (cbap) is a useful tool to study the hidden conformational dynamics of blars. covalent acylation of the blars active-site serine by cbap shifts the active site motions to the slow exchange time scale. slow conformational exchange allows the direct characterization of individual conformations in cbap acylated blars. furthermore, the blars active site has an architecture shared by many β-lactamases. this opens the possibility that cbap can be a general probe to expose functional motions in β-lactam binding proteins with shared structural architecture. given the periodic shortages and safety concerns of blood, the development of an artificial blood substitute capable of adequately transporting oxygen without eliciting undue side effects would be quite beneficial. acellular modified hemoglobin-based oxygen carriers with high oxygen affinity (p50 < 26 mmhg) are a new class of blood substitutes being explored. it has been theorized that these oxygen carriers may have less vasoactive side effects compared to their low oxygen affinity counterparts and may transport oxygen in a more physiological manner. in this study, a parallel synthetic approach was used to produce a small library of oxygen carriers by cross-linking/polymerizing bovine hemoglobin (hb) with glutaraldehyde and ring-opened saccharides. the type and concentration of cross-linker and quenching agent, as well as reaction time, were all manipulated to yield oxygen carriers with various molecular weight distributions and oxygen binding properties. a high degree of hb cross-linking with glutaraldehyde resulted in the synthesis of polymerized hb (polyhb) dispersions with low p50s (< 26 mmhg), low hill coefficients (< 2.3), and high methemoglobin (methb) levels (> 10%). in this work, the high methb level of glutaraldehyde polyhb dispersions was countered by reducing the polyhb dispersions post-reaction with ascorbic acid. utilization of ring-opened saccharides as hb cross-linking reagents resulted in polyhb dispersions with even lower p50s (~7-9 mmhg) compared to glutaraldehyde polyhb dispersions. in fact, o-methylglucopyranoside showed the most promise as an hb cross-linking reagent and resulted in a higher degree of hb cross-linking and lower methb levels compared to other ring-opened saccharides. polymerization of bovine hb with glutaraldehyde resulted in decreased allosteric effects of ph and clon the oxygen binding properties of polyhb dispersions, although it was not completely abolished. modeling the oxygen transporting ability of these oxygen carriers in a human capillary showed that a moderately low p50 (such as 18 mmhg) oxygen carrier delivered oxygen more consistently over a wide range of hypoxic po2 levels. in contrast, very low p50 (such as 6 or 13 mmhg) oxygen carriers specifically target oxygen delivery to tissues with low oxygen tensions, which are observed clinically in cases of severe hypoxia. bitcoin, as one of the most successful blockchain applications, attracts unprecedented attention and investment from both academia and industry. to maintain the consistency of transaction data, the proof-of-work consensus mechanism utilizes the brute-force algorithm for validation and implicitly hosts a competition of hardware and energy. to mine cryptocurrency more efficiently, people developed gpu mining, fpga mining, and asic machine mining. however, these methods still suffer from the issue of wasting energy because the hashing algorithm has remained unchanged. alternatively, the proof-of-useful-work consensus has been proposed to execute relatively more useful tasks to maintain consistency, therefore the ``wasted energy'' could contribute to useful work. in the proof-of-deep-learning consensus, for the first time, i proposed the two-phase design which utilized the deep learning training process as the workload of blockchain. to further improve the consensus, i enhanced the feasibility to exploit the computation power of blockchain for deep learning algorithms. the miners can switch between different training tasks in the memory pool and align the target task.however at this stage, all miners are still required to work on the same task in the same block, as a result, the majority of energy has been wasted due to the computation redundancy. therefore, i introduced the collaboration strategy to reduce redundancy. in the proof-of-federated-learning-subchain work, i categorized different miner roles and emphasized the importance of data contributors. under this framework, miners can select partners based on average response time and training data value to form pools under a federated learning framework. in the series of my work, i aim to recycle the "waste" resources to train deep learning models which powered many applications behind the scenes in our daily lives. beginning with the initial proof-of-deep-learning consensus, i continued to improve feasibility, reduce redundancy, and initialize the framework of the next-generation consensus which is optimized for the deep learning training tasks as the workload of blockchain. science is a social activity. about this much, everyone agrees. disagreement arises, however, with the attempt to explicate the precise manner in which science is social and the precise ways in which scientific communities should be organized. this dissertation addresses these two issues. in the first part of this dissertation, i argue that scientific knowledge is intrinsically social; that is, the development of scientific knowledge requires communities, and the decisions that communities make--regarding both the choices of problems and the epistemic evaluation of research--are inevitably influenced by their broader social contexts. in some areas of science, furthermore, moral and political values inevitably influence the epistemic evaluation of research. i defend this claim against the objection that only the practical--and not the epistemic--evaluation of research is legitimately influenced by such values. given that scientific knowledge is intrinsically social, the question of how research should be organized takes on added epistemic significance. if the development of scientific knowledge requires communities, one must begin to spell out which communities are knowledge-productive and which are not. the second part of the dissertation is an attempt to do this, particularly in the area of pharmaceutical research. due to the increasing involvement of for-profit companies in biomedical research, the organization of this research is changing dramatically, in ways that are presenting serious ethical and epistemic costs. the question of how these organizational arrangements should be improved is not only an important public policy issue, but also an important epistemological one. to begin to address this issue, i discuss a recent episode of pharmaceutical research, involving vioxx, and i highlight some of the organizational inadequacies that led to this debacle. a crucial lesson of the vioxx case is the need for enforcing organized skepticism. i discuss one potential way of doing this--through an adversarial system of research--according to which competing sets of scientific advocacy groups argue for opposing positions before a panel of scientist-judges. while this proposal is not completely developed, it is a pursuit-worthy one that merits further discussion. plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (pai-1) is the main physiological regulator of tissue-type plasminogen activator (tpa) in normal plasma. in addition to its critical function in fibrinolysis, pai-1 has been implicated in other physiological and pathophysiological processes. interestingly, both antifibrinolytic-related and non-antifibrinolytic-related roles of pai-1 function have been implicated in the process of angiogenesis, which might account for some discrepancies observed in angiogenic models using pai-1 deficient and over-expressing transgenic mice. to investigate the structure-function relationships of mouse pai-1, the recombinant pai-1 proteins were expressed in escherichia coli and characterized. our studies indicated that the complex interactions traditionally associated with different functions of human pai-1 apply to the murine system, thus demonstrating a commonality of subtle functions among different species and evolutionary conservation of this protein. in an effort to separate these functions in vivo, knock-in targeting vector with targeted mutations to ablate the vitronectin binding ability was constructed. the composition of the targeting vector includes the 5' and 3' flanking sequences containing the mutation, a loxp-flt-neo-flt-loxp cassette, and a cda expression cassette. after homologous recombination with the wt allele, the "floxed" cassette may be removed by crossing with either cre recombinase or flipase expressing transgenic mice. a cell culture-free system was developed to examine the cre-recombinase-mediated excision of the "floxed" element before the targeting vector was introduced into the embryonic stem cells. in order to bypass the lengthy backcrossing process from the 129 background into the c57bl/6 background, the homologous arms in the targeting vector were constructed using a c57bl/6 genetic background to facilitate the backcrossing. the targeting vectors were introduced into both c57 and c57/129 hybrid embryonic stem cells by electroporation, and the homologous recombination was screened by southern blot analysis. positive es cell clones with homologous recombination at both arms were identified. these pai-1 knock-in mice would serve to further elucidate mechanisms associated with the observed phenotypes in pai-1 deficient mice in a number of challenge models. this dissertation examines belief in literary modernism through the overlap between religious and aesthetic experience. the running argument is that in modernity the question of belief or unbelief is less important than the 'background' in which that question is contextualized; i.e., the more complex question of what it means to say 'i believe (or do not believe) in x.' in attempting to answer that question, i offer a challenge to the secularization narrative that is, implicitly or explicitly, behind most thinking about modernist literature. such readings, by equating modernity with secular unbelief, either ignore or reduce (in the theoretical sense) engagements with new forms of belief in modernist art and aesthetics. rather than seeing religion and secularity as mutually exclusive viewpoints in modernity ì¢ ââ' or, conversely, as possibly obtaining some kind of accomodationist relationship i use charles taylor's conception of 'cross-pressures' from a secular age (2007), along with contemporary discourse surrounding the study of religious experience, as context through which to read modernist literature as a site of what i call dissociated belief: a fragmentary exploration of transcendent experience situated within a secular and skeptical background of understanding, and pressured equally by stances against orthodox religiosity or mystical epistemologies and against totally immanent or rational accounts of being, knowing, and art. as a pair of test cases, i look at the impact of the study of religious experience and eastern religions on the art and aesthetics of t. s. eliot and e. m. forster, focusing on their work from the early to late 1920's. both forster and eliot's lifelong interest in the study of religious experience is taken as context for a reading of their own attention to the dissociated nature of modern belief, and for the problems it presented in their art and aesthetics. the result is new readings of (among other works) the waste land and a passage to india, as well an extended look at two little-read works of criticism: the clark lectures that eliot and forster delivered back-to-back in 1926-7, producing the varieties of metaphysical poetry and aspects of the novel, respectively. totally positive matrices are matrices in which each minor is positive. such matrices appear in many different areas of theoretical and applied mathematics. investigation of the structure of inequalities between the minors of totally positive matrices plays an important role in many problems in these areas. in representation theory of quantized enveloping algebras the notion of canonical bases plays important role. one of the approaches to describe canonical bases is to study their dual objects, so called dual canonical bases. lusztig has shown that specializations of elements of the dual canonical bases at q=1 are totally non-negative polynomials. to this end there is an interest in functions that are positive on the locus of totally positive matrices. we present results on multiplicative determinantal inequalities (joint work with m. gekhtman) as well as possible further directions including ratios containing exotic cluster variables. furthermore, we present a majorizing monotonicity of symmetrized fischer's products which are a natural generalization of hadamard-fischer inequalities. majorizing monotonicity of symmetrized fischer's products were already known for hermitian positive semi-definite matrices which brings additional motivation to verify if they hold for totally positive matrices as well (joint work with m. skandera). the main tools we employed are network parametrization and temperley-lieb and monomial trace immanants. condensed phase charge transfer mechanisms control prominent reactions in all branches of chemistry, physics, and biology. the prevalence of such reactions provides great motivation to further develop the methods by which they are studied computationally. the work that follows introduces a powerful new approach for computer simulation of charge transfer processes in condensed phase that has the potential to transform our fundamental understanding of these reactions, broadly complementing the work of scientists in diverse disciplines. condensed phase reactions evolve over a rough potential energy surface, often depending on rare environmental fluctuations to drive the reaction from reactant to product. the expansion of reaction rate theory has given rise to various computational methods able to address the difficult task of sampling an ensemble of rare reactive events. transition path sampling (tps) is one such formalism. tps is a powerful statistical framework that provides mechanisms of complex reactions without the need to define reaction coordinates or identify transition states a priori. tps thereby enables us to study a great variety of problems for which this would be daunting task. condensed phase charge transfer reactions present an additional challenge as these complex reactions are governed by explicit quantum mechanical phenomena. to accurately describe such reactions, one must consider the additional electronic and vibrational energy states to which the ground potential energy surface is coupled. high computational cost, however, limits their investigation. mixed quantum-classical methods alleviate some of this cost by separating the degrees of freedom containing intrinsic quantum mechanical character from those that can be treated classically. among many algorithms, surface hopping methods provide trajectories access to these excited states via nonadiabatic transitions. nonadiabatic path sampling (naps), seeks to generalize the tps formalism to accommodate reactions involving multiple electronic and vibrational energy states. naps will enhance our understanding of charge transfer reactions in the condensed phase by modeling reaction timescales currently beyond the scope of molecular simulation, and identifying specific molecular motions that influence or control the mechanisms and kinetics of charge transfer reactions. with the presence of sofosbuvir as a cure for the hepatitis c virus, a government's ability to afford to purchase the miracle drug for its citizens has become a contested topic in different countries. one influencing factor influencing the price of hepatitis c treatments in each country is a country's application of intellectual property rights and their subcategory, patents for pharmaceutical products. this qualitative study investigates the influence of intellectual property laws in egypt and the united states of america on gilead's pricing of sofosbuvir in both countries. data collecting methods include a literature review of existing white and grey literature and interviews of relevant stakeholders in egypt and the united states. findings indicate that each country's practical implementation of patent granting laws from the trips agreement influenced prices for sofosbuvir. this consequently influenced the public health system's ability to provide hepatitis c treatment to affected groups in both countries. this research concludes that it is important to reassess drug pricing under each country's patent granting laws and how such pricing influences the affordability of treatment in respective countries. there are successful examples of governments' efforts in providing sofosbuvir as a life-saving treatment. however, there is a need for a more in-depth, long-term change in the structure of granting patents in countries facing high treatment costs due to its patent laws. the nucleosynthesis in first generation stars is characterized by a completely different nucleosynthesis reaction pattern due to the lack of heavier nuclei impurities. without the carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen that allow the cno-cycle, these stars would have to only rely on the inefficient pp-chains for their energy production. however, there may exist other reaction chain sequences that utilize only light elements acting as alternative pathways to convert primordial hydrogen, helium, and lithium isotopes to heavier nuclei. two possible reaction chains are 2h(α, γ)6li(α, γ)10b(α,n)13n and 7li(α,γ)11c(βν) 11b(α,n)14n. a detailed understanding of the 10,11b(α,n)13,14n reactions are crucial in determining the possibility of these two reaction chains. in this work, a series of measurements of the 10b(α,n)13n reaction and the 11b(α,n)14n reaction are conducted at the nuclear science laboratory (nsl) of the university of notre dame. the measurements of the 11b(α,n)14n reaction utilizes a standard 3he counter, while those of the 10b(α,n)13n are made with a state-of-the-art deuterated liquid scintillator. in addition, excitation curves were also measured for the 10b(α, p1,2,3γ)13c reactions using a high-purity germanium detector (hpge). r-matrix analyses are performed for both reactions in order to facilitate a comparison of the underlying nuclear structure with reaction measurements. cyclopropanes have played an important role in organic chemistry due to their strained structure, interesting bonding characteristics, and value as internal mechanistic probes. the frequencies with which biologically active, cyclopropane containing natural products appear have compelled chemists to find novel and diverse approaches to their synthesis. this dissertation will discuss the development several related methods for the stereoselective preparation of diastereoand enantiomerically enriched 1,2-disubstituted cyclopropanes. biological examples of oligocyclopropanes were first isolated in the microbe metabolites, fr-900848 and u-106305. oligocyclopropanes were the target of synthetic methodology for the formation of contiguous cyclopropane units. discouragingly, our novel cationic method was unsuccessful in formation of these structures due to reduced electron demand of the system, allowing for the formation of various fragmentation and elimination products.yet, there was much success in formation of single instances of 1,2-disubstituted cyclopropanes. they were synthesized in a non-racemic fashion via activation of the corresponding homoallylic alcohols. rooted in the classic homoallylic cation rearrangement, in situ generated aryl sulfonates readily provided vinyl cyclopropanes in excellent yields. initial studies included activation using triflic anhydride and 2,6-lutidine at low temperature. mesyl anhydride and hìäå_nig's base proved to be a more efficient alternative to the original conditions for homoallylic activation. an array of substituted phenyl rings showed higher enantioselectivity for the cyclization as the group increased in electron withdrawing ability. lowered enantioselectivity was observed for the electron donating cases. electron rich aryl cyclopropanes were ultimately synthesized through transition metal couplings of aryl bromides that cyclized with high enantioselectivity. applications of this method to imidazole substituted species and the formal synthesis of the histamine h3 antagonist gt-2331 were endeavored. the final evolution of the project included the formation of aryl cyclopropylaldehydes through a biomimetic process. enantioselective organocatalysis for the reduction of ì_å±, ì_å_-unsaturated aldehydes developed by macmillan and list provided an excellent resource for the formation of &gamma;-halo-ì_å_-aryl aldehydes. these aldehydes, when exposed to the organocatalytic conditions and base, readily provided aryl cyclopropylaldehydes in high yields. mechanistic discussions of the aforementioned process were also presented. pseudomonas aeruginosa is a prevalent, gram-negative bacterium and opportunistic pathogen that employs several different methods of motility to colonize surfaces, including swarming. swarming is defined as a flagella-mediated community movement of cells through a thin liquid on a surface and is highly variable depending on environmental conditions and available nutrients. p. aeruginosa is capable of modifying its environment by producing rhamnolipid, a surfactant that lowers the surface tension of the thin liquid layer. provided with glutamate as the sole carbon source rather than glucose, p. aeruginosa can swarm in a rhamnolipid-independent manner, but the extent of this motility depends upon composition of the environment, including surface moisture and nutrients. noble agar and the agar substitute gelzan were evaluated for this rhamnolipid-independent swarming (ris) phenotype and a consistent protocol for investigating ris was developed.the ris phenotype was observed under a variety of environmental and nutritional combinations to determine a causative action. in this work, i show that a δrhlab mutant can swarm when growing on compounds associated with the tricarboxylic acid cycle. i also assert that this rhamnolipid-independent swarming phenotype is not a surfactant-mediated motility. additionally, it is not related to any other obvious biochemical agent potentially used to promote swarm motility. two regulatory genes identified to be involved in swarming, dipa and pa1728, were found not to specifically regulate this rhamnolipid-independent swarm behavior. a proteome analysis comparing δrhlab swarming cells with wt did not suggest a clear regulator element that controls rhamnolipid-independent swarming, however, these results do provide some targeted direction for further study.the phosphodiesterase dipa was identified as potentially involved in ris, but was found to affect swarming motility through its role in regulation of cyclic-di-gmp. i show that doubling the nutrient composition of rich media (e.g. tryptone) leads to a significant increase in swarming and swimming, while doubling glucose or glutamate in minimal medium does not uniformly increase motility. correspondingly, i have found that dipa is necessary to regulate intracellular levels of c-di-gmp in a nutritionally dependent-manner and swarming can occur when c-di-gmp levels are elevated on some nutrient media. antimicrobial resistance is an emerging threat to global health. membrane active antimicrobial peptides (amps) are linear, alpha-helical, cationic, amphipathic, peptides that defend the host against infection and are an attractive alternative to traditional antibiotics for the treatment of resistant organisms. traditionally, antimicrobial peptides are designed from naturally occurring eukaryotic peptides. therefore, the antimicrobial peptides of bacteria, the bacteriocins, represent an underutilized source for the development of linear, membrane-active antimicrobial peptides. first discovered as a seed endophyte commensal of vigna radiata, bacillus safensis was shown to have antimicrobial activity against multiple plant pathogens. genomic analysis of b. safensis revealed the presence of multiple amp genes, including one for a circular as-48-like bacteriocin. using this bacteriocin, named safencin as-48, as a scaffold we designed a library of linear peptides to evaluate the potential of using bacteriocins for the design of linear synthetic amps. the library parent peptide, coined syn-safencin, was discovered to be an alpha-helical membrane targeting amp with preferential antimicrobial activity towards gram-negative plant pathogens with minimal mammalian cell cytotoxicity. upon optimization and screening of 96 library variants, we discovered nine optimized syn-safencin variants with antimicrobial activity against clinically relevant human pathogens and minimal cytotoxicity to human cells. our most active variant, syn-safencin 96, contained two glycine (g) to tryptophan (w) substitutions that altered the secondary structure of the original peptide and its overall activity. in order to obtain a more detailed understanding of the relationship between the secondary structure of a given antimicrobial peptide and its mechanism of action, a series of peptide candidates with step-wise substitutions from the original syn-safencin library were selected for further study using biophysical approaches. only peptides with a specific g to w substitution dramatically disrupted gram-negative bacterial membranes, suggesting that our synthetic peptides exert antimicrobial activity through pore formation. patch clamp analysis on model gram-negative membranes showed that the ability of the peptide to form a discreet pore was dependent upon the position of the w replacement in the amino acid sequence. further investigation of this change in mechanism of action revealed that w-containing syn-safencin variants were capable of synergizing, in both biological and biophysical assays, with their g-containing counterparts, indicating that selective amino acid substitutions in minimal bacteriocin peptides can enhance antimicrobial activity by fundamentally altering their interactions with the bacterial membrane.since syn-safencin could be used to approximate the activity of the natural safencin as-48, we hypothesized that putative membrane targeting bacteriocins could be validated by selecting for and chemically synthesizing minimal peptides corresponding to their membrane interacting regions. using a set of 646 putative bacteriocins, 28,895 20-mer peptides were generated and scored by a simple script for the biophysical parameters of charge, helicity, and hydrophobic moment. sixteen of these peptides, representing a range of scores, were chemically synthesized and evaluated for their antimicrobial activity. in general, as the biophysical scores of the peptides decreased so did their potency. peptides scoring high in the three parameters exhibited potent antimicrobial activity. our studies show that bacteriocins provide a rich, untapped source of synthetic amp scaffolds. these scaffolds can be successfully optimized using selective amino acid substitution approaches to tune their mechanism of action. our approach to discovering and optimizing bacteriocin-derived peptide scaffolds provides an innovative platform for the design of novel antibiotic alternatives to combat the antimicrobial resistance crisis. with the growing amount of computational resources available to researchers today and the explosion of scientific data in modern research, it is imperative that scientists be able to construct data processing applications that harness these vast computing systems. to address this need, i propose applying concepts from traditional compilers, linkers, and profilers to the construction of distributed workflows and evaluate this approach by implementing a compiler toolchain that allows users to compose scientific workflows in a high-level programming language. in this dissertation, i describe the execution and programming model of this compiler toolchain. next, i examine four compiler optimizations and evaluate their effectiveness at improving the performance of various distributed workflows. afterwards, i present a set of linking utilities for packaging workflows and a group of profiling tools for analyzing and debugging workflows. finally, i discuss modifications made to the run-time system to support features such as enhanced provenance information and garbage collection. altogether, these components form a compiler toolchain that demonstrates the effectiveness of applying traditional compiler techniques to the challenges of constructing distributed data intensive scientific workflows. in recent years, stochastic geometry theory has become a very promising tool to analyze the performance of wireless networks. by taking into account the spatial structure of the base stations (bss) in homogeneous cellular networks, which plays a key role in evaluating the downlink performance, the theory gives direct insights about how the geometry of the bss affects the network performance and enables tractable analyses on the signal-to-interference-plus-noise-ratio (sinr) distributions. in this dissertation, we mainly study the sinr distributions and their properties in cellular networks. the bss are usually assumed to form a lattice or a poisson point process (ppp). in reality, however, they are deployed neither fully regularly nor completely randomly. for the first step of our analyses, we use different spatial stochastic models, including the ppp, the poisson hard-core process (phcp), the strauss process (sp), and the perturbed triangular lattice, to model the spatial structure by fitting them to the locations of bss in real cellular networks obtained from a public database. we provide two general approaches for fitting and find that fitted models can be obtained whose coverage performance matches that of the given data set very accurately. for the second step, through observations of the model fittings, we discover that the shape of the complementary cumulative distribution function (ccdf) of the sinr for essentially all motion-invariant and ergodic point processes is the same, which means the sinr distribution for general point processes (i.e., general bs distributions) can be approximated by applying a horizontal shift to the corresponding (simple or maybe tractable) result of the ppp model. we demonstrate this finding by studying the lower tail of the ccdf of the sinr, or equivalently, its high-reliability regime.for the third step, we extend our theoretical asymptotic analyses to the upper tail of the sinr and non-simple point processes (where points can be colocated). for the fourth step, since the independent randomness in the positions of the bss and the propagation conditions we usually assume does not comply with the real procedure of bs deployments, we propose a new class of cellular model, where bss are deployed to make all users at cell edges achieve a minimum required signal power level from the serving bs. the equalized received signal power at cell edges is the outcome of both the spatial structure of the bss and the propagation model of the signals. we call such system models joint spatial and propagation (jsp) models and provide two approaches to formulating the models. the sinr distribution is evaluated. our results show that networks with poisson distributed bss appear to the user like lattice networks if the dependence between bs placement and propagation is accounted for. the rise of virtue ethics has led to many treatments of the cardinal and theological virtues. but often due to fears that it is too "otherworldly," the theological virtue of hope has languished in obscurity. drawing upon st. thomas aquinas, i correct this oversight, arguing that hope makes a key contribution to happiness in the next life &#8212; and in this one. in common with many virtue ethics and eudaimonist thinkers, i propose that the happy life is the characteristically enjoyable virtuous life. yet as aristotle and contemporary virtue ethics suggest, happiness is vulnerable to suffering, sickness, injustice, decline, and death. limiting the extent to which even the virtuous may be happy, such ills constitute a somewhat depressing "eudaimonia gap." since the virtue of hope encourages the agent with the prospect of perfect and lasting beatitude, i argue that the gap leaves room for the virtue of hope to be recognized as "good news" rather than just "curious news" within virtue ethics and in human life generally. hope sustains us from the sloth, cynicism, and despair that threaten amid life's trials, it provides an ultimate meaning and transcendent purpose to our lives, and it assures us that the desire for permanent and complete happiness can be fulfilled. encouraged by the anticipation of perfect beatitude whose first fruits begin in this life, the christian should therefore "rejoice in hope." yet many critics regard hope's joyfulness as narcissistic and view hope as a "selfish" virtue which cares only about heaven and lets the world fester. in contrast, i argue that thomistic hope partners with charity and is applied to justice, seeking virtue and happiness not just for the self but for the earthly city of which the hopeful remain committed members. indeed, the vice of presumption opposed to hope consists precisely in the refusal to perform virtuous works of social justice and mercy in the "presumption" that promoting the common good is optional to those seeking eternal life. to give specific form to my claims, i turn to the beatitudes in the sermon on the mount and argue that they represent the paradigmatic form of the happy life shaped by the virtue of hope. as a practical application of hope, i develop the ars moriendi or "art of dying" as a resource for end-of-life care in an aging society where death is often seen as unintelligible and approached with despair. nitrogen-containing heterocycles are prolific throughout the sciences. notably, the various branches of organic chemistry have dedicated decades of research to the synthesis, functionalization, and applications of n-heterocyclic compounds. therefore, technology related to the development of methodologies for the synthesis, derivatization, or applications of nitrogenated compounds which exhibit novel bond disconnects or functions are of high interest. our attention was focused on: unearthing methodologies which exploit transition metal-stabilized carbenes for the synthesis and functionalization of n-heterocycles; the total synthesis of biologically active alkaloids via resourceful retrosynthetic disconnects; the synthesis and discovery of n-heterocyclic/pnictogen based ionic liquid materials for various alternative energy applications. consequently, by utilizing carbene migratory insertion chemistry catalyzed by various transition metals, the synthesis of five-membered n-heterocyclic compounds via a (4+1)-cyclization disconnect was discovered and optimized. additionally, employing a similar mechanistic disconnect the carbon-hydrogen functionalization of existing nitrogen-containing heterocycles was realized and briefly investigated. furthermore, employing a (2+1)-cyclization/ring expansion strategy the synthesis of fiveand seven-membered heterocyclic structures was recognized through metal-stabilized carbenoids. in a complimentary fashion to the development of methodologies accessing functionalized n-heterocycles, progress towards the synthesis of cyclopiazonic acid-derived alkaloids was enacted, assembling synthons which were investigated for a convergent retrosynthetic disconnect. finally, through collaborative efforts, the amalgamation of organic synthesis and various sciences allowed for the identification of several task-specific ionic liquid materials. in this work, the spatial and temporal evolution of an electrohydrodynamic (ehd) flow (also known as ionic or electric wind) generated from the surface of a piezoelectric transformer (pt) was characterized by schlieren imaging. ehd flows have several industrial purposes that make studying their behavior a matter of interest. producing the ehd flow, however, requires the formation of an atmospheric plasma which can be sustained at high electric fields (3 v/μm). obtaining fields of this magnitude requires a high input voltage, and due to the size and cost of the electrical supply needed to accomplish this, it is often not practical. here, a pt is utilized to circumvent this challenge. a piezoelectric transformer is a non-centrosymmetric crystal that converts low-voltage ac input to high-voltage ac output through innate electromechanical coupling, enabling the formation of plasmas using only ~10-30 v. this experiment utilizes a lead zirconate titanate (pzt) rosen-type pt actuated at its second harmonic frequency in atmospheric air leading to a discharge forming at its corners. from this discharge, an ehd flow is produced due to the positive and negative ions being driven away from the pt due to the local electric field, and bombarding air molecules in their path creating a bulk flow. ehd jets were characterized using schlieren imaging for varying input voltages (magnitude of ehd force) and duty cycles (duration that ehd force acts). results show that the maximum flow speeds increased linearly with increasing input voltage, and surprisingly, decreased with increasing duty cycle. the jet width initially tends to increase with increasing input voltage and eventually saturates for all input voltages as the duty cycle increases above approximately 20%. the flow velocity, as a function of centerline distance, tends to fall off more steeply than a plane laminar jet subject to a constant initial momentum. still, the ehd flow does have aspects comparable to a laminar jet. the accurate and reliable simulation of smooth-body turbulent flow separation represents a considerable challenge for current cfd turbulence models. consequently, there has been a recent push for high quality, experimental, benchmark flow separation studies to be conducted for the purpose of cfd validation. this dissertation documents a series of benchmark experimental studies on smooth-body flow separation. three flow experiments are investigated over a single two-dimensional ramp geometry—two undergoing flow separation (one larger-scale and one smaller-scale) and one attached flow—all of which result from a user-imposed adverse pressure gradient (apg) applied to a turbulent boundary layer. these data sets and associated documentation are now available on the nasa langley research center turbulence modeling resource website. although the geometry and incoming flow in these experiments are spanwise two-dimensional in the mean, oil-film surface flow visualization shows that in each case separation is three-dimensional in character while reattachment is two-dimensional. utilizing multiple flow visualization images, both surface and off-surface topology maps of separation were created. these maps indicate that the central flow separation is characterized by the owl-face pattern of the fourth kind. it is found that this pattern is an ubiquitous feature of flow separation. additional investigation revealed that this owl-face pattern is part of a generic and simple structure consisting of a repeating pattern of saddle points and foci for separation and nodes and saddle points for reattachment. the pattern results when the streamwise surface curvature induces a small secondary flow, which interacts with the wind tunnel sidewalls. furthermore, passive flow control studies reveal that, while the centerline flow separation extent is highly influenced by the sidewall separation, its characteristic separation structure is independent of the sidewall separation.extensive off-surface flow measurements, conducted via two-component ldv, were used to characterize the streamwise and spanwise flow development. despite its three-dimensionality, the streamwise mean flow develops in a typical fashion—becoming inflectional due to the imposed streamwise apg—resulting in the formation of an embedded shear layer. attempts to scale the flow using embedded shear layer scaling highlight that, while the mean profiles exhibit excellent collapse, the scaled turbulent stress profiles do not exhibit collapse due to streamwise surface curvature effects. furthermore, experimental evidence is provided indicating that the reynolds stresses are effectively "frozen", with streamwise changes resulting from a rotating local wall-normal coordinate. a coordinate system fixed at the no-curvature transition from convex to concave ramp curvature yields turbulent shear stress magnitudes that are constant with streamwise development. at the conclusion of the seven years war britain found itself in control of a vast new territory in north america containing 70,000 formerly french subjects. in the case of quebec, the local crises which erupted within the colony and those in london over plans to govern the new colony helped to shape emerging attitudes to heterogeneity in an expanding empire. the final bill, which sought to settle the governance of the colony after almost a decade and a half of instability and uncertainty, was in many ways revolutionary. controversially, in the context of contemporary debates and attitudes, the bill granted broad toleration to the catholic church. the bill maintained french civil law, while instituting english criminal law. as will be explored in the course of this dissertation, the principles underlying the final bill challenged and upended the predominant british understanding and practice of empire. over the course of more than ten years british officials considered a multitude of reports, addresses, communications, and other streams of information in order to come to terms with their new imperial territory. in the face of a number of difficult questions posed by the new peoples and territories ceded to britain in the treaty of paris (1763), british imperial administrators relied on evidence to formulate a policy to reform the governance of quebec. quebec, then, was a laboratory for new practices of empire that drastically differed from that which came before. the process of incorporating quebec into the british empire explains future practice both in its particulars and in the nature of its making. quebec fostered a change in attitude towards pluralism in the forms of civil governance, and cultural values; opening new possibilities for imperial governance. in responding to the attacks of those wedded to older notions of empire and the constitution british officials developed a historical, intellectual, and legal case for policies of cultural continuity. in their three pronged approach advocates for the strategies developed in quebec laid the foundation for a new set of practices that would define british rule over india, africa, and beyond. given a complex semisimple lie bialgebra g, a lie subalgebra c of g is coisotropic if the annihilator of c in g^* is a lie subalgebra of g^*. kroeger shows in her paper that coisotropic subalgebras give rise to lagrangian subalgebras of g+g. by studying the lagrangian subalgebras of g+g, she generalizes zambon's work by constructing a more general class of isolated coisotropic subalgebras in g.motivated by kroeger's method of studying coisotropic subalgebras, in this dissertation, we classify coisotropic subalgebras in the subset l_{g} of the lagrangian subalgebras of g+g. these are the first examples of non-isolated coisotropic subalgebras.we also give the complete list of coisotropic subalgebras in the sl(2,c) case. lastly, we study the lagrangian subalgebras of the standard parabolic subalgebras and produce a class of coisotropic subalgebras. the result generalizes a basic theorem of kroeger. this dissertation considers how augustine understood justification by faith in light of his theology of faith, as in the pauline phrase iustitia fidei, "the righteousness of faith." though augustine's understanding of the nature of justification as "making righteous" has been examined and largely acknowledged since the reformation, this dissertation proposes a re-framing of faith as the vital center to augustine's doctrine. proceeding chronologically from 390-430, it argues that augustine's understanding of the iustitia fidei expanded over time. what is the iustitia fidei? first, faith receives divine instruction, expresses trust in grace, and conforms one to christ's humility. justification is therefore ascribed to a trusting, christoform faith; righteousness consists in charity, but it abides in faith. second, following ambrose, augustine attributes justification to baptism, but he does so by analyzing the desires of faith. by faith, the catechumen first hopes for baptismal grace and then in baptism receives the love of the holy spirit. third, following the different uses of faith in scripture, augustine distinguishes the bare assent that christ is god (credere christum) from believing in christ (credere in christum), meaning to long for incorporation into christ, to love by believing. augustine thus offers multiple ways of interpreting faith and justification: as faith alone, which he considers inadequate to justify; as the way to hope and charity, and thus justifying by anticipation; and as a fundamentally justifying orientation of the soul. this dissertation contributes to the study of augustine as a theologian whose thought expanded and deepened with time, to augustine's theology of faith as a virtue, and to his complex contributions to the history of justification. leading world economies are moving towards a sustainable future putting high pressure on the oil and gas industry. additionally, covid-19 has created an unseen turmoil in energy markets, where all players have to deal with high uncertainty. my research helps uncover how oil and gasoline supply and demand respond to changes in energy markets. i also shed light on the impact of gasoline prices, uncertainty, and consumers' information-seeking behavior on vehicle purchase decisions. my goal is to use applied econometric techniques using macro and micro level data to contribute to the transition to a more sustainable future. this dissertation argues that orthodox protestantism played a significant role in the political culture of the northern federalist party during the early american republic. it demonstrates that religion both fueled the intensity of federalist politics in the 1790s and ironically contributed to the party's decline in the early nineteenth century. the study brings together two sub-fields--the new political history of the early republic and religious history--to produce an interdisciplinary work which advances historical scholarship on a seminal period in american history. confronted with religious inheritances from new england's colonial experience and the politicization of religion during the american revolution, federalists sought to define religion's place in the republican experiment and apply it for political advantage. the interplay of orthodox religion with federalist politics changed both the party's political culture and the practice of religion in america. the study employs a biographical approach--using case studies of seven individuals to understand larger themes and trends--as a narrative strategy. it begins with john jay, whose belief in a providentially-ordered national destiny for america expressed a 'republican' view of religion and politics, an optimistic approach which broke down under the partisan conflicts of the 1790s. the dissertation then traces how other federalists, including timothy dwight, jedidiah morse, caleb strong, and elias boudinot, responded to the shifting environment by enlisting the public in support of political and social stability. they opposed 'infidelity,' the militant unbelief which they believed was undermining both belief and government. in so doing, they created a 'federalist' expression of religion, in which orthodox religionists rallied to defend what they perceived as their embattled faith and endangered republic. the dissertation concludes with a consideration of john jay's two sons, who illustrate the transformation of a religiously-inflected federalism into attitudes which reflected an 'antebellum' view of religion's place in society: an individualized, issues-oriented religion with a greater stress on morality but less emphasis on politics. this study explores how the meaning of "revolution" changed over the course of the so-called "age of revolution" and how, in the last decades of the eighteenth century, the notion of a revolutionary "age" emerged in people's minds. it does so by analyzing interpretations of the american revolution in the italian states and how those interpretations evolved between the 1760s and 1790s. this study shows that the journalists, diplomats, and political thinkers of the italian states initially did not understand the american revolution as a "revolution," at least not in the modern sense of the term. they did not interpret the american revolution as an invitation to tear down the edifice of the old regime. they understood the american revolution as the apex of an age of reform, not as the beginning of a revolutionary age. for the notion of an "age of revolution" to emerge, the french revolution had to happen, introducing a radically new notion of "revolution": revolutionary change as a radical break from the past and an occasion to establish a new, truly egalitarian and democratic society. it was only in the 1790s that the american experience entered "revolutionary" discourse and that the people of the italian states (and beyond) came to see revolution and reform as mutually exclusive. on this basis, this study criticizes narratives of the "age of revolution" that present the "age" as a single process originating from north america. instead, it calls attention to what seems to be the true core of the "age"—the invention of a new model of "revolution"—and recasts paris as the birthplace of that model. the growing production of shale gas provides increased accessibility to olefin feedstocks, such as ethylene, propylene, and butene, for the manufacturing of plasticizers, lubricants, polymers, precursors to petrochemicals, and fuels. industrially, the light olefins for oligomerization reactions are produced through catalytic or thermal cracking of saturated hydrocarbons, or direct catalytic dehydrogenation of light alkanes. depending on the product application, acid-based catalysts and transition metal-based catalysts have been used commercially and studied academically.this thesis focuses on the synthesis, characterization, testing, and deactivation of niand zr-based catalysts for olefin oligomerization, as well as pt-based catalysts for alkane dehydrogenation. ni sites supported on the defect sites of the wells–dawson-type polyoxometalates (ni-pom-wd) have comparable activation energies during propylene oligomerization to ni sites in zeolitic materials. ni-pom-wd has exceptional selectivity toward linear propylene dimers and exhibits significant stability against the impurities that can be present in the shale gas upgrading processes. we further study the possible deactivation route of ni-catalysts for a ni-beta catalyst by using diffuse reflectance infrared fourier transform spectroscopy (drifts) technique. during ethylene oligomerization, ethylene can solvate the ni sites and create mobile ni-ethylene species. drifts experiments on the ni-beta catalyst showed a perturbation of the zeolite framework in the presence of ethylene, thus, indirectly implying the mobility of ni sites. next, we investigated zr as a potential catalyst for ethylene oligomerization. we found that the presence of brønsted acid sites on the catalyst support is important. the brønsted acid sites of the support act as a chain termination agent for ethylene oligomerization. when brønsted acid sites are absent, zr sites favor undesired ethylene polymerization reactions. lastly, a ptmn catalyst was studied for high temperature alkane dehydrogenation reactions. ptmn confined in siliceous zeolite showed excellent selectivity for ethylene and improved regenerability during ethane dehydrogenation. my dissertation advances a novel interpretation of the work of twentieth-century political theorist hannah arendt, focusing on a neglected aspect of her thought: time. arendt is well known for her analyses of how political disasters, including the loss of democratic freedom, follow from effaced spatial boundaries, i.e. the inappropriate merging of public and private spheres. my work reveals how arendt's thought includes a framework for thinking about the significance of boundaries in time as well as space. i establish how and why those boundaries are politically created, describe what endangers their endurance, and reveal why freedom is undermined by such losses. understanding arendt's theory of time more clearly helps scholars to resolve apparent tensions in her thought, such as her emphases on novelty and stability in the political realm, as well as clarifying the relationship of arendt's political theory to the philosophies of kant, nietzsche, heidegger, and others. my research intervenes in the ongoing feminist reception of arendt, including by demonstrating how her concept of time and theory of freedom both reckon with experiences of trauma. a theorist of hope as much as of political catastrophe, arendt's work is particularly apropos in the precarious present we are collectively enduring. research on school context looks at school climate and workplace relations as related yet separate factors of teacher job satisfaction. in this paper, i look at the relationship between climate and peers, arguing that the effect of climate is conditional on group context. using data from the school and staffing survey, i find that group perceptions of school climate as well as individual perceptions predict teacher satisfaction. thus, two individuals with the same perceptions of school climate can express different levels of job satisfaction depending on their peers' perception of the climate. these findings suggest that the relationship between climate and peers is complex and should be studied together when looking at teacher outcomes like job satisfaction. despite striking similarities in their post-world war ii security environments, western europe and northeast asia have since developed distinct types of regional security institutions. in western europe, an intricate set of multilateral institutions has arisen as the preferred form of interstate cooperation, whereas the governments of northeast asia have largely refrained from region-wide institution building. instead, they have entered into a series of bilateral alliances with the united states. what explains such disparate patterns of institutional development to preserve peace in the two regions? while extant scholarship emphasizes various economic and cultural factors, i argue that balance-of-power logic consistently drove america's and its allies' strategic needs, preferences, and institutional choices. washington sought to create centers of power in the two regions prosperous and powerful enough to balance against burgeoning communist threats. the united states pursued a multilateral order in western europe because balancing was only possible through the pooling of economic and military capabilities of its allies. conversely, a bilateral order prevailed in northeast asia because its asian partners did not possess sufficient wherewithal to defend against soviet and chinese offensives either individually or collectively. the case studies closely analyze the north atlantic treaty of 1949 and the treaty of paris of 1951 on the european side and the san francisco peace of treaty of 1951 and the u.s.-japan mutual security treaty of 1951 on the asian side, the four agreements that built the institutional foundations for the two regions. by drawing extensively upon unclassified archival records, i trace the negotiation processes between american policymakers and their european and asian counterparts, as well as their respective internal discussions leading up to the signing of these treaties. data is being collected at an increasing rate and is relied on for decision making processes in a variety of industries. the modern day challenge of "big data" is occurring because many advancements in computer system performance occurred in the arena of cpu performance and massive parallelism. however, there is now a realization that i/o performance is lagging behind cpu performance in terms of performance gains since massive parallelism can be harnessed with cloud computing environments. low i/o performance is now a limiting factor in the performance of large data analysis systems. however, increased i/o performance alone will not address all of the issues with analysis systems. this is because large scale data systems have placed many requirements on data collection, analysis and reporting systems. for example, performance, scalability and security are often key requirements for modern analysis systems. security concerns and enterprise wide metadata are also necessary items to ensure that organizations are extracting the maximum benefit from centralized data warehouse and analysis systems. this work explores performance, scalability, security, and enterprise wide metadata in an effort to suggest how they can be jointly utilized to build scalable data analysis systems. in breaking from dominant poetic forms, american poets writing in free verse have themselves produced a rich tradition of aesthetic formalisms. this dissertation argues that their innovations, rather than mere freaks of fancy, have harnessed the machinery of capitalist development toward poetic ends. william carlos williams' "machine made of words" is continuous with walt whitman's organicism in leaves of grass, as both sought to transform capitalist social relations and machinery into aesthetic experiences that foreground human capacities and imagination. free verse, though, is not inherently more radical than traditional verse forms, and the fetishization of technique is often part and parcel of an exclusionary politics of white, masculine labor. in their confrontations with capital these poets have crafted a variety of organicist forms, transforming social conditions toward both liberatory and reactionary ends.chapter one considers whitman's confrontation with industrial capitalism and slavery, elaborating how the "hum" produced by his loafer in the grass transforms the abstract equality inherent in wage labor toward poetic song. in chapter two williams takes up this hum through his automobile's confrontation with an electric power plant in the great american novel, pitting poetic self-possession against the alienating forces of technology. his objectivism inscribes the experience of the car—its thrills and dangers—into the distinctive lineation of poems in spring and all and elsewhere. ezra pound, for his part, seeks to surpass the contradiction between machine and man in his vision of an absolute technê. like williams, charles olson struggled with the automobile as a symbol for poetic autonomy, the contradictions of which inhered in the fordist social compact. in chapter three we see how frank o'hara inherited olson's time signals in the crafting of his own "i do this i do that" style, while providing a critique of the valorization of machines as a means to personal immediacy. in the final chapter ron silliman's long prose-poem ketjak is read against the grain of his poetics in the new sentence, showing how rather than simply jettisoning capitalist reification, his cascading and repetitive sentences ironize post-fordist realities, including hyper-financialization and eclipse of the programmatic workers' movement. the goal of this thesis is to explore the fundamental role of geometry in learning and inference across various statistical and machine learning problems. as complex data becomes increasingly prevalent in modern applications, geometry is inherently embedded within it, either known or to be discovered. efficient and reliable learning and inference should consider this geometry. in this thesis, we demonstrate how geometry can be utilized to address crucial issues in statistics and machine learning for effective learning and inference. specifically, we first present both intrinsic and extrinsic deep neural network (dnn) architectures as versatile deep learning frameworks for manifold-valued data. these frameworks harness the geometry of the underlying manifolds, and we derive convergence rates for estimators based on the proposed dnn models. we also establish an extrinsic bayesian optimization framework for addressing general optimization problems on manifolds. additionally, we propose neural-network-based numerical schemes that preserve variational structures when solving surface pdes and geometric flows. lastly, we investigate high-dimensional data distribution estimation using adaptive bayesian deep generative models, emphasizing lower-dimensional manifold-supported distributions of uncertain smoothness. each chapter is devoted to a separate topic. spanning most of the twentieth century and crossing national boundaries, this dissertation combines postcolonial, cultural studies, and formalist approaches to analyze women's novels from transatlantic literary traditions (especially the caribbean and ireland) that have tended to silence or elide women's accounts of motherhood. i argue that women writers evoke images of motherhood to envision a form of personhood and citizenship in the new, postcolonial state specifically for women, in contrast to their male counterparts, who use the trope to argue for the autonomy of the state. in this usage, the personal is returned to the private sphere, wrested away from the political/public appropriation of it. this study unfolds at the intersection of feminist theory (particularly of motherhood), postcolonial studies (regarding concepts of nation-formation), and feminist moral theology (concerning reproductive issues); as such, it offers a more nuanced understanding of the gendered nature of postcoloniality and the postcolonial canon, and it speaks to the development of global feminist sensibilities. my dissertation extends groundbreaking feminist and postcolonial studies in several important ways. until the 1990s, motherhood and mother-daughter relationships were largely the 'unwritten story' (to borrow anne fogarty's term) in irish literary criticism; similarly, they have been the 'grande absente' (florence ramond jurney) in caribbean studies. this thematic neglect reflects a larger tendency to overlook women's writings of all genres in both irish and caribbean literary criticism. on the macro-level, then, my study contributes to the burgeoning feminist criticism of women's writings from ireland and the caribbean. on the micro-level, it contributes to nascent maternity studies in both fields through its nuanced examination of women's negotiations of motherhood. it is this 'unwritten story,' this 'grande absente' that i explicitly engage in my dissertation, which is structured in two halves: the first surveys irish and caribbean women's novels from 1934-1989 to establish an abiding concern with the negotiation of maternity in both canons. a careful chronological reading of twentieth-century irish and caribbean women's novels reveals the nuanced evolution of literary, critical, and social uses and reflections of the mother-daughter relationship that women writers from both traditions explore in their work. at times, they write to assert the impossibility of fulfilling the role as defined by political or nationalist, masculinist rhetoric, at others to deal with the daughter's rejection of the mother, a necessary step in the development of female autonomy in the irish and caribbean traditions. the 1990s saw a boom in women's writing in both ireland and the caribbean traditions that explores a more sophisticated, nuanced engagement with motherhood; the second half of this dissertation demonstrates ways that women writers engage with this literary trope at the end of the twentieth century through an analysis of six contemporary novels. in the novels that i thus classify, protagonists reject compulsory motherhood while embracing or longing for a new form of motherhood that honors their subjectivity. this agency is crucial, as it is the source of the tools women need to successfully mother, these novels argue. in my analysis of clairr o'connor's belonging, mary morrissy's mother of pearl, edna o'brien's down by the river, gis le pineau's l'espìäå©rance-macadam, jamaica kincaid's the autobiography of my mother, and edwidge danticat's breath, eyes, memory, i have striven to highlight the ways in which these texts argue for the need for and start to imagine a richer, fuller understanding of maternity for the twenty-first century, a development which they explicitly link to women's human rights. ultimately, this study demonstrates one crucial way that women's writing engages with matters of life and death, as well as issues of nation-formation, arguing that the ways in which the female body becomes/is annexed as the battlefield of identity-formation in the postcolonial nation-state directly correspond to the social position in which women live and mother. hepatic hollow fiber bioreactors are considered a promising class of bioartificial liver assist device (blad). unfortunately, the development of this type of device is currently hindered by oxygen limited transport to cultured hepatocytes, due to the low solubility of oxygen in aqueous media. a priori knowledge of the dissolved oxygen concentration (po2) profile within a hepatic hollow fiber bioreactor is important in designing an effective blad. in designing blads for clinical use, it is important to note that hepatocytes in vivo experience a spectrum of oxygen tensions (po2 ranging from 25 &ndash; 70 mmhg). this po2 gradient in the liver sinusoid is extremely important for the development of proper differentiated function (zonation) of hepatocyte phenotypes. in order to provide an in vivo-like oxygen spectrum to cultured hepatocytes housed within a hollow fiber bioreactor, several different engineering approaches were explored. these included: supplementing the circulating media stream of the hollow fiber bioreactor with a hemoglobin-based oxygen carrier (hboc) with defined oxygen binding and release kinetics; inoculating different types of hepatocytes; operating the bioreactor with the extracapillary space (ecs) ports open and closed; and varying several other operating parameters of the bioreactor system. we hypothesize that these parameters can be manipulated to improve hepatocyte oxygenation and attain the desired in vivo po2 spectrum. provision of proper oxygen conditions should create a fully functional blad that could potentially help thousands of liver failure patients. sacred space, sacred things, and sacred doctrine lay at the heart of the religious upheavals in early modern europe. noting that reformers such as martin luther and john calvin had declared no earthly place or thing holier than another, scholars have represented the protestant reformation as a fundamental rethinking of the relationship between the sacred and the profane. starkly expressed, this view portrays a pre-reformation christianity in which god chose to channel his power through places, things, and ritual gestures, against a protestantism in which the divine power was delegated to no earthly thing. this dissertation revises that picture in two important ways. first, it emphasizes that authorities in protestant england, from the late years of the sixteenth century, contributed in prescription and practice to a progressive sacralization of space and things in english church and society. loudly proclaimed differences between popery and the gospel have occluded evidence of continuities in belief and behavior. if no material thing was holy, "sacrilege" &#8212; the stealing or profaning of things dedicated to god &#8212; would have become a term of decreasing usefulness; instead, it grew more important. in england, many protestant clergy and laity (sir henry spelman is a prominent example) were especially uneasy about the secularizations of ecclesiastical property in the reigns of henry viii, edward vi, and elizabeth i. they dramatically indicated their anxieties by increasingly elaborate and articulate notions of how god cursed the sacrilegious. second, scholars tend to represent the post-reformation english church as contested between two groups. one, a calvinist majority, was reputedly faithful to the sensibilities of the elizabethan church and thus relatively unmoved by any imagined sanctity of space and things. the other, associated with william laud, obsessed over their profanation. yet often calvinists spearheaded measures for the protection of sacred things, and contributed enthusiastically to the contemporary sacrilege discourse. this dissertation draws on the prescriptions of ecclesiastical authorities and liturgical practice, as well as sermons, theological works, and polemical literature. research was conducted primarily at archives in england: at the universities of oxford and cambridge, and, in london, at the british library and lambeth palace. streptococcus pyogenes, or group a streptococcus (gas) is both a pathogen and asymptomatic colonizer of human hosts, and produces a large number of surface-expressed and secreted factors. the gas-secreted cysteine protease speb has been well studied for its effects on the human host, but its role is highly dependent on infection context. for our work, we utilized the gas strain ap53covs+, which is skin-trophic and non-invasive, and generated a speb deletion mutant. we first examined the effect of speb production using this non-invasive gas strain in a model of host skin infection, hypothesizing that the proteolytic activity of speb would cause host cell damage and loss of viability. our results indicated no difference in human keratinocyte cytotoxicity between our wild-type and speb deletion mutant infections, even in conditions optimized for speb production, and cytokine arrays to identify speb-dependent changes in inflammatory processes require further investigation. we assessed survival in a humanized mouse model after subcutaneous infection with gas. similar to the in vitro cytotoxicity studies, there was no difference in mouse survival between wt and δspeb infections. overall, our findings do not support a role for speb in the virulence of ap53covs+ gas in models of skin and subcutaneous infection. despite its broad proteolytic activity, studies on how speb is utilized in polymicrobial environments are lacking. we used both recombinant and endogenous forms of speb protease to evaluate antimicrobial and anti-biofilm properties against the clinically important human colonizer staphylococcus aureus, which occupies similar niches to gas. we demonstrate that speb exhibits potent biofilm disruption activity at multiple stages of s. aureus biofilm formation. we hypothesized that the surface expressed adhesin sdrc in s. aureus was cleaved by speb, which contributed to the observed biofilm disruption. indeed, we found that speb cleaved recombinant sdrc in vitro and in the context of the full s. aureus biofilm. our results suggest an understudied role for the broadly proteolytic speb as an important factor for gas colonization and competition with other microorganisms in its niche. over the past few decades, plasmonics has emerged as a technology that spans across several fields including laser spectroscopy, material science and solid-state physics. the near-field coupling between light and the surface plasmons of metal nanostructures has transformed single-molecule detection and imaging, tracking of chemical reactions and boosting catalytic efficiencies. surface-enhanced raman spectroscopy (sers) and tip-enhanced raman spectroscopy (ters), by taking advantage of the enormous field enhancements arising from the excitation of the localized surface-plasmon resonances (lspr), have both shown great potential in ultra-sensitive detection. in this dissertation, we focus on the effect of coupled plasmonics in ters for the detection and nanoscale imaging of biologically relevant molecules such as proteins, in a non-invasive, label-free and selective manner. the other aspect of this dissertation will be devoted to the effect of quantum tunneling in ultra-small plasmonic nano-junctions, as evidenced by its gap plasmon shifts and time-dependent spectral changes.the thesis will begin with an introduction to coupled plasmonics: reviewing the related backgrounds of plasmonics &amp; plasmonic coupling, a topic of close relevance to the research conducted in this thesis, after which a brief description of sers and ters will be given. this will then be followed by the introduction of vse and its applications in determining local electric fields in various environments. a short survey of literatures that report the quantum effect (electron tunneling) as observed in plasmonic gaps and will be presented at the end of the introduction. the results of the dissertation research can be categorized into two major parts: i. coupled plasmonics for ters; ii. coupled plasmonics for the understanding of quantum effects in plasmonic junctions. any subset of the plane can be approximated by a set of square pixels. unfortunately, while this pixelation looks similar to the original set, it does not resemble the original set closely from a mathematical perspective. using a technique inspired by morse theory, we algorithmically produce a pl approximation of the original shape using only information from its pixelation. this approximation converges to the original shape in a very strong sense: as the size of the pixels goes to zero we can recover important geometric and topological invariants of the original shape such as betti numbers, area, perimeter and curvature measures. previous studies indicate that infection of macrophages with pathogenic mycobacteria like m. tuberculosis and m. avium result in limited production of pro-inflammatory mediators relative to cells infected with attenuated or non-pathogenic mycobacteria. however, how the pathogenic and non-pathogenic mycobacteria elicit such different macrophage responses is unclear. recent studies suggest a role for dectin-1 in this differential response. dectin-1 is a pattern recognition receptor that is expressed on macrophages and dcs, among others. dectin-1 recognizes ìøå¢-glucans found on various fungal species and is required for the macrophage production of the pro-inflammatory mediators following fungal infection. recent studies in our laboratory indicate that dectin-1 is also engaged upon macrophage infection with non-pathogenic mycobacteria and is required for the optimal macrophage pro-inflammatory response. interestingly, pathogenic strains of m. avium and m. tuberculosis appear not to engage and/or signal through dectin-1. to better address interaction between dectin-1 and mycobacteria i initiated studies to: 1) define the ligand on m. smegmatis which engages dectin-1 and 2) perform an initial characterization of the dectin-1 mediated signaling pathways activated upon mycobacterial infection this dissertation is an attempt to rethink, represent, and reclaim labor for economic and social discourse. in the first essay, i analyze contemporary renditions of labor in nonacademic economic discourses' publications of international institutions' as well as postmodernist narratives to show that labor, rather than being a given category with a single definition, acquires different meanings in different theories, with different theoretical, economic and ethical implications. as it participates in the constitution of a unique discourse that renders certain aspects of reality visible, labor becomes a 'particular lens' with which one can understand, ascribe meanings to prevalent economic and social relations, and destabilize, subvert, and transform the status quo by potentiating counter-hegemonic discourses and mobilizing alternative movements. in the second essay, i argue that there is no labor in the singular in marx's writings by tracing the different conceptions he advances throughout his works and their affectivities. that is, the productive activity through which human beings realize their human essence, or the creator of use-values which appears as an eternal condition of human existence, does not exhaust what labor is. marx privileges another definition of labor' the performer of surplus' with which he elaborates a unique and unprecedented class analysis. however, none of these characteristics is an immediate property, essential quality of labor in and of itself; rather, marx ascribes these meanings to labor, thus avoiding the fetishistic inversion he persistently criticized. with this definition, and building upon amartya sen's capabilities approach, i develop a labor theory of ethics in the third essay. i argue each should have the capability to perform surplus, and do so according to their ability; they also should have the capability to appropriate this surplus irrespective of their role in its production, and receive a portion of it in accordance with their needs. to the extent that no one is excluded from participating in, and there is always someone or some group who can join, this surplus economy, the communist ethics i elaborate transcends the capitalist normative framework of 'equal rights and equal exchange,' replacing it with a 'radical equality.' soil-transmitted helminthiases (sth) and schistosomiasis are helminthic neglected tropical diseases (ntds) which currently infect 1.5 billion and 190,000 individuals, respectively, and cause substantial morbidity. global control programs have been established to alleviate this burden through mass drug administration, marketed as a cost-effective solution with the potential to additionally alleviate poverty. while these control programs have achieved success, helminthic ntds and poverty continue to persist in the global south. there is rising concern as to whether a narrow, biomedical intervention can sustainably control diseases which exhibit characteristics of socio-ecological complexity. while studies have addressed the social and ecological determinants of helminthic ntds, such analyses are often fragmented in nature and these factors remain largely overlooked by policymakers. conceptual frameworks which allow for the integrated consideration of diverse socio-ecological determinants are needed to re-conceptualize our understanding of helminthic ntds and to guide both quantitative analysis and control strategies. finally, while governance studies have highlighted the importance of accounting for socio-ecological complexity in effectively managing problems exhibiting such characteristics, this complexity is largely ignored by current control programs.the overall aim of this dissertation is to apply a socio-ecological lens to comprehensively improve our understanding of helminthic ntds and provide evidence-based policy recommendations to achieve sustainable helminthic ntd control. first, the socio-ecological complexity underlying helminthic ntd transmission is investigated through meta-analyses of helminth polyparasitism, a review of social determinants associated with polyparasitism, and an empirical field study quantifying the socio-ecological determinants of persistent schistosomiasis. following the establishment of socio-ecological complexity, a vulnerability framework which accounts for the diverse socio-ecological determinants of sth infections is derived. this framework is subsequently used to guide the construction of a spatially-explicit vulnerability index for sth infections in sub-saharan africa. finally, the thesis guides the design and management of helminthic ntd control programs at the micro-level through the evaluation of a village governance model designed to account for socio-ecological complexity as an alternative to the current governance of ntd control programs. the thesis concludes by forecasting the vulnerability of communities in sub-saharan africa to sth infections in 2050 to provide policy prescriptions at the macro-level. overall, this work demonstrates the importance of accounting for socio-ecological complexity in understanding helminthic ntd transmission and sustainably controlling helminthic ntds. while this work was limited by publicly available data which may be insufficient in accurately capturing socio-ecological determinants, our findings highlight the need to continue developing frameworks, integrating diverse sources of data, and conducting quantitative analysis to contribute to the growing evidence base establishing the importance of socio-ecological complexity. future work incorporating additional mixed-methods approaches to integrate natural and social science disciplines has the potential to further improve our understanding of socio-ecological complexity and ultimately lead to the sustainable control of helminthic ntds. recent research has suggested that individual differences in wmc are modulated by differences in the fluctuations of arousal states thought to cause lapses of attention. one important line of research has devised a whole report visual array task to better measure capacity along with a computational model to help distinguish between graded vs. dichotomous lapses of attention. this research has concluded that attention lapses are better characterized as graded states, and more importantly that individual differences in performance appear to be due primarily to differences in lapse rate as opposed to capacity. two studies are reported in this paper that further evaluated the relative importance of lapse rate and capacity in this task. based on maximum likelihood estimation, the results consistently showed that a model in which both lapses and capacity were allowed to vary accounted for performance significantly better than a model in which only lapses were allowed to vary. microtubules (mts) are cytoplasmic biopolymers that are common in eukaryotic cells. the mt is assembled by αβ tubulin dimer subunits that can be in either a gtpor gdp-bound nucleotide state. these dimer subunit connect with longitudinal bonds to form linear strands called protofilements (pfs). lateral bonds connect 13 pfs together to form the tube-like structure of a mt. gtp-bound subunits collect near the mt tip region to form a gtp-cap, which helps maintain the bonds that hold the mt structure intact. losing the gtp-cap exposes gdp-bound subunits which are more likely to break their bonds, and promote subunits to detach from the mt structure. the mt length changes in time by undergoing spontaneous switches between periods of sustained growth and rapid shortening, which characterize the behavior called dynamic instability (di). the molecular reactions that drive mt dynamics primarily affect the tip portion of the structure. therefore, a study of the connection between mt tip structures and macro-level phases is needed to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms that drive phase changes in di. laboratory conditions limit the level of detail that can be experimentally collected from mt structures. computational models are a vital tool that provide this level of information, and they have helped understand how molecular level reactions alter the micro-level mt structure, which drives the mt length changes observed at the macro-level. the detailed 13-pf mt model was capable of running long-time simulations that display di behavior with a low computational cost, but it made use of an approximation that skips over mt structural states. this study first develops the extended 13-pf mt model in order to simulate a biochemically exact trajectory of all the mt structural states resulting from possible reactions events. then, the minimal mt structure that includes the lateral bond is considered to present the simplified 2-pf mt model, a novel consideration which helps make calculations of the mt tip structure features more feasible while successfully simulating di behavior.the high frequency and low amplitude fluctuations present in simulated mt length history data make it difficult to pinpoint where di phases begin and end, and where phase transitions occur. to this end, an unsupervised machine learning method based on k-means clustering is presented to identify, classify, and analyze macro-level phases present in mt length history data. application of this method revealed an intermediate phase called "stutters", during which the rate of mt length change is smaller in magnitude compared to classically recognized growth and shortening phases. additionally, stutter phases commonly appeared as a transitional phase during catastrophe events, between growth and shortening phases. this indicated that before a catastrophe event takes place, a mt is likely to first undergo structural changes that do not alter the mt length, which result in structural configurations prone to entering a period of rapid depolymerization. the proposed di phase classification method now can identify these periods, which in past experimental studies have been observed, but not separately considered as a unique class of behavior [21]. furthermore, the stutter events specifically provide a target region to study the mechanisms involved with catastrophe events. finally, a supervised machine learning approach called random forest was used to test the ability for micro-level tip structure features to predict their corresponding macro-level di phases, and to forecast upcoming phase transitions. the results indicated that the gtp-cap size and it's relative position to the cracked tip region are important factors in predicting which di phase a mt is in. in addition to the gtp-cap size, information on the pf-tip lengths and the dispersion of gtp-bound subunits in the tip region were found to be important in forecasting upcoming phase transitions. thus, specific mt tip structures and the reaction events that create them are identified as the mechanisms that drive respective transitions between di phases. elemental cycles on earth are inherently coupled. the coupling of elements by primary producers has immense implications for the contributions of ecological systems to global biogeochemical cycles because the rate at which they couple elements dictates elemental fate. the rate at which coupling, or primary productivity, occurs is dictated by the degree of biological nutrient limitation. however, a wide breadth of ecological research has found that what limits primary productivity is not static in space or time, and can often work in tandem, or be co-limiters. limitation can be influenced by catchment land use/land cover, precipitation, lake morphometry, and organismal stoichiometry. nutrient limitation and the potential shifts to other forms of limitation have important implications for the spatiotemporal variability of biogeochemical process rates and the ultimate fates of elements. in this body of work, we have adopted an approach that pairs a process model with data to assess shifts in limitation in several lake ecology contexts and explore the potential implications these shifts in limitation have on water quality and the global carbon cycle. in my first data chapter, i present the first experimental test of a new model describing how shifts from nutrient to light limitation control primary productivity in lake ecosystems as hydrologic inputs of nutrients and dissolved organic matter vary. in my second data chapter, i found that combinations of lake shape and hydrologic p load induce broad shifts in algal limitation status that underlie the shape and variation in the tp-chlorophyll relationship. in my final data chapter, i found that land use and climate, specifically precipitation, synergistically interact to increase organic carbon burial rates primarily because of a release of nutrient limitation that led to increases in primary productivity. my hope is that my dissertation work will foster future advances in both basic aquatic ecology research and lake ecosystem management. we develop cω-valued ``continuous'' logic and present some model-theoretic results obtained in this context. first, we consider a description of the bohr compactification of an abelian topological group (or even a general functional structure) as a type space in this logic. this is described in the context of the dualities that underpin the logic and it is obtained through the use of maps to compact metrizable structures. next we consider the structure of δ-stable formulas φ(x;y). partitions of the sorts x, y of a structure are produced such that φ(x;y) is "almost constant" in each pair of parts. then this result is transferred to a finite context to obtain a continuous version of malliaris and shelah's stable regularity lemma. finally, we consider a double extension of the classical result of positive primitive elimination in modules, first to abelian groups with length functions, and then to abelian groups with length functions and homomorphisms to compact groups. the latter requires a different formalism of "continuous logic", which we flesh out in some detail. $sigmadelta$ digital-to-analog conversion has as few as two output levels, providing perfect differential linearity. however, 2-level $sigmadelta$ dac's suffer from instability for higher order modulation. moreover, $sigmadelta$'s are usually useful at high oversampling ratios only. this dissertation presents a new interpretation for $sigmadelta$ modulation which views the $sigmadelta$ circuit as solving an optimization problem. this viewpoint shows that the $sigmadelta$ algorithm is a naive solution and that much better solutions are feasible. a newly-developed solution, the m-algorithm, achieves unprecedented sndr's and sfdr's. this new algorithm extends the stable input amplitude range to realize improved sndr's for many partially or completely unstable modulators. additionally, it enables useful conversion at a lower osr (8) than prior art. this dissertation provides hardware results for the generation of clean, high-dynamic range 1-tone and 2-tone signals over a wide range of sampling frequencies. single-tone signals, with bands not affected by the inter-symbol interference (isi) problem or sampling frequency-related spurs, result in an sfdr of 75 dbc in a 250 mhz bandwidth locatable anywhere in the nyquist frequency with a sampling frequency of 8 gs/s. this dissertation provides a mechanism for not only measuring the extent of isi in hardware but also for solving the isi problem to significantly suppress harmonic distortion and spurious. thus, output signals in a 250 mhz band around 2.625 ghz provide an sfdr of 71 dbc for both 1-tone and 2-tone inputs. a problem with low osr systems, even when using the m-algorithm, is that they cannot provide adequate sndr or sfdr for most applications. this dissertation presents a new multistage dac architecture providing excellent performance at extremely low osr's. experimental measurements demonstrate an sfdr performance of 83 dbc in a 125 mhz bandwidth centered at 325 mhz while using an osr of only 4 and an off-the-shelf dac. the best prior art generates 68 db at similar frequencies with 1 gs/s (albeit real-time) and employs quadrature upconversion for higher frequency signal generation. nanowires have received significant interest from the scientific community due to their potential for electronic applications. this thesis is devoted to understanding the growth mechanisms and physical properties of a variety of nanowire structures grown by molecular beam epitaxy (mbe). the study described in this thesis can be subdivided into four main topics: the formation of self-assembled eutectic nanoparticles, the formation of single crystal semiconducting nanowires, the formation of heterostructured semiconducting nanowires, and the magnetic properties of gaas/fe core/shell nanowires. as a part of this study, i explore the growth mechanisms behind the formation of eutectic nanoparticles which are used as a catalyst to fabricate nanowires by molecular mbe. the morphology of the nanowires is very closely related to the morphology of the nanoparticle catalysts, and therefore is of considerable interest for the study of the formation of nanowires. from this study, i find that the size and spatial distributions of self-assembled nanoparticles are strongly influenced by the growth conditions. the study of the formation of single crystal semiconducting nanowires examines the growth mechanisms, morphology, and crystal structure of gaas, znte, znse, and ge nanowires grown on a variety of substrates by mbe. this study employs electron microscopy to study growth mechanisms responsible for the nanowire crystal structure and shape. as a part of this study we find that the migration of surface adatoms contributes significantly to the nanowire morphology. layered semiconducting structures can have interesting properties that are useful for producing a variety of electronic, magnetic, and optoelectronic devices. the study of the formation of heterostructured semiconducting nanowires explores several core/shell and axial heterostructures. as a part of this study, we observe several growth mechanisms which impede the formation of high quality layered structures, as well as several that promote high quality layered structures. finally, we examine the magnetic properties of gaas/fe core/shell nanowires. to overcome the various challenges associated with studying nanoscale magnetic crystals, many advanced experimental techniques were employed in this thesis. a study of the magnetic behavior of single gaas/fe core/shell nanowires both with and without the presence of an externally applied magnetic field is presented. over 90% of cancer-related deaths are due to metastases rather than the primary tumor. bone is the most common site for breast cancer metastasis, and more than 70% of patients who die of breast cancer have bone metastases. the five-year survival rate in breast cancer patients with bone metastases is only 20%. thus, a deeper understanding of how the bone environment influences cancer metastasis would provide information on possible prevention or treatment of the disease.the reasons why breast cancer cells metastasize or how they decide to home in one tissue versus another remain inconclusive. there are several factors that make bone a common site for metastasis. bone is highly vascularized, and disseminating tumor cells likely travel through the marrow to the axial skeleton where they most commonly form metastases. evidence suggests that tumor cells may be attracted to and interact with mscs, adipocytes, and various immune cells in the marrow. in addition, the unique mechanical environment of bone, with gel-like marrow encapsulated in relatively rigid bone, has been hypothesized to play a role in supporting metastasis. as the skeleton is primarily a load-bearing tissue, resident bone and marrow cells are subjected to mechanical stimulation. cancer cells residing in bone will similarly experience mechanical stimulation and interact with resident cells. thus, it is essential to understand how cancer cells respond to mechanical cues.this research examined biochemical and mechanical cues present in bone and marrow that influence breast cancer cell migration into trabecular bone and marrow, and investigated the roles of varying mechanical properties and loading regimes on metastatic progression. breast cancer cells were found to migrate toward bone within 3-d hydrogels, and their 2-d migration toward bone increased when marrow was present. leptin, tnfα, il-1β, and il-6 were all found to increase due to the presence of bone marrow and may serve as potential chemoattractants for the cancer cells.it is impossible to understand why metastatic cancer cells home to the bone marrow, without considering the mechanical cues present in the marrow and the mechanobiological response of these cells. when shear stress was imparted to the marrow, bone formation was observed. in addition, marrow cells altered their gene and protein expression in response to shear stress, indicating that they participate in mechanotransduction. these results provide information on the mechanical environment present in bone marrow that will be experienced by metastatic cancer cells residing in the tissue.metastatic breast cancer cells were affected by their mechanical environment. when cancer cells were embedded in soft and stiff gelatin hydrogels and exposed to perfusion or compression in a bioreactor, both substrate stiffness and compression affected spheroid size and altered expression of proteins involved in cancer-bone crosstalk. taken together, this work contributes to a better understanding of the environment that could be used to further study, model, and develop treatments for bone metastasis. leibniz is well-known for his striking metaphysical views concerning substances and their relations to one another. three such theses that leibniz is widely read as advancing are the focus of this dissertation. according to the first thesis, no created substance can causally interact with any other. each is independent of every other's causal activity and effects. according to the second thesis, no created substance can depend for its existence on any other. the existence of each is metaphysically independent of every other: it is metaphysically possible for each to exist whether or not the others do as well. according to the third thesis, each substance has all of its intrinsic properties essentially, and could have no other intrinsic properties. no actual substance that god has actually created could exist and be intrinsically any different than it in fact is. moreover, for every possible substance that god could have created but did not, it could have been created with one and only one intrinsic profile. that leibniz accepts the first thesis, concerning substances' causal independence, has been nearly universally accepted by commentators. that leibniz accepts the third thesis has been perhaps the most widely accepted interpretation of leibniz's essentialism. that leibniz accepts the second thesis, concerning substances' existential independence, has been a prominent view but is still controversial among commentators. my three main claims in this dissertation are, first, that leibniz accepts the second thesis, but on grounds commentators have not yet noticed. second, i argue that leibniz is committed to the first thesis, but again for reasons that commentators have not seen. third, i establish for the first time that these three theses are mutually entailing, a metaphysical package deal. niemann pick type c (npc) disease is a pediatric neurodegenerative disorder characterized by accumulation of cholesterol and other lipids in late endosomes and lysosomes. 95% of patients harbor a mutation in the endosomal/lysosomal transmembrane protein npc1. live-cell imaging of npc1 revealed that it incorporates into large spherical vesicles (lsv) and tubulo-vesicular membranes (tvm) which transport cholesterol. mutations in npc1, specifically at i1061t, do not change the endosomal localization of the protein, but a decrease in tubulation is observed. microtubule based motility and the tip-tracking protein p150-glued are required for tvm formation. small molecule inhibitors were utilized to increase the tubulation of npc1 mutant membranes and improve cholesterol trafficking, indicating the mutant protein is not functionally dead. to gain a better understanding of how membrane tubules transport cholesterol we investigated proteins implicated in tubulation. several proteins were identified as being involved in npc1 membrane tubule formation such as rab8a, ehd1, and snx4. over-expression of these proteins in npc patient fibroblasts improve cholesterol trafficking, further supporting a role for these proteins in cholesterol transport. in an effort to identify other proteins involved in npc1 function, mass spectrometry was employed. differences in the protein and phosphotidylinositol (pi) composition of wild type and mutant npc1 membranes were identified. changes in pi composition could lead to changes in the recruitment of tubule-inducing proteins to npc1 membranes. proteins identified as absent from npc1 mutant membranes include cytoplasmic dynein, dynactin, and stard9, indicating a loss of microtubule based motility. to address the developmental impact of loss of npc1 function, zebrafish was developed as a new model system. morpholino-mediated knockdown of npc1 led to cholesterol accumulations, increased cell death, and delayed development. differentiation of neuronal cell types was also impaired in the morphant embryos, specifically purkinje neurons which are the cell type affected in human disease and the knockout mouse. npc1 function is required for the normal development of purkinje neurons in the developing zebrafish. taken together, these studies provide important information about the cellular, molecular, and developmental consequences on niemann pick type c disease. the work presented here has two primary components: 1) the identification and annotation of transposable elements (tes) and 2) a spatially-aware agent-based model of pathogen transmission. recent advances in sequencing technology have resulted in an explosion of genomic data. the identification of tes is an important part of every genome project. this dissertation presents an automated homology-based approach to identify tes, implemented as teseeker, that produces consensus tes up to 98 identical to manually annotated sequences. it also offers a design and implementation plan to allow for the inclusion of tes on vectorbase's community annotation pipeline. agent-based modeling is very adept at modeling natural phenomena. coupling geographical information system (gis) data with agent-based modeling further increases the utility of such simulations. this dissertation presents a gis aware agent-based model of pathogen transmission as well as methods and recommendations for incorporating gis data into a simulation. the model, named link, was specifically developed to study the impact of landscape on pathogen transmission. superconductivity is described by its electronic and magnetic properties. one way to explore unconventional superconductors is to examine how these properties of superconductors behave differently along different crystalline directions in various materials. the magnetic behavior for many of these materials is highly anisotropic, meaning the basal plane superconducting length scales are quite different than that of the c axis. in this work, the superconducting length scales were explored by novel small angle neutron scattering (sans) techniques of the vortex lattice. unconventional superconductors were placed in a magnetic field, which induced a vortex lattice whose properties reflect the overall superconducting state. the description of the vortex lattice reveals direct insights into the nature of superconductivity in the studied materials. in the iron based superconductor kfe2as2, sans was used to show, for the first time, simultaneous evidence for multiband superconductivity and pauli paramagnetism. in the unconventional superconductor sr2ruo4 a polarized sans method was developed. this was used to find evidence for multiband superconductivity as well as evidence for nodes or deep minima in the order parameter. this dissertation consists of three independent but related essays that explore different aspects of triadic evolution in a large-scale mobile phone network. the first essay tries to examine the randomness and robustness of the triangle decay and formation processes. by comparing the real and simulated transitional patterns, strong triadic preservation effect is detected and embeddedness in triangles keeps the node(s) and edge(s) from decaying. even-higher-level comparisons are also made and i find that the square and pentagon decay over time by a stochastic random process. however, all the configuration formation processes at triadic, tetradic, and pentadic levels are not formed by chance. they come into being according to a systematic process in the real network. since we have known that the triangle decay and formation are not following a random process, the second essay analyzes the factors that could explain both triangle formation and persistence. based on the logistic regression models, i find that most influencing factors at multiple levels have the same effects on the triangle survival and formation from structural holes processes. i also review various theories of triangle formation and persistence &ndash; balance theory, predisposition theory, tie strength theory, status homophily theory and embeddedness theory &ndash; and assess the extent to which reported findings are consistent with these theories. real social networks are often compared to random graphs in order to assess whether their typological structure could be the result of random processes. however, an erd&#337;s-r nyi random graph in large scale is often lack of local structure beyond the dyadic level and as a result we need to generate the clustered random graph instead of the simple random graph to compare the local structure at the triadic level. in the third essay a generalized version of gleeson's algorithm is advanced to generate a clustered random graph in large-scale which persists the number of nodes |v|, the number of edges |e|, and the global clustering coefficient as in the real network. and it also has advantages in randomness evaluation and computation time. interest in religious socialization and identity formation represents a convergence between developmentalists and sociologists who research religion. a line of inquiry explored by smith and sikkink emphasizes the effect of socialization and identity formation on religious outcomes, finding correspondence to marcia's typology based on commitment and exploration. the second wave of the national study of youth and religion was used to test for the effects of parenting styles and youth autonomy on religious outcomes. measures of parental socialization and youth identity formation were developed from panel study data and tested using ordered logic regression. youth of high tension religion were found to have a strong religious commitment while parental constraints were found to be insignificantly associated to religious outcomes and parental solidarity showed mixed results. several directions for future research on parental socialization patterns are recommended. many modern applications motivate variations on standard caching problems. caching is the use of fast storage to serve frequently-requested data replicated from a slow data source. applications can involve requests for multiple data objects (or "file bundles"), queries with results much smaller than the data they access, or updates to data at the source. database applications can involve all of these properties, and the increasing rate at which they transfer data necessitates an efficient, general, and rigorous approach to managing caches that serve their data. this work presents dynamicbypass, an o(log^2 k)-competitive randomized online algorithm that is the first online solution to this and other noteworthy problems. this algorithm is tractable in terms of memory and computation and has bounded overhead for control communication. this work also contains an o(k)-competitive deterministic online version of dynamicbypass and several transformations that address simpler caching problems. recent conceptualizations of depression and supporting empirical work suggests that elevations and alleviations of depressive symptoms can be understood from a dynamic systems perspective. in parallel, researchers have turned to network models to study characteristics of the depression system. many of these studies have focused on individual differences, however, modeling between-person and group-level differences in network models of depression. given that individual differences do not necessarily elucidate intraindividual change, the present study aimed to further the study of depression as a system by exploring whether density of depressive affect at the daily timescale differs within individuals at five different timepoints across a ten-year span. further, density of depressive affect was used as a time-varying and time-invariant covariate in a transition model to predict individual's likelihood of transitioning into or being in a depressive mood state from year to year. density of the depressive affect cluster was shown to have moderate to low, however, significant stability over time, and majority of the variance in depressive affect density was found to reside within, as opposed to between, individuals. time-varying depressive affect density in conjunction with individuals time-varying levels of average negative affect was found to be significantly related to the likelihood of being in a depressed mood state at the next wave for individuals who were in a depressive mood state at the previous wave. the results of these individual-level analyses are discussed in terms of a dynamic systems perspective of depression and implications of the results for clinical interventions are considered. the central concerns of my dissertation are the meaning of gender-just peace and the methods for pursuing it. entering an ongoing debate within peace studies about the united nations' top-down, institutions-oriented "liberal peace," i use ethnographic research with women's peacebuilding groups in india alongside feminist political thought to argue for a "critical feminist justpeace," developed from the bottom-up and taking the diverse experiences of marginalized women as motivation. women in manipur, india, try to build peace across ethnic, religious, and class-based boundaries. i analyze their practices, synthesizing them into a peacebuilding "praxis"—reflection combined with action with the goal of transformation—which we can fruitfully compare to western feminist thought. this comparison of praxis and theory suggests that where the liberal peace fails women, a radically inclusive critical feminist justpeace will come closer to success. such a peace is never achieved, but is rather an on-going process of contestation and relationship-building across divisions of power and privilege. this research explores inp-based tunnel diodes to supplement existing memory and high speed ic technology. tunneling-based static random access memory (tsram) uses the bistability of tunnel diodes to construct memory elements and requires tunnel diodes with peak currents exceeding transistor leakage currents, high peak-to-valley ratio (pvr) and low valley currents and voltages. inalas-ingaas resonant interband tunnel diodes (ritd) were investigated for tsram through design, fabrication and electrical characterizations. in particular, the effects of doping density, barrier thicknesses and alloy composition on the ritd properties were studied. tunnel diodes with peak and valley currents spanning 5 orders of magnitude, with pvrs as high as 70 were demonstrated through 3x variation in the effective doping density. valley currents as low as 0.07 na/ extmu m$^2$, which is the lowest reported for tsram tunnel diodes, and valley voltages as low as 250 mv were demonstrated. submicron device scaling was explored through the development of a fabrication process. to reduce the parasitics in tunnel diode/transistor integrated circuits, a novel self-aligned contact process using dielectric spacers and benzocyclobutene etchback was developed. silicon nitride and oxide spacer sidewalls were demonstrated through the development of anisotropic plasma etches. inp-based monolithically integrated resonant tunnel diodes and heterojunction bipolar transistors were fabricated using this process and electrically characterized. this dissertation is a collection of empirical essays encompassing labor, development, and population economics. together, they seek to understand how economic forces and incentives shape individual choices around family formation, health, and the quality of life, using rigorous identification strategies. my first two chapters study the gender-bias of technological change, and how these changes influence choices regarding fertility and mortalitysome of the most consequential choices individuals make in their lives. these chapters cover settings in the developing and developed worlds, emphasizing how the prevalence and impacts of gender-specific technological change have universal relevance. my third chapter studies how individual voluntary behavior can influence health and the quality of life in local communities by focusing attention on environmental problems and changing the way people approach climate-relevant decisions over their lifetimes.in my first chapter, agricultural technological change, female earnings, and fertility: evidence from brazil, i study the bias of technological change in developing countries. in these settings, the technological frontier is in agriculture, where tasks and occupations are starkly divided along gendered lines. i turn to the context of brazil, which became an early adopter of new agricultural technologies when it legalized genetically engineered (ge) soy in 2003. i first establish new evidence of the gender-bias of technological change in agriculture, finding that the adoption of ge soy constituted a large negative demand shock to women's work in agriculture, without any reallocation of their labor into other sectors of the economy. ge soy adoption had opposite effects on male employment in agriculture, increasing men's and overall family earnings.then i turn to understanding how these differential effects on men's and women's earnings affect family decision-making. i write down a simple beckerian model of fertility to show how these labor market changes can incentivize higher fertility. assuming that children are normal goods and that women bear most of the time cost of childcare, ge soy adoption generates positive income effects for children by increasing male and overall family earnings. by reducing female earnings, it lowers the opportunity cost of time, generating positive substitution effects that further reinforce the income effects. using administrative records from birth certificates in brazil, i confirm the predictions of the model, and show that this female-labor saving technological change led to economically meaningful and persistent increases in fertility. i interpret these results as showing that economic development and technological change may not improve economic opportunity for women or promote fertility decline, contrary to historical experience.in my second chapter, blue collar booms and american mortality: evidence from us counties, which is joint work with paul shaloka, we study whether a long-run technology-induced increase in economic opportunity for prime aged men can reverse rising mortality trends in the u.s. around the turn of the 21st century, the u.s. has experienced a precipitous rise in mortality driven by suicides, drug overdoses, and alcoholic liver disease for lower-skilled men, coined 'deaths of despair.' while research is untangling the role of economic decline in causing this rise in mortality, there is little evidence of whether expansions in economic opportunity can reverse these trends. we investigate this by exploiting the large increase in hydraulic fracturing (fracking) across the country. the fracking boom represents significant, positive economic changes to local economies, chiefly by providing well-paying jobs for lower skilled male workers. it therefore represents another example of a gender-biased technological shock in a different setting that can have consequences on important life decisions.we combine two sources of proprietary data in order to carry out our strategy. we first use restricted all-cause mortality data from the centers for disease control and prevention (cdc) to identify the race, sex, and primary cause of death from all registered death certificates in the u.s. from 1990-2018. to implement our empirical strategy, we purchase shapefiles on how amenable the underling geological features of different regions of the u.s. are to fracking technologies. using this data, we compare mortality outcomes in counties best suited to take advantage of the fracking boom based on its pre-existing geological characteristics with those less able to. we find that fracking led to large increases in earnings and employment for prime-aged men, and that fracking led to reductions in mortality, driven by suicides, for young men. this suggests that some components of 'deaths of despair' are economically driven and speaks to the efficacy of using policies that promote local employment growth as a tool to combat rising mortality.my final chapter, every day is earth day: evidence on the long-term impact of environmental activism, is joint work with dr. daniel hungerman. in this paper, we are interested in whether ordinary people's voluntary actions matter in improving societal well-being. we estimate the benefits of activism, and particularly environmental activism, by considering the original earth day, april 22, 1970. we study how participation on earth day affected a community's environmental attitudes, air quality, and children's health. we circumvent concerns over reverse causality by exploiting the weather on the original earth day celebration. unexpectedly good or bad weather are essentially random events, unrelated to other factors that affect these outcomes. combining weather data from 1970 with survey data and newspaper archives, we provide both quantitative and qualitative evidence that worse weather on earth day is associated with lower participation. we then provide evidence that communities with more participation on the original earth day had more favorable attitudes towards the environment, particularly for those who were school aged at the time of earth day. then, we show these communities experienced better air quality, driven by lower levels of carbon monoxide, decades after the event took place. we finally show that they had improved infant health, measured by lower incidences of congenital abnormalities. these results show that voluntary social behavior can shape the trajectories and improve the quality of life within communities in consequential and long-lasting ways. although a comparatively recent discovery, induced pluripotent stem cells (ipscs) have enabled astonishing advancements in numerous fields of study – particularly in the areas of regenerative medicine and personalized disease therapeutics. by returning fully-differentiated adult cells to a pluripotent state, ipscs capture the unique genetic context of their parental cell source, and have allowed researchers to model diseases affecting hard-to-study tissues, to study the complex three-dimensional arrangement of cell types in organ development, and to develop stem cell-based therapies for conditions ranging from retinal degeneration to diabetes.stem cell-based therapies have a long history in diseases of the hematopoietic system, where hematopoietic stem cell transplants – most familiarly in the form of bone marrow transplants from healthy donors – have been the standard of care for over forty years, often due to a lack of more targeted therapeutic options because of an incomplete understanding of the complex interactions between genetic aberrations and the development and progression of disease. ipscs seemed to promise an exciting alternative option for patients, circumventing the current limitations of donor availability and potentially lethal immunological side effects, but thus far the production of transplantable hscs in vitro from any human pluripotent stem cell source has proven elusive.this dissertation represents a collection of studies utilizing the unique advantages of ipscs to produce novel insights into both normal and disease-state hematopoietic development, as well as to provide resources for future research. in short, these studies have identified novel mirna-modulated regulatory pathways enriched in genes differentially-expressed between functional human hscs and their genetically-matched ipsc-derived counterparts, providing previously unreported insights into recapitulating normal hematopoietic development in vitro. in parallel, these studies have also demonstrated both the therapeutic potential of ipscs for patients with genetically-driven hematological malignancies by producing karyotypically normal ipsc lines with restored differentiation potential from a patient sample of acute myeloid leukemia (aml), and the utility of ipscs as a disease modeling resource by producing the first report of a stable ipsc line from the leukemic hl-60 cell line. these findings lay the foundations for future studies to significantly advance our understanding of hematopoietic development and, in turn, aid in the production of novel therapeutic options for patients. thermoelectric (te) generators are a promising energy source as they naturally interconvert heat flux and induced voltages, and their solid-state nature makes them quite versatile. in order to synthesize te thin-films with user-tunable patterns on a variety of conformal substrates, there is a demand for alternatives to pressurized and thermal methods of thin-film printing such as chemical vapor deposition and magnetron sputtering, both of which require high energy expenditure and have material limitations. one such alternative is aerosol-jet printing (ajp), in which the sample requires additional sintering processing upon printing to evaporate the organic ink surfactants and induce agglomeration of the nanoparticles into a continuous body. sintering of particles occurs when the free energy of solubilized nanoparticles decreases and their boundaries merge in a process called necking, proceeding towards the monocrystal state. external energy is typically provided by thermal means such as furnaces or joule heating induced by a spark discharge in a process called spark plasma sintering (sps). a proposed nonthermal alternative is low temperature, atmospheric pressure plasma jets, characterized as plasmas with electron temperatures far exceeding that of the ionized gas particles and neutral species. a common way to generate this type of plasma jet is a dielectric barrier discharge (dbd), or an electrical discharge between two electrodes separated by a dielectric surface. since these jets are typically cylindrical in nature, and the ajp samples are rectangular in shape, two expanded nozzle plasma jets were studied in this work: a bell nozzle jet (bnj) and elongated slot jet (esj). the performance of these novel jets, along with a well-studied cylindrical jet, were characterized by their flow rate, applied voltage, and substrate-nozzle gap distance. imaging the three types of plasma discharges has shown that the bnj is prone to visual fluctuations, air breakdown, and external ionization wave propagation. it has also shown that applied voltage significantly affects plasma intensity, volume, and power, while flow rate and gap do not. thus, the esj was selected for use of sintering bismuth telluride (bi2te3) and silver nanoparticle (ag np) ajp thin-films, as well as vacuum-filtrated silver selenide (ag2se) thin-films.the esj was shown to be unsuccessful in sintering bi2te3 and ag np thin-films. bi2te3 sintering was unsuccessful as the electrical resistance increased after sintering and reverted to &gt;100 mω in all samples over the next two days. though the target measured resistance of &lt;100 ω was achieved for four total ag np samples, the wide variability within treatment groups across 15 total samples for no discernable reason indicates unsuccessful sintering. ag2se sintering was successful in achieving fairly consistent resistances less than 100 ω, but te properties, namely seebeck coefficient (s) and power factor (pf) had diminished. scanning electron microscopy (sem) and energy dispersive x-ray analysis (edx) showed severe selenium (se) loss of 89%, thus indicating that the silver was being sintered causing conductivity. cold-pressing (cp) the samples at 25 mpa upon synthesis caused reduction of se loss to 44% after esj sintering, a 50% improvement. proposed future paths of fine-tuning an esj sintering protocol for ag2se include using helium instead of argon plasmas, as helium ions deliver softer collisions to the sample surface, and intensively characterizing the sintering results from tuning flow rates and applied voltages. passengers is a collection of short stories. this dissertation is an exploration of the aged and aging in the &#321;&#243;d&#378; ghetto from 1939 to 1944. the first two years of german occupation and jewish subjugation from may 1940 to september 1942 provide the chronological focus for my analysis of the experiences of older jews in the &#321;&#243;d&#378; ghetto. aged jews in the ghetto struggled for their own survival and contributed to the wellbeing of the larger community. constant negotiations between the needs of older jews and various communal objectives generated moments of solidarity and revealed devastating tensions within the community. the escalating policies of german authorities during the first years of the ghetto period created an environment in which possibilities of survival among the elderly dwindled. negotiations for survival in the contexts of work, family, and communal life reveal the degradation of fundamental social structures. through the lens of aging, both actual and metaphorical, this dissertation reveals connections between the fate of the aged in the ghetto and the community as a whole. in early september 1942 german authorities led a violent assault on the jewish community in the &#321;&#243;d&#378; ghetto that targeted jews under the age of ten and over the age of sixty-five for murder. during the week of 5 september 16,500 jews were torn from community institutions and family dwellings, contained in collections points, and loaded on trains bound for the death camp at che&#322;mno. no family was left untouched, and all were engulfed by grief over the death of loved ones. the community's oldest generation was killed overnight. the collection of individuals that remained alive in the &#321;&#243;d&#378; ghetto in the wake of this mass murder experienced the phenomenon of rapid collective aging. from 1939 through 1942, german policies ensured the deaths of tens of thousands of elderly jews in the &#321;&#243;d&#378; ghetto and the hallmarks of a vibrant, cohesive jewish community died. tumorigenic mammary epithelial cells have been found to gain the ability to survive in the absence of important signals provided by the extracellular matrix (ecm). however, the precise molecular mechanisms by which normal epithelial cells are able to gain the ability to survive without the ecm have yet to be unveiled. likewise, the mechanisms in place to prevent the survival of non-tumorigenic cells detached from the ecm are also poorly characterized. previous publications and work in our laboratory have found that there is a striking elevation in the levels of reactive oxygen species (ros) when mammary epithelial cells are detached from the ecm. interestingly, these increased levels of ros result in the inhibition of fatty acid oxidation (fao) and can contribute to the induction of cell death. these data suggest that detachment-induced ros may be important in the prevention of survival of detached cells. in order to understand the implications of these studies, my project investigated the significance of metabolic regulation during ecm-detachment in cancer cells. my studies have uncovered a novel role for antioxidant enzymes in modulating metabolic activity and survival in ecm-detached breast cancer cells. in addition, these studies have unveiled a pi(3)k-dependent but akt-independent signaling pathway involved in mediating metabolism and cell survival in detached cancer cells. our data indicate that the critical effector downstream of pi(3)k is serum/glucocorticoid regulated kinase 1 (sgk-1). together, our data strongly suggests that ecm-detached cancer cells must overcome detachment induced metabolic alterations in order to survive. our work provides strong motivation for future studies investigating the importance of antioxidants and sgk-1 activation in ecm-detachment. a novel mantle characterization is vital for understanding magmatism. the notion that source characteristics are preserved transparently in primitive magmas from mantle to eruption can be misleading. the crust acts a cool density filter leading primitive magmas to pool, partially crystallize, and thus evolve. the details of this evolution are seldom completely born out by whole-rock geochemistry. during crustal processing of magmas, crystal populations may be recycled between geochemical reservoirs such as end-members involved in magma mixing, assimilated country rock, or from variably evolved zones of a solidifying magma body. crystals act as physical vessels to carry compositional and temporal information about magma evolution beyond whole-rock compositions. textural and microanalytical approaches differ from whole-rock approaches, because they provide a way to dissect crystal populations to reveal their chemical evolution as well as physical details of their nucleation and growth. retrieval of these types of information are vital for understanding crustal magma evolution. the overarching goal of this work is to better understand the physical manner in which magmas solidify, and hence evolve, remains a fundamental problem in igneous petrology. i use crystal size distributions to identify related crystal populations. i use epma, la-icp-ms, and a microdrilling sr isotope method to understand the provenance of select plagioclase crystals. this work is focused upon understanding the petrogenesis of basaltic magmas. the ontong java plateau is the size of greenland yet basalt compositions across the plateau vary little. i propose a thick complex magma chamber system acted to buffer magma compositions, but at the plateau edge magmas were subjected to less density filtration and thus show more diversity. highly depleted detroit seamount basalts formed during late cretaceous interaction of the hawaiian hotspot with a spreading center. some of these basalts contain evidence of magma mixing between unique melts from the hotspot source. i see no role for oib-morb magma mixing. plagioclase dominated crystallization pre-dates peak crustal assimilation at elan ban, kerguelen plateau. magma chamber systems beneath each setting studied are complex and multichambered. future microanalytical work should focus on use of other isotope systems and use of laser ablation methods. we consider the class of vc-minimal theories, as introduced by adler in [2]. after covering some basic results, including a notion of generic types, we consider two kinds of vc-minimal theories: those whose generating directed families are unpackable and almost unpackable. we introduce two new decompositions of definable sets in vc-minimal theories, the layer decomposition and the irreducible decomposition, which allow for more precision than the standard swiss cheese decompositon with regard to parameters. finally, after introducing a slight generalization of the classical notions of forking and dividing, we prove that in any vc-minimal or quasi-vc-minimal theory whose generating family is unpackable or almost unpackable, forking of formulae over a model m is equivalent to containment in a global m -definable type, generalizing a result of dolich on o-minimal theories in [8]. on december 2013, a seven-justice panel of the israeli supreme court ruled 5-2 that a three-year-old ethiopian toddler would remain with his foster non-ethiopian family rather than being adopted by his ethiopian aunt. this paper analyzes the supreme court decision, showing how the justices use discursive tactics to divorces the child's ethiopian origin from the larger context of israel's racial and ethnic formation. by using these five tactics of color-blindness, denying blackness, reduction of ethnicity, individualism, and dichotomizing certainly/uncertainty and intuitive/evidence, the supreme court introduced bias into its decision. while the court's decision might appear to be an isolated decision in a particular case, it should be read in the socio-historical context of the phenomenology of race, ethnicity, and discrimination in israel that is, in the context of the ongoing discrimination and marginalization of non-ashkenazi jews in israeli society. this supposedly specific case of adoption and the israeli regulations and practices surrounding adoption work together to marginalize ethiopian jews under the cover of the law, and it proclaims to neutrality. while israel's adoption law demands religious matching between the adopting parents and the adoptee, it does not deal with questions surrounding ethnic matching. in addition, ethiopian babies waiting for adoption are labeled by social services as 'special needs' babies, meaning they have fewer potential parents interested in adopting them. given the special role of parenting and especially motherhood in israeli pro-natal society and given the role of families in constructing group boundaries, the case of the 'kidnapped prince' is shown to be more than a private case. it is an expression of the phenomenology of race, ethnicity, and discrimination in israel or in other words, of what it means to be an ethiopian in israel. it is a case in which 'israeliness' and belonging to the israeli collective are determined by ashkenazi hegemonies. this work is a collection of thematically and stylistically interconnected memoir essays and stories that explore themes surrounding gender, religion, family, and community in order to create a broad illustration of life as an orthodox jewish woman in america. in early stage xenopus oocytes, transcription factor iiia (tfiiia) and 5s rrna form a 7s rnp particle, which is used to store the rna in cytoplasm. starting at stage iii, tfiiia is replaced by ribosomal protein l5 on the rna. despite using different recognition elements, association of tfiiia and l5 to 5s rrna is mutually exclusive due to the overlapping binding sites. it is of importance to determine the topology of tfiiia and l5 on 5s rrna in order to understand the mechanism behind the exchange of 5s rrna between these two proteins. to pinpoint the chemical groups on 5s rrna which are important for the binding of tfiiia and l5, nucleotide analog interference mapping (naim) was used. a variety of adenosine and guanosine analogs were chosen, which contain modifications to the base, ribose or phosphate moieties. tfiia interference sites are clustered in loop a and loop e, which is consistent with a recent crystal structure. however, some features have been identified which are not apparent in that structure. for example, strong interference has been observed with phosphorothioate adenosine at position 13, which can not be accounted for by the crystal structure. removal of the 2åáå_ hydroxyl group at a11 causes pronounced interference, which can be reversed by replacement with fluorine; yet there is no hydrogen bond to this moiety in the crystal structure. interference sites for l5 are located in helix iii and loop c. the interference by må£`aå£s and 7daå£s analogs at a50 and the dapå£s analog at position a49 indicate that the two unpaired adenosines in helix iii form an a-platform upon binding l5. the må£`aå£s analog at a11 enhances the binding of l5, which indicates that the protein likely binds to loop a by stacking on a11. interestingly, tfiiia also binds to loop a through a stacking interaction between trp 177 and a11. this is the only example where these two structurally distinct proteins make similar contacts to the 5s rrna. a 30 kda tfiiia fragment is observed in the late stage oocytes when the tfiiia-l5 exchange reaction occurs. an in vitro exchange experiment shows that a 30 kda peptide corresponding to the n-terminal portion of tfiiia can be replaced by l5 on 5s rrna, while the full-length tfiiia can not be replaced, indicating that programmed cleavage of tfiiia at the c-terminal end controls the exchange reaction. a considerable body of evidence suggests that life stress is related to the onset and course of depression. people who become depressed following a severe life event, however, vary greatly in the time-to-onset of their depressions, with some meeting and maintaining depression symptom criteria within days or weeks of experiencing a life event and others not meeting symptom or diagnostic criteria for several months. few data exist, however, that describe and elucidate the interval of time between a severe life event and the onset of depression, the factors that may influence the interval, the implication interval variance may have for treatment considerations, and what such variation may reveal about a primary hypothesis of depression ì¢ ââ' the kindling hypothesis. since a history of depressive episodes is one of the strongest predictors of future episodes of depression, the present study examined the association of depression history (i.e., first episode versus recurrence) and the time-to-onset of depression following a severe life event. this approach permitted an evaluation of stress sensitization, a premise derived from the kindling hypothesis, which suggests that people who are 'kindled' or sensitized by previous episodes of depression should succumb to depression more quickly than people without a history of depression. the results indicate that depression history alone is not predictive of the time-to-onset of depression following a severe life-event. post-hoc analyses were conducted to examine two potential moderators of the time-to-onset of depression, allelic variation in the serotonin transporter gene and the focus of severe life events. both variables moderated the time-to-onset of depression following a severe life event. townships were creating during apartheid as part of a policy of racial separation and disenfranchisement of black south africans. over 20 years since the end of apartheid, they remain in the urban landscape as a reminder of the continued racialized disparity in the country as they continue to be the economic margins of the city. despite this, for many people who reside in townships, they are not simply 'margins' but social centers. this manuscript explores townships as social margins through a social formation, a way of being in the world, an aesthetic form, that residents use to describe this social value: what they refer to as vibes. taking vibes as a guiding analytic, this manuscript argues that vibes are a complex web of social aesthetics, embodied ways of being in the world, and emerge as a kind of social legibility. vibes are therefore an aspect of daily life that residents ascribe value to, complicating current understandings of townships as simply and solely marginal and violent, places. alongside challenges of living in places crafted through various forms of structural violence, people's lives are not simply defined by these experiences. townships are also experienced through vibes, which shape people's experiences of living in townships, and thus shape township geographies. detecting trace amounts of molecules, such as early stage disease biomarkers or explosives, requires sensing with very small quantities of sample. optical measurement is a feasible way to do the sensitive chemical or biological measurement. specially, the mid-infrared (mir) region (wavelength, λ=4-12 ) of the electromagnetic spectrum contains unique fingerprints corresponding to vibrational modes of molecules. measuring the amount of light absorbed by these modes allows for highly sensitive and selective molecular detection and has generated much attention in the fields of chemical and biological sensing and explosive imaging. the recent development of the quantum cascade laser (qcl) provides a compact mir source, feasible for incorporation into on-chip optical systems as compact and portable platforms for sensing and imaging. however, incorporating a qcl into an on-chip chemical or biological sensor, or in a beam combining platform for imaging, is challenging with the currently available techniques. while on-chip optical systems can be realized monolithically, where all optical components (source, beam combining platform, detection medium, detector etc.) are fabricated on the qcl substrate, this scheme is not economically feasible as qcl material is very expensive (~$10k/sq-in). an alternative modular approach, where the system components are fabricated on separate substrates, requires labor extensive butt coupling, complex and expensive fiber alignment, or grating coupling to transmit light from the laser to the other system components. as a result, an improved semiconductor packaging technique for low-cost, highly efficient optical coupling is highly desirable in order to incorporate qcls into quasi-monolithic on-chip optical systems. in this dissertation, a new and highly efficient optical coupling technique, optical quilt packaging (oqp), is modeled, fabricated and characterized. oqp aligns waveguides of separate substrates by protruding, lithographically-defined interdigitated copper nodules for low-loss chip-to-chip optical coupling.in this dissertation, the feasibility of oqp is firstly evaluated by theoretical modeling using the eigenmode expansion technique. next, simulations are performed to quantify the coupling loss associated with the oqp devices. according to the simulation results, the optical coupling loss between a qcl laser and a low-cost ge-on-si waveguide can be no worse than 7 db, when the inter-chip distance is 4 or lower. additional waveguide geometries are also modeled to aid fabrication design and reduce the lateral misalignment loss. next, conventional semiconductor fabrication processes are used to fabricate the first oqp chip, where two separate ge-on-si waveguides are aligned with an inter-chip distance of ~4.6 , and with a lateral misalignment of ~1 . based on the simulation results, the expected coupling loss for the fabricated ge-on-si oqp device is ~5 db. the inter-chip gap is reduced further in a second oqp chip to ~1.4 , where copper alignment nodules are fabricated by sputter deposition. finally, an mir quantum cascade laser is used to measure the optical coupling loss of the fabricated oqp sample. the mir light is focused to the ge-on-si waveguide facet and corresponding light transmission through the waveguides is measured. the oqp inter-chip coupling loss was measured to be 9.0±0.1 db when the inter-chip gap was in air and 4.1±0.3 db when filled with index-matching as2s3 glass. these results represent lower loss than previously reported chip-to-chip mir optical coupling via butt-coupling (~10 db), fiber coupling (as low as ~10 db), and grating coupling (tens of db loss).the initial optical coupling results suggest, oqp is a low-loss chip-to-chip mir optical coupling technique. in the next phase of the oqp research, qcl chips will be incorporated in this new oqp fabrication process to realize an on-chip modular scheme for explosive imaging. while the clear majority of membrane separations processes are dominated by size-selectivity, the field of chemically-functionalized membranes is rapidly expanding. these membranes offer control of mass transfer by manipulating its nanostructure. still, these processes largely involve the permeation of the majority of solution across the membrane layer. there are several separation processes for which this is highly inefficient, particularly dilute systems, like sensors and wastewater reuse. it would be more energetically favorable to transport only the large, dilute contaminants, while leaving behind the small solvent molecules. this can be made possible by tuning the surface chemistries of the membrane, which is, in turn, made possible by the field of surface patterning. template assisted ink-jet printing of polymeric materials is an effective method of patterning permeable surfaces to design different nanostructures (i.e., nanotubes, nanowires, thin films) by simply varying printing conditions. furthermore, printing enables the patterning of different, opposing chemistries onto a single support, which can engender different transport phenomena that either individual component. the focus of this study was charge-patterned mosaic membranes, which contain bicontinuous, discrete domains of opposite charge. this unique morphology facilitates the transport of charged species through oppositely charged domains, leading to an enrichment (i.e., increased) concentration of salt in the permeate. due to past difficulty in producing charge-patterned mosaic membranes with well-defined nanostructures, development in this area has lagged, leading to a void in the understanding of the fundamental transport mechanisms. inkjet printing of nanomaterials, however, allowed for a facile, rapid, and reliable fabrication method to engender fine control over the microstructure, which subsequently affects membrane performance. this dissertation details a rigorous theoretical model to explain this unusual transport behavior and validated it with experimental observations made possible by the unique ability to produce both single-charged and charge-patterned membranes from the same chemistries. we showed that patterning the surface with multiple components produces an altogether different transport profile in the charge-patterned structure that is unlike either of its components. modern biblical scholarship on 1 corinthians has long recognized the presence of language and concepts most closely paralleled by stoic descriptions of the sage, as in 3:21–23; 4:8; and 6:12–20, and the sage's perspective on their relationship to other human beings, as in 12:1–11, 12–27.for all the cultural backgrounds adduced in support of the scholarly theory that paul addressed libertine believers at corinth in the letter, from gnosticism, to hellenistic judaism, to realized eschatology, and to the cynic-stoic hypothesis, one of the most enduring elements of the theory of libertine corinthians is the assumption that 3:21–23; 4:8; and 6:12–20 in some manner reflect corinthian claims to possess a perfect form of wisdom that justifies immoral conduct analogous to stoic claims to perfect wisdom.methodologically grounded in fresh comparative research on the native function of the stoic elements that appear in 1 corinthians within the stoic ethical system, my dissertation demonstrates that stoic descriptions of the sage and the sage's perspective did not function as self-descriptions of one's wisdom or to justify immoral behavior, but were used by stoic teachers to orient their students' moral aspirations and training towards the goal of benefitting others in line with a normative understanding of the common good. based on this research, i propose that the corinthians to which paul wrote were not libertine but ascetics, who practiced christian eschatological forms of sexual abstinence and the consumption of pagan sacrificial meat as means of developing individual self-control, and that paul draws on stoic descriptions of the sage and the sage's perspective in the letter to reorient their ethical practice and aspirations from caring for themselves to caring for the morally "weak" among them.i argue that paul uses the stoic community-oriented model of a cosmic body linking its human members to one another through one divine spirit to reinterpret the recognized corinthian rituals of the lord's supper and inspired speech-acts as lessons designed to teach the corinthians a new form of wisdom, a wisdom centered on treating one another as members of the one "body of christ." image segmentation is a fundamental problem in biomedical image analysis. in recent years, deep learning methods have emerged and continued to prosper as powerful tools for natural scene image segmentation. while biomedical image segmentation is in close relation to natural scene image segmentation, general deep learning methods for natural scene images may not work well on biomedical applications because of two unique properties of biomedical images. first, biomedical images can be true 3d volumetric images, which post significant challenges on computational approaches and computation resources, while most natural scene images are 2d images. second, only trained biomedical experts can annotate biomedical images well, which makes it quite expensive and difficult to obtain sufficient training data. in this dissertation, we develop new deep learning based approaches specifically targeting these two unique properties of biomedical images. to achieve accurate segmentation on 3d biomedical images, we propose a new ensemble learning framework to unify the merits of 2d and 3d deep learning models. to reduce the annotation burden for biomedical images, we propose novel methods to (1) improve the effectiveness of manual annotation by suggesting the most useful object samples to annotate and (2) improve the efficiency of manual annotation by allowing inexact "rough" labeling. extensive experiments on various biomedical image segmentation datasets show that our methods can achieve state-of-art performance while reducing significant amounts of annotation efforts. for at least ninety years, scholars have commented upon the presence of interrupted speech in the acts of the apostles. despite the many references to interrupted speeches in commentaries and monographs, there have been very few attempts to discern what the function of these interruptions might be, and even these scattered efforts frequently contradict each other. this dissertation argues that luke uses interruption rhetorically to underscore his twin theological emphases on the resurrection of the christ and the mission to the gentiles. given the paucity of scholarly treatments of lukan interruption, a fresh round of conversation partners has been called to the table. surveying works from homer's iliad to josephus' jewish war to chariton's callirhoe, this dissertation identifies and categorizes the forms, functions, and frequency of interruption in greek authors who lived and wrote between the eighth-century b.c.e. and the second-century c.e. this survey of interrupted speech in ancient greek epics, histories, and novels grounds the analysis of luke-acts within a larger understanding of how intentional interruption functions in a wide variety of literary settings, illustrating both how lukan usage converges with and diverges from contemporary models. this dissertation demonstrates that luke uses interruption as a literary device both in acts and in the gospel according to luke. the frequent interruptions of luke-acts are designed both to highlight the pivotal closing words of the discourses and to draw attention to the ways in which the early christian gospel was received. in the end, the interrupted discourses are best understood not as historical accidents, but as rhetorical exclamation points intended to highlight key elements of the early christian message and their varied reception by jews and gentiles. human language is full of compositional syntactic structures, and although neural networks have contributed to groundbreaking improvements in computer systems that process language, widely-used neural network architectures still exhibit limitations in their ability to process syntax. to address this issue, prior work has proposed adding stack data structures to neural networks, drawing inspiration from theoretical connections between syntax and stacks. however, these methods employ deterministic stacks that are designed to track one parse at a time, whereas syntactic ambiguity, which requires a nondeterministic stack to parse, is extremely common in language. in this dissertation, we remedy this discrepancy by proposing a method of incorporating nondeterministic stacks into neural networks. we develop a differentiable data structure that efficiently simulates a nondeterministic pushdown automaton, representing an exponential number of computations with a dynamic programming algorithm. since it is differentiable end-to-end, it can be trained jointly with other neural network components using standard backpropagation and gradient descent. we incorporate this module into two predominant architectures: recurrent neural networks (rnns) and transformers. we show that this raises their formal recognition power to arbitrary context-free languages, and also aids training, even on deterministic context-free languages. empirically, neural networks with nondeterministic stacks learn context-free languages much more effectively than prior stack-augmented models, including a language with theoretically maximal parsing difficulty. we also show that an rnn augmented with a nondeterministic stack is capable of surprisingly powerful behavior, such as learning cross-serial dependencies, a well-known non-context-free pattern. we demonstrate improvements on natural language modeling and provide analysis on a syntactic generalization benchmark. this work represents an important step toward building systems that learn to use syntax in more human-like fashion. glucose oxidase (gox) and horseradish peroxidase (hrp) are the most frequently used enzyme pair to demonstrate the feasibility and advantages of multienzyme systems. the concept has therefore been developed, which is based on a simultaneous application of glucose oxidase and horseradish peroxidase. starting with glucose as a substrate for glucose oxidase (gox), hydrogen peroxide (h2o2) was generated in situ. using the cascade reaction carried out by gox and hrp as a model system, this study aimed to evaluate the chosen phenolic contaminant degradation efficiency by combining the biocatalytic activity of hrp with the combination of gox. the bienzymatic system was characterized by determining the activity profile as a function of ph and temperature. the optimum ph value of the enzyme activity was found as 5. the temperature profile of the bienzymatic system of gox-hrp exhibited higher relative activity at 30 °c. finally, the bienzymatic system of gox-hrp was tested for the degradation of three model phenolic contaminants, which were acetaminophen (apap), bisphenol a (bpa), and 2,4-dichlorophenol (dcp). the enzymatic reaction was able to reach over 80% for apap degradation, and almost complete removal for both bpa and 2,4-dcp. the peroxidases are enzymes that unfortunately inactivated rapidly at h2o2 concentrations. this study also showed the low degradation efficiencies of phenolic contaminants were observed at 3mm h2o2. the result shown that the combination of gox-hrp could reduce the issue of inactivation of hrp at h2o2-dependent oxidation for phenolic contaminant degradation. these findings demonstrated that bienzymatic system of gox-hrp mediated oxidative coupling reaction can potentially serve as an alternative strategy to degrade certain phenolic contaminants in water/wastewater treatment. medical imaging is critical for cancer screening, diagnosis, preoperative planning, and monitoring progression or treatment. computed tomography (ct) is the first-line imaging modality for diagnostic imaging due to its low cost, wide availability, and high spatiotemporal resolution for anatomic imaging. image contrast in ct is derived from differences in the x-ray attenuation of tissues. the primary limitations of ct are relatively low soft tissue contrast and sensitivity (10-1-10-2 m), but contrast agents, such as iodine, can improve the detection of soft tissues with similar attenuation by increasing the signal-to-noise ratio without increasing the radiation dose to the patient. nanoparticle (np) contrast agents can enable delivery of a greater mass concentration of the x-ray attenuating element per particle or molecule compared with molecular agents (i.e., iodine) and leverage absorption edges located near the mean photon energy of the photon energy spectrum in clinical ct systems. therefore, the overall objective of this research was to investigate novel np imaging probes for immunotargeting cancer cells and maximizing x-ray contrast in ct. immunotargeted gold nanoparticles (au@sio2-anti-her2 nps) exhibited specific binding to her2+ cells and enabled contrast-enhanced detection of model her2+ breast cancer tumors as small as 1105 cells (0.5 mm diameter). moreover, photon-counting spectral ct enabled quantitative molecular imaging rather than only grayscale contrast in conventional ct. hafnium oxide (hfo2) nps of controlled size were prepared by a sol-gel process to investigate the interaction of hfo2 nps with x-ray and mid-infrared radiation to assess potential as a multifunctional diagnostic probe for x-ray ct and mid-infrared biosensing, respectively. hfo2 nps exhibited superior or similar x-ray contrast compared to au nps, while both exhibited significantly greater x-ray contrast compared to iodine, due to the favorable location of the k-shell absorption edge for hafnium and gold. hfo2 nps also exhibited strong mid-infrared absorption and negative permittivity, which can support localized surface phonon polariton modes at several frequencies and suggests potential as a mid-infrared biosensor.hfo2 nps were also prepared by hydrothermal syntheses to produce monodispersed, water-dispersible nps at relatively low temperature and high yield. hfo2 nps, ~90 nm in diameter and colloidally stable in cell culture media for up to 10 days, were not cytotoxic to hela and thp-1 cells at up to 0.8 mg/ml concentration and were successfully taken up in endosomes as early as 4 hours. however, further improvements in the size and morphology of hydrothermally-derived hfo2 nps were desired for in vivo delivery.therefore, the effects of adding a capping agent either before or after precursor hydrolysis and condensation, reactant concentration, reaction temperature, reaction time, capping agent, capping agent concentration, mineralizer concentration, and gadolinium dopant concentration were investigated on the size and morphology of as-prepared hfo2 nps.spherical hfo2 nps, ~4-6 nm in diameter, were prepared using a gadolinium dopant and sodium oleate capping agent. in summary, immunotargeted au@sio2-anti-her2 nps and hfo2 nps exhibited advantageous properties for potential use as novel x-ray contrast agents in diagnostic imaging. this thesis is a collection of poetry written from the perspective of a recluse. this paper is devoted to the understanding of structural changes in the us economy in the context of interindustry linkage. structural changes are studied in terms of productivity and inter-industry relations. while the former is frequently studied in the growth accounting framework of the mainstream economics, the latter is not paid due attention. while conventional growth accounting has developed to trace detailed industry sources, its methodology isolates each industry from the rest to some extent. on the other hand, the input-output accounting framework is a generalized output accounting with inter-industry relations as its essential key features and can be extended smoothly to productivity analysis. this thesis reaches three conclusions. first, the i-o accounting produces comparable results as the growth accounting in productivity analysis. from 1987 to 2000, the growth accounting shows the average annual rate of productivity growth rate of 0.90 while the i-o accounting shows that of factor saving of 1.23 percent. the fast growth in productivity and factor saving is not only noticeable in size but also qualitatively significant in the sense that active output growth was not accompanied by price increases. second, information technology industries made substantial contributions to reduce inflation as well as to productivity growth. the it sector contributes to productivity growth of about 40 percent in growth-accounting and to factor saving in i-o analysis as of about 15 percent from 1987 to 2000. the inter-industry context of i-o accounting provides a fertile ground to answer many policy-oriented questions about the economy. the outsourcing (domestically or internationally) of the manufacturing sector is an important issue in the us economy regarding the job loss. as the third part of the conclusion, the paper raises and confirms a hypothesis that there is a division of labor between sectors regarding employment and productivity. that is, the manufacturing sector contributes significantly to productivity, while the services sector does so to employment. it has become commonplace for mobile computing systems to be constructed using low-cost, commodity components for localization. while the expected error in consumer-grade sensors can still be acceptable for localization at human scale, all have fundamental limitations which manifest in different ways in different environments. cooperative localization techniques can compensate for these hardware limitations, facilitating robust positioning in location-sensitive mobile applications.four major challenges exist for developers of localized mobile systems. first, the nature of connectivity in mobile ad-hoc networks can often be highly sporadic, with frequent disconnects and changing topology. second, sensor error frequently occurs in unexpected ways, is produced by multiple sensors working in tandem, or exhibits much different behavior depending on the type of sensor. third, cooperative techniques for localization are difficult to implement effectively due to the lack of effective tools to measure spatial separation among mobile nodes. finally, mobile applications that rely on localization of remote network nodes can fail without accurate and precise positioning.the foundation of this work is a rigorous evaluation and discussion of sensor error as encountered in practice. this work examines sensor error, which can manifest in unexpected ways outside of controlled environments and applications, focusing on its effect on human-scale localization. data collected from both empirical measurement and outdoor exercises are used to construct error models, which are used to evaluate new ideas in mobile cooperative computing. a simulation environment for mobile ad hoc networks incorporating various models of localization error is presented.next, the utility of sharing such location information among cooperating users is explored. two methods are presented which can account for and reduce localization error using shared data, exploiting the independence of error among nodes in close proximity. a scenario-based evaluation approach is used to demonstrate possible techniques for using shared location information. system parameters required for effective utilization such data is also discussed. simulation trials show that up to 50 percent reduction in overall localization error can be realized in many cases using only commercial-grade sensors.finally, the effect of robust localization and error reduction at the application layer is studied. this is examined in the context of a new method for selecting available peers in a mobile network for the purpose of short-term data storage and retrieval. by weighting the utility of each remote node based on error metrics and the confidence level of those metrics, an increase in the effective availability of data in the system can be demonstrated. smallholder and subsistence-farming communities are communities of people who depend on natural resources for their livelihood, and who typically rely on long-term, inter-generational sharing of cultural knowledge concerning ecological systems, observations, and experiences of environmental processes. these types of communities account for 75\% of the world's farms, and people within these communities comprise 60\% of the worldwide agricultural workforce. recent research on the globalized impacts of climate change reveal profound disruptive effects at local levels in subsistence-farming communities and their surrounding ecosystems; and indicate the impacts of climate change are generally more extreme in contemporary subsistence-farming communities because these communities of people typically exist at the intersection of multiple, ever-changing, and potentially marginal dimensions of the human experience—the combination of which makes it more difficult to effectively address increasing periods of poor agricultural productivity as a result of climate change.studies on contemporary subsistence-farming communities repeatedly call for increasing our understanding of: the impacts of climate change on subsistence-farming communities; the populations most vulnerable to climate change; the adaptive measures available to communities to mitigate the effects of climate change, and; how the perception of climate change impacts householdand community-level responses to extreme weather events. each of these four lines of inquiry can be summarized under the larger umbrella of one centralized research question: what are the long-term impacts of sustained climate change on subsistence-farming communities?archaeological datasets provide a longitudinal scale to observe the inter-generational effects of sustained climate change that inform the ultimate, rather than the proximate causes of collapse in social and ecological systems. when examining climate change in deep time, patterns of resiliency, degradation, and collapse can be observed as a recurring phenomenon that repeat ad infinitum, or until absolute societal collapse. by observing populations throughout multiple cycles of resiliency and degradation in deep time, repeated technological innovation and dynamic social patterns reveal householdand community-level responses to changing climatic regimes, entrenched in traditional ecological knowledge, and implemented at multiple scales of social organization.the central mesa verde region in the northern us southwest provides an ideal case study to explore the effects of sustained climate change on subsistence-farming communities through multiple cycles of resilience and degradation, as ancestral pueblo people continuously occupied this arid, high-desert environment from 8000 bc through ad 1300, and successfully farmed this environmentally volatile space to reliably satisfy much of their annual caloric need from 200 bc through ad 1300. the following presentation discusses three articles pursuing a comprehensive understanding of the effects of sustained climate change on subsistence-farming communities by implementing a novel means of predicting household occupation on an annual timescale from ad 450 to 1300 across the central mesa verde region, measuring the efficacy of household-level efforts to mitigate the effects of annual environmental volatility by constructing local ecological niches for supplemental food production on the mesa verde cuesta from ad 890 to 1285, and combining the methods developed within these two projects to examine resiliency of four aggregated community centers on the mesa verde north escarpment from ad 890 to 1300. results from these research efforts provide insight into the compounding factors that augment the effects and perception of sustained climate change on subsistence-farming communities, contribute to identifying vulnerable populations during periods of climatic volatility, explore adaptive measures utilized by subsistence-farmers to mitigate the effects of sustained climate change, and observe how extreme climatic events can induce change at the householdand community-levels of social organization. many theologians have been influenced by johann metz's theology of memory. to examine metz's sources and how others expand upon his work, i propose a two-part thesis. part one arises from critical appraisal of sources upon which metz relies in formulating his idea of memory. while the thinkers metz draws upon are secular jewish philosophers, metz appropriates key notions in specifically theological ways by linking them with the memoria passionis of jesus christ and the jewish religious roots of memory. furthermore, metz's apocalyptic/eschatological hope for the future differs from secular and postmodern hopes for something surprising, new, and redemptive because metz advocates real, faith-filled content for these ideas. part two of the thesis is critical-constructive. metz's idea of memory has the potential to be more than an anthropological category. while reticent to speak of god's memory, anamnestic reason becomes a way of speaking about god's work of salvation for and with humanity. this becomes clearer when his idea of memory is considered in conjunction with the theology of god's memory in the writings of latin american liberation theologian gustavo guti rrez. the appropriation of metz's theological work on memory by scholars like elizabeth johnson, shawn copeland, johann vento, flora keshgegian, and bruce morrill bear witness to this potential. comparison and contrast is the way to describe what i intend to do. the first chapter aims at an exposition of what metz developed regarding memory, including changes over time. the second chapter consists of brief reflection on memory and pertinent topics in the philosophical thought of several people whom metz admits have influenced his theology. each section of the chapter will focus on the contribution of a thinker and then the way that metz has adapted the ideas. the third chapter will consider criticisms of metz's use of memory and possible responses that metz offers, or which one could offer on metz's behalf. chapter four continues to rely on comparison and contrast, but this time metz's thought is the baseline with which other theologians' use and understanding of memory will be compared. a magneto-transport study is presented of the (ga,mn)as thin films and their heterostructures grown in ultra-high vacuum molecular beam epitaxy (uhv mbe) chamber. the study includes the investigation of the anomalous hall effect (ahe) in (ga,mn)as epilayers, as well as the investigation of planar hall effect (phe) in (ga,mn)as-based heterostructures. the heterostructures include the exchange-bias (eb) structures composed of (ga,mn)as/mno, and magnetic tunneling junction (mtj) structures in which two ferromagnetic (ga,mn)as layers are separated by non-magnetic gaas spacer. in the ahe study, experiments were carried out on a series of samples with various mn concentrations x, ranging from 1.4% to 8%. results indicate that samples with x < 3% are insulating while those with larger x are metallic. we found that for the insulating samples the transport mechanism at low temperature is a phonon-assisted hopping, and we observed a sublinear relationship between the traverse resistivity ì xy and the longitudinal resistivity ì xx. for the metallic samples, we found that there is a competition between the intrinsic component of the ahe, which dominates at low temperatures, and the extrinsic component, i.e., the one related to impurity scattering, which dominates at elevated temperatures. for (ga,mn)as-based heterostructures (both eb structures and mtj structures), we investigated the response of the magnetization of the (ga,mn)as layers to the sweeping magnetic field taking advantage of the phe technique. the high sensitivity of phe to the direction of magnetization allowed us to track the magnetization reversal process in a more appropriate way. results obtained on the eb structures show that the interfacial coupling is of ferromagnetic (fm) type, yielding an effective eb field up to 150 oe, which changes the magnetization reversal process and domain wall structures in the (ga,mn)as profoundly. moreover, the interfacial coupling increases the nìøåàå_el temperature of the mno layer compared to its intrinsic value (110k). we also found that in mtj structures, the interlayer exchange coupling (iec) between two (ga,mn)as layers oscillates between the fm type and antiferromagnetic type as a function of the spacer thickness. modeling morphogenesis is a fundamental problem in biological pattern formation. biology pattern formation may be modeled using continuous or discrete approaches. cellular automata are discrete particle systems which are defined on a lattice and have a finite number of states. lattice gases (lgca) are a type of cellular automata in which particles move on a lattice and change state following particle collisions.this thesis focuses on three stochastic lattice gas models for pattern formation in limb and myxobacteria fruiting body morphogenesis. in micromass cell culture, limb bud precartilage mesenchymal cells undergo chondrogenic pattern formation which results in the formation of regularly spaced chondrogenenic ``islands". this thesis describes a model for limb chondrogenesis based on reaction-diffusion and cell-matrix adhesion. the formation of fruiting bodies in myxobacteria is a complex morphological process that requires the organized, collective effort of tens of thousands of cells. myxobacteria morphogenesis provides new insight into collective microbial behavior since morphogenic pattern formation is governed by mechanical, cell-cell interactions. two models are described for the rippling and aggregation stages of fruiting body formation. local rules result in either rippling or aggregation depending on the choice of key biologically motivated cell-cell interactions. spanwise-periodic roughness designed to excite selected wavelengths of stationary cross-flow modes was investigated in a 3-d boundary layer at mach 3.5. the test model was a sharp-tipped 14å¡ right-circular cone. the model and integrated sensor traversing system were placed in the mach 3.5 supersonic low disturbance tunnel (sldt) equipped with a 'quiet design' nozzle at the nasa langley research center. the model was oriented at a 4.2å¡ angle of attack to produce a mean cross-flow velocity component in the boundary layer over the cone. five removable cone tips have been investigated. one has a smooth surface that is used to document the baseline ('natural') conditions. two had minute (20 40 åµm) 'dimples' that are equally spaced around the circumference, at a streamwise location that is just upstream of the linear stability neutral growth branch for cross-flow modes. the azimuthal mode numbers of the dimpled tips were selected to either enhance the most amplified wave numbers, or to suppress the growth of the most amplified wave numbers. two of the cone tips had an array of plasma streamwise vortex generators that were designed to simulate the disturbances produced by the passive patterned roughness. the results indicate that the stationary cross-flow modes were highly receptive to the patterned roughness of both passive and active types. the patterned passive roughness that was designed to suppress the growth of the most amplified modes had an azimuthal wavelength that was 66 % smaller that that of the most amplified stationary cross-flow mode. this had the effect to increase the transition reynolds number from 25 % to 50 % depending on the measurement technique. the application of the research is on turbulent transition control on swept wings of supersonic aircraft. the plasma-based roughness has the advantage over the passive roughness of being able to be adaptable to different conditions that would occur during a flight mission. understanding the magnitude and structure of interneuronal correlations and their relationship to synaptic connectivity structure is an important and difficult problem in computational neuroscience. early studies show that neuronal network models with excitatory-inhibitory balance naturally create very weak spike train correlations, defining the "asynchronous state." later work showed that, under some connectivity structures, balanced networks can produce larger correlations between some neuron pairs, even when the average correlation is very small. all of these previous studies assume that the local network receives feedforward synaptic input from a population of uncorrelated spike trains. we show that when spike trains providing feedforward input are correlated, the downstream recurrent network produces much larger correlations. we provide an in-depth analysis of the resulting "correlated state" in balanced networks and show that, unlike the asynchronous state, it produces a tight excitatory-inhibitory balance consistent with in vivo cortical recordings. to achieve high-speed nitride-based high electron mobility transistors (hemts), both lateral and vertical scaling are required for future device fabrication. the large polarization difference between aln and gan provides extremely high electron densities at the heterointerface covered by only ~3-4 nm aln barrier, which makes aln/gan heterojunction the ultimate nitride structure for high-frequency applications. this work includes the study of mbe growth of single aln/gan heterojunctions, theoretical study of 2deg scattering mechanisms, and device issues of removing buffer leakage with polarization engineering and decreasing contact resistance with band diagram engineering. high-quality single aln/gan heterojunctions with rfmbe are reported, which leads to high-conductivity two-dimensional electron gases. the sheet densities can be tuned between 5e12-5e13 /cm^2 by varying the aln thickness from 2-7 nm. by optimizing the mbe growth conditions, record low sheet resistances in the range of ~128 ohm/sq has been achieved. as a theoretical work, remote surface roughness (rsr) scattering is studied as a new scattering mechanism in aln hemts. in both depletion-mode and enhancement-mode hemts with ultra-scaled aln barriers, rsr scattering rate is in the same order of polar optical phonon scattering rate, which is the dominant scattering in hemts at room temperature. this indicates that to achieve high-performance hemts, both high-quality growth and processing techniques are required. large buffer leakage and ohmic contact resistance are two factors that heavily degrade high-speed device performance. with polarization engineering, the first dopant-free epitaxial solution for the buffer leakage has been developed on semi-insulating gan substrate. with 1.5 nm aln nucleation layer grown in the n-rich regime, the buffer leakage is greatly reduced and reaches 1 ma/mm at dc bias of 200 v. this improvement increases the on/off ratio by more than 4 orders of magnitude from 100 to 1e6. band diagram engineering is applied in ohmic contact study. due to the high barrier thickness, it is very hard to achieve ohmic contact less than 1 ohm-mm with traditional annealing technique. regrown silicon doped gan and graded ingan/inn contacts have been demonstrated. contact resistance as low as ~0.4 ohm-mm has been achieved with n-gan regrowth. mbe growth for graded ingan/inn has been developed. x-ray diffraction measurements have been performed for material characterization. creative writing thesis parentification occurs when a child is implicitly or explicitly charged with the responsibility of protecting and sustaining parents, siblings, and the family system (jurkovic, 1997). the present study sought to provide exploratory empirical support for parentification theory, which distinguishes between familial patterns of parentification that are destructive to child development and familial patterns of parentification that are an adaptive response to familial stress. finite mixture modeling with children's representations of adult-like caregiving roles, children's perceptions of maternal and paternal competence, and maternal and paternal reports of support versus restriction of the developing child's autonomy as well as children's concurrent and subsequent adjustment across domains were utilize to distinguish familial profiles that are destructive to child development from those that are adaptive and from those that are normative, non-risk familial processes. results of the present study support the occurrence of multiple familial patterns of parentification. first, a non-risk class was detected. second, a destructive parentification class in which adult-like caregiving and psychological control were greatest relative to the other classes. unexpectedly, the third class identified displayed a pattern that was not characterized by adaptive parentification but, instead, was characterized by adult-like caregiving roles and caregiving competence levels that were moderate in relation to the other classes. contrary to predictions, the classes did not differ on measures of child adjustment (internalizing, externalizing, social problems, prosocial behavior, cortisol reactivity to familial stress) concurrently or over time. results emphasize the importance of considering familial processes of parentification within the broader context in which they occur. poikilotherms must overcome many stresses, including fluctuating temperatures of their environment. upper lethal temperatures (ults) of cold adapted insect species in winter have not been previously examined. consequently, given the recent increases in winter freeze-thaw cycles and warmer winters due to climate change, it became of interest to determine if ambient temperatures during thaws were approaching ults during the cold seasons. larvae of the beetle, dendroides canadensis, had higher 24and 48-hour ult50 (the temperature at which 50% mortality occurred) in winter compared to summer. additionally, larvae of the beetle, cucujus clavipes clavipes, and the cranefly, tipula trivittata, also had higher ults in winter compared to summer. with the decreased high temperature tolerance as the season progresses from winter to summer, it was observed that environmental temperatures are closest to upper lethal temperatures in spring. one possible explanation for increased winter high temperature survivorship could be the presence of antifreeze proteins in d. canadensis. this was shown to be the case as transgenic fruit flies, drosophila melanogaster, expressing individual afp genes from d. canadensis had increased high temperature survivorship.the presence of thermal hysteresis factors has not been identified in marine mammals. the bowhead whale balaena mysticetus is an endemic whale in the arctic and spends most of its time in or near sea ice where the water temperature can be -1.8°c. thermal hysteresis activity, indicative of the presence of antifreeze proteins or antifreeze glycolipids, was detected in the skin of bowhead whales collected from the arctic ocean near barrow alaska. the whale thermal hysteresis producing factor is a protein. insects produce various cryoprotectants including antifreeze proteins (afps), antifreeze glycolipids (afgls), polyols such as glycerol, and sugars such as trehalose in response to winter. these adaptations could be used to improve current protocols for cryopreservation of human cells, tissues or organs for use in transplant surgery or for research purposes. afgls from insects, larvae of the cranefly, t. trivittata and the stag beetle, ceruchus piceus, and mannose-xylose disaccharides based on the carbohydrate component of the insect afgl, resulted in enhanced cell viability of rat aorta cells after cryopreservation. american life, in essence. widespread radio-frequency (rf) spectrum monitoring could enable data-driven modeling of spectrum usage, enhance spectral utilization, and strengthen policy enforcement. natural questions arise about the number and capabilities of rf sensors to deploy and relevant data to capture. several previous works in wireless sensor networks (wsn) offer insights related to these questions, but they assume emitters that radiate isotropically. in the rf domain, directional emitters are increasingly common, especially with the advent of multiple input, multiple output (mimo) and millimeter wave (mmwave) technologies. consequently, this dissertation develops a new framework to consider directional sensors and emitters, which generalizes the isotropic models. although the framework extends to general dimensions, we focus in this dissertation on two-dimensional and three-dimensional scenarios. specifically, we determine the probability that a single emitter is detected by a randomly deployed sensor network, and we quantify the increase in the average number of sensors required as a function of emitter directivity. in the case of multiple emitters, we develop other metrics, including a lower bound on the probability of multi-emitter detection and the average number of undetected emitters, and draw similar conclusions.for example, in two-dimensions our results suggest that with a path loss exponent of 4 and all other things equal, quartering the emitter half-power beamwidth doubles the average number of sensors needed for detection. we also conclude that omni-directional sensors are optimal in terms of emitter detection probability, regardless of emitter directivity. additionally, assuming higher sensor quality results in higher sensor cost, we consider a fixed-budget deployment and observe that sensor quantity is more important than sensor quality for emitter detection. in particular, from a survey of current software-defined radios, for a given total cost, we observe that decreasing the individual sensor cost by a factor of 10 increases the system probability of detection by about a factor of 10.in three-dimensions, we derive expressions for half-power beamwidths (hpbws) that optimize the emitter detection probability. with the optimal hpbws, we observe that if the path loss exponent is below 3.22, directional sensors result in a higher emitter detection probability. otherwise, omni-directional sensors perform better.returning to two dimensions, we estimate the rf power field over space from sensor measurements of power, a data product we call an rf ``power map.'' we explore multiple estimation techniques, including planar interpolation, ordinary kriging, a radial basis function network, and an approximation to the maximum a posteriori (map) estimate. we observe that increasing sensor density generally improves the accuracy of each method, and we also compare the computational complexities of the methods. simulated and experimental results indicate that ordinary kriging achieves the lowest normalized root mean square error (nrmse). nonetheless, planar interpolation is a close second with a much lower algorithmic complexity. consequently, planar interpolation is recommended for computationally-limited applications, such as viewing real-time power maps. finally, future directions are suggested. to generalize the model framework further, we discuss extensions to the rf channel model and deployment model. additionally, we remark on analyzing other data products of spectrum monitoring, such as emitter localization and power estimation. due to increasing demand on force protection, intelligence gathering, and target systems in recent years, object tracking is receiving considerable attention in the research community. tracking refers to the problem of estimating the trajectory of an object as it moves around a scene. object tracking, in general, is a challenging problem. difficulties in real world robust target tracking can arise due to low resolution, abrupt object motion, loss of information caused by projection of the 3d world on a 2d image, changing appearance patterns of both the object and the scene, non-rigid object structures, occlusions, noise in the image and camera motion. in this dissertation, different methodologies that exploit various visual cues are proposed to tackle the problem of robust target tracking. a survey of the robust target tracking literature is presented using a taxonomy of existing algorithms along with some of the necessary background material to understand the contribution of this work. using this taxonomy, the performances of the state-of-the-art object tracking techniques are compared and evaluated. a new robust online rigid tracking system, which is based on a studentized dynamical system framework, is introduced. the proposed system enables the incorporation of dense target features, has the capability of fine-tuning its parameters online and is robust enough to track very small, low contrast targets undergoing outlier disturbances. the robust tracking performance can be attributed to the application of a student's t-distribution, which lowers the effect of outliers adaptively. next, a novel synergistic approach for the robust contour tracking of a moving target undergoing non-rigid motion is introduced. the method is based on unifying two powerful segmentation tools: geodesic active contours (gac) and 3d conditional random fields (crf). this new contour tracking framework not only can efficiently fuse various image cues, but also offers an elegant inference process to adapt to changes in the scene. experimental evaluations on typical contour tracking problems illustrate its accurate performance in delineating moving target boundaries. as a third contribution, a pixel level motion estimation method is developed by augmenting an l1 total variation framework with a new $p$-harmonic energy based regularization term. the estimation framework is based on using pdes from the $p$-harmonic maps to smooth the optical flow angle and using an l1 total variation model to estimate the optical flow vector. the evaluation demonstrates that, by using the $p$-harmonic energy to explicitly introduce a smooth prior on the orientations of motion vectors, the proposed algorithm outperforms a recently published, top performing l1 total variation method, which shows the capability of the new regularization term in improving optical flow estimation performance, especially in the average angle error. this work improves on previous performances of both rigid and non-rigid target tracking, and also identifies a new regularization tool for high accuracy optical flow estimation. the work also has impact in the design of new systems for unmanned reconnaissance and visual surveillance of remote targets. this dissertation uses process synthesis formulations to develop models that explain how to value chemical processes and minimize financial risk. one of the main goals of this work is to transition from traditional deterministic models for price and demand into ones that capture the presence of uncertainty to provide plant owners and investors with financially sound managing/investing strategies. three methodologies are being proposed as part of the approach to value chemical processes. the first is the construction of a one-period replicating portfolio using the binomial asset pricing model as a basis to describe chemical price dynamics. additionally, it will be shown that when constructing a portfolio where the number of linearly independent asset prices exceeds the number of future states that these prices can attain, the value for the process will not be unique. the second procedure introduces the second order stochastic dominance (ssd) criterion which provides a less conservative bound on the process cost. the criterion incorporates information about the investor's attitude towards risk. ssd also generalizes a widely used measure of risk, value at risk (var). finally, this analysis will be extended to multiple time periods, which will provide the investor with the ability to make decisions at different stages of the investment horizon. this will be achieved primarily with the development of a real-time optimization framework known as model predictive control (mpc). the formulation will be stochastic and subject to conditional value at risk (cvar) as a risk management technique. understanding organ development requires an understanding of how individual cells make decisions, and how those decisions integrate into system-wide properties. however, in many systems the pieces of this puzzle are poorly understood, or the puzzle requires assembly. the drosophila wing is a powerful model system for studying how local cellular decisions are integrated into the system-wide phenomenon of morphogenesis. calcium signaling is a well-studied pathway central to cellular decision making. recent advances in live-imaging of calcium signaling have empowered studies into the role of calcium in development that were previously impossible. this thesis examines the role of cellular decision making at the cellular, tissue, and organ scale. in chapter 1, an overview of the role that second messengers like calcium signaling play in signal integration at the cellular, tissue, and organ level is presented. in chapter 2, the role that local topology plays at the organ level in calcium signaling in the developing wing imaginal disc is examined. cell division is one of the major cell decisions that calcium signaling informs. in chapter 3, mechanical modeling is used to predict the primary mechanical drivers of cell shape changes in dividing cells in the wing disc. in chapter 4, the dynamics of calcium signaling in the developing wing are quantitatively characterized, and calcium activity is linked to organ size. in chapter 5, the effects of perturbations to calcium signaling genes on adult wing morphology are quantitatively investigated. finally, chapter 6 offers thoughts and perspective, and contains proposals for future work. in this paper, i have attempted to uncover the processes of everyday religiosity and secularity among iranian graduate students within the united states. as explained previously, part of this religiosity, or lack thereof, for my subjects was formed under the islamic republic of iran, a semi-democratic and semi-theocratic regime, and through their experiences as immigrants to the united states. i have tried to place this empirical study within the theoretical framework of secularity and not secularism. my evidence suggests that these young iranian students with islamic background are neither secularists nor traditional orthodox muslims. secularization theory suggests the constant decline of religion and religiosity in modern pluralistic societies. i have, however, attempted to demonstrate that the synthesis and tinkering of religious ideas, practices and values of these immigrant students are creative and a vivid sign of pluralism, not secularism. rapid global environmental change threatens the state and fate of the earth's ecosystems. understanding how organisms respond to global environmental change is important to predicting ecosystem-level processes into the future, particularly for organisms that drive elemental cycling and ecosystem structure such as dominant plants. rapid organismal evolution is a major mechanism for trait change and increasingly has been shown to occur on "ecologically relevant" timescales across diverse ecosystems; however, evolutionary processes are generally not integrated into ecosystem-level predictions. in this dissertation, i use the coastal marsh system as a model for investigating the role of rapid organismal evolution in impacting ecosystem processes. specifically, i integrate observational data, data collected from common garden experiments with the common marsh sedge schoenoplectus americanus, and models of evolutionary and ecosystem change to predict soil surface accretion (i.e., building of marsh surface elevation) and carbon accumulation over the course of decades. i employ a unique "resurrection ecology" technique, breaking century-old, soil-stored s. americanus seeds from dormancy to directly assess phenotypic change across the 20th century. my dissertation provides novel insights to the magnitude and consequences of evolutionary trait change on ecosystem processes.specifically, in chapter 2 i assess the role of genetic variation, between-genotype interactions, and evolution in explaining trait variation and, in turn, the impact of trait variation on soil surface accretion and carbon accumulation by coupling a common garden experiment and ecosystem model. i find that belowground traits of s. americanus exhibit high heritable variation and evolutionary change over the course of ~50 years of evolution which substantially alters predicted soil surface accretion and carbon accumulation rates. in chapter 3 i investigate the role of mean trait evolution and the evolution of plasticity in explaining s. americanus trait variation by exposing ancestral and descendant genotypes to a variety of global change factors (e.g., flooding, salinity, elevated atmospheric co2). i find that although evolution of plasticity is understudied in the literature, it is a common mechanism by which s. americanus populations respond to rapid environmental change. in chapter 4 i assess the roles of observational uncertainty and process variance in explaining variation in plant trait data that informs ecosystem-level predictions of accretion and carbon accumulation. i find that the utility of proxy measurements of plants traits varies by species and that process variance can dominate forecasts of ecosystem change. finally, in chapter 5 i build a novel eco-evolutionary model of marsh accretion and carbon accumulation that takes into account plasticity and evolution by natural selection of s. americanus root-to-shoot ratio in response to sea-level rise. i find that accounting for trait plasticity and mean trait evolution can alter predictions of marsh accretion and carbon accumulation. specifically, i find that the evolution of root-to-shoot ratios in response to sea-level rise mitigated the negative plastic response of root-to-shoot ratio to flooding. as a whole, my dissertation highlights the utility of the coastal marsh system in studying eco-evolutionary dynamics, provides novel approaches to studying the role of organismal evolution in driving ecosystem-level processes, and presents exciting evidence that suggests that evolution may be an underappreciated driver of ecosystem change in the anthropocene. how should we teach a foreign language? åñ this is a question many have been asking in the last century, there have been several attempts to find the best answer. nevertheless, within most foreign language curricula the role of culture has been always limited, or at least much underestimated. this thesis reexamines the approach towards the teaching of the target culture in the foreign language curriculum. in order to understand the importance of culture for the second language acquisition the author analyzes the nature of culture within this specific context and its connection with language, and proves that the teaching of target culture brings benefits to teaching of foreign lanaguage. the author reviews the significance of the teaching of second culture looking for asnwers to several questions, such as: is it possible to separate language from culture? is it possible to be a conscious language user without a real understanding of peoples to whom this language belongs? in order to achieve a cultural competence is it sufficient to learn patterns of behaviors or to memorize a list of facts about high culture of the target country? how can we teach culture without neglecting the teaching of language? how is it possible to reach the equilibrium between linguistic and cultural instruction? the thesis proposes a solution to this questions, presenting a new way of integrating cultural topics in the second language learning. an experimental investigation focused on the study of the physics of unsteady turbulent boundary layer separation under conditions relevant to the dynamic stall process that occurs in helicopter rotors is presented. a flat boundary layer development plate allows for the growth of a turbulent boundary layer of thickness sufficient for high spatial resolution measurements. downstream of the flat plate, a convex ramp section imposes a streamwise adverse pressure gradient that gives rise to boundary layer separation. in order to impose an unsteady pressure gradient, an airfoil equipped with leading edge plasma flow control is located above the ramp section. plasma flow control is used to alternately attach and separate the airfoil flow which gives rise to unsteady turbulent boundary layer separation on the convex ramp. measurements of the resulting unsteady turbulent boundary layer separation via phase-locked two-component piv, unsteady surface pressure measurements, and high speed digital imaging capture and quantify the dynamics the separation process at the wall and throughout the unsteady boundary layer. two-component lda measurements are used to characterize the motions of ejection and sweep events within the unsteady boundary layer using a quadrant splitting technique. large amplitude quadrant 4 sweep events are the most dynamically significant in the near wall region during the unsteady separation process. the adverse pressure gradient boundary layer profiles throughout the unsteady cycle collapse remarkably well when scaled with embedded shear layer parameters. the implications of the experimental results for the development of flow control strategies for unsteady boundary layer separation are discussed. isotopic studies of meteorites have provided ample evidence for the presence of short-lived radionuclides (slrs) with half-lives of less than 100 myr at the time of the formation of the solar system. the origins of all known slrs is heavily debated and remains uncertain, but the plausible scenarios can be broadly separated into either local production or outside injection of stellar nucleosynthesis products. the slr production models are limited in part by reliance on nuclear theory for modeling reactions that lack experimental measurements. reducing uncertainty on critical reaction cross sections can both enable more precise predictions and provide constraints on physical processes and environments in the early solar system. this goal led to the start of a campaign for measuring production cross sections for the slr 36cl, where bowers et al. found higher cross sections for the 33s(alpha,p)36cl reaction than were predicted by hauser-feshbach based nuclear reaction codes talys and non-smoker. this prompted re-measurement of the reaction at five new energies within the energy range originally studied, resulting in data slightly above but in agreement with talys. following this, efforts began to measure cross sections for the next most significant reaction for 36cl production, 34s(3he,p)36cl. activations were performed to produce 9 samples between 1.11 mev/nucleon and 2.36 mev/nucleon. these samples were subsequently measured with accelerator mass spectrometry at two labs. the resulting data suggest a sharper-than-expected rise in cross sections with energy, with peak cross sections up to 30% higher than predictions from talys. since its conceptual emergence, attachment theory has played a significant role in shaping the parent-child relationship and child development literature. hazan and shaver are credited with launching the application of bowlby's theory to adult romance. while elsewhere in the literature parenting researchers deliberate the effects of the interparental relationship as understood in terms of constructive and destructive conflict behavior, adult romantic attachment theorists have begun to contribute to this conversation by considering the effects of parents' romance on children's development. the extant evidence addressing the gap between these factions of researchers highlights the potential moderating effect of romance between conflict behavior and infant development. the current study, alternatively, considers first the broader romantic context between parents and assesses conflict behavior as a mechanism of action for the modeling of partnership to children and consequential behavioral development. a mediation analysis is evaluated using mothers' and fathers' constructive and destructive conflict behaviors as a mediator between parents' attachment styles and children's problem behavior and behavioral competence. results indicate that more secure attachment leads to better conflict behaviors, and more secure attachment leads to better behavioral outcomes; however, conflict behavior does not significantly predict behavioral outcomes for infants at 16 months. this dissertation makes two contributions to the scholarship on italian renaissance political thought and the reform of the roman catholic church, generally, and the thought of girolamo savonarola and niccolo machiavelli, specifically. first, i argue political theorists have unjustly ignored savonarola's political thought. savonarola's works merit consideration because he offers a novel justification of republican government in the context of a broader attempt to advocate theological-political reform in florence. he departs from aquinas and the scholastic tradition in which he was trained by offering a more positive view of republican institutions, arguing that the primary function of temporal government is to make its citizens better christians, and advocating tyrannicide should it be needed to maintain a harmonious republic. he also differs from later protestant reformation movements, neither seeking to restructure church leadership nor contesting church doctrines in the way that luther challenges the papacy and sacraments. although scholars of political theory do make note of machiavelli's reflections on savonarola's attempts at political reform in the prince and discourses, none provide any in-depth reflection on the similarities and differences between their writings. the dissertation's second contribution is an attempt to fill this gap in the scholarship by considering how machiavelli's assessment of the theological-political situation in florence may have been influenced by savonarola's mixture of success and failure. while savonarola explicitly denounces the value of "earthly wisdom" such as livy's histories, offering up theology and prophecy as the only reliable sources of political knowledge, machiavelli argues that the only suitable foundation for political action is the so-called earthly wisdom that savonarola condemns. taking history and personal experience as his guide, machiavelli recommends political reforms that are similar in some ways to savonarola's understanding that wicked clergy are to blame for the corruption and that harsh punishment is necessary for maintaining order. however, machiavelli dismisses the friar's assumption that a city premised on christian values can produce earthly concord and political strength, instead rejecting core christian teachings such as forgiveness, which he believes to be detrimental to political liberty and the cultivation of an armed citizenry. prior development of t1 motion theory has used a second-order parameterization which maximally simplifies the theory and allows for a description of the kinematic geometry. in the t1 motion theory presented here, this parameterization is generalized and not limited to the second-order. the results of this generalized parameterization are more algebraically complex; however, a purely algebraic application of the theory to the motion synthesis problem is made possible without an a-priori recognition of the kinematic geometry. examples of the synthesis of a four-bar mechanism for rigid-body guidance and a four-bar mechanism for function generation, are presented. this dissertation explores social reform in antebellum and civil war america through a biography of thomas l. kane (1822-1883). a member of a prominent philadelphia family, kane crusaded most prominently against slavery and in defense of the mormons' religious liberty. he represents a crucial community of reformers who challenge the traditional narrative of nineteenth-century reform, which presents antebellum reform as springing from the convergence of whig politics and evangelical religion. by contrast, the roots of kane and similar reformers came from the democratic party, anti-evangelicalism, and romanticism. the antebellum democratic party had a significant reform wing, driven by the party's egalitarianism and more inclusive vision of religious and ethnic pluralism. these reformers declared war on human suffering and sought to defend the downtrodden. while many remained traditionally religious, others, like kane, reacted against evangelical reform because of their own antipathy to evangelicalism (though he converted in mid-life to christianity). most eventually became republicans (often with a stop in free soil). antislavery and other nineteenth-century reforms owe as much, if not more, to these reformers as to their evangelical counterparts. in the 1840s, kane found the ideal object of his sympathies in the reviled mormons. for the next four decades, he was the mormons' most trusted outside supporter and adviser. to counter the popular perception of mormons as dangerous fanatics, kane cast them as a sincere religious minority searching for liberty. his dramatic mediation between mormons and government officials in 1858 brought a peaceful end to the utah war and earned him national fame. kane's life also illuminates the influences of the 'culture of honor' (typically associated only with the south) and romanticism on nineteenth-century culture and reform. kane's ethic of honor particularly shaped his civil war career, in which he led the famous pennsylvania bucktails and became a brigadier general. in addition, kane emulated the cultural type of the romantic hero. as such, he preferred decisive action over contemplation; iconoclasm over conformity; individual judgment over social norms; and personal courage over upper-class comforts. kane's life thus illuminates a world of mid-nineteenth-century reform shaped by democratic ideology, anti-evangelicalism, and romanticism. spectroscopy and microscopy on nanostructures has been a heated research area for the past few decades. among the different strategies, absorption-based techniques attracted a large amount of attention. since absorption effect scales with volume while scattering effect scales with volume squared, for particles with sizes in the nanometer range, absorption is usually stronger than scattering. there are two techniques that are mainly discussed in this thesis, spatial modulation spectroscopy (sms) and photothermal heterodyne imaging (phi). in the first study, optical trapping was integrated with sms to investigate the absorption behavior of gold nanoparticles in a homogenous aqueous environment at the single particle level. the linewidths of the absorption spectra were studied carefully and large electron-surface scattering effect was observed, possibly due to chemical interface damping. in the second studies, phi was applied in the mid-infrared range so that the spatial resolution of mid-infrared imaging was improved by more than ten times, from the current state-of-the-art 5 mm to what was presented in this thesis of 0.3 mm. this mid-infrared photothermal imaging technique (mir-phi) has been demonstrated on a variety of soft matter systems, including polystyrene nanoparticles, photoresist polymer patterns, and single bacterium cells. high sensitivity (signal-to-noise &gt;100) and flexible field-of-view (5 x 5 mm to 100 x 100 mm) was also achieved. in order to understand the fundamental mechanism that gives rise to the mir-phi signal, finite element analysis (fea) was performed with comsol multiphysics. simulations revealed that the two mechanisms that contribute to the overall signal, refractive index change and thermal expansion, counteract with each other. for polystyrene, refractive index change is more prominent than thermal expansion. also, the medium effect that was the dominating effect in conventional photothermal experiments is not as important in this setting anymore, especially for the larger particles. mir-phi might find its potential in stain-free histology, as well as other biomedical applications. mediational studies are of interest in psychology since they explain the underlying relationship between two constructs. the gold standard for studying mediation in psychology is a longitudinal latent variable model. however, many mediational studies use a cross-sectional approach even though deficiencies have been identified. in recent publications, a new approach, the diagonal (sequential) design has been used to examine mediation. this design is a compromise between the cross-sectional and longitudinal designs since it incorporates time in the model but only has one measurement of x, m, and y. these two designs were compared to see whether the diagonal design assesses longitudinal mediation more accurately than the cross-sectional design when mediation is full or partial. it was found that the diagonal design does not assess longitudinal mediation more accurately than the cross-sectional design. neither designs cannot be depended on to accurately assess longitudinal mediation. this study analyzes the performance of fluorescent probes for in vitro applications. firstly, the photophysical properties of phosphatidylserine sensor 794 were analyzed in various solvents systems. when compared to 100 % water solutions, there was an increase of at least three fold in the absorption and emission of the probe when 0.5 % of polar organic solvents were added to an aqueous solution. there was a fourfold increase in the emission of the probe when the ph was made acidic or the concentration of bovine serum albumin was increased. comparative photobleaching and quenching studies of biotinylated squaraine rotaxanes demonstrated their higher photochemical stabilities when compared to fluorescein-4-biotin; likewise, streptavidin-conjugated squaraine rotaxanes displayed higher photostability when compared to commercially available cy5-streptavidin. multivalent squaraine rotaxanes with ammonium and guanidinium surface groups exhibited similar affinity for bacterial cells but induced higher agglutination when compared to bis-dpa-squaraine rotaxane. mammalian cells appeared to internalize the probes, and preliminary studies indicate the probes are highly phototoxic. the 19f(a,p)22ne reaction is considered to be the main source of fluorine depletion during the asymptotic giant branch and wolf-rayet phases in stars. the reaction rate still retains large uncertainties due to the lack of experimental studies available. the yields for both the ground p0 and first excited state p1 exit channels of 22ne have been measured with the university of notre dame kn van de graaff accelerator. several resonances were found in the energy range elab=792-1990 kev and their energies and reduced width amplitudes have been determined in the context of the r-matrix theory of nuclear reactions. a new reaction rate is provided and the impact the new rate has for the nucleosynthesis of fluorine in stellar environments is discussed. by expanding efforts of a larger ongoing research endeavor currently evaluating the efficacy of reminiscing and emotion training (ret) via an rct, this dissertation project directly extends prior work that has evaluated differences in mother-child play between maltreating and nonmaltreating families. specifically, this dissertation evaluates differences in mother-child play between maltreating and nonmaltreating families during the preschool years at baseline and post assessment as well as whether specific baseline mother-child play attributes serve as moderators of ret intervention effects and children's functioning at post. 134 preschool-aged children and their mothers participated in baseline and 8-week post assessments with a repeated measures battery of interviews, observations, and assessments of maternal and child behavioral functioning. at baseline, maltreated preschoolers differed from their nonmaltreated peers only in offering significantly more initiations in play. at post, however, mothers and children in the ret treatment condition demonstrated significantly more positive engagement and responsiveness in play. furthermore, baseline levels of mother and child negative engagement / responsiveness as well as of maternal attention directing in play moderated children's functioning (i.e., emotion regulation and positive self-concept consistency, respectively) at post. together, these results provide critical information for informing and optimizing treatment and policy aimed at restoring adaptation for maltreated children and their families. my research leverages design thinking to address social and humanitarian concerns in the developing world. these wicked problems have shifting parameters and stakeholders, and by definition have impossible to formulate clear problem statements and singular definitive solutions. my work has focused on the complexity of problems in mobility design, handicap accessibility, and disaster relief in the developing world. after the massive earthquakes and subsequent devastation in nepal, in april and may of 2015, i returned to contribute my unique skills in construction, architecture and design to rebuild transitional and temporary homes. in conjunction with building efforts, i conducted innovative and novel research in the field in the immediate aftermath, focused on the challenges of delivering and deploying shelters in low-resourced environments.pack focuses on addressing the challenge of delivering shelters to remote locations by enabling the rebuilding that is already occurring on the ground using existing materials, often without assistance. traditional approaches to disaster sheltering focus on providing all-in-one kits to displaced individuals, but as my research in nepal has shown, various factors limit the success of these initiatives. deep immersion into resilient communities revealed untapped potential to transform and empower people on the ground to respond to disaster with locally appropriate, vernacular construction techniques. my approach differs by proposing to aid an often-unskilled civilian population to quickly and easily build structurally sound shelters using locally available materials with a portable construction template system. this radically different approach to disaster relief distributes a system for building transitional shelters, rather than the costly and wasteful distribution of numerous tents and prefabricated temporary shelters. the distribution of a single system, from which hundreds of shelters can be built, will be far more effective in reaching the many remote locations, where relief is needed the most. this thesis explores the structural dynamics of small molecules and a larger peptide system using infrared spectroscopy and molecular dynamics (md) simulations. ion specific binding of calcium is crucial for many biological functions. for example, calmodulin is an essential protein that undergoes a conformational change upon binding to four calcium ions which then enables binding to numerous targets throughout the body. in addition to playing a vital role in biology, it has been shown that ions are able to modulate the stability of proteins. the hofmeister series was discovered in 1880 to classify ions based on the strength of their interactions with proteins. this knowledge has produced over a century's worth of research, yet there remains uncertainty in how ions have such strong influence over proteins. herein we provide novel spectroscopic and computational evidence to support the presence of an iminium resonance structure stabilized through direct binding of calcium salt with the peptide backbone.additionally, this thesis explores fibril formation of cross amyloid peptides. amyloid fibrils are associated with a multitude of human diseases and infections including staphylococcus aureus (s. aureus), which has the ability to form biofilms. biofilms are a community of microorganisms irreversibly adhered to surfaces within the body increasing antibiotic resistance and reducing effectiveness of the hosts immune response. phenol soluble modulins (psms) play a crucial role in the process of biofilm formation. while most peptides in the psm family form traditional cross-b fibrils, recent studies have discovered the unique cross-a secondary structure of psma3 fibrils. herein we report on this cross-a amyloid forming peptide using 2dir spectroscopic methods to reveal crossa/bpolymorphism upon fibrillation. aggregation studies track psma3 secondary structure elucidating a novel spectroscopic signal unique to cross-a amyloids. this dissertation explores the relationship between politics and economic policy. more precisely, the causal relationship between the two factors is such that the choice of a particular economic policy is typically determined by politics, rather than by economic necessity. in most economic situations, there is no single right solution to an economic problem; rather, several alternative policy choices will be available to the policymakers. yet, no matter the quality of various economic policy choices, the ultimate "winner" is commonly chosen, not because that particular policy is the best economic solution to the problem, but because it garners the greatest support from the political elites. the dissertation contends that the political determinants of economic decisions cannot be understood without considering the social, legal, and institutional contexts within which political debates take place, since politics does not occur in a vacuum. rather, political processes are contingent on, and limited by, rules, conventions, institutions, and customs that are set by a given society. taking the asian crisis of 1997 as the starting point of the analysis, this dissertation explores the issue of corporate governance using the framework of the politics-policy nexus. it begins by arguing that the mainstream criticism of the asian crisis was motivated primarily by political exigency rather than by economic efficacy. in particular, the severe censure of neoliberal policymakers and academics on the korean corporate governance system and industrial policy was driven by political and economic ideology. using the framework based the concepts of path dependency, institutional evolution, scientific paradigm shift, and politics of crises, the dissertation explores the possibility of contextualization of development policy. in the past 25 years, 163 national constitutions in 64 countries have been newly adopted, or significantly amended during or following an internal armed conflict. a number of these changes to these conflict-related constitutions (crcs) were instigated as part of a conflict resolution process, with active support from international actors. in fact, though still a rare phenomenon, un peacekeeping operations and peace agreements sometimes even require constitutional reform, and the international community has begun to recognize the potential of constitutions as a conflict management tools. constitutions are being used not only to rebuild the state after conflict, but also, with support from external actors, to help bring about a peaceful resolution to conflict in the first place. given the significant influence that foreign actors can wield in such unstable contexts, understanding their impact is all the more important.the purpose of this study is to explain how and under what conditions international involvement in conflict-related constitution-making impacts outcomes. in particular, it address the following three related research questions: 1. why do international actors get involved with some constitution-making processes and not others? 2. how does international support for conflict-related constitution-making impact constitutional substance? 3. do constitution-making and international involvement contribute to the reduction of civil war recurrence?i argue that international involvement in constitution-making is not value-neutral. my argument rests on the importance of international actors as potentially influential advisors whose involvement in crcs carries normative weight. i introduce a theory that sequentially addresses each of the three questions in turn. i introduce a novel dataset on international involvement in crcs between 1991 and 2017. to test my arguments i employ cross-national statistical and necessary conditions/qualitative comparative analyses, as well as semi-structured interviews. i find that contrary to my expectations, peace agreements are not necessary for international involvement in constitution-making and that there is only limited evidence of an association between international actors and constitutional substance, using the substantive case of constitutional federalism. both crcs and international involvement are, however, associated with reduced conflict recurrence. with the ongoing miniaturization of devices and structures, thermal management has become increasingly crucial to the performance and reliability of modern electronics. as the need for improved heat dissipation and energy conversion grows, it is essential to have a sophisticated understanding of the thermal transport processes in solid-state materials including semiconductors and metals. over the past several decades, many computational methods have emerged to study energy transport across multiple length and time scales, such as the first-principles method, molecular dynamics (md), and boltzmann transport equation (bte). although these methods have had great success in predicting thermal properties, they still face challenges that hinder the discovery of new heat transfer physics and thermally functional materials. for example, the accuracy of atomistic md simulations is largely dependent on interatomic potentials, but empirical potentials tend to have limited accuracy due to their simple functional forms. on the other hand, while bte is capable of describing heat carrier distributions and simulating thermal transport at the device level, the computational cost of solving bte can be prohibitively high.some of the challenges can be addressed through the continuous development of physical models or numerical algorithms, but this inevitably requires significant research and development efforts. as an alternative, machine learning may offer an efficient solution to these challenges by learning embedded knowledge from high-fidelity data or physical constraints. in particular, deep learning, a subset of machine learning methods, has recently achieved remarkable success in various applications. the focus of this dissertation is on atomistic md simulations and the mesoscopic bte method. we employ deep learning to tackle the current challenges by enhancing existing methods and creating new algorithms.in the first part of the dissertation, we develop neural network potentials (nnps) specifically tailored for the thermal analysis of various semiconductor systems, including multiple phases of silicon, β-ga2o3, and si/ge interfaces. these nnps are trained using microscopic data and are expected to accurately reconstruct the ab initio potential energy surface. we then perform molecular dynamics simulations with these nnps to predict thermal conductivity and phonon transport properties. our results show good agreement between the nnp-md predictions and experimental results, indicating the high accuracy of nnps in describing phonon-mediated thermal transport. these nnps also exhibit excellent transferability across different material systems. furthermore, modal or spectral analysis can be integrated into the nnp-md framework to determine the modeor frequency-level contributions to the thermal transport processes.in the second part of the dissertation, we design a deep learning-based bte solver. we develop physics-informed neural networks (pinns) for solving the mode-resolved phonon bte by minimizing the deviation from the governing physical laws (i.e., the phonon bte). we perform numerical experiments (from 1d to 3d) to demonstrate the improved accuracy and efficiency of the proposed scheme in describing ballistic-to-diffusive phonon transport. moreover, pinns offer several advantages such as ease of implementation and fast evaluation, and their parametric learning feature enables efficient studies of conditional factors such as geometric parameters. we further extend this framework to handle large temperature gradients and to solve the coupled electron-phonon btes. pinns have the potential to be a valuable tool for simulating thermal transport at the device level and may facilitate efficient inverse learning and thermal design.in general, inspired by recent advancements in machine learning, particularly deep learning, we aim to address some of the long-standing challenges in computational heat transfer using deep learning techniques. the frameworks and algorithms presented in this dissertation have the potential to provide new approaches to simulating and comprehending multi-scale thermal transport in solid-state materials. the fraying nerves of the geography of los angeles is explored through a deaf actress, the great-grandson of an experimental filmmaker, and a collections agent. robots are a unique form of technology that hold the potential to significantly affect society as they become more widespread in everyday life. currently, they are in use in domains including healthcare, rehabilitation, assisted living, entertainment, education, and homes. within these domains, robots interact with people from all kinds of backgrounds. each person has a large set of qualities that make them unique. these qualities affect both how people perceive robots, and also how robots perceive people. furthermore, the environmental context in which robots and people are collaborating can also play a role in this mutual behavioral understanding. thus, to ensure robots are both functional and well-accepted, roboticists should consider taking these factors into account. the motivation of my research is to design adaptable, intelligent, social robots, able to sense and respond to people contingently and appropriately. this will enable more intuitive interaction between robots and people. i focus specifically on identifying human behavioral metrics which future robots could one day be trained to identify as a means for enabling this understanding. this dissertation outlines four human-robot interaction (hri) experiments which explore human behavioral metrics. the first experiment highlights differences in how people perceive gestures and speech by a humanoid robot actor compared to a human actor. the second experiment centers on a robot that initiates interactions with people, with the objective of collecting naturalistic data to determine social context. the third experiment focuses on how personality traits may affect patience when teaching an autonomous, mistake-prone robot. the last experiment explores how human teachers respond to both correct and incorrect robot actions to eventually allow robots to automatically detect when they have made a mistake. my work has multiple contributions for hri. first, i identify key differences between peoples perceptions of robot and human behavior, which are important to consider when programming robot communicative expressions. second, i explore how multiple dimensions of human personality affect hri, which differs from previous hri work that focused on only one or two dimensions at a time. during the course of my work, i built autonomous robots that robustly responded to people in real-time, as opposed to the majority of hri research that involves operator-control robots. my third contribution is to describe these systems, and identify the advantages and challenges inherent in this kind of research. fourth, i discover ways that robots can enable human teachers by providing feedback to assist in the learning process, which is is a necessary step to achieve natural, efficient, and fluid interactions with adaptable robots. i also designed two experimental testbeds which focus on peoples responses to robot mistakes, which help enable future research in this area. the analysis of observable human actions will enable the creation of human behavioral metrics for hri that can be incorporated into future robot algorithms. this work will inform the design of personalized robots in the future, which can both reflect the individuality of their users, implicitly learn from their mistakes, and transition into machines that people will want to interact with. investigating the detailed dynamics that govern gas-surface reactions is critical to understanding and predicting chemical behavior at the gas-solid interface. as energetic atomic and molecular ions scatter from surfaces, many fundamental chemical processes can be observed, including electron transfer, dissociation, and atom abstraction. the interactions of br+(3p2) with pt(111), br2+(2pg3/2, v=0 and v=2) with pt(111), and no+(x1s+) with oxygen-covered al(111) provide three unique systems to investigate various reaction processes activated within the 5 &ndash; 105 ev energy regime. in contrast to conventional charge transfer theory, the scattering of br+(3p2) and br2+(2pg3/2) on pt(111) show a dramatic enhancement in the formation of negative ions at an impact velocity near 8 km/s. coincident with this resonance, the anions scatter with additional translational energy. for the br+ projectiles a three-site model is developed to fit the product velocity&ndash;, energy&ndash;, and angular&ndash;distributions. the observed scattering behaviors are consistent with a surface site-specific collision-induced deformation of the lattice that rebounds in phase with the departing projectile. the sensitivity of the emergence of br&ndash; to the br2+ incident energy suggests a collision-induced dissociation mechanism at higher collision energies and dissociative resonant neutralization at lower collision energies. the latter mechanism is further supported by the reduction of the br&ndash; yield when the initial vibrational state changes from n=0 to n=2 at low collision energies. the strong electronic coupling between the motion of the platinum lattice and the surface electronic states responsible for charge transfer is further evidenced by the unique relationship between the surface temperature and the formation of negative ions. energetic collisions of no+(x1s+) with o/al(111) results in a highly improbable abstraction reaction. the relative ion yields and mean translational energies of scattered no2&ndash; are presented as a function of oxygen exposure and no+ collision energy. the formation of no2&ndash; is assigned to the direct, eley-rideal abstraction of an adsorbed o&ndash; atom by an incident no molecule. these results suggest further experimental and theoretical investigations are necessary to fully understand the transient couplings that operate when reactive projectiles scatter on clean and adsorbate-covered metal surfaces. with the exponentially increasing rates of adoption of the portable wireless devices ranging from traditional laptop to fully-fledged smartphones, a wireless ecosystem is built with low-cost, always-on network connectivity coupled with sophisticated processors capable of running demanding applications. the bandwidth demands afforded by smartphones and other wireless devices have simply overwhelmed the data speeds and access paradigms offered by various mobile communication technologies. as a promising candidate to reduce the impact of cellular data growth, wifi offloading appeals to be a cost-effective mean of offloading large amounts of mobile data traffic while delivering a variety of new services. based on the high quality large-scale dataset gathered from two hundred smartphones over two years in the netsense study, the traffic reduction gained from wifi offloading is evaluated and the result is not dominated as expected. therefore, additional scrutiny is needed with respect to the end benefits that can arise from wifi offloading. a powerful concept that has only gained limited traction in practice has been the concept of opportunistic networks whereby nodes opportunistically communicate with each other when in range to augment or overcome existing wireless systems. based on the netsense dataset, it is shown that significant opportunities for opportunistic communications are indeed available, prevalent, stable, and end up being reasonably reciprocal both on short and long-term timescales. a framework dubbed pasr (prevalence, availability, stability, reciprocity) to capture key aspects that characterize the net potential for opportunistic networks merits significantly increased attention. to that end, this dissertation introduces the development of instruments for large-scale data collection in the netsense study, evaluates the benefits provided by wifi offloading to mitigate the overloaded network, demonstrates the viability of bluetooth to indicate close proximity from the perspective of accuracy and energy efficiency, and describes the framework pasr as one of the first work of its kind to fuse fine-grained proximity and traffic data over a long period. water scarcity and pollution are critical environmental issues worldwide. particularly, urban water system, providing safe drinking water and wastewater treatment for public health, have been challenged by aging infrastructure, population growth, and climate change. one emerging solution to enhance urban water security involves decentralized treatment and reuse of municipal wastewater and stormwater to supplement the conventional water supply. coupled with the drive to minimize the energy and environmental footprints of cities, there is an urgent need to develop efficient and environmental benign technology for decentralized water treatment and reclamation. in this thesis, the overarching goal is to harnesses the power of synthetic biology techniques and microbial cell machinery to design protein/peptide based bioactive materials to remove pollutants of emerging concern, and sense and kill bacteria pathogens for enhanced wastewater treatment and reclamation.emerging contaminants such as pharmaceuticals and personal care products are biologically active and potentially harmful to human health and ecosystems, and they tend to be persistent or only partially removed by conventional wastewater treatment processes. therefore, we created a surface display laccase (sdl) and characterized its biocatalytic properties in removing an emerging contaminant. meanwhile, water contamination by pathogenic bacteria is still a major public health concern, thus we engineered a novel whole-cell biosensor to detect two critical causative agents for waterborne diseases, pseudomonas aeruginosa and burkholderia pseudomallei. the biosensor detected the target bacterial pathogens with high sensitivity by responding to quorum sensing signal molecules of bacterial pathogens. we also developed a new type of antimicrobial agent for bacteria disinfection by immobilizing an antimicrobial peptide on the surface of engineered biobeads. this new antimicrobial agent had antimicrobial activity against escherichia coli and bacillus subtilis with reduction efficiency up to 6 log and 4 log respectively.this research provides scientific basis for developing and implementing surface display laccase as an innovative biocatalytic material for contaminant treatment applications, and a proof-of-concept study of designing a whole-cell biosensor and antimicrobial biobeads for microbial control in water reclamation. the result of our study demonstrated the effectiveness and potential of engineered cell systems in advancing water treatment towards environmental sustainability. ovarian cancer (ovca) is the most fatal gynecological malignancy and the 5th leading cause of cancer death among u.s women. the peritoneal cavity is the main metastatic route in ovca. malignant ascites buildup in the peritoneal cavity is a common symptom in ovca with more than one-third of ovca patients present with ascites at the time of diagnosis and almost all patients with recurrent disease develop ascites. malignant ascites can reach &gt;2 liters, contributing to poor quality of life and to mortality in ovca patients. the molecular components of malignant ascites may play a significant role in ovca progression through influencing ovca cell behavior and preparing a receptive environment for ovca metastasis. additionally, the malignant ascites buildup elevates the intra-peritoneal pressure (ipp) and alters the mechanobiology of the peritoneal microenvironment, impacting ovca metastatic success. yet, a complete understanding of the mechanisms through which malignant ascites promotes ovca progression is lacking. in this work, we used a panel of in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo assays to explore (i) the role of ascites-upregulated wnt5a protein in promoting ovca progression and (ii) the alterations induced by ascites-elevated ipp that contribute to the disease progression. our data identified wnt5a as a host peritoneal-secreted factor that potentiates ovca cell pro-metastatic behavior. depletion of wnt5a in host cells significantly altered ovca cell pro-metastatic behavior, reduced tumor burden and metastasis in mice and induced an anti-tumor immune microenvironment in ovarian tumors. our data also shows ascites-induced compression significantly enhances ovca cell adhesion to peritoneum and altered the peritoneal ultrastructure. furthermore, compression promoted the interaction between ovca cells and peritoneal mesothelial cells (mc) through the induction of tunneling nanotube (tnt) formation, which modulated the transport of mitochondria from mc to ovca cell. additionally, compression induced the remodeling of the peritoneal collagen fibers into a straight and anisotropic alignment, a collagen alignment signature that is correlated with enhanced invasion in solid tumors. collectively, these findings elucidate new roles of ascites-induced ipp in promoting ovca progression. this work highlights wnt5a as a potential therapeutic target in ovca and reveals new roles played by malignant ascites in promoting ovca progression. microwave spin-wave circuits have the potential to vastly outperform the current state-of-the-art rf front-end devices. efficient spin-wave circuits are necessary to enable a host of on-chip microwave components, including tunable filters at millimeterwaves for radio front-ends, true-time delays, attenuators, non-reciprocal devices, and frequency selective limiters (fsls). microwave spin-wave circuits also hold promise for wave-based computing and boolean computing applications because of their miniature wavelengths at microwave frequencies.spin waves are propagating modes of precessing magnetic dipole moments driven by maxwellian fields and quantum mechanical interactions. these waves can be excited by rf currents at frequencies up to 100 ghz, propagate with velocities on the order of 1000 m/s, and exhibit non-linear behavior.development of these devices has been stymied by inefficient conversion of electromagnetic (em) waves to spin waves. fundamentally, efficient transduction requires matching the periodicity of em fields to the periodicity of spin wave fields, a difficult task considering their respective wavelengths.this challenge is compounded by a lack of fully-coupled electromagnetic-micromagnetic simulation tools. existing numerical methods and theoretical formulations typically rely on numerous simplifying assumptions, predominantly valid in the maxwellian (classical) regime, to approximately predict the energy conversion between domains. however, there has been a significant hiatus in rigorous, quantitative transducer analysis since the 1990s, prior to which most of the foundational theoretical work was published.this dissertation studies the principles behind efficient em-to-spinwave transduction by utilizing existing magnetostatic and exchange regime theory along with the finite element method (fem). a major focus of this work includes providing a design methodology that accurately and rapidly predicts a transducer's performance. various transducer designs, some of which are ubiquitous but perform poorly and some that have been mathematically but not practically evaluated for their potential, are examined for fundamental efficiency and bandwidth limitations. this dissertation also considers system-level ramifications imposed by transducers on microwave circuits, such as the need for and complexity of matching networks. an end-to-end microwave/spin-wave transducer model is proposed that permits the use of classical microwave network analysis and matching theory towards analyzing and designing efficient transduction systems. this research culminates in calibrated, on-chip measurements which agree well with the theoretical and numerical modeling methodology. ionic liquids and molten salts are being considered for many novel applications including for use as heat transfer fluids in thermal energy generation cycles. thermodynamic and transport properties like melting points, heat capacities, viscosities and thermal conductvities were computed for some ionic liquids and molten salts. melting points were computed using a novel thermodynamic integrationbased procedure. apart from computing melting points, relative thermodynamic stabilities of crystal polymorphs can be obtained using this method. the melting point and the relative stabilities of two polymorphs of the ionic liquid 1-n-butyl3-methylimidazolium chloride were computed and were found to be comparable to experimental data. melting points were computed for lithium, sodium and potassium nitrate salts, which are being considered as candidates for heat transfer media in solar thermal applications. viscosities, thermal conductivities and heat capacities were also computed for these salts. the numbers were comparable to experimental data. the difference between the experimentally determined properties, and the values obtained from simulations can be attributed to the parameterization of the force field model used for these salts. in addition to pure component properties, transport properties such as self-diffusivities, viscosities and thermal conductivities were computed for ionic liquid and alkali nitrate salt mixtures. various mixing rules were fit to these properties. the results of these studies suggest that accurate melting points are a sensitive test of force field accuracy. also, powerful molecular simulation methods are capable of computing properties useful in the design of fluids targeting a particular application. in addition, the thermodynamic integration-based procedure is modified to compute solid phase free energies which is used to calculate solubilities of solids in liquids. enthalpies of vaporization of ionic liquids were also computed and this data will be used to verify vaporization enthalpies measured experimentally. in this work, we study the periodic cauchy problem for two nonlinear evolution equations: the modified hunter-saxton equation and the euler-poisson equation. modifying the techniques developed for euler equations of hydrodynamics, we prove local well-posedness results in sobolev spaces. we also investigate the analytic regularity of solutions to these equations and prove cauchy-kowalevski type results. finally we describe the hamiltonian structure of the euler-poisson equation on a semidirect product space. plasmonic noble metal nanostructures exhibit unique light-matter interactions which are dependent on their nanometer-scale dimensions and which cannot be realized on the macro-scale. in recent years, applications have been found that capitalize on these properties in the development of optoelectronic components, highly sensitive biological and chemical sensors, metasurfaces, and photochemistry. these applications have a strong dependence on nanostructure geometry and size, as well as the ability to place structures on a surface in an organized manner for the fabrication of functional devices. electron beam lithography has long been the most powerful method for fabricating surfaces of plasmonic nanostructures and is capable of generating complex shapes with a high degree of orientational and placement control on the substrate surface. however, it exhibits notable weaknesses in (i) a highly time-intensive and technically demanding serial writing process, (ii) the relative scarcity and high expense of equipment, (iii) a difficulty to produce monocrystalline structures when positive resists are used, (iv) limits in resolution that present challenges in the fabrication of plasmonic structures with sharp tips and nanogaps, and (v) an inability to produce structures with anything but straight-walled two-dimensional profiles without increasingly complicated processes and instrumentation. alternative low-cost lithographic processes have been devised in attempts to improve the accessibility and throughput of array-based nanostructures, but likewise fall short in the ability to generate complex structures in organized arrays with true long-range order. other hybrid processes capitalize on the ability of colloidal syntheses to produce complex, highly crystalline nanostructures, followed by the use of a variety of techniques that place structures at lithographically defined locations on a substrate surface. while impressive, these methods are limited by the homogeneity of the colloid, exhibit a reliance on electron beam lithography, and are challenged in providing consistent alignment for asymmetric structures. herein a low-cost, rapid processing route is put forth to address the shortcomings of existing processes that provides (i) a high degree of placement control over 1 cm^2 areas through the use of nanoimprint lithography, (ii) orientational control and a high crystallinity of nanostructures through the establishment of an epitaxial relationship between the seed and crystalline substrate using high-temperature vapor-phase assembly, and (iii) geometric control of sophisticated structures through the use of liquid-phase chemical syntheses. this process is demonstrated through the synthesis of large-area arrays of au structures on sapphire substrates using plasmon-mediated liquid-phase syntheses to grow hexagonal and triangular nanoplates on the substrate surface, as well as chiral nanostructures exhibiting a spiral geometry. as shown via tem cross-sectional and top-down analysis, it is demonstrated that au seeds can be formed on the substrate with stacking faults running parallel to the substrate surface. this crystalline structure favors highly crystalline planar growth along the substrate surface which can also be directed along additional symmetry-breaking pathways to produce asymmetric three-dimensional structures. this work represents a first-of-its kind demonstration of an on-substrate liquid-phase synthesis of oriented arrays of highly crystalline au nanoplates and chiral nanostructures, which have the potential to forward viable nanomanufacturing technologies for the development of functional plasmonic devices. this dissertation includes two essays examining how changes in human capital levels have affected the lives of people in sub-saharan africa. this is done in two specific settings. first, the hiv/aids epidemic has had a detrimental impact in south africa, killing over a quarter of a million people in 2007. there have been a number of studies examining the various ways that hiv/aids has directly impacted the lives of hiv-positive individuals. however, a reduction in the health of a population of this magnitude is likely to reverberate across the entire population. the first chapter of this dissertation investigates how the epidemic has affected the labor market in south africa. second, a 1985 reform to the education structure in kenya led to an extra year of schooling. increases in education have long been shown to coincide with declines in fertility; this is true both across countries and across households within a country. however, much of the previous literature relied on correlations and ordinary least squares analysis, techniques susceptible to omitted variables bias or reverse causation. the second chapter of this dissertation exploits the policy change as a natural experiment to examine if it is the increase in education itself that leads to the declining fertility rates, and analyzes the mechanisms driving the relationship between education and fertility. the relationship between the hiv/aids epidemic and the south african labor market is examined in chapter one by matching individual level data with group specific cumulative aids mortality rates. exploiting the panel nature of the data, i remove individuals whose productivity is most likely impacted by hiv/aids, and find evidence that cumulative aids mortality has led to reductions in wages of between three and six percent for the african population group (black south africans). furthermore, i also find evidence that the epidemic has lowered employment in south africa. this result is concentrated among those with the lowest levels of education and employment. although not large in magnitude, these effects are widespread across a significant portion of the population, contributing to a substantial loss of income throughout the south african economy. the 1985 policy change in kenya extended the length of primary school by one year, and led to an increase in schooling for all primary school completers. an instrumental variables approach exploits exogenous variation in the extent of treatment across birth cohorts, which allows for an examination of the reform's effect on outcomes such as the age at first intercourse, marriage, and birth, as well as total fertility. for kenyan woman, the reform led to an increase in education, delay in marriage, and lower levels of fertility beginning at the age of 20. the effect on fertility becomes increasingly negative through age 25. the longevity of the effect, as well as additional evidence, casts doubt on whether the 'incarceration' hypothesis explains the results. the findings suggest that postponement of marriage, desire for fewer children, and increased use of modern contraceptives are contributing to the reduction in fertility. this evidence is consistent with women gaining greater control over their household fertility decision. resonances in exotic nuclei play a central role in the nucleosynthesis processes occurring in the stars. nuclear reactions proceed through resonance states in exotic nuclei. this dissertation reports on measurements of resonances in 18ne, 30s and 9be. the radioactive nucleus 18ne was studied via the 16o(3he,n) reaction. these resonances are relevant in understanding one of the two breakout paths from the hot carbon-oxygen-nitrogen (hcno) cycle. neutrons from this reaction were measured in coincidence with charged particles from the decay of resonances in 18ne to directly extract the charged particle branching ratios of the populated resonance states. significant &#945; branching ratios coming from the resonances at eex = 7.95 mev and eex = 8.09 mev were measured for the first time. evidence of an exotic 2p decay is indicated from the state at eex$ = 6.15 mev. the results from this work allows for a more reliable calculation of the 14o(&#945;,p)17f reaction rate, central in the breakout of the hcno cycle and in the direct competition between &#945; &#945;p-process and the rp-process for the flow of nuclear material in the proton rich side of the valley of stability. the exotic nucleus 30s was studied via the 28si 3he,n transfer reaction. neutrons from this reaction were measured in coincidence with charged particle decays from the populated resonance states in 30s. several states above eex = 8.5 mev are reported for the first time. for the states measured between the proton decay threshold and the alpha decay threshold, the branching ratios were extracted and used to tentatively assign spins and parities. the results led to the determination of the first experimental 26si (&#945;,p)29p reaction rate. the calculated reaction rate is compared with statistical methods traditionally used in the calculations of such reaction rate. the results of the present work will be combined with the results of the 32s(p,t) experiment carried out by o'brien. resonance states with isospin t = 3/2 in 9be were studied by bombarding a c2h4 target with radioactive 8li beam using the hybrid thick/thin target in inverse kinematics approach. the elastic and inelastic excitation function of 8li+p were measured in the energy region of 1.0 to 2.8 mev in the center-of-momentum system. the population of t = 3/2 states in 9be was confirmed. the parameters of the resonances observed 5/2and 3/2correspond to the expected values based on the knowledge of the structure of 9c and 9li. no isospin violating channels were necessary to reproduce the 8li+p excitation function which validates the assumption that the t = 1/2 states are suppressed due to the multiple open neutron decay channels into the t = 0 states in 8be. these results will be used to test predictions of ab-initio calculations made for a = 9 nuclei. the results will also be compared with continuum shell model calculations. a firmer foundation to the method employed in this work to study neutron rich nuclei by populating isobaric analog states in resonance proton scattering experiments using neutron rich exotic beams is also supported by the present results. the present dissertation aims to rewrite the history of ideas about the ancient notion of tyranny in the early medieval frankish world. it focuses in particular on how members and allies of the carolingian dynasty craftily manipulated this term in historiographical and hagiographical texts in order to legitimize their power, to justify acts of violence, or to demonize enemies inside of and beyond the borders of their empire. tyranny has been a topic of discussion among historians of medieval political thought for over a century. scholarly understandings of this concept's evolution during the formative period of the early middle ages, however, have long been skewed by assumptions about an apparent patristic monopoly on ideas about tyranny in the latin west until the rise of "juridical" definitions following the rediscovery of roman law and the emergence of aristotelian scholasticism in the high middle ages. in response to these misguided preoccupations, "tyrannus rex" shifts its focus to a substantial body of historiographical and hagiographical texts traditionally undervalued by historians of political thought in order to trace the trajectory of discussions about tyranny in the frankish world between the fifth and ninth centuries. as a result, this dissertation offers three significant contributions to discussions of medieval ideas about tyranny and carolingian political history: firstly, that early medieval thinkers did not simply parrot earlier ideas about tyranny but rather creatively reshaped this concept for persuasive purposes in their specific sociopolitical contexts; secondly, that the manipulation of concepts and terminology like "tyrannus" in texts composed in support of the carolingian dynasty constitutes an important dynastic power practice in keeping with others—capitularies, charters, shows of force, etc.—discussed more broadly by scholars of carolingian history; and, finally, that the involvement of members and allies of the dynasty in the production and dissemination of persuasive, pro-dynastic representations of tyranny constitutes a kind of propaganda that served to advance or to reinforce the dynasty's claims to authority over a polity which they had usurped. this dissertation examines the foundations of scientific knowledge, and its philosophical, historical, and historiographical significance, in the relatively understudied post-classical islamic era (post-1100 ce). by focusing on the epistemological underpinnings of science, such a study can reveal much about the nature, attainability, and justifiability of scientific knowledge. moreover, studying the foundations can shed light on how scientific knowledge is situated in relation to developments in other intellectual fields. thus, it can prove valuable for addressing significant historical and historiographical questions concerning the cross-fertilizations between different fields and the tenor of intellectual thought in post-classical islamic societies. my work addresses these themes by providing the first book-length treatment of the views of sayyid al-sharīf al-jurjānī (d. 816/1413), one of the most distinguished theologians of islam, who was equally acclaimed for his scientific and religious works, and who was centrally interested in issues concerning the foundations of scientific knowledge. this study details jurjānī's vision of the mathematical sciences, including astronomy, and its epistemological underpinnings. it shows how jurjānī's methodical thinking draws from intellectual sources as diverse as theology, philosophy, jurisprudence, and sufism, the extent and nature of cross-fertilizations between these traditions, and the manner in which jurjānī can combine different approaches to knowledge into a coherent epistemological scheme. of significant philosophical import is the contribution jurjānī makes in resolving two problems in the philosophy of science of his time: the status of mathematical entities, and that of astronomical models and their relation to reality. this study demonstrates that jurjānī's solution lies in the specific manner he addresses epistemological issues concerning knowledge, truth, and reality, its distinctive feature being a turning away from the avicennian theory of true knowledge based on the active intellect to a more "economical, human-centered epistemology"[1] built on his novel understanding of the key concept of nafs al-amr (lit., the thing itself). finally, equally significant is the historiographical import of jurjānī's project in the form of providing specific evidence that cut through many of the prevalent grand narratives that often belittle philosophical activity in the post-classical islamic era, or posit essentialist (often antagonistic) relation between islam and science. [1] the phrase is taken from robert wisnovsky, "avicenna's islamic reception," in interpreting avicenna: critical essays, ed. peter adamson (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2013), 197. cortical bone provides a rigid structure allowing for the attachment of skeletal muscles. it makes up approximately 80% of skeletal mass and is a damaging viscoelastic material. damage is an important aspect to evaluate bone quality since damage accumulation affects cortical bone strength. fatigue and monotonic strength studies have indicated that damage accumulation mechanisms depend on structural and compositional properties. however, the role of the viscoelastic behavior of cortical bone has been overlooked. bone is a hierarchical composite material. as such, measurements of multiple length scales are useful in order to evaluate bone viscoelastic properties in different microstructural units. to understand the effect of viscoelasticity of bone at small length scales, cortical bone specimens were evaluated under torsional and tensile loads, by ultrasound and by nanoindentation. twelve cortical bone specimens were tested using tension, torsion, ultrasonic wave propagation, and indentation test. these tests resulted in the specimens showing stress relaxation and creep effects, which are a key component of viscoelastic behavior. nanoindentation and torsion mechanical properties were highly correlated, suggesting microscopic properties are reflected at the macroscopic level. how closely partner a's actions align with partner b's values likely affects the emotions and relationship quality of partner b, with greater alignment predicting better scores in both outcomes for partner b. behaviors that conflict with the interpreting partner's values are considered value violations, and behaviors aligned with the interpreting partner's values are considered value satisfactions. to test these assumptions regarding the role of values in interpersonal behavior interpretations, a new measure called the value-consistent action measure (vcam) was administered along with a variety of measures regarding emotions, values, and relationship quality. one form of the vcam indexes the way the respondent interprets a series of value-relevant partner behaviors, whereas another form indexes the frequency with which the respondent's partner engages in each behavior. results from this study demonstrated that fewer value violations and more value satisfactions are associated with better emotional experiences and relationship quality in the interpreting partner. n-methyl-d-aspartate (nmda) receptors (nmdars) are ligand-gated ion channels belonging to the family of ionotropic glutamate receptors. cell lines stably expressing recombinant nmdars of predetermined composition provide a feasible system in identifying selective agonists and antagonists of this receptor and elucidating its related signaling pathway. a human embryonic kidney (hek) 293 based cell line stably expressing rat nr1b nmdar subunit was developed employing a doxycycline-inducible gene expression system. hek293 cells expressing the regulatory vector ptet-on-advanced (hek293 tet-on advanced cells, clontech) were transfected with rat nr1b cdna cloned in the ptre-tight doxycycline-inducible vector, along with the hygromycin resistant marker. inducible expression of nr1b subunit in the hygromycin resistant clone designated hek293 tet-on advanced/rnr1b was tested structurally and functionally by reverse transcription (rt)-pcr, immunofluorescence staining, electrophysiological recording, and ca2+ imaging. inhibition by conantokin-t and conantokin-g on nr1br2a and nr1br2b combination of nmdars was also examined. the establishment of this cell line provided the possibility of stably expressing different combinations of nmdar subunits using tet-on expression system for nmdar related study in the future. the concept of purpose, together with the closely related concepts of normativity and agency, stand at the crossroads of three academic disciplines: the philosophy of action, the philosophy of biology, and the nexus of theoretical biology and cognitive science that is concerned with the theory of the 'organization' of 'autonomous agents.' unfortunately, there has been very little cross-fertilization among the literatures of these three disciplines. as a result, the philosophical literature tends to work with a scientifically outdated image of living things as rigid 'machines.'? this results in a picture in which only human beings (or at most the higher animals) can be properly ascribed purposes and agency in the full normative sense. from this perspective, we appear to be faced with an unappealing choice between eliminating teleology and normativity from our picture of nature altogether and understanding these phenomena as they are manifested in our own human form of life as floating free from any grounding in the natural world. the scientific literature, on the other hand, tends to misuse 'teleology,' 'normativity,' 'agency,' and related terms, mistakenly ascribing such concepts to 'autonomous agents' conceived of as subject only to the ordinary laws of physics. from this perspective, the true depth of the difficulty involved in understanding what makes living systems distinctive qua physical systems becomes occluded. in this dissertation, i investigate the possibility of constructing a realistic view of immanent teleology in biology. i proceed by exploring each of the three literatures in turn, with the goal of finding a middle way between the extremes of eliminativism and dualism. the argument proceeds by analysis of the concepts of teleology and normative agency, by reflection upon the explanatory structure of the theory of natural selection, and by review of some contemporary scientific accounts of 'self-organization' and 'autonomous agents,' as well as of other physical features of living things. my overall conclusion is that the acceptance of teleological realism in biology is rationally permitted. in other words, teleological realism in biology ought to be viewed as a 'live option.' my dissertation examines doubt in american spiritual life-writing, from 1734-1876. during this time period, the american religious landscape pluralized, expanded, and splintered dramatically, in response to both intellectual transformations—new scientific and philosophical paradigms—and changing social issues, such as growing awareness of slavery's abuses, north-south disunity among white-dominant denominations because of racism, the proliferation of new religious sects, and the rise of liberal protestantism and early seeker-type spirituality. these changes are well-documented in previous religious scholarship, which also records the increasingly strident arguments about doubt and how to prevent it. however, previous scholarship faces a challenge. though most religious and non-religious authors agree that doubt is on the rise, that it is bad for religion, and that is probably bad for national unity, they rarely use consistent definitions for "doubt." my dissertation demonstrates how various american authors responded to this situation in which doubt was deeply stigmatized, universally suspected, but slippery and hard to define. the authors in my dissertation approach doubt not just as a religious or philosophical problem, but as a literary one, generating a range of different poetics and different ways of reading. by understanding how these authors sought to structure, contain, cultivate, or anticipate doubt, my project demonstrates how nineteenth-century americans used experimental literary form for the work of writing their life stories and recognizing the stories of others. the radial velocity (rv) technique is used to identify signatures of exoplanets orbiting their host stars. doppler measurements constrain the minimum planetary mass and are used to determine orbital parameters of the star-planet system. in order to probe terrestrial planets, an rv sensitivity of 10cm/s is required, an order of magnitude improvement on existing instrument capabilities. this research investigates the rv precision of an adaptive optics (ao) fed single-mode fiber (smf) rv spectrograph. rv measurements with an smf spectrograph are unique as the spectral resolution is limited only by diffraction, as opposed to atmospheric seeing. we demonstrate for the first time, the injection of starlight into smfs using adaptive optics (ao) at the large binocular telescope. we measure an absolute injection efficiency of 20%. high speed ao corrected images of the stellar point spread function are characterized to quantify optical aberrations. we determine low order residual wavefront errors are the limiting factor on injection efficiency. the photon-noise limited rv precision is calculated by modeling an rv spectrograph combined with fiber coupling efficiency measurements and simulated spectra. measurement uncertainty resulting from instrument effects is quantified by systematically studying the individual perturbations of numerous optical, mechanical, and thermal effects. it is found that a sub-m/s total rv uncertainty is possible on mid m-type stars with a diffraction-limited optical system. finally, the use of single-mode fibers has unique optical consequences for the rv instrument not experienced by existing multi-modal instruments. while the fraction of light bound to the fiber waveguide propagates as a single mode, each spatial mode is comprised of two polarization modes. bimodal polarization effects were measured at the lbt and assessed in the context of rv spectroscopy. results suggest that high resolution doppler spectroscopy at the diffraction-limit is capable of detecting terrestrial mass exoplanets orbiting bright m-type stars. this dissertation presents searches for lepton flavor violating decay of the standard model higgs boson into a muon and a tau lepton or to an electron and a tau lepton. data collected by the cms detector in 2016-2018, in proton-proton collisions at the lhc, at a center-of-mass energy of 13 tev corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 137 fb^-1 was used to perform the search. the observed (expected) upper limits on the branching fraction of higgs boson decaying into a muon and a tau lepton were set at 0.15 (0.15)% at 95% cl and the branching fraction of higgs boson decaying into an electron and a tau lepton were set at 0.22 (0.16)% at 95% cl. these are the most stringent limits set on these processes to date. this dissertation studies the intersection of protestant fundamentalism and modern consumer capitalism during the gilded age and progressive era. it examines the life of reuben a. torrey, an important fundamentalist leader, and his association with the moody bible institute in chicago (mbi), a central fundamentalist institution. torrey reformulated evangelical religious experience and practice to better accommodate the challenges of modern unbelief, which reinvigorated evangelicalism for a new generation. however torrey's conviction of god's regular intervention, both for miraculous provision in 'faith work' and physical health in 'faith healing,' contained the potential to disrupt existing middle-class institutions. in 1889, torrey's ongoing success in evangelizing the working class and his involvement in the evangelical precursor to the social gospel led to his leadership at mbi. chicago's business elite helped found mbi in part as a response to rising worker unrest. here, torrey's theology was further synchronized with the work relations of industrial capitalism. however, a controversy involving the controversial faith healer john alexander dowie, and torrey's close resemblance to working-class pentecostalism, alienated him from administrative authority at mbi. torrey was succeeded by the dispensational bible teacher james m. gray and the president of quaker oats, henry parsons crowell. gray's dispensational theology minimized god's present miraculous action and better accommodated middle-class norms. crowell transformed mbi into a multifaceted educational and religious media conglomerate that promoted this new theology to a middle-class audience using the tools of consumer capitalism. in 1909 lyman stewart, president of both union oil and the strikingly similar bible institute of los angeles headed a project to reformulate protestant orthodoxy, stripped of denominational distinctions. stewart, with assistance from crowell and torrey, distributed this belief in a quarterly pamphlet titled the fundamentals that was given free of charge to every protestant religious worker in america. mbi used its founder, the famed revivalist dwight l. moody as a trademark to promote this form of belief. by reinventing the religious individual, making religion another form of consumption, and subverting denominational authority, corporate fundamentalism both naturalized consumer capitalism and created a new form of conservative protestantism. this thesis reports detailed chemical, isotopic, geochronological and melt inclusion data for individual mineral phases from both carbonatites and silicate rocks associated with the oka carbonatite complex. the latter represents the most westerly intrusion of the monteregian igneous province (mip), qu&eacute;bec, canada. the main goals are to decipher in detail the petrogenetic history and mantle sources for this complex. large major and trace element variations recorded by the constituent minerals (e.g., apatite, calcite, niocalite, and perovskite) are not consistent with closed system fractional crystallization, but rather suggest the involvement of more than one parental melt and ensuing magma mixing. in-situ u-pb ages for apatite, perovskite and niocalite define a ~15 myr protracted history of magmatic activity. the overall distribution of ages indicates that aln&ouml;ite was intruded first, followed by okaite and carbonatite, whereas ijolite defines a bimodal emplacement history. the combined and variable radiogenic (sr, nd and pb) and stable (c and o) isotope data clearly demonstrate the involvement of at least three mantle components (himu, em1 and adm) in the petrogenetic history of oka, and these are inconsistent with crustal contamination. the melt inclusion data reveal that the parental carbonatite melt composition is similar to that of the natrocarbonatite lavas presently erupting from earth's sole active carbonatite volcano, oldoinyo lengai (tanzania). thus, this result provides some direct evidence for the more pervasive occurrence of naand k-rich carbonatite liquids in the geological past and in different continental areas. overall, the multi-analytical, high spatial resolution approach adopted here demonstrates quite clearly its advantages over 'classic' investigations focused solely on using bulk rock methods. amamistatins a and b are natural products that were isolated from the actinomycete nocardia asteroides after their identification during a screen for growth inhibitors of human tumor cells. amamistatin a was found to have anti-proliferative effects against mcf-7 breast, a549 lung, and mkn45 stomach tumor cell lines (ic50 0.48, 0.56, 0.24 ?m, respectively). both compounds were also cytotoxic to p388 mouse lymphocytic leukemia cells (ic50 15 and 16 nm). amamistatins share important structural features with iron-binding mycobacterial siderophores (mycobactins and carboxymycobactins) and retrohydroxamate hdac inhibitors. based on this structural similarity, two possible mechanisms of tumor cell inhibition were proposed, both involving metal binding. in order to probe the biological activity of the amamistatin family, synthetic compounds with specific structural variations were needed. during the course of this work, the total synthesis of amamistatin b was completed, along with the syntheses of a diastereomer of amamistatin b and a structural variant lacking two metal-binding functionalities. all three compounds, along with synthetic intermediates, were screened in several assays to study their effect on the growth of tumor cells and m. tuberculosis, as well as their ability to inhibit hdac. amamisatin b strongly inhibited the growth of m. tuberculosis h37rv at high concentrations, but acted as a growth promoter of m. smegmatis and other bacteria. synthetic analogs and intermediates were largely ineffective at inhibiting mycobacterial growth. smaller amamistatin precursors displayed varying levels of inhibition against both the hdac enzyme and two human tumor cell lines (mcf-7 and pc-3), but hdac activity was not retained by the larger amamistatin compounds. amamistatin b was, however, an extremely effective growth inhibitor of mcf-7 breast cancer cells, with an ic50 of 120 nm. the lower level of activity displayed by the synthetic analog with reduced metal-binding ability supports the hypothesis that the anti-tumor activity of amamistatin b is related to iron chelation. this thesis describes techniques to decompose lt codes (a class of rateless erasure correcting codes) into distributed lt (dlt) codes. dlt codes can be used to independently encode data from multiple sources in a network in a way such that, when the dlt symbols (binary strings) are combined at a common relay, the resulting sequence of symbols (called a modified lt (mlt) code) has erasure correcting properties similar to those of an lt code. in essence, dlt codes are designed so that the final stage of encoding for erasure correction can be carried out by a low-complexity relay that selectively xors the symbols generated at each source and transmits the result to the sink.specifically, code contructions are presented for two-source and four-source networks. it is shown that the dlt/mlt approach can yield substantial performance benefits compared with a competing strategy wherein each of the sources uses its own independent lt encoder and the resulting bit-strings are time-multiplexed through the relay. this enhanced performance is due primarily to the longer blocklengths that are made possible by the mlt approach; when the relay-to-sink link is the bottleneck, it is better to deliver one long mlt codeword to the sink than multiple shorter lt codewords. separation of alcohols from aqueous solutions usually requires energy intensive processes. we explore, here, the use of ionic liquids to remove alcohols from aqueous solutions. ionic liquids are low melting salts with negligible volatility at ambient conditions. therefore, the recovered alcohol could simply be evaporated from the ionic liquid solvent. to evaluate various ionic liquids for this application, this study details the phase behavior of binary and ternary systems of ionic liquids with water and alcohols. the mutual solubilities of various ionic liquids with water were determined in order to study the effect of the structure of the ionic liquid on the solubility. an increase in the alkyl chain length or in the substitution decreases the mutual solubility of the ionic liquid with water. the ionic liquids with the diacyanoamide anion have the largest mutual solubility with water, followed by ionic liquids with trifluoromethanesulfonate tetrafluoroborate, tetracyanoborate, hexafluorophosphate, bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide, tris(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)methide, and tris(pentafluoroethyl)trifluorophosphate anions. further, the mutual solubilities of various ionic liquids with 1-hexanol and 1-octanol were measured, which confirmed published trends1-6 on how the il structure modifies the mutual solubility. we also demonstrated that adding a hydroxyl group on the cation alkyl chain length decreases the mutual solubility with alcohols, and that ils with the tris(pentafluoroethyl)trifluorophosphate anion have a smaller mutual solubility than those with the bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide anion but greater than ils with the tetrafluoroborate anion. the second component of our work is to improve ionic liquids for various liquid-liquid separations. necessary to design separation processes, ternary diagrams of systems with water and alcohols for various ionic liquids were developed. further, distribution coefficients, selectivities and the number of stages for a liquid-liquid extractor are calculated using this data. in order to compare the energy requirement with other processes, this study also measured excess enthalpies for mixtures of ionic liquids and alcohols. using these enthalpies, the energy required to evaporate the alcohol from the ionic liquid was calculated. we found that this energy intensive step requires approximately 50 kj/molalcohol while current processes require between 100-2000 kj/molalcohol 7, 8. we conclude that this method could reduce the energetic requirement in separating alcohols from water. references (1) crosthwaite, j. m.; aki, s.n.v.k.; maginn, e. j.; brennecke, j. f. fluid phase equilibria 2005, 228-229, 303-309. (2) crosthwaite, j. m.; aki, s. n. v. k.; maginn, e. j.; brennecke, j. f. the journal of physical chemistry b 2004, 108, 5113-5119. (3) crosthwaite, j. m.; muldoon, m. j.; aki, s. n. v. k.; maginn, e. j.; brennecke, j. f. journal of physical chemistry b 2006, 110, 9354-9361. (4) domanska, u.; bogel-lukasik, e.; bogel-lukasik, r. journal of physical chemistry b 2003, 107, 1858-1863. (5) domanska, u.; bogel-lukasik, r. fluid phase equilibria 2005, 233, 220-227. (6) heintz, a.; lehmann, j. k.; wertz, c. journal of chemical and engineering data 2003, 48, 472-474. (7) gulati, m.; westgate, p. j.; brewer, m.; hendrickson, r.; ladisch, m. r. applied biochemistry and biotechnology 1996, 57-58, 103-119. (8) qureshi, n.; hughes, s.; maddox, i. s.; cotta, m. a. bioprocess and biosystems engineering 2005, 27, 215-222. one major focus in epistemology in recent decades has been testimony and our pervasive epistemic dependence on others. comparatively little has been written on expert testimony, despite our most pressing questions requiring expertise and experts often offering divergent answers. this dissertation addresses the nature and evaluation of expertise. chapter 1 critiques existing analyses of expertise and proposes this definition: being in a significantly better epistemic position with regard to a domain than the best member of a reference class. better epistemic position includes having more true beliefs and fewer false beliefs, but it also encompasses other important factors, being multi-dimensional in nature. the next two chapters further explicate these elements. i first lay out what it means for one person to know more than another. this involves a defense of the number of one's true beliefs being part of the measure of knowledge, with their importance as the other component. the many other epistemic desiderata involved in being in a better epistemic position are discussed in the next chapter, derived from our goals for expertise: receiving the truth, having warranted confidence, and the expert's diachronic improvement. the various properties that epistemologists have put forward as essential to knowledge or justification are shown to all contribute to greater expertise in varying ways and degrees. chapter 4 evaluates indicators, indirect measures that some claim can help us estimate expertise. they include credentials, the number of agreeing experts, biases, track record, and dialectical superiority. however, most of these indicators turn out to be often unreliable and not particularly useful in practice, particularly for laypersons faced with disagreeing experts. given this situation, the final chapter examines three other approaches to the lay appraisal of expert opinion: prima facie justification, skepticism, and simple trust. none of these are satisfactory, so in order to be in a good epistemic position themselves with regard to expert-related questions, laypersons must directly evaluate the arguments the experts adduce. experts then shift from being sources of mere judgments to collectors and disseminators of relevant evidence regarding a question. this project strives to understand the significance of pleasure and pain in aristotle's presentation of moral virtue and prudence in his nicomachean ethics. the central question of my analysis pertains to the manner in which pleasure and pain operate in moral virtue and how this is essential for the operation of prudence, the intellectual virtue that pertains to the legislative art and political science. proceeding in this manner not only deepens our understanding of the content of aristotle's teaching, but also illuminates an often-overlooked aspect of the account of prudence, namely, its dependence on moral virtue and the correct disposition toward pleasures and pains. the question of prudence has been an object of much dispute in the long history of commentary and in the contemporary scholarship on aristotle. this project departs from prior treatments by focusing more directly than is usual on the relationship of pleasure and pain to practical intellect (nous) and moral perception (aisthēsis). i argue that aristotle's account of prudence suggests that the nous that grasps the end in action is inseparable from the desiderative part of the soul that feels pleasure and pain. prudence depends on moderation because the human desire for pleasure and the aversion to pain are persistent and can alter one's perception of the "end" in action if one is not armed, by habit, to endure them.this aspect of the account of moral virtue and prudence is missed by those who elevate reason and forget the role of pleasure and pain in human affairs. by investigating the role of pleasure and pain in moral education, the manner in which each virtue from courage to justice interacts with pleasure and pain, as well as the role of pleasure and pain in the operation of prudence, this study serves to remind the reader of the intransigent role of pleasure and pain in human affairs and the extent to which this common-sense insight informs aristotle's entire approach to virtue this thesis describes cacti-d, a memory modeling modeling tool that supports both sram and dram circuits and technologies. with cacti-d it is possible to project area, access time, cycle time, dynamic read and write energies per access, and standby leakage power of memories and caches for technology nodes between 90nm and 32nm. cacti-d supports sram, logic process based dram (lp-dram) and commodity dram (comm-dram) technologies. cacti-d also supports the modeling of main memory dram chips. thus with cacti-d, modeling of the complete memory hierarchy with consistent models all the way from sram based l1 caches through main memory drams on dimms becomes possible. cacti-d is based on the well-known memory and cache modeling tool cacti. we borrow key circuit models from cacti but revamp cacti-d from the ground up with a complete rewrite of the source code. we incorporate a new technology foundation into cacti-d with device data based on the itrs roadmap. we incorporate device data for different itrs device types such as high performance (hp), low standby power (lstp) and low operating power (lop). we also incorporate data for interconnect technology based on well-documented models and data from the literature. we have validated cacti-d by comparing its projections against real designs. for sram validation, we compare against two prominent 90nm and 65nm sram caches and for dram validation, we compare against a 78nm ddr3 dram chip. taking into account the extremely generic nature of cacti-d, there is good agreement between the projections produced by cacti-d and the published data. we illustrate the potential applicability of cacti-d in the design and analysis of future memory hierarchies by carrying out a last level cache study for a multicore multithreaded architecture at the 32nm technology node. in this study we use cacti-d to model all components of the memory hierarchy including l1, l2, last level sram, lp-dram or comm-dram based l3 caches, and main memory dram chips. we carry out architectural simulation using benchmarks with large data sets and present results of their execution time, breakdown of power in the memory hierarchy, and system energy-delay product for the different system configurations. we find that comm-dram technology is most attractive for stacked last level caches, with significantly lower energy-delay products. in this dissertation i examine the ontological and systematic basis of hegel's social and political philosophy. i argue that the structures of the will, discussed in paragraphs five through seven of the philosophy of right, present the key for understanding the goal and the argumentative structure of that work. hegel characterizes the will in terms of the oppositions between the universal and the particular, the infinite and the finite, and the indeterminate and the determinate. ultimately, he argues that we must grasp the will as the unity of these oppositional moments. the philosophy of right presents an extended attempt to grasp this unity.in order to central problem presented by the structure of the will, i argue that we must first recognize the will as the highest instantiation of the more general structures that constitute the notion. on my interpretation, the term 'notion' designates hegel's doctrine of substance. more specifically, this term presents his conception of substance in terms of categories normally associated with human subjectivity, in terms of representation and purposive action.the will presents the highest or truest instantiation of the notion. various notions can be ranked along a spectrum in accordance with their degree of success at resolving the basic problem facing all objects -namely the problem of integrating or essentially relating identity and difference through self-constituting activity. the unification of identity and difference presents the central problem or paradox of hegel's philosophy. it is a paradox that takes many forms. in this dissertation, i show how change, the structure of judgment, and the nature of the object all exhibit this paradox. i also show how hegel's doctrine of the notion develops as a direct response to this paradox. additionally, i argue that hegel's account of the structure of the will -as the unity of the universal and the particular, the unity of the infinite and the finite, and the unity of the indeterminate and the determinate -presents the highest manifestation of the paradox that arises when we seek to explain the unity of identity and difference. depression is a prevalent and debilitating condition that is one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. an abundance of depression research has focused primarily on women. men, in contrast, have been astonishingly absent from research but are critical for a complete understanding of depression the present research comprised three studies designed to investigate the etiology and phenotypic expression of depression in men. participants included 401 emerging adults, nearly equally divided among men and women, who completed a gold-standard assessment of stressful life events; self-reported measures of typical depressive symptoms, externalizing behaviors, and alcohol use; and investigator-based assessments of typical depressive symptoms and alcohol abuse. results indicated that (1) the experience of a severe life event predicts increases in typical depressive symptoms for both men and women, (2) a male-based model of depressive symptoms, which included indicators of depressed mood, social isolation, and alcohol abuse, best reflected the latent structure of depressive symptoms for both men and women, and (3) the experience of a severe life event still predicted elevations in depressive symptoms even when only the core of symptoms identified in study 2 were included. these results suggest that the well-documented association between stressful life events and depression also applies to men, and that the current definition of depression may include extraneous symptoms that distract from the true core of depression. the implications of the results and directions for future research are discussed. bacterial antibiotic resistance mechanisms are an emerging problem in the treatment of infectious disease. the overuse of the ì¢-lactam class of antibiotics within the last seventy years has caused a rising number of cases where the most pathogenic strain, methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (mrsa), is in the homes and schools of the general population. to defend against the potential disastrous consequences efforts are needed to understand the exact mechanism of drug resistance in strains like mrsa and develop novel treatment strategies. the drug resistance in mrsa strains is largely due to the blar1 protein. blar1 is a transmembrane signaling protein that initiates a signal stimulus upon binding and recognition of the ì¢-lactam antibiotic by the extracellular sensor domain. this transmitted signal moves across the cell membrane to the intracellular domains. the resulting response is the promotion of blaz expression, which is a ì¢-lactamase capable of neutralizing the available ì¢-lactam antibiotic. the exact mechanism of signal initiation and signal relay from the extracellular to intracellular domains is currently unknown. the work of this thesis aims to understand the effects of antibiotic addition on the sensor domain of blar1 (blars) and the modulated interaction with the other extracellular domain (loop-2). the blars sensor domain has high structural conservation with other penicillin binding proteins (pbps) and the class a and d ì¢-lactamases, although the proteins have low sequence homology. previous work has initially suggested that blars utilizes an active site nì_-carboxylated lysine (k392) and an interaction with the extracellular loop-2 domain within the mechanism of signal transduction. the work within this thesis uses nuclear magnetic resonance (nmr) as a non-invasive technique to probe the formation of the covalent antibiotic attachment within blars and the resulting effect to the nì_-carboxylated k392 side chain and interaction with the loop-2 domain peptide mimic (l2short). this work acts to fill in gaps of the previous research and to add a new understanding of the effects of antibiotic binding using the atomic resolution of nmr. the work presented within this thesis observes the blars protein in its apo form, complexed with l2short, or acylated states to determine the mechanism of signal transduction within the protein. we observe that the nì_-carboxylated k392 side chain undergoes fast motions within the active site, and simultaneously the protein is found to have slow timescale (ìâs-ms) motions. upon acylation the lysine undergoes nì_-decarboxylation, allowing the ì¢-lactam antibiotic to remain bound. throughout the transition from apo to acylated, blars the protein appears to rearrange the physical location of slow motion dynamics. the formation of a hydrogen bond network to the antibiotic or the lack of fast motions in the decarboxylated lysine side chain may be the cause of these changes. the slow motions move within the active site to a region of the protein outside of the active site. this dynamic rearrangement is likely the method of signal initiation in the protein. the synthesized peptide representing the c-terminus of the loop-2 domain (l2short) circumvented solubility issues found in the full-length peptide. the l2short peptide contains a single &gamma;-helix, flanked by two unstructured termini. the comparison of the 15n backbone dynamics of the l2short peptide, in the presence and absence of the blars, revealed the blars binding epitope through the increased slow timescale dynamics on the peptide. similarly, the binding epitope on blars was identified using chemical shift perturbations (csps) along with the saturation transfer difference (std) experiment. together this information served as input for the haddock software in order to determine the likely site of interaction and orientation of the peptide within the binding epitope. finally, the addition of antibiotic to the blars/l2short complex revealed, contrary to previously published work, that the interaction with the c-terminus of the loop-2 domain is unbroken by acylation of the sensor domain. this suggests a deeper complexity to the role of the loop-2 domain to signal transduction within blar1 than previously understood. modeling behavior data is important for online platforms and their users. machine learning on the behavior data aims at finding effective representations (for calculation) to support functions such as recommendation, fraud detection, planning, and decision making. the challenge of learning to model behaviors lies in the complex and evolving nature of the behavior contexts. we are witnessing interactions more than isolation and dynamics more than static state. existing methods were designed to preserve pair-wise similarity of the components that interact with each other into their representations. for example, they assumed that in a paper co-authors should be similar, in a project co-investigators should be similar, in a course learning materials should be similar, and in a prescription drugs should be similar. however, decision makers such as project leaders, course instructors, and doctors are often looking for complementary (instead of the most similar) resources and ideas to create an effective solution. how to quantify and capture the complementarity remains an open problem. moreover, real-world behaviors are constantly changing over time. so, the dynamics that drive the evolutionary process of the behaviors need to be properly modeled. in this dissertation i describe several studies in which i present computational approaches for modeling and learning complementarity and dynamics. quantum-dot cellular automata (qca) is a paradigm for classical computing being developed as an alternative to conventional complimentary metal-oxide semiconductor (cmos) transistor logic. qca is motivated by high levels of power dissipation (heat) in modern cmos devices and the approaching limit of the decades-long trend of transistor scaling to improve computing performance. qca offers ultra-high device densities, ultra-fast device switching, and low levels of dissipation.here, a scheme is provided for the clocking of molecular qca using a time-varying electric field generated by clocking wires buried beneath the substrate. a worst-case analysis yields an upper limit of power dissipation in clocking wires and demonstrates that the additional power dissipation due to this circuitry is a concern secondary to dissipation in the molecular devices themselves. a model of the energetics of qca bit packets demonstrates that energy input from the clock required to form a bit packet may be returned to the clock upon erasure of the bit packet. adiabatic cmos analogs of qca circuits are presented, which could yield power benefits even before molecular qca is fully developed. a model of a qca molecule interacting with a simple, explicitly-modeled quantum environment is developed to study quantum decoherence in molecular qca, revealing that environmental interactions tend to stabilize molecular qca bits. a dissipative model of driven electron transfer coupled to environmentally-damped nuclear displacements in a qca molecule is developed using the lindblad equation. electron transfer rates in the terahertz regime are calculated for a candidate qca molecule. a calculation of power flow and dissipation to the environment is derived, and a high degree of adiabaticity is demonstrated in some regions of the design space. the models presented here may provide a link in a qca molecule design loop, in which molecules are conceived, characterized in quantum chemistry, modeled according to our theory and evaluated for operating speed and power dissipation, and, finally, redesigned as needed for superior performance. ischemic heart disease perennially is the most common cause of death in the us and the world. myocardial infarction (mi) is the most lethal and rapid pathology in this category and requires rapid diagnosis, time-critical treatment, and disease progression monitoring. herein a process to mimic the mi experience in vitro through iteratively more complex culture models is described in lieu of a microrna (mir) detection platform and extracellular vesicle (ev) lysis chip. this platform will be compared against clinical plasma samples to better inform the iterative process as well as study the temporal mir transients in st-elevated mi (stemi) and how these compare to mir profiles in coronary artery disease (cad).of the mirs examined mir-1, 208, and 499 exhibit the most promising indicators of myocardial irregularities. these targets show differences in expression based on tissues affected, flow conditions, oxygen content, and mir release mechanisms. mir08 appears to rule in cardiac pathology, mir-1 serves to discriminate between stemi and cad as well as between stemi and control, and mir-499 differentiates between cardiomyocyte and endothelial cell disruptions. herein a procedure to lyse extracellular vesicles with minimal processing time and no additional buffers confounding mir quantification.expanding the pool of clinical samples to multiplexed sensors measuring these mirs in combination could provide clinically relevant information. as the tissue culture models better approximate clinical samples they may branch out beyond mi modeling and serve to model intersections between mi, cad, and other cardiac pathologies. employing mir quantification, ev lysis, and nm-sized particle fractionation could open a series of pathology indicators in a simple point-of-care apparatus. place and space has become a topic of theological currency in the late 20th and early 21st century, but its trinitarian implications merit further exploration. in this dissertation, the author contends that trinitarian models encode spatial and placial assumptions, which in turn encode assumptions about god, creation, and intelligibility. the central aim of this study is to tease out the placial and spatial implications of two different episodes in which trinitarian thought has flourished. the author first treats fourth-century trinitarian reflection ì¢ ââ" specifically, that developed by the cappadocian fathers (basil of caesarea, gregory of nazianzus, and gregory of nyssa) and, as well, by augustine of hippo. bringing these architects of classical trinitarian thought into dialogue with modern placial theorists, the author finds a similar tendency to understand place as having to do with meaning-making, navigation, and the symbolic structuring of a world. secondly, the author considers contemporary trinitarian soundings ì¢ ââ" and particularly, those conducted in ways sympathetic to the classical tradition and to continental philosophy. here the author engages two interlocutors, jìäå_rgen moltmann and the early jean-luc marion. in moltmann's case, the author finds that the later moltmann in particular gives theological heft to place and space, but that his placial aims are frustrated by his more fundamental requirement that place function as a preconstituted domain or horizon. turning to jean-luc marion's earlier and more explicitly theological works, the author argues that the significance he gives to place ì¢ ââ" and particularly to distance ì¢ ââ" creates problems for his trinitarian model, effectively demoting the spirit. the study concludes by imagining ways in which the strengths of all the models ì¢ ââ" ancient and contemporary, theological and placial ì¢ ââ" might mutually correct each other, and thereby give a coherent trinitarian theology of place. a molecular understanding of protein-protein interactions is important to be able to understand cell cycle and diseases associated with it. the specificity of these proteinprotein interactions is usually associated with the chemical properties of the amino acids that contact the substrate. this thesis investigates the dependence of protein binding affinity on the sequence specific dynamics of the protein binding loop. the model system used for this study is ww domain of pin1. pin1 protein is a two domain protein that interacts with other proteins important for cell cycle. it catalyzes cis-trans isomerization of p-ser/pro or p-thr/pro motifs. generally, ww domains are involved in the binding of polyproline ii helix motifs to the surface of the protein whose binding preference is found to depend on recognition specificity loop. in the case of pin1-ww, this loop prefers the p-ser/pro or p-thr/pro motifs. to establish the relationship between the dynamics of the sequence and the binding affinity, ps-ns motion study using nmr spectroscopic method has been done on the apo wild-type ww and its mutants. the mutants were chosen by deleting or substituting one or more residues in the loop i region of the ww domain. the key residues responsible for binding specificity are ser16-arg17-ser18-ser19gly20-arg21, and so the mutants involved changes in these residues keeping arg17 intact whose side chain has been shown to be involved in forming direct contacts with substrate. the plan is to study whether the loop region dynamics changes even though we do not alter the residue or the side chains directly involved in bonding and thus showing that chemical nature of the sequence alone does not govern the binding preference of the domain. the binding affinity for the wild-type [1] and ww mutants has been calculated (by tao peng) and the kd value for wild-type (wt) is observed to be much less than its mutants for the substrate cdc25. the expected result from the dynamic study would be to see a decrease in the motion of the loop region for the mutants of ww and a similar dynamic pattern for its orthologs on the basis of the hypothesis that nature possibly selects for conformational dynamics as well. to investigate and make a quantitative assessment of the dynamic-binding relationship, the dynamic information for each of the sites in the protein will be extracted from the relaxation rates r1 (longitudinal rate constant), r2 (transverse rate constant), r1ì (rotating frame spin lattice rate constant) and steady state heteronuclear noe, measured using nmr at 700 mhz and 800 mhz field strengths.the rate constants will be analyzed using the lipari-szabo model [2]; the analysis will provide the site-specific dynamic parameters that describe the internal dynamics of the pin1-ww domain. these motional parameters will be determined by non-linear least squares fitting method of the relaxation rates to model functions. the fitted parameters will contain the information on the amplitude and the time-scale of the internal motion of the backbone n-h bonds. a comparison of the dynamic parameters will be done for the wt-ww and its mutants and then correlated with their binding affinity . surface plasmonic heating effect is originated from the resonance oscillation of the free electrons in noble metal nanoparticles, i.e., plasmonic nanoparticles, when they are irradiated by the incident laser with resonance wavelength. the resonance wavelength of plasmonic nanoparticle can be tuned by engineering the materials, geometry and size of the nanoparticle. when surface plasmonic heating effect occurs in nanoparticle suspension, a large amount of heat is produced locally around the irradiated nanoparticles, which can vaporize the surrounding liquid and generate plasmonic bubbles. there are two major types of plasmonic bubbles, i.e., supercavitating nanobubble and surface microbubble. in this work, the coreshell gold/sio2 nanoparticle (120 nm diameter) and a near-infrared femtosecond pulsed laser (800 nm) are used to study the novel opto-thermo-fluidic behaviors and related applications of these plasmonic bubbles. supercavitating nanobubble is a vapor bubble generated to encapsulate a single nanoparticle, i.e., supercavitating nanoparticle, which has a stabilized diameter of a few hundreds of nanometers. supercavitating nanobubble can be detected by visualizing the magnification in the far-field cross section scattered probe light in pump-probe optical scattering imaging. the nanoparticles in a suspension can be driven by scattering optical force originated from the momentum exchange between incident photons and the nanoparticles. the photon stream in the laser beam usually exerts an optical pushing force that drives the nanoparticles to move in the light propagating direction. however, when a nanoparticle is encapsulated by a nanobubble, the moving speed of the nanoparticle can be ~2 orders of magnitude larger than a bare nanoparticle, since the nanoparticle moves in the vapor medium, that has a much lower viscosity, instead of liquid. moreover, this supercavitating nanobubble can optically couple to the encapsulated nanoparticle to trigger the "negative" scattering optical forces on the nanoparticle, leading to an optical pulling force, depending on the position of a nanoparticle inside the nanobubble. supercavitating nanobubble does not only influence the motions of suspended nanoparticles in bulk liquid, but also can disturb the capillary trapping force at the liquid/air interface and let supercavitating nanoparticles to move across the interface when driven by laser.using the optical pulling or pushing force, we can directly deposit plasmonic nanoparticles onto optically transparent substrates when they are immersed in nanoparticle suspensions. once the nanoparticles deposited reach the critical number at a given laser power density, the surface heating effect can allow the substrate to reach a threshold temperature for the nucleation of surface microbubbles. this method eliminates the complicated surface plasmonic nanostructures pre-fabrication process in conventional surface microbubble generation methodology. moreover, it is interesting that we observed much faster surface bubble growth rates in nanoparticle suspension compared to those in pure water with pre-fabricated nanostructures. our analyses show that the volumetric heating effect around the surface bubble due to the existence of nanoparticles in the suspension is the key to explain this difference. such volumetric heating increases the temperature around the surface bubble more efficiently compared to sorely surface heating which enhances the expelling of dissolved gas. in addition, the volumetric heating can also bring some hot nanoparticles to depin and extend the front three-phase contact line of the surface bubble enabling precise spatiotemporal light-controlled surface bubble movement. with this technique, we demonstrate that surface bubbles on a solid surface are directed by a laser to move at high speeds (&gt;1.8 mm/s). our findings are beneficial to a wide range of applications like combinatorial material development, microfluidic logic, catalysis, micropatterning, cell-level therapy and imaging, controlled drug delivery, and photothermal energy conversion. ash (fraxinus, oleaceae) species occur on most continents, across a wide range of forest tree communities. the accidental introduction of the emerald ash borer beetle, agrilus planipennis fairmaire (eab; coleoptera: buprestidae), now threatens the north american fraxinus resource. introduced into the u.s. from asia in the late 20th century, eab has caused widespread mortality primarily in green ash, fraxinus pennsylvanica marsh. (section: melioides) and now impacts other north american ash species. the development and successful reintroduction of resistant trees requires genetic tools for the evaluation of population dynamics in order to inform seed collection initiatives and restoration protocols. here, i report 16 novel est-ssr markers developed for green ash, most of which amplify and are polymorphic across 18 other species of fraxinus, including six species native to north america. i utilize these markers to identify the principal variables necessary for reproductive success in a pollen and seed dispersal analysis in eastern montana. in addition, i ascertain fundamental characteristics of genetic variation and population differentiation across the range of green ash, including a broad and fine-scale analysis of genetic structure.i inferred pollination neighborhood size (0.53 hectares) and found significant differentiation among pollen pools (ɸft = 0.118, p = 0.001) with few effective pollen donors per mother tree (nep = 3.97). the distribution of pollen flow follows a bivariate, two-parameter exponential power function and the mean distance of pollen flow, δ, is high (δ = 182 m). i found three genetic clusters in the range with high genetic variation and highly variable population differentiation (0.003 to 0.330). although spatial factors did not estimate differentiation well, mean temperature of the driest quarter was the best single predictor of population differentiation.finally, i found that individuals from the "central prairie" region maintained a growth advantage after 37 years and with advanced reproduction. additionally, trees from more northern latitudes and higher elevations were smaller and burst bud later than those from more southern origins. differential mortality was found across latitude with individuals from more southern latitudes surviving longer than those from northern latitudes. this dissertation examines nature and the supernatural in medieval romance, specifically how romance motifs were transmitted and incorporated into translated and original middle english romances and old norse-icelandic romances and legendary sagas. these romance motifs include those which entered middle english and old norse-icelandic literature from french sources, including the romance garden and the forest of aventure, but also those with roots in non-romance sources, like the werewolf and the loathly lady. very few scholars have compared how english and scandinavian authors evolved during the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries, a period in which both cultures were engaging with the same romance materials. by focusing on cultural inflections of the natural and supernatural in romance, this dissertation opens new avenues of research comparing literary development in later medieval england and scandinavia. it considers why authors might incorporate non-native literary traditions into their narratives and how conceptions of nature, ecology, and landscape change through the process of transmission and adaptation. the dissertation is divided into four studies on different landscapes and beings common to medieval romance: the garden, the forest, the supernatural mistress, and the so-called "saracen" giant. the medieval texts analyzed here depict interactions between humans, animals, and supernatural agents in specific environments, revealing medieval conceptions of nature but also manifesting constructs of gender, sexuality, and race. such comparisons uncover shared attitudes towards nature and the supernatural as entities beyond human control in the literatures of the north sea cultural zone. ridge generalized least squares (rgls) is a recently proposed estimation procedure for structural equation modeling (sem). the weight matrix for rgls is obtained by combining the sample fourth-order moment matrix with the identity matrix, and the relative contribution of each matrix is determined by a ridge tuning parameter. empirical results showed that, with nonnormally distributed data, parameter estimates by rgls can be much more accurate than those by the traditional methods. however, test statistics following rgls are still unable to control type i errors well, especially when the sample size is small. this dissertation proposes to optimize the rgls procedure in three directions. first, formulas are developed for the ridge tuning parameter to yield the most efficient parameter estimates in practice. second, corrections are developed for the test statistics following rgls to yield well-controlled type i errors. third, corrected formulas are developed for the standard errors of rgls estimates to be more accurate. for the formulas and corrections to have a wide scope of applicability, they are calibrated using monte carlo simulation with many conditions on population distribution, sample size, number of variables and model structure. the validity of the formulas and corrections are examined via an independent simulation study. in this thesis, i analyze the theme of subject formation in the novel entitled in the country of men by the libyan author hisham matar and connect this biopolitical process to structural conditions that marked gaddafi's libya. i explore the central mode of ambivalence that is enunciated in the narrative and interpret it to be both the affective blueprint of the productive effects of political power on the emerging subject as well as a structure of feeling that reflects the sense of life in a certain period of libyan social organization under the jamahiriya regime. the social atmosphere of ambivalence, here, emanates from two structural conditions that permeate both the world of the text and its historical counterpart. the first political condition consists of the social experience of the postcolony as governed by what achille mbembe calls "a regime of simulacrum" that the national bourgeoisie and the postcolonial state equally construct. the second condition, which is more specific to the libyan context, emanates from the performative and improvised nature of the jamahiriya regime in which the libyan people were both subjugated and declared sovereign. while many have illustrated the poor track record of armed state-building projects abroad, few have asked why powerful states choose to employ this costly strategy given its inherent drawbacks. if institution-building strategies frequently fail to achieve their objectives, why do powerful states ever engage in the calamitous practice? this dissertation asks two interrelated questions: what determines a foreign ruler's choice of strategy following armed intervention, and why do foreign rulers often fail to plan post-intervention strategies prior to the arrival of troops on the ground? i argue that pre-existing institutional strength of local territories largely guides major powers' strategic choices following armed intervention, regardless of the foreign ruler's prior goals and preferences. second, uncertainty prior to armed intervention inhibits assessment of local contexts and prevents selection of a foreign rule strategy until after troops have arrived in the foreign territory. only once the foreign ruler's military intervenes into the foreign territory can the foreign ruler assess the strength of the local institutions in the territory and their suitability for meeting their goals.to test my argument, i use a mixed-methods research design that comprises both quantitative testing of my argument across time and space with in depth case studies to trace my hypothesized causal processes. i first broadly test my claims using an original dataset of over 160 cases of foreign rule, which includes original data collection and coding of foreign rule strategies across all cases. i then use a most-similar case design to carry out a structured paired comparison of the american interventions in mexico and dominican republic under president woodrow wilson. given the similarity between the cases in terms of time period, region, and international conditions, only the differences in local institutional strength between the cases remains as a plausible explanatory variable that can explain the variation in strategy. combined, this dissertation illustrates the crucial importance local institutional strength plays in determining both the content and timing of a powerful state's foreign rule strategy. this dissertation examines dante alighieri's intellectual formation and explores the ways in which a laicus such as the poet might have gained access to theological and philosophical knowledge in 1290s florence. since in convivio ii.xii.7 the poet claimed that he attended the "disputations of the philosophizers" in florence's convent schools where "philosophy was truly revealed" to him, this research presents the transcriptions of several hitherto unedited "disputations" that were held in the franciscan convent of santa croce in 1295. this material helps establish the kind of influence that these disputations might have had on the theological and philosophical aspects of dante's early works and on his self-fashioned public profile before his exile in 1302. i argue that these debates (as well as other forms of mediated knowledge such as florilegia and compilationes) provided dante with basic theological and philosophical information. i also trace the presence of this 'knowledge' in the vita nova and in the canzone le dolci rime d'amor, the works that dante wrote around the time that he attended the florentine convent schools. this learning experience allowed dante to develop ideological viewpoints that are 'antithetical' to some of the doctrinal positions of florentine friars. finally, i maintain that the doctrinal complexity of the vita nova and le dolci rime was essential for dante to distinguish himself among the lay and clerical intellectuals of contemporary florence, and helped him to build his reputation as "vero filosofo" as well as a leading intellectual in the second half of the 1290s. at present, the dominant sect in morocco is the mālikī sect of sunni islam; because of this, it has been assumed that the country and its respective muslim dynasties (dawla) have been largely mālikī sunni for much of its history.the problem with this assumption is that the evidence for such a history is sparse and uneven. the only medieval moroccan dynasty with a clear mālikī affiliation was the almoravids (r. 440 -541 ah /1048-1147 ce). despite this, historians worked under the assumption that most moroccan dynasties, such as the idrīsids (r. 172375 / 789 -985), the almohads (r.524-668/ 1130-1269) and the marīnids (before 642-870/before 1244-1465), were mālikī sunni who fought one another for territorial rather than spiritual gains, with the one exception being the smaller, "fringe" dynasties of the barghawāṭa and the midrārids.according to this logic, questions related to the religiopolitical legitimacy of medieval moroccan dynasties were seen as part of religious reform movements originating within the mālikī sect rather than belonging to sectarian divisions outside of mālikī sect. however, medieval morocco was not the exclusive domain of the mālikī sunni sect wherein mālikī sunni dynasties fought one another for territorial control and material gains.instead, medieval morocco was a contested space wherein different islamic sects and their respective followers competed with one another for religiopolitical legitimacy, which in turn bolstered their dynastic authority.each moroccan dynasty rose and fell in response to its predecessor's and its successor's claims to embody the correct da'wa (articulation of islamic belief) and its corresponding authority.the physical manifestation of this non-homogenous religious landscape was the presence of constant dynastic revolution coupled with changing definitions, rituals, and figures of legitimacy throughout the middle ages.in this dynamic sectarian environment, the mālikī sect was not able to establish itself in medieval morocco in the same way that had in other parts of the islamic west.the general absence of the mālikī sect in morocco resulted in the sect's subsequent inability to maintain dynastic control and influence during the medieval period. this dissertation uses new media theories and developments in entertainment and publishing media during the first decade of the century in progress to argue for the significance of the fiction and multimedia projects of a new generation of american novelists. this set of novelists michael chabon, dave eggers, jonathan lethem, and david foster wallace have adapted to radical changes in literary production and consumption in order to imagine new approaches to literary aesthetics, entertainment, and questions of audience in the new millennium. these novelists conceive of themselves as a new generation that has developed out of and in reaction to the legacies of the postmodern fiction that preceded their generation. as importantly this generation is aware of its consideration of new aesthetic strategies that recognize enormous modifications in the cultural relationships between fiction and media over the last decade. a comparison with a representative postmodern novelist (thomas pynchon) demonstrates the extent to which this new generation of novelists offers exciting and unique new directions for literary fiction and for the study of contemporary literature in this era. my dissertation singles out the religious theory of knowledge that lies at the core of pasolini's social and political critique, as well as of his poetics of 1968. deeply (although not exclusively) influenced by his catholic formation, pasolini constructed his religious theory of knowledge around the two key notions of religiosità (religiousness) and ierofania (hierophany, literally "the manifestation of god"). based on his phenomenology of human experience, pasolini conceived of religiosità as an absolute, inner drive, which was irreducible to any human power, and of ierofania as the miraculous essence of the existence of reality. my dissertation demonstrates that, in the face of the consumerist and secular society of the late sixties, pasolini saw in the recovery of the religious dimensions of both inner life and reality the necessary condition of the political, as well as artistic renewal of western societies. according to pasolini, once the individual restores religion (or the sacred) as the overarching and founding value of his or her existence, he or she becomes an esempio (witness)––whether a poet, politician, or ordinary citizen. by bearing witness to the possibility of an actual otherness within homogeneous secular society––an otherness which is religious in nature––the esempi are the foundation of artistic and political change. second, my dissertation sheds new light on the influence of american culture on pasolini's christian-socialist views of democracy which, during the second half of the sixties and, more specifically, in 1968, were centered around the notions of "democracy" and "charity." by providing some of the sources through which pasolini became acquainted with the american political and cultural situation, i demonstrate how pasolini regarded certain american political realities as revolutionary, including the student movement sncc (social non-violent coordinating committee). in keeping with his religious views, pasolini saw the religiosità of some members of the sncc, as well as their idea of anti-community––understood as the locus of authentic and real exchange between individuals of different races and education levels––as conducive to authentic democracy. how did jews in the period before the rise of christianity, between the time of the composition of the hebrew bible and the new testament (ca. 400 bce – 90 ce), understand the relationship between the abrahamic and sinaitic covenants?many biblical scholars have insisted that the abrahamic and sinaitic covenants are different types, with the former being a covenant of divine promise and the latter a covenant of human obligation. an early form of this distinction appear in the writings of the apostle paul who insisted that gentiles do not need to keep the mosaic law before joining the christian movement. paul pointed to god's covenant with abraham to justify his position, quoting gen 15:6 in his epistle to the galatians (3:6). in gen 15:6, the writer in genesis declares that after receiving god's promise that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars (gen 15:5), abraham "believed the lord; and the lord reckoned it to him as righteousness."the primary aim of this project is to study how three jewish texts in the second temple period portrayed the relationship between god's covenant with abraham and god's covenant with israel at sinai. two of the texts under examination are from the old testament/hebrew bible – nehemiah (ca. 400 bce) and tobit (ca. 225-175 bce) – and one is the non-canonical jewish composition, book of jubilees (ca. 150 bce). the project demonstrates that these three works regarded the abrahamic and sinaitic covenants in a continuum, portraying god's covenant with abraham as a precursor to the god's covenant with israel at sinai.the ways in which nehemiah, tobit and jubilees portray the two covenants suggest that in the time before the rise of christianity, jews did not regard god's covenant with abraham as a "covenant of grace" and god's covenant with israel as a "covenant of works." diffuse optical spectroscopy (dos) is a noninvasive technology that uses near-infrared (nir) light (600-1100 nm) to investigate human tissue. implementations of the technology materialize in diverse areas of medicine, including pulse oximetry for measuring tissue oxygen saturation, functional near infrared spectroscopy (fnirs) for studying brain activity, and diffuse optical tomography (dot) for safely monitoring how tumors respond to chemotherapy.frequency domain (fd) dos builds on simpler attenuation-based techniques by introducing modulation (0 1000 mhz) to the light source amplitude. this enables quantitative recovery of both absorption and scattering in the tissue simultaneously via measurements of attenuation and phase shift in the intensity-modulated signal. hybrid broadband dos extends the measurement of fd-dos optical properties, from several discrete wavelengths to a continuous band across the nir region, to obtain broadband absorption and scattering spectra.in this work, we examine several approaches aimed at improving the performance and application of fd-dos based imaging. first, we apply hybrid broadband dos with the goal of inferring the presence of malaria parasites in infected individuals through the sensitive detection of a minor tissue absorber called hemozoin. we follow up with an in-depth study of the accuracy and precision of frequency domain dos, with an eye toward achieving the best measurements possible with current instruments. lastly, we evaluate a new technique called structured interrogation, which is based on the use of multiple in-phase modulated optical sources, to improve 3d localization and characterization of tissue heterogeneities. standard errors (ses) of an estimator are used to test the significance of specific parameters. commonly used asymptotic ses of the maximum likelihood estimator (mle) are based on fisher's information matrix or sandwich-type covariance matrix. when data contain outlying observations, the ml estimates can be biased and ses may increase. it has been shown that when robust methods are used to minimize the effects of outlying observations, they lead to less biased estimators and better model assessments. however, effects of outlying observations on ses have never been studied systematically under the framework of factor analysis. this thesis studies behaviors of ses in three aspects: (1) the effects of different types of outlying observations on ses of the mle. (2) the behaviors of ses of robust estimators. (3) formulas for calculating asymptotic ses of robust estimators are derived, in the case that replications are not implementable in practice. moreover, these formulas are tested to see if they can estimate the true ses well. simulation is carried out under different conditions. data containing different outlying observations and non-normally distributed data are generated and analyzed. i examine the educational theories of two harvard thinkers: philipp frank and james bryant conant. i show how frank's program for science education had roots in the viennese unity of science movement and that frank sought to dissolve the boundaries between philosophy and science. i then show how conant's educational proposals were a response to the cold war: educational reform could provide the unity needed for national survival and education in the history of science would make the technocracy of the atomic age less alien. in the final chapter i contrast frank and conant's images of science specifically with regard to what they thought the practice of science was for. i then link conant's thoughts to the development of the idea of an autonomous and self-regulating scientific community in the 1950s. in the appendix i take issue with steve fuller's discussion of conant and thomas kuhn. this paper will address the boundary of recognized identity in the french-algerian colonial relations. during the algerian war of independence, a challenge to the colonial system arose through breaking the racial segregation and spatial division within both the cities of algiers and paris. in the battle of algiers, several algerian women ì¢ ââ' dressed as european women ì¢ ââ' crossed into a restricted portion of the city and thus sparked the battle that became a turning point in the war. by moving past the mythic ethnic boundary toward a full european identity, this assimilative performance of the algerian women created a limbic space of resistance. investigating this performative transformation of race, and further, looking at the space of the bidonvilles outside the cities of algiers and paris, and the protests of october 17, 1961 in paris, will show how the colonized body crossed spatial boundaries within the cities of algiers and paris as well as its imposed racial boundaries. identities framed by the colonial authority were both ideologically mediated and architecturally reinforced; identity barriers regulating the body and spatial divisions within the city collapsed into one. each of these instances presented a challenge to these barriers. why does peace fail? more specifically, why do some governments and ethnonational groups striving for greater autonomy or independence revert to violence, while others manage to avoid repeat civil conflicts? from nigeria and the sudan to india and sri lanka, from azerbaijan and iraq to bosnia and the ukraine, civil wars fought over national self-determination account for some of the deadliest conflicts in recent history. today, these disputes constitute the most common form of state-based armed conflict. despite an unprecedented international commitment to building peace and fostering democracy in ethnically divided societies, sustainable solutions remain elusive. in many countries beleaguered by contested demands for self-determination, recurrent conflicts have become the norm. in this dissertation, i develop a theory about how power as foretold by demographics and influenced by geography shapes war and peace. demographic factors such as the relative size of the ethnonational group's population and its territorial settlement patterns always affect battlefield dynamics, often inhibit decisive military outcomes, and sometimes altogether prohibit efforts to negotiate and implement a peaceful resolution to the conflict. my central argument is that the demographic balance of power between the conflicting sides can largely explain why peace endures after the cessation of hostilities in some conflicts but not in others. conflicts that pit governments against rebels fighting for the self-determination of relatively large ethnonational groups, and especially those groups that represent the largest minority in the country are more susceptible to repeated cycles of large-scale violence and are more difficult to successfully end in a negotiated agreement. i test this argument utilizing a multi-method research design which combines a quantitative study of 103 violent national self-determination movements between 1946 and 2012 with a set of case studies that trace the path to war and the search for peace in the israeli-palestinian and the russo-chechen conflicts. this dissertation offers an interdisciplinary explanation that draws insights from international relations, political demography, and military science for what has predominantly been approached as a question of faulty institutional design or irreconcilable ethnic divisions. the findings have important policy implications for intrastate conflict resolution and international security. empire's callous hands traces the involvement of british government officials in the atlantic slave trade and analyzes the consequences of that involvement for both human trafficking and the imperial state. by reconstructing the lives, labor, and slave trade entanglements of an eclectic group of officials sent to administer british imperial authority in africa and america, the narrative reveals how these "government men" fashioned the spaces and processes in atlantic ports through which "free trade" in slaves flourished in the eighteenth century. in particular, it focuses on a specific slave trade network between the river gambia and charles town in south carolina. between 1690 and 1770, at least one hundred recorded slave trade voyages passed between british settlements there, the most to or from a single port in both places. historians have pointed to a number of historical processes and forces to explain the emergence of this distinct connection, from the broadest currents of atlantic markets to a conscious planter demand in south carolina for captives accustomed to growing rice. this dissertation, however, moves beyond conventional interpretations of the gambia-carolina trade and argues that the ever-shifting character of government and administration in british settlements in these atlantic entrepôts played a special role in shaping this slave trade network through the work of individual government men. on both sides of the atlantic, intimate involvements in slaving offered a path for government men to assert their authority and build their own wealth. as they acted out their own ambitions they often diverged from the designs of their metropolitan bosses; but over time, as a british world of slaving coalesced under an ideology of "free trade," the interests of these government men came to align with the interests of empire. as they exploited the lives and labor of thousands of captives, state formation and human trafficking went hand in hand, not just at the level of ideology and policy but in the quotidian tasks of administration. this work examines the development and application of high resolution numerical models, primarily using the advanced circulation model (adcirc), for the purpose of simulating coastal hydrodynamics including tides and storm surges in alaska and puerto rico and the u.s. virgin islands (prvi). these regions are primarily differentiated by their geographic latitude and the shelf widths bordering their coasts. the high latitude alaskan coastal region is home to complex tides and is subject to strong extratropical cyclones. the resulting storm surges are amplified over the broad bering sea shelf and sea ice plays a role in coastal hydrodynamics. in this work an unstructured grid adcirc model resolving these processes is implemented. comparisons to data assimilated tidal solutions and tide gauges show adcirc to have smaller tidal errors because of the high resolution provided. the model also shows considerable skill at simulating coastal surge and overland flooding during both open and ice covered periods. the effect of sea ice on storm surge is included through a parameterized wind drag coefficient, modifying the air sea momentum transfer under ice coverage. discussions are made with regards to limitations of the model setup, particularly related to the ice influenced surface stress calculation. suggestions for future model improvements are made. puerto rico and the u.s. virgin islands are characterized by adjacent deep ocean, narrow shelves, and coral reef systems. strong tropical cyclones and the resulting large waves and storm surges are of significant concern. in this work, hindcasts of waves and surge for 2017 hurricanes irma and maria are examined and compared to wave and water level gauge data in the vicinity of prvi using an unstructured grid wave-circulation coupled model (adcirc+swan) and a suite of atmospheric forcing products. the water level response analysis highlights the importance of atmospheric pressure driven surge, wind-driven surge over the narrow shelves and wave-induced setup in the nearshore. adcirc+swan is compared with a structured grid wave-circulation coupled model (slosh-fw). it is shown that although both models respond similarly to atmospheric forcing, wave setup is generally smaller nearshore in slosh-fw. additional model strengths and shortcomings are discussed. the epothilones are anticancer agents that stabilize microtubules by binding within the paclitaxel binding site in ì_å_-tubulin; their mechanism of action is analogous to that of taxolìâå¨. the structure-activity relationships (sar) of epothilones have been extensively investigated. our contributions to these sar studies have emphasized the role conformation plays in biological function. conformational analysis predicts two major conformations for the epothilone epoxide/olefinic region. some groups have suggested that the bioactive conformation of this region most closely resembles conformer 2. computational methods and high-field nmr experiments on the epothilone pharmacophore have enabled us to distinguish epoxide/olefinic conformer i and epoxide/olefinic conformer ii and, subsequently, to determine which most accurately describes the bioactive conformation for this region. we have confirmed through computer modeling techniques that (14s)and (14r)-methyl epothilone d preferentially exist as epoxide/olefinic conformer i and epoxide/olefinic conformer ii, correspondingly. moreover, the c14-methyl substituent destabilizes the surrogate conformer. (14s)-methyl epothilone d exhibits biological activity against several human cancer cell lines analogous to the naturally occurring epothilones; however, (14r)-methyl epothilone d retains no significant cytotoxicity. herein, we have employed a concise, efficient second generation synthesis of our designed, c14-methylated epothilone d analogues that shortens our synthetic route by two steps and circumvents some of the difficulties associated with our first generation synthetic route. subsequently, we investigated their binding interactions with tubulin, including elucidating their thermodynamic binding parameters. these studies demonstrated that (14s)-methyl epothilone d incites microtubule polymerization and binds to the paclitaxel binding site (kapp = 1.2 x 107 m-1 at 37oc). in contrast, (14r)-methyl epothilone d does not incite microtubule polymerization and does not show any appreciable affinity for the paclitaxel binding site. these data provide additional evidence towards the bioactive conformation of the epoxide/olefinic region of the epothilone class of natural products and suggests that the bioactive conformation of the epoxide/olefinic region is, indeed, epoxide/olefinic conformer i and is most similar to that adopted by (14s)-methyl epothilone d. this dissertation examines how regulatory requirements cause banks to reduce pass-through of expansionary monetary policy into the interest rates on bank loans. the first chapter investigates the market structure of the banking sector in the united states. since 2001, the largest 500 commercial banks (out of over 7,400) have increased their market shares in the markets for bank assets and bank loans from roughly 50% to well over 90%. using the panzar and rosse (1987) h-statistic, the u.s. banking sector is found to be monopolistically competitive. as such, banks appear to have market power in setting interest rates. chapter 2, adapted from joint work with thomas cosimano and dalia hakura, examines whether bank capital plays a role in decision-making by bank holding companies (bhcs). bhcs optimally choose the amount of capital relative to the regulatory requirement. the finding that higher target capital-to-asset ratios cause bhcs to raise loan rates rejects the modigliani-miller theorem that debt versus equity financing should not be a factor in corporate decision-making. furthermore, higher loan rates result in lower amounts of lending. as a result, raising the capital requirements on bhcs is likely to lead to higher loan rates, and a reduction in lending. the final chapter examines why bank loan rates tend to adjust well when the monetary policy rate rises, but not when the policy rate falls. a dynamic banking model shows that this asymmetry in interest rate pass-through can be explained by the presence of regulatory requirements imposed on banks. if the regulatory constraint is binding, banks will raise loan rates relative to the monetary policy rate. when the central bank lowers its policy rate, the critical value at which the constraint becomes binding is lowered. this makes it more likely that banks become constrained, and hence reduce pass-through. empirical evidence corroborates the model predictions that (i) more banks are capital constrained during falling than rising rate periods; (ii) constrained banks adjust loan rates less relative to the federal funds rate, and (iii) the loan rates of constrained banks are more sensitive to demand side fluctuations, compared to unconstrained banks. the boundary of the central (cns) and peripheral (pns) nervous system critically functions to provide immune protection to the cns. although the nervous system is physically separated into the cns and pns domains by a thick protective barrier of glial cells, it is crucial for these two distinct systems to be successfully connected in order to transmit information efficiently and maintain a healthy and functioning nervous system. specialized neural and glial populations reside within the cns or pns to facilitate the proper organization of these systems to effectively communicate information across the cns/pns boundary. despite our understanding of the importance of this protective cns boundary, little is known about how the cns boundary is constructed and organized during normal development. consequently, in instances of disease or injury where the cns/pns boundary becomes disrupted, the resulting disorganization prevents neuronal information from being properly communicated to preserve a fully functional nervous system. this presents a significant gap in our understanding of normal cns boundary development and further how to reconstruct this crucial boundary during injury and disease. until we understand the cellular interactions and cues involved in normal boundary development, we cannot begin to fully understand how to rebuild and replicate this boundary organization in neurodegenerative disease states like multiple sclerosis (ms) and symptoms resulting from neuronal injuries like neuropathic pain.further characterization of the specific interactions between cns and pns-resident cells like neuron-glia interactions is necessary to fully understand how to organize the boundary during development. these specific interactions occurring at the boundary are understudied. in this dissertation, we will describe several novel interactions between pns and cns cells at the cns boundary uniquely using in vivo time-lapse imaging of intact developing zebrafish. we will identify and explore three distinct roles of specialized glial cells in the cns that traverse the cns/pns boundary. first, we describe a unique interaction between a peripheral neuron population and a functionally distinct cns-resident glial progenitor population. next, we identify a distinct population of glial cells that override their cns-resident domain specific nature following developmental injury. lastly, we identify and characterize a population of glial cells that colonize the cns in early embryonic development. together, this work expands on our current understanding of the interactions between the cns and pns cells that aid in the construction of the cns/pns boundary during normal development and homeostasis. this work additionally advances our gap in understanding of how glial cells organize and interact during boundary disruption and disorganization following states of injury and disease. and further reveals crucial roles cns and pns cells play in reconstructing this crucial immune protected cns/pns boundary. specificity in antigen recognition is a cornerstone of the adaptive immune system. a critical component of this is the recognition by t cell receptors of peptide antigen presented on major histocompatibilty complex (mhc) proteins. t cells are capable of recognizing viral or tumor-associated peptide-mhc and distinguishing disease-relevant antigens from self epitopes with fine specificity. as a consequence of the extreme diversity of peptide-mhc antigens, t cell receptors are paradoxically capable of cross-reacting to chemically and structurally distinct peptide-mhc.research into the biophysical and structural underpinnings of t cell receptor antigen specificity and cross-reactivity have revealed some correlates and dependence on structural features, however our understanding remains too limited to develop immunotherapeutics intended to recruit t cells to a tumor in a patient-specific manner. here, we demonstrate and critically evaluate computational methods for characterizing peptide-mhc structure for the purpose of determining "difference from self," in a high-throughput manner toward the goal of improving target prioritization in therapeutic pipelines. as usually defined, the concepts of justice and mercy seem incompatible' if justice is the strict application of the law, and mercy lenient deviation from it, then mercy is unjust and justice is merciless. perhaps for this reason, liberal political philosophers have mostly neglected the topic of mercy, despite its traditional role in contributing to political stability. the present study suggests that one can integrate mercy into liberal political philosophy only after significant departures from the usual accounts. st. anselm of canterbury gave the classic formulation of the paradoxes of justice and mercy in his proslogion, and in his later works he solved them. anselm claims that justice and mercy should be defined in terms of right order or rectitude. justice is the desire to effect and preserve rectitude, while mercy is the attempt at restoring another to justice so defined. anselm claims it is both more stable and more humane to persuade people to desire right order for its own sake, rather than to coerce the people to uphold the political order or to bribe them to pursue it out of momentary advantage. mercy, understood in an anselmian fashion as ordered toward rectitude, is a stabilizing policy when exercised with prudence. the contractarian theories of justice promoted by john rawls and others are unstable because they cannot earn the support of people who reject autonomy as the organizing principle of their lives and politics. moreover, it is difficult to develop an adequate account of criminal punishment that is consistent with contractarian liberalism. a view that puts stability and mercy at the center of its accounts of governing and punishing can serve as a more stable foundation for liberal politics than can contemporary views. the theory developed here sees citizens a in democracy as leaders responsible for promoting their ideas of social order. when advocating their ideas, they ought to persuade those who disagree rather than to coerce them, for this promote stability. likewise with criminals: although, punishment is justified as a defense of societal order against the criminal's attack on it, it is better to persuade the criminal to obey the law voluntarily and for principled reasons. this dissertation includes three essays on firm dynamics and macroeconomics. the first chapter focuses on the interplay between financial regulation and the sovereign default crisis. empirical evidence suggests that the government may pressure the domestic agents to purchase their sovereign debt during turbulent times. a quantitative model is developed to capture the cyclical behavior of the domestic share during the european debt crisis. we find that a moderate counter-cyclical financial repression rule helps the government ``earn'' reputation and brings welfare improvements. the next two chapters connect brand capital and firm dynamics. the second chapter starts with an empirical analysis based on large-scale scanner data. contrary to conventional wisdom, data suggest a declining trend of industrial concentration for the consumer goods industry since 2006. i attribute this trend to the rise of digital advertising, which distinguishes itself by granular targeting. digital marketing has been replacing traditional advertising. a calibrated model shows that the adoption of targeted advertising endogenously lowers market concentration and improves welfare. the third chapter gives a succinct analysis of trademark as a form of protection. trademarks safeguard brand marketing and facilitate new product introductions. in argument and in action, the deus ex machina appears as arbitrary resolution. the "god from the machine," however, regularly reveals an appreciation for the insolubility of politics and of the problems of political theory. more than affirming enduring questions that extend beyond the circumstances of greek drama, the deus ex machina can enact, if not understand, the fact of the "perplexity" (aporia) of politics. in chapter 1, i derive a methodology from aristotle's and nietzsche's famous critiques of the integrity of the deus ex machina. in chapters 2 through 4, i study homer's odyssey, aeschylus' eumenides, and euripides' medea in search of the distinctive ways those poets deploy the figure of the divine interruption of ordinary life. in chapter 5, i defend a reading of plato's republic as concluding in a philosophical iteration of the deus ex machina in the myth of er. this project focuses upon devices that can be used for detection of thermal or long-wave infrared radiation, which is a frequency range for which developing detectors is of special interest. objects near 300 k, such as humans and animals, emit radiation most strongly in this range, and absorption is relatively low in the lwir atmospheric window between 8 and 14 &mu;m. these facts provide motivation to develop detectors for use in this frequency range, which could be used for target detection, tracking, and navigation in autonomous vehicles. the devices discussed in this dissertation, referred to as dipole antenna-coupled metal-oxide-metal diodes (acmomds), feature a half-wavelength antenna that couples electromagnetic radiation to a metal-oxide-metal diode, which acts as a nonlinear junction to rectify the signal. these detectors are patterned using electron beam lithography and fabricated with shadow evaporation metal deposition. along with offering cmos compatible fabrication, these detectors provide high speed and frequency selective detection without biasing, a small pixel footprint, and full functionality at room temperature without cooling. the detection characteristics can be tailored to provide for multi-spectral imaging in specific applications by modifying device geometries. in this dissertation, a brief introduction to currently available infrared detectors is given, thereby providing a motivation for why acmomds were chosen for this project. an overview of the metal-oxide metal diode is provided, detailing principles of operation and detection. the fabrication of acmomds is described in detail, from bonding pad through device processes. direct-current current-voltage characteristics of symmetrical and asymmetrical antenna diodes are presented. an experimental infrared test bench used for determining the detection characteristics of these detectors is detailed, along with the figures of merit which have been measured and calculated. the measured performance of fabricated acmomds is presented, including responsivity, noise performance, signal-to-noise ratio, noise-equivalent power, and normalized detectivity. the response as a function of infrared input power, polarization dependence, and antenna-length dependence of these devices is also presented. what does it mean to have good taste? i provide a commentary on immanuel kant's &quot;critique of aesthetic judgment,&quot; part 1 of the critique of judgment, that aims to describe how he might answer this question. i show that, for kant, taste, our capacity for feeling pleasure and displeasure on the basis of which we can judge whether an object is beautiful, begins as a crude talent that must be sharpened if we are to judge the beautiful correctly. when we have good taste, according to kant, we become the kind of person who takes pleasure in those objects that are truly worth contemplating. i argue that this activity of contemplation, which kant calls the free play of the understanding and the imagination, is best understood as practice reflecting on an object for the sake of better understanding what it offers. for kant, i claim, a beautiful object provides us with an excellent example for how we might make sense of something that lies beyond the boundaries of possible experience, for example, the perfect expression of love, the majesty of god's creative power, or what it's like to feel at home in the world. it is an excellent example because through continued practice, we can always learn more about how it strives to show us what it does. in other words, a beautiful object offers an inexhaustible wealth of material that sustains our contemplation indefinitely, and taste, then, is our capacity to like those objects that are excellent in this sense and dislike those that are not. i argue that, for kant, it is important to develop one's taste because it plays an orientational role in human life. to have good taste is to become mature enough to determine for oneself which objects of art or nature offer an excellent example for how we might strive toward making sense of some of our deepest concerns as humans, that is, an example which always remains worth contemplating, an example from which we can always learn more. there has been a long-standing discourse in the field of sociology of education regarding the relationship of school community to effective schools. many times, this discourse has become muddled in discussions of social capital, school climate, and achievement gains. this move in the discourse is likely due to the difficulty of adequately measuring social resources along with the prevalence of testing data. this dissertation returns the discussion back to the core ideas relating social resources to school community and engagement. this is done by connecting social relationship data to school community and engagement outcomes using data from 15 indianapolis charter schools. the survey data collected for this dissertation maps the network of relationships between school staff and assesses their perceptions on various school community and engagement outcomes. using these concrete, measureable network measures of social resources, i find evidence that links the social relationships of teachers and principals to indicators of school community, especially trust and shared values and norms. the evidence linking these social resources to teacher and student engagement is more mixed. the principals' and school-wide social resources and school community indicators of trust and shared values and norms do well to explain teacher engagement. for student engagement, the school community outcomes matter less so, the principals' social resources matter more so, and the teachers' social resources are mixed. taken together, these analyses show how social resources outweigh other human or material resources of school staff. these findings also highlight how the principals' social resources play a positive and important role in school community and engagement among teachers and students. this dissertation studies the problem of wideband spectrum sensing for cognitive radio by partitioning into four fundamental elements: system modeling, performance metrics, sampling schemes, and detection algorithms. each element can potentially couple individual channels, and appropriate designs of wideband spectrum sensing should consider the four elements jointly. we propose a p-sparse model to characterize the primary occupancy in a band of channels as a bernoulli process, and suggest a pair of new performance metrics more appropriate for wideband spectrum sensing, specifically, the probability of insufficient spectrum opportunities piso and the probability of excessive interference opportunities peio. we suggest two narrower band nyquist sampling schemes with correspondingly much lower rates than wideband nyquist rate, i.e., partial-band nyquist sampling (pbns) and sequential narrow band nyquist sampling (snns), and establish a unified sub-nyquist sampling structure, within which we study several important sub-nyquist sampling schemes in literature. we investigate the aliasing patterns inherent in sub-nyquist sampling and identify two extremes, specifically, uniform aliasing and periodic aliasing, and develop corresponding detection algorithms that allow tradeoffs between primary protection and secondary opportunities relevant to the goal of channel detection characterized pm, the probability of missed detection, and pf, the probability of false alarm, as well as the goal of wideband detection characterized by piso and peio. for performance metrics that couple individual channels, multi-channel detection algorithms have an advantage over channel-by-channel detection algorithms even for nyquist sampling that give independent observations across channels. most importantly, integer undersampling (iu), which corresponds to the simplest sub-nyquist sampling scheme, exhibits the best observed sensing performance in the regime of better protection for the primary system, i.e., the regime of low pm and high pf, or the regime of low peio and high piso, for moderate and high signal-to-noise ratio (snr &#8805; 0 db); on the other hand, snns exhibits globally best performance for low snr (< 0 db) for the cases studied. these observations discourage studies on the design of more sophisticated sub-nyquist sampling schemes and development of more advanced sparse reconstruction algorithms to the problem of wideband spectrum sensing, since their performance is inferior to either iu or snns depending on the system parameters and the detection regime considered. testing the http thesis submission between production sipity and batch ingest symbiotic microbial relationships shape developmental biology and recently are being shown to influence immunity and disease susceptibility. these interactions are complex to say the least, involving the host and its mechanisms, and the vast composition of the micfloral environment and each of its individual dynamics. this system is in a constant state a flux, with the host growing and changing and the microbiota doing the same to meet its own needs. little is known about the changes that occur throughout the midgut micobiome proliferation in vectors. this system becomes even more complex when involving vectors of tropical diseases. in this case, the host and microbiome not only interact with each other, they also interact with an invading pathogen. there is also little understood concerning how this affects the host development and molecular mechanisms. through our work, we were able to address all of these topics for a more holistic approach of microbiome research. we showed that fitness characteristics of the dengue vector, aedes aegypti, vary largely between strains, including varying response to microflora presence or absence, but did not vary in response to dengue virus infection we were able to elucidate the microbiome composition of ae. aegypti throughout the life cycle of a susceptible and resistant strain, documenting differences between the two strains. we also observed the ability for individuals grown under the same conditions to harbor diverse microbiomes. finally, we investigated how the presence of the microbiome influence microrna expression of ae. aegypti strains that are susceptible or resistant to dengue virus and found that in the resistant strain, microbiome absence dramatically decreases microrna expression. this shows that symbiotic relationship between the midgut microbiota and the host can extends to molecular mechanisms and to the cellular processes of the host. these studies allow researchers to observe the different facets of microbial interactions that occur within vectors and open up new opportunities for vector control strategies including selecting paratransgenesis candidates. molecular dynamics simulation is a numerical tool for simulating movements of molecules. it generates a sequence of coordinates representing brownian motion of molecules, which is called a trajectory. biological studies such as drug design usually involves reaction mechanisms over long time scales, which may cost several years of cpu clock time for simulation. therefore, ensemble algorithms are developed to significantly accelerate md simulations using distributed computing systems. a complication of ensemble algorithms is that they usually require a one dimensional reaction coordinate (rc), and it is challenging to extract rc from high dimensional conformational space. two algorithms that overcome this complication attracted attention over the past few years: the so-called weighted ensemble (we) and markov state models (msms). instead of rc, clustering of microscopic configurations into networks of "macro-states' is required for both algorithms. however, defining macro-states is still a complicated procedure which relies on sufficient sampling of the conformational space and the design of clustering algorithm. in chapter 1,2,3, i show that we rate predictions are less sensitive than msm predictions to the definition of the macro-states. msms introduce significant biases in the computation of reaction rates, which depend on the boundaries of macro-states. on the other hand, awe, a formulation of weighted ensemble that uses the notion of colors to compute fluxes along with a different algorithm to kill and split walkers, has reliable flux estimation on varying definitions of macro-states. rigorous numerical experiments using alanine dipeptide and penta-alanine support the analyses. the results suggest that whereas an msm provides a good idea of the metastable sets and visualization of overall dynamics, the computation of dynamical quantities is in general less biased when done using awe. although accuracy of awe is not sensitive to the underlying partition, efficiency of awe could be affected. current we algorithms are developed using voronoi bins partition on conformational space, but this leads to poor partition on reaction coordinate. it is further discussed that the metastable states partition, which defines state with maximum kinetic connectivity inside, provides a better partition for awe. numerical results on alanine dipeptide show significant improvement on efficiency of awe using metastable states partition over awe using voronoi bins partition, especially when setting small number of states for underlying partition. to further accelerate awe, i worked on improving efficiency of the algorithm for discovering metastable states from md trajectories. in the existing studies, monte carlo simulated annealing (mcsa) has been widely applied to define metastable states with optimal metastability of the dynamical system. chapter 6 proposes two greedy algorithms, g1 and g2, based on different definitions of local search space to improve efficiency and scalability of mcsa on distributed computing system. numerical experiments are conducted on two biological systems, alanine dipeptide and ww domain. the numerical experiments demonstrate that g1 is the most efficient of the three on a single core machine and distributed computing system. sequential version of g2 is the slowest but it gains the most speed up on distributed computing systems. relaying strategies are studied for two different purposes in wireless communication systems, namely cooperative diversity relaying for mitigating signal power fluctuation due to multipath fading, and two-hop relaying for alleviating signal attenuation due to path loss. cooperative diversity relaying is a viable strategy to gain transmit spatial diversity with single antenna transceivers. a union bound analysis is derived for the error performance of signal superposition coded cooperative diversity schemes. the numerical results show excellent agreement with computer simulations. the power allocation between the locally generated signal and the relay signal is optimized so as to minimize the error bound, circumventing the time-consuming monte carlo simulation adopted in literature. a novel network coded cooperative diversity scheme is also proposed to make efficient use of the resources associated with the links between cooperating partners and those to the message destination. the main idea is to interpret ì¢ ââ" and thus decode ì¢ ââ" the network coded codeword differently at the cooperative partner and the destination. it is shown via simulation that the newly proposed scheme provides substantial coding gain over other cooperative diversity techniques, including those based on time multiplexing and signal (euclidean space) superposition. generalizations of network coded cooperative diversity are also considered for the adoption of graph-based low density generator matrix codes and the case with three partner nodes. two hop relaying is studied as a possible method of range extension and throughput enhancement for a fixed wireless base station. contrary to the majority of the work in this area, we consider mobile relays that are randomly placed and move in a nondeterministic manner. a queueing process model is used to capture the movements of the mobile relays that can provide feasible two-hop routing. meaningful metrics are calculated and interpreted, providing insights into the potential benefits of mobile relays. the recent discovery of very old carbon enhanced metal poor (cemp) stars has left questions as to their origins, in particular with respect to the origin of cno element production in the early universe. the present research aims to investigate the 2h(α,γ) 6li(α,γ) 10b(α,d)12c reaction chain, which may prove to be key in answering this question. the 6li(α,γ) and 10b(α,d) reactions are studied here with some considerations of the 10b(α,p) channel. these measurements were conducted at the nuclear science laboratory (nsl) at the university of notre dame du lac. the 10b + α reactions were studied using silicon surface barrier detectors in close geometry, whereas the 6li + α reaction used a combination of cerium tribromide and high-purity germanium detectors. r-matrix analyses were performed using the azure2 code and fits are presented in the text. presently, a large boost to the 10b + α reactions is seen at t = 0.1 gk and more accurate broad resonance contributions have been determined for the 6li + α reaction. scholars have often dismissed the effect of war on state formation in regions like latin america where mobilization for war is deemed insufficiently intense and international conflict fails to out-select weaker states. against this conventional wisdom, this dissertation contends wars can affect state building trajectories in a post-war period through the different state institutions that result from victory and defeat. the dissertation is divided in four parts. in a first part, it reconsiders the role played by war outcomes in classical bellicist theory and explores the concepts of war and state capacity in nineteenth-century europe and latin america. in a second part, it develops a multi-method strategy to test this claim by combining qualitative comparative analyses of state capacity at the year 1900 with difference-in-differences analyses and the synthetic control method, two estimators that identify the effect of losing vis-à-vis winning a war on levels of state capacity in a panel of latin america (1865-1913). in a third part, causal mechanisms are illustrated in case studies of the paraguayan war (1864-1870) and the war of the pacific (1879-1883). finally, a fourth part explores generalization to other latin american cases and beyond. dissolved organic matter (dom) is a ubiquitous component of aquatic ecosystems, linking climate and land use to ecosystem structure and function in streams. the operational definition of dom is any organic compound passing through a particular size filter, and therefore includes a wide dissolved variety of compounds, both simple and complex. dom acts both directly and indirectly to influence biota. directly, dom is a source of energy and nutrients. indirectly, dom reduces light transmission through the water column and alters the bioavailability of nutrients and pollutants. dom effects are due to the aggregate physiochemical properties of the constituent molecules, which vary with dom source. ultimately, all dom derives from photosynthetic activity, which can occur within either the aquatic or terrestrial environment. because most dom in streams is terrestrial in origin, dom properties are often related to terrestrial sources and processing of dom at the watershed scale. however, dom processing within aquatic ecosystems may be important as well. my objectives were to determine (1) if watershed characteristics relate to dom processing and production in aquatic ecosystems, (2) if dom properties related to watershed characteristics influence dom processing and interactions with stream biota, and (3) whether dom alters the toxicity of anthropogenic pollutants. in a survey of 32 streams, i found that the presence of upstream lakes was negatively related to the concentration and light absorbing ability of dom. while upstream lakes clearly influence dom properties, my subsequent experiments showed that the photodegradability of dom and its direct effects on periphyton growth were unaffected by upstream lakes. in-situ experiments showed that photodegradation was less important than bacterial uptake in most streams. i conclude that variation in dom composition related to watershed characteristics are unimportant to stream communities or the aquatic processing of dom. i also investigated the role of dom in altering the toxicity of a class of anthropogenic pollutants (ionic liquids). i studied representatives from two particular classes of dom molecules, humic matter and low-molecular-weight acid, in addition to natural dom. i found that the toxicity for one ionic liquid was ameliorated in the presence of natural dom, but not by either of our isolated components. over the past several decades, optical systems have begun to be deployed regularly on aircraft that fly at compressible flow speeds. during this time, these optical systems have also moved towards shorter operating wavelengths that can deliver a higher peak irradiance in the focused spot on a distant target, and the assumption is that future systems will use even shorter-wavelength lasers. as this trend towards short-wavelength systems continues, the need to take into account the effect of flow-induced, or 'aero-optic,' aberrations that occur in the vicinity of the parent aircraft has become progressively more important. the conventional method for mounting an optical system is to place it in a hemispherical turret; however, from an aero-optic standpoint, there are two problems with this mounting arrangement. first, shocks begin to form on the surface of a sphere (or hemisphere) at a critical mach number of only around 0.55. furthermore, a shear layer is produced due to flow separation on the aft side of the sphere; both of these flows, shocks and separated shear layers, involve strong index-of-refraction variations in the flow that would severely aberrate the outgoing beam. one approach to the problem would be to employ adaptive-optic (ao) methods in which the conjugate of the aberration is applied to the outgoing beam before it transmits through the aero-optic flow; however, state-of-the-art ao systems are generally unable to match the high temporal frequencies associated with aero-optic flows. as such, there is a need for innovative mounting strategies for optical systems that avoid or mitigate the formation of optically-aberrating flows in the first place. this dissertation outlines an investigation into aerodynamic shaping of turrets to mitigate the aero-optic aberrations produced by shock waves and shear layers. specifically, a computational and experimental investigation into the 'virtual duct' concept, which is a passive flow-control approach to mitigating aero-optic effects on spherical turrets, is described. the aerodynamic features associated with the problem are investigated, and the performance of different turret configurations as a function of the design parameters is explored. by the use of optimization techniques along with experimental validation, it is shown that significant increases of delaying flow separations up to an elevation angle of 162.4&#176; while maintaining a critical mach number over 0.7 can be attained on a hemispherical turret without a downstream fairing. the investigation shows that the virtual duct technique is an effective passive flow-control approach for dealing with aero-optic flows on spherical turrets in subsonic to transonic flows. psychologists have discovered that personality is hierarchical and that different "big" trait models can be integrated within a single personality framework. this discovery has allowed researchers to integrate research that has historically been investigated based on different "big" trait models. however, research integrating the different personality hierarchies has stopped at the big five/big five + oddity level. one reason for the lack of research on lower order levels of the hierarchy is due to the lack of consensus on the number and content of facets for each domain. in response to this issue, some researchers have investigated the consensual facet structure using scale-level factor analyses of personality inventories. however, this approach is problematic because unique facets, which may have substantial predictive validity, are not able to form their own factors. the present study attempted to replicate the hierarchical personality structure, as well as factor analyzed parcels created from facet scales in order to investigate the comprehensive facet structure. analyses were run two ways – including and excluding the pid-5 – due to the difference in structure obtained with and without the pid-5. the study results indicate that extraversion and agreeableness are best represented in their aspect-level form rather than domain-level form, as well as that certain facet scales are better organized under domains other than their originally intended domains. finally, the comprehensive facet structure obtained included both consensual facets, as well as aggregations of several unique scales to form unique facets. theoretical implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed. this study examined parents' past marital aggression as a moderator of children's immediate responses to everyday marital conflict. also, links between history of marital aggression and parents' everyday marital conflict expressions were examined. families participated in a laboratory session, in which parents discussed an everyday topic of disagreement. children watched their parents' discussion and provided emotional, behavioral, and cognitive reactions. results suggested couples with a history of marital aggression use less constructive, more destructive conflict tactics, and display less positive and more negative emotions during everyday marital disagreements. children's specific immediate responding to marital conflict was predicted by parents' conflict tactics and emotions. moreover, children's immediate responses were moderated by parents' history of marital aggression: children whose parents had a history of marital aggression were more sensitive to parents' use of constructive conflict tactics and positive emotions. implications of these results for prevention and intervention programs are discussed. the need and the opportunity for significant savings in both time and cost for the engineered development of advanced nanomaterials coupled with the tremendous growth in the past couple of decades in computational materials science has not yet materialized into significant material design tool developments. of particular importance in the engineering design of composite materials for various applications is the ability to tailor the constituent materials and the internal architectures. the inverse problem of determining an optimal microstructure for a desired application is a challenging task. this procedure has been traditionally accomplished by trial-and-error and depends considerably on the designer's intuition and experience. for this reason, obtaining new materials has been a time consuming and an expensive process. accordingly, a systematic method capable of synthesizing the optimal microstructure that will satisfy the design requirements, while reducing cost and time, is desired. the intensive computational cost of numerical tools for material behavior analysis makes the use of iterative design and optimization procedures based on such simulations prohibitively expensive to perform. one therefore, requires a design approach that can incorporate multiple simulations of varying fidelity in design iterations, in an iterative manner, while simultaneously reducing the design cycle time. the present investigation focuses on the development of a simulation-based design optimization methodology to predict the most suitable microstructures of silicon carbide silicon nitride (sic-si3n4) nanocomposites for desired high temperature properties. this work presents a systematic optimization methodology to predict optimal material microstructures, while considering uncertainties in the microstructural representations with simultaneous reduction in the design cycle time. also, a trust region managed variable fidelity optimization framework is proposed in this investigation to address the computational challenges and model management issues that are inherent to multiscale material design. although the material of interest in this investigation is silicon carbide silicon nitride (sic-si3n4), the presented methods are not restrictive and could be an invaluable design tool to support the development of any type of materials. overall, the result of the present investigation is a systematic method capable of predicting optimal microstructure that will satisfy the design requirements of targeted properties, while reducing cost and time. dna origami1 are a powerful building block to create nanoelectronic or nanomagnetic circuits. however, in order to achieve the necessary synthetic control to align non-dna components on the surface, controlling the orientation of the underlying dna origami is required. one simple strategy is using single stranded linkers to align the rectangular dna origami. however, non-specific &#960;-stacking interactions are strong enough to disturb the desired alignment. i compared several strategies to prevent &#960;-stacking and investigated optimal annealing conditions for the oligomerization of dna origami. i tested i) inclusion of t-bumpers, ii) omission of staple strands on the edge of the dna origami, iii) varying the number of linking sites and the stoichiometry of linking strands, and iv) optimization of annealing time and temperature. the dna origami chains were characterized both on mica and cationic sams on silicon [100] by tapping mode atomic force microscopy (afm) in the air. orientations were verified by observation of loop regions on the dna origami and an intentionally designed notch that makes the origami structure chiral on the surface. streptavidin or gold nanoparticle attachment was also used to reveal the up/down alignments of the origami. afm images show that inclusion of tbumpers fails to block &#960;-stacking interactions. on the other hand, elimination of staple strands from the edge of the dna origami formed short oligomers with controlled alignment. i investigated the optimal annealing temperature and time with quenching experiments and observed stepwise condensation, origami formation, and oligomerization at different stages of the annealing process. aligned dna origami chains were selectively deposited on 60 nm wide lithographically patterned lines of cationic sams on silicon chips, preliminary studies were done to show that dna origami could be deposited on hydrogen silsesquioxane (hsq); this work establishes a pathway towards multilevel patterning of dna origami. bones, stones, and brothels: religion and topography in prague under emperor charles iv (1346-78) abstract by david charles mengel this dissertation explores the complex interactions of religion and topography in fourteenth-century prague, offering a new approach to the structures and energies that organized and animated later medieval religious culture. it provides an alternative to the rubrics and narratives that have dominated the study of religion in medieval prague, while contributing to the growing literature on the significances of space in the middle ages. at the same time, it sheds light on the city of prague itself, a dynamic and important urban center of later medieval central europe that has too often been relegated to the shadowy edges of the standard depictions of the middle ages. under charles iv, prague rapidly grew into its new role as an emperor's capital. the emperor's powerful intervention in prague represented one of several factors that shaped and controlled prague's urban space and its local religion. each chapter of this dissertation explores one aspect of prague's urban topography, the people who produced and inhabited it, and the implications for local religion. chapter 1 maps the physical, social, and ethnic compositions of prague's parishes and the character of its many monastic houses, setting the stage for the subsequent chapters. the second chapter uses the life of one woman to demonstrate how the economic and religious culture of a single parish converged in the controversial use of perpetual, property-based rents. chapters 3 and 4 highlight two of the so-called "forerunners of the bohemian reformation," but without the usual accompanying teleological and confessional models. one locates the violent clashes surrounding an embattled prague preacher within the context of the european-wide struggles between parish priests and mendicant friars. another takes as its subject the controversial attempt of a popular preacher to convert a brothel into an experimental religious community of priests and reformed prostitutes. the final chapter investigates the effects of charles iv's renowned relic-collecting on the religious culture of prague, which included the establishment of new holy days, countless indulgences, and even a miracle-producing cult that together reinforced the emperor's efforts to transform his capital city into one of later medieval europe's greatest cities. the following dissertation is an examination of the social construction and maintenance of traditional ethnic and religious identities among the rising generation of asian americans in the 21st century. using an interviewed sample of 99 asian american college student leaders at four public universities and a surveyed sample of 325 asian american college students, i asked a set of parallel questions with regard to how the respondents understand their ethnic and religious backgrounds. the evidence based on these samples suggests that traditional identities are a constructive effort or a form of personal agency. these constructions however are derived from the available discourse in american public narratives, particularly that of race and religion. i show that not only do these public narratives produce different interpretations of ethnicity or religion when considered separately, but they also interact and inform one another in complex ways. this suggests that identities like these are both fluid and fixed relative to the social relationships embedded within family, friendships, schools, and local organizations who provide the grammar and syntax for the explanations individuals give for these identities. this dissertation is a collection of research on the effects of changing employment and earnings opportunities on non-labor market outcomes, primarily health and well-being. these considerations deserve the attention of economists because business cycle fluctuations, regional shocks, and long-term trends that affect labor market participation may impact the well-being of individuals and communities in unexpected and important ways. understanding the benefits and costs of changing economic opportunities is crucial for designing policies that mitigate the worst effects of downturns and magnify the benefits of economic growth. in this dissertation, i provide novel descriptive and plausibly causal estimates of the effects of labor market attachment on important measures of individual and societal well-being, such as mortality, education, and intergenerational mobility. this project investigated the impact of subthreshold neglect on the security and organization of infant-mother attachment bonds. subthreshold neglect was defined as poor parenting that was not severe enough to mandate involvement of child protection agencies. on average, teen mothers were more neglectful than low-resource and high-resource adult mothers; however, the rates of insecure and disorganized attachment did not differ significantly between teens and adults. across all groups, subthreshold neglect of children's developmental advance and emotional needs was associated with insecure infant-mother attachment. specifically, mothers who were more neglectful were more likely to have children with an insecure-avoidant attachment pattern. subthreshold neglect was not associated with the disorganization of the attachment bond. results are discussed in terms of differences between subthreshold and substantiated child neglect as well as implications for intervention and prevention with subthreshold neglect. a poetry collection by lauro vazquez. for low-tc materials, the superconducting transition temperature (tc) is depressed by the application of a magnetic field. in contrast, one of the remarkable features of cuprate high-tc materials is that the superconducting transition is broadened by the application of a magnetic field. tinkham presented a model for the field-dependent resistive transition of high-tc materials, arising from "phase slippage at a complicated network of channels." coffey &amp; clem did not include this field-broadening effect in their sophisticated model for the field and temperature dependence of the surface resistance in type-ii superconductors. from the model by lee &amp; stroud, treating josephson junction-coupled superconducting segments, it is concluded that doped, layered superconductors are certain to have a field-broadened superconducting transition. this effect can be identified by measurements of the resistivity as a function of temperature, magnetic field strength, angle of field with respect to the crystal axis as well as with respect to an induced current density. the iron pnictide materials such as ba0.6k0.4fe2as2 (bak122) have chemical layers with different compositions, differentiating them from elemental type-ii superconductors such as niobium, and also from cuprates, by the absence of copper. experimental data on bak122 indicate a field-broadened transition in conjunction with a field-depressed superconducting transition temperature. in this work, techniques associated with electron spin resonance (esr) spectroscopy were used to measure the temperature and field-induced changes in the surface resistance of single-crystal bak122 samples. in addition, polycrystalline foils of niobium and a nbti (70/30) alloy were measured using the same techniques to provide comparison. measurements were taken as a function of applied magnetic field, temperature, rf field intensity, and angle of the applied field with respect to the rf-induced current. bak122 sample field-dependent surface resistance measurements were taken with the applied field along the ab plane and along the c axis. with both configurations, data on the superconducting surface resistance of the crystalline samples exhibited a nearly-linear dependence on the applied field; the field-dependent change increases in magnitude as the temperature approaches tc from below; the field-dependent changes vanish in the normal state. by varying the angle φ between the applied field and the current, the microwave signal exhibited a sin2(φ) behavior superimposed on a field-dependent background. the sin2(φ) amplitude of the signal is generally consistent with the behavior of flux-flow resistivity; however, the presence of a field-dependent change in the φ = 0 field configuration is not described by flux-flow, but is attributed to phase slip in the crystal. the signal with h || j (the phase slip signal) as t → tc is roughly 10 times the magnitude of the flux-flow signal. for the niobium foils, the field-dependent changes were also observed in the φ = 0 configuration superimposed with a signal consistent with flux-flow resistivity. the results of these studies are consistent with the picture of bak122 as a layered superconducting material that contains josephson-coupled segments generally consistent with the model of lee &amp; stroud, which identifies but does not explore the temperatureand field-dependence of phase slip. however, the presence of phase slip in the polycrystalline nb and nbti foils is not explained by this model. hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (hspcs) make up the foundation of the blood hierarchy. hspcs differentiate down specific lineage trees towards mature blood cells responsible for systemic oxygen transport (erythrocytes) and immune cells responsible for host defense. this differentiation process is coordinated by a host of factors including transcription factors and cytokines. recently the role of micrornas (mirnas) in this process has garnered more appreciation. mirnas are small, noncoding rnas that have direct regulatory capacity over both the lineage commitment process as well as immune cell functions upon terminal differentiation. the aim of this dissertation was to illuminate the role of mirna cluster mirn23a in macrophage function as well as in acute myeloid leukemia (aml). in chapter 2, i isolate primary bone marrow derived macrophages (bmdms) from mirn23a germline knockout mice and observe that loss of mirn23a results in a more anti-inflammatory macrophage. i then investigate the physiological impact of losing mirn23a expression in the tumor microenvironment. chapter 3 focuses on the physiological consequences of mirn23a and mirn23b loss (mirn23a-/and mirn23a-/-mirn23b-/-) in hematopoietic stem cell (hsc) health and disease. this chapter shows that mirn23a and mirn23b expression is important to hsc fitness has a strikingly opposite influence under leukemic context by investigating if mirn23a acts as a tumor suppressor or oncogene in aml driven by the fusion protein aml1eto. together, this work augments our understanding of how mirna dysregulation leads to disease and how to better treat these conditions. microgels are a multifaceted material with a broad range of applications including biomimicry and drug delivery. aqueous microgels are micron-sized hydrogel particles composed of a swollen network of interconnected polymers. based on the properties of the polymers, microgels can be designed to be stimuli-responsive or to act as model colloidal particles. chapter 1 details the background and uses of microgel particles. as dense suspensions of microgels tend to form colloidal glasses at high concentrations, the opening chapter provides a strong focus on the glass transition and details certain aspects including glass fragility, dynamic heterogeneity, and the confinement effects. starting in chapter 2, common methods of microgel synthesis are introduced, with a focus on emulsion polymerization. this is the method used throughout this dissertation to synthesize microgels based on two polymer backbones: poly(n-isopropylacrylamide) (pnipam) and poly([2-(methacyloyloxy)ethyl]-dimethyl-(3-sulfopropyl)] ammonium hydroxide) (pmsa). pnipam has a lower critical solution temperature (lcst) of 32oc, which has led to significant interest for biomedical applications. pmsa is a zwitterionic polymer derived from molecules found in the cell membrane, making it highly biocompatible. in chapter 3, these microgels are employed to replicate the properties of lubricin, a globule protein, with the goal to develop a biomimetic super-lubricant inspired by the synovial fluids. it is demonstrated that the unique rheological properties and low friction behavior is replicated through mixtures of microgels and hyaluronic acid, a biopolymer also found in the synovial fluids. the remainder of this dissertation discusses a direct microscopic study of the glassy dynamics of microgel suspensions using particle-tracking algorithms. in chapter 4, it is demonstrated that tuning the elasticity of microgel particles changes the glass fragility from fragile to strong glass-forming behavior. in chapter 5, these glassy suspensions are shown to be spatially heterogeneous and links are developed between glass fragility and dynamic heterogeneity. the growth of dynamic heterogeneity is found to be directly related to the glass fragility. in chapter 6, deviations in particle dynamics are examined for strong glass-forming suspensions under strong spatial confinement. interestingly, the confinement length scale is shown to be less than the length scale for hard-sphere suspensions. the focus of this dissertation research was to develop efficient synthetic approaches to carbocyclic furanose nucleosides, which play an important role in the discovery for new anti-cancer, anti hiv and anti tuberculosis drugs. chapter one provides a brief review of biologically interesting carbocyclic nucleosides classified by the ring size of the corresponding carbocycles and the strategies that were widely applied in the synthesis of carbocyclic furanose nucleosides. in chapter two, four synthetic strategies to carbocyclic nucleosides were explored. they all started with cyclopentadiene and take full advantages of hetero diels-alder reactions or epoxidation and palladium catalyzed allylic substitution reactions. an aldehyde-cyclopentadiene strategy led to successful syntheses of carbocyclic analogs nucleosides a 500359s and an efficient synthesis of racemic aristeromycin as well as some derivatives of carbocyclic uridine. nitroso-cyclopentadiene chemistry was utilized to synthesize unnatural amino acids and carbocyclic analogs of the nucleoside moiety in norascamycin. norcarbovir and norabacavir were efficiently synthesized based on the cyclopentadiene-epoxide strategy, and their anti-cancer and anti-hiv activities were studied. the next chapter presents all of the asymmetric approaches involved in this project. efforts toward developing a catalytic enantioselective acylnitroso diels-alder reaction and asymmetric palladium-catalyzed allylic substitution on mono epoxide of cyclopentadiene are discussed. asymmetric aza diels-alder reactions were performed and the application of auxiliary chiral sulfinyl groups in this reaction was explored. enzymatic resolution with candida antarctica lipase b gave access to both enantiomers of a highly functionalized lactone for use in asymmetric syntheses of carbocyclic nucleosides in excellent optical purity. the latest advances in information and communication technology have made it possible for researchers to design innovative crowdsourcing systems that can harness the human intelligence of online communities. while crowdsourcing system designs have progressed substantially through engineering breakthroughs, some challenges in the crowdsourcing model however remain unanswered, such as (1)system design: in various crowdsourcing systems, what roles can crowds play and what contributions can they make? (2) data analysis: how can the human inputs with varied qualities be properly cleansed, and how can trustworthy results be effectively generated from their myriad inputs? (3) human computation theory: at a higher level, what is the symbiosis between human intelligence and artificial intelligence? with lessons learned and experiences gained from four projects, this dissertation aims to provide new perspectives and insights into answering these questions. when presenting research observations and results, we discuss a variety of technological and organizational considerations in crowdsourcing system designs. coastal louisiana and mississippi are especially prone to large hurricanes due to their geographic location in the north-central gulf of mexico. several recent hurricanes have devastated the region, creating complicated environments of waves and storm surge. katrina (2005) and gustav (2008) made landfall in southeastern louisiana, and their counter-clockwise winds pushed surge onto the louisiana-mississippi continental shelf, into the low-lying wetlands surrounding the mississippi river, and over and through the levee system that protects metropolitan new orleans. rita (2005) and ike (2008) passed farther to the west, moved across the texas-louisiana continental shelf, and created surge that flooded large portions of southwestern louisiana.these hurricanes demand detailed hindcasts that depict the evolution of waves and surge during these storm events. these hindcasts can be used to map the likely floodplains for insurance purposes, to understand how the current protection system responded during each storm, and to design a new protection system that will resist better the waves and surge. in addition, the resulting computational model can be used to forecast the system's response to future storm events.the work described herein represents a significant step forward in the modeling of hurricane waves and surge in complicated nearshore environments. the system is resolved with unprecedented levels of detail, including mesh sizes of 1km on the continental shelf, less than 200m in the wave breaking zones and inland, and down to 20-30m in the fine-scale rivers and channels. the resulting hindcasts are incredibly accurate, with close matches between the modeled results and the measured high-water marks and hydrograph data. they can be trusted to provide a faithful representation of the evolution of waves and surge during all four hurricanes.this work also describes advancements in the coupling of wave and surge models. this coupling has been implemented typically with heterogeneous meshes, which is disadvantageous because it requires intra-model interpolation at the boundaries of the nested, structured wave meshes and inter-model interpolation between the wave and circulation meshes. the recent introduction of unstructured wave models makes nesting unnecessary. the unstructured-mesh swan wave and adcirc circulation models are coupled in this work so that they run on the same unstructured mesh. this identical, homogeneous mesh allows the physics of wavecirculation interactions to be resolved correctly in both models. the unstructured mesh can be applied on a large domain to follow seamlessly all energy from deep to shallow water. there is no nesting or overlapping of structured wave meshes, and there is no inter-model interpolation. variables and forces reside at identical, vertex-based locations. information can be passed without interpolation, thus reducing significantly the communication costs.the coupled swan+adcirc model is highly scalable and integrates seamlessly the physics and numerics from deep ocean to shelf to floodplain. waves, water levels and currents are allowed to interact in complex problems and in a way that is accurate and efficient to thousands of computational cores. the coupled model is validated against extensive measurements of waves and surge during the four recent gulf hurricanes. furthermore, the coupling paradigm employed by swan+adcirc does not interfere with the already-excellent scalability of the component models, and the coupled model maintains its scalability to 7,168 computational cores. swan+adcirc is well-suited for the simulation of hurricanewaves and surge. radiation therapy (rt) is a major modality for treating cancer by delivering radiation dose to cancer cells. the monte carlo superposition (mcs) method provides a fast but accurate algorithm for radiation dose calculation. however, it is still too slow to meet the ever-increasing speed requirement. this thesis seeks to accelerate the monte carlo superposition algorithm by developing a cost-effective hardware solution based on a fpga platform. for a hardware design, data representation is critical for system performance. this thesis proposes a general method for finding fixed point data representation for floating point algorithms. one random number generator and the two main steps of the monte carlo superposition algorithm: in-phantom and multi-leaf collimator (mlc) raytracing, are implemented. performance analysis and those already completed works show that a good speedup of the hardware design over the original software design can be achieved. the exact effects of microdamage on bone strength in vivo are still not well understood, in part due to our limited capability for imaging and measuring microdamage nondestructively. most current methods of imaging microdamage are inherently two-dimensional and provide minimal information regarding the three-dimensional distribution or orientation of cracks. the objective of this study was to develop a non-destructive technique for three-dimensional imaging and quantification of microdamage in cortical bone. a new three-dimensional and nondestructive technique was developed to image microdamage in cortical bone using micro-computed tomography (micro-ct). in order to image microdamage in micro-ct, lead sulfide (pbs) and barium sulfate (baso4) were precipitated within tissue as contrast agents. four-point bending fatigue was used to induce microdamage bovine cortical bone beams. symmetric loading on the beam enabled paired specimens to be produced with similar microdamage accumulation. the new technique was validated by direct comparison with paired specimens stained by calcein and imaged using ultraviolet light microscopy. microdamage in double-notched bovine cortical bone beams was also studied in order to investigate microdamage accumulation at a stress concentration. the new technique was validated qualitatively by comparison between the observed staining shape using micro-ct and finite element analysis, and quantitatively by positively correlating the amount of stain with the number of loading cycles. the combined studies elucidated microdamage mechanisms in bovine plexiform bone under relatively low load and high cycle number. microcracks initiated at vasculature and lacunae, and propagated along the weak interface between lamellae in the plane of the vascular network. a limitation of the precipitated contrast agents was incomplete stain penetration. further investigation showed that the problem could be alleviated by decreasing the specimen size, albeit counter to the objective of this study. furthermore, in vivo imaging would require that micro-ct contrast agents be deliverable. therefore, barium sulfate nanoparticles less than 100 nm in size were synthesized. the effects of the reagent solution concentration, molar ratio, feeding order, feeding speed and ph were investigated. finally, the feasibility of imaging the synthesized barium sulfate nanoparticles in bone using micro-ct was verified. the historical jesus and the final judgment sayings in q abstract by brian han gregg this dissertation explores the twelve final judgment sayings found in q in light of the historical jesus. the study will begin with a survey of scholarly opinions regarding the historical jesus and the final judgment, followed by a discussion of the methodology to be employed. the next section, an analysis of the characteristics of the final judgment in late second temple judaism, will seek to establish the cultural and conceptual contexts of q's final judgment sayings. finally, the bulk of the study will be devoted to an exploration of the twelve sayings and their parallels, including careful exegesis of each saying in its original gospel context, a reconstruction and consideration of the q form of each saying, and an application of criteria of authenticity. the results of the study are three-fold: 1) it establishes the authenticity of ten of the twelve final judgment sayings in q, thereby demonstrating that eschatology in general and the final judgment in particular were important components of the historical jesus' message. 2) it identifies the characteristics of the final judgment propounded by the historical jesus and compares them to the characteristics of the final judgment texts of the late second temple period. 3) it demands that the potential historicity of all of q's source material be taken seriously, including those elements often assigned to a secondary redactional layer, q2. this dissertation traces the origins of the league of nations movement during the first world war to a coalescent international network of ecumenical figures and protestant politicians. its primary focus rests on the world alliance for international friendship through the churches, an organization that drew protestant social activists and ecumenical leaders from europe and north america. the world alliance officially began on august 1, 1914 in southern germany to the sounds of the first shots of the war. within the next three months, world alliance members began league of nations societies in holland, switzerland, germany, great britain and the united states. the world alliance then enlisted other christian institutions in its campaign, such as the international missionary council, the y.m.c.a., the y.w.c.a., the blue cross and the student volunteer movement. key figures include john mott, charles macfarland, adolf deissmann, w. h. dickinson, james allen baker, nathan s&#246;derblom, andrew carnegie, wilfred monod, prince max von baden and lord robert cecil.this dissertation is the first to examine the multinational, religious origins of the league of nations. it shifts the focus off of the league's most famous advocate, woodrow wilson, and places the designs of the league within a broader protestant movement that recruited politicians and transformed churches into avenues for pro-league propaganda. the first three chapters outline the movement's international scope and worldview, whereas the final four chapters focus on the movement in the national contexts of the united states, britain, neutral europe and germany.the world alliance possessed two intertwined aims: firstly, a union of christian churches that could complete the christianization of the globe in their generation; and, secondarily, the establishment of a international federation of states, bound together by a free covenant before god, that would prevent christendom from ever again descending into civil war. in the minds of the earliest advocates of the league of nations, these two objectives were intertwined to the extent that many ecumenical organizations began to redefine themselves according to this new political orthodoxy, while the league movement became saturated in moral and pseudo-religious terms. &#8195; how do nuns intersect with and change our understandings of the u.s. settler empire and the expansion of catholicism in the nineteenth century? to answer this question i examine two communities of nuns who saw the u.s. west as a place to fulfill their missions. i probe these women's spiritual geography, which was both material and spiritual—it involved bodies, the land, and souls. nuns sought to create catholic landscapes in the west, which involved attempts to erase, claim, and re-narrate indigenous places and the interweaving of racialized, gendered, and religious ideas in charitable endeavors and efforts to "improve" the land and local peoples. and nuns also sought to populate heaven. this dual focus on the material and spiritual allows me to retell both the catholic story and the colonial story, so that the catholic story becomes more material and the colonial story becomes more spiritual. colonization was not just practiced by men with bibles, guns, or pick axes. women wearing habits, running schools, and making food also furthered the process by establishing institutions, reshaping landscapes, and shepherding the imaginations of young women. catholic missions were not just run by male priests and brothers bent on saving souls. nuns altered lifeways of established communities, introduced new ritual worlds, and physically reshaped the built environment of the west. i argue that nuns' spiritual geography shaped their efforts to conquer the west for god, and that in these efforts they advanced, shaped, and sometimes mitigated the expanding u.s. settler empire and the expansion of catholicism in the period. yet in both movements nuns remained distinctive as they envisioned and practiced their own variation on both. one increasingly common way to study individual level data is through the recording of a series of measurements on an individual over time. within psychology many variables of interest may tend to fluctuate around some average value, moving back and forth around some equilibrium over time. one way that a series of data with these types of fluctuations may be modeled is using the damped linear oscillator model. this model can capture aspects of a series of measurements such as how quickly a set of data fluctuates between two extremes, or whether the magnitude of the fluctuations are increasing or decreasing over time. unfortunately due to the small, noisy data sets common to psychology, unbiased estimation of the damped linear oscillator model can be very difficult. application of the methods that fit this model often require the consultation of an individual experienced with implementing these methods. however, it may be possible to automate these methods using a technique called surrogate data analysis, thereby eliminating the need for an expert and making these methods more widely available to researchers. this project explores the possibility of using surrogate data analysis to automate the fitting of the damped linear oscillator model. humbert of moyenmoutier, the cardinal-bishop of the suburbicarian see of silva candida from 1051 until his death in 1061, is best known today for his famous 1054 excommunication of the byzantine patriarch of constantinople. this action is popularly understood to be the start of the division that still exists today between the eastern orthodox and the (western) catholic churches. humbert did not approach the conflict as a politician or as a canonist but rather as a monk and an ardent disciple of his own liturgical tradition.this work falls into two halves. the first examines humbert's life in the abbey of moyenmoutier and his work under popes leo ix, victor ii, stephen ix, and nicholas ii. the second addresses each of the major liturgical topics in the 1054 conflict in turn: the use of azymes, the sabbath fast, clerical marriage, the consumption of unclean foods (blood), and the alleluia. this dissertation concludes first, that humbert was strongly influenced by the preoccupations of the reformation movement in the western church and the tradition of latin liturgical exegesis in his approach to the byzantine rite, and second, that his evaluation of these liturgical topics is nuanced and well-informed, if strongly biased in favor of his own tradition. approximately 17,000 americans have a traumatic spinal cord injury (sci) every year, and there remains wide variability in the success of current rehabilitation paradigms. in particular, individuals with incomplete sci (isci) avoid walking strategies that require energy absorption at the joints by means of eccentric muscle activity. to investigate this deficiency in individuals with isci, gait characteristics are analyzed using motion analysis techniques, musculoskeletal simulations, and simplified models of walking. in terms of motion analysis, individuals with isci are compared to matched healthy controls to identify specific gait deficits. the significant heterogeneity in gait patterns among individuals with isci makes it difficult to identify a single characteristic that captures their walking deficiencies. instead, this research demonstrates how individuals with isci can be grouped according to aberrant walking strategy based on key gait metrics to better quantify deficits and target therapeutic interventions. musculoskeletal simulations offer the benefit of quantifying individual muscle forces that cannot be directly calculated from experimental data, but neurologically impaired individuals such as those with isci are typically unable to perform the protocol necessary to drive such simulations using experimental emg. instead, a new method is presented for using emg activation thresholds to inform musculoskeletal simulations so that individual muscle contributions can be analyzed for individuals with isci. these individual muscle contributions provide a detailed look into how individuals with isci utilize muscle activity differently depending on their gait strategy. finally, the dual-slip model of walking provides a means to further explore the effects of muscle co-contraction, which is not well captured in simulations, and unusual observed ground reaction forces (grfs) in individuals with isci. varying leg stiffness and step length in the model shows that it can capture the grfs of both individuals with isci and healthy individuals walking at the slow speeds typical in rehabilitation. with models that capture grf characteristics of individuals with isci and healthy controls, the energetics of this simple model lend insight into how the two populations comparatively utilize the passive characteristics of gait. taken together, this research demonstrates ways in which a variety of techniques can be used to analyze and understand the gait characteristics of individuals with isci, ideally leading to superior rehabilitation outcomes. the high seismic vulnerability of unreinforced masonry (urm) buildings has been observed during earthquakes. many urm buildings still exist and are susceptible to failure during future earthquakes, especially in areas of low to moderate seismicity. to aid in quantifying this risk, the broad objective of this dissertation is to develop and demonstrate a numerical analysis framework for assessing the seismic performance and expected vulnerability of urm building structures. a robust and efficient panel macro-element model for the numerical analysis of in-plane urm walls is presented and validated. importantly, this model can quantify the contribution of different damage modes at different locations in a wall, including the effects of perforations from doors and windows. the behaviors of a two-story residential prototype wall and a five-story mixed-use wall are characterized and compared under monotonic and reversed-cyclic lateral loading. four wall model scenarios that represent assumptions regarding out-of-plane wall interaction and loading from flexible floor and roof diaphragms on the in-plane wall are investigated. then, the demands from incremental dynamic analysis (ida) on the four model scenarios of the prototype two-story wall are used to obtain estimates of damage considering scaled ground motion suites for boston, seattle, and los angeles. monte carlo simulation is used to probabilistically sample material properties and modeling assumptions to capture both the aleatory uncertainty from the building and epistemic uncertainty from the models. fragility curves and damage functions are developed for each model scenario and compared against each other and across the three ground motion suites. it is found that the impact of the different ground motion suites on the view of vulnerability for the prototype two-story wall is small compared to the impact of the different assumptions inherent to the four model scenarios. importantly, an in-plane wall that is isolated from the out-of-plane walls and the floor/roof diaphragms will exhibit the lowest seismic vulnerability of the four scenarios analyzed. for this scenario, the estimated damage is concentrated in the first story due to rocking of the piers and diagonal tension/compression in the coupling beams, which can be mitigated by efficient retrofitting measures that address these damage modes. for every breast cancer detected by screening mammography, approximately three patients undergo biopsy. two of the three biopsies will be benign, resulting in unnecessary biopsies particularly in women with dense breast tissue. self-referencing differential spectroscopic analysis (srds) is a promising noninvasive optical imaging approach that uses functional over anatomic characteristics of the tissue to differentiate benign from malignant lesions. this method utilizes high-resolution spectroscopy to quantify the abundance of tumor-specific molecules that are not present in normal breast tissue. diffuse optical spectroscopic imaging (doi) has shown promise in performing srds in patients to reveal tumor-specific absorption signals, also known as "specific tumor component" (stc). however, the origin of the stc spectra remains unknown. understanding the source of the stc spectrum is vital to improve the stc detection and ultimately achieve higher diagnostic performance. this research comprises two major objectives. one is to determine the meaning of the tumor specific absorption signature and understand its relation to the underlying tumor containing tissue absorption. the other objective is to deduce methods to improve the detection of the tumor specific absorption spectra as well as improve the quantification of major tissue constituents (blood, water and fat), and thereby improve breast cancer diagnosis. in order to accomplish these objectives, we have developed a new hyperspectral hybrid frequency domain (fd) and continuous wave (cw) diffuse optical imaging (hybrid doi) technique, implemented with a simple probe configuration, to accurately measure 3d broadband optical properties of heterogeneous turbid media without having to employ spectral constraints. we simulated the reconstruction of absorption and scattering spectra (650 – 1000 nm) of human breast tumors in a homogeneous background at depths of 0 to 10 mm. the hybrid doi technique demonstrated enhanced performance in reconstruction of optical absorption with a mean accuracy over all 71 wavelengths of 8.39 % versus 32.26 % for a 10 mm deep tumor with the topographic doi method. the new hybrid technique was also tested and validated on two heterogeneous tissue-simulating phantoms with inclusion depths of 2, 7, and 9 mm. the mean optical absorption accuracy over all wavelengths was similarly improved up to 5x for the hybrid doi method versus topographic doi for the deepest inclusions.the srds method was evaluated by extracting the stc spectral absorption from the broadband absorption spectra retrieved via hybrid and conventional topographic doi techniques on both computationally modelled and phantom measured data. the computational modelled and tissue-simulating phantom stc results were compared with the known underlying tumor/inclusion specific absorption spectra to reveal that the srds approach cannot establish quantitative/qualitative accuracy of the true tumor specific spectral absorption, which provided a new understanding about the srds method that has not been previously reported. indeed, the stc content indicates more of a spectral misfit between the basis chromophore (blood, water and fat) contribution and the tumor and normal difference absorption, which implies the presence of other absorber/absorbers that are unaccounted for by the major tissue absorbers. keeping these observations into account, we investigated the role of minor optical absorbers such as collagen and methemoglobin (methb) in distinguishing benign and malignant breast lesions via noninvasive quantitative broadband doi.a total of 28 subjects, including 12 benign and 18 malignant lesions (birads score &gt;= 3) were optically characterized in terms of oxy-, deoxyhemoglobin, water, lipids, collagen, methb and scattering parameters. malignant lesions exhibited significantly higher lesion to normal ratios of oxy, deoxyhemoglobin, water, and methb compared to benign lesions. amongst all variables considered, only methb was observed to be significant in lesion discrimination (p = 0.0016) without normalization to healthy tissue. although the absolute concentration of methb is small (0.43±0.18 µm for benign vs 0.87±0.32 µm for malignant), the significance of the differences is the strongest of all the parameters investigated. the high methb concentration observed in malignant lesions compared to benign lesions reflects the angiogenic state of the lesions, and suggests variations in the composition of malignant tissue such as presence of neovascularization and hemorrhage. the discriminatory power of methb for distinguishing malignant and benign lesions, also shows that this minor absorber was partially responsible for the greater magnitude of stc spectral content in malignant versus benign lesions, particularly below 665 nm and above 960 nm. the biochemical sources of the other stc spectral content (665 nm 960 nm) are yet to be investigated and identified. based on the results of this study, doi-measured methb shows significant potential in non-invasive lesion characterization and requires further investigation.in summary, a new hybrid doi method was developed and validated for improved broadband characterization of deep tissue inhomogeneities using a simple reflectance-based probe. the srds method was evaluated on computational modelled and phantom measured broadband absorption to reveal a new understanding of the extracted stc spectral absorption. methemoglobin was identified as one of the biochemical sources of stc spectral contrast between benign and malignant lesions, and for the first time, was identified as a potential optical biomarker of breast malignancy. what is due in justice to the wage earner? i argue that the thomistic-aristotelian categories of justice, as interpreted through catholic social teaching, may fruitfully be applied to the contemporary american economy. commutative justice requires equality in exchange, not in that both parties benefit exactly alike, but in that each is bettered by the transaction, both through subjective valuation and the objective offering of a living wage. distributive justice, which understands workers in firms and citizens in an economy to be true members of social bodies, requires due order and due proportion, with firms' profits proportioned out to workers through an equitable minimum and society's commitment to free labor upholding the rule of law to make this normative. finally, social justice, which gives form and content to solidarity, requires that citizens be committed to the common good, willing to make what sacrifices are necessary in order to ensure that each of their purchases contribute towards the provisioning of living wages. this dissertation offers an analysis of matthias joseph scheeben's theology of deification by demonstrating the connection between his trinitarian theology and theology of grace. chapter 1 ("mysteric-supernatural deification: a doctrine emerges") argues that scheeben's theology of deification, with its characteristic accents on mystery and the supernatural, emerged as a counterproposal to the theological rationalism scheeben saw threatening christian life and theology in nineteenth-century germany. chapter 2 ("the divine trinity: fons vitae") shows how the distinctive accents of scheeben's emanational trinitarian theology (e.g., a strong use of the psychological analogy, a robust doctrine of personhood, and a linear ex patre per filium trinitarian arrangement) relate to scheeben's theology de deo uno and anticipate his doctrine of grace by foregrounding the concept of divine self-communication. chapter 3 ("grace: becoming god's adopted children") analyzes scheeben's theology of the divine missions, conception of the relation of nature and grace, and theology of human union with god understood as trinitarian deification, through which we become children of the father, spouses of the son, and temples of the holy spirit. the role of electron transfer between metal catalyst and its oxide support in modifying the binding of the molecules adsorbed on the catalyst surface is investigated using pt/tio2 catalytic diode as a novel model catalyst system. the effect of electron transfer is interpreted and demonstrated as that of creating an electric field at the metal-support interface. the effect of such electric fields is studied by using density functional theory (dft) calculations to simulate adsorption of different molecules under a uniform external electric field. experimentally, the charge transfer at metal support junction and the resulting electric field is controlled by applying an external bias voltage to the catalytic diode. the effect of controlling the charge transfer on co molecules used as probe adsorbates is studied using a multilayer enhanced reflection adsorption spectroscopy (meiras) technique developed in this work. dft calculations show that the sensitivity of adsorption energy of a molecule on a metal surface to the external electric field depends on its dipole moment and polarizability. the dipole moment varies significantly from one molecule to another, and changes with the surface adsorbate coverage due to the electrostatic interaction from neighboring adsorbates on the surface. vibrational frequency of molecules shifting linearly with external electric field is shown to be a key experimental observable useful in the study of these effects. meiras is a new form of the fourier transform infrared (ftir) spectroscopy performed in reflection mode, in which, the multilayer structure of the sample and its interaction with the incident infrared causes a large enhancement in the sensitivity. the mechanism of sensitivity enhancement is elucidated through experimental measurement of wavelength dependent reflectance of multilayer structures and theoretical optical analysis of infrared reflection on such structures. an experimental setup is developed for meiras measurements, and its application for study of co adsorption on low area pt thin-film and nanowire catalysts under in-situ and co oxidation reaction conditions is demonstrated. the effect of external voltage applied to induce charge transfer between metal-support junctions in a multilayer thin-film pt/tio2 catalytic diode on adsorbed co molecules is studied using meiras. the bias voltage causes a reversible shift in the vibrational frequency of co adsorbed near pt/tio2 interfaces exposed through the cracks in the pt film. these results provide a direct demonstration of the electronic effects associated with metal-support junctions that have been extensively discussed and debated in the catalysis literature. nanofabrication techniques are used to prepare regular arrays of uniform and parallel pt nanowires on tio2 in order to control the fraction of pt/tio2 interfaces while maintaining electrical continuity in the pt layer. such nanostructures incorporated in a catalytic diode can provide a better control of electron-transfer effects due to larger fractions of exposed pt/tio2 interfaces and potentially lead to tuning of catalytic activity in supported catalysts using bias voltages. human proteins destined for use as therapeutics, such as monoclonal antibodies (mabs), are expensive to produce using mammalian cell culture technoloogies. transgenic platforms such as bombyx mori silkworms could provide a more cost-effective method. the b. mori silk gland provides an ideal location for expression due to its lack of allergenic glycoforms and n-glycan core fucosylation, both of which are common in mammalian expression systems and are detrimental to proper function and in vivo tolerance . however, silkworms lack the complex glycosylation required for creation of mab with increased thermostability and in vivo avidity to receptors. recently functional recombinant mabs and mammalian glycoenzymes, n-acetylglucosaminyltransferase (mgat2) and β-1,4-galactosyltransferase (b4galt1), have been expressed in the silk glands, and co-expressed in the hemolymph through the silkworm-baculovirus expression system, but have never been co-expressed in b. morisilk gland. we tested the hypothesis that anti-her2 mab (her) co-expressed in the b. mori middle silk gland with mgat2 and b4galt1 would exhibit extended glycosylation leading to improved protein stability and greater efficacy of the mab in both the adcc and cdc pathways. to create transgenic silkworm lines, we co-injected mrna expressing the piggybac transposase and bacteria plasmids with piggybac-flanked expression cassettes containing mgat2/b4galt1 glycoenzyme exons and anti-her2 mab, under the control of a silkworm sericin promoter. expression cassette insertion of anti-her2 mab and mgat2/b4galt1 into the silkworm germlines was identified after 2 generations through use of co-expressed fluorescent eye markers. mgat2/b4galt1 functionality and novel mammalian glycosylation was tested by cleaving n-glycans from extracted total protein and isolated mab and analyzing on a maldi-tof mass spectrometer. anti-her2 mab was extracted from silk gland and purified with protein g columns and desalted. avidity of silkworm-expressed anti-her2 mab to fcyriiia and c1q receptors was compared using elisa and surface plasmon resonance. mgat2/b4galt1 expression in b. mori middle silk gland resulted in significant increase of monoand biantennary terminal galactosylation on total proteins. co-expression of mgat2/b4galt1 and anti-her2 mab produced only higher levels of biantennary n-acetylglucosamine (gnt2) terminal ends on n-glycosylated mab. as expected, gnt2-terminal mab had no improved binding to fcyriiia, while c1q binding was unexpectedly decreased. we hypothesize misfolding of mab decreased c1q binding, and either steric hindrance of the mab asn-297 hydrophobic pocket or competition of other target substrates for b4galt1 prevented significant galactosylation of anti-her2 in b. mori msg. although still relatively young, ēriks ešenvalds has risen to increasing international prominence by writing widely appealing choral music. his choral compositions demonstrate an eclectic blend of styles and textual sources, a palpable sense of atmosphere, and a strong religious orientation. in particular, his two passion settings, passion and resurrection (2005) and the st. luke passion (2010), demonstrate the kind of stylistic eclecticism associated with postmodern compositional aesthetics. at the same time, the passions proclaim an evangelical message to the listener. how does the objectivity of the christian euangelion correspond to the intrinsic subjectivity of postmodern compositional methods? this thesis explores the nature of this tension by interpreting ešenvalds' passions as 'perspectival' works, which tell the passion story through the eyes of particular characters: specifically, mary magdalene and the prodigal son. the thesis examines the narrative structure of each passion, using narrative theory to explain ešenvalds' process of characterization. it also applies david harvey's theory of 'time space compression' to explain the nature of the passions' temporal unfolding. from a musical perspective, the thesis investigates ešenvalds' eclecticism as a function of characterization, and contextualizes his approach to temporal unfolding as a 'movement-in-stasis' model. by combining eclecticism with a larger structural scaffolding, stasis with movement, and micro-narratives with the larger passion narrative, ešenvalds constructs uniquely perspectival passions. these works immerse the audience in the passion story, allowing listeners to experience christ's passion through the eyes of another, yet they also create contemplative space in which to internalize and apply the larger evangelical meaning. rather than finding an incompatibility between ešenvalds' eclecticism and his evangelical purpose, this thesis concludes that these perspectival narratives resemble a robust and traditionally christian approach to epistemology. the objective realities of the story may be experienced subjectively, without overt appeals to human rationality, and without coercion. headwater streams can process a large proportion of nitrogen (n) inputs from their watersheds, and retention or transformation by instream biota can significantly influence the magnitude and timing of n export to downstream systems. the challenge of identifying pattern in processes at various scales is foundational to ecology, but the majority of stream studies have measured biogeochemical processes at the reach scale, mostly in headwaters. it is challenging to empirically measure n transformations at an adequate spatial density for incorporation into watershed scale models, and field studies that investigate n biogeochemistry along a size gradient from streams to rivers are a current gap in the literature. finally, improved understanding of controls on n processing will inform restoration and management strategies that mitigate the export of n pollution from impacted watersheds; floodplain restoration is one increasingly common strategy. the primary objective of my dissertation is to improve understanding of the fate of n in stream networks and their floodplains by identifying biogeochemical controls that vary as a function of spatial and temporal scale in the context of land use change.to begin, i simultaneously measured both gaseous end products of denitrification while addressing the environmental factors that have been shown to drive the ratio of the production of these gases in constructed floodplains. then i scaled this biogeochemical process to the reach scale to assess the impact of surrounding land use, season, and stream size on denitrification and assimilatory nitrate removal in two watersheds of contrasting land use. to better understand reach scale processes, i tested the effect of streambed substrate, biological structure, and stream flow on gas exchange in low-gradient experimental streams. in addition, i collected seasonal, high-density, synoptic water chemistry data from two watersheds of contrasting land use to assess the impact of land use and seasonality on nitrate concentrations and nitrous oxide flux throughout the stream network. finally, i explore the body of literature around n and sediment retention in floodplains to assess the impact of floodplain restoration efforts in the wabash river basin since the early 1970s. this dissertation sought to align theoretical accounts of emotion regulation as a process-oriented system with quantitative approaches consistent with this perspective. accordingly, the present study tested aspects of the dynamic multilevel model of emotion regulation, which characterizes regulation processes as an emergent feature of the relational interaction between the individual and their surrounding environment (martinez, bergeman, payne &amp; yoon, invited revision). mindfulness and religion/spirituality (r/s) cognitive reappraisal variants were compared to test assumptions of the explicit-internal strategy categorization of the model. data were drawn from an affect regulation task comprised of negative images. participants (n = 83, mage = 21.73 ± 4.36) were randomly assigned to the r/s (n = 28), mindfulness (n = 26), or no-intervention control (n = 28) groups and instructed to decrease or maintain their affective response to the images. heart rate (hr) was measured throughout the affect task and interpreted as a physiological index of emotion regulation. repeated measures anova examined whether changes in hr were present across the affect regulation task. results, however, were not significant and suggested that no differences in hr emerged between regulation and non-regulation trials or when the intervention groups were compared to controls. multilevel models were then employed to explore withinand between-person differences in hr change. although hr did not vary across the regulation task and was not significantly different between regulation and non-regulation trials, within-person variation in hr was observed but could not be attributable to the study interventions. despite the null effects of the interventions on hr, results of the manipulation check revealed that the interventions successfully attenuated self-reported measures of negative affect. in sum the r/s and mindfulness interventions comparably attenuated the emotional experience compared to no-intervention controls, but exerted no effects on hr. limitations of the study are considered, and future directions are discussed. hurricane is a common natural disaster. in natural hurricanes, irregular waves will shoal with decreasing depth when moving toward the beach. once the wave height depth ratio exceeds a critical value, waves will break and generate a bore in the surf zone. breaking waves will continue to propagate onshore and scour coastal zones. breaking wave induced run-up can significantly risk infrastructure in coastal areas. for instance, run-up height can cause coastal flooding. moreover, the momentum flux transported onshore can also exert forces on beaches and coastal structures. therefore, properly simulating this process is a supplement of in-situ field measurement and is of great importance for coastal structure design. previous studies have already shown the potential in numerically simulating the wave run-up in lab length scales and in short time scales (less than half hour).in my study, long time (1h) wave run-up will be simulated on larger scale domains .numerical run-up results are compared with stockdon's formula [1] and two percent exceedance run-up elevation is used for comparison. the result shows that two dimensional run-up height is always higher than stockdon's formula because two dimensional simulation doesn't consider directional spreading angle . in three dimensional cases, directional spreading plays an important role in mitigating run-up height. result shows that run-up heights calculated by stockdon's formula are very close to numerical results when directional spreading angle . furthermore, my study calculates 0.5% exceedance dimensionless momentum flux, noting its variation with different surf simulation numbers , dimensionless elevation and directional spreading angle. result shows that the extreme momentum flux decreases with increasing elevation. furthermore, given a location, waves with bigger iribarren number will generate a higher momentum flux. however, momentum flux cannot be expressed as a simple function of aforementioned parameters. by further investigation, a simple model is established to approximate 0.5% momentum flux. thermoelectric (te) materials which convert heat into electricity and vice versa have led to tremendous research breakthroughs in the development of high-efficiency thermoelectric devices for sustainable energy harvesting. it was estimated that about 60% of all fuels used by industry and transportation become waste heat, which could potentially translate to 15 terawatts of electricity globally. the recovery of thermal energy will not only bring huge energy saving and economic benefits, but also alleviate the heavy reliance on fossil fuels and thus reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. owing to their versatility and the advantage of adapting to various heat sources, conformal and flexible thermoelectric generators (tegs) are suitable to power wearable electronics, sensors, as well as industrial systems. over the past decade, flexible multifunctional sensors have received increasing interest, particularly in healthcare, biomedical areas, and robotics where high sensitivity, accuracy, flexibility, and low-cost fabrication processes are needed. however, conventional fabrication technologies require expensive facilities and involve energyand labor-intensive processes, which are not only unsuitable for fast prototyping and low-cost manufacturing, but also pose challenges for producing conformal and flexible devices such as tegs and multifunctional sensors.this research aims to contribute to development of new pathways to fabricate functional devices using microscale additive manufacturing which directly transforms nanoparticle-based inks into devices. towards this aim, we implemented a versatile aerosol jet printing method which allows direct printing of devices onto 2d planar and 3d curved substrates using colloidal nanoparticle inks with a wide range of viscosities. we demonstrated aerosol jet printed high-performance tegs using n-type bismuth telluride (bi2te2.7se0.3) te nanoplates for energy harvesting and flexible sensors using graphene and ti3c2tx mxene nanoinks with ultrahigh accuracy, stability, and durability for simultaneous strain and temperature sensing. this opens the possibility to directly print microscale sensor network onto 3d curved components for a broad range of industrial and personalized applications. in addition, intense pulsed light (ipl) sintering is applied for large-scale development of high-performance tegs for serving as a power source for wearable electronics and internet of things. ipl sintering is ultrafast, energy-efficient, and can sinter the te films at elevated temperatures on low melting point substrates without damaging the underneath substrate. we integrated high-throughput experimentation and machine learning to accelerate the discovery of the optimum sintering conditions of silver-selenide (ag1.9se) te films using the ipl sintering technique. successful implementation of this methodology led to ultrahigh power factor and flexible te films with a sintering time less than one second, whereas conventional thermal sintering requires hours of processing time at elevated temperatures which hinders the widespread development of flexible tegs. microscale additive manufacturing methods combined with ipl sintering open tremendous opportunities for rapid manufacturing of a broad range of functional devices for energy and sensing applications. shannon's source and channel separation principle indicates that there is no benefit ( in terms of efficiency or performance) to permitting cooperation between the source coding (compression) and channel coding (error control) functions in a digital communication system. however, this separation principle holds only asymptotically for long and infinitely complex codes. this observation has led to increasing research on joint source/channel coding design as an alternative for achieving reliable communication over noisy channels. joint source/channel coding schemes have been well studied for fixed-length coded sources. but widely used entropy codes, such as huffman codes and arithmetic codes, are variable length in nature. the compressed bit stream produced by variable length codes is susceptible to error propagation. thus joint source/channel coding design is of interest for variable length codes. with the wide popularity of arithmetic codes in a variety of standards including mpeg4, jpeg2000 and h.26l, joint design for systems involving arithmetic codes has generated interest. this dissertation focuses on the design of schemes for recovering arithmetically encoded data transmitted through a noisy awgn channel. the joint arithmetic/channel coding system presented in this dissertation is based on an arithmetic sequential decoder that can accept soft input. operating on a source symbol-constrained tree structure, it improves performance compared with the conventional arithmetic decoder which can only accept binary bits. several joint source/channel coding schemes are proposed in which channel coding is used to protect the arithmetically encoded data. first, a joint sequential decoder that sweeps sequentially through a composite tree including the states of both the arithmetic and channel codes is developed. second, a soft tandem system in which an arithmetic decoder uses the soft output from a channel decoder is studied. the turbo principle is then applied to a serially concatenated arithmetic/channel coding system in which the arithmetic decoder and the channel decoder share extrinsic information as in turbo codes. the convergence behavior of this iterative system is analyzed via density evolution. all the joint systems outperform the conventional hard tandem system in which arithmetic decoding and channel decoding are done separately. the anion appears to be the one of the most important factors when selecting an ionic liquid for the capture of co2. experiments have also shown that the anion has the ability to re-protonate due to water content in the system, which would limit co2 binding. to further examine this issue the binding enthalpies have been studied for a variety of anions that include two or three nitrogens in the bicyclic structure. a trend was found between the binding of co2 and the proton affinity to determine which anion would be most successful at binding co2 while not binding a proton. five-member rings showed a greater performance to co2 binding, when compared to the six membered side of the structure. a positive correlation was also observed between the charge of the co2 in the system and the bond length associated with co2 binding to a nitrogen site on the anion. scanning tunneling microscopy is an experimental methodology which provides the unique opportunity to observe two dimensional structures at the molecular level. by using a low-temperature and ultra-high-vacuum scanning tunneling microscope (stm), the local clustering of molecules in two dimensions can be directly observed over significant periods of time without risk of sample degradation.these investigations come with challenges both instrumental and experimental. of the instrumental challenges, the construction of the preamplifier used to boost the incredibly small tunneling currents produced by the instrument is one of the most important. two major circuit architectures for the preamplifier exist, the feedback transimpedance amplifier (tia) and the shunt electrometer, each with their own benefits. balancing the importance of current gain, the frequency at which the instrument is operating at, and the noise inherent to the preamplifier is of peak importance to the performance of the instrument.beyond the instrument itself, the creation of a monolayer of small molecules upon a metallic surface is necessary. pulse deposition is used to prepare samples for study, a non-equilibrium process by which numerous structures are formed, including many metastable structures. of these metastable structures, pentamers are a commonly observed motif. these pentamers are stabilized by the presence of minor secondary interactions, most notably of which are c–h・・・ o hydrogen bonds.density functional theory (dft) is employed in tandem with stm to provide additional insight into the mechanisms by which molecules cluster in two dimensions. by geometrically and energetically optimizing both individual molecules and clusters of molecules, the binding energy of specific hydrogen bonds can be determined, giving rise to a quantitative understanding of the clusters.the works presented within this thesis aim to further develop the study of crystal growth in two dimensions, by presenting a variety of small molecules, and derivatives of these molecules intentionally chosen to probe individual hydrogen-bonding sites. this dissertation argues that early modern romance writers such as ariosto, sidney, spenser, and wroth employed a sophisticated strategy of generic mixing when dealing with potentially troubling political topics. these elite writers associated with the court found the genre's formal flexibility particularly useful for articulating sophisticated and even contradictory ideas at moments of intense conflict and indecision in relation to the monarch, to court culture, or public opinion. this study challenges the notion, predominant among investigations of early modern genre theory, that romance was primarily a foil for more serious epic concerns of empire, proto-nationalism, and victorious protestant piety. rather, that opposition was only one of many ways that these writers would set romance in relation to other narrative and poetic genres in order to investigate competing political viewpoints, navigate personal and professional conflicts of interest, and ultimately question their literary culture's reliance on using genre as a political and rhetorical tool. for these writers the politics of genre came to embody a means of articulating relationships to a host of different pressures (governmental, social, professional, and erotic) that did not easily cohere, especially since romance itself was already a genre on the margins of literary culture. the particular authors i discuss show a growing attention to the relationship between political content and political form in romance. philip sidney's revision of the arcadia show him exploring contradictions in his understanding of political agency, which pits a self-assertive pastoral romance against chivalric romance concerned with expressions of duty to social and political masters. in books v and vi of the faerie queene, edmund spenser investigates how literary genres can be used for political purposes, culminating in a sense of courtesy marked by the ability to manipulate genres for political ends. finally, mary wroth's the countess of montgomery's urania looks at the mastery of political genre in fiction, using generic mixture to articulate a rhetorical control and literary autonomy over the rhetoric of political genre to compensate for her lack of political agency in her life. in each case, romance allows for a mixture of genre based on conflict rather than synthesis to become a productive form of political commentary. the quantum dot solar cell is one of the few solar technologies which promises to compete with fossil fuels, but work is still needed to increase its performance. electron transfer kinetics at interfaces and limitations of the redox couple within the cell, are responsible for lowering power conversion efficiency. several techniques which are able to increase electron transfer within the working electrode and at the counter electrode/electrolyte interface are discussed in this dissertation. trap sites on the surface of cdse quantum dots are created when mercaptopropionic acid (mpa) is added to the suspension. the trap sites are emissive creating a loss pathway for photogenerated charges which will manifest as reduced photocurrent. mpa displaces amines on the surface of cdse creating se vacancies. emission properties are controlled by the concentration of mpa. because trap sites are generated, a more successful method to sensitize tio2 films is the silar technique which directly grows quantum dots on the desired surface. anodically etched tio2 nanotubes yield photocurrents 20% greater than tio2 nanoparticles because of longer electron diffusion lengths. peak incident photon to charge carrier efficiencies of tio2 nanotube samples show a doubling of photocurrent in the visible region compared to nanoparticles. the tio2 substrates are sensitized with cds by the silar process which is found to utilize both the inside and outside surfaces of the tio2 nanotubes. etched tio2 nanotubes are removed from the underlying titanium foil in order to use spectroscopic techniques. ultrafast transient absorption shows the extremely fast nature of charge injection from silar cds into tio2 nanotubes. surface area analysis of tio2 nanotube powder gives an area of 77m2/g, a value 1.5 times larger than traditional tio2 nanoparticles. by isolating the counter electrode with a salt bridge the effect of the polysulfide electrolyte is found to act as an electron scavenger on the working electrode. though activity at the platinum counter electrode increases with the presence of polysulfides, the activity is too low to counteract scavenging at the working electrode. cu2s, cos and pbs electrochemically show promise as alternatives to platinum. cu2s and cos produce higher photocurrents and fill factors, greatly improving cell performance. epithelial cells disassemble their adherens junctions and 'scatter' during processes such as tumor cell invasion, as well as some stages of embryonic development. as migrating epithelia do not always exhibit changes in the composition of cadherin-catenin complexes, it is likely that post-transcriptional regulation of cellular processes can impinge on the assembly/disassembly of adherens junctions and contribute to the loss of cell polarity and the acquisition of a migratory potential, a process known as epithelial to mesenchymal transition (emt). control of actin polymerization is a powerful mechanism for regulating the strength of cell-cell adhesion. in this regard, studies have shown that sustained activation of rac1, a well known regulator of actin dynamics, results in the accumulation of polymerized actin at cell-cell contacts and an increase in e-cadherin-mediated adhesion in epithelia. this study describes a link between the activity of the proteasome, the actin cytoskeleton and growth factor stimulated adherens junction disassembly. the disassembly of the adherens junction complex has been documented to be accompanied by a transient decrease in the cellular levels of rac1-gtp. in this study, we demonstrate that rac1-gtp (but not rac1-gdp) is ubiquitinated and subject to proteasome-mediated degradation during the early steps of epithelial cell scattering. these findings delineate a mechanism for the down-regulation of rac1 in the disassembly of epithelial cell-cell contacts and support the emerging theme that ubiquitin proteasome system (ups)-mediated degradation of the rho family gtpases may serve as an efficient mechanism for gtpase deactivation in the sustained presence of dbl-exchange factors. furthermore, we provide insight into the control of proteasome activity during e-cadherin-mediated adhesion. we show that arfaptin 2, an arf interacting protein, regulates the disassembly of cell contacts via its effect on proteasome activity. using cell-based assays, we show that expression of wild type arfaptin 2 inhibits proteasome activity and hence, the disruption of cell-cell contacts in mdck cells despite the presence of scatter factor. depletion of arfaptin 2 using small interfering rna, results in the disorganization of e-cadherin-based contacts and increased cell volume. we have also begun to elucidate a role for the gtpase, rap1, in the regulation of e-cadherin membrane traffic during adherens junction turnover in epithelial cells. thus, this dissertation delineates a novel mechanism involved in the disassembly of cell-cell contacts during epithelial cell scattering and documents some key regulators of this process. this thesis focuses on select hellenistic funerary epigrams from book 7 of the greek anthology that feature the deceased as a first-person speaker. focusing on voice and characterization, i approach these text through both intellectual and embodied models of reader-response, and argue that deceased's voices employ diverse strategies to evoke multifaceted responses from the readers and present particularly individualized and affective self-characterization. the fate of metals in the environment can be influenced by interaction with bacteria. this research focused on the interactions of metals and common soil bacteria, with emphasis on cadmium and pseudomonas mendocina. p. mendocina was chosen because it is a metal resistant aerobic bacterium that has been used for bioremediation purposes. cadmium was chosen because it is a common environmental contaminant of widespread ecological consequence. this study used batch experiments with microscopic and spectroscopic techniques. typical batch bacterial growth curves were observed. cadmium was found to delay the onset of exponential growth phase and decrease maximum population size. the amount of cadmium removed from solution increased over time both in total and on a per-cell basis. tem showed the formation of cell-associated precipitates that redissolved by death phase, while exafs indicated a cadmium-sulfide bonding character that increased over time and was not present in washed cells. this study re-evaluates the way free will is portrayed in anglo-saxon poetry, and shows that anglo-saxon vernacular poetry, both religious and secular, was as capable of grappling with fundamental theological and philosophical questions as homiletic writing and theological treatises. it also shows that free will was prominent among the theological and philosophical issues investigated in anglo-saxon poems from a number of different manuscripts. in order to fully understand the range of teachings about free will that were available in anglo-saxon england, we must understand what the poetry—not just the more theologically authoritative prose—says about free will. in anglo-saxon literature the concept of free will is particularly complicated by both a christian tradition carried over from the continent as well as a cultural germanic tradition. germanic ideas of fate and boethian ideas of providence were both extremely influential in anglo-saxon poetry, but poems such as the biblical versification genesis b also show evidence of the influence of late antique patristic writers like st. augustine of hippo. often complex ideas about free will influenced not only biblical versifications, as might be expected, but even ostensibly secular, heroic works such as beowulf. yet rather than just borrow ideas about free will, fate, providence, and grace from both germanic sources and christian sources, old english poetry weaves all of these ideas together so thoroughly that at times they stop being distinguishable and become something new. in this way anglo-saxon vernacular poetry creates and champions syncretic notions of free will that are uniquely anglo-saxon. this dissertation answers several persistent questions concerning what is perhaps the most philosophically influential defense of political absolutism: thomas hobbes's account of political association as a union of wills in one person. the first set of questions concerns hobbes's argument for the rationality of union. i argue hobbes's argument rests upon a series of claims regarding the relative stability of constitutions mixing or dividing sovereign powers. those claims, i show, rely upon a deeper psychological account of interpretive pluralism and disagreement, an account often misunderstood by commentators. having considered why hobbes regards union as rationally necessary, the dissertation turns to questions concerning hobbes's descriptions of union and its consequences. in all of his political works, hobbes describes union as the creation of a covenant. however, commentators have disagreed about the nature of that covenant and whether it successfully brings about the kind of union hobbes claims is necessary for political order. i argue it does. in particular, i challenge the conventional reading of hobbes as abandoning the alienation covenant in his earlier works for the authorization covenant in leviathan. i argue hobbes always regards the earlier versions of the covenant as adequate for instituting union. moreover, i show the addition of authorization language in leviathan's covenant amounts to an attempt to engage parliamentarian arguments rather than an abandonment of the earlier versions of the covenant. the result, i argue, is an account of union less problematic than usually supposed. conventionally, most research on speech processing focuses on automatic speech recognition (asr), i.e., transcribing speech to text. however, natural speech does not only contain text content information, but also much other information such as emotion and even the speaker's health status. that means we can extract more information from speech besides text content and use them for novel applications. specifically, we can develop speech processing systems for healthcare applications such as building convenient and low-cost diagnose, screening, or monitoring solutions. in the first part of this thesis, i investigate how to build speech processing systems for healthcare applications. specifically, i explore the use of speech systems for monitoring and early diagnosis the autism spectrum disorders, emotional and behavioral disorders, and major depressive disorder.on the other hand, with the fast-growing number of users and usage scenarios, the security problem of speech processing systems (e.g., amazon alexa) becomes a new concern. recent work has found speech processing systems are vulnerable to multiple types of attacks. however, it is still unclear how dangerous these attacks are in realistic settings. therefore, in the second part of the thesis, i first systematically explore the vulnerabilities of speech processing systems. then, i conduct a focused study on adversarial attacks to deep neural network-based models since deep neural networks are becoming the mainstream technique in a variety of speech applications such as speech recognition and speaker identification. finally, i investigate the effective defense strategies protecting speech processing systems against malicious attacks in realistic settings.overall, this thesis aims to address two orthogonal problems about speech processing, and the goal of the research is to broaden the applications and proves the robustness of machine learning-based speech processing systems. pseudomonas aeruginosa is a rod-shaped, gram-negative, environmental bacterium and an opportunistic human pathogen that utilizes flagellar or type iv pili (tfp) appendages to mediate motility in finding favorable environments for colonization and development of biofilms. p. aeruginosa is notable for multiple motility phenotypes including flagellar-mediated swarming that is observed in the laboratory using 0.4%-0.6% (w/vol) agar-air surfaces and tfp-mediated twitching that is traditionally observed using ≥ 1.0% (w/vol) agar between the interstitial space the interstitial space and petri dish or cover slip and judged over multiple hours to days. in my research, i show that the behavior of p. aeruginosa swarming cells can vary substantially in the earliest phases of swarming. this work highlights the importance of understanding single cell behavior that can be important to macro-scale behavior.moving beyond traditional motility assays, my research investigated the behavior of p. aeruginosa on open-air 0.8% (w/vol) agar surfaces. i found that p. aeruginosa develops into small cell clusters that exhibit long-range motility phenotype term "snapping". cluster development and snapping is mediated by functional tfp and require 3-(3-hydroxyalkanoyloxy) alkanoic acids or rhamnolipid as a surfactant. while investigating cluster development and tfp motility, i probed a lack of tfp activity in a rhli mutant named (pdo100). prior to my work, there was a discrepancy in the literature regarding tfp motility for this pdo100 strain. i determined that cell-free supernatant from the pdo100 mutant completely inhibits tfp function (and motility), and furthermore, inhibits growth and tfp function in other strains. my results implicated an extracellular product in pdo100 cfs, which i linked to the bacteriophage pf4. lastly, in collaborative work, i helped show that three specific lytic transglycosylases (slt, mltd, and mltg) of the 11 found in p. aeruginosa serve as targets in β-lactam-induced bulge formation in combination with the compound bulgecin a. combined treatment with β-lactambulgecin a may represent an effective therapeutic strategy for some p. aeruginosa infections. my dissertation is an investigation of socrates and his method, the "elenchus," in plato's dialogues, especially the gorgias. i argue that what marks the man and his method is the self-appropriated conception of oneself as a knower—that is, a conception of oneself as someone who can and does know things, where the meaning of "know" is supplied by one's self-conscious attention to, and ownership of, one's own acts of understanding. this interpretation pushes against the common conception of socrates as the man who knows only that he doesn't know. true, there are many things socrates doesn't know; but there is one very important thing he does. he knows what it means for him to be a knower.my first chapter contextualizes the dissertation by giving the lay of the scholarly land with regard to the academic study of socrates and his method.my second chapter contrasts my account of socrates with jonathan lear's. where lear considers the distinguishing mark of socrates and his method to be the disruption of self-conceptions, i argue that socrates in fact has a self-conception of his own, and one that is not vulnerable to disruption: the self-appropriated conception of himself as a knower.my third chapter responds to three separate charges to the effect that socrates either fundamentally misunderstands the nature of human knowledge, or does not sufficiently attend to the way knowledge functions in human living, or both. the unsavory consequence if these charges hold is that socrates would be guilty of double-ignorance. in reply, i argue that socratic knowledge construed as understanding can avoid these charges.my fourth and final chapter focuses on socrates' elenctic method, specifically whether it is essentially destructive, as many interpreters of plato have thought. i use socrates' exchanges with polus and callicles in the gorgias as evidence to argue that, while socrates does destroy false self-conceptions and highlight inconsistency of beliefs, he also facilitates his interlocutors' awareness of their own acts of understanding, and encourages them to embrace the deliverances of those acts. consequently, socrates' method can be seen as positive. this dissertation traces the literary and theological development of the motif of the woman facing the threat of childlessness in hebrew bible, second temple, and new testament texts. by situating the biblical stories in their ancient near eastern context as variations of a motif already widespread in the cognate literature, this project first seeks to illuminate the ways in the which the biblical stories adapt and alter the motif so as to determine its meaningfulness and the way it functions in the larger biblical story. the focus then shifts to the way in which the story of the woman facing the threat of childlessness is transmitted into prophecy by means of the female personification of jerusalem. the metaphor of the female city allows for the powerful motif to become a national story. the remainder of the project is dedicated to demonstrating that the link between mother characters and the city of jerusalem forged in prophetic texts was so strong that the authors of new narratives portrayed maternal characters in such a way that made them function as a parallel to the city of jerusalem. second temple authors employed allusions to prophetic passages that feature the female city in order to make the mother's story indicative of the city's story while new testament authors wrestled with this impulse to connect the mother character to jerusalem in light of their changing views of the city. the story of the woman facing the threat of childlessness ultimately remained a powerful message of hope as it was transmitted from narrative, to prophecy, and back into narrative. the potential for geographic range shifts of species is a pressing issue in ecology given the rapid rate of anthropogenic climate change. these shifts will change total species richness and biodiversity patterns because species likely differ in their capacity to shift under climate change. this concern has sparked efforts to project changes in species' geographic distributions. several of the underlying assumptions of the ecological theories driving these projections, however, have not been rigorously tested. current models of species' ranges assume uniformity with respect to climatic impacts on fitness for all individuals of a species, which ignores local selection and historical genetic differences. following this, these models assume that warmer temperatures at the poleward edge of a species' range will increase fitness ('peripheral enhancement'), causing population increases and greater poleward colonization. my dissertation examines this assumption by using two butterfly species, erynnis propertius and papilio zelicaon, that co-occur and have contrasting levels of host specialization and dispersal ability. the aim of my research is to determine if populations are uniform or differentiated with respect to their responses to both temperature and host plant. i used a series of common garden experiments in the field and lab where i varied climate and host plant to see if locally adapted forms within species are present. i did not find evidence of local adaption in p. zelicaon, but populations across the species' range performed poorly under the most extreme warming treatments and interactions between host plant and temperature altered growth and survivorship in this species. growth and survivorship of e. propertius larvae increased in warmer conditions. however, local adaptation during the overwintering period counteracted the increases found during the growing period. further, southern populations of e. propertius are locally adapted to their natal host plants, so colonization poleward may be further limited. this more nuanced consideration of species could lead to different expectations for the biological consequences of climate change if species can not shift their ranges as previously projected. we can not properly mitigate the effects of climate change on biodiversity until our projection methods capture realistic dynamics of species' ranges. the mechanisms of long-term potentiation were investigated in two sets of experiments. the first determined the effects of the neurosteroid allopregnanolone on long-term potentiation. results revealed that allopregnanolone inhibits long-term potentiation primarily through its actions on the gabaa receptor. the second experiment used fluorescence microscopy to create a temporal analysis of nitric oxide synthesis in response to high-frequency stimulation and found that the concentration of nitric oxide increased at two separate time periods following the induction of long-term potentiation. these findings explain how it is possible for nitric oxide to be important for increased glutamate release during the initiation of long-term potentiation, as well as gene transcription during later stages. future research should utilize the methods created in this study to further increase the knowledge of long-term potentiation, as well as determine the mechanisms behind abnormal nitric oxide levels found in various neurological diseases. the dramatic growth of the catholic charismatic movement over the past forty years has occasioned numerous studies on its distinct characteristics as a new religious movement. in terms of social involvement, however, many extant studies on pentecostalism in general and the charismatic movement in particular have characterized its adherents as politically conservative or socially inward looking. this dissertation uses as a case study one charismatic organization that goes against the grain of these trendsìäå¢ì¢åâåâì¢åûå the couples for christ (cfc) in the philippinesìäå¢ì¢åâåâì¢åûå to understand how it has successfully mobilized its membership for political advocacy and socioeconomic outreach activities. the study begins by understanding how dominant frameworks for understanding contentious mobilizationìäå¢ì¢åâåâì¢åûå in particular, the political process modelìäå¢ì¢åâåâì¢åûå are inadequate for understanding altruistic, religiously motivated mass action. instead, the study proposes that religious mobilization begins with a distinct worldview embodying both the tenets of faith and its consistency with societal engagement. drawing from weber's ideas on the "routinization of charisma," i propose in the study that the worldview of a religious organization is institutionalized through a process of "suborganizational framing" (clemens 1997, 1996, 1993) which combines elements of traditional framing literature (e.g. benford and snow 2000) with more organizationally inclined analyses of social movements (e.g. klandermans 1992). i hypothesize that the specific worldview of the cfc initiates the process of "suborganizational frame alignment" wherein interpretative frames and specific suborganizational forms are deployed strategically in response to various socioeconomic and political challenges. "suborganizational frame alignment measures" are also utilized to cognitively inculcate worldview elements upon organization adherents, leading to favorable judgments of the interpretative frames and suborganizational forms presented for their consideration. i present findings in my examination of three specific time periods within the cfc's development in its first twenty five years: the formative stage (1981-1993), the expansion into more diverse family ministries (1993-2000), and the adoption of wide-scale social ministries and forays into partisan political involvement (2000 onwards). using content analysis of organizational documents and other archival sources, key informant interviews, as well as participant observation in key cfc activities, i monitor how the transformation of worldview expressions, interpretative frames, and suborganizational forms lead to "suborganizational frame resonance," i.e. individual participation in organizational mobilization initiatives. i conclude with theoretical recommendations on the utility of suborganizational framing as an analytical tool for understanding religiously motivated mobilization. in this thesis, we consider the motion planning problem for a symmetric distributed system which consists of a group of autonomous mobile robots operating in a two-dimensional obstacle-free environment. each robot has a predefined initial state and final state and the problem is to find the optimal path between two states for every robot. the path is optimized with respect to the control effort and the deviation from a desired formation. due to scaling issues, it becomes more and more difficult and sometimes infeasible to numerically find solutions to the problem as the number of robots increases. one goal of this thesis is to exploit symmetries in distributed control systems to reduce the computational effort to determine solutions for optimal control of such systems. one way to characterize a distributed system is that it is a control system in which the state space is naturally decomposed into multiple subsystems, each of which typically only interacts with a limited subset of the other subsystems. a symmetric distributed system can be defined when the subsystems are diffeomorphically related. the optimal control problem for distributed systems may not scale well with the size of the overall system; hence, our efforts are directed toward exactly solving the optimization problem for large scale systems by working with a reduced order model that is determined by considering invariance properties with respect to certain group actions of the governing equations of the overall system. this thesis also studies bifurcations and multiple solutions of the optimal control problem for mobile robotic systems. while the existence of multiple local solutions to a nonlinear optimization problem is not unexpected, the nature of the solutions are such that a relatively rich and interesting structure is present, which potentially could be exploited for controls purposes. the bifurcation parameter is the relative weight given to penalizing the deviation from the desired formation versus control effort. numerically it is shown that as this number varies, bifurcations of solutions are obtained. theoretic results of this paper relate to the symmetric properties of these bifurcations and the number and existence of multiple solutions for large and small values of the bifurcation parameter. understanding the existence and nature of multiple solutions for optimization problems of this type is also of practical importance due to the ubiquity of gradient-based optimization methods where the search method will typically converge to the nearest local optimum. most psychometric techniques used to analyze assessment data are designed to work with complete data. the rapid increase in the availability and power of technology has contributed to the growing use of computerized tests and related methods. the data arising from these new and complex situations challenge traditional psychometric techniques because of their size (as there is much more data) and their vast missingness (as students respond to only a small subset of possible items). this dissertation focuses on the effect of missing data on psychometric techniques. when individuals respond to different items of varying difficulty, the psychometric techniques that rely on complete data can perform poorly. this dissertation proposes using singular value decomposition (svd), a matrix decomposition technique often seen in data mining, as a psychometric tool. the major result is that svd is a viable psychometric tool that appears largely robust to missing data and to the missing mechanism. this document provides analytical and empirical justification for svd's use with psychometric data under missing data. chapter 1 introduces relevant irt techniques such as nonparametric irt and a nonparametric item fit statistic. then, in chapter 2, svd is introduced and as well as an alternating-least-squares (als) algorithm that extends the decomposition to missing data. chapter 3 investigates the large sample properties of using svd with psychometric data. svd is shown to be a consistent ordinal estimator of student ability and a consistent ordinal estimator of item easiness. chapter 4 presents simulation results that show that when students respond to different items of varying difficulty, whether the missingness is related to their ability or not, svd can rank the students better than proportion correct and can better estimate the true relationship between student ability and the probability of a correct response. when missingness is related to student ability, svd can rank the students, in most conditions, better than a parametric irt model, even when the parametric model is correctly specified. informed by the cultural-ecological-transactional (cet) theoretical model (kuperminc et al., 2009), the present study investigated culture-specific risk and resilience processes and mental health among latino emerging adults in the united states. specifically, the acculturation gap and perceived discrimination were identified as culture-specific risk factors and hypothesized to be linked to worse mental health outcomes (i.e., depressive symptoms, anxiety, alcohol use). perceived discrimination was hypothesized to exacerbate the gap-mental health link. bicultural competence was hypothesized to buffer the gap-mental health association; familism and family support were hypothesized to buffer the discrimination-mental health link. participants were 299 latino emerging adults, and data were collected using an online survey. most notably, the acculturation gap (communication breakdowns) was associated with depressive symptoms, and bicultural competence (communication ability) buffered the impact of communication breakdowns on depressive symptoms and anxiety, respectively. the present study highlights the significance of the cultural context in investigating risk and resilience factors at different ecological levels among latino emerging adults. it also provides insight for clinicians working with latino emerging adults on how to help them deal with culture-specific risk factors and draw upon culturally-relevant sources of resilience. a major challenge in the design, fabrication, and erection of steel bridges and buildings is the nodal connection between members. designers typically develop a structural form, and then design connections to meet geometric and structural demands. however, this leads to complicated connections which are difficult and expensive to fabricate. each connection is often unique, further complicating the fabrication and erection. to address these challenges, this dissertation introduces a new approach to the design of steel structures that modularizes the nodal connection between members and utilizes standard, rolled wide flange sections as structural members. in this approach, a connector the modular joint is designed for ease of fabrication and erection. specifically, a two-dimensional (2d) modular joint for planar structures (e.g., bridges) and a three-dimensional (3d) modular joint for spatial structures (i.e., grid shells) are investigated. the modular joints are prefabricated, steel nodal connectors composed of a weldment/built up section of webs and flanges, including a starter segment to connect wide flange members through bolted splice connections in double shear. members are oriented in strong axis bending and flanges and webs are connected independently through these splice connections, forming a moment-resisting connection. this provides flexural stiffness for truss-like, membrane-like or beam-like behavior and enables the structure to tolerate member loss. variability in form is achieved by bending the flange splice plates to a desired angle and changing the length of the members.this research develops this new approach through the following objectives: (1) conceptually designing the 2d and 3d modular joints, (2) developing and integrating form-finding methodologies for achieving rational structural forms within the framework of the modular joints, (3) performing sizing optimization to minimize the self-weight of structures composed of the 2d modular joints, while meeting structural performance demands and transportability criteria, and (4) evaluating the redundancy of steel bridges composed of the 2d modular joints in the event of sudden member loss. ultimately, this research introduces a new paradigm in design the prefabricated joint becomes a module, while the structural members are readily available standard sections and demonstrates its feasibility through rigorous geometric and numerical studies. addressing a gap in study of reciprocal relations between marital conflict and children, this project is concerned with examining children's agency, or intentional influence, in the marital relationship. the processes by which marital conflict leads to child agency, the impact of children's agency on marital conflict, and how children's agency relates to child adjustment or maladjustment over time are the focus of this project. consistent with emotional security theory (est, davies & cummings, 1994) and clinical theory and research, this research advances previous work by operationalizing and examining the independent contributions of agentic behavior, behavioral dysregulation, and perceptions of agency to subsequent marital conflict; examining links between behavioral responses, marital conflict, and mental health over time; and testing developmental change in children's behavioral responses to conflict. participants were 236 families, tested in a three-wave, multi-method, multi-informant design. results indicated that marital discord predicted high levels of children's agentic behavior and behavioral dysregulation, and that children's negative emotional reactivity fully mediated relations between marital discord and agentic behavior and behavioral dysregulation. tests of effects on subsequent marital discord supported the notion that agentic behavior predicts low levels of subsequent marital discord. in contrast, behavioral dysregulation predicted high levels of subsequent discord, and perceived agency did not predict later marital functioning when tested in a model that included agentic behavior and behavioral dysregulation. tests of correlations between children's concurrent behavioral responses, perceived agency, and mental health suggested that agentic behavior is positively associated with prosocial behavior, whereas behavioral dysregulation appears to be positively linked with adjustment problems, and perceived agency is unrelated to mental health. longitudinal analyses were consistent with these relations, and revealed that behavioral dysregulation predicts subsequent adjustment problems, but that adjustment problems do not predict subsequent behavioral dysregulation. moreover, agentic behavior was not linked with prosocial behavior over time. finally, analyses of developmental change suggested that children's behavioral and emotional responses to conflict decrease with increasing age, and predictors of interindividual differences in change were inconclusive. results are discussed in terms of the emotional security hypothesis and the functionalist perspective on emotions, with implications for research on family relations. when mammary epithelial cells become detached from the extracellular matrix (ecm), they undergo programmed cell death. over the past twenty years, our knowledge regarding various mechanisms utilized by cancerous epithelial cells to overcome ecm-detachment-induced death has grown. elucidating the ways in which cancer cells overcome ecm-detachment-induced cell death is important for our understanding of the metastatic progression and for our ability to therapeutically eliminate these cells. here, we describe a novel mechanism utilized by inflammatory breast cancer (ibc) cells to overcome ecm-detachment-induced apoptosis, or anoikis. ibc cells were shown to survive in ecm-detached conditions by regulating the intracellular localization of the proapoptotic protein, bim-el via protein interactions with beclin-1 and lc8. these data are the first to describe how ibc cells can survive in an ecm-detached state. interestingly, inhibition of anoikis alone is not enough to overcome ecm-detachment-induced cell death in nontumorigenic mammary epithelial cells. we have identified rip1 as a critical mediator of non-apoptotic ecm-detachment-induced cell death, which we believe to be programmed necrosis. rip1 was found to be highly expressed in ecm-detached epithelial cells via upregulation of the deubiquitinase, cyld. surprisingly, rip3 and mlkl were found to be dispensable downstream of rip1 for ecm-detachment-induced programmed necrosis. furthermore, tnf&#945; does not appear to represent the stimulation factor for ecm-detachment-induced death. together these data suggest a novel rip1-mediated, rip3/mlkl-independent signaling cascade for ecm-detachment-induced necrosis. motherhood provides a key source of resilience for ipv-exposed mothers, yet most psychological research focuses on parenting deficits among ipv-exposed women. two studies were conducted to develop the claims that ungar's (2012) model of social-ecological resilience provides a useful framework for understanding ipv-exposed women's experiences of motherhood and calls upon actors in women's social environments to support ipv-exposed mother's resilience. methods: thematic analysis was used to examine parenting strengths and fears of ipv-exposed women from focus groups with ipv-exposed mothers (n=22) and service providers (n=31). multilevel linear modeling was used to analyze the moderating influences of neighborhood factors on ipv's effect on mother-child relationship quality in a longitudinal study of parents and adolescents (n=1,090). results:thematic analysis indicated that mothers emphasized their parenting strengths and the toll of abuse, while service providers emphasized parenting deficits. both stated that mothers left partners for their children's sakes and expressed concerns about intergenerational transmission of ipv. mlm revealed a within-person effect such that mothers reporting more ipv also reported improvement in mother-child relationship quality over time. a between-person moderating effect of neighborhood chaos indicated that ipvexposed mothers reported worse relationship quality than non-exposed mothers when neighborhood chaos was low but no difference in relationship quality when neighborhood chaos was high. discussion: findings mapped robustly onto the social-ecological model of resilience. nussbaum's (1997) capabilities approach and lederach's (2003) big picture of conflict transformation are discussed as frameworks for translating resilience into social change, with recommendations for ways psychologists can support ipv-exposed mothers' resilience. this dissertation aims to provide a comprehensive account of set theory with urelements. in chapter 1, i present mathematical and philosophical motivations for studying urelement set theory and lay out the necessary technical preliminaries. chapter 2 is devoted to the axiomatization of urelement set theory, where i introduce a hierarchy of axioms and discuss how zfc with urelements should be axiomatized. the breakdown of this hierarchy of axioms in the absence of the axiom of choice is also explored. in chapter 3, i investigate forcing with urelements and develop a new approach that addresses a drawback of the existing machinery. i demonstrate that forcing can preserve, destroy, and recover the axioms isolated in chapter 2 and discuss how boolean ultrapowers can be applied in urelement set theory. chapter 4 delves into class theory with urelements. i first discuss the issue of axiomatizing urelement class theory and then explore the second-order reflection principle with urelements. in particular, assuming large cardinals, i construct a model of second-order reflection where the principle of limitation of size fails. microtubules (mts) are biological polymers that perform crucial roles in eukaryotic cells such as formation of the mitotic spindle for chromosome separation during cell division, providing infrastructure for intracellular transport, and contributing largely to overall cellular organization. a fundamental behavior of mts, dynamic instability (di), is generally described as the stochastic switching between periods of growth and shortening. while this definition is widely accepted, it has limited the quantification of mt dynamics to simply include measurements of growth, shortening, and frequencies of transitions in-between. this definition ignores variability in growth and shortening rates and additional characterization of transitions themselves, which further limits mechanistic understanding. to address the issue of quantification, we first present a more complete analysis of mt dynamics using the statistical tool for automated dynamic instability analysis (stadia); this analysis is performed using both in silico and in vitro data (chapter 2). using this data-driven approach, not constrained by a priori assumptions regarding mt behavior, we find that mt behavior is not well-approximated when constrained to measurements of simply growth and shortening; specifically, we report that a previously identified but not fully characterized behavior, `stutter', should be included in future studies of mt dynamics and in quantification of di behavior. additionally, we find that stutters precede catastrophes both in silico and in vitro, and that the anti-catastrophe factor clasp2 prevents catastrophe by promoting stuttering mts back to growth. to further validate these conclusions, we test their stability across a wide range of stadia user-input parameters and data temporal resolutions (chapter 3). importantly, we report that the identification of `stutters' is generally robust with respect to both user-input parameters and data temporal resolutions. of note, however, is that analysis must be conducted at a scale capable of detecting stutter behaviors. lastly, we continue our dissection of mt dynamics by approaching mt velocity as a continuous random variable, as opposed to a binary variable (i.e., growth vs. shortening) (chapter 4). specifically, analysis of data generated by our dimer-scale in silico model demonstrates that mt velocity is best described as following multiple probability distribution functions, adding to our understanding of the spectrum of mt behavior. further, our results suggest that mt velocity is determined primarily by the off-rate which is itself controlled by variations in the mt tip structure. we also establish and validate analytical relationships between rate constants, mt tip structures, and overall mt behavior; a key result of these analytical solutions is the identification of three random variables that sufficiently describe the tip structure and strongly correlate with the o -rate. for future work related to this dissertation (chapter 5), we suggest two remaining areas of interest: 1) further optimization of methodologies used in stadia (i.e., segmentation and classification procedures), and 2) the use of mts as a model system for studying deterministic processes evident in steady-state systems. mathematicians of all sorts participate in the search to classify structures and characterize the structures which belong to a class. logicians have worked on finding the complexity of the isomorphism relation on a class of structures, the "classification problem," and categorizing the relative complexity of the isomorphism relation on different classes of structures. one way of comparing the complexity of the classification problem for different classes of structures uses the notion of a turing computable embedding.this notion allows us to compare the complexity of the classification problem for certain classes of structures, and make some distinctions that cannot be made under the notion of borel embedding. the main tool in making those distinctions, i.e. in showing non-embeddability between one class of structures and another, is the pull-back theorem. the pull-back theorem for turing computable embeddings says that if there is a turing computable embedding between k and k', then anything you can say in the language of k' you can "pull back" and say in the language of k, with the same complexity. in this work, i consider classes of structures with countable universe, develop more general notions of embeddings between these classes, and prove corresponding pull-back theorems.i also present a result on the complexity of computable isomorphism on the class of boolean algebras, and joint work on the computable embedding problem, considering how hard it is to tell if one structure in a class is isomorphic to a substructure of another structure in the class. becoming american is a social and cultural history of reform and revolution in the period following the american war of independence.with a particular focus on the growing tension between calls for greater personal freedom and the continued existence of institutional slavery, i examine the experiences of a core group of reformers from france, ireland, and the united kingdom who were forced into exile in the united states.by considering how these exiles envisioned a better world through reforms—and how those plans changed after repeated failures—i investigate the boundaries of revolutionary projects around the atlantic in this period.i trace these reformers from their hope-filled early days in europe to the disastrous failure of their reform projects in order to assess their feelings of loss and deracination as they were cut off from their former lives.i then analyze their 'middle passage'—and their own direct comparisons to slavery—as they transitioned from these losses to considering new hope in america.finally, i demonstrate that a second disappointment led many of the exiles to reconsider their previous reform plans in america, and eventually accept compromise. by asking how some of these exiles began their lives arguing for abolition, only to end up defending the south's peculiar institution, my project challenges the idea that the coexistence of radical political ideologies and pro-slavery sentiments in the minds of individuals was an american phenomenon.instead, i argue that changing conceptions of freedom and slavery among these exiles were actually the product of a larger, transatlantic struggle over definitions of community, nationhood, and the nature of revolution itself.i demonstrate that, as these exiles faced repeated failure to realize their dreams of reform, their conceptions of universal freedom contracted, often along national, sectional, and racial lines.while they struggled to adapt to their new lives, they came to terms with what it meant to be american—even if that meant accepting compromise and contradictions within american society.and, as they became american, these influential immigrants also helped shape american political culture, further cementing those contradictions rather than challenging them. the location and elastic modulus of a fusion mass are important factors for clinical assessment of the adequacy of interbody fusion. various finite element models of the l3-l4 motion segment were built using the geometry from cross-sectional ct images of the lumbar spine. by applying a compressive load to the superior endplate of the superior vertebral body, the cumulative reaction force and maximum principal strain value could be computed. using these values and the compressive failure strain for vertebral cancellous bone, the maximum sustainable load before failure could be computed. it was consistently noted that as the density of the fusion increased, the maximum load increased. furthermore, when the density of the fusion mass became equal to or greater than the vertebral bodies, failure was seen in the vertebral body whereas for lesser densities failure was seen in the fusion. as the fusion was laterally displaced, failure load decreased, and as the fusion was posteriorly displaced, the failure load increased. in conclusion, the results validated the importance of clinical assessment of both fusion density and fusion location. β-lactam antibiotics are arguably the most important discovery in the history of modern medicine. because of these small molecules, minor infections are no longer necessarily considered a death sentence. however, in recent years, the prevalence of resistance to these life-saving compounds has dramatically increased. one way to combat resistance is to generate both new antibiotic compounds and new synthetic strategies to make these chemical entities. oxamazins, heteroatom-activated β-lactams, have demonstrated activity similar to traditional β-lactams, and thus are of interest. herein, we report different strategies for the syntheses of bicyclic and monocyclic oxamazins. in chapter 1, a broad overview of β-lactam antibiotics will be given including the discovery of these life-saving compounds and their historical syntheses. several synthetic strategies for the closure of the β-lactam ring and subsequent elaboration will be discussed. the rapidly growing concern of bacterial resistance development and the means by which bacteria maintain their resistance will also be presented. in chapter 2, initial studies incorporating pd (0) methodology will be discussed. in an attempt to take advantage of π-allyl chemistry, several acyclic substrates were generated to test the utility of π-allyl chemistry for the formation of monocyclic and bicyclic oxamazins. the syntheses of the substrates and the challenges associated with the pd (0) chemistry are discussed. additionally, an interesting new route to cephalosporins through the use of pd(0) chemistry will be proposed. finally, a new synthetic strategy for the rapid access of carbocyclic nucleosides utilizing the protocols discussed in this chapter will be hypothesized. in chapter 3, ring-closing olefin metathesis will be introduced and the utility of this versatile chemistry for the synthesis of the bicyclic oxamazin core will be explored. the core backbone of bicyclic oxamazins were synthesized and used in intramolecular ring-closing olefin metathesis reactions. the results of those studies will be presented. finally, the potential of this chemistry to generate fully realized antibiotics will be discussed. in chapter 4, the incorporation of peripheral c-3 acylamine and ionizable group functionalization on the bicyclic oxamazin core generated from the use of ring-closing olefin metathesis will be presented. the synthesis of the fully functionalized bicyclic oxamazin was addressed through three pathways. the first focused on the generation two subunits: and amino acid and an aminooxy acid ester. two other strategies employing later stage synthetic intermediates as scaffolds for further functionalization were also explored. compounds generated through these pathways were tested for their biological activity and those data are presented as well. the ways in which the marital relationship (mr) affects parent–child relationship (pcr) on a daily basis has important implications for children's developmental outcomes. most research on this topic, however, has employed a regression-based analytical approach; consequently, the dynamic, day-to-day fluctuations of mr–pcr associations, as well as the heterogeneous, between-family differences, have been largely overlooked. my dissertation project aimed to: (1) understand the within-family variability in the mr–pcr dynamics; (2) identify typologies based on families' emotional dynamics; and (3) test the associations between family typologies and child adjustment. different daily mr–pcr typologies were found for fathers and mothers: while the cohesive, fluctuating-cohesive, middle-of-the-road, and spillover type were the four typologies emerged most consistently for fathers and mothers, a compensatory typology was only identified for mothers in this study. results also showed that externalizing behaviors (reported separately by parents and teachers) were the highest in children of parents in the spillover typology than those in other typologies. moreover, for families who were characterized by positive family dynamics (that is, families in the cohesive and fluctuating-cohesive types), higher variability of mr–pcr emotional states was related to more child adjustment problems. the findings shed light on the developmental implications of the variability and typology of family emotional dynamics, furthering our current understanding of the interrelatedness between marital and parent–child subsystems. improved neutron capture cross section data for transuranic and minor actinides are essential for assessing possibilities for next generation reactors and advanced fuel cycles. the measurement of actinide transmutation (mantra) project aims to make a comprehensive set of energy integrated neutron capture cross section measurements for all relevant isotopes from th to cf. the ability to extract these cross sections relies on the use of accelerator mass spectrometry (ams) to analyze isotopic concentrations in samples irradiated in the advanced test reactor (atr).the ams measurements were performed at the argonne tandem linear accelerator system (atlas) and required a number of key technical developments to the ion source, accelerator, and detector setup. in particular, a laser ablation material injection system was developed at the electron cyclotron resonance ion source. this system provides a more effective method to produce ion beams from samples containing only 1% actinide material and offers some benefits for reducing cross talk in the source.a series of four actinide measurements are described in this dissertation. these measurements represent the most substantial ams work attempted at atlas and the first results of the mantra project. isotopic ratios for one and two neutron captures were measured in each sample with total uncertainties around 10%. these results can be combined with a mcnp model for the neutron fluence to infer actinide neutron capture cross sections. raising a child with autism spectrum disorder is a challenging experience that can impact maternal well-being. this daily diary study investigates (1) the relationship between daily stress, general life stress as well as stress related to the child's characteristics, and daily negative affect, (2) the role of daily positive affect in promoting resistance to stress and recovery from daily stress, (3) the moderating effects of optimism and perceived control on the relationships between daily stress, daily positive affect, and daily negative affect, and (4) whether daily positive affect serves to mediate both relationship between optimism and daily negative affect, as well as the relationship between perceived control and daily negative affect. results from hierarchical linear models (hlm) revealed that higher levels of perceived stress were associated with decreased well-being, both within and across days. daily positive affect buffered the immediate and longer-lasting negative impact of perceived stress; however, this occurred only one days of low to moderate levels of stress. although optimism and perceived control did not explain differences in the daily relationships previously described, each of these personality characteristics helped explain the degree to which positive affect is generated. implications of the present study are discussed with regard to theoretical models of positive affect and the development of intervention programs. directions for future research are also discussed. this project is a re-interpretation of plato's symposium following a suggestion made by friedrich nietzsche in an 1864 essay titled, "on the relationship of alcibiades's speech to the other speeches of plato's symposium." the scholarly focus of the present work is the preliminary or, first five speeches, of symposium. contemporary scholars typically rely on the paradigm of reading the non-socratic speeches as mere unphilosophical mistakes, to be corrected when at last the dialogue arrives, none too soon, at the properly philosophical speech of socrates. in taking up nietzsche's alternative approach in this work, i emphasize the unique contributions of each speech towards a proper understanding of the role of erōs in human nature, and i trace the developments of those contributions through the movement of the dialogue. analyzing the preliminary speeches as an explanation of the nature of erotic ascent reveals a unique and important contribution to the study of symposium. the speeches, both individually and in relation with each other, deal with inherent tensions that erōs creates. the preliminary speakers signal discomfort with these tensions and attempt to resolve them one way or another. but socrates's ladder of love is a true ladder, each rung supported by two rails or poles. both of these poles must remain solid if the rung is to be supported. rather than seeking to resolve the tensions definitively along with their attendant discomfort, the tensions must remain in creative symbiosis with one another. this is consistent with plato's broader philosophy. plato constantly seeks to integrate two poles in his discussions throughout the dialogues. in republic, he contrasts gymnastic with music. in statesman, he contrasts courage with moderation. in laws, he contrasts spartan sobriety with athenian drunkenness. in all cases, both elements remain in creative tension. in symposium, we will find that erotic climbing is a perilous ascent indeed. the preliminary speeches deal with four sets of poles that require integration: body and soul, technē and nomos, emptiness and fulness, and politics and philosophy. should one of the poles be weakened or disintegrated, they can no longer support the rung to the peril of the climber. reading symposium through the lens of poles supporting the rungs of socrates's ladder highlights the political and legal elements of the dialogue. most importantly, plato shows that while certain human concerns transcend the political—laws alone cannot lead humans to the object of their deepest desire—epitēdeumata and nomoi nonetheless remain indispensable for the education of erōs. this dissertation examines the high medieval female figure of beatrice as the consummate lady wisdom. it follows the literary path which the biblical female figure of lady wisdom (sophia, sapientia) herself took from the wisdom literature (old testament) through the gospels (new testament), the sixth-century non-biblical work, boethius' consolatio, and the marian liturgy and commentary tradition of the song of songs from the seventh to the twelfth-century to dante's comedy completed in 1321. who is lady wisdom? in an attempt to answer the question in part, i focus on three metaphors used by the jewish-hellenistic writers to describe her: prophetess, spiritual mother, and mediatrix. i analyze her three metaphors according to the three solomonic steps. origen, in the prologue of his commentary on the song of songs, linked proverbs, ecclesiastes, and the song of songs, all of three attributed to solomon as "author" in ancient and medieval period, as constituting a three-step ladder that solomon had provided for the soul's ascent in the stages of spiritual life, from moral to natural to mystical or contemplative. the first chapter discerns lady wisdom first in jesus-wisdom-prophet; second, in jesus-wisdom-mother-nurse-bride; third, in jesus-wisdom-mediator. the second chapter discerns lady wisdom and jesus-wisdom first in the moral-lady philosophy; second, in the natural-lady philosophy; third, in the contemplative-lady philosophy. the third chapter examines mary, "the seat of wisdom (sedes sapientiae)," first as the new eve at the incarnation; second, as the spiritual mother at the passion; third, as the mediatrix upon her assumption. the final chapter systematically demonstrates beatrice as a synthetic figure of mary, lady philosophy, and lady wisdom. the method is inter-textual analysis. i demonstrate the identification of lady wisdom, jesus, lady philosophy, mary, and beatrice in various texts through their common words and actions. the goal is to discern the biblical female figure of lady wisdom in the non-biblical medieval female figures, lady philosophy and beatrice, and to bring the mediatrices "secularized" by modern critics back to their "sacred" source: lady wisdom identified with christ, and in the middle ages, with mary. this dissertation describes the design and evaluation of small molecules that interact specifically with certain components of the cell plasma membrane surface and interior. a series of zn2+-dpa coordination compounds has been developed that can report the presence of phosphatidylserine in the outer leaflet of a cell membrane in the same manner as the protein annexin v, but with no need for calcium. these compounds include fluorescent probes suitable for flow cytometry and fluorescence microscopy, as well as a biotinylated sensor for phosphatidylserine that can be adapted to sensing applications for which suitable streptavidin conjugates are available. direct conjugation of these phosphatidylserine-binding compounds to quantum dots resulted in a sensor useful for prolonged exposure imaging applications without bleaching of the fluorophore. a second series of amphiphilic compounds designed to partition into the bilayer hydrocarbon region and interact with membrane proteins is also presented. these molecules include derivatives of the lipid phosphatidylcholine, and all have either thymine or urea functionalities that likely embed in the bilayer and form hydrogen bonds to targeted transmembrane protein residues. all compounds presented in this work have either immediate applications in diagnostic imaging or the potential to help us understand more about the process of molecular recognition in a cell membrane interior. in this thesis, i consider dante's commedia in light of an understudied literary tradition (the sacred, encyclopedic poem), which has its roots in greek neoplatonic critical endeavors to elucidate homer and to rescue poetry as a tool for philosophizing. these ideas were applied to virgil by macrobius, who inaugurated a critical tradition in the latin west (chapter one). a crucial figure for the transmission of these late antique ideas was bernard silvestris, who not only operated as a critic but also responded to this tradition in his own creative work, the cosmographia, thus giving rise to a renewal of the sacred, encyclopedic poem in the middle ages (chapter two). it is my contention that dante knew this literary tradition and expended great effort to surpass the authors whom he emulated. his commedia, then, can be read as the ultimate sacred, encyclopedic poem. chapter three analyzes dante's response to the encyclopedic virgil, particularly as presented in bernard silvestris's commentary. chapter four explores dante's use of the sacred, encyclopedic poetic tradition in purgatorio xxviii and discusses the significance of dante's attempt to draw our attention to its presence. the dissertation concludes with suggesting what implications dante's knowledge of the sacred, encyclopedic poem might have for our reading of paradiso. en sus trabajos, las escritoras maría luisa bombal, alfonsina storni, marosa di giorgio, silvina y victoria ocampo y la fotógrafa grete stern emplean diferentes tácticas para recibir, negociar y parodiar la sujeción de las mujeres al panóptico. esta disertación detalla los modelos desarrollados por ellas para articular diversas subjetividades femeninas como observadoras. tales modelos también permiten retratar la movilidad de las mujeres por diferentes espacios; a saber: la ciudad, el jardín y la casa.in their works, writers maría luisa bombal, alfonsina storni, marosa di giorgio, silvina and victoria ocampo, and photographer grete stern, all use different tactics to receive, negotiate, and parody the subjection of women to the panopticon. this dissertation details the models they develop in order to articulate female subjectivities as observers. such models also portray the mobility of women through spaces; namely: the city, the garden and the house. my dissertation has two aspects. on the one hand, it is a contribution to a first-order ontological dispute. i proceed by offering, over the course of four chapters, a sustained defense of nominalism (the view that there are no abstract objects). on the other hand, it is an exercise in metaontology. in particular, it is an attempt to undermine the framework for conducting ontological disputes handed down to us by quine and his successors. neo-quinean objectors to nominalism argue (to a first approximation) that we seem antecedently committed to endorsing various sentences that can be shown to imply that abstract objects exist. they further argue that there is no way that we can do without endorsing many of those sentences. we can't, they argue, find workable, nominalistically friendly paraphrases for all of them; nor can we simply withdraw our assent (not without greatly impoverishing our ability to express various truths). it follows, they claim, that we are (on pain of logical inconsistency) 'committed' to the existence of abstract objects. i show how nominalists can successfully resist such arguments. i argue that we can consistently talk and reason as if there were abstract objects without believing in them, and that we can do so in the absence of a successful paraphrase strategy. accordingly, the approach that i take could aptly be described as a 'fictionalist' one. in chapter 1, i show how to resist empirical arguments against nominalism that are advanced on the part of some neo-quineans. in chapter 2, i consider and reject an argument put forward by peter van inwagen (a prominent neo-quinean) for the conclusion that we are committed to believing in properties. in chapter 3, i develop a novel, formal, nominalist account of the inferential utility of reasoning as if there are monadic, first-order properties. finally, in chapter 4, i argue that the considerations raised in the previous chapters generalize so as to encompass other domains of our discourse that neo-quineans claim commit us to the existence of abstract objects. this dissertation compares augustine of hippo's and g.w.f. hegel's doctrines of the holy spirit. both thinkers are towering figures in the history of trinitarian thought. yet hegel dominates the contemporary scene of trinitarian theology and its reception of classical trinitarian doctrine. this study thus assesses the theological adequacy of hegel's thought vis-ìê-vis a figure from the doctrinal tradition he claims to fulfill eschatologically and thereby aims to shed light on the breadth and richness of augustine's trinitarian theology independent of the idealist and rationalist lenses through which it has often been interpreted over the past 150 years. the comparison is divided into three parts. part i analyzes the relationship between christ and the spirit. here one already begins to see the effect of hegel's linking of spirit with rational self-determination in contrast to augustine's stress on obedience and responsiveness to god. hegel posits a single nature christology that, in its full scope, includes both the creation of the world and the incarnation in a rationally necessary movement of divine kenosis. augustine, contrariwise, develops a christology of two natures in one person and stresses the gratuitous character of creation and the incarnation. whereas hegel's trinitarian thought runs christ and the world together and ultimately displaces them in favor of a rationally-determined spirit, augustine presents an incarnational paradigm animated by grace, which more clearly affirms the goodness of creation through the simultaneous yet distinct action of christ and the spirit. part ii then investigates pentecostal witness. i argue that hegel's pneumatological bias impoverishes christian life by obviating martyrdom as a possible form of witness to christ. augustine's interpretation of the spirit, by contrast, supports a broader sense of christian freedom than that of rational self-determination and enables martyrdom as a constructive expression of love of god and neighbor. finally, part iii explores the types of community sustained by each thinker's trinitarian paradigm. hegel's sublation of the christological moment in spirit issues in the displacement of the church by the state and an attendant realized eschatology that obviates psalmic lament as a form of communal christian prayer, thereby leaving the suffering and the church that would speak on their behalf without a critical theological voice. alternatively, augustine's concept of the totus christus supports a form of christian community better equipped to address the reality of suffering in the world, while also cultivating an openness to transformative grace and participation in the trinitarian mystery, because the church remains critically independent of the state and is marked by the not yet character of eschatological vision. ultimately, i conclude that, contrary to the critique of traditional trinitarian theology implicit in hegel's thought, augustine in fact offers a comprehensive pneumatology that is more theologically adequate, rhetorically powerful, and existentially persuasive. in this dissertation, we report two novel designs of monolithically integrated photonic devices, a single facet teardrop shape laser which can be used as an on-chip reflector, and a mode-evolution-based polarization rotator-splitter which enables polarization division multiplexing for high-speed optical communications. the matched bend criterion method for effectively reducing the straight-bend-straight transition loss in planar optical waveguide, is applied to design a single facet teardrop laser utilizing an on-chip loop mirror reflector. simulations of a matched bends teardrop reflector show a great improvement in power reflectance (97%) over unmatched-bend designs (10%). the teardrop laser is fabricated by deep etching and non-selective sidewall oxidation of an 808 nm algaas/inalgaas/gaas heterostructure. the resulting high-index-contrast ridge waveguide laser exhibits a low threshold current of 43 ma, a high slope efficiency of 0.465 w/a, and a single spectral lasing mode with a side mode suppression ratio of 24 db. to reduce the size of an individual teardrop laser to increase the density of matched bend devices integrated on a single chip, a scaling rule is introduced for reducing the dimensions of a matched waveguide bend without inducing additional transition loss. mathematical expressions describing the wave propagation in the bend are obtained via a combination of analytical analysis and numerical calculations. these expressions show that if the bend radius r shrinks discretely by n=(m1/m2)^3 times, where m1 and m2 are the integer number of beat lengths in the original and scaled matched bends, respectively, and the effective width of the waveguide is reduced also by n^(1/3) times, then the loss of the matched bend (straight-curved-straight waveguide) transition will remain constant. a mode-evolution-based polarization rotator-splitter built on an inp substrate is also proposed by combining a mode converter and an adiabatic asymmetric y-coupler. the mode converter, consisting of a bi-level taper and a width taper, effectively converts the fundamental tm mode into the second order te mode without changing the polarization of the fundamental te mode. the following adiabatic asymmetric y-coupler splits the fundamental and the second order te modes and also converts the second order te mode into the fundamental te mode. a shallow etched structure is proposed for the width taper to enhance the polarization conversion efficiency. the device has a total length of 1350 um, a polarization extinction ratio over 25 db and an insertion loss below 0.5 db for both the te and tm modes, over the entire c+l band wavelength range from 1528 to 1612 nm covering all c+l band. because the device is designed based on mode evolution principles, it has large fabrication tolerances. the insertion loss remains below 1 db and the polarization extinction ratio remains over 17 db with respect to a width variation of +/0.12 um at the wavelength of 1570 nm, or +/0.08 um over the entire c+l band. aminoglycoside 3'-phosphotransferases [aph(3')s] are important bacterial resistance enzymes for aminoglycoside antibiotics. these enzymes transfer the phosphoryl group of atp to the 3'-hydroxyl of the antibiotics. quench-flow pre-steady-state kinetic analyses of the reactions of gram-negative aph(3') types ia and iia were carried out with kanamycin a, neamine, their respective difluorinated analogues and d198a mutant aph(3')-ia, in conjunction with measurements of thio effects and solvent viscosity effects to shed light on the details of the turnover chemistry. the fluorinated analogues were shown to be severely impaired as substrates for these enzymes. the magnitude of the effect of the impairment of the fluorinated substrates was in the same range as when the d198a mutant aph(3')-ia was studied with non-fluorinated substrates. residue 198 is the proposed general base that promotes the aminoglycoside hydroxyl for phosphorylation. these findings collectively argue that the gram-negative aph(3')s show significant nucleophile participation in the transition state for the phosphate transfer reaction. pre-steady-state kinetics demonstrated that aph(3')-ia and aph(3')-iia in both ternary and binary complexes facilitate an atp hydrolase activity ('atpase'). since these enzymes are expressed constitutively in resistant bacteria, the turnover of atp is continuous during the lifetime of the organism both in the absence and the presence of aminoglycosides. atpase activity would potentially consume as much as several fold of the total existing atp. studies with bacteria harboring the aph(3')-ia gene revealed that bacteria are able to absorb the cost of this atp turnover, as atp is recycled. however, the cost burden of this adventitious activity manifests a selection pressure against maintenance of the plasmids that harbor the aph(3')-ia gene, such that approximately 50% of the plasmid is lost in 1500 bacterial generations in the absence of antibiotics. the implication is that, in the absence of selection, bacteria harboring an enzyme that catalyzes the consumption of key metabolites could experience the loss of the plasmid that encodes for the given enzyme.a newly discovered bifunctional antibiotic resistance enzyme (ant(3')-ii/aac(6')-iid) from serratia marcescens catalyzes adenylation of streptomycin and spectinomycin on the 3'and 9-hydroxyl groups, respectively, and acetylation of kanamycin a on the 6'-amine. the adenyltransferase domain appears to be specific to spectinomycin and streptomycin, while the acetyltransferase domain shows a broad substrate profile. studies using initial velocity patterns, dead-end and product inhibitions, solvent isotope effects, and solvent viscosity effects reveal that adenyltransferase domain catalyzes the reaction by a theorell-chance kinetic mechanism, where atp binds to the enzyme prior to the aminoglycoside and the modified antibiotic is the last product to be released. the acetyltransferase domain follows an ordered bi-bi kinetic mechanism, in which the antibiotic is the first substrate that binds to the active site and coenzyme a is released prior to the modified aminoglycoside. another bifunctional aminoglycoside-modifying enzyme (aac(3)-ib/aac(6')-ib') from pseudomonas aeruginosa catalyzes acetylation of aminoglycoside antibiotics. aac(3)-ib is specific to gentamicin and fortimicin a among a dozen of aminoglycosides. initial velocity and inhibition patterns and the solvent isotope effects indicate that aac(3)-ib catalyzes its reaction through an ordered bi-bi kinetic mechanism where acetyl-coa binds first to the enzyme followed by aminoglycoside and the acetylated aminoglycoside is released from the active site prior to coenzyme a. the solvent viscosity effects suggest that the product release is a rate-limiting step in catalysis. emotional experiences create durable memory traces in the brain and tend to be incredibly well remembered. importantly, moderate stress responses have been linked to increased performance on emotional memory tests, but suppressed ability to remember neutral information. evidence suggests sleep also enhances memory consolidation, but the way stress affects sleep remains unclear. in the present study, participants encoded scenes of varying degrees of emotional arousal. after, participants completed a psychosocial stress task or a control task prior to sleep. participants then completed a recognition task in which the objects and backgrounds were presented separately and one at a time. stress subjects demonstrated an increase in memory for negative objects but poorer memory for their matched neutral backgrounds, resulting in a greater emotional memory trade-off compared to controls. thus, hpa axis activation after encoding may 'tag' the emotional object as important to remember, enabling sleep to selectively increase memory consolidation while concurrently suppressing neutral information. the term "mysticism" has admitted a variety of definitions throughout history, most of which have been inflected by more or less explicit gender biases. these understandings have impoverished considerations of the christian mystical tradition and problematized feminist theological retrievals of christian mysticism. in this dissertation i propose a heuristic notion of mysticism as a dynamism of eros by developing bernard mcginn's understanding of mystical consciousness and enriching it with insights from sarah coakley and catherine keller, arguing that this notion critically anchors feminist retrievals of the christian mystical tradition.in part i, i deconstruct the term "mysticism" from a critical feminist perspective. in chapter one, i identify several theoretical problems of the term and then offer an account of the term's history, focusing on the early modern period, which attends to its latent gender biases. in chapter two, i analyze and evaluate several contemporary paradigms for understanding mysticism: that of william james, luce irigaray, steven t. katz, and sandra schneiders. i determine that a more robust theoretical understanding of the mystical is required from a theological, historical, and feminist perspective. i then argue that bernard mcginn's understanding of mysticism provides such resources.in part ii, i critically appropriate mcginn's heuristic understanding of mysticism as the preparation for, attainment of, and effect of mystical consciousness of the presence or absence of god. in chapter three, i adopt his methodological approach to the study of mysticism, critically ground the criteria for determining a mystical canon with assistance from david tracy's notion of the classic, and survey mcginn's reconstruction of the history of western christian mysticism. in chapter four, i turn to mcginn's paradigm of mystical consciousness. i develop its details along lines congruent to the thought of bernard lonergan, more precisely delineating the relationships among the experiential, noetic, and textual dimensions of the mystical. my appropriation of mcginn culminated with my suggesting that his account of mystical consciousness implicitly configures mysticism as a dynamism of eros. in part iii, i supplement my notion of mysticism through the work of two contemporary feminist theologians who have articulated notions of mysticism in concert with rehabilitations of "eros." in chapter five, i evaluate sarah coakley's notion of the mystical as a contemplative matrix of eros, and in chapter six, i evaluate catherine keller's notion of the mystical as attunement to the mystery of erotic relationality. i suggest that both feminist theologians furnish insights into the erotic dimensions of the mystical which supplement my heuristic notion of the mystical as a notion which can critically anchor contemporary feminist engagements with the christian mystical tradition. a novel this thesis presents the design and synthesis of compounds that can be utilized as bioimaging agents to detect various targets. a squaraine rotaxane core was selected because of its ability to be detected using infrared microscopy. squaraine rotaxanes have been developed previously, but here i present work toward creating a squaraine rotaxane core that can easily be functionalized using "click" chemistry, which has been shown to form products quickly and in high yields. the first section deals with the design and synthesis of squaraine rotaxanes that were functionalized with a glucose derivative so that it might be used to target tumor cells. in the final section, the squaraine rotaxane was derivatized with various compounds to show its ability to react in various "click" reactions. one example used azide-functionalized polyamidoamine (pamam) derivatives. the purpose of this paper is to analyze a larger and more general context for the formation of athenian/panhellenic identity and its attitude towards and construction of persian/barbarian identity during the fifth century bce by employing herodotus as a lens to examine the south frieze of the temple of athena nike. like herodotus, this frieze offers an organized representation of not only persian/barbarian identity but also of athenian/panhellenic identity during the period immediately following the persian wars. while herodotus has been employed in past scholarship to read a very specific battle scene from the persian wars on the south frieze, this analysis will use herodotus to understand the general character and spirit of what i argue is a more symbolic battle between greeks and easterners. this symbolic battle represents a scene of west versus east, and it is my goal to use herodotus to suggest some of the particular stereotypes and generalizations with which such a confrontation could be described and understood. there are many computational problems which are generally "easy" to solve but have certain rare examples which are much difficult to solve. one approach to studying these problems is to ignore the difficult edge cases. asymptotic computability is one of the formal tools that uses this approach to study these problems. asymptotically computable sets can be thought of as almost computable sets, however every set is computationally equivalent to an almost computable set. intrinsic density was introduced as a way to get around this unsettling fact, and which will be our main focus. of particular interest for the first half of this dissertation are the intrinsically small sets, the sets of intrinsic density 0. while the bulk of the existing work concerning intrinsic density is focused on these sets, there are still many questions left unanswered. the first half of this dissertation shall endeavor to answer some of these questions. we shall prove some useful closure properties for the intrinsically small sets and apply them to prove separations for the intrinsic variants of asymptotic computability. we shall also completely separate hyperimmunity and intrinsic smallness in the turing degrees and resolve some open questions regarding the relativization of intrinsic density. for the second half of this dissertation, we shall turn our attention to the study of intermediate intrinsic density. we shall develop a calculus using noncomputable coding operations to construct examples of sets with intermediate intrinsic density. for almost all r in (0,1), this construction will yield the first known example of a set with intrinsic density r which cannot compute a set random with respect to the r-bernoulli measure. motivated by the fact that intrinsic density coincides with the notion of injection stochasticity, we shall apply these techniques to study the structure of the more well-known notion of mwc-stochasticity. the success of a species and the co-existence of communities over time ultimately depends on the stability of populations. while populations are inherently dynamic, contemporary environmental change may create population instability by altering processes such as migration, recruitment, and population growth and decline. a current goal in conservation biology and population ecology is to quantify the shortand long-term impact of anthropogenic activities, including habitat degradation and global climate change, in order to predict changes in populations, species, and communities. this knowledge is elusive, as these activities take place at multiple and often vast spatial and temporal scales, which to some degree limits the use of manipulative ecological studies to disentangle the web of human and anthropogenic influences. however, changes in population dynamics often leave genetic signatures. biologists can use molecular ecology tools and carefully chosen study sites to investigate large-scale 'experiments in action'natural populations already subject to specific ecological processes. i use this approach and the forest tree butternut (juglans cinerea l.) to investigate the influence of: contemporary population decline on the distribution of genetic diversity, contrasting habitats on patterns of recruitment and colonization, and proximity to anthropogenic landscapes on rates of interspecific hybridization. juglans cinerea represents a suite of early colonizing tree species, as well as a model conservation dilemma.my work shows the utility of a comparative, observational molecular ecology approach to investigating these processes. first, i show that the major influence on population genetic diversity is not dramatic 20th century decline due to an epidemic disease, but rather ancient range shifts following holocene-era climatic warming. second, i show that patterns of disturbance in upland and riparian habitats create markedly different opportunities for recruitment and spatial distribution of diversity. third, i show that while anthropogenic landscapes facilitate extensive hybridization between j. cinerea and an introduced tree, japanese walnut, forested landscapes greatly limit hybridization.the results of my first study suggest that the reproductive and life history characteristics of forest trees may allow them to endure extreme and rapid environmental change, even if populations are reduced in size and connectivity. however, the next two studies are a reminder that realized dispersal is quite limited in trees, particularly in the absence of suitable colonization sites. predictions of forests' ability to track future climate change are therefore difficult to make. together, these results emphasize that an effective conservation approach is the preservation of populations, even if small, in situ. this dissertation describes the development of a new method for the synthesis of nanostructured branched polymers through the combination of two techniques, atom transfer radical polymerization and microemulsion polymerization. the importance of these materials, current challenges associated with their synthesis and details of our proposed methodologies are highlighted in chapter 1. chapter 2 describes an in-depth and systematic investigation into the self-condensing vinyl polymerization of ab* inimer in microemulsion for the synthesis of hyperbranched polymers with controlled structures. the following chapter examines the discovery of a competing initiation process that occurs during the atom transfer radical polymerization initiated by activators generated by electron transfer in microemulsion. in chapter 4, the effect of branching point structures and densities was studied between azido-containing hyperbranched polymers and cross-linked nanogels on their loading efficiency of alkyne-containing dendron molecules. these results represented the first comparison between hyperbranched polymers and cross-linked nanogels to explore the effect of branching structures on their loading efficiencies. chapter 5 extended this study to branched core star polymers with similar sizes and molecular weights but different branching structures, x versus t linkages and tested them on their loading efficiencies with alkyne-functionalized dispersed red dye. the quantum-dot cellular automata (qca) scheme is a promising replacement for current cmos technology. patterning qca molecules on a surface in a controlled manner is one of the fundamental research topics for the realization of room temperature operation of qca computing. the water-soluble creutz-taube molecule [(nh3)5ru(pyrazine)ru(nh3)5](o-toluenesulphonate)5 (ct5), was successfully patterned on sio2 surfaces by a new molecular liftoff technique. patterned ct5 molecules formed as monolayers with two ru atoms lying down on the surface. the finest ct5 nanolines demonstrated were around 15 nm after deconvolution of the tip size effect. for molecular nanopatterning, surface cleanliness is critical for molecular deposition and the investigation of deposited molecular patterns. surface cleaning methods were compared before resist application on substrate surfaces. dichloroethane (dce) and dichloromethane (dcm) were found to be good polymethylmethacrylate (pmma) removers and returned the surface to its original condition after pmma removal. contamination resist and octadecyltrichlorosilane (ots) self-assembled monolayers (sams) resist were also investigated for nanopatterning of molecules. compared with pmma resist, both of these two resists are not appropriate for molecular nanopatterning. it is hard for sams to fully cover substrate surfaces and be removed after pattern transfer. it is time consuming to make contamination patterns because of the needed very large doses. for contamination resist, it is also very hard to control the contamination residual organic molecules in the sem chamber. pmma is the optimal resist for two reasons; one is the full coverage of substrate surface and the other is easy removal by dce or dcm. for a complete scheme of the molecular liftoff technique for molecular nanopatterning, an inorganic resist, lif (alf3), is proposed to make nanopatterning of organic solvent-soluble molecules in the future. in order to obtain the real size of narrow molecular patterns and investigate surface defects affecting molecular adhesion, scanning tunneling microscopy (stm) is proposed to be used to solve these issues for the atomic resolution stm can provide. coastal wetlands occur throughout the laurentian great lakes where hydrology and sediment are conducive to macrophyte growth. these shallow, productive ecosystems have diverse emergent and submergent vegetation that provides critical habitat for many species of fish, birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. unfortunately, approximately half of the coastal wetland area that was present before european settlement has been converted to other land uses and the majority of remaining wetlands are impacted to varying degrees by invasive species, fragmentation, nutrient loading, and hydrologic manipulation. consequently, coastal wetland protection and restoration are vital components of a long&#8208;term management strategy for the great lakes. for protection and restoration to be effective, however, a better understanding of coastal wetland structure and function and improved monitoring tools are needed. in my research, i found that watershed and surrounding land cover, especially agriculture, impacted coastal wetland water quality by increasing nutrient concentrations, conductivity, and turbidity. using nutrient-diffusing substrata, i found that algal biomass accrual was frequently nitrogen-limited and rarely phosphorus-limited, suggesting that nitrogen loading from agricultural lands and other sources has the potential to stimulate excessive algal growth and affect ecosystem function in great lakes coastal wetlands. i also documented water quality impairment and altered land cover to be associated with structural changes to algal, macroinvertebrate, and fish communities, illustrating the far-reaching impacts of anthropogenic disturbance on coastal wetland ecosystems. macroinvertebrate community structure was also related to natural drivers including hydrologic energy and water levels. i used my findings related to abiotic conditions and community structure to develop a fish-based index of biotic integrity and an abiotic index of wetland conditions for use in monitoring. these tools will help ecosystem managers to track wetland conditions and to prioritize protection and restoration investments across the great lakes basin. furthermore, given that these anthropogenic stressors and natural drivers are not unique to the great lakes, my findings and related indices are applicable to other coastal ecosystems. this dissertation investigates the relationship between policy-making institutions and processes and the europeanization of policy content in three secondand third-wave members of the european union. it focuses specifically on greek, irish, and portuguese responses to a set of labor market challenges in the higher education, immigration, and family policy fields, the latter concentrating on the evolution of policies for work-life balance. the central lines of enquiry involve (a) detailing the extent to which each country has reoriented these three policy areas around europeanized goals and values, and (b) specifying under what conditions they have been able to do so. a framework for explaining variation in policy outcomes is developed in which the construction of policy-making institutions and processes capable of balancing functions of interest group consultation and incorporation plays the central role. ireland has the most fully developed consultative and incorporative tradition and has europeanized its policy responses the most. greece has the least developed consultative and incorporative policy-making institutions and processes and has europeanized its policy responses the least. portugal is the mixed case in the sample, falling somewhere in between on both counts.the dissertation includes a detailed methodological discussion, especially concerning the basis of national and policy area case selection, as well as a theoretical one concerning why and how consultative and incorporative policy-making is important. the qualitative analysis presented in the empirical chapter discussions draws on national and international policy-related documents as well as a wide secondary literature, and a series of interviews with policy-making officials and interest group leaders conducted in all three of the countries under investigation. effectively supporting modern large-scale and data-centric scientific workflows moving into the exascale era requires a change in the way researchers interact with the system to better coordinate io behavior and storage across multiple layers of the system. instead of targeting low-level storage and io operations with broad optimizations, the key to supporting the wide variety of modern applications lies in leveraging higher-level information from workflow managers and execution frameworks. rather than simply reacting to individual tasks as they execute, we can leverage workflow-level information in advance of execution to carry out proactive management decisions that avoid entire categories of performance bottlenecks from the start.this dissertation first explores the interactions between workflow structure and application performance, and looks at leveraging imprecise user intuition to flexibly restructure workflows. next, it examines the scalability limits of shared filesystems, showing how large-scale application behavior leads to "metadata storms" that are difficult to handle without leveraging workflow information. applying advanced dependency management planning and dynamic resource management methods to distributed python applications next demonstrates the benefits of workflow-aware techniques. it then proposes dependency-oriented container management strategies to improve storage usage and reproducibility over standard techniques that do not leverage workflow information. finally, the landlord algorithm is introduced to address the combinatorial explosion in storage of "container sprawl" by taking advantage of workflow behavior to coalesce related container environments. the approaches developed in this work give scientists a flexible toolset to leverage workflow-level information for proactive management across a wide variety of application types and computing environments. experimental studies of solvation dynamics in imidazolium-based ionic liquids (ils) have revealed complex kinetics over a broad range of time scales from femtoseconds to tens of nanoseconds. microsecond-length molecular dynamics (md) simulations of coumarin 153 (c153) in a series of imidazolium-based ils were performed to reveal the molecular-level mechanism for solvation dynamics over the full range of time scales accessed in the experiments. an analysis of the structure of the il in the vicinity of the probe molecule revealed preferential solvation by the cations. despite this observation, decomposition of the solvation response into components from the anions and cations and also from translational and rotational motions show that translations of the anions are the dominant contributor to solvation dynamics. the kinetics for the translation of the anions into and out of the first solvation shell of the dye were found to mimic the kinetic profile of the solvation dynamics response. this mechanism for solvation dynamics contrasts dramatically with conventional polar liquids in which solvent rotations are generally responsible for the response. the structure and dynamics of water as measured experimentally in ils have revealed local ion rearrangements that occur an order of magnitude faster than complete randomization of the liquid structure. simulations of an isolated water molecule embedded in 1-butyl-3-methyl imidazolium hexafluorophosphate, [bmim][pf6], were performed to shed insight into the nature of these coupled water-ion dynamics. the theoretical calculations of the spectral diffusion dynamics and the infrared absorption spectra of the od stretch of isolated hod in [bmim][pf6] agree well with experiment. the infrared (ir) absorption lineshape of the od stretch is narrow and blue-shifted in the il compared to the od stretch of hod in h2o. decomposition of the od frequency time correlation function revealed the translation of the anions dominate the spectral diffusion dynamics. the growing need for effective biometric identification is widely acknowledged. identifying an individual from his or her face is one of the most non-intrusive modalities in biometrics. major challenges to face recognition system robustness include illumination and pose variations. this work introduces foundational research addressing two-dimensional intensity, infrared, three-dimensional, and multi-modal face recognition. i contribute to the growing body of work surrounding face recognition by examining novel approaches to face recognition beyond the traditional, two-dimensional intensity modality. my infrared research made strides in overcoming the illumination challenge because this modality proved robust in the face of varied lighting conditions. although infrared is invariant to changing lighting, infrared is not robust in the face of varying pose, it produced very low-resolution images with unreliable face registration when compared to their 2d intensity counterparts, and, in many cases, it would be cost-prohibitive. in looking to overcome these bottlenecks, 3d recognition was the next, logical step given that previous trials with the three-dimensional modality demonstrated that it provides greater accuracy than any of the two-dimensional modalities. however, available 3d state-of-the-art scanners such as the minolta vivid series prove cost-prohibitive, are fragile, require that a subject remain immobile for several seconds, and are generally too intrusive for many real-world acquisition scenes. these observations provided the motivation for a proposed three-dimensional recognition system that is built upon a two-dimensional framework. i extended my infrared research to consider a three-dimensional recognition system that had a two-dimensional foundation. this dissertation explores the possibility of using cost effective, flexible, accurate, and user friendly multiple-view stereo photogrammetry to reconstruct the three-dimensional shape of the human face for improved recognition performance. specifically, i developed a novel approach to face recognition that relies on 2d images to successfully reconstruct 3d shape of the human face. this approach ultimately outperforms 3d shape obtained from a commercial scanner. this is noteworthy given that our approach does not require strict calibration as in the case of the commercial 3d scanner. also significant is the demonstrated flexibility of this system to successfully perform 3d recognition on a database acquired originally for 2d face recognition. mass transfer and reaction in the liquid phase of gas-liquid multiphase flows usually takes place at a considerably slower rate than the transfer of momentum, so mass flux boundary layers are much thinner than momentum boundary layers. in direct numerical simulations (dns) the resolution requirement for flows with mass transfer are therefore significantly higher than for flow without mass transfer and reaction. in this work we develop a multi-scale approach and demonstrate its implementation in 2d to compute the mass transfer from buoyant bubbles, using a boundary-layer approximation next to the bubble and a relatively coarse grid for the rest of the flow. this approach greatly reduces the overall grid resolution required. then we implement our method in 3d and perform validation of the approach by comparing to experimental data and semi-empirical correlations from the literature. we study the effect of void fraction and bubble interactions on the mass transfer from many bubbles using a 3d implementation of the code. specifically, we do simulations of single bubbles in periodic boxes and we compare it to the simulation of several bubbles in a larger domain with the same void fraction. comparisons shows that even though the average reynolds number of freely moving bubbles drops after a while the mass transfer from the bubbles for most case studies increases slightly when bubbles start wobbling which increases bubble interactions. we also develop a film model to recover the under-resolved viscous forces between colliding non-coalescing droplet. my work in this thesis is concerning methods for robust inference and network analysis for non-gaussian data, with a focus on the unique challenges presented by rna-sequencing and single-cell rna-sequencing applications. two methods for constructing gene coexpression networks are presented---a robust method for rna-seq data, and a method for estimating directed networks from scrna-seq data---as well as a novel method for testing differences in gene expression.the first proposed method provides a new way of estimating the correlation of non-gaussian data, which in turn can be used to infer gene function. the most straightforward way of constructing a coexpression network is to connect gene pairs whose expressions are highly correlated under different experimental conditions. usually, this correlation is measured by the pearson's correlation coefficient, which, however, does not directly apply to data generated from rna-seq technique. rna-seq data are non-negative integers which cannot be properly modeled by a gaussian distribution, and moreover, these counts have mean values that are proportional to the sequencing depths, and thus there are no identically distributed "replicates." directly normalizing counts by the corresponding sequencing depths and then using pearson's correlation coefficient can be of low efficiency. the proposed method, icc, is a generalization of the pearson's correlation coefficient that can be directly applied to rna-seq data. on simulation data, it shows higher efficiency in distinguishing coexpressed gene pairs from unrelated gene pairs. in a real dataset, icc generates a coexpression network that appears to more closely agree with experimentally validated networks than other methods. more generally, icc can be used for calculating the correlation coefficient for any two series of random variables.the second proposed method is for constructing gene co-expression networks based on single-cell rna-sequencing data. the algorithm is called leap, or lag-based expression associations for pseudotime-series data, and utilizes the estimated pseudotime of the cells to find gene co-expression that involves time delay, building off of traditional time-series analysis techniques. regular correlation-based gcns only describe simultaneous gene co-expressions. by using the time information that is virtually freely available in scrna-seq data, leap is able to capture associations that were hidden by the time lags. the asymmetric associations detected by leap more likely reflect regulatory relationships as they describe which gene follows another gene in expression. applied to a real data set, leap not only identifies more true relationships than a traditional correlation-based network, but also captures directed, and thereby regulatory, relationships.finally, the third method is a new way of detecting differentially expressed (de) genes, which show different average expression levels in different sample groups, and thus can be important biological markers. while many methods have been proposed for detecting de genes, and are generally very successful, these methods need to be further tailored and improved for cancerous data. tumor samples often feature quite diverse expression---some even appear as huge outliers---and this diversity is much larger than that in the control group. the proposed method, diphiseq, can detect not only genes that show different average expressions, but also genes that show different diversities of expressions in different groups. these "differentially dispersed" genes can be important clinical markers. diphiseq uses a redescending penalty on the quasi-likelihood function, and thus has superior robustness against outliers and other noise. simulations and real data analysis demonstrate that diphiseq outperforms existing methods in the presence of outliers, and identifies unique sets of genes. reports of perceived spousal criticism better predict relapse following recovery from major depressive disorder than do measurements of 'actual' spousal criticism from expressed emotion interviews coded by outside raters (hooley & teasdale, 1989). this study examines relations between perceived and 'actual' criticism in depressed and non-depressed spouses. married couples were evaluated using structured interviews, questionnaires, and an observationally-coded dyadic interaction. signal detection methods assessed sensitivity and bias in reports of perceived criticism. results suggested that depressed and martially discordant spouses are biased towards perceiving spousal criticism, suggesting that criticality bias reflects a latent cognitive style underlying depression and marital discord. that bias was related to reports of global perceived criticism suggests that spousal reports of perceived criticism capture both actual criticism and reporters' cognitive bias towards overor under-perceiving criticism. reports of perceived criticism may better predict relapse from depression than ratings of actual criticism in part because they capture such cognitive tendencies. according to theories of event cognition, people parse information into event models, and this parsing can have meaningful influences on cognition. the current study explores the idea that parsing a narrative into separate events can influence the monitoring of prior text information that occurs during comprehension, such as inconsistency detection and anaphor resolution. on the one hand, event segmentation may serve to facilitate the access of prior text information. on the other hand, it may be that the removal of information from the current working event model reduces its accessibility, thereby making inconsistencies more difficult to detect and anaphors harder to resolve. in the current experiments, people were given sets of stories to read in which the presence of event boundaries was explicitly manipulated and inconsistent sentences or anaphors were separated by either an boundary or not. these event boundaries were present either in the context of a narrative, or were extra-textual event boundaries in the form of reading interruptions. the results of four experiments revealed that narrative event boundaries did impede anaphor resolution, but not inconsistency detection, and reading interruption impeded both inconsistency resolution and anaphor resolution. this work has implications for theories of event cognition and narrative comprehension. rhizobium tropici, a legume-symbiont soil bacterium, is known for its copious production of exopolysaccharide (eps) material. however, many aspects of this organism's growth and eps production remain uncharacterized, including the influence of environment and culturing conditions upon the growth of r. tropici and the chemical structure of eps material being formed. we hypothesized that r. tropici eps yield and chemical structure would change when r. tropici was grown with different organic carbon compounds. we characterized the eps from r. tropici grown in batch culture in a liquid minimal salts medium using arabinose, glucose, sucrose, mannitol, fructose, or glutamate as the sole carbon source. a soluble eps extraction procedure was developed involving centrifugal filtration of growth media followed by ethanol precipitation of the supernatant liquid. this eps product was quantified and characterized. changes to the carbon source were found to significantly impact eps production, in terms of yield as well as eps chemical composition. r. tropici's growth environment was further optimized for eps production by examining the roles of ph and carbonitrogen ratio, both which were found to impact eps production. a maximum eps yield of 4.08 g/l was realized under the determined optimal conditions. nitrogenase activity was also investigated. the shade-bodies of dante's commedia are an interpretative crux. the poet recognizes a common problem of patristic and medieval eschatology: how can separated souls in purgatory and hell suffer from corporeal fire prior to the resurrection? most literary visions of the afterlife ignore such difficulties, silently granting pseudo-embodiment to the departed; but dante, employing similar aerial bodies, directly questions their nature. yet his account has been widely misunderstood, either as a philosophically-deficient claim that such bodies could allow sensation, or as theologically-facetious legerdemain in service of poetic license.i argue that dante's explanation of the shades (primarily in purgatorio xxv) is a coherent justification of the possible union of separated souls to aerial bodies: not a formal union allowing for sensation, but a virtual one allowing for manifestation&#8212which is precisely parallel to angelic appearances. the primary consequence of this reading is that the narrative of the commedia, in its basic infrastructure, is meant as truly possible according to dante's philosophical and theological commitments&#8212but only if the suffering souls encountered by the pilgrim are not to be understood as capable of sensing their apparent torments, but of manifesting their intellectual torment physically.in this respect the literal sense of the poem is neither a patently impossible fabula nor an historia, but an argumentum, an argument for the possibility and fittingness of embodiment in the afterlife. to claim that separated souls might truly manifest themselves through a body is not merely the presupposition of a fictional vision but a prefiguring of the resurrection for which even the blessed yearn.in the first chapter, i study signal theological treatments of this problem prior to dante: those of origen, augustine, gregory the great, eriugena, albert the great, bonaventure, thomas aquinas, and siger of brabant. in the second, i examine and reinterpret purgatorio xxv in depth and in extended poetic and philosophical context. in the third, i consider objections to this thesis and its implications for several interpretative debates. political parties may obtain different share of the votes in different sub-national electoral districts. the extent of this difference is a measure of party nationalization. the fragmentation of national party systems may grow when different parties compete effectively in different districts. the extent to which national fragmentation resembles district level fragmentation is a measure of the degree of aggregation of party systems. the determinants of party nationalization and party system aggregation are the subjects of an ongoing theoretical elaboration. the present study contributes to this endeavor through a theoretically informed analysis of contemporary electoral trends in argentina. most existing theories hold that political parties cross territorial boundaries in order to obtain political benefits that are allocated at the national level. institutional and social factors determine the value and ease of cross-district coalitions. the argentine party system allocates highly valuable benefits at the national level and the argentine society is culturally homogeneous. yet, party nationalization and party system aggregation have never been complete and have recently decreased dramatically. coordination and exchange problems that political parties face account for this unexpected result. coordination problems derive from high social and institutional variance among electoral districts. a decrease in the value of party labels, associated with party policy inconsistency, hinders the effective resolution of coordination problems. exchange problems derive from feeble incentives to promote the cooperation among party members who compete for offices of different level. this study documents these relationships combining the quantitative analysis of electoral, institutional and social data with discussions of historical events. so far, scholarly discussions of party nationalization have paid little attention to coordination and exchange problems. a detailed analysis of national and provincial dynamics in argentina demonstrates these problems are crucial to account for the territorial extension of parties and party systems. it has been conjectured that there exists a classification of regular cluster structures on simple complex lie groups that is parallel to the belavin-drinfeld classification of poisson-lie brackets. on the general linear group one of these cluster structures corresponds to the cremmer-gervais poisson bracket. this dissertation is dedicated to the study of a natural analogue of this cluster structure in the rings of regular functions on affine spaces of matrices. an outline is given for the construction of an initial cluster for a cluster structure on the space of rectangular n by m matrices that is compatible with the restriction of the cremmer-gervais poisson bracket on the general linear group. combinatorial conditions are given for when there exists a sequence of cluster mutations relating such cluster structures on the space of matrices of size n by m and the space of matrices of size (n-1) by m. this aforementioned sequence of mutations is an important ingredient in showing that the corresponding upper cluster algebra is isomorphic to the ring of regular functions on the space of matrices of size n by m. current theory suggests multiple pathways to the onset of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (adhd) and comorbid oppositional defiant disorder or conduct disorder based on evidence of variation in the impairments observed within this population. the current study examined one proposed pathway to the onset of adhd and comorbid disruptive behavior disorders in order to determine how low physiological arousal, as indicated by an atypical cortisol response to acute stress, may influence executive functioning. in order to understand the atypical response and to test the validity of this pathway, we tested the executive functioning of 75 children and adolescents (ages 10-15) who were previously diagnosed with adhd+odd, adhd-only, or who were typically developing. four executive functioning tests were completed before and after exposure to an acute stressor. five saliva samples were also collected during the study, and cortisol values were obtained. no differences in executive functioning performance relative to the stressor were found. however, mothers? ratings of adhd inattentive symptoms and aggression were predictive of cortisol as indicated by area under the curve with respect to ground. these findings provide some support for the theorized pathway and suggest a relationship between inattentive symptoms, aggression, and cortisol. future research directions are suggested. this dissertation leverages algorithmic methods and databases of early modern print culture to analyze the ways the creation of statutory copyright law influenced the early english book market. in short, while book historians and legal scholars have written copious amounts of scholarship on the relationship between early copyright law and the eighteenth-century publishing industry, these studies have tended to focus on a small handful of pivotal writers and legal cases. by harnessing the power of massive bibliographical indexes and millions of pages of digitized print material from the period, this dissertation attempts to outline macroscopic trends in the ways legal changes transformed the book market in the long eighteenth century. this dissertation's focus on the relationship between copyright law and the eighteenth-century book market is motivated by the fact that english courts of the period revolutionized copyright law in ways that continue to influence contemporary legal thought. in the late seventeenth century, only members of the london-based stationers' company could publish books or own copyrights. in 1710, the statute of anne extended the right to "copy" to all english citizens. some few decades later in 1741, english chancery courts created precedent for modern fair use law by ruling that books which derived heavily from others could be found non-infringing in certain cases. near the end of the century in 1774, english courts legalized a vast public domain of intellectual property by ruling that copyright protections expire a fixed number of years after the initial publication of a work. this study is an attempt to outline the ways these and many other legal changes during the eighteenth century created the dynamic foundation on which the modern book market was built. --a born-digital version of this text is available at: http://earlybookmarket.com/. luke-acts frequently portrays the extension of roman power into the life of jesus and the early church, and the author has long been regarded as mounting a defense of the church before rome. as interest in the roman political context of christian origins has risen scholars have offered a variety of proand anti-roman readings.this dissertation contributes to the discussion by focusing on one facet of luke's politics: his portrayal of roman provincial governors. luke's accounts of these roman officials' interactions with jesus (pilate) and paul (sergius paulus, gallio, felix, and festus) are analyzed using a narrative-rhetorical approach that stresses the probable impact of the narrative on its original late-first-century christian audience. in order to better evaluate the significance of various aspects of luke's characterizations for such an audience, the dissertation examines several other narratives from the first century that feature roman governors as prominent characters. narratives clearly intended to portray a governor favorably (tacitus, agricola) or unfavorably (philo, against flaccus) are examined first, followed by the characterization of governors in josephus' historical works, the judean war and judean antiquities.in the context of these works luke's portrayals of roman governors emerge as varied, nuanced and congruent with literary expectations of the early empire. even so, the governors in luke-acts largely serve a common rhetorical goal signaled by pilate: they demonstrate that roman officials themselves acknowledged that jesus and paul (and by extension their disciples) were innocent of any roman charges. in this thesis i will discuss the work i have done to develop whole cell yeast biosensors for detecting pharmaceuticals in lowand middleincome (lmics). yeast biosensors are a low cost and user-friendly alternative to the lab-based spectroscopic and chromatography-based technologies currently used to detect pharmaceuticals in many areas. although powerful, these lab-based devices are expensive and require trained personnel for operation, causing them to be out of reach for many areas of the world, including many lmics. lmics are in particular need for ways to monitor pharmaceuticals for applications including monitoring the quality of pharmaceutical dosage forms and testing environmental samples for contamination with pharmaceuticals.1,2whole cell biosensors are an attractive alternative to current spectroscopic technology because they can be very affordable and user-friendly while providing biologically relevant information about analytes.3,4 whole cell yeast biosensors in particular would be useful in lmics because they are hardy and there are well-tested methods for drying yeast for long term storage. yeast biosensors can be made to detect an analyte of interest using genetic engineering to express genetic circuits containing a detection modality (usually an analyte sensitive receptor capable of inducing transcription) and a reporter (e.g. fluorescence, color, or luminescence). the most notable use of yeast biosensors thus far has been to detect endocrine disrupting compounds (edcs), however, the repertoire of yeast biosensors has been expanded to include detection of dna damage and other pathogenic fungi, to name a few analytes.5-7 while potentially powerful, few of these systems have been adapted for use in the field. to address the need for portable analytical technologies, our lab endeavored to make a portable yeast-based biosensor.we developed the first portable whole cell yeast biosensor, named the biological paper analytical device (biopad), which detects the antibiotic doxycycline.8 while sensitive, inexpensive, and viable after long term storage, this device was not completely field friendly due to the requirements for multi-step incubation, use of liquid nitrogen to lyse cells, and expensive and non-stable color development reagents. my research was focused on developing new techniques to make the biopad more field-friendly and expanding this technology to include new analytes relevant for detection in lmics. the first question i addressed with my research was whether yeast biosensors could be made to be more field friendly through use of a different reporter system. the original biopad used a beta-galactosidase reporter which was hindered by the drawbacks mentioned above. luminescent reporters also require expensive and non-shelf stable reagents for the development of signal, and most colorimetric reporters take multiple days for significant color production if reagents are not used.9-11 an alternative to these reporters in fluorescence, which does not require reagents for signal development and has shown measurable signal in little as 6 hours.12,13 i developed fluorescent biopad technology which proved successful at detecting doxycycline starting at 0.3 μg/ml and showed activity in biological matrices. this biosensor could be useful for monitoring drug regiment adherence through testing of biological fluids because of its increased sensitivity and robust signal in complex matrices. because the fluorescent biopad showed high levels of fluorescence without the need for any additional reagents other than a small amount of yeast media, i developed a streamlined version of the biopad to reduce production and development costs. i also constructed a portable fluorescence detection device with the help of our tech consultant, galen brown. this fluorescence detector costs approximately $130 to construct, can be assembled on site, and has the potential for long-term use. i have also worked to develop a scent-based reporter for yeast based-biosensors. a scent-based yeast biosensor, or scentsor, has the potential to be used as a screening tool which needs no additional equipment for use when detecting an analyte of interest. while unlikely to be semi-quantitative like the fluorescent biosensor, the scentsor could be used to alert the user when a threshold of analyte has been reached and alert users which samples should be sent out for further analysis, thus reducing the amount of samples needed to be analyzed in detail and saving resources. i demonstrated the principle of using a scent-based reporter in yeast through construction of a galactose-responsive banana scent producing scentsor. this reporter from this scentsor was analyzed with gas chromatography and then tested with human noses. ninety three percent of the panelists chose the treated scentsor and so i developed a scentsor that could detect a more relevant analyte. i constructed an estrogen scentsor with the aim of expanding our portable yeast biosensors in order to detect the active ingredients in hormone-based pharmaceuticals, a category of drug found to be substandard in lmics.1,14 panelists were able to detect banana scent at the estimated threshold of 15 nm e2, which is low enough for monitoring pharmaceutical quality and possibly identifying highly contaminated environmental samples. this work has shown that scent as a reporter modality has great potential for use in analytical technologies to be used in a field settingin this thesis i will discuss the work i have done to develop whole cell yeast biosensors for detecting pharmaceuticals in lowand middleincome (lmics). yeast biosensors are a low cost and user-friendly alternative to the lab-based spectroscopic and chromatography-based technologies currently used to detect pharmaceuticals in many areas. although powerful, these lab-based devices are expensive and require trained personnel for operation, causing them to be out of reach for many areas of the world, including many lmics. lmics are in particular need for ways to monitor pharmaceuticals for applications including monitoring the quality of pharmaceutical dosage forms and testing environmental samples for contamination with pharmaceuticals.1,2whole cell biosensors are an attractive alternative to current spectroscopic technology because they can be very affordable and user-friendly while providing biologically relevant information about analytes.3,4 whole cell yeast biosensors in particular would be useful in lmics because they are hardy and there are well-tested methods for drying yeast for long term storage. yeast biosensors can be made to detect an analyte of interest using genetic engineering to express genetic circuits containing a detection modality (usually an analyte sensitive receptor capable of inducing transcription) and a reporter (e.g. fluorescence, color, or luminescence). the most notable use of yeast biosensors thus far has been to detect endocrine disrupting compounds (edcs), however, the repertoire of yeast biosensors has been expanded to include detection of dna damage and other pathogenic fungi, to name a few analytes.5-7 while potentially powerful, few of these systems have been adapted for use in the field. to address the need for portable analytical technologies, our lab endeavored to make a portable yeast-based biosensor.we developed the first portable whole cell yeast biosensor, named the biological paper analytical device (biopad), which detects the antibiotic doxycycline.8 while sensitive, inexpensive, and viable after long term storage, this device was not completely field friendly due to the requirements for multi-step incubation, use of liquid nitrogen to lyse cells, and expensive and non-stable color development reagents. my research was focused on developing new techniques to make the biopad more field-friendly and expanding this technology to include new analytes relevant for detection in lmics. the first question i addressed with my research was whether yeast biosensors could be made to be more field friendly through use of a different reporter system. the original biopad used a beta-galactosidase reporter which was hindered by the drawbacks mentioned above. luminescent reporters also require expensive and non-shelf stable reagents for the development of signal, and most colorimetric reporters take multiple days for significant color production if reagents are not used.9-11 an alternative to these reporters in fluorescence, which does not require reagents for signal development and has shown measurable signal in little as 6 hours.12,13 i developed fluorescent biopad technology which proved successful at detecting doxycycline starting at 0.3 μg/ml and showed activity in biological matrices. this biosensor could be useful for monitoring drug regiment adherence through testing of biological fluids because of its increased sensitivity and robust signal in complex matrices. because the fluorescent biopad showed high levels of fluorescence without the need for any additional reagents other than a small amount of yeast media, i developed a streamlined version of the biopad to reduce production and development costs. i also constructed a portable fluorescence detection device with the help of our tech consultant, galen brown. this fluorescence detector costs approximately $130 to construct, can be assembled on site, and has the potential for long-term use. i have also worked to develop a scent-based reporter for yeast based-biosensors. a scent-based yeast biosensor, or scentsor, has the potential to be used as a screening tool which needs no additional equipment for use when detecting an analyte of interest. while unlikely to be semi-quantitative like the fluorescent biosensor, the scentsor could be used to alert the user when a threshold of analyte has been reached and alert users which samples should be sent out for further analysis, thus reducing the amount of samples needed to be analyzed in detail and saving resources. i demonstrated the principle of using a scent-based reporter in yeast through construction of a galactose-responsive banana scent producing scentsor. this reporter from this scentsor was analyzed with gas chromatography and then tested with human noses. ninety three percent of the panelists chose the treated scentsor and so i developed a scentsor that could detect a more relevant analyte. i constructed an estrogen scentsor with the aim of expanding our portable yeast biosensors in order to detect the active ingredients in hormone-based pharmaceuticals, a category of drug found to be substandard in lmics.1,14 panelists were able to detect banana scent at the estimated threshold of 15 nm e2, which is low enough for monitoring pharmaceutical quality and possibly identifying highly contaminated environmental samples. this work has shown that scent as a reporter modality has great potential for use in analytical technologies to be used in a field setting. in order to understand the degradation pathways suffered by protective coatings and polymeric satellite materials in the low-earth orbit (leo) space environment, reactions of hyperthermal oxygen ions with self-assembled monolayers (sams) and silicon oxide thin films are studied under ultra-high vacuum (uhv) conditions. the scattered ionic products are collected with energy-, angleand mass-resolved detection when 5-40 ev o+ ions impact an alkanethiolate sam. x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (xps) is used to measure the resulting erosion yield and degree of oxidation in the hydrocarbon layer. to learn about the site-specificity to hydrogen abstraction in this system, sam layers are grown for which the hydrogen atoms located on the c-12, c-11, or c-10 positions of 1-dodcanethiol are substituted with deuterium atoms. by comparing the yields of oh to od emerging from these three isotopomers, it is found that hyperthermal o+ ions initially abstract only h(d)-atoms bound to the top two carbon atoms within the sam layer. in addition, scanning tunneling microscopy (stm) images of the irradiated sam layer reveal that 5-ev o+ ions attack the film predominantly near domain boundaries. in contrast, large defect-free surface domains show considerable stability against 5-ev o+ bombardment. the reaction dynamics of hyperthermal o2+ with a siox/si(001) thin film is also studied. isotopic labeling helps to identify the mechanisms leading to the anionic reaction channels. o&ndash; signals are composed of dissociative scattering and sputtering products, whereas o2&ndash; signals arise from nonreactive scattering, recoil abstraction and symmetric substitution channels. the complex dynamics associated with ion-beam oxidation of si(001) by 5-120 ev o+ and o2+ are discussed. the cross section for oxygen incorporation is found to depend strongly on the conditions under which the underlying oxide layer was grown; the kinetic energy of the incorporating ion; and whether the incident ion is atomic or molecular oxygen. the dissertation examines the functioning of modern forms of prejudice as legitimizing myths within the social dominance theoretical framework, with a particular focus on positive stereotypes and other non-hostilely valenced prejudices. numerous scholars have suggested that positively-valenced stereotypes and attitudes play an important role in the maintenance and support of social stratification, particularly in the social context when more hostile forms of these prejudices have become increasingly stigmatized. however, little empirical work has been completed to test this supposition and what work has been done has tended to focus on racial and ethnic prejudice. using ambivalent sexism and modern heterosexism as exemplars, the dissertation finds mixed support for the hypothesis that modern forms of prejudice function as hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myth as suggested by social dominance theory. the protective paternalism subcomponent of ambivalent sexism, aversive heterosexism, and amnestic heterosexism function, for the most part, in the manner predicted by social dominance theory. however, the gender differentiation and heterosexual intimacy subcomponents of ambivalent sexism, paternalistic heterosexism, and positive stereotypic heterosexism do not. additionally, the dissertation uncovers a pattern whereby the opposition to equality subdomain of social dominance orientation predicts opposition to ameliorative public policies, but not subdomains of hostile or modern forms of prejudice. conversely, the group-based dominance subdomain of social dominance orientation predicts subdomains of hostile and modern forms of prejudice, but not opposition to ameliorative public policies. this dissertation consists of three essays on culture and cognition, with a special focus on issues and opportunities relating to text and interview data. in the first essay i develop a formal approach to analyzing patterns of cultural activation in moral reasoning, adapting swidler's (1986) concept of "unsettledness" to discern the degree of diversity in reasoning about a given topic. i then use the framework to identify variation in unsettledness in american parents' reasoning about the age-appropriateness of a variety of different practices. in the second essay i take up the question of what interviews can tell us about culture and action, responding to recent critiques claiming that the language used in interviews are unable to tell us much about behavior because they evoke declarative memory that is removed from experience (stephen vaisey 2009; martin 2010; jerolmack and khan 2014). drawing on contemporary cognitive linguistics, i argue that by measuring concreteness in language, interviews and text data more generally can give access experiential traces linked to past and future action. i test this hypothesis using a combination of interview and survey data from the national study of youth and religion, and i find that the concreteness with which adolescents discuss their religious beliefs and practices is positively correlated with the frequency of religious attendance when they are young adults. in the third essay i develop a framework for thinking about culture in reasoning that accounts for the fact that 1) patterns in reasoning vary across groups and individuals, and 2) reasoning is a situationally-variable process that changes depending on the substance and framing of the topic at hand. drawing on work from cognitive linguistics cognitive anthropology, i argue that american parents share a cultural model for reasoning about age-appropriateness consisting of basic schemas associated with the task of making judgments and a set of affordances associated with the domain of age-appropriateness. this model is deployed flexibly and variably depending on parents' experiences with the task in question. the three essays vary considerably in method and content, but each develops new ways of conceptualizing and measuring personal culture found in text data, challenges common beliefs about the uses and limitations of interviewing, and opens new avenues for future research. a creative thesis outlining the various myths about the event of apocalypse. surface enhanced raman scattering (sers) spectroscopy is a widely used analytical tool. not only does sers show promise for detecting small amounts of analytes, but combining sers with other advanced analytical methods may add insight into nanoscale static and dynamic phenomena. in this thesis, the history and advantages of sers are first addressed in chapter 1, followed by introducing two different approaches to develop new measurement methodologies based on sers in following chapters. first, surface plasmon resonance (spr) spectroscopy is correlated with sers in the kretschmann configuration, as demonstrated by successfully recording spr sensorgram and sers spectra separately and simultaneously, which is introduced in chapter 2. in addition to a critical test to demonstrate its typical spr function, raman scattering from stv-aunps/biotinylated gold thin film was enhanced by a combination of surface plasmon from aunps and thin au film. also, the sers spectra were simultaneously detected with spr sensorgram, providing chemical insight into binding events, which were not detectable by spr alone. by analyzing the spectra with multivariate curve resolution analysis, spr-sers spectroscopy demonstrated its potential to distinguish specific binding signals from the net sensorgram, thereby expanding the capabilities of spr spectroscopy.chapter 3 introduces sers in tandem with amperometry exploited to monitor the behavior of single ag nanoparticles (agnps) functionalized with raman reporter, 1,4-bis(2-methylstyryl)benzene (bis-msb), when they are transported to single nanopores. to that end, highly ordered nanopore electrodes arrays (neas) with a single au ring electrode were used to electrostatically capture bis-msb agnps, characterized by simultaneous amperometry and sers spectroscopy of agnp oxidation and enhanced raman scattering by bis-msb at silver-gold hot spots, respectively. the frequency and magnitude of oxidation spikes increased with stepwise increases in dc voltage, and characteristic bis-msb sers spectra were observed. under ac excitation, on the other hand, two distinctly different types of sers signals were observed, independent of frequency and amplitudestrong, transient spectra and slow monotonically diminishing spectra. we hypothesize that the former behavior results from agnp aggregates, while the latter occurs due to multiple incomplete agnp oxidation events in succession. these results show that attoliter-volume neas are competent to acquire concurrent sers spectra and amperometry of single nanoparticles and that together these measurements can illuminate the collision dynamics of the nanoparticles in confined environments. overall, this work illustrates how combining sers with other analytical tools yields measurements with improved sensitivity and characterization potential. the possibility of combining with surface plasmon polariton measurements and nanopore amperometry produces a versatile technique which should be applicable to many fields. bluetooth low energy (ble) is a wireless communication protocol in the 2.4ghz spectrum. the protocol is a pared-down version of the bluetooth classic protocol that provides new communication methods at extraordinarily low energy. ble is ubiquitous and can be found in almost any device; in particular, it is commonplace in smartphones. android smartphones, specifically, suffer from a fragmentation problem amongst the operating systems found in the wild as well as an issue with extraordinary variability in hardware. this diverse operating environment for ble calls for evaluation to better understand how ble performs at the application layer, especially in the presence of 2.4ghz wi-fi interference. my investigations into connection-less and connection-oriented ble communication on a variety of android smartphones have illustrated disparate ble behavior across devices, unequal impacts from ambient and parallel interfering traffic, and an updated understanding of what ble traffic looks like on modern smartphones. in this thesis, i will discuss the approaches that i use in my paintings to provide a way to reconnect with our unsettled world. using suzi gablik's the reenchantment of art as a conceptual framework, i will review how a variety of scholars see the disconnectedness present within ourselves, our relationships to others, and the rest of the world. in doing so, i will discuss how painting can attempt to reenchant the world in order to mend our rift from it. avenues for reconnection include practices that cultivate our own spirituality, soul, and ecstatic experiences, as well as approaches that promote beauty, interconnectedness, and ecological conversion. referring to the history of landscape painting and abstraction, i will analyze how artists have used visual languages to respond to times of change and uncertainty. i will also explain how i have been influenced by romantic landscape painting and abstraction to reinforce the conceptual basis of my paintings. i will then clarify how i fuse these painting methodologies with the conceptual framework of reenchantment to create paintings that provide viewers with spaces that can help reawaken the idea that their own soul is connected with their own body and mind, as well as with creation. over the past three decades, tremendous amount of effort has been made to realize condensed phase optical cooling. laser cooling of rare-earth doped glass/crystal first demonstration in 1995 was a great accomplishment. by now, as low as 91 k has been reached from room temperatures. further cooling, however, becomes problematic due to the electron depopulation at low temperature. to break into the low temperature regime, high purity semiconductors have been suggested. recently, advances in the synthesis of semiconductor nanostructures have led to the availability of high quality semiconductor nanomaterials, which possess superior optical properties relative to their bulk counterparts as well as rare-earth doped glass/crystal. the results in this thesis suggest that semiconductor nanostructures are promising cooling media for solid phase optical cooling. two critical parameters for optical cooling (emission quantum yield and upconversion efficiency) are discussed in detail. in particular, we find cspbbr3 nanocrystals are ideal candidates for optical cooling because of their near unity emission quantum yield and sizable upconversion efficiency. a numerical simulation of cspbbr3 nanocrystal optical cooling was subsequently performed. the results of the simulation suggest a minimum cooling temperature of 263k. however, more work needs to be done to demonstrate verifiable solid phase optical cooling. recently there has been considerable interest in wireless communication systems using multiple antennas. theoretical analysis shows that such systems can provide spacial and temporal diversity gain if appropriate signal sets are employed. this dissertation analyzes and designs suitable signal constellations for such systems. diversity product and diversity sum will be derived as two important parameters to design constellations. a basic question is what the maximal diversity product or diversity sum could be. in this dissertation we derive general upper bounds on the diversity sum and the diversity product for unitary constellations of any dimension and any size using packing techniques on a compact lie group. we generalize one complex dimensional phase shift keying (psk) signal and introduce space time constellations from generalized phase shift keying (gpsk) signals based on the complex and real orthogonal designs. the resulting space time constellations reallocate the energy among transmit antennas and feature good diversity, consequently their performances are better than some of the existing compatible codes. moreover, since the decoding of our proposed codes can be decomposed into one dimensional psk signal demodulation, maximum likelihood (ml) decoding of our codes can be implemented in a very efficient way. group structure and other algebraic approaches have been considered to construct fully diverse unitary constellations in the literature. our observation, however, indicates that full diversity can be easily obtained with h.d. random constellations. in this dissertation we also propose constellations with suitable structure which allow one to construct codes of any dimension and any size with excellent diversity using geometrical symmetry and numerical methods. we demonstrate how these structured constellations out-perform currently existing constellations and explain why the proposed constellation structure admit simple decoding algorithms such as sphere decoding. the presented design methods apply to any dimensional constellation of any size. moreover, codes based on the proposed structure are very flexible and can be optimized for any signal to noise ratio. tidal wetlands around the world are changing rapidly due to increasing atmospheric co2 and sea level rise, among other factors. current projections of salt marsh ecosystem responses to environmental change assume that the relationship between plant growth and environmental stressors remains constant over time. however, if evolution occurs on a centennial time scale in marsh plants, this could change the magnitude or direction of growth responses to environmental drivers such as co2 and flooding, which could in turn impact ecosystem processes. here, we test whether evolution can change plant and ecosystem responses to co2 and sea level using schoenoplectus americanus, a foundational salt marsh sedge with a 100+ year seed bank. in this dissertation, we present the results of a series of studies on the biology of schoenoplectus americanus and its growth responses to sea level and rising co2. through germination experiments and hierarchical zero-inflated poisson model we found that schoenoplectus americanus seeds can remain viable for up to a century and can be germinated for use in growth experiments. in a growth chamber experiment we investigated the growth of genetically distinct cohorts of schoenoplectus americanus under pre-industrial and ambient co2 levels and found that the ancestral cohort responded more strongly to atmospheric co2 than a modern cohort from the same marsh and a modern cohort from a marsh in a different watershed. these results suggest that the magnitude of response to elevated co2 can change over time because of evolution. in a field mesocosm experiment we explored the role of evolution in growth responses to elevated co2 and sea level treatments. we found that evolution can drive small changes in schoenoplectus americanus flooding tolerance and productivity under sea level. we used the results of these experiments to simulate marsh accretion under rising sea level and found notable differences in the sustainability of a marsh surface under sea level rise. these studies point to the potential for a century of evolution to alter ecosystem processes and they suggest that leaving out evolution in projections of plant and ecosystem response to environmental change can increase the uncertainty of those predictions. hybrid perovskites have recently emerged as promising material for photovoltaics due to their excellent optoelectronic properties and low-cost solution processability. despite the impressive power conversion efficiencies (pce) achieved so far (23.3%), major issues still need to be resolved prior to commercialization. one of the main issue represent the big gap between reported pce and theoretical shockley-queisser (sq) limit (~31%). in order to increase pce of these devices close to sq limit, a better understanding of charge recombination mechanisms is necessary. in this regard, this thesis presents a new type of excitation-dependent microscopy which enables to reveals local charge recombination mechanism of thin film and solar cell device.another important issue is halide phase separation in mixed halide perovskite under illumination. halide phase separation prevent these materials to be incorporated into devices. therefore, suppressing halide phase separation represent an important issue for the community. third chapter of this thesis present spectroscopic observation of halide phase separation. based on these observations a physical model is built which rationalize all microscopic processes that occur during phase separation. moreover, our model reveals that mixed halide perovskites can be stabilized against phase separation by tuning the physical properties of perovskite film. abstract this dissertation provides a new edition of the mirror to devout people, which survives in two manuscripts: notre dame, indiana, university of notre dame, ms 67 (nd) and cambridge, university library, ms gg.1.6 (c). two previous editions of this text were completed as unpublished dissertations. bridget ann wilsherìøåàå_s 1956 university of london dissertation uses c as a base text and nd to fill in a lacuna; major variations in nd are noted. john patrick banks 1959 fordham dissertation uses nd as the base text; major variations in nd are noted. in 1973, a partial edition edited by james hogg was published as part of the analecta cartusiana series; it lacks the last one-third of the text. the present edition provides a full record of all variant readings in both manuscripts. based on nd, it uses c to correct errors in sense and syntax, and also uses the sources to identify original readings. a glossary, which contains words that are not easily recognizable to readers of modern english, is included, as well as a complete glossary of all proper names. the full explanatory and textual notes identify for the first time almost all latin and middle english sources for the mirror. the introduction to the edition provides descriptions of both manuscripts and an overview of the ownership and circulation of the mirror. the author of the mirror was a carthusian, probably of the london abbey of sheen and the female religious for whom the work was composed was probably a bridgittine nun at the neighboring house of syon abbey. nd seems to have been commissioned for a secular family, john scrope, fourth baron of masham and his wife elizabeth. the original address to a bridgittine nun of syon abbey is thus transformed into an address to a pious laywoman. appropriate to its female audience, it draws on the works of ìøåàå_approued women,ìøåàå_ such as bridget of sweden, catherine of siena, and mechtild of hackeborn. as a result, the mirror to devout people provides important insights into the production of religious writing in fifteenth-century england and its transmission into secular ownership. coal-fired power plants are a leading contributor to the increase in co2 released into the atmosphere. alkanolamines are considered a potential solvent to capture this gas post-combustion, however, some disadvantages have been found. a newer class of solvent candidates proposed for this application is ionic liquids. computational methods are useful for predicting ideal ionic liquid candidates for this application. since the expense of dft methods is high with systems above 100 atoms, the dftb method was used to study ionic liquid systems. this study proved that dftb could accurately reproduce dft results of neutral molecules, however, this was not consistently seen in ionic liquid systems. this study also attempts to determine behavior properties of bulk ionic liquids. this dissertation explores the nearly simultaneous acceptance of contraceptives among protestants in britain and the united states in the early twentieth century. in august of 1930, the lambeth conference of anglican bishops officially approved contraceptives in britain. only months later, in march of 1931, the federal council of churches in the united states did the same. because this was the first time two significant bodies of protestants had incorporated contraceptive use into their official christian teaching, they provide an informative window into how and why contraceptives were accepted within the english speaking world.part one examines how the lambeth conference of 1930 both offered public sanction to contraception and rejected the anglicans' historical reliance on self-control as a superior method of family planning. it finds that in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, the anglican leadership drew on a widely shared culture of self-control to conclude that contraceptives had no place in a normal, healthy marriage. the leadership did, however, generally agree that regulating births was desirable in some cases. for such regulation, anglican leaders consistently proposed periodic sexual abstinence. in the 1920s, pressure for contraceptive acceptance became increasingly public as contraceptive advocates openly questioned the feasibility of sexual self-restraint within marriage. by the lambeth conference of 1930 an intense controversy had emerged, in which advocates for contraception pressed their case: self-restraint within marriage was untenable and unnatural; contraceptives could be a regular part of a healthy marriage. in a dramatic reversal of previous guidance, the conference declared that there was, after all, moral space for contraceptives within christian marriage.part two examines how in the u.s the federal council of churches came to a similar acceptance and identifies a parallel historical development. from the late nineteenth century through the first decade of the twentieth century, a strong social purity culture dominated by evangelical protestants depended upon, educated for, and legally reinforced the plausibility of sexual self-control as a method for regulating births. in the 1920s, proponents of contraception vigorously and publicly challenged the plausibility of sexual self-control within marriage. initially, in 1929, council leaders responded to this challenge, which they called the "marriage crisis," with the traditional language of self-control. but in 1931, the council issued a statement accepting contraceptives. at its heart was a desire to assist the wider social acceptance of contraceptives and a deep doubt about the plausibility of sexual abstinence within marriage. in sum, this study contends that in order to understand protestant acceptance of contraceptives, one also needs to understand the declining acceptance of previous arguments for sexual abstinence.in making this argument, this dissertation considers an array of contextual factors, like medical developments, class consciousness, public advocacy, demographic factors, and theological change. beyond protestantism, there is a pertinent comparison with an encyclical from pope pius xi, casti connubii, of december 1930, that upheld the catholic prohibition on contraception. diastolic dysfunction (sometimes referred to as diastolic heart failure or heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, hfpef) is a common pathology occurring in about one-third of patients affected by heart failure. however, this condition may not be associated with a marked decrease in cardiac output or systemic pressure and therefore is more challenging to diagnose than its systolic counterpart. compromised relaxation or increased stiffness of the left ventricle leads to elevated pressures in the pulmonary arteries. this condition is classified as group ii pulmonary hypertension or pulmonary hypertension due to left heart disease, one of the five classification sub-groups of hypertension \cite{simonneau2013updated}. in addition, the left ventricle's impaired relaxation or stiffness may increase the right ventricular afterload, which can lead to right ventricular failure. therefore, elevated pulmonary pressures are an important clinical indicator of diastolic heart failure and significantly correlate with associated mortality. however, accurate measurements of this quantity are typically obtained through invasive cardiac catheterization. moreover, the measurements are usually only obtained after the onset of symptoms. this thesis uses the hemodynamic consistency of a differential-algebraic circulation model to predict pulmonary pressures in adult patients from other, possibly non-invasive, clinical data. we investigate several aspects of the problem, including the ability of model outputs to represent a sufficiently broad pathologic spectrum, the identifiability of the model's parameters, and the accuracy of the predicted pulmonary pressures. we also find that a classifier using the assimilated model parameters as features is free from problems that arise from missing data and can detect pulmonary hypertension with sufficiently high accuracy. for a cohort of 82 patients suffering from various degrees of heart failure severity, we show that systolic, diastolic, and wedge pulmonary pressures can be estimated on average within 8, 6, and 6 mmhg, respectively. we also show that, in general, increased data availability leads to improved predictions.an introduction to the cardiovascular system, its components, and the underlying mathematical relationships used to describe blood flow are contained in chapter 1. a review of the clinical motivation for the aforementioned work is contained in chapter 2, along with a review of heart failure and hypertension. an overview of the origins and history of modeling of the cardiovascular system, including lumped parameter models, is covered in chapter 3. in addition, chapter 3 includes the formulation of the 0d hemodynamic circulation model used throughout the body of this thesis. chapter 4 is devoted to both the methodologies used for the model and the model's parameters. it introduces the statistical model, tuning of the model, and the use of bayesian computation methods. this chapter also covers parameter estimation and optimization methods in addition to parameter sensitivity and identifiability analysis techniques. finally, the chapter ends with an overview of the classification method implemented in this thesis, followed by a brief introduction to the computational framework utilized throughout this thesis. the final chapter, chapter 5, introduces the two data set and presents the main research questions. the first two research questions presented focus on validating the model formulation by accessing the model's physiological admissibility and the model's ability to represent systolic and diastolic dysfunction mechanisms. the final questions address the sensitivity and identifiability analysis of the model parameters, the prediction of the pulmonary pressures, the identification of the most impactful clinical measurements, and finally, the use of patient-specific trained model parameters to identify pulmonary hypertension in patients of varying data availability. the results for each research question directly follow the questions. finally, this chapter ends with a conclusion resulting from the implications drawn from each of the results. this dissertation studies two key determinants of economic development: infrastructure and financial frictions. concretely, i study their impact on firms in china, a country of rapid economic development. in the first two chapters, i explore what is the impact of the national highway system in china on firm growth. in the last chapter, i interpret the relationship between firm productivity and liquidity management when financing is costly.the first chapter studies the world's largest expressway system, china's national trunk highway system (nths), to understand the impact of improved road networks on the economic growth of the areas of china that are away from major urban centers. to do this, i construct a novel dataset with the precise location and completion date of each segment of the nths from a variety of sources including chinese state council announcements, news articles and atlases published in china. i combine this with comprehensive data on every medium and large manufacturing firm in china. at first sight, the results show that when firms in peripheral regions become connected to the highway system, their growth decline significantly. by exploiting the timing of highway construction, i show incumbent firms drive the decline of firm productivity because of outside competition. there is evidence that these negative effects are temporary as the new firms that open in connected regions are more productive than they were before the highway. exploring further with a traceable trade model, i find that lower prices drive the decline in nominal growth. the evidence of more productive entrants replacing less productive incumbents and the positive real growth in the connected peripheral regions suggest that the impact of the nths on firms in connected regions was positive.the second chapter also studies the effects of china's national trunk highway system (nths) on firms in the peripheral regions. although the nths planning process does not explicitly target peripheral regions, there might still be endogenous concerns in the highway placement. to address these issues, i develop a novel time-varying instrumental variable based on a civil engineering model of least-cost construction and local completion rates. the iv results show that firms connected in the peripheral regions experience faster growth in output and sales. to understand the mechanism, i study firms' input choices. highway connection increases the firms' growth in intermediate inputs and capital, while the growth of labor declines. this is consistent with a decline in the prices of capital and intermediate inputs because of access to outside markets. using panel data is crucial for showing these effects: when using methods similar to previous studies, i find either null or opposite results.the third chapter explores theoretically and empirically the relationship between firm productivity and liquidity management in the presence of financing frictions. we build a dynamic investment model in which heterogeneously productive firms choose to accumulate assets in the form of risky capital or risk-free cash. firms with assets that exceed an upper ``payout'' threshold pay out dividends, whereas firms with assets that fall short of a lower ``refinancing" threshold must refinance at a cost. we find that more productive firms endogenously set their payout threshold lower such that it is closer to the refinancing threshold, effectively making them more risk averse. if the greater risk aversion dominates the benefit of holding capital, more productive firms could demand more liquidity and hold more cash. this outcome emerges as the equilibrium if refinancing cost is sufficiently high. we empirically test this prediction using a comprehensive dataset of chinese manufacturing firms, and find that firms that are more productive with capital do actually hold less capital and more liquid assets such as cash, a pattern that is not observed among u.s. firms. our study suggests a larger capital misallocation problem in markets with significant financing frictions than previously documented. this dissertation is a case study of the sanctoral cycle of the liturgical year in conflict and transformation, and utilizes a range of sources from irish oral tradition to explore the liturgical phenomenon of the irish patron day in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. it is a constructive and corrective project that sheds light on obscured voices and devotional practices in irish liturgical tradition and folklore, and raises important questions about nominal christianization and secularization, and about the survival of loric power and even magical layers of christian ritual in the face of encroaching anglicization and modernization. this dissertation poses and seeks to answer the following questions: what does it mean to celebrate the saints authentically, without obscuring the paschal mystery? how should we approach local traditions in the sanctoral cycle of the liturgical year? why is the patron day such a resilient and malleable complex of rituals in the liturgical life of the church in ireland? and why is it valuable to study oral traditions in the pursuit of liturgical research?archival material from the national folklore collection and dublin diocesan archive demonstrates the resiliency of the patron and its ability to contain and synthesize a range of characteristics endemic of indigenous irish practice and the interpolation of romanized customs in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. i argue that the examples of living out and re-telling of relationships with and between the universal and local saints of the irish calendar offer a in which to celebrate the feasts of the sanctoral cycle more authentically. in light of the recent efforts to revive the irish language and catholic liturgical participation in ireland today, studying the irish sanctoral cycle in folk narrative and popular practice through sources in the irish language illuminate the richness of the irish liturgical tradition. 3'-azido-3'-deoxythymidine (azt) has been a staple of aids therapy for over two decades. long-term use of high dosage azt, as seen in the late 1980's and early 1990's, was associated with tissue toxicities, including hepatotoxicity and cardiomyopathy. low dosage azt therapy used in modern regimens is associated with lipodystrophy. mitochondria in the affected tissues are dysfunctional and have depleted mitochondrial dna. the toxicity of azt is hypothesized to be due to azt-5'-triphosphate (azt-tp) inhibition of the mitochondrial dna polymerase &gamma;, leading to mitochondrial dna depletion. in this work with isolated rat liver mitochondria and previous work with isolated rat heart mitochondria, azt was phosphorylated to azt-5'-monophosphate (azt-mp), but no azt-tp was detectable over two hours of incubation. however, in these mitochondria, azt was shown to be a potent competitive inhibitor of thymidine phosphorylation. from this work, an alternative mechanism for azt toxicity was proposed, wherein azt's inhibition of thymidine phosphorylation leads to a depletion of the ttp pool, which causes mitochondrial dna depletion. the 3t3-f442a cell culture model was used to further investigate this mechanism of toxicity. these cells are mouse pre-adipocytes that can be differentiated into adipocytes, making these cells a good model for lipodystrophy. the 3t3-f442a cells were grown and differentiated in the presence of 1 and 10 ì_å_m azt for 12 days. samples were analyzed to determine mitochondrial dna content and deoxynuceloside-triphosphate (dntp) levels. both 1 and 10 ì_å_m azt were toxic to mitochondria but caused a significant increase in mitochondrial dna content relative to untreated cells. this is the opposite of the expected effect and may reflect a compensatory mechanism to overcome toxicity. also, azt did not cause any trend of variation from the untreated cells in the dntp pools during the 12 days of treatment. these results do not provide any further evidence to advance the proposed mechanism of azt toxicity due to azt inhibition of thymidine phosphorylation. humans routinely use spatial symbols to guide the attention of others towards relevant aspects of the environment. contemporary research suggests that the various ways these symbols are semantically processed have important implications regarding how attention is subsequently distributed. however, the majority of these studies have failed to account for inherent irregularities that exist throughout the human visual system. thus, it was the primary aim of this research to incorporate the extensive literature on visual asymmetries into a semantic-based theory of the symbolic control of attention. in particular, the present study sought to reevaluate a taxonomy of spatial cues that is based on linguistic categories of spatial relations. unfortunately, the identification of additional confounding spatial biases barred any definitive conclusions from being made on the basis of the present findings. still, further examination of these effect was not entirely fruitless, as they offer an impetus for promising avenues of future research. computing maximum flow in a flow network is one of the important areas of research with many practical applications. in order to reduce the amount of work done by maximum flow algorithms, we want to detect and remove from the network all edges that have no impact on the maximum flow. in this thesis, we present several algorithms for removing such edges. in the case of undirected networks we give what we believe is the first such algorithm. for the directed case we improve on the previously known results. this dissertation examines the development of the ideal of the united states as a"nation of immigrants," from the early twentieth century until the passage of the 1965 immigration and nationality services act, with a focus on the central role of the history of irish immigration to the united states in this process. in the wake of the great wave of immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, irish-american political activists embraced their identification as a patriotic and respectable "old immigrant" group, in comparison with more problematic recent arrivals from southern and eastern europe. irish-american campaigners and journalists pointed to thecontributions of the irish to american civic society as a demonstration of ireland's preparedness for self-government and independence from great britain. éamon de valera's fundraising and speaking tour of the united states between 1919 – 1920 on behalf of the republic of ireland reflected the compatibility between irish anti-colonial republicanism and the wilsonian embrace of national self-determination after world war i. however, changes to united states immigration policy – in particular, the national origins quota system within the 1924 immigration and nationality act challenged many of the assumptions amongst the irish about the legitimacy and recognition they sought for irish-american ethnic nationalism in the united states. as the once-robust irish-american political network disintegrated, many historians, scholars and policymakers argued that emigration threatened ireland's national survival.after world war ii, the history of irish immigration to the united states was adopted as a usable past by historians, politicians and ordinary citizens who campaigned for radical changes to american immigration policy in response to the migration crisis of post-war europe. historian oscar handlin's work of the "uprooted" immigrants from nineteenth-century ireland provided compelling narratives of historic precedents for american liberal politicians such as herbert lehman and john f. kennedy. lehman, kennedy and their colleagues campaigned on behalf of their immigrant constituents for comprehensive rights-based legislative reforms related to displaced persons, family reunification and the elimination of the national origins quota system. this dissertation argues that this popular movement culminated in the radical changes to united states immigration policy within the 1965 immigration and nationality services act. in this thesis, i present topics involved in single particle spectroscopy. specifically, the topics of ultrafast transient absorption on semiconductor nanowires and the development of a polarization modulation technique are discussed. these two topics demonstrate the advantages of single particle spectroscopy as they pertain to the scientific process of experimentally determining the properties of nanostructures. the ultrafast transient absorption portion of this thesis describes experiments performed primarily on cadmium telluride (cdte) nanowires and sparingly on cadmium selenide (cdse) nanowires for comparison. the cdte nanowires demonstrated a fast decay on the order of a several picoseconds. this decay process is attributed to the trapping of charge carriers at surface defects. the characteristics and time constants observed for this trapping process varied from wire to wire. the time constant for a given wire was also observed to change as different parts of the wire were probed. the variations observed were attributed to changes in the trapping energies and/or densities of surface states. the cdse nanowire displayed no fast time dynamics in their transient absorption traces. the absence of the fast charge trapping in cdse is consistent with the higher emission quantum yields observed in cdse when compared to cdte. these results demonstrate the information that can be gained from this technique. the second part of this thesis describes the development of a new single particle spectroscopy extension of the technique called polarization modulation microscopy (pmm). this technique utilizes a photo-elastic modulator (pem) to rapidly modulate the polarization of a focused laser to study single anisotropic particles. a lock-in amplifier records the signal produced from the polarization modulated laser-particle interaction at twice the fundamental frequency of the pem, which gives the difference between the extinction cross-sections for light parallel and perpendicular to the optically active axis of the nanostructure. furthermore, pmm demonstrates the ability to determine the nanoparticle orientation on the sample slide. to demonstrate this pmm technique, studies preformed on gold nanorods are presented. the pmm's strengths and weaknesses are also compared to the photothermal heterodyne imagining (phi) technique and the spatial modulation spectroscopy (sms) technique. my dissertation maintains that the best theory of free will is an agent-causal view of the sort proposed by timothy o'connor. the signature of agent-causation is that an agent acts freely only if there is an event having a cause, where this cause is not some other event but rather the agent of the act in question. like o'connor, i reason that nothing can efficiently cause, though something may contribute causally to, someone's directly free action. i propose a theory of causal contribution in the spirit and on the shoulders of roderick chisholm. i attempt to get very clear about several pre-theoretic features of free action. although widely discussed at the pre-theoretic level, scholars rarely use the notion of ultimate origination when constructing rigorous arguments for, against, or in defense of particular theories of free action. intuitively, an agent acts freely only if she is self-determining in that she is an ultimate source or underived originator of change. i argue only agent-causation obviously satisfies a precise formulation of the origination condition. accordingly, i fault carl ginet and stewart goetz's simple indeterminist theories as well as robert kane's causal indeterminism. i defend agent-causation from popular objections, for example, objections advanced by bernard berofsky, c.d. broad, baruch brody, john bishop, randolph clarke, roderick chisholm, donald davidson, alan donagan, carl ginet, ted honderich, robert kane, john thorp, and gary watson. i undermine the following two objections in detail. first, peter van inwagen argues that since an undetermined free action is impossible, no agent-causal theory of undetermined free action is correct. second, andrei buckareff and richard feldman contend that agent-causalists cannot account for rational free action' that is, for an agent's acting freely for a reason. though i defend ted warfield's novel argument for incompatibilism from dana nelkin and samuel rickless's recent criticism, i argue that warfield's case fails for independent reasons. nonetheless, i underscore the point that my agent-causal view best explains our pre-theoretic commitment that no directly free action could be determined. a thesis of research supporting the visual work of artist nick roudebush. his work employs clay and the ceramic process as metaphorical devices concerning the connection between humanity and its land. pathogenic bacteria (as indicated by escherichia coli) in combined sewer overflow (cso) are a threat to public health. techniques are needed to disinfect cso before discharge into natural water bodies. in this work, disinfection of cso by ultrasonication and electrochemical (ec) processes is examined. ultrasonic disinfection performances were found to negatively correlate with ratios of initial turbidity to initial e. coli concentrations. existence of a critical ultrasonic power density was observed beyond which no further improvement in ultrasonic disinfection was available. nano-scale tio2 was found to improve ultrasonic disinfection at high dosages and protect e. coli at low dosages. ec treatment was found to disinfect cso samples cost-effectively and produced a residual disinfection effect. this work discovered the protection of escherichia coli by suspended solids from ultrasonication and demonstrated that the ec technique has the potential for in-situ cso disinfection this thesis is devoted to primal-dual algorithms in the infinite-dimensional setting. we consider a class of infinite-dimensional optimization problems and its applications to optimal control problems. a primal-dual algorithm based on nesterov-todd direction is implemented. we apply this algorithm to two important control problems: multi-criteria linear-quadratic control problems and linear-quadratic control problems with quadratic constraints. numerical experiments confirm very fast convergence of the algorithm which is predicted by the theory based on the concept of infinite-dimensional jordan algebras. necessary theoretical results have been developed. to the best of our knowledge this is the first implementation of this class of algorithms. the paintings of elbridge ayer burbank (1858ì¢ ââ'1949) were admired in his lifetime, especially but not exclusively by the anthropological community of collectors and museum professionals who valued 'accuracy' and believed that burbank delivered it, first in his paintings of african americans produced between 1892 and 1897 and later in his oil paintings and red crayon drawings of american indians. this paper will explore burbank's quest to represent the 'authentic' indian and the transformation of that quest as he moved from the medium of oil paint to the medium of red crayon. burbank's paintings emphasize his preoccupation with authenticity at the outset of his project. the red drawings, on the other hand, suggest how burbank used the concept of hybridity, the mixture of heterogeneous elements, in an attempt to reconcile his quest for a single authentic indianness with his discovery of diverse individual indians on reservations. the multi-period newsvendor problem describes the newspaper salesman's dilemma---how many papers should he purchase each day to resell, when he doesn't know the demand? we describe approaches for solving this problem based on algorithms for the expert advice problem. we give bounds on the regret of our algorithms in terms of the regret of the static offline optimal algorithm, which chooses a single order quantity for all periods which maximizes the profit. bounds of this type show that the approach will perform well in "easy" distributional demand situations while simultaneously giving guarantees for all situations. testing the algorithms via simulation we find that the method works well in a variety of circumstances despite the minimal assumptions made. finally, in a separate problem related to distributed computing, we discuss a new model and theoretical results for minimizing the time to distribute a file throughout a network using simple tools. many communication networks are well-modeled as 'packet erasure' networks, as packets transmitted over these networks are either received correctly at the destination or are 'erased'; a packet erasure occurs when an error-corrupted packet is detected and discarded, or when a packet is dropped due to congestion in the network. this dissertation investigates two problems related to communicating reliably over packet erasure networks, adopting two different views of the network, viz., (i) a point-to-point erasure channel (that models either a single link or end-to-end communication), and (ii) a network of erasure links. reliable communication over a point-to-point erasure channel can be accomplished in one of two ways: 1) incorporating redundant packets in the transmitted packet sequence, i.e., via forward-error-correction (fec) techniques, or 2) using feedback to request re-transmission of erased packets, i.e., automatic-repeat-request (arq) protocols. this dissertation presents new constructions of hybrid arq protocols (i.e., protocols combining fec and arq) for the point-to-point erasure channel. these protocols use tornado codes (a class of ldpc codes) for erasure correction. the focus is on enabling and characterizing trade-offs between costs associated with fec (i.e., computational complexity of encoding/decoding) and arq (the amount of feedback utilized). the described protocols provide efficient trade-offs and can offer significant savings in computational/feedback requirements in several situations, compared to simple time-sharing between fec and arq. the second topic of this dissertation deals with reliable communication over two wireless relay networks the multiple access relay channel (marc) and the multiple relay channel (mrc) wherein the links are memoryless erasure channels, and individual nodes time-share the use of the medium. the marc is comprised of m independent sources that communicate with a common destination with the help of a single relay, while the mrc consists of a single source communicating with a single destination with the aid of m parallel relays. the capacity region of the marc and the capacity of the mrc are derived, assuming the destination has perfect knowledge of erasure patterns on all the links. optimal bandwidth allocation strategies are obtained in closed-form as functions of the link parameters. these serve to highlight the utility of the relay(s) in various scenarios. also, it is shown that easily-implemented capacity-approaching codes for the binary erasure channel, such as ldpc or tornado codes, can be used at the link level to attain any achievable rate(s). finally, these capacity results are unchanged in the presence of feedback of erasure location information to all nodes. writing out of the center, analyzes the way in which five interwar novelists adopted the travel book genre to examine the mexican revolution between 1910 and 1940. although greene, huxley, lawrence, lowry and waugh straddle the border between modernism, thriller, and post-modernism, they converge on the use of the travelogue, a genre they change in key ways. travel writing gained cultural traction when major literary figures adopted the form and transplanted modernist techniques to their travelogues. my aim with the project is to extract a theory of otherness, violence and disgust from the fictional and non-fictional accounts of their sojourn through mexico during this turbulent time of its history. for this end i bring in historians' methods and findings on the impact of mexico's development in the 20th century. even though u.s.-mexican relations tend to overshadow british-mexican affairs, i re-center the formation and break of diplomatic contact between the two nations. mexico's modernization had far-reaching ideological, literary and even environmental impact. while explanations of racism are abundant, my work adds nuance by looking at the particular relationship between english and mexican ingenious movements. in keeping with the modernist idea of the self, one which is thought of as fragmented, these writers find that they cannot hold a monolithic way of relating to the mexican other. for some time before their visit to mexico, these writers were trying to create a version of indigenous englishness—a trend which would arise again in the end of the 20th century and continues until today in many parts of the world. mexico's active cultivation of both modernity (via industrialization) and indigenousness (via the native mexican) gave these writers a model to articulate their idea of native english identity. my research makes an intervention in the field of modernist studies since it tests the bridge between phenomenology and post colonial studies. any contemporary articulation of christian salvation must take into account the reality of widespread, senseless human suffering in our world, including the horrific realities of sexual violence. christian salvation is the anticipated, but not yet fully experienced wholeness of human existence. because sexual violence threatens human wholeness in a diversity of arenas and its effects (described by the psychological term "trauma") endure with the victim long after the violent event(s) has passed, the reality of sexual violence is a legitimate and serious theological topic. contemporary trauma studies complement and challenge christian understandings of redemption and the human experience of salvation. in this work i turn to the writings of teresa of avila and edward schillebeeckx in order to describe healing from sexual trauma as a "mystical-political" practice. since this dissertation centers on an analysis of the human experience of salvation, this work is a soteriological project as much as it is a project of theological anthropology. characterizing healing as a mystical-political practice affirms that christian salvation includes, but is not limited to political liberation. in the case of survivors of sexual trauma, political liberation involves bodily material well-being (i.e., safety and sexual integrity), relational well-being (i.e., the presence of healthy interpersonal relationships of support and mutual growth), as well as institutional well-being (i.e., participation in social structures that affirm safe and healthy sexual practices and promptly and appropriately respond if and when sexually violent actions occur). yet, christian salvation is not merely political and, therefore, there is a spiritual component to healing from sexual trauma that cannot be reduced to material, relational, or institutional well-being. this component of healing refers to the invitation to a life-giving relationship with god cultivated in a life of prayer. this relationship enables one who inflicted by sexual trauma to persist in healing efforts, via the gift of endurance, as animated by an eschatological hope for the fullness of healing (personally, interpersonally, and socio-politically) in the future. the objective of this research is to examine the interaction of select heavy metals and natural organic matter (nom) during coagulation and the metal preoxidation process before coagulation/adsorption for drinking water treatment. the metals used in this study include copper and arsenic, which are commonly found in source drinking water and represent metal cations and metal anions respectively. this research focuses on the investigation of copper-nom (i.e., cu(ii)-nom) interaction during coagulation/co-precipitation with aluminum based coagulants (chapter 3), the arsenic redox speciation distribution in synthetic raw waters with the presence of nom (chapter 4), and the effect of nom on arsenite (as(iii)) and arsenate (as(v)) adsorption onto tio2 surface (chapter 5 and chapter 6). the results suggest that the presence of cu(ii) in raw waters can facilitate nom removal by coagulation. the effect of nom on cu(ii) co-precipitation with alum is dependent on water ph. when ph is relatively low and no cu(oh)2(s) or cuco3(s) precipitates out, nom can increase cu(ii) removal, whereas when ph is high and cu(oh)2(s) or cuco3(s) precipitates exist, nom can inhibit cu(ii) removal through the coagulation (co-precipitation) with alum. the presence of nom can mediate arsenic redox speciation distribution in a synthetic raw water. nom can also facilitate as(iii) oxidation by tio2 in the absence of light and oxygen. both as(iii) and as(v) adsorption onto tio2 surface can be decreased by the presence of nom in raw water. this research addresses the important issue of how interactions between select heavy metals and nom affects their ultimate fate during drinking water treatment processes. the experimental results provide insightful information for drinking water treatment plants to optimize operational conditions in order to remove select heavy metals and nom from water. compared to the parents of typically developing children, the parents of children with adhd are likelier to engage in lower rates of positive and higher rates of negative parenting behavior. however, relatively few studies have tested process-oriented models explaining why such deficits in parenting are common among the parents of children with adhd. with a sample of 107 mothers and their adolescent children with adhd, the current study tested the hypothesis that the difficulties associated with an adolescent's adhd predicted greater parenting-related stress, which in turn would be associated with problems in parenting behavior. using a structural equation modelling approach, we tested a model in which mothers' parenting stress mediated the relationship between potentially stressful difficulties associated with an adolescent's adhd (i.e., adolescents' metacognitive and self-regulatory problems, mothers' depressive symptoms) and parenting behavior (i.e., warmth, use of psychological control). we tested three variations of this model with different measures of maternal parenting stress (global evaluative stress, stress due to feelings of guilt, and stress about children's academic achievement). the model in which global stress mediated the relationship between factors associated with adhd and parenting behavior had excellent fit and all paths were significant. other measures of stress resulted in models with weaker fit, but these models were nonetheless informative and are discussed in further detail. my thesis aims to explore the potential of translating the vernacular traditional aesthetic of my home country nepal into contemporary objects that promote cultural and emotional resonance, primarily through the medium of light fixtures.nepal is largely known for being an adventure destination for himalayan trekking, mountaineering and adventure tourism but also for our unique culture and artistic heritage, as encapsulated in architecture, textiles and crafts. our distinct nepali aesthetics have been passed down through generations by skilled artisans in the form of handicrafts and religious objects. but these skills and the artistic heritage they represent, are dying out, as industrialization and mass production make these less viable.my project explores ways in which this traditional vernacular aesthetics can be reimagined through the lens of modernity and the international style sparked by the bauhaus into an experiential environment. my aim is to infuse an often minimalist modern aesthetic with the rich intricacy of nepalese aesthetics bringing nepali design language into the broader global discourse. i have endeavored to remain true to our nepali style while evolving it in ways attractive and appealing to a cosmopolitan and globally visual, emergent consumer class at home in nepal and also across the world. through iterative material investigation, i've worked to combine the timeless lessons of our vernacular tradition with the aesthetic refinement and technical virtuosity of modernism. past studies on the intersection of class, race, and family have posited that class trumps race. lareau (2003) and kohn (1977) found that people of the same class, rather than people of the same racial group, have similar expectations of their children. the fragile family study examines the lives of mostly unmarried, lower income, minority families. this paper examines the differences across races at similar socioeconomic levels using the year 5 dataset of the fragile families study. this exploratory study attempts to explain racial differences in father involvement. the findings indicate that many of the racial differences existed in the frequency of participation. hispanic fathers had difficulty in overcoming the 'hurdle' of reading to their children. of the fathers who read to their children, black, hispanic, and fathers of 'other' races, had lower frequency levels of reading to their children. non-negativity of the impulse response of a system (a.k.a. a monotonic step response system) is a widely required feature in many industrial applications. although the importance of this feature has long been acknowledged, an in-depth understanding of the influence of this feature on the time and frequency domains is still not available. the problem of designing a high-performance filter with a non-negative impulse response (nnir) therefore remains unsolved. this dissertation provides some studies on the influence of the nnir feature on both the time and frequency domains. the problem is approached from two angles: 1.) restrictions on the frequency domain response imposed by a nonnegative impulse response; 2.) the pole-zero pattern of a transfer function that ensures a non-negative impulse response. in characterizing the frequency domain response of a linear nnir system, it is found that due to the non-negativity constraint in the time-domain, the frequency domain has some unique fundamental properties that a conventional linear system does not possess. the significance of these fundamental properties is discussed. as a result, the gains at frequencies along the frequency axis are found to be related to each other inherently. upper/lower bounds on the magnitude response within critical regions (frequency regions within which hard specifications are given) are derived. based on these bounds, limitations in the frequency selectivity of various types of filters are analyzed and illustrated. the results explain the difficulties associated with non-negative impulse response filter design for systems other than lowpass filters. an approximation-based approach is presented for designing high-performance non-negative finite impulse response (nnfir) lowpass filters, while nnfir nonlowpass filters of various types can be obtained from a lowpass design via proposed transformations that preserve the nnir feature. in exploring pole-zero patterns, this dissertation presents a set of sufficient conditions that ensure the non-negativity of the impulse response for several classes of arbitrary-order transfer functions. such conditions are given for both continuoustime and discrete-time systems. most of the existing work can be classified as a special case of these sufficient conditions. also, for an arbitrary-order discretetime system with complex poles and zeros, this dissertation presents a new set of sufficient conditions that ensures the nonnegativity of its impulse response. with these sufficient conditions, the class of zero-pole patterns known to exhibit a non-negative impulse response is significantly expanded. this dissertation examines the normative content of collegiate student intellectual life in art, literature, and philosophy during the period 1870-1910. this perspective allows for some precision concerning the nature of student thought at a time when, historians believe, a shifting curriculum provided an infertile terrain for moral instruction. based on an extensive use of primary documents' especially essays written in student literary publications' i show how a segment of undergraduates i call idealists resisted natural science, its methods, and especially its application to the humanities: first, because they believed it would obscure certain principles that they wanted to see clearly; second, because they feared it would introduce a post-christian and thus an amoral world. my sources come from diverse institutions: harvard, wellesley, princeton, vassar, the university of california, and smith. chapter one describes the socio-economic, religious, and educational backgrounds of students at these schools, so far as available. with this composite in place, i describe the larger intellectual context that shaped the thought of undergraduates. chapter two considers late victorian conceptions of art as expressed by cultural commentators, professors of art, and their students. i show how in the 1860s and 1870s collegians tended to treat art as a vehicle for religious instruction and ethical reflection. by the 1880s, the emergence of an aesthetic movement that subordinated moral content to the 'art-technique,' plus the influence of certain art historians, led students to apotheosize art, rather than treat it as a means to understanding something greater. in chapter three, i show how students' interest in exploring normative conceptions in literature was challenged by an empirical hermeneutic that emerged in the 1880s as the legitimate form of textual analysis. while some idealists' 'literary instinct' led them to reject the 'scientific method' in literature, others, in their attempt to avoid it, were driven into a mystical literary experience. led by some professors, student idealists turned the world of english letters into a romanticized space that functioned as a bulwark against the 'papacy of science.' in chapter four, i argue that the dread of natural science led some students to embrace transcendentalism and reject pragmatism. in chapter five, i demonstrate how students' sacralization of the humanities was intimately related to a narrowing understanding of science. as the humanities expanded in dealing with phenomena of 'enduring significance,' science underwent a severe contraction. for most of the nineteenth century, science was a capacious term describing virtually any systematic and rigorous intellectual labor, such as that conducted in philosophy or theology. by the 1880s and 1890s the term commonly only described work in the 'natural sciences.' this dissertation describes how idealists responded to this development. the development of novel polymeric membrane materials for high performance gas separation applications is discussed in this dissertation. membrane-mediated gas separations have been demonstrated to be a more energy efficient method compared to conventional separation techniques such as distillation. in the past few decades, numerous research efforts have been focused on new polymer designs to overcome the inherent tradeoff between permeability and selectivity by constructing contorted backbone or introducing bulky units to create low-barrier pathways for fast gas transport. while the permeability-selectivity tradeoff seems to be tackled by many new high-performing polymers pushing the upper bound limits further toward the upper right side, polymer gas separation membranes frequently suffer from physical aging (e.g., loss of permeability over time) and plasticization (e.g., loss of size sieving in the presence of condensable gases like co2). the impact of these challenges is clearly evidenced by the fact that only a handful of polymers have made it into commercial applications despite hundreds of new polymers have been developed and evaluated for gas separation membranes. at molecular level, intolerance to temporal changes of existing size-sieving polymers largely originate from the transient nature of non-equilibrium conformational free volume that is susceptible to external changes due to chain relaxation or increased chain mobility. as such, the search for the next-generation polymer membrane materials should be directed toward constructing well-controlled and stable polymer free volume architecture, where segmental motion or chain relaxation is restricted or suppressed.crosslinking has been well-acknowledged as an effective way to construct stable free volume. however, the existing crosslinking has problems of reduced permeability, unpredictable performance, and very limited tunability as a result of crosslinking-induced densification and complicated network structures. to this end, we propose a new approach of end-linking in combination with phenylethynyl crosslinking chemistry to address these issues via constructing crosslinked model network structure where crosslink density and inhomogeneity can be feasibly tuned. in contrast to conventional random crosslinking approaches, three distinct crosslinked model networks (i.e., unimodal, bimodal, semi-interpenetrating networks) are prepared via thermal crosslinking of specifically designed phenylethynyl-terminated telechelic oligomers with systematically varied molecular weights, where the comprehensive study about two independent parameters, crosslink density and crosslink inhomogeneity, were exemplified in this work.in this dissertation, we first tested this hypothesis in commercial matrimid®-like polyimide with unimodal network (chapter 2), where markedly improved permeability and well-maintained selectivity was observed in this unimodal system compared to their linear counterparts. this unique design of crosslinked model network was further applied to novel iptycene-based polymers, including crosslinked pentiptycene-containing polybenzoxazole (chapters 3, 4 and 5) and triptycene-containing polyimide (chapter 6). besides the interplay between the competing effect of crosslinking-induced densification and bulky crosslinkable end-groups, it is clearly demonstrated for the first time that crosslink inhomogeneity contributes to gas transport apart from crosslink density by disrupting segmental packing as evidenced by the greatly improved permeability and enlarged ffv of bimodal networks. lastly, we extended the model network concept to construct semi-interpenetrating (sipn) structures in pbi/matrimid system (chapter 7). the sipn approach expands the materials spectrum, while the pbi/matrimid demonstrate promising separation performance at high temperatures. this thesis provides an assessment of stellar evolution models for intermediate-mass and massive stars in advanced stages of evolution through a detailed cooperation between simulations and observations of nearby stars and eclipsing binary stars. we also make a detailed study of the approach to unstable helium burning, the core flash, and thermally pulsing phases. we formed the first detailed analysis of how such burning evolves from quasi-statics to explosive helium burning as a function of progenitor mass. this book of poems represents work created during the 2008-2010 school years for the notre dame master of fine arts in creative writing program. the book attempts to tackle issues of race, gender, and sexuality in personal, narrative, image-drive poems. the zippeites are a group of uranyl sulfate minerals containing a monoor divalent cation, defined based on a similar crystal structure. although progress has been made toward understanding the crystal structure and chemistry of these minerals by studying synthetic analogues, very little work has been done with natural samples due to their small grain size and tendency to grow as mixtures with other minerals. this study compared natural samples to synthetic crystals using x-ray diffraction and electron microprobe techniques while conducting the first comprehensive study of the crystal chemistry of these minerals. although wavelength-dispersive spectroscopy was difficult, largely due to the quality of the samples, evidence was found for solid solution between the divalent cation members, between the monovalent cation members, and even between both groups. it was also determined that the synthetic samples used for crystal structure determinations are reasonable analogues for the natural minerals. in this dissertation, we develop techniques for face recognition from surveillance-quality video. we handle two specific problems that are characteristic of such video, namely uncontrolled face pose changes and poor illumination. we conduct a study that compares face recognition performance using two different types of probe data and acquiring data in two different conditions. we describe approaches to evaluate the face detections found in the video sequence to reduce the probe images to those that contain true detections. we also augment the gallery set using synthetic poses generated using 3d morphable models. we show that we can exploit temporal continuity of video data to improve the reliability of the matching scores across probe frames. reflected images are used to handle variable illumination conditions to improve recognition over the original images. while there remains room for improvement in the area of face recognition from poor-quality video, we have shown some techniques that help performance significantly. a collection of short stories by christina yu. poetry. homotopy continuation is the fundamental method, or family of methods, of numerical algebraic geometry. using homotopies, we compute solution sets for systems of polynomial equations. we focus on a particular class of homotopy, namely, the newton homotopy, which is a homotopy for which only the constant terms are changed. newton homotopies arise naturally when performing monodromy loops, moving end effectors of robots, or simply when trying to compute a solution to a square system of equations. in this thesis, we present an a posteriori certification scheme which uses the result of heuristic tracking methods as input, producing a certificate that solution the path was tracked correctly. we also describe certified tracking procedures wherein the predictor is guaranteed to produce a point in the quadratic convergence basin of newton's method for the next step. finally, we present an application of newton homotopies to the computation of saturation properties from fundamental equations of state, determining the coexistence curve for all vapor-liquid equilibrium conditions between the triple point and critical point. examples and computational results are presented for all three applications of newton homotopies. this dissertation consists of three essays that explore the impact of supplemental nutrition assistance program (snap) on low-income individuals and families' well-being and behaviors. in chapter one, i examines whether expanding snap eligibility reduces material hardships of low-income households. during the great recession, many states expanded the income threshold of eligibility for snap. i show that expansions in eligibility increased the snap participation rate by 3–5 percentage points. i also find that the expansion leads to a modest decrease in non-food hardships, such as rent and utility delinquencies. however, the increase in snap enrollment does not lead to greater food spending or a reduction in food insecurity except for households with children. in chapter two, i investigate the interactions between health and nutritional assistance programs such as medicaid, snap, wic, and school lunch programs. exploiting the variation in snap eligibility across states and over time, i find strong evidence of program interactions: when a state moves from the federal rule to the most extensive snap eligibility rule, enrollment in free school lunch increases by 4 percentage points. i estimate that the federal government spends an additional 37 cents on the school lunch program for each dollar spent on snap due to the expansion. however, expanded eligibility for snap leads to a significant decrease in private insurance coverage for both adults and children, which is not fully explained by an increase in medicaid enrollment. exploring potential channels through which snap expansions affect participation in other safety net programs, i find evidence that automatic eligibility, and a reduction in employment, play a role in program interactions. in the final chapter, i investigate whether waiving snap work requirements affects the labor supply of low-income able-bodied adults without dependents (abawds) by exploiting variation in the areas waiving work requirements as well as the age criteria for the work requirement. consistent with prior research, i find no significant effect of the abawd waiver on abawds' work effort. however, using snap administrative data, i find evidence that the implementation of the abawd waiver leads to a substantial increase in snap caseloads. the political unification of italy between 1861 and 1871 brought to the fore several issues regarding the formation of a new italian identity. the cultural and historical diversity of italy's regions rendered difficult the establishment of a shared sense of identity and the southern regions came to be perceived as the internal "other." giuseppe tomasi di lampedusa's il gattopardo (1957) set in sicily between 1860 and 1910, describes the crucial years of the risorgimento and its aftermath up until the period preceding world war i. the novel depicts a society rooted in tradition, but also suspended in time and skeptical towards historical progress.in particular, the aristocratic figure of don fabrizio embodies a pessimistic view of history, as well as of society and politics. such an attitude towards progress might remind us of giacomo leopardi's skepticism vis-à-vis any optimistic theory of historical progress. by exploring the themes of pessimism, decadence, and history in il gattopardo, we can better understand not only the so-called "otherness" of southern italy, but also the origins of the "southern question." in this thesis we develop the analysis of the structure of a model, modulo the structure induced by a part of the model interpreting a predicate, p. we develop the 'morley rank modulo a predicate', pmr, and define an independence relation based on this rank. we analyze this relation in a nice setting (where every formula has pmr) in terms of the eight axioms of stability theory. we prove a dichotomy theorem classifying pmr-minimal structures and a two-cardinal result. finally, we give a classification of the norms one can place on a finite dimensional vector space over the reals (up to model-theoretic equivalence). scholarship has frequently cited a magister martinus who wrote a theological text around 1200. hitherto, however, the most valuable aspects of this text have not been recognized, and at the same time many misunderstandings about it have prevailed. both result in part from the fact that no edition of the text is available. this dissertation partially alleviates these problems. it includes an edition from all manuscripts of martinus' section on the sacraments. it also addresses certain misunderstandings about martinus to present a new interpretation of this text. this dissertation corrects a longstanding assumption that martinus belonged to the school of gilbert of poitiers and complicates an incompatible but equally venerable assumption that he was a follower of peter of poitiers. it points out martinus' extensive use of canon law and the practical and casuistic nature of martinus' text, features which have almost escaped notice. although martinus' text unmistakably fits the genre of a theological summa, in these features martinus' text is exceptional relative to contemporary works in that genre. this dissertation therefore claims that martinus' identification with canon law makes his text a valuable witness to the relationship between theology and canon law in the schools in the early period of scholasticism. this dissertation further suggests that because of its practical concerns, martinus' text resembles contemporary works which scholars have identified as belonging to a literature of pastoral care. it will therefore be useful to scholars who try to refine the scholarly conception of this literature of pastoral care in the late twelfth century. this dissertation provides new access to and a new interpretation of magister martinus' compilatio questionum theologie. the field of evolutionary ecology has focused on understanding two important aspects regarding the origin of species: (1) the ecological adaption of organisms to different environments, and (2) the co-evolutionary interplay between organisms themselves. in this regard, a long standing, but understudied hypothesis that unifies these considerations is "biodiversity begets biodiversity" in a process referred to as "sequential divergence". specifically, sequential divergence contends that as species diverge, they create new niches for other organisms to adapt to. as a result, the divergence of one species could lead to the genesis of many new taxa. here, to understand how common sequential divergence may be in nature, i test for a multiplicative effect of the process within a single system consisting of three parasitoid wasps, diachasma alloeum, utetes canaliculatus and diachasmimorpha mellea (hymenoptera: braconidae), that attack rhagoletis pomonella fruit flies (diptera: tephritidae).using genetic tools, behavioral studies, and life history analyses, i show that the same host-related ecological selection pressures that differentially adapt and reproductively isolate rhagoletis to their respective host plants (the timing of adult eclosion and host fruit odor preference) cascaded across trophic levels and induce host-associated genetic divergence for each of the three members of the parasitoid community. in addition interspecific competition between wasp species for limited resource during larval development inside fly hosts is mitigated by their temporal subdivision of the shared host fly resource. as a result, the seasonal subdivision of fly resources is accentuating allochronic isolation among conspecific wasps attacking different host flies, generating increased reproductive isolation and contributing to their ongoing divergence. furthermore, the role of temporal resource partitioning does not appear to be isolated to rhagoletis-attacking parasitoids. results from a meta-analysis of 64 studies suggests that species differences in the timing of a key life cycle event, oviposition, into shared insect hosts may be an important life history strategy mediating competition between parasitoid species in general and allowing for multiple taxa to co-exist on shared hosts. in turn, his process could play a critical role in structuring insect communities and contributing to the incredible diversity of parasitoid species observed in nature. overall, my findings support the claim that "biodiversity begets biodiversity" and suggest that the process may be more common in nature that previously thought. divergent selection at lower trophic levels has the potential to not only linearly, but multiplicatively amplify biodiversity at higher levels. in addition, sequential divergence may be accentuated by other types of species interactions (i.e., interspecific competition) to help facilitate the process and promote species coexistence. for smaller organisms like parasitoids that can partition and experience resources on a fine scale cascade, sequential divergence could be a major force contributing to the formation of new biodiversity. in post-genomic computational biology and bioinformatics, long simulations of the dynamics of molecular systems, particularly biological molecules such as proteins and dna, require advances in time stepping computational methods. the most severe problem of these algorithms is instability. the objective of this dissertation is to present original work in constructing multiscale multiple time stepping (mts) algorithms for molecular dynamics (md) that allow large time steps. first, through nonlinear stability analysis and numerical experiments, we reveal that mts integrators such as impulse suffer nonlinear overheating when $delta t = t/3$ or possibly $delta t = t/4$ when constant--energy md simulations are attempted, where $delta t$ is the longest step size and $t$ is the shortest period of the modes in the system. second, we present targeted molly (tm), a new multiscale integrator for md simulations. tm combines an efficient implementation of b-spline molly exploiting analytical hessians of energies and a self--consistent dissipative leapfrog integrator. results show that tm allows very large time steps for slow forces (and thus multiscale) for the numerically challenging flexible tip3p water systems (jorgensen, {it et al.} j. chem. phys., vol 79, pp 926--935, 1983) while still computing the dynamical and structural properties accurately. finally, we show yet another new molly integrator, the backward euler (be) molly in which hydrogen bond forces can easily be included in the averaging and thus stability might be further improved. in gram-negative bacteria, a wide range of virulence proteins are secreted via the autotransporter (at) pathway. at pre-proteins are synthesized with an n-terminal signal sequence that facilitates transport across the inner membrane, and a c-terminal &#946;-barrel domain that is required for the mature virulence factor to cross the outer membrane (om), flanking the central passenger domain that forms the mature, secreted virulence factor. intriguingly, there is no significant concentration of atp in the periplasm, nor a proton gradient across the om, and hence the energetic origin of efficient om secretion of at proteins is unknown. yet more than 97% of at proteins are predicted to contain right-handed parallel &#946;-helical structure, and the four of the five crystal structures available for at passenger domains each contain a long right-handed parallel &#946;-helix. in vitro folding studies of the pertactin passenger domain show that pertactin exhibits three state folding and has a c-terminal stable core structure. here we show that an unrelated at passenger domain pet, also exhibits three state unfolding and has a c-terminal stable core structure. stable core structure in the &#946;-helix of at passenger domains could be important for efficient om secretion of the passenger domain. to test the requirement of different domains of the pet passenger domain a series of passenger domain deletion mutants were constructed. these studies revealed that while a passenger domain consisting of only the c-terminal stable core is secreted efficiently, deletion of the stable core results in lower levels of secreted passenger domain, which is not correctly folded, suggesting the stable core plays a role in both the secretion efficiency and folding of the mature passenger domain. the pet passenger domain consists of an nterminal protease domain in addition to the &#946;-helix domain. to investigate the role of the n-terminal globular domain of the pet passenger, we replaced the pet protease domain with dihydrofolate reductase (dhfr), a protein whose folding and stability are well characterized. the chimeric dhfr-pet &#946;-helix passenger domain is secreted across the om and stabilization of dfhr by methotrexate reduces the level of secreted chimera. moreover, we altered the stability of the dhfr domain by constructing a series of point mutations, and observed a linear correlation between dhfr stability and om secretion efficiency. in contrast, mutations that destabilize the pertactin stable core result in lower levels of om secretion, while a mutation that lowers stability of only the n-terminus of the pertactin ì_å_-helix has no effect on om secretion. these results suggests that while the stability of the c-terminal stable core provides a positive contribution to om secretion, stabilizing more n-terminal portions of the at passenger domain can be detrimental to efficient om secretion. these results demonstrate for the first time that passenger domain stability plays a direct role in at om secretion efficiency. the power consumption of electronic systems is constantly increasing due to the increase in the number of transistors per unit area caused by the shrinking of computer chip size, and consequently the heat generated. this is leading designers to consider other methods of reducing the production of heat. traditional cmos discards energy during each switching event in the form of heat to the surrounding environment. to reduce this loss of energy, a new approach must be taken which will allow the system to reuse this energy without dissipating it as heat to the system. this thesis will examine the clock generator chips that will create both positive and negative clocks for an adiabatic mips microprocessor. this clocking chip, while not adiabatic, will provide the control mechanism for the energy that is provided to the mips microprocessor as well as the retrieval of energy from the microprocessor. this thesis will describe the clocking circuit's ability to recover energy that is lost in traditional cmos logic through adiabatic reversible logic. the adiabatic reversible logic is implemented using split-rail charge recovery logic. the results will demonstrate that the clocking circuit is a viable alternative to traditional methods of computation that will allow for energy recovery while still processing instructions at a high rate. the understanding of atomic scale biomolecular function is a key component in the prevention and treatment of disease. computational biophysics has proven essential in this regard, accelerating the development and analysis of new biomolecular theories. the effective contribution of biophysical simulation is limited by the computational complexity of the existing models. in this work new computationally efficient parallel algorithms and distributed system frameworks are developed to extend the capability of biophysical simulation. in tandem to this development, i present the simulation and analysis of a target protein domain linked to cancer, huntington disease, and alzheimer disease. the replica exchange method is a popular biomolecular sampling algorithm that utilizes multiple simulations (replicas), to more rapidly overcome energy landscape boundaries and accelerate sampling. the method has limitations in scale related to the size of the biomolecular system and required number of replicas. i introduce a novel all pairs exchange implementation of the algorithm that provides asymptotically four fold speedup of conformation traversal for replica counts of 8 and larger with typical exchange rates. experimental tests with the blocked alanine dipeptide show a 100% sampling improvement according to potential energy averages and an ergodic measure. the cluster sampling rate for a target protein domain was nearly twice that of the single exchange near neighbor method. the method meets the detailed balance criterion for monte carlo methods and introduces no new parameterizations, biases, or heuristics. the development of distributed systems for scientific computation is an active research field propelled by the growing number of research projects relying on computationally complex simulations as part of the discovery process. many proposed frameworks have been successfully matched with unique applications to provide the computational capacity required. only recently, has more focus been targeted toward the efficient management of the distributed data. i introduce a 'processing in network storage' distributed system framework that efficiently couples computation with data management over heterogeneous, autonomous, and distributed resources. the framework provides a fault tolerant, scalable, and bandwidth conserving approach through the utilization of existing grid software utilities and a new hybrid database/filesystem developed with our collaborators. the performance is evaluated during the generation of 500 biomolecular simulations producing over 1 million output files distributed over volunteer resources. the correlation of atomic scale simulations with existing experimental techniques provides complementary data sets that cross validate and more thoroughly map biomolecular motion of interest. this correlation however is complicated by the often disjoint nature of the observables accessible from simulation and experiment. in this work, biophysical simulations of the isomerase pin1 ww domain reveal insight into promising reaction coordinates to help map simulation observed recognition loop motion to experimental nuclear magnetic resonance (nmr) results. post processing analysis methods and metrics including dihedral distributions, conformational clustering, hydrogen bond determination, and committor probability calculations indicate that the observed motion of the arginine 12 residue is coupled to the multivariate conformational changes of the recognition loop. throughout cancer progression, metastasis and chemotherapeutic resistance are largely responsible for poor patient prognosis, and importantly, for cancer-related deaths. cancer cells must evade cell death signaling induced during the metastatic cascade, a process involving detachment from the extracellular matrix (ecm) or interaction with foreign matrix environments, as well as the cell death induced by exposure to chemotherapy to enable their survival. in recent years our understanding of how cancer cells survive during these processes has improved. however, it is imperative that we expand our knowledge of the signaling that takes place during cancer progression in order to provide improved therapeutic options for elimination of these cells. here, we detail a novel mechanism whereby carcinoma-associated fibroblasts (cafs) secrete insulin-like growth factor binding proteins (igfbps) into the tumor microenvironment that trigger the ultimate survival of cancer cells during ecm-detachment. we have found the presence of secreted igfbp-2 and -5 elicits a downstream protein-signaling cascade that results in the stability of mcl-1, an anti-apoptotic protein, ultimately promoting the ability of cancer cells to elude ecm-detachment induced apoptosis, or anoikis. these data are the first to describe a specific contribution from the tumor microenvironment in the evasion of anoikis. with enhanced appreciation for the contributions of the tumor microenvironment to cancer cell survival and disease progression, it is imperative that we consider cell types such as cafs in our treatment regimen for patients. the data provided here present the opportunity for igfbp-2 and -5 to be potential chemotherapeutic targets to improve the current standard lines of care.in parallel to our studies understanding the contribution of cafs to cancer cell survival and disease progression, we have also started exploring normal microenvironment fibroblasts (nmfs). currently the notion of normal microenvironment suppression of disease progression is a relatively unexplored area. however, our early evidence expands upon these data and suggests nmfs are capable of impairing the ability of cancer cells to survive in the presence of secreted factors from nmfs. it is critical that we continue this line of investigation as it may present the opportunity to use physiologically relevant secreted factors to sequester cancer cell survival. finally, in addition to identifying novel chemotherapeutic targets, here we also explain the engineering and testing of a novel immunotoxin. immunotoxins are chimeric proteins comprised of a targeting ligand conjugated to a toxin domain. our efforts have been focused on eliminating the opportunity for chemotherapy resistance. hence, our immunotoxin uniquely acts at the cell surface, thereby preventing the need for internalization previous compounds require and theoretically overcoming this opportunity to become resistant. lastly, we also show a novel genetic engineering strategy that allows for easily amenable protein production to adapt the compound for screening innumerous targets and toxicity variations. further development of our immunotoxin could provide promise for a new chemotherapy option with diverse application prospects. this dissertation argues for a new anthropological framework for thinking about christian theology and intellectually disability. existing theological treatments of disability are insufficient insofar as they either continue to endorse the normative subject endowed with reason and will, or they polemically reject the ideals of freedom and self-determination and valorize dependence and passivity as the fundamental way of being human. as an alternative, i look to karl rahner as an unlikely ally whose theological understandings of knowledge, freedom, and agency illuminate the mystery of being a human person, with or without disabilities. this perspective suggests how the capacities of freedom and agency can co-exist with a commitment to vulnerability and dependence. i build upon rahner's framework in order to show how freedom emerges through relations of dependence, and how vulnerable human relationships differ from fundamental human dependence on god. what emerges is a spiritual vision of human beings as creatures oriented to the infinite mystery of god. an ideal j is said to be numerically c-acm (nacm) if r/j has the hilbert function of some codimension c acm subscheme of p^n. we exhibit algorithm which takes an arbitrary ideal and produces, via a finite sequence of basic double links, an ideal which is numerically c-acm. an immediate consequence of this result is that every even liaison class of equidimensional codimension c subschemes of p^n contains elements which are nacm. this was first proved for the codimension two case by migliore and nagel, but was an open question in higher codimension. let l denote the even liaison class of three skew lines in p^4, and let l_s be denote the even liaison class of three skew lines on a smooth hypersurface s in p^4 of degree at least two. we also give a complete description of the sequences of basic double links which (in s) produce curves which are nacm. we conclude by showing that the subset of l_s consisting of nacm subschemes, which we denote by m_s, fails to have the lazarsfeld-rao property. with the work of philosophers such as elizabeth anscombe and philippa foot, the 20th century saw a revival in the use of virtue ethics as a model for assessing moral problems. within this revival, those holding close to a particularly neo-aristotelian interpretation of virtue ethics have often emphasized the claim morality is based in the pursuit of natural flourishing ("eudaimonia"). alongside this claim, some have argued that moral philosophy should also require a regard for absolute moral prohibitions.in this dissertation, i seek to develop the existing work on neo-aristotelian ethics to better address the reconciliation of a eudaimonistic account of morality with certain absolute moral prohibitions. my main strategy is to incorporate arguments from consistency in action, mostly developed by deontological ("rule-based") ethicists, into a neo-aristotelian framework. after discussing what role norms about consistency might play in a eudaimonistic moral theory, i show how my approach can help ease certain difficulties around two especially contested moral absolutes, namely, the prohibition of torture and the prohibition of lying. by doing so, i indicate how future work in a neo-aristotelian vein might proceed in addressing similar moral problems. in this dissertation, i consider three interrelated questions. first, what would a good democratic leader be like? second, what sort of education would such a leader require? third, is such an education even possible? in an attempt to answer these questions, i turn to the ancient greek political thinkers thucydides and plato. in particular, i consult thucydides's account of the war between sparta and athens and two of plato's dialogues, laches and alcibiades i, in order to trace out the competing answers which thucydides and plato's socrates give to the questions i have raised. i conclude that while thucydides and socrates consider many of the same themes in their accounts (such as the common good, political speech, self-knowledge, the virtues of statesmanship, and the distinctiveness of democracy), they often treat these themes in different, sometimes even incompatible, fashions. i conclude that the root of many, if not all, of these differences lies in thucydides's willing acceptance and socrates's insistent rejection of the common sense of ordinary political life. this study explored the initial validity and reliability of the multicultural supervision inventory-msi, previously named the multicultural supervision competence scale-mscs (pope-davis, toporek, ortega-villalobos, 1999). the multicultural supervision inventory consists of two parallel versions intended to be used in both research and counselor training activities. a supervisor version assesses the multicultural competence of supervisors from their own perspective, and a supervisee version assesses the multicultural competence of supervisors from the perspective of the supervisee. exploratory factor analyses yielded distinct underlying factor structures for the supervisor and supervisee versions. msi scores yielded adequate reliability coefficients (supervisor msi &gamma; = .88, supervisee msi &gamma; = .92) for both samples. this study provided a foundation for further validation work. osteoarthritis of the ankle is a disease that affects 2% of the population in the united states. the most common current treatment entails fusing the ankle. this leads to complications such as reduced range of motion, infection, non-union, and deterioration of adjacent joints. total joint replacement is a successful treatment for osteoarthritis of the hip and the knee and recently, interest in using this procedure in the ankle has occurred. a review of the currently available total ankle replacements was completed finding a promising trend in the survivorship of the devices. it was also found that these devices still have complications of loosening and subsidence. a new total ankle replacement is described here. the kinematics and loading in the ankle is also discussed as it applies to the development of a wear test for this new device. subsequently the wear rate, wear debris, and contact stress are compared to those reported in the literature. the wear test consisted of using both gravimetric and volumetric techniques. this new total ankle replacement was found to have a wear rate that is lower than existing ankle implants and similar to that found in other total joint replacements. collective behavior has been observed in many animal groups including schools of fish, flocks of birds, as well as in colonies of swarming bacteria, and even in group of cells in epithelial tissues of drosophila fruit fly during development. the self-organizing behavior and adjustment, which results from local interactions, leads to group behavior at time and space scales that are larger than the scale of interactions between individual organisms and cells. in this thesis, we study the impact of physical properties of individual cells and intercellular interactions on the swarming behavior in bacterial colonies and self-organization of epithelial cells during development. in particular, by using combination of computational modeling and experimentation, we explore the role that pili interactions play in expanding swarms of the pathogenic bacterium pseudomonas aeruginosa under different environmental conditions. we find that pili-pili interactions in a colony of wild-type p. aeruginosa slow down the swarm expansion as well as enable bacteria to alter their movement to avoid antibiotics. we also demonstrated that periodic reversals of motion direction with periods within the experimentally observed range, high flexibility of bacterial cells and a moderate level of strength of cell-cell adhesion are crucial for a colony of self-propelled rod-shaped myxococcus xanthus to spread protein within the population efficiently. this contact-mediated protein exchange mechanism is necessary for bacterial self-organization during predation, fruiting body formation and genetic repair of damaged cells. finally, we study role of cellular mitotic rounding during growth of epithelial tissues. our results show that increase of cortical stiffness and reduction in cell-cell adhesion are the main factors in increasing cell roundness, and change in the cytoplasmic pressure is the primary factor that controls the cell size. the presence of chlorinated solvents (e.g. 1,1,1-trichloroethane, 1,1dichloroethane, trichloroethene, and tetrachloroethene) in groundwater results in considerable public health risk and environmental contamination. real-time sensing is ideal for monitoring remediation techniques. previous work has focused on polymer based sensing platforms for chlorohydrocarbon detection including poly(nmethylpyrrole) (pnmp). this work aims towards extending the useful lifetime of pnmp films as a viable sensing platform. to extend the useful lifetime of pnmp films, the impact of the thickness of the film and the frequency of sampling was investigated by comparing the electrical response of pnmp films over time. comparisons between continuously sampled films and stored films showed a large loss in signal strength for the continuously sampled films when compared to the stored polymers. further analysis concluded continuously sampled films showed a slower rate of signal decay for thicker films whereas stored films showed a slower rate of signal decay for thinner films. iteratively developing a biological model and verifying results with lab observations has become standard practice in computational biology. this process is currently facilitated by biological problem solving environments (pses), multitiered and modular software frameworks which traditionally consist of two layers: a computational layer written in a high level language using design patterns, and a user interface layer which hides its details. although pses have proven effective, they still enforce some communication overhead between biologists refining their models through repeated comparison with experimental observations in vitro or in vivo, and programmers actually implementing model extensions and modifications within the computational layer. i illustrate the use of biological domain-specific languages (dsls) as a middle level pse tier to ameliorate this problem by providing experimentalists with the ability to iteratively test and develop their models using a higher degree of expressive power compared to a graphical interface, while saving the requirement of general purpose programming knowledge. i develop two radically different biological dsls: xml-based biologo will model biological morphogenesis using a cell-centered stochastic cellular automaton and translate into c++ modules for an object-oriented pse compucell3d, and mdlab will provide a set of high-level python libraries for running molecular dynamics simulations, using wrapped functionality from the c++ pse protomol. i describe each language in detail, including its its roles within the larger pse and its expressibility in terms of representable phenomena, and a discussion of observations from users of the languages. moreover i will use these studies to draw general conclusions about biological dsl development, including dependencies upon the goals of the corresponding pse, strategies, and tradeoffs. while the reform of catholic liturgy that followed the second vatican council by no means rejected latin as a language of liturgical celebration, the latin mass quickly became the province of traditionalist groups that refused to accept the revised order of mass and offered the pre-conciliar tridentine mass in defiance of the roman catholic hierarchy. nevertheless, there have always been some catholics who either obtained permission to celebrate the tridentine mass or found celebrations of the post-conciliar mass in latin that maintained certain practices associated with the pre-conciliar mass. this dissertation focuses on this latter group of latin mass catholics, who have remained within the bounds of the institutional church and who, since 2007, have had permission to celebrate the tridentine mass as an 'extraordinary form' of the mass of the roman rite. in particular, this study seeks a better understanding of the motives of contemporary latin mass catholics in america. critics sometimes view attachment to the latin mass as an example of modern catholicism's still incomplete liberation from 'dead ritual.' supporters, on the other hand, often valorize the same attachment as a sign of resurgent interest in 'the sacred' following vatican ii's alleged desacralization of the liturgy. as an alternative to both of these positions, this study explains adherence to the latin mass as the embodiment of one particular approach to the formation of an 'authentic' human subject of liturgical prayer. personal sincerity and continuity with tradition are both essential to how latin mass catholics evaluate authenticity in liturgical prayer and cultivate authenticity in their own selves. in practice, these modes of authentication are held together by an acquired habitus of 'reverence.' an ethnographic account of contemporary adherence to the latin mass fleshes out the particular practices associated with this inculcation of reverence. fieldwork in four latin mass communities and interviews with latin mass adherents reveal the viability of this approach to liturgical formation. it is argued that the liturgical reform and adherence to the latin mass can provide complementary insights into the formation of an authentic human subject of liturgical prayer in the modern world. in this dissertation i argue that the practice of penance has relevance beyond the church and in the political arena. to make my case, i build an ethic and then apply it to contemporary case studies. after situating penance in the context of catholic tradition, i explore key resources of the penitential tradition which i use to build my ethic. i begin with the irish monks of the fifth through ninth centuries who developed a robust system of penances which involved perpetrators in the process of seeing and undoing the damage of their sins. i then turn to thomas aquinas who understands penance as both a gift offered to sinners in the sacrament and a virtue which restores justice by capacitating sinners for right relationship. my final resource is pope john paul ii whose jubilee gestures of repentance for the sins of christians highlighted the communal dimension of penance. my final chapter brings these resources together into a single ethic. at the core of the ethic are what i construe as the three main practices in the performance of penance: lament, responsibility and repair. i show why these are distinct elements in a coordinated movement toward justice as the re-establishment of right relationship. as evidence, i examine the crisis of mass incarceration in the u.s. and suggest that construing punishment as penance would lead to more effective practice &#8212; and a convergence with ideas of the restorative justice movement. second, i detail the challenges in peru after a bloody internal armed conflict there, suggesting that insights from aquinas in particular could help encourage perpetrators to participate in truth and reconciliation. lastly, i suggest that communal practices of lament, within a penitential paradigm, can be a resource for the crises of moral wounds affecting u.s. soldiers returning from war. rotating stall is a phenomenon in axial compressors in which regions of separated, axially reversed flow propagate circumferentially in the direction of rotor rotation. these rotating regions of separated flow are associated with high amplitude pressure fluctuations. these pressure fluctuations force vibrations and can propagate downstream. the front stages of multi-spool axial compressors operate in rotating stall for off-design, but normal operation. because rotating stall is experienced in normal operation, minimizing the structural fatigue and compressor operability impacts are better achieved by characterizing the rotating stall state rather than attempting to eliminate it. for many compressors, the spatial and temporal scales of rotating stall are accurately described by a simple, harmonic description. for others, the pressure field is spatially and temporally more complicated.the observation of these spatially and temporally complicated pressure fluctuations in front stage axial compressors motivate the following research questions: what are the spatial and temporal scales of the complicated rotating stall pressure fields? are these fields structured? can these fields be characterized with simple metrics? can these fields be described by a simple harmonic equation with stochastic variation? if so, what is the magnitude of the variation?this dissertation used unsteady static pressure measurements at multiple locations on the rotor casing to observe rotating stall cells that are intermittent. the cells stochastically originate and terminate and their duration is less than the full annulus. spatial modes of a quasi-instantaneous blade pressure distribution were measured and decomposed. this decomposition showed a variation in blade pressure distribution shape and amplitude. the correlation length scale and the convergence timescale are introduced as metrics which characterize the complicated pressure fields as the operating point is changed. for some operating points, the convergence timescale exceeds 150 rotor revolutions. stochastic variation is introduced to different mathematical models which match the statistical properties of these complicated pressure fields. this reveals that very small variations ($&lt;$ 0.1 percent) in the phase and rotating speed of a simple harmonic rotating stall state can lead to the spatially and temporally complicated pressure fields that were experimentally observed. auditory and visual attention to rhythmic environmental stimuli can be thought of as involving periods of maximal and minimal attention such that the distribution of attention is entrained to the rhythm of the environmental input. we examined how entraining auditory attention to a rhythm affects the allocation of visual attention. in experiments 1 and 2, subjects moved their eyes to a dot whose onset was either in synch or out of synch with an entrained auditory rhythm. saccade latency was fastest for the in-synch condition, indicating that entraining auditory attention similarly entrains visual attention such that both are maximized concurrently. experiment 3 tested the effect of auditory entrainment on visual attention in a temporally independent manner by having subjects perform a gap judgment task. judgments were most accurate when the onset of the square was in-synch with the preceding auditory rhythm, replicating the effect observed in experiments 1 and 2. recent losses provide sobering evidence of the continued need for more effective hurricane risk assessment. fortunately, advances in computational science have now made possible new venues to do so. however, this requires digitization of built environments to allow their evaluation within these computational spaces. doing so presents a significant challenge, given the diversity and data insufficiency in the structural inventory and the need for an approach that readily scales. in response, this thesis proposes a framework to support automated digitization from publically available images. the framework has three main phases: exterior geometry extraction, interior geometry estimation, and subassembly modeling. each phase was independently validated and, through the development of a heuristic schema founded in disciplinary perspectives, integrated to demonstrate the resulting fidelity of the approach. the end result is a digitization schema that can be readily applied to wood frame residential structures and is readily expandable to other construction typologies. 1h nmr spectra of aldohexopyranosyl rings containing 13c-enrichment reveal the presence of long-range 4jc1,h6r/s and 4jc3,h6r/s whose magnitudes depend mainly on the o5-c5-c6-o6 torsion angle. using theoretical calculations and conformationally constrained experimental model compounds, the magnitudes and signs of 4jc1,h6r/s and 4jc3,h6r/s have been established, and their dependencies on the geometry of the c1-o5-c5-c6-h6r/s and c3-c4-c5-c6-h6r/s coupling pathways, respectively, were determined. a novel method involving the use of trans-glycoside j-coupling constants is applied to evaluate the conformational properties of structurally-related glycosidic linkages in oligosaccharides. by incorporating dual 13c-labeling at the carbons participating directly in the linkage and measuring the ensemble of trans-glycoside j-couplings across the linkage, firm qualitative and semi-quantitative information can be obtained rapidly about whether linkage conformations are similar or different. a simplified cyanohydrin route was developed to synthesize isotopically labeled 2-amino-2-deoxy-d-aldohexoses and their methyl glycosides by yuping zhu and other members of the serianni laboratory. the hydrolysis of the starting materials for this synthesis, the aldopentopyranosylamines, was investigated by nmr to determine optimal reaction conditions for the cyanide addition reaction. multiple 13c isotopomers of diand trisaccharides containing n-acetyl-d-glucosamine (glcnac) and d-mannose (man) representing nested fragments of biologically important n-glycans were synthesized. nmr studies yielded trans-glycoside jcc and jch within related structures, providing new information on conformational information of constituent linkages and the effect of molecular context in dictating preferred linkage conformation in solution. conformations of four glycosidic linkages in the pentasaccharide core were determined by semi-quantitative fitting of the coupling constants to karplus equations, followed by filtering with noe data. the effect of structural context was examined by comparing the corresponding trans-glycoside j-couplings observed in the trisaccharide (triman) unit to those in the individual disaccharide components.two disaccharide crystals were studied by x-ray crystallography. methyl alpha-lactoside, c13h24o11, has glycosidic torsion angles phi (o5gal-c1gal-o1gal-c4glc) and psi (c1gal-o1gal-c4glc-c5glc) of -93.52 (13) -144.83 (11)åá, respectively. methyl beta-l-lactoside, c13h24o11, has glycosidic torsion angles phi and psi of 93.89 (13) and -127.43 (13)å_, respectively. the perinatal period, characterized by major psychological, physiological, and social changes, can exert great stress on mind and body and increase risk for adverse maternal and infant health outcomes. trauma-exposed women may be at magnified risk for posttraumatic stress (ptss) and depression symptoms in the perinatal period, but few studies have examined symptomatology across the perinatal period in high-risk samples. further, the role of sleep in perinatal symptomatology has been largely neglected in the violence literature. thus, the current study sought to examine the role of prenatal sleep quality in the course of depression and ptss across pregnancy and postpartum among high-risk women. multilevel modeling with random intercepts was used to test changes in women's ptss and depression symptoms over time at the individual level (within-subject) and by sleep quality, childhood adversity, and past-year ipv (between-subjects). results suggest past-year ipv is associated with elevated prenatal ptss (ß=0.26, p&lt; .01) and depression symptoms (ß=0.17, p&lt;.001) and sleep difficulties are associated with a worsening trajectory in ptss across pregnancy and postpartum (ß=0.01, p&lt;.05). screening for ipv and sleep difficulties may be paramount in reducing the development or exacerbation of mental health symptoms in the perinatal period. this dissertation seeks to broaden political theorists' understanding of political hebraism, arguing that thomas aquinas should be regarded as an important precursor to this school of thought. viewing aquinas in such a role has two effects. first and foremost, it reasserts the importance of aquinas's reflections on the mosaic law, or old law, for a complete understanding of his political thought. while these writings remain understudied, they are rich with implications for political theory and practice. i argue that the mosaic law, for aquinas, is a divinely-given law that is also perfectly reconcilable with the demands of reason, and that it is the exemplary case of "human law" insofar as it directs a particular community toward its common good. examining aquinas's treatment of the regime of the hebrews provides an avenue into the understanding of his views regarding the two-fold end of political community, the virtues of prudence and particularity, the best constitution and laws, and citizenship. in order to understand more fully aquinas's political thought, we must give his discussion of the mosaic law the attention it deserves. equally important is the second aim of this project: to argue that aquinas can enrich contemporary discussion of political hebraism. recent studies of this subject have focused on early modern use of the hebrew bible and old testament as a model for politics by key thinkers such as hobbes, locke, and john selden. this dissertation argues that aquinas deserves a place in the growing body of scholarship on political hebraism, since the fundamental idea that gained prominence with political hebraists during the early modern period—that the hebrew constitution should be viewed as a standard and model for constitutions in general—is already present in aquinas's writings on law. through a comparison between aquinas and selden, identifying both continuities and discontinuities in their approaches to the hebrew political model, i am aim to shed light on the wider issue of the relationship between medieval and modern political thought. once every cell cycle, centrosomes duplicates precisely once. this facilitates the formation of a bipolar spindle, permitting equal segregation of chromosomes between both daughter cells. yet little is known about the when the centrosome duplicates during the cell cycle, and few components have been identified that are critical in the generation of a new centrosome. each centrosome is comprised of a pair of barrel shaped structures arranged in an orthogonal arrangement. em studies have revealed the initial duplication event to be disorientation when the centriole pair lose their orthogonal arrangement with daughter centrioles forming from the proximal end of the pre-existing parent centriole. yet when this event occurs is unclear. em studies have suggested that procentrioles were first observed after transition into s phase. however, studies in sea urchin and yeast found that the centrosome could duplicate in cells that did not transit into s phase, providing support for the g1 phase possessing the necessary factors required for duplication. to investigate if duplication can occur during g1 arrest, cho-k1 cells were stably transfected with gfp-centrin, a well known centriolar marker. when cells were arrested in g1 with mimosine, both individual and multiple rounds of duplication was observed in 97% of cells. this demonstrated that centrosomes could duplicate in g1 arrested cells. in addition to cho cells, centrosome duplication was observed in the non-transformed chef cell-line, arrested in late g1 with mimosine. yet, during a normal cell cycle, duplication was observed after cells have entered s phase. this demonstrates that factors necessary for duplication are present during g1, however new procentrioles are not observed during a normal cell cycle until after cells have transited into s phase. although g1 appears to possess the necessary factors required for centrosomes to duplicate, few factors have been identified. in sea urchin, a group of axonemal proteins termed tektins were identified. early studies in mammalian cells found that tektins could localize to centrosomes, however little work has been undertaken to investigate the role of tektins at the centrosome. using gfp-tektin 2 in conjunction with a rabbit polyclonal antibody to tektin 2, tektin 2 localized to centrosomes, in a manner similar to &gamma;-tubulin. in addition to the centrosome, tektin 2 also localizes to the mid body. when tektin 2 was knocked down by sirna, levels of reduplication were decreased during s phase, suggesting a role for tektin 2 in duplication. surprisingly, the loss of tektin 2 in cycling cells led to cells 're-fusing' after exiting mitosis. in the absence of tektin 2, the mid body condensed, however as a result of tektin 2 being absent, the mid body unravelled permitting cells to 'refuse'. in addition to tektin 2, gfp-tektin 1 was found to localize to the mid body and individual centrioles. these studies provide a starting point for examining the role of tektins at the centrosome and mid body. in this thesis work, i present three extensions of the standard model, corresponding to three independent attempts to improve our understanding of dark matter and large hadron collider data in terms of new physics. the first work studies the chargino superparticle in the r-symmetric minimal supersymmetric standard model, an extension known to improve results regarding the hierarchy problem of the minimal supersymmetric standard model. in a regime where the lightest superparticles are the chargino and the gravitino, i explore the parameter space in order to determine collider-viable regions for their masses that simultaneously respect the 125 gev higgs and squark mass limits. the second work is a dark matter model where the dark candidate carries a flavor charge and couples to two scalar mediators. these two scalars are conventionally used in the froggatt-nielsen class of flavor models to explain the mass sizes and mixings of quarks and leptons. the trademark of the model is that dark matter reaches its abundance mostly through annihilation into a pair of distinct mediators, with meson mixing observables imposing stronger constraints than current direct detection prospects. the third model was designed as a means to reproduce the higgs-to-tau-and-mu excess seen in the proton-proton collisions at the large hadron collider. the approach involved four-fermion interactions between sm leptons and two different vectorlike fermions, which needed to be as heavy as tens-of-tev in order to simultaneously satisfy such excess and the limits in other flavor-violating processes. a heat transfer measurement technique based on the solution of an inverse conduction problem has been developed, validated, and applied in transonic turbine casings with variable surface roughness. a major advantage of the method is that it can be implemented for irregular surface geometries, as opposed to contact sensors which are generally not applicable in these types of situations. additionally, the presence of contact sensors, e.g. heat flux gauges, is known to disturb the near wall flow field and modify thermal boundary conditions in many applications.the inverse measurement technique requires an array of thermocouples to be embedded in machined holes within metal hardware. an internal sensor spacing criteria, i.e. the axial distance separating measurements and the appropriate wall normal distance between a thermocouple and an estimation boundary, is identified and evaluated for accurate inverse solutions. the measurement technique is theoretically and experimentally validated for various boundary conditions. heat transfer measurements in over-rotor casings of a transonic turbine rig provide a practical demonstration of the method. a commercially available cfd code is validated based on the experimental turbine data and gives added confidence in the measurement technique. in recent years, a tremendous rise in consumer grade electronics has afforded bountiful opportunities for quantification and instrumentation of the human body, particularly through the use of motion-based gaming peripherals. unfortunately, developing applications capable of reliably and robustly collecting data from such devices involves non-trivial complexities that must be accounted for. to combat these complexities, this thesis describes the motion based gaming peripherals management (mbp-m) framework. when integrated inside a program, the framework controls all device and data handling, thereby allowing developers to focus entirely on the intended use of device data. explored in the thesis are examples of the use of gaming peripherals in non-gaming efforts and the core guiding principles, architecture, and data processing flow of the framework. additionally, results of performance tests demonstrating the efficacy of the framework are presented and discussed, showing that the mbp-m framework performs reliably and robustly and adheres to the guiding principles. quantifying sea spray concentration in the marine atmospheric boundary layer (mabl) is critical to understand the life time, dynamics and transport of sea spray processes. the transport of sea spray is driven by a complex mix of winds, waves and turbulence.[15] currently, only limited observation data as well as numerical data exist that can be used to study the concentration profiles of spray. to extend the overall understanding of such processes, in this project, we use a large eddy simulation(les) model with largangian droplet tracking to study particle transport over a moving wavy surface by looking specifically at their average concentration profiles. these simulations do not simulate the entire atmospheric boundary layer, but do simulate the real size domain of a wave tank tunnel in a laboratory experiment. the author finds while all the parameters: the stokes number, the dimensionless settling velocity and wave profoundly influence on the concentration profiles, the settling velocity give us the most effect. we also find that different inertia particles interact selectively with near wall turbulence flows structures, producing different distribution at specific regions on the wave surface. ldpc convolutional codes have been shown to be capable of achieving the same capacity-approaching performance as ldpc block codes with iterative message passing decoding. in this dissertation, we present several methods of deriving families of time-varying and time-invariant ldpc convolutional codes from ldpc block codes. we demonstrate that the derived ldpc convolutional codes significantly outperform the underlying ldpc block codes, and we investigate the reasons for these 'convolutional gains'. it is well known that cycles in the tanner graph representation of a sparse code affect the iterative decoding algorithm, with short cycles generally pushing its performance further away from optimum. hence it is common practice to design codes that do not contain short cycles, so as to obtain independent messages in at least the initial iterations of the decoding process. we show that the derived ldpc convolutional codes have better graph-cycle properties than their block code counterparts. in particular, we show that the unwrapping process that is used to derive ldpc convolutional codes from ldpc block codes can 'break' some cycles of the underlying ldpc block code, but cannot create any shorter cycles. we prove that any cycle in an ldpc convolutional code always maps to a cycle of the same or smaller length in the underlying ldpc block code. minimum distance is an important code design parameter when the channel quality is high, since codewords that are minimum distance apart are the most likely to cause errors with ml or near-ml decoding. in this case, the minimum distance determines the so-called error floor behavior in the performance curve corresponding to high channel signal-to-noise ratios. thus studying the minimum distance properties of a code family gives insight into its error floor behavior. we use asymptotic methods to calculate a lower bound on the free distance of several ensembles of asymptotically good ldpc convolutional codes derived from protograph-based ldpc block codes. further, we show that the free distance to constraint length ratio of the ldpc convolutional codes exceeds the minimum distance to block length ratio of the corresponding ldpc block codes. message-passing iterative decoders for ldpc block codes are known to be subject to decoding failures due to so-called pseudo-codewords. these failures can cause the large signal-to-noise ratio performance of message-passing iterative decoding to be worse than that predicted by the maximum-likelihood decoding union bound. we address the pseudo-codeword problem from the convolutional code perspective. in particular, we show that the minimum pseudo-weight of an ldpc convolutional code is at least as large as the minimum pseudo-weight of an underlying ldpc block code. this result, which parallels a well-known relationship between the minimum hamming weight of convolutional codes and the minimum hamming weight of their quasi-cyclic counterparts, is due to the fact that every pseudo-codeword in the ldpc convolutional code induces a pseudo-codeword in the ldpc block code with pseudo-weight no larger than that of the convolutional pseudo-codeword. more generally, we demonstrate a difference in the weight spectra of ldpc block and convolutional codes that leads to improved performance at low-to-moderate signal-to-noise ratios for the convolutional codes, a conclusion supported by simulation results. this dissertation examines how the politics of commemoration illustrates the metamorphosis of the sublime bodies of the nation. scholars around the world have demonstrated that by displaying, performing and visualizing the power of symbols, rituals and rhetoric, the politics of commemoration unveils the identification of the nation as family. commemorations legitimize official political projects, sanction patriarchal national genealogies, monumentalize state leaders as the sublime bodies of the nation, and shape racially homogeneous nations. together, these elements frame political transformations and continuities through time. embracing this framework, this dissertation argues that the politics of commemorations in nicaragua experienced a gendered, political and symbolic metamorphosis of the sublime body of the nation from 1936 to 1997. expanding anderson's model of 'imagined communities,' my study identifies the 'imagined nation' as a family. instead of identifying the nation as horizontal and homogeneous political communities, nations are vertical entities. political leaders take advantage of the symbolic and political power of the politics of commemorations to become sublime bodies of the nation, either as father or mother. my study challenges anderson's emphasis on nations as homogeneous entities. my work argues that the degree of homogeneity of an 'imagined nation' illustrates how successful the government, elites and intellectuals, are in erasing the heterogeneity of the members of 'imagined nation.' each political regime, from the somocista dictatorship to the sandinista revolution and the post-1990 neoliberal democracy institutionalized their own politics of commemoration and their own version of a sublime body of the nation. the nation becomes a hierarchical political entity, where the state leader is institutionalized as the sublime body of the nation and the citizens as political children. citizens should demonstrate their filial devotion and loyalty toward their national leaders. the dictators of the somocista dynasty constructed a politics of commemoration to explicitly portray themselves as the fathers of the nation. at the same time, by leading clandestine and insurrectional political commemorations, the sandinista's revolutionary leaders fractured and demolished the dictator as the sublime body of the nation. the sandinista revolution (1979-1990) placed a patriotic hero, sandino, as the father of the revolution. finally, the neoliberal democracy crafted, after 1990, a nicaraguan mother of the nation, violeta chamorro. however, despite this political and symbolic metamorphosis, nicaragua continued holding to a harmonious and homogeneous myth for the nation by commemorating and monumentalizing rub&#233;n dar&#237;o (1867-1916) as the 'mestizo' father of nicaragua. balbiani body (bb) is a conserved structure in oocytes that is characterized by mitochondria, er membranes and germ plasm rnas. in xenopus oocytes, bb has a role in localizing maternal mrnas to the vegetal cortex during early oogenesis. confocal imaging revealed that the fragmentation of the bb engenders a region extending from the nucleus towards the vegetal pole that is enriched in mitochondria. vg1 rna, one of the vegetal localized mrnas during midoogenesis, later occupies this area, primarily at the perinuclear site, the region rna get trapped in after exiting the nucleus. inhibition of mitochondrial atp synthesis prevents the formation of these rna transport granules at the perinuclear site, which can be reversed by the nonhydrolyzable atp analog, adenosine 5'-(b,g-imido) triphosphate. furthermore, the transport granules are sensitive to hexanediol, a chemical that can dissolve dynamic, liquid-like phase separated assemblies. in addition, biotinylated ribonucleoprotein (rnp) pull-down coupled with label-free quantitative proteomics (lfq) was utilized to determine the full inventory of protein factors comprising the localization complex and identified multiple liquid-phase separation driving proteins. it is thus proposed that during midoogenesis, the remnant of bb produces an elevated amount of atp that acts as a hydrotrope to support the perinuclear liquid-phase transition leading to granule formation. two exotic modes of collective excitations of nuclei have been investigated in this work: the multiphonon excitations in the vibrational nucleus, 102pd and the phenomenon of chirality in the 133ce nucleus. the vibrational yrast states in 102pd are described semiclassically as quadrupole running ('tidal') waves on the surface of the nucleus, and the propagating tidal wave interpreted as a rotating condensate of interacting, spin-aligned d bosons. the tidal wave concept has been investigated experimentally by measuring lifetimes of levels in the yrast band of the 102pd nucleus using the doppler shift attenuation method (dsam). the extracted reduced transition probabilities, b(e2), for the yrast band display a monotonic increase with spin, in agreement with the interpretation based on rotation-induced condensation of aligned d-bosons, and the observed constant b(e2)/j ratios imply that the gain in angular momentum originates from the increase of the wave amplitude (deformation). in the second investigation, two distinct sets of chiral-doublet bands based on the three quasi-particle configurations &#960;(1h11/2)2&#8855; &#957; (1h11/2)-1 (higher-energy, negative parity) and &#960;(1g7/2)-1(1h11/2)1 &#8855;&#957;(1h11/2)-1 (lower-energy, positive parity) were identified in the nucleus 133ce. the properties of these bands were observed to satisfy the established fingerprints of nuclear chirality and were found to agree with results of calculations based on a combination of the constrained triaxial relativistic mean field (rmf) theory and the particle-rotor model. they constitute a multiple chiral doublet (m&#967;d), a phenomenon first predicted by rmf calculations. this study has provided the first experimental evidence for the existence of the m&#967;d phenomenon, that represents, in general, a confirmation of triaxial shape coexistence. reactive nanocomposites (rncs), comprised of stochastically layered metals, were fabricated using short-term high-energy ball milling (hebm). by varying the milling conditions, the internal nanostructure of the rncs can be controlled. using a combination of two approaches (synchrotron-based x-ray nanotomography and focused-ionbeam sectioning), the 3d-structure of these materials were quantitatively analyzed. hebm was initially applied to the ta/c system to generate a variety of different composite structures. this system was chosen because it is a true solid flame system; the adiabatic combustion temperature is below any phase transition or eutectic temperatures. the ignition temperature was 1243 ± 15 k and the maximum temperature observed was 2487 ± 50 k. it was shown that this reaction proceeds solely due to solid state mechanisms.this approach was then applied to the ni/al system. the reactivity, including ignition and combustion parameters, for different rncs was analyzed using high-speed infrared imaging. the direct relationships between the 3d structural characteristics and reactivity parameters were determined. it was shown that all of these features are primarily controlled by the al layer thickness. this is most likely due to the reaction mechanism, where the controlling step is ni diffusion into the al matrix.to better understand the driving force behind the observed ignition and combustion parameters, the reaction kinetics were analyzed using the electrothermal explosion technique for each milling condition. it is shown that the effective activation energy (eef) ranges from 79 to 137 kj/mol and is directly related to the surface aremol contact between the reactants. essentially, the reaction kinetics can be accurately controlled through mechanical processing techniques. finally, the nature of the reaction is considered; the mechanistic effect of the reactive and three diffusive activation energies on the effective activation energy was examined. a comparison with existing theoretical models allows us to conclude that, for specially designed rncs, the reaction can be initiated and self-propagates solely due to solid-state mechanisms, i.e., in the solid flame mode. it was directly demonstrated that, by understanding the fundamental quantitative relationship between the structure and properties of rncs, unprecedented control over the reaction can be achieved. microfluidics and nanofluidics have recently been on the forefront of new medical devices and new technologies. due to their ability to adapt to medical and environmental systems, these mechanisms have the capability of replacing standard laboratory techniques with a field applicable rapid diagnostic device. the main problem that is preventing these devices from becoming a viable kit lies in the large discrepancy between the concentrations of the target bioparticle in realistic samples (~100 colony forming units (cfu)/ml) and the concentration thresholds of the on-chip detection mechanisms (~10^6 cfu/ml). current standards require culturing to amplify the concentration to reach these detection thresholds; however this step is time and laboratory intensive. alternatively, by taking advantage of the microfluidic characteristics inherent in the chip-scale devices and using ac electrokinetics, manipulation of the bioparticles can be done on-chip, eliminating the bottleneck in the detection time.the advantage of using microfluidics and ac electrokinetic mechanisms is that fluid forces and particle specific forces such as dielectrophoresis and electroosmotic flow can be combined to induce forces that are not only fast and far reaching into the bulk (~1 cm/s) but also specific to the particle's characteristics (permittivity, size, etc.). in particular, the forces that are particle specific tend to only act as short-range forces, acting on the order of 10-100 ì_å_m from surface. on the other hand, forces that are fast and far reaching in the bulk will act as a long-range force but are not particle specific. thus by combining these forces in a microvortex, a continuous flow and an ac electroosmotic flow system, bioparticles can be concentrated, sorted, and confined to specific regions on a chip sized device.detection systems can be integrated into these devices such as raman spectroscopy and surface-enhanced raman scattering to detect bacteria and other bioparticles. in particular the manipulation and crystallization of smaller bioparticles such as protein molecules are influenced by the applied ac field which can be tuned to enhance the quality and the size of the crystal grown. in this system, it is speculated that the ac field is not only manipulating the protein molecules themselves, but also disrupting the hydration cage surrounding the molecules, allowing them to interact which increases the probability that nucleation and crystal growth will occur. with the combination of these ac electrokinetic short-range particle specific forces and the long-range bulk forces, it is shown that faster mechanisms can be generated to enhance concentration and detection techniques used on-chip. these advancements will improve the current standards for on-chip detection, allowing for faster diagnostics to be used in the field. cognitive theories of depression propose that biases in executive control may be involved in the development, maintenance, and/or recurrence of depression. affective set-shifting, defined as the ability to attend to and disengage from emotional aspects of a situation or a stimulus, may be crucial in understanding depression etiology. however, it is unclear if depression is associated with a negative bias in affective set-shifting (i.e., slower shifting from emotional aspects of negative stimuli to non-emotional aspects). in addition, a positive bias in affective set-shifting (i.e., faster shifting from emotional aspects of positive stimuli to non-emotional aspects), which might characterize healthy individuals, may be absent in depression. furthermore, previous research suggests that depression-related biases may be more pronounced during stressful situations and/or may not be fully activated without stress. hence, affective set-shifting biases following stress exposure (i.e., post-stress affective set-shifting) might better predict prospective depressive symptoms than baseline (i.e., pre-stress) affective set-shifting. the primary purpose of this study was to evaluate preand post-stress affective set-shifting in relation to current and prospective levels of depressive symptoms. participants (n = 300) first completed the affective switching task (ast) designed to measure biased pre-stress affective set-shifting. participants then completed a stress-induction procedure, followed by another ast, which assessed biases in post-stress affective set-shifting. lastly, participants completed a measure that assessed depressive symptoms both during and one month after the laboratory session. as hypothesized, slower shifting from emotional aspects of negative stimuli at baseline (i.e., pre-stress negative affective set-shifting bias) was associated with less decrease in prospective depressive symptoms, whereas slower shifting from emotional aspects of positive stimuli following stress (i.e., post-stress positive affective set-shifting bias) was associated with more decrease in prospective depressive symptoms. contrary to the hypothesis, affective set-shifting biases were unrelated to baseline depressive symptoms. furthermore, pre-stress positive affective set-shifting and post-stress negative affective set-shifting were unrelated to follow-up depressive symptoms. this study is the first to evaluate both preand post-stress affective set-shifting in relation to depression and suggest that biased affective set-shifting both before and after stress may be associated with depressive symptoms. the theoretical and clinical relevance of the findings, the limitations of the study, and directions for future research are discussed. ovarian cancer spreads via direct exfoliation of tumor cells from primary carcinoma into peritoneal cavity, further dissemination in form of single cells and multi-cellular aggregates (mcas) with subsequent intraperitoneal adhesion, migration through mesothelial layer, invasion of submesothelial matrix and proliferation into secondary tumor masses. the mechanisms regulating initial cell detachment, mca generation, survival in ascitic fluid and secondary anchorage and the role of unique cadherin dynamics in these steps remain poorly understood. the designed study modeled and comprehensively characterized cell/mca behavior in their free-floating state based on cellular cadherin composition and elucidated changes in metastasis-associated behaviors caused by alterations in cadherin expression. next, i delineated the essential role of n-cadherin cell network for the induction of cell invasion through the 3-dimentional collagen matrices. importantly, i demonstrated successful suppression of cell invasive behavior by n-cadherin blocking peptides via abruption of cell-cell junctions. in addition, i showed enhancement of mesothelial clearance by ovarian cancer mcas upon n-cadherin upregulation. finally, i presented a novel technique for feasible and reproducible long-term exposure of fragile and heterogeneous 3-dimentional cellular structures to clinically relevant compressive forces and discovered patterns in gene expression alterations which may modulate cadherin switch in the context of high intraperitoneal pressure caused by malignant ascites. taken together, my work has revealed the role of cadherin repertoires in the cell/mca dynamics and metastasis-associated behavior, identified a novel possible mechanism regulating cadherin switch and suggested n-cadherin as a novel therapeutic target for intraperitoneal treatment of ovarian cancer metastasis. catalytic nitrate reduction is an important chemical process applicable in water treatment. the overall mechanism is unknown but this knowledge could aid in the design of cheaper, more active, more selective catalysts. this dissertation was geared towards providing fundamental understanding of the surface chemistry occurring in such systems. in this work we explored the reduction of the three experimentally observed intermediates, namely nitrous oxide, nitric oxide and nitrite. we use density functional theory models to contrast pathways for adsorption, decomposition, and hydrogenation of nitrous oxide on several pd facets. we show that nitrous oxide adsorbs weakly to pd surfaces and decomposes readily to molecular nitrogen and atomic oxygen at any coverage of preadsorbed atomic oxygen below saturation. decomposition to atomic nitrogen and nitric oxide is similarly facile at low adsorbate coverage but n-no bond breaking becomes increasingly difficult with increasing coverage. these observations help rationalize the observed selectivity of catalysts for nitrous oxide reduction to molecular nitrogen over ammonia. in the overall catalytic cycle surface atomic oxygen is reduced by adsorbed hydrogen. ambient water is effective in catalyzing these hydrogenation steps. density functional theory models were also used to contrast pathways for adsorption, decomposition and hydrogenation of nitric oxide. simulations show that nitric oxide adsorbs strongly to palladium surfaces. water-mediated hydrogenation to noh has the smallest barrier of all nitrous oxide reactions and is therefore the most likely first step. the noh reaction with the smallest barrier is the water-mediated hydrogenation to atomic nitrogen and water. the atomic nitrogen can then proceed to ammonia or nitrous oxide. atomic nitrogen is hydrogenated to nh and nh2 to ammonia with the help of water molecules. however, direct hydrogenation of nh to nh2 is preferred over water-mediated pathways. nitrous oxide is most likely formed by reaction of nh with nitric oxide followed by water assisted deprotonation. one implication of this work is that there might be some ratio of nitric oxide: hydrogen binding energy which will allow high nitric oxide coverage for desired selectivity as well as sufficient hydrogen adsorption for reaction. vehicular networked systems are cyber-physical systems that integrate vehicular communication, control and information processing technologies to achieve more safe and effective operation of autonomous vehicles. active coordination between vehicles is often used to improve system safety. this coordination may be achieved by exchanging information over wireless communication networks. wireless communication networks, however, have limited reliability since they may drop bursts of information packets. this variation in channel state, moreover, may be a function of the vehicle's physical state. one of the great challenges faced by self-driving vehicles is finding ways of assuring system safety and efficiency in the presence of such unreliable communication channels. the first part of this dissertation addresses safety issues. we first propose a novel channel model that we call the state dependent exponential bounded burstiness or sd-ebb channel model. the sd-ebb channel captures the burstiness and the channel's dependence on the vehicle's physical state. we show that the sd-ebb channel is more general in the sense that it can characterize i.i.d. channels as well as two-state markov chain channels. this dissertation uses the sd-ebb channel to develop a distributed switching control strategy that enforces an almost-sure notion of system safety. almost sure stability requires that the likelihood of the vehicular states entering a pre-defined safe region asymptotically goes to one as time goes to infinity. necessary and sufficient conditions are presented to enforce almost sure safety for a nonlinear cascaded vehicular system. the proposed distributed switching strategy is then applied to formation control of a leader-follower chain. experimental results show that the system achieves almost sure safety under the switching strategy and is more safe than the non-switching scheme. when the vehicular networks have limited bandwidth, we develop a novel event triggering scheme under which the system is almost surely safe in the presence of deep fades. furthermore, we also show that the proposed event triggering scheme reduces the transmission frequency as system states approach the safe set thereby providing an efficient use of network bandwidth. this is in contrast to traditional event triggering schemes where zeno phenomena may occur due to deep fades. the second part of this dissertation proposes a co-design paradigm to ensure both vehicles' safety and efficient use of transmission power for vehicular networked systems. this co-design paradigm is formulated as a constrained cooperative stochastic game where the equilibrium points represent the optimal control and power strategies to achieve system safety and efficiency. we show that the equilibria of the stochastic game are equivalent to the solutions of a generalized geometrical programming problem. since the generalized geometric programs are usually non-convex, two relaxed convex geometric programming problems are formulated to provide upper and lower bounds on the optimal solutions. a branch-bound algorithm is employed to asymptotically approach the optimal solutions. this dissertation discusses my research in understanding the thermal and mass transport at hard/soft material interfaces as the overarching goal. it provides a comprehensive understanding of a variety of possible strategies to achieve this goal from solid-water interfacial thermal conductance, water slip behavior at the solid interface, hot gold nanoparticle brownian motion. children experience failure multiple times a day; some children persist viewing the failure as a challenge, whereas other quit in frustration. the purpose of the present study was to understand the early social influences, in particular, parental influences on young children's motivation. in addition, the present study investigated the types of feedback mothers provide to their young children and the degree to which type of feedback (person vs. non-person) and positive or negative feedback influences young children's motivation. a longitudinal design assessed how sensitivity during infancy (3-, 5-, and 7-months) and the feedback provided during a teaching task at 20-months would influence two components of motivation, negative affect and persistence measured while the toddler interacts with an unsolvable toy independently at 20-months. results suggest that early maternal sensitivity predicts toddler negative affect, but not persistence. further, mothers' used more ambiguous than either person or non-person positive feedback. finally, although feedback did not predict motivation, greater toddler persistence predicted, although not significantly, a greater proportion of maternal positive feedback (i.e., praise). overall, early sensitive parenting does influence toddler response to failure, whereas feedback was not significantly related for toddlers. the aim of this study is to examine possible sources of negative math attitudes as well as some possible effects. the main body of this dissertation are three stand-alone chapters that are designed to be stand-alone academic article. chapter 2 uses data from the high school longitudinal study (hsls) and lagged-dependent variable and school fixed effects regressions to identify that girls are more likely to have a negative response to a b, c, or d in a math course compared to boys. chapter 3 uses a series of logistic regressions and data from the high school longitudinal study of 2009, and finds that the negative average math attitudes among prospective teachers is merely a byproduct of the gender composition of the field. chapter 4 uses survey and u.s. classroom observation data from the elementary mathematics study (ems) and ols regression to analyze the relationship between mathematics anxiety and time on math; this research provides evidence that math anxious elementary teachers spend less time on math instruction. the reaction 16o(n, &#947;) 17o acts as a neutron poison in the weak slow neutron capture process (s process) by reducing the number of available neutrons in the stellar burning environment. the captured neutrons can be re-emitted into the stellar environment via the reaction 17o(&#945;, n) 20ne, weakening the poisoning effect of 16o. this branch competes with the reaction 17o(&#945;, &#947;) 21ne. therefore in order to determine the strength of 16o as a neutron poison one needs to know the ratio of the two stellar reaction rates 17o(&#945;,&#947;) 21ne 17o(&#945;,n) 20ne. as there is no published data on 17o(&#945;, &#947;) 21ne and only limited information is available on the 17o(&#945;, n) 20ne reaction both reactions have been measured. the total cross section of the (&#945;, n) reaction was measured using a high efficiency 4&#960; neutron detector. to improve the accuracy of the results the (&#945;, n1) channel has been investigated separately over the same energy range by detecting its characteristic gamma-rays with a germanium detector. besides a possible role in the weak s process 18o can be a strong source of beam-induced background in the measurement of (&#945;, n) reactions. even a very small contamination of the target material with 18o can lead to spurious signals in both the 17o(&#945;, &#947;) 21ne and the 17o(&#945;, n) 20ne measurements.theandreas christian best reactions 18o(&#945;, n) 21ne and 18o(&#945;, n1) 21ne were measured from the threshold up, covering the same energy range as the 17o measurements. in this work several resonances in 17o(&#945;, &#947;) 21ne have been found and their parameters have been determined. the uncertainty in both the 17o(&#945;, n) 20ne and the 18o(&#945;, n) 21ne reaction rates has been greatly reduced. the astrophysical implications of the new experimental results are discussed. the cultural debates of the first decade after the second world war mark a turning point in italian literary and intellectual history. the convergence of trends in modern european literature with the social and political demands of post-fascist italy radically revised the theoretical and ideological foundations of textual representation. at the same time, the efforts to create a "new culture," and to rethink the relationship between literature and society, transformed the social role and responsibilities of writers and intellectuals. the age of neorealism thus represents a crux in the development of modern italian culture. because its repercussions continue to shape italian intellectual discourse, neorealism remains fundamental to our understanding of contemporary literature and culture. yet the innovative thrust of the postwar intellectual climate has been obscured by historiorgraphic conventions that apply blanket categorization to diverse and contrasting literary currents, or conversely omit from consideration the period's most inventive, original, and enduring literary production. this study presents a comprehensive model of the divergent theories of representation and interpretation that renewed italian literature and culture after fascism. i suggest that the transformation of the period's theories of literature is dialogic, emerging within postwar literary, cultural, political, and religious debates, and articulated through the contest of ideologies. new, hybrid principles of narrativity and hermeneutics result from the clash between competing notions of literary representation and intellectual engagement. chapter one addresses the most significant point of contention, the definition of realism, which authors alternately understand as the ethical imperative faithfully to memorialize the events of history, or as the invention of new truths through the process of literary creation. chapter two rethinks the dominant ideologies of literature's political intervention, its "impegno," suggesting that they are founded upon an unresolved conflict between descriptive accounts of culture's societal foundations and prescriptive calls for greater cultural intercession. chapter three re-interprets the debates over culture's complicity in fascism in light of the emerging consensus regarding postwar literature's borrowings from the culture of the fascist ventennio. chapter four argues that, in the accounts of postwar italian intellectuals, literature's political impact is thought not to reside in the text's capacity to inculcate a new belief system, but rather in its potential to explore and represent new modes of social consciousness, and to project a comprehensive social consciousness. the conclusion explores the implications of these discoveries for neorealist cinema and poetry, and for the postwar reception of the ideas of gramsci, lukìäåäìâåács, and sartre. this dissertation consists of three essays. the first chapter studies a firm's collateral choice and debt composition in a partial equilibrium setting of the credit market. the model that combines the costly state verification model and collateral constraints suggests that the credit market favors the type of debt that mitigates the credit frictions more efficiently. according to the model, the observed long-term trends in the us credit market can be explained by a steady improvement of uncollateralized lending in mitigating financial frictions. the empirical and narrative evidence supports the arguments. the second chapter compares the two approaches that model uncollateralized lending, the costly state verification and earnings-based borrowing constraints, under the same general equilibrium settings. the similarity in equilibrium conditions and implied dynamics suggest the earnings-based constraint with the excess return specification could be a useful approximation of the costly state verification. the third chapter examines the heterogeneous response of foreign exchange rates to the global temperature shocks under the incomplete market assumption. the research in this dissertation focuses on the synthesis and in vitro testing of structurally novel antibacterial agents derived from acylnitroso diels alder adducts. the striking structural similarity of ?-lactam antibacterial agents to isoxazolidines derived from acylnitroso diels alder adducts led to the hypothesis that appropriately elaborated isoxazolidines might act as a ?-lactam surrogate. in order to test this hypothesis, several isoxazolidines were synthesized and tested against e. coli x-580, which is a stain of e. coli that is hypersensitive to ?-lactam antibacterial agents, and were found to have activity. in order to increase the potency and broad spectrum antibacterial activity, additional isoxazolidines were synthesized which incorporate side chains which are analogous to physiologically relevant side chains that many effective ?-lactam antibiotics have. these side chains included phenylglycine and amino thiazol methoxy oxime (atmo). the current progress towards a diketopiperzine derived from an isoxazolidine is presented which could also exhibit antibacterial activity. the efforts towards an isoxazolidine containing an alcohol in the side chain are shown and the attachment of it to deferoxamine (dfo) which is a siderophore is proposed. chronic alcohol consumption contributes to fatty liver disease. my studies revealed that hepatic circadian clock is disturbed in the alcohol-induced hepatic steatosis, and effects of chronic alcohol administration upon the clock itself may contribute to steatosis. my studies also found that chronic alcohol consumption and liquid diet can differentially modulate the daily rhythmicity of locomotor and feeding behaviors; aspects that might contribute to disturbances in the circadian timing system and development of hepatic steatosis. inhibitor of dna binding 2 (id2) is a helix-loop-helix transcriptional repressor. my studies have demonstrated that id2 null mice have sex-specific enhancement of insulin sensitivity and elevated glucose uptake in skeletal muscle and brown adipose tissue. furthermore, i extend my studies on the characterization of the id2 null mouse metabolic phenotype under energy-rich diet challenge in sex-specific context. these data provides insights into the impact of id2 deficiency on metabolic homeostasis of mice in sexspecific manner. the kind of information we perceive influences what we remember in many ways. one profound perception is the influence of emotional content on memory for surrounding, nonemotional elements. a large body of evidence shows that affective information consistently causes memory to differ from memory of emotionally neutral information. this research examines retroactive and proactive influences on memory for neutral information during language comprehension in the presence of emotional, distinctive and event boundary information. findings suggest that an interaction between these two influences causes target information to be remembered better when emotional or distinctive information occurs without an event boundary (within the same event), but not when the emotional or distinctive information occurs across an event boundary, even though there is an overall benefit of the event boundary itself. this finding for emotional and distinctive information suggests that memory for narratives is complex and dependent on the situational factors of the narrative that influence the mental representation. cecoin5 is a heavy fermion superconductor with a highest known tc of 2.3 k. vortex lattice (vl) studies using small angle neutron scattering (sans) have shown a rich vl phase diagram with h // [0 0 1]. at low and intermediate fields, one sees a vl transition from hexagonal to rhombic to square symmetry. the transition can be explained on the basis of anisotropy effects and non-local corrections to the london model. as the applied field is increased, a reverse sequence of transition from square to rhombic to hexagonal symmetry is observed which shows that the four-fold anisotropy that stabilized the square phase is gradually reduced. the vl form factor which is a measure of the field contrast in the mixed state, shows an unconventional behavior with h // [0 0 1]. instead of an exponential decay as expected from a conventional superconductor, the form factor increases with the increase in the applied field and drops off just before entering the normal state. at low temperatures, our results show that competition between the parallel alignment of electron spins in the vortex cores and the antiparallel alignment demanded by d-wave pairing give rise to magnetized cores, which give the increase in form factor with h (pauli paramagnetic effects). however, the form factor falls near the upper critical field; the fall-off extends outside the proposed fulde-ferrell-larkin-occhinnikov (fflo) phase region and is believed to arise from the expansion of the magnetized cores. at higher temperatures, we observe a gradual crossover towards more conventional mixed state behavior. when the field is applied along the basal plane of the crystal, a single vl orientation is observed for h // [1 0 0], while a 90 degrees reorientation transition is found for h // [1 1 0]. for both field orientations and vl configurations we find a distorted hexagonal vl with an anisotropy, &#915; = 2.0 å± 0.05. the vl form factor shows strong pauli paramagnetic effects similar to what have previously been reported for h // [0 0 1]. at high fields, above which the upper critical field (hc2) becomes a first-order transition, an increased disordering of the vl is observed. the superconductor tmni2b2c possesses a significant four-fold basal plane anisotropy leading to a square vortex lattice (vl) at intermediate fields. however, unlike other members of the borocarbide superconductors, the anisotropy in tmni2b2c appears to decrease with increasing field evident by the vl transition from square to rhombic to hexagonal symmetry, similar to what was observed in cecoin5. we have used small angle neutron scattering measurements of the vl to study the field dependence of the anisotropy. our results provide a direct, quantitative measurement of the decreasing anisotropy. we attribute this reduction of the basal plane anisotropy to the strong pauli paramagnetic effects observed in tmni2b2c and a resulting expansion of vortex cores near hc2. co2 concentrations in the atmosphere have been steadily increasing over the years, mainly due to co2 being emitted from the burning of fossil fuels. the ever increasing concentration of co2 is starting to have substantial effects on the global climate and the effects will continue to multiply if the problem is not addressed. while the ideal would be to have all energy sources be carbon-neutral, coal will still be a major energy source for the foreseeable future. because of this, finding new and alternative processes for controlling co2 emissions becomes a vital necessity. post-combustion co2 capture is the most clear-cut and promising path to limiting carbon emissions but its implementation relies on the discovery of energy-efficient means of separating co2 from other flue gas components such as n2, o2, h2o and other trace gases. using the presently available amine absorption technologies, separating the co2 from the flue gas stream is estimated to consume more than 30% of the power produced by the plant, which is far above the theoretical minimum work needed. an alternative liquid absorbent is needed that overcomes the pitfalls of the amine absorbents, such as ionic liquids. ionic liquids (ils) are low-melting salts of bulky cations and anions and are effectively non-volatile. common ils physically absorb co2 selectively over o2 and n2, but the physical solubility of co2 in the il is too low to be practical. therefore, to achieve the chemical absorption seen in the amine absorbents but also keep the properties of ils, an amine group is tethered to the ionic liquid. in this work, we use density functional theory and first principles thermodynamics to describe the ionic liquid systems. we show that by tethering an amine functional group to the anion, such as an amino acid, on an ionic liquid, we are able to achieve a one co2 to one il reaction ratio, which is twice as much as an aqueous amine or tethering the amine functional group to the cation. this was corroborated by experimental data. unfortunately, when amino acid based ionic liquids react with co2, their viscosity increases significantly, making them undesirable for co2 capture. we then developed the n-aprotic heterocyclic anion (aha) ionic liquids for co2 capture. they are aromatic and react with co2 with a 1:1 reaction stoichiometry. when they react with co2, no acidic proton is produced, which corresponds to the viscosity staying the same. this is supported by experimental data. we have studied the use of attaching electron withdrawing substituent groups to the aha in order to tune its co2 reaction enthalpy (ìãh). depending on the substituent group and its location relative to the reactive nitrogen, we have been able significantly change the ìãh (-1 to -100 kj/mol). finally, we developed an isotherm model, based on a langmuir model, to predict the co2 isotherm of any aha based on its ìãh. we also used this model to predict the optimal ìãh at given conditions. this will aid in the process of choosing which proposed ahas to test experimentally. future work should involve experimentally testing the proposed ahas and computationally developing new ahas that can capture co2 with higher reaction ratios than proposed here. in today's world, many tests are conducted and completed on computers, leveraging the benefits of information technology. computer-based testing enables continuous assessment, which is considerably more convenient to test takers compared to the traditional paper-and-pencil test. however, it also raises concerns about the test security. for instance, examinees who took the test earlier might share the encountered items with other test takers, resulting in item bank leakage and endangering the test's validity and fairness. although strategies to detect and solve the issue of compromised items have been proposed and investigated, most solutions are computationally intensive and hence challenging to implement in real-time monitoring. to address this challenge, we present two novel models for detecting compromised items in this dissertation: one using response data, and the other using response time data. our proposed models consider the leakage rate to cover a broader range of scenarios, as opposed to many existing methods that assume an abrupt leakage after an item is compromised. as a result, our models not only flag the potentially compromised items but also provide an estimate of when they were compromised. we evaluate the effectiveness of our detection models using a simulation study and a real dataset from a large-scale operational computer-based test, and the results indicate that our methods achieve a high detection power while maintaining a nominal level of type-i error. additionally, we also develop an application for test practitioners to use the estimated leakage rate to safeguard test integrity, which significantly enhances test takers' ability estimation. overall, our proposed models provide a more comprehensive and efficient approach to detect compromised items, which can improve test security and fairness. time-varying predictors in multilevel models are a useful tool for longitudinal research, whether they are the research variable of interest or they are controlling for variance to allow greater power for other variables. however, standard recommendations to fix the effect of time-varying predictors may make an assumption that is unlikely to hold in reality and may influence results. this dissertation illustrates that treating the time-varying predictor as fixed may allow analyses to converge, but the analyses have poor coverage of the true fixed effect when the time-varying predictor has a random effect in reality. a second simulation study shows that treating the time-varying predictor as random may have poor convergence, except when allowing negative variance estimates. although negative variance estimates are uninterpretable, results of the simulation show that estimates of the fixed effect of the time-varying predictor are as accurate for these cases as for cases with positive variance estimates, and that treating the time-varying predictor as random and allowing negative variance estimates performs well whether the time-varying predictor is fixed or random in reality. because of the difficulty of interpreting negative variance estimates, two procedures are suggested for selection between fixed-effect and random-effect models: comparing between fixed-effect and constrained random-effect models with a likelihood ratio test or fitting a fixed-effect model when an unconstrained random-effect model produces negative variance estimates. the performance of these two procedures is compared. invasive species can substantially alter ecological communities and ecosystem processes. i examined whether contemporary evolution (evolution that occurs on ecological timescales) and parasitism within the invaded range affect the success and impacts of an invasive species, the rusty crayfish (orconectes rusticus). previous research indicates that both contemporary evolution and parasitism can be important; however, community ecologists still lack a broad understanding of how these factors affect communities. my research on contemporary evolution indicates that growth rate has diverged between the native and invaded ranges since o. rusticus were introduced to north temperate lakes. rapid individual growth, which leads to increased reproduction in crayfish, may be selected for in invasive populations because crayfish are introduced at low densities. faster growth in the invaded range contributes to the impacts of o. rusticus by allowing them to reach high densities and replace congeners. these findings suggest that including evolutionary potential in risk assessments may enhance our ability to predict invasion success and impacts. my research also indicates that parasitism affects o. rusticus invasion success and impacts. i found that trematode parasites (microphallus spp.) were associated with declines in o. rusticus population growth. i also examined the behavioral effects of microphallus on crayfish feeding, aggression, shelter use, and predator avoidance. infection substantially altered crayfish behavior, and had different effects on o. rusticus and its congeners. in a mesocosm experiment to test how these parasite-induced behavioral changes impact the benthic aquatic community, infected o. rusticus had a greater per-capita impact on macrophytes and macroinvertebrates than uninfected o. rusticus when fish were present, likely due to increased boldness. finally, i used a survey of anglers to investigate whether a change in missouri policy to prevent crayfish introductions would have the intended consequences of protecting game fish populations and the fishing industry. i found that banning crayfish from the bait trade is unlikely to reduce angler spending, but instead could increase the revenue generated by the fishing industry by protecting game fish populations. overall, my dissertation provides new information about the importance of contemporary evolution, parasitism, and human behavior in controlling invasion success and community composition. motivated by the emergence of new applications of networked, large-scale multiagent systems, we study several important and related problems in this area: asynchronous consensus (agreement) problems, formation tracking control, and switched linear control. the overall goal is to understand special challenges raised from information constraints and to develop robust control strategies which improve the stability and performance of such systems. we start our investigation with asynchronous consensus problems for discrete time multi-agent systems. in this setup, a number of agents update their states asynchronously by using (possibly outdated) information from their neighbors in order to reach an agreement regarding a certain quantity of interest. under fixed interaction topologies, we show that consensus can be reached with linear protocols. we further show that consensus is reachable under directional and time-varying topologies with nonlinear protocols. the confluent iteration graph is introduced to incorporate various communication assumptions and it proves to be fundamental in understanding the convergence of consensus processes. secondly, we study formation tracking problems which can be stated as multiple vehicles with nonlinear dynamics being required to follow reference trajectories while keeping a desired inter-vehicle formation pattern in time. we specify formations using the vectors of relative positions of neighboring vehicles and use consensusbased controllers for decentralized formation tracking control. the key idea is to combine consensus-based controllers with the cascaded approach to tracking control, resulting in a group of linearly coupled dynamical systems. we examine the stability properties of the closed loop system using cascaded systems theory and nonlinear synchronization theory. in particular, we identify a link between a property on the graph laplacian of the information structure and the formation stability. the last part of the dissertation is dedicated to switched systems, which are natural mathematical models for time-varying topologies among agents and are of theoretical interest on their own. by using tools from convex analysis, we provide a new proof to a necessary and sufficient stability condition for switched systems under arbitrarily switching. the switched lyapunov function is then combined with finslersìøåàå_ lemma to generate various lmi conditions for control synthesis and performance analysis of switched systems. the primary intent of this dissertation is to develop strategies to aggregate zintl ions containing transition metal fragments and/or atoms. development for such an endeavor began in the following manner: (1) identifying similarities with other fields of chemistry wherein successful aggregation was carried out (2) identifying suitable transition metal containing zintl clusters as precursors for aggregation (3) combining both suitable materials and already published techniques to aggregate zintl clusters (4) further improving the synthetic approaches presented to address the pitfalls in these syntheses. these steps will be covered in detail throughout this dissertation. after introducing the fundamentals of zintl chemistry, noble metal aggregation, and ligand protected clusters (chapter 1), the first attempt at aggregation using oxidation by solvent is presented (chapter 2). using solely solvent oxidation, in this case pyridine, in the presence of a transition metal fragment, cr(co)3, results in the isolation of the [bi7]3– anion. although the resulting anion did not contain a transition metal fragment, the solvent caused oxidation from its [bi2]2– parent, to generate a naked aggregated anion. following this result, we looked to applying noble metal aggregation approaches to transition metal-zintl clusters containing carbonyl ligands. using transition metal rich clusters as [bi3ni4(co)6]3–, we demonstrate the same approaches are applicable to zintl chemistry by generating the [bi12ni7(co)4]4– intermetalloid anion (chapter 3). furthermore, the species is unique in that it strongly resembles condensed polyhedra seen in transition metal clusters. the implications of this are discussed and the electronic structure elucidated. we further applied the noble metal aggregation approach to clusters deficient in carbonyl ligands. using this time [ni@sn9ni(co)]3– as a starting material we isolate the novel fused cluster as [sn14ni(co)]4– (chapter 4). unlike the previous bi/ni species, the [sn14ni(co)]4– anion is rationalized using modified wades-mingos rules for cluster bonding. it is also an educational example the differences that occur between the cluster bonding counts and cluster valence counts once clusters enlarge beyond spherical shapes. chapter 5, address the pitfalls of using naked clusters for aggregation by introducing the new developing field of ligand protected-zintl clusters generated from heterogeneous reactions. the breadth of knowledge is further expanded by using stannyl-halides to generate tri-substituted germanium clusters as [ge9{snr3}3]– (r= ipr, cy). these tri-substituted clusters are used as precursors to generate larger assemblies with the use of transition metals, pd(pph3)4 in this case. the generated [ge18pd3{er}6]2– (er=snipr3, sncy3, siipr3) "twinned icosahedra", contains a novel architecture and unique electronic structure. furthermore, the nature of the bound substituent in [ge18pd3{er}6] (er=snipr3, sncy3, siipr3) moieties can lead to positional isomerism that has not been observed before in main group deltahedral clusters. the phenomena observed between case are elucidated and rationalized. chapter 6, describes the further reactivity of both transition metal carbonyl and hypersilyl ligated zintl clusters. the reactions conducted, demonstrate that both types of clusters have unexplored reactivity and that modern organometallic synthetic approaches can be applied to them. this avenue of research holds great promise for further exploration.lastly, this tome ends with a summary and discussion of possible avenues of research. primarily focused on the generation of larger assemblies and exploration of different ligands for use in heterogeneous reactions. swarming is a surface-associated motility where bacteria spread in groups, often as a precursor to biofilm formation. the bacterium pseudomonas aeruginosa is known to swarm using its polar flagellum and a self-produced surfactant called rhamnolipid. this thesis details swarming in response to two types of environmental conditions: surface hardness and carbon source. it was found that swarm zone expansion and bacterial population are not linearly correlated during swarming and further that increased surface hardness significantly decreases rhamnolipid-dependent swarming. secondly, it was found that a rhamnolipid-deficient p. aeruginosa strain swarmed upon the addition of the carbon source glutamate. this is unexpected, as no previous rhamnolipid-deficient swarming has been documented for p. aerguinosa. a mutagenesis approach was used to find gene(s) responsible for this rhamnolipid-independent swarm phenotype by probing for mutants that negate the glutamate swarming effect. two thousand mutants were screened, twelve of which were found to not swarm with glutamate. exposure of dna to uv-light (260-320 nm) leads to the formation of two major photolesions between adjacent pyrimidine nucleobases, the cyclobutane pyrimidine dimer (cpd) and the (6-4) photoproduct (6-4pp). both originate from an ultrafast [2 + 2] cycloaddition and the process leads to the covalent linking between the two bases. this damage produces stalling of dna replication and transcription and causes errors in the genome leading to phenotypic display of skin cancer. many species contain enzymes capable of repairing these photolesions, however, humans do not and must rely on nucleotide excision repair to replace the bases. dna photolyase is an enzyme capable of binding to and repairing cpd photolesions. a redox active flavin cofactor (fadh-) found near the active site is capable of donating an electron into the cpd breaking orbital symmetry and leading to a breaking of the cyclobutane ring covalently linking the two bases. this repair mechanism is light dependant and highly efficient. as humans do not possess this enzyme, there is much interest in developing small molecules which can mimic dna photolyase. our group has developed an artificial photolyase which is capable to binding to cpds in water effecting repair. the work here builds upon previous studies by testing this artificial photolyase on duplex dna. (6-4) photolyase is an enzyme capable of repairing the 6-4pp. in contrast to the mechanism of cpd repair, little is known about mechanism employed by (6-4) photolyase. much debate exists in the literature on what this mechanism is, however, each proposed mechanism is lacking in experimental evidence and support. in this work we use high level electronic structure methods to study the energetic landscape of the proposed mechanisms both in solution and in the (6-4) photolyase active site. by using these methods we conclude that none of the currently proposed mechanisms are energetically feasible and a new, two proton repair mechanism is proposed for the repair of 6-4pp. much work has been done by scientists in modifying the nucleic backbone of nucleic acids. however, only a few unnatural nucleic acids are known to form stable duplexes. the newly discovered glycol nucleic acid (gna) is perhaps the simplest backbone scheme capable of duplex formation. it consists of a phosphodiester backbone connected by repeating propylene glycol subunits and is completely acyclic. gna forms duplexes far exceeding the thermal stabilities of dna with melting temperatures ì¢"¡è 20ìü ác greater. thermodynamic analysis shows that gna duplex formation is entropically less penalizing than the same process in dna and rna. this is a counterintuitive notion considering the acyclic nature of the gna backbone. this study uses molecular dynamics (md) simulations to study the structure and dynamics of dsgna and uncovers a coiling/ uncoiling mode which explains the decreased entropic penalty of annealing in comparison to natural nucleic acids. md simulations are also used to study the arrangement of porphyrin base pairs incorporated into gna and support the notion of a slipped cofacial geometry of adjacent porphyrin moieties which has been speculated from the experimental data. the relationship between optical aberrations and coherent structures in the turbulent boundary layer is investigated in a series of experiments. a statistical model is derived using the 'extended' strong reynolds analogy that allows the total temperature to vary and also presumes pressure fluctuations in the boundary layer are negligible compared to temperature fluctuations. this model is compared to experimental results taken of a moderately heated and cooled boundary layer. the effect of elevation angle on the amount of optical aberration is also investigated and discussed in relation to coherent structures. two-dimensional wavefronts through a single boundary layer are presented along with average correlation length results. the distribution in time of the optical aberrations is analyzed and considered in terms of communication applications. this work concludes with a discussion of coherent vortical structures and how they are related to optical aberrations, and the relative contribution of pressure and temperature fluctuations to wavefront distortions. we develop a number of tools to analyze the geometry and topology of leaf spaces quotients of singular riemannian foliations with closed leaves. this expands upon and gives a purely geometric footing to similar tools used to study orbit spaces of isometric group actions. when applied to a given leaf space, these tools not only help describe the geometry/topology of the quotient, but can also reveal information about the leaves of the singular riemannian foliation and the manifolds which admit such foliations. the majority of the work is done for leaf spaces with positive curvature (in the comparison sense), as the original motivation was to systematically study singular riemannian foliations as was done for positively curved manifolds with symmetry. triaxial nuclear shapes are a very rare phenomena that are manifested experimentally via their unique signatures chiral rotation and wobbling motion. the present work was aimed at studying these exotic rotational modes in two different regions of the nuclear chart viz. a ∼ 130 and 190. within the a ∼ 130 region, the primary focus of the present work was to study the 135pr nucleus. this nucleus was the first case of wobbling observed outside of the well-studied a ∼ 160 region. aided with a high-statistics measurement using the gammasphere array at the argonne national laboratory, the present work was able to observe a second phonon (nω = 2) wobbling band in this nucleus. the nature of the wobbling bands was confirmed by the characteristic predominantly e2 nature of the nω+1 → nω linking transitions based on angular distribution measurements. these results sufficiently established the presence of wobbling motion in the a ∼ 130 region, independent of any particular spin or deformation. in addition to the nω = 1 and nω = 2 wobbling bands, two chiral-partner bands with the configuration πh11/2 × νh11/2^2 have also been observed in 135pr. angular distribution analyses of the ∆i = 1 connecting transitions between the two chiral partners revealed a mixed m1/e2 nature. based on these observations, 135pr has been proposed to be the first observed case of a chiral wobbler wherein chiral rotation has been observed in coexistence with wobbling motion.beyond the a ∼ 130 region, the present work has also investigated the a ∼ 190 region to seek for evidence of nuclear wobbling motion. experiments using the gammasphere array were performed to populate levels in the 187 au nucleus and a detailed analysis revealed two separate wobbling bands built on (πh9/2)1 and (πh1/2)−1 configurations. based on angular distribution measurements, the ∆i = 1, e2 nature of the nω+1 → nω transitions was verified. the two structures so-observed were found to exhibit different types of wobbling: transverse and longitudinal. 187au has hence been observed as a case of the first cleanly established longitudinal wobbler and of the possible coexistence of both forms of wobbling, a phenomenon never observed before.theoretical interpretations for the above work have been done within the framework of the particle rotor model, the quasiparticle triaxial rotor model and the triaxial projected shell model and a good agreement with the experimental values has been obtained. tocqueville thought of himself as a liberal, but one of "a new kind." although scholars have offered illuminating and instructive accounts of tocqueville's political thought, the foundations of his innovative liberalism remain obscure. the intent of this study is to begin to uncover these foundations and to articulate both the promise and perils of his new liberalism. one of the central findings of this study is that a crucial aspect of his liberalism has been overlooked. the current scholarly consensus is that tocqueville rejects the state-of-nature heuristic of early modern political thought. in contrast to this orthodox view, i maintain that state-of-nature theory serves as one of the foundations of his liberalism.overall, this study finds that there are three primary intellectual foundations for tocqueville's liberalism: the thought of pascal, montesquieu and rousseau. tocqueville communes with each thinker and puts each in dialogue with the others. the thought of one illuminates and completes the thought of the others. all three, however, needed to be improved or completed by tocqueville himself. like pascal, tocqueville is concerned with the needs of the soul; but in contrast to pascal, he is more concerned with political life. like montesquieu, tocqueville is concerned with individual security; but in contrast to montesquieu, he is more melancholic, less satisfied with modern commerce and liberty. like rousseau, tocqueville longs for a more robust form of political community and freedom; but in contrast to rousseau, he is more restrained, less willing to abandon individual rights for civic solidarity. in sum, tocqueville is a political pascal, a melancholic montesquieu, and restrained rousseau.i conclude that to be tocquevillian, one must go beyond tocqueville. pascal, montesquieu, and rousseau were foundational to tocqueville's liberalism, but none of them were an absolute authority. tocqueville had to compare their ideas and apply them to new circumstances. we must do the same with tocqueville. new facts, new ideas must be used to weigh and evaluate his liberalism. ultimately, tocqueville's new liberalism should provide scholars with more questions than answers. a simple return to tocqueville will not resolve the problems we face, but a tentative return may elucidate the questions that we need to investigate. a collection of short stories that explores contemporary artistic subcultures in chicago and other american cities. how does activists' knowledge predict the sustainability of a social movement organization? i answer this question using 4.5 years of full participation and activist ethnography in three distinct versions of the south bend, indiana chapter of the black lives matter global network (blmsb 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0). my participation in this nascent organization helped me develop a theory of knowledge convergence using an activist knowledge framework to explain variation between the three versions. the theory suggests that activists enter organizations with preexisting understandings of the world which they deploy collectively towards understanding the issues at hand. i found that activists predominantly drew on one of four knowledge sources (local-experiential, local-theoretical, global-experiential, global-theoretical) which i called their default. to sustain the organization, i argue that activists deploy their default knowledge towards bringing everyone into a central knowledge convergence zone.chapter three investigates blmsb 1.0 and addresses the question, "why did blm-south bend die?" i argue that even without white people, white supremacy infiltrated the organization. a knowledge hierarchy developed that privileged those with global-theoretical knowledge, which was positioned closer to whiteness, and doomed any attempts at knowledge convergence. chapter four investigates blmsb 2.0 to answer the question, "how did activist knowledge contribute to blm-south bend's reemergence and sustainability?" toward this end, i introduce the concept of a frame anchor. some issues can be so important that they anchor all activists' knowledge which legitimizes all four sources. this can expedite the knowledge convergence process.in chapter six, i answer the question, "why is it difficult to organize when resources and opportunities are abundant?" i argue that six problems (three concerning the political opportunity and three concerning the influx of resources) destabilized blm-south bend's knowledge convergence. therefore, not only did the activists work to capitalize from the political opportunity but also needed to reestablish knowledge convergence.overall, knowledge is an important social movement activism dimension that has largely been ignored in the scholarship. my focus on activists' knowledge digs into many of the process that social movement scholars take for granted and provides a framework for activists to sustain their nascent organizations. underemployment, while varied in its operationalization, at its core refers to substandard employment. underemployment is a particularly interesting measure of labor market status for college graduates because it reflects the relationship between one's level of education and their expected job status within the labor market. underemployment is an interesting predicament for college students in that it contradicts the goals people had in pursuing a college degree in the first place. various factors contribute to inequalities among college graduates in the labor market from schools attended, to major choice, or differences in hiring networks. racial and gender disparities in labor market outcomes such as in pay, hiring, and promotion are also well documented. racial and gender disparities in education have often been documented as a source for disparities in labor market outcomes. some hold that racial and gender disparities in the labor market reflect racial and gender disparities in educational credentials (credential theory). the idea is that because minorities are less likely to have the same credentials as whites that this disparity in education will correspondingly reflect a racial disparity in pay. similarly, the gender pay gap has been cited as a reflection of men and women selecting into college majors that have disparate economic returns. naturally, these disparities in labor market outcomes are reflected in racial and gender disparities in underemployment. limiting the sample to college graduates, the hypothesis that gender and racial disparities in the labor market are mediated by college major choice was first tested to see if college major mediates the effect of race or gender on underemployment. the author will also look among types of majors to see if racial and gender disparities persist within disciplines. estimating the extent of damage caused by natural disasters is necessary for implementing effective recovery measures. damage detection from high-resolution satellite or aerial imagery for post-disaster analysis has been a major research effort in the past decade. a careful analysis of images from before and after an event facilitates rapid detection and assessment of building damage. this work presents a first-of-its-kind system for automatic damage assessment. the proposed framework for damage estimation consists of three steps. first the pre-event and post-event images are registered automatically. a surf-based feature extraction and matching technique is used for automatic image registration. next, the objects of interests such as buildings are extracted from pre-storm images. a novel robust algorithm for building detection is proposed and evaluated. lastly, change detection is performed and damage is classified using supervised learning algorithms. relevant features that reflect the spectral properties of damaged buildings are identified and used to classify the damage level into various states. on a standard reading, a major result of kant's critical philosophy is the demotion of theoretical reason to a merely ideal and regulative role. yet kant also maintains that there is a legitimate real use of pure reason which survives critique and indeed is indispensable although his treatment of this topic is scattered and less well discussed than his negative remarks. this essay seeks to do justice to the systematic ambition of kant's positive account of theoretical reason. the real use of reason can be reduced neither to a mere empirical aid to science, nor to a source of merely 'ideal' speculations, nor to a purely logical framework for theory construction – even as reason does also play each of these roles.part i provides a taxonomy and evaluation of kant's systematic theory of the real use of reason, focusing in turn on reason's conative, cognitive, and explanatory aspects. special attention is given to case studies in kant's treatment of the physical and life sciences. through a historical and contextual reconstruction beginning with his earliest works, part ii explores kant's critique of earlier accounts of reality, natural purposiveness, and of theoretical and practical accounts of the world. in each case, kant does not simply abandon the heritage of rationalist metaphysics, but provides it with a new and systematic justificatory framework: his own account of theoretical reason as a faculty that can think absolute totality. one of the key objectives in evolutionary biology is to understand the underlying sources of phenotypic variation in natural populations. natural genetic variation is essential for organisms to adapt to their local environment and to changing environments. studying phenotypic and genetic variation will enable us to understand how natural selection shapes genetic architecture and phenotypic variation among natural populations. little is known about the patterns of genetic variation underlying adaptive traits. using restriction site-associated dna sequencing (rad-seq), and re-sequencing methods, i investigated genome-wide patterns of genetic variation in between and within populations of the freshwater zooplankton daphnia pulex. daphnia makes an ideal organism to study the relationship between phenotypic and genetic variation because it has been used as a model system for ecology and quantitative genetics for decades. the availability of a complete reference genome, our genomic data combined with phenotypic data will increase our understanding of the complex interaction between genomic structure and phenotypic variance. in this study i used a combination of phenotypic data from a common-garden life-history assay and snps derived from rad-seq and re-sequencing data to examine populations of daphnia pulex for genome-wide analysis. placed in historical context conventional of 19th-century sentimental narration, this paper explores a psychoanalytic approach to understanding harriet jacobs' gothic slave narrative. during metastasis, tumor cells dissociate from the primary tumor, disseminate through the vasculature, arrest in the capillary bed, and colonize secondary organs. although at all of these stages surviving tumor cells hold a potential for colonization, mechanical arrest is particularly important since cell entrapment is absolutely necessary for tumor outgrowth. however, the subcellular response of circulating tumor cells (ctcs) to the extreme shear stress exerted during transit through the vasculature prior to and during mechanical arrest remains largely unknown. in this work, we present an integrative platform that combines the use of a microfluidic device and a computational model. together, they serve as a tunable system to reliably reproduce the mechanical arrest of tumor cells and quantitatively determine their physical response to precisely controlled shear stress. the design of our platform is based on biological observations of ctc arrest within the mouse brain microcapillary bed, and was validated to be physiologically relevant for the animal model used. using this platform, we show for the first time, an insight into subcellular responses of ctcs at the stage of mechanical arrest. we found that during mechanical arrest single tumor cells experience extreme morphological deformations, an increase in membrane stress, and increased mitochondrial fission, all dependent on the magnitude of fluid shear stress applied. in this work, we demonstrated for the first time that shear stress can trigger mitochondrial fragmentation in ctcs, followed by increased cleavage of pink1, which together serve as a self-protective mechanism to inhibit mitochondrial clearance. a key finding presented in this work is the regulatory role that pten has on maintaining the mitochondrial network structure and continued mitophagy. loss of pten resulted in increased mitochondrial fission and parkin downregulation, which together with the cleavage of pink1 demonstrate enhanced protection from mitophagy upon exposure of ctcs to shear stress, suggesting it as a self-protective mechanism to inhibit mitochondrial clearance during transit through the vasculature and mechanical arrest. although not fully investigated in this work, mitochondrial fission is speculated to be drp1 independent. an interesting finding was the loss of viability in pten deficient ctcs, which opposes the protective role that mitochondrial fragmentation and mitophagy inhibition offer. our data suggests that loss of pten may induce an increased fragility in plasma membrane upon exposure to shear stress, while simultaneously activating pro-survival mitochondrial dynamics. together, our investigation brings out a novel mechanism where ctcs show an adaptive response to shear stress through remodeling of mitochondria and inhibition of mitophagy, and where loss of pten plays an essential role modulating parkin expression to sustain cell viability during transit through the vasculature and mechanical arrest. this study explores the structural and functional continuities between medieval monasticism and early anabaptism. anabaptists have traditionally been designated as the "radicals" or the "left wing" of the reformation, with the implication that they departed even further from rome than did the followers of luther, calvin and zwingli. however, even in the 16th century, contemporaries noted that a kind of similitude existed between the anabaptist "radicals" and their enemies in rome. examination of the writings of early anabaptists on adult baptism alongside the writings of monastic authors shows that structural similarities do indeed exist between monks committed to rome and anabaptists who rejected infant baptism. these writings also reveal significant borrowing and transformation of medieval mystical themes and values, in particular gelassenheit, a concept adopted from medieval german mysticism. this study argues that it is the very transformation of gelassenheit among early anabaptists which allowed them to create communities which came to resemble monastic communities, built around the vows taken by believers at their baptism. this communal identity formation took place in a context of nearly constant persecution, leading to martyrdom being posited as the ultimate responsibility and goal of the baptismal vow. this study focuses on three groups of texts: the writings of two influential german anabaptist leaders: balthasar hubmair and pilgram marpeck who wrote respectively on individual and ecclesial development in the movement and a collection of hymns penned by the followers of phillip plener while they were imprisoned in the castle dungeon at passau. these three groups of texts, written at different points in the anabaptist story provide three glimpses into critical ways in which key figures in this movement utilized and transformed fundamentally medieval notions regarding baptism, martyrdom and gelassenheit. they help to explain how those who purportedly wanted nothing to do with "monkish" things nonetheless formed communities which resembled monastic communities. in their attempt to return to the church of christ and the apostles, the anabaptists adopted and adapted key medieval concepts to create something innovative. this dissertation studies freedom under a series of emancipations in the colony of santo domingo that were variously unrecorded, impotent, planned, and successful. it explains how revolutionary ideology, custom, and the emerging state influenced the freedom, enslavement, and labor of ostensibly-free people of african descent from 1768-1844. the dissertation expands what is considered an emancipation to include events in 1795, 1801, 1805, and 1822, all key moments when the future of slavery came into question. these emancipations arose as the spanish colony fell under the political and military control of first the french republic and later, haiti. the dissertation shows that the colony's first three multiple emancipations descended unevenly and transformed slave-holding rather than ending it. freedom's meaning also changed under these emancipations, as slave owners amplified racial differences to draw free and freed people of african descent back into slavery. esclavos que fueron, those who were slaves, is how one parish priest identified freed people in the decade after the colony's final emancipation during unification with neighboring haiti. the experience of former enslavement in santo domingo marked men and women as racially different at a time when elites circulated myths of racial harmony. the synthesis and characterization of hydrogen-bonded cobalt amine-disulfonate frameworks was attempted. syntheses were carried out either through evaporation of aqueous mixtures of the starting materials or through slow diffusion of the starting materials in a two-solvent system. crystals were successfully synthesized from four metal centers (hexaamminecobalt, aquopentaaminecobalt, tris(ethylenediamine)cobalt and diaquobis(ethylenediamine)cobalt) and four organic linkers 1,2-ethanedisulfonate, 1,5-naphthalenedisulfonate, 2,6-naphthalenedisulfonate and 4,4'-biphenyldisulfonate). four structures will be described and discussed herein. three structures take on layered motifs. compounds 1 and 2 form sheets of hexa and aquopentamminecobalt, respectively, that are interconnected by galleries of disulfonates. compound 3 forms a layered structure of tris(ethylenediamine)cobalt sheets with two different disulfonate gallery arrangements, one of which forms one-dimensional channels. compound 4 forms interconnected tubes of tris(ethylenediamine)cobalt with the disulfonates filling the interiors of the tubes. compounds 2-4 display pi-pi interactions between disulfonates.every structure is held together by hydrogen bonds and contains solvent guests. this dissertation focuses on coupling experimental applications with molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the effects of applied electric fields on systems susceptible to them. experimentally, this work is on the application of raman enhancement techniques with atomic force microscopy (afm) and microano electrode environments. more specifically, tip enhanced raman scattering (ters) was used to obtain high spatial resolution spectral information at interfaces. on the computational side, static electric fields were simulated in atomistic and coarse-grained simulations. the primary focus of the development was to model systems that could be correlated to the experimental work for a deeper understanding of the experimental results. electrostatic effects of ca2+ on lipid vesicle stability the divalent cation, ca2+ is known to cause instability in unilaminar lipid vesicles composed of dipalmitoylphosphatidylserine (dpps), while dipalmitoylphosphatidylserine (dppc) vesicles remain mostly unchanged. through the use of laser transmission spectroscopy (lts), ca2+ induced rupture and fusion of dpps vesicles was monitored. lts has improved size resolution, relative to dynamic light scattering, enabling highly accurate sizing of the vesicles before and after ca2+ addition. ca2+ promotes dpps vesicle fusion to a maximum vesicle size of approximately 320 nm, while only a slight osmotic swelling was observed with dppc vesicles. a free energy model was derived to explain the energy of the maximum vesicle size observed. it was found that at 320 nm, the energy penalty for dpps is much larger than that of dppc, leading to rupture. the formation of lipid bilayers at the bottom of the solution was verified by afm experiments. plasmonic stark effect shifts in the observed cyanide (cn) stretch frequency at the surface of fabricated micro-electrodes and the resulting sers activity were investigated to correlate an apparent stark tuning within plasmonic fields. cyanide was co-deposited on the electrodes as a result of the gold plating process. as the electrodes became rougher and displayed more sers activity, the cyanide peak at 2250 cm-1 shifted to the blue. this was directly correlated with sers activity from a common reporter, thiophenol. this effect was further explored through a controlled formation of a plasmonic gap junction between a nanoparticle ters tip and the deposited gold surface. the plasmonic field in the gap junction resulted in a 129 cm-1 blue shift in the cn stretch frequency. isotropic-nematic phase effects on the cn peak of 5cb this project dealt with understanding the local environment of a liquid crystal through a nitrile reporter in the molelcular structure. compuationally, this was done with molecular simulations of condensed-phase 5cb with applied external fields. as the field strength was increased, the system underwent an isotropic to nematic phase transition. this phase change was accompanied by a red shift of ~2.3 cm-1 in the cn peak position. ab intio calculations were performed, showing a similar effect with a red shift of ~2.5 cm-1. we suggest that the shift is caused by an anti-caging effect when the molecule is in the nematic phase. effect of nano-confined electric field on water water was used as an initial test of applied fields with strengths on the order of those achievable in the experimental scheme. these simulations were used to investigate structure (eg. g(r)) and dynamic properties (eg. rotational diffusion) of liquid water. these data were combined with raman mapping parameters developed by the skinner group to study the effect of electric fields on the raman spectrum. it was found that electric fields have very little effect on liquid water because the internal fields in liquid water are orders of magnitude larger than static fields that can be applied experimentally. the data showed frequency distributions were largely unchanged as a function of applied field. with the increasing world population and limited fossil energy resources, technologies that produce fresh water and clean energy in sustainable ways have become hot topics. fuel cells, such as proton exchange membranes fuel cells (pemfcs) using proton exchange membranes (pems) as solid electrolyte are regarded as promising clean energy devices for vehicle propulsion, stationary and portable power with high energy conversion, decent energy density and sustainability. among the various methods for water purification, a membrane-based technology, i.e., reverse osmosis (ro), is the most widely used membrane-based technology for desalination applications due to their cost effectiveness and high energy efficiency. for both pemfc and ro technologies, polyelectrolyte membranes or ion-selective membranes represent a core enabling component. novel membranes are in high demand in both fields to address the challenges that existing membranes are facing, such as insufficient chemical stability (e.g., chlorine resistance for ro membranes) and mechanical stability (excessive swelling for pems). sulfonated polysulfones have been recognized as attractive candidates for pems and ro due to their good chemical, thermal, mechanical stabilities and diverse structure varieties. however, the classic bisphenol a (bis-a)or biphenol (bp)-based sulfonated polysulfones showed inferior proton conductivities and oxidative stabilities for fuel cell application, and their water/salt selectivity still has a lot of room for improvement as ro membranes. as such, the development of new sulfonated polysulfones is of high interest to advance fuel cells and membrane desalination applications to a new level.to address these challenges, this dissertation reports the development of a novel series of high-free-volume ionic polymers containing bulky pentiptycene or phenolphthalein-based cardo units. previous study in our group showed that incorporating triptycene units into sulfonated polysulfones could effectively enhance fuel cell and desalination performance due to the presence of unique molecular internal free volume intrinsic to the triptycene units. in this regard, we are motivated to extend the design of sulfonated polysulfone to include an even bulkier and more hierarchical iptycene unit-pentiptycene. given more open clefts and free volume to facilitate small molecules transport, pentiptycene-based sulfonated polysulfones are highly promising to further enhance the performance of pemfc and ro membranes.to expand the spectrum of membrane materials with diverse functionality, this dissertation also reported a novel platform of phenolphthalein-based polysulfones for high-performance pemfc and water purifications. phenolphthalein, well-known as a ph indicator, provides tremendous opportunities to achieve multifunctional polymeric materials via derivation or grafting reactions through the heterocyclic pendant lactone. various strategies were explored to engineer the phenolphthalein-based polymers with a variety of functionality and morphologies such as cross-linking, multi-block copolymers, comb-shape polymers and their combinations, which, correspondingly, exhibited a wide range of tunable pemfc and water purification performance to allow for establishing the fundamental structure-property relationships for these new membrane materials. in the first chapter, i estimate the toughness of local competition over time. to derive this estimate, i extend a generalized monopolistic competition model with variable markups. this model generates insights that allow me to measure competition as the sensitivity of weighted-average markup to changes in the number of competitors using directly observable variables. i then use confidential census data from 1997 to 2016 for the empirical estimation, which shows that local competition in the u.s. has decreased on average in non-tradable industries during this time period.in my second essay, i study the effect of the recent increase in productivity dispersion on aggregate tfp. i hypothesize that rising revenue productivity dispersion results from rising technical productivity dispersion. i quantitatively evaluate the consequences of such changes using a calibrated oligopolistic competition model, in which markups endogenously respond to productivity dispersion and lead to misallocation. by first calibrating the model to the u.s. manufacturing sector in 1997, then feeding in the observed trend in revenue productivity dispersion, aggregate tfp initially increases then declines when revenue productivity dispersion is 1.47 times the 1997 level. then i provide evidence in support of the initial hypothesis that it is the rise in true productivity dispersion as opposed to a rise in wedges which has led to higher revenue productivity dispersion in recent decades. in the third chapter, i study firm dynamics in a developing country context. specifically, i estimate a reduced form model that shows how firms adjust their factors of production to shocks of different duration. using this model, i show that there are asymmetric responses of labor and capital to different types of shocks. firms increase employment growth and reduce capital growth when being hit with transitory shocks and vice versa with permanent shocks. this finding seems to make sense in a developing country context, where firms face loose labor regulations and binding financial constraints. with the prevalence of multi-user environments and distributed applications, the traditional identity of hosts (e.g., ip addresses and port numbers) becomes less precise in describing what is going on in the networks. instead, users, applications and data have received increasing attention from the perspective of enterprise network security and management. precisely identifying who is doing what on an enterprise network has become an extremely challenging task. this dissertation presents a visualization tool called enavis (enterprise network activities visualization). through collection of the context in terms of the actual users and applications associated with network connections and smarter visual analytics, enavis aids a real-world administrator in allowing them to more efficiently manage and gain insight about the connectivity between hosts, users, applications and data access, offering significant streamlining of the management process. challenges posed by the above context-based analysis include increased information dimensions, lack of clean training data, and highly dynamic nature of host-user-application (hua). besides the ability to visualize various combinations of hua, the contribution of this study lies on its exploration and evaluation of the viability and efficacy of a unified approach by incorporating algorithmic data mining methods with interactive visual exploration process. the proposed data analysis algorithms can provide intelligence to start and guide an investigation process while the proposed visual transformations brings in experts' domain knowledge to the security and management problems that are infeasible by existing machine learning approaches. in particular, a hierarchical similarity and differential visualization framework is developed, which starts with the evolution of inter-graph states, adapts to the dynamics of individual nodes and edges of hua context graphs, and concludes with the analysis of community evolutions. through novel graph construction and transformation as well as modeling, quantification and visual investigation of the key similarities or differences among the important components of hua graphs, spatio-temporal anomalies of user and application behaviors that are usually unknown or hard to define in advance can now be effectively detected. more importantly, the underlying causes for these abnormal activities can be found and analyzed in a time-efficient manner through intelligent and interactive visualization. through examples and case studies, we demonstrate how similarity and dynamics can be effectively visualized and understood to provide insight with regards to network security and management. increasing renewable integration in the electricity grid has become a major social and policy goal. however, accommodating large shares of intermittent energy sources in the electricity mix imposes challenges to the maintenance of a reliable grid structure. this dissertation aims to identify how to achieve a grid that can deliver reliable on-demand electricity, while still increasing renewable participation. to that end, we develop strategies which provide economic incentives to increase grid flexibility at the generation, transmission, and distribution levels, aiming at enabling higher penetration of renewable resources. we first focus our analysis on the optimal strategies of generators in the wholesale electricity market. in this context, we propose the design of a new market structure which seeks to properly compensate flexible energy sources that can modify their production quickly to counterbalance renewable variability. through the proposed market, renewable generators can hedge against their own production uncertainty by having contracts with flexible energy sources that can set aside some reserve to be used in case of renewable shortages. focusing on natural gas power plants (ngpps) as providers of flexibility, we show that these contracts lead to higher renewable participation in the market, while being economically viable for the ngpps. we then extend this work to designing contracts between renewables and energy storage systems. our analysis reveals that these contracts can serve as an entry point for storage technologies in the electricity market, providing an additional source of income to these sources when they are still too expensive to extensively participate in the wholesale market. at the transmission level, we analyze the power flow constraints in an electricity grid to characterize the set of feasible trades in this network. by comparing power trades with pairwise trades typically studied in economics, we study the network externalities imposed by power trades, aiming to provide insights for an economically sustainable expansion of the grid to integrate renewables. lastly, we propose a network-constrained framework to set energy prices for flexible consumers in power distribution systems. for each node in the network, we show that voltage and current shadow costs have a cumulative effect that depends both on the upstream path to the substation and on the downstream demand level. why and in what ways is it permitted to humans to own anything at all, privately or otherwise? this dissertation draws out and systematizes general principles from across the christian tradition to answer this fundamental question. it offers, in other words, a christian theory of property: identifying key principles from patristic discourse; how these principles are explicated and systematized in twelfthand thirteenth-century canon lawyers and theologians; and why this tradition offers a compelling lens to interpret catholic social teaching.for the christian tradition, property is a political and only secondarily an economic institution, aimed at the achievement and preservation of political and moral ends in human social life and only secondarily at economic values like productivity, efficiency, and development. the foundational principles are consistent across basil, ambrose, augustine, and chrysostom: the earth and all things belong to god (psalm 24:1); god has given all things for the sustenance of each person; and property is a power of distribution and not personal use. grounded in these principles, the scholastics hold that property is something invented by humans to preserve god's intentions for the world. property is, in other words, a convention, aimed at preserving the principles of natural equity and equality and the sufficiency and liberty of each person—what i call in this dissertation the natural law of common dominion. catholic social teaching's (cst) position on property suffers from a lack of clarity and clear connection to this long christian tradition. since leo xiii's use of a lockean labor-mixing theory of property in rerum novarum, there is a tendency to read cst on property as lockean. in the penultimate chapter i show why locke offers an unsuitable lens for interpreting cst: his approach is logically incoherent, conducive to imperialist thought and practice, and, contrary to the patristic and scholastic traditions, holds that property is primarily a power of personal use. in the final chapter, i offer an interpretation of cst from rerum novarum to fratelli tutti, showing how the theory of property i recover from early church and medieval sources can make sense of this diverse body of literature and many of its diverse commitments, from the social character of property to its commitment to the self-determination of peoples. the transport dynamics for two membrane based separation processes, forward osmosis (fo) and facilitated diffusion (fd), are studied. a three-pronged approach is pursued to assist in the design of these two systems: an analytical model describes performance as a function of membrane properties and operating parameters; numerical solutions of the governing equations corroborate the model; and bench-scale experimental modules demonstrate the ability of the model to predict performance. the effective operation of fo and fd modules requires that operating conditions be chosen based on the membrane and treated streams; the derived analytical models are vital in aiding these design choices.fo processes are an emerging set of technologies that show promise in the treatment of complex and impaired water streams. in this study, the derived forward osmosis model ascertains membrane selectivity and draw solute concentration as the dominant factors that regulate the extent of water recovery and solute rejection. this model expresses the performance (e.g., recovery rate and separation factors) in terms of operating conditions (e.g., the flow rates and concentrations of the inlet solutions) and membrane transport properties (e.g., the hydraulic and solute permeability coefficients).fd processes could enhance the extraction of deleterious dilute contaminants from water supplies; in these processes, membranes separate molecules based on chemical factors, rather than physical factors. in this study, polymeric membranes that exhibit fd are investigated. an analytical model that relates the performance (e.g., selective solute transport) to membrane properties (e.g., thickness, binding capacity) and operating parameters (e.g., feed solute concentration, oscillation frequency) of these inherently unsteady-state systems, is developed. the solute binding capacity and thickness of the membrane define the asymptotic limit for enhanced selectivity in these systems. therefore, thin membranes that possess high solute binding capacities are needed to push the development of these chemically-active membranes further. the analytical models derived for fo and fd processes are reinforced by numerical algorithms that solve their respective governing equations and by experimental results that demonstrate the models ability to predict performance. specifically, multifunctional membranes for fd processes (which consist of a responsive gate layer that is coated onto a reactive matrix) and cellulose acetate membranes for fo modules (which are commercially available) are used to corroborate the assertions derived from their respective model. in the course of an enterprise cloud migration effort, engineers often rely on domain knowledge or employ a heuristic approach when allocating resources to workloads. while this approach may be sufficient for the initial lift, it is an inefficient strategy for ongoing data center operations in the cloud. it increases the risk of over-provisioning, which results in increased total cost of ownership. it also increases the risk of under-provisioning, which increases the potential for service level agreement violations. this research presents an analytic approach to workload resource allocation in the cloud. it presents techniques to analyze and model the characteristics and patterns of workloads within a cloud computing environment. it also presents an approach with which to learn from prior workload behavior and prescribe an optimal resource allocation scheme or optimization policy based on set objectives and constraints. finally, the work presents an approach to predict how workload characteristics will change as a result of variations in allocated resource parameters. this is critical in order to understand the impact of proposed optimization policies, so they can be validated before being implemented in real world environments.workload modeling and resource optimization in cloud environments is challenging for several reasons. some of these reasons include challenges due to the abstraction and overhead presented by the virtualization layer, the lack of clarity with and absence of sufficient system-level trace-logs that correlate with performance, the complexity and variability of workloads and a lack of effective standards for workload classification and forecasting. this research takes these challenges into account and presents mitigating approaches to them. the overall goal of this project is to design, synthesize and apply cholesterol-based molecular probes that would aid in the understanding of cholesterol trafficking disorders. one such probe is a novel fluorescent cholesterol mimic that would serve as a general tool to track cholesterol movement in live cells or identify cholesterol localization in fixed cells. the other probes are cholesterol-based cross-linker molecular probes that consist of two cholesterol units are linked from head-to-tail. our hypothesis behind this probe design is that these cross-linker probes can be used to identify and isolate protein pairs that participate in the transfer of cholesterol. initially, these probes will be studied in the context of niemann-pick type c (npc) disease since the proteins that are involved in the transport of cholesterol have been well studied. once we have proven that this probe design works, we can utilize these types of probes in studies of other lipid storage diseases such as tay-sachs disease and progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis. although moore's law held for many decades, the gap between moore's prediction and current capability has become larger. as cost and performance benefits associated with moore's law scaling slow, researchers are studying alternative architectures (e.g., based on analog and/or spiking circuits) and/or computational models (e.g., convolutional and recurrent neural networks) to perform application level tasks faster, more energy efficient and/or more accurately.one one side, more domain-specific architectures are proposed, where a hardware-centric approach is used to tailored the architecture to a specific problem. these type of domain specific problem can exploit the parallelism for the specific domain, and make better effective use of the memory hierarchy. meanwhile, new computational models, especially machine learning related algorithms have achieved tremendous success in many application domains, specifically with deep neural networks (dnns). the design space of accelerator for such computation can be extremely large as they can employ different datapaths, data mapping strategies, circuits and device technologies.it is hard to quickly find an optimal design to meet the requirements in certain applications.the dissertation focuses on several aspects to address the challenge. first, we investigated designing a domain specific architecture cellular neural network (cenn). a cenn is a powerful processor that can significantly improve the performance of spatio-temporal applications when compared to the more traditional von neumann architecture. we first show how tunneling field effect transistor (tfets) and mosfet can be utilized to enhance the performance of cenns. we also show that tfets can be useful to realize non-linear vccss, which are either not possible or exhibit degraded performance when implemented via cmos.then, we investigate cellular neural network (cenn)-based co-processors at the application-level for accuracy, delay and energy. we use two case studies for our designs: cenn based tracking algorithm, and cenn based convolutional neural network.in the first case study, a cenn-friendly target-tracking algorithm was developed and mapped to an array architecture developed in conjunction with the algorithm. we compare the energy, delay, and accuracy of our architecture/algorithm (assuming all overheads) to the most accurate von neumann algorithm (struck). von neumann cpu data is measured on an intel i5 chip. in the second case study, we present the design and evaluation of an accelerator for conns. the system-level architecture is based on mixed-signal, cellular neural networks (cenns). specifically, we present (i) the implementation of different layers, including convolution, relu, and pooling, in a conn using cenn, (ii) modified conn structures with cenn-friendly layers to reduce computational overheads typically associated with a conn, (iii) a mixed-signal cenn architecture that performs conn computations in the analog and mixed signal domain, and (iv) design space exploration that identifies what cenn-based algorithm and architectural features fare best compared to existing algorithms and architectures when evaluated over common datasets -mnist and cifar-10.we also focus on benchmarking and evaluating dnn architectures. a uniform modeling framework, evadnn, is presented to estimate the dynamic energy (a major component of total energy) consumed by a dnn accelerator. evadnn can accurately model energy contributions from device technology, circuits, architecture, a given data mapping strategy, and underlying network structure. we applied eva-dnn on three accelerator architectures from the literature, namely: eyeriss, shidiannao, and truenorth and demonstrate that the model can reliably estimate the energy (maximum error of 15%) required by different components of different accelerator architecture topologies for a given workload or network.in the last chapter, we focus on emerging device based architecture implementation. emerging memory devices are an attractive choice for implementing very energy-efficient in-situ matrix-vector multiplication (mvm) for use in intelligent edge platforms. despite their great potential, device level nonidealities have a large impact on the application-level accuracy of deep neural network (dnn) inference. we introduce a low-density parity-check code (ldpc) based approach to correct nonideality induced errors encountered during in-situ mvm. design space explorations demonstrate that we can leverage the resilience endowed by ecc to improve energy efficiency (by reducing operating voltage). a 1.6x energy efficiency improvement in dnn inference on cifar-10 dataset with resnet-20 is achieved at iso-accuracy. while driving the use of a driver's cognitive and visual perception of heading combine to affect how drivers adjust their heading in relation to the road. the current experiments examined how using a secondary task to orient the cognitive and visual attention of drivers towards locations to the left of, in front of, or to the right of the driver affected their ability to keep a car in the middle of their lane on straight and curved sections of roads. experiment 1 used a two lane road in a virtual environment that was relatively visually impoverished, and experiment 2 added objects to the side of the road to increase the amount of optic flow present in the environment. across both experiments, the average lane position of drivers was biased away from the location of the secondary task on straight and curved sections of roads, and the additional objects in experiment 2 magnified this effect. these results replicated findings in the literature showing that moving the attention of drivers impairs their ability to maintain a car in desired position and that features along the side of the road have the potential to influence the errors that occur. these results suggest that drivers may try to compensate for the fact that their attention is distracted by steering away from where their attention is focused. real-world complex systems such as social media, e-commerce platform, cyber-physical system, or chemical synthesis, are often associated with heterogeneous (multi-modal) data, including structural relation or graph/network, unstructured text or image, temporal context, and so on. the heterogeneous data provide opportunities for researchers and practitioners to understand complex systems more comprehensively but also pose challenges to discover knowledge from them. besides the difficulty of extracting and representing useful information from such complex data, it is hard to fuse the extracted knowledge in a unified and customized manner so as to facilitate various applications.in this thesis, we develop the methodologies and algorithms for learning from heterogeneous data through fusion, which have been deployed and validated in a variety of real-world applications, e.g., recommender system, relevance search, graph embedding, anomaly detection. extending from the fusion learning, we further investigate the principles and methodologies for label-efficient fusion learning from heterogeneous data, with the emphasis on the applications of web personalization and knowledge graph reasoning. this dissertation examines how antebellum americans understood the ohio river as the geographical division between slavery and freedom. why and how did americans make the ohio river the division between slavery and freedom? how did they accommodate this river that drew its life from northern and southern sources and divided two worlds? as the civil war split the country, why did this borderland fail to break apart at the seam of freedom and slavery? the ohio river was both a boundary and an artery of movement that united the region. the river encouraged the peopling of its valleys: each succession of settlers, ohio indians, french traders, and english colonists met at its banks, creating a border. when americans seized this international borderland, they made the ohio river the legislated boundary between slavery and freedom, but the movement generated by the river created ties that crossed the divide. by 1816 americans established a border that separated slave states from free states, and a river that divided bound labor between slavery on the southern bank and servitude on the northern one. the ohio river split the north from the south on a map, but at this periphery of slavery and freedom, these fundamental nineteenth century dichotomies behaved more like rivers than static ideals. the river linked borderland slavery with borderland free labor, as wage labor and chattel slavery became points on a capitalist continuum rather than mutually exclusive categories for black americans. enslaved and free african americans found no refuge north of the river, and, south of the river, the slave trade expedited the flow of blacks to the deep south. white americans on both sides of the river found common cause by embracing the ohio river's role in the movement of blacks out of the borderland. these conservative antislavery whites claimed the river gave the region social and economic coherence that outweighed the border. by the 1850s, politicians and residents defined the region as a borderland, denouncing threats of disunion offered by pro and antislavery radicals. even the civil war failed to split this borderland as the nation broke in two. as agricultural systems contend with an ever-changing environment, it becomes increasingly important to turn our attention to the web of living beings that structures these systems—including the relationships between humans and non-human animals. a growing body of literature examines the gender and sexual dynamics inherent to agricultural production in the united states, and some sociological work engages with the symbolic and micro interactions between humans and non-human animals raised for agricultural purposes. through an ethnographic study of women sustainable farmers and their interactions with livestock, i use the concepts of domination, relationality, and mutuality to examine how an individual's subordinated location within a dominant, dualistic framework positions them to approach relationships with other subordinated beings through a reimagined network of relation. i argue that women farmers are structurally positioned to recognize and affirm a shared suppression with livestock, which leads to a transformation of self, ethics, and politics oriented toward mutuality. zeolites are three-dimensional, crystalline silicate-based materials of interest for catalysis and separations. computational models of zeolites must capture their three-dimensional structure, the intrinsic microscopic heterogeneity introduced by heteroatom substitutions that underlie their interesting chemical behavior, and the dynamic nature of reactive sites within the pores of molecular dimensions. in this dissertation, i will describe my use of supercell density functional theory (dft) models for tackling these problems, focusing primarily on brønsted acidic, fe or cu-exchanged chabazite (cha) zeolites and their relationship to the catalytic chemistry of nitrogen oxides (nox) and the partial oxidation of methane. in addition, i will also show how dft computations are used to gain insights into the influence of extra-framework cations on zeolite property during synthesis. i will describe considerations important in model construction, applications of ab initio molecular dynamics to structure annealing and accurate computations of reaction and activation free energies, first-principles thermodynamics approaches for predicting site speciation at realistic conditions, and approaches for predicting heteroatom distributions into material models. when counting, the final word used to tag the final item in a set represents the cardinality, or total number, of the set. understanding of this concept serves as a foundation for children's basic mathematical skills, such as arithmetic. however, little is known about how variations in the early learning environment affect children's understanding of this important concept. the current study examined the effects of the representational status of to-be-counted items on preschoolers' understanding of cardinality. children (m age = 3 years, 6 months) were randomly assigned to receive counting practice with either physical objects or pictures over five practice sessions. children's counting skill and understanding of cardinality were assessed at pretest and posttest. results revealed that only children in the picture condition increased their understanding of cardinality from pretest to posttest. these findings suggest that small variations in the materials children use during counting practice can affect what they learn from that practice. specifically, results suggest that picture books are better than physical objects at supporting children's understanding of cardinality. microtubules are non-covalent polymers important for many processes such as vesicle trafficking and establishment of cell polarity and essential for cell division. a key property of microtubules is that they are highly dynamic. microtubules constantly switch between phases of growth and shortening. this behavior is called dynamic instability. although the importance of dynamic instability is well established from a cell-biological point of view, its regulation and mechanistic details are poorly understood. this doctoral thesis summarizes an effort to better understand dynamic instability by means of an interdisciplinary approach. the opening chapter presents an overview of microtubule dynamics and its pending questions. then, an introduction to stochastic modeling in biology is presented for readers of diverse background. the dynamics of the microtubule network is then studied with a model at a mesoscopic scale (coarse grain) and a model at a microscopic scale (fine details). the mesoscopic modeling results indicate that many behaviors thought to require regulatory proteins are instead unavoidable outcomes of the physical constraints on a system of nucleated polymers competing in a confined space. this suggests that regulatory proteins tune microtubule dynamics rather than govern it. this conclusion has important evolutionary implications as microtubules are present in all eukaryotes and therefore their underlying mechanistic principles must be robust. the microscopic model is the first one built at a the dimer scale to recapitulate dynamic instability. with this model, the mechanistic details of the once paradoxical microtubule dilution experiments are shown. as opposed to the canonical view, the microscopic model indicates that interprotofilament cracks are always present, even when the microtubule is growing, and it also indicates that there is gtp-tubulin binding to the shortening microtubule. quantitative analysis concludes that it is the relationship between the lengths of cracks and the gtp cap what dictates microtubule dynamics, not the gtp cap alone. with its simulation speed and level of detail, the microscopic scale model finally opens the door to testing hypotheses of the mechanisms used by microtubule regulatory proteins. like most scholastic theologians, duns scotus takes the broad outlines of his understanding of redemption from st. anselm's cur deus homo. in this study, i examine scotus's account of christ's redemptive work in light of his christology and in light of thirteenth-century franciscan theology. considering this theological and historical context helps to settle a number of questions that scotus's account of redemption raises. these questions include whether scotus attributes satisfaction to christ's death, whether scotus's expansive notion of divine power fundamentally shapes his soteriology, and whether scotus's soteriology was influenced not only by anselm but also by his scholastic predecessors. i argue that scotus does attribute satisfaction to christ's death, that scotus's christology is more important than his notion of divine power in influencing his soteriology, and that scotus adopts and extends many modifications that thirteenth-century theologians made to anselm's soteriology. perhaps the most significant divide between anselm and his thirteenth-century interpreters is the role that scholastic theologians accorded to created grace in analyzing the source of value that they attributed to christ's suffering and death. unlike his franciscan predecessors, scotus claims that the hypostatic union does not necessarily confer grace on christ's soul or augment its capacity for grace. scotus's understanding of the connection between christ's possession of the highest grace and the hypostatic union becomes the basis from which he speculates on alternative soteriological scenarios that would not involve christ. given the omnipresence of graph-structured data, graph machine learning has copious applications in multifarious fields such as social media, e-commerce platform, cyber-physical system, or chemical synthesis. nonetheless, data driven models for graph data also face their unique challenges including over-smoothing caused by message passing-based graph neural networks, structural data sparsity brought by power-law distributions, lack of labelled data due to costly annotations, and noisy signals caused by spurious correlations. in order to address these challenges, other than developing more advanced and complicated machine learning models, graph data augmentation allows researchers to improve graph machine learning from the perspective of data.works in this thesis develop advanced graph data augmentation techniques for various graph machine learning tasks: node classification, link prediction, and anomaly detection. differs from traditional ad-hoc data augmentation techniques that integrated augmentation into the learning process of representations and decisions, this thesis introduces learn-to-augment approaches which leverage machine learning models for data augmentation. therefore, this thesis designs a holistic learning process from data augmentation to representation learning to decision making. such learn-to-augment approaches are able to achieve superior downstream task performance as well as alleviate the above-mentioned challenges in graph machine learning. furthermore, by enhancing machine learning from data perspective, graph data augmentation solutions can be used with different graph machine learning models and would not significantly increase the model's complexity. the relation of religion to politics has been the subject of much recent controversy. in america, this most commonly involves debates about christianity and political liberalism. among philosophers this involves the various responses of rawls and his critics to the religious right. among theologians this involves the debate between stout and christian traditionalists such as hauerwas. these conversations are hindered by not recognizing the enduring influence of john locke. locke responded to the conflicts of his day by arguing for a particular vision of religious toleration. he attempted to harmonize religious and civic obligations so that the good christian and the good citizen could always follow the same course. because of locke's decisive role in launching political liberalism and his influence on the american founders, he remains an often-overlooked presence in todayìøåàå_s debates. unfortunately, locke's solution contains certain gaps and can be interpreted in diverse ways. this is supported by two lines of research: a careful study of locke's texts (especially his letter concerning toleration) and recent work by political theorists (especially zuckert) showing how the american founding is an amalgam of republicanism and liberalism. this background is used to create a typology of the different political theologies of today's american christians. each position can be understood as a particular rethinking of locke's solution, either in a more 'liberal' or more 'republican' direction. key representatives are examined for each position in the typology, including wolterstorff and neuhaus. this typology provides a clearer picture of today's culture wars and also brings to light certain problems with the political theories of christians across the political spectrum. their shared dependence on locke shows that conservative and liberal christians have more in common than is often assumed. however, their unspoken assumption that locke provides a definitive solution allows them to avoid supplying holistic statements of their own political theologies. this leads to one of two pitfalls: lockean reasoning is invoked in tension with a thinker's other commitments (thus confusing herself) or lockean reasoning is invoked in ways that disguise a thinker's actual position (thus confusing her fellow citizens). heterogeneous systems exist in a variety of scientific and engineering fields. modeling of these complex systems often relies on the structural information acquired from imaging techniques. in recent decades, the development of imaging and material processing techniques has led to great improvements in material characterization and modeling. however, image-based models often contain a prohibitively large amount of data from high-resolution images. to this end, part of this dissertation focuses on developing an innovative image-based modeling technique, based on google earth like algorithms, to effectively resolve intricate morphologies and address the computational complexity associated with heterogeneous systems. the statistical and mechanical robustness of data compression is demonstrated through the corresponding numerical analysis.the heterogeneity between phases increases the numerical difficulty by producing ill-conditioned algebraic problems that often cause severe stagnation of iterative solvers. to resolve this issue, part of this dissertation focuses on developing a robust computational framework for systems of algebraic equations associated with highly heterogeneous systems. a novel image-based multiscale multigrid solver is developed based on the aforementioned image-based multiresolution model, which enables reliable data flow between corresponding computational grids and provides significant data compression. a set of inter-grid operators is constructed based on the microstructural data which remedies the issue of missing coarse grid information. moreover, an image-based multiscale preconditioner is developed from the multiscale coarse images which does not traverse through any intermediate grid levels and thus leads to a faster solution process. finally, an image-based reduced order model is designed by prolongating the coarse-scale solution to approximate the fine-scale one with improved accuracy. the numerical robustness and efficiency of this image-based computational framework is demonstrated on a two-dimensional example with high degrees of data heterogeneity and geometrical complexity.the data heterogeneity often results in highly localized solution characteristics that require resolution and accuracy well beyond what is required for the rest of the domain. to resolve this issue, the last part of this dissertation focuses on the development of an error-driven adaptive multiscale solver. this solver solves a macroscopic quasi-static boundary value problem in a domain that is composed of multiple multi-resolution microstructures. a dynamic refinement strategy is designed based on the local a posteriori error estimates, which enables adaptive model reduction. a staggered algorithm is developed to realize semi-synchronized convergence between the subdomain and the common-refinement-based interface. preliminary numerical results are included to demonstrate this multiscale adaptive solution process. phlebotomine sand flies are globally distributed with old world phlebotomus found in europe, africa, the middle east and india and new world lutzomyia inhabiting the western hemisphere from argentina to the united states. females vector over 20 leishmania parasites that cause leishmaniasis with clinical manifestations that can lead to disfiguring skin lesions or fatal disease. for oviposition, females require a blood meal. they release immunogenic proteins that facilitate feeding, modulate the host immune response, and transmit parasites. saliva has been shown to exacerbate skin lesions in mice when co-infected with leishmania parasites but was observed to have a protective effect when mice were pre-exposed to saliva and then challenged with parasites.the research presented here focuses on the old world species, phlebotomus papatasi, that transmits leishmania major causing cutaneous leishmaniasis. this work confirms that p. papatasi sand flies are relatively homogeneous but that localized genetic differentiation exists between populations through population genetics analysis of the cytochrome b gene. this homogeneity reaffirms the development of a vaccine using specific sand fly salivary proteins. nine p. papatasi salivary proteins, from populations in egypt and jordan with unique ecotopes, were analyzed for their genetic variability and their immune response potential. two proteins demonstrated a high degree of conservancy and were predicted to activate t-cells. the other seven proteins revealed significant genetic variation and predicted to elicit an immune response to varying degrees. ppsp12 and ppsp14 are recommended for further evaluation as vaccine candidates while we caution the use of the additional seven proteins. while a safe, effective vaccine is important, it is not the only avenue to disrupt disease transmission. vector management decreases contact between vectors and hosts, mainly through insecticide use. novel control strategies are needed due to rising insecticide resistance. researchers cannot accurately age sand fly populations making it difficult to monitor vector management. here, near-infrared spectroscopy is validated to age-grade p. papatasi with greater than 80% accuracy when grouped into age cohorts &lt;7 days old or ≥7 days old. overall, this research advances the fight to combat leishmaniasis by furthering vaccine development and validating a new tool for vector management. the behavior of a depressed person is thought to produce changes in others' behavior that depresses the dysphoric person further (coyne, 1976). one behavior that produces changes in others' behavior is excessive reassurance seeking. the existing literature on reassurance seeking suggests that this behavior leads to interpersonal rejection (joiner, alfano, & metalsky, 1992; joiner & metalsky, 1995). this investigation employed multiple methods to measure reassurance seeking and rejection, allowing for the examination of reassurance seeking and rejection on the microanalytic level. this study broadened the conceptualization of reassurance seeking and narrowed the conceptualization of rejection. the sample was comprised of married couples, including non-depressed and clinically depressed people. observed reassurance seeking was associated with observed rejection by spouses in both depressed and non-depressed husbands and wives. husbands' depressive severity moderated the relationship between husbands' observed reassurance seeking and wives' rejection of husbands. implications for the conceptualization of excessive reassurance seeking and for future research are discussed. it is well known that cmos scaling trends are now accompanied by less desirable byproducts such as increased energy dissipation. to combat the aforementioned challenges, solutions are sought at both the device and architectural levels. with this context, this work focuses on developing a systematic circuit design methodology for nanomagnet logic (nml) devices, and exploring the benefits of utilizing beyond-cmos emerging transistors to process information with the non-binary/non-von neumann computer architecture of cellular neural networks (cnns).nanomagnet logic (nml) is a device architecture that performs logic operations through fringing field interactions between nano-scale magnets. the design space for nml circuits is large and so far there exists no systematic approach for determining the parameter values (e.g., device-to-device spacings, clocking field strength etc.) to generate a predictable design solution. this work presents a formal methodology for designing nml circuits that marshals the design parameters to generate a layout that is guaranteed to evolve correctly in time at 0k. the approach is further augmented to identify functional design targets when considering thermal noise associated with higher temperatures.a cellular neural network (cnn) is a highly-parallel, analog processor that can significantly outperform von neumann architectures for certain classes of problems. this work shows that emerging technologies like tunneling field effect transistors (tfets) can be successfully employed in cnns to solve binary classification problems. such systems provide significant power savings when compared to the conventional resistor-based cnn. moreover, tfet-based cnn reduces implementation footprints by eliminating the hardware required to realize output transfer functions.it is also shown how emerging, beyond-cmos devices could help to further enhance the capabilities of cnns, particularly for solving problems with non-binary outputs. cnns based on devices such as graphene transistors – with multiple steep current growth regions separated by negative differential resistance (ndr) in their i-v characteristics – could be used to recognize multiple patterns simultaneously, (this would require multiple steps given a conventional, binary cnn.) also, a circuit built from tfets is used in cnn to perform similar tasks. with this approach, more "exotic" device i-v characteristics are not required – which should be an asset when considering issues such as cell-to-cell mismatch, etc. as a case study, a cnn-cell design is presented that employs tfet-based circuitry to realize ternary outputs, and employed to efficiently solve a tactile sensing problem. the total number of computation steps as well as the required hardware could be reduced significantly when compared to an approach based on a conventional cnn.much existing work reports energy dissipation for cnns at the chip level, which includes dissipation of sensors, actuators, and other components. as such, the impacts of various system variables, e.g., application templates, characteristics of the resistive element, etc., on the energy profile of a cnn cannot be easily determined. this work also proposes analytical models to estimate cnn power and performance. power dissipations, and settling times obtained via the models for different linear, and non-linear characteristics are verified through circuit simulation. simulation results show that the proposed models predict power dissipation and settling time with less than 1% and 3% errors, respectively. case studies are performed by using these models, for a tactile sensing problem, and a pattern recognition problem to compare power and performance between tunneling field effect transistor (tfet) based non-linear cnn and conventional linear resistor based cnn.traditional, cmos based, von neumann architectures face daunting challenges in performing complex computational tasks at high speed and with low power on spatio-temporal data, e.g., image processing, pattern recognition, etc. this work studies the potential of analog/mixed-signal information processing using tfets in the context of cellular neural networks (cnns). a tfet-based, mixed signal cnn architectures for spatio-temporal information processing is presented. assuming a 14 nm inas homojunction tfet for the proposed architecture, power efficiency of more than 2,000 gops/w is projected for a number of different cnn templates. by comparison, state-of-the-art hardware assuming cmos technology promises a power efficiency only close to 1,000 gops/w. spanwise-periodic roughness that was designed to excite selected wavelengths of stationary cross-flow modes was investigated in a 3-d boundary layer at mach 6. the test model was a sharp-tipped 14-degree right-circular cone. the model, along with an integrated total pressure sensor traversing system, was placed in the united states air force academy's mach 6 ludwieg tube. the model was oriented at a 6-degree angle of attack to produce a mean cross-flow velocity component in the boundary layer over the cone. passive surface roughness, consisting of indentations (dimples) was evenly spaced around the cone at an axial location that was just upstream of the linear stability neutral growth branch for stationary cross-flow modes. two azimuthal mode numbers of the patterned roughness were examined. one had an azimuthal mode number that was in the band of initially amplified stationary cross-flow modes ('critical'). the other azimuthal mode number was designed to suppress the growth of the initially amplified stationary cross-flow modes and thereby increase the transition reynolds number ('subcritical'). the results showed that the stationary cross-flow modes were receptive to the passive patterned roughness. spatial amplitude distributions of the traveling fluctuations for the 'critical' and 'subcritical' roughness cone tips showed evidence of a nonlinear interaction between the linearly amplified stationary and traveling cross-flow modes. observation of this nonlinear phenomenon motivated the next part of the research effort to further investigate the stationary/traveling cross-flow mode interactions with the same experimental conditions, but with a dimpled plasma cone tip. this cone tip consisted of an active flow control mechanism; a plasma actuator that was located just downstream of the 'critical' discrete roughness array. this was designed to produce an azimuthally uniform unsteady disturbance with a frequency that was at the center of the band of most amplified traveling cross-flow modes. as a result, the nonlinear interaction between the stationary and traveling cross-flow modes was further enhanced by the excitation of the traveling cross-flow mode. authoritarianism has prevailed and the "democracy gap" persisted over the past century throughout the arab middle east and north africa (mena). despite persistence of authoritarianism in the region, there is some variation in regime trajectories. the region has witnessed several authoritarian breakdowns over the last decades; yet, experiencing a breakdown does not always guarantee a democratic transition. among handful democratic transition attempts in the region, only a single country, tunisia, has successfully completed its transition to democracy. why are most of the mena autocracies so durable? what are the causes of such variation in the regime trajectories in the mena? why has not democracy taken root in the mena even when there are transition attempts?this dissertation seeks to understand regime persistence and change in the mena comprehensively, in terms of both temporal and geographical coverage. using fieldwork and experimental data and relying on qualitative and quantitative analysis, the study distinguishes between the triggers of authoritarian breakdowns and the reasons behind democratic transitions.in the first part of the dissertation, i explore the conditions under which some mena autocracies become more vulnerable to breakdowns than others. i argue that the regimes that successfully balance between authoritarian control and power-sharing tend to be more durable. while most cross-regional studies often explain authoritarian durability in the mena with structural and cultural factors, such as natural resources and islam, i find that these factors do not accurately account for the variation within the region. in contrast, institutional factors explain why some authoritarian regimes break down while others survive longer. through a survival analysis of all arab mena autocracies, i demonstrate that monarchy as a regime type, a strong coercive apparatus, and the ability to introduce liberalization reforms help regimes to survive longer by determining the levels of authoritarian control and power-sharing. the second part of the dissertation examines the factors that impact the success and failure of a transition attempt in the mena by focusing on the question of why and how elites cooperate during a transition process. based on 12 months of extensive fieldwork on algeria, egypt and tunisia where transitions to democracy were attempted, i argue that the type and nature of elite interactions under authoritarianism determine a country's trajectory during the transitions. looking at testable characteristics that affect the likelihood of elite cooperation and following a game theoretic logic, i posit that the experience of building a successful opposition coalition under authoritarianism helps the elites to overcome commitment problems by establishing organizational capital, trust, and a shared vision. when a transition process starts, the elites with such resources can make a stronger credible commitment to cooperation. i use an original public opinion survey with embedded experiments that i conducted in algeria to illustrate the role of bridging on overcoming commitment problems to cooperation. i further draw on more than 120 interviews with key actors such as a former president, several prime ministers, ministers and party leaders to validate the argument about the importance of opposition coalition building on transition process.this dissertation project makes several contributions. first, unlike most studies, i break the transition process down into phases and explore whether and how different factors affect regime change in each of these different stages of transitions. second, my research covers the whole mena over a long period of time and provides the first systematic account of regional variation in both authoritarian breakdowns and transitions. third, i employ multiple methods to provide experimental, quantitative, and qualitative evidence on a part of the world that is marked by the scarcity of data. therefore, this project offers a systematic, comprehensive and step-by-step explanation of the process of regime persistence and change in the mena. this dissertation presents a series of experimental and computational investigations of the lubrication mechanisms for oil-in-water emulsions. the elastohydrodynamic film thickness and traction behaviors of oil-in-water emulsions using three lubrication mechanisms, plate-out, chiu-type starvation and dynamic concentration, are discussed. the effect of droplet size is considered. water is found to be present in the inlet region in chiu-type starvation and make up about 80% of the lubricant at the contact in dynamic concentration. droplet entrainment in the inlet region is a focus of this dissertation. both two and three dimensional simulations of the oil droplet movement in the inlet region are conducted. large droplets segregate to the center of flow, while small droplets have two off-center stable segregation positions and one neutrally stable segregation position at the flow center. ignoring the interactions between oil droplets, all droplets segregate to the backflow region and are rejected from the contact zone regardless the rolling speed. this is consistent with the direct observations of emulsion flow, performed at industry relevant speeds, using emulsions with three different mean droplet sizes. three types of oil droplets are observed. 'stay' droplets locate a certain distance from the edge of contact; 'penetration' droplets are those attached to the surfaces or merged into the oil pool; and most oil droplets are 'rejected' droplets regardless the droplet size and rolling speed. both ehl point contact and line contact are considered. the effects of droplet size and initial oil concentration on the extent of oil pool are also discussed. from these results, it can be shown that the lubrication efficiency of emulsions depends on the system's ability to attach oil droplets to the flow boundaries. it is suggested that future research should be directed towards pulsed lubrication or the use of other means to perturb oil particles and encourage their attachment to surfaces. change over time has been addressed in many fields using differential equation modeling and dynamical systems concepts. application of these methodologies to much of psychology has been difficult, in part due to the presence of significant amounts of measurement error, relatively slow sampling rates and difficulties associated with collecting long time series. currently several methods can estimate derivatives for time series with measurement error. although these methods can produce unbiased derivative estimates, parameters of differential equation models fit to univariate time series are frequently biased. the degree of the bias frequently depends on parameters that smooth time series data, balancing the need to reduce error without obscuring true changes over time. the current work examines estimation of a linear oscillator by modeling data that is simultaneously smoothed at multiple time scales. by doing so, bias that occurs when estimating the linear oscillator model using differential equation modeling and univariate time series can be eliminated. the concepts regarding smoothing seem likely to be applicable to many contexts in which parameter bias is related to the amount time series data have been smoothed. networks can be used to model complex real-world systems from many domains, including computational biology. a protein-protein interaction (ppi) network (ppin), in which nodes are proteins and edges are ppis, is a popular type of biological network. while ppin data are becoming widely available thanks to biotechnological advancements, functions of many proteins remain unknown. as such, many computational techniques have been developed to analyze ppins in order to gain insights into proteins' functions.one such technique is biological network alignment (na), which aims to find a node mapping between species' molecular networks that uncovers similar network regions, thus allowing for the transfer of functional knowledge between the aligned nodes. however, a major issue of na methods is that often aligned nodes (proteins) do not actually share the same function. so we aim to address such challenges by introducing several novel computational advances, such as allowing for the alignment of heterogeneous biological networks for the first time, or by learning from -omics data what patterns of network topological relatedness (rather than similarity) correspond to functional relatedness between biological networks of different species. we show that the novel computational advances improve the accuracy of across-species protein functional prediction compared to existing na methods.one limitation of across-species na is that it only considers biological networks at the same scale: ppins. however, at a more fine-grained scale, a protein's 3d structure has important implications for its function. such structures have been modeled using protein structure networks (psns), where nodes are amino acids and edges join those that are close in the 3d crystal structure, to great success. thus, we argue that ppin and psn data should be integrated as a ``network of networks'' (non). we aim to answer whether non-based data integration is effective, by evaluating whether non-based protein functional prediction, fusing the complementary ppin and psn information, is more accurate than single-scale functional prediction, using only ppin or only psn information. we show that non-based data integration has the potential to uncover novel biological knowledge compared to only considering a single scale, and thus is an exciting direction for future research. child maltreatment is associated with an increased risk for several negative outcomes throughout development. mothers who perpetrate maltreatment are also more likely to experience symptoms of depression. the experience of maltreatment and exposure to maternal depressive symptoms are associated with disruptions in the development of children's self-concept and the use of fewer references to internal states during conversations. the current study sought to assess how maltreatment and maternal depression affect the use of internal state language (isl) during reminiscing discussions between mothers and children and how this may affect later child internalizing symptoms. the sample consisted of 237 mothers and their threeto six-year-old children, two-thirds of whom had experienced maltreatment with the mother being named a perpetrator. findings indicated that higher maternal depressive symptoms were linked to less maternal use of isl. further, mothers' use of isl mediated associations between maternal depression and child isl use. there was not a significant association between maltreatment status and maternal isl use, nor a significant indirect effect when considering child isl use. further, child isl use was not significantly associated with child internalizing symptoms. exploratory analyses suggested that mother and child use of cognition/perception isl terms may be driving the effects between maternal depressive symptoms (and maltreatment) and isl use. capillary zone electrophoresis (cze) is a powerful tool for efficient separation of biological molecules. cze instruments often employ absorbance, laser-induced fluorescence, or mass spectrometry for on-line detection and analysis. however, cze as a preparative tool is limited in each of these configurations. instead, we employ a highly efficient automated fraction collector that interfaces cze with a collection plate for seamless transition to downstream analyses. this preparative system deposits nanoliter fractions from the capillary, with a controlled volume of sheath liquid, in the form of a droplet. droplets were isolated within individual wells of a microtiter plate or deposited onto a flat surface. we applied this technology to isolate oligonucleotides bound to a target protein for the efficient generation of aptamers using a single selection round. in another application, a microbiome was separated into reduced complexity fractions; electrophoretic fractionation was executed into a prepared plate for in-well cell lysis and dna extraction. both applications required mining deep sequence data and both were benefited by preparative cze in comparison to traditional methods. cytoplasmic dynein is a microtubule motor protein responsible for the transport of multiple cargos. in previous work, we found that overexpression of dynein ic tagged with gfp (ic-gfp) disrupted dynein cargo transport in vivo. this phenotype was found to be weakened or strengthened when ic-gfp mutants mimicking the phospho (s84d ic-gfp) or de-phospho (s84a ic-gfp) ic states were overexpressed. to determine by what mechanism ic-gfp expression causes this phenotype, we performed a series of biochemical assays on ic-gfp or s84d ic-gfp-transfected cell lysates. ic-gfp expression did not disrupt dynein complex assembly. ic-gfp did not incorporate into native dynein or dimerize with dynein ic, but it recruited a limited amount of the dynein light chains lc8 and tctex-1. s84d ic-gfp expression did not alter any of these behaviors, suggesting that these characteristics are not phosphorylation dependent. these results suggest that ic-gfp disrupts cargo transport without directly interfering with native dynein or its subunits. to determine the minimum sufficient region of ic necessary to generate the cargo disruption phenotype, we performed live-cell analysis on cells expressing the p150glued-binding region of ic (1-100 ic-gfp). 1-100 ic-gfp expression caused dynein cargo transport disruption similar to ic-gfp, and this behavior was weakened or strengthened when serine 84 was mutated to aspartic acid or alanine respectively. 1-100 ic-gfp expression did not disrupt dynein complex assembly and did not interact with native dynein ic, lc8, or tctex-1. none of these behaviors were altered by serine 84 mutation. these results suggest that the p150glued-binding region of ic is sufficient to cause cargo disruption. to determine if ic-gfp is capable of competitive binding to dynein cargo, we performed binding assays with purified phagosomes. recombinant ic-gfp and s84a ic-gfp were capable of binding to phagosomes, while s84d ic-gfp exhibited reduced organelle binding. two-dimensional gel analysis of ic-gfp and s84d ic-gfp-transfected cell lysate revealed that ic-gfp and not s84d ic-gfp can be phosphorylated by the cell, these findings suggest that ic-gfp disrupts dynein transport by competitive binding to p150glued, and this binding is regulated by serine 84 phosphorylation. in this dissertation, i explore the historical development of thomas aquinas's teaching on christ's grace and wisdom. through a close reading of thirteenth century texts, i show how thomas's early thought is best understood against the backdrop of thirteenth-century debates. thomas's own internal development takes on a character of its own, moving from the scriptum to the summa theologiae. i argue that thomas's development is characterized by an increasing emphasis on the soteriological motivation for the incarnation. for thomas, christ's perfection in grace and knowledge must be understood first and foremost with respect to the grace of headship. this leads to a corollary emphasis, realized more explicitly throughout his career, on grounding every co-assumed perfection of christ in the human nature rather than deriving them abstractly from the hypostatic union. this reading of thomas's teaching runs counter to dominating accounts of thomas's development that anachronistically impose modern categories and concerns onto thomas's account. the dissertation also pushes back against well-intentioned defenders of thomas's mature teaching who, in attempting to defend the teaching of christ's earthly beatific vision, nevertheless end up using arguments that the common doctor would likely have rejected. my dissertation highlights the central importance that the humanity of christ plays in thomas's understanding of the salvation and the communication of grace. it is because christ's humanity is the instrument of the divinity and the head of the church that he must possess, in his very humanity, the fullness of grace and truth, for it is from his fullness that all others receive grace. machine perception is a crucial field of artificial intelligence that allows machines to interact with and perform various tasks in the real world. accurate models of real-world scenes based on sensed information, however, can be challenging and potentially have significant impact on techniques that attempt to utilize the model. for instance, image noise can introduce errors in localization and mapping, especially in low-light environments. the limited dynamic range of electronic cameras, compared to the wide range of brightness levels in real-world scenes, can result in detail loss in dark regions or saturation in bright regions, and can make object detection and semantic segmentation difficult. using only visual information can create gaps in important 3d information that may be needed in higher level processing.to address this issue, there are several aspects that can be considered. first, for image acquisition, exposure strategies can be developed driven by specific machine perception tasks. then image processing modules, such as denoising, deblurring and image enhancement, can be implemented to improve quality of the captured images. sensor fusion is also a popular solution to provide comprehensive and accurate information about the environment. in this dissertation, we first explore exposure strategies for two vision-based machine perception scenarios, and then develop system for sensor fusion of 2d lidar and intensity camera.as the first contribution, a noise-aware exposure strategy network is proposed for high dynamic range (hdr) imaging. the network predicts the exposure settings for a 3-shot bracketing. these differently exposed images can then be fused into an hdr image with optimal tone and noise. the lightweight network can not only generalize well to different scenes, but also be computed efficiently without requiring raw data in the inference stage, which allows the system to be a practical solution for low-cost and power-efficient cameras. however, in scenarios where the camera or objects are moving, the use of exposure bracketing may introduce motion artifacts. thus, we develop a learning-based auto-exposure strategy for robust visual odometry in hdr environments as the second contribution of this study. the auto-exposure control network is designed to predict the exposure value for the next image by leveraging a sequence of recent images, which enables the camera to adapt to the changes in lighting conditions and capture well-exposed images with sufficient and equally distributing features in space for localization. experiments on challenging scenes reveal the advantages of the proposed method when compared with other state-of-the-art methods in terms of localization performance and processing time.as the third contribution, a system is developed based on sensor fusion and applied to indoor layout estimation. the proposed system is equipped with a 2d lidar scanning parallel to the ground and an intensity camera with a fixed relative position. by aligning the lidar points, as samples of the room contour, to ground--wall boundaries in the images, layout estimation and semantic segmentation can be done without offline calibration. the localization and mapping is refined using the fused data, which enables the system to work reliably in scenes with poor lighting and low texture or geometric features. in summary, this dissertation improves machine perception performance in challenging environments by introducing new methods and systems. the proposed methods address exposure strategies for (1) tone and noise optimization, and (2) robust visual odometry. additionally, we leverage 2d lidar as a supplementary sensor to assist with indoor layout estimation in situations where visual-based methods may struggle. comparative experiments on various scenes are conducted to demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed methods. this dissertation develops a cross-regional theory of party system collapse. the first part of the conditional sequential theory of collapse states that high detachment, low entry barriers, and insider's support are facilitating conditions for the arrival of the outsider. these conditions do not cause the electoral success of the outsider but their conjoint presence makes it more likely. the second part of the argument states that a political system with fiscal centralization and widespread clientelist practices increases the chances of the collapse. it also argues that the high degree of centralization of major traditional parties is a facilitating condition of the collapse. a party system that encounters the conditions proposed in the theory should be more likely to collapse than another party system that does not encounter such conditions. to develop the theory, this dissertation conducts a comparative analysis of the three cases of collapse occurred to date: italy, peru, and venezuela. it also presents a testing of the theory of collapse through the analysis of several cases of non-collapse: brazil, colombia, and ecuador. this study contributes to the existing literature on collapse by offering a clear definition and operationalization of party system collapse and contending that causes of collapse are common across cases and that can be identified following a process-tracing methodology. also, this dissertation shows evidence that the election of the outsider does not equal to the collapse of the party system. finally, this study is the first to offer a conditional probabilistic model that explains and predicts the probability of collapse in any democratic system. i argue that god's meticulous sovereignty is incompatible with our libertarian freedom. i do not claim to prove this claim, where doing so would involve showing that it is irrational to maintain that the two are compatible. instead, i seek to identify principles that are intuitively plausible from which valid arguments for the incompatibility of libertarian freedom with the traditional view of divine providence can be constructed, and i seek to trace certain implications of maintaining their compatibility. my overall argument may be seen as a cumulative case for incompatibility: i believe that many readers will judge that the costs of maintaining the compatibility of the traditional view of providence with human libertarian freedom outweigh the costs of accepting the principles to which i appeal. i approach the central issue of divine providence indirectly, by first considering principles that would lead one to 'stronger' incompatibility claims: that libertarian freedom is incompatible with prior truth and with divine foreknowledge. as i proceed from the problem of logical determinism to that of the compatibility of libertarian freedom with divine foreknowledge and finally to its compatibility with divine providence, i expect that more readers will judge that the principles that lead to the particular incompatibility thesis being discussed have greater plausibility than the implications of maintaining compatibility. i believe that many readers will find that at least some of the principles to which i appeal are more plausible than the implications of accepting the most controversial compatibility thesis &ndash; that the traditional christian view of divine providence is compatible with human libertarian freedom. finally, i end my dissertation by considering the two most plausible theological alternatives open to those who reject the compatibility of the traditional christian view of divine providence with human libertarian freedom: thomism and open theism. the former gives up libertarian freedom to maintain the traditional view of providence; the latter maintains libertarian freedom at the expense of meticulous sovereignty. analysis of chemical systems requires speed, reliability, accuracy and precision. with advances in technology, portability is also becoming a useful requirement for analytical instrumentation. smaller, more portable instrumentation can be advantageous for the speed of analysis, especially for environmental and point-of-care monitoring. in this context, lab-on-a-chip devices are useful because they can incorporate sample preparation, injection, separation and detection into portable instrumentation. these chips also aid in the reduction of sample and reagent waste, because they use low volumes of reagent. at the nanoscale, small volumes mean that reagents experience increased wall and molecule-to-molecule interactions which can enhance kinetic measurements that mimic in vivo conditions, specifically those meant to probe the effects of molecular confinement and crowding.this dissertation focuses on the design of complex fluidic networks with sub-100 nm geometries, providing confined environments for in vitro enzyme kinetics studies. these devices are fabricated using conventional metal deposition and photolithography in both hybrid polymer as well as in borosilicate glass devices and are designed to provide real-time optical analysis of reaction kinetics. a fluidic gradient mixer is designed and fabricated, so that it can be employed as a means to examine multiple concentration dependent enzyme reactions simultaneously. a series of bifurcated and trifurcated channels is employed to mix different starting analyte concentrations and produce a concentration gradient spanning the two. the fluidic gradient mixer is used to study effects of confinement of enzymes in free solution and immobilized on channel surfaces by limiting the channel size and maximizing aspect ratios. the effect of molecular crowding on enzyme kinetics studies are measured by increasing solution viscosity using varying concentrations of a viscogen, sucrose. these fluidic chips fabricated to implement this strategy may also be used to examine two or more enzyme reactions in a single experiment on a single chip. the information provided in this dissertation provides the groundwork to developing more complex biomacromolecule studies in nanometer scale geometries for both optical and mass spectrometric detection schemes. toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular pathogen that infects many individuals worldwide. protein secretion from three unique secretory organelles; the micronemes, rhoptries and dense granules, is pivotal for t. gondii infection and survival within host cells. t. gondii is polarized with a single golgi stack apical to the nucleus. few studies have been done to characterize the retrograde transport processes involved in golgi to er protein trafficking in t. gondii. the work in this dissertation discusses the characterization of the t. gondii ì¢cop homolog, a protein involved retrograde transport in mammalian and yeast cells as a subunit of coatomer coated vesicles (copi). experiments were designed to identify both conserved and novel characteristics of tgì¢cop and include a phylogenetic analysis, localization studies, and a functional assessment. studies in mammalian and yeast cells have shown that ì¢cop localizes to the golgi, is recruited to the golgi via the gtpase arf1, interacts with proteins containing the retrieval kkxx or kdel motif, and disperses to the cytosol after treatment with brefeldin a (bfa). in the following studies we show that tgì¢cop localizes to the golgi region in non-dividing parasites, is involved in retrograde transport of hdel-tagged proteins (the t. gondii retrieval motif), and initial evidence suggests that tgì¢cop is recruited to the golgi in a gtp-dependent manner as expected. we observe several novel features in terms of sequence, location during parasite division, and response to calcium chelation. several novel inserts were identified within tgì¢cop, including one insert that is shared among apicomplexans. in addition to the phylogenetics, localization changes were monitored. during parasite endodyogeny, tgì¢cop staining closely follows the contours of elongating apicoplasts and encircles the golgi during golgi duplication and segregation into new daughter cells. initial functional studies of tì¢cop were conducted using pharmacological agents, including bfa, gtp&atilde;s, and the calcium chelator, mapta-am. unlike mammalian cells, there is a population of tgì¢cop refractory to the effects of bfa that do not completely disperse to the cytosol after treatment. lastly, disruption in tgì¢cop localization occurs upon mapta-am treatment and appears to be more responsive to the effects of calcium chelation than host cells. for most applications in the service industry, biped robots have advantages over other legged or wheeled robots to operate in human-centric environments. as they transition from the research lab to the real world, however, biped robots experience major uncertainties in unfamiliar environments. to reach their full potential in these domains, biped robots must be both robust to disturbances and energetically efficient. underactuated dynamic biped robots exploit the natural dynamics of human locomotion to achieve highly efficient gaits. while practical for tasks requiring long autonomy, such robots face complex control challenges that stem from their unactuated dynamics and limited ability to reject large external disturbances in the unactuated degrees of freedom (dofs). some groundbreaking advances provide glimpses of natural agility and efficiency, but practical challenges still limit the ability of dynamic biped robots to achieve their envisioned potential.this dissertation uses the hybrid zero dynamics (hzd) control framework to develop tropic, a gait optimization package that unites the motion planning and controller synthesis problems. hzd-based control, however, is susceptible to velocity errors when the robot is pushed off the periodic orbit, so the resulting gaits are sensitive to perturbations in the unactuated dofs. robust bipedal gaits are generated by optimizing the dynamic coupling between the actuated and unactuated dofs. the dynamic coupling quantifies the amount of control authority the robot has over the unactuated dof, which is shown to be strongly correlated to robustness. the hzd formulation is also enhanced using heuristics derived from transverse linearization feedback control. the heuristics improve disturbance rejection performance of underactuated biped robots across a range of perturbations while maintaining simplicity of implementation for practical robots. the resulting controller is tested extensively in simulation and validated in experiment on the five-link biped robot ernie. finally, robustness is improved using a novel gait switching method that enables dynamic biped robots to switch gaits autonomously following unexpected disturbances. while the main focus of this dissertation is on robustness improvement for efficient dynamic biped robots, this work also addresses another challenge that limits their practicality: scalability to high-dimensional systems. this dissertation is a history of some nineteenth-century english attempts to account for hallucinations. i focus my analysis on spiritualism and two contemporary movements, namely, psychical research and theosophy. for the victorians, the main source of debate was the source of hallucinations. this dissertation analyzes the shift that occurred over fifty years (between 1853 and 1901) from an 'objectivist' interpretation that granted ontological relevance to hallucinations, to a 'subjectivist' one, which regarded them as merely submerged representations of the unconscious. my analysis is a contextual history of hallucinations that explores intersections among psychology, psychiatry, physical sciences, theological debates, and religious practices. it shows how religion, authority, ideologies, and the professionalization of science were encoded in theories of 'inner vision.' therefore this dissertation avoids a teleological and asymmetrical view of the history of parapsychology. the divergences between spiritualism, psychical research, theosophy, and physiological psychology cannot be simply understood by invoking factors pertaining to scientific methodology. a central argument of this dissertation is that spiritualism, psychical research, and theosophy were not reflections of the process of secularization. they were neither diluted or compromised forms of religiosity, nor unscientific approaches to the study of the mind. in fact, they were contiguous with contemporary religious trends and changes in moral sensibilities related to new images of the afterlife. and they were also in deep and enriching dialogue with psychology and physical sciences. this dissertation argues that ideas about hallucinations, like any images of body and mind, are never results of epistemologically neutral procedures. it shows how the issue of 'inner vision' was a core part of the way in which many victorians created their identities, asserted their affinities, and supported their beliefs. this dissertation studies the effects of various government policies on market structure in the presence of dynamic and imperfect competition. the first chapter studies the role of mergers and acquisitions in the long-run productivity growth. i estimate that about 30% of variation in m&amp;a trade values is associated with the long-run productivity shocks. this finding suggests that restricting m&amp;a without further analysis of its role in long-run growth might have unintended consequences on productivity growth. in the second chapter, i analyze the effects of corporate taxes on industrial concentration under income and cash flow taxation system in a dynamic game where firms interact strategically. my results suggest that if market is highly concentrated, then a shift from income towards cash flow taxation increases long-run market concentration. however, when market concentration is low such a shift has the opposite effect. when market concentration is low, short-run transitory dynamics from the shift is associated with a fall in market concentration and rise in consumer surplus at a cost of large subsidies. however, if market concentration is high, then the transition from income to cash flow taxation delivers higher consumer surplus and tax revenue at a cost of increase in market concentration in short run. in the last chapter, i study the properties of product differentiation in a two-stage duopoly game where a consumer's quantity demanded depends on the product price and the transportation cost is paid for every unit of the product purchased. i show that in the industries where market size relative to transportation cost is large, the firms prefer locating as far away from each other as possible and hence maximize their market power. second, when the relative magnitude is small, the firms locate closer to each other and engage in more fierce price competition, thus giving up some of their market power. this suggests that government policies that shrink/increase the market size will tend to decrease/increase the firms' market power. also, policies that increase the transportation cost of firms (such as emissions taxes in the case of the ready-mixed concrete industry) will tend to decrease the firms' market power. facility flow characterization and the optimization of freestream conditions, through the detection of condensation to set a minimum static temperature condition, leads to better data analysis. a static pressure probe and laser rayleigh scattering were employed to measure the onset of condensation in three hypersonic wind tunnels: the notre dame arcjet arc-heated tunnel (formerly act-1) at m=6 and re=3 x 10^6 6 x 10^7 /m, the von karman institute (vki) longshot at m=14 and re=1.5 3.5 x 10^6 /m, and the afosr-notre dame large mach-6 quiet tunnel (andlm6qt) at m=5.7 and re=10 x 10^6 /m. classical nucleation theory was employed to evaluate the critical cluster sizes and steady state nucleation rates of the flow conditions where condensation was measured. a computational analysis of the static pressure probe over the range of expected flow conditions was conducted using a preconditioned/pressure based compressible petrov-galerkin navier-stokes solver in cfd++. background oriented schlieren (bos) of the static pressure probe was used to corroborate the cfd results. in the nd arcjet, a pitot-rake survey was conducted at multiple axial and radial stations for arc-off (stagnation temperature ~295 k) nitrogen flow in the mach-6 nozzle. stagnation pressures of 280 and 380 kpa were surveyed with the pitot rake. for a stagnation pressure of 380 kpa, the average measured mach number at the nozzle exit plane was 4.75 and 6.35 for the mach-4.5 and -6 nozzles, respectively. the flow of both nozzles exhibited slight angularity and asymmetry. spectral content of noise in the flow for frequencies up to 127.5 khz was measured by kulite pressure transducers. the root-mean-squared of the pitot pressure was found to be 2.2 2.4% and 0.5 2.2% of the mean pitot pressure for the mach-4.5 and -6 nozzles, respectively. measurements with a static pressure probe in nitrogen indicated that condensation occurs in the mach-6 nozzle and explains why the pitot survey results indicate a prematurely shortened axial length of the uniform flow region. measurements with laser rayleigh scattering in this facility employed an insufficiently intense laser. in longshot, condensation was detected with the static probe in two runs at t=42 k, p=64 pa and t=45 k, p=65 pa. measurements with laser rayleigh scattering in this facility were overwhelmed by sodium emission. in andlm6qt, a pitot probe, pitot rake, static pressure probe, and laser rayleigh scattering were deployed. the pitot probe was used to determine the freestream mach number along the centerline and the pitot rake was used to measure the thickness of the boundary layer. laser rayleigh scattering was used to measure the onset of condensation characterized by increased particle size. measurements indicate that with the aluminum surrogate nozzle, this facility currently operates at a conventional noise level of 2.6 %, a freestream mach number of 5.7, and a boundary-layer thickness of 11 cm. with the static pressure probe, the flow was found to condense 6 9 k below the equilibrium saturation temperature for the four pressures tested. laser rayleigh scattering detected variation of the flow density. using this technique, only 1 4 k supercooling was observed. modifications to the fast-acting valve in andlm6qt have led to operability of the facility in noisy conditions, and steps are being taken to achieve quiet flow conditions. genome sequencing technologies have revolutionized biology in the past two decades, yet data analysis has lagged behind data production. in this thesis, we present a framework for analyzing genomic data in more flexible ways than previous techniques. first, the framework allows researchers to design analyses that compare genomic samples directly instead of relying on reference-relative variant calls, as most current tools do. second, we provide utilities to look at both assembly data and resequencing data in the same analysis, where previous tools were restricted to either looking at an assembly or at resequencing data. finally, our framework allows researchers to flexibly incorporate alignments to arbitrarily many reference sequences into their analysis. we describe flexreseq, the software implementation of this framework. flexreseq allows researchers to easily customize resequencing analyses using a simple configuration file to define positions of interest. we give results from applications of these tools such as genotyping strains of plasmodium falciparum, finding diversity and divergence between strains of anopheles gambiae, detecting inversions based on assembly and alignment information from a. gambiae, and exploring resequencing analysis using alignments to multiple reference sequences. much of the literature on imitation has shown a robust advantage for an individual's imitation of observed action over the execution of non-imitative movements. these results are typically explained as evidence that observation of actions automatically activates the motor system to directly match what is seen by priming similar actions. however, recent work has shown that subjects were able to perform non-imitative actions more efficiently than imitation when non-imitative acts were congruent with an action context (van schie et al., 2008), a so-called action context matching effect. the present study attempts to replicate and extend this reference study by: 1) determining if action context matching could be demonstrated using a task that was not explicitly cooperative, 2) using a procedure offering a better measure of imitation fidelity, 3) discovering if action context matching would be revealed when employing more than just the two action contexts, and 4) determining if action context matching would result in the facilitation of multiple behaviors if each was context appropriate. to this end, a non-cooperative line-drawing task was used which employed two (experiment 1) and then four action contexts (experiments 2 and 3), including an action context that included more than one appropriate response (experiments 2 and 3). action context matching effects were found in most contexts and across multiple dependent measures of performance. in addition, facilitation for all actions that matched a context was found in the condition with more than one appropriate response. however, some evidence also supported the operation of direct matching on certain trials. these outcomes were taken as support for a view of imitation in which it is characterized as a more flexible, less automatic process that can be modulated by contextual and social factors. this view also leaves room for the simultaneous operation of both direct and action context matching. members of the mycobacterium genus present a serious health threat which account for significant morbidity and mortality in humans and other species. many pathogenic mycobacterial species maintain an intracellular life style within macrophages serving as the primary host cell. the mycobacterium's ability to modulate the macrophage function requires the expression of specific mycobacterial surface components. moreover, a number of studies have shown that various mycobacterial surface components can promote macrophage activation. this dissertation aims to define the role of glycopeptidolipids (gpl), which are highly antigenic glycolipids, in the immune-modulation of the host and thus establish its function as an important virulence factor. to address the role of gpl as a virulence factor, we utilized m. avium strains either naturally lacking gpl expression or genetically altered to express modified gpl. our studies showed that the loss of gpl or altering its structure leads to an m. avium strain which induces increased macrophage activation compared to gpl sufficient m. avium strains. additional analysis showed attenuated virulence of gpl-deficient/modified m. avium strains in a mouse infection model. to further understand the mechanism of action of gpl, we investigated the trafficking of gpl in primary macrophages infected with m. avium. our studies revealed significant release and trafficking of gpl from the mycobacteria containing phagosome to a distinct endocytic compartment called the multivesicular bodies (mvb). additional analysis showed that mycobacterial components including gpl are trafficked outside the infected cells on 'exosomes.' further, we determined that exosomes purified from the culture supernatants of macrophages infected with m. avium, m. tuberculosis h37rv or m. bovis bcg stimulate a pro-inflammatory response in uninfected macrophages. our studies are first to establish gpl's importance as a virulence factor in the m. avium pathogenesis. the data demonstrate a significant shedding of glycopeptidolipids in m. avium infected macrophages and its transport to the neighboring 'bystander cells'. this transport of mycobacterial components occur through release of exosomes extracellularly which can also act to stimulate uninfected macrophages both in vitro and in vivo. together, our studies put forward a novel mechanism of intercellular communication mediated by exosomes which can carry mycobacterial components to neighboring cells. whilst the matriarchs play minor roles in the book of genesis, in the book of jubilees they come to the fore of the literary stage. this dissertation revisits the question of the motives and priorities that led the author of jubilees to embellish the characterisations of the matriarchs in his rewriting of genesis. it also asks whether jubilees was unique in its elevation of female characters or dealt with them in a manner that was typical of the then literary zeitgeist. utilising approaches drawn from the fields of gender and feminist studies, this dissertation offers a more nuanced examination of the matriarchs in jubilees, that considers how attitudes towards sex and gender during the period of the author's floruit may have influenced his rewriting of female characters. this examination of the women in jubilees is situated within the larger context of roughly contemporaneous literature, comparing jubilees' depiction of female characters to heroines in greco-roman novels and ancient jewish novellas — chariton's callirhoe and chaereas, the book of esther, and the book of judith.firstly, this dissertation proffers that the author of jubilees did not rewrite the matriarchs in a systematic way. there was not an overarching aim to improve the images of or elevate the statuses of the matriarchs, as some scholarly opinions hold. some matriarchs traverse gender boundaries (rebekah), some matriarchs are confined within them (leah), and other matriarchs receive little attention (sarah). these women are treated differently depending on the ideological concerns and exegetical questions the author of jubilees sought to address. as a result, different types of femininity are represented in the depictions of the matriarchs. secondly, the author of jubilees was not unusual in the way he treated female characters. like the greek novel and jewish novellas, jubilees simultaneously contains images of female characters who defy gender norms, as well as images of female characters who reinforce stereotypically patriarchal ideas about the performance of gender. knowledge of conformational changes in biomolecules are crucial for understanding diseases. research in the area of computational biophysics has proven to be essential in this regard, accelerating the development of methods for understanding biomolecular motion and its biological functions. given the endpoints of transition, path sampling algorithms find a set of reaction path(s) of interest. on-the-fly string method is a popular path sampling algorithm for finding the most probable reaction path. finding reaction paths often require knowledge of a set of reaction coordinates, or collective variables, along which the transition takes place, which is non-trivial. in this work, i propose the use of low frequency normal modes as reaction coordinates. this choice is based on the observation that normal mode analysis can provide the direction of the low frequency motion of interest. as a proof of concept, i applied this method to study isomerization transitions of alanine dipeptide. the algorithms i developed are general and can be readily applied to larger systems. i also show that the choice of the normal modes confers simplifications in the string method itself. biomolecular conformational changes of biological relevance take place in the timescale of milliseconds to seconds. conventional molecular dynamics (md) simulations can only capture timescale of microseconds. over the last decade, various attempts has been made to overcome the limitations of md with smart sampling algorithms. some or all of these algorithms also try to exploit large-scale distributed computing environments. often, it is not essential to understand structural changes in atomistic detail. attempts has been made to capture transitions of interest without getting stuck with the computational complexity associated with fine-grained simulations. the main theme of the coarse-grained algorithms lie in the attempt to capture relevant degrees of freedom along which important conformational changes take place. normal mode langevin (nml) is a recently developed coarse-grained integrator which is based on this idea. replica exchange method (rem) is an efficient algorithm which utilizes multiple simulations (replica) in parallel to accelerate sampling. in this dissertation, i will present results showing evidence that incorporating nml with rem can improve its scalability for large biomolecular systems. this thesis explores ideas about the limits, prerequisites, and objectives of investigating nature, primarily but not exclusively through astronomy, at work in the writings of islamic scholars including ibn al-haytham, al-ghaz&#257;l&#299;, and several astronomers of the mar&#257;gha tradition. the latter tradition of modified ptolemaic astronomy answered both ibn al-haytham's call for conceptual and predictive consistency and al-ghaz&#257;l&#299;'s for metaphysical hesitancy appropriate to human reason's limitations. virtuosity and rhetoric, spirituality and one-upmanship, and perhaps even artistry evident in the mar&#257;gha astronomers' proliferation of ingenious models highlight an elective quality that bridges the 'motivation gap' between their ongoing model-making and the lack of more tangible motivations, revealing the humanity behind their enterprise. al-ghaz&#257;l&#299;, once thought a destroyer of islamic science and philosophy, truly helped give shape to a distinct and distinctive style of astronomy as an exploration of god, the heavens, and the bounds of human knowledge. iris biometrics is a flourishing field with multiple companies offering commercial systems being implemented in several real-world scenarios. however, before iris recognition can be implemented on a world-wide scale, important questions regarding its accuracy must be addressed. from its conception, iris biometrics has operated with the assumption that the iris texture is highly stable over an individual's lifetime and the claim has been made (and widely accepted) that enrollment is 'once for a lifetime.' using four years time-lapse data for 46 'iris-subjects?,' we present results from three different iris recognition systems that indicate that the iris biometrics template does 'age' another element of iris biometrics folklore is that performance is not affected by sub jects wearing contact lenses during acquisitions. our study on 124 non contact lens wearing sub jects and 88 contact lens sub jects yields results opposing this claim. we present results debunking both of these common myths in iris recognition and show a real effect of time-lapse and contact lenses on iris biometric performance. the flame behavior of forward propagating flames through dowel arrays driven by imposed freestream flows was examined. initial experiments followed the design and implementation of a large, portable, wind tunnel designed for fire spread research. a suspended array of dowels mimicked the small branches and twigs encountered in fine forest fuels. the array was set up at various element to element spacings and subject to a range of flow speeds. intended as an extension of existing solid fuel array flame spread literature, the results were unexpected. it was found that at certain flow speed-spacing conditions the flame spread did not quicken with higher flow speeds. this regime of flame spread inversion coincided with a change in flame behavior which resulted in fragmented, independent flames, rather than one continuous flame area. because the large wind tunnel did not offer fine flow control and was designed for a high turbulence intensity flow, further experiments were conducted in a modified benchtop wind tunnel. the finer resolution flow control allowed for the mapping of the discrete flame behavior regime previously identified in the large wind tunnel. furthermore, detailed analysis of the flame shape, ignition behavior, spacing, and flow effects was conducted. lastly, a time scale analysis revealed a damkholer number-stanton number relationship which predicted the threshold between flame behavior regimes. existing fire spread models predict faster flame spread with increasing flow speeds. in order to incorporate the effects of the changing mixing conditions and flame behaviors, a stagnation point flow model is employed for the heat flux. the model also incorporates a mass transfer b-number which serves as a surrogate for the changes in flow conditions. the b-number analysis of the array experiments yielded an empirical model based on the experiments in the small wind tunnel. the empirical model predicted the 1 cm spaced array ignition times well. this dissertation examines the rehnquist court's federalism jurisprudence in four areas of federal-state conflict, addressing the following questions: (1.) is this jurisprudence consistent with the supreme court's federalism precedents? (2.) is this jurisprudence consistent with the structure and design of the constitution as amended? (3.) can the tenets of this jurisprudence find support in conceptions of liberty and the rule of law presented by earlier political theorists? critics, both in the academic literature and in the popular press, contend that the rehnquist court's federalism decisions break from precedent and adopt an unsound approach to the separation of powers. the few who have defended the decisions usually concede the point about precedent, offer a limited defense of its compatibility with originalist theory, and fail to comprehend the aspects of political theory that undergird the rehnquist court's decisions. i analyze the court's decisions and the critics' responses through the lens of the three questions above. first, i argue that there is a substantial body of precedent with which the rehnquist court's federalism jurisprudence is consistent. second, i address the context of the structure and design of the constitution. i examine the competing federal-state arrangements considered at the constitutional convention and explain where the rehnquist court's federalism jurisprudence fits into the framework established at the convention and through subsequent amendments. third, i consider the place of this jurisprudence in the broader context of theoretical discussions by examining definitions of political liberty, the rule of law, and how a division of powers among different levels of government fits into the consideration of thinkers including locke, montesquieu, and tocqueville. i conclude with a discussion of how these principles of federalism are founded in something more than ideology. properly understood, federalism can promote local decision-making and deference to individual choices in a non-partisan manner. i examine marijuana regulations and sanctuary cities to provide concrete examples of this parity under the principles of federalism.by combining an examination of precedent with a broad analysis of the tenets of the rehnquist court's federalism jurisprudence in relation to conceptions of the separation of powers, liberty, and constitutional design, this project places those decisions within an appropriately broad context. i show that this jurisprudence was not truly revolutionary but was, instead, consistent with earlier conceptions of liberty and the relationship between different spheres of government. nuclear forensics plays a critical role in national and international security strategies. advanced technical nuclear forensic capabilities act as a powerful deterrent to nuclear security issues such as nuclear smuggling, nuclear terrorism, nuclear extortion, and nuclear arms proliferation. source attribution of illicit material can aid in law enforcement actions and promotes materials accountability. the work presented in this dissertation supports the advancement of nuclear forensic capabilities in three ways. the first is through the evaluation of signatures related to nuclear materials. rare earth element signatures in uranium materials were evaluated in an aqueous environment to assess the influence of environmental aging. the second is through the development of a surrogate nuclear melt glass that can be used as a reference material during the in situ analysis of nuclear debris materials. an urban melt glass containing aluminum, calcium, strontium, lanthanum, gadolinium, and uranium was synthesized using a sol-gel technique and determined to be homogeneous at the microscale. finally, the rapid decomposition of glassy matrices, representative of nuclear melt glass, was investigated via nitrogen trifluoride fluorination. selective delivery of molecular cargo in complex biological systems is a major unsolved problem that impacts many fields of biomedical research and technology. in addition to the complexity of finding the correct target in a living animal, there is the challenge of transporting molecular cargo across the plasma membrane of a living cell. this thesis describes several methods to deliver molecular cargo to specific biological sites by targeting structures such as anionic phospholipids. once class of these conjugates can enter into living cells via endocytic uptake while another can be transported directly across the plasma membrane by phospholipid transloases. while the efficacy of a therapeutic aget can be monitored by assaying a physiological response, this may be time consuming and require large quantities of resources. fluorescence imaging provides a powerful and convenient method to monitor biological systems both in vitro and in vivo in real time. therefore, there is a need for fluorescent dyes that are brighter, more photostable, and robust in biological systems. the dye described here, the squaraine rotaxane, shows significantly greater photostability and resistance to degradation in biological systems as compared to conventional fluorescent dyes. also, it can be chemically modified to localize to different subcellular targets. cognitive behavioral therapy (cbt) is an empirically supported treatment for a range of psychological disorders. theoretically, cognitive change is an important mechanism of cbt that is targeted through cognitive restructuring by clinicians using a variety of treatment techniques throughout therapy. however, less is known about these specific treatment techniques used in cbt packages. thought records are one of the widely used treatment techniques in cbt to target cognitions by providing a systematic approach to identifying, examining, and changing negative automatic thoughts that arise in emotionally arousing situations.the current study examined the effects of completing a thought record on affective and physiological responses to a laboratory stressor that consisted of a speech task and a mathematical subtraction task (trier social stress task, tsst; kirschbaum et al., 1993). participants were 100 college-students with no history of psychopathology. prior to preparing for the tsst, participants were randomized to one of two conditions: either a thought record condition (n=50) or a control condition (n=50). saliva samples were collected and assayed for cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone (dhea), and salivary alpha-amylase (saa) at baseline, post-tsst instruction, immediately following tsst, and 20and 40-minutes post tsst. results indicated that the participants in the thought record condition, as compared to those in the control condition, showed greater cortisol response 20-minutes post tsst (peak response). no between group differences were found on dhea, saa, affect, or attentional bias.this research provides a novel examination of the causal effects of completing a thought record on physiological responses to a psychosocial stressor in a laboratory study. overall, results show that completing a thought record impacts physiology (i.e., cortisol). future research is needed to determine how completing a thought record and other cbt techniques impact affective and physiological responses to stress over time (e.g., over the course of treatment). overall, this research demonstrates that using experimental laboratory methods can provide additional information to better understand the effective components of cbt. this study investigates how bodily discipline in immigrant religious communities contributes to shared cultural logics regarding how groups understand their presence and purpose in their host country. immigrant latino protestants are a growing and important group in the increasing demographic and religious diversity of the united states. to understand the distinctive significance of latino protestants, we need to know how local congregations produce people with particular orientations to family and society. i examine the regulation, discipline, and presentation of immigrant bodies as it relates to collective processes of incorporation at two latino protestant organizations. despite the similarities between the two congregations as religious bodies of latino immigrants, important distinctions arise in how the congregations evaluate individual and collective orientations to the family, the church community, and the broader society. i argue that religious contexts shape immigrant experience and acculturation by being places of bodily retooling, where ethnic, religious, and class attachments and identities can be reformed. as firstand second-generation latino immigrants become embedded in communities that shape immigrant experience and acculturation through bodily discipline, their experience in the united states is changed and interpreted. this has implications for how immigrants are integrated into the fabric of society or marginalized to the side. a large quantity of manuscripts survives from the vast network of libraries established by the jesuits across colonial south america, including many examples of a distinctive kind of jesuit scriptural meditation. although the social and economic influence of the jesuits in south america has been well documented, no study has focused on the literary and theological aspect of these scriptural meditations, or the significant extent to which they reflect the cultural practices of the indigenous communities that the jesuits were preaching to. prophets of a new israel focuses on a selection of representative examples (1585-1653) of this distinct sub-genre of jesuit prose and its transformative character. this thesis accounts for accommodation strategies performed by the jesuits at a literary level as they seek to integrate the new world into european consciousness and create a new and meaningful christian rhetoric. content consumption and generation is a major part of the internet experience. product and service-providers strive to improve user experience through personalization of services, recommendations, and understanding user interests. for this purpose, inferring user characteristics, such as demographic information, from their behavior, would help understand their preferences. through this dissertation, we show that by using content and behavior data, we can characterize users for the purpose of improving their experience through personalization in the domains of education and online content consumption. we discuss two challenges: (1). representing users given heterogeneous, industry-scale volume of data, and (2). improving the representation of underrepresented groups of users, which is the imbalanced classification problem. rapidly deployable shelters are critical for military housing on forward operating bases and for relief following natural or anthropogenic disasters. key design priorities for such structures include a low self-weight (preferably being man-portable), transportability (i.e., air-liftable), ease of erection (i.e., without the use of heavy lifting equipment), and energy efficiency related to heating and cooling of the shelter. toward achieving these priorities, this thesis harnesses the art of origami as inspiration for rigid wall deploying shelters and introduces a novel erection strategy for these origami-inspired shelters based on the principle of counterweighting. this thesis will review existing shelter technology in the military and relevant work in origami engineering, present a series of novel origami-inspired concepts developed by the research team, present the structural design and analysis of one promising concept, optimize this design for structural performance and energy efficiency, and finally discuss conclusions and future work. a moderate amount of filial responsibility is normative whereas too much or too little filial responsibility is a pathological family dynamic. maternal history of excessive filial responsibility poses a risk to child adjustment in the next generation. the present study hypothesized that maternal history of filial responsibility would have a curvilinear effect on child externalizing and internalizing behaviors. second, the present study sought to identify the mother-child dyads most susceptible to maternal history of filial responsibility. results indicate that maternal history of filial responsibility was significantly associated with child internalizing behaviors and that this relationship was linear for filial responsibility broadly and instrumental caregiving specifically. furthermore, difficult child temperament interacted with maternal history of emotional caregiving to influence child internalizing behaviors in the next generation, indicating that children with difficult child temperament were most impacted by maternal history of emotional caregiving at moderate levels and the risk then plateaued. in order to understand the educational objectives of machiavelli's *discourses on livy*, one must study augustine's *city of god*. particularly, one must study augustine's treatment of rome and the problem of corruption (political, physical and spiritual) that augustine treats through his analysis of the ancient republic and empire. a key intention of machiavelli's "new modes and orders" is to re-portray roman *virtù* over and against the christian virtue of machiavelli's age, in such a manner that one's otherworldly commitments do not interfere with the political stability of the city. to elucidate this point, i begin with an analysis of augustine's account of corruption and finitude and its implications for political life. i turn next to augustine's treatment of four roman heroes — lucretia, romulus, regulus and brutus. i then turn to machiavelli's use of rituals and other institutions, which parallels augustine's use of rituals, and how machiavelli uses these institutions and rituals to solve the problem of corruption. in the following chapters i treat the four roman heroes lucretia, romulus, regulus and brutus from the perspective of machiavelli. i conclude with reflections on problems with machiavelli's account of human psychology that impede his political conclusions. elections are defining moments in which the stability of democracies is tested. the behavior of losing parties is key in this stage of the democratic process. in authoritarian regimes, losing parties might reasonably challenge the outcome of elections as a consequence of widespread and systematic fraud that altered the outcome of the election. however, post-election disputes have also occurred in 21% of the democratic presidential elections worldwide since the beginning of the third wave of democracy. why so? i argue that in presidential democracies, losing political parties are not rejecting the outcome of the election to publicize fraud but rather to induce the winning party to negotiate benefits for the losing party. using an original dataset that codes the behavior of runner-up candidates in 180 presidential elections (1974-2012) and 966 years of electoral legislation, i find evidence that, in democracies, losing parties with an unfavorable negotiating position in congress are more prone to dispute presidential election outcomes, even after controlling for the quality of the election and the margin of victory. the cases of the presidential elections in venezuela in 1978 and indonesia 1979 illustrate how the distribution of seats in congress is connected with election disputes. i test the same argument at the sub-national level in mexico. if the theory holds at the national level, it should also survive a test at the sub-national level. the sub-national analysis includes a quantitative comparison of the 74 gubernatorial elections that have taken place since the transition to democracy and semi-structured interviews i conducted with 21 runner-up candidates from most of the states in mexico. the interviews help to identify the politicians' motivations for challenging election results, and to illustrate how post-electoral negotiations happen. much has been written and predicted about the demise of moore's law in advancing computing technology. while many of these predictions have fallen by the wayside, the end may be approaching since the 'red brick wall' (areas where scaling progress may end if breakthroughs are not identified) is barely being pushed further into the future. as a result, numerous nanoelectronic devices are being investigated to determine if they can augment or replace silicon-based transistors. due to a variety of factors, a significant challenge when building a system from any of these devices is how to produce a reliable, predictable system from unreliable components with unpredictable behavior? in this dissertation, the reliability aspects of a specific nanoelectronic architecture -quantum-dot cellular automata (qca) -are explored. qca is a unique architecture to explore since the same basic device, a simple cell, is used to implement both logic and interconnect components. the device itself can be implemented using different physical properties, which in turn, influences how the signal routing within the qca circuits and systems should be designed. this dissertation computes the reliability of qca circuits and systems based on the reliabilities of the underlying components. this is used to identify how reliable the components should be to achieve a target circuit or system reliability and to identify which components are the most critical to circuit reliability. additionally, various techniques for improving reliability through the use of hardware redundancy are evaluated to determine how a reliable qca system should be designed. lastly, various organizations for a specific interconnect component, a straight wire segment, built from a specific device type, are compared to determine how reliable a component can be. throughout this dissertation, a constant theme is observed: the organization and reliability of the signal routing has a major impact on circuit and system reliability. an optimization approach was formulated to determine geometric designs that are most compliant to flow control devices. single dielectric barrier discharge (sdbd) plasma actuators are used in the flow control design optimization as they are able to be incorporated into cfd simulations. an adjoint formulation was derived in order to have a numerically efficient way of calculating the shape derivatives on the surface of the geometric design. the design of a wind turbine blade retrofit for the jimp 25kw wind turbine at notre dame is used to motivate analyses that utilize the optimization approach. the cfd simulations of the existing wind turbine blade were validated against wind tunnel testing. a one-parameter optimization was performed in order to design a trailing edge addition for the current wind turbine blade. the trailing edge addition was designed to meet a desired lift target while maximizing the lift-to-drag ratio. this analysis was performed at seven radial locations on the wind turbine blade. the new trailing edge retrofits were able to achieve the lift target for the outboard radial locations. the designed geometry has been fabricated and is currently being validated on a full-scale turbine and it is predicted to have an increase in annual energy production of 4.30\%. the design of a trailing edge retrofit that includes the use of a sdbd plasma actuator was performed using a two-parameter optimization. the objective of this analysis was to meet the lift target and maximize the controllability of the design. the controllability is defined as the difference in lift between plasma on and plasma off cases. a trailing edge retrofit with the plasma actuator located on the pressure side was able to achieve the target passive lift increase while using plasma flow control to reduce the lift to below the original design. this design resulted in a highly compliant flow. an experimental study of a cambered airfoil undergoing non-cyclical, transient pitch trajectories and the resulting effects on the dynamic stall phenomenon is presented. surface pressure measurements and airfoil incidence angle are acquired simultaneously to resolve instantaneous aerodynamic load coefficients at mach numbers ranging from 0.2 to 0.4. derived from these coefficients are various formulations of the aerodynamic damping factor, referred to copiously throughout.using a two-motor mechanism, each providing independent frequency and amplitude input to the airfoil, unique pitch motions can be implemented by actively controlling the phase between inputs. this work primarily focuses on three pitch motion schemas, the first of which is a "chirp" style trajectory featuring concurrent exponential frequency growth and amplitude decay. second, these parameters are tested separately to determine their individual contributions. lastly, a novel dual harmonic pitch motion is devised which rapidly traverses dynamic stall regimes on an inter-cycle basis by modulating the static-stall penetration angle.throughout all results presented, there is evidence that for consecutive pitch-cycles, the process of dynamic stall is affected when prior oscillations prior have undergone deeper stall-penetration angles. in other words when stall-penetration is descending, retreating from a regime of light or deep stall, statistics of load coefficients, such as damping coefficient, maximum lift, minimum quarter-chord moment, and their phase relationships, do not match the values seen when stall-penetration was growing. the outcomes herein suggest that the airfoil retains some memory of previous flow separation which has the potential to change the influence of the dynamic stall vortex. dark energy is the as yet unidentified mechanism responsible for the accelerated expansion of the universe. understanding this mechanism is one of the most important problems in modern cosmology for two reasons. first, dark energy is estimated to be responsible for approximately 70% of the energy content in the universe, which means that we cannot have a complete model for the evolution of the structure in the universe without understanding dark energy. second, the current standard model of physics does not provide an explanation for dark energy. this means that understanding dark energy could serve as a gateway to physics beyond the current standard model.the onus of constraining dark energy falls on observations. since dark energy affects the expansion of the universe, studying the behavior of dark energy currently requires the use of observables sensitive to the expansion. these include type ia supernovae, baryon acoustic oscillations, the anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background, and weak gravitational lensing. however, at present, the constraints provided by these probes are still rather weak. this leaves the pool of viable dark energy models quite large. there are two ways to alleviate this problem: the first is to acquire more data from those observational probes that are already employed, and the second is to develop complimentary observational probes.in this thesis i take the latter approach by exploring the use of the lyman alpha forest as a probe of dark energy. in particular, i have investigated whether time-dependent dark energy leaves an observationally detectable signature in the flux power spectrum of the lyman alpha forest.to this end, i have run five high-resolution, large-scale cosmological simulations using a modified version of the publicly available smoothed-particle hydrodynamics code gadget-2. each simulation employed a different dark energy model. four of these dark energy models are dynamical models while the fifth is the standard cosmological constant, or vacuum energy. i then developed efficient massively-parallel codes in order to extract both synthetic lyman alpha forest spectra and synthetic flux power spectra from my simulations.these power spectra were then compared against one another using the k-sample anderson-darling test. the results of these tests indicate that there is insufficient statistical distinction between the power spectra calculated from my dynamical dark energy simulations and the power spectra calculated from a cosmological constant simulation (0.05 significance level). the effects of my chosen dark energy models on the power spectrum are so small as to suggest that there is likely no prospect of future observations being able to distinguish between power spectra from different dark energy models. this implies that other approaches to the lyman alpha forest must be explored to find a significant signature of the time-dependent dark energy. colorectal cancer (crc) represents an increasingly large threat as it is estimated that 8% of cancer-related deaths worldwide are due to advanced forms of crc.when detected in early stages, crc has a very good prognosis upon resection of the primary tumor and continued monitoring of the colon for other aberrant growths.crc's biggest threat lies in its ability to readily metastasize to the liver, lymph system and lungs when undetected.identifying interactions between distinct populations of cells in the tumor architecture that promote metastasis and evade therapy represents a key step in combating this disease. using matrix-assisted laser desorption and ionization time of flight mass spectrometry (maldi-tof ms), imaging mass spectrometry (ims) offers the ability to preserve important spatial information in the x,y and z planes to observe any analyte detected over a broad mass range in its native spatial distribution within a sample. although initially applied to thin sections of mammalian tissues, the application of ims to sections of three dimensional cell culture tumor mimics has led to a dramatic increase in the ability to study and understand the complex interactions between tumor microenvironments. the experimental flexibility inherent to cell culture models combined with the robustness of ims allows for the study of protein expression patterns across the structure of the spheroid, sirna-mediated knockdown of specific proteins , drug penetration and efficacy studies and lipid expression and localization analysis. the application of chemometrics to ims datasets has greatly enhanced our understanding of these complex experiments. overall, these studies have evolved the application of ims to three dimensional cell culture models into a robust and viable experimental technique that will have an enormous impact on the understanding of the complex interaction between tumor microenvironments and how drug treatment and chemotherapeutics affect tumor microenvironments. wind tunnel experiments were conducted to understand boundary layer separation control on airfoils. the objective of this research was to better implement flow control strategies with single dielectric barrier discharge (sdbd) plasma actuator designs for airfoils that exhibit both leading and trailing edge stall characteristics at realistic flight speeds and reynolds numbers. the nasa energy efficient transport (eet) airfoil was a platform to study the effect of plasma actuators on leading edge stall and boundary layer separation in a strong adverse pressure gradient, while the v-22 osprey airfoil was used to study trailing edge stall with separation in a weaker adverse pressure gradient. the eet airfoil was designed to have a spanwise plasma actuator on removable leading edges made from two different dielectric materials: kapton and macor. two different plasma waveforms were also tested with the same electrodes, alternating current (ac) and nanosecond pulse (np) driven. aerodynamic force and moment measurements showed that both plasma actuators were effective at increasing the stall angle of attack and maximum lift for the range of mach numbers tested, 0.1-0.4, and reynolds numbers of 560,000-2,240,000. this indicated that the shear layer instability was highly receptive to both disturbances: either the body force from ac plasma actuator, or the nondirectional thermal disturbance of the np plasma actuator. the shear layer instability also provided for an opportunity to quantify the effect of unsteady, or duty cycle, operation. the lift to drag ratio of the eet airfoil was improved the most by operating the ac plasma actuator at a reduced frequency of unity and the np plasma actuator at 2 or higher. the second part of the experiment examined the efficacy of plasma actuators on a v-22 airfoil for trailing edge separation control in the presence of new factors such as moving separation location, crossflow, turbulent boundary layers, and weaker pressure gradients at the line of vanishing shear. initial consideration of moving separation location with angle of attack motivates the use of plasma streamwise vortex generators (psvgs) which take up a larger percent of the chord dimension and produce streamwise vorticity from both crossflow momentum addition and by reorienting spanwise vorticity from the boundary layer. the psvgs were compared to traditional passive vortex generators (vgs). these devices were installed on the wing section by which the angle of attack could be used to vary the streamwise pressure gradient. the experiment was performed for freestream mach numbers 0.1-0.2 and a reynolds number range of 790,000-1,590,000. three-dimensional velocity components were measured using a 5-hole pitot probe in the boundary layer. these measurements were used to quantify the production of streamwise vorticity and the magnitude of the reorientation term from the vorticity transport equation. reductions in drag were well correlated to streamwise vorticity production. for the psvg, vorticity production was proportional to the residence timescale of freestream momentum and operating voltage. these results indicate that the psvgs could outperform the passive vgs and provide a suitable alternative for flow control. finally, a design equation was proposed to create a psvg equivalent to a vg including design parameters such as mach number, angle of attack, operating voltage, and electrode length. the task of temporal slot filling (tsf) is to extract values of specific attributes for a given entity, called ``facts'', as well as temporal tags of the facts, from text data. while existing works denote the temporal tags as single time slots, in this paper, we introduce and study the task of precise tsf (ptsf), that is to fill two precise temporal slots including the beginning and ending time points. the challenge of ptsf lies in finding precise time tags in noisy and incomplete temporal contexts in the text. to address the challenge, we propose one unsupervised approach based on the philosophy of truth finding. commonsense knowledge was automatically generated from data and used for inferring false claims based on trustworthy facts. experiments on a large news dataset demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of our proposed algorithm. furthermore, we also explore the possibility on using probabilistic graphical modeling to solve the same problem. control systems are becoming more efficient, more sustainable and less costly by the convergence with networking and information technology. the limited digital channel capacity, however, can degrade or even destroy control systems. to maintain system performance with the limited digital channel capacity, event triggered transmission, with which transmission is triggered by a certain event, is proposed. our research is to analytically examine the trade-off between system performance and digital channel capacity in event triggered systems. we first study the optimal communication rule which minimizes mean square state estimation error with limited channel capacity. it is shown that the optimal communication rule is event triggered transmission. because the optimal event trigger is difficult to compute, computationally efficient suboptimal event trigger is presented. our simulation results show that we can compute tighter upper bounds on the suboptimal costs and tighter lower bounds on the optimal costs than prior works, while guaranteeing comparable actual costs. based on the same idea, computationally efficient weakly coupled suboptimal event triggers for both sensor and controller are also designed for output feedback control systems to minimize the mean square state with limited digital channel capacity. the weakly coupled transmissions represent an advance over the synchronized transmissions proposed in prior work, especially in large scale multi-sensor systems. the work above, however, ignores the influence of network delay and quantization error. we, then, consider both the network delay and quantization error in event triggered control systems to guarantee input-to-state stability (iss) and resilience, respectively. we first give a sufficient condition to guarantee not only iss but also efficient attentiveness in event triggered control systems. an event triggered system is efficiently attentive if longer inter-sampling interval and lower instantaneous bit-rate, the ratio between the number of bits in a packet to the acceptable delay of this packet, can be achieved when the system state gets closer to the origin. most well designed event triggered systems are efficiently attentive, but a counter example was given to show that not all event triggered systems are efficiently attentive. to our best knowledge, our work is the first one which studies efficient attentiveness of event triggered systems. efficiently attentive event triggered systems usually have long inter-sampling interval, which raises a concern about whether event triggered systems are resilient to unexpected disturbances. to address this concern, we, then, study the resilience of event triggered control systems to transient unknown magnitude disturbances. to our best knowledge, this is the first time the resilience of event triggered systems is studied. we run the event triggered system under two different regimes: safe an d unsafe, according to whether the system is hit by a transient unknown magnitude disturbance. if the system is under safe regime, both sufficient instantaneous bit-rate and necessary instantaneous bit-rate for asymptotic stability are provided. if the system is under unsafe regime, a sufficient instantaneous bit-rate is given to guarantee resilience, i.e. the system can come back to a neighborhood of the origin in a finite time. innovation is the key to long-term economic growth, but we still know little about the determinants of innovation. the dissertation contains three essays on the causal relationship between labor supply and innovation. in the first chapter, i explore the relationship between highly-skilled inventors and firm invention. in the second chapter of my dissertation, i investigate the relationship between low-skilled mass migration and innovation. the third chapter studies the role of language in explaining the relationship between immigrants and innovation. the three papers elucidate how shocks to labor supply and human capital affect the innovation, productivity, and behavior of individuals and institutions. my work, therefore, helps identify new channels through which knowledge spillovers and competitive effects operate in the knowledge economy. the first chapter investigates the impact of individual inventors on a firm's innovation activity. i construct a unique data set that contains matched firm–inventor patent data, wwi military records, and characteristics of inventors in the census, allowing me to use the wwi draft as an exogenous shock to the labor supply of inventors. i find that the loss of inventors working with a firm decreases the firm's inventions, but the loss of other inventors in the same geographical location does not affect the firm's inventions. the loss of inventors outside the firm yet working in the same industry increases the firm's inventions. this latter impact, however, varies considerably across firms; highly innovative firms experience an increase in innovation rates, while other firms experience a decrease in innovation rates. industry-level data indicates that the loss of inventors attracts new inventors and firms to the industry. new ideas and generations are generated, given a vacancy in the space of ideas.in the second chapter, joint with kirk doran, we analyze the relationship between immigration-induced labor supply shocks and innovation. inventions often economize on labor, so economists have long posited that scarce labor should encourage invention. but the production of new inventions can require a division of labor and economies of scale that require plentiful labor instead. we provide the first causal evidence of mass immigration's effect on invention, using variation induced by 1920s quotas, which ended history's largest international migration. inventors in cities and industries exposed to fewer low-skilled immigrants applied for fewer patents. industries with small establishment sizes attracted an ever-increasing share of invention. labor scarcity affected both the rate and direction of inventive activity.the third chapter studies the role of language in explaining how immigrant flows affect innovation. economists have long noted that linguistically diverse immigrant flows might have a particularly large impact on innovation and creativity. on the other hand, if innovation depends on communication, and communication depends on a common language, then linguistically uniform immigration flows may have the largest impact on innovation. we find a u-shaped curve for the effect of linguistic diversity on the innovativeness of a society using features of the 1920s u.s. immigration quotas. too much linguistic diversity creates a ``tower of babel" effect, in which people have unique things to talk about but no common language to say them in. too little linguistic diversity creates a homogeneous population, in which people have a common language but nothing unique to share. the optimal amount of linguistic diversity for a creative society appears to be somewhere in between. in this thesis, curite is a lead uranyl oxyhydrate mineral [pb3(uo2)8o8(oh)6(h2o)2] that forms due to oxidative alteration of uraninite in geologically old uranium deposits. curite is a member of the uranyl oxyhydrate mineral family and these in general impact uranium release and transport in the environment (plasil, 2014). curite is one of several pb uranyl oxyhydrate minerals that form during the initial stages of alteration of uraninite that contains radiogenic lead (plasil, 2014). little is known about the thermodynamics of most of these uranyl phases whose solubility may impact the mobility and ultimate distribution of u. the only thermodynamic data that is available for this group of minerals is for curite for which the enthalpy of formation was determined using high-temperature oxide melt solution calorimetry (kubatko et al., 2005). in this project, solubility experiments using synthetic curite were conducted from undersaturation and supersaturation to obtain the equilibrium state. using the solubility data, the logksp was calculated to be 32.685±0.570 at ph 2.8, 41.413±0.752 at ph 3.3 and 45.152±0.948 at ph 3.8, respectively in undersaturated experiments. in supersaturated experiments, the logksp was calculated to be 36.4±0.6 at ph 2.8, 44.0±0.5 at ph 3.3 and 50.2±0.8 at ph 3.8. using effective field theory, the effects of new particles or interactions can be captured in a model-independent way by supplementing the standard model lagrangian with higher-dimensional operators. a measurement of the cross section for top quarks produced in association with a w or z boson, using 19.5/fb of proton-proton collisions with a center-of-mass energy of 8 tev, collected by the cms experiment at the lhc, is extended within this framework to set constraints on the wilson coefficients of five dimension-six operators. an additional measurement of the same processes using 35.9/fb of proton-proton collisions with a center-of-mass energy of 13 tev collected by the cms experiment is used to perform a more sophisticated study of eight dimension-six operators and present bounds on their wilson coefficients. the churches of interest to this present study belong to an 'exotic' and ambiguous group as they are not only located in the enigmatic province of cappadocia but also date to the selcuk period. these churches not only mark the strangeness of a christian community under muslim rule, but have also provided historians an outlet for views regarding the greek community and their acculturation under turkish rule. these readings have distanced these works from a notional center-embodied in a largely imaginary nicaea or constantinoplerendering them 'provincial.' in so doing, they have neglected or undervalued the new center, the selcuk capital of konya, which re-orients the visual culture of the region towards the traditions of the selcuk kingdoms to the east. this change complicates and challenges any rigid distinction between greek and orthodox, selcuk and islamic as categories for the description of the works of art produced in thirteenth-century cappadocia. it is this dissolution of boundaries that is the subject of this thesis. this thesis is an experimental study of the nuclear force. in the first part of the thesis the single particle structure of 208bi is studied via the &#947; &#947; coincidence technique. this experimental data provides information about the residual particle-hole interaction in the lead region. in the second part of the thesis the structure of 7he is studied. the experimental study of 7he was motivated by experimental evidence for reduction of the spin-orbit force in the above nucleus. to study the 7he structure two new experimental techniques were developed. the new data obtained with these techniques showed that there is no reduction of the spin orbit force in 7he. it is shown that the developed methods can be used to study other exotic neutron rich nuclei. the techniques are described in details in this work and future prospectives are given. tucked into a corner of the athenian acropolis, the temple of roma and augustus is often understudied in scholarship as it is dwarfed (literally and figuratively) by the monumental structures surrounding it. yet despite its rather modest proportions, the temple of roma and augustus should loom large because of the associations it draws upon through its position on the acropolis and its relation to the surrounding monumental buildings. the position and form of the temple was meant to link it to the persian wars symbolism of the spatial environment in order to promote augustus' victory over the parthians. it was framed to offer a symbolic message appealing to rome but in a context that glorified athens. this paper attempts to show that while the construction of the monument was commissioned by the imperial cult, its design and location were influenced by the art and architecture of augustan rome. the use of supplementary cementitious materials (scms; e.g., slag, fly ash) to reduce the amount of ordinary portland cement in concrete construction has increased significantly over the last 20 years. previous research has shown that, as an important benefit, scms can improve the long-term mechanical properties and durability of concrete. however, there is limited and inconclusive information on the relationship between scm properties and concrete workability. this is particularly important for technologies that require high workability control, such as self-consolidating concrete (scc). this thesis provides an experimental-based quantitative assessment and understanding of the effects of the particle size and physicochemical properties of scms and their interactions with the primary mixture parameters (such as water-to-cementitious materials ratio, scm replacement, and reactivity of cement) on the rheology of cementitious paste (i.e., cementitious mixture with no coarse or fine aggregates). the results from this research are intended to improve the mixture design of new construction technologies that require better rheological control, through the use of scms. as a specific application, improved design of scc to achieve better interlayer bonding is investigated. this is important for the construction of large concrete elements, where casting of multiple concrete lifts is required. specifically, due to the lack of mechanical consolidation when casting scc, the interfaces between multiple layers can result in reduced mechanical resistance in the final structure. the specific objectives of this research are to experimentally investigate, develop and validate empirical models for the effects of: 1) scm properties and their interactions with the primary mixture parameters on the increase of static yield stress on time of cementitious paste before initial set; 2) scm properties and their interactions with the primary mixture parameters on the viscosity of cementitious paste before initial set; and 3) concrete mixture design (i.e., cementitious paste rheology and aggregate-to-cementitious paste ratio), building process (i.e., layer-to-layer free-fall height and delay time), and their interactions on the layer-to-layer flexural and shear bond strength in multilayer scc. memory, for many postcolonial artists, is uncertain territory. this dissertation examines depictions of drowning or the drowned body in irish and caribbean postcolonial literature, arguing that rather than simply being the marginal detritus of these island literatures, drowned bodies have been central to the project of postcolonial writing in ireland and the caribbean, providing a focal point for a transatlantic discussion of memory. french historian pierre nora argues that modernity's destruction of 'environments of memory,' cultures in which memory plays a central role in everyday life, has resulted in the creation of 'places of memory,' sites like archives, monuments, or graveyards where memory lingers. this dissertation argues that postcolonial irish and caribbean writers express their ambivalence towards memory in general and places of memory in particular in their representations of drowned bodies. given the human desire to memorialize the dead, such bodies ought to become places of memory, at least for the families that mourn them. their placement in the sea, however, troubles this desire. traditional rituals of memory are disturbed by the drowned body, which may remain lost at sea, or wash up unrecognized on a distant shore. for the authors in this study: j.m. synge, derek walcott, david dabydeen, and kate o'brien, the drowned body symbolizes both the powerful desire to remember and the sense that available ways of remembering may not prove adequate for the unique situation of the postcolonial nation. statues, gravestones, and memorials are too often tied up with the imperialist desires to possess and lay claim to land, to erect and maintain a dominant narrative of history. while such places of memory can embody collective or national identity for france or england, the situation of the colonized nation is not so straightforward. in the image of the drowned body, postcolonial authors experiment with a version of memory, and by extension of national identity, that is not fixed but fluid, one that is concrete and yet elusive. in so doing, they create a place of memory that changes the terms of what it means to remember. this dissertation will describe rapid methods for identification of proteins separated under an electric field. the first project focuses on integrating a pepsin-containing membrane reactor into a capillary electrophoresis separation. digestion of proteins occurs after their separation and just prior to mass spectrometry (ms). thus, all the peptides from a given protein enter the mass spectrometer simultaneously to allow better characterization of proteins and provide more confident peptide identifications using their migration times. a custom-built sheath-flow interface contains the membrane to allow digestion just in front of the emitter tip. the second project focuses on identification of proteins separated via sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (sds-page). the process uses electroblotting to transfer proteins from the gel to a capture membrane in a process related to a western blot. in lieu of an in-gel digest, proteolysis occurs in a trypsin-modified membrane as proteins transfer from the gel to the capture membrane. this work uses matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time of flight (maldi-tof) ms to identify unknown proteins. thus, unlike western blotting, the technique does not require expensive antibodies or prior knowledge of the proteins of interest. in addition, a membrane modified with carbon nanotubes and polyelectrolytes replaced pvdf as the capture membrane. the conductivity of the membranes improves mass accuracy in ms, and the polyelectrolytes enhance capture efficiency. overall, the new methods may help to rapidly identify proteins and their modifications. during a chemical, biological, or radiological (cbr) event, there is an immediate need for information on the transport of the agent so that evacuation and containment protocols can be executed. real-time plume evolution had previously been tracked through either physical detection of the plume by embedded sensors or by predictions made using simplified computational models. in order to leverage the positive attributes of these two approaches, a project was initiated to interface, for the first time, real-time sensor data with a nomograph-based, user-friendly software called ct-analyst to provide full hindcasting capabilities. as part of this effort, this thesis was charged with coordinating the field validations of this integrated system, including correlating field and model-predicted concentrations, developing sampling and release protocols by projecting the rate at which the plume will move through demonstration sites, and assessing and processing the wind field data used to drive the computational model. reproducibility is becoming an increasingly challenging requirement of the scientific process. compared to more human intensive scientific procedures, it would seem that scientific applications executed on computers could easily produce identical results despite slight changes to hardware, software, or simply timing. however, implicit dependencies on data and execution environment, coupled with ambiguous definitions of identity and equivalence throughout the process, make reproducibility rarely possible. to address this problem, i created prune, the preserving run environment. in prune, every task to be executed is wrapped in a functional interface and coupled with a strictly defined environment. with this information prune can directly execute each task. as a scientific workflow evolves in prune, a growing but immutable tree of derived data is created. the provenance of every item in the system can be precisely described, facilitating sharing and modification between collaborating researchers, along with efficient management of limited storage space. i show that with a minimal amount of overhead, these capabilities can be available for large scale and complex workflows, such as an analysis of high-energy physics data, a bio-informatics application, and processing of u.s. census data. prune also minimizes the cost of collaborative development of computational science. statistical mechanics attempts to describe the collective behavior of systems composed of many small interacting parts. systems in equilibrium are particularly simple to analyze since their behavior is stationary in time. for systems out of equilibrium, the past and future states and behavior of the system may be radically different then that of the present.in this thesis, we analyze how information about the past or future can be best used. we start by establishing a theoretical framework for quantifying how well the future and past of systems can be inferred, which we call the prediction and retrodiction entropies. we use our measures to quantify retrodiction and prediction for systems of diffusing particles and for the logistic map. we then develop a formalism that allows us to decide how to make small changes to a discrete markov process such that it becomes more susceptible to inference either prediction or retrodiction. we test this procedure on several markov systems: an ensemble of random transition matrices, and a semi-classical quantum system, showing that we are in fact able to get moderate changes in predictability from small changes to the transition matrix.following this, we study two systems that attempt to use information about the future to improve their performance in the present. the first system is a collection of agents that attempt to predict the future and use that information to compete for a scarce resource. the second system is a maxwell demon that has constraints on how quickly it can open and close its gate. its uses knowledge of when particles collide with the gate it controls to schedule a sequence of gate openings and closures, and maximize its net rate of particle or energy transfer. preventable medical errors are a severe problem in healthcare, causing over 400,000 deaths per year in us hospitals alone. in acute care, the branch of medicine encompassing the emergency department (ed) and intensive care units (icu), error rates may be higher to due low situational awareness among clinicians engaged in safety-critical procedures. here, clinicians often work together in high-stress scenarios that require strong team communication and coordination. the inability to work together effectively can lead to adverse patient harm, or worse, patient death.clinical teams may rely on both paper and computer-based tools to help them coordinate better. paper-based cognitive aids are one such tool that teams may use to reference information and tasks for a situation to prevent possible errors. likewise, tools like electronic health records might help the team document information during safety-critical scenarios or access critical patient information. however, as health information technology (hit) becomes more commonplace in healthcare, it is becoming clear that the design does not always meet the needs of clinicians in safety-critical contexts.this is a critical problem, because poorly designed hit can lead to patient harm or death. attending to the ways new hit impacts the clinical workflow will help designers make improvements to their software before compromising patient safety. most hit takes a "shoot first, ask questions later" approach to design, where problems are only corrected after they manifest. they are not built with clinicians' workflow and patient safety at the forefront. patient lives are worth the time to design effective hit that supports clinicians' individual needs.in order to design more effective hit, designers must look beyond a single hospital or department. healthcare is not a ``one size fits all'' domain, and each care setting differs in its culture, environment, and practices. technology must be adaptable to meet these differences, or it is unlikely to be effective in practice.this dissertation explores this concept of design using a multi-institutional approach in a collaborative hit tool we call visual task (team awareness and shared knowledge). the goal of visual task is to improve clinicians' situational awareness and cognitive workload in safety-critical scenarios, such as resuscitation.in this dissertation, i outline the ethnographic fieldwork, design, and evaluation of visual task studied in the context of three hospitals. our ethnographic study focuses on understanding some of the environmental and resource constraints facing clinicians across three hospitals. i then outline how we used these findings in the design of visual task, and walk through an evaluation of the tool at two us hospitals.my work has multiple contributions in the fields of human-computer interaction, health informatics, and safety-critical technology design. first, i identified human-factor problems clinicians faced across hospitals, including different spacing constraints and team management. understanding these differences are important for designers, so that they can create technology which can accommodate constraints in the work environment.second, i found a number common problems with electronic health record systems (ehrs) and cognitive aid use in safety-critical environments. this includes problems with technology usability and workarounds clinicians employ to manage team size and roles. for example, we found at several institutions that ehrs were so poorly designed that clinicians used paper towels as a workaround. third, i identified problems with clinicians fixating and becoming distracted by cognitive aids in safety-critical scenarios. clinicians often over-rely on cognitive aids, to the point where it directly interferes with how they deliver care and their situational awareness. this can impose challenges for the rest of the team.fourth, i designed and developed visual task to support team situational awareness with the capability to adapt to end-user needs. visual task provides a shared resource display for the entire team to guide them through a procedure. it provides detail of each individual task for each role in a safety-critical scenario, so that all participants have the information they need to do their jobs. it also provides a history chart of completed, and a list of upcoming events, so participants can reference the team's status.fifth, i found that gesture-based technology is unusable in safety-critical environments, and may cause patient harm. gesture-based tools like the kinect are unfit for safety-critical environments, such as the intensive care unit, due to possibilities of occlusion and space constraints. using gesture-based input modalities may only create new problems for clinicians, such as usability problems and distracting them from the situation.finally, i evaluated visual task with clinical teams at two us hospitals. i found that visual task can significantly improve situational awareness and reduce cognitive workload for team members. this is an important finding, because it shows that collaborative technology may be able to help reduce preventable medical errors that are caused due to a lack of situational awareness and high-cognitive workload.my research informs the design of future safety-critical technology. technology must be adaptable to clinicians' needs, because poorly designed technology will disrupt clinicians' workflow and can lead to patient death. technology designers must take into consideration how clinicians cognitively process tasks, coordinate as a team, and understand their workflow to create effective solutions. this can help prevent some of the severe problems that compromise patient safety and help reduce the number of preventable medical errors that occur today. patient lives are worth the time investment in fully understanding the magnitude new technology has on the clinical workflow. measurement of bone mineral density (bmd) has been used as a method for diagnosis of osteoporosis. however, this method does not account for the influence of changes in bone quality. the objectives of this dissertation were to investigate viscoelastic properties of bone tissue using nanoindentation, identify the effects of disease, aging, gender and tissue compositions on bone mechanical properties, and study crack initiation and propagation in bone samples subjected to multiple loading modes. we compared the viscoelastic behavior of human cortical bone between genders by using nanoindentation at a fixed load of 10 mn to measure the creep time constant. bones from females had a significantly greater time constant than bones from males. the creep time constants decreased with increasing tissue modulus. the mineralization, collagen content, and collagen crosslink density were analyzed to determine if the differences in viscoelastic behavior were explained by compositional differences in the bone. however, none of the parameters differed between genders, nor were they correlated to the viscoelastic time constant. the effect of ovariectomy on mechanical properties of ovine trabecular bone tissue was investigated using nanoindentation. three groups of mature ewes were studied: one group was unoperated control and two other groups underwent bilateral ovariectomy and were sacrificed either 12 months (ovx-1) or 24 months (ovx-2) after surgery. mineralization and elastic properties decreased and the creep time constant increased after ovariectomy. as the elastic properties recover as well as mineralization, the viscoelastic properties did not, indicating that there might be other factors in change of viscoelastic properties. elastic modulus increased and creep time constants decreased with increasing mineralization, but the sensitivity to the change of mineralization depended on ovx status. this demonstrated that mineralization altered both elastic and viscoelastic properties, but may be in different extent for different ovx status. microdamage initiation and propagation in human trabecular bone was studied. the on-axis specimens were subjected to torsional, compressive and combined torsional and compressive overloading at 2% principal strain level. the combined overloading gave rise to 60.52% more microcrack density than torsional overloading and three times greater than compressive overloading. both the density of induced and propagating microdamage depended on the density of pre-existing microdamage, suggesting that the pre-existing microdamage not only provide crack propagating sites, but also indicated high risk to new cracks. taken together, the results indicate that microdamage burden may contribute to osteoporotic fractures by increasing the risk of further damage formation, which decreases modulus and strength. overall, this research provides insight into bone viscoelastic properties and microdamage by studying creep behavior, tissue composition, disease and crack initiation and propagation. let (m, g) be a poincar&eacute;-einstein manifold with a smooth defining function. we prove that there are infinitely many asymptotically hyperbolic metrics with constant q-curvature in the conformal class of an asymptotically hyperbolic metric close enough to g. these metrics are parametrized by the elements in the kernel of the linearized operator of the prescribed constant q-curvature equation. a similar analysis is applied to a class of fourth order equations arising in spectral theory. rauscher, shaw, and ky (1993) found that exposure to a mozart sonata enhanced performance on visuo-spatial tasks. this finding, subsequently labeled the 'mozart effect', resulted in a flurry of additional research aimed at exploring the nature and extent of the effects of music on cognitive tasks. exact replications and extensions of these findings did not however result in clear or consistent support for the existence of a mozart effect. some studies failed to replicate or generalize the effects to additional cognitive tasks or types of music. at the same time, other studies did find support for the beneficial effects of mozart (and other music) on cognitive performance. three studies were conducted to test the mozart effect utilizing the mozart piece and one cognitive task from the original rauscher et al. (1993) study. results from all three studies did not support the existence of a mozart effect. problems associated with null hypothesis testing and an alternative bayesian approach to the data were explored. dynactin is a multi-subunit complex implicated in cytoplasmic dynein-driven transport of membranous organelles, mitotic chromosomes and other cargos. the p150glued subunit of dynactin contains a microtubule (mt)-binding domain composed of a cap-gly motif and an adjacent basic domain (bd). despite the widespread conservation of this structure, the requirement for mt-binding remains controversial. to test the hypothesis that mt-binding is important for transport, we engineered mutants that disrupt normal mt-binding and developed a shrna/rescue assay to replace endogenous p150glued with each mutant. assaying er-golgi transport first, wild-type gfp-p150glued was successful in rescuing normal motility. in contrast, a gfp-p150glued g59s mutant that displays reduced mt-binding incorporated into the dynactin complex but failed to rescue normal er-golgi transport. to test if dynamic mt-binding was required, we generated a gfp-p150glued-map4 chimera which exhibited stable mt binding. this construct also failed to rescue er-golgi transport but resulted in immobilization of vesicles along mts. to test the contribution of the bd, a naturally occurring p150glued isoform with an internal deletion in the bd was prepared. this construct was successful in rescuing er-golgi transport but displayed reduced run-lengths for motile vesicles. because dynactin is also thought to augment dynein-driven chromosome movement during mitosis, we applied the same shrna/rescue approach to assay kinetochore-mt capture, chromosome movement, and the timing of anaphase onset. whereas wild-type gfp-p150glued rescued each aspect of mitotic dynactin function, the g59s mutant disrupted kinetochore-mt capture similar to cells treated with nocodazole. a subset of g59s-rescued cells entered anaphase despite a loss of persistent kinetochore-mt attachments, reflecting a defect in the spindle assembly checkpoint. together these studies suggest that the mt-binding activity of p150glued is essential during both interphase and mitosis. we have investigated the isoscalar giant resonances in the even-a sn isotopes (a=112--124) using inelastic scattering of 400-mev $alpha$-particles at extremely forward angles, including 0$^circ$, at the research center for nuclear physics (rcnp), osaka university, japan. because of the unique optical properties of the grand raiden magnetic spectrometer, it was possible to obtain inelastic scattering spectra free of all instrumental background. we are able to extract strength distributions for various multipoles with multipole decomposition analysis. essentially all of expected isoscalar giant monopole resonance (isgmr), isoscalar giant dipole resonance (isgdr), isoscalar giant quadrupole resonance (isgqr) and high energy octupule resonance (heor) strengths were identified in these nuclei. although the isgmr has been identified previously in some of the sn isotopes in measurements with inelastic $alpha$-scattering, this is the first time that it has been investigated in a large number of isotopes simultaneously. we find that the isgmr energies in the sn isotopes are significantly lower than the values predicted in recent theoretical calculations even though the interactions used in these calculations reproduce the gmr energies in the ``standard' nuclei, $^{208}$pb and $^{90}$zr, very well. further, the asymmetry-term, k$_ au$ , has been determined to be -550 $pm$ 100 mev from these measurements. this dissertation is divided into two parts. its center of gravity is found in part ii, which comprises an annotated translation of origen of alexandria's fourteen surviving homilies on ezekiel. the commentary found in the notes is designed to draw attention to significant aspects of origen's preaching, including his use of scripture, points of contact with other texts in his own corpus and with other ancient thinkers, and his development of key theological themes. part i begins with a general introduction to the project and the text of the homilies. there follows a chapter detailing the background relevant to origen's original preaching of the homilies. the next four chapters are interpretive essays, each of which takes up a particular theological question raised in the homilies on ezekiel. chapter 2 looks more closely at origen's biblical hermeneutics and connects it with his doctrines of christology, providential creation, human redemption, prophecy, and preaching. chapter 3 considers origen's preached exegesis of an exceptionally difficult chapter in the book of ezekiel, and puts him in explicit and critical conversation with contemporary interpreters. chapter 4 asks what the homilies on ezekiel reveal about origen's doctrine of the church, and relates his ecclesiological convictions to difficult historical questions about his own ecclesiastical experience. chapter 5 describes origen's doctrine of the suffering of god, and brings it to bear on modern discussions concerning divine impassibility and the relationship between biblical revelation and hellenistic philosophy. a brief conclusion ends part i by gesturing at the integral nature of the diverse and seemingly disparate issues broached in the preceding chapters. these concluding remarks are only suggestive, for the true work of integration is left for origen himself to perform in the translation that follows in part ii. in this thesis, we consider a class of information protection problems requiring confidentiality (secrecy) from eavesdropping and integrity (reliability) from jamming in an information-theoretic context. for this purpose, we introduce the arbitrarily varying wire-tap channel (avwtc) model consisting of a family of wiretap channels indexed by some state that is selected by the jammer in an arbitrary and time-varying manner. we study this model for traditional wiretap codes and randomized wiretap codes, and develop insights about the corresponding secrecy capacity and randomized-code secrecy capacity, respectively. we characterize a lower bound on the randomized-code secrecy capacity of the avwtc that suggests the secrecy is mainly dictated by a worst-case scenario. additionally, we establish two upper bounds on the randomized-code secrecy capacity that suggest a single bad ``averaged' state can preclude secure communication, while certain superiorities of the legitimate receiver over the eavesdropper in all ``averaged' states result in a positive secrecy capacity. finally, we prove that the secrecy capacity of the avwtc is either zero or equal to its randomized-code secrecy capacity. we show that a ``two-layer' wiretap code is appropriate for combatting the two non-colluding jamming and eavesdropping adversaries. accelerating the deep decarbonization of the world's electric grids requires the coordination of complex energy systems and infrastructures across timescales from seconds to decades. in this thesis, we present a new multiscale simulation framework that integrates processand grid-centric modeling paradigms to better design, operate, and control energy systems in wholesale energy markets. traditionally, energy systems are analyzed with a process-centric paradigm such as levelized cost of electricity (lcoe) or annualized net revenue, ignoring important interactions with electricity markets. this framework explicitly models the complex interactions between energy systems' bidding, scheduling, and control decisions and the energy market clearing and settlement processes, while incorporating operational uncertainties. we show the importance of understanding and quantifying complex resource-grid interactions, and how this framework can guide the design of future energy systems with case studies. the new modeling and optimization capabilities from this work enable the coupling of rigorous, dynamic process models with grid-level production cost models to quantitatively identify the nuanced interdependencies across vast timescales that must be addressed to realize clean, safe, and secure energy production. moreover, the proposed general multiscale simulation framework creates abundant future research opportunities within the context of energy markets, e.g., advanced bidding, operation, and control strategies of energy systems. the framework is applicable to all energy technologies and can be easily extended to consider other energy carriers (e.g., hydrogen, ammonia) and energy infrastructures (e.g., natural gas pipelines). studies suggest that the prevalence of binge eating disorder in the obese population ranges between 30 and 55 percent (munsch et al., 2007; wilfley, agras, telch, rossiter, schneider, cole, et al., 1993). research and practice psychologists have come to view binge eating as a mental health issue. yet, obese people often attempt to resolve binge eating through dieting although dieting fails to address the underlying sources of the behavior. this study of intuitive eating (tribole & resch, 2003) employed an eight-week group treatment for binge eating disorder that encompassed components of cognitive behavioral therapy, interpersonal therapy, and dialectical behavior therapy. outcome results were benchmarked against the efficacy of existing treatments; no significant differences in binge abstinence levels were found between the present study and existing treatments. binge abstinence rates of the current study were significantly different from those found in non-equivalent control groups. self-reported anxiety and depression were explored as potential predictors of outcome, but were non-significant. the relationship between psychological reactance and binge frequency at pre-treatment was examined and the association was non-significant. overall, participants experienced significant improvement over the course of the study, suggesting that further research into intuitive eating as a treatment for eating disorders is warranted. research concerning the penitentes of northern new mexico and southern colorado holds out many unique gifts to scholarship. unfortunately, because of the difficulties inherent in the study of this population, the information available is incomplete. one of the largest gaps in current scholarship lies in investigation of the medieval roots of penitente devotion, another in the documentation and examination of their unique tradition of musical worship (the alabados), and a third in the role of women in penitente society and spirituality. further, work is still necessary to explore the theology expressed in penitente art, ritual, and daily living. the area of liturgical studies offers the methods and approach necessary to address all of these issues. this dissertation will present an historical analysis of the evolution of the northern new mexican penitente cult with an attempt to establish its relationship to the traditions of medieval spain. this relationship can be revealed especially through the study of penitente devotional music. the medieval musical roots that evolved into the expression known as flamenco in spain (including arab/islamic, jewish/ladino, and extra-iberian catholic/european traditions) appear to have been preserved in their more primitive forms in the isolation of northern new mexico, perhaps because of the liturgical conservatism of the penitentes, and reveal much about the group's origin and the genesis of their spiritual world view. therefore, where the history of the group's development has been disputed (and the prevalent theories will be explored), the arts give insight. in close relationship to this investigation, the dissertation will attempt an inquiry into penitente understandings of their own unique theology. finally, it will be the hope of this dissertation to demonstrate an active and even leadership-oriented role in for women in penitente society and spirituality, which preliminary but extensive field interviews have so far confirmed, and which would be more consistent with the tradition's medieval roots than the more popularly held understanding that the expression and devotion of the penitentes is an exclusively male endeavor. civil military relation in nepal faced a new challenge in post conflict setting especially when the rebel force became the largest political party in constitution assembly election and ministry of defense; the higher command of the national army came under the direct control of its so called former enemy of the national army. the debate over integration of former rebel combatants in the nepalese army remained at heart of the peace process. amid this situation, through structured focused comparative case studies of el salvador and mozambique, this paper draws lesson to improve cmr in nepal in terms of civilian control and military professionalism. it uses the lens of traditional literature on civil military relation to compare and analyze the military reform in peace agreement and its implementation process. human-robot collaboration (hrc) studies how to achieve effective collaborations between human and robots to take advantage of the flexibility from human and the autonomy from robots. most of the existing work in hrc focused on the robot actuation design and low-level motion planning. however, many applications involving hrc, such as joint assembly manufacturing systems, need to achieve high-level tasks in a provably correct manner. in addition, many hrc applications are safety critical, such as advanced driver assistance systems and intelligent service robots. these applications motivate the requirements of hrc to have the performance guarantee to assure the task completion and safety of both human and robots. hence, my ph.d. research is motivated to build a correct-by-design hrc framework that enables a performance guaranteed hrc for the safety of human and robots and the completion of high-level tasks. for such a purpose, cross-disciplinary approaches combining methods from supervisory control theory, machine learning, and computational verification are pursued. in particular, three research thrusts are structured to emphasize the requirements on uncertainties modeling, high-level task completion, and safety guarantees in hrc. to model the uncertainties from human, robots and the environment, partially observable markov decision process (pomdp) is used as the model for hrc. with the partial observability in pomdp, the collaboration process can be described more accurately since the sensing ability of robots contains uncertainties for detections of the human behavior and the environment status. based on the pomdp modeling, a supervisory control framework is established. with the high-level tasks described by temporal logics, an automata learning based algorithm is developed to learn a supervisor. in this process, computational verification techniques such as model checking are applied to verify the performance of the system and provide counterexamples as feedback information to improve the supervisor design. to reduce the model checking complexity, an abstraction method for pomdp is proposed to find a quotient system with a smaller size of state space. the basic idea is to iteratively refine the abstraction with counterexamples showing inconsistency between the abstract system and pomdp. furthermore, the adaptation abilities of the supervisory control framework are discussed for pomdp modeling uncertainties and online model changing. as the primary contribution of this dissertation, the pomdp supervisory control framework gives a high-level performance guarantee to achieve the correct-by-design hrc. a non-blocking and permissive supervisor can be automatically learned to ensure the satisfaction of high-level tasks represented by temporal logics. beyond the theoretical work, a supervisor synthesis software is developed to combine existing formal verification packages and implement the proposed algorithms, which helps to apply the proposed pomdp supervisory control framework to different hrc applications. do religious high schools socialize men and women differently for postsecondary study? using data from the cardus education survey 2014, i examine the association between attending a catholic or evangelical protestant high school and the likelihood of earning a college degree, along with how these associations may differ by gender. i also consider the likelihood of majoring in a humanistic major compared to a scientific major and the likelihood of majoring in a care field versus a technical field. findings from logistic regression suggest that there are no differences by gender across school sector in earning a college degree. catholic school students are more likely and evangelical protestant school students are equally as likely as public school students to earn a degree. women were more likely to major in a humanistic major compared to a scientific major as well as a care major over a technical major, but results suggest that religious schools do not appear to play a role in choice of major across these divides for men or women. this work focuses on the transition from the late pottery neolithic to the early bronze age in mesopotamia (6400-200 bce), with a particular emphasis on north mesopotamian developments. i use mortuary data from this time period in order to understand how people were buried and to what extent these practices reflected social structures as understood from the rest of the archaeological record. cortical bone thickness and density are examined in concert with the mortuary data in order to understand long-term changes in people's mobility and/or activity patterns, as well as internal structures that differentiated between the sexes.this inquiry is especially framed in the context of urbanization that occurred once during the middle of the 4th millennium bce and once again in the middle of the 3rd. how mortuary practices and the human body were influenced by the changing dynamics of shifts in settlement patterns, use of space, and the reduced mobility of people who had specialized tasks to perform is at the hearth of this study. thus, i am examining how social differentiation is or is not reflected in the ritualized behavior of burying the dead through the lens of 3000 years, and how we can possibly learn about these changes by employing human long bone cortical studies. in order to contextualize my findings, i model north/south mesopotamian interactions, north mesopotamian social organization, and elite power as a heterarchical system. the use of heterarchy instead of hierarchical to characterize northern mesopotamian societies allows me to reconcile burial patterns that are observed, explain the lack or presence of wealth in certain graves, and link these findings to the rest of the archaeological record. heterarchy gives a richer understanding into why societies go through phases of centralization, decentralization, and collapse and allows for a more flexible approach by which to investigate social complexity. the purpose of this study was to better understand the relationship between mental health functioning and the perception of discrimination in blacks. merging the theoretical tenets of the transactional theory of stress and coping with social identity theory, it was proposed that higher levels of depression would predict greater perceptions of discrimination and that particular social factors would moderate this relation. in particular, the multidimensional model of racial identity ([mmri] sellers, shelton, rowley, & chavous, 1998) was incorporated into the study design to test potential racial identity moderators of the relationship between mental health functioning (i.e., depressive symptoms) and perceived discrimination. theoretically informed demographic variables, sex and socioeconomic status (ses), also were tested for their moderating potential. results indicated that depression indeed is positively correlated with perceiving discrimination, and that having higher levels of racial centrality exacerbated this relationship. however, a three-way interaction revealed that having stronger private regard for one's racial group buffered the relationship between racial centrality and depression to predict lower levels of perceived discrimination. additionally, at low levels of depression, men were less likely to perceive discrimination than women in the relationship between mental health functioning and perceived discrimination. contrary to prediction, ses did not moderate the relation between depression and the perception of discrimination. theoretical and clinical implications of these results are discussed. ionic liquids (ils) are organic compounds composed merely of ions and with melting points generally below 100°c. many ils have melting points around room temperature and are known as room temperature ionic liquids (rtils). rtils have attracted great interest for practical applications over the past few decades due to their unique properties such as negligible vapor pressure, low flammability, high thermal, chemical and electrochemical stability and good solvating properties. additionally, properties of ils can be tuned by changing the structure of the cation and anion. ils have been studied for electrochemical applications in this work from the following three aspects: (1) electrocatalyst for electrochemical reduction of co2. it found that ionic liquid [emim][tf2n], when used as a supporting electrolyte and electrocatalyst, was not only able to decrease the reduction overpotential for co2 reduction, but can also alter the reaction pathway. the results highlight the ability of [emim][tf2n] to modulate the co2 reduction products. (2) solvents for electroplating of chromium from trivalent chromium sources. a series of imidazolium chloride ionic liquids with varied cationic alkyl chain lengths were used for electroplating of chromium with chromium chloride hexahydrate (crcl36h2o) as the chromium source in this study. chromium coatings with comparable properties compared with the conventional commercial chromium coatings were obtained, revealing a potential of using this type of mixtures as a more environmentally friendly alternative to the conventional practice to produce chromium coatings from highly toxic hexavalent chromium (cr(vi)) aqueous solutions. (3) electrolytes for renewable energy storage devices such as lithium-ion batteries. a series of rtils containing different aprotic heterocyclic anions (ahas) were synthesized and characterized as potential electrolyte candidates for lithium-ion battery applications. the results showed that many of the aha rtils exhibit very good conductivity for their viscosities as identified by the exceptionally high molar conductivity ratio. further investigation on the effect of addition of lithium aha salts on the transport properties of the lithium salt/il mixtures showed that lithium ions, although with a smaller size, diffuse slower than the cation and anion of the il, which is a strong indicator of the existence of complexes formed by lithium and anions. consistent with previous studies, significant increase in viscosity and decrease in ionic conductivity with addition of lithium salts were observed for the three aha rtil based mixtures. this reinforces the necessity to search for approaches to alleviate such effects caused by addition of lithium salts in order to make the lithium salt/il mixtures practically suitable as electrolytes for lithium-ion battery applications. in order to effectively realize future goals for wind energy, the efficiency of wind turbines must increase beyond existing technology. one direct method for achieving increased efficiency is by improving the individual power generation characteristics of horizontal axis wind turbines. the potential for additional improvement by traditional approaches is diminishing rapidly however. as a result, a research program was undertaken to assess the potential of using distributed flow control to increase power generation. the overall objective was the development of validated aerodynamic simulations and flow control approaches to improve wind turbine power generation characteristics. bem analysis was conducted for a general set of wind turbine models encompassing last, current, and next generation designs. this analysis indicated that rotor lift control applied in region ii of the turbine power curve would produce a notable increase in annual power generated. this was achieved by optimizing induction factors along the rotor blade for maximum power generation. in order to demonstrate this approach and other advanced concepts, the university of notre dame established the laboratory for enhanced wind energy design (ewind). this initiative includes a fully instrumented meteorological tower and two pitch-controlled wind turbines. the wind turbines are representative in their design and operation to larger multi-megawatt turbines, but of a scale that allows rotors to be easily instrumented and replaced to explore new design concepts. baseline data detailing typical site conditions and turbine operation is presented. to realize optimized performance, lift control systems were designed and evaluated in cfd simulations coupled with shape optimization tools. these were integrated into a systematic design methodology involving bem simulations, cfd simulations and shape optimization, and selected experimental validation. to refine and illustrate the proposed design methodology, a complete design cycle was performed for the turbine model incorporated in the wind energy lab. enhanced power generation was obtained through passive trailing edge shaping aimed at reaching lift and lift-to-drag goals predicted to optimize performance. these targets were determined by bem analysis to improve power generation characteristics and annual energy production (aep) for the wind turbine. a preliminary design was validated in wind tunnel experiments on a 2d rotor section in preparation for testing in the full atmospheric environment of the ewind laboratory. these tests were performed for the full-scale geometry and atmospheric conditions. upon making additional improvements to the shape optimization tools, a series of trailing edge additions were designed to optimize power generation. the trailing edge additions were predicted to increase the aep by up to 4.2% at the white field site. the pieces were rapid-prototyped and installed on the wind turbine in march, 2014. field tests are ongoing. integrative data analysis (ida) — the combination and joint analysis of participant-level data from multiple studies (curran &amp; hussong, 2009) — and metaanalysis (ma) — the combination and joint analysis of summary statistics from multiple studies (glass, 1976) — offer statistical methods for psychological researchers to leverage multiple data sets to jointly describe or test phenomena of interest. while adaptation of ida continues to grow within psychology, ma remains the prevalent method of joint data analysis. this may be attributable to the relative difficulty of obtaining participant-level data (ipd) in practice, while (published) sufficient statistics or aggregated data (ad) remain more accessible (h. cooper &amp; patall, 2009). the integration of both ipd and ad, however, remains virtually unexplored in the psychology literature despite recent methodological developments and applications in the medical literature (e.g., jackson et al., 2006; riley, lambert, et al., 2008; riley et al., 2007). instead, multi-study applications have tended to exclusively use either ipd studies or ad studies. methods combining ipd and ad remain under-evaluated and their ability to estimate different relationships or effects of interest and the quality of inferences remains an open question. this dissertation will introduce and evaluate multiple models for jointly analyzing cross-sectional ipd and ad studies when comparisons between levels of a dichotomous predictor (e.g., a treatment group and a control group) with respect to a continuous outcome are of interest. in chapter 2, key estimands of interest are defined, modeling frameworks for joint analysis of ipd and ad are introduced, and which estimands are estimable using each approach are analytically investigated. in chapter 3, an application of ida, ma, and joint ipd-ad models and a monte carlo empirical simulation comparing modeling approaches are presented using an international sample of 47 studies of the big five personality traits (johnson, 2014). in chapter 4, a simulation study is conducted to evaluate the performance (i.e., convergence rate, parameter estimation bias, parameter coverage rate, and rejection rate) of ida, ma, and ipd-ad models with varied numbers of studies (i.e., nine to 24) and relative amounts of available ipd and ad studies (i.e., ipd only, 33% ipd, 67% ipd, ad only) under different data generation assumptions. chapter 5 presents key contributions and findings and suggests new directions for researchers interested in integrating both ipd and ad studies. theoretical virtues of scientific theories, also known as epistemic values or cognitive values, are taken by many philosophers of science as crucial factors in theory choice. this dissertation investigates two main issues: what role do these theoretical virtues (e.g. internal consistency, external consistency, empirical adequacy, accuracy, simplicity, explanatory power, non-ad hocness, predictive power, unification, fertility, and scope) play in theory choice in science? can they be used, fruitfully and justifiably, in metaphysics? in chapter 1, i argue that in the context of scientific theory choice, there is no algorithm, no set of rules, for choosing the theory that best exemplifies theoretical virtues over its rivals. in chapter 2 i argue that all theoretical virtues are constituents of the goal of scientific inquiry and scientists aim to formulate theories that exemplify the best possible balance of all theoretical virtues. then, by examining the centrality of theoretical virtues to our understanding of scientific rationality, the (approximate) truth of successful scientific theories, and scientific progress, i argue that theoretical virtues are fundamental for and constitutive of the practice that is known as science. chapter 3 studies two classic accounts of inferring explanations from evidence—i.e. charles sanders peirce's theory of abduction and peter lipton's account of inference to the best explanation—to see what role these philosophers propose for theoretical virtues in explanatory reasoning and how their accounts are connected. i argue that differences between peircean abduction and lipton's inference to the best explanation can be well understood in terms of two developments in the history of philosophy of science, i.e. the duhem-quine thesis of underdetermination and reichenbach's distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification. chapter 4 aims to see whether theoretical virtues can be used justifiably and fruitfully in metaphysical theory choice. relying on the results of previous chapters, i argue that under certain conditions, theoretical virtues can play such a role in metaphysics. in particular, theoretical virtues can be used in metaphysical theory choice where metaphysics aims to explain aspects of the world as described by our best scientific theories. a guide to thesis drawings of jackson s. zorn. which is a visualization of the temptation to exist within the physical world, and the problems that this presents. fat girl [elizabethan sonnets] is a composed entirely of elizabethan sonnets. the poems combine children's diction with historical scholarship. the subject matter derives from numerous holocaust, nazi, and world war ii books. the child's voice comes from authors like a.a. milne, robert louis stevenson, and kay thompson. recent years have seen an explosion in the amount of genomic data available. however, before any analysis can be performed, an assembly step must be completed that combines the short dna sequences generated by the sequencing technology into large sequences that more closely represent the dna as it exists in the cell. this thesis presents a mate-pair based method of validating assemblies and identifying structural variation that relies on already existing draft assemblies. the pipeline is successful in finding structural variation, but less so in improving assembly quality. additionally, a distributed overlap pipeline is presented that achieves improved runtimes over a typical sequential genome assembler. this pipeline is divided into two parts: a minimizer counter, which reduces memory consumption and allows parallelism at the cost of increased computation, and an aligner, which computes millions of alignments very efficiently in parallel. previous research indicates that exposure to parental problem drinking places children at risk for a number of emotional, behavioral, and social problems. the present study proposes to explore dimensions of parenting and marital functioning as possible mediators of the relationship between parental problem drinking and child adjustment. questionnaire data from a sample of 236 community families, assessing multiple dimensions of parenting and marital functioning, are used. results indicate that marital functioning, rather than parenting, may be the primary pathway through which parental problem drinking adversely affects child development. specifically, significant indirect effects of paternal drinking on child adjustment through marital conflict, communication, attachment and aggression were detected. tests of larger models indicate that these constructs continue to mediate the relationship between paternal drinking and child adjustment even after controlling for additional dimensions of marital functioning. optimal social and moral capacities are dependent upon healthy neurobiological functioning.both require autonomic regulation that involves the capacity to regulate stress coupled with the ability to adapt to changing contexts.converging evidence from numerous fields demonstrates that the neurobiological underpinnings of these behaviors are shaped by early experience and the caregiving environment.extensive neurobiological immaturity in childhood results in malleability to environmental influences, especially in the first year of life, with neurobiological alterations that often persist into adulthood, influencing social and moral capacities.in order to examine the influence of early experience on autonomic regulation, a longitudinal study was conducted with mothers and their children: early life experience was assessed at 12 months according to consistency with the evolved developmental niche (edn), the ecological system of care evolved to foster human health. respiratory sinus arrhythmia (rsa; vagal functioning) for both members of the dyad was assessed five years later.rsa was measured across three conditions: baseline, stress and recovery.rsa is a transdiagnostic biomarker for emotional regulation, psychopathology, social adaptability and is an online metric of parasympathetic functioning.due to its wide influence in numerous social and moral behaviors, rsa was utilized as an online biomarker for healthy neurobiological functioning, examining both tonic vagal tone and flexibility of vagal functioning.few studies have examined vagal flexibility, especially in the context of examining the influence of early experience.for mothers, latent growth curve models demonstrated that childhood history of positive home climate predicted higher mean levels of rsa across all conditions whereas childhood social embeddedness predicted both tonic and flexible parasympathetic regulation.for children, harsh touch at 12 months predicted lower levels of vagal functioning across all conditions, suggesting a more stressed tonic level of general functioning.in this way, aspects of edn-consistent experience predicted both tonic and flexible vagal functioning later in life.the results support the notion that provision of the edn in childhood may promote overall parasympathetic functioning and autonomic flexibility, supporting the neurobiological architecture needed for healthy social and moral behaviors. a remarkable example of how patterns of movement and organization in populations of bacterial cells emerge from individual level interactions is seen with myxobacteria. how cells coordinate movement is fundamental to many important areas of study from development biology where cells must form patterns and differentiate with precise timing to topics like infectious diseases where bacterial cells can colonize surfaces and infect tissue. in this thesis, i will present a study on the biophysical mechanisms that drive pattern formation in both phases of the myxococcus xanthus life cycle. in this study that combines experiments with computational modeling and simulation, i will present novel techniques for imaging the patterns of movement and cellular organization that reveal unique patterns of clustering. the experimental observations helped to inform the development of a cell-based biophysical model that account for the adhesive forces between cells and the elastic properties of the cells. simulations with this model were used to study how the physical and behavioral properties impact the ability of cells to form and move as organized clusters of cells. my findings provide new insight into the three-dimensional structure of myxo fruiting bodies as well as the demonstrate the importance of both physical and behavioral properties in the role of multi-cellular coordination. this thesis discusses the applications of molecular dynamics simulations to ionic liquids (ils). areas studied include transport properties in the bulk, liquid structure, and transport as well as structural properties at liquid/vapor interfaces and liquid/solid interfaces. the ionic liquidco2 system is of interest because ionic liquids have potential to be used for co2 capture. using classical molecular dynamics simulations, the vacuum-liquid and co2 gas-liquid interfaces of the ionic liquid 1n-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide ([bmim][tf2 n]) have been studied at a range of temperatures and pressures. interfacial ordering and orientational tendencies of the ionic liquid at the vacuum interface generally agree with previous experimental and simulation studies. the interfacial structure of the il remains relatively unperturbed when the liquid is in contact with co2 . co2 adsorbs rapidly onto the liquid interface, forming a dense layer. diffusion into the bulk occurs on a much slower timescale. interfacial fluxes and diffusivities were determined. the potential of mean force for interfacial crossing, and corresponding residence time distributions of interfacial crossing events of co2, were also calculated. co2 desorption from the liquid was also simulated. a high density co2 layer forms for desorption with co2 present, but not for desorption into a vacuum. the interfacial behavior and transport dynamics have been characterized by studying these properties. a viscosity screening study has been performed to identify ionic liquids with low viscosity for use in refrigeration systems. the focus was on phosphonium and sulfonium triazolide ionic liquids. molecular diffusivity was used as a surrogate for the viscosity, in order to allow efficient use of computational resources to screen a large number of liquids. the effect of different chemical structures and functional groups on liquid structure has been studied, and relationships between liquid structure and viscosity has been explored. ether functional groups were effective in reducing viscosity only when placed near the phosphorus atom of the cation. this reduced viscosity appeared to be related to homogenization of the liquid structure by the ether groups. sulfonium cations also showed a lower viscosity, possibly due to a more homogenious liquid structure caused by the distribution of the positive charge from the sulfur to the surrounding atoms. additionally a study of the behavior of an ionic liquid, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium triazolide (emim-tzl), under confinement was studied with md simulation. two different crystal faces of the al2 o3 crystal were used for confinement. structure of the liquid at the interface and near the interface were studied. additionally graphical representations of the interfacial configuration are shown, which show how the il molecules organize relative to the crystal surface. conventional approaches to forming a low-temperature, nonequilibrium plasma at atmospheric pressure require a high-voltage power source, which unsurprisingly constrains most of the plasma devices to laboratory settings, limiting their application as portable devices in non-laboratory, field applications. the direct piezoelectric effect of non-centrosymmetric crystals, such as lead zirconate titanate (pb[zr(x)ti(1-x)]o3 (0 ≤ x ≤ 1), pzt), offers the opportunity to develop energy conversion plasma sources that remedy the reliance on a high-voltage power source by converting mechanical energy directly into plasma generation. however, limited by insufficient knowledge about mechanical-to-plasma energy conversion and its manipulation, there is, to our knowledge, no published report on using the direct piezoelectric effect to form low-temperature, nonequilibrium plasmas.in this dissertation, pzt piezoelectric transformers (pts) were utilized to study the fundamentals of piezoelectric-driven plasma formation and the behavior of the piezoelectric crystal when it is used to form a plasma. pts are solid state electrical transformers that can amplify a low-voltage input to sufficiently high gains, enough to reach the breakdown threshold of air. the intrinsic electromechanical coupling and the stable performance as a plasma source make pts a reliable model system to investigate how the piezoelectric effect can contribute to the formation of stable, low-temperature, nonequilibrium plasmas. high-speed imaging and simultaneous current measurements are utilized to characterize the optical and electric properties of the plasma formed off the pt's surface. results show that this plasma shares many characteristics with conventional plasma jets but is not constrained by a guiding flow, so we refer to it as a pt free plasma jet. to better understand the chemical composition of the pt free plasma jet, spatially-resolved optical emission spectroscopy (oes) measurements were performed. results show that the nitrogen second positive system n2 (c3πu→b3πg) dominates the plasma emission spectrum with intensity decreasing almost monotonically as the function of the jet length. finally, the spatiotemporally-resolved characteristics of the electric field generated by the pt have been investigated using the electric-field induced second harmonic (e-fish) generation technique. results reveal the spatial distribution of the electric field around the pt's output distal end and how it evolves in time. these studies help to develop a comprehensive understanding of pts and piezoelectric-driven plasmas, laying the foundation for the development of a mechanical energy conversion plasma source that can be used in applications outside the laboratory. a novel word-by-word prediction paradigm, which employs a task similar to the one given to elman's (1990, 1991, 1993) simple recurrent networks, is used in the current study to investigate whether adults exhibit learning higher-order contingencies corresponding to structural contingencies. the results indicate that token and category contingencies are learnable regardless of training conditions, but higher-order constituent contingency was only learnable in conditions that facilitated initial learning of bigram and trigram word frequencies. our results are consistent with previous studies that involve both human subjects and computer simulations, and provide a guide toward identifying factors that may enhance learning of higher-order statistical relations in human subjects. the connections between individuals form the structural backbone of human societies, which manifest as networks. in a network sense, individuals matter in the ways in which their unique demographic attributes and diverse interactions activate the emergence of new phenomena at larger, societal levels. accordingly, this thesis develops computational models to investigating the ways that individuals are embedded in and interact within a wide range of over one hundred big networks---the biggest with over 60 million nodes and 1.8 billion edges---with an emphasis on two fundamental and interconnected directions: user demographics and network diversity.work in this thesis in the direction of demographics unveils the social strategies that are used to satisfy human social needs evolve across the lifespan, examines how males and females build and maintain similar or dissimilar social circles, and reveals how classical social theories---such as weak/strong ties, social balance, and small worlds---are influenced in the context of digitally recorded big networks coupled with socio-demographics. our work on demographics also develops scalable graphical models that are capable of incorporating structured discoveries (features), facilitating conventional data mining tasks in networks. work in this part demonstrates the predictability of user demographic attributes from networked systems, enabling the potential for precision marketing and business intelligence in social networking services. work in this thesis in the direction of diversity examines how the diverse structures of common neighborhood influence link formation locally and network organization globally, how this influence varies across different types of social and information networks, and how it concords or conflicts with the principle of homophily. work in this direction reveals how topic diversity---in contrast to authority and popularity---drives the growth of impact in academic collaboration and citation networks as well. finally, our work on diversity presents neural network based representation learning models for embedding heterogeneous networks in which there exist diverse types of nodes and edges, giving rise to important implications for traditional mining and learning tasks in heterogeneous network data, including similarity search, clustering, and classification. by the end of 2021, the global refugee population reached 27.1 million, according to the united nations high commissioner for refugees. türkiye has become the world's top refugee-hosting country due to the syrian civil war that started in 2011. as of june 2022, türkiye had 3.7 million registered syrian refugees who are frequently used as bargaining chips by national and international actors. refugees in türkiye and elsewhere are subjected to a neoliberal humanitarian regime, where economic restructuring has diminished state-provided welfare, leaving them lacking essential resources. consequently, they become dependent on corporatized and professionalized non-governmental organizations (ngos), leading to marginalization and vulnerability.based on ethnographic research conducted between november 2020 and december 2021 in urban istanbul, türkiye, and online, this dissertation illustrates the impact of neoliberal policies in situations of protracted displacement. focusing on a skills and livelihood project for refugee women that taught them crafting skills and facilitated the selling of their handcrafts in-person and on digital platforms such as instagram and etsy, i explore the political economy of neoliberalism in the context of ngos and aid organizations, as well as the moral economy of neoliberalism in the scripts of the enterprising and individual subject in the marketing of handcrafts and through a tiktok protest started by syrian refugees in türkiye. through an analysis of the production, online marketing, and sales of handcrafts, as well as the project's impacts on the community, the dissertation shows that refugees, aid workers, volunteers, and organizations navigate the neoliberal landscape by adopting strategies that either take advantage of or contest neoliberalism, sometimes in morally contradictory ways. it highlights practices of solidarity and resistance that escape the neoliberal landscape.this dissertation enhances our understanding of the daily realities, practices, and challenges faced by urban refugees and grassroots organizations as they navigate precarity. it complicates clear-cut distinctions between development and humanitarian aid, consumption and production, and charity and trade in online promotional materials for the handcrafts projects. it also challenges the notion that the visibility of refugee women in online promotional materials reflects their visibility in places, polities, and decision-making processes. finally, this dissertation explores the global imperative to present oneself on social media, shaped by the neoliberal self-making industry, on multiple scales personal, for the project, for refugee communities, and for the state. current renewable energy production is not able to meet demand. shale gas is a promising energy source to help bridge the gap between conventional oil and gas and the renewable energy future. dehydrogenation of light alkanes in the shale gas will play a key role in the utilization of this resource. current industrial pt and cr based dehydrogenation catalysts deactivate, necessitating regular regeneration. non-noble metal phosphide catalysts have emerged as a promising alternative catalyst because of the ability to tune their geometric and electronic properties by varying composition, their high thermal stability, and because they are not based on noble or highly toxic metals. a series of ni and co based metal phosphides, both supported and unsupported, were synthesized, characterized, and evaluated for ethane and propane dehydrogenation. both ni and co based metal phosphides tested for ethane dehydrogenation demonstrated improved ethylene selectivity over the corresponding pure metal. this is due to the beneficial metal site segregation and charge transfer induced by p. in addition, co-p was found to have good phase and ethylene production stability when tested for high temperature ethane dehydrogenation (700°c). due to the inevitable nature of carbon deposition during high temperature dehydrogenation, the impact of oxidative regeneration on the propane dehydrogenation performance of ni2p was investigated. while ni2p was effectively regenerated using a treatment in air followed by re-reduction, it also partially changed phase from ni2p to ni12p5 during the propane dehydrogenation and regeneration cycling process. in an effort to improve the phase stability of ni2p, it was combined with thermally stable co-p to form a bimetallic coxni2-xp material. the bimetallic with a 1:1:1 co:ni:p ratio had the high stability of co2p and high propylene selectivity, similar to ni2p. the results in this dissertation demonstrate the promise that metal phosphides have as alternative dehydrogenation catalysts. future research investigating other metal phosphide compositions, alkali and alkaline earth metal doping, and the use of microporous supports has the potential to further enhance the light alkane dehydrogenation performance of metal phosphides. this thesis describes our endeavors towards the development of therapeutic agents for niemann-pick type c disease (npc), which is a rare, autosomal recessive lipid storage disorder. this fatal disease mainly affects children and nowadays only supportive treatments exist, although two experimental therapies are currently in initial human clinical trials. in collaboration with the maxfield laboratory at the cornell weill medical school, potential therapeutic agents were developed. the maxfield group had developed an automated high-throughput screening procedure that measures the level of cholesterol in cells and organelles and identified pyrrolinones as a class of compounds that reduces the level of cholesterol in the lysosomal storage compartment. based on these results, analogues of this class of compounds were synthesized. subsequently, different histone deacetylase inhibitors (hdaci) as potential therapy options were explored. different classes of selective and non-selective hdaci were synthesized. the most potent compound was lbh-589 with an ec50 of less than 5 nm. the third project was to develop tools to gain a better understanding of cholesterol biosynthesis and trafficking. the rate limiting step of cholesterol biosynthesis is the interconversion of hmg-coa to mevalonate using the enzyme hmg-coa reductase and presently there remain a number of questions to be answered about this catalytic reaction. in order to elucidate the mechanism of this reaction by laue crystallography, model caged coumarin of nicotinamide were synthesized. the best caged nicotinamide had a quantum yield of 0.016. additionally, it was initially demonstrated that caged coumarin-nicotinamide bearing a simple amide bond could not go under cleavage by photolysis. also, as a tool to study cholesterol trafficking different caged cholesterol were made. the bhc cholesterol could photolysize at 350 nm with a quantum yied of 0.032. first discovered in 1965 by treibs and jacob, fluorescent squaraine dyes are boldly colored compounds well known for their applications in physical and analytical chemistry. structurally, squaraine dyes contain a central, electron deficient cyclobutenedione core flanked by two electron rich aromatic substituents in a 1,3-orientation, leading to donoracceptor-donor resonance stabilization. these unique electronic properties enable squaraine dyes to intensely absorb and emit light in the near-infrared region. classically, these compounds are utilized extensively in materials applications throughout physical and analytical chemistry, including biological imaging, photodynamic therapy, nonlinear optics, photovoltaics, and ion sensing.in contrast, there are surprisingly few reported studies that explore the use of squaraine dyes as synthetic building blocks, despite possessing multiple sites of potential reactivity. this thesis focuses on the development of functionally rich squaraine scaffolds as readily available starting materials for the construction of more architecturally complex small molecules and the exploitation of their inherent reactivity to design chemically driven analytical protocols. to date, the applications of squaraine dyes have been successfully extended towards: (1) the development of squaraine dyes as thermoand chemoreversible imaging agents, (2) accessing highly functionalized oxindoles and benzofuranones via a phosphine-mediated ring expansion of appropriately substituted dianiline squaraine dyes, (3) the utility of amino-acid bound 1,3-squaramides in brønsted acid catalysis, and (4) the design of squaraine dyes as chiral transition metal ligands in enantioselective catalysis. this dissertation presents experimental results regarding the phenomenon of flows around a family of asymmetric beveled trailing edges. trailing edge flow-induced noise and structural vibration occur in many engineering applications and can be challenging to predict because of its complexity. the objectives of the present research were divided into four parts. the first part focused on the influence of trailing edge geometry on velocity fields. the second part characterized the unsteady surface pressure. the third and fourth part developed an understanding of sound and vibration induced by trailing edge flows, respectively.two-component velocity measurements were obtained by particle image velocimetry in order to spatially and temporally resolve the velocity fields around the trailing edges. the unsteady surface pressure fields were measured by remote microphone probes. they provided a unique database for understanding the mechanisms and analyzing the characteristics of sound and vibration induced by trailing edge flows. the far-field sound was obtained by phased microphone arrays combining with beamforming techniques. the predicted sound based on improved half-plane theory and statistics of flow fields were compared with experimental data. the structural vibration was measured by laser doppler vibrometers. the mode shapes and modal vibration were acquired by magnitude-phase identification and modal decomposition algorithms. the modal vibration was predicted from vibration theory and an empirical model of surface pressure cross-spectral density. during the main-sequence stage, stars generate energy through hydrogen burning: the pp chains and the cno cycles. in stars more massive than the sun, the density and temperature is high enough for the cno cycles to dominate energy production over the pp chains. the main cno cycle contributes 99% of the cno energy production. the 14n(p, γ)15o reaction is the slowest in the cycle, thus it determines the energy production rate. it also plays an important role in the determination of the age of globular clusters. while many experiments focused on measuring the cross section at low energies, only one comprehensive data set was available at above 0.5 mev proton energy. analysis and calculations to these measurements showed discrepancy when extrapolating the s-factor to zero energy. in this work, the result of the cross section measurement from proton energy 0.4-3.4 mev, as well as the angular distribution measurement from 0.7-3.6 mev at five different angles (135◦, 90◦, 0◦, 45◦, 150◦) is presented. kn and jn van de graaff accelerator at the university of notre dame were used for the measurements. since measuring the cross section at astrophysical energies is not possible, rmatrix analysis was performed to extrapolate the measurements down to zero energy. this is also the first time that the angular distribution data were used for the analysis. what makes countries susceptible to acts of religious terrorism? when are religious actors more likely to take up the gun? in this study, i argue that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, religious terrorism is not primarily the result of poverty, psychological alienation or foreign occupation, but rather a natural consequence of states that repress the religious and political rights of religious groups and individuals. religious terrorism stems centrally from regimes that deny religious freedom to their people. i argue for the strong effect of regime structure which, all else being equal, is likely to encourage or discourage religious terrorism depending on the level of religious freedom that it allows. when religiously devout people find themselves excluded and marginalized through law and repression, they are much more likely to pursue their aims through violence. by contrast, religiously-free countries &#8212; states that protect both the religious rights of individuals or communities to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance and the political rights of these groups to run for office and otherwise participate in politics &#8212; individuals and groups are free to influence state policy through institutional means including persuasion, ideological influence, and electoral power. i test these claims using a statistical analysis of an original dataset on religious terrorism and through several country case studies. although changes in factor structure are sometimes seen as hindrances to scientific research, the investigation of factor structure changes can also provide new opportunities for the development of theory in psychology. some researchers (e.g., coan, 1966; emmerich, 1968; baltes & nesselroade, 1973) have noted the importance of investigating structural change within psychology when studying such topics as factor integration, differentiation, emergence, and disintegration. the methods proposed to investigate such structural changes over time are extensions of p-technique factor analysis (cattell, 1947, 1952) used to examine change in the factor model parameters over time at the individual level. in particular, ``local' p-technique factor models are fit within relatively small time windows followed by growth modeling of the factor model parameter trajectories. a monte carlo simulation study was undertaken to evaluate the estimation and model evaluation procedures proposed for investigating changes in intraindividual factor structure over time. the meaning and implications of these initial results are discussed with the hope of stirring thought on the potential scientific impact of examining changes in intraindividual factor structure over time along with future development of parameter estimation and model evaluation procedures. this study shows the impact of the echecs amoureux (1370) and related texts on john lydgate's fall of princes (1431-1439). although the fall of princes is a translation of boccaccio's de casibus virorum illustrium (1363, 1370) via laurent de premierfait's des cas des nobles hommes et femmes, lydgate is equally indebted to the roman de la rose tradition, and in particular to the echecs amoureux, which he translated as reson and sensuallyte (c. 1410). in tracking key nouns in the text of the fall of princes (resoun, sensualite, suffisaunce, mesure, remedie and others), this study relates the fall of princes to reson and sensuallyte, to the echecs amoureux, and to evrart de conty's eschez amoureux moralises, re-contextualizing and re-evaluating lydgate's project in terms of his philosophic and literary antecedents, english and continental. this research explores the role of racial identification in the processes of collective identity construction among black lives matter activists. drawing on the literature on collective identity and boundary activation processes, i have done a content analysis on a sample of 30 opinion articles written by blm activists and authors with concern about racial justice issues. while both black and white activists tend to activate racial boundaries, the emphasis on race and blackness is more common among black authors. on the other hand, white activists tend to differentiate between themselves and other whites, who are not aware of their privileges, by activating emphasizing on "wokeness," awareness, and critical thinking. white allies might activate wokeness boundaries in order to justify their presence and participation in a black movement. commentators have long treated aristotle's criticisms of plato's republic as the primary, if not only, source for understanding the differences between them on matters of politics. likewise, commentators have denied that book i of the politics accords with the outline of that work provided at the conclusion of the nicomachean ethics. this dissertation argues that both of these commonly-held views are, in fact, quite mistaken and that correcting them will aid in our understanding of both plato and aristotle. more specifically, i argue that book i of the politics is aristotle's critique of plato's eleatic stranger, the primary philosophical figure in the sophist and statesman. the eleatic articulates a view of nature which is hostile toward human life; therefore, he argues that the end of political life is primarily preservation. aristotle, of course, rejects this and argues that the specific difference of politics is its concern with the good life, rather than mere life. these contrasting views about the end of politics lead to disagreements on many other topics' e.g., the variety of human partnerships and how they ought to be distinguished, the character and acquisition of political knowledge, the ability of the multitude to possess political knowledge, and the worth of the rule of law. the eleatic stranger is therefore a target of aristotle's argument throughout the text. reading the politics in this light improves our understanding of aristotle's political theory and offers new insight into the relationship between plato and the philosophic figures that inhabit his dialogues. moreover, it shows resemblances between the political theory of the eleatic stranger and that of modernity, which lends credence to neo-aristotelian critiques of contemporary political life. however, by indicating that aristotle's political theory is closely connected to his understanding of natural teleology, my argument raises the critical question of whether aristotle's political philosophy can be preserved in light of scientific critiques of his natural philosophy. institutions have a relevant impact over regulated agents, public or private, inducing certain behaviors that would appear to be unintuitive, until further analysis is performed. while the three chapters of my dissertation might look like they cover very different subjects (violence and justice procurement, pension funding and sovereign default) they are all connected by a central theme: the unexpected consequences of public policies at the subnational level derived from a institutional framework.the essays are: 1.don't rush to judgment: justice reform in mexico and the increase in violence 2.political pension contribution cycles: evidence from us states (co-authored) 3.the adverse consequences of implicit obligations: the case of mexican states chapter 1 analyzes the short-term effects on violence of implementing the justice reform in mexico at the municipal level. taking advantage of the documented "centrifugal implementation" (reform enactment took place first in municipalities close to state capitals), i find that there is evidence that justice reform increased organized crime related murder, contributing to explain 32% of their average rise at the municipal level. this positive effect can be attributed to the inexperience of mexican subnational authorities in the new system, particularly in the case of local police forces, which lead to a loss in efficiency of justice procurement, reducing the probability of criminals getting sentenced to prison.in chapter 2 my co-author and i explore the relationship between contributions to state pension funding as well as investment decisions of pension funds and gubernatorial elections in the usa on the period 2001-2014. we found that it is more likely for states to reduce their mandatory annual required contribution (arc) to pension funds during the pre-electoral year, in order to increase expenses, which we conjecture are aimed for the incumbent's political gain, following the literature on political expenditure cycles. we also found changes in the allocation of pension funds invested in equity on electoral years, where subnational governments become less risk averse, while decisions to invest in more conservative assets (i.e. bonds) are made in non-electoral years. this is probably done by states to reduce the required arc, since equity has higher expected returns, and the contribution depends directly on future financial gains, among other variables. finally, chapter 3 provides a theoretical model to describe sudden realization of off-balance-sheet obligations as a driving force behind sovereign default. the exposed framework, inspired by mexican states, provides a setup such that it is optimal for a sovereign to acquire both off and on-balance-sheet liabilities, through banks and contractors. the model allows for a situation where mass materialization of contractor liabilities leads to default. i provide numerical solutions, as well as an empirical analysis of mexican subnationals in the period 2008-2014, that motivate the proposed model. human activities have increased concentrations of nutrients including nitrogen (n) and phosphorus (p) in freshwater ecosystems worldwide. understanding how excess nutrients are processed is critical for public and ecological health. headwater streams are important sites of nutrient transformation, but little is known about how temporal variation (e.g., seasonal change) and stream restoration strategies influence rates of nutrient cycling. my dissertation focuses on how seasonality and restoration, alone and in combination, control nutrient uptake rates at the whole-stream and substratum-specific scales in 3 headwater streams in the upper peninsula of michigan. by measuring whole-stream and substratum-specific rates of nutrient uptake across seasons, i found that although heterotrophic processes typically dominate in forested headwater streams, variation in nutrient uptake was also explained by autotrophic activity. my results suggested changes in streambed substrata composition strongly influences seasonal patterns of nutrient processing at the whole-stream scale. these conclusions are significant in the context of restoration, which often results in changes to the streambed 'landscape' i also used seasonal measurements of nutrient uptake to document the influence of two contrasting restoration strategies on stream ecosystem function. for a trout habitat enhancement, i found that physical changes in stream habitat translated into few biological effects on uptake rates and fish communities, and concluded it may not represent a sustainable method for increasing trout abundance. for a wood addition study, i found increased nutrient uptake following intermediate disturbance (e.g. storms), contrasting with significant decreases in uptake following large storms. therefore, the effect of wood addition on ecosystem function was variable across a disturbance gradient, and should be considered in future restoration. my dissertation research demonstrates that nutrient uptake in headwater streams is seasonally dynamic, with significant stream-specific variability, all of which is linked to differences in streambed substrata composition. changes to stream ecosystems such as those resulting from restoration can influence seasonal patterns of nutrient processing, altering the timing of nutrient delivery to downstream ecosystems. overall, nutrient uptake rates are sensitive metrics for integrating changes in stream biological activity, and represent a powerful tool for characterizing the influence of seasonal change and restoration on stream ecosystem function. oxygen provision to hepatocytes (and other types of cells) maintained within the extracapillary space of a hollow fiber (hf) bioreactor is believed to be transport limited because of the low solubility of oxygen in aqueous media and the high cellular oxygen demand. this problem limits hepatocyte functional capabilities. alleviating this problem is of significant biomedical interest, since hepatic hf bioreactors can serve as both an in vitro model for studying liver biotransformation, detoxification, and metabolic functions, and as a device used to sustain patients suffering from acute liver failure. one means of improving the oxygen carrying capacity of a hf bioreactor media stream is via supplementation of the circulating media stream with bovine red blood cells (brbcs). this dissertation describes the initiation and development of a project aimed at employing brbc supplementation to improve the oxygen environment within the hf bioreactor hepatocyte space. the work presented is organized into three sections. the first presents mathematical models depicting oxygen transport within the bioreactor system. one of these models was also utilized to demonstrate the potential benefit of brbc supplementation. the remaining sections present the results of experiments aimed at evaluating brbc supplementation within a c3a cell containing hf bioreactor and at examining the ability to engineer brbc properties. briefly, it was found that a c3a cell containing hf bioreactor maintained with media brbc supplementation exhibited signs of an improved c3a cell space oxygen environment in comparison to a control (a c3a cell containing hf bioreactor not maintained with brbc supplementation). additionally, from the research conducted on engineering the properties of brbcs, the ability to improve the cell's osmotic stability and to alter its oxygen binding/dissociation properties was demonstrated. this could allow for the creation of a tunable, novel oxygen carrier well-suited for use within a hf bioreactor system. lastly, the results obtained from this work have led to the design of a rigorous set of experiments which utilize brbc supplementation to explore the impact (on function, etc) of oxygen provision on hepatocytes maintained within a hf bioreactor. this project examines the reading of enslaved characters in greek and latin roman era novels. it is not concerned with "what" ancient romans thought about slavery but it is vitally concerned with "which" ancient romans thought about individual slavery and "how" they did so. this project reads fictional representations of slavery as "novels of ordeal" in which enslaved characters must struggle to show agency by maintaining gendered honor and demonstrating virtue. it addresses this problem by examining mythical, historical, religious, political, and philosophical backgrounds to the novel through the lens of literary theory, comparative slavery, colonial, and gender studies. it fixes the novels within their cultural contexts as products of roman africa and the east by identifying near contemporary "real readers". it compares those readers' receptions of the texts with "our" own historically conditioned reception. the effects of the legacy of african american slavery, the long literary history of the "captivity" genre, psychoanalysis, and post-modern literary theories are examined as powerful influences on current academic reception of the novels. the dissertation concludes that the novels must be read in response to the imperial roman project of cultural and religious syncretism but also as an integral part of the world literature of slavery in dialog with african american, byzantine, spanish, and middle eastern studies. the development and propagation of detonations is examined in the presence of diffusive processes. the difference between the inviscid and viscous models is quantitatively evaluated for one-dimensional propagating detonations. first, an investigation of viscous effects is performed on one-dimensional pulsating unsupported chapman-jouguet detonations using a simplified one step kinetics model for various activation energies. the inclusion of viscosity in the model, delays instability to a higher activation energy and enlarges the activation energy range of the bifurcation process that leads to chaotic detonation. then using detailed kinetics and full multi-component diffusion, a set of one-dimensional piston-driven hydrogen-air detonations is evaluated. the diffusive processes alter the behavior near the stability point, but as the intrinsic instability grows in strength, the viscous effects diminish. harmonic analysis is used to illustrate how the frequency spectra of the pulsations evolve. lastly, a study of the acceleration of several symmetric laminar flames in narrow two-dimensional channels is performed. adiabatic no-slip walls contribute to the acceleration of the flame towards detonation by trapping the thermal energy that the boundary layer has converted from the mechanical energy of the propagating acoustic waves emanating from the flame. below a threshold in channel width, viscous resistance becomes dominant and can significantly extend the time to the exponential pressure growth and acceleration of the flame. increasing the percentage of diluent in the flame reduces the rate at which the flame accelerates and alters the width at which viscous resistance dominates. ambient temperature isothermal walls retard the propagation of the flame in comparison to adiabatic walls at early times with the risk of extinction. ionic liquids (ils) are organic salts with low melting points (below 100 c). in general, ils have many promising properties, such as good solvation qualities for both polar and nonpolar compounds, wide temperature range for ils to be liquid, high thermal stability and very low vapor pressure. these properties are dependent on choosing suitable organic cations and organic or inorganic anions, which enable the fine-designed ils for specific processes. ils are studied in a variety of applications, including solvents for reactions and separations, high temperature heat transfer fluids, geothermally driven absorption refrigeration systems and working fluid in a variety of electrochemical applications. the basic thermophysical properties, like decomposition temperature, phase transition and heat capacities, are important for design and evaluation for these applications. combination of a variety of cations and anions can make ionic liquids virtually endless. the classes of organic cations include imidazolium, pyrdinium, quaternary ammonium and tetra alkylphosphonium. possible organic/inorganic anions include hexafluorophosphate [pf6], tetrafluoroborate [bf4], bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl) imide [(cf3so2)2n], acetate [ch3co2], nitrate, chloride and amino acids. vapor pressures of thermally stable imidazolium and pyridinium ils with the bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)amide anion (tf2n) were studied by a rapid method using isothermal thermogravimetric analysis under an inert environment. methyl paraben was used as a calibration standard to determine the tga vaporization constant, and then vapor pressures of several low volatility organic compounds, as well as ils, were calculated by the langmuir and guckel equations. the calculated vapor pressures and temperatures were correlated with the clausius-clapeyron model. in addition, vaporization/decomposition products of several ils were first studied by chromatoprobe gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (gc/ms) under a helium environment in both ei and nci modes. gc/ms chromatogram and their spectra showed that ils in this study could be vaporized without significant degradation (less than 5 %) at temperature below 320 c. in their 1973 paper slepian and wolf described the achievable rate region for two correlated sources transmitting to a common destination over noiseless channels. the important case of distributed source coding, i.e where the encoding is done separately and the decoding is done jointly, is considered. in this thesis, we extend this scenario to the case where the channels are noisy. distributed coding schemes are proposed for the transmission of both discrete valued and continuous valued sources over noisy channels. the schemes rely on iterative decoding at the receiver. first the case of two correlated continuous valued sources transmitting to a common destination is discussed. the encoding scheme consists of a variable length encoder at one source and a convolutional encoder at the other source. an iterative decoder is derived for this encoding scheme which is similar to the decoder of a parallel concatenated code. two different correlation models are considered: a binary symmetric channel correlation model and a gaussian correlation model. the proposed scheme is compared to an alternate scheme employing convolutional codes at each source in terms of symbol error rate and mean square error. in both cases, the proposed scheme is seen to give better performance for sources exhibiting low correlation. next, the transmission of a binary source over a noisy channel when a correlated source is available at the receiver as side information is considered. a coding scheme which is a concatenation of an outer irregular repeat code with an inner convolutional code is proposed. a novel exit chart based optimization criterion is proposed to design the code parameters. the performance of codes designed using the proposed approach is seen to be close to theoretical bounds. poetry manuscript this dissertation examines the emergence of a multicultural sensibility among american evangelical protestants and their global peers in the late twentieth century. i trace this sensibility through the history of the lausanne movement, one of the largest evangelical missionary organizations of its kind, from the mid-1970s through the early 2000s. the lausanne movement brought together evangelical christians from the global north and south, and provided an unprecedented platform for evangelicals from the decolonizing world to confront their conservative north american co-religionists on roughly equal terms.deeply influenced by the radical political currents of the global sixties, i argue that global south evangelicals within the lausanne movement forced their peers to rethink their approach to mission work and develop new answers to charges of cultural imperialism. in so doing, these radical evangelicals prompted a revolution in evangelical understandings of religious identity—even if their political entreaties did not result in a widespread evangelical embrace of liberationist politics. i trace multicultural thought in the lausanne movement from its emergence in the 1970s, its molding by disparate groups within the movement—including global south radicals, evangelical missionaries to muslims, technocratic north american mission theorists, and messianic jews—and its cementing in the global evangelical lexicon in the early twenty-first century.by placing u.s. evangelical christianity in global context, i offer a new perspective on the history of american christianity in the late twentieth century. in addition, i re-think the intellectual history of "multiculturalism" as a concept, offering a fresh interpretation of this putatively secular ideological project. finally, i highlight the contributions of overlooked actors in the shaping of global evangelicalism, showing the unexpected ways that diverse perspectives on evangelicals' moral and religious mission continue to resonate today. previous scholarship on the effect of candidate race on voter evaluations and behavior finds that black candidates are disadvantaged. with the election of the first african-american president, do voters still view black candidates as less qualified and more liberal? prior research may not be current for the 21st century, and despite a broad literature that focuses on the role of race in american politics, growing interest in latino politics tends to focus on latino voters rather than evaluations of latino candidates. both literatures also overlook how voters use both race and ethnicity cues along with candidate partisanship. this dissertation explores the effect of candidate race and ethnicity on voter evaluations and behavior. cue consistency theory develops hypotheses about how voters will react to these cues in isolation as well as how they interact with candidate partisanship. original survey experiments were conducted to inquire how candidate race affect voter evaluations of the candidate's ideology, issue position, competence and qualifications, as well as voter behavior. overall, the results of the non-partisan context show that democratic respondents inferred democratic partisanship from black and latino candidates, and were particularly favorable in their evaluations and support of these candidates. in a partisan context, race and ethnicity does not have an additive effect, that is black and latino democrats are not perceived as more liberal than an identical white democrat. likewise, on most measures of ideology and issue position, black and latino republicans were not perceived as less conservative than an identical white republican. in general, race and ethnicity does not negatively affect perceptions of competence and qualifications, nor does it affect turnout and candidate support. on some measures of respondents' attitudes, republican respondents were less favorable towards black and latino candidates. specifically, in a non-partisan context, republicans found the black candidate less qualified, and those with cold to neutral feelings towards blacks were less likely to support that candidate. in the partisan context, the latino conservative republican was particularly disadvantaged; being perceived as more liberal on taxing and spending, as well as less capable of balancing the budget and working with leaders in business and industry. motivated by the state-of-the-art ubiquitous and pervasive sensing, big data processing and analytic, and advanced artificial intelligence (ai) technologies, smart urban sensing (sus) has emerged as a powerful sensing paradigm to capture a rich set of information of the urban environments at an unprecedented scale. in smart urban sensing applications, both infrastructure-based (e.g., cameras, speed sensors, air quality sensors) and human sensors (e.g., mobile crowdsensing, social media) collaboratively report the measurements about the urban environment for sustainable city monitoring and management. in this thesis, we focus on ai-driven smart urban sensing (asus) applications. examples of asus applications include deep convolutional network based model to automatically monitor the structural health conditions of the city-wide infrastructure, recurrent neural network based approach to accurately forecast the traffic risks at a fine-grained spatial granularity, and deep fusion learning based framework to rapidly detect infectious disease outbreaks in big cities using location-based crowd tracking services. compared to traditional urban sensing applications, asus is advantageous in several aspects: 1) unlike the traditional urban sensing solutions, ai models are often data-driven and tend to be more intelligent and flexible in understanding the complex and multimodal sensing measurements in asus. 2) ai models are capable of judiciously analyzing the vast amount of structured and unstructured sensing data, which significantly improves the heterogeneity and efficiency of asus applications. 3) compared to machine learning-based approaches that require extensive feature engineering efforts, ai models offer the automatic feature engineering capability to identify the critical features embedded in asus data to optimize the application performance. the overall goal of this thesis is to develop a set of ai-driven analytic models and systems to address three fundamental challenges in asus applications. 1) heterogeneity: the sensing paradigms and intelligence in smart urban sensing often have different modalities and characteristics (numerical sensor readings vs. natural language, ai vs. human intelligence). it remains to be a challenging task for current asus solutions to derive the accurate states of urban environments by jointly exploring heterogeneous data sources and intelligence in asus applications. 2) scarcity: current asus solutions primarily rely on a rich set of high-quality training data to build accurate ai-based analytic frameworks. however, such a high-quality training dataset is not always available in asus applications due to the high cost of data acquisition and government/legal regulation. 3) uncertainty: recent ai-driven sus approaches mainly focus on improving the accuracy of their models by imposing complex neural architectures and ignore an important aspect of their results: uncertainty quantification. we find that the uncertainty quantification problem is largely missing in asus solutions due to the lack of interpretability and the black-box nature of the ai models.in this thesis, we develop a set of new data analytic models and system prototypes to address the three fundamental challenges. to address the heterogeneity challenge, we present a multimodal fusion framework to effectively fuse the heterogeneous sensing data from both human and physical sensors and/or integrate heterogeneous intelligence from human and ai models to ensure desirable asus performance. to address the scarcity challenge, we develop a sparse-ai analytical engine to enable asus applications using extremely-sparse training data by introducing a set of principled transfer learning and contrastive learning designs. to address the uncertainty challenge, we introduce an uncertainty-aware ai framework to effectively quantify the uncertainty of the asus results and troubleshoot the failure cases of asus models in the absence of ground truth labels. all the developed data analytic models and system prototypes have been evaluated through real-world sus applications. the thesis work significantly extends the current landscape of asus from both analytic and system perspectives. the cross in the christian tradition has been a contested image and symbol since ancient groups began using the cross as a means of execution and terror and especially since a little known jewish teacher, jesus of nazareth died on one around the year 4 c.e. the cross of jesus, who came to be known as the christ, and the metaphors used to talk about the mystery of salvation have engaged the christian community for centuries. one contemporary christian theologian who raises critical questions about the cross and the way it has been used and misused is flemish theologian edward schillebeeckx. he even goes so far as to suggest, that in some ways, humanity is saved despite the death of jesus. two african american christian female theologians, delores s. williams and m. shawn copeland, are likewise concerned about dangerous uses of the cross that result in the subjugation of peoples and the legitimation of their suffering. this dissertation argues that by putting these theologians in conversation, productive insight will emerge that can contribute to a critical christian soteriology informed by the experiences of african american women. to that end, the first chapter offers a broad survey of the diverse ways that the meaning of the death of jesus has been interpreted in the scriptures and the larger christian tradition. as that chapter demonstrates, there is no single canonized interpretation of the mystery of salvation. further, questions have been raised whether salvific efficacy is to be attributed to the cross (or the death of jesus) alone. the second chapter investigates the controversial claim of edward schillebeeckx that we are saved despite the death jesus. particular attention is given to schillebeeckx's understanding of negative contrast experience and how that terminology makes it possible to consider the death of jesus in all of its negativity as, nevertheless, a participation in the creative saving presence of god. that salvific interpretation is possible, however, only in light of the life, ministry, and resurrection of jesus. the third chapter interrogates african american christian women's history of suffering, surrogacy, and survival that at the same time was a history of resistance, protest, and courage. mindful of this history, delores s. williams eschews the cross and atonement theories while m. shawn copeland' critique of such theories nevertheless allows her to link the crucified with suffering humanity. the fourth chapter offers a critical comparative analysis of the soteriological proposals of schillebeeckx, copeland, and williams, and tests the usefulness of the analytical tool of "negative contrast experience" in the racialized north american context. a final constructive conclusion traces in broad strokes key elements of a critical christian soteriology that captures the spirit and creativity of african american women. the operating range of modern high-bypass turbofan aircraft engines is limited by the axisymmetric breakdown of flow through the compressor known as stall. the initiation of stall has been attributed to the flow at the compressor tip. the flow physics associated with stall inception were investigated in a transonic axial compressor computationally and experimentally. it was found that an interface exists at the blade tip between incoming axial flow to the compressor and reverse leakage flow over the blade tip. the location of this interface was found to correspond with the axial location of a region of zero axial shear,denoted xzs, at the compressor casing. the location of this region of zero axial shear was found to vary with changes in operating point. the movement of this region was proposed to be governed by a momentum balance between the axial flow and reverse flow. the compressor stalls once the location of this interface moves ahead of the blade leading edge plane. the generation of short length scale disturbances which lead to stall were linked to the location of the interface using a static tip gap offset. stall was therefore interpreted to occur as a result of a critical momentum balance between the approach fluid and the tip-leakage flow. casing treatments have been shown to alter the stalling mass flow of axial compressors. the effects of circumferential groove casing treatments on both the performance and tip gap flow were investigated. in all cases tested the addition of circumferential grooves caused the compressor to stall at a lower mass flow than the typical smooth wall configuration. computational results show that the addition of circumferential grooves alter the tip momentum balance by impeding the reverse leakage momentum. this altered the location of the interface causing the compressor to stall at a lower mass flow. the addition of casing treatments also caused a decrease in overall compressor eìâå±ciency. this is due to an increase in viscous shear losses which are proposed to result from the exit flow from the groove. my dissertation attempts to open up a muslim perspective within the field of religion and literature, taking up the split between the religious and the secular as that split is encountered in the circumstances of the arab world during and after their colonial experience, and offers an approach to reading that can transcend the difficulty of imagining a relation to one's history past the sudden leap to modernity which can obscure that relation. the dissertation treats this obscurity as a common problem for readers of both the qur'an and the novel, and proposes metaphor as a medium through which belonging is constructed across the two types of text, where metaphor is both the source of cohesion within the text, and expressive of the reader's ability to imagine a world of which she is part.to investigate the possibilities of metaphor for readers of the qur'an, i first examine the pre-modern exegete al-biqāᶜī, and his attempt at reading cohesion in sūrat al-nisā', and show that his search for cohesion through metaphors is motivated by his political perspective as well as limited by it, in that his politics do not permit him the scope to posit the world towards which his metaphors might point. i then attempt my own reading of surat al-nisā', in which i explore the scope for extending its metaphors, and reflect on the way those extensions point to a possible world. to investigate the possibilities of metaphor for readers of the novel, i offer a reading of abdul rahman munif's al-tīh, and hoda barakat's malakūt hādhihi al-arḍ, as novels portraying the failure of nation at the individual level, and offering the reader the opportunity to construct metaphors that may both acknowledge and overcome the social divisions that led to that failure.in offering my reading of surat al-nisā' and of these novels side by side, i hope to show that despite the different kinds of limits and possibilities that an attempt to read metaphor will encounter with these different kinds of texts, the reward of reading can be similar and mutually enlightening. whether it is the place of women in society as a question encountered in the qur'an, or the place of citizens in a new nation as encountered in the novels, the need for a successful reading of either to imagine the world of which the individual is part, makes it difficult to contain the reward of reading either under the rubric of "religion" or "literature" alone. this dissertation would like to point to the way in which the overlap becomes productive, where it is acknowledged not only that the world is shared, but that the mediums through which it is imagined and re-imagined may also be. this thesis is for a doctorate of philosophy in the field of condensed matter. this thesis weaves a common thread which connects together everything i have worked on from 2013-2019. the structure of materials at the atomic level dictates their appearance. conversely, precise optical experiments performed on these materials can be used to determine details of their structure and chemistry. multiscale modeling was used to build up from the atomic scale and to test hypotheses of lattice dynamics. this document is (hopefully) a useful reference for those who want to understand how to model complex, dynamic systems over multiple orders of magnitude of length and time. iii-v nitride semiconductors have attracted considerable attention for opto-electronic and electronic devices as they are direct band gap semiconductors spanning a wide range of band gaps from 0.7 ev (inn, ir), through 3.4 ev (gan, uv) to 6.2 ev (aln, deep uv) and possess built-in polarization with spontaneous and strain-induced polarization components. polarization in iii-v nitrides has been exploited to achieve interband tunneling but the tunnel current is still low due to large barrier height in gan/aln/gan tunnel diode structures. in this work a novel tunnel diode structure exploiting the n-face growth of iii-v nitride semiconductors is discussed. by growing along n-face and using ingan which has a smaller band gap and a high built-in polarization ìâåøeld in the barrier, it is possible to obtain higher interband tunnel current densities as the barrier height will be reduced considerably. simulations using the wkb approximation show an increase in tunnel current densities by four orders of magnitude. such tunnel diodes can be used in multi-junction solar cells, multi color light emitters (multi color leds) and ohmic contact to p-type wide band gap semiconductors. n-face growth can also help in solving the p-type doping problem for wide band gap nitrides. by compositionally grading gan to algan along n-face, efficient polarization-induced p-type doping can be obtained. the polarization-induced doping can be used in uv-leds for eìâå±cient injection of holes into the active layers. gan quantum well polarization doped uv-led structures were grown using mbe and characterized using rheed, xrd and afm. the iv curves obtained were rectifying and the el spectra at various current levels showed a peak emission wavelength of 382 nm. in addition a shoulder extending to energies higher than gan band gap (3.4 ev) was observed in the el spectra signifying recombination occuring in high band gap algan layers. electroluminescence from algan regions indicates that alxga1-xn qws and alyga1-yn barriers can now be used to obtain higher emission intensities for higher energy photons. superstable theories of finite rank can be built using realizations of semiminimal types. in his paper 'vaught's conjecture for superstable theories of finite rank', buechler gave a level-partitioning of semiminimal constructions which allows for a fine analysis of dependence between finite-rank sets. using this partitioning, we study when dependence on finite-rank sets above the first level has a modular-like behavior, a property we formalize and call the level dependence property (ldp). we prove that ldp is equivalent to the canonical base property (cbp) of moosa and pillay for every superstable theory of finite rank. pillay has shown that cbp (and hence also ldp) holds in compact complex spaces, and together with ziegler he has shown that cbp holds in differentially closed fields and difference fields. our main results prove that ldp holds in superstable theories of finite rank under additional assumptions. the first result involves certain orthogonality relations. as a consequence we obtain that any 'reduced' counterexample to ldp must be unidimensional, which is also implied by a result of chatzidakis. the second result proves ldp under certain rank restrictions. moosa and pillay have conjectured that ldp holds of all theories of finite rank. based on an idea of hrushovski, we present an explicit $aleph_1$-categorical structure that may fail to satisfy ldp; moreover, the model is of the simplest possible kind allowed by our positive results. when antonio de morga arrived as president of the audiencia in quito, a spanish "kingdom" in middle of the andes, the prominent families of the city presented him with several tokens of appreciation and allegiance, both to his person and to the king, whom he represented. far from a shallow custom that allowed local elites to ostent their livery and meet the agents of colonial power, encounters such as this symbolized the renewal of the contractual notion of allegiance prevalent in the spanish political system. morga governed for the longest term in quito's history, navigating a complex, consensual system, with enduring effects in the region's political life. nevertheless, the skilled president has become an inconspicuous side-note in the historiography of the viceroyalty of peru. most of the scholarship has focused on his role in the early history of the philippines, disregarding many of the significant features of don antonio's multifaceted bureaucratic service, and neglecting what i hope to show is an opportunity to examine an archetype – or perhaps epitype – of spanish political and administrative performance in the overseas territories. i try to deepen knowledge on morga´s career in an attempt to understand four aspects of political culture in the real audiencia in quito in the seventeenth century:political practices, factions, means of political representation, and social inclusion.that spanish authorities negotiated obedience with locally powerful and particular interests is not a new idea, but i contribute to the field by revealing and describing patterns of political behavior in the audiencias. historians have favored the idea that "colonial" politics were parochial, focused on mere profiteering, driven by localism and dominated by an exclusive oligarchy. i contend that this characterization is inaccurate. the global implications of imperial policy required effective mechanisms of governance and of social and political inclusion to accommodate a wider reange of individuals, groups and interests than historical tradition commonly covers. without outlets of such collaborators the spanish monarchy could not successfully have exerted dominance in the region for over three centuries. this dissertation argues that children's authors of the long nineteenth century imagined play as a creative way for child readers, collaborating with adults, to imbue physical reality with narratives which did not exist before. books by edgeworth, alcott, burnett, montgomery, and others encourage their readers to question the line separating the body from the mind, the physical from the imaginative, the surfaces from the depths. i depart from a more traditional assumption that play is merely a disguise, or a distortion layered over a deeper meaning. after freud, scholars have been trained to ask ourselves what novelistic children like mary lennox or jo march, are "really" doing when they play, by digging under the surface for a text's disavowed meanings. this method, however, rests on the assumption that child's play always encodes a secret meaning, and that the job of the scholar is to ferret it out. i join scholars such as rita felski, sharon marcus, heather love, and eve sedgwick to consider other, more generous ways to read. like felski, i am not trying to demolish suspicious readings, but to decenter them, to ask what other moods and methods of reading are possible. by sidestepping the question of what's really happening when children play, i am advocating for a reading sees both play processes and the objects, stories, and bodies that are wrapped up in such processes, as important sites of meaning. when we regard play as a meaningful feature of a text, not only a symbol requiring decoding, we are more able to see how these children's novels refuse distinctions between imaginary and real, and thus clear out spaces where we can imagine that the future doesn't just reproduce the past, and that children do more than just repeat what adults model for them. the story of play doesn't always boil down to one answer—whether that answer concerns oedipal origins, imperialism, or misogyny—and by paying close attention to both the spaces and the sensations of play, we can start to articulate other stories. this dissertation studies the role of firm heterogeneity in (1) explaining the impact of unilateral trade liberalization on industry labor productivity, (2) reconciling micro estimates that attribute an important effect of credit constraints on export collapse with macro findings that the impacts are minimal, and (3) interpreting the relationship between firm productivity and liquidity management when financing is costly.the first chapter theoretically and empirically investigates the impact of trade liberalization on industry labor productivity (i.e. output per worker). applying a two-country, two-industry, two-factor trade model with firm heterogeneity, i show that the impact of trade liberalization on industry labor productivity depends on the structure of tariff reductions. in particular, a unilateral trade liberalization in a labor-abundant country leads to declines in both industry labor productivity and the real wage. the relative wage, measured as a ratio of the real wage over return to capital, also declines when the unilateral trade liberalization takes place disproportionately in the labor-intensive sector. i find supporting evidence of these predictions from the performance of chinese manufacturing industries and regional variations following china's entry into the wto.the second chapter provides a quantitative macro-assessment on the importance of credit constraints in the collapse of export during the great recession. i develop and quantify a dynamic melitz model that incorporates a working capital constraint. mapping the model to chinese-firm level evidence, i find that most of the collapse in chinese exports during the recent global financial crisis was due to a negative demand shock. two general equilibrium effects, working through the aggregate exporting price and wage rate, reconcile micro estimates that attribute an important effect of financial constraints with macro findings that the impacts are minimal.the third chapter explores theoretically and empirically the relationship between firm productivity and liquidity management in the presence of financial frictions. we build a dynamic investment model and show that, counter to basic economic intuition, more productive firms could demand less capital assets and hold more liquid assets compared to less productive firms when financing costs are sufficiently high. we empirically test this prediction using a comprehensive dataset of chinese manufacturers and find that more productive firms indeed hold less capital and more cash. we do not, however, observe this for u.s. manufacturers. our study suggests a larger capital misallocation problem in markets with significant financing frictions than previously documented. gainful employment is critical to successful reentry into society for the formerly incarcerated. however, stigmatization based on criminal history makes labor market success difficult for these individuals. empirical analysis of employment outcomes for americans with criminal histories focuses largely on the perspectives of employers and lacks exploration into the choices, motivations, and agency of those facing criminal stigmatization. in this dissertation, i use a mixed-methods approach to investigate how criminal stigmatization is related to job search strategies and employment outcomes. in chapter 1, i provide a background and literature review of the body of work that forms the basis for my questions. in chapter 2, i investigate whether there are differences in the job search strategies used by the formerly incarcerated compared to those never incarcerated in the nlsy97, a nationally representative longitudinal data set. i then explore whether an incarceration spell changes the job search strategies of the formerly incarcerated by comparing their pre-incarceration job search strategies to their post-incarceration job search strategies. finally, still using the nlsy97 data, i examine how specific job search strategies are related to employment outcomes for the formerly incarcerated compared to those never incarcerated. chapters 3 and 4, use qualitative data i collected through interviews with formerly incarcerated individuals to explore the role of stigmatization during the job search for the formerly incarcerated. specifically, in chapter 3, i dig deeper into what the "other" strategies formerly incarcerated job seekers might be using to search for employment. i explore the ways that they network, despite the limitations highlighted by previous literature. i explore their use of reentry programs and extend the discussion of the selection process highlighted in previous research. there is evidence that, for the formerly incarcerated who participate in reentry programs, they may already have skills and knowledge that make them more likely to be successful in the job market. in chapter 4, i explore the role of stigma more closely, operationalizing stigmatization as the decision of the formerly incarcerated to check the box acknowledging their criminal record on job applications, as opposed to the act of rejecting the stigma by not doing so. i explore how the formerly incarcerated legitimize or delegitimize the stigma associated with a criminal background and how this relates to the strategies they use to find a job. i describe the ways those in my sample enact their agency to signal their skills and worthiness of hire to employers. i find considerable evidence that the formerly incarcerated enact similar strategies as those never incarcerated, but that these strategies are coupled with a network of support that contributes to successful employment outcomes. i contend that sponsorship is critical for the formerly incarcerated to successfully reenter society and become productive members. in chapter 5, i conclude with a discussion of the contribution of this research, implications and applications of my findings for the formerly incarcerated in the labor market, and directions for future research. antifreeze proteins (afps), in the presence of a seed ice crystal, lower the freezing point of water without affecting the melting point. this difference between melting point and freezing point has been termed thermal hysteresis (th). in freeze-avoiding species (those that die if frozen and, therefore, must prevent freezing), afps typically promote supercooling by inhibiting inoculative freezing across the cuticle initiated by external ice and by masking internal ice nucleators. the freeze avoiding beetle dendroides canadensis produces a family of antifreeze proteins (dafps) some of which interact with one another to cause a synergistic increase in th. cdnas of two self-enhancing synergistic dafps, dafp-1 and/or dafp-4, were transferred to drosophila melanogaster via p-element-mediated transformation. northern and western blots showed expression of dafp(s) at both transcript and protein levels. all transgenics had th, but the highest th of 6.78 ìâå± 0.12ìâå¡c was detected in 5-day adult flies containing two copies of both dafp-1 and dafp-4 genes. moderate synergistic enhancement of th was found between dafp-1 and dafp-4 in transgenic d. melanogaster containing both dafps. supercooling points without ice in contact with the insects were lowered in all 5 transgenic lines (heterozygous dafp-1-producing line, heterozygous dafp-4-producing line, homozygous dafp-1-producing line, homozygous dafp-4-producing line, and a heterozygous line that produces both dafp-1 and dafp-4) compared to controls, however, when ice was in contact with the flies, supercooling points were lowered only in the heterozygous dafp-1+dafp-4 transgenic line. transgenic d. melanogaster exhibited higher survivorship compared to controls when placed at low, but non-freezing temperatures (0ìâå¡c and 4ìâå¡c). the same two dafp cdnas, dafp-1 and dafp-4, were introduced into the genome of arabidopsis thaliana via agrobacterium-mediated floral dip transformation. southern blots demonstrated multiple insertions of transgenes in transgenic a. thaliana. both dafp-1 and/or dafp-4 were expressed in transgenic a. thaliana, as shown by rt-pcr and western blots. th of apoplastic protein from t3 dafp-1+dafp-4-producing transgenic a. thaliana was 1.20 1.35ìâå¡c, by capillary method. the freezing temperature of dafp-1+dafp-4-producing transgenic a. thaliana was lowered by 2 3ìâå¡c compared to the wild type. dafp-4 and dafp-6 share similar sequences with only four different amino acids. to determine why dafp-4 has th while dafp-6 does not, five mutated proteins with various combinations of the four differing amino acids were generated, expressed, purified, and their th determined. the comparison of th among all mutated proteins and dafps -4 and -6 revealed that each amino acid position that differs between dafp-4 and dafp-6 plays an important role in conferring th, but positions q9s and s32t are less important than d17n and t26v. cognitive developmental theory's claims about the fundamental role of moral judgments on moral functioning lack empirical evidence. this paper discusses an alternative theory for understanding moral functioning—moral self-identity—and its three claims: judgments of responsibility, the moral self, and self-consistency. this paper focuses on the moral self, its conceptualization and measurement. current measures fail to capture the comprehensiveness of individual differences. therefore, we propose an alternative method using q methodology. we combine the use of moral prototypicality ratings and q methodology to identify five groups of people with differing viewpoints about their self-identity. all groups prioritized prototypic moral notions, but did so in significantly different ways. we discuss how q methodology provides an innovative illustration of the dimensions of individual differences, how this method can be connected to specific theories of moral self-identity, and how there is great promise in the continued use of q methodology. this thesis focuses on the experimental testing of four novel precast concrete buckling-restrained brace (brb) specimens that were tested in the structural systems laboratory at the university of notre dame. while brb frames are commonly used for primary lateral-load resistance in steel building construction with great success, they are currently not permitted for precast concrete structures due to extremely limited research. in accordance with the research need in this area, the work described in this thesis experimentally evaluated a non-proprietary reinforced concrete brb element that is especially suited for precast concrete construction. the thesis explains the experimental testing set-up, describes the casting process of the test specimens, explains the instrumentation and data acquisition system, presents the results from the tests, and draws conclusions and recommendations for future experimental research on precast concrete brb components as well as precast concrete braced frame structures. leaders are crucial to social movement mobilization and maintenance. they often experience conflict between an (implicit or explicit) value for inclusive engagement that "draw on the concerns and energies of all" as a sense that they are moving efficiently toward their organizations' end goals. this study draws on a multi-site ethnography to illustrate how leaders may resolve this conflict by appearing democratic while still exercising explicit or implicit undemocratic control over organizational processes and outcomes. resolving tension in this way has the unintended effect of stifling the actual process of democratic participation, effectively excluding new and potentially valuable resources and mobilizing strategies. it is additionally proposed that democracy is an intransigent institution and value; that efficiency may not be some groups' core motivation' and that power and ideology are neither anomalous nor eradicable, but lay at the heart of democracy and are constitutive of its practice. the congenitally undemocratic nature of social movement groups, and the strategies deployed to cover the subsequent democratic deficit deserve further investigation. historians have often framed the historiography of nineteenth-century colombia around relatively homogeneous, identifiable groups and their ideological struggles, labeling them accordingly after the foundation of the liberal and conservative parties in 1849. however, during the second half of the nineteenth century, factionalism rather than consistency characterized these groups' members and politics, particularly the liberal party. thus, although the way colombians conceived of progress was to some extent linked with ideological principles, the traditional conservative-liberal dichotomy does not work to circumscribe a group of scattered colombians looking for models of material progress in a global perspective. to a degree, simple references to the classic liberal–conservative dichotomy serves to obscure more than it reveals about how colombians and latin americans overall thought in the nineteenth century. this dissertation examines a large body of knowledge about other latin american countries that many colombian intellectuals, politicians, and entrepreneurs circulated during the second half of the nineteenth century. due to the brokerage role this group of people sought to play in colombia, i refer to them as colombia's "progress brokers." some of them, openly admirers of the united states' and europe's developments, resolutely argued that neither the united states nor europe provided an appropriate model to follow. i argue that colombian progress brokers sought models of material and intellectual progress from among other latin american countries between the 1840s and the 1900s, an issue largely ignored in the historiography on colombia and on latin america in general. tsunami and storm-driven flows in developed coastal regions are estimated in engineering standards using the bare earth assumption, in which the fluid-structure interaction is not explicitly taken into consideration. the presence of structures in developed coastal regions has a significant effect on the water flow, affecting wave hydrodynamics, wave loading, and debris impacts on buildings. however, methods and general guidelines to assess the effect of building arrays in these flow conditions have not been fully developed. the objective of this dissertation is to understand the effect of a building array on (1) tsunami wave run-up loading and (2) flood debris impact loading on developed coasts. data from both laboratory experiments and computational fluid dynamics (cfd) simulations were obtained. results from both the laboratory and the numerical tests show that tsunami wave run-up loading is reduced as more sheltering is given by the building array. three different tsunami load reduction factors (lrf) were defined, which show that most of the tsunami load reduction takes place in the first four rows. the effect of the building array on maximum inundation levels, maximum velocities, and maximum momentum flux is also analyzed. a brief analysis and discussion about the effect of the cross-shore distance between rows, the width of the structures in the frontmost row, and the offset between rows is also presented. this dissertation also investigates the probabilities of impact and magnitude of debris collisions within a building array. these probabilities were assessed using laboratory measurements of structural loading response, flow hydrodynamics, and video recordings of flow and debris transport and impact. a methodology based on a single degree of freedom structural system was implemented to estimate the applied debris impulse from collisions and to investigate the dynamical impact of waterborne debris on structures. results show that both the debris collision probability and the collision impulse magnitude are significantly reduced as the number of sheltering rows increases. using empirical exceedance probabilities of the applied debris impulse, a framework was developed to estimate the maximum structural loading response within a building array, along with a comparison to data and existing standards. the effect of the impact duration on the relation between the applied debris impulse and the maximum structural response is also discussed. high-resolution infrared spectroscopy is a unique tool for probing both the structural and chemical evolution of the interstellar medium and circumstellar disks. we will highlight several examples of how this tool can shed light on chemical processes in the interstellar medium, the formation of planetesimals in circumstellar disks, and the time available for planet formation. in particular, we use high-resolution near infrared spectroscopy to address the following issues: 1) does h3+ originate in dense molecular clouds? since the discovery of h3+ in the ism, it has been observed through numerous lines of sight including dense and diffuse clouds. there is some controversy surrounding the interpretation of h3+ observations toward dense clouds. some argue that most of the observed h3+ originates in diffuse material surrounding dense clouds rather than in the dense clouds. with this controversy in mind, we present observations of h3+ toward lkh?101 and discuss the feasibility of the ion originating in dense material. 2) is there any evidence of gas/dust stratification in circumstellar disks? gas and dust mixing in the extended disk around a young star is one of the most debated and untested results of theoretical modeling in recent years. theoretical models of dust/gas mixing in the disk are at odds but the predictions set the stage for observations to guide our ideas of planet formation. the vertical distribution of dust and gas in disks is assessed by simultaneous comparison of infrared co absorption lines with infrared extinction. we demonstrate that the most straightforward interpretation of the existing data confirms the stratification of dust and gas in circumstellar disks. 3) how long does gas survive in the inner circumstellar disks? we present near infrared high-resolution spectra of co from the circumstellar protoplanetary region around young stars. the spectra are compared to the spectral energy distribution for each star. the co observations are used to determine the mass, density and temperature of the gas around the star and the spectral energy distribution is used to gauge the evolutionary status of the dust disk. implications for the evolution of the disk and subsequent planet formation are discussed. metal halide perovskites are an attractive material for a wide variety of optoelectronic applications, from solar cells (photovoltaics) to radiation detection. this is primarily due to their ease of solution processing, strong and tunable light absorption, and high tolerance to surface defects. these same properties make metal halide perovskites attractive for photocatalytic applications as well. the dissertation research described herein presents a body of work investigating the fundamental excited state interactions of perovskites those processes that occur after absorption of visible photons. in the context of photocatalysis, interfacial electron transfer, energy transfer, and surface chemistry considerations are discussed. in the context of photovoltaics, insights into the process of light-induced phase segregation are presented. understanding of these fundamental excited state processes is key to developing better perovskite materials with improved properties. statistical analysis is vital for research and real applications in various fields and disciplines. when conducting statistical analysis on real-world data, privacy concerns often arise as sensitive information can be inferred from released statistics. in the era of big data, ensuring data privacy during statistical analysis has become increasingly important, necessitating a rigorous definition of privacy. differential privacy (dp) offers a quantifiable measure of privacy protection, and this dissertation explores its applications in diverse scenarios. firstly, i investigate the utility of differentially private hypothesis testing, developing new methods and providing results for commonly used tests such as z-test, t-test, and chi-squared test in the settings of one-sample mean tests, two-sample tests, variance tests, goodness-of-fit tests, and independence tests and evaluate the utility of the tests in terms of statistical power while maitaining type-i error rate. secondly, a differentially private metropolis-hastings (mh) algorithm is designed that outperforms existing privacy-preserving mh algorithms in simulation studies and a real case study in terms of the parameter estimation and prediction accuracy. thirdly, i examine privacy-preserving data-sharing where multiple parties, or data owners, possess overlapping attributes but non-overlapping individuals. each data owner privatizes their data to share privacy-preserving synthetic data. i demonstrate that the utility of the merged privatized data surpasses that of individual small datasets without perturbation by showing that the parameter estimation of regression models on merged data is better. lastly, dp is applied to normalizing flow, a deep generative model family, to generate privacy-preserving synthetic datasets of an electronic health records dataset. i show that the accuracy of the classification and regression model on the synthetic data can be close to the original data. in conclusion, this dissertation provides an in-depth and thorough investigation of several applications of dp in hypothesis testing, mh sampling, and sharing of synthetic data, showcasing the potential of dp to address pressing privacy concerns while preserving the data utility of statistical analysis. in early seventeenth-century europe it was considered the most widely published work next to the bible: the imitation of christ easily ranks as one of the most translated, printed, and circulated works of early modern europe among catholic, protestant, and even some orthodox confessional circles, yet until the present, the medieval origins of this work have received little attention. yet it would seem to have been every bit as popular from soon after it first appeared in the early 1420s. widely circulated in manuscript over the next half-century, more than eight-hundred medieval manuscripts survive to the present day, with most made between 1424 and 1480 when printed copies began to circulate widely. this dissertation examines the manuscripts of this work as evidence of its circulation as a mass communications phenomenon and an indicator of the religious culture of fifteenth-century reform groups. written as a personal spiritual exercise by thomas of kempen, an obscure canon regular from the netherlands, the work's earliest dated manuscripts bear witness to a relatively limited circulation prior to 1435. after that year, manuscripts survive at nearly three times the rate of the previous ten years, a trend that continues for the next four decades. this rapid increase in circulation coincides with the council of basel (1433-1438) which facilitated increased exchange of information thanks to the communications networks and public forums which grew up in response to the council. in addition to changes in the quantity of circulation, the nature of the work's reception changed after the 1430s. in the later period, the work expanded geographically from its earliest circle in the northwest german lands to nearly every region of europe. the earliest dated copies from austria, bavaria, and france (1435), italy (1436), and england (1438) all date from this period. and as the work's geographic diffusion increased, its circulation began to exhibit multiple centers or "distribution circles'' where the work spread in forms uniquely suited to the needs of the communities that copied the work. it was this multiple agency and adaptability in the manuscript cultures of fifteenth-century europe that provided a precedent for the adaptation of this work among the circles and centers of a confessionally divided age, and continue to explain its enduring appeal to diverse audiences even today. in the era of big data, there is an ever-increasing breadth of both open-source data and advanced quantitative tools available for studying biology; from rna-sequencing to high-throughput screening (hts), advanced technologies have changed the landscape of biological research and medicine. however, there are still many challenges associated with fully harnessing the available resources for particular applications; specifically, comparatively little has been done to integrate data and disparate tools for systems-level solutions. the work herein describes multiple case studies where integrative approaches were applied to synthesize and build on the wealth of resources available to advance biotechnology, preclinical medicine, and more fundamentally in developmental biology. this thesis describes several milestone applications that advance the state-of-the art in each field: the generation of the first chemically defined cell culture medium enabling long term culture of a drosophila cell lines (chapter 2); building on these results led to unexpected discoveries in the field of developmental biology with the discovery of novel spatiotemporal patterning of polyamines during organogenesis (chapter 3); the optimization and application of an in vivo tumor screening approach to efficiently identify novel functional targets during secondary metastatic outgrowth in tumors (chapter 4); and through a close, multidisciplinary collaboration, the characterization of novel compounds through both cytotoxicity and mechanism of action studies, along with the preliminary creation of an ultra-high-content screening platform for structure-activity analysis of compound libraries (chapter 5). for each application, several avenues are available to further progress the technology, which is discussed in the concluding chapter (chapter 6). excess nitrogen (n) and phosphorus (p) from agricultural and urban lands cause numerous water quality problems in freshwater ecosystems, including eutrophication, reduced biodiversity, and drinking water contamination. as n and p are transferred from terrestrial to marine ecosystems via river networks, they are assimilated by autotrophs (i.e., algae, macrophytes) and heterotrophs (i.e., fungi, bacteria) or transformed via dissimilatory processes (i.e., denitrification). as such, nutrient processing may mitigate the effects of nutrient pollution on downstream ecosystems, either by removing nutrients prior to export, or buffering the timing and form of nutrient export. watershed models of nutrient dynamics either assume that rivers are pipes, transporting nutrients downstream without any biological activity, or that rivers are oversized streams, and the biological processes occurring in streams also occur in rivers. nutrient dynamics in streams are controlled by benthic (i.e., bottom) processes, whereas water column processes are ignored in all but the largest rivers. my dissertation research examined the role of the water column in nutrient dynamics of rivers, with a focus on how human land use may alter these dynamics. i found that water column nutrient uptake occurs across a variety of streams and rivers. however, across fifteen similarly sized rivers, water column nutrient uptake and the water column contribution to reach-scale uptake increased with human land use. i also found that human land use influenced nutrient limitation in benthic biofilms. i used novel techniques to measure denitrification in the sediment and water column of five midwestern rivers, and found that the water column can be an important contributor to denitrification. finally, i developed a hydrologic-biogeochemical model to predict the effect of dams on downstream n retention and transport. i found that hydrologic variation induced through dam management may make the river downstream of the dam more of a n sink. overall, my dissertation shows that the water column can be an important and previously unaccounted for contributor to whole-river nutrient dynamics. due to the biogeochemical activity of the sediment and the water column, rivers can process nutrients at rates comparable to headwater streams. this dissertation investigates changes in the practice and perception of begging in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries in southern german towns. it was in this period that german cities began to pass some of the first begging legislation in europe and to categorize types of "false" beggars. examining these legislative innovations within their local and charitable context, this dissertation makes two arguments about the place of begging in medieval society. first, the early begging laws were one element of a complex network of begging and almsgiving. donors, lawmakers, writers, and artists experimented with new approaches to the begging poor in the late middle ages, expressing attitudes that were often contradictory and which fluctuated over time. yet a general acceptance of begging as a method of survival for the poor remained normative, and medieval people often desired to have a population of beggars easily available to serve as recipients of almsgiving. second, the continued centrality of begging shaped how the poor themselves understood their place in society, exposing them to traditional christian ideas about almsgiving which they could have internalized and adapted. this dissertation has two parts. the first half contains case studies of nuremberg, augsburg, and constance, the first three german cities to regulate begging and to categorize types of beggars. these studies nuance the negative view of beggars suggested by an isolated reading of the first begging laws, revealing instead a complicated interplay between local events, rising suspicions of begging, and continued impulses toward charity. the second part expands these three case studies with evidence from surrounding german cities to examine thematic topics. as most of the early german begging legislation sought to regulate which people could beg and where they could do so, this section examines how perceptions of beggars were reflected spatially in attempts to regulate permissible begging locations, and then considers how and why medieval donors discriminated among the poor. the final chapter then reverses these donor-centered approaches to charity and considers almsgiving from the perspective of a beggar, as the begging poor were also active participants in medieval charitable exchanges. cmos has been the workhorse for the ic industry for past 3 decades and its enormous success is derived mainly from successive improvements in device scaling and the concomitant increase in device density and circuit complexity on a single chip. however, most observers agree that the cmos scaling will end sometime between 2015 and 2019 due to several fundamental reasons, but perhaps the most important being the power density. research has been seeking an alternative for conventional cmos technology and one of the suggested devices is the single-electron transistor (set). sets are 3-terminal devices where the source-drain conduction is by a tunneling mechanism through a tiny island whose potential is controlled through a gate. at notre dame sets are primarily used as an enabling device for the development of qca (quantum-dot cellular automata) architecture, which may be better suited for molecular nanoelectronics than more conventional approaches. single electron devices typically need to operate at very low temperatures and also suffer from the problem of fluctuating background charges that randomly change the device behavior. work done by other researchers has shown that si based devices are less vulnerable to background charge offsets, and by utilizing techniques developed for vlsi technology one can make the si devices dimensionally smaller and hence operate at room temperature and above. this dissertation reports the development and experimental realization of a novel fabrication technique using lithography, dry etching and chemical mechanical polishing (cmp) to manufacture si-sets with well-defined island and tunnel junctions. the device design incorporates the best working material (si) with the most-studied insulator (silicon dioxide) for tunnel junctions in a cmos compatible process flow. the reported si-sets are the first to be fabricated using our methodology and also the first to be thoroughly studied and with published results. the fabricated device showed coulomb blockade oscillations above 150 k and the estimated charging energy was in excess of 20 mev. the stability of the device was studied by measuring the gate dependence of the source/drain conductance for over 19 hours at 77 k and showed very stable device behavior for the entire period with a charge offset of 0.04$e$. the deviation of the successful device from the intended design has been studied through experiments and analysis. improvements to the fabrication scheme have been suggested to eliminate the problems encountered and improve the yield. several image restoration and analysis approaches, such as deconvolution, super-resolution, and depth-from-defocus, require an accurate representation of the photographic blurring process. inaccurate representation of the blur which resulted in a particular observation results in inferior restoration of the observation, and potentially an inability to perceive the latent content present the original unblurred scene.in this dissertation, we propose three novel contributions towards the more accurate representation of photographic blur. we propose a model which constrains the spatial variation of blur across the image plane, and is strongly motivated by the underlying optics model of the camera. we also propose a quantitative measure of blur estimation accuracy, and of measuring the inaccuracy introduced by using an approximation to the true blur in deblurring.finally, we introduce an improved method of non-blind blur estimation, and demonstrate the accuracy benefit of using the proposed active target estimation instead of the traditional passive target estimation. amide-based synthetic molecules have been prepared and examined in four separate research projects which investigate conformational isomerization, anion binding, phospholipid translocation and rotaxane formation. it was found that n-(pyrimidin-2-yl)pentafluorobenzamide adopts a cis conformation in the solid state with a nitrogen of the pyrimidine ring pointing toward the center of the perfluorinated ring. in solution the compound is a mixture of cis and trans isomers. the conformational equilibrium is strongly solvent dependent, and the cis conformation is entropically favored. a disulfide macrocyclic compound possessing an isophthalamide moiety, which is a known hydrogen bond donor, was shown to bind chloride, acetate and dihydrogen phosphate anions with binding constants of 30, 137, and 151 m-1 respectively. the binding ability of the isophthalamide moiety was also used to construct rotaxane architectures around fumaramide and squaraine bearing thread molecules. the investigation into squaraine-based rotaxanes shows significant enhancement in chemical stability of the parent squaraine dye molecule with only minimal changes in quantum yield of fluorescence. these results represent a new method of protecting squaraine dyes from harsh chemical environments. bolaamphiphilic fumaramide-based rotaxanes and amide-based bolaamphiphilic thread molecules that are long enough to span a phospholipid bilayer membrane were shown to induce the translocation of phospholipid probes across vesicle membranes. the mechanism of translocase activity is theorized to be a 'slip-pop' mechanism involving local perturbations of the membrane headgroup region. nox (x = 1,2) species are pollutants generated in oxygen rich combustion. in an increasingly more stringent emission regulations, ammonia selective catalytic reduction (nh3-scr) of nox into n2 and h2o is the leading technology in diesel and stationary sources. however, the active sites and reaction mechanism of the commercially used cu-exchanged zeolite scr catalyst, i.e. cu-ssz-13, are still being investigated. past research has shown that the presence of no2 through catalytic oxidation of no to no2: no + 1/2 o2 &#8594; no2 is known to affect nh3-scr reaction mechanism and activity. hence, we began our study by modeling the no oxidation reaction on cu-ssz-13 using hybrid first-principles calculations to model two different active sites: single and dimeric cu. we first examine the position and redox capability of single and dimeric cu species using first-principles thermodynamics. cu prefers to be charge compensated by two al in the zeolite near the 6-ring as isolated cu(ii) and stays as cu(ii) in the presence of o2 and h2o. cu pairs prefer to be in the 8-ring and stay as cu(ii). on the other hand, cu in the 6or the 8-ring can undergo redox when charge compensated by one al. this analysis frame the discussion of site activities, variation of si/al ratio, cu loadings, and reaction conditions in the zeolites. nh3-scr reactions occurs on isolated cu charge compensated by two al. during the redox cycle, cu exists in both reduced cu(i) and oxidized cu(ii) form, and oxidation of no on a reduced cu(i) is one of the key step in the mechanism. our first-principles thermodynamic analysis on cu(i) has identified no3 as the most stable species under no oxidation conditions (10% o2, 300 ppm no, 150 ppm no2 and 543 k). further studies on the formation of no3 is recommended for future work. we identify the molecular adsorption and subsequent activation of oxygen as a kinetically relevant step during dry no oxidation catalysis. this can be written as: &#9733; + o2 &#8594; o2&#9733; + no &#8594; o&#9733; + no2 + no &#8594; &#9733; + 2 no2 where &#9733; denotes the active sites for catalytic dry no oxidation. on both isolated cu sites, molecular adsorption of oxygen are not highly favored under dry no oxidation conditions (10% o2, 300 ppm no, 150 ppm no2 and 543 k). we show cuxoy species in the 8 member ring of ssz-13 as a more facile redox site for the dry oxidation of no, consistent with experimental observations. dry no oxidation, being selective to only cuxoy species in cu-ssz-13, can be used as a probe reaction to identify clustering of cu ions. further molecular investigation on paired cu sites is recommended for future work. finally, applying this model to other cations, e.g. fe, and other catalysts materials are recommended for future work. given an ideal $i$ in a noetherian ring $r$, the core of $i$ is the intersection of all ideals contained in $i$ with the same integral closure as $i$. the core naturally arises in the context of the brianc{c}on-skoda theorem as an ideal which contains the adjoint of a certain power of $i$. as the arbitrary-characteristic analog of the multiplier ideal, the adjoint is an important tool in the study of resolutions of singularities. the question of when the core and the adjoint of a power of $i$ are equal has been tied to a celebrated conjecture of kawamata about the non-vanishing of sections of line bundles. we show for certain classes of monomial ideals in the polynomial ring $k[x_1,ldots,x_d]$ over a field of characteristic zero , $core(i)=adj(i^d)$ if and only if $core(i)$ is integrally closed. in order to prove our main result, we further develop the theory of coefficient ideals in regular local rings of dimension two and study the combinatorial properties of the core of a monomial ideal via the symmetry of its exponent set. the purpose of this study was to examine low-achieving students' perceptions of the goals emphasized in their classroom in relation to their self-efficacy beliefs, selfregulation strategies, help-seeking behaviors and change in grades from fifth to sixth grade. these relationships were also compared to the same relationships for high and average achieving students. survey measures were given to 1,133 sixth grade students, and data were analyzed using multiple group structural equation modeling. perceptions of a mastery goal structure and self-efficacy beliefs were significantly related to improved achievement of low achievers. help-seeking behaviors were negatively related to performance goal structures only for low achievers, and self-regulation strategies were negatively related to change in grades only for low achievers. implications for goal theory and for classroom instruction that might help break the cycle of low motivation and low achievement are discussed. a methodology was developed herein to characterize the performance limitations imposed by the yielding of the cables in a planar robotic mechanism with a cable-driven transmission. the planar robotic mechanism was first presented and the kinematic coupling between links due to the cable-drives was investigated. this method involved a model of the cable tensions based on a rigid-body model of the system, where the tensions are considered as reaction forces. the model allowed for analysis of the tensions in a manner similar to that of a recently developed characterization called the dynamic capability hypersurface. in effect the limitations on dynamic performance caused by cable yielding were added to the limitations caused by the bounds on actuator torque capacity, in order to give a more comprehensive description of the capabilities of the cable-driven system. a two degree-of-freedom mechanism was analyzed in order to illustrate the methodology. the effect of pulley radius was also studied. this dissertation traces the language of reconciliation through the cultural theory and political philosophy of three major english and irish thinkers: edmund burke, matthew arnold, and edward dowden. the project arises from several preliminary questions. first: what importance do edmund burke's writings have for victorian literary unionists such as arnold and dowden? second: how do arnold and dowden's unionist appropriations of burke inform their literary criticism of english poetry? third: how and why does the language of reconciliation bridge the gap between the supposedly separate spheres of literary and political thought? i analyze my subject authors' patterns of allusion &ndash; to figures ranging from st. paul, cicero, homer, and isaiah to shakespeare, milton, and wordsworth &ndash; for political subtexts. this allows me to move from describing the ideology of the aesthetic in the broadest theoretical sense, to describing the political concerns informing specific critical texts. this approach also allows me to read burke's cicero as a persona for reconciling irish and english political identities. i interpret arnold's patterns of allusion as an inner dialogue assessing the burkean sublime as an aesthetic for resolving anglo-irish conflict. this leads me to describe in a new way how arnold's notion of detached cultural criticism operated in practice. i come to several conclusions. first: burke's and dowden's crises of anglo-irish identity lead them to redefine both reconciliation and the idea of english national character. second: the language of political reconciliation is a discourse of imperial government, and it can be either liberal or authoritarian. third: as arnold redefines culture and english national character he struggles to recuperate burke's defense of english conciliatory government. finally: postcolonial intellectuals from james joyce to the archbishop desmond tutu have critically reconstructed the power dynamic of imperialist reconciliation along dialogic lines and reclaimed the term as a democratic ideal. this study examines the theological thought of johann sebastian drey (1777-1853), one of the founding members of what is often termed the catholic t?bingen school, and the way in which his thought addresses questions surrounding the place and meaning of history for theological reflection in modernity. the problem of history, or of historical consciousness, was the object of much theological discussion throughout the nineteenth century, as theologians increasingly recognized the significance not only of the temporal but also of the conceptual distance apparently separating modern christians from the ancient events narrated by the bible, upon which their faith had traditionally depended. drey's theology offers a distinctive response to these questions, at once acknowledging the problem history poses to religious belief in the modern age and maintaining the essential significance of historical revelation for christian faith. to introduce the issue of history and its context in modern theology, attention is given to the figure of g. e. lessing and to the expression, which came to signify the problems historical consciousness poses religious faith in much of subsequent discussion, that of 'lessing's ditch.' since it is known that drey read some of the early works of f. w. j. schelling, certain aspects of that philosopher's thought are also treated as possible influences on drey's own thinking. the bulk of this study, however, examines the body of theological writing produced by drey, culminating in the work of his mature years, the apologetik, as a means of determining the role history and its attendant issues play in his theology. in the apologetik, the theologian argues for the possibility and necessity of divine revelation, which he identifies with the ongoing creative activity of god through history, as well as a corresponding human capacity for such revelation, which he terms a form of supra-rationalism. he further advances a theory of living tradition, born through history by the christian community, to explain how divine revelation is mediated through time to contemporary believers and thereby secures an historical basis for christian faith. this paper details the major issues and influences that are important to my photographic work. the first half of the paper discusses the historical and theoretical aspects that have influenced this current body of work by talking about the role of portraiture in the beginning of photography, the relationship that is formed between the photographer, the subject, and the viewer, and photography's inherent relationship with death. the second half of the paper discusses the work itself in greater detail, and also my contemporary influences. where most research on racial discrimination focuses on harm, this paper focuses on the process of withholding help.i, therefore, ask the research question: does variation in whether someone will intervene on behalf of a child depend on the child's family racial configuration?i answer this question using experimental vignettes by randomly assigning amazon mturk users into five groups, representing one of five black and white family racial configurations.i find that people would directly intervene on behalf of a child victim with a black father and white mother significantly less than a comparable child with two white parents.i also find having a black father reduced the likelihood a participant would intervene on behalf of the child.lastly, the children's and mothers' race show no significant difference in intervention.i end with a discussion proposing a racial hierarchy that considers the intersection of race, gender, and family racial configuration. this thesis tackles the fundamental issues of streaming data in different challenging scenarios. first, the confounding problem of class imbalance and concept drift is considered, and a novel and competitive classification framework is proposed to address this challenge. the proposed methodology outperforms the contemporary methods on a number of different datasets. second, the thesis looks at the problem of dynamic networks, specifically the challenges of link persistence and link prediction. this is the first work to formally cast the problem of link prediction as a class imbalance problem, and it greatly outperforms a number of contemporary and popular methods. the third form of streaming data is in the domain of music. bach chorales are first uniquely transformed into a feature vector space, and then a sliding window approach is used to generate classifiers for subsequent autonomous music composition. group a streptococcus (gas, streptococcus pyogenes) is a gram-positive, human-associated bacterium that ranges from an asymptomatic colonizer to a significant pathogen. the diseases caused by gas can range from mild and self-limiting to severe and life-threatening, and post-infectious immune complications can also occur. in all, gas infections and related sequelae account for more than half a million annual deaths worldwide. gas is a versatile pathogen that utilizes several virulence factors to contribute to disease, and their effects include lysing host cells, manipulating host immune responses and coagulation, and enabling gas to adhere to host components. one example is streptolysin s (sls), which is especially important for invasive gas infections. sls is predominantly associated with lysing erythrocytes, and it also induces inflammation and cytotoxicity in other host cells. recent evidence has suggested that sls targets the membrane-associated ion transporter band 3 to lyse erythrocytes, challenging the traditional hypothesis that sls lyses host cells by disrupting cell membranes. however, the possibility that sls targets other proteins to induce cytolytic effects in non-erythrocytic contexts has not been explored. here, we use chemical inhibition studies to demonstrate that sls induces cytotoxicity in human keratinocytes by targeting additional proteins involved in ion transport during gas infections. these effects could be mitigated by treating keratinocytes with multiple stilbenedisulfonate compounds, which are associated with the inhibition of multiple ion transporters. subsequent bioinformatics analysis and studies with more specific chemical inhibitors identified the electroneutral sodium-bicarbonate cotransporter nbcn1 as a protein target of sls during gas infections of epithelial cells. targeted disruption of nbcn1 by sls was associated with intracellular acidification in human keratinocytes, indicating a role for ph regulation in the host response to sls. together, these results expand on previously identified host signaling responses to sls in keratinocytes by identifying a host protein that is targeted by the toxin to cause these signaling events, and support the hypothesis that gas uses sls as a multifunctional toxin to increase disease severity in several ways during infection. further elucidation of how sls targets host factors to promote disease has implications for the development of therapeutics for invasive gas infections. ionic liquids (ils) have been investigated for different aspects and applications. one focus is gas solubility in ils. among gases, co2 has been studied extensively, driven by the need for carbon capture techniques to combat global warming. other gases like o2, no, or noble gases (ar, kr, xe), which are the focus of this work, have not been widely studied. this is in part due to the difficulty in measuring gases with low solubilities, such as o2 and ar.the main objective of this research is to elucidate different gases dissolution mechanism by studying the phase behavior of the ionic liquids and the gases. knowledge of the thermodynamic properties are needed to guide ionic liquid structural design for different applications. to this end, the solubilities of o2, no, noble gases (ar, kr, xe), and co2 were measured in ionic liquids of widely varying sizes and structures. thermophysical properties including henry' law constants, reaction equilibrium constant, standard enthalpy and entropy of absorption/reaction, of those gases in a variety of ionic liquids were characterized. metal-organic extended structures were synthesized from metal atoms and polycarboxylic linkers. three polycarboxylic linkers were used in the synthesis, tetrahydrofuran 2,3,4 tetracarboxylic acid (thftc), benzenepentacarboxylic acid (bpca), and benzenehexacarboxylic acid (bhca). a total of 9 different compounds were synthesized and characterized by single crystal x-ray diffraction. copper, manganese, and lead formed compounds with thftc. bpca formed compounds with zinc, manganese, cobalt, and lead. cobalt and cerium formed compounds with bhca. the 10b(p,α)7be reaction is a potential temperature diagnostic for laser-driven plasmas. while this technique would be implemented at sub-mev energies, higher energy resonances may interfere with those that lie within the plasma environment energies. additionally, there are significant uncertainties and inconsistencies in the reaction cross section data at higher energy. a measurement of 10b(p,α)7be over a broader range of energies and angles will better determine the resonance interferences and constrain the r-matrix parameterization for the lower energies. this cross section was measured at the university of notre dame and at ohio university with charged-particle si detectors in the energy range ep = 800 2000 kev for 10b(p,p)10b and 10b(p,α0,1)7be and at multiple angles for complete angular distributions. data overlap with previous comprehensive, lower-energy cross-section measurements now provides constraints on the interference effects of higher energy resonances. the data analyzed within this dissertation better inform the r-matrix analysis of these reactions and help to confirm the reaction as a potential temperature diagnostic for nif plasma analysis. around 70% of breast cancer tumors are estrogen receptor positive (er+). although endocrine therapies like tamoxifen and fulvestrant have been the mainstay for er+ breast cancer patient treatment, about 33% of these patients have tumors that eventually relapse and develop as recurrent metastatic tumors that are resistant to endocrine therapy. the molecular mechanisms of endocrine therapy resistance are poorly understood.our lab identified the oncogene and transcription factor znf217 (human)/zfp217 (mouse) as an er modulating protein which drives tamoxifen resistance in vivo. however, no studies have described mechanistic information on how znf217 causes tamoxifen resistance. ligand independent activation of er by growth factor signaling pathways is a main mechanism of tamoxifen resistance. significantly, znf217 directly activates the erbb3/pi3k/akt signaling pathway. in this study, i identified a novel and prognostic znf217and nrg1-(ligand of erbb3) dependent gene expression signature by rna-seq and non-canonical er binding sites in the genome by chip-seq in mcf7 cells. through cut&amp;run sequencing, i also discovered erand nrg1-dependent znf217 binding sites in the mcf7 genome. i discovered transcriptomic and genomic changes that promote lower survival in er+ breast cancer patients receiving tamoxifen. these data identified key pathways altered in a znf217-dependent manner after nrg1 induction. through integration of er chip-seq &amp; znf217 cut&amp;run data, i identified pck1 and phgdh as two novel inducers of tamoxifen resistance that rewire metabolism. both can drive endocrine therapy resistance in cell culture. pck1 deficiency reduces tumor burden in vivo in mouse pymt mammary cancer cells ± shrna pck1 knockdown. significantly, tumor overexpression of pck1 made tumors resistant to tamoxifen, while the genetic and pharmacological inhibition of pck1 overcame tamoxifen resistance in cell culture and in vivo.moreover, by analyzing cell culture media in mcf7 cells ± sirna znf217, i discovered that znf217 alters the cytokine/chemokine/growth factor profile secreted by er+ breast cancer cells. this suggests a role for znf217 in modulating the immune cell landscape in the tumor microenvironment. together, my results suggest that zfp217 overexpression in er+ breast cancer cells causes endocrine therapy resistance and that growth factor induction via nrg1 induces non-canonical er binding to the genome and a znf217-dependent gene expression signature. i have identified new targets that are regulated by znf217 and nrg1 signaling and a possible new role for znf217 in regulating the crosstalk between er+ breast cancer cells and immune cells. this study unraveled new mechanisms of endocrine therapy resistance, unveiling new therapeutic options for er+ breast cancer patients. the present study examined whether maternal self-compassion moderated the relationship between adolescent aggression and maternal parenting stress. mothers of adolescents (n = 241) completed self-report measures of adolescent aggression, maternal self-compassion, and global stress in the parenting role, as well as stress within particular aspects of parenting (e.g., maternal life restrictions and feelings of incompetence and guilt). moderation analyses were used to test the hypothesis that maternal self-compassion would moderate the relationship between adolescent aggression and global and parent domains of parenting stress. the results indicated that maternal self-compassion moderated the relationship between adolescent aggression and domains of parenting stress, and the relationship between adolescent aggression and domains of parenting stress was stronger for mothers who were less self-compassionate whereas the relationship between adolescent aggression and domains of parenting stress was weaker for mothers who were more self-compassionate. further, exploratory analyses were conducted to assess whether self-compassion would moderate the relationship between adolescent aggression and maternal parenting stress when controlling for maternal dysfunctional discipline, a significant predictor of adolescent aggression and maternal parenting stress, in the model. results indicated that when dysfunctional parenting was included in the model, maternal self-compassion continued to moderate the relations between adolescent aggression and parenting stress. development of innovative carbon dioxide (co2) capture technologies is critical for maintaining fossil fuel as an affordable and environmentally benign energy resource. post-combustion co2 capture offers one of the best near-term potentials for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and commercially available technologies use aqueous amine solutions to mitigate co2 emissions from coal-fired power plants. however, due to the large heat of reaction and the presence of water, this process requires large amounts of energy to regenerate the trapping solvent draining up to 30 % of the energy created by burning the coal in the first place. non-volatility, good thermal stability and high co2 solubility make ionic liquids (ils) an attractive replacement for current volatile solvents. ils are low-melting (tm<100 &#176;c) salts of bulky cations and anions and their properties can be carefully tailored by choosing or modifying the anion, the cation, and their substituents. in this study, ils with aprotic heterocyclic anions (ahas) are examined. taking advantage of 'tunability', the enthalpy of reaction with co2 can be controlled over a wide range suitable for gas separations. lowering the enthalpy of reaction can help to reduce the heat required to regenerate the solvent, or in this case, the il. a new type of ils termed phase change ionic liquids (pcils) are also introduced. they undergo a phage change from solid to liquid when they react with co2. utilizing the heat of fusion (&#916;hfus), the ideal pcil process has a potential to reduce the parasitic energy from 30% down to about 14%. additionally, the effect of different types of cations on the physical properties and co2 solubility are examined by paring ahas with imidazolium, ammonium, or phosphonium cations with different alkyl substituents. to summarize, the new families of tunable ils are explored as a viable alternative for current co2 capture technologies. while the field of ils is relatively new and ample opportunity should exist to optimize the properties of ils for co2 capture, this study offers a promising step forward in the search for energy-optimal carbon capture materials. with every decade, the average height of tall buildings has increased and with the near completion of burj dubai, tall buildings are now reaching unprecedented heights where the governing limit state has transitioned to occupant comfort. this thesis focuses on the factors influencing the habitability limit state of tall building design through an investigation of data from the chicago full-scale monitoring program. after developing and validating a framework for estimating the amplitude-dependent dynamic properties of tall buildings, frequency and damping are extracted from ambient vibration data using both spectral and time-domain approaches. by doing so, not only is much needed information on in-situ damping values made available to aid in habitability design of tall buildings, but structural attributes facilitating amplitude dependence are hypothesized, and the shortcomings of a traditional spectral approach are emphasized. finally a framework is developed to investigate occupant comfort directly from full-scale accelerations using existing motion simulator studies to project the likely number of occupants adversely affected by tall building motion when considering the effects of waveform, duration, and frequency of oscillation. this framework provides perhaps the most faithful mechanism, outside of tenant interviewing, to evaluate the performance of tall buildings from an occupant comfort perspective. control systems that transmit information over a shared digital communication network offer improved efficiency, flexibility, and reliability compared to traditional closed loop feedback systems. the use of a limited bandwidth network for control communication presents new challenges on the design and analysis of network interconnected systems due to quantization, time delays, and the absence of feedback measurements for long intervals of time.in this dissertation we use the model-based networked control systems (mb-ncs) configuration for control of uncertain networked control systems (ncs). we consider plant-model mismatch in ncs since the absence of continuous feedback significantly increases sensitivity of the system to model uncertainties, which are commonly present in most control applications. a nominal model of the system is used in mb-ncs to generate an estimate of the plant state when no measurement information is available. the central idea in this approach is to obtain a comparable system performance with respect to the non-networked closed loop system but limiting the use of network resources. then the overall performance of ncs has to consider the response of the control and output signals along with the excessive use of network bandwidth. different approaches that consider dynamical uncertain systems and allow longer sensor update intervals are discussed in this dissertation. they are primarily based on the implementation of event-based strategies that lead the sensor to send feedback measurements to the controller only when it is necessary to do so. this strategy is also used for decentralized control of networked systems and for computation of optimal sensor update instants and for design of optimal mb-ncs controllers. on-line estimation of the system parameters also permits longer update intervals by upgrading the model of the system that is used to generate the control input between sensor updates. additionally, lifting techniques are used for stability analysis of mb-ncs. by using these methods we are able to consider model-based multi-rate periodic systems and mb-ncs that are implemented using the network in the sensor-controller and the controller-actuator channels. finally, control architectures for reference input tracking with limited feedback information are also discussed in this dissertation. the zebrafish retina has the capacity to regenerate all classes of retinal neurons, providing an excellent system to study the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms of neuronal regeneration. exposure to constant intense light kills rod and cone photoreceptors, inducing proliferation in cells in the inner nuclear layer (inl) that give rise to clusters of neuronal progenitor cells. the neuronal progenitor cells migrate radially to the site of damage and ultimately differentiate into new photoreceptors.recent studies suggest that the m&#252;ller glia, a member of the radial glial cell class that is normally involved in nervous system support and modulation of synaptic activity, may serve as a source of regenerated neurons. to clearly label the m&#252;ller glia, i generated transgenic zebrafish lines in which the m&#252;ller glia express egfp under control of the m&#252;ller-specific 1.5 kb glial fibrillary acidic protein (gfap) promoter fragment. the albino tg(gfap:egfp)nt11 line was used in both light-damage and ouabain-damage experiments to demonstrate that the mìäå_ller glia are the source of neurogenesis in the regenerating retina. through immunohistochemical labeling of either light-treated or ouabain-damaged albino tg(gfap:egfp)nt11 eyes, i demonstrated that the proliferating cells that initiate retinal regeneration in the inl are m&#252;ller glia.to identify the cellular damage cues that induce the m&#252;ller glia to divide, i developed a technique for targeted ablation of specific retinal cell classes. treatment of transgenic zebrafish lines that expressed bacterial nitroreductase in specific cell types with the antimicrobial prodrug metronidazole permitted temporal and spatial control of cell ablation. supporting conclusions drawn from regeneration in the ouabain model of inner retinal neuronal cell death, metronidazole-induced ablation of amacrine and horizontal cells suggested that photoreceptor cell death was not necessary to induce regeneration of lost retinal neurons. further, recent studies suggested that rod cell death alone can not induce the m&#252;ller glia to enter a regenerative program. to ablate only the rod photoreceptors, i generated two transgenic lines that expressed nitroreductase specifically in all rods or only a subset of rods. metronidazole treatment of these transgenic lines specifically ablated the nitroreductase-expressing rods, producing a robust m&#252;ller glial proliferation response only when all rods were killed. this demonstrated that rod photoreceptor death alone can induce an inl-derived regeneration response, although a threshold of rod cell loss must be achieved. aero-optics refers to the aberrations imposed on an otherwise-planar wavefront of a laser propagated through near-field turbulence in flows over and around a turret on an airborne laser platform. the magnitude of these aberrations can be quite large depending on the flight altitude and mach number as well as the pointing direction which is commonly described with the azimuthal and elevation angles of the outgoing beam. the magnitude of these aberrations can be sufficiently large to greatly reduce the system's useful field of regard. adaptive-optics, which attempts to place a conjugate wavefront on the beam before it propagates through the turbulence, could theoretically reopen the field of regard; however, both the spatial and temporal frequencies contained in the aberrations make conventional adaptive-optic approaches minimally effective and often cause worse aberrations than are present with no "correction."? until recently, the only available experimental wavefront measurements of aero-optical disturbances around airborne turrets have come from wind-tunnel experiments and numerical simulations. in addition, no flight-tests were available to verify if the aero-optical disturbances are also present to the same degree in flight conditions. to address this need, an airborne aero-optical laboratory was designed, and a series of experiments were carried. the research described in this dissertation explores new analysis techniques for analyzing and manipulating in-flight measured wavefronts that begin with determining the convective speed and direction of the aberration as functions of aperture location, azimuth and elevation, and flight conditions. the two-dimensional proper orthogonal decomposition is applied to the in-flight measured datasets to characterize the nature of the aberration field around the airborne turret due to flow structures convecting over the aperture. the analysis techniques presented in this research for determining the basic character of the aberrations were also shown to be helpful in determining the spatial and temporal requirements of deformable mirrors in an adaptive-optics correction system for a given turret's coordinates. in the presence or absence of flow control, this sort of information should be helpful in developing a set of simplified benchmarks and guidelines for determining the minimum requirements an adaptive-optics system needs to meet to effectively mitigate the deleterious aero-optic effects on the beam. this dissertation explores the structure, origins, and theological meaning of the rites of preparing the eucharistic gifts of bread and wine in the east syriac tradition. the east syriac tradition is unique in that these rites are specified in great detail, down to the ingredients in the bread and instructions for how the loaves should be baked; these are not mere prescriptions found in canonical legislation, but actual rubrics in a liturgical service. while scholars have focused on one of the ingredients in the eucharistic bread – the malkā or holy leaven – and have only tangentially touched on the preparatory services, this dissertation provides an original scholarly contribution to the fields of liturgical studies, syriac studies, and theology by examining the manuscript sources of these preparatory rites, in order to shed light on the questions of when and where the services first emerged, how they evolved, and how they have been interpreted theologically. the dissertation includes a critical edition of the rites and an english translation, as well as of the rite of the renewal of the holy leaven, which shares numerous structural similarities with the preparatory rites. the dissertation goes on to present a structural analysis of several liturgical units within the services of preparation. next, the dissertation examines evidence from several genres, including canonical collections, casuistic literature, theological commentaries, and archaeology, in addition to liturgical texts, to shed as much light as possible on how the rites evolved. lastly, the dissertation explores how liturgical commentators in the east syriac tradition (ancient and modern) have interpreted the rites of preparation, as well as making a few points of mystagogical interpretation. throughout, the dissertation includes comparisons between the preparatory services in the east syriac tradition and those in other christian ritual traditions (armenian, byzantine, coptic, ethiopian, maronite syriac, west syriac, and latin). all in all, this dissertation aims to be useful, not only to scholars of liturgical studies or of the eastern churches, but also to the living tradition of the church of the east, which continues to use the very rites under discussion before every celebration of the eucharist. macroscopic fluid-like models and their discretizations such as the cell transmission model (ctm) have proven successful in modeling traffic flows in large-scale transportation networks. in general, these models employ discontinuous dynamics or nonlinear terms to describe phenomena like shock waves and phantom jams. given the complexity of these models, it is not surprising that the dynamical properties of these models are not yet well characterized, especially in congested regimes. furthermore, control policies using these models are often designed for free flow regimes. yet, practical transportation networks often operate in states where at least one of the constituent roads are congested. in this context, this dissertation addresses two open problems concerning the analysis and distributed control of transportation networks, modeled by variants of the ctm, operating in congested regimes. this dissertation is divided into two parts. in the first part, we study the dynamical properties of a transportation network that is modeled using the cell transmission model (ctm), when driver behavior at intersections is governed by a first-in-first-out (fifo) policy. while properties such as the existence and stability of steady states of the resulting dynamical system in the free flow regime have recently been identified for some classes of network topologies, the analysis of the dynamical behavior of this system in congested regimes remains an open problem. to address this problem, we propose a novel analysis and design framework, in which we prove the dynamical equivalence between the ctm and a class of autocatalytic chemical reaction networks (crns). we then exploit structural results and entropy-like lyapunov functions from chemical reaction network theory to provide simple analytical conditions for the existence and local stability of steady states in congested regimes, based on the connectedness of the network topology, and network parameters like the velocities, turning ratios and exogenous inflows. we demonstrate how the structural results arising from this framework can be applied in network planning studies to mitigate congestion by redesigning existing transportation networks, contribute to sensor and actuator placement, and inform control strategies like ramp metering. in the second part, we consider the problem of designing fast local control policies to mitigate traffic congestion arising from large disturbances in the traffic flow, such as accidents and peak-hour demand surges, before they develop into propagating traffic jams or shock waves. while typical control policies designed using free flow traffic models are robust to small disturbances, the design of control strategies for networks operating under large disturbances largely remains an open problem. using the ctm with a non-fifo relaxation for driver behavior at intersections, we address this problem by proposing a distributed synthesis framework to locally compute distributed control policies that limit the spatial propagation of congestion to small areas. we demonstrate the application of this framework in locally synthesizing traffic light sequences for urban networks, as well as ramp queue controllers and speed limits for freeway networks with connected and autonomous vehicles, to mitigate congestion caused by large disturbances like accidents and peak-hour demand surges. this project takes an interdisciplinary approach to twentieth century irish and american political rhetoric, housing studies and literature to treat the trope of the stranger in the house (as colonizer, lodger, or domestic servant) as enacting both domestic and national tensions. operating against a reading of estrangement as somehow universally or essentially experienced, i locate the stranger within contemporaneous debates surrounding why and how that figure is ostracized. chapter 1 traces the irish nationalist discourse that identified the presence of the english in ireland as ì¢åûåïstrangers in the houseì¢åûå through its twentieth century depictions on the irish stage in yeats and gregory's cathleen ni houlihan, their return to the trope in yeats's the dreaming of the bones and gregory's dervorgilla, and its resurgence in recent works such as frank mcguinness's dolly west's kitchen (1999) and jamie o'neill's at swim, two boys (2001). chapter 2 focuses on the boarding house as a site of competing constructions of irish nationhood in james joyce's ì¢åûåïthe boarding houseì¢åûå and ulysses and brian moore's the lonely passion of judith hearne (a version of this chapter is forthcoming in james joyce quarterly in 2007). chapter 3 focuses on political responses toward and literary depictions of irish immigrants in the u.s. through journalist alvan f. sanborn's sketches and the fiction of maeve brennan. i propose a new reading of brennan's irish domestic servants through an awareness of the economics of the ì¢åûåïservant problemì¢åûå in the pages of the new yorker during her tenure there. richard wright's critically neglected depiction of the irish servant peggy illustrates the difference between the position of the irish and black domestic servant, and chapter 4 examines the relationship between the african american stranger and the nation-as-home conceit through the black domestic servant figure in wright's native son and carson mccullers's neglected novel clock without hands. in conclusion, i argue for the need to attend to the power of the ever shifting designation of ì¢åûåïstranger,ì¢åûå and suggest that it is from this position of stranger that the most severe critiques against the nation can be leveled and its deepest hypocrisies illuminated. in this dissertation, i address the significance of signal transduction cascades during leishmania parasite differentiation for the purpose of identifying potential drug targets to be used for the treatment of leishmaniasis, a disease characterized by a spectrum of clinical manifestations ranging from ulcerative skin lesions to fatal visceral infections. to date, few anti-leishmanial drugs exist and most risk becoming ineffective due to emerging resistances; therefore, new drugs are urgently needed. during the infectious cycle, leishmania differentiates from extracellular promastigotes in sandflies to pathogenic intracellular amastigotes in mammalian hosts. differentiation is triggered by changes in environmental signals, namely ph and temperature, which are relayed through signal transduction pathways via reversible phosphorylation of kinases and phosphatases. compared to higher eukaryotes, our knowledge of these signaling molecules in leishmania is scarce despite their essential roles in the biology of the parasite. mitogen-activated protein kinases (mapks) are conserved virtually across all eukaryotic organisms. previous insight into the mapk pathway in leishmania revealed a downstream target of mapk7, identified as lmapa2g4. upon investigating lmapa2g4, we found it to be an essential gene potentially indicated in fundamental biological mechanisms, such as translation, therefore making it an attractive target for therapeutic intervention. though protein kinases, and their downstream targets, have been more actively studied for the potential development of anti-parasitic therapeutics, our understanding of the biology of protein phosphatases in leishmania is poor despite their implication in critical post-translational modifications and differentiation. approximately 96-99% of proteins in eukaryotes are phosphorylated on serine and threonine (ser/thr) residues. using bioinformatics and in silico analysis we identified protein phosphatase 5 (pp5), a ser/thr phosphatase belonging to the ppp family of phosphatases. pp5 is unique in that it differs from other phosphatases in its family due to its n-terminal tetratricopeptide repeat (tpr) domains, which are momentous in protein-protein interactions and auto-inhibition. upon investigation, recombinant pp5 proved it to be a bona fide phosphatase that is enzymatically active. further analysis showed pp5 to be developmentally regulated, with increased expression in metacyclic promastigotes, suggesting a possible role in metacyclogenesis. the generation of pp5 null mutant parasites revealed that despite its inessentiality, its removal significantly decreases parasite pathogenicity which, therefore, further implicates its potential future applicability as an anti-parasitic target. altogether, this work demonstrates the importance of studying signal transduction events for the successful development of leishmania-based therapeutics. peers play a significant role in affecting students' academic, social, psychological and labor market outcomes. although there is an extensive literature on peer influence on adolescents' academic outcomes, existing literature failed to examine in-depth peer influence processes, and there is still very little cross-national comparative and long-term perspective research on peer influence on academic outcomes. in this dissertation, i conducted three empirical studies to address each of these three above-mentioned limitations in the peer influence literature, using nationally representative, longitudinal datasets. i first explored peer influence at different levels and the relationship between the effects of different peer group attributes. i found that the average gpa of students' friends have significantly positive effects on the academic outcomes of high school students of all races/ethnicities and that the effect of the racial heterogeneity of friends on student's academic outcomes is mediated in part through the effect of the average gpa of students' friends. i then conducted a cross-national comparative study of peer influence on eighth-graders in the u.s. and three east asian countries/regions. results from my hlm analyses show that school-level peer achievement is positively and significantly associated with eighth-graders' test scores in all four countries and that there is very slight us ì¢ ââ' east asian difference in peer effect at the school level. at the individual level, results from analyses of the pooled data using interactions by region (east asia versus the u.s.) show that friends' attitude on doing well in math/science is less negatively and significantly related to east asian students' achievement than with that of the u.s. students. yet further analyses using pooled data with interactions by country (with the u.s. as reference group) and with country-specific data reveal that the differences are more country-specific than region-specific. finally i examined the long-term influence of high school friends on 10th-graders' higher educational attainment process. results from my logistic regressions show that friends' pro-education attitude at 10th-grade increases the probability that respondents expected to need a college degree for their jobs at the age of thirty, and that they planned to go to college right after high school and applied to at least one college at 12th-grade. i also found that the number of friends who were to attend a 4-year college at 12th-grade increases respondents' likelihood of going to a 2-year or 4-year college (versus no pse) and to eventually attain a bachelor's degree as of 2000, eight years after their high school graduation. global changes have caused vector-borne diseases (vbds) to resurge, inflicting high morbidity and mortality at a disproportionate level in the developing world. while vaccine candidates are moving through the developmental pipeline, insecticides are playing a fundamental role in curbing vector-transmitted diseases. the worldwide emergence of insecticide resistance underscores the necessity of discovering new insecticides with novel modes of action. recently, g-protein coupled receptors (gpcr) have been identified as a lucrative drug target due to their involvement in a diverse array of insect physiological and behavioral processes. in particular, the serotonin (5-ht) gpcr family, subdivided into 5-ht1, 5-ht2 and 5-ht7, has been implicated in processes paramount to vectorial capacity including feeding and locomotion. availability of deep-sequencing projects and highly conserved regions of amino acids within the family promoted the identification of 5-ht gpcr target genes in aedes aegypti and anopheles gambiae through sequence similarity and homology-based searches. stage-specific expression profile determined by quantitative rt-pcr aided in the prioritization of genes for targeting of adult mosquitoes versus immature stages, but most importantly, significant levels of expression were observed in the adult female head. target receptors from each 5-ht subfamily were cloned into the pf9a cmv hrluc-neo flexi vector and expressed transiently in the human embryonic kidney (hek-293) cell line. the gloresponse reporter system and fluo-4 direct calcium assay were utilized to characterize the receptors. potential agonist and antagonist activity was analyzed through cell-based assays and dose-response curves. chemical compounds reported to effect invertebrate 5-ht receptors were tested for their impact on locomotion, sugar feeding, and blood feeding via in vivo behavioral assays. results suggest that the serotonergic system is involved in the modulation of these behaviors. by dampening locomotion and blood-feeding, indirect determinants of vectorial capacity, transmission and burden of vbds could effectively be reduced. considering these positive global health implications, the serotonergic system is a compelling target for the novel insecticide pipeline. computational approaches have made significant contributions to our understanding of heterogeneous catalysis in recent decades. these types of computations have most often been applied for metal-only catalysts, and have made clear that their single-component nature severely limits the extent to which their performance can be improved. in this dissertation, i discuss how i have applied computational modeling to understand and design two types of multi-component catalytic systems: (1) oxide-supported metal catalysts, and (2) plasma-enhanced catalytic systems. i show that both approaches to multi-functionalization provide potential for significant improvement over their single-component counterparts.for the work on metal/support interfaces, i identify several ways by which the support modifies reactivity at the interface, e.g. charge transfer, strain, ligand, and steric effects. all of these effects are potentially tunable---the work provides guidelines on how the metal/support synergy may be exploited to develop superior catalysts. i also discuss the formulations of an initial theory of plasma-enhanced catalysis. i take a reductionist approach to reduce the complexity that hinders an insight-driven approach to the field. i only focus on the potential of the plasma to assist the catalysis by non-thermally activating strong chemical bonds. i show that plasma-driven catalysis can provide access to reaction rates as well as product yields far greater than those accessible thermally at equivalent conditions of bulk temperature and pressure. the simple conceptual framework developed in this thesis helps interpret some of the singular characteristics of plasma-catalysis experiment, as well as to identify materials and operation conditions where the plasma-catalyst coupling may be beneficial. the concepts are applied in the context of the ammonia synthesis and methane reforming reactions. the study summarizes in chapter 1 the various interpretive perspectives on the meaning of the song, noting especially the modern trajectories of naturalistic and desacralizing readings on the one hand, and, eros-centered readings, which spiritualize the song as a space for unending erotic interplay, on the other. chapter two advances with a commentary which tracks two categories of elements, the social fabric, and the moves of love—longing and union in the song.developing from the commentary, in chapter three, the social elements are discussed in detail, in terms of their extensive permeation of and contribution to the song. through focusing on the occurrences of eight categories of social features, it becomes clear that the social context is a continual presence in the song. the weaving of the couple into the social fabric indicates that, rather than ornamental to the 'real' subject of the song, these features are constitutive for their roles.in chapter 4 the question of the structure of the song is treated, with the function of social features in view. the chapter begins with a sketch of scholarly perspectives on the song's structure, and proposes a schema derived from the findings of the commentary. though quite simple and informal, this structure is observable and reinforced by content and poetic underlining in the form of refrains and strategic repetitions of images to link content across the song. most distinct in the structure is a broadly concentric ring structure that centers around the nuptial unit and its flanking scenes of night-searches. the relationship of content and form in the song arises out of the integration of social features and the moves of love, as unpacked in the chapter.the conclusion of the dissertation reflects on the song as a work which joins the social and erotic dimensions of human coupling. the song exults in nuptial union broadly understood; singing not only of physical love and contractual bonds, but the whole institutional fabric within the scope of family, marriage and community. with poetic mastery and subtlety, the song casts this social content within israel's covenantal framework. for a patient with metastatic colorectal cancer, there are limited clinical options aside from chemotherapy. unfortunately, the development of new chemotherapies is a long and costly process. aside from ethical concerns, typical in vivo research on these toxic chemotherapeutic drugs is low throughput, time consuming and costly. in this project, two novel in vitro platforms are employed to better understand the effects of chemotherapeutic treatments on colon cancer cells: tumor spheroids and paper-based cultures. the first part of this thesis utilizes 3-dimensional cell culture tumor spheroids. these multi-cellular aggregates, or spheroids, of colorectal cancer cells have been shown to exhibit many of the physiological and chemical gradients of a typical clinical tumor, while still maintaining the flexibility of a cell culture system. this project utilizes a 3d printed fluidic device that facilitates high-throughput treatment of these tumor spheroids across a semipermeable membrane. the device also allows for a dynamic drug-dosing gradient similar to a typical in vivo pharmacokinetic profile. the treated tumor spheroids are evaluated with maldi-imaging mass spectrometry to elucidate the spatial distribution of the drug molecules and corresponding metabolites. spheroids are also analyzed for the quantitative proteomic changes induced by treatment. this innovative system enables both pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic evaluations for a wide range of compounds, and can have a transformative impact on the pre-clinical evaluation of drug candidates. the second part of this thesis focuses on another a novel in vitro platform, paperbased cultures (pbcs). individual layers of paper are seeded with colon cancer cells, stacked together into a 3d structure containing a diffusion-limited environment generated with the use of diffusion limiting membranes and stainless steel holders. these pbcs display monotonic gradients similar to the gradients found in poorly vascularized tumors, making paper-based cultures a 3d tumor mimic. individual layers of pbcs were characterized for cell viability, proliferation and drug response. pbcs were dosed with chemotherapeutics and monitored for the cellular response at different regions within the pbcs. we also developed a methodology to perform maldi-imaging mass spectrometry on pbcs. the described analytical platforms enable preclinical chemotherapeutic analysis and are readily available for the exploration of new and creative cancer treatments. the fables of jesus in the gospel of luke seeks to resolve two fundamental mysteries about jesus and his parables. the first of these is ultimately of a historical nature and pertains to the genre typically called "parable." most new testament scholars view it as axiomatic that the historical jesus taught in parables. yet, according to the standard scholarly assessment, jesus is also the first figure in recorded history to use the parable as his preferred didactic medium. the first fundamental issue discussed is resolve the synoptic depiction of jesus as a teller of parables is really as unique as is commonly asserted.the second mystery is why it is in luke's gospel, and only in luke's gospel, that we find such a disproportionate amount of parables not found elsewhere in the new testament. within the l material are about fifteen unique parables, including the most popular of the jesus tradition, such as the good samaritan, the prodigal son, and the most peculiar, such as the crafty steward. i offer an answer to both mysteries from the contemporary genre fable, which was having its renaissance around the turn of the common era across the mediterranean world. i set the parables attributed to jesus in luke alongside the first-century fable collections, fable tellers, and exercises of ancient education to demonstrate that the gospel author presented the parables of jesus as fables, and that luke and his audience would have understood them as such. the implications of this thesis are many and far reaching. the ancient fable requires a fundamental reevaluation of the correct way to interpret the most popular parables in the christian tradition. the fable supplies a new historical and cultural context in which to situate jesus, and hundreds of new primary texts with which to compare the parables attributed to him in luke. the fable provides the key for understanding luke's methods of composition and redaction of his parable source-material. the fable provides an answer to why luke can depict a first-century jewish figure as teaching in parables and it also resolves lighter matters, such as whether the parables attributed to jesus are intended to make us laugh. this project is not an attempt to turn over a new stone in the already well-furrowed field of parable scholarship but to open a new venue entirely. the work presented in this dissertation focuses on two key areas of research, namely i) the use of 4-nitrophenol reduction as a model reaction for benchmarking the performance of metallic nanoparticle catalysts, especially with regards to developing best practices for catalytic benchmarking as well as developing a holistic mechanistic understanding of the reaction and ii) the development of advanced fabrication techniques towards the synthesis of periodic arrays of substrate-immobilized plasmonic gold hexagonal and triangular nanoplates. the first portion of this document briefly details the field of nanomaterials in general and how these types of materials are of critical importance to our everyday lives. an introduction and description of catalysis is then presented, and the necessary background information required to fully understand the catalytic benchmarking of nanoparticles utilizing 4-nitrophenol reduction is discussed. practical experimental methods for determining catalytic performance in the lab are also detailed, as well as new recommendations for testing procedures and best practices that were developed from our discoveries and research. the significant contributions made to the field of catalysis are then presented where the main contributions discussed are 1. the significant impact of sodium borohydride on the 4-nitrophenol reaction with regards to catalyst dosage and induction time, 2. the critical role of sodium borohydride as not just a reducing agent but as a promoter of ligand desorption during the 4-nitrophenol reaction and recommended best practices for catalytic testing, and 3. the capability to utilize 4-nitrophenol reduction as a facile test for determining metallic catalyst leaching. additionally, a second focus of my research is then discussed, namely work carried out in the field of nanomaterials fabrication, specifically with regards to fabricating arrays of epitaxially aligned substrate-immobilized plasmonic nanoplates. a brief background for nanoplate synthesis on substrates is described, where special attention is given to motivating the importance and applications of this category of materials. the significant contributions i have made to the field of nanoplate fabrication are then presented where the main contributions are 1. the fabrication of large area arrays of epitaxially aligned substrate-immobilized hexagonal gold nanoplates utilizing brij-700 surfactant and 2. the fabrication of triangular nanoplates with a high degree of edge sharpness utilizing brij-700 coupled with hexadecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (ctab) surfactant that show polarization-dependent refractive index sensitivity response. lastly, a summary of our research findings and important contributions to these fields is presented. in 2016, the world health organization deemed antibiotic resistance one of the biggest threats to global health, food security, and development. despite growing antibiotic resistance, pharmaceutical companies continue to divest from antibacterial research. this has led to the need for new approaches to identify effective therapeutic strategies. one approach is the identification of small molecule adjuvants that potentiate the activity of antibiotics of demonstrated utility, whose efficacy is abated by resistance, both acquired and intrinsic. antibiotic adjuvants are compounds that possess limited or no antimicrobial activity alone, but enhance the activity of an antibiotic when delivered in combination. this work describes a structure activity relationship (sar) study based on a lead compound that has previously displayed biofilm inhibition and dispersion activity and β-lactam potentiation against mycobacterium tuberculosis. the activity of the lead compound is linked to the disruption of mycobacterial cell envelope lipid synthesis and disruption of proton motive force. the sar study led to the identification of a more potent adjuvant and revealed that antibiofilm activity is decoupled from β-lactam potentiation activity against mycobacterium smegmatis. additionally, this work outlines another sar study performed against m. smegmatis using the natural product meridianin d as the lead compound. this sar study revealed that the meridianin d analogues lack β-lactam potentiation capabilities, but replacing the 2-aminopyrimidine moiety attached to the indole with a 2-aminoimidazole group led to enhanced biofilm inhibition and dispersion activity. varying the halogen on the indole also modified activity. this work also describes a project focused on sensitizing gram-negative bacteria to gram-positive selective antibiotics by the use of antibiotic adjuvants. compounds have been identified that enhance the efficacy of antibiotics normally ineffective against gram-negative pathogens because of the outer membrane permeability barrier. we identified two adjuvant compounds that dramatically enhance sensitivity of acinetobacter baumanniito macrolide and glycopeptide antibiotics with reductions in minimal inhibitory growth concentrations as high as 256-fold, and activity observed across a variety of clinical isolates. mode of action studies indicate that these adjuvants likely work by modulating lipopolysaccharide synthesis or assembly. the adjuvants were active in vivo in a galleria mellonellainfection model, indicating potential for use in mammalian infections. with more and more attention of the public shifting toward environmental concern, governments around the world are acting by implementing more stringent emission standards for particulate matter and nox from diesel engine exhaust. diesel engines have the highest engine efficiency of any practical combustion engine design, having a 30 percent better fuel economy and 25 percent less co2 emissions than gasoline engines. however, the incomplete combustion of diesel engines generates hazardous emissions such as nitrogen oxides (nox), sulfur oxides (sox), hydrocarbons (hc), co, co2, and particulate matter (pm). among them, particulate matter, especially pm2.5 (particulate matter 2.5 micrometer or less in diameter) and pm10 (particulate matter 10 micrometer or less in diameter) cause serious environmental and health problems, due to their tiny size and chemical composition. among the technologies being considered to reduce emissions, particulate trapping technology is of great interest. a diesel particulate filter (dpf) is an emission reduction unit which removes particulate matter or soot from the exhaust gas of a diesel engine. normally, a diesel particulate filter is positioned in the downstream of the diesel engine in order to collect solid particulate emissions while allowing the exhaust gases to pass through the system, and usually remove up to 99 percent of the soot from the diesel exhaust. however, the soot accumulated in the dpf need to be removed periodically to maintain the engine performance. current catalyst technology utilizes expensive platinum group metals (pgm) on dpf components. in the aim of reducing expense, there is urgent need for a novel low-cost catalyst for use in dpf.novel kcs glass catalyst developed by previous researchers in our group shows excellent catalytic activity with soot oxidation temperature as low as 380℃, however partial catalytic deactivation was measured after prolonged exposure to harsh diesel exhaust environment. to further the study of k-glass catalysts, this dissertation will investigate various compositional changes to the kcs glass. the effect of ce, zr, la and ag chemical substitutions on the k-based glass catalyst soot oxidation kinetics were examined. in addition, the effect of contact conditions and the effect of catalyst/soot ratios on the soot oxidation reaction were also investigated using temperature -programmed oxidation (tpo) thermogravimetric experiments.mullite filters show superior performance in the soot combustion due to its needle structure providing higher surface area (~2.5 times) than the smooth monolith cordierite filter. however, mullite filters are not commercially used since its expensive cost, this dissertation will explore several approaches for fabricating a porous glass catalyst coating on the smooth monolith walls of cordierite filter aiming to increase the catalyzed surface area in a cordierite filter by a low cost, simple technique. the continued environmental, technological, and industrial importance of actinide materials sustains the need for understanding their behavior from the nanoscale to macroscale. understanding the physical and chemical properties of actinides is a necessary step towards predicting their longand short-term behavior in different environments. determination of thermodynamic properties of uranium minerals and associated compounds is fundamental for understanding the alteration pathways of uranium in geological systems, predicting transport of uranium in the environment, and ultimately developing a geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel in the us. towards this end, i focus on experimentally determining the thermodynamic properties of uranyl compounds in this research.the work described in this dissertation explores two major topics in actinide geochemistry. the first theme is focused on determination of standard-state thermodynamic properties of the zippeite-group minerals from the uranyl sulfate family that form on uranium mine wastes and that may be important in nuclear waste disposal. the result of the experimental thermochemistry of four members of the zippeite group with zippeite-type uranyl sulfate sheets and different interlayer cations is presented in this work. pure zippeite, natrozippeite, cobaltzippeite, and zinczippeite mineral analogs were hydrothermally synthesized and thoroughly characterized using x-ray diffraction and analytical chemistry methods (icp-oes, tga). the standard-state enthalpy of formation of each sample was determined using high-temperature calorimetry. solubility experiments were carried out for zippeite to measure it solubility product and hence calculate its standard state gibbs free energy of formation. calorimetric data revealed that there is a linear relationship between the formation enthalpies from oxides and the acidity of cation oxides, as well as the ionic radius of charge-balancing alkalis, indicating the importance of the nature and coordination environment of the interstitial complex in determining the thermodynamic properties of these minerals.in the second component of this work, i studied the chemical thermodynamics of selected members of the family of nanoscale uranyl peroxide cage clusters. uranyl nanoclusters, that are proposed to be energetic intermediates between dissolved aqueous uranyl species and uranyl minerals, have potential importance in an advanced nuclear fuel cycle and environmental transport of actinides following nuclear accidents. their structures are composed of uranyl polyhedra bridged by bidentate peroxide, and other types of bridges in addition to peroxide ligands in many cases, that are charge-balanced by metal cations. six members of this family were selected, synthesized under ambient conditions, and well-characterized using single crystal x-ray diffraction, icp-oes, esi-ms, and tga. our calorimetric data shows that the enthalpies of formation of the cluster compounds from oxides become more negative as the charge on the cluster increases. the results obtained from this work demonstrate that the energetics of uranyl peroxide cluster crystals are largely driven by the alkali cation oxide thermodynamics, rather than negatively charged uranyl cages.the data obtained from this work proposes trends between enthalpies of formation of select uranyl phases and their chemical properties related to their crystal structure. the findings may be used to predict the energetics of other members of that family, or on a larger scale to better understand and improve the nuclear fuel cycle. the computational chemistry community has long sought to develop predictive methods to accelerate experimental studies. understanding chemical transformations is a critical step in downstream applications and studies of any given reaction including the development of complimentary methodologies. the development of predictive methods in organic chemistry heavily relies on a thorough understanding of mechanism. this is especially true when predicting stereoselectivity of a given reaction, where properly identifying the stereodetermining step is crucial, otherwise the model's accuracy will suffer, ultimately leaving predictions unreliable. the quantum guided molecular mechanics (q2mm) method allows for the development of transition state force field (tsff) parameters that can be utilized in the prediction of stereoisomer ratios. this method relies on understanding the stereodetermining step for the reaction of interest and allows one to quickly screen chiral ligand libraries, identifying the highest performing ligand for the transformation. this thesis describes the density functional theory (dft) study of 3 reaction mechanisms, whereby the first investigates the ni-catalyzed conjugate addition of trialkylboranes to α,β – unsaturated esters. the proposed intramolecular transmetalation proved to be energetically infeasible, leading to alternative transmetalation pathways being examined. the second study focused on the mechanistic differences between the underlying vinyl cyclopropane rearrangement in vinyl isocyanates and vinyl ketenes. the third study sought to understand the observed alkene regioselectivity in the [3+1]-cycloaddition of pd-carbenoids and trimethylene methane reagents. additionally, the experimental verification of q2mm predictions for the pd1,4-addition of aryl boronic acids and cyclic enones is presented here, where predictions pointed towards a group of ligands that could flip the observed stereoselectivity while retaining the stereochemistry of the ligand. lastly, progress towards the development of a tsff describing the ir-catalyzed hydroamination of unactivated alkenes is described. quantity and quality of input predicts vocabulary growth (huttenlocher, haight, bryk, seltzer, &amp; lyons, 1991; ramirez-esparza, garcía-sierra, &amp; kuhl, 2014) and the ability to encode speech quickly and accurately, known as lexical processing efficiency (lpe) (weisleder &amp; fernald, 2013). however, little is known about what qualities of speech are strong indicators of language development. speech style, such as infant-directed speech (ids), is a special signal for communicating with infants (fernald, 1985) and may be one quality of input that could impact language outcomes. for example, the exaggerated differences between speech sounds and attention-getting properties of ids may support lpe; however, little is known about how experience with ids impacts language development. we tested whether hearing ids at home predicts vocabulary size and lpe and found evidence of sex-related differences in the relationship between ids and both vocabulary size and lpe. we collected home-recordings of input in 12 month olds' (n = 38, males = 19) environment and coded how much ids they heard. at 12, 15, and 18 months, we collected parent-report measures of receptive and productive vocabulary and assessed infants' ability to recognize common words (e.g. baby, doggy) using lab-based looking-while-listening paradigm. females who heard more ids had larger receptive vocabularies at 12 months and 15 months and a hint of word-recognition. in contrast, males showed the opposite effect, such that hearing more adult-directed speech (ads) predicted larger receptive vocabularies at 12 months and 15 months, but the amount of ids or ads they heard did not relate to their lpe skills. this suggests that hearing more ids may benefit females' early language development, but that hearing ads may be advantageous for males' receptive vocabulary development. comparative research in both the social sciences and the humanities pertaining to the field of migration studies remains scant. in this dissertation i address this dearth of scholarship in an examination of the affinities and contrasts between the experiences of the irish migrant in britain and the north african/senegalese migrant in france through close readings of six narratives, both filmic and literary.i focus on representations of the migrant figure in the time period spanning the 1920s to the 1980s. the first two chapters address the immigrant experience from a communal perspective while the final two chapters deal with individual migrant figures, both male and female. there is a movement from the general day-to-day life of the immigrant family and their interactions with the host society and public space to the more impersonal institutionalized setting of the hostel in which there is little contact with the outside world accentuating isolation for the male immigrants in both britain and france and even less with the most intimate space of all, the home, but with the added complexity of homeplace as workplace for female immigrants, work abroad turns out to be an even more depersonalized environment for the female immigrant. i analyze the migrant's engagement with space in the host society with the lingering backdrop of home as not only physical but also psychological space. in chapter one i approach the complexities of stereotypes when the immigrant community subject to prejudice in the host society displays behavior that confirms the grounds for some of this prejudice. in chapter two i focus on the french post-war "bidonville" (shantytown) situation through the lens of film. i address upward mobility in both chapters. in chapter three i look at the space of the immigrant hostel/foyer in terms of "non-place." in chapter four i explore the transplantation of the colonial paradigm from the indigenous society to the metropolitan centers of empire, as lived by the domestic servant figure. i analyze impediments to integration for the immigrant throughout the dissertation. despite the characters often negative experience of displacement i illuminate how british/french mainstream culture is itself "fragmented" and altered by the introduction of irish/ african minority cultures into its realm. while some very insightful criticism has recognized the importance of acting, especially for women, throughout george eliot's daniel deronda, this dramatic thread has yet to be analyzed to its fullest potential. the theatre is often marked as a unique site which enables a permeability of the boundaries between imagination and reality. i investigate how eliot exploits this theatrical blurring of boundaries in daniel deronda, carrying this transgression to a new level altogether. in her novel, a character's thoughts are subsequently transferred into and enacted in reality. in other words, a character's thoughts become "performative". my project will first demonstrate how this phenomenon more generally works for the character of mordecai, whom eliot uses to "set the stage" and prepare the reader for the subsequently more powerful thinking capabilities of gwendolen, the central subject of my discussion because of the relationship between her gender and her unique inner capacities. as the most dramatic character but also as a victorian woman, gwendolen's thinking then becomes particularly performativeìäå¢ì¢åâåâì¢åûå her concentration of mental energy, built up under the strain of her marriage, releases into the physical world to murder her husband. my project offers critical payoff in elucidating the interplay between performativity and gender, which gets at that mystical quality of the performative itself. additionally, my thesis adds to that usual critical discourse on eliot and detachment, including the relationship between sympathy, possession, and models of reading. evidence for my analysis is drawn from close readings of the text, as well as victorian theatre theory, eliot's other fiction, and concurrent work by eliot's partner g.h. lewes. daniel deronda, as a development away from eliot's high realist fiction, offers a powerful model of the capacity and worth of female thought for consumption by a victorian female readership. static slicing is a popular program analysis used in software engineering to find which parts of a program affect other parts. unfortunately, static slicing often produces large and imprecise results because of its conservative nature. dynamic slicing can be an alternative in some cases, but it requires detailed runtime information that can be hard or impossible to obtain or re-create. this is often the case when users report bugs in deployed software. in this thesis, we first present a novel static analysis that predicts the likelihood of occurrence of data dependences. although it is hard to predict execution frequencies accurately, our preliminary results suggest that our analysis can distinguish the data dependences most likely to occur from those less likely to occur, which helps engineers prioritize their inspection of dependences in slices. secondly, we significantly improve the precision of static slicing through prioslice, a novel technique that exploits the insight that not all statements in a static slice are equally likely to affect another statement such as a failing point. prioslice first computes a probabilistic model of the dependencies in the program. in this model, some data dependencies are more likely to occur than others and control dependencies are less likely than data dependencies to propagate effects (e.g., errors). prioslice then traverses the program backwards, like static slicing, but in an order defined by the computed dependence probabilities. our study of fault localization on various java subjects indicates that prioslice can help localize faults much more effectively than existing static-slicing approaches. the climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels has become a challenge for the development of modern society. to decrease the carbon emission, the development of electrical vehicles has accelerated in recent years. however, the electrical vehicles still suffer from the short operation distance and the safety problems caused by the li-ion batteries. therefore, a new battery system which is safer and possess a high energy density is needed. to achieve this goal, this thesis focused on the development of the magnesium-sulfur battery (mg-s) and the next-generation li-ion batteries (libs). the mg-s battery attracts great interest because of its high capacity and low cost. like other sulfur batteries, the electrochemical process of the mg-s battery is complicated. during the discharge, the sulfur ring which consists of eight sulfur atoms will break to form magnesium polysulfides (mgsx, 4 ≤ x ≤ 8) which can dissolve into the electrolyte and move to the mg anode side. the side reaction between mgsx and mg can cause fast capacity decay and the passivation of mg anode.at the end of discharge, solid discharge products mgs2 and mgs will form. the slow mg2+ diffusion in the solid product will result in poor reversibility and rate performance of the mg-s battery. to solve this problem, copper nanoparticles grown on carbon nanofibers (cu@cnf) were synthesized and added into sulfur cathode. the interaction between copper and sulfur result in the formation of small discharge products and facilitate the redox process in mg-s batteries. thus, high reversibility is achieved. the influence of cu:s molar ratio is also investigated. although higher sulfur utilization can be obtained using high cu:s ratio, the total capacity (capacity calculated based on cu and s total mass) will decrease. there is an optimal cu:s ratio for both high total capacity and sulfur utilization.the feasibility of mg-s flow battery for grid-energy storage was also investigated. a prototype mg-s flow battery was built and tested with various mg electrolytes. it was found that the mgsx solutions used in the mg-s flow battery is unstable. the low solubility and instability of mgsx in mg electrolytes result in poor reversibility of the mg-s flow battery. it was also proven that the mgsx speciation and stability was affected by the mg electrolytes composition. for the research of libs, in-situ polymerized gel polymer electrolytes (gpes) were investigated. one of the reasons for the safety issues of the libs is the flammability of organic solvents in liquid electrolyte. solid polymer electrolytes (spes) without organic solvents are applied to improve the safety of libs. however, the low ionic conductivity of spes results in poor rate performance and low material utilization. the gpes with a polymer matrix are safer than liquid electrolytes. gpes also have a higher ionic conductivity than spes due to the solvent used in the electrolyte. in this work, macromonomers with different chain chemistry and ionic monomers are crosslinked in the presence of solvents or liquid electrolyte to in-situ fabricate gpes. the effect of chain chemistry and the percentage of macromonomers in gpes on conductivity and lithium transference number are investigated. it is found that both the chain chemistry and ratio of free and bound salt have a strong influence on ion transport properties. this thesis examines the proliferation of small arms within the west african corridor. despite a number of the few initiatives to limit small arms proliferation, the ecowas region is still awash with small arms. this research tests the hypothesis that the ecowas convention may not be effective in preventing illicit weapon flow in the region. this hypothesis is based on the following premises: that effective nonproliferation regime should (a) have the political will and support at the state, and at the regional level; that (b) small arms trade is a multifaceted global problem, as such, a global cooperation with nonproliferation regimes is also vital for the success of such regimes. the fast growth of machine learning has brought us to a new era that characterizes two primary trends: design automation and hardware optimization. during the past few years, neural architecture search (nas) has demonstrated to be one of the most successful techniques in realizing machine-based architecture engineering for deep neural networks, and become the key component in automated machine learning (automl). while nas has already achieved the state of art in many machine learning tasks, efficiency problem arises in both the development and deployment phases. although plenty of tricks for accelerating nas have been invented, and hardware constraints awareness during the search has shown potential in optimizing runtime performance, a variety of application-specific problems still challenges the practicality of its broad deployment.due to the intricate relationship between application specification and the nature of nas, it is infeasible to develop a universal methodology to boost both search and execution efficiency. my focus in the series of work is to the enhance the applicability of nas to different fields by adaptively improving both its software and hardware efficiency. first, we propose novel methods that tunes the search framework to fit hardware-constrained platforms, such as edge devices. the hardware-software co-exploration technique is a variant of hardware-aware nas that suits configurable devices. the combination of architecture search with classic model compression techniques is a popular topic while the consequent cost is generally expensive. from a completely different viewpoint, i reformulate the problem of quantization-aware architecture search, and propose to take advantage of their merge for simplification. second, i explore the possibilities of applying nas to specific tasks where efficiency matters. the topics range from irregular data and model structure (graphic neural network), to time-/power -demanded real-life applications (medical intervention). the outcome of these works can demonstrate more possibilities of nas as a replacement of handcrafted methods for neural network design, and propel the realization of automl. this study examined 20-month-old toddlers' behavioral strategies for emotion regulation with mothers and fathers. one hundred and sixteen toddlers participated in a frustrating situation in a laboratory setting, with each parent, during which parents were instructed to ignore their child. toddlers' use of several different behavioral strategies (visual, verbal, and motor), as well as their affect, were examined during the frustrating situation. results suggested moderate consistencies in toddler affect and strategy use, across mothers and fathers. overall, results suggest that lower levels of distress are associated with spending shorter amounts of time engaged in parent-oriented strategies, regardless of the parent context. consistent with developmental theories of emotion regulation, this may reflect toddlers' increasing ability to identify the source of their distress. the ambruticins are a family of polyketide natural products which display potent antifungal activity. the biosynthesis of the ambruticins occurs on a type i polyketide synthase (pks), with two of the three rings being formed on the pks. the third ring, a tetrahydropyran, is thought to be formed through post-pks modifications via an epoxidation-cyclization cascade. while this type of cascade is common in biosyntheses, usually two enzymes are required; however, the amb gene cluster encodes only an epoxidase and no epoxide hydrolase. therefore, the mechanism of tetrahydropyran ring formation and control is currently unknown.the first chapter of this thesis addresses previous work focused on the ambruticins. several members of this class have been isolated and identified, and all have displayed promising antifungal activity. the bioactivity spectrum of ambruticin s led to extensive in vitro and in vivo testing against a range of clinically relevant fungal pathogens as well as a number of structure-activity relationship studies, conducted with the goal of creating an ambruticin derivative with improved bioactivity. in addition, several total syntheses of ambruticin s have been completed. finally, chapter 1 addresses the biosynthesis of the ambruticins, which has been partially explored by several groups. however, little exploration of the methodology of tetrahydropyran ring formation has been carried out.the second chapter of this work discusses the total synthesis of the putative biosynthetic intermediate ambruticin j, in which the tetrahydropyran ring has not yet been formed. this intermediate is thought to be the product of the ambruticin pks and is likely the substrate for an epoxidation-cyclization cascade which forms the thp ring of the isolated ambruticins. we have completed a total synthesis of this molecule, providing access to ambruticin j for epoxidation-cyclization studies and synthetically confirming the proposed structure. the third chapter of this work provides an overview of known biosynthetic epoxidation-cyclization cascades and addresses the factors which control regioselectivity of epoxide-opening in ring formation reactions. finally, chapter four discusses the development of epoxidation-cyclization conditions for ambruticin j and their application to ambruticin j model systems. this chapter also discusses the implications for ambruticin biosynthesis arising from these results. the behavior of vortex matter is critical to the applications of superconductivity and the effective control of abrikosov vortices can lead to higher dissipation-free current carrying capacity (critical current). in this thesis, we study the superconducting vortex dynamics under different pinning potential systems via numerical simulations. we first show that on a moire pinning pattern, the critical current shows pronounced dips at commensurate angles due to vortices flowing in ordered quasi-one-dimensional channels. these flow channels break apart at incommensurate angles and for certain angles, the pinning pattern forms five-fold symmetry which can further suppress the easy flow channeling. we also study the vortex dynamics on the so-called "santa fe ice" pining array and show that due to the frustrated geometry, the critical current profile of such a superconductor does not present any commensurability-induced peaks like the ones observed in other periodic patterns. when above the critical current, the vortices in santa fe pinning pattern develop both transverse and longitudinal flow channels while easy straight channels form in the square lattice. we also collaborate with an experiment group at argonne national lab and provide simulation evidence on the vortex flow in liquid state under different artificial spin ice configurations and show that the resistivity response in liquid state can be controlled by the underlying magnetic potential landscapes. we also present a thorough numerical study on the vortex ratchet motion induced by asymmetric potentials in such systems. at a more fundamental level, we propose a network science approach to systematically study the potential energy landscapes of confined vortex matter. we find that after mapping the full configuration space onto a complex network, the energetic property of the system is correlated with the topology of its network representation. in the vast majority of cases, the ground state of the system belongs to the sub-network with the highest number connections. furthermore, with the large scale computing methods, we show that the system stability depends on the container symmetry, container size and vortex number. this dissertation uses the correspondence of boston's most prolific letter-writer, the congregationalist minister benjamin colman (1673-1747), in order to understand the creation, extension, and fracturing of the dissenting interest in the british north atlantic. with his epistolarium as the primary lens for viewing this transatlantic world, "a heavenly correspondence" explores the making and unmaking of a dissenting atlantic over the first half of the eighteenth century. the dissertation shows that the history of british protestant dissent is fundamentally an atlantic story, one shaped as much by the provincial edges of empire as by the center. as such, it expands the geographical boundaries of current scholarship to view new england and scotland as integral to the history of protestant dissent, and to show dissent's investment in a diffuse british imperial culture. colman's world testifies to both the reshaping of transatlantic letter networks in this period and the crucial role of those networks that connected dissenting communities across space and time. as dissenters adjusted to a growing empire, letters became lifelines and indispensable social threads that knit them together despite their geographic distance and ecclesiastical diversity. through intertwining webs of communication, dissenting congregationalists and presbyterians in england and new england, as well as presbyterians in scotland, saw themselves as united in a shared past, present, and future. phosphoproteomics is a valuable tool for mapping molecular signaling events and dissecting the interactions among biological pathways. despite many advances in the sample preparation methods and instrument technologies used for liquid chromatography – mass spectrometry analyses of protein phosphorylation, there is still a lack of consensus regarding best practices in this field. in particular, the chemistry used to enrich phosphopeptides from complex cell lysates is especially critical to a comprehensive, sensitive, and accurate phosphoproteomics experiment. this dissertation compared two popular phosphoproteomics enrichment methods, immobilized metal affinity chromatography (imac) and titanium dioxide (tio2)-based metal oxide affinity chromatography (moac). a multi-step enrichment protocol incorporating benchtop high-ph reverse phase fractionation, developed in the hummon lab, minimizes the amount of peptide starting material required for maximal recovery from both imac and tio2. the two chemistries were found to enrich phosphopeptides equally well, but favor unique subgroups of peptides. tio2 enriches peptides that are slightly shorter, more acidic, and more hydrophobic than imac does. the improved enrichment protocol was applied to two cancer-relevant signaling networks. the first examined constitutive phosphorylation differences between a primary tumor-derived cell line and its patient-matched lymph node metastasis cell line. this study of the phosphoproteomes of sw480 and sw620 revealed that the lines differ significantly in their regulation of cellular adhesion, mitosis, and mrna translation. in the second study, a single-step tio2 enrichment allowed characterization of signaling networks affected by low dose and high dose ionizing radiation in non-malignant breast cell line mcf10a. this revealed that atm &amp; dnapk kinases are induced by 10 gy of γ-rays but not 0.05 gy. in contrast, the mapk signaling response to ir was dose-independent. taken together, this work demonstrates the utility of the imac – tio2 – high ph reverse phase workflow to maximize phosphoproteome coverage and to generate novel biological insights. the number of network connected computing devices is continuing to increase substantially, which is made evident as the ipv4 address space continues to run out. this trend of increased devices with network connectivity demands an advancement in the complexity and scale of techniques to properly manage and secure networked devices. when networking was in its infancy, there was a lack of diversity in the types of applications used across a network. today, however, there is a diverse ecosystem of applications that are driving up bandwidth demands and driving down the effectiveness of ubiquitous security solutions. context, which refers to the interrelated conditions in which something exists or occurs, is needed in order to effectively manage the network and its resources. this dissertation examines the use of context in order to enhance computer security and 802.11 wireless network performance. the first portion of this work focuses on enhancing computer security with the use of context. the common techniques of securing a network device based on port number, e.g. traditional firewalls, are too coarse grained because port number is no longer a direct inference of the type of application being used. rather, a finer grained technique is needed to provide sufficient security management for a network. the use of context from an end-host that describes the interrelated conditions of a network connection is needed for an accurate account of the activities a machine is conducting so that network policy can be adequately enforced. when a network connection is encrypted an end-host solution is capable of gathering context, whereas a centralized solution would struggle. the second portion of this work focuses on wireless performance and the need for context to enhance performance. when 802.11 wireless was in its infancy, there were fewer devices using the spectrum than today. this paucity of wireless devices made it acceptable for these devices to locally optimize their own performance without consideration for the performance of other devices around them. however, as the number of wireless devices increases, the decisions made by one device can have a detrimental effect on the performance of other devices. in this case, a solution is needed that takes into account the context or performance metrics of neighboring nodes in order optimize and guide the performance adaptation of a single node. it is the goal of this work to make computing devices aware of the events occurring within their networks via the addition of context in order to improve the security and the performance of wireless devices. in regard to security, techniques are presented that enable fine-grained end-host enforcement with the linux security module framework. in terms of wireless networking, an in depth study involving real-world, laboratory, and simulation experiments about the function of 802.11 is presented, which leads to the creation of a context aware adaptation algorithm. through these two contributions to both computer security and networking, advancements can be made in the management and performance of wireless devices. in this dissertation, we discuss some necessary and sufficient conditions for a curve to be arithmetically cohen-macaulay, in terms of its general hyperplane section. we obtain a characterization of the degree matrices that can occur for points in the plane that are the general plane section of a non arithmetically cohen-macaulay curve of p^3. we prove that almost all the degree matrices with positive subdiagonal that occur for the general plane section of a non arithmetically cohen-macaulay curve of p^3, arise also as degree matrices of some smooth, integral, non arithmetically cohen-macaulay curve, and we characterize the exceptions. we give a necessary condition on the graded betti numbers of the general plane section of an arithmetically buchsbaum (non arithmetically cohen-macaulay) curve in p^n. for curves in p^3, we show that any set of betti numbers that satisfy that condition can be realized as the betti numbers of the general plane section of an arithmetically buchsbaum, non arithmetically cohen-macaulay curve. we also show that the matrices that arise as degree matrix of the general plane section of an arithmetically buchsbaum, integral (or smooth and connected), non arithmetically cohen-macaulay space curve are exactly those that arise as degree matrix of the general plane section of an arithmetically buchsbaum, non arithmetically cohen-macaulay space curve and have positive subdiagonal. we prove some bounds on the dimension of the deficiency module of an arithmetically buchsbaum curve in p^n, in terms of entries of the lifting matrix of a general hyperplane section of the curve, and we show that they are sharp. we then turn to the question of whether it is possible to lift the property of being standard or good determinantal from the general hyperplane section of a scheme to the scheme itself. we produce examples of schemes that are not standard determinantal, but whose general hyperplane section is good determinantal. using a result of kleppe and miro'-roig, we show that if one hyperplane section of a scheme of codimension 3 by a hyperplane that meets it properly is good determinantal, then a general hyperplane section of the scheme is good determinantal. we consider the inverse problem of determining the source location of unbiased random walkers to complex target configurations in two and three dimensions. this problem is motivated by cellular scale chemosensing where a variety of cell types must determine the strength and location of diffusive sources through noisy impacts to their exterior surface. in this thesis we develop an efficient kinetic monte carlo (kmc) method that describes the trajectories of diffusing molecules using solvable projection steps, regardless of the configuration of the absorbers in the surface of either one or multiple targets. we develop a new method to solve the diffusion problem analytically using a combination of asymptotic analysis of a laplace transform problem, followed by numerical inversion of the transform. this hybrid approach is validated using the kmc method. we identify several homogenization limits in which complex target configurations can be replaced by simpler ones while retaining overall capture characteristics. homogenization allows for faster and easier solution to diffusion problems, by calculating a logarithmic capacitance of the absorbers and substituting into a simplified robin boundary condition. following previous literature, we investigate the use of splitting probabilities to infer the source location. we discuss the shortcomings of some existing methods and design a novel means to infer the location of sources from receptor inputs using a maximum likelihood approach. we observe that the earliest arrivals to the cell convey the strongest directional information and analyze the accuracy of adopting the direction of the first impact. we show that despite the simplicity of this mechanism, in many reasonable biological scenarios, it yields a more accurate angular estimate. in this work, gaseous cavitation of jp-8 aviation fuel is examined through aerated cavitation of dodecane, the primary component of jp-8 by weight.small air bubbles injected at the inlet of a converging-diverging nozzle act as inception sites for cavitation in the bulk as the fluid traverses the nozzle throat and diverging section.the flow is documented using high speed video, static pressure sensors, unsteady pressure transducers and a volumetric flow rate meter.in high speed video the injected bubbles are shown to break apart into cavitation clouds of smaller bubbles which then collapse catastrophically and emit propagating compression waves (also referred to as shock waves in cavitation literature). this collapse process is a significant source of the cavitation damage which is known to occur in piston pumps often used in aircraft fuel systems.the mechanism by which it occurs in a jet fuel surrogate is herein documented and fully described for the first time using a combination of high speed imagery, derivative images (which utilize changes in pixel saturation between subsequent images) and time resolved void fraction measurements.key aspects of the cloud collapse process, namely the spatial range over which it occurs, are shown to coincide with notable features of streamwise static pressure distributions obtained for various combinations of inlet void fraction and nozzle back pressure ratio.the upstream bound of the cloud collapse process, or the streamwise location where the cloud has its highest void fraction, is shown to coincide with the lowest pressure in the static pressure distribution.the downstream bound, where cloud collapse has completed and a propagating compression wave (shock) is emitted, is shown to lie where the static pressure distribution first rises to a value near the nozzle back pressure (within 2% of inlet pressure).the primary cloud collapse location, the point in the nozzle divergence where cloud void fraction reduces most between subsequent high speed images and where cavitation damage is most likely to occur, is also documented for each of these cases.the properties of the emitted shock waves (compression waves) are also studied through a combination of derivative images, instantaneous void fraction distributions and unsteady pressure measurements.these reveal that shocks are emitted at integer multiples of the average time between bubble injections at the nozzle inlet and that a typical shock's magnitude (pressure jump across the propagating disturbance) reduces dramatically as it travels downstream. this work also describes two proposed corrections to the barotropic cavitation model as it applies to gaseous cavitation in choked flows through converging-diverging nozzles. the corrections are compared for accuracy to experimental pressure and void fraction measurements in a cd nozzle for both natural and aerated cavitation of several fluids (dodecane, water, jp-8). the first correction is shown to greatly improve prediction accuracy for pressure distribution and several of its features are shown to predict key aspects of aerated dodecane cavitation in a cd nozzle.these are the spatial bounds of the cloud collapse region and the primary cloud collapse location.this is especially significant since the majority of cavitation damage is likely to occur in this range, particularly at the primary collapse location.the second correction provides a significant improvement in the spatial range of accurate void fraction prediction over the uncorrected model and provides a second method for predicting primary collapse location.the improved predictions resulting from these corrections can be obtained for any choked, isothermal, cavitating (gaseous) flow through a converging-diverging nozzle of known cross-sectional area distribution. known nozzle inlet pressure, known nozzle outlet pressure and a measurement of throat outlet pressure are the only requirements for an accurate prediction for the full length of the nozzle.the proposed corrections transform the barotropic cavitation model into a useful scientific and engineering design tool for cavitating flows in converging-diverging nozzles. da'wa is a classical islamic concept which has been dramatically re-appropriated in modern times across the muslim world. this dissertation explores the modern resurgence of da'wa – "inviting" to islam, or islamic missionary activity – through the lens of inter-religious relations, and within the two horizons islamic history and modernity. it demonstrates, first, the close relationship that has existed between da'wa and inter-religious relations both in the past and in the modern period. second, it sheds light on the diversity of da'wa in the midst of other religions by tracing two broad styles of da'wa throughout islamic history: "bottom-up" and "top-down" da'wa. finally, it argues that muslim communities in colonial and post-colonial india shed light on these themes with particular clarity. indian muslims, this dissertation suggests, have made pioneering contributions to global da'wa, particularly with respect to their development of bottom-up styles of da'wa and what this dissertation calls "da'wa modernities." these arguments are developed in two parts. part i provides an examination of da'wa in relation to other religions from the qur'an to the modern period. since few studies have examined islamic history through these lenses, this represents a major contribution in its own right. building on part i, part ii analyzes two prominent sunni da'wa organizations to emerge from the indian subcontinent in the past century: the tablīghī jamā'at (tj) and the islamic research foundation of dr. zakir naik (irf). by investigating and juxtaposing the lineages, formative histories and inter-religious discourses of these movements and their founders, part ii elucidates both the unique contributions indian muslims have made to modern da'wa, and the diversity of indian da'wa. in response to the political, social and inter-religious challenges they have faced in modern india, and through their fresh engagement with islamic scripture and tradition, these movements have developed related, though distinct, bottom-­up styles of da'wa and da'wa modernities which have proven to be globally relevant. this dissertation thus makes a significant contribution to the study of da'wa in general and to the study of the tablīghī jamā'at. it also provides the first major scholarly study of zakir naik. 93zr and the stable zr isotopes (except 96zr) are traditionally thought to be mainly produced by the s-process in asymptotic giant branch stars and secondarily, by the r-process in massive stars. other nucleosynthesis processes may also produce a significant amount of these isotopes. there are significant disagreements between different stellar models regarding 93zr and the other stable zr isotopes production. to better understand the nucleosynthesis of zr and refine stellar models, precise knowledge of the neutron capture cross sections on zr isotopes are very important. these cross sections are also important for understanding the large amount of 93zr produced in nuclear reactors, which makes it an important radionuclide in nuclear waste management.one promising tool for measuring both the zr isotope neutron capture cross sections and the radioactive 93zr concentration in nuclear waste is accelerator mass spectrometry (ams). the main challenges in the ams measurement of the 93zr isotope are the separation of 93zr from stable zr isotopes (limited by the facility infrastructure) and the separation of 93zr from its stable isobar 93nb (one atomic number difference).the development of a technique for future 93zr ams measurements has been performed at the nuclear science laboratory (nsl) of the university of notre dame. the combination of a gas-filled magnet and gas ionization chamber techniques are used, while other experimental methods like the projectile x-ray emission when hitting a target are also explored. a dedicated small ionization chamber was built for the 93zr experiment. initial tests have shown that this detector has improved resolution compared with the original detector. this experiment faces three obstacles: the current injection magnet lacks sufficient mass resolution for this mass region; the available beam energy is not high enough; and the energy resolution of the detector needs to be improved. as a result, the current achieved 93zr/zr sensitivity is at ~ 10-5. a 93nb reduction chemistry has also been developed. it is tested by the ams method at the vienna environmental research accelerator laboratory to be a factor of 1000, which brings the sensitivity level to ~ 10-8. to further improve the 93zr experiment sensitivity, work is continuing on improving the detector performances and the upgrade of the nsl low energy injection system is in progress. after these upgrades, the sensitivity is expected to reach ~ 10-11. ionic liquids have attracted a great deal of attention in the past decade due to their unique physical and chemical properties. one property that been widely investigated is ionic liquids' high selectivity and solubility for co2 over other small molecule gases present in air and flue gas, such as n2, for the purpose of carbon capture and sequestration. as such, many studies have focused on the solvation of co2 in ionic liquids. however, few studies have been able to directly link experiment and theory, instead relying on indirect links between bulk experimental observables and the atom‑level resolution of theory. because co2 absorbs strongly in the infrared, vibrational spectroscopy is a natural tool for studying its structure and dynamics in ionic liquids. vibrational spectroscopy, in particular 2d‑ir spectroscopy, directly reports on the length and timescales of the vibrational reporter. additionally, using co2 as the vibrational reporter permits an examination of its solvation dynamics from the solute's point of view. these length and time scales lend themselves to direct theoretical calculation, allowing simulation to provide molecular level detail to the experiments. a wide ranging, multistage collaboration between experiment and theory has developed and applied the tools required for a detailed analysis of the co2‑ionic liquid system in the particular case of 1‑butyl‑3‑methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate, a model ionic liquid. it is found that the vibrational frequency of co2 in ionic liquids can be calculated accurately by using a quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics implementation of density functional theory to obtain the potential energy surface required for a discrete variable representation solution to the nuclear schrödinger equation. these vibrational frequencies correlate strongly with the geometry of the co2 and the forces it experiences in solution. examining the solvation of the solute, it is found that the co2 is preferentially solvated by the highly charged moieties in the ionic liquid, particularly the anion and the cation ring. this is unique to co2 among uncharged small molecule gases, as n2 is solvated in a highly different manner. co2 also has similar positive energies and enthalpies of activation for frequency decorrelation, orientational randomization, and solvent cage breakup, implying that solvent cage breakup governs the other two processes. drug penetration into solid tumors is critical for the effectiveness of clinical chemotherapy. failing to consider the efficiency of drug penetration can lead to fatal recurrence in many cancers. three-dimensional (3d) cell cultures have served as an important model system and have contributed to valuable assays in drug discovery studies. however, limited methodologies result in incomplete evaluation of the distribution of many anticancer drugs and their metabolites. matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (maldi)-mass spectrometry imaging(msi) is a powerful label-free technique for the investigation of the spatial distribution of molecules at complex surfaces. in this work, i demonstrate the application of maldi-msi in colon carcinoma multicellular tumor spheroids (mcts) to assess the distribution of the anticancer drugs, irinotecan or platinum (pt)-drugs as well as their metabolites. nanoflow liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (nlc-ms/ms) or ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry in multiple reactions monitoring (mrm) mode (uplc-mrm ms) combined with serial trysinization was also developed to validate and quantify drugs and metabolites in different regions of mcts. these novel approaches allow the measurement of drug penetration and distribution in 3d culture mimics and provide a more cost and time-effective approach for the testing of new pharmaceuticals compared to animal models. bone adapts to mechanical loading through the coordination of many cell types including osteocytes, osteoblasts, osteoclasts, and stem cells. these cells sense mechanical loading and carry out biochemical signaling in a process known as mechanotransduction. while it is understood that mechanotransduction drives bone adaptation, the mechanisms responsible for mechanotransduction are not well understood. the goal of this work was to gain new understandings of mechanobiological signaling in bone. in order to achieve this, the effects of low magnitude mechanical stimulation, a loading regime that stimulates bone formation in the absence of significant matrix strain, on trabecular bone and bone marrow were investigated.computational fluid dynamics models quantified the marrow shear stresses occurring during lmms and demonstrated that marrow is subject to shear stresses above a mechanostimulatory shear stress. in order to exploit this stimulatory regime, trabecular bone explant bioreactors were designed and validated. these bioreactors supported active bone remodeling with a heterogeneous cell population that experienced mechanical stimuli that affected bone formation. before mechanobiology of bone marrow could be studied, osteocyte signaling during lmms was determined. their role in mechanosensing of lmms was investigated by quantifying the percentage of osteocytes expressing sclerostin, a potent wnt inhibitor, with and without mechanical stimulation using bioreactor culture. the percentage of sclerostin positive osteocytes did not change in response to culture or lmms. this result suggests that sclerostin signaling is dependent on matrix strain and osteocytes may not be responsible for mechanotransduction during lmms. to investigate marrow mechanobiology, the presence of primary cilia, a potent mechanosensor, in the trabecular bone compartment was quantified before and after lmms. they were present on a small fraction of bone marrow cells and osteocytes, and were relatively short within the trabecular bone and marrow compartment, indicating that they may function as mechanosensors in concert with other mechanosensors or that only a small number of cells are responsible for mechanosensing in the trabecular bone and marrow compartment. cilia expression in the marrow was higher in static cultured explants, but decreased in response to mechanical stimulation. this indicates that cilia may have a chemosensing and mechanosensing role in the marrow or are affected by mechanosensing pathways. in summary, the mechanical environment in trabecular bone during lmms was quantified. with the results from the computational models, trabecular bone explant biroeactor culture with lmms offers the ability to study the effects of an alternative mechanobiological signal on cellular sensing and biological function. there is little known about the contribution of bone marrow cells to mechanotransduction and the subsequent signaling that takes place. this explant bioreactor culture system and lmms provides a tool to study the role of marrow cells in mechanotransduction in order to make new advances in bone mechanobiology. this dissertation seeks to recover a nineteenth-century british literary tradition of walking women. the nineteenth century was a crucial transitional period in which practices and meanings of mobility were being redefined. it also provided some of our most enduring cultural images of walking, most notably the romantic peripatetic poet and the flâneur. yet the intellectual and literary history of walking has remained stubbornly masculine, with women's experience relegated to the margins. paths of resistance centers the walking woman as a pervasive figure and proto-feminist literary trope across the long nineteenth century (1778-1892). exploring novels by frances burney, charlotte smith, anne and charlotte brontë, charlotte yonge, and elizabeth gaskell and a robust collection of manuscript diaries, it identifies a shared investment in walking's ability to assert, at least provisionally, a woman's claim to an autonomous and cohesive sense of self. although this form of self-assertion is closely associated with both male peripatetic theory and liberal thought, women writers are attuned to the embodied, situated, and uneven experiences of mobility in a way that is notably lacking in most peripatetic and liberal theory. however, while authors are typically attentive to the politics of mobility insofar as their female protagonists face resistance in securing their right to move freely, they tend to perpetuate or naturalize the exclusion of other, less privileged individuals from those same freedoms. in this way, women writers often expose one oft-critiqued aspect of liberal thought—that its endorsement of detachment neglected the situatedness and embodiedness of human experience—while often perpetuating another—that liberalism disavows its own violence and exclusivity. to build successful and cost-effective software systems, in conjunction with functional requirements, software development practices advocate for more rigorous understanding of non-functional requirements often referred to as "quality concerns". typically, during requirement elicitation phase, software architects primarily focus on satisfying and prioritizing functional requirements while neglecting quality concerns. when this requirement elicitation gap occurs, developers typically retrofit solutions by implementing quality concerns at the code-level. this poses a risk on the stability of entire software architecture---as developers may inadvertently make system-wide design decisions compromising architectural well-formalized design decisions. aside from that, developers have to reason about which functional pieces of the code interact with which non-functional ones. the caveat is that when such interactions are poorly or vaguely understood, future modifications may lead to defects resulting in excessive maintenance costs. when defects are reported, they are generally addressed with adhoc bug-fixing code, often, resulting in code fragmentation. seemingly, the architectural knowledge associated with quality concerns becomes fragmented across implemented code leading to architectural drift phenomena. typically, architectural drift occurs due to the effect of both "scattered'' and "tangled'' code---code that leads to poor readability, maintainability, low reuse and, high impact and cost of changes.understanding quality concerns under these effects is a resource intensive process even for experienced developers; especially when developers perform system-wide tasks such as iteratively tracing monitoring quality concerns, refactoring or fixing bugs at the code-level. to promote a better understanding of quality concerns, an automated process to acquire even partial knowledge of these concerns would be highly desirable. this would steer developers towards building a proactive awareness about quality concerns across evolving software artifacts.this thesis adopts a comprehensive approach for detecting system-wide emerging quality-related concerns across various software artifacts. first, i introduce a novel three-pronged approach to detect a diverse set of quality-related concerns in bug report summaries---concerns which are then traced in buggy code. second, i integrate textual and structural information to improve structural-based refactoring tools by promoting high level human explanations via analysis of commit messages. finally, i implement a ranked-based bug-fixing search tool that recommends bug-fixing comments from lengthy discussion threads of past solved bugs to fix a new bug. these bug-fixing comments are ranked and recommended in the context of user query relevance, use of positive language, and semantic relevance. in summary, this thesis explores a series solutions by leveraging natural language information with different semantic-based strategies and machine learning-based techniques. ultimately, these solutions serve as transformative advances for reducing the comprehension gap between how developers reason about quality-related concerns and how such concerns are intertwined and scattered across artifacts.in the broader context, this thesis makes an effort to further enhance comprehension of quality concerns during software maintenance and evolution, software reuse, code reuse, and supports consistency between design and the code. software traceability establishes associations between diverse software artifacts such as requirements, design, code, and test cases. due to the non-trivial cost of manually creating and maintaining links, many researchers have proposed automated approaches to recover the underlying links. the challenge of achieving precise, complete and trustworthy traceability has been extensively investigated and discussed by researchers in the traceability community. as a result, various approaches built upon information retrieval, machine learning and deep learning have been proposed. however, while most of these methods focus on mining statistical features from the artifacts, few studies have been conducted to incorporate semantics into automated traceability models.the objective and contribution of our study focuses on two important aspects. firstly, we expect to deliver higher quality trace links by bridging the semantic gap during link generation procedures. secondly, we establish an explainable trace model where the rationale of accepting and denying a candidate link within the trace model, can be directly visualized in order to increase human comprehension.in this dissertation, we therefore explored the possibility of combining conventional traceability techniques with cutting edge automated concept model construction techniques to create semantically enhanced traceability. in our methods, we constructed concept models using unsupervised learning and text mining to extract semantic knowledge from a domain corpus. the established concept models were leveraged by the trace model as an external knowledge base to analyse the semantic relevance among software artifacts. we adopted this method to address two open challenges of generating trace links in bilingual project environments and supporting domain-specific traceability. to approach our second goal, we adopted data mining and natural language processing techniques to build a fully automated pipeline to construct a knowledge base that could be used to generate trace link rationales. we integrated the concept model into our visualization tool in order to highlight related concepts in source and target artifacts. we then used this tool to explain why two specific artifacts were linked together as a result of a trace query. we quantitatively evaluated our approach using project artifacts from three different domains by reporting coverage, correctness, and potential utility of the generated definitions. then from a quality perspective, we report results from a user study that was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the explanation interface. results showed that the explanations presented in the interface helped non-experts to understand the underlying semantics of a trace link and improved their ability to vet the correctness of the link. while liquid chromatography dominates in the separation stage of proteomics studies, capillary electrophoresis is a valuable alternative and provides an orthogonal separation mode. it has proved its usefulness in bottom-up proteomics by generating complementary peptide identities. in this thesis, i present the applications of cze-esi-ms/ms in top-down proteomics. capillary zone electrophoresis lends good resolving power to proteoforms with minor sequence variations or ptms, which often have similar hydrophobicities but different charges. here i apply this system to characterize secretome from m. marinum, demonstrate improve sequence coverage with combined fragmentation of hcd and ai-etd, separate the heavy chains and light chains from reduced mabs, and finally characterize proteins and proteoforms from yeast with prefractionation by rplc. this work demonstrates the ability of cze separating proteins and the potential for cze-esi-ms/ms as a platform for characterizing complex biological samples in top-down proteomics. parental reflective functioning—the tendency to consider children's mental experiences—is associated with sensitive parenting. maltreating mothers may have reflective functioning deficits given their risk for biased child-related cognitions and their difficulties with sensitive emotion socialization. it is therefore important to examine reflective functioning among such mothers and in relation to sensitive reminiscing about children's past emotional experiences. furthermore, little is known about developmental trajectories of reflective functioning over time. reflective functioning may be malleable following maltreating mothers' participation in reminiscing and emotion training (ret; valentino et al., 2019), a relational intervention aimed to enhance sensitive reminiscing. moreover, longitudinal reflective functioning trajectories may be associated with patterns of change in sensitive reminiscing. the present study investigated reflective functioning and reminiscing longitudinally among mothers enrolled in a randomized controlled trial of ret. participants included n = 81 maltreating mothers who received ret, n = 79 maltreating control mothers (cs group), and n = 82 nonmaltreating control mothers (nc group). results provide evidence for the role of maternal pre-mentalization as a mechanism associated with difficulties in sensitive guidance during reminiscing. in addition, in comparison to mothers in the cs group, mothers in the ret group showed reduced post-intervention pre-mentalization and increases in interest and curiosity over one year. finally, an indirect effect between ret and post-intervention sensitive guidance through post-intervention pre-mentalization was observed. gamma-aminobutyric acid (gaba) is the main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the vertebrate brain. gaba activates both ionotropic (gabaa and gabac) and metabotropic (gabab) receptors. very little information about the gabaergic properties of the amphibian brain is available and even less is known about amphibian gabab receptors. the aim of this project was to systematically characterize the gabab receptor in the brain of an anuran amphibian, the adult male bullfrog (rana catesbeiana). receptor binding assays with the mammalian gabab receptor antagonist, [3h]cgp54626a, revealed a single, high affinity binding site. binding was time and temperature dependent, saturable and specific. the affinity (kd) of [3h]cgp54626a was 2.97 nm with a bmax of 2.62 pmol/mg protein. specific binding of [3h]cgp54626a was inhibited by several mammalian gabab receptor specific analogs. the gabaa receptor ligands muscimol and sr95531 had very low affinity for the receptor and the gabaa receptor antagonists bicuculline and bicuclline methiodide did not inhibit binding of [3h]cgp54626a. binding of gaba was modulated by the mammalian allosteric modulator cgp7930. taurine did not modulate gaba binding or compete with [3h]cgp54626a. quantitative in vitro autoradiography with [3h]cgp54626a showed gabab-like receptors distributed throughout the brain with highest expression levels in the pallium, striatum, septum and habenula. cloning of gabab receptor subunits with pcr and race yielded cdna fragments for the gabab1 and gabab2 receptor subunits. the subunits are similar to the mammalian forms. the putative gabab1 subunit represents approximately 93% of the rat gene and is 80% identical at the amino acid level. the putative gabab2 subunit represents approximately 41% of the rat gene and is 89% identical at the amino acid level. residues important for ligand binding, g-protein coupling and heterodimerization are conserved in the bullfrog gabab-like receptor subunits. the pharmacological and molecular data suggest the amphibian brain expresses a functional gabab-like heterodimeric receptor. the distribution throughout the bullfrog brain suggests the gabab-like receptor plays a role in sensory and motor integration processes. the electronic energy transfer processes in natural systems, such as the light harvesting pigment protein complexes, and semiconductors, such as photovoltaic devices, occur via electron dynamics in complex systems. understanding the excited state dynamics is important in designing the biological or nanostructured materials. the computational simulation of electron dynamics in an accurate and affordable manner is crucial for making progress in this area. the time dependent open system self consistent field at second order (oscf2) is a real-time time-dependent density functional theory (rt-tddft) method. the block orthogonalized partitioning method eliminates unphysical errors of the embedded mean field theory at no additional cost. this thesis focuses on the application of oscf2 to the simulation of transient absorption spectroscopy. oscf2 accurately reproduced transient absorption spectra and non-radiative relaxation rates of green fluorescent protein chromophore derivative 3 (gfp-3). the implementation of an embedded mean-field theory using block-orthogonolized partitioning to real-time time dependent density functional theory (rt-tddft) and its effect of accuracy and affordability are discussed. the block orthogonalized partitioning in rt-tddft accurately describes the interactions between the regions while maintaining computational affordability. the method development for the excitation process for rt-tddft using the tammdancoff approximation is discussed. the effort to describe the excitation process in rt-tddft leads to partial success. studies using neural networks on molecular dynamics using bullvalene and mechanistic studies on formation of oxindole derivative from squaraine dyes are discussed. the neural network force field was not successful to reproduce the conformer search through molecular dynamics simulations, presumably due to insufficient simulation times. the free energy barriers of ring opening step of squaraine ring are in line with the experimental observations. lastly, the software implementations to pyscf, q2mm, and automated catvs are discussed. the purpose of this study is to investigate whether length of experience in an alternative teacher certification program and teacher-in-training sex will predict individuals' multicultural sensitivity. prior studies' samples have consisted primarily of white females entering the u.s. elementary and secondary teaching force. the current study's sample consists of 40% males and 12.1% individuals of color. findings indicate that female teachers scored significantly higher on the teacher multicultural attitude survey (tmas) than male teachers. in addition, teachers with more experience in the alternative teacher certification program showed significantly less endorsement of color-blind racial attitudes than teachers with less experience. this study also presents important information about the experiences of individuals who participated in an alternative teacher certification program designed to assist under-resourced catholic elementary and secondary schools and offers an extension of the literature. invasive species cause significant ecological and economic impacts in a variety of ecosystem types around the world. preventing the introduction of new invasive species is usually the economically optimal management. however, since prevention is rare, typical management practices rely on reducing the abundance of invasive species populations or maintaining populations at low abundance to mitigate the ecological and economic impacts of the invasion. however, the costs of controlling invasive species are often prohibitively high. populations of invasive crayfish have been successfully reduced using a combination of mechanical harvest (baited traps) and biocontrol (enhancement of predatory fish populations by using conservative fishing regulations). the large scale application of these management strategies is currently unlikely due to the high costs associated with conducting long term trapping which require a substantial investment in personnel. furthermore, the optimal fish species for controlling crayfish populations has never been rigorously identified. this thesis investigates ways to improve both crayfish trapping techniques and the manipulation of predatory fish communities to control crayfish populations. our analyses show that small changes in trapping techniques (protecting the bait and increasing the size of the trap) can greatly increase the effectiveness of trapping and significantly lower the amount of effort necessary to reduce crayfish populations. in addition to manually removing crayfish, the manipulation of fish communities to consume more crayfish is an essential part of any program designed to reduce populations of invasive crayfish. bioenergetics modeling, informed by a literature review of diet composition, shows smallmouth bass (micropterus dolomieu) consume the most crayfish when younger (ages 2-9), while rock bass become the best crayfish predators when older (ages 10+). when analyzed at the community scale, our analysis suggests that community wide crayfish consumption decreases with increasing piscivore abundances, indicating that enhancement of piscivore populations, a common practice of fisheries managers, may harm crayfish control efforts. furthermore, analysis of inter-water body diet composition suggests that certain predatory fishes may be ideal for controlling abundant (smallmouth bass, rock bass and yellow perch) while others (lepomis spp. and rock bass) may be more effective in controlling sparse crayfish populations. the integration of empirical experiments, theoretical ecology and economics in this thesis yielded results which could directly inform cost effective management of invasive species. a similar multi-disciplinary approach could be used to inform the management of other invasive species where current technology is prohibitory costly to implement on a large scale. evaluating subpopulation invariance in test equating is crucial to establishing the fairness and interchangeability of scores that arise from multiple forms. tests that are administered in multiple forms, including many high-stakes educational tests, often rely on test equating to produce directly comparable scores. if the test equating function exhibits subpopulation dependency, then at least one subgroup of test takers is unfairly disadvantaged and the scores are not truly interchangeable. however, it is unlikely the equating will be perfectly invariant. in practice, some non-zero level of subgroup dependency tends to exist. determining if low levels of dependency amount to a meaningful departure from invariance or are "close enough" to zero to ignore is fundamental to validating the interchangeability of equated scores.this dissertation applies equivalence testing (et) to determine if the observed dependency is too much for invariance to hold. et is a statistical framework that assesses if a quantity is small enough to ignore and accounts for sampling error. et requires that an indifference threshold be established. we conducted a simulation to study the behavior of six invariance statistics, focusing on traits that might affect their indifference thresholds. among the results, subgroup relative size was found to have a large impact on focal-vs-total invariance statistics. pairwise statistics were less sensitive to subgroup relative size and often acted as an estimate of the upper bound for its effect. next, an illustrative data analysis demonstrates how et of subpopulation dependency can be performed and applies the simulation results to help interpret its findings. finally, we conclude by summarizing and contextualizing the results and discussing what can be done if subpopulation dependency is found. this dissertation is a collection of research on risky behaviors such as criminal activity and substance abuse. these behaviors deserve the attention of economists because they can generate large social costs, which are often due to externalities. for example, a criminal act can generate costs not only for the offender, but for victims and for society which must expend resources on enforcement or rehabilitation. as such, it is critically important to evaluate policy and to understand the incentives created by policies either towards or away from these costly behaviors. however, as much as policy needs evaluation, it would be naive to ignore the connection between these behaviors and cultural institutions. for example, there is a well-known negative correlation between these behaviors and religious participation (iannaccone, 1998; iyer, 2016), and an understanding of this relationship is essential as participation changes over time. hence, in this dissertation, i provide novel descriptive and plausibly causal estimates of the effects of both policy and institutions on costly risky behaviors. in spite of the fact that the nanofluidic fet has achieved promising applications in iontronics, biosensing, etc., the transconductance of nanofluidic fet is still low, which limits its abilities in fast response and ultrasensitive sensing. nanopore electrode arrays (neas), allow for fast response, small capacitive currents, enhanced steady-state voltammetric response as well as sensitive manipulation of ion transport. considering the similarity of nanofluidic fets to neas in their functional mechanism (manipulation of ion transport through nano-sized channels), it is desirable to extend the abovementioned benefits of neas to other applications such as the fluidic field-effect transistor, with the aim to establish a redox cycling-based fet that possesses higher transconductance and can achieve ultrasensitive chemical sensing. the ultimate goal of this research is to fabricate the neas with three embedded electrodes, of which the middle electrode is specifically designed to be coated with electrochemical blocking layers. the middle electrode, thereafter, serves as the gate electrode which manipulates the ion transport inside the nanopores. this requires the development of effective blocking layers, which can be applied within the interior space of an nea nanopore. initial experiments explored the behavior of candidate blocking layers on planar au electrodes. notably, this work has shown that the planar gold electrodes can be modified with passivating layers of al2o3 and hfo2 deposited via atomic layer deposition (ald) and that these ald layers can be selectively removed either by electrochemical desorption or wet etching. the electrochemical performance of a variety of 3-electrode neas was explored using different concentrations of redox species/supporting electrolyte. at an inter-electrode distance of 100 nm, significant current enhancements resulting from redox cycling, 4-30×, were achieved depending on the ionic strength. in addition, operation of these devices in the two-configuration produced hysteresis-free, rectified currents at low ionic strength. the perspective on the potential approaches to improve the selective ald on neas is also provided. high-throughput computing (htc) is about using a large amount of computing resources over a long time to accomplish many independent and parallel computational tasks. htc workloads are often described in the form of workflow and run on distributed systems through workflow systems. however, as most workflow systems are not liable for managing the task execution environment, htc workflows are regularly limited in dedicated htc facilities that have required settings.lately, container runtimes have been widely deployed across public cloud because of its ability to deliver execution environment with lower overheads than the virtual machine. this trend provides users of htc workflows an opportunity to use unlimited computing power on the cloud. however, migrating complex workflow systems to a container environment is cumbersome.to containerize htc workflows and scale them up on the cloud, i synthesize my experiences on using container technologies and develop a methodology that contains seven design factors: i) isolation granularity – the granularity of isolation should be determined by characteristics for target workloads; ii) container management – container runtimes must be adapted to the distributed environment, and the under-layer distributed systems best does the management of containers; iii) image management – a cooperated mechanism can help to speed up and improve the efficiency of image distribution in distributed environment; iv) garbage collection – timely garbage collection is necessary given the massive amount of intermediate data generated by the htc workflow; v) network connection – excessive network connections should be avoided considering the plenty of small transmissions; vi) resource management – customized resource management mechanisms that fully consider the characteristics of the target workflow are required; vii) cross-layer cooperation – implementation of advanced features requires cooperation between the upper-layer workflow system and the under-layer cluster manager.in addition to htc workflows, i validate the above factors through my work of standardizing resource provisioning process for extreme scale online workloads, and observe that they are equally applicable to the htc workflow as well as the extreme scale online workload. this dissertation is a historical, literary, and above all theological reading of tertullian of carthage's treatise adversus marcionem. in the introduction, i situate both marcion of sinope and tertullian of carthage within their respective historical and intellectual context, as well as the context of tertullian's treatise. in dialogue with the thought of american philosopher stanley cavell, i then offer an account of the kind of theological reading i offer in the dissertation, supplemented by an account of the interpreter's task in approaching a polemical treatise like adversus marcionem. after a brief prelude describing tertullian's engagement with the mythological figure of prometheus from graeco-roman antiquity, i set out in part i to provide a detailed sketch of tertullian's marcion. in chapter 2, i describe tertullian's reading of marcion's understanding of the creator-god, the god of israel. specifically, i articulate tertullian's analysis of how the creator's works – creating, legislating, punishing, and revealing – can be said to disclose the creator's character as an ineffective, inconstant, and malicious deity. then, in chapter 3, i do the same for marcion's god, emphasizing tertullian's understanding of how marcion's christ reveals a god antithetical to the creator's work and character, a god (marcion claimed) of unadulterated benevolence and love, wholly transcendent from the creator and the creator's world-order. in part ii of this dissertation, i turn to tertullian's god – the deus christianorum – and the rhetorical, philosophical, and theological arguments he deploys in the course of adversus marcionem both to refute marcion and to articulate his own understanding god's oneness and the integrity of the biblical narrative. in chapter 4 i provide an account of tertullian's understanding of the rule of the faith, constellated within the relevant accounts of the same in tertullian's predecessors. i argue that, for tertullian, the rule of faith expressed in a condensed for the metanarrative of salvation in christ as the interpretive key for an ecclesial reading of the two-testament bible, the christian scripture.i structure chapters 5 and 6 in light of tertullian's subtle distinction between god's uniqueness, or singularity (the claim that there is only one god) and god's unity, or simplicity (the claim that god is one). chapter 5 addresses the former. i argue therein for a reading of tertullian's initial refutation of marcion's theological dualism, or ditheism in which his rhetorical training and philosophical learning are taken up into an ultimately theological argument identifying the god who is supremely great with the god revealed in the biblical narrative received and read by the church. chapter 6, then, addresses the question of god's unity, beginning with an account of tertullian's understanding of the god of christians as triune. i then proceed to engage tertullian's readings of the scriptures across the whole of marc., describing his diverse exegetical strategies with a particular focus on how his "literal" readings of scripture are ordered to the spiritual understanding of them. for tertullian, i argue, the unity of the biblical narrative is guaranteed by the unified agency of the one god, who is at once the primary author of that narrative and the primary agent within that narrative, a story that continues in the life of the church.finally, in chapter 7, i conclude the dissertation by summarizing its findings and providing an account of tertullian's understanding of the mutual implication of the flesh of christ and the body of scripture. for tertullian it is christ, the word made flesh, son of god and son of man, who reveals in all its fullness god's commitment to and involvement in creation from the beginning to the hoped-for end. the dissertation explores the prophetic voice assumed by margaret fuller, florence nightingale, and harriet martineau in their morally charged life writing. the dissertation argues that the life writing of these women represents a largely failed literary project, reflecting anxieties about the proper social role of the woman reformer within the victorian public sphere. the nonfiction of these women also exhibits formal concerns relating to the limitations of the prophetic voice and the difficulty of sustaining the aspiration toward critical objectivity while elaborating a moral rhetoric of rights sensitive to the plight of women and other marginalized, or disenfranchised victorian social groups. at times the literary project of these women is a resounding success, clearly disseminating a normative vision of social justice predicated on the interdependent ideals of self-culture and intersubjective, communicative understanding mediated by sympathy. accordingly, the dissertation shows the extent to which the women's tradition in popular fiction derived from austen in particular allowed these women to develop a morally charged activist ethos attentive to everyday life&mdash;to the feminine, private sphere&mdash;as a site worthy of conscientious reflection and social critique for the woman reformer. nevertheless, this body of women's life writing simultaneously displays&mdash;at the level of its formal linguistic and rhetorical properties&mdash;deep-seated tensions between the dialogical and consensus-forging aspirations of this rhetoric and the tendency of these writers to resort to a monological, or sermonizing voice, which i read as an expression of failure and anxiety over the proper role of the woman reformer within a hierarchical and exclusionary public discourse of reform. in particular, the public discourse of sage writing, which these women adapted, did not allot a space for the feminized, conversational, seemingly 'irrational' voice. individual chapters highlight the tension between the feminized, or conversational speaking voice and the tendency among these women writers to conform (or show appropriate deference to) prevailing social discourses and established rhetorical modes. the feminized, conversational voice is complex and often strained but overwhelmingly fuels the normative theory of self-culture championed by these women. the introduction surveys previous scholarly treatments of fuller, martineau, and nightingale and argues for the significance of their gendered contribution to the anglo-american world of social reform. in chapter one, 'transcendental excursions: margaret fuller's summer on the lakes, in 1843 (1844) and the european dispatches (1846-50),' i argue that summer on the lakes reflects a failed literary project illustrative of fuller's concern that prevailing cultural narratives stifle the intellectual ambitions of the woman reformer by failing to accommodate her both aesthetically and socially. in both works, fuller recommends the figure of the cultivated american traveler, or 'thinking american,' as the antidote to the divisive politics and debates common to modern, liberal society. the 'thinking american' is at once a model public citizen, discerning cultural critic, and aspiring ethnographer. by translating and disseminating a universalist rhetoric of sympathy and the transcendent virtues of self-culture, the figure of the 'thinking american' functions crucially as a bridge between both summer and the dispatches, and, even more importantly, as a theoretical bridge between the old and new worlds. in chapter two, 'narratives of the nile: florence nightingale's letters from egypt as sociological monograph,' i argue that nightingale's privately printed account of her travels to egypt and greece in the winter of 1849-5 dramatizes the tensions between nightingale's keen sense of herself as a religiously motivated public speaker and the victorian aspiration toward critical objectivity. thus while nightingale can sympathetically inveigh against the assaults to human dignity waged against egyptian women in their everyday lives, she cannot withstand the sheer force of her own ingrained imperialist assumptions in her attempt to write a religiously inspired ethnography. in chapter three, 'man (and woman too) has a soul to unfold: florence nightingale's suggestions for thought,' i read nightingale's sprawling religious manuscript (privately printed in 1860) largely as a failed experiment within existing modes of self-expression: namely, with sage discourse, religious rhetoric, the novel, and literary criticism. the frenzied pronouncements and severity of the feminine prophetic speaker in this text&mdash;even the very rambling, formless, and private quality of the manuscript as a whole&mdash;suggest nightingale's despair over the ability of the woman reformer to lay claim to a legitimate public rhetoric within a hierarchical economy of linguistic exchanges. in chapter four, 'reformist autobiography: harriet martineau's character studies of the 'serious' and 'earnest,'' i argue that martineau's autobiography (1877) reflects a decidedly more positive and self-assured version of the feminine, public voice than that assumed by either fuller or nightingale. by grounding her social criticisms and observations in the minute analysis of manners and morals&mdash;a critical stance associated with austen's discerning moral heroines&mdash;martineau cultivates a morally authoritative public voice for the woman reformer in the transatlantic public sphere with enduring literary and social repercussions. the conclusion argues that the victorian women's life writing analyzed here anticipates the pragmatic feminist philosophy of martha nussbaum, particularly her idea of a basic social minimum as the basis for human flourishing in a wide-ranging international context off-limits to her victorian predecessors. the concept of the domestic church has been receiving attention in academic discussion in recent years. the scholarly discussion takes a top-down perspective viewing domestic churches as imitations (miniature versions) or extensions of institutional churches.the discussion centers on grounding domestic churches in a religious sacrament.this view limits the constituents, the formation, and the ecclesial activity of domestic churches.it also limits the idea of the domestic church both in terms of ecumenical applicability and in terms of potential theological contribution to the institutional church and to the church universal.this research forms a picture of domestic churches from a bottom-up perspective through the study of books with recipes that connect domestic food practice to liturgical time (the church year).it examines demographic elements, recipe texts, and author comments, employing both quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis.the sources indicate a degree of independent flexibility inherent in domestic church food practice.the sources also cite instances of bi-directional influence between domestic churches and institutional churches, indicating that domestic churches are not only receivers of, but also contributors to liturgical tradition.digging deeper i find that domestic church food practice through its facilitation of multi-sensory memory-making can effectively transmit religious beliefs in a mode that differs from that of institutional churches. these findings depict domestic churches as vital and inclusive, promoting both dynamic engagement with and transmission of religious belief systems. the independent flexibility, bi-directional influence, and differing modes of transmitting religious belief systems argue against a view of domestic churches as mere imitations of institutional churches.instead, they suggest that the relation between domestic churches and institutional churches is one of nourishing complementarity. additionally, this research acknowledges that the transmission of religious beliefs through domestic food practice is not the property of one denomination, or even of one faith, evidencing that grounding the domestic church in one denomination, or in a religious sacrament is both limiting and unnecessarily divisive.i assert that food practice, as other activities of domestic churches, represents both a matter of further theological inquiry and a point of potential ecumenical and interfaith dialogue. recently, there have been many reports of environmental samples exhibiting a unique pcdd/f profile, which can not be attributed to any of the known anthropogenic sources. samples exhibiting this pcdd/f 'natural formation' profile include ball clay and kaolin from different regions throughout the world. although the pcdd/fs found in ball clay and kaolin are thought to be of natural origin, no definitive evidence has been brought forward to explain their presence in this specific environmental matrix. a series of experiments involving three ball clay cores were conducted, with the goal of determining the origin of the pcdds. principal component analysis was used to evaluate the data and provide visual representations of it, which aids in determining relationships among a multitude of variables. all clay core samples analyzed exhibited the pcdd natural formation profile, containing elevated levels of pcdds, dominated by ocdd and decreasing concentration with decreasing chlorination. maximum teqs for the three cores were 2,500, 440, and 15,000 pg who-teq/g, respectively. results from the bulk mineralogical analysis demonstrated there is no statistical correlation between the mineralogy of the ball clay samples and the pcdd concentrations and/or homologue profiles. it was determined from the elemental and oxide analysis that there is a direct correlation between specific oxides (e.g., al2o3) and total pcdd concentration associated with the samples in two of the cores, which have considerably different mineralogy. results from a black carbon analysis confirmed that there is no correlation between the carbon content of the ball clay total pcdd concentrations. these bc data support the hypothesis that the pcdds associated from the ball clay are not the result of an ancient combustion source. the findings from these experiments advanced the understanding of the possible origin of dioxins associated with the ball clay. from these findings, coupled with what has been reported in the literature, it is hypothesized that the pcdds associated with the ball clay are the result of a formation process from naturally produced chlorinated organic compounds present during the deposition of the clay. in this hypothesis, the varying chemical composition of the clay (e.g., amount of al2o3) is the predominant property controlling pcdd concentration as observed throughout the cores. unearthing the interaction patterns of the lego-like building blocks that make up a complex system provides a unique perspective into its inner workings. being able to methodically encode, extract, and analyze those pieces represents a significant challenge. this dissertation demonstrates how a newfound link between formal languages, graph theory, and data mining helps to address this challenge. i achieve this by adopting the formalism of vertex replacement graph grammars, which provides the ability to formally encode graph substructures. extracted grammar rules also provide for a better understanding of the network's underlying topology and simultaneously provides for the ability to generate, extrapolate, and infer new graphs in a precise and principled fashion. the objective of this thesis work is to investigate the 'softness' in nuclear incompressibility observed in the open shell nuclei and the role of symmetry energy in the nuclear incompressibility. the first experiment was performed to study isoscalar giant monopole resonance (isgmr) strength distribution in the cd isotopes. accurate and extremely forward angle (including 0) alpha inelastic scattering measurements were made on a series of 106,110-116 cd isotopes. the 'softness' in the nuclear incompressibility as observed in the sn isotopes was seen in the cd isotopes as well. the relativistic and non-relativistic calculations, which successfully reproduce the isgmr strength distributions in 208pb and 90zr, over-estimate the isgmr centroid energies in the sn and the cd isotopes. inclusion of the various types of pairing effects in the calculation cannot account for the observed discrepancy. the second experiment was performed to test an intriguing idea of mutually enhanced magicity (mem) effect playing a role in the nuclear incompressibility in order to account for the observed 'softness'. systematic and extremely accurate alpha inelastic scattering measurements were made on 204,206,208pb isotopes. the isgmr centroid energies measured in the series of pb isotopes indicated a standard a-1/3 dependence in stark contrast to a sharp increase of 0.6 mev in the isgmr centroid energy of 208pb when compared to the centroid energy of 204pb that was predicted as resulting from mem effect. these results clearly established that the mem effect does not play a measurable role in the energy of the isgmr, thereby leaving the question of experimentally observed 'softness' in the sn and cd unanswered still. paving a path for the future experiments, in order to answer the haunting question of experimentally observed 'softness' in nuclear incompressibility, the third experiment was performed to test the feasibility of using deuteron as a probe to measure isgmr in radioactive isotopes using inverse kinematics. accurate and extremely forward angle inelastic scattering measurements were made using high energy (100 mev/u) deuteron beam. for the first time the multipole decomposition analysis was successfully employed to delineate different multipole contributions reliably. this experiment established the feasibility of using deuteron probe to study giant resonances in the radioactive nuclei and thus explore the density dependence of symmetry energy in further detail. this dissertation examines the summaries in acts 2:42–47 and 4:32–35, which depict the lifestyle of the early jerusalem believers, most notably their practice of having "all things in common" (acts 2:44). many scholars have observed similarities between luke's language in these passages and that found in various greek and latin descriptions of common property, particularly in discussions of friendship. this study argues that these summaries would also have led many readers to recall the golden age myth, a story that told of the ideal conditions that the first race of humans enjoyed. by the time that luke was writing, the golden age myth had become strongly associated with the figure of the roman emperor, giving luke's use of the myth potentially an empire-critical significance.this study surveys accounts of the golden age myth from its earliest appearance in hesiod to its appropriation by the jewish and christian sibylline oracles in the first few centuries ce. special attention is given to the myth's treatment by roman authors, who develop the golden age idea in three important ways. beginning with virgil, roman versions of the myth often proclaim a return of the golden age, attribute this return to the agency of the roman emperor, and make common property a central feature of the golden age. the final chapter of this dissertation argues that the correspondences between luke's descriptions of the jerusalem community in acts 2:42–47 and 4:32–35 and the golden age myth in the early empire are sufficient to justify reading these passages as allusions to this myth. two complementary interpretations are proposed for this allusion. first, it advances luke's presentation of the spirit's coming as an eschatological event that marks the beginning of a "universal restoration" (acts 3:21). second, by using a myth commonly employed to exalt the roman emperor, luke makes a supra-imperial claim for christ and his followers. while roman poets credit augustus, nero, and a host of other emperors with bringing about a new golden age, luke implies that it is christ, not caesar, who has truly restored human harmony and reconciled humanity with god. many modern architectures have been designed with increasing core counts and simultaneous multi-threading in an effort to drive performance and efficiency ever higher. unfortunately many of these systems are used to conduct computation on real world problems which are dynamic and highly irregular in nature. while regular applications can be developed into highly optimized implementations such that they benefit from traditional architecture design, irregular problems often achieve a mere fraction of a systems computational power even when optimized.in this work we evaluate and analyze the performance of irregular problems on a range of modern architectures commonly used in high performance computing, as well as a novel migrating thread architecture. the sparse problems we focus on in the following studies exhibit both control-flow and memory access irregularities which makes them excellent benchmarks for the greater class of irregular problems. we show the apparent inability for sparse problems to scale well on traditional architectures often experiencing speedup far below 1 even when optimized for hardware design features. analyzing the design features of traditional and migrating thread architectures which prohibit or promote scalability of irregular problems, we propose a future architecture for use on irregular applications. in this dissertation, i argue that contemporary political theology struggles to hold together a commitment to the rule of law, a conviction that christians should work to make law more just, the value of individual discernment of conscience, and the promotion of the common good. in answer to this problem, i carry out an historical retrieval of the theological jurisprudence of the early modern spanish scholar, franciscosuárez, in order to present a view of law that holds all four of these commitments together, rather than in tension. i then use suárez's theory of law to point out how understanding law as developed in a dialectical process between the sovereign and the people can protect against the abuses that come from any one person or group's control over the law, and can also provide more possibilities for constructive communal engagement with law. engineering is fundamentally concerned with finding practical solutions to problems posed by the physical conditions in which people live. in particular, civil and structural engineering seeks to transform the environment in which people live and work by designing and creating better structures, facilities and tools. while many in the developed world enjoy great benefits from widespread and effective deployment of structural engineering, not all problems have been solved, structural infrastructure is in consistent need of maintenance, natural disasters require reconstruction and not all places are equally well-developed.for these reasons, it is beneficial to make it easier to perform engineering work. one way to do this is to broaden and assist the pool of expertise available. as one means to that end, this work proposes that some of the understanding gained in software design could be applied to other design domains, such as structural design. software designers use software tools to manage and enhance interactions amongst themselves. this includes software programs for manipulating software code, compiling programs, performing automated tests, recording changes, tracking bugs and more. extrapolating the ideas of software-mediated collaboration into other domains requires analogous tools to be created. in the case of structural design, this includes software for modifying structural designs, evaluating designs through simulation, and discussing designs and simulation results. to explore this idea, a prototype system was created for user collaboration and simulation of structures under wind load. this virtual wind tunnel (vwt) allows users to upload, discuss and collaborate upon proposed building geometries, incorporates powerful cfd simulators and directs such simulations to high-throughput back-end systems. developing the vwt required key software components to manage the interactions between various software and intellectual domains, most particularly a compiler to create fluid simulations from uploaded building geometries. to demonstrate the vwt and its adaptability to various applications, it has been deployed for multiple educational and research projects. in particular, an exploration was made of the use of crowdsourcing for complex engineering tasks. these deployments involved dozens of users, including experts, students and members of the general public, running thousands of cfd tasks to completion. obtaining accurate computerized tomography (ct) images is particularly critical for doctor to diagnose disease. however, the facts that the x-ray beam produced by x-ray tube has a widely distributed energy spectrum and the absorption coefficient of materials has a dependence on photon energy result in beam hardening artifacts. the artifacts inhibit the measurement from establishing a reliable scale for ct images. we investigated the beam hardening effect contributed from soft tissue and bone with x-ray spectra emitted from x-ray tube at four high voltages: 80kev, 100kev, 120kev and 140kev. a polynomial was first generated to represent the deviation of polyenergetic projection data with respect to ideal monoenergetic projection. when the phantom contained both materials, applying soft tissue and bone polynomial correction successively was not able to fully remove the beam hardening artifacts. the reason is that soft tissue path length as well as bone path length affect the extent of beam hardening simultaneously. a correction table with both bone and tissue dimension was then developed. the polynomial and the table correction were incorporated into a statistical model on which an iterative reconstruction algorithm was based. since the correction term was imbedded into iterative reconstruction loop and we mainly focused on the problematic bone component, we named our method as in loop iterative bone operation (ilibo). as comparison, we also tested the traditional beam hardening correction method which was performed directly on the projection data, and referred it as out of loop iterative bone operation (olibo). experiments were performed with both simulated 2-d phantoms and 3-d clinical scans. the table correction method has great advantage in saving computational cost compared to the polynomial correction in ilibo. the reconstructed images present promising improvement with the table correction in ilibo: the artifacts from dense bone structure are better removed; small bone structures are better defined and the edge of the bone structures are more sharp. based on these experiments, we consider the ilibo with table correction as an encouraging beam hardening correction algorithm in statistical iterative reconstruction. surface-enhanced raman scattering (sers) has successfully been used for a variety of analytical applications. herein, i examine previous application of the technique to analytical sciences, then continue to discuss my contribution to the field. this begins with the development of glutathione functionalized silver nanoparticles for trace detection of uranium in the form of the uranyl ion. a ratio of the area of the uranyl ion symmetric stretch mode to a glutathione reference band is dependent on uranyl concentration, giving a limit of detection of 24 ppb, which is below the epa safe drinking limit of 30 ppb. the system is shown to be effective in the presence of interferences and in ground water by simply treating the sample with nitric acid. our method is additionally shown to be transferrable to a portable hand-held raman spectrometer, showing it is capable of field use.further studies on uranyl detection are carried out using surface-enhanced hyper-raman scattering as the analytical method. an interesting change in selection rules is observed in the sehrs spectrum of 4-mercaptobenzoic acid upon addition of uranyl nitrate solution. the change in the spectrum is much more pronounced in the sehrs data than in the sers data, suggesting counterintuitively that sehrs, a nonlinear technique, might be more sensitive than its linear analog. additional study leads to the result that 4-mba functionalized particles analyzed by sehrs yield a limit of detection of 90 ppb, the first trace detection achieved using sehrs. previous sers studies have almost exclusively relied on the functionalization of surfaces with thiol or amine containing molecules, as these groups have proven affinity for sers-active surfaces. unfortunately these groups have shown instability in select environments, alternative functionality is therefore, necessary. the latter portion of this dissertation discusses progress made in alternative functional groups for surface modification. gold sers-active surfaces were functionalized with n-heterocyclic carbenes (nhcs) allowing the first measurement of sers spectra of a nhc. further experiments determine that the nhc-functionalized films are stable in a variety of environments, giving hope for measurement of sers data from environments with extreme ph and temperature, and different solvent conditions. a reversible reaction was demonstrated on the surface, suggesting promise for post synthetic modification of surfaces. the nhc-surface system demonstrates comparable, and in some cases superior, stability to thiol-metal surfaces, giving the first viable alternative to thiol functionality for sers experiments. theoretical treatment of both imidazolium and benzimidazolium nhc systems determine that the carbenes withdraw a gold atom from the surface in a pseudo-tip fashion in order for the n-isopropyl groups to be in the most favored position. this effect suggests that the r groups have a profound effect on the measured sers spectra. agreement between experimental and theoretical spectra allow for the assignment of bands and also detail an important shift in energy of ring modes upon binding of the carbene to the surface. physical layer models for node cooperation study small groups of nodes whose operation is analyzed and optimized in isolation from the rest of the wireless network. current analytical tools provide limited insight into how such techniques impact large wireless networks, where interference from other nodes in the network is a significant concern. consequently, very little is known about how these techniques impact higher layers, which, in practice, manage this interference. a recurring theme in many such techniques is signal superposition, where different transmissions on a common communication medium mutually interfere at one or more receivers. each receiver recovers its message(s) of interest by optimally exploiting its knowledge of the codebooks of different interferers. carefully designed signal superposition techniques are in fact optimal for certain types of one-to-many ("broadcast" ), many-to-one ("multiple-access" ) and certain cases of relay-aided communication. these techniques stand in contrast to more traditional orthogonal schemes that are designed specifically to avoid such interference. we examine signal superposition strategies in two canonical cases: broadcast and multiple-access. our investigations involve a combination of theoretical analysis and experimental prototyping. in our theoretical study we employ tools from stochastic geometry to analyze the medium access problem in networks composed of node clusters with local broadcast or multiple-access influencing each another through interference. we show that in networks composed of many randomly-placed clusters, each with local broadcast or multiple-access, orthogonal schemes offer useful properties such as their flexibility in adapting their spatial re-use to each receiver (broadcast) or a smaller spatial contention (multiple-access). we show how a single broadcast cluster can be realized by designing the first known prototype of a superposition-coded wireless system using off-the-shelf channel codes and experimentally demonstrate the spectral efficiency gains over time division multiplexing for a fixed error rate. furthermore, we use this prototype to show that the coding gain (rather than the spectral efficiency gain) from superposition codes significantly improves link reliability without the need to increase transmit power or bandwidth, opening up the possibility of novel medium access protocols that can leverage superposition codes. gustavo guti&eacute;rrez's classic text, a theology of liberation, continues to stand as one of the most important works in liberation theology. central to that text is guti&eacute;rrez's concept of "integral liberation." through this concept guti&eacute;rrez demonstrates a positive relationship between salvation and the historical process of human liberation. this dissertation broadens the terms of the concept of integral liberation. through a dialogue with the environmental and social sciences and a close reading of salvation history as it is mediated through scripture, i expand guti&eacute;rrez's concept in order to elucidate a positive relationship between salvation, human liberation, and care for creation. durante el siglo xx, los estados modernizadores de américa latina usaron la idea de "folclor" para codificar y reinventar la cultura popular como una fuente unívoca de temas e imágenes nacionales. carnavales y fiestas populares fueron usados por el estado para reforzar discursos de unidad nacional y alcanzar a sectores menos integrados de la nación. partiendo de los postulados de críticos como mikhail bakhtin, jesús martín barbero, roberto da matta, william rowe and vivian schelling, a lo largo de esta disertación estudio cómo distintas representaciones literarias y visuales de carnavales y fiestas populares responden a dicha instrumentalización. analizo crónicas, novelas, filmes y pinturas producidas en los siglos xx y xxi, a propósito de cuatro carnavales y fiestas populares de la región andina, a saber: yawar fiesta (perú), carnaval de blancos y negros (colombia), carnaval de oruro (bolivia), y semana santa (perú). así, estudio las obras de autores como josé maría arguedas, guillermo edmundo cháves, carlos medinaceli y claudia llosa.propongo que las representaciones literarias y visuales de carnavales y fiestas populares estudiadas en esta tesis simultáneamente refuerzan y cuestionan discursos hegemónicos sobre la identidad nacional. mi disertación indaga en las contradicciones, ambivalencias discursivas y fracturas de tales representaciones. sostengo que ellas reinterpretan el pasado histórico, resaltan la existencia de diversas temporalidades culturales y muestran heterogeneidades lingüísticas, culturales y raciales. el objetivo de esta tesis es contribuir a los debates en torno a nación, modernidad y modernización, así como consumo y apropiación de la cultura popular. --drawing from critics such as mikhail bakhtin, jesús martín barbero, roberto da matta, william rowe and vivian schelling, i analyze four carnivals and popular festivities in the andean region—yawar fiesta (perú), carnaval de blancos y negros (colombia), carnaval de oruro (bolivia), and semana santa (peru)—as they are represented in films, paintings and literary texts from the 20th and 21st centuries. i study the works of authors such as josé maría arguedas, guillermo edmundo cháves, carlos medinaceli, and claudia llosa. during the 20th century modernizing states deployed the idea of folklore to encode and reinvent popular culture as a unified source of national themes and images. carnivals and popular festivities were nationalized. i study how carnival's representations both contest and sustain hegemonic discourses of national identity. my project is an inquiry into the discursive ambivalences and fractures of such representations as they reinterpret the historical past, highlight the existence of diverse cultural temporalities, and display linguistic, cultural and racial heterogeneities. it aims to contribute to the debates around nation, modernity and modernization, and the consumption and appropriation of popular culture. the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a preventative, intensive, and comprehensive intervention project designed to improve early parenting. forty-eight at-risk mothers were randomly assigned to either a treatment condition consisting of joint-attention treatment training, developmental knowledge training, and loving touch training or a minimal support control condition. following the intervention, treatment mothers were less rigid, less intrusive and more flexible than control mothers, indicating reduced tendencies to exert control over infants. treatment mothers also had better understanding of infants' cognitive needs, indicated by higher quality verbalizations, more demonstrative teaching, and less role reversal. participants did not differ in emotional expression towards their infants. overall, results showed meaningful changes in knowledge and skills of at-risk mothers. this dissertation concerns two of the preconditions for moral performance, namely moral perception and relational identity. in both cases, i argue, empathy is an exceedingly useful tool in sustaining skill and accuracy. my analysis takes the form of a descriptive reconstruction of moral performance, emphasizing the relation between moral perception and judgment in particular on the interplay between cognitive and emotional faculties in moral perception. empathy provides both the motivation to turn our cognition and sensory apparatus toward the moral with the particularity to determine precise appropriate moral action. through repeated empathic interactions of this kind, empathy also forms and sustains the relational piece of our self-identity, a piece of identity that provides some basis for normativity. the importance of empathy to ethics has come under intense criticism. according to detractors, empathy leads to bias, leads to over sensitivity to individuals over groups, and plays a questionable role in judgment, motivation, and development. what characterizes many of these critiques is a particular construal of what empathy is supposed to do to be morally relevant, a construal that may not hold up under scrutiny. i offer a different definition of empathy, using a combination of davis, slote and hoffman to generate a process model that can survive detractors' arguments. after i have established my basic argument for empathy's role in moral perception and performance, i argue that because empathy plays this unique and important role, improving our empathic abilities leads to bettering our ability to both know when action is called for as well as understand what action is called for. in this way, we can gain greater empathic fluency, enabling greater capacity and nuance the more we focus on our empathic abilities. what i propose, then, is that applying moral theory to particular situations typically requires empathy, and empathy is the most fluid and natural pathway we have to moral knowledge in particular situations. and, further, that our self-identification as empathetic is vital to fulfilling our duty as citizens in a liberal democracy and, more broadly, as moral agents out in the world. this dissertation presents a close reading of the life of st matrona, a mid-6th century hagiographic work about a 5th century monastic who founded a monastery in constantinople for persons assigned female at birth who desired to dress as men. in response to recent scholarship categorizing cross-dressing saints either as queer or as straightforwardly women, this dissertation presents an argument for reading the life of st matrona as a trans narrative. to articulate a trans hermeneutic for reading pre-modern texts, this dissertation engages critical theory from transgender studies, concluding that since matrona moves from one position of sexed or gendered intelligibility to another within her culture, she can be read as trans. after analyzing each of matrona's transitions within the text, this dissertation then shows how the hagiographer centralizes gendered transitions within the text as a whole, presenting matrona as a universal exemplar. the concluding chapter then offers preliminary thoughts for why a hagiographer may have written such a text in the mid-6th century, specifically the 540s ce. it then looks at the medieval reception history of the life and other attestations to matrona to confirm the dissertation's thesis and to speculate on the possibility of an historical matrona. advances in microfabrication technology and miniaturized analysis have led to the development of lab-on-a-chip (loc) systems, which enables integration of multiple complex functions on a single device. with the reduction in size to the micrometer or nanometer scale, loc devices to minimize consumption of reagents, increase automation, and reduce manufacturing costs. electrochemical and optical detection are popular techniques that are compatible with loc devices for chemical and biochemical analysis. scalability of electrochemical and optical detection schemes to smaller dimension enables the development of portable sensors with low background and enhanced sensitivity based on loc devices.this work demonstrates the design and fabrication of several specific loc devices for different applications by integrating electrochemical and optical detection. an electrochemical reactor was developed for in situ generation and quantitative monitoring of oxygen within nanofluidic systems. in this device, an embedded microband electrode was employed for reagent generation, and fluorescein, a ph-sensitive dye, was used as a reporter for monitoring the spatiotemporal distribution of generated o2 based on the co-produced h+. importantly, the optical and electrochemical measurements were in quantitative agreement on total generation, whereas the fluorescence images allowed spatial/temporal maps of o2 to be generated. in the second application, bipolar electrode (bpe)-based loc devices with physically isolated analytical and reporting regions were developed. microchannels equipped with interdigitated array (ida) electrodes were designed to couple independent electrochemical reactions (in an analytical cell) to fluorescence response (in a separate reporter cell) using a closed bpe geometry. proton-coupled electron transfer reactions were investigated in the structure with integrated electrochemical ph modulation. in the third applications, a dual-cell electrochromic detector was developed in order to provide a simple detection method for electrochemical sensing. in this application, the colorimetric (electrochromic) indicator methyl viologen was coupled through a closed bpe to an analytical reaction in a separate cell. a smartphone was used to collect colorimetry data and provide a simple, fast, and reliable detection method with strong the potential for point-of-care and real-time diagnosis applications. finally, these electrochromic devices were employed for the detection of common metabolites detection, such as glucose, lactate, and uric acid. by integrating multiple bpe components onto the same device, it was possible to detect multiple analytes and determine their concentrations simultaneously using colorimetry. selectivity and sensitivity of the detection were further improved by introducing enzymes specific for target analytes and optimizing the reporter cell size. work in this thesis establishes that closed bpe devices can be coupled with electrochemical and optical detection to provide new opportunities for simple, rapid, and effective detection. in this thesis i focus on leopardi's conception of corporality, starting from his perception of his own body and from the sense of entrapment which was already discernible in the writings of his childhood and which always led him to strive for freedom. i explore how leopardi uses self-narrative and poetic projections to come to terms with his condition and his perception of his disenfranchised body as a site of meaning. i argue that leopardi was perfectly aware of how the body – and especially the ugly body – is a bearer of social meaning and of how it functions as a site in which one's identity is challenged and within which it is shaped. ultimately, i will show how leopardi transformed his physical vulnerability and illness into powerful cognitive tools. studies and subsequent analysis of meteoritic material has provided evidence of the presence of several short-lived radionuclides (slrs) at the formation of the solar system. these slrs, named for their half-lives being less than 100 myr and therefore "short" in terms of the age of the solar system, are key to the understanding of the types of processes that created the solar system. production models rely on theoretical nuclear models, but theoretical reaction cross sections can be imprecise, making experimental measurements crucial to relieving some uncertainties on theoretical models. in particular, 41ca is important as its half-life (t1/2= 9.94 x 104 yrs) is much shorter than other slrs, thereby offering stricter constraints on the various irradiation scenarios from early stellar processes. irradiation of ca can be tricky as it is tough to make as a foil for activations and chemical treatment can add even more uncertainty. this prompted a campaign to develop a novel reaction technique that was tested at the nuclear science laboratory at the university of notre dame. this technique utilizes an "in-cathode" reaction method, which means that natural caf2 material is packed into an ion source sample holder (cathode) before being irradiated and then subsequently measured without the need for any chemical processing after the activation. the setup for the irradiation was performed using a 3he beam to measure the reaction natca(3he,x)41ca. the activated sample was placed in a gamma counting station to measure any decay products and then placed directly into the ion source to be sputtered where its isotopic ratio of 41ca/natca was measured using accelerator mass spectrometry (ams). gamma spectroscopy revealed around 2-3% of the 3he beam missing the ca material and hitting the cu cathode. ams results suggest the need to measure the isotopic ratio of a sample until all the activated material has been exhausted while also accounting for geometrical effects from the sputtering of material in the ion source. zebrafish can regenerate damaged photoreceptors following constant intense light treatment. during regeneration, the m&#252;ller glial cell dedifferentiates and reenters the cell cycle to produce neuronal progenitor cells, which continue to divide, migrate to the photoreceptor layer and differentiate into rod and cone photoreceptors. the mechanisms regulating dedifferentiation and proliferation of m&#252;ller glia, the formation and amplification of progenitor cells, and their subsequent differentiation to photoreceptors remain unknown. one signaling pathway associated with these processes during both development and regeneration is the notch-delta signaling pathway. while notch has different functions in various cell types, it primarily regulates cell proliferation, cell fate choice and differentiation. to better understand the potential roles notch signaling may play and differentiation. to better understand the potential roles notch signaling may play during regeneration, &#947;-secretase inhibitors (gsis), which block notch signaling, were injected into retinas during light treatment and these retinas exhibited increased numbers of pcna-positive inl cells during regeneration. the increased number of pcna-positive inl cells was due to, at least in part, extra m&#252;ller glia reentering the cell cycle, suggesting notch signaling may maintain m&#252;ller glial quiescence. at 14 and 28 days post injection, the number of m&#252;ller glia were significantly reduced in gsi-treated retinas relative to controls, while both uv and blue single cones were increased, suggesting that notch signaling is required for m&#252;ller glia redifferentiation and plays a role in balancing cell fate choice of progenitor cells. undamaged retinas injected intraperitoneally with gsis exhibited significantly greater numbers of pcna-positive inl cells, which were also ascl1 and stat3-positive. these two transcription factors are both required for the presence of these proliferative cells. at 7, 9, and 11 days after initial injection, there were very few ath5-positive cells, an early neuronal cell marker, and several tunel-positive cells suggested that the proliferating cells may be undergoing cell death instead of committing to a neuronal lineage. however, the addition of tnf&#945; significantly increased the number of pcna-positive cells and ath5-positive clusters relative to gsi injections alone. overall, these data demonstrate that notch signaling is important to m&#252;ller glial quiescence, cell fate choice and differentiation in the regenerating zebrafish retina. void galaxies are isolated single galaxies or interacting pairs or triplets located in highly under-dense void regions far from their nearest neighbors. they are an test case for models of of galaxy formation and evolution. their isolation from interactions with the filaments, walls and clusters of denser regions of large scale structure allows for the internal dynamical processes to dominate their evolution. standard λcdm cosmological models also make predictions about the number of dwarf galaxies that should be present in voids as a function of the matter density parameter ωm. peeples described this as the void phenomenon, and it has two aspects, the expected number of dwarf galaxies in voids and their statistical properties which could potentially diverge from galaxies in denser fields. an earlier survey conducted by kreckel using the sdss found that void galaxies tended to be luminous blue star forming dwarfs but the result was limited by the magnitude cutoff of the sdss at ∼ 17 in the r band. for this observational program we conducted a dedicated search for low surface brightness (lsb) galaxies that would fall below the sdss magnitude cutoff by searching for hydrogen-α emission from star forming regions using the narrowband hα filters on the 4-m mayall telescope at the kitt peak national observatory (kpno). two voids were chosen from the sdss void catalog whose barycenters in redshift were in the center of one of the filters, allowing for candidates to be identified by the residuals from subtraction. candidates identified this way first had their estimated distances supported by their sdss photometric redshifts because at z=0.3 the o[iii] 5007 angstrom line would be redshifted into the same bandpass as the hydrogen-α emission from z=0.03 void galaxies. then these void galaxy candidates were observed spectroscopically with the lbt mods spectrograph and with gemini north to search for emission lines that would allow for measures of the metallicity, star formation rate and gas fraction to be calculated. unfortunately for this study the combination of two different photometric estimates was not as accurate as it had been hoped; only one of the eleven new galaxy candidates was actually in the void, in large part because the odds of a catastrophic failure of photometric redshift is more likely at low redshifts, but the follow-up observations of known void galaxy vgs9 unexpectedly found previously unresolved structures that could be either star formation regions or possibly satellite galaxies. asking authors to contribute to the costs of scholarly communication through an author charge pricing mechanism is increasingly being considered a credible alternative way of financing a reader-financed scholarly communication process that is widely described as facing a crisis. however the history and evolving economic justification of the author charge pricing mechanism and the potential intellectual property ramifications of having authors rather than readers pay, up to this point, has not been explored. such a discussion however is critical to understanding the many ways by which the scholarly communication process and the research process are being re-engineered. i begin by reviewing the economics of scholarly communication literature and examining how the tools and metaphors in this literature are used to understand the serials crisis, the event where access to journals has decreased and prices and the number of titles have increased. i argue that there is a misunderstanding of the workings, determinants, and deficiencies of the scholarly communication process in both the popular and professional economics literature. this thesis focuses on one aspect of this misunderstanding &ndash; the choice of the pricing mechanism that is used to fund the scholarly communication process. chapter one outlines the elements of the economics of science and the economics of scholarly communication research agendas and the methodological changes both have endured over the past fifty years. chapter two reviews the various understandings of the cause of and solution to the serials crisis. the remaining three chapters consider how author charge pricing mechanisms have been used in the past in the disciplines of physics and economics and outline the potential consequences to its use in the present day environment where research funding agencies increasingly seek ownership and control over the intellectual property created during the research process. these three chapters argue that paying for the scholarly communication process is more than just an economics problem and outline a framework for a revised economics of scholarly communication research agenda. mathematical models of wind tunnels are very useful, cost-saving tools in the field of aerodynamic testing. an entire test can be run on a mathematical model to predict the reaction of relevant flight variables and to ensure that the test can be run without any unexpected results or the need for an emergency shut down. they can also serve to train new operators of the wind tunnel by having them deal with potentially dangerous situations with no risk to the wind tunnel hardware. a mathematical model of a wind tunnel can be created from the basic fluid mechanic equations. to be sufficiently accurate, several engineering parameters must be determined experimentally and incorporated into the model. this thesis describes the development of a mathematical model of the thermal behavior for the notre dame 3 foot closed-circuit wind tunnel. the results of experimental measurements of various engineering parameters is presented, as well as a comparison of the actual facility behavior to the prediction of the mathematical model. migration has become a complex phenomenon in the mediterranean region and poses a challenge to the way we conceptualize the relationship between the west and east, north and south, christianity and islam. since spain and greece are located on the geographical edges of europe, they have become the default territorial gatekeepers of the european union responsible for policing the south and southeastern periphery of europe against migrant populations seeking entry. as a result, the new role of spain and greece as europe's bulwarks against illegal migration has produced a series of internal cultural crises in both countries centered around the anxiety of muslim infiltration and its impact on the european cultural make-up. spain and greece are unique case studies for the study of migration into europe because not only do they have rich and complex multi-cultural pasts, but also because they are countries that exported immigrants for a greater part of the twentieth century. furthermore, both countries overemphasize their affiliation with europe, and downplay their cultural connections with non-western nations like morocco and turkey. because of this, my dissertation argues that spanish and greek novels and films that deal with immigration reveal less about the lives of immigrants and more about the national anxiety that immigrant presence causes. spain and greece, in constructing their national identity as christian nations, have had to exorcise their multi-religious and multi-ethnic pasts, particularly with regard to islam. however, this very exorcism is beginning to unravel thanks to the new european realities of international labor movements, migration flows, and border permeability. ultimately, these texts complicate the position of each country in relation to europe and, as a result, reveal how their cultural and political coordinates position them in a state of differential periphery, which explicitly affects the way that national identity is imagined. it is the ultimate goal of my dissertation to reconsider the peripheral status of both countries and their (always) provisional relationship to europe &ndash; for spain, the relationship between latin america, north africa and europe, and for greece, the triangular relationship between europe, the ottoman world and the balkans. with expansion from multi-core to "manycore,'' including hundreds of cores per chip many hpc systems are beginning to include additional layers of memory between the main memory and the top of the cache hierarchy. these changes to hardware force us to reconsider how to design multithreaded codes so that we maximize the benefit of a complex memory system.this thesis investigates various algorithmic strategies and implements the strategies on applications such as sort, matrix multiply, and fast fourier transforms fft. these results indicate that the placement of data onto physical memory channels can have a significant impact on performance. the key strategy developed in this work uses a library that allows the user to explicitly manage the relationship between memory channels, directories, and cores. this library is shown to improve performance of memory-sensitive codes on a a64fx node by up to a 1.1x speedup. this work examines the political relevance that the myth of the golden age came to entail during the rise and the consolidation of imperial autocracy at rome in the first three centuries ad. the ideological association of the golden age with autocratic power did not emerge as a monolithic cultural program as soon as the first emperor augustus established the principate; it was the product of a progressive appropriation of the traditional constituents of the myth – peace, prosperity, justice, equity, social equality, harmony of men and nature, guaranteed by the rule of the god saturn – in literary and material culture, which over time created a symbolism that immediately identified the imperial regime. the accession of each new emperor was accompanied by expectations of fulfillment of the golden age ideal, whose return depended upon the good political and moral comportment of the ruler. the mythical narrative was accordingly gradually historicized, as the figure of the emperor replaced saturn as the guarantor of the aurea aetas across the empire. the chronological trajectory of the myth which this project examines reveals how the rhetoric of the golden age came to be a cultural discourse in roman society, which eventually substantiated imperial ideology. in this research, a novel biofilm-based photobioreactor was proposed and evaluated. the reactor incorporated gas-transferring membranes at the base of the biofilm, allowing gas transfer directly into the biofilm. we hypothesized that co2 supply through these membranes could prevent carbon limitation within the biofilm, prevent ph shifts and strip excess o2, leading to higher growth rates. both 1-d and 2-d biofilm models were developed to assess performance compared to conventional algal biofilm reactors. experiments were also conducted comparing both types of reactors. results suggest the proposed system would lead to higher algae growth rates, especially when high light intensity is used. this process could provide a more efficient way to grow algae for environmental and industrial purposes. it also could enable efficient capture waste co2 from power plants, anaerobic digesters, or other sources. loss of heterozygosity at human chromosome 18q, the region containing deleted in colorectal cancer (dcc), has been linked to a number of human cancers including colorectal cancer. presently no definitive evidence has been detected that pinpoints dcc as being a tumor suppressor. here we present research on frazzled (fra), the drosophila homolog of dcc, taking advantage of the powerful genetic tools this model organism presents. in order to determine whether fra/dcc is a tumor suppressor we generated fra loss of function clones in drosophila eye discs. while these clones had a low survival rate, we were able to observe an invasive phenotype when we rescued cells from death with a secondary genetic modification (chapter 2). from this we determined that fra is a tumor suppressor and that second site mutations in addition to loss of fra/dcc, result in highly invasive carcinomas. two subsequent microarray studies were completed to determine the global effects of either loss or gain of fra signaling. many cancer-related genes were revealed by these analyses (chapter 3). in order to both validate the microarray results and identify loci that genetically interact with fra, we proceeded with a genetic interaction screen. results of this screen allowed us to observe phenotypes resulting from gene mutations in conjunction with loss of fra. many interesting genes resulted from this screen including the hedgehog cascade member camp-dependent protein kinase 1 (pka) (chapter 4). assays were then designed to study the effects of loss of both fra and pka. from these analyses we were able to determine that loss of both of these genes results in cells that are highly invasive (chapter 5). the work presented in this study is the first direct evidence, in any animal model, that fra/dcc is a tumor suppressor. it has also identified a number of genes that when mutated in conjunction with loss of fra/dcc result in increased invasion. the results of this investigation provide new insight into the mechanisms involved in tumorigenesis and metastasis resulting from loss of dcc. the role of social support in health outcomes has recently garnered significant interest from most researchers. however, there is limited literature on the role of social support networks as social support providers during the postpartum period on mother-newborn access to care in low-resource settings. some studies have examined the association between social support and other maternal health outcomes, such as depression. however, no study has explicitly reviewed postpartum women's perceived social support and social influence as critical functional roles of women's social networks (wsn) on postpartum and newborn access to care. the first 1000 days of life for a mother and her child are crucial, yet most preventable maternal and newborn deaths continue to occur (who, 2019; who, 2022a). this thesis examined this relationship using the three-delays model (thaddeus &amp; maine, 1994) and the conceptual framework of social networks and social support (heaney &amp; israel, 2008), as well as social networks and health (berkman et al., 2000).in this thesis, i assessed postpartum women's perceived social support and the social influence of wsn on postpartum and newborn access to care among 48 women who were participants in an ongoing randomized controlled trial – the focused-postpartum care (focused-ppc) project for women in tamale, ghana. the women were within one year of giving birth. data were collected using semi-structured interview guides and audio-recorded in dagbani and english language across all four study sites: bagabaga, choggu, kalpohini, and kanvili health centers. the data obtained were transcribed into english and analyzed in atlas.ti.23 for codes and idiosyncratic themes using the qualitative thematic data analysis method (braun &amp; clarke, 2012). in addition, participants' demographic data were analyzed using stata/be.the main results showed five (5) major thematic areas that broadly represented the findings. they include 1.composition of women's social support networks and reason for identification; 2. women's structural relationship with in-laws; 3. influence of social networks on decision making; 4. barriers to accessing care; and 5. support in accessing care, including a. satisfaction with support and b. major social support needs. findings show the importance of integrating women's social support networks into postpartum and newborn care. this dissertation focuses on designing nanomaterials and investigating their photocatalytic response for h2 generation.hydrogen has gained a lot of attention as a new source of sustainable energy.it can be used to directly generate power in fuel cells and to produce liquid fuels such as methanol.water splitting is an ideal (clean) way of producing h2 because it uses water and sunlight, two renewable resources.to explore the use of nanostructures and particularly nanostructure heterojunctions for photocatalytic h2 generation, four different systems have been synthesized: (i) cdse nanowires (nws), (ii) cdse/cds core/shell nws, (iii) cdse nws decorated with au or pt nanoparticles, and (iv) cdse/cds nws decorated with au or pt nanoparticles.this is motivated by (a) the fact that cdse nws absorb light from the uv to the near infrared (b) the nw morphology simultaneously enables us to explore the role of nanoscale dimensionality in photocatalytic processes (c) a cds coating can enhance photogenerated carrier lifetimes, and (d) metal nanoparticles are catalytically active and can also enhance charge separation efficiencies.charge separation and charge transfer across interfaces are key aspects in the design of efficient photocatalysts for solar energy conversion.femtosecond transient differential absorption (tda) spectroscopy has been used as a tool to reveal how semiconductor/semiconductor and metal/semiconductor heterojunctions affect the charge separation and hydrogen generation efficiencies of these hybrid photocatalysts.the use of this technique in concert with hydrogen evolution tests also reveal how cds, cdse and metal np interact within metal np decorated cdse and cdse/cds nws during photocatalytic hydrogen generation reactions.electron transfer events across both semiconductor/semiconductor and metal/semiconductor heterojunctions are followed to identify where h2 is evolved and the role each heterojunction plays in determining a system's overall efficiency. to extend my study beyond 1d cdse nws, 2d cdse nanosheets (nss) have been synthesized. the use of cation exchange allows synthesizing micrometer-sized crystalline thin cdse nanosheets (nss), otherwise difficult to produce directly through solution-based methods.starting from cubic-phased cu2-xse nss as a template, cdse nss are obtained by cation exchange of copper to cadmium.this exchange reaction preserves the 2d morphology of the starting nss and also retains the cubic crystal structure.resulting cdse nss have a lateral size up to 6 µm and an average of thickness approximately 6 nm.such large lateral dimensions are advantageous for single sheet optical measurements and for applications in optical and electronic devices. there is broad consensus that scientists in working on innovative, highly socially impactful areas of innovation have moral responsibilities toward stakeholders and the general public. however, there is widespread disagreement concerning the nature of their responsibilities or their implications for scientific research. in this dissertation, i address scientists' social responsibilities when performing innovative research on a particularly novel and impactful kind of technology: climate engineering. climate engineering, as a technology, poses many ethical, political, and scientific problems. i focus on a particular issue in early-stage climate engineering research: such research could embed controversial ethical and political values and priorities into climate engineering technologies, leading to the imposition of values on non-consenting populations. it is the responsibility of scientists, therefore, to ensure the values they use in climate engineering research are morally and politically legitimate. in the first half of the dissertation, i consider a broad range of possible solutions to the problem, but standard political and ethical frameworks fail, i argue, to provide scientists the resources to adequately discharge this responsibility. in the second half of dissertation, i turn to a framework that provides alternative theoretical resources for legitimating scientific values in innovative climate engineering research. this framework analyzes the science of climate engineering as composed of multiple overlapping practices, with virtues internal to each practice. i argue that, as a condition for scientific values to be legitimate, they must arise in communities of practice marked by virtue, that is, communities that are composed of (and, in turn, foster) virtuous actors and behaviors. i explore characteristics of such communities, analyzing them as consisting in practices integrated into larger, robust conceptions of flourishing in relation to the biosphere as a whole. while endorsing a moderate pluralism with regard to the conceptions of flourishing that climate engineering research communities could work with, i delineate a number of virtues clearly characteristic of the ethical climate engineering researcher. in my final chapter, i offer some practical guidance as to how virtuous climate engineering research communities can be fostered. malaria remains one of the most severe infectious diseases afflicting humans globally. this is true despite significant global reductions in the number of reported cases and associated mortality over the last decade as a result of the expansion and intensification of control programs. in tanzania, the disease remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality, accounting for over 30% of the country's disease burden. this thesis aims to develop and apply an integrated spatially-explicit risk assessment framework that would quantify the community vulnerability and risk to malaria transmission as a result of climate variability and change, taking into account both climatic and non-climatic risk factors. a spatial mapping approach was implemented to model the community vulnerability to malaria. next, i applied the species distribution modeling ensemble based approach to predict the potential distribution of malaria. a bayesian spatial modelling approach was used to map the prevalence of malaria and to estimate the number of people infected. finally, i assessed how climate change and development scenarios, will impact future malaria transmission in the various districts of tanzania in this dissertation, i argue that political revolutions transformed religious conceptions of community in english, irish, and mexican literature. i situate these three literatures within an atlantic world in which radical writings, such as those written by thomas paine and jean-jacques rousseau, were widely circulated and appropriated by these atlantic writers.the appropriation of this french revolutionary curriculum yielded distinct results in each case.revolutionary sparks were successfully extinguished in england; in ireland, the failed 1798 irish rebellion led to union with england; in mexico, a "dis-union" from spain was affected by the war of independence (1810-1821), which led to the decolonizing of mexico. i show how diverse writers such as william godwin (england), lady morgan (ireland), and fray servando teresa de mier (mexico) constructed national imaginaries in light of pressures exerted on religion by revolutionary events.my intervention extends the burgeoning work of transatlantic romanticists who consider the role of spanish american revolutions in the british imagination.i widen this scholarly perspective to include how mexicans writing in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries appropriated revolutionary ideas for their own designs, and i also engage comparative work on how the english and the irish made different use of the same radical material. my interdisciplinary research unites two strands of recent, significant literary-historical inquiry: the development of british romanticism in relation to religious politics and the incorporation of transatlantic studies within the field. my dissertation responds to two central research questions: what depictions of community and sociability emerge from the mixture of revolutionary discourses and religious politics at these sites? how does a southern atlantic catholic culture's use of revolutionary ideas differ from northern protestants' use of this same material? modern-day computers heavily rely on the von neumann architecture where the data is moved from memory to processing units for computation which is commonly referred to as the von neumann bottleneck. coupled with the vast amounts of data gathered on the web and the need to process large amounts of data, the von neumann bottleneck can significantly thwart the speed and efficiency of computation. on the other hand, with the advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning, the demand for computation is ever-increasing. processing in-memory (pim) is a new computing paradigm that offers an attractive solution to the von neumann bottleneck. with pim, computation happens in the memory which avoids expensive data movement associated with the von neumann architecture. furthermore, emerging technologies are among the top contenders for realizing pim designs due to their frequent non-volatility, high on/off ratios, and compatibility with cmos fabrication processes. although pim designs using emerging technologies can offer significant improvement over traditional computing fabrics, they often observe non-idealities that can affect different figures of merit. these non-idealities may be present on any of the traditional design layers (device, circuit, architecture, algorithm, and application) and impact the behavior of the designed system on other layers. furthermore, it is important to consider both top-down and bottom-up perspectives to not only minimize the adverse effects of non-idealities but also maximize gains from hardware-software co-design. as such, in this dissertation, i adopt a cross-layer design perspective to propose and evaluate pim solutions for machine learning applications. specifically, i propose pim solutions for neural network training and inference, nearest neighbor classification, few-shot learning, and hyperdimensional computing. i ensure that my designs not only improve hardware benchmarks such as energy and latency but also achieve software-equivalent accuracies. epothilones were first isolated from sorangium cellulosum by hìäåäìâå¦fle and co-workers in 1993. as "taxol-like" and microtubule stabilizing natural products, the epothilones represent a rare case of complex biologically active natural products which have been systematically and exhaustively explored through structure-activity relationships. our group has contributed to these studies by focusing on the conformational constraints of the molecule, and has probed the bound conformation through analogue design. several proposed pharmacophore models have suggested that the c7-hydroxyl group represents an important point of contact with the protein receptor through hydrogen bonding. moreover, we have previously presented evidence for the role of the c7-hydroxyl in affecting the conformational preferences of the c5-c8 region. in order to gain insight into the exact role of c7-hydroxyl group, 7-desoxy epothilone d has been designed and synthesized. my dissertation explains how activist groups' foci of attention and interaction patterns generate different stylistic orientations toward action. this study addresses my broader theoretical interest in the power of cultural practice to affect group identity and collective behavior. my dissertation is based on 13 months of ethnographic fieldwork in mindanao, philippines, in the immediate aftermath of signing the historic peace accord that put an end to four decades of armed conflict. civil society organizations and networks of christian, moro, and indigenous peace activists played a critical role in the peace accord negotiations and social reconciliation efforts. by paying special attention to important extra-deliberative processes—the perceptual, interactional and emotional dynamics—of the peace activists, i theorize that activist groups' spheres of influence and patterns of interaction shape their organizational foci, including activists' theories of how to achieve social change and the types of project they choose to pursue. i analyze two distinct foci of attention found among mindanao peace activists: these different foci in turn, inform and sustain two different styles of collective action: that of position-taking advocates and community bridge-builders. organizational focus constrains group action over time, and differences in foci among activist groups often lead to tensions when they try to cooperate within the same network. this project examines the process and implications of political influence in american state legislatures. i argue that legislators' reliance on one another for information creates a distribution of informal power that can be used by any member, regardless of rank or seniority, to achieve political goals. using ten years of temporal cosponsorship data from seven u.s. states, i test a theory of asymmetric polarization in co-partisan influence. results show that the distribution of members' ideology is central to the importance of ideological cues. unlike traditional models of legislative bargaining, i find that ideologically extreme officials are more influential than their moderate counterparts. together, these results imply that directional movement in party ideology may be partially achieved through spatial decisions made over a sustained period of time. a related survey of american adults shows a complex relationship between voters' appreciation for influence and its institutional applications and usage. shifting beliefs about gender and proper roles for men and women have brought about many changes in family life, including more men taking over the bulk of responsibility for their children's daily care. although there are increasingly more men serving as primary caregivers, they are an understudied population in sociology. furthermore, in the research that does exist about these men, the samples are quite homogenous, being comprised almost entirely of white, college-educated, middle and upper class men who are married to high earning women. in this dissertation, i address the incompleteness of our understanding of primary caregiving fathers by studying a diverse sample of fathers. i ask how social class affects the experiences of primary caregiving fathers. to answer this question, i conduct 50 in-person interviews with fathers from the working and middle classes who serve as their families' primary caregivers. i find that social class does significantly affect primary caregiving fathers' experiences, and in this project, i examine three specific ways it does: in ideas about gender, how choosing to become an at-home father affects satisfaction, and how the fathers respond to stereotypes others have about them. this work, based on a unique sample, makes important contributions to the literature on family life, social class, gender, and fatherhood, revealing new questions for future research. apoptolidin is a polyketide natural product isolated from the bacteria, nocardiopsis sp. it is a selective apoptotic inducer of cells transformed with the adenovirus e1a oncogene, leaving normal cells unaffected. its mode of action has been proposed to be inhibition of the mitochondrial f0f1-atpase through the study of various molecular and cell-based assays. along with its exciting biological activity, the structural features of apoptolidin have attracted vast interest in the synthetic community. as a research group interested in molecules of biological importance combined with unique structural motifs, we found this target attractive. apoptolidin's skeleton possesses a polyunsaturated 20-membered lactone containing separate conjugated triene and diene units along with a monosaccharide. appended from the macrolactone is a highly oxygenated fragment that contains a stereo-enriched pyran moiety with a proximal disaccharide. while apoptolidin exhibits unique biological properties, it is known to undergo a ring expansion under cell assay conditions to afford a less active compound, isoapoptolidin. therefore, our synthetic approach is toward the 20-deoxy analogue, the compound that will eliminate the ring expansion. it relies on the synthesis of three distinct fragments. the conjugated (e,e,e)-triene portion of 20-deoxyapoptolidin represented a synthetic target where we could take advantage of an allylic rearrangement method. we were able to construct the contiguous (e,e,e)-triene moiety in an iterative fashion utilizing a thionyl chloride rearrangement/oxidation sequence. the thionyl chloride rearrangement was highly e-selective (e:z > 20:1 by nmr), which illustrated its utility to construct trisubstituted olefins efficiently. the highly oxygenated side chain of 20-deoxyapoptolidin was constructed using oxazolidinethione chiral auxiliaries to install the important syn propionate units. with two key fragments complete, the coupling of fragment a and b was investigated using copper and palladium-catalyzed reactions to effect the desired transformation. following successful formation of the c11-c12 bond through the stille reaction, forming the 20-membered macrolide through yamaguchi macrolactonization was attempted. lightweight multithreaded architectures (lima) advance latency hiding capability by creating a platform for the execution of many concurrent lightweight threads. fine-grained management of these threads must have very low overhead since the threads themselves are created, execute and are destroyed very quickly. several decision policies are presented and evaluated here in the context of behavior trends over a range of application characteristics. these polices are evaluated via simulation tools created specifically to model the novel aspects of lima as related to thread management. two policies, rma and block, use simple marking mechanisms to guide thread management according to memory access, and show improvements in performance as the number of remote accesses in an application increase. a third policy, overflow, alters the priority of scheduling newly spawned threads, and a fourth, pfail-cblock manages threads based on producer-consumer semantics. overflow and pfail-cblock positively impact performance of frequent group synchronization operations. pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (pdac) is the 3rd leading cause of cancer related death and has a five year survival rate below 8%. this poor prognosis is largely attributed to late diagnosis, which leaves clinicians to treat an advanced, chemoresistant disease. gemcitabine based therapy is the standard of care for patients; however, in the majority of cases, patients exhibit tumor relapse and resistance. the overall goal of this research was to identify a mechanism of chemoresistance and develop a strategy to exploit it, in order to improve the efficacy of gemcitabine (gem). it was established that induction of grp78, an endoplasmic reticulum chaperone protein, has a direct relationship with the gem-resistant status of pancreatic cancer cell lines and tumors. furthermore, it was found that grp78 could be induced by gem, itself, potentially inducing its own resistance mechanism. sirna knockdown of grp78 expression was able to reverse the gem-resistant status of cell lines. further, it-139, a first in class, ruthenium based compound, was used to target grp78 induction and enhanced the efficacy of gem in vitro and in vivo. mechanistically, it was determined that it-139 prevents the stress induction of grp78, as well as downstream targets p-akt and ire1a. it was also determined that grp78 induction may not be limited to gem, and that dna damaging agents also have the potential to induce the unfolded protein burden in cells, resulting in a subsequent induction of grp78. because grp78 has been connected to poor prognosis across cancer types and treatments, it is possible that grp78 targeting, via it-139, can be used to improve the efficacy of chemotherapeutics in cancers beyond gem therapy in pdac. as building systems grow taller, more lightweight and efficient, they often become increasingly sensitive to the effects of wind. in such situations, habitability limit states govern their design, as wind-induced accelerations increase and become more perceptible to occupants with the potential to adversely affect occupant comfort. in particular, since this limit state involves human perceptions, it can be quite challenging to accurately quantify the level of acceleration that would be acceptable, leading to the lack of a unified standard for design. as the dynamic responses that must ultimately be compared to this ambiguous limit state are characterized by mass, stiffness, and damping, accurate prediction of these parameters also becomes increasingly critical. while mass and stiffness are assumedly readily determined in the design stage, damping continues to elude structural engineers, who remain reliant on rudimentary estimates that are largely based on the building's primary material: steel or reinforced concrete. this often proves problematic as damping is a particularly critical parameter in the habitability design of flexible structures. in fact, full-scale monitoring efforts around the world have shown that many tall buildings exceed accelerations predicted in the design stage and that in-situ damping values are often lower than assumed. this is further compounded when in-situ frequencies are found to disagree with the fe model predictions, which can further contribute to habitability issues. estimating and understanding these dynamic properties is further complicated in the presence of amplitude dependence and complex building behaviors such as coupling. this research addresses the uncertainties associated with the habitability design of tall buildings by viewing the unique insights afforded by full-scale monitoring. this effort begins by offering a pseudo-full-scale evaluation of occupant comfort to better quantify habitability performance under lateral and torsional responses. these full-sale responses are then viewed through the lens of structural system behavior, i.e., the degree of cantilever action displayed by the system, to provide designers with a set of heuristic guidelines to inform a more accurate prediction of the periods of tall buildings in the design stage. by then introducing a new wavelet-based system identification framework, large amplitude full-scale responses are mined to gain greater insight into the level of energy dissipation at critical design limit states that then drives a more robust and effective predictive model for inherent damping based on this system behavior descriptor. the end result of this dissertation is a suite of guidelines, frameworks and models that enables a more accurate prediction and evaluation of habitability performance of tall buildings. we report the first molecular simulation study of 1-n-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate, a widely studied ionic liquid. monte carlo simulations are carried out in the isothermal-isobaric ensemble to calculate the molar volume, cohesive energy density and liquid structure as a function of temperature and pressure. a united atom forcefield is developed using a combination of ab initio calculations and literature parameter values. this forcefield treats the anion hexafluorophosphate as a spherically symmetric interaction site and is later modified to account for the atomistic details of the anion. the results obtained from different forcefields are compared against each other to determine the influence of the molecular representation of the anion on the thermophysical properties of the ionic liquid. the accuracy of the forcefields in predicting the volumetric properties is assessed by a direct comparison of the results with experimental observations. calculated molar volumes (or densities) are within 5 % of experimental values, and a reasonable agreement is obtained between computed and experimental values of the isothermal compressibility and volume expansivity. local structure, presented in the form of radial distribution functions, shows that the anions are found to preferentially cluster in two favorable regions near the cation. we also assess the applicability of the molecular simulations to calculate the henry's constant of gases with a wide range of solubilities. the results of the widom test particle insertion method and expanded ensemble simulations are reported. a comparison between the simulation results and experiments shows good agreement. the study reveals inherent difficulty associated with the widom test particle insertion method in determining the excess chemical potential, while the expanded ensemble method appears to be somewhat better. local organization of solvent molecules about the solute molecules is used to identify interactions governing the observed solubility behavior. in this thesis i collected several long-term projects which were done in a course of seven years. all of them have direct relation to the medically and veterinary important insect species which are able to transmit human and animal pathogens. i hope that this collection of material and observations can serve to the humanity and contribute towards saving lives. the first chapter is devoted to culex quinquefasciatus, southern house mosquito, polytene chromosomes and an investigation of the non-trivial task of obtaining polytene chromosomes for cytogenetic studies. in this chapter, i summarize certain observations about mosquito physiology and how that relates and contributes to highly-polytenized chromosomes of various mosquito tissues. a method of chromosomal preparation is described, tailored specifically to this species. specific conditions were determined which help to raise mosquito larvae with highly polytenized tissues. finally, a maria f. unger morphological characteristic of mosquito larvae is described, which helps to pinpoint a stage of development which is best for obtaining well-developed polytene chromosomes. the second chapter of this thesis is devoted to the results based on the investigation in chapter 1. the making of a standard cytogenetic map for culex quinquefasciatus is described, which is a base for physical mapping and finishing the culex genome assembly, as well as a strong contribution to population genetic studies. next, the application of the new cytogenetic map is demonstrated with the physical mapping of 16 supercontigs and 6 genetic markers. the physical map is integrated with a previously made genetic linkage map based on the physical mapping results, with 13 total matches. the polytene chromosome names are set according to the genetic linkage map. two genome misassembles are found using fluorescent in situ hybridization. the third and final chapter is devoted to the genome annotation of transposable elements. the semi-automated pipeline is developed and tested on several insect-vector species. the evolution of this pipeline is demonstrated with its implementation on pediculus humanus, culex quinquefasciatus, and ixodes scapularis; the beginning work in two phlebotomus genomes and several anopheline genomes is also discussed. in conclusion, by studying insect vectors and zooming in on their genomes, and by learning about their specific features and commonalities, we contribute to the understanding of what makes those organisms efficient vectors and how to control them and the spread of the diseases which they transmit. this dissertation responds to recent christian natural law retrievals by two leading evangelicals—j. daryl charles and david vandrunen—with wider theological, ecumenical, and sociopolitical relevance. charles and vandrunen agree that the natural law is ontologically and epistemologically universal, that it provides initial knowledge of what is "good" and "right" to church and world, and that it gives societies a shared life, morality, and praxis of justice, including rights. yet for charles, redemption in christ affects church and world, while for vandrunen, the world remains in the "noahic covenant," which provides only creational preservation. charles converges with catholic thomism, while vandrunen aims at "a distinctively protestant" natural law. our thesis: charles and vandrunen are right to point to the normative relevance of creation, but dietrich bonhoeffer shows the only life, reality, and good of church and world is the history god elects for creation in directing it in/to christ; this makes direct appeals to natural law problematic and gives ethics and politics a different form—even as it calls into question aspects of bonhoeffer's approach. we pursue this thesis as follows: chapter one outlines charles and vandrunen. chapter two demonstrates the basic thesis over against them. chapter three argues that bonhoeffer's doctrine of creation shows they do not attend properly to divine sovereignty, glorification and election while their focus on natural goods inhibits acceptance of god's permission of suffering. likewise, bonhoeffer's notion of sin problematizes their approach further, while his recognition of the unanticipatable interplay of creation, sin, and christ challenges their treatment of sin/preservation and redemption as "principles." chapter four highlights bonhoeffer's recognition that god commands specific histories to specific people. this, it is argued, demands a different foundation for all ethical-political discourse, even as it calls into question a reconfiguration of the "orders" concept by bonhoeffer. chapters five and six highlight bonhoeffer's argument that god commands a christological lifeform focused on reconciliation and loving response to divine and human others, which enables recognition of god's specified commands and, with a little help, fundamentally repositions the place and meaning of natural goods, rights, duties, and justice. the human-assisted transport of species around the world threatens to profoundly impact the physical, chemical, and biological environment, economic prosperity, and human health. my dissertation investigates the spread and impacts of a group of invasive aquatic invertebrates in stream ecosystems an invasive gastropod (chinese mystery snail), bivalve (zebra mussel), and crustacean (rusty crayfish). these aquatic invasive invertebrates represent organisms with differing life history characteristics and roles within aquatic food webs, which are important to understand when evaluating complex impacts resulting from species invasions. i have examined the extent to which streams serve as pathways for the dispersal of invasive species, over both temporal and spatial scales. i have shown that zebra mussels and rusty crayfish are able to spread through streams, but that populations persist in the highest densities clustered at the lake-outflow and decline with distance downstream. where streams have been invaded, i investigated the impacts on stream food webs and ecosystem processes. exclusion experiments were conducted that showed that rusty crayfish increase the rate of leaf litter decomposition, reduce the abundance of benthic invertebrates, and may also indirectly reduce fish abundances. high densities of invasive species can also accelerate nutrient cycling, as in the case with the chinese mystery snail. biomass-specific release rates show that chinese mystery snails are able to overwhelm nutrient release by native species. finally, i summarized for the first time the state-of-the-knowledge on the distribution of aquatic invasive invertebrates in the u.s. and identified current invasional hotspots. this study shows that the epicenter of aquatic invertebrate invasions in the u.s. is in the great lakes region, likely due to high levels of domestic and international trade. overall, my research suggests that high densities of invasive invertebrates reduce the abundance of native congeners, increase the rate of ecosystem processes, reduce resource availability, and may indirectly affect higher trophic levels. the combined results of my dissertation highlight the importance of invasive invertebrates in altering historical stream food webs and ecosystem processes and the critical need to understand where species have invaded before we can successfully address management options. the reduction of fan noise contributions to the engine noise spectrum is an important area in overall engine design as noise restrictions on commercial aircraft are increasingly stringent from one year to the next. the ability to predict this noise furthers understanding of the noise-producing mechanisms of turbofan engines and may serve to develop noise control and suppression techniques. the current state-of-the-art noise prediction model is a two-dimensional linear cascade model with strip theory. a fully three-dimensional annular cascade model is presented, and comparisons are made against a linear cascade for various sound-generating interactions in the fan section of a high-bypass turbofan engine. first, the applicability of a linear cascade model with strip theory in determining the radiated noise from a realistic rotor wake with a stator cascade is presented. results indicate that the two-dimensional model under-predicts the tonal noise of the annular cascade model. second, the importance of flow turning, which is accounted for in the annular cascade model but not in the linear cascade model, is investigated. it is shown that the mean flow turning strongly affects the resulting intensities of the propagating acoustic modes, therefore indicating that a two-dimensional theory is insufficient. third, as broadband noise has become an important component of the noise spectrum of turbofan engines, a broadband noise prediction model is presented for realistic engine cascade geometries. comparisons between the linear and annular cascade predictions with experiments also indicate that a three-dimensional model is necessary to accurately predict the broadband sound spectrum. finally, a rotor noise model is developed for the annular cascade theory. the significance of the coriolis and centrifugal accelerations, which are not present in the linear cascade rotor formulation, are shown to be important for correctly calculating the aerodynamic and aeroacoustic response. hence, it is determined that linear cascade theory cannot adequately predict the noise spectrum resulting from unsteady disturbances interacting with a rotating cascade. a manuscript of poems. a new approach to model aerodynamic nonlinearities in the time domain utilizing an artificial neural network (ann) framework with embedded cellular automata (ca) scheme has been developed. this nonparametric modeling approach has shown good promise in capturing the hysteretic nonlinear behavior of aerodynamic systems in terms of hidden neurons involving higher-order terms. concurrent training of a set of higher-order neural networks facilitates a unified approach for modeling the combined analysis of flutter and buffeting of cable-supported bridges. accordingly, the influence of buffeting response on the self-excited forces can be captured, including the contribution of damping and coupling effects on the buffeting response. white noise is intentionally introduced to the input data to enhance the robustness of the trained neural network embedded with optimal typology of ca. the effectiveness of this approach and its applications are discussed by way of modeling the aerodynamic behavior of a single-box girder cross-section bridge deck (2-d) under turbulent wind conditions. this approach can be extended to a full-bridge (3-d) model that also takes into account the correlation of aerodynamic forces along the bridge axis. this novel application of data-driven modeling has shown a remarkable potential for applications to bridge aerodynamics and other related areas. recently, we have seen a dramatic increase in the adoption of smartphones. while these new computing interfaces have begun to supplant much of our daily computing needs, individuals use mobile phones in a different manner than traditional computing systems. a better understanding of how these devices are used, and how common usage patterns impact system performance, can provide insights which lead to improvements in system and application design. traditional system monitoring methods can be ported to mobile devices, but smartphones present some unique challenges, such as limited battery power and computing resources.they also provide some unique opportunities, particularly the ability to capture contextual data. smartphones include a wide range of sensors which can be used to provide insights about the context of the activities being monitored. the need for monitoring on mobile devices is not limited to performance modeling, however. smartphones can benefit from real-time monitoring which can be used to facilitate context-aware applications. in this thesis, we introduce a configurable integrated monitoring solution for mobile devices. this service integrates traditional system performance monitoring with user activity monitoring and sensor data to provide a comprehensive monitoring solution. the monitoring service can be configured to the user's needs, allowing users to generate data for offline analysis or receive real-time updates to be utilized by applications. the monitoring service also allows clients to receive notification of custom defined events, which can simplify context-aware development. this monitoring toolset is designed to efficiently integrate monitoring activities to reduce the impact on smartphones' limited resources. the consequences of the seven years' war (1756–1763) prompted a series of changes for the governance of britain's north american and caribbean colonies. territorial expansion added the french and native peoples of canada and eastern louisiana to the british empire. new stipulations on settlement and trade intended to regulate activities of british subjects in these newly acquired territories, and a standing army of british troops remained on the frontier. britain expected the colonies to contribute to these expenses as they matured in their relationship with the metropole. in these new developments existed the proximate pressures that erupted in the american revolution. despite the narrative of british tyranny that revolutionaries developed, complexities and even contradictions defined metropolitan policy-making of this era. this project investigates the interplay between metropolitan intentions for reform and colonial reactions to those policies as tensions mounted between the imperial center and peripheries.imperial reformers did not simply press for greater american standardization and subordination to parliamentary authority. john stuart, the 3rd earl of bute, who served as the first lord of the treasury from 1762 to 1763, advocated an approach that was distinctive from other politicians of his era. his sober-minded attitude toward post-war imperial policy emphasized security, from both external threats and internal instability, as the foundation for long-term colonial growth and development. in effect, this approach amounted to a sort of enlightened absolutism that imagined diverse colonies could be incorporated into the british empire by investment and locally-attuned policies, so that they eventually would contribute to the defense and trade of the whole. however these lofty goals required strict control over defense and policymaking, thereby limiting self-governance. bute's successor, george grenville, soon promoted policies constructed in contradistinction to the approach of bute and his likeminded appointees. ironically, as tensions between the center and peripheries rose in the 1760s, colonials saw bute's and grenville's imperial policies as one in the same, focusing only on the despotic half of bute's legacy. this selective remembrance produced colonial misunderstandings that went into the making of the imperial crisis. aperture filtration refers to the effects of viewing optical wavefront distortions of infinite extent through a finite aperture. if the length-scale of the aberration is larger than this aperture, then the portion of the aberration visible in the aperture at any moment in time will not reach the full magnitude of the aberration seen in its entirety. the aperture acts as a spatial filter, mitigating the effects of large-scale wavefront distortions while having little effect on smaller-scale aberrations, with the dividing line between large-scale and small-scale being the size of the aperture itself. this dissertation presents and charts the development of a set of analytic formulas for judging and predicting the effectiveness of adaptive-optic corrective systems applied over finite apertures. this includes some simplified formulas and benchmarks as guides for the minimum requirements a system will need to meet to be effective, and the maximum degree of effectiveness such systems can reasonably achieve. this paper is an analysis of how gender roles are changing under conditions of occupation and militarization in kashmir and how women are contributing to justice and peace projects through a close examination of the women associated with the human rights and justice campaign of the association of parents of disappeared persons (apdp). over the past two decades in kashmir, state violence in the form of enforced disappearances has brought women, especially the mothers and wives of disappeared men, out from the traditional domestic space of family and community into the public domain of activism and advocacy. the implications of conflict on the agentive role of women have been both limiting and enhancing, depending upon different situations. in this paper i will analyze how apdp has provided a platform to women to perform hitherto unknown agentive roles and has transformed their identity from victims to the human rights advocates and agents of peace. this study will examine the motivations and aspirations of these women, the processes of agency and identity formation that shape their roles in the struggle against disappearances, and the ways in which apdp facilitates, promotes and sustains these roles in the highly militaristic environment of kashmir. the paper will be an important contribution towards understanding how women as victims of state violence under conditions of occupation can contribute to conflict transformation by advancing gendered claims for human rights, justice, and accountability. the paper will highlight their successes and also the obstacles faced by them under the conditions of militarization and how they overcome these obstacles. the paper will demonstrate if and how apdp contributes to the strengthening of democratic culture and rule of law in a conflict zone marked by pervasive impunity. this work is partly based on the field research including personal interviews, participant observation, and analysis of the organizational documents, organizational texts including website and press releases, media coverage and informal interactions carried out in the summer of 2010. being born in kashmir and having lived the experiences and the impact of conflict for most of my life, working as a lawyer and a human rights activist there, i have closely witnessed the devastating effects of the conflict on people's lives on multiple levels and the impossibility of justice from the state institutions. with civil society initiatives in general and human rights activism in particular being viewed as anti-state activities, i personally am in know of the immense hardships that human rights defenders face on ground to carry on their activities. i have also drawn upon my personal knowledge in contributing to the discussions of the kashmiri society in general and of women's experiences in particular. nucleic acids such as dna and rna represent a growing class of potential biomarkers for disease diagnosis and prognosis. early diagnosis could potentially save lives through early treatment while continual prognosis may help to identify the most beneficial types of treatment. to avail the medical community of nucleic acid biomarkers, microfluidics has arisen to supplant traditional instrumentation by offering portable, affordable, and simple microfluidic chips which match the performance of conventional laboratory techniques. however, while substantial progress has been achieved, there remain significant obstacles to full implementation in the clinical setting. two of the most significant impediments are the ability to detect very low levels of nucleic acids and to differentiate between nearly identical nucleic acid sequences. to address these challenges, we designed a new nucleic acid biosensor based on the principles of preconcentration by ion concentration polarization, gel depletion isotachophoresis, and nanoparticle aggregation. in our proof-of-concept study, we detected a 69 base long model dna target down to a concentration of 10 pm using only 2 µl of sample. in further studies, we demonstrated our assay could selectively identify perfectly complementary dna targets by 100-fold more than sequences with only two base mismatches. in the same study, we illustrated the importance of designing selective dna sensors based on nonequilibrium, or kinetic, properties rather than thermodynamic equilibrium properties. it provided a justification of the framework for the design of new dna sensors based on kinetic considerations. in addition to designing a nucleic acid sensor, we adapted our microfluidic chip to the isolation of exosomes which are subcellular species responsible for transporting biomarkers such as microrna in extracellular fluid. because exosomes are common in extracellular fluid and carry notable biomarkers, they make excellent targets for noninvasive detection. therefore, their efficient isolation is of critical importance. conventional techniques are too time consuming, too costly, and yield low recovery rates. using gel filtration and ion-selective membrane, we simultaneously isolated and preconcentrated exosomes for subsequent analysis. our microfluidic chip consistently recovered approximately 70% of exosomes in various media such as buffer and cell media culture. with the development of a new nucleic acid sensor and exosome isolation chip, we move closer to achieving a fully integrated microfluidic chip. the question at the center of this dissertation is: why do militaries change or preserve their doctrine? a new theory, military realism, is proposed to answer this question. military realism argues that major doctrinal changes are instituted by senior military leaders when the theories of victory and mission priorities of existing doctrine do not plausibly address the most dangerous threats. the degree of danger is based on the balance of relative material capabilities. military leaders will make these changes independent of civilian intervention in doctrine. when civilian demands for doctrinal change are consistent with those underway in the military they will accelerate them. however, civilian intervention will not determine the essential characteristics of major doctrinal changes. senior military leaders will also overcome bureaucratic preferences and the traditions of their military culture to implement the required changes. for instance, these leaders will design defensive, rather than offensive, doctrines despite bureaucratic and cultural preferences for offense. this dissertation tests the process and outcome predictions of military realism against a number of alternative explanations though us army doctrine from 1960 to 2008. malaria effects nearly a quarter of a billion people each year. efforts to control the disease have been hampered by the development of drug resistance in the plasmodium parasite. this history of drug selections on the parasite have shaped its genome, enhancing drug resistance and compensating for fitness costs associated with the resistance phenotype. the reshaping of drug resistant parasite genomes will constrain loci particularly important to parasite fitness. consistent with the hypothesis that the genome of the drug resistant dd2 parent has been fined tuned to compensate for the effects of drug resistantce we found that parental allele combinations were found at a greater frequency in the progeny of a genetic cross. growth dynamics of individual parasite clones in mixed infections were further investigated through the development of a quantitative competition assay that allowed for precise quantitifiation of growth dynamics, specifically the absolute quantification of each parasite within a multiclonal infection. in a mixed infection consisting of drug sensitive and drug resistant parasites the application of drug pressure leads to the competitive release of the drug resistant parasite. impact of drug selection on parasite physiology was investigated by coupling global metabolite analysis and qtl mapping. we propose that the endogenous function of pfcrt is the transport of these small peptides from the digestive vacuole of the parasite to cytoplasm. knowledge of the endogenous fuction of pfcrt is necessary to begin to understand how drug resistant parasites may have adapted to compensate for any fitness costs associated with resistance mutations. the compiliation of this work strongly supports the existence of, and identifies key molecular components of, the relationship between past drug selection bottlenecks and growth/fitness traits. these compensatory changes could play critical roles in the origin, persistence and spread of drug resistant parasite populations that have been argued to be more virulent and prone to rapid resistance to new drugs. knowledge of these pathways and mechanisms will also reveal new drug targets, unique to drug resistant parasites, and could facilitate the rational design of drug combinations to thwart the ever-emerging scourge of multi-drug resistant malaria. networks have been used to model a variety of real-world phenomena in many domains. due to limitations of techniques for data collection, traditional network research has typically focused on studying static and homogenous networks. however, many interactions (e.g., social communications or relationships between biomolecules) are evolving and vary in type. with the recent advancement of data collection techniques, increasing amounts of dynamic and heterogeneous network data are becoming available. extracting knowledge from such data is a non-trivial task due to the lack of methods for their analyses and consequently many challenging questions have emerged both on the computational as well as the application side.therefore, this ph.d. dissertation focuses on developing computational strategies for analyzing dynamic and heterogeneous networks and studying their interdisciplinary implications. here, we explore the domains of social and biological networks, although the strategies are applicable to other domains as well. in particular, we are interested in three key questions: 1) will studying data via heterogeneous network analysis result in different findings compared to studying the same data via homogeneous network analysis? 2) how to systematically analyze network data that is both heterogeneous and dynamic? 3) how to efficiently compare two heterogeneous yet related networks via network alignment? to this end, we: 1) integrate heterogenous network data and demonstrate that our approach reveals additional information that is missed by simpler approaches such as homogenous network analysis, by exploring a smartphone study encompassing multiple link types and node traits; 2) introduce a novel computational framework for systematic analysis of dynamic and heterogeneous networks, which we use to link individuals' evolving social network positions with their traits, revealing in the process additional links that are missed by simpler approaches such as static network analysis or that have not been studied to date; and 3) introduce the first ever comparison of two complementary types of network alignment methods (local and global) and propose a new algorithm, igloo (integrating global and local biological network alignment), to reconcile the two, demonstrating in the process the superiority of igloo over each network alignment type individually. agriculture has significantly altered global land cover as well as key biogeochemical cycles such as phosphorus (p). approximately 40% of global land cover is now used for some form of agriculture, and the mining of p for fertilizing crops has significantly increased the amount of bioavailable p in the biosphere. in the midwestern us, the effects of agriculture also include the use of subsurface tile drains to quickly move water away from fields, the predominance of bare fields (i.e., fallow) in the periods between cash crops, and modifying stream channels to move water quickly downstream. combined, these factors enhance the movement of water, p, and sediments to adjacent waterways, often impairing stream function locally, and causing the eutrophication of downstream lakes and estuaries. my dissertation objective was to improve understanding of the movement and cycling of p and stream ecosystem function in agricultural systems. my goal was to evaluate linkages between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, focusing on the role of vegetative land cover, land use and intensity, and floodplains on the movement of p and functioning of streams. i evaluated these linkages by measuring the effect of added land cover on tile drain p export and stream metabolism, and the effect of land use intensity on stream sediment p retention. at the terrestrial-water interface, i measured p retention in floodplains and documented the different forms of p exported from a primarily agricultural watershed during contrasting disturbance events.i found that adding vegetative cover, in the form of winter cover crops, decreases water and p exported from tile drains in spring, and that antecedent precipitation can be an important driver of p export. the addition of vegetative cover also increased stream metabolic rates, which were mediated via reduced sediment runoff and lower water column turbidity. these findings show that the addition of vegetative cover can influence the movement of water, p, and sediments across the terrestrial-aquatic interface. i also found that agricultural land use intensity can decrease p retention in streams, particularly when intensive row crop or pasture are combined with confined animal production (e.g., poultry or dairy cows). i found that restored floodplains in agricultural streams can retain p if they have 1) relatively low fe:p ratios, which improves p sorption capacity, 2) support stable plant communities, and 3) inundate regularly. finally, i found that storms and streambed disturbance can export different forms of p, including significant portions that are bioavailable. my dissertation highlights how and when important linkages between the terrestrial landscape and adjacent waterways control p dynamics and ecosystem function in streams. nearly 500,000 joint replacement procedures are performed annually with the intention to remove damaged tissue and restore normal joint activity to patients suffering from osteoarthritis. current methods of joint fixation are limited to two methods: the use of bone cement to stabilize the orthopaedic implant in the bone and the use of osseointegration to encourage bone to integrate into the implant surface. osseointegrative surfaces have lower rates of revision surgery, making it an ideal fixation method for younger patients. however, current osseointegrative technologies have yet to replace bone cement as a fixation method in total knee arthroplasty, highlighting the need for improved surface designs to compensate for the unique mechanics in the knee. additive manufacturing is a highly tunable method of design that can be applied to orthopaedic implants. however the current timeline for exploring new scaffolds is resource intensive and alternative methods of evaluating design iterations needs to be addressed.here an in situ bioreactor was used for modeling bone formation into porous, additively manufactured scaffolds. scaffolds were inserted into cancellous bone both normal and orthogonal to loading to provide different levels of contact between the two surfaces. initially, an in situ bioreactor model previously used in bone marrow mechanobiology studies was used for evaluating the impact of a wnt agonist and its impact on bone formation. additionally circulating chemokines within the media and the importance of maintaining them within the media was shown to retain normal bone remodeling behavior. osseointegration due to mechanical stimulation of bone marrow alone was also explored. stimulation of bone marrow resulted in bone formation within scaffold pores. when the same orientation was subjected to compressive loading, bone formation did not increase, supporting the need for increased mechanical strain in the bone. finally, a transverse loading model was designed. three different magnitudes of compressive loading were applied to bones with scaffolds inserted orthogonal to loading. strains in the bone were higher and fell within the normal physiological range and resulted in the highest areas of bone measured. interestingly, location along the scaffold surface did not impact overall bone ingrowth into the pores. while overall ingrowth was less than values measured in vivo, depth penetration aligns with current in vivo reports. this is the first time that bone formation has been modeled in situ and provides a unique evaluation method of new orthopaedic scaffold designs. these studies highlight the potential for an in situ method for evaluating everchanging scaffold designs prior to in vivo testing. beyond preclinical testing, this system could further the understanding of osseointegration at a local level, resulting from both mechanical and biochemical interactions, ultimately influencing new implant designs. malaria remains the leading cause of death in children under the age of 5 years in sub-saharan africa. while massive efforts to control the disease have recently been launched leading to a reduction in the number of deaths from the disease, the success of these efforts is at risk of being thwarted by an emerging resistance to the first line anti-malarial drug artemisinin. without a vaccine, the fight against the disease in the foreseeable future will require effective medicines. there is need for new unbiased approaches to understand the basic biology of the parasite, enhance the pace at which new drugs can be discovered and reduce the rate of drug resistance emergence. gene expression is a fundamental step in the decoding of information in dna into phenotypes. therefore, transcriptional profiling provides an unbiased foundation for understanding a wide array of biological processes and complex phenotypes. transcriptional responses in the malaria parasite are poorly understood and their roles, if any in drug resistance and mechanism of action (moa) have been largely inconclusive. this thesis makes key contributions in methods for transcriptional profiling, its application in understanding drug resistance evolution, moa and how complex transcriptional properties are encoded in dna in the human malaria parasite, plasmodium falciparum. specifically, chapter 2 of this thesis develops and validates a custom exon microarray platform for the simultaneous profiling of transcript levels of protein coding genes, non-coding rnas (ncrnas) and transcript isoforms. in chapter 3, this thesis develops a novel computational approach for predicting diverging gene interactions in chloroquine resistant (cqr) and sensitive (cqs) recombinant clones using transcriptional data sets. the diverging co-expression of the chloroquine resistance transporter gene (pfcrt) provides insights into the normal biological functions of the gene and highlights diverging biological processes in cqr and cqs clones, including diverging small molecule responses that are validated by dose response profiling and quantitative trait loci (qtl) analysis. chapter 4 of this thesis performs the most extensive profiling to date of the malaria parasite's transcriptional responses to perturbations using a set of 31 chemically and functionally diverse small molecules in two laboratory clones. the chapter develops methods for minimizing non-specific small molecule effects by normalizing the transcriptional responses of each small molecule to those obtained from other perturbations, enabling the detection of subtle associations between transcriptional responses and small molecule chemistry. the systems approaches developed in the chapter allow the prediction of small molecule effects on specific biological processes, laying a foundation for future prediction of drug moa. finally, chapter 5 examines whether complex gene expression patterns are encoded in promoter sequences and reports associations between the intrinsic properties of promoters (dna rigidity, nucleosome binding potential and sequencing statistics), and dynamic gene expression properties. collectively, the results presented in this thesis offer new ways for understanding malaria parasite biology and uncover an underappreciated complexity of the parasites transcriptional landscape. pacific salmon (oncorhynchus spp.) can have substantial ecological effects on the stream ecosystems in which they spawn and die. during spawning runs, salmon simultaneously excrete nutrients and disturb sediments, effects that have earned salmon labels as resource subsidies and ecosystem engineers. these dual impacts can enhance or reduce the growth and abundance of aquatic biota, but the mechanisms driving variation in responses remain poorly understood. in a meta-analysis of pacific salmon research in their native range, i found that dissolved nutrients and benthic communities respond positively to salmon overall, but that variability is driven by methodological and environmental factors, such as salmon abundance and sediment size. these finding raise questions about the ecological impacts of salmon in introduced regions, where environmental conditions can vary considerably from the native range. the remainder of my dissertation research focuses on the ecological impacts of introduced pacific salmon in spawning streams of the laurentian great lakes. i found that salmon can influence stream ecosystems through interactions with other fish species, biological transport of contaminants, nutrient enrichment, and benthic disturbance. for example, in a lake michigan tributary, over half of the stream-resident brook trout monitored over the course of a salmon run moved upstream upon the arrival of spawners, demonstrating that resident fish may alter their behavior during salmon spawning runs. i also found chemical effects related to salmon. across 10 tributary streams, pollutant concentrations (e.g., pcbs) in stream-resident fish were strongly correlated with inputs from spawning salmon. salmon effects on dissolved nutrients, however, were inconsistent and generally small compared to native ranges. in contrast, disturbance effects were large where salmon were abundant, sometimes reducing the abundance of benthic organisms by an order of magnitude. overall, i found evidence that responses to salmon spawning in the great lakes were strongly driven by environmental factors. weak nutrient responses and strong benthic disturbance appear to be driven by high background nutrients and small sediments, respectively. comparisons of responses between native and introduced ranges suggest that the ecological relevance of animal subsidies can be strongly dependent on environmental conditions. in the great lakes, sediment disturbance, interspecific interactions, and pollutant dispersal are important considerations in assessing the overall ecological impacts of pacific salmon introductions. the continuous increase in demand of electrical energy has become a major concern for many countries. the world has seen a constant search for new alternative energy resources mainly focusing on resources that are environmentally friendly. one technology that goes in that direction is thermoelectrics.thermoelectrics can directly convert a temperature difference into electrical current or vice versa. the mechanism behind such devices is the thermoelectric effect, which is referred to as the seebeck or peltier effect. a good thermoelectric materials needs the simultaneous optimization of three key properties to reach a high efficiency, which can usually be characterized by the figure of merit (zt): high seebeck coefficient, high electrical conductivity, and low thermal conductivity. however, maximizing one property while minimizing the other is a difficult task, because materials tend either to conduct both electricity and heat well, or both poorly.the study of thermal properties plays important roles in many applications as thermoelectricity and the thermal management of electronics devices. while phonons dominate the thermal transport in crystalline semiconductors, electrons are the major thermal and charge carriers in metals.the aim of this thesis is to use both simulation and experimental tools to study the electron and phonon transport properties of crystalline materials such as snse, sns, ges, gese, sns2, snse2, and nbse2. regarding the experimental study, we used the structural and morphological characterization of bulk snse, to determine its microstructure and crystallinity. in addition, thermoelectric properties were measured, where the zt reaches a value of 0.11 at 772 k. moreover, we studied electron-phonon interaction from firstprinciples calculations using density functional theory and boltzmann transport equation to calculate electrical and thermal properties of monolayer snse, sns, ges, gese, sns2, and snse2, at different doping levels, helping evaluate their potential as thermoelectric materials. snse was found with the largest zt. regarding phonon transport, we applied first-principles lattice dynamics and semi-empirical boltzmann transport to study the phonon properties and lattice thermal conductivity of nbse2. our estimation of thermal conductivity of 13.5 w/mk, are in good agreement with the in-plane thermal conductivity obtained from experiments, where the thermal conductivity is measured to be 14 ± 5 w/mk at room temperature. this dissertation is the first biography of the russian ì©migrì© intellectual petr nikolaevich savitskii, one of the founders and the main ideologist of the eurasianist movement, a political movement that developed in the russian emigration between 1921 and 1939. the movement considered the russian revolution not the result of an unfortunate coincidence or even a malicious conspiracy, but rather the logical outcome of russia's historical development and the fatal consequence of the country's europeanization. they viewed the bolshevik revolution as an elemental rebellion of the country's popular masses against unwanted europeanization. although the bolshevik regime explicitly confessed marxism, a european and hence foreign ideology, the eurasianists were convinced that marxism would be replaced by another ideology better suited to russia's nature. the eurasianists committed themselves precisely to the invention of such an ideology, based on russian orthodoxy and the distinctiveness of russia. in their opinion, russia belonged neither to europe nor to asia, but represented a separate world of its own -eurasia. this dissertation makes ample use of all available archival materials relating to the life and work of p.n. savitskii, in russia, france, the czech republic, ukraine and the united states. its main sources basis consists of savitskii's voluminous personal archive in the state archive of the russian federation in moscow and in the slavonic library in prague. the dissertation argues that savitskii's eurasianism was not a stable ideology, but a dynamic set of ideas that went through a number of stages. in the early 1920s it began with an emotional, "utopian" anticipation of eurasia's religious mission as a reaction to the russian revolution. by the end of the decade savitskii tried to prove his earlier ideas "scientifically" and transformed his views into a coherent system. whereas during the early 1930s savitskii's political ideas exhibited certain "liberal" traits, soon after the outbreak of the second world war, he turned into an ardent supporter of the stalinist soviet union. pseudomonas aeruginosa is an aggressive human bacterial pathogen. a mainstay of chemotherapy of p. aeruginosa infection of the skin (following burns) and the lungs (in cystic fibrosis) is the penicillin-class of antibiotics. my research addresses the nexus between the detection of these antibiotics and the initiation of resistance mechanisms by this bacterium. the penicillin antibiotics use their β-lactam functional group to damage the cell wall of the bacterium. the p. aeruginosa bacterium detects this damage by monitoring cell-wall metabolite flux through a superfamily of cell-wall maintaining enzymes, known collectively as the lts. perturbation in this metabolite flux initiates a transmembrane signaling pathway that culminates in the activation of the ampr transcription factor. activation of ampr elicits induction of the ampc β-lactamase, an enzyme that destroys the β-lactam antibiotic. my research characterized the lt enzymes of p. aeruginosa, identified the molecular structure of the cell-wall fragments used by these lt enzymes to detect the presence of these antibiotics, and characterized the transcription factor activation mechanism for the expression of the resistance mechanism. i developed a fluorescent reporter assay to probe the decisive impact of the relationship between the loss of lt function and the efficacy of the resistance mechanism. i evaluated a naturally occurring inhibitor of the lts and demonstrated that it synergizes with clinical front-line antibiotics against p. aeruginosa to affect the rapid cell lysis of this bacterium. this observation affirms the lts as an antibiotic target. these findings substantially advance our understanding of the resistance mechanisms used by bacteria to counter the β-lactam antibiotics. nuclear energy is a source of electricity without carbon dioxide emission. uranium is a major component in nuclear fuel and radioactive waste, and is the heaviest element naturally available in large quantities. uranium is also a major environmental contaminant at many former mine sites, as well as cold war weapons production facilities. hexavalent uranium is relatively soluble in aqueous systems, and its fate is heavily impacted by the details of its complex solution speciation. over the past decade a complex family of uranyl peroxide nanoscale cage clusters have been developed that have potential applications in the nuclear fuel cycle, and may impact the environmental fate of uranium in specific conditions. the behavior of uranyl peroxide clusters, such as solubility, stability, speciation, and aggregation are essential to control clusters in solution. the electrical capacitance of uranyl peroxide clusters in water has been measured, and provides information concerning the electrical double layer formed in dilute cluster solutions. cyclic voltammetry was used to study the relationship between effective capacitance and cluster concentration of uranyl peroxide cluster solutions of u60 (li48+mk12(oh)m[uo2(o2)(oh)]60(h2o)n, m≈20, n≈310 in the solid state). the study indicated that dissociation of counter cations from clusters impacts the capacitance of the resulting cluster solutions.decontamination of soluble uranyl peroxide clusters u60 and u24pp ([(uo2)24(o2)24(p2o7)12]48-) by sba-15, a mesoporous sorbent, was investigated. characterization techniques, including raman spectroscopy, electrospray ionization mass spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (tem), and n2 adsorption/desorption were utilized to analyze the interaction between the uranyl peroxide clusters and sba-15. the sorption kinetics and isotherms were studied to explore and compare the impacts of the structures of these two clusters. the impact of doping uranium in tio2 relative to its photocatalytic performance under natural sunlight was examined. uranium-doped tio2 were prepared, and the crystal structure and oxidation states of uranium were systematically characterized. the influence of the band gap energy and oxidation states of uranium on the photocatalytic performance of rhodamine b degradation was found to be significant. large scale hardware-supported multithreading, an attractive means of increasing computational power, benefits significantly from low per-thread costs. hardware support for lightweight threads and synchronization is a developing area of research. shared memory parallel systems are flourishing, but with a wide variety of architectures, synchronization mechanisms, and topologies. portable abstractions are needed that provide basic lightweight thread control, synchronization primitives, and topology information to enable scalable application development on the full range of shared memory parallel system designs. additionally, programmers need to be able to understand, analyze, tune, and troubleshoot the resulting large scale multithreaded programs. this thesis discusses the implementation of scalable software for massively parallel computers based on locality-aware lightweight threads and lightweight synchronization. first, this thesis presents an example lightweight threading api, the qthread library, that supports the necessary features in a portable manner. this exposes the need for a structural understanding of parallel applications. threadscope, a tool and visual language for structural analysis of multithreaded parallel programs is presented to address this need. a strong understanding of algorithm structure combined with a locality-aware portable threading library leads to the development of three distributed data structures ì¢ ââ' a memory pool, an array, and a queue ì¢ ââ' that adapt to system topology at runtime. such adaptive data structures enable the development of three example adaptive computational templates ì¢ ââ' sorting, all-pairs, and wavefront ì¢ ââ' that hide the parallelism details without sacrificing scalable performance. this paper is a critique of the important contribution that robert j. richards has made to the interpretation of charles darwin's account of the origin of ethics. my aim is to evaluate the adequacy of richards's portrayal of darwin as a moral sense theorist indebted to german romanticism for the philosophical resources required to articulate a fully naturalistic account of the emergence of moral sense. i pursue my aim of critiquing this portrayal through an examination of darwin's approach to what he called, in the final chapter of the descent of man, the 'more interesting' and 'most intricate' problems for the theory of natural selection. the 'more interesting' problem concerns the origin of moral behavior and conscience. the 'most intricate' problem refers to the concept of progress as it pertains to the continued evolution by natural selection of the human species. i show that human development toward moral perfection (the 'more interesting' problem) involves the development of humanitarian culture, and yet it is precisely the development of humanitarian culture that gives rise to the conditions darwin acknowledged as necessary for the continued action of natural selection on the members of any population. this point of tension within darwin's work is a valuable location from which to evaluate the work of robert j. richards and others who have admirably deepened our understanding of the polyphony of sources that jointly influenced darwin's view. the cytoskeleton is a dynamic protein scaffold that regulates many crucial cytosolic processes in animal cells. actin, intermediate filaments, and microtubules (mts) are the three main networks of the cytoskeleton, and the dynamic changes and coordination between these polymer proteins are important for biological functions such as cell migration, cell division, and cell shape maintenance. a large number of proteins have been identified as facilitating the proper regulation of cytoskeletal networks. however, many questions are still waiting to be answered, such as how are the dynamics of each filament regulated in detail? how do these cytoskeletal networks coordinate with each other to perform complicated cellular functions?plus-end tracking proteins (+tips) are a group of proteins that accumulate at the growing ends of mts to regulate their dynamics. over the past 20 years, many +tips have been found, and their roles have been studied. however, it is still unclear how +tips collaborate with each other to facilitate the growth of mts. in addition, studies over the past decade have also found that +tips play a role in regulating the crosstalk between mts and actin, and it has become clear that many biological processes are controlled by this crosstalk. in this dissertation, i will discuss my two key findings and the hypotheses that were drawn from them: (1) a major +tip called clip-170 can induce biomolecular condensate containing other members of +tip network, which leads to the hypothesis that biomolecular condensates play a role in promoting mt polymerization. (2) clip-170 binds directly to actin, and this interaction competes for binding to mts, which leads to the hypothesis that clip-170 may mediate actin-mt crosstalk through the direct binding to actin.the first major question addressed in this thesis is how do +tips regulate mt dynamics through +tip:+tip interactions. +tips interact with each other to form a network through many weak multivalent interactions, hereafter called the +tip network. my work investigates the possibility that the +tip network is not just regulatory network, but a physical network, one that forms a phase-separated structure known as a liquid droplet at the mt plus-end. previously, the goodson lab proposed that the +tip network serves as a physical scaffold to constrain the fragile mt end, thereby promoting mt polymerization and so acting like a polymerization chaperone. the recent explosion of work on liquid droplets suggested to us that the proposed physical scaffold might actually be a liquid droplet. it is difficult to test this hypothesis directly because the small and dynamic nature of the endogenous +tip "comets" makes it hard to study them through microscope-based techniques. therefore, i used superstructures induced by clip-170 overexpression (previously called "patches") as a tool to gain insight into the endogenous +tip network because clip-170 patches are larger, contain other members of the +tip network, and have the potential to reflect the physiological +tip networks.to test this hypothesis that clip-170 patches are biomolecular condensates, we performed experiments to determine whether clip-170 patches have the established hallmarks of a biomolecular condensate. the four common features used to identify biomolecular condensates are: a) elastic deformability of the structures, b) ability to undergo fusion and fission, c) selectivity to include certain biomolecules while excluding others, and d) rapid protein exchange between the droplets and the surrounding environment such as cytoplasm. our results from experiments including video microscopy, immunofluorescence staining, and fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (frap) show that clip-170-induced patches do have the four hallmarks found in other biomolecular condensates. furthermore, our bioinformatic studies showed that clip-170 and other +tips have sequence features common to biomolecular condensates, i.e. multiple protein binding sites and intrinsically disordered regions. these sequence features are conserved evolutionarily, which implies functionally significant roles for these regions. taken together, our results demonstrate that clip-170 patches are biomolecular condensates and raise the possibility that the +tip network may form biomolecular condensates at mt plus ends. we suggest that these condensates serve as a polymerization chaperone to promote mt polymerization.the second major question addressed by this thesis is the potential role of the +tip clip-170 in crosstalk between the actin and mt cytoskeletons. previously, the goodson lab proposed the hypothesis that the +tip eb1 binds directly to actin at actin-rich cortex regions to absorb eb1 from mt plus end onto actin, thereby reducing the stability of mts. it is established that clip-170 binds directly to eb1, and that clip-170 requires the presence of eb1 to track mt plus ends in cells. this close relationship between eb1 and clip-170 made us wonder whether clip-170 can also regulate actin-mt crosstalk through a similar mechanism as previously proposed for eb1. using high-speed cosedimentation assays, we found that clip-170 binds directly to actin. in addition, together with clip-170 fragments and mutants, i found that the clip-170 actin binding surface overlaps with the mt binding surface. my competition assays further demonstrate that the clip-170:actin interactions compete with the clip-170:mt interactions. although we did not see obvious clip-170 colocalization with actin in cells, my bioinformatic studies suggest that clip-170 actin-binding sites are well-conserved throughout a wide-range of species, which implies a functional significance. taken together, our results lead us to propose that actin and mts may compete for binding with clip-170 in actin-rich regions to destabilize mts in these regions, similar to the mechanism previously hypothesized in eb1.in summary, my work in this dissertation has enhanced our understanding of the roles of the +tips in regulating mt dynamics and actin-mt crosstalk. we have shown that the so-called "patches" induced by clip-170 overexpression are biomolecular condensates. this conclusion leads us to propose that the endogenous +tip network at the ends of mts is also a biomolecular condensate, and so could be considered a type of membraneless organelle. these ideas are consistent with the previous work from the goodson lab suggesting that that the +tip network promotes mt growth through its network of physical interactions. we have also determined that actin and mts compete with each other for direct binding to clip-170, and we hypothesize that this clip-170:actin interaction may help control mt dynamics at actin-rich sites in cells. in this study, a novel version of the spatial cuing paradigm is used to directly compare 100% valid, spatial and non-spatial symbolic cues. a variety of setup times, soas, and target displays are utilized in order to thoroughly examine any differences in how space, color, and form symbolic cues direct attention from a cue to a target. this investigation includes both linguistic and non-linguistic symbolic cues. costs for non-spatial cues when compared to spatial cues are best accounted for by a binding hypothesis that posits a necessary binding of location information when non-spatial cues are being used to direct spatial attention. alternative explanations that are addressed include the nature of space (experiment 1), perceptual feature encoding (experiment 2), cue processing (experiment 3), attentional guidance (experiment 4), and object-based attentional selection (experiment 5). the reported findings are also discussed with respect to their significant contributions to research areas in attentional control, visual selective attention, space-based vs. object-based attention, and the nature of space. this project demonstrates the intense symbolic and material engagement of popular english moral drama with the social and economic forces of the emerging capitalist state. challenging long held critical assumptions about the 'morality play's' 'tedious' rehashing of conservative religious doctrine, i argue that moral drama is an intensely political form from its inception, and that playwrights from the late fifteenth century to the height of elizabethan playing use literary and performance conventions to both veil and articulate inflammatory perspectives on social justice, labor, and commercialism. as the nascent state lends increasing support to those on the leading edge of the shift toward market dependency' from the yeomen of rural east anglia to london's merchant-class citizens' moral drama's criticism of this target audience grows more overt. this critique solicits and defines a 'middling' protestant ethos. by closely reading literary and performance conventions, i reveal that the difference between early and late moral drama is best grasped not as the break typically depicted in periodizing accounts but as a proliferation of the spirit of innovation intrinsic to moral drama. chapter one argues that mankind (1465) implicates yeoman allegiance as the decisive factor in a psychomachic battle between 'good,' a nostalgic feudalism, and 'evil,' increasingly monetized market relations. chapter two examines plays by william wager (1558-69) that solicit and materialize an urban merchant class, prescribing casuistic discernment against the lures of capitalist gain. chapter three demonstrates how two chronicle plays, cambises (1561) and horestes (1567) test contrasting theories of state to imagine an economically salubrious solution to social discord that renders christian morality a cultural practice. in chapter four, marlowe's doctor faustus and the jew of malta interrogate the relation of the citizen to his own labor, and the subsumption of that labor to the emerging, market-dependent state economy. by chapter five's every man out of his humour (1599), casuistry has become social judgement and virtue is signified by good taste, as jonson stages a ubiquitous market mentality that infects all social relations. the presence of inexpensive and powerful sensing and communication devices has made it possible to deploy large scale distributed systems for a variety of applications. interactions among different components of such a system include communication of information and controlling dynamical processes, among others. thus, it is important to blend ideas from information theory and control theory to address problems at the core of such distributed systems. this dissertation looks at communication scenarios, in which there are feedback channels available for enhancing communication and control performance over noisy forward links. such feedback can considerably increase the reliability or reduce the complexity of coding schemes that approach capacity. moreover, transmission schemes with feedback can be used to stabilize unstable plants over communication channels, where a sensor transmits the plant state information to a remotely placed controller. we develop transmission schemes for a certain class of gaussian networks with feedback and apply these schemes to obtain sufficient and, in some cases, necessary conditions for stabilizing a plant via a remotely placed controller. specifically, we develop coding schemes for a gaussian relay channel and a gaussian product channel with feedback. the coding scheme for the gaussian relay channel with feedback is based on distributed stochastic approximation algorithms. we consider two topologies for the relay channel: (i) a cascade of two gaussian point to point channels, and (ii) a gaussian relay channel. further, we use the proposed coding scheme to mean square stabilize an unstable discrete-time linear time invariant (lti) system over a gaussian relay channel and derive sufficient conditions for stabilizability. for the gaussian product channel, we concentrate on the feedback stabilization problem. it is known that linear coding schemes may lead to overly restrictive stabilizability conditions in such scenarios. we develop a non-linear quantization-based coding scheme and present the resulting stabilizability conditions. when these conditions are satisfied with equality, the proposed coding scheme transmits data across the product channel at a rate equal to the capacity of the channel; thus, the conditions are necessary as well. we combine coding schemes for the relay channel and the product channel to consider more general network examples, whose achievability and stability results can be obtained using the simpler relay and product channel results derived earlier. in this work a new high-resolution, finite element shallow water model for the region of puerto rico, the u.s. virgin islands, and the caribbean sea is implemented and validated. the model has a spatial resolution of at least 100 m along all coastlines of puerto rico and the u.s. virgin islands, with a finest resolution of 30 m in selected areas. also included in the model is a detailed representation of the reef and mangrove systems that cover the coasts. the model validation included the tidal harmonic constituents, water levels, and currents. a new tidal harmonic constituent data set was produced for this work, which increases the available data of the tidal harmonics in the lesser antilles in particular, providing new information about the tidal dynamics at the interface between the atlantic ocean and the caribbean sea. global atmospheric forcing was used in the model and this increased the accuracy of the model in reproducing the observed tidal constituents, water levels, and currents. the atmospheric forcing especially increased the skill of the model in reproducing the s2 barometric tide in the caribbean sea. water level errors decreased with the inclusion of atmospheric forcing, and highand low-frequency were generated by the model. these oscillations are also present in observations, meaning that the inclusion of the atmospheric forcing resulted not only in more accurate water levels, but in a more accurate representation of the hydrodynamic processes such as seiches. coastal currents were also generated when atmospheric forcing was included. these currents had not being able to being generated previously with tidal forcing only, indicating that coastal currents in puerto rico and the u.s. virgin islands can not be generated by tidal forcing alone. malaria continues to be a major public health issue. 219 million cases and 435,000 deaths were estimated to have occurred in 2017. disease transmission is a complex epidemiological interaction comprising causal factors that are dependent on local conditions; however, the host-vector-parasite association remains constant.this dissertation explored how the genetic and bionomic behaviors of two important anophelines might respond to alternative control interventions in attempts to interrupt sustained malaria transmission.genetically modified (gm) mosquitoes have been demonstrated as a form of innovative vector control. to advance into field trials, a genetic assessment of the target population must be conducted. six anopheles gambiae populations were sampled from the lake victoria basin and sequenced. 5,175 single nucleotide polymorphism (snp) markers were analyzed. principal components analysis (pca) illustrated individuals clustered according to geography with some intersection. genetic differentiation (fst) was variable with inter-island comparisons having the highest values (0.0480-0.0846). estimates of effective size were small (124.2-1920.3). these results indicated that three island populations could be candidates for small-scale field testing of gm mosquitoes.a genome-wide approach to the analysis of population structure has the power to identify genetic processes (such as restricted gene flow or an insecticide-resistant genotype) and the genomic regions that regulate them, providing greater insight into how these mechanisms will impact upon control interventions. a preliminary analysis of 17,757 snps across four an. farauti populations in the southwest pacific confirmed their geographic isolation from each other but also detected a previously unidentified genetic association between, and lack of diversity within, queensland (australia) and vanuatu (pca, admixture). further detailed analysis of the snps contributing to this relationship is recommended.in western province, solomon islands, a proportion of an. farauti mosquitoes, which may be contributing to residual transmission, avoid lethal doses of insecticide from long-lasting insecticidal nets. sugar-fermented yeast was evaluated as an organic source of carbon dioxide (co2) trap attractant to host-seeking and resting mosquitoes alongside human-produced co2 and a control. although the human attracted the greatest numbers (n=349), sugar-fermented yeast (n=210) demonstrated attractiveness, and improvements to the source design i.e. plume composition and delivery, could further enhance its appeal. let the work speak for itself. in this thesis we present the abnnsim toolkit for the simulation of biologically inspired neural networks. this work applies the agent based modeling paradigm to the simulation of biological neural networks, allowing rapid development of models, easy addition of features and a richness of expression that is not available with other tools. the focus of the abnnsim toolkit is modeling neural networks at the network level. this view leads to some loss of fidelity over other computational neuroscience tools, but allows larger, system-level phenomena to be explored. this is motivated by discoveries in the area of complex networks, in their analysis and prevalence in biological systems. these networks have characteristics that are desirable for biological systems: they are resilient in the face of failure, efficient (both in terms of communication cost and speed of propagation) and can be constructed using simple local rules. this thesis describes several methods of developing complex network topologies in neural networks using pruning. throughout the project the agent-based modeling paradigm has been valuable as a vital tool for speeding the development and deployment of simulations of this type. this thesis characterizes the relationship between the geometry of a wireless network and its performance. the geometry of the network is largely influenced by the wireless node locations and the large-scale path loss and in part by fading and the transmit power levels. the performance of a wireless link is governed by interference and signal power which in turn depend on the node locations. interference characterization is important in understanding the performance of a wireless system. but unfortunately the distribution of the interference is known only for few spatial distributions of node locations. more specifically, interference was characterized when the nodes were either distributed as a poisson point process or as a lattice process. but in reality, the wireless nodes may neither be so random nor so regular but somewhere in between. in this thesis the location of nodes is modeled as a general stationary and isotropic point process, and we use stochastic geometry to analyze the interference and outage. we prove that the interference distribution depends critically on the path-loss model under consideration. when the path-loss is unbounded at the origin interference is a heavy-tailed. when the path-loss is bounded, the interference distribution depends on the fading statistics. we prove that the interference has an exponential distribution when the fading is exponential and has a heavy-tailed distribution when the fading is heavy-tailed. this proves that gaussian modeling of interference is not appropriate. we also provide the temporal and spatial correlation of interference when aloha is used for mac scheduling. wireless nodes may cluster because of physical constraints or because of mac scheduling. for example, soldiers (with radios) cluster on the battle field or sensor networks are clustered for energy reduction. but it is not clear if clustering of transmitters is beneficial compared to randomizing the transmissions from the perspective of link outages. we derive the outage probability of a poisson clustered network by obtaining its conditional probability generating functional. it is difficult for the base station in a cellular network to connect to mobile stations on the cell boundary because of the distance and the inter-cell interference. it has therefore been proposed for the base station to communicate with the mobile at the cell use using multiple hops. we use stochastic geometry to analyze the outage probability in a two-hop cellular system. we provide the asymptotic gain of a two-hop system over direct transmission, for three different relay selection schemes. the major emphasis of the thesis is the inclusion of the spatial statistics of the node locations in the performance analysis of a wireless network. to that end we concentrate on effect of the spatial distribution of nodes on the interference distribution. we provide results on the pdf, correlation and the tail behavior of the interference. one of the main contributions of the thesis is the methodology and the tools of analysis that we develop. the thesis concentrates on developing spatial analysis techniques that have wide applicability rather than concentrating on very specific details of a communication system. this dissertation examines the role of the passions in political life in thucydides' work, reading thucydides to a large degree as a political psychologist, focused on what motivates citizens and cities to take the actions that they do. it does so by looking at paradigmatic episodes in thucydides' narrative, namely those episodes that show a link between passions and the city. it concludes that cities are founded to provide for material security but that, once born, they give rise to certain passions that drive the city onward to its growth and eventual decay. there is something ultimately tragic about human life. finally, it examines the relationship of the passions to rationality, concluding that a truly capacious rationality acknowledges the ineradicable element of the irrational in human life. do conservatives take less action for the unfortunate than liberals? we tested this claim by assessing two types of conservatism, economic and cultural, and their relations to just world beliefs, social justice motives, empathy, and taking action for the unfortunate. students, faculty, and staff (n = 317) from several universities took a survey online. economic conservatism scores related to higher just world beliefs and lower social justice motives, empathy, and ultimately, taking less action for the unfortunate. cultural conservatism was positively related to social justice and taking action for the unfortunate. the interaction between economic and cultural conservatism was negatively related to just world beliefs and positively related to empathy and helping the unfortunate. analyses suggest that cultural conservatism moderates the impact that economic conservatism has on these variables. religious beliefs and commandments to help the unfortunate that characterize cultural conservatism worldview may temper economic conservatism's focus on self-interest. northern red oak (quercus rubra l.) is one of the most economically and ecologically significant trees in contemporary forests of eastern north america. despite the importance of this species, little is known about its genetic diversity and population dynamics. in the following set of studies, i investigate the neutral and adaptive genetic variation in q. rubra and present a sequence of the lsc region of its chloroplast. i first investigated genetic diversity and differentiation of 6 populations in the up (the upper peninsula, michigan) and isle royale national park. i found that one of the populations showed low diversity and high differentiation in comparison to the other 6 up sites. i then observed the rangewide genetic diversity and differentiation of q. rubra. i found that the up populations were highly differentiated from the rest of the range and that populations in vermont show high genetic structuring. i used a subset of the populations from the rangewide study to detect evidence of adaptation in cold tolerance genes in q. rubra. i found that ice1 and hos1 showed evidence of past selective sweeps. this is the first study to investigate the population genetics and genomics of q. rubra on a rangewide scale. internal flow represents an important class of fluid dynamics problems involving flow through an object or device with one or more inflows and exit flows. many exact or approximate analytical solutions are known for certain simplified conditions that provides the basis for understanding internal flow physics. this research focuses on two aspects of internal flows: analytical solutions for steady flow and an experimental investigation of unsteady flow.there is no known solution for the general case of steady internal flow. however, certain assumptions sufficiently simplify the problem so that solutions can be obtained. one of these common simplifying assumptions is incompressibility, which limits the applicability of the solution. however, few cases have known solutions for compressible flow. the simplest of these use a quasi-one-dimensional assumption so that the problem simplifies to a single spatial dimension. further, these cases usually only include a single effect of interest, e.g. heat transfer, friction, area change, etc. the present work describes a new, exact, closed-form solution for steady, quasi-one-dimensional, compressible internal flow problems that includes arbitrary forces (including friction), heat transfer, area change, flow non-uniformity, and even multiple inlet/exit flows.the analytical study of unsteady internal flows is significantly more challenging relative to steady conditions. for example, consider internal flow through a component in which the upstream stagnation pressure varies periodically in time. the flow within the volume will have a transient response to the changing inlet condition. however, determining an the "effective response time" is not simple. a somewhat analogous problem can be found can be found in the compressor component of a gas turbine engine. specifically, the problem of non-uniform inlet conditions on a jet engine compressor can be thought of as unsteady internal flow.this work shows the results of an experimental investigation of a transonic axial compressor subjected to an approximate 120 degree circumferential inlet stagnation pressure distortion. the goal of the investigation is to experimentally determine the rotor performance when exposed to the distorted and undistorted inlet flow. measurements of the rotor performance used an inlet rake and stator leading-edge instrumentation. the upstream grid pattern, used to generate the stagnation pressure non-uniformity, was rotated to obtain measurements at different effective circumferential positions. a high sampling frequency stagnation pressure measurement was also used to determine if the rotor was stalled when exposed to the inlet distortion. the resulting rotor performance characteristics are shown for 70%, 90%, and 100% corrected speeds. the distorted and undistorted rotor performance was found to be on two characteristic curves, which were different than the rotor's uniform inlet characteristic. the orbits of the highest flow and near stall conditions were found to be change from the highest flow condition to a near stall condition. it was hypothesized that the orbits are related to the amount of pre-swirl and counter-swirl created by the inlet circumferential static pressure gradient across the distorted-undistorted flow boundary. since 9/11, questions about death, mourning, and memorialization have been thrust to the foreground of american national consciousness, with shortcomings in the paradigm for dealing with death being highlighted by performances of grief on a global stage. contemporary north american poets are rejecting the received freudian-based notion of mourning as a process of relinquishing attachment to the deceased, exploring instead writing's capacity for forging contact with the dead. the impulse to test and affirm the possibility of communicating with the dead has important roots in nineteenth-century american spiritualism, which offered practitioners a 'scientific' approach to spiritual experience by figuring the s&eacute;ance in empirical terms. recourse to pseudo-science to validate spiritual experience is not possible in the twenty-first century as it was in the nineteenth, however, and contemporary poets are pioneering a new spiritualism for the twenty-first century by seeking writerly practices for contacting the dead that yield plausible, positive results. poets like susan howe, kristen prevallet, rusty morrison, mary jo bang, and m. nourbese philip are using the practice of writing as a means of cultivating felt spiritual contact with the deceased, with skepticism and the imperative for plausibility playing a vital role in each of their pursuits. meanwhile, poets such as kenneth goldsmith, claudia rankine, c.d. wright, and nick flynn question the capacity of such practices to contend with large-scale public tragedy, problematizing the individualistic, jamesian approach to spiritual experience that drives solitary pursuits of contact with the dead. all of these works employ experimental methods towards deeply personal ends, evidencing collapse of a longstanding division in american literature that figures experimental writing as abstract and difficult and mainstream writing as emotional and accessible. in exploring how innovative language use fosters connection with the dead, these poets mark out a vital role for experimental writing in twenty-first-century spiritual life in america. by the end of the fourteenth century, the devotional use of images had become a point of controversy in england. although medieval theologians frequently expressed concern about their misuse, images were widely accepted as pedagogical tools, mnemonic devices, and aids to affective devotion. yet late medieval critics of images insisted that vernacular texts were pedagogical tools better suited for the increasingly literate laity. concomitant with this critique of the image was the growth of documentary culture, increasing lay demand for religious materials in the vernacular, and expanded visual devotion. this dissertation examines the status of the image in fifteenth-century religious literature and argues that some authors attempted to adjudicate among these competing sectors in order to explore the changing relationships between images and texts. the literature that resulted from this merger of discourses was marked by both an effort to preserve medieval aesthetic and theological values and an interest in generic experimentation. the first chapter examines thomas hoccleve's representation of the problematics of visual perception. since human sight is fundamentally impaired, hoccleve suggests, it is not sufficient grounds for knowledge. humans need corrective "spectacles," or mediating forms, which facilitate a proper response to the image. sight and "unsighte" thus serve as central analogies for hoccleve's diagnosis of his own epistemological uncertainty and the conflicted religious climate of his era. the second chapter argues that john lydgate's insistence on reading images through the lenses of history and theological exegesis suggests both his unease with unmediated visual experience and his desire to promote an altogether different devotional model for the laityì¢ ââ" an application of the practice of monastic lectio to religious images. the final chapter considers reginald pecock's program for the production and circulation of vernacular religious texts in light of his extended defense of religious images. his position represents a distinctive intervention in contemporary religious debates about lay theological education yet ultimately participates in the displacement of the visual culture which he explicitly defends. thus, in their attempts to explore, defend, and regulate the image through vernacular texts, these writers employ a reformist textual aesthetic distinctive to their fifteenth-century moment. in this dissertation, i explore how late medieval venetian merchants developed unique mentalities about space, geography, time, and trust in their sense of identity and community. the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries saw the advent of sedentary trade, wherein merchants lived abroad for longer periods of time than ever before, a transition away from travelling constantly with their wares. this transition, i argue, led them to become migrants who participated in and sustained long-distance networks and communities. i examine two types of "public" primary sources written by venetian merchants between 1204 and 1453: merchant manuals of comparing weights, measures, exchange rates and common goods sold between regions, organized geographically, and the crusade propaganda letters of marino sanudo torsello. with these two genres, i explore how merchants interacted with others in their various long-distance communities both within and beyond merchants' networks. as a result of that participation, they adopted new relations to communication and information that in turn informed a wide variety of attitudes: they focused on the value of connections between regions and shifted their perspectives of the mediterranean to look at the way different cities tied to one another; their use of merchant manuals to spread information also predicated spreading shared senses of space and imaginary geographies. they saw trade as a vehicle for sustaining non-mercantile networks through self-interested mutual goals among disparate regions, as well as christendom as a whole. they transformed trade into an act of christian service. as they engaged with long-distance communication that overlapped past, present and future, they altered their relationship with time: merchants hoarded knowledge from the past and turned to astrological divination of the future to utilize every tool in their arsenal for gathering information. finally, the importance of communication in their networks led them to place exceptional importance on access to and control of information: they emphasized authority and trust derived from the experience of travel and the prestige of long-distance specialization. this dissertation examines the relationship between cultural processes and political institutions. scholars have studied culture either as a prerequisite of state formation or as an instrument of the state. little research has been done focusing on the role of culture in the creation of political ideas, such as a transnational block. further, there is a need to understand the way ideas, as cultural products, become institutionalized. this study focuses on the articulation between center and local (borderlands) practices and discourses in the creation of a transnational block in the southern cone, mercosur, from 1985 to 2000. it analyzes the processes of production, selection and institutionalization of ideas that give meaning to mercosur in the center and in the borderlands. this study also challenges theories that explain the construction of a common market as a top-down process, directed by central elites. rather, this study shows that peripheral practices and discourses, specifically border discourses, shape the construction process. further, it disputes shils (1972) claim that in modern society center and peripheral discourses have become more integrated. based on information from interviews and from systematic archival research in newspapers and other printed materials, this study compares the processes of cultural innovation originated in three argentinean border cities -posadas, paso de los libres and concordia-with buenos aires as the center of power. it shows that, despite the relative lack of institutionalization at the national level and beyond the sore relationship between argentina and brazil governments, people who live in the shared borderland between these two countries are taking cross-border actions in order to consolidate the regional block. unlike shils' theory, this dissertation shows that in modern societies, borderlands have an autonomous position in regard to the center, and that can constitute a prolific source of cultural innovation. in this dissertation, i argue that the second-century bishop irenaeus of lyon should be understood within the context of greco-roman rhetorical traditions. irenaeus saw deep continuities between the persuasiveness of the rhetor's word and the persuasiveness of god's word in the scriptures, in the person of christ, and in the apostolic tradition. this rhetorical focus allows irenaeus to harmonize the old and new testaments and the many voices within those testaments. with the study of rhetoric, i examine irenaeus's theology under five headings: martyrdom, genealogy, apocalypse, prophecy, and eschatology. i then connect these five headings to the five moments in a rhetorical speech: prooimium, narratio, probatio, refutatio, and recapitulatio. this study investigated the role of labeling set sizes in the development of children's understanding of cardinality. increasing children's ability to label set sizes without counting may accelerate development by promoting analogical reasoning (mix et al., 2012), or it may delay development by decreasing the immediate need for an abstract understanding of cardinality (piantadosi et al., 2012). 107 preschoolers were randomly assigned to: (a) count-and-label, wherein children spent six weeks learning to both count and label sets; (b) label-first, wherein children spent three weeks learning to label set sizes without counting before three weeks of count-and-label practice; (c) print referencing control. both counting conditions improved understanding of cardinality indirectly by increasing children's ability to label set sizes without counting. there was an additional direct effect of the count-and-label condition on children's understanding, highlighting multiple pathways of development in the acquisition of number concepts. population replacement strategies for mosquito-borne disease transmission control require spreading anti-pathogen effector genes into vector populations. effective large-scale population replacement strategies will require development of reliable mechanisms for the biological introgression of the effector gene. meiotic drive is the process that causes one gamete type to be under or over represented following gamete formation during meiosis and has potential as a tool to drive novel genes into feral populations. however, the genetic basis for its effects has not been investigated. therefore, we need to understand the molecular mechanisms for meiotic drive. my first aim was to investigate the meiotic drive system of ae. aegypti-specific cdna expression profiles. cdna libraries were prepared from testes from an aegypti meiotic drive carrying strain (t37) and a strain sensitive to the driver (red), and i then used suppression subtraction hybridization techniques to enrich for meiotic drive carrying testes-specific transcripts. primary libraries showed tissue-, stagespecific gene expression such as reproduction and larval development while the subt37 transcripts were associated with signal transduction, development, reproduction, metabolic process and cell cycle functions. further, as observed with meiotic drive systems in drosophila and mouse, a number of these genes were associated with signaling cascades that involve the ras superfamily of regulatory small gtpases. the second aim describes genetic mapping of the meiotic drive gene. about 5% of the backcross population showed a normal sex ratio (p<0.05). four markers showed inheritable codominant in the family. the meiotic drive gene is mapped on chromosome 1, flanking sscp marker (lf159) and microsatellite marker (446gaa). the d locus maps 6.5cm and the 4 markers span 16.5 cm. the order of the markers and the genetic distance are in agreement with the well known composite map. the third aim in this dissertation describes mapping transcripts statistically significant for t37 expression, based on whole transcriptome microarray analysis, to pathways by gene function and subsequent construction of gene networks. apoptosis and immune response pathways were highly ranked in this study. because the meiotic drive gene is located on chromosome 1, genes located on known genome scaffolds for chromosomes 2 and 3 were excluded from detailed analysis. according to the pathway analysis, chromosome 1 enriched genes were selected and validated by qrt-pcr. the interconnection topology of the computing nodes in a distributed system plays an important role in the way that jobs should be scheduled and allocated. in this work, i address two resource allocation problem. the first problem is topology-aware job scheduling and placement problem in high performance computing (hpc) systems, where a 3d torus-based interconnection topology is used. the second problem is networked virtual machine (vm) and job placement in edge cloud systems, in which a two-layer star topology is applied in the considered edge cloud architecture.for the first resource allocation problem, i address the topology-aware job scheduling and placement problem in a 3d torus-based hpc system, with the objective of reducing system fragmentation and improving system utilization. firstly, for the job scheduling problem, i propose a packing-based job scheduling strategy, which reduces the external fragmentation caused by using the first come first served (fcfs) + backfilling strategy. secondly, i study the first case of job placement problem, where each job is allocated a convex prism shape. i propose a job placement algorithm based on a local migration and a global migration process, which aims at reducing the internal and external fragmentation in the job placement process. thirdly, i study the second case of job placement problem, in which the shapes allocated for communication non-sensitive jobs are not limited to convex prisms. i propose two shape allocation methods to determine the topological shape for each input job, including a zigzag allocation method for communication non-sensitive jobs, and a convex allocation method for communication sensitive jobs. after that, i propose a communication-aware job placement algorithm including a target bin selection method and a bi-directional job placement method to reduce both the internal and external fragmentation in the job placement process. the evaluation results validate the efficiency of my proposed strategies and algorithms in reducing system fragmentation and improving system utilization.for the second resource allocation problem, i address the networked vm and job placement problem in the edge cloud system. firstly, for the homogeneous edge cloud system, i propose one optimal algorithm to obtain the maximum number of accepted vms into the system, and then design another optimal algorithm to minimize the total inter-node communication cost in the homogeneous edge cloud system. secondly, for the heterogeneous edge cloud system, i propose one optimal algorithm to obtain the maximum number of accepted vms into the system, and then design another algorithm to minimize the total inter-node communication cost in the heterogeneous edge cloud system. thirdly, i study the job placement problem under the multi-tenant scenario, which is np-hard. a heuristic algorithm is proposed to give an efficient solution. the evaluation results validate the efficiency of my algorithms. ferromagnetic semiconductor alloy (ga,mn)as is studied using different fabrication methods, including doping. all (ga,mn)as samples were grown by either low temperature molecular beam epitaxy (lt-mbe) or ion implantation followed by pulsed laser melting (ii-plm). the structures of the samples are as follows: (i) (ga,mn)as /(al,ga)as heterostructures and (al,ga)as/(ga,mn)as/(al,ga)as quantum wells modulation-doped by be atoms in (al,ga)as layers; (ii) (ga,mn)as epilayers grown on gaas substrates by either lt-mbe or ii-plm; (iii) si-doped (ga,mn)as films grown on gaas substrates. first, we study how the ferromagnetic coupling in (ga,mn)as films is determined by mn spins and holes using the modulation-doped (ga,mn)as/(al,ga,be)as structures. at small values of hole concentration p the curie temperature tc of (ga,mn)as is seen to increase with increasing p, as expected from the p-d zener model. however, as p continues to increase, this trend is reversed: at some point tc begins to decrease, and eventually the ferromagnetism of (ga,mn)as disappears altogether, in stark contrast with the p-d zener model. mechanisms which can lead to this behavior are discussed. second, we study the effect of by mn interstitials and as antisites (defects which are inherent to lt-mbe-grown (ga,mn)as) on the magneto-crystalline anisotropy of this alloy; and we study the intrinsic magnetic anisotropy of (ga,mn)as using a nearly-free-standing ferromagnetic (ga,mn)as layers formed by ii-plm where these defects are virtually absent. in qualitative terms the material formed by ii-plm exhibits all magnetic anisotropy features commonly found in (ga,mn)as films fabricated by lt-mbe. quantitatively, however, magnetic anisotropy of ii-plm (ga,mn)as is dominated by cubic anisotropy terms, which we attribute to smaller strain in the ii-plm material due primarily to the absence of mn interstitials. one will note, however, that the ii-plm (ga,mn)as also exhibits a weak but finite uniaxial in-plane magnetic anisotropy similar to that observed in lt-mbe (ga,mn)as, the origin of which is not yet understood in either of these materials. last, we also investigate the effect of donor doping on ga1-xmnxas films using si. si acts as a compensating donor for the mn acceptors in ga1-xmnxas alloys. for a ga1-xmnxas alloy with low mn content (e.g., x = 0.033) the presence of si decreases tc compared to undoped ga1-xmnxas. at higher mn concentrations, however (e.g., for x > 0.10) we find that si doping has the desirable effect of improving ferromagnetic properties of ga1-xmnxas, including a significant increase of tc. although si doping decreases p in ga1-xmnxas, interestingly, we find that si doping increases hole mobility at higher mn concentration (e.g., x = 0.16). we ascribe this hitherto unknown effect to the effect of si on the relative occupancy of holes in the impurity band. we study a family of shallow water wave equations called the b-family equation. known for having multi-peakon solutions, this family includes the camassa-holm equation and the degasperis-procesi equation as its most notable and only integrable members (using the perturbative symmetry definition). we show that the periodic and non-periodic cauchy problem for the b-family equation is well-posed in sobolev spaces with exponent greater than 3/2. moreover, we find that the corresponding data-to-solution map is continuous on sobolev spaces but not uniformly continuous. we prove that this map is not uniformly continuous using approximate solutions together with delicate commutator and multiplier estimates. the novelty of the proof lies in the fact that it makes no use of conserved quantities. lastly, given a weaker topology, we show that the data-to-solution map is holder continuous. addiction is killing our country. we are failing to address the many shortcomings in the treatment, definition, and conceptualization of substance abuse disorder. our failure to successfully to teach and therefore habituate stress management skills during the recovery process is the locus for many of the challenges individuals struggling with addiction recovery face.this thesis outlines the pulse system, a wearable biometric sensor and user experience intended to help individuals in recovery painlessly integrate box breathing exercises into their stress management regiments. pulse aims to habituate breathing exercises as coping mechanisms, provide contextual information regarding stress, and expand upon existing community-oriented treatment models. this system seeks to result in better recovery outcomes. though, more research and development needs to be done. real-world networks evolve over time via the addition or removal of nodes and edges. their evolution is often constrained by the cost and the capacity of the network elements. the degree of the node representing the node's capacity to form links is one such dynamical constraint. the degree is simply the number of connections the node has. maintaining connections bears a cost, due to which the process of creating new connections in physical networks is often accompanied by loss of connection between existing nodes. all current network models largely ignore this mechanism despite the fact that it is prevalent, as we show.we introduce a novel family of network growth models called 'degree preserving network growth' (dpg), in which new nodes join the network over time without changing the existing node's degrees. it is a simple stylized model that captures degree preservation and its consequences in network evolution. key aspects of this model are mathematically tractable, which allows us to understand the rich network structures generated by dpg that are significantly different from those produced by existing models.we show that dpg can generate the exact structure of most real-world networks despite the np-hard complexity of such a problem. moreover, dpg can grow scale-free networks with arbitrary exponents, used extensively in network studies. it does so without any explicit or implicit preferential bias, unlike in all other popular models. dpg can be used to grow networks with desired higher-order metrics (other than the degrees), allowing applications, for example, in epidemic control via network immunization, viral marketing, knowledge dissemination, and the design of molecular isomers with desired properties. using dpg, we have also discovered a novel connection between prime numbers and graph theory. two-component gene regulatory systems in bacteria play important roles in regulating expression of genes encoding bacterial toxins, along with other virulence factors that interact with the host and promote survival of bacteria in vivo. in group a streptococcus pyogenes (gas), ∼13 such regulators are known. the most well studied of these is the control of virulence (cov) intracellular responder (covr)/extracellular sensor (covs) system (covrs), in which environmental changes are "sensed" by the gene product (covs) of covs and transmitted to its cognate protein product of covr (covr) via phosphorylation-dephosphorylation. covrs regulates a large number of gas virulence genes involved in invasiveness and antiphagocytosis, e.g., cysteine protease (speb), fibronectin binding protein (sfb1), hyaluronic acid capsule (hasabc), and streptokinase (sk). deletion of covrs derepressed the expression of these virulence factors and enhanced the survival of gas in murine infection models. however, specific mechanisms by which the covrs system regulates the phagocytosis of gas in humans are incomplete. the goal of this study is centered on examining the role of the covrs system in regulating complement-mediated opsonophagocytosis of gas using both in vitro and in vivo systems.evasion of complement-mediated opsonophagocytosis enables gas to establish infection. in general, gas inhibits the amplification of the complement cascade on its cell surface by facilitating the degradation of c3b, an opsonin, to an inactive product, inactivated c3b (ic3b), in a step catalyzed by factor i (fi) and its cofactor, factor h (fh), with or without the participation of human host plasmin (hpm). using gas strain ap53, which strongly binds host human plasminogen/plasmin (hpg/hpm), this study identified a key role for covrs in the regulation of opsonophagocytosis of gas by the host complement system. ap53 cells displayed potent binding of the host complement inhibitor, factor h (fh), which concomitantly led to minimal c3b deposition on ap53 cells. this resulted in weak killing of the bacteria by human neutrophils and a corresponding high death rate of mice after injection of these cells. ap53 recruits fh to its cell surface via a fh receptor, which is transcriptionally controlled by covrs. further, the data show that both fi-fh and hpm sequentially cleave c3b. whereas fi-fh proteolytically cleaves c3b into ic3b, hpm catalyzes cleavage of ic3b into multiple smaller peptides. in addition, the role of covrs system was also examined in the regulation of htpa in the ap53 strain. htpa is a novel histidine triad proteins (htp) that is thought to be regulated by covrs in other strain (m23nd), participate in zinc binding, and considered as an effective vaccine candidate against gas infections. interestingly, our data demonstrate that while htpa has a role in avoiding the host innate immunity, it is not regulated by covrs in the ap53 strain. taken together, these results indicate that covrs is a critical transcriptional regulator of genes directing gas killing by neutrophils and thus protection of bacterial cells from the host complement response. is it ever permissible to tell a lie? what if no one is harmed as a result? what if it is necessary to save someone from danger? what does it mean for a lie to be permissible? permissible according to whom? or to what? do all lies violate the commandment 'you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor'? what does it mean to be truthful? am i still being truthful if i try to mislead while technically adhering to the truth? how should we interpret the crisis of truth in the 21st century?this project offers answers to these and related questions by viewing them through an unlikely lens: the writings of the medieval scholastic theologian, thomas aquinas. the project intervenes in current debates among moral theologians and philosophers, which focus almost exclusively on the question of whether lying always violates a moral norm. i draw upon aquinas's insights to argue that we must first develop a coherent notion of truthfulness before we can assess the morality of lying. this approach generates a more precise taxonomy of speech acts, demonstrating the ways in which these acts and their corresponding habits are opposed to the virtues of truth and justice. the dissertation unfolds in two parts, each containing three chapters. in part one, i offer an interpretation of aquinas's position on lying, as a vice opposed to the virtue of truth. interpreters of aquinas have paid insufficient attention to the virtue of veracitas, or truthfulness, and i demonstrate the creative ways in which he draws upon antique sources – primarily augustine, aristotle, and cicero – to develop this concept as a new approach to the problem of lying and the interpretation of the eighth commandment of the decalogue, "you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." part two transitions from interpretation of aquinas to constructive engagement with contemporary ethics and moral theology. i develop and expand upon aquinas's account of truthfulness in a way that accounts for the complexities of our contemporary context, and i conclude that preserving the virtue of truth means nothing less than preserving our own humanity. neptunium incorporation into uranium(vi) compounds has been proposed as a potential means of mitigating its release from a spent nuclear fuel repository if the waste containers are compromised. many studies have demonstrated the feasibility of the direct substitution of np(v) for u(vi); however, the underlying factors that affect neptunium uptake are not well understood. the objective of this research is to study the factors that influence neptunium incorporation, particularly charge-balancing mechanisms and structural considerations, in order to gain a better understanding of the fundamental chemistry of this process. the compounds investigated in this work include cs[(uo2)(hseo3)(seo3), cu[(uo2)(po4)]2?nh2o, na4[(uo2)2(si4o10)2](h2o)4, (nh4)4[(uo2)5(moo4)7](h2o)5, and (nh4)2[(uo2)6(moo4)7](h2o)2. neptunium incorporation was studied in situ during the synthesis of each compound. the doped compounds were studied by single crystal xray diffraction, ultraviolet-visible-near infrared spectroscopy, and laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry. in the cases of cs[(uo2)(hseo3)(seo3)] and cu[(uo2)(po4)]2?nh2o, np(vi) was identified in the reaction products despite starting the reactions with np(v). cs[(uo2)(hseo3)(seo3)] had the highest uptake of neptunium to date with up to 16% substitution and was also the first time a structural change occurred. the role of different charge-balancing mechanisms was studied in cu[(uo2)(po4)]2?nh2o and na4[(uo2)2(si4o10)2](h2o)4; however, the results of these experiments were inconclusive due to the formation of np(vi) in the former and poor la-icp-ms data in the latter. incorporation in (nh4)4[(uo2)5(moo4)7](h2o)5 and (nh4)2[(uo2)6(moo4)7](h2o)2 was compared to study how the extended structure of the host compound affects neptunium incorporation. more np(v) was present in the latter, which adopted a more dense framework structure. as the understanding of the factors that affect neptunium incorporation continues to improve, the future of this research needs to evaluate how incorporation affects the properties of the uranyl host compound, which will have a strong impact on mitigating the release of neptunium from a repository. life evolved over many years, from simple replicating molecules, to complex multicellular organisms. two key mechanisms for the progression towards complexity are cooperation and specialization. microbes are ideal for studying how this progression might unfold. on their own, microbes are simple unicellular organisms. however, through cooperative interactions, they can perform many remarkable tasks and can begin to resemble complex life. understanding how such interactions are formed can also provide insight in how they can be controlled to better suit our needs. in this thesis, we investigate how physical forces influence the evolution of microbial populations and how these processes can be utilized to control evolution.we begin by studying a simple system in which microbes interact through two secreted substances in a fluid environment. microbes and their secretions are subject to the physical forces of diffusion and advection. we find under certain regimes, microbes form aggregates via the mechanism of a turing instability. furthermore, these aggregates grow and fragment to produce new, identical structures. when adding a flow velocity, we find the fluid shear enhances the group fragmentation rate and helps to limit the spread of deleterious cheating mutations.next we explore the interplay of cooperation and parasitism in motile strategies of swimming microbes. starting with the physics of flow, drag, and aggregation, we draw ecological and evolutionary implications on the emergence of social and anti-social behavioral strategies in microbial swarms. through our first-principle simulations, we find that when nutrients are distributed at short distances, microbes evolve to be non-motile. at intermediate nutrient distributions, slow microbes evolve to hitchhike on faster ones, leading to a tragedy of commons where there are no longer fast microbes left to exploit. finally, when nutrient sources are distributed far apart, fast microbes evolve to adhere to each other, and cooperate to reduce their hydrodynamic drag, benefiting the whole population.following this we return to our initial model to explore how we can control evolution to better suit our needs. to this end, we study the effects of added chemical perturbations and domain geometry on the social evolution of microbes. lastly, we introduce an added public good to our model to investigate the evolution of specialization. we find physical factors such as diffusion, flow patterns, and decay rates are as influential as fitness economics in governing the evolution of community structure. reproducibility, a main principle of the scientific method, has historically depended on text and proofs in a publication. however, as computation pervades science and changes the way how research is conducted, relying only on the experimental results in a publication cannot guarantee reproducibility. the execution environment, in which the results were generated, is another important ingredient and must also be preserved to reproduce the results. unfortunately, execution environments for scientific work are often fragile and too complex to be well understood by researchers, let alone to be preserved. this dissertation proposes two broad approaches for improving the reproducibility of scientific applications and explore their feasibility and applicability for both single-machine scientific applications and complex scientific workflows. the first approach wraps the minimal execution environment of an application into an all-in-one package. the second approach specifies the execution environment from hardware, kernel and os all the way up to software, data and environment variables in an organized way, preserves dependencies in the unit of basic os image, software and data, and combines all the dependencies at runtime using mounting mechanisms. for each approach, a prototype was implemented and the following three aspects are explored: what to preserve, how to preserve and how to reproduce. the time and space overheads to preserve and reproduce applications, and the correctness of preserved artifacts are evaluated through applications from high energy physics, bioinformatics, epidemiology and scene rendering. the evaluation results show that both approaches allow researchers to reproduce an application and verify its results. however, the second approach avoids storing shared dependencies repeatedly and makes it easier to extend the original work. this work makes its contribution by demonstrating the importance of execution environments for the reproducibility of scientific applications and differentiating execution environment specifications, which should be lightweight, persistent and deployable, from various tools used to create execution environments, which may experience frequent changes due to technological evolution. it proposes two preservation approaches and prototypes for the purposes of both result verification and research extension, and provides recommendations on how to build reproducible scientific applications from the start. antimagnetic rotation in weakly deformed nuclei pd100,101, and chiral rotation in triaxial nuclei nd135,136 have been investigated by means of gamma-ray spectroscopic measurements. these two modes of rotation are quite different from 'standard' rotational motion observed in well deformed nuclei. in these new modes, the total angular momentum either originates purely from a few particles in high-j orbitals, or these orbitals couple to collective motion of a triaxial core. two cascades of four 'rotational-band-like' transitions were observed in pd100 and pd101, respectively, and have been proposed as corresponding to antimagnetic rotation, based on the observed spectroscopic properties and a comparison with calculations in the configuration-dependent cranking nilsson-strutinsky formalism. two delta(i)=1 bands with close excitation energies and the same parity were observed in nd135. these bands are directly linked by delta(i)=1 and delta(i)=2 transitions. the chiral nature of these two bands is confirmed by comparison with three-dimensional tilted axis cranking calculations. this is the first observation of a three-quasiparticle chiral structure and establishes the primarily geometric nature of this phenomenon. although there are no chiral partner bands observed in even-even nucleus nd135 from our data, tac calculations indeed give chiral solutions related to several delta(i)=1 bands in the nucleus nd136. in mathematics, one often tries to classify some collection of objects up to isomorphism. in mathematical logic, we can explore the complexity of that classification. a structure consists of a universe and an interpretation of a language, where the language has symbols representing constants, operations, and relations. we consider only structures whose universe is a subset of $omega$, and we define a class as a collection of structures all with the same language and closed under isomorphism. one way that the complexity of the classification problem can be explored is by looking at the index set for a computable structure. we consider indices for computable structures, and write $mathcal{a}e$ where $varphi_e = chi{d(mathcal{a})}$. the index set for $mathcal{a}$ is the set of all indices for computable isomorphic copies of $mathcal{a}$. we write[i(mathcal{a}) = { e : mathcal{a}e cong mathcal{a}}.]in the present work, the relationship between the complexity of the index set for a structure and the complexity of a sentence describing the structure (called a scott sentence) is explored. we find an example of a structure for which there is not a match between the complexity of the index set and the complexity of a scott sentence. we also examine the possible complexities of an index set, and give results characterizing when a particular class will have an index set that is $m$-complete at a certain complexity level.another idea explored in the present work is that of comparing the complexity of the classification problem for various classes of structures, using the notion of a turing computable embedding.oindent extbf{definition}.a turing computable embedding of $k$ into $k'$ is an operator $phi = varphi_e$ such that egin{enumerate}item for each $mathcal{a}in k$, there exists $mathcal{b}in k'$ such that $varphi_e^{d(mathcal{a})} = chi{d(mathcal{b})}$, anditem if $mathcal{a},mathcal{a}'in k$ correspond, respectively, to $mathcal{b},mathcal{b}'in k'$, then $mathcal{a}congmathcal{a}'$ if and only if $mathcal{b}congmathcal{b}'$. end{enumerate}oindentthe ordering of classes of structures that arises from this embedding allows us to compare the complexity of the classification problem for those classes.in the present work, we give characterizations for the classes of structures that embed into the class of equivalence structures, as well as into the class of reduced abelian $p$-groups of various lengths. cognitive theories of depression posit that maladaptive information processing increases the risk for depression recurrence. there is increasing theoretical and empirical support for the executive control of emotional information as a vulnerability factor for chronic depression. in particular, biased executive control characterized by reduced processing of positive relative to negative material in working memory may increase the risk for future depressive episodes. understanding the executive control of emotional information in depression is crucial because biases in executive control may underlie information processing biases. furthermore, studies that examined biases in remission allow for the identification of potential risk factors for recurrence, which is critical given the recurring nature of depression. in this investigation, findings from behavioral studies that compared the executive control of emotional information between people with remitted major depressive disorder (rmdd) and healthy people were examined. response times (rts) and error rates were examined as outcome variables, and aspects of clinical features, participant characteristics, and study design were examined as moderating variables. of the 767 articles retrieved through databases and hand searches, 33 articles met the inclusion criteria. a total of 1457 rmdd participants and 1144 healthy control participants were included in the analyses. significant differences (small effect sizes) were observed for the difference score between negative and positive trial rts between the two groups and between the negative and positive trial rts within each group. specifically, the difference in rts between negative and positive stimuli was larger in participants with rmdd than in healthy control participants. furthermore, both the rmdd group and the healthy control group were slower to process negative than positive stimuli, but this difference was magnified in the rmdd group. such patterns of executive control bias may lead to preferential processing of negative over positive information in working memory. this imbalance may then lead to other negative information processing biases and emotion dysregulation, thereby increasing the risk for depression recurrence. implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed. the pacific end centers around a young man who returns to his hometown and grapples with the aftermath of his first same-sex relationship. the novel employs parallel timelines to delve into complex issues related to love, sexuality, memory, family, trauma, and healing.the protagonist, caleb, is confronted with his past as he returns to his hometown after several years of being away. through vivid and introspective storytelling in the second person, the novel delves into caleb's inner journey as he navigates the emotional fallout of this relationship that ended in heartbreak. the parallel timelines interweave caleb's past and present experiences, allowing readers to witness his growth and self-discovery in a non-linear manner.the novel delves into caleb's struggles with societal expectations, internalized homophobia, and the impact of his first love on his sense of self. it also explores the complexities of memory and how our perceptions of past events can evolve over time. caleb's relationships with family and friends are also examined, as he confronts their reactions to his sexuality and grapples with the desire for acceptance and understanding.furthermore, the novel delves into the themes of trauma and healing, as caleb confronts his emotional wounds and learns to reconcile with his past. through self-reflection and introspection, caleb embarks on a journey of self-acceptance, forgiveness, and healing. concerns of diminishing fossil fuels and global warming have drawn worldwide attention to the development of renewable energy resources. biomass is a promising alternative due to its abundancy, low cost, co2 neutrality, and catalytic transformation to industrially valuable chemicals. furfural is a platform molecule that serves as a biomass feedstock to produce multifunctional chemicals and fuel-like products through hydrogenation. commercially, copper chromite-based catalysts selectively hydrogenate furfural to furfuryl alcohol. however, the toxicity of chromium and catalyst deactivation have inspired the development of a chromium-free system. platinum group metals are known for high catalytic activity in hydrogenation reactions, though, rhodium remains understudied compared to platinum, palladium, and ruthenium. furthermore, literature shows bimetallic systems can further enhance the catalytic hydrogenation performance. herein, we report the synthesis and characterization of rhodium-based monometallic and bimetallic catalysts. experimental results show second metal modifiers, metal molar ratio, and solvent environment influence the activity of furfural hydrogenation. this thesis places andrea lawlor's novel paul takes the form of a mortal girl in conversation with leslie marmon silko's novel ceremony to explore how the fairytales of paul offer new, queered refashionings of familiar fairytales that exemplify refusal's relationship to the present. the fairytales of paul reject the norms central to happiness myths like the american dream, and the rest of the novel works to relay what that post-crisis moment of refusal might look like through paul's story. the laguna myths of ceremony show something similar but are not afraid to reach back and offer ways to untangle and heal from the past so that one can meaningfully interact with it in the present moment. using matthew spellberg's understanding of the function of myth, maria tatar's approach to fairytales, and heather love and mari ruti's conceptions of queer refusal as frameworks, this thesis examines the ways in which the repetition of mythic stories primes readers for each novel's culminating moments of refusal and rejection. through a decidedly queer refusal, paul is able to embrace his identity as a metamorph and fully embody the trans theory hil malatino proposes. as a result, this image of paul is one that exemplifies what a specifically queer return to the present might look like. two novel mathematical models are described and used in this thesis to study important biological problems of blood clot formation and cell polarity during division. these two models are clearly distinguished with respect to mathematical and computational methods as well as models calibration using experiential data.first, a model of myxococcus xanthus internal protein dynamics is presented and its relation with the motility based bacterial polarity is discussed. the model is compared with experimental data on myxococcus xanthus and the protein romr to simulate oscillations of protein inside a bacteria cell.second, an extension of the model for studying the mechanical deformation of fibrin networks in a blood clot is presented for studying compression and shear stress. lastly, numerical algebraic geometry methods are used to improve the computational efficiency and accuracy of this model. this dissertation is a history of paul bunyan, america's most famous fictional lumberjack. as folksy as bunyan may seem, the character became popular not in the premodern past, but in the twentieth century as a corporate mascot. plucked from obscurity in great lakes logging camps, bunyan rose to prominence as an advertisement for the red river lumber company. in this study, i ask why one of the nation's largest and most advanced lumber companies chose to promote itself with this old-fashioned symbol. what did a modern corporation gain by associating itself with a premodern lumberjack? i answer this question by situating the history of paul bunyan within two overlapping contexts: the business history of the lumber industry and the history of modern marketing and mass media. paul bunyan helped the lumber industry reconcile an important contradiction that lay at the heart of capitalist expansion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. extractive corporations needed to bind themselves to places closely enough to justify owning and exhausting their resources, yet these corporations also needed to maintain enough distance to leave without taking responsibility for the consequences of their actions. bunyan allowed red river and the timber industry as a whole transform its history of colonizing and depleting forested lands into a folksy tale about a jolly giant in an idyllic wilderness. paul bunyan's mythic camp never seemed to change, and neither did its location. in it, there was no resource exhaustion or environmental degradation, no capital flight or community abandonment, no class tension or labor unrest. in bunyan's world, a cast of quirky, collegial characters chopped trees for fun, and they did so without any long-term impacts on the nation's forests.the cultural work bunyan performed for the lumber industry was significant. lumber companies used nostalgic representations of logging to consolidate power over their timberlands. mass culture cloaked logging camps in a flannel shroud that few outside viewers could penetrate. as such, bunyan bolstered corporations' authority over worksites by obscuring the actual work of industrial extraction. this cultural victory represents an important chapter in the history of american capitalism. this thesis explores a process of industrial design applied to the nurturing and protection of premature babies and their families. the project's focus was established through field and scholarly research into the realm of neonatology. onsite observations at a public maternity hospital in the city of rio de janeiro, brazil, led to the identification of the thesis topic ì¢ ââ' the redesign of the neonatal cradle for hospitalized babies. partnership with the hospital staff, and later with physicians and nurses of a regional hospital in south bend, indiana, led to design concepts that were evaluated by medical experts. in the beginning of the project, collaborations were also established with parents of babies that were in the intensive and intermediate care units of the hospital in rio. three components guided the development of the project: content, context and collaboration. in this paper i explain how each of these components relate to my broader understanding of industrial design, while also connecting them to specific parts of the thesis project itself. examples of former projects in graduate school are also cited to provide for a thread of development within my design practice. it is my understanding that designers need to engage in the process of defining the very subjects they are expected to contribute to, taking part not only in the making of things, but first, in determining what things need to be made. the professional responsibility of the designer and his place in society is, then, discussed. while the architecture of the environments for neonatal care have started to be revised to accommodate new conceptions of institutional care for sick infants, the support products utilized in these units seem to be responding at a much slower pace. this proposed solution for the hospital cradle is my attempt to engage in a necessary change that must occur within the universe of artifacts and technologies that compose neonatal care. why is mass commitment to democracy ? defined as an abstract preference for democracy over non-democratic regimes and the rejection of non-democratic alternatives in the face of crisis ? higher in some new democracies on average and lower in others? similarly, why are some citizens within countries more committed to democracy than others? to answer these questions, this dissertation proposes a new lifetime political learning model that synthesizes the insights of the existing theoretical perspectives with leading models of political learning. specifically, this lifetime learning model stipulates that democratic commitment is the product of a weighted average of information imparted by the political contexts experienced by individuals and the political subgroups to which they belong. the extent to which political contexts provoke pro-democratic political learning is determined by factors including socioeconomic modernization, governmental performance, international diffusion of democratic norms, and the occurrence of events such as mass protests that provide information about the desirability of different regimes. crucially, the age at which individuals encounter such political contexts, their level of political sophistication, and the subgroups to which they belong condition the contexts' impact on their regime preferences. since the model integrates macro-level political contexts with the micro-level learning process, it can explain not only why countries differ in levels of democratic commitment in the aggregate, but also why individuals within countries express divergent views about democracy. empirically, the study first leverages over three decades of comparable survey data from spain to conduct an intensive test of the theory. this analysis shows that attitudes toward democracy are formed and evolve throughout the life cycle, political sophistication and identification with salient subgroups moderate the learning process, and modernization, civil violence, international diffusion, and government performance explain the evolution of democratic support over time. second, analysis of short-term panel and repeated cross-sectional data from 19 latin american countries broadly confirm the generalizability of the spanish results, and also underline the importance of mass mobilization and modernization in determining the degree to which different social classes and ideological groups become more or less committed to democracy in different countries. latinos in san francisco's mission district worked to build a community to defend themselves from the looming specter of urban redevelopment from the 1960s to the 1980s. they used arguments of safety and community to protect local spaces from destruction by redevelopers and corporate outsiders as well as dangers of police harassment and discrimination. to guard these spaces, residents fought for a built environment that met their needs and reflected their diverse cultures. in contrast, planners, municipal leaders, and corporations wanted to maximize profit and build up san francisco as a global capital of finance. to accomplish this, they tried to standardize urban spaces to help people efficiently navigate the city without fearing confrontation. when mission residents' traditional forms of activism, such as strikes and municipal appeals, failed to stop the arrival of a rapid transit system and fast food restaurants in the neighborhood, they looked to new methods of enacting change. through art and mural-making, residents made mission spaces more beautiful, safe, and representative of their culture and identity.as latinos painted local culture onto its walls, gentrifiers and their less predatory predecessors gravitated toward the mission to be near this community they saw as authentic. these newcomers – bohemians, yuppies, dot-commers, hipsters, and bro-grammers – broke with their middle-class suburban peers. collecting experiences such as viewing murals, eating tacos, and living in cheap victorians, gentrifiers defined authenticity while they consumed it. i explore how the origins of gentrification rested not just in the neighborhood's victorian homes but also in the radical politics of local newspapers, the cultural inclusivity of murals, and the popularization of the mission burrito. rhetoric of safety and authenticity shaped these battles over mission spaces fought by latinos, corporate giants, municipal powers, and gentrifiers. examining these groups' visions for urban spaces provides a way to explore how racial, class, generational, and cultural tensions emerged in fights over la misión. as latinos and gentrifiers fought over tacos and coffee beans, soccer fields and homes, graffiti-covered walls and farm-to-table restaurants in the mission, they wrangled over racialized concepts of safety and authenticity that transcended racial binaries. this dissertation examines two related topics, defining equations of rees algebras in two variables and the geometry of rational plane curves. first, we consider the ideal k of defining equations of the rees algebra of an ideal i in the polynomial ring k[x_1,x_2] generated by forms of the same degree. we give a description of the part of k in degree greater than or equal to the second largest degree of a generator of the syzygy module of i. this description lets us compute the minimal generators of k in these degrees. when i is generated by three forms, we also produce a generating set for each graded slice k_i in this range.the second topic we study is the geometry of birationally parametrized plane curves c, particularly their singularities. this is connected to the first part because the parametric equations generate an ideal i in k[x_1,x_2], and the rees algebra of i is the coordinate ring of the graph of the parametrization. we show that the fitting ideals of a slice of the symmetric algebra of i detect the singular points on or infinitely near to c as well as their multiplicities. using this, we stratify the space of hilbert-burch matrices of parametrizations into locally closed subsets representing those curves with a given number of points of each multiplicity. finally, we connect one of these fitting ideals to a slice of the ideal k. in particular, we give a complete list of the possible bidegrees of a minimal generating set of k when the degree of c is 7, as well as the correspondence between these bidegrees and the multiplicities of the points of c, which was previously known only for degree &lt;= 6. my thesis work examines the complexity of memory. through reflection and exploration of my own personal memories, i curate artifacts such as letters, photographs, and objects to alter and intertwine with fabric. i use fabric as a connective medium because it naturally suggests memory as it is embedded with domestic significance and is connected to place and body. by using quilting as a medium i reinforce the layers of domesticity, pattern, and ritual. the goal ultimately is to create a space for the viewer to consider their own relationship to the potential loss inherent in their memories. this dissertation explores the theological and social dimensions of generosity in the book of sirach and contextualizes them within second temple culture and thought. after necessary prolegomena, the work begins by exploring the role of wealth and poverty in ben sira's thought and concludes that the dissonance between the principle of retributive justice and the social realities of seleucid judea provides the essential matrix in which his understanding of generosity is situated. in chapter 3, the role of generosity is correlated with ben sira's belief in the finality of death. through an exegesis of sir 14:3-19 it is argued that, unlike other hellenistic works, ben sira integrates the topic of generosity into the motif of carpe diem. thus, giving generously to others actually contributes to "the good life." chapters 4 & 5 provide an exegesis of sir 29:1-20 on the topics of loans, surety, and almsgiving. ben sira displays an innovative approach to surety. by subsuming both loans and surety under an ethic of mercy, they become essential components of the financial dealings of a wisdom-torah piety. almsgiving transcends normal economic dealings and can be trusted to bring a greater return from god. the fundamental theological logic at work consists of viewing the poor as proxies for god and is based on the economic structure of prov 19:17. chapter 6 takes up the relationship of almsgiving to sacrifice and argues that they are both integral to torah obedience because both the poor and priests are understood as proxies for god. these two services to god cannot be set in opposition, even though pragmatically they would have been in some tension in the social climate of ben sira's time. ultimately, both derive from the actions of wisdom herself and so represent an ethic of imitatio sapientiae. chapter 7 explores the extent of almsgiving and argues that the tension between limited charity (12:1-6) and inclusive charity (4:1-10; 7:32-36) is resolved by recognizing that almsgiving is an act of imitatio dei. the tension, therefore, derives from the more fundamental tension involving the principle of retributive justice. this dissertation provides a new framework for thinking about the relationship of rationality to nature. the philosophy of f. w. j. schelling, namely the philosophy of nature he develops between the years of 1797 and 1800, is a developmental account of nature and rationality. according to this account, the structures of rationality are independently manifested in the natural world, particularly in the activity of organisms. thus by looking at the precursors to rationality in animals and their capabilities, we can develop a conception of rationality according to which it emerges in harmony with nature. the developments in science and philosophy since 1800 require that schelling's framework be supplemented and modified. and so i take schelling's naturphilosophie as inspiration and guide in developing accounts of rationality and nature in light of such developments. the first three chapters of this dissertation are historical, focusing on the work of kant and schelling. in the first chapter i lay out kant's conception of animal cognition, and in the second i explore the place he gives animals in nature, as it is cognized by rational subjects. i contend that kant has trouble accounting for the complexity of animal cognition and behavior as well as the gradual emergence of reason. in the third chapter, i lay out schelling's naturphilosophie and the resultant conception of rationality, which does not suffer from the same problems. in the fourth and fifth chapters, i discuss the work of philosophers such as john mcdowell, christine korsgaard, tyler burge, and michael thompson. with varying degrees of success, these philosophers attempt to incorporate animals into their philosophical systems. and finally, in the sixth and seventh chapters, i lay out accounts of nature and rationality inspired by schelling and mindful of evolutionary biology and the philosophical tradition discussed in the fourth and fifth chapters. i contend that treating nature and organic activity as purposive allows for a rich account of rationality as making explicit the norms implicit in this purposive activity. everyday our attention is vulnerable to distractions that can capture our attention and hinder our performance. many factors determine whether a distractor will capture attention, including how appealing and meaningful it is to the observer. the current research showed that participants were slower to identify a target letter in the presence of a neutral distractor as compared to an appealing distractor (experiment 1). however, this effect reversed when neutral distractors appeared more frequently than appealing distractors (experiment 2). furthermore, slower performances reflected a covert capture of attention rather than an inability to disengage attention from distractors (experiments 3 &amp; 4). lastly, these experiments showed that appeal and meaning are not easily disassociated characteristics and may operate in conjunction with frequency to determine whether a distractor will capture our attention. i explore femininity in retellings of asian fairytales, family history and cultural heritage in this poetry collection. this dissertation investigates gustavo guti&#233;rrez's understanding of liberation as a three-dimensional process: 1) economic and political emancipation; 2) creation of a new humanity in a new society of justice; and 3) freedom from sin. the notion of 'utopia'? corresponds to the second dimension, and works as the bridge allowing for the relation of faith to political action without confusion or collapse. this dissertation argues that the notion of utopia serves as a central, unifying concept for guti&#233;rrez's entire theological project. chapter 1 examines the stages in the formation of guti&#233;rrez's theology. first, guti&#233;rrez studied in europe where he was exposed to nouvelle theologie. second, guti&#233;rrez returned to peru and its situation of injustice. third, gutierrez incorporated insights from the second vatican council and populorum progressio. fourth, guti&#233;rrez's theology was confirmed at the latin american bishops' conference held in medellin, colombia in 1968. chapter 2 analyses utopia as treated in a theology of liberation: guti&#233;rrez's sources for the notion, what he means by the notion, and how it operates throughout this work. this dissertation argues that utopia's essential role of mediating between faith and political action, allowing for relation without collapse, is necessary for properly interpreting guti&#233;rrez's theology. chapter 3 investigates how utopia functions throughout guti&#233;rrez's subsequent works. without explicitly treating of utopia, gutierrez continues to structure his argument around utopia's mediating role as he discusses topics like spirituality, theology, and the trinity. chapter 4 investigates critics of guti?rrez: cardinal ratzinger, (pope benedict xvi), and 'radical orthodoxy's' daniel bell. ratzinger argues that guti&#233;rrez's use of utopia results in a collapse of faith into politics. bell argues that guti&#233;rrez's theology keeps these poles mutually exclusive. this dissertation argues that a proper understanding of guti&#233;rrez's use of utopia invalidates these criticisms. chapter 5 examines the theology of the philippines' second plenary council. the council's appropriation of liberation theology's insights fail to adequately relate faith and political action because of a lack of understanding of utopia's mediating role within guti&#233;rrez's three dimensions of liberation. this discussion of the council's theology confirms the importance of utopia as an essential concept in a theology of liberation. the monumental cost of health care, especially for chronic disease treatment, is quickly becoming unmanageable. this crisis has motivated the drive towards preventative medicine, where the primary concern is recognizing disease risk and taking action at the earliest signs. however, universal testing is neither time nor cost efficient. we propose care, a collaborative assessment and recommendation engine, which relies only on a patient's medical history using icd-9-cm codes in order to predict future diseases risks. care combines collaborative filtering methods with clustering to predict each patient's greatest disease risks based on their own medical history and that of similar patients. we also describe an iterative version, icare, which incorporates ensemble concepts for improved performance. these novel systems require no specialized information and provide predictions for medical conditions of all kinds in a single run. we present experimental results on a large medicare dataset, demonstrating that care and icare perform well at capturing future disease risks. non-selective oxidation of algaas heterostructure under oxygen-enhanced wet thermal conditions has been combined with deep dry etching via reactive ion etching (rie) to achieve a high index contrast (hic) ridge waveguide (rwg). the hic rwg provides laser diodes with both strong optical confinement due to the high index contrast, and strong electrical confinement by eliminating current spreading. the oxide also effectively passivates the active region sidewall exposed after etching through the wg core layers. more importantly, the roughness of the sidewall, which leads to strong optical scattering losses in an hic waveguide, has been greatly reduced by the smoothing action of the non-selective oxidation process. with such a structure, high performance straight laser diodes have been demonstrated on both quantum well (qw) and quantum dot (qd) heterostructures. in particular, a 4 mm wide qd laser fabricated with this deep dry etch plus non-selective oxidation process shows a 1.8 times lower threshold current density jth than similar hic lasers passivated with deposited sio2, and 6.5 times lower than conventional (shallow etched) index guided lasers. the use of a hic structure is absolutely critical to the realization of low bend loss curved waveguides and laser resonators. with a specially designed half-racetrack ring resonator (r3) pattern, the dependence of the radiative bend loss on the bend radius and ridge width is carefully studied. by implementing e-beam lithography for the patterning process, a half-racetrack-ring resonator with a 3.1 mm ridge width and a record small bend radius of r=3 mm is demonstrated. a new experimental method is demonstrated for characterizing the radiative bend loss from analysis of efficiency data of half-r3 lasers with multiple cavity lengths. the radiative bend losses are extracted from an inverse efficiency 1/hd vs. length l plot for half-r3 lasers with r=150, 100, 50, 25 and 10 mm and three different ridge widths. in addition to the expected bend loss dependence on ring radius, we observe a clear trend of increased bend loss with increasing rwg width and number of wg modes supported. finally, a full-ring laser with a 150 mm radius is fabricated using the developed e-beam lithography, deep dry etch via rie and non-selective oxidation processes. the device shows a low jth of 719 a/cm2, 25% lower than the best reported full ring laser having the same ring radius and a similar deep-etched waveguide structure fabricated using a deposited insulator. this dissertation presents a unified account of kant's argument for the transcendental ideality of time as put forward in the transcendental aesthetic and the first antinomy of the critique of pure reason. kant's transcendental ideality thesis for both space and time is that time and space are not fundamentally real entities but rather forms of intuition by which we are able to experience the world. in the secondary literature on kant, the argument for the transcendental ideality of time is consistently and repeatedly ignored in favor of discussing the transcendental ideality of space. the ideality of time has its own distinctive issues that require special attention. my goal is to focus on these aspects of kant's argument and to present my own unique interpretation of whether kant's argument for the transcendental ideality of time is sound or not. although, in the end, i argue that kant's argument for the transcendental ideality of time is unsuccessful, it is by no means the case that all the arguments that led kant to this conclusion are misguided. in fact, there are a number of kant's arguments that are able to bear philosophical fruit. i discuss a number of these philosophically fruitful arguments and theses in the dissertation. the space of symplectic embeddings of ellipsoids has been an object of great study in recent years. at this point, the existence and isotopy properties of this space have been well studied. in this dissertation, we take some first steps toward investigating the homotopy properties of the space of symplectic embeddings of ellipsoids. we identify a loop of symplectic embeddings e(a,b) u e(a,b) --&gt; b^4(r) which is contractible when r &gt; a+b and which is non-contractible when 2a &lt; r &lt; a+b, provided that b &lt; 2a. we even show that this loop is not homologous to a constant map in the given range of r values. rebuild my church is the template drawn from the experience of st. francis of assisi in prayer before the crucifix of san damiano in 1205 which peter damian fehlner redeploys for the twenty-first century. by the gift of grace, francis understood his call to conform to christ and his eschatological task to rekindle the love of the faithful for christ. by doing this, not only would francis rebuild the church, but labor to convince society of charity and holiness as integral to one's relation with god and what it means to be saved. modern secularism, the option to make finite autonomy the heart of happiness, may view this as the inconvenience of inconveniences, but fehlner's new direction in franciscan theological, philosophical, and anthropological thought amplifies this "ur-experience" of francis and links it to vatican ii as irreplaceable.the role of charity in the ecclesiology of st. bonaventure (defended 1959, published at rome 1965) is fehlner's ground breaking doctoral dissertation, the foundation of his intellectual and spiritual development. the mystery of the whole christ is perfected in the mystery of charity as bond that unites heaven and earth and inserts the human family [global family] into the mystery of the trinity. fehlner develops this franciscan understanding of the mystery of christ, the holy spirit, and marian mode of franciscan theology and metaphysics. the augustinian-bonaventurian theory of divine illumination and metaphysical exemplarism provides coherent metaphysical and epistemological grounds to avoid fideism and rationalism. bl. john duns scotus offers a "reformulation" in the so-called franciscan thesis: the absolute primacy of christ has a metaphysical shadow in the scotistic teaching on the univocity of being and radical sacramentality of creation in the christian order of salvation. mary's freedom is part of human freedom for everyone but her freedom is fully exercised in itself and ontologically more suited to choose the good given by god in christ. for duns scotus, only god can conceive of a perfect redemption better than which none is possible or can be conceived. mary has a double mediatory role: with christ, the redeemer, on our behalf within the economy of salvation, and with god the father in view of the incarnation and praise of god in the perfect sacrifice of her son. the victim is not abandoned by the heavenly father or virgin mother at the moment of consummation. for st. maximilian m. kolbe, a scotist, mary is, by the will of the father and through the foreseen merits of his son, the spouse of the holy spirit, or immaculate conception. fehlner analyzes from a scotistic perspective what bl. john henry newman himself said about his life and writing. questions about the object of the intellect and unity of knowledge and theology in the university curriculum occupy newman. the relation of science and wisdom, the character of the power to know and power to will, each a perfectio simpliciter simplex (simply simple perfection), and two affections that define the will as pure perfection and as, in fact, finite perfection: the affectus justitiae (affection for justice) and affectus commodi (affection for happiness) are scotistic tools. fehlner's original and parallax view explains newman's personal experience of the development of doctrine along a scotistic path. newman's use of metaphysical attributes without any formal training in scholasticism, nor exhibiting any desire to do so, nor ever catching up with it, makes newman's approach interesting. his focus on intellectual excellence and the genius of christianity was diverse, identifiable along patristic lines, and he employed convincingly the argument from the convergence of probabilities inspired by bishop butler. fehlner is unique in analyzing the "metaphysics" in phenomenological form that underlies newman's journey of faith and desire for holiness. unfolding of the mind and preparation of heart, pivotal principles for newman, applies to each christian and the church itself, as pope benedict xvi confirmed to the roman curia in 2005. the precise question of this thesis is fehlner's understanding of his renewed theology as an appropriation of the franciscan school in the service of the twenty-first century franciscan reading and development of the ecclesiology of vatican ii and why he thinks a developed mariology can contribute. christ is the one teacher of all and mary is teacher-witness. from the pre-scotistic theological formula placed on the lips of francis, quem amor humanavit (whom love had made man), to bonaventure's trinitarian thought and theory of divine illumination, christology, mariology, and metaphysics, fehlner explains how duns scotus completes bonaventure with the absolute primacy of christ and the immaculate conception, the disjunctive transcendentals, and metaphysics of univocity underlying both. it is not pretended that a systematic ecclesiology and mariology after a modern model has been discovered, but fehlner's theology is more than a witness to the franciscan tradition. to the extent that one can discover the franciscan key to the ecclesiology and mariology within his thought, fehlner is a witness to a developing theology of the church.fehlner recovers newman as a religious thinker whose contribution to the central issue of the development of doctrine facilitates a linkage with the franciscan masters. newman's preaching, as anglican and catholic, supported principles for imaginative, conceptual, and practical renewal first in the anglican church and then roman church of the nineteenth century. newman's perspective on theological tradition was plural. he articulated and demonstrated the inflections in the development of doctrine. since newman is often called absent father at vatican ii, fehlner treats many aspects of how newman engages the contest of modernity. this makes newman, in fehlner's eyes, at least an honorary franciscan, but far more, for the real issue is to rebuild the church attendant on the priority assigned to charity and a holy life. newman excels on this oft-overlooked fact. nowhere else in contemporary catholic theology is there a metaphysician-theologian who is clearer in linking franciscan and newmanian interests than fehlner. nor is there a more forceful rendition of the marian-christological vocation of st. francis of assisi and his theologian followers.fehlner is a constructive theologian in his own right. this thesis argues that fehlner's works confirm and amplify his dissertation that the life of the church is a stage in the realization of christ's kingdom in heaven and in the world because the social dimension of redemption pervades every facet of christian experience. although he does not use the term "global fraternity" specifically, fehlner's contributions are consonant with the direction of the documents of vatican ii, pope st. john paul ii, bl. pope paul vi in populorum progressio, and its reaffirmation by pope benedict xvi in caritas in veritate. fehlner's franciscan thinking is a treasure trove for new franciscan research on analyzing the positive and negative principles affecting global fraternity. his original approach underscores the marian-christocentric vocation of st. francis, the first systematic form to his life by st. bonaventure, and the revisions by bl. john duns scotus. holiness is the standard bearer of what christianity is and gives ingress to its apocalyptic and counter-cultural dimension. understanding the saints leads to respect for the vast diversity among equals with the same freedoms and rights. the going forth of all creatures from god, especially those with intellect and will, through mary, find the initiation of their return to the father. opera christi non deficiunt sed proficiunt the us shale gas boom has prompted an expansion of ethane cracking capacity that has produced an abundant supply of ethylene. ethylene oligomerization seeks to upgrade this feedstock to more value-added products though controlled carbon chain growth. although reports of zirconium-based catalysts for this class of chemistry exist, these catalysts are typically homogeneous and require activation by a pyrophoric cocatalyst, making their industrial implementation challenging. supported zirconium hydrides are a class of heterogeneous catalyst that are activated in the presence of hydrogen and have yet to be applied to ethylene oligomerization, despite their reported activity for other carbon-carbon bond forming reactions. herein, we report the synthesis and detailed characterization of these materials and confirm the presence of surface zirconium hydride species. the resulting material is shown to be an active oligomerization catalyst. the presence of the surface hydride species is shown to be integral to this activity. the circumstances of poverty inflict a unique burden on the lives of those it affects. they are often forced to live in a state of focus on their immediate situation that causes both mental and physical distress. this focus forces the affected people to lose the ability to plan for the future and utilize existing tools to work toward a better future. due to cultural circumstances, the single most significant group living in poverty in this state are single mothers. south bend suffers from a large population of single mothers living in poverty and functions well as an area to focus this research. these women live under extreme versions of common circumstance for many american families. because of this, the concepts from this project could lead to applications with a much more extensive use than the targeted research subjects. the goal of this project is to utilize the design thinking process to build a system to that helps the user develop new behaviors to work towards a healthier lifestyle. the object of the system is to enable these users to integrate daily exercise into their lives to work towards better physical and mental health. the lens utilized to craft the structure system is the concept of choice architecture to aid better-informed decision-making. ultimately the research has revealed that a combination of technology as a trainer to build the structure needed for behavioral change, as well as community support, could be a highly effective combination for behavioral change. the growth of access to more and more powerful devices in addition to ever cheaper data connections have created a unique opportunity to engage people of all demographics through mobile technology efficiently. this same technology has proven itself to be a conduit for communication and social engagement.the implementation of the concepts derived from this research combines a forward reaching use of computational techniques and mobile technology labeled the mandala system©. user interaction with system tools takes place through a virtual guide named circe. additionally, mandala incorporates a user based social network with tools to encourage user interactions both online and in person to help users expand their support communities. this work offers a close examination and critique of the notions of pluralism and consensus as these concepts are developed in the work of john rawls. focusing in particular on rawls's political liberalism and later writings, the dissertation argues that although rawls does seek to take account of the diversity of beliefs and worldviews present in society, his model assumes a particular perspective on this diversity, stemming from larger and more controversial assumptions concerning the purposes and meaning of public discourse and political life. this assumption is made clear by reviewing rawls's theory particularly with regard to the relationship between comprehensive views and political conceptions of justice, rawls's arguments concerning human reason, and rawls's views concerning public political culture. the implication drawn is that this is only one way we might consider these matters and that by posing the problem differently, we may be able to consider other, more constructive, approaches. the second stage of the dissertation develops an alternative approach that offers a creative response to the fact of pluralism, one less concerned with the strong consensus that rawls seeks, rather placing a strong emphasis upon the importance of plurality in public life. what particularly distinguishes this approach is its concern to respect the ability of distinct voices to speak in politics using whatever language they find appropriate, enabling them to make contributions to political discussions while remaining faithful to their own communities, traditions, and religious beliefs. it views the strategy of attempting to locate a moral basis for political cooperation rooted in what citizens have in common--what they might be found to possess in spite of their pluralism--as a failed approach, and one that needs to be abandoned. rather, if we can recognize that a political order is held together by things other than an ideological or doctrinal consensus concerning the moral nature of that order, the way becomes clear to consider the possibility of a politics of genuine pluralism, one in which civility is promoted even as particularity is preserved. urban branding is a multi-billion dollar per year industry with a straightforward goal: to help cities differentiate themselves from other cities. because cities are in competition with one another for low-cost residents, new investors, and tourists, urban branding is used by local leaders as a political-economic tool to ensure that their city is an attractive destination for these target audiences. however, in practice cities tend to adopt a similar set of branding strategies that make them look not more distinct, but more alike. although many studies recognize this phenomenon, most of them are purely descriptive and fail to provide an explanation for why cities adopt such similar approaches to urban branding. when an explanation is presented, it is usually couched in macro-structural terms, placing the majority of blame on political and economic forces that leave little room for the agency of groups or individual actors to influence branding decisions. i argue that such explanations are not only insufficient for explaining these similarities but are also hampered by the fact that they cannot account for changes to branding practices if and when they do occur. this project, through detailed case studies of las vegas, orlando, houston, and detroit, argues that the theory of institutional isomorphism provides a more comprehensive explanation for why these and so many other cities approach the practice of urban branding in such similar ways. by looking at the actors working within the organizational field of urban branding, i show that there are mimetic, coercive, and normative isomorphic forces that influence these actors to behave in similar ways, that put restrictions on the types of strategies deemed appropriate for use in branding efforts, and that also prevent actors from outside the organizational field from having any real decision-making power when it comes to shaping the direction of a branding campaign. moreover, i also argue that this theory is superior to previous explanations because it also provides an avenue for organizational change to occur. for instance, the introduction of different mimetic, coercive, or normative forces, such as the citizen-led counter branding campaigns that emerged in houston and detroit, can help to breakdown the homogenizing and non-responsive tendencies of institutional isomorphism within the organizational field of urban branding, thus leading to the adoption of a wider range of inclusive and community-oriented branding strategies. normal epithelial cells require attachment to the extracellular matrix (ecm) in order to proliferate and survive. binding to the ecm facilitates the activation of pathways responsible for atp production and cell survival. when detached from the ecm, normal cells will upregulate apoptotic pathways and will be systematically removed. this detachment-induced apoptosis is known as anoikis. ecm detachment in normal epithelial cells disrupts cellular signaling derived from integrin-mediated basal attachment as well as cadherin assisted signaling from lateral cell contacts. it has been well established by countless studies that the overexpression of oncogenes can facilitate the ability of ecm-detached cells to avoid anoikis. erbb2 and ras are two oncogenes that have been implicated in the ability of cancer cells to avoid anoikis. erbb2 is an orphan member of the egfr family of tyrosine kinases and is a potent oncogene found in 30% of all breast cancer tissue. previous studies in our laboratory have found a direct correlation between upregulation of survival pathways in ecm detached cells and expression of erbb2. mutated ras is found in up to 30% of all human cancers and is commonly found overexpressed in a multitude of cancers such as pancreatic and colon cancers. although it is rare in breast cancers and found mutated in only 5% of breast cancer diagnoses, ras signaling can be driven considerably by multiple growth factors, such as erbb2. this makes ras-driven signaling an important factor in disease progression. previous literature has shown that erbb2 and ras regulate cytochrome c release from the mitochondria by regulating the action of bcl-2 proteins via the stimulation of multiple survival kinase pathways. my studies have found that the overexpression of erbb2 in non-malignant mammary epithelial cells (mcf-10a) results in substantial aggregation of detached cells and the inhibition of caspase activation. these data suggest that erbb2 plays a role in protecting detached cells from anoikis and this activity may be linked to cell-cell adhesion in suspension. we found that the disruption of cell-cell contacts in erbb2-overexpressing mcf-10a cells (using methylcellulose or by antagonizing the formation of adherens junctions) induces caspase activation.furthermore, in cells that form large aggregates, erbb2 can interact with e-cadherin and egfr in a fashion that prevents the internalization of egfr and ultimately its lysosome mediated degradation. the disruption of aggregation causes the erbb2/egfr/e-cadherin complex to fail and subsequently results in egfr degradation in the lysosome. this degradation of egfr diminishes signaling through the mapk pathway, preventing the induction of anoikis.in summary, these data suggest that oncogenic signaling through erbb2 promotes the formation of cellular aggregates that function to prevent egfr from degradation and subsequently to block the induction of anoikis. my studies have also uncovered that the overexpression of oncogenic ras results in decreased sensitivity to exogenous cytochrome c in ecm-detachment compared to controls. this decreased sensitivity was observed despite the fact that there is an upregulation of apoptosomal proteins in ras cells in a mapk dependent manner. this suggests that ras-hyperactivated cells are uniquely resistant to cytochrome c mediated cell death in ecm-detachment compared to controls. additionally, my studies have observed that the resistance to cytochrome c in ecm-detached ras cells is not conferred to ecm-attached cells. upon investigation of apoptosomal proteins, it was found that ras-hyperactivated cells in ecm-attachment exhibit an induction in apoptosomal proteins compared to control cells. these data suggest that ras-hyperactivated cells may be uniquely susceptible to cytochrome c mimetic therapies in ecm-attachment. complex systems are characterized by having emergent properties that cannot be explained from their large number of interacting and heterogeneous components. different aspects of human society can be described as a complex system, as large numbers of people aggregate into a host of complex structures. here we empirically study three different aspects of humanly driven complex systems. first, we study the dynamics of a mobile phone network reconstructed from millions of individual phone calls. by looking at time resolved data we show that the structure of the mobile phone network is coupled to the dynamics of mobile phone links. second, we study the statistical properties of human mobility patterns and show that the characteristic distance travelled by individuals follows a heterogeneous distribution which explains the previously observed lìäå©vy-flight properties of human mobility. third, we construct a network summarizing world trade to study the dynamics of countries productive structures and show that the structure of the product space conditions the industrial development of nations. these three studies illustrate how large data sets can be used to empirically study humanly driven complex systems. individually, they present relevant information that can be used to benchmark future models for each one of these complex systems or can be used as empirical rules characterizing them. this thesis explores the sibling relationship in sophocles' antigone. in the first chapter, i provide a philological analysis of the words different characters use to discuss siblings in the tragedy. here, i identify how antigone and ismene emphasize their status as overly-connected siblings by means of the sibling vocabulary they use. in the second chapter, i analyze how both sisters (not antigone alone) demonstrate their sibling affection. i propose that ismene displays an equally strong loyalty to antigone as antigone does to polynices. in the final chapter, i offer a new interpretation of the third stasimon, the ode to eros. here, i suggest that eros refers to the powerful force of love which can operate both erotically and non-erotically. this (non-erotic) force is what drives both antigone and ismene to act on behalf of their siblings, despite the danger which accompanies these actions. through this thesis, i attempt to show how the sibling-connection is essential to antigone, as is evident from the first line of the tragedy. raman techniques has been an emerging molecular identification tool in biomedical sciences. among them, raman imaging are now used as a powerful analytical platform in disease diagnostics and in the study of biochemical phenomena. its ability to rapidly and non-invasively generate detailed molecular maps of the sample makes raman imaging a versatile tool for studying communities of the bacteria pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic human pathogen and can be found commonly in the environment, for example in soil and in water. p. aeruginosa is responsible for many infection and disease, such as cystic fibrosis (cf). p. aeruginosa is capable of forming biofilms, compounding its ability to resist antibiotic treatment. therefore, a comprehensive understanding of bacterial behaviors both spatially and temporally will be really helpful for the overall picture.swarm motility, biofilm construction and other physiological behaviors are known to be regulated, in part, by alkyl quinolones (aqs) produced as part of its quorum sensing (qs) system. aq distributions are very spatially-dependent, and chemically distinct from each other, and are very closely related to bacterial strains, surface growth conditions, and other environmental cues. approaches such as co-culturing different bacterial strains under various environmental conditions, alternating surface motility rate and biofilm growth conditions, developing a three-dimensional imaging set-up to characterize the aggregation depths in bacterial biofilms are used to provide new methodologies for bacterial studies. in summary, this thesis starts by describing the contributions made in advancing the development and application of confocal raman imaging in bacterial studies mainly by investigating the molecular features of alkyl quinoline (aq) signaling molecules used in p. aeruginosa quorum sensing system, showing the potential of confocal raman imaging to elucidate chemical compositions and structures of heterogeneous biological samples. finally, this thesis discusses the possibility of doing correlated imaging with other analytical imaging approach to explore the bacterial signal molecules and other metabolites at different scales to further the understanding of bacterial virulence, antibiotic resistance, and complex cellular behaviors. one of cultural sociology's most important contributions to the study of social inequality has been the explication of the role that the possession of cultural resources plays in the ordering of society and social groups. to investigate the relationship between the expression of aesthetic tastes and symbolic exclusion, i analyze original data that measure variation in respondents' propensity to change their expressed taste about a particular cultural object given information about that object's typical fans. i find that respondents were likely to change their opinion to approximate the taste expression of a group of high-status others, but did not change their opinion when told the taste of a group of low-status others, except in the case of low-status persons being told that a group of low-status persons taste for the object was negative, in which case low-status respondents (but not high-status respondents) reacted by giving a more positive evaluation. i also analyze respondents' perception of solidarity with the groups they were told about, and find that differences in taste between respondents and the group are a stronger predictor of the perception of social distance than were differences in status (measured by education and occupation). finally, with regard to perceptions of social distance, i find that the possession of cultural capital decreases the propensity for symbolic exclusion. extensive research has established a link between interparental conflict, emotional security and adolescent adjustment; however, these relationships are moderate in strength, suggesting variability among families. moreover, although these processes are linked, not all adolescents experience the detrimental effects of conflict, suggesting the importance of additional processes that may serve to exacerbate or diminish these effects. the current study examined the role of family cohesion, conflict, and emotional expressiveness; moderated mediation was conducted to examine if the strength of the paths in the model differed depending on family functioning. participants included 281 families who completed a series of questionnaires assessing these processes. positive expressivity and father-report of family cohesion moderated the pathway between emotional security and adolescent adjustment. at the same time, results largely supported the notion that these processes did not differ as a result of broader family functioning, suggesting the robustness of emotional security as an explanatory mechanism. the current state-of-the-art in the design of tall buildings for wind effects is based on scale model tests of buildings in wind tunnels in conjunction with computational methods. however, full-scale testing of buildings is necessary to evaluate the performance of dynamically sensitive structures and assure that the design assumptions and predictions are realized in the actual structure. the analysis of full-scale data from the chicago full-scale monitoring project allows the performance of tall buildings under wind to be evaluated against current design tools. the dynamic characteristics under stationary and non-stationary wind conditions are identified using recently developed system identification techniques, including wavelet-based techniques augmented with singular value decomposition. modern tall buildings are expected to meet wind-induced serviceability and habitability criteria to preserve the integrity of building cladding system and ensure occupant comfort due to building motion. uncertainties associated with damping, wind speed, and other variables are quantified and propagated to develop a probabilistic framework to evaluate a building's habitability performance, to assess occupant comfort, and to develop recommendations for load factors used in building standards for serviceability and strength considerations. globalization of the construction industry and the development of unified international codes and standards emphasize the need to better understand the underlying differences between international wind loading standards. previous studies have found that varying definitions of wind field characteristics were the primary contributors to the scatter in predicted response quantities. therefore, a comprehensive comparison of the wind loads and their effects on tall buildings is conducted utilizing five major international codes and standards. finally, in order to reduce the amount of damage sustained after extreme events, the response of tall buildings is examined through investigations made after such events. field reconnaissance surveys indicate that the primary mode of failure was missile impact from wind-borne debris. through the investigation of full-scale measurements, it is the goal of this study focused on examining the uncertainty associated with defining the response of structures under habitability, serviceability, and survivability wind events to ensure human comfort, design strength, and robust building envelopes under service and extreme wind events. a "dialogue act" is a written or spoken action during a conversation. dialogue acts are usually only a few words long, and are divided by researchers into a relatively small set (often less than 10) of dialogue act types, such as eliciting information, expressing an opinion, or making a greeting. research interest into automatic classification of dialogue acts has grown recently due to the proliferation of virtual agents (va) e.g. siri, cortana, alexa. but unfortunately, the gains made into va development in one domain are generally not applicable to other domains, since the composition of dialogue acts differs in different conversations. in this thesis, i target the problem of dialogue act classification for a va assistant to software engineering repairing bugs in a low data setting. a problem in the se domain is that very little sample data exists. therefore, i present a transfer-learning approach to learn on a much larger dataset for general business conversations, and apply the knowledge to a manually created corpus of debugging conversations collected from 30 professional developers in a "wizard of oz" experiment and manually annotated with a predetermined dialogue act set. in experiments, we observe between 8% and 20% improvements over two key baselines. additionally, i present a separate dialogue act classifier on the manually collected dataset that uses a manually discovered se specific dialogue act set which achieves on average 69% precision and 50% recall over 5-fold cross validation. designing structures and metamaterials that can withstand large deformations while remaining fully operational are important in many engineering applications, e.g. compliant mechanisms and energy absorbing systems. in addition, the underlying constituent material behavior may also be inelastic, which is especially the case for design objectives such as energy absorption. thus, computational design frameworks that can incorporate both geometric and material nonlinearities are needed for designing next generation of complex nonlinear systems.this dissertation proposes novel frameworks for structural design under finite deformations based on density-based topology optimization. in particular, challenging issues such as mesh distortion and incompressible material interpolation are successfully addressed. mesh distortion under finite deformations is handled by an adaptive linear energy interpolation scheme wherein linear energy is adaptively interpolated in the system until the convergence of finite element analysis is achieved. hence, the completion of optimization iterations is ensured. in addition, since most of the materials that can undergo large deformations exhibit volume incompressibility, the incorporation of this constraint is important. thus, appropriate incompressible material parameterizations by density are needed that can steer the optimizer towards optimized discrete topologies. to this end, this dissertation proposes an interpolation scheme for incompressible materials that is integrated with advanced finite elements based on mixed u/p and f-bar formulations to address volumetric locking. moreover, as materials may behave inelastically under large deformations, novel frameworks are also developed to incorporate path-dependent (inelastic) constitutive models. the proposed computational design frameworks are used to explore the finite deformation stiffness and compliant mechanisms designs as well as energy absorbing structural designs. density-based topology optimization methods are also integrated with finite strain homogenization methods for nonlinear metamaterials design. specifically, a novel finite strain homogenization is constructed using the principle of multiscale virtual power. this framework can consistently incorporate deformation-, stressand mixed deformation/stress-driven homogenization scenarios. moreover, as instabilities at micro or macro scales may occur in periodic metamaterials due to large deformations, multiscale stability investigations are carried out using the bloch wave method. using this multiscale computational design framework, metamaterials with negative poisson's ratio and optimal energy absorbing capacity under finite deformations are successfully discovered. in addition, the potential of the microscopic buckling oriented metamaterial designs is demonstrated through a series of exploratory studies. in this dissertation, i investigate a moment of immense significance for cultural and literary history: the rise of the english public theater as a form of mass entertainment and the flourishing of plays designed specifically to engage and move a rapidly emerging public audience. like all new media forms, the public theater generated both enthusiasm about its potential to instill civic virtue in audiences and acute anxiety about its capacity to defraud them. i demonstrate how playwrights such as christopher marlowe, william shakespeare, ben jonson, thomas middleton, and philip massinger navigated this difficult landscape, poised between visions of the public theater as a center for independent thought and deliberation and as a space for the dissemination of propaganda. in particular, i argue that much of their political drama constitutes a metatheatrical reflection on the promises and the perils of theatrical mass media and, specifically, its capacity to educate or manipulate the public. these playwrights perceived the dangers and opportunities of the theater, i suggest, through the lens of classical rhetoric, a field of study intimately related to early modern literary production and deeply concerned about the proper ways of addressing mass audiences. a renaissance rhetorical education allowed students both to identify the tools with which orators move or manipulate their audiences and to employ those tools for themselves. scholars frequently consider early modern drama in terms of rhetoric, detailing how rhetorical education influenced the composition of plays, how playwrights employed rhetorical tropes and figures, and how they thought about rhetorical ethics. i take such analyses a step further by connecting playwrights' debates about the ethics of rhetoric with very similar cultural debates about the ethics of theatrical mass media. where are the lines between persuasion and coercion, education and indoctrination? is the practice of rhetoric—or the performance of theater—about a collaborative search for truth or about controlling the unruly masses? "propaganda and deliberation: the rhetoric of the early modern english public theater" illustrates how these rhetorical-ethical dilemmas animated early modern dramatic literature and how playwrights like marlowe, shakespeare, and jonson drew on their extensive rhetorical training to meet a moment of profound media shift. i argue in particular that these playwrights sought to transform the theater into a site of rhetorical and political education, one that would inculcate deliberative habits of mind in its audience members and create a citizenry resistant to indoctrination. in dramas that are designed to reveal and subvert the strategies of theatrical propaganda and that employ rhetorical tools like the argumentum in utramque partem (or the "argument on both sides" of a question), playwrights seek to develop their audiences' political judgment. even as they celebrate the value of deliberation and debate, however, these dramatists also recognize that their methods might be appropriated by the elite for the purposes of political agitprop or otherwise authoritarian forms of political education. their plays worry about the ways in which rhetorical mindsets may dangerously destabilize spectators' sense of truth or moral clarity and about the ways in which bad actors, so to speak, can use rhetorical-theatrical tools to manipulate the masses. rather than creating subjects resistant to indoctrination, the deliberative tools of the theater, these dramatists recognize, could be used to do exactly the opposite. my dissertation investigates, in short, what happens when the power of early modern rhetoric, in all its conflicted traditions, encounters the early modern stage, in all of its capacity to influence the masses. three experimental projects are described herein concerning different spatial scales of atmospheric flows in urban areas. the first consisted of a field experiment performed in phoenix, arizona, focusing on flow and turbulence characteristics in a neighborhood made up of mixed industrial and suburban usage. the area is affected by larger scale terrain induced (slope/valley) flows, as well as the smaller scale land-use characteristics that have strong spatial inhomogeneity. flow and turbulence parameterizations used in existing numerical models were tested and, where applicable, improved alternatives suggested. calculation of integral length scales allowed a phenomenological description of eddy characteristics within and above the urban canopy layer. a detailed study of the nocturnal urban boundary layer was performed, which adds to the limited amount of literature on the subject. secondly, an air quality study is described, conducted in an industrial area of the coastal valley of termoli, italy. the effects of the slope flows, sea breeze, and urban heat island (uhi) were delineated using phenomenological reasoning in order to better understand the causes of high pollution episodes. finally, a project studying street canyon flow induced by differentially heated surfaces was carried out. field data was collected by constructing and instrumenting a simplified mock street canyon in singapore. a buoyancy parameter that delineates thermally and inertially driven circulations in street canyons was developed and tested. in addition, computational fluid dynamics (cfd) simulations were conducted to complement and better understand flow mechanisms observed in the field, the results of which were found to be consistent with observations. vectorbase is a web-based bioinformatics repository for insect vectors of human pathogens. this paper describes three of the components (the genome browser, search engine, and a collection of database tools) developed as part of the vectorbase project. prostate cancer (pca) has the second highest incidence of all malignancies in men worldwide. advanced pca shows overwhelming de novo resistance to immunotherapy which has revolutionized cancer treatment and achieved remarkable success across many cancer types. to combat the resistance of pca to immunotherapy, therapeutic efforts using targeted agents to convert "cold" to "hot" tumor microenvironment (tme) are promising approaches that are currently lacking in pca. the tme can be shaped by both cancer cell-intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms. because malignancies originate from genetic mutations, the mechanisms dysregulating the immune landscape in solid tumors (pca included) can be traced back to cancer-cell-intrinsic. however, how genetic mutations affect tme and immunotherapy is poorly understood. here, we (1) discovered chromatin effector pygo2, as a driver of pca and have a significant amplification in pca patients, induced the de novo resistance to immunotherapy through suppressing cytotoxic t lymphocytes (ctls) infiltration in the tumor area, and (2) uncovered speckle-type poz protein (spop) and chromodomain helicase dna-binding protein 1(chd1) which frequently mutated and deleted respectively in pca synergistically protected prostate epithelial cells from dna damage and implied that the pca patients with spop mutation and chd1 deletion might be susceptible to poly(adp-ribose) polymerase inhibitors(parpi) or dna-damaging agents and immunotherapy because of the potential higher neoantigen expression.although pygo2 was identified as the driver for the amplicon 1q21.3 in pca, it remains unclear whether pygo2's role in pca involves the regulation of the tme. here, we identified a novel mechanism where pygo2 orchestrates a p53/sp1/kit/ido1 signaling network to restrict ctls and augment regulatory t cells in prostate tumors. importantly, genetic ablation of pygo2 or small-molecule inhibitors (jbc117, jbc117ana) targeting the binding between pygo2 and histone h3k4me2/3 significantly enhanced the antitumor efficacy of several modalities of immunotherapeutics, including icb (anti-pd1/anti-ctla4), adoptive t cell transfer, and cxcr1/2 inhibitor that blocks polymorphonuclear myeloid-derived suppressor cells (pmn-mdscs). strikingly, pygo2-knockout and icb combination led to a 100% cure of the rm9 murine prostate. clinically, pygo2 expression was inversely correlated with ctl gene signatures and cd8+ t cell infiltration in prostate cancer. because pygo2 is highly expressed in several other solid malignancies, therapeutic targeting of pygo2 may have broad applications as monotherapy or immunotherapy sensitizer for the improved outcome of cancer patients. spop mutations are highly associated with chd1 deletion, defining a new subtype of pca associated with increased genomic instability. prostate-specific single or double knockout of spop and chd1 mice failed to generate prostate adenocarcinoma. compared with wild-type or single knockout mice, the double knockout prostate harbored moderately higher proliferating cells and dramatically augmented levels of γh2ax staining. spop mutant overexpression and chd1 silencing synergistically sensitized bph1 to dna damage by camptothecin. our results indicated that spop and chd1 could synergistically promote the repair of dna damage in prostate epithelial cells. it implied that this subtype patient might be sensitive to parpi and immunotherapy. there are those who think that metaphysics is a legitimate discipline, and there are those who do not. among those who think that metaphysics is a legitimate discipline, there are those who think that it is in the business of producing knowledge, and there are those who do not. among those who think that metaphysics is a legitimate discipline that is in the business of producing knowledge, there are those who think that it can produce knowledge of the highest sort, and there are those who do not. the purpose of this dissertation is to show that thomas aquinas was among those who thought that metaphysics is a legitimate discipline that is in the business of produce knowledge of the highest sort, and that he had good reason to do so—at least by his own lights.in the aristotelian tradition to which aquinas belonged, the highest sort of knowledge was demonstrative knowledge (episteme or scientia), in which the knower grasps—on the basis of universal and necessary principles—both that and why some subject necessarily has some property. chapter 1 draws attention to the difficulties that aquinas's peripatetic predecessors had in giving a consistent account of metaphysics that could meet the standards of scientia. chapter 2 provides an overview of aquinas's understanding of scientia with a view to articulating precisely what he thought its requirements were. chapters 3, 4, and 5, respectively, consider aquinas's account of the subject-matter, the properties, and the principles that he thought were at issue in the science of metaphysics. on my revisionary interpretation of these three points, aquinas's vision of (and for) metaphysics is one that hangs together with remarkable consistency and meets all the demands of aquinas's rigorous understanding of scientia. high performance computing has enabled breakthroughs in computational science and engineering by allowing simulations on parallel computing platforms. one of the major challenges in developing parallel algorithms for these platforms is that the arithmetic performance, measured in terms of the number of floating point operations per second (flops), is typically better than the communication performance, measured in terms of how fast data can be communicated between processors. as a result, the performance of these parallel algorithms is often limited by the communication between processors. this dissertation aims to reduce the overhead of communication by developing algorithms that communicate only when necessary. in particular, we apply the concept of event-triggered communication from networked control systems to design faster, energy-efficient and scalable parallel algorithms for high performance computing. we analyze and implement parallel numerical solvers with event-triggered communication for a class of partial differential equations. we also study and implement event-triggered communication for distributed training of artificial neural networks. we show that such communication strategies can reduce the number of messages to be communicated while converging to the correct solution. reducing the number of messages is expected to decrease the time and energy associated with communication as well as alleviate congestion in interconnects. the developed algorithms can be useful for future exascale computing platforms. protein sequences have evolved to fold quickly and efficiently to their native, active conformation in the complex crowded environment of the cell. a role for co-translational folding in efficient protein folding has been proposed. yet, the mechanisms by which co-translational folding might affect protein folding efficiency are not completely understood, primarily because only a small number of co-translational folding studies have been performed. the current study describes co-translational folding of green fluorescent protein (gfp), a ìøå¢-sheet protein with complex native topology. the amino acid residues that make contacts in native ìøå¢-sheet proteins are often far apart in the primary sequence. formation of native-like contacts for n-terminal portions of such polypeptides will be delayed during vectorial synthesis on the ribosome, because the c-terminal contact residues have not yet been synthesized, or are sterically inaccessible in the ribosome exit tunnel. the degree of co-translational folding of these n-terminal regions, and the overall ability of the nascent chain to evade erroneous conformation after its complete synthesis, are still unknown. studies with ribosome-bound gfp showed that gfp can fold completely to its native structure on the ribosomal surface. however, complete folding is only possible if the entire gfp sequence is exposed outside of the ribosome exit tunnel. importantly, gfp nascent chains that have their c-terminus buried in the ribosome exit tunnel remain folding competent and fold to a native conformation with high efficiency after release from the ribosome; this efficiency is significantly higher than the folding efficiency of chemically denatured gfp. time resolved anisotropy measurements revealed low conformational flexibility for the gfp nascent chains with c-terminus in the ribosome exit tunnel. similar low conformational flexibility was determined and for completely folded ribosome-bound gfp chains, but not for truncated ribosome-bound gfp chains. in addition, a protease resistance assay revealed the presence of a stable gfp nascent chain fragment with a size close to the size of full length gfp.these results suggest that co-translational folding promotes the acquisition of on pathway, native-like conformations of the growing gfp nascent chains, resulting in high folding efficiency for an otherwise highly aggregation-prone ì_å_-sheet protein. this dissertation argues that the old school presbyterian church was a significant 'bond of union' to the american nation during the antebellum era. how did a phrase from the presbyterian constitution, describing the relationship of the presbyterian general assembly to its congregations come to play such a central role in how old school presbyterians thought of their role in the civil union? there are several interwoven questions that this dissertation will seek to answer. one set of questions involves the problem of disestablishment: given that the united states rejected the concept of an established church, what would church/state relations look like? the transformation in identity from 'church' to 'denomination' took time. the older understanding of the unity&ndash;or catholicity&ndash;of the visible church could not help but be eroded as 'liberty of conscience' began to trump catholicity. a second constellation of questions revolves around ethnicity and culture. an overwhelming proportion of old school presbyterians were of scottish and ulster descent. virtually every debate spawned numerous appeals to scottish presbyterian beliefs and practices. even non-scottish presbyterians seem to have adopted the scottish heritage of their co-religionists. while considered theologically antiquated by many for their confessional calvinism, old school presbyterians also lived in the mainstream of social, economic, and political power. a third array of issues probes the intellectual milieu. the constitutional issues underlying the ecclesiological disputes of the old school are central for understanding why they took the positions that they did with respect to slavery, education and other social issues. commonsense moral reasoning, with its emphasis on universally accessible moral intuitions, produced an emphasis on persuasion, both in written and oral debate. this dissertation relies upon records of oral debates more than many previous works. with methodists and baptists divided north and south, and the less numerous episcopalians largely residing in urban areas, old school presbyterians were the only protestant denomination with significant representation in every region of the nation. this dissertation explains how the imagined self-concept of 'the bond of union' influenced the old school's decision-making process in debates over education, slavery, temperance, marriage, and church order. zebrafish possess the ability to regenerate all retinal cell types after damage. following injury, müller glia dedifferentiate and divide asymmetrically, producing a müller glia and a neuronal progenitor cell (npc). these npcs then continue to proliferate, and eventually migrate towards the site of damage, at which point they differentiate into the lost cell types, allowing for full recovery of retinal function.numerous pathways regulating zebrafish retinal regeneration have been identified, however despite promising studies within the mammalian retina, none have induced a response equal to that of the zebrafish. therefore, i analyzed the zebrafish retina during regeneration at the single cell level. this led to identification of multiple novel transcription factors which regulate retinal regeneration, providing further targets for study within mammalian systems. furthermore, i identified several targets for study that may regulate very early müller glia responses to damage.multiple iron homeostasis genes are differentially regulated within müller glia prior to retinal cell death suggesting that iron might be a key regulator of retinal cell death and the müller glia response. i show that ferrous iron can induce significant retinal damage, that induces a particularly strong regenerative response. additionally, i demonstrate that iron contributes to retinal cell death, with chelation resulting in significantly less photoreceptor death during light treatment, and decreased müller glia proliferation. despite this contribution of iron to retinal cell death, i demonstrate the ferroptosis is not a major contributor to retinal cell death in the light-treated retina. i also show that a key regulator of iron transport, tfr1b, and a regulator of ferroptosis, gpx4b, are required for a full proliferative response from müller glia.the alternative ciliary neurotrophic factor receptor (cntfr) ligands cardiotrophin-like cytokine factor 1 (clcf1) and cytokine-like factor receptor 1a (crlf1a) are significantly upregulated in müller glia prior to cell death. i show that these ligands are neuroprotective, decreasing photoreceptor cell death during light treatment. i also show their requirement for müller glia proliferation following injury, as knockdown of the receptor, or associated ligands results in significantly fewer proliferating müller glia. additionally, i show that clcf1/crlf1 can induce rod progenitor proliferation in an igf-1r -dependent manner. this dissertation aims at elucidating the history of vernon smith's experimental economics by focusing its attention upon the three themes of rationality, minds and machines that assumed significance at different (albeit overlapping) stages of the development of smith's experimental economics with the help of his published and unpublished papers. chapter 1 is devoted to the scrutiny of the form of rationality incorporated into the portions of smith's laboratory experiments whose results have usually been taken as corroborations of his 'hayek hypothesis.' by bringing into the foreground smith's definite position on demand theory and its concrete instantiations on many different occasions, we make the case that smith has consistently imposed by means of the induced value theory certain narrowly defined preference structures that have definite implications for the form of rationality instantiated in the laboratory. the main narrative in chapter 2 concerns smith's intellectual interchanges with behavioral scientists in the early 1960s, more specifically, his reactions to behavioral scientists' attempts at cognitive modeling. we present several reasons for interpreting smith's initiation of the attempt at the maximization-based induced value theory as an endeavor to discipline subjects' minds. we also provide in chapter 2 a portrayal of smith's missed opportunities to get involved in the large-scale laboratory experimentation projects pursued in the 1950s in close connection with several branches of psychology. chapter 3 consists of two parts. in part 1, we describe the origin of mechanism design economics, and offer a detailed explanation of the analytical kinship between smith's 'microeconomic system theory' and the standard theoretical framework utilized in mechanism design economics. part 2 is devoted to describing the roles played by the computer in both smith's empirical research agenda and the theoretical, mechanism design research pursued by stanley reiter (one of smith's intellectual companions since the 1950s). our historical narrative in chapter 3 is intended to clarify that computer experience and computational theory drove the development of reiter' version of mechanism design economics, and that they also (partially) shaped some crucial events in the history of smith's version of experimental economics. this project examines early manuscripts of the greek triodion to investigate the development and celebration of lazarus saturday in centuries leading up to the byzantine rite. the results create a manuscript classification system based on the weekday structure of the early triodia. this shows concretely the diversity of early triodia manuscripts, implying a wide variety of sources. it also identifies elements specific to triodia which may be used to date further manuscripts: the adoption of triadika troparia throughout the kanon, the transmission of the kanon for lazarus of andrew of crete, and the placing of another troparion after what would normally be the last troparion of the ode in the weekday kanons of theodore the studite. concerning the content of the hymns, the project examines the relationship in the hymns of the sixth week of lent between the lazarus of luke 16 and the lazarus of john 11, the use of 'rewritten bible exegesis', and the central theme of lazarus saturday: the anticipation and promise of the harrowing of hades, which will be celebrated a week later. this thesis examines coleridge's political identity through his most popular staged play, remorse. i argue that coleridge employs metadrama in the form of spain, napoleon, the gothic, the incantation scene, and the main character's multitude of disguises in order to reveal the indeterminate nature of political identity. by having his play demonstrate the fluidity of political identity, coleridge also presents a defense against the charge of 'political apostasy.' the late medieval english religious lyric, immensely popular in its time but neglected in contemporary literary scholarship, offers an under-explored site for examining the ties between evolving religious and textual practices. this study challenges scholarly understandings of the entanglement of literary and religious history by examining the late medieval english religious lyric through the lens of reading practices. by integrating two previously isolated approaches to the medieval religious lyric, i address a gap in scholarly understanding of the place of these texts in early english reading cultures: my project draws textual and literary scholarship on the early english religious lyric together with recent scholarship that searches out correlations between developments in late medieval religious culture and textual culture (e. g., through increasing literacy and the laicization of devotional culture). i argue that through both the reading practices in which these texts engage their readers and the construction of the imagined reader within them, as much as through their content, religious lyrics were read to effect ethical, affective, volitional, and epistemic change in a growing array of medieval readers. lyrics like the widely-proliferated 'nou goth sonne under wod' (dimev 3742) and 'let fal downe thyn ne and lift up thy hart' (dimev 3054), carved across a fifteenth-century rood screen rail in a yorkshire church, were believed to properly serve these formative functions by their authors, advocates, and readers. in narratives like the storie of asneth, we see this understanding of the place of verse within religious practice confirmed through the literary construction of a lay, female penitential subject performing religious lyric. the particular and functional cultural vitality of the late medieval english religious lyric illustrates the interconnectedness of literary and religious history across the period. by taking an approach to the lyric centered on its reading, my project re-examines the genre in a justly historicized manner and joins it to the concerns of the contemporary study of lyric. analysis of middle english religious lyric poetry as it was read and transmitted across the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries reveals its centrality to late medieval religious and reading cultures and how these texts reshape our understanding of the age's complex forms of socio-religious change. "the wooing of her lords" and "feasting on the shroud" bear the fruits of two years spent reading, grieving, and transforming painful memories of "home" via the linguistic imagination. the former project presents a femme speaker who attempts to untangle relationships between her own complicated desires, the abuses she suffers from men-in-the-flesh, and both systemic and familial patriarchal domination. its diction and aesthetics, described by several readers as "transtemporal," find their inspirations in medieval courtly romances—like chrétien de troyes' le chevalier de la charrette, the lais of marie de france, chaucer's troilus and criseyde, and sir orfeo— as well as spenser's faerie queene, early 20th century nursery rhymes and folk songs, and poems by writers from working class origins. as she attempts to individuate her body and sense of self from those of the men who loom over her inner and outer lives, this speaker sings from a shadowy stage in the pockets of time and space available to her; attempting to give voice to silenced ancestors. "feasting on the shroud" extends this universe, using a modified tanka form to build a series of meditations on the same themes in the aftermath of a father's death. like memories fragmented by trauma, the latter set of poems resists neat sequentiality or titles; instead working by a logic of accretion to mimic grief's cyclical crescendos and decrescendos over time. together, the two projects may serve to expand and complicate the reader's notions of femme sexuality, white american masculinity, and processes of grieving both personal and collective wounds. in this thesis work, two topics, triaxiality and reflection asymmetry, have been discussed. band structures in 163tm were studied in a 'thin' target experiment as well as in a dsam lifetime measurement. two new excited bands were shown to be characterized by a deformation larger than that of the yrast sequence. these structures have been interpreted as triaxial strongly deformed bands associated with particle-hole excitations, rather than with wobbling. moreover, the tilted-axis cranking calculations provide a natural explanation for the presence of wobbling bands in the lu isotopes and their absence in the neighboring tm, hf and ta nuclei. a series of so-called 'unsafe' coulomb excitation experiments as well as one-neutron transfer measurements was carried out to investigate the role of octupole correlations in the 238,240,242pu isotopes. some striking differences exist between the level scheme and deexcitation patterns seen in 240pu, and to a lesser extent in 238pu, and those observed in 242pu and in many other actinide nuclei such as 232th and 238u, for example. the differences can be linked to the strength of octupole correlations, which are strongest in 240pu. further, all the data find a natural explanation within the recently proposed theoretical framework of octupole condensation. in our current moment we are experiencing a continuous conflation of time and space due to the rise of technology's presence within our lives. the internet's virtual environment has brought human perceptual experience to a "place" where time and space becomes enmeshed within the same plane, converging simultaneously into the conventions of the screen. in retromania: pop culture's addiction to its own past, simon reynolds declares that "not only has there never been a society so obsessed with the cultural artifacts of its immediate past, but there has never been a society that is able to access the past so immediately and copiously."within this algorithmic landscape, our social interactions and sense of space is rapidly changing. physical space attempts to keep up with digital space. the constant interaction with our screenic devices is directly associated with how the real world is changing and adapting to these technologies in order to keep us engaged in the landscape of shortened attention spans and continuous consumerism. automation is changing and adapting to new technological advancements and is changing the way that we think about work and the future of work. these factors are rapidly altering the way we consume information, address political and social issues, navigate social spaces and shop. however, this is nothing new. similar to the advent of the printing press or the invention of the telegraph, new technologies and ways of communication continuously change the way society functions. in the context of visual art, the european avant-garde in the early 20th century ushered in an examination of culture and society that created a radical shift in challenging the relationship of producer and consumer. presently we are dealing with not only the relationships of producer and consumer, but the ever-increasing merging of the real and the virtual through digital commerce. this is apparent within the slow death and decline of the north american shopping mall. the geometric forms and motifs of modernist aesthetic have transformed into emblems of the past that have become entangled, recycled, and associated with consumerism and commodity goods. modernism promised a utopia that never arrived. how we imagine the failure of this future is the focus of my master of fine arts thesis and thesis exhibition imagining haunting: 'elsewheres and elsewhens.' in this exhibition, large scale oil paintings on canvas combine the pictorial language of geometric abstraction from the early 20th century european avant-garde with 1990's american mall aesthetic. i consider the fusion of these time periods as a material means to incorporate recycled forms as a reference to the inherent optimism in a utopian future that has continually failed to materialize. using the dying shopping mall as a point of departure for my work, this recontextualization is an attempt to illustrate that the past continually reminds us of the future's failure in the form of haunting. i argue that failure is directly embedded within the very fabric of modernist aesthetics. modernism poses a utopia within reach, but only delivers empty promises of failed hopes and futures that are struck with the harsh reality of anxieties. i believe this is a direct manifestation of the imagery itself: fractured, disintegrated and fragmented within its flat and desolate void. new technology is needed for desulfurization of petroleum streams due to the increasing sulfur content of petroleum input to refineries in the u.s. coupled with the increasingly stringent regulations on sulfur content levied by the epa. hydrodesulfurization is the current method of desulfurization in industry, but this method struggles to remove refractory thiophenic compounds. oxidative desulfurization (ods) offers the promise of easier removal of these compounds as a complementary process. however, the petroleum industry has yet to adopt this technology as common practice. a major challenge in implementing the ods process commercially is the need for highly active, selective, and stable catalysts. metal-organic frameworks (mofs) and mof-templated materials have shown promise as heterogeneous catalysts for a number of different chemical transformations including the oxidation of sulfur compounds, however, this research area is relatively new and therefore, underdeveloped. to that end, this dissertation documents the synthesis, characterization, and utilization of mofs and mof-templated materials specifically designed and synthesized to perform as active and stable catalysts for the oxidation of thiophenic compounds. initially, two existing mofs, (v) mil-47 and (ti) mil-125, were evaluated for catalytic activity and stability in the oxidation of thiophenic compounds. it was determined that while (v) mil-47 was more active, it was less stable than (ti) mil-125. mil-125 had a lower activity due, in part, to its small pore size, which limited access to active sites. therefore, a method to incorporate mesoporosity in the typically microporous mil-125 structure was developed. this hierarchically porous mil-125 material was found to be a more active catalyst than its microporous analogue due to increased accessibility of reactant molecules to active sites. mofs, while active for a number of chemical transformations, tend to have limited thermal and chemical stability. therefore, multiple methods of thermal transformation of mofs were employed to synthesize materials composed of ti nanoparticles supported on porous carbons. these newly synthesized materials exhibited high activities and stabilities in the oxidation of dibenzothiophene. furthermore, the final materials' properties could be tuned by altering the precursor materials and pyrolysis conditions. continuous advancement in bio-recognition is an important goal that can improve our everyday lives. from detecting contamination, to identifying and managing diseases, to better understanding our environment, biosensors provide the means to quantify the living world. developing new sensors for the analytical detection of biological analytes involves creating devices that are either better than current testing methods or provide novel analyte detection. the goal of the research presented in this dissertation is to develop new electrical biosensors through the direct chemical functionalization of semiconductor surfaces with self-assembled monolayers (sams).the monolayers serve as a linker that attracts a target analyte, connecting biology with technology.i first studied the functionalization of gallium nitride, a promising biocompatable material, with carboxylic acid and silane self-assembled monolayers. although functionalization was successful, i discovered that the native oxide, to which the monolayers are covalently bound, is soluble in aqueous solutions. the solubility of the oxide was explored for both powdered ga2o3 and solid gan with its native ga2o3 layer. the powder was found to be soluble in aqueous solutions at around 1-3 ppm.for 1 cm2 solid gan wafers soaked in 5 ml of liquid, the ga concentration was found to be 0.264 ± 0.05 ppb/mm2 for 18 mωh2o and 0.100 ± 0.015 ppb/mm2 for ph = 7 buffer. the second portion of my research focused on the modification of aminopropyltrithoxysilane (aptes) monolayers on silicon and iii-v nitride multilayered semiconductors for high electron mobility transistors (hemt's). the aptes monolayers were modified via reductive amination with 3 different aldehydes: 5-bromo-2-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldehyde, for aptes binding confirmation, 4-formylbenzo-15-crown-5, to create a cation binding monolayer, and dipicolylaldehyde, to create dipicolylamine (dpa) ligands that coordinate zn2+ and create an anion binding monolayer. although proving ion capture was unsuccessful, the dpa ligands do coordinate zinc. this creates a positively charged surface that i used for attracting negatively charged dna origami. this thesis describes an ultra-high vacuum scanning tunneling microscope (uhvstm)that is interfaced to a pulsed molecular-beam source. this is the first such instrument to allow in situ monitoring of a sample during molecular-beam exposure. this apparatus is used to investigate the effect of hyperthermal rare-gas bombardment on alkanethiol self-assembled monolayers. stm images show that close-packed monolayers remain largely unchanged, even after repeated collisions with 0.4-ev argon and 1.3-ev xenon atoms. in contrast, gas-surface collisions do induce structural changes in the alkanethiol film near defects, domain boundaries, and disordered regions, with relatively larger changes observed for xenon-atom bombardment. high-energy, rare-gas collisions generally induce three types of structural transformations: domain boundary annealing, vacancy island migration, and phase changes. collision-induced changes that occur tend to increase order and create more stable structures on the surface. migration rates are calculated and compared for molecules in close-packed domains, at domain boundary defects, and along the perimeter of vacancy island defects. the number of nearest-neighbor molecules (within the 5 å¡a lattice distance) is stongly predictive of molecular stability with respect to rare-gas bombardment, and the overall dependence of stability on nearest neighbors is well fit by a simple exponential curve for molecules with 0&ndash;5 nearest neighbors. for most observed structural changes the incident direction of the molecular beam does not influence the direction of molecular motion, indicating that for this system, collision-induced migration proceeds through vibrational excitation of the molecular film. this dissertation examines global, regional, state-, group-, and person-level processes involved in the growth of the movement formed around the constructed international language esperanto. the esperanto movement emerged in the global arena in the late nineteenth century as a response to inequalities in the nation-state field. in the course of several decades, the movement established a new global field based on the logic of equal communication through esperanto and on the accumulation of cultural capital. while the field gained autonomy from the nation-state field, it has not been recognized as its equal. persons endowed with cultural capital but lacking political and economic capital have been particularly drawn to esperanto. ironically, while attempting to overcome established unfair distinctions based on differential accumulation of political and economic capital, the esperanto movement creates and maintains new distinctions and inequalities based on cultural capital accumulation. at the regional level, the esperanto movement became prominent in state-socialist eastern europe in the second half of the twentieth century. the movement found unexpected allies among independent states in the eastern european periphery. the growth of the esperanto movement as the modal movement in the region coincides with the institutionalization of a unique form of civility favoring comprehensive socio-cultural development and the fellowship principle. according to eastern european civility, the familiar distinctions between the international and the domestic arenas, between the cultural and the political domains, and between the public and the private spheres taken for granted in the west become blurred. the organizational forms the esperanto movement developed, its practices, and its grounding in three universalist discursive fields — world culture, marxism, and fellowship — served as institutional carriers of eastern european civility. the institutionalization of the hybrid eastern european civility can explain the puzzling case of the bulgarian transition to democracy. while the country lacked a western-type civil society and a history of anti-communist contention, it still managed to establish a peaceful and stable democracy. these findings are based on historical and comparative process tracing involving five independent data sources: original archival research, interviews, and participant observation, and available survey and organizational data. this dissertation is composed of three studies in the cultural sociology of science. the first chapter examines the accumulation of status within bioethics since 1990. bioethics is important because it has life and death consequences across public policy, medical research, and the civil sphere. despite several studies tracing the evolution of the field and possible ways that sociologists might intervene, less information exists about how status is accumulated within this relatively new field. i focus in chapter one on how the categorization practices that authors use to position their paper within existing literature impact paper success, and i do so using data collected from the web of science. a series of negative binomial regression models produce a few key findings. despite historical accounts that argue the institutional infrastructure of bioethics was largely in place by the early 1990s, results suggest that the social structure of the discipline continued to develop into the 2000s. further, both the type of keywords used and the way in which authors couple certain keywords exhibit a positive statistically significant relationship with the number of citations a bioethics text is expected to receive.chapter two retains an emphasis on bioethics but shifts focus to a consideration of the field's conceptual structure during the same period. as an organized field, bioethics is relatively young; it was not until the late 1980s and early 1990s that bioethics had a real organizational base and became recognizable as something other than a set of debates between scholars firmly rooted in disparate fields, such as philosophy and medicine. in this chapter, i analyze with structural topic models a set of bioethics abstracts taken from the web of science. i find that there are roughly 70 topics within this corpus and that there are statistically significant relationships between the amount of attention that topics receive and publication year, whether an author of a text is based in a hospital or medical center, proportion of authors who are female, and the number of citations that a text receives.i conclude by noting the theoretical importance of these findings as well as methodological limitations that might be addressed in future research. chapter three departs markedly in terms of substance, focusing on the social thought of gabriel tarde, yet it fits together with chapter two in that it proposes a new theoretical method for analyzing scholars' works. gabriel tarde's social theory is receiving a considerable amount of renewed attention. while this emerging literature covers myriad domains, a detailed examination of the conceptual structure of tarde's thought remains to be undertaken. i subject tarde's social theory to a recently developed approach within cognitive sociology—sociological idea analysis. this approach is founded upon the insight that abstract theorizing is grounded in schematic patterns emerging from corporeal experience. i first summarize tarde's approach to social life and then highlight the different image schemas underlying his social theory. i conclude by noting how, in bringing sociological idea analysis to bear upon individual thinkers, one may advance the new sociology of ideas, research on scientific/intellectual movements, and field theory. this work involved the documentation and control of flow separation that occurs over low pressure turbine (lpt) blades at low reynolds numbers. a specially constructed linear cascade was utilized to study the flow field over a generic lpt cascade consisting of pratt & whitney 'pakb' shaped blades. flow visualization, pressure measurements, ldv measurements, and hot-wire measurements were conducted to examine the flow fields with and without separation control. experimental conditions were chosen to give a range of chord reynolds numbers from 10,000 to 100,000, and a range of freestream turbulence intensities from 0.08% to 2.85%. the blade pressure distributions were measured and used to define a region of separation that depends on the freestream conditions. the location of separation was found to be relatively insensitive to the experimental conditions. however, the reattachment location was very sensitive to the reynolds number and the turbulence intensity. separation control was performed using plasma actuators. both steady and unsteady actuation were implemented and found to work well. for the steady actuators, it was found that the separation control is the most effective when applied slightly upstream the separation location. there exists a threshold plasma amplitude for the actuator to take effect for separation control. however, the effectiveness of the actuator is saturated when the plasma amplitude is greater than certain value. the effectiveness of the steady actuator is not sensitive to the orientation of the plasma electrodes. for the unsteady actuators, there exists an optimum excitation frequency at which the unsteady actuator was the most effective. the optimum excitation frequency was corresponded to the unity strouhal number. it was also found that lowest plasma duty cycle (10% in this work) was as effective as the highest plasma duty cycle (50% in this work). this has an advantage for reducing the power to the actuators. the comparison between the steady and unsteady actuators showed that the unsteady actuators worked better than the steady ones. the mechanisms of the steady and unsteady plasma actuators were studied. it was suggested by the experimental results that the mechanism for the steady actuators is turbulence tripping, while the mechanism for the unsteady actuators is to generate a train of spanwise structures that promote mixing. hmg-coa reductase catalyzes the four-electron reduction of hmg-coa to mevalonate in the biosynthetic pathway for cholesterol. the enzyme is of considerable biomedical relevance because of the public health impact of its inhibitors called statins that are prescribed to control cholesterol levels and reduce the risks associated with coronary heart disease. surprisingly, the level of mechanistic understanding of the complex reaction mechanism of hmg-coa reductase is not commensurate with its importance. the combination of x-ray crystallography and computational methods, such as theozyme and qm/mm models, has allowed a more detailed understanding of the mechanism for the reaction. the models predict that the catalytic residue, glu83, is protonated prior to the reaction, and the resulting activation energies estimated for the sequential hydride transfer reactions, 21.8 and 19.3 kcal/mol, are in agreement with the experimentally determined rate constant. in addition to the qm/mm models for the reaction, quantum-guided molecular mechanics (q2mm) transition state force fields (tsff) were developed. the tsffs are not only four orders of magnitude faster than qm/mm dynamics and therefore allow for more complete sampling of the protein motions during the reaction, but also address the problem of the boundary region inherent to all qm/mm methods by permitting a simulation at a consistent level. good agreement is observed structurally between the previously mentioned qm/mm models and the q2mm tsff models. in addition, molecular dynamics simulations with the q2mm tsffs are stable on relatively long time scales, ~10 ns, and are useful for producing an ensemble of transition structures to describe the reaction. the cross-coupling of sp2 centers is an important process for the synthesis of biaryl groups. hayashi and coworkers recently reported a transition metal-free method for coupling easily accessible aryl grignard reagents and aryl iodides. the reaction involves a single electron transfer and was originally classified as a nucleophilic radical substitution (srn1) reaction until radical clock experiments suggested that there is no radical intermediate. dft calculations predict the formation of an mg-radical ion pair that reacts towards products faster than the rate of the radical clock reaction. based on these results a novel variation of the srn1 mechanism is proposed for this reaction that is consistent with the available experimental results. this dissertation examines the scriptural concept of the "prophet like moses," both in its original context in deuteronomy 18:15–22 and in its reception in the hebrew bible, early judaism, and nascent christianity. first, it argues that the portrayal of moses as a prophet like moses is a deuteronomic innovation, bound up with the attempt to secure normativity in revelation. deuteronomy associates moses with prophecy in order to prohibit all non-mosaic sources of revelation. the sole legitimate source of divination to which israel has recourse is a mosaic prophetic office. second, after the exile the deuteronomistic writers transform this this office into an authorized pre-exilic mosaic prophetic succession, culminating in jeremiah. their distinctive description of the prophets as yhwh's "servants" reflects and is dependent this interpretation of deut 18:15–22. third, the dissertation demonstrates that deuteronomy's redefinition of prophecy as mosaic shapes the discourse around prophecy in second temple judaism. it argues that hellenistic scribes posited the cessation and deferral of the mosaic prophetic succession, so that the mosaic prophetic office became a feature of the past and future, and not the present. the absence of mosaic prophets in the present was balanced by ascribing such status to an increasing number of figures in israel's scriptural traditions (most notably joshua) and, in some cases, holding to an eschatological interpretation of deuteronomy 18:15, 18. fourth, the dissertation examines early christian interaction with deut 18:15–22 in luke-acts and the gospel of john. it argues that extensive debates over jesus' potential status as prophet like moses was a feature of late first-century christianity's struggle for legitimation within its jewish context. the dissertation therefore demonstrates that from its origin in deuteronomy through its reception up to the first century ce, the concept of the prophet like moses has a norm-constructing potential that would influence early jewish and christian discourse around prophecy and prophetic claimants. in this thesis molecular quantum cellular automata (qca) is to be fabricated into a real device. the principle of this experiment is to detect the switching activity of molecules using a single electron transistor (set). this is done by growing molecules on a highly doped p+ si substrate called a p+ window. the p+ window is also a part of the island of the set such that the molecules are capacitively coupled to the set. the stateswitching in the molecules will cause an electrical potential change on the island which will affect the current flow, ids, of the set. the fabrication of the device mainly involves the following steps: the formation of the p+ window, the deposition of metal pads and wires, the growth of the set, and the growth of molecules. until now, real devices have been made but the switching activity of the molecules has yet to be detected. this is a dissertation about simple things. walking, moving stuff around, performing tasks in a certain order: these are easy for most people. but human competence in locomotion, manipulation, and task planning masks their fundamental complexity. nowhere is this more obvious than in robotics. robots that can move around, affect their environment, and plan to achieve multi-step goals have tremendous potential to impact human flourishing, from performing dull or dangerous tasks on earth to pushing the boundaries of science on distant planets. despite amazing recent progress in computing and artificial intelligence, however, robots with even a fraction of human abilities remain firmly in the realm of science fiction. why are locomotion, manipulation, and task planning so deceptively difficult? one key reason is scalability. to move through the world and move objects around, robots must make and break contact with the environment. as the number of possible contact points increases, the number of dynamics modes grows exponentially. similarly, the computational cost of planning to achieve a high-level task grows exponentially as the task becomes longer and more complex. this dissertation addresses scalability challenges in locomotion, manipulation, and task planning. for locomotion and manipulation, we focus on high-degree-of-freedom robots composed of rigid links, a category that includes manipulator arms, quadrupeds, and humanoids. for task planning, we focus on specifications expressed in temporal logic. a unifying theme is optimization: by carefully formulating optimization problems with desirable characteristics, we arrive at solutions that scale to larger systems, more complex contact configurations, and more difficult tasks. we first consider temporal logic task planning and propose planners based on nonlinear programming, mixed-integer programming, and convex optimization. these methods outperform the state-of-the-art in terms of scalability to high-dimensional systems and complex specifications, but require some simplification of the robot's dynamics. to apply the resulting plans to manipulation and locomotion, we need a bridge between simplified models and the robot's full nonlinear dynamics. we then present two ways of building such a bridge. the first method, approximate simulation, provides an error bound between a simplified model used for planning and the robot's nonlinear dynamics. we use passivity principles to certify approximate simulation for large nonlinear systems, and present a new notion of robust approximate simulation that accounts for disturbances and modeling errors. approximate simulation provides strong formal guarantees, but is also conservative. it cannot use the full dynamics of the robot, including the ability to spontaneously make and break contact, to achieve the task. this motivates an alternative bridge between high-level plans and the actual robot: trajectory optimization through contact. optimization through contact offers fewer guarantees than approximate simulation, but requires fewer assumptions. this approach takes a high-level motion plan as a reference and uses the full system dynamics, including making and breaking contact, to achieve the task. we present several new methods for trajectory optimization through contact, including a custom solver that enables real-time model predictive control. we demonstrate the speed and scalability of these methods in locomotion and manipulation tasks. drawing from the genres of speculative and weird fiction; the visual paradigms of the grotesque and surreal; and the philosophical veins of speculative realism, my work posits potential futures—visions of a world unfurling, in uncertain balance, at the threshold of the chthulucene. in "into the chthulucene," i trace the literary, philosophical, and visual inheritances that inform my work, particularly the nonhuman worlds depicted in my paintings and drawings. exploring concepts ranging from donna j. haraway's notion of "tentacularity" to michael marder's "phytophenomenology" to mark fisher's theorizations of the "weird" and the "eerie" and n. katherine hayles' "posthuman," this paper contextualizes my work along visual and thematic lines of inquiry, exploring what it means to grapple with uncertain, potentially inhospitable futures, but also the deep and inspiring complexity of the nonhuman worlds within and beyond us. while the language of natural (or human) rights continues to proliferate in contemporary discourse, the intellectual underpinnings of these rights has yet to progress in a widely accepted manner from the rawlsian arguments that precipitated the most recent state of crisis in liberal thought. from the perspective of contemporary natural law theory, rights are indeed grounded and justified as expressions of a subjective perspective regarding the requirements of the natural law or the demands of justice. while many rights may derive their justification solely from the requirements of a prior natural morality in this way, the partial detachment of subjective rights from a prior moral structure effected by early liberal thinkers such as john locke contains an important element of truth. natural rights, such as the rights to one's life, liberty, and external property, are primarily justified by human beings' self-ownership through self-consciousness. this notion is expressed, in an implicit and undeveloped manner, by locke in his essay concerning human understanding and his two treatises of government. self-ownership, rightly understood, both underpins and justifies certain natural rights independently of a prior natural morality, and serves as the basis for responsibility within a natural moral structure. indeed, a persuasive theory of the natural law is implied by a proper understanding of the same self-ownership that engenders natural rights. in this way, a properly articulated understanding of self-ownership simultaneously justifies and explains liberalism's rights-based orientation, and provides a persuasive basis for supplementing natural rights-based morality with a natural law morality. natural justice, of the sort that justifies and limits the actions of human governments and guides the activity of individuals, finds complementary bases in both the individual human being and in the common characteristics of humanity. natural rights and natural law, or modern and pre-modern orientations in moral and political philosophy more broadly, need not be characterized in terms of opposition or even an order of priority; they are, rather, complementary elements that join to form a true conception of natural justice. this work presents a combined experimental and theoretical investigation of the conditions under which a fluid flow causes a microparticle to detach from a flat surface. the general approach was to conduct well-controlled experiments, to observe individual microparticle motion and to focus on the basic detachment mechanisms. microparticles of different sizes, materials and shapes (mostly microspheres) were deposited as monolayers onto the substrates under controlled conditions. the microparticles attached to the substrate in a condition of static equilibrium due to contact adhesion and resided completely within the viscous sublayer. the flow was accelerated during a transient period up to a fixed, constant velocity. smooth glass plates were used as substrates and scanned with an atomic force microscope to determine their roughness-height distributions. the study was confined to microparticles in the diameter range of approximately 10 to 100 micrometers. they were distributed on the surface as a monolayer in sparse/dense conditions, dry/humid and subjected to laminar or fully developed turbulent flows. quantitative information on the increase of flow velocity at which 50 % of the microparticles detached (u_th) at different controlled conditions are presented. the variability in the u_th was found to be in the range of 10 % to 20 %. the techniques used to obtain such a low variability are described. the measured values then were compared to a model based on force/moment balance approach. the model accounts for the surface roughness effects and is applicable to dry/humid conditions and laminar or fully developed turbulent flows. the results of the model agreed with the measurements, to within the uncertainties, for the cases studied. the sensitivity of the u_th to five factors contained in the experiments and the model is analyzed. the motion of microparticles after their detachment is considered. the microparticle velocities along the surface after detachment are measured using a strobed laser-light sheet and compared to the numerical solutions. results indicate that the microparticles undergo pure rolling along the surface before possible entrainment, that the sweep part of a burst-sweep event plays a role in the detachment process and that the dissipative forces and moments are negligible. this dissertation examines the nature of anti-catholicism in maryland from the glorious revolution in 1688 until american independence in 1776.it demonstrates that while anti-catholicism existed in maryland throughout the period, in the form of statute law and popular sentiment, the phenomenon represented a political response rather than a theological objection to the catholic religion.each emergence of anti-catholic sentiment grew from the concerns of the day, rather than a consistent objection to that religion or its members.anti-catholic sentiment during the glorious revolution targeted actual catholics in the colony, but also extended to their supporters (alleged and real) in maryland and virginia.protestant objections to catholics after 1700 represented a wider concern about adherents of non-anglican religions extant in maryland.the enthusiasm for anti-catholic legislation passed during the hart administration had its roots in anti-quaker sentiment after 1700.rather than representing a coherent anti-catholic platform, penal laws in maryland emerged after a feud between governor john hart and the catholic charles carroll.maryland politics split into two factions – country and proprietary – after 1720.anti-catholicism withered as a political tool for two decades.proprietary officials in maryland used anti-catholicism to encourage the country faction to fund defenses against a possible spanish invasion.the country faction resisted such calls, but then used anti-catholicism themselves during the french and indian war to discredit proprietary officials.finally, the example of john carroll demonstrates that eighteenth century catholics could themselves cite popery as a danger.carroll, a jesuit priest, connected the role played by european catholic monarchs to suppress the jesuits to contemporaneous hanoverian overreach in north america. from edmund spenser's faerie queene to john dryden's annus mirabilis, the poets of the english renaissance idealized destruction. whether historical or visionary, destruction appeared in various genres, using conventional images. when poets portrayed destruction as comic, they emphasized liberation and celebrated visions of a glorious future. when they portrayed destruction as tragic, they likened it to a hostile attack on human life with the loss of unrecoverable beauty or cultural heritage. through the metaphor of destruction, poets addressed the problem of social change, attacked opposing ideas, or held up an instructive "mirror" of warning for england. debates about destruction's role in the reformation continued throughout the period. spenser's faerie queene makes destruction a discovery, a way of acquiring knowledge by visual means. in spenser's poem, destruction liberates the oppressed and returns individuals or society to an original state. dryden's annus mirabilis considers providential destruction's role in breaking with the past and redefining the nation's idea of itself. a novel about the dream of catching up to the past. magnetic quantum-dot cellular automata (mqca) is a new kind of unconventional computation structure that uses solitons or domain walls propagating in field coupled magnet dots to implement signal propagation. input and output structures are required as an interface between mqca and the outside circuit. input structures "write" a particular state to magnet dots, and output structures "read" out the state. several kinds of input and output realization structures are reviewed in this thesis, of which technologically undemanding structures are picked up as promising candidates because of the simple operation of the mqca structure. a joint experimental and theoretical approach of amr-based magnetic sensor is undertaken; as the resistance change of the sensor is predicted using micromagnetic simulations. simulation and measured resistance vs. magnetic field change curves show good agreement on a simple test device and mesoscopic magnet wire. a major issue in the utilization of covariance structure analysis is model misfit evaluation. recent years have witnessed increasing interest in various test statistics and so-called fit indices, most of which are actually based on or closely related to f0, a measure of model misfit in the population. the present study aims to provide a systematic investigation about the performance of four estimators of f0 available. f01 is the conventional estimator and is based on noncentral chi-square approximation. f02 is newly proposed and does not assume noncentral chi-square approximation. f03 and f04 are derivatives of f02. a monte carlo simulation study is conducted to examine how the above four estimators of f0 perform across varying model misspecifications, data distributions, model complexities, and sample sizes. although all four quantities estimate f0 satisfactorily under normality, the results favor f02 due to its relative robustness to data nonnormality. issues related to our findings are discussed. this is a collection of short stories dealing with psychological and cultural myths surrounding ghosts. this dissertation examines the ways in which jews in the second temple period used the book of genesis for legal purposes. while the book of genesis is part of a larger corpus referred to by terms related to law (torah in hebrew and nomos in greek), genesis poses a problem, as it contains relatively little legal material, and takes place prior to the formal giving of the law at sinai. this dissertation looks at the ways in which jews in the second temple period grappled with the place and role of genesis in the torah, as they relate to halakhah, and focuses on the following questions: what was the status of the law prior to sinai? did the patriarchs observe the law,and why? what is the relationship between genesis and sinai? was genesis treated differently as a halakhic source than the other books of the pentateuch? while previous studies have examined aspects of these questions, none have provided a comprehensive overview of the issues as they relate to second temple judaism as a whole. the introduction places these questions in their historical and scholarly contexts. the second chapter focuses on the book of jubilees. the third chapter examines the qumran scrolls across various genres. the fourth chapter looks at passages within philo and josephus, which relate to genesis and halakhah. the fifth chapter shifts to early christian literature, and examines the gospels and the pauline letters. based on an examination of all of these texts, it is clear that the relationship between genesis and halakhah played an important role in the halakhah and theologies of second temple jews. some texts reflect an intentional incorporation of genesis in halakhic contexts, while others avoid doing so. additionally, there is a positive correlation between the use of genesis for halakhah, and the question of whether the patriarchs observed the law prior to sinai. depression is a serious condition associated with great suffering on both personal and global scales. resilience research on depression is growing as a part of a relatively recent shift to a focus on positive health outcomes and may hold great promise for discovering new avenues to understanding, preventing, and treating depression. the current study tested the stress-inoculation hypothesis, a resilience concept that suggests that those who have experienced a moderate amount of previous life stress will be better prepared to endure future life stress. preclinical evidence and some clinical research suggests that a moderate level of childhood adversity (ca) may better prepare an individual to be resilient to the effects of future life stress, as opposed to severe or little ca. approximately 400 emerging adults were assessed with respect to ca, current life stress, cortisol response to an acute stressor, depressive outcomes, and positive functioning outcomes. most generally, the stress-inoculation hypothesis was not supported by the data. those with moderate ca did not produce a more resilient cortisol response to an acute stressor, and did not consistently report less depressive symptoms or greater levels of positive functioning when challenged by recent severe life stress. implications for future research are discussed. the extra-textual apparatus of a manuscript is an important aspect of the presentation and organization of the text itself. marginal annotation is a vital part of this apparatus: written by both scribes and readers, in latin and england's two vernaculars (french and english). in laying out their manuscripts, book producers offer direction to subsequent readers as to the aspects of the text worthy of particular notice. those readers, in contributing their own notes, both immortalized their reading of the text and adapted it for future readers by supplying apparatus they considered to be wanting. marginal notes in the romance, therefore, illuminate the genre, defining the most important, most noteworthy aspects, and helping to define our expectations both of the normative in romances' organizational apparatus, and of romance notes as a dependent genre.romances were not typically annotated, but when they were, the annotators have sought their model in the somewhat richer tradition of brut chronicle annotation. the apparent straightforwardness of romance notes, often summarizing or even quoting the text, is belied by the complexity of the choices made by annotators in deciding what aspects of the text require annotation. annotators seem to have viewed note-making as an educated activity &ndash; notes are as likely to be in latin as in the english or anglo-norman of the texts themselves &ndash; and they appealed to a standard form and constellation of interests in the notes' content. notes were not provided as navigational aids to organize the manuscript, but were designed as guides to the reading of smaller, more digestible sequences or episodes. conspicuous in the margins are names, of people, places and objects. marvels also form an important aspect of the notes, suggesting both the centrality of the marvelous in the romance genre, and its importance to the medieval representation of history. the combination of raman spectroscopy with electrochemical techniques is an attractive approach to studying microbial communities due to the blend of label-free molecular composition information with sensitive, inexpensive in situ monitoring of the redox states of target molecules. the work in this thesis focuses on the combined application of these tools to two disparate microbial systems. pseudomonas aeruginosa is one of the major causes of hospital acquired infections, including those arising from cystic fibrosis, burn wounds, and organ transplants, leading to high rates of mortality and morbidity. myxococcus xanthus is a common soil bacterium that exhibits various form of self-organizing behavior in response to changes in environment, for example, the development of multicellular fruiting bodies in response to constrained nutrient availability.a novel application of surface enhanced raman scattering (sers) coupled with electrochemical techniques is described to investigate the secretion of the virulence factor pyocyanin (pyo) by p. aeruginosa. results from pyo were obtained in both model systems and secreted from p. aeruginosa in biofilms. both reveal decreasing sers intensities of pyo intensities under reducing conditions. furthermore, sers imaging indicates that secreted pyo is localized in regions approximately the size of p. aeruginosa cells, suggesting its localization in the biofilm environment.other phenazines, including phenazine-1-carboxylic acid, 5-methyl-phenazine-1-carboxylic acid, and phenazine-1-carboxamide, have also been identified as secreted factors from p. aeruginosa. electrochemical determination of these factors using nanopore electrode arrays (neas) has been demonstrated for enhanced detection of these phenazines, again using both model systems and p. aeruginosa bacteria. when bacterial cells are applied to the nea surface, only phenazine molecules can diffuse into the nanopores, while bacteria are excluded due to their size. thus, highly efficient redox cycling conditions can be accessed in the neas by free diffusion unhindered by the presence of bacteria. this strategy was used to demonstrate phenazine determinations with limits of detection, 10.5 nm and 20.7 nm for pyo and phenazine-1-carboxamide, respectively, ca. 100-fold lower than achievable by square wave voltammetry.finally, this work discusses the confocal raman microscope (crm) application to examine m. xanthus dk1622 wild-type chemical signals and their fingerprints under various nutrient conditions. spatial mapping of raman features for dk1622 grown under both vegetative conditions and those that promote the formation of fruiting bodies was performed by combining crm imaging with principal component analysis. ten distinct spectral features were observed from m. xanthus grown on nutrient-rich ctt by crm. when the dk1622 strain of m. xanthus was constrained to grow under nutrient-limited conditions, by starving it of casitone, it developed fruiting bodies, and the accompanying raman microspectra exhibited distinct features, with the absence of casitone in the medium reducing, or completely eliminating, features at 1140 cm-1, 1560 cm-1 and 1648 cm-1. in their place a feature at 1537 cm-1 was observed, this feature being tentatively assigned to a transitional phase important for cellular adaptation to varying environmental conditions. while the metabolites responsible for these raman features are not completely identified yet, three m. xanthus peaks at 1004 cm-1, 1151 cm-1, and 1510 cm-1 are consistent with the production of lycopene. finally, spatial distribution of signals acquired from principal component heat maps indicate that the signaling molecules associated with fruiting bodies stay closely related with these structures throughout formation and maturation of these nutrient-directed structures. this dissertation studies semimodule morphic systems, which are systems evolving with variables taking values in semimodules over a semiring. intuitively, such systems are not equipped with additive inverses. the topics in this dissertation include reachability, observability, the kalman realization diagram, fixedpoles and fixed zeros of the model matching problem, and zerosemimodules in the disturbance decoupling problem. the concepts of reachability and observability are defined for semimodule morphic systems. this dissertation generalizes the kalman realization theory to semimodule morphic systems. a canonical realization of a transfer function is characterized by the property that it is reachable and observable; namely, the transfer function corresponds to a canonical factorization into an onto map and a one-to-one map. the pole semimodule of output type leads to a canonical realization for a given transfer function. the pole semimodule of input type is only a reachable realization; but it is also canonical if and only if the transfer function is steady. solution existence conditions for the model matching problem are established. two fixed pole structures are introduced for solutions to the model matching problem, and relationships are established between the fixed pole semimodules and the pole semimodules of the solutions. we characterize fixed pole semimodules using pole semimodules, zero semimodules, and the extended zero semimodules of the given transfer functions. the dissertation introduces two fixed zero semimodules and establishes a connection between these fixed zero semimodules and the extended zero semimodules of the solutions. the fixed zero semimodules are characterized using pole semimodules, zero semimodules, and the extended zero semimodules of the given transfer functions. zero semimodules are used in the study of the disturbance decoupling problem. the research generalizes several types of invariant sub-semimodules, including (a,b)-invariant sub-semimodules, (a,b)-invariant sub-semimodules of feedback type, controllability sub-semimodules, and pre-controllability sub-semimodules. a connection between zero semimodules and these invariant sub-semimodules is established. this connection provides the relationship between the frequency domain theory and the geometric control, which helps us to obtain the solvability condition for the disturbance decoupling problem of semimodule morphic systems. the global carbon cycle regulates earth's climate and provides environmental conditions necessary for humans and other organisms to persist. with ever increasing anthropogenic emissions, land and ocean systems must take in more and more c to mitigate the impact of emissions on climate and of climate change on society. within the land, c cycling occurs through heterogeneous terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems that are each vertically connected with the atmosphere and laterally connected to each other. the lateral c transport (lct) from terrestrial to aquatic ecosystems is understudied and poorly constrained within the land c budget relative to vertical fluxes, yet determines when, where, and for how long c is stored. because terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems respond differently to environmental conditions, quantifying the potential for land c uptake and storage to continue mitigating emissions requires constrained lct estimates that can better resolve how stored c is partitioned among ecosystems.in this dissertation, i take a coupled process model approach that leverages connectivity between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems to constrain lct, improve understanding of its drivers, and partition terrestrial lct loss and aquatic fate. in chapter 2, i develop a coupled terrestrial-aquatic c and hydrology process model for lct. based on a series of model experiments and sensitivity analyses, i create a conceptual model of the cross-scale interactions among climate, vegetation, and local responses that drive lct at large continental scales. in chapter 3, i apply the coupled terrestrial-aquatic model across a subset of watersheds with the contiguous u.s. after validating the coupled terrestrial-aquatic model using terrestrial and aquatic data sources, i compare terrestrial vertical net c exchange, lct losses, and aquatic emission of lct across watersheds. in chapter 4, i present a coupled model framework that leverages connectivity within the coupled terrestrial-aquatic process model to constrain c and water fluxes across terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. i demonstrate that data collected in aquatic ecosystems can constrain vertical gross primary production fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems using a data assimilation approach. in combination, these chapters address critical questions about the drivers, quantity, and impacts of lct within terrestrial, aquatic, and land c budgets, while providing a conceptual and process model framework that can be implemented to answer future questions about lct. as a rapidly expanding interdisciplinary science bridging physics, chemistry and biology, the study of soft condensed matter involves the kinetics, dynamics and geometric structures of complex materials like membrane, liquid crystal and polymers. these soft condensed materials are distinguished by the unique physical properties on the mesoscopic scale which can provide useful insights to understand the basic physical principles linking the microscopic structure to the macroscopic properties. knowledge of the underlying physics is of benefit to a wide range areas, such as the processing of biocompatible materials and development of lcd display technologies. although the separation of the length scales allows statistical mechanics to be applied, the interesting behavior of these systems usually happens on time scale well beyond current computing power. in order to simulate large soft condensed systems for long times within a reasonable amount of computational time, some new coarse-grained models are presented in this dissertation to describe phospholipids and liquid crystals. although these models can be described using a small number of physical parameters, it is not trivial to introduce rigid constraints between different molecular fragments correctly and efficiently. working with colleagues, i developed a new molecular dynamics framework capable of performing simulation on systems with orientational degrees of freedom in a variety of ensembles. using this new package, i studied the structure, dynamics and transport properties of the biological membranes as well as the the phase behavior of liquid crystals. a new langevin dynamics algorithm for arbitrary rigid particles is also presented to mimic solvent effects which may eventually expand the time scale of the simulation. in this thesis i propose a reading of how lucan's bellum civile responds to its contemporary historical and political environment, the reality of the roman imperial regime, and offers a reflection on the meaning of writing literature under imperial rule. to explore what the interaction between the poet and his text comes to be and, relatedly, how lucan innovates epic poetry in comparison to its tradition, i analyze especially the 'authorial interventions', passages in which the voice of the narrator interrupts the flow of the narrative and engages intimately with it. their noticeable number and expressive content are marks of lucan's rhetorical and poetical novelty, and therefore represent compelling keys to understanding the poet's conception of imperial autocracy, and his ability to engrain it in a literary discourse. a collection of poems that encapsulate the coming-of-age of a bicultural american. t cell receptor (tcr) recognition of peptides bound and presented by major histocompatibility complex (mhc) proteins initiates a cellular immune response. the stability of the peptide/mhc molecule is correlated with tcr recognition and the resulting immune response. residual dynamics of peptides within mhc binding grooves have also been suggested to influence tcr recognition, yet nmr studies which could address this most rigorously have been hindered by the prohibitive expense of isotopically labeled peptide and the large size of the peptide/mhc complex. this study describe methodologies for characterizing peptide dynamics within mhc binding grooves via nmr, using a biosynthetic approach for producing labeled peptide in which the peptide is fused to ubiquitin and a ubiquitin dehydrolase used to liberate the peptide. using the tax11-19 peptide bound to the 45 kd human class i mhc hla-a2 as a model system, it is evident that peptides generated in this manner can be well characterized in mhc binding grooves by nmr, providing the opportunity to more precisely study the role of peptide dynamics in tcr recognition, specificity, and cross-reactivity.using both nmr and molecular dynamics simulations, the principles governing conformational changes observed in tax (llfgypvyv) and p6a-tax (llfgyavyv) peptide/mhc upon tcr binding were examined. nmr results indicated that despite nearly identical crystallographic structures, there are differences in the conformations of the two peptide/hla-a2 complexes as a function of increasing temperature. analysis of unrestrained molecular dynamics simulation at 300 and 330 k provided insight into these differences, showing that the central region of both peptides sampled alternative conformations. in addition, the studies suggested that conformational changes observed upon tcr binding to mhc cannot be explained solely as an induced-fit or selection of a pre-existing equilibrium conformation but rather a combination of these two binding mechanisms.in the case of the mart-1 melanoma antigen (aagigiltv), despite improving peptide binding 40-fold, replacement of the suboptimal alanine at position 2 with leucine (algigiltv) completely abolished t cell recognition. although crystallographic structures indicated similar backbone conformations of both peptides, molecular dynamics simulations and nmr at multiple temperatures showed alternative conformations in the modified peptide. this tracked closely with the crystallographic results, showing that the modified peptide samples all the conformations observed crystallographically. collectively, these observations reveal that contrary to the usual considerations regarding peptide antigenicity, antigen dynamical properties can profoundly influence t cell recognition. further, these observations demonstrate that seemingly minor modifications within a peptide can have dramatic unanticipated consequences such as increasing antigenic peptide dynamics, with implications for tcr binding and kinetics. approximately 40 million americans suffer from degenerative joint disease such as osteoarthritis and damaged cartilage. hydrogels are crosslinked polymer networks swollen with water, and are being considered as potential replacements for deceased load bearing tissues such as cartilage. for such applications mechanical characterization is very important. hydrogels show nonlinear time dependent behavior experimentally which is a challenge to describe and simulate. hydrogel constitutive model development is of great interest and importance. poly(vinyl alcohol) or pva has been extensively studied for medical and other applications. injection molded pva hydrogels have shown good mechanical strength compared to traditional freeze/thaw processing. in this study, pure pva hydrogels were selected as a baseline since they have been highly studied. the pva hydrogels were manufactured with different polymer concentration to demonstrate that an increase in polymer concentration can improve mechanical properties. in addition, novel hydrogels were developed to incorporate both a hydrophilic and a hydrophobic segment. it is proposed that an increase in the hydrophilic segment ratio can improve the mechanical properties of the hydrogel. poly(ethylene-co-vinyl alcohol) or eval, and poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) or pvp blend hydrogels were selected to demonstrate that the addition of hydrophobic segments (eval) can improve mechanical properties. this dissertation developed a methodology to characterize the hydrogels. a biphasic viscoelastic constitutive model was developed based on the structure and nature of the hydrogel and implemented in a umat user subroutine in the abaqusì¢"_å¢ finite element analysis (fea) package. the material parameters of the pva and eval-pvp hydrogel were characterized using an inverse finite element (fe) technique that combines experimental results with numerical simulations via an optimization method using a matlabì¢"_å¢-based optimizer and the abaqusì¢"_å¢ solver. two types of mechanical testing methods have been explored: unconfined creep and indentation. results of the creep experiments showed for pva hydrogels, an increase in polymer concentration decreases the equilibrium water content (ewc) as well as the creep strain. in eval-pvp hydrogels, an increase in the hydrophobic segments (eval) decreases the ewc as well as the creep strain. results from the indentation experiments showed that the modulus of the pva hydrogels estimated using the oliver-pharr approach is in the range of 0.5 to 2 mpa, and the modulus of the eval-pvp hydrogels is in the range of 2 to 6 mpa. the modulus of the pva hydrogel increases with increase in polymer concentration. the modulus of the eval-pvp hydrogels increases with increase in the hydrophobic segments (eval). it demonstrates that for pva hydrogels, an increase in polymer concentration can improve the mechanical properties, and for eval-pvp hydrogels an increase in hydrophobic segments (eval) can improve mechanical properties. the results showed that simulation with the biphasic viscoelastic constitutive model was able to achieve good agreement with the experimental results in both creep and indentation tests. the moduli measured via indentation are one order lower than those from creep tests. the relaxation time of the pva hydrogels is in the range of 17 to 28 seconds from the indentation tests and 1700 to 22000 seconds from the creep tests. the relaxation time of the eval-pvp hydrogels is in the range of 4 to 15 seconds from the indentation tests and 1500 to 4200 seconds from the creep tests. research indicates that marital conflict is a risk factor for the development of adjustment problems in adolescents. guided by attachment theory and emotional security theory, the purpose of this study is to examine the differential influence of marital conflict on the psychological processes of emotional security about family relations, emotional security about marital relations, and attachment security, which in turn will contribute to a refined understanding of how and why marital conflict leads to adjustment problems in adolescents. three waves of data on community families were drawn from a larger, longitudinal basic research study on family functioning. results revealed that emotional insecurity about marital relations (t2) significantly mediated the link between marital conflict (t1) and adolescent's externalizing behavior problems (t3). significant mediation effects were not found for emotional insecurity about family relations or parent-child attachment insecurity. implications for intervention are discussed. in many communication scenarios, the communicating parties typically have some knowledge or attempt to learn about the time-varying environment or the channel over which communication takes place. to understand these models, it is important to study the fundamental performance limits of state-dependent channels whose probabilistic input-output relationship depends on a time-varying random parameter called channel state. this channel state could be either fading in a wireless environment, interference, or host signal in information embedding, etc. in this thesis, we focus on studying state-dependent network models from an information theoretic perspective when the side information is available at some encoders and state recovery is considered at some decoders. in general, the side information could be either exact channel state, noisy channel state, or channel output feedback. in this thesis, we assume that the side information is exact channel state. we study single-user state-dependent models and multi-user state-dependent models such as multiple access channels (mac) and broadcast channels (bc). for the state-dependent mac with non-causal side information at some encoders and without state recovery at the decoder, we study bounds on the capacity region in the case of independent messages and derive the capacity region in the case of dependent or degraded messages. for the gaussian case, we develop a coding scheme based on both dirty paper coding and state cancellation to obtain the inner bound on the capacity region. for the state-dependent mac with different non-causal side information at different encoders, we derive inner bounds on the capacity region for the case of no state recovery at the decoder and the case of some, but not all, state recovery at the decoder. for this model, we also study bounds on the capacity region for the case of all state recovery at the decoder. it turns out that the inner and outer bounds meet if all state signals are independent. consequently, we obtain the capacity region for this case. for the state-dependent bc with non-causal encoder side information, we consider lossless state recovery at some decoders. in the two decoder model, we study bounds on the capacity region in the case of state recovery at only the better decoder. we also study the capacity region for the case of state recovery at all decoders and the case of state recovery at only the worse decoder. finally, we consider lossy or partial state recovery in single-user state-dependent models without side information and study bounds on the capacity region for a given state-recovery distortion constraint. in october 1939, andrew maclaren mp claimed of the radio, 'there is no more powerful weapon than the unseen echo that encircles the earth and passes from one point into the hearts of millions.' this comment on radio's martial power and extensive reach drives this dissertation, which explores the link between radio networks and destructive weaponry, and argues that while there is a historical correlation between radio and war, wartime broadcasting cannot simply be categorized as a weapon for disseminating nationalist propaganda. instead, by rereading the history of radio broadcasting during wwii in light of the medium?s experimental and literary origins, this dissertation suggests that radio also has a significant historical association with literary pursuits. thus, the radio broadcasts of modern writers during wwii are best read as both propaganda and literature, or in other words, politically and aesthetically. this transnational project examines the cultural and literary wartime broadcasts of well-known american, british, and german-?migr? authors, including theodor adorno, orson welles, dorothy sayers, george orwell, archibald macleish, ezra pound, and thomas mann. although these authors fully contributed to a nationalizing war effort, they also participated in the forming of new transnational networks through both their international broadcasts and the inclusion of multi-national writers within the broadcast stations. the formation of these cosmopolitan literary networks with transnational reach has significant ramifications for the study of literary modernism and questions the standard perceptions of late-modernism as either in decline or increasingly nationalistic. thus, through a study of key modern writers? interaction with and writing for wartime radio, this work proposes that radio broadcasting facilitated networks which challenged national(ist) borders. in the process of exploring modernism's second act in the early 1940s, this dissertation also exposes formal similarities between radio broadcasting and literary modernism, namely that radio networks, which simultaneously forge and deny effective communication, act as a fitting analogy for the contradictions of modernism, where authors' attempts to communicate with the public were often thwarted by esoteric forms. direct radiative capture is a non-resonant one-step nuclear reaction mechanism that in principle does not involve the formation of a compound nucleus. in the absence of strong resonance inside the gamow window, direct capture can be the dominant contribution to astrophysically important reaction rates. the present thesis studies two such reactions, 17o(&rho;, &gamma;)18f and 3he(&alpha;, &gamma;)7be. 17o(&rho;, &gamma;)18f influences hydrogen-burning nucleosynthesis in several stellar sites, such as red giants, asymptotic giant branch (agb) stars, massive stars and classical novae. in the relevant temperature range for these environments (t9 = 0.010.4), the main contributions to the rate of this reaction are the direct capture process, two low lying narrow resonances (elabr = 70 and 193 kev) and the low energy tails of two broad resonances (elabr = 587 and 714 kev). previous measurements and calculations give contradictory results for the direct capture contribution which in turn increases the uncertainty of the reaction rate. in addition, very few published cross section data exist for the high energy region that might affect the interpretation of the direct capture and the broad resonances contributions in the lower energy range. in this work we present a measurement of the reaction at a wide proton energy range (elab = 360 1625 kev) and at several angles (&theta; lab = 0&#9702;, 45&#9702;, 90&#9702;, 135&#9702;). 3he(&alpha;, &gamma;)7be is important for the neutrino production in the sun's core and the production of 7li during the big bang nucleosynthesis. due to the low level density of 7be, the reaction mechanism is almost entirely non-resonant at the relevant energies. recent experiments have improved the uncertainty of the reaction but some discrepancies still exist. in the present work, a relatively wide energy window was measured, ecm = 0.300 &#8722; 1.450 mev, by detecting the prompt gamma-rays from the reaction. the use of a compact helium jet gas target ensured high gamma-ray detection efficiency. the results are compared with literature. confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) is routinely applied to ordinal variables like questionnaire items. treating ordinal manifest variables as if they were continuous in cfa leads to less-than-optimal results. three procedures have been proposed to properly fit cfa models with ordinal manifest variables. these three procedures are the polychoric correlation approach (joreskog, 1990, 1994; muthen, 1984), the underlying bivariate normal approach (joreskog and moustaki, 2001; xi, 2011), and the item response theory approach (bock et al., 1988; cai, 2010a,b). statistical properties of the polychoric correlation approach under correctly specied models have been well studied. the properties of the underlying bivariate normal approach and the item response theory approach have not been studied and contrasted. the goal of the present dissertation is to empirically evaluate the performances of three procedures under a variety of conditions. to serve the purpose of comparison, the normal theory maximum likelihood approach which ignoring the characteristics of ordinal manifest variables is also examined in the current study. of particular interests are their respective performances under misspecified cfa models. to examine the performances of different approaches under misspecified cfa models, different levels of model error are introduced into population covariance matrices. the levels of model error are controlled to have rmsea index with 0, .05, and .08, which falls in the range from perfect fit, close fit and fair fit. the model errors are introduced to the population covariance matrices by the procedure described in cudeck and browne (1992). the independent variables manipulated in the simulation studies include the level of model misspecification, sample size, model size, number of response categories, and the distribution of ordinal variables. the outcome variables include point estimates, standard error estimates, and condence intervals. the chi-square test statistics and fit measures are also examined to understand the influences of the factors on model fit. guidelines for substantive researchers are provided. the results indicate that across the manipulated conditions, the composite likelihood function approach provides satisfactory performances in terms of the relative bias of point and standard error estimates, empirical coverage rates of confidence intervals, and empirical rejection rates of overall model fit test statistic. the item response theory approach provides similar results as the composite likelihood function approach. the polychoric correlation approach can also provides unbiased point estimates for model parameters. and the normal theory maximum likelihood approach is not recommended to apply with the ordinal manifest variables. the recent discovery of graphene, a single atomic sheet of graphite, has ignited intense research activities to explore the electronic properties of this novel two-dimensional (2d) electronic system. the impressive properties such as the linear energy dispersion relation near the charge neutrality (dirac) point in the electronic band structure, field-effect mobilities as high as 15 000 cm2/vs and carrier velocity of ~10^8 cm/s at room temperature make graphene a possible candidate for electronic devices in the future. however, graphene has been studied mostly at low biases till date. for the application in practical devices, it is essential to investigate the high-field transport properties. in this work, fabrication and high field characteristics of 2d and nanoribbon graphene are described on back and top gated field effect transistors (fets). saturation has been achieved; the saturation current density for many samples were measured to be in the 1 2 a/mm range. semiconducting graphene nanoribbon (gnr) fets showing 10^4x i on/off ratios are realized. the unique output characteristics of the devices are investigated and found to be the consequence of drain induced channel control. epitaxial graphene fets were fabricated and measured as well. long channel saturation was demonstrated and the small signal performance was characterized. power gain cut-off frequency as large as 16 ghz was measured. this work applies various electronic structure methods to the electronand x-ray-irradiated molecules. the goals of these computational studies range from calculating the physically inaccessible properties for analysis of experimental results to establishing accurate and computationally efficient methods facilitating understanding of experimental data. electronic structure methods that are used in this work are the density functional theory, hartree-fock, m&oslash;ller&ndash;plesset perturbation theory, and the coupled cluster technique. low-energy (70 ev) electron irradiation effects on the mixture of the nitrogen and methane gases in the complex chemistry of the titan's atmosphere including cosmic rays and atmospheric lightning are studied computationally. the observed ionic species resulting from the electron irradiation, their chemical structures and binding energies are computed and analyzed with an emphasis on the heterogeneous structure formation, particularly on molecules containing cn bonds important in understanding the synthesis and nature of organic species' formation in titan's atmosphere. the process of monocarbon ionic cluster formation under low-energy electron irradiation in cold helium nanodroplets doped with nitrogen/methane mixtures is studied computationally. electronic structure calculations determining the geometrical structures of these clusters and their binding energies enable us to draw important conclusions on the conditions controlling the clusters formation. finally, a number of density functionals and gaussian basis sets are benchmarked for calculation of the core electron binding energies for carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen nuclei in the first-row hydrides methane, ammonia, and water, and the multi-conformational amino acids &mdash; glycine, alanine, proline, threonine, and methionine. the goal is to establish methods having potential to aid analysis of experimental x-ray photoelectron spectra on compounds such as amino acids, dna nucleosides, and large polypeptides in various environments. a number of promising density functionals, basis sets, and their unique combinations are identified that reproduce accurately the experimental results for the absolute binding energies and also for the intramolecular and intermolecular shifts. software evolution relates to the activity and phenomenon of software change. constant changes are inevitable in large software systems including safety-critical systems for which failure may result in death or serious injury to humans, damage to property and/or environmental harm. therefore, to ensure safety, such systems undergo a rigorous certification process before their release. the certification process commonly happens in discrete and costly steps and, once certified, the system is commonly closed to changes and adaption to avoid the need for re-certification. this effect is referred to as the \big freeze" problem. in this dissertation, i describe my contribution to enhance evolution in software-intensive systems, especially those with safety-critical implications, in order to address this problem. enhanced evolution in such systems facilitates a continual assessment of safety during the maintenance phase of their development life cycle. first, i identified patterns of change within software artifacts and patterns of co-evolution between pairs of artifact types, particularly requirements and source code, across multiple versions of a software system. second, i exploited these identified patterns to implement a trace link evolver (tle) to detect these change scenarios which occurred between subsequent versions of a system. tle then uses a corresponding set of link evolution heuristics and automatically evolves trace links between requirements and source code as changes are introduced to the system. experimental results showed tle achieves significantly higher accuracy than existing approaches which reconstruct trace links from scratch after the change. third, i evaluated tle's scalability in industrial contexts with large open source software projects. a prototype eclipse plugin was developed by a team of undergraduate students to show how tle algorithms might be integrated into an ide environment. i developed a prototype visualization tool which illustrates the evolution of trace links and their associated classes and features, in the form of a graph, by leveraging the links generated by tle. tle visualization provides developers with information they need to understand the evolution history, rationales, and underlying functionality of classes in the source code. historical data has shown that problems with the correctness and completeness of environmental assumptions contribute to many accidents in safety-critical systems. therefore, in my final contribution, i extended the focus from the co-evolution of requirements and code, by additionally exploring changes in environmental assumptions and faults. the goal was to diagnose problematic change patterns in safety artifacts across versions of a system. in the approach named assumption diagnostics and rationale process (adrp), existing trace links are exploited to reason about the likelihood that assumptions are missing or incorrectly retained in the new software product. adrp generates a report containing useful information for a safety analyst to assess validity of environmental assumptions. adrp finally recommends mitigation steps if a problem with assumptions is diagnosed. evaluation results showed adrp consistently diagnosed problematic assumptions. in summary, this dissertation describes my contributions to enhance change propagation across subsequent versions of software-intensive safety-critical systems. the ultimate goal is to minimize the human errors and manual e ort required to evolve software and safety artifacts. the research of this dissertation addresses two important issues relevant to parameter estimation: maximizing network lifetime (nlt) of distributed wireless sensor networks deployed to estimate and track a common parameter; and carrier-frequency-offset (cfo) estimation in orthogonal frequency-division-multiplexing (ofdm) systems. in practice, the sensor nodes (sns) of most wireless sensor networks are energy-constrained. to estimate and track a common parameter using such energy-constrained networks, we propose to employ set-membership adaptive filter (smaf) in each of the sns. the smaf updates (thus transmits) parameter estimates only if the magnitude of the estimation error exceeds a predefined threshold, which affects the frequency of updates and the overall estimation performance. this approach renders a nicely formulated trade-off mechanism, resulting in more frugal energy use for sns, and prolonged nlt. this approach also leads to a solution framework that relates maximizing nlt to network performance, i.e., meeting a performance constraint defined based on the mean-squared-deviation (msd) of the consensus estimate. the nlt maximization is posed as a constrained optimization problem whose solution yields the optimal error thresholds for the smafs that maximize the nlt. the optimal solution is obtained by using an iterative binary search algorithm, which also solves a problem of node selection. the robustness of the proposed solution is investigated with respect to the spatial correlation and the impact of the uncertainty in the knowledge of spatial correlation on the nlt. we also solve nlt maximization for the case of optimum energy with a constraint on total energy. simulation results using data from real-world applications show that the proposed approach offers substantially prolonged nlt over conventional tracking algorithms such as normalized least mean-squares (nlms) adaptive filters. the second part of the dissertation focuses on estimating cfo in ofdm systems taking into account power amplifiers (pa) nonlinearity in time-varying multipath fading channels, like those in mobile environments. we derive cram`{e}r-rao lower bound (crlb) and approximate maximum-likelihood-estimators for cfo estimation in the static and time-varying channel scenarios. analysis and simulation reveal that doppler fading introduces a floor on the accuracy of cfo estimation. we then study the impact of pa nonlinearity on the accuracy of cfo estimation and present the modified crlbs for the same. performance of an ideal predistortion (pd) scheme is compared to that of a practical pd scheme employing unscented kalman filter (ukf). simulation results corroborate our theoretical analysis and prove the efficacy of our proposed pd filter to compensate for nonlinearity. sink is a coming of age story in relation to the anthropocene, which attempts to reckon with loneliness and the impossibility of support systems. base metal oxides are of interest as low-cost replacements for pt-based no oxidation catalysts. while the mechanism of pt-catalyzed no oxidation is fairly well understood, such is not the case for the oxides. in this work, we report density functional theory (dft) and kinetic modeling results for one class of potential oxide catalysts, the perovskites. the perovskite lacoo3 itself has been shown to have good no oxidation activity, and sr substitution improves no oxidation rates and reduces no2 inhibition. we used periodic dft calculations in the vienna ab initio simulation package to compute the energies of vacancies, o, o2, no, no2, and no3 on the (100)-lao and (100)-coo2 terminations of the parent lacoo3 and 8&#37;-doped sr-substituted material. further, we used first-principles thermodynamic models to determine the most common surface species under no oxidation conditions. experimental tpd suggest o, no, and no2 species are present on the perovskites. thermodynamic models show nitrates and adsorbed no2 as the most stable species on the lao and coo2 terminations, respectively. based on the results above, we performed a dft screening of vacancies, o, no, no2, and no3 intermediates on the (100)-lao and (100)-mo2 terminations of the entire first row perovskite series, lamo3 (m = sc-cu). vacancy and o energies vary nearly linearly across the series, while nox adsorption energies show less variability. we constructed relative energy diagrams combining these results with both langmuir hinshelwood (lh, competitive surface adsorption) and mars van krevelen (mvk, vacancy-mediated) reaction mechanisms. these models show that the reaction mechanism is sensitive to the material, termination, and temperature. surface pathway microkinetic models predict rates of the lh mo2&gt;lao pathway with mn having the highest tof. finally, sulfur deactivation is a practical challenge for the application of perovskites as no oxidation catalysts. however, recent reports have determined that depositing pd onto lacoo3 can increase the sulfur tolerance. we explore the binding of sox on lacoo3 and various models of pd deposition. the increasing pd content in general decreases the binding of sulfur to the lao termination. we also use thermodynamic modeling to explore the phase degradation in of lacoo3 in the presence of sulfur. the la2o2so4 is the lowest energy phase of la2o3, coo2, co2o3, and lacoo3. metal adsorption onto bacterial surfaces, bacterial adsorption onto mineral surfaces, and bacterially mediated mineral dissolution can control mass transport in bacteria-bearing geologic systems. the research in this dissertation provides a mechanistic understanding of some of these important biogeochemical processes. in chapter 2, the adsorption of the gram-positive bacterium bacillus subtilis was compared with adsorption of the gram-negative bacterium pseudomonas mendocina onto fe-oxyhydroxide-coated and uncoated quartz grains as a function of ph and bacteria : mineral mass ratio. the data show that the presence of fe-oxyhydroxide-coatings on quartz surfaces significantly enhances the adsorption of bacteria and that in general the extent of adsorption decreases with increasing ph and with decreasing bacteria : mineral mass ratio. b. subtilis adsorbs to a greater extent than does p. mendocina onto the surface of the fe-coated quartz. the adsorption data was modeled using a semi-empirical chemical equilibrium model. chapter 3 describes a study of the effect of metabolism on cd adsorption onto gram-positive and gram-negative bacterial cells. metabolizing gram-positive cells adsorbed significantly less cd than non-metabolizing cells. gram-negative cells showed little difference in cd adsorption onto metabolizing and non-metabolizing cells. in chapter 4, ph dependent measurements of cd2+ and h2aso4adsorption onto shewanella oneidensis were used as an indirect probe of the bacterial surface charge. cd2+ exhibits typical cation adsorption behavior. h2aso4adsorption is negligible over the entire ph range studied. these observed adsorption behaviors are most consistent with the presence of negative charge on the bacterial surface. based on this conclusion, titration and cd adsorption data for s. oneidensis were modeled using only acidic functional group sites. in chapter 5, the production of siderophores by pseudomonas mendocina under fe-limited conditions is described as a function of fe source: supplied in dissolved form, as fe-containing kaolinite, and a no-fe-added control. production of siderophore on a per-cell basis decreased in the order: no-fe-added control>kaolinite>feedta. although more siderophore per cell was produced in the most stressed system, more total siderophore was produced in the least stressed system. this is due to the presence of a larger total population size in the least stressed system. a directed acyclic graph (dag) is a useful representation of causal structures and partial orderings between variables. in this dissertation, several new testing procedures for multiple hypotheses along a dag that take into account both the graph structure and side information are presented and studied. these procedures are shown to theoretically and empirically control fdr while increasing power over existing methods under certain scenarios. a generalized dag testing procedure is also considered that allows one to use more general logical constraints, which can potentially differ for each hypothesis. extensive simulation studies show promise of attaining theoretical fdr-control. the focus is then shifted to the problem of detecting the directed edges between discrete variables, for which a novel bayesian model is presented. this model incorporates graph edge sparsity through a sparsity inducing prior, while modeling each node as coming from a conditional distribution in which the variance is a quadratic function of its mean. extensive simulation studies show the promising nature of this bayesian model in terms of providing a lower error rate for detecting the directed edges, while having similar power as existing methods. this dissertation illuminates how sex scandal coverage has changed religion in the united states. focused on protestant ministers, the project traces the long history of american scandal—from silence to sensationalism. it investigates what cultural work scandal performed, what demands the public made of church bodies in response to revelations of pastoral misdeeds, and how religion itself changed in the process. at first hesitant to report on sex crimes in order to protect the reputations of protestant ministers, u.s. newspapers embraced the genre of scandal in the 1870s, when the biggest celebrity pastor of the era stood trial for adultery. scandal reporting escalated in the following decades, creating multiple publicity crises, the likes of which continue to plague churches to this day. using the understudied intersection of scandal and religion, this project argues that scandal coverage allowed the press to compete with the pulpit as a source of moral authority, forced denominations to restructure, and emboldened sustained public scrutiny of religious piety.this project makes several interventions in the fields of u.s. religion and sexuality. first, it uncovers the significant role of scandal as a motivator for change and restructuring within religious denominations and institutions. second, whereas other studies have mostly focused on single instances of scandal's reach, this dissertation traces long-term trajectories of pastoral sex scandal coverage, thereby presenting a more comprehensive picture of how scandal shaped american religion. finally, whereas the bulk of recent scholarship has focused on inter-denominational debates about what counted as appropriate sexual behavior for clergy and adherents, this project positions the press and the reading public—armed with the details of ministerial missteps—as key interlocutors. scandal coverage enabled public discussions of contentious subjects and created space for cultural negotiations of what counted as sexual morality outside of church walls and seminary halls. this dissertation argues that historians have misunderstood the american protective association (a.p.a.), the largest anti-catholic organization in nineteenth-century america. at its core, the a.p.a. was an antimonopoly organization, and its anti-catholicism was a constitutive element of its antimonopoly beliefs. paranoid fears of the catholic church's supposed greed, size, and control over its flock collided with mainstream antimonopoly critiques of concentrated wealth and political power, convincing some economic reformers that the church was no different than any other corporate monopoly.many historians have tried to explain why economic reform movements and mass working-class political movements failed to curb the excesses of industrialization in the united states during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. they have offered compelling answers relating to race, gender, the state, economic consolidation, and the growing class consciousness of elites. this dissertation, however, demonstrates that the most significant economic reform movement of late-nineteenth-century america, the antimonopoly movement, also struggled to overcome religious bigotries.antimonopolism in the gilded age often depended on catholics, so the a.p.a.'s commitment to opposing both corporations and the catholic church fractured other antimonopoly political movements and organizations. a.p.a. members tried to oust catholics from the knights of labor and labor unions, while a.p.a. leaders advised their members to avoid unions with too many catholics. although many a.p.a. members also supported the economic policies of the populists in the 1890s, some refused to vote for the populist presidential candidate, william jennings bryan, in 1896 because he was running as a democrat, the political party that traditionally courted catholic voters. ultimately, this dissertation shows how the a.p.a.'s anti-catholicism contributed to the antimonopoly movement's political failures in the final two decades of the nineteenth century, and thus inadvertently helped to bolster a more laissez-faire corporate and financial capitalism that the group opposed all along. civil infrastructure systems (cis) are a major societal investment, yet cis rarely employs advanced evaluation and diagnostic technologies. as a result, many forms of structural damage are not intercepted in their early stages or are obscured altogether. this reality has driven the development of automated, unattended diagnostic capabilities broadly categorized as structural health monitoring (shm). in addition to the improved assessment capabilities, the full-scale data collected via shm has been used as a means to verify in-situ performance of complex structures to validate the models and assumptions used in their design. long-term evaluations can also underscore the effects of aging and the performance of the structure under significant events. one of the primary deterrents to shm deployments is the cost associated with installation, specifically the running of lengthy cables to connect the sensors to the data acquisition system in the traditional "hub and spoke" architecture. as a result, extensive research into wireless sensor networks has evolved, though multi-hop relays, packet loss and power constraints have limited their practical utility. this project offers an alternative form of data acquisition for buildings using existing local area networks to offer much of the flexibility of the wireless system without the packet loss, synchronization and power issues. the proposed shm concept emulates a traditional centralized data acquisition system but replaces lengthy cable runs with the existing ethernet systems within the building to form a "virtual" network of instrumentation cables. the resulting network-enabled shm system is less expensive and easier to install than traditional wired systems, making it easily scalable. furthermore, the system is more reliable and sustainable than wireless systems, drawing both its power and communications paths from the existing infrastructure of the building. given the speed and reliability of modern internet connections, with appropriate security measures, this shm system delivers a cost-effective means to quickly procure data and share it with end users in real-time without a direct connection between the data acquisition system and the sensing element. this thesis focuses on the prototyping and validation of the hardware necessary to achieve this network-enabled "virtual" wireless system, including the various digital response-sensing elements that will interface with the network. specific objectives are: (1) the validation of digital sensing elements, (2) prototyping of a "virtual" wireless shm system that includes a digital and analog accelerometer, gps and meteorological station, (3) development and evaluation of a companion system that permits direct interface of digital sensors to the local area network and (4) full-scale installation and evaluation of the gps components for network-enabled real-time monitoring. this research ultimately confirms the viability of "virtual" wireless structural health monitoring using local area networks, offering a cost effective, scalable and reliable alternative to wired sensing. sustainable sources of hydrocarbon materials are important as global economies expand and existing supplies of fossil fuel hydrocarbon sources dwindle. a natural material to help meet this growing need is lignin, a biomass waste-product containing an abundance of aromatic compounds. converting lignin into useable aromatic hydrocarbons is difficult due to the high bond energy of the caromatic-o bond in the polymer. a catalyst capable of selectively removing the oxygen atoms without hydrogenating the aromatic components would have value for removing a waste stream while providing an alternative hydrocarbon feedstock. bimetallic catalysts are stable and capable of selectively cleaving caromatic-o bonds.this dissertation details the synthesis, characterization and application of femop for caromatic-o bond cleavage in lignin model compounds. batch reactor studies were used to investigate the capability of femop to selectively cleave the caromatic-o bond without hydrogenation. flow reactor studies were conducted using femop materials synthesized at varying temperatures to separate the effect of surface acidity from the influence of metal sites. acidic catalysts were found to be more selective to aromatic products. variation of the fe:mo ratio in fexmo2-xp catalysts (0.88 ≤ x ≥ 1.55) supported study of the effect of catalyst acidity and hydrogenation capability, the most acidic material was most selective. once the most selective femop-based catalysts were identified, combinations of transition metals (cr, mn, fe, co, ni, and ru) were added to the bimetallic system to evaluate the deoxygenation rate with the aromatic selectivity. femop was the most selective, but slowest, catalyst. co, ni, and ru catalysts produced significantly higher rates but catalyzed both a direct caromatic-o bond cleavage pathway and a ring hydrogenation followed by dehydration pathway. using a range of synthesis parameters and metal combinations indicated that the resulting bimetallic phosphide catalysts materials can be tuned to control rate, selectivity, and reaction pathway. semiconductor nanocrystal quantum dots (qds) have emerged as attractive materials for light-emitting diodes (leds), bioimaging and solar cells applications due to their high emission quantum yield, high extinction coefficient in the visible region of the electronic spectrum, and bandgap tunability when particle size is varied. however, the typical qds used for these applications are based on cd and pb, which are highly toxic elements. therefore, cuins2 qds have recently been the subject of interest of several research groups because they may be an alternative to the conventional cdse and pbs qds. nevertheless, the optical and electronic properties of cuins2 qds are yet to be fully understood. it has been known that the properties of bulk cuins2 are highly dependent on the stoichiometry of the elements in the crystal lattice. moreover, the size of the nanocrystals in the quantum confinement region also influences their optical properties. the present thesis is focused on understanding the effects that varying the size and stoichiometry of the cuins2 qds have on their photophysical and photovoltaic properties.in the first chapter, we studied the photophysical properties and solar cell performance for different-sized cuins2 qds capped with 1-dodecanethiol. pyramidal shaped cuins2 qds with diameters between 2.9 nm and 5.3 nm were synthesized and assembled on mesoscopic tio2 films by electrophoretic deposition. transient absorption spectroscopy measurements have ascertained the role of defects in determining the solar cell performance. an increase in power conversion efficiency (pce) was observed with increasing size of qds, with maximum values of 2.14 and 2.51% for 3.9 and 4.3 nm size particles, respectively. the drop in pce observed for larger qds (5.3 nm) is attributed to decreased charge stabilization in defect states following bandgap excitation. in the second chapter, copper indium sulfide qds (cis) deficient in copper were synthesized varying the [cu]:[in] ratio in order to study their optical properties. two optical transitions were identified for cis qds by steady-state absorption and transient absorption spectroscopy. these transitions are more evident as the [cu]:[in] ratio decreases leading to a well-defined sharp peak for the cu0.5insn sample, which was attributed to an excitonic peak. conversely, a broad band located in the red spectral region of the absorption spectrum becomes less significant as the [cu]:[in] ratio decreases. this band was assigned to a transition from cu-related defect states to conduction band. furthermore, two emissive pathways from sub-bandgap states to the ground state were found to contribute to the φem of cis qds. finally, in the third chapter a cu-deficient cis sample with a lower [cu]:[in] ratio, cu0.2ins1.5, was synthetized. a lesser contribution of the cu-related transition and a sharper excitonic band was obtained for this material. femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy and time-resolved emission were used to determine the kinetic parameters of cu0.2ins1.5 qds. two kinetic mechanisms were found to explain the decay in picosecond-time scale and are discussed in this chapter. from this analysis, two lifetime were determined to be 1.4 and 30 ps. furthermore, the emission lifetimes were determined from emission decay traces exhibiting wavelength-dependent lifetimes. two lifetimes components were also found in the nanosecond-time scale with values of 2-32 and 41-259 ns for λobs 540670 nm. the origin of the lifetimes is discussed in this chapter. in addition, the apparent electron transfer rate from cu0.2ins1.5 to tio2 was determined. political parties in new democracies are frequently regarded as prone to (extreme) organizational weakness and vulnerable to swift death. this dissertation examines the factors that facilitate parties' organization-building success in one subset of new democracies. it relies on a multi-method approach that combines quantitative data from ten latin american countries and qualitative evidence from two chilean parties to demonstrate that electoral promise helps parties' organizations develop and survive. defined as an indication that a party is likely to obtain a proportion of the vote that would allow it to become or remain a significant actor on its national political scene, electoral promise positively affects parties' organizational development through two main mechanisms. first, it attracts (or helps retain) candidates' and activists' loyalty by ensuring that the party has access to resources it could use to provide its members with selective incentives, such as elected positions or patronage in the form of jobs. second, it ensures that the party has elected officeholders. the latter are important because they are often capable of maintaining the party's structures even in the absence of a concerted leadership effort to do so. indeed, officeholders themselves rarely set out to work for their organizations. rather, they frequently end up keeping local branches alive and active by engaging in behaviors perceived as beneficial to their re-election.i show how these dynamics work by focusing on the development and subsequent maintenance of two strong partisan organizations in chile – the party of christian democracy and the chilean socialist party. my account follows these parties from their respective inceptions, through the polarization of the 1960s and early 1970s, pinochet's dictatorial regime, and five terms in government to emphasize the importance of electoral promise over the past 30 years. face recognition is one of the least intrusive modalities in biometrics. our research shows that using 3d face data for recognition provides a promising route to improved performance. in this dissertation, we introduce a new system for 3d face recognition that addresses many of the current challenges preventing this technology from becoming viable. the first challenge is to determine the feasibility of combining data from multiple sensors. next, we create a technique named region ensemble for face recognition (refer) that is capable of matching 3d face images in the presence of expressions and occlusion. accurate feature detection and pose recognition is accomplished through a novel technique that we have created, named rotated profile signatures (rps). scalability issues are mitigated by combining a feature-based indexing technique with desktop grid processing to greatly reduce the amount of time required for recognition experiments. finally, we investigate the potential benefits of using a multi-instance enrollment approach that can be used to further increase the performance of our system. these solutions result in a final system that is capable of deployment in a variety of realistic biometric scenarios. this project addresses the literary aftermath of colonialism as experienced by irish and native american peoples. the frequently parallel and at times convergent rhetorical representations of irish and native american peoples and realities of anglo colonial policy in ireland and north america has created similar literary tropes in contemporary irish and native american literatures. my dissertation focuses primarily on the literary creation of "liminal places."ìøåàå_ in this context, liminal places are spaces that ought to be transitional, temporary and transformative but because of colonial legacies, current colonialism, and neocolonialism, they are created as places to which the writer can return to or cannot escape. these liminal places enable understandings and challenges to colonial, postcolonial and neocolonial realities. the dissertation contains four chapters addressing different types of liminal place. the first "the american west, the irish dream"ìøåàå_ looks at the ways in which irish writers, including sir william f. butler, michael mac gabhann, eilis ni dhuibhne and gearoid mac lochlainn, use the american west and native american inhabitants to create an irish dream of prosperity and entitlement. "abducting the past," the second chapter, focuses on the use of mythic place as a source of cultural and literary revitalization in the work of joy harjo and nuala niìâå_ dhomhnaill. the third chapter, "'dysfunctional double-bind of border fever,'"ìøåàå_ investigates the work of sherman alexie and patrick mccabe for whom the in-between places of reservation and border county, respectively, become prisons from which their characters cannot escape. the final chapter, "place between the lines,"ìøåàå_ explores the liminal place created by poets who collaborate with visual artists. chlorite dismutase is a heme dependent enzyme that catalyses the decomposition of the substrate chlorite into clì¢åè and oì¢'_'_. a basic characterization of the protein under steady-state conditions shows a robust enzyme capable of catalyzing the reaction at rapid rates. it was determined using epr and stopped flow spectroscopy that the enzyme forms the highly oxidizing ferryl-oxo porphyrin ì ââ cation radical intermediate (compound 1) upon reaction with peracetic acid. unlike other heme enzymes, however, when given chlorite as an oxidant, cld seems specifically poised to carry out the dismutation exclusively. measurement of the binding affinity for neutral ligands as a function of ph show an enzyme based pka at 6.4. resonance raman spectroscopy at alkaline ph indicates a weak fe-oh bond suggestive of a strong h-bond donating residue in the distal pocket. with uv/visible spectroscopy this holigation to the heme fe is observed with a pka of 8.7. resonance ramen of co bound cld shows both a weak and a strong fe-co stretch at low ph with loss of the weak fe-co stretch at high ph. a crystal structure of cld shows a hydrophobic distal pocket with only one residue, arg-183, capable of carrying out an h-bond donating role. together these data suggest that deprotonation of arg-183 with a pka = 6.4 is followed by a hydrolysis reaction of the active site at ph 8.9, yielding hoì¢åè binding to the fe center and reprotonation of the arg-183. the catalytic data as a function of ph show a pka at ph 6.5, likely from the protonation of arg-183 and suggest a positively charged arg is needed for properly positioning the anionic cloì¢åè within the hydrophobic distal pocket for reaction with compound i, generating clì¢åè and oì¢'_'_. the positively charged arg-183, along with a hydrophobic distal pocket are likely major determinants for the unique reactivity of the enzyme. this research suggests that formation of an electrophilic high valent metal-oxo species in close vicinity to a nucleophilic o-atom containing anion may be a structural motif utilized by biology for the difficult reaction of forming an o-o. as miniaturization of electronic components continues, creative solutions for common manufacturing problems are required to continue the trend of "moore's law." mask alignment for dopant patterning is one major set-back as nanoscale development continues. my thesis research investigates the use of dna origami, a designable, self-assembled nanostructure, as a chemical and dopant source for patterning silicon substrates. my work explores the stability of dna origami when exposed to extreme thermal and solvent environments and identifies the limitations of using these biomolecules in multistep nanofabrication processes, particularly the effect on dna origami functionalizability. utilizing this new understanding of dna origami, i developed a process called "burn-in" to complete maskless patterning of embedded silicon carbide (sic) "replicas" on silicon substrates. my work details the chemical and electrical characterization of the sic patterns using a myriad of techniques. i focus primarily on scanning probe microscopy and x-ray photoelectron microscopy. secondary ion mass spectrometry is used to detect and measure depth profiles of phosphorus from the dna origami after burn-in and illustrates the doping capacity of the burn-in process. finally, i illustrate the broad application of the burn-in process by using other shape, size, and chemically controlled nanomaterials for maskless patterning of dopants. it is my hope that this work will expand the use of dna origami and other traditionally "fragile" materials in unique processing environments and prompt the exploration of novel nanomaterials as creative solutions for nanoelectronic development applications. networks can be used to model real-world phenomena in a variety of domains. many computational strategies have been defined to take advantage of the power of networks and answer different applied questions. this dissertation aims to advance two of the most popular computational strategies for network analysis: network alignment (na) and network clustering (nc).first, the focus is on na, which aims to find a node mapping (i.e., alignment) between compared networks that identifies network regions of topological or functional similarity. na is a computationally hard problem due to the underlying subgraph isomorphism problem. thus, heuristics known as na methods are needed. in this context, this dissertation introduces a novel framework for fair evaluation of na methods, a novel idea of maximizing both node and edge conservation during the alignment process as opposed just one of them, and the first na method that combines two complementary na types and is thus able to outperform methods of any individual na type.second, the focus is on nc, which aims to divide a network into groups (i.e., clusters) of "topologically related" (e.g., densely interconnected or topologically similar) nodes. even for static data, the problem of network clustering is complex. for dynamic data, the problem is even more complex, due to an additional dimension of the data their temporal (evolving) nature. since the problem is computationally intractable, heuristic approaches need to be sought. in this dissertation, we present a novel approach to performing nc on dynamic data that not only captures temporal information early in the clustering process, but is also the first dynamic network clustering method to generate partitions based on the notion of topological similarity. while na and nc are defined as two different computational strategies, they are actually related to each other, as they both aim to group similar nodes together. given their relatedness, this dissertation concludes by combining na and nc into a single strategy with the goal of simultaneously finding similar regions both within and across networks, unlike existing methods that do each of these two tasks individually. small granivorous mammals can potentially affect forest regeneration through seed dispersal or predation. using live-trapping efforts and track boards with tagged sugar maple (acer saccharum) seeds in june and august of 2006 at eight mixed forest sites in michigan's upper peninsula, we asked: (1) are sugar maple seeds provided later in the summer more often cached? (2) are small mammals seed dispersers or predators at these sites? (3) how did seed predator (i.e., all granivorous small mammals) and sciurid (chipmunks and squirrels only) biomasses affect the proportion of seeds eaten? (4) how did habitat structure affect small mammal biomasses? 5) how did sciurid biomass relate to non-sciurid biomass? although fewer seeds were cached in august, we found that small mammals, eastern chipmunks in particular, were predators of sugar maple seeds, with an increased proportion of seeds eaten with increasing seed predator and sciurid biomasses. we also found a larger seed predator biomass and the presence of eastern chipmunks in areas with relatively more deciduous trees, and sciurid biomass increased with non-sciurid biomass, indicating their similar responses to environmental resources. future studies should track sugar maples seed fates and eastern chipmunk biomass changes throughout the year to locate the time of highest seed survival. the cursillo began as a roman catholic renewal movement in the mid-twentieth century. since then, the cursillo model of ministry -using lay-persons to recruit new participants for a religiously-focused retreat -has spread to many different groups, both religious and secular, throughout the world. this work is an ethnographic case study of the god loves everyone (gle) group, one ecumenical ministry to high school adolescents following the cursillo model. using grounded theory analysis, the early aim of the study was to gain access to the group in order to understand its social processes. once i gained access i discerned that gle was a socio-spatial experience with three major themes: 1) moralistic therapeutic deism in action; 2) adolescents producing their own religious culture; and 3) adolescents working on the formation of their religious identities. i spent the next two years conducting ethnographic field work that used these three ideas to produce an understanding of what the gle experience meant to the teens and the different ways in which it affected their identity projects. drawing from the literatures of social psychology, the sociology of religion, and cultural sociology, i found that despite the intentions of gle's architects to have it function as a stepping stone in religious and spiritual development, the adolescents used the program as a resource in different ways to work on their identity projects. some adolescents used gle as a resource to supplement what they were already doing religiously, while others used the program as a substitute for church services. i also found a third pattern: some adolescents used gle to 'come out of the closet' and work to integrate their non-heterosexual identity with their pre-existing christian commitment. i then observed the fallout from the 'coming out' narratives and how the group, as an ecumenical organization whose leaders hope to see members coalesce around a single identity, came to terms with the lesbian, gay, and bi-sexual youth in their program. i concluded that ecumenical groups are the epitome of moralistic therapeutic deism in action, that groups like this one should be studied objectively, and that under certain conditions some adolescents do care enough about their religious identities to generate conflict in seeking to understand them. this dissertation examines german protestant missionaries in southwest africa, their networks in germany, and their notions of race. the rhenish mission society was the dominant mission society in southwest africa until the early twentieth century. its missionaries were the first european 'experts' on the herero, nama, damra, and koi-san. they took part in the german genocide of the herero and nama (1904-1907) and remained in southwest africa after germany lost its colonies during world war i. after 1916, the rhenish mission struggled to regain support. with the onset of the national socialist regime in 1933, some mission leaders and missionaries sought to curry favor with the nazis and reshaped their depictions of africans to fit racialist ways of thinking in the new germany. drawing on archival sources in germany and namibia, this study engages scholarly debates on continuity and change in german history. i show that rhenish missionaries and their notions of africans represent a significant strand of continuity that stretches from the napoleonic period through the nazi era and even beyond. the study begins with conservative religious reactions in the post-napoleonic period and ends in 1936, three years into the nazi regime, when missionaries in africa seemed ever more distant from germany with its focus on rearming in preparation for war in europe. across this period, the study identifies the intellectual and religious underpinnings of missionary notions and practice that found expression through the stories and reports missionaries sent home. their writings reveal continuities in german history, even while they recounted developments in africa and responded to changes back home. although stationed on another continent, rhenish missionaries were active in germany. they used their narratives to raise support for overseas mission work and promote revivalist religion at home. as 'cultural mirrors,' missionary publications connected the german and the african through lessons in piety. they linked intellectual, religious, political, and racialist currents in germany to produce potent ways of thinking about africa. in the process, missionaries bound christian faith to war, genocide, and racism and paved the way for germans to accept, even expect, acts of extreme violence toward africans. giovanni boccaccio is one of the key authors for understanding the overlap between medieval and humanistic-renaissance italian culture. in this thesis, i focus on boccaccio's conception of fortuna, examining three of his texts. starting with the claims he makes about dante's conception of fortuna in his esposizioni, i emphasize that whilst dante is much more concerned with the metaphysical dimension, boccaccio changes the plane of inquiry to investigate the human, the practical, the countersense to the ups and downs of fortuna. in his proposal, ethics and hermeneutics are closely linked. i argue that this movement contributes to the structuring of both the decameron and de casibus virorum illustrium. both texts contaminate the medieval literary genres with which they are affiliated, namely, the collection of exempla and the didactic treatise, making it possible for boccaccio to propose an interpretive paradigm intended to be valid for informing human moral action. changes in earth's climate fuel increasingly heated debate in many fields, including peace studies, as the 21st century poses challenges that are unprecedented and unpredictable for the planet and its peoples. the 'environment' is seen as both 'threat multiplier' and 'threat minimizer', but global changes are always experienced locally, and analytical squabbles among scholars and high-level policymakers tend to obfuscate, distort, and eclipse human and ecological realities on the ground. this thesis explores obstacles and opportunities for building a durable peace that aligns with johan galtung's holistic vision: more than an absence of war, positive peace is marked by the presence of flourishing communities, both human and more-than human. peace, as an abstract, ideal state, can never be 'achieved' by nations or the so-called global village. peace, as a process and lived experience, can be only be embodied by communities &mdash; by places, inhabitants, and their interrelationships. rooted in the tradition of community-based research, this paper is the result of collaborations that bridge the world of academia and the 'real' world. it asks questions about destruction and alienation, healing and reconnection, and seeks to address them through two case studies: (1) a land-based learning program at a k-jr. high montessori school, and (2) an expeditionary leadership program at outward bound peacebuilding. by lifting up the voices of participants &mdash; children and adults &mdash; this project aims to listen and learn from initiatives that operate at the nexus of peacebuilding and the natural world, and to illuminate the promise they hold for meeting the challenges of the third millennium. biometrics are measurable characteristics specific to an individual. theycan be used to identify individuals. the use of biometrics for identification hasthe potential to make our lives easier, and the world we live in a safer place.while numerous different types of exploitable biometrics exist, facialidentification is highly pursued because the data can be captured at a distancewithout requiring the subject s active cooperation. while traditionally 2d imagesof faces have been used, 3d scans that contain both 3d data and registered colorare becoming easier to acquire.before 3d face images can be used to identify an individual, they requiresome form of initial alignment information, typically based on facial featurelocations. this thesis proposes and analyzes a multimodal approach to automaticfacial feature detection. after beginning with a discussion on biometrics and therole of automatic facial feature detection, we provide a comparative evaluation of3d sensors. we follow this by a discussion of the algorithm s performance whenconstrained to frontal images and an analysis of its performance on a morecomplex dataset with significant head pose variation. understanding coastal hydrogeology can be important for assessing the sustainability of groundwater resources for urban centers in coastal environments. while a number of advanced methods based on isotopic analysis, detailed modeling, and detailed characterization of hydraulics can be applied in coastal regions of developed countries, these approaches may be impossible in many coastal regions of developing countries due to the lack of available data or access to sophisticated analytical techniques. in this study, benin, west africa, was used as a case study to show how a field measureable and relatively simple water quality analysis of shallow groundwater samples can be used to identify different hydrological zones for further study. various chemical methods (including ion specific electrodes, a conductivity probe, and ion chromatography) were used to determine the chloride, sodium, bromide, and electrical conductivity of the samples, with additional parameters of sulfate, nitrate, and phosphate determined through the use of ion chromatography for bromide. these data, through the combination of a suite of statistical and geostatistical analysis techniques (including parameter comparisons, indicator plots, cluster analysis, and variogram analysis), were used to identify potential critical zones based on the current conditions of the coastal wetlands that indicate saline influence and changes in water quality that are likely to impact the water quality at the well field supplying drinking water to cotonou, benin (a population of approximately 1.5 million). specific to the case study, this combination of chemical and geostatistical methods demonstrated that a series of coastal wetlands in benin demonstrated both local variability due to rapid changes in landscape and regional variability. these data also demonstrated the high level of 'preliminary' field characterization that is possible using a carefully planned combination of the field sampling design, water quality chemical analysis, and geostatistical analysis. this preliminary characterization has identified a coastal zone of saline influence intruding into the wetlands as well as several areas with other interesting chemical characteristics (including an altered cl/br ratio and higher nitrates). finally, the limitations and challenges in this approach related to the analytical challenges, limited site access, and constraints on the use of data to provide definitive hydrogeologic characterization are discussed. this thesis examines nuclear forensic signatures of several uraninite samples from north america (n=14) and the democratic republic of congo (n=1) for enhancing and improving provenance determination methods. focused ion beam (fib) coupled with scanning electron microscopy (sem) analyses were conducted on both pristine and altered sections of uraninite in order to understand its 3-dimensional chemical and mineralogical nature. the latter results were then used to establish pb as an ideal internal standard for laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (la-icp-ms) analyses of uraninite. trace element abundances and isotopic ratios (e.g., pb, sr, and u) were determined by utilizing both laand solution mode (sm)-icp-ms and multicollector (mc)-icp-ms methods. trace element abundances are attributed to both crystallographic-controlled substitution mechanisms and crustal source(s) involved in the formation of uraninite. secondary 207pb-206pb isochron ages obtained by la-mc-icp-ms are equivalent to those both derived by sm-mc-icp-ms and available in literature for the u ore deposits investigated here; this feature confirms the use of pb-pb secondary isochron ages as a new and viable tool in nuclear forensic investigations. 207pb-206pb isochron ages also indicate alteration of uraninite occurs relatively soon (within a few million years) after mineralization. correlation between initial 87sr/86sr values and host craton ages suggest uraninite mineralization is influenced by the host rock geology. δ238u and δ234u values indicate that uranium fractionation is the result of multiple mechanisms and that the uraninites investigated here have incurred alteration events within the last ~2 million years, respectively; the latter did not perturb the secondary pb-pb isochron ages. this dissertation explores the doubts of the disciples in the post-resurrection scenes of the four canonical gospels contained in the new testament. it is striking that the gospels all include this ostensibly negative moment in their texts but differ in the precise details of what happened. previous scholarship has tended to gloss over these divergences and explain the presence of the disciples' doubts as the result of either historical verisimilitude or traditional necessity. both explanations, however, fail to account for the remarkable diversity of the four scenes, each of which has been crafted by its respective evangelist with his own considerations in mind. in order to understand why this doubt is present in each gospel, it must be treated on its own terms. a narrative-critical methodology is utilized to analyze the canonical gospels as literature, with one chapter devoted to each of the four texts. for each narrative, the characterization of the disciples (or in the case of the gospel of john, one particular disciple) is reviewed and then taken into consideration during an interpretation of its post-resurrection events. by examining the rhetorical choices of the author, one can discern the response that he intended his implied readers to have to the disciples and their uncertainty. the gospel of mark uses the disciples as a negative foil and describes their doubt as completely unacceptable, whereas the gospel of matthew is less harsh and acknowledges the inevitably of doubt in the christian life. the gospel of luke depicts doubts about the resurrection as a relic of the past, and the gospel of john simultaneously mitigates any blameworthiness thomas has for his skepticism and urges its readers to have none of their own. lastly, a final chapter looks at the comments that early christians made about these biblical passages, ultimately discovering that the thoughts of these later writers about the disciples are just as diverse as what was found in the gospels. this thesis explores the behavior of uranyl peroxide nanoscale cage clusters in aqueous solution and their potential applications within the nuclear fuel cycle.the first area of research examines the transformation of poorly soluble uranyl peroxide studtite, [(uo2)(o2)(h2o)2](h2o)2, into soluble uranyl peroxide nanoscale cage clusters u24, [(uo2)(o2)(oh)]2424-, and u28, [(uo2)(o2)1.5]2828-. studtite was exposed to aqueous solutions containing tetraethylammonium hydroxide (teaoh) with ph values ranging between 7 and 13 with and without the addition of hydrogen peroxide. in the absence of added h2o2, studtite dissolved and resulted in the formation of u24 in solution. all of the peroxide bridges within the nanoclusters were sourced from the original studtite. in systems containing added hydrogen peroxide, studtite dissolved resulted in the formation of u28 in solution. the second area of research highlighted in this thesis focuses on the dissolution of poorly soluble uranyl phosphate phases in uranyl peroxide cluster forming conditions. eight synthetic analogues of meta-autunite group minerals were prepared and placed in various alkaline aqueous solutions containing hydrogen peroxide and teaoh. uranyl peroxides formed under many of the experimental conditions examined including solid studtite and soluble uranyl peroxide cage clusters containing as many as 28 uranyl ions. uranyl phosphate solids in contact with solutions in which uranyl peroxide cage clusters formed dissolved extensively or completely. the uranium speciation in solution depended on the ph and counter cations provided from the interlayers of the uranyl phosphate solids. the final area of research in this thesis investigates the solution behavior of uranyl peroxide nanoclusters u60, [(uo2)(o2)(oh)]6060-, and u60ox30, [{(uo2)(o2)}60(c2o4)30]60-, in water up to 180°c using in situ raman spectroscopy. in solutions containing u60, clusters persist to 130°c, although conversion of u60 to u24 occurs above 100°c. u60ox30 persisted in solutions heated to 150°c, although partial conversion to smaller uranyl peroxide clusters species was observed beginning at 100°c. upon breakdown of the uranyl peroxide cage clusters, uranium precipitated as a compreignacite-like phase, k2[(uo2)3o2(oh)3]2(h2o)7, and metaschoepite, [(uo2)8o2(oh)12](h2o)10. the role of the counter cations, oxalate bridges, and solution ph were examined in order to better understand the mobility of these species at elevated temperatures. in the context of engineering and science, nonlinear dynamic models often involve uncertain quantities. for example, in an initial value problem (ivp) described by a system of ordinary differential equations (odes), the initial conditions may be uncertain, and there may be uncertain parameters in the ode model. determining the effect of such uncertainties on the model outputs is clearly an important issue. to address this problem requires first that an appropriate representation of the uncertain quantities be chosen, and then that these be propagated through the nonlinear ode model to determine the corresponding uncertainties in the model outputs. one approach for representing uncertainty is the use of fuzzy sets or fuzzy numbers. a new approach is described for the solution of nonlinear dynamic systems with parameters and/or initial states that are uncertain and represented by fuzzy sets or fuzzy numbers. unlike current methods, which address this problem through the use of sampling techniques and do not account rigorously for the effect of the uncertain quantities, the new approach is not based on sampling and provides mathematically and computationally rigorous results. these goals are achieved through the use of explicit analytic representations (taylor models) of state variable bounds in terms of the uncertain quantities. examples are given that demonstrate the use of this new approach and its computational performance. alternative representations of uncertainty (i.e., probability boxes), and related deterministic methods are also discussed. applications of our approach are drawn from ecological, bioreactor, and political science modeling, where initial populations, interaction parameters, apparent reaction rates, and other control variables are uncertain, and may be translated into either fuzzy numbers, or probability boxes. when these deterministic tools are not sufficient, we implement additional stochastic methods (i.e., firstand second-order monte carlo) to study global sensitivity for design and optimization. such is the case of the transient regime of an open-loop absorption-refrigeration system. this comprehensive model advances the state of the art of simulating ionic liquid-water refrigeration machines during startup and shutdown, and can be used to fine-tune operating conditions and desired thermophysical properties for the absorbent. dissociation is a construct that is woven throughout personality and psychopathology. this study examines the extent to which dissociation is a generalized marker of psychopathology, and the extent to which dissociation and its facets (depersonalization/derealization, memory disturbances (amnesia) and fantasy (absorption/imagination) are specifically related to positive and negative affectivity, normative and maladaptive personality, and diagnoses of major forms of psychopathology. data were analyzed using bivariate and multivariate analyses to explore the question of generality versus specificity of dissociation as a symptom, in addition to possible suppressor effects that may skew the relations of its absorption/imagination component. overall dissociation and memory disturbances were found to be cross-cutting symptom dimensions, at both the bivariate and multivariate levels; for example, it was related to low positive affectivity and high negative affectivity; neuroticism (strongly), most maladaptive personality traits, and virtually all diagnoses (including internalizing, externalizing, and oddity). at the bivariate level, depersonalization/derealization and fantasy correlated in the same general pattern, but each displayed unique associations across analyses. at the multivariate level, depersonalization/derealization was adaptive for normal-range personality, yet related to several maladaptive personality traits and uniquely predicted psychotic disorder; fantasy was adaptive via positive affectivity and extraversion, yet predicted antagonistic maladaptive traits and uniquely predicted manic episodes. dissociation is an important clinical construct across disorders, not just ptsd, which needs more attention in both the research and the clinical realms. as robotic technology moves out of factories and into broader segments of society, it promises to support a revolutionary improvement in the general standard of living. one of the largest hurdles to this increased use of robotic technology, however, is the inability of current mobile robots to negotiate difficult and delicate terrain in ways that are fast, efficient, and safe. examples in nature demonstrate the incredible potential of legged locomotion to fill this need, but legged robots have not yet reached this level of performance. this work moves the field toward a better understanding of the design of robust and efficient legged robots by exploring the concept of reaction wheel actuation. this concept consists of the generation of torques on the robot's body via a high efficiency reaction wheel system (rws), which operates by accelerating an internal reaction mass. these torques can be used to both improve the stability of the robot and increase its walking efficiency when used in a coordinated manner.due to the complex multi-body dynamics of these systems, the effect of design changes on a given performance metric are difficult to estimate. full body trajectory optimization via direct transcription was employed as the primary tool to better understand the role that an rws can play in bipedal locomotion. the five-link planar biped ernie was used as a basis for this analysis. combined with a model of motor and gear losses, this allowed energetic comparisons between a baseline ernie model and hypothetical rws-equipped versions. this showed for the first time that a correctly designed rws, requiring only a modestly sized reaction wheel and a motor with minimal gear loss, can lead to improved walking efficiency. extensive optimization over the full operational walking range showed that a reasonably sized rws with realistic levels of regenerative efficiency can improve walking efficiency by 5-10% over most gaits. comparison of resulting gaits revealed that optimal rws use leads to better centroidal momentum regulation, which in turn reduces loads on joint motors in the legs. simulations of the ernie model under virtual constraint control verified these results. for validation, an experimental reaction wheel system was constructed and attached to the ernie biped. walking experiments with ernie demonstrated a measurable improvement in walking efficiency for gaits that utilize the rws, corroborating the results from both optimization and simulation. for periodic walking, optimization results showed that near regions of marginal dynamic feasibility, reaction wheels can lead to much larger efficiency gains than in more typical operating conditions. rws use also expands the range of dynamically feasible motions. in aperiodic motions such as speed and step length changes, rws use is similarly beneficial, with significant efficiency gains in very demanding motions and expanded dynamic feasibility. for large, single-step changes of speed, the rws can improve efficiency by as much as 60%. when transitions are executed over longer, multi-step duration, rws use provides benefits similar to those seen in periodic walking.the potential role of reaction wheels in improving balance was also examined. design principles for efficient rws stabilization were derived by combining rws-based balance controllers with accurate gear and motor models. stabilization generally demands more rws torque than steady state walking, but still favors relatively light gearing in order to minimize gear loss and maximize momentum storage potential. a task space controller for underactuated balancing was developed to compare baseline and rws-equipped bipeds in terms of balance performance. while the rws-equipped biped was able to balance and reject large disturbances, the baseline biped was only able to balance for short periods of time. this study will argue that gen. 28:10–22 was composed in the neo-babylonian period from exile in babylonia, perhaps during nabonidus's reign (556–539 bce). we tentatively argue that the author came from the territory of benjamin, which had been incorporated into judah, and perhaps specifically from the city of bethel. as such, the importance of bethel was part of his religious heritage. in the context of babylonian exile, this author encountered the theology of babylon as the "gate of the god(s)" (see gen. 28:17) and of marduk's temple, esagila, as the "house whose head is raised" (see gen. 28:12). in a scribal setting, he also encountered the description of esagila as the "houses of the great gods" (enuma elish v 129; see gen. 28:17), as well as the topos of a localized heavenly stairway (simmiltu, a bab 11; gen. 28:12, סלם). he transferred this language and theology to bethel in hopes of returning to worship there. at this time, the sanctuary at bethel was likely in use, although it may have declined significantly (the evidence is inconclusive). if bethel had significantly declined, gen. 28:10–22 was composed in hopes of its restoration; if it was thriving or at least functioning, it was composed for its admiration. either way, the author of gen. 28:10–22 composed a narrative of bethel's founding in order to promote this site as an important religious sanctuary alongside of jerusalem, whether temporarily or permanently. this study will further argue that the promise materials in gen. 28:10–22 cannot be separated from their context; instead, this passage was composed by a single hand. we also examine genesis 32–33* and show that its individual narratives are unified (excepting gen. 32:10–13 [eng. 32:9–12] and parts of gen. 33:17–20*) and that its author is also responsible for non-p genesis 25–31*. the ending of the non-p jacob story is comprised of gen. 33:1–16, 18*; gen. 35:1–2aα, 3, 6–8*, 16–20. the pro-shechem materials are later and accommodate proto-samaritan worship (gen. 35:2aβ–b, 4, 6*); the anti-shechem materials are later still and reflect a period of animosity between the judean and samaritan yahwistic cults (gen. 33:19–34:31; 35:5, along with gen. 33:17).finally, we offer new possibilities for the theological meaning of the non-p jacob story given a neo-babylonian time of composition. we show that esau represents the theological concept of rejection and even the divine judge himself; indeed, esau and god play interchangeable roles. despite the fear of lasting divine rejection, the story ends in the hope of esau/god receiving jacob favorably—a hope also extends to exiles who return to the homeland. additionally, jacob's name change to israel focuses on jacob's successful striving and prevailing, yet this name change is ironic; indeed, jacob is not victorious in the wrestling match, which is a draw, and he leaves the encounter with a limp. in the context of the neo-babylonian period, this name change points to israelite identity as one of weakness; yet this weakness leads to a (partial) transformation of character. as we continue to approach the physical scaling limits of cmos transistors, microprocessors no longer achieve exponential performance gains per each technology node generation. this performance attenuation is attributed to the diminishing rate of supply voltage scaling and the increasing sub-threshold leakage current. these have resulted in a growing---as opposed to constant---power density, which has given birth to the dark silicon (ds) problem. to overcome the limitations of cmos, solutions are sought from the device to the architectural level. beyond-cmos devices represent a class of candidate technologies with the potential to succeed traditional cmos. as new electronic (charge based) and spintronic (spin based) devices are continually developed and refined, benchmarking against cmos becomes a necessary endeavor. in this context, my work has involved the design and evaluation of circuits and architectures comprised of emerging electronic and spintronic devices. to this end, i have constructed analytical benchmarking models to evaluate cmos and beyond-cmos technologies. for electronic beyond-cmos technologies, i have designed an analytical benchmarking model that considers device-, processor-, and application-level parameters, and projects the performance and percentage of on-chip dark silicon. using empirical cmos processor data, i validated my model's projections by demonstrating a close relationship between projected and empirical cmos data for three different technology nodes (i.e., 32 nm, 22 nm, and 15 nm).spintronic beyond-cmos technologies are of particular interest due to their high integration density, low device count, radiation hardness, and non-volatility when compared to cmos. for spintronic devices, my work has involved (i) the systematic design of functional 3d nanomagnetic logic (nml) layouts (i.e., logic gates), (ii) exploring the benefits of nml-based stochastic computing (sc), and (iii) the design of an analytical benchmarking model that is based on a processor-level drop-in approach to project the energy per operation of various spintronic technologies.nml uses bistable magnets to store, process, and move binary information through magnetic field-coupled interactions. compared to cmos, nml has several advantages such as non-volatility, lower power consumption, and radiation hardness. 3d nml layouts provide additional benefits such as simplified signal routing and greater integration density. the current process of designing 3d nml layouts is little more than a trial-and-error-based approach, which is infeasible for larger, more complex designs. to address this design limitation, i developed a systematic approach that leverages a machine learning-inspired prediction methodology to enable faster design of functional 3d nml layouts.the systematic design approach facilitated the study of more complex computational paradigms such as sc. sc offers low-cost implementations of arithmetic operations and high degrees of error tolerance. given that spintronic devices such as nml are more prone to error than electronic devices, the marriage of sc and spin-based devices has the potential to produce information processing systems that are robust, low energy and non-volatile. i introduced and evaluated new nml layouts that exploited unique features of the technology to efficiently realize hardware components required for sc.quantifying the impact of spintronic non-volatile (nv) technologies at the architecture and application levels introduces a unique challenge as the granularity of technology integration can vary significantly (i.e., from heterogeneous architectures with nv cache and cmos-based logic, to completely nv architectures). to this end, i designed an analytical model to explore three classes of nv processors (nvps) and defined metrics for quantifying their respective energy savings. as case studies, i evaluated the impact of nv technologies for both an energy harvesting non-pipelined processor and a general purpose processor executing scientific applications under varying degrees of parallelism. this design thesis explores the design of a new american embassy for baghdad,iraq. the concept of symbolic representation of democratic virtues and the choice of anarchitectural idiom to represent the united states abroad are researched and discussed.methods of incorporating symbolism into architecture and the role of architecture in ademocratic society are also covered.problems and possible design solutions raised in this thesis are explored in a casestudy for the u.s. baghdad embassy (plates included in an appendix). the designsolution ranges from urban design issues to the development of ornamental patterns andmotifs. the architectural idiom used in the design is a hybrid of western classicalarchitecture and traditional islamic architecture, with a primary focus on the study oflocal arabic precedents in this dissertation i trace the various forms of young men and women 'growing away' from society in irish bildungsroman and how this pattern of thwarted development reflects on ireland's decolonization in the twentieth century. whereas traditional bildungsroman features the socialization of the protagonist who not only grows up but more importantly grows into the society, the persistence of irish writers' representations of failed socialization should be understood as protests against the problems of the post-independence irish state in its prolonged struggle of decolonization. in chapter one i discuss james joyce's a portrait of the artist as a young man as the precursor of post-independence irish bildungsroman, which not only sets up the pattern of growing away from irish society but also designates 'home, fatherland, and church' as the problems confronting irish youth. chapter two begins with a gramscian analysis of the irish 'passive revolution,' followed by discussions of sean o'faolain's bird alone and kate o'brien's mary lavelle to exemplify how the lack of change in the free state is excavated and accounted for through the novelists' engagement with its past. chapter three deals with edna o'brien's the country girls trilogy and the excessive obsession with the family, which makes it impossible for the individual to seek self-fulfillment in roles other than the familial. in chapter four i use patrick mccabe's the butcher boy and roddy doyle's a star called henry to show how novels of thwarted developments in the 1990s actually display a new confidence in exposing the failures of the state. the difficulty shared by protagonists in irish bildungsroman lies in that they strive to find their own places in the new state which is itself in the same predicament of self-definition, a postcolonial nation trying to become a normalized modern state after the end of colonialism. i argue that the pattern of stunted development, of protagonists constantly growing up not into but away from irish society, is the sign of the individual's struggle with the postcolonial irish state that is also struggling to be decolonized and to become modern. the goal of my dissertation research is to develop a molecular level description of how selective catalytic reduction occurs on an important commercial heterogeneous solid catalyst, cu-ssz-13. i investigated the degree to which socialist ideas are transmitted to individual employees in a chinese state-owned bank over generations. through empirically examining the exposure effects of socialist ideology on different generations of bureaucrats with semi-structured interviews, i found that socialist ideology influences individual attitudes differently by cohorts. the red engineers born in the 1950s and 1960s are staunch socialists; the colorless cats born in the 1970s and 1980s absorbed the state's nominal socialist attitude but practiced capitalist ideas as encourage by the state; and the pink bankers born in 1990s subscribe to socialist attitudes for both nominal legitimacy and organizational operations less relevant to their personal interests. the socialist legacy shapes how: individuals think about the nature of the soe, the nature of their work, the degree to which automation affects the bank's future and the degree to which branch openings and closings are political or economic decisions. this thesis examines factors impacting item parameter calibration for the multidimensional graded response model in high dimensions (e.g., &gt; 5) using metropolis-hastings robbins-monro estimation. motivation for the use of high dimensional item response models and the associated computational difficulties are reviewed followed by an examination of existing work looking at item parameter recovery in the multidimensional graded response model. research suggests that both test and trait characteristics, including potential non-normality of marginal trait distributions, interfere with efficient parameter recovery. the present study is the first to systematically examine the impact of marginal trait skewness and excess kurtosis on item parameter recovery. specific focus is placed on identify necessary sample sizes to obtain accurate parameter estimates and the associated computational burden. findings suggest that skewness and kurtosis impact different parameter estimates. further, both sample size and computational burdens appear feasible for use in applied psychological research. international non-government organizations (ingos) face a challenge of fundraising (abouassi 2015; banks et al 2015). fundraising efforts often create tensions for ingos when they have to prioritize between their own values and the priorities of potential donors. this tension not only affects whether faith-based organizations (fbos) accept government funding, but also impacts the religious identity of the organization itself. little research has addressed how external sources of funding influence religious identity. my research asks the question: how do perceptions of the continuity of resources and value congruence impact the religiosity of fbos? i found that when fbo leaders perceive their organization's current stream of resources as unsustainable, they adapt the fbo's religious identity. my findings support theories of stakeholder salience and resource dependency; when fbos can maintain a sustainability of resources then their religiosity also remains constant. the analysis of change is an extensively studied and complicated topic in the social sciences. a variety of statistical methods that may conceptualize change in potentially many different ways may be used to assess change in a phenomenon over a specified time interval. resultantly, conceptual differences in defining change will be addressed. in addition, the major advantages of utilizing continuous time differential equation models will be illustrated, and the classification criteria of such models will be discussed. broadly speaking, differential equations may be classified according to at least five dimensions; one of these dimensions is the distinction between deterministic and stochastic models. the primary difference between these two models is whether or not random fluctuations of the process itself are explicitly accounted for in the differential equation. the accuracy of the deterministic and stochastic differential equation models in recovering simulated dynamic model parameters of change is examined over a wide variety of conditions likely to occur in practice for social science phenomena. results are summarized in terms of practical implications and general guidelines for employing these two types of continuous time differential equation modeling techniques. guided by the family systems theory (cox & paley, 1997) and emotional security theory (davies & cummings, 1994), the present study examines multiple mediators linking parental depressive symptoms and adolescent behavior problems. participants were 273 adolescents (133 boys, 140 girls) and their cohabiting parents. assessments included mothers' and fathers' depressive symptoms and family emotional expressiveness when their adolescent children were in 7th grade, interparental and family conflict and emotional insecurity when the adolescents were in 8th grade, and adolescents' internalizing and externalizing problems in 9th grade. structural equation modeling and bootstrapping were utilized to access the mediating roles of family variables and adolescents' insecurity. two models, including the interparental conflict model and the family conflict model, were conducted separately. findings indicated that the model fit was adequate for both models. differential findings for each model were discussed, along with implications and contributions for understanding the relations between parental depressive symptoms and adolescents' adjustment. extensive studies of gan and aln compounds led to several microelectronic and optoelectronic applications for these bulk materials. nonetheless, many characteristics of algan/gan superlattices are not well known. in particular, scientists have not determined all the properties of phonons in these materials. in order to more fully understand phonon characteristics, this study reports infrared (ir) reflectivity measurements of algan/gan short period superlattices. reflectivity measurements of each sample were taken using a fourier transform ir vacuum spectrometer. additionally, a method for measuring low temperature ir spectrum was developed along with a program to analyze spectra. comparing the experimental spectra with theoretical calculations determined the longitudinal and transverse optical phonon energies present in the algan/gan superlattices. through the examination of different algan/gan superlattice combinations, characterization of phonon energies versus material composition were obtained. furthermore, new phonons, not present in bulk aln and gan, were discovered. phonon characteristics were additionally measured as a function of temperature, confirming the expectation that phonon energies decrease with increasing temperature. a partir de teoría crítica pertinente sobre poder, género y representación visual (zavala, irigaray, butler, foucault, derrida, preciado, et al.), esta tesis estudia cómo los regímenes gineco-escópicos se han articulado con experiencias de colonialismo y neo colonialismo, desigualdad de género y violencia, pero también con lo que josé rabasa llama los desafíos contra-coloniales al legado colonial de nuestro presente.examino cuatro paradigmas de los regímenes gineco-escópicos coloniales y el surgimiento moderno de subjetividades de género. empiezo con los "descubrimientos" visuales de la desnudez femenina y las representaciones de mujeres indígenas como demasiado sexuales y, sin embargo, con genitales aparentemente "virginales" (colón, vespucci, cuneo y vaz caminha) (capítulo 2). luego, estudio algunos capítulos pasados por alto del intelectual indígena andino felipe guaman poma de ayala sobre las inspecciones de los genitales de las mujeres indígenas como parte de su denuncia contra la violencia sexual colonial y el mestizaje (capítulo 3). una parte importante de esta disertación trata sobre las formas en que la vestimenta y la performatividad desafían la generación visual y genital del género como se ejemplifica en el caso histórico y literario de una monja, alférez y conquistador(a) travesti del siglo xvii catalina de erauso (capítulo 4). finalmente, estudio el caso del cirujano transgénero eleno de céspedes, del siglo xvi, quien alegó ante la inquisición un género no binario (hermafrodita con genitales invertidos) (capítulo 5). leo estos casos de manera intertextual a través de los intentos jurídicos e incluso literarios de fijar la identidad de género a través de inspecciones ginecológicas, así como la resistencia de estos sujetos para definir su género más allá de la mirada colonial sobre sus genitales.---drawing from pertinent critical theory on knowledge, power, gender, and visual representation (zavala, irigaray, butler, foucault, derrida, preciado et al.), this thesis studies how gyneco-scopic regimes have been articulated with experiences of colonialism and neocolonialism, gender inequality and violence, but also with what jose rabasa calls the counter-colonial challenges to the colonial legacy of our present. i examine four paradigms of colonial gyneco-scopic regimes and the modern emergence of gendered subjectivities. i depart from early european visual "discoveries" of female nakedness and representations of indigenous women as overly sexual and yet with genitals seemingly "virginal" (colón, vespucci, cuneo, and vaz caminha) (chapter 2). i read indigenous andean intellectual felipe guaman poma de ayala's overlooked textual and visual accounts of inspections of indigenous women's genitalia as part of his case against colonial sexual violence and mestizaje (chapter 3). an important part of my dissertation deals with ways in which dress and performance defy the visual and genital engendering of gender as exemplified in the historical and literary case of seventeenth-century transvestite nun, lieutenant and conquistador(a) catalina de erauso (chapter 4). finally, i study the case of sixteenth-century transgender surgeon elena/o de céspedes, who alleged before the inquisition a non-binary gender (hermaphrodite with inverted genitals (chapter 5). i read these cases intertextually through the religious, juridical and even literary attempts to fix gender identity via gynecological inspections, as well as the counternarratives of these subjects to define their gender above and beyond the authoritarian gaze of colonialism. this dissertation considers visibility and multispecies care among photography tourism workers in cusco, perú. within a tourism industry that appropriates quechua peoples while simultaneously excluding them, those quechua women and their llama, alpaca, and sheep companions and kin who illegally participate face violence and displacement by municipal police officers. i trace what it means for quechua women to make themselves visible in cusco city's tourism industry and for quechua women and animals to care for one another as they do so. specifically, i argue that multispecies care occurs in relational visibility, which i define as mutual seeing that enables humans and animals to know another other as kin. i argue that relational visibility occurs while humans and animals walk with one another in-ayllu (in-community) and through pacha (spacetime).in the first section, i argue that by participating in photography tourism and photographic refusal, quechua women work to make themselves visible and known as indigenous women on their own terms. making themselves visible further means making their relationships of care with their llama, alpaca, and sheep companions and kin visible and known. i then show how municipal police officer coopt and weaponize care in order to control and displace quechua women, thus reinforcing racialized and gendered hierarchies in cusco. in the second section, i argue that multispecies care is gendered and reciprocal, meaning that as quechua women care for their animal companions and kin, so too do their animal companions and kin care for them. i further demonstrate how central to multispecies care is relational visibility.in the final section, i argue that not only is multispecies care reciprocal, it is also cyclical. this means that relational visibility and multispecies care occur, and thus bonds of kinship are created, as women walk together in-ayllu (in-community) through pacha (spacetime). in other words, quechua women and animals come to see and know one another and create kinship bonds by cycling together through time and space.by participating in photography tourism, quechua women visualize and enact an otherwise where they and their animal companions and kin are included in cusco city on their own terms. this dissertation not only sheds light on how indigenous women navigate and refuse a neoliberal multicultural nation-state, but also how multispecies care and kinship are central to their refusal. quantum-dot cellular automata (qca) is an emerging, promising, future generation computational architecture that encodes binary information into the positions of electrons. the switching and logic function of this transistorless architecture has already been realized in metal qca and magnetic qca. 'bottom-up' molecular implementation may not only circumvent the lithography limits, but also realize room temperature operation, where metal qcas could not function. a clock scheme is introduced to execute the pipeline calculation and provide the power gain. the clocking electric field can be produced by buried nanowires. electrostatic force microscopy (efm) is a direct way to measure the electric field. in our experiments, parallel nanowires were fabricated by electron beam lithography and metal lift off, and applied with different voltages to simulate different clocking phases. the electric forces were measured by the phase signal of efm. efm-phase measurement is not well understood here and used mostly for phase-contrast qualitative measurements. we demonstrate quantitative efm-phase measurements. also we discuss a source of error in efm dual-pass measurement, which has been considered in our model for quantitative efm-phase measurements. finite element analysis is provided for applications of clocking qca molecules. the simulations about programmable logic array in qca and low-power consumption of qca clocking wires have been demonstrated. future work about the switching of molecular logic states by electric fields and detection by efm or kelvin probe force microscopy will be discussed. my engagement at the interface between ecology and policy has developed over the last decade while studying rare and endangered species in the context of management and restoration. upon completing a law degree focused on environmental and natural resources law, i sought a ph.d. program to combine my background in ecology and environmental policy &#8212; the global linkages of biology environment and society (globes) nsf-igert fellowship program at the university of notre dame. to inform recovery of threatened and endangered species and stream restoration, i contribute knowledge in the field of ecology through an interdisciplinary approach that integrates methods from ecology, history, and law. chapter 2 describes a study of the namekagon river, wi, including a review of the river's history, temperature monitoring, and management options in the context of existing law and policy. we find that river temperatures would not exclude brook trout from surviving in the main stem of the namekagon river. a long-term monitoring of the fish community response in juday creek, in is reported in chapter 3. we discover that non-native brown trout have been replaced by native bass as the top predator of the fish community. assisted colonization for endangered species is analyzed by a case study of the mitchell's satyr butterfly in chapter 4. the butterfly example helps show the legal challenges for moving endangered animals outside their historic range under the u.s. endangered species act. chapter 5 addresses the illegal and legal trade of rare and endangered plants. we discover that 49 out of 753 listed plants were available for purchase in interstate commerce via the internet, but only 10% of sellers had the required permits. my contribution to knowledge in the field of ecology is my approach of combining methods and techniques from multiple disciplines to the extent that they become core components of my research. this approach can be used as an example of interdisciplinary work that is relevant to informing environmental policy and ecosystem restoration efforts. this dissertation describes a search for new physics in final states with two photons and missing transverse momentum. the analysis was performed using proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 tev. the data were collected with the compact muon solenoid (cms) detector at the cern lhc in 2016. the total integrated luminosity of the data set is 35.9 fb^-1. the results are interpreted in the context of gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking (gmsb). supersymmetry (susy) is an attractive extension to the standard model of particle physics. it addresses several known limitations of the standard model, including solving the hierarchy problem and providing potential dark matter candidates. in gmsb models, the lightest supersymmetric particle is the gravitino, and the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle is often taken to be the neutralino. the neutralino can decay to a photon and a gravitino, leading to final state signatures with one or more photons and significant missing transverse momentum. no excess above the expected standard model backgrounds is observed, and limits are placed on the masses of susy particles in two simplified gmsb models. gluino masses below 1.87 tev and squark masses below 1.60 tev are excluded at a 95% confidence level. in this dissertation, several control problems are studied that arise when passive or dissipative systems are interconnected and controlled over a communication network. since communication networks can impact the systems' stability and performance, there is a need to extend the results on control of passive or dissipative systems to networked configurations. we focus on addressing three problems in this thesis: the first problem is how to characterize the system's passive or dissipative properties quantitatively; the second problem is how to preserve the passive or dissipative properties of the interconnected systems over the communication network; the third problem is how to reduce the communication rates between the interconnected systems while stability and certain control objectives can still be achieved. the problems studied in this thesis consider complex but common situations in networked control systems and their solutions represent a practical benefit to the way we design and analyze the studied control systems. in this dissertation, i analyze a range of epistemological and religious arguments for and against the fear of comets, as articulated in pamphlets and polemics following the comets of 1680-82 in the spanish and english empires. these works appeared in england, spain, north america, and the viceroyalties of new spain and peru. against recent scholarship, i argue that the religious and political diversity which drove the "vulgarization" of comets in england was less important in other regions than technical disputes over the foundations of astrology, or long-standing religious distinctions between licit and illicit interpretations of wonders. after an introduction, four thematic chapters explore responses to the comets of the 1680s in england, spain, north america, and spanish america respectively. in chapter two, i show how the politico-religious appropriation of the comet led to the association of comet-interpretation with vulgar segments of society. in subsequent chapters i show that the political prodigy-mongering found in england was, in the spanish empire, controlled through censorship of the press and a catholic tradition of strict separation between miracles and wonders. this shared intellectual tradition led the conversation of the comet to hinge on fairly technical aspects of natural philosophy and astrology, which constrained the possible meanings of the comet. chapter four shows that the same division between licit and illicit interpretation of comets operated in the puritan context of new england. chapter five elaborates on the catholic background established for spain by showing how broad religious trends intersected with local circumstances of patronage and norms of argument in shaping the debate in spanish america. finally, the conclusion reflects on how the diversity of questions at stake in the last debate over the meaning of comets in the 1680s changes our understanding of the decline of prodigies, wonders, and superstition more generally. the polyketide apoptolidin is an example from a class a class of 20-membered macrolides with potent and selective apoptosis-inducing activity and are believed to be f-atpase inhibitors. apoptolidin purportedly targets mitochondrial f0f1-atpase (f-atpase) and induces apoptosis selectively in cells transformed with the adenovirus oncogene, leaving normal cells unaffected. apoptolidin retains activity in concentrations as low as 10nm; normal cells remain unaffected at concentrations as high as 80åµm. unfortunately, wender and sulikowski independently demonstrated the ring expansion-isomerization of apoptolidin a via an acyl migration of the c20-hydroxyl group to form a less active congener, isoapoptolidin. isoapoptolidin was found to be considerably less active than apoptolidin and the lack of a c20-hydroxyl group could explain the increased biological activity of apoptolidin c in cell-based assays. we have targeted the total synthesis of 20-deoxyapoptolidin because of the potential of increased chemical stability. in addition to the increased stability, 20-deoxyapoptolidinone may be a unique chemical entity. noticeably absent from the family of natural apoptolidin congeners is c20-deoxyapoptolidin. the lack of c20 oxygenation also represents a unique structure that may not be accessible by nocardiopsis sp., the naturally producing organism. herein, we present an asymmetric route to the aglycone of 20-deoxyapoptolidinone. the algycone was chosen as an initial target to further explore the biological significance of post-pks modifications. the first part of this dissertation is focused on parameter estimation problems where proper statistical description of the system uncertainties is not available. we develop adaptive filtering algorithms based on the set-membership filtering (smf) framework which aims to upper bound the magnitude of filtering errors. novel convergence results for the sequence of parameter estimates of the set-membership normalized least-mean squares (sm-nlms) algorithm are established. sufficient conditions are identified under which the sequence of parameter estimates of the sm-nlms algorithm converges to the unknown true parameter almost surely. utilizing the built-in selective update feature of the sm-nlms algorithm, we develop an energyand bandwidth-efficient diffusion scheme for distributed estimation problems. furthermore, kernel methods are employed to extend two linear smf algorithms to solve nonlinear adaptive filtering problems. these two proposed kernel smf algorithms are equipped with several appealing features, including data-dependent selective update of filter parameter estimates without compromising mse performance, sparse kernel expansions and asymptotically upper bounded filtering error magnitude.the second part of this dissertation is concerned with crowdsensing applications where uncertainties arise due to the interactions of human participants who influence the system performance by adopting different strategies to meet their own interests. the challenges with regards to user participation and data quality are addressed by designing appropriate incentive mechanisms that encourage desired behaviors of the strategic agents. we solve the optimization problem of minimizing total payment to be made to strategic agents while ensuring a certain level of estimation accuracy. the proposed framework provides an insightful guideline for building cost-efficient crowdsensing platforms. finally, we take a further step to address the problem of estimation in the presence of adversarial agents whose objective is to degrade the estimation accuracy. an optimal linear fusion scheme is presented to mitigate the effect of the adversarial attack. we show that when the attack of the adversarial agent is restricted, the estimator can obtain a better estimate by properly fusing the information from the adversarial agent rather than simply discarding it. ionic liquids (ils) have emerged as suitable solvents for a number of energy-related applications. this research provides the necessary thermodynamic and thermophysical properties to evaluate and design ionic liquids for these industrial applications. post-combustion carbon capture would be an efficient way of reducing the carbon dioxide (co2) emissions to the atmosphere, thus slowing down the effect of climate change. the enthalpy of absorption of co2, &#8710;hco2, directly impacts the solvent regeneration cost of the carbon capture unit. in addition it provides valuable information on the physicochemistry with co2. this work presents a new method to directly measure the &#8710;hco2 in ionic liquids by calorimetry. experimental enthalpies of absorption of co2 in a series of anion functionalized ionic liquids with phosphonium and imidazolium cations were obtained using this novel technique. these results demonstrate the ability of tuning the aprotic heterocyclic anion (aha)-based ils, showing great potential for the design of cost efficient carbon capture technology. as ils are likely to be combined with other solvents in industrial processes, deep knowledge of their mixing behavior is needed. the excess properties of mixtures provide important information on the mixture non ideality and give insights into the il and solvent interactions in the solution. therefore, these properties were experimentally determined for the binary mixtures of trimethylbutylammonium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl) imide, [n1114][tf2n], with ethanol, 1-propanol and n,n-dimethylformamide. in order to assess the vialibility of ils for heat transfer fluid application, their thermophysical properties (i.e. viscosity, density and thermal conductivity) must be well understood. our study of these properties is followed by the investigation of mixtures of two ils for this application. expanding the ability of tuning the fluid, mixtures of ils with two different cations and anions exhibit unique characteristics. image segmentation and object tracking are two fundamental problems in computer vision and have been studied for decades. when applied to biomedical images, general computer vision algorithms for segmentation or tracking may not achieve satisfactory results, due to special characteristics of biomedical images (e.g., highly anisotropic dimensions of 3d biomedical images). in this dissertation, we will introduce new deep learning based segmentation algorithms for 2d and 3d biomedical images, and new tracking algorithms for identifying the motion of bacterial cells as well as other related applications (i.e., visible feature based iris recognition). our new 2d deep learning model explores multiscale feature reuse to tackle extremely challenging segmentation tasks. our 3d model employs a new paradigm to explicitly handle and leverage the anisotropism of 3d biomedical images. for the cell tracking problems, we propose a new matching model based on earth mover's distance and develop a group of approaches based on this new emd matching model for tracking different types of cells. evaluated by biomedical images from real experiments, our algorithms can obtain segmentation and tracking results of remarkable quality and show high robustness in practice. the separation of aromatics from aliphatics is an important step in oil refinery processes. current methods for this separation include extraction, extractive distillation, and azeotropic distillation. the main problems with these methods are: 1) suitability only for aromatic concentration of the feed mixture higher than 20%, 2) low aromatic/aliphatic selectivities, and 3) low capacities. all of these problems call for the development of new technology for aromatic/aliphatic separation, with the design of an ionic liquid (il) solvent for the extraction process being a promising research direction.well-known for their favorable properties including negligible vapor pressure, good thermal stability, large liquid range, and tunability by molecular design, ils are highly attractive as potential substitutes for current commercial solvents [1–3]. process and thermodynamic modeling can guide the design of ils. for example, through fundamental studies of the thermodynamic models for liquid-liquid equilibrium (lle) and vapor-liquid-liquid equilibrium (vlle), we can better understand the thermodynamic limits of the product purities one can achieve with various ils, and we can evaluate energy and economic costs by building process models to compare the use of il extraction solvents to traditional solvents for aromatic/aliphatic separation like sulfolane.to study the aromatic/aliphatic extraction process, toluene-heptane mixtures are used as a model, with a current commercial solvent (sulfolane) used as the benchmark for comparison. for the solvent recovery method, taking advantage of the nonvolatility of ils, we choose to use a simple flash drum to evaporate the aromatics out of the aromatic-il mixture, thus recovering the il solvent. to reduce the loss of solvent, ils with good thermal stabilities are preferred. therefore, we focus on ils with the bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide ([tf2n]−) anion paired with 1-hexyl-3-methylpyridinium ([hmpy]+), 1-hexyl-3methylimidazolium ([hmim]+), 1n-butylthiolanium ([bthiol]+), and triethyloctyl phosphonium ([p2228]+) cations.for the thermodynamic modeling of heptane-toluene-sulfolane ternary lle, traditional nrtl1 method is used. for the heptane-toluene-il ternary lle, cosmosac2 and cosmo-rs 3are investigated for all four ils. the ability of these models to fit the experimental ternary lle data are compared. on this basis, cosmo-sac is chosen to be the thermodynamic model for the il process. and among four ils, [bthoil][tf2n] is chosen as the solvent for the il process for its better selectivity.process models are built for the separation of toluene from heptane using the commercial solvent sulfolane, as well as one of the four ils [bthoil][tf2n] as the extraction solvent. sensitivity analysis is implemented for the process. for the sulfolane process, the product purity could reach 0.991 for heptane, and 0.999 for toluene, but further research is needed for reducing the energy consumption, especially for the solvent recovery column. for the il process, the energy consumption is much lower than that of sulfolane process, but more ils need to be explored to increase the product purity. wen-churng lin, teh-hua tsai t.-y. l. and yang c.-h. influence of the temperature on the liquid?liquid equilibria of heptane + toluene + sulfolane and heptane + m-xylene + sulfolane. journal of chemical &amp; engineering data, 53 (3):760–764, 2008. amparo chafer, javier de la torre a. f. and lladosa e. liquidliquid equilibria of water + ethanol + 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide ternary system: measurements and correlation at different temperatures. journal of chemical and engineering data, 60(8):2426–2433, 2015. brennecke j. f. and maginn e. j. ionic liquids: innovative fluids for chemical processing. aiche journal, 47(11):2384–2389, 2001. this thesis describes a new method for characterizing nanoparticles in suspension using laser transmission spectroscopy (lts). this system combines a widely tunable laser with specialized optical and detection schemes in an apparatus that can measure light transmission as a function of wavelength with unprecedented precision and sensitivity. the measured transmittance as a function of wavelength is inverted using the mie model for the extinction cross-section to obtain particle size and density distribution. the precision of lts's measurements allows not only the determination of the particle size distribution, but also the absolute number of particles with diameters in the range of 5 nm to 3000 nm. our method works well for nanoparticle densities ranging from ~10^3 particles/ml to ~10^10 particles/ml. the usage of transmittance as a function of wavelength means both the information collected and signal to noise ratio is high, thus lts can provide information not available with other nanoparticle sizing techniques. furthermore, lts has the capability to determine the geometry of particles, which is not available with any other current particle sizing technique. this thesis shows the successful application of lts to the studies of: (1) liposome aggregation and fusion, where we determined the geometry of the fused liposome particles as well as verify the behavior of liposome vesicles when exposed to different stimulus, (2) dna (origami) protein folding, where folding of dna origami rectangles into cylinders was observed, and (3) the time evolution of the geometry and growth rate of e. coli bacteria. the present paper examined relations between marital conflict, aspects parenting, and adolescent behavioral outcomes. specifically, the present study considered whether maternal awareness or maternal behavior control, or both, mediated the relation between overt marital conflict and adolescent behavior conduct competence, as well as a number of alternative models. four years of self-report data were collected from 133 mothers and their adolescents, beginning when the adolescents were in fourth grade. marital conflict, maternal awareness, maternal behavior control, and adolescent behavior conduct competence were assessed at all four time points in order to apply a recent methodology for assessing longitudinal mediating patterns. the results suggested that maternal awareness, but not maternal behavior control, mediated the relation between marital conflict and adolescent behavior conduct competence. thus, the present study identified one possible parenting process through which marital conflict may affect adolescent behavior. working memory capacity (wmc) is thought to be made up of two, more primitive, underlying constructs; scope of attention (sa) and attention control (ac). sa refers to the individual variation in the storage capacity of working memory (wm) and is thought to be severely limited. in contrast, ac represents an individual's ability to selectively focus on and maintain task-relevant information online when distractors are present. the difficulty of separating these constructs has prevented past research from adequately measuring them. recent work by schor, brodersen, &amp; gibson (2020) has provided a method for separating these constructs within a single task – the whole report visual array. their novel approach revealed individual differences in both constructs and proposed independence between them. the present study used this statistical model in combination with a computational modeling technique to show that the nature of sa is continuous and not discrete. additionally, this study used both behavioral and pupillary data to provide support for a conceptualization of ac that appears to be more state-based, than trait-based as previously thought. finally, a large-scale online study facilitated the comparison of the model's kmax (sa) and α (ac) parameters, confirming their independence. taken together, these findings help further our understanding of wmc and the nature and relationship of its underlying constructs. this study uses a portion of smith's (2003) framework on how religious participation impacts teen outcomes to examine religious participation's relationship to the timing of adolescents' first sexual intercourse. smith (2003) proposes that religious participation creates its impact primarily through nine intervening religious mechanisms or factors. two sets of models are considered using data from wave i of the national study of youth and religion. the first set considers how religious participation relates to the presence of three of smith's (2003) factors, and the second looks at how these factors the timing of adolescents' coital debuts. the religious participation measures, especially co-participation of teens and their parents, increase the levels of the factors that are directly related to forestalling sexual debuts. the direct effects of religious participation on the age at sexual debut become statistically insignificant in the presence of smith's (2003) factors, supporting the idea that considering only religion's direct effects is a myopic view of how religion work. this dissertation is an attempt to get clear on the philosophical implications of a theory's ideology, especially as it pertains to metaphysics. roughly speaking, the dissertation can be divided into thirds. in the first third, i provide a preliminary characterization of ideology and in so doing distinguish the multiple ways metaphysicians conceive of ideology. my primary focus is on the differences between what i call ideological externalism and ideological internalism. ideological externalism is the view on which the quality of a theory's ideology is evaluated by the extent to which the ideology corresponds to the objective features of the world. ideological internalism, in contrast, is the view on which the quality of a theory's ideology is evaluated by how it relates to the theoretical process. in the second third of the dissertation, i argue for a particular version of ideological externalism, what i call non-ontic maximal realism. according to this position, we ought to endorse theories that employ ideology we have reason to believe correspond to the objective features of the world, where these features can be things (e.g. electrons or properties) or non-ontic stuff (e.g. water and quantificational structure). in arguing for maximal realism, i defends both its intelligibility and its viability relative to its competitors. in the final third of the dissertation, i make some methodological suggestions for those who endorse maximal realism. given that maximal realism is true, how do we go about determining which theories employ the correct ideology? i advocate for a modified version of the virtue-driven methodology. according to this methodology, the fact that a theory exhibits some theoretical virtue is a reason to believe that it employs the correct ideology. (in the appendix, i suggest that the standard story regarding ideology is historically inaccurate. quine was not the first to distinguish between a theory's ontology and its ideology. in fact, the distinction can be found in the earliest figures in analytic philosophy. i illustrate this by discussing russell's lectures on logical atomism.) this dissertation offers a soteriological reimagining of the church in light of the reality of intergroup relationship. using the interrelated phenomena of group formation and intergroup dynamics as hermeneutic key and category of analysis for examining the church, this dissertation argues that the church's relationship to salvation (i.e. god's saving activity) and the church's relationship to the historical fact of intergroup or intercommunal disunity are highly correlated. this correlation is the basis for the central thesis of this dissertation: within god's plan of historical salvation, the church functions as god's communal response to intercomunal disunity, a role it fulfills with integrity only when and where it enacts itself as a counterperformance to aggression, conflict, and indifference between human communities. the first part of the dissertation relates the church to human community'the material, human foundation apart from which there is no church. chapters 1 and 2, respectively, draw attention to the phenomena of (1) group formation relative to the emergence of collective wholes, and (2) intergroup dynamics relative to biopyshosocial, situational, and cultural processes. the church's uniqueness (its seity) as a community is situated in relation to these general phenomena. the second part of the dissertation relates the church to god's plan of salvation. chapter 3 serves as an introduction to the second part, and establishes connection between the church and other premodern communities for which a sense of the sacred is integral, highlighting communal models for interaction that are rooted in formative experiences of non-human, life-giving forces. chapter 4 foregrounds the pattern of salvation that discloses god as preeminently concerned with preservation of life and creation of right interrelationship. chapter 5 frames the church's constitution and task in relation to this pattern of god's salvific interaction. the third part of the present work relates the church to jesus christ. chapter 6 examines jesus as the initiator of the group that would eventually be called the church, and draws attention to how the resurrected christ's association with ecclesial community points toward the broadening of jesus' ministry to include the realm of intergroup relations. chapter 7 makes a case for understanding the church as the body of christ as the primordial ecclesiological percept, one that has radical implications for the christian community's intercommunal performance. calcific aortic valve disease (cavd) is the most prevalent form of heart valve disease, affecting 25% of the population 65 years and older with disease progression lasting 20-30 years. it is marked by the initial thickening and stiffening of the leaflets, followed by the formation of calcific lesions within the valve leaflets. in the bicuspid aortic valve (bav), which is the most common type of aortic valve defect and is characterized by the formation of two functional leaflets instead of three, the onset of cavd typically occurs at an earlier age and progresses to severe stenosis much more rapidly than in the normal tricuspid aortic valve (tav). while the etiology of cavd has been linked to altered hemodynamics, which may be linked to altered valve geometries, alterations in hemodynamic performance due to anatomic and calcific defects have not been investigated. therefore, the goal of this dissertation is to present a comparative in vitro assessment of the valvular flow and performance in a tav and bav under normal and calcified states. particle-image velocimetry was used to characterize the flow downstream of a model tav, model bav, model calcified tav, and model calcified bav mounted in an idealized aortic sinus geometry. valve performance was analyzed under steady flow conditions in terms of geometric orifice area, effective orifice area, and energy loss. comparison of valve hemodynamics was based on velocity, vorticity, viscous shear stress, and reynolds shear stress under physiologic flow and pressure conditions. this study found that valvular anatomy and leaflet stiffening impact large-scale flow structures, but suggested that the bav can function and generate energy loss at a level similar to a normal valve despite its intrinsic degree of stenosis. the main difference in valve performance between the bav and tav was in the elevated shear stress and turbulence experienced by the bav. calcification of the valve also led to a similar increase in the viscous shear stress and turbulence but significant decrease in valve performance. these similarities in the hemodynamic alterations in valves with anatomic or calcific defects as compared to normal tav hemodynamics demonstrated a positive feedback cycle, which may be linked to cavd development and progression. this study of united states relations with post-colonial indonesia sheds light on how prevalent assumptions about and interpretations of a major world religion, islam, shaped policymakers' attitudes and decisions concerning u.s. engagement with muslim actors abroad. it examines not only the accuracy and nuance of u.s. officials' knowledge about islam in indonesia, but also religion's shifting salience in u.s. foreign relations during the height of the cold war. it argues that religion mattered in the construction and implementation of u.s. policies toward indonesia—but under specific, changing conditions, not as an overarching framework. islam provided one lens by which u.s. officials understood the behavior and goals of the indonesian government and, perhaps more consequentially, the character of the majority of indonesia's people. while interpretations of islam in indonesia evolved over the course of subsequent u.s. administrations—and the significance and utility of these perceptions waxed and waned over time—in general the u.s. foreign policy establishment tended to see religion as a means to an end, namely, as an instrument that at times proved useful in the struggle against global communism. there is renewed interest in global malaria elimination but this task likely requires new technologies, information, drugs, interventions and a better understanding of the systems involved in malaria transmission. modeling and simulation can help to evaluate the potential effectiveness of various control strategies and expose new ways to interrupt disease transmission. however, there is not a rich, widely publicized model that captures the mosquito vector's life-stage and behavior. this work introduces an agent-based model for anopheles gambiae, the primary vector in sub-saharan africa. with this model, researchers can simulate a mosquito population, subject it to various intervention pressures, evaluate its response and its capability to transmit the disease. in so doing, the researcher can observe the emergent effects of the intervention and better understand how mosquitoes spread the illness. this dissertation addresses several engineering and scientific challenges involved in the mode's development and deployment. first, a software architecture is presented that is capable of richly expressing various life-stage and behavior attributes of the mosquito in an agent-based simulation. second, our implementation is shown to verify with the core model through a novel set of procedures that quantitatively compare some emergent properties of the simulation with expected values from the core model. next, the implemented model is trained and cross validated using various trap collections from northern nigeria. finally, the model is used to investigate a newer form of mosquito interventions known as sterile insect technique (sit). sit generally consists of the release of males sterilized through transgenic, chemical, or radiologic means into a wild population. when females mate with these males, their progeny's development is affected. we are the first to model four lethal transgenes on a population of anopeheles gambiae with agent-based methods and report on their effects. our results expose an insight that has not yet been demonstrated in the literature. this thesis describes the results of electro-optical experiments performed on solution grown cdse nanowires (nws). tem images reveal that such nws have diameters between 6-40 nm, are highly crystalline and exhibit large aspect ratios (>1000, length/diameter). the morphologies of these nws range from straight to hyper-branched. absorption cross-sections determine how efficiently a material absorbs light. in this thesis we calculate single nw absorption cross-sections based on uv-vis linear extinction, tem, and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy experiments. obtained numbers compare well with theoretical estimates, having order of magnitude values of 10-11 cm2 per 1 ì_å_m length of a 10 nm diameter nw. synthesized cdse nws are emissive and are easily detectable at the single wire level. a surprising observation from these experiments is the modulation of the nw emission intensity by applied electrical fields. specifically, the part of the wire closest to the positive electrode exhibits up to a 10x increase in intensity. simultaneous quenching of identical magnitude is detected on the other side of the wire. our current working hypothesis is that mobile electrons driven by the external electrical field passivate emission quenching centers resulting in local emission enhancement. similarly, the smaller density of electrons on the other side of the wire yields emission quenching. to confirm the existence of these mobile carriers we perform electrophoresis measurements on nws. observed single wire translational and rotational dynamics can be explained by mobile carriers residing on or within the nws. a lower limit for the carrier density of nws in oleic acid is estimated to be ~1 charge/ì_å_m. since light absorption results in both nw emission as well as the photogeneration of carriers, photoconductivity measurements are also possible. while doing such measurements, we unexpectedly discovered that randomly oriented nw networks could exhibit a significant photocurrent polarization anisotropy with values of ì =0.25 (ì ®õ=0.04) under excitation with linearly polarized light. the remarkable conclusion from this result is that polarization sensitive devices can be built from random nw networks without the need to align component wires. to explain these results a simple geometric model has also been developed. this dissertation explores the policy positions and advocacy work of four national organizations – the naacp, the legal defense fund (ldf), the mexican american legal defense and education fund (maldef), and the national council of la raza (nclr) – throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, in three policy areas. immigration reform, the voting rights act reauthorizations, and education policy, with subcases within each umbrella topic, are assessed.the policy cases were selected to represent and test three possible models of black-latino organizational behavior respectively: an "ethnic politics model" exhibiting competitive behavior and conflict, a "people of color" model of cooperation, and finally, a "tacit non‐cooperation" model where groups work independently even when they have the same positions and policy ends/goals. five hypotheses were examined to explain black‐latino organizational behavior and a fourth model, named the "power asymmetry model" was developed.while the ethnic politics model did not explain the behavior of the organizations around immigration policy in the contemporary period, it was an accurate depiction of behavior in the 1970s and 1980s on immigration reform efforts, such as the immigration reform and control act of 1986. support for immigrant rights and collaboration around the 2006 national immigration marches is more representative of the people of color model and explanation of behavior.the people of color model was predicted for organizational behavior around the voting rights act (vra). the model was not accurate for black­‐latino organizational behavior during the reauthorizations of the 1970s and 1980s, when the vra was expanded beyond african americans to include "language minorities." in the contemporary period, civil rights organizations work closely together to preserve the integrity of the bill and to fight off legal challenges, especially following the most recent reauthorization in 2006. the same trend was found – a shift from conflict to cooperation over time, with the power asymmetry model as the best explanation for tensions between black and latino groups during the earlier time period.finally, in the education policy field, the tacit non-­‐cooperation model was predicted for the two subcases: no child left behind and the charter school debate. in general the groups appeared to work more frequently within their own racial group than across racial groups on education reform, but there were a few important exceptions, such as the campaign for high school equity (chse). chse is a new type of multi‐racial coalition in which every racial and ethnic group is represented, with a primary purpose to help solve the high school dropout crisis. the trend towards cooperation between black and latino organizations continues to grow, especially as there is a public demand for multicultural organizational representation, among various other reasons. significant attention has been given to the so-called 'blinking dot' phenomenon, which describes the fluorescence intermittency exhibited by a wide variety of nanoscale objects such as quantum dots, and nanowires. it is believed that blinking is associated with spatial charge redistribution within the nanoscale blinking objects. the natural choice to detect these charge fluctuations is single-electron transistors (sets). evidently, the electrometers used for this measurement should not be affected by light illumination. we studied the effects of light illumination, from near infrared to blue, on the characteristics of al/alox sets at low temperatures (0.3 ì¢ ââ' 4.2k). based on the results of this study, we developed a fabrication processes for producing sets on wide bandgap insulating substrates (quartz and sapphire), and the fabrication of metal shields on top of the set devices (which demonstrates the possibility of post-processing of sets). among the most important outcomes of this study is the realization of the significant influence that the substrate material has on set devices. these results led us to further study the characteristics of the charge traps and investigate the causes of background charge in sets. in addition, we developed a fabrication method for producing metallic sets with tunnel barriers made by atomic layer deposition. this provides tunnel barriers with higher quality and holds the promises of a reduction of individual trap effects related to disordered materials surrounding the set's island and leads (source/drain). receptor for activated c kinase 1 (rack1) has been implicated in multiple protein-protein interactions, although it was first described as the intracellular receptor for protein kinase c (pkc). significant parasite-specific functions, including roles in resistance to leishmania major and progression through cytokinesis in trypanosoma brucei, have also been described. here the rack1 homologue in the parasite toxoplasma gondii is identified and characterized. tgrack1 displays the anticipated cytoplasmic localization 20-24 hours post infection. shortly after parasite invasion, however, tgrack1 concentrates around the nucleus and apicoplast (a parasite-specific organelle). vesicular trafficking occurs between these organelles in t. gondii, and studies have suggested roles for pkcs in the secretory pathway. since racks target pkcs, an investigation into a link between tgrack1 and the secretory pathway was initiated. flag-epitope-tagged-tgrack1 colocalized and coprecipitated with the early secretory pathway marker tgbeta-cop, providing evidence for a novel 'interracktion.' fe associated with colloids such as natural organic matter (nom; e.g., humic and fulvic acids), clay minerals, and fe(oxy)(hydr)oxides, may represent potentially bioavailable fe pools. these colloids, including nanoparticle (np) forms, are ubiquitous and their high surface areas make them potentially important sorbents of contaminants and nutrients. my dissertation research applied state-of-the-art methods and approaches to characterize metal associations with colloids, including environmental nps, and explored interactions of aerobic bacteria with colloid-associated metals in abiotic and biotic experiments. asymmetrical flow field-flow fractionation (asflfff) was used to characterize the distributions of metals and rare earth elements (rees) associated with aquatic nom from the 'type locality' suwannee river (ga, usa) and several other nom-rich surface waters (chapter 2). nom samples with naturally associated metals were reacted with the commercially available siderophore desferrioxamine b (dfob) to quantify metal removal by this high-metal-affinity microbial ligand (chapter 3). this work showed that fe could be easily stripped from nom by a microbial siderophore. the nom samples were also used in fe-limited growth experiments with the siderophore-producing aerobic soil bacterium pseudomonas mendocina ymp and a genetically engineered siderophore(-) mutant (chapter 4). these biotic experiments confirmed the bioavailability of nom-bound fe and further demonstrated that while siderophores can be useful for fe acquisition from nom, they are not required, most likely because p. mendocina has a cell-associated reductant with the potential to reduce nom-bound fe. overall, this work suggested that fe and other metals bound to nom may be far more bioavailable to aerobic microorganisms than previously thought. bioavailability of fe associated with mineral colloids, including the clay mineral montmorillonite (mmt; chapter 5) and two phases of the nanomineral ferrihydrite (fh; chapter 6) was also investigated in abiotic dissolution and biotic growth/fe acquisition experiments. in biotic experiments using p. mendocina, siderophores were able to acquire fe associated with mmt for use by cells. in the absence of siderophores, p. mendocina was able to acquire fe via cell-associated, enzymatic reduction of clay-associated fe(iii), a process requiring direct cell-clay mineral contact. this contact, and hence fe acquisition, was increased by the presence of biofilms. fe acquisition from the two fh phases (a smaller, more poorly ordered '2-line' form and a larger, more well ordered '6-line' form) was aided by siderophores, but cell-associated metalloreductases were also capable of supplying fe to cells. the copious addition of a biofilm polysaccharide had no effect on fe acquisition from the 2-line fh phase and a slight enhancing effect on the 6-line fh phase. siderophores can bind not just fe(iii) but a host of other metals such as al, cd and pb, strongly. the effects of siderophores on cd sorption to nps of the fe oxide mineral hematite were also investigated in batch reaction vessels (chapter 7). in the absence of siderophores, cd sorption was largely controlled by nanoparticle size (i.e., 8 vs. 40 nm) and inherent size-dependent reactivity rather than simply the total reactive surface area. siderophores could either inhibit or enhance cd sorption to nanohematite, depending on the solution ph. results suggest the importance of additional research on the mechanism (adsorption vs. precipitation) of cd sorption using molecular-based synchrotron techniques. the purpose of this thesis is to study how an uncertain knowledge in the definition of the input parameters of a computational model propagates through the outputs. to do so, we will develop efficient methods based on the polynomial expansion of the output from a deterministic model, also known as polynomial chaos expansion. we will compare this class of methods with other approaches for uncertainty propagation and use this new-found knowledge first on a low-fidelity hypersonic model and then to a high-fidelity model from computational fluid dynamics in the high mach number regime. for this high-fidelity system, a computational analysis was performed using us3d and stabl2d software to predict the mean flow and the boundary layer transition location for a two-dimensional cone. this system was influenced by design conditions for the new notre dame mach 6 quiet tunnel (andlm6qt) to provide groundwork for future simulations. this thesis argues that plato's republic provides an outline of conversion to the philosophic way of life, and in doing so founds a new kind of community that is distinct from the political community and its way of life &mdash; the philosophic community. in contrast to plato's laws, which is intended to show the degree to which philosophy can transform existing political communities, the republic (1) depicts three identifiable moments in the experience of philosophic conversion, and (2) connects this experience to the founding of a new, philosophic community. the three moments are (1) ignorance and eros, (2) questions and methods, and (3) philosophy, friendship and speeches. all three moments in the experience of philosophic conversion are guided by the questions of justice and the good, and culminate in the question, what is the best way of life? the specific intention of this dissertation is to demonstrate that plato's republic provides us today with an avenue for a credible return to philosophy as a way of life. fulfilling this intention requires responding to some of the recent attempts to make this return, including leo strauss, pierre hadot, and michel foucault. my broader intention is to suggest that the experience of conversion to philosophy as a way of life depicted in plato's republic can respond to nietzsche's critique of the possibility of philosophy as a way of life in its original, socratic form, as well as of its value. this dissertation compares and contrasts the virtuous city and political regime, which are al-fārābī's two comprehensive works on political philosophy. scholars have puzzled over why these works are similar and yet quite different in important respects. the dissertation argues that the texts are similar insofar as they investigate how the sensible and the intelligible bring theology, physics, and politics into an integrated whole. at each point the texts diverge, the virtuous city presents the intelligible and the sensible as forming a harmonious whole, whereas the political regime questions this harmony.the reason for these divergences can be understood in light of each text's purpose and intended audience.the virtuous city contains a political teaching aimed at citizens that depicts the universe as governed by reason and promotes the freedom to pursue virtue in civic life. these opinions combat opinions that threaten the stability of the political community, such as materialism, the principle that might is right, and divine voluntarism. the political regime, however, when contrasted with the virtuous city, questions whether we can actually know with philosophical certitude the principles that undergird the opinions meant for virtuous citizens. thus, while the virtuous city presents the sensible and the intelligible as a harmonic whole for the education of citizens, the political regime raises questions about the harmony of the whole for those who would embark on the philosophic life. nanomagnet logic (nml) devices hold great promises for low power, non-volatile logic. magnetic quantum-dot cellular automata (mqca) based nml has been implemented for data paths and majority logic gates. however, the experimental demonstrations of nml circuits used large external magnetic fields. on-chip implementation of nml circuits will require a way of generating the magnetic fields inside the chip as well as selective control of the logic gates with local magnetic fields. although current carrying wires can generate magnetic fields, it is not trivial to generate strong enough magnetic fields required for the excitation of prototype nml devices and gates. in this dissertation, a scheme of on-chip clocking of nanomagnets is presented with simulation studies that use cu lines wrapped with magnetic materials from three sides. cu lines that incorporate permalloy yokes and are capable of handling high current were designed and fabricated. two different fabrication methods have been used to implement the clock lines. with proper design and material selection, magnetic fields were obtained that are strong enough to switch individual nanomagnets as well as nml gates and data paths, without using excessive current. a magnetic annealing furnace that can modify the magnetic characteristics of the clock lines in a way that facilitates nanomagnet switching was designed and built. the cmos circuit necessary for driving the clock lines was designed, and the equivalent circuit model of the clock lines along with nanomagnets was developed, which helps to calculate the power dissipation and the frequency response of the overall nml circuit. analytical models and a numerical simulator that can help to investigate nanomagnet switching dynamics under the influence of several physical effects, as well as facilitate the nml circuit design process were developed. this thesis looks at the new performance appraisal procedures introduced by processes of transformation and reform of three organizations of the uruguayan state. these organizational rules have two novel features that make them particularly interesting for a study of organizational inequality: the introduction of workplace stratification by their design and the attachment of economic compensations as a premium for the best rated employees. by focusing on the ratings of men and women in professional and technical jobs, i seek to answer whether and how the structures of work and the content of the evaluative rules determine any rating difference between the genders. therefore, the point of departure of this research is the analysis of a gender evaluative gap, taking contending structural theories of organizational inequalities for deriving specific hypotheses. the statistical results show, however, that the genders are on an equal standing for the most part and occasionally, women gain from the rating process, which are empirical anomalies that the theories employed here do not truly respond. to account for this unexpected outcome, i bring into the explanation dynamic considerations about supervisors and raters and conceptualize them as 'strategic actors,' who actively search to equalize their subordinates on their ratings. the theoretical story that emerges from this research is that supervisors attempt to create equality in such a way that it makes gender status beliefs less relevant in resource-allocation processes, even if this is unintended. this strategic use of organizational rules is rooted in the lack of fit between the institutional basis of the performance appraisals and supervisors' own assessments of the workplace, including the impact of ratings on their work groups, thus calling attention to the political nature of personnel management. as a determinant of inequality, i conclude that the political nature of organizational rules is a crucial factor in light of increasingly gender-integrated workplaces and continual managerial reforms of public bureaucracies. catalysis plays important roles in society. in particular, heterogeneous catalysis has proven to be the cornerstone of chemical and energy transformation, e.g. petrole-um refining, chemical production, and plays a significant role in the development of new technology for pollution control. understanding of catalysis requires in-situ/operando studies of catalysts in their working condition. this requirement is non-trivial hence there exist a "materials gap" and "pressure gap" in fundamental studies of heterogene-ous catalysis. attempt to narrow this "pressure gap" is described in this thesis. through development of in-situ surface characterization techniques: high temperature near am-bient scanning tunneling microscopy (ht-nap stm) and ambient pressure x-ray photoe-lectron spectroscopy (ap-xps), in-situ studies of catalysts are realized. examples of in-situ studies using these techniques, including visualization and surface chemistry charac-terization of model catalysts (mono-metalic and alloy) at atomic level under co envi-ronment, and during co oxidation, are described. the results reveal a dynamic atomic packing at the step edge of the pt(111) surface which suggests restructuring of step edges of metal catalysts under reaction conditions and during catalysis. for pt/cu/pt(111) near-surface alloy, in situ studies using hp-stm suggest formation of nanoclusters-like features at a relatively high pressure of co (2 torr) at room tempera-ture with the restructured surface being active for co oxidation at room temperature. in addition, rh(110) surface restructures from the (1 × 2) phase to (1 × 1) phase under co oxidation environment at torr regime. these results overall demonstrate the necessity of in-situ surface characterization of catalysts for comprehensive understanding of het-erogeneous catalysis. in addition to evaluating a structural equation model (sem) as a whole, often the model parameters are of interest and confidence intervals for those parameters are formed. given a model with a good overall fit, it is entirely possible for the targeted effects of interest to have very wide confidence intervals, thus giving little information about the magnitude of the population targeted effects. with the goal to obtain sufficiently narrow confidence intervals for the model parameters of interest, sample size planning methods for sem are developed from the accuracy in parameter estimation approach. one method plans for the sample size so that the expected confidence interval width is sufficiently narrow. an extended procedure ensures that the obtained confidence interval will be no wider than desired, with some specified degree of assurance. a monte carlo simulation study was conducted that verified the effectiveness of the procedures in realistic situations. the methods developed have been implemented in the mbess package in r so that they can be easily applied by researchers. in order to meet the clean energy demands of future generations, solar energy conversion must be achieved in a clean, inexpensive, and relatively efficient manner. among the many candidate technologies currently vying to meet this need, the quantum dot sensitized solar cell shows much promise, however, the best prototypes of today fall short of the efficiency benchmarks necessary for mass implementation. this dissertation addresses the inefficiencies of quantum dot sensitized cells from the standpoint of electron transfer reactions. the electron transfer rate from cdse quantum dots to tio2 nanoparticles was modeled with both a many-state marcus model as well as a through space ballistic tunneling model. this particular reaction is among the first in a series of reactions which must occur to generate extractable photocurrent from a quantum dot sensitized solar cell. electron transfer rates in this system were studied experimentally using ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy through the elucidation of excited state dynamics of cdse quantum dot sensitizers. experimentally determined electron transfer rates across this junction were found to generally agree with prominent models. the phenomenon of hot carrier injection was not observed in these systems at room temperature. a comparison of measured electron transfer rates from cdse quantum dots to various metal oxide nanoparticles with quantum dot sensitized solar cell device performance demonstrated that this particular electron transfer rate is not the rate limiting step of photocurrent production, and therefore does not contribute to device inefficiencies. two other electron transfer reactions which are unique to quantum dot sensitized solar cells, namely that from the electrolyte to the quantum dot, as well as that from tio2 nanoparticles to the electrolyte, were also investigated with transient absorption spectroscopy and chronopotentiometry, respectively. a qualitative comparison between electron transfer and device performances demonstrates that interaction between the electrolyte and the tio2 electron transport layer play a role in resultant device photocurrent. given the studies presented here, future research is directed toward alternative electrolytes to improve quantum dot sensitized solar cell performance. this dissertation examines unequal political representation in the united states. specifically, i ask whether the political opinions of citizens with low incomes are underrepresented by the policy choices made by their state governments as compared to more affluent citizens. this question, i argue, is central to evaluating the quality of american democracy. using a wide array of survey data, i first demonstrate that political preferences actually differ across income groups. this is important because if preferences do not vary, then it would be impossible to distinguish whose opinions are better reflected in the public policy decisions made by elected officials. i then systematically evaluate the equality of political representation using three different measurement techniques. regardless of the particular measure used, citizens with an annual household income of less than $35,000 per year are always the least likely to have their opinions reflected in policy. i also construct an original political inequality index that ranks the states according to the degree to which the opinions of citizens with low incomes are neglected in state policies compared to the opinions of the middle class and the wealthy. i then take advantage of the spatial variation in political inequality across the states to examine possible explanations, an important inquiry that has received little systematic analysis to date. first, i assess political and behavioral explanations and find that representation is more equal in states that have more competitive legislative elections, where the poor turn out to vote at higher rates, and states with a larger interest group community, provided that the community is not dominated by for-profit interests. second, i assess institutional and legal explanations and find that representation is more equal in states that make it easier to access the ballot initiative process, impose stricter regulations on campaign contributions, and provide more staff and resources to their state legislators. i conclude by discussing how this study relates to the state politics and 'unequal democracy' literatures more broadly and by highlighting a series of concrete policy recommendations that would help promote a more equal weighting of citizens' political preferences in the state policymaking process. this dissertation seeks to clarify the import of the transcendence problem in heidegger and derrida. the guiding suggestion of my interpretations of both thinkers is that following the development of this problem through their respective projects can help to demonstrate in each an underlying continuity in light of which their seemingly discrepant shifts in emphasis from early to late can be understood as moments of an ongoing hermeneutic task. my argument unfolds in four chapters and a brief conclusion. chapter one motivates the project in view of the contentious standing of the problem in continental philosophy as it is characterized in the competing narratives advanced by richard rorty, john caputo, and rodolphe gasch . chapters two and three trace the problem through heidegger's denkweg. while being and time might seem to be the obvious place to start, i argue that the character of the problem is difficult to see without recourse to both the context in which the problem first arises, and the future interpretations of the problem toward which being and time proceeds. accordingly, i attend to the emergence of the problem in heidegger's dissertation and early lectures, and then leap ahead to its more explicit appropriations in the writings of 1928 where the provisional standing of fundamental ontology becomes increasingly apparent. in view of its past and future trajectories, then, i return to being and time to exhibit therein what i take to be latent indications of heidegger's later disposition toward transcendence. chapter four situates derrida in terms of his debts to and departures from heidegger. i argue that derrida's debts in fact compel his departures; since he concurs that the transcendence of predecessor discourses necessitates their destruction in the name of advancing their undeveloped possibilities, he must dismantle heidegger to do justice to him. in applying this insight to derrida's project, i maintain, the careful reader can find traces of his later injunctions to 'absolute responsibility' in his early affirmations of 'infinite play' . i conclude with a few brief remarks as to how this investigation might contribute to a richer understanding of contemporary continental philosophy. nearly all health systems and professionals espousean ideal of keeping to medical practitioners are purported to have special obligations to their patients. these include obligations to prioritize their patients over others in their professional actions. they must do so even when this requires foregoing the opportunity to produce a vastly more just distribution of healthcare. yet, the foundations of these obligations are unclear at best. some believe that these obligations arise from the aims of medicine or some (social) contract, but both types of foundations rest on spurious metaphysical and epistemic claims. moreover, the claims for such goods, based in justice, of the exceptionally needed are particularly stark. hence, if we cannot find better foundations for this ideal, there is grave risk that we do great harm and grave injustice in complying with it. this dissertation criticizes standard views of these foundations and then offers an alternative according to which the legitimate prescriptions of legitimate medical practices as well as those of legitimate governments. the concept of legitimacy is already widely invoked in medical ethics—particularly to justify and clarify the demands of resource allocation, such as those that must cohere with the special obligations mentioned above. unfortunately, typical views of legitimacy, to which one might appeal, cannot capture the right extension of verdicts about resource allocation in critical cases. in light of these failings, this dissertation turns to the foundations of political philosophy to develop a new theory of legitimacy and authority of government and then extend that theory to explain the legitimacy and authority of medical practice. according to this theory, entities have authority over their subject if, only if, and because the subjects would better fulfill their associative duties to each other. it then uses this theory to illuminate important claims in the general theory of partiality. this paves the way to developing a general framework for understanding legitimate medical practice from this theory, the implications of which the dissertation illustrates by expounding both on the theory of special obligations of medical professionals and on the theory of healthcare resource allocation in regard to claims of medical necessity. the dissertation examines how dante draws on the medieval tradition on statius to develop his portrait of his character stazio, taking advantage of statius' standing as an auctor about whom little was known in the middle ages. the changes dante introduces into stazio's biography illuminate the functions the poet intended stazio to have in the commedia. stazio's unexpected conversion dramatizes the christianization of classical culture that dante strives to effectuate through his poetry. stazio's presence also helps dante to define his own complex feelings toward virgil. dante's other major change—stazio's prodigality—may ultimately be as important for dante's purposes as stazio's conversion. since dante's own sins and repentance are an integral part of the narrative of the commedia, it was important for dante to introduce a prior example of a sinful poetic auctor in order to establish his own auctoritas. through the biblical precedent of prodigality representing sin generically, dante establishes stazio as an everyman sinner who becomes an everyman christian through his conversion, and who also represents all christians who are sanctified through the process of purgation. the way dante works with and adapts statius' poetry in inferno and purgatorio suggests that dante genuinely appreciated statius as a poet. the thebaid is a particularly fruitful source for dante's depiction of hell and its characters, especially in the lowest three circles of violence, fraud, and treachery. dante's use of statius' works in the purgatorio is more surprising, and perhaps more complex. there is evidence to suggest that scenes from the later books of the thebaid, either the story of menoeceus' sacrifice or the prayers to clementia, or both, may have influenced dante's decision to christianize stazio. finally, dante uses stazio in order to express a complex position on the interpretation of poetry. stazio's account of his conversion provides an argument for the value of poetry as a vehicle for truth. however, stazio's narrative also points to a fact especially inherent in poetic discourse—authors cannot control their audiences' response to their texts. the commedia is a sacro poema—either sacred or sacrilegious, according to how it is interpreted. intensity-modulated radiation therapy (imrt) is a modern cancer treatment technique aiming to deliver a prescribed conformal radiation dose to a target tumor while sparing the surrounding normal tissues and critical structures. the prescribed radiation dose is specified by intensity maps (im). in this thesis, we study a set of combinatorial and geometric problems that arise in imrt planning and delivery: (1) the 3-d static leaf sequencing (sls) problem, whose goal is to deliver the prescribed ims in the minimum amount of time; (2) the 3-d static leaf sequencing with error control problem, which aims to deliver the prescribed ims in the minimum amount of time subject to the constraint that no unnecessary machine delivery error is introduced; (3) the field splitting problems, which seek to split a large width, undeliverable im into several deliverable sub-ims of widths no larger than a given threshold value such that the total beam-on time during delivery is minimized; (4) the shape rectangularization problems, which are useful in simplifying a complicated continuous dose distribution into a deliverable discrete im; (5) the coupled path planning problems, which are directly related to dynamic leaf sequencing and single-arc dose painting, an emerging imrt delivery technique. known algorithms for the above problems, both in commercial planning systems and in medical literature, either are heuristics that do not provide any quality guarantee of the solutions, or could handle only very special cases. in this thesis, we present new efficient algorithms for these problems that guarantee the optimal quality of the solutions. our main ideas are to exploit the underlying geometric and combinatorial properties of the problems and transform them into graph problems such as shortest paths, optimal matchings, maximum flows, multicommodity demand flows, or linear programming problems. we have implemented most of the proposed algorithms and experimented with them using real medical data. compared with commercial treatment planning systems and well-known algorithms in medical literature, our algorithms produce treatment plans of much better quality. some of the software that we have developed have been clinically used for treating cancer patients at two hospitals in maryland. the southwest monsoon is an inherently multi-scale system with interannual (ia), intraseasonal (is), synoptic, and diurnal and smaller scales all interacting in complex manner. the quality of life in the southeastern asian subcontinent, where nearly 80% of the annual rainfall is produced during the southwest monsoon period, heavily relies on accurate prediction of the spatial-temporal distribution of monsoon rainfall. active-break cycles of these subseasonal (30-60 day) episodes are referred to as monsoon intraseasonal oscillations (misos), a characteristic feature of the swm, and they modulate the spatial structure, frequency, and duration of active and break spells. in this dissertation, observational datasets covering a wide range of spatial and temporal scales are analyzed and interpreted to unravel the dynamical processes affecting the development and advancement of misos. considering that monsoons are a strongly coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon, a better understanding of the interplay between the different air-sea salient modes is needed for improving monsoons forecasting skills. this prompted analysis using a novel spectral approach where miso structure and evolution along the bob was examined using admissible terms (state, stress and flux terms) regarding air-sea coupling processes. results show northward propagation for all variables during active and break miso spells. heat flux into the ocean favored the active miso phase by ∼ 2 days and warm ssts by ∼ 8 days, validated against traditional band-filtered methodology. results suggests the development of a new, more robust, multivariate miso index for the purpose of real-time monitoring and forecasting. a major component of this dissertation was a study of monsoon intraseasonal oscillations in the bay of bengal during boreal summers 2018-19, dubbed miso-bob. notwithstanding that the overall miso structure shows some year-to-year resemblance, the spatial-temporal characteristics of summer precipitation are complex, scattered, and fairly variable. such variability is a result of a combination of systems across scales of motion from planetary scale disturbances to the distribution of mesoscale weather systems. the extended coverage provided from miso-bob field experiments allowed to explore equatorial motions and their relationship with miso. results suggests strength and extent of miso in bob is controlled by the amount of moisture from (strength of) eastward propagating convective equatorial signals in the equatorial indian ocean. similar results are found for stationary cruise observations where periods of intense precipitations, one of them reaching up to 120 mm, were commonly found to be product of aggregating active northwestward propagating (miso) mode and equatorial mode(s). the granular or local observations of weather passing events during stationary cruises gave insight on the role of air-sea interactions. break conditions in bob allowed for intense warming of the ocean surface and accumulation of convective potential energy. the transition to a convective state was observed to be accompanied sharp strengthening of westerly winds and subsequent rapid advance of precipitation, with ocean cooling at rates of ∼100w/m2 . these results suggest that bob thermodynamic preconditioning together with moisture brought from the equatorial indian ocean (eio) is essential for the development and propagation of convective cells, hence miso. to paraphrase a claim is to provide an alternative formulation of it. but what are the adequacy conditions on such reformulations? kant, for example, claimed that the different formulations of the categorical imperative are different formulations of one and the same law. but was he right about this? how are we to know? the problem is widespread. moore argued that moral claims cannot be expressed using sentences containing only naturalistic language; platonists argue that reality cannot be adequately characterized without using sentences that refer to abstract objects; 'tensers' in the philosophy of time argue that tensed sentences cannot be adequately paraphrased by tenseless sentences; and dualists such as david chalmers argue that certain facts about consciousness cannot be expressed using sentences containing only vocabulary amenable to reductive physicalism. whether these claims are correct makes a considerable difference to the way we should conceive of the world and our place within it. but how are we to determine whether they are correct? despite the importance of developing an adequate understanding of paraphrase, surprisingly little work has been done on the topic. the present dissertation addresses this deficiency. it exposes a widespread misconception about johnchristopher adorno keller the function of paraphrase: that its purpose is to remove unwanted commitments. i argue that the proper way to understand paraphrase is as revealing the commitments of our discourse. paraphrase is important precisely because we do not in general know what the entailments of our theories are. the entailment relations our theories stand in, being truths of logic and hence necessary, cannot be removedì¢ ââ' the only commitments paraphrase is able to 'remove' are commitments that were not really there in the first place: merely apparent commitments. an important part of the argument for the revealing conception of paraphrase lies in showing that two presuppositions of the removing conception are false. these are, first, that the 'logical forms' of claims we accept are transparent to us; and, second, that when being truthful we typically believe what we say. the first presupposition, despite the ubiquity with which it is accepted, simply does not stand up to critical scrutinyì¢ ââ' if it were true, it would be trivial to find adequate formulations of our thoughts in logical languages. the problem with the second presupposition is less obvious. my argument draws on recent work in the philosophy of language by kent bach and others, which shows that the proposition we communicate is rarely the semantic content of the sentence we use to communicate it. it follows that semantic analysis of the sentences we utter is an unreliable method for determining what we believe. the final chapter of the dissertation shows that an influential objection to quinean meta-ontology is based on a misunderstanding of the function of paraphrase, and spells out the dire consequences of the position adopted as a result of that misunderstanding. cost cumulant control is a generalization of linear quadratic gaussian (lqg) control. instead of one cost cumulant being used, more cumulants are utilized. this has produced encouraging results on vibration problems. other interesting areas are h2/h-infinity control and h-infinity control. with stochastic noise present, these techniques can be reformulated as games involving the mean of the players' cost. through cost cumulants, this dissertation generalizes h2/h-infinity and h-infinity control. results from the discrete time cumulant control theory are reviewed, with some novel applications. then the discrete time minimum cost variance (mcv) problem is applied to the first generation earthquake structural benchmark. the discussion includes output feedback conditional cumulant control. a performance index consisting of a linear combination of conditional cumulants is used and a control law is found. with the aid of these results, a discrete time, cost variance game is given. a two player, nash game and its generalization of h2/h-infinity are discussed. furthermore, a two-player, zero sum game is developed. to make these results more general, an n-player, cost variance, nash game is given. attention is also directed to the continuous time case. both non-zero and zero sum games are developed. at first this is for the case of two cumulants, and then for k cumulants. furthermore, an n player, k cumulant nash game is presented. an h-infinity connection is made and the results are applied to a four story building. the case of the control minimizing the k-th cumulant, with the disturbance minimizing the mean of its cost, is also examined. generalization of h2/h-infinity control is made and a new multi-objective cumulant (mcc) control problem emerges. mcc control is applied to various building problems. then the output feedback problem is discussed. an mcc solution is determined for two cases, one in which the disturbance has full state information, and one where it does not. the results are applied to the first generation earthquake structural benchmark. finally, a minimax game involving the mean of conditional cumulants is developed. the problem is one where the players both have partial state information. an equilibrium solution is determined. the work in this dissertation is presented in two sections. section 1 investigates the use of large metal cations in the construction of coordination polymers. section 2 focuses on the synthesis of functionalized linkers for the construction of metal-organic frameworks (mofs) for co2 uptake. chapters 2 and 3 describe work done on alkali metal aryloxide systems. our group has previously shown alkali metal aryloxide aggregates are good candidates as secondary building units in the construction of coordination polymers. the majority of the previous work was done with lithium and sodium. the work described in chapters 2 and 3 details the synthesis and structural characterization of potassium, rubidium and cesium phenoxide materials. a set of isostructural potassium, rubidium and cesium 4-ethylphenoxide species form 1-d inorganic rods, which are subsequently linked together to form 3-d hybrid organic-inorganic materials. also, a series of three new cesium 2-iso-propylphenoxide materials has been characterized. two of the three species are hybrid organic-inorganic materials constructed of 1-d inorganic rods. formation of 1-d inorganic rods is an emerging trend for large alkali metal phenoxide systems. the final portion of section 1 discusses work performed with various large metal cations including potassium, barium, lanthanum, cerium, neodymium and gadolinium. prepared materials include 1-d chains, 2-d sheets, and 3-d networks. a homologous series of 2-d sheets is described in chapter 4. the materials, [{lnx(c10h8n2o2)4(ch3oh)}2+{b(ph)4}2-'¢(ch3oh)] (ln = la, x + cl; ln = ce, x = br; ln = gd, x = cl), form 2-d square nets in which the lanthanide is bridged to four neighboring metal centers through 4,4'-dipyridyl-n,n'-dioxide linkers. chapter 5 details the structural characterization of three interesting solids, a 1-d neodymium benzoate material, a 3-d potassium network and a 3-d barium material composed of a highly charged [ba2(c10h8n2o2)6]4+ network with a polymeric [ba2(no3)8]4anion in the channels. section 2 describes the synthesis, characterization and deprotonation studies on imidazolium based organic molecules and their use as linkers for the construction of mofs for co2 uptake. five imidazolium based organic linking molecules have been synthesized. these linkers were used in the construction of 1-d, 2-d, and 3d mofs. two of the 2-d materials, [la3(hl1br)2(l1)(oh)3] 7.3 and [nd(hl1br)1.5(h2o)1.5] 7.4, are very similar and are constructed of 1-d lanthanide-carboxylate chains. a related 3-d material, [nd2(hl1br)3(bipy)0.5] 7.5, is constructed of 2-d sheets nearly identical to those in 7.4 which are connected through 4,4'-bipyridine linkers. the unusual and useful properties of nanostructured materials enable exciting applications such as color-changing or adaptive materials, ultra-sensitive chemical measurements for earlier detection of disease, and increased understanding of chemical behavior. laboratory-scale experiments with nanomaterials suggest numerous applications, but fabrication difficulty remains among the largest barriers preventing widespread implementation. electrochemical fabrication strategies offer a means of addressing these problems by manipulating nanostructures after reaching the limits of traditional fabrication. two nanostructures, nanoholes and nanoscale conductive filaments, were used to study simultaneous optical and electrochemical behavior in methods described here.disassociated nanoapertures block transmission of propagating light, acting as zero-mode waveguides (zmws). electrochemical zmws (e-zmws) enable the observation of spectro-electrochemical behavior at the single molecule level, which was exploited to implement windowed cross-correlation between electron transfer and optical fluorescence transients, revealing signatures of single molecule population fluctuations on sparsely populated nanopore electrode arrays. these measurements constitute true unamplified studies into single molecule electron transfer events and thus may direct future study of fundamental electrochemical reaction events.closely-spaced nanoaperatures behave not as individual e-zmws but in aggregate as a plasmonic metamaterial, selectively transmitting light as a function of pore spacing and geometry. electrodeposition of a dissimilar metal onto the conductive nanohole film, acting an electrode, creates a metamaterial with a tunable optical response proportional to charge transfer by decreasing hole size. used as a reporter in a closed-bipolar electrode configuration, detection of analyte in a separate electrochemically-coupled cell was demonstrated with the metamaterial acting as an optical readout of charge transfer, a capability which may enhance future point-of-care medical diagnostics. nanoscale conductive filaments may be formed and dissolved at specified spatial coordinates in an ion-conducting solid polymer electrolyte using a conductive atomic-force microscope (c-afm). this c-afm method was employed to gather statistics of filament formation and dissolution times, granting insight into the kinetics of ion transport within the electrolyte. experimentation and simulation showed that nanoparticles, otherwise electrically inaccessible within the electrolyte, act as bipolar electrodes and influence filament behavior within a large area of the electrolyte. fabrication of self-assembled nanoparticle stacks was demonstrated by a novel nanopore templating method and used with an auto-aligned c-afm program to form filaments through stacks of nanoparticles. unexpected behavior in formation/dissolution time as well as filament morphology suggests exceptionally altered ion transport behavior in confined electrolytes. this technique provides valuable examination of ionic whole-system behavior, indicating avenues for future research with similar systems such as batteries, resistive memory, and ionic membranes.nanoelectrochemistry thus provides a valuable glimpse into the underlying principles and kinetics that govern electrochemical systems, as well as promising capabilities in the nanofabrication of optical metamaterials and advanced devices. this dissertation examines, synthesizes, and develops hans urs von balthasar's various writings on the eucharist in order to demonstrate that he has a coherent and comprehensive eucharistic theology. it does so primarily by tracing how the eucharist plays an essential role throughout his theological project. thus, inasmuch as his understanding of the eucharist per se is analyzed and set in relief, this dissertation shows how balthasar's understanding of the eucharist variously affects the other main theological topics that he treats. after a small introductory chapter that provides a roadmap to balthasar's main sacramental texts, the first main chapter demonstrates how he portrays the eucharist as intrinsically related to both christology and trinitarian theology. questions raised here include balthasar's rendering the eucharist as a form of kenosis, his proposal for christ's resurrected body as "eucharistically ubiquitous," and his notion of an intra-trinitarian eucharist. the second chapter focuses on the holy spirit and the church's cooperation with christ's eucharistic gift of self. a major theme here is balthasar's proposal for an existential sacramental theology. the third chapter explores how balthasar's theological aesthetics do, and do not, lend themselves to an aesthetic analysis of the liturgical rites. this chapter also puts balthasar's "liturgical theology" in dialogue with contemporary phenomenological approaches. the fourth and final main chapter deals with various issues related to the intersection of eucharistic theology and eschatology, such as balthasar's conception of a sacramental time, the tension between what he calls "liturgy and slaughter," and the status of the communio sanctorum in the eschaton. the dissertation as a whole aims to show that balthasar's sacramental theology is firmly situated within the catholic tradition while also being radically innovative with regard to his sources. climate change is causing vegetation redistribution and understanding redistribution is important for conservation of habitat as well as for understanding how much carbon plants can take up from the atmosphere. but, vegetation doesn't instantly respond to climate change because plants, specifically trees, are slow growing and have strong biotic interactions between individuals, which delay vegetation's response to changing climate. individual tree species interact over long time scales in an ecological process called succession where, after disturbance, fast growing, short lived tree species are able to establish in high light conditions. this initial establishment is followed by increasingly shade tolerant, more slow growing species becoming dominant. succession can take a few hundred of years to play out because many tree species are slow growing and long lived. succession is known to the important driver of long term biomass accretion at stand scales. the compound affect of many successional processes at smaller spatial scales over millennial time scales is vegetation redistribution. we need predict vegetation redistribution to understand how much carbon terrestrial ecosystems will hold in the future and therefore how much carbon will remain in the atmosphere and cause increasing temperatures. but, current long term predictions from earth system models about the amount of terrestrial carbon that will be stored in the atmosphere are widely divergent, with predictions varying from a 800 ptg carbon sink to a 200 ptg carbon source by 2100. currently, these models do not include forest demographics, known to affect plant biomass change, because finer scale processes are computationally difficult to represent at global scales. but, there has been a movement to begin to incorporate demographics into earth system models that predict long term global terrestrial carbon sequestration. some remain unconvinced because there is a lacking of long term empirical data to support these claims. my dissertation uses paleoecological data in combination with a model for forest succession to understand the importance of forest demography over centennial and millennial time scales for predicting long term forest structure and composition. my dissertation is four chapters. these chapters begin using tree ring data to first understand what affects predictability in succession process models and move on to demonstrate how species interactions may add up to longer term vegetation changes. my first three chapters focus on harvard forest, a well established research site in north central massachusetts. harvard forest has collected a wide variety of data that is useful for bringing models and data together. the model i use in my research is called linkages. linkages was built in the 1980s to represent succession between species over centennial time scales. in my first chapter, i focus on the relationship between two species and how they influence each other differently over a 110 year period. i use three scenarios to demonstrate how species relationships may change over a 100 year time period. i found that two species, that have previously been found difficult to understand (red maple and red oak), interact on one another differently in each scenario. specifically, my results point to having a better understanding of red oak survival in order to predict what may happen in the future at harvard forest. for my second chapter, i move from a specific ecological relationship between two species to determining which aspect of succession more generally affects long term predictability of forest structure and composition. i do this by sequentially adding sources of uncertainty then partitioning the forecast variance over a 50 year time period. we find that constraining initial conditions greatly decreases forecast variance. we also find that process uncertainty is an important factor to estimate and leads to increasing long term forecast variance. the stand level process of succession over centennial time scales adds up to the process of regional vegetation redistribution over millennial time scales. my third chapter moves from using tree ring data to using paleoecological data at harvard forest to determine mechanisms underlying a 1,000 year change in species composition. we found that an extreme event in 1258 facilitated a shift in forest demography by removing dominant species from the over-story which allowed for understory species to become more abundant. in my first three chapters i demonstrate the importance of understanding how species interact to improve future prediction. in my final and fourth chapter i use paleoecological data to show for the first time that species migration greatly affected the regional carbon cycle by estimating biomass for the last 10,000 years across 77 sites that experienced different levels of immigration of beech and hemlock, two late successional species into the upper midwest. these results show the long term consequence of not including forest demographics in earth system models that are used to predict the ability of forest's to absorb carbon by 2100. together these four chapters demonstrate the importance of including forest demographics in predictive models of the long term terrestrial carbon cycle using the forecast analysis cycle. the continuing increase of the device density in integrated circuits (ics) gives rise to the high level of power that is dissipated per unit area and consequently a high temperature in the circuits. since temperature affects the performance and reliability of the circuits, minimization of the energy consumption in logic devices is now the center of attention. according to the international technology roadmaps for semiconductors (itrs), single electron transistors (sets) hold the promise of achieving the lowest power of any known logic device, as low as 1×10−18 j per switching event. moreover, sets are the most sensitive electrometers to date, and are capable of detecting a fraction of an electron charge. despite their low power consumption and high sensitivity for charge detection, room temperature operation of these devices is quite challenging mainly due to lithographical constraints in fabricating structures with the required dimensions of less than 10 nm. silicon based sets have been reported to operate at room temperature. however, they all suffer from significant variation in batch-to-batch performance, low fabrication yield, and temperature-dependent tunnel barrier height. in this project, we explored the fabrication of sets featuring metal-insulator-metal (mim) tunnel junctions. while si-based sets suffer from undesirable effect of dopants that result in irregularities in the device behavior, in metal-based sets the device components (tunnel barrier, island, and the leads) are well-defined. therefore, metal sets are potentially more predictable in behavior, making them easier to incorporate into circuits, and easier to check against theoretical models.1 here, the proposed fabrication method takes advantage of unique properties of chemical mechanical polishing (cmp) and plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition (peald). chemical mechanical polishing provides a path for tuning the dimensions of the tunnel junctions, surpassing the limits imposed by electron beam lithography and lift-off, while atomic layer deposition provides precise control over the thickness of the tunnel barrier and significantly increases the choices for barrier materials.as described below in detail, the fabrication of ultra-thin (~1nm) tunnel transparent barriers with peald is in fact challenging; we demonstrate that in fabrication of sets with peald to form the barrier in the ni-insulator-ni tunnel junctions, additional nio layers are parasitically formed in the ni layers that form the top and bottom electrodes of the tunnel junctions. the nio on the bottom electrode is formed due to oxidizing effect of the o2 plasma used in the peald process, while the nio on the bottom of the top electrode is believed to form during the metal deposition due to oxygen-containing contaminants on the surface of the deposited tunnel barrier. we also show that due to the presence of these surface parasitic layers of nio, the resistance of ni-insulator-ni tunnel junctions is drastically increased. moreover, the transport mechanism is changed from quantum tunneling through the dielectric barrier to one consistent with the tunnel barrier in series with compound layers of nio and possibly, nisixoy. the parasitic component in the tunnel junctions results in conduction freeze-out at low temperatures, deviation of junction parameters from ideal model, and excessive noise in the device. the reduction of nio to ni is therefore necessary to restore the metal-insulator-metal structure of the junctions. we have studied forming gas anneal as well as h2 plasma treatment as techniques to reduce the nio layers that are parasitically formed in the junctions. using either of these two techniques, we reduced the nio formed on the island after being covered with the peald dielectric and before defining the top source and drain. later, the nio formed on the bottom of the source/drain is reduced during a second reducing step after the source/drain are formed on the tunnel barrier. electrical characterization of sets that are made with the proposed reducing treatments enable us to study the effect of each reducing process on the properties of the constituent tunnel junctions. in comparison to the junctions annealed twice in forming gas at 400°c, we consistently observed a ~10× higher conductance in devices treated twice with h2 plasma at 300°c. the possible damage to the barrier during the plasma treatment and thermally induced film deformation during the anneal which respectively, is believed to increase and lower the conductance are among the possible cause of this difference. although both types of treatments were effective in alleviating the effect of the activated components in the junctions, all the devices that were treated by two anneal steps or by two h2 plasma steps (for reducing the top and bottom nio) show deviations from ideal simulated mim set model and suffer from significant random telegraph signal (rts) noise. however, our results show that by using forming gas anneal for bottom nio reduction and h2 plasma for the top nio reduction, one can achieve devices close to ideal mim sets with significantly less noise. this dissertation develops a thomistic ethics of honor in light of contemporary concerns that giving honor according to an objective standard of excellence is a dangerous action opposed to authentic personal flourishing, which insufficiently distributes the good of recognition, and which sustains social hierarchies of domination. the central claim advanced over five chapters is that a thomistic understanding of honor, excellence, and justice supports an ethics of honor in which true honor given in accord with a true objective standard is ordered to personal and communal flourishing, sustains just social order, and is due in various degrees to all people. according to this thomistic understanding, honor is reverence exhibited in testimony to someone's excellence, a testimony which seeks to confirm belief in that person's excellence in order to burnish his reputation, to increase his glory of a good conscience, to provoke him to greater excellence, to foster friendship, to unite a community in common life, and to perfect the affections of all towards the honored. a true objective standard of excellence is distinguished from false standards both by a consideration of thomas's metaphysics of goodness, which provides principles to adjudicate the excellence of creatures and their actions as participating in divine goodness both as good in themselves and as possessing the dignity of moving others to goodness, and by a consideration of thomas's doctrine of love, which show that true honorable goodness is ordered to friendship as enabling the conjunction of cooperation by which friends are united and give joy to each other. honor is due in justice as a debt of friendship and gratitude, according to an exigency of the ultimate end of beatific convivere with god and the blessed, and since all who bear the image of god represent god, are potential members of christ by invisible grace, and hold a common office of causing good in others, every human person is owed a debt of honor and reverence. voltage scheduling is an essential technique used to exploit the benefit of dynamic voltage scaling processors. though extensive research exists in this area, processor limitations such as transition overhead and voltage level discretization are not included simultaneously in any research processor model to date. algorithms that account for individual limitations are not sufficient because some complications only emerge when limitations are considered simultaneously. we present two algorithms that yield valid results given an arbitrarily large transition time overhead. the first, lpedf, offers a simple implementation, while the second, uaedf, accounts for all three processor limitations to further reduce energy consumption. despite the value of healthy eating, many americans engage in poor eating, including eating much more than the recommended daily intake of sodium, and less than the recommended daily amounts of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. public education increases knowledge about health, yet often fails to motivate healthier behavior. many people persist in unhealthy habits despite knowledge of healthy lifestyle choices. clearly, mere dissemination of information has not solved this public health crisis. however, health information combined with targeted application of psychological principles surrounding behavior change holds much promise for improving health. an emergent approach for an eating intervention grounded in theories of behavior change derives from self-affirmation theory. self-affirmation theory suggests that threatening health-related information is processed defensively (i.e., ignored or rationalized away) as a means of maintaining the integrity of an indiviudal's self-worth. self-affirmation interventions work by bolstering the individual's self-worth in a personally relevant domain prior to exposure to a threatening stimulus. this allows the individual to attend to the threatening information while maintaining their global self-worth and integrity. the current study aims to apply a self-affirmation intervention to a community sample of mothers of elementary school children in order to improve their healthy eating behaviors and the food they purchase for the home environment. the objective of this study was to determine overall average kinetic rate constants for changes to the physicochemical properties of natural organic matter (nom) brought about by photodegradation. the study compared the photo-degradation of samples from three of the most commonly used nom concentration/ isolation methods: reverse osmosis, xad-8, and xad-4, with a natural surface water sample collected from the same site. kinetic data provided insight into the photodegradation process. physicochemical properties monitored included: light absorbance, dissolved organic carbon concentration, fluorescence, average molecular weight, low molecular weight carboxylic acid concentration, and iron speciation. when compared, the kinetic rate constants for the sw, ro, and xad-8 were similar whereas the xad-4 reacted much faster for most of the measured parameters. an initial increase followed by a decrease in the fluorescence likely explains why previous studies produced apparently conflicting results regarding the effects of photoirradiation on nom fluorescence. iron(ii) production was only observed in two of the four nom samples, the sw and the ro. this indicates that the xad isolation process may remove constituents in natural surface water which act as oxidant scavengers. a significant increase in the ability to collect and store diverse information over the past decade has led to an outright data explosion, providing larger and richer datasets than ever before. this proliferation in dataset sizes is accompanied by the quandary of successfully mining this data to discover patterns of interest. however, extreme dataset sizes place unprecedented demands on high-performance computing infrastructures, and a gap has developed between the available real-world datasets and our ability to process them. dataset sizes are quickly approaching tera and petabytes. this rate of increase also challenges the subsampling paradigm, as even a subsample of data runs into gigabytes. it is our goal to exploit recent advances in multi-threaded processor technology for scalable data mining. with this work, we explore one such architecture -the cray mta-2. we conjecture that the architectural design is well suited for the application of machine learning to massive datasets. to that end, we present a thorough complexity analysis and experimental evaluation of five different popular learning algorithms. we use a diverse body of datasets with sizes varying in both the dimensions (instances and attributes). our results lead to an analysis of whether the architectural design of the cray mta-2 is an appropriate platform for massively parallel, highly scalable learning algorithm implementations. at room temperature (300k), the electromagnetic (em) radiation emitted by humans and other living beings peaks mostly in the long-wavelength infrared (lw-ir) regime. and since the atmosphere shows relatively little absorption in this band, applications such as target detection, tracking, active homing, and navigation in autonomous vehicles extensively use the lw-ir frequency range. the present research work is focused on developing antenna-based, uncooled, and unbiased detectors for the lw-ir regime. in the first part of this research, antenna-coupled metal-oxide-metal diodes (acmomd) are investigated. in response to the em radiation, high-frequency antenna currents are induced in the antenna. an asymmetric-barrier al-al2o3-pt mom diode rectifies the antenna currents. two different types of fabrication processes have been developed for acmomds namely one-step lithography and two-step lithography. the major drawbacks of mom-based devices include hard-to-control fabrication processes, generally very high zero-biased resistances, and vulnerability to electrostatic discharges, leading to unstable electrical characteristics. the second part of this research focuses on the development of unbiased lw-ir sensors based on the seebeck effect. if two different metals are joined together at one end and their other ends are open-circuited, and if a non-zero temperature difference exists between the joined end and the open ends, then a non-zero open-circuit voltage can be measured between the open ends of the wires. based on this effect, we have developed antenna-coupled nano-thermocouples (acnts) in which radiation-induced antenna currents produce polarization-dependent heating of the joined end of the two metals whereas the open ends remain at substrate temperature. this polarization-dependent heating induces polarization-dependent temperature difference between the joined end and the open ends of the metals leading to a polarization-dependent open-circuit voltage between the open ends of the metals. a cw co2 laser tuned at 10.6 ìâåµm wavelength has been used for infrared characterization of these sensors. for these sensors, average responsivity of 22.7 mv/w, signal-to-noise (snr) ratio of 29 db, noise equivalent power (nep) of 1.55 nw, and specific detectivity (d*) of 1.77x105 cm.&#8730;hz.w^(-1) were measured. acnts are expected to operate at frequencies much beyond 400 khz. the third part of this research focuses on the effect of dc read-out interconnects on polarization characteristics of the planar dipole antennas. different geometries of the interconnects present different electromagnetic boundary conditions to the antenna, and thus affect the far-field polarization characteristics of the antenna. four designs of dc read-out interconnects are fabricated and their polarization-dependent ir responses are experimentally measured. the high frequency structure simulator (hfss) from ansys is used to simulate the polarization characteristics of the antenna with different read-out geometries. zeolites are microporous aluminosilicate materials with well-defined channels and cavities. cu-exchanged zeolites have remarkable catalytic properties due to the unique redox properties of cu, as has been inferred in selective catalytic reduction (scr) of nox with ammonia and in partial methane oxidation to methanol (pmo). the precise identity and quantity of cu species and their sensitivity to zeolite framework compositions and synthesis conditions remain obscure. in this dissertation, i describe my usage of supercell density functional theory (dft) models to determine siteand condition-dependent composition of cu species in cu-cha zeolites. in addition, i show how ab initio molecular dynamics (aimd) and monte carlo simulations are used to explore the thermodynamics of heteroatom (i.e. al) distributions in cha and to predict al distributions. lastly, i introduce the investigation of the cu(ii) reduction mechanism in nox scr and propose reaction pathways for dimeric cu(ii) intermediates being reduced in cu-cha. our work bridges the knowledge of microscopic details of cu cations to the macroscopic composition of the zeolites. the approaches used here can be applied broadly to other zeolites to find optimal zeolite compositions and synthesis conditions for catalysis applications. an investigation of materiality in art which attempts to show ways in which materials obstruct, disrupt, or interfere with feelings of stability. to accomplish this visually, i use textured elements which emerge as impure formations and unstable substances. i intentionally generate objects that visually display the stress of transformation. i pursue processes that usually foster the durability and permanence of ceramic objects in an effort to expand and transform the possibilities of the medium for the creation of seemingly fragile, ephemeral objects. this material treatment is a departure from traditional ceramic processes and intends to question pre-conceived definitions of the ceramic object. i often view the kiln as a collaborator in the process of making where extremely high temperatures cause chemical and volatile reactions to clay and glaze surfaces. i have found great value in using ceramics and kiln processessometimes predictable, sometimes notas a way of looking, knowing, and understanding the earth's natural transformative processes. my practice is based on the sense that materials and techniques are in and of themselves expressive, and i regard my artistic position as a medium-specific search for potential in materials' symbolic weight. through the combination of physical forces, cultural markers, intrapersonal conflict, and contrasting elements of beauty and the macabre, i seek to symbolize the decline of our natural environment in order to conjure thoughts about the end of nature itself. clip-170 is a microtubule (mt) binding protein that binds preferentially to the mt plus-end via its cap-gly domain. clip-170 is a highly conserved protein that plays multiple roles in the cell. initially identified as a linker between membranes and the microtubule cytoskeleton (pierre et al., 1992), more recently clip-170 has been shown to dynamically track the growing end (plus-end) of mts in vivo (perez et al., 1999) and enhance mt polymerization both in vitro and in vivo (diamantopoulos et al., 1999). the clip-170-mt interaction is highly dynamic in vivo and precipitates the question of how clip-170 tracks growing mt plus-ends and then suddenly disappears when the mt stops growing. one prediction, that the interaction is tightly regulated, is based on several observations. previous work has shown that the clip-170-mt interaction can be manipulated in lysates using the phosphatase inhibitor okadaic acid and potato acid phosphatase (rickard and kreis, 1991). the dynamic interaction between p150glued, the mt binding component of dynactin, and mts is modulated by phosphorylation (vaughan et al., 2002). finally, the kinetics of clip-170 binding and release appear to be very different in vivo and in vitro (folker et al., 2005). these ideas lead to the possibility that phosphorylation could be important in clip-170-mt associations. to test this hypothesis and help define the mechanism of clip-170 regulation, i have investigated the role of phosphorylation in clip-170-mt interactions. more specifically, 6 amino acids were identified as phosphorylated in the clip-170 fragment h2. these sites were mutated and analyzed with several mutants showing altered mt bindingh1 s195a, h1 s204e and h1 6e. taken as a whole, these results imply a plus-end tracking mechanism where clip-170 binds the mt plus end in a phosphorylated state and subsequent phosphorylations cause it to fall off the mt. despite the advances made in the middle of the 20th century to combat tuberculosis, the current short-course therapy has been met with challenges from multi-drug resistant strains of bacteria as well as the inability of providing these drugs to immunocompromised patients with hiv. recent advances have been made to develop new drugs that are faster acting, more effective against drug-resistant strains, and more compatible with treatments for other diseases. sq109 (1) has shown very promising activity against mycobacterium tuberculosis (mtb), but exhibits low oral bioavailability. this project was begun to develop stronger and more potent analogs of sq109 by using nitroso ene chemistry and testing them against various strains of bacteria, including mtb. the synthesis of sq109 was improved from original reports to allow for a more scalable synthesis. also, two precursor analogs of the compound in the attempted syntheses were found to be surprisingly biologically active. nitroso-ene chemistry was performed on these as well as some other simple isoprenoids in order to discover even more compounds with antibacterial activity. why do some countries experience enduring, high-quality peace after ending civil war, while others experience recurring violence and make little improvement in ordinary people's lives? in this dissertation, i argue that where government implements reforms that reduce politically motivated violence against civilians, states are likely to achieve lasting, quality peace. in particular, i show that some types of security sector reforms reduce political violence against civilians, leading to both a reduction in the likelihood of conflict recurrence, and an increase in the level of post-conflict human development growth. the reduction of political violence against civilians directly lowers civilian grievances against the state, and also reduces political exclusion, since opposition parties can compete and gain political power without fearing violent intimidation. the reduction of grievances limits civilians' incentives to join or support rebel movements, lowering the likelihood civil war will recur. furthermore, when formerly excluded groups can compete for political power without fearing repression, they are more likely to actually gain power and introduce reforms that improve the well-being of socially marginalized people. i propose to test these arguments by leveraging a multi-method research design. first, i explore the causal mechanisms by conducting process tracing on the pathway case of el salvador. after ending civil war in 1992, el salvador implemented security sector reforms, saw an important reduction in politically motivated violence, and achieved reasonable improvement in health and education levels. the case fits into the nodes of my theoretical model, so i use process tracing to understand the causal mechanisms linking these nodes. next, i test the theoretical model, in multiple parts, using cross-national data on a sample of civil wars ending between 1985 and 2006, finding statistical support for my theory. the goal of this dissertation is to bring together in conversation aquinas's thoughts on anger and the han (恨)-full anger as a culture-bound syndrome in south korean people and society, and to make a constructive proposal for working with the anger of the han-filled. aquinas' ontological cognitivist theory of passion and anger in particular provides a useful hermeneutical tool to analyze and articulate the inner structure of han-full anger and its moral character. the study of han-full anger offers aquinas's normative language of anger a chance to encounter the etymological and phenomenological reality of embodied anger and further the life of its bearer living in a marginalized life. finally, aquinas's virtue ethics, taken together with han studies, suggests a modified way to work with the han-full anger. while wireless sensor networks (wsns) are a rapidly growing field, they still face many challenges. some of these issues such as critical nodes, small-scale fading, and hidden nodes can be mitigated through the application of controlled limited mobile (colmo) systems. small movements on the scale of a fraction of the carrier wavelength can prove to dramatically change the received signal strength (rss) and thus, link quality. with the proper sampling, it is possible to place a mobile node in a position with favorable multipath fading and greatly increase the link quality. this ability could have huge ramifications on the network, and new routing paths are enabled; therefore, new metrics and trade-offs need to be considered. by placing a mica mote on a rotating turntable, the mote has the ability to control the location the platform so that the mote can be placed where desired. the performance of the mobile sink was analyzed in environments with various forms of fading to determine how the diversity gain of this system compares to a mimo design. several factors affecting the performance of the mobile sink were explored. one important issue is whether the received signal strength indicator (rssi) or the link quality indicator (lqi) would be the most effect link quality metric. also, the thesis determines how the sampling rate of the sampled channel affects the general performance of the mobile node. the thirty five neutron deficient stable nuclei known as the p-nuclei are synthesized in a series of photodisintegration reactions of the (gamma,n), (gamma,p) and (gamma, alpha) type in a hot gamma-flux environment. abundance calculations involve an extended network of about 20,000 nuclear reactions of almost 2000 nuclei. the bulk of these rates are calculated theoretically with the statistical hauser feshbach model (hf model). of particular importance in the p-process modeling are the (gamma, alpha) branchings. even though in the astrophysical environment it is photodisintegration reactions that synthesize the p-nuclei, in the laboratory it is the inverse process that is generally measured. by detailed balance, it is possible to arrive at the relevant reactions. the experimental data for alpha-capture reactions is scarce since at the p-process temperatures (2-3 gk), the alpha-particle energies are typically of a few mev and the corresponding cross sections very small. in addition, the results show a significant deviation compared to the model predictions. the hf cross sections are governed by transmission coefficients. these are extracted from an appropriate optical model potential (omp). the alpha-nucleus potential in particular is poorly known at low energies mainly due to the lack of relevant data. the observed inconsistencies between the predicted and measured (alpha, gamma) rates may be due to problems with this alpha-potential parameter. to explore the applicability of the hauser feshbach model, to extend the experimental database of alpha-capture reactions on p-nuclei, to test the global parameterizations that currently exist, and to constrain the alpha-nucleus potential, the alpha-capture cross section of 106cd(alpha, gamma)110sn and the local alpha-nucleus potentials of 106cd, 118sn, and 120, 124, 126, 128,130te have been measured and extracted. the experiments have been carried out at the university of notre dame. the results are presented here. this dissertation is devoted to the analysis and design of two classes of turbo-like codes, namely, multiple turbo codes and braided convolutional codes. multiple turbo codes (mtc's) consist of a parallel concatenation of at least three constituent encoders connected by interleavers. the flexible configuration of mtc's brings additional design freedom. thus better performance can be achieved in terms of both error floors and convergence thresholds. most of the previous research on mtc's has been focused on low rates. we present a systematic approach to designing punctured high rate mtc's. special interleavers such as linear and dithered relative prime interleavers are designed jointly for mtc's to increase the minimum distance. by means of extrinsic information transfer (exit) charts, the puncturing patterns are constructed using a sequential search method to improve the convergence threshold. as examples, three low complexity mtc's with 2-state or 4-state encoders are designed for rates $r=1/2 \sim 3/4$. simulation results demonstrate that the obtained mtc's have better error floors than conventional turbo codes and comparable thresholds. bit-interleaved coded modulation (bicm) has been shown to be an efficient and flexible scheme for communicating on bandwidth-limited fading channels. to exploit the advantages of mtc's with respect to minimum distance and convergence threshold compared to conventional turbo codes, we present a bicm scheme using low complexity mtc's. the performance of the proposed scheme is investigated on both flat and frequency-selective fading channels. in particular, a reduced-state soft-in soft-output equalizer is implemented for multi-level signaling to combat the inter-symbol interference resulting from frequency-selective fading channels. the robustness of the proposed scheme is demonstrated in a time-varying fading environment. the second topic in the dissertation is braided convolutional codes (bcc's). in bcc's, information symbols are checked by two constituent encoders, and the parity symbols of one constituent encoder are used as inputs to the other constituent encoder. the connections between the two constituent encoders are defined by the positions where information and parity symbols are stored in a two-dimensional array. based on the sparsity of the array, we construct two subclasses of bcc's: tightly braided and sparsely braided convolutional codes. from the point of view of the syndrome former, we show that sparsely braided convolutional codes are a special class of low density parity check convolutional codes. bcc's are continuously decodable codes, and pipeline decoding can be implemented to facilitate high speed continuous data transmission. by means of a markov permutor analysis, a numerical method is developed to derive a lower bound on free distance for the ensemble of bcc's. free distance bounds for several bcc's are computed as a function of their overall constraint length. a linear growth rate of free distance with constraint length indicates that bcc's are an asymptotically good class of codes. the shifting meanings of work and leisure open up liminal spaces in the boundaries of both spheres of activity. in these liminal spaces, meanings and expectations around behavior are less crystalized and more open to individual innovation. when individuals attempt to transform an interest or a leisure activity into paid work, meanings related to both leisure and work threaten to delegitimize their activities. these spheres, like many activities, identities, ideals and other territories around which boundaries are drawn, are imperfectly compatible. i analyze the personal blogs and interview responses of ten lifestyle bloggers in order to examine how they protect their activities from threatening meanings. these individuals carefully navigate this disputed territory, employing monetary, emotional and relational strategies in order to satisfactorily balance enjoyment, autonomy and legitimacy. their actions illuminate those of creative entrepreneurs negotiating modern work, and have implications for work on symbolic boundaries, modern work and economic sociology. my dissertation responds to the work of derek pearsall, john thompson, julia boffey, phillipa hardman, susanna fein, murray evans, and others regarding "miscellanies" and the influence of manuscript contexts on reception. these scholars have shown how productive it is to consider compilation rationales and to read texts against one another. their studies have raised important questions, one of which is whether romances could offer pious reading. however, few have dealt with how precisely romances can be pious. some scholars have argued that they cannot be. what i accomplish is a foray into the history of pious reading of romance, focusing on the transmission of seminal texts in their manuscript contexts and the treatment of significant theological ideas. in chapter one, i explore the middle english ywain and gawain, a translation of chrétien de troyes's chevalier au lion. as i show, based on an analysis of the accompanying texts, many of them catechetical and devotional, ywain and gawain likely functioned as a complex, extended exemplum in its manuscript, modeling the steps of penance as well as the ascent of the soul by marked gradations of love. in chapter two, i then look at several of the old french manuscript contexts to establish a history of the narrative's reception, and i likewise consider a neighboring tradition in the distinctive middle welsh owain. chapters three and four treat guy of warwick. in chapter three, i examine the transmission of the anglo-norman text and reevaluate the place of guy in the auchinleck manuscript in light of this and the company of another work—the homiletic speculum gy de warewyke. almost no one studies the speculum, but what i show in chapter four is that these two must be considered together. the early modern irish beathadh sir gyi o bharbhuic, a translation of a lost middle english version, combines the two. in order to understand the reception of these texts, the use of miscellanies, and to better grasp medieval reading practices, i show that we have to do two things: pay attention to material context and be open to questioning the secularity of medieval romances. this dissertation examines the confessionalization of early modern english literature in the 1580s and 90s, focusing on the works of edmund spenser, christopher marlowe, and john donne. it argues that the division of creeds and churches in the late reformation precipitated a crisis in elizabethan poetics, and that the creation of a poetry able to articulate to the pressures of doctrinal profession marked an important pre-condition for the emergence of a professional authorship in early modern england. studies of religion and literature in the period have typically emphasized poetry's freedom from the constraints of codified confession, privileging either the moderating vision of an english via media or the inherently unifying nature of literary representation. the present study demonstrates the fragility of those ideals in the 1580s and 90s by providing a detailed analysis of the politics and ecclesiology of the divided church in late tudor poetics, and the impact of confessions of faith on english conceptions of literary form. the attempt by writers like philip sidney to confer on poetic imagination the freedom of the "golden" world reflects, i argue, a larger anxiety about the languishing hopes of christian universality at the end of the sixteenth century, shared both by the repressive designs of the elizabethan church and the irenic designs of literary humanism. spenser, marlowe, and donne explore, instead, an emerging poetics of profession in their works. informed by their ties to the dutch low countries ì¢ ââ" an emblem of confessional chaos in elizabethan writing ì¢ ââ" these authors directly portray the divided body of christ, and through it, a novel view of the late reformation poet: a poet defined, not by the ideological motives of one "true" church, nor the liberating potential of poetic mimesis, but by the need to profess a particular creed or church among many. in individual chapters, the dissertation charts the development of this poetics through four religious discourses ì¢ ââ" familism, anabaptism, atheism, and "schism" ì¢ ââ" that evoked the nature and necessity of confession for these writers and their contemporaries. chapters one and two examine spenser's depiction of the family of love and anabaptism in the shepheardes calender and 1596 faerie queene, respectively, arguing that dutch religious radicalism unsettled the pastoral and apocalyptic ideals underwriting english perceptions of the confessionalized church and spenser's authority as allegorical poet in relation to it. chapters three and four examine the tension between doctrinal and poetic "profession" in marlowe's plays and donne's satyres. the charges of marlowe's atheism mirror, i suggest, what were in fact early elizabethan biases toward the inherent prodigality of a poet who professes at all ì¢ ââ" either a creed or career ì¢ ââ" while donne's exploration of the divided christian city in his satires provides an alternate poetic model. "satyre iii" envisions a potentially voluntaristic distinction between poetic and doctrinal profession necessary for imagining an english poet able to speak to, while increasingly defined by, confessions of faith. many studies have demonstrated that certain cell populations within the tumor display an early embryonic or stem-like gene expression signature, and these populations have been correlated to cancer metastasis and overall disease aggressiveness. identifying the specific stem-like mechanisms utilized by cancer cells, and devising strategies to target these mechanisms, remains an ongoing challenge. to gain insight into the stem-like mechanisms that cancer cells exploit to achieve their aggressive oncogenic phenotypes, we utilized both induced pluripotent stem cells (ipscs) and cancer cells in our studies. the contribution of this dissertation research provides novel insight into cell surface grp78, a protein that our findings suggest marks a stem-like population of aggressive breast cancer cells that has metastatic potential in vitro and in vivo. we further show that cell surface grp78 regulates cell migration in ipscs and cancer cells by cooperating with dermcidin through regulation of wnt signaling. lastly, we demonstrate that cell surface grp78 is a specific and effective targeting moiety on stem cells and cancer cells, by developing a novel liposome nanoparticle drug delivery system for cancer therapeutic and regenerative medicine applications. this thesis deal with the theme of intertextuality in the works of primo levi and on a specific case of intertextuality, that of shakespearean direct references in primo levi's oeuvre. the aim of the thesis is to show that intertextuality is a fundamental feature of levi's writing, and that intertextuality should be considered in relation to the two other common themes that characterize levi's texts: testimony and memory. testimony and memory, which are connected in levi to a personal experience, that of being first a prisoner and then a survivor of the holocaust, are, at the same time, the trigger of narration. therefore, writing, in levi, is already a mix of different operations, namely an act of witnessing and of recalling. it becomes yet even more peculiar, since the memory involved in the narration is also the memory of past literature. levi's work is very rich in references to other literary works and these seem to be even fundamental in some texts. this is the case of shakespearean references or quotations. in levi's texts, shakespeare is indeed quoted or referred to in crucial parts, that is when levi speaks about his main ideas and thoughts. thus, king lear is quoted when levi deals with literary creation; references to macbeth are found in the reflections on memory and the relationship between rationality and irrationality (characterizing both the contemporary world and that of the holocaust); hamlet is referred to when dealing with the themes of interiority and of the subconscious; finally, a quotation from measure for measure is used at the end of the chapter in which levi describes and defines the "grey zone." in conclusion, i can assert that shakespeare's texts and his characters are not just quantitatively present in levi's narrative, but they appear in every text that is a sort of turning point of levi's intellectual and literary reflections.keywords: primo levi; william shakespeare; intertextuality; memory; testimony; narration; literary creation; grey zone; interiority; poetry. understanding the underlying mechanisms of mesenchymal stem cell (msc) mechanotransduction has important implications for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. hydrostatic pressure (hp) is the dominant load bearing mechanism in joints; however, the mechanotransductive pathways utilized in response to hp are not well understood. cell-matrix interactions, cytoskeletal organization, and calcium ion (ca++) signaling have all been proposed to regulate msc mechanotransduction. this dissertation aims to provide insight into the roles of these pathways in the response of mscs to hp. to test whether the response of mscs to hp depends on cell-matrix interactions, mscs were seeded into either agarose or fibrin hydrogels and exposed to cyclic hp. agarose hydrogels were found to support a spherical cellular morphology, while mscs seeded into fibrin hydrogels attached and spread. while agarose hydrogels better supported chondrogenesis of mscs, hp only enhanced chondrogenesis in fibrin hydrogels. this study demonstrates that a complex relationship between cell-matrix interactions and hp mechanotransduction plays a key role in regulating the chondrogenic differentiation of mscs. next, the roles of integrins and the cytoskeleton in the mechanotransduction of hp were examined. matrix stiffness and/or density modulated the development of the pericellular matrix and consequently integrin binding and cytoskeletal structure. this study suggests that physiological cues such as hp enhance chondrogenesis of mscs as the pericellular environment matures and the cytoskeleton adapts, and points to a novel role for vimentin in the mechanotransduction of hp. intracellular ca++ concentrations have been found to increase with application of hp, yet the role of ca++ signaling in the mechanotransduction of hp had yet to be investigated. ca++ signaling was found to regulate the chondrogenic response of mscs and modulate the reorganization of vimentin in response to hp. further, hp was found to initiate ca++ signaling by activating the purinergic signaling pathway. these results suggest a complex interplay between cell-matrix interactions and ca++ signaling may transduce hp via vimentin adaptation to loading, indicating that the mechanotransduction of hp is distinct from other loading modalities. overall, the understanding gained about the mechanisms regulating the chondrogenic response to hp could have important implications for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. the aortic valve (av) ensures unidirectional flow between the left ventricle and the aorta by opening during cardiac systole and closing during diastole. as compared to the normal tricuspid aortic valve (tav) anatomy, which consists of three leaflets, the bicuspid aortic valve (bav) is characterized by the presence of two leaflets, and is the most prevalent congenital cardiac anomaly. regardless of the valve morphology, a common cause of valvular failure is calcific aortic valve disease (cavd), a condition characterized by increased thickness and stiffness on the valve leaflets. historically, cavd has been considered a passive degenerative disease but is now recognized as an active pathology involving inflammation, remodeling and ossification and presumably triggered by atherogenic risk factors and hemodynamic cues. while tav and bav calcification seem to share common biological pathways, the calcification of the bav is more rapid and severe than the tav. as evidenced by recent studies, the valve interacts closely with its surrounding hemodynamic environment to maintain valvular homeostasis by altering the biosynthetic behavior of valve cells. physiologic fluid shear stress (fss), the frictional fluid force acting on the leaflet endothelium, contributes to valvular homeostasis by regulating valvular protein expression, glycosaminoglycan and dna synthesis and endothelial cell alignment. in contrast, fss abnormalities have been shown to promote endothelial activation and leaflet inflammation. supported by those observations, the central hypothesis of this thesis is that hemodynamic fss abnormalities contribute to cavd development by regulating av inflammation, extracellular matrix remodeling and valvular osteogenesis. therefore, the overall goal of this work is to characterize the role of fss abnormalities on early progression of cavd in both tavs and bavs. specifically, this thesis will address the following research questions: 1) what are the mechanisms by which fss alterations are transduced into valvular pathological responses? 2) are bmp-4 and tgf-&#946;1 potential target molecules for the pharmacological treatment of cavd? and 3) what are the reasons for the early development and severity of bav calcification? these questions will be addressed via three specific aims. 1) to elucidate the mechanisms of cavd secondary to fss magnitude & frequency abnormalities; 2) to investigate the role of bmp-4 and tgf-&#946;1 in fss-induced valvular endothelial activation and ecm remodeling; and 3) to elucidate the mechanisms of cavd secondary to bav hemodynamic abnormalities. the approach integrated the implementations of a novel ex vivo device to condition porcine av leaflets under physiological and pathologically fss environments, standard biological techniques to assess valvular biological response and pharmacological inhibition/promotion to elucidate the mechanisms of fss signal transduction. as a first step, a fss bioreactor was designed to replicate the native side-specific valvular fss environment in the laboratory setting. the bioreactor was validated mechanically using fluid structure interaction modeling and biologically in terms of sterility and tissue viability. the programming of the bioreactor with both physiological and pathological waveforms permitted to investigate the role of fss in valvular pathogenesis. specific aim 1 sought to elucidate the modes of fss mechanotransduction in av tissue and the respective role of fss magnitude and/or frequency abnormalities in cavd. porcine leaflets were subjected to 9 fss environments defined by isolated/combined abnormalities in fss magnitude and frequency. while cytokine expression was stimulated under elevated fss magnitude at normal frequency, ecm degradation was stimulated under both elevated fss magnitude at normal frequency and physiologic fss magnitude at abnormal frequency. in contrast, combined fss magnitude and frequency abnormalities essentially maintained valvular homeostasis. the results revealed the particular sensitivity of valvular tissue to fss magnitude as opposed to fss frequency. in specific aim 2, the goal was to determine the role of bmp-4 and tgf-&#946;1 in fss-induced valvular endothelial activation and ecm remodeling. the methodology involved the ex vivo exposure of porcine aortic valve leaflets to side-specific physiological/pathological fss and the use of pharmacological promoters/inhibitors of bmp-4 or tgf-&#946;1. the results revealed the important role played by tgf-&#946;1 in valvular remodeling through mmp-9 regulation. specific aim 3 investigated how bav hemodynamic fss abnormalities contribute to early progression of cavd. porcine leaflets were exposed ex vivo to the native tav and type-1 bav fss and their acute pathological response was examined, including endothelial activation, pro-inflammatory paracrine signaling, vic activation and osteogenesis. the results revealed the pathogenic potential of the native bav hemodynamic environment and the particular vulnerability of the fused bav leaflet to calcification. in conclusion, the contribution of fss to the onset and early progression of cavd has been demonstrated in this thesis work. the relationship between fss magnitude/frequency and valvular responses can be used as input for prediction of cavd progression. in addition, the findings from this dissertation can be used to further investigate the molecular signaling mechanisms in order to develop pharmacological treatments of cavd. bacterial cell walls can adsorb a wide range of metal cations, potentially altering the mobility of the metals in geologic systems. to constrain and mitigate contaminant transport it is essential that geochemical models be developed to measure and quantify adsorption of heavy metals onto bacteria. this dissertation presents the work of three studies that apply molecular simulations (ch. 2) and surface complexation modeling (ch. 3 & 4) to improve our understanding of metal-bacterial adsorption reactions. simulation models (ch. 2) enabled us to estimate the most stable configuration for bacterial surface complexes and to compare binding affinities and interatomic distances with experimental values to validate and predict metal adsorption behavior. we found that mechanics-based simulations adequately describe the interactions of cd with the cell wall, defining metal ion coordinations and binding distances. however, this approach does not accurately describe pb-cell wall interactions, possibly due to limitations in the simulation parameters, the propensity for pb to form hydroxides at circumneutral ph, or other adsorption mechanisms. we studied the effect of bacterial metabolism (ch. 3) on the extent of cd adsorption to gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. we found that while metabolically-active gram-positive cells adsorb significantly less cd than non-metabolizing cells, gram-negative cells show little difference in cd adsorption. the metabolic effect on adsorption for gram-positive cells is likely due to the proton motive force. the lack of effect in gram-negative cells suggests that cd adsorption occurs in a region of the cell wall not affected by proton motive force. we use a thermodynamic modeling approach to estimate that the effect of the proton motive force lowers the ph at the cell wall from 7.0 to 5.7. we applied potentiometric titrations and metal adsorption experiments (ch. 4) and found that changes in bacterial diversity do not impact proton and metal uptake of consortia grown from three locations and sampled throughout a year, strongly suggesting universal adsorption behavior for the species present. applying an averaged-site surface complexation model we found a single set of averaged acidity constants, site concentrations, and stability constants for metal-bacterial surface complexes that can be used to model the adsorption behavior. in this work, we present the heteroepitaxial and homoepitaxial growth and characterization of single crystal ga2o3 by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (mbe). for growth, flux-temperature measurements were done on ga, in, and sn cells to find the appropriate temperature for a specific beam equivalent pressure (bep). in the first set of experiments, (201) and (100) ga2o3 thin films were grown on c-plane (001) sapphire and (100) 􀀀ga2o3 substrates, respectively. samples were grown at a constant oxygen flux of 1.5e-􀀀5 (torr) and substrate temperature of 700c. four different gallium fluxes (2e-􀀀8, 5e-8, 8e-8, and1.1e-7 (torr)) were investigated. optical spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (afm), scanning (sem); transmission electron microscopy (tem), and xray diffraction (xrd) were done on samples. the characterizations showed lower growth rate at higher gallium fluxes and smoother surfaces at lower gallium fluxes for both heteroepitaxy and homoepitaxy. in the next step, different dopants (si, in, and sn) were studied for doping. data analysis showed successful incorporation of si atoms in ga2o3 crystal structure. however, further investigations revealed that si atoms did not act as dopants. on the other hand, ga2o3 could be doped n-type with sn. also, ga2o3 thin films could be successfully delta-doped by sn. while gasno/ga2o3 heterostructures could be successfully grown on (001) sapphire substrate by alloying of sn into ga2o3 crystal structure, ingao/ga2o3 could not be achieved due to non-uniform distribution of in inside the ga2o3 crystal. working memory (wm) ability includes active maintenance in primary memory (pm) and cue-dependent search and retrieval from secondary memory (sm). previously, researchers have found that wm training fails to enhance sm, a component that mediates the relationship between wm and fluid reasoning (gf). a double-blinded, placebo-controlled, randomized trial was conducted to elucidate whether sm could be targeted by a two-component training regimen versus two active control trainings. participants were 168 adolescents whose sm and gf was measured using delayed free recall tasks and matrix reasoning and verbal inference tests respectively. solely two-component training was predicted to improve sm and gf. ancovas indicated that two-component trainees improved over the controls on some sm retrieval parameters (total recall and total correct), but not on gf scores. by aligning wm training with contemporary theory it is thus possible to enhance some sm retrieval parameters. at the heart of this thesis is my conviction that both the second vatican council and the council of trent had a general effect of promoting innovative liturgical practices rooted in the catholic tradition. giovanni francesco anerio's (1567-1630) experiments, as a part of st. philip neri's oratorio vespertino services in early seventeenth-century rome, illustrate his understanding and incorporation of the ideals of trent through his composition and performance of teatro armonico spirituale di madrigali. likewise, in this time after vatican ii, by mirroring anerio's work and translating his practice into a language that is accessible to modern audiences and rooted in the african-american tradition, i have created jazz oratorios with a similar objective. in these works, i am following the examples of jazz musicians duke ellington, mary lou williams, and dave brubeck, who all bridged jazz and sacred music in the twentieth century. this project is a study of anerio's teatro in its original context but aiming at a recreation of the ritual function of his music in our time in a style that borrows from jazz and other musics. to this end, this thesis presents a study of anerio in his historical context, a study of influential examples of jazz sacred music, as well as an analysis of the cultural politics relative to the music of counter-reformation rome and post-vatican ii america. this study is then related to contemporary sacred music, including a discussion of theories of cultural translation that are relevant to the creative component of my project. the latter includes critical editions of a selection of works from anerio's teatro, as well as five newly composed oratorios that are directly based on the subject matter, poetry, and form that anerio used for his madrigals. the ultimate goal of this project is to embolden a renewal of devotional practice in the contemporary church. in this dissertation i present work on the factors important to heat transport in gold nanostructures, particularly nanoparticles. i examine the effect of particle size, ligand layer rigidity, and surface gold vibrational freedom. the interfacial thermal conductance of various particle morphologies, as well as the thermal conductivity of nanoarrays, display trends of how heat transport is affected by particle size, shape, and volume fraction of a system. direct simulations of interfacial thermal conductance of solvated gold nanoparticles were carried out using molecular dynamics.nanoparticles created in vitro contain a ligand layer at the surface of each particle that prevents aggregation and is a result of the method used in the synthesis of the particles. this moiety controls the movement of heat from a particle to the surrounding media. in particular, looking closely at how the rigidity of this ligand layer (and the length of the ligand) change thermal transport across the solvent-particle interface. this provides further insight into the factors that govern heat flow. proposed mechanisms for heat transfer rely on two effects: the vibrational spectral overlap of the materials at the interface and the physical contact between the same materials.finding no direct relationship between particle size with the ligand layer and the thermal transport, a simpler system was examined: bare nanoparticles in a non-polar solvent. the particles consist of nanospheres, icosahedra, and cuboctahedra. the latter two structures display facets that are common in many nanostructures due to their stability. the interfacial thermal conductance (g) of the particles was examined as a function of particle radius and morphology. the coordination of gold atoms at the particle surface, which provides information about the vibrational spectrum, displayed a small correlation with g. this lends support to the proposed factors for heat transport that were discovered while investigating ligands.the ideas from both previous chapters are combined to study au&lt;sub&gt;144&gt;/sub&gt;pet&lt;sub&gt;60&lt;/sub&gt; particles, in both isolation, and in a nanoarray. these small particles (r &amp;asymp; 10 a) have highly undercoordinated gold atoms in the ligand layer. the thermal conductivity of the composite material is predicted using bulk properties and an estimation of boundary resistance. this prediction uses individual components of the composite systems, and is compared to results for simulated nanoarrays. in the predicted conductivity, the nanoarray thermal conductivity depends mostly on the geometric feature, v&lt;sub&gt;p&lt;/sub&gt;, the particle volume fraction. mobile data through crowdsensing has become a prime requirement in various research fields due to its ubiquity, ease of collection, and portability. a typical crowdsensing application collects various sensor data and information from the participant's devices (e.g., smartphone), often continuously at higher frequencies. however, the limited resources available on mobile devices (e.g., energy) pose a significant challenge for many mobile crowdsensing efforts. therefore, an efficient sensing system maintains reasonable data quality while being resource conscious. context plays a critical role in balancing the trade-off between the quality of opportunistic sensing data and the energy of the participating device. moreover, context information can be utilized in determining the right moment to trigger user-centric data collection. this dissertation investigates several aspects of resource efficiency and leveraging context in crowdsensing applications. first, it identifies the challenges of continuous data collection in longitudinal cohort studies and addresses some of them. secondly, it designs a flexible crowdsensing platform where both opportunistic and participatory sensing activities can be configured in a context-driven way. in addition, it facilitates the data collector to configure the collection target and generates efficient sensing rules to achieve the goal. finally, it studies the relationship between mobility and phone usage patterns and proposes an efficient location sensing mechanism. my dissertation examines how the different languages and literatures of eighteenth-century britain and ireland play important roles in the development of a multilingual british public sphere. while eighteenth-century print culture is dominated by english, and by london in particular, i find that writers from across the three kingdoms use manuscript in conjunction with print, or a strategic bilingualism, in order to address particular national or linguistic 'publics.' i argue that the formation of this multilingual public sphere, like the formation of the british empire, cuts across linguistic and geographical boundaries, leading to a productive cross-pollination between writing in english, irish, scots gaelic and vernacular scots. focusing on bilingualism, translation and print culture, my project broadens the scope of recent 'four-nations' approaches and provides a comparative model for understanding important developments in eighteenth-century british literature. my thesis "my heart my room my name" consists of two sections: an excerpt from my novel-in-progress; a cleaner's diary and one separate, complete short story; "zurückbleiben bitte." while these two works of fiction are set in the same neighborhood, they are not to be read as part of the same story or world. trauma-related cognitive distortions have been linked to mental health outcomes such as posttraumatic stress for u.s. veterans; however, research has not yet examined links between these distortions (of self, guilt, and safety) and perceptions of specific other groups (e.g., asylum-seekers), or perceptions of security in one's environment (e.g., community). the current study aimed to explore connections between these variables in a sample of n=101 veterans (87.1% male) across 3 time points, hypothesizing that higher t1 trauma-related cognitive distortions would predict higher t2 threat perceptions of asylum-seekers and lower t2 security in the community; t2 threat perceptions of asylum-seekers would mediate the association between t1 distortions and t3 security; t2 security would mediate the association between t1 distortions and t3 threat perceptions of asylum-seekers; and exposure to psychotherapeutic treatment would moderate the association between initial trauma exposure and trauma-related cognitions, with cognitions lower for treatment-exposed veterans. overall, results of the path analysis models did not support these hypotheses. a post-hoc hierarchical regression analysis using only t1 data, however, suggests some support for associations between higher trauma-related cognitive distortions and lower security in the community (β = -0.53), and higher threat perceptions of asylum-seekers and lower emotional security in the community (β = -0.21). these findings have important implications for the role of trauma-related cognitive distortions in veterans' psychosocial health and sense of security within their social ecological space, as well as how they may view and make political decisions about groups that may increasingly share that space (i.e., asylum-seekers and migrants). the nervous system is an expansive network of neurons and glia that is essential for health. although vast, the system can be segregated into two main parts: the central nervous system (cns) and the peripheral nervous system (pns). the pns is then further divided into the somatic nervous system and the autonomic nervous system. together, these peripheral systems control responses to external stimuli and organ function, respectively. in order to enact their control, neurons provide signaling throughout the body while glia serve in several necessary modulatory capacities. given the extensive roles of the pns in daily health and activities, it is thus prudent to understand the cellular and molecular regulators that guide its development. in this dissertation, we use super-resolution confocal time-lapse imaging, pharmacological manipulation, and mutant genesis in a zebrafish model to address this need twofold. first, we study the somatosensory system by elucidating the molecular mechanisms that guide sensory axon growth cone navigation and entry into the spinal cord. this work establishes a connection between molecules and actin stabilization in the growth cone to complete circuit development. second, we investigate the autonomic nervous system and identify a novel glial population in the heart, which ultimately regulates cardiac function. taken together, these findings expand upon our understanding of neuronal and glial development in the periphery. this thesis covers several topics in optical quantum computation. a quantum computer is a computational device which is able to manipulate information by performing unitary operations on some physical system whose state can be described as a vector (or mixture of vectors) in a hilbert space. the basic unit of information, called the qubit, is considered to be a system with two orthogonal states, which are assigned logical values of 0 and 1. photons make excellent candidates to serve as qubits. they have little interactions with the environment. many operations can be performed using very simple linear optical devices such as beam splitters and phase shifters. photons can easily be processed through circuit-like networks. operations can be performed in very short times. photons are ideally suited for the long-distance communication of quantum information. the great difficulty in constructing an optical quantum computer is that photons naturally interact weakly with one another. this thesis first gives a brief review of two early approaches to optical quantum computation. it will describe how any discrete unitary operation can be performed using a single photon and a network of beam splitters, and how the kerr effect can be used to construct a two photon logic gate. second, this work provides a thorough introduction to the linear optical quantum computer developed by knill, laflamme, and milburn. it then presents this author's results on the reliability of this scheme when implemented using imperfect photon detectors. this author finds that quantum computers of this sort cannot be built using current technology. third, this dissertation describes a method for constructing a linear optical quantum computer using nearly orthogonal coherent states of light as the qubits. it shows how a universal set of logic operations can be performed, including calculations of the fidelity with which these operations may be accomplished. it discusses methods for reducing and correcting errors and recovering from failed operations. lastly it describes an analysis of the long distance transmission of the coherent state qubits and shows how transmission errors can be corrected. i analyzed stream invertebrate community data and conducted experiments using leaf decomposition and the production of fine particulate organic matter (fpom) by stream detritivores as a model system. my research addresses three questions: 1) how do biotic, abiotic, and random processes affect stream insect communities within and between streams? 2) how do shredding invertebrates affect the production and export of fpom? 3) how does the spatial arrangement of shredding invertebrates across headwater streams within a watershed affect fpom availability in downstream reaches? i analyze changes in aquatic invertebrate communities within and among streams in watersheds in eastern pennsylvania between 1970 and 1997. i found that the organization of the communities was strongly affected by abiotic factors including water chemistry, temperature and dissolved oxygen. the stream communities were also affected by distance to other stream reaches by interspecific interactions. i looked at the physical factors structuring the invertebrate communities in upper peninsula of michigan streams. i manipulated shredder species richness feeding on leaf litter in mesocosms modeled after upper peninsula of michigan streams and measured the quantity and quality of fpom produced by their feeding. both the richness and specific identity of the shredding macroinvertebrates had a strong influence on the production of fpom. i manipulated the spatial arrangement of shredders between two locations within an artificial stream environment and measured the fpom exported downstream. i found that the spatial arrangement of shredding invertebrates in an artificial stream had a significant impact on fpom export when shredders were eating senesced leaves, but not green leaves. these results are one of the first times that a link between spatial arrangement of species and an ecosystem process, here fpom production, has been experimentally demonstrated. my dissertation shows that the environment, interspecific interactions, and dispersal limitation concurrently act to affect the distribution of species across tributaries within a stream network. evidence from my experimental manipulations suggests that changes in the spatial distribution of shredder species within a network could impact the leaf decomposition rates within each stream reach, thereby affecting the fpom received by downstream ecosystems. reliable and efficient ignition methods are important for engine design and reliability. this dissertation investigates a new ignition method, dual-pulse laser-induced breakdown (dplib) to address challenges associated with electrical spark ignition and single-pulse laser-induced breakdown (splib) ignition. the plasma formation for dplib was investigated in atmospheric air and elevated pressure conditions. the ignition and flame propagation by dplib were investigated in a lean premixed methane-air flow.the spatiotemporal evolution of dplib was investigated in quiescent atmospheric air with chemiluminescence imaging, optical emission spectroscopy, and high-speed schlieren imaging. dplib with time intervals between pulses from 10 ns to 100 ns had a lower deposited energy than splib. using optical emission spectroscopy, the n ii spectrum from 491 nm to 509 nm was used to obtain the plasma temperature and electron number density for dplib and splib. the breakdown perimeter, temperature, and electron number density all increase with increasing total laser pulse energy for dplib and splib. for dplib with a time interval less than 100 ns, the second breakdown occurs on the outside axial edges of the first breakdown increasing the spark surface area compared to splib. the hot plume expansion for splib and dplib was studied to explore the effects of the laser pulsing strategy on the induced flow. splib and dplib with time intervals between pulses of 50 ns to 600 µs were visualized using high-speed schlieren imaging. for splib, the hot plume region increased with increasing incident pulse energy. for dplib, the characteristics of the hot plume expansion were dictated by the time interval and energy distribution between pulses. for a time interval of 150 ns, strong pulse-to-pulse coupling induced a second toroidal flow structure that suppressed third lobe generation. depending on the time interval, the interactions between the hot plumes and shockwaves generated much finer flow structures for dplib than splib.the ignition and flame propagation were investigated by splib and dplib in a lean premixed methane-air flow with flow speeds of 3.75 – 12.5 m/s and equivalence ratios of 0.5 – 0.67. ignition was confirmed with chemiluminescence imaging and the flame propagation was visualized with high-speed schlieren imaging. ignition probability was measured for splib and dplib with time intervals less than 100 ns. the ignition probability increased with velocity for both splib and dplib as more fuel-oxidizer mixture was exposed to the ignition source. for a fixed total energy, ignition probability was higher for dplib than splib, particularly as the equivalence ratio was increased. depending on the flow velocity, a change in the total energy determined whether splib or dplib had a higher ignition probability at a given flow velocity. the flame propagation was investigated for splib and dplib with time intervals between pulses of 100 µs to 5 ms where hot gas expansions could increase the surface area. two regimes were identified for dplib depending on the time interval between pulses, a direct kernel interaction regime and a flame kernel combination regime. the direct kernel interaction regime occurred when the second breakdown immediately combined with the first breakdown. in this regime, dplib had faster flame propagation than splib when the second pulse occurred at the base of the first breakdown expansion prior to the first breakdown transitioning to a flame kernel. the kernel combination regime occurred for dplib when the two breakdowns separately transitioned to flame kernels and combined as they traveled downstream in the tunnel. in either regime, dplib had a faster flame propagation than splib as the flow speed increased. this study showed that using dplib to ignite fuel-lean combustible mixtures can enhance ignition and flame propagation compared to splib, particularly at low total laser energy and high-speed flow conditions. interband tunneling field effect transistors (tfets) have come under intensive investigation for logic applications due to their promise for enabling low vdd operation because of their potential for achieving extremely low subthreshold swing. the work described here includes both experimental as well as theoretical contributions to the understanding of iii-v based tfets. ingaas/inp vertical tunnel fets and tunnel diodes were first fabricated and characterized. ndr was observed in the tunnel diode i-v characteristics, indicating the ingaas/inp junction was indeed a tunnel junction. ingaas/inp vertical tunnel fets with ingaas airbridge were demonstrated in a process based on electron-beam lithography, and an on/off ratio of 800 was obtained experimentally at vd = 0.1 v. the on-state current of the fabricated ingaas vertical tfet was relatively low compared with published results, primarily because the air-bridge structure used in this work has a much larger separation between the gate and drain contact, which results in a higher access resistance. to further improve the on-state performance, vtfet based on the algasb/inas material system was explored by numerical tcad simulation. impact of geometric parameters on n-type vtfet performance were studied, including source doping, drain extension, drain undercut, gate length, and oxide thickness. a complementary p-type vtfet was also designed and optimized, which makes complimentary circuits possible. the dc and ac performance of single devices as well as complimentary circuits (logic inverters) as a function of fan-out loading have been investigated, showing that vtfet has the potential to replace cmos technology for low power logic application in the future. let ì¢è '_z be the cauchy-riemann operator and f be a real-valued cn function in a neighborhood of the origin in the complex plane for which the nth order cauchy-riemann derivative of f is non-zero for all z other than 0 in that neighborhood. carathìäå©odory conjectured that a sphere immersed in r3 must have at least two umbilics. this later motivated loewner to conjecture an upper bound of n for the index of the nth order cauchy-riemann derivative of f as a vector fields. both of these conjectures remain open. recent work of f. xavier produced a formula for computing the index of such vector fields in the case n = 2 using data about the hessian of f. in this paper, we extend this result and establish an index formula for the nth order cauchy-riemann derivative that is valid for all n ì¢'¡å´ 2. structurally, our index formula provides a defect term for loewner's conjecture containing geometric data extracted from hessian-like objects associated with higher order derivatives of f. in particular, our index formula computes the fredholm index of the toeplitz operator on the unit circle whose symbol is the nth order cauchy-riemann derivative of f. in this thesis, we systematically analyze all major factors that affect a camera-space manipulation (csm) system's positioning precision. csm is an effective control means to guide robots with machine vision in manipulation tasks. when using csm, apart from error in establishing camera-space objectives, there are three major error sources that affect a robot's end precision: camera optical model imperfection, robot kinematical model imperfection, and finite camera-image resolution. there are several factors that can mitigate the effect of the three major error sources and ensure sufficient precision, factors such as 'preplan-trajectory' design (parameter initialization), robot end-tool cue configuration, and cue-data-weighting scheme. prior to the work of this dissertation, our understanding of the three major error sources and mitigating factors, largely based on theoretical analysis and experimental conclusions, enabled us to achieve a sufficient level of precision for many manipulation tasks. we seek herein to achieve much higher precision with csm so that we can apply it to a much broader range of tasks. first, we set up a simulation platform to simulate a csm system and investigate numerically the relationships among the major error sources, mitigating factors, and end precision. after that, we establish a high-precision, experimental csm system to test the simulation's prediction regarding all the conditions that culminate to a high level of precision. based on this system, we further explore the quantitative impact on the end precision and the inter-relationships of the csm measures, using both simulation results and experimental results. eventually we can implement verified principles and effective measures into practice, and (ideally) realize robustly any desired level of end precision of a csm system. in this dissertation, i analyze religious actors debating the decision to go to war in iraq in 2003 as well as the religious cultural dimensions of the larger public discussion. i argue that one cannot adequately explain the country's entry into the war without understanding the role of public christianity in the argument for it. furthermore, by analyzing elite religious advocacy both opposed and in favor of the conflict, i theorize the sets of identity relations and cultural repertoires that explain whether religious advocates will support or criticize state-sponsored violence. i find that the varying identity relations between religion, nation, and state largely predict religious advocates' positions on the war. given these basic religious positions, i then explicate the constellation of symbolic codes that inform and sustain the basic positions of religious advocates vis-ìê-vis war. these include the nature and constitution of political order, the nature of evil, the role of peace' particularly as it relates to the political order, the proper object of christian love, and the value and practicality of nonviolence in the world. additionally, i analyze patterns of discourse that differentiated between war supporters and war opponents' war supporters used less secular discourse than war opponents. i find that the social and political context primarily explains the particularly religious tenor of these actors. advocates' sense of identity and their expertise influenced how they participated in the debate. finally, i find the social sources of these distinct positions. significant social contact with victims of structural violence tended to lead advocates to positions against the war. the dissertation concludes with a consideration of the direct contributions of this dissertation to academic understandings of religion, politics, war, and peace as well as its contributions to knowledge about public religion's relations to the politics of war and peace in america and our understanding of the relations between religion and violence. niemann-pick type c disease (npc) is a rare, fatal, autosomal recessive lipid storage disorder. there is currently no cure for npc and very few treatment options exist. working in collaboration with the maxfield laboratory at the cornell medical school, we completed several projects aimed at discovering and developing potential therapeutic agents for the treatment of npc. the first involved the identification of n-aryl alkylidenepyrrolinones via high throughput screening as agents that lowered cholesterol within npc cells. we developed a concise synthesis that allowed for a thorough investigation into these compounds. the second project with the maxfield laboratory involved the synthesis of carbamoylated 1,2,5-thiadiazoles as novel inhibitors of lysosomal acid lipase (lal). we again developed a concise synthesis for these compounds and, in the process, developed a useful protocol that permitted the direct displacement of chlorine from the thiadiazole core using enolates. both esters and ketones can be utilized as substrates, furnishing a wide range of substituted thiadiazole products. this new protocol allowed for several new potential thiadiazoles to be synthesized and tested for activity against npc. additionally, we demonstrated that the reaction proceeds via a ring opening reaction and concomittant enolate attack on the ring opened intermediate leads to the desired product. the third major project involved the development of a mild pd-catalyzed cross-coupling between zinc enolates and alkenyl halides. the alkenyl halides we employed included functionalized alkenyl bromides and iodides as well as conjugated dienyl bromides and iodides. the conditions we developed were mild and effective, and we never observed any isomerized or rearranged products. the purpose of the cross-coupling was to apply the methodology to the synthesis of trichostatin a, a potent histone deacetylase inhibitor (hdaci). as a result of these studies, we developed a concise, convergent synthesis of this highly coveted natural product. also resulting from these studies was the development of a useful catalytic ddq oxidation that utilized mn(oac)3 as the cooxidant. the oxidation was utilized not only in the preparation of material for the cross-coupling studies, but also implemented in the synthesis of tsa as well, displaying its useful and versatile capabilities. poetry collection. blur effect is a common phenomenon in photographs when relative motion between a camera and the captured scene occurs during the exposure time. it significantly degrades image quality and has great effect on the performance of subsequent applications. image deblurring aims to recover a sharp image from blurred observations and involves two subproblems: blur kernel estimation and image deconvolution. the accuracy of blur kernel is critical to the deblurring performance.this work explores the possibility of using inertial sensors to facilitate kernel estimation. the key lies on how to address the noise amplification issue with using inertial sensors for motion estimation. a single image deblurring approach is first proposed and an alternating optimization scheme is employed to gradually move the drifted camera motion trajectory to the correct position. by replacing the camera pose space in the geometric model with a motion trajectory set, an explicit trajectory can be generated, filling the gap between kernel estimation and motion estimation. this also allows us to tackle the blur variation problem resulting from electronic rolling shutter mechanism which imposes temporal constraints of camera motion. to improve image restoration quality, a joint deblurring and demosaicing method is developed by leveraging both spatial prior and spectral prior.in practice, camera shake is not restricted to in-plane translation. the presence of camera rotation would lead to spatially-varying blur effect. a multi-image deblurring framework is proposed to mitigate the stress arising from a large amount of unknowns. exposure times are varied among three captured images such that a long-exposed blurred image is bracketed by two short-exposed noisy but sharp images, which is related through the simultaneously recorded inertial measurements. this special exposure arrangement effectively addresses the problem inherent in reconstructing camera motion from inertial measurements. experimental evaluations show its robustness to longer exposure time and larger measurement noise. additionally, the proposed framework enables the incorporation of depth factor which also contributes to blur variation. the short-exposed images provide necessary constraints for initial depth map inference and a mrf framework is formulated to further refine the depth map by exploiting both stereo cues and motion blur cues.as a third contribution, a dynamic scene deblurring method, which handles both camera shake blur and object motion blur, is developed by augmenting the previous framework with a layered blur model. contrary to previous methods which individually parametrize the motion blur of each layer, we exploit the fact that camera shake has a global influence to decompose the motion of the foreground layer such that a more tight constraint between the motion of layers is established. the problem is formulated as a regularized form of energy function and by minimizing it we jointly solve the estimate of motion, layer appearance, segmentation as well as depth map. compared to previous methods, our approach is automatic, and neither requires user interaction nor special hardware.this work improves deblurring performance by incorporating more factors that influence blur kernel estimation, and also provides insights on how to efficiently fuse image data and inertial information. it is tested on various images, and comparative experiments are conducted to demonstrate the superior performance of this work. in this dissertation, we give a new proof of the main results of ando, hopkins, and strickland regarding the generalized homology of the even connective covers of bu. in particular, we prove that the so-called "symmetry" and "cocycle" relations hold in the e-homology of bu&lt;2k&gt; for any complex-orientable e and that these relations are the defining relations whenever e=hq or k=1, 2, or 3. this new proof avoids the algebro-geometric perspective of ando, hopkins, and strickland and instead uses the work of ravenel, wilson, and yagita on the unstable homology of the truncated brown-peterson spectra, as well as the relationship between these spectra and bu&lt;2k&gt;. this approach allows for a somewhat simpler proof of the classic ando-hopkins-strickland theorem, clarifies its relation to the e-homology hopf ring of ku, and shows how it fits into a broader algebraic picture. this dissertation explores laywomen's contributions in four key areas of u.s. catholic history during the nineteenth century. beginning in the 1850s, laywomen worked to convince european women religious to establish new communities in the united states, and raised money to support them. by the 1870s and 1880s, prominent laywomen were engaged in fierce battles to defend catholic educational institutions from perceived government attacks. particularly in light of their service during the civil war, catholics believed they had effectively demonstrated their patriotism, but continued to find ways to showcase catholic contributions to u.s. history into the 1890s. they also endeavored to shape the u.s. church's relationship with rome from mid-century well past 1900.the project makes three significant historical interventions. first, it argues that by examining numerous thematic aspects of laywomen's involvement in nineteenth-century u.s. catholic history (namely, supporting religious orders, defending catholic institutions, engaging in civic causes, and gaining access at rome) we can see how laywomen—particularly elite, native-born women—have not only had agency, but power, within the catholic church. second, by featuring laywomen as protagonists, the project demonstrates that the transnational turn in u.s. catholic history need not be defined by clergy, religious orders, or the longstanding "immigrant paradigm" long dominant in the field. finally, it shows how influential laywomen, freed from being labeled "foreign" or "illiberal" by virtue of their social status and powerful networks, inserted their voices within public debates about "america" and "americanness" during the long nineteenth century. the primary goal of this research project is to develop methodologies for further functionalization of zintl clusters in order to attach more than two substituents. progress was made in a step by step manner as follows: (a) develop methodology for the synthesis of zintl clusters functionalized with more than two substituents, (b) carry out subsequent studies for the properties of the functionalized clusters and their reactivity, and (c) introduce more organic functionalities to the cluster core. each of these segments is discussed in detail in this dissertation.after introducing the background of zintl ions and the recent developments on the study of nine–atom germanium clusters (chapter 1), the rational synthesis of tri–silylated ge9 clusters is discussed (chapter 2). this approach allows for ge9 clusters with more than two substituents to be synthesized by reacting "hypersilyl" chloride (me3si)3sicl with acetonitrile suspension of the intermetallic precursor k4ge9 to form [ge9(si(sime3)3)3]–. our investigations show this route to be general and applicable to a variety of r3sicl, with r = et, ipr, nbu and ph, etc. following the rational synthesis of [ge9(si(sime3)3)3]–, the preparation of tetra–substituted ge9 clusters was studied next, and this is discussed in detail in chapter 3. reactions between k[ge9(si(sime3)3)3] and r3sncl (r = me, nbu and ph) result in the addition of the –snr3 fragment to the tri–silylated ge9 clusters and the formation of neutral tetra–substituted species [ge9(si(sime3)3)3(snr3)]0. dynamic behavior of the fourth substituent was observed in solution, and this is interpreted as the –snr3 fragment migrating along the three germanium atoms within the triangular base.studying the similarity in the reactivity of functionalized ge9 clusters and the naked parent ge94– anions has both experimental and theoretical implications. the results presented in chapter 4 demonstrate that like the naked cluster ge94–, tl atom could be added to one of the square faces of [ge9(si(sime3)3)3]– to form a tri–substituted ten–atom closo–cluster [ge9tl(si(sime3)3)3]0. intermolecular dynamic behavior was observed and was studied by nmr investigations. it can be rationalized by a "tl+ dissociation–association" mechanism.chapter 5 describes the addition of a variety of alkyl groups to the already tri–functionalized species by the reactions between [ge9(si(sime3)3)3]– and r–x undergoing sn2 mechanism. [ge9(si(sime3)3)3et]0 was crystallized and structurally characterized. an intramolecular dynamic behavior was observed in solution and theoretical study was carried out for clarifying its pathway.chapter 6 investigates the reactivity of [ge9(si(sime3)3)3]– towards transition metal complexes. it turns out that naked transition metal atoms tend to interact with the triangular prismatic bases of the tri–silylated monoanion. [(ge9r3)cui(ge9r3)(cuipph3)]0 and [(ge9r3)pd0(ge9r3)]2– (r = –si(sime3)3) were synthesized and structurally characterized through such investigations.chapter 7 presents further studies of the nucleophilic reactivity of organo–zintl clusters. a variety of main group and alkyl halides are shown to react with organo–zintl clusters such as [ge9(ch=ch–ph)2]2–, [ge9(adm)2]2–, [ge9(tbu)]3–, etc. we believe this can be developed into a general tool for synthesizing fully organically functionalized zintl clusters. the dissertation ends with a summary and a discussion of future prospects, primarily focused on the fields of embedding clusters with useful functionalities and expanding the synthetic methodology into other intermetallic systems. beta-delayed neutron (βn) emission is relevant to nuclear reactor kinetics, nuclear astrophysics, and general nuclear structure. in nuclear reactors, βn emitted by fission products, while a small fraction fraction of the neutron production, can have significantly longer timescales. this effects the responsiveness of the reactor and decay-heat calculations. in nuclear astrophysics, βn emission affects the abundances produced by the rapid neutron capture process (r-process). the r-process is responsible for the formation of approximately half of all nuclei heavier than iron. the r-process path is determined by astrophysical conditions, beta-decay rates, neutron capture cross-sections and other nuclear properties. during the relaxation to stability βn emission contributes to the shape of the final abundance, both by populating lower mass numbers and, depending on the neutron energy, adding to the neutron flux at late times. due to the difficulty in determining the probability of neutron emission from a decay (pn) and the emitted neutron energy it is one of the least studied aspects of the decay of neutron rich nuclei. by confining precursor ions to a small volume in the center of a linear radio frequency paul trap, recoil momentum determined from time of flight of the decay product was used to determine both pn and the neutron energy spectrum. this method is not subject to the low efficiency of direct neutron detection or neutron backgrounds. the use of recoil momentum requires an understanding of the behavior of the recoiling ions in the trap. this introduces a dependence on aspects of the decay which for many neutron-rich nuclei are not well known, including absolute beta-branching ratios. a β-decay study of the calibration nucleus 134sb was performed, and in combination with a comprehensive simulation of the trap, the magnitude of the dependence of the recoil-ion technique on specific decay information is be determined. data science is a broad, interdisciplinary field concerned with the extraction of knowledge or insights from data, with the classification of data as a core, fundamental task. one of the most persistent challenges faced when performing classification is the class imbalance problem. class imbalance refers to when the frequency with which each class appears in data is not roughly equivalent, and the problem is that introduction of class imbalance into the task of classification poses serious challenges that must be addressed in order to provide knowledge and insight. yet, the challenges that class imbalance gives rise to are in part due to its ubiquitous prevalence, and it stands as a problem that pervades almost every area of investigation under which data science has provenance. in this dissertation, we investigate and counter class imbalance in several domains, touching upon areas as diverse as ecological informatics, scientific impact prediction, healthcare analytics, and education. by the end of this dissertation, we will develop and apply a variety of methods and techniques used to combat the class imbalance that is endemic to these and other domains. we will also compare and contrast the approaches we use to combat class imbalance with more traditional approaches typically employed within each domain. before beginning, however, we present a preliminary overview of the class imbalance problem and the algorithms, methods, and evaluation metrics generally employed to address it. cp violation has been observed in the k and b meson systems and can possibly be accommodated within the km ansatz in the standard model (sm). however, it has been long argued that to generate the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry, cp violation in excess of what can be accommodated within the sm is necessary. with current results from cdf and lhcb on the asymmetry in d^0vto pi+piand d^0 to k+kthe ambiguity regarding whether d physics can or is showing hints of new dynamics has been given a new life. while there are reasonable arguments that the role of new dynamics in these asymmetries is apparent, it can also be well argued that what we see can possibly be accommodated within the sm. as this is one of the very few tangible signals of possible new dynamics, it has become increasing important that charm comes under rigorous experimental scrutiny once again. sm contribution to rare charm decays are tiny and hence they stand ripe for the intervention of new dynamics. these modes are dominated by long distance contributions and for new dynamics to produce any enhancements to the decay rates, the short distance contribution to these modes have to be enhanced by orders of magnitude, a task which is difficult in most new dynamics scenarios. of course, there is a way out. asymmetries are insensitive to long distance contributions and are usually driven by short distance physics. there are certain scenarios of new dynamics in which asymmetries like the forward-backward asymmetry (a_{fb}^c)and the cp asymmetry in the forward-backward asymmetry (a_{fb}^{cp}) can be enhanced by orders of magnitude above sm expectations in the inclusive decay modes d to x_u l+l-. although a_{fb}^c remains around a modest value of 1% in these scenarios, a^{cp}_{fb} can be as large as o(10^2). three body final states are also important modes that can show hints of new dynamics and are richer in experimental observables than two body modes where only the decay rates and the difference in those of conjugate states can be probed. some three body decay modes of both the charged and the neutral d meson system can show cp violation and a detailed 2d dalitz plot analysis needs to be done. although, this comes at a premium of statistics, much can be learnt about the nature of new dynamics from this kind of an analysis. also, cp asymmetries thus measured do not depend on the relative production of conjugate states, a case which is important in an environment where there are inherent production asymmetries. for four body decay modes, one can look into t-odd correlations. this can be done with a pair of pseudoscalars and a pair of leptons in the final state or with a hadronic final state. social movement scholars have argued that social movement mobilization at the micro level is a sequential multi-stage process but have ignored the first stage of this process, the creation of a pool of supporters from which movements can potentially draw participants, when analyzing the eastern european protest wave of 1989. i question the assumption that such a pool of potential participants was ready-made and ask how it was formed. to address these concerns, i analyze the mobilization context in which the successful protest wave of 1989 developed. i contrast it with the mobilization contexts of the unsuccessful chinese and albanian cases. my concrete research question is: what were the societal institutional environment and the political culture in eastern europe in the late 1980s within which protest movements could gather mass support and within which democracy could take root? i argue that the eastern european democratic impetus was grounded within a cosmopolitan world culture. i also argue that eastern european transnational social movements were major cosmopolitan actors in creating and promoting this culture over more than a decade. thus, cosmopolitanism served as a mobilization potential while the development of cosmopolitanism appears to have been the first stage of the protest mobilization process and subsequent democratization in eastern europe in the late 1980s. my evidence comes from various sources, including a dataset on transnational social movement organizations around the world from 1953 to 2003, the world value survey, data on movement membership and reach, and semi-structured interviews with members of the most prominent movement in the region, the esperanto movement, in four eastern european countries scholars have long debated the extent, unity and intention of the ark narrative in the books of samuel. against the interpretation of the passage that separates the divinity from the ark or fails to treat the ark as an abode for the real manifestation of the being of the israelite deity, this dissertation argues for the intimate bond between the ark and the god of israel. it is on this note that the centrality of the ark in the narrative is emphasized. the significance of divine presence in ancient near eastern cultic statues will be investigated in order to pinpoint its bearing on the understanding of divine presence in the ark. the ark, as the visible representation of divine presence, is a functional equivalent of ancient near eastern cultic statues, and thus should be construed not just as a symbol, but as something closely interwoven with the being of the god of israel. as the ancient near eastern context suggests, after the rituals of consecration the cultic object attains a level higher than its mundane state through a synergy of heaven and earth. something of the being of the divinity begins to reside in the cultic object from that point and so what one does to the object becomes a matter of huge importance. based on this frame of thought, one recognizes that the presence of the divinity in the ark is at the same time a source of blessing and danger. proper reverence for this presence brings blessings while failure to treat this presence with the appropriate reverence brings danger both to the transgressor and the entire community. the ark narrative reveals the danger that accrues from any attempt to manipulate the divine presence in israel's midst. effective mixing, ignition, and flameholding in a supersonic flow is an outstanding challenge critical for efficient operation of airbreathing supersonic combustion engines. development and maintenance of these processes in high-speed flows is difficult due to compressibility effects, short residence times, and the complex reactive environment. in previous works, the plasma injection module (pim) has extended the operational envelope of a supersonic combustor to the unfavorable conditions of low stagnation temperature and pressure. however many details have remained unclear, including the mechanisms responsible for this effect and operational limitations in practical engine schemes.this work applies a suite of optical diagnostic techniques to characterize the physical processes concomitant with plasma-enhanced mixing, ignition, and flameholding in supersonic flow. fuel distributions, plasma parameters, and flameholding dynamics of the pim system are studied using acetone planar laser-induced fluorescence (plif), optical emission spectroscopy (oes), mie scattering, filtered chemiluminescent photo-sensing, and supporting instrumentation. this was performed in both a plane wall duct, and a cavity equipped geometry at the sbr-50 supersonic blowdown tunnel at the university of notre dame. tests were performed at m = 2 and with typical conditions p0 = 1-3bar, t0 = 300-450k, and fuel jet momentum flux ratios j = 0.05-1.25.plasma impact on transverse jet injection is shown to significantly increase jet penetration depth and cross-sectional area. data are presented for both non-reacting and reacting injected jets, to isolate the effect of plasma or interrogate the additional effect of plasma-stimulated chemical heat release. extended downstream chemical reactions in fuel resulted in increased jet penetration and crossflow expansion over non-reacting cases.three pims were applied to study the effect of bulk combustion on plasma parameters and pim ignition capabilities. flow separation at strong combustion is shown to significantly modify pim characteristics. coupling of pim characteristics to the flow pattern produces dynamic instabilities in the flowfield. acetone plif characterized the unburned fuel pattern at these instabilities, revealing the coupling between chemical power, plasma power, and flow structures. a filtered chemiluminescent sensing technique is shown to detect modifications to the combustion mode using the ratio of radical species oh* and c2*. this technique has significant potential to be employed in practical systems for combustion blow-off/flashback prediction and prevention through closed-loop control. in this dissertation, i address development of resistance to treatment with miltefosine in leishmania major. l. major is the causative agent of cutaneous leishmaniasis, a disease that faces many difficulties in surveillance and control. current treatments are expensive and difficult to administer, requiring daily administration from a health care professional for a one-month period.additionally, none of the currently available therapeutic options for treatment of leishmaniasis were developed specifically for the disease, leading to many severe side effects. control is further complicated by the burden of developing resistance to pentavalent antimonials, the most common treatment in endemic areas.the most recent treatment option, miltefosine, follows an oral administration that increases appeal of this particular antileishmanial agent.however, upon further investigation, resistance to this particular option has been observed in clinical trials, and resistant strains are easily created in a laboratory environment. miltefosine-resistant cultures of l. major were created through step-wise selection.these drug-resistant populations were then characterized as compared to the wild-type populations to determine any differences in parasite infectivity, virulence, and overall fitness.miltefosine-resistant populations demonstrated higher rates of metacyclogenesis, but attenuated virulence in an in vivo environment. once the parasite life cycle had been fully characterized, we further investigated mechanisms of action of miltefosine specifically in leishmania. in cancer, miltefosine is known to induce an apoptotic cell death.in leishmania, the drug appears to have a similar effect, inducing oxidative stress to activate an apoptotic-like mechanism resulting in cell death. this dissertation is a collection of essays which examines both how firms alter their innovative activity in response to changes in their environment and the broader economic implications of these decisions. in the first chapter i introduce a novel dataset which classifies patents as product or process innovations and then examine how firms change their product and process innovation in response to increased competition. i find that firms increase their product innovation in response to increased import competition, but import competition has no effect on process innovation. the second chapter underscores the importance of the first chapter by providing evidence that product innovations generate more knowledge spillovers than process innovations. as knowledge spillovers generate positive externalities, the finding suggests that the gap between the social and private value of innovation is wider for product innovation. in the third chapter i investigate whether the large increase in remote work that began during the covid-19 pandemic had an impact on corporate innovation. utilizing within-firm variation, i find that after the start of the pandemic offices located in more politically conservative counties had higher visit rates, but they exhibited no difference in patenting activity. the result suggests that firms and inventors were able to endogenously adjust to the post-pandemic world in order to maintain their innovative productivity. this thesis will explore the institutional and intellectual origins of chicago law and economics and examine how these factors played a crucial role in the rise of chicago law and economics. furthermore, the role of the principal benefactors, such as the volker fund, will be assessed. chapter one explores the institutional and intellectual origins of chicago economics and hence chicago law economics, showing inextricable links, arguing that both were part of an international initiative to reformulate the classical liberal doctrine to create a neoliberal doctrine, and demonstrating that the volker fund played a crucial, hands-on role. chapter two examines the reformulation of the classical liberal doctrine in the context of the volker-funded free market study project (1946-1952) and the vital role of aaron director. it illustrates the fundamental changes of the liberal doctrine regarding monopoly and corporations' providing necessary assumptions for the further development of chicago law and economics. chapter three demonstrates the further reconstitution of the classical liberal doctrine in the field of antitrust law by focusing on the volker-funded antitrust project (1953-1957); it shows how the neoliberal premises regarding monopoly and corporations from the free market study influenced the project's analysis of antitrust law. chapter four focuses on the development of chicago law and economics in the field of antitrust law in the 1960s and 1970s. it shows how robert bork, an antitrust project member, depended on and departed from the neoliberal developments of the free market study and the antitrust project. chapter 5 examines three levels of analysis that must be considered to explain the success of chicago law and economics. for two levels, it critiques and extends two existing explanations of the success of chicago law and economics. on the other level, this chapter explores the paradoxical, but mutually beneficial relationship between chicago law and economics and public choice, illustrating that an explanation for the success of chicago law and economics must grapple with this knotty intellectual relationship. the qca project is one of the approaches to decrease the size scale of computing devices. when molecules are used as qca cells, they my be able to perform computing at room temperature. my ph.d. work is focused on synthesis of a molecular qca cell candidate, side-by-side iron phthalocyanine dimer (3a) and an investigation of its attachment on au. we successfully synthesized two new compounds, the pentyloxy substituted side-by-side iron phthalocyanine dimer (3a) and the iron phthalocyanine monomer (1a). two synthesis approaches, ring-expansion and statistical, were used, but only the latter one succeeded. gpc and hplc were used to obtain high purity products (98% and 99%, respectively). the pure compound were characterized by mass spectrometry, nmr, uv-vis and electrochemistry in solution. we found that pyridine changes the aggregation state of both 1a and 3a in dichloromethane, which affects their nmr, uv-vis and electrochemistry. both 1a and 3a aggregate in solution, which makes their spectra ill-resolved. the nmr spectra of both compounds became simplified and well-resolved after the addition of pyridine-d5. this is because pyridine coordinates to the axial positions of the iron atoms and forms monomeric pc's in solution. the uv-vis spectra of both compounds showed distinctive q bands in the presence of pyridine. the electrochemistry data of both compounds also became resolvable after the coordination of pyridine. the electrochemistry data indicates the loss of pyridine ligands from the oxidized products of both 1a and 3a. from our electrochemical data we calculated the comproportionation constants of 3a; these values are large enough that the oxidized and reduced mixed-valence complexes are fairly stable. since qca requires formation of a mixed-valence state, this is an important finding. the attachment of phthalocyanines (1a and 3a) on gold was investigated by stm and xps. first we studied the interaction between the phthalocyanines and bare au. we used ambient stm to image dropcast 1a and 3a on au/mica. submolecular resolution was achieved for 3a on au/mica. the weak interaction between the pc molecules and au resulted in the poor resolution and high mobility in stm images. we observed a decrease of the mobility of 3a molecule at low temperature, and its oval shape was observed at 77 k under uhv. next, we tried to a use mercaptopyridine sam to immobilize the 1a, although 1a could be observed, it was still mobile on the mercaptopyridine sam. xps data shows the mercaptopyridine sam can survive in 100 degree c temperature, but when it is heated in air, it is oxidized. in any case, heating destroys the order of the sam. finally, we synthesized a new 4,4'-dipyridyl disulfide ligated version of 1a and 3a and tried to used the disulfide functional group to attach phthalocyanine molecules onto au. stm images of 4,4'-dipyridyl disulfide ligated 1a show the linkage of the pc to the au, which confirms that this is a viable strategy for covalent linkages of phthalocyanines to gold. free boundary problems (the time dependent problems are also often known as moving boundary problems) deal with systems of partial differential equations (pdes) where the domain boundary is apriori unknown. many mathematical models in different disciplines, e.g., biology, ecology, physics, and material science, involve the formulation of free boundary problems. in this thesis, several free boundary problems with real-world applications are studied, which include a tumor growth model with a time delay in cell proliferation, a plaque formation model, and a modified hele-shaw problem. stability and bifurcation analysis are presented to analyze these models. each chapter is devoted to a separate mathematical model. capture zone delineation is a critical step toward sound wellhead protection plans ensuring groundwater safety where a community's sourcewater is groundwater. well capture zone delineation is difficult where there is fractured rock in the subsurface, as the fractures transport the majority of the water and fracture location often includes substantial uncertainty. this study focuses on numerical modeling for a hand-pumped well, where the subsurface is fractured bedrock. fracture density and fracture connectivity are critical to the transport of water in bedrock and are parameters of interest for this study. the geometry for five year, ten year, and infinite time capture zones was investigated. results show that finite time period capture zones are most impacted by fracture density / connectivity and follow a discrete path along the fracture location. at infinite time scales, the low density capture zone geometry approaches a geometry characteristic of porous media. taking an ecological systems perspective, early parent-child relationships can be affected by interactions between many systems where some are more proximally linked to the child than others. for example, socioeconomic status is generally considered a more distal factor but has been found to be related to maternal warmth and child aggression. however, research on socioeconomic status and infant socio-emotional functioning is scant and inconsistent. other systems such as marital functioning can also affect the parent-child attachment relationships, perhaps indirectly or directly, such that parents who are unhappy in their marriage may withdraw from their child and negatively affect the parent-child relationship. the current study aimed to examine the role of various ecological systems in early infancy ì¢ ââ" parental resources, marital functioning, and parental sensitivity and involvement-on later infant attachment security with mothers and fathers. both mediation and moderation models were tested. findings suggested greater support for moderating than mediating processes. in addition, results indicated that both distal and proximal factors predicted infants' attachment security with both parents. more specifically, parental resources, parental sensitivity, and involvement predicted infants' attachment security with both parents. marital conflict served as a moderating factor in infants' attachment security with mothers,whereas marital satisfaction served as a moderating factor in infants' attachment security with fathers. implications for future studies and interventions are discussed. characterization of lipid-protein interactions are of paramount importance to fundamental biophysics as well as in understanding potential therapeutic targets.approximately 30% of cellular proteins are membrane-integrated or membrane-adjacent, leaving a vast field that has been primarily unexplored namely due to difficulty of experimentation and lack of quantitative techniques.here, i characterize the biophysical interactions of two membrane-affiliated proteins, the biosensor lactc2, and the ebola virus matrix protein vp40, through a series of surface plasmon resonance (spr), cell culture, mutagenesis, and lipidomic analysis experiments.the biosensor lactc2 has been characterized as a tool to detect levels of phosphatidylserine (ps), an anionic, inner-leaflet plasma membrane lipid.this tool has been used both in cell culture experiments as well as in vitro binding studies by a number of labs.however, this protein had not been explicitly characterized vis a vis its particular lipid environment.spr experiments have helped fill the void in the field regarding these interactions, noting particularly that cholesterol and membrane fluidity impact lactc2 affinity to membranes.the ebola virus matrix protein vp40 is the primary driving factor in ebola (ebov) assembly and egress.this protein has only very recently been able to be characterized extensively thanks to crystallographic data that provided foundational structural knowledge onto which functional analysis could be built.prior work on vp40-lipid interactions demonstrated the necessity of ps for proper vp40 cellular function, but had not further characterized this biophysical interaction. mutagenesis studies of vp40 implicate a highly conserved c-terminal domain that is necessary for proper membrane binding and function within cells.lipidomic analysis of cells transfected with vp40 and their progeny virus like particles (vlps) preliminarily implicate the preference for saturated species of phosphatidylserine within packaged virus particles.the data obtained in these studies have enhanced our understanding of protein-lipid interactions for both the biosensor lactc2 as well as the ebola virus matrix protein vp40. this dissertation provides a detailed analysis of the methods and goals that characterize the rewriting of scripture in the 4qreworked pentateuch (4qrp) manuscripts from qumran (4q158, 4q364-367). it focuses first on determining the 'compositional technique' used in each particular instance of departure from known textual versions--that is, the specific way in which the vorlage was altered. separately, an attempt is made to understand the interpretive processes leading to each change. the dissertation also includes a new text edition, with extensive notes, of 4q158, the one 4qrp manuscript that did not previously exist in a satisfactory edition. 4q158 provides the point of departure for the project and is examined in greatest detail. the investigation of 4q158 and the other 4qrp manuscripts indicates that each is unique in terms of the compositional techniques employed and the purposes to which those techniques were put. the methods of reworking in the 4qrp manuscripts are then compared with those evidenced in two related texts or text groups: the samaritan pentateuch and its qumranic forebears, and the temple scroll (11qt). the introduction and conclusion contextualize this detailed analysis in the ongoing debate about the interrelationships between the various forms scriptural rewriting could take in second temple jewish texts. especially important in this regard is the ambiguous relationship between expanded versions of biblical books and texts that, while dependent upon scripture for much of their structure and content, nevertheless constitute new, independent compositions. the 4qrp manuscripts occupy a prominent place in this debate because they seem to lie on the boundary between these two categories. the analysis conducted here provides empirical foundations for exploring issues that arise out of this discussion, such as the relationship between particular forms of reworking and particular exegetical goals; the connection between particular forms and purposes of reworking and the status of the resulting rewritten text; and the ways in which rewritten texts that constitute new compositions can be distinguished from expanded editions of biblical books. as such, it contributes to the understanding of an important stage in the development of the scriptural text and the history of exegesis. in the cell, proteins are synthesized from nto c-terminus by the ribosome. once emerged from the ribosome exit tunnel, the nascent chain can begin to fold while its c-terminus is still untranslated or constrained inside the ribosome. the conformations of nascent chains once they emerge from the exit tunnel, but before an entire structural domain has appeared, are poorly understood but are known to affect folding pathways and yield. translation rate can be slower than the formation of stable secondary and tertiary structure, meaning that altering translation rate could potentially influence the folding pathway and even the final, folded structure of a protein. synonymous codon substitutions, which are known to alter local elongation rates, have been shown to affect the final structure of certain proteins. however, the effects of non-synonymous mutations have not been explored. in this thesis, i show that non-synonymous mutations known to affect translation rate can predictably alter the folded state of a protein biosensor. additionally, a novel translation stall sequence composed of amino acids and stop codon usage components is characterized.in addition to its effects on protein folding, stalling of translation elongation can also lead to the degradation of nascent polypeptides in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. protease degradation of these stalled nascent polypeptides requires addition of a peptide tag by quality control machinery. i demonstrate that the fragmentation of a model protein is controlled by both its translation rate and its c-terminal sequence polarity. the conformations nascent polypeptide chains adopt while still tethered to the ribosome are not well-characterized. the conformations of proteins composed of primarily β-sheet structure, which contains many long-range interactions, are particularly unknown. here, i describe the development of a technique to probe the surface exposure of a model β-sheet protein (gfp) on the ribosome using covalent labeling of ribosome-gfp-nascent chain complexes coupled to mass spectrometry. a method to isolate ribosome-nascent chain complexes from released gfp was presented and the association of nascent gfp with the ribosome in the complexes was verified. a set of equations modeling compaction behavior in a two phase mixture of inert granular high explosive and interstitial gas, is discussed and solved numerically in two dimensions. this model treats both phases as compressible, viscous fluids using modified navier stokes equations, and standard constitutive relations. one dimensional limits, such as shock tubes and piston-driven problems compare favorably to analytical solutions and experimental data of sandusky, etal cite{sandlid}, respectively. the model also includes explicit intraphase transfer of mass, momenta, and energy to describe the interactions between the two phases, while at the same time conserving mass, momenta, and energy, and maintaining frame invariance. the equations are then solved using simple two-dimensional extensions of these cases, and the results are compared to the one-dimensional data, with good agreement. finally, a forcing term, in the form of a concentrated energy source, is used to demonstrate two-dimensional behavior. compaction is shown to develop in these test problems. this thesis addresses nonlinear electrokinetic mechanisms for transporting fluid and particles in microfluidic devices for potential applications in biomedical chips, microelectronic cooling and microfuel cells. nonlinear electrokinetics have many advantages, such as low voltage, low power, high velocity, and no significant gas formation in the electrolyte. however, they involve new and complex charging and flow mechanisms that are still not fully understood or explored. linear electrokinetic fingering that occurs when a fluid with a lower electrolyte concentration advances into one with a higher concentration is first analyzed. unlike earlier miscible fingering theories, the linear stability analysis is carried out in the self-similar coordinates of the diffusing front. this new spectral theory is developed for small-amplitude gravity and viscous miscible fingering phenomena in general and applied to electrokinetic miscible fingering specifically. transient electrokinetic fingering is shown to be insignificant in sub-millimeter micro-devices. nonlinear electroosmotic flow around an ion-exchange spherical granule is studied next. when an electric field is applied across a conducting and ion-selective porous granule in an electrolyte solution, a polarized surface layer with excess counter-ions is created. the flux-induced polarization produces a nonlinear slip velocity to produce micro-vortices around this sphere. this polarization layer is reduced by convection at high velocity. two velocity scalings at low and high electric fields are derived and favorably compared with experimental results. a mixing device based on this mechanism is shown to produce mixing efficiency 10-100 times higher than molecular diffusion. finally, ac nonlinear electrokinetic flow on electrodes is studied. two double layer charging mechanisms are responsible for the flow---one due to capacitive charging of ions from the bulk electrolyte and one due to faradaic reactions at the electrode that consume or produce ions in the double layer. faradaic charging is analyzed for specific reactions. from the theory, particular electrokinetic flows above the electrodes are selected for micro-pumps and bioparticle trapping by specifying the electrode geometry and the applied voltage and frequency. this thesis examines the dismantling of the chorus' functions in sophocles' electra in hugo von hofmannsthal and richard strauss' opera adaptation of the play in order to demonstrate that this action reflects hofmannsthal's personal literary crisis, which involved the tension between literary tradition and innovation.the first chapter explores the classical greek tragic chorus as a locus of societal and civic tension, and then traces the development of the chorus in the context of opera in order to show that this structural element of the genre is in fact the inheritor of these tensions, which stem from competing interpretations of past and present within the civic and ritualized context of classical greek tragic performances. the second chapter then offers a comparative analysis of sophocles' play and hofmannsthal's libretto, citing freudian psychoanalysis as a formative context for hofmannsthal's innovation and subsequent representation of his own literary crisis.the final chapter examines the musical formulae of strauss' score in order to demonstrate that they highlight the literary innovations that hofmannsthal has made, focusing on the extreme isolation of the heroine and the competing forces of past and present within the work. data in many growing fields has an underlying network structure that can be taken advantage of. in this dissertation we apply data and network science to problems in the domains of systems biology and healthcare. data challenges in these fields include noisy, heterogeneous data, and a lack of ground truth. the primary thesis of this work is that the application of data mining and network science to data with these challenges must be carefully joined with domain knowledge. in the fields of systems biology and healthcare, data mining is increasingly being used to create models that represent the current state of understanding of important problems. these models are used to determine the direction of future work and to evaluate novel approaches. therefore, any systematic bias in the models can be detrimental to scientific progress. for these same reasons, data mining has enormous potential to contribute to advances in our understanding. through our study of data and network science in this context we innovate new methods and highlight open and important problems. we strongly advocate the use of multiple measures for relationships in data in addition to heterogeneous data for the construction of network models, as relationships are often a matter of degree and no single measure or data set can capture everything about a problem. inversions 2rb, 2rc, and 2ru are shared between chromosomal forms, bamako, mopti, savanna, forest and bissau of anopheles gambiae s.s. a major malaria vector in africa. molecular analysis of these inversion breakpoints is essential for a better understanding of the chromosomal rearrangement mechanisms and knowledge of their structure and may lead to the development of pcr-based diagnostic assays that can be used to differentiate the chromosomal forms. we performed in situ hybridization and cloned dna sequence analyses to identify and characterize these inversion breakpoints on chromosome 2rbc/bc, in mopti, on 2rjcu/jcu in bamako, and on 2rb/b in savanna. the 2ru proximal breakpoint contained repetitive dna and single copy gene sequences interrupted by the breakpoint. the 2rb distal breakpoint contained an assembly of unique sequences and repetitive elements, including complete and degenerated transposable elements. the 2ru proximal breakpoint features make it difficult to verify its genomic structure by pcr amplification. however, fish and pcr analyses of this breakpoint provided a promising molecular assay to diagnose it in individual mosquitoes. pcr amplification of the 2rb distal breakpoint confirmed the molecular structure (4085 bp of unique and repetitive sequences) described by sequence analyses and led to the first step in molecular karyotyping of the 2rb inversion. the study described in this thesis provided groundwork for future molecular investigations (gene expression profile and sequence variation) of the 2rb, 2rc and 2ru inversion breakpoints. we start with a brief introduction about the topological properties of real networks. most real networks are scale-free, being characterized by a power-law degree distribution. the scale-free nature of real networks leads to unexpected properties such as the vanishing epidemic threshold. traditional methods aiming to reduce the spreading rate of viruses cannot succeed on eradicating the epidemic on a scale-free network. we demonstrate that policies that discriminate between the nodes, curing mostly the highly connected nodes, can restore a finite epidemic threshold and potentially eradicate the virus. we find that the more biased a policy is towards the hubs, the more chance it has to bring the epidemic threshold above the virus' spreading rate. we continue by studying a large web portal as a model system for a rapidly evolving network. we find that the visitation pattern of a news document decays as a power law, in contrast with the exponential prediction provided by simple models of site visitation. this is rooted in the inhomogeneous nature of the browsing pattern characterizing individual users: the time interval between consecutive visits by the same user to the site follows a power law distribution, in contrast with the exponential expected for poisson processes. we show that the exponent characterizing the individual user's browsing patterns determines the power-law decay in a document's visitation. finally, we turn our attention to biological networks and demonstrate quantitatively that protein complexes in the yeast, saccharomyces cerevisiae, are comprised of a core in which subunits are highly coexpressed, display the same deletion phenotype (essential or non-essential) and share identical functional classification and cellular localization. the results allow us to define the deletion phenotype and cellular task of most known complexes, and to identify with high confidence the biochemical role of hundreds of proteins with yet unassigned functionality. luminescent imaging techniques, utilizing optical chemical sensors based on fluorescence, have been the subject of much attention in recent years. in aerodynamic research, point measurements of a given quantity over the surface of a test article are widely utilized as the most straightforward and conventional approach. although point measurements have several advantages such as sensitivity, linearity, and mechanical robustness, the invasiveness of many transducers creates additional disturbances in the observed flow. by contrast, luminescent imaging, which allows for high spatial resolution, non-intrusiveness, and remote sensing capabilities, requires an improvement in sensitivity to capture minute signal fluctuations.a differential luminescent imaging method is developed to detect and resolve small fluctuations in an unsteady measurement. the target resolution is fluctuations less than 1.0 % of the mean component of the measurement quantity. with existing luminescent imaging techniques, it is still challenging to capture such fluctuations because the mean value occupies most of the dynamic range of the measurement output. an interdisciplinary approach using photochemistry, electrical engineering, and optical diagnostics has been used to accomplish this measurement goal.a photophysical model is derived in this study to describe the developed luminescent imaging method. a point-based measurement system is developed to validate the static and dynamic characteristics of the model. as an illustrative application of the differential luminescent imaging, an acoustic field in a resonance box, which creates spatially distributed minute pressure fluctuations, is used. the developed point-based measurement system captures pressure information by traversing over the acoustic field and capturing consecutive point measurements. a fluctuation of 0.4 % of the mean pressure is resolved with a spatial resolution of 1.5 mm in diameter and temporal resolution of 100 khz. uncertainty analysis of the differential luminescent imaging method is given based on a linear regression, photodegradation, and statistical propagation of noise. this dissertation comprises two major components that sequentially describe literature reviews pertinent to tetrahydropyran-containing small macrolides of cyanobacterial origins and research in the field of synthetic organic chemistry that demonstrates synthetic methodology development directed for stereoselective production of highly functionalized oxacycles and their applications in complex molecule synthesis. the research discussion commences with a systematic study towards the total synthesis of (+)-acutiphycin, a highly cytotoxic macrolide with an unknown mode of action. our convergent route was highlighted by an extensive utilization of the vinylogous mukaiyama aldol reactions for the construction of both southern and northern hemispheres of the macrolide. the acutiphycin study concluded with a thorough investigation of aldol-mediated advanced fragments coupling strategy. our research continues with the development of electrophile-induced ether transfer reaction. this novel synthetic method readily generated 1,3-syn diol monoether, a common functionality in polyketide that presents a significant synthetic challenge. this transformation was accomplished by simply exposing homoallylic alkoxymethyl ether to iodine monochloride. the reaction mechanism was proposed via an intermediacy of chloromethyl ether as observed by in situ nmr experiments. the ability to quench the chloromethyl ether intermediate with various nucleophiles, such as cyanide or thiophenol, showcased the versatility of the ether transfer reaction. this strategy readily yielded precursors for the production of six-membered oxygen heterocycles via a general three-step sequence: ether transfer, cyclization, and functionalization reactions. depending upon the functionalization step, a robust production of stereocomplementary 4-alkoxy-2,6-cisand trans-disubstituted tetrahydropyrans and trans-2,6-disubstituted-3,4-dihydropyrans was successfully achieved in a stereoselective fashion. these methods were then successfully applied to an efficient construction of the oxacycle core of phorboxazole a and swinholide a. our final research project describes a concise enantioselective total synthesis of neopeltolide macrolactone. the successful synthetic approach was highlighted by sequential utilization of the ether transfer methodology, functionalization, and radical cyclization to directly install the requisite stereochemistry embedded within neopeltolide's tetrahydropyran ring. our synthesis only required 14 steps in the longest linear sequence, 15 steps overall. more importantly, it was free of discreet installation steps for protecting groups, thus representing a rare example in complex polyketide synthesis. de mysterio missae has received relatively little recent scholarly attention from liturgical historians and theologians. interest in the text has either focused on questions surrounding its authenticity or on a few short passages in which albertus magnus (1200-1280) speaks out against specific allegorical interpretations of ritual acts or prayers. although the authenticity of the text is no longer in any real doubt, due to these scholarly foci and the lack of a critically edited version of the text, de mysterio missae has remained one of albertus magnus' lesser-known works. made up of three tractatus which conform to the contours of the liturgy, de mysterio missae offers albertus's vision of the mass and its place in the economy of salvation. he embraces the view put forth by the earlier theologian and philosopher, pseudo-dionysius the areopagite. through the sacrament of the eucharist and the ritual that leads up to and comes after its confection, according to this view, god inclines to us and draws us back up to him, imparting as much divinizing grace to each participant as s/he is able to receive. this divinization process involves not only the progression of god's moving out and returning to himself but also entails each individual being purified, illuminated, and perfected. this dissertation provides a thorough study of the text including analyses of its formal, structural, and literary aspects, exposition of its liturgical and theological content. in addition, it contains a comparison of de mysterio missae with liturgical commentaries by innocent iii, william of melitona, hugh of st. cher, and guerric of st. quentin; innocent iii's commentary was extremely influential on albertus' own and that of others; those written by the other three of these demonstrates its relationship to the work of fellow thirteenth-century mendicant theologians. each of the above-described chapters demonstrate the intellectual contribution albertus has made with de mysterio missae and its interpretation of the liturgy, as a theological treatise written within the context of the thirteenth century commentary tradition. thermal-hydraulic networks are widely used in the heating and cooling of building complexes, industrial processes, power plants, and in many other applications. a single pipe with a flow-control valve is a basic unit in a thermal-hydraulic network, and therefore transient pipe flow due to control-valve actuation is studied first. different analytical approximations are applied to this nonlinear problem, and of these the homotopy analysis method is shown to be the most promising. the study is then extended to a simple piping network, for which the mathematical model is a set of nonlinear differential-algebraic equations. by constructing a homotopy deformation of these equations, a dynamical system is obtained which is more tractable than the original. the hydrodynamic and thermal interaction between subsystems as the network goes from one steady state to another is studied experimentally. a step change is introduced by manually actuating a valve in one loop, which results in temperature and pressure changes in the other loops. the response time of the temperature is found to be an order of magnitude higher than that of the flow rate, which is again an order of magnitude higher than for the pressure difference. there is significant interaction between the loops, and that it is dependent on the initial operating condition. the hydrodynamic and thermal responses are found to be very different. the experimental results are explained using a mathematical model of the processes. self-sustained flow and temperature oscillations occur in thermal-hydraulic networks with thermostatic control. experiments are conducted of the synchronization of coupled oscillators set up by the simultaneous action of multiple controllers on different secondary loops. frequency locking, phase synchronization as well as phase slips are observed to occur due to thermal-hydraulic coupling between the controllers. a simplified mathematical model of synchronization in a system with many thermostatically-controlled oscillators is developed. each subsystem is coupled with its neighbors by conductive heat transfer, and they are arranged in the form of a ring. the properties of the system are discussed, and numerical simulations are performed. the results show the presence of a rich array of synchronization dynamics. in this thesis, the reliability index approach, ria, and the monte carlo simulation were implemented as a reliability analysis tool for missile trajectory simulation. this analysis tool was developed using matlabå¨ and deployed as a stand alone application on multiple operating system platforms. testing was performed to verify the fidelity of the ria solution and to compare computational time of analysis with a baseline monte carlo simulation. although the ria method proves to be efficient with respect to computational cost and time, the accuracy and consistency of the solution is compromised. multiple input multiple output (mimo) and small cells are key technologies utilized in advanced wireless networks. with the shrinkage in cell radius, the probability of line-of-sight (los) or specular reflections increases, impacting the form of the channel model that should be used. mimo systems can also be equipped with multi-polarized arrays to improve their performance, however, this adds to the complexity and asymmetry in the channel model. in this thesis we propose a novel wideband statistical mimo channel model that is capable of incorporating los and specular reflections into a correlation-based polarization-sensitive multipath mimo model. los and specular reflections are observed as sinusoidal components in the channel impulse response, however, their detection and estimation is a difficult task since the number of ``stationary' independent samples taken in the time-domain from a wideband channel impulse response is limited to a small number before the channel statistics begin to change substantially. we apply extreme value theory (evt) to the problem of enumerating sinusoids in unknown correlated gaussian noise. results are applied in an algorithm that allows enumeration and estimation of los or specular reflections in a sequence of measured channel impulse responses. in order to demonstrate the efficacy of the approach with real-world measurements, we designed a wideband mimo channel sounder to capture channel impulse response snapshots. assuming the channel model form, we applied parameter estimation techniques to derive a wideband model for the observed channel. this model was then shown to represent the measured channel using various figures of merit such as capacity, frequency correlation function and singular value distribution. two primary outcomes resulted from this work. first, a stochastic model for wideband multi-polarized mimo channels that incorporates multiple line-of-sight or specular rays has been developed and empirically validated in an indoor environment. second, a model order selection criterion has been proposed and demonstrated for the enumeration of sinusoids in unknown correlated gaussian noise. patchwork fictions: addressing disruption in seventeenthand eighteenthcentury british and french women's fiction revisits works of english women authors such as jane barker and eliza haywood alongside the prose-fiction of influential french predecessors such as madeleine de scudéry and charlotte de la force. in considering this lesser-feted dialogue, patchwork fictions demands a renewed historiography of women's writing that acknowledges the longer history of prose fiction. in these writings, authors turn to patchwork— as a metaphor and as a method of writing— to respond to the seismic changes that occur in moments of historical disruptions such as war, environmental catastrophe, or scientific revolutions. twentieth-century's anglo-centric and masculinist narrative of "the rise of the novel" blinded english literary studies to a dynamic, longstanding tradition of prose fiction. the neglect has had a far-reaching impact on our understanding of the value of these works— affecting, germane to my purposes, seventeenth-and eighteenth-century women's writing which is often attacked for being ideologically garbled and sub-standard in relation to novelistic standards. patchwork fictions imagines the lines of continuity — formal, tropological, thematic, and ideological — that would have been possible to identify if the "novel" did not dominate critical discussion. "patchwork" fictions defy linear plotting, critique causality, and develop politicized vocabularies of love and feeling. i posit "patchwork" fictions as a tradition of prose-fiction that is still alive in contemporary fiction but the term itself is borrowed from jane barker's the galesia trilogy. in barker's original story, when a real fabric patchwork is being constructed, galesia is invited to contribute her own patches of fabric to it. when galesia's trunk is brought to retrieve pieces of fabric, stories, poems, and pieces of writing are found instead. the resulting "patchwork" — the trilogy — contains women's personal stories of love, death, and trauma that are stitched together to construct an imitable model that writers have continued to adopt when responding to disruptions. patchwork fictions preserves in its form the violence of historical-change and acknowledge the impossibility of linear, developmental, and totalizing narratives. the various modes by which new animal species are generated are still in many ways contentious amongst evolutionary biologists. some tout the primacy of geographic isolation in driving divergence, while others insist that sympatric speciation can and does occur with appreciable frequency. the latter view has gained traction in recent decades, due to an ever-enlarging pool of examples demonstrating the feasibility of sympatric divergence. however, there remains a bias towards an assumption of an allopatric contribution to any speciation event. perhaps this bias is justified, but perhaps it is a consequence of the type of organisms that speciation studies typically focus on: the free-living, habitat and/or diet generalist, vertebrate. but these organisms do not represent the majority of animal life. the millions upon millions of small specialist organisms (including most parasites), for whom highly developed interactions with their environment are crucial to survival and reproduction, may move along evolutionary trajectories influenced more by ecology than physical isolation. the goal of my dissertation was to test a hypothesis of sequential radiation, wherein the speciation of a phytophagous insect drives parallel divergence in one of its parasitoids. i used the wasp diachasma alloeum (hymenoptera: braconidae) as a study organism. its host, rhagoletis pomonella (diptera: tephritidae) is one of the preeminent examples of incipient sympatric speciation via host shifting; flies shifted from their ancestral hawthorn host into introduced european apples ~160 years ago. diachasma alloeum wasps were reared from apple and hawthorn races of r. pomonella, as well as from the blueberry maggot, r. mendax, and snowberry maggot, r. zephyria. wasps were scored for 21 polymorphic microsatellite loci and a 603 bp segment of the mitochondrial coi gene. wasps were also assayed for host odor discrimination behavior using a y-tube olfactometer. finally, host-related differences in wasp eclosion times were also investigated as a potential mechanism of allochronic isolation. three main findings emerged from the dissertation research: 1) genetic distances based on microsatellite frequencies revealed host-associated differences among apple, hawthorn, and blueberry fly-origin d. alloeum populations, independent of geographic origin. furthermore, patterns of differentiation were different from locus to locus; some loci showed pronounced differences between host-associated populations, others showed a marked isolation by distance effect, irrespective of host type. 2) apple, hawthorn and blueberry-origin d. alloeum showed preferences for the odor of their natal fruit and were antagonized by non-natal odors. 3) apple, blueberry and hawthorn-origin d. alloeum differed in their average time to eclosion, and eclosion timing was correlated with the frequencies of certain microsatellite alleles. taken together, the results from this study support sequential radiation for the r. pomonella / d. alloeum system. for small specialist animals, diversity may generate further diversity. 1 kings 13 is a strange story with many plot reversals. this prophetic narrative has long confused readers and challenged interpreters. questions abound about many aspects of the narrative, especially those related to its unity and theme. this dissertation addresses these problems through studying this text in three stages: first, in its pre-deuteronomistic form, second, in its setting within the deuteronomistic history, and, finally, in its larger canonical context. the work of uriel simon is consulted in the pre-deuteronomistic stage. robert l. cohn's article and gary n. knoppers' monograph come into play in the deuteronomistic stage. in the canonical stage, karl barth's theological exegesis is explained and defended. after this progressive study, it is concluded that 1 kings 13 is a united story with a single, expansive theme: the prevailing and enduring power of the word of the lord. isaiah 40:8: 'the grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our god will stand forever.' reducing the energy requirements for orthopedic instruments is desirable for many reasons. in situations with limited energy resources, such as relief efforts for natural disasters, reducing energy requirements for orthopedic instruments would increase the availability of powered surgical tools. additionally, alternative power sources, without the environmental concern of batteries for disposal, could be used with low energy instruments, bringing more powered surgical tools into these types of situations. even in situations where energy is available, it is desirable to reduce the energy used by surgical tools. for example, reducing energy requirements in surgical drilling could reduce the rates of drill bit wear and fracture and the risk of injury to the surgeon. reducing energy requirements is also beneficial to decrease the amount of energy dissipated in the form of heat; limiting thermal necrosis and subsequently improving healing and the ability of the cut surface to property anchor to an implant or close a gap. surgical implant, cutting tool, and power source designs can be investigated to reduce the energy requirements for orthopedic surgical procedures. small diameter pins in external fixators require less energy for insertion and are therefore well suited for low energy designs. the feasibility of using small diameter pins in cases of external fixation is investigated using three-dimensional numerical models. the process of drilling is widely applied in orthopedic surgical procedures and is particularly useful in fracture fixation. an understanding of how geometric design parameters affect the performance of orthopedic drill bits is desired to guide future low energy designs. this work details the development and validation of plane strain and three-dimensional orthogonal cutting models and three-dimensional drilling models of bone, utilizing arbitrary lagrangian eulerian adaptive meshing. an experimental study was conducted to investigate the performance of a particular orthopedic drill bit design against other current designs and to compare its performance with the results from the three-dimensional drilling numerical model.with a focus on the reduction of energy requirements in orthopedic surgical procedures, alternative power sources can be investigated. this work includes a feasibility study of a proposed alternative power source for use with pneumatic surgical drills. shared memory many-core processors such as gpus have been extensively used in accelerating computation-intensive algorithms and applications. when porting existing algorithms from sequential or other parallel architecture models to shared memory many-core architectures, non-trivial modifications are often needed to match the execution patterns of the target algorithms with the characteristics of many-core architectures. this dissertation presents a collection of methods and techniques for accelerating various important applications on gpu, including radiation dose calculation, ray tracing based graphics rendering, and nearest neighbor search. specifically, we study the performance issues of ray traversal in spatially decomposed scenes, and propose a new data structure, called shell, to completely eliminate the expensive hierarchical search operations. we also develop an efficient gpu implementation of the three dimensional digital differential analyzer (3d-dda) algorithm, which avoids the overhead of execution divergence by replacing the nested conditional instructions with a set of simple operations. those two methods are used to accelerate the collapsed cone convolution superposition (cccs) algorithm, which is the clinical choice for dose calculation in radiation treatment planning systems. furthermore, we present a locality enhancing method for monte carlo based ray tracing (mcbrt) algorithm on cpu-gpu heterogeneous systems, which improves the spatial and temporal data locality by organizing random rays into coherent groups. finally, we propose a series of techniques to accelerate nearest neighbor search algorithm on gpu, including a gpu-cache efficient data structure (k-pack tree), a coherent parallel search algorithm, and a cost model based performance optimization method. for each of the target applications, our proposed approaches provide non-trivial performance speedup over the state-of-the-art work, e.g., 6–8x in monte carlo dose calculation, and 3.5–5.5x in graphics ray tracing. our techniques can be implemented in various parallel programming models, such as cuda and opencl, and applicable on many modern gpu architectures, including nvidia kepler/maxwell, amd gcn, and intel xeon phi. since ancient times, the creation of new cities or their regeneration went hand in hand with the evolution of architecture. both by pleasure, as well as by necessity, society leaves behind built marks which are trying to represent it the best way possible. the aim of my thesis is to find a correct approach to the issue of urban revitalization through architectural means, in the context of a specific urban frame, of a particular history, culture and way of life. the thesis is divided in two. the first part is concerned with the issues raised by the building of a new structure in the urban texture of an old, medieval city, namely a faculty of architecture that the town needs and requests. the second part works with the concepts and controversies between conservation/ reconstruction/ renovation/ rehabilitation/ reconversion, about what each of them can offer, and what is the right answer for a particular problem, if there is such a thing as a uniquely right answer. what unites the two parts is their role in revitalizing the life of the city, rebuilding a broken bridge between the community and a part of the city which, although central and of high importance by its role of linking the upper town with the lower town, has fallen in disgrace and oblivion. architecturally, the focus falls on the new proposed building. the aim is to reach harmony with the built context. not to intrude manifesting an unnecessary originality, but also not to vanish into the fabric of the city, by imitating the old. the solutions is to come from a sound understanding of the city, of its rhythms, of its proportions, of its musical successions of historical periods and different architectural styles, of its topography, with the ascending and descending paths, all of which make the beauty and give the unique character of the town. the new building will have to be integrated in the site by means of volume, profile or silhouette in the urban landscape; by the coherence with the environment; by the presence of history &ndash; allusive or direct signs of the past in the materials used, in textures or compositions; and by the dialogue between history and contemporary needs in terms of new needs, of the composition of spaces and new technologies. the rehabilitation of the asylum cloister intents to conclude the effort of reinventing life in an abandoned space in a successful way. the project of installing an innedit museum of the city and an exhibition place for medieval objects of cult rescued from ruined churches and fortresses throughout transylvania into the old, reinforced structure of the asylum church, and the creation of new studio spaces for the local artists combines the old with the new, history with contemporary art and architecture, presenting history through contemporary mediums, immerging the visitor in the past while keeping him in the present, through the means of technology. with the advances in wireless and location-acquisition communication technologies, spatial-temporal data is ubiquitous in real world ranging from social media to urban planning. two important tasks in spatial-temporal analysis are (i) inference, e.g., estimating the data for unknown locations by taking advantage of the observations from known locations; (ii) forecasting, e.g., with the aim of predicting future trends by understanding past observations with spatial-temporal information.a key challenge in mining spatial-temporal data often lies in the complex dependence structures from spatial-temporal dimensions. to fully harness the power of spatial-temporal data, this work aims to develop novel machine learning frameworks to make inferences and predictions on data by uncovering the dynamic spatial-temporal patterns. work in this thesis investigates various applications that help data-driven decision makers by providing a better understanding of our physical environments. the results of the work in this proposal are important because they provide a solid analytical foundation to accurate and effective modeling of spatial-temporal data, and directly contribute to the emerging field of computational sustainability, social science and urban planning. carbon-carbon composites exhibit excellent mechanical properties, especially at high temperatures. unfortunately oxidation is a serious problem for these materials. carbon materials can adsorb oxygen and react, forming carbon oxides at temperature as low as 400'_ac, limiting their use in high temperature oxidative environments. acid treatments, in particular phosphoric acid, have been used with some success to prevent oxidation. we studied the inhibiting effect of phosphoric acid using powder samples, 75 åáv 125 micrometers, from a carbon brake composite. the samples were impregnated by incipient wetness with an aqueous solution of ortho-phosphoric acid. the samples were heat-treated and oxidized using temperature programming method (tpo) under dry airflow. results show that the activation energy for all of the samples are similar, inferring that phosphoric acid blocks oxidation sites without changing the chemical properties of the material; moreover, results with different concentrations of phosphoric acid show that the inhibiting effect is seen in all temperatures åáv between 600'_ac and 900'_ac. results with larger particles show a better performance of the phosphoric acid treated samples, suggesting a mass transfer related control of the oxidation rate. studies are being conducted to determine if the inhibitors form a film slowing down oxidation of carbon composite materials. wireless sensor networks have been the object of many recent studies. they have applications in various domains such as building monitoring, habitat and environmental monitoring. the deployed sensors are able to gather information about sensed phenomena and route them towards a base station for later processing and decision making. the nodes are often deployed in unfriendly environments that are hard to access. furthermore, sensors are subject to hard energy constraints. the usual goal of a wireless sensor network is to sense in a precise fashion a phenomenon for as long as possible. for all these reasons, the development of power aware routing algorithms i.e. algorithms which would permit an extended lifetime of the network is of capital importance. this study seeks to recover the richness of augustine's ecclesiology by exploring the development of his thought on the church as a great 'mystery' and 'sacrament' (magnum sacramentum). it contributes to the scholarship that documents the shift from augustine's earlier, more platonizing views to his mature biblical and sacramental theology, particularly after his reading of paul in the 390s. chapter 1 examines the distinction between the latin terms mysterium and sacramentum for the translation of the biblical &#956;&#965;&#963;&#964;&#942;&#961;&#953;&#959;&#957;. augustine inherits this distinction from predecessors such as cyprian, hilary, and ambrose, and applies it to the church in order to unite the 'invisible' and 'visible' aspects of the one mystery. for augustine, the church resists reduction to an 'inner, invisible' reality, for her 'outer, visible' condition in history is intrinsic to the mystery revealed by scripture. chapters 2 and 3 trace the development of augustine's ecclesiology through his use of two key themes: 1) the body of christ, and 2) the bride of christ. augustine's early works, such as the cassiciacum dialogues, reveal the influence of neoplatonism upon his thought, with an emphasis on the ascent of the soul that yields vision. after the biblical shift in augustine's thought, he reconfigures the plotinian ascent according to the paschal mystery, such that vision is subordinated to the charity mediated through the church's sacramental life. as the body and bride of christ on pilgrimage, the church undergoes a process of transformation and growth in history by participation in a sacramental economy. chapter 4 traces the development of augustine's theology of sacrifice from an individualistic, spiritual sacrifice of the mind to a communal offering celebrated visibly at the eucharistic altar. in her celebration of the eucharistic sacrifice, the church learns to offer herself as a sacrifice in conformation to christ, and so the church is herself a 'sacrament' (sacramentum), a sacred sign, of the invisible sacrifice of the 'whole christ' (totus christus) offered in the daily sacrifice of christians. augustine's mature eucharistic ecclesiology serves as a patristic resource for lumen gentium's notion of the church as the 'universal sacrament of salvation.' previous research has considered different ways an individual's sense of control may influence his or her propensity to commit crime, mostly by focusing on a perceived lack of control and juvenile delinquency. the current research seeks to clarify the relationship between sense of control and the criminal outcomes of theft and assault for an adult sample, using the 1992 oklahoma city survey. three dimensions of sense of control are examined: general sense of control, relative sense of control, and autonomy. the findings reveal that the three dimensions of sense of control have differential effects for the propensity to steal and physically hurt another person. the current research is discussed within the framework of control balance theory, although it does not contend to be a direct test of this theory. currently in the electronics industry, finite element (fe) models are widely used as tools for reducing design costs. however, to have confidence in these models, they must closely match real world test results, including time to failure and failure mode. in the past, laboratory test data have been used to supplement, refine, and validate the fe models by means of a correlation between thermal variations and cycles to failure. in this work, mechanical loading is applied as well. test coupons populated with components are tested in an apparatus that applies cyclic four point bending simultaneously with thermal cycles. this bending is regulated to a given surface strain measured by a thermally insensitive strain gauge mounted on the surface of the printed circuit board (pcb). in addition to the mechanical loading, the pcb is enclosed in a thermal chamber to provide synchronized cyclic thermal loading as well. electrical continuity and resistance in the solder joints is monitored, and the specimens are tested until failure criteria, usually based on detection of an open circuit, are met. this dissertation is a broad story of the selective 'de-secularization' of politics within the western state. through a comparative longitudinal study of governmental policies in britain, france, and the united states, i uncover and illuminate the different conditions under which religion has risen to the forefront of state agendas as a problem to be addressed and as a solution for the western state in its quest to incorporate its domestic muslim community. my research explores the historical roots of how religion came to be politicized within the western state in the 1990s and offers a comparative analysis of contemporary policies. i adapt guiraudon and lahav's theory of venue shopping and delegation, coupled with insights from earlier work on buffer institutions in the context of race relations, to examine how the strategic use of institutional venue by state actors sought to reconcile the competing security and incorporation imperatives. i argue that venue-shopping is a strategy employed by british, french, and american elites in order to circumvent constraints imposed by politicization of national security and muslim incorporation issues as well as harness the benefits of a more insulated process and third-party partnerships, particularly with muslim leaders and organizations. i conceptualize both the restrictive measures (security as well as targeted, discriminatory 'integration' initiatives) that have received the bulk of the attention in the post-9/11 context as well as the more inclusive measures that have been the focus of separate scrutiny as interconnected responses by policy-makers. in doing so, i provide an assessment of the post-9/11 context and how the development of state policies countering terrorism has affected muslim incorporation policies. the objective of this dissertation is to make microgrids, especially utility-scale ones, play a more important role in power system operations. equipped with power electronic interfaces to power systems, microgrids were initially used to improve power quality by providing power services locally. as a new kind of energy resource in future electric power grids, microgrids are expected to contribute more to power system operations. both technical and operational challenges should be conquered to realize this vision. the technical challenge concerns power quality in the form of voltage magnitude and frequency synchronization. the operational challenge involves the impact of utility-scale microgrids on deregulated power market operations.before widely using microgrids in a power system, stability analysis is necessary to ensure high power quality at each microgrid's connection point. it is assumed that droop control mechanisms are used as the primary controllers at each microgrid's point of connection. conditions for voltage stability and frequency synchronization are derived for a power distribution network with microgrids. in voltage stability analysis, uncontrollable voltage drops, i.e. voltage collapses, are identified using purely algebraic power flow equations. using only local information, static voltage stability is monitored by an index showing how close the power system is to voltage collapse. in a power system that is far from voltage collapse, frequency stability analysis examines whether generators in the power system synchronize. the frequency synchronization conditions are in the form of constraints on controller gains, network parameters, and local loads. in the planning stage of connecting microgrids to a power system, these conditions provide a frequency stability guarantee.in addition to presenting a stability analysis based on primary droop control, this dissertation designs secondary controllers to improve voltage and transient stability at each microgrid's connection point. microgrids, therefore, become valuable resources that can be integrated into a power system with minor modifications to existing control algorithms. these distributed secondary controllers improve voltage stability and transient stability at the connection point of each individual microgrid. furthermore, the proposed secondary controllers for microgrids do not deteriorate frequency synchronization of the overall power network. the proposed secondary controllers therefore enable microgrids to serve as a valuable resource enhancing power security.to meet the operational challenge, this dissertation analyzes the impact of utility-scale microgrids on power markets and proposes a management method that performs better than the traditional approach. as newly introduced energy resources, microgrids and renewable energy resources have a great impact on deregulated power market operations. this impact is reflected in power market performance that is measured in three aspects, including i) average prices for power buyers, ii) power output from these new energy resources, and iii) market total surpluses. using the traditional approach to ensure a valid market clearing point, market operators manage this impact by restricting power supply offers from microgrids and renewable energy resources. because available low-price power supply offers are discarded by market operators, the traditional approach leads to poor power market performance. to achieve better performance, a new method is proposed to manage the impact of microgrids and renewable energy resources. the proposed method generates lower average electricity prices, greater power output from new energy resources and larger total surpluses in power market operations. in addition, implementing this proposed method requires little change to the existing information exchange between traders and market operators. as a result, our proposed method effectively manages utility-scale microgrids so they can serve a greater role in meeting future electrical energy demand.in summary, the main contributions of this dissertation are solutions to technical and operational problems to facilitate greater penetration of utility-scale microgrids in power system operations. from the technical aspect, this dissertation analyzes stability and designs secondary controllers to ensure power quality at each microgrid's connection point. with proposed secondary controllers, each utility-scale microgrid is able to maintain high power quality so that the technical challenge is met. to solve operational problems, this dissertation investigates the impact of utility-scale microgrids on power market operations. to achieve more desirable market operation results, this dissertation proposes a new method that promotes greater participation of utility-scale microgrids in the current power markets. by solving both technical and operational problems, utility-scale microgrids can contribute more to power system operations in deregulated wholesale power markets. for studies of the γ-process, photodisintegration rates on the nuclei involved are crucial. one way to constrain these rates is to measure the inverse capture reactions. in this work six different capture reactions were studied using the high efficiency total absorption spectrometer.four (α,γ) reactions were studied in this work, 90zr(α,γ)94mo, 102pd(α,γ)106cd, 108cd(α,γ)112sn, and 110cd(α,γ)114sn. these reactions were identified in a sensitivity study as being potential branching points in the reaction flow during the γ-process. these reactions were studied at the university of notre dame's nuclear science laboratory using the fn accelerator. with the results from these measurements a theoretical model was found that predicted cross sections within a factor of 2 of all four measured reactions. additionally, two (p,γ) reactions, 94mo(p,γ)95tc and 92mo(p,γ)93tc, were studied. the (p,γ) cross-section measurements were performed at the university of notre dame's nuclear science laboratory using the 5u accelerator. for these measurements an offline filter was developed to remove contamination from the reaction 19f(p,αγ)16o. with the development of this filter the measurements could be performed over almost the entirety of the gamow window. in many engineering applications, the predictions of system responses are uncertain due to our incomplete knowledge related to the system and its environment. for robust analysis and design, all these uncertainties must be explicitly accounted for. a probabilistic approach provides a rational and consistent framework for achieving this goal. in this setting, the analysis and optimization of engineering systems involves a high computational demand, considered prohibitive for complex applications, despite recent advances in computer/computational science. to alleviate these computational challenges, this research investigates the development/use of kernel and metamodel based methodologies within a stochastic simulation framework to facilitate efficient computation in three different tasks: a) probabilistic sensitivity analysis, b) optimization under uncertainty, and c) real-time risk assessment. the implementation and optimization of metamodels for efficient probabilistic performance assessment is studied, focusing on systems with very high dimensional output (something that becomes increasingly relevant with the trend of increasing complexity and scale of modern engineering problems), on the explicit incorporation of the metamodel prediction error in the performance predictions, and on real-time implementation that can support development of standalone applets. additionally, the formulation of adaptive kernels exploiting information from stochastic sampling is investigated. in particular, kernel density estimation (kde) is explored to approximate probability densities within multiple settings (sensitivity analysis, optimization), addressing challenges such as boundary reflections, implementation within domains with complex boundaries, and optimal selection of kde characteristics when used as proposal densities in a stochastic simulation setting. the proposed kde framework is first utilized to facilitate an efficient global sensitivity analysis, to identify the importance towards the overall probabilistic performance of the different uncertain model parameters or of groups of them, exploring concurrently different measures to quantify this importance (and how they can be robustly evaluated). then supported by the probabilistic sensitivity analysis, kde is used to develop an adaptive stochastic sampling algorithm with optimal sampling efficiency in the context of a sequential/iterative application. finally, kde is implemented to support the development of a new optimization under uncertainty algorithm, called non-parametric stochastic subset optimization (np-sso). the extension of the algorithm to reliability-based design optimization problems is also explored. pt(iv) complexes of l2pt(ch3)3no2 (l2 = 1,2bis(diphenylphosphino)ethane (dppe) or 1,2bis(diphenylphosphino)benzene (dppbz)) were synthesized and characterized. on thermolysis in relatively nonpolar solvents, benzene-d6 and thf-d8, the complexes undergo competitive c-c (ethane), c-n (nitromethane), and c-o (methyl nitrite) reductive elimination. heating in acetone-d6 the c-c reductive elimination is favored in polar solvent. with the addition of acid scavenger, pvp, c-n and c-o reductive elimination are observed in high yield in benzene-d6 and thf-d8. mechanistic studies determined that the reactions are initiated by dissociation of no2, leaving a cationic five coordinate pt(iv) intermediate. the c-n and c-o products are then formed by an sn2 attack on a methyl by the dissociated no2-. c-c reductive elimination is in competition with nucleophilic attack and forms solely from the cationic intermediate. the complex (e)-2,4-di-tert-butyl-6-((3,5-di-tert-butyl-2 hydroxybenzylidene)amino)phenol bismuth phenyl ((onco)biph) was successfully synthesized and characterized. attempts to synthesize the bi(v) complex, (onco)biph(oac)2, proved to be difficult. under oxidizing conditions the onco ligand will dissociate from the bismuth and oxidize to form 5,7-di-tert-butyl-2-(2-hydroxy-3,5-di-tert-butylphenyl)benzoxazole. utilizing tetradentate ligands like 6,6'-(piperazine-1,4-diylbis(methylene))bis(2,4-di-tert-butylphenol) or 6,6'-((1,4-diazepane-1,4-diyl)bis(methylene))bis(2-(tert-butyl)-4-methoxyphenol) could bypass the oxidation of the ligand due to the tetradentate ligands being bound more tightly then oncoh2. ipso nitration of boronic acids and boronic acid pinacol esters can be achieved using no2 (g). boronic acids and electron rich boronic pinacol esters typically do not need a catalyst to form the nitro-deboronation product, but the less reactive boronic acid pinacol esters and electron poor boronic acids seem to need a catalyst to form the desired product. several transition metal compounds showed catalytic activity in reactions, however the most suitable catalyst was found to be irpy3cl3. under these conditions good to excellent yields can be obtained. this thesis presents an experimental study on the ultimate stresses and strains of unbonded post-tensioning (pt) strands at wire fracture inside an anchor. the research includes the following strand/anchor configuration parameters: (1) strand diameter; (2) anchor type [cast and barrel type anchors] and physical properties; (3) number of anchor wedges [2-piece and 3-piece wedges]; and (4) presence of a binding ring around the wedges. additionally, the following loading parameters are investigated: (1) loading rate; (2) eccentricity between the strand ends; (3) post-yield cyclic loading; and (4) initial strand stress [i.e., prestress]. the test results are used to make design recommendations and to evaluate strand/anchor configurations that may provide better strand ductility. it is shown that seismic loading can cause a significant reduction in the strand strains at fracture and an increase in the variation of the fracture strains. industry requirements for the validation testing of strand/anchorage systems are assessed. carrie stettheimer's dollhouse was created over the course of almost twenty years (from 1916-1935) and was inspired in part by the stettheimers' luxurious homes, where they hosted a prominent literary and artistic salon. the dollhouse can be read as a three-dimensional counterpart to the whimsical paintings of carrie's sister florine, as both artists shared a penchant for craft, ornament, and miniaturization, all understood to be feminine. carrie and florine's unabashed embrace of these elements placed them somewhat at odds with the avant-garde art world of new york, with which they were nonetheless deeply involved. for not only did the stettheimers host members of the avant-garde at their salon, but florine also painted many of them, and they, in turn, created miniature artworks for carrie's dollhouse. more than simply a vessel for the display of diminutive works by prominent artists such as marcel duchamp, however, the dollhouse is itself a work of art that engages the avant-garde spirit of playfulness that is highlighted by the works it contains. in addition to providing carrie with an outlet from her everyday domestic life, her dollhouse, along with her activities in her home, were part of a systematic attempt to create aesthetically pleasing, fantastical environments and a theatrical mode of life, which can ultimately be viewed as avant-garde in its combination of art and lived reality. a similar playful and pleasure-loving spirit guided the creation of the 'boîtes' and 'boîtes-en-valise', which duchamp began making in 1935. possibly inspired by the stettheimer dollhouse and the miniature 'nude descending a staircase' that he executed for it, duchamp employed miniaturization and reproduction in order to create hundreds of boxes containing miniature 'portable museums' of almost seventy works in his oeuvre. a comparison of duchamp's and stettheimer's projects reveals the fine line between the supposedly very rigid categories of avant-garde and bourgeois, and art and craft (with their attendant gendered associations), that these works effectively blurred. this thesis explores two main mysteries of modern cosmology. i explore possible solutions for the unsolved cosmic lithium problem. secondly i explore many properties of various old and new dark energy models. big bang nucleosynthesis (bbn) has been used as a powerful tool to constrain models of cosmology due to it's precise calculation of light element abundances. however the tool itself has a glaring problem. it's calculation of the amount of lithium is completely wrong. in this thesis , i have shown that the nuclear reaction rates at bbn would be different from the standard calculation. this would alter all the final light element abundance and thus i have shown that all the bbn calculations performed till today is wrong. this completely shatters a pillar of cosmology that has been steady for almost half a century. in the second part of my thesis i constrain the free parameters of many dark energy models by modeling the evolution of dark energy density from a time before bbn till present time. the allowed values of dark energy density today and during bbn can be used to constrain dark energy models. in the study, i consider a simple moderated multiple regression (mmr) model, where the effect of predictor x on the outcome y is moderated by a moderator u. my primary interest is to find ways of estimating and testing the moderation effect with the existence of missing data. i mainly focus on cases when x and/or y are missing completely at random (mcar), missing at random (mar) or missing depending on auxiliary variables (missing not at random; denoted av-mnar). four methods are proposed and compared: (1) listwise deletion; (2) normal-distribution-based maximum likelihood estimation (nml); (3) normal-distribution-based multiple imputation (nmi); and (4) bayesian estimation (be). results from simulation studies show that the proposed methods had different relative performance depending on various factors. the factors are missing data mechanisms, population moderation effect sizes, sample sizes, missing data proportions, and distributions of predictor x. influence of adding auxiliary variables is also discussed in terms of estimation accuracy for nml and nmi. the peptide hormone oxytocin (ot) may influence human cognition by affecting basic processes such as working memory (wm). to date, those effects have not been examined in healthy humans. a second line of research suggests that ot may reduce stress (i.e., cortisol) in men (heinrichs et al., 2003). separate evidence indicates that hormones released during acute stress (e.g., cortisol) can impair or enhance wm (wolf, 2008). therefore, ot's stress-reducing (and potential wm) effects may alter the impact of stress on wm performance and levels of cortisol. in a 2 x 2 double-blind design, 100 healthy men received an intranasal dose of ot or a placebo before participating in a stress or control procedure and completing two counterbalanced wm tasks. participants who received ot had more errors during the wm tasks than those who received the placebo. those who received ot and were exposed to stress had significantly greater cortisol than those who only received ot or those who were exposed to stress. ot may affect broader patterns of human behavior by decreasing attention and stimulating increases in cortisol after stress. in this thesis we explore three projects, all related to the special fiber ring somehow. consider a rational map from projective d-1 space to projective m-1 space given by m many degree δ forms, g_1,...,g_m, in d variables. let i be the ideal generated by these forms. the special fiber ring is the ring corresponding to the closure of the image of this map, denoted f(i).in the first project we restrict to the case d = 2 and m = 3. in this case proj(f(i)) is a rational plane curve, and we analyze its singularities using the syzygy matrix of i. we are specifically interested in cusps. motivated by this and the classical plücker relations, we exhibit a curious categorization of the dual curve using the syzygy matrix. we then use this to give previously unknown bounds on the number of cusps for fixed splitting types.in the second project we ask for fixed d, m, and δ, as the g_i vary what is the minimal multiplicity of f(i)? this study leads us to investigate the case when i is a strongly stable ideal. we give classification results for minimal multiplicity strongly stable elements and also study when an equigenerated 2-borel ideal is cohen-macaulay.finally, in the third project, we investigate the case where i defines a gorenstein-linear ideal for d ≥ 4. in this case, we are most interested in the defining equations of the special fiber ring. we describe the symmetric gorenstein-linear ideals when δ = 3 and use sagbi basis techniques to exhibit some evidence for a conjecture. this dissertation examines dante's ideas on emotions or affects, and the literary, moral, and spiritual significance of affectivity in his writings— in the commedia and the vita nova—in the context of medieval affective piety. i focus on the pilgrim-protagonist's key affects and affective states, such as fear (paura), grief (dolore) and sorrow (tristizia), and study his inner affective growth and transformation, i.e., the education of affects the pilgrim-protagonist receives and showcases.as i demonstrate, in conversation with the tradition of affective piety in his own stories of salvation and redemption, dante brings important thinkers of affective piety—augustine, anselm, bernard, aquinas, and bonaventure—onto stage in the commedia as characters, who, with their life stories full of affections, and with their expressed affections towards each other and towards the pilgrim, teach dante about affection and faith. the affections that the pilgrim experiences in his spiritual journey—fear, sorrow and eventually joy—are a participation in christ's affections on the cross, and the remembrance of god's love for us. all the guides that dante has in the commedia bear the grace of christ, and are, together as an "affective community," a testimony of god's love. all the affective relationships the pilgrim has formed in his journey, with his relationships to virgil and beatrice as the center of focus, are ultimately his encounter with christ's love. the study of parkinson's disease (pd) has mainly included mammalian models treated with neurotoxins that selectively destroy dopaminergic (da) cells. we previously isolated the zebrafish night blindness b (nbb) mutation, which causes a progressive loss of da cells in the heterozygous adult retina and small eyes with disorganized retinas in the embryonic lethal homozygous mutants. in this study, brain da neurons that were comparable to the human nigral striatal system affected in pd were examined in aged heterozygous nbb mutants. variation in the number of th-positive cell numbers was seen in the diencephalic posterior tuberculum in both aged wild-type and mutant fish, but no significant overall decreases in average cell number were found in the mutants. identification of individual mutant fish with cell numbers lower than wild-type range or with higher frequency of low cell count may imply incomplete gene penetrance. previous cloning of the nbb locus revealed an intron-splicing point mutation in the scl/tal1 interrupting locus (stil). complementation tests with nbb and another zebrafish stil mutant, cassiopeia (cspcz65), showed that the two mutant alleles did not complement. stil is involved in embryonic development and cancer cell proliferation. it serves dual functions as a binding partner to sufu in the shh pathway, and as a checkpoint protein in spindle pole formation during mitotic entry. to further evaluate novel mechanisms of stil in da cells, the catecholaminergic mammalian pc12 line was used to examine its role in da proliferation, differentiation and survival. it was hypothesized that stil would have a multi-functional role in pc12 cells. rnai knockdown of stil yielded a decreased proliferation rate, whereas overexpression of the human full-length stil transcript increased proliferation. the differentiation of pc12 cells by ngf stimulated stil expression in low-serum conditions. knockdown or over-expression of stil did not affect neurite extension during differentiation. in cell survival assays with 6-ohda, , knockdown of stil did not affect toxin sensitivity in undifferentiated cells, but over-expression of stil augmented toxin sensitivity. in ngf-induced cells, stil knockdown increased drug sensitivity, whereas over-expression of stil did not have an effect. the upand down-regulation of the shh pathway by pharmacological approaches (e.g., cyclopamine and purmorphamine) demonstrated that stil may function in this pathway for pc12 proliferation. results from this study suggests a novel role for the oncogene stil in progenitor cell proliferation and survival of differentiated cells, and further introduces stil as a genetic bio-marker for catecholiminergic (e.g., da) cells. anopheles gambiae is the major african vector of malaria parasites, which are responsible for almost 1 million deaths annually, predominantly small children. improving our understanding of the biology of the mosquito vectors is important in generating new methods of control at a time when there is emerging resistance of the mosquito to insecticide and resistance of the malaria parasite to drug treatment. in this work the identification, characterization and comparison of rhythmic gene expression under light:dark and dark:dark conditions in an. gambiae mosquitoes using dna microarrays is performed. comparisons are also made to rhythmic gene profiling previously performed in the aedes aegypti mosquito. one prominent set of rhythmic genes identified included olfactory and blood-feeding behavior genes. quantitative proteomics was performed on antennae of these mosquitoes, confirming the rhythmic protein levels of several of these proteins. time-of-day specific changes in electroantennogram (eag) sensitivity and blood feeding behavior was also demonstrated. finally, the characterization and comparison of daily flight rhythms in male and female anopheles gambiae mosquitoes of the m & s molecular forms is performed. li-ion batteries are the dominant electrical storage technology for both consumer electronics and electrified transportation. they have become predominant in these roles due to their low weight and high current density compared to other rechargeable battery designs. however, their liquid electrolytes are flammable, therefore the use of a solid electrolyte would provide greater safety. the solid electrolyte li7la3zr2o12 (llzo) has high conductivity of approximately 3x10-4 s/cm and is chemical stabile against lithium metal which makes it an attractive choice to replace liquid electrolytes. improvements in llzo processing and properties are needed for it to be a practical alternative for use in lithium batteries. this thesis addresses several incremental advances to improve sintering and boost the performance of llzo. additions to llzo to promote grain size refinement and glassy grain boundary additions are investigated to both improve resistance to li dendrite propagation and increase the critical current density (ccd) of llzo in li-stripping experiments. mgo additions to llzo refine grain size and yield samples with 94.5% of theoretical density with a conductivity of 3.5x10-4 s/cm at 25 ºc. glassy borates additions (li3bo3 and li2.2c0.8b0.2o3 (lcbo)) promote liquid phase sintering and increase the critical current density by 44.5% and 20% compared to 0 wt% borate llzo. the challenges of processing llzo which are addressed in this material are wetting in ambient air, removal of surface contamination and optimization of cell processing by focusing on pressure, temperature, and sintering. li-llzo interfaces demonstrate high resistances due to poor wetting of li to llzo exposed to ambient air. multiple approaches to modifying the anode-electrolyte interface are investigated to improve wetting and ccd. polishing llzo surfaces improves wetting and ccd but is time consuming. alloying li with sn, al, and mg demonstrates low interfacial resistances and improves ccd. intercalation coatings mos2 and graphite applied to llzo yield low interfacial resistances, promote wetting of li on llzo, and improves ccd with graphite being the superior of the two coatings. lcbo interfacial coatings are also considered but decrease conductivity by an order of magnitude and cause almost immediate shorting during cycling. acid etching (hcl) llzo successfully removes surface contaminants, promotes li-llzo wetting, lowers interfacial resistance, and increases llzo atmospheric stability. however, extended etching damages the electrolyte and accelerates dendrite penetration. cell pressure during stripping experiments was found to play an important role. by promoting li creep, deleterious pore formation is decreased and ccd is enhanced. increasing cell temperature further aids li creep and increases ccd. a cell pressure of 4.12 mpa at 70 ºc increased ccd by 1612% to 1284 µa/cm2, the highest critical current density achieved in these studies. perhaps most importantly, a method for rapidly sintering llzo to high density in short periods was developed. llzo powder preparation methods needed modification to be compatible with rapid sintering rates (300 ºc/s). it was found necessary to finely mill the llzo and remove adsorbed gasses prior to sintering to avoid cracking. the rapid heating schedule developed enabled densification of llzo to 97% theoretical density with a conductivity of 3.6x10-4 s/cm in only 93 seconds. the advances that result from this work demonstrate that llzo is a realistic alternative for use in lithium batteries. however, similar studies are needed on the cathode side to yield commercially viable batteries. this dissertation is composed of two related projects focused on assessing the metallicity distribution of circumgalactic gas at low redshift. the metallicity of the gas is a key property to characterize, since it is a direct diagnostic of the level of enrichment of the gas. this, in turn, informs us on the origin of the gas, e.g., metal-enriched outflows or inflows or metal-poor inflows. to determine the metallicity distribution of this gas, we assemble the largest samples to date of qso absorbers known to probe circumgalactic medium (cgm) gas at z &lt; 1; these absorbers are known as lyman-limit systems (llss) and partial lyman-limit systems (pllss). my dissertation work consists of two main surveys: (1) a blind survey of 55 cgm absorbers toward 140 qsos (chapters 2 and 3) and (2) a survey aimed to increase the sample of absorbers in the range 16.9 &lt; log n(h i) &lt; 19 (chapters 4 and 5). the second survey was directly motivated by the results of the blind survey, which suggested a change in the metallicity distribution between the pllss and llss; however, the sample of llss in the blind survey was not large enough to robustly assess that conclusion.as part of this work, we develop a new method to robustly derive the metallicity of ionized gas using only low-resolution spectra of h i and mg ii (chapter 2); this significantly reduces the observational cost of such studies by a factor ~10. in the second part of my thesis, we also apply a bayesian mcmc approach to determine the metallicity, which in particular provides more robustly-derived errors on the metallicities.my dissertation shows unequivocally that metal-poor absorbers (gas with less than 10% or even 1–2% solar) are not rare in the z &lt; 1 universe, contrary to what was previously thought. about 60% of the cgm absorbers (as probed by pllss and llss) are metal-poor. galaxies are therefore host to large reservoirs of cool, dense, low-metallicity gas, even down to z &lt; 1. we demonstrate a strong evolution of the metallicity with n(h i) between 16 and &gt;21 dex, i.e., from very ionized to neutral gas. across this range, the metallicity distribution changes from a unimodal distribution at log n(h i) &gt; 19 (with an average around 25% solar metallicity) to a much broader and more complicated distribution at lower n(h i) (where we find a distribution that is at least bimodal with prominent peaks at 30% and 2–5% solar metallicity, and possibly another peak at &lt;1% solar metallicity).these findings provide new constraints for cosmological simulations that we discuss in chapter 5. we argue that the low-metallicity cgm absorbers have properties consistent with cold accretion flows from the igm seen in cosmological simulations. the high-metallicity cgm absorbers likely probe outflows from the host galaxy, tidally-stripped gas from satellite galaxies, or recycling flows. we assess the importance of accounting for preasymptotic velocity correlation in upscaling solute transport in a variety of situations. we compare upscaled predictions of the spatial markov model which accounts for correlation and upscaled predictions of models which do not account for correlation to high resolution simulations of both reactive and conservative transport. we find that for conservative transport in steady flows velocity correlation plays a major role and cannot be neglected at preasymptotic length scales, yet in unsteady flows this correlation is weak and can be neglected. for reactive transport, we find that velocity correlation is even more important, as accounting for it allows us to accurately model the amount of reactions that take place in the system. additionally, we find the minimum length scale necessary to use the spatial markov model and propose guidelines for the model's use. network modeling is critical and central to the study of complex systems. modeling enables researchers to examine emergent behavior and related phenomena from the milieu of interacting patterns at the local level. these complex systems are diverse, ranging from the global economy, neuroscience, protein folding molecular interactions, to the internet. evaluating network models on their ability to automatically learn the underlying features is integral to algorithm development in many areas of computational science. here we describe methods and develop algorithms that extend and evaluate hyperedge replacement grammars, a formalism in formal language theory. we detail extensions for model-inference on real-world networks and graph generation. discovering patterns involved in system behavior to build models for real-world systems that preserve many of the network properties during the generation step is the central focus of this work. growing similar structures at various scale is also crucial to the evolution of the scientific tools required in today's information landscape. experimental results demonstrate that hyperedge replacement grammars offer a new way to learn network features that facilitate compelling graphical structure generation that advances network science in areas of modeling and network analysis. shotgun or 'bottom-up' proteomics is a common technique used to characterize proteins from biological samples. in this technique, proteins are enzymatically digested into peptides, which are then separated and analyzed via liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (lc-ms/ms). by comparing the masses of tandem spectra with those predicted from a sequence database or a peptide spectral library, peptides can be identified and assembled into a protein identification. over the years, proteomics has seen significant technological advancements, allowing for deeper detection of proteome complexity. there are now mass spectrometers with shorter cycle times and higher resolving power as well as statistical methods and search engine software capable of identifying and quantifying thousands of proteins and peptides from a single sample. these advances have made bottom-up proteomics an indispensable tool for a wide variety of researchers motivated by fast and effective sample preparations. while the technology for mass spectrometry has been evolving, so too are the methods for preparing protein samples prior to ms analysis. in particular, protein filter-based preparations, such as filter aided sample preparation (fasp) and suspension traps (s-traps), have improved bottom-up sample preparations. filter-based preparations have made it possible to isolate and process proteins from complex mixtures. this allows the use of reagents that are beneficial to proteomic preparations (e.g. detergents), but otherwise impede instrument performance. however, these improvements are often attached to time-consuming or expensive protocols, and many proteins evade detection via 'traditional' bottom-up approaches. in this thesis, i highlight how protein filters for bottom-up proteomics studies have greatly advanced the field and describe novel approaches and design new methods for protein preparation, isolation, long-term storage, and modify existing protocols to detect novel 'dark proteome' proteins. in this dissertation, i ask what happens when spectatorship becomes unsettled by troubling ethical questions directed by the play-world at the spectator. in chapter one i approach the problem of performance studies' a discipline in which definitions and aims are still hotly contested. in recent years, a new approach to performance has come to prominence through the work of the international federation for theatre research, studying theatre as event. from the works of john tulloch and willmar sauter, i take certain concepts and methodologies, such as frames, borders, and contexts, and analysis and description of audience reaction and composition. i expand on their work by linking this school of performance studies to phenomenological studies of the event by jean-luc marion and claude romano. i show how earlier performance theory from a phenomenological standpoint can be enhanced by these notions of the event as unforeseen and the spectator as a receiver who is, in a sense, constructed by the event and not constructing it from his own intending consciousness. i then look at specific ethical quandaries provoked by performances of antonin artaud's, samuel beckett's and martin mcdonagh's works. in artaud, i look at the apparent inconsistencies between his acclaimed theories and the dismal performance histories. comparing him with british playwright, sarah kane, i conclude that any theatre of cruelty, even in 1990s britain, alienates audiences because it forces spectators into an uncomfortable proximity to the artist's mental and physical anguish. chapter three takes up the question of the centrality of waiting for godot's popularity in prison theatre venues and programs to the creation of an existentialist 'godot construct.' by comparing the prison machine to the cartesian mind-body unity, i conclude that these performances force the spectators who watch them on video recording into an uncomfortable position of dual identification: both with the godot-machine (the penal system which represents them) and with the actor-inmates, pursuing and at times rejecting an existentialist concept of freedom. in the final chapter i examine the role of laughter in martin mcdonagh's leenane trilogy, and the role of postmodern kitsch and multimedia intertextuality in simultaneously globalizing and hyper-localizing mcdonagh. familiarity with globalized pop culture lulls audiences into incriminating laughter and, often, outrage. using ideas from 3-manifolds, hatcher--wahl defined a notion of automorphism groups of free groups with boundary. we study their torelli subgroups, adapting ideas introduced by putman for surface mapping class groups. we show that these groups are finitely generated, and also that they satisfy an appropriate version of the birman exact sequence. we also define a version of the cycle complex, first introduced by bestvina, bux, and margalit, on which the torelli subgroup of the outer automorphism group of a free group acts. our final main result is that this complex is contractible. the kidneys perform vital homeostatic functions including osmoregulation, nutrient reabsorption, and the excretion of concentrated nitrogenous waste. they are able to perform these tasks through the coordinated activities of nephrons, which are their basic functioning unit. each nephron contains a proximally located glomerulus that filters the blood as well as a segmented epithelial tubule that drains into a central collecting duct system. during the course of their everyday function the nephrons encounter toxins that in high concentrations can lead to an episode of acute kidney injury (aki), characterized by a rapid loss of renal function. aki can progress to end stage renal disease, a condition in which the kidneys are no longer functional and dialysis or transplantation are required to sustain life. zebrafish, unlike mammals, are known to undergo robust renal regeneration after gentamicin inducted aki. to date, the study of nephron formation and regeneration in zebrafish has several limitations, including a relatively small cohort of reliable markers for distinct cell types within the nephron tubule. in this thesis, the first goal was to identify and characterize a suite of useful epithelial cell markers. my project specifically focused on the collection and characterization of tight junction genes that were expressed during nephrogenesis. a detailed spatiotemporal expression study was completed that revealed several aspects of conservation between zebrafish and mammals, including but not limited to, the gradient of tight junction transcript expression across the proximo-distal length of the nephron, such that distal segments were found to express the greatest number of factors. the second goal of this thesis was to further interrogate the ability of the zebrafish kidney to regenerate following injury in the embryonic and adult setting. to date, the bulk of studies assessing how zebrafish undergo renal repair after injury have employed the antibiotic gentamicin to induce damage and therefore, the extent to which the kidney can respond to different types of injury remains unknown. for this project, i both developed and further refined aspects of two parallel methodologies for the delivery of small molecules to the zebrafish: microinjection in the embryo and intraperitoneal injection in the adult. using the latter, i established for the first time that the zebrafish kidney can regenerate after catastrophic nephron damage from the chemotherapeutic, cisplatin. hallmarks of this process include intratubular repair as well as de novo nephrogenesis, which can be visualized with histological staining. i observed regeneration of epithelial tubules in recovering fish via in situ hybridization and through histological analysis with periodic acid-schiff staining, thereby establishing the time course of cellular events that will enable future studies to assay cell proliferation and death during the regeneration process two-dimensional (2d) materials, particularly graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides (tmds), have been the subject of many recent studies because of their unique mechanical and electrical properties. all the bonds are in-plane, and the layers are separated by a van der waals gap. while most properties can be characterized by measuring the unmodified materials, many electrical properties require the charge state of the material to be modulated. for traditional semiconductors, this is achieved by field-effect gating through a dielectric combined with substitutional doping. however, the lack of dangling surface bonds makes the deposition of a gate dielectric challenging, and methods for controlled substitutional doping have not yet been developed. solid polymer electrolytes (spes), which consist of a salt dissolved in a polymer, offer a relatively simple solution. by using the spe in the place of a gate dielectric, ions in the spe are driven to close proximity (∼1 nm) of the material surface to induce image charges in the 2d material. the ion and corresponding image charge layers are collectively known as an electrostatic (or electric) double layer (edl). the edl can induce charge carrier densities in the material in excess of 10^14 cm^−2 . the work presented in this dissertation details ways of using edl-induced sheet charges to open up new applications in the field of nanoelectronics. by tuning the erich kinder glass transition temperature of the spe, the edl retention time can be increased by six orders of magnitude at room temperature while still achieving charge carrier densities in excess of 10^14 cm^−2 , enabling unique hardware security. we also investigate applying large electric fields over the spe, which causes volumetric change in 2d electronics due to ion intercalation. 2d devices typically are top-gated by the spe. however, in this work, backgating by an spe is demonstrated for the first time. as well, we explore partial switching of the ferroelectric material hfzro2 the objective is to use the ferroelectric in conjunction with a 2d channel to form a two-terminal resistive processing unit for use in hardware-based neural networks. nirs is an imaging technique that uses red and near-infrared light in the first near infrared biological optical window (~600-1000nm, nir-i) to safely and non-invasively measure the optical properties of centimeter thick tissue. in this wavelength range the primary absorbers in tissue are oxygenated hemoglobin, deoxygenated hemoglobin, lipid, and water. by using this optical window, the information content provided with the detected light necessarily contains biologically relevant functional information about the chromophores of interest unlike standard imaging modalities which typically provide structural information alone. using this functional information, nirs is able to determine benign from malignant tumors, measure functional brain activity, monitor the effects of exercise on the body as well as many other applications.despite these exciting and promising applications, nirs faces many limitations which need to be overcome in order to become a widely utilized clinical imaging technology. fdnirs imaging equipment is typically a large highly expensive cart-based system that must be stored and wheeled around the hospital when needed for use. thetechnology also tends to be quite complicated to use for the average medical professional requiring a number of steps for both calibration and imaging. typical images require nearly one hour to complete and even more time to process the acquired data which must be done by a scientist familiar with the process to provide the clinician a usable image. therefore, using fdnirs technology is not only a challenge for medical staff but is also time-consuming, placing more strain on already time constrained personnel. finally, when the clinician receives this information, they are forced to ask themselves how it compares to imaging modalities with which they are intimately familiar such as ct, mri, and ultrasound. although nirs provides physiological information (hemoglobin, water, and lipid concentration among others) not available by these other imaging methods, the imaging depth, resolution, and field of view tend to be significantly reduced.to address some of these issues an approach for performing frequency domain (fd) nirs utilizing a near-infrared tunable vertical cavity surface emitting laser (vcsel) that enables high spectral resolution optical sensing in a miniature format is presented. at room temperature, the laser is tunable across 14nm from 769-782nm covering a portion of the niri window and has a peak output power sufficient for fdnirs. the tunable vcsel was used to recover optical properties (leading to chromophores) which were within 13% of a reference system. the results indicate that tunable vcsels are an attractive choice to enable high spectral resolution optical sensing in a wearable format.the imaging depth and sensitivity of fdnirs is almost always constrained by photodetector sensitivity. we demonstrated that by using highly sensitive silicon photomultiplier (sipm) detectors, these limitations may be overcome. though sipms are typically employed in photon-counting or pulsed time-domain measurement applications, they provide increased signal to noise ratio (snr) and deeper tissue sensitivity, as compared to avalanche photodiodes (apds) in fdnirs. a basic investigation of an fdnirs system utilizing sipm detectors, and thus enabling extended source-detector separations (sds) and increased depth penetration is presented. the sipm was found to have 10-30db greater snr than a comparably sized apd while detecting 1.5-2 orders of magnitude lower light levels. the sipm and apd recover optical property values of tissue simulating phantoms within 13% agreement and are stable with 1% coefficient of variation over one hour. finally, the sipm is used to accurately recover optical properties at s/d separations up to 48mm (12mm increase compared to reference) in phantoms mimicking human breast tissue, enabling increased depth sensitivity.the question still remains, how fundamental sipm characteristics affect the detection of fdnirs signals. in order to address this issue, simulations are developed which are capable of evaluating and optimizing sipm parameters (microcell size, microcell number, and recharge time constant) utilizing a monte carlo approach to sipm response from modulated fdnirs signals. the effects of these parameters are examined in relation to bandwidth and signal to noise ratio, thus providing a methodology for choosing the best sipm for this unconventional application, and further improving fdnirs performance.the details of integrating silicon photomultiplier detectors in fdnirs imaging systems to provide performance improvements are further investigated to include the operation of sipms and how they differ from other fdnirs photodetectors. it is shown that sipms offer similar sensitivity to pmts while having a lower cost, size, and operating voltage. experimental data shows drastically increased signal to noise ratio performance as compared to an avalanche photodiode, up to 25db on human breast, head, and muscle tissue. finally, we extend the dynamic range of the sipm through a nonlinear calibration technique which reduced absorption error by a mean 16 percentage points.finally, limitations in speed and accessibility are addressed with a systems-based approach. currently no fdnirs systems are completely handheld and only one is capable of displaying chromophore data in real time, which could allow for real-time studies of tissue hemodynamics, spatial chromophore concentrations, greater ease of use by clinicians, and more generally, a simple platform for quantitative tissue spectroscopy. evaluation was performed on a handheld real-time capable fdnirs system based upon an all-digital fpga coupled hardware approach. quantitative optical scattering and absorption measurements are found to be within 10% agreement as compared to a reference system. it is concluded that handheld high-speed quantitative tissue chromophore assessments are possible with this system-on-a-chip fdnirs approach, which will enable real-time handheld monitoring of rapid physiological changes.this work concludes with a summary of the progress that has been made as well as the work that is yet to be done when considering this text within the scope of fdnirs. distinct areas where further improvements and research are required to fully enable a handheld fdnirs systems utilizing the advantages provided by tunable vcsels and sipms is provided. lastly the authors vision for the future of fdnirs and a clinically viable fdnirs device is presented. systems biology is an emerging and multi-disciplinary research area that applies mathematical and computational models to analyze large-scale biological data. systems biology is very promising to understand the mechanisms of drug reactions at the systems level as well as revolutionize the drug discovery process in the pharmaceutical industry, mainly focusing on the three aspects, drug combinations, drug repurposing and predicting drug side effects. my project aims at predicting new targets for old drugs, correlating targets and relating targets with side effects. the side effects of drugs are caused by on-target and off-target effects. structurally similar drugs will bind to similar protein targets and cause similar side effects. through data mining, hierarchical clustering and analyzing drug-target network, i have correlated targets based on their drugs similarities. the target similarity correlation provides a list of potential targets to be aware of when designing drugs for one target. i have also related targets with enriched rare side effects and determined new targets for the old drugs. this study combines both ligand-based similarity approach and atomistic modeling (docking) to validate the predictions. i believe that the nonreligious' reaction to developments in american politics, and their resulting social marginalization, creates a unique environment for them. using the theoretical frameworks provided by casanova (1994), putnam and campbell (2012), edgell et al. (2006), and mckenna et al. (1998), i believe the nonreligious hold a concealable identity that was created partly in reaction to religion becoming a public and political force in american politics during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.to counteract these feelings of political and social marginalization, the nonreligious have sought out alternative avenues to express and create their political and social identities. even though the nonreligious have been documented to be less politically and civically engaged, this group's identity has been created partly in reaction to developments in american politics and religion during the 20th century they will display some form of political activism. however, given their limited access to mainstream opportunities for political communication, i expect them to take their political activism online. a common feature of distributed coordinated multiple agent systems is that multi-agent cooperation is accomplished through interactions between agents wherein information is exchanged across a wireless communication network. distributed coordinated control of multi-agent system poses several meaningful theoretical and practical challenges. in this work, we consider three important and related issues:communication logics, swarm cohesion under consensus and the convergence rate of consensus filter under network throughput limitations. optimal communication logics are investigated for scheduling the information exchange required to minimize the total energy consumed in the system. we study two different communication logics. an optimal open-loop logic is that each agent periodically transmits information to its neighbors. for comparison, a closed-loop logic is studied to schedule transmissions when the local state estimation error is above a preset threshold. we theoretically analyze the optimal deterministic threshold-based logic performance and compare it with the proposed periodic logic. cohesion of multi-agent swarms moving under the control of a consensus filter is studied. the main result shows that swarming under consensus is cohesive. we establish specific bounds on the degree of cohesion and consensus level. we prove that if the communication graph is regular, then the introduction of integral action into the consensus filter achieves perfect consensus regardless of the number of members. the convergence rate of consensus filters under throughput limitations is examined. we present two consensus filter schemes, synchronous and asynchronous. synchronous consensus obeys the principle wherein individual agents regulate their states only after receiving all neighbors' messages. while, in asynchronous consensus, each agent updates its state when it receives any message from any neighbor. we exhibit a theoretical approach to analyzing the impact throughput limitations have on the convergence rate of the two consensus schemes. we demonstrate the specific advantages of these schemes. in order to test these coordinated control algorithms in a real multi-robot system, we developed a software multi-robot simulator and real robot testbeds. our developed simulator and testbeds are introduced. this dissertation provides a new perspective on the political history of provincial russia from 1763 to 1861. in the past, historians have often portrayed russian state-building in the provinces under catherine the great and her successors as a process dominated by the government or thwarted by local actors. my work reframes this narrative by examining the institutions and practices that mediated between the central government and local residents, as opposed to focusing on those that drove wedges between state and society. my dissertation argues that during the nineteenth century a cadre of civic-minded mediators emerged in the russian provinces as part of what i deem the "classical imperial order." however, the penetration of the state's values and institutions into the provinces often depended on networks that remained outside the state's control. by the 1860s the tensions created by these extra-institutional networks pushed state authorities to create a new political system as part of the great reforms. as evidence for my argument, i take the provincial city of tver' as a case study. embarrassed by the conditions in russia, catherine the great had grand ambitions to build an enlightened european empire upon her ascension to the throne in 1762. when the city of tver' burned to ashes in 1763, she seized the opportunity to develop new forms of governance and urban planning that she then replicated elsewhere in the empire. during the latter decades of the eighteenth century and the first third of the nineteenth century, state-sponsored civic projects to improve life in the city often floundered. my extensive research in tver's regional archives shows that these programs failed because tver' did not possess a critical mass of civic-minded residents who saw these programs as vital for their community. the state's decision to expand local educational institutions and the arrival of both cholera and russia's first railroad changed this situation, galvanizing civic awareness among the city's elite. my work, however, shows that this development did not necessarily constitute a successful conclusion to the state-building project, as the civic culture in tver' often depended on political mechanisms that appropriated or circumvented central government institutions. this is a hybrid critical and lyrical poetic thesis in two parts that addresses insecurity, inscrutability, the performance of whiteness, and digitally-constituted speakerhood. its content was initially composed in poems, diaries, emails, phone notes, text messages, tweets, and other aleatoric formats, and aggregated therefrom. response time data from educational and psychological assessments have become more widely available in recent years. although much research has been done on response time models, there is large variability between assessments and the factors that may affect response times. on the person's side, familiarity with online environments may largely predict response times. on the item's side, item type and number of words in item stem may account for a substantial variability in response times. in this dissertation, an explanatory framework for response time modeling is proposed. among the advantages, this explanatory approach provides a more interpretable model for understanding variability in response time due to person or item characteristics, while decreasing the number of parameters to be estimated. furthermore, including additional information when modeling response times may improve estimation of one's working speed. using survey data from a high school sample, we explore also response times, background variables, and process data to illustrate this explanatory framework. implications and future research directions are also discussed. the brain is a highly complex organ that contains folds due to material instability. previous idealized convex models of the brain don't fully represent anatomy therefore requiring the simulation of concave surfaces. the purpose of this paper is to determine how instability characteristics change on concave geometries. the model used represents a soft bilayered material of a circular geometry inspired by the bronchi in the lungs which also experience instabilities. the usage of symmetry boundary conditions allow for the model to be quartered and run over varying degrees of concavity and stiffness ratios. the degree of concavity was varied by changing the radius of the model in the range of 1-10mm and the stiffness ratio was varied between 10-50. these simulations suggest that the concave model's buckling point and wavelength trends are similar to those of flat and convex models. the thickness ratio trends appear to also follow trends of previous flat and convex models if these models presented data within a larger range of stiffness ratios comparable to the ones in this study. refinement of our simulations to lower stiffness ratios comparable to anatomy would further confirm all results found within this study. the results from our simulations represent similar instability characteristics between flat, convex, and concave geometries which presents progress for the hope to find a unifying theory of instability between varying geometries under similar conditions. this thesis argues not just that it is possible to use a freirean critical stance to teach great books, but that mortimer adler's great books would be a natural and logical way to enact critical literacy. though this paper is written in the spirit of generating further discussions that bring together apparently disparate educational ideas, the scope of this paper's argument is simply to show that there exist foundational commonalities between critical literacy and great books programs: that they both work towards the vision of democracy not only as a form of government but also as "conjoint communicated experience" (dewey, 1916), support dialectical and inquiry-based pedagogy, and stand for a value-driven education system. this dissertation examines the evangelical left movement in the united states during the postwar period. non-conservative sectors of evangelicalism, vibrant in the nineteenth century but in eclipse following the fundamentalist-modernist controversies of the early twentieth century, again emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. politically moderate to leftist and theologically conservative, this evangelical left encompassed diverse groups such as the post-american/sojourners intentional community, intervarsity christian fellowship, evangelicals for social action, and the association for public justice.this small but vibrant movement points to a broader, more differentiated evangelicalism obscured by the prominence of the religious right. evangelical boundaries for instance proved to be surprisingly permeable in failing to shield many young evangelicals from 'the world.' powerful cultural and political forces shaped the evangelical left, which traveled a parallel journey with its secular counterpart through the civil rights movement, antiwar protests, new left politics, and identity politics. as the evangelical left peaked in the mid-1970s, it became clear that 'the sixties' had produced a similarly wrenching, if a bit lagged, effect on evangelicalism as it had on non-religious cultural institutions. though the movement languished under the weight of identity politics and the dilemmas of abortion, it persisted into the 1980s as a key component of the postwar politicization of evangelicalism. its contentious tactics, absolutist rhetoric, and public engagement of structural politics with spiritual commitments in fact anticipated the political style of the religious right.in seeking to broaden the traditionally narrow scope of evangelicalism, this dissertation additionally explores the struggle for identity among diverse evangelicals. despite attempts by architects of the new evangelicalism to create the illusion of a single evangelical identity in the 1950s and 1960s, the movement remained politically, theologically, and culturally diverse. evangelicalism's decentralized ecclesiastical structures; recurrent strains of apoliticism; ill-fit to the american two-party system; and racial, gender, theological, and political diversities belie its reputation as a unified political bloc. this dissertation investigates the evolution of the american indian movement's (aim) discursive field from 1973 to 2015 in order to unveil how dominant cultural narratives toward the movement, and american indians more broadly, have served as an impediment to the alteration of the unequal white-native racial order. theoretically, i outline a model of "discursive field shift" to aid in the understanding of how dominant group bystanders discursively reconstruct social movements over time. i lend empirical support to the theoretical model by drawing on an innovative longitudinal research design that matches bystander aim narratives from the 1970s to 2014/2015. by comparing discourse toward the movement from the same individuals over an approximately forty-year period, i provide evidence of a discursive field shift in the contexts of aim's most pronounced activism. in such contexts, aim's threat to the "privilege narratives," or the stories that legitimate extant social inequalities, led to the temporal modification of the movement's discursive field. this discursive field shift is argued to be an outcome of a sociocultural process whereby disrupted narratives of privilege encouraged the dominant culture's privileging of narrative in order to more effectively delegitimize aim grievances. leishmaniasis is a devastating group of diseases causing substantial mortality and morbidity throughout the world. leishmania are obligate intracellular organisms infecting and replicating inside hosts' macrophages; making them ideal to model and understand interactions between host and parasite. leishmania entry is receptor mediated through engagement of receptors recognizing molecular patterns on parasites surface, such as lipophosphoglycan (lpg). macrophages have several cell surface receptors recognizing pathogenic organisms, in particular major receptors for leishmania entry are complement receptor 3 (cr3), mannose receptor (mr), fc receptor (fcr), and toll-like receptors (tlrs). cr3 recognizes complement, which coats pathogens for clearance by the immune system. while mr is involved in recognizing sugar side chains present on surfaces of pathogens leading to phagocytosis by macrophages. the fc receptor (fcr), not technically a pattern recognition receptor like cr3 and mr, is integral for pathogen entry through recognition of the fc portion of antibodies. this dissertation focuses on identification of host cell signaling and characterizing phagosome maturation during leishmania infection. use of mr has not been well characterized such as cr3 or fcr during leishmania infection. our studies indicate that mr is not essential for in vivo leishmania infection, wt or mr knock out mice infected with l. major or l. donovani do not display differences during infection. analysis of cytokine production and mapk signaling also are not different between wt and mr knock out mice. leishmania survive inside macrophages by delaying phagosome maturation through preventing fusion with lysosomes. this delay allows parasites time to differentiate into more microbiocidal resistant life stage. our data is the first step toward characterizing a role for macrophage receptors and their influence on phagosome maturation. the major receptors implicated in leishmania entry, mr, cr3, fc&gamma;r, and tlrs, are all necessary for delaying phagosome maturation and none of these receptor deficient macrophages exhibit actin retention around leishmania phagosomes. using different serum components such as complement and antileishmania antibodies allowed us to force parasites through certain receptors. thus, receptor engagement and opsonization both influence leishmania phagosome maturation and potentially parasite survival. this study examines the woman-centered theologies and social visions of three late-nineteenthand early-twentieth-century american protestant women, katharine c. bushnell, lee anna starr, and m. madeline southard. all three women constructed sophisticated feminist theologies and social commentaries, and through retranslation and reinterpretation created new biblical narratives. as methodists located between the poles of protestant liberalism and conservatism, they espoused the authority of the bible and the literal truth of the scriptures, but they also readily employed the tools of modern scholarship and critical methods to peel away centuries of male bias and uncover what the word of god truly revealed on issues of gender, sexuality, and morality. their woman-centered theologies provided the foundation for a new sexual ethic and social order. as participants in social reform movements" particularly in temperance work and in the social purity movement" they had become convinced that faulty religious teachings were at the root of modern social problems, and they turned to theology to expose and subvert what they perceived as the centuries-long manipulation of the faith by male translators and theologians. in their woman-centered theological reflections, bushnell, starr, and southard rejected victorian social arrangements, conventional views of women's virtue, traditional marriage relationships, and the cultural and religious idealization of motherhood. although they failed to achieve the widespread social and religious reform they had anticipated, they nonetheless provide examples of modern protestant, woman-centered approaches to issues of gender and morality. this dissertation brings together the study of protestantism and feminism in modern american history, investigating the crucial transitional period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. and it explores the implications of these historical developments on contemporary american feminism and modern protestantism, and on twentieth-century american culture. in the past decade, the number of people owning smartphones has increased rapidly, and the computational power and number of sensors available on these smartphones has increased as well. this growth has allowed the rise of research that uses the smartphone to measure various aspects of daily life, including social aspects like emotion in spoken communication. sensing emotion from speech, however, is a challenging task which is only intensified when done on audio collected from a smartphone, and is further complicated when the sensing must be done over a long period of time, such as a longitudinal study. this thesis describes the speech collection and analysis of longitudinal emotion (scale) system, which is designed to address such challenges for a scalable number of users over a long period of time. the system involves both a mobile client for the smartphone and a back-end server and analysis process meant for analyzing and storing the audio features essential to emotion recognition. in this thesis, the scale system design will be discussed, evaluated for performance, and potential methods for assessing emotion will be presented. the controversy surrounding the historical criticism of the bible in late nineteenth-century america can be understood by examining approaches to the bible among protestant intellectuals between 1820 and 1900. the scholarly study of the bible lay near the heart of american intellectual life during the nineteenth century, and, for much of the century, learned discourse more or less presumed the timelessness and certitude of biblical revelation. from the early years of the century, the scottish philosophy of common sense armed american theologians with an effective apologetic by which to defend christianity from the dangers associated with german biblical criticism and other threats. but the weapons of the common sense apologetic, ironically, became a stumbling block to many protestant intellectuals, especially during the second half of the nineteenth century, because its assumptions increasingly pitted the modern disciplines against the older science of the bible. responses to the modern disciplines, especially geology and darwinian evolution, sapped the older common sense approach and encouraged concessions among american scholars to historicist approaches, making the menace of german biblical criticism seem real for the first time. after 1870, concerns about the encroachments of philosophical naturalism, associated with darwinian theory, exacerbated concerns about the naturalistic overtones of historical biblical criticism. these worries sharpened reactions to german criticism among american protestant intellectuals. as an increasing number of protestant intellectuals accommodated themselves to the historical, 'scientific' understanding of the bible, other protestant intellectuals, maintaining the older scriptural apologetic, attacked these innovations as antithetical to divine revelation. both sides, however, saw their efforts as defending the bible's relevance to the modern world. moreover, these debates provided one of the chief avenues by which historicist assumptions about human culture infiltrated american intellectual life: large numbers of americans, both the educated and the ordinary, encountered the claims of historicism most directly or for the first time in the arena of conflict over biblical criticism. as a work of history, this project relies primarily on research in the personal papers and published essays of american protestant intellectuals, especially theologians and biblical scholars in the unitarian, congregationalist, and presbyterian denominations. remediation and prevention of environmental contamination by toxic metals is an ongoing issue. halophilic archaeon halobacterium noricense could be involved with the future potential transport of toxic metals stored in transuranic waste in a salt mine at the waste isolation pilot plant (wipp) near carlsbad, new mexico, usa. additionally, improving water filtration systems is necessary to prevent toxic metals from circulating through the water supply. graphene oxide (go) is a highly sorptive material for a variety of heavy metals under different ionic strength conditions over a wide ph range, making it a promising candidate for use in metal adsorption from contaminated sites or in filtration systems. we present x-ray absorption fine structure (xafs) spectroscopy results investigating the binding environment of cd(ii), u(vi) and pb(ii) ions onto multi-layered go. in addition, cadmium sorption isotherm experiments and xafs experiments were used to determine how cd(ii) adsorbs to the surface of h. noricense. this study shows that the binding environment of each metal onto the go is unique, with different behaviors governing the adsorption as a function of ph. for cd(ii) adsorption to go, the same mechanism of electrostatic attraction between the go and the cd+2 ions surrounded by water molecules prevails over ph range 4.9-8.1. the adsorption of the u(vi) to the go is through a covalent, inner-sphere bond, showing only subtle changes as a function of ph from 4.0-8.5. pb(ii) adsorption to go changes with ph across range 5.0-8.3 where the lower ph conditions are dominated by electrostatic, outer-sphere adsorption, while higher ph conditions are dominated by covalent, inner-sphere adsorption.adsorption isotherm results show that the amount of cd(ii) adsorption to archaeon h. noricense is relatively constant across the ph range of 5.5-7.5. the xafs results indicate that the active binding areas on the archaeal cell wall are sulfur sites, with the binding mechanism likely to be via inner-sphere binding with sulfhydryl groups. this would suggest cd(ii) binding to h. noricense will be limited by the surface sulfur sites, today's omnipresent electronic circuits, chips, and memories are almost entirely based on silicon. their development closely follows moore's law, and many years of further miniaturization and development is foreseen in this technology. however, the limitations of silicon nanotechnology are becoming increasingly clear: high power consumption and the lack of integrable non-volatile memory are two of the key weaknesses. several recent developments propose and investigate the application of magnetism for future logic and memory devices. magnets are inherently good memories, and the flipping of spins consumes energy close to the lowest values allowed by thermodynamics. among the most intensively researched magnetoelectronic devices are the magnetic random access memory (mram), the racetrack memory, as well as the magnetic quantum-dot cellular automata (mqca), recently called nanomagnet logic (nml). the qca computing paradigm offers a new alternative to build logic and memory devices. among several realizations, the nml is of interest in this work, which uses nanomagnets as basic building blocks to encode logic bits and switches in the magnetization state of ferromagnetic materials. an nml device is an array of closely spaced, dipole-coupled, single-domain nanomagnets designed for digital computation. nml offers very low power dissipation with high integration density of functional devices, as well as operates over a wide range of temperature. basic structures, such as wires, inverters, and majority gate already have been demonstrated. in this work, we present a detailed fabrication recipe to fabricate nanomagnets with good shape and size control. a complete logic component library is vital for digital logic design. our ultimate goal is to realize novel logic elements to extend the library of nanomagnet logic circuits. several building blocks are demonstrated already, such as wires, majority-logic gate, etc. we built new basic magnetic structures such as shape engineered majority gates, and gate, or gate, for the first time, and used wires, inverters and gates to construct more complex circuits, such as a fanout, an xor, and a full adder. we propose nml designs, such as the complex gate, for even more complex structures for future testing. this work goes beyond the original mqca concept in several ways, such as the building blocks have different aspect ratios and asymmetry to exploit the advantages of the shape engineered nanomagnet behavior. this dissertation reviews an investigation of iii-v tunneling field effect transistors (tfets), both experimentally and by simulation. tfets are an attractive candidate for low voltage cmos devices due to the ability to achieve steep subthreshold swing, below the 60 mv/decade limit of the mosfet. iii-v tfets, as opposed to si based tfets, are attractive due to the direct energy band gaps, low effective masses, and ease of heterostructure engineering, which result in large tunneling current densities. here, two categories of tfets were explored: the lateral ingaas tfet with a regrown source by molecular beam epitaxy (mbe) and an l-shaped gasb/inas tfet with a raised drain and buried channel structure. each device was simulated in sentaurus s-device tcad to gain basic device understanding and to determine the affect of geometrical parameters on the device performance. experimentally, the lateral ingaas tfet was fabricated, and a crystalline and continuous regrown junction was achieved. the device performance was correlated with tcad predictions with an on state performance of 0.052 &#956;a/&#956;m at vds = 1 v. through temperature dependent measurements, it was found the junction is likely underlapped with respect to the gate metal edge by approximately 20 nm. to increase the current levels, the gasb/inas heterojunction with broken gap band alignment was investigated in an l-shaped geometry, which aligns the gate and internal junction electric fields. this geometry was previously explored in our group with promising results. here, a second generation device architecture was explored with a raised drain to reduce parasitic resistances, and a buried channel, in an effort to mitigate high interface trap densities at the semiconductor/gate oxide interface. a maximum current of 277 &#956;a/&#956;m was achieved at vds = 0.5 v, showing the promise of the gasb/inas heterojunction in delivering high current density. in addition for the first time, a negative differential transconductance effect was found experimentally in this device, and explained through tcad simulation. finally, tcad was used to design gasb/inas p-type tfets in the l-shaped geometry. the best device showed an on state current of 38 &#956;a/&#956;m with an effective subthreshold swing of 46 mv/dec at vds = -0.3 v and ioff = 1 na/&#956;m. in addition, it was found the subthreshold swing increases as a function of the source doping concentration. risk-induced changes in prey behavior have many important effects in predator-prey communities; however, fitness consequences of predation risk to prey remain unclear. as a modifier of both top-down (i.e., predation) and bottom-up (i.e., nutrients or food) processes, predator-induced behavioral plasticity may impact prey population dynamics more than the immediate reduction of prey density. one challenge for ecologists is to link individual foraging behavior to population dynamics, while integrating the effects of predation risk. terrestrial carnivores are important drivers of ecosystem structure, function and the conservation of biodiversity. therefore, understanding the impacts of risk effects is critical for predicting the ecological impacts of predators on prey communities in the midst of changing anthropogenic (e.g., introduction or re-colonization) or climate-related factors. natural recovery of cougars (puma concolor) on the national bison range (montana, usa) allowed me to evaluate anti-predator behavioral responses of elk (cervus elaphus), mule (odocoileus hemionus) and white-tailed (o. virginianus) deer to an increase in the risk of predation by a solitary, stalking predator. i observed the behavior and diet of ungulates to test predictions based on foraging theory that assess the energetic consequences of predation-sensitive foraging decisions. all prey species reduced: 1) activity during crepuscular periods when cougars were most active, 2) use of risky habitats, and 3) overall activity time. however, ungulates minimized the trade-off between foraging time and scanning for predators by increasing vigilance only when a cougar was within the same drainage. by comparing observed diets with predictions from a linear programming model, i demonstrated that prey species experiencing the most predation risk appeared to trade-off maximizing energy-intake with minimizing time spent meeting foraging requirements. whereas the least vulnerable prey selected diets that maximized energy intake, they still incurred a net cost due to reduced feeding time. feeding time appeared to drive these relations, supporting the importance of food limitation in terrestrial herbivores, and demonstrating the effect of predation risk on food limitation. even with a modest reduction in feeding time, ungulate prey incurred a 5-38% reduction in daily surplus energy intake ì¢ ââ" a substantial cost of risk on foraging that could impact survival and reproduction. modern theologians attuned to the realities of poverty have usually kept their distance from classical christian affirmations of voluntary poverty. they have been concerned, for good reason, that such affirmations romanticize or even reinforce material deprivation and exploitative social arrangements. my dissertation develops an account of voluntary poverty as an egalitarian political practice in a way cognizant of those concerns, drawing on the poverty movements of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. although those movements do in some ways confirm our worries about voluntary poverty, i also recover from them a way of thinking about voluntary poverty that is sensitive to the complex relationship between poverty and social power. this dissertation has five chapters. in the first chapter, i argue that the decisive shift between the classical roman and early christian economic imagination had to do with the appearance of 'the poor' as a social class. this shift had some radical consequences, but 'the poor' who appeared were still defined by their passive dependence on broader society. the shock and challenge of the twelfth-century social movements describing themselves as 'the poor of christ,' who i introduce in chapter two, was that they represented themselves an active and contentious poor, blurring the boundaries between themselves and 'the poor' more broadly construed. in the third chapter, i argue that francis is best understood as an heir to these earlier movements. their concerns are an extremely important hermeneutical key to francis's writings. while many of the earlier movements had been judged heretical, francis worked to articulate their vision of the apostolic life in an orthodox frame. but the result, i argue, was ambiguous: his vision of poverty provides resources both for a critique of certain mainstream practices and for undermining the movements' challenge. in the fourth and fifth chapters, i show how later franciscans continued to wrestle with the key political contentions of the earlier movements. in chapter four, i focus on the question of social inclusion and participation in conversation with clare of assisi. in chapter five, i turn to the question of spiritual and ecclesiastical authority in conversation with bonaventure. this project consists of three distinct chapters. all of them are centered on exploring different aspects of the self. the first chapter investigates exactly what the self is; the second chapter explores how we should reason about the self; and the last chapter explores how we should speak about the self.to answer exactly what the self isi defend a novel version of the view that the self just is a story. the account i propose is in part inspired by buddhist no-self accounts. in my exploration of how we should reason about the self, i utilize the buddhist account as a case study for how no-self accounts in general can coherently navigate concerns about future planning. i specifically explore the question of whether proponents of a no-self view can recommend that adherents save for retirement. in the last chapter, i explore the way we talk about our self and others. i focus in on terms that are often a source of suffering – slurs. after giving a novel account of how slurs work, i explore how "fat," a word often used with the intention of causing harm, is not the slur that it might first appear to be. as a result, using this particular term both internally to one's self as well as in describing the bodies of those around us should be seen as a neutral rather than harmful choice. while the project touches on metaphysics, practical reasoning, and philosophy of language, all three chapters are unified in their goal to unpack what is required of a plausible account of selfhood. any plausible account of the self must stand on firm metaphysical and practical grounds. that practicality has not always been given the attention it deserves within academic philosophy. rather than merely note these practical concerns, i have chosen to center my project on developing some of the groundwork for my account of the self in terms of both practical reasoning and our use of language. while i do not explicitly explore how chapters two and three interact with the picture, i present in the first chapter, i hope to do so in future work. the zebrafish is an excellent model organism to use in the study of molecular pathways important in both retinal development and neuronal regeneration. the zebrafish shares similarities in eye development and morphology with all vertebrate eyes. however, unlike the mammalian retina, the zebrafish completely regenerates retinal neurons following injury . the source of regeneration are m?ller glial cells that dedifferentiate into a more primordial stem cell-like state, divide, and yield transiently amplifying progenitor cells that migrate to the site of damage and replenish the lost neuronal cell types. dedifferentiating m?ller glia in the adult zebrafish retina experience reprogramming in dna methylation and expression of transcription factors that are involved during normal retinal development (pollak et al., 2013; powell et al., 2013). therefore, studying the cellular and molecular pathways important during retinal development may provide insight into the roles these genes play during regeneration in the adult retina. in an effort to identify pathways involved in early retinal development in zebrafish, a gene microarray analysis was performed, which demonstrated a significant up regulation in components of the jak/stat3 pathway, including socs3a and socs1. immunoblots, immunohistochemistry, and in situ hybridization data confirmed that stat3, socs3a, and socs1 were up regulated in the zebrafish eye between 3-5 days post-fertilization, time points associated with significant maturation of vision. stat3, socs3a, and socs1 are initially expressed ubiquitously throughout the developing retina before showing a distinct localization within m?ller glial cells. morpholino-mediated knockdown of stat3, socs3a, or socs1 demonstrated that a loss of jak/stat3 function caused abnormal retinal cell death during development. a loss of either socs1 or socs3a resulted in decreased rhodopsin expression near the retinal margins of the developing zebrafish, while and a loss of stat3 affected cone photoreceptor cell and m?ller glial cell maintenance. these results indicated that jak/stat3 signaling is important to the development of photoreceptor and m?ller glial cells as well as the maintenance of a healthy retina. the adult zebrafish retina regenerates following light-induced photoreceptor cell death. m?ller glial cells in light-damaged retinas divide yielding undifferentiated progenitors that migrate and differentiate to replace the lost rod and cone photoreceptors. we demonstrated previously that, following light-induced photoreceptor cell death, a loss of either tnf&#945; or stat3 reduced m?ller glial cell proliferation significantly, suggesting that the number of m?ller glia that reenter the cell cycle following retinal damage was dependent upon coordinated expression of tnf&#945; and stat3 (nelson et al., 2013). although it seems likely that tnf&#945; initiates stat3 signaling through a cytokine-receptor mediated pathway, a receptor linking the two proteins together has yet to be identified. also, previous studies demonstrated that tyrosine phosphorylation of stat3 and downstream activation of stat3-activated genes, including the two zebrafish paralogues of socs3 (socs3a and socs3b), was associated with neuronal regeneration (elsaeidi et al., 2014; liang et al., 2012). however, the kinase responsible for tyrosine phosphorylation of stat3 and the role of socs3a and socs3b in regulating m?ller glial proliferation remains elusive. this report demonstrates that tnf&#945;, stat3, and socs3a associate with tnfrsfa (tumor necrosis factor receptor superfamily member a) in the regenerating retina and that a loss of tnfrsfa decreases stat3-mediated expression of socs3a and tnf&#945;, which causes a significant reduction in m?ller glia proliferation similar to what is observed when decreasing either tnf&#945; or stat3 expression alone. this work also demonstrates that jak1 mediates m?ller glial proliferation through y708 phosphorylation of stat3 and that socs3a and socs3b are expressed in m?ller glia in the adult light-damaged retina. a knockdown of either socs3 gene alone has no effect on stat3 expression or m?ller glial proliferation. however, a knockdown of socs3a and socs3b combined results in a significant increase in stat3 expression as well as m?ller glial proliferation in response to light damage. taken together, these studies demonstrate that tnf&#945; likely induces activation of stat3 through a tnfrsfa / jak1 signaling cascade and that socs3a and socs3b function to dampen the proliferative response of m?ller glia caused by stat3. this dissertation presents experimental and analytical investigations of a high-performance (type iii) grouted connection for ductile energy-dissipating (ed) deformed steel reinforcing bars across gap-opening joints in seismic precast concrete structures. the goal is to develop a simple, non-proprietary, low-cost connection that allows grade 60 ed bars to reach close to their full ultimate tension strength and strain capacity over a short grouted bond length inside a steel sleeve (with or without a taper), thus reducing required field-grouting lengths.twenty large-scale quasi-static cyclic axial load tests of isolated ed bar-to-foundation connections were conducted to failure under a rigorous strain history, varying the following parameters: (1) ed bar diameter (no. 7, 9 and 11 bars); (2) ed bar bond length; (3) ed bar manufacturer/heat; (4) connection sleeve taper angle, (5) corrugated versus uncorrugated sleeves; (6) grout product and strength; (7) adverse construction conditions from excess water in grout and off-center placement of the ed bar inside the sleeve; and (8) a threaded bar splicer in combination with a grouted connector. the measured behaviors of the specimens were compared against simulations from nonlinear finite element models, and were used to establish effective connection configurations and material requirements.the test specimens under the adverse construction conditions considered were able to achieve ductile failure through low-cycle fatigue fracture or bond slip. a greater bond length of 15 times the bar diameter was necessary for no. 11 ed bars as compared with a length of 12 times the bar diameter for no. 7 bars. the connector grout, the ed bar bond length, and the low-cycle fatigue capacity of the ed bar can limit the deformation capacity of the connection. although tapered sleeves produced desirable results, straight sleeves with adequate corrugations also allowed large cyclic ed bar stresses and strains to be reached. ultimately, the use of straight sleeves is recommended because of minimized connector spacings and cost-effective availability of corrugated steel pipe from multiple manufacturers. the test results were also used to validate a strut-and-tie method for the design of reinforcement to transfer the ed bar forces from the grouted connection to the foundation concrete. this thesis describes an analytical model to investigate the nonlinear behavior of diagonally reinforced concrete coupling beams under reversed-cyclic lateral loading. the analytical model decomposes a coupling beam into two main components: (1) the concrete beam and any horizontal reinforcement that it contains; and (2) the diagonal reinforcement. the diagonal reinforcement is modeled using nonlinear truss elements in the diagonal direction whereas the concrete beam is modeled using nonlinear fiber beam-column elements in the horizontal direction. the diagonal elements are slaved to the horizontal elements at intermediate and end nodes along the span of the beam. the analytical model is verified by comparing the measured behavior of coupling beam test specimens from previous research with analytical estimations. it is shown that as compared to prior analytical models, the proposed model introduces a significant improvement on the modeling of diagonally reinforced coupling beams. in designing next-generation wireless systems, there is desire to increase the transmission rate by increasing the number of antennas while at the same time managing the complexity of the system. in this thesis, we develop and analyze low-complexity schemes that we call incremental multiple-input multiple-output (imimo) for exploiting multiple antennas for reliable high rate communications. unlike multiple-input multiple-output (mimo) communications without feedback, the schemes we propose do not require a space-time encoder or decoder because they only use one transmit antenna at a time and they exploit automatic repeat request (arq) feedback. we develop an outage analysis that demonstrates imimo can outperform mimo without feedback in some wide regimes. using partial channel state information obtained at the transmitter (csit) from the arq feedback, we propose simple power control policies to further improve the performance of imimo. we also explore receive antennae selection to further simplify the system. finally, we analyze these systems in the limit of large number of transmit and receive antennas, and large number of transmissions which gives some useful insights for designing imimo systems. the first two parts of a three-part novel. in my dissertation i argue that in the de adoratione et cultu and the glaphyra cyril of alexandria makes a case, unprecedented in the prior exegetical tradition, that the mosaic law has inscribed in itself a coherent and comprehensive expos&eacute; of its own soteriological inadequacies and the moral pollution of the jewish people. indeed, for cyril the law of moses, once spiritually contemplated, discloses the entire 'mystery of the synagogue,' from the giving of the law at sinai to the eschatological incorporation of a remnant of israel into the church. in so doing the law furnishes a devastating and multi-faceted critique of post christum judaism as a religion whose adherence to the letter of the law ironically ensures its chronic impurity and estrangement from god. indeed, the jews emerge as the paradigmatically polluted people, alienated from the presence of god by virtue of their cleaving to a law that can never purify them and, above all, their murderous reception of christ. although many of cyril's criticisms of the limitations of the law clearly stem from his pauline theological commitments, certain motifs that figure prominently in his exegesis, such as that of jewish pollution, are not without extra-theological implications. as the dominant figure in the alexandrian church, cyril assumed an adversarial stance toward the jewish community, which he took seriously as a religious and cultural nemesis, and his exegesis is not untouched by the anxieties that such friction engendered. this is perhaps most evident in the way in which cyril's exegetical account of the impurity of jewish moral character supplies the theoretical underwriting for the strict separation of church from synagogue, a separation demanded by his incipient notion of jewish space as marginal, polluted, and estranged from the divine presence localized in the church, the true tabernacle. i submit, then, that the outburst of exegetical creativity in the texts at hand cannot be adequately accounted for without reference to the state of jewish-christian relations in early fifth-century alexandria, the dynamics of which characterized much of the eastern empire as a whole. base flipping is the movement of a dna base from an intrahelical, base stacked position to an extrahelical, solvent exposed position. as there are favorable interactions for an intrahelical base, both hydrogen bonding and base stacking, base flipping is expected to be energetically prohibitive for an undamaged dna duplex. for damaged dna bases, however, the energetic cost of base flipping may be considerably lower. using a selective, non-covalent assay for base flipping, the sequence dependence of base flipping in dna sequences containing an abasic site has been studied. the dissociation constants of the zinc-cyclen complex to small molecules and single strands of dna as well as the equilibrium constants for base flipping have been determined for these sequences. molecular dynamics simulations of the zinc-cyclen complex bound to both single and double stranded dna have been performed. the results are compared to previous studies of base flipping in dna containing an abasic site. a specific dna damage of interest is the cis,syn-cyclobutane pyrimidine dimer (cpd), also known as the thymine dimer, which is formed via a photochemical [2+2] cycloaddition between two adjacent thymine bases in dna. the structure of the thymine dimer within the dna helix has been previously reported. to date, there has been only one report of the structure of an extrahelical thymine dimer. in this work the structure of both the flipped-in and the flipped-out cpd lesion in duplex dna is reported. these structures are then used to define the starting and ending points for the base flipping process for the cpd lesion. using a complex, two-dimensional pseudodihedral coordinate the potential of mean force (pmf) for the base flipping process was calculated using novel methodology. using the novel method, the energetics of base flipping in various dna sequences containing a thymine dimer have been calculated. significant disruptions of the base pairs to the 3' side of the cpd are observed for the flipped-out structures with adjacent a-t pairs, while those with g-c pairs adjacent show no such distortions. the structural differences correlate well with the free energy differences for base flipping calculated using the novel 2d-pmf method. the three chapters included in this dissertation investigate the long-run consequences of short-term health shocks. the first chapter examines how malaria in children in indonesia impacts household well-being and subsequent compensatory behavior. the second chapter examines how influenza during different periods of childhood affects educational attainment in the united states. the third chapter examines how parents respond to the risk and cost of influenza that their young children face in terms of their influenza vaccination decisions for those children. in order to continue the performance and scaling trends that we have come to expect from moore's law, many emergent computational models, devices, and technologies are actively being studied to either replace or augment cmos technology. nanomagnet logic (nml) is one such alternative. nml is a device architecture that utilizes the magnetization of nano-scale magnets to perform logical operations. nml has been experimentally demonstrated and operates at room temperature. we present an nml programmable logic array (pla) based on a previously proposed reprogrammable quantum-dot cellular automata pla design. we also discuss the fabrication and simulation validation of the circuit structures unique to the nml pla. we present a fault model for nml plas, and provide an improved technique for mapping logic to the nml pla. we present area, energy, and delay estimates for the nml pla, compare the area of nml plas to other reprogrammable nanotechnologies, and analyze how architectural-level redundancy will affect performance and defect tolerance in nml plas. because the nanomagnets are non-volatile, as data flows through a circuit, it is inherently pipelined. this feature makes nml an excellent fit for systolic architectures, which could enable low-power, high-throughput systems that can address a variety of application-level tasks. when considering possible nml systolic systems, the underlying systolic clocking scheme affects both architectural design and performance. we explore these issues in the context of two nml designs for simplified convolution, both of which focus on different dataflow patterns. we also study n-bit nml adders and multipliers in the context of high-throughput nml systems. we compare parallel and serial nml designs and compare nml to cmos in terms of delay and energy. we also explore possible performance enhancement techniques for nml in an effort to make nml as low energy as possible. reinforced concrete (rc) bearing walls are common lateral and gravity load carrying structural systems in buildings. the primary design direction for rc walls is for in-plane loads. however, severe exposure to fire can compromise the out-of-plane stability of these structures under service-level gravity loads, causing catastrophic failure. accordingly, the overall objective of this dissertation is to develop experimental evidence on the behavior of rc bearing walls under one-sided fire, which is the most probable fire exposure for wall structures.seven full-scale wall specimens were subjected to coupled thermo-mechanical loading. a portable gas-fire furnace was developed for heating one side of each wall over half of its height through the astm e119 standard fire. load cells, thermocouples, strain gauges, and displacement/rotation sensors were used to monitor the specimens. additionally, near-full-field deformations and temperatures on selected wall surfaces were captured by researchers from the university of texas at tyler using digital image correlation and infrared thermography. each wall was fixed at the base and free to displace vertically and rotate at the top. a constant service-level gravity load was applied at the top. in the out-of-plane lateral direction, a hydraulic actuator was used at the top to apply prescribed loads or provide displacement restraint. the specimens that survived the fire were subjected to reversed-cyclic out-of-plane lateral displacements immediately after fire and after unrestrained natural cooling. in a numerical investigation, each wall was modeled using the structural fire engineering software, safir, and the finite element software, abaqus. shortcomings were identified in the capabilities of both programs.through this investigation, it was found that rc walls can withstand long periods of time under fire. however, consideration must be given to the axial load, reinforcement design, and wall thickness. under one-sided fire, large through-thickness thermal gradients result in unsymmetrical degradation of steel and concrete. restrained thermal deformations result in significant through-thickness curvatures, axial-flexural cracks, diagonal cracks, and shear forces. the lack of proper reinforcement can lead to catastrophic buckling failure of a wall. the results from this dissertation can ultimately be used to develop accurate numerical models and load-based structural design methods for fire-exposed walls. the relationship between the concept of authenticity and the project of nationalism is fraught with discrepancies. is it possible to assess an ì¢åûåïauthenticì¢åûå narrative of nation with multiple interests at play in the project of nationalism? the clash of any of these interests can result in accusations of inauthenticity. literary texts reflect how these anxieties of identity are negotiated, contested and/or accommodated and therefore can be tools for the examination of those anxieties. this dissertation examines the concept of authenticity as it relates to narratives about the philippines and the juxtaposition of those narratives to cuban, puerto rican, and american narratives. these four countries share an important connection, as all three manifest the literary reverberations of the war of 1898, which, connects philippine literature, latin american literature, asian american literature and latino/a literature. this dissertation aims to examine how texts test the boundaries of these nations and how texts test the boundaries among these disciplines. i first discuss national figures of the philippines and cuba, josìäå© rizal and josìäå© martìäå_, whose writings and personalities serve as templates for their respective nations. i then explore the complications of following this template in writers of the filipino diaspora jessica hagedorn and ninotchka rosca, and the philippine author lualhati bautista. i continue to examine strategies that authors such as lualhati bautista and rosario ferrìäå© must employ to accommodate a history of colonialism and marginalized identity. how does choice of language affect the ì¢åûåïauthenticityì¢åûå of bautista who writes in the official language of the philippines, and how does that contrast with ferrìäå© who writes in the official language of puerto rico åñ spanish as well as the language of the metropole åñ english? finally i look at the complexities of an authentic, unhindered, national language through the gendered lens of translation theory. due to its public health impact as the most important vector of malaria in africa, the anopheles gambiae mosquito and its plasmodium parasites have been the subject of many studies both in the laboratory and out in the fields. for successful transmission of disease, the parasites must undergo a period of development in the mosquito from gametocytes to sporozoites. during this period, susceptibility or refractoriness is determined by the ability of some mosquitoes to encapsulate ookinetes in a melanin/protein matrix following their penetration of the midgut epithelium. melanin is deposited onto the surface of the parasites, causing the dead parasites to appear brownish black. melanin synthesis in insects involves a biochemical pathway named after the first and most important enzyme, phenoloxidase (po). this enzyme is synthesized in an inactive form and its activity depends on proteolytic activation by a serine protease usually called prophenoloxidase-activating enzyme (ppae). this serine protease has at least one extra domain called a clip domain (jiang and kanost, 2000). melanin-associated refractoriness to the primate parasite p. cynomolgi b and the rodent parasite p. berghei is influenced by at least three quantitative trait loci (qtls). a genetic crossing experiment determined that the major qtl lies on chromosome arm 2r between division 8c-8d and this locus was named plasmodium encapsulation 1 (pen1) to reflect its major role in melanotic encapsulation of parasites (zheng et al., 1997). this thesis describes the positional cloning of pen1 from the construction of a physical map to the genomic, bioinformatic, molecular and functional analyses supporting the conclusion that pen1 encodes a clip domain serine protease with ppae function. specifically, we show that clipb17 is found within the pen1 region and that it encodes a serine protease with three clip domains and a serine protease domain with sequence similarity to all known ppaes. in a selected strain with a fully refractory phenotype (l35 strain), clipb17 gene expression is up-regulated at the time of parasite melanization. in the counter-selected strain 4arr, no such induction is evident. the regulatory region of clipb17 contains multiple strain-specific nucleotide polymorphisms clustered within three putative nf-kb sites that could explain the l35-specific gene induction. we also show that rnai knockdown abolishes clipb17 gene induction in l35 and significantly reduces refractoriness to both plasmodium berghei and p. cynomolgi b. melanotic encapsulation represents the fastest and most important endogenous refractory mechanism against pathogens too large or too numerous for other immune mechanisms to cope with (vey, 1993). interest in this immune mechanism as a novel malaria control strategy prompted its genetic selection in a laboratory strain. our determination of pen1 molecular identity and function significantly enhances the future prospect to explore this mechanism for controlling one of the most devastating diseases of man. the production of electrodes with three dimensional open pore structure has been pursued as a possible alternative to the frequently used carbon black-based anode supports. three different fabrication methods were explored, namely through the use of a high internal phase emulsion (hipe) template, use of polystyrene microspheres, as well as photolithographic methods. the hipe template proved difficult to control, due to the high sensitivity of the emulsion structure to the voltage during electroplating, which resulted in disruption in the aqueous paths through which the dissolved ni was supposed to deposit on the substrate (copper foil). fabrication of a porous catalyst support (made out of ni) by photolithography methods was successful. however, problems remain with the removal of the backing supporting the ni structure and the fragility of the glass support used. this will require further refinement of the method. formation of highly porous ni supports by electroplating through a microspheres template proved to be feasible. however, some problems remain in this case. first is the incomplete elimination of microspheres from the structure following dissolution with tetrahydrofuran (thf). scanning electron microscopy (sem), thermal gravimetric analysis (tga), and differential scanning calorimetry (dsc) were used to characterize the morphology of the porous structure. cracks in the spongiform ni layer were observed to form following spheres thermal sintering. this resulted in overplating ni through the cracks, leading to an undesired deposit on the back of the toray paper as well. both these phenomenona influenced the performance of the samples during the electrochemical testing in a fuel cell-type configuration. the catalyst was deposited on the porous ni support by both pulse plating and electrospray methods. the structure of the pt particles obtained by electroplating depended on the charge transfer during the electrodeposition process. for a charge transfer higher than 10 c the ni craters became occluded by pt particles. pt and ptru electrosprayed on the ni sponge were found to be more active towards methanol oxidation than both standard anodes using ptru deposited on a carbon layer and the most active samples consisting of pt pulse plated on the sponge. electric double layer (edl) doping of transition metal dichalcogenide (tmd) channels in planar, nanoribbon, and nanotube geometries, have been explored for the realization of tunnel field effect transistors (tfets). the channel materials included commercially-supplied exfoliated materials, synthesized materials grown by metal organic chemical vapor deposition and nanostructured materials grown by chemical vapor transport (cvt).the solid polymer, polyethylene oxide with the salt, cesium perchlorate (peo:csclo4) was utilized on three different tmds: wse2, mos2 and ws2. on exfoliated wse2 channels, sheet carrier density and current density as high as (4.9±1.9) x 10^13 cm-2 and 58 μa/μm for electrons, and (3.5±1.9) x 10^13 cm-2 and 50 μa/μm for holes were achieved at a channel length of 3.5 μm, thickness of 6.5 nm, and a drain-source bias of 2 v.edl p-i-n junctions were created in exfoliated wse2 fet channels without the use of side gates. a source/drain bias applied at room temperature creates a channel field which positions cs+ cations and clo4− anions at the negative and positive biased contacts respectively. the ions induce electrons and holes respectively to form a p-i-n junction. cooling below 250 k locks the ions in place for current-voltage measurements. the devices show clear rectification with a forward-to-reverse current ratio of 2000 to 28,000.as a part of the tfet process development, two techniques were utilized to deposit gate dielectrics on tmd channels: one suitable for planar channel geometries and the other suitable for nonplanar geometries. in the first approach, monolayer titanyl phthalocyanine (tiopc) was deposited by molecular beam epitaxy (mbe) as a seed layer for atomic layer deposition (ald) of al2o3 on wse2. in the second approach, which was suitable for nonplanar geometries, a gate dielectric was demonstrated by using a low-temperature ald technique. this thesis focuses on understanding the relationship between the active site structure and function in the heme-containing enzyme chlorite dismutase from dechloromonas aromatica (dacld). dacld decomposes chlorite (clo2-) into chloride (cl-) and oxygen (o2) via an efficient reaction that is nearly diffusion controlled. due to the existence of advanced structure-activity models for heme peroxidases and the similarity of the behavior of peroxide and chlorite as substrates, we initiated our structure-function studies in 2008 by analogy to these enzymes. in 2009, the crystal structures of dacld and a second cld were solved for the first time, allowing us to consider the influence of structural elements directly. we investigated the role of an arginine residue (arg183) in the pocket above the heme plane in catalysis using diverse biochemistry, molecular biology and spectroscopy techniques (notably stopped-flow, resonance raman, uv/visible). we mutated this residue, which has an alkylguanidinium side chain, to lysine (primary amine), glutamine (alkylamide), and alanine (methyl), and studied both the native (wild type, wt) and modified forms. we had found earlier that the rate of catalysis and several spectroscopic properties of the wt protein are ph-dependent. we proposed that this was either due to acid/base chemistry at arg183 (analogous to an active-site his in peroxidase), or to the mobility of its side chain due to ph-dependent hydrogen bond formation/cleavage. the latter model was most consistent with the available data; particularly resonance raman (rr) data for the ferrous carbonyl form of wt and mutant proteins. by reacting the protein with peracids, we were able to characterize compound i (oxoferryl porphyrin radical) which decays to a compound es-like species where the porphyrin radical migrates to a nearby tryptophan residue. we mutated three conserved tryptophan residues in dacld's active site in order to attempt to block off radical migration and stabilize compound i. the ability of dacld to produce such a great amount of oxygen can be used for other needs, for example in the prevention of tissue necrosis. dacld offers the possibility of production of o2 in situ in a regulated fashion and without generation of toxic byproducts. by taking christ as word as its focus, the present study aims to elucidate the most basic theological and rhetorical structure of thomas aquinas's summa theologiae, without which claims of christological centrality in the work as a whole remain intuitive and gestural at best. two, principal theses order the procedure. first, aquinas identifies jesus christ as word in the prima pars in a series of questions on the trinity that consolidate and elaborate his earlier claim in the first question that god is the 'subject' of the science of sacred doctrine. to speak of the word is always to have invoked the other divine persons as well; and all that 'theology' has to say about creation, the moral life, and redemption proceeds from this singular origin and condition of the discipline: 'the word of god' (sermo de deo), in the mode of revelation. second, therefore, interpretations of the summa that emphasize the diffusion of christology throughout the work must come to grips with aquinas's articulated preference for the name word for the second person of the trinity. this decision invites a constancy of association of wisdom, for instance, with the incarnation and passion of the word, who may be experienced by the faithful. the sapiential character of sacred doctrine subsists in this exemplary word because the words of scripture, reasoned arguments, and sacramental words are all ordered by his perfect utterance: a curriculum of holiness unto salvation. chapter one introduces the argument and methodology of the dissertation, and reviews important secondary literature on the topic. chapter two develops the argument by rereading the first question of the summa with special attention to thomas's use of the letters of st paulì¢ ââ' i corinthians in particularì¢ ââ' and his dependence upon (pseudo-) dionysius as a theological exemplar of the proposed 'study and suffering of divine things.' in this perspective, the trinitarian anthropology of the prima pars (chapter three) may be seen to frame the ascetical economy of virtue and gift of the prima secunda and secunda secundae (chapter four); and the tertia pars elaborates the christological and sacramental condition of discipleship, first in terms of the salvific purpose of the incarnation and all that the word did and suffered (chapter five), and then in terms of god's provision of sacraments under the sign of the word as means to the end of human sanctification (chapter six), preeminently in the eucharist (chapter seven). chapter eight draws several consequences of the foregoing for scholarly discussion of the 'plan' of the summa and the character of reason in aquinas's mature thought. recently, there has been significant political interest in developing sustainable energy in the united states. this paper first outlines the practical constraints and considerations in moving away from fossil fuels. then, taking these constraints into account, we develop a basic model of energy production with varying levels of pollution in discrete time. we reduce the model to a system of integral equations. under appropriate assumptions, the solutions to the equations are the optimal level of pollution and energy production in the economy. it is unknown, however, if these equations can be solved. hence, we pose the problem in continuous time, which yields an analogous system of differential equations. the traditional approaches used to solve these equations have failed. solving this equation is the next step towards developing rigorous models in mathematical finance. herein we explore the application of solution combustion synthesis (scs) in the production of bulk uranium oxide nanoparticles and thin films. these studies evaluated the method's ability to reduce hexavalent uranium (uranyl nitrate hexahydrate) to its various oxides. the investigation of a uo2(no3)2 + glycine + h2o system showed scs as a simple and viable method for the rapid, low energy production of u3o8 and hyperstoichiometric uo2 (uo2.12). spin coating of precursor solutions onto aluminum backings and subsequent heat treatment produce uniform thin films. the films show durability under irradiation by an ion beam, demonstrating unique defect-simulated grain growth. therefore, scs also offers a unique method for the preparation of robust thin films for applications in nuclear physics measurements and uranium oxide studies.thermal analysis of the system shows active participation by an intermediate uranyl – glycine – nitrate complex in the heat release mechanism of the combustion reaction. to further probe such participation by intermediate complexes, a uo2(no3)2 – acetylacetone system was examined in both aqueous and 2-methoxyethanol solvents. isolated compounds from aqueous solutions yield two unique uranyl monomers that upon heating dimerize to form an identical dimer. further heating in the presence of oxygen results in an exothermic decomposition mechanism. however, combustion of aqueous systems is not achieved due to the retention of solvent at elevated temperatures. 2-methoxyethanol systems yielded a uranyl dimer that upon heating decomposed exothermally even under inert atmosphere. due to the structures high thermal stability relative to the ignition temperature, the compound may participate it the bulk combustion mechanism. such studies on the role of intermediate complexes can improve our understanding of mechanistic processes involved within scs.expansion of the scs process to transuranic actinides was investigated through the use of europium nitrate as an analogue for late trivalent actinides. combustion of an eu(no3)3 – acetylacetone – 2-methoxyethanol system produced mixed phase cubic/monoclinic eu2o3. increases in the fuel to oxidizer ratio in air show a controlled increase to monoclinic phase composition. combustion under inert n2 atmosphere hinders such phase growth. dilution of precursor gels with eu2o3 product shows success in decreasing the concentration of the monoclinic phase produced. these results give a unique opportunity in the study of rare earth oxide polymorphism. as such, scs could offer a new manner in which higher energy rare earth oxide phases are produced. electrospraying of reactive solutions generate thin uniform oxide films. such a process can be implemented in the production of transuranic thin films for nuclear physics experiments or actinide materials research. the shape, location, and stability of a gas-liquid interface are studied. linear stability analysis was used to determine flow pattern transitions. two-equation turbulence models are adapted to fit the basestate behavior of stratified and wavy flows. the new model accounts for the interfacial roughening effects of waves and the corresponding vertical shift in the maximum velocity. a conversion from channel to pipe flow is also prescribed. numerically, the profile is determined via an under-relaxation iteration scheme and utilizes efficient banded matrix solvers in implementing a direct method approach to the boundary value problem. these results are used in a stability analysis that incorporates the boussinesq approximation into the orr-sommerfeld equation. a chebyshev-tau method is employed to solve the resulting eigenvalue problem. the growth rate curves provide a quantitative analysis for experimental results performed in finite pipes and also give a true neutral stability line, which is not possible to determine in the laboratory. fundamentally, the linear stability growth rates of various waves are the necessary information needed to understand phase transitions and form the basis for non-linear studies of turbulent-turbulent flow. an experimental investigation of dispersed multiphase flow was undertaken to determine a parameter space for gravity independent flow. the force of gravity compared to inertia, capillary pressure, and viscosity are determined by the values of the froude, capillary, and stokes numbers, respectively. the bubble lengths, curvature, and film thickness were analyzed to quantify the influence of gravity on the position and shape of the interface. peristalsis is produced by successive waves of contraction in elastic, tubular structures which push their fluid or fluid-like contents forward. the most common industrial use is in pumping. in the urinary system, peristalsis is due to involuntary muscular contractions of the ureteral wall which drives urine from the kidneys to the bladder through the ureters. mathematical analyses of peristaltic flow with application to the ureter are presented. also included are results from an experimental peristalsis simulator.the problem is introduced and a literature survey of relevant works on peristaltic motion provided. there is an overview of the anatomy and physiology of the urinary tract. theoretical investigations of peristaltic transport of single-phase, two-phase and fluid-particle combinations are presented. in the mathematical analysis of two-dimensional peristaltic fluid flow, the fluid is assumed to be incompressible and newtonian. the wavenumber is assumed to be small, and a regular perturbation expansion is used to solve the equations. comparison is made with available experimental data. the next study is of streamline patterns and their local and global bifurcations in peristaltic flow. a simplified stream-function solution is obtained for long-wavelength and low-reynolds number problems. this is used to set up a system of nonlinear autonomous differential equations for the particle paths. local bifurcations and their topological changes are examined using methods of dynamical systems. three different flow situations appear: backward, trapping, and augmented flow. several stagnation points appear in the flow field as the parameters change. the bifurcations are summarized in a global diagram for the planar and axisymmetric problems. theoretical results are compared with the experimental data available in the literature. following this, a model of peristaltic flow of a fluid-particle suspension (a two-phase model) is studied. this is motivated by the possible presence of particles accompanying ureteral peristalsis. the flow is analyzed for a solitary traveling wave in an axisymmetric tube with an incompressible, newtonian fluid in which identical, solid spherical particles are distributed. the equations are solved for a small radius to length ratio of the wave to obtain an approximate, closed-form solution of the flow and particle velocities. it is concluded that peristaltic pumping is affected as particle volume fraction is increased. in addition, the pressure drop diminishes as the amplitude ratio of the wave amplitude to its radius decreases, and the pressure in the contracted part of the ureter increases with the particle volume fraction. following this, the particle motion in an unsteady peristaltic fluid flow is studied. the analytical solution for the fluid is used in a momentum equation for a small rigid sphere in non-uniform flow. several forces on the particle are taken into account: stokes drag, virtual mass, faxen, basset and gravity forces. for particles like stones or bacteriuria, parameters corresponding to calcium oxalates for calculosis and escherichia coli for bacteria are considered. the results show that retrograde or reflux motion of the particles is possible and bacterial transport can occur in the upper urinary tract when there is a partial occlusion of the wave. dilute particle mixing is also investigated, and it is established that some of the particles participate in the formation of a recirculating bolus, and some are delayed in transit and eventually reach the walls. analytical modeling is limited, however, to two-dimensional configurations and with restrictions on particle size and distribution. a laboratory experiment, on the other hand, permits treatment of the three-dimensional problem with larger particles. a mechanical peristaltic pump is designed and constructed for this purpose. ureteral peristalsis parameters are kept in mind to maintain geometrical and dynamical similarity. experimental measurements of the mean flow rate indicate a linear relationship with the speed of the peristaltic wave. particle transit time is also investigated, and it is found to increase with the number of particles. finally, some conclusions of the research and recommendations for future work are discussed. the results obtained may be relevant to the transport of other physiological fluids and industrial applications in which peristaltic pumping is used. this study examines sector differences in student achievement from kindergarten through fifth grade. i find that students who attend catholic elementary schools have slightly slower rates of learning in mathematics than do public school students. i find no differences in the reading learning rates between catholic and public school students. one of the key ingredients of the standard model of cosmology is dark matter. the existence of dark matter has been established from numerous astrophysical and cosmological observations, but its interaction nature still remains enigmatic. assuming dark matter is a single particle thermal relic, a canonical paradigm of dark matter with a prediction of its interaction cross section with the standard model particles is developed. miraculously, the size of the estimated cross section is just within the range of current experiments, encouraging various searches to look for the direct interaction of dark matter with the visible matter. however, after more than a generation of experiments, no unambiguous signature of dark matter has been detected, and most of the targeted parameter space proposed by the single particle thermal relic is excluded. as a result, we are led to move away from the simple single particle thermal relic paradigm and explore alternative scenarios. here, four alternative dark matter frameworks are discussed and their phenomenological signature are explored. 1) there is another particle in the dark sector near degenerate with the dark matter that has efficient annihilation rate to the standard model; whereas the dark matter itself has inefficient annihilation rate to the standard model states. 2) dark matter annihilates to a pair of meta-stable mediators, which subsequently decay to standard model particles. 3) dark matter is asymmetric and its relic abundance is set by annihilating away the symmetric component. 4) dark matter is decoupled from the photon thermal sector and has negligible initial abundance; but then gets populated through its feeble interaction with the standard model. all of these scenarios, can successfully produce the right relic density of dark matter with `natural' size couplings, while being safe from the current experimental bounds. furthermore, some of these models have clear phenomenological signatures within the reach of the next generation experiments. transcriptome sequencing (sequencing only from the protein coding genes of a genome) has multiplied our ability to understand the biology of life on earth. while full genome sequencing is still prohibitively expensive for many species, sequencing of genes only provides direct access to the most functional elements of a genome for a fraction of the cost. this advance brings broad genetic resources to those studying species of even the most specialized interest. we use these techniques to answer an important ecological question: how will species react to climate change? it has been assumed that as climate warms, populations will simply shift poleward to compensate. unfortunately, previous reseach shows that some populations (of two butterflies) are adapted to local conditions and may not respond this way. to discover the genetic basis of these results, we first sequenced, assembled, annotated, and analyzed the butterfly transcriptomes. because sequences were sampled from wild-caught populations, we developed novel methods to ensure high quality results in this setting. we then designed custom microarrays to measure how much of every gene is expressed in a given experimental setting. these, coupled with a robust experimental design, revealed a variety of genes and functional categories carrying the signature of local adaptation to climate. the bioinformatic difficulties associated with such projects are many. in particular, transcriptome assembly presents unique challenges, and it is not yet clear how to quantitatively evaluate assemblies. by simulating sequencing and comparing assembler results to those of perfect assemblies, we evaluate a number of commonly used and novel quality metrics. this study reveals that some quality metrics reflect biological accuracy while others (such as contig n50 length) do not and provides vital information for researchers making use of transcriptome data. finally, when sequences are sourced from many genetically diverse individuals, our tools would ideally reveal this diversity rather than produce a simple genetic consensus. to this end, we develop algorithms to seperately assemble diverse sequences (haplotypes) accurately in the face of both sequencing error and data ambiguity. these methods will help reveal biodiversity in applications ranging from community ecology to epidemiology. the discovery of dimers of nine-atom germanium clusters, [ge9&ndash;ge9]6&ndash;, showed that 2-center&ndash;2-electron exo-bonds can exist between such clusters. this formally 'oxidative' coupling of two clusters was the first redox reaction involving these species. this finding stimulated the systematic study of reactions of nine-atom germanium clusters with soft oxidizing agents, presented here. this study revealed that these clusters can bond to each other in different modes to form larger oligomers such as trimers, [ge9=ge9=ge9]6&ndash;, and tetramers, [ge9=ge9=ge9=ge9]8&ndash;. reactions of the clusters with ph3sb and ph3bi produced the first functionalized zintl ions [ph2bi&ndash;ge9&ndash;biph2]2&ndash;, [ph2sb&ndash;ge9&ndash;sbph2]2&ndash;, [ph&ndash;ge9&ndash;sbph2]2&ndash;, and [ph2sb&ndash;ge9&ndash;ge9&ndash;sbph2]4&ndash;. initially the reaction mechanism for these additions was not clear but further detailed studies suggested that these reactions were in fact nucleophilic additions of the anions ph2e&ndash; (e= sb and bi) to the naked clusters ge9n-. the reaction mechanism is widely discussed in the thesis. these general ideas were explored further for possible use in more rational synthesis of similar derivatives of deltahedral zintl ions by addition of other groups. both monoand di-substituted germanium clusters with &ndash;snph3, &ndash;snme3, &ndash;geph3 and &ndash;cme3 were obtained by similar reactions and were characterized by single crystal x-ray diffraction and in solution by nmr spectroscopy. the gateway hypothesis provides a theoretical link between task switching and prospective memory. two experiments explored this relationship by measuring event-related potentials in a task switching paradigm with an embedded prospective memory component. the goal of the first experiment was to test the efficacy of prospective memory models under increasing attentional demands, by comparing prospective memory performance in conditions with and without task switching, and determine which component of prospective memory is effortful. the goal of the second experiment was to create an examination of the relationship between task switching and prospective memory, by including consecutive prospective trials. results from the first experiment lead to the suggestion that both early and late components of prospective memory are effected by increased attentional demands, which is partially consistent with the models of prospective memory. analysis of the second experiment resulted in evidence in favor of relationship between task switching and prospective memory, by revealing a task coordination effect in the data. the relentless scaling of cmos integrated circuit (ic) technology following moore's law has enabled faster, smaller, and energy efficient electronics for last 60 years. however, moore's law has been predicted to face extreme challenges to meet the future requirements of seamless interaction between big-data oriented compute intensive domain in server-class systems and instant data centric memory intensive spaces in clients (autonomous vehicle, internet-of-things systems, mobile computing etc.). in order to address these challenges in future computing systems, this thesis work focuses on novel design space exploration of cmos technology by investigating: (a) cryogenic-cmos logic and memory technology for achieving extremely-high performance and energy efficiency in compute intensive application space, and (b) monolithic three-dimensional (m-3d) integration of high-performance amorphous oxide semiconductor (aos) transistors for high-capacity and high bandwidth embedded memory in memory intensive application space. deeply scaled cryogenic-cmos harnesses operating temperature as the primary knob to achieve ultimate energy-delay-product (edp) performance limit. this thesis work investigates the potential of low temperature enabled performance boosters in 14nm finfet platform through electrical characterization, compact model development and benchmarking edp benefits of cryogenic cmos. low temperature enabled equivalent oxide thickness (eot) scaling is proposed for the first time, to potentially enable 0.2v logic operation and gain further 50% edp improvement in cryogenic cmos. a novel gate-stack with aggressively scaled zr-doped hfo2 mixed-phase higher-κ gate-dielectric is proposed to meet the ultra-low eot goal. moreover, high-capacity, high-bandwidth and pseudo-static 1t floating body ram (fbram) with record ultra-fast write speed (~5ns) is demonstrated for the first time at cryogenic temperature for cache memory to provide potential advantage in core-to-cache balance, cache miss rate and power consumption. m-3d integration of back-end-of-the-line (beol) memory in a multitier structure aimed to increase memory capacity and inter-tier via density, resulting in an overall gain in memory bandwidth. in that context, this thesis also focuses on fabrication and characterization of beol compatible aos channel (w-doped indium-oxide or iwo) fets. dual-gated iwo transistors with scaled channel length (50nm) and excellent switching characteristics is successfully demonstrated. furthermore, mitigation of stoichiometric defects in amorphous oxide channel is also investigated through anneal treatments to improve device reliability of oxide-semiconductor fets. type ia supernovae are excellent distance indicators for cosmology due to their extreme and predictable luminosities. of particular interest is the use of type ia supernovae as standard candles to calculate the hubble constant. the hubble constant describes the current expansion rate of the universe, and depending on the method used to calculate it, the value can vary between 67 and 75 km/s/mpc. the difference in hubble constant values could indicate that there is new physics yet to be discovered, but it could also come from a much simpler source -an incomplete understanding of the observations and the systematic uncertainties involved. overall, my thesis aims to understand type ia supernovae, their intrinsic variations, and if those variations have any effect on the measurement of the hubble constant.the first project in my thesis focuses on distinguishing between progenitor systems for individual type ia supernova events. these supernovae could come from a single-degenerate system, where a white dwarf accretes material from a companion star, or a double-degenerate system, where two white dwarf stars merge. the single-degenerate scenario is expected to create more dust in the immediate vicinity of the explosion. i look for evidence of such nearby dust through light echoes. light echoes provide several advantages over other methods for searching for dust, mainly because they are observable for much longer time scales. in particular, i look at sn 2009ig, a relatively normal type ia supernova in the face-on spiral galaxy ngc 1015. using ground-based observations from the large binocular telescope and the kitt peak national observatory, i construct the late-time light curve of sn 2009ig and show that it deviates from the expected light curve behavior starting around 700 days post-peak. this deviation suggests that a light echo is present, which i confirm through archival hubble space telescope imaging. the archival imaging shows that the light echo has a complex structure, suggesting that the local dust environment is quite clumpy. however, i am not able to distinguish if sn 2009ig resulted from a single-degenerate system with the available data. the second project in my thesis focuses on the correlations between type ia supernova properties and their host galaxy properties. using surface brightness fluctuations to measure the distances to 25 type ia supernovae in elliptical galaxies, i can compare how the properties of type ia supernovae in elliptical galaxies compare to those in spiral galaxies with distances measured by cepheid variables. i find that the supernovae in elliptical galaxies tend to be dimmer and faster declining, and they occur in much more massive host galaxies. additionally, i can recalculate the value of the hubble constant using a set of supernovae that are the most dissimilar to those calibrated by cepheids to test if the difference in supernovae properties has any effect on the hubble constant. using a markov chain monte carlo simulation to re-fit the calibration parameters to these faster declining supernovae in much more massive hosts, i find that the value of the hubble constant is statistically indistinguishable from results using cepheid distances. therefore, i conclude that type ia supernova variations are not the solution to the hubble constant tension. this thesis focuses on the use of recycled concrete aggregates (rca) in precast-prestressed concrete applications. with the high environmental demands of concrete production, increased sustainability in all components of construction is a necessity. recent research has shown that rca can be a viable alternative to natural coarse aggregates (e.g., crushed limestone) in structural reinforced concrete. however, a major limiting factor is the inherent variability in rca properties, which must be quantified and incorporated to pre-qualify the material. the effects of this variability can be better controlled in precast concrete applications. rca made from rejected/discarded precast concrete can especially result in high-quality materials, also reducing transportation costs. since most precast concrete applications use prestressing, this research specifically investigates the effects of rca on: (1) rate of concrete strength and stiffness gain; (2) strand bond strength; (3) prestress losses; and (4) service load and ultimate load behavior of precast-prestressed concrete beams. this dissertation examines the recent revival of interest in aristotelian philosophy. more specifically, it looks at the work of scholars who have been described as neo-aristotelian. neo-aristotelian is a broad term meant to indicate both interest in and endorsement of fundamental features of aristotle's philosophy while at the same time pointing to some disagreement with or divergence from aristotle's thought. this project attempts to classify a number of different varieties of neoaristotelian thought. it looks to the work of martha nussbaum, douglas rasmussen and douglas den uyl, and alasdair macintyre as efforts to apply aristotelian insights to debates and problems in ethics and politics. it argues that each of these thinkers shares aristotle's interest in and commitment to the importance of human character and the human good. but these scholars also reject particular features of aristotelian practical philosophy: namely, its lack of moral pluralism and the close connection it draws between ethics and politics. after elucidating and classifying each example of neo-aristotelianism, the dissertation then returns to aristotle's texts in order to argue that the neo-aristotelians fail to understand both the structure of his works as well as the point and purpose of his philosophical project. in particular, they fail to notice both the importance of the close link between ethics and politics in aristotle's writings and the tension between the political and philosophical life that provides the backdrop for much of his work. after aristotle's project has been explained and clarified, the dissertation concludes by applying aristotelian insights to modern political problems. it argues that there can be a more authentic aristotelian political theory in the twenty-first century—a theory that remains true to aristotle's thought while at the same time addressing present political circumstances. item response theory models typically assume the form of the link function between manifest variables and the typically discrete outcome variables is known. thisassumption is not always tenable. for example, the class of models known as "ideal point" or "unfolding models" (stark et al., 2006) serve as a counter-example that suggests the existence of several forms. this proposal develops a method called tree-link item response theory, that focuses on the problem of estimating an approximation of that link function when the data source suggests there may be a non-typical mapping between latent and observed variables (e.g. a logistic curve).tree-link uses a technique borrowed from machine learning, decision trees for categorical data and regression trees for continuous data, as the link function betweenthe observed and manifest variables to approximate this relationship. this approach constitutes a semi-parametric item response theory model. other non-parametric(nirt) and semi-parametric (sirt) models for item response theory exist. however, these methods may have stringent assumptions such as monotonicity of the linkfunction, sum score sufficiency, or distributional assumptions. in extreme cases, e.g. when the sum score is a poor approximation of the latent trait score, fitting nirtmodels may produce nonsense results. this dissertation develops methods for estimating nirt models in which the link function is a tree. this approach can reduce or remove the assumptions present incurrent methods for nirt. tree-link recursively partitions the latent ability scale into regions with relatively homogeneous responses. because of this, it naturally handles data from all levels of measurement (stevens, 1946), including continuous responses. the methods developed here are evaluated with via simulation study and then applied to example data. results show tree-link can accurately recover estimates of the underlying trait with high fidelity even in the presence of highly irregular link functions. likewise, the estimated item response function (irf) is demonstrated to closely match the true irf. sea-spray droplets generated in large quantities under strong winds exchange heat and water vapor with the turbulent airflow, which potentially modifies air-sea heat fluxes. however, questions regarding the appropriate method for modeling the effects of spray on air-sea fluxes still exist due to untested assumptions in existing models and low fidelity in the measurements. in this study, an eulerian-langrangian model is implemented to simulate two-way coupled spray droplets in a turbulent flow via direct numerical simulations. while the study is not meant to replicate a real air-sea interface, the fundamental physics underlying turbulence-droplet coupling is the focus. with high-fidelity simulations with monoand poly-dispersed droplet size distributions, the dissertation covers topics on: (1) the sensitivity of air-sea heat fluxes on various droplet and flow parameters; (2) fundamental assumptions on the microphysics and the poly-dispersity of spray droplets using bulk air-sea algorithms; and (3) potential improvements and corrections to the bulk algorithms on parameterizing spray effects. the findings of this dissertation bring insights on the spray microphysics and feedback effects from a small-scale perspective, which narrows the gap in understanding the spray effects at the air-sea interface for the large-scale modeling community. precision measurements in nuclear physics are an area of active study, serving as an important avenue of research for a wide variety of subfields. in this dissertation, three cases will be presented. first, the precision determination of the ft value in t=1/2 mixed mirror transitions is discussed. these provide a method of determining the vud element of the cabbibo-kobayashi-masakawa matrix, and serve as an important test of its unitarity and of the electroweak sector of the standard model. 11c, as the lightest such β+ decay, is particularly sensitive to physics beyond the standard model. thus, a new, high-precision half-life measurement was conducted using the twinsol facility at the nuclear science laboratory at the university of notre dame. the new half-life, t1/2=1220.27(26) s, is consistent with the previous values but significantly more precise, and the new world-average value is t1/2world=1220.41(32), a fivefold improvement over the previous value. this makes the 11c ftmirror value the most precise of all superallowed mixed mirror values, and provides a strong impetus to the measurement of the fermi-to-gamow-teller mixing ratio for the decay of 11c and thus allow the determination of vud. second, the penning trap mass measurement of 56cu using the lebit 9.4 t penning trap mass spectrometer at the national superconducting cyclotron laboratory at michigan state university is presented. this mass is important for calculating reaction rates and constraining the 55ni(p,γ)56cu(p,γ)57zn(β+)57cu bypass of the 56ni rp-process waiting point. previous recommended mass excesses had disagreed by several hundred kev; our new measurement, me=-38626.7(7.1) kev, resolves this discrepancy. the new calculated 55ni(p,γ) and 56cu(p,γ) forward and reverse rates were used to perform precision network calculations, which show the rp-process flow partially redirecting around the 56ni waiting point. finally, a new facility is under development at the argonne tandem linac accelerator system to allow for precision measurements necessary for the determination of the r-process path around the n=126 shell closure. the construction and commissioning of an important component of the n=126 factory, the radiofrequency quadrupole cooler-buncher, will be presented. numerous statistical methods exist for the analysis of irregularly spaced time series data (parzen, 1984). an extension of the multivariate latent differential equation (mlde) model (boker, neale & rausch, 2004) for accommodating irregularly-spaced data is provided. moreover, the current dissertation focuses on how misspecifying an irregular sampling interval as an equal measurement interval effects the estimated model parameters of change of the mlde model. the accuracy of the estimated model parameters of change was assessed through the use of monte carlo simulations. for exponential processes, relative to the mlde model curvature parameter estimates from equally spaced data, the misspecification of irregularly spaced data has little to no effect on the bias but does decrease the precision of the curvature parameter estimates. for processes exhibiting cyclic change, if a high degree of misspecification exists in the sampling interval, relative to the mlde model estimates of equally spaced data, the frequency parameter will be underestimated and the damping parameter will be overestimated. utilizing fiml estimation to correctly define the sampling interval, however, may tend to overestimate the frequency of the process and overestimation of the damping will still exist. the amount of bias incurred in both the frequency and damping parameter due to the incorrect parameterization of time, however, does not appear to be substantial. considering water resource scarcity and uncertainty in climate and demand futures, decision-makers require techniques for sustainability analysis in resource management. through unclear definitions of "sustainability", incomplete decision-making tools, and short-term planning, however, traditional approaches to resource management propose options of limited robustness to planning uncertainties. this work first proposes a robust, multivariate, dynamic sustainability evaluation technique called measure of sustainability (mos) that is more adapted to withstand future parameter variation. the range of potential future climate and demand scenarios is simulated through a calibrated hydrological model of copiapó, chile, an example of an arid watershed under extreme natural and anthropogenic water stresses. comparing mos and cost rankings of proposed water management schemes, this work determines that the traditional evaluation method not only underestimates future water deficits, but also espouses solutions without considering supply and demand uncertainties.secondly, this research addresses internal and external uncertainties in the water reuse and recycling (wrr) technological decision-making process through the utilization of fuzzy topsis. applied to four latin american study sites, this technique is compared with the weighted sum method to demonstrate its improved robustness to variability in the number of evaluation criteria and stakeholders surveyed. additionally, this research determines that stakeholder valuations of wrr technology selection criteria align less with other stakeholders from the same watershed than with those of the same water use sector in drastically different watersheds. finally, the third objective of this research is to demonstrate with long-term cost-benefit analysis that under conditions of climate change and market expansion, the benefits of replacing groundwater extraction with alternative water sources outweigh the costs of lowered water tables and farm failure. through integrated hydrologic simulation, this economic approach is applied to the copiapó river basin in chile, where the long-established agricultural sector is being forced by market forces to fallow crops and sell crucial water rights. results from our application of cost-benefit analysis to a robust outlook of future climactic and demand scenarios determine that substituting groundwater extraction with desalination for irrigation requirements could provide a potentially economically viable option for future water scarcity alleviation. in this thesis, i will examine the promotion of science, or 'useful knowledge,' in the polite eighteenth century. historians of england and america have identified the concept of 'politeness' as a key component for understanding eighteenth-century culture. at the same time, the term 'useful knowledge' is also acknowledged to be a central concept for understanding the development of the early american scientific community. my dissertation looks at how these two ideas, 'useful knowledge' and 'polite character,' informed each other. i explore the way americans promoted 'useful knowledge' in the formative years between 1775 and 1806 by drawing on and rejecting certain aspects of the ideal of politeness. particularly, i explore the writings of three central figures in the early years of the american philosophical society, david rittenhouse, charles willson peale, and benjamin rush, to see how they variously used the language and ideals of politeness to argue for the promotion of useful knowledge in america. then i turn to a new englander, thomas green fessenden, who identified and caricatured a certain type of man of science and satirized the late-eighteenth-century culture of useful knowledge. he criticized what he saw as a certain culture of useful knowledge by turning to the polite ideals of benevolence and open conversation. this dissertation reconsiders the origins of america's public school system. by tracing the transatlantic travels of clergy-reformers, it argues that religion and international comparison played a defining role in the movement to systematize and professionalize american schools that lasted from approximately 1800 to 1848.whereas typical educational scholarship begins with horace mann's appointment as the secretary of the board of education in 1837 and emphasizes the economic factors behind educational change, this dissertation demonstrates that horace mann's reforms represent the culmination of a much longer movement, the chief aim of which was to christianize the country through its schools.the "common school awakening" had three phases.from about 1800 to about 1828, school reformers of various sorts experimented with different methods of schooling that they had imported from abroad.the lancasterian method, developed by a quaker in england, promised to bring education to the american masses.new approaches to teaching the deaf and the blind, imported especially from france, revolutionized teaching these populations.even elite boarding schools looked to prussia for models.the american reformers who used these innovations consistently framed their goals in terms of introducing their students to a broad, "nonsectarian" christianityin the late 1820s, the same reformers who had earlier imported european teaching methods began to look to european educational models as ways to organize systems of government sponsored schools.the dissertation focuses on developments along these lines in massachusetts and ohio.once again, religious reformers led the way in advocating these changes, rooting their appeals in the necessity of teaching citizens a nonsectarian christianity in order to safeguard the republic.in the 1830s, this strategy achieved remarkable success.by the early 1840s, however, such appeals had become increasingly problematic, as the idea of nonsectarian christianity became less and less tenable.as a result, the dramatic reform of the 1830s came to a halt, occasionally even retreating.but whatever regression might have occurred, the common school awakening had a lasting effect.systematization and professionalization were here to stay. scanning tunneling microscopy (stm) is used to study large, organometallic complexes with multiple metal centers. these complexes are capable of forming stable mixed-valence (mv) states and are typically characterized using ensemble measurements according to the robin-day classification. neutral and mv molecules are studied with the stm after pulse deposition onto an au(111) substrate in ultra-high-vacuum and low-temperature conditions. pulse deposition of molecules on a substrate removes bulk solvent and the charge-transfer properties of the molecules of interest can be studied. the stm tip is a sensitive probe for the visualization of the electronic properties of both neutral and mv molecules. generally, neutral molecules show a symmetric electronic charge distribution whereas mv molecules show an asymmetric charge distribution in stm images. factors such as geometry of the metal centers and molecule-surface interactions also play a role in charge transfer capabilities within a molecule. electronic structure calculations from density functional theory (dft) and constrained density functional theory (cdft) are also used to study mv characteristics of molecules. stm was also used to study self-assembly of carboxylic acid monolayers. in most cases, the formation of two strong hydrogen bonds results in dimer formation; in some others, linear catemer chains are formed. observation of a five-membered catemer ring, stabilized by additional ch$cdots$o interactions available in the cyclic structure is reported. the existence of ch$cdots$o hydrogen bonding is confirmed with dft calculations and by observing the disappearance of pentamers when molecules without suitable ch donors are used. long range assembly of pentamers results in a two-dimensional quasicrystalline lattice, the first observation of such structure from small-molecule self assembly. the performance of low-density parity-check (ldpc) codes at high signal-tonoise ratios (snrs) is known to be limited by the presence of certain sub-graphs that exist in the tanner graph representation of the code, for example trapping sets and absorbing sets. this dissertation derives a lower bound on the frame error rate (fer) of any ldpc code containing a given problematic sub-graph, assuming a particular iterative message passing (mp) decoder and decoder quantization. a crucial aspect of the lower bound is that it is code-independent, in the sense that it can be derived based only on a problematic sub-graph and then applied to any code containing it. due to the complexity of evaluating the exact bound, assumptions are proposed to approximate it, from which we can estimate decoder performance.for ldpc codes, the attenuated min-sum algorithm (amsa) and the offset minsum algorithm (omsa) are known to outperform the conventional min-sum algorithm (msa) at low snrs, i.e., in the waterfall region of the fer curve. this dissertation demonstrates that, for quantized ldpc decoders, the amsa and omsa underperform the msa at high snrs, i.e., in the error floor region of the fer curve, and that the msa, amsa, and omsa all suffer from a relatively high error floor. therefore, we introduce a novel modification of the msa for quantized decoding of ldpc codes, called the threshold attenuated min-sum algorithm (tamsa) (or the threshold offset min-sum algorithm (tomsa)) with the aim of outperforming themsa, amsa, and omsa at both low and high snrs. the new decoding algorithm is designed based on the common assumption that trapping sets are the major cause of the error floor for quantized ldpc decoders, and it is shown to reduce the error probability associated with these problematic graphic objects. the lower bound analysis tool noted above is then used to verify the effectiveness of the new tamsa (tomsa) and also to assist in finding its optimum design parameters. we also show that the implementation complexity of the tamsa (tomsa) is only slightly higher than that of the amsa or omsa.finally, we extend the lower bound to sliding window (sw) decoding of spatially coupled ldpc (sc-ldpc) codes. additionally, we show that the performance of the tamsa (tomsa) is better than that of the msa, amsa, and omsa for sw. c-c coupling reactions are of high interest to synthetic chemists due to their ability to accomplish chemical transformations often involving value addition to the substrates. the high impact of the research in this area is evident by a nobel prize awarded to richard f. heck, ei-ichi negishi, and akira suzuki in the year 2010. this thesis outlines a research project in the area of c-c coupling reactions to synthesize industrially relevant products using substrate molecules typically small oxygenates, such as, acetic acid, and c2-c3 aldehydes. the focus is on the development of suitable catalysts to accomplish these transformations efficiently. self c-c coupling of acetic acid, and propionaldehyde via ketonization and aldol condensation, respectively, are the reactions under investigation during the course of this thesis project. acetone, and 2-methyl-2-pentenal are the desired products, which have a wide range of industrial applications. however, tendency of these molecules to form longer carbon chains via continuous coupling is a major drawback during these reactions. therefore, a catalyst that is highly selective to the desired products and that can deliver competitive yields is needed. with this regard, novel materials containing cerium and/or manganese heteroatoms incorporated in the zeolite frameworks are tested as catalysts. the data show the presence of ce3+, and mn3+ heteroatom species in the crystalline zeolite framework, and these catalysts are active at low temperature during self-aldol condensation reaction as well as can deliver higher rates to the desired products during the c-c coupling reactions of small oxygenates tested. this work presents a systematic framework to synthesize planar mechanisms capable of approximating a shape change defined by a set of morphing curves in different positions. the framework starts with a procedure to design rigid-body shape-changing mechanisms, which is an extension of the existing synthesis approach that includes the segmentation and mechanization processes. the mechanization process is reformulated so that a group of single degree-of-freedom solution mechanisms that trade off minimizing matching error with maximizing mechanical advantage can be found efficiently from a genetic algorithm (ga) optimization. this rigid-body synthesis procedure can be extended to generate partially compliant shape-changing mechanisms by including two pseudo-rigid-body (prb) models: flexural pivots and flexible beams. since the simplified prb beam model is not accurate, an independent optimization loop is established to redefine flexible beams of the partially compliant solution mechanism using a finite link beam model. partially compliant mechanisms can only generate relatively small-scale shape change due to stress concentrations. to achieve larger ranges of motion, fully distributed compliant mechanisms are synthesized using the structural optimization approach. for a shape-change problem, the rigid-body solution's base topology is utilized to provide new insight into the topological complexity required for the structural optimization. the base topology is either directly evaluated via dimensional synthesis or else used to define an initial mesh network for an optimization to find topologies and dimensions simultaneously. simple but viable distributed compliant shape-changing designs can be obtained, which shows that a thorough search within the preselected design space defined by the base topology typically leads to a superior local minimum. this same idea is also applied to the design of path generating compliant mechanisms whose complete output paths are examined within a two-objective ga. warrant is whatever distinguishes knowledge from mere true belief. "fallibilism" is the view that false beliefs can have warrant. this dissertation evaluates a novel argument for fallibilism. chapter 1 introduces a puzzle about warrant, and uses it to generate the "best solution argument' for fallibilism. this puzzle is the fact that the following three popular claims are incompatible: infallibilism &ndash; only true beliefs can have warrant. egalitarianism &ndash; false as well as true beliefs can support knowledge. preservationism &ndash; inference does no more than preserve warrant. according to the best solution argument, while egalitarianism and preservationism are plausible, infallibilism is unjustified. chapter 2 defuses two arguments for the nonexistence of warrant. the first, due to stephen hetherington, misconstrues "externalist" and "internalist" requirements on knowledge. the second, due to michael huemer, contains a questionable premise unsupported by available arguments. chapter 3 argues that infallibilism is unjustified. most of this chapter assesses the two strongest arguments for infallibilism. the first, rooted in work by david lewis, infers infallibilism from the oddity of "concessive knowledge attributions." i defend a novel account of epistemic possibility, and use it to develop a fallibilist-friendly explanation of the relevant oddity. the second &ndash; the "luck argument' &ndash; is due to trenton merricks and linda zagzebski. after improving this argument, i assess the two main objections to it. while the first fails, the second drives the luck argument's proponent to a questionable semantic theory for counterfactuals. chapter 4 defends egalitarianism. after making a prima facie case for it, i disable three objections to egalitarianism. two proceed from work on the "gettier problem," while the other proceeds from work on evidence by peter unger and timothy williamson. chapter 5 considers preservationism. after establishing an initial presumption in its favor, i evaluate three objections to preservationism. two proceed from recent work on memory and testimony, while the other invokes putative counterexamples. while the first two objections fail, the third succeeds. chapter 6 draws two conclusions from previous chapters' findings. first, neither infallibilism nor fallibilism constitutes an adequacy condition on theories of knowledge. second, foundationalism about knowledge and warrant should be reconceived in terms of justification. inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (icp-ms) has been a widely used analytical method across many scientific disciplines since the mid-90's for several reasons. it has the capability to determine the abundances for most elements of the periodic table and has a sensitivity down to parts per trillion (ppt) levels in certain cases. liquid samples are readily introduced to the instrument subsequent acid digestions and solid samples can be analyzed via laser ablation prior to analysis. these broad and flexible analytical capabilities are coupled with relatively low costs for the instrument which means that these methods are viable for even small laboratories. one caviot to icp-ms is that there are instances when the recombination of lighter elements can be sorted by mass as a heavier isotope. since icp-ms fundamentally sorts elements by mass this recombination of lighter elements can artificially inflate the signal on a heavier element of interest. this research provides a method to quantify and correct for this phenomenon, then applies the method to a suite of lunar samples and terrestrial impact samples to correct any artificial inflation of a signal for a suite of moderately volatile elements (mves) during a procedural run. these elements are capable of tracking high-temperature degassing events on planetary bodies, and the resulting analyses have shown that a catastrophic degassing event occurred late in the moon's evolution. icp-ms analyses on material recovered from the chicxulub impact basin have indicated that platinum group elements are more concentrated in clast-free impact melt than other impact lithologies. while the horizon transitioning from preto post-impact sediments has a distinct pge signature, the impact melt lithologies that are far deeper in the recovered core retain more of the pge derived impactor signature yarrowia lipolytica is an oleaginous, nonconventional yeast with impressive lipid biosynthesis, extremophilic characteristics and the ability to consume a wide range of substrates. these characteristics make y. lipolytica an effective microbial platform for waste-to-value biotransformation of waste biomass and food waste-derived volatile fatty acids (vfas). ionic liquid (il) carryover from lignocellulosic biomass pretreatment inhibits microbial biotransformation of waste biomass into valuable fuels and chemicals during simultaneous saccharification and fermentation. to overcome this challenge, we used evolutionary engineering to develop an il tolerant strain of y. lipolytica that can grow at a competitive growth rate in the presence of ≤14% il (v/v). we also investigated the potential of y. lipolytica as an oleaginous cell platform for bioconversion of food waste-derived vfas, produced during anerobic digestion, into biolipids for biodiesel. we found that y. lipolytica can utilize sole vfas as a cost-effective substrate producing lipid contents up to 25% of cell biomass. people who have experienced early adversity (ea) often have a more severe and chronic course of depression compared to those who never experienced ea. the pernicious depressive outcomes associated with ea have prompted research on the possible mechanisms by which those with ea develop such a difficult course. one potential mechanism involves the dysregulation of a critical component of the internal stress response system, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (hpa) axis. preclinical research with non-human primates and rodents supports that the hpa system becomes dysregulated following ea and specific symptoms indicative of major depression result. parallel to preclinical evidence, hpa dysregulation has also been consistently associated with ea and depression in humans. prolonged hpa dysregulation may influence the manifestation of certain symptoms in depressed individuals with ea. the present study seeks to extend this line of research to evaluate whether ea predicts specific manifestations of depressive symptoms in humans suffering from major depression. increasing coverage of cell-corner users is one of the essential requirements to improve the performance of current cellular systems. unlike the typical network user, a user located at the cell boundary suffers from severe inter-cell interference, a problem which is aggravated by the deployment of small cells in heterogeneous networks. to address this issue, inter/intra-cell base station cooperation has been proposed in wireless standards as a technique to limit the amount of inter-cell interference and hence improve coverage.motivated by this ongoing debate in standard settings, this thesis presents a stochastic geometry model to study base station cooperation in heterogeneous cellular networks. within this model, base stations are assumed to be randomly located on a plane according to a poisson point process, such that the so-called coverage probability, i.e., the probability that the signal-to-interference ratio at the designated receiver exceeds a desired threshold value, can be analytically characterized as a function of the network parameters. in contrast, traditional models either ignore the presence of interferes or make approximate models for the aggregate interference power distribution. unlike any other work in the literature, the proposed model allows base stations and receivers to be equipped with multiple antennas. specific cooperation schemes that are considered include joint transmission, base station silencing, cooperativere-transmission, and a distributed version of the well-known alamouti space-time code. for each of these schemes, integral expressions for the coverage probability are characterized for both the typical network user and the typical cell-corner user.the expressions derived are used to quantify the relative coverage gain due to cooperation at the typical cell-corner user vs the typical network user. at a high level, the theoretical analysis reveals the existence of two qualitatively different operating regimes, depending on whether the coverage probability is close to 1 or 0. in the high-coverage regime where the coverage probability is close to 1, the typical network user and the typical cell-corner user are diversity-limited, so cooperation techniques exploiting spatiotemporal diversity such as the alamouti code or cooperative re-transmission are highly effective in increasing coverage. in the low-coverage regime where the coverage probability is close to 0, on the other hand, the typical network user and the typical cell-corner user are interference-limited, so cooperation techniques such as joint transmission and base station silencing are effective in increasing coverage as they suppress part of the interference power. in this dissertation, i turn to three major pilgrim accounts from fourteenthand fifteenth-century england (and the nearby continent) in order to explore how these pilgrims situated themselves spatially in order to access times outside their own moment. each of these texts – william wey's itineraries, the book of margery kempe, and the book of john mandeville – depicts adventures and voyages to myriad locations in and beyond medieval europe, and while all these writers hailed (or purported to hail) from england, their remarkable accounts display a diverse range of beliefs about and attitudes toward temporality, spatiality, and religious experience. it should of course come as no surprise that accounts composed over two centuries may differ in their interests, goals, and source material, but nevertheless in each narrative, jerusalem and the holy land writ-large seems to act as the testing ground for each author's theories on and beliefs about their place in time and their access to the past and future. ultimately, this dissertation explores how these late-medieval pilgrimage accounts invite and exploit the paradoxes that inhere in temporality in order to imagine and create new ways of being in and navigating time. theater and drama occupied a precarious position in early american culture. on one hand, the professional theater was banned and vilified by many in the colonial and early republican periods, damaging its legitimacy. on the other hand, much scholarship has demonstrated that early american theaters and the plays staged there contributed greatly to the development of american culture and politics. little has been said, though, of the dramatic literature of this period that did not find its full realization on the stage, but instead on the page as closet drama, plays that were written but not performed publicly. why, though, would authors write drama if not to be performed on a public stage? in what ways might we interpret the literary artifact of theater—printed, textual drama—alongside cultural and historical developments? what do manifestations of dramatic form, such as within other genres of literature, suggest about the affordances of drama? questions such as these about closet drama have been explored by scholars in the contexts of early modern and romantic england, and this dissertation seeks to explore them in the context of early america.closet drama, literary form, and politics in early america is a study of closet drama's development in america to the middle of the nineteenth century. it argues for a traceable archive of the genre in early america and proposes that we can conceive of authors' turning to closet drama at various times (and to various effects) in early american cultural history, demonstrating its effectiveness at exploring topics of immediate political concern. we can see closet drama operating in situations and with opportunities as diverse as early america. the dissertation begins in the early colonial period by tracing dramatic form's appearances in other literary genres, such as poetry and court proceedings before transitioning to closet drama of the later colonial period and the american revolution. it then considers the closet drama of the nineteenth century and beyond to conceive of a diverse, malleable archive. ultimately, the dissertation argues that because closet drama is eminently associated with live performance, it traffics in a sense of potentiality and possibility that its textuality necessitates as a private, reflective experience for the reader. this dissertation examines the variant manuscripts of the book of jeremiah in light of the practice of ancient near eastern, scholarly scribes who were responsible for transcribing and transmitting prophetic oracles. these scribal scholars were active contributors to the process of divination, i.e., in the discernment of the deity's will. through techniques of textual divination, especially vertical reading, intra-textual harmonization, and analogical reapplication, these scribes shaped and expanded the meaning of prophetic oracles. significantly, these techniques of textual divination illuminate the practice of the jewish scribes who formed the book of jeremiah. in particular, they shed light on the processes which produced jeremiah's numerous doublets. each doublet marks an occasion of textual divination when a scribe would lift a set of verses from one context and copy them into another; and through vertical reading and intra-textual harmonization, and sometimes analogical reapplication, such moments of duplication would generate fresh revelation. also, toward the generation of fresh revelation, the duplicating scribe would often rephrase and adapt the doublet's text in the process of duplication. thus, in their creation of doublets the scribes responsible for the formation of jeremiah resemble the scribal scholars of the ancient near east. for this reason, it would not be unreasonable to propose that the diving scribes of second temple judea (and earlier) who formed the book of jeremiah were entrusted with a scholarly vocation comparable to the vocation of scribal scholars in the ancient near east. both groups of scribes were authorized, "inspired" conduits of divine revelation. finally, the divinatory origins of the creation and growth of jeremiah, have implications for how we should interpret the extant manuscript forms of the book.the main two surviving forms of the book—that of the masoretic text and that of the septuagint—are best understood not as subsequent "editions," but as snapshots of an ongoing and more gradual process of scribal divination. jacques copeau, a seminal figure in 20th century theatre theory and practice, developed a distinctively aristotelian approach to actor training, focused on sincerity and embodiment. earlier scholarship has misrepresented copeau's theatre practice and aesthetics as essentially nietzschean, overlooking the deep influence on his work of the educational philosophy of maria montessori. previously unexplored archival evidence shows copeau had an active professional relationship with montessori, and he incorporated her child-centered aristotelian philosophical anthropology into his own physical approach to acting and his aesthetics of poetic realism. the epistemology and metaphysics of the human body that animate both copeau's theatre and montessori's auto-education were influenced by the thomist aesthetic theory of jacques maritain. montessori's practical and philosophical framework clarifies the coherence of copeau's selective synthesis of contemporary theories of theatre, mask and music, including those of andr? antoine, edward gordon craig, adolphe appia and ?mile jaques-dalcroze. copeau's montessorian child-centered perspective, with its important metaphysical presuppositions and ethical ramifications for the actor's process and the role of theatre, has a continuing influence in theatre theory and practice. michel saintdenis, copeau's nephew, brought copeau's actor training and theoretical approaches to england, canada and the u.s.a., and strove to implement these faithfully without using the language of their philosophical substratum. in contrast, jean dast?, copeau's son-inlaw, keeping copeau's child-centered philosophy and its semantics, contributed to the movement to decentralize theatre in france, and influenced the currently prestigious acting school of jacques lecoq. copeau's ideal of the actor's sincerity, closely linked to his use of the mask in actor training, has also been pivotal in recent theory and practice. l?on chancerel popularized copeau's vision through the scouts of france and its professional company, les com?diens routiers and influenced the contemporary theatre company the th??tre de l'arc en ciel through its founder, olivier fenoy. through chancerel, the vieux colombier's signature theatrical element, the "noble" mask (more often in current scholarship and practice referred to as the "neutral" mask), became the progenitor of the "visage neutre" of fenoy's company and its educational arm the acad?mie de th??tre pour enfants in france. these latter disciples also inherited copeau's montessorian perspective on the actor's process incorporating the original idea behind training with the "neutral mask" and learning to attain a "child-like state." they thus continue copeau's vision of theatre true to aristotelian embodiment, an embodiment of fictive character that demands in the first place a montessorian education of the actor as a unique fusion of embodied soul and a "dependent rational animal." the message of the qurʾān (tmoq) by muḥammad asad (formerly leopold weiss, d. 1992) ranks among one of the major influential works of translations and exegetical literature in the contemporary period. it employs a hermeneutical method which critically positions reason or independent thinking (ijtihād) as the interpretive key in unlocking qurʾān's intended "message." as such, its rationalist orientation stands not only as a worthy hermeneutical method which generates a clearer understanding of the islamic worldview. it also serves as a critique to islamic traditionalism (taqlīd) which privileges the deductions and conclusions of the past as the arbiter of the affairs of the present. expectedly, tmoq also draws criticism as applying excessive western-like rationalism, the likes of which, they say, has evoked the excesses of some intellectually intemperate muʿtazilis of the classical islamic period.this dissertation is an in-depth study of asad's magnum opus, the message of the qurʾān. it mines the latter for any clue or marker which explains its rationalist orientation. it closely analyzes select verses from tmoq which convey or illustrate the author's basic dynamic of translation and interpretation. in particular, it identifies some sources of interpretation and hermeneutical methods. it also contextualizes its praxis of translation within the discourse of current theories translations. moreover, this dissertation also argues that an attempt at a comprehensive understanding of tmoq is, at best, haphazard and incomplete if it ignores a subjectivist and contextualist investigation of the life's journey of its author -especially his conversion from judaism to islam. thus, chapter one portrays "the making of a translator." while much study has been undertaken and theory put forward in recent years regarding the optimal assembly of neighborhoods and villages, it seems as though there is an improper balance of focus on the finer details, and less interest in the larger scope and purpose. by using the city of detroit as a case study, this thesis aims to discover what physical elements are essential to the health and success of the metropolis as a whole, and to give clearer definition to the terms "health" and "success" as they apply to a city. given that the purpose of a city is to be the physical framework within which people live, success is necessarily achieved when it provides its citizens with the support required in order to live their lives well. part of the purpose of this study will therefore be to define what it means to live well as citizens. mixing-driven chemical reactions are an important factor to consider in a wide range of natural flowing systems. these flows are in general heterogeneous across a broad range of scales, increasing the complexity of these systems. non-uniform flows are generally expected to enhance mixing relative to a homogeneous one, which will impact reactions. in reactive transport, the chemicals involved in the reaction must first come into contact before a reaction can occur and mixing is the process that enables this. many existing models inadequately assume perfect mixing, leading to the overprediction of reaction rates in laboratory and field observations. the effects of incomplete mixing must be properly accounted for in order to accurately predict reactive transport in these systems. in this dissertation, we use lagrangian particle tracking methods to predict mixing and reactions in flows through idealized two-dimensional heterogeneous porous media. the goal of this work is to identify which aspects of the heterogeneous flows most control mixing and reactions and to develop upscaled models that account for these processes without explicitly resolving them. to do this, we first examine the relationship between reaction numbers and local metrics of flow deformation based on velocity gradients. a link between reactive and conservative transport is also identified. next, we take what we learned about mixing and reactions from our fully resolved model simulations and work to upscale these processes. we first upscale conservative mixing by modifying the lagrangian spatial markov model (smm) to predict particle locations that are needed to generate concentration fields that can be used to quantify mixing. then, we use this modified smm to extend the lagrangian transport eulerian reaction spatial (laters) markov model to predict upscaled bimolecular reactive transport in flows through idealized heterogeneous porous media. in wireless radio-frequency transceivers, the impedance matching network between the source amplifiers and load antennas is a critical stage that determines the bandwidth. if well designed, the network is capable of matching the impedances of the sources and loads over a broad bandwidth. however, perfect matching between sources and loads across all frequency is generally impossible if the matching network is passive. for a single load driven by a source through a two-port network, the maximum achievable bandwidth is governed by the bode-fano upper bounds, introduced by bode and fano in 1940s, on the integral over all frequency of the logarithm of the reflection coefficient of cascaded matching network and load. since then, extensions of the bode-fano bounds to multiport systems where multiple sources drive multiple loads through multiport networks have only been partially examined for specific loads. in this dissertation, we derive multiport broadband matching bounds that generalize the classical results of bode and fano. we also present a step-by-step recipe to compute the bounds from the characteristics of the loads, which applies to any number of coupled loads. the bounds determine the maximum achievable bandwidth for any given loads that are matched by an arbitrary passive multiport network.various matching networks can be designed for multiport systems. a class of narrowband networks that maximize the power transfer from sources to loads at a design frequency are called ``decoupling networks'', since they eliminate the mutual coupling of the loads. existing design techniques for decoupling networks work for a small number of loads with specific structures. another class of networks are broadband matching networks, which approximately match sources and loads over a broad bandwidth. design methods for two-port broadband matching networks are well known, but there is a lack of understanding in the network structures that achieve broadband matching bounds for multiport systems.in this dissertation, we present a systematic design method for decoupling networks that is applicable for any number of coupled loads. this method synthesizes networks with minimum complexity in that it achieves the lower bound on the number of circuit components required in any decoupling network. with the assistance of multiport broadband matching bounds derived in the dissertation, we also present examples of broadband matching networks that maximize the bandwidth and approach these bounds. we find that the achievable bandwidth of multiport systems generally scales with the ratio of the number of loads to the number of sources, and introduce a class of networks called ``determinant networks'' that achieve the scaling bandwidth. in multiport systems where there are more loads than sources, we show that non-reciprocal components are essential to the design of matching networks that achieve the broadband bounds. finally, when evaluating the effect of antenna coupling on a pair of dipoles that are approximately a quarter wavelength apart, we find that the coupled dipoles exhibit significantly more bandwidth than isolated ones. this implies that antenna coupling may have a positive effect on the bandwidth if the antennas are properly spaced and matched. low density parity check (ldpc) codes are a class of error correction codes. a structured class of ldpc codes known as quasi cyclic ldpc (qc-ldpc) codes have been selected for the data channels of the new generation of cellular communication standards known as 5g new radio (nr). ldpc codes are generally decoded using iterative message passing algorithms that yield performance that is close to capacity. previous research has shown that iterative decoders are vulnerable to certain combinatorial objects in the code's structure resulting in an error floor, a typically abrupt change of slope in the frame error rate performance curve. these substructures are called absorbing sets; specifically, elementary absorbing sets are found to be particularly impactful for structured ldpc codes. the main focus of this thesis is investigating the decoder performance curve of the 5g nr code and identifying the error prone elementary absorbing sets that contribute to its error floor. in this thesis, we introduce the 5g nr qc-ldpc code and its characteristics; we talk about the measures taken in the transmitter to improve the code's performance such as puncturing and shortening. we will see how practical limitations such as finite precision (quantization) of llr values affects the performance in the error floor. we also devise an algorithm to identify all the (elementary) absorbing sets in the code. the focus of this thesis is on optical studies of the properties of semiconductor heterostructures fabricated by the molecular beam epitaxy. zncdse quantum wells were grown on the cleaved (110) edge of zncdse/znse multiple quantum well structures with the intent of creating t-shaped quantum wires at intersections of the quantum wells. extensive polarization-dependent micro-photoluminescence studies were carried out on all the samples. we report the observation of the photoluminescence emission from the quantum wire in one of the samples. the absence of the quantum wire photoluminescence lines in other samples may be caused by the roughness of the interfaces formed by zncdse deposition on the cleaved (110) surface which can affect the quality of the t-junctions formed by the intersection of the quantum wells. in addition to preliminary success in fabricating zncdse quantum wires in the znse matrix, this work has also resulted in the observation of zero-dimensional znse/zncdse quantum structures ( natural quantum dots). the natural quantum dots result from the carrier localization on the fluctuations of the thickness of the zncdse quantum wells grown on (110) cleaved surface due to (110) interface roughness. we also describe the properties of self-assembled cdse quantum dots grown on mn-passivated znse buffers. we show that the mn deposited on the znse surface acts as a nucleating seed for self-assembled qd formation. at certain optimal growth conditions, the presence of mn on znse surface results in a significant improvement in size uniformity compared to cdse dots grown on znse without mn passivation as evidenced by photoluminescence as well as transmission electron microscopy experiments. we also show that the dots exhibit large zeeman splitting observed in the photoluminescence emission, indicating that this growth method is suitable for fabricating magnetic quantum dots that exhibit strong spin polarization effects. in addition to our studies of the ii-vi semiconductor heterostructures, we have investigated the magnetic properties of ferromagnetic gamnas, gamnsb, and inmnsb grown on hybrid gaas/ii-vi substrates by the magneto-optical kerr effect and magnetic circular dichroism measurements. the results of the magneto-optical experiments were compared with those obtained by direct magnetization measurements and electrical transport. the seismic design, analysis, and large-scale experimental evaluation of a novel multi-story coupled shear wall system with post-tensioned coupling beams are presented in this dissertation. in this new system, high-strength unbonded post-tensioning (pt) strands are used to couple (i.e., link) reinforced concrete (rc) shear wall piers for primary lateral load resistance in building structures. reversed-cyclic quasi-static testing of two 40%-scale coupled wall specimens with the proposed details were conducted to evaluate the system according to the requirements of the american concrete institute (aci). the laboratory specimens represented the most critical bottom three stories of an eight-story prototype structure, consisting of two c-shaped wall piers, six coupling beams (two beams at each floor level), tributary slabs at each floor, and the foundation. the other (less critical) regions of the eight-story structure were simulated analytically.to validate the seismic design methodology, selected important design parameters were varied between the two 40%-scale test specimens. the two primary parameters were: (1) coupling beam depth; and (2) use of energy-dissipating (ed) ductile mild steel reinforcement crossing the beam-to-wall joints (i.e., partially post-tensioned versus fully post-tensioned coupling beams). the measured behaviors of the test specimens were compared against design predictions and analytical simulations using fiber element models. overall, both test specimens performed well and significantly better than previous tests of conventional rc coupled shear wall structures. the specimens achieved ductile behavior through the completion of three full cycles at or exceeding the "validation-level" lateral roof drift prescribed by aci, thus demonstrating the classification of these structures as "special" rc shear walls. in addition to a dense array of conventional sensors, the deformations of the specimens were monitored using up to 14 twoand three-dimensional digital image correlation (dic) sensors, providing unprecedented near-full-field response data of the most critical regions of the structures. ultimately, the high-fidelity data from these tests support the aci validation of the design procedures and modeling/prediction tools for the use of post-tensioned coupled shear wall structures as primary lateral load resisting systems in moderate and high seismic regions of the u.s. this study explores relations between personality disorder (pd) and childhood adversity, specifically childhood maltreatment and/or trauma. although convincing evidence of a link between these constructs has been established, previous research focus has been almost exclusively on categorical pd diagnoses, particularly borderline pd, with little examination of their constituent pathological personality traits. incorporating a trait-dimensional framework into research on personality and childhood maltreatment/trauma provides additional useful information about the relations among these constructs. understanding how negative experiences in childhood relate to later personality pathology has implications for implementing treatment strategies among individuals who have experienced childhood maltreatment and/or trauma, and deepens our knowledge about the development of specific personality traits that cause difficulties for individuals with pd. in the us, latina/os have the lowest levels of educational attainment. latina/os are increasingly represented in "new immigrant destinations," where educational institutions are poorly equipped to handle the unique challenges immigrants bring with them. my dissertation in a new latino immigrant community—elkhart county, indiana—asks: 1) how do latina/o young adults navigate the transition out of high school in a new immigrant destination? 2) how does variation in access to school resources, relationships with institutional agents and placements within educational curricular regimes across the local educational context explain variation in pathways formed after high school completion? 3) how do k-12 educational experiences and the transition thereafter shape ethnoracial and undocumented identity formation processes? i find immigrants interfaced with educational contexts that had never considered the needs of this new latina/o demographic presence. using qualitative methods, i conducted 67 in-depth life narrative interviews with latina/o young adults between the ages of 18-26. over half of respondents were at a critical transition where they are "learning to be illegal" (gonzales, 2011) beyond the k-12 educational system. the remaining forty percent were 2nd generation: the first cohort of latina/os who were shaped by the k-12 educational system and are currently "coming of age" in the distinctive context of a new immigrant destination. analyzing the educational experiences of this overlooked group presents an opportunity to understand the long-term implications for variation in pathways toward mobility. this study adventures with augustine of hippo (354–430) into the resurrection. it explores how augustine develops and articulates his understanding of his catholic faith in the resurrection of jesus christ and of the rest of humanity. after situating itself within the field of contemporary research on augustine, this study first tracks the initial phases of his early placing and grappling with the resurrection. it then investigates his articulations of the fleshly resurrection of jesus christ, of encountering the resurrected lord even in the scriptural proclamation and preaching of his resurrection, and of the twofold application of christ's paschal mystery to the whole human person, by way of sacrament and by way of example. from the witness of scripture, augustine grasps that our integral resurrection consists of a twofold process: (1) the historical and spiritual resurrection of the human soul from its death in sin to life in christ; and (2) the eschatological and fleshly resurrection of the human body from its temporal death to eternal existence, either in eternal death or in eternal life. accordingly, this study explores the contours and contents of the present resurrection of the human soul, analyzes his narration of his own spiritual resurrection, and examines his views on some of the most extreme embodiments of the spiritual resurrection and expressions of hope for the fleshly resurrection as christians approach their deaths and handle their dead. finally, this study focuses on augustine's arguments for the credibility of the future resurrection and his speculations on the resurrected conditions of the damned and of the saints. in an epilogue, it considers how he approaches his own death in hope for the resurrection of his flesh. throughout its course, this exploration attends to how augustine critically and constructively responds to philosophical, cultural, and heretical opponents of the resurrection, including the platonists and neoplatonists, the roman pagans, and the manichaeans, who either deny it completely or attempt to provide an alternative version of it. this study evinces that, at the heart of augustine's theological life and work, stands his belief in, his hope for, and his love of the integral resurrection of humanity in the risen lord jesus christ by the god of the resurrection. this thesis will argue that a truly inclusive approach to peacebuilding must include the perspective of the disabled. it will argue that the perspective of the disabled continues to be overlooked in models of peacebuilding. and further, bringing the perspective of the disabled to peacebuilding approaches not only adds additional voices to the work of peacebuilding but also brings a new and different lens – the lens of vulnerability – that can generate a significantly different form of understanding of peace, one that is better able to generate positive and sustainable peace. chapter one will consider theories of peacebuilding, most notably the move toward "inclusive peacebuilding" within the field and will develop the "lens of vulnerability". in the following two chapters, i use the lens of vulnerability to assess efforts to include persons with disability within peacebuilding. in chapter two, i consider the work of the united nations, specifically in the "convention on the rights of persons with disabilities". in chapter three, i draw on qualitative research to review the work of a grassroots organization in nigeria, the inclusive friends association. the final chapter summarizes the main points of the study and offers recommendations for the field of peace studies. many of the ecological consequences of human activities cannot be fully understood in isolation. the influence of practices such as industrial agriculture, increasing urbanization, international trade, and fossil fuel combustion have resulted in changes to the climate, biogeochemical cycles, land use, and mobility of organisms. my dissertation investigates the interactions between changing nitrogen (n) biogeochemistry and the presence of a prevalent invasive species, zebra mussels. the effects of zebra mussels on biogeochemical processes such as n cycling have not been extensively examined, but many characteristics of zebra mussels suggest that they have the potential to influence controls on n cycling in aquatic systems. the activities of zebra mussels may directly or indirectly affect substrate availability and oxidationì¢ ââ"reduction (redox) potential, but this remains an understudied area linking invasion biology with ecosystem ecology. i have examined the relationship between n cycling and zebra mussels on multiple scales, incorporating seasonality and spatial variability across several different ecosystems. i have also included multiple lines of study, ranging from small-scale mesocosm experiments in the laboratory to large-scale experimental manipulations and field surveys of invaded ecosystems. i have extended the concept of 'benthification' (by which zebra mussels increase deposition and retention of particles in the littoral zone, thereby focusing productivity and nutrient cycling in littoral benthic habitats) to include the effects of zebra mussels on n cycling. in general, i have shown that zebra mussels strongly increase n availability to benthic sediments. this may result in significantly higher nitrification and denitrification rates in the presence of zebra mussels. however, seasonal and spatial variation of invaded ecosystems will amplify or diminish the effects of zebra mussels on n cycling. the increased n availabile to the benthos resulting from zebra mussel activity may have alternate fates during different times of the year. we know from previous work that denitrification rates can be high during the winter, and increased n availability to denitrifiers from zebra mussel activity may magnify this seasonal pattern in both lakes and rivers. i have also shown that seasonal and spatial variation of biogeochemical cycles is an important characteristic of aquatic ecosystems, though both are often overlooked. my dissertation research highlights the importance of zebra mussels in altering n dynamics in freshwater ecosystems, and emphasizes the need for more research at the disciplinary intersection between biogeochemistry and invasion biology. parents are recognized as primary contributors to children's well-being (borkowski, ramey, & bristol-power, 2002). in parenting research, measures of parenting at one point in time are typically utilized to predict children's development. however, since parenting is a dynamic process, there is a good reason to investigate parenting behaviors from a longitudinal framework. the present study used latent growth curve modeling to investigate changes in parenting over the first 18 months of life and how parenting is related to child language development at 24 months of age. cognitive readiness to parent and support from fathers acted as predictors of initial parenting practices and changes in parenting over time. group differences in these relationships were evaluated for adolescents and adult mothers. the letter to the hebrews became a pauline epistle through material configuration and readerly appropriation. eschewing 'acceptance' and 'rejection' as ways of describing ancient engagement with authorial claims, the paulinity of hebrews was guided and sustained primarily through manuscript transmission which fitted this text with material markers of paulinity as it circulated within pauline letter collections. emerging out from this material priority, the 'paulinity' of the letter within christin literary projects in the second and third centuries is markedly unstable. active participation within the discourse surrounding the pauline authorship of hebrews does not begin to describe how readers may configure and appropriate the letter as pauline within the context of their own corpus, with its unique interests and culturally specific contexts. the hermeneutical posture which early readers (clement and origen) find in and employ for hebrews as pauline is conditioned by their 'need' for a jewish apostle in conceptualizing the difference between christianity and judaism as distinct and different entities. building on this early hermeneutical instability, the prefatory practices developed in the fourth century become the placeholders for discourse about pauline authorship, and in this way, the preface becomes the means by which pauline authorship is institutionalized from late antiquity to the early modern period. the various hypotheses, argumenta, and other kinds of prefatory markers for the letter, reinscribe origen's interpretive lens for hebrews as pauline letter on the nature of jewish reading. probing for second-class induced weak currents is one method of testing selectpredictions of the standard model. although the current limits are not inconsistentwith zero, shrinking these limits will provide more information as to the accuracy ofthe standard model's predictions. this work measures the &beta-delayed coincident &alphaparticles resulting from the decay of 8li and 8b. coupling these measurements witha detailed simulation of the experiment was intended to improve the limits on thesecond-class induced tensor component of the weak current. although unsuccessful,the experiment in this work greatly improved the number of coincident statisticsover the previous measurement. this work explores several possible explanationsfor the disagreement between simulation and experiment and suggests a myriad offuture improvements to be applied the next time the experiment is attempted. historically, stream ecology was formed on the basis of measuring how much organic matter rivers move downstream, and the "processing continuum" as this organic material is alternatively deposited, processed, and further transported. a significant amount of material is continuously exported from headwater streams, and via advection can be moved long distances downstream prior to processing. along the way, these materials exchange rapidly between the water column and streambed, migrating downstream in alternating deposition and resuspension events called saltation, and are influenced by complexity in the physical and biologically template of stream structure. a new focus in ecology is understanding how "novel materials" are transported, retained, and persist in stream and river ecosystems. despite many potential controls over material transport in streams and rivers, we often treat the transport of these materials as a homogenous process in the environment because we lack empirical observations addressing the complexity inherent in natural systems. therefore, the overarching objective of my dissertation is to improve understanding of the transport, retention, and persistence of two novel materials that are actively transported by flowing waters using a combination of empirical and modeling approaches, spanning lab to watershed experimental scales. more specifically, i investigate the dynamics and transport of two novel materials: environmental dna (edna) and a genetically modified protein (cry1ab). this dissertation centers around the following three questions: 1. what are formal theories about? 2. what does it mean to say that two formal theories are equivalent? 3. what does it mean to say that a formal theory is reducible to another?this dissertation seeks to better understand possible answers to these questions by employing methods and tools from model theory, a branch of mathematical logic that studies the relationship between formal languages and the mathematical structures that provide such languages with meaning. at the same time, this dissertation evaluates the philosophical import of such methods and tools.chapter 1 provides technical preliminaries. in chapter 2, i motivate a a distinctively "semantic" view of mathematical theories according to which formalized mathematical statements are taken to specify conditions which describe a variety of possibly non-isomorphic structures.in chapters 3 and 4, i argue that there is good reason to privilege bi-interpretability as a criterion for theoretical equivalence. in particular, chapter 3 argues that bi-interpretability offers the most promising notion of theoretical equivalence, especially when compared to its contrast class. chapter 4 critically discusses the notion of morita equivalence, a criterion for comparing many-sorted theories recently defined in the philosophical literature. chapter 5 advances a "model-theoretic" approach to logicism which consists of two parts: (1) a model-theoretic conception of reduction; and (2) a model-theoretic conception of logicality. i discuss how this model-theoretic approach to logicism aims to realize a broadened version of the classical logicist position (as originally conceived by gottlob frege and richard dedekind) that is still worth pursuing. the main purpose of the current research was to investigate a novel approach to prevent choking under pressure using a sensorimotor task. choking is defined as suboptimal performance in situations filled with performance pressure. three main experiments were conducted to systematically give rise to performance decrements and to, subsequently, use imagery practice to prevent such choking. experiment 1 served to replicate the commonly-found interaction between direction of attention and the cognitive demands of the task. here, novice golfers were found to perform optimally under skill-focused attention but suboptimally when concurrently doing an auditory word monitoring task while the opposite pattern emerged for expert golfers. experiment 2a sought to establish an equally high level of performance pressure as perceived by participants putting in scenarios induced with outcome and monitoring pressure and a significantly higher level of perceived pressure than other participants putting in the no pressure control condition. experiment 2b, then, provided further support for the recent finding of an interaction between type of pressure and the cognitive demands of a task. novice golfers, for which putting represents a working memory reliant task, exhibited choking under outcome but not under monitoring pressure whereas the opposite trend was found for the expert group. finally, experiment 3 set out to test whether imagery practice, in particular, firstand third-person imagery, affected performance as a function of skill level when performing in a single-task (i.e., no pressure) and a pressure-filled environment. importantly, choking, as had been found for novices under outcome and experts under monitoring pressure, was prevented using a brief introduction and one block practice session of imagery practice. in particular, it was found that when novices imagined themselves make a successful putt from a third-person perspective, their performance no longer fell prey to the negative effects of perceived outcome pressure. in the same vein, experts who used first-person imagery performed optimally under those conditions of monitoring pressure that had previously been found harmful of their putting performance. importantly, this research showed that choking under pressure can be prevented through imagery practice, and is best used when matching visual imagery perspective to the cognitive demands of the performer. these results are further discussed in light of current theory of choking under pressure, in particular, self-focus theory and the distraction hypothesis. the cytoskeleton is a dynamic cellular "scaffold" that is present in all eukaryotic cells. interestingly, two major cytoskeletal elements ì¢ ââ" microtubules (mts) and actin ì¢ ââ" are crucial for the cell survival: mts drive essential cell activities ranging from separating chromosomes to transporting large particles, while actin filaments provide mechanical structure and motility. the dynamic behavior of mts and actin are separately regulated by two groups of proteins: mt binding proteins (mtbps) and actin binding proteins (abps). for cells to function properly, actin filaments and mt polymers must cooperate, but the mechanism of "cross-talk" between actin and mt are as yet poorly understood. this thesis focuses on a unique mt binding protein called eb1, how it interacts with mts, and our evidence demonstrates that it plays an important role in actin-mt cross-talk. eb1 is a highly conserved mt binding protein that dynamic tracks mt plus ends, and it plays a pivotal role in mt dynamics. however, its activity and mechanism remain unclear, in part because of variability in the reported behavior of eb1 in the literature. we hypothesized that some of the variability came from differences in how the eb1 proteins were prepared. in particular, we were concerned that purification tags might influence eb1 behavior. the first part of this thesis describes my work to determine eb1 activity by testing the interaction between native (untagged) eb1 and mt. because eb1 contains a calponin homology (ch) domain (a domain that typically binds actin), we were suspicious eb1 may interact with the actin. i address the interaction between eb1 and actin in the second part of this study. to investigate the eb1-mt interaction, we initially used his-tagged eb1 proteins. however, we found that the activities of his-tagged proteins were significantly different from the proteins with the his-tags removed. this result suggested that the his-tag could influence eb1 activity. to resolve this issue and define the native eb1 activity, we developed a de novo purification strategy for eb1 proteins and successfully purified several native (untagged) eb1 constructs. we found that n-terminal his-tags does directly influence the interaction between eb1 and mts, significantly increasing both affinity and activity. moreover, we also noticed that the binding ratio between eb1 and tubulin can exceed 1:1, and eb1-mt binding curves do not fit simple binding models. all these observations demonstrate that eb1 binding is not limited to the mt seam (as had been implied by previous studies), and they suggest that eb1 binds cooperatively to mts. we believed that these binding relationships are important for helping to elucidate the complex of proteins at the mt tip. to address the interaction between eb1 and actin, similar strategies were used as in our previous eb1-mt studies. remarkably, we discovered that eb1 is able to directly bind to actin filaments, and it also greatly promotes actin polymerization. this was surprising because up to this time, all studies of eb1 had focused it is mt-related functions. moreover, we found that the interaction between eb1 and actin is mediated by the eb1 ch-domain, which is responsible for eb1-mt interactions. interestingly, the binding of eb1 to actin, like mt-binding, is auto-inhibited by the eb1 c-terminal tail. these data provide evidence that eb1 can directly regulate actin-mediated processes. since eb1 has such an important and conserved role in mt dynamics, these observations suggest that eb1 might have a role in actin-mt coordination. diabetic patients are fatally affected by a common complication-diabetic foot ulcers (dfus), or wounds that are recalcitrant to healing, and more prone to the risk of infection and amputation. matrix metalloproteinases (mmps) are implicated to play important roles in normal wound healing, as well as in the pathology of dfus. the challenge remains as to which mmp(s) among the 24 known human variants plays a role in the ailment, compounded by the fact that mmps exist in three forms: the latent, the activated in complex with protein inhibitors timps, and the activated uninhibited form. the first two are catalytically incompetent. active mmp-8 and mmp-9 are the only active mmps were identified and quantified in the wound healing of both diabetic and non-diabetic mice with the use of a novel affinity resin. topical application of nd-336-a mmp-9 selective inhibitoraccelerates wound repair of diabetic mice, and it demonstrates that upregulation of active mmp-9 is detrimental to diabetic wound healing. topical application of active recombinant mmp-8 improves the rate of wound closure, indicating that mmp-8 plays a role in the repair process. a combination treatment of nd-336 and mmp-8 enhanced wound closure even further, in a strategy that holds considerable promise in healing of chronic wounds. topical application of active mmp-8 and mmp-13 (another collagenase) facilitates wound healing in both diabetic and non-diabetic mice. mmp-2 and mmp-9 are gelatinases that have been implicated to play roles in the process of wound healing. however, current methodology cannot distinguish an active mmp among its three forms. in fact, unlike mmp-9, mmp-2 most likely has no role in wound healing because this proteinase is in complex with its inhibitors timps in vivo. aclerastide, a peptide analog of angiotensin ii, recently failed in phase iii clinical trials for treatment of dfus. topical treatment of aclerastide to wounds of diabetic mice results in elevated levels of reactive oxygen species (ros) and of active mmp-9, which is likely an important contributor to the failure of aclerastide in clinical trials. using an affinity resin that pulls down only active mmps coupled with proteomics, active mmp-8 and mmp-9 are identified and quantified in patients' dfus. thirty four-fold higher levels of the detrimental active mmp-9 are observed in diabetic patients with the more severe and infected dfus compared to control tissues. the enantiomerically pure (r)-nd-336 exhibits superior efficacy in inhibiting mmp-9, lowering ros while improving diabetic wound healing significantly. (r)-nd-336 represents a first-in-class therapeutic agent to treat dfus. this study focuses on the modeling and simulation of non-stationary transient events such as earthquake ground motions and extreme wind events characterized by time-varying amplitude and frequency features. modeling and simulation of transient events, e.g., earthquake ground motions, hurricane/downburst wind loads, is of great importance due to limited number of available time histories of these extreme events, and the significance of these load effects on structures. various attempts to realize numerical simulation of non-stationary random processes have been reported in the literature where non-stationarity in the frequency contents of target processes is often neglected due to modeling convenience. however, studies have shown that temporal variations in frequency may have a significant impact on structural response especially in the inelastic range. in order to address these needs that currently preclude desired level of accuracy in the response analysis, time-frequency modeling and analysis tools are introduced in this study that include the hilbert and wavelet transforms. following an extensive literature review concerning the simulation of non-stationary random processes, modeling and simulation of transient events utilizing time-frequency representation are presented with examples of ground motion and gust front winds. the evolutionary characteristics of transient events like earthquake ground motion, gust front winds, and transient wave fronts are first modeled utilizing a time-frequency domain framework. application of the wavelet and hilbert transforms in tandem revealed that the instantaneous frequency of transient signals, e.g., downburst winds and earthquakes at each of the frequency bands considered followed the gaussian distribution. this observation served as a key role in the development of a simulation methodology for non-stationary processes that preserves both amplitude and frequency modulation features of the process. in this scheme, the stationary wavelet transform is first introduced to decompose a sample of a non-stationary random process into a set of mono-component signals. these components are then transformed to analytic signals using the hilbert transform which yields their instantaneous amplitude and frequency. without the customary assumption of piece-wise stationarity, or an assumed modulation function, this method helps to simulate non-stationary random processes based on a given sample realization. the univariate simulation scheme is extended to multi-variate cases by introducing the proper orthogonal decomposition (pod) of the covariance matrix of the instantaneous frequency. several quantitative criteria are employed to assess the quality of non-stationary simulations. examples involving the simulation of measured ground motions and downburst wind velocity data are presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed scheme. finally, a framework for the conditional simulation of non-gaussian non-stationary space-time random processes is presented. focusing on time-frequency description of non-stationary random fields, the evolutionary cross-correlation structure of non-stationary random fields is established analytically in terms of wavelet coefficients. by extending kriging technique to the time-frequency domain, the proposed method facilitates conditional simulation of non-stationary random fields with known time-dependent correlation structure. numerical examples concerning the conditional simulation of downburst wind velocities are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and efficacy of the method. this technique has immediate applications to earthquake engineering, wind engineering and ocean engineering in simulating additional time history when only measurements at limited locations are available. this study provides emerging tools for generating input to the monte carlo-based simulation methods for structural response and reliability analysis, particularly for cases involving transient environmental loads. this dissertation is the first full-length study of the apocalyptic thought of john henry newman (1801-1890). as such it fills lacunae in the fields of newman scholarship and apocalyptic studies simply by showing that there is a significant amount of apocalyptic thought to be found in newman's writings and that he deserves to be recognized as an important figure in this christian theological tradition. the dissertation also makes three larger contributions to scholarship. it addresses the perennial and unresolved question of newman's intellectual coherence and theological identity. it argues that attending to the role of apocalyptic narrative in his thought reveals a unique integrity and consistency in what otherwise appears to be a highly eclectic set of writings. it explains how apocalyptic thought provided a master narrative that oriented his life and work, the varied path of his religious and literary career, as well as the development of his mature mind. to scholars of apocalyptic thought this dissertation demonstrates that newman was a fervent inheritor of the british protestant apocalyptic tradition and that his efforts to renew and extend its narrative led to his realization of a distinctively modern catholic apocalyptic perspective as well as a profound conviction of the "secularizing" effects of the classically protestant identification of the pope as antichrist. to christian thinkers interested in the criticism of modernity this dissertation shows how newman's practice of apocalyptic thought yielded his interpretation and critique of the 'liberalism' that he identified in the modern western reduction of religion to private sentiment and its attendant assertion of 'secular reason' as sovereign over all inherited authorities and traditions. this dissertation makes these three arguments in order to construct a new interpretation of newman as the anglo-christian thinker who converted apocalyptic narration from its protestant misuse to reconstruct a catholic figuration of history and produced an 'apocalyptic critique of modernity.' it shows that this reading of newman is obliquely communicated in his autobiographical apologia pro vita sua (1864), and it critically employs that text as a guide to its analysis of the origins, development, and broader significance of newman's apocalyptic thought. in the orthopedics industry, there exists a void in the continuum of care associated with joint pain due to cartilage damage and wear. currently, patients are asked to endure joint pain with only over-the-counter pain medication to ease discomfort. when the pain becomes unbearable, joint surgery is performed. as the average age of joint replacement recipients decreases, the necessity of revision surgeries increases due to limited hardware life spans. revision surgeries are more traumatic and require longer recovery times than primary replacements. although some procedures, like unicondylar knee replacements and hip resurfacing, are less invasive and preserve more tissue than total joint procedures, a minimally invasive short-term cartilage replacement is desired. a synthetic plug of a three-dimensionally woven material has been forwarded as a possible solution to delay the need for a total joint replacement while effectively relieving pain. once implanted, micro-motion between fibers within the device will be experienced during each loading cycle. the minimization of wear during these events is important not only to avoid device failure but also to minimize a biological response. in the current work, various screening methods for fiber materials are evaluated and range from simple mechanical property testing using an atomic force microscope (afm), direct fiber-on-fiber wear using a rig test, to pin-on-disk accelerated life wear testing. it is found that direct fiber-on-fiber wear tests provide distinguishable rankings of fiber materials according to wear coefficient and identify polyethylene terephthalate (pet) and ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene (uhmwpe) as candidates for further investigation. pin-on-disk tests have allowed the wear mechanisms of three-dimensional fabrics to be explored and provide insight for further optimization of weave parameters and fiber materials. my dissertation examines the literary representation of intimacy, reconsidering the assumption in critical discussions of modernist fiction that loneliness, isolation, and alienation constitute the inescapable conditions of modern life. i argue that these conditions, while genuine, also foster new intensities of human intimacy, on view for us in the novels of virginia woolf, patrick hamilton, elizabeth bowen, james joyce, and samuel beckett. intimacy here is characterized by a practice of empathy and a relation of knowing familiarity. while some critics have accused modernism of colluding with alienation by presenting the human subject as self-absorbed and cut off from meaningful relations with other subjects and objects, my dissertation explores how modernism reveals historical changes in the experience and representation of love and empathy. the modernist protagonist, far from dispensing with other human beings, longs for intimacy (and, in fact, often achieves it) both to escape the confines of ego and to reestablish selfhood on the basis of relations with others. in the urban milieu of modernity — particularly in times of war — overcrowding, mobility, transience, and the breakdown of familial domesticity increase the opportunities for sudden intimacies to develop between strangers. in these conditions, a sense of deep mutual knowledge may arise from spontaneous self-revelation rather than from years of shared personal history. intimacy does not eradicate the feelings of isolation, but neither does that isolation preclude human connection. rather, the alienating circumstances of modernity alter the terms and practices of intimacy. the notion of intimate knowing also operates at a stylistic level, as narrative form in the texts themselves appeal for intimacy with their readers. the stylistic crafting of points of view, and the omissions and insinuations in both dialogue and narration, have the double effect of alienating the reader and at the same time inviting the familiarity of assumption. my analysis of a text's 'intimate aesthetic' demonstrates that formal choices both facilitate and limit the reader's access to the textual world, recreating the dialectic between alienation and intimacy that is operating at the level of character. thus this project looks at both narratives of intimacy and the intimacy evoked through verbal and formal narrativity. in his introduction to new testament textual criticism, eberhard nestle stated a desideratum, later repeated by bruce metzger, for a collection, arranged according to time and locality, of all passages in which the church fathers appeal to new testament manuscript evidence. nestle began this project with a list of references; metzger continued the work by examining the explicit references to variants by origen and jerome and expanding nestle's list. this dissertation picks up where metzger left off, expanding and evaluating the list. the purpose is to contribute to patristics and new testament textual criticism in two ways: first, by providing a helpful catalogue of patristic texts that refer to variant readings; and second, by analyzing the collected data with a focus on the text-critical criteria used by the fathers. the dissertation begins by considering the social and historical backdrop of the early church, especially textual scholarship in antiquity and its patristic application to the old testament. the explicit references to variants are then examined, first by individual father (organized by greek and latin), then by variant (for the variants discussed by multiple authors). this information is then summarized in terms of literary genres in which the references occur and the criteria used to evaluate the variants. after a general assessment of new testament textual scholarship by the early church (including recensional and scribal activity), patristic textual criticism is compared to modern practice to assess to what extent the church fathers engaged in textual criticism and what insights we can gain from them today. the second volume contains the catalogue of explicit references to variants (each entry includes the variants and their textual evidence in modern critical editions, the greek or latin excerpt and english translation, and a brief discussion of the context). passages that discuss textual problems but are not explicit references to variants are collected separately. in an appendix, the lists by nestle and metzger are compared alongside the list of texts in the catalogue, followed by another appendix on bede, and a third appendix containing a brief biography and bibliography for each father cited in the catalogue. quantifying the spatial relationship between mechanical deformation and signaling protein expression within trabecular bone is essential to understanding the mechanobiological signaling cascade that maintains bone health. interventions such as pharmaceuticals that can leverage the mechanobiological signaling processes in trabecular bone can provide new therapeutic approaches for bone repair for bone diseases, such as osteoporosis. there were 2 million cases of osteoporotic fracture in 2005, with a treatment cost of $16.9 billion, and are expected to increase to more than 3 million fractures at a cost of $25 billion by 2025. bone is primarily a load-bearing organ and is well known to be mechanoresponsive. as osteocyte mechanobiology is believed to be governed by fluid flow in bone canaliculi, volume changing and volume preserving deformations may play distinct roles in mechanobiology. thus, improved understanding of the mechanics can inform treatment strategies and fracture prevention. finite element models of porcine vertebral trabecular bone explants were used to calculate the spatial strain field. two-point correlation was used to quantify the spatial relationship between dilatational (volume changing) and deviatoric (volume preserving) strain within the bone matrix. the results consistently showed a strong spatial relationship between high deviatoric strain and negative dilatational strain when the bone samples were subjected to compression.immunohistochemistry was coupled with bioreactor culture and computational modeling to link local mechanical behavior to biological response. trabecular bone explants from female pigs were cultured in a bioreactor and subjected to controlled loading. sclerostin protein expression – a key molecule regulating osteoblast differentiation was compared between loaded and unloaded samples. a greater percentage of osteocytes expressed sclerostin in the unloaded bones. osteocytes that did not express sclerostin in loaded bones were preferentially found near locations of high deviatoric strain. since the high deviatoric strain locations are likely coincident with high dilatational strain in this loading condition, it may not be possible to segregate the specific underlying mechanical signal. however, the results demonstrate that mechanical down regulates sclerostin expression, and that the effect is localized to high deformation regions within the trabecular structure. this dissertation retrieves the fundamental theology of spanish (basque) philosopher, xavier zubiri (1898–1983). zubiri radically revises the responses of phenomenology and classical metaphysics to the persistent western dualism between sense and understanding. rather than focus upon the structure of consciousness or the intelligibility of being, he reduces things to the sheer, physical power of reality, and its actualization through human intellection. providing a novel account of the human in terms of what he calls sentient intelligence, he also overcomes the modern dualism between nature and person. for zubiri, the human uniquely searches and tests its conditioned freedom, i.e., its relative absoluteness. he calls this fundamental depth dimension of human reality "theologal," and identifies the absolutely absolute as "god."to present zubiri's original systematics, which critically revises the categories of substance and causality, attention to his lexical apparatus is necessary—analyzing terms such as formality, fundamentality, problematicity, religation, respectivity, and substantivity. also, the spanish language uniquely makes possible a distinction in "being" through two words, ser and estar, which receives attention. beyond linguistic usage, zubiri exhibits distinctively spanish characteristics of thought, which contemporary portraits of western philosophy and theology have tended to overlook. in particular, he revises the spanish brand of existentialism found in his teacher then colleague, josé ortega y gasset. to show furthermore the purchase of zubirian thought, two other critical comparisons are made—with john zizioulas, an influential dialogue partner for western theology, and his relational ontology; and with maurice blondel, a major inspiration behind the changes in conciliar era theology, and his actional account of the infinite.crucially for theology, zubiri provides a concrete and modern metaphysics of personal experience that is not at odds with reason. he identifies "experience" as a methodical mode of rational inquiry, such that experience is not reducible to sensation, cognition, or life; rather, it is the physical testing or probation of one's own articulation of what reality most profoundly is. human reality is constitutively the problem of god, and the experience of such is rationally probative. articulate identification of this problematicity is fundamental to all further theological investigation. the influence of nanoparticle shape (aspect ratio) on the ionic conductivity and thermal properties of solid polymer electrolytes (spes) was investigated in this study. electrolytes of polyethylene oxide (peo) and liclo4 filled with tio2 ellipse and tio2 nanorods (nr) in the concentration range of 1-10 wt.% and 1-2.5 wt.% respectively, were measured at an ether oxygen to li ratio of 10:1. when considered with previously published results for fe2o3 nanoparticle (np) and nr with similar surface chemistry, the results show that the filler concentration that gives the maximum conductivity boost scales inversely with aspect ratio (ar): 10 wt.% for np (ar = 1), 5 wt.% for ellipses (ar ≈ 4.4), and 1-2 wt.% for nrs (ar ≈ 6.6). because the results are similar for two different types of metal oxides, the relationship between the conductivity improvement and filler aspect ratio may be a universal property, and not unique to one type of filler chemistry. while the filler concentration for maximum conductivity improvement is correlated to the nanoparticle shape, the magnitude of the improvement is correlated to the surface-to volume ( s v ) ratio. specifically, the larger the s v , the larger the conductivity boost, suggesting that ion transport is faster at the interface between the electrolyte and the filler compared to the bulk electrolyte. thermal properties, measured by differential scanning calorimetry (dsc), show a decoupling between increased crystallinity and decreased conductivity. specifically, the conductivity of the spe filled with 2 wt.% tio2 nrs is one order of magnitude higher at room temperature than the sample filled with 5 wt.% elliptical tio2, even though the tio2 nr sample is semi-crystalline and the elliptical sample is amorphous. it is possible that the high aspect ratio nrs induce the formation of the conductive (peo)6:liclo4 crystalline phase. humanity's energy consumption is enormous, accompanied by high costs and co2 emissions. separation processes account for 45-55% of industrial energy consumption in the united states. there exists ample opportunity for reducing and replacing high-energy separation processes with innovative separation agents. this thesis explores methods to aid the search for novel materials integrating data science and process systems engineering tools to find property targets for separation agents and contemplate which data is more valuable to screen these separation agents. two frameworks are proposed in this thesis: molecular design targets and optimization framework of low-temperature thermal desalination systems. the framework focuses on finding molecular design targets for directional solvents for water desalination. assessing what data are most valuable to screen ionic liquid entrainers for extractive distillation. the framework focuses on screening ils as entrainers for separating high global warming potential (gwp) mixtures of hydrofluorocarbons (hfcs). multi-scale optimization frameworks are proposed to facilitate and accelerate solvent discovery. using molecular-systems engineering, the proposed frameworks aim to identify properties that significantly influence the cost of the separation process. once the impactful properties are identified, the framework can be used to study which data is more valuable for multi-scale modeling and what accuracy in the data is necessary for entrainer screening. finally, an added value metric is included to understand the economics of a separation process. over the last several decades much research focused has on furthering our understanding of the function and regulation of the microtubule and actin cytoskeletons. these two major components of the cytoskeleton have been studied for their roles in cell division, migration, and signaling. in studying the cytoskeleton, it has become clear that one must also understand the proteins that are associated with the microtubule and actin cytoskeletons. one of the most important microtubule interacting proteins is end binding protein 1 (eb1). eb1 is a well-studied central component in the cytoskeleton field. this protein, eb1, is the central thread of my dissertation research. this body of work has expanded our knowledge of the +tip eb1 and contributed to the wealth of scientific information about the function of eb1. we have determined the eb1-mt binding location on the mt lattice as well as raised the possibility for eb1 regulation in vivo through eb1 dimerization. we have shown an entirely new eb1 interaction with actin cytoskeleton, shown than the eb1-actin binding interface partially overlaps the eb1-mt binding interface, and hypothesized an eb1-actin mechanism for controlling mt dynamics in vivo. we have preliminary data supporting the idea the +tip network can act as a "super protein" to promote mt polymerization in vitro and made suggestions on future work to test further test this hypothesis. student movements have marked the 21st century as the unavoidable set of actors influencing major social revolutions including peacebuilding processes. however, their efforts are least studied in the peacebuilding literature and are least documented. in this thesis through analysis of case studies in eastern congo, burundi and sri lanka, i study the role of student movements as agents of ethnic reconciliation. i argue that student activists' liminal position as peace actors is both enabling and constraining for their effectiveness in ethnic reconciliation. on the one hand they are able to execute different activities for ethnic reconciliation because they are not yet burdened by the demands of adulthood. on the other hand student movements are constrained from making a lasting impact because they are not yet adults and are perceived as such by other important players in ethnic reconciliation in the countries of study. the biggest contribution of these student organizations as agents of social accountability for ethnic reconciliation in three countries of study is that they engineer new agendas and raise new forms of consciousness about what alternative pathways can be followed by countries experiencing internal ethnic conflicts. the path from salient new frameworks about how best to move toward reconciliation is filled with obstacles, some internal, most external pressures that wear on student movements' ability to achieve success on their own. high alumina (ha) mare basalts are an interesting and important part of the lunar sample collection. their aluminous nature alludes to the depth and extent of source melting, differentiation within the lunar mantle, and to the efficiency of plagioclase separation during the crystallization of the lunar magma ocean. they represent the oldest sampled mare basalts, and the return of ha basalt samples from four locations, separated by 2400 km, implies they may be widespread on the moon. i analyzed several basaltic lunar samples using a combination of solution and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (icp-ms). from these analyses and data from the literature, i constructed a petrogenic model for the apollo 14 ha basalts. these basalts separate into three groups based on age and trace element chemistry. the group designations decrease with age in the order a to b to c. the groups also represent three magmatic events that tapped compositionally distinct source regions, which exhibit an increase in kreep component and decrease in ilmenite in the order a to c to b. the second part of the doctoral research used compositional remote sensing data to search the whole moon for exposures of ha mare basalts, or areas where the regolith consists mainly of material derived from ha basaltic flows. of 34 regions of interest (rois) selected by the search criteria for the whole-moon search, four were analyzed in finer detail using high-resolution (125 m/pixel) clementine-derived feo and tio2 imagery. these were mare moscoviense, mare nectaris, mare fecunditatis, northern mare imbrium. each was of the mare filling a major basin. the basaltic units for each basin were divided and characterized on the basis of their composition, spectral properties, and relative age. each roi was found to have at least one ha basalt unit. this dissertation investigates the use of high-strength headed steel reinforcement (hsr), high-strength concrete (hsc), and prefabricated reinforcing bar (rebar) assemblies to accelerate the construction of squat (height-to-length ratio &lt; 2.0) reinforced concrete nuclear shear walls in non-containment, safety-related concrete nuclear structures. the primary goal of using hsr and hsc is to significantly reduce the required reinforcement amounts as compared with state-of-practice walls (using normal-strength materials) with the same dimensions. from an industry survey and full-scale laboratory evaluation, it was found that prefabricated rebar assemblies can reduce on-site construction times of nuclear walls by 70-80% and that the bars engaged in assembly movement are most susceptible to spacing changes exceeding construction tolerances. two experimental programs were conducted to investigate the effects of hsc and hsr on the monotonic and reversed-cyclic lateral load behavior of squat shear walls. these specimens were based on prototype nuclear wall designs from available u.s. nuclear regulatory commission design control documents. these experiments demonstrated that: 1) hsr and hsc perform best when combined, providing improved lateral strength and deformation capacity; 2) using hsr with hsc, a wall with significantly reduced provided reinforcement (less than half) can achieve similar peak lateral strength as a state-of-practice wall; 3) state-of-practice methods are effective for the design of reduced volumes of hsr as trim reinforcement around wall web penetrations; 4) squat rectangular walls with increased normalized base moment-to-shear ratio can be susceptible to flexure failure, contrary to current code commentaries; and 5) intersecting end walls can significantly increase the flexural stiffness and flexural strength of squat walls and should be more accurately incorporated in design. closed-form design methods from building codes and literature were evaluated through comparisons with the experimental measurements, resulting in recommendations for accurate and conservative design calculations of lateral stiffness, diagonal-cracking strength, and peak strength of squat walls with hsc and hsr. additionally, nonlinear finite-element numerical models for the lateral load analysis of squat walls with hsc and hsr were developed. recommendations were made for models that can accurately: 1) simulate reversed-cyclic wall lateral load behavior; and 2) predict wall peak lateral strength using simpler monotonic pushover analyses. ferromagnetic properties are investigated in gamnas and gamnasp diluted magnetic semiconductors by multiple experimental techniques, including magnetometry, magnetotransport, and ferromagnetic resonance (fmr), with emphasis on magnetic anisotropy and its manipulation by nano-patterning, strain, and interfacial exchange between layers of dissimilar materials. studies of temperature dependence of ac magnetic susceptibility in gamnas films revealed a single peak along the [1-10] crystallographic direction occurring close to the curie temperature, which is attributed to paramagnetic-to-ferromagnetic phase transition; and another single peak occurring at lower temperatures and seen along [100] direction, which signals the onset of biaxial domain structure in gamnas induced by the competition between uniaxial and cubic anisotropy. in lithographically-patterned gamnas nanostructures this intrinsic magneto-crystalline anisotropy was observed to compete with shape-induced magnetic anisotropy that occurs in such nanostructures due to their geometry. interestingly, the effects due to nanostructure shape can be remarkably reduced by low-temperature annealing of the nanostructures, which thus provides an approach for controlling magnetic anisotropy on the nano-scale.a series of thin films of the quaternary alloy gamnasp with various phosphorus concentrations (up to 30%) was also fabricated and investigated in detail. x-ray diffraction and reciprocal space mapping confirmed that the strain in gamnasp films grown on gaas (100) substrates undergoes a transition from compressive to tensile as p concentration increases in gamnas. this was followed by magnetometry and magnetotransport measurements, which clearly show that as the tensile strain increases, the easy axis in the gamnasp films shifts from the in-plane [100] orientation to the out-of-plane [001] direction. these experiments also revealed a dropping trend in tc and steady increase of sheet resistivity as with increasing mole fraction of p. for completeness, anomalous hall effect and anisotropic magnetoresistance were also observed in the gamnasp, attesting to its excellent ferromagnetic characteristics. a further study on gamnasp/gamnas bilayer nanostructures revealed an entirely new interfacial exchange interaction between the two magnetic layers, that occurs as a result of orthogonal easy axis orientations in the two alloys. this interfacial coupling revealed itself as a horizontal shift of the hysteresis loops of the gamnas layer in weak-field-cooled magnetization measurements, thus representing a novel form of exchange bias. under favorable conditions, this effect holds promise of applications in magnetic memory devices.finally, the same lithographic patterning techniques used for gamnas nanostructures were adopted to fabricate gamnasp nano-squares. experimental results unambiguously show that perpendicular magnetic anisotropy is strongly affected by the size of the ferromagnetic nano-scale elements, while their in-plane anisotropy remains unchanged in the range studied. the analysis of the spin-wave resonance (swr) measurements reveals the importance of surface anisotropy in determining the properties of nanoscale magnets. the recent development in communication networks and computational devices has greatly enhanced the technological evolution of cyber-physical systems (cpss), such as networked mobile robots, autonomous vehicles, intelligent transportation systems, smart manufacturing systems, and other classes of systems that have a large degree of autonomy. the physical components in these systems are monitored and controlled by embedded (cyber) subsystems that exchange vital and confidential information over their communication networks. these subsystems often interact with an external environment that is uncertain, dynamic, and sometimes even malicious. operating in such an environment therefore demands correct-by-design methodologies that reliably enforce a required property and preserve security requirements of these systems.furthermore, the operations of many modern cpss, ranging from intelligent manufacturing systems to transportation networks, are governed by the sequential execution of certain control actions that show the largely event-driven nature of these systems. this inspires this dissertation to focus on the cyber behavior of cpss in the framework of discrete event systems (dess), as this class of dynamic systems provides suitable formal models and analytical techniques to study event-driven systems. in this dissertation, we tackle two classes of problems: control of dess in the presence of dynamic environments, and security enforcement and analysis of these systems under attack of malicious environments.to study the behavior of a des operating in a dynamic environment, we propose a novel des model, namely open des, that captures the internal model of a system and its interactions with an external dynamic environment. with this model, we are able to characterize the uncontrollable behavior of a des that is imposed by its internal dynamic and the external environment inputs. due to the unpredictability of the external environment, an open des should be controlled in such a way that a desired property is guaranteed for any possible environment. for this problem, a game-theoretic approach is designed to compute a reactive supervisor that controls the system to fulfill the specifications regardless of the environment behaviors. we present necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of such a reactive supervisor.apart from the reactive control of open dess in the presence of dynamic environments, we investigate the security of these systems under the attack of a malicious environment, termed active intruder, who is able to strategically manipulate the system behavior to infer its confidential information. this security problem is formulated in terms of opacity. for this configuration, we present a new notion of opacity, namely reactive opacity, characterizing a property that the system does not leak it's secret information regardless of how the intruder manipulates the system behavior. we provide an algorithm for verifying this opacity notion and, furthermore, consider enforcement of this property based on dynamic masking techniques.along with the reactive opacity notion, we study the opacity problem of probabilistic des in the presence of an active intruder. we propose a qualitative reactive opacity notion that captures the accumulated probability that the intruder can force the system to expose its secret, termed reactive opacity level. a formal verification algorithm is provided to check if a given probabilistic des satisfies the desired reactive opacity level. to enhance the system reactive opacity level, we propose to design an obfuscation function that dynamically changes the probability distribution of the system output to deceive the intruder inference model. we then show that the design of such an obfuscation function can be converted to a two-player stochastic game between the active intruder and the obfuscation function. finally, we turn our focus to applications of opacity in real-word cpss. we study the privacy problem of location-based services in the probabilistic des formalism. we characterize a user mobility model by a markov decision process (mdp) and use the opacity notion to measure the user location privacy under an attack model of a passive bayesian intruder. we then exploit the mdp model to design a location protection mechanism that guarantees a user-specified privacy level. multiscale computational and mathematical models play an important role in obtaining a better understanding of bacterial swarming and motility. for example, the very social myxococcus xanthus, a bacterium commonly found in soil and known for its multicellular interactions, can be modeled using the subcellular element method. using this model, the role of cell flexibility, cell-cell adhesion, and cellular reversal periods can be studied. to characterize cell-cell interactions, the contacts between cells in simulations are analyzed to determine how these properties influence the populations' ability to form and keep cell-cell connections. m. xanthus are able to share outer membrane proteins through direct cell contact, and the study of these properties is important for determining the populations' ability to efficiently share protein. the study of bacterial motility systems can also motivate advances in bioengineering. microfluidics devices carry very small volumes of liquid though channels and have been used in many biological applications including drug discovery and development. in many microfluidic experiments, it would be useful to mix the fluid within the chamber. however, the traditional methods of mixing and pumping at large length scales don't work at small length scales. bacterial carpets are created by attaching bacteria to a substrate while allowing their flagella to freely rotate and may provide a solution to this problem. the method of regularized stokeslets is implemented to model fluid flow above simulated bacterial carpets and compare findings to preliminary experimental studies. the esx-1 secretion system is a type vii secretion system that is necessary for the virulence of m. tuberculosis and select other pathogenic mycobacteria. we sought to determine how protein targeting and protein modification contribute to the function of the esx-1 secretion system. accordingly, we identified the amino acids within the targeting sequence of the esx-1 substrate espc which are necessary for interaction with the atpase ecca1 and for secretion of espc. we also characterized the esx-1 protein espn, which we hypothesize plays a role in acetylation of esx-1 substrates. espn was shown to interact with the m24 metallopeptidase pepq from m. tuberculosis. we have created a possible model for the interaction of pepq and espn and subsequent acetylation of esx-1 proteins. here, we gain a fuller understanding of the role that protein modification and targeting play in the function of the esx-1 secretion system and subsequent mycobacterial virulence. this project examines the treatment of rome in the writings of augustine of hippo and niccolò machiavelli. i argue that each thinker's approach to rome reveals what he believes are the possibilities and limits of necessarily imperfect political life. my dissertation has three substantive parts: the first deals with augustine, the second with machiavelli, and the third with larger themes about the relationships between politics, religion, and morality in the writings of these two thinkers and in contemporary politics. augustine is known for being a sharp critic of rome, and his antipathy toward the eternal city is often used to argue that augustine is disdainful of earthly politics more generally. i challenge the view that augustine thinks politics in this world cannot be improved and illustrate how he believes the roman empire can be used as a means to further christian ends. contrary to augustine, machiavelli has a reputation for being a great admirer of rome and for wanting to return to roman virtues. yet, even as machiavelli purports to use rome as his model, he reinterprets, revises, and even rejects aspects of the roman example so as to establish and maintain free, secure, and stable political institutions. i aim to tease out the many ways in which these two thinkers, who seem diametrically opposed, actually agree, as well as underscore their fundamental disagreement about the relationship between politics and religion. none in this thesis, i will lay out the case for the existence and development of an intellectual culture among the frankish inhabitants of the first kingdom of jerusalem (1099-1187) which saw exchange of ideas and cultural norms between the franks and eastern christian groups such as the melkites, the armenians, and the syrian orthodox. jerusalem and the crusader states generally have been overlooked by scholars as sites of exchange because very few texts came from the latin east and contributed to the renaissance of the twelfth century. this study sidelines that question and instead of looking for effects of the latin east on europe looks instead to cultural developments within the kingdom of jerusalem irrespective of their effects on the broader west, arguing that there was pronounced intellectual and cultural exchange with the christian east between jerusalem, byzantium, and cairo. last, it contains a preliminary analysis of the frankish states in antioch and edessa, seeking to broaden our understanding of known intellectual exchange in frankish syria.this study consists of five chapters which lay out the case in stages. the first chapter looks at cultural integration and intermarriage between the franks, the melkites, and the armenians in jerusalem. it argues that the franks, by the middle of the twelfthcentury, were firmly embedded in the matrix of the christian middle east and had become more mediterranean than european. the second chapter looks at the intellectual culture of byzantium, armenia, the syrian orthodox, and the latin west. the goal is to ascertain how byzantine intellectual culture affected their neighbors and the state of latin intellectual culture by the mid-twelfth century when the franks were at their peak. the third chapter looks at the melkites. their cultural links were far more arabic than the other groups with which the franks in jerusalem interacted and they therefore provide the connection to cairo. the fourth chapter looks at evidence for intellectual culture and exchange in jerusalem in light of the previous three chapters. from them, we can see an intellectual exchange that was latin and byzantine in form while being melkite and arabic in content. in the fifth chapter, the narrative moves to antioch and edessa. the chapter examines frankish relations with the melkites, armenians, and syrian orthodox, concluding that the process of integration was most advanced in this last community and that further research into the intellectual culture of frankish antioch should focus on them. the data mining and machine learning research communities have focused on developing specializedalgorithms and methods to handle a multitude of potential complications which may confront the traditional supervised learning task. of these, class imbalance is among the most persistent in real-world applications. less attention has been garnered for the set of problems in which the data distribution changes, potentially wiping out the gains from expensive data mining methods. to an even lesser degree has the combination of problems been considered. it is the purpose of this dissertation to explore concepts of distributionalchange, particularly within the context of imbalanced data problems and the effects of the performance on solutions from this realm. based on this exploration, the proposed dissertation will derive methods to identify and handle both problems simultaneously. our moral responsibility for our beliefs depends on whether and to what degree we exercise agency in forming our beliefs. there are two predominant ways in which participants in the so-called "ethics of belief" literature defend a unique form of epistemic (i.e. belief-forming) agency. the first takes intentional action as the paradigm of agential activity and then works to show that beliefs align with intentional action rather than non-agential events/processes such as growing to be 5'2" or being blown over by a strong gust of wind. the second joins the longstanding literature on free will and focuses on freedom as the property constitutive of agency and then argues that beliefs are among the things that instantiate freedom. in this dissertation, i argue against both strategies of defending so-called "epistemic agency." we are responsible for our beliefs and we exercise agency in forming them, but we do not exercise direct control over our beliefs in the way proponents of these strategies suggest. to think that we do is to confuse the activity of theoretical reason with the activity of practical reason. this study makes two arguments regarding network religious radio during the anxiety-laden period from the great depression, through world war ii, to the cold war. the first is that religious broadcasting contributed significantly to american culture during radio's "golden age," and that the unfortunate tendency to leave its prominent role out of historical analysis renders our understanding of the 1930s and 1940s incomplete or distorted. the second is that the rev. walter a. maier on the lutheran hour and msgr. fulton j. sheen on the catholic hour, both of whom achieved popularity that rivaled top radio personalities and entertainers, but whose radio ministries largely have been forgotten, were cultural and religious forces with which to be reckoned, in broadcasting careers that spanned these early decades of radio's contribution to american civilization. this dissertation examines how sheen and maier harnessed fertile minds, exceptional erudition, awareness of the times, powerful communications skills, and unwavering christian conviction—and all for the purpose of calling the souls of listeners and the soul of a nation to repentance and godliness. it explores how this combination of talents, in turn, brought their respective christian denominations, catholicism and lutheranism, from the periphery of the american religious landscape to much greater levels of recognition and acceptance. this study identifies factors in their success and explains their specific significance. it focuses on the radio careers of maier and sheen, though with sufficient context provided for their respective lutheran and catholic identities, and for their academic vocations.it describes how they gained national airwave access and the challenges they faced in retaining that access. the study discusses the style and content of their preaching, while relating that preaching to the roles sheen and maier filled in the emerging mass culture created by radio. it endeavors to understand the receptivity of radio audiences to the messages of these two purveyors of divine wisdom—in relation to their substantive theology and their social commentary, as well as the pastoral care they invited.finally, it describes the great impact of their radio ministries on american civil religion and across the broader christian world. traditional mediation models may either overlook the multilevel structure of the data set, or the temporal sequence of x, m, and y for causation to take place. in the dissertation, extending from the cross-lagged panel models (clpms) in maxwell et al. [2011], i proposed the multilevel autoregressive mediation models (mamms) by allowing all the coefficients to be random across individuals. in addition, level-2 covariates can be included to partly explain the inter-individual differences of mediation effects. given the complexity of the model structure, bayesian estimation was used. to illustrate the estimation procedure, both the clpm and mamm were fitted to a daily diary data set. it was found that the two models yielded different statistical conclusions regarding the average mediation effect. in light of this, a simulation study was then conducted to examine the estimation accuracy of bayesian estimation for mamms and consequences of model mis-specifications. factors considered include sample sizes (n), numbers of time points (t), fixed indirect and direct effect sizes, and level-2 variances and covariances. results indicated that estimation of fixed effects for the indirect effect components (a and b) and the conditional indirect effects with a level-2 covariate were accurate for n ≥ 50 and t ≥ 5. in terms of the estimates for level-2 variances and covariances, they were accurate provided a sufficiently large n and t (e.g., n &gt; 400 and t ≥ 50), and less accurate when n and t became smaller. estimates of the average mediation effect were mostly accurate with moderately large n × t (e.g., 1,000). furthermore, with sufficiently large n and t (e.g., n = 400 and t = 50), estimates of a, b and the average mediation effect were accurate when level-2 variances were zero and mamms were fitted, and they could be inaccurate when random effects existed and clpm was fitted; in addition, dic can be used to select the correct mamm with non-zero level-2 variances. limitations and future directions were discussed. this dissertation seeks to overcome disagreement regarding the center of pauline hermeneutics by evaluating paul's hermeneutical statements and examining his prosopological exegesis. the method of exploration combines historical criticism with a novel intertextual approach that utilizes early christian reception history and parallels to paul's exegesis. it is argued that paul received, employed, and extended an apostolic, kerygmatic narrative tradition centered on key events in the christ story as his primary interpretative lens' tradition containing a built-in hermeneutic. paul's interpretative statements are examined and two apostolic, kerygmatic pre-pauline protocreeds are found to be especially vital: 1 corinthians 15:3-5 and romans 1:3-4. in these passages paul interprets certain stages in the christ story as "according to the scriptures" or "pre-promised"--?including preexistence, human life as a son of david, death for sins, existence among the dead, resurrection on the third day, and installation as lord. paul appends stages to this christ story, bringing his apostolic mission to the gentiles within the hermeneutical purview of these protocreeds. other proposed hermeneutical centers --called typology (romans 5:14; 1 corinthians 10:1-11) and allegory (galatians 4:21-31)--are determined not to be foundational generative techniques for paul, but rather post hoc rhetorical tropes describing mimesis between text and world via the apostolic kerygma. the unveiling of the reader in 2 corinthians 3:1-4:6 entails finding the divinely implanted underlying meaning of moses' parabolic actions by penetrating the literal narrative in light of the kerygma. the availability of prosopological exegesis for paul is demonstrated via its presence in contemporaneous literature, from which a definition is also crafted. prosopological exegesis is an interpretative reading technique that explains an inspired text by assigning a non-trivial dramatic character as the speaker or addressee. for paul the new dramatic setting becomes the touchstone that explains the tense of the speech, clarifying the use of the past when the future is expected (perfectum propheticum). assigned speakers include the righteousness by faith and a presumptuous person (romans 10:6-8), the apostles (romans 10:16), and the enthroned christ (romans 11:9-10; 15:3; 15:9; 2 corinthians 4:13), further showing that the apostolic kerygma is paul's primary hermeneutical lens. the development of homogeneous transition metal catalysts containing iron is desired due to iron's relatively high natural abundance and low toxicity compared to noble metals, such as platinum, ruthenium, and iridium. many iron catalysts contain pincer ligands which help to stabilize the metal center and tune its reactivity. to further explore this area, iron complexes containing a pyrrole-based pnp ligand, pnpyrp (pnpyrp = 2,5-bis((di-iso-propylphosphino)methyl)pyrrolide), were synthesized. deprotonation of the pro-ligand, (pnpyrp)h, with a base followed by transmetallation with an iron (ii) precursor gave the desired pnpyrp-iron complexes. both coordinatively unsaturated, paramagnetic and coordinatively saturated, diamagnetic complexes were isolated. these compounds were then characterized by multinuclear nmr spectroscopy and x-ray crystallography. finally, the reactivity of the complexes towards hydrogen gas, ligand substitution, and hydride reagents was investigated. design of cyber-physical systems requires control approaches that provide stability, performance, compositionality, robustness and security. qsr-dissipativite and passive dynamical systems exhibit stability and robustness and preserve their properties over feedback and parallel interconnections. the majority of large-scale systems are designed such that their sub-systems communicate with each other over a band-limited communication network. event-triggered network control designs are capable of decreasing the communication load amongst sub-systems while maintaining the desired performance index and robustness. in the present dissertation, first a comprehensive design-based event-triggered network control approach for the design and control of large-scale cyber-physical systems is introduced and a complete analysis of the passivity and qsr-dissipativitity properties of the framework is given. second, this work is expanded to a control methodology that deals with the negative effects of communication networks such as information loss, quantization and time-delays which may degrade the stability, performance and robustness of the overall networked system. the proposed control framework is easy to design and only utilizes the dynamical systems' sensed input-output data and does not require an exact knowledge of the systems' mathematical models. next, a passivity based event-triggered control framework for synchronization of multi-agent systems is introduced and its resilience and robustness against byzantine attacks are characterized. further, a detection, estimation and decision making platform for each agent which relies on the statistical distribution of the data points received from neighboring agents is introduced. lastly, learning-based control methodologies for mitigating the negative effects of the attack on synchronization are presented. the last chapter consists of three application oriented works pertaining to control, estimation and modeling. first, a co-simulation based online learning framework for performance optimization of an adaptive cruise controller which can deal with environment's uncertainties and time-delays is introduced. in the second application, an unsupervised deep learning architecture for modeling and estimation of the cognitive states in the human brain, independent of subjects, using fmri signals is introduced. lastly, a supervised deep learning framework and an ensemble learning architecture for classification of 3d protein structures are proposed and their performance indices are compared and contrasted. the treatment of osteoarthritis in healthcare today focuses on minimizing pain and retaining mobility. osteoarthritis of the knee is a common disease and known to be associated with traumatic injuries, among other factors. an identified trend is that patients are younger and have expectations of life with the preservation of an active lifestyle. as a result, great strain is placed on the available offerings of healthcare professionals and device manufacturers alike. this results in numerous design challenges for managing pain and disease over an extended period of time. the available treatments are being extended into younger populations, which increasingly suffer traumatic knee injuries. however, these patients are not good candidates for total joint replacement. a common problem for young patients is localized cartilage damage. this can heal, but often results in a painful condition that requires intervention. a welded-woven three-dimensional polymer fabric was developed to mimic the properties of articular cartilage. a process for the laser welding reinforcement of the surface layers of three-dimensional fabrics was investigated. confined compression creep and pin-on-disc wear studies were conducted to characterize the contribution of the surface welding reinforcement. all materials used in the studies have previously been used in orthopaedic devices or meet the requirements for united states pharmacopeial convention (usp) class vi biocompatibility approval. the compressive behavior of three-dimensional fabrics was tailored by the inclusion of surface welds. the compressive properties of the welded-woven fabrics were shown to better approximate articular cartilage compressive properties than conventional woven materials. the wear performance was benchmarked against identical fabrics without welding reinforcement. the wear rates were significantly reduced and the lifespan of the fabrics was markedly improved due to surface welding. welding reinforcement offers a strengthening mechanism as well as a damage-resistant and damage-tolerant treatment for three-dimensional fabrics. additionally, the concept of reinforcing three-dimensional fabrics in general has been proven and is transferrable to many industries and applications. the manufacturing approaches are scalable and robust. the effect of positive value on visual search and behavior has been well studied and documented within the literature. studies of value have discovered that learned value associations can imbue targets with salience. as a result, these value targets capture attention in a way similar to other salience-based mechanisms, such as color, movement and speed, and luminance. previously, studies involving the study of value have focused on reward. however, this focus has left in a significant gap in knowledge regarding loss. few existing studies have ventured into the realm of loss research, with conflicting results. the current study employed a new methodology that used a train and transfer format with an anti-saccade task rather than visual search, which may prove to be more applicable when considering loss. however, in two experiments, no effects of reward or loss were observed on antisaccade behavior. theoretical and methological implications are discussed. belief is a familiar attitude: taking something to be the case or regarding it as true. but we are more confident in some of our beliefs than in others. for this reason, many epistemologists appeal to a second attitude, called credence, similar to a degree of confidence. this raises the question: how do belief and credence relate to each other? on a belief-first view, beliefs are more fundamental and credences are a species of beliefs, e.g. beliefs about probabilities. on a credence-first view, credences are more fundamental and beliefs are a species of credence, e.g. credence above some threshold. in this thesis, i develop and defend a third view that i call belief-credence dualism. on this view, belief and credence are independent, equally fundamental attitudes, and neither reduces to the other.i begin by motivating the project: why should we care about the relationship between belief and credence? i argue it has broad implications for many debates in epistemology and beyond. then, i defend dualism, arguing that it can explain features of our mental lives that a credence-first view and a belief-first view cannot. i also argue that dualism has attractive, interesting implications when applied to the pragmatic encroachment debate. finally, i explore implications of dualism, both for the nature of evidence and how faith might go beyond the evidence but nonetheless be epistemically rational. i conclude that the human mind is, in some ways, complex, but we should be happy with this conclusion also long as each mental state we posit has a clear role to play. niccolì_ machiavelli and martin luther were two contemporaries of the early sixteenth century who recognized a theological-political crisis in their age. though based upon vastly different foundations, they each diagnosed the crisis, explained what had contributed to it, and sought a way to resolve it. in so doing, their political theories converged. essentially both men sought to restore temporal government to its place of honor and purpose beyond ecclesial control, and to restore an understanding of political reality so that temporal government could be well founded and efficaciously maintained. machiavelli claimed that by going to the effectual truth of politics (rather than the imagination of it), he had departed from the writings of others. luther boasted that not since the apostles had spoke so highly of temporal government as he. this dissertation accounts for these boasts and their political theories, tracing them first through the common experience of a theological-political crisis, followed by their respective diagnoses and criticisms of the age, their substantive political theories, and finally the common ground between these political theories. both men argued against any kind of medieval universalism in government, utopian politics, or any withdrawal from or denunciation of temporal government. both men saw political reality as imperfect and limited, a world which was morally ambiguous. in so doing machiavelli and luther reformed political theory. in both christianity and buddhism, there has long been a conflict between the learned study of doctrine and spiritual practice, or between theology and spirituality. this tension is informed by a deeper tension between the immanence and transcendence of the divine or the ultimate, and different modes of discourse on it—positive (cataphatic) and negative (apophatic). those who advocate scriptural and theoretical study insist that the nature of the ultimate is effable, and intellectual exercises involving the use of language can be of use to soteriological ends—to union with the divine in christianity or enlightenment to the ultimate reality in buddhism. on the other hand, there have been others who concentrate on meditation and spirituality with an emphasis on gaining first-hand experience of the divine or ultimate reality. some who emphasize spiritual (or meditative) life discount intellectual efforts; they doubt the efficacy of learning and study of scriptures and doctrines.in spite of this tension between the intellectual and spiritual, both of them have contributed to forming, developing, and sustaining religious traditions. acknowledging significant contributions made by both intellectual study and spiritual practice, some religious adepts have striven to integrate both ways. this dissertation will explore in detail two of these efforts, one by saint bonaventure of bagnoregio (c.1217-1274)—a franciscan theologian, and pojo chinul (1158-1210)—a korean sǒn (or zen) master. both of them held that the balanced incorporation of theoria into praxis would more efficiently advance a practitioner toward union with god or enlightenment. through the comparative study of these two attempts to synthesize learning and practice, i will examine the nature of these tensions—that between theoria and praxis and between cataphasis and apophasis—and will consider the interrelationship between the two tensions. i will also analyze how the distinctive doctrines of the two religions shape their respective views of the theoria/praxis and cataphasis/apophasis dynamics. this dissertation applies brevard childs' canonical approach to exodus 32–34, providing diachronic readings of the chapters and using the text's prehistory to deepen our understanding of the final form of the text. this approach produces richer readings than purely diachronic approaches on the one hand or synchronic approaches on the other. i argue that all the accounts of moses' intercession in exodus 32–34 were original to the story, forming a framework into which other passages could be inserted. one such insertion is the non-p tent of meeting in exodus 33:7–11, which was added because it connects on the one hand to god's refusal to dwell among the israelites and on the other hand to the unique relationship between god and moses that leads god to overcome that refusal. another insertion, the laws in exodus 34:10–26, contains laws that were selected specifically for their relevance to the golden calf story, to clarify that god's reconciliation with israel does not mean that idolatry is insignificant. exodus 33:18–23 and 34:29–35, take up the theme of divine glory, which is found in the original story in 34:1–9, further emphasizing the connection between god's glory and his goodness, adding a recognition of the danger that divine glory poses to mortals, and connecting the golden calf story to the tabernacle narrative that surrounds it. the canonical approach thus uses the diachronic evidence to reveal a rich theology of reconciliation and the conditions that make it possible. this thesis provides a self-contained and thorough exposition of proposition 3.3 of pillay's 1997 paper "some remarks on galois cohomology and definability." as such, this thesis includes all of the necessary background definitions, results, and proofs required to understand this proposition. we introduce a new self-consistent structure finding algorithm that parses large scale cosmological structure into clusters, filaments and voids. this algorithm probes the structure at multiple scales and classifies the appropriate regions with the most probable structure type and size. we use this structure finding algorithm to parse and follow the evolution of poor clusters, filaments and voids in large scale simulations. we trace the complete evolution of the baryons in the gas phase and the star formation history within each structure. we vary the structure measure threshold to probe the complex inner structure of star forming regions in poor clusters, filaments and voids. we find the majority of star formation occurs in cold condensed gas in filaments at all redshifts and that it peaks at intermediate redshifts (z ~ 3). we also show that much of the star formation above a redshift z = 3 occurs in low contrast regions of filaments, but as the density contrast increases at lower redshift, star formation switches to high contrast regions or the inner parts of filaments. since filaments bridge between void and cluster regions, this suggests that the majority of star formation occurs in galaxies in intermediate density regions prior to the accretion onto poor clusters. we find that at the present epoch, the gas phase distribution is 43.1%, 30.0%, 24.7% and 2.2% in the diffuse, whim, hot halo and condensed phases, respectively. most of the whim is found to be in filamentary structures. moreover 8.77%, 79.1%, 2.11% and 9.98% of the gas is located in poor clusters, filaments, voids and unassigned regions respectively. we find that both filaments and poor clusters are multiphase environments at redshift z = 0. in this dissertation, i have simulated many ionic liquid and aqueous solutions using classical and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations. first, i validated the use of an electric field time correlation function as a substitute for a frequency time correlation function. this substitute method of analysis avoids calculating a spectroscopic map for any new solution of interest, allowing significantly more spectral diffusion dynamics to be studied on a reasonable time scale with less computational expenditure. a series of nineteen alcohol molecule vibrational reporters were simulated in 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)-imide to understand structural and dynamical effects of altering the size and shape of the vibrational reporters. branched alcohols slowed ionic liquid dynamics more than any other class, while primary alcohols and aromatic alcohols displayed similar time scales when the alkyl chain lengths were identical.the latter part of this manuscript studies dilute aqueous solutions with ab initio molecular dynamics simulations. while the presence of differing cations in aqueous hydroxide solutions does not largely affect the water solvation structure around hydroxide, the cations themselves interact quite differently with hydroxide. namely, lithium delocalizes protons donating a hydrogen bond to hydroxide more strongly than sodium ions. ongoing research includes calculating the free energy profile of ion-ion pairs using the weighted histogram analysis method. recently, researchers in the foundations of mathematics have become interested in the distributive lattices pw and ps, the study of which is a major part of the field of &quot;mass problems.&quot; in general, a mass problem u is a subset of &omega;&omega; (baire space). we define u &le;s v if there is an index e for a computable functional so that for all f &isin; v, &phi;ef &isin; u. if we do not require the same e for every f, we get a &quot;weak version&quot;: u &lew v if for all f &isin; v, there is an e so that &phi;ef &isin; u. the relations &le;s and &le;w naturally induce equivalence relations &equiv;s and &equiv;w. we define ps to be the collection of &equiv;s degrees of nonempty &pi;01 subsets of 2&omega; (cantor space); similarly, we define pw to be the collection of &equiv;w degrees of nonempty &pi;01 subsets of 2&omega;. an important open question is whether pw is dense. the result of chapter 2 is that the embedding of the free distributive lattice on countably many generators into ps can be done densely. the way it is done gives indirect evidence that the kinds of priority arguments that show the density of ps are probably not strong enough to show the density of pw. the result of chapter 3 applies these priority arguments to show the decidability of the elementary &forall;&exist;-theory of ps as a partial order. the result of chapter 5 is that certain index sets related to pw are &pi;11-complete. this leads to a conjecture that the turing degree of its elementary theory is as high as possible. this dissertation examines the extent to which decoloniality can be employed as a theological hermeneutic to foster christian unity and reconciliation. it investigates whether decoloniality can disrupt the settler colonial imaginary that developed from eurocentrism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and exploitative capitalist practices. anchored in reformed theology, this study draws on the theory of coloniality/decoloniality, settler colonial studies, the study of religion, and the theological concentrations of ecclesiology and missiology. it poses three questions: 1.) how is theology implicated in the formation of the settler colonial imaginary in south africa? 2.) to what extent can decoloniality be applied as a hermeneutic in the reformed tradition to render white christians ethically and morally vulnerable to the unifying power of the cross? 3.) can the decolonial telos of pluriversality be applied theologically to facilitate the church's transformation from functional coexistence to the splendor of a new ephesian moment?chapter 1 responds to the call of the fallist movements for decolonization. it confronts the personal, prophetic, and pathological dimensions of post-apartheid society and the consequences of coloniality. chapter 2 investigates power relations within the settler colonial imaginary and the role christian evangelism played in its formation. chapter 3 establishes decoloniality as an essential hermeneutic for understanding the contemporary south african situation. it focuses on sabelo ndlovu-gatsheni's contribution to decolonial discourses. chapter 4 examines the theological application of decoloniality to south africa's pressing social challenges in light of the legacies of imperialism, colonialism, and apartheid. the thought of theologians vuyani vellem and gerrie snyman is explored as it relates to the message of the cross and vulnerability. the dissertation turns in chapter 5 to the pluriversal telos of decoloniality and the promise it holds for church unification. in light of christ's prayer "that they may all be one" and the vision for convivial unity across difference in ephesians, where the metaphors of temple and body are central, decoloniality is found to be an essential hermeneutic for nurturing a new ephesian moment. however, it is not sufficient. authentic vulnerability on the part of the white community is necessary to unsettle the settler colonial imaginary. the demand for high throughput cellular communications has motivated the need for new approaches aimed at maximizing achievable rates over the wireless channel. the idea of using multiple antennas both at the base station and the mobile user side to increase achievable rates over the fading channel has been considered in previous literature. however, most literature on multi-antenna systems does not make a clear distinction between the uplink and the downlink. while it is reasonable to assume that the downlink is coherent under certain conditions, it is not realistic to assume the same for the uplink. this dissertation presents results on the achievable information rates as well as the capacity of both the uplink and downlink of a cellular system with multiple antennas. for the uplink, the dissertation considers a system having a large number of competing users trying to maximize their rate under a peak power constraint. the dissertation proves that the optimal strategy in this non cooperative scenario is for the users to transmit i.i.d psk inputs at full power. the dissertation then presents an analytic expression for the information rate of the multi-antenna fading system in the wideband regime. this result is useful for a designer to judge the performance of new coding schemes for the cellular uplink (just like bpsk capacity is useful to evaluate the performance of binary codes on the point-to-point awgn channel). for the downlink, this dissertation presents a new paradigm for studying and designing full diversity and high rate codes. in existing literature, space-time coding is presented as a solution to the problem of coding for the downlink when the base station has multiple antennas. the new paradigm operates on a symbol by symbol basis (as opposed to space-time codes which operate on a block of transmitted symbols). the dissertation applies this principle to design spatial modulators schemes for the downlink. the results show that spatial modulators offer a simple elegant design for multi-antenna systems which performs better than conventional space-time codes in terms of achievable information rates. i argue for a reading of the critique of pure reason that addresses several related inadequacies in kant scholarship. first, i argue that the problem of skepticism with which the critique is centrally concerned is not the problem of skepticism about the external world or about ordinary knowledge but rather the problem of skepticism about reason. this latter problem of skepticism, i argue, is rooted in the difficulty of providing a philosophical account of the faculty of theoretical reason that preserves its unity while at the same time doing justice to its various intrinsic, but seemingly incompatible aims. second, i argue that, in order to understand the critique as responding to this problem, we need to rethink this work as providing not just a metaphysics of experience but also a metaphysics of reason. i provide an account of the nature of theoretical reason that reveals its teleological structure, including the aims both of the understanding and of reason as the highest intellectual faculty. with this account i argue that kant's positive theory of reason extends beyond the transcendental analytic and ultimately into the antinomy of pure reason chapter of the dialectic, where the problem of skepticism about reason and its eventual solution are fully articulated. third, i offer a novel reading of kant's solution to the antinomy by showing how kant's conception of belief is implicitly at work in it. with this reading i provide a new account of kant's justification for the doctrine of transcendental idealism, understood metaphysically. that is, i argue that kant's solution to the antinomy and his completed account of the metaphysics of reason involves the justified assertion that there exists a non-spatial, non-temporal, unconditioned ground of natureì¢ ââ' a thing in itself. my reading of kant's account of the unity of theoretical reason has implications for kant's account of the unity of reason as a whole. it shows kant to have established a much tighter relation between theoretical and practical reasonì¢ ââ' and, with it, a more sophisticated and comprehensive response to the enlightenment need for a rationally grounded account of faithì¢ ââ' than is generally recognized in the literature. activated protein c (apc) is an important physiologic anticoagulant that is generated from protein c by the action of the thrombin-thrombomodulin (tm) complex on endothelial cells. while it is an important regulator of coagulation, it also affects inflammation, apoptosis, proliferation, and angiogenesis. apc and its receptor, the endothelial protein c receptor (epcr), have also been linked to tumor malignancy. in this study, a murine model of colitis-associated colon adenoma formation was used to assess the role of pc in inflammation-associated colon cancer. water containing 2% dextran sodium sulphate (dss) was administered for 1 week to apcmin/+, apcmin/+/pc+/-, and apcmin/+/epcrì_å«/ì_å« mice. increased size and multiplicity of tumors were observed in apcmin/+/epcrì_å«/ì_å« mice at 2 wks post-treatment. tumors displayed increased inflammatory cell infiltration, which may be attributed to enhanced adhesion molecule expression by tumor and stromal cells. additionally, apc affects the endothelial cell barrier integrity of vessels. in the absence of apc-mediated signaling, inflammatory cells may migrate from the vessels into the tumor more readily. further investigations into inflammatory cell invasion will facilitate an understanding of the relationships between inflammation and cancer. political scientists presume robust political parties regularly move in and out of power in democratic regimes. on the african continent, this pattern is isolated to a handful of countries; instead, the majority have either weak parties that lack stability and branding – making it difficult for citizens to understand what they stand for – or dominant party systems, where one party continues to hold power for decades despite regular elections. among this latter group of countries are twelve where the inaugural political party after national independence is still in power as of 2022. while most of these ruling parties wield incumbency advantages to diminish the electoral threat of opposition parties, they also span both democracies and autocracies, and many appear to be significantly popular. this dissertation examines two such countries – botswana and zimbabwe – to help explain inaugural party resilience in the african setting.first, inaugural ruling parties continue to benefit from nationalist branding, the strength of which is determined by the degree of struggle against colonialist regimes. the party leaders may be perceived by citizens as both the founding fathers of the nation and protectors against neo-colonialists. opposition parties, seeking to displace the inaugural party, may be labelled as unpatriotic or controlled by western governments. inaugural ruling parties may be integrated into the military, state bureaucracy, and national vision of the country in ways that create both material and symbolic advantages that cannot be rivaled by opposition parties. party systems with inaugural ruling parties are simply different than those without, and analyzing both groups of countries together may be problematic when working to understand african party systems more broadly. in addition to the historical background of parties, cultural factors drive key differences between western and african political systems, generally speaking. this dissertation shows that, in both botswana and zimbabwe, citizens with more traditional and authority-centric views are much more likely to align with the inaugural parties. settings with high collectivism reinforce and encourage ruling party loyalty. furthermore, beliefs around spiritual causation in politics, rooted in traditional religion, also reinforces support for rulers. many citizens experience strongly formed conceptions of authority which are mirrored across family, community, and nation, where the president and ruling party hold significant familial authority, even among non-supporters. these social dynamics help explain the mechanisms of inaugural party popular support over long periods of time. this dissertation argues that historical circumstances and cultural bases of authority are essential for explaining continued inaugural ruling party dominance in countries as diverse as botswana and zimbabwe. these explanations are complementary to the dominant narrative of ruling party survival in botswana being driven by strong economic management and development performance, as well as the dominant zimbabwean narrative that political violence and corruption are the primary reasons for its ruling party longevity. citizens in both countries point to their ruling party's nationalistic branding and continuity and stability as the strongest reasons for inaugural ruling party survival.the role of culture raises questions around the application and congruence of liberal democratic party politics across diverse contexts. ruling party supporters in autocratic post-liberation countries appear to have more authoritarian attitudes, but citizens may also hold different democratic priorities as informed by on cultural distinctions. where the western democratic tradition strongly emphasizes voting and the capitalist values of property, competition, and written contracts, the african democratic tradition emphasizes censuses, deliberation, and localized participation, as exemplified through traditional governing institutions. comparing the manifestations of democratic practices across distinct cultures helps provide a more informed understanding of formal party politics in comparative perspective. substandard and falsified medicines that find their way into the pharmaceutical supply chain short circuit the efforts of health care systems around the world. on a global health scale, medicines that deliver inappropriate amounts of active ingredient(s) can lead to increased mortality and morbidity. medicines with reduced active ingredients can encourage antimicrobial resistance and can increase the likelihood of transmission for communicable diseases. on an individual scale, this translates to time, money and lives lost to treatable diseases. my thesis research addresses this problem and has focused on the development of analytical tools for pharmaceutical screening in low resource settings, such as developing countries where the problem is most prevalent. my work pairs an inexpensive paper platform with both chemical and biological detection methods. chemical test cards combine twelve different colorimetric tests arranged in lanes to produce unique "color bar codes" for several pharmaceuticals, including beta lactam antibiotics and anti-tuberculosis medications. working with the united states food and drug administration, i was able to use these test cards to identify a collection of counterfeit pharmaceuticals by recognizing deviations from authentic formulations. while the chemical test cards are rapid, sensitive, and specific with an assortment of pharmaceuticals, there remains a group of pharmaceuticals that do not produce a unique color bar code with the test cards. to complement the chemical tests, i have also developed a biological paper-based test card that incorporates engineered yeast, which have the ability to respond to compounds with high specificity. my work details the development, optimization and evaluation of this biologically based test that can identify the presence of doxycycline in pharmaceutical dosage forms. it is my hope that these analytical tools and others like them can be used in low resource settings to better define the problem of substandard and falsified medicines, to identify poor quality medicines before they reach patients, and to address global health problems where they exist. annulus fibrosus damage has been shown to come from combinations of bending, lifting, and twisting. although the these motions can induce annulus fibrosus damage, the stress-strain state of the annulus during these motions is not known. the objective of this project was to develop more complete constitutive models and to investigate annulus fibrosus damage mechanics. constitutive modeling of the annulus fibrosus has neglected to explicitly model shear loading in the past. in an effort to improve the af constitutive models during shear loading, four nonlinear, hyperelastic constitutive models were evaluated for their ability to model annulus fibrosus stress-strain relationships for uniaxial, biaxial, and simple shear experimental data. the best model indicated that the fraction of applied strain energy in each constituent of the annulus fibrosus varied with experimental configuration. to investigate the annulus fibrosus damage mechanics, the annulus fibrosus stress-strain state was measured for an intact motion segment loaded in flexion combined with compression and the residual stress-strain state was measured for unloaded motion segments. in an unloaded motion segment, the annulus fibrosus is in a state of equibiaxial tension. in flexion, the axial direction stress increases to approximately 5 times the circumferential stress; the strain was equal-magnitude with positive axial strain and negative circumferential strain. applying the flexion strain to the constitutive model suggested that this deformation preferentially loads the collagen crosslinks. cyclically loading planar annulus fibrosus samples with stress limits 160% of the stress measured in flexion combined with compression indicated that collagen crosslinks accumulate the initial damage of the annulus fibrosus. previous research has demonstrated that negative attributions are associated with both marital discord and depression, but few studies have explored the role of attributions in the strong relation between marital discord and depression. using a sample of 89 married couples, we investigated the role of responsibility attributions, partner blame, and self-blame in wives' marital discord and depression. guided by the actor-partner interdependence model (apim), we found that husbands' responsibility attributions and verbal partner blame were associated with wives' marital discord but not with wives' depression. interestingly, wives' self-blame was not associated with wives' depression, nor did it moderate the association between wives' marital discord and depression. we conclude that moderate levels of both self and partner responsibility attributions about the causes of negative marital events may be most adaptive in preventing marital discord and depression among married couples. johann ludwig krebs (1713–1780) and gottfried august homilius (1714–1785) were both significant composers of organ music in the middle of the eighteenth century. their careers paralleled each other, and their chorale-based organ works are among the most important in the genre after the generation of johann sebastian bach (1685–1750). during their lifetimes, the new galant style of composition gained prominance, and they incorporated the new style into their compositions, including the organ chorales. this study situates these two composers in their time and place by examining their biographies. it then engages with the lineage of the term "galant" and how it came to be a unique style of music, bridging what later came to be known as the baroque and classical periods. in particular, this study builds on the pioneering work of robert gjerdingen, who identified musical schemata, ingrained musical behaviors reflective of mid-eighteenth century courtly culture, as hallmarks of the galant style. however, in his study, gjerdingen never addresses lutheran sacred music or organ music at all, a fact which he acknowledges. this study builds upon gjerdingen's work by expanding his concepts to the genre of chorale-based works for solo organ. while the galant style was the new, progressive music of the mid-eighteenth century, church music was often quite conservative, and the chorale melodies themselves present clear melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic constraints on composers who set them. by analyzing organ chorales of krebs and homilius through the lens of gjerdingen's schemata, this study shows how the galant style operates in these works, even among the constraints imposed by preexisting chorale melodies. in recent years, there has been growing recognition of the multiplicity of patristic soteriology, that is, early christian authors' use of many different images to describe salvation. the existing studies of this topic, however, tend to be both brief and general.this dissertation contributes to the history of christian soteriology by offering a detailed examination of the soteriological multiplicity in the writings of gregory of nyssa (ca. 335 – ca. 395 c.e.). the dissertation argues that gregory does not restrict himself to a single image of salvation (such as the ransoming of a slave) but instead employs a wide variety of soteriological images. the dissertation also argues that this style of discourse is an application and extension of gregory's theological method of using many names (polla onomata) for the god who is above every name (hyper pan onoma) (cf. phil 2:9).chapter 1 introduces the reader to prior scholarship on the multiplicity of patristic soteriology, highlighting the need for a detailed investigation of this phenomenon in the works of a single author. chapter 2 provides an overview of the eunomian controversy and of gregory's understanding of theological language. special attention is paid to gregory's method of using many names to speak about the incomprehensible and ineffable god, and it is suggested that this method is best understood as an attempt to imitate the variegated style of scripture itself. chapters 3–5 show how the method of naming god with many names is applied and extended in gregory's discourse about salvation. chapter 3 focuses on salvation as a past event, chapter 4 on salvation as a present event, and chapter 5 on salvation as a future event. chapter 6 offers a brief conclusion, recapitulating the main findings of the previous chapters. this dissertation shows how to develop wireless networked embedded control systems (wnecs) in which the controller and the plant are isolated and can only interact over a wireless network. many of the new results presented are based on passivity and scattering theory. in particular we show how to: 1. synthesize discrete time passive, strictly-input passive, and strictly-output passive systems from their continuous counterparts using a inner-product equivalent sample and hold (ipesh) block (with an optional passive observer), 2. create a data-drop out, and delay tolerant l2-stable digital control network for a continuous passive plant in which: (a) the continuous passive plant can also be subject to various memoryless nonlinearities such as actuator saturation, (b) the digital controller only needs to be run when passive data is received over the wireless network, (c) the entire control network has been simulated on a theoretically validated wireless ring token network, (d) a new 'power junction' is introduced in which multiple plants and controllers can interact while preserving passivity, (e) a new distortion measure is used to evaluate these control networks, 3. determine the capacity, and mean delays of a wireless ring token network. we conclude with a presentation of neclab, a set of python and c based tools used to help an engineer simulate and develop wnecs. porcine small intestinal submucosa (sis) is a bioactive resorbable extracellular matrix material (ecm) comprised mostly of collagen type i and containing the growth factors tgf-&#946; and fgf-2. current applications of this material consist of using sis as a nonload-bearing device. however with its unique regenerative properties and nonlinear mechanical response, this material is a great choice for tendon or ligament replacement or repair. the development of this material to be used in a load-bearing application requires full understanding of its mechanical properties. a scaffold comprised of 20-layers of sis sandwiched together was tested in a uniaxial tensile test. this test resulted in a nonlinearly elastic stress-strain response with a distinct toe-region, linear region, and strain to failure. to fully model this response, a nonlinear constitutive material model was developed using an exponential strain energy density function. as the ultimate tensile strength of this scaffold is lower than that of most tendons and ligaments, a polydiaxanone (pds) mesh was incorporated into the 20-layer scaffold, which showed an increase in applied load with a decrease in ultimate tensile strength. in conclusion, a nonlinear constitutive model was developed to predict the nonlinear stress-strain response of a 20-layer multilaminate sis scaffold which can serve as a building block to future development of a load-bearing bioresorbable scaffold. techniques in post-disaster assessment from remote sensing imagery have been studied by different research communities in the past decade. such an assessment benefits everybody from government organizations and insurance agencies to individual home owners. this work explores the application of existing and novel computer vision algorithms for an automated damage assessment caused by windstorm. the various subproblems studied include geometric and photometric correction, rooftop recognition and change classification based on textural differences. past work done in this area by remote sensing, geoscience, civil engineering and image processing communities had established that the problems addressed in these areas were challenging and largely unsolved. the solutions proposed in this work are strongly motivated towards building a system capable of fast, robust and fine-grained damage analysis from aerial or satellite imagery. the algorithms introduced are thoroughly evaluated and compared with previous works. the results demonstrate that this work promises higher leaps in the field of automated damage classification and provides insights into the reliability of such analysis in real world scenarios. this dissertation has three major aims: (1) obtain a better formula for the optimal tuning parameters in rgls methods; (2) correct the performance of sandwich-type standard errors to make them closer to empirical standard errors; and (3) improve the type i error control of corresponding test statistics by rescaling their means to the degrees of freedom of their nominal chi-square distributions. analytical approaches could be taken to achieve these aims but they might be too complex to use in practice and analytical solutions also need to be examined empirically. instead, an empirical modeling approach was taken in this dissertation. the idea of the empirical modeling approach is to first conduct a simulation study in a wide variety of conditions, and collect parameter estimates/test statistics/standard errors for every condition; then compare these empirical results with their theoretical counterparts (e.g., compare parameter estimates with the population values used in the simulation study, compare sandwich-type standard errors with the empirical ones, and refer test statistics to their nominal chi-square distributions); if these statistics do not perform as expected in this simulation study, the empirical modeling approach can be employed to correct their behavior based on simulation results. one of the most important properties of a cryptographic system is a proof of its security. there are two types of security: information (or theoretical) security and computational (or practical) security. the focus of this work is on provable computational security via gate (or circuit) complexity of boolean functions. the computational security of public-key cryptographic systems depends fundamentally on trapdoor one-way functions. however, the existence of such functions has yet to be proved. informally speaking, a trapdoor one-way function is an efficiently-computable function such that there are no efficient algorithms for inverting it unless some extra information, known as trapdoor information, is available. it is important to realize that the so-called 'trapdoor one-way functions' used in modern cryptographic systems (to perform financial transactions over the internet, for example) are good candidates, at best. there is no formal proof that these candidates are de facto trapdoor one-way functions. for example, security proofs for one of the most widely used public-key cryptographic systems, namely, the rsa, are based on the unproven assumption that large numbers cannot be factored efficiently. therefore, it is not safe to base the security of large economic systems on such assumptions. thus, from a cryptographical point of view, the crucial problem in gate complexity theory is to prove nontrivial lower bounds on the complexity of breaking practical cryptographic systems, for example, one-way functions. in this work we argue that the theory of circuit complexity of boolean functions provides the mathematical background to achieve provable computational security. among computational models, the circuit model has an especially simple definition and may be more amenable to combinatorial analysis. the gate complexity of permutations of gf(2n) and of linear and quadratic boolean functions is studied by deriving bounds on the number of modulo-two additions and multiplications necessary to realize them. iii-mn-v ferromagnetic semiconductors' gamnas, inmnas, inmnsb, and gamnsb' are studied experimentally using electrical transport techniques, with emphasis on resistivity, anomalous hall effect (ahe), anisotropic magnetoresistance (amr), and planar hall effect (phe). all iii-mn-v samples were grown by low temperature molecular beam epitaxy (lt-mbe). the structures of the samples are as follows: (i) gamnas/gaalas heterostructures and gaalas/gamnas/gaalas quantum wells modulation-doped by be atoms in gaalas layers; (ii) inmnas grown on inalas/alsb buffer layers; (iii) a new narrow-gap ferromagnetic semiconductor inmnsb grown on insb/cdte substrates; (iv) gamnsb epilayers grown on znte or gasb buffer layers; (v) two structurally different forms of gamnas alloys (i.e., random and digital alloys); and (vi) gamnas films grown on vicinal gaas substrates. measurements of resistivity in iii-mn-v alloys serve to establish the curie temperature, and to provide an indication of whether the specimen is metallic or insulating. anomalous hall effect measurements are used to establish the presence of ferromagnetic order and to investigate the scattering mechanisms (skew or side-jump) in iii-mn-v alloys. the planar hall effect (phe), an effect stemming from anisotropic magnetoresistance, is used to investigate the transitions in orientation of the in-plane magnetization that accompany the process of magnetization reversal, in order to probe magnetocrystalline anisotropy, and to obtain insight into the effect of domain wall pinning on these transitions. the in-plane anisotropy fields determined via phe provide compelling proof that the samples can be satisfactorily described by the stoner-wohlfarth single magnetic domain model. a striking asymmetry is observed in magnetic field dependence of the planar hall resistance in gamnas films grown on vicinal substrates, caused by the superposition of phe and ahe. this asymmetry reflects the effect of magneto-crystalline anisotropy in gamnas, that confines the magnetization m to a preferred crystal plane rather than to the plane of the film, which in vicinal samples gives rise to a non-zero component of m normal to the sample plane. this asymmetry allows one to obtain four distinct zero-field resistance states in vicinal gamnas films that depend on the history of the experiment, making it of potential interest for building a unique four-state memory device. the abbot joachim of fiore (ca. 1130-1202) is without doubt among the most important figures in the intellectual history of the pre-modern west. his teleology of historical progression, culminating in a status of the holy spirit, offered a powerful critique of the evolution of medieval christian society. his many heirs took this concept as a rallying point for dissent and reform. yet the understanding of joachim's momentous legacy has long been hampered by a lacuna in the scholarship pertaining to those works spuriously attributed to the abbot, but which were among the most widely-read texts bearing his name.these pseudo-joachite works, written by joachim's various heirs but under his name and often decades after his death, have long remained a mystery: comparatively unstudied, mostly unedited, and without clear analysis of the manuscript tradition behind them. joachim scholars thus have had relatively little to say about how these works helped transmit joachim's ideas across europe.this dissertation represents a preliminary, yet essential, step toward both a comprehensive analysis and a critical edition of one of the most important examples of the pseudo-joachite corpus, a compilation called super prophetas—also known as super esaiam prophetam. focusing on the extensive manuscript tradition behind this work, the dissertation is broadly divided in two parts. part i serves as an introduction to the compilation itself. it settles the issues of authorship and dating, arguing that the compilation most likely originated among joachim's own religious community and arrived in its current form in the late 1260s, during the last stages of the hohenstaufens' conflict with the papacy. part ii is an overview of the manuscript tradition. it presents a first, provisional attempt to classify all known manuscript copies. the bulk of the section consists of a catalog of manuscripts, presenting thorough codicological research on each version. the section then concludes with a discussion of the distribution of the manuscripts, revealing the unexpected role that bohemia especially played in its circulation. taken together, these components force us to reconsider the transmission of joachim's legacy. seven short fake folktales. in-situ sensing of pathogens of concern in waters is a need for water monitoring agencies. the unpredictable, rapid fluctuations in indicator organism (escherichia coliì¢ ââ' ec) concentrations renders current standards and methods both untimely and unrepresentative of the water body as a whole. the use of glucuronides with a fluorescent label allows ec detection by identifying ìä ü-glucuronidase (gus) expressed through ec's natural metabolic processes. this activity can be quantified in a stop-flow sensor and correlated via a quantification curve back to initial ec concentrations. a fluorescent labeled glucuronide that is soluble and highly fluorescent at natural water phs is also necessary. the current lack of understanding of the factors that influence gus synthesis and expression in natural waters is addressed in this dissertation. the information presented here increases the accuracy of an in-situ optical sensor. this dissertation reports for the first time the michaelis-menten kinetic parameters of gus using the substrate carboxyumbelliferyl-ìä ü-d-glucuronide (cug) as km=0.910, vmax = 0.041, vmax/km 0.045 mm min-1; optimal ph is 6.5ìâå±1.0; optimal temperature is 38ìü ác; cug hydrolysis is not significantly affected by heavy solvents suggesting proton transfer and solvent addition that occur during hydrolysis are not limiting steps; gus preferentially binds to mug in comparison to cug. additionally, it is found fluorescent reagents facilitate the induction of gus in ec; increases in gus activity per culturable ec cell in marine water is likely due to breakdown of cell wall and release of intracellular enzymes; ec gus expression in natural waters does not significantly correlate to initial physiochemical water parameters or ec concentrations. benefits of this research include a better understanding of gus production in natural waters; a better understanding of gus expression in typical sensor growing conditions; the characterization of a soluble fluorescent reagent ideal for in-situ optical sensing; the use of an optical sensor for the detection and partial quantification of pathogen indicator organisms. did you know scientists confirmed a toroid planet could exist in our universe? imagine: a world shaped like a donut, gravity desperately gripping its inhabitants with severe weather, shorter days, and weighty gravity to compensate for the drag of the hole. this world, this doughnut world, poses unique opportunities and challenges for its inhabitants. these inhabitants include hucklebaby, i, pierrot, the tree, cravat, and popeye squirm, all beings who to ritualistically take over the life of the artist/the director/the poet.a hybrid poetry-play, the doughnut world translates and transcribes a series of intentional rituals illuminating these once-unknown voices in hopes of queer revelations, decadence, camp, sweets, and orgies. the resulting collection bends itself towards performativity and leaps off the page in order to bring their world to ours on their terms. besides taking cues from caconrad's (soma)tic poetry, this collection remains inspired by the creative work of lara glenum, shelley feller, kim hyesoon, t. fleischmann, david bowie, eileen myles, bob dylan, marilyn hacker, and val kilmer.the doughnut world nurtures, among other things, tattoo culture, the cockettes, baking, haute couture, 1970s glam rock, the club kids, and general self-indulgence in the process of curating queer decadence. carefully cultivating these queer americana clichés while balancing the distinct voices of the various beings worked together to craft a dynamic view of this toroid planet; kitschy poetics create a world resisting the active physical destruction ever-threatened by merely existing on a doughnut-shaped planet. by cavorting with queerness to the fullest extents possible, the planet's inhabitants effectively "rage" against their destruction. in a world suggesting caution, light steps, and peripheral lodging in order to extend survival, the inhabitants of the doughnut world and the doughnut world resist death and minimalism, embracing debauchery, erotic gluttony, and bodily hedonism while fully recognizing their ultimate fates on a tenuous planetary body. designing new materials is very important and necessary for catching new development opportunities, like 3d printing, the internet of things (iot), cyber-physical system, nanotechnology, biotechnology, clean energy, and overcoming the existing challenges, like air pollutions, water pollutions, climate change, shortages of food and clean water in the current world. the first step to designing novel materials is to fully understand the mechanisms of chemical processes and materials properties by computing free energy landscapes. this dissertation explores computational free energy calculations in different simulation scales, including lattice models, atomistic models, coarse-grained models, quantum models, via different molecular simulation methods, including monte carlo simulations, classical molecular dynamics simulations, and first principle molecular dynamics simulations to illustrate the inside mechanisms. we calculate the elastic constants of liquid crystals in both the lattice model (qualitative results) and the atomistic model (quantitative results) via mapping the elastic free energy landscapes. next, we explore the confirmation free energy in gold clusters via first principle molecular dynamics simulations. finally, we bridge machine learning methods and free energy calculations in studying the adhesive free energy between polymers and surfaces. metamodels – simple, data-driven approximations of the input/output relationship of complex models – are widely used to approximate the response of computationally-intensive engineering simulations. they are formulated based on observations (experiments) of the original simulation model. among the variety of metamodeling techniques, kriging (i.e., gaussian process regression) has gained significant popularity, especially for uq (uncertainty quantification) applications, because of its computational efficiency, flexibility in providing accurate approximations even for complex models and ability to quantify the uncertainty in the associated predictions (i.e., providing a local metamodel prediction error). this thesis investigates the iterative/adaptive kriging metamodel development for uq analysis of engineering applications involving complex numerical models. the iterative development is primarily examined in the context of two different fundamental uq tasks: (i) stochastic sampling and density approximation, and (ii) design optimization under uncertainty. the foundation of the adaptive approach is the iterative formulation of the metamodel to efficiently accomplish the specific task at hand. convergence criteria are developed to assess whether the metamodel refinement across subsequent iterations provides different uq results. if convergence has not been achieved (differences exist), additional experiments are obtained using an adaptive sample-based design of experiments (doe) that targets for the system input domain of importance with respect to the uq analysis. rather that establishing global accuracy, this approach facilitates convergence to accurate solutions leveraging adaptively refined metamodels to facilitate high accuracy predictions only with respect to the uq task at hand. different convergence criteria, iterative approaches and doe strategies are established for each of the aforementioned uq tasks. for the stochastic sampling and density approximation task, two different implementation settings are examined: rare event simulation and bayesian posterior sampling. for the design under uncertainty task implementation to both single-objective and multi-objective problems are examined, in all instances adopting metamodel development in the augmented input space, so that uncertainty propagation and design optimization are simultaneously supported.beyond these two specialized tasks, the adaptive metamodel development is further examined with respect to two realistic applications: (i) real-time hurricane risk assessment and (ii) hydrodynamic interaction characterization of wave energy converters (wec). for the first application adaptive implementation is examined with respect to the selection of storms informing the metamodel and with respect to characteristics related to climate change. for the second application focus is on establishing a hierarchical interaction decomposition so that metamodels in lower dimensional input space can be used to provide predictions for large dimensional wec arrays. adaptivity is established in this instance with respect to the hierarchical decomposition. the byzantine ritual for dedication of churches, as it appears in its earliest complete text, the eighth-century euchologion barberini gr. 336, as well as in the textus receptus of the rite, represents a unique collection of scriptural and euchological texts, together with the ritual actions, intended to set aside the physical space of a public building for liturgical use. the byzantine rite, in its shape already largely present in barberini gr. 336, actually comprises three major liturgical elements: 1) consecration of the altar; 2) consecration of the church building; 3) deposition of relics. our earliest byzantine liturgical text clearly conceives of the consecration of the altar and the deposition of the relics/'renovation' (encaenia) as two distinct rites, not merely elements of a single ritual. this feature of the barberini text raises an important question, namely, which of these major elements did in fact constitute the act of dedicating/ consecrating the church, and what role did the deposition of relics have in the ceremonies of dedication in the early period of byzantine liturgical history, considering that the deposition of relics became a mandatory element of the dedication rite only after the provisions to that effect were made at the second council of nicaea in 787 ce. this dissertation examines in special detail the origins and development of the consecration of the altar and the church with oil or chrism as evoking significant parallels to the ritual action of initiation liturgies (washing, anointing, vesting). such connection provides a glimpse into the early theology behind the act of consecration of a liturgical space. a thorough study of the byzantine dedication rite also allowed us to reevaluate a prominent role of the liturgies of major imperial cities and cultural centers (jerusalem, constantinople) in the formation of the byzantine liturgical tradition. this dissertation describes an acceleration of the menshutkin reaction, a distortion of halide leaving group order, and fluorescence sensing of chloroalkanes. the first section is the unprecedentedly accelerated menshutkin reaction of new designed macrocyclic amines with haloalkanes. when methylene chloride is the solvent, the reaction exhibits pseudo first order kinetics, and the reaction half-life at 25 ìâå¡c is 2.0 min. the reaction half-life for a structurally related acyclic amine is approximately 50,000 times longer. the second section demonstrates a major distortion of the halide leaving group order. for example, with benzyl halides the relative leaving group order with a control amine is cl (1.0) < br (71) < i (160), whereas the leaving group order with the macrocyclic amine is i (0.4) < cl (1.0) < br (8.5). enzyme-like mechanistic studies indicate that haloalkanes associate with the macrocycle to form an activated pre-reaction complex. the macrocyclic nitrogen subsequently attacks the haloalkanes with a classic sn2 trajectory, and although the carbon-chlorine bond breaks, the chloride leaving group does not separate from the newly formed cationic macrocycle, such that the product is a tightly associated ion-pair. in additon, the free energy of activation is selectively decreased for organohalides having smaller and more charge dense leaving groups. likely reasons for this selective enhancement effect are: (a) increased transition-state stabilization due to hydrogen bonding in the macrocyclic pocket and (b) reduced entropic penalty in the transition state due to an increased fraction of pre-reaction complexes that are oriented in a near attack conformation. the last portion of this dissertation describes as pet fluorescent sensors two structurally related macrocyclic amines with naphthalene groups for reactive chloroalkanes, including the common industrial solvent methylene chloride and carcinogenic chloromethyl methylether. often, women who experience socioeconomic disadvantage are particularly deeply immersed within their social networks, and minority women have been shown to be most involved in social networks. while social engagement is expected to be positively associated with health, this research investigates how this relationship may be altered across socioeconomic and racial-ethnic group. the findings suggest negative health consequences flowing from the cumulative nature of stress associated with disadvantaged work and family roles. provision of support may contribute to women becoming stressed and overburdened, and compound health risk already present due to economic hardship. a paradox of social relationships seems to exist, where social involvement is beneficial for some, but increases illness for others. i investigate whether lower levels of income and minority status moderates the influence of social capital (measured as social networks, integration, and support) on depression, mobility limitations, and number of health conditions on a sample of american women age 55-65 in the health and retirement study. i find a paradoxical relationship, where certain types of social relations do provide health benefits for older women, but for some women relationships with family and friends are detrimental to health. this research on a nationally representative sample of retirement-age women challenges existing notions of social capital and health. on christmas eve 2019, national public radio (npr) reported record numbers of tourists visiting bethlehem's church of the nativity alongside a public opinion survey in which "palestinians [express] record levels of depression" amidst waning hopes for peace and independence (estrin 2019). international tourism is a powerful and growing force in palestinian communities throughout the west bank, yet scholarship on the topic has tended to focus on the experience of the tourists rather than the consequences for the palestinian community. this paper analyzes politically engaged tourism in the west bank through the lens of the local civil society actors adapting to this changing landscape. while scholars have tended either to reduce tours of conflict zones or poverty-stricken areas to voyeurism and exploitation or to laud the possibilities of peacebuilding and development through tours, my research indicates that the situation for palestinians is more complicated than either of these perspectives. analyzing interviews with 12 palestinians working for local ngos that offer lectures or tours to international visitors, i argue that palestinians navigate a complex web of political, economic, social, and religious dynamics in order to achieve both local and international goals. this dissertation studies a heretofore neglected carolingian biblical commentary on deuteronomy preserved in paris, bibliothèque nationale de france, nal 1740. paris, bnf, nal 1740 is a bible codex from early medieval lyon. in the early ninth century, a scribe of lyon cathedral copied more than 400 exegetical annotations alongside the deuteronomic verses, either in page margins or between the two columns of the main text. although paul-irénée fransen provided a modern edition of the biblical commentary constructed by these annotations ("the lyon annotations" as i designate it), there has been no in-depth study of them. this dissertation argues that this commentary was composed during the first two decades of the ninth century by a master active in the cathedral school of lyon, then copied down by the episcopal scriptorium to create a commented bible codex. while both its general scheme and part of its concrete expositions are rooted in the latin exegetical tradition of deuteronomy that accumulated and evolved from origen to the second half of the eighth century, it shows a high level of originality not commonly associated with the biblical exegesis of the carolingian era. its author creatively presents a christian community self-identified as the "spiritual israel" and the jewish people as the "carnal israel" as its theological antithesis. this dissertation also demonstrates that the lyon annotations was the product of the church reform initiated by archbishop leidrad whom charlemagne appointed in 798 to ameliorate the condition of the lyon church. the intellectual life revived by leidrad's reform project provided conditions for the making of this unique exegetical treatise. in turn, the lyon annotations served leidrad's goal of creating a well-educated team of elite clergy. this dissertation contains three essays that leverage the detailed nature of military data along with natural experiments found within the military environment to investigate questions that pertain to the manning and welfare of our modern military as well as inform areas of public and labor economics. the first chapter investigates the effect of job exit timing on the educational attainment of workers. a successful job transition often hinges on a worker's access to education and re-training. yet, many obstacles outside the traditional education investment model potentially prevent this sizable non-traditional student population from attending college. i use a two-stage least-squares approach to investigate a previously unexplored dimension the effect of job exit timing on educational attainment. using detailed military records and gi bill benefits data, i find that exiting the military with a seven months wait before a traditional semester start date reduces the likelihood that veterans use their gi bill benefits by 8 percent and reduces their overall educational attainment by two months as compared to veterans who exit and experience no wait time. the effect of wait time is even larger in the first year of a veteran's transition from the military and is more pronounced among those in the middle third of the afqt score distribution. the second chapter explores the sensitivity of charitable giving to the realization of large anticipated income changes. how charitable giving responds to these types of shocks has proved difficult to identify. furthermore, decades of empirical research on the permanent income hypothesis provide no clear answer for the presence of excess sensitivity to income. using information on soldier's charitable giving through the combined federal campaign and variation in military income generated by bonus size and payment timing, i estimate the sensitivity of charitable giving to income changes. my findings suggest that soldiers are 5 to 10 percent more likely to contribute to charity if they receive a large anticipated income shock during the charity campaign. i also find that the excess sensitivity diminishes with age and previous bonus exposure, suggesting that experience with consumption smoothing plays an important role. the third chapter examines the impact of military casualties and their salience on both the type and number of enlistments that occur in the following months. for over 40 years, the u.s. has relied on an all-volunteer military to defend its national interests. however, until the war on terror, the sustainability of a volunteer army during war has remained untested. i exploit the timing and geographic variation of war casualties to estimate the impact of national and local war casualties on the enlistment decisions of new recruits. using detailed data on military enlistments and casualties sustained during the war on terror, i find a local casualty decrease the number of enlistments at the local entry station by .6 percent while a national level casualty decreases the number of enlistments by only .03 percent. more importantly, i find, conditional on enlisting, that local casualties also reduce enlistments into riskier military jobs and reduce the length of initial contracts more strongly than national casualties presenting additional manning challenges for the military. amphibians are declining worldwide, in part due to batrachochytridium dendrobatidis (bd), a pandemic chytrid fungal disease. this disease affects salamanders more than initially thought, but several gaps in knowledge hinder response to this and other disease threats. current demographic information for salamanders is lacking. without an efficient means of surveying salamander populations, it is difficult to monitor or respond to these declines. additionally, little is known about how salamanders respond to chytrid fungus, a major contributor to amphibian decline. this is particularly worrisome in the great lakes region, as it is home to a cryptic polyploid complex that makes up the majority of many salamander communities. these polyploids may be particularly susceptible to disease, but little is known about vertebrate response to polyploidy. in this doctoral dissertation, i address these gaps in salamander conservation. first i developed edna markers that allows for quick, non-invasive identification of laboratory and field samples without the need for technical or taxonomic expertise. i used this method to identify cryptic polyploid and diploid salamanders of the genus ambystoma. these salamanders were used in a transcriptomic study on the functional response of salamanders to bd. i was able to sequence, assemble, annotate, and analyze three salamander transcriptomes using this data. i characterized the immune response of one of these salamanders to bd, finding links to wound healing pathways characteristic of salamanders and generally much quicker response time to chytrid challenge than is observed in frogs. additionally, i investigated the expression patterns of polyploid salamanders in comparison to the parental taxa in normal and disease conditions. i found that different genomic copies within the polyploids maintain their own regulation patterns under normal conditions, but are disrupted in disease conditions. this may indicate an increase susceptibility to chytrid in the highly common salamander polyploids and other vertebrate polyploids. what follows are an introductory chapter, three data chapters, and a conclusion where i offer my concluding remarks on the utility of these chapters and the future importance of such analyses in conservation genomics, particularly in light of recently discovery of a more pathogenic chyrid fungus, batrachochytridium salamandervorans. there is a growing literature suggesting there are notable sex differences in psychopathy, that females may not be assess validly by summed scores on some popular psychopathy measures. the current study examined possible sex differences in measurement in three popular self-report psychopathy measures—the short dark triad 3 psychopathy (sd3: psychopathy), the levenson self-report psychopathy scale (lsrp), and the triarchic psychopathy measure (tripm)—in a non-incarcerated community sample in a with high levels of psychopathology, and a undergraduate student sample with low levels of psychopathology. using exploratory factor analyses (efa), graded response modeling (grm), and differential item function (dif) methods based on item response theory, the study searched for statistical and visual evidence of sex differences in structure, category responses, item, test, and differential item functioning. relevant to the interpretation and expression of psychopathy, results of preliminary statistics provided evidence of sex differences in summed scores in favor of males in both samples. efa results demonstrated similar factor structures related to the target construct, that generally replicated well across samples. comparability coefficients across sex were quite high, providing no significant evidence of sex differences in structure. grm methods suggested a potential lack of invariance due to different category and item endorsement rates on these scales by sex. there was evidence that males and females with equivalent levels of psychopathy-related characteristics endorsed items differentially across response categories, and items were contributing to the total score of these measures differently by sex. there was evidence of significant trait level dif that generally favored males; however, with the exception of 2 items displaying moderate impact of sexdif, the impact of these findings was low. results and implications for psychopathy research by sex are discussed. this dissertation examines two questions. in the first two chapters, we study the minimal free resolution of a general set of points on a surface of degree d in p3. our main result for this problem, contained in chapter 2, is to give the form of the minimal free resolution of a general set of points on a cubic surface that has at most finitely many double points. we use liaison techniques and count syzygies. in the third and fourth chapters, we study the arithmetically gorenstein sets of points on a general surface in p3. our main result is a complete list of the h-vectors of arithmetically gorenstein sets of points on a general sextic surface in p3. we use a connection between such sets of points and rank two arithmetically cohen-macaulay vector bundles on the surface, as well as liaison techniques and terracini's lemma. networked control systems (ncs) are feedback control systems that use a data network as medium for the feedback path. ncs present a number of advantages over traditional wired-feedback control systems that include low-cost, easy maintenance, and flexibility. the targeted applications are industrial plants, geographically distributed systems, unmanned aerial vehicles (uavs), etc. thus, the study of ncs is of great interest but is technically complex because of the interaction between the continuous plant dynamics and the discrete and sometimes random nature of the network. this dissertation presents a class of networked control systems called model-based networked control systems (mb-ncs). this control architecture uses an explicit model of the plant in order to reduce the network traffic while attempting to prevent excessive performance degradation. the model is used to simulate plant conditions between transmission instants when no information about the plant is available. it is assumed throughout the work that the plant model dynamics are a non-exact approximation of the real plant dynamics. several control problems are formulated starting with the stability analysis of linear continuous and discrete systems. necessary and sufficient conditions for stability are derived for different network and control scenarios such as state feedback, output feedback, and presence of networked-induced delays. the results obtained relate the stability of each of the mb-ncs considered to the eigenvalues of a test matrix. the test matrix contains information about the plant dynamics and the error between the plant and model dynamics. the structures of the test matrix for different mb-ncs are similar. this allows for a unified and systematic study of other more complex mb-ncs. the performance of linear continuous mb-ncs is also addressed using lifting techniques; two different types of h2-like performance indices are introduced and studied. this allows the designer to evaluate the performance of a specific controller under a fixed transmission rate. next stability conditions are derived for mb-ncs with network time-varying transmission times. popular models for network transmission times are used such as markov-driven transmission times. stability of quantized mb-ncs is also studied; sufficient conditions for uniform, logarithmic, dynamic quantizers are derived. finally the stability properties of two classes of continuous non-linear plants are considered. in this dissertation we compute characteristic cycles of the ic-sheaves associated to the k-orbits on grassmannians. knowledge graphs serve as an essential source for many tasks in data mining, artificial intelligence, and interdisciplinary challenges such as entity disambiguation, fact checking, and computational journalism. however, real-world knowledge graphs are far from perfect, so it remains a crucial task to improve the quality and completeness of these essential tools.in this work, i present a representation learning-based approach to improve the quality of knowledge graphs through a process called knowledge graph completion. this process finds missing connections among entities in the graph. i also propose a relaxed version of the knowledge graph completion task called open-world knowledge graph completion to complete and extend knowledge graphs with unobserved entities. extensive evaluations on several data sets with different sizes shows the effectiveness of proposed methods for knowledge graph completion. further experiments also demonstrate that these models can also solve tasks beyond knowledge graph completion, such as classification, clustering, and recommendation tasks based on the representations learned from the knowledge graphs. creative thesis. no abstract available. this dissertation constitutes a detailed material study of eight gospel book manuscripts produced at the abbey of montecassino in the late eleventh-century: citt&gamma;åê del vaticano, biblioteca apostolica vaticana, vat. lat. 10644, ff. 28r-31v (mass evangelistary; s.xi2; fragment) frosinone, archivio di stato, fondo pergamene inv. 142 (mass evangelistary; s,xi/xii; fragment) lucca, archivio di stato, busta 9, c. 263, n. 45 (evangelary/mass evangelistary; s.xiex; fragment) montecassino, archivio dell'abbazia, 191, pp. 1-128 (night office evangelistary; s.ximed) montecassino, archivio dell'abbazia, 211 (evangelary; s.xiex) montecassino, archivio dell'abbazia, 229 (mass evangelistary; s.xiex) montecassino, archivio dell'abbazia, 424 (night office evangelistary, s.ximed) rimini, biblioteca civica gambalunga, sc-ms.24 (night office evangelistary, s.xiex) the material evidence of production processes (the preparation and selection of parchment; the folding, assembling, pricking and ruling of folios; the copying, rubricating and illumination of text) are described, analyzed, and compared with codicological and palaeographical data from contemporary cassinese manuscripts, other gospel books produced in the beneventan script, and with quantitative studies of contemporary and/regional manuscript production. material evidence of the use and adaptation of the object is discussed, and an attempt is made to understand the cassinese gospel books within their historical spatial contexts at the abbey. gospel books, central to the celebration of christian liturgy, are frequently assumed to be in some way different to other books. by investigating each material aspect of this group of gospel books from a single time and place, we demonstrate to what extent this was the case. by focusing attention on the gospel books as material objects, the study underlines that their intended functions and actual use(s) had as much to do with their physical presence as to do with their textual contents. in this way, the study of the cassinese gospel books as material objects provides a more secure basis for future work on the use of gospel books in the middle ages, both at montecassino and elsewhere. a cyber-physical system (cps) is a system where physical components and computational components are tightly integrated. tasks in a cps generally need to be accomplished correctly in terms of not only functionality but also punctuality. real-time scheduling provides the methodology of determining the task execution order on a shared resource in order to make as many tasks in a cps as possible to meet their deadlines. we addressed four different challenges in this dissertation, i.e., minimizing delay variations of real-time control tasks in a cps, schedulability of jobs in a distributed real-time system (drts), tradeoff between energy savings and real-time stream deadline meetings in a wireless sensor network, and minimizing the impact of network dynamics on a wireless networked control system (wncs). for many cpss, control performance is strongly dependent on delay variations of the control tasks. such variations can come from a number of sources including task preemptions, variations in task workloads and perturbations in the physical environment. we designed a general adaptive framework that incorporates a powerful heuristic aiming to minimize delay variations. in a drts, jobs are often executed on a number of processors and must complete by their end-to-end deadlines. job deadline requirements may be violated if resource competition among different jobs on a given processor is not considered. we designed a distributed, locally optimal algorithm to assign local deadlines to the jobs on each processor to meet as many jobs? end-to-end deadline requirements as possible in a distributed soft real-time system. most of the wireless sensors are powered by batteries with a limited amount of energy, hence require the transmission to be energy efficient. lower transmission rates can greatly reduce transmission energy. however, if the lowest transmission rate is selected, many messages can miss their deadlines, which degrades the quality of service (qos) for cps applications. we have designed an on-line transmission rate selection approach to maximize the number of packets to meet their deadlines with a small increase in the energy dissipation. a key design challenge in a wncs is to design efficient data link layer scheduling algorithms to achieve deterministic end-to-end real-time communication while the wncs is disturbed by various physical events. in this work, we adopted a rhythmic task in adaptive to external disturbances and designed an effective approach to adjust existing schedule for all the nodes in the wncs when the disturbances happen. china's economic importance in the world's economy is difficult to overstate. by population it is the world's largest and by gross domestic product (gdp) it trails only the united states. this dissertation addresses some of the most pressing questions pertaining to china's rise onto the world's economic stage. composed of three chapters, the first is part of a broader question on how economic researchers should approach analyzing china's economy from a methodological standpoint. specifically, it asks if the tools used to study business cycles in developed countries can also be used to study china. or is it the case that china is too "different" from developed economies? co-authored with nelson c. mark, this chapter shows that standard business cycle models work as well for studying china as they do for canada. however, the dimensions by which the tools succeed and fail are different between the two. the second chapter, adapted from a co-authored paper with steven lugauer and nelson mark, studies the effect that changing demographic patterns have had on the household saving rate in china. china's population composition from a very young to an older population has been dramatic from a sharp reduction in fertility rates following the initiation of government sponsored population programs such as the one child policy. at the same time, saving as a share of household income has steadily increased from 5 percent in the 1970s to over 27 percent by 2008. this chapter presents a quantitative model with life-cycle components and a changing age composition that account for nearly all of the increase in household saving. finally, the third chapter investigates the extent that economic reforms that removed barriers to entry by private businesses in 1992 can quantitatively account for china's growth in total factor productivity (tfp). this chapter presents a model of both the private and state sectors which shows that entry by private businesses is limited to only the most productive due to imperfect access to financial markets. thus, the 1992 reforms initiated aggregate tfp growth through the entry and expansion of exclusively the most productive private businesses. as concern continues to climb about the effects of anthropogenic global warming, research interest in carbon capture technologies is rising. currently, the common methods of co2 capture involve the use of volatile, corrosive solvents and require substantial energy to be diverted for the process. one class of solvents that can potentially solve these problems is ionic liquids. ionic liquids (ils) are organic salts with melting temperatures below 100&deg;c. ils have many properties that make them attractive as potential solvents in many different types of processes, properties such as high thermal stability, almost negligible volatility at ambient temperatures, good solvation properties and being non-corrosive. research has also shown ils to have a strong affinity for co2 and, because of the wide range of cation and anion combinations, ils can be tuned to provide even higher uptake capacities, especially by attaching functional groups that can bind with co2. in order to successfully implement ils in carbon capture processes, thermodynamic data is required for il-co2 systems, particularly the enthalpy of physical and chemical absorption. this work is concerned with the measurement of gas solubilities of interest to carbon capture technologies, co2, n2 and h2s. co2 solubilities were measured to determine thermodynamic properties necessary to process design. knowledge of n2 solubility is lacking in literature, particularly the effects of co2-il complexes on solubility and results were determined to understand how to predict the likely behavior of co2 and n2 in flue gas with ils. finally, h2s was measured to determine how il structure effects the solubility of this hazardous pollutant often found in chemical processes. gas solubilities measurements are used to determine the equilibrium constants of chemical absorption and the henry's law constants of physical absorption which are utilized to obtain the enthalpy and entropy of absorption for process conditions. during the 350s, the emperor constantius sought to establish ecclesial unity in the west by organizing a number of local synods that demanded the condemnation of athanasius and support for an anti-nicene formula of faith. among the bishops who refused these demands and suffered exile is hilary of poitiers. since scholars have either unnecessarily exaggerated or diminished hilary's role in the nicene-'arian' conflict during this early period and are sharply divided on the reasons for his exile, i will begin with two historical chapters, arguing that hilary had a limited awareness of the 'arianism' troubling the west in the early 350s and that he was exiled for his confession of faith at the synod of b&eacute;ziers. after establishing hilary's historical situation, i will turn to his chief work and the main focus of this dissertation, his de trinitate. de trinitate begins with what appears to be an autobiographical statement on hilary's journey to faith. a close reading of this first book, however, reveals a reflection on theological method by hilary that establishes for the reader the proper way to approach the mystery of god. in this first book, hilary emphasizes the normative role of scripture in theological discourse, the proper use of faith and reason in theological inquiry, and the soteriological context of any discussion on the mystery of god. after two chapters showing how hilary develops the main features of his theological method throughout his treatise, i address the relationship between book one and the rest of the treatise. i first offer a close reading of de fide, books two and three of de trinitate, showing the continued reflection on the proper approach to the mystery of god. finally, i turn to hilary's books against the arians, books four to twelve of de trinitate, and address why hilary combined two works to produce what we now call de trinitate. a close reading of the text reveals that hilary's extensive comments on theological method at the beginning of de trinitate is the main reason he attached de fide to the books against the arians. colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer worldwide, in the past several decades the incidence of colorectal cancer has decreased, yet the overall mortality of colorectal cancer has remained unchanged. it is important to not only come up with new treatment options for colorectal cancer, but in the meantime also find ways to make current treatment regimes more effective. nutritional intervention is used as a method to combat disease by itself as well as in tandem with current cancer treatments. forms of nutritional intervention include long-term caloric restriction, short-term starvation, intermittent fasting, and time restricted eating. my research focuses on optimizations cancer patients can make to their lifestyles prior to and during chemotherapy to increase the efficacy of treatment. there are many ongoing clinical trials that involve the use of nutritional intervention and vitamin supplementation that have shown to have an impact on cancer outcomes (clinicaltrials.gov). preliminary pre-clinical results have driven the exploration of nutritional-based intervention clinical trials but the molecular mechanisms of why these interventions have an impact on cancer remain largely unknown. proteomics is a technique that can be utilized to better our understanding of the mechanisms involved. quantitative proteomics studies have been developed and refined in the past decade, making them a very powerful tool for understanding protein changes due to different biological conditions. taken as a whole, these studies look at the proteomic changes that occur when in vitro colorectal cancer tumor mimics are subject to nutritional intervention prior to chemotherapy. the results of these studies have implication in the treatment of cancer, as nutritional intervention is easily implementable in the clinic. prior research indicates that purpose in life and affective stress reactivity are related, and that both relate to allostatic load and cognitive aging. little is known, however, regarding intraindividual relationships between purpose in life and affective reactivity to perceived stress, as well as the predictive utility of affective reactivity to perceived stress and its rate of change. therefore, this study examined the time-varying relationship between purpose in life and affective reactivity to perceived stress, the trajectory of affective reactivity to perceived stress as it relates to both withinand between-person purpose in life, as well as the predictive utility of affective reactivity to perceived stress and its rate of change on later life cognitive ability and allostatic load. the current sample comprised 933 participants from the notre dame study of health &amp; well-being, a 10-year study of annual questionnaire packets paired with biennial, 56-day daily diary bursts. analyses included three-level multilevel models from which random effects were extracted and used in multiple regression models to predict allostatic load and cognitive ability. results indicated that individuals were affectively reactive to perceived stress, and that affective reactivity to perceived stress declined across the study period. in terms of the effects of purpose in life on these processes, there were two cross-level interaction effects indicating that (1) individuals who were more purposeful tended to be less stress reactive than individuals who were less purposeful, and (2) individuals who were more purposeful tended to decline less in negative affect across the study period than individuals who were less purposeful. there was also preliminary evidence for a within-person interaction effect between yearly purpose in life and daily affective reactivity such that when individuals felt particularly purposeful, they also tended to be slightly less stress reactive. finally, higher affective reactivity to perceived stress, as well as less decline in this construct, was predictive of better cognitive ability. these findings indicate that purpose in life may buffer against environmental and maturational effects on negative affect, and that affective reactivity to perceived stress may indicate a different, more adaptive process than affective reactivity to experienced stressors. recurrent neural network models (rnns) are widely used in machine learning and in computational neuroscience. while recurrent in artificial neural networks (anns) share some basic building blocks with cortical neuronal networks in the brain, they differ in some fundamental ways. for example, neurons communicate and learn differently. in anns, neurons communicate through activations. in comparison, biological neurons communicate via synapses and signal processing along with neuron spiking behaviors. to link neuroscience and machine learning, i study models of recurrent neuronal networks to establish direct, one-to-one analogs between artificial and biological neuronal networks.i first showed their connection by formalizing the features of cortical networks into theorems that link to machine learning activations. this work extended the traditional excitatory-inhibitory balance network theory into a "semi-balanced" state in which networks implement high-dimensional and nonlinear stimulus representations. to understand brain operations and neuron plasticity, i combined numerical simulations of biological networks and mean-field rate models to evaluate the extent to which homeostatic inhibitory plasticity learns to compute prediction errors in randomly connected, unstructured neuronal networks. i found that homeostatic synaptic plasticity alone is not sufficient to learn and perform non-trivial predictive coding tasks in unstructured neuronal network models. to further invest in learning, i derived two new biologically-inspired rnn learning rules for the fixed points of recurrent dynamics. under a natural re-parameterization of the network model, they can be interpreted as steepest descent and gradient descent on the weight matrix with respect to a non-euclidean metric and gradient, respectively. moreover, compared with the standard gradient-based learning methods, one of our alternative learning rules is robust and computationally more efficient. these learning rules produce results that have implications for training rnns to be used in computational neuroscience studies and machine learning applications. this dissertation investigates the mission established by the detroit province capuchins in eastern nicaragua from 1939-1979. its emphasis is a transformation in the missionaries' ministry enacted in 1967, which involved the adoption of new experimental techniques. the central historical contention is that this transformation led to the creation and diffusion of liberation theology in nicaragua. the revisionist portrait of liberation theology emphasized here challenges existing understandings of the way this religious movement arose throughout latin america.the dissertation contends that the overlapping socio-political movements of the "long sixties" (1959-1973) destabilized the ideas about catholicism and the priesthood that the capuchins had championed in nicaragua since the 1930s. this period cast them into a crisis that climaxed in 1967. dozens of other missionaries in latin america experienced similar vocational crises. a small subset of the missionary community, however, did not respond to the events that shaped the long sixties with bewilderment. these pioneering priests instead utilized experimental pastoral methodologies to reinvent the priesthood for the unique demands of the setting. the capuchins, and many of their peers, turned to these experimentalists as a way of resolving their vocational crisis. in this way, early experiments, which would later be formalized and systemized as liberation theology, proliferated on an ad hoc basis across latin america. the capuchins borrowed techniques from their peers and modified them to fit their unique circumstances. in particular, they borrowed three practices. first, from leo mahon, a missioner from chicago to panama city, they adopted the delegates of the word. the delegates initiative involved training local laymen to act as surrogate priests. from the society of foreign missions in choluteca, honduras, the capuchins imitated the celebration of the word, a reinvention of the mass characterized by group discussion of biblical passages. finally, from the brazilian theorist paulo freire, the capuchins enacted the pedagogy of the oppressed and enshrined "conscientization" as the primary goal of their mission. over the next decade, these practices evolved into a rigorous, coherent system, the missionary pedagogy of the oppressed, a nascent form of liberation theology. renewable energy is essential to minimize climate changes and improve sustainability. especially, hydrogen is considered as an alternative fuel to fossil fuels due to its high energy density and zero pollutant emission. besides the complicated fossil-fuel-derived synthesis methods, hydrogen gas can be generated simultaneously with oxygen gas through electrochemical water splitting. to maximize the efficiency, electrocatalysts need to be optimized to further reduce the overpotential for hydrogen and accelerate the rate of water splitting. many strategies have been approached to enhance the catalyst efficiency, such as modification of the electronic structure as well as increase in electron transports and the number of active sites. these parameters can be controlled by synthesis methods and composition. in addition to the morphology and composition control as other synthesis methods, electrodeposition is a scalable and low-cost fabrication technique which not only provides excellent tunability of electronic structures by deposition at non-equilibrium but also can enhance the charge transfer of catalysts by direct deposition of material onto conductive substrate. owing to the affinity of unpaired d-band electrons for chemisorption of hydrogen atoms and multiple oxidation states, transition metals have been combined with various elements (e.g., metals and oxygen) to tune the electronic structures and create the synergistic effects of the electrocatalysts. additionally, heterostructures of the catalysts can facilitate the adsorption of different intermediates which are generated from constituent reactions of the water splitting.nickel with minimum energy for hydrogen adsorption among various nonprecious metals exhibits the most efficient catalytic activities as a binary alloy with molybdenum in alkaline her. hydrogen spillover and averaging effect between the hydrogen adsorption energies of nickel and molybdenum facilitate the catalytic activity of nickel molybdenum alloy. moreover, the incorporation of oxygen to form ni-mo-o composites promotes the dissociation of water and the production of hydrogen intermediates. the overarching goal of the research is to develop a cost-effective and scalable electrodeposition techniques to synthesize nickel-based electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction. the objective can be achieved by firstly correlating the synthesis parameters (i.e., electrolyte composition and electrodeposition parameters) and the material properties of deposits (e.g., composition, morphology, and crystal structure). the electrocatalytic activities (e.g., overpotential, onset potential, tafel slope) are correlated with the material properties. this dissertation is a collection of results centered around the study of hrushovski and loeser's stable completion of v, which can be viewed as a model-theoretic analog of the berkovich analytification. the stable completion of v is naturally a subset of the space of types on v. each chapter of the dissertation consists of one aspect of the study and the results are largely independent. as a result, each chapter contains a section of preliminaries and introductions on its own and hopefully is self-contained.following hrushovski and loeser, chapter 1 is dedicated to an attempt to study various "analytification" functors in various theories via the study of "tame pairs" as introduced by van den dries and lewenberg. we proved theorems analogous to marker-steinhorn theorem on o-minimal structures for various other theories. our approach of proving pro-definability of certain spaces of types is via uniform definability of types in those theories. moreover, we introduced the bounded completion of v. we propose it as a candidate of huber's analytification( adic space). in the later part of the chapter, we will discuss the structure of the bounded completion of a curve c in detail. this part of the thesis is based on join and part of a subsequent paper of the author with pablo cubides kovacsics that will be made available soon. due to the time constraint, we could not include the results in the subsequent paper that are yet to be polished.chapter 2 consists of a study of definable group actions following peterzil and starchenko. for a definable group g defined over a model k of some o-minimal theory, we consider the equivalence relation given by the "infinitesimal subgroup" of g on its type space. the group g acts naturally on the set of equivalence classes under the above-mentioned equivalence relation. in the o-minimal case, the stabilizer of the equivalence class of p is a torsion-free solvable definable group when p is unbounded and definable. in the particular case when p is one-dimensional, the stabilizer of its class is exactly the peterzil-steinhorn subgroup of g. we prove analogue results of the above in the setting of groups definable in algebraically closed fields (acf) and algebraically closed valued fields (acvf). the acf part is based on the joint work of moshe kamensky, sergei starchenko and the author and the acvf part is based on a paper by the author.in chapter 3, we develop a cohomology theory for definable sets in acvf. we develop a cohomology theory for definable sets in the value group and the stable completion of v, where v is a variety over a non-archimedean field. the cohomology theories on both sides satisfy analogues of eilenberg-steenrod axioms. in particular, the pro-definable deformation retraction by hrushovski and loeser is a homotopy equivalence in this sense. from this, we will deduce the cohomology is finitely generated and finite-dimensional for constant sheaves. moreover, we will prove the invariance of the cohomology under elementary extensions and even certain expansion of languages. lastly, we will discuss the connection of such a cohomology theory with the topological cohomology theory on berkovich analytic spaces. note that we are not working with analogues of the étale cohomology; however, the cohomology will be useful for other purposes. for example, the argument by basu and patel computing vc-density in acvf can be formulated using the cohomology we introduced. this chapter is based on the joint paper of the author with mário edmundo and pablo cubides kovacsics. to meet the growing demand of data transmission over the wireless medium, current wireless systems are increasingly heterogeneous and dense. two challenges arise with the trend: the need for advanced modelling and analysis of wireless networks and the need for interference mitigation. due to the nature of the wireless medium, the link quality, captured by the signal-to-interference ratio (sir), strongly depends on the location of the users relative to the serving and interfering base stations (bss). this work proposes a location-dependent sir analysis for cellular networks where bs locations are modelled by stationary point processes. further, we propose a user-centric bs cooperation scheme based on the relative average received signal strengths from the three strongest bss. the scheme primarily helps users vulnerable to interference. we analyze the sir in poisson networks and show that the average sir performance and the network fairness can be jointly improved. experimentalists commonly explore the use of ferrocene-based chiral ligands in enantioselective catalysis. being able to computationally predict enantioselectivity for the rhodium-catalyzed hydrogenation of enamides would accelerate experimentalist's work significantly. to accomplish this feat, force field parameters for ferrocene were optimized using q2mm. once the force field was developed, it was combined with a previously developed rhodium force field. together, the two force fields were tested to predict enantioselectivity in the hydrogenation of enamides.the force field was tested on several ferrocene derivatives. the energies predicted by the force field and the energies calculated quantum mechanically have shown an r2 of 0.910. this displays the performance of the force field for ferrocene alone. the ferrocene and rhodium force fields were combined and compared to experimental data. the resulting predictions showed initial agreement, however, there could be further improvements toward predicting the enantioselectivity of the rhodium-catalyzed hydrogenation of enamides. in an extension of hammen's (1991) stress generation hypothesis, the present study sought to understand what types of people who become depressed are most vulnerable for becoming interpersonal stress generators. this paper examined the phenomenon of stress generation as it relates to an individual's history of early life stress. ninety-seven adults diagnosed with major depressive disorder participated in this study. participants were administered the structured clinical interview for dsmiv axis i disorders (scid) and the life events and difficulties schedule (leds) to assess past depressive episodes, stressful life events, and early life stress. results suggested that early life stress, especially in the form sexual and physical abuse, has an impact on the types of stress that an individual experiences as an adult. the experience of childhood physical abuse appears to be the most deleterious in terms of experiencing both severe and interpersonal life events (e.g., divorce), whereas the experience of sexual abuse appears to have an impact only on the experience of severe events. from a stress generation perspective, these results partially support the notion of early life stress, namely physical abuse, as a risk factor for stress generation. empirical studies have identified late adolescence and early adulthood as a period of the life course marked by relatively high levels of change in religious belief, practice, and identity. young people are most likely to decline in religious service attendance, but they are also likely to disaffiliate, convert, or change particular religious beliefs during this phase of the life course. despite this, researchers have paid little attention to the social sources of these changes with the exception of the study of family formation and religious participation. this work in this dissertation begins to address this important arena of religious change by establishing a general life course framework which emphasizes the exogenous social forces that constrain and enable actors in their religious worlds. primary focus is given to two substantive areas: (1) the influence from religious socialization and context in early adolescence on later pathways of religious participation, and (2) the influence from higher education on religious participation, beliefs, and affiliation. these research questions are primarily analyzed through panel data in the national longitudinal study of adolescent health and the national longitudinal survey of youth 1997 surveys. several key findings emerge. religious participation in the form of religious service attendance follows multiple pathways in late adolescence and early adulthood. decline in attendance is most common during adolescence, while the proportion declining in their early twenties is approximately equal to the proportion increasing in attendance. further analysis reveals that religious traditions, household religious socialization, and peer church attendance in early adolescence influence the relative risk of decline versus stability during the transition to adulthood. conversely, demographic characteristics such as gender and race, along with residing in the south, during early adolescence are key predictors of who increases religious attendance during late adolescence and early adulthood. analysis of the influence of education attainment on religious practice, belief and affiliation finds no overall decline in belief and affiliation as a result of higher education. further analysis reveals that college educated catholics do not follow this general trend and are more likely to have lower salience of faith and disaffiliate. educated african americans, conversely show an increase in salience of faith and a lower likelihood of disaffiliation. college type also matters with students attending catholic and mainline protestant affiliated colleges declining in attendance more than students at other public and private colleges and universities. a comparison with the birth cohort that attended college during the late 1960s and early 1970s reveals that college had a stronger secularizing effect in the past. antibiotic resistant bacteria pose an existential threat to the modern healthcare system. the degree and severity of antibiotic resistance that is clinically observed continually rises while the development of novel antibiotic classes remains stagnate. antibiotic adjuvant methodology can be utilized to circumvent the arduous process of novel antibiotic development by pairing non-antimicrobial small molecules with clinically available antibiotics to defeat bacterial resistance or potentiate a drug of interest. this work comprises efforts to identify a diverse cohort of chemical scaffolds that can be employed in advantageous combinations with colistin, a polymyxin antibiotic, to defeat colistin resistance and offset its detrimental side effects. this work discloses numerous molecules with unprecedented activity through a comprehensive screening of an in-house library of nitrogen-rich small molecules and high content drug repurposing efforts using commercially available chemical libraries with known eukaryotic activity. before the discovery of the mobile colistin resistance-1 (mcr-1) gene in 2015, spontaneous colistin resistance was found only in environments with intense selection pressure. since that time, multiple mcr plasmid-borne genes have been detected in clinical isolates all around the globe. as such, screening efforts were aimed at reversing colistin resistance controlled by mcr genes and all other known genetic mechanisms. active scaffolds were then subjected to structure-activity relationship (sar) studies in efforts to optimize activity and minimize off-target effects. specifically, sar studies using derivatives of meridianin d, a marine natural product, identified molecules with significant colistin adjuvant activity in gram-negative species while simultaneously controlling biofilm formation in gram-positive strains. additionally, sar studies of a tryptamine-based molecule inspired by the natural product oroidin accessed molecules with increased colistin synergy and decreased off-target effects. two novel colistin adjuvants were then discovered from a high content screening of three commercially available eukaryotic kinase inhibitor libraries. these molecules remain some of the most potent and highly versatile adjuvants as of the writing of this work. this same methodology was successfully applied using eukaryotic phosphatase inhibitor libraries in a study that yielded two natural products with colistin synergy. a 59-member chemical library comprised of analogues of imd 0354, first identified in the kinase inhibitor repurposing study, was then used to probe for additional bacterial activity and determine if this structure can be honed to diminish its eukaryotic effects. this study describes the potent antimicrobial activity of these molecules in drug resistant gram-positive species and establishes that eukaryotic activity can be mitigated while maintaining bacterial activity. throughout all of these studies, multiple methods are applied to examine the underlying mechanism of action and potential pharmaceutical liabilities of bioactive compounds. lipid a mass spectrometry was utilized to detect changes in the colistin resistant phenotype, while quantitative pcr (qpcr) revealed significant changes in the expression of genes involved in resistance pathways. the eukaryotic toxicity of each active structure co-dosed with colistin was determined in tissue culture to preempt a potentially toxic combination. in all, the studies that comprise this work are aimed towards the development of viable drug candidates that can become a powerful new tool within the clinical arsenal to combat the continual rise of multi-drug resistant bacteria. autotransporter (at) proteins are an important class of virulence factors from gram-negative pathogens, including yersinia pestis. the at outer membrane (om) secretion mechanism is deceptively simple, in part because major determinants for at om secretion are contained within the at sequence itself. however, to date it remains unclear how the central at 'passenger' , which comprises the mature virulence protein, crosses the om. recent studies have demonstrated that an uneven distribution of stability within the at passenger domain can affect its om secretion efficiency. however, this connection has been investigated for only two of the >1500 identified at proteins, and it remains to be determined whether there is a universal connection between at passenger stability and om secretion efficiency. here we have characterized a new yersinia pestis at protein with which to broaden our current understanding of the connection between at passenger domain folding and om secretion. yersinia pestis yapv encodes an outer membrane (om) protein homologous to shigella flexneri icsa. we demonstrate that yapv is an at protein that, like icsa,recruits the mammalian protein neural wiskott-aldrich syndrome protein (n-wasp). we also designed, expressed and purified two constructs corresponding to the central functional passenger domain of yapv. while functional and rich in &#946;-sheet structure like many other at passengers, we show that the yapv passenger constructs do not have the typical c-terminal stable core structure identified in bordetella pertussis pertactin or e. coli pet, but instead have the c-terminal 75% of the passenger more resistant to proteinase k (prok) digestion than the n-terminal 25%. furthermore, we show from in vitro analyses that the n-terminal 49 amino acids render the entire passenger domain less stable to heat and guanidine hydrochloride denaturation as well as more susceptible to prok digestion than when it is truncated. we show by in vivo folding and secretion analyses that this n-terminal peptide causes the yapv passenger to adopt a less folded conformation in the periplasm maintaining the yapv passenger in a conformation that is compatible with om secretion. these results suggest that in addition to the gradient in stability within the passenger domain, some autotransporters can cross the om using other unique features encoded within their passenger domain. the jewish-italian writer primo levi (1919-1987) is one of the most significant european authors of the twentieth century. the double nature of his writing based on both his tragic experience as a prisoner in auschwitz and his career as professional chemist has been internationally recognized as a truthful image of our recent past, in its tangle of horror and progress, technology and suffering. in this dissertation, i investigate the mysterious presence of animal representations and references to animality in levi's books in order to achieve a better comprehension of what aesthetic and ethical questions he left us. relatively unexamined by scholars, the complex and extensive animal imagery levi employed in his literary works offers first and foremost an insight into his experience at auschwitz and the function of testimony. equally importantly, it provides an original perspective on both the cultural legacy of the twentieth century and the contemporary debate on post-humanism and human-animal relationships. my research explores levi's body of work on the issues of suffering, techne, and creation respectively, and reveals how his animal imagery possesses first of all an unquestionable ethical origin (suffering). this initial ethical intuition goes then through a deep and wide investigation of the material, transformative, act of writing, and his animal representations become part of a project in which literary hybridization plays a major role (techne). finally, as part of this creative project, levi's animal imagery counterbalances the horror produced by what he calls a "controcreazione" [countercreation], i.e. auschwitz, and proposes a less anthropocentric understanding of our presence in the universe (creation). this dissertation concludes noticing how the animal representations displayed by levi transform his whole oeuvre into a testimony about the possible limitrophy between human and non-human animals. alkyne substituent effects in the methylenecyclopropane rearrangement as well as solvolysis studies of the structurally similar trifluoroacetates were determined. the results of these kinetic studies fell into a range that was expected. in the methylenecyclopropane rearrangement all studied systems are moderate radical stabilizers, rearranging more quickly than the parent system. solvolytic studies showed that the sigma + values for the para-substituted trifluoroacetates are relatively similar, with the para-acetylene group the only system that showed rate retardation in reference to the parent para-hydrogen system. the studies also showed the gamma + value of the 1,2,3-triazole system is better at stabilizing a developing carbocation by a factor of 39 than a phenyl ring. this is due to further delocalization of the carbocation. face-based biometrics has become popular in many security applications due to the compromises made between reliability, social acceptance, and privacy. many high performance face biometric systems now exist which rely on machine learnable features. however, when errors occur these features are hard to decipher in order to adjust for these errors. through this work a method is presented which identifies nonmatching errors potential false accepts. covariates, or metadata values, are then examined with respect to how they interact with score outcomes and influence the likelihood of a false accept occurring. last, an attempt is made to identify a connection between geometric and color features and score outcomes. overall, this dissertation shows that the impostor distribution and nonmatching image pairs hold a plethora of information that can be used to improve biometric algorithms and systems. sacramental theology has been grappling with the trinitarian mystery in recent years, trying to appropriate the pneumatic dimension of christian liturgy which was all but lost in the west. attempts to find the spirit through exclusive recourse to symbolic and linguistic models of sacrament, however, have backfired because the spirit's mission in the trinitarian economy requires a 'hidden visage.' in this work, an alternate model, 'efficacious engagement,' is developed to explore the way that human identity is formed by participation in ritual and how grace can be experienced as an embodied reality. applying this phenomenological and theoretical model to the postconciliar roman rite of infant baptism reveals a complicated ritual dynamic that mirrors the dynamism of the godhead. the study then explores how infants participate bodily in the trinitarian relations and even allow the christian assembly to renew itself as body of christ. infant baptism thus becomes an economic reality, one that reveals significant aspects of the trinitarian manifestation in salvation history. finally, the observations on trinitarian and sacramental economies at work in infant baptism are explored in terms of sign, symbol, and the problem of the gift. fluorescence imaging plays an important role in fundamental research and disease diagnosis because it is non-toxic and inexpensive compared to other imaging technologies. near-infrared (nir) fluorescence imaging has the advantages of the lower scattering, minimized autofluorescence, and deeper tissue penetration. however, one drawback of deep-red/nir fluorophores is that the large amount of hydrophobic surface area can overwhelm an appended bioactive targeting motif and reduce the targeting performance of the probe. thus, it is necessary to develop new classes of fluorescent probes.this thesis focuses on the development of a new class of covalently connected, self-threaded, fluorescent molecular probes with figure-eight architecture, which we call squaraine figure-eight (sf8). the probe structure contains a deep-red squaraine dye encapsulated inside a tetralactam macrocycle, and two peripheral alkyl or peptide loops. the first part describes the general strategy to prepare the sf8 probes and demonstrates their applications in biological imaging. the second part focuses on the engineering of sf8 probes by introducing chirality, incorporating a cancer cell targeting peptide rgd motif onto the loops, or preparing unsymmetric sf8 probes. the last part describes the unusual self-assembly properties of sf8 probes in aqueous media where rigid well-ordered aggregates produce coexisting hand j-aggregate bands with large fluorescence stokes shifts. this thesis presents three statistical projects on clinical trial design, climate projections and air pollution assessment. the first project is related to clinical trial phase i/ii design. the objective is to find the optimal dose for treating patients. however, this quantity may differ according to the patient's individual characteristics. in this thesis, a novel bayesian adaptive randomization design is introduced to evaluate the treatment effect for different levels of radiotherapy. this design is motivated by an ongoing lung cancel clinical trial, which classified patients in two subgroups based on their radiation susceptibility status. patients in this trial experience tumor progression and normal tissue complication. the cause-specific hazard method is employed to model the two competing events. simulation studies are conducted to show the good operating characteristics of this design under multiple scenarios.the second project is focused on climate projections. decision making under climate change requires an accurate quantification of the uncertainty in the future climate. physically constrained projections, in the presence of both observations and climate simulations, can be obtained by establishing an empirical relationship in the historical period, and use it to correct the bias of future simulations. traditional bias correction approaches do not account for the uncertainty in the climate simulation and focus on regionally aggregated variables without spatial dependence. a new statistical model is proposed for bias correction of monthly surface temperatures with sparse and interpretable spatial structure and is used to obtain future projections with associated uncertainty, using only a small ensemble of global simulations.the last project deals with the connection between the ongoing covid-19 pandemic and air pollution. exposure to degraded air quality leads to increased premature mortality from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. among the far-reaching implications of the ongoing pandemic, a significant air quality improvement has been observed after the lockdowns imposed by many countries. we presented the first comprehensive study investigating the connection between interventions adopted to control a pandemic spread and subsequent effects on large-scale air quality and human health. we use fine particulate matter observations in europe and china during 2016-2020 and integrate them with chemical transport model simulations as well as the latest epidemiological studies to quantify the health benefits during the pandemic. at first glance, sixteenth-century cologne appears the perfect image of the post-reformation confessionalized city. however, this public persona was just that – a convenient façade that disguised a consistent preference for accommodation over conflict. though cologne's leaders strove to project a fierce and steadfast dedication to catholicism, the everyday experience of life in the rhenish metropolis often defied such pretenses. due to a combination of economic pragmatism, commitment to civic peace, and caution in an unpredictable environment, the ruling council consistently chose to turn a blind eye towards most non-catholics in the city so long as they submitted to the public catholic order. cologne thus became a place in which catholics and protestants could live together in a shared community despite the authorities' outspoken rejection of religious pluralism. this dissertation explores how this compromise functioned, what pressures led to its eventual collapse in the early seventeenth century, and what lessons it imparts about the larger history of religious coexistence. in the united states, the number of individuals relying on gig work for their main source of income is dramatically increasing (brookings 2016). the term gig economy refers to income-earning activities outside of traditional, long-term employer-employee relationships. gig work is typically low skill service and care work, and includes, but is not limited to income earned through platform applications such as uber, lyft, and care.com. what macro and historical structures predict changes in labor participation in the gig economy over time? to investigate this phenomenon, i ask the following question: does variation in income inequality, unemployment rates, and racial segregation predict variation in the growth of labor participation in the gig economy across u.s. counties from 2010 to 2018. in other words, this paper investigates whether growth in the gig economy is dependent upon widening structural inequality. through a fixed effect panel model, i find that racial residential segregation and income inequality do predict growth in labor participation in the gig economy, but i do not find evidence that unemployment rates predict growth in labor participation in the gig economy. reports in recent years have demonstrated math teacher shortages in hard-to-staff school contexts due to high rates of teacher turnover. in this paper, i evaluate the impact of exposure to new, new-to-school, and emergency/ unlicensed teachers on student math achievement on one recent cohort of indiana students in 3rd through 8th grade. i find that students grow only 57% and 76% as much in their math scores in years they are exposed to new and new-to-school teachers, respectively, as compared to years they are assigned to returning math teachers. this negative impact is larger for both black students and students in poverty. negative impacts on math achievement growth are also associated with higher proportions of new-to-school and emergency/ unlicensed teachers in the school. i discuss the importance of these teachers in transition for understanding the disruptive effect of teacher turnover and its contribution to socioeconomic and racial achievement gaps. arboviruses, or viruses spread by arthropods, affect billions of people each year. i focus on three arboviruses – dengue, chikungunya, and zika viruses – all spread by the same aedes spp. mosquitoes. in this dissertation, i present three mathematical analyses and one discussion aimed at understanding spatiotemporal variation in patterns of arboviral disease incidence.first, to quantify the extent of misdiagnosis among co-circulating dengue, chikungunya, and zika during the 2015-2017 zika epidemic in the americas, i used basic principles of probability paired with empirical estimates of misdiagnosis rates. across 43 countries, i generated revised estimates of zika incidence data that accounted for the accuracy of diagnoses made on the basis of clinical presentation with or without molecular confirmation. i estimated that the zika epidemic was likely 39.0% (95% cri: 30.2%-46.7%) larger than the 679,400 cases reported in passive surveillance data.second, to disentangle drivers of seasonal dengue epidemics in guangzhou, china, i fitted a model to time series data from 2005-2015 and performed simulation experiments with the fitted model. i evaluated imported dengue cases, mosquito density, temperature, and residual variation in other local conditions as potential drivers of dengue incidence. my results indicated that while epidemics in most years were limited by unfavorable conditions with respect to one or more factors, an anomalously large epidemic in 2014 was made possible by the combination of favorable conditions for all factors considered in our analysis.third, to test the effect of alternative model assumptions on forecasts of incidence and spread of emerging infectious diseases, i designed an ensemble of forecasting models in the context of the 2015-2016 zika epidemic in colombia. in the ensemble of models, i considered multiple alternative forms across three assumptions: spatial variation in the reproductive number, the role of human connectivity in transmission, and the number of introduction events. i assessed forecast performance through time and found that at different points in the epidemic, different forms of these assumptions performed best. fourth, to consider the interplay between human behavioral changes and risk of arbovirus infection, i assessed the potential impact that an augmented reality game could have on people spending time outside, inadvertently elevating their risk of exposure to arboviruses. using data from twitter, i found that the time of day that individuals were most engaged in outdoor augmented reality games coincided with times of the day that disease-relevant mosquitoes were most likely to engage in blood-feeding. in conclusion, my research demonstrates that both specific knowledge of spatiotemporal variation in emerging arboviruses and general knowledge about phenomena affecting emerging infectious diseases are necessary for mitigating uncertainty in forecasts of emerging infectious diseases. i present a systematic case for all-falsism – the view that all undetermined future contingent propositions are false. i show that all-falsism is not only defensible, but attractive. it allows one to keep a wide range of philosophical intuitions and views, including bivalence, classical logic, libertarianism about free will, the fixity of the past, the openness of the future, non-existentialism about propositions, grounding for truth of propositions about the past, truth supervenes on being, and modal realism, all while being a presentist par excellence. presentism, the view that there are no non-present objects, is objected to in part because detractors think presentism requires one to give up at least one of the previously listed intuitive positions. these objections assume that some undetermined future contingents must be true. in chapter one, i show this assumption must go – all-falsism is an option. the common objection that all-falsism is a contradictory position fails. the all-falsist maintains that propositions about the future – will propositions – behave like modals. 'will' is a kind of necessity operator. in chapter two, after showing that the all-falsist can account for truths about the past, i argue that if one thinks 'will' a kind of necessity operator, one should reduce times to possible worlds. i demonstrate this reduction and show that it nicely accounts for similarities between times and possible worlds. this reduction allows the all-falsist, unlike other open future theorists, to be a modal realist.all-falsism proves not only advantageous to presentists, but turns out to be the best open future view (ofv). there is currently widespread disagreement regarding requirements for ofvs. in chapter three, i settle the dispute. ofvs deny the tense logic axiom (k): p → hfp (if p, then it has always been the case that it will be that p). with this requirement in hand, i show all-falsism superior to all rivals.in chapter four, i answer epistemological and pragmatic objections. i present the beginnings of semantics which answers the objections. the all-falsist can account for assertions people commonly make. in addition, i show that all-falsism provides a useful explanation of our behavior in lottery cases and the beginnings of a middle-ground position between contextualism and traditional epistemology. in this thesis, we study the boundary-blow-up problem for the negative $sigma_k$-ricci equations in bounded domains of r^n. by adopting the method of loewner-nirenberg for the scalar curvature, we generalize their results to the negative $sigma_k$-ricci equations. when $k=1,2,$ and $n$, the necessary condition for the existence of the solutions satisfying the $sigma_k$-ricci equations is that the codimension of the portion of boundary has to be bounded from above by some constants depending on $n$ and $k$. for other cases, we believe that the similar argument can be developed. medieval languages existed in a state of constant contact and interaction with other languages. in this project, i argue that thirteenthand fourteenthcentury english trilingual manuscripts show the coalescing of distinctive approaches to the literary and pragmatic possibilities of multilingual clusters of texts. in particular, the construction of parallel-text translations becomes a catalyst for the generation of early middle english poetry. through examination of three manuscripts linked to the vibrant west midlands literary ecosystem (cambridge, trinity college ms b.14.39; william herebert's preaching notebook, british library ms additional 46919; and british library ms harley 913, the "kildare manuscript"), i demonstrate how the production of paired translations fueled the development of english religious verse.interpreting medieval texts' manuscript contexts is essential to understanding their meaning. this is especially true of paired translations, where the capacity of each language to reflect and comment on the other(s) is embedded in their material form. whether a translation is inserted between the lines of its source text, interwoven with it in alternating stanzas, or copied in an adjacent column, these visual frameworks place the parallel texts and the registers associated with each of the languages in conversation with themselves.the majority of medieval english paired translations have religious topics and were likely used for public and private devotional practices, including religious instruction, preaching, sung performance, and meditation. paired translations for instruction, preaching, and performance have listeners as the final intended audience and depend on intermediary readers to transmit the text. in contrast, translations for private meditation were primarily visual and non-performative. to a person meditating on these paired translations, juxtaposed or intertwined texts would promote nonlinear reading practices, drawing the reader to consider the different aspects of the subject matter revealed in each language. for readers directly engaged with the manuscripts (a group of readers that would include their scribes), however, translations for instruction, preaching, and performance could also become the objects of meditation and nonlinear reading. by constructing paired translations, medieval poets highlight the act of translation, underscoring how translation is simultaneously effective as a means for communication and as a tool for self-reflection. in recent decades scholars have begun to question more deeply what level of latinity the early readers of the ancrene wisse would have attained, and what their experiences were with the text written for them. critical consensus generally dismisses more advanced latinity as exceptional, beyond the ability of such women readers to perhaps pronounce latin, or follow it in the liturgy. they instead characterize most readers of the thirteenth century as literate in the vernacular only, and claim that the more advanced latin passages in the ancrene wisse were directed not at the intended audience of anchoresses but at the women's spiritual supervisors. in this study i re-examine that consensus, considering textual as well as manuscript evidence to demonstrate that the ancrene wisse's early thirteenth-century readers, particularly those who were aristocrats, were trained to read and comprehend not just the vernacular but latin as well. i argue that such training would have enabled these readers to comprehend the entire text of the ancrene wisse.a review of the education of women in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries, in the first chapter, demonstrates that aristocratic women of this era could be quite well-educated in latin, and that aspirational models such as st. katherine and felice of gui de warewic were trained in the trivium and quadrivium as well as in latin. having established this background, i turn to a close textual analysis of the early version of the ancrene wisse, represented in the nero, titus, cleopatra, corpus, and vitellius manuscripts. a new look at textual evidence previously considered by scholars, together with my presentation of new evidence, reveals that the early anchoresses would have understood the latin in the ancrene wisse and were heavily involved in manuscript culture. i then turn to the earliest manuscripts to uncover additional evidence that attests such latinity and manuscript literacy. looking particularly at the nero manuscript, on which virtually no codicological work has been done up until this project, i consider how the manuscripts were made for women and how women used them. my examination of the grade, size, structure, and abbreviations of the manuscripts reveals that nero and likely titus appear to have been commissioned by anchoresses for use in their cells; i support this by comparing and contrasting the makeup of cleopatra and corpus. in considering how these women used their manuscripts, i catalogue the marginal annotations in nero, few of which have been written about before now, and compare marginal annotations in the other three manuscripts to argue that nero preserves annotations added by anchoritic women readers. this study builds on previous scholarship but goes beyond it in close textual and codicological analysis to argue for a greater latinity and participation in manuscript culture by thirteenth century anchoritic readers of the ancrene wisse than has been demonstrated before in the scholarship. philosophers of science and epistemologists ask the word 'belief' to cover far too much of the cognitive landscape. when we attend to the epistemic and practical judgments that real scientists make about their theories, we find them quite naturally and effortlessly adopting complex cognitive attitudes that display an extraordinary richness, nuance, and variety. despite the fact that qualified, partial, and tentative attitudes are a commonplace, our understanding of them remains oversimplified and underdeveloped. the overall aim of the dissertation is to remedy the situation by systematically examining the range of epistemic attitudes and their adoption in scientific settings. the project begins by anchoring the discussion of attitudes in a series of examples from actual science, historical and contemporary, in which it is clear that the adoption of an attitude other than the belief that a theory is true is crucial to an appreciation of that episode. i then develop a framework for thinking about attitudes that helps us to attend to this diversity and complexity at a new level of depth and precision. i construe attitudes as intentional mental states that involve contentful and evaluative responses. the account that i propose, which i call the sa(r)o schema, is constructed around components that should go into any account of attitudes: subject, object, content, and cognitive role. i consider a number of dimensions along which attitudes can vary, explore the epistemic significance of these dimensions, and develop a taxonomy of attitudes important to the scientific enterprise, including assuming as a working hypothesis, conjecturing, speculating, deciding to rely upon, provisionally endorsing, and the like. the project offers an extended discussion of a handful of attitudes, with a focus on the belief-acceptance distinction and pursuitworthiness judgments. i then show how the emerging picture complicates traditional positions on the issue of epistemological voluntarism, casts light on deliberative processes important in scientific practice (such as the nature of theory choice and abductive reasoning), and provides tools for understanding the different ways in which attitudes enter into the debate over scientific realism. short-lived radionuclides (slrs) with lifetimes t < 100 ma are known to have been extant when the solar system formed 4.568 billion years ago from meteoritic studies of their decay products. identifying the origins of slrs can provide insight into the origins and timescales of our solar system and the processes that shaped it. there are two proposed production scenarios for the origins of slrs with t < 5ma. freshly synthesized material could be incorporated into the solar system by a nearby stellar source (e.g., supernova, agb star, wolf-rayet star), or slrs could have also been produced by the bombardment of gas and dust by solar energetic particles (sep) emitted by our young sun. the origin of extinct 36cl (t1/2 = 0.301 ma) in the early solar system is thought to have been produced by local particle irradiation. however the models that attempt to recreate the production of 36cl in the early solar system lack experimental data for the nuclear reactions considered. the first measurement of the 33s(a,p)36cl reaction, an important reaction in the production of 36cl, was performed. the cross section measurement was performed by bombarding a target and collecting the recoiled 36cl atoms produced in the reaction, chemically processing the samples, and measuring the 36cl/cl concentration of the samples with accelerator mass spectrometry (ams). the cross section was measured at six energies that ranged from 0.70 up to 2.42 mev/a, within the sep energy spectrum. the experimental results were found to be systematically higher than the predicted cross sections. however, the deviations lead to < 7% increase in total production of 36cl under the x-wind model. from the experimental measurement and a study of the other reactions' contributions to 36cl production, 36cl could have been produced close to the protosun by reactions on ca target using the x-wind model, or in a late-stage irradiation event on a volatile-rich reservoir by 3he and alpha reactions on s targets. balthasar hubmaier (1480-1528) was an influential german reformer, and yet his theological education and his doctrines of the human and divine wills have not received much attention. this dissertation expands upon the usual portrayal of hubmaier's theological development in light of these lesser-known areas. it argues that even after his conversion, hubmaier continued to employ the scholastic training he received between 1503 and 1516, as shown in his 1527 treatises on the free will. the first chapter reconstructs hubmaier's studies at the university of freiburg based on archival research and finds that he received a fairly traditional education in medieval scholastic theology, but his education was not limited to the via modernaas commonly assumed. the second chapter reexamines hubmaier's doctrines of the human and divine wills along with the majority argument that he mainly relied upon erasmus' 1524 de libero arbitrio. it finds that hubmaier was aware of the erasmus/luther debate and that he agrees with erasmus on several major points. however, erasmian influence is primarily seen in the exegesis of hubmaier's second treatise on the will. on the basis of the preceding chapters, the third chapter examines hubmaier's ongoing employment of medieval scholastic theology. by considering his doctrines in conversation with several of the scholastic sources he knew best, including lombard's sentences, aquinas' summa, scotus' ordinatio, biel's collectorium, and eck's chrysopassus, we see much more clearly how hubmaier responds to the medieval discussion on the human and divine wills and what he retains or rejects from his university training. we conclude that he maintains several scholastic teachings including the christological subsistence theory, biel's concept of an "indifferent" free will, and the distinction between god's potentia absolutaand potentia ordinata. at the same time, hubmaier deliberately tests scholastic doctrines against his personal scriptural interpretation, often simplifying or rejecting the parts of the scholastic discussion he deems to be less scripturally supported. in sum, hubmaier's treatises on the free will offer a rare example of how medieval scholastic theology is transmitted and transformed among sixteenth-century reformers. coronary heart disease is the leading cause of mortality in the u.s. and other western countries. two risk factors for development of this disease are elevated total cholesterol (tc) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (ldl-c) levels. therapies for highly elevated cholesterol levels generally include dietary modification and pharmaceutical treatment. soy consumption lowers tc and ldl-c; replacing animal protein sources with soy protein in the diet is a suggested dietary modification to improve cholesterol profiles. however, the mechanism by which soy improves cholesterol profiles is unknown. we hypothesize that consumption of soy isoflavones can alter gene expression in human and rodent models, and that this may be one mechanism by which soy lowers cholesterol.in addition to dietary modification, some individuals augment their diet with soy extract supplements. some dietary supplements have been demonstrated to alter the effectiveness of conventional drugs. since lipidand cholesterol-lowering drugs are often prescribed concurrently with dietary modification, we are interested in elucidating potential interactions of soy isoflavones with prescription drugs. we have shown that mice consuming a diet containing both a triglyceride-lowering drug (fenofibrate) and soy isoflavones had lower serum and urinary and higher fecal fenofibrate concentrations than mice consuming a diet without isoflavones. additionally, genes critical to the bile synthesis pathway were identified in this work to be induced in mice consuming an isoflavone-containing diet. mice consuming a diet high in isoflavones demonstrated increased mrna levels of cyp7a1 and cyp27a1 (the rate-limiting steps of the classic and alternative bile acid synthetic pathways, respectively), as well as decreased mrna levels of asbt (a transporter which recovers bile acids back into enterohepatic recirculation). the outcome of these changes would be a decrease in recovered bile acids and a resulting increase in conversion of cholesterol to keep the bile acid pool in homeostasis. serum total bile acids decreased in keeping with the mrna changes. we also found that the effects were greatest when cholesterol was provided in the diet. taken together, the isoflavones are able to affect gene expression in the bile synthetic pathway as well as alter the disposition of a lipid-lowering drug. despite decades of research, the origins of spatially heterogeneous dynamics in proximity to the glass transition as well as the length scales associated with these heterogeneities, remains hotly debated as it is rather difficult extract them from experiments [1-4]. however, in recent years direct visualization of model colloidal systems via confocal microscopy has become popular and provided key insights into the glass transition in bulk domains [3, 4]. in this thesis, we use confinement to probe how spatial cooperativity arises when a colloidal liquid is constrained to progressively smaller dimensions and measure the length scales associated with such motions. additionally, we examine how sensitivity to dynamic length scales is dependent on the sizes of tracers embedded in matrix suspensions that are close to the colloidal glass transition. these studies are not only of fundamental interest, but they have wide ranging applications that crosses disciplines ranging from the instability of sub-100 nm polymer nanostructures used in nanolithography and data storage applications to protein folding [1-5]. in chapter 3, we find impeded structural relaxation of hard-sphere colloidal suspensions in confinement. interestingly, we find similar behavior in a suspension of soft, deformable spheres in chapter 4 where we examine colloidal gelation in confinement as well as the emergence of spatially heterogeneous dynamics that has a distinct structural origin. in the second part of this work, we focus exclusively on heterogeneous dynamics and methods to extract dynamic length scales associated with spatially heterogeneous dynamics. in chapter 5, we study the tracer size sensitivity to spatially heterogeneous dynamics in matrix suspensions that are close to the colloidal glass transition. in chapter 6, we confine hard-sphere suspensions to progressively smaller dimensions to probe the confinement effect on the growth of dynamic heterogeneities via confocal microscopy. heterogeneous dynamics abruptly increases as the gap is reduced below a critical spacing, defining the confinement length scale. in chapter 7 we examine spatially heterogeneous dynamics in confined colloidal liquids under oscillatory shear. this dissertation addresses core issues relating to law and democracy in latin america. the judicial response to continuing high levels of police violence in latin america is the empirical context used to explore the oft-mentioned but little studied gap between the law on the books and the law in practice in the region. the theoretical chapter presents a model that is applicable to many of the problems usually placed under the 'rule of law' rubric, while the empirical chapters contribute new information on one of the key problems faced by these legal systems, the effectiveness and enforcement of civil rights. the dissertation addresses such key themes as equality before the law, access to justice, judicial independence and legal reform. the dissertation relies partly on an original database documenting the outcome of approximately 500 cases of police violence ending in death in buenos aires and c rdoba, argentina, s&atilde;o paulo and salvador, brazil, and all of uruguay. the database includes information about the case, the victims, the perpetrators, and all the legal actors involved. this information is used to measure levels of effectiveness and inequality within and across social groups, cities, and countries. the comparison of five cities across three countries, in provincial and federal legal systems, allows controls on a wide variety of social, economic, political and institutional variables. beginning with a heuristic model of the process of legal decision-making, and deriving implications for legal effectiveness from this model, the dissertation argues that disparate outcomes across cases are caused primarily by gaps in the supply of information to the legal system, compounded in certain systems by normative failures on the part of key decision-makers. it includes insights into possible institutional arrangements that might produce better results. deep level traps in two emerging classes of devices, ingaas/gaassb multiple quantum well (mqw) photodiodes for mid-ir detection and gaas-based mosfets using inalp native oxide and al2o3 as gate dielectrics for microwave-frequency circuit applications, are studied using several characterization techniques, with an eye towards using this information in order to further improve device performance. for the ingaas/gaassb mqw photodiodes, several device structures, including lattice-matched mqws, conventional layer-by-layer strain-compensated mqws, and a strained mqw, were evaluated. three samples with unstrained and strain-compensated structures have been characterized using low frequency noise spectroscopy (lfns), random telegraph signal (rts) characterization, and deep level transient spectroscopy (dlts). several deep levels were observed in these structures; some of the defect levels were found to be common to all structures, while others are unique to specific device structures. these distinctions can provide guidance for the design of improved mqw photodiodes. in addition, detailed dlts study was used to identify the spatial location of the identified defects; this study indicates that one of the traps is actually located in the transition layer outside the quantum well region, thereby highlighting the importance of considering the full device structure and not just the 'active' layers during device design. additionally, a novel quantum well photodiode with a strained active region was also investigated. this structure is attractive since it is promising for extending the detection range to longer wavelengths. two new deep levels were found in this novel structure, and were found to be located in the strained quantum well region by using dlts. this study has provided the first detailed investigation of the trapping/detrapping mechanisms at work in these photodiodes. to facilitate the study of defects in gaas-based mosfets, mos capacitors incorporating two different gate oxides were investigated. inalp oxide was first studied for the advantage of its easy integration to current gaas fet fabrication process. although high-performance devices have been obtained, an interface state density (dit) in the range of 10^12~10^13 ev^-1cm^-2 was typically extracted for these structures, imposing a practical limit on subthreshold performance of the devices. as an alternative to inalp oxide, al2o3 deposited by atomic layer deposition was also evaluated. a 'buried channel' approach with an ingap layer between the dielectric and channel was used to reduce the impact of defects on device performance. a range of surface pretreatments and post-deposition annealing treatments were investigated in order to optimize the interface quality. the dit was found to be somewhat lower than for inalp oxide, on the order of ~10^12 ev^-1cm^-2. the lower interface state density, coupled with the larger dielectric constant of al2o3 compared to inalp oxides, suggests this is a promising path for improved microwave device performance. this dissertation shows how social protest poetry written in the u.s. after the second world war, by robinson jeffers, muriel rukeyser, and jorie graham, challenges and complicates traditional notions of prophecy in american poetry. even as they attempt to speak prophetically to a range of social crises, including racialized oppression, global war, and climate change, these poets disclaim an understanding of the american poet-prophet as an authoritative voice of moral certitude speaking to and for the people. instead, they offer a version of the american poet-prophet that is self-critical, uncertain, and disinvested in individual forms of authority.especially after witnessing the rise of fascism, the idea that a single poet might be able to unify and address a diverse collective grew increasingly suspect. recognizing the inadequacy of old forms of prophetic speech but desiring to speak in politically resonant ways, jeffers, rukeyser, and graham engage in a practice of prophetic self-critique. while critical conversations commonly identify these poets in the traditional vein of american prophetic poetry, my dissertation questions the foundational assumptions of that tradition, providing new insight into the ways in which these poets actively work both within and against the category of american prophecy.with an eye to political and theological conversations about prophecy's role in american politics, i show how these poets challenge what it means to be a prophet in america through recursive habits of self-reflection and self-criticism. by applying the same interpretive critique to their own poetry as they do to the social problems they speak against these poets undermine any sense of certainty or fixity in their work. this recursive practice requires a rehabilitative reading of these poets, one that considers the entirety of their careers, and pays particular attention to the later work, where these recurrences can be seen most clearly. by interpreting their own poetry in this way, the poets invite their readers into a collective practice of critique and revision that is aimed at keeping open possibilities for continued communication.importantly, this revisionary work occurs in what i call the "late season," referring both to the condition of living under late capitalism, and the condition of writing later in life, with an eye back to the earlier work. a sense of irreversibility shapes these poets' aesthetic responses to the interconnected crises they speak against, and their visions do not anticipate a teleological progression toward a perfected subject position or a utopian political future. rather than make proclamations, these poets engage in a process that is necessarily ongoing. this investment in ongoingness is most easily identified in their prolixity—they seem to never stop speaking.the work of these poets suggests that if we accept the title of "prophet" too easily, we risk reinforcing the very systems that we hope to critique. by bringing an active, rigorous self-critical self-awareness to the work of social protest poetry, these poets help us think in more ethical ways about who we call a prophet and why, and how we imagine possibilities for living in and through the crises of the present, with an eye toward a future that will surely require we are capable of reimagining everything we thought we knew. internet websites produced by restaurants present information contained in a format designed to convey an image of the restaurant as the owner(s) see it, and as the owner(s) want it to be viewed by the potential customers. many of the websites present a history of the restaurant. included in the history of the restaurant are the awards and good reviews of the restaurant. these markers of success represent both culinary/cultural markers and entrepreneurial/economic markers, with smaller organizations focusing more on culinary terms while larger organizations utilize more economic terms. in the absence of either culinary or economic awards, the history of the restaurant and the owner/creator serves to legitimate the restaurant as a successful organization within the restaurant field of production. historically, low-lying excitations in deformed nuclei have presented unique challenges in the context of nuclear structure. early formulations of a geometric model surmise that quadrupole and octupole surface shape vibrations can be superimposed on top of a pre-existing prolately deformed nucleus. as the experimental evidence trickles in, this idea of strongly collective behavior becomes obscured for a multitude of reasons. successful interpretation of the feasibility of quadrupole vibrations hinges on the extraction of transition probabilities between nuclear states, which can be determined via the measurement of level lifetimes. femtosecond to picosecond range nuclear lifetimes can be measured with the doppler shift attenuation method via inelastic neutron scattering at the university of kentucky accelerator laboratory, where we have performed a series of measurements of nuclear lifetimes in two rare-earth nuclei, 160gd and 162dy. this work discusses the lifetime measurements made, analysis techniques implemented, and nuclear structure as it pertains to singleand multi-phonon configurations of the previously mentioned deformed nuclei. my dissertation analyzes "practical christians," a network of activists in chicago whose dedication to domestic and international social reform arose from a shared commitment to non-sectarian christian cooperation and the exercise of christian citizenship. practical christians pursued reform in order to fight the threat of the chicago democrat machine, radical labor, and unassimilated immigrants. bringing together a diverse coalition of liberal protestants, revivalists, evangelicals, and "secular" reformers, practical christians' rejected theological divisions in favor of broad alliances committed to improving society at home and abroad. i argue that a proper understanding of the intimate relationship between local and global activism provides new insight into the social networks, political goals, religious identities, and international outlook of practical christians. while the contributions of the social gospel movement to progressive era reform has been documented, chicago's dynamic reform community reveals another religious reform network that is not to be confused with the social gospel. my dissertation departs from current interpretations of the progressive era with its analysis of domestic and international social work and the integral role that practical christians played in this global vision for transforming the world. this broad reform alliance considered their domestic and global reforms as seamless tasks in modernizing the world. i follow the pathways of practical christian reform from chicago to turkey, where american missionaries and philanthropists provided disaster relief for armenians as they suffered considerable violence from the 1890s-1920s. just as chicago practical christians labored to civilize their immigrant neighbors and encourage their adoption of christian and american habits, americans worked to christianize and modernize armenians and the middle east. this activism through foreign missions helped fuel american imperialism in the early twentieth century. the practical christian coalition faltered post-world war i as evangelicals continued to privilege the perceived christian and religious components of american middle-class respectability locally and globally. meanwhile liberal protestant and secularizing activists placed more emphasis on the process of americanizing and democratizing immigrants and the world. molten salt systems have experienced renewed interest recently for their applications in energy storage and next generation of nuclear reactors. molten salt reactors are considered to be a leading candidate for the next generations of nuclear reactors; they have a great potential to help with the energy problems the world is facing. molten salt reactors have enhanced safety figures and higher energy production efficiency over traditional nuclear reactors. molten salts can serve as both the solvents of nuclear fuels and the heat transfer fluids. experiments on molten salt systems can be difficult and even dangerous, due to the high temperature and highly corrosive environments of molten salts. molecular dynamics (md) simulation is a powerful tool to study molten salts, since md simulations not only avoid the extreme environments in the experiments, but also provide scientific insights on the molecular level. in this thesis, we have applied md simulations to study physical properties of molten salts. we have specially focused on a fundamental topic of md simulation the force field. a fixed charge model and a polarizable force field are studied to understand the importance of electronic polarization effects in the salt systems. a newly introduced approach the machine learning force field is also applied and its usefulness is discussed. this dissertation traces the rise and decline of the ribbonmen, a militant, nationalist society. it argues that ribbon societies created a blended organization that incorporated nationalist rhetoric and aims while continuing to use methods of resistance learned through agrarian societies. the fluidity of ribbonism enabled these societies to survive for more than half a century and provide a local alternative to the modernizing british state apparatus in ireland.this dissertation sets out three distinct eras of ribbonism from its origins c. 1810 to the rise of fenian organizations in 1858. the first period reflected the roots of ribbon societies in the early defender organizations of the late eighteenth century. it ended with the failure of the rockite rebellion in 1824-25. the second period marked a turning away from practical preparation for rebellion towards more immediate issues, such as employment and access to land. in 1839, ribbonism in ireland faced a seismic change when the dublin ribbon society was destroyed by purposeful government action. in the wake of the trial of the secretary, richard jones, public perception of the ribbon society shifted. in this critical moment, the end of revolutionary ribbonism began and the organization experienced a slow decline in its domestic importance as a force for political change. in this final stage, ulster ribbonmen continued to focus on sectarian conflicts at home, while ribbon societies abroad became increasingly important for their ability to facilitate connections and jobs for immigrants fleeing famine and desperate poverty. this dissertation also attempts to explain how the revolutionary aspects of ribbonism became lost or downplayed after the middle of the nineteenth century. the final chapters turn to the literature of william carleton, who wrote obsessively about ribbon societies, and to the writings and aspirations of the young ireland movement that attempted to recreate the republican nationalism of the 1798 rebellion in their own image in 1848. carleton and the young ireland writers began to place ribbonism in the category of agrarian movements or delusional fantasies in the 1840s. their prominence as authors remained uncontested by a society composed of primarily small farmers, artisans, and laborers. shortly after their discovery in 1976, x-ray bursts were determined to be thermonuclear runaways occurring on the surface of neutron stars in binary systems with h/he rich low-mass companion stars. during these explosive events the sudden release of nuclear energy heats up the atmosphere, causing its luminosity to rapidly increase by more than an order of magnitude within a few seconds. over the past three decades, thousands of bursts from almost a hundred systems have been observed, revealing a rich diversity of bursting characteristics. one of the more interesting characteristics observed is the double-peak structure in the luminosity curve seen in a handful of x-ray burst events. through modeling and simulations of these exotic events, it was found that this double-peaked structure can arise in systems where a thermonuclear runaway is triggered within pure he layer below a mixed h/he layer. in this scenario, the rapid consumption of the pure he layer is seen to be the source of the first peak, while the second peak occurs due to the burning of the mixed h/he layer with the αp-process and the rp-process. current x-ray burst sensitivity studies have revealed that certain (α,p) reactions along the αp-process have a direct influence on the early rise-time structure of x-ray burst light curves originating from mixed h/he burning. more notably, results from the sensitivity study of fisker et al., showed the importance of 34ar as one possible waiting point in the rp-process given its relatively long β-decay half-life and low q-value for the 34ar(p,γ) reaction. the 34ar(α,p)37k reaction within the αp-process may act as a bypass for this waiting point, depending on its strength. fisker et al. showed that by varying the strength of the 34ar(α,p)37k reaction, which was based on hauser feshbach (hf) prediction, a possible double peaked light curve would emerge in particular simulation for lower reaction strength values. this suggest that nuclear impedance by a possible waiting point in 34ar could contribute to the dipping structure observed in double peak light curves.it has been augured that a hf predicted rate is most likely not valid for the 34ar(α,p)37k reaction based on level density considerations in the compound nucleus 38ca. given proximity of 38ca to the n = z = 20 shell closure and it's low α-threshold, the number of levels available to participate at the relative bombarding energies may not be high enough to satisfy the statistical approach of a hf model. instead this reaction may possibly proceed via a handful of strong α-cluster resonances located within the relevant energy window, and because of this, any hf prediction would grossly mis-predict the 34ar(α,p)37k reaction rate.the predictive power of current x-ray burst models depends critically on the accuracy of the many reaction rates involved. therefore, to use these models to explore other parameters relevant to the double-peak bursting behavior, such as accretion rates and metallicties, this large uncertainty in the 34ar(α,p)37k reaction rate must be significantly reduced.with this in mind, the 34ar(α,p)37k reaction was indirectly studied using the 40ca(p,t)38ca to study possible (α,p) resonances in the compound nucleus 38ca. this experiment was performed at ithemba labs using 100 mev, dispersion matched proton beam and the k=600 spectrograph. given the information collected on the triton reaction products in the focal plane detectors of the k=600 spectrograph, excitation energies of levels populated in the recoil nucleus 38ca were determined with uncertainties within 10 kev. from this experiment, 45 states were identified in 38ca, of which 33 states above the α-threshold, that could act as possible (α,p), were identified.with precise energy information on possible resonances taken from this work, along with model based assumptions to fill in the remaining unknown resonances parameters, a monte carlo calculation was performed based on narrow resonance formalism to generate distributions of the 34ar(α,p)37k reaction rate over a range of astrophysical temperatures relevant to xrb's. from these rate distributions, the 34ar(α,p)37k reaction rate was found to be significantly lower than the corresponding hf predicted rate used in x-ray burst models. this lower (α,p) rate implies that 34ar is most likely a waiting point nuclei and a possibly impedance source that will contribute to the structure of the dip and second observed peak.additionally, to investigate the effects of a lower 34ar(α,p)37k reaction rate on xray burst light curves, simulations were performed using the single-zone self-consistent model, onezone. these initial studies using the onezone model show that this lower 34ar(α,p)37k rate delays the peak of the burst by roughly half a second, but further studies with more sophisticated models need to be done before any thing conclusive can be reached. the classic function of vitamin d is maintenance of calcium homeostasis through tight regulation of circulating 1,25d via synthesis and degradation in the kidney. in addition, vitamin d signaling stimulates cellular differentiation and regulates cell proliferation and apoptosis in extra-renal tissues. in recent years, expression of cyp27b1, the enzyme which catalyzes synthesis of the active metabolite 1,25d, has been demonstrated in cells derived from colon, prostate and mammary tissue, prompting the hypothesis that local synthesis of 1,25d may act in an autocrine or paracrine fashion to regulate growth and differentiation in these tissues. this raises the possibility that loss of vitamin d signaling may contribute to the progression of cancer. therefore, these studies were designed to elucidate function and regulation of the vitamin d pathway in both normal human mammary epithelial cells (hmec) and mcf-7 breast cancer cells. we have found that both mammary cell lines express vitamin d pathway components and that vitamin d signaling is intact in these cell lines. furthermore, we demonstrated internalization of vitamin d binding protein (dbp), cyp27b1 activity and 1,25d synthesis in mammary cells. these studies indicate that the normal mammary gland has the capacity to internalize and metabolize 25d-dbp from circulation. in contrast, dbp blunted the efficacy of 25d in mcf-7 cells, suggesting altered vitamin d signaling in breast cancer cells. to investigate abrogation in the vitamin d pathway during cancer progression, we utilized cells bearing a series of genetic manipulations that mimic mutations common in cancer. although the vitamin d signaling pathway was intact in these cells, lower expression of vdr and decreased sensitivity to 1,25d mediated growth regulation occurred early in the tumorigenic process. collectively, our work has demonstrated that local synthesis of 1,25d is of biological significance in mammary cells and that abrogation in the vitamin d pathway may contribute to loss of negative growth regulation by 1,25d. globally, recreational fisheries are situated within a diverse set of ecological settings and represent a wide array of targeted species and user desires. as both a culturally and economically important resource, the continued viability of recreational fisheries is essential for the employment and cultural identity of people all over the globe (lynch et al. 2016a,; cooke and murchie 2015; arlinghaus et al. 2002). recreational fisheries exist across a range of scales from a single species within one waterbody to multiple targeted species across regional sets of waterbodies. understanding recreational fisheries at these various scales means understanding patterns through time and across space, including how individual populations and waterbodies are linked together into complex networks by the people using them. the intersection of the social and ecological components of recreational fisheries occurs at the individual angler level effecting their decisions about what to fish for, where to do it, when to do it, and what their expectations are. consequently, managing these systems to promote sustainable use, while vitally important, is often challenging given the diversity of both the fisheries themselves and the people who rely on them.in the following chapters i examine some of the issues outlined above through the dynamics of traditional harvest-oriented fisheries, increasingly common catch-and-release fisheries, and the alternative stable ecosystem states that arise from the coexistence of the two alongside each other. this knowledge is then applied to the relationship between the primarily catch-and-release largemouth bass (m. salmoides) and primarily harvested walleye (s. vitreus) in north temperate lakes.while not exhaustive, this dissertation provides important insight into the functioning of harvest and cr fisheries in isolation and in combination. as fisheries managers look to the future, managing diverse fishing ethics across multiple interacting species will be a challenge with serious consequences for those whose livelihood depends on recreational fishing. migrations by spawning pacific salmon (oncorhynchus spp.) deliver a major ecosystem resource subsidy of marine nutrients to nutrient-poor streams of southeastern alaska. i examined the effects of these salmon-derived nutrients (sdn) on surface water chemistry and epilithon biomass and metabolism in streams and estuaries in southeastern alaska. with addition of salmon material (either from salmon runs or artificial salmon products), fluxes of streamwater ammonium (nh4+-n) and soluble reactive phosphorous (srp) increased significantly in streams and estuaries, whereas nitrate and dissolved organic carbon did not. increases in nh4+-n and srp were significantly larger in estuaries than in streams, suggesting that sdn were being exported from freshwater reaches to estuaries. responses in epilithon biomass and productivity in streams and estuaries to addition of salmon material varied widely across systems. complex interactions among environmental and biological characteristics, such as irradiance, ambient nutrients, hydrology, and salmon spawner disturbance, likely regulate epilithon growth in these systems. one of the most common causes of aircraft engine failure is the high cycle fatigue of rotor and stator blades. high cycle fatigue is often the result of neighboring blade row interactions that cause an aerodynamic excitation to be resonant with a mechanical natural frequency. historically, the primary source of the aerodynamic excitations has been limited to viscous wakes (and later the inclusion of shocks), even though several different types of blade row interactions are known to occur. advances in the design of turbomachinery have resulted in more closely spaced and highly-loaded blade rows. these changes have caused designers to revisit potential disturbances, once thought to be unimportant.as part of this rethinking, a single stage, axial fan of an f109 engine was tested in a previous experimental investigation at the air force academy, which obtained unsteady velocity and pressure measurements upstream of the fan rotor. the experiments showed that, for some operating conditions, the magnitude of the potential fluctuations were surprisingly large, contrary to the notion that potential disturbances are negligible compared to the other interaction types. however, several questions were left unanswered regarding such potential disturbance interactions and in recent years, both experimental and numerical blade-row interaction investigations have shifted their focus to transonic stages. the purpose of the present study was to revisit the former f109 potential disturbance investigation by performing a two-dimensional, time-accurate, rans simulation on the fan stage using the commercial code, fluent. as in the experimental investigation, upstream measurements were taken in both a rotor-only and inlet guide vane (igv) test configuration. in the rotor-only configuration, the unsteady velocity magnitude and phase from the numerical study agreed with the experimental data providing validation for the computational setup. in the igv configuration, unsteady pressure measurements were extracted from the igv surfaces, as done in the experiments. while the agreement of the numerical and experimental data was not as close as that for the rotor-only configuration, the pressure response was similar in amplitude, and much of the character of that observed experimentally. further, data analysis was performed using the proper orthogonal decomposition (pod) method, highlighting the method's ability to efficiently approximate an initial data set using only a limited number of modes. scaffolds have been fabricated from a wide variety of materials and most have showed some success, either as bone graft substitutes or as tissue engineering scaffolds. however, all current scaffold compositions and architectures suffer from one or more flaws including poor mechanical properties, lack of biological response, non-degradability, or a scaffold architecture not conducive to osteointegration. biomimetic approaches to scaffold design using the two main components of bone tissue, collagen and hydroxyapatite, resulted in scaffolds with superior biological properties but relatively poor mechanical properties and scaffold architecture. it was hypothesized that by optimizing scaffold composition and architecture, ha-collagen bone tissue engineering scaffolds could provide both an excellent biological response along with improved structural properties. the mechanical properties of freeze-dried ha-collagen scaffolds, the most common type of porous ha-collagen material, were first shown to be increased by the addition of ha reinforcements, but scaffold stiffness still fell far short of the desired range. based on limitations inherent in the freeze-dried process, a new type of leached-porogen scaffold fabrication process was developed. proof-of-concept scaffolds demonstrated the feasibility of producing leached-porogen ha-collagen materials, and the scaffold architecture was optimized though careful selection of porogen particle size and shape along with an improved crosslinking technique. the final scaffolds exhibited substantially increased compressive modulus compared to previous types ha-collagen scaffolds, while the porosity, pore size, and scaffold permeability were tailored to be suitable for bone tissue ingrowth. an in vitro study demonstrated the capacity of the leached-porogen scaffolds to serve as a substrate for the differentiation of osteoblasts and subsequent production of new bone tissue. the new leached-porogen scaffold ha-collagen scaffolds were shown to have potential as a highly tailorable bone tissue engineering scaffold with a unique combination of biological, mechanical, and structural properties full-scale monitoring of structures is extremely important for better understanding their behavior under environmental loads. structural properties, e.g., natural frequencies and damping of structures, as-built, can be determined from measured response time histories using system identification techniques. measurements made at different amplitudes of motion also help in capturing the variations in both frequency and damping parameters with response level. this thesis examined acceleration data from an 800-ft building in boston to identify the in-situ dynamic properties of the structure. the frequency and damping estimates were compared using spectral and random decrement techniques. the influence of limited data available for this study and the inherent biases associated with these techniques were discussed. the close coupling of the sway and torsion modes and the manifested beating phenomenon were peculiar characteristics of this structure that add to the difficulty in the estimation of damping. this thesis also examined full-scale surface pressure data measured on this building. the data was statistically analyzed to gain better understanding of the action of wind on bluff structures with separated flow regions. lake kivu is an east african rift lake unique for its hydrothermal activity that contributes to permanently stratified conditions and high concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane at depth. autochthonous organic matter production likely incorporates methane-derived carbon prior to sedimentation, but its influence upon potential paleoclimate signals derived from allochthonous sources is unknown. this project utilized abundance and compound-specific carbon isotopic analysis of n-alkyl lipids to characterize the relative effects of hydrothermal activity on lake kivu's holocene sediment record. non-emergent aquatic macrophytes were the main source of organic matter to the sediments, and preliminary compound-specific carbon isotope analysis indicate a methane-derived signal in the n-alkyl lipid pool. further analyses on compound-specific isotopes, relevant biomarker classes, and the vegetation and microbial ecology surrounding lake kivu are needed to better constrain the sources of organic matter to lake kivu's sediment archive. the development of polymeric materials suitable for gas separation membrane applications is discussed in this dissertation. compared to conventional gas separation systems, such as absorption, gas separation membrane systems are inherently smaller in size and easier to operate, and potentially, more economically viable. membranes with high permeability (for a high gas throughput) and adequate selectivity (ability to separate a given gas from a mixture) are desired. however, due to the natural properties of polymeric materials, generally, membranes with high permeabilities unfortunately operate with low selectivities and vice versa. to combat this natural trade-off, to produce materials with both high permeabilities and sufficiently high selectivities, the chemical and physical properties of polymeric materials must be strategically designed.the majority of this work explores strategies for incorporating rubbery poly(ethylene oxide) (peo) into gas separation membranes. peo is a promising material for co2 related-separations due to its high solubility selectively for co2 and its high diffusivity, which together, give peo-based materials excellent co2-separation performance. however, pure peo is mechanically weak and suffers from high crystallinity which prevent its use in gas separation membranes. therefore, this work explores strategies to incorporate peo into copolymers, into crosslinked networks, and into semi-interpenetrating networks (s-ipns). these systems have demonstrated improved mechanical properties, mitigated peo crystallinity, and highly promising co2-related gas separation performance. ibero gutiérrez (montevideo, 1949-1972) artista plástico y militante, intelectual y delegado universitario, preso político y mártir estudiantil es, ante todo, un poeta en cuyos textos gravitan el pensamiento juvenil y la acción revolucionaria del ´68 global en clave uruguaya y latinoamericana. la confirmación de esa hipótesis es a lo que se aboca esta tesis. la misma se propone la proyección cultural y el análisis de su escritura desde una memoria multidireccional que sirva de apertura a una dimensión activa y reflexiva del presente. en un avance no lineal pero cronológico se exponen sus poéticas en curso, y en consonancia con las dialécticas de la liberación de los sesenta. en la conjugación de lo poético, lo filosófico y lo político su escritura da lugar a enfoques históricos y teóricos entre los que comparecen la conciencia tercermundista y la axiología revolucionaria del hombre nuevo en latinoamérica, la articulación con el "pensamiento-imagen" de walter benjamin, el discurso de la psicodelia como expansión de la conciencia, el tratamiento sin tapujos de la sexualidad, la poéticas beat y el sonido beatle como disidencia de una contracultura glocal. la publicación de sus obras, todas inéditas al momento de su asesinato, escritas entre 1964 y 1972, ha sido un trabajo de arqueología literaria. si bien ese rescate apunta a estudiar su valor estético, lo testimonial también permite una aproximación de primera mano a eventos y temáticas de la época. la experimentación que alcanza en cada género que cultiva (diario, dramaturgia, poesía, prosa poética, artes plásticas) está en consonancia con las prácticas artísticas que surgieron en los 60s para cuestionar y transformar paradigmas estéticos. el objetivo de este trabajo es la presentación crítica de la obra de ibero gutiérrez como representación paradigmática del si(g)no rebelde de una juventud que desafió el estrecho margen histórico de la guerra fría. se trata de poner a disposición y en circulación su escritura en tanto pulsión histórica de una liberación de amplio espectro psico-social que, a cincuenta años de 1968, aliente e interpele al lector actual desde el horizonte abierto de su poesía.--ibero gutiérrez (montevideo, 1949-1972) artist and militant, intellectual and university delegate, political prisoner and student martyr was, above all, a poet whose texts gravitate towards the youth movement and the revolutionary action of the global '68 in uruguayan and latin american key. the confirmation of this hypothesis is what this dissertation is dedicated to. it proposes the cultural projection and the analysis of his writing from a multidirectional memory that serves as a portal to an active and reflective dimension of the present.in a nonlinear but chronological progress, his poetry is presented herewith in consonance with the dialectics of the liberation during the sixties. it is in the conjugation of the poetic, the philosophical and the political that his writing gives rise to historical and theoretical approaches: the third world consciousness, the axiology of the revolutionary new man in latin america, the articulation with the "thought-image" of walter benjamin, the discourse of psychedelia as an expansion of consciousness, the open-minded treatment of sexuality, the beat poetics and the beatles sound, all contributing to the dissidence that is part of a glocal counterculture.the publication of his works, written between 1964 and 1972 and all unpublished at the time of his murder, has been a work of literary archeology. while this rescue aims to study their aesthetic value, the testimonial aspect also allows a first-hand approach to events and themes of that period of time. the level of experimentation he achieved in each of the genres he cultivated (diaries, dramaturgy, poetry, poetic prose, plastic arts) is in keeping with the artistic practices that emerged in the 60s to question and transform the existing aesthetic paradigms.the objective of this work is the critical presentation of ibero gutiérrez' body of work as a paradigmatic representation of the rebellious sign of a youth that challenged the narrow historical margin set by the cold war. it also aims to make available and to circulate his writings that represent an historical impulse towards the liberation of a broad psycho-social spectrum. fifty years after 1968 his work still encourages and challenges the reader from the open horizon of his poetry. in 1979, in the violent wake of one of the most traumatic events in chilean history, the coup d'état of 1973, poet raúl zurita, novelist diamela eltit, visual artists lotty rosenfeld and juan castillo, and sociologist fernando balcells founded the performance art group colectivo acciones de arte, commonly known as cada. their radical performances or 'art actions' disrupted civic order as effected by state terror, reacting against the pseudo-normalcy that chilean subjects had been coerced to accept as legitimate. cada broke the silence of a society made passive and arguably complicit in their subjection to state terror by the regime's implementation of violent coercive mechanisms: tortures, mass killings, kidnappings, disappearances, etc. applying trauma theory in this analysis of cada's art actions, i argue that these public interventions essentially promoted the development of a social discourse that would mediate between the official 'truth' proposed by general augusto pinochet's authoritarian regime and a truth generated from below, from the margins of chilean culture, from the people, those exposed to hunger, poverty, brutal repression, alienation, and other oppressive realities. this investigation takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of cada's work, drawing from the literature in the fields of social psychology, sociology, and political science, among others, in order to develop the argument that, as a social movement, cada's art actions promoted democratization and may have even had a therapeutic effect on those who participated in cada's collective action project no +. weak polyelectrolytes are macromolecules that have titratable groups which may either protonate or deprotonate depending upon the environmental conditions such as ph and salt concentration, which contrasts with strong polyelectrolytes that completely ionize in solution. these molecules find application in abroad class of stimuli responsive materials such as self-assembled copolymer membranes, polymer-coated nanoparticles, polyelectrolyte microgels, drug delivery, gene therapy and hydrogel networks. as there is a complex design space possible for these and other applications of weak polyelectrolytes in terms of structure and responsiveness, it is imperative that one be able to understand quantitatively the dissociation properties of these systems under variable acidity and salinity. quantitative modeling in computer simulations is particularly useful, as it offers methods to predictively engineer systems for desired response characteristics, enabling time-consuming syntheses to focus on the best candidate systems. this dissertation focuses on utilizing monte carlo and molecular dynamics routines to model the behavior of weak polyelectrolytes in different solution conditions and then exploring their unique complexation properties as well as their applications. we begin by introducing weak polyelectrolytes and then series of studies investigating their properties are presented. first, we investigate the effects of varying topology, ph, salt concentration, counterion valence on the ionization and coil-globule transition (cgt) of these polymers. then we extend these routines by incorporating advanced sampling method to elucidate on the thermodynamics behind weak polyelectrolyte complexation. finally, via molecular simulations, we model the ion rejection process in self-assembled copolymer membranes and discuss the thermodynamics of stimuli responsive nanofiltration membranes with pore confined weak polyelectrolyte brushes and outlook with regards to weak polyelectrolyte simulations and applications. the traditional method for documenting a language involves the collection of audio or video sources, which are then annotated at multiple granularity levels by trained linguists. this is a painstaking and time-consuming process, which could benefit from machine learning techniques at almost all stages. however, most existing machine learning methods are being developed for high-resource languages and rely on abundant data, rendering them unsuitable for such applications. at the same time, for many low-resource and endangered languages speech data is easier to obtain than textual data, particularly since most of the world's languages are unwritten. nevertheless, it is relatively easy to provide written or spoken translations for audio sources, as speakers of a minority language are often bilingual and literate in a high-resource language. this work is aimed at solving certain problems that arise in the documentation process of an endangered language, due to the minimal annotated resources that are available at this stage. this dissertation mainly focuses on spoken corpora of endangered and low-resource languages with limited translation annotations, tackling problems that cover every layer of linguistic annotation: speech-to-translation alignment: we present an unsupervised method for discovering word or phrase boundaries in the audio signal and aligning the discovered segments with translation words. speech transcription: we developed two novel neural methods for creating a phoneme or grapheme level transcription of the audio, also utilizing any available translations. speech translation: our novel multitask neural model jointly produces a transcription and a (free) translation of an audio segment. morphological analysis: producing a layer of annotation that provides word-level or morpheme-level information. in this work we focus on grammatical (part-of-speech) tagging on an endangered language. building off limited or no annotations, our methods are capable of producing helpful suggestions for word or phrase boundaries, as well as transcriptions, translations, or grammatical tags. as a result, our work provides the machine learning methods that could form the backbone of a modern linguistic annotation toolkit, one that could have the potential to significantly accelerate the language documentation process. the idea of the rights of minority cultures has been the subject of extensive discussion within the context of contemporary liberal theory, both in relation to the normative requirements of liberal democratic citizenship within culturally diverse nation-states and in relation to various theories of global justice. in spite of significant contemporary theological reflection concerning the issues of cultural diversity and inculturation, however, this heavily contested idea has received very little attention within contemporary christian ethics under the aspect of rights discourse. this project represents an attempt to engage the issue of the moral and legal rights of cultural minorities within the modern liberal polity through the lens of the christian theological tradition. it is a constructive theological analysis of the idea of cultural rights, and it attempts to provide a fundamental analytical and normative framework for conceptualizing and evaluating the various types of rights claims made by cultural minorities within contemporary culturally pluralistic political contexts. in discerning inadequacies in standard liberal approaches to the issue of cultural rights, the project bridges existing literatures within the fields of contemporary political theory and theological ethics in order to address the commonly perceived antithesis between individual and collective rights. while endorsing the liberal-egalitarian premises of standard liberal accounts of cultural rights, it endeavors to provide a mediated defense of cultural rights that supports the legitimate attribution of various rights to minority cultural communities as moral entities possessing some dignity or inherent worth of their own, for various theological and philosophical reasons. in so doing, it draws upon an emerging consensus amongst liberal theorists concerning the failure to adequately justify the rights of minority cultures within the instrumentalist framework of ethical individualism, and following charles taylor, bhikhu parekh, john gray and other value pluralists, it suggests that a richer understanding of cultural plurality that recognizes the intrinsic value of cultures might serve as an effective means of strengthening the overall normative justification of cultural rights. we consider the initial value problem for two nonlinear evolution equations, first, the hyperelastic rod equation, which, under a certain choice of parameter, coincides with the camassa-holm equation and second, a higher-order modification of the camassa-holm equation. for the hyperelastic rod equation, we show that solutions to the periodic initial value problem do not depend uniformly continuously on initial data in sobolev spaces of index s equal to 1 or s greater than or equal to 2. for the higher-order modification of the camassa-holm equation under consideration, we show that the non-periodic initial value problem is locally well posed for initial data in sobolev spaces of index s greater than s' where s' is greater than or equal to 1/4 and less than 1/2 and the value of s' depends on the order of equation. many scholars investigating "animal studies" questions in the literature of the "long eighteenth century" misunderstand, misinterpret, malign, or simply ignore the religious contexts of that literature. for some, christianity belongs in a category of outmoded historical discourses, an embarrassment of the past best scrubbed from our memory of serious thinkers like john locke or rené descartes. for others, the christian religion represents a kind of intellectual disease that has caused and facilitated the abuse and exploitation of animals for centuries. at best, christianity is hardly mentioned in recent studies focused on eighteenth-century literature and animals despite the religion's driving force in the work of many, if not most, canonical authors in this period. in fact, beginning with the "animal soul" controversy in the seventeenth century, these writers always thought about animals and humanity's relationship with them in the context of religious beliefs, traditions, and communities.by attending to these discussions on their own terms, this dissertation reveals how christian belief, tradition, and language were used to advance the cause of justice for animals in this period's texts and artworks. in contrast to scholars who characterize christianity as the "most anthropocentric religion the world has ever seen," i argue that christianity in this period taught moral humility, emphasized the potential for transformation, and worked to reform human communities to include animals in their vision of global flourishing. christian writers like john milton, william cowper, and william blake picked up on threads of english theology, particularly natural theology, to express kinship with animals. others, like john wesley, alexander pope, and sarah trimmer, drew on their christian beliefs to argue on behalf of animal welfare. preserved in christian songs, poems, fables, allegories, and artworks resides the work of thinkers who employed biblical teaching and religious tradition to argue on behalf of animals, and their work must complicate the scholarly view of religious history and its relationship to the ecological crisis. the primary goals of this study are to investigate turbulent combustion dynamics in high mach number flows and to understand the influence of turbulence on the high-speed combustion phenomena. to conduct this unprecedented experimental investigation, an arc-heated hypersonic wind tunnel facility with 1-second test time is used for generating high mach number (mach 4.5, 6 and 9) and high-enthalpy flows of total temperature up to 3,500 k. an integrated model scramjet is installed in the test section of the hypersonic tunnel for experimental investigations in well-defined flows. the freestream turbulence is manipulated using various combinations of meshes and a turbulence damper (a component enforcing slow flow expansion and rapid contraction). it is well known that fine meshes can break large-scale flow structures into small-scale structures to facilitate turbulence dissipation. in addition, the contraction component (turbulence damper) is designed to accelerate gas mixtures toward sonic point at the c/d nozzle throat while dampening the streamwise velocity fluctuations. the turbulence levels in flows are measured qualitatively and quantitatively using rayleigh scattering and pitot probe, respectively. flow field visualizations in a model scramjet are conducted in room temperature flows at different turbulence levels using co2-seeded rayleigh scattering method. the three-dimensional flow structures are acquired by scanning the two-dimensional laser sheet for rayleigh scattering over the entire scramjet flow volume. flow structures visualized using this novel technique depict that the jet-induced secondary flows significantly affect the subsequent flow structures. in addition, it is obvious that the increased turbulence level in freestream triggers earlier boundary layer transition and separation. although these investigations on the 3d flow structures in the model scramjet are conducted in low-enthalpy flows, numerous important insights on the rather generic flow behaviors that will appear also in high-enthalpy flows are provided with various turbulent levels and inlet geometries. planar laser induced fluorescence (plif) method is used as the most important tool for investigating the turbulent flame in supersonic flows. ethylene (c2h4) is directly injected into the model scramjet under various freestream turbulence conditions. the effects of the freestream turbulence, inlet geometries, and other flow properties including total pressure/temperature are studied. this dissertation explores the development of social engagement for the carthusian hermit-monks in light of their commitment to solitude. such involvement took a multitude of forms, including relations with donors, legal actions, involvement with church governance, letter writing, and finally the establishment of monasteries in urban areas. it makes extensive use of archival sources—especially for la grande chartreuse (the order's first house founded in 1084) and vauvert, paris (the first urban house founded in 1257)—to question the accepted narrative of purity and isolation for such medieval religious groups. this narrative likely originated with medieval carthusians themselves. the present-day order as well as many scholars have embraced it. an introductory chapter sketches the contours of the question and its neglect. the next three chapters explore images for carthusian life found in the person of their founder, bruno, in guigo's customary—the carthusian rule, and in two twelfth-century polemics. each chapter establishes a narrative that portrays hermit-monks who claimed images of solitude for their lives. at the same time they engaged in a careful set of relationships with other monks as well as with the outside world. chapter five examines the patterns of carthusians functioning as bishops, while chapter six considers the problematic election of one carthusian monk as bishop of grenoble. these show the existence of networks between episcopal sees and carthusian houses as well as connections between the monasteries themselves. chapter seven addresses the ways in which carthusians used letter writing as a means to cultivate relationships both inside and outside their monasteries. letters were a means for the monks to be present to one another, to participate in the wide church and society, and to network, including with the capetian royal house. chapter eight examines patterns of property acquisition at la grande chartreuse and at vauvert, paris during their first one hundred years. the carthusians moved to paris at the invitation of louis ix, making vauvert not only the first urban house, but also a royal one—the fruit of their networks and pure image. in each case, carthusians engaged in varied relationships with donors, even to the extent of eventually altering their way of life. in a variety of ways, this dissertation demonstrates the very real engagement of medieval carthusians with the world outside their cloisters. in essence, these silent monks found means for balancing their putative solitude with a presence in the city, the larger church, and the world. the wet thermal oxides of inalp have been carefully studied to explore the potential of such films for use as a gate dielectric in gaas metal-oxide-semiconductor (mos) device applications. the kinetics of wet thermal oxidation of inalp epitaxial layers lattice-matched to gaas and the electrical properties of the resulting inalp wet thermal oxides when scaled to reduced thicknesses have been investigated. also presented are results of investigations of the dry thermal oxidation of inalp epilayers and the electrical properties of the resulting dry oxide films. gaas-based metaloxidesemiconductor field-effect transistor (mosfet) devices with inalp wet oxides as the gate insulator have been fabricated and characterized on two heterostructures. mosfets having a 1 å_ìîm gate length exhibit excellent microwave performance with a current gain cutoff frequency of 17.0 ghz and a maximum frequency of oscillation of 74.8 ghz on a device heterostructure with a 7.5 nm thick gate oxide layer. zinc(ii)-bis(dipicolylamine) (zn-bdpa) coordination complexes selectively target the surfaces of dead and dying mammalian cells, and they have promise as molecular probes for imaging cell death. a necessary step towards eventual clinical imaging applications is the development of next-generation zn-bdpa complexes with enhanced affinity for the cell death membrane biomarker, phosphatidylserine (ps). this dissertation documents the development of next-generation zn-bdpa structures that have high and selective affinity for ps-rich membrane surfaces. this thesis begins with a discussion of the challenges encountered while developing small molecule synthetic receptors that mimic metaloproteins for equilibrium binding applications. chapter 1 describes the interplay between enthalpic and entropic affects for anion recognition using structurally modified synthetic receptors and concludes that enthalpy-entropy compensation effects make it very difficult to rationally design small molecule synthetic receptors. chapter 2 focuses on the development of next-generation zn-bdpa coordination complexes for enhanced recognition of ps. the tangible outcome of this chapter is disclosure of a next generation, deep-red fluorescent zn-bdpa probe for enhanced molecular imaging of cell death. chapter 3 documents efforts to improve the eventual clinical translation of these zn-bdpa probes through the development of a water soluble micelle formulation and conjugation to clinically relevant reporter group elements for use in mri and spect imaging applications. as a spin-off of mri imaging probes a 19f nmr indicator displacement assay using a 19f labelled phosphate indicator and zn-bdpa nuclear relaxation agents is discussed in chapter 5. in chapter 4 the ability of zn-bdpa affinity ligands to recognize ps is exploited through the development of a chemically triggered liposomal drug delivery system. selective release of contents from liposomes is induced using a non-toxic zn-bdpa chemical trigger that associates with a ps targeting molecule embedded in the liposome surface and causes membrane disruption. this dissertation considers the role of literary representations of the maternal in the development of late-twentieth-century american literature by latinas and focuses on the complex ways in which these contemporary figurations of mothering are haunted by a historical consciousness of policed maternity, particularly in relation to controlled fertility during the cold war. exploring the latina writer's preoccupation with maternity during the latino literary boom of the late twentieth century, this project seeks to understand why significant histories of maternal containment, including periods of coerced sterilization and state controlled parenting are almost universally absent from literary texts that often seek to recover, reclaim, and retell the history of major waves of latin american immigration to the us at the height of the cold war. building on recent discussions of the cold war's profound influence on white women's bodies, my dissertation considers the lost narratives of maternal interventionì¢ ââ' particularly with regards to the sterilization campaign (1937-1965) in puerto rico in which over one third of the island's women were sterilized and the peter pan program (1960-1962) in cuba wherein over 14,000 cuban children were relocated to us orphanages. by tracing the trope of maternity through the texts of several key latina authors in light of the political implication of these absent narratives, i will argue that through the representations of motherhood we can find the legacy of these unwritten narratives and the embedded codes through which the silence about these historical realities speak. through an engagement with recent scholarship in the field of latina/o studies, second and third-wave feminist theory, and the history and politics of the cold war, this dissertation furthers recent trends in latina scholarship that seek to provide a historical framework for what frances aparicio and susana chavez-silverman theorize as the tropicalization and neo-colonization of the latina body. by historicizing images of maternity in latina literature in the context of twentieth century immigration as a cold war phenomenon, this project also seeks to intervene in important debates by cold war historians about the influence of the cold war on constructions of domesticity and femininity in the us. as the human race continues to consume power and resources at ever increasing levels, the ability to harness the energy contained within the nucleus of the uranium atom will play an integral role in meeting our future energy demands. however, processes involved with the production of energy or weapons by nuclear fission reactions create a whole suite of waste streams with serious environmental consequences. study of the crystal chemistry of uranium compounds is essential for understanding the chemical and physical properties of materials necessary for the safe disposal of radioactive materials. hydrothermal and room temperature synthesis techniques and single-crystal xray diffraction were used to study the structural details of 32 uranyl compounds. these compounds include a unique family of uranyl peroxide polyoxometalates with closed topologies, and novel structures of uranyl chromate chain, sheet, and framework structures with interesting coordination geometry for solid-state hexavalent uranium. john locke is commonly associated with the emergence of classical liberalism and the most fundamental features of modern politics, especially with respect to consent based government, constitutionalism, individual rights, and toleration. there is a great body of catholic political thought, however, developed just prior to locke's life and career, that also provided theoretical treatments of many of the same concerns that animated early modern liberalism. famous among his contemporaries as a theologian and philosopher, francisco suárez, s.j., died only a decade and a half before locke was born and wrote on many of the same political issues that made locke famous. although suárez is less well-known now, he had an immediate connection to locke: robert filmer, the man against whom locke directed the entire first treatise on government, was himself writing against jesuit political thought and mentions suárez by name as an example.suárez and locke's mutual antagonism to divine right absolutism is not the only thing they had in common. both are credited as early theorists of the social contract and both use their theories of consent based government to develop theories of resistance and change for government. the similarities in their political thought are made more remarkable by considering their opposing philosophical and theological stands: in addition to being a catholic priest, suárez was an aristotelian operating fully within the scholastic tradition; locke was attracted to the dissenting protestants in england, and rejected scholastic methods of inquiry in favor of a more scientific, empirical approach. in this dissertation i will closely examine the thought of suárez and locke on human life, natural law, and political community in order to determine whether their outstanding theological and philosophical disagreements affect their political conclusions as well. i argue that despite their many political similarities, these more fundamental differences do lead to substantially different political thought, especially concerning the areas of religion and toleration, the direction of legislation, and moral obligation, and that suárez's preservation of the theological and philosophical tradition allows him to avoid problems that locke's newer approach faces. nuclear forensic analysis is a key component of united states national nuclear security. a strong nuclear forensic analytical capability strengthens both national and global security by providing a deterrent to bad actors and rogue states who seek to engage in nuclear terrorism or warfare. in order to be effective, nuclear forensic scientists must be able to rapidly achieve highly-accurate and -precise physical, chemical, and isotopic measurements of illicit nuclear materials. the work presented in this dissertation aims to contribute to the efficacy of nuclear forensic science by developing reference materials that allow for rapid analytical techniques to be implemented in nuclear forensic investigations. two reference materials are presented herein. first, a natural uraninite known as the happy jack uraninite has been fully characterized with respect to both its chemical (major, minor, and trace element) as well as its uranium isotope compositions. it is remarkably homogeneous with respect to its rare earth element abundances and will allow for rapid, in situ measurements of uranium-rich matrices at high spatial resolution. second, an adaptable synthesis has been developed that allows for the production of homogeneous reference materials characteristic of post-detonation nuclear debris that will similarly allow for the rapid analysis at high spatial resolution of post-detonation materials. this synthesis can be tailored to be representative of a variety of urban and rural environments, making it a versatile method for nuclear forensic science. this dissertation also examines the behavior of uranium-molybdenum systems. molybdenum isotopic fractionation in uranium ores is investigated as a potential fingerprint that can be used to identify the origin or processing history of raw ores as well as manufactured uranium ore concentrates. additionally, the first thermodynamic measurements of a synthetic uranyl molybdate, meta-iriginite [(uo2)mo2o7(h2o)2] are presented. by understanding the conditions in which uranyl molybdates are likely to form and persist, nuclear forensic investigators may be able to determine the processing history of a sample based in part on the presence or absence of uranyl molybdate compounds. computer architecture is plagued by the von neumann bottleneck. this work introduces and evaluates the traveling thread execution model in which threads migrate to the memory resources close to the data they require rather than perform remote memory accesses. this helps address the von neumann problem by exposing additional concurrency within programs to tolerate long memory latencies, reduces two-way request/response network transactions typical of caching architectures to one way thread migration transactions, and reduces or eliminates cache coherency traffic. squaraine dyes are bright, organic fluorophores that are susceptible to nucleophilic decomposition due to their highly electron-deficient cores. tetralactam macrocycles have been employed to sterically protect the encapsulated squaraine, resulting in improved chemical and photochemical stability. these [2]rotaxanes, termed squaraine rotaxanes (sr), are versatile supramolecular architectures and can be used as fluorescent dyes for optical imaging purposes. this dissertation represents the continued study of anthracene containing sr derivatives and explores their potential applications as optical imaging agents. the thesis begins with the development of a sr for optical anion detection. a hydroxylated sr architecture is developed that selectively and ratiometrically detects chloride anions. chloride induces lateral displacement of the macrocycle away from the stabilized squaraine core, resulting in a 30-40 nm shift in absorption/fluorescence maxima that allows for naked-eye detection of analyte. the rotaxane sensor reversibly binds chloride and dipsticks containing the sensor can be used in aqueous environments. the thesis next describes sr endoperoxides (srep), storable sr analogues that emit light as they cleanly release singlet oxygen. sreps are produced by photooxygenation of anthracene-containing sr dyes. chapter three discusses experimental and computational results that demonstrate that the initial, kinetic photooxygenation product of is the strained external srep stereoisomer, with the endoperoxide unit directed outside the macrocycle. the photophysical properties and subsequent reactivity of mechanically strained external srep depend on the size of the end groups of the encapsulated squaraine. the thesis then addresses efforts to tune emission wavelength and improve the brightness of srep light output. using a truncated, green-emitting squaraine template, srep chemiluminescence becomes green, which demonstrates that the emission comes from the excited squaraine inside the macrocycle cavity. oligomeric srep derivatives were prepared but they did not lead to higher chemiluminescence intensities. the thesis concludes with the development of several new sr architectures that expand the sr library into the orange/red region of the emission spectrum. while chemiluminescent analogues were not prepared, the work is a step forward toward the goal of a red-emitting chemiluminescent srep derivative. most of the literature on the transition to parenthood focuses on changes in marital quality of first-time biological parents, with the structural context of the family prior to the transition largely left out of the analysis. this research compares the trajectories of two marital quality variables between different family structural contexts: families who have no children, families who have children, and stepfamilies. this research also compares the family experience of adding a child into these three main structures to determine whether family experience, initial family structure, or an interaction between the two has a greater impact on marital quality variables. multivariate analysis of variance (mancova) results indicate that while family experience, in the form of the transition to parenthood, appears to impact later values of marital quality variables, initial family structure has an effect on initial starting values which also impact later marital functioning. thus, the importance of family structure cannot be ignored when assessing relationship quality across the family experience of adding a child. bioluminescent color in the jamaican click beetle, pyrophorus plagiophthalamus, is an ideal system for studies moving from gene to landscape to gain a holistic understanding of the molecular, ecological, and historical basis for adaptation. previous studies have established the genetics of bioluminescent color variation in this beetle species to the level of the nucleotide base pair in the target gene luciferase. three different luciferase color alleles affecting ventral light organ color (yellow-green (vyg), yellow (vye), and orange (vor)) were found segregating in p. plagiophthalamus populations. these alleles differ from each other in a number of replacement mutations (14 total), the majority of which (11) have a measurable effect on color. phylogenetic analysis revealed a long-term adaptive trend on jamaica towards longer wavelength bioluminescence, culminating in the most recently derived vor allele. in the first part of this thesis, a study is conducted to isolate and characterize 10 polymorphic microsatellite loci for the jamaican click beetle. a survey of 36 individuals from three populations in jamaica showed that the 10 microsatellite loci were highly variable, segregating for 3 to 17 alleles per locus. observed heterozygosity ranged from 0.250 to 0.917, and mean heterozygosity from 0.601-0.747. most loci were in hardy-weinberg equilibrium, although an excess of homozygotes was observed in four tests (out of twenty), suggesting the possibility of null alleles. significant linkage disequilibrium was observed between only one pair of microsatellites. these newly developed markers will be useful in understanding the population structure of click beetles on jamaica and in identifying possible selective factors responsible for bioluminescent color variation. in the second part of the thesis, a study is conducted investigating the historical and geographic context of adaptive color evolution by testing a vicariance model for the origins of ventral organ light color variation in p. plagiophthalamus: that the vor allele arose and differentiated in an isolated deme on the east side of jamaica before spreading westward. comparisons of ventral color phenotypes, luciferase coding and intron sequences, mtdna, and microsatellite data provided evidence for past population subdivision on jamaica and ongoing gene flow, as has been found for other island endemics. however, the pattern of differentiation supported the allopatric divergence of vyg and vye alleles. the vor gene appears to have arisen relatively recently from a vye precursor and postdates the period of major biogeographic isolation dating ~1.75mya. the implications of the study are discussed for discerning ecological causation in the adaptive sequence from nucleotide to landscape to population change for bioluminescent color. the results present a foundation for further ecological studies testing the causal basis for bioluminescent color variation on jamaica for this colorful model system of natural selection in action. this dissertation studies the peruvian army's military culture during the latin american cold war from a gendered perspective. during most of the twentieth century, the peruvian military used a gendered structure of representations that excluded women from its institutional narratives. the peruvian army's foundational myth was that military men forged the peruvian nation, a female entity, a national body which they had created and needed to be protected from an external and internal enemy. such creation was a male endeavor, the product of battles fought and male blood spilled in national territory. in this narrative, there was no room for women and other subaltern groups such as indians and afro-peruvians. however, in the 1960s, the military nationalism that emerged in peru, which was catholic, anticommunist, reformist and revolutionary, shaped an inclusionary rhetoric that aimed to incorporate women to the army's narrative of nation-building. in the context of the cold war, such a narrative was complementary to the military's project which considered economic, social and political transformation as a basic criteria for achieving national security. based on archival research, discourse and visual analysis and oral history, this dissertation argues that during the latin american cold war the peruvian military glorified some characteristics of peruvian women and attempted to incorporate female images into its institutional narratives. in so doing, they highlighted qualities and values that were instrumental for the consolidation of a peruvian imagined community. the military's vision of women as idealized mothers and producers of the nation, as well as the role assigned to military wives in the reproduction of peruvian military culture in the 1960s and 1970s, reveal the centrality of the feminine in opposition to and as a complement of the masculine in the army's military discourse in the years prior to the outbreak of the civil war. these idealized notions of femininity, expressed in the images of the military wife, the heroine, the recruit's mother and the sexualized military woman, coexisted at the same time when the peruvian army emphasized a counter-insurgent warrior masculinity that was consequence of both cold war anxieties and the army's own historical trajectory. the peruvian civil war (1980-1993) exposed the limits and contradictions of the peruvian army's inclusionary discourse and gendered structures. these narratives shaped each other up by showing how the army was an institution where there was room for most peruvians and how men's labor of defending the nation was fostered, sustained, and complemented by peruvian women. in conventional electronic circuits, which commonly are used for information processing, digital information is represented by the existence of electron charges. in magnetic devices, which traditionally are used in data storage, information is represented by the orientation of the magnetization in small ferromagnetic elements. on the other hand, proposals also exist to solely utilize magnetic phenomena to implement logic functionality, such as magnetic quantum-dot cellular automata (mqca) and magnetic domain-wall logic, which have promise as non-volatile and low-power devices. furthermore, the concept of current-induced domain-wall motion has also raised significant attention since it provides a new interface mechanism between electronics and magnetism by manipulating the magnetization directly by electrons. in many of these potential applications, the controlled trapping a domain wall on a submicron ferromagnetic wire is required. in this thesis, we propose a new method of domain-wall trapping on submicron magnetic wires. in our proposal, trapping is accomplished by placing a submicron magnetic bar in the vicinity of the magnetic wire. the stray field from the bar can either aid or hinder the motion of the domain wall, and thus lead to the capture of a domain wall on the wire. samples are fabricated on silicon wafers by means of electron-beam lithography. supermalloy is used for both the wire and the magnetic bar. the trapping of a domain wall is confirmed by both magnetic force microscopy and magnetoresistance measurement. the trapping process is understood by means of micromagnetic simulations as well. the depinning of a domain walls is also studied in experiments. we demonstrated that the motion of a domain wall can be controlled by current pulses with assisting fields. we find that a critical current density on the order of 108 a/cm2 is required to initiate the motion. the width of the magnetic wire influences the trapping-field range of the domain walls. simulation and experimental results indicate that for the same strength of the localized field, domain walls trapped on narrower wire require larger releasing field for depinning. trapping domain walls by this method requires no lithographic constrictions on the magnetic wire, which provides a new prospect for the study of current-induced domain-wall motion and other magnetic devices. this dissertation examines the platonic view of the nature of political knowledge, its relations to other forms of knowledge, and its alienation from the political community. it is structured as a commentary on two platonic dialogues: parts of the sophist and all of the statesman.i first contextualize the question of political knowledge in relation to the questions of the nature of philosophy and sophistry with which it is intimately bound in the sophist. there, philosophy is shown to be different from political knowledge; it is at best a striving for such knowledge. i then carefully dissect the way in which the nature of this knowledge is brought to light in the statesman. there political knowledge is shown to be a form of human care with a troubled relationship to practice, which is the province of the technai or what we might now call 'technology.' political order thus emerges in thestatesman from the proper regulation of all forms of human know-how.yet this achievement is both improbable and highly unstable. the statesman appears as a messianic figure, an accident of both nature and society -a perfect stranger -whose knowledge is impossibly scarce and necessarily suspect. his knowledge and his presence are in tension with the basic need of the city for law: the city needs its independence, but the law is a poor substitute for the statesman. i conclude by confronting some of the criticisms raised against the platonic conception of political knowledge by various thinkers, starting with aristotle. i argue that many of these criticisms are based on a misunderstanding of the relationship of political knowledge to practice, or rather, of the conceptual function of the notion of political knowledge as a critical ideal of practice. i also sketch some ways in which the eleatic stranger's ideas about political knowledge are fleshed out and institutionalized in thelaws. this dissertation argues that sanctuary is a pillar of ecclesial identity and a concretization of what it means to be a church of the poor in the united states. as persons once again flee el salvador and other central american countries where unbearable levels of violence have essentially created a low-intensity war akin to the 1980s, the church in the united states is faced with the challenge of protecting the humanity of "unauthorized" communities seeking refuge from governmental structures that kill through persecution and deportation. throughout history as well as in contemporary politics, sanctuary's capacity to interrupt and resist processes of legalized violence has made it a contentious concept and practice. among communities of faith the possibility of providing church sanctuary can become a point of controversy and division rather than unity. within the roman catholic church there is a critical need to better understand the theological foundations of sanctuary and the ways that it incarnates the nature and mission of the church as a sacrament of salvation in and for the world so that bishops and laity alike can appropriately discern their participation, or the cost of failing to protect the displaced and persecuted poor in their midst.in response to the arrival of displaced salvadorans in the 1980s, church sanctuary became a widespread practice that raised questions about the church itself, its responsibility to protect, and sanctuary's potential to transform political systems and construct a more human society. this historical and political context becomes the foundation for a systematic theological reflection where i retrieve ancient traditions of refuge and sanctuary and place them in dialogue with the ecclesiology of vatican ii; analyze the sacramentality of the poor in oscar romero's preaching and witness in relation to the vision of a church of the poor as expressed at the medellin conference; and develop four categories that constitute church as sanctuary: refuge, healing, holiness, and salvation. in a world marred by dehumanizing violence, sanctuary is a necessary mark of ecclesial existence, for it is a salvific practice not only for those whose life is threatened but for the church itself. in this dissertation, i argue that paying close attention to whom plato portrays speaking in the dialogue allows us to distinguish, as socrates and his interlocutors construct the famous "city in speech," the elements of the city socrates endorses from those, all demanded by glaucon and adeimantus, that socrates does not endorse. the city is not, as has been thought, a unified or coherent city, in plato's view. by distinguishing the elements of a true, healthy city discovered by a philosopher from those demanded by ambitious, courageous young men, i argue that socrates's vision of just city requires institutions that respect, coordinate, and otherwise respond helpfully to individuals' needs and aptitudes, including those of women, and that plato's republic is primarily a response to the problem of courageous manliness in politics and private life. contemporary studies of jonathan edwards virtue ethics have tended to focus on the relation edwards establishes between virtue and the perfections of god, a feature of edwards thought that is indeed distinctive. building on this body of scholarship, this dissertation explores the implications of edwards' situation of virtue in god's being for edwards account of 'human virtues,' and human character traits that fall under the heading of 'natural goodness.' i contend that edwards develops three categories of human virtues: virtues (such as love) that are fundamentally constitutive of god's being; virtues (such as humility) that are moral excellencies proper to creatures rather than to god as god; and virtues (such as repentance) whose moral excellency is logically related to an agent's capacity to sin. i explore these categories of virtues to show how they are at work in edwards' own writing and how they lead edwards to engage the writings of his theological and philosophical predecessors and contemporaries in noteworthy ways. my final chapter addresses edwards' view of 'justice' and 'private loves,' which i suggest are not virtues but instead are forms of 'natural goodness' that humans can pursue independently of the intervention of divine special grace. my recognition of these different sorts of virtues in edwards thought constitutes an important hermeneutical contribution to understanding edwards' ethics; with the exception of 'love,' the human virtues and attributes that i address in this study have not been explored substantively by previous scholars of edwards' ethics. additionally, this study is important for contemporary christian virtue ethics because it demonstrates one way in which theories of virtue can be reconciled with historically protestant commitments to the necessity of divine grace for human moral action. edwards resists the idea that virtue can be taught or acquired through repetition, distinguishing his position from aristotelian virtue theories that emphasize the acquisition of virtue through habituation and moral education. he develops an ethic of the virtues that is largely neoplatonic and augustinian, both in its representation of the virtues as perfections of god and in its rejection of habituation. edwards articulation of commitments to a theory of virtue that is both theologically grounded and in many ways decidedly pre-modern is striking, given his eighteenth-century context, and suggests the merit of considering carefully this thinker who works out his theory of virtue in concert with substantive theological and philosophical commitments. internalism about practical reasons is the thesis that reasons for action depend upon the goals, aims, desires, and interests of the agent whose reasons they are. proponents of the view argue that its truth would best a number of important metaphysical facts about practical reasons: it would explain the plausible link between normative and motivating reasons; the intrinsic connection between normative judgments and motivation; the distinctive semantic import of reasons-claims as opposed to other kinds of normative claims; and the distinctive role of reasons in interpersonal practices such as advice giving. and the view is intuitive: we often point to motivational features of agents' psychologies to explain the reasons they have, and it's not uncommon that we justify action on the basis of its connection to one of our interests, cares, or concerns. in this dissertation, i argue that despite these points in its favor, no interesting version of practical reasons internalism is true. properly understood, the claims about normative reasons are not best explained by the truth of internalism. in addition, i argue that the three most prominent variants of internalism are undermined by counterexamples—cases where there is a reason for some agent to act, but the relevant motivational claim does not obtain. while practical reasons internalism should be rejected, i show that examining this view reveals important criteria of adequacy for any account of practical reasons. in the last chapter of this work, i argues for a metaphysical analysis of practical reasons that i call the "standards-based" account informed by these criteria. this account retains all of the attractive features of internalism while avoiding its pitfalls. entropy is a central concept in many different disciplines, and many important applications involving entropy can be viewed as entropy optimization problems. in this dissertation we study a class of symmetric (conic) programming problems with nonlinear convex objective functions in the context of euclidean jordan algebras, which includes the so-called quantum (von neumann) entropy optimization as a special case. quantum entropy optimization plays an important role in many areas such as quantum computing, quantum information theory, machine learning, etc. we develop a long-step path-following algorithm for such optimization problems. the theoretical framework is developed for functions compatible (in the sense of nesterov and nemirovski) with the standard barrier function lndet(x). complexity estimates similar to the case of a linear-quadratic objective function are established, and the theoretical scheme is implemented for the quantum entropy optimization problem. the shannon entropy optimization problem can be viewed as a special case of the quantum entropy optimization problem with diagonal matrices. we briefly discuss one application of the shannon entropy optimization in coding theory, namely evaluating the asymptotic pseudoweight enumerators for protograph-based low-density parity-check (ldpc) codes. in the end we also briefly discuss some future work related to quantum relative entropy optimization. collaborative file systems allow workgroups to share files. they can be used for a variety of purposes. for example, they can be used to share source code among a team of programmers, to produce a written report or to share multimedia contents that will later be assembled into a movie for a film course. simultaneous modifications of the same file can either be addressed by requiring all other users to wait for updates to be completed or by using optimistic protocols that allow each user to independently operate on the various components of the project without cooperation with other group members. optimistic protocols require a separate reconciliation of conflicting updates. recent analysis of empirical wireless user availability data shows that users are migrating towards smaller session durations and larger duration between sessions. when users are away from the network, they can potentially create many more updates that will lead to a higher number of conflicts when they resume their network connection and the local file system attempts reconciliation with other nodes. i show that prior group collaboration systems that either used centralized or distributed approaches achieve poor performance. i show that maintaining a single shared copy is untenable for these weakly connected workgroups. instead, i develop a moderated collaboration mechanism called flockfs that maintains multiple copies of the shared object. moderation operations are similar to manual reconciliation operations in coda and ficus except that the moderator incorporates updates from all the other group members into their copy. flockfs maintains one updateable copy of the shared content on each group member's node. it also hoards read-only copies of each of these updateable copies in any interested group member's node. for a group of size n, flockfs can potentially maintain one updateable copy (the author) and (n ì¢è ' 1) read-only copies (from other users in the collaboration group). the various document versions will eventually converge into a single version through successive moderations. i show that flockfs avoids many of the problems of prior systems. except for small groups, my distributed approach achieves similar performance as a server based system. my prototype exhibits acceptable file system performance and update propagation latency. previous research has shown that intermediate and high molecular weight components of dissolved organic matter (dom), as well as components rich in aromatic moieties, are preferentially adsorbed to mineral surfaces. it has also been shown that photoirradiation degrades dom, decreasing the overall amount of dissolved organic carbon (doc) in solution, as well as decreasing the average molecular weight and uv light absorbing properties of dom molecules in solution. our results show that the decrease in molecular weight and uv light absorbance of adsorbed irradiated dom, as well as the percent adsorption of irradiated dom was greater than from either irradiation or adsorption alone. the coupled decrease in uv light absorbance upon irradiation and adsorption may have dilatory environmental ramifications if water which was exposed to sunlight interacts with mineral surfaces and is then flushed into streams or lakes. this would result in a larger amount of uv light penetrating through the water column, possibly threatening the health of sensitive organisms and ecosystems. microbial communities that reside in the mammalian gut, commonly referred to as the gut microbiome, have profound consequences for host physical functioning, with well-described roles in digestion, vitamin synthesis, and immune regulation. however, our understanding of the factors that shape gut microbial composition, and the relative importance of these forces across scales, is limited. to wit, my dissertation research seeks to answer two main questions: how does a host's genetic, social, and ecological context shape the gut microbiome? and, furthermore, do the contributions of these factors change across scales, from individual hosts, to their societies and populations?to address these questions, i used behavioral, environmental, microbial, and genetic analyses to investigate predictors of gut microbial heterogeneities at the level of the host individual, the social group, the population, and the host species. i did so using data from a well-studied population of wild baboons in the amboseli ecosystem in kenya that has become a model for microbiome research. i found that baboon gut microbiomes were strongly predicted by host environments at multiple scales, including both social and abiotic environmental conditions. for instance, for individuals sampled over several years, rainfall and diet were the most important predictors of gut microbiome composition. over short time scales, social groups harbored distinctive gut microbiota, and immigrant males acquired the local microbiome when they joined a new group. further, social groups with larger home ranges and more environmental resources harbored more diverse gut microbiota, and social groups that shared environmental resources likewise shared more microbial taxa than pairs of groups with less overlap. finally, to explore large-scale processes, i tested predictors of gut microbiome composition from baboons living in multiple sites across a hybrid zone in southern kenya. i found that soil properties were the best predictors of between-population gut microbial heterogeneities, with much stronger effects than either host genetics or geographic distance. overall, my dissertation lends new insight into the dominant forces shaping the gut microbiome in a wild, group-living animal, and how the gut microbiome is sculpted at the level of the individual, social group, population, and species. the reaction of 5-20 ev o+ with highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (hopg) is investigated under ultrahigh vacuum (uhv) conditions. ion induced modifications of hopg are characterized in situ by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (xps) and temperature programmed desorption (tpd) at various stages during exposure to o+. the incident energy of o+ ions is found to be positively correlated with the rate of oxygen uptake and negatively correlated with oxygen coverage in the steady state. in addition, three oxygen containing species are detected on hopg, namely, c-o-c, o=c and ho-c=o. the variation of these species on graphite is monitored as a function of o+ dose and heating temperature. ion-induced modifications of the graphite surface are monitored ex-situ by scanning tunneling microscopy (stm) with a variety of doses of impinging ions. the probability of defect initiation at room temperature is estimated and compared between o+ and ne+ ions with different incident energies. graphite etching efficiency is also compared between 5-ev o+ and o atom. a monolayer of mercaptopropylisobutyl-poss on au(111) is characterized by stm and atomic force microscope (afm). ion induced modifications of the poss monolayer are monitored in situ by xps. during o+ exposure, isobutyl side groups are continuously depleted from the surface, while the silicon concentration is kept constant and sio2 is formed on the au substrate. after prolonged o+ exposure, the gold surface eventually becomes oxidized but the oxide can be removed by annealing at 180 oc. the oxidation resistance of the poss monolayer is compared with that of a dodecanethiol/au(111) self-assembled monolayer (sam). bluetooth low energy (ble) beacons are a relatively new technology enabled by both the rise of cheaper sensors for the internet of things (iot), and innovations in the bluetooth standard to decrease energy cost. as a result, ble beacons have continued to decline in price and can now last several years on readily available commercial batteries, allowing their use in a variety of applications such as indoor location, occupancy detection, building utilization, and others. meanwhile, iot innovations have also enabled an increase in available sensors on commercial smartphones, as well as fueled their incredible popularity, causing not only technology researchers but those from medical, psychology, sociology, economics, and other areas to appreciate the value of smartphones for large-scale, unobtrusive, behavioral research. of particular interest to many is the study of social behavior, which can consist of communication, co-location, face-to-face conversations, and more. my research lies in the center of these three movements, characterizing and using ble beacons, in conjunction with the smartphones that detect them, for the large-scale study of social behavior.in this work, i evaluate the use of ble beacons for sensing social behavior in three ways. first, i will show that direct distance estimation from the received signal strength indicator (rssi) of ble, commonly used for classic bluetooth in previous social sensing work, is difficult due to high signal variability at farther distances, especially when considering real-world sensing scenarios such as carrying the smartphone in a pocket. second, i will present a new fingerprinting method for room-level indoor positioning that relies on which beacons are detected, not the rssi reading, yet has high performance and robustness in real-world sensing situations on-par with or better than some traditional rssi methods. finally, i will discuss two case studies, room utilization and friendship prediction from dining visit habits alone, using data collected from a 40-beacon deployment in a campus dining hall, containing nearly 200 users from a sizeable behavioral sensing study, nethealth. efficient energy management is extremely critical to the operation and performance of mobile and wireless systems as a result of the limited energy resources (e.g., battery charge) available to these devices. this work observes existing energy management techniques in distributed wireless environments to be non-cooperative in the sense that they reduce the energy consumption of a single device, disregarding potential consequences for other constraints (e.g., end-to-end deadlines) and/or other devices (e.g., energy consumption of neighboring devices). it is shown that energy management in such environments has to be end-to-end in nature, requiring a coordinated approach among participating devices. in this regard, two novel mechanisms, cooperative dynamic voltage scaling (co-dvs) and adaptive fragmentation are proposed. the co-dvs mechanism coordinates the individual dvs components at each node such that i) end-to-end latencies are maintained within specified timeliness requirements (deadlines) and ii) higher energy savings are achieved at nodes with the highest pay-off factors that represent the relative benefits of conserving energy at a node. similarly, the adaptive fragmentation mechanism chooses an optimal link-layer fragment size that i) satisfies end-to-end delay requirements and ii) minimizes the energy consumption of the source device by lowering the re-transmission costs. the parent-child relationship, foundational to a child's self-regulation, functions best when parents are sensitive and provide affection.through these important relational aspects, infants and young children become able to regulate arousal.the current study examined both emotion and behavior regulation within the context of the parent-child relationship.emotion regulation was examined on a micro-level during infancy and behavior regulation was measured when children were four-years old.it was hypothesized, but not supported, that infants who received more touch during the baseline segment would recover faster during the reunion segment of the still-face paradigm.results showed that micro-level emotion regulation during the reunion segment was predictive of behavior regulation at age four. the current study shows how the still-face paradigm can be useful in capturing a micro-level snapshot of the child's developing regulatory functions and the relation to behavior regulation years later. because discourse pertaining to medieval women's sexuality has traditionally been directed by virginity and violence, there remains a substantial gap in medievalist scholarship where women's desire and pleasure are concerned. to bring these topics into critical conversation, this dissertation foregrounds representations of women's desire and studies its intersections with eroticism, pleasure, and power through a theoretical framework that pairs psychoanalytic concepts with georges bataille's erotism: death and sensuality. the project posits women's desire as worthy of study in its own right, disassociates women's pleasure from violence, and demonstrates how these medieval texts might be read as early erotica. after chapter one grounds my research theoretically and methodologically, the chapters proceed by examining representations of women's desire in four late medieval english texts. in chapter two, i explore how the female protagonist in robert henryson's testament of cresseid is punished for her transgressive desire and demonstrate how the poem constructs her disfigurement and death as an erotic spectacle that provides pleasure for its masculine audience. in chapter three, i turn to the book of margery kempe, where i reveal how margery's gendered experience and sexual trauma impair her desire, which she recovers through the visions of christ that engender eroticism and provide her pleasure. in chapter four, i focus on geoffrey chaucer's wife of bath to elucidate how alisoun articulates a theory about women's desire that links the absence of sovereignty with sexual violence and discuss how this connection then carries over into her tale, where she fantasizes about female power and the reformation of male desire. in chapter five, i study sir gawain and the green knight, analyzing how the pseudo-sadomasochistic activity of the bedroom scenes works together with the violence of the hunting scenes to provide an erotic climax and position the lady and morgan le fay in the primary positions of power. the epilogue then addresses additional areas of inquiry, including a future project, and the implications for further studies of eroticism in medieval literature. fundamental aspects of metallic nanoparticles, especially size-dependent properties and their interaction with their surrounding have been investigated. several conclusions were reached as follows, (1) au and pt particles form dense sams on glass. interparticle resonance is absent for 15 nm au particles, but present for 30 nm ones. a new strategy was developed to deposit silica insulation layers in between au particle monolayers. (2) au particles, 1.5-20 nm in size, were encapsulated in silica shells. their melting point was determined and we show that it decreases significantly as particle size decreases, leading to increased self-diffusion coefficient of the au atoms. (3) au core particles of different sizes were synthesized and ag shells of different thickness were deposited on them. xafs measurements show that au/ag alloy is spontaneously formed for the particles with small core size (2.5 nm). the alloy formation is size-dependent and molecular dynamics calculations demonstrate that vacancies at the bimetallic boundary dramatically enhance the rate of mixing. (4) epr spectroscopy was used to study the interactions between stable free radicals and gold nanoparticles. the epr signal is reduced upon adsorption of the radicals onto au particle surface. we propose that the reduction in signal intensity arises from exchange interactions between the unpaired electrons of the adsorbed radicals and conduction-band electrons of the metallic particles. catalytic autoxidation of tempamine to tempo was also observed and a mechanism for this unexpected reaction is proposed. (5) redox/galvanic exchange reactions between au and pt nanoparticles and ag(cn)2were investigated. for au particles, the exchange reaction is size dependent. 2.5 nm au particles form an alloy with ag and the extinction coefficient of the alloy particle linearly depends on the au/ag mole fraction. the full exchange for both 2 and 8 nm pt particles indicates that the atom diffusion rate within particles is very high and such high rate is not an intrinsic property of these pt particles. around the midpoint of the eighteenth century, colonial americans began to speak, write, and dream about the 'western country,' the boundless territory beyond the appalachian mountains. with independence, the western country gained significance not only as a place hosting ever more settlers but as a vision of the nation's future; it would be the laboratory for testing the american experiment. there were, inevitably, divergences between this envisioned western country and its experienced reality. among the settlers, a handful of writers, editors, and printers imbibed with revolution-fueled ambitions and ideals about the power of publication volunteered themselves as mediators between vision and reality through the region's nascent print culture. this dissertation focuses on these commentators' attempts to imprint their visions onto the western experience, and the enduring regional and national effects of their efforts. it contends that their successes and shortcomings alike wrote the western country into the ongoing struggle to define the revolutionary inheritance across an antebellum republic of aggressive expansion and ambiguous unity. influenced by works that emphasize the cultural dimensions of politics and print, elucidate the construction of languages of place, and reconceptualize contact and conquest, this dissertation reintroduces the western country to modern scholarship as a confluence of visions, experiences, and articulations that contributed a model and a vocabulary to the young republic. it approaches this task primarily by examining the motivations and publications of several of the region's print-commentators, including hugh henry brackenridge, john bradford, and zadok cramer. its chapters highlight the conceptual baggage carried westward and the attempts to claim an american future out of the natural and native worlds; connect the commentators' print-visions to regional themes with national implications, including purity, legitimacy, and utility; and follow the western country through its wartime apex, apparent demise, and enduring influence into the civil war era via western sons daniel drake and henry marie brackenridge. the western country was fated to be a short-lived and forgotten place, yet its existence echoed in the visions and words of subsequent generations when they articulated a manifest national destiny, lamented social ills, or struggled to define 'american-ness.' this dissertation is an examination of the epistemology of modality and its application to debates in metaphysics and the philosophy of religion. i first give a novel argument for a moderate modal skepticism. the argument is a generalization and improvement upon van inwagen (1998)'s influential argument for a close cousin to my thesis. it also brings to bear highly-relevant, recent results in mainstream epistemology that have surprisingly gone overlooked in the otherwise thoroughgoing developments in modal epistemology, a sub-discipline that has burgeoned in the last two decades in response to van inwagen's original, influential argument. i consider implications for modal skepticism in metaphysics and philosophy of religion, showing that divine revelation can play the role that "secular" modal epistemology cannot in advancing those debates. in particular, i argue from divine revelation against permanentism and for an attenuated divine omnisubjectivity. irradiation of a semiconductor quantum dot (qd) with photons of energy equal to or greater than the bandgap of the material results in electron-hole charge separation. while much attention has been given to the utilization of these free carriers, an in-depth analysis of the complex nature of the transfer and relaxation of these carriers, and of the incremental electronic events that ultimately lead to their utilization, was lacking. using various methods of transient spectroscopy, photoinduced events at the surface of 3.4 nm cdse qds stabilized in reverse micelles were probed. reverse micelles were employed both as templates for particle growth and as nano-sized reaction chambers in order to produce monodisperse, transparent colloidal solutions of cdse without the use of surface capping agents. ultrafast events such as electron-hole recombination, as well as electron and hole transfer were monitored by femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy. an electrochromic probe molecule, methyl viologen (mv&#8314;&#183;) was employed to provide insight into the events occurring at the qd surface at a given time. the slower trap-hole reactions were investigated using nanosecond flash photolysis. by monitoring the decay of the mv&#8314;&#183; radical, it was determined that the photogenerated product is stabilized following a series of fast and slow oxidation steps. steady state experiments were carried out to observe the accumulation of the stabilized mv&#8314;&#183; over long periods of irradiation to give a complete time-resolved study (ps-to-sec), and the results were found to be in agreement across all time domains. the study was expounded upon by coupling the cdse qds with tio&#8322; (d<5 nm) and with pt (2.8 nm) to compare the roles of the respective species. it was determined that tio&#8322; acts both an electron shuttle and as a suppressor of the back reaction, which results in two-fold enhancement of the mv&#8314;&#183; yield. contrastingly, pt acts exclusively as an electron sink and demonstrates the capability to not only oxidize mv&#8314;&#183; rapidly and efficiently, but also discharge electrons into solution. the information gathered from these "test" systems was used to design a hybrid nafion/cds/pd-pt/mv&#8314;&#183; photocatalyst for hc evolution. h&#8322; was obtained at a maximum rate of 60&#956;l/cm&#178;/hr. bacteria and their products have the ability to adsorb metals and can have a great impact on the global cycling of these metals. detailed information about the quantity and reactivity of different components in the system is important to develop geochemical models that can predict the fate of these metals. this dissertation presents the work of three studies that provide critical insights into metal-bacterial adsorption reactions. chapter 2 describes the adsorption and subsequent reduction of au(iii) both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, as well as reactions with bacterial exudates. the experimental results reveal that the speciation of the aqueous au and the bacterial surface controls the rate of au removal; under low ph conditions aqueous au complexes adsorb readily and rapidly. with increasing ph, adsorption slows significantly. bacterial exudates can reduce au(iii) at circumneutral ph, but on a slower time scale than the bacterial cell wall. chapter 3 focuses on the extracellular polysaccharides (eps) produced by bacteria and whether eps is important in proton and cd binding, relative to the cell wall. our results suggest that eps contains functional groups that are similar to those on the cell wall, and that eps and bacterial cell walls exhibit similar site concentrations and affinities for adsorbing protons and metal cations from solution. in chapter 4, we applied potentiometric titrations and cd adsorption experiments to determine binding capacities of acidophilic and alkaliphilc bacteria to better understand whether diverse and extreme environmental conditions have an effect on proton and metal uptake by the cells. while we found differences in the acidity constants calculated for the acidophiles and alkaliphiles, all the extremophiles exhibited similar extents of cd adsorption above ph 5.5. this strongly suggests that bacteria that grow under extreme conditions exhibit similar proton and metal adsorption behaviour to that of previously studied neutrophilic species, and that a single set of proton and metal binding constants can be used to model the behaviour of bacterial adsorption under a wide range of environmental conditions. in this thesis we synthesize a new model for correlated rician dual-polarized mimo channels that enables analysis of mimo system performance in asymmetric channels. a number of factors distinguish our work from existing models , including the incorporation of a k-factor matrix that is used to assign arbitrary k-factors for to the different sub-channels, asymmetric power imbalance parameters, and space-polarization correlation characterizations. the model is used to analyze mimo system capacity bounds, where lower and upper bounds for the ergodic capacity are derived. two approximations are also considered to estimate the outage capacity for the 2x2 dual-polarized mimo system, where the accuracy of the approaches are investigated for different 2x2 dual-polarized mimo channel realizations. an extension from the 2x2 case to an arbitrary number of dual-polarized antennas at the transmitter and the receiver is also presented. based on the extended model for a 4x4 system, we propose transmission schemes for the full-dimension architecture as well as for spatial beamforming, polarization beamforming and mixed beamforming architectures assuming that channel state information is available at the transmitter. the performance of the proposed transmission schemes are compared for different channel conditions using the developed channel model. this dissertation details the synthetic efforts that ultimately culminated in the first successful total synthesis of the cytotoxic marine natural products myriaporones 1, 3, and 4. our interest in these molecules stemmed from their demonstrated antitumor activity, as well as their structural similarity to a highly potent class of natural products, the tedanolides. although a number of groups have embarked on the total synthesis of tedanolide over the years, its complex architecture has prevented its completion and only one group has successfully completed 13-deoxytedanolide. therefore, our ultimate goal is to determine whether the myriaporones and tedanolides share an identical biological receptor and have similar modes of action and, if so, then the myriaporones would represent structurally simplified tedanolide analogues. at the time of isolation, the stereochemistry of two centers in the myriaporones (c5 and c6) was not assigned unambiguously. through completion of the total syntheses and nmr comparisons with the natural products, the absolute stereochemistry of this class of natural products has now been determined. in addition to completing the myriaporones, their corresponding c5 epimers were formed as well and all have undergone extensive biological evaluation. since bioavailability of these natural products is limited, their activities at the time of isolation were reported against only a single cancer cell line. the highly efficient synthetic approach discussed in this dissertation has allowed for production of a significant quantity of each target molecule and corresponding activities against a number of different cancer cell lines are presented here. these exciting results have only strengthened interest in the myriaporones as potential drug leads. with the total synthesis of the myriaporones complete, focus has switched to generating analogues aimed at uncovering structureand conformation-activity relationships for these molecules. by forming analogues that are biased toward specific conformations, we hope to maximize activity and learn more about the relationship between the myriaporones and tedanolides. current synthetic efforts toward a number of analogues will demonstrate how very slight modifications to our established route will lead to the formation of a diverse array of new potential chemotherapeutic agents. the anopheles gambiae species complex is a group of at least eight closelyrelated mosquito species of sub-saharan africa, and includes three of the four widespread, major vectors of human malaria in this region. controlling these vectors depends on being able to correctly identify and characterize them, and so vector control efforts for this species complex have been inextricably bound up with efforts to accurately describe the complex and its members. in this thesis, we extend these efforts by directly investigating a subgroup of this species complex, as well as by testing and implementing methods of genome assembly and analysis of short insertion-deletion mutations that are necessary to fully understand the history of the complex. we use whole-genome sequencing of the bamako chromosomal form of an. gambiae s.s. to characterize its differentiation from its parent taxon, an. gambiae s.s., and clarify which genomic regions are most strongly implicated in that differentiation (chapter 3). we test a genome assembly method that purports to provide a simpler alternative to the popular multi-library strategy on a well-characterized species, an. arabiensis (chapter 4); subsequently, we adapt that method to generate a reference assembly for the understudied saltwater species an. bwambae (chapter 5), which will be critical for correctly identifying the place of this species in the species complex as well as searching for putative saltwater tolerance loci within the complex. finally, we perform the first known characterization of insertion-deletion mutations (indels) in an. coluzzii and an. gambiae, adapting methods and creating a data set that will be used for future studies of how this category of variants has affected divergence between the two species (chapter 6). pacific salmon serve dual ecological roles in their natal freshwater ecosystems, providing both an enrichment via the contribution of salmon-derived nutrient (sdn) subsidies and a benthic disturbance as ecosystem engineers. the balance between their roles as subsidies and engineers is mediated by the environmental characteristics of their natal streams. my dissertation research examined the effects of annual salmon migrations on stream ecosystem function across gradients in environmental characteristics at the scale of the biome (e.g., climate, underlying geology, vegetation) and the watershed (e.g., large wood volume, benthic sediment size, timber harvest intensity). i found that streams with more structure, measured as large wood volume, enhanced channel transient storage, and transient storage metrics were robust to changes in discharge (e.g., baseflow vs. stormflow) within a stream. before the salmon run, export of dissolved nutrients was controlled by transient storage, but not during the run when nutrient concentrations and export were elevated due to the presence of salmon. the density of live salmon best predicted changes in nutrient concentration, whereas the density of carcasses had only a negligible effect on streamwater nutrients. in addition to the nutrient enrichment, salmon increased stream ecosystem function from before to during the run. salmon created a 'hot moment' in nitrification as rates increased 3-fold during the salmon run. variation in nitrification rates was best explained by streamwater and exchangeable ammonium concentrations, which increased during salmon, demonstrating that sdn are actively transformed in stream ecosystems. for whole-stream metabolism, the presence of salmon increased ecosystem respiration across all streams and biomes. in southeast alaskan streams, gross primary production doubled during the run, but responded inconsistently to salmon in sand-bottomed great lakes tributaries. thus, dissimilatory and assimilatory processes were generally enriched by sdn despite differences in environmental characteristics among watersheds and biomes. overall, my dissertation has demonstrated the ecological significance of salmon on stream ecosystem structure and function in multiple novel ways, both in their native and introduced ranges. the results also confirm the intimate link between pacific salmon and their natal freshwaters, which may inform management to ensure the conservation of salmon and their vital ecological roles. nitrogen in urine (urine-n) represents the greatest opportunity for sustainability-driven innovations for municipal wastewater treatment. the goal of this dissertation is to present electrochemical systems that will lead to improvement of current practices for the removal of urine-n in wastewater. the research objectives were to (1) analyze inorganic electrodes for electrooxidation of urea, (2) investigate operational parameters and reactor configuration to understand their effects on electrochemical performance, electrode stability, kinetics, selectivity, and ultimately reactor selection and design, (3) explore electrode alternatives to reduce the energy cost of electrochemical treatment, and (4) develop recommendations for future investigations of electrochemical systems for nitrogen removal from wastewater to promote source-separated urine treatment technologies.two major barriers for implementation of electrochemical wastewater treatment include minimizing energy requirements and controlling treatment byproducts. active-type, nico2o4 electrodes for electrooxidation of urea showed increased overpotential and electrode deactivation when tested in the presence of synthetic urine, specifically due to interactions of phosphate, creatinine, and gelatin constituents with the catalyst surface. the deleterious compounds revealed that urea and phosphate weakly bind to nico2o4 through h-bonding or long-range forces, whereas creatinine interacts strongly, forming deactivating inner-sphere complexes. phosphate presumably disrupts the interaction between urea and nico2o4 by serving as a h-bond acceptor in place of catalyst sites. the weak binding of urea supports the hypothesis that it is oxidized through an indirect electron transfer.inactive-type bdd electrodes for electrooxidation of urea in undivided and divided reactor systems effectively decomposed urea under a broad range of ph, electrolyte, and cell configurations but presented varying decomposition kinetics and n selectivity results. while neutral and acidic ph promoted removal of urea and alkaline electrolyte minimized decomposition, separation of the electrodes with a proton exchange membrane (pem) played the most significant role in n selectivity. further, the presence of reactive chlorine species (rcs) produced from clhad a significant impact on n selectivity during electrochemical urea decomposition. in the absence of rcs the undivided reactor promoted modest initial no3selectivity, peaking around 20%, followed by high total ammonia nitrogen (tan) selectivity of 65% and modest n2 selectivity of 15%. the divided reactor promoted high no3selectivity of over 80%, tan less than 20%, and no n2, due to the inability of no3to effectively transport from anode to the cathode. contrary to the absence of rcs, the presence of rcs produced almost 100% n2 selectivity, nominal no3selectivity, and no tan selectivity in both during electrochemical urea decomposition for both undivided and divided reactors. though rcs can produce hazardous disinfection byproducts such as clo3and clo4-, rcs were very effective for electrochemical conversion of wastewater n to n2, while ho• species showed more diverse selectivity toward no3and tan.photocatalyst and h2 producing electrode systems present two options for decreasing the energy demand of electrochemical wastewater treatment. in the former case, they can harness solar energy, and in the latter case they can be used for valorization that yields h2 as a urea electrooxidation product to fuel the treatment process through hydrogen fuel cells. bivo4 and tio2 are promising for their narrow band gap and proven photoactivity and power producing abilities. tio2 still remains more effective despite wavelength limitations to the uv range. mos2 has potential as a h2 producing cathode, but more research is still needed to produce a highly stable material for harsh electrolyte conditions. we eat first with our eyes, so the appearance of food directly influences consumers' perceptions and purchasing decisions. food coloring additives have been used in the food for centuries serving as codes that allow us to identify products on sight. nine kinds of synthetic dyes, approved by food and drug administration (fda) in the u.s., are derived from aniline, which is petroleum based, and they have long been controversial. synthetic food colorings add absolutely no flavor or fragrance to the foods we are eating, but do in fact pose quite a few serious risks to human health. many toxicological studies commissioned and conducted by researchers found that these synthetic dyes might lead to allergic reaction, organ damage, cancer, and adhd-like (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) behavior in children. certain dyes being used in the u.s. are banned in some european countries. creating access to scientific knowledge about food coloring is essential for public health. the design goal is to educate consumers on why synthetic food colorings are being used, the potential health hazards of consuming them, and the limited regulations the fda imposes on their usage. keeping in mind the specific target audience, parents with young children, from the standpoint of a visual communication designer, the design creates a compelling approach to deliver information which is both instructional and aesthetically appealing. there various integrated elements of the campaign incorporate a strong and consistent visual identity, relevant information and recommendations derived from studies by researchers and specialists, and government reports and regulations. ultimately, this thesis aims to help people live better and healthier lives by making more informed choices about the food they consume. along with the p-p chains, the cno cycle is the main source of energy production inside of stars with masses larger than the sun. the 15n + p reaction is the first branch point of this cycle, where the (p,&alpha) reaction returns material to the cn cycle and the (p,&gamma) reaction leads to the no cycle, and thus plays a role in determining the final energy production of the process and influences the abundances of oxygen isotopes. this project involves obtaining new measurements for the 15n(p,&gamma)16o reaction. dominated by two broad resonances at ep = 338 and 1028 kev, measurements of this reaction were performed in the proton energy range from 1800 kev down to 130 kev. particular attention was paid to the area between the two dominant resonances, along with the low energy region, as these are the most important regions in determining the s(0) extrapolations. to obtain this measurement, article accelerators at both the university of notre dame's nuclear science laboratory (nsl) and the underground laboratory for nuclear astrophysics (luna) in gran sasso, italy were used. in both locations, high purity germanium detectors were used to detect &gamma-rays from the reaction of around 13 mev. it was not possible to measure down to energies corresponding to relevant stellar environment temperatures, and so theoretical fits and extrapolations to the data must be made. to this end, the multi-level, multi-channel r-matrix code azure was used. the resulting s factor calculations were used to calculate new reaction rates for different temperature values, and gives up to a factor of 2 difference from currently used compilations~cite{angulo1999}. the membrane-aerated biofilm reactor (mabr) is an emerging wastewater treatment process that can greatly decrease energy requirements for wastewater treatment. it is based on cassettes of air-supplying, hollow-fiber membranes that can retrofit existing activated sludge processes. in order to maximize mabr nitrification fluxes, a basic understanding and assessment of mabr behavior is needed. this thesis uses modeling and bench-scale tests to explore the range of potential nitrification fluxes and approaches to maximize fluxes. in the ever-present pursuit of finding self in self-expression, i have developed a fascination with struggle. throughout my thesis work, i define struggle as the spectrum of challenging human experiences, and our responses to these situations. struggle is embodied in everything from overarching social discontentment down to the most mundane instances of tension. my work is conceptually grounded in this universal emotion, and it encourages the viewers to reflect on their response to struggle. depression, anxiety, and a stripped sense of confidence and control are driving factors in my thesis work. my autobiographical sculptures are an investigation into the complex and often conflicting emotions that arise from intra-personal struggle. i explore materiality through humorous and ironic gestures that express the challenges and triumphs of the human psyche.how i present this narrative is a "sculptural trompe-l'oeil": to surprise and encourage the viewer to question their understanding of wood and to investigate the scene laid out before them. i intentionally play with the embedded humor of objects that are neither made with their usual material nor upholding their typically perceived function. as a devoted crafts-based artist, i am interested in sustainable material engagement and society's relationship with wood. my wooden bungee cords hold both a literal and metaphorical intention in the work, connecting material, process, tension, and irony. these cords can be interpreted as both external support systems that the body can trust and rely on as well as internal strengths of character that encourage it to keep trying. my chosen medium and processes deeply inform my concept of struggle and tension in everyday life. it is a distinctive feature of hegel's moral and political philosophy that it is characterized as a philosophy of right or law. though hegel had only moderate interest in technical issues in positive jurisprudence, much of his philosophical work can be understood as a series of reflections on what it means to live according to law, and specifically how the moral and political life distinctive of modernity can be said to be structured by law. hegel's philosophy of law is in the tradition of natural law, broadly speaking, but it is just as much an overcoming of modern natural law, since it proposes not only to provide a evaluative standard against which one might judge existing laws, but an account of how the potentially critical perspective of the moral individual can be brought to an attitude of free assent to and reverence for objective laws and institutions. this dissertation is a close examination of four areas of hegel's philosophy which are most central to this project in the philosophy of law: hegel's concept of the philosophical 'idea of right' , his account of 'immediate' ethical attachment to law, his account of the legal system in the philosophy of right, and his account of ethical disposition. children who live in single-parent or stepparent households have lower academic outcomes than children from two-parent continuously married parents. however, many studies do not differentiate within one-parent family types, masking potential heterogeneity that could be related to academic achievement. because family structure is increasingly complex, it is important to examine whether its effects on achievement are from the structure itself or from processes within families. using three increasingly complex family structure typologies, some cases of heterogeneity are found among children in specific types of single-parent and stepparent families, but this variance is often explained by family processes. further research on nationally representative data is needed to test whether it is important to pursue issues of family structure heterogeneity or whether measures of family processes may reduce the potential need for more complex family structure typologies. a collection of poems that spins together flora, technology, and ritual, along with a computer program that generates poetry. numerous polyketide natural products contain methyl ether functionality generated by either methoxymalonyl extender units or a selective o-methyl transferase associated with the polyketide synthase (pks) gene cluster. in laboratory syntheses of such natural products, discrete steps for generating a hydroxyl stereogenic center and subsequent methylation are typically bracketed by additional protecting group manipulation steps. a fundamentally new tactic has been designed and developed. this methodology is capable of significantly simplifying the creation of functionality common to polyketide natural products by controlling the generation of a stereogenic center simultaneous with ether incorporation. in this thesis it is demonstrated that alkoxymethyl-protected homoallylic alcohols, under the treatment of iodine monochloride (icl), undergo efficient alkyl ether (for example, methyl and benzyl) transfer to afford syn-1,3-diol monoalkyl ethers in good yields and with excellent diastereocontrol. the proposed reactive intermediate, bearing a chloromethyl functionality, was proven by nmr analysis. it was also observed that this intermediate has decent stability so that it's reactivity can be fully explored, allowing formation of a variety of synthetically useful fragments that can potentially be used in syntheses of complex molecules. the mechanism of the ether transfer reaction initiated by n-iodosuccinimide (nis) has also been studied. by incorporating isotopic labels in the products followed by product analyses with nmr spectroscopy and comparison with the results from non-labeled experiments, relative rates of different pathways as well as the stereoselectivity preference within each has been investigated and identified. this stereoselective ether transfer methodology has also been successfully applied to the total synthesis of the family of all-syn isotactic polymethoxy natural products. two syntheses examples of this product family are shown in this thesis. in addition, a generalized, convergent synthetic strategy aiming toward synthesis of any member of these polymer-like compounds is also proposed. this research investigates the overturning behavior of rigid-body type structures, not anchored to their foundation, and subject to earthquake ground excitation. in particular the effect of the foundation flexibility on this behavior is studied. examples of structures which exhibit this rigid-body type response include water tanks, petroleum-cracking towers, stone pillars, electric power transformers, free-stand machinery and industrial equipment. research on this general problem was initiated by housner in 1963 wherein he assumed the foundation to be rigid. subsequent work has studied various aspects of this highly nonlinear system, however the effect of the foundation flexibility has not been properly studied in particular its effect on the overturning potential of the structure. this research herein develops the full nonlinear equations of motion for a rigid block interacting with a modified winkler foundation. the modified winkler foundation includes an effective mass contribution from the foundation and the stiffness, mass, and damping properties are directly related to the material properties of the typical elastic half space model. preliminary studies verify the full nonlinear equations of motion when a rigid block sits on two-spring-dashpot foundation, and highlights the importance of foundation flexibility on rigid body overturning. with the improved mathematical model, the overturning behavior of a rigid block on the modified winkler foundation is studied. in particular, the effect of foundation flexibility is evaluated on the dynamic behavior of a rigid block subjected to ground excitation. a parameter study is conducted separately for two types of earthquake ground motions: pulse-type (near-source) and random-type earthquake ground motion. for pulse type motion, an overturning spectra is generated numerically in the plane of the two parameters characterizing the pulse-type ground motions, i.e., a frequency and an amplitude. for filtered white-noise type ground motion, a probabilistic study is conducted. 695 artificial ground motions are generated with each considered as a realization of the same stochastic process. the probability of overturning is computed by performing time history analysis using the entire family of simulated earthquake ground motions. for both types of input ground motion, it is shown that the prediction of the potential for overturning can be drastically in error if the flexibility of the foundation is not properly accounted for. tissue development and maintenance rely upon choreographed cell signaling, dynamic cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions, and a precise interplay between the matrix and the cells to promote intercellular organization, differentiation, and cell survival. epithelial cancer progression is generally the result of the deregulation of these processes, and is accompanied by the disruption of epithelial architecture. the emergence of three-dimensional (3d) cell models has led to a deeper understanding of tissue-specific behaviors by modeling both physiological events as well as the progression of disease states. here, we contribute to the understanding of the role of arf6 in epithelial tissue morphogenesis by utilizing 3d basement membrane cultures that model glandular architecture and its microenvironment. we demonstrate that renal epithelial cysts require arf6 to orient cellular polarity and to deliver and assemble laminin into a supportive basement membrane network. cellular depletion of arf6 expression results in the formation of inverted glandular units, although individual cell polarity remains unperturbed. this inversion is accompanied by an inability to activate rac1 at critical time points in cystogenesis and a failure to deposit laminin. the activation of rac1, in a time dependent manner, is sufficient to recover a normal cyst phenotype, as well as a proper distribution of laminin to support cyst development. both, rac1-activation and laminin-deposition occur in concert with matrix remodeling induced by matrix metalloproteinases. when arf6 expression is knocked down in unnatural environments, such as collagen i matrix, the resulting cysts exhibit an altered polarity coupled with an enhanced capacity to adhere to and constrict the non-native matrix microenvironment. thus, the cellular microenvironment appears to markedly influence the glandular phenotype induced upon arf6 depletion. finally, arf6 depletion inhibits tubule initiation from renal cysts exposed to growth factors such hgf, confirming a role for arf6 in the early stages of tubule formation. the arf6 knockdown phenotypes described here, model histological phenotypes found in a number of human diseases, particularly in invasive cancers. we believe that the role of arf6 in regulating epithelial morphogenesis could be extrapolated to investigate tissue events associated with epithelial cancer progression from invasion to metastasis. excessive alcohol consumption is among the leading causes of death in the u.s. childhood maltreatment, early initiation of alcohol use, and depressive symptoms are all associated with problematic alcohol use in adulthood. this study utilized structural equation modeling to examine the relations among these variables in longitudinal data from a sample of 362 participants. this study examined the contributions of different types of childhood maltreatment on adult alcohol use problems; examined the indirect effects of age of initial alcohol use and depressive symptoms on the relation between childhood maltreatment and alcohol use problems; and examined sex differences in these relations. results suggest that sexual and physical abuse were significant predictors of alcohol use problems over and above other types of maltreatment, and that age of initial alcohol use had a significant indirect effect on the relation between sexual abuse and alcohol problems, but only for females. no other significant indirect effects were found. results are discussed in terms of implications for research, theory, and practice. social inequalities are embedded in spatially-related patterns, and spatial boundaries and distributions connect and exclude social groups in ways that influence their life outcomes. in this dissertation, i investigate how communities create and respond to these spatially-stratified contexts. the time and resources that people invest into their communities gives an indication of the degree to which these contexts will continue to be advantaged or disadvantaged places to live for the next cohort of residents, reproducing inherited contextual effects. what are the primary mechanisms by which community contexts relate to social outcomes? i investigate how an exit, loyalty, voice framework helps to explain the ways residents respond to their neighborhood contexts. to do this, i analyze nationally-representative survey data and linked census data on the residential locations of survey respondents. i focus in particular on perceptions of context and find that people's subjective experiences of their neighborhood context matter just as much, if not more, than their objective structural neighborhood situations. dataset sizes for scientific experiments are expanding at a prodigious rate. even small-scale laboratories can produce terabytes of raw data each year. this data needs to be stored, but also needs to be analyzed in order to make it anything other than a waste of space. furthermore, in areas like physics, scientists are frequently looking for interesting events or trends amongst a sea of boring data, making visualization and mass analysis very important. one experiment that follows this pattern is the gamma ray astrophysics experiment at notre dame. in this work i discuss the needs and constraints of data repositories for data-intensive scientific experiments in the context of developing such a system for grand. challenges such as storing large datasets, interface design, fast data analysis, and large-scale data visualization are examined, and solutions are presented in the form of distributed storage and parallel computation. throughout the nineteenth century, religious identity, national identity, and domesticity converge in the depiction of broken homes, foreign invaders, and homeless converts which abound in anti-catholic literature. this literature imagines conversion to roman or anglo-catholicism as simultaneously threatening the english home and the english nation through the adoption of the anti-domestic practices of celibacy and monasticism. however, constructions of conversion as a rejection of domesticity and english identity were not limited to anti-catholic propaganda: mainstream novelists made use of stock anti-catholic tropes for rather more complicated purposes. in light of this convergence between religion, nation, and home, this dissertation explores novels by john henry newman, margaret oliphant, charlotte yonge, and charlotte brontìç in the context of mid-century journal and newspaper articles, court cases, religious tracts and popular anti-catholic fiction. i argue that in literature concerned with catholic conversion and the tractarian movement, the trope of finding a home became a tool for imagining new domestic, religious, and national communities. victorian constructions of english national identity and domesticity were always mutually constitutive, as domesticity was understood to be one of the identifying markers of "englishness," while the home served as a microcosm of the nation. at the same time, as recent critics have shown, religious identity was an essential part of english national identity, and anti-catholic literature used roman catholicism as an other against which to construct a protestant and domestic english identity. pro-catholic or pro-tractarian novels, on the other hand, often sought to reshape english national identity, incorporating alternative versions of domesticity and alternative conceptions of the role of the church. while religion and domesticity are both firmly connected to national identity, the literature of roman catholic or tractarian conversion was also invested in constructing transnational identities. the concept of catholicity offered mid-century novelists a means through which to explore the possibility of communities that transcended national and denominational boundaries. from newman's catholic cosmopolitanism to yonge's view of the communion of saints, religious conceptions of the universal allowed mid-century authors a way to construct identities that, while remaining firmly grounded in english identity, also reached beyond it. this dissertation is about the national and international politics of education policy supported mexico's ministry of public education (sep) during the cold war. education was an avenue through which the country capitalized on its revolution and presented itself as a regional leader. however, education policy was also a space where the state was able to implement repressive strategies against student activism and power on campus. the government created the sep and the escuelas normales rurales (rural teacher-training colleges) as part of its post-revolution reforms. the link to the revolution allowed the government to use both institutions, to uphold a national narrative that framed mexico as a modern and democratic country. through the bureaucratic structure of the sep, mexico aided in the expansion of unesco projects by investing in numerous joint projects. in the 1960s, the united states took advantage of the vast unesco presence in mexico by using the joint programs as spaces through which to funnel cold war aid resources, even when mexico's diplomatic position did not support the programs. simultaneous to mexico's assistance in the spread of unesco and u.s. agendas, internally, education officials aided in the criminalization of student politics. i focus on the institutional relationship between the department of normal education and the normales rurales. education officials reinforced the public anxieties of the period by using campus policies and disciplinary actions as a way to combat student activism. the sep's reactions to students were manifested in changes to admissions, scholarships, attendance, and travel policies. the sep's systematic use of policy, as a tool to control student power on campus, escalated throughout the 1960s, and exploded in 1969, when the sep implemented a punitive education reform that closed down half of the then twenty-nine campuses. this dissertation addresses the question of how to interpret and understand memory loss as a person of faith embedded in, and informed by, the contemporary medical-scientific milieu. its central thesis contends that an interdisciplinary theological anthropology can provide an alternative to hegemonic cultural narratives that reduce a person to their brain. the dissertation has three parts: a theological analysis, a neuroscientific analysis, and a constructive proposal. part one analyzes a debate that arose in 1966 between schillebeeckx and two of his colleagues over an evolutionary anthropological account of christ. i contend that schillebeeckx's response stems from his desire to reject a physical reductionist view of christ and the human person. i then explore schillebeeckx's opposition to a reduction of the human person through his concept of a "disclosure experience," a theological expression that exemplifies the connection between memory and social interaction. bringing this theological approach into conversation with the social neuroscience of memory, i argue that social interaction and memory are linked together in a phenomenon that i call "sociorelational memory." i contend that, from a theological perspective, memory is a sociorelational phenomenon that is inherently indissociable from god and the community. part two shifts to a neuroscientific analysis of memory loss in order to contrast the "sociorelational memory" of part one with the individualistic memory in contemporary neuroscience. i address the traces of the lockean psychological continuity theory that echo within neuroscientific research. i use this lockean lens to analyze the cutting-edge neuroscientific research on cerebral organoids, an area of molecular and cellular neuroscience in which scientists grow miniature brain organs in order to study diseases, such as neurodegenerative memory loss. i demonstrate how the concepts at the foundation of this research exhibit lockean tendencies toward an individualistic understanding of memory. i argue that the neuroscientific research that emerges from the laboratory produces authoritative neuroreductive accounts of what it means to be human.part three contends that a contemporary theological anthropology that accounts for neuroscientific findings can provide an alternative to the cultural narrative of neuroreductionism. to expand schillebeeckx's theological anthropology, i reinterpret questions from the neuroscience of memory loss through the lens of "sociorelational memory" in order to consider how the challenges of this human experience might be viewed in light of the human-divine relationship. the conclusion of the dissertation calls for future work in this topic by listening to the insights of those with memory loss who are living out their faith. the growing political involvement of organized crime is one of the greatest threats to democracy in contemporary brazil. this is most apparent during elections: seeking to influence electoral outcomes, politicians build alliances with criminal organizations to assassinate political rivals and intimidate voters. for example, in 2016's municipal electoral cycle, at least 20 politicians were assassinated in the metropolitan area of rio de janeiro. after growing evidence of voter intimidation, electoral authorities requested federal security forces protect the integrity of elections in the city. yet, in other cities, like são paulo, criminals and politicians do not violently influence elections despite their ostensible presence. why do politicians and criminals use violent tactics and clientelistic politics to influence elections in some cases but not others?my dissertation explains the occurrence of criminalized electoral politics, the use of criminal violence and clientelism to influence electoral outcomes, in brazil. for criminalized electoral politics to occur, (1) a politician must be willing and able to engage in a profitable, yet potentially costly, partnership with crime and (2) a criminal group must be able to act as a political broker. i argue that the strength of parties in electoral competition shapes politician' incentives to pursue criminal alliances. when parties are significant forces in electoral competition, politicians are less likely to seek out these alliances. the overt use of violence and criminal tactics is a menace to a party's image; therefore, parties will effectively dissuade their members from partnering with crime. in contrast, when politicians and their personalistic political machines are the center of electoral competition, there will be strong incentives to collude with criminal actors. furthermore, the type of community politics impacts a criminal actor's ability to become a broker. criminal brokers are more common in areas with a history of clientelistic local politics. in contrast, peripheral communities with a history of civic activism are less likely to allow criminal encroachment of local politics. i use the case studies of rio de janeiro, the baixada fluminense, and são paulo to develop a theory of criminalized electoral politics. using information collected over 17 months of fieldwork, i trace the markedly different paths of political development in the peripheries of these urban areas to understand why criminals and politicians engage in widespread criminal manipulation of electoral processes in rio de janeiro and the baixada fluminense but refrain from doing so in são paulo. in a second step, i employ an original dataset of criminal political violence in over 5,560 brazilian municipalities (2000-2016) and find that high electoral volatility is associated with the occurrence and intensity of criminal political violence.my dissertation, while focused on contemporary brazilian urban spaces, provides a more general framework to understand the linkage between criminal violence and electoral politics. it explores the political nature of criminal violence, as well as the institutional and social factors that foster the overlap of criminal violence and elections and thus threaten democratic citizenship in marginalized communities. this study examined the combined efficacy of two promising non-pharmacological treatments for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (adhd): a computerized working memory (wm) training program for adolescents (cogmed-rm), and a behavioral parent training (bpt) program for the improvement of parenting skills for mothers. in a pretest-posttest randomized controlled trial, we considered how selected adolescent and maternal variables changed over time as a function of treatment condition. at preand post-intervention, self-report questionnaire data were collected from 91 adolescents (aged 11-15), mothers, and teachers, and neuropsychological measures of wm spans were also administered to adolescents. we used repeated measures anovas and ancovas to test change in outcomes for each of four treatment and active control (placebo) group combinations in a 2 x 2 mixed group factorial design: (1) treatment cogmed-rm/treatment bpt; (2) treatment cogmed-rm/control bpt; (3) control cogmed-rm/treatment bpt; (4) control cogmed-rm/control bpt. primary results indicated that (a) adolescents in the treatment cogmed-rm groups improved more than those in the control cogmed-rm groups on most objective neuropsychological measures of wm spans at posttest; (b) overall, parent-adolescent dyads who were in the control cogmed-rm/treatment bpt group reported the fewest problems on ratings of adolescent wm functioning, maladaptive parenting behaviors, parent-adolescent conflict, and adolescent global functioning outcomes, particularly when using mother reports; (c) a positive adolescent odd diagnosis moderated several differential treatment effects for parenting behavior and parent-adolescent conflict outcomes, such that mothers of adolescents with odd showed fewer parenting problems and lower conflict at posttest; and, (d) when there were no interactions among the conditions from pretest to posttest, we found main effects of time on several outcomes (i.e., forward digit span, inattentive and hyperactive/impulsive symptoms, odd behaviors, and clinical impairment), which indicated that all four groups improved on outcomes over time, regardless of group condition. overall results suggest bpt is effective for reducing maladaptive parenting behaviors and parent-adolescent relation problems. however, the clearest findings for cogmed-rm show that the program primarily improved only neuropsychological measures of wm spans. future research might benefit from sequencing the cogmed-rm and bpt interventions over time to further understand the effects of each intervention on individual and family functioning. in this dissertation, the capability of different distributed plasticity numerical models to simulate the seismic behavior of reinforced concrete (rc) axial-flexural elements, namely planar walls and square columns, is evaluated based on previous experimental results of isolated wall and column test specimens as a well as a 7-story wall building subassembly. greater emphasis is placed on slender (flexure-dominant) structures with softening post-peak behavior (due to concrete crushing with or without rebar buckling) since this type of behavior has been commonly observed during experimental tests and after earthquakes and its prediction can be highly sensitive to the mesh size used in numerical modeling. results obtained in this dissertation include: 1) modeling recommendations to simulate the cyclic global lateral force-displacement (f-d) behavior of slender and squat rc walls, including a consistent mesh-sensitivity investigation; 2) a new metric to quantitatively evaluate simulated hysteretic f-d curves as compared with measured curves; 3) plastic hinge integration models that use material regularization (i.e., regularized plastic hinge models) to accurately simulate and obtain objective (i.e., mesh-independent) global and local (i.e., material strains and section curvatures) behaviors of slender planar rc walls and square columns; 4) a new confined concrete crushing energy equation for regularized constitutive models to simulate rc columns through failure; and 5) quantification of variability in simulated dynamic seismic performance of rc wall structures from different distributed plasticity models. the results of this investigation are intended to improve current numerical modeling guidelines for practitioners conducting nonlinear analysis of axial-flexural rc walls and columns as part of performance-based seismic design. the results are also aimed for researchers conducting detailed analysis to predict global and local wall and column behaviors under seismic loading. this dissertation describes a numerical evaluation on the seismic behavior and design of precast concrete buckling-restrained braced frames and a numerical and experimental evaluation of a novel reinforced-concrete buckling-restrained brace component for use in precast concrete construction. the following research topics are addressed: investigation of seismic design performance factors for precast concrete building frames with traditional commercial steel buckling-restrained braces. this is done through the numerical analysis of 32 archetype multi-story frames based on the federal emergency management agency's quantification of building seismic performance factors (fema p695) methodology. investigation of a novel precast-concrete buckling-restrained brace component as a potential alternative to currently available traditional commercial steel buckling-restrained braces. this is done by developing a methodology for the design of this brace and identifying its behavior and potential failure modes through nonlinear numerical analysis. quantification of the necessary design and validation requirements for the novel brace when used in multi-story precast concrete frame structures. this is done by determining the maximum brace demands, such as ductility and stiffness, for a set of 26 archetype frames to meet the target system seismic performance factors from fema p695. experimental investigation of the novel brace. this is done by design, analysis, and laboratory testing of four isolated diagonal brace specimens under reversed-cyclic lateral loading. the intent of this research is to provide foundational background on the feasibility of precast concrete buckling-restrained braced frames for use in seismic regions, also introducing and investigating a possible brace alternative that may be better suited for the unique construction methodologies of precast concrete. this project addresses a primary question: does the type of solution to conflict affect the shaping gender relations policies in private sphere? the hypothesis to this research is: the more peaceful the approach to conflict resolution, the more gender equal policies will result in private sphere, and more security is distributed equally for women and men. this hypothesis will be tested on three case studies: tajikistan, azerbaijan and kyrgyzstan. the main purpose of the study is to find out if are there any correlations with solution to conflict and gender equality policies target specifically private life. the study thoroughly analyses the governmental policies related to gender equity in private sphere and distribution of security for women and men. as a result, countries' gender related governmental policies are compared with each other. the differences and similarities are drawn. the statistical information related to different aspects of gender relations is compared. an examination of the metaphor of revolution in lucretius' de rerum natura which accounts for the metaphor in terms of lucretius' epicurean philosophy, roman social reality, and rhetorical technique. the focus of this dissertation is on turbomachinery blade vibration measurements and unsteady fluid-structure interactions. vibration of turbomachinery blades are critical to jet engine durability and performance. the combined high natural frequency of the vibrations and long service life of modern jet engines can result in high cycle fatigue. there are two main topics discussed in this dissertation. the first topic of this dissertation is the investigation of unsteady fluid-structure interactions an isolated compressor blade in transonic flow. this was preferred as a simpler alternative to a cascade of blades. note that the boundary conditions of an single vibrating blade are much simpler than those for a vibrating cascade, and so a more clear understanding of the fundamental interactions are provided with the simple setup. new insights were obtained regarding aerodynamic damping and 'quasi-steady' blade vibrations in transonic flow. the second topic of this dissertation discusses the development and application of a novel blade vibration measurement technique. accurate blade vibration measurements are critical in product aero-mechanical design validation and can be difficult to obtain. this measurement technique, termed blade image velocimetry, provides an alternative to the current measurement methods which is both easy to implement and can have the potential to exceed the current accuracy of blade tip timing. the theory of measurement and uncertainty analysis and benchtop validation measurements will be presented. this will be followed by the application of the measurement technique to a high speed axial compressor rotor. tip deflections as low as 8um were resolved by the measurement technique at a rotor tip speed of 350 m/s. superconductors, diluted magnetic semiconductors, and ferromagnets have dramatically different properties, particularly in the way they respond to an external magnetic field. by using modern molecular beam epitaxy or lithography techniques, hybrid materials with above mentioned constituents can be fabricated. these composite materials show novel, emergent properties which do not exist in any of the homogeneous, single-phase components. in this thesis i investigated diluted magnetic semiconductor/superconductor hybrids, as well as ferromagnet/superconductor hybrid systems. besides hybrid samples, single-phase material with mesoscopic size can also harbor novel states that are vastly different from bulk states. in contrast to the hybrid materials, where the proximity of the other phase provides confinement, in mesoscopic superconducting samples, the geometric confinement plays the role of the ingredient that causes emergent behavior. motivated by the similarity between hybrid and mesoscopic systems, in this thesis i study mesoscopic superconductors as well. we discovered that mesoscale superconductivity can host not only regular vortex matter, built up by singly quantized vortices, but also exotic phases containing giant vortices with vorticity greater than one. such exotic phases cannot be found in bulk superconductors. i studied the diluted magnetic semiconductor/superconductor hybrid system that can host and allow for the manipulation of spin-polarized bound states. in particular, i investigated the effects of impurities on such spin-polarized states. my results have important experimental implications as they predict robust spin textures even for less than ideal samples. i will also present a study of a ferromagnet/superconductor hybrid system. it turns out, that one can tailor how a nearby ferromagnet suppresses the superconductivity, by changing the sample geometry and the external magnetic field. these parameters allow us to ``design' the superconducting order parameter landscape with an unprecedented control. in particular, i investigated a superconductor film with a nanometer-sized ferromagnetic disc on top of it. the ferromagnetic disc creates a sombrero-shaped superconducting order parameter landscape. i show that in this geometry the andreev bound states are trapped in a ring. furthermore, i show that the quantum mechanical problem of andreev bound states in such a potential can be mapped onto a the well-known problem of a quantum rotor. if a transport current is applied, the quantum rotor is exposed to an effective gravity and becomes a quantum pendulum. for pulsed current, the problem can be mapped onto a kicked rotor. i also show that the pendulum can also be driven with an external ac magnetic field, and that a quantum inverted pendulum can be stabilized. for the mesoscopic superconductor, i investigate how the density of states evolution for a multi-to-giant-vortex transition. accordingly, i propose that the transition can be detected using high precision calorimetry and magnetometry measurements. our results provide a clear prediction and are immediately relevant to the currently available experimental techniques. the overarching theme presented in this thesis can therefore be formulated as follows: (a) i am exploring the conditions (such as geometric confinement and the proximity of another ordered state) leads to exotic vortex phases and order parameter landscape, and (b) provide a detailed quantum mechanical description of the electronic states hosted by the novel vortex matter. this thesis foregrounds literary analysis of hypermobility with an overview of the historic medicalization of hypermobility, or an excessive range of motion, with attention to how the politics of pathologizing movement enforces normative standards for permissible ranges of physical and social mobility. it provides an overview of how hypermobility became a medicalized diagnosis, tracing from hippocrates to contemporary diagnostic guidelines. to subvert the medical model and reclaim the word "hypermobility," this thesis examines cultural instances of hypermobility in both contemporary street dance and gothic short fiction. it details the importance of bone-breaking dance as a new dance form that dramatizes the freedom and mobility of black americans through the performance of joint dislocations as metaphors for escape from bondage and enslavement. turning to the gothic short story, this thesis explores how figurative and supernatural hypermobility in "the cold embrace" (1860) by mary elizabeth braddon illustrates the characters' gendered relationships to movement and autonomy. when examined as a whole, these transatlantic examples of short stories and performances elucidate how the performance of hypermobility reflects and protests constraints of gendered and racialized oppression. leishmaniasis is a group of vector-borne, parasitic diseases caused by over 20 species of the protozoan, leishmania spp. the three major disease classifications, cutaneous, visceral, and mucocutaneous, have a range of clinical manifestations, ranging from self-healing skin lesions to hepatosplenomegaly and mucosal membrane damage to fatality. as a category i neglected tropical disease, leishmaniasis represents a major international health challenge with over 1 billion people living in disease-endemic areas. as of 2018, cutaneous leishmaniasis is endemic in 92 countries and territories while visceral leishmaniasis is endemic in 83 countries and territories. the first line chemotherapeutics used to treat leishmaniasis are intravenous pentavalent antimonials; however, these drugs have harsh side effects and prolonged, high-cost treatment regimens. other chemotherapeutics like amphotericin b and miltefosine are being more widely used, but still face many of the same limitations as pentavalent antimonials as well as the emergence of drug resistance. there is an important need for identifying and developing novel chemotherapeutics. we developed a novel, target-free fluorometric high-throughput screen to identify small molecules with anti-leishmanial activity. of the 10,000 compounds initially screened, 109 molecular scaffolds were represented within the hit compounds; three of these scaffolds warranted further study: 2,4-diaminoquinazoline (2,4-daq), 1,4-diaryl-pyrazolo-pyridinone (1,4-dapp), and pyrazolo[5,1-c][1,2,4]triazine (ptz). utilizing mcherry fluorescent leishmania donovani and leishmania major in in vitro and in vivo efficacy studies allowed for easy, automated quantification of parasite survival as well as real-time infection monitoring. the 1,4-dapp and ptz scaffolds have not been previously identified as anti-leishmanials; even more promising is that only 5 of the 55 analogs we synthesized exhibited any cytotoxic effects. in addition, we optimized both murine ear and footpad infection models of cutaneous leishmaniasis; using fluorescence allowed us to monitor an infection of a single mouse over time. we were able to identify two potent 1,4-dapp analogs that routinely exhibited efficacy in our in vitro and in vivo models. metal pollution has a negativeimpact to the environment and human health. developing better remediation strategies has long been a challenge. the fate of heavy metals in the environment is determined by the surrounding substances, surface and interfaces. because of the abundance of bacterial biomass, minerals and natural organic matter (e.g. siderophores), they play a critical role in the fate of metals in the environments and in the contaminated sites. it is essential to understand the processes and mechanisms of interaction between them at both macroscopic and microscopic scales. the work presented in this dissertation used a synchrotron-based technique, x-ray absorption fine structure (xafs), to obtain information on molecular-scale structure knowledge of metals in different conditions. most bacteria live in the community form, biofilms, instead of the planktonic (free-swimming) form. biofilms are complex communities of bacteria enclosed in an extracellular polymeric substance (eps) matrix which is composed of extracellular polysaccharide, proteins and dna secreted by bacteria. eps is the dominant component of the total organic matter in a biofilm. since both cell walls (of gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria) and eps are negatively charged and have functional groups that can bind metals at most ph values, they are capable of sorbing metals in the solutions. therefore to quantify the capacity and mechanism of metal sorption by bacterial biomass, it is essential to understand the fate of metals in the environment. the comparison of sorption capacities and mechanisms between planktonic and biofilm biomass has a critical impact on the modeling of metals? fate under different conditions. metal (cadmium) sorption experiments were conducted for both planktonic and biofilm biomass. the sorption capacities and mechanisms were compared for both types of biomass. comparable metal sorption capacities and similar behaviors were found for both planktonic and biofilm biomass when ph and metal concentrations changed in the solutions. the surrounding structural information obtained from the xafs measurements and analysis revealed that the same binding sites were occupied for both biomass with slightly different component ratios, which supported the sorption behavior observed in the bulk experiment. siderophores are low molecular weight organic ligands that are exuded by aerobic microorganisms and graminaceous plants to acquire fe(iii) from the environment. besides their significant binding capacity of fe(iii) with reaction constants 10^25-10^50, they can also bind other metals such as al, cd, pb, etc. minerals, especially the swelling clays, can sorb significantly both metals and siderophores. therefore the fate of metals is determined by the complex interactions among metals, siderophores and minerals. lead interactions with siderophores (desferrioxamine b, dfo-b) and swelling clays (montmorillonite, mmt) were investigated by xafs measurements. the chelation of lead by dfo-b increases with increasing ph. at ph less than 3, there is no chelation between lead and dfo-b. at ph greater than 7.5, lead ions are completely chelated by dfo-b as a hexadentate complex. in the absence of dfo-b, it is observed that hydrocerussite precipitation is the dominant lead sorption mechanism by mmt at high ph (7.5). at the lower ph (4.0 and 5.5), there was no precipitate observed, and the outer-sphere complex dominates. when the ph value increases from 4.0 to 5.5, the number of outer-sphere sites decreases and number of inner-sphere sites increases. the addition of dfo-b increases the lead sorption of mmt for the low ph samples. there was no precipitate observed in the presence of dfo-b at any of the ph values. dfo-b chelation, along with inner-sphere and outer-sphere complex, contributes to lead sorption to mmt at all ph values. contemporary designers often seek out complicated problems that affect underserved and vulnerable populations. throughout the developmental process, designers nurture constituent relationships, build coalitions of experts, and utilize design thinking combined with an acute sensitivity to the needs and aspirations of those for which the project is intended. this collaboration results in the development of numerous solutions that are inventive, cost-conscious, and seek to delight and inspire. ultimately, the final result is an innovative synthesis of elements that have the capacity to change &mdash; for the better &mdash; not only the experiences of the community of users, but also the lives of participant experts, designers, and makers. designed to be safe and welcoming, ecologically sensitive, and maintainable by existing tools and equipment, the sensory garden & playscape will engage children and clients in educational, therapeutic, and playful ways. situated in a setting that seamlessly integrates with the existing landscape, this project's eight distinct components facilitate and enhance communication, crisis de-escalation, compliment appropriate classroom curriculum-related learning, and promote the development of social and workplace skills. hydrogels have proven to be useful materials for myriad biomedical applications, with the hydrated network often serving as a crude synthetic extracellular matrix capable of interfacing with tissues in the body. supramolecular crosslinking of these networks allows for incorporation of tunable dynamics within the network backbone, better mimicking the dynamic properties of natural tissues. specific and tunable interactions at network crosslinks can be achieved by supramolecular host-guest complexation. in this work, i have chosen to focus on the host macrocycle cucurbit[7]uril (cb[7]) due to the wide range and exceedingly high upper limits of its attainable binding affinities in monovalent binding to small molecule motifs. herein, i first survey commonly available host-guest systems and review design considerations of tuning the complimentary interactions underlying this supramolecular paradigm. i then demonstrate the incorporation of cb[7] at the crosslinks of hydrogel networks, and subsequent tuning of crosslink host-guest binding affinity, propagates across length scales to allow for control of resultant bulk material properties. next, i investigate the impact of crosslink affinity and dynamics on diffusion of macromolecular solutes within a hydrogel network, incorporating discussions on the interplay between mean mesh size, model drug molecular weights, thermodynamics of crosslink reorganization, optimization of ideal networks, and deviations from classical stokes-einstein predictions. this work transitions to a critical evaluation of the disconnect between in vitro and in vivo modeling of drug delivery by hydrogel encapsulation. my final investigation of fundamental phenomena focuses on effects of bulk material properties arising from differences in guest orientation within crosslinks, leveraging asymmetric guest topology to underscore a key aspect of host-guest system design considerations previously unaddressed. transitioning to applications of such fundamental phenomena, i next discuss my contributions to the use of cb[7]-based biomaterials in the targeted delivery of chemotherapeutics. through the pre-targeting of a site of interest in vivo with a cb[7]-rich hydrogel, delivery of guest-modified chemotherapeutic drugs were directed to and sequestered at the site of interest as a function of supramolecular host-guest affinity. this drug delivery platform parallels modern advances in antibody-drug conjugates (adcs) but achieves a remarkable improvement in drug delivery efficiency while reducing off-target effects. lastly, i introduce the selective binding of fentanyl by cb[7] and present a novel synthesis for a modified cb[7] designed for decorating nanoparticles, making this selective binding amenable to quantification via surface enhanced raman spectroscopy (sers), in response to the current opioid epidemic national emergency. this thesis focuses on the synthesis and detailed characterizations of various bimetallic phosphides as well as their catalytic evaluation for hydrodeoxygenation and hydrogenation reactions of oxygenated biomass compounds. extensive studies on the oxidation state of mo-based bimetallic phosphides mmop (m = fe, co, ni) with x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and x-ray absorption near edge spectroscopy show the relative oxidation of (i.e., moδ+) is highly dependent on the charge transfer between the atoms in mmop and most likely is the site for the interaction between the lone pair oxygen in phenol and the catalyst surface. other bimetallic phosphides such as rumop are found to be active for low temperature hydrogenation reactions (&lt;125°c) for various functionalized aromatics. kinetic evaluations on monometallic and bimetallic ru and mo phosphides for furfural hydrogenation provide evidence for catalytic enhancement in bimetallic phosphides with a ru:mo:p ratio of 1:1:1 as the optimum composition for selective aldehyde conversion to alcohol. lastly, bimetallic nimop and rumop are evaluated for a more complicated molecule such as cinnamaldehyde with conjugated c=c and c=o bond. nimop shows favorable selectivity to the hydrogenation of thermodynamically favored c=c bond. meanwhile, bimetallic rumop favors the hydrogenation of c=o bond due to its surface electronics in combination with surface crowding by the products that prevents c=c adsorption. the studies in thesis emphasize the importance of finding the optimum surface electronics through material modifications in bimetallic phosphides for biomass upgrading reactions. the usage of lithium-ion batteries has skyrocketed due to the advent of consumer electronics and electric vehicles. concerns about lithium supply and battery waste have prompted interest in lithium recycling methods. the crown ether, 12-crown-4, has been studied for its abilities to form stable complexes with lithium. in this thesis, molecular dynamics simulations are applied to examine the binding properties of a 12-crown-4—lithium system in aqueous solution. in addition, the binding properties of sodium to 12-crown-4 are examined for comparison. it was found that 12-crown-4 did not form stable complexes with lithium in aqueous solution due to the binding geometry which was prone to interference by surrounding water molecules. subsequently, calculations were performed with the crown ethers 15-crown-5 and 18-crown-6 to study their complexation with lithium as well. it was determined that binding was unfavorable for all three crown ethers tested, though 15-crown-5 and 18-crown-6 showed a marginally greater affinity for lithium than 12-crown-4. phosphine-chelated iridium complexes have been long known to exhibit unique reactivity with respect to bond activation and molecular manipulation. our attempt is to engineer phosphine-chelated iridium catalytic systems which allow for heightened reactivity and specific selectivity with a focus on bond activation allowing for the functionalization of small molecules. the activation of inert small molecules such as methane or carbon dioxide is inherently difficult; however, essential for continued improvements in the utilization of large chemical "feedstocks" such as natural gas. transition-metal mediated processes provide a pathway for the conversion of these "feedstocks" as liquid fuels or fine chemical precursors. new avenues for activation are needed to increase the potency and selectivity of catalytic transformations.with this intention, a novel synthetic approach to a series of pcsp3p-type scaffold ligands has been developed in which ancillary positions have been modified in an attempt to promote metal-ligand cooperative ability. the full synthesis and characterization of the ligands pcanisp, pcphohp, and pctolp as well as their c-h activated iridium complexes, and various substituted complexes will be discussed along with their subsequent reactivity. the robust complexes have shown their propensity for hemilability, aryl and alkyl intermolecular and intramolecular activation, alkane transfer dehydrogenation, unique coordination geometries, and heterolytic cleavage. the presented work represents a series of organometallic complexes that exhibit unique secondary ligand interactions which directly affect their resulting reactivity. many communication systems have to cope with channels with unknown and time-varying state, including fading, inter-symbol interference, and more general finite-state markov channels. this work proposes a novel successive decoding paradigm, or more specifically, a time-multiplexed transmission of multiple codes with multi-staged reception, to address the two fundamental aspects of these channels: the estimation of achievable information rate and the design of a practical coding system. the first part of this work shows that successive decoding under a deep rectangular interleaver essentially decomposes the original channel into a set of asymptotic memoryless subchannels with semi-infinite preceding training symbols. the achievable information rate of the original channel under a given input distribution can be efficiently computed from this set. furthermore, the conventional coding system that separates estimation from decoding can operate on these memoryless channels without loss of mutual information. these results allow us to characterize accurately the binary-input capacity of correlated fading channels and to operate within 1.1 db to the binary-input capacity using awgn channel optimized ldpc codes. the second part of this work deals with the design of more practical successive decoding with a small number of levels. the main idea is to incorporate an irregular interleaving pattern and when necessary iterative estimation decoding within each level. these techniques provide a more flexible configuration of successive decoding for balancing the performance and the delay. the analysis of the achievable rate and the extrinsic information transfer (exit) charts are proposed for code rate allocation and for the efficient optimization of interleavers. both the optimal random interleaver and a good construction of the deterministic interleaver are numerically shown to have performance very close to its binary-input capacity with a small number of levels. two important material systems are under investigation in this work: iii-v dilute nitride alloys and ge/si self-assembled quantum dot (saqds) layers. the theme of this research is the study of these structures using high spatial resolution(hsr). two alternate techniques were utilized to break through the optical diffraction limit in order to obtain high spatial resolution: near-field scanning optical microscopy (nsom), and nano-fabrication. first, nsom was used to 'see' individual quantum dots (qds), and to study the uniformity of semiconductor epitaxial layers to get information on compositional fluctuations and the orientation of separated phases. the pressure produced by the nsom fiber tip on the surface of the samples has been developed in our laboratory to 'tune' the photoluminescence (pl) emission energy of qds. extensive calculations were carried out to determine the stress distribution produced during these experiments. second, e-beam lithography was used to fabricate metallic nano-apertures or nano-mesas on the sample surface, allowing the measurement of the optical properties from these structures with high spatial resolution using a simple micro-pl measurement. temperature dependent pl measurements have also been done to study carrier localization and nonradiative-centers in dilute nitrides. high spatial resolution pl and temperature-dependent pl study reveal the important role of quantum dot-like compositional fluctuations in suppressing the lateral carrier transport to nonradiative recombination centers and achieving high emission intensity at room temperature in the dilute nitrides. a temperature-dependent and power-dependent pl study implies our ge/si saqds structures grown by mbe have type-ii band-alignment. . finally, we strived to develop a novel system which can achieve high spatial resolution beyond that currently available for far infrared measurements. typically, far infrared measurements are carried out utilizing a fourier transform infrared spectrometer (ftir), and the high spatial resolution can be achieved using scanning probe techniques. preliminary experiments have been done to investigate the intersubband absorption of ge/si qds and iii-v qds, using an ftir to couple light into waveguide structures having 45-degree entrance and exit faces to enhance the optical absorption. broad absorption peaks around 3000 cm-1 of a p-doped ge/si qd sample were found. future work involves the study of undoped ge/si qd samples by shining a laser beam to generate holes inside the ge dot layers. these intersubband absorption experiments could also be done on p-doped and n-doped inas/gaas qds. by studying the photoluminescence from an n-gan ungated mesfet, the hot carrier temperatures for lattice temperatures in the range 10-300k as a function of the applied electric field are extracted. a semi-analytical theoretical model (energy loss rate model) is used to study the electron temperature as a function of the electric fields. the rate of increase of electron temperature with the external electric field provides a signature of non-equilibrium hot-phonon accumulation. when the chief electron energy loss mechanism is by the emission of looptical phonons, a clear signature of a hot-phonon effect is observed, with a hot-phonon lifetime in the 3-4 ps regime.the growth of inn by mbe and its structure, electronic and optical characterizations are presented. the growth condition of inn on gan substrates using radio frequency molecular beam epitaxy (rf-mbe) is studied. characterizations such as afm, xrd, pl and tem show that inn of good film quality has been achieved. article 1 in article 1, we examine the commercialization of university inventions in licensing to both start-up firms and established firms, and seek to determine when licensing to start-ups is more likely. we construct a theoretical model that predicts start-ups are more likely if their opportunity cost of development and commercialization is lower or if the technology transfer offices' (tto) opportunity cost of searching for a partner among established firms is higher. using data from the association of university technology managers, the national venture capital association yearbook, and the national research council, we find that inventor quality and measures of past tto success (age, the number of disclosures, gross royalties) are all positively and significantly related to the number of licenses to both start-ups and established firms. however, we also find that start-up activity is positively and significantly related to the interest rate and rate of return to venture capital. article 2 the bayh-dole act (1980) allows u. s. universities to own and license inventions arising from federally-funded research by their faculty. this has lead to a sharp increase in the rate of faculty disclosing inventions to their technology transfer offices (ttos). i examine the factors contributing to the increase in faculty disclosure rates. using data from the association of university technology managers (autm) and data from the national venture capital association yearbook for 1993-2002, i find that inventor quality and tto experience have a positive impact on the rate of faculty disclosures. the evidence shows venture capital spending and financial market returns are positively related to faculty disclosures. these findings show faculty incentives to disclose are associated with expansionary financial market conditions. faculty are more likely to disclose when venture capital spending in their state is rising. high quality engineering faculty are more likely to disclose than other academic inventors. my research suggests a need for stronger ties between ttos, industry and university. article 3 the commercialization of university inventions involves licensing agreements and negotiations that often include sponsored research commitments, royalty payments and equity for the university. this paper examines the factors contributing to university royalties and equity universities receive from commercializing technology to private industry. i show that characteristics of university technology transfer offices (ttos), financial market conditions and venture capital spending affect gross royalties. using panel data for 110 u.s. universities during the period 1993-2002, data from association of university technology managers (autm) and the national venture capital association yearbook, i find that university life sciences quality, start-ups, interest rates and venture capital spending affect licensing income. i also find evidence that the cashed in equity is positively related to returns to the s & p 500 index and that universities with medical schools receive more royalties, and cash in more equity. these findings show that university income from licensing activities is impacted by individual university characteristics and financial market conditions. woven materials are of interest in orthopedic implant design to serve as a replacement for articular cartilage and similar tissue. with every loading, fibers in woven materials encounter micro-scale sliding and potential abrasion. the goal of this project was to characterize the relative abrasive wear of several polymer fibers of different diameters that are suitable for in vivo use, including polyetheretherkeytone (peek), polypropolyene, and polyethylene fibers. the fibers were mounted in a slow curing epoxy and hand polished through several grades down to 0.05 åµm alumina. plowing tests were performed with the atomic force microscope (afm) and analyzed using hector and schmid's upper bound model. there was a general trend in the flow strength data that showed a higher flow strength along the longitudinal fiber axis, as would be expected due to the spinning manufacturing process. the quantum-dot cellular (qca) paradigm is an alternative approach to implement nanoelectronics. the binary information is encoded in the charge configuration within a cell comprised of several dots. there is no current flow between qca cells, instead the coulomb interaction between cells enables computation, thus avoid high power dissipation. qca can be realized at the molecular scale, at which each cell is given by a single molecule and quantum dots are provided by redox centers.this thesis focuses on the theoretical study of molecular qca. two recent synthesized candidate molecules have been studied by quantum chemistry ab initio calculations. the bistable charge configurations of the molecules are identified, and the coulomb interactions between neighboring molecules are analyzed, demonstrating that the interactions between molecules are sufficient to enable room temperature operation. a theoretical model is developed to characterize the bistability of molecular qca. this model connects the qca bistability to molecular structure. it is determined that the bistability of qca molecules can be characterized by two structural parameters of molecules. this model is in good agreement with high-level ab initio techniques. also, the dynamics of qca devices is studied with coherence vector formalism. a model hamiltonian for each qca cell is constructed based on first-principle calculations, and coherent vector formalism is applied to calculate the switching dynamics of qca circuits, including switching speed, clocking frequency, energy dissipation, and the structure-functionality relation of molecular qca. finally, a self-doping mechanism for molecular qca is discussed. boron clusters are analyzed as feasible dopants that could create mobile charges in the molecular cell. this mechanism keeps the whole molecular system neutral, thus avoids the effects of counterions that could otherwise hinder the information flow of a qca array. the purpose of this study is to examine the effect of schools on the relationship between special education status and dropout. i combine relevant school characteristics as delineated on both sides of the bureaucratic/communal debate to formulate a theory of salient school characteristics for engaging students in special education, including fiscal and human resources and social climate. mixed-effects logistic regression models are used to test if these school effects are significant predictors of dropout for all students, and if so how they interact with special education status to affect this outcome. in addition, i explore the relationship between student achievement and special education in predicting dropout, as these variables are highly correlated. results from the study indicate that the effect of special education status on dropout does not vary significantly between schools. additionally, student achievement explains the relationship between special education status and dropout. lastly, many of the school characteristics that have been found in the past to predict dropout are insignificant in this study. recommendations for future research are discussed. this research proposes to study the effect of tip gap leakage flow in a high pressure turbine by means of a high resolution embedded large eddy simulation. urans simulations of turbomachinery flows fail to accurately represent the vortical structures seen in experimental studies. these vortical structures affect the flow separation from the walls of the inter-turbine duct in multi-stage turbines. this study will use embedded large eddy simulation to capture these vortical structures. preliminary work has shown that modeling of the full turbine annulus is computationally intractable. a single passage model has been developed to enable the time-efficient simulation of the system. this involved modification to the turbine nozzle to create a one-to-one periodicity with the rotor, allowing for a periodic domain. this modified geometry was analyzed using the unsteady rans equations with the k-omega sst turbulence model with a sliding mesh to account for the relative motion of the rotor to the rest of the system. this urans solution was used as an initial condition and reference point for the eles solution. turbulent statistics were gathered for each of these solutions. both solutions compare favorably to the harmonic balance model used in the design of the original geometry. significant differences in the vortical structures passing through the tip gap region generated by these unsteady simulations are found. these highly-resolved structures will be used in later studies to examine the separation of flows in the inter-turbine duct. high-skilled labors are key inputs to accelerate the long-run growth rate of a country's economy and research production. in today's increasingly globalized economy, attracting, growing and retaining high-skilled immigrants have been and will continue to play a significant role in maintaining a country's leading economic advantages on the global stage. traditionally, the united states is the largest and most important host of highly-educated foreign students. given that the high-skilled immigrants can generate both costs and benefits on many aspects in the u.s., to explore the impacts of the high-skilled immigrants is of great policy interest. the two papers in my dissertation, therefore, address the influence of high-skilled immigrants on u.s. undergraduate programs and graduate programs, respectively.the first chapter examines the impacts of the dramatic increase in new foreign undergraduate students over the past decade on the u.s. higher education sector. i use exogenous factors driving a large inflow of chinese students that began in 2006, in combination with variation in historical levels of foreign students to construct an instrument to predict enrollment patterns. using a two-stage least square model that is identified with a difference-in-differences specification, i find a significant crowd-out effect of the enrollment of foreign undergraduate students on the enrollment of domestic undergraduate students at large selective american research universities, with a magnitude approximately one-for-one. constraints in universities' demand for students appear to explain the crowd-out effect. i also find that admitting more foreign undergraduate students increases non-discounted tuition, and that the economic gains of enrolling foreign undergraduate students allow american universities to increase institutional grant aid.the second chapter uses the opening up of china in 1978 to estimate the causal effect of this flow on the productivity of their professors in mathematics departments across the united states. our identification strategy relies on both the suddenness of the opening of china and on a key feature of scientific production: intra-ethnic collaboration. the new chinese students were more likely to be mentored by american professors with chinese heritage. the increased access that the chinese-american advisors had to a new pool of considerable talent led to a substantial increase in their productivity. despite these sizable intra-ethnic knowledge spillovers, comparable non-chinese advisors experienced a decline in the number of students they mentored and a concurrent decline in their research productivity. in fact, the productivity gains accruing to chinese-american advisors were almost exactly offset by the losses suffered by the non-chinese advisors. finally, the evidence does not support the conjecture that the efficiency gains from the supply shock will be more evident in the next generation, as the chinese students begin to contribute to mathematical knowledge. the rate of publication and the quality of the output of the chinese students is comparable to that of the american students in their cohort. leishmaniases is a group of vector borne parasitic diseases that affects approximately 12 million people worldwide and results in diverse clinical pathologies, the initiating species often dictates these disease outcomes. visceral leishmaniasis, the fatal form of the disease, results from infection with leishmania donovani parasites while cutaneous leishmaniasis generally develops following infection with leishmania major parasites. in the majority of l. major cases, lesions heal within several months and provide life-long immunity pending re-introduction of the disease. the source of this protective immunity to leishmaniasis is largely influenced by host cellular events leading to a robust il-12 driven t-helper 1 (th1) mediated response that produces high levels of ifn-&#947; which ultimately promotes antimicrobicidal production of nitric oxide (no) and reactive oxygen species (ros) that destroy invading pathogens. macrophages (mps) and dendritic cells (dcs) are major producers of il-12. in this work, the overall goal of my research dissertation was to investigate the role of both host cell and pathogenic features that contribute to the il-12 response elicited during leishmania infection. to this end in vitro mp and dc infection assays coupled with host cell microarray based technologies and molecular genetics approaches were employed to address the interplaying host and pathogen determinants influencing the il-12 response. interestingly, previous studies have demonstrated a general suppression of il-12 production in leishmania infected macrophages that is tightly controlled at the level of il-12p40 transcription. in chapter 2, we demonstrated that l. major inhibited promoter activity in raw264.7 mps that stably express ets binding sites in the presence of (ifn-&#947;) or lipopolysacchride (lps) stimulation, suggesting l. major may be inhibiting macrophage production of il-12 by specifically targeting the ets promoter element. remarkably, human dcs exhibit a dynamic range in il-12 production in response to leishmania infection. il-12 is generally enhanced during l. major infections, in contrast to, l. donovani infections which do not induce il-12. in chapter 3, our microarray analysis of l. major infected human dcs (2, 4, 8, and 24 hrs) revealed a distinct type i ifn associated transcriptomic signature including upregulation of irf2, irf7, irf9, and stat1/2. l. major infected human dcs pre-treated with a neutralizing type i ifn pathway inhibitor, b18r, induced fewer il-12p40 mrna levels. furthermore, in the context of l. donovani infections type i ifn genes irf2, irf7, and ifit5 were not induced, a trend analogous to the il-12p40 gene expression elicited by this species. these data indicated that the l. major induced il-12 response is dependent upon a type i ifn response. in chapter 4, we investigated the role of pathogenic surface molecules on the 'highil-12 inducing' l. major background strain fv1. parasite lipophosphoglycan (lpg) was previously characterized as a virulence determinant associated with subverting host cell immune mechanisms including complement mediated lysis, phagolysosomal maturation, and leukocyte migration. lpg modulates cytokine secretion in host cells, however, the role of fv1 lpg on the human dc il-12 response remained to be elucidated. parasite mutants lacking lpg alone or all pgs were generated through the inactivation of the galactosylfuranose, lpg1 or the golgi gdp-mannose nucleotide sugar transporter, lpg2, respectively. we demonstrated that infection with the lpg-null fv1 lpg1mutant resulted in little to no il-12p40 mrna, indicating lpg is essential for stimulating il-12. curiously, infection with the pg-null lpg2-, led to an increase in il-12p40 mrna levels implicating pgs and other lpg2-depedent metabolites may suppress il-12. moreover, the effect of lpg was also observed for irf8 and tnf-&#945;, suggesting lpg targets irf8 for transcriptional regulation of il-12 and tnf-&#945;. together, these data reflect the ability of leishmania molecules to differentially impact the host cell il-12 immune response during infection. in summary, challenges still remain that hinder a complete understanding of the immunobiology of leishmania infection. however, this work contributes information about potential targets in both the host cell and pathogen that will aid future investigations aimed towards development of broadly applicable drug and vaccine regimes for leishmaniasis and other related infectious diseases. relationship development during courtship is a complex phenomenon. this study analyzes factors that influence couples at different relationship statuses, from dating to marriage. combining stage and process models, the layer theory of relationship development suggests that relationship status can be predicted by layers of relationship/dyadic, individual, and family background characteristics that accumulate as relationships progress. the results show relationship/dyadic factors are the best and earliest predictors of relationship status, while family background factors begin to influence relationships at the serious dating status. no support is found for the influence of individual factors on relationships. with limited support, the layer theory should be tested with more representative data and other factors. most adult organs retain a population of stem cells that can respond to changes in physiological conditions or injury by producing new cells to maintain tissue homeostasis or repair damage. upon division, stem cells can produce stem cells or progenitor cells, i.e. cells that can then differentiate into more specialized cells. mathematical modeling is a tool that can help understand how stem cells decide between self-renewal and differentiation, and predict the number and fraction of cell types in tissues. it has been found experimentally that in neural stem cells, quiescence, i.e. a state in which the stem cell is inactive (or ``resting"), increases with age. mathematical models could help to identify underlying reasons why this increase in quiescence with age seems to be the case. therefore, i consider how including switching between quiescent and active stem cell states affects the neural stem cell (nsc) population count in the aging brain. i consider this from a perspective of considering no progenitor cells at all, a single progenitor state, and then finally multiple progenitor states, with and without depletion of quiescent stem cells. i find that time-dependent activation rate provides the best fit to the activated cell fraction (acf) of nscs over time, but that other model variants with constant parameter values can better fit the total number of nscs over time. i also consider an alternate model for nscs with nonlinear feedback from progenitor cells that affect nsc parameters, and compare all models to experimental stem cell and progenitor data. however, all of the feedback models considered provide a worse fit to the experimental data. this suggests that when switching between active and quiescent stem cells is considered, a time-dependent linear model outperforms the integral feedback mechanism considered by other models of stem cell lineages. fitting progenitor data for both the time varying and feedback models indicates that four or five intermediate transit amplifying progenitor states are necessary, depending on whether or not depletion of stem cells is considered in the model. my results suggests that in order to determine whether an increase in age-related neural stem cell quiescence is determined by a decreasing stem cell activation rate or an increased stem cell depletion rate, additional experiments should be designed to explore whether or not depletion of the stem cell pool is occurring, and that a higher resolution time series for activated cell fraction (acf) would be best to resolve this issue. i also study a simplified two component nonlinear cell lineage models with several different assumptions including, (1) the impact of allowing progenitor cells to divide, (2) the impact of including cellular death, (3) the impact of forcing progenitor division to be dependent on stem cell population (i.e. positive feedback), and (4) the impact of including symmetric and asymmetric cell divisions. i find that including progenitor division can lead to emergence of unrealistic stem cell free steady state. i also find that the inclusion of death of progenitors is necessary (though not sufficient) for nontrivial steady states to exist. i find that hopf bifurcations may be possible in some of these models, though the parameter ranges at which they occur are unrealistic. i also show that while assuming asymmetric cell division does not have a major impact on model output, having a nonzero death rate of stem cells and allowing progenitor cells to divide has a major impact. models, where progenitor division is modified to depend on stem cells, are found to have significantly smaller populations of stem and progenitor cells compared to the original variants. a stochastic simulation of these nonlinear stem-progenitor models using the gillespie algorithm is also performed. i find that if the number of stem cells at steady state is small, then there is a high probability of extinction in the stochastic version of the model. transgender (trans) experiences have greatly changed in the past few decades as internet use has become more widespread. this has resulted in unprecedented access to resources for the trans community. hci researchers have only recently examined trans technologies, and there is a need for greater understanding of the role that technology plays in gender transition. in addition, use of these technologies may enforce rigid, standardized narratives of what it means to be trans, which can cause harm and decrease the accessibility of gender transition. recently, a new class of apps i term transition-tracking technologies have emerged that promises trans people increased control over their transition. however, given the diversity of the trans community, it is unknown how exactly these apps might be used and what narratives they may enforce.in this dissertation, i first examined the technology needs of the trans community using interviews with a focus on health and wellness needs. i then conducted asynchronous focus groups through discord to further understand how technology can help trans people make decisions about gender-affirming surgery. i found that there were common narratives surrounding transition, of which some may be exclusionary to many trans experiences. i took one component of these narratives, temporality, and analyzed two types of technology with a focus on how time is manifested. the focus groups also showed that trans care is an important part of trans existence, especially when navigating gender transition. then, i studied the impact of transition tracking (with and without apps) and how they support the needs of the trans community, and found that transition tracking is a valuable tool and can even facilitate trans care. finally, i facilitated multiple focus groups with community members to produce a transition storytelling tool that challenges these normative transition narratives and that can be integrated into a transition-tracking app. in conducting these studies, this dissertation weaves together concepts of trans technology, storytelling, transition tracking, trans care, and community-based design to produce artifacts and learnings that can benefit those (both in and outside of the trans community) who wish to use technology to support gender transition. the aim of this dissertation is to provide a set of results in stability, performance, and robustness of model-based networked control systems with intermittent feedback, which will serve as a nexus between the study of systems with instantaneous feedback and with continuous feedback. we apply the concept of intermittent feedback to a class of networked control systems known as model-based networked control systems (mb-ncs). modelbased networked control systems use an explicit model of the plant in order to reduce the network traìâå±c while preserving performance specifications, while intermittent feedback consists of the loop remaining closed for some fixed interval, then open for another interval. we begin by introducing the basic architecture for model-based control, then discuss the concept of intermittent feedback, its applications in various fields, and its role as a link between instantaneous and continuous feedback. we then provide stability results for the model-based architecture with intermittent feedback. we also address the case with output feedback (through the use of a state observer), providing a full description of the state response of the system, as well as a necessary and sufficient condition for stability in each case. extensions of our results to cases with nonlinear plants are also presented. next, we investigate the situation where the update times tau and h are time-varying, first addressing the case where they have upper and lower bounds, then moving on to the case where their distributions are i.i.d or driven by a markov chain. we then study the case of model-based control with intermittent feedback for discrete-time plants, again providing stability conditions for the basic architecture, the state observer case, and the case with time-varying parameters. next, we shift our attention from stability to other aspects of model-based ncs with intermittent feedback, such as performance and robustness. finally, we provide conclusions and propose research directions through which this work could be expanded upon in the future. a collection of short stories. research indicates that individuals tend to express prejudiced beliefs more frequently when their words or deeds can be attributed to something other than prejudice (crandall & eshleman, 2003). one means people use to "cover" their expressions of prejudice is through the presentation of moral credentials (monin & miller, 2001). moral credentials are pieces of evidence accrued by a person that are intended to serve as a record of the individual's nonprejudiced behavior or beliefs. in study 1, i generated examples of statements and behaviors that individuals believe establish moral credentials. in study 2, i examined the extent to which the presentation of moral credentials affects perceptions of ambiguously-discriminatory situations. results indicate that moral credentials "work better" for observers who are majority group members than recipients who are stigmatized individuals. additionally, the relationship between participant status (majority group members v. stigmatized individuals) and perceptions of scenarios presenting moral credentials was mediated by participants' identification with their ingroup. graph data analysis have recently attained much interests from the statistics community for their capabilities to perform inferential tasks on types of data that are prevailing at every corner of our daily life. another hot topic is neural network which has been applied on various disciplines, like partial deferential equation(pde), for their capabilities to deal with high dimensional problems that traditional finite elements or finite difference methods often fail to solve. my dissertation develops several methods that focus on various aspects across these two disciplines. in the graph-related realm, we firstly developed efficient numerical routines for unsupervised clustering problem and further proved theoretical guarantees on the clustering error corresponding to the numerical routines. for graph neural network, we modified the traditional training process of graph neural network by re-sampling the graph structure. to the best of our knowledge, we are the first to introduce the randomness into the training phase of graph neural network. on the pde domain, we proposed structure-preserving neural-network-based numerical schemes to solve both l2-gradient flows and generalized diffusions. by using neural networks as tools for spatial discretization, we introduce a structure-preserving eulerian algorithm to solve l2-gradient flows and a structure-preserving lagrangian algorithm to solve generalized diffusions. this collection of creative work investigates an author's relationship to the characters it creates, the words it uses for that creation, the landscapes it interacts with and receives inspiration from, everything that goes into what an author does--even the food one eats. associated media files can be found at https://curate.nd.edu/concern/documents/9c67wm1380d. the cultural discourse surrounding the phenomenon of "deconstructing" one's faith has suggested that it may be the beginning of a widespread social movement away from religion. this study suggests that it may, in fact, be a developmental phenomenon and not just a cultural one, the result of psychological changes evident in emerging adulthood. religious and spiritual struggle is ubiquitous in this developmental stage, especially in college students. its ubiquity may be evidence of worldview formation and evaluation, which includes the development and integration of various aspects of one's identity. for religious individuals, this identity evaluation can prompt them to consider their religious heritage and choose which parts are personally meaningful and worth retaining as part of their adult identity. educational environments that emphasize identity exploration and connect students with spiritual community may further prompt such identity evaluation and related religious wrestling, and they may also provide tools for students to make identity commitments.this paper proposes a model of religious identity development by integrating multiple streams of identity development research to make sense of the puzzling religious trends seen in emerging adulthood. this model suggests that developing a personally meaningful religious identity involves some exploration of one's religious tradition before choosing whether to retain or change one's religious identity, and this exploration is driven by spiritual development. the presence of religious and spiritual struggle is evidence of this "exploration in depth" and can be a positive sign for identity development, particularly if it is supported by a spiritual community, which can contribute to spiritual growth and maturity.this study tested this hypothesis with two longitudinal studies of students at religious universities. latent growth curve models failed to find support for the covariance of religious and spiritual struggle and identity exploration, but latent change score models found that changes in spirituality predicted changes in religious identity. multilevel models found that spirituality was the strongest predictor of religious identity, and that religious community, identity expressiveness, and religious and spiritual struggle also contributed. mediation models revealed that the relationship between supportive spiritual community and religious identity was mediated by spirituality. this paper concludes by discussing the implications for a model of religious identity development and deconstruction, while acknowledging limitations and suggesting future directions. the research conducted in these chapters focused on the transport and fate of a range of metals in the presence of bacteria. in chapter 2, i investigated the effects of bacteria on the precipitation of metal phosphates and discovered 2 phenomena, passive cell wall mineralization and the decreased size of precipitated minerals due to the presence of bacteria. in chapters 3 and 4, i investigated the effects of 2 ligands (chloride in chapter 3, fulvic acid in chapter 4) on the adsorption behavior on mercury to bacterial cells. i learned from these studies that the presence of ligands can have a range of effects on the adsorption behavior of mercury to bacterial cells. in all of my investigations, i used thermodynamic models to calculate stability constants for several metal-bacteria complexes formed in my experiments. these stability constants can be used to better predict the behavior of metals in metal-bacteria-ligand systems, which is potentially beneficial to several applications (e.g. developing effective remediation strategies). contrary to the general scholarly perception, the revolution of 1688-89 and consequent changes to the institution of monarchy informed a large body of political literature. poets and dramatists between 1689 and 1720 engaged deeply with the unsettled questions about the person and institution of monarchy and defended or critiqued specific historical events such as the revolution or the act of settlement. in this dissertation, i argue that this post-revolutionary literature of monarchy is characterized by two conflicting discourses. one is the traditional discourse of monarchy in which the king is glorious, heroic, and sacred. he possesses the crown through hereditary right, and his rule is understood in providential and patriarchal terms. in its most conservative form, which was increasingly uncommon after 1688, traditional discourse includes the theory of divine right. the other discourse, which i call constitutional, reflects the principles that triumphed in the years following the revolution. constitutional discourse celebrates choice and merit and rejects absolute monarchy, divine right, and the sacredness of monarchs. the king is limited, and the people, through parliament, are ultimately sovereign. although broadly speaking traditional discourse corresponds to the beliefs of the tories and constitutional discourse to those of the whigs, these equally common languages are employed by writers from across the political spectrum and frequently appear together in one text. for the literary historian, these languages are best understood not as cohesive political theories but as reservoirs of ideas, metaphors, and images from which writers drew selectively to suit their individual beliefs and purposes. the resulting literature is ambiguous, at times even contradictory. the post-revolutionary monarchy is very often supported or glorified using the language of the old political order, while some committed opponents of the revolution embrace elements of the new political order. by analyzing this fascinating mixture of traditional and constitutional discourse, i recover the complex political meaning of an obscure body of literature from a relatively overlooked period in literary history. we report the results of first atomistic simulation study to compute the thermal conductivity of ionic liquid as well as the effect of water content on the transport properties (such as viscosity and thermal conductivity) of these liquids. atomistic simulations are conducted to examine the dependence of the transport properties of ionic liquids (1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide and 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium ethylsulfate) on temperature and water content. a nonequilibrium molecular dynamics procedure is utilized along with an established fixed charge force field. it is found that the simulations quantitatively capture the temperature dependence of the viscosity. they also qualitatively capture the drop in viscosity that occurs with increasing water content. using mixture viscosity models, it is shown that the relative drop in viscosity with water content is actually less than that which would be predicted for an ideal system. this finding is at odds with the popular notion that small amounts of water cause an unusually large drop in the viscosity of ionic liquids. the simulations suggest that due to preferential association of water with anions and the formation of water clusters, the excess molar volume is negative. this means that dissolved water is actually less effective at lowering the viscosity of these mixtures when compared to a solute obeying ideal mixing behavior. the experimental results for thermal conductivity of 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium ethylsulfate were not yet available but the simulation results were in good agreement with the experimental results of other ionic liquids. classical atomistic simulations are also used to compute the enthalpy of vaporization of a series of ionic liquids comprised of the 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium cations paired with the bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide anion. the calculations show that the enthalpy of vaporization is the lowest for neutral ion pairs. nonneutral clusters have much higher vaporization enthalpies than their neutral counterparts, and thus are not expected to make up a significant fraction of volatile species. the enthalpy of vaporization increases slightly as the cation alkyl chain length increases and as temperature decreases. the tumor microenvironment (tme) – the dynamic tissue space in which the tumor exists – plays a significant role in tumor initiation and is a key contributor in cancer progression; however, little is known about tumor-induced changes in the adjacent tissue stroma. herein, we sought to explore tumor-induced changes in the tme at the morphological and molecular level to further characterize cancer progression. we show that tumor-adjacent mammary glands (tags) display altered branching morphology, expansion of myofibroblasts, and increased mammosphere formation, broadly suggesting a tumor-induced field effect. facs analysis showed that tags contain an increased number of lin-cd24+/cd49+ enriched mammary gland stem cells (mascs), suggesting deregulated tissue homeostasis in tags. comparative transcriptome analysis of tags and contralateral control glands coupled with meta-analysis on differentially expressed genes with two breast cancer stromal patient microarray datasets identified shared upregulation of stat1. knockdown of stat1 in cancer associated fibroblast (cafs) cocultured with human breast cancer cells altered cancer cell proliferation, further suggesting the role of stat1 as a stromal contributor of tumorigenesis. furthermore, depletion of stat1 in cafs significantly reduced periductal reactive fibrosis and delayed early breast cancer progression in vivo. lastly, co-treatment with fludarabine, a fda-approved stat1 activation inhibitor and dna synthesis inhibitor, in combination with doxorubicin, showed enhanced therapeutic efficacy in treating mouse mammary gland tumors. taken together, our results demonstrate that stromal stat1 expression promotes tumor progression and is a potential therapeutic target for breast cancer. this dissertation is composed of two projects that study the circumgalactic medium (cgm) of galaxies at z &lt; 1, searching for connections between the gas in galaxy halos and their host galaxy properties. for galaxies to continue forming stars, they must accrete material that passes through the cgm in the form of large-scale inflows (recycling material or gas from the intergalactic medium, igm) while also contending with large-scale outflows (winds escaping the galaxy disk). in this work, we investigate whether the cgm properties correlate with the galaxy properties using absorbers known as partial lyman limit systems (pllss) and lyman limit systems (llss) with 16.0 ≤ lognhi &lt; 19.0 [cm^-2].in chapter 2, we present the bimodal absorption system imaging campaign (basic) which is an absorption-selected cgm survey at z &lt; 1 aimed at understanding the types of galaxies that house absorbers of different metallicities. we use integral field unit observations to identify and characterize the host galaxies of absorbers that span a broad range (0.1−54% solar) in metallicity. we present the red dead redemption (rdr) survey, composed of two samples, in chapters 3 (rdr1) and 4 (rdr2). this galaxy-selected survey uses luminous red galaxies (lrgs, logm★ &gt; 11 m⊙) at z ~ 0.5 to observationally test model predictions for cold-mode and hot-mode accretion into galaxy halos by determining the cool hi gas content in lrg halos and the metallicity of the absorbers we detect. rdr1 is an archival sample of qso-lrg pairs with sightlines probing to ~rvir; rdr2 is an hst cycle 25 and archival sample of qso-lrg pairs with sightlines probing to ~0.4rvir in the halo.our findings show the cgm metallicity does not correlate with most of the host galaxy properties, with the exception of stellar mass. there is no mass where we do not find cool gas in the inner cgm of galaxy halos, and low-metallicity absorbers are found in halos of all masses. however, the majority of these absorbers are most likely associated with the igm instead of galaxy halos. the contemporary discussion of supererogation and how it fits within particular moral theories is strikingly thin when it comes to the question of whether or how virtue ethics can make room for supererogation. indeed, whereas the debates about how utilitarianism and kantianism ought approach the supererogatory are well-developed, although by no means exhaustive, to date there is but one article-length treatment of the topic of virtue ethics and supererogation. given the above gap in the literature, the primary goal of this dissertation is to develop a satisfying account of supererogation that fits well within a virtue ethical framework. a second (and secondary) aim is related and enables the dissertation to make a modest contribution to the larger debate in moral philosophy about the relative strengths and weakness of the major moral theories. this second aim is to argue that the developed virtue ethics account is, as an account of the supererogatory, superior to the accounts of supererogation that have been offered on behalf of both kantianism and utilitarianism. a third and minor aim is to show how virtue ethics can deepen our understanding of the supererogatory, shedding light on certain aspects of actual cases of supererogation that the contemporary discussion of the topic tends to miss. chapter one provides an introduction to the concept of supererogation with a brief history of the academic discussion of it up to the present, introduces five 'central cases' of supererogation, argues for the import of the supererogatory, and offers an outline of the project. chapters two and three assess some of the more prominent utilitarian (chapter two) and kantian (chapter three) accounts of supererogation that appear in the literature. chapter four introduces and provides a defense a new virtue ethics account of supererogation. chapter five brings together the accounts of supererogation introduced and assessed in chapters two, three, and four for the purposes of determining how successful utilitarians, kantians, and virtue ethicist have been at accounting for supererogation. in this dissertation we consider certain closed subvarieties of the flag variety, known as hessenberg varieties. we prove that hessenberg varieties corresponding to nilpotent elements which are regular in a levi factor are paved by affines. we provide a partial reduction from paving hessenberg varieties for arbitrary elements to paving those corresponding to nilpotent elements. as a consequence, we generalize results of tymoczko asserting that hessenberg varieties for regular nilpotent elements in the classical cases and arbitrary elements of gl_n(c) are paved by affines. for example, our results prove that any hessenberg variety corresponding to a regular element is paved by affines. as a corollary, in all these cases the hessenberg variety has no odd dimensional cohomology. this dissertation develops a theological phenomenological cosmology in light of christian revelation by examining the fundamental structures of incarnate lived experience as described by michel henry, jean-luc marion, and mikel dufrenne in order to understand better the significance of christian revelation upon the cosmic stage. critical analysis of the cosmological implications of henry's and marion's phenomenological frameworks, derived primarily from their frequently overlooked texts on art and aesthetic experience (e.g., seeing the invisible: on kandinsky and courbet, ou la peinture à l'œil), demonstrates how henry's exclusion of representation from the domain of life and marion's subversion of representation in favor of absolute givenness and saturated phenomenality give rise to hyper-subjectivist and hyper-objectivist schemata respectively. in their theological articulations, these schemata fail to provide cosmological frameworks that uphold the subject's concrete, free, dynamic, and creative relation to cosmos. this dissertation retrieves mikel dufrenne's non-theological phenomenological framework in order to surpass the limitations of henry's and marion's schemata. dufrenne's restoration of the phenomenological effectivity of representation and transcendence, it argues, yields an integral and temporal conception of both the enfleshed body and life qua desire that restores the incarnate subject's concrete presence to the cosmos, while at the same time offering a dynamic and temporal conception of nature that forms the backbone of his cosmological schema. these advances allow a theological retrieval of dufrenne's project to consider the new testament record of the person of christ in the development of a new, dufrennian philosophy of christianity modeled on henry's own. the result is a panentheistic theological phenomenological cosmology. in this cosmological schema, christ makes explicit as an object for reflective knowledge the implicit, affective knowledge that human persons have of the divine life in the depths of their enfleshed bodies inasmuch as they are children of god, while himself remaining a distinct form of life's revelation. re-birth in the divine life through acts of love as revealed by christ, this dissertation then argues, sits alongside other authentic avenues of re-birth in life independent of specifically christian revelation (e.g., aesthetic experience) as preeminently but not exclusively contributing to the human person's existential project of self-actualization and self-realization in life. i argue that modern european philosophy served simón bolívar as a theoretical science positing a set of general principles for politics and the human soul. these principles were in turn translated into practical projects of two kinds. one sought the liberal ends of vanquishing despotism and arbitrary government. to secure such ends, required attention to the protection of basic rights, the balance and separation of powers, and the sovereignty of the people, all of which could be reconfigured within a constitution, but also adapted if need be to meet the circumstances at hand. the other involved knowledge of the mechanics of the human soul, the strings of passions and sentiments that a deft educator could manipulate to produce social harmony. by channeling human passions and sentiments, bolívar sought to socialize the heterogenous inhabitants of spanish america for republican life. he assumed that by reorienting passions and through a sentimental education that one could create new shared political opinions to unite the nascent republics of the americas. i focus on two constitutional moments to illustrate simón bolívar's consistent concern for liberal institutional design and moral formation based on sentiment and passion: the angostura constitutional proposal for venezuela in 1819 and the initial draft of the bolivian constitution of 1826. this project, a new understanding of the manner in which justice and love intersect in the category of the mystical-political, develops out of the thought of twentieth-century french philosopher and mystic simone weil. though her writing is notoriously difficult and demanding and her biography is not without controversy, her worth as an intellectual can in part be measured by the burgeoning cross-disciplinary influence of her thought: novelists, feminists, ethicists, political philosophers, and theologians have found in her work fruitful resources for reflection and constructive endeavors. this project is intended as a contribution to that literature, but it is also intended to bring weil's ideas--particularly those concerned with the relational character of the human being and of the world in which humans are embedded--beyond the sometimes insular scholarship devoted to weil's work and into a broader conversation that includes thinkers as diverse as plotinus, martin heidegger, catherine keller, luce irigaray, and hannah arendt among others. for weil, justice is coextensive with the presence of a love that is capable of identifying with someone different, while refraining from the kind of objectification or appropriation that so often accompanies such an identification. while she has been called a pessimist by some, she ultimately rejects the notion that justice is merely a pleasant delusion or a purely utopian ideal, arguing that it can be known 'experimentally.' yet given the bleak realities of the world in which she was writing, she is forced to ask how, and to what extent, justice might find purchase in a world governed by a relentless and incomprehensible network of forces--something she calls 'necessity'--in partial continuity with the platonic tradition. indeed, by appropriating and transforming aspects of the christian platonic tradition in a way that permits her to elaborate a philosophical anthropology which understands the self as dynamic and relational, and by bringing this anthropology together with a thoroughgoing critique of technology's destructive power and a marxian emphasis on the significance of labor, weil provides important tools for the development of a persuasive, timely, and valuable model for linking the mystical and the political. among a host of negative outcomes, exposure to early adversity is associated with dysregulation, including differences in diurnal cortisol (morning levels and slope), poorer emotion regulation, and lower inhibitory control. past work examining cumulative effects of early adversity tend to employ a sum score approach whereby individual risk variables are dichotomized and summed. a composite latent variable approach to assessing early adversity improves on key limitations of the traditional sum score approach by allowing for differential weighting of individual factor variables, continuous and dichotomous indicator variables, and the simultaneous estimation of cumulative effects of early adversity and individual effects of each risk variable. the current study examined these two methodological approaches in a serial mediation model of developmental mechanisms theorized to explain links between early adversity at the family level and three markers of child self-regulation. maternal sensitivity and supportive emotion-related socialization behaviors have been theorized to serve as developmental process variables that explain associations between early adversity and child self-regulation. further, maternal sensitivity during parent-child interactions is expected to inform child internal working models, and in typically developing samples child representations of appropriate self-regulation have been linked with actual child self-regulation. however, little longitudinal work has examined theory and evidence-based developmental mechanisms that might explain associations between adversity and dysregulation using multiple indices of child self-regulation while also considering mediational roles of maternal sensitivity in multiple contexts and child internal working models. the current study examined longitudinal serial mediation using a model building approach employing 8 structural equation models including latent growth curve components whereby early adversity was hypothesized to predict three indices of child self-regulation (diurnal cortisol, emotion regulation, and inhibitory control) and their change across time, through influences of maternal sensitivity during free play and reminiscing on child internal working models of self-regulation. data was drawn from a randomized controlled trial and included 229 mothers and their 3to 6-year-old children across four measurement time points (baseline [t1], 2 months [t2], 6 months [ t3], and 1 year later [t4]). results revealed unique effects of cumulative early adversity predicting increases in diurnal cortisol slope from t1 to t4 and lower child emotion regulation at t4, as well as lower maternal sensitivity during free play and lower maternal sensitive guidance during reminiscing at t2. higher maternal sensitivity during free play at t2 predicted lower child representations of behavior dysregulation during child narratives at t3, and higher maternal sensitive guidance during reminiscing at t2 predicted higher representations of moral affiliative themes during child narratives at t3. further, there was evidence of significant serial indirect effects of cumulative early adversity on lower child inhibitory control at t4 through lower maternal sensitive guidance at t2 and lower moral affiliative behavioral representations at t3. results of the final serial mediation model were generally consistent when comparing the effects of cumulative early adversity using the sum score and the latent composite approaches. the latent compose approach revealed that low income status and maternal perpetration of neglect were the strongest contributors to the weighted early adversity composite. results inform understanding of mechanisms that contribute to child self-regulation development during the preschool years among high risk children and families. in recent decades, scholars attempting to explain the twelve minor prophets as a unified collection have identified an apparent paradox in their reception history: the same generations who passed on the tradition that the twelve are 'one book' did not read it as such. two kinds of explanations are proposed, each with independent parallels in studies of midrash: (1) modern scholars misinterpret premodern references to 'books' by conflating physical and literary unity. (2) past interpreters allowed competing contexts, such as the wider canon or the individual prophets, to eclipse the twelve in their exegesis. collectively, these discussions highlight the importance of asking not merely whether other interpreters read a given corpus holistically but how they did and did not do so, not least in relation to other potential contexts or wholes. in response, this dissertation sharpens appreciation for the multiple variables involved in reading holistically by bridging biblical and patristic scholarship with a detailed case study. chapters 2-3 explain the book of joel as an example of specificity deliberately blurred, a leading member of the twelve, and a densely intertextual part of multiple collections. chapters 4-6 analyze and compare two of our earliest surviving christian commentaries on joel, by theodore of mopsuestia (late 300s) and by jerome of stridon (406). while both interpreters treat joel texts as simultaneously belonging to multiple contexts, they do so in strikingly different ways. each understands the twelve and joel analogously as a distinctive sequence of prophets and a meaningful sequence of passages respectively. but contrasting approaches to relating old and new testaments accompany opposite accounts of multiple meanings within joel. this project challenges sweeping conclusions that ancient readers' attention to scripture as a whole overwhelmed attention to individual books or, conversely, that approaching the twelve as distinct prophets precluded discerning coherence across the collection. it demonstrates the need to investigate how past exegetes understood scriptural unity on a case-by-case basis, allowing for variations between different works on the same text and for each text's presenting interpreters with different invitations and challenges. appendices include an english translation of jerome's joel commentary. the reactivity and stability of homogenous transition metal catalysts largely depends on the supporting ligand system. thus, ligand design is a crucial component to reactivity modulation and optimization of catalysts. in particular, the development of ligand systems capable of participating in metal ligand cooperativity (mlc) has become a popular area of research in the organometallic community. complexes of this nature promote participation from the supporting ligand and the metal center throughout a chemical process. credited for their tunability, tridentate, chelating pincer ligands are well-known for their ability to participate in mlc-type reactivity on a variety of different metal centers. more specifically, transition metal carbenes bearing the [pc(sp2)p] pincer framework exhibit unique reactivity, including cooperative 1,2-additions across the m-ccarbene bond when treated with polar substrates.this work in mind, efforts towards expanding the [pc(sp2)p] ligand system to an iron metal center were explored and the optimal synthetic route was discovered. reactivity studies of the resulting[{pc(sp2)p}fe(pme3)(n2)] complex with styrene and select alkynes were investigated. the reactivity displayed in the presence of substrates containing π character is not only novel to the reactivity exhibited by other [pc(sp2)p] complexes, but also, all previously synthesized iron carbene complexes. furthermore, the iluc lab has extensively studied the reactivity of a nucleophilic palladium(ii) carbene complex, [{pc(sp2)p}pd(pme3)]. as a continuation of this work, [{pc(sp2)p}pd(pme3)] was treated with h2o to further elucidate its small molecule activation competencies. results indicated that the second activation of water proceeded through µ-oxo species and prompted the synthesis of a µ-sulfide dimer through treatment of the palladium carbene with h2s. additional work with [{pc(sp2)p}pd(pme3)] focused on the ancillary ligands effect on reactivity and stability of the 4-coordinate carbene system. in this thesis, i examine the determinants of the likelihood and the intensity of using externalized workers in organizations. drawing on 1996-1997 national organizations survey (nos ì ), i study the use of externalized workers from five theoretical perspectives: numerical flexibility, dual workforce, organization transformation, matching efficiency, and internal labor market (ilm) screening flexibility. it is found that different factors affecting the odds of using externalized workers and the degree an organization may externalize its workforce. these two processes appear to be independent to some degree. the organization transformation perspective is the one that is most strongly supported by the results, which suggests organizations' desire to externalize for structural flexibility. another finding is that organizations use externalized workers to screen qualified workers for permanent organizations, which reduces the turnover and instability of an organization. it supports the compatibility of ilms and externalization. in this project, i examine how three protestant christian non-governmental organizations in south africa that were involved in the struggle against apartheid have recognized gendered inequality and violence. while they share important similarities, the organizations vary in how they perceive gender-based violence (gbv) to pertain to broader questions of justice. the differences in their approaches to gbv are partly due to structural influences, both internal and external, that have governed the organizations' actions over time. their responses are contingent upon their constituencies (including particular denominational connections), relation to the political sphere, internal organizational structure, and dependence upon particular resources. yet, while these factors are important, they do not fully explain the variation in the organizations' responses to gbv. i contend that the organizations' theological cultures play a central role in the constitution of their responses to gbv. that is, we cannot understand the organizations' approaches to gbv without taking into account how the content of the cultural schemas that they have developed over time is transposed to gbv. their theological cultures stem from differing interpretations of the christian message, and are rooted in the organizations' constituencies but are also semi-autonomous from them. these theological cultures establish routinized patterns of discourse, creating a path dependency for their responses to gbv. my argument about the centrality of cultural schemas acknowledges the influence of structural factors and incorporates cultural forces in a multi-causal explanation of social life (weber 1905 [2010]; 1994). it sees culture as irreducible to underlying structural forces, and perceives its causal power. i argue that the cultural schemas that are developed in the organizations shape how the problem of gbv is defined institutionally (see polletta 2008:84-86). they each recognize gbv as a social problem, but they differ in their perceptions of what exactly it is a problem about. this has practical consequences for whether and how they address it, net of structural conditions. i show here that the organizations' responses to gbv, an issue that emerged in broad public awareness in the context of the transition to democracy in south africa, are rooted in their historical patterns of discourse. thus i also build an "endogenous" explanation of culture's social power: the organizations' cultural patterns established in apartheid explain their cultural patterns of discourse concerning gbv (kaufman 2004). i demonstrate that the content of the cultural schemas developed by the organizations is contingent and fragile, but also remarkably consistent over time, in ways that directly impact their discourse and actions around gbv. a closed-loop plasma actuated control scheme which relies on the ability to detect incipient flow separation is presented. it is known that the receptivity of the boundary layer increases with the onset of separation. the detection scheme therefore hinges on the ability to measure disturbances produced by the unsteady pulsing of a plasma actuator via an on-board pressure sensor and analog circuitry. the actuator introduces the disturbances into the flow at a low powered ``sense state.' an on-board pressure sensor measures the real-time pressure signal at x/c = 0.08, which is then amplified and bandpass filtered around the actuator's pulsing frequency. an integrated circuit which measures the rms of the signal serves as a means to measure the spectral energy at the pulsing frequency. when the signal reaches a sufficiently high value, set by an adjustable threshold, the actuator is triggered to a high-powered ``control state' with more flow control authority. the method not only provides a precursor for flow separation, but also an indicator when conditions exist where active re-attachment control is no longer needed. this is demonstrated on a periodically oscillating airfoil which is pitched into light, medium, and deep dynamic stall. baseline, constant unsteady controlled, and closed-loop controlled schemes were studied for the three stall cases. flow visualization and pressure measurements via on-board static pressure ports allowed for qualitative and quantitative measurements of the effect of the control scheme on the aerodynamic characteristics of the airfoil. the dynamic response of the tubing was improved through the use of the wiener deconvolution method for reconstruction of pneumatically attenuated pressure signals. the performance of the closed-loop scheme was evaluated by comparing the aerodynamic loading parameters to the baseline and constant unsteady controlled cases. in the light stall regime, the closed-loop case, which only operated in control mode 11% of the pitch cycle, reduced the maximum nose-down moment by 59% and improved the integrated lift coefficient by 12%. in the medium stall regime, schemes which operated the actuator in control mode 45% of the time provided similar improvements as the constant unsteady actuated case, while improving the moment and lift by 45% and 25%, respectively. no optimum control case was realized in the deep stall case, as the aerodynamic characteristics improved as a function of the amount of time the actuator was in control mode. electrostatic drive is the most common actuation method in mems due to its low power, simplicity and ability to generate large forces. however, an intrinsic pull-in failure in electrostatic actuation limits its workable range to only a part of the initial electrode gap. this dissertation investigates an effective lateral-drive method to solve this pull-in problem by building electrodes laterally offset rather than directly opposite to each other. an offset electrode capacitor model is proposed and results in a closed-form capacitance formula for theoretical analysis. calculations show that laterally-driven beams may require a smaller operating voltage than do some other methods, and cover nearly the full travel range. furthermore, the driving performance is affected by the structure's lateral gap. lateral gap less than a critical value are still susceptible to the pull-in problem. for devices on a planar semiconductor substrate, this method is electrically equivalent to the series capacitor mechanism due to the high substrate dielectric constant. we demonstrate that the substrate may be etched away to improve the performance. a laterally-driven test structure consisting of a fixed-fixed aluminum beam and two lateral substrate electrodes is designed and fabricated, with etched substrate underneath. by measuring the maximum beam deflection with interferometric profiler, the lateral-driven method is characterized experimentally. misalignment in process degrades the performance. a self-aligned process is developed for fabricating a tunable laterally-driven fabry-perot interferometer. aero-optical distortions along the spanwise direction of several spanwise uniform subsonic turbulent flows were measured and studied using a shack-hartmann wavefront sensor. it was demonstrated that in this case, some important fluidic statistics in the wall normal direction, like the local convective speed, fluctuating density profiles, and the spanwise integral scales, can be directly extracted from aero-optical distortions. a canonical turbulent boundary layer (tbl) was investigated in the subsonic wind tunnel to validate the proposed approach. to avoid the spectral contamination due to finite spatial resolution of the wavefront sensor, a model function for the deflection angle autospectral density was proposed. the dispersion analysis was demonstrated to be most accurate in computing convective velocity. it was shown that it is possible to reconstruct the spectra above the nyquist frequencies through the newly proposed stacking method. convective velocities in the log-region of the tbl were found to agree well with the direct measurements using a single hotwire. from the convective velocities, the local wall shear stress was non-intrusively extracted, using the clauser's method. using deflection angle spectra and the convective velocity, the local values of aero-optical distortions were reconstructed. using the strong reynold's analogy, a wall-normal profile of the spanwise density correlation length was extracted and shown to be in agreement with spanwise length scales observed in the literature. two additional tbls were also chosen: a tbl with non-adiabatic wall and a tbl externally forced by a shear layer. in the case of the non-adiabatic tbl, the density fluctuation profiles in the wall-normal direction at different wall temperatures were extracted and analysed. using these profiles, several issues with the extended strong reynold's analogy were observed and discussed. the extracted fluctuating density profiles were demonstrated to correctly predict aero-optical distortions in the wall-normal direction. in the case of the tbl externally forced by a shear layer, global wavefronts were found to be significantly affected by aperture effects. a new approach, based on analysis of the local deflection angles only, was proposed to remove contamination from aperture effects. for this forced tbl, the sra was found to satisfactorily predict the experimentally-measured aero-optical distortions. high-speed projectiles experience flow separation at their blunt downstream end. previous research has demonstrated the ability for plasma actuators to prevent flow separation as well as to vector a flow around a surface radius. a projectile model with a varying radius on the downstream end was experimentally examined between free-stream mach numbers of 0.3 to 0.5 to determine the ability of plasma actuators to lower the aerodynamic drag, and to provide asymmetric aerodynamic loading that could be used for flight control without moving surfaces. this involved an annular plasma actuator that was located at the aft end of the projectile model. the aft end of the model was removable to allow for different radii edges. for drag reduction, the plasma actuator encircled the entire circumference of the aft end of the projectile. for asymmetric loading, the plasma actuator circled only half (180 degrees) of the circumference. both arrangements were able to affect the aerodynamic loading on the projectile. the full annular plasma actuator provided a maximum drag coefficient reduction of 5%. the half-annular actuator provided a change in the side-force coefficient of 0.08. real-world complex systems comprise several components that interact and influence each other via various mechanisms. in order to understand and model the underlying phenomena in such systems, it is important to solve two key challenges: (1) building network models that are an accurate representation of raw data, and (2) developing models that can learn from the network structure to capture the ongoing phenomena in the complex system.in this dissertation, we propose novel methodologies to solve the above challenges. we first propose an efficient algorithm for higher-order networks to accurately represent the complex interactions in raw data. we then explore the applications of higher-order networks in various real-world problems such as modeling species spread through the global shipping network and anomaly detection in dynamic networks. towards learning from complex systems, we then move to build machine learning models that can learn from interacting components in the system. we explore the applications of these models in various real-world problems such as network embedding, relational reasoning, and predicting chemical reaction performance. finally, we discuss the limitations and challenges of building machine learning methods for networks using real-world data and offer potential directions for future research. simple theories are a strict extension of stable theories for which non-forking independence is a nice independence relation. however, not much is known about how the simple unstable theories differ from the strictly stable ones. this work looks at three aspects of simple theories and uses them to give a better picture of the differences between the two classes. first, we look at the property of weakly eliminating hyperimaginaries and show that it is equivalent to forking and thorn-forking independence coinciding. second, we look at the stable forking conjecture}, a strong statement asserting that simple unstable theories have an essentially stable 'core,' and prove that it holds between elements having su-rank 2 and finite su-rank. third, we consider a property on indiscernible sequences that is known to hold in every stable theory, and show it holds on, at most, a subset of simple theories out of all possible first order theories. the concept of solid-state optical refrigeration (laser cooling) is premised on removing thermal energy from a material through its anti-stokes photoluminescence (aspl). since the first report of aspl-induced cooling in 1995, multiple experiments have now unambiguously confirmed solid state laser refrigeration and cooling to cryogenic temperatures in rare-earth-doped glasses and crystals. a record cooling temperature of 91 k has recently been achieved with a yb3+-doped yttrium lithium fluoride (ylf) crystal.going to lower temperatures, however, requires changing cooling media. this stems from the thermal depopulation of atomic levels at low temperatures, which shuts off optical cooling cycles. numerous cooling attempts have therefore been made with alternate, condensed phase media such as solutions of rhodamine 101. recent focus has shifted to semiconductors given fermi-dirac statistics that guarantee populated valence bands at very low temperature. this results in minimum cooling floors as low as 10 k.this phd thesis begins by presenting an overview of the theoretical model in semiconductor laser cooling, which highlights key factors and concepts crucial to establishing valid laser cooling claims. the thesis then compares three different methods of all-optical thermometry: pump-probe luminescence thermometry (pplt), differential luminescence thermometry (dlt), and up-conversion emission thermometry. additionally, the thesis summarizes the longstanding debate in the community regarding whether excitation energy dependencies exist in semiconductor nanocrystals. finally, the thesis introduces a non-contact method that could be used to directly detect defects in semiconductor nanocrystals. asymmetric synthesis is a major focus in modern organic chemistry. experimentally screening for selective ligands is a cumbersome process, and provides only indirect insight into the molecular origin of selectivity. transition state force fields generated by the quantum to molecular mechanics (q2mm) method can describe the stereoselecting transition states involved in reactions of interest to synthetic chemistry with the accuracy of electronic structure methods but the speed of force field calculations. this can provide structural and mechanistic rationales for experimental observations and make quantitative predictions before experimental ligand screening. this thesis presents a robust code for performing q2mm parameterization of ground state and transition state force fields and improvements to q2mm. an automated virtual screening program is developed, which works alongside q2mm to rapidly perform virtual screens of ligands in asymmetric catalysis. the capabilities of q2mm are demonstrated in a study of the conformations of sulfones and sulfonamides, which were investigated using high level electronic structure methods. they revealed a dual anomeric effect, and the robustness of the q2mm method was demonstrated by parameterizing a force field that implicitly captured these complicated electronic effects. lastly, the mechanism and structural origin of an unexpected stereoselection observed in the rhodium catalyzed hydrogenation of cyclic dehydrooligopeptides was studied using q2mm. the discovery of new materials, the improvement of processing, and the design of new devices are the three engines which boost our modern semiconductor industry. building upon previous work at the university of notre dame on oxygen-enhanced non-selective wet thermal oxidation of low al content iii-v compound semiconductor alloys, which has simplified the fabrication of advanced performance diode laser devices, this work has further expanded the application of iii-v native oxides in photonic device fabrication and integration while stimulating additional materials related discoveries.first, the iii-v native oxides grown by our modified wet thermal method are shown capable of improving upon existing wafer bonding techniques. the two flagship compound semiconductors, gaas and inp, have been successfully bonded to si substrates using a iii-v native oxide as the intermediate layer, with potential applications in erbium doped waveguide amplifier fabrication and in the emerging silicon photonics field. next, an unexpected gallium oxide film transfer phenomenon observed during wafer bonding of gaas to si has generated a promising future research opportunity in the emerging hot area of beta-phase gallium oxide (b-ga2o3) as a wide bandgap semiconductor material, useful for devices such as high-power transistors, solar blind photodetectors, and gas sensing devices. furthermore, we present detailed preliminary studies on the selective core oxidation of telecommunications wavelength inp-based algainas laser heterostructure waveguides, including two methods for overcoming the severe, longstanding high temperature process limitations caused by inp dissociation. using the protection of ingaas epitaxial regrowth or hfo2 atomic layer deposition encapsulation, we have successfully selectively oxidized the waveguide core, shrinking the optical confinement region well below the width of the lithographically-defined etched ridge to achieve a single mode waveguide geometry suitable for the design of both active and passive algainas/inp telecom wavelength devices. concrete objects are used to help children understand mathematical concepts. research suggests that perceptually rich objects may hinder children's performance on mathematics tasks relative to bland objects. however, previous studies have confounded the perceptual richness of objects with children's established knowledge of the objects. the present study examined how these two factors influence children's developing counting skill. children (m age = 3 yrs, 10 mo) were randomly assigned to counting tasks that used one of four types of objects in a 2 (perceptual richness: high or low) x 2 (established knowledge: high or low) factorial design. results revealed an interaction between the two factors. these findings suggest that the use of perceptually rich objects can convey both advantages and disadvantages for children's performance on math tasks, depending on how the objects interface with children's established knowledge. leishmania is a genus of intracellular parasites that are responsible for causing the disease leishmaniasis. leishmaniasis is a complex of diseases ranging from self-healing cutaneous lesions to fatal visceral disease. leishmania major is one of several species which causes cutaneous leishmaniasis and is frequently used in immunological research due to the requirement for a t helper 1 (th-1) mediated response in order for healing and immunity to occur. vitamin d has been shown to reduce or eliminate many symptoms of t cell mediated autoimmune diseases in experimental mouse models of diseases such as multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disorder, and rheumatoid arthritis. these diseases arise due to an inappropriate th-1 response to self antigens. the active metabolite of 1,25d3 exerts these actions via interaction with the vitamin d receptor (vdr). these studies aimed to investigate if ablation of the vitamin d receptor or vitamin d deficiency plays a role in influencing th-1 and th-2 cytokine balance. we observed that vdr knockout (ko) mice develop smaller lesions in response to l. major infection than their wild type (wt) counterparts. additionally, vdr ko mice exhibit a decreased parasite burden at the height of infection. we detected increased levels of neutrophils at the site of infection early during infection and elevated numbers of macrophages at the height of infection. in response to vitamin d deficiency induced by deletion of 1-ì_å± hydroxylase, mice exhibited smaller lesions similar to those observed in vdr ko mice. analysis of bone marrow derived macrophages (bmdms) and bone marrow derived dendritic cells (bmdcs) harvested from vdr ko mice indicates these cells phagocytose l. major parasites at equal levels as wt bmdms and bmdcs. examination of parasite clearance mechanisms of bmdms and bmdcs suggests that vdr plays a role in stat1 inhibition of inos and il-12p40 up-regulation. overall, these studies illustrate the importance of vitamin d and vdr in modulation of immune responses to l. major infection. microelectronics packaging forms the link between the nanometer scale transistors on a chip and the micrometer or millimeter scale interconnects that provide electrical connections between chips and other circuit components. for modern digital systems, the number of interconnects is small compared to the number of active devices on the chip, and given the high data processing throughput of many modern systems, the interconnects are by necessity shared or multiplexed. for systems with high data throughput multiplexed through a limited number of interconnects, conventional approaches such as wire bonds and flip-chip interconnects may not offer sufficient signal integrity and bandwidth to handle the required data rates. interconnect bandwidth and frequency limitations apply to millimeter-wave analog systems as well; the ability to process signals in the millimeter-wave and thz frequency regimes are becoming increasingly important for emerging applications in communications, security, and scientific research. for such millimeter-wave systems, the bandwidth of individual interconnects is paramount, and the packing densities are far less important. to address these limitations for both digital and analog systems, a direct-coupled chip-to-chip interconnect technology called 'quilt packaging' is explored. this technology is based on micro-electro-mechanical system (mems) inspired fabrication processing. quilt packaging uses copper projections called 'nodules' to bridge a short air gap between one chip and the next. it is shown experimentally that this technology can directly address interconnect data rate limitations, offering measured insertion losses below 1.4 db and return losses of better than 12.5 db from dc to 220 ghz with well-controlled latency and phase. furthermore, simulations suggest that the technology is promising for further reductions in loss and increases in bandwidth and operational frequency through additional structural optimization. in this work, wet thermal oxidation of epitaxially-grown inalp in combination with a pseudomorphic high electron mobility in0.22ga0.78as channel has been explored, as an alternative gate structure to conventional gaas-based field effect transistors (fets) as used in many radio frequency (rf) systems. this insulating metal-oxide-semiconductor (mos) gate structure with higher effective gate potential barrier can suppress the gate leakage and extend the allowable gate voltage swing. device structure engineering, including gate dielectric thickness and channel doping level, is shown to be able to result in heterostructure designs for both depletion-mode and enhancement-mode devices. the gate oxide formation does not require any special surface passivation or post-growth gate dielectric deposition, and is minimally disruptive relative to established high electron mobility transistor (hemt) fabrication processes. the utilized process also results in self-alignment of the gate metallization and localized oxidation region, thus reducing the access resistance and enabling high rf performance to be obtained. the devices demonstrated here exhibit record rf performance for iii-v channel mosfets with a measured cutoff frequency, ft, of 60 ghz obtained for a gate length of 0.25 ?m. both the dc and rf performance are already comparable to commercialized pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistors (phemts), while offering features that conventional technology cannot provide. operation at high gate bias (to at least 1.5v) without significant gate leakage is demonstrated. a 3.5 nm thick inalp oxide gate dielectric reduces the gate leakage below that of heterostructure field effect transistors (hfets) based on the same epitaxial structure by more than 105 times. based on a small-signal model and a two-noise-temperature model, this work also reports the microwave noise performance for iii-v mosfets for the first time. a minimum noise figure (nfmin) of less than 1 db at 8 ghz has been achieved by a 0.25 ?m gaas-channel mosfet, while in0.22ga0.78as-channel mosfets exhibit an nfmin about 0.5 db higher. the results suggest these devices are potentially viable candidates for low-noise rf and microwave applications. however, despite the excellent performance obtained, the demonstrated devices do not yet exhibit the full advantages of the new gate structure and high mobility channel due to un-optimized device designs. for example, the n+ algaas donor layer beneath the channel causes short-channel effects, and the un-gated oxide region also leads to significant access resistance in enhancement-mode devices only due to the ?normally-off? operation. therefore, investigation and discussion to provide directions for further device performance improvements in the future are also included. crafting a mission statement is a common practice in schools, but we know little about how and when faculty, staff, and parents put these statements to use or whether these statements yield tangible effects. what mission statements contain, how they are developed and used, how well they capture the underlying shared beliefs of teachers and principals, and the extent to which these shared ideas influence student achievement are open and under-studied questions. in this dissertation, i present three analyses examining different aspects of mission using a variety of data and methods.in the first analysis, i examine the content of mission statements prior to the enactment of the indiana choice scholarship program and seven years later to consider how mission statement topics may be changing in the presence of choice policies. in this exploratory and descriptive analysis, i use structural topic modeling to code a representative sample of mission statements in indiana from two time points into topics. i investigate differences in statement topics between school sectors, over time, and within sectors over time to consider how school choice policies may be influencing the content of mission statements. i find distinct differences between sectors but few differences over time and within sector. the second analysis considers how teachers and school leaders understand and use mission statements in the school, based on interview and focus group data from 17 schools in one community. using these data, i developed a measure of mission statement familiarity for each principal and group of teachers in order to examine variation across roles and schools. i then analyzed the data in an abductive manner, looking for plausible reasons for mission familiarity as well as where the statement content was salient and had opportunities for resonance, drawing on concepts from cultural sociology. i find that mission statements were familiar and salient within more than half of the schools, and schools leaders and teachers described moments of resonance for the mission statement in roughly one third of the schools in the sample. in the third analysis i explore possible links between school mission statement content and student achievement. using mission statements from a state representative sample of schools in indiana, i use measures of topic proportions within school mission statements calculated through structural topic modeling. i focus on four academic-focused topics—academic success, achievement and standards, believe children can learn, and every child—and test whether there is a relationship between having a high focus on one of these topics in the school mission statement and student achievement outcomes. to do so, i analyze longitudinal student achievement data, using grade level fixed effects models and a matched sample comparing students who used a voucher to move to a private school with students who stayed in public schools. i find that schools with mission statements that contain a high focus on academic success and every child demonstrate positive relationships with achievement outcomes for students using a voucher to attend a private school. language is a quintessential and complex human skill. one reflection is the ability to produce and understand an infinite number of new sentences (i.e., novel sequences of words) that convey richly detailed messages. this ability is ascribed to a grammatical rule system that specifies how categories of words are combined into phrases and clauses. a major question in language acquisition is how children induce the grammatical rules from experience with instances of it and without explicit correction on their production of erroneous instances. the "problem of induction" is that the grammatical rules are recursive, allowing phrases and clauses to be embedded in other phrases and clauses. for example, a recursive center-embedding rule permits a sentence such as, the dog that the girls that the boy likes feed barks. numerous studies have investigated the rule induction process using the artificial grammar learning (agl) paradigm, which involves presenting sequences of meaningless elements generated from a rule to children or adult participants and testing their learning by having them judge the grammaticality of correct and incorrect novel sequences. although several previous agl studies showed that adults were unable to induce a center-embedding rule, lai and poletiek (2011) demonstrated successful induction if the learning experience began with simple sequences with no embedding and then progressed to sequences with oneand then two embeddings. however, a flaw in lai and poletiek's test sequences undermined the validity of their findings. experiment 1 corrected this flaw, and replicated lai and poletiek's results, thereby providing stronger evidence that progressive learning experience supports the induction of the center-embedding rule. experiment 2 provided further evidence by replacing the grammaticality judgment test with one that required the participants to produce completions to initial portions of sequences. finally, experiment 3 showed no learning when feedback was eliminated from the grammaticality judgment test, but learning still occurred with the completion test. examination of individual performance on the completion tests in experiments 2 and 3 revealed that not all participants induced the rule, and those that did showed a consistent trajectory: they first mastered the dependencies between the different categories of elements in the simple sequences, and then hypothesized a symmetric embedding rule before inducing the correct center-embedding rule. thus, the results provide substantive insight into the conditions that enable the induction of a recursive grammar rule and the utility of the completion test for investigating the learning process. pathogenic mycobacteria are a global health problem. we use mycobacterium marinum as a model system for mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of human tuberculosis. we have developed tools for studying mycobacterial pathogenesis and identifying genes required for virulence. the esx-1 export system is essential for mycobacterial virulence. we built a saturating transposon library in m. marinum and screened for mutants deficient for esx-1 export. we identified several esx-1-deficient strains using these novel assays and characterized them using molecular genetics, biochemistry, and microbiology. in addition to genetic tools, we developed mass spectrometry tools for monitoring esx-1. we designed and tested a screening method using maldi-tof mass spectrometry for high-throughput screening. western blotting for esx-1 substrates is the gold standard for monitoring esx-1 function. however, this is limited by sensitivity and antibody availability. we implemented targeted mrm mass spectrometry to monitor multiple esx-1 substrates across multiple strains to elucidate distinct genetic requirements for esx-1 export of several esx-1 substrates.using virulence assays, we identified an esx-1-deficient strain with a nonsense mutation in a known esx-1-required gene. we isolated a suppressor strain with the nonsense mutation that had restored esx-1 export and virulence. we characterized both the esx-1-deficient strain and the suppressor strain using genetics, genomics, biochemistry, and bioinformatics. we found that suppression was linked to a mutation in a gene required to synthesize lipids.finally, we characterized a novel locus, mmar_5349-mmar_5350. we demonstrated that mmar_5349 is involved in multiple export systems, including three separate esx systems. we also showed that mmar_5350 is a novel gre-like factor that induces a novel rna cleavage activity by rna polymerase and is involved in the temperature sensitivity of m. marinum, which does not typically grow above 35°c. however, we found that deletion of mmar_5350 led to an increase in growth at 37°c and overexpression of mmar_5350 completely abrogated growth at 37°c.through these studies we have characterized several mechanisms by which pathogenic mycobacteria survive in their host environment and cause disease. these studies add to our knowledge base to help develop novel strategies of fighting these pathogens. the ruinscape is a ruined landscape existing in the aftermath of obliteration. what emerges from the wreckage has potential to sound, to birth, to grip you by the throat. restoration ecology is guided by basic ecological principles derived from population, community, and ecosystem ecology. as the human population grows and more land is developed; the need of restoration of freshwater ecosystems has and will grow. stream ecosystems are often altered by changes in land use, and many headwater streams now drain logged, urbanized, or agricultural watersheds. in these systems, wood and boulders are often removed and channels straightened to accelerate drainage for development, but these modifications can result in increased frequency of downstream flooding and continued habitat deterioration. one of the most common restoration activities in streams is to add in-stream structures, such as flow defectors, boulders, wood, and vegetation to stabilize banks, reduce erosion, increase habitat complexity, and retain organic matter. my goal was to assess changes in organic matter standing stocks and decomposition, secondary production, and macroinvertebrate food web structure following an experimental addition of large wood to three small forested streams. i determined that macroinvertebrate secondary production was low in these streams before wood addition, likely from a legacy of intensive logging, which reduced in-stream habitat diversity and organic matter standing stocks. after wood addition, i measured an increase in organic matter standing stocks around the added logs, but no reach-scale responses and no changes in organic matter decomposition. decomposition was affected by water temperature, scour and burial by sediments, and changes in water column nutrient concentrations. macroinvertebrate responses were site-specific, with secondary production increasing in two streams and declining in one stream after wood addition. the stream-specific response was likely mediated by the amount of increased organic matter retention and substrate sorting due to log additions as well as differences in water temperature, mean annual discharge, and stream bed substratum. furthermore, in one stream, i measured an increase in total macroinvertebrate consumption of both autochthonous (i.e., algae) and allochthonous (i.e., leaves) carbon as a result of the changes caused by the added logs. my research incorporated population, community, and ecosystem ecology to more effectively link changes in habitat and community structure to changes in ecosystem function within the context of a restoration. mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis (tb), is responsible for nearly 2 million deaths each year. the rise in hiv co-infections and the neglect of tb control programs has led to tb's re-emergence as a serious public health concern. an improved understanding of host immune responses following mycobacterium infection can provide insights into the pathogenesis of virulent mycobacteria and identify potential targets for rational anti-tb drug design. our work indicates that infection with isogenic strains of m. tuberculosis results in differential activation of various transcription factors. previous studies have demonstrated that expression of the folate receptor (fr) is primarily restricted to tumor cells and activated macrophages. we hypothesize that the fr may also be expressed on activated, tuberculosis-infected macrophages. addressing the biology behind fr expression in mycobacterium-infected mouse and human macrophages may lead to new mechanisms to treat drug-sensitive and drug-resistant tuberculosis. as the quantities and complexity of data increase, methods for structuring and effectively processing it are more vital than they have ever been in the past. in terms of the development and integration of modern applications and their data, incorporating practices from the semantic web means that researchers now have more intelligent techniques to achieve interoperability, accessibility, and reliability between resources. moreover, professionals continue to demonstrate the need for an increasing amount of interdisciplinary data to properly answer questions. however, the existence of the semantic web and the availability of linked data techniques is not sufficient; integration methods are needed to align data sets and applications, preferably in an automated manner, so as to enhance the capabilities of decision support methods and other artificial intelligence goals.modern industry questions and decisions require multi-disciplinary information, most of which is not currently usable in a simultaneous manner, if it is reliable at all. for example, the best decision engine in the world is still limited by the data it has to work with to arrive at a set of decisions; semantics allow further data to be aligned, found, acquired, and formatted such that knowledge can continue to be generated. industry goals for intelligence often return to issues with the types and structure -or lack of structure and context of the available data resources themselves. this is a resounding set of issues resolved by the research and contributions of this dissertation.while these research solutions are designed to be applicable to many areas of industry and the data challenges therein, these concepts and automation techniques are applied specifically within the industry domains of architecture, civil engineering, natural disaster resilience, life cycle analysis, and manufacturing. goals for the work involved overcoming certain limitations of the typically proprietary and siloed nature of architectural and engineering applications which use numerous geometry and spatial schemas along with localized data sets. linked data principles with restful, semantic endpoints are effective for establishing solutions within these domains, and are presented in more detail from thorough explanations found in several adjoining publications. additionally, these methods are utilized within a cloud-based framework called a linked data platform which is able to host components such as use-case data stores and simulation model information relevant to the noted industry fields. these approaches lend themselves well to answering modern questions because they enable distributed processing and robust decision support techniques that are becoming essential for handling big data and processing it at several locations, often simultaneously.the work presented in this thesis encompasses a variety of semantic technologies, including semantic graphs, ontology design patterns, semantic rules engines, literature reviews of the technological landscape as it exists today, linked data platform designs, and interoperability automation for better approaches to decision support and for handling data describing the built environment. the main contributions of the work can be summarized as follows:computer science contributions: established several components of an intelligent ldp infrastructure required to geographically distribute processing for the needs of modern applications as well as conceptual work for the expansion of the platform after my dissertation (this includes triple stores, endpoints, graph databases with geosparql enabled, semantic graph building parsers, etc.). provided a ldp architecture that is modular, reproducible, and scalable such that it is able to handle the interoperability issues and knowledge representations of spatial-temporal data from various sources and formatting types. developed and implemented several ontology design patterns including the material transformation pattern, relative relationship pattern, extension to hazardous situation pattern, and spatial graph adapter pattern, with others in process. used architectural model vocabulary development or relational and descriptive spatial analysis strategies to provide linked data methodologies for remote model usage, regardless of platform or schema style; this is needed, for example, when the natural language of a domain needs to be captured in a computer-readable style. provided several use case scenarios for user queries by applying data patterns and platform component processing. created a linked data view methodology for automating data extraction using established semantic mappings; this approach enables information from several data schemas to be simultaneously translated into pattern-based rdf making interoperable spatial data. established technique for automating queries used to construct semantic graphs; this process involves using several platform components with a data extraction parser to produce in-memory graphs which help to automate and extend existing knowledge bases. resilience, energy, lca, and built environment contributions: ld views were used to automate semantic graph population with spatiotemporal data; these are implemented and in use currently for bim, citygml, ogc, ifcxml, and gbxml, but the method is extensible to other spatial data schema. established several pieces of the infrastructure needed for civil engineering and architectural model processing and aided in designing resilience work flow. created a building methodology semantic mapping technique to design complex decision support systems based on ontologies and knowledge graphs for modern web applications using open linked data principles and demonstrated this for the built environment. used architectural and civil engineering model vocabulary development or relational and descriptive spatial analysis strategies to provide linked data methodologies for remote model usage specifically in the building industries, environmental, and resilience domains. demonstrated how several crucial elements of a distributed platform would function to support more well-informed analysis of decisions made for the built environment, risk analysis, or disaster response and performed large amounts of data engineering for these domains. semantic mappings between building information modeling, energy, and life cycle analysis data is a complex and involved process. however, the benefits of aligning and using these various resources is completely worth the effort when considering the positive impacts these methods could have for cities and the environment. automatically translatable data means that tools and applications gain access to even more knowledge to use in simulations and also previously impossible compatibility with information such as geography data schemas or other neighborhood descriptors. furthermore, the numerous types of data relevant for modern questions are both too large in size and too complex in nature to be centrally located; this means that cloud-based solutions are key for accessing and using the ``big data'' required for increasing the accuracy and reliability of choices resulting from computational simulation output. as a result of this research, semantic graphs and ontology data patterns utilized in platform architectures are able to resolve various levels of data translations necessary for fully-informed data-driven decisions and knowledge interconnectivity. through poetic language and a surrealistic imagery, this thesis will explore the concept of "third culture", a term first coined by researchers john and ruth useem in the 1950s to describe a synthesis of two cultures (one from the country which the individual's parents came from and the second one being the culture in which the family settled into) that produces a new individual culture. extending itself cross-culturally, cross-linguistically, and multi-dimensionally, the three parts of this thesis present several worlds and an understanding of relationships that were born through the writer's experience of living a "third culture" of her own. my dissertation develops a theory for intrapersonal praxis that enables solidarity, justice, and peace in the face of alienation, oppression, and violence. it contributes to two schools of thought, mystical-political theology, as represented by johann baptist metz, and conflict transformation, as represented by john paul lederach. i combine the resources of a religious classic and a contemporary critical theory of subject formation to address identity-based impasse. namely, i employ the spiritual guidance and mystical anthropology of john of the cross and the ethics and philosophical anthropology of judith butler. drawing from john, i describe transformation of the self in terms of virtue, vice, and practices of attentive receptivity. drawing from butler, i describe transformation in terms of socio-political power, psychic processes, and practices of critical inquiry. in addition, i employ the affect theory of psychologist and philosopher silvan tomkins to describe the formation and transformation of patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior. with these elements, i develop an ecosystemic working theory of the transforming self. with this theory about the transforming self, i argue for a set of dispositions and practices that can foster positive transformation in and through ambivalent socio-material ecosystems. specifically, i argue for intrapersonal praxis that develops relational sensibility, defined as the capacity to experience, perceive, understand, and participate in the dynamic complexity of living. i use 'sensibility' holistically, connoting responsiveness to stimuli through the physiological senses, affective reactions, and mental perceptions. relational sensibility addresses two critiques of modernity articulated by philosophers stephen toulmin and charles taylor: the truncation of the human person and the systematization of human life. increasing sensibility can enable a second form of intrapersonal praxis that i call re-scripting. 're-scripting' combines insights from tomkins' theory about personal patterns and butler's theory about social norms to offer an understanding of intentional transformation of the self as activity at the nexus of the personal and the social. since impasse is characterized by the exhaustion of readily available means, if there is to be movement through impasse, something new must happen. my theory for praxis articulates how this might occur at the level of the self. the problem of missing-data mechanism uncertainty can be addressed in a variety of ways. statistically, one approach to the issue of missing-data mechanism uncertainty is sensitivity analysis. most approaches involve specifying a range of fixed values of a sensitivity parameter, which can reflect differences in the assumed missing-data mechanism and/or the severity of the departure from the mar mechanism. a drawback to this strategy is that researchers must explicitly make a series of mathematical judgments or decisions that are somewhat subjective. however, comparing results obtained under different assumptions of missing-data mechanisms and missingness relationships may be of greater interest than comparing results obtained from fixed values in some settings, particularly in the behavioral sciences. this is a slightly different question than the one posed by typical sensitivity analysis procedures.in this dissertation, i develop a method for sensitivity analysis that involves decisions with less subjectivity and aims to provide more objective information that is straightforward and easy to interpret. my procedure is designed to capture the degree to which statistical results are impacted by the choice of missing-data mechanism that is assumed. broadly, the method i propose represents a modification of the usual sensitivity analysis procedure and provides a statistic to quantify the stability of results in the face of missing-data mechanism uncertainty. i provide two alternatives for conducting hypothesis tests in this modified sensitivity analysis framework: a classical anova approach and monte carlo approach. i also examine several candidates for a statistic that can serve as an effect size of sensitivity to missing-data mechanism uncertainty. the performance of my procedure is evaluated in three monte carlo simulation studies.results suggest that the hypothesis testing aspect of my proposed procedure works as intended under a variety of circumstances -the monte carlo approach works particularly well. cohen's f and the coefficient of variation work well as effect size measures. applications of my procedure are illustrated using real data examples. the worst way to achieve some goals is by directly pursuing them. in the present study, the pursuit of happiness, or subjective well-being, is examined as a possible ironic process. this is done using the logic of a randomized controlled trial in a factorial design, n = 413. as a subset of this possibility, in separate experiment, the assessment of happiness is examined as a potential source of decreased happiness, n = 175. results show that the pursuit of happiness is not self-defeating when effort is isolated as a variable. it is further found that the assessment of happiness is not self-defeating compared to control assessments. both experiments were conducted in in-vivo settings and used email and online surveys. implications and further ways of advancing the field with regard to effort and subjective well-being are discussed. the love of one's own and the love of honor lead, depending on which is most highly desired, to prioritization of either the private and domestic or the public and political and are thus often in tension with one another. homer's epics, which served as the foundation of greek literature and the richest of literary resources to plato, aristotle, and the writers of attic greece, set before us these two desires, their consequences for individual citizens, and their political excellences and dangers for the view of ages to come. the observation that the love of one's own and the love of honor are powerful political forces is thus not new; but much less is it outdated. as the federalist papers demonstrate, the framers of the united states constitution recognized the power of both these passions, and alexis de tocqueville would later note the importance of the love of one's own as he observed its expression in family, marriage, and the domestic sphere of american life. yet the relevance of homer's portrayal of the tension between these passions has been largely ignored within political theory. recent interpretations of ancient greek literature and homer, among them hannah arendt's the human condition, predispose contemporary readers to overlook aspects of homer's poetry which detail the place of love of one's own and private life within the iliad and the odyssey. this dissertation brings homer's complex vision of the relative value of and interplay between the love of one's own and the love of honor to bear on enduring questions about politics, justice, and the meaning of human life. i argue that homer portrayed the love of one's own as praiseworthy rather than as a source of injustice or merely associated with the basest necessities of human survival. homer's portrayal of odysseus, a hero whose greatest accomplishment is reunion with his family and household, emphasizes the importance of love of one's own family and home as a politically stabilizing force. chikungunya (chikv) virus is an alphavirus, transmitted to humans by the bite of the infected aedes mosquitoes. transgenic mosquitoes with resistance to chikv replication could control the spread of the virus among humans. we designed 8 hammerhead ribozymes (hrz#1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) against conserved regions within the nonstructural genes (nsp1, nsp2, nsp3 and nsp4) of the chikv viral genome. in vitro cleavage assays demonstrated the catalytic activity of these hrzs against artificial chikv target rnas. these hrzs were cloned into a pantrophic retrovirus vector with aedes trnaval pol iii driving expression of the hrzs, and a poly a (60) tail sequence to recruit rna helicase for disruption of secondary structure in the target viral rna. the cloned plasmids were transfected into vero cells and selected for hygromycin resistance for 6-8 weeks. reverse transcriptase pcr confirmed expression of all hrzs in the transformed cells. the transformed cell lines were challenged with the chikv 181/25 strain at a moi of 0.0001 and the viral titer of the supernatants was determined at 2 days post infection by using a tcid50-cpe assay. hrz#1 and hrz#8 targeting the nsp1 and nsp4 genes, respectively, yielded 2 and 5 logs suppression of chikv replication as compared to wild type infected vero cells. homogenous cell populations were obtained by single cell sorting of hrz transformed cells using facs, and the clones were challenged with chikv at a moi of 0.0001. the viral titers of supernatants determined at 3 dpi using tcid50-ifa demonstrated complete of suppression of chikv replication with some of the hrz-transformed vero cell clones expressing hrz# 2, 4, 5, 6 and 8. qrt-pcr also showed significant reduction of chikv rna copies with these hrz-transformed vero cell clones as compared to the control negatives. indirect assessment of caspase-3 activity from the infected supernatants collected from those clones revealed very low levels of caspase 3 activity as compared to negative control, chikv infected vero cells. hrz# 2, 4, 5, 6 and 8 are ideal candidates for generating transgenic refractoriness in mosquitoes, and will be cloned into the pxlbacii 3xp3 ecfp piggybac transposon vector for injection of mosquito embryos. based on these in vitro studies, we anticipate that transgenic mosquitoes expressing these hammerhead ribozymes will be refractory to chikv infection and transmission, and may be useful in effective suppression of chikv in natural populations. actinide materials are central to the fission-based nuclear energy systems. the challenges with the nuclear energy generation are the safety of nuclear power plants, the disposal of nuclear waste, and the possible diversion of nuclear material for the production of nuclear weapons. these problems must be addressed to make nuclear energy safer and cheaper. a deep understanding and characterization of actinide materials are required to design the next-generation nuclear energy systems. this thesis focuses on actinide materials in aqueous phase using computational methods. di-oxo actinide cations (ano$^{n+}2$, $n$=1, 2) or better known as actinyl ions are commonly found and important species in solutions and in nuclear fuel cycle. speciation, thermodynamic and transport properties of the actinyl ions are of the primary focus in the present work. the most appropriate way to study these properties are by using molecular dynamics (md) simulations. central to md simulations are the force field parameters, which model the interactions between atoms. first, a general approach is developed to obtain force fields for actinide systems via electronic structure-quantum-mechanical (qm) calculations which include important many body solvation effects. effective pairwise additive force field parameters for ano$2^{n+}$--water interactions (an = u, np, pu, am and $n$ = 1, 2) were obtained using the proposed approach. the force field utilizes a simple lennard-jones plus electrostatics form, and can be further used to extend the force field to other systems using mixing rules. further, intramolecular force fields for stretching and bending of the actinyl ions were developed from qm calculations. developed force field parameters were used in md simulations to simulate actinyl ions in water. the predicted hydration free energies and water coordination numbers for actinyl ions match well with the available experimental data. studying the dynamic properties, actinyl ions were found to diffuse with five water molecules as an "iceberg'', resulting in considerably slower diffusion when compared to pure water. monocation actinyl ions diffuse only slightly faster than their dication counterparts. mechanisms and rate constants for the water exchanges between the first and outer coordination shells of actinyl ions were studied. an associative interchange exchange mechanism was observed for +2 charged actinyl ions, whereas a dissociative mechanism was observed for +1 charged actinyl ions. factors governing the exchange were identified: o=an=o angle flexibility for +2 actinyl ions, whereas distance between central actinide and water's oxygen atoms for +1 actinyl ions matter. obtained results are in good agreement with the available literature. further, the interactions between actinyl ions and several ligands commonly found in aqueous phase $viz.$ na$^{+}$, cl$^{-}$, oh$^{-}$, f$^{-}$, no$_{3}^{-}$, co$_{3}^{2-}$, and so$_{4}^{2-}$ were studied. potential of mean force and stability constants were obtained for the interactions. trends and values of stability constants match reasonably well with the experimental results. further, spatial distribution functions were studied to identify various contact ion pairs, solvent shared ion pairs and solvent separated ion pairs in the aqueous solution. in the end, we focused on actinide nano-scale clusters which are made by the self-assembly of 20-60 actinyl polyhedra. building blocks for some of the nano-scale clusters-uranyl peroxide and uranyl phosphite were studied in the aqueous phase by first developing force fields from qm methods and using them in md simulations. predicted structural properties agree well with those from the experiments. the force field parameters proposed for building blocks of actinide nanoclusters paves the way to simulate the nanoclusters. the large nanoclusters could be simply filtered out, thus have the potential to be very useful in nuclear waste separation. the study of actinide systems in this work are helpful in characterization and understanding of the physio-chemical behavior of actinides at the molecular level. such an understanding is very fundamental and instrumental in designing new experiments, in meeting the specific design goals, and in building the scientific basis of advanced nuclear systems. finally, the computational methodologies used and developed in this work can be extended to other systems as well. it is commonly assumed that socialism is a political ideology that never took root in the united states. this thesis demonstrates that, at least at the municipal level, socialists managed to be successful in many respects. the thesis takes a particularly close look at the electoral appeals, organizational strategies, and other party activities of the socialists of milwaukee, wi in the early half of the 20th century. it concludes that, given an often hostile electoral environment, socialist parties and candidates must adopt a degree of flexibility in order to win office. process-induced uniaxial strain is widely used in cmos transistor fabrication in order to increase carrier mobility or current drive because of strain-induced band structure changes. although a significant body of research exists on uniaxially-strained mosfets, most previous effort has focused on carrier mobility, how to augment it with strain and how to understand the strain-induced change. in this study, measurements and analysis of the effects of uniaxial-stress-induced changes in mosfet mobility are extended to explore stress dependent changes in mobility degradation factor, onand off-state gate tunneling current, impact ionization rate, c-v characteristics, and ring oscillator performance (standby and dynamic power dissipation and speed). in addition to this exploration of uniaxial-strain-induced changes in mosfets, esaki diodes offer a new transport laboratory, i.e. interband tunneling, for understanding the effects of uniaxial strain. very few papers have been published on the influence of stress on the current-voltage characteristics of esaki tunnel diode and the strain effects are poorly understood. in this thesis, the impact of uniaxial strain on the peak tunneling current density of esaki tunnel diodes is theoretically calculated, considering strain-induced changes in the bandgap, electron repopulation among different valleys (only for multi-valley conduction band minimum) and the reduced mass along the tunneling directions. esaki tunnel diodes, made of four different materials, i.e. si, ge, gaas and inas, are studied with tunneling current flowing along three different directions (<100>, <110> and <111>) and with uniaxial stress applied either parallel or perpendicular to the tunneling current direction. the theory is compared to the available experimental results and a good agreement between the calculation and experimental data is obtained. from the theoretical calculation, it is found that uniaxial stress can be used to improve peak tunneling current density of esaki tunnel diodes and the optimum directions for current and uniaxial stress are identified to achieve the largest increase in peak tunneling current for a given magnitude of uniaxial stress. chemical analysis is being performed in devices operated at ever decreasing length scales in order to harness the fundamental benefits of micro and nanoscale phenomena while minimizing operating footprint and sample size. the advantages of moving traditional sample or chemical processing steps (e.g. separation, detection, and reaction) into microand nanofluidic devices have been demonstrated, and they arise from the relatively rapid rates of heat and mass transport at small length scales. the use of electrochemical methods in microanoscale systems to control and improve these processes holds great promise. unfortunately, much is still not understood about the coupling of multiple electrode driven processes in a confined environment nor about the fundamental changes in device performance that occur as geometries approach the nanoscale regime. at the nanoscale a significant fraction of the sample volume is in close contact with the device surface, i.e. most of the sample is contained within electronic or diffusion layers associated with surface charge or surface reactions, respectively. the work presented in this thesis aims to understand some fundamental different behaviors observed in microanofluidic structures, particularly those containing one or more embedded, metallic electrode structures. first, a quantitative method is devised to describe the impact of electric fields on electrochemistry in multi-electrode microanofluidic systems. next the chemical manipulation of small volumes (&#8804; 10-13 l) in microanofluidic structures is explored by creating regions of high ph and high dissolved gas (h2) concentration through the electrolysis of h2o. massively parallel arrays of nanochannel electrodes, or embedded annular nanoband electrodes (eanes), are then studied with a focus on achieving enhanced signals due to coupled electrokinetic and electrochemical effects. in eane devices, electroosmotic flow results from the electric field generated between the closely spaced working and counter electrode, causing beneficial convective transport to the electrode surface. finally, redox cycling of electroactive species at recessed ring-disk nanoelectrode arrays is described with a focus on the use of finite element calculations to predict electrode performance as a function of electrode geometry. the improved understanding of electrochemistry, electrokinetics and mass transport in micrometer and nanometer scale structures presented in this thesis should guide the development of next-generation devices for combinatorial processing involving electrochemical analysis, reagent generation and heterogeneous reaction. this study examined the direction of indirect effects for mother-adolescent conflict as a mediator between specific adolescent problem behaviors (i.e., aggression and depressive symptoms) and maternal psychological control over the transition to adolescence. three years of self-report data were collected from 159 mothers and their adolescents (55.3% girls), as the adolescents completed 6th-8th grades. simultaneous child-driven and parent-driven indirect effects models were tested using longitudinal path analysis. results indicated that over three time points, the connection between adolescent aggression (and depressive symptoms) and maternal psychological control was best supported as child-driven, indirect, and mediated by mother-adolescent conflict; there were no indications of parent-driven indirect effects in the current study. this research corroborates other recent studies finding support for child effects on parenting behaviors during early adolescence. balance retraining is a critical part of rehabilitation for many individuals following neurotrauma such as stroke. this work focuses on implementation of visual feedback in balance therapy with the ultimate goal of improving the efficacy of clinical balance rehabilitation. using the custom-built wehab balance rehabilitation software tool, this work examines strategies for implementing visual feedback, as well as interpretation of balance information based on mediolateral weight shifting. by focusing on the nintendo? wii balance board gaming peripheral, which is inexpensive and widely available, this work has the potential to enable visual feedback for balance therapy in both clinical and home settings. one-hundred twenty-two young, healthy subjects between the ages of 17 and 22 participated in two studies of visual feedback design strategy. the first study examined the effects of feedback arrangement (direct center of pressure vs. mediolateral weight distribution), numeric feedback, and dimensionality, while the second study investigated implementation of feedback based on smoothed and filtered center of pressure information. together, these studies demonstrated that feedback design has a significant impact on subject performance in both quiet standing and mediolateral weight-shifting balance tasks.using mediolateral weight-shifting data from the young, healthy subjects in the first study, balance control parameters were obtained by matching experimental balance performance to simulated results using an inverted pendulum model. the close matching obtained across all subjects indicated the usefulness of this novel application of the simple model in examining mediolateral weight shifting. additionally, this modeling study incorporated a novel non-minimum phase behavior metric in classifying subject weight-shifting performance.in addition to its use in a research setting, the wehab system has been deployed to five local balance therapy facilities. preliminary examination of the data from clinical sessions indicates that instrumentation of clinical balance therapy could provide a method for quicker balance assessment and quantitative insight into patient balance performance. additionally, comparison of clinical data with data from the young, healthy subjects and 13 age-matched subjects demonstrates differences between the subject populations that should be explored further in future work. this study evaluates the performance of bis-zinc ii dipicolylamine (znii-dpa) conjugated squaraine rotaxane as bacterial targeting probes. firstly, binding assays with planktonic bacteria show this probe to selectively bind cells best during the log phase of the cell cycle, with up to 99% binding efficiency. these probes binds both gram-negative and gram-positive strains of bacteria with varying affinity depending on phospholipid content of gram-positive cells and structural makeup of the gram-negative cell wall. planktonic staining assays and flow cytometry of the amide version of the probe show a threefold increase in the fluorescence intensity when compared to treatments with the triazole version. phosphatidylserine sensor 480 analogs with one znii-dpa unit exhibit a similar affinity to the bacterial cells, and a faster diffusion rate. multivalent squaraine rotaxanes exhibit a high affinity for a wide range of bacteria at low concentrations with planktonic bacterial staining assays and slide agglutination assays. selectivity to the bacteria and cross linking was observed even when treating bacteria in the presence of mammalian cells. bis-znii dpa versions of the probe were more effective as agglutination agents than the mono-znii dpa version. biometric computations are becoming increasingly popular, and their impact in real world applications is undeniable. there are different types of biometric data used in a variety of applications such as biometric recognition including verification and identification. because of the highly sensitive nature of biometric data, its protection is essential during biometric computations.based on the computations that need to be carried out and the type of biometric data, there is a need for application-specific privacy preserving solutions. these solutions can be provided by developing secure biometric computations in a way that no information gets revealed during the protocol execution. in some biometric applications (e.g. verification and identification), data is distributed amongst different parties engaged in computations. in some other applications, the execution of computations is bounded by the computational power of the parties, motivating the use of cloud or external servers. in both these cases, 1) there is a higher risk for sensitive data to be disclosed, making secure biometric protocols a prominent need for such practical applications, 2) it is more challenging to develop novel and efficient solutions for these computational settings, making the design of secure biometric protocols a research-worthy effort.in our research, we worked on three different biometric modalities which require various computational settings. in more detail: we focused on voice recognition in semi-honest and malicious adversarial models using floating point arithmetic (the most common and accurate type of data for voice recognition). based on the application, we considered two secure computational settings which are two-party and multi-party settings. for this purpose, we designed new secure floating-point operations necessary for voice recognition computations. we designed novel and general approaches to securely compute three genomic tests (i.e., paternity, ancestry, and genomic compatibility). we considered server aided two-party computation for those applications. also, based on the genomic computational settings we proposed novel certified inputs technique to provide stronger security guarantees with respect to malicious users. we built secure fingerprint recognition protocols which include both alignment (for the first time) and matching processes. the solutions were proposed in both two-party and multi-party computational settings. we also designed a number of new secure and efficient protocols for essential operations in fingerprint recognition process. to the best of our knowledge, our unique contributions in different biometric modalities largely benefit the field of secure biometric computation. our solutions consider the nature of computational setting (two-party and multi-party settings) of biometric applications in practice and efficiently protect the data during the computations. in addition, our secure protocols and building blocks are general and can be used for other applications where the same data types and settings are used. this dissertation contains three essays on macroeconomics. in chapter one, i develop a business cycle model with price rigidities and differential nominal wage rigidities among workers of different skill levels. the model captures observed heterogeneity in the labor market. in particular, high-skilled individuals have more volatile real wages, but less volatile hours relative to low-skilled individuals over the business cycle. i use the model to evaluate the welfare effects of monetary policy. i find that the optimal monetary policy is contingent on the welfare weight attached to each skill group, but the redistributive consequences from following any one policy are quantitatively small.in chapter two, which is coauthored with michael pries and eric sims, we explore the relationship between volatility and welfare. even though households prefer smooth streams of consumption and leisure, welfare can be increasing in the volatility of an exogenous driving force if factor supply is sufficiently elastic. we provide some analytical results for a model without capital, and do some quantitative exercises in a model with capital and a variety of shocks. welfare is greater in high shock volatility regimes under plausible parameter values. augmenting the model with features that increase the elasticity of factor supply extends the range of parameters over which higher volatility results in greater welfare.in the final chapter, i analyze the consequences of including home production in a new keynesian model with staggered price setting. home production amplifies responses to technology and monetary policy shocks. compared to a model without home production, the model generates close to twice the output response to a monetary policy shock. i consider the implications of several nominal interest rate rules and show that a traditional taylor rule lacks its usual attractive properties. alternatively, strict inflation targeting implements the constrained efficient allocation. the web has witnessed an explosion of dynamic content generation to provide web users with an interactive and personalized experience. while traditional web caching techniques work well when redundancy occurs on an object-level basis (page, image, etc.), the use of dynamic content presents unique challenges. although past work has addressed mechanisms for detecting redundancy despite dynamic content, the scalability of such techniques is limited. in this thesis, an effective and highly scalable approach, explicit end of data (eeod) is presented, which allows the content designer to easily signal boundaries between cacheable and non-cacheable content. eeod provides application-to-stack mechanisms to guarantee separation of packets with the end goal of simplifying packet-level caching mechanisms. most importantly, eeod does not require client-side modifications and can function in a variety of server-sideetwork deployment modes. additionally, experimental studies are presented, showing eeod offers 25% and 30% relative improvements in terms of bandwidth efficiency and retrieval time over current approaches in the literature. nonlinear site response analyses can provide more accurate predictions of ground motions during an earthquake than equivalent linear procedures, especially for higher amplitude ground motions. however, the advantage of performing the nonlinear analysis is limited by the availability and accuracy of the models used to represent the soil profile. the availability of models that represent cemented soil is very limited because the response of such soil to dynamic loading is not well understood, even though natural cementation occurs in many seismically active areas. this research investigates the shear modulus and damping of cemented sand and cemented clay through laboratory tests with pulse generating transducers, bender elements and resonant column devices. the effect of different factors including the cement type, cement content, void ratio, confining pressure, sand particle properties and clay type have on the reduction of shear modulus and increase in damping with increasing shear strain as well as the maximum shear modulus are examined through the test results. new shear stiffness models, simsoil-cs for cemented sand and simsoil-cc for cemented clay, based on the model simsoil by pestana and salvati, 2006 are proposed to represent dynamic properties such as maximum shear modulus, modulus and damping variation with the shear strain of the cemented sand and cemented clay. model simsoil-cs and simsoil-cc were developed and evaluated with the data from this and previous studies. model parameters are determined for different types of soil and cementation agents. the relationship between the unconfined compressive strength and the model parameter of the cement type and cement content are also investigated and presented for cemented sand and cemented clay respectively. that relationship can be used to estimate the cement type and cement content with a simple unconfined compressive test when those properties are unknown or difficult to determine. this research advances the understanding of cemented sand and cemented clay by providing a database of test results, and creation of models which can be used to predict the response of cemented soils to dynamic loads. this can be useful for performing earthquake site response analysis for naturally cemented sites or sites that have been improved by cementation. alteration of spent nuclear fuel in a geological repository under oxidizing conditions is likely to result in abundant uranyl compounds. the proposed repository at yucca mountain, nevada is intended to store about 70,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel in the unsaturated zone of a welded tuff sequence. following failure of canisters that encapsulate the waste, contents may be exposed both to air and water and undergo repetitive wetting and drying events. incorporation of radionuclides into the uranyl alteration phases may significantly reduce their mobility, thereby impacting repository performance. of particular interest is 237np owing to its long half-life (2.14 x 106 years) and potential mobility in groundwater. powders of the synthetic uranyl phase soddyite, (uo2)2(sio4)(h2o)2, a framework type structure, and uranophane, ca[(uo2)(sio3oh)]2(h2o)5, kasolite, pb[(uo2)(sio4)]h2o, na compreignacite, na2[(uo2)3o2(oh)3]2(h2o)7, and becquerelite, ca[(uo2)3o2(oh)3]2(h2o)8, all of which are sheet type structures, were synthesized in the presence of np5+ under varying temperature and ph conditions. uranophane, kasolite, boltwoodite k[(uo2)(sio3oh)](h2o)1.5, and na boltwoodite iv k,na[(uo2)(sio3oh)](h2o)1.5 were synthesized in the presence of np as well as p, ca and/or mg. single crystals of na metaschoepite, na[(uo2)4o2(oh)5]ìâåá5h2o were synthesized in the presence of np5+ and laser ablation verified that np can be incorporated within the structure of a uranyl phase. incorporation of np5+ into soddyite increased steadily with synthesis temperature. np incorporation into uranophane, becquerelite, and kasolite was not dependent on synthesis temperature. np uptake in uranophane and kasolite was found to be dependent on synthesis ph, with an increase in np uptake with higher ph. uranophane, boltwoodite and na boltwoodite showed an increase in np incorporation in the presence of p. boltwoodite showed an even higher np uptake when mg and p were both present in the synthesis. thermal analysis was completed for the uranyl phases soddyite, becquerelite, na compreignacite, uranophane, and kasolite. tga curves for becquerelite, na compreignacite and uranophane showed loss of interlayer water groups by 100ìâå¡c. soddyite and kasolite showed more gradual tga curves and retention of water groups up to 400ìâå¡c for soddyite and 550ìâå¡c for kasolite, with agreement shown by high temperature powder xrd data. in experiment 1, undergraduates (n = 87) wrote either about trivial events or about a secret while imagining (a) an accepting confidant, (b) a non-accepting confidant, or (c) no confidant. unlike the no-confidant group, the accepting group reported fewer illnesses at 8-week follow-up than did the non-accepting and trivial groups, especially to the extent that this group found their confidants to be accepting and discreet. experiment 2 (n = 74) used the same design, except that the confidant manipulation came after the writing. eight weeks later, the accepting group' having imagined reactions that were more accepting and less judgmental than the non-accepting group' again reported fewer illnesses than did the non-accepting and trivial groups. the author suggests that when people keep personal secrets, they often do so because they fear being ostracized. revealing to an accepting confidant can reduce distress associated with not belonging and, therefore, can lead to health benefits. this dissertation argues that when properly translated, the twelfth-century concept of eternity cannot merely be defined by what it lacks, that is, time, but by what it is, in so far as it is possible to articulate it. twelfth-century thinkers, here considered from 1075 to 1170, used the concepts of eternity and time to articulate the nature of god and to pursue the wholeness of being, life, and knowledge amidst the seeming fragmentation of the temporal world. their thought on this subject was informed by both the writings of church fathers, especially augustine, and latin translations of platonic philosophy. the first section examines two twelfth-century theological masterpieces that clearly cite augustine's de trinitate as their primary sources. chapter one begins with anselm's monologion (1075-1076), one of the most well known medieval articulations of atemporal eternity. this work is significant because it articulates the concept of eternity as divine maximum and then applies this transcendent concept to divine immanence. chapter two argues that richard of st. victor's de trinitate (1170) develops anselm's theories of eternity as divine maximum in a trinitarian direction by articulating more fully what it means to be a trinity of co-eternal persons. the second section looks at twelfth-century works that are inspired by platonic sources, primarily calcidius' translation and commentary on plato's timaeus, macrobius, and martianus capella. chapter three introduces the key hermeneutic problems related to divine eternity present in these twelfth-century sources for platonism. most notable among these problems is that platonic sources did not always consider the maximum god to be eternal, even though the scriptures and augustine presented the entire trinity as eternal and maximum. how then do twelfth-century thinkers reconcile the platonism they see in these texts with orthodox christian beliefs? chapter five looks at how and why bernard of chartres (d.1124), william of conches (fl.1120&ndash;1145), and peter abelard (1079&ndash;1142) address the problems presented in chapter three. chapter six, the final chapter, presents the conception of eternity in the metaphysics of thierry of chartres (d.1150) as a philosophical tour de force, which not only reconciles platonism with christian orthodoxy but also relates platonic and aristotelian ideas through stoic logic. to do this, thierry applies pythagorean mathematics to the trinity and employs the concept of universitas as a category that spans eternity, perpetuity, and time. it is then suggested that this text may have influence richard of st. victor's de trinitate. accurate unsteady measurements are required for studying the flows in high speed turbomachines, which rely on the interaction between rotating and stationary components. using statistics of phase locked ensembles simplifies the problem, but accurate frequency response in the 10-100 khz range significantly limits the applicable techniques. this research advances the state of the art for phase resolved measurement techniques using for high speed turbomachinery flows focusing on the following areas: development, validation, and uncertainty quantification. four methods were developed and implemented: an unsteady total pressure probe, the multiple overheat hot-wire method, the slanted hot-wire method, and the phase peak yaw hot-wire method. these methods allow for the entire phase locked average flow field to be measured (temperature, pressure, and velocity components, swirl angle, etc.). no trusted reference measurement or representative canonical flow exists for comparison of the phase resolved quantities, making validation challenging. five different validation exercises were performed to increase the confidence and explore the range of applicability. these exercises relied on checking for consistency with expected flow features, comparing independent measurements, and cross validation with cfd. the combined uncertainties for the measurements were quantified using uncertainty estimates from investigations into the elemental error sources. the frequency response uncertainty of constant temperature hot-wire system was investigated using a novel method of illuminating the wire with a laser pulse. the uncertainty analysis provided estimates for the uncertainty in the measurements as well as showing the sensitivity to various sources of error. mania, narcissism, antisocial personality disorder/psychopathy, and substance use disorders have been linked theoretically through johnson, leedom, and muhtadie's (2012) dominance behavioral system (dbs). the structure of widely used measures of these forms of psychopathology was examined in two phases to determine the extent to which they cohered to define dimensions related strongly to dominance. in phase 1, the item-level structure of the hypomanic personality scale (eckblad &amp; chapman, 1986) and the narcissistic personality inventory (raskin &amp; terry, 1988) was examined concurrently both in (a) community adults currently receiving psychiatric treatment (n = 737), and (b) university undergraduates (n = 487). these analyses yielded self-assurance, lability, exhibitionism, and manipulativeness factors across samples, with an additional body confidence factor emerging in the student data. in the phase 2 analyses using these same samples, the structure of a wider range of mania, narcissism, antisocial personality disorder/psychopathy, and substance use disorder measures was examined, including factor-based scales modeling the emergent phase 1 factors. these additional analyses yielded a replicable four-factor structure of social ascendancy, antisociality, negative affectivity, and substance use across samples, with social ascendancy (defined primarily by measures of grandiose narcissism and boldness) being strongly related to traits defining a dominant personality style. antisociality (defined by measures of antagonism and disinhibition) also was related to dominance to some degree, but negative affectivity (defined by vulnerable narcissism and affective lability measures) and substance use were weakly related to dominance. based on these results, grandiose narcissism dimensions assessing content related to elevated extraversion (e.g., leadership, exhibitionism) appear especially closely related to dominance. considering the degree to which forms of psychopathology theoretically linked via the dbs actually are defined by dominance has the potential to sharpen their conceptualization and measurement, given that some forms are more clearly linked to dominance than are others. it is very easy to misuse words when describing debord and what he has produced. we should not refer to debord as an 'artist,' and we should not refer to his 'art.' he requested to not be referred to as a 'philosopher' in an interview with giorgio agamben. we should be very wary and skeptical toward referring to his 'aesthetics.' we should not decidedly call him a 'theorist,' since his venture, like that of marx, was to unify theory and praxis dialectically so to dissolve the distinction between the two. we cannot label debord as a 'situationist,' partly because the situationist international dissolved before many of his most potent writings, but also because the situationist international deliberately avoided such conclusive labels, perhaps in part in fear of creating a dogmatic legacy. this loss for words is a necessary product of negation &#0151; that is, of a synthesis between the hegelian thesis of a dominant society and its antithesis &#0151;the negative, wherein debord situates himself. the negative creates something new out of the two concepts, but it supersedes what exists and leads us into a realm where new words, descriptions, and approaches to a changing historical timeline must be found, and old descriptions of 'great men,' 'artists,' 'philosophers,' and 'theorists' no longer have meaning. debord very intentionally spoke against these ideological characterizations, resisting ideological representations of individuals and individualism, resisting mere historicization, and thereby resisting recuperation. he sought to force his predecessors to consider that revolutionary strategy was the heart of his work. in a similar spirit, debord's films and writings aimed to dismantle the ideology of modern society and the dominant ideology which prefaced it and continues to inform it: western christian religion. in his book, the society of the spectacle, debord says that he intends to 'speak the language of religion for the last time,' meaning, before religion is fully negated and superseded. the ideological superstructure of morality had already been historically challenged by the marquis de sade, friedrich nietzsche, and isidore ducasse (lautr&eacute;amont), all of whose writings debord knew intimately. inversions of traditional morality and of religion (which are interrelated but not equal) were achieved in all their writings through the use of the negative: the triumph of evil, perversion, and the uncivilized in the face of societal repression. however, the goal for debord was neither hedonist pleasure nor individualism. debord's violent attack on religion and on society strove to overthrow the ideological power of religion by demystifying modern people of naturalized ideology. academics have been taught to approach films and books in ways which are formulated by specific disciplines, academic standards, and therefore distilled ideology that defines the acceptable, the successful, the popularized, and the prestigious. however, debord strove to combat dominant power structures, academia, the 'project of western philosophy,' and art. he strove to make no concessions to such standards. given the nature of debord's revolutionary hopes, which coincide with my own, i hope to write as polemically, forcefully, and truthfully as possible, instead of preparing my tone and ideas for acclaim or recognition in any discipline, or for mild acceptance by institutions which may be privy to review. this is the only approach that can do justice to debord?s style, method, and intent. more importantly, i, like debord, hegel, and marx, prioritize critical analysis of the predominant, general trends of society such as capital and the spectacle; i prioritize the grand narrative of the spirit of history, its essence and ideology, and its ongoing dialectical change. commenting on marx's the german ideology in his notes for in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni, debord writes, 'partial histories are not possible. each history must be universal. it is only through universal history that one can understand particular cases.' while writing a history of guy debord may sound highly specific and obscure to the vast majority of my contemporaries, it is in fact the general rather than the specific that informs the specific for marx, for debord, and in my own thinking. debord writes in the defense of the society of the spectacle:'the author does not intend to critique this or that detail of our &eacute;poque, a syndicalist or a starlet, but rather the &eacute;poque in general, through which the details are inconsequential. he chooses details because of their function and accessibility in their spectacular diffusion.' by moving from general to specific, i do not intend to disregard historical accuracy; on the contrary, i strive for extreme accuracy of both historical facts and critical perception, without which the final impact of my writing would be insignificant to the dialectical currents of thought and of history. too often, insignificant details become petty obsessions used as distractions from the structure of modern life and the inherent contradictions within those existing structures. entire professions and life's works have justified the preoccupation with and production of the insignificant. i hope that, in opposition to detail-oriented trivialities which are so often produced in academic theses and dissertations, the following analysis will provide the illuminating truths with regards to society, life, revolution, and the dialectical potential for the future, the grand themes which are the core components of debord's work, and the illuminating critiques that motivated me to study debord in the first place. drawing such grand connections between religion, mass media, blockbusters, and state ideology is necessarily ambitious. it is ambitious to the extent that the writer must have perception that extends outside of the specifics of their own context to make conclusions about the function of ideology on the whole; it extends to the realm of the knowledge of a hypothetical god. it is exactly this omnipotent, godly view over the seemingly universal dominion of ideology that is necessary to the understanding of ideology in the development from its past to its present manifestations. this omniscient perspective is possible because of the interconnectivity between ideological structures through the system of capital. debord cites proudhonmarx-picasso, 'each ideological domain, despite its relative autonomy, is connected to other ideological domains by its first cause: its economic base.' my analysis is concerned almost solely with debord's works, and in that way it is both highly general and highly specific: it is a close reading. the majority of the sources i will use are primary sources. after reading the available writings by debord, i have had the opportunity to visit the archives of guy debord, the 'fonds guy debord' at the biblioth&egrave;que nationale de france where i was able to immerse myself in his working notes for the society of the spectacle (book), the society of the spectacle (film), howls for sade, and in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni. i have also had the opportunity to immerse myself in debord's self-categorized reading notes labeled as 'marxism,' 'philosophy/sociology,' and 'poetry.' in pursuit of the ideas and practices of debord rather than of his legacy, i find it most appropriate and most useful to concentrate on the primary materials of his books, films, and notes, more so than on other written histories. however, i greatly admire the venture taken by anselm jappe in his intellectual biography of guy debord. jappe's effort to write a biography that tracked debord's ideas is highly valuable. i hope that my analysis can be useful in a similar way. instead of conveying dead historical mythologies, i hope to begin to convey the depth of debord's revolutionary vigor and insight. debord, himself, was an admirer of the genre of the intellectual biography, particularly karl korsh's intellectual biography, karl marx. i aim to combine dialectics with biographical, historical, material, and physical information to create a useful analysis in the marxist methodology of dialectical materialism, and i see this as possible through something similar to the intellectual biography, perhaps even another approach to it, the close reading. it is important for the reader to take note that my analysis of debord is not removed from my own socio-historical time and context. i had once believed it possible to present an objectively accurate, reasonable, and contextualized approach to a subject, but i am now confident that i could not have been more wrong. after a long developing interest in debord's ideas, i decided that my thesis should not only represent an area of debord's oeuvre which would be a contribution to the existing understanding debord, but also my existing time and context. despite the fact that a thesis written at and for a roman catholic university might seem like a highly inappropriate context for a thesis about the destruction of religion and its historical authority in the roman catholic church, it would be wrong of me to disregard the fact that the catholic context and catholic education given to me at notre dame deeply influenced and informed the creation of the following ideas. i like to think that the relationship between this paper and the roman catholic university is a dialectical negative and the dominant ideology; that general dialectical and ideological struggles resonate with my specific situation, and likewise that my specific situation forms my own thinking as a response. at the same time, the critique of religion is not simply a specific, contextual response: it is the 'prerequisite of all criticism.' in order to understand the dissemination of spectacular ideology, it is necessary to understand its source: 'the spectacle is the reconstruction of the religious illusion.' as debord observes in his notes, marx foresees the development of religious ideology into the secular fetishism of the spectacle in the introduction to a contribution to the critique of hegel's philosophy of right: 'for germany, the criticism of religion has been essentially completed, and the criticism of religion is the prerequisite of all criticism (...) germany will one day find itself on the level of european decadence before ever having been on the level of european emancipation. it will be comparable to a fetish worshipper pining away with the diseases of christianity.' mathematical equivalence is a foundational concept. unfortunately, most children (ages 7-11) struggle to understand it and have difficulties solving math equivalence problems, which have operations on both sides of the equal sign (e.g., 3 + 4 = __ + 5). one prevailing explanation for children's poor performance is that children encode, or internally represent, the problems inaccurately. previous research has found that children's encoding of math equivalence problems depends on format, with accuracy encoding right-blank problems (e.g., 3 + 4 = 5 + __) being much lower than accuracy encoding left-blank problems (e.g., 3 + 4 = __ + 5). following the prevailing account, if poor encoding causes solving difficulties, then right-blank problems should be more difficult to solve correctly than left-blank problems. however, a second, equally plausible prediction is that the role of encoding in solving differs based on problem format. this project examined the role of encoding in (1) children's performance solving math equivalence problems, using an integrative data analysis, and (2) children's learning to solve math equivalence problems correctly, using a randomized experiment. contrary to the prevailing view that encoding performance predicts solving performance, accuracy on right-blank problems was significantly higher than accuracy on left-blank problems. additionally, overall encoding accuracy was significantly correlated with performance on right-blank problems only. results indicate that the role of encoding in children's solving of math equivalence problems depends on problem format, and specifically that the interpretation of what is encoded may matter more than accuracy encoding problem features. furthermore, results from the randomized experiment suggest it may be more efficient to teach math equivalence using right-blank versus left-blank problems. in this study i reveal that the late colonial indigenous communities in the altiplano generated a process of political transformations from below that challenges key previous assumptions about community politics. it had been mostly assumed that the political structure of the indigenous community continued deeply dependent on the cacique figure until the end.[1] thus, the colonial government's policies directed to undermine and erase the office of the cacique, mainly for their contentious role in the late colonial insurrections, have been largely explained as an attempt to eliminate the political power of the communities that caciques controlled.on the contrary, i argue that beginning in the mid-eighteenth century, commoners themselves began to organize collective movements and litigations with former secondary figures such as the segundas, jilacatas, and alcalde de indios. these commoners' movements sought to respond to their immediate political needs by adapting enduring forms of collective views and practice. they used for instance, mechanisms of cooperation, cargo system, and community funds for support, intelligence, and defray the expenses of the costly procedures in the legal system. this study examines a pool of 445 primary sources constituted mainly of petitions, letters, litigations records, and official investigation reports that were generated by collective community movements. this examination reveals that commoners engaged collectively in their struggles, generated an explosion of litigations, and a series of disputes against their caciques, local authorities, and elite sectors. they struggled primarily about their immediate problems; however, aware that most communities faced similar problems, they were open to cooperate and join efforts with other communities. the aristocratic-style caciques that had formerly appeared prominently on behalf of their communities began to be displaced by these movements led by the former secondary figures taking leadership roles. this was a complex intra-community process that helps to explain the significance of the community struggles in the late colonial and the early-republican decades against the elites (spanish, creoles, mestizos, and indians) as demonstrated by scholars studying the nineteenth century andes.[2] [1] see scarlett o'phelan, kurakas sin sucesiones, del cacique al alcalde de indios, peru y bolivia 1750-1835, (cusco: cbc 1997): 29-39; nuria sala i vila, y se armo el tole tole, tributo indígena y movimientos sociales en el virreynato del peru, 17840-1814. (ayacucho, peru: instituto de estudios regionales, jose maria arguedas, 1996); david cahill "the long conquest: collaboration by native andean elites in the colonial system, 1532-1825." in technology, disease, and colonial conquest in sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. george raudzens ed. (boston: brill, 2001). [2] see the case of huachaca in cecilia mendes, the plebeian republic: the huanta rebellion and the making of the peruvian state (duke university press, 2005); bonilla, "the indian peasantry and 'peru' during the war with chile" in stern steve j., resistance, rebellion and consciousness in the andean peasant world, 18th to 20th centuries, ed. steve j. stern (madison: university of wisconsin press, 1987); mallon, peasant and nation: the making of post-colonial mexico and peru (berkeley: university of california press, 1995); thurner, from two republics to one divided: contradictions of postcolonial nation making in andean peru (durham, n.c, london: duke university press, 1997). relevant comparative studies that examine indigenous political struggles against colonial rule, are those developed by scholars specialized in southeast asian history. similar to latin american indigenous, peasants in india struggled primarily against colonial local and regional intermediaries' abusive behavior. in this process, as mukherjee argues, peasant's notions of justice are a fundamental factor that not only justifies but mobilizes peasant communities. see mridula mukherjee, peasants in india's non-violent revolution: practice and theory (new delhi: sage publications, 2004); and ranajit guha, elementary aspects of peasant insurgency in colonial india (durham: duke university press, 1999). also, for relevant debates about peasant resistance and views on autonomy and nation, see james c. scott, weapons of the weak, everyday forms of peasant resistance (new haven: yale university press, 1985); benedict anderson, imagined communities, reflections on the origin and the spread of nationalism (ny: verso, 1991), and partha chatterjee, the nation and its fragments: colonial and postcolonial histories, (princeton: princeton university press 1993). the aerodynamic plasma actuators have shown to be efficient flow control devices in various applications. in this study the results of flow control experiments utilizing single dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuators to control flow separation and unsteady vortex shedding from a circular cylinder in cross-flow are reported. this work is motivated by the need to reduce landing gear noise for commercial transport aircraft via an effective streamlining created by the actuators. the experiments are performed at red = 20,000ì¢ ââå_164,000. circular cylinders in cross-flow are chosen for study since they represent a generic flow geometry that is similar in all essential aspects to a landing gear oleo or strut. the minimization of the unsteady flow separation from the models and associated large-scale wake vorticity by using actuators reduces the radiated aerodynamic noise. using either steady or unsteady actuation at red = 25,000, karman shedding is totally eliminated, turbulence levels in the wake decrease significantly and near-field sound pressure levels are reduced by 13.3 db. unsteady actuation at an excitation frequency of std = 1 is found to be most effective. the unsteady actuation also has the advantage that total suppression of shedding is achieved for a duty cycle of only 25%. however, since unsteady actuation is associated with an unsteady body force and produces a tone at the actuation frequency, steady actuation is more suitable for noise control applications. two actuation strategies are used at red = 82,000: spanwise and streamwise oriented actuators. near field microphone measurements in an anechoic wind tunnel and detailed study of the near wake using lda are presented in the study. both spanwise and streamwise actuators give nearly the same noise reduction level of 11.2 db and 14.2 db, respectively, and similar changes in the wake velocity profiles. the contribution of the actuator induced noise is found to be small compared to the natural shedding noise. a tandem cylinder configuration with the plasma actuation on the upstream cylinder is investigated using surface dynamic pressure sensors. as a result of the plasma actuation, the surface pressure fluctuations on the downstream cylinder are reduced by about two times at the free-stream velocity of 40 m/s (red = 164,000). in addition, this study presents the results of a parametric experimental investigation aimed at optimizing the body force produced by single dielectric barrier discharge (sdbd) plasma actuators used for aerodynamic flow control. a primary goal of the study is the improvement of actuator authority for flow control applications at higher reynolds number than previously possible. the study examines the effects of dielectric material and thickness, applied voltage amplitude and frequency, voltage waveform, exposed electrode geometry, covered electrode width and multiple actuator arrays. the metric used to evaluate the performance of the actuator in each case is the measured actuator-induced thrust which is proportional to the total body force. it is demonstrated that actuators constructed with thick dielectric material of low dielectric constant and operated at low frequency ac voltage produce a body force that is an order of magnitude larger than that obtained by the kapton-based actuators used in many previous plasma flow control studies. these actuators allow operation at much higher applied voltages without the formation of discrete streamers which lead to body force saturation. osteoporotic fractures have become a prominent health problem, causing a 10% increase in morbidity following a fracture and costing at least $14 billion annually in the united states. currently, the gold standard for diagnosing osteoporosis uses dual x-ray absorptiometry (dexa) to quantify bone mineral density (bmd), but changes in bmd explain only 4-17% of the fracture risk. osteoporosis is treated clinically with anti-resorptive agents, which affect or inhibit the cellular pathways responsible for remodeling damaged bone. microdamage accumulation can result from the progression of osteoporosis, long-term anti-resorptive use, increasing age, and overloading, resulting in degraded mechanical properties. therefore, understanding the balance between increased bmd and improved microarchitecture in the presence of increased microdamage accumulation is important for understanding fracture susceptibility. to elucidate the role of both damage burden and architecture on the mechanical behavior of trabecular bone, the microarchitecture and volume fraction was quantified and the compressive and shear mechanical properties were determined in both damaged and undamaged young bovine trabecular bone. the microarchitecture and volume fraction of trabecular bone played a larger role in the mechanical properties than damage level. in a multivariate nonlinear regression model, large levels of damage were required to mimic the changes in toughness caused by small decreases in volume fraction. similar results were found in an osteoporotic sheep model, where small changes in volume fraction resulted in large changes in shear yield toughness. in contrast, large amounts of damage were necessary to produce the same effect. in the context of bisphosphonate treatment, increasing the amount of bone is much more beneficial to mechanical competency in bone than decreasing damage accumulation. in addition, increasing slenderness ratio (trabecular spacing/trabecular thickness) and structure model index (smi) resulted in decreased toughness, independent of damage level. both mechanical properties and microdamage accumulation are sensitive to microarchitecture and stress state in diseased trabecular bone. crack densities increased when the bone is more rod-like. in addition, combined loading modes resulted in longer crack lengths than single overloads, indicating that propagation occurs due to varying stress states. taken together, the energy-dissipating mechanism in bone relies on the initiation of new cracks, or increasing crack densities, as opposed to the propagation of existing cracks, unless the loading mode changes. in conclusion, osteoporosis is a major clinical concern that affects the microarchitecture of trabecular bone. since clinical measures of bone mineral density do not accurately predict fracture susceptibility, other factors play a role. these factors include microdamage accumulation and microarchitecture. microarchitecture provides insight into the mechanical behavior in both compression and shear. however, the same microarchitectural parameters also predict damage accumulation. indeed, anti-resorptive agents improve the architecture and volume fraction but also increase microdamage accumulation. in both bovine and ovariectomized ovine trabecular bone, small increases in volume fraction resulted in substantial increases in mechanical competence compared to increased damage accumulation. in the case of bisphosphonate use, the risk of increased microdamage accumulation may be counteracted by higher volume fraction, thereby providing would provide better fracture resistance than no treatment. this thesis describes the progress on three different methodology projects and two multistep syntheses of a complex molecule. specifically, we have synthesized a single isomer of a bis(siloxy)diene. to accomplish the synthesis of bis(siloxy)diene, we had to screen for conditions to produce a single isomer of its mono(silyl)enol ether. additionally, a vinylogous horner-wadsworth-emmons (hwe) reagent was developed, which can be used to provide 4-methyldienoates from an aldehyde starting material. with this hwe reagent, we have synthesized trichostatic acid through an improved method where the diene unit is installed in one step. additionally we have used an analogous step-wise version of this synthesis to prepare trichostatin a. we have developed an efficient synthesis of 1-a-13, which allowed us to provide gram quantities of this pyrrolinone to our collaborators for biological evaluation as a niemann-pick type c disease (np-c) therapeutic. we also discuss the synthesis of triazine 2-a-1, which was another np-c drug candidate. we also report on the development of a new aryl amination protocol, which is able to transform aryl iodides, bromide, chloride, azides, and nitro compounds into the corresponding aryl amines. with this new method, we transformed 1-a-13 into the corresponding amine to establish an sar for the pyrrolinones. this amine was converted into the corresponding azide 1-a-13-n3 for a photoaffinity labeling study. antibiotic resistance has significantly increased since the beginning of the 21st century. currently, the polymyxin colistin is typically viewed as the antibiotic of last resort for the treatment of multidrug resistant gram-negative bacterial infections.however, even with the clinician's knowledge of nephrotoxicity to the patient, colistin usage has increased. consequently, it has also resulted in colistin resistant bacterial isolates becoming more common. the recent dissemination of plasmid-borne colistin resistance genes (mcr 1-8) into the human pathogen pool is further threatening to render colistin therapy ineffective. new methods to combat antibiotic resistant pathogens are needed. herein the utilization of a colistin-adjuvant combination, where the adjuvant is non-toxic to the bacteria alone, is effective in potentiating colistin against gram-negative bacteria in hopes of lowering toxic effects to the patient. against colistin sensitive bacteria, a 2-aminoimidazole adjuvant enabled a 1000-fold reduction in the minimum inhibitory concentration (mic) of colistin in vitro when tested at a concentration of 30 µm and at 15 µm, it reduced the colistin mic against three colistin sensitive, multidrug resistant acinteobacter baumannii strains from 1000 to 7.8, 3.9, and 3.9 ng/ml. in an additional study, an indole derived lead adjuvant increased colistin efficacy 32-fold against a colistin resistant bacteria strain containing the mcr-1 gene at 5 µm, and effects a 1024-fold increase in colistin efficacy against bacteria harboring chromosomally encoded colistin resistance determinants; these combinations lowered the colistin mic to levels at or below clinical breakpoint levels for colistin susceptibility (≤2 µg/ml).in addition to in vitro studies, the wax worm galleria mellonella provides an in vivo model that provides an alternative to expensive and ethically challenged murine models. these studies provided here forth show the process from start to finish in developing such an assay, starting with bacterial virulence within the worms. furthermore, a narrow-spectrum antibiotic synthesized within our lab showed increased worm survival against a multidrug resistant a. baumannii strain; tested at 50 mg/kg and 100 mg/kg, worm survival was 22% and 32% after a six-day study, respectively. this model has expanded to include antibiotic-adjuvant combinations to battle multidrug resistant bacteria. antibiotic-adjuvant concentrations, where the adjuvant is tested at 50 mg/kg or 100 mg/kg in combination with an antibiotic, have increased survival of inoculated worms up to 50% over the course of several days. two studies demonstrated a gram-positive selective antibiotic was able to be used to combat gram-negative bacteria when in combination with an adjuvant at 50 mg/kg or 100 mg/kg. lastly, a chromosomally colistin resistant a. baumannii strain was resensitized to colistin with an adjuvant, where the combinatorial injection of colistin-adjuvant at 50 mg/kg afforded over 40% worm survival over the course of four days versus no survival for untreated, inoculated worms. is matter fundamentally inert? passive? is it merely the raw components of the universe to be manipulated by human beings? thinking away from the zone of living matter, there can be seen an uncanny realm of active materiality which troubles and disrupts the rigid hierarchies that western thinking has carved out of the world. at stake here is not only the critical question of which images humans associate with agency, but whether or not we continue the kinds of thinking which condition our current, unsustainable participation in the universe. as a prolonged metaphysical imagining of new pictures of matter, particularly in its inorganic form, this project attempts to investigate notions of matter as being in some way fundamentally weird­­--that is, eluding a full descriptive account. in doing so, i am offering an image in which matter exceeds human thought, with something of the material world always remaining resistant to conceptualization and instrumentalization. through this imagining, the conception of matter becomes one of dynamic, alien, and unsanitary activity--­­in which all substance exhibits a kind of vexing animacy. radiation damage to living cells is initiated via a variety of molecular lesions which mostly result from the attacks of secondary species generated by raw high-energy quanta. since the seminal experiments of sanche's group demonstrate that low-energy electron (lee) attachment to dna can incur strand breaks through resonant processes, copious amounts of research have been devoted to study the dissociative electron attachment (dea) to biomolecules initiated from resonance anionic states. biomolecules include nucleobases, sugars, phosphates, amino acids, et al. the five-membered ring is a commonly occurring biomolecular structure that also plays anactive role in various biochemical processes. my work in this dissertation shows dea can induce ring opening for aromatic five-membered ring compounds, such as isoxazole, oxazole, and thiazole. especially, for isoxazole the observation that all the ring opening pathways are conducted through o-n bond cleavage. this observation is of special interest to pharmaceutical engineering because the biotransformation of several isoxazole substructure containing drugs are found downstream from o-n bond cleavage. besides the five-member ring compounds, the lee destructive impact on peptide linkage has been studied through dea to peptide model molecules, such as formamideand its methylated derivatives. peptide bond cleavage induced by dea clearly demonstrates bond selectivity, which is susceptible when the lee energy falls between 5to 8 ev. resonance states responsible for the cleavage are found by my stabilization calculations which show that an anti-bonding force is exerted on the peptide bond by the attached electron through forming a π* type orbital around this bond. in addition to the conventional dea study through measuring the anion yields, an experimental methodology called stepwise electron spectroscopy for detection of neutral products from dea was proposed and successfully applied to detect and characterize neutrals formed via dea to ccl4. this experimental procedure can be extended to investigate more radicals resulting from dea processes. nanomagnet logic (nml) is a novel paradigm to realize low-power, non-volatile digital logic. low-power operation is the most important benefit of nml operation, which relies on magnetic ordering. central to nml operation, hard-axis fields are required to place the magnets into a metastable state for re-evaluation, a process referred to as 'nulling' or 'clocking.' resistive losses in the clock wires are the dominant power dissipation source in this scheme, so it is imperative that the highest clocking efficiency be achieved. in this dissertation, a method of lowering the power dissipation in the nml system is proposed. enhanced permeability dielectrics (epd), which is an mgo dielectric matrix with embedded superparamagnetic cofe particles, is fabricated and integrated with the nanomagnets to reduce their nulling clock field. by doing so, the power dissipation of the whole nml system can be lowered. the prerequisite for studying the effect of epd is the understanding of nanomagnets. thus, magnetic switching behavior, magnetization states and coupling of nanomagnets are studied via various magnetic metrologies to understand the physics of nanomagnet switching in the context of nml. microelectromechanical systems (mems) is a burgeoning field, and the next stage of development is predicted to be the integration of microsensors, actuators and circuits on a single silicon chip. such microsystems will bring about revolutionary advancement in many fields, especially for implantable, autonomous applications. however, when freeing the chip from wire tethering, one major obstacle is the powering needs of mems devices, mainly microactuators, which are dramatically different from those of cmos integrated circuit (ic) chips. here we demonstrate that inductive links with integrated receiving coils can provide sufficient voltage or power to many mems devices. to further improve the performance of the inductive link, an inlaid electroplating procedure is developed to reduce the internal resistance of integrated receiving coils. trenches into si substrates by deep reactive ion etching (drie) are used as electroplating molds, and copper coils of centimeter side length and up to 100 µ m in height and 10 µ m in width are electroplated. enhanced outputs are obtained for inductive links with micromachined microcoils. another application involves transmission of long-duration pulse trains onto an implantable receiving coil. some medical conditions, such as parkinsonåáå_s disease, already benefit from such pulse trains for deep brain stimulation (dbs) generated by a wired link. wireless transmission of the pulses is challenging due to the small time constant of the inductive link. using amplitude modulation, we successfully retrieve pulse trains from a receiving coil with a passive envelope detector, and electroplated coils provide improved performance. for either application, the output from the integrated coil is enhanced at a resonant frequency intrinsic to the inductive link. selective driving and signal transmission are demonstrated for multiple receiving coils with frequency-multiplexed input. a dual-coil fabrication process with electroplated through-wafer vias is developed for future monolithic integration of coils with electronics. combining dual coils with discrete demodulation and switching transistors, biphasic signals are generated across a resistor representing body tissue. the above results offer possibilities to replace pulse generators with an external unit in coordination with implanted receiving coils and circuit components. benito mussolini—il duce—once exalted cinema as "l'arma più forte", or the fascist regime's strongest weapon for promoting its ideologies and carrying out political agendas. one such agenda included mussolini's desire to restore the patriarchy in the face of modernity. the campaign sought to nationalize women through their procreative abilities. a number of early 1930s films directed by alessandro blasetti, a prominent fascist cineaste, reinforced the traditional gender roles. however, this campaign—both in blasetti's later cinema and in general fascist policy—was far from straightforward. in fact, there is a tangible shift in blasetti's treatment of women in the later half of the 1930s, especially in his fantasy films.this paper explores how blasetti utilized the fantastic genre to maneuver around the established policy towards women, blurring gender lines and subtly challenging fascist authority. a growing subset of actinide compounds comprised of actinide oxide clusters are of interest in the processing and environmental transport of actinides. the most numerous of these reported structures are known as actinyl peroxide clusters: the first uranyl and neptunyl peroxide clusters were discovered in 2005, and in the years since, more than 70 unique structures have been described. uranium peroxide chemistry has long been studied, as the interaction between uranium and peroxide is responsible for the only known peroxide-containing minerals, studtite and metastudtite, and hydrogen peroxide found early use in processing of uranium. since the emergence of actinyl peroxide clusters, studies have suggested potential roles of the clusters in actinide transport and applications to nuclear processes; however, more information is needed about the controls on cluster formation to accurately predict or control actinide speciation. in this work, uranyl peroxide cluster chemistry is expanded by applying the synthesis conditions of uranyl peroxide clusters to the dissolution of uranium-based materials, uranium dioxide and uranium nitride. these studies demonstrate the significance of counter cation and hydrogen peroxide availability in directing uranyl peroxide speciation and limiting uranium loading in solutions. neptunyl peroxide chemistry is also explored. one neptunyl peroxide cluster was previously reported, but it was not extensively characterized and neptunyl peroxide cluster properties and chemistry remain unexplored. i investigate neptunyl peroxide chemistry with the synthesis of a novel neptunyl peroxide compound, the first to be exclusively composed of hexavalent neptunium. additionally, new salts of the previously described neptunyl peroxide cluster are reported and characterized. these studies reveal interesting characteristics, such as ordering of np(v) in specific sites on the cage in the solid state and lower solubility in water relative to uranyl peroxide clusters. riemannian metrics that extremize eigenvalues of conformally covariant operators are known to have a relationship with the existence of solutions of important partial differential equations (pdes). on compact surfaces with no boundary, the study of such extremal metrics for the laplace-beltrami operator has led mathematicians to special examples of minimal surfaces and harmonic maps into spheres. this thesis is devoted to the study of the existence and properties of extremal metrics for other natural and geometrically defined differential operators. questions about the regularity of extremal metrics, possible obstructions to their existence, and to which pdes are these associated with are discussed. continuing advancements in the field of digital cameras and surveillance imaging devices have led law enforcement and intelligence agencies to use analysis of images and videos for the investigation and prosecution of crime. when determining identity from photographic evidence, forensic analysts perform comparison of visible facial features manually, which is inefficient. in this dissertation, we conduct a complete study on the usability of facial marks as biometric signatures to distinguish individuals. we design systems to assist forensic analysts during photographic comparison and systems to highlight the challenges encountered in using facial marks as a biometric modality. we present three different facial mark systems: a manual facial mark system, a multi-scale facial mark system in which facial marks are detected automatically, and a semi-automatic facial mark system which integrates human knowledge within the multi-scale facial mark system. we propose to use facial marks to perform pose invariant face recognition. experimental results employ a high-resolution time-elapsed dataset acquired at the university of notre dame between 2009-2011 and a high resolution identical twins dataset acquired at the twins days festival in twinsburg, ohio. the results indicate that the geometric distributions of facial mark patterns can be used to distinguish between individuals. two of the dominant forms of accessing truth in the contemporary world, religion and science, conflict partly because they form the subject in different ways. the methodological reductionism of biology forms one to see organisms and bodies as manipulable, a perspective at odds with christian conceptions of creation, which see creatures as gifts from god and ourselves as embodied spirits. in this dissertation, i use the analyses of alasdair macintyre and michel foucault to develop this critique and a response to it, arguing that foucault's recovery of stoic care of the self provides an ethical template for christians who are biologists. in chapter 1, i describe macintyre's critique of bureaucratic individualism, which depends on managerial expertise to manipulate individuals instead of forming them in virtue. he encourages technai, practices similar to traditional crafts. macintyre misses the productive aspect of managerial technique, which forms entrepreneurial subjects, and problematic aspects of technai, which form practitioners into a technological rationality. to address these problems, in chapter 2, i draw on foucault's analyses of disciplinary techniques that subject the individual to power through action on the body and governmentality that forms subjects in their use of liberty. i turn to constructive solutions in chapter 3, arguing that macintyre's aristotelian ethics is less helpful than foucault's stoic care of the self. macintyre requires the christian biologist to isolate herself from the community of biologists, while foucault describes techniques of the self analogous to christian ascetic techniques that form the individual while she lives in a secular world. in chapter 4, i show how these techniques help the scientist to uphold scientific truth against threats from corporate and political actors by encouraging the virtue of parrhesia, truth-speaking. i address skepticism about foucault's thought arising from his seeming relativism in chapter 5 by analyzing his complex notions of truth and the subject and relating them to augustinian accounts of the imago dei. i argue that a logos theology in which jesus christ both grounds the truth of the world and is the ethical exemplar provides a substantive christian account to complete foucault's formal model of ethics. the aim of this dissertation is to give an account of aquinas's thinking on the ontological grounds of necessary propositions about creatures. the kind of necessary propositions that this dissertation concerns are essential propositions, such as man is an animal or dogs are sentient. throughout his works aquinas affirms that every truth asserted by the human intellect is adequated to or conforms to some res. accordingly, it seems that if necessary propositions are true at all times, then there must be some res that exists at all times to which these necessary propositions conform. since both creatures and their essences are contingently existing beings that come to be and perish in time, many have concluded that the creatures themselves or their essences cannot be the res to which necessary propositions about creatures conform. it seems for example, that the proposition dodo birds cannot fly cannot be grounded by dodo birds or their essences since both dodo birds and their essences ceased to exist almost four hundred years ago and still this proposition remains true. various interpreters of aquinas's thought have argued that some feature of god, such as his power or essence, grounds necessary propositions about creatures. in this dissertation, i argue for alternate interpretation of aquinas. i make a textually based argument for the conclusion that aquinas held that necessary propositions about creatures have their ontological grounds in the contingently existing substantial forms of the created beings themselves. the precise feature of a substantial form that guarantees the truth of a necessary proposition is its unicity. aquinas thought that man is rational is necessarily true because man and rational signify one form in reality. in addition to explicating aquinas's thinking on the grounds of necessary propositions, i show how aquinas thought that these propositions could remain true even after the creatures that they are about (and their forms) have perished. group a streptococcus (gas) is a strict human pathogen which causes both trivial and lethal infections. although antibiotics are effective drugs against gas diseases, gas infections have undergone resurgence since the 1980s. to perpetuate in its host and cause disease, gas employs several virulence factors that assist gas in adherence, invasion, immune evasion, and colonization in distal tissues within the host, e.g., m or m-like proteins, hyaluronic acid capsule, fibronectin binding protein, streptokinase, streptolysins, and streptococcal pyogenic exotoxins. of these factors, only m or m-like proteins and streptokinase (sk) are the focus of these studies. these virulence factors are used by gas to interact with key components of the host fibrinolytic system and generate plasmin (hpm). the enzymatic activity of hpm is used by gas to degrade basement membrane matrix and invade through tissues barriers. m or m-like proteins are membrane-anchored proteins, where they bind human plasminogen (hpg) and hpm. the gas-bound or free hpg is subsequently activated to plasmin by gas-secreted sk and generates a proteolytic surface on gas. sk is a three-domain protein, containing &#945;, &#946;, and &#947; modules. phylogenetic analysis of variable &#946;-domain sequences allows gas to be grouped into cluster 1 and cluster 2 sk. based on these same &#946;-domain sequences, sk is subdivided into subclusters 2a and 2b. cluster 2b strains are non-coincidentally associated with skin tropism and express an m-like protein called plasminogen-binding group a streptococcal m-like protein (pam) on their surface, e.g., strain ap53. whereas, sk2a strains are associated with the respiratory tract infections and express a m protein, designated m1, on their surface, e.g., strain sf370. pam binds to human hpg/hpm directly, while m1 binds to hpg/hpm indirectly through interaction with human fibrinogen (fg). subsequently, gas-secreted sk non-proteolytically activates hpg to hpm. due to different modes of substrate (hpg) recognition and activation by sk2a and sk2b strains, it was anticipated that there would be differences in virulence. to test this, ap53 strains were generated with a targeted replacement of its sk2b by sk2a and pam by m1 from the sf370 strain of gas. additional strains were generated in which b1b2 repeats of m1 in the ap53/pam-to-m1 strain were replaced by a1a2 repeats of pam so that it can bind hpg and hpm directly. the virulence of these strains was analyzed in a humanized hpg mouse model. the results indicated that sk2a in the background of a sk2b gas strain is as virulent as its native sk2b containing strain. additionally, to probe more fully the nature of the sk-hpm complexes and their roles in dictating virulence, we demonstrated that the sk2a-hpm activator complex is much more resistant to inactivation by host &#945;2-antiplasmin, than the sk2b-hpm complex. these studies demonstrate that gas virulence in different bacterial strains can be dictated by differences in the hpg activation properties of sk2a and sk2b. due to the importance of pam as a virulence determinant in gas, the binding interactions between pam and hpg were characterized. our results demonstrate for the first time that vek38, a peptide within pam representing the hpg binding domain harbors two binding sites for the kringle 2 domain of hpg which specifically binds to pam. therefore, to understand the mechanism of pam-hpg interactions, we sought to determine the solution structure of this complex by nmr. our studies revealed that subsequent to kringle 2 binding, vek38 undergoes a conformational transition from a predominantly random coil to an end-to-end helix conformation. completion of these studies will reveal a mechanism for binding of pam and hpg which will facilitate the targeting these virulence factors of gas in disease management. this study investigated patients' desire for breadth and depth of disclosure from therapists and physicians. in line with the research on sex matching and mismatching in dyadic communication, we hypothesized that participants would desire more breadth and depth of disclosure from a therapist than from a physician, and that the female sex-matched condition would be associated with the highest levels of desired breadth and depth of disclosure, while the male sex-matched condition would endorse the lowest levels. we found that participants desired more breadth of disclosure from a physician and more depth of disclosure from a therapist. contrary to the hypotheses, we found that female 'patients' desired more disclosure from male physicians and male therapists than from female professionals. participants may be aware of the self-disclosure disparities between males and females and may have compensated by endorsing increased disclosure from the lower disclosing male professionals. this dissertation examines the changes in political, civic, and social behavior among american muslims following the attacks in new york city and washington dc on september 11, 2001. in particular, the dissertation examines the evolution of muslim self-image in light of the perception of increased hostility and rejection from non-muslim elements of the american public and even the american government. by examining the transformation of a community from an ethnically fragmented and politically divided collective into an increasingly coherent political and civic actor, this dissertation both examines the interconnection between the concepts of race and religion and how these concepts can become fused when the distinctions fade or are never recognized by majority populations. the transformation of the importance and meaning of muslim identity among those outside the group has lead to both social and political realignments within the muslim community. by focusing on this transformation and the predictors that explain it, this dissertation tests hypotheses that link the perception of external threat to the way people process political information and allow it to shape their political behavior and belief systems. this dissertation relies both on national survey samples of muslim-americans as well as interviews, participant observation, and localized surveys administered to muslims throughout the state of indiana to test the relationship between the perception of threat and the salience of ethnic and religious identity. this dissertation finds that the perception of people that fall outside the in-group play an important role in shaping the salience of a given identity, and that the needs of in-group authenticity and the need for out-group political alliances compete to shape the value systems of individuals who opt in to the identity group. at the same time, the perception of threat simultaneously increases the level of political engagement while discouraging other forms of civic and social contact with the broader community. we formulate a model for intermittent communication that can capture bursty transmissions or a sporadically available channel, where in either case the receiver does not know a priori when the transmissions will occur. for the point-to-point case, we develop two decoding structures and their achievable rates for such communication scenarios. one structure determines the transmitted codeword through exhaustive search, and the other structure rst detects the locations of codeword symbols and then uses them to decode. we introduce the concept of partial divergence and study some of its properties in order to obtain stronger achievability results. as the system becomes more intermittent, the achievable rates decrease due to the additional uncertainty about the positions of the codeword symbols at the decoder. additionally, we provide upper bounds on the capacity of binary noiseless intermittent communication with the help of a genie-aided encoder and decoder. the upper bounds imply a tradeo between the capacity and the intermittency rate of the communication system, even if the receive window scales linearly with the codeword length. upon this foundation, we develop two extensions. first, we extend the model to intermittent multi-access communication for two users that captures the bursty transmission of the codeword symbols for each user and the possible asynchronism between the receiver and the transmitters as well as between the transmitters themselves. this model can be viewed as another attempt to combine information-theoretic and network-oriented multi-access models. we characterize the performance of the system in terms of achievable rate regions. in our achievable schemes, the intermittency of the system comes with a signi cant cost. second, we extend the model to packet-level intermittent communication in which codeword and noise symbols are grouped into packets. depending on the scaling behavior of the packet length relative to the codeword length, we identify some interesting scenarios, and characterize the performance of the system in terms of the achievable rates for each model. finally, we apply the insights and tools developed for intermittent communication to several related problems. first, we obtain new results on the capacity of deletion channels and a random access model that drops the collided symbols. second, we study the problem of lossless source coding in the presence of intermittent sideinformation. a search for neutral higgs bosons decaying into two tau leptons is presented. the search is performed using data collected by the compact muon solenoid experiment at the large hadron collider during 2011. the data represents pp collisions at a center of mass energy, &#8730;s = 7 tev, and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 fb&#8722;1. this search considers the final state in which one of the tau leptons decays to a muon and neutrinos, and in which the second tau lepton decays into mesons and a single neutrino. two separate searches are performed: a search for the standard model higgs boson, and a search for neutral higgs bosons in the minimal supersymmetric standard model. no excesses are observed above background expectations and upper limits on the cross section times branching ratio is set in both models. islets of langerhans are critical for the homeostasis of blood glucose levels. islets secrete antagonistic protein hormones to regulate blood sugar. dysregulation or damage of islets can cause diabetes, a metabolic disease characterized by persistent high blood glucose levels. as islets are the primarily responsible for blood glucose interrogating the fundamental alterations helps elucidate causation and helps provide a holistic understanding of the disease. in this work, i present a systematic study of the secretome, or secreted protein content, of murine islets of langerhans. in particular, i focused on optimizing a bottom-up proteomic approach for analysis with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (lc-ms/ms). additionally, the effects of elevated glucose levels on the secretome were studied to better understand the effects of diabetes. the report of the making of the mishkan (exodus 35-40) survives from antiquity in two forms that differ in the length and organization of their contents. neither form of the report reproduces exactly the sequence of the commands (exodus 25-31) for the mishkan, or tabernacle, the portable sanctuary of the wilderness; but the longer form comes closer and repeats much of language of the commands. the shorter ending, more independent of both the wording and order of the commands, survives only in the septuagint; scholars have wondered how to assess the old greek (og) witness to the text of exodus in hebrew. previous scholarship, preoccupied with the translation, often proposed multiple contributors to the greek text. now, in light of similar cases of pluriform textual transmission documented among the dead sea scrolls, textual critics claim that the greek text of exodus is a single translation representing its hebrew vorlage to a high degree of detail. this assessment, inclusive of exodus 35-40, presumes an earlier, shorter ending to the book of exodus in hebrew. if not translation, then what modes of composition-and-transmission account for the variant endings of exodus? the dissertation seeks to demonstrate the claim that the longer form of the making of the mishkan in extant hebrew witnesses represents a revised, expanded edition of the hebrew that og alone attests. instead of interrogating the greek translation, the present state of textual scholarship requires investigating the relationship between two forms of a text in hebrew (chapter one). part one of the dissertation (chapters two and three) interrogates the hebrew text of exodus that the og translator read, proposing a retrotranslation to clarify the literary structure of the vorlage. part two (chapters four and five) defines and applies literary edition as the mode of transmission responsible for the two hebrew forms of 35-40: og exodus attests a hebrew text that is prior to, and the basis of, subsequent editions of exodus represented by mt and sp and thus closer to, and more reliable evidence for, the formation of the pentateuch and its precursors (chapter six). the successful conclusion of human genome project partly owes its success to the advent of soft ionization techniques, namely electrospray ionization (esi) and laser desorption ionization (maldi), in mass spectrometry (ms). the recent advancements in ms technology in development of high resolution ms systems and coupling of separation units (capillary electrophoresis and liquid chromatography) with the soft ionization methods have enabled the use of mass spectrometry in the analysis biological and forensic systems. these applications include the drug discovery, biomarker identification for cancer, tuberculosis, proteomics and genomics. the research in mass spectrometry can be classified into two categories:'¢development of novel instrumentation to improve the drawbacks (sensitivity, limit of detection, quantitative ms, etc) in the current methods '¢biomolecular analysis to decipher the inborn errors in the metabolic pathway (single nucleotide polymorphism, post translation modifications, etc)the work that is presented in this dissertation falls into the first category. in the forthcoming chapters, we will focus on two aspects of novel microfluidic phenomenon of high frequency alternating current (ac) electrospray. the first portion of this thesis emphasizes on the comprehensive fundamental study (experimental/theoretical) for complete understanding of the mechanism that leads to the formation of ac electrospray. the second portion establishes the ac electrospray as a potential soft ionization method for mass spectrometry, with the added benefits of higher sensitivity, reduced ionization suppression and the frequency modulation of ph in the biomolecular analysis, which is direct contrast to the conventional dc electrospray. the present thesis consists of an introduction and two chapters of mathematics. the latter two are as follows.chapter 2 the derivatives of the identity functor on spaces in goodwillie calculus forms an operad in spectra. antolin-camarena computed the mod 2 homology of free algebras over this operad for 1-connected spectra. in this chapter we carry out similar computations for mod p homology for odd primes p, and all spectra.chapter 3 in this chapter we recover bousfield's computation of v_1-periodic homotopy groups of simply connected, finite h-spaces from bousfield's work using the techniques of goodwillie calculus. this is done through first computing andré-quillen cohomology over the monad t that encodes the power operations of complex k-theory. we then lift this computation to computing k-theory of topological andré-quillen cohomology. we can then use results of behrens and rezk relating topological andré-quillen cohomology back to the bousfield-kuhn functor. the fact that we recover the result of bousfield allows us to conclude that the v_1-periodic goodwillie tower for simply connected, finite h-spaces converges.the two chapters can be read almost completely independently, only relying on the definitions from section 1.1. algorithms in the field of numerical algebraic geometry provide numerical methods for computing and manipulating solution sets of polynomial systems. one of the main algorithms in this field is the computation of the numerical irreducible decomposition. this algorithm has three main parts: computing a witness superset, filtering out the junk points to create a witness set, and decomposing the witness set into irreducible components. new and efficient algorithms are presented in this thesis to address the first two parts, namely regeneration and a local dimension test. regeneration is an equation-by-equation solving method that can be used to efficiently compute a witness superset for a polynomial system. the local dimension test algorithm presented in this thesis is a numerical-symbolic method that can be used to compute the local dimension at an approximated solution to a polynomial system. this test is used to create an efficient algorithm that filters out the junk points. the algorithms presented in this thesis are applied to problems arising in kinematics and partial differential equations. we consider the question of universality among computable ω-branching trees. to this end, we construct a computable ω-branching tree tkp whose paths compute the complete diagrams of the countable ω-models of kripke-platek set theory (kp). we show that, given a path f through tkp , representing a model m of kp, and another computable ill-founded ω-branching tree t, if f fails to compute a path throught, then m assigns to t a nonstandard ordinal tree rank. further, we indicate some circumstances in which, given computable ω-branching trees t0 and t1, a path through tkp helps the paths through t0 compute paths through t1.in a different line of work, we consider effective forcing notions. in particular, we define a class of effective forcing notions that are similar to versions of mathias forcing and cohen forcing defined in the literature, and prove some results about how these notions relate. as a consequence, we see that the generics for an effective version of mathias forcing compute generics for an effective version of hechler forcing, and vice-versa. later, we focus on a notion of mathias forcing over a countable turing ideal, defined by cholak, dzhafarov, and soskova. we show that there are nested turing ideals for which the mathias generics for the larger ideal do not all compute mathias generics for the smaller ideal. the elastic behavior of liquid crystalline materials plays an important role in the design of responsive electrical, mechanical, and optical devices. this dissertation focuses on developing, extending, and implementing sampling methods to predict the elastic properties of liquid crystals from molecular simulation. the utility of molecular simulation in predicting elastic properties of liquid crystals has historically been limited due to the immense time and length scales needed to generate accurate estimates of quantities such as the bulk elastic moduli. a recently proposed free energy perturbation method was shown to overcome many of these limitations and produce reliable estimates of the elastic constants. however, there remained a number of challenges to be addressed which would eliminate the use of approximations and extend the technique to molecular systems. we begin by introducing uniaxial nematic liquid crystals and frank elastic theory. next, a series of studies of increasing complexity investigating the elastic properties of liquid crystal systems are presented. first, we perform comprehensive study of binary liquid crystal mixtures represented by the multicomponent lebwohl-lasher lattice model. then we use density-of-states simulations to systematically study the elastic properties of four common gay--berne nematogenic models. the third study investigates the elastic and thermodynamic properties of chromonic liquid crystals which exhibit a unique self--assembly process. finally, we present the first direct simulations of the bulk and surface-like elastic constants for molecular 4-5-alkyl-4'-cyanobiphenyl which challenge indirect experimental observations that suggest spontaneous elastic curvature in certain geometries. the odbert psalter, made c. 1000 at saint-bertin, opens with davidic imagery and includes innovative historiated initials containing scenes from the life of christ. that imagery and the texts of the odbert psalter are written, drawn, and painted according to the logic of a building and are replete with architectural themes. this thesis considers how and why odbert and the other architects of the psalter created this manuscript as a figurative building. that design is not only conducive to the devotional and educational uses of the psalter, but also to expression of christ's place at the heart of scripture. the psalter was the central devotional text in the monastic life, comprising the majority of the divine office and thus structuring the daily life of a monk. for the monks of saint-bertin, the psalter was an ideal site to express the christological doctrines central to their beliefs and practices. one important concept in the development of number knowledge is the cardinality principle, or knowing that the last word counted refers to the total number of items within the set. one prominent theory suggests that children learn this concept by observing sets being both counted and labeled with the correct set size (e.g., 1-2-3! 3!), thus allowing them to form an analogy between the last word counted and the overall labeled set size. unfortunately, children may not often hear this input during counting book reading. one factor that may influence the input children receive during shared book reading is the design of the book. in the current study i identified common features within counting books that may influence readers' focus on the cardinality of the set and the use of counting to see if it would affect children's exposure to sets being both counted and labeled with the correct set size, which mix et al. (2012) call "comparison input." similar to previous research i found relatively low levels of this comparison input. when considering the structure of the comparison input, more than half of children never experienced the ideal sequence of counting first then labeling the set size. this suggests that the low frequency and poor structure of comparison input may contribute to children's prolonged development of an understanding of the cardinality principle. further, i found that the input that children experienced depended on specific features within the counting books. children experience more comparison input with books that have a greater variety of numerical representations within the text and less comparison input when using books that make the number words salient (e.g., placing them at the start or end of the page). there was also evidence that books with more text elicited more comparison input. the current dissertation considered both children's and parent's input together across a variety of counting books, offering an in-depth analysis of children's experience during counting book reading. by identifying relevant features within books that lead to different types of numerical input it offers insight for parents and educators choosing counting books, and it provides the foundation for future research aimed at designing effective counting books. in this thesis, a new method that constructs the free energy profile of systems in equilibrium and in nonequilibrium, that is, under a gradient of either pressure, temperature, or chemical potential, was developed. this method is based on tracking the initial and final positions of unrestricted trajectories that are launched in short simulations. this tracking populates a transition matrix, where each matrix entry corresponds to predetermined states defined in the initial step of the method. the steady-state probability distribution of the system and, consequently, its free energy curve are obtained from the eigenvector corresponding to the main eigenvalue of the transition matrix. we see this method being applied potentially in research to discovery new materials, specially for the design of nanofiltration membranes. anopheles gambiae has adapted to flourish in spatially diverse ecological conditions, from the humid rainforests to arid sahel savannas. within a region, an. gambiae is capable of surviving considerable temporal fluctuations in rainfall and temperature. this extraordinary adaptive flexibility of an. gambiae is largely attributed to complex chromosomal inversion polymorphisms. in addition, an. gambiae is subject to an ongoing incipient speciation process that also appears strongly associated with adaptive phenotypic traits. a long-standing goal is to identify genomic regions/genes/pathways involved in both evolutionary processes. with the intent of exploring the genetic basis of adaptive phenotypes associated with both the nascent speciation process and chromosomal inversion polymorphisms, we focus on transcriptome evolution because there is increasing empirical support that gene regulation contributes to adaptive/species differences; and the lack of discrete phenotypic differences between m and s precludes using powerful quantitative techniques that require such a priori information (e.g., qtl mapping). transcription profiles can unravel phenotypes not readily visible via these approaches, thereby providing novel insights into the divergence. chapter 2 reports on the 2la chromosomal inversion, which is strongly linked to degree of aridity in africa. gene expression profiles were generated at three time points following acute heat exposure. in chapter 3, global oligonucleotide arrays were employed to search for transcriptome variation at key developmental stages most likely associated with the speciation. chapter 4 extended the virgin female time point to include six additional time points and corresponding mated females across a two hour window encompassing dusk. ten candidate genes linked to olfaction were targeted. because premating behavioral isolation involves the interaction between trait and preference in different sexes, corresponding reproductively active virgin male global expression was profiled in chapter 5. chapter 6 explores the relationship between molecular form transcriptome variation and degree of swarm segregation in nuptial males and females from mali and burkina faso. chapter 7 focuses on the ecological segregation between m and s. specifically, the divergence in larval breeding habitats in southern cameroon, where m occupies polluted urbanized habitats. transplantation experiments explored the genetic basis of m form larval tolerance to the environmental stressors in their habitats. thermoelectric materials have promising applications in a broad range of fields including waste heat recovery, solid-state cooling, and more. as the performance of thermoelectric materials increases, so too does the demand for accurate thermal and thermoelectric material property measurements. this dissertation focuses on novel methods for the characterization of thermal and thermoelectric transport properties and their applications to investigate advanced thermoelectric materials.the measurement methods developed in this work begin with a new type of scanning thermal microscopy (sthm) probe capable of measuring thermal conductivity and seebeck coefficient with microscale resolution while also increasing measurement sensitivity by more than 3 times compared to the leading conventional sthm probe. next, a way to print 3 omega (3ω) sensors for thermal conductivity measurement is established, allowing the 3ω method to be applied on a greater range of materials and sample sizes faster than ever before while yielding measurements with the same accuracy expected from the trusted 3ω method. third, a transient constant heat flux method for seebeck coefficient measurement is introduced that systematically eliminates two major sources of measurement error.the second part of this dissertation focuses on the irradiation effect on nanostructured bulk thermoelectric materials. a state-of-the-art bulk nanostructured thermoelectric generator (teg) was placed in the core of a nuclear reactor and its thermoelectric performance was monitored in-situ while the reactor ran for 30 days. to determine the causes for the property changes seen in the reactor, the thermoelectric properties of ion irradiated half-heusler materials were investigated using the microscale sthm probe developed in part one. it was found that irradiation triggered a partial chemical phase transition from the native semiconducting phase to a metallic phase, resulting in severely degraded thermoelectric properties; however, the in-situ results from the nuclear reactor suggest that if the teg is operated at sufficiently high temperature, the thermoelectric material microstructure can be actively annealed in-situ so that the metallic phase never forms.the new methods developed in this work advance the field of thermoelectrics and thermal science, enabling accelerated research and development of advanced thermal and thermoelectric materials. meanwhile, the irradiation studies provide new insight on the performance of advanced thermoelectric devices in the extreme environment of a nuclear reactor core, which in turn guides the design and development of thermoelectric materials for use in radioactive environments. currently, a contradiction exists between theories of motivation, which emphasize the positive influence of academic challenge on student motivation, and research, which has found contradictory results regarding this relationship. the purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the perceived and actual effects of academic challenge on students' motivation through a multi-perspective and multi-methodological approach. study i examined middle school teachers' views about implementing challenging instruction while participating in a whole-school professional development initiative. current education policy and reform advocate for increasing the level of challenge in k-12 classrooms in order to maximize students' learning and academic success. a grounded theory analysis revealed teachers' feelings about challenge, the pressures that affected their decision to implement challenging instruction, and teachers' use of instructional practices to challenge students. classroom observations were also analyzed to explore whether teachers' comments were related to differences in their use of challenging instruction. teachers perceived 19 different pressures related to implementing challenging instruction, with pressures from students the most common across all subject areas. some teachers were able to resolve pressures from students by having conversations with students about challenge, providing emotional and motivational support, scaffolding students' thinking, and increasing student autonomy. implications for teachers' practice and professional development are discussed. study ii investigated changes in middle school students' situational interest and affect during a moderately difficult reading task. the aim was to explore how changes in interest (topic and situational) and affect were related to students' fluency throughout the task and perceived difficulty. interest and affect were recorded at four time points: before reading, twice during reading, and after reading. latent growth curve analysis showed that interest and affect had different patterns of decline during the task. the change in interest was predicted by perceived difficulty and fluency, whereas the change in affect was predicted only by perceived difficulty. results of an autoregressive, cross-lagged path model indicated that fluency significantly predicted subsequent ratings of situational interest, and topic interest predicted fluency on the first section. these findings suggest that, in the context of moderate reading difficulty, perceived difficulty and fluency have divergent effects on different motivational outcomes. the water gas shift (wgs) reaction can be either thermodynamically or kinetically limited, depending on process conditions. improved catalysts are of particular interest at low temperatures where kinetic limitations dominate. in this work, density functional theory calculations were performed to calculate the binding energies, reaction energies, and activation barriers for the proposed wgs pathways on pt and pd(111). in addition to the previously published pathways, a new reaction involving the concerted formation of the carboxyl intermediate from water and co is introduced. in general, binding energies and reaction energies are close on both surfaces. however, pt has lower activation barriers. since co is important for wgs, the co-co interactions on pd(111) were studied by the development of a cluster expansion. a cluster expansion is a polynomial function that allows for rapid prediction of the energy if a structure is given. at low coverages, co adsorbs in hcp hollow sites. as the co coverage increases, co begins to adsorb in fcc hollow and atop sites until the saturation coverage of 3/4 ml. next grand canonical monte carlo simulations were performed to determine the coverage-dependent binding energy and temperature programmed desorption spectrum. finally, a kinetic model was developed to analyze the different wgs reaction pathways, and metals. on both the pt and pd surfaces, wgs proceeds through the carboxyl intermediate with water dissociation being the rate determining step, but yields an unfavorably high co coverage. next, a coverage dependent binding energy of co was included in the kinetic model. as the co binding energy becomes less exothermic, wgs still proceeds through the carboxyl intermediate but carboxyl formation becomes rate determining. also, the kinetic model shows that pt is more active than pd, independent of the co binding energy. however, the calculated apparent activation barriers and rates do not agree with the experimental results of pt and pd supported on al2o3, which suggest that the support plays an active role in catalyzing the wgs reaction. since the support plays an important role in wgs catalysis, future studies should attempt to understand the promoting effect of the support and the support-metal interaction. this project is a study of augustine's christology through the additional lens of his engagement with manichaeism. the first chapter assesses the status quaestionis of augustine's early christology and identifies two common trajectories of assessment. the primary mode of assessment is through the lens of augustine's platonism. while not dismissing this dimension, chapter one outlines the deficiency of such a narrow focus on augustine's platonism to the exclusion of augustine's critique of manichaeism.the second chapter provides an outline and diagnosis of latin manichaeism through a consideration of the hermeneutical focus of manichaeism. this chapter moves through mani's work, the shābuhragān, and other works such as the codex mani cologne, to provide a framework of manichaeism. the focus, however, is on how this framework is deployed or adapted in western (latin) manichaeism. the third chapter is an extensive consideration of augustine's earliest writings at cassiciacum and shortly thereafter. these writings are examined in relation to the christological and anti-manichaean focus of the works. the fourth chapter turns to augustine's two works de moribus. specific attention is given to the increasingly christological manner of augustine's treatment of manichaeism. the fifth chapter treats augustine's de genesi contra manichaeos. this chapter treats not only augustine's response to manichaeism through his christology, but also addresses the accuracy of the platonic mode of interpretation often utilized by modern scholars.the final chapter treats several works up through augustine's contra fortunatum. this chapter shows how augustine has developed his christology. the debate with fortunatus initiates augustine's realization of the possibilities of his understanding of christ as well as solidifies his understanding of some of the implications of manichaean christology. this dissertation defines a simplicial set 1|1−eft of certain functorial quantum field theories and determines that it has the homotopy type of a representing space for k-theory. there have been other spaces of 1-dimensional supersymmetric euclidean field theories related to the k-theory spectrum; novel aspects of the approach in this dissertation are the use of non-projective modules in the algebraic codomain of the functors defining 1|1−eft and the use of an oriented bordism category whose space of connected endomorphisms of the super-point is connected. agricultural land use has increased the availability of nitrogen (n) and phosphorus (p) in the biosphere via the use of synthetic fertilizers. moreover, landscape alterations that enhance drainage, including subsurface tiles and stream channelization, and sustain agriculture, also accelerate the transfer of dissolved nutrients from fields to streams. farming practices across the midwestern u.s. "corn belt" contribute to water quality degradation in both the gulf of mexico and the great lakes, and changes in the timing and intensity of storms under climate change will likely increase nutrient export from highly managed agroecosystems. thus, a critical need exists for research exploring the interactions between local environmental context and spatiotemporal variation, to improve understanding of how conservation and restoration activities can buffer the impacts of agriculture on freshwater. the overarching goal of my dissertation is to identify controls on retention, transformation, and export of dissolved n and p in agricultural streams using both monitoring and experimental approaches. my research also adds insight into how these controls are impacted by management interventions, such as conservation or restoration, to support stream ecosystem function.i found that substrate, light, and streamflow interact to control n and p removal from the water column. additionally, i documented that the accumulation of organic matter following floodplain restoration controls nitrate-n removal via denitrification, and that floodplains can significantly increase nitrate-n removal at the watershed-scale; however, the relative increase in removal depends on floodplain surface area and inundation frequency. i also found that increasing temperature and carbon availability enhanced the production of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas, from stream sediments, due to incomplete denitrification. as such, changes in global temperature and carbon availability may increase nitrous oxide emissions from streams. at the watershed-scale, extensive tile drainage and widespread fertilizer use enhanced the transport of nitrate-n during storms, but higher cover crop coverage reduced nitrate-n export in spring. my dissertation highlights how both regional variation and watershed characteristics influence the role of local environmental context in controlling nutrient cycling in agricultural landscapes. furthermore, management that enhances ecosystem resilience can mitigate the impacts of a changing climate on downstream nutrient loss. reliable gas sensors with excellent sensitivity and robustness are important for the development of advanced technological applications while ensuring a safe environment in both industrial and household security. the chemically and mechanically robust gallium nitride (gan) is a promising semiconductor for these important applications, especially for use at high temperatures and in extreme environments. when a metal is in contact with a semiconductor surface, a space charge region and schottky barrier are formed on the semiconductor side. in this thesis, the sensing response of pt and gan to gaseous h2 and co and the dependence of the response on pt and gan surface morphologies are explored. the sensing opportunities are expanded when gan is decorated with ag and the structure is used for small molecule analysis using surface enhanced raman scattering (sers). combining the high surface area of nanoporous gan with pt nanoparticles deposited by electroless chemical deposition, the sensing performance of the well-known h-mediated schottky barrier based on the pt/gan sensor is studied. the h2 sensing performance of, as defined by the limit of detection (lod), pt-decorated porous gan measured by ac four-point probe resistance measurements is more than an order of magnitude better than planar gan sensors based on the same pt/gan schottky barrier height concept. the potential utility of high surface area porous gan was realized by decorating the confined nanopores with metal (pt), thus increasing the surface area available for sensing and lowering the lod. pt/gan structures can also be used to detect co at high temperature. the co sensing response is also dependent on the pt morphology. for continuous films, co signal increases as the thickness of the metal film decreases. in discontinuous pt films, increasing pt surface area also increases the co signal when the pt/gan interfacial area remains constant. a model is proposed, in which the influence of the adsorbed co on pt surface is inversely proportional to the distance of the surface dipoles to the polarization sites at the pt/gan interface. the model provides good qualitative match to the experimental data. the high surface area porous gan can also be decorated with ag through electroless deposition to form a three-dimensional ag-coated porous gan substrate for sers experiments. due to the optical transparency of gan in the visible spectrum and the high surface area available for the ag nanoparticles, the intensities of the raman signal from the ag-coated porous gan are two orders of magnitude higher than ag-coated planar gan substrate. in summary, the work conveyed here demonstrates that the low-cost and ability to modulate the deposited metal morphology and coverage in confined nanopores offered by electroless chemical deposition, significant advantages to large surface area nanoporous gan for hydrogen sensing, co detection, and sers studies. the co response on the pt/gan is consistent with the sensing model developed for pt/gan structures, which reveals that co sensing is strongly dependent on the surface area and thickness of the metal. according to theories of event cognition, people parse information into event models, and this parsing can have meaningful influences on cognition. the current study explores the idea that by parsing a larger set of narrative information into separate events, memory for that text can be improved. specifically, this event parsing may create reduced interference, thereby facilitating memory. alternatively, it may be that people encode information at an event boundary, which causes an increase only for memory at that point. moreover, in may be that increasing the number of event boundaries can give an even larger benefit. some pilot work suggested that this may be the case, but this work was not definitive. in the following experiments, people were given sets of stories to read in which the number of event boundaries was explicitly manipulated. the results of this work show there is improved memory overall for the narrative as a whole, which has implications for theories of event cognition, as well as for theories of memory more generally. james yonge, known for his hiberno-english translation of the secreta secretorum, was a legal scribe and notary in early fifteenth-century dublin. this thesis explores yonge&#39;s literary works, identifies his handwriting, and uses over eighty documents newly associated with the scribe to reconstruct his career and socio-professional circle. in 1422, yonge completed an english translation of jofroi of waterford&#39;s secreta secretorum under the patronage of james butler, 4th earl of ormond. the author vacillates between slavish translation and radical alteration of his exemplar, re-shaping the text to appeal to butler, king henry v and his court, and an anglo-irish audience that included the nobility, government officials, and members of the mercantile class. one outcome of english intervention in ireland was the dissemination of tales regarding saint patrick&#39;s purgatory, where pilgrims enclosed in a small cave experienced visions of purgatory. treatises detailing these visions circulated in england and on the continent. yonge was the author of the first such narrative written in ireland. yonge&#39;s 1412 latin account of the visit to the purgatory of laurence rathold, a retainer of sigismund i of hungary, incorporates traditional elements of earlier works such as h. of saltrey&#39;s tractatus de purgatorio sancti patricii and the anonymous visiones georgii, yet offers new literary innovations. yonge uses the narrative to market ireland as a pilgrimage destination and frames his work as part literary text and part notarial instrument, pitching it to a pan-european audience. the patterns of employment and social relationships of yonge and his circle echo those of yonge&#39;s contemporaries in london, especially geoffrey chaucer, john carpenter, and thomas hoccleve. the training and careers of yonge&#39;s two students reveal much about scribal training in anglo-ireland while providing a model for scribal education applicable to other english cities. this thesis augments the canon of late medieval anglo-irish authors and texts by demonstrating that several texts once considered english were written in the dublin area by yonge&#39;s student nicholas bellewe. this exploration of yonge and his circle is supported with editions of literary and legal documents that will further research into medieval anglo-ireland. the site of the danbury fair mall is the largest commercial zone in the housatonic valley region. while this site currently allows only commercial uses, it occupies an important place in the region due to its geographical location and its immediate adjacencies to an airport, highway, and railway. like many american cities, danbury connecticut has relinquished the role of place-maker to the highway engineer and zoning department. the new mono-functional zoned districts ignore all senses of public realm, human scale and local tradition. in so doing, they fail to instill a "pride of place" within their owners and users. this thesis contends that the city of danbury has stopped creating places where people can live fulfilling lives; one symptom of which is that they have been disconnected from the notion of a local and regional community. in other words, as more houses are constructed to accommodate new residents, the distances from the historic town center are only lengthening and the resemblances to a new england community are quickly vanishing. in connecticut, new centers are not being created and the vast majority of new architecture fails to communicate a sense of place. on the site and its surrounding areas, i will propose a new district designed within the context of new england vernacular urbanism and architecture as a model and alternative for future expansion, and the mixed-use redevelopment of mono-functional commercial zones. the intent of this thesis is to explore the relationship between a sense of place and the means to its restoration after its long negation by contemporary planning conventions.